Scientists feud while governments seek climate action
Reuters, November 2, 1998
Physicist and science writer Nigel Calder, in a recent presentation at Sussex University in England, said the rising atmospheric content of CO2 is a reflection of rising temperature, not a cause. The key to climate change is the action of the sun, he said. The increase in carbon dioxide in the air is due to the sun's activity and has nothing to do with man-made emissions. The scenario of a global warming disaster, as propagated by the IPCC, is apparently groundless,'' Calder told Reuters. In his presentation, Calder concluded:
- Increases in carbon dioxide in the air from year to year are the result, not a cause, of climate change.
- Carbon dioxide changes are related to temperatures and not to human activity.
- El Nino and volcanoes strongly influence year-by-year carbon dioxide changes but the sun controls long-term trends.
- The sun sets the level of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere by the cumulative effect of cosmic rays reaching the earth as modulated by the solar wind.