Huge Discrepency

The ranks of anthropogenic global warming (excuse me: “climate change”) alarmists have been winnowed by major scandals associated with the manufacture or modification of purported warming data and a continuing stream of true scientific data that indicate no significant warming in the past decade. The media, it appears, has moved on, although every weather pattern that leads to high temperatures (it is, after all, summer) gives a few commentators still another opportunity to imply that anthropogenic climate change is the villain.

Now, Forbes.com reports on a recent NASA study:

Scientists on all sides of the global warming debate are in general agreement about how much heat is being directly trapped by human emissions of carbon dioxide (the answer is "not much"). However, the single most important issue in the global warming debate is whether carbon dioxide emissions will indirectly trap far more heat by causing large increases in atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds. Alarmist computer models assume human carbon dioxide emissions indirectly cause substantial increases in atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds (each of which are very effective at trapping heat), but real-world data have long shown that carbon dioxide emissions are not causing as much atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds as the alarmist computer models have predicted.

The new NASA Terra satellite data are consistent with long-term NOAA and NASA data indicating atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds are not increasing in the manner predicted by alarmist computer models. The Terra satellite data also support data collected by NASA's ERBS satellite showing far more longwave radiation (and thus, heat) escaped into space between 1985 and 1999 than alarmist computer models had predicted. Together, the NASA ERBS and Terra satellite data show that for 25 years and counting, carbon dioxide emissions have directly and indirectly trapped far less heat than alarmist computer models have predicted.

In short, the central premise of alarmist global warming theory is that carbon dioxide emissions should be directly and indirectly trapping a certain amount of heat in the earth's atmosphere and preventing it from escaping into space. Real-world measurements, however, show far less heat is being trapped in the earth's atmosphere than the alarmist computer models predict, and far more heat is escaping into space than the alarmist computer models predict.

When objective NASA satellite data, reported in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, show a "huge discrepancy" between alarmist climate models and real-world facts, climate scientists, the media and our elected officials would be wise to take notice. Whether or not they do so will tell us a great deal about how honest the purveyors of global warming alarmism truly are.

Of course, for true believers like Al Gore and Barack Obama, “the scientific debate is over.” But for those of us who respect the scientific method, there is increasingly compelling evidence that the alarmists were incorrect.

The growing body of scientific evidence that questions original warming assumptions indicates that public policy (e.g., the ill-fated cap and trade legislation) should never be based on the unsubstantiated opinions of true believers and the data of a small, closed group of scientists who have a vested interest in only one outcome.

Unfortunately, because the NASA study does not fit the prevailing narrative, the legacy media gave it little or no play. Not surprising.