Y Safle

I received a long comment in this blog this week that included something I see from time to time by those who want to believe that climate change is not man made:

1300AD — when exploring vikings named ‘Greenland’ Greenland, they did so for a reason: they cultivated the land for two centuries — before they couldn’t grow any more (it wasn’t human greenhouse gas that interrupted their cultivation LOL

Firstly, let’s get the facts straight. The Vikings colonised Greenland towards the end of the 10th centure (c. 982). They remained there for over 400 years, but their settlements were abandoned by the 15th century (after c. 1430 AD, but it is unclear exactly when the colony was abandoned).

Now the argument that is made is that the name of the country - “Greenland” and the fact that people lived there implies that at this time (during the so called “medieval warm period”) the global temperature must have been much warmer than it is now.

But this argument is made in ignorance of a few key facts. Firstly, people live in much the same locations of Greenland now as the two Viking settlements. These areas are indeed very green even today. Look at this google map of the area of the Western settlement. The eastern settlement area is here. Notice the strong green colour in all the valleys! Whilst travel to the settlements and trade with them would have become very hard in the Little Ice Age, it is not as if they were overwhelmed by the Greenland ice sheet!

Indeed the average temperature in Greenland now is higher than it would have been in the medieval warm period[1].

But there are other misconceptions in this argument. Greenland was settled by Erik the Red, who was expelled from Iceland. It is a very likely theory that the naming of the land as “Greenland” was a bit of 10th century marketing hype to encourage others to settle there.

Another point is that “grn” is an indo-european word meaning something akin to a nugget, and at the root of hundreds of words in a multiplicity of languages. Words including “ground”, “corn”, “grain” and so on. Some early maps actually refer to Greenland as Groundland (the Old Norse equivalent at least), and it may be that the country was not named for the colour green at all.

Finally, the medieval warm period was primarily a Northern European phenomenon, and not one found worldwide.

So an argument made on the existence of the Viking settlement, and the naming of the country as Greenland, is a very tenuous argument against global warming.

Notes

1. Crowley TJ, Lowery TS (2000) How Warm Was the Medieval Warm Period? AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment: Vol. 29, No. 1 pp. 51–54

In Nigel Calder’s piece in the Times he says:

The best measurements of global air temperatures come from American weather satellites, and they show wobbles but no overall change since 1999.

A case of selective use of the evidence. There is excellent data from a variety of sources. I have chosen two developed by scientists in conjunction with the Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office. These measure land and sea temperatures at multiple sites around the world. The datasets can be downloaded here and are described on that site and in the papers referenced below.

I then plotted these data sets, and it is quite clear that there is no loss of the warming trend since 1999. (Click the thumbnail to see the full sized graph). All I can think that Calder is referring to is the spike in 1998 (I have drawn a line to indicate this), making that year the hottest on record.

But such spikes are not a surprise. In any such dataset there will be outlyers - but what is quite clear is that there has been a strong warming trend, particularly over the last few decades. Compare this graph to my graph in my post earlier today, and you can see that there is also no correlation between the warming trend over these decades and cosmic rays.

So Calder is wrong to say that the warming trend has topped out, and he is wrong to attribute the warming to cosmic rays. He is also wrong to suggest that no-one would publish Svensmark’s paper - it is published in the august proceedings of the Royal Society. He is wrong to say that scientists who oppose global warming are locked out of the process - science thrives on people trying to prove other scientists wrong.

Calder is wrong on just about every point.

References (for the data sets used in this graph)

• Brohan, P., J.J. Kennedy, I. Haris, S.F.B. Tett and P.D. Jones, 2006: Uncertainty estimates in regional and global observed temperature changes: a new dataset from 1850. J. Geophysical Research 111, D12106, doi:10.1029/2005JD006548 — Available as PDF
• Jones, P.D., New, M., Parker, D.E., Martin, S. and Rigor, I.G., 1999: Surface air temperature and its variations over the last 150 years. Reviews of Geophysics 37, 173-199.
• Rayner, N.A., P. Brohan, D.E. Parker, C.K. Folland, J.J. Kennedy, M. Vanicek, T. Ansell and S.F.B. Tett, 2006: Improved analyses of changes and uncertainties in marine temperature measured in situ since the mid-nineteenth century: the HadSST2 dataset. J. Climate, 19, 446-469.
• Rayner, N.A., Parker, D.E., Horton, E.B., Folland, C.K., Alexander, L.V, Rowell, D.P., Kent, E.C. and Kaplan, A., 2003: Globally complete analyses of sea surface temperature, sea ice and night marine air temperature, 1871-2000. J. Geophysical Research 108, 4407, doi:10.1029/2002JD002670

Finally - this graph is used to demonstrate that the warming trend in global mean temperatures still continues. Any reliance on this representation of the data beyond this is discouraged. I have deliberately used the variance data simply to demonstrate the trends. I have chosen two data sets to demonstrate that I am not being deliberately selective of data that supports my point of view.

There is an article being widely touted by those who don’t want to believe the current consensus for man made climate change in our world. The article is written by Nigel Calder, the ex editor of New Scientist magazine - a popular science magazine giving a round up of current science news.

There are many things that could be said about the article, but it makes one important point. Calder says that the sun has become increasingly active over the 20th century, but the activity has levelled off, and that this corresponds with a levelling off of global warming noted since 1999.

He also points to a paper by Henrik Svensmark, published in the proceedings of the Royal Society, demonstrating the role of cosmic rays in the formation of rain clouds. Calder’s summary of the issue is:

[Svensmark] saw from compilations of weather satellite data that cloudiness varies according to how many atomic particles are coming in from exploded stars. More cosmic rays, more clouds. The sun’s magnetic field bats away many of the cosmic rays, and its intensification during the 20th century meant fewer cosmic rays, fewer clouds, and a warmer world.

The problem with Calder’s thesis does not lie in Svensmark’s work, but in the fact that he has selected perfectly good science to bolster a claim that is not supported by the evidence.

The Climax station in Colorado has been measuring cosmic rays reaching the earth since 1953 (before the rapid warming of the last three decades or so). I have created a graph from the Climax Station data, and included it here. Click on the thumbnail to see the full sized version.

Notice that whilst there is a (well known) ten year cycle to these data, there is emphatically not any trend here. It is not the case that the sun’s magnetic field has been intensifying (until 1999) and thus batting away more cosmic rays. These data show that, whilst Svensmark’s thesis is excellent science, and furthers our understanding of cloud formation, it says absolutely nothing about the climate change we have been experiencing over recent decades.

Nigel Calder does us a disservice, by confusing the data in this way. (Indeed, the levelling off since 1999 he mentions is also wrong I think. I will see if I can get hold of some data).

Over on the MInTheGap blog, there is a post which links to this article about how global warming is nothing to worry about.

I wrote a couple of replies on the MInTheGap blog which you can take a look at, but to summarise, I noted that the article was largely an appeal to authority. The writer - one Timothy F Ball - claims:

I was one of the first Canadian Ph.Ds. in Climatology and I have an extensive background in climatology, especially the reconstruction of past climates and the impact of climate change on human history and the human condition

I am not sure what evidence he has for being one of the first doctors in Climatology in Canada. I suspect there may be some hair splitting going on there, as there were many Canadians prior to this who researched climate.

As to his extensive background in climatology, I cannot find much evidence for this - but he is right to draw attention to the fact that reconstruction of past climates is his area of expertise. His thesis from the University of London was:

“Climate Change in Central Canada, A Preliminary Analysis of Weather Information from the Hudson’s Bay Company Forts at York Factory and Churchill Factory, 1714-1850.”

I couldn’t immediately find any published papers by him on climate, so a web search revealed these titles that someone else turned up after an exhaustive search of web of science and worldcat:

1. “Historical Evidence and Climatic Implications of a Shift in the Boreal Forest Tundra Transition in Central Canada” Climatic Change 1986

2. “Instrumental Temperature Records at two Sites in Central Canada, 1768 TO 1910″ Climatic Change 1984

3. “The migration of Geese as an indicator of climate change in the southern Hudson-Bay region between 1715 and 1851,” Climatic Change 5, 85-93 (1983).

4. “Climate of 2 locations of the southwestern corner of Hudson-Bay -AD 1720-1729.” International Journal of Climatology 14, 1151-1168 (1994).

So Dr Ball’s expertise lie in understanding how Canadian climate has changed between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This, of course, ties in with the little ice age which followed the medieval warm period, and is an interesting period because of the anomalous conditions in Europe (and the Hudson Bay area) at this time. But in his piece quoted above, Ball gives the impression that the little ice age was a world wide phenomenon. he wrote:

The world has warmed since 1680, the nadir of a cool period called the Little Ice Age (LIA)

Notice that all Dr Ball’s research is over 12 years old. Increasingly we have come to understand that the little ice age was a localised phenomenon. Some have suggested this was because of melt water from retreat of the Greenland ice sheet in the medieval warm period causing a failure of the North atlantic drift to warm Europe (because the melt water had lower salinity, causing the cold water to sink and drive the North Atlantic drift down).

Whatever the reason though, recent research is clear that the little ice age was not a global phenomenon, but a localised one. See for instance:

“Climate Change 2001: Working Group I: The Scientific Basis 2.3.3 Was there a “Little Ice Age” and a “Medieval Warm Period”?”. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2002)

Now this is the sum of Dr Ball’s research. Despite his great claims to be a leading climatologist, he has published just 4 peer reviewed papers on the subject - all on Canadian climate change prior to the industrial period.

To put that in context, a researcher in the UK who does not produce at least four peer reviewed papers over three years would not be even entered in the research assessment exercise as a current researcher.

He disagrees with a global consensus on climate change, but he does not carry out research on the subject. He has not published any research on the subject for well over a decade. We would do well not to be taken in by such people.

When confronted with the issue of diminishing reserves of oil and our car dependent culture that consumes more and more of these reserves, I often here the retort:

Electric fuelcell operated vehicles, in my opinion, are the answer.

Wrong.

A fuel cell vehicle is powered by hydrogen gas, which is turned into water as a byproduct of the process. It is nice and clean on a local level, but think for a minute: where are the hydrogen mines?

We obtain hydrogen in a copule of ways. We can use hydrocarbon fuels and catalytic cracking - but then we are still using fossil fuels. The other method is through a form of electrolysis of water. This splits the hydrogen from the oxygen in the water, which can then be used in a fuel cell (the same process is used to create rocket fuel, where both hydrogen and oxygen are gathered).

But the law of conservation of energy says this: if you turn water into hydrogen and then back into water, then at maximum efficiency, the energy used to create the hydrogen is equal to the energy you gain from that hydrogen later.

Fuel cells are not 100% efficient, but even if they were, they would be nothing but batteries. They store the input of energy for later use.

Electrolysis requires electrical energy, but wher does that energy come from? Well some of it can come from renewable sources, some of it from nuclear power, but most of it comes from burning fossil fuels, and certainly if our requirement increases significantly then we will be forced to meet those requirements by burning more fossil fuels.

Okay, so we can burn coal and gas as well as oil, but we are still back where we started - using capital reserves of energy as if they were income.

Fuel cells are not the answer - they are merely an enabling technology.

So fuel tax is too high? We should campaign to see big reductions in this tax? How long do we think fuel will last us anyway?

At the time of the last fuel crisis, someone suggested to me that we could run vehicles on a limitless supply of ethanol, and we need not worry about the fact that fuel production is already almost at its peak, and ready to start tailing off.

This kind of argument fails to consider just how much fuel we are all using. Here is an excerpt to my answer to that writer.

again, Brazil has been doing this [producing ethanol for motor vehicles] quite successfully for many years

Successful in what sense? despite the ideal conditions for ethanol production, government subsidy is still required to make ethanol production cost effective.

Because ethanol has a calorific value about half that of petrol, it is necessary to mix the ethanol with petrol in order to avoid the need for huge fuel tanks. Currently I understand that Brazilian fuel is between 22% and 24% ethanol.

Various vehicles do run on pure ethanol, but these are generally vehicles such as city taxis, where the shorter range is less of a problem.

In Brazil the sugar cane region is known as the Zona da Mata - a huge swathe of land that has all but replaced the Mata Atlantica tropical forest. To grow sufficient sugar to run all those vehicles, the forest has been destroyed.

In any case, ethanol in Brazil is produced from sugar cane. I believe that Eucalyptus is often used as biomass. To give some idea of the amount of sugar cane alone that is required to produce ethanol, consider these figures:

It is estimated that the net energy yield of ethanol produced from sugar is 30GJ/ha each year. Diesel fuel has a calorific value of about 35 KJ/L at 15 degrees Celsius, so assuming this is 10% more than petrol, we find that the net yield of energy is equivalent to approximately 1000 litres of petrol equivalent per hectare per year.

Now I know that the average petrol station distributes about 2 million litres of fuel per year (see this site ), so we require about 2,000 hectares of land (capable of growing sugar) for each petrol station. (I am not sure what total UK usage of petrol/diesel is, but would be interested in using those figures in this context, if anyone has them).

At current levels of usage (which are growing all the time), we don’t have a hope of servicing our needs through ethanol production.

Brazil manages it because they have a climate in which they can grow sugar cane, and huge tracts of forest that they can cut down to place the sugar plantations. Even so, they still rely heavily on petrochemicals to balance their fuel budget.

In theory alcohols are sustainable fuels, but in practice we do not have the land area to grow sufficient quantities for our needs.

What can we do? Are we all doomed? or is there really a sensible way to reduce fuel consumption in a way that will not destroy our economies?

In a recent sermon at our Church, Professor Sir John Houghton - former co chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) spoke on how he believed it was a Christian duty to be involved in protection of our environment.

Now this is something I have held to be true for a long time, but it makes for a better article if I can point out that a scientist and Christian of the distinction of Houghton is making this point, and not some faceless blogger. Or maybe it is just fun to name-drop.

But to judge by some conversations I have had in the past, you would think that some Christians believed virtually the opposite to be true, so here is why I think Christians should be concerned about the global warming issue:

Reason 1.

Way back in the 1970s a man called E.F. Schumacher wrote a book called “Small is Beautiful”. This book is wonderful in its breadth of insight. Schumacher points to the problems with foreign aid that does not address the roots of the problems that cause the aid to be necessary, although he argues very much for an increase in foreign aid that builds communities of appropriate sizes (thus the book’s title). His commitment to the poor is profound and exemplary.

But it is Schumacher’s clear sighted recognition of a major problem of our energy policy that is important here. Schumacher realises that oil is limited (not as limited as he thought perhaps, but still clearly limited). He argues that the world is merrily squandering this energy as though it would be available forever, whereas he points out that the oil economies will be short lived.

In economic terms we are spending capital as though it were revenue.

The purpose of capital expenditure should be the building of a sustainable infrastructure. Schumacher does not say we should not use oil, but that when we use it, we should do so to build a sustainable future.

This kind of prudent attitude fully accords with a Christian viewpoint, that would see the availability of oil as a gift of God given to us. In the parable of the talents, it is those who take the talents (whatever they are afforded) and use these wisely who are rewarded. To squander our oil reserves for no gain is poor stewardship fed by crass greed.

Reason 2.

In Romans 12:1-2, We are told that we should present our bodies (all of our lives) as a living sacrifice to God as an act of worship. We should not follow the ways ofthis world, but should live our lives as an act of homage to God.

Paul tells us to be a follower of himself as he is a follower of Christ. Christ (and the apostles) lived lives of beautiful simplicity. They did not accrue things to themselves. They did not value one another by what they had. Our spiritual act of worship should follow that of Christ.

The Christian life should be one of ascetisism. We need not all go live in monastries with vows of poverty - that is not what I mean. But a Christian life that sees consumption as a good thing, simply because it is possible, seems to me to be quite errant.

Reason 3.

People are going to die from climate change. Not so much those who cause global warming, but those who are powerless - the poor of this world. We don’t know exactly what will happen yet, but we know there will be desertification, flooding, worse storms and scuh like. Pacific islanders are already beginning to lose their homelands, and we could see many of these people becoming refugees. Extinctions will cause some economies to collapse (for instance in Northern Canada when the polar bears die out).

Global warming will kill people. Christians are quick enough to worry about issues such as abortion, where unseen people are killed by thoughtless actions. How is this different? If Christians are complicit in an agenda that sees more people being killed by the effects of global warming, then we are responsible for it too.

Sir John Houghton is right. The Christian duty is to protect and steward our environment - just as we were commanded by God to do.

You would think that if the world was going to end then people would want to spread the world. Moreso if in so doing they might actually avert the impending catastrophe.

Not so, it seems, American “liberals”.

Okay - that is unfair. I am probably (hopefully) only talking about a small fraction of American “liberals”. No doubt my stereotype is wrong. But here is what I’m talking about.

There is a blog posting titled You just don’t want to die of starvation because you’re jealous I have a Hummer and you don’t, where the writer wishes to rail against the thesis of one Jonah Goldberg that people would question global warming science if it turned out that global warming was entirely natural (a strange counterfactual in any case).

The writer puts words into the mouths of conservatives thus:

[they want to continue] the conservative theme that people who like nature are so abhorrent that it’s worth it to fry the planet just to [tee] us off

And then goes on with an ad hominem line that suggests we can ignore the ramblings of conservatives because they are the same people that gave us the pro life movement.

You can check out the feedback on the site above. I pointed out that it is illegitimate to conflate these issues, whatever one thinks of them. I was immediately attacked on my views on what it means to understand humanity of a foetus, and at the same time for bringing abortion into a thread ostensibly about global warming! Worse, as I tried to give reasoned arguments, I was attacked by a string of ad hominem arguments of the form “you are too stupid to understand”, “All your country men are mad” and such like.

Now call me stupid (clearly many have taken me up on that already), but my point was that when an issue is as important as global warming - where the whole world is being affected, and where society consensus is required to effect a lasting and workable change, it seems to make no sense to me to snap and bite at someone who agrees with you, simply because they disagree on some other issue.

What seems to be happening is that American “liberals” are adopting a package of beliefs that define their community. If one is a “liberal” in America, one must be pro-choice, believe global warming is a problem, and who knows what else.

You may not pick one belief and be admitted. It is all or nothing. Accept the package or be mauled by the self professed sentry dogs to the ivory tower of “liberalism”.

But this is just nuts. If we really care about global warming, and we really care about our environment then it makes absolutely no difference what our other beliefs are. We can work together to effect a change. Indeed, one way that more advanced countries in this field are making progress is to use the market to control emissions. Right wingers have something to add to the resolution of this issue, and whatever our political stripe, we must accept that help gladly.

After the lack of engagement in the thread above, and the appalling string of ad hominem arguments, I find myself as just the kind of person who would like to go out and buy a Hummer just to annoy the woolly thinking self styled “liberals”.

Fortunately for the world, I won’t do this. Partly because I feel to strongly on global warming, partly because I probably can’t afford to do so, and partly because I have no idea what a Hummer is!

But what do I make of these “liberals”? Well I think they are downright dangerous. If a pro lifer, (or any other right winger) were wavering on the global warming issue, these people would push them right back into the comforting arms of the Jonah Goldbergs of this world.

Worse, they have misappropriated the term “liberal” here. That is why I have been applying it in quotation marks to them. An essential tenet of liberalism is respect for the freedoms of each other, including freedoms of belief and speech. These people have no respect for such freedoms. They demonstrate just the type of small minded human behaviour that makes global warming such a threat to us. They perpetuate the idea that communities of which one is a member are better than those of which one is not. They believe conservatives are all stupid and mad, and afford the same judgement to anyone who does not accept their designated package of “liberal” beliefs.

This is ghetto thinking.

If we want to save the world we need to step out of the ghettos and start shouting about what really concerns us.

Would you get on an aeroplane if the pilot told you there was a 5% or a 1% probability that you wouldn’t reach your destination? Chris Rapley

James Lovelock argues in his new book: “The Revenge of Gaia”, that the effects of global climate change will be severe and are all but inevitable. He paints a grim picture of water shortages, disruptions to the oceans and life therein, mass migrations and such like. This near apocalyptic vision has been criticised for being too severe, but in an interview for Radio 4, we hear Chris Rapley, director of the British Antarctic Survey, argue that Professor Lovelock’s choice was fully justified.

“The fact that you’ve been taking higher-end, pessimistic predictions of the IPCC is something that shouldn’t be dismissed,” he said, “even if there’s only a 5% or even a 1% probability that they might be real. “Would you get on an aeroplane if the pilot told you there was a 5% or a 1% probability that you wouldn’t reach your destination? No of course you wouldn’t; you have to take even very low-probability scenarios very seriously.”

In America the one percent doctrine is being applied to terrorism, but ignored for climate change. Climate change is happening now, and we, the people, need to wake up to the threat and ignore the politicised flim flam before it is too late.

Scientists have noted that there has been a 20% drop in see temperatures brought by the North Atlantic Drift (the Gulf Stream) to European shores. The ocean current that keeps Europe’s climate so mild is being disrupted, almost certainly by meltwater from the Greenland ice sheet. Europe is heading for another mini ice age (not for the first time). Climate change is the problem, and it is real.

Don’t live in Europe? Well Eastern North America is also headed for violent climate change too. This is a problem that must be addressed. Climate change will happen. Wed can hope that Lovelock is wrong about the extent (although he is well within accepted ranges for the data). Even if he is wrong, we need to do something now.

Precautionary principle? Certainly in part. But blast the right wing American oil industry funded politicians who tell us that all will be well. Let them play Russian Roulette when they next board a plane. For the rest of us, precautions are exactly what we need to take.

More on the BBC interview regarding Lovelock’s book is here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5150816.stm

Andrew Sullivan does a good job of exposing the hypocrisy of an administration that claims the 1 percent doctrine on one subject (WMDs) and rejects it on a far more important subject (Global Warming). He also correctly observes:

But Cheney also made an assumption Gore hasn’t: the American public will only sign up if they have no sacrifice to make, or if others do their sacrifices for them.

But whilst this is a perfectly good observation, we should note that it need not always be the case, and it certainly hasn’t always been the case. In particular, America’s finest hour was probably the Marshall plan. Now Chomsky is critical even of this plan, arguing that it was a transfer of money from the American public to the private sector (aided by capital flight from Europe), but even if we accept some of these criticisms, it is hard to deny that in this policy, America showed once and for all that it could use its economic power to act for the good of those beyond their borders. Yes, America would reap the rewards of regenerating shattered European economies, but this was pain now for later gain. This was proof that America could lead the world in the post war era.

But how the dreams crumble into ruin. Nowadays it seems that American policy is designed to keep rich Americans rich at the expense of the poor everywhere, and if the environment goes to pot - well that is someone elses problem.

Oh for a visionary in America now.

Truman had the Marshall Plan. Bush has Guantanamo bay.