1 degree rise in global temps is not reason for your hair to be on fire

To The Daily Sun,

Well James Veverka submitted another well-written letter that added little to his argument. I read the link he provided stating that 97 percent of climate experts agree that global warming is real. I’m one of them. The only difference between Jim and myself is the practical impact it has on the world. I want to expand on that because it is at the heart of the global warming debate and I thank Jim for the opportunity to debate it.

Jim is a climate “alarmist” and believes increasing temperatures will destroy the planet as we know it. Actually, I don’t know what he believes, so hopefully he can clear that up in his next letter. By contrast, I’m a climate “realist” and think that the climate will go up and down over time. It has been doing it for millions of years and will continue for millions more.

I’m going to say up front that I think Jim is a bright guy. His letters are well written and he makes sound arguments based on his source data when he provides it. My heartache with many of his letters is he doesn’t provide source data. I’m going to go out on a limb and speculate that Jim has a college degree in a field other than science. His writing skills would suggest English literature or political science. I say that because his last letter had an obvious technical error that went unnoticed by him. His last paragraph claimed that the incoming energy from the sun exceeded the outgoing energy from the earth by .8W/m^2. The surplus of heat will continue to accumulate while the total solar irradiance diminishes. It’s not the sun. It’s us.

I’m sure it made sense in Jim’s head but not mine. The first sentence said global warming is due to the sun and in the second line he said it was due to man. For clarity I think he was trying to say that CO2 in the atmosphere is preventing the radiation from getting back out into space. Which is a valid concern. As a climate realist, I’m saying prove it!

Jim please explain why the global temperature has decreased (not increased) for the last two years. Also, please provide some scientific evidence from all your climate experts that predicts what the global temperature will be if the CO2 levels in the atmosphere doubles in the next 100 years. That is the kind of source data that will get my attention. Running around with your hair on fire because the earths average temperature increased by .9C over the last 100 years is not cause for panic. In fact, it’s a welcome relief for those that don’t like the cold.

Before closing, I calculated how much more radiation would leave the earth if the temperature increased just 1C. It is 18W/m^2 which is considerably more than the .8W/m^2 you claimed above is causing global warming. Do the math! I stand with Don and Russ, this is political.

Bruce Jenket

Moultonborough