Response to the Climate Debate

This article first appeared in the College Voice on 11/16/07.

 

In his most recent letter, Professor Monce further argues against the conventional wisdom of climate science. He points out that scientific truth is determined by repeated empirical testing, not by consensus. He accuses the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of not sufficiently examining contrary evidence, and further pushes the opinion that solar variation (not human-produced greenhouse gas) is the primary driving force of global warming. According to Prof. Monce, there are reputable studies supporting this claim.

It seems like a lot of what Prof. Monce is concerned about is that climate scientists have rushed to a conclusion about the causes of climate change. However, the leading authority on climate sceince, the 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, was very meticulous in its analysis of information. It includes the input of “more than 1200 authors, [and] 2500 scientific expert reviewers from more than 130 countries” (according to the Union of Concerned Scientists). Furthermore, the full report references more than 19,000 scientific studies. Of course, the consideration of dissenting experimental results is very important for the integrity of the scientific process, but when the conclusive, repeated majority of data support a hypothesis, it must be accepted as the most likely reality. In this situation, the reality is that CO2 emissions play the primary role in causing global climate change.

Prof. Monce successfully shows in the four studies he presents that no conclusions can be drawn by looking at such a small sample size, because he admits that three different conclusions are reached in these studies. However, the 2007 IPCC report is a large enough sample size to reach a consensus. The full report spends a number of dense pages painstakingly going over the evidence about solar variation’s role in climate change. More than 750 individual studies are cited in the section that considers solar irradiance. In fact, three of the eight scientists Prof. Monce cites are directly referenced in this section. The most recent IPCC report actually changed its conclusions regarding solar irradiance due to new experimental evidence. Because of this new evidence, the effect of solar variation on global warming was modified in the new report to be less than half of the previously published value. When looked at without bias, it is impossible to criticize the IPCC of not taking a wide enough sample of climatological studies. For more information, adventurous readers are encouraged to take a look at “Section 2: Changes in Atmospheric Constituents and in Radiative Forcing” of the full IPCC report.

In conclusion, while Prof. Monce makes a good point about the centrality of repeated experimental results in science, his small survey of studies presents a false image of the state of current climate science. The IPCC considers almost 20,000 studies, and it concludes that “most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20^th century is very likely [greater than 90% certainty in official IPCC language] due to the observed increase in anthropogenic [human-caused] greenhouse gas emissions”. This supports the statistic from An Inconvenient Truth which states that of the over 9000 peer-reviewed journal articles about climate science, none of those surveyed found results disagreeing with the anthropogenic nature of climate change. Prof. Monce tallies up the stances of his four sources, coming to the conclusion that there is no strong consensus about the cause of climate change. In comparison to the high volume of data collected by the IPCC and that presented in An Inconvenient Truth, this negligibly small sample size presents a ridiculous portrayal of an overall scientific agreement.

As a side note, we would also like to briefly object to the patronizing tone Prof. Monce takes in his letters. True, he is a tenured professor, with multiple advanced degrees. However, this is a forum where students and faculty are equals; we all have access to the same tools of rationality and research. It is inappropriate to treat fellow intellectuals as if we were students in his class, leaving us “exercises” and saying things such as “I am a faculty member” and “Since he didn’t bother to do the homework…” This is condescending and offensive. If the facts are being debated, they should presented objectively. We look forward to a continued, mature debate.

Letter from the Renewable Energy Club

This letter to the editor appeared in the 11/16/07 edition of the College Voice.

The debate being played out between Professor Monce and Alex Krogh-Grabbe regarding global warming is quite unsettling. We have had an especially hard time digesting the assertions made by Professor Monce, not because his viewpoint is in the minority, or that it completely contradicts the cause we fight for, or even the chance that he might be right. Professor Monce’s letters scare us because they are void of any alternative solution to global warming. How can we as a human race even attempt to stop solar variation?

What the last couple articles between Professor Monce and Alex have shown is that no scientist is ever 100% certain on anything. But from a political standpoint, we cannot simply ignore a ticking time bomb, especially when only one explanation provides a solution.

But let’s take a step back and assume for a moment that Professor Monce’s assertions are right, and increased CO₂ levels are not the main cause of the earth’s warming. If this is the case, would our efforts at lowering CO₂ emissions be in vain? The answer is no. At the very least, we as a community will have worked towards countering environmental and economic injustices. Our efforts will have gone towards helping low-income families living near power plants, redistributing the wealth influx generated by oil and motor companies, and producing a cleaner and more aesthetically pleasing world. The reduction of CO₂ emissions will still benefit the country, regardless of whether CO₂ is warming the planet.

If we as a college community take Professor Monce’s opinion as truth and stop our ‘greening’ efforts, we are left vulnerable. What if he is wrong? Of course, the exact repercussions of global warming are not known completely, but can anyone really ignore the images where most of Florida, Boston, the World Trade Center Memorial, and coastal regions of New England are all under water? This is a future we will not accept. We fear that Professor Monce’s do-nothing attitude may have led some people to believe that there is no humanitarian need in shutting off their lights or boycotting the sales of SUVs.

It’s pointless to argue over the root cause of global warming. Instead, we should be focused on doing whatever we can to prevent the irreversible changes to our economy, food supply, population distribution, and standard of living. So until Professor Monce provides some human solution to solar variation, we think we should be acting on the best solution provided to us: reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The best way for us to do this is through efficiency and a strong investment in clean energy. We hope that Professor Monce recognizes the importance of combating CO₂ emissions, even if he disagrees with the overwhelming majority of the scientific community about the cause global warming.

-The Renewable Energy Club

Response to “A Response to Climate Waffling”

This letter first appeared in the The College Voice on 11/9/07 and 11/16/07.

I would like to thank Mr. Krogh-Grabbe for his very thoughtful response (Oct. 19, Voice) to my letter. He raises some interesting issues to which I would like to respond.

First a few comments about the nature of science. I am glad he understands that no idea in science is ever fully proven. However, I believe he places too much emphasis on the idea of “consensus” and also authority as the indicator of scientific “truth” as opposed to what I think is the real nature of science: that of overwhelming experimental data supporting a theory. Nature doesn’t really care what the consensus of scientists is at any moment; that consensus has been shown to be completely wrong many times in the history of science. Instead, it is up the scientist to evaluate every piece of data and see if it fits or doesn’t fit with the current hypothesis. If it doesn’t fit then the hypothesis must be re-examined. A simple example: the overwhelming data is that objects near the earth’s surface accelerate at 9.81 m/sec^2. You, or any else, can do the experiment and the result always seems to be the same. However, if there was one person who came up with the value of 7 m/sec^2, and it was repeatable, then the scientific community would have to reevaluate their notions of why we predict 9.8 m/sec^2 as the correct number. In the case of human-induced climate change, there is much more than one piece of evidence pointing towards explanations other than human influence. Those who support the idea of human influence as the primary cause of the current warming must respond, in a scientific argument, to that contrary data. Mr. Krogh-Grabbe is not quite correct to say I don’t trust the IPCC, I just think they have not properly evaluated the conflicting data which does not support their conclusions.

Let’s get down to specifics. We both agree that there is a warming trend. We also both agree that CO₂ levels are rising and that a portion of that rise is due to fossil fuel burning. We both agree that the greenhouse effect exists, just look at Venus! However, Venus has a 95% CO₂ atmosphere while the Earth’s CO₂ percentage is 0.03% (3 parts in 10,000). The primary disagreement between us is that I contend that the solar influence is most likely a larger source of climate change than human produced CO₂ emissions. Like other members of the College community I can order any non-subscription journal articles from the library and they usually arrive on my computer in a day or so. That is how I have copies of those articles that I cited. However, I will now show some of that data and how it casts some doubt on the basic hypothesis of human-induced global warming.

We both seem to agree that the climate has been warming for at least the past 5-600 years since “The Little Ice Age”; well before SUV’s. Mr. Krogh-Grabbe’s main contention seems to be that the temperature rise during the past 2-3 decades is an accelerated temperature rise and that its primary cause is human produced CO₂. Take a look at the following graph (Fig. 1, from NASA) which puts into a longer term perspective the current temperature rise. Note how our current situation isn’t even close to the Medieval Warm Period.

 

Now, the IPCC’s position that this rise is due to human produced CO₂. However, there is another other proposed mechanism of solar variation. Let’s look at several papers dealing with this hypothesis that are published in the mainstream scientific journals. In Figure 2 we see the temperature and solar variation (solid line) data from Moberg et al. Again note on the left edge the end of the Medieval Warm period, the Little Ice Age just before 1600AD, and the general warming since that time. The correlation Moberg et al show is quite striking and convincing as to the solar influence.

 

However, in a paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Lockwood and Frohlich take much of the same data that Moberg uses and reanalyze the data and end up with the graph Mr. Krogh-Grabbe references in his article and is displayed on the link he gave to the Max Planck Institute. This graph shows no recent correlation between solar and temperature. Now, in yet another data set, this time by Scafetta and West shown in Figure 3, we see that the solar contribution past about 1970, does not correlate as well as the Moberg data does with temperature. However, Scafetta and West do attribute at least 50% of the current warming to solar influence.

And finally, we have the data of Svensmark and Friis-Christiansen which is in response to the Lockwood analysis. What is interesting about the Svensmark paper which shows a near perfect correlation of temperature with solar is that they have removed from the temperature data of the last 4 decades the influences of the El Nino, the North Atlantic Oscillation, and various volcanic events; all notorious acute disruptors of the climate.

Let’s tally the “consensus”: one for human induced warming, one for 50% human influence, and two against. As a professional scientist I find this situation fascinating in that there really is no overwhelming avalanche of data and analysis for either case. That means to me, that we have a lot more to learn about what is happening with the whole climate change business. Also, both Lockwood and Scafetta readily admit that the evidence for the solar influence being the prime mover of climate in the past is very strong. What is interesting about this position is that it requires that the sun suddenly is no longer the prime mover of climate starting around 1970. Given the historical data shown I find that a difficult assumption to make.

One final piece of data that seems timely: the paper by Soon (Figure 4) shows a strong correlation again between the sun and the Arctic temperature. Given this data it is not too surprising that the Arctic passage opened up this past summer.

 

I’ve already discussed Mr. Krogh-Grabbe’s reference to the Max Planck Institute, but I also need to respond to his other reference at the World Radiation Center. At first glance their graphical data does seem to show a flat trend in solar variation. However, he seems to have missed a critical sentence in their data description: “It is important to note that the model is an independent source of information for comparisons and as long as it is not used for over solar cycle time scales it provides a reliable time series for time scales of less than a year.” (emphasis mine). The model data shown is for comparison on a daily-monthly basis to the well-known 11 year solar cycle; it is not valid for decadal solar series.

Finally, Mr. Krogh-Grabbe praises, in a back-handed way, my pointing out that even hybrids come with environmental cost. I left as an exercise for the student (I am a faculty member) the energy cost of the nickel production in a hybrid. Since he didn’t bother to do the “homework” let me give the answer: the 33 lbs. of nickel in a typical hybrid, according to what I’ve calculated, invokes about a 100 gallons of gasoline energy penalty. This is obviously easily made up in about 5 tank fills with the hybrid given its relatively high mileage over the SUV. It doesn’t take into account the chemical runoff in the mining, refining, etc. of the nickel. Mr. Krogh-Grabbe might be surprised to learn that I actually think hybrids should become more widespread (SUV hybrids?) and hopefully cheaper so more people could buy them. I wonder if the Prius is a bit overpriced? Nah, that would mean Toyota might be interested in making a large profit. In fact, I would like to see the entire U.S. ground transportation system be totally petroleum-free. The problem is that that there doesn’t seem to be viable alternative (i.e. new energy source) that can handle the job. My reason for wanting this has nothing whatsoever to do with climate change, but I think it’s interesting that we both would like to see the same end result.

Michael Monce, Professor, Physics

Power Surge at PowerShift

 This was first published in the College Voice on 11/10/07, and it was written by Tristan Husby and Andy Irwin.

 This past weekend, 16 Conn students attended PowerShift at the University of Maryland, with over 5,500 other college students from across the country. PowerShift was the largest youth conference on climate change in United States history, and it continued the trend toward unification of the progressive movement, previously visible in the United States Social Forum and the No War, No Warming campaign from earlier this year. All three of these events have combined climate change with diverse other progressive issues, such as the anti-war movement, LGBTQ issues, feminism, and anti-racism.

PowerShift consisted of a series of panels and workshops during the day on Saturday and Sunday, speakers and performances Saturday night, and a culminating lobby day and rally on Monday. The panels and workshops ranged from discussions of environmental justice and energy issues to skill-building talks on campus organizing and media messaging. Conn students learned about all sorts of things, including sustainable foods, green building for higher education, and corporate responsibility.

However, it was during the keynote speakers on Saturday that the excitement of PowerShift came to the forefront. The keynote speakers included not only leaders of the environmental movement, but also politicians and representatives of those most cruelly affected by environmental injustice. Judy Bonds talked about how her community in West Virginia continues to organize against mountaintop removal, a mining industry practice of completely destroying mountains in order to get at coal. Evon Peter spoke of the continued commitment of Native Americans to restore both indigenous rights and the despoiled American land. After these powerful voices from the disenfranchised, it was natural that the audience was impatient with the political ramblings of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Congressman Ed Markey. Pelosi was continuously interrupted during her speech with demands for her to take firmer stances against the war in Iraq and climate change. Fortunately, Van Jones, the last speaker, inspired the audience with a moving vision of combining environmental and racial justice goals, using the slogan “Green Jobs, Not Jails”.

As if the speakers on Saturday night weren’t enough exciting enough, the emotional climax was yet to come. Conn students attended a hearing of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, where young climate activists were eager to see the democratic process up close. Five youth climate leaders were was followed by an emotional testimony from Inuit Cheryl Lockwood, who moved the audience and committee with her firsthand tale of the personal effects of the climate crisis. Following the conclusion of the hearing Conn students tracked down their representatives to do some impromptu lobbying.

After some conversation with Congressmen Van Hollen (D-MD) and Markey (D-MA), Conn students proceeded to the rally, being held directly in front of the capitol building. The rally was absolutely the most energizing experience of the weekend. While the main event on Saturday was powerful and inspiring, the experience of protesting directly in front of the Capitol was without comparison. The powerful emotion and urgency was obvious as thousands chanted and cheered for climate heroes like Van Jones and booed Congressman Christopher Shays for his narrow approach to the greatest issue of our lives.

It becomes more and more clear that this is no longer our parent’s environmentalism. This is our time, this is our place, this is our revolution. There is no stopping the Millennial Generation in the attainment of our goals. In the words of Van Jones, the Revolution starts right now.

Turtles back in Arbo Pond

The Arboretum Pond has been refilling slowly for the past two weeks after the completion of a dredging project to deepen the northern quarter. On Friday Arbo staff noted multiple painted turtles in the water and on rocks. The water level has not yet filled the new deep area and so has not yet reached the level of the mud bottom in the rest of the pond. Time for a rain dance, this drought is slowing down the recharge.

Conn Students Return from PowerShift

This weekend, 16 students from Conn attended the PowerShift 2007 conference in Washington, DC. At the conference, we were all extremely inspired and empowered to step up our action on climate issues on our campus and in the wider world as a whole. This mobilization isn’t just something that we want to do, it’s something we have to do, and we have to do it now. It can’t just be those of us who went to the conference either, although we’re going to work our little tushies off to get stuff going.

Here are a few of the things that we are so determined to get going at Conn:

• Focus the Nation: This nationwide event on January 31st is intended to direct the attention of institutions of higher education all around the country toward thinking about climate solutions. Suggested events are panel discussions, workshops, and a synchronized webcasted address. Over 1000 institutions are signed up, but Conn is not. We want to change that.
• Committing to LEED rating in new buildings: The environmental modeling committee and Renewable Energy Club are working on getting a commitment to LEED-silver workplans onto the statement signed by President Higdon for the Presidents’ Climate Commitment. This may be really easy or it may be hard.
• Work with numerous on-campus student groups to energize the campus’ activism on issues of climate equity and green jobs.

This is just my personal memory of what we’ve talked about doing. Once the conference organize our thoughts in the next few days, we’ll have more clearly articulated goals.