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Guest Forum
Opinion piece by Dr Zbigniew
Jaworowski
20 September 2008
Sun
Warms and Cools the Earth |
In
an op-ed in a Polish weekly I commented recently on a
remarkable decrease of global temperature in 2008, and over
the past decade. Not surprisingly the op-ed evoked a strong
reaction from Polish co-workers of IPCC, denying the existence
of cooling. Surprising, however, was that the criticism
dwelled upon a “global climatic conspiracy”, and
“colossal international plot”. I did not use these words
nor even hinted at such an idea. The idea was probably
apparent from the data and facts I presented, showing
weaknesses of the man-made global warming hypothesis. Without
irrational political or ideological factors, it is really
difficult to understand why so many people believe in human
causation of the Modern Warm Period, which was never plausibly
proved by scientific evidence. Some of these factors I will
discuss here.
Suicidal
conspiracy
A
conspiracy stratagem was openly presented by Maurice Strong, a
godfather of the global environmental movement, and a former
senior advisor to Kofi Annan, the U.N. Secretary-General. In
1972 Strong was a
Secretary-General of the
United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, which
launched the world environment movement, and he has played a
critical role in its globalization. In 1992 Strong
was the Secretary-General of the “World Summit” conference
in Rio de Janeiro, where on his instigation the foundations
for the Kyoto Protocol were laid.
In
an interview Strong disclosed his mindset: "What
if a small group of world leaders were to conclude that the
principal risk to the Earth comes from the actions of rich
countries? And if the world is to survive, those rich
countries would have to sign an agreement reducing their
impact on the environment. Will they do it? The group’s
conclusion is "no." The rich countries won’t do
it. They won’t change. So, in order to save the planet, the
group decides: Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the
industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our
responsibility to bring that about? This group of world
leaders form a secret society to bring about an economic
collapse."
(Wood,1990)
.
The
climatic issue became now perhaps the most important agenda of
the United Nations and politicians, at least they say so[1].
It became also a moral issue. In 2007 addressing the UN
General Assembly Gro Harlem Brundtland, the UN
Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Climate Change,
pointing at climatic skeptics stated: “It
is irresponsible, reckless and deeply immoral to question the
seriousness of the real danger of climate change”. But
earlier “scare them to deaths!” morality of
“climatists”[2]
was explained by Stephen Schneider, one of their top gurus:
"On the one hand,
as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method,
in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but … On the other hand, we are
not just scientists but human beings as well … we need to
get some broadbased support, to capture the public's
imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media
coverage. So we have to
offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic
statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might
have …Each of us has to decide what the right balance is
between being effective and being honest”
(Schneider,
1989)
.
The
same moral standard is offered by Al Gore: “I believe it is
appropriate to have an over-representation of factual
presentations on how dangerous (global warming) is, as a
predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the
solutions are”
(Gore,
2006)
. In
similar vein Rajendra
K. Pauchari, the chairman of IPCC, commented in the last
Fourth PCCC Report: “I
hope this will shock people and governments into taking more
serious action”
(Crook,
2007)
.
Thus IPCC does not have ambition to present an objective
climatic situation, but rather “to shock” the people to
take actions which would bring no climatic effects
(NIPCC,
2008)
, but
rather disastrous global economic and societal consequences.
Implementation of these actions would dismantle the global
energy system, the primary driving force of our civilization.
This is what Maurice Strong and other leaders of Green
Movement apparently have in mind.
The
political and business scale of the problem is reflected by
sums planned or already spent to counter the blessed natural
Modern Warm Period, one of several similar periods enjoyed by
the biosphere over the current interglacial [3].
According to the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and
Public Works, during the past 10 years funds for the promoters
of the man-made global warming hypothesis received in the
United States alone more than $50 billion.
The
International Energy Agency announced in June that cutting by
half the CO2 emission will cost the world $45
trillion up to 2050, i.e. 1.1% of the global GNP each year
(Kanter,
2008)
. For this
expenditure one may expect a trifle climatic effect. Even if a
substantial part of global warming were due to CO2
– and it is not – any control efforts currently
contemplated, including the punctiliously observed Kyoto
protocol, would
decrease future temperatures by only 0.02oC, an
undetectable amount
(NIPCC,
2008)
.
Recent
and Future Cooling
Both
surface and troposphere observations suggest that we are
entering a cool phase of climate. These observations are in a
total disagreement with IPCC climatic model projections, based
on an assumption that the current Modern Warm Period is due to
anthropogenic emissions of CO2
(IPCC-AR4,
2007)
. The
annual increment of global industrial CO2 emission
increased from 1.1% in 1990-1999 to more than 3% in 2000- 2004
(Raupach
et al., 2007)
, and is
still increasing. Thus, according to IPCC projections the
global temperature should be increasing now more rapidly than
before, but instead we see a cold spell. It is clear that
cooling is not related to the rapidly increasing CO2
emission. Its cause is rather the Sun’s activity, which
recently dropped precipitously from its 60 year long record in
the second half of the 20th century, the highest in
the past 11 centuries
(Usoskin
et al., 2003)
, to an
extremely low current level.
Sun
activity is reflected in the number of sunspots, which
normally shows an 11-year periodicity (or 131 month plus or
minus 14 month). The current sunspot cycle no. 23 had a
maximum in 2001 (150 sunspots in September). NASA officially
declared it over in March 2006, with a forecast that the next
cycle no. 24 will be 20 to 50 % stronger than the old. But
until now the Sun remained quiet, with only few sunspots
sighted both from the old cycle, and from the new one declared
again by NASA to start on December 11, 2007. However, the
Sun’s activity was still low in the first part of 2008
(NOAA,
2008)
, and
August 2008 was (probably) the first month without sunspots
since 1913 (some observations noticed not a “spot” but a
tiny short-lived “pore” on 21-22 August).
It seems that we still remain in the cycle 23.
The
unusually long low activity of Sun suggests that we may be
entering a next Maunder Minimum, a period from 1645 to 1715,
when almost no sunspots were visible. This was the coldest
part of the Little Ice Age (1250—1900), when rivers in
Europe and America were often frozen, and the Baltic Sea was
crossed on ice by armies and travelers. Other authors suggest
that the Earth will be facing a slow decrease in temperatures
in 2012-2015, reaching a deep freeze around 2050-2060, similar
to cooling that took place in 1645-1715, when temperature
decreased by 1 to 2oC
(Abdussamatov,
2004; Abdussamatov, 2005; Abdussamatov, 2006)
. Another
analysis of sunspot cycles for the period 1882-2000, projected
that the cooling will start in the solar cycle 25, resulting
in minimum temperature around 2021-2026
(Bashkirtsev
and Mashnich, 2003)
. A
long-term cooling, related to Sun’s activity, was also
projected for the period around 2100 and 2200 (Landscheidt,
1995; Landscheidt, 2003).
The
current Modern Warm Period is one of innumerous former natural
warm climatic phases. Its temperature is lower than in the 4
former warm periods over the past 1500 years
(Grudd,
2008)
.
Unfortunately it seems that it comes to an end, and the recent
climatic fluctuations suggest that perhaps a new, full scale
ice age is imminent. It may come in the next 50 to 400 years
(Broecker,
1995; Bryson, 1993)
, with ice
caps covering northern parts of
America and Eurasia.
Reliability
of IPCC
Each
of four IPCC reports became a holy book for the UN, Brussels
and national bureaucracies. These credulously accepted reports
are now a basis of long-term political and economic decisions.
If implemented, the decisions will bring a global scale
disaster. The credulity is astonishing, as many impartial
perusals of the IPCC work demonstrated that its assessments
and foundations, not withstanding an impressive numerical and
graphic façade, are clearly biased, and should be rejected as
not providing adequate climatic information for policymakers.
The
name of IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
tacitly suggests that only now the climate changes. This
notion, in various forms for example “climate
change is now upon us”
(CCSP-USP,
2008)
is
repeated ad nauseam
in the names of institutions, programs, scientific papers and
media. This, however, is not true. Without human intervention
and without influence of CO2, climate was changing
constantly over the past several billion years, sometimes much
more and much faster than now. The rapidity with which the
Modern Warm Period appeared is often invoked as a proof of its
human cause. However, the Dansgaard-Oeschger events (D-Os),
with their extremely rapid changes of climate, occurred
without human intervention about 20 times during the past
100,000 years. The last of them, the so called “Younger
Dryas”, happened 12,800 years ago, when the warm climate
switched rapidly to a cold one, and then after 1300 years,
almost immediately returned back into warm phase. Both times
the switching took just a few years, much less than the
recovery from the Little Ice Age after 1900 AD, which “is now upon us”.
Proofs
of human causation of the Modern Warm Period
The
most important argument of IPCC report
(IPCC-AR4,
2007)
for
man-made climate warming is based on climatic models combined
with observations of temperature in the period 1906 – 2005
over the five continents and the whole globe. The IPCC use the
“fingerprint argument” that the Modern Warm Period is
caused by human activities, particularly by the burning of
fossil fuels. The argument is that computer models using only
natural climatic factors, “such as volcanic activity and variations in solar [radiative] output”,
are unable to simulate the past temperature trends, but “When
the effects of increasing levels of greenhouse gases are
included in the models, as well as (natural)
climatic factors, the models produce good simulations of the
warming that occurred over the past century”
(IPCC-AR4,
2007)
.
This is, however not true. Using all the anthropogenic and
natural factors, the models are unable to correctly match the
real warming trends with altitude.
Greenhouse models predicted about two times higher temperature
at 10km than at the surface, while the balloon measurements
gave the opposite result: no increasing of warming, but rather
cooling with altitude in the tropical zone.
There
are two errors in the IPCC “fingerprint argument”: (1)
limiting natural factors only to solar irradiance, and
ignoring other cosmic factors; and (2) incorrectly assuming,
on the basis of unreliable ice core studies, and after
rejecting a large body of direct measurements of CO2
in the 19th and most of the 20th century
atmosphere, that during the past 650,000 years the natural
concentration of atmospheric CO2 never exceeded the
concentration of 180 to 300ppm (parts per million), that the
pre-industrial value was about 280ppm, and that human activity
increased it to about 380ppm, i.e. by about 36%.
To
fit these data into a global carbon cycle IPCC assumed a
speculative lifetime for man-made CO2 in the
atmosphere as 50 to 200 years, ignoring observational evidence
from 37 studies (based on natural and nuclear bomb carbon-14,
Suess effect, radon-222, solubility data and
carbon-13/carbon-12 mass balance) documenting that the real
lifetime is about 5 years [4].
With CO2 atmospheric lifetime of about 5
years the maximum amount of man-made CO2 remaining
now in the atmosphere is only 4%, and not 36% (see review in
(Segalstad,
1998)
.
Ignoring
cosmic rays
IPCC-AR4
limited the natural “radiation forcing” [5]
to only one factor (solar irradiance), and based its estimates
on ten anthropogenic factors, listed in the Summary for
Policymakers in Figure SPM.2. The IPCC regards the
anthropogenic CO2 emission as the most important
factor, and assumed it to be 13.8 times more powerful than the
solar irradiance. But the glaciological studies clearly
demonstrated that it is climate that influences the
atmospheric CO2 level, and not vice versa. Over the past several hundred thousand years increases
of temperature
always preceded the
CO2 concentration increases;
also climatic cooling always preceded decreases of CO2
(Caillon
et al., 2003; Fischer et al., 1999; Idso, 1988; Indermuhle et
al., 1999; Monnin et al., 2001; Mudelsee, 2001)
. This
suggests that changes of temperature of the atmosphere are the
causative factor for CO2 changes, probably by
influencing the rate of land erosion, and the solubility of
gas in oceanic waters (lower in warm than in cold water). In
its almost monothematic concentration on greenhouse gases,
especially on CO2, the IPCC underestimated
water vapor - the main greenhouse gas contributing
about 95% to the global greenhouse effect
(Ellingson
et al., 1991; Lindzen, 1991)
. About
95% of the total annual emission of CO2 into the
atmosphere is natural and comes from the land and sea, and
only 5% from human sources. Thus the anthropogenic CO2
contributes only a tiny fraction to the total greenhouse
effect, probably less than 0.15%.
The
IPCC ignores a dominating climatic effect of
incoming cosmic rays governed by solar activity, well
known for 17 years
(Friis-Christensen
and Lassen, 1991)
. Recent
studies demonstrate that the climate of the Earth is
completely determined by the Sun, via
insolation and the action of galactic cosmic rays, and that
the so-called anthropogenic “CO2 doubling”
problem is practically absent
(Rusov et
al., 2008)
. In
opposition to the IPCC message, the natural forces that are
driving the climate are 4 to 5 orders of magnitude greater
than the corresponding anthropogenic impact, and humans may be
responsible for less than 0.01oC of warming during
the last century
(Khilyuk
and Chilingar, 2006)
. The
cosmoclimatologic studies
demonstrate a powerful influence on climate of
fluctuations of muon fraction of cosmic rays, caused by
short-term variations of the Sun’s activity
(Svensmark,
2007; Svensmark and Calder, 2008)
, and in
geological time scale by migration of the Solar System trough
spiral arms of the Milky Way, with different concentration of
dust and activity of novas
(Shaviv
and Veizer, 2003)
. In the
20th century the
reduction of cosmic rays was such that the maximal fluxes
towards the end of the century were similar to the minima seen
around 1900 (Figure 10). Decreasing cosmic-ray flux, caused a
decrease of low cloud cover, and resulted in warming the
Earth.
Low-level
clouds cover more than 25% of the Earth surface and exert a
strong cooling at the surface. The change in radiative forcing
by 3% change in low cloud cover over one solar cycle will vary
the input of heat to the Earth surface by about 2 Wm-2. It can
be compared with 1.4 Wm-2 estimated by IPCC for the greenhouse
effect of all human-made CO2 added to the
atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution
(Svensmark,
2007)
.
The low cloud formation depending on fluctuations of cosmic
rays, ignored by IPCC, is a much more plausible cause of the
Modern Warming Period than CO2 concentration
changes. As was always in the past, also now CO2
change lags the temperature. Not a single publication on
cosmoclimatologic effects was cited in the IPCC reports. This
disqualifies them as impartial and a reliable source of
information for policymakers and scientific community.
Proxy
ice data instead of atmospheric CO2
The
foundation of the hypothesis that the Modern Warm Period is
induced by humans is an assumption that the pre-industrial
level of CO2 was 280ppm, i.e. about 100ppm lower
than now. British engineer, G.S Callendar may be truly
regarded as the father of this hypothesis, and of this
assumption
(Callendar,
1938; Callendar, 1940; Callendar, 1949; Callendar, 1958)
.
This assumption was made possible by the arbitrary rejection
of more than 90,000 technically excellent, direct measurements
of CO2 in the atmosphere, carried out in America,
Asia and Europe, during 149 years between 1812 and 1961. Some
of these direct measurements were carried out by Nobel Prize
winners. Callendar rejected more than 69% from a set of 19th
century CO2 measurements ranging from 250 to
550ppm.
This
shows a bias in the selection method. Without such selection
the 19th century data compiled by Callendar
averaged 335ppm
(Slocum,
1955)
.
Similar biased selections were later applied in ice core
studies of greenhouse gases
(Jaworowski,
1994)
.
The
low, flat CO2 ice-core concentrations, never
reaching above 300ppm during the past 650,000 years and six
interglacials
(Siegenthaler
et al., 2005)
, even in
periods when the global temperature was much warmer than now,
suggest that either atmospheric CO2 has no
discernible influence on the climate, or that the proxy ice
core reconstructions of the chemical composition of the
ancient atmosphere are false – both propositions are
probably true. The very long-term ice core data combined with
more recent 19th century ones, and with direct
atmospheric measurements (since 1958), are widely used for
propagating the idea of man-made global warming.
Ice core foundation of
greenhouse warming
The
proxy estimates of the past CO2 atmospheric
concentrations, based on analysis of air bubbles recovered
from ice deposited in the 17th, 18th and
19th centuries at the ice caps of Greenland and Antarctic, are
regarded as a strongest proof that humans increased CO2
content in the atmosphere, causing the Modern Warm Period.
However, polar ice is an improper matrix for reconstruction of
the chemical composition of the pre-industrial and ancient
atmosphere. No efforts to improve the analytic excellence of
CO2 determinations can change this situation.
Ice
and the ice cores do not fulfill the essential closed-system
criteria, indispensable for reliable estimate of the past CO2
levels. One of them is a lack of liquid water in ice. This
criterion is not met, as there is ample evidence that even the
coldest Antarctic ice contains liquid water, in which the
solubility of CO2 is about 73 times, and 26 times
higher than that of N2 and O2,
respectively. This dramatically changes the chemical
composition of the gas inclusions in polar ice in comparison
to atmospheric air. More than 20 physical and chemical
processes, mostly related to the presence of liquid water,
contribute to the alteration of the original air in gas
inclusions - see review in
(Jaworowski
et al., 1992)
.
One of these processes is the formation of clathrates (gas
hydrates), solid crystals formed at high pressure by
interaction of gas with water molecules.
In the ice sheets, CO2, O2, and N2
start to form clathrates at about 5 bars, 75 bars, and 100
bars, respectively. Due to this process, CO2 starts
to leave air bubbles at a depth of about 200meters, and the
air bubbles themselves disappear completely at a depth of
about 1000meters.
Drilling,
which is an extremely brutal procedure, decompresses the ice
cores, in which the solid clathrates decompose back into gas
form, exploding in the process as if they were microscopic
grenades. In the
decompressed bubble-free ice the explosions form new gas
cavities and mini-cracks.
The ice cores, however, are earlier exposed to a
coarser cracking by vibration in drilling barrel, and by the
sheeting phenomenon at the bottom of the borehole, induced by
pressure difference between the drilling fluid and the ice.
The cracks open the gate to extreme pollution of the
inside of ice cores with heavy metals from drilling fluid,
thousands of times higher than their levels in surface snow
(Boutron
et al., 1990; Boutron et al., 1987)
,
and for the escape of gas inclusions.
Glaciological
CO2 records are strongly influenced by natural
processes in the ice sheets and man-made artifacts in the ice
cores, which lead to the depletion of CO2 by 30% to
50%, probably mostly in the upper layers of the ice sheets.
These records are also beset with arbitrary selection of data,
experimentally unfounded assumptions on gas age, one-sided
interpretations ascribing the observed trends to human
factors, and ignoring other explanations. A classic example of
such manipulation of ice core data is the famous Siple curve,
the mother of many other “CO2 hockey curves”.
The
problem with the Siple data is that the CO2
concentration found in this locality in pre-industrial ice
from a depth of 68meters (i.e. above the depth of clathrate
formation) was “too high” to fit the man-made warming
hypothesis. In this ice deposited in 1890 AD, the CO2
concentration was 328ppm, not about 290ppm, as needed by the
hypothesis. The CO2 atmospheric concentration of
about 328ppm was measured at Mauna Loa, Hawaii in 1973
(Boden et
al., 1990)
, i.e. 83
years after the ice was deposited at Siple. Instead of
rejecting the assumption on low pre-industrial concentration
of CO2 in the atmosphere, the glaciologists found a
“solution”.
An
ad hoc speculative assumption, not supported by any
factual evidence solved the problem: the average age of air
was arbitrary decreed to be exactly 83 years younger than the
ice in which it was trapped
(Jaworowski,
1994a; Jaworowski et al., 1992)
. The
“corrected” ice data were made to smoothly overlay the
recent Mauna Loa record and then were reproduced in countless
publications as a famous “Siple curve”. Eight years after
first publication of the Siple curve, and a year after its
criticism
(Jaworowski
et al., 1992)
,
glaciologists attempted to prove experimentally the “age
assumption”
(Schwander
et al., 1993)
, but they
failed
(Jaworowski,
1994a)
. Similar
manipulation of data was applied also to ice cores from other
polar sites, to make the “CO2 hockey curves”
covering the past 1000 and even 400,000 years
(IPCC,
2001; Wolff, 2003)
. For some
of these curves much longer air/ice age difference was
arbitrarily assumed, without any experimental support,
reaching up to 5,500 years. The apparent aim of these
manipulations, and of ignoring other proxy CO2
determinations and of some 90,000 direct determinations in the
pre-industrial and 20th century atmosphere, was to induce in
the public a false conviction that the 20th century level of
CO2 was unprecedented over the past hundreds
thousand years.
The
“CO2 hockey curves” were used as an “indicator
of human i”
(IPCC,
2001)
(IPCC-AR4,
2007). Also in
the report by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the
Subcommittee on Global Change Research these curves are used
as an evidence of “human
influences” and “fingerprint”
and to argue that the “observed
(current) warming could not have been caused by natural forces alone”
(CCSP-USP,
2008)
. In fact
this is the only proof of human causation of the Modern Warm
Period presented in the Report. This proof is false.
Final
Thoughts
The
Siple case demonstrates an unacceptable distortion of science.
During the past 16 years I presented it in many publications,
together with data demonstrating that polar ice does not
fulfill the close-system criteria, essential for
reconstruction of chemical composition of the ancient
atmosphere. This had practically no effect on a worldwide
acceptance of the false, ice core based, dogma on human
causation of the Modern Warm Period. The recent climatic
cooling might perhaps open the ears of the public and decision
makers to what the astronomers have been saying: our
Sun enters a long period of slumber, cooling the Earth and its
fellow planets. We cannot enhance it with Kyoto or stop it
otherwise. But we can adjust.
See also Dr Jaworowski's full NZCPR Research
Report >>>
If you
would like to comment on this issue please click
>>>
“Climatology is a science.
Climatism is an ideology. Climatologists are scientists.
Climatists are social or political organizers who abuse
climatology in service of ideologues. Climatology was and
still is an investigation of nature. Climatism is the
exploitation of the fear of nature to gain power, wealth
and social esteem”. Anonym.
About
Dr Zbigniew Jaworowski
I
was born on 17 October
1927 in
Krakow
,
Poland
. I graduated as a physician in 1952 at the
Medical
Academy
in Kraków. In 1963 I received PhD in natural sciences and in
1967 DSc in natural sciences. I became a docent in 1967 and in
1977 a
full professor. Since 1958 I am married to Zofia
Kielan-Jaworowska, who is a professor emeritus of paleontology
at the University of Oslo and at the Institute of Paleobiology
of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw; and the editor of
the Acta Paleontologica Polonica; she is a full member of the
Polish Academy of Sciences, of the Norwegian Academy of
Sciences and of the Academia Europea. We have one son, and two
grandchildren.
Between
1951 and 1952 I worked as an assistant at the
Institute
of
Physiological Chemistry
of the
Medical
Academy
in Kraków, studying chemical carcinogenesis. Between 1953 and
1958 I worked as a radiotherapeutist at the Oncological
Institute in
Gliwice
. In 1957 and 1958 I served as a medical doctor of the Polish
International Geophysical Year Expedition to
Spitsbergen
, where I studied activity concentration in precipitation of
radionuclides from nuclear test explosions and concentration
of CO2 in the atmosphere. Between 1958 and 1970 I
worked in the
Institute
of
Nuclear Research
in
Warsaw
as a head of the Laboratory of Radiotoxicology. In 1960/1961 I
worked at the Department of Physics of the Research Cancer
Institute in
London
as a stipendiary of International Atomic Energy Agency
measuring content of 210Pb in bones of British
population and in hair of Polish uranium miners. Between 1970
and 1987 I worked in the Central Laboratory for Radiological
Protection in
Warsaw
as the head of the Department of Radiation Hygiene. Between
1982 and 1984 I worked in the Centre d'Etude Nucleaires in
Fontenay-aux-Roses near
Paris
as a guest professor. In 1987-1988 I worked at the Biophysical
Group of the
Institute
of
Physics
,
University
of
Oslo
. In 1988-1990 I worked at the Norwegian Polar Research
Institute in
Oslo
. Between 1990 and 1991 I worked for six months as a visiting
professor at the National Institute for Polar Research in
Tokyo
. Between 1991 and 1993 I was working in the Institute for
Energy Technology at Kjeller near
Oslo
. Since 1993 I am working at the Central Laboratory for
Radiological Protection in
Warsaw
, now as the Senior Scientific Advisor.
I
studied: (1) internal contamination of man and animals with
radionuclides; (2) development of analytical methods for
detection of pollutants in the human body and environment; (3)
metabolism of radionuclides; (4) biological effects of
ionizing radiation; (5) impact of nuclear war on population;
(6) remedial measures in nuclear emergencies; (7)
environmental levels and migration of radionuclides and heavy
metals; (8) relation between pollutants in the environment and
in man; (9) historical monitoring of radionuclides and heavy
metals in man - the first discovery that lead level in human
bones was up to two orders of magnitude higher between 11th
and the end of 19th century than now; (10) historical
monitoring of radionuclides and heavy metals in environment;
(11) vertical distribution of natural radionuclides, fission
products and heavy metals in the troposphere and stratosphere;
(12) determination of natural radionuclides, fission products
and heavy metals in contemporary and pre-industrial ice from
glaciers in both hemispheres, for studying the geographical
distribution, temporal changes and flux of natural and
man-made pollutants in the global atmosphere; (13) regional
and global impact of pollution caused by coal burning; (14)
validity of polar ice core records of greenhouse gases for
reconstruction of the composition of the ancient atmosphere.
I
was a principal investigator of three research projects of the
US Environmental Protection Agency on: (1) historical and
geographical changes in distribution of pollutants in the
global
cryosphere, in components of terrestrial environment,
and in human body; (2) on vertical distribution of pollutants
in the troposphere and stratosphere; and (3) on toxicology of
organically bound tritium. I was a principal investigator of
four research projects of the International Atomic Energy
Agency on radiotoxicology.
I
organized 10 expeditions to the polar and high altitude
temperate glaciers (
Spitsbergen
,
Alaska
,
Northern
Norway
- Svartisen, Southern Norway - Jotunheimen, Alps, Tatra
Mountains, Himalayas, Ruwenzori in East Africa, Peruvian Andes
and
Antarctica
). Their aim was to measure (for the first time) the mass of
stable heavy metals and activity of natural radionuclides
entering the global atmosphere from natural and man-made
sources, and to determine their pre-industrial and
contemporary annual flows. During these studies the mass of
global annual atmospheric precipitation was measured (for the
first time) by means of radioactive tracers (natural 210Pb,
and 137Cs from nuclear tests).
I
am or I was a member of: (1) Polish Society of Radiation
Research, (2) Polish Society of Medical Physics, (3)
Commission of Radiobiology of the Committee of Medical Physics
of the Polish Academy of Sciences, (4) Polish Commission of
Nuclear Safety - until 1980), (5) Polish Society of Polar
Research, (6) Polish National Council for Environmental
Protection - until 1987, (7) Committee of the Basic Medical
Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences - until 1987, (8)
Health Physics Society (USA), (9) Founding member of the
International Society for Trace Element Research in Humans,
(10) Commission of Radiological Protection of (Polish)
National Council of Atomic Energy (1984-1988 chairman) - until
1989, (11) Norwegian Physical Society, (12)
International member of the Advisory Committee of BELLE
(Biological Effects of Low Level Exposures), (13) Member of
the Scientific Committee of Environmentalists for Nuclear
Energy, (14) I
am the president of the Polish Branch of Environmentalists for
Nuclear Energy.
I
am a member of the editorial boards and scientific committees
of several Polish and foreign scientific journals.
Since
1973 I am a member of the United Nations Scientific Committee
on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR); in the years
1978-1979 I was the vice-chairman, and 1980-1982 the chairman
of this Committee.
I
was participant or chairman of about 20 Advisory Groups of
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and of the United
Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP).
In
1986 I was a member of the Polish Governmental Commission on
the Effects of Chernobyl Accident.
I
published more than 300 scientific papers, 4 books and I
participated in writing and editing 10 published scientific
documents of UNSCEAR, IAEA and UNEP.
I
published about 100 articles in Polish newspapers and popular
science magazines.
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