Marian Wilkinson Environment Editor

Fifteen senior Australian climate scientists have hit back at the resurgence of climate scepticism among the nation’s politicians and the media, warning that the threat from climate change is real, urgent and approaching a series of “tipping points” where it will feed on itself.

“New findings suggest that the situation is, if anything, more serious than the assessment of just a few years ago”, say the scientists, who include the CSIRO’s Dr Michael Raupach and Dr John Church, along with the Australian National University’s Professor Will Steffen, who recently completed a report on climate change science for the Federal Government.

Writing in today’s Herald, the scientists, many of whom worked with the top United Nations scientific body on climate change, argue “rapid, sustained and effective” cuts in the world’s greenhouse gas emissions are needed to avoid dangerous climate change.

Dr Raupach, who monitors greenhouse gas emissions globally, said the scientists joined together because of their growing concern about climate scepticism in the Australian debate.

“It’s a concern that I think is widely felt among many climate scientists in Australia,” he said. He referred to sceptics’ claims that the earth was cooling and that solar flares and sunspots were responsible for increasing warming, not human-caused emissions from burning fossil fuels and cutting down forests. “These arguments keep being recycled even though they have been rebutted in public many times,” Dr Raupach said. “We felt the need to state the evidence-based position as we see it.”

Last week the senior shadow cabinet member Tony Abbott repeated many climate sceptics’ claims in The Australian, even though he argued the Liberal Party should pass the Government’s emissions trading scheme for political reasons. Leading National Party figures, including the party’s Senate leader, Barnaby Joyce, are vocal climate sceptics, as is the Liberal Party Senate leader, Nick Minchin.

The Family First senator, Steve Fielding, returned from a conference in Washington in June, at which scepticism about climate science was discussed, to express his doubts about human-induced climate change. The Senate is due to debate the Government’s emissions trading scheme within the next fortnight.

The scientists are particularly concerned about claims that the earth is cooling because temperature increases since 2002 have not happened as fast those in the previous few years. “Some people have seen that as evidence that the whole game is off, that climate change is not an issue,” Dr Raupach said. “In fact it’s normal climate variability.” The overall warming trend has been inexorably upwards, the scientists say. Read more here.

Icecap Note: The alarmists are becoming increasingly frantic as the world cools as the public and politicians willingness to accept economic pain when the alarmists forecasts are failing. In a clear example of cognitive dissonance these alarmists are behaving like the cult whose spaceship did not arrive as originally forecast but who reassure their followers it is just delayed and will be even bigger and more glorious than originally thought when it arrives. Read more about why this group will not easily accept their theory has failed and projections were unwarranted here.

The Resilient Earth

We have all become familiar with the sloppy, bureaucracy driven science promulgated by the UN IPCC. Now a another organization, the International Council for Science (ICSU), is vying for leadership in ruining free scientific inquiry world wide. “Natural sciences should no longer dictate the Earth system research agenda,” proclaimed their manifesto, which appeared in the July 17, 2009, issue of Science. “Social sciences will be at least as important in its next phase.”

After praising how the IPCC helped move the issue of global warming from lab benches to national capitals (turning climate science into a political circus in the process) and was recognized for its efforts by the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize (they conspicuously didn’t mention Al Gore), a troika of ICSU leaders - Walter V. Reid, chair of the ICSU Earth System Visioning Task Group, Catherine Bréchignac, president of ICSU, and Yuan Tseh Lee, president-elect of ICSU - have plainly stated their future intentions: the creation of a single research framework for the natural sciences world wide. According to them:

In the past, a small group of scientists would be charged with determining the most pressing research questions. But new communication technologies now allow the wisdom and expertise of a far broader global community of natural and social scientists, technology experts, decision-makers, and citizens to play a role.

This is socialist thinking at its finest, instead of that “small group of scientists” being allowed to determine what subjects to investigate, which questions to ask, they will be directed by the “wisdom” of the “broader global community.” A community not just made up of muzzy headed bureaucrats, masquerading as scientists, but by a whole cadre of non-scientists: social scientists, who don’t know jack about the physical sciences; technology experts, who presumably have products they will want to sell; decision-makers, meaning politicians and other government functionaries; and citizens, like Al Gore, Sheryl Crow and Bono each with their own personal agendas no doubt. To give their effort a egalitarian sheen the public is invited to comment and “vote” on their website.

“There is an urgent need and a unique window of opportunity to engage, promote, and develop Earth system research for the benefit of society,” said Dr Reid. “This online consultation is the first step towards meeting that need.” According to the ICSU press release on the visioning process, “the current research structures do not provide the integrated approach required to answer the most pressing societal issues - protecting the planet and ensuring sustainable human development.” In other words, we can’t let those scientists do whatever they want! No, we need to tell them what they should be working on. After all, look what a bang up job the IPCC has done with global warming.

It’s easy to promote a new agenda for others when it is your ideas being promoted - but who said that your ideas are the correct ones? Or the public’s opinions for that matter? This past year has seen suggestions about how to obfuscate global warming science using “common climate language” and how to shift the burden for CO2 reduction to individuals by blaming the world’s “top billion polluters,” now this. Seems that the Earth systems crowd is trying to cash in before the global warming scare goes bust.

Why is it that these scientists-turned-bureaucrat and social sciences types are always trying to grab control of real working scientists’ laboratories and research agendas? Sorry, but science is not an audience participation sport. If you wish to be involved in doing real, meaningful research then forget your degrees in sociology and political science. Get an education in something useful, like physics, chemistry, biology, oceanography, geology, atmospheric physics, solar physics, or paleontology (the list goes on from here). Stop attending politically motivate conferences held by agenda driven organizations and do something useful with your lives.

When will the world’s bureaucratic bozos learn that science only works when inquiry is free and unfettered. You can’t negotiate with nature, it is what it is, and science is driven by nature. You can tell science what your polls and organizations want it to study, but that has no bearing on what science should study. So, for trying to encumber science with your personal political prejudices, this Crank of the Week is all yours ISCU.

See post and other Resilient Earth posts here.

By Dr. David Evans

Summary for Policymakers

* Air temperatures have been falling for years. Satellites show that 1998 was the warmest recent year and that a cooling trend started in 2002.

Even the land-based thermometer data, which is corrupted by artificial heating sources close to 89% of its thermometers and which is heavily “corrected”, now shows a cooling trend developing from 2006.

Adjustments applied by NOAA to surface data. Larger here.

* The alarmists recently switched to ocean temperature to measure global warming.

* The alarmists claim the world is still warming, that heat is building up in the oceans, and that the ocean temperature is rising and rising fast. These claims implicitly depend on a time period to say what a “trend” is, because temperatures fluctuate. The alarmists provide the context by showing trends of 20 to 50 years. This is a clever trick to reframe the debate, and essential to their case.

* Ocean temperatures have only been measured properly from mid 2003, when the Argo network became operational. Over 3,000 Argo floats cover all the world’s oceans. They dive down to measure temperatures, then resurface to radio back the information. The previous XBT system did not monitor huge areas of ocean, did not go as deep, and was much less accurate.

Larger here.

* Ocean temperatures are dropping slightly. The Argo data shows that the oceans have been cooling slightly since mid 2003. Our best data, from satellites and Argo, shows that the air and oceans have not warmed for at least five years. The world is now cooling slightly, so there is no heat accumulating. Some natural cooling force is currently stronger than the warming due to human emissions.

Larger here.

* Short-term trends contradict the alarmist claims. Our best data, from satellites and Argo, shows that the air and oceans have not warmed for at least five years. The world is now cooling slightly, so there is no heat accumulating. Some natural cooling force is currently stronger than the warming due to human emissions.

* Long-term trends contradict the alarmist claims. The world has been recovering from the little ice age, warming at a steady trend rate since 1750 with alternate warming and cooling oscillations of about 30 years. The pattern suggests we have just finished the last warming, and have entered a cooling period until about 2030.

* The latest alarmist claims are a bluff. The alarmist claims only appear credible if trends shorter than 10 years or longer than 50 years are ignored. But it will take time to inform the public and politicians that the alarmist’s claims are baseless. With the US climate bill now being debated and the Copenhagen climate conference coming up in December 2009, they only need to make the public believe their schtick for a few months.

* Problems with alarmist graphs of ocean heat. They omit Argo data by stopping in 2003, or contradict it by showing ocean warming continuing through 2006.

The Latest Alarmist Claims are a Bluff

The claims of the alarmists about rising ocean temperatures and accumulating heat are wrong in the short term and wrong in the long term. They appear credible only if you ignore trends shorter than 10 years and trends longer than 50 years. They crumble under analysis. But it will take time to inform the public and politicians that the alarmist’s claims are baseless. With the US climate bill now being debated and the Copenhagen climate conference coming up in December 2009, they only need to make the public believe their schtick for a few months. This is a bluff. See PDF here.