Problems for Global Warming Wrong assumption
Wrong Assumption
What is a Christian response to global warming? In Genesis God does give us dominion over the Earth. We are the caretakers of this planet. Proverbs 12:10 says, “Whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel.” If our desire is to be righteous then we also have to have regard for the animals that God has placed here also. So what should be our response to this issue that has seemed to force its way onto the center stage of current issues in science? We are to care for this world, the animals and other living things on the Earth. But does global warming go too far?
I have many problems with so-called global warming, and over the next few post, I will discuss my major concerns with global warming. The first few post will consider scientific concerns and then I will consider the social issues that global warming proponents are forcing on us. So the first question we will consider is this. Is global warming true?
Global warming has many more issues attached to it besides for just the science of the issue. Forgetting all of the economic issues that global warming causes. Global warming still has some serious scientific issues that proponents of global are working hard to “brush under the rug.” And one of the bigger issues is the underlying assumptions that climatologists make.
I have watched many global warming debates. Bill Nye is actually one of the better debaters on this topic. And one of the questions that he usually starts off with is this. "Can we agree on the fact that the Earth is getting warmer?" And his opponent usually falls into Bill's trap and says yes the Earth has gotten warmer. But that is not the correct answer to that question. The answer should be a rebuttal question that asked. "Can we agree that the Earth is warming just at the surface and just in the last 100 years or so?" And here is the first of the issues that proponents of global warming want to sweep under the rug. And that is, THE EARTH IS WARMING IN THE WRONG PLACE.
That is right. All the models for global warming prior to 2007 said that as you go up in the atmosphere the temperature increase should become greater. That is not the case. It was observed in the 90’s that the temperature in the stratosphere actually decreased. This observation led to a revision of the models. Now did you catch this, the observational evidence did not match the model or the prediction that the theory made. So instead of discarding the theory or doubting the conclusion that there is global warming and looking at the underlying assumptions that were being made. The theory was changed to fit the new observation. The question of whether global warming was incorrect was not asked. The only question was how can we change the model to show that global warming does occur?
The reason for the change in the model is always the same the same statement. "The Earth's atmosphere is a very complex system." If the Earth's system is that complex of a system how can we trust any theory that predicts hundred of years into the future?
In fact, our current models do not even predict the climate in the past very well.
Above are 73 global warming model predictions notice that all of the predictions were warmer than the actual temperature. But why is there such a large difference between the predicted temperature and the actual temperature?
Dr. Piers Corbyn has the reputation as the best long range weather forecasters in the world. This is what he has to say about global warming.
It appears that climatologists are making the wrong assumption in their predictions of how climate will change with regards to an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The assumption that most climatologists make is the planet amplifies the effect of greater carbon dioxide instead of moderating the temperature.
You can think of it like this. When I was a kid, I had a magnifying glass. I was always amazed at how on a sunny day I could use that magnifying glass to light paper on fire because the magnifying glass amplified the heat of the sun. It amplified the light because it was a convex lens, not a concave lens. A concave lens disperses the light in different directions. This is the problem with the assumption. Climatologist assumes that the carbon dioxide concentrates the warming of the Earth much like the convex lens concentrates the heat of the sun. But is this an accurate assumption? It appears like it is not a valid assumption because none of the predictions that temperatures were going to increase drastically were correct.
Dr. Weile Wang, NASA Ames Research Center & University Corporation Monterey, made this observation when looking at data relating carbon dioxide concentration and temperature from 1959 to 2011. "What we learned is that in spite of droughts, floods, volcano eruptions, El Niño and other events, the Earth system has been remarkably consistent in regulating the inter-annual variations in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels,” So it appears like the carbon dioxide acts more like a divergent lens than a convex lens. Yes, the surface of the Earth has warmed over the last 150 years or so. But is the result of an increase in carbon dioxide emissions or is this an indication of something else or just the natural cyclic function of the earth itself.
It appears that the assumption that most climatologists make when predicting future temperatures is incorrect. It is the incorrect assumption causes the incorrect prediction, not the complexity of the atmosphere. Oh, the atmosphere is very complex. But no prediction will be correct when it is based on an incorrect assumption.
In Genesis, the Lord gives us this promise about the Earth. Genesis 8:22 “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease."
Below is a debate between Dr. Corbyn and Dr. Jo House.
In the next post, we will look at CO2 vs the Earth
1. Roy Spencer, “STILL Epic Fail: 73 Climate Models vs. Measurements, Running 5-Year Means,” June 6, 2013, http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/06/still-epic-fail-73-climate-models-vs-measurements-running-5-year-means/; R. W. Spencer and W. D. Braswell, “On the Diagnosis of Radiative Feedback in the Presence of Unknown Radiative Forcing,” J. Geophys. Res. 115, D16109 (2010): doi:10.1029/2009JD013371, http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/Spencer-Braswell-JGR-2010.pdf.