Cover image of: Miroslav Kutilek; Donald R. Nielsen - Facts about Global Warming Rational or Emotional Issue?

Miroslav Kutilek; Donald R. Nielsen:

Facts about Global Warming

Rational or Emotional Issue?

2010. 227 pages, 34 figures, 4 tables, Catena ISBN 978-3-923381-58-6, US-ISBN 978-1-59326-262-4, 17x24cm, 400 g
Language: English

(GeoEcology essay)

ISBN 978-3-510-65391-1, paperback, price: 45.00 €

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Keywords

temperature • greenhouse effect • climate • climatology

Contents

Synopsis top ↑

The authors' friends used to ask them: Why do you butt into the affairs o climatology when your own subject is soil science and mainly soi physics and soil hydrology?
Answering them, they always say that they have at least three good reasons. The first one, and for them the most important, are the statements and announcements of many climatologists made public by alarmists repeatedly in the media with dramatic scenarios. Media are prosperous when they deal with catastrophes - the more intense and richly colored the higher is the rating of the radio, TV or newspaper, and thus profits of the owners are escalated. With principles of the market being inexorable the various media submit themselves to such statements and announcements with great pleasure. It is astonishing to recognize how simple it has been for journalists to become producers of articles of merchandise, and how easy it is now for them to forget the slogan that journalists are vanguards of truth and justice. With the world not being black and white there are newspapers and TV channels that do not pursue strict market requirements and rewards, but unfortunately, they belong to the minority.
Climatological alarmists offered two very attractive scenarios to media. Scenario number 1: A hypothesis on global warming caused by human activity. Scenario number 2: This warming may lead to a catastrophe never experienced before by humans. The main cause of the catastrophic change is the burning of fossil fuels by the industrial society to produce energy. This burning is linked to the emission of carbon dioxide CO2 that is the root of global warming through its greenhouse effect.

Table of Contents top ↑

1. Soil scientist and climatology 1
2. Global warming 10
2.1. Reports on global warming 10
2.2. How temperature is measured with and without thermometers 14
2.2.1. Proxy - stable isotopes and the geologic thermometer 19
2.2.2. Age estimation of glacier layers 22
2.2.3. Radiocarbon dating l4C and age estimation by isotopes 23
2.2.4 What kind of use is l0Be? 25
2.2.5. Drilling on polar stations Vostok and EPICA 27
2.2.6. Proxy - pollen analysis 30
2.2.7 Proxy - tree rings 30
2.2.8 Proxy - corals and mollusks 31
2.2.9. Proxy - varves, stalagmites and lichens
32 2.2.10 Paleopedology 33
2.3. Strange comparison 36
2.4. Medieval Warm Period, or cradle replacing the
hockey stick 42
3. Greenhouse effect and the global temperature 48
3.1. Hypothesis as a tool of scientific advancements 48
3.2. The greenhouse effect 49
3.3. Who is responsible? Global warming hypothesis 57
3.4. How it started 63
3.5. 1PCC quotes Karl Popper and Thomas S. Kuhn 74
4. Change of the climate 76
4.1. Factors involved in climatic change 76
4.1.1. Astronomic Factors: Milankovich cycles 77
4.1.2. Astronomic Factors: Solar activity 83
4.1.3. Continental drift 94
4.1.4. Greenhouse gases 102
4.1.5. Thermohaline circulation 106
4.1.6. Aerosols, volcanoes, asteroids 111
4.1.7. Vegetation cover 117
4.1.8. Earth magnetic field 118
4.2. Earth climate history 118
4.2.1. Concluding remarks 135
4.3. Holocene, our interglacial 135
4.3.1. Two attempts at ending the last glacial 136
4.3.2. Holocene 139
4.4. Fruit Grower's postulate 148
5. The impact of climate upon the rise and fall of civilization 150
5.1. The part played by climate in the transition from
ape to man 150
5.2. The rise and decline of ancient civilizations 157
6. Will the catastrophic scenarios ever end? 164
6.1. Disastrous hurricanes and floods are due to
man-made warming 165
6.2. How the glaciers recede and icebergs melt 168
6.3. The sea will swallow us 175
6.4. Destruction of coral reefs 178
6.5. Famines are just around the corner 179
6.6. End if life, death of Earth 188
6.7. All those "catastrophic" scenarios 190
7. Skeptics of global warming 195
8. What is real? 204
8.1. The proven facts 203
8.2. The invalidated hypothesis 207
References 210