April 13, 2001 Missoulian article from Washington Post: Studies give evidence to global warming.

CAG Comment

Allen E. Barr tried to forwarn the Missoulian about articles such as this one on global warming.  He is well qualified, much better than the Missoulian, to evaluate articles such as this.

The article below took a unique approach to try to show that global warming is real. Since actual temperature measurements don't show global warming these new studies try to back into global warming. 

What do I mean by that?  Simple, personnel at the NOAA Oceanographic Data Center and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography designed computer models that look back in time and predict the change as observed during the last 50 years. Now they claim that this verifies atmospheric modeling and is absolute proof of global warming. 

What we have here, however, is absolute proof that a computer model can be developed to achieve an after the fact objective.  Computer modeling of the atmosphere is not pure science, but an attempt to approximate what happens in the atmosphere.  The truth of the matter is, anyone can create a model and make it achieve any result desired.  If you are part of a government organization then your model has instant credibility.  This is all that the article actually says.  

Today most weather forecasts, if not all weather forecasts, are based on computer models.   The National Weather Service uses data produced form three models to make all forecasts.  The three models do in some cases produce different results, when this happens trained meteorologist must decide which model best represents the current condition.  These models are the primary input into all global warming models. 

In particular, the Aviation, or Spectral model is used because it is a hemispheric model and has the best overall score when evaluated over time.   However, even this model is only accurate 55 percent of the time out to 48 hours.  After 48 hours (2 days) the model is wrong more times than it is right.   After 120 hours (5 days) it is only right 30 percent of the time.  How accurate do you think it is in say, a year, or 10 years?  So why would any prediction based on this input be good in 50 or a 100 years?  And this is only one small problem found in the models used to predict global warming.  All models use approximations instead mathematically exacted equations to duplicate atmospheric processes. These approximations tend to blow up over time.  To prevent this; modelers use control factors (forcing factors) to keep this from happening.

The real problem in the global warming models is the fact that global warming is not occurring. Here are a few facts that can be verified by anyone who can use a computer and has access to the Internet:

1. Satellite and balloon borne sensors have shown cooling for the last 20 years. 
2. The database used to determine the earth's temperature has been altered by including temperature measurements from third World Nations close to the equator, and eliminating temperature measurements from the oceans. 
3. The earth has always experienced major climate changes to include at least five major ice ages plus many minor ice ages. 
4. The earth is currently in what is called an  interglacial period, between ice ages. This interglacial period is the coolest ever. 
5. Temperatures at many locations have increased; however, these increases are a direct result of the Urban Heat Island effect.  Temperature measurements at rural location have shown cooling not warming.  And, so the heat island effect is not factored out of our temperature measurements. 
6. The science of atmospheric radiation proves that increasing carbon dioxide, methane, ozone and other so called greenhouse gases even by huge amounts will have no or only minimal effect on the temperature of the atmosphere and the surface of the earth.  This is because water vapor and clouds so dominate the atmospheric radiation process that the effect of all other gases is in the noise level, i.e. noise level means the effect is so small that it cannot be measured.
7. The resulting temperature change in mid and northern latitudes between winter and summer is the result of the tilt in the earths axes.  In the summer the earth is tilted towards the sun.  In the winter the northern hemisphere is tilted away from the sun.  The tilt is 23.5 degrees and changes only so slightly the amount of solar radiation that hits any give area on the earth's surface.  The reduction of energy on  any square inch of the earth is approximately 4 percent.   This reduction  causes the mean temperature in the winter to be 40 to 50 degrees colder than  the mean temperature in the summer.
8. The most important factor effecting the earth's temperature is how much  solar radiation the earth receives from the sun.  It was once thought that the solar radiation was a constant, but we now know that solar radiation varies form 2 to 5 percent depending on what is happening on the surface of the sun.

Is carbon dioxide as bad as the global warming folks say?  Well, without carbon dioxide there would be no life on the planet.  The plants we use for food and the trees they love to hug could not exist without carbon dioxide. 

As for the huge increase of carbon dioxide resulting from the burning of fossil fuel, 95.5 percent of all the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere comes from natural sources, not man made.  These sources include the ocean atmosphere interface, volcanic activity, and the decay of dead plants.   Only 4.5 percent of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere come from human activity.

There exists a huge amount of information on this subject on the Internet. Many strongly support human caused global warming and some based on science that do not.  Here are a few web sites that provide good scientific data on the subject of global warming.

www.globalwarming.org
www.sepp.org (Site is by Dr. Fred Singer former NOAA Scientist)
www.deweeseonline.com
www.ncpa.org
www.co2science.org
www.greeningearthsociety.org/
http://users.erols.com/dhoyt1
www.pvbr.com/Issue_1/global.htm
www.heartland.org/studies/ieguide.htm
www.cato.org
www.heritage.org
www.intellicast.com
www.skepticism.net/faq/environment/global_warming/index.html

There are also many good books on the subject.  For example:

Hot Talk and Cold Science by Dr. Singer, and
Global Warming, The Truth Behind the Myth, By Dr. Michael Parsons are both easy to read and understand.

It is hard to tell where to stop.  This subject has been so distorted by people with a political objective that I am not sure if I have stated my case strongly enough to counter all the lies that the media gladly circulate. But, the simple truth of the matter is: the changes we see in our climate are not manmade, just the ever changing natural world we live in.

You may be wondering why CAG attends to this and what it has to do with introduction/reintroduction of grizzly bears in the Selway Bitterroot Ecosystem [SBE]?

Wonder no longer!

If the federal government can modify reporting of 'global warming' for political reasons and  the news media pick it up and run it as gospel   -- Grizzly bear reintroduction, without your vigilance, is a piece of cake.

End CAG Comment

Two new studies released Thursday provide the strongest evidence yet that greenhouse gases are causing the Earth's oceans to warm, further strengthening the case that global warming is real and is being caused at least in part by air pollution, researchers said.

But whether that was caused by global warming has been far from clear.

The new studies, based on parallel computer climate models, show a direct connection between rising ocean temperatures and emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that can trap heat within the atmosphere. The models showed that the warming of the ocean that has been measured over the last half-century is exactly what would he expected from the amount of greenhouse gases that have been emitted into the atmosphere.

"This will make it much harder for naysayers to dismiss predictions from climate