ABSTRACT

The United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Report Four (AR-4) of 2007, concerning the influence of rising levels of CO2 on global increases of tropical cyclone (TC) activity is inaccurate and a disgrace to the scientific community. The public expected there would be rigor and objectivity coming out of such an important document which shared a Nobel Peace Prize with former US Vice President Al Gore. The summary of TC activity of this report was based on discredited peer-reviewed papers whose lack of authenticity was known before the report was released. A select cadre of global warming advocates (with little TC knowledge or experience) bent their objectivity to drive this report toward a desired (but faulty) conclusion that global TC activity was increasing in frequency and intensity. They further implied that a large portion of this alleged TC increase could likely be attributed to rising levels of CO2.

This paper brings forth observational and theoretical evidence to show that rising levels of CO2 have not had any observable association with increases in global tropical cyclone frequency and intensity. In fact, levels have been trending downward over the last 20 years.

This paper discusses why we should not be able to measure any potential future CO2-TC association for many decades, and if any such potential future relationship should ever be able to be isolated, it would be quite small. It also dissects the many observational and theoretical errors of the IPCC-AR4 concerning its reported past and likely future increases of global TC activity.

This paper extends the list of IPCC-AR4’s many questionable conclusions and misrepresentation beyond those that have already been earlier pointed out such as the Himalayas becoming snow-free by 2035, the Arctic Ocean possibly becoming ice-free in coming decades, and the possible coming Amazon rainforest destruction. The issuance of these erroneous IPCC reports does much damage. They should be terminated.

See full detailed analysis here.

This Mann-made global warming lawsuit could backfire on the Penn State alarmist. Support science, energy and freedom - donate to Dr. Tim Ball’s legal defense fund

Lewis Carroll died too soon. Just imagine the fun he’d have with the cliquish clan of climate catastrophe researchers who seek to control science, debate and public policy on global warming and energy - and then get outraged when someone challenges their findings, methodologies or integrity.

On October 1, Dr. Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University and “hockey stick” fame published an angry riposte in Colorado’s obscure Vail Daily Voices (circulation 15,000), expressing his umbrage over an article that had appeared in the free coffee shop newspaper a day earlier. 

“An individual named Martin Hertzberg did a grave disservice to your readers by making false and defamatory statements about me and my climate scientist colleagues in his recent commentary in your paper,” Mann began. (Hertzberg is a research scientist and former US Navy meteorologist.) The thin-skinned Penn State scientist then ranted:

“These are just lies, regurgitation of dishonest smears that have been manufactured by fossil fuel industry-funded climate change deniers, and those who do their bidding by lying to the public about the science.” [emphasis added]

Meanwhile, NASA scientist Dr. James Hansen, recipient of huge monetary awards for strident climate disaster claims, wants oil and coal company CEOs prosecuted for “crimes against humanity.”

So Mann and Hansen are honest scientists, trying to do their jobs. But Hertzberg and anyone else who questions the “imminent manmade climate change catastrophe” thesis are dishonest crooks, liars, Holocaust deniers, hired guns for fossil fuel interests, criminals threatening all humanity.

Hertzberg’s views were defamatory, but Mann’s and Hansen’s accusations are mild, rational and truthful.

(Readers can find Mann’s letters and lively discussions about them and Hansen on Dr. Anthony Watts’ WattsUpWithThat.com climate change website. Hertzberg’s letter appeared, mysteriously disappeared, then reappeared in the Vail Voices online archives as the controversy raged and ebbed.)

The bizarre saga gets even stranger when viewed alongside Dr. Mann’s kneejerk lawsuit against Dr. Tim Ball, a Canadian scientist, historical climatologist and retired professor who has frequently voiced his skepticism about claims that hydrocarbon use and carbon dioxide emissions are the primary cause of climate change and present an imminent risk of widespread planetary cataclysms. Dr. Ball has analyzed Canadian and global climate history, and does not regard computer models as much more than virtual reality scenarios that should never be the basis for real-world public policy. 

Dr. Ball had poked fun at Dr. Mann, playing word games that suggest the computer guy should not be at Penn State, but in a similarly named state institution. Unfortunately, Mann is not easily amused, as Dr. Ball should have known from the PSU professor’s testy reaction to the “Hide the decline” animation and other spoofs that various AGW “deniers” posted online.

Mann insisted that Dr. Ball’s little joke was libelous and took him to court. Mann’s legal principal seems to be that libel is fine only when he and Hansen practice the craft, albeit with far less good humor than others display. More importantly, Dr. Ball does not live or work in the United States.

US libel cases are governed by the First Amendment, “public figure” rules and other safeguards that ensure open, robust debate, and make it difficult and expensive to sue people over slights, affronts, insults, disagreements and jokes.

Canada, unfortunately, has more limited free speech protections. So Dr. Mike sued Dr. Tim in Canada, assuming victory would be rapid and sweet. Surprise! Dr. Ball decided to slug it out.

In Canada, the principal defenses against libel claims are that the alleged defamation constitutes “fair comment” or was in fact “the truth.” Ball chose the latter defense.

Doing so means the penalty for losing could be higher than under “fair comment” rules. But arguing that his statement was based on truth allows Dr. Ball to seek “discovery” of evidence that Dr. Mann’s actions reflect a use of public funds to alter or falsify scientific data, present highly speculative results as solid facts, or otherwise engage in something that a reasonable person would conclude constitutes dishonest activity or criminal culpability, undertaken moreover through the use of taxpayer funds.

Proving that will not be easy, especially since Mann has steadfastly refused to provide such potential evidence to anyone, including Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. That evidence might include Climategate emails; computer codes and data used, misused or used selectively to generate global warming spikes in historical graphs; and questionable research or proposals used to secure additional government grants, misinform citizens or lawmakers, or promote costly or harmful public policies.

The US government alone spent an estimated $79 billion on climate, renewable energy and related research between 1989 and 2009 - and many billions more since then. Obviously, there is a lot at stake for scientists, universities, government agencies and other institutions engaged in trying to demonstrate a link between human greenhouse gas emissions and climate, weather, agricultural, sea level and other “disasters.” The reputations and credibility of researchers and their institutions are likewise at stake.

Keeping people alarmed, insisting that numerous disasters will soon result from carbon dioxide emissions and a few degrees of planetary warming - and silencing anyone who questions climate chaos claims - are essential if this money train is to be kept on the tracks.

Dr. Mann is likely aided by Penn State lawyers, largely paid for with climate research taxpayer dollars the university wants to safeguard, by preventing criticism or scientific disclosure and transparency.

A judge and jury will decide the Mann vs. Ball case, after carefully weighing all the evidence on whether Dr. Ball’s allegations and insinuations were factual, accurate and truthful.

Dr. Mann’s research was conducted primarily with public money. It is being presented as valid, peer-reviewed science. It is also being used to champion and justify major policy recommendations at state, national and international levels. And those recommendations call for carbon taxes and other penalties for using hydrocarbon energy; the replacement of affordable, dependable fossil fuel energy with expensive, unreliable wind and solar facilities; a roll-back of living standards in rich developed nations; and limited or minimal energy and economic development in poor countries.

Therefore, as I have argued previously, the public has a right to demand that Mann & Comrades show their work, not merely their answers and policy demands. Thus far, serious questions about Mann’s research remain unanswered. The public also has a right to require that Mann, Penn State & Company provide their source material, not just their results - along with anything else that may be relevant to gauging the validity, accuracy and honesty of the work and its conclusions and policy recommendations.

We the People have a further right, duty and obligation to protect free speech, robust debate, the integrity of the scientific method, our personal freedoms, and our access to the reliable, affordable energy that makes our jobs and living standards possible. One way you can do this is by supporting Dr. Tim Ball’s legal defense fund. Just click here or go to http://DrTimBall.com/

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Congress of Racial Equality, and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death.

First estimate of global land temperature trends from the RUTI project , recently presented at Joanne Nova for the Coastal-Noncoastal issues.

... Between 1950 and 1978, the BEST results for global land temperatures have 0.55K more warming than RUTI. Otherwise, the 2 datasets are strikingly similar ....

Fig1. First estimate of global land temperature trends (enlarged). As always in the RUTI project, data are unadjusted GHCN and the main efforts in the RUTI project is to identify areas of similar temperature trend before averaging - this due to limited data periods made available from GHCN (see more). As will be the case for all data sources, older data, especially before 1900 has limited data as foundation. All RUTI data in the present article use 1961-90 as base period.

Results:

1) Temperature peak in the latest decade appears to be around 0,22 K warmer than the 1940´ies heat peak.

2) We see a strong temperature decline 1940-78 around 0;55-0.6 K.

Lets compare with the Berkeley’s BEST project:

Fig1a. Recently, Berkeley released data for land temperatures as shown (enlarged).  Lets compare Undajusted GHCN/RUTI with Berkeley:

Fig1b. (Red RUTI graph is 10 yr avg.) (enlarged).

1) Temperatures recent decade is

RUTI:  0.2-0.25 K warmer than warm peak around 1940

BEST:  0.75-0.8 K warmer than warm peak around 1940

2) Temperature decline after 1940-1978 is

RUTI:  Approx 0.55-0.6 K

BEST:  Approx 0.1-0.15 K

BEST has around 0.55 K more heat in their results than RUTI, and that this difference mostly occurs between 1950 and 1978.

Fig1c. The difference in temperature trends 1950-78 is best illustrated by setting temperatures 1940-50 for the two datasets to be equal (enlarged). 

Read much more with continent by continent comparisons here.

Despite the collapse of the Kyoto process and the decline in public concern, professional environmental alarmists and eco-activists - who are now concentrating their venom on stopping the Keystone XL pipeline - continue to thunder that climate science is “settled.” Their authority for this claim is the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC. Anybody wishing to gauge the reliability of such science, or the true nature of the IPCC, should read Donna Laframboise’s compelling, indeed at times jaw-dropping, The Delinquent Teenager Who was Mistaken for the World’s Top Climate Expert.

In a meticulously referenced and deservedly praised page-turner, Ms. Laframboise, an accomplished journalist who turned to the skeptical blogosphere, demonstrates how the IPCC is a thoroughly political organization. Far from objectively weighing the best available science, it cherry-picks egregiously to support its main objective: to serve its government masters. Its lead authors are not the world’s leading scientists but frequently wet-behind-the-ears graduates, and/or ardent activists. They are also selected on the basis of gender and country “diversity” rather than expertise. The organization, Ms. Laframboise demonstrates, has also been thoroughly infiltrated by environmental NGOs, in particular the World Wildlife Fund.

The book elucidates how the panel’s much-vaunted “peer review” amounts to a “circular, incestuous process. Scientists make decisions as journal editors about what qualifies as peer-reviewed literature. They then cite the same papers they themselves played midwife to while serving as IPCC authors.” IPCC head Rajendra Pachauri’s claim that all the “Climate Bible’s” science is peer reviewed is, in any case, bunk. With a body of volunteers, Ms. Laframboise went through the 2007 report and found that more than 5,000 references - over a third - were from less-than-reliable sources. The most egregious such “grey” reference led to the claim that the Himalayan glaciers were to disappear by 2035. This terrifying assertion was traced back to the top of a non-expert’s head.

After the embarrassment of “Glaciergate,” which came on top of the much more serious “Climategate,” the InterAcademy Council (IAC), which represents international academies of science, was tasked with examining the IPCC process. One of Ms. Laframboise’s greatest coups was to gain access to at least some of the responses to a questionnaire the IAC sent to ­IPCC authors. Far from “consensus,” those responses - which she cites in detail - indicate widespread concern, confusion and distrust.

She introduces us to numerous well-credentialled skeptics, including Jason Johnston, an expert in environmental law, who set out to verify whether the ­IPCC reports in fact “conformed with the peer-reviewed climate science literature.” His conclusion: “on virtually every major issue in climate change science,” IPCC reports “systematically conceal or minimize what appear to be fundamental scientific uncertainties.”

The Delinquent Teenager reveals how inconvenient science has been buried and sums up: “The IPCC ignores the consensus among hurricane experts that there is no discernable link to global warning. It ignores the consensus among those who study natural disasters that there is no relationship between human greenhouse gas emissions and the rising cost of these disasters. It ignores the consensus among bona fide malaria experts that global warming has not caused malaria to spread. In each case the IPCC substitutes its own version of reality. In each case that version of reality makes global warming appear more frightening than genuine experts believe the available evidence indicates.”

Meanwhile the authors of the “Climate Bible” can always find space for post-deadline alarmism. The U.K. government’s Stern Review was castigated by experts for its wild alarmism and ludicrous assumptions. However, Ms. Laframboise points out, “26 references to the Stern Review were added to 12 different IPCC chapters after the work of the expert reviewers had already been completed.” (The Stern Review, incidentally, wasn’t peer reviewed, although Sir Nicholas Stern was given a peerage for writing it.) Like Lord Stern, many of the IPCC’s leaders firmly believe it is their job to “steer” society away from carbon and consumerism, which, as Ms. Laframboise forcefully points out, is no part of science.

One of the many disturbing issues arising from the book is the sheer vitriol unleashed against Mr. Laframboise for daring to ask questions. “It is peculiar, indeed,” she writes, “that people who see things differently try to link my climate views to racists, Holocaust deniers, child murderers, mental illness and the tobacco industry.… It is bizarre that prime ministers and other officials think it remotely appropriate to publicly denounce climate skeptics as cowards, saboteurs and anti-science Flat-Earthers...Whatever happened to tolerance and mutual respect?”

Her conclusion is that the IPCC process is irretrievably compromised and should be scrapped. However, the IAC review is among those documents now buried as this corrupt organization continues under the same conflicted leadership. The Delinquent Teenager should be required reading for all those who, like something out of Animal Farm, bleat or oink that “the debate is over.” Ms. Laframboise leaves us in no doubt that a ­debate has never even taken place.

UK Met Office Pours Cold Water On Severe Winter 2011-12 Forecasts
October 14, 2011

The UK Met Office has distanced itself from recent media reports that the UK and Ireland are set for an ‘Arctic Winter’.  The UKMO, which stopped issuing seasonal forecasts in 2010, also has said that recent long range forecasts by other agencies “bear no relation to the kinds of weather that forecasters at the Met Office are currently expecting”.

iWeather Online (IWO) also has forecast that Ireland and the UK are unlikely to see a repeat of the pre-Christmas freeze of 2010.  Temperatures are expected to remain below average for much of the coming season, however, according to the IWO forecast.

In an opinion piece for The Times, UKMO Chief Executive John Hirst called for a sense of reason in response to the claims (read 1, 2, 3) of other forecasting agencies in weeks.

According to the UK Met Office: “Over the past few weeks, there have been some colourful headlines in some parts of the media about what’s in store for this year’s winter in the UK. Reports of ‘-20C within weeks’, “A winter fuel crisis on the way’ and ‘Widespread snow in October’ have all raised expectations that we’re in for an ‘Arctic winter’. [These headlines] bear no relation to the kinds of weather that forecasters at the Met Office are currently expecting - there is no need for alarm.”

5 days later....

Subzero Temperatures And Snow Herald Arrival Of Winter In Ireland And UK

Heavy snow showers will continue across the Scottish East and West Highlands during Wednesday.  More widespread snow is expected to affect the region for a time on Thursday.

Snow fell overnight at Cairngorm, Glenshee and Glencoe, while further heavy showers are forecast for Wednesday.  The live webcam at Cairngorm, where temperatures dropped to minus 5 celsius overnight, showed snow continuing to fall at the ski resort this morning.

Wintry showers, with snow settling to around 400m, will become more scattered during the afternoon. However, the UK Met Office has warned of temporary blizzard conditions over ridges and summits. The UKMO also has warned of a severe wind chill and buffeting at higher levels.

The snowline in Scotland on Wednesday afternoon will be down to 200 metres, according to wetter3.de.

Outbreaks of snow will sweep eastwards across the Scottish Highlands tomorrow afternoon but will turn to rain at lower levels as the evening progresses. A slow thaw is expected from Thursday evening and night as milder air moves in across Ireland and Britain.

Tuesday was generally the coolest day in Ireland since 19th March last with the max temperature being 12.2c at Valentia Observatory, Co. Kerry and the lowest max temperature coming in at just 8.8c at Ballypatrick Forest, Co. Antrim.