How does Carbon Dioxide, the 'greenhouse gas' from combustion of fossil fuel, cause forest fires and bushfires? Can anyone explain it, with certainty? And what does it have to do with belief and faith?
The author of this article has a research masters degree in CO2 in Life Cycle of Buildings and worked while beginning a doctorate as a researcher on eco villages with a team at Sydney University, Australia. They have had published numerous peer reviewed papers on the topic.
Since there is money in CO2 research, how many in the public eye are without bias seeking the truth based on objective evidence? In science numbers in favour of an idea mean nothing. There are many of varying expertise with radically variant opinions, but who can be trusted?
Background
Research teaches us to ask questions. The first question I asked was whether energy use to make things could be without CO2 output? It turns out there is no energy use without CO2 output somewhere in a life cycle of the object made. Even human labour has as an output increased CO2 to air over sedentary activity. Carbon and Carbon dioxide is part of a huge cycle which forms the very basis of all life, both animal and plant. High levels of CO2 are so necessary to plant life we might ask the question, 'if we could control the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, what would be the ideal level?'
Another question: 'What is the effect of increased CO2 to air? Is it a greenhouse?' Glass has some peculiar behaviours. It can 'trap' certain wavelengths of solar heat. But it also is notorious for losing heat by conduction. Real world greenhouses are complex. Anyone who describes the effect of CO2 as “like a greenhouse”, has not researched the area properly, as it is a misleading analogy. CO2 molecules by nature of their chemistry absorb photons of infra-red radiation, which transfers to motion which re-emits a photon. Collision with other gases allow the energy to be transferred, as motion which results in heat. The mix of atmospheric gas is known so it can be tested in micro in real world experiments. There are limits to the amount of infra-red photons CO2 can process. What cannot be tested is its effect in climate.
The debate is what feedbacks (negative or positive), amplification, forcing or enhancing there is from increased CO2 in the climate system.
However, despite the inaccuracy of description, the term Greenhouse Gases (GHG) is now used as a label for set of gasses: Water vapour(H2O), carbon dioxide(CO2), nitrous oxide(N2O), methane(CH4), ozone(O3) & a number of entirely human-made gases in the atmosphere, such as the halocarbons and other chlorine- and bromine-containing substances, sulphur hexafluoride(SF6), hydrofluorocarbons(HFCs) and perfluorocarbons(PFCs) www.ipcc-data.org
After billions invested in research collated and embodied in the scientific papers of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and independents who work in the area, it is evident that the role of CO2 in the climate system, now also affected by other human made gasses, is not completely understood.
Let us go to the most recently available scientific report from the IPCC, AR5 2013 the Physical Basis, which examines the models and observations where they summarise,
More than half of the observed increase in global mean surface temperature (GMST) from 1951 to 2010 is very likely due to the observed anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations..
They can only say it is “very likely”- not certain, as something isn't right. It must be more complex than thought, as the theory is not matching the observational data.
Solar forcing is the only known natural forcing acting to warm the climate over this period but it has increased much less than GHG forcing, and the observed pattern of long-term tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling is not consistent with the expected response to solar irradiance variations. The Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO) could be a confounding influence but studies that find a significant role for the AMO show that this does not project strongly onto 1951–2010 temperature trends.
At least one reason why we can't be certain is a natural cycle. Remember the term 'forcing' as I will return to it. They continue,
It is extremely likely that human activities caused more than half of the observed increase in Global Mean Surface Temperature (GMST) from 1951 to 2010.
But they are honest - please consider the implications of the caveat to that 'extremely likely',
Uncertainties in forcings and in climate models’ temperature responses to individual forcings and difficulty in distinguishing the patterns of temperature response due to GHGs and other anthropogenic forcings prevent a more precise quantification of the temperature changes attributable to GHGs.
They cannot be certain as there are uncertainties in understanding of the climate system. Where is the certainty coming from? Not from the published Science!
It is likely that anthropogenic forcings, dominated by GHGs, have contributed to the warming of the troposphere since 1961.
Why is only 'likely' and not certain?
Uncertainties in radiosonde and satellite records make assessment of causes of observed trends in the upper troposphere less confident than an assessment of the overall atmospheric temperature change.
The IPCC team admit:Robustness of detection and attribution of global-scale warming is subject to models correctly simulating internal variability.www.ipcc.ch
Yet in the report in Chapter 9 they also admit,
The simulation of clouds in climate models remains challenging. There is very high confidence that uncertainties in cloud processes explain much of the spread in modelled climate sensitivity. However, the simulation of clouds in climate models has shown modest improvement relative to models available at the time of the (previous report), and this has been aided by new evaluation techniques and new observations for clouds. Nevertheless, biases in cloud simulation lead to regional errors on cloud radiative effect of several tens of watts per square metre.
Fundamentally as Water Vapour is the most prevalent atmospheric gas, how is the effect of CO2 separated from that of water vapour if they interact, let alone that there are other gasses in the atmospheric mix, including human-made gasses? If there is clear evidence, from any researchers in the world, it should be certain: but the 'best' understanding available is subject to representation in computer models.
Source:Why Climate Models don't work
The limitation of Climate Models
Most people do not know that IPCC has caveats as to the reliability of models, which from above we know is the total sum of the current understanding,
Some model errors can be traced to uncertainty in representation of processes (parameterizations). Some of these are long-standing issues in climate modelling, reflecting our limited, though gradually increasing, understanding of very complex processes and the inherent challenges in mathematically representing them.
For the atmosphere, cloud processes, including convection and its interaction with boundary layer and larger-scale circulation, remain major sources of uncertainty. These in turn cause errors or uncertainties in radiation which propagate through the coupled climate system. Distribution of aerosols is also a source of uncertainty arising from modelled microphysical processes and transport.
Ocean models are subject to uncertainty in parameterizations of vertical and horizontal mixing and convection, and ocean errors in turn affect the atmosphere through resulting SST biases.
Simulation of sea ice is also affected by errors in both the atmosphere and the ocean as well as the parameterization of sea ice itself. With respect to biogeochemical components in Earth System Models (ESMs), parameterizations of nitrogen limitation and forest fires are thought to be important for simulating the carbon cycle, but very few ESMs incorporate these so far www.ipcc.ch
It is a significant omission that Models fail to include fire, as the emissions from forest fires, including particulate matter are significant and the interaction with the climate complex. Emissions from fire now are even more significant as many have adopted fire as part of agriculture. forest fires produce co2 half all fossil fuels
As someone who has matched observational temperature data with a computer model of temperatures for a house, which is much simpler that the climate, I can tell you that there is huge temptation to tweak, and tweak.. and then tweak a bit more. The thermal models I used were from the late 1960s. Development of interfaces and complexity continued into the 1970s and 1990s. In the same way climate models came out of the Syukuro Manabe and Richard T. Wetherald Model of the mid 1960s. The thermal model I used was based on much older research into material resistance to heat flows from Joseph Fourier (1768-1830), who from 1807-11 experiments devised mathematical ways to estimate a material’s thermal conductivity. Joseph Fourier in the 1820s suggested that atmospheric gasses retained heat. In 1862 John Tyndall found that water vapour and the gas CO2 absorbed heat rays. This research was based on Joseph Black (1728-1799) whose work led to Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) identifying eleven gasses in the atmosphere, including CO2. Since that time the heat retaining ability of each gas has been calculated.
It is simple back of the envelope physics knowing the incoming heat from the sun, to calculate the heat gain in the atmosphere from increased CO2. However as measurements have now shown it is not that simple, as not only do gasses interact but there are multiple and complex processes in the climate. Climate Models so far have been moderate predictors of a general trend of averaged global temperature (which itself has data issues), but poor predictors of anything else, certainly poor predictors of local variations. It is true that averaging of measurements for global temperature have in many cases fallen in a range of prediction, but that is not giving confidence, as anything falls in an uncertainty range wide enough. It is much easier to match historic data to a model, but much harder to use a model to predict.
An engineer pointed me to George Box, “All models are wrong, but some are useful” (1976) wikipedia.org All models are wrong
Der Spiegel in an article on Climate Models,
Nevertheless, no serious scientist can guarantee the validity of the results. Climatologists long ago stopped giving concrete values for the predicted temperature in the year 2100. Nowadays they talk in terms of probabilities. www.spiegel.de
While the world was watching the data, as global CO2 levels rose with a linear trend, global average temperature didn't trend up by the predicted amount. This showed the limitations of models, and also that the process had to be much more complex than thought.
Human predictions tend to fail realclimatescience.com
There are plenty of examples of failed predictions. wattsupwiththat.com/2017 and wattsupwiththat.com/2014
We can tell how truly educated a person is in science by how certain they are; the less certain they are, the more they know. As understanding is 'gradually increasing' so to is uncertainly increasing. The first IPCC report I read of the scientific basis from Working Group 1 from 1990 was 365 pages ipcc.ch. The section from 2013 on Clouds and Aerosols alone is now itself 657 pages long and concludes with such statements as:
Since the 1970s, scientists have recognized the critical importance of clouds for the climate system, and for climate change. Clouds affect the climate system in a variety of ways. They produce precipitation (rain and snow) that is necessary for most life on land. They warm the atmosphere as water vapour condenses. Although some of the condensed water re-evaporates, the precipitation that reaches the surface represents a net warming of the air. Clouds strongly affect the flows of both sunlight (warming the planet) and infrared light (cooling the planet as it is radiated to space) through the atmosphere.
Finally, clouds contain powerful updraughts that can rapidly carry air from near the surface to great heights. The updraughts carry energy, moisture, momentum, trace gases, and aerosol particles. For decades, climate scientists have been using both observations and models to study how clouds change with the daily weather, with the seasonal cycle, and with year-to-year changes such as those associated with El Niño.
All cloud processes have the potential to change as the climate state changes. Cloud feedbacks are of intense inter-est in the context of climate change. Any change in a cloud process that is caused by climate change—and in turn influences climate—represents a cloud–climate feedback. Because clouds interact so strongly with both sunlight and infrared light, small changes in cloudiness can have a potent effect on the climate system.
In large-scale models for which cloud-scale circulations are not explicitly represented, it is difficult to capture all relevant cloud controlling processes. Because the response of clouds to aerosol perturbations depends critically on the interplay of poorly understood physical processes, global model-based estimates of aerosol–cloud interactions remain uncertain.
... But the level of understanding about Solar Radiation Management is low, and it is difficult to assess feasibility and efficacy because of remaining uncertainties in important climate processes and the interactions among those processes. ipcc.ch
Can you tell me the relative speed of vehicle compared to another vehicle that you don't know the speed of? No. In what way can the role of CO2 at 400 parts per million of the atmosphere (0.04%), be understood as certain, when it is likely interacting in the roles of more the dominant water vapour (4%), clouds and aerosols (the fine solid particles or liquid droplets both human and natural), when they themselves are poorly understood?
Before 2001 I understood the focus of attention was mostly on two connected theories: that increased CO2 in the atmosphere would lead to global warming, and that the increased temperatures would lead to a warming sea that would cause sea level rise. I feel that the term 'Global Warming' is not so often used now. This is because, something strange happened, as despite constant increase of CO2 to over 400 parts per million in the atmosphere, the average global temperature did not increase as expected.
Then I felt the focus of attention from about 2000 widened in public discourse to suggest that increased CO2 in the atmosphere over 400 parts per million would lead to increased heat waves, storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, cyclones, droughts and floods. books.google.com
Both terms 'Global Warming' and 'Climate Change' appear in the 1970's, where the Climate Change term dominated. But the 1970's were cooler years on average. Then about 1988 the terms crossed over and 'Global Warming' was slightly preferred until 1995. The data shows that by 2005 'Climate Change' became increasingly the preferred term.
Fires
There are two sides to fires in the CO2 debate. There is the theory that increased CO2 through an increase in temperature, causes an increase in the number of droughts which in turn increases the number and severity of fires. The other side is the known fact that fires themselves contribute significantly to CO2 in the atmosphere.
Disturbance of the natural landscape by fire has significant climatic effects through its impact on vegetation and through its emissions of GHGs, aerosols and aerosol precursors. Because the frequency of wildland fires increases rapidly with increases in ambient temperature (Westerling et al., 2006), the effects of fires are projected to grow over the 21st century (Kloster et al., 2012).www.ipcc.ch
Westerling et al 2006 has been cited numerous times: Westerling,A.L., H.G.Hidalgo, D.R.Cayan, and T.W.Swetnam, 2006: Warming nd earlier spring increase western US forest wildfire activity. Science, 313, 940–943
It relates only to the Western US in the fire season. It refers to two things which are crucial to understand about wildfires; they are related to temperature but they are more prevalent in a drought after good growth from an era of rain:
Documentary records and proxy reconstructions (primarily from tree rings) of fire history and climate provide evidence that western forest wildfire risks are strongly positively associated with drought concurrent with the summer fire season and (particularly in ponderosa pine–dominant forests) positively associated to a lesser extent with moist conditions in antecedent years . science.sciencemag.org
The IPCC modelling, as yet is not of use as a predictor of significant drought.
Finally, there is medium evidence (a few multi-model studies) and medium agreement (as it might depend on definitions of drought) that models can simulate aspects of large-scale drought. ipcc.ch
This shows that also drought, as of 2013, was still poorly understood. More so whereas average global temperature and average returns for hot weather may be predicted the models are not so precise as to predicting heat waves.
Extreme events are realizations of the tail of the probability distribution of weather and climate variability. They are higher-order statistics and thus generally more difficult to realistically represent in climate models. Shorter time scale extreme events are often associated with smaller scale spatial structure, which may be better represented as model resolution increase. P806 ipcc.ch
See also the graphs at Prediction of Rain
Extremes of heat are related to fires as the hotter the day, the more reduced the relative humidity is, creating dryer conditions more favourable to combustion. Even 50 Deg.C is not enough to start a fire, but a spark at that temperature is more likely to ignite undergrowth or dry leaf litter. So unless there is a lightning strike most fires are caused by human carelessness, and the temperature merely in one factor that affects the ability of the fire to take hold. science.howstuffworks.com The most important factor is fuel load.
A small fuel load will cause a fire to burn and spread slowly, with a low intensity. If there is a lot of fuel, the fire will burn more intensely, causing it to spread faster. The faster it heats up the material around it, the faster those materials can ignite. The dryness of the fuel can also affect the behavior of the fire. When the fuel is very dry, it is consumed much faster and creates a fire that is much more difficult to contain. science.howstuffworks.com
The fuel load of any landscape is determined by the availability of water to allow it to grow. In a desert there is nothing much to burn. If a forest is grown dense in an era or season of rain, followed by drought, the dryness becomes a factor.
The jury is out as to whether increased CO2 which is expected to overall increase rain, will increase drought or not as it depends on where.
Precipitation is an important and complex climate variable that is influenced by the distribution of moisture and cloudiness, and to a lesser extent by the concentrations and properties of aerosol particles...Cloud microphysics, precipitation and aerosol interactions are treated with varying levels of sophistication, and remain a weak point in all models regardless of resolution.
Many cloud processes are unrealistic in current GCMs, and as such their cloud response to climate change remains uncertain.
..suggest that for the CO2 forcing, globally-averaged precipitation increases with global mean surface temperature at about 1 to 3% °C–1. Precipitation changes evince considerable regional variability about the globally averaged value; generally speaking precipitation is expected to increase in the wettest latitudes, whereas dry latitudes may even see a precipitation decrease. On smaller scales, or near precipitation margins, the response is less clear due to model-specific, and less well understood, regional circulation shifts (Neelin et al., 2006, Mitchell et al., 1987; Allen and Ingram, 2002; Held and Soden, 2006, Richter and Xie, 2008),ipcc.ch
Theory suggests that warmer air from increased CO2 will increase the total amount of rain, but they are not so certain about drought. Rain and Clouds are not well understood and how they interact with CO2 is not understood.
Nevertheless, all the models used for the current assessment (and the preceding two IPCC assessments) produce net cloud feedbacks that either enhance anthropogenic greenhouse warming or have little overall effect. P594 ipcc.ch
A theory mathematically expressed in models suggests not only is there warming expected from CO2, due to it's chemical properties as a gas, but that it causes enhanced warming due to interactions with clouds in the upper troposphere. There is still argument on the matter, and as a result some modellers do not include it as evidence from weather balloons has not supported that CO2 forces warming. (If you go to the link the issue with those arguing for the forcing is that they are modifying the data to prove their point- the other researchers use raw data, when you get into the detail it just gets more complex and, due to uncertainty, more debated!) www.drroyspencer.com
One of the most dramatic advances I have seen since the first IPCC report of 1995 is that the climate is now best represented by probability functions.
Some models have improved representation of sub-grid scale cloud variability, which has important effects on grid-mean radiative fluxes and precipitation fluxes, for example, based on the use of probability density functions of thermodynamic variables (7.2.3.4) ipcc.ch
Thus we can understand the nature of clouds and rain, but not know for certain what they will do, except within ranges of probability. In weather prediction we now have such caveats as “a 20% chance of any rain”. This random characteristic is evident in the behaviour clouds and rain in the climate system.
It is known that a period of rain leads to good growth of trees, which leads to fuel-load increase, which leads in subsequent drought could lead to an increase in both the number and the severity of wildfires. Whereas the role of the lack of rain-bearing clouds in drought conditions is well understood in causing conditions that may lead to an increase in bushfires and wild fires, it would be a brave person who could prove that slightly increased human component to atmospheric CO2 -alone- of all the other gasses, including water vapour leads directly to increased wildfires.
Then when examining causes, the initial cause of ignition must be a point of consideration; in other words we must consider who starts the fires, as even temperatures of 50 Deg. C is not enough. The Australian Institute of Criminology calculated only 6% are natural. abc.net.au'
As there are more people in the world, there could be more fires ignited than in the past, which may mean statistically the number of fires in a year may not relate specifically to a climatic factor.
It is well known that rainforest fires, wildfires and bushfires themselves have a huge impact on increasing global CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Fires also increase aerosols, the solid particulate matter of fine ash carried on the winds that turns skies red coloured. These fine particles also interact with water vapour in complex ways, depending on the wind.
But what is not known, beyond doubt, is the role of CO2.
What role had CO2 in historic droughts?
What role had CO2 in the dust bowl drought of North America and Canada of the 1930's?
Siegfried Schubert of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., and colleagues used a computer model developed with modern-era satellite data to look at the climate over the past 100 years. The study found cooler than normal tropical Pacific Ocean surface temperatures combined with warmer tropical Atlantic Ocean temperatures to create conditions in the atmosphere that turned America's breadbasket into a dust bowl from 1931 to 1939. www.nasa.gov
Set aside it is a theory in a model lacking some data, how did CO2 then affect the ocean temperatures? Then we can ask the question what drove, or forced, the sudden change in ocean temperatures in the 1930's?
Who has the explanation of a primary cause of the great Australian Federation drought (1895-1903)? A CSIRO study in 2019 found that drought was far more horrific than anything seen since and “caused an ecosystem collapse affecting more than a third of the country”, and would have far more impact now than then, concluding, “These are complex systems these changes can occur suddenly.” abc.net.au
People may try and explain drought in Australia by referring to the warm phase of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) where warm water that develops in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific ocean, but why does it become warm there?
Both American and Australian sources agree:
El Niño and La Niña are complex weather patterns resulting from variations in ocean temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific.oceanservice.noaa.gov
An El Niño occurs when sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean become substantially warmer than average, and this causes a shift in atmospheric circulation.www.bom.gov.au
What drives the variation in these systems?
Wikipedia has no comment on the cause, but helpfully summarising points out the following
“El Niño is accompanied by high air pressure in the western Pacific and low air pressure in the eastern Pacific.”
“Typically, this anomaly happens at irregular intervals of two to seven years, and lasts nine months to two years.
“There is no consensus on whether climate change will have any influence on the occurrence, strength or duration of El Niño events, as research supports El Niño events becoming stronger, longer, shorter and weaker.”en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El Nino
I asked the question: What forces drive the climate systems? Without the application of a force nothing moves. This is observation. There are forcings, there are climate drivers. Is it CO2 at 400 parts per million, or is it the sun, or something else? Is the unevenness of the sun enough to create the unevenness of climate, the myriad of odd 'cycles' that are never quite the same, that never ever repeat? I asked the question what is the source of all energy? What cause made the forces that made pressure in the earth to make the coal? What forces compressed the sun to be so dense that by nuclear fusion, hydrogen nuclei become helium a reaction that releases electromagnetic radiation of heat and light energy, with solar flares so dangerous that without the atmosphere about us we would die?
Then I asked the question: What in all this really matters? Fire is a matter of life and death. Rain is a matter of life and death. What would we need to know, that can't be known by observation?
After billions spent in research, do we know enough now to know that we will never fully understand the cause of the motions of the drivers causing rain and drought? As in the matter of earthquakes?
The Matter of Faith
Did you find the excerpts from the science above impossible to understand? They are available on the web, so have you read them? I admit I hadn't read them before I began my formal research. However it would have been ignorance on my part if, after beginning the research, I hadn't read them. Often when we get to the bottom of what is known by those advocating reducing CO2 for climate change, we will at some point hit the fact they rely on an 'expert', for the simple reason that most don't have the time or desire to get to the bottom of the matter. I would argue that any serious advocate should have read the foundation documents of their cause. Yet how many Christians have not read all their Bible? If no personal foundation research has been done what does the individual's conviction for action rest on? An 'expert'? But if the experts disagree? In this matter we have people with PhD's with vastly varying opinions. Which expert do you choose?
So what is known about science?
So scientific knowledge is both tentative and durable.
To what extent are scientists and scientific knowledge subjective? To what extent can they be objective? In what sense is scientific knowledge the product of human inference, imagination and creativity? In what sense is this not the case?
sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/414-the-nature-of-science-as-questions
In beginning research, it was recommend I read the philosopher Karl Popper (1902-1994). He opposed dogmatism. He argued that all observations can only disprove a theory, or falsify it, but never prove it true as, perhaps new data might arise. Late in life in an interview,
He admitted that scientists invariably fall short of the ideal he set for them. “Since scientists got subsidies for their work, science isn't exactly what it should be. This is unavoidable. There is a certain corruption, unfortunately. But I don't talk about that.”scientificamerican.com
Who you choose to believe is who you have faith in. Thus only those who have no opinion at all have no faith.
Just as Popper after a lifetime of observing knew, just as all who are honest admit, all scientists are human.
Fires, Clouds Rain and Faith
What if we have a source of knowledge which is true, which is above and beyond human failure? What if we have a source of knowledge this is above and beyond what can ever be observed under the sun? What if there is a greater power than us who made us and who communicated true facts to us about the world, and the way it works, that otherwise could never be found out?
Because the Bible claims to be a such a revelation -and it makes many statements about the causes of fire, clouds and rain.
How often is a wild fire begun with lightning? Can we understand how lightening forms? There is much understanding as to the mechanics, but not the cause. But the Bible has a record of an ancient conversation where after humans spoke back and forth, no less than God spoke telling us things we could not know otherwise.
Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said,
By what way is the light parted, which scatters the east wind upon the earth? Who hath divided a watercourse for the overflowing of waters, or a way for the lightning of thunder; To cause it to rain on the earth, where no man is; on the wilderness, wherein there is no man; To satisfy the desolate and waste ground; and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth? Has the rain a father? or who has begotten the drops of dew? Out of whose womb came the ice? and the hoary frost of heaven, who has gendered it? (Job 38:24-29)
It is either true or false. Either these 4 men spoke and heard God tell them that he controls the lightning and rain, or they didn't. Are they reliable? Can you falsify what was written? Do we know what causes it to rain on one part of the earth and not another? Will we ever find out by observation? Go look. I did! You have the internet!
Then also we have the record of the history of the formation of the nation of Israel.
Moses stretched forth his rod toward heaven: and the LORD sent thunder and hail, and the fire ran along upon the ground; and the LORD rained hail upon the land of Egypt. (Exodus 9:23)
This is either true or false. Who would make up such a story?
Then if we are a Christian, surely we would think Christ an expert, right? Do we understand what he said to us? You know he said 'love your enemies'?
But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. (Matthew 5:44-45)
This is either true or false. Surely all Christians would understand just how expert Christ is? He says the only reason we can love our enemies is the certainty that God gives rain to them! Would he speak mere superstition as fact? Why say something false? Then too it is not a matter of opinion but of witness that not only did Christ say his Father controlled the rain, but he himself controlled the wind!
But as they sailed he fell asleep: and there came down a storm of wind on the lake; and they were filled with water, and were in jeopardy. And they came to him, and awoke him, saying, Master, master, we perish. Then he arose, and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water: and they ceased, and there was a calm. And he said unto them, Where is your faith? And they being afraid wondered, saying one to another, What manner of man is this! for he commandeth even the winds and water, and they obey him. (Luke 8:23-25)
This is either true or false. There were multiple witnesses. Some may dismiss it, but isn't the wind strange? Hasn't everyone seen wind arise on a calm day, or a windy day become calm? How can it be explained? Can wind be explained. We understand the mechanics of if low and high pressures systems, but what causes them to form? We use the term “pressure”. This is a modern understanding since we invented instruments to measure air pressure, or is it? How did the Psalmist 3,000 years ago know this?
For I know that the LORD is great, and that our Lord is above all gods. Whatsoever the LORD pleased, that did he in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places. He causes the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth; he maketh lightnings for the rain; he brings the wind out of his treasuries (Hebrew means compressions under pressure). (Psalm 135:5-7)
The Apostle Paul who had at his command Greek knowledge as well as Jewish, said of God,
Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness. (Acts 14:16-17)
Again as a matter of faith he writes,
For the earth which drinks in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and brings forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receives blessing from God: (Hebrews 6:7)
The drought and fire
Most famously Elijah in the midst of a three year long drought asked all of Israel to chose his God, “if the LORD be God, follow him,” (1Kings 18:21). But he didn't leave it as a mere plea, he set up a test.
The water ran round about the altar; and he filled the trench also with water. And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near, and said, LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word. Hear me, O LORD, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the LORD God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again. Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, The LORD, he is the God; the LORD, he is the God. (1Kings 18:35-39)
The fire either happened or it didn't. Then they recorded it rained.
It came to pass in the mean while, that the heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode, and went to Jezreel. (1Kings 18:45)
The Drought and Fire either happened or it didn't. The Apostle James believed God brought rain and it was a true account. For him it was so true that we can use it as an item of faith on which to know our prayer for healing can be heard – if we believe in our hearts that God sends rain!
Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. (James 5:16-18)
Which expert do you believe? Which humans do you listen to?
But consider if you chose to ignore the Bible, what is your limit of
knowledge, because the best scientists know that what we don't know
is infinite. There is nothing that can be known of the causes
of almost anything that matters to life. Isaac Newton observed in
Opticks, published 1730,
Whereas the main Business of natural Philosophy is to argue from Phænomena without feigning Hypotheses, and to deduce Causes from Effects, till we come to the very first Cause, which certainly is not mechanical; and not only to unfold the Mechanism of the World, but chiefly to resolve these and such like Questions. What is there in places almost empty of Matter, and whence is it that the Sun and Planets gravitate towards one another, without dense Matter between them? Whence is it that Nature doth nothing in vain; and whence arises all that Order and Beauty which we see in the World? To what end are Comets, and whence is it that Planets move all one and the same way in Orbs concentrick, while Comets move all manner of ways in Orbs very excentrick; and what hinders the fix'd Stars from falling upon one another? How came the Bodies of Animals to be contrived with so much Art, and for what ends were their several Parts? Was the Eye contrived without Skill in Opticks, and the Ear without Knowledge of Sounds? How do the Motions of the Body follow from the Will, and whence is the Instinct in Animals? Is not the Sensory of Animals that place to which the sensitive Substance is present, and into which the sensible Species of Things are carried through the Nerves and Brain, that there they may be perceived by their immediate presence to that Substance? And these things being rightly dispatch'd, does it not appear from Phænomena that there is a Being incorporeal, living, intelligent, omnipresent, who in infinite Space, as it were in his Sensory, sees the things themselves intimately, and throughly perceives them, and comprehends them wholly by their immediate presence to himself: Of which things the Images only carried through the Organs of Sense into our little Sensoriums, are there seen and beheld by that which in us perceives and thinks. And though every true Step made in this Philosophy brings us not immediately to the Knowledge of the first Cause, yet it brings us nearer to it, and on that account is to be highly valued. www.gutenberg.org
None since have been able to explain the First Cause of the current, day-to-day motive forces of wobbly cycles of the bodies of the heavens, just as none can explain the First Cause of the motive forces of the water vapour and clouds that bring the wobbly cycles of drought and rain. Fire is another matter, if only 6% are acts of God, what are the other 94%? Let us consider that before asking 'what causes fires?', we should ask 'who causes fires?'. I prefer to be a fool with Isaac Newton and Joseph Priestley who saw the evidence for the power of the God of the Bible, than wise with those who haven't understood the implications of the limits of knowledge so evident in the freely available research, especially evident in the IPCC reports.
