By Rick Rappaport
Uh oh, I was going to quote this statement by the United Nations World
Meterological Organization attributing much of the extreme weather that
wreaked havoc in Asia, Europe and the Pacific region last year to human induced
climate change, but then I realized the Oregonian guest columnist slamming global warming as some kind of exaggeration or hoax was an astrophysicist.
I mean, I was going to quote a statement by the World Meteorlogical Organization
(United Nations) that 2013 was the sixth warmest year on record, as well as a statement from its secretary general, Michael Jarraud, that 13 of the 14 warmest
years on record have occurred in the last14 years, that rising sea levels have led to increasing damage from storm surges and coastal flooding (citing Typhoon Haiyan) and that many of the extreme events of 2013 were consistent with what we would expect as a result of human-induced climate change.
But to go up against an astrophysicist I would need better ammunition for sure. So then I was going to talk about the IPCC 2013 5th Assessment Report (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), hoping there was at least one astrophysicist among those 100 top climate scientists from 195 signatory countries so I would have some good backup. I mean it’s some powerful stuff that came out, and this IPCC group only meets every 5-7 years and its published conclusions have to be 100 percent agreed upon by all nations represented at the conference. What came out in their 5th Assessment Report, building upon their 4th Assessment Report from 2007, collides head on with the astrophysicist guest columnist, in that Report’s “Summary for Policyholders,” to wit:
1. “It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of
the observed warming since the mid-20th century.”
2. “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia. The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, sea level has risen, and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased.”
3. “In the Northern Hemisphere, 1983-2012 was likely the warmest 30-year period
of the last 1400 years.”
4. “Ocean warming dominates the increase in energy stored in the climate system,
accounting for more than 90% of the energy accumulated between 1971 and 2010. It is virtually certain that the upper ocean (0-700 meters) warmed from 1971-2010.”
5. “Over the last two decades, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have been
losing mass, glaciers have continued to shrink almost worldwide, and Arctic sea ice and Northern Hemisphere spring snow cover have continued to decrease in extent.”
6. “The rate of sea level rise since the mid-19th century has been larger than the mean rate during the previous 2000 years. Over the period 1971-2010, global mean sea level rose by 0.19 meters.”
7. “Human influence on the climate system is clear. This is evident from the increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, positive radiative
forcing, observed warming, and understanding of the climate system.”
8. “Continued emissions of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and
changes in all components of the climate system. Limiting climate change will
require substantial and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions.”
Yikes!, Also powerful stuff, but can these 100 top climate scientists from 195 nations overcome the arguments of the astrophysicist? Well I didn’t spot an astrophysicist degree among the 100 scientists listed for the IPCC Report, but they did publish an entire section of their report addressing that 1998-2012 cooling observation and concluded that volcanic activity primarily caused simulation models to diverge from observation. The IPCC then addressed volcanic activity and other natural unpredictable events that could affect surface temperature by noting that those events are not included in simulations because of their “internal variability”, ie., unpredictability.
Can these events affect surface temperature? Yes. Are these events going to stop global warming in its tracks? No. These are events, not trends.
So there you have it, the top 100 climate scientists from 195 nations of the world in 100 percent unanimous agreement that climate change is human caused vs. the astrophysicist guest columnist. Hey, don’t be fooled by the overwhelmingly huge numbers of climate scientists reaching unprecedented unanimity, OK? I mean astrophysics is the study of some of the Big Questions facing humans: How does the Universe work; how did we get here; are we alone?
I can’t answer them either but I can say that they won’t mean diddly squat if we don’t do something about the inevitable havoc that will descend upon us if reputable newspapers like The Oregonian continue to publish these unfounded climate change-denial rants.
Rick Rappaport lives in Northeast Portland.