THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VIII, Issue # 198, October 13, 2006
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
WHY ISN'T THE ATMOSPHERE WARMING
LIKE THE EARTH'S SURFACE?
By Dennis T. Avery
MORE ACCURATE TEMPERATURE RECORDS FROM 1910 TO 2003 REFUTE THE GREENHOUSE THEORY OF HUMAN-INDUCED
GLOBAL WARMING ADVANCED BY ECOLOGICAL PSEUDO-SCIENTISTS & POLITICAL ENVIRONMENTALISTS -- JOHN CHRISTY
KNOCKS THE IDEOLOGICAL PROPS OUT FROM UNDER THE RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALIST MOVEMENT -- TRUE
SCIENTIFIC STUDY UNDERMINES THE IDEOLOGY OF POLITICAL ENVIRONMENTALISM
FULL STORY:
The Greenhouse Theory says the atmosphere above us should warm faster than the Earth’s surface around us. But this
doesn’t seem to be happening. For example, compare California temperatures in the state’s central farming valleys with the
readings on the Sierra Nevada Mountains just above them.
John Christy, a native of the Valley now at the University of Alabama/Huntsville, has done just that. He recently led a team
that digitized the old manual temperature records and adjusted for any change that could have altered the individual station
records: location, instruments, paving, etc.
The adjusted record says the San Joaquin Valley’s minimum Summer-Fall temperatures have risen about 3 degrees Celsius
since 1910 — “a rise that is not detectable in the adjacent Sierra Nevada.” Christy says the big reason for the
mountain-valley differential is that the Central Valley today is irrigating an additional 1 million acres of farmland. “Human
engineering of the environment has changed a [highly-reflective] desert into a darker, moister, vegetated plain” that
absorbs more heat.
However, the big news from the more accurate record is that Sierra Nevada Mountains show only a tiny warming trend --
0.02 degrees Celsius per decade from 1910–2003. Why didn’t the Sierra Nevada warm more? The carefully adjusted records
of the virtually undeveloped Sierra Nevada weather stations disagree with the global climate models. And high altitude
stations are where the Greenhouse Theory says the signs of human-induced warming should be clearest.
Then we have the discrepancies between the surface thermometers and the high altitude balloons and satellites. Seven out
of eight datasets on upper air temperatures in the tropics show much less warming in the atmosphere than on the Earth’s
surface, according to Christy’s July 20, 2006, testimony before Congress. Christy points out that the tropics make up
one-third of the planet’s surface. He warns that seven datasets are very unlikely to differ from the eighth in the same way
by random chance, he warns.
Christy’s conclusion:
“There is likely a significant difference between the
surface and atmospheric trends, with the atmosphere
being cooler. This is significant because all model
simulations indicate the atmosphere should be
warming faster than the surface if greenhouse
influences are correctly included in climate models.”
He believes that the earth is warming slowly, and that some part of the warming could be related to additional greenhouse
gases. However, he says, we have no way to know how much of the 0.6 degree Celsius warming of the 20th century has
been natural.
Ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica brought up in the 1980s have told of a long, moderate, irregular 1500-year global
warming cycle linked to the sun. It was too moderate and masked by too much natural climate variability to be discerned
by primitive peoples without thermometers or written records. It has since been found in seabed sediments, tree rings,
glacier retreats, stalagmites, pollen fossils, seashells, and prehistoric dwelling sites all over the world.
The current warming began about 1850, before much human-emitted carbon dioxide, and the record includes such erratic
events as the global cooling from 1940 to 1975. The 1500-year cycle explains our warming better than the Greenhouse
Theory. If we subtract the 0.5 degree Celsius of warming that occurred before 1940 from the overall warming of 0.7-0.8
degrees Celsius, that doesn’t leave much to generate scary scenarios about human-emitted CO2. Christy’s new paper
strengthens the case for examining natural warming factors besides CO2, such as the broadly documented 1500-year
cycle.
Christy says he is unimpressed by claims that today’s weather is “unusual.” In his experience, weather is always erratic and
wildly variable — and humans always think it’s unusual.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Science, Ethics, & Human Health
Dennis T. Avery is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., and is the Director of the Institute's Center for
Global Food Issues (www.cgfi.org). Formerly he was a senior analyst for the United States
Department of State. He is the co-author, with atmospheric physicist Fred Singer, of the forthcoming book Unstoppable
Global Warming: Every 1500 Years, to be published in October, 2006, by Rowman & Littlefield. Readers may write Avery
at Post Office Box 202, Churchville, Virginia, 24421. Email: cgfi@rica.net
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