By James Delingpole
The headline of this post really shouldn’t be controversial. It chimes perfectly with what Kevin “null hypothesis” Trenberth wrote in that notorious 2009 Climategate email to Michael Mann:
The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.
And it’s what Phil Jones admitted in a BBC interview when he said that there had been no “statistically significant” warming since 1995.
Why then am I mentioning it now? W-e-l-l, because just as ze war is to the Germans, Chappaquiddick is to the Kennedy family and that Portland masseuse incident to Al Gore, so the recent lack of warming is to the, er, Warmists. They hate it. It’s an affront to everything they believe in. Damn it, if the world isn’t warming with the alacrity they’d prefer, how are they going to keep the funding gravy train going, and how are they going to persuade an increasingly sceptical populace that the “science” is “settled”, the debate over and the time for action is now? That’s why they can’t reminded of the truth often enough. It’s like salting the slugs that are ruining your garden: necessary, but also kind of fun too.
Consider their latest desperate effort in fudge, denial, and duplicity. It concerns a new report which - if you believe the Guardian and Michael Mann - confirms that man-made global warming is even more man-made and more happening and more dangerous than at any time ever.
Michael E Mann, at Pennsylvania State University and not part of the research team, said the study was “a very solid, careful statistical analysis” which reinforces research showing “there is a clear impact of human activity on ongoing warming of our climate”. It demonstrated, Mann said, that “the claim that ‘global warming has stopped’ is simply false.”
Actually the paper Reconciling anthropogenic climate change with observed temperature 1998-2008 [PDF] by a team led by Robert Kaufmann at the Department of Geography at Boston University demonstrates no such thing. What it shows - yet again and in excelsis - is the chutzpah and threadbare desperation of the “scientists” involved in the Great Global Warming Boondoggle. Rather than admit that their Ponzi scheme is dead in the water, they try to dazzle us with new imaginative theories which prove that, even though they’re wrong they are in fact right.
No global warming since 1998? Simple. All you’ve got to do - as Kaufmann et al have done [ is apply the Even Though We’re Wrong We’re Right Panacea Get-Out Formula. In this instance the ETWWWRPGOF (as it’s snappily known) involves Blaming The Chinese. Yep, it turns out all that pollution that Chinese are pumping into the air thanks to their unhealthy obsession with economic growth and giving better lives to their children is actually counteracting the effects of Man Made Global Warming.
“Results indicate that net anthropogenic forcing rises slower than previous decades because the cooling effects of sulfur emissions grow in tandem with the warming effects greenhouse gas concentrations. This slow-down, along with declining solar insolation and a change from El Nino to La Nina conditions, enables the model to simulate the lack of warming after 1998,” the team explains.
In other words Man Made Global Cooling is cancelling out Man Made Global Warming.
Judith Curry is unimpressed:
“Their argument is totally unconvincing to me. However, the link between flat/cooling global temperature and increased coal burning in China is certainly an interesting argument from a political perspective. The scientific motivation for this article seems to be that that scientists understand the evolution of global temperature forcing and that the answer is forced variability (not natural internal variability), and this explanation of the recent lack of warming supports a similar argument for the cooling between 1940 and 1970. The political consequence of this article seems to be that the simplest solution to global warming is for the Chinese to burn more coal, which they intend to do anyways.”
As is David Whitehouse at the GWPF:
“Tweaking computer models like this proves nothing. The real test is in the real world data. The temperature hasn’t increased for over a decade. For there to be any faith in the underlying scientific assumptions the world has to start warming soon, at an enhanced rate to compensate for it being held back for a decade.”
Despite what the authors of this paper state after their tinkering with an out-of-date climate computer model, there is as yet no convincing explanation for the global temperature standstill of the past decade.
As indeed might you and I be. For years the Warmists have been telling us that they’re so sure of their computer models that they know, they just know, that CO2 has a forcing effect on global temperatures and that combined with positive feedbacks this is going to cause catastrophic warming. And now they’re saying, without a blush, “Well all right, some of those feedbacks might actually be negative and, er, completely cancel out the terrifying thing we were telling you to worry about. But don’t stop worrying, for God’s sake. Whatever is happening is still worrying, very worrying. And if you give us a bit more time we’ll come up with a paper explaining just why it’s worrying.”
Meanwhile, further evidence emerges that “science” informing the IPCC’s prognostications of Man Made Climate Doom is junk science. It comes courtesy of Nic Lewis, the man who helped expose the flaws in a paper about Antarctic temperature trends, who has now noticed another instance in which the IPCC has been torturing innocent data - sorry: made a perfectly innocent mistake quite accidentally with no bad intention whatsoever - to suit its twisted ends.
The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report of 2007 (AR4) contained various errors, including the well publicised overestimate of the speed at which Himalayan glaciers would melt. However, the IPCC’s defenders point out that such errors were inadvertent and inconsequential: they did not undermine the scientific basis of AR4. Here I demonstrate an error in the core scientific report (WGI) that came about through the IPCC’s alteration of a peer-reviewed result. This error is highly consequential, since it involves the only instrumental evidence that is climate-model independent cited by the IPCC as to the probability distribution of climate sensitivity, and it substantially increases the apparent risk of high warming from increases in CO2 concentration.
Matt Ridley explains the significance of this better than I can:
This mistake is central to the IPCC’s case, not peripheral. It undermines the credibility of the case for urgent action against climate change and strongly supports the argument that, other things being equal, CO2 doubling will not cause more than a mild and net beneficial warming.
Now can we have our economy back, please?
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Dr. Doug Hoyt, formerly chief scientist at Raytheon adds:
These manmade aerosol clouds are very local affairs. The English aerosol cloud barely made it to Norway and measurements in Belgium do not detect it. Nor was it seen in Ireland. Because the GCMs showed too much warming in the 20th century, the modellers needed a way to reduce the rate of warming, as well as explain the 1940-1976 cooling. They ignored all the aerosol measurements and invented aerosol dust clouds based upon industrial activity. The fabricated aerosol amounts used in the GCMs have no relationship to reality, but they do allow the modellers to continue to claim high climate sensitivity. It is also a conveninent adjustable parameter that makes the models have successful hindcasts. Finally it allows them to claim that natural variability does not exist. So it is a win-win-win situation for the modellers. But it is all false. Over the years, the very bad climate science has morphed from incompetence into fraud.
By John McLean, Doomed Planet
What the Prime Minister should be telling us
Perhaps you have very publicly expressed your belief in dangerous man-made warming, just as many media organisations and politicians have done?
Who could blame you, for the United Nations, through its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC) is adamant that manmade emissions of CO2 are to blame for higher temperatures during the late 20th century. The media duly reports this to the world, assuming that surely the IPCC knows what it is talking about. On it goes, with a new prediction of disaster every week and hardly a word to be seen or heard from anyone who disagrees with the burgeoning environmental alarms.
Four successive IPCC assessment reports have ramped up the alarmism and claimed greater certainty that humans are to blame for global warming. In every report we learn of new predictions from climate models, those complex pieces of software that supposedly translate the climate system into mathematics. And we are told that unless emissions of man-made carbon dioxide are included, those models can’t match the historical temperature record.
If you were a politician, the pressure to believe is even greater. Not only do you have to agree with public opinion to maybe win an election, but the media are waiting to feast on your slightest hint of disbelief.
Now, however, it’s finally dawned on you. Temperatures haven’t risen for 12 years despite the rising carbon dioxide levels, and the predicted hotter, drier future has failed to materialise. Corals aren’t dying, and the islands that we’ve been told for over 15 years are going to disappear are still here.
News has slowly leaked out about the IPCC. It’s not concerned about climate at all, only the possibility that human greenhouse gases have a big influence on global temperature. The IPCC’s continued existence relies on it upping the ante in every report. After 4 reports over 17 years, the IPCC simply hasn’t the option of saying its conclusion is uncertain.
What are you to do now? You’ve painted yourself into a corner because your previous statements are on record and will be remembered. How can you back away from your earlier position and retain your dignity and credibility?
The solution might be easier than you think, and might even gain you a reputation for clear thinking. Just say that you want to “wait and see” for a few years.
Start by pointing out that despite the extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over the last 12 years, temperatures rose far less than in any previous 12 year period between 1977 and 1998. More carbon dioxide but less warming, can someone explain that to you? Surely, either carbon dioxide causes less warming than we’ve been told, or other climate forces must have much more influence - neither of which builds confidence in the climate models that predicted warming.
“Wait and see” makes perfect sense. See what happens in the real world rather than the fantasy world of flawed climate models.
Your second argument might be that temperatures have fallen sharply this year. Sure, a brief fall doesn’t mean a lot in climate terms, but why was there a drop in temperatures at all?
Most scientists will tell you that this cooling was due to a strong La Nina.
Two years ago a peer reviewed paper showed that the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which brings us La Nina at one extreme and El Nino at the other, has for 60 years been a good indicator of average global atmospheric temperatures about seven months ahead. The ENSO accounts for temperature so well that there’s little left to be explained by any other forces.
The paper also quoted the IPCC’s 2007 report as saying that the ENSO is poorly modelled, which, again, doesn’t say much for the models or the conclusions and predictions drawn from them.
Projecting the ENSO-temperature link forward seven months suggests that cooler conditions, not warming, will continue this year until about December. With this in mind and the observational data suggesting the IPCC’s claim is wrong, wouldn’t it be wise to “wait and see”?
Lately, solar scientists have told us that the sun is entering a quiet period with few sunspots. From 1645 to 1715, when this previously occurred, the world, and in particular Europe, suffered an extended cold spell. With this precedent in mind maybe it will happen again, so “wait and see” is the prudent action.
With no credible evidence for dangerous man-made warming, predictions failing to materialise, plausible alternative drivers of temperature identified, many scientific uncertainties and no credible reason for urgent action, surely any thinking person would opt to “wait and see”.
Who knows? Maybe in a few years the notion of significant man-made warming will be completely rejected and you’ll be praised for your foresight.
By Lawrence Solomon
A draft study produced by researchers at Yale University and four other research institutions has arrived at a surprising (to them) finding: The more that people are scientifically literate, and the more that they’re numerate, the likelier that they’ll be climate change skeptics.
Even more surprising (to them): socialistic types and free market types are poles apart in their thinking on climate change, with those most knowledgeable in each camp having the strongest views.
The researchers, most of whom hail from prestigious law schools, then wrestle with what to make of their results, which demonstrated (to them) that scientific knowledge and agility in math led to erroneous global warming beliefs.
“Our study results belie the conventional view that controversy over policy-relevant science is rooted in the public’s lack of scientific knowledge and its inability to engage in technical reasoning. As ordinary people learn more science and become more proficient in modes of reasoning characteristic of scientific inquiry, they do not reliably converge on assessments of climate change risks supported by scientific evidence,” they state.
Among the researchers’ conclusions: Teaching science in a neutral way, without understanding the students’ political orientation, can backfire, in that their knowledge may make them more skeptical. What is needed, the researchers say, is a means “to predict such controversies [as climate change] and to formulate strategies aimed at forestalling their occurrence or ameliorating their consequences should they occur.
“Development of these forecasting and management tools is the task of the science of science communication. Establishing the institutions and procedures necessary for promoting their reliable use in policymaking is a public good of singular importance to the wellbeing of modern, culturally pluralistic democracies.”
I don’t recommend that you tackle this study, which mostly reads like its title, The Tragedy of the Risk-Perception Commons: Culture Conflict, Rationality Conflict, and Climate Change. But the conclusions are penetrable for those who are determined, especially those who are scientifically literate and numerate climate change skeptics. The study can be found [external] here. Contact the lead author with your advice at dan.kahan@yale.edu.
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The Heartland talks are being posted here. Many talks - better education than a college degree these days.
Read about the debate between Raymond Pierrehmbert and Denis Rancourt about AGW and skeptics here. Hear the audio here.