Global Warming gives way to Climate Change

As frigid polar air shatters records across the United States, the timing of Michael Mann's recent Virginian-Pilot "other views" climate change article was at best unfortunate.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing that the Earth isn't warming or sea levels aren't rising, I'm just saying CO2 and specifically humanities contribution is not the primary driver of this warming as "97%' of scientists have concluded.

Nearly forty years ago, Wally Broecker coined the term global warming.  Mr. Mann, the creator of the infamous "Hockey Stick Graph", didn't mention global warming once in his latest missive.  It would seem the global warming scientific community has shifted gears to embraced climate change.

I'm a scientists (BS Physical Science, USNA '87) with a pilots license with an instrument rating, who has studied the atmosphere for many years.  I've experienced how fragile our atmosphere is up close and I acknowledge that C02 and CH4, measured in parts per million and parts per billion respectively, are green house gases.  However, these green house gasses pale in comparison to H20.  Water Vapor is by far the mother of all green house gasses and yet receives only a passing mention in the IPCC's most recent 2,216 page assessment of climate change and NO mention at all in the executive summery which mentions CO2 seventy-four times.  I think it's laughable how scientist will argue that CO2 will raise temperature, thus raise the amount of water vapor in the air but fail to mention more water vapor = more clouds = less warming. 

The recent cold snap or an unusually cold winter shouldn't be used as proof that global warming doesn't exist any more than Mr. Mann's assertion that Super Storm Sandy is the result of man's cumulative CO2 production.  Over the millennia Paleoclimatologists have documented warmer and cooler periods and even 200 year North American droughts.  Regardless of how amazing global warming/climate change computer modeling is, the non-linear nature of weather is notoriously hard to model and the magnitude of the assumptions needed for climate change to manifest as advertized would shock even the most skeptic global warming/climate change denier.

When scientists settle on a single computer model that can accurately predict a hurricanes track a few days in advance, I will give more credence to the IPCC's 100 year predictions.  Until then, I will continue to focus on pollution and environmental changes that directly impact our environment and relegate CO2 to it's rightful place as a tiny contributor to global warming/climate change while I brace for the next wicked cold snap. 

* Note - I acknowledge the "CC" in IPCC stands for Climate Change. But the scare mongers latched on to global warming like a hungry lioness grasping a gazelle... The glaciers are melting! Greenland is next! Yes glaciers are melting and so is Greenland. The difference being there is no mention that it's going to take 4000 to 5000 thousand years for Greenland to melt. Oh by the way NASA is scrambling to disprove their own study... Antarctica is gaining ice.