Climate projections shaky
Like many geologists, I am skeptical about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s scientific consensus computer-based global warming predictions, despite the threat of being labeled a flat-Earther.
The recent 15-plus-year period of far lesser temperature rise than IPCC predictions is passed off by its proponents as the possible result of natural forces such as increased volcanic activity or solar irradiance variation.
Geological studies of Earth reveal that frequent, often drastic and sudden, past climate variations have been caused by the very forces that IPCC backers now cite as the reason that their predictions have not been borne out.
Keith Bromley (April 5) notes that Earth has steadily warmed for the last 150 years, with significant cooling periods. In fact, Earth has been gradually warming for more than 10,000 years – since the last glacial advance. But there have been lengthy cooling events.
The 1850s marked the sudden end of the Little Ice Age, a 300-year period of cold misery for humans. The point is that these climate changes were caused by natural forces that dwarf anything humans can create. The IPCC data ignore these unpredictable natural forces, making climate predictions 100 years ahead, at best, conjectural.
Morris Kaufman
Spokane Valley