[purplefrog]

In response to Sowell's suggestion (see previous posts) that the scientists that support global warming are not trained in the relevant disciplines, or as he put it: "There are all kinds of scientists, from chemists to nuclear physicists to people who study insects, volcanoes, and endocrine glands -- none of whom is an expert on weather or climate, but all of whom can be listed as scientists, to impress people who don't scrutinize the list any further. That ploy has already been used. Professor Sherwood Rowland's work on ozone depletion is very relevant to this topic. He shares his views on global warming in the interview pasted below:

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Professor Rowland is Bren Research Professor, Earth System Science, School of Physical Sciences at the University of California. In 1995 he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work in atmospheric chemistry.He is a Foreign Member of the Royal Society. This piece was written in April 2006.

The melting of ice and permafrost in the North Polar region and the shrinking of the tropical glaciers are signals that "global warming" is no longer solely a warning about the future, but changes which have already arrived. The initial effects of this warming are noticeably present already, and the concerns are now of substantial climate change in the near future.

The ongoing accumulation of the greenhouse gases will continue to alter the Earth for long periods after stabilization of their atmospheric concentrations has been attained.


Professor Rowland
Changes have already begun and adaptation will be necessary. However, the same preventive prescriptions which might have postponed the current effects for some decades (had they been adopted earlier) are now needed even more urgently. This pace of change becomes critical because the physical forces, primarily the ongoing accumulation of the greenhouse gasescarbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, tropospheric ozone and the otherswill continue to alter the Earth for long periods after stabilization of their atmospheric concentrations has been attained. These real concerns about the future of our planet are now felt throughout the scientific world.


I remember testifying before a U.S. Senate committee twenty years ago, and hearing the Democratic senator saying, "The problem of global warming brings another round of scientists before us decrying the folly of waiting until it is too late to prevent irreversible damage", and his Republican colleague, concurring, "We ought to do what we can and set an example." Unfortunately, the U.S. government was unwilling then even to accept that global warming was a problem, even in the future. Denial of the problem is still a popular attitude among many of our politicians. The U.S. executive branch had now grudgingly admitted that the greenhouse effect is real, but promotes a business-as-usual approach' toward solving the problem.

Two decades have passed, the globe is about one degree Fahrenheit warmer, the future has become the present, and action is even more obviously and urgently needed.

The atmospheric concentrations of methane, the second most important contributor to the greenhouse effect over the past two centuries, have been relatively unchanged for the past five or six years at a level about 2.5 times that which prevailed before the industrial revolution. The explanations for this slowdown from the 1% per year increase characteristic of the 1980s are under debate. Still, the slowing effect on methane suggests that a more directed effort may be able to cause its global burden to decrease.

The Montreal Protocol ban on the further manufacture of chlorofluorocarbons, and especially of methylchloroform, has caused an actual reduction in their contributions to the greenhouse effect. Tropospheric ozone, however, continues to increase and the growth in the number of urban vehicles is the primary driver of these ground-level ozone increases.

Concentrations of carbon dioxide, the dominant greenhouse gas in the planet's atmosphere reached their highest ever-recorded levels in 2004 (377.1 parts per million). Most importantly, the increases in carbon dioxide are approaching 2 parts per million per year. That's DOUBLE the rate of increase recorded by the late David Keeling in the 1958-1968 decade. Without a major effort to throttle carbon dioxide emissions, the planet is on course to see 400 parts per million level for about the year 2016, with 500 parts per million possible by the middle of the century.

Perhaps the most widespread effect of warming is the rising sea level of the world's oceans, which affects low-lying countries everywhere. The threat increases especially when combined with stronger storm surges from more intense typhoons and hurricanes. More subtle changes are being observed in ecological systems where the causative effects are not just higher daily maximum temperatures.

The long predicted special warming of the polar north due to positive feedback from the lessened reflectivity of water and rock versus snow and ice is strongly confirmed by the larger temperature increases there. With the warming of north polar nights, some insect populations no longer "winter-kill", as with the spruce bark beetle which destroyed 10,000 square kilometres of forest in the Alaskan Kenai peninsula several years ago. Similar insect problems have now cropped up with the Canadian Lodgepole pine forests which stretch from coast to coast. The expected consequences in California include an elevation of the winter snow line, with less accumulation of this key water source for release in the very dry summer months. There are regular reports of melting permafrost and tundra.

Such specific regional effects will depend very much on particular circumstances, but in almost every instance, slowing the pace of change will allow more time for adjustment to the new conditions.

The actions now urgently needed are the same ones which have been developed over the past several decades, starting with a strong emphasis on conservation. Industrial energies need to shift away from coal, gas, and oil to the renewables and to a revived nuclear option. This will not be an easy path, but the alternative of abrupt climate change could represent a catastrophic future.