A new climate science report came out in early September telling how climate changes are caused by short lived gases, not long term ones like CO2 like has been previously claimed by Al Gore. I found the media reporting on it to not reflect at all what the study claimed. So I sent a letter outlining the truth of what it said and sent it to the scientist who did the research urging them to push for more transparent reporting on

::::::::

I sent the letter below to scientists who prepared a report from NOAA and NASA titled Projections Based on Emissions Scenarios for Long-Lived and Short-Lived Radiatively Active Gases and Aerosols (www.gcrio.org/library/sap-final-reports.htm). It’s become the primary focus for the new direction we’re heading with our greenhouse gas policies. There really isn’t much new in the report other than their claim that soot from China might cause warming trends here in the Midwest by the year 2050, at least that’s what their computer models tell them if the trends they used in their modeling don’t change between then and now. Up until now, their theories have been bent more towards soot actually contributing to a global cooling. 

The highlight of the report is their recommendation that we limit our emissions of volatile organic compound (VOC’s)and carbon monoxide (CO) because they are what is causing our climate change problems here in the US. It’s revolutionary that they’re drawing so much serious attention to what they call short term gases being the cause of the weather pattern changes that we previously have been attributing to a global warming process caused by long lived gases like carbon dioxide. But it’s been known for a long time that VOC’s and methane reacting with water vapor in the suns rays effect regional weather pattern changes, it’s just been more publically popular to talk about carbon dioxide and global warming.  

The letter -

Dear Hiram,

I read about how soot from China will cause warming in the Midwest in a news article published by the Associated Press titled “Asian soot, smog may boost global warming in US” by Seth Borenstein  on September 4, 2008. It came following the release of your report titled “Climate Projections Based on Emissions Scenarios for Long-Lived and Short-Lived Radiatively Active Gases and Aerosols” authored by Hiram Levy II, NOAA/GFDL; Drew T. Shindell, NASA/GISS; Alice Gilliland, NOAA/ARL; M. Daniel

Schwarzkopf, NOAA/GFDL; Larry W. Horowitz, NOAA/GFDL

and Anne Waple, STG Inc. l (their personal profile information can be easily accessed by searching their names).

I am happy to see that the administration is adopting your new perspective on climate change. I am however disturbed that the news media is choosing to focus on the more salacious speculative predictions in your report about how China is going to cause the US climate warming problems in the future while basing their assertions your computer modeling for the next 90 years. They seem to have missed altogether the real world recommendations you made calling for immediate reductions of carbon monoxide (CO) and volatile organic compounds (VOC’s) here in the US while your department is doing nothing but encouraging them to focus in this direction.

You claim that reducing CO and VOC’s can have significant benefits for climate change which means your research clearly shows they are problematic. So what you’re really saying is that the CO and VOC’s we’re emitting into the atmosphere now are causing the weather pattern problems we’re having now and doing it at a local level where the emissions come from. There is no other way to view your work unless you are claiming that in the future, you expect these gases to change their physical properties and start causing us problems.

If they will cause problems in the future, then they can cause problems now. It’s not at all complicated. If these kinds of short term gases cause climate change and we are experiencing climate change while emitting huge quantities on these same pollutants, then the strange changes we’re seeing today in weather patterns are being caused by these pollutants as we emit them because they don’t have a long enough shelf life to cause problem in the future. And these are regional weather problems caused by short term gases where the pollutants originate from, not part of a global warming process as has been thought. So changes in habits that lead to high levels of short-term gas emission in a particular region can offset the weather pattern problems they are causing for themselves there now.  

So really the most important part of the report we ought to be paying attention to is about VOC emissions because there is a large volume of them coming from a particular source that we can actually do something about – ethanol being used as fuel and its production. Ethanol increases by a wide margin the amount of VOC’s emitted into the troposphere from the way it’s refined and coming from ignition systems it’s used in when mixed with gasoline. In fact both its production and use produces excessively high nitrogen oxides (Nox) emissions that are premixed with VOC’s while ethanol refinery emissions come already blended with billions of tons of water vapor from distilling corn beer and then re-distilling the resulting hydrous ethanol into anhydrous ethanol.

According to your science, these pollutants and the forcing they produce when combining in UV-C rays to produce low level ozone would have an exceptionally dangerous effect on atmospheric water vapor even if it wasn’t emitted already mixed with millions of tons of hot steam before it leaves the distillery. I mean it doesn’t take a bunch of rocket scientists to figure out that if we pump billions of gallons of water out of the ground and send it into the atmosphere that it will result in flooding. Newton proved that with his apple. Even a child knows that what goes up must came back down. 

Really this is nothing new. Research at University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) has been fairly conclusive in understanding how trees and plants emit the same kind of pollutants to aid in the forcing of the hydrologic cycle to function the way it always has. So really we’re looking at an already delicate system that we’re tampering with the vital functions of while pretending that long term gases and whole world global warming is what causes changes in weather patterns, at least as long as you don’t step up and make clear what is really going on. And don’t excuse yourself from this debate claiming your forte is not public relations or policy making while believing personally this science is too complex for the American people to understand.

What no one understands is how CO2 can cause the problems we’re seeing today. But that actually makes us intellectually superior to many members of the scientific community because it turns out that CO2 isn’t the problem and it should have been obvious to them all along that it wasn’t. But the little story about the water vapor mixed with gases that explode when the suns rays mix with it, that’s not at all hard to figure out. And then the part about how when we add more of these gases than is normal to the process, it causes it to change. This is something everyone can relate to adjust their habits around. It really all quite simple now that you have finally figured it out.

Since it appears the news media likes to view climate computer modeling as something they can report on without taking seriously the recommendations that result from it, do you know of science being done or would you consider creating or inspiring some that would include real world/ real time studies of the cause and effect that VOC emissions have on regional and national weather patterns as related emissions coming from ethanol production and use? I believe this can be easily done by assessing when and where ethanol production and use began while comparing the before and after effects it had on weather patterns.

The records for how the ethanol industry evolved from a few plants into a Midwestern empire of hundreds of distilleries over the last few years are readily accessible. The resulting abrupt changes in amounts of Midwest short lived gases causes such dramatic changes in weather patterns there at the same time we’re escalating our use of ethanol in gasoline nationwide leaves an easy to follow trail of direct evidence of how anthropogenic pollutants effect the atmosphere. In fact you couldn’t ask for a better model than one you can relate to in a real world setting.

In fact since gasoline prices have gotten so high where there’s little traffic on weekends, the contrast between workweek and weekend driving patterns have an unmistakable effect on weather patterns where climate seems to follow a weekly schedule. I know because I’ve been following the effects VOC’s from oxygenates added to gasoline for ten years. Ethanol affects regional climate in a clearly defined manner starts whenever it’s use in gasoline begins in any particular region or when ethanol refineries open. In fact the same can be said ethanol’s predecessor MTBE and also of oil refineries whenever they emit the same kinds of pollutants.

I mean with the way anhydrous ethanol made from corn and then added to gasoline causes such a drain on our economy with how it strains the grain market increasing the cost of food and causing great losses of mileage in our vehicles, far more then the government admits, which this all causes the dollar to weaken driving the cost of crude oil up while having a domino effect on the economy where the price of everything is climbing as employers are paying less or laying off employees, even going out of business, this is causing the people who have the hardest time paying their mortgages to go bankrupt and causing the whole financial system to crash in on itself. So it seems at least you could get some good science out of this after all the American people have invested in it.

I’ve charted many times how weather pattern come in weekly patterns here in Washington DC. Weather patterns clearly follow a workweek/weekend schedule except when offset by holidays or the disruption of ethanol supplies. After those brief interruptions, climate patterns always return to the same weekly schedule once our driving habits are back to normal. National weather patterns also move in the same fashion as the jet stream passes through the Midwest where most of the ethanol refineries in the nation are. This causes drought in some areas but more often extreme flooding and violently destructive storms. The way I follow this unnatural phenomenon is actually scientifically valid although this does me little good in making arguments that something needs to be done because I am not an accredited government scientist like you are.

What I’m saying is that if you put together a project that shows conclusively that a particular product or industry is directly affecting regional changes in climate, then there would be no mistaking the reporting on your findings. In fact I believe the next level of challenges for you to support your claims that short lived gases directly effect weather patterns would be to gather evidence outside a computer model. There might still be questions about exactly how this happens but the question of whether it does or not would be answered now rather than waiting until 2100 to find out if your computer knew what it was talking about. Approaching the problem from this direction would also likely lead to aiding greatly in clearing up any confusion about the earth’s atmosphere and the effect human beings have on it that your science still has.  

I’m not only an amateur climatologist but also a reporter for a news service that has access to Google’s headline news search engine. So really I’m asking you a question about your science in the form of a suggestion about how to better proceed with your experiments so I can publish your response. I know going against ethanol in any way nowadays would be very provoking even though the Bush administration is adopting a new posture on climate as it reacts with short term gases. But perhaps you could be so bold as to confirm that if your theories are correct, it should be able to be shown by tracking how heavy amounts of VOC’s and Nox coming from industry and human activity affect regional weather patterns.

Could you answer me that – Do you believe your science could be monitored this way - or have you already done it? In reviewing you work, I believe at some level you gained confidence in the direction you’re heading by witnessing the effect of short lived gases first hand before setting out to prove how it happens. It’s just too simple to ignore. I’ve been watching it with no funding for many years sometimes by just witnessing how weather patterns change from week to week going up and down like a bouncing ball where each day of the week is distinct but the same as that day of the previous week. So I figure you must have a more complex way to observe the same phenomenon which helps you justify the millions of dollars you spend on your computer models, because you already know what the outcome of your work will be.

The problem is you’re not directing our attention to what’s going on as it happens but rather showing us what computers think will happen in the future. I admit your work is vital, absolutely without a doubt it is worthwhile in every respect. But it is not the first line of defense against climate change. And your first concerns shouldn’t be about protecting or prosecuting the perpetrators of climate change either. It’s like what the Food and Drug Administration is doing with Bisphenol A. They’re waiting for conclusive evidence that would result in the loss of lawsuits in federal courtrooms to reign the plastic food container industry rather than using obvious evidence already demonstrated by credible research to protect the American people from being poisoned.

There are alternatives to bisphenol A just like there are ways to use and refine ethanol that don’t produce high volumes of VOC’s. And there are others ways to present your science. Models are not the only way to show how anthropologic gases effect weather patterns, in fact they yield only hypothetical results when looking toward the future because we don’t know what the gaseous makeup of the atmosphere will look like many years from now nor what our understanding of climate change at the space in time will be.

Computer models are not even the most effective way to view potential climate change. They however can be used very effectively for showing how we can control climate to our benefit once we establish what causes climate change. I mean that is what you bring to the climate change debate that’s new isn’t it  - that we aren’t stuck with one long term equation for a global warming but rather that weather patterns can be altered on short a term basis? So if you can prove how ethanol directly effects weather patterns, you can then use a computer model to aid in a design for how anthropogenic gases can be used to bring positive climate results in controlled experiments?

So how long do we have to wait for you to cut to the chase about the actual results of your work or is that a political decision? The way I read history, Einstein was quite the activist as were many of the scientists of his era. That’s why we’re not ruled by tyrants right now while we still have a Constitution and Bill of Rights between us and our leaders in Washington, because scientists used to have a collective moral conscience that prevented them from blindly following political leaders.

Have the current prodigies of science forgotten the lessons of their mentors? Do you really want to be remembered as having served at the pleasure of elected officials and our financial masters on Wall Street who can’t even balance their bank books anymore? Or would you rather earn your posterity being the representatives of truth and facts while supporting a positive future for mankind rather than bowing to a handful of men with questionable levels of intelligence and motives for what they do with the information you produce for them?

Let me give you a little background on the oxygenate program that was used to force ethanol on the American people in 2006. Ethanol replaced MTBE. In the Clean Air Act debate of 1990, the members of the scientific community weighting in on the legitimacy of oxygenates added to gasoline were reluctant to support it because of concerns for the effect MTBE and ethanol might have on the environment and atmosphere. So the first Bush president said he would appoint a task force to answer their questions and would later support a polymer additive to gasoline that these same scientists were in favor of if their suspicions about oxygenates were confirmed. So they agreed to support the Clean Air Act under those conditions.

But no investigation was ever done on the negative effects of MTBE while later nothing could done to stop it once a trillion dollar loan was taken out to build MTBE refineries, much like what they’ve done investing so much of the American peoples future in ethanol over the last couple years without first having an intelligent honest debate about it. So you already know not to trust Washington and especially Bush when presenting your scientific responsibly to the American people when it comes to this issue. In fact if it hadn’t been for old man Bush letting Saddam Hussein invade Kuwait, the American people would have known about the objections of the scientific community to oxygenates. But they never heard about it because the news media was focused elsewhere.

911 happened just as the story about MTBE effecting weather patterns was about to break, just before Enron came apart. As we invaded Iraq in March of 2003, congress was using its beginning as cover to try and pass a liability waiver for MTBE producers knowing the news media was busy elsewhere. The waiver appeared to be about groundwater MTBE polluted nationwide but also put the burden of damages caused by it effects on climate and human health on the American taxpayer.

Even the financial disaster we’re experiencing now started when the discontinued use of MTBE caused the trillion dollar loan, money that was stolen from the Soviet Union at the end of the cold war and deposited in Swiss banks, that financed MTBE’s evolution from an octane booster to an oxygenate went into default. The loan wasn’t actually used to directly finance MTBE refineries but to build a financial house of cards that MTBE supporters on Wall Street and in Washington had, and still have, easy access to being able to use as long as they supported and continue to support the governments policies that keep this scam from surfacing before the American people. MTBE profits laundered through Enron and then USBW were intended to keep this corrupt system propped up just like payments on low rated mortgages were expected to keep the US economy from failing.

I think you have something very serious to say to the American people and I think you believe you have already said it. I respect very much that you made it this far in publishing your work considering how corrupt Washington is right now. But you need to do more. You need to stand up for what you believe in to drown out James Hansen and Al Gore. All you’re doing is putting something in the record that’s not being paid the kind of attention it deserves where you can later say I told you so when what ethanol is doing to weather patterns melts enough methane hydrates to set off an atmospheric chain reaction that teaches the human race the hard way what long and short term gases can do to our climate, that is if there’s anyone left to say it to when the sky finally falls on all of us.

Sincerely,

Bobby Fontaine

I received no response nor I have a seen any change in how these topics are presented to the American people and the rest world. These are the kinds of issues that should be front and center in this presidential election cycle, one that began almost as soon as the last one ended. The candidates have definite differences on the topics of global warming and ethanol but neither issue seems to be something they want to debate the details of publically at great length.

The truth is that ethanol can be added to gasoline as hydrous ethanol without causing climate problems while doing it this way has many other benefits as well. But that’s another topic that has fallen by the wayside of our future being decided by politicians and Wall Street bankers rather than us and the experts we pay to provide us with scientific facts to help us know the right way to view the most important issues of the day, perhaps the biggest question mankind has ever faced.

Authors Bio:
I follow climate and energy related issues keeping abreast of what is really going on with them, not what the news media reports, if it reports anything.