From: tobis@skool.ssec.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis)
Subject: Re: Environmental Overkill
Date: 12 Jul 1995 20:57:32 GMT
Message-ID: <3u1cvs$740@spool.cs.wisc.edu>

regarding
    AUTHOR   Ray, Dixy Lee.
     TITLE   Environmental overkill : whatever happened to common sense? / Dixy
               Lee Ray with Lou Guzzo. -- Washington, D.C. : Regnery Gateway ;
               Lanham, MD

In the Global Warming chapter, there are quite a few factual errors that
would not have escaped any responsible effort at verification.

===
By far the worst is this: "Given the Increases in carbon dioxide
since the beginning of the Industrial Age temperatures, according to
the Greenhouse Theory, should have gone up from 2 degrees to 4 degrees
Centigrade over the past hundred years." [p. 17] Of course, they have done no
such thing, but this doesn't contradict what any climatologists are
saying except in Ray's imagination.

CO2 concentrations have gone up about 25 % in the last hundred years. 
The scientific consensus as expressed in the IPCC reports is about 1.5
to 4 degrees C *per CO2 doubling* (logarithmically), assuming all else
equal. So the expected rise would be about a quarter of what Ray cites.
Rebutting something no one claims is good politics but bad faith.

(Taking into account, additionally, delays due to thermal inertia,
countervailing cooling due to human dust emissions, and natural
variability, things are occurring entirely consistently with theory
and models.)

===
Also, she claims that "water is responsible for 98 per cent of all
greenhouse warming". [same page] While H2O is the dominant greenhouse gas, 
this isn't really a meaningful statement. 98 per cent of what under what
assumptions? For instance, if there were no vapor, there would also be 
no clouds, drastically reducing reflection. However, the reader will
presumably conclude that the statement means that removing all other greenhouse 
gases would reduce the temperature of the earth by only 2 per cent of
the total greenhouse effect of some 30 degrees C. This is indefensible,
but she merely asserts it without defending it. I refer the interested reader
to atmospheric absorbtion spectra, e.g., in 

    AUTHOR   Peixoto, Jose Pinto.
     TITLE   Physics of climate / Jose P. Peixoto, Abraham H. Oort. -- New York
               : American Institute of Physics, c1992.

===
On p. 16 "All the claims about climate change are based on computer
projections." Nonsense, there's also radiative physics to account for.
Did Arrhenius ahve a computer when he first recognized the phenomenon
in 1896?

===
On p. 18 "even if further warming should occur over the next 100 years,
the total is not predicted to exceed the temperatures that prevailed
during the period 900 to 1100 AD". Nonsense. This confuses a local
warming of 2 C with a global warming of 2 to 9 C, with much larger
local changes, especially over land. (The higher numbers correspond to
increases of CO2 to more than double background preindustrial levels.)

===
On p. 22 "Scientists ...  have been unable to account for about 50 per cent
of the carbon dioxide known to be produced annually". Nonsense. The
unaccounted percentage was about 10 % at the time this article was written.
Only 50% of the emissions remains in the atmosphere, which may account for 
the confusion, but it doesn't excuse it.

===
I have yet to adequately rebut all the many flaws in the argumentation. 

For now, let me offer just a clear example. One of the seven reasons she 
offers in support of a position that "carbon dioxide [is] an unlikely 
candidate for causing any significant worldwide temperature changes" is:

"Sixth, increasing the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide contributes
to greater and healthier plant growth". 

Now under many circumstances this is true, but one doen't have to be too 
careful of a reader to notice that this does not offer any logical evidence 
for the point she proposes to be supporting!

The rest of the chapter shows comparable sloppiness and shows no sign of
thoughtfully weighing the evidence.

==============================

There's plenty of uncertainty in climate research, and even more in
determining the appropriate policy response, to be sure. Unfortunately,
the waters are being muddied by polemical introduction of invalid
arguments, half-truths, and plain misstatements. Ms. Ray's efforts
are unfortunately in this category, though to be sure, there are
plenty of other exemplars taking a contrary position.

Since this thread is going out to a lot of newsgroups, some people
reading it may not be aware that there is an ongoing effort by 
the world's climate scientists to report fairly on the evidence,
taking uncertainties into account. The organization promulagting
these documents is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
under the joint auspices of the United Nations Environment Programme
and the World Meteorological Organization - the latter really is
the main professional organization for atmospheric research. The
reports are in nontechnical language, but have ample refernces
to the refereed primary literature. If your library doesn't 
have a copy, but has copies of the usual partisan blithering on
both extremes of the issue, shame on them. Perhaps you could contribute
a set - both are in print:

    AUTHOR   Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
     TITLE   Climate change : the IPCC scientific assessment / edited by J.T.
               Houghton, G.J. Jenkins, and J.J. Ephraums. -- Cambridge ; New
               York : Cambridge University Press, 1990.

    AUTHOR   Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
     TITLE   Climate change 1992 : the supplementary report to the IPCC
               scientific assessment / [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
               Change] ; edited by J.T. Houghton, B.A. Callander and S.K.
               Varney. -- Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press,
               1992.

A second supplement is expected this year.

mt