1 Temperatures have been cooling since 2002, even as carbon dioxide has
continued to rise.
2 Carbon dioxide is a trace gas and by itself will produce little warming.
Also, as CO2 increases, the incremental warming is less, as the effect is
logarithmic so the more CO2, the less warming it produces.
3 CO2 has been totally uncorrelated with temperature over the last decade
and significantly negative since 2002.
4 CO2 is not a pollutant, but a naturally occurring gas. Together with
chlorophyll and sunlight, it is an essential ingredient in photosynthesis
and is, accordingly, plant food.
5 Reconstruction of paleoclimatological CO2 concentrations demonstrates that
carbon dioxide concentration today is near its lowest level since the
Cambrian Era some 550 million years ago, when there was almost 20 times as
much CO2 in the atmosphere as there is today without causing a "runaway
greenhouse effect."
6 Temperature changes lead, not lag, CO2 changes on all time scales. The
oceans may play a key role, emitting carbon dioxide when they warm as
carbonated beverages lose fizz as they warm and absorbing it as they cool.
7 Most of the warming in the climate models comes from the assumption that
water vapor and precipitation increase as temperatures warm, a strong
positive feedback. Water vapor is a far more important greenhouse gas than
CO2. However, that assumption has been shown in observations and peer
reviewed research to be wrong, and in fact water vapor and precipitation act
as a negative feedback that reduces any small greenhouse warming from carbon
dioxide.
8 Indeed, greenhouse models show the warming should be greatest at mid to
high atmosphere levels in the tropics. But balloon and satellite
observations show cooling there. The greenhouse signature or DNA does not
match reality, and the greenhouse models thus must greatly overstate the
warming - and in a court of law would have to be acquitted of any role in
global warming
9 The sun has both direct and indirect effects on our climate. Solar
activity changes on cycles of 11 years and longer. When the sun is more
active it is brighter and a little hotter. More important though are the
indirect effects. Ultraviolet radiation increases much more than the
brightness and causes increased ozone production, which generates heat in
the high atmosphere that works its way down, affecting the weather. Also, an
active sun diffuses cosmic rays, which play an important role in nucleation
of low clouds, resulting in fewer clouds. In all these ways the sun warms
the planet more when it is active. An active sun in the 1930s and again near
the end of the last century helped produce the observed warming periods. The
current solar cycle is the longest in over 100 years; an unmistakable sign
of a cooling sun that historical patterns suggest will stay so for decades.
10 The multidecadal cycles in the ocean correlate extremely well with the
solar cycles and global temperatures. These are 60 to 70 year cycles that
relate to natural variations in the large-scale circulations. Warm oceans
correlate with warm global temperatures. The Pacific started cooling in the
late 1990s and it accelerated in the last year, and the Atlantic has cooled
from its peak in 2004. This supports the observed global land temperature
cooling, which is strongly correlated with ocean heat content. Newly
deployed N.O.A.A. buoys confirm global ocean cooling.
11 Warmer ocean cycles are periods with diminished Arctic ice cover. When
the oceans were warm in the 1930s to the 1950s, Arctic ice diminished and
Greenland warmed. The recent ocean warming, especially in the 1980s to the
early 2000s, is similar to what took place 70 years ago and the Arctic ice
has reacted much the same way, with diminished summer ice extent.
12 Antarctic ice has been increasing and the extent last year was the
greatest in the satellite monitoring era. We are running ahead of last
year's record pace.
What will it take for the media to let go of their biases and begin doing
their job, reporting the truth?
Joseph D'Aleo is executive director of Icecap.

===========================

Robert Ferguson, President
Science and Public Policy Institute
www.scienceandpublicpolicy.org
bferguson@sppinstitute.org
202-288-5699

Good Neighbor Committee
P.O. Box 155 - La Salle, CO  80645
info@goodneighborlaw.com

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