This information is compiled from a lot of sources. Where pertinent, links to the original material is included. The important thing to understand here is that a lot of people (mostly non-scientists) have a large vested interest in convincing the general public that human activity is causing global warming. This justifies legislation that gives these people more control over your lives and well being. Please check the facts, and make up your own mind.
1) A 2006 study by Danish researchers from Aarhus University found that “Greenland’s glaciers have been shrinking for the past century, suggesting that the ice melt is not a recent phenomenon caused by global warming.” (LINK) Glaciologist Jacob Clement Yde explained that the study was “the most comprehensive ever conducted on the movements of Greenland’s glaciers, according to an August 21, 2006 article in Agence France-Presse. “Seventy percent of the glaciers have been shrinking regularly since the end of the 1880’s,” Yde explained. [EPW Blog note: 80% of man-made CO2 emissions occurred after 1940. (LINK) ] Niels Tvis Knudsen of Aarhus University co-authored the paper.
2) A 2006 study by a team of scientists led by Petr Chylek of Los Alamos National Laboratory, Space and Remote Sensing Sciences found the rate of warming in 1920-1930 was about 50% higher than that in 1995-2005, suggesting carbon dioxide ‘could not be the cause’ of warming. (LINK)
“We find that the current Greenland warming is not unprecedented in recent Greenland history. Temperature increases in the two warming periods (1920-1930 and 1995-2005) are of similar magnitude, however the rate of warming in 1920-1930 was about 50% higher than that in 1995-2005,” the abstract of the study read.
The peer-reviewed study, which was published in the June 13, 2006 Geophysical Research Letters, found that after a warm 2003 on the southeastern coast of Greenland, “the years 2004 and 2005 were closer to normal being well below temperatures reached in the 1930’s and 1940’s.” The study further continued, “Almost all post-1955 temperature averages at Greenland stations are lower (colder climate) than the (1881-1955) temperature average.”
In addition, the Chylek led study explained, “Although there has been a considerable temperature increase during the last decade (1995 to 2005) a similar increase and at a faster rate occurred during the early part of the 20th century (1920 to 1930) when carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases could not be a cause. The Greenland warming of 1920-1930 demonstrates that a high concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is not a necessary condition for a period of warming to arise. The observed 1995-2005 temperature increase seems to be within natural variability of Greenland climate. A general increase in solar activity [Scafetta and West, 2006] since 1990’s can be a contributing factor as well as the sea surface temperature changes of tropical ocean [Hoerling et al., 2001].”
“To summarize, we find no direct evidence to support the claims that the Greenland ice sheet is melting due to increased temperature caused by increased atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide.” The co-authors of the study were M.K. Dubey of Los Alamos National Laboratory and G. Lesins, Dalhousie University in Canada.
3) An October 2005 study in the journal Science found Greenland’s higher elevation interior ice sheet growing while lower elevations ice is thinning. According to a November 8, 2005 article in European Research, “An international team of climatologists and oceanographers, led by the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center (NERSC) in Norway, estimates that Greenland’s interior ice sheet has grown, on average, 6cm per year in areas above 1 500m between 1992 and 2003.” Lead author, Ola M. Johannessen of NERSC “says the sheet growth is due to increased snowfall brought about by variability in regional atmospheric circulation, or the so-called North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO),” according to the article. (LINK) & (LINKto Journal Science)
4) A June 6, 2006 peer-reviewed study published in Journal of Geophysical Research concluded: “The warmest year in the extended Greenland temperature record is 1941, while the 1930s and 1940s are the warmest decades.” The paper, entitled “Extending Greenland temperature records into the late 18th century,” was authored by B. Vinther, K. Andersen, P. Jones, K. Briffa, and J. Cappelen. The report examined temperature data from Greenland going back to 1784. (LINK) & (LINK) & (LINK)
5) A February 8, 2007 peer-reviewed paper published in Science found the melt rate of two of Greenland’s largest glaciers has “suddenly slowed, bringing the rate of melting last year down to near the previous rate,” according to the New York Times blog (2-8-07). (LINK) The report found that the Kangerdlugssuaq glacier’s “average thinning over the glacier during the summer of 2006 declined to near zero, with some apparent thickening in areas on the main trunk.” (LINK) University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory researcher Ian Howat, the lead author of the report, explained “Greenland was about as warm or warmer in the 1930’s and 40’s, and many of the glaciers were smaller than they are now.” “However, it does suggest that large variations in ice sheet dynamics can occur from natural climate variability,” Howat, also a researcher with the University of Colorado’s National Snow and Ice Data Center, explained. “Special care must be taken in how these and other mass-loss estimates are evaluated, particularly when extrapolating into the future because short-term spikes could yield erroneous long term trends,” Howat cautioned.
6) A July 6, 2007 study published in the journal Science about Greenland by an international team of scientists found DNA “evidence that suggests the frozen shield covering the immense island survived the Earth’s last period of global warming,” according to a Boston Globe article. (6-6-07) (LINK) According to the article, the study indicates “Greenland’s ice may be less susceptible to the massive meltdown predicted by computer models of climate change, the main author (Eske Willerslev, professor of evolutionary biology at University of Copenhagen) said in an interview. “This may have implications for how the ice sheets respond to global warming. They may withstand rising temperatures,” Willerslev said. The article explained, “The discovery of organic matter in ice dating from half –a-million years ago offers evidence that the Greenland ice sheet remained frozen even during the Earth’s last ‘interglacial period’ – some 120,000 years ago – when average temperatures were 9 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than they are now.” Willerslev addressed scary computer model predictions of a massive Greenland melt. “[The study] suggests a problem with [computer] models” that predict melting ice from Greenland could drown cities and destroy civilizations, Willerslev said. The study found “Greenland really was green, before Ice Age glaciers enshrouded vast swaths of the Northern Hemisphere…somewhere between 450,000 and 800,000 years ago,” according to the article.
7) Climatologist Dr. Patrick Michaels of University of Virginia and the Virginia State climatologist wrote the scenario promoted by former Vice President Al Gore and others showing Greenland’s ice melting and raising sea levels by 20 feet is not supported anywhere in scientific literature, not even by the United Nations. “Where is the support for this claim? Certainly not in the recent [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)] Policymakers Summary from the United Nations. Under the [IPCC’s] medium-range emission scenario for greenhouse gases, a rise in sea level of between 8 and 17 inches is predicted by 2100. Gore’s film exaggerates the rise by about 2,000 percent,” Michaels wrote in a February 23, 2007 article. (LINK) “According to satellite data published in [the journal] Science in November 2005,” Michaels wrote, “Greenland was shedding ice at 0.4 percent per century.” “Nowhere in the traditionally [peer-reviewed] refereed scientific literature do we find any support for Gore’s [Greenland melt] hypothesis,” Michaels concluded.
8) Geologist Morten Hald, an Arctic expert at of the University of Tromso in Norway has also questioned the reliability of computer models predicting a melting Arctic. “The main problem is that these models are often based on relatively new climate data. The thermometer has only been in existence for 150 years and information on temperature which is 150 years old does not capture the large natural changes,” Hald, who is participating with a Norwegian national team in Arctic climate research, said in a May 18, 2007 article. (LINK) The article continued, “Professor Hald believes the models which are utilized to make prognoses about the future climate changes consider paleoclimate only to a minor degree.” “Studies of warm periods in the past, like during the Stone Ages can provide valuable knowledge to understand and tackle the warmer climate in the future,” Hald explained.
9) Polar expert Ivan Frolov, the head of Russia’s Science and Research Institute of Arctic and Antarctic Regions, said atmospheric temperature would have to much higher to make continental glaciers melt. “Many hundred years or 20-30 degree temperature rise would have made glaciers melt,” Frolov said in a December 14, 2006 Russian news article. (LINK) Frolov noted that currently Greenland’s and Antarctic glaciers have the tendency to grow. The article explained, “Frolov says cooling and warming periods are common for our planet – temperature fluctuations amounted to 10-12 degrees. However, such fluctuations haven’t caused glaciers to melt. Thus, we shouldn’t be afraid they melt today.”
10) Physicist Dr. Syun-Ichi Akasofu, the former director of both University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Geophysical Institute and International Arctic Research Center who has twice been named one of the “1000 Most Cited Scientists,” told a Congressional hearing in 2006 that highly publicized climate models showing a disappearing Arctic were nothing more than “science fiction.” “All the papers since (the advent of satellites) show warming. That’s what I call ‘instant climatology.’ I’m trying to tell young scientists
, ‘You can’t study climatology unless you look at a much longer time period.’” (LINK)
11) Ivy League geologist Dr. Robert Giegengack of the University of Pennsylvania rejected fears of a catastrophic 20 foot sea level rise. “Sea level is rising,” Giegengack said, but it’s been rising ever since warming set in 18,000 years ago, he explained according to a February 2007 article in Philadelphia Magazine. But the Earth’s global ocean level is only going up 1.8 millimeters per year — less than the thickness of one nickel, Giegengack further explained. “At the present rate of sea-level rise it’s going to take 3,500 years to get up there (to a rise of 20 feet) So if for some reason this warming process that melts ice is cutting loose and accelerating, sea level doesn’t know it. And sea level, we think, is the best indicator of global warming,” he said. (LINK) Giegengack also noted that the history of the last one billion years on the planet reveals “only about 5% of that time has been characterized by conditions on Earth that were so cold that the poles could support masses of permanent ice.” (LINK)
12) Prominent scientist Professor Nils-Axel Morner, declared “the rapid rise in sea levels predicted by computer models simply cannot happen.” Morner, a leading world authority on sea levels and coastal erosion who headed the Department of Paleogeophysics & Geodynamics at Stockholm University, noted on August 6, 2007: “When we were coming out of the last ice age, huge ice sheets were melting rapidly and the sea level rose at an average of one meter per century. If the Greenland ice sheet stated to melt at the same rate – which is unlikely – sea level would rise by less than 100 mm – 4 inches per century.” Morner, who was president of the INQUA Commission on Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution from 1999 to 2003, has published a new booklet entitled “The Greatest Lie Ever Told,” to refute claims of catastrophic sea level rise. (LINK)
13) In addition, current climate fears tends to ignore the fact that the Vikings arrived in Greenland around 1000 A.D. and found it to be habitable settlement that they farmed for hundreds of years. A 2003 Harvard University study found (LINK) the Earth was warmer than today during the Medieval Warm Period from about 800 to 1300 A.D. without modern SUV’s or man-made CO2 emissions. The Vikings abandoned Greenland when the Little Ice Age took hold.
14) Another problem for predictions of catastrophic sea level rise due to polar ice melt is Antarctica is not cooperating with the man-made catastrophic global warming models. “A new report on climate over the world’s southernmost continent shows that temperatures during the late 20th century did not climb as had been predicted by many global climate models,” reads the February 15, 2007 press release announcing the findings of David Bromwich, professor of professor of atmospheric sciences in the Department of Geography, and researcher with the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University. (See: Antarctic temperatures disagree with climate model predictions LINK)
“It’s hard to see a global warming signal from the mainland of Antarctica right now,” Bromwich explained. The release explains that Bromwich’s research team found “no increase in precipitation over Antarctica in the last 50 years. Most models predict that both precipitation and temperature will increase over Antarctica with a warming of the planet.”
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