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Debunking polar bear fears More scientists speak out against global warming forecasts; urge better science Rose Ragsdale For Petroleum News
As environmentalists press the federal government to list the polar bear as an endangered species, more and more prominent scientists are warning public policy makers to regard forecasts of global warming and climate-related disasters with a healthy dose of skepticism.
An escalating scientific debate over global warming has entered the halls of Congress in recent months as committees in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate have grappled with reshaping U.S. policies to offset predicted dire effects of human activity on the earth’s atmosphere.
But growing numbers of eminent scientists, including Alaska’s own physicist Syun-Ichi Akasofu, are coming forward to question widespread assumptions that global warming is a reality and human activities, especially those involving fossil fuels, are exacerbating the phenomenon.
Scientists speak out Some 400 scientists from more than 24 countries recently voiced significant objections to the so-called “consensus” on manmade global warming in the scientific community, according to a report issued by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s Minority Office.
The scientists, many of whom are current and former participants in the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, criticized the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore.
In a nearly 200-page report that details their views, the scientists repeatedly cast doubt on global warming theories. Many of them are experts in diverse fields, including: climatology; geology; biology; glaciology; biogeography; meteorology; oceanography; economics; chemistry; mathematics; environmental sciences; engineering; physics and paleoclimatology. The numbers also include Nobel Prize winners, including many who shared a portion of the UN IPCC Nobel Peace Prize with Vice President Gore.
In addition, many of the scientists said they have numerous colleagues who share their views, but will not speak out publicly for fear of retribution.
Akasofu, the former director of both University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Geophysical Institute and International Arctic Research Center who has twice been named in “1000 Most Cited Scientists,” is profiled in the report. He released a scientific study of the Arctic in March 2007 that concluded the recent warming was likely “natural” and not manmade.
An award winning scientist who has published more than 550 professional journal articles and authored or co-authored 10 books, Akasofu, also recently blasted the UN IPCC process.
“I think the initial motivation by the IPCC (established in 1988) was good; it was an attempt to promote this particular scientific field” Akasofu said in an April 1, 2007, interview. “But so many (scientists) jumped in, and the media is looking for a disaster story, and the whole thing got out of control.”
Akasofu has said there is no data showing that “most” of the present warming is due to the manmade greenhouse effect, as the members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change wrote in February.
“If you look back far enough, we have a bunch of data that show that warming has gone on from the 1600s with an almost linear increase to the present,” Akasofu said.
Akasofu also said scientists who support the man-made greenhouse gas theory disregard information from centuries ago when exploring the issue of global warming. Satellite images of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean have been available in the satellite era only since the 1960s and 1970s.
“Young researchers are interested in satellite data, which became available after 1975,” he said. “All the papers since (the advent of satellites) show warming. That’s what I call ‘instant climatology.’ I’m trying to tell young scientists, ‘You can’t study climatology unless you look at a much longer time period.’”
Forecasters issue challenge Perhaps one of the most interesting dissenting scientists in the global warming debate isn’t a climatologist or researcher in a related field. Rather, J. Scott Armstrong of The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, is an internationally known pioneer in forecasting.
He and his colleague, forecasting expert Kesten Green of Monash University in Australia, challenged former Vice President Gore to a $10,000 bet in June 2007 over the accuracy of climate computer models predictions (http://theclimatebet.com).
Of 89 principles (of forecasting), Armstrong said the UN’s IPCC violated 72.
“Claims that the Earth will get warmer have no more credence than saying that it will get colder,” said Armstrong, who authored “Long-Range Forecasting,” the most frequently cited book on forecasting methods.
Armstrong told Petroleum News March 7 that he and other forecasting researchers established as early as 1978 that contrary to popular belief, experts do no better in making short- and long-term forecasts than do non-experts.
The problem is the human brain is capable of handling only two or three variables at one time and cannot process the many variables inherent in any analysis that could lead to an accurate forecast, he said.
“These scientists are advocating enormous sums be spent on the possibility of global warming, and we don’t know if it’s going to be warm or cool,” he said.
He and Green also criticized the Associated Press for hyping climate fears in 2007. “Dire consequences have been predicted to arise from warming of the earth in coming decades of the 21st century. Enormous sea level rise is one of the more dramatic forecasts,” they said.
But experts’ forecasts have no validity in situations characterized by high complexity, high uncertainty, and poor feedback,” Armstrong and Green told the U.S. Senate.
“My favorite word for extreme uncertainty is ‘ignorance,’ ” Armstrong said. “Media outlets should be clear when they are reporting on scientific work and when they are reporting on the opinions held by some scientists. Without scientific support for their forecasting methods, the concerns of scientists should not be used as a basis for public policy.”
Predictions violate ‘scientific forecasting procedures’ Armstrong and Green also co-authored a Nov. 29, 2007, paper with Harvard astrophysicist Dr. Willie Soon, which found that polar bear extinction predictions violate “scientific forecasting procedures.”
The study analyzed the methodology behind key polar bear population predictions and found that one of the two key reports in support of listing the bears had “extrapolated nearly 100 years into the future on the basis of only five years data — and data for these years were of doubtful validity.”
Both key reports violated critical evidence-based principles of forecasting, rendering their forecasts invalid, Armstrong said, noting that there is a critical difference between “forecasts by scientists and scientific forecasts.”
He said “experts’ predictions, unaided by evidence-based forecasting procedures, should play no role in a decision to list the polar bear as endangered.
“Without scientific forecasts of a substantial decline of the polar bear population and of net benefits from feasible policies arising from listing polar bears, a decision to list polar bears as threatened or endangered would be irresponsible,” Armstrong told Congress in February.
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