UAF professor emeritus continues to question sources of global warming
Published Friday, September 19, 2008
FAIRBANKS — A University of Alaska Fairbanks professor emeritus known for his belief that carbon dioxide is not the sole cause of climate change presented his latest research Thursday.
More than 40 researchers and students gathered into a room at the International Arctic Research Center, now named after Syun-Ichi Akasofu, for the hour-long presentation.
“Retirement is good because I can spend the time to correct information,” Akasofu said.
For several years now, Akasofu has put forward the idea that while the world was warming for most of the 20th century, it stopped warming sometime around 2000 or 2001. He clarified Thursday that according to his latest research, the oceans have stopped warming since that time, but it appears as if temperatures are still rising if one only looks at land temperatures.
Akasofu also was skeptical of reported changes in land temperature, however. For example, he noted that while many scientists claim global temperatures have risen slightly less than one degree on average across the past few decades, their studies don’t take urbanization into account.
Tokyo, he said, appears to have warmed four degrees, but that does not take into account the fact that the number of dark manmade structures that absorb heat, raising temperatures in their vicinity.
The retired geophysics professor also questioned the accuracy of readings from weather stations where no one is there to regularly monitor the equipment.
“A friend of mine found one station where the temperature gauge was just outside the air conditioner,” he said.
Still, Akasofu doesn’t completely deny the existence of climate change, so much as question what causes it. One culprit he suggested is the recent lack of sunspots.
“Something is happening on the sun,” he said. “There are no sunspots when there should be 50-100 right now, so people warn the sun has become warmer.”
A similar phenomenon was observed between 1650 and 1700, which coincides with what researchers call the Little Ice Age, a period of widespread cooling that came shortly after a warming trend may have peaked sometime around 1000 AD.
However, Akasofu didn’t necessarily connect that warming period to what the planet is experiencing now.
“Some people say it was a degree higher or about the same, but there were no thermometers, so how accurate were they?” he said.
Fair enough. Joel Shore perhaps? Surely there is someone who knows enough to let us discuss the science enough to get beyond ignorant speculations on the skeptics’ part and overconfidence in the results on the warmers’ part.
@Mark:
Are all skeptics ignorant speculators and are all warmers overconfident? That seems to be a pretty big brush you are waving there.
Many people tell me I am overconfident in my results, but none would say that I speculate ignorantly.
Dee Norris (13:56:03) : Are all skeptics ignorant speculators and are all warmers overconfident?
I don’t think that’s what I said; at least it’s not what I intended. I am frequently impressed by the depth of knowledge of many of the posters here (you included). The ignorance I had in mind was not of science in general, or even of climate issues, but specifically of the internals of GCMs. I know that’s true for me at least. Conversely, the tendency I see from warmers’ posts is that they place a great deal of confidence that the GCMs correctly model the science. It is difficult to share that confidence without more knowledge of the internals of the models, so I’m willing to be open-minded that I am unfairly construing them as being overconfident.
Perhaps there is a skeptic in the audience with enough experience in the internals of modern GCMs to be able to field a general summary. What I’m looking for is a discussion of the science behind the GCMs, the strengths, weaknesses, inputs, assumptions, range of results, …. Ignorance is, after all, a curable fault.
Mark:
Overconfidence can also be a product of ignorance.
As an undergrad, I wrote a model for an early GCM. My module was the simulation of the various chemical reactions of SO2 in the atmosphere. The inputs were the various chemical components of the atmosphere and energy inputs – radiation mostly, as well as conductive heat and starting temperature. The outputs were the same. After validation by my professor, my module was added to a growing collection of models, each simulating an aspect of climate and creating a General Climate Model. Back then, we lacked the CPU power to even come close to what the modern GCMs are running on and the technology of computer programming is much more advanced, the fundamental concept remains more or less the same.
As counters seems to be much closer to the modern GCMs than I am, I am sure he will contribute constructively upon the foundation I have laid.
Regardless, the GCM are only part of the solution and are also part of the problem. IMHO, properly used, a GCM can help identify the areas where we need more ground data and better theory. The ubiquity of computers in our lives has given the impression that can be a replacement for ground truths. Hey, an Excel spreadsheet will always correctly add up a column of number, right? Animal Rights Extremists demand a halt to animal testing because we can model the biological system with computers, for example. In some cases, this is true, but would you want to trust your life on a drug that has never been tested in a living biological system?
Trusting our future to computers running GCMs which almost all agree are missing components of the climate is pretty much the same thing. Instead of pursuing a career in academics, I chose to work in computers. I have spent many years bailing out firms on Wall Street from projects that went sour. Some of the projects were attempts to model a system as complex and chaotic as the climate – the stock market. Those didn’t work that well either and I have seem them all, from neural networks to technical analysis. The technology is lacking. And so is the technology and science to model the climate as it stands. Forget the ability to make predictions for any significant point in the future.
I realize that they are a lot of comments here, and that it is difficult to sort through all of them, so I will summarize a few key concepts here.
1. Dr. Meier is currently working on a second set of questions, based on comments here.
2. He is not avoiding the forum.
3. He has, and continues to, put a huge amount of his personal time into this effort – which he is under no obligation to do.
4. His offer to take this on is perhaps unique.
5. He knows a lot more detail about what is going on day to day in the Arctic than most of the rest of us.
Individuals may or may not agree with his view of the future of the Arctic, but please express your opinion in a scientific, non-personal manner. We don’t want to mimic the bad behavior which goes on at some well known global warming advocacy sites.
New press story on Prof Akasofu:
“Recent studies by the Hadley Climate Research Center (UK), the Japan Meteorological Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the University of East Anglia (UK) and the University of Alabama Huntsville show clearly that the rising trend of global average temperature stopped in 2000-2001. Further, NASA data shows that warming in the southern hemisphere has stopped, and that ocean temperatures also have stopped rising.”
The global average temperature had been rising until about 2000-2001.”
[…]
“Since CO2 has only a positive effect, the new trend indicates that natural changes are greater than the CO2 effect, as I have stated during the last several years.”
http://newsminer.com/news/2008/sep/27/global-warming-has-paused/?opinion
Sure looks to me like his intent is to correct, not to passively collect, “information”:
“The stopping of the rise in global average temperature after 2000-2001 indicates that the hypothesis and prediction made by the IPCC need serious revision.”