Planetary Ruin

Judging from the media in recent months, the debate over global warming is now over. There has been a net warming of the earth over the last century and a half, and our greenhouse gas emissions are contributing at some level. Both of these statements are almost certainly true. What of it? Recently many people have said that the earth is facing a crisis requiring urgent action. This statement has nothing to do with science. There is no compelling evidence that the warming trend we’ve seen will amount to anything close to catastrophe. What most commentators—and many scientists—seem to miss is that the only thing we can say with certainly about climate is that it changes. The earth is always warming or cooling by as much as a few tenths of a degree a year; periods of constant average temperatures are rare. Looking back on the earth’s climate history, it’s apparent that there’s no such thing as an optimal temperature—a climate at which everything is just right. The current alarm rests on the false assumption not only that we live in a perfect world, temperaturewise, but also that our warming forecasts for the year 2040 are somehow more reliable than the weatherman’s forecast for next week.

A warmer climate could prove to be more beneficial than the one we have now. Much of the alarm over climate change is based on ignorance of what is normal for weather and climate. There is no evidence, for instance, that extreme weather events are increasing in any systematic way, according to scientists at the U.S. National Hurricane Center, the World Meteorological Organization and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (which released the second part of this year’s report earlier this month). Indeed, meteorological theory holds that, outside the tropics, weather in a warming world should be less variable, which might be a good thing.

In many other respects, the ill effects of warming are overblown. Sea levels, for example, have been increasing since the end of the last ice age. When you look at recent centuries in perspective, ignoring short-term fluctuations, the rate of sea-level rise has been relatively uniform (less than a couple of millimeters a year). There’s even some evidence that the rate was higher in the first half of the twentieth century than in the second half. Overall, the risk of sea-level rise from global warming is less at almost any given location than that from other causes, such as tectonic motions of the earth’s surface.

Many of the most alarming studies rely on long-range predictions using inherently untrustworthy climate models, similar to those that cannot accurately forecast the weather a week from now. Interpretations of these studies rarely consider that the impact of carbon on temperature goes down—not up—the more carbon accumulates in the atmosphere. Even if emissions were the sole cause of the recent temperature rise—a dubious proposition—future increases wouldn’t be as steep as the climb in emissions.

Indeed, one overlooked mystery is why temperatures are not already higher. Various models predict that a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere will raise the world’s average temperature by as little as 1.5 degrees Celsius or as much as 4.5 degrees. The important thing about doubled CO2 (or any other greenhouse gas) is its “forcing”—its contribution to warming. At present, the greenhouse forcing is already about three-quarters of what one would get from a doubling of CO2. But average temperatures rose only about 0.6 degrees since the beginning of the industrial era, and the change hasn’t been uniform—warming has largely occurred during the periods from 1919 to 1940 and from 1976 to 1998, with cooling in between. Researchers have been unable to explain this discrepancy.

Modelers claim to have simulated the warming and cooling that occurred before 1976 by choosing among various guesses as to what effect poorly observed volcanoes and unmeasured output from the sun have had. These factors, they claim, don’t explain the warming of about 0.4 degrees C between 1976 and 1998. Climate modelers assume the cause must be greenhouse-gas emissions because they have no other explanation. This is a poor substitute for evidence, and simulation hardly constitutes explanation. Ten years ago climate modelers also couldn’t account for the warming that occurred from about 1050 to 1300. They tried to expunge the medieval warm period from the observational record—an effort that is now generally discredited. The models have also severely underestimated short-term variability El Niño and the Intraseasonal Oscillation. Such phenomena illustrate the ability of the complex and turbulent climate system to vary significantly with no external cause whatever, and to do so over many years, even centuries.

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An extra-cold winter on the Alaska Peninsula has frozen sea otters out of the bay and pushed them onto the tundra near Port Heiden where they’re easy prey for wolves, humans and hunger.

Some of the starving animals — with ribs showing — have waddled or belly-slid several miles inland, residents said. Others have been attacked by dogs near houses, killed by villagers for their hides, or died on sea ice where eagles and foxes pick at their remains.

No one knows how many have come ashore in the unusual exodus, said Mark Kosbruk, village fire chief. Natives have skinned at least 17 to make hats, gloves and blankets from the luxurious pelts.

They’ve clubbed some with 2-by-4s or axe handles, shot others and collected a couple of frozen carcasses, he said. Several rotted before they could be gathered or died on the sea ice where people won’t travel.

“When it first froze over, they were everywhere,” said Kosbruk, 34, who is teaching younger hunters how to skin and salt the hides for tanning.

The sea otters are probably on land looking for water where they might find food, said Douglas Burn, head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Alaska sea otter program. They usually scour sea bottoms for clams or sea urchins, but the ice froze them out.

Similar die-offs have been documented before, but biologists are worried and keeping an eye on the situation, he said.

Western Alaska sea otters from the Aleutian Islands to Cook Inlet are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. They number 48,000, a drop of more than 50 percent in the last 20 years, the agency estimates.

Some scientists blame increased predation by killer whales and a bacteria that causes heart lesions.

Burn and other biologists have been monitoring the ice in Port Heiden and other shallow bays on the peninsula, reviewing satellite images and other data, he said.

“We’re concerned about large concentrations of sea otters that might get trapped and not have a way into the water,” he said. “The hard part is, what would we do if we found that? We’d have to ask what are our options.”

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A brutally cold surge of arctic air into the eastern half of the United States will easily bring record-low temperatures on Easter morning and could cause significant losses in some of the nation’s most prolific agricultural areas.

High pressure building toward the Southeast will bring calm winds and clear skies, which combined with the very cold air mass in place, will allow temperatures in many cities to challenge the coldest lows ever reached during the month of April. The cold will severely tax peach orchards across Georgia, and strawberry orchards throughout the Southeast. Bitter cold will also be felt throughout the wheat-growing areas of the Midwest and central Plains. 

A look at the Watches and Warnings shows freeze watches and warnings extending from the Ohio Valley all the way into northern Florida. The cold snap is especially dangerous to agriculture this year, and the South Regional News expands on some places where record-breaking cold will be felt during sunrise services on Easter morning.

The springtime arctic outbreak will also allow for snow in areas that very rarely see wintry precipitation this late in the year. On Saturday morning, snow mixed with rain in much of North Carolina, and flurries were observed as far south as Atlanta. The system that caused this rare April snowfall will scrape the Northeast coast with some additional snow on Saturday. Moderate snowfall also fell in Washington, D.C. early Saturday morning. The nation’s capital has not received accumulating snow in April since 2001. The East Regional News discusses the coastal storm in further detail, as well as the continuing lake-effect snow in western New York.

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A top hurricane forecaster called Al Gore “a gross alarmist” Friday for making an Oscar-winning documentary about global warming.

“He’s one of these guys that preaches the end of the world type of things. I think he’s doing a great disservice and he doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Dr. William Gray said in an interview with The Associated Press at the National Hurricane Conference in New Orleans, where he delivered the closing speech.

A spokeswoman said Gore was on a flight from Washington, D.C., to Nashville Friday; he did not immediately respond to Gray’s comments.

Gray, an emeritus professor at the atmospheric science department at Colorado State University, has long railed against the theory that heat-trapping gases generated by human activity are causing the world to warm.

Over the past 24 years, Gray, 77, has become known as America’s most reliable hurricane forecaster; recently, his mentee, Philip Klotzbach, has begun doing the bulk of the forecasting work.

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BUCHANAN, N.Y. Investigators are working to determine the cause of Friday’s explosion and fire on the grounds of the Indian Point nuclear energy center.

The incident forced the shut down of the Indian Point 3 nuclear reactor, and caused plant owner Entergy Nuclear Northeast to issue a “notice of unusual event.”

Plant safety director Michael Slobodien said an electrical transformer exploded and caught fire near the reactor shortly after 11 a.m.

“It’s in an area outside the nuclear part of the plant,” Slobodien told reporters. “The plant shut down safely and is under control.

“Anytime you have something of this nature that affects a major component like the transformer, you would shut down for safety sake and to conduct an investigation,” Slobodien said.

The transformer takes electricity from the reactor and feeds it to overhead power cables. It was protected by a sprinkler deluge system that automatically knocked down much of the fire, Slobodien said.

The plant’s own fire brigade also worked to put out the fire. The Verplanck Fire Department sent several units to Indian Point to serve as mutual aid, but they were not needed.

Westchester County sent health workers to monitor air quality near the plant after the fire. The monitors detected no release of radiation, according to Tony Sutton, the county’s Commissioner of Emergency Services.

“We always want to err on the side of caution,” Sutton said. “That’s why we dispatched a couple field teams to monitor air quality and check for radiation.”

“We have nothing to indicate this had any impact at all on public health and safety.”

Smoke from the fire was visible across the Hudson River in Rockland County, and prompted concerned calls from many residents.

Rockland County Executive Scott Vanderhoef complained it took Entergy 30 minutes to notify the county of the event.

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