Global warming actually isn't an imminent threat, according to Oregon's state climatologist George Taylor.

In fact, weather patterns have less to do with human activity than with larger weather-related cycles, Taylor told a crowd of 70 at the Hill Place Banquet Center in Roseburg Tuesday. The presentation was hosted by the Umpqua Chapter of the Society of American Foresters and the Douglas Small Woodlands Association.

Taylor admitted his views are not always congruent with his colleagues. In October, Washington's state climatologist gave a presentation in the county with the opposite conclusion.

But Taylor displayed numerous graphs and weather charts to describe phenomena such as El Niño, La Niña and melting ice caps -- to back up his claim that all are largely natural events.

Now, we're in "la nada," he said to laughter. "We can get wet, we can get dry, we can get anything in between."

Taylor went out of his way to entertain the crowd, telling jokes and at one point even breaking into song.

"If you're wondering why it rains all night. The weather bites -- El Niño," he sang.

The crowd loved him and sang right along. One likened him to the David Letterman of climatologists.

He also had a more optimistic message than many of his colleagues.

He once asked a group of 4-Hers if they thought the air was getting more polluted, less polluted or staying the same. Most kids chose the first.

"I don't think a single child thought it was better," he said.

Yet, graph after graph of a century of levels of carbon monoxide, lead, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases showed just that. Only ozone has remained nearly level, with a slight decline.

Other graphs showed the cyclical nature of Oregon's weather: a 25-year period of warm and dry years, followed by a 25-year period of wet and cold years the past century.

He said temperature stations throughout Oregon show the warmest weather in the past century to be in the 1930s, with the warmest year 1934.

The current cycle, since 1996, has been generally wet, except for a couple average and a couple dry years. But that's normal for a cycle, he said. Graphs show that during each period, there's always a few spikes toward the opposite extreme.

Taylor predicts Tuesday's 70-degree sunshine will quickly give way to normal chilly temperatures. In the long term, he said Oregon will be in the cooler, wetter phase for the next 15 years.

He tied in those weather trends with salmon runs, saying currents in the ocean have had the biggest influence in improving salmon runs, which tend to do best along the West Coast in cooler years.

He said global warming fears can be backed up depending on what period of data one examines.

"I definitely don't recommend making huge societal changes" based on what may or may not happen, he said.

He said the cost for the United States to join the Kyoto Protocol, a group of countries that have agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, would cut temperatures only by a fraction of a degree and be economically devastating.

Bill Arsenault, president of the Small Woodlands Association, asked him about all the talk about melting ice caps.

A graph of the size of sea ice since 1880 showed a gradual warming, but overall a cyclical trend much like the weather, Taylor said.

Javier Goirigolzarri, a forester with Resource Management Services, wondered if Taylor could predict which years would have severe fires.

In a climate that is normally dry in the summer, that largely depends on human activity and whether summer lightning storms travel northwest from the south-central United States, he said.

Basically, all Taylor said he can do is make predictions.

"The more I learn, the more I find out how much I don't know," he said.



* You can reach reporter Diane Huber at 957-4218 or by e-mail at dhuber@newsreview.info.