Greenhouse Theory Smashed By Biggest Stone; Is Global-warming Down To Humanity? Or Are Other Factors At Work? — Since we are beating global warming to death here on the blog. I offer this! It explains interesting discrepancies in the overall theory.
A new theory to explain global warming was revealed at a meeting at the University of Leicester (UK) and is being considered for publication in the journal “Science First Hand”. The controversial theory has nothing to do with burning fossil fuels and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels…
Shaidurov, however, suggests that the rise, which began between 1906 and 1909, could have had a very different cause, which he believes was the massive Tunguska Event, which rocked a remote part of Siberia, northwest of Lake Baikal on the 30th June 1908.
The Tunguska Event, sometimes known as the Tungus Meteorite is thought to have resulted from an asteroid or comet entering the earth’s atmosphere and exploding. The event released as much energy as fifteen one-megaton atomic bombs. As well as blasting an enormous amount of dust into the atmosphere, felling 60 million trees over an area of more than 2000 square kilometres. Shaidurov suggests that this explosion would have caused “considerable stirring of the high layers of atmosphere and change its structure.” Such meteoric disruption was the trigger for the subsequent rise in global temperatures.
Global warming is [currently] thought to be caused by the “greenhouse effect”.
This theory is also interesting in light of the “bad math” that went into the first claims of CO2-based global warming theories as outlined here in 2004.
Suddenly the hockey stick, the poster-child of the global warming community, turns out to be an artifact of poor mathematics. How could it happen? What is going on? Let me digress into a short technical discussion of how this incredible error took place.
In PCA and similar techniques, each of the (in this case, typically 70) different data sets have their averages subtracted (so they have a mean of zero), and then are multiplied by a number to make their average variation around that mean to be equal to one; in technical jargon, we say that each data set is normalized to zero mean and unit variance. In standard PCA, each data set is normalized over its complete data period; for key climate data sets that Mann used to create his hockey stick graph, this was the interval 1400-1980. But the computer program Mann used did not do that. Instead, it forced each data set to have zero mean for the time period 1902-1980, and to match the historical records for this interval. This is the time when the historical temperature is well known, so this procedure does guarantee the most accurate temperature scale. But it completely screws up PCA. PCA is mostly concerned with the data sets that have high variance, and the Mann normalization procedure tends to give very high variance to any data set with a hockey stick shape.
I’m sure, like many others, that global warming is indeed taking place. It would be a good idea to know the real reason if we intend to control it. That said, it wouldn’t hurt to use alternative energy, especially if we’re getting more of it free!
The Tunguska Event was indeed an “in atmosphere” nuclear event. The event has been modeled many times over the years as even 98 years later we pick up random new bits of data. However, the event has never been shown to have impacted global warming on any model ever run.
Yay, debate on global warming centered on science! This is what I want!
Two notes of caution. First, the researcher is an expert in mathematics, not climatology, though he is credible in his field at least. Second, it’s only under consideration for publication in a scientific journal. It has not been accepted yet, so that doesn’t vouch for it’s validity.
That said, if it does get published I would be very interested in following the debate on this. It’s the debate amongst experts that matters, not how it sounds to you and me.
Aren’t computer models based on mathematics?
Has anyone asked whos paying this guy yet?
$10 that its some subset of the oil industry or other corporate business that would be affected were we all to get responsible and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.
Also, what the hell is the journal “Science First Hand”? Has anyone ever heard of it before, coz I sure haven’t.
I just read this article yesterday on a somewhat more conservative blog site….lol
But it really is interesting. The argument is based on water, which is not something that I knew. But, then I’m the first to admit my science sucks.
What tends to make me more excited is that there could be as Greg said, finally a real debate amoung scientists about GW. I have no doubt that GW is real, Greenland is losing ice mass and so is Antartica, but where I have always had a problem is with the steady stream of *computor models* that show it’s people that is the primary cause of GW.
The Russian scientist that did this paper is very reputable and his field is Mathmatics, but as Mike said…..thats what computor models are made of. But more important to me is the fact that he has no grants to protect, nor is he employed by any group that advocates GW as being caused by humanity and fossil fuels or any group that advocates the oppisite view. He is, as they say in the chicken business…..a free range scientist. He is his own man, and he’s not alone.
But, neither he nor the *sky is falling* experts(who almost all are on the recieving end of huge grants to study GW and have a vested interest in it’s being a viable thing, or they are paid by the enviromental groups who believe it’s mostly us and oil that have caused GW) can explain the 30 year gap in the mid 20th century when there was no rise in global tempatures at all.
For this reason alone, I think there has to be an honest debate about what is really going on.
I think it’s just the earth doing what it has always done. Has the industrial age had an effect?….maybe, but not a lot I feel.
Having said all this, I still think it’s good that we find alternative fuels, and try to keep the earth livable by impacting as little as possable.
Mike/Joshua: Mathematics is a tool used in computer modelling. You need the climatology experience to know what you should be modelling in the first place, and how to do it acurately.
I also meant that there would be, hopefully, a more informed debate here instead of the usual political talking points, straw men, and alarmist crap being thrown back and forth. I don’t believe, as Joshua does, that there hasn’t been this debate in the scientific community until now, that it’s based entirely on computer modelling, or that everyone who believes greenhouse gasses contribute significantly to global warming has an agenda to protect their grants. In fact, that last point is exactly what I’m talking about, so I guess I hope for too much.
Enviromentalists and greenies will never accept this theory. They would rather blame humans for all that is wrong with Earth.
Watch out for the “control” word – “we can’t control the environment” is one of the Republican memes to argue that our emissions are doing no harm. You can burn down a forrest without having “control” over the fire. We need to accept that we have been doing harm to the environment with our emissions, then try to mitigate them. I bike to work as often as possible. What do you do?
Thank you SO much for posting this article John! It’s a viewpoint that needs to be presented more often. Obviously, conservation is a prudent message, but part of me really resents the lack of intellectual honesty in the global warming debate.
Why, simply because it’s a prudent message, is it OK for people to spout unproven theory and represent it as scientific fact? Where is the concern for truth and actual causality? I too would like to know what is actually happening, but too many people are interested in forwarding an agenda than getting to the truth.
Dr. Shaidurov suggests that a warming period that lasted from 1906 and 1909 actually was caused by the Tungus Meteorite in 1908.
How can the warming trend be caused by an event two years into the future?
Time altering worm holes, of course!
Works for me
Real Climate, a blog by real climate scientists, has discussed the merits of this theory:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=271
and point to evidence why the meteor theory is an unlikely explanation for global warming.
As an evil conservative, a-ha! It is not the fault of my H1 Hummer!. Unfortunately, way too many folks read a story like this and think that there is little point in doing more to reduce their contribution to a dirtier planet. Even if global warming is not caused by man (and I think that our contribution is small compared to events like this and that is small compared to overall planetary/geometric long term changes we don’t understand)– that does not negate each persons responsibility to work toward a cleaner Earth and reduce their energy usage.
Adrian said, “The real climate scientists show that even when using McIntyre McKitrick’s chosen analysis. . . .”
These REAL climate scientists (referring to Mahn, et al) sat at their desks with a bunch of tree ring data and crunched it using mathematics.
And when McIntyre and McKitrick (MM) pointed out a potentially serious flaw in their math, what was the response from Nature? They elected not to publish their paper. Why? Well, the MM paper was 1910 words when first submitted and reviewed. But then Nature told them to cut it down to 800 words, which they did. But finally Nature rejected their paper because, ” . . . we have regretfully decided that publication of this debate in our Brief Communications Arising section is not justified. This is principally because the discussion cannot be condensed into our 500-word/1 figure format . . . ”
Hmm, Nature suppressed debate because MM could not properly debunk the hokey stick in 500 words or less.
And this is what passes as “serious” scientific debate?
So we are supposed to totally revamp our economy and spend trillions combating global warming, but Nature can’t devote two more pages of their precious publication to correct a potentially fatal flaw in a previously published and important paper?
And no, Adrian, the articles you referenced do not totally debunk MM’s paper. They were interesting and may be valid, but they didn’t provide sufficient detail for a lay person to follow or evaluate — at least not in the hour I spent studying them.
Thank you Adrian! This is the kind of science centered debate I wanted in my original post. I want to know what experts have to say on this, not how it sounds to you and me.
RealClimate.org contributor bios here. Quite a few are impressive, so I’m bookmarking that site and considering it fairly authoritative.
This is an interesting theory. But I don’t understand the conclusion that ‘human activity therefore has nothing to do with GW.’
The basic premise is that water vapor and ice crystals are the main culprits in the warming trend. What then about contrails produced by all the jet engines?
After Sept. 11, 2001, there were several days in which no air traffic was allowed in US airspace other than some military/government flights. Some scientists took measurements of temperatures around the country, and compared them to ‘similar’ September days in years past. The results were that days were hotter (more sunshine reaching the ground) and nights were colder (more heat radiating into outer space).
These results happened in just a few days, so it seems that all the jet planes are having a marked effect on climate. Agriculture also sprays a lot of groundwater into the atmosphere, as does lawn watering and steam from industrial cooling processes (steelmaking, nuclear power plants, etc.)
I’ll be interested in seeing how this theory gets worked out by other scientists. My prediction is that water vapor and ice crystals will indeed be contributing to warming trends, and that methane, CO2, and other gases are contributing as well.
Maybe it’s just me…..but I think his theory is sound, but nowhere does it say that man hasn’t contributed to the warming, just that it is not the primary culprit.
I haven’t run out and bought a Hummer because of this idea…..I still think that we need to find ways to lessen our impact, but to me, as a lay person, I am not yet convinced that the extream versions of GW are correct…..I think that the answer is somewhere in the middle. This is nature doing what nature has always done and maybe we have sparked it a bit.
Man was barely walking upright and out of Africa when the last ice age was at it’s peak, and we sure hadn’t reached the stage of civilisation when the last ice age ended. For something as massive as the last ice age to have stopped, then retreated and finally end, there had to be GW of some sort going on. And there weren’t to many jet airliners, or cars and and men to have been the reason.
This is why I say, no one has it completely right yet and people of both sides of this issue need to step back and take a deep breath and keep looking.
http://www.enterprisemission.com/_articles/05-14-2004_Interplanetary_Part_1/Interplanetary_1.htm
This is a link to an alternative view of global warming.
The upshot is that this theory (Hyperdimensional Report) observes and proposes explanations about changes in our solar system that in earth’s case is global warming, but is system wide and the consequence of changes in our sun (beyond our control)..
(taken from website)
Sun: More activity since 1940 than in previous 1150 years, combined
Mercury: Unexpected polar ice discovered, along with a surprisingly strong intrinsic magnetic field … for a supposedly “dead” planet
Venus: 2500% increase in auroral brightness, and substantive global atmospheric changes in less than 30 years
Earth: Substantial and obvious world-wide weather and geophysical changes
Mars: “Global Warming,” huge storms, disappearance of polar icecaps
Jupiter: Over 200% increase in brightness of surrounding plasma clouds
Saturn: Major decrease in equatorial jet stream velocities in only ~20 years, accompanied by surprising surge of X-rays from equator
Uranus: “Really big, big changes” in brightness, increased global cloud activity
Neptune: 40% increase in atmospheric brightness
Pluto: 300% increase in atmospheric pressure, even as Pluto recedes farther from the Sun
IF (which is a guess as good as the global warming garbage we are being bombarded with today, but this guess has little promoted scientific facts that it tries to take into account) our own global warming is a result of the sun’s activity and not our own messing up our planet, then the whole global warming, Kyoto, green movement is politically motivated, actually “unscientific”, and off course. No matter what we do this will cycle through, and is totally out of our control.
Scientists talk about the thousands and millions of years needed for formation of certain soil layers, etc. and Mt. St. Helen’s did it all in hours. When will people wake up to the fact that these real events prove the uncertainity of scientists who plunder and blunder and theorize when they don’t have facts, just guesses (and bad guesses at that) and instead of being a real scientist, try to manipulate data to prove their own preconceived opinions.
We need a revolution of conservatism in our scientific communities to wait, speak little, and deal with facts before trying to make a name for oneself simply by theorizing some goof ball idea that needs to be politically correct forced on the world. Scientists should have no personal orientation. They should not push a view. They should be honest and observe the facts, and explain what is, not what they want it to be.
I am no scientist. But I think it is absurd to be postulating, theorizing, and scaring everybody to death over things that may be operating in huge cycles of hundreds or thousands of years, when we don’t have reliable information that can be used to base real studies on.
I do not have the reference for this but I read somewhere that the biggest polluter of the world is mother nature, releasing more pollution in one volcanic eruption than 10 years of worldwide pollution combined, and more oil than the Exxon Valdes leaks out “naturally” from underground (undiscovered) oil in the ground under the ocean (continental shelf if I remember correctly). If this is so then lighten up guys!
We probably should be responsible in reference to pollution, global warming, etc. (Don’t make a bad situation worse.) But balance is needed because probably the truth is that we don’t have that much impact nor control over our environment (nor is that possible from a human point of view) as many would like to assume as a working “given”. Note that I live in Mexico City ranking up there with the dirtiest air, and I would personally like to be able to “breathe easy”.
But in short, if you don’t know what’s going on, don’t go around yelling the sky is falling.
David Cox
I won’t claim to have any background worth mentioning-and yet if i understand that there have been similar rise and falls in global temperature in the past (e.g. several ice ages) then i would believe that there has been warming of some kind in between each one.Followed by oops another ice age-what was the rise in between each ice age-and does any one want to venture the inverse tipping point when surface reflectivity will cause global cooling as surface features inherant to absorbing are under the veil of rising waters and higher atmospheric concentrations of cloud cover,__ uh__ just out of curiosity.