Guest essay by E. Calvin Beisner
In late May two evangelical environmentalists, recently returned from visiting Malawi, published articles in which they said poor Malawians are suffering from reduced rainfall caused by manmade global warming.
Jonathan Merritt wrote for Religion News Service, “In America, climate change is a matter of debate, but in places like Malawi, it’s a matter of life and death.” Judd Birdsall wrote for Huffington Post, “In Fombe village, Malawi, climate change is not a matter of political or scientific debate. It’s a matter of survival.”
The implication was clear: To help the poor in Malawi (and other developing nations), we must fight global warming.
If either author had dug deeper, he might have concluded differently.
Although the controversial Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project reports about 0.6°C of warming for Malawi from about 1970 to about 2010, the data are highly suspect, coming from fewer than 10 monitoring stations in a country that stretches nearly 600 miles from north to south, averages about 75 miles wide, and is slightly larger in area than the State of Ohio. Granted the widespread deviance of temperature monitoring stations even in the U.S. from standards set to ensure accuracy, and the likelihood that “urban heat island” effect (which occurs even in small villages) accounts for about half of apparent global and regional warming in recent decades, it’s likely that BEST’s data for Malawi considerably exaggerate any warming there.
Economic development also causes fictitious appearance of rising regional temperatures. As climatologist and former missionary to Kenya Dr. John Christy put it in an email, “I doubt any UHI corrections were applied to [BEST’s] Malawi temp data. … As we report in both of my papers (Kenya/Tanzania and Uganda), East Africa has a real problem with development showing up as rising nighttime (and therefore TMean [mean of daytime maximum and nighttime minimum]) temperatures. Since Malawi borders Tanzania, I would expect the same to be true there.”
Source: UAH Lower Tropospheric Temperature data v. 5.5, Malawi data extracted and graph prepared by John Christy, University of Alabama, Huntsville. Note: Y-axis is anomaly from mean temperature for the period in degrees Celsius. Red arrow is IPCC computer model projectins; blue line is satellite observations.
Although the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s computer models projected about 0.7°C of warming from 1979 through 2012 for Malawi, satellite measurements—unaffected by the problems that compromise land-based data—show no statistically significant trend in temperature.
Accurate rainfall measurements are very difficult to find for Malawi, but data for nearby East Africa show a slight increase in rainfall in the late twentieth century
Birdsall wrote that farmers “in every village” told him, “Until just a few decades ago the rains came by mid October and fell steadily until March. … These days the rains often don’t come until December. Sometimes it rains too much, sometimes too little. Flooding and drought can occur in the same season. The climate has changed.”
Similarly, Merritt wrote, “An elderly man from Fombe village … told me that water streamed here year round when he was a child. Banana trees and other vegetation once flourished on its banks, and an abundance of fish provided a critical source of protein for those who lived nearby. In 1977, however, the waters began receding and now flow only a handful of days each year.”
Of course, childhood memories are notoriously poor data sources, both for the past and for comparison with the present, but Merritt added this graph, from the 2006 Action Aid report (click graph to enlarge), showing apparent increases in droughts and floods.
Yet drought and flood data are no substitute for rainfall measurements. They reflect changes in population and land use, as climatologist Dr. David Legates explained in his lecture on global warming for Cornwall Alliance’s Resisting the Green Dragon video series. As population grows, demand for water increases, not just for drinking but also for agriculture, industry, and other uses, resulting in more frequent and severe droughts—even with no change in rainfall. Malawi’s population nearly tripled, from about 5.7 million to 16.8 million, from 1977 to 2013.
Population growth also results in land use changes. As land becomes more paved or built up, it absorbs less rain, sending more runoff into streams, which then flood more frequently and severely—again, even with no change in rainfall. As undeveloped land is converted to agriculture, demand for irrigation water grows, and agricultural land in Malawi grew by 43 percent from 1977 through 2011 and 75 percent from 1961 through 2011.
Land Used for Agriculture, Malawi, 1961–2011 (click graph to enlarge)
In reality, while rainfall amounts have risen and fallen in Malawi since 1900, there is no significant trend, as the data in the table below show. In 1990–2009, Malawi’s average monthly rainfall was 4% higher than in 1900–1930, 0.5% lower than in 1930–1960, 3.1% lower than in 1960–1990, and virtually identical to the average for the full 110 years, and there was no apparent delay or shortening of rainy seasons.
Malawi Average Monthly Rainfall (mm), 1900–2009
| 1900–2009 | 1900–1930 | 1930–1960 | 1960–1990 | 1990–2009 | |
| Jan | 229.4 | 217.4 | 234.2 | 230.8 | 236.7 |
| Feb | 207.8 | 202.7 | 218.2 | 206.7 | 200.8 |
| Mar | 204.5 | 194.8 | 207.2 | 205.2 | 210.2 |
| Apr | 93.1 | 97.1 | 88.4 | 98.3 | 85.3 |
| May | 22.0 | 21.3 | 23.1 | 21.7 | 21.9 |
| Jun | 8.5 | 7.9 | 9.7 | 8.4 | 7.8 |
| Jul | 7.0 | 6.9 | 6.0 | 7.1 | 18.1 |
| Aug | 2.9 | 2.8 | 3.0 | 2.6 | 3.1 |
| Sep | 2.6 | 2.9 | 2.9 | 2.6 | 3.1 |
| Oct | 13.9 | 16.5 | 10.5 | 14.6 | 13.6 |
| Nov | 66.9 | 57.7 | 68.5 | 75.0 | 62.4 |
| Dec | 193.3 | 180.2 | 185.4 | 212.5 | 188.7 |
| Annual | 1,051.9 | 1,008.2 | 1,057.1 | 1,085.5 | 1,051.7 |
Note: September 1900-1930 and 1930-1960, 2.9 (mean of existing September data) supplied for blank cells to permit computation of percentages.
Are poor Malawians suffering from water shortages? Yes. Is that because of global warming—manmade or natural? No. Is fighting global warming the solution? No.
Malawi is actually a water-rich nation. Not only does its annual rainfall average approximately 40 inches (about the same as Delaware, Indiana, Maryland, and New Jersey), but also it includes much of Lake Malawi—“third largest and second deepest lake in Africa [and] the ninth largest in the world.”
About 80 percent of Malawi is within 75 miles of Lake Malawi, and most of what isn’t is within 50 miles of the Shire River, which flows south from the lake and eventually joins the might Zambezi River. Fifty miles is a distance easily covered by aqueducts. Fombe—where Merritt and Birdsall visited and heard the anecdotes about declining stream flow—is at least potentially a water-rich village. It is a mere 10 miles from the Shire.
For comparison, the Roman aqueducts, built two millennia ago, carried water 260 miles, and the system of aqueducts constituting the California State Water Project (SWP) provides drinking water for over 23 million people (over 1/3 third more than the entire population of Malawi) by transporting water hundreds of miles from the Colorado River, the Sierra Nevada, and central and northern California. The shortest, the Colorado River Aqueduct, is over 240 miles long.
Of course, California is wealthy (though it wasn’t nearly so wealthy when much of the SWP was built), and Malawi is poor. How can Malawi afford to build such aqueducts—even if they would cover far less distance and serve only a small fraction of the people?
The real solution to Malawi’s water needs is economic growth that will enable Malawians to bear the costs of improved water transportation, storage, purification, and conservation through efficient use.
Sad to say, however, if climate change activists succeed in enacting policies to fight global warming, Malawi’s economic growth will be curtailed. Why? Because abundant, reliable, affordable energy is an essential condition of economic growth, and activists seek to fight global warming by shunning the use of the most reliable and affordable energy sources for the developing world—coal and natural gas—and putting far more expensive “Green” energy sources like wind and solar in their place. As it happens, Malawi has abundant coal reserves and already mines them (PDF download), though it could benefit from mining far more to generate electricity and deliver its people from the smoke that comes from burning wood and dried dung as primary cooking and heating fuels—smoke that causes high rates of illness and premature death, especially among women and children, from respiratory diseases.
Ironically, and sadly, the climate policy Merritt and Birdsall want will only bring further harm to the very people they long to help, by prolonging their poverty—the real threat to Malawians’ health and life.
E. Calvin Beisner, Ph.D., is Founder and National Spokesman of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation and author of several books on environmental stewardship.
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Margaret Hardman says:
June 8, 2013 at 3:10 pm
“Or you could answer the question.”
_______________________
That statement is vacuous and utterly dishonest, yet you made it. Maybe some day you will catch on, but for now, you betray yourself.
Luther
Can I assume that you don’t have an answer? I asked you to tell me what modern evils I was supporting but you chose not to do so. Perhaps you realised the absurdity of what was said.
As for rhetorical tricks – there are plenty of them used by commenters on this site. I presume you see them for what they are too. But rhetoric won’t answer the climate change questions – scientific evidence will. I don’t claim to have answers but I do have questions and I feel confident I can spot assertions so sweeping they need to be challenged. It is a perfectly sensible thing to do. I take my cue from Carl Sagan’s baloney detection kit.
Margaret Hardman says:
June 9, 2013 at 12:33 am
“assertions so sweeping they need to be challenged. It is a perfectly sensible thing to do. I take my cue from Carl Sagan’s baloney detection kit.”
Carl Sagan never applied his baloney detection kit to the crackpot computer model he used to spread Nuclear Winter panic.
http://www.textfiles.com/survival/nkwrmelt.txt
He probably needed the book sales.
DirkH
If Sagan didn’t apply his own methods to his own models, he does concede in 1996 that the most recent models had revised the estimates downwards (ie less cooling). Current thinking is that there will be a nuclear winter following a even a limited nuclear war. I recommend The Demon Haunted World to you.
Since coming to Malawi 21 years ago there have been 2 instances of dry years, 1991 – 1992 and 2001 – 2002. The Agricultural University here uses two groups of data to show that there is now less rain than previously by making the split in 1990. So of course the later years are drier. Much of the problem is continued burning of crop stover which reduces the infiltration capacity of the soil. Also increased land under cultivation also increases run-off and siltation of rivers. I know of data collected on four sides of the old capital, Zomba, that shows in one year more rainfall diversity that the last 30 years, so is Global Warming only affecting one side of a town and not the other?? There are many climate related changes here but most can be attributed to poor land management. Much like the Mid West dust bowls!!!
Yes and no. Both are related. For details on cause and solution to global warming and shortage of water please click on my name.
Well for me, the story of global warming, and drought, all boils down to the paper in SCIENCE, July 7, 2007
“How much MORE rain, will global warming bring ?” (my emphasis). Note; the premise is that global warming will bring MORE rain, not less. The paper is by Frank Wentz et al; he is with RSS, one of the four “biggies” of Temperature records, and one of the two satellite based outfits (besides UAH).
In that paper based on actual experimental measured data; not coupled global models, or whatever they are fashionably called..
Wentz et al reported that a one deg. C increase in mean global surface Temperatures (maybe lower troposphere) results in a 7% increase in global evaporation, a 7% increase in total atmospheric water content, and a 7% increase in global precipitation. Now global precip, must agree with global evaporation, or else we would end up with the oceans over our head.
Now the interesting part is that the GCM folks, entirely agree with Wentz et al, on the 7% increase in evap-precip, but they insist that total atmospheric water content is NOT 7%, but more like 1% to 3%. That’s as much as a seven to one margin of error from measured data.
Now I’m not much of a modeler, but I get uncomfortable thinking about a presumably roughly linear system, where the totals tend to be the integrals of the increments, if the integral only grows at one seventh the rate of the incrementals. And I say the system is roughly linear, based on the premise, that at any time the total range of Temperatures from place to place on earth, could be as much as 150 deg. C, all on the same day at the same time, and where it quite routinely is at least 120 deg. C. but we are talking about climatic changes amounting to only one deg.C at most, in the last 150 years, so a miniscule fraction of the possible range.
So I would give a major fail to the GCMs in that a seven to one error, or even a 2.33 to one error, is not a credible model.
Now it so happens, that the latest issue of Physics Today Journal, contains a very lengthy and detailed paper about the effect of water in the atmosphere. It scarcely mentions CO2; it’s all about water, which they say is 0.25% of the atmosphere. They also say 99% of that is water vapor.
They mention that only 74% of incoming solar radiation reaches the earth surface, which is about 1,008 W/m^2, in good agreement with what solar energy folks take as a given. The rest, is absorbed by the atmosphere or scattered, largely by water. Note, this has nothing to do with clouds. That’s what reaches the ground under CAVU conditions.
The paper goes on to say, that of the LWIR radiant emission from the surface, only 26% escapes to space; the rest, as they say, warms the atmosphere, largely via the H2O GHG effect.
So more water in the atmosphere means more atmospheric warming, so positive feedback of course.
Now, they say absolutely not a word, about the simple fact, that more water in the atmosphere mostly as vapor, also means more absorption of INCOMING SOLAR ENERGY, which will never reach the surface or the ocean storage depths, as solar spectrum energy. Hey dummies, that ALSO is warming the atmosphere, and with photon energies that are 10 times the photon energies of the surface LWIR emissions.
So they are fixated on surface LWIR GHG warming of the atmosphere by water vapor, and completely ignoring, the far more significant atmospheric warming by the sun.
In any case, atmospheric warming, particularly upper atmospheric warming, is a good thing for global cooling. The hotter the upper atmosphere Temperatures, the faster it radiates to space.
Well I can’t relate the whole paper here, it is quite readable, with a lot of information; but numerous glaring omissions like the one I just mentioned. They arrive at positive feedback, by simply ignoring the biggest atmospheric warmer of them all; the sun.
Don’t have the paper in front of me, at the moment, but the lead author is a top honcho, at some Max Planck establishment. Among the “experts” they had conversations with, is none other that Peter Humbug, who uses his Xbox to create these GCMs that don’t agree with each other.
Nowhere in this Physics Today Paper, do they compare their ideas on Water in the atmosphere to EXPERIMENTALLY MEASURED GLOBAL TEMPERATURE DATA.. Only to the GCMs.
I’m almost inclined to write a letter to Physics Today, since they send me their Journal, and ask, why such glaring omissions, as neglecting the increased atmospheric warming (and consequent surface cooling), caused by INCREASED water in the atmosphere, absorbing more incoming solar spectrum energy, which cools the surface.
I don’t recall them explain how a warmer atmosphere creates a warmer surface. they liberally mention the first and second laws of thermodynamics, so maybe they know some novel way whereby heat energy from the cooler upper atmosphere, can somehow propagate to the warmer surface from whence it started its Temperature gradient driven escape to space..
When I get more time, I’ll get the actual issue, and give you the authors, and more of the facts.
Bottom line, I did NOT get the impression that this paper was pushing MMGW. It did seem fairly straight; but that simply makes the glaring omissions, just that much more inexplicable.
There’s a humdinger of a new high tech battery for Teslas and Volts etc. Forget about zinc-air batteries; that’s so yesterday. Wrap your arms around a shiny new Lithium-Air battery.
Say did I mention, that there is no such thing, as zinc-air battery. It’s really a zinc-Oxygen battery. Well along with the atmospheric Oxygen, a Zinc-Air batter, is also a Zinc-nitrogen battery (total dud), and also a Zinc-H2O battery; think galvanizing.
But not to stray too much; the shiny new battery is Lithium-Air, not zinc. Anyone ever toss a slab of Lithium into water; or Nitrogen, for that matter.
I guess Lithium-air batteries come with built in lighting or even fireworks. Don’t try building a Lithium-Air battery at home on your kitchen table.
But the atmospheric water paper in PT is worth reading, if you can find it at your local library, June 2013 issue.
As to the core subject of this thread, it seems to have spawned a side subject about the use of “good” energy versus the use of “evil” energy; and whether developing countries or communities should even be allowed to use “evil” energy. And this in Africa of all places; ancestral home of all of us.
Time was when all we had was good clean free green renewable energy, ours for the taking; non polluting, and bio-degradable. How green can you get ?
Well I’m talking about our African ancestors who had nothing but free clean green renewable energy; mostly in the form of ripening figs up in the tree tops, that our ancestors clambered around in. Spent darn near every waking minute chasing after those figs, and trying to beat all those little varmint monkeys, to all the really good figs, out on the smaller branches, where they could get more sun. Well we were just too big and clumsy, to beat those monkeys to the choice pickings. Now we know from Jane Goodall’s studies, that most likely our ancestors, just like the chimps, and bonobos, figured out, that we might as well let the monkeys get the good stuff, we couldn’t reach, and the we simply could grab them, and smash their brains in with a rock, and eat them instead of the figs. So now we had “tools” made out of rocks, so we could increase our food supply. Well I’m sure the liberals at the time called them “weapons” instead of tools.
The big break through came after we discovered that grass wasn’t so good to eat, despite the fact, that millions of very large animals just loved the stuff. A chance lightning strike; no doubt heaven sent, set fore to that grass, and a bunch of zebras and gnus got caught up in it, and got barbecued. Well what a bonanza; those cooked zebra steaks were delicious; good thing we had gall bladders to store up surplus bile during the dry famine season, so we could really pig out, when we hit the food jackpot.. And the cooked meat kept a lot better, than the remains of some gnu that broke a leg in a Meercat hole, that we discovered long after the griffons had eaten most of it. Pretty soon, we figured out how to break some zebra legs ourselves, with even better tools; excuse me; weapons.
But it was the fire that was the big break. The discovery of stored chemical energy, in dry grasses, or wood from trees, until we eventually stumbled over evil fossil fuels like tar, and petroleum, and worst of all peat and coal..
Yes it was fossil fuels that finally freed us from the fig trees, and sent us on our way to species success.
Free, clean green renewable, bio-degradable non polluting energy, would have left us still up in the trees competing with the monkeys. It was fire and fossil fuel energies that released us from perpetual feast or famine, and enabled our modern marvels like Facebook, and Micro$oft Windows.
Renewables never got us here; and they can’t possibly sustain us here, in our present numbers.
And for “fore” try “fire” instead; must’ve had a plum; excuse me, fig in my mouth at the time.
Remember what happened to the chimpanzees , at Gombe, when Jane Goodall installed banana supermarkets for them. Seems a bit like rigging the experiment to me.
Nonetheless; I do think of Dr. Goodall, as one of the truly remarkable people of our history. Sad that Dianne Fossey’s story went a different route.
That certainly is one way to look at it but it pales into comparison with those that die each winter due to fuel poverty. This past winter Germans were forced to steal wood from the forests to heat their homes. In the Third World people burn chopped down trees as well as dung, candles, kerosene, etc. I could go on but imagine the number of deaths among those who can’t afford shiny solar panels and high tech wind turbines? Yet there is an emerging policy of depriving poor countries of loans to build coal or oil fired power stations. How is one to run an ambulance in Burundi or Cambodia for example that does not use petrol or diesel? Many of these new clean energy technologies cannot run the vitals for an entire nation (small domestic maybe). Look Margaret I speak from first hand as I live in one of those developing countries.
References only for Western countries.
http://www.independent.co.uk/money/spend-save/britain-tops-the-fuel-poverty-league-table-8554723.html
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/statistical-release-fuel-poverty-england-and-the-uk-2011
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/tree-theft-on-the-rise-in-germany-as-heating-costs-increase-a-878013.html
Margaret Hardman,
By the way your alternative energy sources can be very deadly. Oh, and nuclear is the safest of the lot. Why don’t greens embrace it wholeheartedly?
Mining for rare earth metals to produce wind turbines, electric cars and other technology has created a huge toxic lake in Mongolia which is poisoning farmers and their children.
Nuclear deaths compared.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/
“””””…..Streetcred says:
June 7, 2013 at 9:24 pm
The last thing Africa needs is any more whiteboy eco-evangelists running around creating more problems for them … homeboys should stay at home and leave Africa alone, it doesn’t need your meddling or your prescription for what you think it needs to be. I have fond memories of ‘old’ Malawi so do me a favour and buzz off! Africans have survived for a lot longer than your lot and will still be around when your lot leave to join the mothership in the tail of the comet……”””””
I’m no expert on African history, but it does seem that Africans achieved their greatest successes, and made their greatest contributions to planet earth, when they freely and of their own choosing, left Africa to go and look for “greener pastures” elsewhere on the planet, outside of Africa.
That could lead to an argument, that the problem, is and was, not Africans, but Africa itself.
Sometimes the ground shifts from under your feet and you can’t feel it. Africans still have some way to go but it’s not ‘worse than we thought!’ The humble mobile phone has liberated many too. By the way only 5% of Africa’s fresh underground water is tapped. Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink. The water is there, they just need more boreholes.
Some of the fastest growing economies in the world today are in………………….
http://www.economist.com/blogs/baobab/2013/05/development-africa
http://www.dw.de/economists-warn-of-gaps-amidst-africas-growth/a-16801687
http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2013/04/15/africa-continues-grow-strongly-despite-global-slowdown-although-significantly-less-poverty-remains-elusive
http://www.gfmag.com/archives/167-december-2012/12226-emerging-markets-review-fast-growing-economies-drive-african-growth.html
Here are the large water reserves for Africa waiting to be literally tapped. This above Malawi article is just a pile of Warmist crap trying to spread fear and despair. I am an optimist and this is what largely separates sceptics from lying doom mongering Warmists.