Critical Analysis of the Climate Change Argument

or

the risk of agitating science with fear & political interests

 

Background:

Severe weather events causing devastating impacts on regions and communities are reported more frequently from all over the world. Floods, droughts and storms have all increased in number and force. The scientific world widely agrees that the causes for these abnormal events are found in global warming. Scientist from various disciplines engage in the discussion of climate change and its impact on people’s lives and their future. While there is a great consensus among policy makers and scientists that the causes for climate change are to be found merely in the excessive release of carbon dioxides by humans, a minority of heretics asserts that the story of anthropogenic CO₂ emissions is not the full truth behind climate change. The repeated release of climate reports and advanced computer simulated models predicting doom-day-like scenarios has further encouraged the creation of minority groups of climate skeptics.  Fact is that both average temperatures and carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have increased and that both phenomenon have sharply intensified in the past decades. 

Introduction:

Since “Climate Change” became the new buzzword due to numerous unprecedented weather events, it developed to be, directly or indirectly, the biggest driver of change in environmental regulation. As a result it creates a whole new economy in its own right covering the automobile industry, the construction sector, the energy market, manufacturing and many others. Climate is defined as the “average weather” or more rigorously as the statistical description in terms of the mean and variability of relevant quantities over a period of time ranging from months to thousands or millions of years (IPCC, 2001).  But Climate Change is not a new phenomenon, only since its characteristics seem to impact on the health and wealth of western society it has become one of the central concerns of modern times. Scientific research on climate history is immature and only in recent years, scientist were able to produce evidence showing climate change and its effects in the past. With the enhanced knowledge of climatic facts the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) is creating models and publishes predictions on climate developments. In their AR4 (2007), human impact on climate change was rated at 90% highly likely. This essay discusses an argument of policy makers and their scientific representatives as well as of their opponents respectively. It also outlines the reasons to failure of an objective debate.

Climate Change predictions and the IPCC:

The IPCC was founded by the UN in 1988 in order to assemble scientific knowledge of climate change and its potential impacts on the environment. While there has been a continuous learning process about climate influencing factors, the fourth assessment report on climate change (2007) is stating that the probability that global warming has been caused by human activities is greater than 90%. Also initial ambiguities about factual temperature increases have been overcome.

Doom day projections of future changes in climate, uncovered e-mails of the ‘Climategate’-controversy and external efforts to deceive the public about global warming by lobby groups such as ExxonMobil (UCS, 2007) resulted in a major investigation into the practices of the IPCC. 

Climate Change Critics and the Black Sheep Syndrome:

Once put under spotlight the IPCC was quickly put in the focus of sharp criticism of both global warming ‘skeptics’ and ‘deniers’. Although no major errors or distortions where uncovered by the Inter Academy Councils’ investigation of the IPCC a bitter taste of unsound scientific practices remained, largely by two basic mistakes:

a) The lack of acknowledgement of uncertainties in IPCC’s publications and climate prediction models and

b) The denial of participation/ inclusion of skeptics in the academic debate and reluctance to their critically scientific approach (black sheep syndrome).

Even though numerous scientists have come forward welcoming critical input as advised by Mann (2011),”…there is nothing wrong in science with putting forth bold hypotheses that ultimately turn out to be wrong. Indeed, science thrives on novel, innovative ideas that—even if ultimately wrong—may lead researchers in productive new directions”, since latest research results confirm the plausibility of climate change predictions the necessary differentiation between climate skeptics and deniers has been vanished. The scientific debate escalated into a political debate driven by fear of damaging the previously achieved public consensus on climate change.

Scientific Evidence:

Scientific evidence extracted from ice and ocean sediment cores indicates global temperatures rose by five degrees during the planetary fever known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM (Kump, 2011). The evidence collected also shows that the rise in CO₂ concentration today is probably 10 times faster than during the PETM. Not only is the speed of change unprecedented, Kump also states “current global warming is on the path to vastly exceed the PETM”, when no immediate action is taken. Figure 1 shows CO₂ emissions during the PETM in blue compared with today’s values as expected in red.

Fig. 1: (Scientific American, 2011)

Climate scientists explain the rapid increase in CO₂ emissions is due to the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas). The human influence on effects of greenhouse gas emissions compared to natural occurrences (volcanoes, ocean release) is a concept called radiative forcing (Collins et al, 2007). Enhanced levels of CO₂ in the atmospheric layer trap heat radiated from the earth surface and the planet heats up. As a result glaciers and snow blankets are melting, reducing the amount of sunlight (heat) reflection from the earth. Furthermore, the melting of previously frozen boggy soils (permafrost) releases huge quantities of enclosed methane. While carbon dioxide gets most attention in the global warming debate, methane can actually trap up to 20 times more heat than CO₂. A destructive cycle could be triggered causing unforeseen consequences.

Climate skeptics generally do not deny climate change, their approach rather emanates from the inability to forecast the future and the questioning of the actual impact on climate by human activity. While some critics such as Richard A. Muller simply challenge theories such as the Milankovitch theory relating astronomical causes to the earth temperatures or the hockey stick’ graph by Michael Mann (1998) other critics (i.e. Judith Curry) focus on the engagement and development of alternative theories away from  the groupthink (Lemonick, 2010).

An argument against the anthropogenic influence on global warming is represented by a study from Robinson et al. (2007) illustrating that both the melting of glacial ice and sea level rise started long before human industrialisation and associated CO₂ release. The following two figures show graphs ranging from year 1800 – 2005.

 

  

 


The study clearly presents that carbon dioxide release had no impact on the trend curves whatsoever. The current warming trend began in about 1800. Natural response time for glacier shortening and sea level rise is approx. 20 years. Sea level increase has trended upwards for almost 150 years at a rate of approx. 7 inches per century. During the past 50 years atmospheric CO₂ levels have increased by 22%. The trends in glacier shortening and sea level rise began a century before the 6-fold increase in carbon levels but no changes of the trend curves have become evident since. Robinson et al. (2005) state that earth temperature is regulated by solar activity in correlation with variations in natural phenomena. They also acknowledge agreeing to the IPCC’s observations on climate change and its current impact, but differ greatly in the belief that CO₂ is the key driver of global warming.

The Consensus:

The scientific community is agreed on one point: the earth is currently getting warmer. Causes for earth surface temperature changes are still relatively unknown and the great number of uncertainties has resulted in a variety of scientific theories. Although society cannot stop climate change from happening, its contribution to it is almost certain. It is evident that human activity is breaching environmental limits to an unsustainable level on a finite planet. In order to enable generations to come to live a habitable life, drastic changes have to be implemented to prevent further exploitation and pollution of the only one earth in the system. While further research will help in identifying solutions for the future, responsible actions for adoption and mitigation of climate change effects should carefully planned and implemented now.

As issued in the latest report from the IPCC (2011) the ‘Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation’ (SREX): “…climate extremes resulting from natural climate variability, anthropogenic climate change, and socioeconomic development can alter the impacts of climate extremes on natural and human systems…”. Severe weather events such as the recent flooding in Dublin might be an indication for anthropogenic climate change but could as well be a result from natural climate variability. However, the most likely cause for flooding in Dublin is originated in socioeconomic development, i.e. soil sealing and deforestation due to urbanisation on the back of bad planning. 

Conclusion:

Getting involved in the scientific debate of climate change takes courage. If current predictions by the IPCC are right, then it will change life as we know it with immediate effect. Not alone by the impact of severe weather events, but also by challenging ourselves wondering where the point of no return will be crossed? Individuals believing in natural cycles of global warming and cooling, thereby ignoring the ubiquitous view might have a happier outlook for their evening of life but coevally could be seen as traitors and might suffer a merciless life in isolation. Climate change has become a central term associated with the bitter understanding of life on a finite world with limited resources, the loss of untouched wilderness, the capitulation of endless squander and loss of innocence. It is not anymore a simplified description of a range of unwanted weather events.

References:

1. Collins, W., Colman, R., Haywood, J., Manning, M.R. and Mote, P. (2007), “The Physical Science behind Climate Change”, Scientific American, Vol. 297, Issue 2, p. 64-71
2. IPCC (2011), “Summary for Policymakers”, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: Abu Dhabi
3. IPCC (2011), “SREX Summary for Policymakers”, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: Kampala
4. IPCC (2007), “Synthesis Report”, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: Spain
5. Kump, L.R. (2011), “The last great global warming”, Scientific American, Vol. 305, Issue 1, p. 56-61
6. Lemonick, M. (2010), “Climate Heretic”, Scientific American, Vol. 303, Issue 5, p.78-83
7. Lemonick, M. (2011), “I Stick to the Science”, Scientific American, Vol. 304 ,Issue 6, p.84-87
8. Mann, M. (2011), Email Response to Lemonick’s Interview with R.A. Muller, “I Stick to the Science” originally published in Scientific American, Issue June, p.84-87, accessed online [18/11/2011] : http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2011/06/24/stick-to-the-science/
9. Robinson, A.B., Robinson, N.E. and Soon, W. (2007), “Environmental effects of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide”, Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine: Oregon
10. UCS (2007), “Smoke, Mirrors and Hot Air”, Union of Concerned Scientist: Cambridge MA