THE FINAL PROOF: GLOBAL WARMING A MANMADE DISASTER

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Published on Saturday, February 19, 2005 by the lndependent/UK

The Final Proof: Global Warming is a Man-Made Disaster

by Steve Connor

 

Scientists have found the first unequivocal link between man-made

greenhouse gases and a dramatic heating of the Earth's oceans. The

researchers - many funded by the US government - have seen what they

describe as a " stunning " correlation between a rise in ocean

temperature over the past 40 years and pollution of the atmosphere.

 

The study destroys a central argument of global warming skeptics

within the Bush administration - that climate change could be a

natural phenomenon. It should convince George Bush to drop his

objections to the Kyoto treaty on climate change, the scientists say.

 

Tim Barnett, a marine physicist at the Scripps Institution of

Oceanography in San Diego and a leading member of the team,

said: " We've got a serious problem. The debate is no longer: 'Is

there a global warming signal?' The debate now is what are we going

to do about it? "

 

The findings are crucial because much of the evidence of a warmer

world has until now been from air temperatures, but it is the oceans

that are the driving force behind the Earth's climate. Dr Barnett

said: " Over the past 40 years there has been considerable warming of

the planetary system and approximately 90 per cent of that warming

has gone directly into the oceans. "

 

He told the American Association for the Advancement of Science in

Washington: " We defined a 'fingerprint' of ocean warming. Each of the

oceans warmed differently at different depths and constitutes a

fingerprint which you can look for. We had several computer

simulations, for instance one for natural variability: could the

climate system just do this on its own? The answer was no.

 

" We looked at the possibility that solar changes or volcanic effects

could have caused the warming - not a chance. What just absolutely

nailed it was greenhouse warming. "

 

America produces a quarter of the world's greenhouse gases, yet under

President Bush it is one of the few developed nations not to have

signed the Kyoto treaty to limit emissions. The President's advisers

have argued that the science of global warming is full of

uncertainties and change might be a natural phenomenon.

 

Dr Barnett said that position was untenable because it was now clear

from the latest study, which is yet to be published, that man-made

greenhouse gases had caused vast amounts of heat to be soaked up by

the oceans. " It's a good time for nations that are not part of Kyoto

to re-evaluate their positions and see if it would be to their

advantage to join, " he said.

 

The study involved scientists from the US Department of Energy, the

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and the US

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as well as the Met

Office's Hadley Center.

 

They analyzed more than 7 million recordings of ocean temperature

from around the world, along with about 2 million readings of sea

salinity, and compared the rise in temperatures at different depths

to predictions made by two computer simulations of global warming.

 

" Two models, one from here and one from England, got the observed

warming almost exactly. In fact we were stunned by the degree of

similarity, " Dr Barnett said. " The models are right. So when a

politician stands up and says 'the uncertainty in all these

simulations start to question whether we can believe in these

models', that argument is no longer tenable. " Typical ocean

temperatures have increased since 1960 by between 0.5C and 1C,

depending largely on depth. DR Barnett said: " The real key is the

amount of energy that has gone into the oceans. If we could mine the

energy that has gone in over the past 40 years we could run the state

of California for 200,000 years... It's come from greenhouse warming. "

 

Because the global climate is largely driven by the heat locked up in

the oceans, a rise in sea temperatures could have devastating effects

for many parts of the world.

 

Ruth Curry, from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, said that

warming could alter important warm-water currents such as the Gulf

Stream, as melting glaciers poured massive volumes of fresh water

into the North Atlantic. " These changes are happening and they are

expected to amplify. It's a certainty that these changes will put

serious strains on the ecosystems of the planet, " DR Curry said.

 

© 2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd