Re: In India, Growth Trumps Sustainability, Lawrence Solomon, July 26.

India has taken a bold decision to reject the “Climate Doom” projection made by the IPCC (Intergovenmental Panel on Climate Change), the UN Body of scientists on Earth’s climate and climate change. The Indian politicians led by the astute and pragmatic Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have made the right decision to prioritize economic development and poverty eradication over some nebulous climate change action plans.

The climate of India and by extension that of the rest of the world has changed in recent years, but not necessarily for worse, as claimed by the IPCC and its ardent supporters. In a recent paper published in the U.K.-based Journal Energy & Environment (May 2008), I have carefully analyzed adverse impacts of climate change as projected by the IPCC and have discounted these claims as exaggerated. They also lack supporting evidence.

It is time to take a closer look at the IPCC science of climate change and ask some hard questions. Recent satellite data clearly document enrichment of world forestry due to increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Further, for a high-latitude country like Canada, future climate change can be beneficial in terms of milder winters, lower house-heating costs and a longer agricultural season. The IPCC science of climate change must be carefully re-assessed by the Canadian scientific community at large before making substantive policy decisions about greenhouse gas emission targets. India has it right.

Dr. Madhav Khandekar specializes in understanding extreme weather events in Canada and in other parts of the world. He holds a B.Sc. in Mathematics and Physics, a M.Sc. in Statistics from India (Pune University) as well as both M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Meteorology from Florida State University. As one of the world leaders in meteorology, Dr. Khandekar has worked in the fields of climatology, meteorology and oceanography for over 45 years and has published nearly 100 papers, reports, book reviews and scientific commentaries as well as a book on Ocean Wave Analysis and Modeling, published by Springer-Verlag (1989). He was an expert IPCC reviewer

The Government’s advisory channels are clogged with rent seekers, special pleaders and green activists who have misadvised the minister. CLIMATE Minister Penny Wong published an astonishing green paper in response to what she perceives to be the threat of global warming. The first sentence of the opening section of her paper, entitled “Why we need to act”, contains seven scientific errors - almost one error for every two words. Here is the sentence: “Carbon pollution is causing climate change, resulting in higher temperatures, more droughts, rising sea levels and more extreme weather.”

The statement that human carbon dioxide emissions will cause “more droughts, rising sea levels and more extreme weather” is unbridled nonsense. Such confident predictions are derived from unvalidated, unsuccessful computer models that even their proponents agree cannot predict the future. Complex climate models are in effect sophisticated computer games, and their particular outputs are to a large degree predetermined by programmers’ predelictions. It cannot be overemphasised, therefore, that computer climate projections, or scenarios, are not evidence. Nor are they suitable for environmental or political planning. Moving from virtual reality to real observations and evidence, many of the manifestations of living on a dynamic planet that are cited as evidence for global warming are, at best, circumstantial. The current rates of sea-level change, for example, fall well within the known natural range of past changes. Should we adapt to the rise? Of course. Should we try to “stop climate change”?  To moderate, possibly, the expected sea-level rise?  Of course not; we might as well try to stop clouds scudding across the sky.

The first sentence of the “Why we need to act” section of the green paper is followed by five further short paragraphs that are similarly riddled with science misrepresentation and error. In essence, the section reads like a policy manual for green climate activists. It represents a parody of our true knowledge of climate change.

Never has a policy document of such importance been released in Australia that is so profoundly out of touch with known facts of the real world. It is a matter for national alarm that the Government’s advisory channels should be clogged with the rent seekers, special pleaders and green activists who have so obviously misadvised Wong on the content of her green paper on climate change. Time for some due diligence, Minister. Read a summary of the other mistatements and outright errors here.

Professor Bob Carter is a geologist who studies ancient environments and their climate, and is a science adviser to the Australian Climate Science Coalition.

I was interviewed by journalist John Stewart on ABC TV’s Lateline program tonight. The segment was about global warming with a focus on blogging. Mr Stewart made the claim that the only place where the science is still debated is on the internet amongst bloggers. In fact we were accused of still “attacking” the science of global warming.

Interestingly Andrew Bolt was not described as one a News Ltd columnist but rather as a skeptic and a blogger. He was shown making the point that there has been no increase in global temperatures for ten years. I was also as described as a blogger and also shown making the point that over the last 10 years it hasn’t got any warmer. If Mr Stewart had gone to the trouble of checking the internationally recognised sources of real world (as opposed to computer generated) data on global temperatures he would have been able to confirm that what Mr Bolt and I said was correct: there has been no warming over the last ten years.

Even James Hansen’s GISS data shows that global temperatures have plateued, if not cooled over the last ten years. But instead of the news program confirming our pronouncements with reference to the data (as they might on a business program), I was accused of “spreading doubt about the world getting hotter”.

See larger image here.  Read more of Jennifer’s experience here. See the video here.

In Mid-June I posted about a new site that brings the life’s work of a scientist to you for your evaluation. In it, I noted I have known Jim Witt for decades. He was Science Director for the Dutchess County schools in New York and co-founder of Fleetweather, Inc. In 1962 he initiated a very unique high school weather station at the school in which he taught. The United States Weather Bureau, extremely interested in the program, deemed it the most advanced high school weather program, not only in the entire United States but also in the entire world.  Graduates of this weather program went on to get their doctorates in Meteorology and Computer Sciences and are now making their mark in prestigious positions such as: Director of Research of the National Hurricane Center, The Lead Forecaster for the NASA manned flight center, The Executive Vice President of Accu-weather, The Head Scientist and Director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Another student has written the computer program (GFS Model) which all meteorologists in the world use each day to make their weather forecasts. Jim and his students also explored the solar system and its connection to weather. Jim has continued his research for many decades and has done a celendar each year with daily forecasts with every penny raised going directly to children who are seriously or terminally ill or who are physically or mentally challenged. To date, he has distributed over $1,700,000. He is well known in the New York area (see New York Times story here) for his long range forecasts and is a frequent guest on WOR radio. See some of the testimonials here for his calendar forecasts. 

The methodology is the ultimate “analog” approach.  Jim noted “Lunar and solar cycles have a great influence, not only on our weather, but also on our climate. Years of pain staking research suggest they do. The sun is the main driver of our weather and climate. Much of his energies have centered on what really influences the sun and how these changes affect the jet stream, storm development and storm movement on earth. To produce a long-range weather forecast, all the information is fed into a series of computer programs. The programs then calculate an analog date. An analog date is a date, from the past, which has conditions (Sun & Earth, Sun & other Planets, Moon & Earth) similar to the date for which we are making the weather forecast.

Using this approach and gathering complete global historical data, Jim has with one of his former students, Neal Townsend, a specialist in weather computing, developed a very intriguing site here with forecasts for locations throughout the United States and abroad out two years.  Check it out. The first ten days are official government forecasts. Long range forecasts start day 11. He this week added over 90 more international cities and next week hopes to add 200 more.

I am repeating this story because he has added a very valuable section on hurricanes to the site. this is one area, where his method often really shines. providing the best matches are this past century. He has 3 east coast hits this year. See the maps for these storms displayed here. A very rare New Jersey impact is forecast.

Climatology is a science. Climatism is an ideology. Climatologists are scientists. Climatists are social or political organizers who abuse climatology in the service of ideologues. Climatology was and still is an investigation of nature. Climatism is the exploitation of the fear of nature to gain power, wealth and social esteem. Once, learned discussions about the climate, if not tomorrow’s weather, were confined to climatologists. Today, public discussion about the climate in the Western media is dominated, maybe monopolized by climatists. The typical American, Canadian, European, Japanese, or Australian is exposed to climatism daily but hardly ever to climatology. Climatism is a Western ideology that has, generally, failed to expand its ambit of influence beyond rich people in rich countries.

Climatism asserts that severe or catastrophic changes in the climate are ahead (but not just yet). The primary strain of climatism and the one known to the general public is that the earth is warming rapidly (Climatism W). This is a terrible thing. Human beings acting according to their nature i.e engaging in human activity are responsible. However, climatism has the solution: ruthless carbon suppression via total control of human society, globally. The secondary strain but one unknown to the public is that the earth is getting ready to cool dramatically (Climatism C). This is a terrible but entirely natural thing. Human beings have nothing to do with it and there will be few left anyway, assuming they follow some survival prescriptions, to worry about such things. Climatists take a small, verifiable truth and expand it to cover an enormous sphere of nature and human activity. They invoke the authority of science and the mystery of scientific nomenclature to bludgeon the public. Climatists are always certain. Climatologists readily admit their uncertainty. Climatists force fit every event, observation or trend no matter how contradictory or palpably irrelevant to “prove” their superiority: from penguins to polar bears, to deluges and droughts, changing deserts and rainforests, expanding and retreating glaciers, thickening and thinning ice sheets, coral reefs and noctilucent clouds( clouds high above the surface of the earth made of chemical ice that shine like brilliant gems at night), volcanoes and typhoons, solar wind and water vapor, and of course, very small changes in the carbon dioxide composition of the atmosphere. Climatologists concede there is much they cannot fit or explain, much less predict.

Terrors go away when people confront them or if, after repeated predictions of imminent doom, the end does not come. It is the task of climatologists and interested lay people to confront the terror long enough and expose the expression “Carbon control now” as grammatolatry so that Climatism W’s predictions fail. Then, Climatism W will be defeated. Otherwise it will win. Read full essay here.

Comments and reports about global warming are getting silly and even ridiculous.  Al Gore says we have ten years left. We’re told cooling is due to warming. More rain and flooding and less rain and drought are both due to warming. More hurricanes are predicted while fewer occur. Global temperatures declined as much in the first few months of 2008 as they increased in the previous 100 plus years due to warming. Recently we were told global warming is causing an increase in kidney stones in a travesty of geographic correlation assuming cause and effect. One blogger who began recording, with tongue in cheek, all the events attributed to global warming was John Brignell.

Actually, ridiculous statements and definitive claims of doom are a good sign. Good because they are a sign of desperation as evidence accumulates that human CO2 is not causing warming or climate change. Good because people and governments are changing their positions faced with the evidence and the costs already incurred by wrong policies and actions. Good because governments are coming to their senses and getting their priorities right. India putting development to feed starving citizens ahead of unsubstantiated threats of climate change is a great advance. It also provides an argument that transcends and regains the moral high ground environmentalists claim.

There are troubling aspects with how far the myth of human caused climate change has been carried because so much has already become entrenched in legislature, commerce and behavior. For example, the fact they have the direction wrong as we prepare for warming while cooling occurs and is expected to continue. More extreme stories predicting disasters at worst or unprecedented change at best are due to growing desperation as awareness builds among the public that humans are not causing warming or climate change. However, they are also the legacy of the mandate and procedures of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). We heard about the 2,500 members being a consensus of scientists, but this is anything but the truth. A majority, 1,900, only look at the impacts of global warming or climate change. Most are bureaucrats not scientists. Worse, they start from a false assumption because they accept the results of the Science Report that changes are due to human activity and then speculate on the impacts.

IPCC Reports engender many of the news stories about the impending doom and disaster. This has created the severe bias against any benefits from warming. I received more attacks and nasty emails over an article I wrote suggesting many of the benefits of warming, especially for cold climate countries. This reaction and the pattern of responses to evidence that human CO2 is not causing climate change will lead to more extreme claims and statements.  Al Gore’s ten year threat implies a tipping point. James Hansen and others similarly warn we are close to such a point. Ironically, we are reaching a tipping point, but it is not the one they envisioned. Rather it is the tipping point created by their extremism. A point were the increasing claims and threats become so irrational and ridiculous that they force people to change their perspective even if they still don’t understand the science. Read more here.

When it comes to global warming, extreme scare stories abound. Al Gore, for example, famously claimed that a whopping six meters (20 feet) of sea-level rise would flood major cities around the world. Gore’s scientific advisor, Jim Hansen from NASA, has even topped his protege. Hansen suggests that there will eventually be sea-level rises of 24 meters (80 feet), with a six-meter rise happening just this century. Little wonder that fellow environmentalist Bill McKibben states that “we are engaging in a reckless drive-by drowning of much of the rest of the planet and much of the rest of creation.”

Given all the warnings, here is a slightly inconvenient truth: over the past two years, the global sea level hasn’t increased. It has slightly decreased . Since 1992, satellites orbiting the planet have measured the global sea level every 10 days with an amazing degree of accuracy - 3-4 millimeters (0.2 inches). For two years, sea levels have declined. (All of the data are available at sealevel.colorado.edu.)

This doesn’t mean that global warming is not true. As we emit more CO2, over time the temperature will moderately increase, causing the sea to warm and expand somewhat. Thus, the sea-level rise is expected to pick up again. This is what the United Nations climate panel is telling us; the best models indicate a sea-level rise over this century of 18 to 59 centimeters (7-24 inches), with the typical estimate at 30 centimeters (one foot). This is not terrifying or even particularly scary - 30 centimeters is how much the sea rose over the last 150 years.

Simply put, we’re being force-fed vastly over-hyped scare stories. Proclaiming six meters of sea-level rise over this century contradicts thousands of UN scientists, and requires the sea-level rise to accelerate roughly 40-fold from today. Imagine how climate alarmists would play up the story if we actually saw an increase in the sea-level rise.

Increasingly, alarmists claim that we should not be allowed to hear such facts. In June, Hansen proclaimed that people who spread “disinformation” about global warming - CEOs, politicians, in fact anyone who doesn’t follow Hansen’s narrow definition of the “truth” - should literally be tried for crimes against humanity. It is depressing to see a scientist - even a highly politicized one - calling for a latter-day Inquisition. Such a blatant attempt to curtail scientific inquiry and stifle free speech seems inexcusable.

But it is perhaps also a symptom of a broader problem. It is hard to keep up the climate panic as reality diverges from the alarmist predictions more than ever before: the global temperature has not risen over the past ten years, it has declined precipitously in the last year and a half, and studies show that it might not rise again before the middle of the next decade.
Read more here.

Climate Science has previously weblogged on an important new perspective on the role of regional climate forcings on climate variability and change which involves ocean-atmosphere interactions (e.g. see and see). Now there is a very significant new paper on this subject by this research group which should attract major attention. It is Compo,G.P., and P.D. Sardeshmukh, 2008: Oceanic influences on recent continental warming. Climate Dynamics, in press.

The abstract reads “Evidence is presented that the recent worldwide land warming has occurred largely in response to a worldwide warming of the oceans rather than as a direct response to increasing greenhouse gases (GHGs) over land. Atmospheric model simulations of the last half-century with prescribed observed ocean temperature changes, but without prescribed GHG changes, account for most of the land warming. The oceanic influence has occurred through hydrodynamic-radiative teleconnections, primarily by moistening and warming the air over land and increasing the downward longwave radiation at the surface. The oceans may themselves have warmed from a combination of natural and anthropogenic influences.”

The conclusion of the paper reads “In summary, our results emphasize the significant role of remote oceanic influences, rather than the direct local effect of anthropogenic radiative forcings, in the recent continental warming. They suggest that the recent oceanic warming has caused the continents to warm through a different set of mechanisms than usually identified with the global impacts of SST changes. It has increased the humidity of the atmosphere, altered the atmospheric vertical motion and associated cloud fields, and perturbed the longwave and shortwave radiative fluxes at the continental surface. While continuous global measurements of most of these changes are not available through the 1961-2006 period, some humidity observations are available and do show upward trends over the continents. These include near-surface observations (Dai 2006) as well as satellite radiance measurements sensitive to upper tropospheric moisture (Soden et al. 2005).”

This is a major scientific conclusion, and the authors should be recognized for this achievement. If these results are robust, it further documents that a regional perspective of climate variabilty and change must be adopted, rather than a focus on a global average surface temperature change, as emphasized in the 2007 IPCC WG1 report.  This work also provides support for the perspective on climate sensitivity that Roy Spencer has reported on in his powerpoint presentation last week (see). Read Roger’s full post here.