On the first page of his three volume work,
Sometimes a hypothesis conforms only to previous experiment or only to future experiment, but it must refer in some way to experiment. A hypothesis has no validity whatever unless it is in some manner verified by experiment. This is true regardless of the complexity of the hypothesis, the amount of computer time expended in its development, the public relations skills of its originators, the amount of tax money used for its creation, or hopes of advocates for money, fame, professional advancement, and political power.
"Global warming,'' the hypothesis that release of carbon dioxide (and to a lesser degree other gases) from human activities will cause sufficient atmospheric greenhouse warming to result in substantial negative consequences for life on earth - both human and nonhuman, is not reliable because it does not conform to any experimental facts. Moreover, there are previously determined experimental facts which suggest that the global warming hypothesis is wrong and cannot ever be verified by future experiments.
This hypothesis was science when first presented. It might still be called an unproved scientific hypothesis. There is still the theoretical possibility that, for unknown reasons, it could prove to be correct. When, however, its advocates embarked on a massive effort to force the American people and people in other countries to adopt extensive and damaging changes in their ways of life on the basis that global warming is a verified product of science, global warming became non-science or, perhaps more correctly, scientific nonsense.
Why then is this hypothesis more important to us than the many other unverified assertions from the enviro industry? It is more important because its potential political consequences are enormous. If the political opponents of technology and human freedom can establish a rationale for political control of atmospheric carbon dioxide release, they will have a stranglehold on virtually all human activities. We cannot even breathe without releasing carbon dioxide.
We must, therefore, be absolutely certain that we know the experimental facts that relate to the global warming hypothesis. We need these facts to prevent the political imposition of damaging and freedom-destroying carbon dioxide controls. We also need them, so that we can adapt to the consequences of experiments that may be done in the future. The truth will not adjust itself to our wishes. Suppose that some part of this hypothesis were to receive experimental verification. How could we adjust to this without a thorough knowledge of the hypothesis and relevant experimental facts?
Are we not certain that global warming is entirely a hoax and always will be? Science is a wonderful construction of the human mind and human observations, but it is in its early infancy. Very few of the potentially knowable scientific facts are presently known. It is, therefore, always dangerous to claim certain knowledge concerning future discoveries. Almost anything is possible.
This, of course, is the last refuge of the enviros. They claim that we must act against catastrophic global temperature change even before the facts are known. They claim the consequences are too great to wait. Our reply, as Petr Beckmann phrased it, is "do we act against the threat of warming or of cooling?'' Arguments currently given in support of global warming are:
1. The earth is known to be warmed, in part, by the greenhouse effect in its atmosphere. Atmospheric components more readily block electromagnetic energy in the frequency range leaving the earth's atmosphere than in the range entering the atmosphere. This warms the earth and plays an important role in creating conditions suitable for life. Carbon dioxide is one of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
2. Current global climate models predict that a global temperature rise of about 4°C (an average for several calculations) will occur if atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rise from 300 ppm to 600 ppm (the expected rise over about a century if current trends continue). ("Ppm'' is defined as "parts per million'' or number of CO
2 molecules per million molecules of atmospheric gases.) These climate models are computer calculations for the atmosphere of Earth with which scientists are attempting to combine all of the factors that affect the atmosphere into one self-consistent and predictive model. (This problem is very difficult and current calculations are primitive and unreliable.)3. Global temperature over the last century has risen about 0.5°C while atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have risen about 70 ppm. This corresponds to a rise of about 2°C for 300 ppm - a value approximately in agreement with global climate models. (See below.)
4. A rise of atmospheric temperature comparable to that predicted by climate models for extrapolated changes in carbon dioxide levels is expected to have catastrophic effects on global living conditions. (These predictions of catastrophe from warmer temperatures are highly speculative. Warmer temperatures might well be an overall improvement. Nevertheless, actual effects would surely be remarkable, and no reliable means is available to predict them.)
5. Carbon dioxide release should be sharply reduced in order to mitigate the effects of global warming. If this is not done (by force if necessary), the earth will suffer terrible consequences.
Assertions 4 and 5 are speculative and political. The science and potential science is in 1 through 3. Number 1 was well established as
scientifically correct long before "global warming'' was suggested.Are there, however, any experimental observations which support the hypothesis that current global climate models correctly calculate the carbon dioxide greenhouse effect? Without experimental verification, this hypothesis cannot be accepted as true. In fact, there are no experimental observations that support this hypothesis.
First, the 0.5°C temperature increase during this century occurred in the years before 1940. It cannot have been caused by the 70 ppm increase in carbon dioxide because 56 ppm of that increase occurred
after 1940.(See Access to Energy, April 1994 p 4 for additional data.) The global warming hypothesis predicts a temperature rise since 1940 of about (56)(4)/(300) = 0.75°C. This rise has not occurred.Second, greenhouse warming by carbon dioxide has been measured on three planets - Earth, Mars, and Venus. Figure 1 shows these measurements as summarized by S. B. Idso,
Carbon Dioxide and Global Change: Earth in Transition, pp 27-28 (1989) IBR Press. The
straight line, log-log plot of these measurements gives a predicted warming of only 0.4°C for 300 ppm increase in CO2. This is a smaller increase than has already occurred in this century without climatic difficulties and is an order of magnitude below the model predictions.
Figure 1 also shows a curved line calculated from the U. S. National Research Council relationship summarizing global climate models. The line is mathematically forced through the data for Earth and obviously fails completely to correspond with experiment. Idso explains some of the reasons for this failure.
Therefore, experimental tests of the global climate model hypotheses on which global warming depends are possible with temperature and carbon dioxide data from Mars, Venus, and Earth. The hypotheses fail to agree with any of this data. There is no experimental data whatever in agreement with the hypotheses supporting global warming. This is all that science requires. Until it agrees with experiment, the burden of proof is on the hypothesis. There is no requirement that science prove a hypothesis wrong. A hypothesis is given no status because it has not been proved incorrect. If it were, progress would be difficult. Any assertion, no matter how improbable, could demand the resources of scientists for its disproof - a requirement that would quickly absorb available resources and stall productive work.
Since, however, "global warming'' has been given a political life that is potentially very damaging to our society, scientists have presented some experimental facts which cast doubt upon it. These are:
1. The straight line relationship in Figure 1 is not just empirical. The slope of this line agrees well with greenhouse effect calculations based upon the absorption of energy by planetary atmospheres. Moreover, this relationship takes into account synergistic effects from other greenhouse gases, especially water. It predicts a 0.4°C temperature increase with an increase of CO2 from 300 ppm to 600 ppm.
2. Warming since 1940 of 0.75°C as predicted by global warming has not occurred. An increase of about 0.1°C has been observed Within experimental error and with the qualification that other factors such as variations in solar activity are present, this observation is consistent with the straight line in Figure 1 and not with global warming.
3. Figure 2 (Figures 2 and 3 are from
Global Warming and Ozone Hole Controversies: A Challenge to Scientific Judgment by Frederick Seitz, published by George C. Marshall Institute, 1730 M Street, N.W., Suite 502, Washington, DC 20036.) shows a correlation by E. Friis-Christensen and K. Lassen, Science 254, 698 (1991) between the 0.5°C temperature rise during the past century and solar activity Correlation does not prove causality, but this correlation does agree with the simple hypothesis that Earth is a little warmer because solar radiation increased - an increase well within expected fluctuations -and an increase that preceded the increase in carbon dioxide.4. Finally, there is a question as to whether or not the observed increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide is actually even of human origin. It has been widely assumed by scientists that the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas has caused the observed increase of carbon dioxide during the past century. The increase in CO
2 correlates in time with release of carbon from coal, oil, and gas, and the amounts released and observed are qualitatively reasonable.Global CO
2 balance is, however, not well understood. The greatest reservoir is in the oceans where CO2 is dissolved both as CO2 and as carbonates. This storage is temperature dependent. The rise in ocean temperature from solar heating may have caused a net release of CO2 Figure 3 shows the decrease of atmospheric 14C since the end of atmospheric atomic testing in the 1960s. Frederick Seitz has pointed out that these measurements suggest a residence time of about 10 years for CO2 in the atmosphere. When considered with certain assumptions about global carbon balance, this 10 year value could mean that the increase in CO2 is not of human origin.It is sometimes said that the way to originate good ideas in science is to have lots of ideas and then throw away the bad ones. Often the sifting of ideas is not so clear as "good'' and "bad.'' Corollary hypotheses can be developed to rationalize a poor fit to experiment, and often definitive experiments have not been done. It is acceptable to cling to an improbable idea even when the great preponderance of evidence and the opinions of most scientists suggest that the idea is wrong. Stubborn individuals who have refused to discard unpopular ideas have sometimes given the world remarkable discoveries.
On the basis of existing experimental evidence, we must conclude that the hypothesis underlying global warming is unproved, inconsistent with available experimental data, and probably entirely wrong. It is apparently a typical computer artifact of the sort that often arises in attempts to calculate solutions for complicated, multiparameter problems with insufficient data and inadequate equations.
The promoters of this hypothesis, if they do not wish to abandon it, may reasonably expect journal editors to continue to publish their articles until definitive experiments are available. They should not, however, expect anyone to change his way of life on this basis.
|
|
Vol. 22, No. 1
Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Issues Issue/No.: Vol. 22, No. 1 Date: September 01, 1994 01:25 PM Title: Words
Copyright © 2004 - Access to Energy Newsletter Archive
|