Antinuclear

To listen to prominent “contrarian” geologists such as Ian Plimer, you might imagine she never could. But, despite the bluster, our contrarian geologists are out of kilter with their own community and seem deeply confused about the way the greenhouse effect – by adding more CO2 to the atmosphere, for example – has shaped both the past and the present.

All geology students learn of the importance of the greenhouse effect. It’s simply impossible to understand the geological record without it…….

In his 2001 award-winning book A Short History of Planet Earth, Plimer has numerous references to the greenhouse effect  “The peak of 6 per cent carbon dioxide was at the time of a protracted greenhouse and maximum sea level. At this time, mean annual surface temperatures were 10C to 15C warmer than now.”…..

Jump forward to 2009 and in his book Heaven and Earth Plimer seems to have quietly forgotten those geological lessons in stating: “Over geological time there is no observed relationship between global climate and atmospheric CO2.”

Exactly which Plimer are we to believe?  [Article goes on to quote several contradictions and factual errors by Plimer in recent years]….Another common meme promoted by our contrarian geologists is that it is now a fact that the climate is cooling.

But may we ask by whose data is this a fact?

Certainly not NASA’s, which showed last year was the hottest on record, followed by 2005, 2007, 2009 and 1998. In fact, NASA ranks nine of the hottest 10 years ever recorded between 2001 and last year……

Variations on decadal timescales are more relevant to climate trends than annual variations. NASA shows the average temperature over the decade 2000-09 was a full 0.2C higher than in the 1990s – the biggest decadal rise in temperature ever recorded.

With an increase of more than 0.5C over the past 40 years, the decadal trend is now warming faster than ever. It beggars belief that any serious scientist could assert the climate is cooling.

Our contrarian geologists also avoid the devil in the detail. NASA’s data shows that winters are warming faster than the summers and the Arctic faster than the tropics. While the lower atmosphere is warming, the upper atmosphere is cooling.

These characteristics provide diagnostic fingerprints of the heat trapping expected for a greenhouse effect. They provide the smoking gun that points to rising greenhouse gas levels as the cause, and rule out warming because of additional heat input from the sun.

Could that be why you won’t hear our contrarian geologists refer to such data?  Could their real agenda be in manufacturing doubt rather than the search for scientific truth?

If so, it wouldn’t be a first, as Naomi Oreskes points out in her recent book Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming.

Now here’s a point for those who, like Rinehart, think all geologists toe Plimer’s contrarian line.

Oreskes is a noted geologist. Having published groundbreaking research on the origin of the giant South Australian Olympic Dam deposit, she has arguably contributed more to the understanding of Australian mineral wealth than has Plimer. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/cherry-picking-contrarian-geologists-tend-to-obscure-scientific-truth/story-e6frgd0x-1226233605954