Is Texas getting too hot?
Experts debate whether state is becoming casualty of global warming
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Farmer Cedric Popp considers the past dry years normal, but he pays attention to the global warming debate.
“If it’s really occurring, it’s an issue,” the Wharton County cotton and milo farmer said.
He could adjust to planting earlier in the springtime or adjusting crops, but Popp worries more about spotty or less rainfall than temperature change.
From his studies of the past, he knows temperatures have fluctuated throughout history. He’d like to know how researchers came to the conclusion of global warming.
Researchers and meteorologists on all sides of the issue argue about whether Earth is warming, whether man amplifies that warming and how a temperature increase of five to six degrees by the end of the century would impact ecology and human life.
Global warming hasn’t affected Texas weather yet, state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon said. Temperatures are just barely above where they were in the 1950s.
The bays along the Texas coast have warmed, but only during the wintertime, said Jim Tolan, estuarine ecologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife in Corpus Christi. San Antonio Bay has increased a few degrees in winter months during the past 25 years.
If it were global warming, the change in temperature would be constant through the summer and winter, Tolan said. He predicts we’re at the tail-end of a natural cycle, and within the next few years Texas could see colder, harder-hitting winters.
Tolan agrees both sides of the global warming argument show a lot of circumstantial evidence, but we could be at the peak of a 100,000-year interglacial climate cycle, he said.
“Can you blame all warming on one thing or another?” Tolan asked rhetorically.
A natural cycle based on historical record would indicate global temperatures would eventually decrease again, said Nielsen-Gammon, a professor at Texas A&M University. But the world’s atmospheric composition has changed.
“Man has interfered with nature – in a measurable way,” he said.
Carbon dioxide has increased from a pre-industrial value of about 280 parts per million to 379 ppm in 2005, documents from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show. That’s about a 35 percent increase.
The increase of this greenhouse gas would contribute to the physics of the greenhouse effect and temperatures would rise, Nielsen-Gammon said. If researchers didn’t have to take into account the change in the atmosphere, global warming wouldn’t be an issue.
“The Earth is warming – I think almost everybody agrees on that,” Gerald R. North, professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University said.
North, Nielsen-Gammon and other researchers are writing chapters of the second edition of “The Impact of Global Warming on Texas,” due to be published at the year’s end.
Overall, the average global temperature is increasing, but that doesn’t mean some areas won’t have cooling, North added. The polar regions are warming more rapidly. Melting glaciers confirms the global warming predictions from the past 20 years, he said.
The 20 climate models used in the Intergovernmental Panel reports all say Earth is warming, North said. They disagree about climate sensitivities to carbon dioxide and feedbacks like cloudiness.
“They’re not perfect,” North said. “The fact is, the globe is warming. I think the evidence overwhelming points to humans being involved.”
This evidence is found in studying ice in Antarctica, where scientists drill ice cores that, when analyzed, can tell the composition of the air 650,000 years ago. Air bubbles trapped in the ice comprise the best evidence. Scientists also gather past data from sources like tree rings and layers of coral.
While scientist Roy Spencer applauds the climatic research, he’s still not convinced humans caused a global warming. The climate is much less sensitive to greenhouse gas emissions than the research assumes, the meteorologist and principal research scientist for the University of Alabama in Huntsville said.
But he doesn’t disagree man has contributed some carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Spencer doesn’t necessarily see carbon dioxide, which is necessary for life, as such a negative impact.
“It’s not really the carbon dioxide that makes it so warm,” Spencer said. “It’s a question of how the climate system responds.”
The problem lies in the clouds. Clouds provide an overall solar cooling effect for Earth. He said the current models show clouds change to amplify warming, when in fact they may do the opposite.
“I think everyone agrees it’s unusually warm right now,” Spencer said. “Is that mostly due to mankind, or is that mostly due to nature? If it is mostly natural, there’s nothing we can do.”
Scientists don’t exactly know how global climate change will affect Texas.
Along the coast, sea levels would rise mostly because water swells when it warms, North said. The international report calls for at least a foot increase across the world.
With rising temperatures, Nielsen-Gammon expects drought conditions with intense rainfall in shorter events. But future precipitation is nearly impossible to predict.
One model study showed West Texas becoming a drier climate, where the norm would be like the 1950s drought of record, North said.
“Imagine drought on top of that,” he said, adding it was his own opinion that the area would receive less rain. East Texas lacks any research.
Less water reaching West Texas aquifers poses a problem for the rivers they feed.
“What happens to the estuaries,” North asked.
Water resource scientist Norman Johns, with the National Wildlife Federation, stressed the need for improved regional models.
With the state’s population (which is expected to double by mid-century) already sucking up the water supply, intensifying drought conditions may cease springflows and stress the bay systems too much.
Warm water holds less dissolved oxygen, which would end up killing fish, Johns said. Rising salinity levels from lack of freshwater would disrupt the food chain, like killing off blue crabs which feed the endangered whooping cranes in winter.
A sea level rise could cause water to breach barrier islands, which semi-enclose the bays, further devastating salinity.
“We’re unsure of what’s going to occur, but the consequences are so huge,” Johns said. “If we don’t act, we’re going to have a lot of regret.”
Farmer Albert Andel from El Toro keeps abreast of warming trends because just a couple degrees in temperature change would affect his livelihood, especially if it means a change in rainfall.
He blames natural phenomena for any rising global temperatures – not man. The corn, cotton and grain sorghum grower knows how Mother Nature can operate, with last year’s flooding rains and this year’s drought.
“The weather is just so uncertain,” Andel said.
Comments
Spank this.
August 2, 2008 at 1:43 a.m.The petition was a project of the George C. Marshall Institute, whose chair, Frederick Seitz, is also affiliated with the Global Climate Coalition (an industry group calling itself the "voice for business in the global warming debate"), in conjunction with the Oregon Institute for Science and Medicine, a lesser-known group whose leader, wrote columnist Molly Ivins, is a biochemist who "specializes in home schooling and building nuclear shelters" (Los Angeles Times, 8/17/98).
I knew I could count on tstorm to put this right in the bread basket. Careful though tstorm, rags is in pout mode, so we don't want to send him into full whimper mode. The spankings are piling up.
August 1, 2008 at 6:20 p.m.always??? You should check a few of your own posts before you write.
If this global warming thing were that important, Exxon and all associated companies would be out of business. Automobile and Air traffic as we know it would not exist.
Call me when the politicians are no longer using petroleum powered vehicles to travel the globe promoting themselves. Then I'll give this apparent hoax it's due.
August 1, 2008 at 6 p.m.Not that it will change anything, but here goes.......
For those to lazy or unable to do their own research:
ExxonMobil disperses roughly $16 million to organizations that are challenging the scientific consensus view that greenhouse gases are causing global warming. For many of the organizations, ExxonMobil is their single largest corporate donor, often providing more than 10 percent of their annual budgets.
August 1, 2008 at 5:49 p.m.A study by the Union of Concerned Scientists will find that [v]irtually all of them publish and publicize the work of a nearly identical group of spokespeople, including scientists who misrepresent peer-reviewed climate findings and confuse the publics understanding of global warming.
American Enterprise Institute (AEI) - AEI receives $1,625,000 from ExxonMobil between and 1998 and 2005. During this period, it plays host to a number of climate contrarians. [UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS, 2007, PP. 31 ]
American Legislative Exchange Council - In 2005, ExxonMobil grants $241,500 to this organization. Its website features a non-peer-reviewed paper by climate contrarian Patrick Michaels. [UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS, 2007, PP. 12, 31 ]
Center for Science and Public Policy - Started at the beginning of 2003, this one-man operation receives $232,000 from ExxonMobil. The organization helps bring scientists to Capitol Hill to testify on global warming and the health effects of mercury. [NEW YORK TIMES, 5/28/2003]
Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow - Between 2004 and 2005, this organization receives $215,000 from ExxonMobil. Its advisory panel includes Sallie Baliunas, Robert Balling, Roger Bate, Sherwood Idso, Patrick Michaels, and Frederick Seitz, all of whom are affiliated with other ExxonMobil-funded organizations. [UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS, 2007, PP. 12 ]
Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) - Founded in 1984 to fight government regulation on business, CEI started receiving large grants from ExxonMobil after Myron Ebell moved there from Frontiers of Freedom in 1999. [UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS, 2007, PP. 12 ] CEI, along with another ExxonMobil-supported enterprise, the Cooler Heads Coalition, runs the website GlobalWarming.Org, which is part of an effort to dispel the myths of global warming by exposing flawed economic, scientific, and risk analysis. Between 2000 and 2003, the CEI receives $1,380,000, or 16 percent of the total funds donated by Exxon during that period. [MOTHER JONES, 5/2005; MOTHER JONES, 5/2005]
Frontiers of Freedom - The organization receives $230,000 from Exxon in 2002 and $40,000 in 2001. It has an annual budge of about $700,000. [NEW YORK TIMES, 5/28/2003]
George C. Marshall Institute - The institute is known primarily for its work advocating a Star Wars missile defense program. Between 1998 and 2005, Exxon-Mobil grants $630,000 to the Marshall Institute primarily to underwrite the institutes climate change effort. William OKeefe, the organizations CEO, once worked as the executive vice president and chief operating officer of the American Petroleum Institute. He has also served on the board of directors of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, another global warming skeptic organization, and is chairman emeritus of the Global Climate Coalition. [UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS, 2007, PP. 12 ]
Heartland Institute - In 2005, this organization receives $119,000 from ExxonMobil. Its website offers articles by the same scientists promoted by other ExxonMobil-funded global warming skeptic organizations. [UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS, 2007, PP. 12 ]
Tech Central Station - TCS is a web-based organization that provides news, commentary, and analysis focusing on the societal tensions and strains that are concomitant with historical change. TCS proclaims itself as a strong believer of the material power of free markets, open societies, and individual human ingenuity to raise living standards and improve lives. Until 2006, the website is operated by a public relations firm called the DCI Group, which is a registered ExxonMobil lobbying firm. In 2003 TCS receives $95,000 from ExxonMobil to be used for climate change support. TCS contributors on the global warming issue include the same group of people that is promoted by several of the other ExxonMobil-funded global warming skeptic organizations. [UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS, 2007, PP. 13 ] In 2006, TCS will pay the public relations firm Medialink Worldwide to produce a video news release that challenges the view that global warming has increased the intensity of hurricanes. The piece is later shown on a Mississippi television station and presented as a regular news report (see June 2006).
Entity Tags: Tech Central Station, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, American Legislative Exchange Council, Heartland Institute, American Enterprise Institute, Frontiers of Freedom, Competitive Enterprise Institute, George C. Marshall Institute, Center for Science and Public Policy, Fred L. Smith, ExxonMobil
Timeline Tags: Global Warming
A fitting retort to dishrag:
August 1, 2008 at 10:25 a.m.9,021 of the 31,000 scientists on the petition hold PhD's that are science-specific.
Remind me what kind of degree Al Gore has.
You also have no proof that most of these scientists work for oil companies. Mike obviously missed your post, or I'm sure he would have reported it as a violation of this site's policy.
Got any other lies for us?
Marksremarks, a most excellent post.
Sailor, I worked in the "Potrooms" at Alcoa's Port Lavaca plant. 118 degrees would be considered air conditioning. They have a humidity issue in Port Lavaca as well. I don't remember telling everyone how special we were for doing it.
You're special, just not all that special.
August 1, 2008 at 9:58 a.m.Mike, your follow up post at 11:29 was a thing of beauty!!! I'm really LOL!!!
July 31, 2008 at 9:26 p.m.Most of those "the debunking" scientist are people on oil company payrolls. Not to mention many only have bachelors degrees, if that. Shoot the messenger.
July 31, 2008 at 12:22 p.m.Had to get the labels in. Did not want to dissapoint you Mike. LOL
July 31, 2008 at 12:17 p.m.swbones
July 31, 2008 at 12:11 p.m.Did you read the article or did you have to get in your label quota in for the day?...Socialist,Fascist...LOL
Nothing partisan about It, fits both sides of the isle.
July 31, 2008 at 11:36 a.m.I guess I was wrong...LOL
July 31, 2008 at 11:29 a.m.The Government cannot implement their solution until they have convinced you there is a problem.
Its all about control and removing more of your Freedom. Socialist policies managed by a Fascist functioning Government.
July 31, 2008 at 11:27 a.m.I agree this article is balanced, and had some very good points,one of the best articles I have read on this fascinating subject....Tara never mentioned Al Gore,proving this subject can be written about, without resorting to partisan politics.
July 31, 2008 at 11:01 a.m.This is actually one of the more balanced articles on global warming I've seen. Kudos to Tara.
I won't disagree that the temperature is rising (sorry, measurably increasing temperatures are empircal evidence, NOT a myth), and you can't argue with a melting Artic ice cap.
What I do wonder about, though is the infinitely small snapshot of time that modern recordkeeping really covers. Scientists can make guesses from those ice cores they drill, but when it comes down to it, they're just guesses. No one was around to observe conditions.
Overall, we all need to be environmentally responsible, but a more moderate argument is a heck of alot more convincing than this sky-is-falling stuff we get subjected to in the media.
July 31, 2008 at 10:46 a.m.I'd settle for cloud cover.
July 31, 2008 at 10:35 a.m.I just want a little rain.
July 31, 2008 at 10:03 a.m.Global warming is a myth, now debunked by tens of thousands of scientists. It is the left's version of the war on drugs or the war on terror. It is a scare tactic now employed by a shrinking number of power grabbers who want you to voluntarily transfer control over your lives to the state.
July 31, 2008 at 9:58 a.m.What is the easiest way to gain control over a group of people? Lay out a problem before them that you can't prove and they can't disprove, scare the pants off of them, then tell them that you can make things better if they will only listen and conform. Next, you lay out a plan for them to follow that further destroys their personal sovereignties, but you don't follow the plan yourself.
And every time something a little out of the ordinary occurs, you blame it on your mythical demon, and reaffirm to the masses that more suffering is to follow if they don't conform.
This is nothing new. Leaders of ancient cities and empires used this tactic. Fringe religions have always been effective with this message. Al Gore is no different than David Koresh and Jim Jones. Make no mistake, this has nothing to do with the future of mankind, but rather the power index of Al Gore.
I don't think it's so much that they "talk out both sides of their mouths", it's more that there is disagreement between scientists. Plus, in articles like this one you only get little quotes and not the whole story. I think Bozick did a fair job of writing about a complex subject, but there is much more to learn than what is printed here.
July 31, 2008 at 9:49 a.m.Were unsure of whats going to occur, but the consequences are so huge, Johns said. If we dont act, were going to have a lot of regret.
So how can we act when we don't know what the consequences are? The 1950's were dry. The 1930's were dry. Was this due to global warming?
This article state the polar ice caps are melting yet I just read where the area of ice in Antarctica is getting larger.
This article is a good example of the hypocracy that envelopes the global warming theorists/conspirists.
They speak out of both sides of their mouths.
July 31, 2008 at 9:24 a.m.