Climate Changeology

The scenario should sound familiar. The amount of carbon in the oceans and atmosphere changes suddenly and dramatically. The oceans are acidified and significant extinctions result. On land, global temperatures increase anywhere from five to nine degrees Celsius, causing widespread habitat disruptions. Despite the sudden onset of the event, its impact lingers for 100,000 years.

This might sound like a worst-case situation for the current anthropogenic influences on climate, but it's actually an historic event that the public is generally unaware of: the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM, which occurred about 55 million years ago.

The rest of the article suggests that maybe, just maybe, on top of all the hysteria, science-is-settled-debate-is-over memes running through the media about The Warming, that perhaps our knowledge isn't so consensus-settled after all and there may be larger and smaller cycles and feedback loops in our climate system which we are still unable to account for in our climate models.

Colour me surprised.

In fact when scientists in the year 2009 only now decide that 'insignificant' motions such as swimming jellyfish can greatly influence the "water-mixing" that occurs in the oceans, given that the sum of energy from wind and tides don't seem to account for it, well excuse me if my cynicism grows in direct proportion to the hysteria of the alarmists.

The humble jellyfish: agent of The Warming?
(picture source)

On top of this already CO2 laden rant, it is especially confusing when you find that true believers (in The Warming) are starting to say the same thing that skeptics like myself have been saying for a long time. Anne Applebaum on Slate:

But I do doubt the wisdom of assuming that eight or 10 politicians will ever solve this problem during a meeting at an Italian conference center—or any conference center, for that matter. I also question whether even several hundred politicians—plus their scientific advisers, assorted environmentalists, and lobbyists—will solve this problem at the Copenhagen climate super summit due to be held in December.

I realise that my constant ravings on this issue have the possibility of alienating my one reader (who is still a believer in this malarky), however would you take the word of the "Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology" ?

The notion of a static, unchanging climate is foreign to the history of the earth or any other planet with a fluid envelope. The fact that the developed world went into hysterics over changes in global mean temperature anomaly of a few tenths of a degree will astound future generations.

The idea that we can prevent The Warming, without having effectively proved that man is causing it, or that we have the ability to stop it if we want, is as noxious as CO2...okay...CO2 is not that noxious (someone tell the greenies)...let's say as noxious as CH4 (Methane). Why is it noxious? Why do I bother ranting on about this ridiculous hoax when ultimately the intentions seem good? I mean I would love to eliminate pollution and waste, use energy more efficiently, run my home from solar panels and not have to beg middle eastern countries for oil to drive my car to the movies.

No, the reason is much more involved than that, and I'll let the good prof elaborate:

The interests of the environmental movement in acquiring more power, influence, and donations are reasonably clear. So too are the interests of bureaucrats for whom control of CO2 is a dream-come-true. After all, CO2 is a product of breathing itself.

This is the reason why this idea must be resisted. Politicians, scientists and environmentalists all want to charge head long in attempting to legislate our way out of what is a natural process. Every concession, every bit of legislation, every lightbulb that we sacrifice to this phoney deity will make it all the more harder to resist once this becomes established dogma.