by Anurag Wadehra
American Physical Society is showing some chinks in the armor in their defense of the global warming orthodoxy. Recently, they published two newsletters from different sets of physicists debating for and against the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) - purely from viewpoint of the physics.
While you may need graduate level physics to understand the equations hurled at each other by both sides, you can read their respective conclusions in plain English.
The orthodox view of AGW is defended by David Hafemeister & Peter Schwartz in their article - A Tutorial on the Basic Physics of Climate Change with the conclusion:
Earth is getting warmer. Basic atmospheric models clearly predict that additional greenhouse gasses will raise the temperature of Earth. To argue otherwise, one must prove a physical mechanism that gives a reasonable alternative cause of warming. This has not been done. Sunspot and temperature correlations do not prove causality.
The contrary view arguing against AGW is offered by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley in his article - Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered with the conclusion:
Even if temperature had risen above natural variability, the recent solar Grand Maximum may have been chiefly responsible. Even if the sun were not chiefly to blame for the past half-century’s warming, the IPCC has not demonstrated that, since CO2 occupies only one-ten-thousandth part more of the atmosphere that it did in 1750, it has contributed more than a small fraction of the warming. Even if carbon dioxide were chiefly responsible for the warming that ceased in 1998 and may not resume until 2015, the distinctive, projected fingerprint of anthropogenic “greenhouse-gas” warming is entirely absent from the observed record. Even if the fingerprint were present, computer models are long proven to be inherently incapable of providing projections of the future state of the climate that are sound enough for policymaking. Even if per impossibile the models could ever become reliable, the present paper demonstrates that it is not at all likely that the world will warm as much as the IPCC imagines. Even if the world were to warm that much, the overwhelming majority of the scientific, peer-reviewed literature does not predict that catastrophe would ensue. Even if catastrophe might ensue, even the most drastic proposals to mitigate future climate change by reducing emissions of carbon dioxide would make very little difference to the climate. Even if mitigation were likely to be effective, it would do more harm than good: already millions face starvation as the dash for biofuels takes agricultural land out of essential food production: a warning that taking precautions, “just in case”, can do untold harm unless there is a sound, scientific basis for them. Finally, even if mitigation might do more good than harm, adaptation as (and if) necessary would be far more cost-effective and less likely to be harmful.
In short, we must get the science right, or we shall get the policy wrong. If the concluding equation in this analysis (Eqn. 30) is correct, the IPCC’s estimates of climate sensitivity must have been very much exaggerated. There may, therefore, be a good reason why, contrary to the projections of the models on which the IPCC relies, temperatures have not risen for a decade and have been falling since the phase-transition in global temperature trends that occurred in late 2001. Perhaps real-world climate sensitivity is very much below the IPCC’s estimates. Perhaps, therefore, there is no “climate crisis” at all. At present, then, in policy terms there is no case for doing anything. The correct policy approach to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing.
APS received enough shrieks from the environmentalists that they had to put a caveat against this heretical view: The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article's conclusions. No such caveat was put on the defense of orthodoxy that has much fewer scientific equations or references attached to it.
Further on its home page, APS felt it necessary to kowtow to the faithful by reiterating their undying support for AGW. The American Physical Society reaffirms the following position on climate change, adopted by its governing body, the APS Council, on November 18, 2007: "Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate."
The environmental rot has spread far when one has to take political sides on the physics equations.
Larry Gould says that the caveat that was issued (in red) caused quite a flap and the APS had to revise their statement. You can read it here: http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/monckton.cfm
Did someone say scientists are not politicized? Just follow the money...
Posted by: reena kapoor | July 21, 2008 at 08:38 PM