This is not an esp. interesting article, except for its provenance: the usually-liberal Huffington Post. It provides a well-written but undocumented summary of the “strong version” case against AGW theory, distinct from the skeptics’ objections reported on this site (which concerns itself with alternative theories among scientists, limitations of the data, and inadequate replication of findings).
I have no idea what publication of this on such a liberal site signifies, if anything, but I post it here FYI. Esp note the comments about this in the update at the end.
“Mr. Gore: Apology Accepted“, Harold Ambler, 3 January 2008 — Profiles of his background are below. Excerpt:
You are probably wondering whether President-elect Obama owes the world an apology for his actions regarding global warming. The answer is, not yet. There is one person, however, who does. … Mr. Gore has stated, regarding climate change, that “the science is in.” Well, he is absolutely right about that, except for one tiny thing. It is the biggest whopper ever sold to the public in the history of humankind.
What is wrong with the statement? A brief list:
1. First, the expression “climate change” itself is a redundancy, and contains a lie. Climate has always changed, and always will. There has been no stable period of climate during the Holocene, our own climatic era, which began with the end of the last ice age 12,000 years ago. …
2. … When he shows the hockey stick graph of temperature and plots it against reconstructed C02 levels in An Inconvenient Truth, he says that the two clearly have an obvious correlation. “Their relationship is actually very complicated,” he says, “but there is one relationship that is far more powerful than all the others, and it is this: When there is more carbon dioxide, the temperature gets warmer.”
The word “complicated” here is among the most significant Mr. Gore has uttered on the subject of climate and is, at best, a deliberate act of obfuscation. Why? Because it turns out that there is an 800-year lag between temperature and carbon dioxide, unlike the sense conveyed by Mr. Gore’s graph. You are probably wondering by now — and if you are not, you should be — which rises first, carbon dioxide or temperature. The answer? Temperature. In every case, the ice-core data shows that temperature rises precede rises in carbon dioxide by, on average, 800 years. …
3. What the alarmists now state is that past episodes of warming were not caused by C02 but amplified by it, which is debatable, for many reasons, but, more important, is a far cry from the version of events sold to the public by Mr. Gore. …
4. This mechanism has never been shown to exist. Indeed, increased temperature leads to increased evaporation of the oceans, which leads to increased cloud cover (one cooling effect) and increased precipitation (a bigger cooling effect). Within certain bounds, in other words, the ocean-atmosphere system has a very effective self-regulating tendency.
By the way, water vapor is far more prevalent, and relevant, in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide — a trace gas. Water vapor’s absorption spectrum also overlays that of carbon dioxide. They cannot both absorb the same energy! The relative might of water vapor and relative weakness of carbon dioxide is exemplified by the extraordinary cooling experienced each night in desert regions, where water in the atmosphere is nearly non-existent.
If not carbon dioxide, what does “drive” climate? I am glad you are wondering about that. In the short term, it is ocean cycles, principally the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the “super cycle” of which cooling La Niñas and warming El Niños are parts. Having been in its warm phase, in which El Niños predominate, for the 30 years ending in late 2006, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation switched to its cool phase, in which La Niñas predominate. …
Concurrent with the switchover of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation to its cool phase the Sun has entered a period of deep slumber.
… What about heat escaping from volcanic vents in the ocean floor? What about the destruction of warming, upper-atmosphere ozone by cosmic rays? I could go on, but space is short. Again, who is the “flat-Earther” here?
The ocean-atmosphere system is not a simple one that can be “ruled” by a trace atmospheric gas. It is a complex, chaotic system, largely modulated by solar effects (both direct and indirect), as shown by the Little Ice Age. …
P.S. One of the last, desperate canards proposed by climate alarmists is that of the polar ice caps. Look at the “terrible,” “unprecedented” melting in the Arctic in the summer of 2007, they say.
Well, the ice in the Arctic basin has always melted and refrozen, and always will. … More to the point, 2007 happened also to be the time of maximum historic sea ice in Antarctica. (There are many credible sources of this information, such as the following website maintained by the University of Illinois-Urbana: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.south.jpg {FM: link to the site does not work for me}). Why, I ask, has Mr. Gore not chosen to mention the record growth of sea ice around Antarctica? If the record melting in the Arctic is significant, then the record sea ice growth around Antarctica is, too, I say. If one is insignificant, then the other one is, too.
Why is the Huff Post running this?
We can only guess. Here is speculation, excerpts of comments from Roger Simon’s column at Pajamas Media, 3 January 2008:
We must always keep in mind that Arianna is a political opportunist (whore), first and foremost. She was one of the most vociferous right-wingers, turned libertarian, turned leftist, all within the last single decade. She keeps her nose to the wind at all times. Does this latest article indicate she is plotting a new switch, because conservative futures show new promise? Probably way too early for that, she’s simply keeping her foot in the door, just in case. (by Candide)
Unlikely that Huffpo would have run such a thing until her preferred candidate had won the election. AGW or its euphemism ‘climate change’ was too useful a club with which to bash the Bush admin, and any possible Republican successor.
We must always keep in mind that Arianna is a political opportunist (whore), first and foremost. She was one of the most vociferous right-wingers, turned libertarian, turned leftist, all within the last single decade. She keeps her nose to the wind at all times. Does this latest article indicate she is plotting a new switch, because conservative futures show new promise? Probably way too early for that, she’s simply keeping her foot in the door, just in case. (by Insufficiently Sensitive)
If I recall correctly, none other than Al Gore himself was Vice-President when the Kyoto Treaty went down in flames in the Senate. It was only with the election of George W. that the whole AGW hysteria really took off. I mean, where was the vein-bulging, podium-pounding Al Gore prior to Jan 2001? Oh, that’s right– he was an elected official who might actually be held accountable for disastrously stupid government policies. (by Mike)
I agree with you completely. In 1998, the Senate voted on an amendment that said it would not take up the Kyoto Treaty unless China and India were included. That amendment passed 95-0! And what did Al Gore and Bill Clinton do after that (while they still had 2-1/2 years in office)? Absolutely nothing. (by Lee)
Profiles of Harold Ambler
From the Huffington Post:
Harold Ambler is the co-author of the forthcoming (March 2009) Ever True: The History of Brown Crew. He is also working on a book about the climate wars — Apology Accepted. He is the owner of Talking About the Weather and lives in Austin, Texas.
From his website, Talking about the Weather:
I have been interested in weather since I was a very young boy. If computer science had been more fun for me I might have gone into meteorology, but instead I went into publishing and music. Nonetheless, as I finish a book on the history of rowing, I have spent a goodly amount of time studying weather and climate – in preparation for my next writing project.
My native love of weather systems has never left me, and has only blossomed. By the way, as of January 2009 I have had the pleasure to witness thunder snow twice in the last 6 weeks – once in Austin and once in Providence. A harbinger of things to come?
Update
A comment by solar scientist Leif Svalgaard (posted at Watts Up with That):
It is a pity that Ambler mars his otherwise excellent piece by erroneous solar contentions, like:
“As NASA has corroborated, the number of cosmic rays passing through our atmosphere is at the maximum level since measurements have been taken, and show no signs of diminishing.”
Not true, the flux at minimum [remember to correct for small changes due to changes of the Earth’s magnetic field] at every solar minimum since measurements started in 1952 has been very constant.
“Major solar minima (and maxima, such as the one during the second half of the 20th century) have also been shown to correlate with significant volcanic eruptions.”
Both minima and maxima?
“These are likely the result of solar magnetic flux affecting geomagnetic flux, which affects the distribution of magma in Earth’s molten iron core and under its thin [2900 km thick!] mantle.”
This is total nonsense, if anything it is the other way around, it is the circulation [change of distribution] that affects and generates the geomagnetic field.
About the 800-year lag between temp and CO2 readings…
The lag is a typical argument designed for lay people. The lag is not well determined, but it doesn’t really matter, because it is not the lag that shows that CO2 was not causing the ice ages. Solar insolation was and CO2 just tags along because it is driven out of solution at higher temperatures. Note that this is a two-part argument and Joe Sixpack can only understand a one-part argument [so the theory goes], hence activists tend to prefer the one-argument lag. Another case of oversimplification to the point of being ridiculous. By the 800-year lag theory, the CO2 increase we are now seeing must be caused by the MWP 800 years ago. Even Joe can see through that one and therefore doubt the whole thing.
Afterword
If you are new to this site, please glance at the archives below. You may find answers to your questions in these.
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For more information from the FM site
To read other articles about these things, see the FM reference page on the right side menu bar. Of esp relevance to this topic:
- Posts about Science, Nature, and Geopolitics– this lists not only posts on the FM site, but also a wide range of other online sources.
Some posts on the FM site about climate change
- A look at the science and politics of global warming, 12 June 2008
- An article giving strong evidence of global warming, 30 June 2008
- Worrying about the Sun and climate change: cycle 24 is late, 10 July 2008
- More forecasts of a global cooling cycle, 15 July 2008
- Update: is Solar Cycle 24 late (a cooling cycle, with famines, etc)?, 15 july 2008
- Two valuable perspectives on global warming, 4 August 2008
- Solar Cycle 24 is still late, perhaps signalling cool weather ahead, 2 September 2008
- Update on solar cycle 24 – and a possible period of global cooling, 1 October 2008
- Good news about global warming!, 21 October 2008
- One of the most interesting sources of news about science and nature!, 27 October 2008
- “Aliens cause global warming”: wise words from the late Michael Crichton, 15 November 2008
- A reply to comments on FM site about Global Warming, 17 November 2008
- Is anthropogenic global warming a scientific debate, or a matter of religious belief?, 22 November 2008
- My “wish list” for the climate sciences in 2009, 2 January 2009
