-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: Janssens Jan
Verzonden: maandag 6 september 2004 17:03
Aan: brennan@john-daly.com
Today, there were 2 Belgian media-reports on global climate warming:
One had to do with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development claiming CO2 exhaust would double (from 8 to 16 billion tons) by 2050 if no energy-conservation measures were taken now. This should be done by using alternative energies. I tried to find the related study on their website, but could not put my finger on it. There are 2 articles though that come close to it, and they contain the usual scary doom-scenarios and retreating glacier-nonsense that one can find in any low-scientific article.
The other article (without any reference at all) concerns claims about a 3 to 9 degree Celsius rise over the next 100 years in the arctic, leading to its complete disappearance within the next 200-400 years. This claim was based on an apparent retreat of the arctic polar cap with 17% over the last 20 years. The solution would be an immediate and drastic reduction of greenhouse gases. The claims have something to do with a conference of "the 9 countries of the Arctic".
Could you please react on this matter publicly (on your website)? Belgium is really loosing its mind in this matter. Just a few weeks ago, some Belgian scientist/engineer stated that we could stop/slow the rising CO2 by compacting and trapping this greenhouse gas in our coalmines!
Thank you very much for your consideration!
-----Reply-----
From: brennan@john-daly.com
Sent: Monday, September 06, 2004 4:52 PM
To: Janssens Jan
Jan,
There is so much silliness in "news" media around the world about CO2, and climate forecasts, et cetera, that I tend to regard it as a mass mania.
Let me ask for a URL, or link, to the two reports that you described, and let me think about whether I can write something that may be suitable.
I am inclined to write something about the mania rather than about one, or two, particular instances of it, but I have not yet thought of an approach that I regard as suitable.
-----Reply-----
Van: Janssens Jan
Verzonden: dinsdag 7 september 2004 9:59
Aan: brennan@john-daly.com
Jerry,
The 2 small articles that caught my attention appeared on the #1 broadcast chain in Belgium: vrt. They appeared all day on the headlinebar of vrt's opening page. The articles (ma 14:06 and ma 13:59) are in Dutch, but the figures speak for themselves.
The homepage of the wbcsd can be found at this link.
The related articles can be found underneath. The first one gives an idea what wbcsd stands for. To put it bluntly: this seems to be an IPCC-affiliated consortium of companies specialized in alternative energies promoting the greenhouse-hype for their own commercial benefits. The second article is the one with the doom-scenarios.
I found one more link that may be the reason why vrt put this on their website. Apparently, there is a meeting going on in Australia, called the "19th World Energy Congress". The first article of the wbcsd is also referring to that congress. (link)
The conference of Parliamentarians of the Arctic Region seems to be a two-yearly event in which also members of the USA and Europe are participating. This year's conference started last Sunday, hence the reason for the article on the vrt's site. Unfortunately, I haven't found papers with scientific details at the congress's site: they seem only to be published after the meeting. (link)
I hope the above information will help you in writing a comment on this matter. Thanks!
-----Reply-----
From: brennan@john-daly.com
Sent: Tuesday, September 07, 2004 2:33 PM
To: Janssens Jan
Jan,
I cannot read Dutch, but I linked to the WBCSD pages you mentioned, and read their hype. The conference in Australia that they mentioned was briefly discussed in a report linked by link and link. (If you are not familiar with junkscience.com, they link to various "news" reports each weekday morning, and sometimes comment on them, but there is so much junk that it is difficult to keep up with it.)
I do not expect to write an article about that conference, or about the WBCSD, but I would expect to include them if I do compose an article that discusses a variety of recent events. Such an article will take quite some time for me to compose, so it will not happen very soon.
-----Reply-----
Van: Janssens Jan
Verzonden: dinsdag 7 september 2004 16:08
Aan: brennan@john-daly.com
Thanks for the info and the great junkscience-website. I'll add that one to my favorites!
I'll keep an eye on any other specific statements that are even more junk. Today, on the same vrt-website, there was another small hype-article. This time it was based on a result from a Belgian university (belonging to the top 101-universities of the world!). They claim a temperature-rise for Belgium in 2100 by up to 7 degrees Celsius during summer (IPCC worst case scenario only 5°C, globally!). As a consequence, they say sea level would rise by 8 meters (I've read it twice just to make sure).
According to IPCC, by 2100 average sea level would increase by about 1 m only. Moreover, even if all glaciers and polar caps would melt, sea level would rise "only" by 7 meters. However, to do that, temperature should be 5.5°C above average for at least a 1000 years... I've politely asked the vrt-site for a reference of their article, and with which articles they have double-checked the correctness of the university's claims.
It is difficult indeed to keep up with all that junk, but it does generate a feeling of mounting uncomfort of the general public. That's no good, because it is based on bad science and media-hype.
Anyway, thank you for the communication we had on this matter! Kind regards,
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-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: Janssens Jan
Verzonden: woensdag 13 oktober 2004 9:14
Aan: editor@junkscience.com; info@co2andclimate.org
I would like to react on the articles mentioning accelerated [CO2]-increase. I first learned about this news on the Belgian newssite, mentioning the acceleration despite a less than proportional increase in industrial/human [CO2]-exhaust. First of all, the graph underneath clearly shows that this kind of accelerated increases has happened before during the last 50 years, and that these increases were sometimes even more spectacular than the current one (e.g. 1971-1973). On occasion, there have occured significant decreases too (e.g. 1998-1999), so it seems that sources with a very varying appetite for CO2 are at the base of these changes. I would like to remark too that the variations we are discussing are superpositioned on a monotonous increase of [CO2] during the last 50 years, at the ppm-level.
I certainly do not agree with scientist's claims that the CO2-increase is (solely) due to the fossil burning. In the past, [CO2] has reached levels comparable to the current (about 300 ppm). These concentrations came from a 200 ppm-level, though they seem to have taken thousands of years to reach that level (graph underneath)! No fossil burning was responsible for these [CO2]-increases, so other (natural) causes are. I leave the discussion whether [CO2] influences temperature T or vice versa for what it is. A global temperature increase does not necessarily have to be related to a [CO2]-increase: T can globally increase or decrease with 2°C without a significant change in [CO2], and occasionally the evolutions are contradicting (e.g. -70.000 - -80.000BC).
Source: http://www.geocities.com/combusem/CO2HIST.HTM
The foregoing constitutes a major caution-sign for all claims that the exhaust of CO2 and other greenhouse gases by the industry are considered as the (only) culprit for the recent evolution of temperature. Other factors like El Niño do play a role too. Graph underneath shows for the last 40 years (1960-2003) the evolution of global temperature, the year-to-year variance of [CO2] (delta), and the Southern Oscillation Index (the more negative, the stronger El Niño). The series contain absolute values only, no smoothing.
Global temperature and delta [CO2] seem to vary more or less in harmony (with the necessary exceptions), but the highest peaks in delta [CO2] are always preceded by peaks in SOI (strong El Niņo's). The only exception seems to be 1992-1993, where T en delta [CO2] do NOT follow the evolution of SOI. This is probably due to the influende of the eruption of the Mount Pinatubo in 1991. Then, the only real and currently unanswered question that remains, is what the source might be driving the monotonous increase of [CO2] as measured since 1960 (first graph, red curve). This really hints for some global cause (or perhaps even extra-terrestrial origin, like cosmic rays, solar radiation,...), probably even a parameter that yet has not been taken into account or is difficult to accurately be included. It's obvious that the last word on all this remains to be said!
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-----Letter to Realclimate.org (posted on 29 Jan 05, never published on their site)-----
These 2 links are a translation of an article in the Dutch magazine "Natuurwetenschap & Techniek" (Natural sciences & Technology; link) of February 05. The hardpaper copy I have contains also a very comprehensive supplement showing the differences in approach of temperature reconstruction between Mann et al. and McIntyre/McKitrick (MM). Contrary to Mann's, MM's conclusion is that the last 10-15 years are NOT the warmest of the last millennium.
Contrary to this post's conclusion, a flawed hockey stick DOES change matters. It means that other causes (causes that at this time are disregarded, unknown or possibly underestimated) can drive global climate in the same way we are actually experiencing. Thus, the factor greenhouse gases (CO2 in particular) is reduced to just one of possible causes of the observed global warming. It is not because several parameters/proxies show the presence of human industrialization (other posts on Realclimate.org), that there is an automatic link to global warming. This is an important given for the policymakers. CO2-reduction and efficient use of energy and land may be good for environment and pollution-cutting, but will not necessarily decrease global temperature.
There are numerous indications that temperature was significantly higher during medieval times than nowadays. I'm talking DEGREES.
The foregoing examples prove at least that global temperatures have been fluctuating a lot more than Mann's hockey stick seems to allow.
The most astonishing of the whole story is the way science has been performed in this matter. Aside from Mann and the IPCC, also the prestigious magazine "Nature" and the "National Science Foundation" are not exactly excelling in scientific objectivity and cooperation. When I saw the posts here on "Peer review", it surely made me smile. I can only hope the objectivity in future debates change in a more positive direction. After all science is the pursuit of truth, not the forcing of it.
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