Inconvenient FACTS is a fibber
The other day someone named “Inconvenient FACTS” sent me an email rant in support of global warming — ’scuse me, “Climate Change,” to which he insisted it should more accurately referred. His rant included a link to a New York Times article wherein Al Gore was a bit pissed off about all the people ridiculing global warming by pointing to the mountains of snow in their yards.
In the article, Gore said: “The heavy snowfalls this month have been used as fodder for ridicule by those who argue that global warming is a myth, yet scientists have long pointed out that warmer global temperatures have been increasing the rate of evaporation from the oceans, putting significantly more moisture into the atmosphere — thus causing heavier downfalls of both rain and snow in particular regions, including the Northeastern United States.”
Well, I wrote a lengthy reply back pointing out some problems with their argument in support of Mr. Gore. My reply bounced, because the cowardperson who wrote me did so from behind a proxy and used a fake email address. I don’t understand the logic here — you sent me something in a clear effort to persuade me to see your point of view, something specifically requesting an opening of dialogue, but you left me no method of reply. How are we supposed to debate the matter, how are you going to convince me and sway me to your position, when I can’t reply? I don’t get it.
So, anyhow “Inconvenient FACTS” if you’re reading this, here’s what I tried to say to you:
Interestingly enough, I recently saw a report put out by the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) which stated that “Global precipitation in 2009 was near the 1961-1990 average.” (Source: “State of the Climate” summary report for 2009.)
If current global precipitation hasn’t changed from what it was in 1961-1990, I believe Mr. Gore’s statement is factually inconsistent at best and complete garbage at worst. Either way, the result is the same: it’s incorrect.
As for your assertion about the thousands of collective scientific minds forming the foundation for Mr. Gore’s statement, I challenge you to name them. You may be able to produce a small handful of miscreants and imbeciles, but neither you or Mr. Gore can produce the plenitude of which you boast.
On a side note, you seem especially fond of the Mpemba effect. Tell me, do you believe in the Easter Bunny as well?
Right after my letter to you bounced, Derwood sent me a link to an article by Alan Reynolds of the Cato Institute, who not only mentioned that very same report, but also mentioned how in 2008, a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — “Climate Change and Water” — stated that in high latitudes and the tropics, their climate models were projecting “precipitation increases.” Projecting being the operative word, and in “high latitudes and the tropics” being the operative area.
Mr. Reynolds says it far better than I can, so why bother paraphrasing?
In other words, the IPCC said that its models predicted some increases in rain or snow — not observed them. And only in high latitudes or the tropics, which hardly describes New York or Washington, DC.
In fact, recent research actually contradicts Gore’s claims about “significantly more water moisture in the atmosphere.”
In late January, Scientific American reported: “A mysterious drop in water vapor in the lower stratosphere might be slowing climate change,” and noted that “an apparent increase in water vapor in this region in the 1980s and 1990s exacerbated global warming.”
The new study came from a group of scientists, mainly from the NOAA lab in Boulder. The scientists found: “Stratospheric water-vapor concentrations decreased by about 10 percent after the year 2000 . . . This acted to slow the rate of increase in global surface temperature over 2000 to 2009 by about 25 percent.”
Specifically, the study found that water vapor rising from the tropics has been reduced, because it has gotten cooler there (another inconvenient truth). A Wall Street Journal headline summed it up: “Slowdown in Warming Linked to Water Vapor.”
Moisture in the lower stratosphere (about 8 miles above the earth’s surface) has been going down, not up.
Aside from clouds, water vapor accounts for as much as two-thirds of the earth’s greenhouse-gas effect. Water vapor traps heat from escaping the atmosphere — but clouds have the opposite effect (called “albedo”) by reflecting the sun’s energy back into space. And snow on the ground from the IPCC’s predicted precipitation in high latitudes would have the same cooling effect as clouds.
What the new research suggests is that changes in water vapor may well trump the effect of carbon dioxide (only a fraction of which is man-made) and methane (which has mysteriously slowed since about 1990).
This raises an intriguing question: Since the Environmental Protection Agency declared that it has the authority to regulat[e] carbon emissions because of their presumed effect on the global climate, why hasn’t the EPA also attempted to regulate mist and fog?
So, Inconvenient FACTS, if you would like to write back — with a *legitimate* email address this time — and respond, please feel free. Even better, why not just leave a comment, and let everyone participate in the discussion? Who knows, maybe you’ll eventually manage to convince me.
But don’t hold your breath.
Tags: Global Warming, Moonbats
