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Science/Tech See other Science/Tech Articles Title: Heat and myth By Fiona Harvey Published: May 30 2008 14:55 | Last updated: May 30 2008 14:55 The science of climate change is hugely complex because it encompasses the entirety of the world’s natural systems. Scientists have to take into account an enormous number of variables: the natural variations of the earth’s climate; the carbon cycle, by which greenhouse gases are emitted and absorbed; the orbit of the earth around the sun; the role clouds play in reflecting the sun’s rays or trapping heat on the earth’s surface. Our knowledge of some of these – such as the earth’s orbit – is well-established but in other areas there are still large gaps. For instance, it is difficult to tell how much clouds contribute to global warming or detract from it. As a result, many people, including some scientists, are sceptical about whether climate change is actually happening and caused by people – or whether it is all a huge scientific mistake. The mainstream scientific view is clear: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – the world’s biggest body of climate scientists, whose summary reports are agreed word-by-word by all of the world’s governments who wish to take part – found last year that there was a 90 per cent certainty that climate change was occurring and that human actions were in large part responsible. An editorial in Nature, the peer-reviewed science journal, published to coincide with last year’s IPCC report, put it in these words: “The climate-science community... has been advocating meaningful action to curtail greenhouse-gas emissions. This requirement has been disputed by a collection of money-men and some isolated scientists, in alliance with the current president of the US and a handful of like-minded ideologues.” Nature concluded: “[The IPCC report] has served a useful purpose in removing the last ground from under the climate-change sceptics’ feet, leaving them looking marooned and ridiculous. However, this predicament was already clear enough.” Some climate change sceptics take the view that peer-reviewed journals such as Nature have a vested interest in perpetuating the myth of climate change. But the number of scientists arguing against global warming is small. As Lord Lawson, the former UK chancellor of the exchequer who recently wrote An Appeal to Reason, a sceptical book on climate change, notes, most of these are retired from scientific careers. He attributes this fact to their freedom from the need to seek funding grants – those still in science careers must adhere to the received wisdom. Others say the retired scientists are out of touch with recent developments that have strengthened the argument for climate change. For years, sceptics have questioned the science on which our knowledge, and projections, of climate change are based. As the number of studies showing evidence of climate change has increased, some have shifted their position. Today, sceptics divide broadly into two camps: those who attack climate change science as wrong; and those who accept that science shows us the climate is changing but who argue that the effects will be bearable – if not beneficial – or that there are other pressing issues more deserving of our attention. The sceptics are represented here by Bjørn Lomborg, author of The Sceptical Environmentalist and founder of the Copenhagen Consensus, a group of more than 55 economists, and Benny Peiser, one of the most prominent sceptics in the UK. As the science behind global warming is so wide-ranging, sceptics have plenty of material to work on. And the vagaries and complexities of the climate itself have just thrown up another prediction that will provide possibly greater ammunition than the sceptics have enjoyed yet. Although sceptics claim global temperatures have not risen, they have risen slightly, though without breaking the record set in the exceptionally hot year of 1998. Indeed, the years since 2000 have all been among the eight hottest years on record. But that could be about to change. A study published last month in Nature found that temperatures are not likely to increase in the next decade. Natural variations in the climate, such as the La Niña system in the Pacific Ocean and the meridional overturning circulation, an ocean current system in the Atlantic Ocean, would push down temperatures despite the effects of greenhouse gases. The scientists, from Germany’s Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences and the UK Met Office’s Hadley Centre, concluded: “Our results suggest that global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade, as natural climate variations in the north Atlantic and tropical Pacific temporarily offset the projected anthropogenic warming.” After that, temperatures are likely to rise much more strongly thanthey have ever done. But the intervening period of cooler temperatures – if they are right – will bring joy to the camp of the climate change sceptics.
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#2. To: farmfriend (#0)
Unbelievable! Joy becasue of global cooling? I think not! Global cooling will mean less crops which will mean more people will die of starvation. This isn't a damn game, there are no winners and losers. These idiots that think runaway global warming is occurring can't predict the temperature next week accurately much less 50 years from now.
True. We can only hope to minimize the regulatory damage done by the proponents of AGW.
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