Robert C. Whitten
The author holds a Ph.D. in physics from Duke University and an M.S. in meteorology from San Jose State University. He is a research scientist, NASA-retired, author or editor of five books, and author or co-author of 117 papers in the archival literature on various aspects of atmospheric science, and is a commander, U.S. Navy Reserve-Retired He is indebted for helpful advice to Dr. Richard Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan, Professor of Meteorology at M.I.T., and Vice Admiral Robert F. Dunn, U.S.N., Retired, President of the U.S. Naval Historical Foundation.
The current conventional wisdom dictates that the world is warming as a result of human activities. Politicians, the public, and those out to profit from any possible change in the way the world is viewed have jumped on the bandwagon. Even the prestigious Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) has added its voice in its favor: "We must do something before it's too late. National security is threatened."1 The truth is that following the recommendations of the CNA study, and falling to the pleas of politicians and others with their "The sky is falling," efforts will, in itself, lead to reduced national security. How might this happen?
First, the conclusions of those who blame the human race for global warming are based on audacious assumptions about the ability of humans to control climate. They are all based on the results, not of observations of actual atmospheric temperatures, sea level changes, etc., but on the predictions of theoretical models, all of which are characterized by severe limitations. The concerns about global warming due to greenhouse gases arose not from observed temperature data but from predictions of so-called "general circulation models." These models are necessarily simplified simulations of atmospheric dynamics. They cannot simulate cloud cover, precipitation and the enormously chaotic behavior of the atmosphere, all of which are essential for realistic predictions. Climate, in fact, is never stable but is subject to more or less periodic cyclical variations (e.g., the 1,500 year cycle2); such variability is caused by factors beyond human control.
The predicted atmospheric temperature rises due to increased greenhouse gas content have actually decreased over the years as models have improved and are now about 2.5 C for a doubling of CO2. More realistic estimates of temperature rise are less than 1¡ C, probably much less than 1¡ C, so that any observed temperature increase can be expected to be lost in the noise of normal measurement variability. Basic greenhouse theory tells us that temperatures in the tropical upper troposphere should rise by about 2.5 times as much as the surface temperature.3 What has been observed by satellites and balloons since the 1970s is less than what is seen at the surface, indeed much less. This implies that most of the surface change is not due to greenhouse warming from any source. Indeed, recent investigations of the influence of solar variability have strongly supported the alternative, that solar variability is the responsible factor.4
Any heating of the atmosphere by greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and water vapor involves an extremely complex set of processes. In short, visible and some ultraviolet radiation from the sun penetrates Earth's atmosphere and is absorbed by the surface although part of it is reflected by clouds. The energy is then reemitted as infrared radiation that corresponds to the temperature of the surface and the lower atmosphere, roughly 20¡ to 30¡ C. Water vapor is by far the dominant greenhouse gas except in extremely cold and dry areas such as the eastern slopes of the Canadian Rockies and central Siberia in winter. Deposition of heat energy in the atmosphere occurs mainly at tropical and subtropical latitudes and is transported poleward by atmospheric circulation, causing a latitudinal temperature difference. Increases in temperature due to greenhouse gases should be apparent not so much at the surface but at altitudes of 4 to 15 km.3, 5 Even so, smaller temperature differences between the tropics and polar regions are expected to lead to less violent weather, not more as cited in the CNA report.
Rather than global warming, a very possible climate catastrophe is global cooling as occurred in the "Little Ice Age," or a major ice age. We have an excellent history of temperature changes over many millennia using various "proxies" such as ratios of oxygen isotopes and tree ring properties. The 1,500 year cycle, which includes the Little Ice Age, became well established quite recently. The latter is attributed at least in part to decrease in solar activity, the so-called "Maunder Minimum" when sunspots vanished from the solar surface. Major ice ages, on the other hand, are believed to be caused principally by changes in the Earth's orbital characteristics such as changes in the tilt of the polar axis to the plane of the Earth's orbit (ecliptic). As for a dangerous rise in atmospheric temperature due to increased greenhouse gases, temperatures during the Medieval Warm Period (about 950 to 1250 AD) were higher than is predicted by the atmospheric models for a doubling of atmospheric CO2.2, 6 No catastrophes occurred during that era which was best characterized by the absence of famine, Viking voyages to North America, the settling of Greenland, wine production in England, and the construction of the great European cathedrals. Despite claims to the contrary,7 we know from records obtained from the Middle East, China and even the southern hemisphere that the warming was world wide. A Little Ice Age occurring from about 100 AD to 600 or 700 AD may have been partially responsible for the collapse of the Roman Empire.
The Kyoto Protocol, which became effective with Russia's signing, requires signature nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5.2 percent below a 1990 baseline. The economic costs to the United States of adhering to Kyoto are acknowledged by most economists to be horrendous with no discernable effect on atmospheric temperature. Suggested follow-ons to Kyoto such as proposed at the recent conference in Bali, Indonesia, would wreak much more havoc, again with no likely measurable effect on atmospheric temperature. Moreover, most of the current signatories in the developed world have not met their required cuts in greenhouse gas emissions; the only exceptions are former Communist countries such as Russia that have shut down most of their inefficient industry. Signatories in the developing world (including India, China,8 and Brazil) are not called upon to make any cuts. The damage that would be caused by such treaties, favored by the environmental elite, has been brought into sharp focus by a recent address to the Cato Institute9 by the President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, an economist by profession, and by the Heritage Foundation.10
The protagonists of greenhouse gas/global warming often cite the "great consensus" among scientists that the effect is already a serious threat. This claim should be regarded with great skepticism since the great majority of the scientific community has little or no expertise in atmospheric science, and among atmospheric scientists, especially climatologists, there is no such consensus. Science is an extremely authoritarian venture with the authority residing in reproducible experiment and observation. Theory must support the experimental/observational data, not the other way round as climate alarmists would have us believe.
Efforts to stabilize the climate are futile and would very likely reduce national security by requiring drastic reductions in the availability of fossil fuels, especially for the Navy and the Air Force. The present reliance on forward naval deployments and high degrees of training that are the hallmark of the current defense stance of this nation would become impossible because of fuel reductions. In fact, the production of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) by the armed forces due to burning fossil fuels is only about 0.3 percent of the total national output.
Thus strenuous efforts to reduce emissions by the armed services would contribute almost nothing to the national effort. However, it is inconceivable that the American public would accept the enormous reductions in fuel consumption necessary to comply with projected treaties without exacting corresponding reductions in fossil fuel use by the armed services. This is not to say that the armed services should not try to become more energy efficient, which should be done for strategic and economic reasons; but despite the absence of any reality that calls for immediate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to protect mankind, it is still wise from a national security standpoint to continue efforts toward greater efficiency in energy use and to obtain substitutes for Middle Eastern oil. However, converting the United States into a third world nation by enforcing drastic reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases would be counter-productive with respect to national security, and response to natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the Indonesian tsunami11 would be impossible. *
Endquotes: "Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason." --Benjamin Franklin
References
1. Center for Naval Analysis web site: http://www.securityandclimate.cna.org/report/. Nine retired generals and admirals have contributed to this report.
2. Singer, S. F., and Avery, D. T., Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years, Plymouth, U.K.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007, pp. 260. Also see Robinson, A. B., N. E. Robinson and W. Soon, "Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide," Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, vol. 12, 79-90, 2007.
3. Lindzen, R. S., "Understanding Common Climate Claims," in Proceedings of the 34th International Seminar on Nuclear War and Planetary Emergencies, R. Raigaini, editor, Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co., pp.189-210, 2005.
4. Scafetta, N. and B. J. West, "Is Climate Sensitive to Solar Variability?" Physics Today (American Institute of Physics), vol. 61 (3), 50-51, 2008.
5. The author has made a statistical analysis of the upper air temperatures as recorded by the National Climatic Data Center and found essentially no change between 1979 (when satellite measurements began) and 1998. The data show a high degree of variability.
6. Robinson, A. B., N. E. Robinson and W. Soon, "Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide," Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, vol. 12, 79-90, 2007.
7. Mann, M. E., et al., "Global-Scale Temperature Patterns and Climate Forcing over the Past Six Centuries," Nature, vol. 392, 779-787, 1998.
8. China has been rapidly overtaking the U.S. in greenhouse gas emissions and is probably the leading emitter as this article is published.
9. Klaus, Vaclav, "Three Challenges to Freedom," address to the Cato Institute, Washington, D.C., March 9, 2007.
10. The Heritage Foundation web site: http://www.heritage.org/Research/ EnergyandEnvironment/globalwarming.cfm.
11. Elleman, B.A., "Waves of Hope: The U.S. Navy's Response to the Tsunami in Northern Indonesia," Naval War College Paper 28, Naval War College Press, pp.138, 2007.
