KATC StormTeam 3 Weather BLOG

Al Gore returned to Washington today to testify about his perspective on global warming.  Unfortunately partisan politics was the play of the day and I’ll stay away from being a political pundit.  I did want to briefly talk about CO2 and its role in global climate change.  I am not a greenhouse gas expert, but this the way I understand the issues…  Carbon dioxide has increased dramatically in our atmosphere over the last 100 years to unprecedented levels.  Scientists believe that there is a direct relationship with our global warming trend and the increase in CO2.  There is a strong consensus within the IPCC that there is about a 90% chance that both the CO2 increase and current warming trend are anthropogenic (directly attributed to our industrial civilization).  Anthropogenists believe that we are heading for disaster and some argue that it will happen in the next 100 years.  Meting ice caps, sea level rise, severe hurricanes and polar bear population decrease are among the numerous current events that are tagged directly to global warming.  The question of our time is how CO2 and the current warming trend will affect our planet in the future.  This is where the divisiveness begins in the science community.  In addition, other greenhouse gases such as water vapor (the most prevalent greenhouse gas), ozone, etc and the direct effect on our global circulation are not fully understood as well.  There are two different ways to look at this issue from a scientific point of view.  There are the global climate modelers that are forecasting the planet’s future with the most complex computer models and the most powerful computers in the world.  Then there are scientists that approach the issue empirically, looking back at tree rings, ice cores etc. and infer what will happen in the future based on historical data and current trends.  Remember this is science.  The nature of science is to question, hypothesize and perhaps model or prove your position.  Today we are hearing that the debate is over, period.  The consensus is that we are indeed heading for big trouble based on both scientific approaches.  But there continues to be a minority of scientists that question many of the issues that are presented to us today.  The relationships and assumptions that the global climate modelers and their computer models make are questioned by this minority.  Then there are the scientists (and they are also a minority group) that argue that the water vapor cycle ultimately will dictate where our climate will go.  There is no debate that going carbon neutral is going to cost big.  We’re talking carbon scrubbing at coal and oil-fired plants, more nuclear power plants, and increases in wind, solar and hydroelectric power generation, and different fuel sources for transportation.  Estimates are that the US consumer will pay more than double for your power, not including inflation costs.  This whole issue has been interesting from a “big business” point of view too. One camp is saying that making an impact on CO2 will be too costly and will devastate the economy, while the other camp sees this as opportunity to develop a “green” economy.  So here we have it: money, politics and possibly the most massive global undertaking ahead…it will be interesting!