http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?id=3442&method=full
ExxonMobil
Grossly Distorts National Research Council Report On Global Warming
in New York Times Ad
Exxon-Mobil uses New York Times Ad to spread untruths
An ExxonMobil ad on the Op-Ed Page of the The New York Times,
March 23, 2000 titled "Unsettled Science" grossly distorts
the January report of the National Research Council.
Below are assertions by the ad (in italics) -- and responses
from the science (in boldface).
(Fm Exxon-Mobil
Ad)
Knowing that weather
forecasts are reliable for a few days
at best, we should recognize the enormous challenge facing
scientists seeking to predict climate change and its impact
over the next century. In spite of everyone's desire for clear
answers, it is not surprising that fundamental gaps in knowledge
leave scientists unable to make reliable predictions about
future changes.
(Response):
While weather is too variable to forecast for more
than a few days, a consensus of more than 2,000 scientists
from 100 countries agree that the earth's temperature will
continue to rise as the buildup of atmospheric carbon from
our coal and oil burning -- which is already at levels not
seen in the last 400,000 years -- continues to rise.
Scientists
have indeed made reliable predictions. Many of the
most serious impacts of global warming predicted for years are
being proved true by current conditions:
Prediction:
global warming will happen due to an increase in greenhouse gases:
Evidence:
- the eleven
hottest years on record have all occurred since 1980
- 1998 replaced
1997 as the hottest year ever recorded
- the decade
of the 1990s is the hottest of the millennium
Scientists
have long been concerned that warmer temperatures will
cause a wide array of serious changes. Just some of these predictions
and the evidence that shows the predictions to be correct:
Prediction:
Change in seasonal cycles. Evidence: in many areas of
the world, spring starts a week earlier and winter comes a week
later.
Prediction:
Glaciers and Icebergs will melt.
Evidence: Glaciers are melting in the US and around the world,
in some cases retreating by miles. Enormous chunks of ice shelf
are breaking off from Antarctica.
Prediction:
Sea levels will rise due to warmer oceans and ice melt.
Evidence: ocean temperatures have increase and sea-levels are
on
the rise - about 4-10 inches so far this century.
(Fm Exxon-Mobil
Ad)
A recent report
from the National Research Council (NRC) raises
important issues, including these still-unanswered questions:
(1) Has human activity
already begun to change temperature and
the climate, and (2) How significant will future change be?
(Response):
The report from the NRC specifically does not address
these questions. The NRC chose to focus only on a slight discrepancy
between surface and satellite temperature records. The NRC specifically
excluded from its study whether or not the rise is due to human
activities -- a fact which was affirmed by 2,500 scientists from
100 countries in 1995 -- and which has been supported by a number
of increasingly robust studies in the last five years. The NRC
also excluded any future assessments from the scope of its recent
study. The Exxon-Mobil Ad's statement regarding the NRC findings
is akin to saying that Einstein's proof that E=MC2 fails to
address the issue of whether or not heat rises.
(Fm Exxon-Mobil
Ad)
The
NRC report confirms that Earth's surface temperature has
risen by about 1 degree Fahrenheit over the past 150 years.
Some use this result to claim that humans are causing global
warming, and they point to storms or floods to say that
dangerous impacts are already under way. Yet scientists
remain unable to confirm either contention.
(Response):
Findings by the National Climatic Data Center
published in the March 1,2000 issue of Geophysical Research
Letters notes that while earth's temperature rose at a rate
of 1* per century F. over between 1900 and 1970, it has been
rising at the rate of 4* per century since 1980. A study
by Drs. Michael Mann, Malcolm Hughes and Raymond Bradley
(Geophysical Research Letters, March 15, 1999) found that
the decade of the 1990s was the hottest at least in the
past millennium. And studies by researchers at the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic
Data Center verified an alteration in rainfall patterns,
more severe droughts, stronger storms, more heat waves and
the fact that we are getting more of our precipitation
in intense, severe downpours than we did 20 years ago
because of the buildup of emissions from coal and oil
(Scientific American, May, 1997).
Contrary to
the Exxon-Mobil Ad, the chief meteorologist of
the United Kingdom and the head of the US National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration, citing the torrential rainstorms
which killed 15,000 people in Venezuela, last December called
the climate crisis "critical" and urged the world to
begin
immediately to reduce it's burning of fossil fuels.
(Fm Exxon-Mobil
Ad)
Geological evidence
indicates that climate and greenhouse gas
levels experience significant natural variability for reasons
having nothing to do with human activity. Historical records
and current scientific evidence show that Europe and North
America experienced a medieval warm period one thousand years
ago, followed centuries later by a little ice age. The
geological record shows even larger changes throughout
Earth's history.
(Response):
While prehistoric greenhouse gas levels have
experienced wide fluctuations, they were stable for 10,000 years
at 280 parts per million until about 100 years ago, when the
world began to burn more coal and oil. The Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change was charged by the United Nations
in 1988 with finding the reason for the sudden and rapid
temperature rise beginning around 1900. In 1995, they declared
definitively it was due to "human activity" in the form
of
fossil fuel emissions. That followed seven years of research
by the largest international scientific collaboration in
history in which researchers accomplished a series of experiments
that distinguished human-induced warming from natural variability.
(Fm Exxon-Mobil
Ad)
Against
this backdrop of large, poorly understood natural
variability, it is impossible for scientists to attribute
the recent small surface temperature increase to human causes.
(Response):
Findings by Mann, Bradley and Hughes (Geophysical
Research Letters, March 15, 1999) noted that between the year
1000 AD and 1880 the planet experienced a slight cooling trend.
That 880 year trend reversed abruptly as the world began to
industrialize. Since that time, temperatures have been rising
at a rate not seen in the last 10,000 years.
In the June
10, 1999 issue of the peer-reviewed journal,
Nature, researchers from the British Meteorological Office
in Bracknell reported: "The temperature changes over the
twentieth century cannot be explained by any combination
of natural internal variability and the response to natural
forcings alone." The only explanation, they conclude,
is the human output of oil and coal emissions.
(Fm Exxon-Mobil
Ad)
Moreover, computer
models relied upon by climate scientists
predict that lower atmospheric temperatures will rise as fast
as or faster than temperatures at the surface. However,
only within the last 20 years have reliable global measurements
of temperatures in the lower atmosphere been available through
the use of satellite technology. These measurements show
little if any warming.
(Response):
In the peer-reviewed Journal, Nature,
August 13, 1998, researchers found the satellite records
to have been distorted because researchers failed to account
for orbital decay which distorted satellite temperature
findings. When the record was corrected to account for
that decay, the satellites confirmed the warming trend.
The NRC findings of January, 2000, confirmed that surface
observations of recent warming are, indeed, real, according
to Dr. John Wallace, professor of Atmospheric Sciences at
the University of Washington, who chaired the NRC panel.
(Fm Exxon-Mobil
Ad)
Even less is known
about the potential positive or negative
impacts of climate change. In fact, many academic studies
and field experiments have demonstrated that increased levels
of carbon dioxide can promote crop and forest growth.
(Response):
Current research indicates that while plant
fertilization by carbon dioxide may increase plant growth
in the short-term in the Northern Hemisphere, it ultimately
weakens plans, makes them far more prone to disease,
insect attacks and fires. One peer-reviewed vegetation
model prepared for the forthcoming U.S. National Assessment
shows a short-term "greening" of the southeastern quadrant
of the U.S. -- followed by a "browning" in which most
of
the forests die off and are replaced by grasslands and
savannas. Moreover, while heat and carbon increases may
temporarily promote plant growth in the north, researchers
have found that it will cause huge crop failures in the
tropical regions -- e.g., falling rice yields in Southeast
Asia, declines in wheat yields in India -- where food
crops are growing at the optimum mix of heat and humidity.
The research cited by Exxon-Mobil also ignores the fact
that as the temperature rises, it will trigger a dramatic
growth in the population of crop-destroying and
disease-spreading insects -- which will negatively
impact plant growth at all latitudes.
