NST: GLOBAL WARMING? The ‘science’ of a warming world

The New Straits Times version of my letter that appeared in The Sun a week earlier. There are some editorial changes, but nothing that modifies the message of the letter.

Now I’m just waiting on you, The Star…

See also my post on the subject of badly placed temperature recording stations and Coyote Blog’s post on shoddy/dishonest climate manipulation of temperature data.

       

From NST 13 Aug 2007 (NST removes links after a week):

GLOBAL WARMING?: The ‘science’ of a warming world

By : SCOTT THONG YU YUEN, Ipoh

SOMETIMES, I wonder if I am wrong to be sceptical about global warming. After all, the majority seems to believe in global warming.

The Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claims there’s concrete evidence of it. And environmentalists tell me that sceptics are immoral for denying the “undeniable truth”.

However, each time I start to feel that way, I learn something that vindicates my cautiousness.

In the study of global warming, one method used to measure and record worldwide temperatures is the groundbased climate record station.

Each station is a small unit containing a sensor that automatically measures and records the daily temperature.

With many stations spread across different locations, a worldwide temperature data-base can then be compiled.This allows the comparison of global temperatures over years and decades, checking for rising temperatures — that is, global warming.However, many of these stations are located near rapidly urbanising areas. Thus, their readings may be affected by the “urban heat island” effect — heat released and reflected by people, vehicles, industry, concrete, asphalt and glass windows.

Global warming sceptics claim that the convenient location of stations in and near cities had caused errors in the temperature records.

The temperature in cities may be rising quickly, but that doesn’t mean the average global temperature is rising as fast.

The IPCC contends that the urban heat island effect had been identified and accounted for in their reports.

The sceptics counter that the effect hadn’t been accounted for enough and the average global temperature had not really risen much.

Whatever the verdict is, a quick browsing on http://surfacestations.org and other sites will turn up shocking photos of the climate recording stations, revealing serious flaws in the research method.

Stations are placed on low poles, surrounded on all sides by concrete structures, steel towers, asphalt roads and sun-reflecting glass.

Some stations are located near parking lots. One even has a heat-emitting incandescent light bulb in the same shelter as the temperature sensor!

Many stations are located right next to air-conditioning exhaust vents.

One such station’s temperature record graph shows a sudden, disconnected jump of several degrees. What caused this alarming increase in temperature? Could it possibly be due to the air-conditioning unit that was nearby?

By contrast, stations in locations that were not subsequently urbanised showed no great change in temperature. So what happened to the purported global warming, as opposed to merely localised warming?

As if the handling of temperature measurements wasn’t bad enough, the scientists in charge of recording and interpreting the data took the liberty of “adjusting” the final results for their reports.

The United States Historical Climate Network reports that from 1940 till today, the average temperature in the US rose about 0.6 degree Celsius.

But how did the researchers arrive at this figure? It turns out that they took the recorded average temperature rise of 0.1 degree and added 0.5 degree for “adjustments” and “corrections” for various “factors”.

Unusual weather is being reported more often. But is it really due to global climate change? Is the world really heating up catastrophically over the years, or is today’s weather report merely a seasonal fluctuation?

Unfortunately, with research that’s as shoddy as what I’ve recounted, I don’t believe we can say for sure. The global warming debate is far from over, no matter what what former US vice-president Al Gore or the IPCC may claim or hope.