Patrick Michaels, Contributor Forbes

People who claim that “the science is settled” on global warming have to be pretty unsettled by the science news in the last week.

“Setttled science”, of course, means that we are inevitably headed toward a disastrous warming of surface temperatures as forecast by some computer models, and we therefore need an international carbon tax or cap-and-trade system, pronto.

Settled science would know all of the important “forcings” and “feedbacks” in the climate system, such as the sensitivity of surface temperature to changes in carbon dioxide (a forcing) and the behavior of clouds, which could either enhance or counter warming (a feedback).

Now it appears that cloud tops are lowering, a totally unforeseen cooling feedback on carbon dioxide-induced warming. Writing in Geophysical Research Letters, University of Auckland’s Roger Davies and Matthew Molloy conclude this could be a “significant measure of a negative cloud feedback to global warming”.

The average global cloud height is linked to the average global temperature - generally, the higher the average cloud height, the higher the average surface temperature, and vice versa. The tie-in is related to the height in the atmosphere from which clouds radiate infrared radiation to space. The higher up they are, the cooler they are, and they dissipate less radiation, which means the surface stays warmer.

Problem is that there’s only ten years of data, and there was a pretty decent La Nina (that’s the cold side of El Nino) in the Pacific Ocean in 2008, which was clearly correlated with a decline in cloud top height. Davies and Molloy are therefore properly cautious with their conclusions, but nonetheless note that a comparison of the beginning and endpoints for their study, which minimizes the La Nina contribution, still showed a decline in cloud height.

Who’d a thunk this one? Based upon data from the paper , the cooling climate impact from the decrease in the average global cloud height more than offset the positive forcing from an increase in greenhouse gases from human activities in the last decade.

This is - yet another - explanation in the refereed literature to apologize for recent climate misbehavior. Others include changes in the sun, cruddy air from China, and a change in stratospheric water vapor.

The last one is especially interesting because that, too, is a previously unknown forcing on climate, i.e. another bullet shot at “settled science”.

Then there’s the new icing on the global warming cake. Data from 2003 through 2010 from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite show virtually zero net melting from the massive Himalayan ice cap, the world’s “third pole”. The UN, using an unrefereed publication from the World Wildlife Federation, erroneously forecast in its last climate compendium that it would be gone by 2035. In reality, it will last hundreds of years, and even longer if the current trends reflect how the ice cap reacts to warming.

How could prominent glaciologists like Ohio State’s Lonnie Thompson, who isn’t shy about predicting glacial armageddon (and, who along with his wife, advises Al Gore on matters climatic), have missed this one? Simple - who wants to climb to the top of a Himalayan glacier? That can be close to the oxygen-starved “dead zone” where humans cannot linger. So most measurements have been made from the bottom. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the top of these behemoths will expand in a warmer world, as the ocean evaporates more moisture which will surely precipitate as snow at higher elevations.

In addition, the GRACE satellite found that total ice loss outside of Greenland and Antarctica was previously estimated 30% too high, another reinforcement of the “lukewarm” synthesis of climate change. After adding in the GRACE measurements for Greenland and Antarctica and median estimates for the “thermal expansion” of water, the current rate of sea-level rise is 8 inches per century. While that surely will rise before 2100, it’s only one inch more than what was observed last century.

What with the finding of yet another cooling feedback, no net melting (within the range of measurement error) in the Himalayan ice cap, and confirmation of a low rate of sea level rise, it’s been a bad week for climate hotheads.

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Also see self annointed scientist Tamino get the beat down AGAIN here and http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/31/part-2-of-tamino-once-again-misleads-his-disciples/ for faulty science.

Foreword to Andrew Montford’s Nullius in Verba: The Royal Society and Climate Change

Andrew Montford provides a straightforward and unembellished chronology of the perversion not only of The Royal Society but of science itself, wherein the legitimate role of science as a powerful mode of inquiry is replaced by the pretence of science to a position of political authority.

The simple chronology speaks for itself, though one cannot read it without thinking, at least, about the motivations. Already in the 19th century, gentleman scientists, like Darwin, noted the potential constraints on scientific inquiry that were associated with functioning within universities. The potential in recent years is obviously magnified by the near monopoly over science support exercised by governments. In the US, our National Academy of Science (NAS) has always had official status as adviser to the government. However, the role was relatively passive until the 1970s.

The 1970s saw a marked expansion of the National Research Council, the branch of the National Academy of Science responsible for responding to government requests. With the presidency of Frank Press (1981-1993), the staff of the NRC increased to over a thousand. Frank often boasted that The Royal Society was envious of the position of the NAS and the existence of its NRC. The global warming issue, it would appear, has offered The Royal Society the opportunity to rectify this situation.

Nevertheless, there are certain peculiarities of The Royal Society’s behavior that are perhaps worth noting. The presidents involved with this issue (May, Rees and Nurse) are all profoundly ignorant of climate science. Their alleged authority stems from their positions in the RS rather than from scientific expertise. This is evident in a variety of ways.

For example, in an exchange in the Financial Times (April 9, 2010), Martin Rees and Ralph Cicerone (President of the NAS) defended global warming concern by noting essentially that carbon dioxide (CO2) was increasing and that climate was changing. Of course, climate is always changing, and increasing CO2 must make some contribution, but none of this suggests anything alarming.

The alarm results from controversial feedbacks wherein the small impacts of CO2 are, in current computer models, greatly amplified. With respect to these feedbacks, Rees and Cicerone say: “Uncertainties in the future rate of this rise (referring to global mean temperature anomaly), stemming largely from ‘feedback’ effects on water vapor and clouds are topics of current research.”

That is to say, we don’t even know if there is a problem. Yet, Rees and Cicerone conclude: “Our academies will provide the scientific backdrop for the political and business leaders who must create effective policies to steer the world toward a low-carbon economy.”

In other words, regardless of the science, the answer is predetermined. Is this simply ignorance or dishonesty? My guess is that Rees and Cicerone were only mindlessly repeating a script prepared by the environmental movement.

In this report Montford documents some disturbing general trends, which one can only hope that scientists of good standing shall increasingly continue to oppose.

Professor Richard Lindzen

Richard Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of the Academic Advisory Council of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. He is known for his work on the dynamics of the middle atmosphere, atmospheric tides and ozone photochemistry. He has published more than 200 books and scientific papers.

Where’s Winter? from my friend and hero John Coleman.

By Jessie Jafet

Editor’s Note: Jim Witt is being featured today (Feb. 2) as The Huffington Post’s Greatest Person of the Day. The series features stories of people across the nation who are making a difference in their community. Congratulations Jim!

Predicting the weather is just one way Jim Witt has helped his community for the last fifty years.

Since 1986, this innovative meteorologist has been producing a long-range weather forecast calendar that has raised over two million dollars for charity.

Sold in over fifty stores, the calendar features local photographer Joe Deutsch’s beautiful landscape pictures of the Hudson Valley, along with Witt’s expert weather projections for the months ahead.

Witt, a resident of Cold Spring and a former Lakeland Central School District science teacher, remembers how he became fascinated with meteorology back in 1944.

“I have been excited about weather since I was a seven-year-old kid watching a barometer go down as a hurricane came up the East coast,” he said. Witt eventually came to the district in 1962 and became the coordinator for the district’s science departments.

Tapping into his students’ excitement for forecasting weather, he founded the high school’s “Weather Club,” an admired program that has been nationally recognized.

“We would meet to plot and analyze weather maps and come up with forecasts for the days ahead,” Witt said of the club. Their three-day forecasts were then broadcasted on local radio station WLNA and appeared in the Peekskill Evening Star.

After retiring in 1977, Witt founded a forecasting company that aided highway departments, shipping companies, crane operators and others in obtaining accurate weather information. He has utilized his broad expertise to teach meteorology, consult for government organizations and as a radio personality on stations like WHUD and WLNA in the Hudson Valley and at WKIT, a station in Bangor, Maine that is owned by the author Stephen King.

It was with colleagues at WHUD that the idea for the calendar was born.

“We knew that people love the weather and with Joe’s gorgeous photos of the Hudson Valley - why not make a calendar that would raise money for kids?” Witt said.

All of the proceeds have gone to 50 different organizations involved with the Hope for Youth Foundation charity, with beneficiaries that include the Make-a-Wish Foundation, Ronald McDonald House and Friends of Karen, among others. He added that the Peekskill Rotary club has now become an invaluable partner in the production and distribution of the calendar.

Witt proudly asserts that his greatest achievement has been the success of his former Lakeland district students in their pursuit of science.

“It is really incredible and I am so proud of what these kids have achieved,” he said. “One of my former students is the Director of Research at the National Hurricane Center, another is Executive Vice President at AccuWeather, a third is a lead forecaster at NASA and amazingly, a student of mine is responsible for a breakthrough in forecasting technology that has improved the accuracy of the seven-day forecast.”

His legacy was recognized last year with a prestigious award from the American Meteorological Society for “innovative leadership in teaching high school meteorology, mentoring, and inspiring his students to accomplishments in the meteorological community and in life.”

And what about Jim Witt’s forecast for the rest of winter 2012?

He predicts a “major event” during the week of March 18-March 24, with very strong, cold winds and possibly a large snowstorm. Careful out there.

Look for Witt’s calendars in these fifty stores around northern Westchester.

See Jim’s website and educational pages:

The Weather Wiz here. See how they have added THE WIZ SCHOOL (UPPER LEFT) to their website. An excellent educational tool for teachers at all class levels. “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel” - Socrates (470--399 BC)