This is great reading. What's it doing on this post?
dg
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Riddle" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, July 26, 2006 2:05 PM
Subject: [F500] FW: FW: Larry on NBC
I had responded to John's call to see Gore's moive with a recent interview
clip from my Uncle who is a real Climatologist unlike some that play one in
the movies.
Here was his response to my Dad about the clip of his interview.
When you watch this video, just keep a couple of things in mind. The
first point is that this was a 10 second sound bite taken out of a 20
minute interview. And on a subject she was told in advance, by the
Director's Office of Communications, not to ask me about as that isn't the
research I do. The second thing to keep in mind is that my statement was
taken out of context.
I am frequently interviewed by reporters. Some of them are really good
and some aren't. And some of them are just down right venal. I have a
mental list of reporters who are persona non grata with me. Until this
interview, there was only one name on that list. Now there are two.
What I told her, before the 10 seconds she actually put on the air, was
that it did look like it was getting warmer. Was the only cause of this
warming greenhouse gases produced by humans? Maybe it is part of a long
natural cycle? Or might it be caused by the fact that over 95% of the
temperature sensors (thermometers) used in these studies are located at
airports? And conditions there have changed?
When we were kids, most of those airports were out past the edge of town.
They were mostly open fields with minimal amounts of paving for runways,
taxiways, and parking ramps. During busy periods, they might have 30 or
40 takeoffs and landings a day. The planes would have two or
have as many as 4 piston engines.
Now many of those airports are surrounded by development. Most of their
land is covered by concrete and asphalt. 50 to 60 takeoffs and landings
an hour are not unusual. The aircraft now have huge jet engines that
produce vast quantities of super-heated gases.
Might that be at least part of what's causing the warming?
If you look at the plot of temperature increases over the last 100 years,
and compare it to both the increases in greenhouse gases and the increases
in population, it looks to me as though it makes a better match with the
population than the gases.
One example I point to here in San Diego is Mission Valley.
I have a copy of one of Dad's photographs from the early 1950's(?) posted
on the wall of my office. It shows Mission Valley looking northeast from
the vicinity of the Serra Museum. And what's there?
Dairy farms. Lots of open space and damp, heat moderating pasture land.
What's there now? Lots and lots of concrete and asphalt. Thousands of
buildings, all of which have air conditioners (and other equipment) that
pump lots and lots of heat into the atmospheric boundary layer (the
portion of the atmosphere in contact with the ground).
If the atmospheric conditions today were exactly the same as they were in
1950, does anyone believe that a thermometer near Mission San Diego would
say the same thing today as it did then? I doubt it.
Does that mean we should just ignore any problems with greenhouse gases?
No, what I told the reporter (and Mari Payton did not mention) was that I
wanted greenhouse gas emissions reduced, not just for possible climatic
warming reasons, but because I have to breath that air. And for esthetic
reasons.
I told her that climate research had a broad spectrum of beliefs on human
induced climate warming. I told her that, at one end of the spectrum were
the religious fanatics. The climate is warming because of humans. No
question about it. At the other end were the atheists. Climate warming is
a natural cycle. Humans are having no impact. And then there's
scientists like me. The agnostics. We have yet to see any unequivocal
evidence either way. We're not even sure it is warming significantly when
you get away from the cities.
And we're not going to see much research that might give us better
insights since the people who approve research grants mostly come from the
religious fanatic end of the spectrum. There was some research done by
satellite measurement that indicated that an important part of the
atmosphere might not be warming. In fact, it might have cooled slightly
in the last 20 years.
There was a lot of controversy over those results. The atheists were
really happy. The fanatics screamed. Then the science team announced
that there was a slight bias in their records. When you adjusted for that
bias, it definitely showed the atmosphere was warming. Was the instrument
error real? Or was the science team just protecting their funding?
I really do wish I knew.
Larry
---===---=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=====[\/]=====-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=---===---
-----===(* Climate's what we expect, but weather's what we get.
*)===-----
Larry Riddle : Climate Research Division : Scripps Institution of
Oceanography
University of California, San Diego : La Jolla, California
92093-0224
Phone: (858) 534-1869 : Fax: (858) 534-8561 : E-Mail:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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