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Two New Science Papers Cast Further Doubt on Human Contribution to Climate Change

By Chris Morrison | The Daily Sceptic | January 19, 2022

Two important papers have recently been published that question the extent to which humans are causing global warming by burning fossil fuel and releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The works will of course be ignored by mainstream media outlets, but they represent further evidence that a more nuanced view of human-caused or anthropogenic warming is gaining traction among scientists, tired of working within the political constraints of ‘settled’ science.

In a paper to be published next month in the journal Health Physics, three physics professors led by Kenneth Skrable from the University of Massachusetts examine the atmospheric trail left by CO₂ isotopes and conclude that the amount of CO₂ released by fossil fuel burning between 1750 and 2018 was “much too low to be the cause of global warming”.

Three carbon isotopes are found in the atmosphere, ¹²C, ¹³C and ¹⁴C. The latter is produced by cosmic rays and is in a constant state of activity but the other two are contained in the gas entering the atmosphere. The carbon in living matter has a slightly higher proportion of ¹²C. Although only about 4% of CO₂  entering the atmosphere every year is produced by human activity, it is said very slightly to alter the balance of the other atmospheric isotopes. As a result it is often used as ‘proof’ that rising CO₂  levels are primarily the result of fossil fuel burning.

But the Massachusetts team found that claims of the dominance of anthropogenic fossil fuel in the isotope record have involved the ‘misuse’ of ¹²C and ¹³C statistics to validate such suggestions. They conclude that the assumption that the increase in atmospheric CO₂ is dominated by or equal to the anthropogenic component is “not settled science”.

Furthermore, they go on to state: “Unsupported conclusions of the dominance of the anthropogenic fossil component of CO₂  and concerns of its effect on climate change and global warming have severe potential societal implications that press the need for very costly remedial actions that may be misdirected, presently unnecessary, and ineffective in curbing global warming.”

The “remedial” net zero political agenda is driven by the unproven hypothesis that humans are causing catastrophic heating and climate breakdown by using once-living plant and animal matter and releasing CO₂ into the atmosphere. But there is little or no correlation between temperature and CO₂  levels on a current, historical or geological timescale. Recent global warming, which replaced the global cooling scare of the 1970s, ran out of steam almost two decades ago. Green activists keep the doomsday tales going by highlighting natural bad weather, quoting massaged surface temperatures (don’t mention the far more accurate and cooler satellite data) and citing increasingly fanciful forecasts from the hottest ticket in town – the Always Goes Wrong Climate Model Show.

The unproven science hypothesis that humans cause most or all climate change is now under increasing attack on a number of fronts in scientific circles. Professor Happer of Princeton University has suggested that CO₂ becomes “saturated” once it reaches a certain level, since it reflects heat back to Earth only within certain bands of the infrared spectrum. Under this hypothesis, which was given some credence by former Obama Administration Energy Under-secretary Steve Koonin in his book Unsettled, CO₂ becomes “saturated” once it reaches a certain level, with most of the Sun’s heat that is going to be trapped having already been radiated back to Earth.

Ascribing all climate change to just one cause – the burning of fossil fuel – is given short shrift by recent work published by the German physicist Dr. Frank Stefani. In a paper published last year, the researcher at the Helmholtz Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf dismisses the “illusionary claims of an overwhelming scientific consensus”. He cautions it is essential to support such settled conclusions, “before embarking on drastic, perilous and perhaps misguided plans for global action”.

Much of Dr. Stefani’s research looks at the effect of solar influences and geomagnetic forces on the planet. He suggests that the Sun accounts for between 30-70% of recent planetary warming. He further suggests that it is likely that solar activity will continue its two decade decline – at the end of the 20^th century it was likely at its highest level for 8,000 years – and geomagnetic activity as measured by the aa-index will fall. In Dr. Stefani’s work, he uses the aa-index as a proxy for solar activity. So far as CO₂ is concerned, he argues that even if there is an annual rise of 2.5 parts per million into the atmosphere, this will lead to only “a mild additional temperature rise” of less than 1°C by 2100. Other scenarios could result in flatter temperature curves “in which the heating effect of increasing CO₂ is widely compensated by the cooling effect of a decreasing aa-index”.

There are countless factors that influence the climate in the short, medium and long term. Dr. Stefani concludes his work by noting that the huge “Milankovitch drivers” [changes in the Earth’s axis and orbit] will eventually “cool down mankind’s hubris of being able to significantly influence the terrestrial climate (in whatever direction)”.

January 22, 2022 - Posted by aletho | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular