No. 329
December 31, 1998
LONG HOT YEAR
Latest Science Debunks
Global Warming Hysteria
by Patrick J. Michaels
Executive Summary
The national media have given tremendous play to the
claims of Vice President Al Gore, some federal scientists,
and environmental activists that the unseasonably warm tem-
peratures of this past summer were proof positive of the
arrival of dramatic and devastating global warming. In
fact, the record temperatures were largely the result of a
strong El Niņo superimposed on a decade in which tempera-
tures continue to reflect a warming that largely took place
in the first half of this century.
Observed global warming remains far below the amount
predicted by computer models that served as the basis for
the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Whatever record is used, the largest portion of the warming
of the second half of this century has mainly been confined
to winter in the very coldest continental air masses of
Siberia and northwestern North America, as predicted by
basic greenhouse effect physics. The unpredictability of
seasonal and annual temperatures has declined significantly.
There has been no change in precipitation variability. In
the United States, drought has decreased while flooding has
not increased.
Moreover, carbon dioxide is increasing in the atmos-
phere at a rate below that of most climate-change scenarios
because it is being increasingly captured by growing vegeta-
tion. The second most important human greenhouse enhancer--
methane--is not likely to increase appreciably in the next
100 years. And perhaps most important, the direct warming
effect of carbon dioxide was overestimated. Even global
warming alarmists in the scientific establishment now say
that the Kyoto Protocol will have no discernible impact on
global climate.
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Patrick J. Michaels, a professor of environmental science at
the University of Virginia, is a senior fellow in environ
-
mental studies at the Cato Institute.