Global warming's sooty smokescreen revealed

Fred Pearce, New Scientist Print Edition, 04 June 03

BERLIN - Smoke is clouding our view of global warming, protecting the planet from perhaps three-quarters of the greenhouse effect. That might sound like good news, but experts say that as the cover diminishes in coming decades, we are in for a dramatic escalation of warming that could be two or even three times as great as official best guesses.

This was the dramatic conclusion reached last week at a workshop in Dahlem, Berlin, where top atmospheric scientists got together, including Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen and Swedish meteorologist Bert Bolin, former chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

IPCC scientists have suspected for a decade that aerosols of smoke and other particles from burning rainforest, crop waste and fossil fuels are blocking sunlight and counteracting the warming effect of carbon dioxide emissions. Until now, they reckoned that aerosols reduced greenhouse warming by perhaps a quarter, cutting increases by 0.2 °C. So the 0.6 °C of warming over the past century would have been 0.8 °C without aerosols.

Two views of future warming

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But the Berlin workshop concluded that the real figure is even higher - aerosols may have reduced global warming by as much as three-quarters, cutting increases by 1.8 °C. If so, the good news is that aerosols have prevented the world getting almost two degrees warmer than it is now. But the bad news is that the climate system is much more sensitive to greenhouse gases than previously guessed.

As those gases are expected to continue accumulating in the atmosphere while aerosols stabilise or fall, that means "dramatic consequences for estimates of future climate change", the scientists agreed in a draft report from the workshop.

Parasol effect

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Past calculations of the cooling effect of aerosols have been inferred from "missing" global warming predicted by climate models. But direct measurements reported in Science (vol 300, p 1103) in May by Theodore Anderson of the University of Washington in Seattle show a much greater parasol effect. Anderson says climate sensitivity could be larger than climate models suggest.

The Berlin meeting also heard evidence that past warm eras had higher temperatures than they ought to, if estimates of the atmospheric composition at the time and greenhouse models are correct. Again this suggests greater sensitivity.

"It looks like the warming today may be only about a quarter of what we would have got without aerosols," Crutzen told New Scientist. "You could say the cooling has done us a big favour. But the health effects of many aerosols in smog are so great that even in the poor world, they are already cutting emissions." For good reasons, aerosol levels look set to fall.

Moreover, most aerosol emissions only stay in the atmosphere for a few days. Most greenhouses gases remain for a century or longer. So as time goes on, aerosols will protect us less and less from global warming. "They are giving us a false sense of security right now," said Crutzen.

'Sooner, not later'

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One tentative estimate put warming two or even three times higher than current middle-range forecasts of 3 to 4 °C based on a doubling of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which is likely by late this century. That suggests global warming well above the IPCC maximum forecast of 5.8 °C. Back-of-the-envelope calculations now suggest a "worst case" warming of 7 to 10 °C.

Will Steffen of the Swedish Academy of Sciences says the message for policy makers is clear: "We need to get on top of the greenhouse gas emissions problem sooner rather than later."

I was just involved in a Greenpeace action against ExxonMobil, who is working with the bushite psycopaths to hasten global warming and massive climate change. What follows below is something I wrote afterwards, and a write up from the Guardian (UK).

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Hi everybody,

Last week I was involved in another Greenpeace action and thought I would let you know what happened. We did get good media, including Democracy Now and Larry King among others.

GP has been involved in a boycott of ExxonMobil for a few years now. The boycott has been very successful in Europe, at one point all Esso station in tax free Luxembourg were shut down thru CD. In America, however, the story has been more difficult to address given the propaganda machine, the war, and our addiction to oil. ExxonMobil has done much to subvert and stymie any legitimate research into global warming and refuses to acknowledge that their products cause climate change, which is one of the main thrusts of the campaign. And the connections to the Bush cabal are well documented. See http://www.dontbuyexxonmobil.org/ for more details and info. And there is also Aceh, Indonesia and the massacres etc.

ExxonMobil is headquartered in a strange looking compound in Irving, Texas, outside Dallas. The most secretive part of this building is known as the 'godpod' and it is where the CEO, Lee Raymond, and his cronies work. We wanted to do three things, 1) to shut down the main gate, 2) to get activists dressed in tiger costumes (XMO's logo animal) onto the property, into the building, and onto the roof, and 3) to get activists into the 'godpod'. ExxonMobils annual shareholders meeting was scheduled for last Wednesday, and we activated the day before, taking them completely unaware.

We had over seventy activists involved from at least four countries and all three aspects of deployment went off successfully. I was at the front gate locked down, was arrested with 35 others The action itself was a resounding success with tigers prowling around the compound, getting onto the roof, and activists getting into the building and wandering around unnoticed for three or four hours, sending faxes out, leaving climate warming material, and serving one senior vp with a list of crimes ExxonMobil has committed.

Parmenides

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Exxon mauled by green tiger protest

Terry Macalister and Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles

Wednesday May 28, 2003

The Guardian

More than 30 Greenpeace protesters, some disguised as business executives and others in tiger suits, were arrested during a protest at the headquarters

of Exxon Mobil in Irving, Texas, yesterday.

They were protesting against what they claimed was the company's "extreme global warming policy" in advance of today's shareholders' meeting.

Eight Greenpeace activists, dressed in business suits and driven in a limousine, made their way past strict security into the company's main offices where they handed out "charges" against the company for "offences" connected with global warming.

Other activists dressed as tigers climbed onto the roof and played football using a globe as the ball. Others padlocked themselves to the gate.

Greenpeace spokesman Ben Stewart said Exxon Mobil had been targeted because "they had sabotaged international efforts to tackle global warming".

Two Britons, Baptist minister Malcolm Carroll and Nicole Cook, were among 32 activists arrested.

The world's largest stock listed oil group has strenuously argued that it has been wrongly vilified by green campaigners in their Stop Esso Campaign. It has launched a public relations offensive aimed at changing perceptions by highlighting a new-found willingness to take the environment more seriously.

But close reading of documents posted on the company's website shows it has ramped up contributions to groups such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Frontiers for Freedom and the George C Marshall Institute, which have been fighting against cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

The company is already facing hostile resolutions on climate change and renewable energy from shareholders concerned that its image is being damaged.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute, which led last year's campaign persuading US President George Bush to stay away from the Earth Summit, has been given $405,000 in 2002, up from $280,000 12 months before.

The Frontiers for Freedom group, founded by former senator Malcolm Wallop, a friend of Dick Cheney, has received $232,000 from Exxon, up from $40,000.

The George C Marshall Institute, which released a report this month claiming 20th century temperature trends were not unusual, has also seen its payments from Exxon rise from $60,000 to $80,000.

"Exxon claims to be taking climate change more seriously now but the evidence is to the contrary. The company spent hundreds of thousands of dollars last year supporting advocacy groups that seriously question the science of global warming or that it's even happening," said a spokeswoman for the StopEsso campaign.

Gordon Sawyer, UK Public Affairs manager for Exxon, defended its funding of the three institutions, calling them "respected, independent associations" which had widespread membership in the US.

"We find it very disappointing that Greenpeace continues to recycle the same old allegations concerning our company whilst at the same time failing to accept that the views of others on the extremely important and complex subject of climate change are just as valid.

"We take the issue of climate change seriously and are taking many actions to address the risks it poses. We want to be judged on our actions not on ill-informed accusations."