Global Warming Skepticism 101

Global Warming Skepticism 101

Informative summary From Dr. Roy Spenser 12/9/09

A few excerpts from Spenser with [my notes]:
1. [AGW]Skeptics deny global warming.
No, we deny that warming has been mostly human-caused. [Scientists should be skeptical, even of skeptics. Science is not pitch a view, it is to advance understanding].

2. Skeptics are paid by big oil.
The vast majority of skeptics have never been paid anything by Big Oil (me included). [It's not as easy to get a grant as an AGW skeptic. Note: several recent revelations show big oil is pandering to AGW folks.]

3. Skeptics don’t publish in the peer reviewed literature.
Wrong…but it is true we do not have nearly as many publications as the other side does. But it only takes one scientific study to destroy a scientific hypothesis, which is what anthropogenic global warming theory is.

4. Skeptics are not unified with an alternative explanation for global warming. Well, that’s the way science works in a field as immature as climate change science. The biggest problem is that we really don’t understand what causes natural climate variability.........

5. But the glaciers are melting!
Many glaciers which have been monitored around the world for a long time have been retreating since the 1800’s, before humans could have been responsible. A few retreating glaciers are even revealing old tree stumps…how did those get there? Planted by skeptics?

6. But the sea ice is melting!
Well, the same thing happened back in the 1920’s and 1930’s, with the Northwest Passage opening up in 1940. It was just as warm, or nearly as warm, in the Arctic in the 1930’s. Again, this is before humans could be blamed. There were very low water levels in the Great Lakes in the 1920’s too, just as has happened recently. We have accurate measurements of sea ice cover from satellites only since 1979, so there is no way to really know whether sea ice cover is less than it was before.

7. But we just had the warmest decade in recorded history!
Well, if thermometer measurements had started in, say 200, AD (rather than in the 1800’s), and it was now 850 AD, the same thing might well have been said back then. The climate system is always warming or cooling, and the Industrial Revolution (and thus our carbon dioxide emissions) just happened to occur while we were still emerging from the Little Ice Age…a warming period.

8. But the Antarctic ice shelves are collapsing!
Well, sea ice around Antarctica has been expanding since we started monitoring by satellite in 1979….so which do we use as evidence? There is no convincing evidence of warming in Antarctica, except in the relatively small Antarctic Peninsula, which juts out into the ocean. Just as glaciers naturally flow to the sea, ice shelves must eventually break off. It is very uncertain how often this happens through the centuries, and what has been observed in recent years might be entirely normal. Similarly, it was warmer in Greenland in the 1930’s than it has been more recently.

9. But the sea levels are rising!
Yes, and from what we can tell, they have been rising since the end of the last Ice Age. Again, the more recent rise might be just a consequence of our emergence from the Little Ice Age, which bottomed out in the 1600’s.

10. But we keep emitting carbon dioxide, which we know is a greenhouse gas!
But the direct warming effect of moré CO2 is agreed by all to be small…and I predict that when we better understand how clouds change in response to that small warming influence, the net warming in response to more CO2 will be smaller still. This is the “feedback” issue, which determines “climate sensitivity”, the area of research I spend most of my time on. I and a minority of other scientists believe the net feedbacks in the climate system are negative, probably driven by negative cloud feedback. In contrast, all twenty-something IPCC climate models now exhibit positive cloud feedback.

Global tropical cyclone energy remains near 30-year lows !

Global tropical cyclone energy remains near 30-year lows !

Florida State University - Ryan N. Maue's Seasonal Tropical Cyclone Activity Update

Global and Northern Hemisphere Tropical Cyclone Activity remains near 30-year historical lows -- three years in a row now of considerably below-average activity globally

Daring to Question Al Gore

From McIver Institute Oct 9, 2009

"However, the former Vice President of the United States was not in the mood to answer any questions from skeptics of global warming. His appearance was highly scripted, and when one filmmaker dared ask a tough question...well, just watch this report."

Key point at the end of the video is challenging what is the role of journalists? To be cheerleaders or skeptics?

What happened to global warming?

BBC Friday, 9 October 2009

Excerpts include:
For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures. And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.

U.N. climate meeting was propaganda: Czech president

U.N. climate meeting was propaganda: Czech president

Reuters Sept 22, 2009

Excerpts include:
Czech President Vaclav Klaus sharply criticized a U.N. meeting on climate change on Tuesday at which U.S. President Barack Obama was among the top speakers, describing it as propagandistic and undignified. "It was sad and it was frustrating," said Klaus.

Klaus said there were increasing doubts in the scientific community about whether humans are causing changes in the climate or whether the changes are simply naturally occurring phenomena.

Klaus said global warming has turned into a new religion, an ideology that threatens to undermine freedom and the world's economic and social order.

Cooling is Beginning

Svensmark: “global warming stopped and a cooling is beginning” – “enjoy global warming while it lasts”
opinion piece from Professor Henrik Svensmark was published September 9th in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

From Watts Up With That.com Sept 10,2009

Link to original Danish article

A couple excerpts include:
important to recognize that nature is completely independent of what we humans think about it.

Indeed, global warming stopped and a cooling is beginning. No climate model has predicted a cooling of the Earth, on the contrary. This means that projections of future climate is unpredictable,

solar activity is heading towards its lowest level in about 100 years’. Everything indicates that the Sun is moving into a hibernation-like state,

It is important to note that the Little Ice Age was a global event. It ended in the late 19th century and was followed by an increase in solar activity. Over the past 50 years solar activity has been the highest since the medieval warmth for 1,000 years ago. And now it appears that the sun returns and is heading towards what is called ‘a grand minimum’ as we saw in the Little Ice Age.

In 1996 we discovered a surprising influence of the sun – its impact on Earth’s cloud cover. High energy accelerated particles of exploded stars, the cosmic radiation, are helping to form clouds.

Giant solar flares can have the cosmic radiation on earth to dive suddenly over a few days. In the days after the eruption cloud cover falls by about 4 per cent. And the content of liquid water in clouds (droplets) is reduced by almost 7 per cent.

This means that projections of future climate is unpredictable.

California Wildfires not due to Global Warming

AccuWeather’s Joe Bastardi makes mincemeat of Greenpeace claim that California Wildfires are caused by Global Warming

From WattsUpWithThat.com Sept 10,2009

New Web Site

I found a new interesting web site for consideration in the climate debate. I have only begun to review the information on the site.

Reclaiming Climate Science
http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/MyStory.htm

A couple excerpts include:
I was an environmentalist who believed in Global Warming.
I was then challenged by contradictory evidence -
- that there is no science "consensus" - there is no consensus - and any claim that "the debate is over" is at best unscientific, at worst fraudulent

Global temperatures have been falling for ten years, yet CO2 is rising as steadily as ever
Climate Science has been taken over by people with political agendas, headed up by the UN IPCC

Official Climate Science has increasingly abused public trust,

Through slander and silence in the media, many do not even realize of the existence of friendly, informed, active skeptics networks where real science happens.

STILL No Tropical Storms? Must Be Global Warming

STILL No Tropical Storms? Must Be Global Warming

From Dr. Roy Spenser

Excerpt:
So, where are all of the news stories about the fact we’ve had no tropical storms yet this year? As can be seen in the following graphic, as of this date in 2005 we already had 8 named storms in the Atlantic basin. And tomorrow, August 4, that number will increase to 9. In 2005 we were even told to expect more active hurricane seasons from now on because of global warming.

Waxman Markey bill - HR2454:

The Waxman Markey bill also called - HR2454: American Clean Energy and Security Act (Cap-and-Trade Climate bill)summary can be found at:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:H.R.2454:

IPCC Report

From the NIPCC report June 2009, titled Climate Change Reconsidered

Excerpted a few background notes on the IPCC:
"The IPCC is, first and foremost, a political organization and not a scientific one. It’s findings therefore should be understood to be political and not scientific findings.

we are often told about the “2,500 scientists” who contributed to the latest IPCC report, the vast majority of these contributors had no influence on the conclusions expressed by the IPCC and were not asked if they endorsed those conclusions

IPCC’s key personnel and lead authors are appointed by governments, not by scientific organizations.

The full reports of the IPCC are then revised after their executive summaries were written in order to agree with the political documents.

The scientists involved with the IPCC are almost all in careers that rely on government contracts and rely on government grants to support their IPCC activities

The IPCC’s agenda is ...... not to discover the truth about how the world’s incredibly complex and ever-changing climate operates. It is, instead, to justify control of the emission of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide.

IPCC arrives at this conclusion only by ignoring scientific data that were available but were inconsistent with the authors’ pre-conceived conclusions, and has already been contradicted in important parts by research published since May 2006

IPCC fails to consider important scientific issues

It violates the established rules and procedures that should be used when making scientific forecasts

It uses surface-based temperature records known to be inaccurate, and ignores satellite data showing patterns of warming in the atmosphere that are different from what models predict would occur if greenhouse gases were the cause of warming.

The IPCC continues to undervalue the overwhelming evidence that, on decadal and century-long time scales, the Sun and associated atmospheric cloud effects are responsible for much of past climate change.

IPCC’s shortcomings have been hidden from the public and policymakers, leading to an uncritical acceptance of its reports and conclusions"

Chapter 1,2,3 of Climate Change Reconsidered

Excerpts from From NIPCC June 2, 2009

Chapter 1
• Today’s state-of-the-art climate models fail to accurately simulate the physics of earth’s radiative energy balance, resulting in uncertainties “as large as, or larger than, the doubled CO2 forcing.”

Chapter 2
• Scientists may have discovered a connection between cloud creation and sea surface temperature in the tropics that creates a “thermostat-like control” that automatically vents excess heat into space.
• Iodocompounds—created by marine algae— function as cloud condensation nuclei, which help create new clouds that reflect more incoming solar radiation back to space and thereby cool the planet.

Chapter 3
• The IPCC ......evidence it cites, including the “hockey-stick” representation of earth’s temperature record by Mann et al., has been discredited and contradicted by many independent scholars.
• A corrected temperature record shows temperatures around the world were warmer
during the Medieval Warm Period of approximately 1,000 years ago than they are
today, and have averaged 2-3ºF warmer than today’s temperatures over the past 10,000 years.
• The IPCC cites as evidence of modern global warming data from surface-based recording stations yielding a 1905-2005 temperature increase of 0.74ºC +/- 0.18ºC. But this temperature record is known to be positively biased by insufficient corrections for the nongreenhouse- gas-induced urban heat island (UHI) effect. It may be impossible to make proper corrections for this deficiency, as the UHI of even
small towns dwarfs any concomitant augmented greenhouse effect that may be present.
• Highly accurate satellite data, adjusted for orbit drift and other factors, show a much more modest warming trend in the last two decades of the twentieth century and a dramatic decline in the warming trend in the first decade of the twentyfirst
century.
• The “fingerprint” or pattern of warming observed in the twentieth century differs from the pattern predicted by global climate models designed to simulate CO2-induced global warming.
All greenhouse models show an increasing warming trend with altitude in the tropics, peaking around 10 km at roughly twice the surface value. However, the temperature data from balloons give the opposite result: no increasing warming, but rather a slight cooling with altitude.
• The average temperature history of Antarctica provides no evidence of twentieth century warming. While the Antarctic peninsula shows recent warming, several research teams have documented a cooling trend for the interior of the continent since the 1970s.

Climate Change Reconsidered

Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) has released an 880-page book challenging the scientific basis of concerns that global warming is either man-made or would have harmful effects.

Climate Change Reconsidered
June 2, 2009

Coauthors Dr. S. Fred Singer and Dr. Craig Idso and 35 contributors and reviewers present an authoritative and detailed rebuttal of the findings of the IPCC.

A couple highlights include:
"We regret that many advocates in the debate have
chosen to give up debating the science and focus
almost exclusively on questioning the motives of
“skeptics,” name-calling, and ad hominem attacks."

"The IPCC continues to undervalue the
overwhelming evidence that, on decadal and centurylong
time scales, the Sun and associated atmospheric cloud effects are responsible for much of past climate
change. It is therefore highly likely that the Sun is
also a major cause of twentieth-century warming,"

"The scholarship in this book demonstrates overwhelming scientific support for the position that the warming of the twentieth century was moderate and not unprecedented, that its impact on human health and wildlife was positive, and that carbon dioxide probably is not the driving factor behind climate change."

"the contributors and reviewers of NIPCC donated their time and best efforts to produce this report out of concern that the IPCC was provoking an irrational fear of anthropogenic global warming based on incomplete and faulty science."

"Seeing science clearly misused to shape public policies that have the potential to inflict severe economic harm, particularly on low-income groups, NIPCC’s team of scientists chose to speak up for science at a time when too few people outside the scientific community know what is happening, and too few scientists who know the truth have the will or the platforms to speak out against the IPCC."

Chapter 1 describes the limitations of the IPCC’s
attempt to forecast future climate conditions by using
computer climate models.

Chapter 2 describes feedback factors that reduce
the earth’s temperature sensitivity to changes in
atmospheric CO2.

Chapter 3 reviews empirical data on past
temperatures. We find no support for the IPCC’s
claim that climate observations during the twentieth
century are either unprecedented or provide evidence
of an anthropogenic effect on climate.

Chapter 4 reviews observational data on glacier
melting, sea ice area, variation in precipitation, and
sea level rise. We find no evidence of trends that
could be attributed to the supposedly anthropogenic
global warming of the twentieth century.

Chapter 5 summarizes the research of a growing
number of scientists who say variations in solar
activity, not greenhouse gases, are the true driver of
climate change.

Chapter 6 investigates and debunks the
widespread fears that global warming might cause
more extreme weather.

Chapter 7 examines the biological effects of
rising CO2 concentrations and warmer temperatures.

Chapter 8 examines the IPCC’s claim that CO2-
induced increases in air temperature will cause
unprecedented plant and animal extinctions, both on
land and in the world’s oceans. We find there little
real-world evidence in support of such claims and an
abundance of counter evidence that suggests
ecosystem biodiversity will increase in a warmer and
CO2-enriched world.

Chapter 9 challenges the IPCC’s claim that CO2-
induced global warming is harmful to human health.............
However, a thorough examination of the
peer-reviewed scientific literature reveals that further
global warming would likely do just the opposite and
actually reduce the number of lives lost to extreme
thermal conditions.............

Disproving The Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) Problem

From Watts Up With That May 24,2009

Disproving The Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) Problem

Excerpts include:
"if the actual data results do not significantly support the theory, it must be reconsidered or even rejected as it stands."

Temperature:
"If the time period from 1850 through 2008 is used as a base, the net increase is just under 0.70C and the average rise is also 0.040C per decade! It is clear that choosing a short selected period of rising temperature gives a misleading result. It is also true that the present trend is down and expected to continue downward for several more years before reversing again."

"models predicted that the lower Troposphere would be significantly warmer than near ground at the lower latitudes, especially in the tropics. This has not occurred! "

The Economic Impact of Waxman–Markey

Heritage Foundation May 13,2009

A couple highlights from there analysis:
Analysis of the economic impact of Waxman-Markey projects that by 2035 the bill will:
* Reduce aggregate gross domestic product (GDP) by $7.4 trillion,
* Destroy 844,000 jobs on average, with peak years seeing unemployment rise by over 1,900,000 jobs,
* Raise electricity rates 90 percent after adjusting for inflation,
* Raise inflation-adjusted gasoline prices by 74 percent,
* Raise residential natural gas prices by 55 percent,
* Raise an average family's annual energy bill by $1,500, and
* Increase inflation-adjusted federal debt by 29 percent, or $33,400 additional federal debt per person, again after adjusting for inflation.

Temperature Stations

A must read for anyone serious about studing global warming SCIENCE.
Anthony Watts, Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable? Chicago, IL: The Heartland Institute, 2009
Link
http://www.heartland.org/books/PDFs/SurfaceStations.pdf

Excerpts include:
"we found that 89 percent of the stations – nearly 9 of every 10 – fail to meet the National Weather Service’s own siting requirements"

"The official record of temperatures in the continental United States comes from a network of 1,221 climate-monitoring stations overseen by the National Weather Service, a department of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Until now, no one had ever conducted a comprehensive review of the quality of the measurement environment of those stations."

"During the past few years I recruited a team of more than 650 volunteers to visually inspect and photographically document more than 860 of these temperature stations. We were shocked by what we found."

"9 of every 10 stations are likely reporting higher or rising temperatures because they are badly sited"

"We observed that changes in the technology of temperature stations over time also has caused them to report a false warming trend."

"We found major gaps in the data record that were filled in with data from nearby sites, a practice that propagates and compounds errors."

"We found that adjustments to the data by both NOAA and another government
agency, NASA, cause recent temperatures to look even higher."

"This report presents actual photos of more than 100 temperature stations in the U.S., many of them demonstrating vividly the siting issues we found to be rampant in the network. Photographs of all 865 stations that have been surveyed so far can
be found at www.surfacestations.org, where station photos can be browsed by state or searched for by name."

"The conclusion is inescapable: The U.S. temperature record is unreliable."

Heroes of Science:
Author:
Anthony Watts is a 25-year broadcast meteorology veteran and currently chief meteorologist for KPAY-AM radio. He got his start as on-air meteorologist for WLFI-TV in Lafayette, Indiana and at KHSL-TV in Chico, California. In 1987, he founded ItWorks, which supplies broadcast graphics systems to hundreds of cable television, television, and radio stations nationwide. ItWorks supplies custom weather stations, Internet servers, weather graphics content, and broadcast video equipment. In 2007, Watts founded SurfaceStations.org, a Web site devoted to photographing and documenting the quality of weather stations across the U.S.

Acknowledgments
The author thanks Gary Boden, for his extensive work in implementing Excel and Google Earth algorithms, plus quality control;
Evan M. Jones, for his untiring assistance in station surveys and quality control checking;
Dr. Roger Pielke, Sr., Colorado State University, for his guidance and assistance in providing resources that enabled this project to become a reality;
Barry Wise, for his assistance in linking Google Earth to the SurfaceStations.org photo gallery;
and the more than 650 volunteers who have tirelessly driven thousands of miles to survey and report stations, with particular thanks to the volunteers who have surveyed 25 or more stations, including Craig Limesand, Eric Gamberg, John Goetz, Don Kostuch, Russell Steele, Kristen Byrnes, and Liz and Don Healey.

I also thank Steve McIntyre, who provided a large measure of assistance in collating station data.

Fatties cause global warming

Another shoe drops in the global control:

The Sun 2009.04.20

Dr Phil Edwards, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: “Moving about in a heavy body is like driving in a gas guzzler.” Each fat person is said to be responsible for emitting a tonne more of climate-warming carbon dioxide per year than a thin one. It means an extra BILLION TONNES of CO2 a year is created, according to World Health Organisation estimates of overweight people.

Dr Phil Edwards said: “We need to do a lot more to reverse the global trend towards fatness. It is a key factor in the battle to reduce carbon emissions and slow climate change. “It is time we took account of the amount we are eating.

Harrison Schmitt doesn’t believe that humans are causing global warming.

Harrison Schmitt, who walked on the moon and once served New Mexico in the U.S. Senate, doesn’t believe that humans are causing global warming.

Boston Herald Feb 16, 2009

A couple excerpts:
"Schmitt contends that scientists "are being intimidated" if they disagree with the idea that burning fossil fuels has increased carbon dioxide levels, temperatures and sea levels."

"Of the global warming debate, he said: "It’s one of the few times you’ve seen a sizable portion of scientists who ought to be objective take a political position and it’s coloring their objectivity."

Consider Alternative Senarios

Leaders must keep minds open to potential alternatives.

#1 There is a cost trade off to any public choice.
The pie is not unlimited and money spent on one program, limits the funds for other programs.
Would it not be better to use some of the climate change funds to instead fund clean drinking water, that is if saving human lives is a priority?
http://www.wateradvocates.org/
http://www.globalwater.org/

Read the World Health Organization data on deaths per year due to poor drinking water. One example:
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2004/pr58/en/

Another excellent source is a person who does believe in global warming, but wonders about the use of limited resources:
http://www.lomborg.com/
Even if you disagree, one should consider his thoughts and challenges.

#2 Many serious scientists and climatologists challenge global warming.
An interesting example would be John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel:
http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/38574742.html

John Theon
James Hansen’s Former NASA Supervisor Declares Himself a Skeptic

Roy Spenser- Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, previously Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center,
http://www.drroyspencer.com/

For more data and alternative views, you might also consider the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Minority page:
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.WelcomeMessage

Heaviest snow in 20 years brings large parts of Britain to a halt

Times Online Feb 2, 2009

Heaviest snow in 20 years brings large parts of Britain to a halt