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How to Spot a 'Climate Contrarian'

Professor Bruce E. Johansen

Most people call them ‘skeptics,’ folks who believe that global warming is, to quote Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, “the greatest hoax ever perpetuated on humankind.” Some contrarians contend that all this is some sort of theology or mass psychosis: Al Gore brainwashing us all. Too bad carbon dioxide doesn’t have a sense of humor. It could get a belly laugh out of all this foolishness. Greenhouse gases have no politics. They can’t tell me from Rush Limbaugh. They just retain heat.

Love That Water Vapor

Many contrarians argue that the main greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is really water vapor — not carbon dioxide. This statement on its face is correct. Water vapor is, indeed, a greenhouse gas. However, it also interacts with other gases that hold heat. And, as anyone who has survived a Nebraska August with a busted air conditioner knows only too well, hot air holds a lot more moisture than the same volume of cooler air.

Water vapor at elevated temperatures can double the climate warming caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, according to Andrew Dessler and colleagues from Texas A&M University in College Station, who used data from NASA’s Aqua satellite to measure humidity levels in the lowest ten miles of the atmosphere. “This new data set shows that as surface temperature increases, so does atmospheric humidity,” Dessler said. “Dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere makes the atmosphere more humid. And since water vapor is itself a greenhouse gas, the increase in humidity amplifies the warming from carbon dioxide.”

This work, published in the American Geophysical Union’s Geophysical Research Letters, combined global observations of shifts in temperature with satellite data to construct a model of the interplay between water vapor, carbon dioxide and other atmospherewarming gases. “Everyone agrees that if you add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, then warming will result,” Dessler said. “So the real question is, how much warming?” The answer, according to Dessler and colleagues, can be found by estimating the magnitude of water vapor feedback. Increasing water vapor leads to warmer temperatures, which causes more water vapor to be absorbed into the air. Warming and water absorption increase in a spiraling cycle.

Dessler’s work indicates that if Earth warms 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, increases in water vapor will trap an extra 2 Watts of energy per square meter (about 11 square feet). “This study confirms that what was predicted by the models is really happening in the atmosphere,” said Eric Fetzer, an atmospheric scientist who works with AIRS (Atmospheric Infrared Spectrometer) data at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “Water vapor is the big player in the atmosphere as far as climate is concerned.”

Pound of Chocolate, Gallon of Beer

Another simplistic contrarian chant is “The greenhouse effect is good for us.” This one is good as far as it goes. With no carbon dioxide in the air, the Earth would be too cold to sustain life. At 180 parts per million, we get an ice age, with ice sheets approaching Aberdeen, South Dakota. At 280 ppm, we get roughly today’s climate, an interglacial. At 385 ppm—today’s level, having factored in 50 years of change due to the system’s effort to reach thermal equilibrium — we get the Pliocene (the Earth as it was 2 to 3 million years ago) with very little to no long-lasting ice, sea levels about 200 feet higher (or more), and a temperature averaging 4 degrees C. above today’s levels.

Contrarians generally believe that since a little carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gases) are a good thing, more will be better. Anyone who believes such a simplistic notion should sit down right now and eat a pound of chocolate in 15 minutes and chase it with a gallon of beer laced with a few pounds of salt. In moderation, greenhouse gases, beer, salt, and chocolate all can be very enjoyable. At a certain level, salt is necessary for life, so vital that Roman workers were sometimes paid with it (‘salary’ is derived from the Latin word for ‘salt’). Too much salt, however, can kill us. Likewise, a certain amount of carbon dioxide in the air is very good for us. More than that, we are most definitely in trouble.

Another contrarian mantra is: “I am a scientist. I utilize objective data.” Such an attitude implies that the rest of us are little more than peons peddling worthless opinions. Well, I am not a card-carrying scientist, and I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but I do read the literature, and I can tell the difference between geophysical reality and a fossil-fueled pig in a poke. Science is not a gated community, especially when the stakes are the future of the Earth and its inhabitants, both flora and fauna. The real scientists know this, and they welcome the participation of the rest of us.

I debated Robert Smith, a University of Nebraska at Omaha chemistry professor and climate contrarian, at the Omaha Press Club last November. He began his argument against global warming’s impact with the condescending pronouncement that he is a scientist who utilizes “data.” He ended it with a Power Point photo of Sarah Palin, who he characterized as a “rare politician... with brains.” I do not want to be unkind, but I thought Smith was doing a wee bit of damage to his credibility as a scientist.

At one point during the debate, however, I asked Smith what he thought of the fact that Arctic sea ice lost almost a quarter of its mass in 2007. He replied that ice naturally melts in summer and refreezes in winter. No, I said. You misunderstand me. The ice lost almost a quarter of its extent in September 2007 compared to September 2006 (September, 2008 ice extent was roughly similar to that of 2007).

“I don’t have that data,” Smith said.

Now that’s saying something. And, I thought, sums up the climate contrarian position perfectly.

REFERENCES

Dessler, A.E., Z. Zhang, and P. Yang. “Water-vapor Climate Feedback Inferred from Climate Fluctuations, 2003–2008.” Geophysical Research Letters 35 (2008). [doi:10.1029/ 2008GL035333]

“Water Vapor Confirmed as Major Player in Climate Change.” NASA Earth Observatory, November 17, 2008.

Frederick W. Kayser Professor of Communication at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Johansen is the author of the three-volume “Global Warming in the Twenty-First Century” (Praeger, 2006).