[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 26 (Wednesday, March 3, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H808]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       SCIENCE INVESTIGATES HUMAN CONTRIBUTION TO CLIMATE CHANGE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Gilchrest) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a few comments this 
evening on an issue that remains somewhat controversial. The issue is 
climate change. Is the Earth warming, and is there such a thing as 
global warming?
  I would like to present a few findings affirmed by National Academy 
of Science, at the request of George Bush, and which the American 
Geophysical Union also agrees with.
  Basically the conclusion of the scientific community is that the 
Earth has been warming for the last 10,000 years. We left the Ice Age, 
and for the last 10,000 years, the Earth on average has been warming 1 
degree centigrade every 1,000 years, and this is detectable through 
various tree rings, ice cores and a number of other techniques used to 
determine the kind of climate we have had over the past 400,000 years. 
But the last 10,000 years, the trend is the natural range of 
fluctuation, it is a little warmer 1 year, a little colder the next 
year, but the natural range of fluctuation clearly shows that we have 
been in a warming trend over the past 10,000 years about 1 degree 
centigrade every 1,000 years.
  What we have seen in the last 100 to 150 years is that natural range 
of fluctuation appears to have abruptly changed. The question is that 
abrupt change, which actually is a jump in surface warming, is that a 
natural fluctuation or is it as a result of mankind burning fossil fuel 
and adding greenhouse gases to the environment.
  What I am going to show tonight is the fluctuation that we have seen, 
the abrupt fluctuation, is not a natural fluctuation. If it is not a 
natural fluctuation, the environmental variables from this point on are 
not going to be predictable as far as the climate and the weather is 
concerned.
  Mr. Speaker, this chart has two parts to this graph. The first part, 
which is the color gray, deals with the computer models that are 
telling us something about the climate and how it has changed over the 
past 100 years. One part of this chart shows the input in the model. 
The other part of the chart, the color red, shows actual observations 
on the ground where you go out and you actually take temperatures all 
around the globe. The first part of the chart, the gray line, is what 
you put into the computer. The second part is what you actually 
observe. There are three charts up here.
  The first chart deals with the natural fluctuation in the climate 
over the last 150 years with solar energy, with ocean currents, with 
volcanoes, with a number of things that have caused the climate to 
change, the geologic forces which have caused the climate to change 
over the last thousand years. We see if we just take the variables in 
the natural forcing, the climate will stay fairly steady. In other 
words, there would be no increase in the last 150 years. The actual 
temperature, though, shows that there has been an increase over the 
last 150 years. So there is a question, where is the increase in 
temperature coming from?
  The next chart shows only measuring human activity, anthropogenic 
forcing only. That means we only measure the kind of temperature 
increase we would get from burning fossil fuel or cutting down a forest 
or a variety of other things. When we do that, we show that the 
temperature, as we see over here, is the same. There is an abrupt 
increase in the temperature.
  The third chart shows the natural fluctuation or the natural increase 
in temperature that we have seen over 10,000 years, but it also shows 
mixed in with that if we add to that natural increase, if we add human 
activity, we see that the blend shows that there has been about a 1 
degree temperature rise in the last 150 years.

                              {time}  1845

  You cannot account for the increase in temperature over the last 150 
years with just natural forces but you can account for it when you add 
in human activity.
  Those are just a few interesting facts, Mr. Speaker, I thought that 
the Members would like to know.

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