More data needed to support or disprove global warming theory
Reports of global warming are prevalent in the popular press. With the exception of Scandinavia, no major energy tax laws have been passed to date. But environmental pressures may change this, and the change could have a profound effect on refiners. These are the views of Gerald T. Westbrook, of TSBV Consultants, Houston. Westbrook summarized recent global-warming research, and his position on the subject, at the National Petroleum Refiners Association annual meeting, held March 16--18, in San Antonio. The greenhouse effect is real, says Westbrook. It is important, however, to distinguish between the two major mechanisms of the greenhouse effect: natural warming and anthropogenic warming (changes in the concentration of greenhouse gases caused by man). Without greenhouse gases the earth`s equilibrium temperature would be {minus}18 C. The effect of the gases is to raise the equilibrium temperature to 15 C. In the early 1980s, computer models estimated global warming over the past 100 years to be as much as 2.3 C. By 1986, those estimates had been reduced to 1.0 C, and in 1988, a range of 0.63 {+-} 0.2 C was reported. In 1995, a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC) cited a range of 0.3--0.6 C. Westbrook asserts that the earth`s motion anomalies--orbit eccentricity, axial tilt, and wobbles--lead to dramatic changes in insolation, and are the dominant force over the last 160,000 years.
- OSTI ID:
- 479485
- Journal Information:
- Oil and Gas Journal, Vol. 95, Issue 21; Other Information: PBD: 26 May 1997
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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