---The CLIMATE CHANGE CONFLICT
[Keeping Cool Over Global Warming~ (Excerpt)]
[-Doctor Jake Hebert / ICR = [Institute For Creation Research]
-- ~~EARTH'S CLIMATE IS STABLE ~~

~~Climate sensitivity is the main issue in the debate over global warming. Alarmists think our climate is unstable and that increased carbon dioxide can cause a climate catastrophe. Those skeptical of the alarmism think Earth's climate is likely very stable and that the climate system self-adjusts to prevent extremes.

Climate sensitivity is defined as the average surface temperature increase after the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been gradually doubled, and after the climate has had a chance to settle down from this.

American climatologist Judith Curry is skeptical of climate change alarmism. Dr. Curry has a stellar academic resume. She has authored nearly 200 papers, is the co-author of two textbooks on atmospheric science, and was awarded the 1992 Henry G. Houghton Research Award from the American Meteorological Society for promising your researchers. Dr. Curry has provided expert testimony before congressional committees on the subject of climate change. Transcripts and videos of her testimony are posted online.

She recently made a major contribution to the debate by presenting evidence that Earth's climate is stable, contrary to the claims of alarmists. She released her results in a paper co-authored with Nicholas Lewis, an independent researcher who has also been very skeptical of climate change alarmism. The Lewis and Curry paper used historical climate data and a basic rule of physics called energy balance to estimate Earth's sensitivity to change in carbon dioxide. Because their estimate was calculated from physics, it should be more reliable than estimates obtained from computer models. If the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide doubled, Lewis and Curry estimated that the global average surface temperature would increase by 3.0 F (1.66* C). To put this number in perspective, most estimates of climate sensitivity estimate this temperature rise to be between 2.7* F (1.5*C) and 8.1 F (4.5* F (3*C), and some claim that a sensitivity higher than 8.1*F (4.*C) can't be ruled out. Hence, Curry and Lewis estimate Earth's climate to be relatively stable.

Climatologist, meterologist, and former NASA scientist Dr. Roy Spencer heralded thier results. He noted that Lewis and Curry took great pains to address uncertainties, as well as possible objections to their calculations. Although he did not consider thier result airtight (due to some factors that can't really be known), he considered their result very important, going so far as to call it "seminal.."

In addition to Curry's research, there are more reasons to thik that our climate is stable. Rather than being harmful, carbon dioxide actually stimulates Earth's vegetation and helps stabilize the climate in the process. Humans breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. But what "breathes" carbon dioxide? Plants! As carbon dioxide increases, so does plant growth. Some deserts are shrinking as the amount of surrounding vegetation increases. This increase in plant growth seems to be a response to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide. When carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases, the numbers of plants increase too. These plants take in carbon dioxide, lowering the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, bringing it back toward its original values.

~~~As noted by respected physicist Freeman Dyson:

'We know that plants do react very strongly to enhanced carbon dioxide. At [the Institute for Energy Analysis], they did lots of experiments with enhanced carbon dioxide and it has a drastic effect on plants because it is the main food source for the plants... So if you change the carbon dioxide drastically by a factor of two, the whole behavior of the plant is different. Anyway, that's so typical of the things [climate alarmists] ignore. They are totally missing the biological side, which is probably more than half of the real system.'~

Likewise, marine algae near the ocean surface trap carbon dioxide, and some scientists think that these algae help to regulate Earth's climate. Consider this scenario. As atmospheric carbon dioxide increases, temperatures warm. As temperatures warm, glacial ice melts. As this melt-water enters the ocean, so do iron-containing minerals. It is well known that iron in seawater increases the amount of algae The iron stimulates "blooms" of algae, which use and trap the carbon dioxide, incorporating the carbon within their cells. When the algae die, they drift to the bottom of the ocean. This removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and sequesters it on the ocean floor. In describing this mechanism, one secular scientist said, "The Earth itself seems to want to save us [from global warming]." Of course, it is God who should be given credit for the design of our climate system, not the earth!

It looks like carbon dioxide only has a modest effect on Earth's temperature. What else could be affecting our climate? The answer might lie 93 million miles away. ~~
~~~~~~~~~~