In the international discussion about climate change, which is now going on for almost twenty years, the IPCC has played a questionable role. From its inception, is has almost exclusively focused on the AGW hypothesis, while systematically ignoring alternative hypotheses. Some main points of criticism of the IPCC include: The hypothesis that an increased CO2 concentration in the atmosphere will lead to a rise in temperature has not been proven and is even at odds with the observations. Satellite-based temperature measurements show that the earth has warmed a few tenths of a degree Celsius between 1979 and 1998. It is not likely that this is caused by mankind. There is still a lack of scientific understanding, required to model all assumed radiative forcings. The most important one, for which there are not sufficient quantitative data to date, is the variable impact of clouds.

Climate models, which are being used to achieve a better understanding of the climate system, are not suited to serve as basis for predictions. This is, inter alia, related to the stochastic nature of climate. The global climate is very much determined by extra-terrestrial phenomena, of which the fluctuation of sun activity is the most important. Should there still be global warming in the future, for which there are only model based indications, then mankind will not be able to do something about it. Moreover, also according the IPCC, a modest additional warming (e.g., of 2 degrees Celsius) will on balance be beneficial for mankind. The IPCC has ignored the climate projections of astrophysicists, which suggest global cooling. The advent of climate alarmism, fueled by statements of many prominent politicians and the media, has no scientific justification. Many catastrophic consequences of climate change, such as floods and extreme weather events, have been predicted, which are not based on scientific knowledge. Especially the European governments have opted for a climate policy which is completely unrealistic and results in a massive waste of scarce resources. Finally, one should not discount the possibility that the average global temperature will fall considerably in the near future. This might have harmful implications, as opposed to a modest rise of temperatures, which on balance will have positive effects.

Read more of this excellent SPPI paper here.

There is such a thing as pathological science. Science becomes unhealthy when its only real question --- “what is true?” --- is sabotaged by vested interests, by ideological Commissars, or even by grant-swinging scientists. Today’s Global Warming campaign is endangering real, honest science. Global Warming superstition has become an international power grab, and good science suffers as a result.

Freeman Dyson, one of the great physicists (Princeton University) alive today, put it plainly enough in his autobiography:

“...all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated. Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the crowd of deluded citizens who believe the numbers predicted by the computer models. ... I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do. ... They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in.” Read more here.

The heat wave in Europe in early August 2003 was exceptional in many ways. It was a catastrophe of heartbreaking proportions. With more than 3,500 dead in Paris alone, France suffered nearly 15,000 fatalities from the heat wave. Another 7,000 died in Germany, 8,000 in Spain and Italy and 2,000 in the United Kingdom: The total death toll ran to more than 35,000.

Such reports fuelled the public perception that the heat wave became a sure indicator of global warming. But group wisdom can occasionally be wrong. A recent academic paper has checked this theory and concluded that although the circumstances were unusual, equal or more unusual warm anomalies have occurred regularly since 1979. Moreover, while 35,000 dead is a terrifyingly large number, all deaths should in principle be treated with equal concern. Yet this is not happening. When 2,000 people died from heat in the United Kingdom, it produced a public outcry that is still heard. However, the BBC recently ran a very quiet story telling us that deaths caused by cold weather in England and Wales for the past years have hovered around 25,000 each winter, casually adding that the winters of 1998-2000 saw about 47,000 cold deaths each year.

It is remarkable that a single heat-death episode of 35,000 from many countries can get everyone up in arms whereas cold deaths of 25,000 to 50,000 a year in just a single country pass almost unnoticed. In Europe as a whole, about 200,000 people die from excess heat each year. However, about 1.5 million Europeans die annually from excess cold. Read more here.

When an ice age begins, global Warming occurs exactly as it is doing now. Heated oceans cause precipitation to increase. Eventually, increased snowfall will reflect away solar energy and trigger a cool-down. Arctic ice is melting faster than expected, because oceans are heating more than the atmosphere.

No atmospheric temperature increase has been found in eight years. Alarmists are not promoting science; they are promoting propaganda justified through a black-box analysis which generates contrived numbers. Science requires evidence and logic.

There is no mechanism for carbon dioxide creating global warming. “Greenhouse gases” absorb all radiation available to them in a few meters. More of the gas cannot absorb more radiation. A thick sheet of plastic does nothing more than a thin sheet. Doubling the CO2 would only shorten the distance for absorption of radiation from 10 meters to 5 meters, which is not an increase in temperature. How could all of those scientists be wrong? They get paid to be wrong through billions of dollars from government; and they are not a consensus.  Read more here.

A thick chunk of Arctic sea ice the size of two states has disappeared.  Is it global warming or normal causes? This very excellent video podcast explains why the decline of ice accelerated this year and why the future remains uncertain. JPL’s Son Nghiem, Research Scientist and Greg Neumann, Radar engineer, studied the ice from the Coast guard Cutter Healy and NASA’s QuikScat satellite did a good job explaining the changes, unusual wind patterns which helped feed the transpolar current with ice which “accelerated out like a runaway train.”

Nghiem said “Unusual atmospheric conditions set up wind patterns that compressed the sea ice, loaded it into the Transpolar Drift Stream and then sped its flow out of the Arctic,” he said. When that sea ice reached lower latitudes, it rapidly melted in the warmer waters. “The winds causing this trend in ice reduction were set up by an unusual pattern of atmospheric pressure that began at the beginning of this century,” Nghiem said. Read the release here.

See the podcasts here.