MYTH 1:
Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate.
FACT: Accurate
satellite, balloon and mountain top observations made over the last three
decades have not shown any significant change in the long term rate of
increase in global temperatures. Average ground station readings do show a
mild warming of 0.6 to 0.8Cover the last 100 years, which is well within the
natural variations recorded in the last millennium. The ground station
network suffers from an uneven distribution across the globe; the stations
are preferentially located in growing urban and industrial areas ("heat
islands"), which show substantially higher readings than adjacent rural
areas ("land use effects").
There has been no catastrophic warming recorded.
MYTH 2: The "hockey stick" graph
proves that the earth has experienced a steady, very gradual temperature
increase for 1000 years, then recently began a sudden increase.
FACT: Significant changes in climate have continually occurred
throughout geologic time. For instance, the Medieval Warm Period, from around
1000 to1200 AD (when the Vikings farmed on Greenland) was followed by a
period known as the Little Ice Age. Since the end of the 17th
Century the "average global temperature" has been rising at the low
steady rate mentioned above; although from 1940 – 1970 temperatures actually
dropped, leading to a Global Cooling scare.
The "hockey stick", a poster boy of both the UN's IPCC and
Canada's Environment Department, ignores historical recorded climatic swings,
and has now also been proven to be flawed and statistically unreliable as
well. It is a computer construct and a faulty one at that.
MYTH 3: Human produced carbon
dioxide has increased over the last 100 years, adding to the Greenhouse
effect, thus warming the earth.
FACT: Carbon dioxide
levels have indeed changed for various reasons, human and otherwise, just as
they have throughout geologic time. Since the beginning of the industrial
revolution the CO2 content of the atmosphere has increased from a
rate of about 0.2% per year to the present 0.4% per year. But there is no
proof that CO2 is the main driver of global warming. As measured
in ice cores dated over many thousands of years, CO2 levels move
up and down AFTER the temperature has done so, and thus are the RESULT OF,
NOT THE CAUSE of warming. Geological field work in recent sediments confirms
this causal relationship. There is solid evidence that, as temperatures move
up and down naturally and cyclically through solar radiation, orbital and
galactic influences, the warming surface layers of the earth's oceans expel
more CO2 as a result.
MYTH 4:
CO2
is the most common greenhouse gas.
FACT: Greenhouse gases form about 3 % of the atmosphere by
volume. They consist of varying amounts, (about 97%) of water vapour and
clouds, with the remainder being gases like CO2, CH4,
Ozone and N2O, of which carbon dioxide is the largest amount.
Hence, CO2 constitutes about 0.037% of the atmosphere. While the
minor gases are more effective as "greenhouse agents" than water
vapour and clouds, the latter are overwhelming the effect by their sheer
volume and – in the end – are thought to be responsible for 60% of the
"Greenhouse effect".
Those attributing climate
change to CO2 rarely mention this important fact.
MYTH 5: Computer models verify that CO2 increases will cause
significant global warming.
FACT: Computer models
can be made to "verify" anything by changing some of the 5 million
input parameters or any of a multitude of negative and positive feedbacks in
the program used.. They do not "prove"
anything. Also, computer models predicting global warming
are incapable of properly including the effects of the sun, cosmic rays and
the clouds. The sun is a major cause of temperature variation on the earth
surface as its received radiation changes all the time, This happens largely
in cyclical fashion. The number and the lengths in time of sunspots can be
correlated very closely with average temperatures on earth, e.g. the Little
Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period. Varying intensity of solar heat
radiation affects the surface temperature of the oceans and the currents.
Warmer ocean water expels gases, some of which are CO. Solar radiation
interferes with the cosmic ray flux, thus influencing the amount ionized
nuclei which control cloud cover.
MYTH 6:
The UN proved that man–made CO2 causes global warming.
FACT: In a 1996 report
by the UN on global warming, two statements were deleted from the final
draft. Here they are:
1) “None of
the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can
attribute the observed climate changes to increases in greenhouse
gases.”
2) “No study
to date has positively attributed all or part of the climate change to
man–made causes”
To the present day there is
still no scientific proof that man-made CO2 causes significant global
warming.
MYTH 7: CO2 is a pollutant.
FACT: This is absolutely not true. Nitrogen forms 80% of
our atmosphere. We could not live in 100% nitrogen either. Carbon dioxide is
no more a pollutant than nitrogen is. CO2 is essential to life on
earth. It is necessary for plant growth since increased CO2 intake as a
result of increased atmospheric concentration causes many trees and other
plants to grow more vigorously. Unfortunately, the Canadian Government has
included CO2 with a number of truly toxic and noxious substances listed
by the Environmental Protection Act, only as their means to politically
control it.
MYTH 8: Global warming will cause more storms and other weather
extremes.
FACT: There is no
scientific or statistical evidence whatsoever that supports such claims on a
global scale. Regional variations may occur. Growing insurance and
infrastructure repair costs, particularly in coastal areas, are sometimes
claimed to be the result of increasing frequency and severity of storms,
whereas in reality they are a function of increasing population density,
escalating development value, and ever more media reporting.
MYTH 9: Receding glaciers and the calving of ice shelves are
proof of global warming.
FACT: Glaciers have
been receding and growing cyclically for hundreds of years. Recent
glacier melting is a consequence of coming out of the very cool period of the
Little Ice Age. Ice shelves have been breaking off for centuries. Scientists
know of at least 33 periods of glaciers growing and then retreating. It’s
normal. Besides, glacier's health is dependent as much on precipitation as on
temperature.
MYTH 10: The earth’s poles are warming;
polar ice caps are breaking up and melting and the sea level rising.
FACT: The earth is
variable. The western Arctic may be getting somewhat warmer, due to unrelated
cyclic events in the Pacific Ocean, but the Eastern Arctic and Greenland are
getting colder. The small Palmer Peninsula of Antarctica is getting warmer,
while the main Antarctic continent is actually cooling. Ice thicknesses are
increasing both on Greenland and in Antarctica.
Sea level monitoring in the
Pacific (Tuvalu) and Indian Oceans (Maldives) has shown no sign of any sea
level rise.
More FACTS and MYTHS? See what Professor deFreitas has to say. Click
here.