Six reasons we're skeptical about global warming predictions | Guest column

George W. Iliff and Edward F. Klima
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George W. Iliff

The earth's temperature has been slowly inching up since the last ice age. Global warming alarmists are using this natural temperature rise to scare us into believing mankind is responsible, through our carbon dioxide emissions, for a future catastrophic rise in temperature accompanied by violent weather and sea-level rise that will flood coastal areas. Let us set the record straight:

1. Carbon dioxide is a low level greenhouse gas; water vapor is 25 times more potent and is present in far greater quantities. In fact, 80-90 percent of the overall greenhouse effect is caused by water vapor. Global warming scientists only claim carbon dioxide serves as a trigger to cause water vapor to provide significant additional global warming. This process is not in the settled-science category and has historically resulted in exaggerated global warming predictions.

2. If carbon dioxide was responsible for global warming, then the Earth's temperature would follow carbon dioxide concentrations in lock step. This is not the case. Earth's temperature was flat for forty years from 1935 until 1975 even though carbon dioxide levels were increasing rapidly. Same from 1998 to the present.

3. Studies have shown instances of violent weather are no more common now than they have been in the past. As for hurricanes Harvey and Irma, any current global warming had little or no effect on their intensity. Just ask a legitimate climatologist.

Edward F. Klima

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Sea levels have naturally risen for thousands of years since our last ice age. The current sea level rise has been measured for the last 150 years at a rate of 1/16 to 1/8 inch per year and is no greater today. This will result in a natural sea level rise of maybe 10 inches by the end of the century.

However, global warming scientists are predicting a ludicrous 10 to 12 feet of rise by the year 2100 based on an unfounded claim the Antarctic and Greenland ice caps will suddenly slip into the ocean and rapidly melt. Fact check: NASA tells us Antarctica is actually gaining ice and Greenland is melting at a minuscule rate causing sea level rise of less than 1/32 of an inch a year.

4. Yes, ice core samples from glaciers show a past relationship between carbon dioxide levels and higher temperatures. However, the higher levels occur about 700 years after the increase in temperatures and cannot be blamed for an increase in temperatures that happened 700 years earlier.

5. Global warming scientists insist we reduce our carbon-dioxide emissions by using solar and wind energy to replace fossil fuel power plants. However, after many years of encouraging and subsidizing alternative energy, only 1 percent of our power comes from solar and 5 percent comes from wind. Solar and wind will never replace fossil fuel power plants so all this renewable energy emphasis is just an expensive joke that will do little to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions.

6. The 2015 Paris climate agreement had the goal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions such that global temperature rise by the end of the century would be limited to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. This level was considered the minimum to avoid catastrophic harm from global warming.

Although the agreements reached have been heralded as a significant success, the truth is far different. The final carbon dioxide reduction goals as agreed upon will only limit the rise to 3 degrees Celsius. Further, the individual goals by country are voluntary and involve no binding commitments.

Meanwhile, we constantly are harangued with claims that global warming is settled science.

We desperately need more knowledgeable scientists with the courage to speak up, as we are doing, so we can stop this nonsense.

George W. Iliff of Port St. Lucie is a retired engineering branch manager for the Department of Energy. Edward F. Klima of Vero Beach is a retired marine scientist who worked for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and was the Director of the National Marine Fisheries Service Galveston laboratory.

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