Mensch tracht, und Gott lacht

Saturday, July 09, 2005

Russian Science Director Refutes Warming Claims

Yury Izrael, director of the Russian Academy of Science’s Global Climate and Ecology Institute, issued a scathing indictment of global warming alarmism, published June 28 by the Russian News and Information Agency (http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20050623/40748412.html)

The following are excerpts from Izrael’s comments:


According to 10,000 meteorological stations, average temperatures have increased by just 0.6 degrees in the last 100 years. But there is no scientifically sound evidence of the negative processes that allegedly begin to take place at such temperatures.

Global temperatures increased throughout the 1940s, declined in the 1970s, and subsequently began to rise again. Present-day global warming resembles the 1940s, when ships could easily navigate Arctic passages.

However, man's impact was much smaller at that time. A Russian expedition that recently returned from the central Antarctic says that temperatures are now starting to decrease. These sensational findings are one of Mother Nature's surprises.

The European Union has established by fiat that a two-degree rise in global temperatures would be quite dangerous. However, this data is not scientifically sound.

Many specialists estimate the peak atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration at 400 PPM.

Our calculations show that carbon-dioxide concentrations would increase by just 800 PPM if all known and produced fuel were incinerated in the space of a few hours. But we will never reach this ceiling. In ancient times the Earth had periods when maximum CO2 concentrations were 6,000 PPM (in Carboniferous period). But life still goes on.

In other words, we must comprehend what will happen while the carbon-dioxide levels will grow from the current 378 PPM to 800 PPM, that will hypothetically occur when all the fuel on earth is burned.

Global temperatures will likely rise by 1.4-5.8 degrees during the next 100 years. The average increase will be three degrees. I do not think that this threatens mankind. Sea levels, due to rise by 47 cm in the 21st century, will not threaten port cities.

10 comments:

Hunter Baker said...

I'd like to know if the Russians signed the Kyoto treaty.

Kathy Hutchins said...

I'd like to know if the Russians signed the Kyoto treaty.

The Russian Duma ratified Kyoto last November, when it became clear that there would be no cost to Russia to do so. Kyoto pegs emissions reductions to the levels produced in 1990. Russia's economy is so in the tank compared to 1990 that they're already meeting the Kyoto requirements. In fact, they can probably make money on the deal by selling their emissions credits. Sometimes these old Commies out-capitalist us capitalists, eh?

S. T. Karnick said...

Of course the director of the Russian Academy of Science’s Global Climate and Ecology Institute is ignorant! That explains everything.

Kathy Hutchins said...

It's worth noting that the latest assessment report, to which Tlaloc provided the link, was issued in 2001. I'm not sure when the 4th assessment report is due; there have been some interim reports published earlier this year. Dr. Izrael is referring to contradictory observations that have been made since 2001, and there have been other anomalies such as the reversal of ice loss in the Antarctic and a better understanding of the cyclic glacier patterns in the Alps. It will be interesting to see how (or indeed if) these contrarian data points are dealt with in the 4th assessment.

The scientific issues at play here are insanely complex, the data sources are gargantuan and open to collection and interpretation error, and constructing integrated models requires a dozen different disciplines to cooperate with each other. What the IPCC is trying to do would be next to impossible under the best of circumstances. The political opportunism that infects every step of this process is far from the best of circumstances.

Kathy Hutchins said...

Source on Antarctic ice shelf:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/24/ice_shelf_collapse/

Note that this guy is not a greenhouse skeptic; he just doesn't think the satellite data support a conclusion that continent-wide the ice is decreasing.

Kathy Hutchins said...

since this guy explicitly says that global warming is happening and only diagrees as to which of the symptoms are directly linked to it it hardly supports your position

How the hell do you know my "position" (to the extent I have one) on global warming?

Just to save you from having to guess, here is my position: this science is not yet ripe for policymaking, but it's being forced to take on that responsibility anyway. I am not a big believer in the Bob Geldof "We have to do something, even if it's wrong" approach. I accept that concentrations of atmospheric CO2 are increasing. I accept that at least locally, various climate measures are outside the historical range. I accept that humans engage in a lot of CO2 releasing activity. I do not think that the relations and feedbacks among these three things are well understood. I think the connections among these factors and any multi-factor variables affecting humans either positively or negatively, such as sea level, precipitation patterns, plant growth, cloud formation, etc, are at best at the SWAG level. I think we have absolutely no bleeding idea whether adopting Kyoto-type measures will have any affect at all on CO2 concentration, never mind the tenuous chains of causality to all the conditions that might actually be of importance.

And, lastly, I think that when you don't know what the hell you're dealing with, it is far better to pursue a strategy that maximizes your ability to deal with the unforeseen than it is to devote resources to preventing some specific undesirable outcome. On the whole, we know from experience that richer, more technically advanced economies that rely on market forces to direct resource use are more flexible, innovative, and resilient than those that are not. Therefore, in the face of uncertainty, the best overall strategy is to be rich and free.

Kathy Hutchins said...

When I say the science is complex, I do not mean my own understanding of it. I don't understand how the engine in my Jeep Cherokee works. I'm an economist because I was too good at math to be a sociologist but not good enough to be a chemist. I am speaking of the state of the models as reported and described by the people who work on them. Read the latest WG1 report. Not the summary, not the press releases, not the write-up in New Scientist. Read the entire report. Then when you've finished with that, read the WG2 and 3 reports. Work your way through the data appendices. In particular, study WG1 section 8.10.3, in which the participating scientists evaluate, quite openly, what they don't adequately understand about general circulation models. And this is just the physical science side of it! To model climate scenarios 100 years out, and take account of the effect of human activity on same, you're not only making long range projections about climate, but about economic activity, technology changes, population distributions, and on and on.

I'm not a climatologist, but I have worked on very large computer models. Because of that, I respect what the IPCC scientists have already accomplished. I do not respect what the claque of international bureaucrats, rent-seekers, and professional hand-wringers have done with the 1/1000 of the results they have chosen to exploit.

Kathy Hutchins said...

Your CD player still play CDs. Pharmaceuticals still get discovered. And the planet still warms.

"The planet still warms" -- once you've figured out how many data points, distributed in which 3-dimensional grid, and then repeated backward how many time periods, you need to say such a thing -- is not a prediction, or a theoretical construct, or a model output. (1) It's an observation. Where does it get you? You still need to know (2) what is causing the warming. You need to know (3)how much, if any, of the warming is anthropogenic. You need to know (4) what harms and benefits the warming will cause. You need to know (5) what, if anything, in the power of man could mitigate the warming. You need to know (6) what the costs and benefits of various mitigating strategies will be.

Read the 2001 reports and tell me, with a straight face, that the scientists claim that they are confident in the answers to any of those questions past number 1. Succeed, and I'll nominate you for an Academy Award.

Anonymous said...

Tlaloc, your response here is nothing but a bunch of assertions with no evidence to back it up. You can't prove what you say, but you'll never admit it. Sad.

Anonymous said...

Great, you back up your unsubstantiated assertions by restating them and claiming everybody believes them. Very persuasive.