Climatic Change: facts and fiction

Danilo Anton

During the last years a new idea has extended throughout the world: there is a general belief among many scientists and politicians that a widespread global climatic change is modifying the planetary environmental conditions with serious risks for human civilization.

Alarming as it sounds, this view does not introduce any new element in the understanding of terrestrial processes. Planetary climates have “changed” during all the geological history and, of course, keep changing now. There are numerous sedimentary and fossil evidences which show the vestiges of various climates which took place since ancient eras. Regarding the type and intensity of the changes we believe that we do not have elements to define them. In any case, those changes (not confirmed yet) seem small compared with the major climatic events that happened in the planet history.

The present identified changes would be produced by the emission of carbon dioxide coming from the combustion of hydrocarbons, which would generate a general increase of global temperature.

At the same time, it is pointed out that, as a result of this warming trends, important global climatic changes would be generated with melting of polar ice and subsequent rise of oceanic levels representing a threat for coastal regions.

This theory has produced a widespread alarm and has driven governments and international agencies to make political and economic decisions

However, when rigorous data are analyzed this theoretical model does not appear confirmed by reality. In fact, meteorological information is does not show such an obvious widespread increase of temperature.

There is a set of thermal series located on various geographical environments, excluding urban areas (they would deform the results), which do not show any clear temperature increase.

Widespread melting of glaciers has not been proved either. There are several scientific works concluding that neither Antarctic nor Greenland have experienced a decrease of the frozen volumes in their inlandsis.

With reference to oceanic levels, which would be rising, something similar happens. There are may uncertainties. Periodic oscillations produced by winds and tides, and the dynamics of the blocks of the crust which may sink and go up, due to tectonic and geological reasons, does not allow to be sure. There are too many uncertainties.

On the other hand, the rise of oceanic level would not exceed 2 mm annually (which is less than catastrophic) and the information collected in the low islands of the Pacific Ocean show a relative stability of marine levels in that region.

The increase of CO₂ in the atmosphere which has been recorded during the last decades is not very significant if we consider the global figures (less that 2 millionths per year), existing discrepancies on their effective role as greenhouse gas compared to other factors that seem more important as the presence of water vapor, cloud condensation and the presence of natural and anthropogenic aerosols.

In summary, we may conclude that the temperature of the atmosphere shows increases in urban areas (which are a small part of the Earth surface) but not in the rest of the planet. There is not certainty on the negative balance of the immobilized water volumes as ice in the polar areas, which on the contrary, according to some authors, are increasing.

The hypothetical increase of global sea levels has not been proved either, reducing the alarm of possible catastrophic risks in coastal area.

In fact, what has been demonstrated is the persistence of a media campaign, motivated by economic and political interests, trying to show that a imminent disaster is approaching for humankind due to the exorbitant consumption of mineral combustibles.

To avoid falling in mistakes in the future, when decisions need to be taken and strategies must be defined, human societies need consider much more the actual scientific data and much less the political and economic convenience.