Yesterday, former Vice President Al Gore sat before the House Science Committee’s subcommittee on Energy and the Environment, and the Senate’s Committee on Environment and Public Works, and testified to the importance of takign action against global climate change. The science is clear, and those who would still sow doubt that there is a link between this change in the climate and human activity are really reaching. Certainly the Earth’s climate changed before humans could pump methane and C02 into the atmosphere. However, our ability to do it so effectively, quickly, and over a short period of time, has set in motion a cycle of events which pit our way of life against a force of nature.
Gore had a thousand brilliant sound bites. Among the various discussions was an exchange between Gore and Senator Inhofe, former chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works that sheds light on the pseudoscientist’s bag of tricks. Inhofe, a virilant climate change skeptic (famously quoted as saying that global warming is the greatest hoax perpetrated on mankind), used all the usual verbal gimmicks, citations of “peer reviewed” articles, and appeals to reason that are the hallmark of pseudoscience peddlers like the Discovery Institute and Young Earth Creationists. For example:
- 13:25: (Inhofe’s opening) He says that a lot of peer-reviewed scientists writing in “Nature” and “Geophysical Research Letters”, and “Science” deny global warming as reality, or at least reject key evidence for it being a problem. He cited two reports. The first attempts to discredit the idea that hurricane frequency and intensity are linked to warming. The second discredits the idea that the eastern span of Antartica might melt and causes ocean levels to rise, by citing growth in the Antarctic ice sheet (published in 2005 by (C)Kurt Davis). My favorite piece of rhetoric here in his opening was to define “alarmists” as “scientists who accept the science of global warming as settled”, and “skeptics” as “scientists who don’t believe that global warming exists or is a problem.” Fascinating. Let’s keep going. He considered an investment in reducing greenhouse gases as a “tax increase on the poor”, and a “get rich quick” scheme for companies who can benefit from mandatory caps.
Let’s look at one of those articles that Inhofe cites quickly to support his claim that we shouldn’t worry about sea level rise, becaus Antarctica is getting thicker. The article by Davis et al has the following abstract:
Satellite radar altimetry measurements indicate that the East Antarctic ice-sheet interior north of 81.6°S increased in mass by 45 ± 7 billion metric tons per year from 1992 to 2003. Comparisons with contemporaneous meteorological model snowfall estimates suggest that the gain in mass was associated with increased precipitation. A gain of this magnitude is enough to slow sea-level rise by 0.12 ± 0.02 millimeters per year.
The conclusion notes that such growth could offset the shrinking of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, but also states that there is uncertainty in how coastal changes (melting) would compete with inland changes (accumulation). However, measurements like this increase don’t take place in a vacuum. C02 concentrations continue to increase over what they were between 1993 and 2003 (when this study was conducted). What happens as the earth continues to warm? How does a climate model with that input affect the ice sheet? Citing a single measurement, taken in isolation, is a common trick in trying to appeal to your reason. “The ice sheet is thickening,” you think, “so this all must wash out in the end and sea levels won’t change”. But that’s the trap. Without the context, you make the mistake of conceding the point. That’s why panels and research groups, like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), draw conclusions from wide bodies of evidence and trends across many measurements, including models of how the pieces interplay.
You gotta be careful. People like Inhofe sounds convincing. Data taken in isolation can look like it supports one conclusion that may oppose the consensus. What’s worse, data misinterpreted can be misused to make a point. As Gore notes, Antarctica might be storing up precipitation, but glaciers across the globe are disappearing, and Greenland’s ice sheet is continuing to recede. You have to step back, and consider the big picture.
A paper which came later than Davis et al, entitled “Ice-Sheet and Sea-Level Changes” (Alley et al., http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/310/5747/456), notes that:
These projections emphasize surface melting and accumulation in controlling ice-sheet mass balance, with different relative contributions for warmer Greenland and colder Antarctica (3). The Greenland Ice Sheet may melt entirely from future global warming (4), whereas the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) is likely to grow through increased accumulation for warmings not exceeding ~5°C (5). The future of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) remains uncertain, with its marine-based configuration raising the possibility of important losses in the coming centuries (2). Despite these uncertainties, the geologic record clearly indicates that past changes in atmospheric CO2 were correlated with substantial changes in ice volume and global sea level (Fig. 1).
They even suggest that the climate change models first developed in 2005 to account for the interplay between increasing C02 levels, sea levels, and ice sheet thickness suggest that sea level increases may need to be revised UPWARD. This shows why it’s dangerous to interpret data in a vacuum.
Inhofe used other pseudoscientist tactics. He cited that this winter had some of the coldest days on record in the U.S., and said that opposed the idea of “warming”. It’s bad to take hot summers as evidence for global warming, and it’s bad to take cold winters as evidence against it. The climate is dynamic, and large, and some parts get cold while others get hot. The average, over time, is what matters, and Inhofe misses that point. Inhofe also uses the “100 scientists oppose you” argument, which is famously rebutted by the “100 Steves” study – it’s easy to find 100 scientists to agree to anything. He never states their credentials, never mentions whether they make active contributions to their field. This is another common trick. My favorite part from this was when he said that these scientists are all members of the National Academies, and that carries weight against the NAS studies that Gore cites. Up to 72 members are elected annually. If even 2 of them per year were skeptics about climate change, but didn’t do their own research into that field, then within 50 years you would have 100 NAS skeptics in climate change, from a variety of ages. Sigh. What about the thousands upon thousands who have looked at the same evidence and seen the effect?
Checkout the hearing here: rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/energy/energy032107_fore.rm.
