Editorial: Hard evidence of global warming ... in Caddyshack?

If you believe the latest round of pop-science reports in the mainstream media, you can only conclude that the comedy movie classic Caddyshack provides the answer to two of the most important scientific questions of the day: Is the Earth warming, and is mankind responsible?

The much-sought-after answers to those questions can be discovered in Caddyshack by applying the same highly scientific reasoning the mainstream media recently used to analyze one of Alaska's kill-the-winter-boredom comedic classics.

Guessing game

In 1917, engineers were building a railroad bridge over the Tanana River near Fairbanks, Alaska. Because the presence of ice on the river halted bridge construction, the engineers were forced to amuse themselves in whatever way possible while they fought boredom and awaited the spring thaw.

One of many such methods of amusement (we're talking he-man Alaskans at the turn of the last century here, so you can use your imagination as to what else occurred, all in the name of boredom-fighting) was to place bets on when the ice would break up on the river, allowing construction to continue.

From such humble beginnings emerged the "Nenana Ice Classic," an annual guessing game in which thousands of people now participate. For a $2 bet, participants earn a chance to win the grand jackpot by guessing the exact time and date the ice will break up on the river.

Because early contests were prone to subjective, financially self-serving pronouncements of just what constituted the official ice breakup on the river, a large, immaculately crafted wooden tripod is now placed on the ice, and the official breakup time occurs when the tripod falls through the ice into the river, much like Al Gore's political aspirations.

This passes for science?

Raphael Sagarin, a "marine biologist" at Stanford University (Managing Editor's note: The somewhat goofy, pimply-faced kid who comes to my house once a month to clean my saltwater aquarium also calls himself a "marine biologist," for what that's worth), apparently learned of the contest while visiting Alaska last year. He was struck by what USA Today, MSNBC, and Science magazine apparently believe is the scientific insight of the century. "I immediately thought this might be a great record of climate change."

Sagarin surmised that he could study the record as to the date each year's Nenana Ice King received his frozen and technically illegal annual payoff to reconstruct a record of when the ice thawed on the Tanana River. "It turns out to be really good, accurate data," Sagarin scientifically explained.

Sagarin studied the records and reported (surprise!) the ice is breaking up 5.5 days earlier in recent years than it did in 1917. Sagarin then declared global warming is clearly upon us. Science magazine published his findings, and the mainstream media has been gushing about them ever since.

Duty to science requires a few observations here.

Remember that big, immaculately constructed wooden tripod erected to provide a definitive ice-out date? That didn't exist in 1917. And even when it first did come into existence, was anybody checking to make sure the tripod carried the same specifications in terms of size and weight from year to year? What about the tripod's placement? Anybody who was ever a child in New England can tell you that every year, some places on a pond thaw out much earlier than others, and the early thaw doesn't hit the same place year after year.

John Daly, author of The Greenhouse Trap and master of the fantastic Web site "Still Waiting for the Greenhouse" (http://www.john-daly.com), notes the city of Fairbanks is directly upstream from the Nenana Ice Classic. Fairbanks, he points out, almost certainly discharges much more warm-water sewage (including water changes performed on salt-water aquariums by "marine biologists") into the river than it did in 1917.

Daly also points out the Fairbanks area has recently been receiving more seasonal snowfall than it did in 1917. More snowfall means more spring runoff, increasing the springtime flow of the river, resulting in an earlier breakup in the ice. Daly presents several other local factors, wholly unrelated to marine biology, that further skew the reported findings.

It should also be noted that, irrespective of the above-described flaws in the "Nenana Ice Classic as oracle of global warming" theory, any alleged warming near Fairbanks, Alaska would hardly prove warming on a global scale.

Numerous recent studies (some of which are reported in the October and December issues of Environment & Climate News) have found that both the Arctic and Antarctic polar ice caps are growing, not shrinking. Twice a month for the past three years, CO2 Science Magazine (http://www.co2science.org) has identified and documented a cooling trend in several cities and towns across North America, including many in Alaska.

Don't confuse them with facts

This, of course, has not stopped the pop-media/pop-science culture from anointing the Nenana Ice Classic betting slips as irrefutable evidence of global warming. USA Today, MSNBC, and Science could hardly restrain themselves in praise of the newly discovered "proof."

On October 25, USA Today reported that "Hard evidence of global warming is showing up not in climate scientists' charts and figures but in nature . . ." And we all know how unreliable scientific charts and figures are, as compared to gambling records.

Gushed MSNBC on the same date, "For centuries, hobbyists have collected data on the world around them--from the arrival of the first bird in spring to the first frost in autumn. The branch of science that looks at the annual timing of natural events is known as phenology. Until recent years, scientists have dismissed such nontraditional data gathered by amateurs. (Managing Editor's note: Gee, I wonder why?) 'Now scientists are taking a second look at phenology and giving it some respect,' Sagarin said."

A logical conclusion

One cannot help but be tempted to apply such "scientific" methods to other scenarios. In fact, replication is quite necessary to prove the theory. That's essential to sound science: The results of an experiment must be independently verifiable.

Accordingly, I popped a Caddyshack videotape into my VCR and fast-forwarded to the second-most-famous (next to the Nenana Ice Classic) betting contest in history. And there I found my proof that global warming, just as predicted by the Nenana Ice Classic, is indeed occurring.

"Ten bucks says the Smails kid picks his nose!" calls out the locker-room attendant. The tension mounts . . . and the Smails kid picks his nose. A loud cheer erupts as the winners get paid.

I look at the calendar hanging on the wall in my kitchen. It is January 1, several months earlier in the year than the mid-summer date 20-odd years ago when I first watched Caddyshack and betting on the Smails kid first paid off at two-to-one odds. Global warming is indeed here, I realized. The Nenana Ice Classic is scientifically validated.

For more information . . .

John Daly's The Greenhouse Trap--Why the Greenhouse Effect will not end Life on Earth, was published in 1989 by Bantam Books. It is out of print, but used copies are available through Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0947189777/theheartlandinst.