AN OCEANOGRAPHER LOOKS AT
THE NON-SCIENCE OF "GLOBAL WARMING"

Robert E. Stevenson, an oceanography consultant based in Del Mar, California, trains the NASA astronauts in oceanography and marine meteorology. He was Secretary General of the International Association for the Physical Science of the Oceans from 1987-1995, and worked as an oceanographer for the U.S. Office of Naval Research for 20 years. He is the author of more than 100 articles and several books, including the most widely used textbook on the natural sciences. The following report first appeared in 21st Century Science and Technology in the Winter 1996-1997 issue.

Not so long ago, in the early 1970s, climate scientists thought in 100,000-year cycles, or at least 10,000-year cycles, and were talking about global cooling. Scientifically speaking, the evidence indicated that the Earth was coming out of a 10,000-year interglacial period, on the way to a new Ice Age. Some scientists thought that this might happen in perhaps hundreds or thousands of years, while others thought it might take only 100 years. A lecture at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif., by Prof. John Isaacs in 1972, for example, startled the entire staff by promoting the latter fast track.

The National Science Foundation and the National Academy of Sciences both began looking at the Ice Age concept, and beating the bushes to look for scientists who would research climate. The emphasis seemed to be not so much one of science, but of devising scenarios to explain how climate change might be very rapid--and might adversely and drastically affect human behavior, for example, forcing entire populations to move south.

To give you the flavor of this: At the time (1974), the disaster-is-coming atmosphere was so thick, that I submitted, tongue-in-cheek, a proposal to the National Science Foundation (NSF) asking for funds to study the Polynesians. My alleged rationale was that it would be useful to look at a population, which, for some reason, possibly environmental, had packed up all its members and possessions, and travelled via canoe thousands of miles to set up a new civilization on a faraway island. I requested funds for a three-year project that would outfit a large sailing ship, fully equipped, including medical specialists, in order to sail to the less-populated islands, and try to find out from the present residents, what events prompted their ancestors to move. (The idea of the doctors and dentists, was to offer islanders some services in exchange for their history.)

To my great surprise, the NSF was ready to fund this proposal; the funders were crushed to find out it was a joke! The science funding agencies in this period, also gave birth to computer climate modeling. That action buried the actual science of climate, based on study of the solar-astronomical cycles and their correlation with long-term climate changes.

It was then, in the early 1970s, that ideology, and not science, began to drive so-called climate science. If a disaster scenario for global cooling might promote the use of more fossil fuels, and hence more industrialization and more population, another scenario would have to be found--equally scary but more directly blamable on human activity. The driving force was to get people to blame science for environmental disasters, to use fewer resources, and to shrink the world's population, particularly its brown, black, and yellow parts.

And so the climate science funding proliferated, climate modelling proliferated, global warming and ``greenhouse effect'' propaganda proliferated--and climate science, based on study of solar astronomical cycles, oceanography, geology, and so on, was buried alive.

Enter the Greenhouse

It was as early as 1896 when Svent Arrhenius, at the University of Oslo in Norway, wondered to himself and his colleagues, whether or not the expanding use of fossil fuels would lead to a shift in climate by the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Professor Arrhenius was bringing to the surface an issue first commented on decades earlier by Jean-Baptiste Fourier and John Tyndall, both significant scientists in those days.

It was just 60 years later when Svent's son, Gustav, convinced the director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif., Roger Revelle, that it was time to begin measuring regularly the atmospheric content of carbon dioxide. Revelle agreed and hired a young post-doc out of Cal Tech, Dave Keeling, to set up a CO₂ laboratory atop Mauna Loa, on the big island of Hawaii. At that height, it would be above the marine inversion layer and, therefore, represent a basic, ``pristine,'' Earth atmosphere.

By 1970, Keeling had enough useful measurements that Revelle considered it safe to announce that CO₂ in the atmosphere was increasing. Furthermore, because there were yet no carbon-12/carbon-13 microchemical analyses, the assumption seemed logical that the increase was from CO₂ produced by the burning of fossil fuels.

By the early 1980s, other carbon dioxide measuring stations had been established, in Bermuda and Antarctica especially. Furthermore, it was becoming possible to obtain useful samples from aircraft and high-altitude balloons. By 1990, the increase, as measured by all stations, indicated that the CO₂ content of the Earth's atmosphere was about 23% higher that it had been in 1840. This 23% is an estimate, in reality, because in 1840 there were no reliable measurements of atmospheric CO₂.

So, a 23% increase in CO₂ isn't as reliable as we might wish it to be. It is an increase, though, and it must be the result of the burning of fossil fuels. What else could it be? So, the presumption was born and grew under the careful tutelage of the new, growing breed of green ``environmentalists.'' They, in turn, found kindred souls in the computer modellers who, finally, had computers with enough RAM memory and disk storage to carry enough input to make their predictions seem plausible.

As a result, a story began to emerge that seemed to be credible if we were to believe the ``evidence.'' And, who among the proletariat had any reason to doubt what ``scientists say,'' or what ``researchers say''? As the story goes, and it is familiar to us all, the increasing amounts of CO<sub>2</sub>, methane, ozone, nitrogen oxides and the family of freon compounds produced by man will enhance the ``greenhouse.'' As a result, more Earth-reflected solar radiation than normal will be ``trapped'' in this intensified ``greenhouse,'' in the form of heat, thus raising the mean temperature of the globe.

The consequences, so the story continues, will be dire: Sea levels will rise because of the melting of the polar ice; large regions of forests and farmland will be destroyed; increased evaporation will wipe out all irrigation systems; and the changes in weather patterns will lead to droughts, or floods, or worse.

The last time the Earth was significantly warmer than it is today, during the ``climatic optimum,'' about 1200 to 1400, there were vineyards in England, in Greenland (``Vineland''). Even as late as 1800, oranges grew at Natchez, Miss., and the Sahel was a vast, grassy plain. From this longer-term perspective, it cannot be said that the Earth's climate is warming.

Speculation on Top of Speculation

So, we have speculation on top of speculation. Answers can come, only when we know better than we do now, the interactions, the fluxes, and the transports in the entire environmental system of the Earth. And, that's what research is all about.

The modellers would have none of this concept, however. Especially after James Hansen, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, appeared before a Congressional committee in the summer of 1988, during one of the hottest months on record, and declared that there was no denying it, ``Global warming is here!'' Considering the temperature in Washington, D.C. at the time, it was simple for everyone to agree. The panic was on!

To scientists in federal laboratories, institutions funded by federal agencies, to the non-governmental organization (NGO) environmental advocacies (Worldwatch, World Wildlife Fund, Sierra Club, Greenpeace, and so on), and to a number of international organizations seeking a cause célèbre, the announcement and the political acceptance promised a bonanza. New federal offices were created, such as the U.S. Office of Climate Change, operating in the National Academy of Sciences. New international groups were created, such as the International Geo-Biosphere Program.

The United Nations, where control is the operative word, quickly organized the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), with Dr. Noel Brown, a social scientist (now retired), as the Director. UNEP immediately initiated the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), funded through the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). In turn, WMO quickly formed the World Climate Research Program (WCRP). And the money flowed.

One of the first ``products'' of these claques was the preparation of a ``treaty'' to be signed by the world at an international ``summit,'' so that the growing impact of humankind on the Earth's environment could be slowed (maybe stopped) to avoid the catastrophe unfolding from computer models. Humankind, especially those who lived the so-called ``good life'' in the Western world, were the unconscionable ``bad guys'' in this scenario, and they would bear the brunt of any controls. Those in the less affluent societies, who could not provide the resources to avert the ``discernible human influence on the global climate,'' would be covered by funds from the ``bad guys''--about $150 billion per year.

And so, the Rio Earth Summit took place in 1992, trumpeting the greed of the ``Western populations''; and all but a handful of countries signed ``treaties'' giving the U.N. the authority to control those human activities that the models claimed were adversely impacting the global climate. Those nations that did not sign the treaty, include the United States, the former Soviet Union, China, India, and the European Community.

IPCC Sounds the Alarm

Chaired by Dr. Bert Bolin, renowned meteorologist, this group included such other stalwarts as Sir John Houghton of the United Kingdom, Thomas Wigley from the U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and a lot of other scientists of good repute. There were also a number of panel members who probably had clear conflicts of interest; such as Merylin Hedger, climate policy officer of the Worldwide Fund for Nature (formerly, World Wildlife Fund). Scientific truth could be expected from scientists as Bolin, Houghton, Wigley and the like. One might question the input from members who were environmental advocates and had, therefore, vested interests other than scientific truth.

Well, the 1990 IPCC report stated that in the past century (1) CO₂ had risen by more that 30%, (2) average temperatures worldwide had increased by 1.2° to 1.5° Celsius, and (3) sea level rose by 50 to 60 centimeters. Then they predicted that we could expect (1) CO₂ would grow by another 50%, (2) atmospheric temperatures would increase by 3° to 4° Celsius, and (3) sea level could rise up to six meters, as the polar icecaps melted with the global warming--all by the year 2050.

A good choice of timing: Who of these clowns would be around in 2050 to be faced with their predictions?

"Working Geophysical Scientists" Respond

Reputable scientists disagreed that an atmospheric crisis was at hand. Nils-Axel Morner, from Stockholm University, at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in New York, scorned the prediction of rising sea levels. He noted that there was simply not enough water in mid-latitude glaciers to cause such a rise (of several meters), and that a 4° Celsius increase in temperature (the modellers claim for the year 2050) might result in sea level rising 4 inches. Morner got no play in The New York Times the next day, or elsewhere.

Robert Stewart, from Victoria University in Vancouver, British Columbia, had given a keynote address at the Joint Oceanographic Assembly, Acapulco, Mexico, in August 1988, on the conditions around the world that influence changes in sea level. Considering every possible factor, he noted that eustatic sea level had been rising at a rate no more than 1 millimeter per year for the past two centuries, and there were no natural or anthropogenic circumstances likely to change that rate for the next century.

K.O. Emery and David Aubrey, from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, verified Stewart's analysis in their 1991 publication, Sea Levels, Land Levels, and Tide Gauges, a tour de force, in which they analyzed every tide-gauge location, and its tidal curves worldwide, for the century from 1880 to 1980. In those 100 years, eustatic sea level had risen 11 centimeters--about the rate at which juvenile water enters the Earth's ocean water cycle, at a snappy 1 millimeter per year.

Bob Balling, from Arizona State University, a world renowned and respected climatologist (who does not get invited to the IPCC) had the following to say at a 1994 meeting of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness in Tucson:

"From 1979 to 1990, and during the time of most rapid buildup in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, the satellite-based temperature measurements have shown a planetary warming of only 0.001°C (including data from 1991 and 1992 would lower this value because of the cooling effects from the aerosols produced by Mt. Pinatubo). Most of the numerical models of climate suggest that the warming (given the known increase in equivalent CO₂) should be of the order of 0.3°C over the same period of time. The satellite data indicate virtually no warming at all, and certainly do not support the claim of accelerated warming in recent decades.

"From the global evidence, along with mounds of hemispheric and regional evidence not covered here|...|I firmly believe that the observed changes in planetary temperature are not consistent with expected changes given the known increases in the atmospheric concentration of various greenhouse gases. Most of the observed warming occurred before the bulk of the greenhouse gases were added to the atmosphere (in the decades of the '20s and '30s). The amount of warming has been too low to be consistent with catastrophic predictions. Many other factors other than the rise in CO₂ concentration account for the trend and variations in planetary temperature. In addition, this warming has not occurred in the right places to be consistent with the models (for example, the Arctic region). Furthermore, most of the warming has occurred at night, which is not a greenhouse expectation.

"Very simply, the climate record over the last century, or decade, is not pointing in the direction of a greenhouse apocalypse."

In addition, many climate scientists ``jumped'' on the computer models. The model problems of the 1980s, were, and still are today, that the models suffer from a bad case of holding too many things constant. Variations in sea-surface temperature, the effects of clouds, deep-ocean convection and circulation, and Lorenz's ``butterfly effect,'' are either ignored, held constant, or even entered backwards. If clouds are entered, the assumption is that they will produce warming when, in fact, all satellite data indicate that clouds cool rather than heat the Earth.

Several reliable research scientists using and studying models, including Michael Schlesinger, from Oregon State University at Corvallis, pointed out that, ``You have every right to be skeptical [of today's models], but it is the best we can do [at this time]. Our ability to detect global warming is near zero.'' Mike was one of about two dozen who responded with similar caution. Several of them were in federal government laboratories; in NOAA and NASA, and who, after a few months of such reaction were heard from no more. And, as you might imagine, their responses never reached the popular media.

Scientists not under direct control of federal agencies, or dependent on federal funding, continued to provide and publish data that provided a contrary view to that of the IPCC, WMO, environmental NGOs, and federally ``captured'' scientists.

One of the more telling blows came from highly regarded scientists at the University of Oslo. After a detailed study of stable carbon isotope ratios of all carbon compunds that contribute CO₂ to the atmosphere, from 3,000-year old Antarctic ice cores, and evaluating Dave Keeling's data from Mauna Loa, and other Northern Hemisphere stations, Dr. T.V. Segalstad, from the University of Oslo, determined that:

"At least 96% of the current atmospheric CO₂ comes from non-fossil fuel sources; that is, natural marine and juvenile [volcanic] sources. Hence for the atmosphere CO₂ budget, marine degassing and juvenile degassing (from volcanic eruptions) are far more important, and the burning of fossil-fuel and biogenic materials much less important, than hitherto assumed."

This statement is from a paper that Segalstad presented at the 1992 Chapman Conference in Hawaii, on ``Climate and Volcanic Aerosols.'' Over the next two years, he and his colleagues at the University of Oslo continued their evaluation of the carbon isotope ratios on thousands of additional samples from the atmosphere and stratosphere around the world. Segalstad published an update in 1994, showing that the ratios did not change from those determined in 1992. By this time, even Dave Keeling, at Scripps and Mauna Loa, agreed that the major contributions to atmospheric CO₂ come from natural sources.

You can easily imagine the reactions of the environmental activists upon hearing that there is no global warming, that the activities of ``humankind'' have had no impact on the world's atmosphere or stratosphere, and that there is no scientific expectation that there ever will be an anthropogenic influence on our ``universal climate.'' The environmentalists expressed ``horror'' at such ``callous disregard of future generations,'' to quote one of them. They fought back by name-calling: Scientists who oppose global warming are simply ``fringe scientists.'' They also fought back by demanding more regulations than have already been produced by local, national, and international bureaucracies. And, unimaginable as it might seem, the environmentalists fought back with personal threats against the lives, careers, and families of those of us who have scientific truth as our fundamental agenda.

I won't bore you with the details of the interplay between scientists and environmental advocates that took place between 1990 and the next IPCC report in 1995. None of the geophysical data, nor the publications, nor the discussions by working scientists seemed to have the least bit of impact on the IPCC/WMO/UNEP.

In the popular media, it was ``no contest''! The ``advocates'' were the clear winners. In peer-reviewed scientific literature, however, the results of fine research were ``blowing the advocates out of the saddle.'' Since 1992, I have personally perused more than 2,800 papers that contradict ``global warming.''*

IPCC Reports to the World, Aug.-Dec. 1995

In April, three months before the report was scheduled to be released, members of the IPCC, and observers appointed by various nations, met in Maastricht, the Netherlands, to preview and comment on the draft report prepared by the ``working staff'' of the IPCC. (Of course the IPCC has a staff. Do you really think the ``great and good'' at the top do all their own research, reading, delving, analyzing, interpreting, and writing?)

The members were to have the draft some weeks before the meeting, and then break up into working groups to address the many chapters and items in the report. Not only did none of the members receive the draft document ahead of time, but no copies were ready for them when they arrived in Maastricht. Nevertheless, during the confusion of the first few days, the staff--whoever they are--issued a press report to the world's assembled press, titled ``Conclusions reached by the IPCC's studies over the preceding three years.'' As you might expect, this release was seen by none of the milling, assembled members of the Panel.

Dr. Fred Seitz, former president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and former president of Rockefeller University, among other credits, and currently director of the Marshall Institute, was not only unhappy; he was furious. He returned to Washington and immediately sought audiences with the Secretary of State and the president of the National Academy of Sciences. The results of these meetings were letters of condemnation, censure, you name it, to U.N. Secretary General Bhoutros Bhoutros-Ghali, the United Nations Environment Program, WMO, and Bert Bolin, Chairman of the IPCC. The news release was retracted. Were any of the IPCC staff fired for this activity? No.

The next IPCC meeting was in Boulder, Colorado, in 1995, during the XXIst General Assembly of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, at which the ``official'' IPCC report was discussed in several sessions over eight hours. The IPCC had, indeed, modified the predictions made in 1990. The most obvious, and conspicuous, was the change of the prediction date from 2050 to 2100.

IPCC's 1995 Modifications

It was declared that ``recent years have been the warmest since 1960,'' and that``global mean temperatures have increased by between 0.3 and 0.6° Celsius since the late 19th century.'' The IPCC did not note, however, that the years between 1920 and 1940 were the warmest of this century. It was interesting, too, that the century-long increase ``certified'' by the IPCC is almost precisely that measured by meteorologists, and analyzed and reported by Bob Balling. He, of course, was not mentioned, even though the report had a rather extensive bibliography.

For the ``future,'' CO<sub>2</sub> would reach 500 ppmv (parts per million volume), the report said--by the year 2100, I guess. They didn't really say. And, during that century-long period, atmospheric temperatures would rise by 1°C. One degree Celsius! In other words, we're going through all of this for 1° Celsius. Three-tenths of a degree is easily within the margin of error (for thermometers), and five-tenths of a degree is still dicey, because of the ``heat island effect'' of cities, which tends to artificially raise the average of temperatures measured.

As for sea levels: The report claimed that ``global sea levels have risen by between 10 to 25 centimeters over the past century. [Ten yes, but 25, no way.] The increasing atmospheric temperature from 0.6°C (taking the highest) to 1.0°C will result in ``sea levels rising by another 15 cm.'' Naturally, the IPCC report doesn't describe the cause of this rise. Were they simply to do some elementary-school math, taking the coefficient of expansion of water (sea or otherwise), and applying an atmospheric temperature increase of 0.4°C, then reckoning with the manner of thermal distribution through the ocean surface, they would have easily produced the answer that the additional heat would raise sea level by 0.03 millimeter by the year 2100--a three-orders-of-magnitude miscalculation.