From: tobis@meteor.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Gallup Poll on Global Warming
Date: 7 Sep 92 03:41:47 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Wisconsin, Meteorology and Space Science

In article <6176@taurus.cs.nps.navy.mil> rovero@oc.nps.navy.mil (Josh Rovero) writes:
>George Will is *more* intellectually honest than Albert Gore, Steve
>Schneider, and the scores of global warming advocates.

No serious climatologist expects the world to cool in the next century.
Only the extent of the warming is at issue. Some believe the warming
is likely enough to be small enough that action is premature. They form
a minority, while Will attempts to convince the lay public that a majority 
feels the problem is nonexistant. That's misleading, and either dishonest or
at best irresponsibly ill-researched.

>Whether or not there has been statistically significant warming over the
>last 100 years is debatable and a matter or controversy.

Incorrect. Although there is yet some small room for argument that the
warming is just "red noise" without some forcing, I am unaware of any
plausible argument that global mean temperature is declining. Can you
provide a reference? (I provided Wigley & Raper, Nature 1990.)

>  Attributing
>any change over the same period to anthropogenic causes is even more
>controversial.

This is true, as I acknowledged. However, the observed change is of
the appropriate magnitude. Any other account suffers badly under Occam's
razor: you will have to account first for why the expected warming due
to changed transmissivity of the atmosphere did NOT occur, and then you
will have to explain why the rapid warming is occuring now, or why, even with 
all known biases carefully corrected, the mean temperature is seen to increase.

Finally, extrapolation from past data is not the reason for concern.
The reason for concern is well-established physics of radiative transfer.

>George Will is being criticized because he doesn't agree with the 
>advocates.  

"Advocacy" is not the issue. The issue is physics.

>The argument is political, not scientific.

Well, either the CO2, etc., is significant, or it isn't. Looks like physics
to me.

>  Most scientists
>still believe that more measurements are required;

I have never heard of a scientist who did not believe that.

> if anthropogenic
>global warming were a foregone conclusion they wouldn't need more
>measurements.

That's a ridiculous argument. 

In this case, much remains to be learned about the spatial and temporal
responses of the system. That doesn't mean that we aren't just about
certain that we are in the process of giving the system a significant jolt.

Let's start at the beginning. 

Do you agree with Hansen's number that
doubled CO2, fixing surface temperature, causes a net imbalance at the
tropopause of 4.3 W/m^2 ? (J.Geophys.Res 1989 v 94 p 16417)

Do you acknowledge that CO2 and other anthropogenic gases measured as
CO2 radiative equivalents are likely to double in the next few decades?

Do you agree that observations, one-dimensional radiative models, and dynamic
models are all in fairly good agreement for the recent past, the geologic
past, and other planets, as far as predicting mean surface temperature? Do you
acknowledge that all of these methods would indicate that surface temperature
can be expected to go up significantly?

Have you read the IPCC report? Do you believe that the World Meteorological 
Organization is a politically motivated pressure group?

By the way, the only other well-informed person I have encountered in my
discussions on the net who believed that the problem was grossly exagerrated,
was also connected with the military. This does confirm many people's
suspicions that there is a cultural component to people's scientific
perspectives. Although this does indeed cast some doubt on the objectivity
of the prevailing theory, it IS nevertheless the prevailing theory among
research climatologists that global temperature will almost certainly
rise significantly in the next century.

Casting doubt on the consensus is perfectly within your rights, and I will
be interested to find out which part of the theory you feel is weak. On
the other hand, claiming or implying that the consensus theory is one
held by only a few fringe elements is irresponsible at best.

mt
Xref: sparky sci.environment:11328 talk.environment:3698