In a report that has raised plenty of eyebrows among climate scientists, Waterloo’s Qing-Bin Lu says chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), chemicals once used widely as refrigerants and propellants, are to blame for global warming since the 1970s and “not carbon dioxide.”
Climate scientists were quick to note the Waterloo assertions run contrary to well-accepted understanding of the forces at work in the atmosphere.
“Anybody who wants to demonstrate that there is another mechanism causing the warming, apart from CO2, has to demonstrate why the CO2 is not causing the warming, because that goes against 150 years of very fundamental physics,” said James Drummond, an atmospheric scientist at Dalhousie University. “It’s definitely a contrary view.”
Lu, building on a controversial theory he has written about in the past, said data going back to the Industrial Revolution “convincingly shows that conventional understanding is wrong.”
“In fact, the data shows that CFCs conspiring with cosmic rays caused both the polar ozone hole and global warming,” he said, adding the Earth is now on a “cooing trend” that is set to continue for the next 50-70 years.
Lu’s work is detailed in a 38-page study published in the International Journal of Modern Physics B this week.
Atmospheric physicist Kimberly Strong at the University of Toronto said she has not yet had a chance to reveiw Lu’s paper, but she takes issue with some of his “bold claims” in the press release about the study issued by the university on Thursday.
She said Lu is “cherry picking” data when he says the Earth has cooled since 2002.
“The overall trend is upward,” said Strong.
CFCs have long been recognized as greenhouse gases that have a warming effect on the climate. But Strong said CFCs, which have been phased out, are present in such low quantities their effect is dwarfed by the warming caused by CO2, which continues to waft in the atmosphere due to the burning of fossil fuels.
Gordon McBean, at Western University, said climate scientists are “ open to challenges.” But he is skeptical about Lu’s findings.
“This idea that suddenly it is CFC’s (causing global warming) is certainly very contrary to the scientific analyses and all the observations and modelling and physics that people have been doing for 100 years,” McBean said in an interview from Saskatoon, where the country’s climate and atmospheric scientists were meeting this week.
Climatologist Andrew Weaver, at the University of Victoria, who was recently elected as British Columbia’s first Green Party MLA, said he is shocked by the Waterloo assertions that run counter to “150 years of analysis by people all over the world.”
“It’s unbelievable,” said Weaver, who doubts the claims will hold up to scrutiny.