The Heartland Institute’s James Taylor has written a great response to an article in today’s WSJ singing the praises of the recent “report” from the United Nations on global warming. It is short but to the point.
Wall
Street Journal columnist Sharon Begley?s February 9 article, “Climate
Pessimists Were Right,” claims the just-released Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Summary for
Policymakers provides proof that “the reality of climate change has
been even worse than the alarming forecasts.” The article
misstates the facts regarding many particulars.
Begley asserts that global temperatures have risen by ?one-third of a
degree Celsius since 1990.? This assertion is correct only if one
believes the surface-based temperature stations which are prone to
corruption by the urban heat island effect and other arbitrary
factors. More reliable satellite-based measurements show less
warming. Even so, the surface-based temperature readings indicate
a warming of merely 2 degrees Celsius per century, which is hardly
alarming. Begley herself notes that in 1990 IPCC predicted a more
significant 3 degree warming per century. This prediction was
repeated in IPCC?s 2001 report. Certainly, the ongoing pace of 2
degree warming is n ot “even worse than the alarming forecasts.”
Begley asserts that sea level is rising at 3.3 millimeters per
year. This is a pace for merely one foot of sea-level rise per
century. As Begley herself notes, IPCC estimated a sea-level rise
of 2 feet per century in 1990 and 1995. The ongoing pace of
merely one foot of sea-level rise per century is certainly not ?even
worse than the alarming forecasts.”
Begley asserts that ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are
“disintegrating faster than even the 2001 IPCC report
anticipated.” This is simply not true. It is undisputed
that Antarctica has gained, rather than lost, ice mass during the past
several decades, as temperatures have significantly cooled over most of
the continent. In fact, IPCC acknowledges in its new findings
that the Antarctic ice cap is likely to grow rather than shrink
throughout the 21st century. The failure of Antarctica to lose
even a cubic inch of ice mass is certainly not “even worse than the
alarmi ng for ecasts.”
Greenland similarly has been gaining ice mass. While the edges of
the Greenland ice sheet have been retreating, the interior is gaining
mass. Data as recent as 2003 indicate a net growth for the ice
sheet as a whole. Only in the brief period since 2004 is there a
net loss in the Greenland ice sheet. Such a short interval is
insufficient to establish a long-term trend, and the rate of loss is
insignificant compared to the size of the ice sheet as a whole.
As climatologist Dr. Patrick Michaels, a past president of the American
Association of State Climatologists, observes, “the lost ice is
equivalent to .0004% per year of all of the ice in Greenland per year,
or a mere 0.4% per century.” This is certainly not “even worse
than the alarming forecasts.”
Begley would have been well-served to take into account the Wall Street
Journal?s own assessment (published February 5) of the new IPCC
Summary. “The real news in the fourth assessment may be how far
it is backpedaling on prior assertions of alarming climate change,”
reported the Journal.”
