Say It Ain't So: CFCs, Not CO2 May Be to Blame for Global Warming Patterns

[nydj66]

Global warming caused by CFCs, not carbon dioxide, study says | Reuters

But the research is Canadian -- so all bets are off.

Extremely interesting but...

My eye sees a rise in average global temperature from 1950 to 1970. Not sure what the "solar effect" is he is referring to.

A correlation coefficient of 0.97 is suspect itself. I've never seen one that high in any of the much less complicated data I work with.

Lastly, CO2 is known to cause the "greenhouse effect". If increased CO2 in the atmosphere isn't causing the temperature to rise, then we need to explain why.

 

[Headholio]

Interesting.
I need to read up on this, but in my initial search Dr. Lu from Waterloo (yes), has been on the CFC kick for years now and I read one paper debunking his theories from 2005.
There is not much debate on this theory on the internets right now, but in general, he has looked at a very small sample of recent years, and did some curve fitting to show correlation, but not causation.

He doesn't explain how CFC's control climate, or of how CO2 can have no effect. I think its safe to say that his comment that CO2 has had no impact is very much on the fringe, and I doubt that many climate scientists are buying into that.

 

[redsamurai]

I think its safe to say that his comment that CO2 has had no impact is very much on the fringe, and I doubt that many climate scientists are buying into that.

Admittedly I did a fast read, didn't see though he was saying CO2 had no effect.

 

[Headholio]

Admittedly I did a fast read, didn't see though he was saying CO2 had no effect.

Here you go:


"The climate in the Antarctic stratosphere has been completely controlled by CFCs and cosmic rays, with no CO2 impact. The change in global surface temperature after the removal of the solar effect has shown zero correlation with CO2 but a nearly perfect linear correlation with CFCs - a correlation coefficient as high as 0.97."

 

[redsamurai]

Here you go:


"The climate in the Antarctic stratosphere has been completely controlled by CFCs and cosmic rays, with no CO2 impact. The change in global surface temperature after the removal of the solar effect has shown zero correlation with CO2 but a nearly perfect linear correlation with CFCs - a correlation coefficient as high as 0.97."

eh..yeah that's suspect. I thought the whole thing was CFC's contributed more to the pie than originally thought.

 

[Headholio]

Here is some 2011 commentary about Dr. Lu from Warerloo (yes!), saying how his theories of CFC's and cosmic rays causing climate change have been debunked. These criticisms came before Lu from Waterloo's latest paper, so it will be interesting to see how much discussion, if any, his new paper generates.

RealClimate: Lu: from ‘interesting but incorrect’ to just wrong

 

[redsamurai]

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but doesn't the Ozone layer protect us from cosmic rays? And has been doing so for millions and millions of years?

 

[Headholio]

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but doesn't the Ozone layer protect us from cosmic rays? And has been doing so for millions and millions of years?

Ozone absorbs ultraviolet light. Which is a good thing. Lu has hypothesized that CFC's depletion of ozone is dependent on Cosmic rays, which fluctuate over time, but his predictions of more ozone depletion during higher cosmic ray levels have not panned out.
How this relates to his latest paper I don't know. It's just an example of his theories being off base.

 

[redsamurai]

Ozone absorbs ultraviolet light. Which is a good thing. Lu has hypothesized that CFC's depletion of ozone is dependent on Cosmic rays, which fluctuate over time, but his predictions of more ozone depletion during higher cosmic ray levels have not panned out.
How this relates to his latest paper I don't know. It's just an example of his theories being off base.

say it ain't so....this makes OP very sad.

 

[mrplunkey]

I like how they're picking at Lu's work and asking critical questions. That's how scientific review is supposed to work.

But the CO2 community's theories don't add up either: Climate scientists struggle to explain warming slowdown | Reuters

And with the latter group, we're dealing with people who haven't hesitated to "adjust" their data in the past.