THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume IX, Issue # 153, August 16, 2007
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
A CLOUDY MYSTERY
By Alan Caruba
POLITICAL ENVIRONMENTALISM, GLOBAL WARMING, COMPUTER MODELING, & CLOUDS: HOW THE CONSTANT
VARIABILITY OF CLOUDS CREATES A PROBLEM FOR POLITICAL ENVIRONMENTALISTS & PSEUDO-SCIENTISTS RELYING ON
COMPUTER MODELS TO SUPPORT & ADVANCE GLOBAL WARMING THEORY -- HOW GLOBAL WARMING PROPOGANDISTS
COVER UP THE RELEVANT FACTS & EVIDENCE -- QUESTION: IF LEADING METEOROLOGISTS REMAIN LARGELY
IGNORANT OF WHY CLOUDS DO WHAT THEY DO, WHY SHOULD WE PAY ANY ATTENTION TO THOSE WITH A FINANCIAL
OR IDEOLOGICAL INCENTIVE TO PROPAGATE GLOBAL WARMING CLAIMS?
FULL STORY:
There’s a reason why one should be extremely wary of the computer models that are cited by the endless doomsday
predictions of Al Gore, the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change, and all the other advocates of “global
warming” theory.
The reason is clouds. Computer models simply cannot provide for the constant variability of clouds, so they ignore
them.
In a July issue of The Economist, there was an article, “Grey-Sky Thinking,” subtitled, “Without Understanding
Clouds, Understanding the Climate is hard. And Clouds Are the Least Understood Part of the Atmosphere.” Since the
increasingly rabid claims of Earth’s destruction from rising temperatures depend on computer modeling, how can they be
regarded as accurate, if they must largely exempt or deliberately manipulate the impact of clouds?
How can you make predictions, whether it’s a week or a decade from now, if you haven’t a clue why clouds do what they
do?
Tim Garrett, a research meteorologist at the University of Utah, with refreshing candor, has said:
“We really do not know what’s going on. There are so many basic
unanswered questions on how they (clouds) work.”
And that is never mentioned in the great “global warming” debate, one we are continuously told is “decided” and upon
which there is a vast scientific “consensus.”
This is particularly significant because clouds act to both cool and warm the Earth. It is widely believed that high clouds
can reflect solar radiation away from the planet, but they can also serve to trap heat in the atmosphere. New studies,
however, have given some cause to reconsider this. Moreover, cloud droplets can last for less than a second, while
whole clouds can live out their lives in minutes or days. There is no way to integrate such massive, constant change into
a computer model that divides the world into boxes up to sixty miles on a side, so they mostly do not.
This is why there are two new missions by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration involving highly
sophisticated devices to measure and study the actions of clouds. This is also why, up to now, the computer models on
which “global warming” claims have been made have actually been tweaked, adjusted, manipulated — take your choice
of terms — to factor in the mystery of clouds.
How wide is the computer modeling gap when it comes to predicting the weather? The Economist reported that,
“In a recent paper in Climate Dynamics, Mark Webb, of Britain’s Hadley Centre for Climate Change, and his colleagues
reported that clouds account for 66% of the differences between members of one important group of models and for 85%
of them in another group.” Clouds simply defy the logarithms of computer modelers.
In short, “Too much still remains unknown about the physical mechanisms that determine cloud behavior,” said The
Economist.
Here’s a useful scientific definition of the weather: “atmospheric conditions at a given time and a particular location.”
Drive a few miles in any direction and the weather is likely to be different. Stay put and it will change soon enough. My
other favorite definition is “chaos.”
In an August, 2002, article, “The Trouble with the Weather,” the European Space Agency noted that, “Forecasting the
weather remains notoriously difficult because the atmosphere is not easy to predict, being affected by such factors as
air pressure and temperature, air movements, the distribution of water in its various states (clouds) in the atmosphere,
and static electricity stored in the air.”
“Clouds are that 800-pound gorilla,” says research meteorologist, Gerald Mace, also of the University of Utah, referring
to the critical role they play in the weather on any portion of planet Earth.
That gorilla, however, is never mentioned by the “global warming” propagandists. Neither clouds, nor volcanoes, nor the
most important factor, the Sun, is credited as responsible for either the climate or the weather. Instead, we are constantly
told that “human activity” is the single cause.
Unmentioned, too, is the fact that water vapor constitutes 95% of all greenhouse gases. Environmentalists insist that
carbon dioxide plays a major role. It is well to keep in mind, however, that CO2 is the gas that is vital to the growth of all
vegetation on Earth. Nor do global warming advocates remind people that the Earth is at the end of the interglacial period
between Ice Ages, a fact which suggests another Ice Age is due any day now.
Indeed, the only global warming that is occurring has been happening since the end of the last mini-Ice Age in the 1800s.
It is a natural response and is not a dramatic rise of four to ten degrees. It doesn’t even represent one-half a degree
increase.
Following the publication of the results of new study in the journal of the American Geophysical Union revealing that the
absence of clouds actually had a cooling affect — the opposite of widely held opinion on the role of clouds — Dr. Roy
Spencer of the Earth System Science Center noted that, “To give an idea of how strong this enhanced cooling mechanism
is, if it was operating on global warming, it would reduce estimates of future warming by over 75 percent. The big question
that no one can answer right now is whether this enhanced cooling mechanism applies to global warming.”
If leading meteorologists remain largely ignorant of why clouds do what they do, why would we pay any attention to those
with a financial or ideological incentive to propagate “global warming” claims? There is, however, a difference between
being ignorant and being stupid. Believing the “global warming” lies is stupid.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
The Earth's Natural History, Global Climate Changes,
& the Future of Human Life & Civilization on the Planet:
Science, Ideology, & Public Policy
Alan Caruba is a veteran business and science writer, a Public Relations Counselor, and Founder of the National Anxiety Center, a
clearinghouse for information about media-driven scare campaigns. Caruba writes a weekly commentary, "Warning Signs," posted
on the Internet website of the National Anxiety Center, which is located at
www.anxietycenter.com.
Caruba’s new book, Right Answers: Separating Fact from Fantasy, has been published by Merril Press.
© Alan Caruba 2007
Published with Permission of Alan Caruba
ACaruba@AOL.Com
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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