SENIOR bureaucrats in the state government’s environment department have routinely stopped publishing scientific papers which challenge the federal government’s claims of sea level rises threatening Australia’s coastline, a former senior public servant said yesterday.
Doug Lord helped prepare six scientific papers which examined 120 years of tidal data from a gauge at Fort Denison in Sydney Harbour.
The tide data revealed sea levels were rising at a rate of about 1mm a year or less - and the rise was not accelerating but was constant.
“The tidal data we found would mean sea levels would rise by about 100mm by the end of the century,” Mr Lord said yesterday.
“However the (federal) government benchmark which drives their climate change policy is that sea levels are expected to rise by 900mm by the end of the century and the rate of rise is accelerating.”
Mr Lord, who has 35 years experience in coastal engineering, said senior bureaucrats within the then Department of Environment Climate Change and Water had rejected or stopped publication of five papers between late 2009 and September this year.
“This was very thorough research, peer reviewed and getting the highest ranking from various people, and one of the papers got a nine out of 10 for the quality of the work,” he said.
“You have to ask yourself why they were rejected, considering they had been peer reviewed, and the Fort Denison tide data is among the longest continuous data of its type available in the world.
“There’s never been a sensible explanation of why they have stopped these papers.”
Mr Lord left government work in 2010 but continued to co-author the tidal data papers with experts still working for the state government.
The latest incident came in September when organisers of the Coasts and Ports 2011 Conference in Perth accepted one of the studies, only to have senior OEH bureaucrats tell them it had to be withdrawn.
“They were able to do this because my co-author of this study, and the co-authors of the other rejected studies done after I left government work, still work for the government,” Mr Lord said.
“As far as I am aware the minister has not been made aware by her department that this has been happening.”
Icecap Note: I know of two other such papers also meeting the same fate. I was a reviewer on one such paper and approved it with minor suggested changes. The data is not controversial as in all cases it came from long history reliable gauges. The results made the government’s stand and the huge investment being made look bad. The coverup for the BIG LIE continues.
Universities get local AMS event that featured skeptics cancelled
The Oregon American Meteorological Society’s event featuring Meteorologist Chuck Wiese, Climatologist George Taylor, and me on November 29 at OMSI was canceled at the last minute today due to pressure from local universities and others who were apparently upset that our skeptical perspective on Global Warming would interfere with their climate agendas and Federal funding. Details will surely leak out as will whatever reasons they will cite as a cover story.
We suspected this would happen and would happen at the last minute to make it impossible to reschedule the event immediately. But we are grateful to the President of the local AMS chapter (Steve Pierce) and some members of his Board who have expressed a strong determination to reschedule this event in January. Even those Board members who may not support our position on Global Warming seem determined that this event WILL go forward. That should be a warning to those who orchestrated this power play. Most AMS members clearly want to hear both sides, without their organization taking any sides. I applaud their professional behavior. We are not seeking any endorsements, because that is not how science works.
We are seeking the opportunity to present the logic and evidence that are so crucial in objective science. That should not threaten ANYONE who supports real science.
Please be sure to mark your calenders for the January event when we have a specific date and venue that will be more difficult for Alarmists to scuttle.
BANNED BY OMSI, Portland State University, and others - Come and find out what they did not want you to hear!
Gordon Fulks writes the following:
In a conversation with Chuck Wiese a short while ago, he confirmed that Professor Phil Mote of Oregon State University is involved in the OMSI fiasco. That information comes originally from Planetarium Manager Jim Todd at OMSI. Phil Mote called them to express his reservations about OMSI allowing us to present anything, because he alleged that it would not be “peer-reviewed.” If OMSI had had any scientific expertise, they would have easily seen through that attack.
We use just as much “peer-reviewed” science and government climate data as Mote does. In fact I was going to present some of my own work that was published in the Journal Of Geophysical Research, because it is highly pertinent. Other material and conclusions would have come from some of the most respected scientists in the world today, including Professor of Meteorology Richard Lindzen at MIT, Professor of Physics Freeman Dyson from the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, Professor Physics Will Happer at Princeton University who is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Professor of Theoretical Physics Gerhard Gerlich of Germany, Professor of Advanced Physics Antonio Zichchi who is president of the World Federation of Scientists, and Nobel Laureate in Physics Ivar Giaever, to name a few.
Sorry Professor Mote, we are not the amateurs you suggested to OMSI.
Again, I call on OMSI to come clean and tell the entire story, including who made the decision to pull the plug on the Oregon AMS and why they waited until the very last minute. Their press release from Middleton was a disgraceful attempt to spin this story. Honesty is the only approach that will work here. We will get the entire story, whether or not OMSI cooperates. See TV-12’s Mark Nelson’s excellent summary here.
As a FOOTNOTE:
OMSI recently held one of their “Science Pub” events on Global Warming. It featured a ‘climate hysteria’ scientist from Penn State who must have been a colleague of Professor Michael Mann. His message was apparently heavily alarmist, but I only found out about the event after it had occurred. Did OMSI seek to schedule an opposing viewpoint with us or with other skeptics? Have they sought “balance” on this topic in the recent past? Those are, of course, completely absurd questions! There is only one “approved” perspective at OMSI, and it isn’t ours.
Icecap Note: It is obvious Mote is running scared, afraid to be exposed. His peer review paper in the AMS BAMS was panned. It had cherry picked study interval which showed a decline of western snowpack which he attributed to global warming. Other scientists in the Northwest like George Taylor and Mark Albright showed had he looked at the full period of record, you would see cyclical changes but no trend. Mote chose 1950-2000 period which had 26 years of cold PDO (and heavy western snows from more La Ninas) and ended with 23 years of warm PDO and more El Ninos where the stormn track is suppressed south and east). For his opposition to Mote, Albright, the assistant state climatologist behind Mote was relieved of his duties. Mote replaced Taylor as OR state climatologist at uber-liberal OSU. When your research is on shaky grounds like Mote (and Mann), you work extra hard to preserve your position and undeserved reputation.
The Oregonian editoral staff, no skeptics took on the museum here.
See more examples here.
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Students against coal would benefit from more research and facts
The Nov. 20 article “Advocates: Coal an unhealthy choice for UVa” by Kurt Walters documents the Sierra Student Coalition’s “Beyond Coal” campaign. It probably pains them to be reminded that “coal” is the first part of the word “coalition.”
The source for their concerns about particulates and nitrous oxides is unspecified “environmentalists.” No evidence is presented documenting levels of these two byproducts in the vicinity of the power plant at the University of Virginia. The relation to triggering asthma is taken as a given. Similar linking of automobile exhaust to childhood asthma was presented at recent Albemarle County Board of Supervisor meetings related to the U.S. 29 Western Bypass project.
The November 2011 issue of “Pediatrics” article by J.T. McBride, MD, presents scientific evidence for a strong link between acetaminophen use and the current asthma epidemic. The association holds up when measured across countries, double-blind studies, and environmental changes. The journal report contains the recommendation that children at risk for asthma avoid the use of acetaminophen. Perhaps the students might better spend their time in spreading this information.
The UVa plant operator notes a mercury emission of 4.6 ounces for the past year. Rounding upward, I get the equivalent of 130 grams of mercury. The ubiquitous compact fluorescent bulb (CFL) contains about 5 milligrams of imported Chinese mercury. If there are 26,000 such bulbs in the city and county, and they wind up in trash dumps, some significant portion of that mercury is released into our environment. Beloved mother nature releases an estimated 9,000 to 10,000 tons of mercury per year.
The lack of scientific basis for the student concern is captured in their quote: “Much of the opposition to the UVa plant is symbolic.” Concern for communities harmed by mountaintop removal does not appear to extend to concern for the economic well-being of such communities.
Charles Battig, MD
VA-Scientists and Engineers for Energy and Environment
Albemarle County
Things don’t look promising for the perennial climate confab which convenes in Durban, South Africa today. There is little chance of extending the expiring 1997 Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Kyoto has turned into a giant international scam that has already wasted hundreds of billions, with little to show for it; in fact, the increase in atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases has been accelerating.
What brings nearly 200 delegations together is a dream—the forlorn hope that developed nations who have ratified the Protocol will come up with a $100-billion-per-year aid program. This is supposed to allow developing nations to adapt to the putative climate disasters that the IPCC, the U.N.’s climate-science panel, has been predicting for more than 20 years. The U.S., which never ratified Kyoto, is expected to supply the lion’s share of this subsidy. Fat chance; just look at the polls and listen to the statements from leading Republican presidential candidates who denounce these disaster predictions as “hoax” and “poppycock.”
But the 10,000 or so Durban attendees—official delegates, U.N. and government officials, journalists, NGO types, and other hangers-on—will have a grand old time: two weeks of feasting, partying, living it up in luxury hotels, and greeting old friends at this 17th reunion—all at someone else’s expense. Statesmen will arrive on the last day to sign important-sounding communiqués and quickly depart before having to explain just how they will “save the climate” and humanity.
Developed nations are on a guilt trip, convinced that their industrial development has resulted in most of the past rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But is this necessarily bad? Have extreme climate events really increased? Can we even trace and prove a measurable anthropogenic effect on climate? Or, more likely perhaps, have higher CO2 levels improved crop yields and averted mass starvation of a growing world population? What does science have to say about this?
That’s where the U.N.-IPCC should come into play. But its credibility has been irreparably damaged—especially in the past two years. Personally, I tend to discount the recent revelations of the e-mails of “Climategate” bearing on IPCC incompetence and lack of trustworthiness. These e-mails are not telling me anything new. The “usual suspects” are seen to be plotting and scheming to support “the cause”—even as some of them are beginning to have doubts. Yet they continue to hide information, manipulate data, and subvert the peer-review process, the bedrock of scientific integrity. The damage they cause to the general scientific enterprise is hard to overestimate.
But quite aside from the non-ethical behavior of the IPCC principals, what about the science itself? Perhaps the science isn’t so certain after all—even though the IPCC report of 2007 claims to be 90 to 99 percent sure that most of the claimed warming between 1978 and 2000 is anthropogenic, caused by carbon dioxide from the burning of fuels to generate energy.
As an atmospheric scientist, I am intrigued by the results of the BEST project, said to “confirm” the findings of the temperature analyses of the IPCC. Indeed, they all seem to show a rapid warming of the land surface between 1978 and 2000. So, it is claimed, this proves that “global warming is real.”
But I wonder about the logic of this assertion. After all, BEST and IPCC are not really independent; they all rely on readings from land-surface thermometers at weather stations. Even though BEST used about five times as many stations, these covered the same land area—less than 30% of the Earth’s surface—with recording stations that are poorly distributed, mainly in the U.S. and Western Europe.
The warmistas apparently have not listened to the somewhat skeptical pronouncements from Prof. Richard Muller, the originator and leader of the well-documented and transparent BEST study. He states that 70% of U.S. stations are badly sited and don’t meet the standards set by government; the rest of the world is likely worse.
But unlike the land surface, the atmosphere has shown no warming trend, either over land or over ocean—according to satellites and independent data from weather balloons. This indicates to me that there is something very wrong with the land-surface data. Climate models, run on supercomputers, all insist that the atmosphere must warm faster than the surface—and so does theory.
How, then, does one explain the absence of any warming of the atmosphere? I have real doubts about reported warming of the oceans during the same time period. And there is little question that proxy (non-thermometer) data show mostly no post-1978 warming trend. I note that the multi-proxy analysis published by Michael Mann et al (Nature, 1998) suddenly stops in 1978. I would place a small bet that this analysis shows no post-1978 warming—which may be why it was withheld.
None of the warmistas can explain why the climate hasn’t warmed in the 21st century, while CO2 has been increasing rapidly. Muller is careful to make no claim whatsoever that the warming he finds is due to human causes. He tells us that one third of the 39,000 stations used by BEST show cooling, not warming trends—and admits that “the uncertainty [involved in these stations] is large compared to the analyses of global warming.” Muller nevertheless insists that if he uses a large enough set of bad numbers, he could get a good average. I am not so sure.
It might be a good idea if BEST would carry out some prudent internal checks to eliminate possible sources of error. Of course, the most important checks must come from records—atmosphere, ocean, and proxies—that are independent of weather station thermometers. Even then, it may be difficult to pinpoint the exact causes of climate change.
I conclude, therefore, that the balance of evidence favors little if any global warming during 1978-2000; it contradicts the main conclusion of the IPCC—i.e., that recent warming is “very likely” (90%-99% certain) caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases like CO2. There is no evidence at all for significant future warming. BEST is a valuable effort, but it does not settle the climate debate.
So we are left with a puzzle: why do land-surface data differ from all other independent climate results? Is there really substantial global warming to support the IPCC’s conclusion of AGW? These are the fundamental questions to focus on in Durban—not extension of the moribund Kyoto Protocol.
S. Fred Singer is professor emeritus at the University of Virginia and director of the Science & Environmental Policy Project. He is a senior fellow of the Heartland Institute and of the Independent Institute. His specialty is atmospheric and space physics. An expert in remote sensing and satellites, he served as the founding director of the US Weather Satellite Service and, more recently, as vice chair of the US National Advisory Committee on Oceans & Atmosphere. He is co-author of Climate Change Reconsidered (2009 and 2011) and of Unstoppable Global Warming (2007).
Things don’t look promising for the perennial climate confab in Durban, South Africa. There is little chance of extending the Kyoto Protocol - a giant international scam that has already wasted hundreds of billions, with little to show for it. In fact, the increase in atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases has been accelerating.
What brings nearly 200 delegations together is a dream, the forlorn hope that developed nations who have ratified the Protocol will come up with a $100 billion per year aid program; this is supposed to allow developing nations to adapt to the putative climate disasters that the IPCC - the UN’s climate-science panel, has been predicting for more than 20 years. The US, which never ratified Kyoto, is supposed to supply the lion’s share of this subsidy. Fat chance; just look at the polls.
Developed nations are on a guilt trip, having convinced themselves that their industrial development has resulted in most of the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But is this bad? Have extreme climate events really increased? Can we even trace and prove a measurable anthropogenic effect on climate? Or, perhaps, have higher CO2 levels improved crop yields and averted mass starvation of a growing world population? What does science have to say about this?
That’s where the UN-IPCC should come into play. And its credibility has been under attack - especially in the past two years. Personally, I tend to discount the recent revelations of the e-mails of Climategate. They are not telling me anything new. The “usual suspects” are seen to be plotting and scheming to support “the cause” - even as some of them are beginning to have doubts. Yet they continue to hide information, manipulate data, and subvert the peer-review process, the bedrock of scientific integrity. The damage they cause to the general scientific enterprise is hard to over-estimate.
But quite aside from the non-ethical behavior of the IPCC principals, what about the science itself? Perhaps the science isn’t so certain after all - even though the IPCC report of 2007 claims to be 90 to 99 percent sure that most of the claimed warming between 1978 and 2000 is anthropogenic, caused by carbon dioxide from the burning of fuels to generate energy.
As an atmospheric scientist, I am intrigued by the just-announced results of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project, said to “confirm” the findings of the temperature analyses of the IPCC. Indeed, they all seem to show a rapid warming of the land surface between 1978 and 2000. So, it is claimed, this shows that “global warming is real.”
But I wonder about the logic of this assertion. After all, BEST and IPCC are not really independent; they all rely on readings from land-surface thermometers. How then does one explain the absence of any warming of the atmosphere (as seen by satellites and, independently, by balloon-borne radiosondes)? I have real doubts about reported warming of the oceans during the same time period. And there is little doubt that proxy (non-thermometer) data show mostly no post-1978 warming trend. I note that the multi-proxy analysis published by Michael Mann et al [Nature 1998] suddenly stops in 1978. I would place a small bet that this analysis shows no post-1978 warming—which may be why it was withheld.
So we are left with a puzzle: Why do land-surface data differ from all other independent datasets? Is there really substantial global warming to support the IPCC’s conclusion of AGW? These are the fundamental questions to focus on in Durban - not extension of the moribund Kyoto Protocol.
S. Fred Singer is professor emeritus at the University of Virginia and director of the Science & Environmental Policy Project. He is a Senior Fellow of the Heartland Institute and of the Independent Institute. His specialty is atmospheric and space physics. An expert in remote sensing and satellites, he served as the founding director of the US Weather Satellite Service and, more recently, as vice chair of the US National Advisory Committee on Oceans & Atmosphere. He is co-author of Climate Change Reconsidered [2009 and 2011] and of Unstoppable Global Warming [2007].
Der Spiegel reports today how the UN has just come out with a new report claiming the big threat now is local heat waves and freak storms.
That’s quite a change from global-wide warming and sea level rise.
Remember how for years and years UN scientists, armed with their mighty models, warned the planet faced massive hurricanes, rapid sea level rise and global-wide warming? Funny how we’ve been hearing very little about that lately. We’ve gone from “global warming” to “spot heating” with local storms sprinkled in.
Maybe the change in narrative has something to do with the hard statistics showing no real hurricanes hitting the USA in over 3 years or so. In fact it’s been yet another year with not a hurricane hitting the coast. Indeed tropical cyclone activity looks everything but out of control, and has been taming big time for 20 years! See: Ryan Maue. Can’t dupe the public with that anymore.
Even worse (if you’re an alarmist) is that sea levels are dropping! See Steve Goddard’s site here. They’ve been showing a declining trend over the last couple years. Oh dear! oh dear! The models never predicted that.
These disappearing horrors, once their favorites, have turned into shock and awe over the warmist camp. It’s panic time for them. How on Earth are they now supposed to spread fear and panic when all their old horror scenarios are dissolving before their very eyes?
The answer of course is to trot out new ones, this time they’re using horrors where the statistics are incomplete, thus making it difficult to disprove alleged increasing trends. Not only that, their models have suddenly begun to show they’re coming! And we all know how flawless their models are.
Der Spiegel reports today on how a new UN study has now just come up with local extreme heat waves as the next man-made climate disaster. It’s perfect - man-made heat waves are now lurking somewhere out there, waiting to pounce on unsuspecting regions and fry unprepared citizens. It could happen anywhere, and you may be next! The UN cites Russia and Texas as compelling evidence. Also waiting to ambush locally are storms and flash floods, so says the UN.
But even Der Spiegel is not so convinced and adds:
“This year other studies show no increase in weather extremes: Winter storms in the northern hemisphere have been trending less, report scientists in the magazine “Tellus”. The same goes for river flooding in USA. That US rivers are being influenced by man-made climate change cannot be discerned, the US Geological Service summed up in October.”
Global sea level rise and global-scale warming are obviously dead. Looks like a tough road ahead for warmists and their desperate efforts to keep the climate Halloween party going.
