UK Telegraph reports: “Global warming will stop until at least 2015 because of natural variations in the climate, scientists have said. Researchers studying long-term changes in sea temperatures said they now expect a “lull” for up to a decade while natural variations in climate cancel out the increases caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions. The average temperature of the sea around Europe and North America is expected to cool slightly over the decade while the tropical Pacific remains unchanged. This would mean that the 0.3°C global average temperature rise which has been predicted for the next decade by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change may not happen, according to the paper published in the scientific journal Nature.”

The UK Telegraph article by reporter Charles Clover noted the significant deficiencies in UN climate models: “The IPCC currently does not include in its models actual records of such events as the strength of the Gulf Stream and the El Nino cyclical warming event in the Pacific, which are known to have been behind the warmest year ever recorded in 1998.”

However, the effect of rising fossil fuel emissions will mean that warming will accelerate again after 2015 when natural trends in the oceans veer back towards warming, according to the computer model.

But if natural variations are able to offset the man-made warming, is then our contribution to climate change significant? Also, if nature now (temporarily) cools the Earth, why shouldn’t the recent warming be natural as well?

I think that Al Gore should plan for an alternative occupation.

Science Daily reports today that scientists have for the first time detected regionally elevated atmospheric CO2 originating from manmade emissions. Using data from the SCIAMACHY instrument aboard ESA’s Envisat environmental satellite, they have found an extended plume over Europe’s most populated area, the region from Amsterdam in the Netherlands to Frankfurt, Germany.

I can almost see the alarmists dancing with rapture. However, we should first have a closer look on the diagram.

In the picture above, we can clearly see the areas of higher CO2 concentration marked in red. But look at the scale below the diagram. The difference between high and “normal” is measly 2.5 ppm. How is that for significant contribution? Also, let’s not forget that the IPCC predicts that increasing CO2 concentrations will result in a warmer climate. I got my hand read once. None of the predictions made then came true.

Dr Michael Buchwitz from the Institute of Environmental Physics (IUP) at the University of Bremen in Germany says that carbon dioxide emissions occur naturally as well as being created through human activities, like the burning of fossil fuels (oil, coal, gas) for power generation, industry and traffic. Dr Buchwitz doesn’t mention the CO2 we all emit in our breath. It kind of makes sense that there is more CO2 in a densely populated area, such as the Netherlands.

“The natural CO2 fluxes between the atmosphere and the Earth’s surface are typically much larger then the CO2 fluxes arising from manmade CO2 emissions, making the detection of regional anthropogenic CO2 emission signals quite difficult,” Buchwitz explains. “This does not mean, however, that the anthropogenic fluxes are of minor importance. In fact, the opposite is true because the manmade fluxes are only going in one direction whereas the natural fluxes operate in both directions, taking up atmospheric CO2 when plants grow, but releasing most or all of it again when the plants decay.”

Dr Buchwitz admits though that significant gaps remain in the knowledge of CO2 sources, such as fires, volcanic activity and the respiration of living organisms, and its natural sinks, such as the land and the ocean. He also says “more studies are needed before definitive quantitative conclusions concerning CO2 emissions can be drawn”.

That leaves us with a nice little diagram that basically means zilch. Or as Shakespeare would say: “Much ado about nothing”.

Source: European Space Agency (2008, March 19). Satellite Makes First Ever Observation Of Regionally Elevated Carbon Dioxide From Manmade Emissions. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 19, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com– /releases/2008/03/080318110330.htm

Belgium’s heir to the throne, prince Philippe, attended yesterday the Globe 2008 conference in Vancouver, Canada, and demonstrated his impressive scientific knowledge.

He said, among other things, that to keep the CO2-levels steady would require a 50 to 85 percent cut in the emissions.

“This basically means that we will have to live in an almost carbon-free world.”

From The Vancouver Sun, March 12