In response to recent suggestions by Canadian statistician Steve McIntyre that the official reconstructions may have been fudged, Keith Briffa, from the Climate Research Unit associated with the UK Met. Office, has responded explaining that there was no cherry picking of data in the development of the reconstructions used by the IPCC and others, rather, the methodology is not yet robust.  

Given this admission from a leading UK climate scientist, it would perhaps be appropriate for the head of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri,  to now advise world leaders that there are potential problems with the methodology used in the development of key assumptions underpining the consensus view on anthropogenic global warming and that until further notice, the big meeting in Copenhagen should be postponed.

Following is Professor Briffa’s response:   

“MY attention has been drawn to a comment by Steve McIntyre on the Climate Audit website relating to the pattern of radial tree growth displayed in the ring-width chronology “Yamal” that I first published in Briffa (2000). The substantive implication of McIntyre’s comment (made explicitly in subsequent postings by others) is that the recent data that make up this chronology (i.e. the ring-width measurements from living trees) were purposely selected by me from among a larger available data set, specifically because they exhibited recent growth increases.

“This is not the case. The Yamal tree-ring chronology (see also Briffa and Osborn 2002, Briffa et al. 2008) was based on the application of a tree-ring processing method applied to the same set of composite sub-fossil and living-tree ring-width measurements provided to me by Rashit Hantemirov and Stepan Shiyatov which forms the basis of a chronology they published (Hantemirov and Shiyatov 2002). In their work they traditionally applied a data processing method (corridor standardisation) that does not preserve evidence of long timescale growth changes. My application of the Regional Curve Standardisation method to these same data was intended to better represent the multi-decadal to centennial growth variations necessary to infer the longer-term variability in average summer temperatures in the Yamal region: to provide a direct comparison with the chronology produced by Hantemirov and Shiyatov.

“These authors state that their data (derived mainly from measurements of relic wood dating back over more than 2,000 years) included 17 ring-width series derived from living trees that were between 200-400 years old. These recent data included measurements from at least 3 different locations in the Yamal region. In his piece, McIntyre replaces a number (12) of these original measurement series with more data (34 series) from a single location (not one of the above) within the Yamal region, at which the trees apparently do not show the same overall growth increase registered in our data.

“The basis for McIntyre’s selection of which of our (i.e. Hantemirov and Shiyatov’s) data to exclude and which to use in replacement is not clear but his version of the chronology shows lower relative growth in recent decades than is displayed in my original chronology. He offers no justification for excluding the original data; and in one version of the chronology where he retains them, he appears to give them inappropriate low weights. I note that McIntyre qualifies the presentation of his version(s) of the chronology by reference to a number of valid points that require further investigation. Subsequent postings appear to pay no heed to these caveats. Whether the McIntyre version is any more robust a representation of regional tree growth in Yamal than my original, remains to be established.

“My colleagues and I are working to develop methods that are capable of expressing robust evidence of climate changes using tree-ring data. We do not select tree-core samples based on comparison with climate data. Chronologies are constructed independently and are subsequently compared with climate data to measure the association and quantify the reliability of using the tree-ring data as a proxy for temperature variations.

“We have not yet had a chance to explore the details of McIntyre’s analysis or its implication for temperature reconstruction at Yamal but we have done considerably more analyses exploring chronology production and temperature calibration that have relevance to this issue but they are not yet published. I do not believe that McIntyre’s preliminary post provides sufficient evidence to doubt the reality of unusually high summer temperatures in the last decades of the 20th century.

“We will expand on this initial comment on the McIntyre posting when we have had a chance to review the details of his work.

K.R. Briffa
30 September 2009

Briffa, K. R. 2000. Annual climate variability in the Holocene: interpreting the message of ancient trees. Quaternary Science Reviews 19:87-105.
Briffa, K. R., and T. J. Osborn. 2002. Paleoclimate – Blowing hot and cold. Science 295:2227-2228.
Briffa, K. R., V. V. Shishov, T. M. Melvin, E. A. Vaganov, H. Grudd, R. M. Hantemirov, M. Eronen, and M. M. Naurzbaev. 2008. Trends in recent temperature and radial tree growth spanning 2000 years across northwest Eurasia. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences 363:2271-2284.
Hantemirov, R. M., and S. G. Shiyatov. 2002. A continuous multimillennial ring-width chronology in Yamal, northwestern Siberia. Holocene 12:717-726.”

**************************************

Notes and Links

from http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/yamal2000/   [Thanks to Nick Stokes for the link.]

Yamal: A “Divergence” Problem, by Steve McIntyre, 27 September 2009
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=7168

Also http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/09/leading-uk-climate-scientists-must-explain-or-resign/

Photograph of Professor Briffa from http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/photo/keith2007b.jpg

Mr McIntyre’s analysis of the data – which he had been asking for since 2003 – suggests that scientists at the Climate Research Unit of the Hadley Centre associated with the UK Met. Office  have been using only a small subset of the available data to make their claims that recent years have been the hottest of the last millennium.   When the entire data set is used, Mr McIntyre claims that the hockey stick shape disappears completely. [1]    

Mr McIntyre has previously showed problems with the mathematics behind the ‘hockey stick’.   But scientists at the Climate Research Centre (CRU), in particular Dr Briffa, have continuously republished claiming the upswing in temperatures over the last 100 years is real and not an artifact of the methodology used – as claimed by Mr McIntyre.     However, these same scientists have denied Mr McIntyre access to all the data.    Recently they were forced to make more data available to Mr McIntyre after they published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society  -  a journal which unlike Nature and Science has strict policies on data archiving which it enforces.  
 
This week’s claims by Steve McInyre that scientists associated with the UK Met. Office have been less than diligent  are serious and suggest some of the most defended building blocks of the case for anthropogenic global warming are based on the indefensible when the methodology is laid bare.    

This sorry saga also raises issues  associated with how data is archived at the UK Met. Office with incomplete data sets that spuriously support the case for global warming being promoted while complete data sets are kept hidden from the public –  including from scientific sceptics like Steve McIntyre. 
 
It is indeed time leading scientists at the Climate Research Centre associated with the UK Met. Office explain how Mr McIntyre is in error or resign.

***********

Notes and Links

[1] Yamal: A “Divergence” Problem, by Steve McIntyre, 27 September 2009
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=7168

The above chart shows the difference when the entire data set (black line) as opposed to a subset (red line) is used to reconstruct temperature.   The chart is accompanied by the following comment from Mr McIntyre:  “The next graphic compares the RCS chronologies from the two slightly different data sets: red – the RCS chronology calculated from the CRU archive (with the 12 picked cores); black – the RCS chronology calculated using the Schweingruber Yamal sample of living trees instead of the 12 picked trees used in the CRU archive [leaving the rest of the data set unchanged i.e. all the subfossil data prior to the 19th century]. The difference is breathtaking.”

Mann, Michael E.; Bradley, Raymond S.; Hughes, Malcolm K. (1998), “Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries” (PDF), Nature 392: 779–787, doi:10.1038/33859, http://www.caenvirothon.com/Resources/Mann,%20et%20al.%20Global%20scale%20temp%20patterns.pdf  

Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy#cite_note-17

CRU Refuses Data Once Again
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=6623 

http://climateresearchnews.com/2009/09/the-hockey-stick-is-dead/

Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute puts it this way, “The melting of the glaciers in the Himalayas and on the Tibetan Plateau will deprive the Indus, Ganges, Yangtze and Yellow rivers of the ice melt that sustains their flow during the dry season and the irrigation systems that depend on them.”

But according to Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, it’s a case of cognitive dissonance.  He explains:

“In other words the supply of melt water from the melting glaciers is threatened by the melting of the glaciers. This is correct in that if the glaciers melt completely there will be no more melt water from the glaciers.

“What if the glaciers were not melting due to a colder climate? Then where would the irrigation water come from? How about if the glaciers were advancing 100 meters per year toward the villages that need the melt water for irrigation?  

“How does the logic of this situation escape these bright minds?

“It snows every winter in the Himalayas. When the snow melts it fills the rivers. Where there is net melting of the glaciers this adds additional water to the rivers.

“But they can’t have it both ways. If they want to have continued melt water from the glaciers then the glaciers must continue to melt.

“Seeing that the glaciers are finite in size this would eventually result in no glacier, and reliance on annual snow melt.”

*****************

Notes and Links

Read more from Patrick Moore, Greenspirit Strategies Ltd., at www.greenspirit.com

The UNEP report is ‘2009 Climate Change Science Compendium 2009’ which can be downloaded at http://en.cop15.dk/files/pdf/compendium2009.pdf [4MB] .

The report is summarized in the newsletter at http://en.cop15.dk/news/view+news?newsid=2193

Read Lester Brown at http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/plan_b_updates/2009/update82

The image of Bhutan glaciers melting is from http://pnb.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Glacial_lakes,_Bhutan.jpg  . Thanks Wikipedia.

And more on glacial lakes here: http://www.eorc.jaxa.jp/en/imgdata/topics/2008/tp080402.html

And so much more on melting glaciers at google:

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Himalayan glaciers ‘melting fast’
14 Mar 2005 … Melting Himalayan glaciers could lead to catastrophic water shortages, a conservation group warns.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4346211.stm  

Himalayan Glacier – Glaciers of Himalayas – Himalayas Famous Glaciers
It is the second largest glacier in the Himalayan region. Shigar River, which is a tributary of the Indus River, originates from this glacier. …
www.himalaya2000.com/himalayan…/himalayan-glaciers.html

Himalayan Glacier Melting Observed From Space
The Himalayan glaciers are melting under the effect of global warming. However, the extent of this melting remains difficult to assess from ground surveys …
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070327113346.htm

Himalaya Glaciers,Glacier in Himalayan Range,Glaciers in …
Glaciers in Himalaya – Provide information on various glaciers in uttaranchal region of india himalayan range, glacier in himalaya, himalayan glaciers and …
www.travel-himalayas.com/himalayan…/uttaranchal-glaciers.html

Himalayan Glaciers Seem to Be Growing: Discovery News
5 May 2009 … In the Western Himalayas, a group of some 230 glaciers are bucking the global warming trend. They’re growing.
dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/05/05/himalayas-glaciers.htm

“Dr Andy Derocher, the outgoing chairman of the PSBG and Professor at the University of  Alberta, wrote to inform Taylor that he was not welcome at the 2009 meeting of the PBSG.

“Keep in mind as you read his comments (below) that Taylor had arranged funding to attend the meeting in Copenhagen, and has been at every meeting of this group since 1981. With 30 years of experience in polar bear research, it goes without saying that he has something to contribute to any discussion about polar bear conservation. This is the original email from Derocher to Taylor explaining why he was not invited:   

Hi Mitch,

The world is a political place and for polar bears, more so now than ever before. I have no problem with dissenting views as long as they are supportable by logic, scientific reasoning, and the literature.  

I do believe, as do many Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) members, that for the sake of polar bear conservation, views that run counter to human induced climate change are extremely unhelpful. In this vein, your positions and statements in the Manhattan Declaration, the Frontier Institute, and the Science and Public Policy Institute are inconsistent with positions taken by the PBSG.

I too was not surprised by the members not endorsing an invitation.

Nothing I heard had to do with your science on harvesting or your research on polar bears – it was the positions you’ve taken on global warming that brought opposition.

Time will tell who is correct but the scientific literature is not on the side of those arguing against human induced climate change.
I look forward to having someone else chair the PBSG.

Best regards,
Andy (Derocher) …

Keep reading here:  http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/exile_for_non-believers.html
Pdf here:  http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/Nova-Exile_for_non_believers.pdf

‘Exile for Non-Believers’, by Joanne Nova, published by the Science and Public Policy Institute, September 2009 

Photo Credit: Susanne Miller, United States Fish and Wildlife Service   http://www.fws.gov/home/feature/2008/polarbear012308/polarbearphotos.html

“Since the IPCC’s task is to prove any global warming is due to human CO2 emissions, they decided to proclaim that carbon dioxide was long-lived in the atmosphere – a fabricated assumption.

“They did this despite the overwhelming majority of peer-reviewed studies (and corroborating empirical measurements) finding that CO2 in the atmosphere remained there a short time. Literally, a fabricated assumption, driven by political agenda, became a cornerstone of fraudulent climate model science. As a result, billions spent on climate models that are unable to predict climate with any accuracy…

Via  http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0120a5e507c9970c-pi

and via Alan.

From ‘The Deniers: The World Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud**And those who are too fearful to do so’ by Lawrence Solomon
http://www.amazon.com/Deniers-Renowned-Scientists-Political-Persecution/dp/0980076315

Please find attached a newsletter* with meteorological information updated to August 2009. All temperatures are shown in degrees Celsius.

In the maps showing the geographical pattern of temperatures, the period
1998-2006 is used as reference period. The reason for comparing with this recent period instead of the official WMO ‘normal’ period 1961-1990, is that the latter period is affected by the relatively cold period 1945-1980. Almost any comparison with such a low average value will therefore appear as high or warm, and it will be difficult to decide if modern surface air temperatures are increasing or decreasing. Comparing with a more recent period overcomes this problem.

In the other diagrams the thin line represents the monthly global average value, and the thick line indicate a simple running average, in most cases a 37-month average.

The year 1979 has been chosen as starting point in several of the diagrams, as this roughly corresponds to both the beginning of satellite observations and the onset of the late 20th century warming period.

Surface air temperatures August 2009 was generally low at northern mid latitudes. Also southern Africa experienced relatively low temperatures this month. In contrast, equatorial Pacific Ocean, northern Argentina and Australia were relatively warm.

In the Arctic, most of the Arctic had temperatures near or below the
1998-2006 average. Only northern Canada and parts of Greenland was relatively warm. In the Antarctic, most of the eastern part of the continent was relatively cold in August 2009, while parts of the peninsula and the region around the Ross Sea and ajoining land areas were relatively warm.

All diagrams and figures are also available on http://www.climate4you.com/

Yours sincerely,
Ole Humlum

*********************************************

*If you would like to receive the monthly updates email Ole.Humlum at geo.uio.no .  The information is also available at http://www.climate4you.com/

Ole Humlum is Professor of Physical Geography Department of Physical Geography, Institute of Geosciences University of Oslo, Box 1047 Blindern
N-0316 Oslo, Norway

Email: Ole.Humlum at geo.uio.no
Web: http://www.geo.uio.no/geogr/staff/olehum.html

This is circular logic and the output of a computer cannot be used to prove the validity of its programming inputs.

The only way an empirical formula can be validated is by experimental results or by strict mathematical proof based on accepted scientific laws.

Not one of the predictions made by some 29 computer programs in the past 10 to 15 years even remotely resembles the climate of the past 10 years.  

The IPCC assessment reports do not contain any mathematical analysis based on the laws of physics to support their formulae or hypothesis.   We are reduced to statistical correlation between the CO2 content of the atmosphere and the average global temperature. 

Yet consider the number of factors that can affect the global temperature:
1. The suns radiation entering the top of atmosphere (TOA)
2. Infrared radiation leaving the TOA.
3. Cloud cover which has 3 different components – high, mid and low level cloud.  These three components have a distinctly different effect on the incoming and outgoing infrared and visible light energies.
4. Ocean surface temperature.
5. Volcanic ash suspension in the atmosphere.
6. Smoke from forest fires, human emissions and fly ash.
7. Carbon dioxide content.
8. Water vapour content.
9. Other trace gasses with resonant frequencies in the IR spectrum.
10. Cosmic radiation that influences low level cloud formation and stratospheric trace gases.

Listed above are 13 variables and this is not a complete list.  But it does demonstrate that the average global temperature is a result of many different factors some of which vary significantly in a short period of time (weeks) some in a medium period of time (years) and some long term (decades). In addition many of these factors are interrelated.

In order to separate any one of the factors statistically and determine its effect one must be able to quantify all the others.  Of course we are not even close to being able to do this, so to determine the effect of CO2 is mathematically impossible by statistical analysis.

In fact we only have data on some of the above variables since the weather satellites started to orbit the earth in 1979 and sea temperatures have only been accurately monitored worldwide since the Argo buoy programme became fully operational in 2003. 

According to the satellite data, since 1979 there has been no significant increase in global temperature.  We have had 20 years of increasing temperature and 10 years of decreasing temperature, while the CO2 content has shown a uniform increase.  Hence there is no correlation.  If there was, I would ask the question: “Is the CO2 causing a temperature change or is the temperature change causing a CO2 change?”

********************

Barry Moore lives in Calgary. 

Originally from the UK, Mr Moore graduated in London in 1960 with an honours degree in mechanical engineering before working for 13 years in nuclear research in eastern Canada. In 1981 he moved west to Calgary and joined the oil industry becoming an instrumentation and controls specialist.   

Mr Moore became interested in the Kyoto Accord about 12 years ago – just wanting to find out the truth.  In the process he has read thousands of technical papers and articles covering the full range of technologies, political and economic aspects of this very diverse and complex subject.

Read more from Mr Moore here: http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/author/barry-moore/

[If you would like to tell us why you are an AGW Sceptic email me at jennifermarohasy at jennifermarohasy.com ]

1.  The AGW movement claims there has been a global temperature rise of 0.5C over the last 60 years and that this is due to increasing CO2.  Both AGW proponents and sceptics accept that the relationship between energy retained and CO2 concentration is logarithmic (a constant increase in retained energy for each doubling of CO2).  The AGW movement data also shows that since 1900 CO2 has risen by very close to half a doubling  over this 60 year period.

IPCC have claimed in their 4th assessment report (summary for policy makers), that the most likely temperature rise by 2070, when CO2 will have risen by a further half doubling to twice the level in 1900, is a further 3C rise  (page 12).  Why would the first half doubling give 0.5C rise while the second half doubling gives 3C or 6 times as much rise?

2.  One claim I have heard is that it takes the climate a long time to respond to the change in CO2 concentration and we have not yet seen the entire rise from the first half doubling.  The same IPCC 4th assessment report (page 12, 13 and 14) indicates that if CO2 were stabilised at the current level, the temperature would rise by a further 0.2C over 2 decades stabilising at 0.7C above the 1900 level. 

If the current temperature rise is not yet at the equilibrium level then for the business as usual scenario the temperature rise by 2070 will also not be at the equilibrium level.  Yet the IPCC data suggests the equilibrium rise from the first half doubling is not even one quarter of the less than equilibrium rise from the second half doubling.  To me this is illogical.

3.   IPCC claim an increase in retained energy of around 3.7 watts/sqM for each doubling of CO2 (1.66 watts/sqM for the current rise page 4).  They admit this is much too small to result in a 3+ degree temperature rise.  The large temperature rise is based on claims of very large net positive feedback in the climate system.  

Yet, every natural stable system I can think of exhibits net negative feedback.   Indeed the terms stability and negative feedback are synonymous since negative feedback is what causes stability.  By contrast, positive feedback causes instability (such as tipping points where a large change in output occurs for a small change in input).   Stability does not mean zero change, it means the response to changes in input are small enough and sufficiently controlled so as to not cause system destruction or runaway.  If you want to argue that the climate system is not stable then I would why it has remained conducive to continued life on this planet for billions of years.  This is despite all the change in CO2 levels, volcanic eruptions, changes in solar output and orbital changes over the millennia.  To me, that is a very good definition of climate stability.

4.  The AGW modellers claim cloud feedback is positive.   AGW advocates seem to divide clouds into two categories, low clouds and high clouds.  Every report I have read acknowledges that low clouds cause cooling.  With regard to high clouds there is some dispute but the AGW modellers claim they cause warming.  Further they claim a warming planet results in a bias away from low clouds and towards high clouds thus exacerbating  warming, hence contributing to positive feedback.

At the same time they claim constant relative humidity in their models.  This means that as the temperature rises, more water must be evaporating.  Now unless we want to predict that the amount of water in the atmosphere is going to continuously rise until the oceans are suspended over our heads, more evaporation must imply more precipitation ie: more rain.  However, rain only comes from low clouds not high clouds, so more rain means more low cloud mass not less low cloud mass.  This contradicts the previous position.  If the claim is that both increase, then that means significantly more cloud mass in total.  Clouds are the biggest contributor to Earth’s albedo (the fraction of incoming solar energy reflected back out to space).  Rising total cloudiness means increasing albedo and the albedo is very strongly cooling.  The albedo already causes 100 watts/sqM to be reflected away from Earth.  To cancel out the entire impact claimed by IPCC for doubling CO2 only requires an increase in cloudiness from 60% to 62.4%.

An increase in temperature, leading to more evaporation, in turn leading to more cloudiness which reduces the solar input to Earth thus reducing temperatures is a description of negative feedback not positive feedback.

5.  The claimed “proof” of positive feedback is a model prediction of a hot spot in the tropics at mid troposphere levels.  However all the experimental evidence from many, many measurements has failed to find any evidence of such a hot spot.  In science, a clear prediction that is falsified experimentally means the underlying hypothesis on which the prediction is based is wrong.

6.  The reports documenting man’s CO2 emission use some scarily large numbers but these have to be viewed in the light of the overall system size.  For example, a million dollars is an extremely large amount of money for a private individual but it is almost petty cash for a government.  If we want to put the numbers into perspective we need to relate them to the size of the system.  Why not express CO2 quantities in terms of how many PPM 1 year’s emissions will raise or lower the atmospheric CO2 level (if all of it stayed in the atmosphere).  We could call that PPM equivalents.

In those terms, human emissions amount to about 2.7 PPM equivalents.  Now NASA have published a diagram showing annual CO2 transfers for the planet.  This shows terrestrial plants absorbing about 61 PPM equivalents.  We know that both rising CO2 and rising temperature favour faster plant growth.  That’s why horticulturalists artificially raise CO2 levels in glass houses to about 1000 PPM.  It is also why plants grow faster in the tropics than in cooler locations on earth.  More to the point, a recent study showed average plant growth has accelerated by about 6% over the last 30 years.  A 6% increase in plant growth means a 6% increase in absorbed CO2, from 61PPM equivalents to 64.7 PPM equivalents.  This means that human emissions have increased by 2.7 PPM equivalents but plants have increased their absorption by an extra 3.7 PPM equivalents over the same period.  The increased plant growth is consuming more than 100% of human emissions.  Is there another (natural) factor contributing to CO2 increases?

This response, more CO2 leading to faster plant growth which in turn consumes more CO2 is another example of the widespread bias towards negative feedback I alluded to earlier.   Apart from which, is increased plant growth and thus agricultural productivity bad?  I would have thought it was highly desirable.
 
7.  The AGW hypothesis is based on temperature rises between about 1975 and 1998 or about 25 years worth of data.  This is claimed to be definitive yet the last 10 years worth of data shows falling global temperatures.  This is claimed to be a short term aberration and of no consequence.  I do not see how 25 years can be considered definitive beyond dispute while 10 years of data is a short term aberration, too short to be significant.  I would have thought at least a 10:1 ratio would be necessary to make such a claim.

8.  If I adopt this 10:1 ratio by looking at the last 100 years worth of data I find 1910-1940 temperatures rising while CO2 was not.  1940 to 1975 temperatures falling while CO2 rising, 1975 to 1998 temperatures rising while CO2 rising and 1998 to 2009 temperatures falling while CO2 rising.   Three quarters of the period shows no correlation or negative correlation with CO2 and only one quarter shows positive correlation.  I do not understand how one can claim a hypothesis proven when ¾ of the data set disagrees with it.  To me it is the clearest proof that the hypothesis is wrong.

9.  For the last 10 years the global temperature data shows either no atmospheric temperature rise or indeed a falling global temperature.  Recently this has been claimed to be due to a combination of a quiet sun and changes in ocean circulation superimposed on the underlying warming trend.  The further claim is that when these effects reverse, warming will start again with a vengeance. 

If these natural processes can cancel out the impact of AGW then they are as powerful as AGW.  If they can overwhelm the impact of AGW to cause cooling they are more powerful, yet IPCC and other AGW proponents have claimed in previous assessment reports that solar influences are only a minor contributor compared to CO2. 

The  sun was unusually active during the latter half of the 20th century in contrast to its current inactivity and the ocean circulation was the opposite of what is now happening.  Thus the natural effects claimed to be causing cooling now would have been causing warming in the late 20th century.  If these natural effects are as large as the AGW impact then they would have caused half the observed 20th century warming.  If the natural effects now outweigh the AGW impact to cause cooling then they would have been responsible for more than half the observed 20th century warming.

This is not only in contradiction of the earlier IPCC claims, it also means that the actual impact of CO2 increases since 1900 is much less than the claimed 0.5C.  At most 0.25C and possibly much less even than that.

If in fact the temperature returns to the long term average over the next few years (as seems to be increasingly likely), it suggests that these natural processes were responsible for essentially all the observed temperature changes over the 20th century with negligible impact from CO2 changes.

10.  I have looked at the raw temperature record for the USA (USHCN data) and the Bureau of Meteorology data for Victoria, Australia.  Both show fluctuations of temperature with time but zero underlying trend for the last century.  By contrast, the official IPCC endorsed data shows a strong underlying upwards trend.  When I investigate why the difference, I find that the raw data has been adjusted for several supposed factors and every one of these adjustments created a warming trend.  This implies that the claimed warming trend is due to the adjustments, not the raw data.  In any less controversial scientific issue, such a result would be viewed with the greatest possible scepticism and would be extremely unlikely to be accepted.

When I examine the raw temperature data record for cities compared with nearby suburban or rural areas, I  find an extremely high signature of urban heat island effect.  Yet the people doing the temperature adjustments claim that urban heat island effects are negligible and do not require correction.  This is despite the fact that a significant proportion of the measurement stations are in cities. 

Such a clear factor not corrected for while other more subtle claimed factors are corrected casts further doubt on the correction protocol.  If there is an upwards bias in the corrections, it means the claimed warming trend is exaggerated and may in fact not exist at all.

11.  The mainstream media keep reporting that the current situation is increasingly dire and is much worse than even the previous pessimistic projections.  When I examine this statement I find that previous projections predicted rapid atmospheric warming during the last 10 years whereas in fact we have had cooling.  They predicted rapid increase in rate of rise of sea level when in fact the rate of sea level rise has recently declined.  They predicted a very rapid increase in Arctic summer sea ice loss whereas in fact, for the last 2 years, it has been increasing.  They predicted a rapid rise in hurricane incidence and severity when in fact there has been a decline.  To me the media’s many claims are not supportable.  I also consider it to be beyond simple error.  At best it is unpardonable gross carelessness in checking the data they are reporting and at worst it is deliberate bias in reporting.

12.  More recently, in response to the data showing no warming for the last 10 years, I have seen new claims that global land temperatures are now deemed irrelevant.  The newly discovered measure of importance is the rise in ocean temperature, since it is now claimed that this is by far the largest planetary heat sink.  If that claim is true, it makes all the previous data claiming to show strong global warming over the period 1975 to 1998 also irrelevant.  To suggest that from 1975 to 1998, the energy went into warming the land and air and then abruptly in 1998 it stopped doing that and the heat instead went into heating the oceans is, to me, completely absurd.  Nature simply does not work that way.  It is like claiming you put the kettle on, for the first minute the energy goes into heating the water and then abruptly it stops heating the water and starts heating the room instead.

13.  Looking further at the claim of warming ocean temperatures.  Late last century it was realised that the method of measuring ocean temperatures was extremely inaccurate and unreliable.  To overcome that, a sophisticated, global system of buoys was designed and implemented at very considerable cost and effort.  These buoys repeatedly dive down to measure temperatures  and then resurface to report back findings  This network is called the Argo network and it became operational in 2003.  Since becoming operational, it has shown ocean cooling.  Yet the scientists who claim ongoing ocean warming exclude the Argo data and the satellite data instead relying entirely on the earlier poor reliability methods.

The same scientific community which claimed a method was inaccurate and unreliable, designed and implemented  a new high accuracy measurement system, are now rejecting the new high accuracy data in favour of the older data they themselves viewed as unreliable.  How can that be justified?  Why is the data from the older less reliable method correct, while results from the new, high accuracy methodology are wrong?  What does that say about the scientists who designed the Argo system but apparently don’t trust its output?  To me it suggests selecting data to prove a favoured hypothesis, commonly called cherry picking.

Some sites are talking about “correcting” the Argo data.  Why should a carefully thought out, brand new, high accuracy system already require adjustment to its outputs?  Was a mistake made in the design?  Why are the proposed adjustments again in the direction of exacerbating the claimed warming?  When the raw data contradicts the hypothesis yet the “adjustments and corrections” all reverse that result so as to support the championed hypothesis, it’s time to start worrying.

14.  What mankind is doing by consuming fossil fuels is recycling CO2 that used to be in the atmosphere but got trapped in the distant past.  Is there a “correct” level of CO2?  What I have read suggests that the Earth was a more verdant place before the CO2 got locked up in fossil fuels.  Would the Earth be more or less pleasant a place if the carbon currently locked up in fossil fuels were again available to the biosphere.  Not just for humans but for all living things, plants and animals.  Surely we should consider that before we pick some arbitrary recent point in time and declare that the CO2 level at that time is the ideal to be maintained at all costs.

FROM a slightly different but related perspective, I see the AGW story continuously changing.  When one measure no longer trends the wanted way, a change is made to a new measure (change from surface to ocean temperatures and ocean acidity).  In one report, an effect is claimed to be negligible when that suits the hypothesis yet the same measure is later used as a reason to explain away embarrassing trends (Solar influence and ocean currents).  All the observed effects are very moderate (less than 0.5C) if present at all yet hysteria is generated on the basis of hypothesised extreme future outcomes (up to 6C rise and 10 meter sea level rises).  Outcomes far enough in the future so as to be un-testable yet close enough to impact people being born today.  Claims based on abstract models that fail even short term validation tests.   As a practicing scientist, I have seen this scenario more than once before, changing benchmarks and indicative parameters, rewriting predictions and predicted causes after the event, excusing erroneous predictions.  These are clear signs of propping up a false hypothesis.

There does seem to be clear evidence that temperature changed several times over the 20th century both up and down.  There is far less evidence for any underlying upwards trend due to CO2 and many reasons to question the data analysis that tries to demonstrate such a trend.
 
One of the arguments I often hear is “well even if AGW is not absolutely proven we should take action just in case its correct” – the precautionary principle.  I see two reasons to disagree with that. 

Firstly, if rising CO2 should bring about some warming it is by no means certain that this would be catastrophically bad or for that matter whether it would be bad at all.  It seems quite likely to me that the cure would be worse than the disease. 

Secondly, and to me much more importantly, there is another issue we need to consider and that is the law of unintended consequences.  Briefly this states that whenever you take action there will always be consequences you did not consider in advance and did not intend.  Since there are many more ways to be wrong than to be right there is a better than 50:50 chance that these consequences will be bad.  If the original action is based on a false premise it greatly increases the risk of bad unintended consequences.  The precautionary principle is based on the belief that there is no down side to taking action.  The law of unintended consequences tells us that there is always a down side and the cost versus benefit always needs to be carefully evaluated before acting. 

We are already seeing some very bad unintended consequences of the action taken so far over global warming.  The government driven initiative to use less fossil fuel by diluting it with ethanol is causing massive forest clearing the Amazon basin (to grow the ethanol feedstock) and is very significantly raising food prices causing even worse starvation in 3rd world countries.  Terrible as it is, this has not greatly impacted on western society but the next phase most certainly will.

There is another very serious unintended consequence that I would like to raise here; one that concerns me very deeply.  When I listen to the public AGW debate  I hear very high profile politicians and prominent public figures calling for people who openly disagree with AGW to be put on trial for treason.  I hear many cases of people losing their jobs because of voicing sceptical opinions.  I hear prominent global warming advocates refusing to enter into debates or trying to avoid debates by claiming the science is settled, and by claiming we do not have time, we have only weeks to act.  I hear AGW advocates resorting to personal attacks against people who disagree rather than addressing the technical issues they raise. 

I hear AGW proponents claiming to be the under funded underdogs, fighting to protect the planet against greedy capitalists, yet the reality is their funding is at least 1000 times greater than the sceptics funding.  I see many reports of scientists refusing to release their workings, thus preventing review of their methodology, despite the fact that their work was funded by public money. 

I see how the established media abandons balance in reporting by strongly favouring proponents of AGW, ignoring or denigrating sceptics and forcing most onto blog sites like this one.  I hear some environmental groups and activists publicly claim that its OK and even necessary to exaggerate the threat so as to get the public to engage. I see the courts condoning acts of vandalism and even violence against essential public infrastructure.  I see high profile public figures supporting such acts and claiming them to be reasonable and justified. 

In short I see our society abandoning some of our most vital democratic freedoms over this hysteria:  Free speech, impartial enforcement of the law, balance in reporting, freedom of information.  These are freedoms our forebears gave their lives to bequeath to us, they are our most valuable inheritance and we seem to be throwing them away over an unproven hysterical hypothesis.

More recently I have read articles from England advocating individual ration cards for petrol, heating oil, gas, electricity.  Is water and food next?  War time austerity as an ongoing future way of life?  A return to the agrarian poverty of the middle ages?  I note the new film “Not evil just wrong” has had to be distributed via the internet rather than traditional media.  One step from distribution through an underground network?  Will that apply to all future sceptical writing?   What about other writing contrary to the popular opinion of the day?

These are the issues that differentiate between a free democracy and a totalitarian regime and the further one goes down this path the harder it is to pull back.  History has shown us that the disease is far easier to acquire than to get rid of.

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Notes and Links

Michael Hammer graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering Science and Master of Engineering Science from Melbourne University.  Since 1976 he has been working in the field of spectroscopy with the last 25 years devoted to full time research for a large multinational spectroscopy company.

To read more from Mr Hammer click here and scroll down:  http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/author/michael-hammer/

Leigh,

I have a regular commentary spot on radio (Jon Faine’s Melbourne 774). I am constantly frustrated by the scientific illiteracy as outlined by Chris Mooney last night, particularly by the media, and especially by journalists within the ABC, including the much quoted Robyn 100-metres-sea-level-rise Williams. However, to say, as they do, that the science is settled is objectively and scientifically nonsense … and dangerous.

Firstly, you should know that it simply cannot be true that the science is settled when so many eminent scientists are contesting the science. I draw your attention to the Global Warming Petition Project [not be confused with earlier petitions that were sabotaged with false signatories] http://www.petitionproject.org/ 

There are over 30,000 registered scientists of which more than 9,000 with PhDs, in climate and related fields. Whatever else anyone thinks of climate science, you can hardly accuse these people of scientific illiteracy, which is what your programme was suggesting. The ABC should categorically refuse to accept this lie.
 
If you care, there is a brilliant summary outline of sceptical scientific arguments and graphs all peer reviewed by eminent scientists here http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm

They may all end up being wrong as may the IPCC, but they cannot be dismissed as unscientific.  These were the very arguments that Senator Fielding asked Penny Wong and the Commonwealth chief Scientist to explain. They were unable to do so. Surely this was an enormous admission and an enormous media story, but scandalously, the ABC has completely ignored it to its disgrace.  

Also, I dare you to interview Garth Paltridge who has just published a book, The Climate Caper.   Professor Paltridge is probably the most eminent Australian scientist working on climate. He is an atmospheric physicist, was chief Research Scientist with the CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research before becoming director of the Institute of Antarctic and Southern Ocean Studies and CEO of the Antarctic Cooperative Research Centre, and headed the Antarctic Research Division. Now retired, he can say what he wants, and clearly cannot be accused of scientific illiteracy. Have you asked why the ABC is not rushing to interview him on TV with appropriate headlines?

Secondly, why is that now, even the IPCC scientists themselves are admitting that their models are wrong in relation to recent temperature trends. These are the consensus scientists that are now admitting that something is wrong with the “science”.  Please see The New Scientist article here
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17742-worlds-climate-could-cool-first-warm-later.html

All the best,

And don’t forget to insist that the scientists answer when you ask what they ate for breakfast. This last lot only talked about their dinner, yet again. And you were rolled.

Cheers,
Andrew McIntyre
Melbourne
 
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Notes and Links

Public must engage with scientific fact: book. Australian Broadcasting Corporation,  17/09/2009, Reporter: Margot O’Neill. Interview Leigh Sales
A new book called Unscientific America has put forward the theory that we are facing a dangerous divide between science and culture.
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2008/s2689426.htm

Author discusses science-culture divide.  Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Broadcast: 17/09/2009, Reporter: Leigh Sales, One of the authors of Unscientific America, Chris Mooney, joins Lateline from Boston to discuss the book.  http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2008/s2689429.htm

World’s climate could cool first, warm later
September 2009 by Fred Pearce
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17742-worlds-climate-could-cool-first-warm-later.html
 

Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide by ARTHUR B. ROBINSON, NOAH E. ROBINSON, AND WILLIE SOON
http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm

The Climate Caper
http://www.connorcourt.com/catalog1/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=29&products_id=113

Part 1 is here: http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/09/leigh-sales-smears-scientific-scepticism/

Mr Mooney now has a second book out entitled ‘Unscientific America’.   I haven’t read the new book yet, but according to an interview Mr Mooney gave last night on Australian television if you don’t believe in AGW you aren’t even a scientist.   Indeed he told well-known ABC journalist and television presenter Leigh Sales that while society hasn’t agreed on the facts, the scientists have.

Ms Sales initially queried Mr Mooney, suggesting that many claim there is no scientific consensus on AGW.   But she didn’t then pursue the point when Mr Mooney reframed, side-stepped the question and then contradicted himself.  

Much of the preamble compiled by Margo O’Neill and the interview by Ms Sales suggested that being a climate change sceptic was equivalent to being part of the minority against vaccinating children or part of the religious right that argues against the teaching of evolution.    Their argument essentially went that there is always a part of a community that holds beliefs that are illogical.

The solution, Mr Mooney explained to Ms Sales, is a better educated population particularly in the area of science which he suggested provides a foundation in critical thinking. 

But there was no much critical thinking on display and a small amount of research ahead of the interview would have discovered that Australia’s best known climate change sceptic, Ian Plimer, fought a long and hard campaign against the teaching of creationism in schools.   But then again understanding what motivated Professor Plimer to speak out against the teaching of faith as science in our schools would have spoilt their story because the Professor might have explained that speaking out against AGW fundamentalism is really just a continuation of his campaign for critical thinking and real science.    

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Notes and Links

Public must engage with scientific fact: book
Australian Broadcasting Corporation,  17/09/2009, Reporter: Margot O’Neill
A new book called Unscientific America has put forward the theory that we are facing a dangerous divide between science and culture.
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2008/s2689426.htm