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Climate change experts?

To the Journal editor:

With the word change from global warming to climate change, the circle of so-called experts has increased without any more clarity but more confusion. Global warming can be measured (though you need a satellite to do it correctly) while climate change cannot. If global temperatures do not warm significantly, the link between carbon dioxide and climate change is broken and climate change is just hand waving.

Two commonly ignored scientific and statistical axioms are “correlation does not prove causation” and “correlation is a necessary but not a sufficient condition of proof.”

For instance, having identified some correlation between global warming and carbon dioxide (CO2), does not determine which is the cause and which is the result. In fact ice core drilling(s) show CO2 to be a lagging indicator of global temperatures, strongly suggesting that CO2 is a result, not the cause. This is a much easier and straight forward theory to defend.

Any correlation between climate change and CO2 is shaky at best, while land use primarily urbanization causing heat islands, is more probable. More concrete and road tar are better heat sinks.

The biggest misdirection however is that there is only a single positive feedback loop that puts us on a run path to destruction. This is false; there are several negative feedback loops that prevent runaway conditions from occurring. Here are two examples: increasing CO2 leads to the greening of the planet; Mother Nature is planting those trees for you. Maybe Greenland will be green again.

Secondly, supposedly warming leads to increased evaporation; leading to more torrential rains. What most people know (or should know) is evaporation is a cooling process, involving a phase change from liquid to gas (water vapor) and cooling the global surface, hence creating a barrier against further evaporation.

Look folks, the universe is composed of the dynamic interaction of stellar, cosmic, solar, orbital, atmospheric, terrestrial, oceanic, tectonic, volcanic, albedo, clouds and atmospheric diffusion. Anyone who believes that a “trace” gas, CO2, which is largely transparent in the infrared (heat), is the control knob that explains everything should not be calling himself (herself) a scientist.

GEORGE GEIKAS

Munising

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