The Further Adventures of the Two-Faced Issue

As is so typical of this subject, we have recently reached another crossroads where the analysis of some well chosen data has drawn two differing conclusions that are diametrically opposed, yet somehow both (naturally) support the same hypothesis of global warming. Two years ago Michael Schirber, a staff writer for "Live Science" on-line magazine, wrote an article titled, "Global Warming Makes Sea Less Salty." (http://www.livescience.com/environment/050629_fresh_water.html ) His two sources for this article were Ruth Curry of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Cecilie Mauritzen of the Norwegian Meteorological Institute. Both organizations have sound scientific reputations...I cannot vouch for Curry or Mauritzen, however. The conclusion of the article is actually described fairly accurately in the title of the piece...that the North Atlantic Ocean has become less salty, in part due to increases in fresh water runoff at high latitudes (due to global warming). This would disrupt the thermohaline circulation which in turn could severely alter the Atlantic Ocean's "conveyor belt" system of currents which is suppose to bring warm tropical waters northward and cold arctic waters to the south. The consequences? Of course they would be devastating and would affect everything from hurricane formation to heat waves and droughts.

There are a couple of interesting side bars to this article, however...especially if we use these conclusion(s) as a baseline for the global warming ideology at the time (only two years ago...but, pre-Hurricane Katrina). First of all, the two scientists mentioned were a lot more laid-back in expressing their conclusions and results, eluding to the fact that "no significant change in the in the conveyor belt has yet been observed...and that it would take another century to slow the ocean exchanges if the current rate of fresh water inflow continues." Thus, they were generally concluding that the change would be gradual based on the then current projections of increase in greenhouse gasses and the associated rise in global average temperatures. Interestingly, this was also near the beginning of another landmark change in global warming thinking - the inclusion, or changeover to the term, "climate change" ...instead of just using the phrase "global warming" by itself. Using this trick, the idea that if a severely altered oceanic conveyor belt did occur, and the earth was actually plunged deeply into a "global cooling" regime, the global warming enthusiasts would be "conveniently" covered. And then there was Katrina!

August 29, 2005, hurricane Katrina came ashore in the Gulf of Mexico (as a cat 3 storm - not a cat 5 as was once being told) and the (primarily liberal) world has been trying to find someone or something to blame ever since. This event also marked the turning point in the selling of the belief that global warming and its consequences "could" happen, to that of global warming has and is already happening...and "this or that" is what you can blame on it. No more "wait and see" attitude in the sciences...as social and economic pressure influenced local, regional and national politics which thusly warped the thinking behind the new global warming science. As bad as global warming science was before August 29, it is an order of magnitude (or two) worse now. Media and politics have virtually taken over the entire process of anthropogenic global warming themselves...while the science, or what was once real science, is virtually gone. As long as an influential headline can be derived from some dire consequence of said global warming (or "climate change"),,,AND, can be directly related back to some human activity (past, present or future), it will be advertised and sold to the public at record pace. Why the urgency? Upcoming elections for one...and the fact that the whole global warming machine will topple one day as we continue to progress into the future, and its legitimacy truly (finely) comes into question.

OK. Fast forward ahead to August 23^rd of this year. Just over two years since the previous Schirber report was written (above). Now we find a new article by Catherine Brahic titled, "Saltier North Atlantic should give currents a boost," in the electronic version of "New Scientist" on-line magazine (http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn12528-saltier-north-atlantic-should-give-currents-a-boost.html ). Again, the title tells it all. The expert in this case is Tim Boyer of the US National Oceanographic Data Center (again, organizational reputation good, individual status unknown) who basically, but somewhat reluctantly, finds that the water in the North Atlantic has NOT become less salty, but is in fact increasing in salinity as a direct result of global warming, and therefore the conveyor belts are not in danger of breaking down and will remain stable. It should be noted, however, that in the last section of Brahic's expose, under "Rapid Changes," Boyer hedges his bets a bit by stating that, "...this could be short-lived relief only...Things change rapidly...in five years things could change again." This is typical of a person or group that doesn't want to lose research (money) opportunity.

One of the paragraphs in Brahic's piece states, "When in their recent study Boyer and his colleagues zoomed in on the subarctic Atlantic, they found that the waters there became much less salty in the 1960s, as expected. But since the 1990s, they have been getting saltier again, and are now about as salty as they were in the 1970s." This is all interesting in that during the 60s and 70s we were going through a relatively cool(ing) period...and yet still the Atlantic was becoming less salty at times, and conversely more salty at times...regardless of the warming (or cooling) that the earth was going through. Could it be that this cyclical salinity cycle (say that ten times fast) is "normal?" At the very least, there is no way that anthropogenic global warming can be cited as THE cause for both cases...as there is still a large "unknown factor" in what exactly causes the salinity to change. This is, of coarse, akin to part of the new global warming hypothesis that global warming may lead to global cooling and vice versa. A no lose situation if I ever saw one. Could it also be that the warming and cooling of the atmosphere and earth is always going on...forced or unforced by humans? I should think so, since the atmosphere and its weather and the climate are inherently dynamic and NOT static! At the very least, this all leaves some room for doubt as to the consequence of human involved activities and their proclivity to always cause some kind of remarkable damage to the earth.

All of this is just one example of the contradictory nature of the pseudoscience of global warming. The idea or hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming has infiltrated nearly every portion of our lives now and is being told (sold) to us as a given...and that it is real and currently happening and that (nearly) all that is bad in the world is a result of this. It is quite remarkable, really, in that something so complicated, and the process relatively unknown to most of the world, is taken as the gospel (according to who?). They are now teaching global warming theory as though it is a proven fact in your schools...are you aware of that? What is really interesting (disturbing) are the number of times that my kids have come home and told me that teacher "so-and-so" believes in global warming...and was trying to lecture the class on the merits of believing in global warming, not from a scientific standpoint, but from a political one! I'm sorry, but the issue of global warming should not be taught as a fact in science class to begin with...and definitely should stay out of the English and History classes (where ironically enough, even more support for climate change comes from!). I'll tackle the issue of content and curriculum in schools more in the future...after I have my say with my local school board.