July 5, 1998
Two Views From the Greenhouse
New studies of the dangers of global warming come up with different conclusions.
First Chapter: 'Is the Temperature Rising?' First Chapter: 'Climate of Fear'
By WILLIAM
July 5, 1998
Two Views From the Greenhouse
New studies of the dangers of global warming come up with different conclusions.
First Chapter: 'Is the Temperature Rising?' First Chapter: 'Climate of Fear'
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
IS THE TEMPERATURE RISING?
The Uncertain Science of Global Warming.
By S. George Philander.
Illustrated. 262 pp. Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press. $29.95.
CLIMATE OF FEAR
Why We Shouldn't Worry About Global Warming.
By Thomas Gale Moore.
Illustrated. 175 pp. Washington:
Cato Institute. $18.95.
secret of science is that its luminaries have always done the easiest things first, contrary to many claims and myths. Newton ignored the messiness of the real world. His gravitational law showed that two planetary bodies could grip each other invisibly. But his mathematical rigor failed to account for the mutual attractions of three bodies, like the earth, moon and sun. That took the efforts of many successors.
Exploring problems of even greater complexity, Lavoisier, and then Mendeleev, helped reveal scores of chemical elements and their odd, recurring similarities. Darwin and Mendel shed light on the tangle of life. And in our own time, scientists are addressing such riddles as the substructure of the atom, the fate of the universe and the workings of the human brain.
Which brings us to climate change, one of the knottiest scientific problems of all. What we lightly call the climate system is actually trillions of variables in flux over billions of years. The factors include wind, rain, ice, clouds, snow, storms, lightning, comets, asteroids, sunlight, land size, sea currents, magnetic fields, cosmic rays, volcanic dust and life itself. In ages past, the atmosphere had little oxygen. But plants arose and changed that. The only constant seems to be variability, as suggested by the planet's erratic cycles of cold and warmth.
Can this turmoil be fathomed and its evolutionary path forecast? More important for world leaders, can we distinguish the natural changes in meteorological conditions from those induced by humans?
Scientists face the riot of variables only with the help of vast simplifications and the world's most powerful computers. To complicate matters, the field itself is in transition as the science improves and experts grow in number. Climate change was once viewed as slow. But recent studies have disclosed past temperature swings so sudden that in theory New England could have Miami-like weather in as little as 25 years. On the other hand, methane, seen as a major spur to global warming, now appears to be accumulating in the atmosphere more slowly than predicted, seeming to reduce the risk of crisis. Moreover, conflicting data are often communicated to the public by environmental zealots at either end of the political spectrum, obscuring things still further.
Into this wilderness comes S. George Philander, a geoscientist at Princeton who writes with skill and cool reserve. ''Is the Temperature Rising? The Uncertain Science of Global Warming'' is a careful, step-by-step look at confusing data and clarifying science. He is literate, quoting Shelley, Coleridge and Eliot. And he is reasonably sure we are digging our own grave, though he says so with such understatement that it is easy to overlook the doom and gloom.
Rather adroitly, Philander explains why scientists worry about the global rash of fires, generating plants and factories that release carbon dioxide at a furious pace. When sunlight bathes the earth and reflects back into the sky as heat, he says, the radiations have ''so little energy that they are unable to interact with the diatomic molecules that account for most of the atmosphere.'' Such bypassed molecules are mainly pairs of oxygen atoms and pairs of nitrogen atoms. The trouble arises when the weak radiations are absorbed by triatomic and other complex gases, including carbon dioxide, ozone, methane and water vapor. These trap heat in the atmosphere, much like glass in a greenhouse. The question is whether the heat is rising and how much.
To address that puzzle, Philander examines issues such as those raised by clouds. If greenhouse heat evaporates some of the sea and increases water vapor in the atmosphere, the planet may grow hotter still, since the mist is a major greenhouse gas. But, he adds, if the added vapor condenses widely, the earth may cool, since white, fluffy, abundant clouds reflect more sunlight back into space. An added twist is that individual clouds heat or cool the earth depending on their exact form. Clouds, Philander says, are the main wild card in the warming game. Driving the point home, he asks readers to imagine computer simulations ''as whimsical as clouds!''
The book's science is clear but formidable. We meet latent heat, quantum theory, the photoelectric effect, the hydrological cycle and plate tectonics, some explained better than others. Equations dot the text and pervade 13 appendixes. Many illustrations aid comprehension. But they, too, tend to be esoteric, with temperatures, for instance, always given in the Celsius scale.
Like a windy but stimulating uncle, Philander also takes us on detours, some tedious. Who cares why water is a poor thermometer fluid? But what fun to learn that weather experts around the globe release 700 balloons every noon and midnight Greenwich mean time and share the resulting data, friend and foe alik