NOAA’s State of the Climate report for the winter season (December through February) anthe month of February, state that temperatures were below normal for the contiguous United States. The winter season was wetter than normal; however precipitation in February alone was slightly below average.

Based on data going back to 1895, the monthly analyses, prepared by scientists at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., are part of the climate services that NOAA provides to businesses, communities and governments so they may make informed decisions to safeguard their social and economic well-being.

U.S. Temperature Highlights

High resolution (Credit: NOAA)

For the winter season, 63 (appears based on number of divisions not area) percent of the country experienced below normal temperatures. In contrast to this national trend, Maine experienced the third warmest winter. February’s average temperature was 32.4 degrees F, which is 2.2 degrees below the long-term average.

Cold air in the wake of several reinforcing Arctic air masses dominated much of the United States during February, creating temperatures that were much-below average in the Deep South and below average in the Plains and mid-Atlantic states. Both the South and Southeast climate regions experienced their seventh coldest February on record. Meanwhile, warmer-than-average temperatures dominated the Northwest and Northeast climate regions. Florida had its fourth coldest February, Louisiana its fifth coldest, and Alabama, Georgia and Texas each had their sixth coldest. It was the seventh coldest February in Arkansas, while both Mississippi and South Carolina experienced their eighth coldest.

U.S. Precipitation Highlights

High resolution (Credit: NOAA)

Precipitation for the winter season was above average while it averaged slightly below the long term mean for the month of February. The season-long wet spell was notable for the Southeast, as Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina each had their eighth wettest winter. Precipitation was also much above normal for South Dakota, Virginia, New Jersey and Maryland. Wyoming and Idaho experienced their eighth and ninth driest winters, respectively.
Regionally, the active weather pattern in the South, Southwest, and Northeast created above normal precipitation for the month. The Northwest, West North Central, East North Central, and Central climate regions each had below-normal February precipitation. On the state level, New Mexico experienced its seventh wettest February on record. Conversely, Idaho had its seventh driest, and Wyoming its eighth driest.

Other Highlights

Major snowstorms on Feb. 4-7 and Feb. 9-11 plagued the Atlantic states. These storms ranked as Category Three (major) and Two (significant) storms respectively on the Northeast Snow Impacts Scale (NESIS). Combined and treated as one storm, they would become only the third Category Five (extreme) storm (the most extreme category) of the NESIS record. A third storm, also ranking as a Category Three on the NESIS scale, occurred across southern New England on Feb. 23-28. February 2010 is the first month during the NESIS period of record, since 1956, to place three storms of Category Two or greater.

Several seasonal snowfall records were set: (previous record)
Baltimore: 79.9 inches (62.5 inches, 1995-96)
Washington (Dulles): 72.8 inches (61.9 inches, 1995-96)
Washington (National): 55.9 inches (54.4 inches, 1898-1899)
Wilmington, Del.: 66.7 inches (55.9 inches, 1995-96)
Philadelphia: 71.6 inches (65.5 inches, 1995-96)
Atlantic City, N.J.: 49.9 inches (46.9 inches, 1966-67)

In several eastern cities, February was the snowiest month on record: (previous record)
Washington (Dulles): 46.1 inches (34.9 inches, February 2003)
Central Park, N.Y.: 36.9 inches (30.5 inches, March 1896)
Pittsburgh: 48.7 inches (40.2 inches, January 1978)

Background information on this winter’s snowstorms and the links to climate change is available online here.

Icecap additonal notes: Dallas Fort Worth came within 0.5 inches of their 1977/78 record and Des Moines is within 3 inches of an all time record set in 1911/12. Note the consistent above normal snowcover through the winter. It ended up second snowiest since records started in 1967.

Above is the top 12 winters for average snowcover. 2009/10 trailed only 1977/78 and finished ahead of 2007/08 and 2002/03 (courtesy Rutger’s snowlab).

See also here, where the Russian winter ranked perhaps as the coldest ever with very heavy snows. See here an excellent summary of the winter of 2009-10 in Europe, storm by atorm.

WASHINGTON - Fifteen phony products - including a gasoline-powered alarm clock - won a label from the government certifying them as energy efficient in a test of the federal “Energy Star” program.

Investigators concluded the program is “vulnerable to fraud and abuse.” A report released Friday said government investigators tried to pass off 20 fake products as energy efficient, and only two were rejected. Three others didn’t get a response.

The program run by the Energy Department and Environmental Protection Agency is supposed to identify energy-efficient products to help consumers. Tax credits and rebates serve as incentives to buy Energy Star products. But the General Accountability Office, Congress’ investigative arm, said Energy Star doesn’t verify claims made by manufacturers - which might explain the gasoline-powered alarm clock, not to mention a product billed as an air room cleaner that was actually a space heater with a feather duster and fly strips attached, and a computer monitor that won approval within 30 minutes of submission.

The alarm clock’s size - 1 1/2-feet high and 15 inches wide - and model name “Black Gold” should have raised alarms with Energy Star, but the automated review system didn’t catch on to the deception. “EPA officials confirmed that because the energy-efficiency information was plausible, it was likely that no one read the product description information,” GAO said.

In addition, the four phony GAO companies were able to become Energy Star partners, giving them access to the program’s logos and other promotional resources. Energy Star didn’t call any of the companies or visit the addresses, and sent only four of the 20 products to be verified by a third-party, GAO said.

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee who requested the study, said that “taxpayers are shortchanged twice” when Energy Star products are not thoroughly vetted - when consumers are willing to pay more for the products, and when taxpayer dollars are spent encouraging the purchases. The GAO findings were first reported by The New York Times.

According to the GAO, the EPA and Energy Department told investigators in briefings that although the program is based on manufacturers’ certifying their products meet efficiency standards, that efficiency is ensured through aftermarket tests and self-policing. The GAO did not look at those efforts.

The GAO did note that the two agencies said they are shifting to a more rigorous upfront screening process. In a news release last week, they announced additional testing of products and an ongoing verification program. In a joint statement Friday, the agencies said consumers can have confidence in the Energy Star label.

“In fact, a review last year found that 98 percent of the products tested met or exceeded the Energy Star requirements, and last year alone, Americans with the help of Energy Star saved $17 billion on their energy bills.” But the agencies acknowledge the report raised important issues.

“That’s why we have started an enhanced testing program and have already taken enforcement actions against companies that have violated the rules,” the agencies’ statement said.

See post here.

------------------------

Environmental ‘Crisis’ and Government Power
By Barun S. Mitra, Wall Street Journal Asia

The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change admitted for the first time last month that it is facing a crisis of confidence. But the IPCC’s failings go far beyond the recent spate of errors identified in its reports. The problem began with the global political climate that led to the formation of the IPCC two decades ago.

Contrary to popular perception, the IPCC is not a scientific organization. It does no research of its own. Composed of scientists nominated by different governments, its key function is to collate evidence of human-induced climate change, not just changes in climate.

It is hardly surprising that with such an inherently biased objective the scientists lost their objectivity. Many of them went on a crusade to support the political goal of proving anthropogenic global warming. Concerns about scientific objectivity and critical discourse were thrown overboard. Why did political masters set such a nonscientific mandate for their scientists at the IPCC? Because over the past half century, governments have often ridden the green bandwagon to justify public-sector expansion.

Almost every decade we have witnessed the birth of a new green scare, apparently based on new scientific findings. First came the campaign against the pesticide DDT in the 1960s, followed by the population bomb in the 1970s. Then we had the campaign to protect forests and species in the 1980s, the ozone hole in the 1990s, and most recently the crescendo over climate change leading up to last year’s Copenhagen summit. Each time, the scare was shown to be false or overhyped. For instance, millions of people in the developing world died of malaria because DDT was wrongly vilified. It took decades to overcome the blanket ban of the chemical, and now it is once again being used to control mosquitoes in Africa.

Predictions of a rising population depleting the world’s resources have proven equally false and destructive. India today is enjoying the demographic dividend of a young workforce, while China is getting worried at the prospect that it may become the first society in history to grow old before it becomes rich. Likewise, forests are making a surprising comeback in many parts of the world, as the rise in agricultural productivity and economic growth are lowering demand for agricultural land.

Clearly, the track record of green prophecies has been pathetic. And with the collapse of the Soviet empire, and periodic economic turmoil, (such as the Asian economic crisis in 1997, and the dot-com bust in 2000), the public’s confidence in their leaders’ capacity to make effective economic policies has been shaken. It is in this context that climate change provided a new opportunity for many governments to legitimize their role, and expand their scope. The formation of the IPCC and its apparent focus on the science of climate change allowed the political establishments to claim science as the basis for proposed climate policies that increased the power of government and curtailed the private sector. The time frame of the projected climate change was longer than earlier green crusades, typically from 50 to 100 years. This will allow policy makers to escape accountability for their misguided policies since they would be out of office by the time the consequences became apparent.

The relationship between a section of political leaders and scientists turned out to be mutually reinforcing. Policy makers justified their empire building on the basis of “scientific consensus,” and scientists found a very profitable avenue for political influence and access to funding. To sell this climate strategy, political leaders and scientists adopted the classic carrot-and-stick approach. The rich countries offered money to the poor ones in an attempt to buy support for the climate policies. More recently there is the threat of trade sanctions, which reflect the stick.

This approach was apparent in the build-up to the Copenhagen summit last December. The distinction between scientists and activists virtually disappeared as the scaremongering reached a new depth. The rich countries’ carrots virtually broke the Group of 77 developing-world nations, as some of the poorest countries found the lure of easy money in hand more attractive than the fruits of economic growth in the future.

The grand design failed on three counts, and the world was saved from the onslaught of the climate crusade. Copenhagen coincided with the global economic slowdown, and therefore the promise of money seemed more like a mirage. Second, the scientific authority of the IPCC collapsed. And finally, deepening developmental aspirations in some of the major developing countries, such as Brazil, China, India and South Africa, meant that the leadership in these countries could not afford to barter their economic future for the sake of some small change today.

The current crisis in the environmental movement is not limited to a few leading climate scientists; its root lies in the political shifts taking place in many countries. Leaders are being forced to take their responsibilities more seriously, and not to outsource it to scientists. And scientists will have to regain public confidence by returning to their traditional values of objectivity and intellectual rigor. Read more here.

Mr. Mitra is director of the Liberty Institute, an independent think tank in New Delhi, and a columnist for WSJ.com.

Anyone who has studied the history of science knows that scientists are not immune to the non-rational dynamics of the herd.

A December 18 Washington Post poll, released on the final day of the ill-fated Copenhagen climate summit, reported “four in ten Americans now saying that they place little or no trust in what scientists have to say about the environment.” Nor is the poll an outlier. Several recent polls have found “climate change” skepticism rising faster than sea levels on Planet Algore (not to be confused with Planet Earth, where sea levels remain relatively stable).

Many of the doubt-inducing climate scientists and their media acolytes attribute this rising skepticism to the stupidity of Americans, philistines unable to appreciate that there is “a scientific consensus on climate change.” One of the benefits of the recent Climategate scandal, which revealed leading climate scientists manipulating data, methods, and peer review to exaggerate the evidence of significant global warming, may be to permanently deflate the rhetorical value of the phrase “scientific consensus.”

Even without the scandal, the very idea of scientific consensus should give us pause. “Consensus,” according to Merriam-Webster, means both “general agreement” and “group solidarity in sentiment and belief.” That pretty much sums up the dilemma. We want to know whether a scientific consensus is based on solid evidence and sound reasoning, or social pressure and groupthink.

Anyone who has studied the history of science knows that scientists are not immune to the non-rational dynamics of the herd. Many false ideas enjoyed consensus opinion at one time. Indeed, the “power of the paradigm” often shapes the thinking of scientists so strongly that they become unable to accurately summarize, let alone evaluate, radical alternatives. Question the paradigm, and some respond with dogmatic fanaticism.

We shouldn’t, of course, forget the other side of the coin. There are always cranks and conspiracy theorists. No matter how well founded a scientific consensus, there’s someone somewhere - easily accessible online - that thinks it’s all hokum. Sometimes these folks turn out to be right. But often, they’re just cranks whose counsel is best disregarded.

So what’s a non-scientist citizen, without the time to study the scientific details, to do? How is the ordinary citizen to distinguish, as Andrew Coyne puts it, “between genuine authority and mere received wisdom? Conversely, how do we tell crankish imperviousness to evidence from legitimate skepticism?” Are we obligated to trust whatever we’re told is based on a scientific consensus unless we can study the science ourselves? When can you doubt a consensus? When should you doubt it?

Your best bet is to look at the process that produced, maintains, and communicates the ostensible consensus. I don’t know of any exhaustive list of signs of suspicion, but, using climate change as a test study, I propose this checklist as a rough-and-ready list of signs for when to consider doubting a scientific “consensus,” whatever the subject. One of these signs may be enough to give pause. If they start to pile up, then it’s wise to be suspicious.

(1) When different claims get bundled together.

Usually, in scientific disputes, there is more than one claim at issue. With global warming, there’s the claim that our planet, on average, is getting warmer. There’s also the claim that human emissions are the main cause of it, that it’s going to be catastrophic, and that we have to transform civilization to deal with it. These are all different assertions with different bases of evidence. Evidence for warming, for instance, isn’t evidence for the cause of that warming. All the polar bears could drown, the glaciers melt, the sea levels rise 20 feet, Newfoundland become a popular place to tan, and that wouldn’t tell us a thing about what caused the warming. This is a matter of logic, not scientific evidence. The effect is not the same as the cause.

There’s a lot more agreement about (1) a modest warming trend since about 1850 than there is about (2) the cause of that trend. There’s even less agreement about (3) the dangers of that trend, or of (4) what to do about it. But these four propositions are frequently bundled together, so that if you doubt one, you’re labeled a climate change “skeptic” or “denier.” That’s just plain intellectually dishonest. When well-established claims are fused with separate, more controversial claims, and the entire conglomeration is covered with the label “consensus,” you have reason for doubt.

(2) When ad hominem attacks against dissenters predominate.

Personal attacks are common in any dispute simply because we’re human. It’s easier to insult than to the follow the thread of an argument. And just because someone makes an ad hominem argument, it doesn’t mean that their conclusion is wrong. But when the personal attacks are the first out of the gate, and when they seem to be growing in intensity and frequency, don your skeptic’s cap and look more closely at the evidence.

When it comes to climate change, ad hominems are all but ubiquitous. They are even smuggled into the way the debate is described. The common label “denier” is one example. Without actually making the argument, this label is supposed to call to mind the assertion of the “great climate scientist” Ellen Goodman: “I would like to say we’re at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let’s just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers.”

There’s an old legal proverb: If you have the facts on your side, argue the facts. If you have the law on your side, argue the law. If you have neither, attack the witness. When proponents of a scientific consensus lead with an attack on the witness, rather than on the arguments and evidence, be suspicious.

(3) When scientists are pressured to toe the party line.

The famous Lysenko affair in the former Soviet Union is often cited as an example of politics trumping good science. It’s a good example, but it’s often used to imply that such a thing could only happen in a totalitarian culture, that is, when all-powerful elites can control the flow of information. But this misses the almost equally powerful conspiracy of agreement, in which interlocking assumptions and interests combine to give the appearance of objectivity where none exists. For propaganda purposes, this voluntary conspiracy is even more powerful than a literal conspiracy by a dictatorial power, precisely because it looks like people have come to their position by a fair and independent evaluation of the evidence.

Tenure, job promotions, government grants, media accolades, social respectability, Wikipedia entries, and vanity can do what gulags do, only more subtly. Alexis de Tocqueville warned of the power of the majority in American society to erect “formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them.” He could have been writing about climate science.

Climategate, and the dishonorable response to its revelations by some official scientific bodies, show that scientists are under pressure to toe the orthodox party line on climate change, and receive many benefits for doing so. That’s another reason for suspicion.

(4) When publishing and peer review in the discipline is cliquish.

Though it has its limits, the peer-review process is meant to provide checks and balances, to weed out bad and misleading work, and to bring some measure of objectivity to scientific research. At its best, it can do that. But when the same few people review and approve each other’s work, you invariably get conflicts of interest. This weakens the case for the supposed consensus, and becomes, instead, another reason to be suspicious. Nerds who follow the climate debate blogosphere have known for years about the cliquish nature of publishing and peer review in climate science (see here, for example).

(5) When dissenting opinions are excluded from the relevant peer-reviewed literature not because of weak evidence or bad arguments but as part of a strategy to marginalize dissent.

Besides mere cliquishness, the “peer review” process in climate science has, in some cases, been consciously, deliberately subverted to prevent dissenting views from being published. Again, denizens of the climate blogosphere have known about these problems for years, but Climategate revealed some of the gory details for the broader public. And again, this gives the lay public a reason to doubt the consensus.

(6) When the actual peer-reviewed literature is misrepresented.

Because of the rhetorical force of the idea of peer review, there’s the temptation to misrepresent it. We’ve been told for years that the peer-reviewed literature is virtually unanimous in its support for human-induced climate change. In Science, Naomi Oreskes even produced a “study” of the relevant literature supposedly showing “The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change.” In fact, there are plenty of dissenting papers in the literature, and this despite mounting evidence that the peer-review deck was stacked against them. The Climategate scandal also underscored this: The climate scientists at the center of the controversy complained in their emails about dissenting papers that managed to survive the peer-review booby traps they helped maintain, and fantasized about torpedoing a respected climate science journal with the temerity to publish a dissenting article.

(7) When consensus is declared hurriedly or before it even exists.

A well-rooted scientific consensus, like a mature oak, usually needs time to emerge. Scientists around the world have to do research, publish articles, read about other research, repeat experiments (where possible), have open debates, make their data and methods available, evaluate arguments, look at the trends, and so forth, before they eventually come to agreement. When scientists rush to declare a consensus, particularly when they claim a consensus that has yet to form, this should give any reasonable person pause.

In 1992, former Vice President Al Gore reassured his listeners, “Only an insignificant fraction of scientists deny the global warming crisis. The time for debate is over. The science is settled.” In the real 1992, however, Gallup “reported that 53% of scientists actively involved in global climate research did not believe global warming had occurred; 30% weren’t sure; and only 17% believed global warming had begun. Even a Greenpeace poll showed 47% of climatologists didn’t think a runaway greenhouse effect was imminent; only 36% thought it possible and a mere 13% thought it probable.” Seventeen years later, in 2009, Gore apparently determined that he needed to revise his own revisionist history, asserting that the scientific debate over human-induced climate change had raged until as late as 1999, but now there was true consensus. Of course, 2009 is when Climategate broke, reminding us that what had smelled funny before might indeed be a little rotten.

(8) When the subject matter seems, by its nature, to resist consensus.

It makes sense that chemists over time may come to unanimous conclusions about the results of some chemical reaction, since they can replicate the results over and over in their own labs. They can see the connection between the conditions and its effects. It’s easily testable. But many of the things under consideration in climate science are not like that. The evidence is scattered and hard to keep track of; it’s often indirect, imbedded in history and requiring all sorts of assumptions. You can’t rerun past climate to test it, as you can with chemistry experiments. And the headline-grabbing conclusions of climate scientists are based on complex computer models that climate scientists themselves concede do not accurately model the underlying reality, and receive their input, not from the data, but from the scientists interpreting the data. This isn’t the sort of scientific endeavor on which a wide, well-established consensus is easily rendered. In fact, if there really were a consensus on all the various claims surrounding climate science, that would be really suspicious. A fortiori, the claim of consensus is a bit suspicious as well.

(9) When “scientists say” or “science says” is a common locution.

In Newsweek’s April 28, 1975, issue, science editor Peter Gwynne claimed that “scientists are almost unanimous” that global cooling was underway. Now we are told, “Scientists say global warming will lead to the extinction of plant and animal species, the flooding of coastal areas from rising seas, more extreme weather, more drought and diseases spreading more widely.” “Scientists say” is hopelessly ambiguous. Your mind should immediately wonder: “Which ones?”

Other times this vague company of scientists becomes “SCIENCE,” as when we’re told “what science says is required to avoid catastrophic climate change.” “Science says” is an inherently weasely claim. “Science,” after all, is an abstract noun. It can’t say anything. Whenever you see that locution used to imply a consensus, it should trigger your baloney detector.

(10) When it is being used to justify dramatic political or economic policies.

Imagine hundreds of world leaders and nongovernmental organizations, science groups, and United Nations functionaries gathered for a meeting heralded as the most important conference since World War II, in which “the future of the world’is being decided."” These officials seem to agree that institutions of “global governance” need to be established to reorder the world economy and massively restrict energy resources. Large numbers of them applaud wildly when socialist dictators denounce capitalism. Strange philosophical and metaphysical activism surrounds the gathering. And we are told by our president that all of this is based, not on fiction, but on science - that is, a scientific consensus that human activities, particularly greenhouse gas emissions, are leading to catastrophic climate change.

We don’t have to imagine that scenario, of course. It happened in Copenhagen, in December. Now, none of this disproves the hypothesis of catastrophic, human induced climate change. But it does describe an atmosphere that would be highly conducive to misrepresentation. And at the very least, when policy consequences, which claim to be based on science, are so profound, the evidence ought to be rock solid. “Extraordinary claims,” the late Carl Sagan often said, “require extraordinary evidence.” When the megaphones of consensus insist that there’s no time, that we have to move, MOVE, MOVE!, you have a right to be suspicious.

(11) When the “consensus” is maintained by an army of water-carrying journalists who defend it with uncritical and partisan zeal, and seem intent on helping certain scientists with their messaging rather than reporting on the field as objectively as possible.

Do I really need to elaborate on this point?

(12) When we keep being told that there’s a scientific consensus.

A scientific consensus should be based on scientific evidence. But a consensus is not itself the evidence. And with really well-established scientific theories, you never hear about consensus. No one talks about the consensus that the planets orbit the sun, that the hydrogen molecule is lighter than the oxygen molecule, that salt is sodium chloride, that light travels about 186,000 miles per second in a vacuum, that bacteria sometimes cause illness, or that blood carries oxygen to our organs. The very fact that we hear so much about a consensus on catastrophic, human-induced climate change is perhaps enough by itself to justify suspicion.

To adapt that old legal aphorism, when you’ve got decisive scientific evidence on your side, you argue the evidence. When you’ve got great arguments, you make the arguments. When you don’t have decisive evidence or great arguments, you claim consensus. Download story here.

Jay Richards frequently writes for the Enterprise Blog and is a contributing editor of THE AMERICAN.

At 19.4 degrees, February 2010 was the second coldest February of record here (since 1983), missing February 1989’s 18.2 by just over one degree.

• There were three less-than-impressive daily record lows in the 0 to -3 range. But there were other more impressive records:

• 17 consecutive days with daily max temperatures at or below 32F tied a record set in December 1983.

• 22 days with daily max temperatures at or below 32F tied the January 1988 record (and exceeds it if you consider that February is a short month).

• The monthly maximum of 40F tied December 1983 for the lowest monthly max on record.

And the biggie record....

• The three-month winter average (December-February) of 20.2F is, by almost one degree, the coldest winter on record here (28 winters). History of the past five winters: 2005-06 - coldest winter since 1997-98. 2006-07 - coldest winter since 1992-93; last snow drift melted July 6. 2007-08 - coldest winter on record, beat 83-84 by 0.7 degrees. 2008-09 - near normal. 2009-10 - coldest winter, beat 07-08 by 0.9 degrees.

For comparison here’s my ten coldest months: Dec-09 16.5 Dec-83 17.2 Feb-89 18.2 Dec-90 18.5 Jan-85 18.7 Jan-07 18.8 Jan-88 19.1 Dec-07 19.4 Feb-10 19.4 Jan-08 19.7 Note that five of the cold months occurred during 1983-1990 (8 years), None during 1991-2005 (15 years), And five during 2007-2010 (4 years). The season’s snow stands at 140.5 inches, the fourth greatest end-of-February total (after 2007, 1987, and 1998). February 28th is the normal mid-point of our snow season, with, on average, 100 inches by February and another 100 inches in March and the other “spring” months (including June).

A series of cold winters at one location may not seem too important, but the story is the same across much of the country (and both hemispheres of the planet). On an annual basis, Coal Creek correlates with the entire state of Colorado With a correlation R = 0.95. The IPCC projects Colorado, the Rocky Mountains, and the Intermountain West to have the greatest warming in the “lower 48” states - about 4C, or 7F, over this century (see IPCC fig-11-8-3). According to the IPCC models, greenhouse gas warming should be greatest over continental interiors and in the middle troposphere, so Coal Creek Canyon is an ideal “global warming” monitoring site. Annual and winter temperatures here in the Rockies show that the new century’s projected warming is off to a shaky start. Here is a graph of winter temperatures since 1983 with various trend lines and curves fit to the data. The linear trend has winter temperatures cooling by 1.1F per century, but with a R-squared of 0.0021 this trend line is hardly significant. The 2nd- and 3rd-order trend line fits have higher correlations and more impressive downturns in recent years, and the five-year running mean also shows a recent decline. However, the best fit is with my favorite non-linear trend line shown in the second graph.

Enlarged here.

Enlarged here.

Enlarged here.

Global warming “deniers”: myth-conceptions abound

They’ve been compared to “flat earthers” and even “Holocaust deniers”. And, as the recent “Climategate” email scandal reveals, they have been blacklisted in certain professional circles. Scientists who disagree with the current consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) are dismissed by some colleagues and politicians as ignorant and irrelevant. Though there are certainly cranks out there who lend credence to this stereotype, not everyone who rejects the idea that global warming is a planetary crisis brought about by burning fossil fuels deserves to be vilified.

There are numerous myths surrounding those who are wrongly labeled “deniers” Most of them can be distilled into six basic accusations:

1. “Deniers” believe the climate has not warmed.

No one questions that there has been a slight, but unmistakable increase in global temperature since the end of the “Little Ice Age” in the early nineteenth century. Global average surface temperature has risen approximately 0.9C since 1850. But not all scientists attribute this change to the human addition of CO2 and other greenhouse gases to the air. Those who oppose the prevailing view on AGW point out that since temperatures began to increase well before CO2 levels were considered significant (c. 1940), a considerable part of this warming is due to natural variations in the climate. Such variations in the past have brought about abrupt climate changes with large swings in temperature.

Numerous articles have appeared in scientific journals over the last several years documenting a warm bias in official temperature measurements. This bias, which may account for up to half of the reported warming, is due largely to changes in land cover - especially the geographic expansion of cities which creates “urban heat islands.” An ongoing survey of over 1000 climate reporting stations in the United States, shows that 69% are poorly sited resulting in errors of 2C to 5C or more (www.surfacestations.org). Surface data has also been impaired from station dropout. Over two-thirds of the world’s stations were dropped from the climate network around 1990. Most of them were colder, high latitude and rural stations. 

2. “Deniers” are not real scientists.

Some of the world’s foremost atmospheric scientists, physicists, astronomers, and geologists disagree with the current consensus on anthropogenic global warming. These include Richard Lindzen (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Roger Pielke Sr. (University of Colorado), Roy Spencer and John Christy (University of Alabama), Willie Soon (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), Robert Carter (James Cook University, Australia), Fred Singer (University of Virginia), Will Happer (Princeton University), and Nils-Axel Morner (Stockholm University). In addition to these, there are hundreds of credentialed scientists at universities around the world who reject the hypothesis that CO2 induced warming dominates changes in earth’s climate system.

Though science is not based on authority, the inclusion of such high profile scientists should raise red flags when advocates claim that the “science is settled.”

3. “Deniers” are a tiny minority of scientists.

“Nay-sayers” are overshadowed by a vast majority of learned scientific bodies that support the consensus. But most scientific organizations, such as the American Meteorological Society, the American Physical Society, and the National Academies of Science, do not poll their members. Decisions and position statements are made by a small group of officials at the top of the organization. This has created sharp unrest within some professional societies.

The American Meteorological Society is a case in point. A recent survey of AMS broadcast meteorologists revealed that 50% of the respondents disagreed, and only 24% agreed, with the statement that, “Most of the warming since 1950 is very likely human-induced.” When asked if, “Global climate models are reliable in their projections for a warming of the planet,” only 19% agreed, while 62% disagreed (Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Oct. 2009). 

As the number of those who oppose the consensus grows, it appears that the “deniers” are not a tiny minority as is often claimed. 

4. “Deniers” are anti-environmental shills of Big Oil.

Only a small number of scientists who challenge the current consensus have direct ties to the fossil fuel industry. Most are funded by university departments, governments, or private institutions. Many receive no funding at all. Unfortunately, no amount of evidence can unseat the deeply held belief among some, that opposition to the AGW hypothesis is part of a conspiracy funded by big oil. The underlying fear is that any scientific research subsidized by big corporate money will be compromised.

But the blade cuts both ways. Climate research among those who espouse the prevailing view is supported by billions of dollars from government grants and green industries that have a vested interest in global warming. Why should research conducted or funded by environmental organizations and green energy be regarded as more reliable? Whether science is bought and sold by deep pockets, or made subservient to a political or philosophical ideology, the result is the same: Truth is compromised.

5. “Deniers” think CO2 is irrelevant.

The issue is not whether CO2 is irrelevant, but, rather, how relevant is it? The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) maintains that CO2 induced warming dominates the climate system. They project that increasing emissions will result in a 2C to 6C rise in global average temperature by the year 2100.

This has been widely misunderstood by the public to mean that energy absorbed and reradiated by atmospheric CO2 is the direct cause of the warming. In reality, the IPCC claims that CO2, acting alone, will result in only a 1.2C rise in temperature. The rest depends on whether the climate amplifies (positive feedback) or diminishes (negative feedback) CO2 forcing.

This is where the real dispute lies. Climate “sensitivity” is based on numerous interactions that are poorly understood. Scientists who disagree with the IPCC’s conclusions are not contesting the fact that CO2 can cause atmospheric warming (0.3C according to more conservative estimates). They disagree with the science behind the water vapor feedback mechanisms that are said to amplify this warming on a global scale. The complex and chaotic processes underlying these mechanisms, especially as they relate to cloud formation and precipitation, exceed the limits of our knowledge. As a result, climate feedback is not simply the product of numerical calculations ("straightforward physics") as is often supposed, but depends extensively on large scale estimates (parameterizations) by computer modelers.

“Deniers” demand empirical proof and are quick to point out that the water vapor feedback hypothesis is poorly supported by hard evidence, and even contradicted by the absence of warming in both the oceans and the atmosphere over the last several years. In fact, some scientists (Lindzen, Spencer, etc.) theorize that water vapor and cloud cover act like a thermostat (negative feedback) to maintain the earth’s temperature in approximate equilibrium.

6. “Deniers” believe humans have no impact on climate.

Scientists who challenge the status quo point out that we live in regional and local climates with vast differences in temperature and precipitation -differences that far outweigh changing global averages. Given these differences, the idea of “average global temperature” seems rather meaningless. More importantly, the human impact on climate is far greater at regional and local scales than it is on a global scale. These impacts include land use and land cover changes (e.g., deforestation, agriculture, urbanization) and aerosol pollution (e.g., soot, sulfur, reactive nitrogen, dust). Any one of these modifications can significantly alter temperature, evaporation, cloud cover, precipitation, and wind over a region - and perhaps beyond.

Though the global surface area of agricultural land alone is greater than the size of South America, the IPCC has largely ignored the influence of land cover and aerosols on regional climates. Moreover, climate models have shown no skill in projecting regional climate changes decades in advance.

But a wave of new research is forcing scientists to reevaluate the impact of these factors. Some have already concluded that the effect of CO2 has been overstated while regional changes in land use and aerosol pollution have been grossly underestimated. One recent study of U.S. climate has concluded that land use changes alone may account for 50% of the warming since 1950 (International Journal of Climatology, August, 2009).

“Deniers” vs. the “Consensus”

Though “deniers” unanimously agree that CO2 is not the main driver of climate change, they represent a diversity of scientific viewpoints on issues of climate change, green energy, and the environment - perhaps a greater diversity than scientists who are in lock-step with the consensus. The Climategate scandal has exposed a concerted effort on the part of some IPCC scientists to enforce this consensus by denying access to crucial data and marginalizing anyone who questions the scientific basis of their conclusions. Stealthy tactics like this undermine scientific progress which depends on a robust exchange of information and ideas.

Skepticism is at the heart of the scientific method. So it is ironic that those who have challenged the prevailing orthodoxy are regarded as outcasts. Fortunately, science is not settled by popular vote or authority, but by empirical evidence. History has not always vindicated the majority view or justified the assumed authority of “official science.” Consequently, it may be the “deniers”, rather than their opponents, who have the last word on global warming.

Bill DiPuccio served as a weather forecaster and lab instructor for the U.S. Navy, and a Meteorological Radiosonde Technician for the National Weather Service. More recently, he was the head of the science department for Orthodox Christian Schools of Northeast Ohio.

------------------------------

New book “Climatism” by Steve Goreham, a “must read’

There are many excellent books for your consideration in the Icecap Amazon Book section on the left column. The latest addition is the book Climatism by Steve Goreham.  Here are some reviewer’s comments on the book:

“This is a serious book that carefully examines the issues that have been used to create the current climate change - global warming crisis...I endorse Climatism! for its easy-to-read, well-illustrated presentation of complex science” John Coleman, Meteorologist

“...a very coherent and convincing book on perhaps the most crucial social, political and economic issue of the 21st century.” Professor Michael J. Economides, University of Houston

“If you care about the 21st century society, you must read this book”. Jay Lehr, PhD., Science Director, the Heartland Institute