The most recent entry on the side of the skeptics was Dr. Syun-Ichi Akasofu, the former director of the University of Alaska Fairbanks International Arctic Research Center.
As reported by the Anchorage Daily News Sunday (emphasis added throughout):
"If you look back far enough, we have a bunch of data that show that warming has gone on from the 1600s with an almost linear increase to the present," Akasofu said.
He showed ice-core data from the Russian Arctic that show warming starting from the early 1700s, temperature records from England showing the same trend back to 1660 and ice breakup dates at Tallinn, Estonia, that show a general warming since the year 1500.
So, why the supposed consensus?
Akasofu said scientists who support the man-made greenhouse gas theory disregard information from centuries ago when exploring the issue of global warming. Satellite images of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean have been available in the satellite era only since the 1960s and 1970s.
"Young researchers are interested in satellite data, which became available after 1975," he said. "All the papers since (the advent of satellites) show warming. That's what I call 'instant climatology.' I'm trying to tell young scientists, 'You can't study climatology unless you look at a much longer time period.' "
Of course, the date 1975 is crucial, for between 1940 and 1975, the planet was going though a period of cooling which lead many scientists to believe – and media to report – that the earth might be entering a new ice age. As such, looking at data specifically from 1975 will only show increasing temperatures. How convenient.
The article continued:
Akasofu said there is no data showing that "most" of the present warming is due to the man-made greenhouse effect, as the members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change wrote in February.
He pointed out that the atmosphere cooled from 1940 to 1975 despite a rapid increase in carbon dioxide emissions during the same period.
"Nature changes all the time," he said. "The natural component is there. Until you remove it, you don't know the man-made effect."
In effect, what Akasofu was logically pointing out is that history has indeed shown that climate has had dramatic fluctuations for centuries nay millennia well before the industrial revolution. As such, any scientific model that can not factor out such forces while isolating exclusively that which can demonstrably be proven stems from human activity is specious.
A good analogy is concluding that chocolate causes acne without looking at all the other chemical and biological factors involved.
The article continued:
Akasofu said he could recall in the 1960s and 1970s when some scientists were talking about an approaching ice age. In the 1980s, global warming became a popular topic.
"I think the initial motivation by the IPCC (established in 1988) was good; it was an attempt to promote this particular scientific field," he said. "But so many (scientists) jumped in, and the media is looking for a disaster story, and the whole thing got out of control."
This speech that Akasofu gave to the IARC occurred in late March. Yet, apart from the Anchorage Daily, only the Alaska Report covered his address.
As always, it’s quite easy for the media to beat the drum about a consensus when those with skeptical viewpoints are hidden from the public.
What a crock.
