The Week That Was

The Week That Was
November 23, 2002

1. THE CANADIAN SOCIETY OF PETROLEUM GEOLOGISTS (3000 MEMBERS) TAKES A FIRM STAND AGAINST KYOTO and publishes two important studies on the lack of science. They also provide a list of web addresses.
http://www.sepp.org/NewSEPP/GeologistChallengeKyoto_NatlPost.htm

2. A LISTING OF WEB ADDRESSES THAT DEAL WITH GLOBAL WARMING and similar environmental issues

3. NEGATIVE CLIMATE FEEDBACK REDUCING THE CO2 EFFECT?

4. STARVATION IN ZAMBIA! THE DARK SIDE OF THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE.

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2. A listing of web addresses that deal with global warming and similar environmental issues, given here for convenience. See also links at www.sepp.org. We invite comments and additions.

Accuracy in Media -- http://www.aim.org/

ACSH, American Council on Science and Health -- http://www.acsh.org/index.html

AEI, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research -- http://www.aei.org

Anti EcoHype-- http://www.probiotech.fsnet.co.uk/

Bad Science-- http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/BadScience.html

Bizarre Science (Dr.Aaron Oakley) http://bizarrescience.blogspot.com/
CATO Institute-- http://www.cato.org/

Claremont Institute-- http://www.claremont.org/

Competitive Enterprise Institute-- http://ww.cei.org

Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow-- http://www.cfact.org/

Congress Action (Kim Weissman) http://www.congressaction.info/

EcoLogic -- http://www.eco.freedom.org/

Environmental Challenges and free market solutions-
http://www.freedom.simplenet.com/envy-iron-mental.htm

Environmental Lies -- http://www.off-road.com/enviro_lies.html

FOS, Friends of Science-- http://www.friendsofscience.org/

Fraser Institute-- http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/

Frontiers of Freedom -- http://www.ff.org/

Greening Earth Society-- http://www.greeningearthsociety.org/

Heartland Institute-- http://www.heartland.org/

Hudson Institute-- http://www.hudson.org

IEA, Institute of Economic Affairs-- http://www.iea.org.uk/

Institute of Public Affairs --http://ipa.org.au/

JunkScience-- http://www.freedom.simplenet.com/envy-iron-mental.htm

Leadership Institute-- http://leadershipinstitute.org/

Liberty Matters-- http://www.libertymatters.org/

Mackenzie Institute-- http://www.mackenzieinstitute.com

Media Research-- http://www.mediaresearch.org/

National Anxiety Center -- http://www.anxietycenter.com/Default.htm

Number Watch (Prof. John Brignell) www.numberwatch.co.uk

Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine -- http://www.oism.org/

PERC Political Economy Research Center --http://www.perc.org/

Progress and Sustainability -- http://www.formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/index.html

Quackwatch-- http://www.quackwatch.com

Reason Foundation --http://www.reason.org/

RPPT, Reason Public Policy Institute--http://www.rppi.org/index.html

Science and Environment Project-- http://www.sepp.org/

Statistical Assessment Service-- http://www.stats.org

Still Waiting for Greenhouse- http://www.john-daly.com/

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3. Signs of A Potentially Powerful CO2-Induced Negative Climate Feedback

Carbonyl sulfide or COS is the most abundant tropospheric sulfur gas on earth (Aydin et al., 2002). With an atmospheric lifetime on the order of two to seven years (Xu et al., 2002), it has a complex biogeochemical cycle with a number of natural sources and sinks involving both the oceans and the terrestrial biosphere (Andreae and Crutzen, 1997). In addition, it is believed that approximately one-fourth of the tropospheric burden of COS is produced by anthropogenic activities (Watts, 2000).

Across the oceans from which naturally produced COS is emitted to the air, surface-water COS concentrations are highly correlated with surface-water primary productivity (Andreae and Ferek, 1992). So strong is the correlation, in fact, that Erickson and Eaton (1993) developed an empirical model for computing ocean-surface COS concentrations that requires inputs of only surface-water chlorophyll concentrations and values of incoming solar radiation.

An even greater portion of the naturally produced COS is created in the atmosphere, where carbon disulfide and dimethyl sulfide - largely of oceanic origin (Aydin et al., 2002) - undergo photochemical oxidation (Khalil and Rasmussen, 1984; Barnes et al., 1994). Consequently, this component of the tropospheric burden of COS is also ultimately dependent upon photosynthetic activity occurring near the surface of the sea.
So why do we care? We care because carbonyl sulfide, in the words of Xu et al. (2002), "can be transported into the stratosphere and there [be] photochemically oxidized to eventually form sulfate particles." Furthermore, as they continue, "this process may significantly contribute to stratospheric background aerosol," as demonstrated by Crutzen (1976) and Engel and Schmidt (1994). And stratospheric aerosol particles - especially sulfate particles - are highly effective in reflecting incoming solar radiation back to space and thereby cooling the planet (Charlson et al., 1990).

We also care because the study of Aydin et al. (2002) strongly suggests that the mean tropospheric COS concentration has risen by approximately 30% since the 1600s, from a mean of 373 ppt over the period 1616-1694 to 485 ppt today. This is a sizeable increase; and Aydin et al. note that only a fourth of it can be attributed to anthropogenic sources. The rest of the observed COS increase, therefore, must have had a natural origin, a large portion of which must have ultimately been derived from the products and byproducts of marine photosynthetic activity; and this observation raises the question of what has been responsible for the increase in oceanic primary production required to provide the bulk of the large difference between the measured increase in COS and the increase provided by anthropogenic sources.

If you are a regular reader of CO2 Science Magazine, you can probably guess by now what we are about to propose as a working hypothesis, i.e., that the increase in the air's CO2 concentration between the beginning and end points of the time period in question - possibly augmented by the warming the earth experienced during its recovery from the global chill of the Little Ice Age - has altered the magnitudes of COS sources and sinks in such a way as to produce the extra carbonyl sulfide that has accumulated in the atmosphere over this time interval.

As a first step in exploring this hypothesis, we have plotted the air's COS concentration as a function of atmospheric CO2 concentration over the period in question, as shown in the figure below. The first of the three points on this graph is derived from the mean 1616-1694 COS concentration (372.8 ppt) derived by Aydin et al. and the corresponding mean CO2 concentration (276.5 ppm) derived from the data of Etheridge et al. (1998). The second point is derived from Aydin et al.'s declaration that "recent measurements of COS in South Pole firn air suggest that atmospheric levels of COS were 400 ppt at around 1920 [Stephen A. Montzka, personal communication]" and the CO2 concentration for that year (299.7 ppm) derived from the results of several different CO2-vs-time data sets assembled by Idso (1989). The third point is derived from another Montzka-based statement of Aydin et al., which affirms that recent measurements point to "annual mean mixing ratios for COS of around 485 ppt in both hemispheres" and the current mean CO2 concentration of approximately 370 ppm.

As the figure above clearly demonstrates, the three data points describe a perfect linear relationship, which is what would be expected for at least the anthropogenic-induced component of the increase in COS, since the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration arises from the same anthropogenic activities that are responsible for the COS increase. With respect to the three-times-larger naturally-induced component of the COS increase, however, it is difficult to say whether a linear relationship should have been expected, due to the great uncertainty surrounding the several source and sink terms of the global COS budget (Andreae and Crutzen, 1997). Nevertheless, the linear relationship of the figure is what it is: a substantial basis for suggesting that the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration since pre-industrial times is the ultimate cause of the concomitant increase in atmospheric COS concentration. As such, it should serve as the starting point for further investigations of this phenomenon, which could well prove to be an important negative-feedback force for counteracting the impetus for warming provided by the historical increase in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.
Sherwood, Keith and Craig Idso

Reference

Andreae, M.O. and Crutzen, P.J. 1997. Atmospheric aerosols: Biogeochemical sources and role in atmospheric chemistry. Science 276: 1052-1056.

Andreae, M.O. and Ferek, R.J. 1992. Photochemical production of carbonyl sulfide in seawater and its emission to the atmosphere. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 6: 175-183.

Aydin, M., De Bruyn, W.J. and Saltzman, E.S. 2002. Pre-industrial atmospheric carbonyl sulfide (OCS) from an Antarctic ice core. Geophysical Research Letters 29 (9): 10.1029/2002GL014796.

Barnes, I., Becker, K.H. and Petroescu, I. 1994. The tropospheric oxidation of DMS: a new source of OCS. Geophysical Research Letters 21: 2389-2392.

Charoson, R.J., Langner, J. and Rodhe, H. 1990. Sulphate aerosol and climate. Nature 348: 22.

Crutzen, P.J. 1976. The possible importance of CSO for the sulfate layer of the stratosphere. Geophysical Research Letters 3: 73-76.

Engel, A. and Schmidt, U. 1994. Vertical profile measurements of carbonyl-sulfide in the stratosphere. Geophysical Research Letters 21: 2219-2222.

Erickson III, D.J. and Eaton, B.E. 1993. Global biogeochemical cycling estimates with CZCS satellite data and general circulation models. Geophysical Research Letters 20: 683-686.

Etheridge, D.M., Steele, L.P., Langenfelds, R.L, Francey, R.J., Barnola, J.-M. and Morgan, V.I. 1998. Historical CO2 records from the Law Dome DE08, DE08-2, and DSS ice cores. In Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, U.S.A.

Idso, S.B. 1989. Carbon Dioxide and Global Change: Earth in Transition. IBR Press, Tempe, AZ, USA.

Khalil, M.A.K. and Rasmussen, R.A. 1984. Global sources, lifetimes, and mass balances of carbonyl sulfide (OCS) and carbon disulfide (CS2) in the earth's atmosphere. Atmospheric Environment 18: 1805-1813.

Watts, S.F. 2000. The mass budgets of carbonyl sulfide, dimethyl sulfide, carbon disulfide and hydrogen sulfide. Atmospheric Environment 34: 761-779.

Xu, X., Bingemer, H.G. and Schmidt, U. 2002. An empirical model for estimating the concentration of carbonyl sulfide in surface seawater from satellite measurements. Geophysical Research Letters 29 (9): 10.1029/2001GL014252.

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4. Zambia government refuses to distribute grain, invoking the precautionary principle

By Frances B. Smith

The government of Zambia - with three million people facing death by starvation - on October 29 gave its final refusal to distribute U.S. grain already stored there to help feed its starving population. Zambia's Agriculture Minister Mundia Sikatana invoked the "precautionary principle" as his rationale - that is, since the grain was produced through the use of modern biotechnology, it has not been proven to be perfectly safe and may present some future risks to people or the environment.

The Zambian government also said it fears European Union countries would refuse imports from Zambia since their crops might run the risk of "contamination" from the genetically modified grain. Currently the EU has a moratorium on approvals of GM crops and will soon be establishing rules requiring traceability and labeling of foods produced through biotechnology.

Oh yes - the reason given for the EU's own actions is the "precautionary principle," which the EU is busily enshrining in every treaty and agreement relating to health, safety, and the environment so that it can be a guiding principle of international law. The precautionary principle as used by the EU is not based on any scientific evidence of real risks but on the hypothetical.

Numerous international scientific bodies, including the World Health Organization, have declared that food produced through biotechnology is as safe or perhaps even safer than conventional food. And the environmental benefits of agricultural biotechnology are already being shown - less use of pesticides, low tillage, and greater yield per acre so that less land is needed for farming. Future benefits are in development, such as crops that can be grown in inhospitable soils or climates - drought-resistant or salt-tolerant crops, for example. Yet these advances are threatened by the widespread acceptance of the precautionary principle.

The Zambian decision to invoke the precautionary principle illustrates how a bad idea can have drastic consequences. While officials in the EU, as well as many European aid agencies, have begged several African countries including Zambia to accept the donations of grain, some of those officials and organizations are at the same time pushing for further extensions of the precautionary principle into the food-safety area. They ignore the fact that the precautionary principle is a one-way ratchet. It obsesses about imagined or potential risks of new technology or innovations while ignoring the real risks of the status quo.

In the tragic case of Zambia and other African countries with severe famines, the overriding risk is imminent - millions of people dying because they don't have food. Millions of starving people facing almost certain death are considered less real than a remote and unproven possibility of future harm. Precaution should mandate that we need to get rid of the precautionary principle.

Frances B. Smith is executive director of Consumer Alert, a national consumer group.

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5. Faulty models had predicted catastrophic diebacks of forests

Previous work (modeling studies) had concluded that warming would lead to catastrophic diebacks of forests as a result of global warming As Craig Loehle shows (Canad J Forest Res. 30, 1632-1645, 2000), this is because modelers assumes a parabolic response function that cannot be supported either theoretically or empirically. Use of a more reasonable response function yields a stable ecotone that migrates north at 100 m per century. Hence CO2 increase and climate warming are good for forests.

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