News Release
from the Science & Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
IS THE EARTH REALLY WARMING?

Scientists from Universities of Rochester and Virginia publish new findings that throw doubt on global warming and the validity of climate models

This new study brings in another, independent way of determining the temperature, using historic meteorological climate data to construct temperature values for each grid cell of the Earth at an equivalent height of 2 meters. The Rochester/Virginia scientists show that this fourth set agrees with the satellite/balloon results, establishing that the disparity is close to the surface, and primarily in the tropics.

According to co-author Prof. S. Fred Singer, president of SEPP and former director of the US Weather Satellite Service: " It's been known for some years that satellites and surface thermometers give different temperature trends. The satellite results have been under constant attack - as recently as last May -- but to no avail. We now have independent confirmation that they are correct and that the climate is not warming."

The second study concerns another serious disparity: Global Climate Models disagree with the actual data of the past quarter-century. All of these elaborate (and expensive) computer models agree more or less with each other that introduction of greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide (CO2), should cause the temperature at the surface to increase. Additionally, the models predict that the warming effect increases with altitude, becoming twice as strong at about 3 miles high. The Rochester/Virginia scientists compared results from three commonly cited state-of-the-art models with four independent observational data sets. The disparity is striking: The models all give positive values, i.e., temperature trends increasing with altitude ---the observations show negative values.

Prof. David Douglass comments: " The discussion of the models and observations has been mostly about what happens at the surface, because that is where we live. On the surface, the discussion is about the difference of the magnitude of the trend. You go up a few miles and now even the sign is wrong."

Prof. Patrick Michaels adds: "It is no surprise that climate models, which have incorrectly explained surface temperatures, cannot also predict the altitude effect. The surprising thing is that serious scientists would take the result of these "serious" models seriously."

Singer concludes: "And if the global climate is not warming, why all the fuss? The whole issue of CO2 emissions then becomes moot."
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The scientists are: Prof. David Douglass and graduate student Benjamin Pearson from the University of Rochester; Prof. (emeritus) S. Fred Singer from the Science and Environmental Policy Project and the University of Virginia; Paul Knappenberger from New Hope Environmental Services; and Prof. Patrick Michaels of the University of Virginia. Both studies are published in Geophysical Research Letters of July 9, 2004.
Douglass, David H.; Pearson, Benjamin D.; Singer, S. Fred
Altitude dependence of atmospheric temperature trends: Climate models versus observations
Geophys. Res. Lett., Vol. 31, No. 13, L13208
10.1029/2004GL020103
09 July 2004 [HTML] [PDF] [Abstract]

Copy of this paper can be downloaded at physics arXiv <http://arxiv.org/list/physics.geo-ph/recent>.paper 0407074
Douglass, David H.; Pearson, Benjamin D.; Singer, S. Fred; Knappenberger, Paul C.; Michaels, Patrick J.
Disparity of tropospheric and surface temperature trends: New evidence
Geophys. Res. Lett., Vol. 31, No. 13, L13207
10.1029/2004GL020212
09 July 2004 [HTML] [PDF] [Abstract]

Copy of this paper can be downloaded at physics arXiv <http://arxiv.org/list/physics.geo-ph/recent>.paper 0407075

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or by e-mail at sepp@sepp.org
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