I have long been an opponent to the idea that man made CO2 emissions was causing global warming. The planet changes not over years or decades or even centuries. It changes in the scale of thousands of years.
The earth has gone through periods of much warmer and much colder weather than today. The trends of even 50 years don't mean much to me or prove global warming. Like every natural cycle, they can last a long long time. I fully expect the planet to begin cooling again as we leave a time of heavy solar activity. It turns out we may have already turned the corner. The planet has been cooling since 2001. In fact a pronounced downward trend has occurred capped by last years greatest drop in temperatures since we have kept records.
I am not the only one who doubts global warming. Now the American Physical Society is reconsidering its position on global warming.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) concluded that anthropogenic CO2 emissions probably caused more than half of the “global warming” of the past 50 years and would cause further rapid warming. However, global mean surface temperature has not risen since 1998 and may have fallen since late 2001. The present analysis suggests that the failure of the IPCC’s models to predict this and many other climatic phenomena arises from defects in its evaluation of the three factors whose product is climate sensitivity:
- Radiative forcing ΔF;
- The no-feedbacks climate sensitivity parameter κ; and
- The feedback multiplier ƒ.
Some reasons why the IPCC’s estimates may be excessive and unsafe are explained. More importantly, the conclusion is that, perhaps, there is no “climate crisis”, and that currently-fashionable efforts by governments to reduce anthropogenic CO2 emissions are pointless, may be ill-conceived, and could even be harmful.
The article is a good read for those interested in math. It does an excellent job covering the mathematics behind the models and why they fail. Since the article is so techinical, I will attempt to articulate the reason for the model's failure.
The problem with all "computer models" is the fact that they can not accurately predict chaotic systems. If it were possible then we would be able to predict the daily weather with 100% accuracy.
The IPCC started by creating an already flawed computer model to reflect the changes in the temperatures from CO2 emissions. When they did they created a feedback loop caused from CO2 emissions. The problem occurs when doing iterative analysis on feedback loops. They can quickly amplify the results significantly.
The result of these models was spiraling out of control temperatures. Allowing the modelers to claim catastrophic predictions for the future. The only problem is the feedback value they used for CO2 can not be sustained mathematically. In other words, the model they used was crap. If the models they used were accurate the earth would not be undergoing the current cooling phase.
As temperatures continue to cool over the next decade, we will once again learn a big lesson in the hubris of man and the amazing durability of our planet.
