Top 10 Global-Warming Myths

No mudslinging here, just refuting the myths that Human Events are claiming. Perhaps we should consider getting our science from scientists and not from opinion periodicals with a strong political bias?

I read myks piece.. than read the article.. The One line that remains with me is:"Until scientists are willing to save the U.S. taxpayer more than $5 billion per year thrown at researching climate, it is fair to presume the science is not settled."..which of course.. is not really true.. I mean the world is round, but I am sure somewhere, someone isn't trying to study just how round it is. It makes me feel like that author is most concerned with the economic effects of cleaning up our collective,environmental acts. I was also particularly surprised at the lack of references for the authors assertions. I mean,... I was REALLY surprised. Given the issue, I would think that studies and data would be very important. OH! Jason thanks for the link to Superstructure. His article is very good, and articulates most of my feelings about this article very well..: )

Yes, global warming does mean more severe weather, and more of it, and you don't need an official report to realize that consequence. Ask any scientist or math-guy about the potential consequences of pumping more energy into a dynamic system.

Please, everyone, disregard this political nonsense from Human Events. They are not to be trusted.

This article's funny!

I've never heard this one before:

3. Climate was stable until man came along.

Swallowing this whopper requires burning every basic history and science text, just as "witches" were burned in retaliation for changing climates in ages (we had thought) long past. The "hockey stick" chart -- poster child for this concept -- has been disgraced and airbrushed from the UN's alarmist repertoire.

Is this article a joke? It's like the author answered every question by just totally making things up. The hockey stick chart is accurate. The fact is while 99% of scientists say global warming is man-made and real, 50% of news stories in the US still have doubts in the articles. Makes no sense to me!

This reads like i wrote it, without the misspellings and lack of punctuation. But hard to read none the less.
And i am not saying that because i disagree with the author, I have found many anti global warming pieces to be written very eloquently, but this is just horrid and more of a rant than anything else.

"7. Global warming means more frequent, more severe storms.

Here again the alarmists cannot even turn to the wildly distorted and politicized "Summary for Policy Makers" of the UN's IPCC to support this favorite chestnut of the press.
"
what does that mean?? what is he saying?(ok i get it, you can not attribute any one storm to climate as it is part of a chaotic system, but storms will overall increase, you just cant point to one and quantitatively say by exactly how much)

say what you want about my writing i dont care, but it is hard to believe that a professional magazine would shoot at this level of intelligence.

It is not like he couldnt find things(mostly debunked but still) to support his arguments, he just choose not to.
LOL i may have to redo this to show what he was trying to say. It will be just as hard to read but atleast i will include references. Eh I have already wasted too much time on this ..um entertainment.

Is this article supposed to be satire?

On the whole, these bears are thriving, if a little less well in those areas of the Arctic that are cooling (yes, cooling).

It would be great if this guy could cite sources, because this is news to me. I am aware of the (false) claim that the antarctic is cooling, but the last I heard, the arctic is warming faster than the rest of the planet. I think he's getting his disinformation mixed up.

10. The Bush administration didn't refuse to sign it, they just bowed out. Although I do agree that, at this point, the treaty hasn't really done very much.

9. Its too expensive and will give too much money to alternative businesses?

8. Climate change has nothing to do with weather? Where is the logic in this?

7. This isn't even a refutation of the fact. Whether global warming is human-caused or natural, this will happen.

6. Its not that polar bears can't swim, its that they're not marathon swimmers.

5. Agreed that sea levels rise during interglacial periods and that we find ourselves in that period now. How fast it happens and how much we speed it up is another question entirely.

4. I don't personally know if there are glaciers currently advancing, or what the ratio of advancing to cooling is. The question will be whether the amount of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere causes the warming and weather trends to spiral out of control to a point where the glaciers don't come back.

3. Climate was not stable, but to our knowledge the warming trends of the planet did not happen as rapidly as they appear to be now. Not to say that they didn't, because rapid cooling most likely happened as soem fossils have been found frozen in their tracks.

2. Its been awhile since I've seen the movie, but I think he did show overlaid charts of CO2 and temperature. And yes, its not just about the CO2, there are all kinds of other chemicals we dump into atmosphere that compound the effect, CO2 is just the big one. Others include nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, particulate matter, chemical vapors, caffeine, processed sugars, pesticides, rotting garbage, lead, and many others which can lead to smog, acid rain, destroying wildlife and habitats, further polluting water, etc.

1. The idea isn't that is hot now or won't get hotter. The idea is how fast will it get hot and will the planet be able to rebound from the excess stress we put on it.

Is global warming caused by man - not necessarily. Should we do everything in our power to make sure it isn't caused by man and limit the damage we could potentially cause - absolutely.

Benefits to assuming we cause global warming - New businesses and industries created, less dependence on natural resources bought from other countries, cleaner air, cleaner water, focus on the products that we use daily, can be used to unite countries....

Benefits to assuming we don't cause global warming - We don't have to change how we do things, a little bit more money can go towards other government projects that will most likely waste it anyway.....I'm having difficulty with this one, someone help me out here.

As a newbie, I can't post a link to some science of interest.

However, you can Google "atmospheric carbon robinson" and find it.

The abstract:
A review of the research literature concerning the environmental consequences of increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide leads to the conclusion that increases during the 20th Century have produced no deleterious effects upon global weather, climate, or temperature. Increased carbon dioxide has, however, markedly increased plant growth rates. Predictions of harmful climatic effects due to future increases in minor greenhouse gases like CO2 are in error and do not conform to current experimental knowledge.

I don't understand why it is so bloody important to so many to 'believe' in human-caused global-warming. Kyoto has shown that there isn't a thing we can do about it short of shutting down the global economy and that would cause a far greater disaster especially for the poorest of us. Worst case, notwithstanding Hollywood darling Al Gore's wild claims, is an oceanic rise of 7 inches. So a few places with have to build some 10 inch dykes. Maybe we could assign the job as a class project to some gradeschool kids.

You people who declare "the science is settled" on this issue are too young and/or not enough interested in history to recall "The Population Bomb" of only a few decades past when the 'science was settled' on the certainty that a global population explosion was underway that inevitably lead to mass famine, political upheaval on an unimaginable scale, and very possibly the collapse of civilization and the extinction of our species. Only corporate shills, deluded religious nuts, and other such fools denied that another 'hockey-stick' graph -- this one showing population growth -- supposedly proved conclusively that because the world wasn't willing or able to control sexual reproduction, we were doomed. Doomed! I say!!

Needless to say, it didn't happen. And for reasons that the author and his supporters could not have imagined in their wildest dreams. (See the Wiki to learn what they were.) Before that it was the certaintly of nuclear war that doomed civilization and before that the global economic collapse now known as The Great Depression, and before that .... well, you get the idea.

Why are we humans so inclined to see gloom and doom in world events? I suppose it is a genetic/memetic hangover from our experience in the pre-industrial world in which The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse rode free. And also because every generation seems to have to find a cause that fits their world-view.

Many in my generation loved that Population Bomb book back in 1968 because we had also been encouraged to hate capitalism (supposedly the cause of said bomb) but also because we were using birth control pills by the carload (newly developed by those same capitalists) and humping away and thought everyone in the world ought to be doing the same. That's where Planned Parenthood came from. The missionaries of our sexual revolution. (You're welcome.)

Polar bears are marathon swimmers by the way. .

It would be fun to lock the author of this article in his garage with a car that had remote start and turn it off and on to be the same ratio of co2 emissions we put into the environment. granted it would be the same as breathing the air outside, it might change his perspective.

Yup, and the world is flat, the universe revolves around the Earth, smoking is harmless and your woman really did have an orgasm.

That article isn't science. There is a ton of science you could read and seed (e.g. The U.S. Global Change Data and Information System (GCDIS)) if you wanted to instead of this agenda-laden tripe.

The way the Right continually ignores the scientific consensus on this is telling, to say the least.

I for one hope the crazy Righties are correct on this. All of the science points to the fact that they are not.

I placed BBC seeds to newsvine from scientist in the UK who are not as clear as the US media about Man-made global warming or disaster scenarios. I found a series of clear thinking boring articles about the Artic and Antartic and there did not appear to any clear answer(no melting ice caps). We have to go the US media that helped to create Iraq and then helps to disavow to find new disasters in the making.

Man I was all about to get up in arms. Then I read Mykola. Fortunately then I saw a smiling Newt Gingrich on the seed source, looking to deliver his words directly to my email. And I said, "meh!" Let them believe as they choose....
Ill choose a p < .001, thanks. .05 is fine too but you know...sometimes.... you just gotta say, "self liberate, even the antidote."

I read Myk's article, read the article at Human Events, and then have found myself wondering why you asked us to do that....

...where's the antisemitic angle, and where's omaha jim?

:)

In all seriousness, I wish that this author had more space in his column to devote to sourcing his information. Right now it appears many of the folks here are tearing down the author, and not the substance of his arguments.... until we have sources for his arguments, I don't see this changing.

quite interesting.

Quote:

"The U.S. rejects the Kyoto Protocol's energy-rationing scheme, along with 155 other countries"

Huh? Nonsense. This from the Wikipedia entry on Kyoto:

As of December 2006, a total of 169 countries and other governmental entities have ratified the agreement (representing over 61.6% of emissions from Annex I countries). Source: UNFCC

Pretty clear case of misinformation there.

Well, well, well . . . there's quite a bit of passion with this subject. I personally agree with the comment that we can't ignore the many scientific minds who have collectively analyzed this situation. To do so would be rather foolish.

In farcast_01's post he states: "

Ok sorry it's actually 100%. 928 Scientific abstracts about climate between 1993 and 2003 were analyzed and all of them agreed with this statement:

"Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise"

Pretty clear to me.

Source:

{"commentId":558779,"threadId":"79897","contentId":"587057","authorDomain":"farcast01"}

• 2 votes

- Wed Feb 28, 2007 11:33 AM EST"

I would like to know the names and Professional Fields of Study of these Scientists and have links to their ACTUAL reports....

I keep reading people on here (pro-climate change) say that the Author is full of it because he does not link refrences for his statements, so I say to you......

Put-Up or Shut-Up...... Post links to scientific studies (the full study, not only portions of studies used to support one side or the other) which state for a fact that the so-called global warming epicedimic is "MAN MADE" and is "CAUSED BY MAN"....


I even read bridge_11's statement of: "

So, Bridge_11, are you saying that if someone has a different opinion than you we should just kill them?

Post the links to the 900 plus reports in their entirety, maybe in researching them you may actually take upon your selves (both the pro and con warming thinkers) to become informed about both sides of the issues )actually READ) and start thinking for your self instead of everyone repeating the same arguments on both sides.

It would be nice if someone actually took the time to make an "INFORMED" decision about the issue and posted their opinions bassed on that.

Jim

To start research for your self, dispute these scientific studies..... I guess "ALL" the worlds scientists DO NOT agree that global warming is man made.... Read all the refrence reports also, I have.....

Here's the web address:

Well, since I can't post links, here is one from a "credable" source.........

On The Hijacking of the American Meteorological Society (AMS)

by Bill Gray
Professor Emeritus
Colorado State University

(AMS Fellow, Charney Award recipient, and over 50-year member)
I am appalled at the selection of James Hansen as this year’s recipient of the AMS’s highest award – the Rossby Research Medal. James Hansen has not been trained as a meteorologist. His formal education has been in astronomy. His long records of faulty global climate predictions and alarmist public pronouncements have become increasingly hollow and at odds with reality. Hansen has exploited the general public’s lack of knowledge of how the globe’s climate system functions for his own benefit. His global warming predictions, going back to 1988 are not being verified. Why have we allowed him go on for all these years with his faulty and alarmist prognostications? And why would the AMS give him its highest award?

By presenting Hansen with its highest award, the AMS implies it agrees with his faulty global temperature projections and irresponsible alarmist rhetoric. This award, in combination with other recent AMS awards going to known CO2 warming advocates, is an insult to a large number of AMS members who do not believe that humans are causing a significant amount of the global temperature increase. These awards diminish the AMS’s sterling reputation for scientific objectivity.

Hansen previously studied the run-away greenhouse warming of Venus. He appears to think that man’s emittance of CO2 gases, if unchecked, will eventually cause the Earth to follow a similar fate. Hansen’s arrogance and gall over the reality of his model results is breathtaking. He has recently warned President Obama that our country has only 4 years left to act on reducing CO2 gases before the globe will reach a point of irretrievable and disastrous human-caused warming. How does he know what thousands of us who have spent long careers in meteorology-climatology do not know?

Hansen’s predictions of global warming made before the Senate in 1988 are turning out to be very much less than he had projected. He cannot explain why there has been no significant global warming over the last 10 years and why there has been a weak global cooling between 2001 and 2008.

Hansen and his legion of environmental-political supporters (with no meteorological-climate background) have done monumental damage to an open and honest discussion of the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) question. He and his fellow collaborators (and their media sycophantic followers) are responsible for the brainwashing of a large segment of the American public about a grossly exaggerated human-induced warming
threat that does not exist. Most of the global warming we have observed is of natural origin and due to multi-decadal and multi-century changes in the globe’s deep ocean circulation resulting from salinity variations (see the Appendix for scientific discussion). These changes are not associated with CO2 increases. Hansen has little experience in practical meteorology. He apparently does not realize that the strongly chaotic nature of the atmosphere-ocean climate system does not allow for skillful initial value numerical climate prediction. Hansen’s modeling efforts are badly flawed in the following ways:

1.
His upper tropospheric water vapor feedback loop is grossly wrong. He assumes that increases in atmospheric CO2 will cause large upper-tropospheric water vapor increases which are very unrealistic. Most of his model warming follows from his invalid water vapor assumptions. His handlings of rainfall processes are, as with the other global climate modelers, quite inadequate.

2.
He lacks an understanding and treatment of the fundamental role of the deep ocean circulation (i.e. Meridional Overturning Circulation – MOC) and how the changing ocean circulation (driven by salinity variations) can bring about wind, rainfall, and surface temperature changes independent of radiation and greenhouse gas changes. He does not have these ocean processes properly incorporated in his model. He assumes the physics of global warming is entirely a product of radiation changes and radiation feedback processes. This is a major deficiency.

Hansen’s Free Ride. It is surprising that Hansen has been able to get away with his unrealistic modeling efforts for so long. One explanation is that he has received strong support from Senator/Vice President Al Gore who for over three decades has attempted to make political capital out of increasing CO2 measurements. Another reason is the many environmental and political groups (including the mainstream media) who are eager to use Hansen’s modeling results as justification to push their own special interests that are able to fly under the global warming banner. A third explanation is that he has not been challenged by his peer climate modeling groups who apparently have seen possibilities for research grant support and publicity gains by following Hansen’s lead. Yet another reason has been the luck of his propitious timing. His 1988 Senate testimony occurred after there had been global warming since the mid-1970s and we were experiencing a hot summer. And the global warming that occurred over the next 10 years (to 1998) gave an undeserved justification to his CO2 warming claims. Had Hansen given his Senate testimony in the 1970s or today (since we have seen weak global cooling since 2001) his alarmist rhetoric would have been taken much less seriously.

I anticipate that we are going to experience a modest naturally-driven global cooling over the next 15-20 years. This will be similar to the weak global cooling that occurred between the early-1940s and the mid-1970s. It is to be noted that CO2 amounts were also rising during this earlier cooling period which was opposite to the assumed CO2 temperature relationship.

An expected 15-20 year cooling will occur (in my view) because of the strong ocean Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC) that has now been established and in place for the last decade and a half. This same condition had been present in the mid-1940s when the globe began a sustained three decade weak cooling. I explain most of the century and-a-half general global warming since the mid-1800s (start of the industrial revolution) to be a result of a long multi-century slowdown in the ocean’s MOC circulation. Increases of CO2 could have contributed only a small fraction (0.1-0.2oC) of the roughly ~ 0.7oC warming that has been observed since 1850. Stronger natural processes have had to have been responsible for most of the observed warming over the last century and a half.

AMS. The American Meteorological Society (AMS) was founded in 1919 as an organization dedicated to advancing scientific knowledge of weather and climate. It has been a wonderful beacon for fostering new understanding of how the atmosphere and oceans function. But this strong positive image is now becoming tarnished as a result of the AMS leadership’s capitulating to the lobby of the climate modelers and to the outside environmental and political pressure groups who wish to use the now AMS position on AGW to help justify the promotion of their own special interests. The effectiveness of the AMS as an objective scientific organization has been greatly compromised.

We AMS members have allowed a small group of AMS administrators, climate modelers, and CO2 warming sympathizers to maneuver the internal workings of our society to support AGW policies irrespective of what our rank-and-file members might think. This small organized group of AGW sympathizers has indeed hijacked our society.

Debate. The AMS is the most relevant of our country’s scientific societies as regards to its members having the most extensive scientific and technical background in meteorology and climate. It should have been a leader in helping to adjudicate the claims of the AGW advocates and their skeptical critics. Our country’s Anglo-Saxon derived legal system is based on the idea that the best way to get to the truth is to have opposite sides of a continuous issue present their differing views in open debate before a non partisan jury. Nothing like this has happened with regards to the AGW issue. Instead of organizing meetings with free and open debates on the basic physics and the likelihood of AGW induced climate changes, the leaders of the society (with the backing of the society’s AGW enthusiasts) have chosen to fully trust the climate models and deliberately avoid open debate on this issue. I know of no AMS sponsored conference where the AGW hypothesis has been given open and free discussion. For a long time I have wanted a forum to express my skepticism of the AGW hypothesis. No such opportunities ever came within the AMS framework. Attempts at publication of my skeptic views have been difficult. One rejection stated that I was too far out of the mainstream thinking. Another that my ideas had already been discredited. A number of AGW skeptics have told me they have had similar experiences.

The climate modelers and their supporters deny the need for open debate of the AGW question on the grounds that the issue has already been settled by their model results. They have taken this view because they know that the physics within their models and the long range of their forecast periods will likely not to be able to withstand knowledgeable and impartial review (see Appendix). They simply will not debate the issue. As a defense against criticism they have resorted to a general denigration of those of us who do not support their AGW hypothesis. AGW skeptics are sometimes tagged (I have been) as no longer being credible scientists. Skeptics are often denounced as tools of the fossil-fuel industry. A type of McCarthyism against AGW skeptics has been in display for a number of years.

Recent AMS Awardees. Since 2000 the AMS has awarded its annual highest award (Rossby Research Medal) to the following AGW advocates or AGW sympathizers; Susan Solomon (00), V. Ramanathan (02), Peter Webster (04), Jagadish Shukla (05), Kerry Emanuel (07), Isaac Held (08) and James Hansen (09). Its second highest award (Charney Award) has gone to AGW warming advocates or sympathizers; Kevin Trenberth (00), Rich Rotunno (04), Robert D. Cess (06), Allan Betts (07), Gerald North (08) and Warren Washington and Gerald Meehl (09). And the other Rossby and Charney awardees during this period are not known to be critics of the AGW warming hypothesis.

The AGW biases within the AMS policy makers is so entrenched that it would be impossible for well known and established scientists (but AGW skeptics) such as Fred Singer, Pat Michaels, Bill Cotton, Roger Pielke, Sr., Roy Spencer, John Christie, Joe D’Aleo, Bob Balling, Jr., Craig Idso, Willie Soon, etc. to ever be able to receive an AMS award – irrespective of the uniqueness or brilliance of their research.
What Working Meteorologists Say. My interaction (over the years) with a broad segment of AMS members (that I have met as a result of my seasonal hurricane forecasting and other activities) who have spent a sizable portion of their careers down in the meteorological trenches of observations and forecasting, have indicated that a majority of them do not agree that humans are the primary cause of global warming. These working meteorologists are too experienced and too sophisticated to be hoodwinked by the lobby of climate simulations and their associated propagandists. I suggest that the AMS conduct a survey of its members who are actually working with real time weather-climate data to see how many agree that humans have been the main cause of global warming and that there was justification for the AMS’s 2009 Rossby Research Medal going to James Hansen.

Many thousands of scientists from the US and around the globe do not accept the human-induced global warming hypothesis as it has been presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports over the last 15 years. These IPCC reports have largely followed the global modeling results and despite the Noble Prize Award that its authors received, should not be taken as having any credibility concerning its future of its climate predictions.
A doubling of anthropogenic greenhouse gases will not cause global warming anything like the 2-5oC as projected by nearly all of the GCMs climate simulators and as accepted by the IPCC. I estimate that we will see a global warming resulting from a doubling of CO2 of only about 0.3-0.5oC (see Appendix).

Humankind can adapt to this much lower level of global warming without having to sacrifice much of its fossil fuel energy usage to much costlier renewable energy. If society is to eventually convert from fossil fuel to renewable energy it would be much more economic and far wiser if this conversion took place over a long period of time without having to be held hostage to the belief that we must hurry because a massive global temperature increase is rapidly approaching.

Global Environmental Problems. There is no question that global population increases and growing industrialization have caused many environmental problems associated with air and water pollution, industrial contamination, unwise land use, and hundreds of other human-induced environmental irritants. But all these human-induced environmental problems will not go away by a draconian effort to reduce CO2 emissions. CO2 is not a pollutant but a fertilizer. Humankind needs fossil-fuel energy to maintain its industrial lifestyle and to expand this lifestyle in order to be able to better handle these many other non-CO2 environmental problems. There appears to be a misconception among many people that by reducing CO2 we are dealing with our most pressing environmental problem. Not so.
It must be remembered that advanced industrial societies do more for the global environment than do poor societies. By greatly reducing CO2 emissions and paying a great deal more for our then needed renewable energy we will lower our nation’s standard of living and not be able to help relieve as many of our and the globe’s many environmental, political, and social problems.

Obtaining a Balanced View on AGW. To understand what is really occurring with regards to the AGW question one must bypass the AMS, the mainstream media, and the mainline scientific journals. They have mostly been preconditioned to accept the AGW hypothesis and, in general, frown on anyone not agreeing that AGW is, next to nuclear war, our society’s most serious long range problem.
To obtain any kind of a balanced back-and-forth discussion on AGW one has to consult the many web blogs that are both advocates and skeptics of AGW. These blogs are the only source for real open debate on the validity of the AGW hypothesis. Here is where the real science of the AGW question is taking place. Over the last few years the weight of evidence, as presented in these many blog discussions, is swinging very much against the AGW hypothesis. As the globe fails to warm as the models have predicted the American public is gradually losing its belief in the prior claims of Gore, Hansen, and the other AGW advocates.

Heartland Institute. We should all be grateful to the non-profit Heartland Institute of Chicago for attempting to break up the one-way group thinking mentality on AGW by its beginning sponsorship of annual global climate change meetings each year in New York City. The second annual Heartland sponsored meeting will be held on 8-10 March 2009 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in central Manhattan. This meeting offers an international venue (the only one I know of) for an open and fair discussion of the many problems associated with the AGW hypothesis.

Obama Administration Impending Actions.
In November ’08 President-Elect Barack Obama said,
“storms (i.e. hurricanes) are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season.”
In his inaugural address on 20 January, President Obama said,“we will roll back the specter of a warming planet” and “we will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories.”

All three of these statements are either untrue or impossible to accomplish without severe (and unacceptable) economic penalties.
It is obvious that the new Obama administration believes the AGW propaganda. They have listened and continue to listen to the wrong set of advisors. We can expect the new administration to make a major effort to push for CO2 restrictions despite this very troubled time of economic downturn. Obama has appointed AGW sympathizers to head the Dept. of Energy (Stephen Chu), Director of NOAA (Jane Lubchenco), Director of Science and Technology Policy (John Holdren), and for his new Global Warming and Energy Czar (Carol Browner – a lawyer and a former Clinton cabinet member). Our new Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, has appointed Todd Stern (the man who lead the U.S. delegation at Kyoto) to be her and our country’s official climate advisor. Stern will act as our country’s representative to all upcoming international climate conferences. Lisa Jackson is the new Chief of the EPA and is empowered to enforce clean air standards. If President Obama moves to classify carbon dioxide as a dangerous pollutant to be regulated by the EPA, as he pledged during his campaign, a powerful edit to reduce CO2 gases could be forthcoming from the EPA. This would cause many negative changes to American society and do nothing of significance for the environment. We also have powerful congressional leaders such as Henry Waxman, Nancy Pelosi, Diane Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, and John Kerry, waiting in the wings to make a strong push for reduced CO2 emissions. Reducing CO2 amounts at his time is definitely not in our country’s best
interest. Especially if we are to encounter a modest global cooling over the next 10-15 years (as I am confident will occur).

The economic crisis that has suddenly come upon us is quite sobering. Let us hope it will justify a postponement of plans for any significant reduction of CO2 gases for the next few years at least.

Postponement of action on CO2 reductions would allow more time for a deeper and more objective analysis of the AGW question. And if the current lack of global warming (since 1999) and/or the weak global cooling since 2001 continues for a few more years, it may be possible to convince enough of the American public, the Obama administration, and our congressional leaders to alter their AGW views. The science just isn’t there to justify action on large reductions of CO2 at this time. Our best policy now should be to “do nothing.”

Is our modern society the cause of "So Called" Global Warming?........

Was it warmer than this before?..........

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5e Shoreline and Deposits, Northwestern Alaska

Emergent-Marine Record and Paleoclimate of the Last Interglaciation Along The Northwest Alaskan Coast

Julie Brigham-Grette

Department of Geology and Geography, University of Massachusetts, Box 35820 Amherst, MA 01003-5820
David M. Hopkins

Alaska Quaternary Center, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK 99775-1200
The last interglacial high-sea stand, the Pelukian transgression of isotope substage 5e, is recorded along the by discontinuous but clearly traceable marine terraces and coastal landforms up to about 10 m asl. The stratigraphy indicates that sea level reached this elevation only once during the last interglacial cycle. From the type area at Nome, to St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea, to the eastern limit of the Beaufort Sea, Pelukian deposits contain extralimital faunas indicating coastal waters were warmer than present. Amino acid ratios in molluscs from these deposits decrease to the north toward Barrow, consistent with the modern regional temperature gradient. Fossil assemblages at Nome and St. Lawrence Island suggest that the winter sea-ice limit was north of Bering Strait, at least 800 km north of its present position, and the Bering Sea was perennially ice-free. Microfauna in Pelukian sediments recovered from boreholes indicate that Atlantic water may have been present on the shallow Beaufort Shelf, suggesting that the Arctic Ocean was not stratified and the Arctic sea-ice cover was not perennial for some period. In coastal regions of western Alaska, spruce woodlands extended westward beyond their modern range and in northern Alaska, on the Arctic Coastal Plain, spruce groves may have entered the upper Colville River basin. The Flaxman member of the Gubik Formation on the Alaskan Arctic Coastal Plain was deposited during marine isotope substage 5a and records the breakup of an intra-stage 5 ice sheet over the western Canadian Arctic.

On Baldwin Peninsula, near Kotzebue, Alaska, the last interglaciation is represented by a series of organic rich terrestrial deposits including sediments of former thaw lake ponds. In at least three places below the interglacial deposits, we have found the Old Crow Tephra, dated to about 140,000 years. Study of these deposits and the paleoclimatic history they contain concerning the last interglaciation is planned in future work in the region.