There are several global climate models (GCMs) produced by many different groups. There are a half dozen from the USA, some from the UK Met Office, a well known one from Australia, and so on. GCMs are a truly global effort. These GCMs are of course referenced by the IPCC, and each version is known to the creators of the other versions. Much is made of the fact that these various GCMs show rough agreement with each other. People have the sense that, since so many “different” GCMs agree, we should have more confidence that what they say is true. Today I will discuss why this view is false.

Now, each climate model, as a result of the many approximations that must be made, has, if you like, hundreds (even thousands) of knobs that can be dialed to and fro. Each twist of the dial produces a difference in the output. Tweaking these dials, then, is a necessary part of the model building process. The models are tuned so that they, as closely as possible, first are able to produce climate that looks like the past, already observed, climate. Much time is spent tuning and tweaking the models so that they can, at least roughly, reproduce past climate. Thus, the fact that all the GCMs can roughly represent the past climate is again not as interesting as it first seemed. They better had, or nobody would seriously consider the model as a contender.

Reproducing past data is a necessary but not sufficient condition that the models can predict future data. Thus, it is also not at all clear how these tweakings affect the accuracy in predicting new data, which is data that was not used in any way to build the models, that is, future data. Read more on Dr. Briggs discusssion on the climate models and then be sure to read through the comments where he gets into a lively ‘discussion’ with Gavin Schmidt, Craig Loehle and Dr. Douglass and others.

Dr. William M. Briggs specializes in the statistics of forecast evaluation, serves on the American Meteorological Society’s Probability and Statistics Committee and is an Associate Editor of Monthly Weather Review

Thank you for your dedication to protecting our environment. Clean air and clean water are essential to preserving life on planet Earth. Protecting all species and natural lands and forests are admirable priorities. Recycling and a green lifestyle are wonderful. Making the environment the most important thing in your life is a good thing, not a problem. I support you.

But we do have a problem. You have vigorously embraced the Global Warming predictions of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and are using the warning of uncontrollable warming and a resulting environmental calamity to campaign for elimination of fossil fuels. Your environmentally conscious friends in politics and in the media have united with you to create a barrage of news reports, documentaries, TV feature reports, movies, books, concerts and protest events to build support for your goals. The war against fossil fuels has become a massive scare campaign that is giving children nightmares.

Here’s what’s wrong with that: the science is wrong. There is no significant man-made Global Warming underway and the science on which the computer projections of weather chaos are based is badly flawed. Here is what I am suggesting you do. Campaign for your environmental goals on the basis of their own merit. Let go of the global warming frenzy before it leaves you discredited and embarrassed. Stop screaming, “The sky is falling.” It is not.

Do your good work. Devote your lives to our environment. In many ways you will succeed. We are all grateful for your love of the planet. But, don’t use scare tactics. Most of all I urge you not to become extremists.  And, may I encourage you to live your lives in a loving way, love your fellow human beings and our wonderful advanced standard of living and way of life as much as you love the Earth. Read full letter here.

There seems to be an unwritten assumption among environmentalists - and among the media - that any influence humans have on nature is, by definition, bad. I even see it in scientific papers written by climate researchers. For instance, if we can measure some minute amount of a trace gas in the atmosphere at the South Pole, well removed from its human source, we are astonished at the far-reaching effects of mankind’s “pollution.”

But if nature was left undisturbed, would it be any happier and more peaceful? Would the carnivores stop eating those poor, defenseless herbivores, as well as each other? Would fish and other kinds of sea life stop infringing on the rights of others by feasting on them? Would there be no more droughts, hurricanes, floods, heat waves, tornadoes, or glaciers flowing toward the sea?

In the case of global warming, the alleged culprit - carbon dioxide - just happens to be necessary for life on Earth. How can Al Gore say with a straight face that we are treating the atmosphere like an “open sewer” by dumping carbon dioxide into it? Would he say the same thing if we were dumping more oxygen into the atmosphere? Or more nitrogen?

As a climate researcher, I am increasingly convinced that most of our recent global warming has been natural, not manmade. If true, this would mean that global temperatures can be expected to peak in the coming years (if they haven’t already), and global cooling will eventually ensue.  Just for the sake of argument, let us assume that manmade global warming really is a false alarm. In that case, we would still need to ask: What are the other negative effects of pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere? Read what they are and why they may not be problems here.

A cool-water anomaly known as La Nina occupied the tropical Pacific Ocean throughout 2007 and early 2008. In April 2008, scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced that while the La Nina was weakening, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation-a larger-scale, slower-cycling ocean pattern-had shifted to its cool phase.

This image shows the sea surface temperature anomaly in the Pacific Ocean from April 14-21, 2008. The anomaly compares the recent temperatures measured by the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E) on NASA’s Aqua satellite with an average of data collected by the NOAA Pathfinder satellites from 1985-1997. Places where the Pacific was cooler than normal are blue, places where temperatures were average are white, and places where the ocean was warmer than normal are red.

The cool water anomaly in the center of the image shows the lingering effect of the year-old La Nina. However, the much broader area of cooler-than-average water off the coast of North America from Alaska (top center) to the equator is a classic feature of the cool phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). The cool waters wrap in a horseshoe shape around a core of warmer-than-average water. (In the warm phase, the pattern is reversed).

Unlike El Nino and La Nina, which may occur every 3 to 7 years and last from 6 to 18 months, the PDO can remain in the same phase for 20 to 30 years. The shift in the PDO can have significant implications for global climate, affecting Pacific and Atlantic hurricane activity, droughts and flooding around the Pacific basin, the productivity of marine ecosystems, and global land temperature patterns. “This multi-year Pacific Decadal Oscillation ‘cool’ trend can intensify La Nina or diminish El Nino impacts around the Pacific basin,” said Bill Patzert, an oceanographer and climatologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. “The persistence of this large-scale pattern [in 2008] tells us there is much more than an isolated La Nina occurring in the Pacific Ocean.”

Icecap Note: We have been noting this shift in the Pacific as has Bill for a while. As he says it favors more of these cool La Ninas, more tornadoes, hurricanes, winter snow, spring flooding and summer heat waves and drought - and importantly a cooling of the global temperatures, which will be augmented if cycle 24 proves to be quiet and when the AMO cycles back into its cool mode. ALSO see Dr. Don Easterbrook’s take on what this means here. 

The following data does not fit the assumption that human activities result in global warming. It follows then that the assumption that anthropogenic CO2 causes global warming is fundamentally flawed.

· Ice core data shows that there have been repeated heating and cooling events on the earth long before human activity was significant. Global warming is a
naturally occurring event. Attempting to interfere in this process may have unpredictable consequences

· The Earth cooled between 1940 and 1975 while fossil fuel consumption rose dramatically. The Earth should have warmed if CO2 emissions from fossil fuel
consumption is a cause of global warming. The theory does not fit the data.

· Ignoring data that does not fit a theory is poor science. Only one inconsistent piece of data is necessary to negate a theory.

· Reducing CO2 emissions and introducing carbon trading will not prevent global warming, but will make energy dramatically more expensive to the consumer.

The evidence does not support the commonly held view that human activities that produce increased levels of CO2, is a cause of global warming.
Global warming is a naturally occurring and recurring event unrelated to human activity. Cutting CO2 emissions therefore will not alter global warming. Trading carbon credits will have no effect on global warming. It would be more useful to study the period from 1940 to 1975, when the Earth cooled hile fossil fuel consumption skyrocketed, to find out why the Earth cooled. This period holds the key to the root cause of global warming.

See full size image here

Read more here.