September 7, 2010: Critical Pacific Ocean subset of UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) temperature data now to be examined by New Zealand High Court.

In what is believed to be the first case of its kind in the world, the newly formed New Zealand Climate Science Education Trust has taken legal action against the National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), a ‘Crown Research Institute’ contracted by the NZ Government to be its sole adviser on scientific issues relating to climate change.  Instead of using the New Zealand Met Service temperature record that shows no warming during the last century, NIWA has adopted an “adjusted” record of seven surface stations that shows a 1 deg. C rise, almost 50% above the global average for that period. 

Enlarged here.

Because there are very few long term temperature records in the Pacific Ocean, the NIWA record bears heavily disproportionate weight in determining multi-decadal trends in global average temperatures used by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  However, the basis for the NIWA temperature adjustments is unknown, the data and calculations that underlie the adjustment method lost, and the originator of the technique of adjustment summarily dismissed from his position at NIWA.

Read news release from ICSC affiliate, the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition (NZCSC), which has unsuccessfully sought access to the data and calculations behind the temperature adjustment since 2006.

Read November 2009 NZCSC paper on the scandal, ”Are We Feeling Warmer Yet? ”, by Barry Brill, OBE.

Read May 2010 response to NIWA attempts to whitewash the affair.

Due to the international significance of this case, ICSC will keep readers up to date as this legal action unfolds.  Read more on the NZCSC Home page.

See ICSC home page here.

ICSC

September 7, 2010: Critical Pacific Ocean subset of UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) temperature data now to be examined by New Zealand High Court.

In what is believed to be the first case of its kind in the world, the newly formed New Zealand Climate Science Education Trust has taken legal action against the National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), a ‘Crown Research Institute’ contracted by the NZ Government to be its sole adviser on scientific issues relating to climate change.  Instead of using the New Zealand Met Service temperature record that shows no warming during the last century, NIWA has adopted an “adjusted” record of seven surface stations that shows a 1 deg. C rise, almost 50% above the global average for that period. 

Enlarged here.

Because there are very few long term temperature records in the Pacific Ocean, the NIWA record bears heavily disproportionate weight in determining multi-decadal trends in global average temperatures used by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  However, the basis for the NIWA temperature adjustments is unknown, the data and calculations that underlie the adjustment method lost, and the originator of the technique of adjustment summarily dismissed from his position at NIWA.

Read news release from ICSC affiliate, the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition (NZCSC), which has unsuccessfully sought access to the data and calculations behind the temperature adjustment since 2006.

Read November 2009 NZCSC paper on the scandal, ”Are We Feeling Warmer Yet? ”, by Barry Brill, OBE.

Read May 2010 response to NIWA attempts to whitewash the affair.

Due to the international significance of this case, ICSC will keep readers up to date as this legal action unfolds.  Read more on the NZCSC Home page.

See ICSC home page here.

Since 1988 the movement behind the global warming fraud has labored long and hard to mislead the citizens of the world to believe what is surely the greatest “science” hoax ever perpetrated.

However, when the leak of emails between the handful of climate scientists who conjured up the deliberately misleading data the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) used hit the Internet, the November 2009 event was quickly dubbed “Climategate.” In one exchange, they worried over the fact that, since the late 1990s, the Earth was demonstrably getting cooler.

It is hard to believe that any journalist could not know about Climategate or the subsequent failure of the IPCC’s Copenhagen climate conference that even the President attended as the entire hoax came unraveled.

“The wildfires in Russia, the floods in Pakistan and the record heat this summer in New Jersey have one thing in common: They are exactly the kind of symptoms scientists predicted we’d experience as global warming occurs.”

Only there is no global warming. The Earth has been in a decade-old cooling cycle.

Which scientists are being cited? What kind of scientists? The current IPCC Chairman, Rajendra Pachauri began his career in an Indian diesel-locomotive factory. The Wall Street Journal pointed out that, “As an academic, he staunchly defended his country’s right to burn coal.”

And what do isolated natural events that occur in a brief time span have to do with alleged climate trends that can only be measured in centuries? Did the editorial writer ever hear of the Medieval Warm Period or of the Little Ice Age that followed it? Both were spread over centuries, not a single summer.

“Glaciers that have been stable for centuries are now melting at an alarming rate.” No, they’re not. Indeed, many are melting less as the result of the current cooling cycle. The cooling is due to lower solar activity; the result of a significant reduction in solar storms that are commonly called sunspots. This is the stuff they teach in Meteorology 101.

“Hurricanes are becoming more severe as ocean temperatures rise.” You mean like the Category 4 Hurricane named Earl that in a matter of two or three days became a Category 1 and then fizzled out as a tropical storm? The hurricane named Katrina was an anomaly, a category 5, and they don’t occur that often. Consider the relatively tame hurricane seasons we’ve had since then.

“A rational person would look at this evidence and listen to the scientists who are warning of catastrophic impacts over the next few decades, such as coastal flooding and the collapse of rain-fed agriculture in many regions, especially Africa.”

It’s too bad the writer of this editorial didn’t display enough rationality to even question what the unnamed “scientists” were saying; much in the same way Al Gore has been telling everyone the same thing only to be revealed as a charlatan seeking to enrich himself from hoped-for climate legislation. The Chicago Exchange that sells “carbon credits” is close to failure as this bogus “market” collapses from the revelation that there is no global warming.

Scientists constantly challenge one another’s work. That is part of the scientific method. Journalists are supposed to exercise a healthy skepticism, but in the case of the scientists who did express skepticism, they were labeled “deniers” until the truth could no longer be hidden from the public.

“Republicans in Washington have killed any chance for climate change legislation, for now. Polls show that while most Americans believe climate change is occurring, most Republicans do not.” So, apparently, the climate is determined by one’s political affiliation. The polls show increasing doubt about global warming along with the trend that most Americans disapprove of the job President Obama and the Democrat-controlled Congress have done.

“The Environmental Protection Agency under Lisa Jackson is preparing to impose regulations on carbon emissions, as the Clean Air Act requires.”

Wrong again. The Clean Air Act does not include carbon dioxide, even though the Supreme Court mistakenly called it a “pollutant.” Carbon dioxide does not need to be regulated because it plays no role whatever as regards the planet’s climate and because it is a gas that is vital to all vegetation on Earth in the same fashion oxygen is vital to animal life. The editorial writer is a complete moron.

“As the world dawdles, this problem will grow worse, and the solution will have to be more drastic, more expensive and disruptive. For that, we will have climate-change skeptics to thank.” This editorial reeks of the same eco-lunacy that could be found in the Unabomber’s manifesto or the Internet declaration posted by the lunatic who took hostages in Maryland a week ago, threatening to kill them unless the Discovery channel gave him a show of his own.

The newspaper was completely within its rights to publish the repetition of the kind of alarmism contained in the editorial, but it also has an obligation to get its facts right.

It reminded me of a comment by my friend, Dr. Richard Lindzen. He is one of the world’s most respected climatologists, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor of Atmospheric Science.

“Future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree, and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial age.”

The journalist H.L. Mencken had it right, “The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.”

The actual measured annual rate of sea level change (0.3 mm) is less than the error involved in measuring. It’s well below actual peak rates of natural sea level rises and falls experienced in the last 18,000 years. Such reporters of weather, climate and sea level on which people’s lives depend show there are no human induced changes occurring globally in climate as screamed by alarmists seeking political or financial gain. See more here.

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Tidal Reference Frame For Queensland
By G. J (John) Broadbent
Maritime Safety Queensland, Mineral House, George Street Brisbane 4001 Australia

Sea Level Rise Because the sea level rise is very low, averaging 0.0003 metres per annum for the Australian continent (Mitchell, 2002), the 15 to 19 years of readings available from Queensland tidal stations is not sufficient to calculate a reasonable estimate of sea level change. Accordingly an adjustment of 0.0003 metres per annum is made to the mean sea level within the tidal reference frame. The allowance is been calculated from the central date of the observation period at each station to the central date of the tidal datum epoch (31 December 2001).

In time, it is expected that there will a sufficiently long span of readings and that it will be possible to obtain a refined estimate of the sea level rise at individual stations. The sea level change observed at each place can be incorporated into future primary determinations in lieu of the Australia wide rise
incorporated at present.

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Internationally acclaimed sea level expert Nils-Axel Morner says there has never been any evidence for human induced sea level change
Dr. Nils-Axel Morner is the head of the Paleogeophysics and Geodynamics department at Stockholm University in Sweden. He is past president (1999-2003) of the INQUA Commission on Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution, and leader of the Maldives Sea Level Project. Dr. Morner has been studying the sea level and its effects on coastal areas for some 35 years. He was interviewed by Gregory Murphy on June 6 for EIR. More here.

---

Graphs of sea level from around the entire south Pacific shows stable sea level with natural variation. Data from the Sea Level Fine Resolution Acoustic Measuring Equipment (Seaframe). 

The post starts with

In 2008, climate change sceptic Roger Pielke Sr said this: “Global warming, as diagnosed by upper ocean heat content has not been occurring since 2004”. It is a fine example of denialist spin, making several extraordinary leaps:

Claims that the ocean has been cooling are correct. Claims that global warming has stopped are not. It is an illogical position: the climate is subject to a lot of natural variability, so the premise that changes should be ‘monotonic’ - temperatures rising in straight lines - ignores the fact that nature doesn’t work like that. This is why scientists normally discuss trends - 30 years or more - so that short term fluctuations can be seen as part of a greater pattern. (Other well-known cyclic phenomena like El Nino and La Nina play a part in these complex interactions).

The post starts by mislabeling me as a “climate change sceptic” and a “denialist”.  Not only is this completely incorrect (as can be easily confirmed by reading our article

Pielke Sr., R., K. Beven, G. Brasseur, J. Calvert, M. Chahine, R. Dickerson, D. Entekhabi, E. Foufoula-Georgiou, H. Gupta, V. Gupta, W. Krajewski, E. Philip Krider, W. K.M. Lau, J. McDonnell, W. Rossow, J. Schaake, J. Smith, S. Sorooshian, and E. Wood, 2009: Climate change: The need to consider human forcings besides greenhouse gases. Eos, Vol. 90, No. 45, 10 November 2009, 413. Copyright (2009) American Geophysical Union),

but it sets the tone of their post as an ad hominem attack, rather than a discussion of the issue.

The author of this post documents in the figures that they present, that upper ocean heat, in terms of its annual average, did not accumulate during the period ~2004 through 2009. This means that global warming halted on this time period. There is no other way to spin this data.

The claim in the post (apparently written by Graham Wayne) Does ocean cooling prove global warming has ended? that “The most recent ocean measurements show consistent warming” is false (unless the author of this post has new data since 2009 which may show warming).  The recent lack of warming (the data do not support a cooling, despite what the Skeptical Science weblog reports) does not prove or disprove whether global warming over a longer term has ended.

However, the ocean heat content provides the most appropriate metric to diagnosis global warming in recent (since ~2004 when the Argo network became sufficiently dense) and upcoming years, as recommended, of example, in Pielke Sr., R.A., 2008: A broader view of the role of humans in the climate system. Physics Today, 61, Vol. 11, 54-55.

The author of the post on Skeptical Science continues to present misinformation in their Intermediate level post where it is stated: “Early estimates of ocean heat from the Argo showed a cooling bias due to pressure sensor issues. Recent estimates of ocean heat that take this bias into account show continued warming of the upper ocean. This is confirmed by independent estimates of ocean heat as well as more comprehensive measurements of ocean heat down to 2000 metres deep.”

This is an erroneous statement. There was not continued warming for the time period 2004 to 2009, as confirmed by Josh Willis in Pielke Sr., R.A., 2008: A broader view of the role of humans in the climate system. Physics Today, 61, Vol. 11, 54-55. Recently, Josh Willis reported that an updated analysis will be available this Fall.

What the Skeptical Science fails to recognize is that with respect to the diagnosis of global warming using Joules of heat accumulation in the oceans, snapshots of heat content at different times are all that is needed. There is no time lag in heating or cooling. The Joules are either there or they are not. The assessment of a long-term linear trend is not needed.

For example, if the ocean lost its heat in one or two years (such as from a major volcanic eruption), the global warming “clock” would be reset. The Skeptical Science statements that “Claims that the ocean has been cooling are correct. Claims that global warming has stopped are not” illustrates their lack of understanding of the physics. If ocean cooling does occur, it DOES mean global warming as stopped during that time period.

What would be useful is for the weblog Skeptical Science authors to discuss the value of using (and issues with using) the accumulation of Joules in the climate system as the primary metric to monitor global warming. See post here.

ICECAP NOTE: Note how whenever data doesn’t support the models or theory, somehow something must be wrong with it - here they wrongly ascribe the cooling to sensor problems. However, they ignore the many issues with the surface data set like urbanization unaccounted for, bad siting, inappropriate instrumentation, land use changes, changing ocean measurement methods which have much larger errors, inconveniently warm biases.

Also Graham Wayne brings up the need to look at longer periods like 30 years to find trends - decadal trends may be misleading. However, Wayne neglects to note that the PDO and AMO ocean factors both have 30-40 year long regimes with alternating trends. The warm trend from the late 1970s to early 2000s was a warm regime like the 1910s to 1940s. The trend change that started in 2002 that will resume shortly is likely to be a cold trend period like the 1940s to 1970s or if your consider solar more like the early 20th or early 19th century.

He’s the first vice president to have an L.A. school named after him, sharing the honor with author Rachel Carson. Fittingly, the campus will be devoted to environmental themes. But there’s a catch.

Al Gore has had some tough breaks - like losing the presidency after getting more votes than the other guy - but the noted environmentalist achieved a singular honor last week, becoming the first vice president to have a Los Angeles school named after him.

And, fittingly, the school will be devoted to environmental themes.

But as in the 2000 election, there’s a catch. Critics say the campus’ location poses a long-term health risk to students and staff. School district officials insist that the Arlington Heights property is clean and safe. And they’ve pledged to check vapor monitors and groundwater wells to make sure.

The $75.5-million Carson-Gore Academy of Environmental Sciences will open Sept. 13 for about 675 students. As he was with Bill Clinton (who has an L.A. middle school named after him), Gore is second on the ticket to Rachel Carson, the late author credited with helping launch the modern environmental movement.

“Renaming this terribly contaminated school after famous environmental advocates is an affront to the great work that these individuals have done to protect the public’s health from harm,” an environmental coalition wrote in a letter to the Los Angeles Unified School District. Making sure the school is safe “would be an even better way to honor their contribution to society.”

Construction crews were working at the campus up to the Labor Day weekend, replacing toxic soil with clean fill. All told, workers removed dirt from two 3,800-square-foot plots to a depth of 45 feet, space enough to hold a four-story building. The soil had contained more than a dozen underground storage tanks serving light industrial businesses.

Additional contamination may have come from the underground tanks of an adjacent gas station. A barrier will stretch 45 feet down from ground level to limit future possible fuel leakage.

An oil well operates across the street, but officials said they’ve found no associated risks. Like many local campuses, this school also sits above an oil field, but no oil field-related methane has been detected. Groundwater about 45 feet below the surface remains contaminated but also poses no risk, officials said.

Because the district imported clean dirt, the school is probably safe at the moment, said Jane Williams, executive director of the Kern County-based California Communities Against Toxics. But she and other critics, including Robina Suwol, who heads the locally based California Safe Schools coalition, worry that the pollution sources have not been adequately identified and that the dirty groundwater could recontaminate the soil.

Everything’s under control after the $4-million cleanup, said John Sterritt, the school system’s chief safety officer. “There’s no doubt in my mind that the site is safe, and if there are any changes, our monitoring or our existing processes will detect it and we’ll react to that,” Sterritt said. “We really go out of our way to make sure these properties are safe.”

Officials contend the district has made huge strides since environmental concerns stalled the Belmont Learning Complex, which has since opened as the Roybal Learning Center. In addition, new schools now fall under the review of the state Department of Toxic Substances Control.

In the spring, a school-naming committee received six options, including Pete Seeger Community School. A representative from school board member Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte suggested that the folk singer’s “affiliation with the Communist Party,” among other factors, made that choice inappropriate, two in attendance recalled.

Three meetings later, the consensus was Carson-Gore. At last week’s school board meeting, district officials said Gore had never been contacted regarding the naming or the contamination concerns. Board member Nury Martinez speculated that, under the circumstances, Gore might decline the honor.

But school Principal Kurt Lowry pointed out that no one obtained Barack Obama’s permission before naming a middle school (also opening this fall) after the president. Lowry intends to invite Gore and members of Carson’s family to the school’s October ribbon-cutting.

Gore is on vacation and unreachable, said spokesman Mike Feldman. But his staff is not aware of another school named after the former vice president, who raised awareness about global warming in the film “An Inconvenient Truth.” Lowry said the school’s environmental emphasis will do Gore proud, including recycling projects and research and beach cleanups. Cross-curriculum efforts will include environmental speeches and presentations in English, topsoil measurements in math and climate study in science.

The principal also envisions an organic garden that could produce a student-led farmer’s market. Suwol said Lowry sounds “incredibly wonderful,” but added that she’d feel better if the vegetables were grown in planters above the ground. See more here. H/T Climate Depot

By Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times

He’s the first vice president to have an L.A. school named after him, sharing the honor with author Rachel Carson. Fittingly, the campus will be devoted to environmental themes. But there’s a catch.

Al Gore has had some tough breaks - like losing the presidency after getting more votes than the other guy - but the noted environmentalist achieved a singular honor last week, becoming the first vice president to have a Los Angeles school named after him.

And, fittingly, the school will be devoted to environmental themes.

But as in the 2000 election, there’s a catch. Critics say the campus’ location poses a long-term health risk to students and staff. School district officials insist that the Arlington Heights property is clean and safe. And they’ve pledged to check vapor monitors and groundwater wells to make sure.

The $75.5-million Carson-Gore Academy of Environmental Sciences will open Sept. 13 for about 675 students. As he was with Bill Clinton (who has an L.A. middle school named after him), Gore is second on the ticket to Rachel Carson, the late author credited with helping launch the modern environmental movement.

“Renaming this terribly contaminated school after famous environmental advocates is an affront to the great work that these individuals have done to protect the public’s health from harm,” an environmental coalition wrote in a letter to the Los Angeles Unified School District. Making sure the school is safe “would be an even better way to honor their contribution to society.”

Construction crews were working at the campus up to the Labor Day weekend, replacing toxic soil with clean fill. All told, workers removed dirt from two 3,800-square-foot plots to a depth of 45 feet, space enough to hold a four-story building. The soil had contained more than a dozen underground storage tanks serving light industrial businesses.

Additional contamination may have come from the underground tanks of an adjacent gas station. A barrier will stretch 45 feet down from ground level to limit future possible fuel leakage.

An oil well operates across the street, but officials said they’ve found no associated risks. Like many local campuses, this school also sits above an oil field, but no oil field-related methane has been detected. Groundwater about 45 feet below the surface remains contaminated but also poses no risk, officials said.

Because the district imported clean dirt, the school is probably safe at the moment, said Jane Williams, executive director of the Kern County-based California Communities Against Toxics. But she and other critics, including Robina Suwol, who heads the locally based California Safe Schools coalition, worry that the pollution sources have not been adequately identified and that the dirty groundwater could recontaminate the soil.

Everything’s under control after the $4-million cleanup, said John Sterritt, the school system’s chief safety officer. “There’s no doubt in my mind that the site is safe, and if there are any changes, our monitoring or our existing processes will detect it and we’ll react to that,” Sterritt said. “We really go out of our way to make sure these properties are safe.”

Officials contend the district has made huge strides since environmental concerns stalled the Belmont Learning Complex, which has since opened as the Roybal Learning Center. In addition, new schools now fall under the review of the state Department of Toxic Substances Control.

In the spring, a school-naming committee received six options, including Pete Seeger Community School. A representative from school board member Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte suggested that the folk singer’s “affiliation with the Communist Party,” among other factors, made that choice inappropriate, two in attendance recalled.

Three meetings later, the consensus was Carson-Gore. At last week’s school board meeting, district officials said Gore had never been contacted regarding the naming or the contamination concerns. Board member Nury Martinez speculated that, under the circumstances, Gore might decline the honor.

But school Principal Kurt Lowry pointed out that no one obtained Barack Obama’s permission before naming a middle school (also opening this fall) after the president. Lowry intends to invite Gore and members of Carson’s family to the school’s October ribbon-cutting.

Gore is on vacation and unreachable, said spokesman Mike Feldman. But his staff is not aware of another school named after the former vice president, who raised awareness about global warming in the film “An Inconvenient Truth.” Lowry said the school’s environmental emphasis will do Gore proud, including recycling projects and research and beach cleanups. Cross-curriculum efforts will include environmental speeches and presentations in English, topsoil measurements in math and climate study in science.

The principal also envisions an organic garden that could produce a student-led farmer’s market. Suwol said Lowry sounds “incredibly wonderful,” but added that she’d feel better if the vegetables were grown in planters above the ground. See more here.

Last year Lord Monckton gave a presentation on global warming in St. Paul Minnesota that became a sensation on YouTube.  This inspired Prof. John Abraham of the University of St. Thomas to attack his presentation in a lengthy video.

Lord Monckton has responded with a video series of his own. Although the global warming crowd has done all they can to avoid open, honest discussion and debate, opinion polls clearly show that the majority of the public no longer buys the warming hype. Climategate and the host of scandals and revelations that followed have forced them to change their tactics.

CFACT and Lord Monckton welcome the chance to debate. We invite you to view Lord Monckton’s latest videos, or if you haven’t seen the previous ones, start with the introduction here. We firmly believe that if both sides are finally given a chance to speak, common sense will win through. Sunlight is a good disinfectant.

See more here.

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

Hamilton rages on, Monckton replies
By Joanne Nova

Christopher Monckton writes:
Clive Hamilton in the Weekend Australian (28 August) seeks to justify his apocalyptic vision of manmade climate catastrophe by a malevolent personal attack on me. The science behind his “facts” is incorrect.

He foresees “a sea-level rise of nearly 1 m”: yet the IPCC, which had previously taken 1 m as its high-end estimate of sea-level rise by 2100, has cut it to 59 cm (central estimate just 43 cm). Sea level is rising at only 20-30 cm/century. There has been no appreciable acceleration in 150 years.

He talks of Australia’s forest fires and “dwindling water supplies”, but avoids mentioning the recent heavy rains or Australia’s desert climate. A former governor-general whom I met in Canberra has one solution to that: reverse the 50,000 years of deforestation in Australia, moistening the climate.

Mr. Hamilton says that in 20 years the world will be “dominated by the appalling consequences of ‘global warming’”. James Hansen told the US Congress just that 20 years ago, but his lurid forecast of extreme warming did not prove accurate. There has been little “global warming” this millennium.

Last week, at the World Federation of Scientists’ annual seminar on planetary emergencies in Sicily, I heard presentations from several researchers - each using different methods - showing that the warming from doubling atmospheric CO2 concentration will be just 1 C, not the 3.3 C the IPCC imagines.

Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT, who knows more about the atmosphere than anyone, showed that the IPCC’s computer models incorrectly predict 1-3% more evaporation in response to 1 C warming. Measured increase in evaporation is 5.7%. The IPCC has thus tripled true “climate sensitivity” - the warming to be expected from any radiative forcing, such as more CO2.

Dr. Nir Shaviv studied the extensive scientific literature indicating that fluctuations in the radiation from the Sun are 5-6 times more influential than the IPCC had thought. He, too, concluded that a CO2 doubling would cause a harmless 1 C of warming.

I reported that the IPCC’s methods “predicted” that measured radiative forcings from all major greenhouse gases should have caused 1.5 C warming from 1950-2005. Only 0.6 C happened. Whichever way you look at it, the IPCC has greatly over-egged the pudding. Without the exaggeration, there is no problem.

Finally, no true scientist would attack the man rather than his argument. Mr. Hamilton says the only political leader who will meet me is Tony Abbott. Last week I met the Italian Defence Minister, who received a standing ovation from the world’s scientists in Sicily after a fine speech advocating a return to scientific rigour. He said spending on “global warming” was pointless.

Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, regularly quotes my climate research with approval. Margaret Thatcher, whom I had originally advised that
“global warming” needed to be watched, has changed her mind, as have I.

Mr. Hamilton accuses me of “a conspiracy theory about the imminent imposition of a communist world government”. Yet the (fortunately-defeated) September 15 2009 draft of what was to have been the Treaty of Copenhagen proposed an unelected world “government”, with sweeping powers to end the free market and to impose worldwide taxation without representation as well as centralized environmental and economic controls. See Annex 1, paras. 36-38, at www.scienceandpublicpolicy.org.

Mr. Hamilton adds that, in saying I have invented a potential broad-spectrum cure for infectious diseases, I am a “fantasist”. It is a pity that he devoted no more care to checking his facts about me than about climate. Search for “Monckton” at the UK Patent Office, www.ukipo.gov.uk. Patents have indeed been lodged. Our researches continue. It is not I but Mr. Hamilton who is a fantasist. “Global warming” is a non-problem, and the correct solution to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing, and address the real environmental problems of the world instead.

The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley

See more by Hamilton and comments by Joanne here.

It got wide play when union boss Richard Trumka accused Sarah Palin of inciting violence every time she speaks. President Obama recently accused Fox News host Glenn Beck of “stirring up” a “certain portion” of the American people with his “Restore Honor” rally. Gender orientation and “sexual identity” were recently added to the hate crimes list.

Yet those who say man is a plague upon the earth, ravaging its resources, exterminating its endangered species and heating it into oblivion are never accused of inciting anything when those who hear their words respond by marching into an office building to save the earth at gunpoint.

The gunman who entered the Discovery Channel headquarters was killed after he entered with a handgun and what were believed to be explosive devices, took three hostages and pointed his gun at one of them. He identified himself as James J. Lee and said, “I have a gun and I have a bomb. ... I have several bombs strapped to my body ready to go off.”

In a rambling manifesto, Lee echoes the writings of President Obama’s science adviser, John Holdren, railing against “disgusting human babies” and “parasitic infants” and insisting people should “disassemble civilization.” His manifesto demanded that the Discovery Channel cease all programming about war, weapons or giving birth.

Court records show that Lee had been arrested on Feb. 21, 2008, on the sixth day of a protest at the Discovery building. Lee said at the time that he experienced an “awakening” when he watched former Vice President Al Gore’s environmental documentary ‘’An Inconvenient Truth.” Lee has said he was also inspired by “Ishmael,” a novel by environmentalist Daniel Quinn. “Nothing is more important than saving ... the Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears and, of course, the Squirrels. The humans? The planet does not need humans,” he wrote.

As scary as this sounds, it is scarier to consider that this sentiment can be found in various forms in the bibliography of what is considered mainstream environmentalism.

In a recently rediscovered book, “Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment,” co-authored with Malthus fans Paul and Anne Ehrlich, Holdren, who holds the post of presidential assistant for science technology, revealed his similar pessimistic and apocalyptic views on all three topics. They are disturbing.

Like Lee, Holdren hates people and views them as the root of all planetary evil. Big families are a target of Holdren and the Ehrlichs, who write that they “contribute to general social deterioration by overproducing children” and “can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility.”

Eco-terror groups such as the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front have long advocated violence, including arson and bombings, to save the earth and critters on it from the plague known as mankind. From firebombing ski resorts to torching medical labs, these environmental terrorists have been very active.

ELF’s Web site at one point offered pointers on “Setting Fires With Electric Timers.” The ALF posted commentary boasting that its “attacks on medical research continue today” and are aimed at producing “millions of dollars worth of damages and delays in the development of new treatments and cures.”

People must die, in their view, to save Bambi.

Of course, no one will blame Al Gore for inciting hate and violence. No one will worry about a vast left-wing conspiracy to save the planet at all costs or that James Lee’s extremist views are almost identical to those of the president’s science adviser.

Hate comes only from the right, and when you’re saving the earth, the end justifies the means. Neither human lives nor human freedom can stand in their way. H/T Climate Depot

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Time for Rajendra Pachauri to go
New Scientist Opinion

THE Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is in need of fundamental reform. Its organisation is outdated, and it has failed to follow many of its own procedures, a high-level review of the panel’s activities reported this week (see “Climate panel must ‘fundamentally reform’ to survive").

A central recommendation is that to encourage new thinking, senior management should only be allowed to serve for a single term. That amounts to a call for the panel’s chair, Rajendra Pachauri, to step down.

He should go soon. Pachauri has spent too much effort defending the indefensible, in particular when it emerged that the IPCC’s last report contained serious mistakes.

Those who strive to cast doubt on the reality of climate change will doubtless be delighted by his departure. But keeping Pachauri in place would undermine efforts to rebuild the panel’s authority, even if other recommended reforms are implemented.

When the IPCC’s governing body meets in South Korea next month, it should seek a new chair - preferably a scientist of stature from outside the climate research establishment. That will give it the best chance of re-establishing the credibility it must have. See post here.

I have been interviewed by Hans von Storch for the August issue of the Atmospheric Sciences Section of the AGU Newsletter.  The interview is reproduced below. Comments that have been made on the interview can be read on Hans’s weblog Die Klimazwiebel.

Hans von Storch

Roger A. Pielke Sr. is currently a Senior Research Scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado and a Professor Emeritus of the Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University. Pielke has studied weather and climate on local, regional and global scales using both models and observations throughout an over 40 year career. He has authored, co-authored and co-edited several books including “Mesoscale Meteorological Modeling” (1984; 2002), “The Hurricane” (1990), “Human Impacts on Weather and Climate” (1995; 2006), “Hurricanes: Their Nature and Impacts” (1997) and “Storms” (1999). Roger Pielke Sr. was elected a Fellow of the AMS in 1982 and a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 2004. He has served as Chief Editor of the Monthly Weather Review and Co-Chief Editor of the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences. He is currently serving on the AGU Focus Group on Natural Hazards (August 2009-present) and the AMS Committee on Planned and Inadvertent Weather Modification (October 2009-present). Dr. Pielke has also published over 350 papers in peer-reviewed journals, 50 chapters in books, and made over 700 presentations during his career to date. A listing of papers can be viewed at the project website. He is among one of three faculty and one of four members listed by ISI HighlyCited in Geosciences at Colorado State University and the University of Colorado at Boulder, respectively.

Hans von Storch Question

Prof Pielke, you are an atmospheric scientist - what were the main scientific issues you have tackled in your long professional career?

Roger A. Pielke Sr. Reply

Our research team has investigated a wide range of climate processes. This includes studies in meteorology, hydrology, ecology and oceanography. Among our findings has been the clear demonstration of the close coupling between land surface processes and weather. I have also worked extensively to improve our understanding of the transport and dispersion of air pollution, as well as ways to reduce the risk from this environmental hazard.

Hans von Storch Question

How do you weigh the role and the potentials of models?

Roger A. Pielke Sr. Reply

Models are powerful tools with which to understand how the climate system works on multi-decadal time scale as long as there are observations to compare reality with the model simulations. However, when they are used for predictions of environmental and societal impacts decades from now in which there is no data to validate them, such as the IPCC predictions decades into the future, they present a level of forecast skill to policymakers that does not exist. These predictions are, in reality model sensitivity studies and as such this major limitation in their use as predictions needs to be emphasized. Unless accompanied by an adequate recognition of this large uncertainty they imply a confidence in the skill of the results that is not present.

Hans von Storch Question

You have become known for dissenting views in the present debate about the perspective of anthropogenic climate change. For example, you stress the role of land uses chances as another key driver in influencing our climate. Could you outline your position?

Roger A. Pielke Sr. Reply

My perspective is summarized in a recent publication with 18 other Fellows of the American Geophysical Union in an EOS article titled “Climate change: The need to consider human forcings besides greenhouse gases” [Pielke Sr. et al., 2009]. We wrote “the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment did not sufficiently acknowledge the importance of these other human climate forcings in altering regional and global climate and their effects on predictability at the regional scale” and because “global climate models do not accurately simulate (or even include) several
of these other first order human climate forcings, policymakers must be made aware of the inability of the current generation of models to accurately forecast regional climate risks to resources on multidecadal time scales.”

Hans von Storch Question

If you were right, how would the range of options for response measures for limiting man-made climate change within certain bounds differ from what is commonly considered?

Roger A. Pielke Sr. Reply

We need to recognize that the IPCC starts from an inappropriately narrow perspective that the human input greenhouse gases is the dominate environmental concern in the coming decades and then the IPCC presents policymakers with a resulting broad range of expected regional and local impacts. This is, however, at best a flawed significantly, incomplete approach.

The IPCC process should be inverted. In our 2009 EOS article that I referred to above, we recommend that the next assessment phase of the IPCC (and other such assessments) broaden its perspective to include all of the human climate forcings. It should also adopt a complementary and precautionary resource based assessment of the vulnerability of critical resources (those affecting water, food, energy, and human and ecosystem health) to environmental variability and change of all types. This should include, but not be limited to, the effects due to all of the natural and human caused climate variations and changes.

After these threats are identified for each resource, then the relative risk from natural and human-caused climate change (estimated from the GCM projections, but also the historical, paleo-record, and worst case sequences of events) can be compared with other environmental and social risks in order to adopt the optimal mitigation/adaptation strategy.

The issues we should focus on can be summarized in this set of questions:
1. Why is this resource important? How is it used? To what stakeholders is it valuable?
2. What are the key environmental and social variables that influence this resource?
3. What is the sensitivity of this resource to changes in each of these key variables? (this includes, but is not limited to, the sensitivity of the resource to climate variations and change on short (e.g. days); medium (e.g. seasons) and long (e.g. multi-decadal) time scales.
4. What changes (thresholds) in these key variables would have to occur to result in a negative (or positive) response to this resource?
5. What are the best estimates of the probabilities for these changes to occur? What tools are available to quantify the effect of these changes. Can these estimates be skillfully predicted?
6. What actions (adaptation/mitigation) can be undertaken in order to minimize or eliminate the negative consequences of these changes (or to optimize a positive response)?
7. What are specific recommendations for policymakers and other stakeholders?

I have been commissioned as Chief Editor of a set of five books which will apply this bottom-up, resource based perspective.

Hans von Storch Question

You have retired a few years ago from your active duty as a professor at Colorado State University. Did retirement present for you a loss of opportunities, for instance with respect to teaching, or an opening of new possibilities?

Roger A. Pielke Sr. Reply

I continue to work with graduate students at the University of Colorado, and at other institutions including Purdue University and the University of Alabama at Huntsville. I continue to be active in research and mentoring of younger scientists.

Hans von Storch Question

What would you consider the two most significant achievements in your career?

Roger A. Pielke Sr. Reply

First, the opportunity to mentor graduate students and postdoctoral research staff, a number of who have become leaders in atmospheric and climate science has been an achievement I am proud of. Second, the perspective that climate is an integrated nonlinear physical, chemical and biological system, which requires the understanding of all components of the atmosphere, ocean, land and cryosphere, is starting to become more widely accepted. I have sought to promote this view over the last 20 year. This broader view of climate as a complex, nonlinear geophysical system is more scientifically robust than has been presented in the IPCC reports.

Hans von Storch Question

When you look back in time, what where the most significant, exciting or surprising developments in atmospheric science?

Roger A. Pielke Sr. Reply

The ability to monitor the climate system from space has provided a much better understanding of climate as a system. We also are developing an improved recognition of the difficult challenges we face in seeking to skillfully predict climate decades from now. In terms of negative developments, the bias in the funding of climate science research which tends to exclude perspectives that differ from the IPCC viewpoint is a major concern. Also, the introduction in the last 10-15 years of the publication in peer reviewed research papers of climate forecasts and impacts decades into the futures. Their publication subverts the scientific process since these predictions are not testable until after that time period has elapsed.

Hans von Storch Question

Is there a politicization of atmospheric science?

Roger A. Pielke Sr. Reply

Very definitely. There is a clear intent, for example, in the climate assessment report process to exclude scientists who disagree with the IPCC perspective from research papers and from funding. This was exemplified in the CRU e-mails, but it is a much wider problem as I have documented on my weblog, testimony to the U.S. Congress and in Public Comments.

Hans von Storch Question

What constitutes “good” science?

Roger A. Pielke Sr. Reply

“Good” science is completed when hypotheses are presented and tested with real world data to see if they can be refuted. Unfortunately, the IPCC uses multi-decadal global climate model predictions as a basis for policy action yet these model predictions cannot be tested since we need to wait decades to obtain the real world data. Even in hindcasts of the last few decades, these models have shown no regional predictive skill.

Hans von Storch Question

What is the subjective element in scientific practice? Does culture matter? What is the role of instinct?

Roger A. Pielke Sr. Reply

Science needs to advance by following the scientific method. This needs to be independent of culture or any other external influence.

Hans von Storch Closing Comment

For further reading about the opinions and views of Dr. Pielke Sr.’s refer to his blog.

References

Pielke, R., Sr., et al. (2009), Climate Change: The Need to Consider Human Forcings Besides Greenhouse Gases, Eos Trans.

Climate Science Weblog

I have been interviewed by Hans von Storch for the August issue of the Atmospheric Sciences Section of the AGU Newsletter.  The interview is reproduced below. Comments that have been made on the interview can be read on Hans’s weblog Die Klimazwiebel.

Hans von Storch

Roger A. Pielke Sr. is currently a Senior Research Scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado and a Professor Emeritus of the Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University. Pielke has studied weather and climate on local, regional and global scales using both models and observations throughout an over 40 year career. He has authored, co-authored and co-edited several books including “Mesoscale Meteorological Modeling” (1984; 2002), “The Hurricane” (1990), “Human Impacts on Weather and Climate” (1995; 2006), “Hurricanes: Their Nature and Impacts” (1997) and “Storms” (1999). Roger Pielke Sr. was elected a Fellow of the AMS in 1982 and a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 2004. He has served as Chief Editor of the Monthly Weather Review and Co-Chief Editor of the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences. He is currently serving on the AGU Focus Group on Natural Hazards (August 2009-present) and the AMS Committee on Planned and Inadvertent Weather Modification (October 2009-present). Dr. Pielke has also published over 350 papers in peer-reviewed journals, 50 chapters in books, and made over 700 presentations during his career to date. A listing of papers can be viewed at the project website. He is among one of three faculty and one of four members listed by ISI HighlyCited in Geosciences at Colorado State University and the University of Colorado at Boulder, respectively.

Hans von Storch Question

Prof Pielke, you are an atmospheric scientist - what were the main scientific issues you have tackled in your long professional career?

Roger A. Pielke Sr. Reply

Our research team has investigated a wide range of climate processes. This includes studies in meteorology, hydrology, ecology and oceanography. Among our findings has been the clear demonstration of the close coupling between land surface processes and weather. I have also worked extensively to improve our understanding of the transport and dispersion of air pollution, as well as ways to reduce the risk from this environmental hazard.

Hans von Storch Question

How do you weigh the role and the potentials of models?

Roger A. Pielke Sr. Reply

Models are powerful tools with which to understand how the climate system works on multi-decadal time scale as long as there are observations to compare reality with the model simulations. However, when they are used for predictions of environmental and societal impacts decades from now in which there is no data to validate them, such as the IPCC predictions decades into the future, they present a level of forecast skill to policymakers that does not exist. These predictions are, in reality model sensitivity studies and as such this major limitation in their use as predictions needs to be emphasized. Unless accompanied by an adequate recognition of this large uncertainty they imply a confidence in the skill of the results that is not present.

Hans von Storch Question

You have become known for dissenting views in the present debate about the perspective of anthropogenic climate change. For example, you stress the role of land uses chances as another key driver in influencing our climate. Could you outline your position?

Roger A. Pielke Sr. Reply

My perspective is summarized in a recent publication with 18 other Fellows of the American Geophysical Union in an EOS article titled “Climate change: The need to consider human forcings besides greenhouse gases” [Pielke Sr. et al., 2009]. We wrote “the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment did not sufficiently acknowledge the importance of these other human climate forcings in altering regional and global climate and their effects on predictability at the regional scale” and because “global climate models do not accurately simulate (or even include) several
of these other first order human climate forcings, policymakers must be made aware of the inability of the current generation of models to accurately forecast regional climate risks to resources on multidecadal time scales.”

Hans von Storch Question

If you were right, how would the range of options for response measures for limiting man-made climate change within certain bounds differ from what is commonly considered?

Roger A. Pielke Sr. Reply

We need to recognize that the IPCC starts from an inappropriately narrow perspective that the human input greenhouse gases is the dominate environmental concern in the coming decades and then the IPCC presents policymakers with a resulting broad range of expected regional and local impacts. This is, however, at best a flawed significantly, incomplete approach.

The IPCC process should be inverted. In our 2009 EOS article that I referred to above, we recommend that the next assessment phase of the IPCC (and other such assessments) broaden its perspective to include all of the human climate forcings. It should also adopt a complementary and precautionary resource based assessment of the vulnerability of critical resources (those affecting water, food, energy, and human and ecosystem health) to environmental variability and change of all types. This should include, but not be limited to, the effects due to all of the natural and human caused climate variations and changes.

After these threats are identified for each resource, then the relative risk from natural and human-caused climate change (estimated from the GCM projections, but also the historical, paleo-record, and worst case sequences of events) can be compared with other environmental and social risks in order to adopt the optimal mitigation/adaptation strategy.

The issues we should focus on can be summarized in this set of questions:
1. Why is this resource important? How is it used? To what stakeholders is it valuable?
2. What are the key environmental and social variables that influence this resource?
3. What is the sensitivity of this resource to changes in each of these key variables? (this includes, but is not limited to, the sensitivity of the resource to climate variations and change on short (e.g. days); medium (e.g. seasons) and long (e.g. multi-decadal) time scales.
4. What changes (thresholds) in these key variables would have to occur to result in a negative (or positive) response to this resource?
5. What are the best estimates of the probabilities for these changes to occur? What tools are available to quantify the effect of these changes. Can these estimates be skillfully predicted?
6. What actions (adaptation/mitigation) can be undertaken in order to minimize or eliminate the negative consequences of these changes (or to optimize a positive response)?
7. What are specific recommendations for policymakers and other stakeholders?

I have been commissioned as Chief Editor of a set of five books which will apply this bottom-up, resource based perspective.

Hans von Storch Question

You have retired a few years ago from your active duty as a professor at Colorado State University. Did retirement present for you a loss of opportunities, for instance with respect to teaching, or an opening of new possibilities?

Roger A. Pielke Sr. Reply

I continue to work with graduate students at the University of Colorado, and at other institutions including Purdue University and the University of Alabama at Huntsville. I continue to be active in research and mentoring of younger scientists.

Hans von Storch Question

What would you consider the two most significant achievements in your career?

Roger A. Pielke Sr. Reply

First, the opportunity to mentor graduate students and postdoctoral research staff, a number of who have become leaders in atmospheric and climate science has been an achievement I am proud of. Second, the perspective that climate is an integrated nonlinear physical, chemical and biological system, which requires the understanding of all components of the atmosphere, ocean, land and cryosphere, is starting to become more widely accepted. I have sought to promote this view over the last 20 year. This broader view of climate as a complex, nonlinear geophysical system is more scientifically robust than has been presented in the IPCC reports.

Hans von Storch Question

When you look back in time, what where the most significant, exciting or surprising developments in atmospheric science?

Roger A. Pielke Sr. Reply

The ability to monitor the climate system from space has provided a much better understanding of climate as a system. We also are developing an improved recognition of the difficult challenges we face in seeking to skillfully predict climate decades from now. In terms of negative developments, the bias in the funding of climate science research which tends to exclude perspectives that differ from the IPCC viewpoint is a major concern. Also, the introduction in the last 10-15 years of the publication in peer reviewed research papers of climate forecasts and impacts decades into the futures. Their publication subverts the scientific process since these predictions are not testable until after that time period has elapsed.

Hans von Storch Question

Is there a politicization of atmospheric science?

Roger A. Pielke Sr. Reply

Very definitely. There is a clear intent, for example, in the climate assessment report process to exclude scientists who disagree with the IPCC perspective from research papers and from funding. This was exemplified in the CRU e-mails, but it is a much wider problem as I have documented on my weblog, testimony to the U.S. Congress and in Public Comments.

Hans von Storch Question

What constitutes “good” science?

Roger A. Pielke Sr. Reply

“Good” science is completed when hypotheses are presented and tested with real world data to see if they can be refuted. Unfortunately, the IPCC uses multi-decadal global climate model predictions as a basis for policy action yet these model predictions cannot be tested since we need to wait decades to obtain the real world data. Even in hindcasts of the last few decades, these models have shown no regional predictive skill.

Hans von Storch Question

What is the subjective element in scientific practice? Does culture matter? What is the role of instinct?

Roger A. Pielke Sr. Reply

Science needs to advance by following the scientific method. This needs to be independent of culture or any other external influence.

Hans von Storch Closing Comment

For further reading about the opinions and views of Dr. Pielke Sr.’s refer to his blog.

References

Pielke, R., Sr., et al. (2009), Climate Change: The Need to Consider Human Forcings Besides Greenhouse Gases, Eos Trans.

Persistent multi-decadal Greenland temperature fluctuation through the last millennium. Climatic Change 100: 733-756. According to Kobashi et al. (2010) “in Greenland, oxygen isotopes of ice (Stuiver et al., 1995) have been extensively used as a temperature proxy, but the data are noisy and do not clearly show multi-centennial trends for the last 1,000 years in contrast to borehole temperature records that show a clear ‘Little Ice Age’ and ‘Medieval Warm Period’ (Dahl-Jensen et al., 1998).” However, they note that nitrogen (N) and argon (Ar) isotopic ratios—15N/14N and 40Ar/36Ar, respectively—can be used to construct a temperature record that “is not seasonally biased, and does not require any calibration to instrumental records, and resolves decadal to centennial temperature fluctuations.” Kobashi et al. further describe the development of such an approach, after which they use it to construct a history of the last thousand years of central Greenland surface air temperature, based on values of isotopic ratios of nitrogen and argon previously derived by Kobashi et al. (2008) from air bubbles trapped in the GISP2 ice core that had been extracted from central Greenland (72 degrees 36 minutes N, 38 degrees 30 minutes W).

The figure below depicts the central Greenland surface temperature reconstruction produced by the six scientists; and as best as can be determined from this representation, the peak temperature of the latter part of the Medieval Warm Period—which actually began some time prior to the start of their record, as demonstrated by the work of Dansgaard et al. (1975), Jennings and Weiner (1996), Johnsen et al. (2001) and Vinther et al. (2010)—was approximately 0.33C greater than the peak temperature of the Current Warm Period, and about 1.67C greater than the temperature of the last decades of the 20th century. In addition, it is worthy to note that between about 1400 and 1460 there was also a period of notable warmth in Kobashi et al.’s temperature reconstruction, which aligns well with the “Little” Medieval Warm Period, the peak temperature of which was about 0.9C greater than the temperature of the last decades of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century.

Central Greenland surface temperature reconstruction for the last millennium. Adapted from Kobashi et al. (2010). Enlarged here.

These findings, the authors say, “show clear evidence of the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age in agreement with documentary evidence,” and those data clearly show that the Medieval Warm Period was at times considerably warmer than the Current Warm Period has been to date, and that even the Little Medieval Warm Period was considerably warmer than it was over the last decades of the twentieth century, as well as the first decade of the 21st century. Thus, there is no compelling reason to believe that the 20th-century increase in the air’s CO2 content (a 100-ppm rise above what it was during the warmer Medieval Warm Period) was the cause of 20th-century global warming, especially when climate alarmists claim that such warming, when it occurs, should be most evident and earliest expressed in high northern latitudes, and even more so in light of the fact that there is a millennial-scale climatic cycle that alternately brings the earth relatively warmer and cooler century-scale conditions throughout both glacial and interglacial periods alike.

Additional References
Dahl-Jensen, D., Mosegaard, K, Gundestrup, N., Clew, G.D., Johnsen, S.J., Hansen, A.W. and Balling, N. 1998. Past temperatures directly from the Greenland ice sheet. Science 282: 268-271.

Dansgaard, W., Johnsen, S.J., Reech, N., Gundestrup, N., Clausen, H.B. and Hammer, C.U. 1975. Climatic changes, Norsemen and modern man. Nature 255: 24-28.

Jennings, A.E. and Weiner, N.J. 1996. Environmental change in eastern Greenland during the last 1300 years: evidence from foraminifera and lithofacies in Nansen Fjord, 68N. The Holocene 6: 179-191.

Johnsen, S.J., Dahl-Jensen, D., Gundestrup, N., Steffensen, J.P., Clausen, H.B., Miller, H., Masson-Delmotte, V., Sveinbjörnsdottir, A.E. and White, J. 2001. Oxygen isotope and palaeotemperature records from six Greenland ice-core stations: Camp Century, Dye-3, GRIP, GISP2, Renland and NorthGRIP. Journal of Quaternary Science 16: 299-307.

Kobashi, T., Severinghaus, J.P. and Kawamura, K. 2008. Argon and nitrogen isotopes of trapped air in the GISP2 ice core during the Holocene epoch (0-11,600 B.P.): methodology and implications for gas loss processes. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 72: 4675-4686.

Stuiver, M., Grootes, P.M. and Brazunias, T.F. 1995. The GISP2 δ18O climate record of the past 16,500 years and the role of the sun, ocean, and volcanoes. Quaternary Research 44: 341-354.

Vinther, B.M., Jones, P.D., Briffa, K.R., Clausen, H.B., Andersen, K.K., Dahl-Jensen, D. and Johnsen, S.J. 2010. Climatic signals in multiple highly resolved stable isotope records from Greenland. Quaternary Science Reviews 29: 522-538.

See post here. H/T SEPP

Icecap Note: In this story , Steve Bloom, of the SFO Sierra club who used to haunt the Climate Science blog of Roger Pielke Sr. when he allowed comments, asked in a comment on this alarmist friendly blog if there was any credible recon on the existence of the Medieval Warm Period or Little Ice Age as depicted in the image there (below, enlarged here).

Since the late 1980’s, global warming alarmists have been blaring ad nauseum that the world is suffering from ever higher temperatures, setting new hot temperature records, supposedly on a constant basis. Whenever warm weather arrives in the Northern Hemisphere, the warming hype onslaught from government paid climate scientists, MSM journalists and Hollywood celebrities escalates, as seemingly every new day, new week, new month, new quarter, new year and etc. is pronounced as the warmest evaaar! But is the world truly experiencing these highly publicized extreme, unprecedented hot temperatures?

The simple and honest answer is an emphatic ‘NO!’. In a previous post, the actual temperature data from weather stations around the world showed that “global” warming is actually regional warming, and, my goodness, also regional cooling. And if human CO2 emissions were really causing unprecedented, hot global weather (temperatures) then new hot temperature records for each continent should be happening - it ain’t happening, though, folks.

Looking at the map below (map source enlarged), the hottest and coldest temperatures ever recorded in modern times are presented for each continent.

Look closely and realize what has actually not taken place. The last ‘hottest’ temperature record was set way back in 1977. Per the calendar, some 33 years later, no continent has exceeded their previous hot temperature record - and some of those records go all the way back to the early 20th century.

Hey...the next time you hear or read “unprecedented temperatures” from a ignorant leftist/liberal elite, don’t cut them any slack, go ahead and snicker (or start giggling) - it’s alright, you’re allowed to laugh at the stupendous ignorance exhibited by the Gore-zombies of the “progressive” left.

Remember, the myth that Earth “has a fever,” and the myth that human CO2 causes extreme temperatures, and the myth that unprecedented warming is global, are just that: myths, spread by individuals with a variety of crazy-leftist agendas.

For map (click here to enlarge). See table form below (source NOAA NCDC).

Enlarged here.

Did we say “extreme?” A few more Wikipedia extreme temperature/weather trivia points of relevance: (1) Fastest temperature rise recorded - 49F in 2 minutes in 1942; (2) Fastest temperature drop recorded - 47F in 15 minutes in 1911; (3) Most consecutive days above 100F recorded - 160 days from 1923 to 1924. And by the way, each of these most extreme weather events took place well before the influence of large human CO2 emissions.

Additional current temp charts here. Historical temp charts here. Excellent compilations!

See US state heat records (50 states - 12 months) below enlarged here (source Bruce Hall compiled from NCDC)

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

CRU, NOAA AND NASA DATA MANIPULATION
By Joseph D’Aleo, CCM

Phil Jones admitted to the BBC that there was no statistically significant warming since 1995 and that it had cooled globally 0.12C from 2002 to 2009, not statistically significant but nonetheless a cooling even asw CO2 continued to rise. Temperatures popped this year as a strong though relatively brief El Nino came on. Even with El Nino, it was a brutally and in places all-time record cold winter in many land areas of the Northern Hemisphere last winter, but the Pacific thanks to the warm El Nino and the Atlantic thanks to a lack of tropical activity the prior summer and less wind and clouds with a weakened and suppressed subtropical high and high latitude blocking high pressure were both unseasonably warm. Land areas felt some of that warmth this summer though La Nina cooled the Pacific dramatically. 

Average NINO region temperatures since January 2009 (enlarged here).

The PDO was slightly positive with the strong El Nino this January but is now strongly negative. This is a plot of all years in which the Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI) declined more than 2 STD from January to August. Enlarged here. This should induce a global cooling in upcoming months. This will be aided by a cooling of the Atlantic by the tropical activity which is enhanced by La Nina and acts to extract excess tropical heat from the tropical oceans and reduce warm anomalies further north through mixing.

Nevertheless the manipulation of the global data bases in all the data sets over the last century has elevated the chances that each month will rank among the warmest. All three data centers have cooled the past and warmed the more recent years through their data manipulation. Here are NASA plots of 1980 and 2010.

Enlarged here.

Here is the CRU plot just since 2001.

Enlarged here.

This is the change in the NOAA USHCN in 2007 from the original version in 1990.

Enlarged here. More on NOAA coming soon.

All three data centers have cooled the past and allowed data issues produce increasingly warm biases in the last few decades to ensure the data is more in line with their models (but even with the changes, it is falling far short). They have succeeded in ensuring they can claim ranking warm months and years but can’t yet match their models.

Enlarged here. Source John Christy UAH annual vs IPCC AR4 projected scenarios for temperatures.

Wait until the ocean cooling and long solar cycle 23 and wimpy cycle 24 evolves. See story here.

The incident has sent shock waves through science because it suggests a body of data is unreliable. The professor, Marc Hauser, is now a pariah in his field and his papers have been withdrawn. But the implications for society are not great; no policy had been based on his research.

This week, after a four-month review, a committee of scientists concluded that the Nobel prizewinning UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has “assigned high confidence to statements for which there is very little evidence, has failed to enforce its own guidelines, has been guilty of too little transparency, has ignored critical review comments and has had no policies on conflict of interest”.

Enormous and expensive policy changes have been based on the flawed work of these scientists. Yet there is apparently to be no investigation, blame, suspension or withdrawal of papers, just a gentle bureaucratic fattening of the organisation with new full-time posts.

IPCC reports are supposed to be the gold standard account of what is - and is not - known about global warming. The panel boasts that it uses only peer-reviewed scientific literature.

But its claims about mountain ice turned out to be anecdotes from a climbing magazine, its claims on the Amazon’s vulnerability to drought from a Brazilian pressure group’s website and 42 per cent of the references in one chapter proved to be to reports by Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund and other “grey” literature.

This week’s review finds guidelines on the use of this grey literature “are vague and have not always been followed”.

For instance, the claim that glaciers in the Himalayas would disappear by 2035 seems to have been based on a misprint (for 2350) in a document issued by a pressure group. When several reviewers challenged the assertion in draft, they were ignored.

When Indian scientists challenged it after publication, they were not just dismissed but vilified and accused of “voodoo science” by IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri.

By contrast, when two academics, Ross McKitrick and Pat Michaels, found a strong link between temperature rise and local economic development - implying that recent warming is partly down to local, not global factors - their paper was ignored for two drafts, despite many review comments drawing attention to the omission. It was finally given a grudging reference, with a false assertion that the data was rebutted by other data that turned out to be nonexistent.

We now know the back story of this episode: the emails leaked from the University of East Anglia include this from professor Phil Jones, referring to exactly this paper: “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!” (Note that the IPCC had appointed Jones as co-ordinating lead author to pass judgment on his own papers as well as those of his critics. Learning nothing, it has appointed one of Jones’s closest colleagues for the next report. This is asking not to be taken seriously.)

These are not merely procedural issues. They have real consequences for science and society. All the errors and biases that have come to light in recent months swerve in the direction of exaggerating the likely effect of climate change.

According to economist Richard Tol, one part of the 2007 report (produced by Working Group 2) systematically overstated the adverse effects of climate change, while another section (written by Working Group 3) systematically understated the costs of emissions reduction. Indur Goklany, an independent science scholar, likewise noticed that the report had quoted a study that estimated the number of people at increased risk of (reduced? BB) water shortage in the future as a result of climate change, but omitted to mention the same source’s estimate of the number of people at decreased risk.

The latter number was larger in all cases, so that “by the 2080s the net global population at risk declines by up to 2.1 billion people”.

This is not a new problem. The unilateral redrafting of IPCC reports by lead authors after reviewers had agreed them, and the writing of a sexed-up “summary for policymakers” before the report was complete, have discomfited many scientists since the first report. It is no great surprise that the experts who compiled one part of the 2007 report included three from Greenpeace, two Friends of the Earth representatives, two Climate Action Network representatives and a person each from the activist organisations WWF, Environmental Defence Fund and the David Suzuki Foundation.

Frankly, the whole process, not just the discredited Pachauri (in shut-eyed denial at a press conference this week), needs purging or it will drag down the reputation of science with it. One of the most shocking things for those who champion science, as I do, has been the sight of the science establishment reacting to each scandal in climate science with indifference or contempt. The contrast with the thorough investigation of the Hauser affair is striking.

Three years ago, not having paid much attention, I thought IPCC reports were reliable, fair and transparent. No longer. Despite coming from a long line of coalmining entrepreneurs, I’m not a denier: I think carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. I’m not even a sceptic (yet): I think the climate has warmed and will warm further.

But I am now a “lukewarmer” who has yet to see any evidence saying that the present warming is, or is likely to be, unprecedented, fast or tending to accelerate. So I have concluded that global warming will most probably be a fairly minor problem - at least compared with others such as poverty and habitat loss - for nature as well as people.

After watching the ecologically and economically destructive policies enacted in its name (biofuels, wind power), I think we run the risk of putting a tourniquet around our collective necks to stop a nosebleed. 

They think a simple mea culpa will do the job and allow them to continue their corrupt and corrupting ways. It won’t and it can’t. Not even the full mea maxima culpa will solve the problem.

The most recent whitewash

The most recent whitewash began with UN Secretary General Ban ki Moon ordering a supposedly independent investigation. The Inter Academy Council (IAC), which combines 15 Science Academies, whatever that means, were assigned to produce a very limited report. “The review by the IAC will not involve any in-depth analysis of the report produced by the IPCC, or of any “vast amounts of data”. “

It’s no surprise they prepared a very shallow report that identifies some errors and makes recommendations for the ongoing IPCC, but it is grossly inadequate. Why didn’t they talk to people who have raised questions about the process? Why didn’t they review the extensive literature on problems with the IPCC and the entire process? Why didn’t they recommend the removal from office of Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the IPCC? His activities are well documented and clearly show his integrity is completely compromised. The scientist whose false report on retreat of Himalayan glaciers was used by the IPCC worked for TERI of which Pachauri is the chairman. Why do they avoid the connections between CRU and IPCC?

The answer is given in the list of members of the IAC Board.  It includes Ralph Cicerone, which though he may not have been involved in the Report, gives a flavor of the bias of the group. He has been very active in defense of the IPCC positions and in attacking those who dare question. Here is what he said about IPCC reports, “This is the most comprehensive report ever on climate change,” said atmospheric scientist Ralph J. Cicerone, the president of the academy. They outline “why the U.S. should act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and why we should have a national strategy to adapt to the inevitable.”

It is underlined by the fact the last IAC report was on alternate energy, the unworkable but favorite solution of IPCC proponents.

Inter Academy Council demonstrate their lack of understanding

The IAC clearly has no idea of the history of the political hijacking of climate science that used the UN, the WMO and culminated in the IPCC. They acknowledge some of the minor errors made, such as the article on Himalayas glaciers that they used to claim ice was melting and faster than any logical research allowed. They dismiss these items as misguided and fail to put them in the entire context of corruption that is the IPCC. They fail to make the connection between the leaked emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) people and the IPCC. They demonstrate their lack of understanding by advising the IPCC not to make predictions unless they had solid evidence. The United Nations climate panel should make predictions only when it has solid evidence and should avoid policy advocacy, scientists said in a report yesterday that called for thorough reform of the body.

The problem is the IPCC doesn’t make predictions. They stopped after their dismal failures in the first two Reports. They cleverly and deliberately called them projections from a range of scenarios. Of course, the mainstream media choose to report the worse case scenario with regard to temperature increase. All these scenarios are based on false assumptions and evidence that was given far too much credence. As Chairman of the IAC group, Princeton professor Harold Shapiro said one of the Reports, “contains many statements that were assigned high confidence but for which there is little evidence.”

It wasn’t just one of the Reports. Shapiro, and likely his group, fails to understand each Report builds on the previous one purportedly adding new material. In fact, the record shows they eliminated awkward material such as the graph showing the Mediaeval Warm Period (MWP), or ignored well-documented research such as the Svensmark theory on the relationship between sunspots and global temperature.

After the IAC Report was released, Ban Ki Moon confirmed the incestuous nature of the investigation and gave an example of the gamesmanship he practices so well. He and Achem Steiner, head of the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), said the report had done nothing to undermine the solid science in the IPCC Report. Of course not, they deliberately worked to that goal.

Nothing will change soon. Too many political, bureaucratic and academic careers are dependent on perpetuating the IPCC. Too many green industries have developed to take advantage of the billions governments have poured into alternate energies and other unworkable projects. Too many lobby groups are dependent on government funding, and use the IPCC message to shake funds out of a deceived and worried public.

In a recent article I recommended scrapping government weather agencies.

Maurice Strong used the UN to set up the IPCC and pursue his political goals

This is important because it was through them and their membership in the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) that IPCC was created, funded and perverted. Maurice Strong used the UN to set up the IPCC and pursue his political goals. Its entire purpose was political and not scientific at all. The IAC were chosen not to realize this and couldn’t know because they didn’t do their research. To their credit they acknowledge the political leanings when they report that the IPCC is “at the interface between science and politics”, but it appears more a comment to quiet complaints than expose the obvious. They say the political actions of some senior IPCC members are harmful. “Straying into advocacy can only hurt IPCC’s credibility”. The reality is it has none and should be disbanded immediately along with the government weather agencies used for its creation.

Tim Ball interviews on Climategate here and here. CFP post is here.

Dr. Tim Ball is a renowned environmental consultant and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg

A report on the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, on behalf of the world’s leading scientific academies, last week provoked even some of the more committed believers in man-made global warming to demand the resignation of Dr Rajendra Pachauri as chairman of the IPCC. But is the report all that it seems?

Last winter, the progress of this belief - that the world faces catastrophe unless we spend trillions of dollars to halt global warming - suffered an unprecedented reverse. In Copenhagen, the world’s leaders failed to agree a treaty designed to reshape the future of civilisation. This coincided with a series of scandals that blew up around the IPCC’s 2007 report.

Budget 2009: Labour is desperate, and fighting to the endSince then several inquiries, including three into the leaked “Climategate” emails, have tried to hold the official line, all following a consistent pattern. Each has made a few peripheral criticisms, for plausibility, while deliberately avoiding the main issue. Each has then gone on to put over the required message: that the science of global warming remains unchallenged.

At first sight, last week’s Inter-Academy report on the “processes and procedures of the IPCC” seems to have played it more cleverly. It criticises the IPCC’s abuse of its own procedures in very trenchant terms, and suggests some radical reforms to them. Passages on “conflict of interest”, and a recommendation that top officials should serve only one term, seem to hint that Dr Pachauri, reappointed to serve until 2014 after presiding over the IPCC’s last controversial report, should step down. But, as with the reports that preceded it, this one also tiptoes round a mighty elephant in the room, in order to put over the familiar message: the IPCC has generally “served society well”, the science remains unchallenged. It is as one might expect of a report produced on behalf of bodies such as Britain’s Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences, which have long been leading advocates for the belief in global waming.

When, some years ago, I began the research for my book The Real Global Warming Disaster, nothing surprised me more than discovering how widely the nature of the IPCC is misunderstood. It is invariably portrayed as a body representing the top scientists in the world, objectively weighing the complex forces that shape Earth’s climate. In reality, it’s nothing of the kind.

The men who set up the panel - led by its first chairman Bert Bolin, a Swedish meteorologist, and John Houghton, then head of the UK Met Office and first chairman of the IPCC’s scientific working group - were already believers in what they called “human-induced climate change”. The IPCC was, from the start, essentially a political pressure group, producing evidence to support the view that global warming was the most serious crisis facing the planet. This guided the selection of all the key scientists chosen to compile the IPCC’s findings (such as those involved in the Climategate affair). And this explains all the searching questions that have built up around its hugely influential reports ever since.

The first major row over the IPCC came when it was revealed that the most widely publicised and alarmist claim in its second report, in 1995, was inserted after the text had been signed off by the other scientists involved - while 15 passages which countered alarm over climate change had been excised. This famously provoked Professor Fred Seitz, former president of the US National Academy of Sciences, to say that in 60 years as a scientist he had never seen a “more disturbing corruption” of scientific procedure.

Perhaps the most telling controversy arose over the notorious “hockey stick” graph, the centrepiece of the IPCC’s third report in 2001. It rewrote climate history to show a world that was now dramatically hotter than it had been for at least 1,000 years. Promoted by Houghton and others as the ultimate emblem of the cause, it was eventually shown to have been no more than the result of trickery with a computer programme. But even after it been exposed, the IPCC establishment made the most tortuous efforts to defend it for their fourth report in 2007.

This became the most comprehensively discredited IPCC report of all. It was the first produced under the chairmanship of Dr Pachauri, who was appointed in 2002. One after another, its scariest and most widely publicised predictions - such as that Himalayan glaciers would largely have vanished by 2035, that climate change would kill off 40 per cent of the Amazon rainforest, that African crop-yields would be halved by 2050 - were found to have been based not on science at all, but on the reckless claims of environmental activists.

Not the least indictment of the IPCC’s 2007 report was the revelation that, in clear breach of its own rules, more than 5,000 of its supposedly scientific claims were not peer-reviewed but came from advocacy groups, press releases, newspaper articles, even student theses. Yet Dr Pachauri himself has repeatedly insisted that everything in his report was based on “peer-reviewed” science.

Again and again the 2007 report has been found to be in flagrant breach of the IPCC’s own rules. For instance, it cited no fewer than 16 articles from a single issue of one climate journal - which had been published after the IPCC’s official cut-off date and should therefore have been disallowed. In each of the thousands of instances where the IPCC broke its rules, the claims it made were all in one direction: to hype up alarm over the extent and effects of climate change beyond anything science could justify. The most shameless instance was the claim about Himalayan glaciers, which two of the IPCC’s own expert reviewers had pointed out was ridiculous even before it was published. Dr Pachauri dismissed this criticism as “voodoo science” (having employed the author of the claim at his own Delhi research institute).

Through all this the IPCC has been exposed for what it truly is: not a proper scientific body but an advocacy group, ready to stop at nothing in hijacking the prestige of science for its cause. But little of this might be guessed from the Inter-Academy report (jointly commissioned by Dr Pachauri himself and Ban Ki-Moon, the UN’s Secretary General). Even if Dr Pachauri is forced to resign at a UN meeting in Korea next month, as seems possible, he will merely have been thrown off the sledge so that the all-important cause can survive.

Yet the IPCC is the body on whose authority our Parliament voted for the Climate Change Act, passed all but unanimously two years ago. This will land us, on the Government’s own figures, with by far the biggest bill we have ever faced: up to 18 billion pounds every year for the next 40 years - 734 billion pounds in all - in order to cut our CO2 emissions by 80 per cent, something impossible to achieve except by closing down virtually all our industrial economy.

On the same authority, the rest of the world is being told that it must take similar steps, to avert a catastrophe dreamed up and promoted by no one more than those joint winners of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, Al Gore and the IPCC. Does this not all add up to the most bizarre and outrageous scandal in the history of the world? Read post here.

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA - Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina on Friday endorsed an oil-company funded ballot initiative that seeks to indefinitely delay California’s landmark global warming law.

The announcement comes two days after the former Hewlett-Packard Co. chief executive refused to take a position during her debate with Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer.

In a statement, Fiorina said she prefers a national energy policy and called California’s 2006 law, known as AB32, a “job killer.”

“The real solution to these challenges lies not with a single state taking action on its own, but rather with global action,” Fiorina said. “That’s why we need a comprehensive, national energy policy that funds energy R&D and takes advantage of every source of domestic energy we have - including nuclear, wind and solar - in an environmentally responsible way.”

After Wednesday night’s debate, Fiorina told reporters she was not ready to take a position on Proposition 23.

“My emphasis in this race is on federal issues,” she said. “Look, I’m not trying to be evasive here. I really am trying to indicate that we have to put our emphasis on the right priorities.”

Boxer opposes Proposition 23. She said during the debate that Fiorina’s indecision at the time could turn into a missed opportunity for the U.S. to take the lead in developing alternative-energy technologies.

“If we overturn California’s clean-energy policies, that’s going to mean that China takes the lead away from us with solar, that Germany takes the lead away from us with wind,” Boxer said. “But I guess my opponent is kind of used to creating jobs in China and other places.”

Boxer has repeatedly criticized Fiorina for shipping jobs overseas during her time heading HP in 1999-2005. Boxer campaign manager Rose Kapolczynski on Friday said Fiorina is siding with out-of-state oil companies while Boxer supports turning California into an economic hub of clean energy that will rely less on fossil fuels.

Fiorina spokeswoman Julie Soderlund said California already leads the nation in renewable energy standards and suspending AB32 would not hamper development of those technologies.

A July poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found that two-thirds of Californians favor the state’s global warming law, which seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions statewide to 1990 levels over the next decade. It has been championed by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who says it will encourage an expansion of California’s green technology industry.

Forty-five percent of respondents said they believe cutting greenhouse gas emissions will add jobs, compared with 23 percent who said there will be fewer jobs, according to the poll.

Critics of the law say it will impose higher costs on businesses, encouraging many to move their operations out of state. Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, called Fiorina’s position a “very good move.”

“We think it’s very important that at the end of the day, it’s about the economy,” Coupal said.

If approved by voters, Proposition 23 would delay the law from taking effect until California’s unemployment falls to 5.5 percent and stays there for four consecutive quarters. That has happened just three times during the past three decades, according to the California Employment Development Department statistics.

California’s unemployment rate is 12.3 percent.

No on Prop. 23 spokesman Steven Maviglio said Fiorina is going against most Californians.

“It’s unfortunate she is out of sync with two-thirds of Californians who strongly believe in our clean-energy and clean-air standards,” he said.

Oil companies have contributed $6.2 million to the Proposition 23 campaign as of Friday, according to the secretary of state’s website.

Most of that money is from two Texas-based oil companies, Valero and Tesoro, including a recent $1 million donation from Tesoro that was publicly reported on Thursday.

Fiorina also took positions on other November ballot measures, saying she opposes Proposition 21, which would impose an $18 vehicle license surcharge to help fund state parks. In exchange, most California vehicles would get free admission and parking to state parks and beaches.

Read more here.

By Judy Lin

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA - Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina on Friday endorsed an oil-company funded ballot initiative that seeks to indefinitely delay California’s landmark global warming law.

The announcement comes two days after the former Hewlett-Packard Co. chief executive refused to take a position during her debate with Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer.

In a statement, Fiorina said she prefers a national energy policy and called California’s 2006 law, known as AB32, a “job killer.”

“The real solution to these challenges lies not with a single state taking action on its own, but rather with global action,” Fiorina said. “That’s why we need a comprehensive, national energy policy that funds energy R&D and takes advantage of every source of domestic energy we have - including nuclear, wind and solar - in an environmentally responsible way.”

After Wednesday night’s debate, Fiorina told reporters she was not ready to take a position on Proposition 23.

“My emphasis in this race is on federal issues,” she said. “Look, I’m not trying to be evasive here. I really am trying to indicate that we have to put our emphasis on the right priorities.”

Boxer opposes Proposition 23. She said during the debate that Fiorina’s indecision at the time could turn into a missed opportunity for the U.S. to take the lead in developing alternative-energy technologies.

“If we overturn California’s clean-energy policies, that’s going to mean that China takes the lead away from us with solar, that Germany takes the lead away from us with wind,” Boxer said. “But I guess my opponent is kind of used to creating jobs in China and other places.”

Boxer has repeatedly criticized Fiorina for shipping jobs overseas during her time heading HP in 1999-2005. Boxer campaign manager Rose Kapolczynski on Friday said Fiorina is siding with out-of-state oil companies while Boxer supports turning California into an economic hub of clean energy that will rely less on fossil fuels.

Fiorina spokeswoman Julie Soderlund said California already leads the nation in renewable energy standards and suspending AB32 would not hamper development of those technologies.

A July poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found that two-thirds of Californians favor the state’s global warming law, which seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions statewide to 1990 levels over the next decade. It has been championed by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who says it will encourage an expansion of California’s green technology industry.

Forty-five percent of respondents said they believe cutting greenhouse gas emissions will add jobs, compared with 23 percent who said there will be fewer jobs, according to the poll.

Critics of the law say it will impose higher costs on businesses, encouraging many to move their operations out of state. Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, called Fiorina’s position a “very good move.”

“We think it’s very important that at the end of the day, it’s about the economy,” Coupal said.

If approved by voters, Proposition 23 would delay the law from taking effect until California’s unemployment falls to 5.5 percent and stays there for four consecutive quarters. That has happened just three times during the past three decades, according to the California Employment Development Department statistics.

California’s unemployment rate is 12.3 percent.

No on Prop. 23 spokesman Steven Maviglio said Fiorina is going against most Californians.

“It’s unfortunate she is out of sync with two-thirds of Californians who strongly believe in our clean-energy and clean-air standards,” he said.

Oil companies have contributed $6.2 million to the Proposition 23 campaign as of Friday, according to the secretary of state’s website.

Most of that money is from two Texas-based oil companies, Valero and Tesoro, including a recent $1 million donation from Tesoro that was publicly reported on Thursday.

Fiorina also took positions on other November ballot measures, saying she opposes Proposition 21, which would impose an $18 vehicle license surcharge to help fund state parks. In exchange, most California vehicles would get free admission and parking to state parks and beaches.

Read more here.

Harvard professor of psychology Marc Hauser was found “solely responsible for eight instances of scientific misconduct” involving the “data acquisition, data analysis, data retention and the reporting of research methodologies and results” in the Aug. 20, statement by Harvard Dean Michael Smith. Three published papers by Mr. Hauser now need to be corrected or retracted, according to Mr. Smith. This finding was based on a faculty investigating commission study in response to “allegations of scientific misconduct” (and, I’d say, suspicions of monkey business in his research on monkey cognition).

An “inquiry phase,” similar to the Harvard protocol, was initiated by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli into the possible misuse of public funds by Michael Mann in his pursuit of employment and his use of such funds in his research activities when he was at the University of Virginia. The university and its supporters met this request with claims of impingement on sacred academic freedom and chilling the environment for academic research. Rather than welcome the chance to dispel the suspicion of scientific misconduct and protect its academic reputation, the university enlisted a high-powered Washington, D.C. legal team to fight the AG’s request in court.

While this legal process proceeds, the court of public opinion wonders why the openness and direct dealing with such allegations exhibited by Harvard is not the Virginia way. Harvard demonstrated a scientifically open and self-policing protocol; Virginia offers claims of academic freedom and erects legal barricades. Whose research will the public more likely trust?

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) - A powerful 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck much of New Zealand’s South Island early Saturday and caused widespread damage, but there were just two reports of serious injuries. Looters broke into some damaged shops in Christchurch, police said.

The quake, which hit 19 miles (30 kilometers) west of the southern city of Christchurch according to the state geological agency GNS Science, shook a wide area, with some residents saying buildings had collapsed and power was severed. No tsunami alert was issued.

GNS Science initially reported the quake as magnitude 7.4, but later downgraded it after re-examining quake records. The U.S. Geological Survey, in America, measured the quake at 7.0.

Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker declared a state of emergency four hours after the quake rocked the region, warning people that continuing aftershocks could cause masonry to fall from damaged buildings.

The emergency meant parts of the city would be closed off and some buildings closed as unsafe, he said. Minister of Civil Defense John Carter said a state of civil emergency was declared as the quake was “a significant disaster,” and army troops were on standby to assist.

Parker said the “sharp, vicious earthquake has caused significant damage in parts of the city ... with walls collapsed that have fallen into the streets.” Chimneys and walls had fallen from older buildings, with roads blocked, traffic lights out and power, gas and water supplies disrupted, he said.

“The fronts of at least five buildings in the central city have collapsed and rubble is strewn across many roads,” Christchurch resident Angela Morgan told The Associated Press. “Roads have subsided where water mains have broken and a lot of people evacuated in panic from seaside areas for fear of a tsunami,” she said, adding that “there is quite significant damage, really, with reports that some people were trapped in damaged houses.”

Christchurch fire service spokesman Mike Bowden said a number of people had been trapped in buildings by fallen chimneys and blocked entrances, but there were no reports of people pinned under rubble. Rescue teams were out checking premises.

Christchurch Hospital said it had treated two men with serious injuries and a number of people with minor injuries. One man was hit by a falling chimney and was in serious condition in intensive care, while a second was badly cut by glass, hospital spokeswoman Michele Hider said.

Christchurch police reported road damage in parts of the city of 400,000 people, with a series of sharp aftershocks rocking the area. Police officers cordoned off some streets where rubble was strewn about. Video showed parked cars crushed by heaps of fallen bricks, and buckled roads.

“There is considerable damage in the central city and we’ve also had reports of looting, just shop windows broken and easy picking of displays,” Police Inspector Mike Coleman told New Zealand’s National Radio. Police Inspector Alf Stewart told the radio that some people had been arrested for looting. “We have some reports of people smashing (storefront) windows and trying to grab some property that is not theirs ... we’ve got police on the streets and we’re dealing with that,” he said.

Suburban dweller Mark O’Connell said his house was full of smashed glass, food tossed from shelves, with sets of drawers, TVs and computers tipped over.
“She was a beauty, we were thrown from wall to wall as we tried to escape down the stairs to get to safety,” he told the AP. “It was pitch black (with the power cut) and we walked through smashed glass everywhere on the floor.”

The quake hit at 4:35 a.m. (1635 GMT) shaking thousands of residents awake, New Zealand’s National Radio reported. Some 12 aftershocks have rocked the region since, ranging from 5.3 to 3.9 in magnitude, GNS Science reported on its web site.

Prime Minister John Key, Carter and Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee were to fly to Christchurch to inspect damage and review the situation, officials said.
Civil defense agency spokesman David Millar said at least six bridges in the region had been badly damaged, while the historic Empire hotel in the port town of Lyttelton was “very unstable” and in danger of collapse. Roads, shops and other buildings in rural towns around Christchurch had also suffered damage, with some shop fronts knocked down in the jolt.

Inspector Coleman said residents of the city’s low-lying eastern suburbs had been advised to be ready to evacuate their properties, after power, gas, sewerage and water systems were cut by the quake. Resident Colleen Simpson said panicked residents ran into the street in their pajamas. Some buildings had collapsed, there was no power, and the mobile telephone network had failed.

“Oh my God. There is a row of shops completely demolished right in front of me,” Simpson told the Stuff news Web site.

Kiwirail rail transport group spokesman Kevin Ramshaw said 13 mostly freight trains had been halted on South Island lines, with some damage already confirmed to rail lines north of Christchurch.

Christchurch International Airport was closed after the quake as a precaution, as experts checked runways and terminal buildings, a spokesman said.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said “no destructive widespread tsunami threat existed, based on historical earthquake and tsunami data.” New Zealand sits above an area of the Earth’s crust where two tectonic plates collide. The country records more than 14,000 earthquakes a year - but only about 150 are felt by residents. Fewer than 10 a year do any damage.

New Zealand’s last major earthquake was a magnitude 7.8 in South Island’s Fiordland region on July 16, 2009 - a tremblor which moved the southern tip of the country 12 inches (30 centimeters) closer to Australia, seismologist Ken Gledhill said at the time. Gledhill, director of GNS Science’s “GeoNet” national earthquake monitoring project, said the island’s geographic shift showed the immensity of the forces involved. Read more and see videos here.

(Sept. 3)—When the Rev. Jesse Jackson led a rally for “green jobs” in Detroit, he arrived in the Motor City in a massive Cadillac SUV. But his exit from the Motor City was a lot more environmentally friendly—thanks to some car thieves.

The robbers stole the civil rights activist’s rented 2009 Escalade SUV on Monday. He was in Detroit for Saturday’s Jobs, Justice and Peace Rally in downtown Detroit.

“We were traveling for Jobs, Justice and Peace and we came [outside the hotel] next morning and it was gone,” Jackson told AOL News today in a phone interview. “It was obvious that it was stolen.”

Bill Pugliano, Getty Images

The Rev. Jesse Jackson at the Rebuild America: Jobs, Justice and Peace march last month in Detroit.Police found the car later that day, stripped of its wheels but otherwise intact, WXYZ reported.

Jackson, who led the march along with United Auto Workers President Bob King, said there was nothing contradictory about renting an SUV and promoting green jobs.

“We were promoting a car manufacturer and representing the American worker, whatever car they chose,” Jackson said. “My wife has a Smart Car, but for the purposes that we were traveling, the car was—it fit the bill.”

One Detroit columnist disagreed. “Add Jesse to the Al Gore-Tom Friedman-Barack Obama School of Environmental Hypocrisy,” Detroit News columnist Henry Payne wrote. “While preaching to Americans that they need to cram their families into hybrid Priuses to go shopping for compact fluorescent light bulbs to save the planet, they themselves continue to live large.”

Payne noted that Jackson wrote a column for CNN.com last month promoting energy independence. “If our country gets serious about energy savings and independence from oil, we could rebuild domestically and power the U.S. economy with American jobs,” Jackson wrote Aug. 16 along with Earth Day Network President Kathleen Rogers.

It’s not the first time a high-profile person has had his car stolen in the Motor City in recent days. A GMC Yukon Denali from Detroit Mayor Dave Bing’s security detail was stolen and stripped of its rims last week.

Bing condemned the robberies. “It is our hope the community will continue to support the administration’s effort to communicate that any activity compromising the quality of life in Detroit is intolerable,” the mayor said in a written statement to WXYZ.

Jackson said he rented a sedan, not an SUV, to drive for the rest of his trip to Detroit. He couldn’t remember the make. See more here.

---------------
Payne: The irony of Jesse Jackson’s stripped SUV
Henry Payne, The Michigan View.com

Add Jesse Jackson’s ride to prominent vehicles being stripped in Detroit. Following the embarrassing news that Mayor Dave Bing’s GMC Yukon was hijacked by criminals this week, Detroit’s Channel 7 reports that the Reverend’s Caddy Escalade SUV was stolen and stripped of its wheels while he was in town last weekend with the UAW’s militant President Bob King leading the “Jobs, Justice, and Peace” march promoting government-funded green jobs.

Read that again: Jackson’s Caddy SUV was stripped while he was in town promoting green jobs.

Add Jesse to the Al Gore-Tom Friedman-Barack Obama School of Environmental Hypocrisy. While preaching to Americans that they need to cram their families into hybrid Priuses to go shopping for compact fluorescent light bulbs to save the planet, they themselves continue to live large.

“We need an economy that creates employment that can’t be shipped overseas,” the Green Rev wrote for CNN about the march. “Home-grown American labor will be installing windmills and solar panels. A green economy is not an abstract concept.”

Well, its certainly abstract to Jesse, but I digress.

“Even now, the only sector of the economy that has seen job growth during the recession is the green job sector. Time is of the essence.”

Actually, time long ago passed Detroit by because Jesse’ favored government mpg mandates and UAW wages stripped the Big Three’s ability to compete against non-union transplants. These jobs were real - unlike the artificial, government subsidized green jobs he shakes down the feds for today. Real jobs produced big, profitable SUVs like the one Jesse prefers to ride in. His SUV has been stripped by thugs - a fitting metaphor for what Jesse and his pals have done to the auto industry for the last 35 years.

Henry Payne is editor of The Michigan View.com

By Mara Gay, AOL

(Sept. 3)—When the Rev. Jesse Jackson led a rally for “green jobs” in Detroit, he arrived in the Motor City in a massive Cadillac SUV. But his exit from the Motor City was a lot more environmentally friendly—thanks to some car thieves.

The robbers stole the civil rights activist’s rented 2009 Escalade SUV on Monday. He was in Detroit for Saturday’s Jobs, Justice and Peace Rally in downtown Detroit.

“We were traveling for Jobs, Justice and Peace and we came [outside the hotel] next morning and it was gone,” Jackson told AOL News today in a phone interview. “It was obvious that it was stolen.”

Bill Pugliano, Getty Images

The Rev. Jesse Jackson at the Rebuild America: Jobs, Justice and Peace march last month in Detroit.Police found the car later that day, stripped of its wheels but otherwise intact, WXYZ reported.

Jackson, who led the march along with United Auto Workers President Bob King, said there was nothing contradictory about renting an SUV and promoting green jobs.

“We were promoting a car manufacturer and representing the American worker, whatever car they chose,” Jackson said. “My wife has a Smart Car, but for the purposes that we were traveling, the car was—it fit the bill.”

One Detroit columnist disagreed. “Add Jesse to the Al Gore-Tom Friedman-Barack Obama School of Environmental Hypocrisy,” Detroit News columnist Henry Payne wrote. “While preaching to Americans that they need to cram their families into hybrid Priuses to go shopping for compact fluorescent light bulbs to save the planet, they themselves continue to live large.”

Payne noted that Jackson wrote a column for CNN.com last month promoting energy independence. “If our country gets serious about energy savings and independence from oil, we could rebuild domestically and power the U.S. economy with American jobs,” Jackson wrote Aug. 16 along with Earth Day Network President Kathleen Rogers.

It’s not the first time a high-profile person has had his car stolen in the Motor City in recent days. A GMC Yukon Denali from Detroit Mayor Dave Bing’s security detail was stolen and stripped of its rims last week.

Bing condemned the robberies. “It is our hope the community will continue to support the administration’s effort to communicate that any activity compromising the quality of life in Detroit is intolerable,” the mayor said in a written statement to WXYZ.

Jackson said he rented a sedan, not an SUV, to drive for the rest of his trip to Detroit. He couldn’t remember the make. See more here.

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Payne: The irony of Jesse Jackson’s stripped SUV
Henry Payne, The Michigan View.com

Add Jesse Jackson’s ride to prominent vehicles being stripped in Detroit. Following the embarrassing news that Mayor Dave Bing’s GMC Yukon was hijacked by criminals this week, Detroit’s Channel 7 reports that the Reverend’s Caddy Escalade SUV was stolen and stripped of its wheels while he was in town last weekend with the UAW’s militant President Bob King leading the “Jobs, Justice, and Peace” march promoting government-funded green jobs.

Read that again: Jackson’s Caddy SUV was stripped while he was in town promoting green jobs.

Add Jesse to the Al Gore-Tom Friedman-Barack Obama School of Environmental Hypocrisy. While preaching to Americans that they need to cram their families into hybrid Priuses to go shopping for compact fluorescent light bulbs to save the planet, they themselves continue to live large.

“We need an economy that creates employment that can’t be shipped overseas,” the Green Rev wrote for CNN about the march. “Home-grown American labor will be installing windmills and solar panels. A green economy is not an abstract concept.”

Well, its certainly abstract to Jesse, but I digress.

“Even now, the only sector of the economy that has seen job growth during the recession is the green job sector. Time is of the essence.”

Actually, time long ago passed Detroit by because Jesse’ favored government mpg mandates and UAW wages stripped the Big Three’s ability to compete against non-union transplants. These jobs were real - unlike the artificial, government subsidized green jobs he shakes down the feds for today. Real jobs produced big, profitable SUVs like the one Jesse prefers to ride in. His SUV has been stripped by thugs - a fitting metaphor for what Jesse and his pals have done to the auto industry for the last 35 years.

Henry Payne is editor of The Michigan View.com

Excerpts from the Times of India Interview with IPCC Head Rajendra Pachauri

TOI: Anything in the UN probe report you completely or partly disagree with?

RP: They have talked about quantifying uncertainties. To some extent, we are doing that, though not perfectly. But the issue is that in some cases, you really don’t have a quantitative base by which you can attach a probability or a level of uncertainty that defines things in quantitative terms. And there, let’s not take away the importance of expert judgment. And that is something the report has missed or at least not pointed out.

TOI: Does this raise a larger issue of how science is used by society? And is there a political guidance to it?

RP: Sure…

TOI: Stifling politics out of science, does that make it devoid of its real social purpose?

RP: Let’s face it, we are an intergovernmental body and our strength and acceptability of what we produce is largely because we are owned by governments. If that was not the case, then we would be like any other scientific body that maybe producing first-rate reports but don’t see the light of the day because they don’t matter in policy-making. Now clearly, if it’s an inter-governmental body and we want governments’ ownership of what we produce, obviously they will give us guidance of what direction to follow, what are the questions they want answered.

Unfortunately, people have completely missed the original resolution by which IPCC was set up. It clearly says that our assessment should include realistic response strategies. If that is not an assessment of policies, then what does it represent?

And I am afraid, we have been, in my view, defensive in coming out with a whole range of policies and I am not saying we prescribe policy A or B or C but on the basis of science, we are looking at realistic response strategies. But that is exactly what this committee has recommended that we get out of — policy prescriptions. It is for this reason that I brought out that this what is written in the IPCC mandate. This is a misperception on the part of some people in the scientific community. And I hope I can correct it.

TOI: What are the new elements in the next climate assessment report (due in 2014)?

RP: Some of things that are certainly going to be included this time are issues of equity. It’s yet to be accepted by the panel, so I can’t really say definitely. At the meeting, we dwelt at length on Article 2 of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which says the central objective of the convention is to prevent the anthropogenic interference with the climate system which is in terms of ecosystem, ensuring food security and ensuring that development can take place. These are three central pillars. This is something that science can’t answer. Because what is perceived as dangerous, depends on value judgements. But science can provide as much information as possible by which the negotiators and decision-makers can decide what is dangerous and we are trying very hard to get this together.

TOI: Aren’t you treading on more dangerous territory with this, because this is the most contentious bit of the negotiations - the North South divide?

RP: It is but I also believe this is something the IPCC must do. And I must say I owe it to what has happened over the past few months that I have certainly shed any inhibitions or feelings of cowardice. I believe this is now my opportunity to go out and do what I think is right. In the second term I may be little more uncomfortable for the people than I was in the first. Maybe they realize it.

TOI: So the issue of equity is central to the next report?

RP: Certainly, but not only equity, we have also used the word ‘ethics’. There are certain ethical dimensions, even of the scientific assessment of climate change which we are going to try and assess.

Full interview

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Editorial: Climate Of Uncertainty
The Wall Street Journal, 2 September 2010

On Monday an independent review found that the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has downplayed uncertainties surrounding climate science. The review also found that the IPCC needs more robust safeguards against conflicts of interest, that it had committed “unnecessary errors” by failing to meet its own standards, that it had inadequately flagged its use of nonscientific sources, that it made claims with “high confidence” based on “weak evidentiary basis,” and that it gave short shrift to dissenting scientists.

And for all that, the review added that the IPCC “has been successful overall and has served society well.”

This week’s report, in keeping with three earlier investigations into the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, limited its inquiry to the “processes and procedures” of the IPCC. While it found those wanting, it also saw no need to question their scientific result.

That’s too bad, since the state of the science has moved on considerably since the IPCC concluded in its 2007 report that climate change was “unequivocal.” A forthcoming paper in Annals of Applied Statistics details the uncertainties in trying to reconstruct historical temperatures using proxy data such as tree rings and ice cores. Statisticians Blakeley McShane and Abraham Wyner find that while proxy records may relate to temperatures, when it comes to forecasting the warming observed in the last 30 years, “the proxies do not predict temperature significantly better than random series generated independently of temperature.”

Also, last month, New Phytologist published a series of papers examining the Amazon rain forest’s vulnerability to drought, following years of increasingly dire predictions that anthropogenic carbon emissions and global warming will kill off Amazon trees. Climatologist Peter Cox, a co-author on four of those papers, told us, “One of the things that turns out to be important is the extent to which tropical forests respond positively to CO2 increases.”

The specifics of that relationship remain “a key uncertainty,” Mr. Cox said, and recent findings have raised more questions than they’ve answered. But the fact that higher CO2 levels can make plants more efficient at using water means that not only might rain forests survive CO2-induced drought better than previously thought, but that carbon emissions overall might even be good for rain forests, up to a point. That’s news, even if it has been little reported.

And while you’ve probably heard (frequently) that this summer appears to be the warmest on record, you may not have been told that an unusually cold spell in the Antarctic brought a chill to southern South America and is responsible for the deaths of six million fish and thousands of alligators, turtles and river dolphins, according to Nature News.

None of this proves or disproves anything, except that our understanding of how our climate works is still evolving. Is it too much to ask the climate establishment to acknowledge as much?

By Dr. Benny Peiser, CCNet

Excerpts from the Times of India Interview with IPCC Head Rajendra Pachauri

TOI: Anything in the UN probe report you completely or partly disagree with?

RP: They have talked about quantifying uncertainties. To some extent, we are doing that, though not perfectly. But the issue is that in some cases, you really don’t have a quantitative base by which you can attach a probability or a level of uncertainty that defines things in quantitative terms. And there, let’s not take away the importance of expert judgment. And that is something the report has missed or at least not pointed out.

TOI: Does this raise a larger issue of how science is used by society? And is there a political guidance to it?

RP: Sure…

TOI: Stifling politics out of science, does that make it devoid of its real social purpose?

RP: Let’s face it, we are an intergovernmental body and our strength and acceptability of what we produce is largely because we are owned by governments. If that was not the case, then we would be like any other scientific body that maybe producing first-rate reports but don’t see the light of the day because they don’t matter in policy-making. Now clearly, if it’s an inter-governmental body and we want governments’ ownership of what we produce, obviously they will give us guidance of what direction to follow, what are the questions they want answered.

Unfortunately, people have completely missed the original resolution by which IPCC was set up. It clearly says that our assessment should include realistic response strategies. If that is not an assessment of policies, then what does it represent?

And I am afraid, we have been, in my view, defensive in coming out with a whole range of policies and I am not saying we prescribe policy A or B or C but on the basis of science, we are looking at realistic response strategies. But that is exactly what this committee has recommended that we get out of — policy prescriptions. It is for this reason that I brought out that this what is written in the IPCC mandate. This is a misperception on the part of some people in the scientific community. And I hope I can correct it.

TOI: What are the new elements in the next climate assessment report (due in 2014)?

RP: Some of things that are certainly going to be included this time are issues of equity. It’s yet to be accepted by the panel, so I can’t really say definitely. At the meeting, we dwelt at length on Article 2 of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which says the central objective of the convention is to prevent the anthropogenic interference with the climate system which is in terms of ecosystem, ensuring food security and ensuring that development can take place. These are three central pillars. This is something that science can’t answer. Because what is perceived as dangerous, depends on value judgements. But science can provide as much information as possible by which the negotiators and decision-makers can decide what is dangerous and we are trying very hard to get this together.

TOI: Aren’t you treading on more dangerous territory with this, because this is the most contentious bit of the negotiations - the North South divide?

RP: It is but I also believe this is something the IPCC must do. And I must say I owe it to what has happened over the past few months that I have certainly shed any inhibitions or feelings of cowardice. I believe this is now my opportunity to go out and do what I think is right. In the second term I may be little more uncomfortable for the people than I was in the first. Maybe they realize it.

TOI: So the issue of equity is central to the next report?

RP: Certainly, but not only equity, we have also used the word ‘ethics’. There are certain ethical dimensions, even of the scientific assessment of climate change which we are going to try and assess.

Full interview

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

Editorial: Climate Of Uncertainty
The Wall Street Journal, 2 September 2010

On Monday an independent review found that the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has downplayed uncertainties surrounding climate science. The review also found that the IPCC needs more robust safeguards against conflicts of interest, that it had committed “unnecessary errors” by failing to meet its own standards, that it had inadequately flagged its use of nonscientific sources, that it made claims with “high confidence” based on “weak evidentiary basis,” and that it gave short shrift to dissenting scientists.

And for all that, the review added that the IPCC “has been successful overall and has served society well.”

This week’s report, in keeping with three earlier investigations into the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, limited its inquiry to the “processes and procedures” of the IPCC. While it found those wanting, it also saw no need to question their scientific result.

That’s too bad, since the state of the science has moved on considerably since the IPCC concluded in its 2007 report that climate change was “unequivocal.” A forthcoming paper in Annals of Applied Statistics details the uncertainties in trying to reconstruct historical temperatures using proxy data such as tree rings and ice cores. Statisticians Blakeley McShane and Abraham Wyner find that while proxy records may relate to temperatures, when it comes to forecasting the warming observed in the last 30 years, “the proxies do not predict temperature significantly better than random series generated independently of temperature.”

Also, last month, New Phytologist published a series of papers examining the Amazon rain forest’s vulnerability to drought, following years of increasingly dire predictions that anthropogenic carbon emissions and global warming will kill off Amazon trees. Climatologist Peter Cox, a co-author on four of those papers, told us, “One of the things that turns out to be important is the extent to which tropical forests respond positively to CO2 increases.”

The specifics of that relationship remain “a key uncertainty,” Mr. Cox said, and recent findings have raised more questions than they’ve answered. But the fact that higher CO2 levels can make plants more efficient at using water means that not only might rain forests survive CO2-induced drought better than previously thought, but that carbon emissions overall might even be good for rain forests, up to a point. That’s news, even if it has been little reported.

And while you’ve probably heard (frequently) that this summer appears to be the warmest on record, you may not have been told that an unusually cold spell in the Antarctic brought a chill to southern South America and is responsible for the deaths of six million fish and thousands of alligators, turtles and river dolphins, according to Nature News.

None of this proves or disproves anything, except that our understanding of how our climate works is still evolving. Is it too much to ask the climate establishment to acknowledge as much?

What will forever be remembered as climategate (surely about time for someone to find something to replace the allusion to a scandal now more than 35 years’ old. . .) shook faith in the behaviour of some of the key scientists responsible for reconstructing the historical temperature record. Attempts to prevent inclusion in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment report (AR4) of papers which conflicted with the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis, collusion in deleting sensitive emails and clear failures to comply with Freedom of Information requests all raised doubts about the integrity of the scientific effort.

Two somewhat perfunctory internal inquiries at the University of East Anglia, and a report by the House of Commons Science and Technology select committee (with time for only one day of evidence-taking) all cleared the Climate Research Unit team of any serious wrong-doing. In reality few hard questions were asked, important issues were glossed over, and many observers saw the whole process as a whitewash: the normal outcome of official inquiries into contentious issues.

But the other own goal was caused by the IPCC itself, which was beset by a series of scandalettes regarding inaccuracies in the AR4 itself. One of the high profile ones was the statement that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035 (apparently a misprint for 2350), but there were a number of others which suggested that undue credence was given to the ‘grey’ (non-peer reviewed) literature if it gave the right messages, while inconvenient findings were ignored or dismissed.

A recent inquiry by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, commissioned by the Dutch government, was somewhat critical, accusing the IPCC of being too opaque in its workings and for issuing a report which tended to emphasise worst-case scenarios. Nevertheless, the inquiry concluded that there were no errors which would weaken the conclusion that greenhouse gas emissions were the main driver of climate change. Depending on their position in the debate, commentators disagreed on whether the Dutch report was essentially supportive of the IPCC or not, but such independent criticism of its workings were in reality a significant blow. They could no longer be dismissed as the fantasies of a bunch of right-wingers in the pay of the oil industry.

But even more significant was an inquiry conducted by the InterAcademy Council (representing national academies of science such as the Royal Society) on behalf of the UN and the IPCC itself. Given previous solid support by the IAC members for the IPCC position and the tendency for such inquiries towards exoneration, hopes for an objective, critical report were not high. To the surprise of many, the report they released on 30th August was significantly more critical in tone than the Dutch inquiry.

Harold Shapiro of Princeton, who chaired the panel conducting the inquiry, wrote in the report preface ‘Our task was to broadly assess the processes and procedures of the IPCC and make recommendations on how they might be improved in order to enhance the quality and authoritative nature of future assessments.’ So, although this was not a review of the scientific evidence and judgements made by the IPCC, neither was it tied to overly narrow terms of reference which often reduce the value of such an exercise.

The IPCC is often criticised for ignoring or dismissing alternative hypotheses since, in the view of the core clique of lead authors, there is only one right answer. How refreshing then to see Professor Shapiro write ‘Indeed climate science is a collective learning process as data are accumulated, interpreted, and used to construct models, and as alternative hypotheses are tested until we have increased confidence in our measurements and models and as a subset of ideas survive careful testing and competing explanations are eliminated.’ Although couched in careful and diplomatic language, this should be a loud wake-up call for IPPC lead authors to open their minds to other possibilities.

One of the headline recommendations is for the formation of an Executive Committee empowered to make decisions on behalf of the Panel between plenary sessions, and for this to be led by a full-time Executive Director, appointed for one six-year term only. This has been widely interpreted as a direct call for Rajendra Pachauri, the current part-time director, to stand down. He is already well into his second term of office and his inept handling of criticisms has won him few friends.

The IAC report also calls for all reviewers’ comments to be properly considered and for genuine controversies to be adequately reflected, something which Phil Jones and the team at the University of East Anglia seemed to be trying to avoid at all costs. There is criticism also of the use by Working Group I of spurious quantitative likelihood scales: for example defining ‘extremely likely’ as a greater than 95% confidence that an event would occur, based on little or no objective evidence.

The thrust of the IAC critique is that the IPCC has become a lobbying body for particular policy options based on a single, entrenched position. Restructuring it to be a body which takes an objective view of the evidence and comes up with trusted and authoritative reports will take time but is essential. Those at the centre of this have not only done their own cause a big disservice, but have further weakened the trust of an already cynical public in the integrity of science.

It is clear that the agenda has been to promote the ‘truth’ of man-made global warming at the expense of honesty and objectivity to ensure that politicians saw no option but to introduce stringent emissions control measures. Any questioning of this line was slapped down to avoid weakening their resolve. But this strategy - perhaps better described as a gamble - has failed. Not only that, but it has backfired and makes people even less willing to accept messages from sources they now view as tainted. And, despite still making the right noises, politicians are becoming less and less likely to introduce emissions reduction policies which hit taxpayers at a time when other taxes are being raised and public services cut.

How different it all might have been if IPCC lead authors had acted as scientists rather than an affiliate of Greenpeace. They may not have been any closer to their policy goals, but they would not have forfeited public trust. If the evidence for the enhanced greenhouse hypothesis had become more compelling, people would have been more willing to believe it and accept the policy consequences. As it is, the global warming industry has probably reached a high point in its influence, while science has suffered. It’s a hard way to learn again that honesty is the best policy.

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Bob Copeland’s North of the Notch Studio

Welcome to Bob Copeland’s world in the White Mountains of New Hampshire! Since retiring from Channel 5 in Boston after 36 years of keeping New Englanders one step ahead of the next snowstorm, Bob has built a retirement home and an art studio right in the middle of snow country!

Gallery I - Recent Paintings contains many of Bob’s oil and pastel impressions of New Hampshire’s North Country including Franconia Notch, Cannon Mountain, Mt. Lafayette, Mt. Washington and the other Presidentials.

Gallery II - Abstractions from Nature features Bob’s macro photography. Here you will find some very abstract images, the subjects of which you may have difficulty identifying.

Gallery III - Atmospheric Abstractions features Bob’s weather photography and his unique ability to capture clouds and storms at just the right moment…

Weather Maps Order a custom weather map hand drawn by Bob for any date you choose since 1900.

These colorful collector’s items are identical to the maps Bob used on Channel 5 prior to the introduction of computer graphics! An ideal gift for the family “weather nut” - choose the date of a memorable event like “The Blizzard of ‘78.” Or what about your wedding anniversary or your sweetheart’s birthday, or the day grandpa knocked over the outhouse with his F-250!

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NOTE: Heartland has the presentations and powerpoints posted for the Heartland ICCC IV.  If you could not go, there is plenty to see there. Please remember the goldmine of videos and PPTs at the Heartland ICCC proceeding sites for 2008 NYC here, 2009 NYC here and 2009 DC here. Here is a PPT I gave at the Heartland Instutute ICCC Meeting in 2008 and here is the follow up in 2009. Here is an abbreviated PPT in two parts I presented at a UK conference last month: Part 1, Part 2.

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See C3 Headlines excellent collection of graphs and charts that show AGW is nonsense here.

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See Climate Theater with a collection of the best climate skeptic films and documentaries here. See additonal scientific youtubes here.

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750 Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism of “Man-Made” Global Warming Alarm

“The following papers support skepticism of “man-made” global warming or the environmental or economic effects of. Addendums, comments, corrections, erratum, replies, responses and submitted papers are not included in the peer-reviewed paper count. These are included as references in defense of various papers. There are many more listings than just the 750 papers. Ordering of the papers is alphabetical by title except for the Hockey Stick, Cosmic Rays and Solar sections which are chronological. This list will be updated and corrected as necessary.”

Author added a nice quote from an RC commenter,
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told by AGW voices that there are NO qualified skeptics or peer reviewed/published work by them. Including right here by RC regulars. In truth there is serious work and questions raised by significant work by very qualified skeptics which has been peer reviewed and published. It should be at least a bit disturbing for this type of denial to have been perpetrated with such a chorus. It’s one thing to engage and refute. But it’s not right to misrepresent as not even existing the counter viewpoints. I fully recognize the adversarial environment between the two opposing camps which RC and CA/WUWT represent, but the the perpetual declaration that there is no legitimate rejection of AGW is out of line.” - John H., comment at RealClimate.org

Minor Victory - on a side note with the help of Bill Hughes the publisher of the journal Energy & Environment, we successfully got Scopus to remove the trade journal listing and properly list E&E as a peer-reviewed journal. That now gives two credible sources indexing E&E as peer-reviewed - EBSCO and Scopus. This helps tremendously, especially when referencing MM’s papers in E&E and all the rest (roughly 15% of the list).

See still more annotated here.

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Many more papers are catalogued at Pete’s Place here.

The science and economics of global warming are not too complicated for the average person to consider and make up his or her own mind. We urge you to do that. Go here and view some of the articles linked under “What’s New” or “A Primer on Global Warming.” Or go here and read about the new report from the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), which comprehensively rebuts the claims of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Go here for the sources for the factual statements in the ads.

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Available now some items that will gore your alarmist friends (part of the proceeds go to support Icecap):

See full size display here.

And “My carbon footprints are bigger than yours and plants love me for it” items here and here

See sister sites:

Coleman’s Corner here.

Science and Public Policy Institute here.

Intellicast Dr. Dewpoint Library here.

RedNeck Engineer Energy and Innovation here.

Weather/Climate and Health here.

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.