A scientist's take on global warming
By JEFFREY P. SCHAFFER
John Stephens' piece on global warming ("From AmCan to Greenland, take action on warming," Oct. 24) outdoes Al Gore's "Inconvenient (Half) Truth" in hysteria.
Gore actually got quite a bit right, but his 20-foot sea level rise due to rapid melting of the Greenland ice sheet is far from reality, and Stephens' 23-foot rise in two or three years is worse. At an April 2007 American Association of Geographers conference I attended, its session on global warming produced estimates of only four to six inches by 2100, and that included Greenland ice melting three times faster than in the previous decade. Still, most would put the rise at one foot; the extremists, at three feet.
My background in science started in 1961 at M.I.T., and then later, at Berkeley. In addition to a full range of biological and geoscience courses (double major), I had a rigorous course on meteorology (physics of weather). Starting in 1972, when scientists were convinced global cooling was about to destroy civilization, I began to make weather observations in the Sierra Nevada (along with biological and geoscience observations). Beginning in 1986 I became seriously interested in global warming, and learned that the sea level would rise about 20 feet very rapidly due to melting ice shelves and sea ice. However, as any science-literate elementary school kid can tell you, when floating ice melts, it contracts; there is no increase in volume, so no sea-level rise. After about 10 years with this impending doom scenario, scientists dropped it. I suppose some elementary school kid told them about the "floating ice cubes" class experiment.
Back in the late 1980s, I made two global warming predictions. The first is that summers in the Bay Area would become cooler, windier and foggier, and this has already happened. The second is that by 2100, the sea level may drop a foot. How so? Easy. Greenland and other high-latitude lands are likely to warm about 10 degrees Celsius, and hence the air will be able to hold twice as much water vapor as it did before warming. This leads to twice as many clouds and twice as much precipitation. Thanks to satellite measurement, we can already observe parts of Greenland and Antarctica that have snow accumulating faster than ice is melting. As this trend accelerates, total snow accumulation should outpace total ice melting, and then the sea level will drop.
What I did not foresee back then is that although many of us felt that the Arctic Ocean would become ice-free in summer by about 2050, we did not think of the consequences with regard to sea level. Last century, as in past centuries, the polar region had a continental climate, which sent extremely cold, dry air south. But as sea ice continues to shrink, the polar region will shift increasingly to a maritime climate, which will greatly increase the number of storms in Eurasia, North America and Greenland. Snow could accumulate in Greenland (as well as in the mountains of Alaska and Canada) at a much higher rate than I had predicted.
Mr. Stephens recommends one book. I'll recommend three. (Like me, none of these books' authors doubts global warming.) The first is "Useless Arithmetic: Why Environmental Scientists Can't Predict the Future," by Orrin Pilkey. An old field scientist like me, Pilkey believes in detailed field work, not modeling, since models will always produce the results you want. The second is "Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming," by Bjorn Lomborg. If you are concerned about polar bears, he says, stop shooting them. (The hunting program is a way to control the bear's overpopulation problem.) The third is "State of Fear," a novel by Michael Crichton. Part fiction and part science, he shows how environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club create imaginary crises. Having been on the board of one organization and observing others, I can vouch for this. A perceived crisis really boosts your membership! For example, here is a global-warming quote by Stanford University climatologist Stephen Schneider: "We need to get some broad-based support to capture the public's imagination. That of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have."
(Schaffer is an instructor at Napa Valley College.)
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