Global Warming in Alaska.

Global warming must be real.

First, Discover Magazine declared in its end of year top 100 news story that the biggest news story of the year was that evidence of global warming became "overwhelming." Second, the cab driver who drove us back to the Anchorage airport reminisced about his early days in Anchorage in the late '70s that while Anchorage regularly had winter days in the -20s, it now was much warmer with winter temperatures in the balmy 20s.

Now, the anecdotal evidence from the cab driver is nothing like the solid scientific data on which Discover based its editorial decision to name global warming the top story of 2004 ... actually, it's pretty similar since the "overwhelming evidence" consisted of the "amazing" fact that stinkbug nymphs were found somewhere in England. Discovery didn’t feel that it was necessary to qualify this discovery with a description of the microclimate where the nymphs were found, since, apparently, it is inconceivable that there just might be a garden that was atypically warm in an urban area.

Likewise, I am gratified that I was not the only one who noticed the earth shaking news that we have entered a period of horrifying warmth not seen since the 1500s. (!) As Sergeant Stryker (linking to Rich Galen) observes:

* Deep in the article, Discover points out that Swiss researchers claim the summer of 2003 was “the hottest in Europe since 1500.”

* Wait. What? Since 1500? What was going on in 1500? Were oxen – the SUVs of the age – belching greenhouse gasses at an alarming rate? The Renaissance was in full bloom, but did Leonardo da Vinci code for global warming?

As any historian knows, that period is near the end of an unusually warm period which segued into the "Little Ice Age" that resulted in, inter alia, the extinction of the Norse civilization of Greenland.

But what about that Alaskan weather situation, after all I frequently hear one of the Kennedy boys - the one who had such difficulties in passing the bar - regularly claim on the O'Reilly Factor that the ice is melting at the North Pole.

The answer is actually quite interesting. For example, although the mainstream media often claims that Alaska is 7 degrees warmer today than it was 30 years ago (see, for example, this republication of a New York Times article), according to the Alaskan Climate Research Center the Alaskan mean winter temperature between 1977 and 2003 has remained virtually constant. Anchorage has experienced a .9 degree increase in temperature, which contradicts my cabbie's claim about dramatic warming in Anchorage. (Ironically, the New York Times did "correct" the claim about the 7 degree rise in temperature - to 5.4 degrees, but it completely ignored the evidence of steady temperatures during the most recent quarter century.)

Now, what is interesting is that there has been a definite rise in temperature over the last 30 years, with a "phase shift" in 1976 as a result of "Pacific Decadal Oscillations." It's an interesting phenomenon, but not one that reflects any support for a theory of global warming caused by human action; unless, of course, we managed to lick the problem shortly after 1976, which would be good news because we could move on to other issues.

My problem with "global warming" is not with the idea that it may be occurring; it may well be occurring. It is the fact that "global warming" has achieved the status of an article of faith for people who mostly claim that they don't need faith. For example, the extremist claims about the effects of global warming are suspicious; if the world is now as warm as it was in 1500 and if the world did not at at that time suffer the parade of horribles that are regularly trotted out by global warming apologists, then why should they happen today? Likewise, if the data is so strong - overwhelming - why do the proponents have to distort the data that conflicts with the premises of human-caused global warming?