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| 2010 Index of Editorials
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All Editorials for 2020 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 Categories Subcategories Antarctic Warming Skepticism [2] Book Review [3] Climate Change CO2 Emissions [1] Climate Models Uncertainty [2] Climate Science Climate Cycles [1] Climate Sensitivity [1] Holes [1] Thermal History [1] Unsolved Problems [1] Energy Issues American Power Act [1] Clean and Sustainable [1] Nuclear Waste Storage [1] Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) [1] Environmentalism Surrogate Religion [1] Foreword Energy Primer for Kids [1] Geo-Engineering Applications [2] Global Climate - International French Academy [1] Global Warming Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) [6] Confusion [1] Economics [1] General [2] Greenhouse Gases [1] Hockeystick [4] Ice Cores [1] Junkscience [9] Oceans' Role [2] Skepticism [1] Sun's Role [2] Health Issues Second Hand Smoke [1] Measurements Arctic Sea Ice [1] Atmospheric Temperature Data [2] Sea Surface Temperature [1] Surface Data [2] Misinformation Statistics Misuse [1] Modern Empirical Science v. Medieval Science [1] NIPCC China [1] Nuclear Fuel Supplies [1] Organizations Climate Research Unit (CRU) [1] International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) [2] Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) [1] UK Met Office [1] World Meteorological Organization (WMO) [1] Political Issues Climate Realism [1] Climategate [3] Independent Cross Check of Temperature Data [1] Report IPCC Assessment Report [2] NOAA State of the Climate 2009 [1] NRC-NAS Advancing the Science of Climate Change [1] Sea-Level Rise West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) [1] Alarmism [1] Types of Energy Nuclear Energy [1] |
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SEPP SCIENCE EDITORIAL #33-2010 (in TWTW Nov 13, 2010) S. Fred Singer, Chairman and President , Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) The French Academy Lays an Egg Originally appeared in The American Thinker, Nov 3, 2010 http://www.americanthinker.com/2010... The august French Academy has spoken. After a cursory examination of the climate issue, a day of selected testimonies, and some internal discussion among admitted non-experts, their Oct. 28 report to the French science minister concluded that global warming is "real and anthropogenic." Too bad; this report will remain as a stain on the Academy's reputation for years to come -- once the true scientific facts gain acceptance. How could the Academy reach such a conclusion? Simply by ignoring any contrary evidence -- all published in peer-reviewed journals and readily available. So another interesting question is: Why did they ignore contrary evidence? For the answer, we would have to turn to psychologists or sociologists. On the other hand, the French Academy should be praised for organizing a debate on climate, however imperfect. I cannot imagine that the U.S. National Academy would even consider such an idea. The global climate indeed warmed between 1910 and 1940, but due to natural causes, and at a time when the level of atmospheric greenhouse gases was relatively low. There is little dispute about the reality of this rise in temperature and about the subsequent cooling from 1940 to 1975, which was also seen in proxy records (such as ice cores, tree rings, etc.) independent of thermometers. The Academy, following the U.N.-supported IPCC, then reports a sudden climate jump around 1977-1978, followed by a steady increase in temperature until at least 1997. It is this steady increase that is in doubt; it cannot be seen in the proxy records. Even more important, weather satellite data, which furnish the best global temperature data for the atmosphere, show essentially no warming between 1979 and 1997. According to well-established textbook theories of the atmosphere, the surface warming must be smaller than the atmospheric trend by roughly a factor of two. But one half of zero is still zero. It suggests that the surface warming reported by the IPCC, based on weather-station data that had been processed by the Climate Research Unit of East Anglia University (CRU-EAU) may not exist. How could this have come about? We will get the answer once we learn how the CRU selected particular weather stations (from some thousands worldwide) to use for their global product and how they then corrected the actual data (to remove urban influences and other effects). So far, none of the several investigations of "Climategate" has delved into these all-important details. Nor have they established the exact nature of the "trick" used by the CRU and fellow conspirators to "hide the decline" (of temperature) -- referred to in the leaked Climategate e-mails. The disparity between surface trends and atmospheric data as measured by satellites (and independently also by radiosondes in weather balloons) has been known for more than a decade. Yet it has been steadfastly ignored by the IPCC's Summary for Policymakers and also by the French Academy. Evidently, it is not a subject they wish to discuss. In my book, Hot Talk, Cold Science, published in 1997, I show a graph that clearly delineates the difference between surface and atmospheric trends in the tropical region. In 2000, the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences even published a study called "Reconciling Observations of Global Temperature Change"; this work tried to account for the discrepancy between atmospheric and surface trends (between 1979 and 1997) and concluded that they could not. A federal report of 2006 by the Climate Change Science Program (CCSPSAP- 1.1) shows again the same disparity. Yet an obvious way to solve the puzzle is to conclude that the surface trends are vastly exaggerated and may even be close to zero. Of course, it is also necessary to deal with sea surface temperatures, since oceans cover 71% of the earth's surface. An analysis of the available data shows again no appreciable warming trend after appropriate corrections have been made. As suggested in studies published in 2005, the reported warming trend of SST may be based on an artifact and is not real. So it becomes clear that the French Academy's conclusion (that global warming is "real and anthropogenic") does not accord with observed facts. An obvious question is why these facts were not publicized earlier. I can say only that any such claim of "no global warming in the 1980s and 1990s" would have been shouted down and discounted by the scientific community and the public. However, "Climategate" and the subsequent discovery of many errors and shortcomings by the IPCC have changed the situation drastically. It is now OK to express what previously might have been considered heretical. View The Week That Was in which this editorial appeared. Return to Top of Page SEPP SCIENCE EDITORIAL #32-2010 (in TWTW Oct 30, 2010) S. Fred Singer, Chairman and President , Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) Why the Confusion about Global Warming? Oct 30, 2010 No one denies that the Earth has warmed in the past century. So of course, the past decade must be the warmest - even though there has been no upward trend since the 1998 temperature peak. [Note the important distinction between temperature level (measured in deg C or deg F) and trend (expressed in deg C per year).] The dispute is (and always has been) about the cause of the warming. In fact, the major warming during the first 50 years of the 20th century and the latter part of the 19th century is generally accepted to be natural - a recovery from the Little Ice Age. But there's no credible evidence that identifies the most recent warming as human-caused. On the contrary, while the UN's IPCC claims to be quite certain that it is anthropogenic, the independent NIPCC (Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change) concludes that Nature - Not Human Activity - Rules the Climate. See http://www.sepp.org/publications/NIPCC_final.pdf In this connection note the obfuscatory language used by "Petitions for Reconsideration" of its Endangerment finding on CO2: The scientific evidence supporting EPA's finding is robust, voluminous, and compelling. Climate change is happening now, and humans are contributing to it. Multiple lines of evidence show a global warming trend over the past 100 years. Beyond this, melting ice in the Arctic, melting glaciers around the world, increasing ocean temperatures, rising sea levels, altered precipitation patterns, and shifting patterns of ecosystems and wildlife habitats all confirm that our climate is changing. Yet there is no evidence at all that humans are indeed contributing to warming in a significant way. We'll see you in court, dear EPA, and gladly examine your compelling evidence! View The Week That Was in which this editorial appeared. Return to Top of Page SEPP SCIENCE EDITORIAL #31-2010 (in TWTW Oct 16, 2010) S. Fred Singer, Chairman and President , Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) Second Hand Smoke [SHS] and Lung Cancer Oct 16, 2010 In 1993, the EPA published a report claiming that SHS [sometimes known as Environmental Tobacco Smoke - ETS] causes 3000 deaths from lung cancer every year. Anyone doubting this result has been subject to attack and depicted as a toady of the tobacco lobby. The attacks have been led by a smear blog called 'DesmogBlog,' financed by a shady Canadian PR firm of James Hoggan, and have been taken up with great enthusiasm by a self-styled 'science historian,' Professor Naomi Oreskes. The ultimate purpose of these attacks, at least in my case, has been to discredit my work and publications on global warming. I'm a nonsmoker, find SHS to be an irritant and unpleasant, and have certainly never been paid by Phillip Morris and the tobacco lobby, and have never joined any of their front organizations, like TASSC [The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition]. So what is the truth about SHS and lung cancer? I'm neither an oncologist nor a chemical toxicologist, but I do know some statistics, which allows me to examine the EPA study without bias [I personally belief that SHS cannot be healthy]. I can demonstrate that the EPA fudged their analysis to reach a predetermined conclusion - using a thoroughly dishonest procedure. They made three major errors: 1) They ignored publication bias, that is, studies that do not produce significant results are seldom published, 2) They shifted the confidence intervals, 3) They drew unjustified conclusions from a risk ratio that was barely greater than 1.0. My opinions are independently confirmed by the Congressional Research Service [CRS-95-1115], and by a lengthy judicial analysis by Judge William Osteen [all available on the Internet]. 1) Since none of the epidemiological studies provided a clear answer, EPA carried out a 'meta-analysis'. Unfortunately, this approach ignores 'publication bias', i.e., the tendency for investigators not to publish their studies if they do not give a positive result. 2) The EPA in order to calculate a risk ratio, moved the confidence intervals from 95% to 90% -- and said so openly. 3) Even so, their risk ratio was just a little above 1.0 - whereas epidemiologists ignore any result unless the RR exceeds 2.0. To sum up, while we cannot give specific answers for lung cancer cases or other medical issues connected SHS, we can state with some assurance that the EPA analysis is worthless. View The Week That Was in which this editorial appeared. Return to Top of Page SEPP SCIENCE EDITORIAL #30-2010 (in TWTW Oct 9, 2010) S. Fred Singer, Chairman and President , Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) Some uncertainties in climate models Oct 9, 2010 One may distinguish three types of uncertainties in deriving a temperature 'trend' from climate models (to compare with observed trends):
The question now is: Which of the five trends should be compared with observations? OR: How many runs need to be averaged to get a reliable trend value? I have tried to tackle this problem empirically and can send the draft of a short paper for comments to anyone interested. View The Week That Was in which this editorial appeared. Return to Top of Page SEPP SCIENCE EDITORIAL #29-2010 (in TWTW Oct 2, 2010) Guest Editorial by Dr. Harrison "Jack" Schmitt THE CENTRAL ROLE OF THE SUN IN CLIMATE CHANGE Oct 2, 2010 Policy makers at the head of government in the United States and elsewhere apparently want to believe, and to have others believe, that human use of fossil fuels accelerates global warming. They pursue this quest in order to impose ever greater and clearly unconstitutional control on the economy and personal liberty in the name of a hypothetically omnipotent government. There exists no true concern by the President or Congressional Leadership about the true effects of climate change - only a poorly concealed, ideologically driven attempt to use conjured up threats of catastrophic consequences as a lever to gain authoritarian control of society. There has been an absolute natural increase in global surface temperature of half a degree Centigrade per 100 years (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit) over the last three and a half centuries.[1] Observational climate data and objective interpretations of those data strongly indicate that nature, not human activity, exerts the primary influence on this current long term warming and on all global climate variations. Human influence through use of fossil fuels has been and remains minor if even detectable.[2] Claims to the contrary only find support in highly questionable climate models that fail repeatedly against the reality of nature. What, then, stimulates historically and geologically observed, sometimes slow and sometimes radical, changes in climate? The primary alternative hypothesis to human-caused global warming is natural climate change driven by the Sun.[3] Unfortunately, the "human-caused global warming" or carbon dioxide forcing hypothesis has become embedded in the minds of otherwise strong teams of observational scientists and their publication outlets. They cannot entertain any other alternative to enhance and amplify variations in the natural heating of the Earth by the Sun[4] - nor can they prove their own hypothesis of human-caused global warming.[5] As many scientists have documented, the position and orientation of the Earth in its orbit around the sun, and the Sun's variable influence and activity, determine weather and climate.[6] Seasons vary because of changing solar energy input in annual response to the varying orientation of Earth's Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Indeed, the Earth's 23-degree inclination to the rays from the Sun and its annual orbit around that star guarantee large seasonal changes away from the equator. Further, variations in solar radiation received by the Earth correlate with short-term variations in Earth's weather, based on the slow movement of loops called "Rossby waves"[7] in atmospheric jet streams.[8] Observations by astronomers over the centuries, as well as studies of tree rings,[9] stalagmite layers,[10] and other pre-historic and geological records[11], have defined an 11-year sunspot cycle superposed on a number of longer climate cycles[12]. Much modern research documents that the sunspot cycle also correlates with variations in stratospheric winds[13] and ozone production,[14] cosmic ray flux,[15] ionospheretroposphere interactions,[16] and the global electrical circuit that exists between the ionosphere and the Earth's surface[17]. Correlations of records of seasonal changes, solar activity cycles, and local and regional rainfall oscillations all confirm that in some way radiation emanating from the Sun drives changes in weather and climate.[18] Solar interplanetary magnetic fields, whose polarity varies every 22 years or twice the sunspot cycle, may play an additional role as their strength varies directly with increases and decreases in numbers of sunspots.[19] As a further natural demonstration of the importance of the Sun in determining climate variation, the well-documented solar shielding effects of atmospheric ash and aerosols from volcanic eruptions document the tie between solar irradiance and at least short-term climate swings. Particularly illustrative have been eruptions such as Huaynaputina (1600)[20], Tambora (1815)[21], Krakatoa (1883)[22], and Pinatubo (1991)[23] More broadly, geological and planetological observations show that major perturbations in climate relate to the position and orientation of the Earth in its orbit around the Sun. For example, as Serbian mathematician Milutin Milankovic pointed out in 1941,[24] has have many others since,[25] initiation of the major ice ages on Earth correlate with a 23,000-year precession cycle, a 41,000-year obliquity cycle, and a 100,000-year eccentricity cycle in the position of the Earth relative to the Sun. Cyclic variations measured in oxygen isotope ratios that correlate with the growth of ice sheets and biogeochemical responses closely reflect the 23,000-year precession cycle.[26] Also, a half-precession cycle appears to be related to the dynamics of the East African Equatorial monsoon[27]. In addition, the 41,000-year obliquity cycle shows strongly in North American marine depositional records.[28] Climate cycles related to internal solar activity are superposed on long-term orbital cycles. For example, the Medieval Warm Period (800-1300) and the Little Ice Age (1400-1900) correlate, respectively, with very active and very passive periods of recorded sunspot activity.[29] As a fairly recent example of solar influence on climate, the Little Ice Age occurred during a 500-year long sequence of three deep reductions in sunspot frequency.[30] The coldest temperatures came during the last of these minima, a 70- year period of exceptionally few sunspots (the Maunder Minimum).[31] The Medieval Warm Period, (when the Vikings colonized Greenland, glaciers retreated, and farmers could at least survive)[32] also correlates to repeated multi-century long, high sunspot frequency.33 Since the end of the early 1900s, peak values in sunspot activity rose steadily until 1960, leveling off at higher than normal values until apparently starting to fall about 2000.[34] The 11-year sunspot cycle repetitions are superposed on a number of long-term cycles of past highs and lows in solar activity. For example, the Gleissberg cycle has imprecisely defined periods of 90±30 years in length.[35] More energetic sunspot activity in the Gleissberg cycle may correlate with temporary decades of warming, such as in the 1930s and 1990s with the reverse being true in the 1810s and 1910s. Analyses of tree rings, lake levels, cave deposits, tree ring variations in cosmic ray-produced isotopes (14C and 10Be)[36], and oxygen isotope ratios record what appear to be other long period solar cycles, specifically, 2400, 1500 years, 200, as well as the Gleissberg cycle[37]. Many advocates of human-caused global warming agree that solar cycles show correlations with regional climate variations[38]; but, absent a proven amplification mechanism to enhance small solar energy (irradiance) variations, they reject nature in favor of fossil fuel burning. These reviews all document broadly accepted relationships of weather and climate with many different repetition cycles in solar activity[39], ranging from significant but random solar flares affecting jet stream tracks,[40] to the 11-year sunspot cycle,[41] to the long-term Milankovic orbital repetitions discussed above. Specifically with respect to the last 120 years, the correlation of measured solar energy input variations with global surface temperature and sea surface temperature is very strong.[42] The statistical correlation of solar irradiance with air temperature has been about 79%.[43] In contrast, during the last 50 years, the correlation of measured carbon dioxide increases with global surface temperature has been only about 22%. This directly contradicts the assumption that carbon dioxide has had a large influence on climate in the last 50 years.[44] Since the end of the last Ice Age 10,000 years ago, the increase in total energy from the Sun has been about 0.6 watts per square meter,[45] an increase of less than 0.05% over an average total of about 1367 watts per square meter. On shorter time scales, total variations reach about 3 watts per square meter, or 0.22% from the average.[46] Considering the actual amount of possible atmospheric heating (30% of incoming solar energy is reflected to space), this variation results in a third to a half a degree Centigrade (0.6 to 0.9 degree Fahrenheit) global temperature change over seven years, that is, a half solar cycle.[47] Various natural mechanisms for visible, infrared, and UV light reflection, adsorption, emission, and water vapor feedback determine the net solar heating effect on the Earth.[48] Global atmospheric circulation moderates the short-term solar energy inputs, particularly upward convection of oceanic heat and water vapor in the large scale equatorial Hadley Cells that span latitudes from 30ºS to 30ºN .[49] Ocean circulation overall moderates the long-term transfer of solar energy around the globe.[50] Evidence for the existence, if not the nature, of a means for amplifying solar energy-solar magnetic field interactions with Earth comes from the oceans. Determination of the total contribution of the oceans to heating of the atmosphere, using three independent observational measures of oceanic heat flux, shows that the oceans' heat contribution to be five to seven times larger than variations in total solar energy input.[51] Additional support that an amplification mechanism exists comes from recent observational data on variations in stratospheric water vapor concentrations over three decades. These data suggest that decreases in water vapor have contributed to amplified sea surface cooling since 2000 while increases between 1980 and 2000 accented surface warming.[52] This relationship may correspond with stratospheric cooling and lower water retention due to lower than average solar energy input since 2000. Climate change driven by the Sun constitutes a strongly competitive, purely scientific hypothesis to the climate modeling-political hypothesis of human-caused global warming advocated by climate modelers and their acolytes in the science, media, and political establishments. Solar influence ranges from significant but random solar flares affecting jet stream tracks[53], to the 11-year sunspot cycle,[54] to the 22- year magnetic cycle, up to the long-term Milankovic orbital repetitions discussed above. The current decade or longer period of cold winters in the northern United States and Europe coincide with a relatively prolonged reduction in sunspot activity below even the norm for a minimum in the 11-year cycle.[55] Actual observations show that climate varies in response to natural forces and that human burning of fossil fuels has had negligible effect over the last 100 years.[56] Lets us hope that State and national policy makers taking office in 2011 and 2013 will understand the facts about natural climate change and the fictions about human influence on change before taking enormous constitutional and economic risks - and before liberty and incomes suffer further erosion. References can be found in the TWTW document for this Science Editorial. View The Week That Was in which this editorial appeared. Return to Top of Page SEPP SCIENCE EDITORIAL #28-2010 (in TWTW Sep 25, 2010) Guest Editorial by Dr. Harrison "Jack" Schmitt DOMINATING ROLE OF OCEANS IN CLIMATE CHANGE Sep 25, 2010 The scientific rationale behind the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed massive intrusion into American life in the name of fighting climate change has no scientific or constitutional justification. This hard left excursion into socialism, fully supported by the Congressional Leadership and the President, has no basis in observational science, as has been discussed previously relative to climate history, temperature, and carbon dioxide. In addition, oceans of the Earth play the dominant role in the perpetuation and mediation of naturally induced change of global climate.[1] Density variations linking the Northern and Southern Hemisphere portions of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans through the Southern Ocean drive the primary circulation system that controls hemispheric and global climate. Differences in temperature and salt concentration produce these density variations that circulate heat around the planet. For the last several years in this circulating environment, the sea surface temperature of the oceans appears to be leveling off or decreasing[2] with no net heat increase for the last 58 years[3] and particularly since 2003[4] and possibly since 1990[5]. The long-term climatic implications of this recent broad scale cooling are not known. Density increase due to evaporation in the North Atlantic creates a salt-rich, cold, deepwater current that flows south to join the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. Upwelling from that Circumpolar Current brings nutrient and carbon dioxide-rich deep seawater into the upper Southern Ocean. This Southern Ocean water then moves north toward the equator where it joins a warm water current flowing from the North Pacific, through the tropics and the Indian Ocean, and then northward through the Atlantic to become the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream flows into the North Atlantic where, as part of a continuous process, winddriven evaporation increases salt concentration and density and feeds the deepwater flow back to the south. Natural interference in the normal functioning of the ocean conveyor can occur. For example, melting of Northern Hemisphere ice sheets, accumulation of melt-water behind ice dams, and abrupt fresh water inputs into the North Atlantic cause major disruptions in global ocean circulation.[6] The oceans both moderate and intensify weather and decadal climate trends due to their great capacity to store solar heat as well as their global current structure, slow mixing, salinity variations, wind interactions, and oscillatory changes in heat distribution over large volumes.[7] The Northern Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO),[8] the El Nino-La Nina Southern Pacific Oscillation (ENSO),[9] the long period anchovy-sardine Southern Pacific Oscillation,[10] the Gulf Stream Northern Atlantic Oscillation (NAO),[11] the Indonesian Through-Flow (ITF),[12] the Agulhas Current[13], and other related ocean currents and cycles have demonstrably large, decadal scale effects on regional as well as global climate.[14] Possibly the greatest oceanic influence on global climate results from the full hemispheric reach and scale of the Southern Ocean's Circumpolar Current as it circulates around Antarctica and between the continents of the Southern Hemisphere.[15] In particular, the northward migration of the cold to warm water front off South Africa during ice ages may restrict warm, salty water of the western Indian Ocean's Agulhas Current from entering the South Atlantic and eventually amplify ice age cooling in North America and Europe.[16] In several major portions of the global ocean heat conveyor, natural variations in heating, evaporation, freshwater input,[17] atmospheric convection, surface winds, and cloud cover can influence the position and strengths of related, but local ocean currents near the continents. This variation in current positioning, therefore, modifies carbon dioxide uptake and release, storm patterns, tropical cyclone frequency,[18] phytoplankton abundance,[19] drought conditions, and sea level rise that drive the reality of, as well as our perceptions of climate change. For example, since about 7000 years ago, sea level rise has averaged about eight inches (20cm) per century for a total of about 55 feet (16m).[20] This same approximate rate appears to have held from 1842 to the mid-1980s.[21] The trend in sea level rise between the early 1900s and 1940 showed no observable acceleration attributable to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide.[22] Satellite data show an apparent 50% increase of this rate after 1992, but this presumably will slow again soon due to the effects of the current period of global cooling. If the current slow rate of long-term global warming should continue for 100 years, the total sea level rise attributable to worldwide glacier melting and ocean thermal expansion would be no more that about four inches (10cm).[23] Greenland's ice sheet also plays a cyclic role in sea level changes. In the 1950s, Greenland's glaciers retreated significantly only to advance again between 1970 and 1995,[24] a pattern of retreat and then advance repeated again between 1995 and 2006[25]. Predicting future sea level rise from short-term observation of Greenland's glaciers would seem to have little validity, particularly as there appears to be a half a decade lag in observable melting and accretion responses relative to global temperature variations[26]. The same conclusion now can be made relative to Himalayan glaciers.[27] There also seems to be little danger of a catastrophic melting of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet that would cause a major rise in sea level.[28] Great uncertainty also exists relative to the natural dynamics and history of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet with Ross Sea sedimentary cores suggesting that major cycles of ice cover changes have occurred over the last five million years.[29] Overall, short-term sea level changes relate more to local geological dynamics that to glacial variations.[30] Compilations of temperature changes in the oceans and seas, as preserved by oxygen isotope variations in shells from cores of bottom sediments, provide a record of natural oceanic reactions to cycles of major climate change back for 1.8 million years.[31] For example, geological analysis of sea level changes over the last 500,000 years show a remarkable correlation with major natural climate change.[32] These data further indicate that the Earth probably is approaching the peak of the warming portion of a normal climate cycle that began with the end of the last Ice Age, about 10, 000 years ago.[33] The oceans play the major role in removing carbon from the atmosphere. Seawater calcium and various inorganic and organic processes in the oceans fix carbon from dissolved carbon dioxide as calcium carbonate,[34] planktonic and benthic organisms, and inedible forms of suspended carbon[35]. In so doing, these processes constitute major factors in global cycles of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. Calcium availability in the oceans, in turn, relates to major geological dynamics, including mountain building, volcanism, river flows, and the growth, alteration, and destruction of crustal plates beneath the oceans. Over the last 28 million years, marked variations in precipitated seawater calcium isotopes, particularly beginning about 13 million years ago, indicate major changes in sources of calcium rather than major variations in the quantity of atmospheric carbon dioxide.[36] This change in seawater calcium isotopic makeup may relate to events that included the partial deglaciation of Antarctica[37]. As most plant activity requires carbon dioxide, low atmospheric carbon dioxide values would reduce the rate of biologically assisted rock weathering. A limit on such weathering may buffer minimum atmospheric carbon dioxide to between 150 and 250ppm by limiting levels of seawater calcium.[38] Significant introductions of calcium into the oceans from any source would be expected to result in a drawdown of atmospheric carbon dioxide to maintain chemical balances in local as well as global seawater. Ultimately, the history of seawater calcium concentrations may explain many of the long-term variations in carbon dioxide levels shown in various studies; however, correlations between calcium dynamics and carbon dioxide levels are not at sufficient geological resolution to make firm, dated correlations. Slightly increased acidification of the local environments of sea dwelling organisms in the oceans may occur related to the absorption of new emissions of carbon dioxide. On the other hand, in spite of extreme alarmist hand wringing to the contrary[39], loss of ocean carbon dioxide due to naturally rising temperature works to mitigate this trend as will the broad chemical buffering of ocean acidity by both organic and inorganic processes[40]. Iron ion and iron complex concentrations in seawater, mediated by oxidation potential (Eh) and hydrogen ion concentration (pH or acidity), play an additional role in organic carbon fixation. Relatively simple laboratory experiments suggest that increases in ocean acidity might reduce availability of chelated iron in the life cycle of phytoplankton.[41] The complexity of this process in nature, however, and the many other variables that potentially would play a role in iron metabolism, indicate a need for a much more comprehensive experimental analysis before conclusions can be drawn. Exactly what may happen in specific ecosystems remains uncertain relative to small increases or decreases in the acidity of ocean habitats or the change in the ratios of dissolved oxygen and carbon dioxide. Coral reefs, for example, have been very adaptable over geologic time and extensive research strongly suggests that they adapt well, on a global scale, to climatic changes and the small associated chemical changes in the oceans.[42] So far, research indicates that some organisms benefit and some do not, as might be expected.[43] Indeed, this interplay between losses and gains has occurred many times in the geologic past as nature has continuously adjusted to climatic changes much greater than the slow warming occurring at present. The Earth's vast layers of carbonate rocks derived from carbon fixing organisms, including ancient, now dead coral reefs, as well as deeply submerged coral reefs on existing sea mounts,[44] show that the production and evolution of such organisms remains a continuous, if possibly, locally or regionally punctuated process. In the face of the overwhelming dominance of the oceans on climate variability, it would appear foolish in the extreme to give up liberties and incomes to politicians in Washington and at the United Nations in the name of "doing something" about slow climate change. The President, regulators, and Congress have chosen to try to push Americans along an extraordinarily dangerous path. That path includes unconstitutional usurpation of the rights of the people and the constitutionally reserved powers of the States as well as the ruin of economic stagnation. The Congress that takes office in 2011 absolutely must get this right! References can be found in the TWTW document for this Science Editorial. View The Week That Was in which this editorial appeared. Return to Top of Page SEPP SCIENCE EDITORIAL #27-2010 (in TWTW Sep 18, 2010) Guest Editorial by Dr. Harrison "Jack" Schmitt THE ROLE OF GREENLAND AND ANTARCTIC ICE CORES IN CLIMATE SCIENCE Sep 18, 2010 Analysis of ice cores from Antarctica [1] and Greenland [2] play an important role in understanding the history of global temperatures and atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and other gases and aerosols. Through analysis of dust, they also provide up to 800,000-year chronologies of global scale volcanic eruptions and major trends toward desertification. Clearly, data from ice cores play a critical underlying role in the science of climate change. Unfortunately, ice cores do not always appear to be a reliable record of past carbon dioxide or methane concentrations in the atmosphere. Their information needs to be confirmed by consistency with data from other sources. Particular care must be taken in the interpretation of the carbon dioxide record in ice cores due to uncertainties in the mechanics of gas preservation over time.[4] In some cases, the trapped atmosphere in the ice sheets may not be part of a closed system. To be a closed system for carbon dioxide or methane, no gas components can escape or be added during the burial process; liquid water cannot have interacted with the gases; none of the trapped gas components can combine, separate, diffuse, or solidify; and all components must stay in the same proportions as pressure increases with time due to added ice above. The observational science of ice has demonstrated that for some cores all these conditions do not hold. Further, the process of core extraction from great depth to surface pressure may open and disturb the gas systems. For example, the Siple Antarctic ice core indicates that carbon dioxide reached a level of about 330ppm in about 1900. Comparison with the 1960 initial Mauna Loa measurement of 260ppm suggests that either (1) the Siple data is just wrong, or (2) there was a drop of about 60ppm in carbon dioxide level between 1900 and 1960, or (3) it takes 80-some years for the carbon dioxide gas system to close.[4] This discrepancy does not appear to have been resolved;[5] but the smooth shape of the Siple core carbon dioxide curve as a function of core depth (approaching a constant level with increasing core depth/age) suggests it might not ever have been a closed system. Over time, carbon dioxide in the sampled Siple ice may have gradually equilibrated to a constant carbon dioxide value of about 280ppm now indicated for the 1720-year old and older layers. Also, this core suffered some melting during transport and prior to analysis.[6] Not surprisingly, considering the known variability in ice preservation, measured carbon dioxide concentrations in the trapped gases of many cores older than about 300 years hold remarkably constant over the last 7-8000 years of ice accumulation.[7] This constancy is incompatible with other data, including that from other ice cores and from preserved Ginkgo leaf stomata, both indicating significant variation during that period. Stomata are pores through which a plant takes in carbon dioxide. They vary in size depending on the carbon dioxide concentration in the air, and preserved stomata suggest that carbon dioxide levels ranged between 270 and 326ppm over the last 7-8000 years.[8] Some Greenland ice cores do not show expected temperature-driven carbon dioxide increases during the Medieval Warm Period (~800-1300) or the expected decreases during the Little Ice Age (~1400-1900)[9], although these events show clearly in other cores[10]. This further indicates that some ice cores potentially give an unreliable history of atmospheric carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and methane concentrations. Analyses from the EPICA Dome C and Vostok cores of the Antarctic ice sheets, on the other hand, show plausible parameter variations. A strong correlation exists back to ~800,000 years ago between carbon dioxide and methane concentrations and deuterium and oxygen isotopic temperature determinations.[11] The five hundred year time resolution of these correlations, however, remains insufficient to determine if carbon dioxide and methane changes lead or lag temperature changes. Similarly, up to 123,000 years of climate temperature variations measured in three deep cores from the Greenland ice sheet (GRIP, GISP2, and NGRIP) appear to be consistent with other climate proxy data, such as North Atlantic sediment cores.[12] Although carbon dioxide measurements can be suspect in some ice cores, data from many others constitute extremely valuable records of additional parameters that exist within truly closed subsystems. For example, Greenland ice core data indicate that large climatic temperature shifts can occur over a very few years. Oxygen isotopes, deuterium, dust and calcium, sodium, and ice accumulation rates support data from cave deposits that indicate rapid cooling often follows periods of gradual natural warming.[13] A particularly prolonged warm period between 9000 and 6000 years ago, within the current interglacial, has been documented, most recently in oxygen isotopic analyses of Greenland ice cores.[14] That prolonged warm period resulted in significant thinning of Greenland's ice sheet to thicknesses within a 100m of those of today. Several other warm periods have occurred since, the most pronounced of which has been termed the Medieval Warm Period (500-1300)[15]. Warm periods of this nature were initially highly beneficial to fledgling human cultures. During the latter centuries of the Medieval Warm Period, however, severe weather and drought, overpopulation relative to available agricultural technology, and other factors forced migrations from many centers of civilization,[16] primarily to locations with more reliable water resources and better defensive positioning. Adverse effects of warming, however, stand in contrast to the general advancement of human civilization during the 10,000 years of warming since the last Ice Age. On the other hand, adaptation to the stresses of climate change, including cold periods, probably was a major factor in the evolution of modern humans.[17] The last Ice Age also permitted the advantageous migrations of modern humans from Asia into the Americas about 22,000 years ago. At that time, low sea levels created a land bridge between Asia and North America.[18] Adaptability has been the key for human survival and advancement. References can be found in the TWTW document for this Science Editorial. View The Week That Was in which this editorial appeared. Return to Top of Page SEPP SCIENCE EDITORIAL #25-2010 (in TWTW Sep 11, 2010) S. Fred Singer, Chairman and President , Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) BOOK REVIEW "The Hockey Stick Illusion: Climategate and the Corruption of Science." Sep 11, 2010 By A.W. Montford. Stacey International. London. 2010. 482pp. Andrew Montford, a Scot, blogs under the name of Bishop Hill. I have not met him personally, but in correspondence with him I generally address him as Your Grace a bit of humor. This is probably the best book about the Hockey Stick. And while some of the detail may be overwhelming to the innocent reader, it does present all of the relevant facts as far as I can tell. You will not only become an expert on tree rings, and get to know trees by their first name, so to speak, but you will also get to learn about difficult statistical concepts, such as principal component analysis. PCA is an important statistical technique and one which the originator of the Hockey Stick, Professor Michael Mann, apparently failed to fully grasp. There is little one can add to Montford's comprehensive account, so I will just supply some personal details. My own involvement in the hockey-stick affair is of no real consequence -- and certainly not as important as that of the Canadians, Steven McIntyre and Ross McKitrick. They are the ones who broke the Hockey Stick, and Professor Edward Wegman of George Mason University, an expert statistician, provided the finishing touches. I first learned of the Hockey Stick by reading the original paper by Mann, Bradley, and Hughes in Nature in 1998 and was surprised that it showed an extended decline of global (or NH) temperatures since the year 1000AD, until a sudden and major warming in the 20th century (the blade of the Hockey Stick). But providing some reassurance, there seemed to be good overlap between 1900 and 1980 with the instrumental record of Phil Jones, which showed a continuing rise in temperature from 1980 to the end of the century. I had no basis to question the MBH work, but I noticed that the proxy record suddenly stopped in 1980 and did not extend beyond. At that time, I was heavily influenced by the satellite data of Christy and Spencer that showed no atmospheric warming trend from 1979 to 1997 -- in contrast to Jones' surface data from weather stations. Since Mann was using the Jones temperature data for calibration of the proxy record, I asked Mann if he had any post-1980 proxies. He replied rather brusquely that there were no suitable data available. This was my only exchange with Mann, and I've preserved those emails. Of course, I did not believe Mann, since I knew of tree ring data (by Jacoby in 1996) that showed no temperature rise since 1940 (see figure 16 in my 1997 book Hot Talk Cold Science). I also knew that Dahl-Jensen's ice cores showed no temperature rise since 1940. Hence I had doubts about the Jones data and still do. Following this unsatisfactory e-mail exchange with Mann, I had correspondence with McIntyre, Charles Keller, and others, trying to collect some post-1980 proxies to decide whether the Jones record was sound -- and whether Mann had stopped his proxy record in 1980 because it did not agree with Jones. Today we know, thanks to Climategate, that this might have been Mann's Nature trick in order to hide the decline [of temperature]. I visited Ed Cook at the Lamont Geophysical Laboratory to get post-1980 tree ring data, but was unsuccessful and finally gave up and turned to other matters. I also had a chance to speak briefly to Mann at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, but could not extract any information from him. By then, he clearly regarded me as an "enemy" and would not have given me anything of value. My next encounter with the Hockey Stick was to review the IPCC's 3rd Assessment draft report in 2000. In the draft, the Hockey Stick was represented along with the Jones instrumental record, using colors of black and blue. I prevailed on IPCC to use colors that were easily distinguishable and was glad to see the Jones record appearing in red in the final IPCC version. My next encounter came in 2003 when the editor of Energy & Environment sent me the first of the McIntyre and McKitrick papers for review. I was surprised to learn of some half dozen or so cases where Mann had clearly mishandled the data, even substituting imaginary sequences to fill gaps where data were not available. Of course, I endorsed publication of this first of the M&M attacks on the Hockey Stick. I also witnessed the encounter between Mann and McIntyre at the hearings arraigned by the National Academy (NAS), charged to write a report on the Hockey Stick. Tellingly, Mann presented a brief account of his work and then immediately walked out without taking any questions or listening to the McIntyre presentation. It was a thoroughly disappointing performance, particularly since some have misinterpreted the NAS report as an endorsement of the Hockey Stick. Actually, it was just the opposite, but it was misleading. The NAS stated that the 20th century was the warmest in the last 400 years, without making it clear that 400 years ago the earth was in the depth of the Little Ice Age. It is certainly noteworthy that the IPCC in its fourth assessment report [2007] no longer displays the Hockey Stick. It had been demolished by able statisticians like Wegman and von Storch. M&M had shown in the meantime that random numbers fed into the Mann algorithm would always produce a hockey-stick-shaped result. The Last Hurrah for the Hockey Stick came in 2009 in a report by the United Nations Environment Program. Apparently, UNEP wanted to dramatize matters before the crucial Dec 2009 Copenhagen meeting and brought back the Hockey Stick in an inexpertly written report on climate change. They called it an update of the IPCC, but I'm sure that responsible IPCC scientists would not have agreed with that characterization. When we inquired where their Hockey Stick graph originated, we were led to a Norwegian biologist who had republished a graph he had found in Wikipedia - too funny for words! UNEP immediately reissued their report and replaced their Hockey Stick graph with a less controversial one. There is a serious matter, however, which bears discussion: Did Mann commit fraud? I would give him the benefit of the doubt and suggest that his initial Nature publication contained many errors, including major statistical ones, which he might not have been aware of. But certainly, after these errors had been pointed out to him in no uncertain terms, how could he maintain his original posture and claim that the Hockey Stick truly represented the global temperature record of the last 1000 years? All this in spite of many publications, both before and after 1998, that clearly told a different story: The compilation of temperature values by Soon and Baliunas, who were viciously attacked by the IPCC crowd; the isotope data of Cuffey; the global proxy data (omitting tree rings) of Loehle, which clearly showed the medieval warm period to be warmer than today; the deep-sea sediment record of Kegwin; and, of course, the historical record. The Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Virginia, Kenneth Cuccinelli, is currently engaged in extracting from the University of Virginia (where Mann was a faculty member from 1999 to 2005) the email records and other material relating to Mann. The University is fighting this demand in court yet it had already agreed some months ago to deliver the e-mail records of Patrick Michaels to Greenpeace! At that time, no cries of academic freedom were raised by the usual suspects. The silence then, and vociferous objections now expose the hypocrisy of the UVa Faculty Senate, the AAUP, the AAAS, and the Union of Concerned Scientists. It is quite likely that Cuccinelli will discover a smoking gun. Perhaps some of the emails that Phil Jones admitted to having deleted might tell us just when Mann became himself aware that the Hockey Stick was bogus and a fraud. View The Week That Was in which this editorial appeared. Return to Top of Page SEPP SCIENCE EDITORIAL #25-2010 (in TWTW Aug 14, 2010) Guest Editorial by Sherwood Idso, Keith Idso, and Craig Idso The State of Earth's Climate 2009: How can so many people be so wrong? Aug 14, 2010 The State of Earth's Climate 2009 [BAMS vol 13, no 31: 4 August 2010] In a "Highlights" report of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's State of the Climate in 2009 document, which was prepared under the direction of the U.S. National Climatic Data Center, we can read the principal findings of what the document describes as the work of "more than 300 scientists from 48 countries." Their primary conclusion, as stated in the Report's first paragraph, is that "global warming is undeniable," and the Report goes on from there to describe "how we know the world has warmed." But this, and all that follows, tells us next to nothing about what has caused the warming, which is the crux of the whole contentious matter. The Report next states, for example, that "recent studies show the world's oceans are heating up," which is fine; but then -- as if hoping no one will question them -- the Report says the oceans are warming, "as they absorb most of the extra heat being added to the climate system from the build-up of heat-trapping gases," which contention is far from a proven fact, and is -- in fact -- merely an hypothesis .... and a bad one at that, as we shall soon see. Another fault of the Report is its hyping of "melting Arctic sea ice," while it remains silent on the state of Antarctic sea ice, which has been doing just the opposite as it has grown in extent. Likewise, a major inconsistency of the Report is its stating, with respect to temperature, that "a particular year can experience record-breaking highs and lows in any given location," while, "as a whole, global climate continues to warm." This is very true; and it can also do so while, as a whole, global climate cools or remains unchanged. And it implies the same thing for all types of weather phenomena (such as droughts, floods, hurricanes, etc.), which means that the occurrence of any unusually dramatic weather phenomenon in any "particular year" should imply nothing about the long-term trend of that phenomenon or the presumed trajectory of the global climate within which it is embedded. Yet the Report goes on to describe six such extreme events that occurred in the "particular year" of 2009, which would have to have been done for no other reason than to imply that these weather extremes were caused by global warming, which flies in the face of their earlier contention that record-breaking low temperatures in any year say nothing about the long-term thermal tendency of the planet. Last of all, the Report states that "people have spent thousands of years building society for one climate and now a new one is being created -- one that's warmer and more extreme," which leads us to wonder .... How could more than 300 scientists from 48 countries possibly be so wrong? Any student of history and palaeoclimate well knows that earth's climate has changed dramatically over the past "thousands of years." During the central portion of the current interglacial period, for example, many parts of the planet were a few to several degrees Centigrade warmer than they currently are. And only a thousand years ago, the Medieval Warm Period was holding sway. Although many of the scientists of Climategate infamy tried mightily to make that period of warmth "go away," the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change has for quite some time now posted a review of a different research project every single week that testifies to the reality of the Medieval Warm Period. And that ever-growing body of research is demonstrating beyond any doubt that there was a several-hundred-year interval of warmth back then that was at many different times (stretching from decades to centuries), and in numerous places (throughout the entire world), significantly warmer than the Report's highly-touted first decade of the 21st century, and at a time when the atmosphere's CO2 concentration was far less than it is today. What makes this particular failure of the Report so doubly damning is the fact that it claims that each of the "more than 30 different climate indicators" it has analyzed "is placed into historical context." That is obviously not true. And for a parameter so central to the core of the global warming discussion as temperature to not be put into proper long-term context is inexcusable, although quite understandable, especially when one realizes the implications it would hold for the Report's unfounded contentions about the present state of earth's climate. View The Week That Was in which this editorial appeared. Return to Top of Page SEPP SCIENCE EDITORIAL #24-2010 (in TWTW Aug 7, 2010) S. Fred Singer, Chairman and President , Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) The RES is a hoax, a fraud, and a rip-off Originally appeared in American Thinker, Aug 5, 2010 http://www.americanthinker.com/2010... [Slightly edited for clarity] The US Senate's proposed Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) would force electric utilities to generate a large and increasing percentage of their power from wind and solar - rising to 15% by 2021. These goals resemble those of the Waxman-Markey bill that barely passed the House in June 2009. It's disturbing that some Republicans on the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted for ACELA (American Clean Energy Leadership Act). If the Senate were to take up an energy bill, it is likely that Sen. Brownback (R-KS) will introduce an amendment for RES. Now, it is quite clear that wind and solar are not economic -- and probably never will be competitive, even when fuel prices rise significantly. So the RES mandate would mean that all of us taxpayers would support even more the RE rent-seekers and lobbyists, who are already milking the government for subsidies and tax-breaks for the construction of wind farms and solar energy projects. In addition, electricity users (rate payers) would pay more for electric power to cover the higher cost. The so-called feed in tariff would force utilities to buy expensive wind and solar electricity and average the cost into the rest of the power produced. The consumer, meaning all of us, would pay for this boondoggle. It's just a huge transfer of money, yet another regressive tax on consumers, with the electric utilities forced to become tax collectors. The hoax part of the RES is that clean electricity is being advertised as a way to save the earth from the "dreadful fate" of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). To accept this outlandish proposition, one would have to believe that the carbon dioxide generated in the burning of fossil fuels has a noticeable influence on climate. The data argue against it. The constantly advertised scientific consensus is phony; it does not exist. The evidence that the UN climate panel, the IPCC, puts forward in support of AGW is pitifully inadequate-and wrong. It is easy to show that no credible evidence exists; just look at the summary of the NIPCC report Nature, not human activity, rules the climate. It is available for free on the Internet. The fraud relates to the idea that energy produced without CO2 emission is clean. This word "clean" is being misused, and that's a huge part of the problem. Of course, removing genuine pollutants like sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides and mercury from smokestacks is a real clean up. It is already mandated by the Clean Air Act and being pursued adequately. But CO2 is not a pollutant - in spite of the claims of the EPA in its "Endangerment Finding" -which has yet to be tested in court. CO2 is neither toxic nor irritating nor visible-nor a climate forcer of any significance, so the idea that we have to stop emitting CO2, or capture and sequester it, is a pure fraud. And finally, the whole scheme is a financial rip-off. We all know that wind and solar energy are intermittent. If their use should rise beyond the present few percent, we would require either on-site storage of electricity or large standby capacity, probably fueled by expensive natural gas, to kick in when the wind kicks out. Either scheme would impose huge additional costs. The biggest part of the swindle is that the RES is being sold on the basis of creating green jobs. But since when does wasting money create productive jobs? Why not leave it with consumers who can save and invest it to create real jobs. A study conducted in Spain, which has gone overboard on renewable energy, shows that each so-called green job displaces between two and three real jobs. In any case, the manufacture of wind turbines and photovoltaic cells is now in the hands of lower-cost Chinese industry. So the green jobs in the US would consist of sweeping the mirrors clean from dust and dirt and fixing the blades and gearboxes of the turbines when they fail. In all of this, the proposed legislation ignores nuclear power, which is not only clean in the sense of not emitting carbon dioxide, but is also competitive in price with most fossil fuels. Nuclear is most likely to become the major source of electric power once low-cost fossil fuels are depleted. Yet ACELA explicitly says that new nuclear power and updates to existing nuclear facilities and generation from municipal solid waste incineration are not included in the base quantity. The hypocrisy of the RES advocates is appalling. It's OK for the taxpayer to subsidize low-carbon energy that doesn't work (wind, solar) but not low-carbon energy that does work (nuclear). View The Week That Was in which this editorial appeared. Return to Top of Page SEPP SCIENCE EDITORIAL #23-2010 (in TWTW Jul 31, 2010) S. Fred Singer, Chairman and President , Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) BOOK REVIEW: Climate Cover-up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming, Jul 31, 2010 BOOK REVIEW: Climate Cover-up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming, by James Hoggan and Richard Littlemore. Greystone Books, Vancouver, BC. 2009. 250 pp. Anyone who has seen the smear DeSmogBlog (http://www.desmogblog.com )will find more of the same in this hastily-written book which continues to smear on an even larger scale. For example, on page 39 it describes me as a tobacco-sponsored scientist which is totally untrue. Later, on page 80, it mentions me again as a hard working climate change denier who has done no obvious scientific work in the field for years. It lists me as an advisor to the organization TASSC (The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, http://tiny.cc/xu48v ) which is also completely untrue. In fact, I have never been associated with TASSC in any way --although I do commune with many of the other groups listed, all respected conservative think tanks. I gladly take credit for conducting, in 1992, what may have been the first survey of expert opinions on global warming. It included all of the members of technical committees of the American Meteorological Society and showed, for the first time, the existence of considerable professional skepticism about global warming promotion. The 1995 Leipzig Declaration carries this further; and contrary to Hoggan, all of the signatures are on file. Of course, Leipzig was outdone by the Oregon Petition Project (http://www.oism.org/pproject/ ),, which eventually garnered over 31,000 signatures from American scientists and engineers (p.108). Not surprisingly, Hoggan puts a great deal of stock in the claims of journalist Ross Gelbspan, who asserts in his book The Heat is On that climate skeptics were drawing major financial support from coal and oil interests. While I cannot speak for others, this is simply not true in my case. And would it have mattered? One whole chapter is devoted to my libel suit against one Justin Lancaster. Of course, Hoggan misrepresents the facts, which are fully laid out in the book Politicizing Science (Michael Gough, ed. Published by Hoover Institution, Stanford, 2003). It all started when Al Gore was running for Vice President. He faced great embarrassment since his guru, Professor Roger Revelle, had published a somewhat skeptical article in an obscure journal, together with me and Chauncey Starr. This led to an attack on Singer by Lancaster, a Gore groupie, who first claimed that Revelle was not a coauthor. When this did not work, he then claimed that Singer had taken advantage of Revelle's advanced age. When this didn't work either, he was finally forced to retract and apologize in order to avoid a trial that would have cost him a great deal of money and ruined his reputation forever. More recently, however, Lancaster has retracted his retraction and has left himself open to another lawsuit; but it may not be worthwhile to sue him. In any case, there is ample evidence in Revelle's writings of his skeptical views on the global warming issue -- sufficient to undermine any claim that Lancaster might have. Hoggan has his heroes, people like Gelbspan and Naomi Oreskes, who are fully expert in smearing people. And he also has his enemies, whom he tries to pull down: Freeman Dyson Sallie Baliunas, Tim Ball, Stephen Milloy, and of course me. But always it's the same story: accusations of being in the pay of the oil industry or tobacco lobby or worse. Lyndon Larouche makes an appearance, in connection with a story about melting glaciers, traced to Singer's website and based on a wrong reference. As a result, another Hoggan's hero, British smear artist George Monbiot, is credited with breaking one of the all-time-great climate disinformation stories (p.162). We haven't heard much from George Monbiot since exaggerations of glacier melt in the Himalayas was exposed. It's too bad that Hoggan's book appeared just before ClimateGate broke. His book title would have fitted perfectly, by changing only a single word: Climate Cover-up: The Crusade to Hype Global Warming. View The Week That Was in which this editorial appeared. Return to Top of Page SEPP SCIENCE EDITORIAL #19-2010 (in TWTW Jun 19, 2010) S. Fred Singer, Chairman and President , Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) EPA and American Power Act Jun 19, 2010 EPA's 'analysis' of the American Power Act (Kerry-Lieberman bill S-1733) is so bad, I wonder if a response to Scientific American is worthwhile. http://www.scientificamerican.com... 1. It assumes a climate sensitivity that is not justified by any evidence 2. It ignores all forcings except CO2 3. It assumes that China and India will go along in rationing energy use 4. It uses the 'magic' 2 deg C threshold -- for which there is no scientific evidence 5. It assumes that Floods, Droughts etc will all increase with temperature 6. It ignores the benefits of global warming and increased CO2 7. It uses made-up risk probabilities, disguised as science View The Week That Was in which this editorial appeared. Return to Top of Page SEPP SCIENCE EDITORIAL #18-2010 (in TWTW Jun 5, 2010) S. Fred Singer, Chairman and President , Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) The National Academy Lays a $6-Million Egg Jun 5, 2010 The report of the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences [Advancing the Science of Climate Change, May 2010] claims that the climate is warming and that the cause is human. http://news.sciencemag.org... The first claim of this federally funded $6-million exercise is meaningless and trivial, the second claim is almost surely wrong. Their recommendation is that the United States should put a price on carbon to staunch emissions of CO2; it is pointless, counterproductive, and very costly. The climate certainly has warmed considerably since 10,000 years ago (the end of the last Ice Age) -- and much less since 1850, the end of the Little Ice Age. No one disputes these facts. But the climate has not warmed during the past decade -- in spite of the steady rise in human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. According to a BBC interview of Dr Phil Jones, head of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (CRU-UEA, of Climategate fame), there has been no warming trend since 1995. The 2007 report of the UN-sponsored IPCC furnished no credible evidence for anthropogenic global warming (AGW). None at all - see here the Summary of the NIPCC report . Nature- Not Human Activity - Rules the Climate http://www.sepp.org... The NRC-NAS panel did not add any new relevant information - nor did it have the expertise to do so. The IPCC panel was made up of many qualified atmospheric scientists, active in research. The NAS panel was politically chosen and listed among its "climate science experts" a sociology professor and a professor of 'sustainable development' - whatever that may mean. That certainly doesn't inspire much confidence in the NAS conclusions. This is our most comprehensive report ever on climate change," said Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), at a briefing to discuss the effort, more than 2 years in the making and involving 90 scientists. It "analyzes the reality of climate change and how should the nation respond. ... It emphasizes why the United States should act now." Ironically, this report comes at a time when the venerable and respected Royal Society (London) is having second thoughts about their past record of climate alarmism. In the words of outgoing RS president Lord Martin Rees (May 28, 2010): "Science is organized scepticism and the consensus must shift in light of the evidence. Looking back, this may well have been a low point for the NAS, which will inevitably discredit all other NAS activities. But it will provide a useful lesson to other scientific organizations that have uncritically jumped on the AGW bandwagon. View The Week That Was in which this editorial appeared. Return to Top of Page SEPP SCIENCE EDITORIAL #17-2010 (in TWTW May 29, 2010) S. Fred Singer, Chairman and President , Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) ClimateGate Reconsidered May 29, 2010 An Open Letter to Prof Edward Acton, Vice Chancellor, University of East Anglia, UK Dear Prof. Acton After careful study, I have reached the conclusion that the CRU temperature trends published by Prof. Phil Jones of UEA (and used by the IPCC) are spurious and should be corrected. Instead of the major warming that's been claimed between 1979 and 1996 (the crucial period), the actual warming seems to be minor or even close to zero. This matter is of extreme importance since international policies concerning climate change are based on the Jones analysis-and equivalent analyses in the US. I base my conclusion on the following evidence: **Weather satellites are the most reliable source of global temperature observations, with all data analysis and corrections fully transparent. They show essentially a zero rise in atmospheric temperatures during most of the crucial period (1979-1996). And basic atmospheric physics tells us that the temperature trends at the earth's surface must be less, roughly only half of the atmospheric trends. **Furthermore, all proxy data I have seen show no significant temperature rise during this same period. Recall that Michael Mann's multi-proxy analysis suddenly stops in 1979. As a scientist, I am mainly concerned with the truth of the data and the consequences for future climate change. Of course, as a member of the public, I cannot ignore the policy consequences - nor should any citizen/voter. It seems to me that it is your responsibility to investigate whether and to what extent Dr. Jones' judgment in the selection and in the correction of the raw data was influenced by any desire to see a particular outcome - namely, a strong warming. In other words, the selection process (i.e., which data to use and which to reject) involved setting explicit or implicit criteria, based on judgment. Similarly, deciding on the type and degree of correction (for example, for urban heat island effects or other kinds of contamination) involved setting certain criteria based on the judgment of the analyst. [Analysts can make different choices in the complex process of choosing input data, adjusting raw station data for known inhomogeneities (such as urbanization effects, changes in instrumentation, site location, and observation time), and gridding procedures.] On this matter, I confess to certain sympathies for Dr Jones, who has devoted his lifetime career to this important task. Yet the search for scientific truth must be paramount. I hope you will enlist credible experts to help you and I wish you much success as you undertake this daunting task. Sincerely, S. Fred Singer Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia Former Director of the US Weather Satellite Service View The Week That Was in which this editorial appeared. Return to Top of Page SEPP SCIENCE EDITORIAL #15-2010 (in TWTW May 15, 2010) S. Fred Singer, Chairman and President , Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) Foreword to Energy Primer for Kids May 15, 2010 Foreword to Energy Primer for Kids by Vladislav Bevc We are fortunate to live at a time when energy is plentiful and relatively cheap. A century ago, electric power was just becoming available, and what a difference it has made in our lives. A hundred years from now, many of our supplies of fossil fuels, and especially oil, will be near depletion and very costly. But we will never really run out of energy itself, thanks to nuclear reactors. Getting energy is risky business. Coal miners die in accidents, gas explosions kill people, oil spills cause environmental damage. But it's a price worth paying. Thanks to energy, we live longer, healthier, and more comfortable lives - and not only in the developed countries. Unfortunately, there are those who would make energy more costly and even ration it - in the mistaken belief that this would avert an imagined climate disaster. I have no doubt that the world will soon overcome this mistaken notion; but in the meantime it will cause much economic harm. There is no need to invest in costly and unreliable energy sources, such as wind and solar, which have to be heavily subsidized. Certainly, the "hydrogen economy" is a huge boondoggle, and so are most biofuel schemes. I am confident that nuclear energy, in one form or other, will sustain our civilization indefinitely - if we can overcome the opposition, which is based on unreasonable and unrealistic fears. View The Week That Was in which this editorial appeared. Return to Top of Page SEPP SCIENCE EDITORIAL #14-2010 (in TWTW May 1, 2010) S. Fred Singer, Chairman and President , Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) Some Serious Questions about Nuclear Energy May 1, 2010 The White House has announced the termination of the Yucca Mountain project to provide a long-term and safe 'engineered disposal site' for spent nuclear reactor fuel (what many enviros refer to as a 'nuclear waste dump'). Presumably, the WH action will help Senator Harry Reid (Dem-Nevada) as he seeks re-election in November 2010 (or am I just being cynical?). A 1983 law calls for such disposal by the US government, so here are some questions for Secretary of Energy Dr Steven Chu: 1. Is Yucca now irrevocably dead? Y/N 2. If YES, do you see another 20-yr search shaping up to qualify another site? Y/N 3. If NO, does DOE just ignore the law; can nuclear utilities stop paying fees to DOE, and claim a refund (approaching $20 billion)? 4. Do you have any clue what this WH plans to do? 5. Do you see this EPA ever approving any kind of disposal of spent fuel (aside from the status quo of on-site storage) - in view of exaggerated fears of minute amounts of radioactivity? 6. Is this lack of a permanent disposal site likely to result in lawsuits that can stop nuclear energy --- or seriously delay it or drive up costs prohibitively? 7. In other words: Does cancelation of Yucca spell the end for a nuclear future for the US? View The Week That Was in which this editorial appeared. Return to Top of Page SCIENCE EDITORIAL #13-2010 (in TWTW Apr 24, 2010) S. Fred Singer, Chairman and President , Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) Let's keep our eyes on the ball. Apr 24, 2010 Let's keep our eyes on the ball. We need to trace the path taken by Phil Jones (and by Jim Hansen of NASA-GISS and by NOAA-NCDC) in distilling the raw thermometer readings from thousands of stations into a single number -- the magical "global mean surface temperature" We need to document the process of how they selected stations. And we need to understand the kinds of corrections and adjustments they made. The crucial period is 1979 to 1997 - the era of weather satellite data, which can provide an independent cross check. It is also the period during which the surface temperatures seemed to show a sustained rise - the "blade" of the infamous "hockeystick" graph. In parallel, we need to examine the available proxy data for the same period. I predict they will not duplicate the claimed temperature rise of the surface Doing all this is not a small job - it will take two teams of skilled and dedicated people. But it must be done to achieve closure -- and we will learn what's behind "hiding the decline" and "Mike [Mann]'s Nature trick." This will be done -- if necessary, at the direction of the US Congress, provided the Nov 2010 elections produce a change in control. It's probably the best investment the government can make in climate research. Trillions of dollars are at stake here. View The Week That Was in which this editorial appeared. Return to Top of Page SCIENCE EDITORIAL #12-2010 (in TWTW Apr 12, 2010) S. Fred Singer, Chairman and President , Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) Due Diligence on the IPCC Assessment Report #4 [2007] Apr 12, 2010 I know it's a tough job - but let's just check the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes (IPCC 2007) iconic, widely-quoted conclusion and parse its meaning: "Most of the observed increase in globally-averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GH gas concentrations." How should one interpret this ex cathedra declaration to the faithful? IPCC helpfully defines "very likely" as "90-99% certain", but they don't tell us how they reached such well-defined certainty. What remarkable unanimity! Just how many and whom did they poll? No word. IPCC doesn't define the word "most." We may assume it means anything between 51 and 99%. That's quite a spread. But a footnote informs us that solar forcing is less than 10% of anthropogenic [0.12/ 1.6 W/m2]; so "most" must be closer to 99% than to 51%. OK; let's check out the data since 1958. But we don't want to rely on contaminated surface data - which IPCC likely used (although they omitted to say so). However, atmospheric data were readily available to the IPCC in the CCSP-SAP-1.1 report (Fig 3a, p.54; convening lead author John Lanzante, NOAA), with independent analyses by the Hadley Centre and NOAA that agree well. And further, according to GH models, atmospheric trends should be larger than surface temperature trends. 1958 - 2005: Shows a total warming of +0.5 C . But how much of that is anthropogenic? (The IPCC ascribes pre-1958 warming to natural forcings.) So let's break it down: 1958 - 1976: Cooling 1976 - 1977: Sudden jump of +0.5 C (Cannot be due to GH gases) 1979 - 1997: The satellite data show only a slightly positive trend 1998 - 1999: El Nino spike 2000 - 2001: No detectable warming trend 2001 - 2003: Sudden jump of +0.3 C (Cannot be due to GH gases) 2003 - present: No trend, maybe even slight cooling In conclusion: The IPCC's "most" is not sustained by the best observations; the surface data (1979 to 1997) are suspect - until the raw data and algorithms of CRU are examined. Therefore, the human contribution is very likely only 10% of observed warming --or even less. Return to Top of Page SCIENCE EDITORIAL #11-2010 (in TWTW Apr 10, 2010) S. Fred Singer, Chairman and President , Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) Holes in Climate Science Apr 10, 2010 A recent News Feature in 2010 Nature [pp 284-287] discusses what it calls "The Real Holes in Climate Science." The problem is that it misses the "real holes" and therefore echoes the IPCC mantra that warming in the last thirty years is anthropogenic. The author, Quirin Schiermeier, bases his views on the 'RealClimate' blog and some of its authors. Needless to say, he has not talked to any climate skeptics. To give a better view of his bias: In his opinion, the leaked CRU emails do not challenge the scientific consensus on climate change but only show rude behavior and verbal faux pas. The holes he identifies are the conventional ones: He finally quotes Susan Solomon, the former co-chair of the IPCC 2007 Science Team, as claiming that "multiple lines of evidence support AGW" - without listing any. QS tries to dispose of what he calls Enduring climate myths [by skeptics] - which all happen to be facts: But the real holes in climate science are these facts, never mentioned by QS or by the IPCC: View The Week That Was in which this editorial appeared. Return to Top of Page SCIENCE EDITORIAL #10-2010 (in TWTW Apr 3, 2010) S. Fred Singer, Chairman and President , Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) ClimateGate Whitewash Apr 3, 2010 There is now a desperate effort afoot by assorted climate alarmists to explain away the revelations of the incriminating e-mails leaked last year from the University of East Anglia (UAE). But the ongoing investigations so far have avoided the real problem, namely whether the reported warming is genuine or simply the manufactured result of manipulation of temperature data by scientists in England and the United States. The latest report is by the British House of Commons' Science and Technology Committee, which largely absolved Philip Jones, head of UEA's Climate Research Unit and author of most of the e-mails. How can we tell that it's a whitewash? Here are some telltale signs: None of the investigations have gone into any detail on how the data might have been manipulated. But this is really the most important task for any investigation, since it deals directly with the central issue: Is there an appreciable human influence on climate change in the past decades? Instead, much of the attention of newspapers, and of the public, has focused on secondary issues: the melting of Himalayan glaciers, the possible inundation of the Netherlands, deforestation of the Amazon, crop failures in Africa, etc. While these issues demonstrate the sloppiness of the IPCC process, they don't tell anything about the cause of the warming: natural or anthropogenic. So what do the e-mails really reveal? We know that Jones and his gang tried and largely succeeded in hiding the decline" of temperature by using what he termed Mike's [Mann] Nature trick. Most people think it refers to CRU tree ring data after 1960, which do show a decline in temperature. However, I believe that it refers to Michael Mann's "trick" in hiding the fact that his multi-proxy data did not show the expected warming after 1979. So he abruptly cut off his analysis in 1979 and simply inserted the thermometer data supplied by Jones, which do claim a strong temperature increase. Hence the hockeystick, suggesting a sudden major warming during the past century. Only a thorough scientific investigation will be able to document that there was no strong warming after 1979, that the instrumented warming record is based on data manipulation, involving the selection of certain weather stations, [and the de-selection of others that showed no warming], plus applying insufficient corrections for local heating. View The Week That Was in which this editorial appeared. Return to Top of Page SCIENCE EDITORIAL #8-2010 (in TWTW Mar 13, 2010) S. Fred Singer, Chairman and President , Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) Junkscience #10 . ClimateGate (CG) and other Gates undermine the credibility of the IPCC and of AGW Mar 13, 2010 If I were to submit comments to the British House of Commons panel on Climategate, I would focus on the science: 1. We have yet to discover just how Jones et al managed to produce a substantial surface warming [between 1979 and 1997] when satellites showed practically none in the troposphere -- in conflict with all GH models. 2. I suspect that it had to do both with the SELECTION of weather stations and with the applied CORRECTIONS to the trends 3. Further, I had noticed that the Mann analysis of proxy data [Nature 1998] conveniently stops in 1979. When I questioned him on this matter, I got the very unsatisfactory reply that there were no suitable data available -- suggesting to me that he was hiding such information. 4. Accordingly, one needs to procure and analyze post-1980 proxy data to see if they support CRU (and NCDC and GISS) or the MSU satellite results. View The Week That Was in which this editorial appeared. Return to Top of Page Science Editorial #6-2010 (in TWTW Feb 6, 2010) S. Fred Singer, Chairman and President , Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) Junkscience #8: The warmest year, decade, century game Feb 6, 2010 [Note: This is another of a series of mini-editorials on the junk science influencing the global warmingissue. Other topics will include the UN Environmental Program, and some individuals heavily involved in these matters.] A NASA press release claims that January 2000 to December 2009 was the warmest decade on record," citing James Hansen and Gavin Schmidt (of NASA-GISS). They are practicing what magicians call "misdirection," designed to mislead the unsuspecting reader. Let me explain: Let us grant that the past decade was the warmest on record. What exactly does this prove? Since the warming trend started well before the release of substantial amounts of greenhouse gases, the most likely cause is simply a natural recovery of the global climate from the Little Ice Age, which historical records place between around 1400 and 1800 AD. And since we are still well below the temperatures seen during the Medieval Climate Optimum (when Norsemen were able to grow crops and raise cattle in Greenland), we will likely experience even warmer decades during the 21st century. But this is a pure guess; we still don't understand what controls millennial climate cycles of warming - and cooling. However, the data do not support a human influence on climate. Temperatures have not warmed (i.e., shown an upward trend) during the past decade -- in spite of sharply rising levels of atmospheric CO2. The confusion comes about when people mix up temperature level (measured in deg C) with temperature trend (measured in deg C per decade). They are entirely different concepts. We currently have a record temperature level but no upward trend -- and possibly even a slight cooling. View The Week That Was in which this editorial appeared. Return to Top of Page SEPP SCIENCE EDITORIAL #5-2010 (in TWTW Jan 30, 2010) S. Fred Singer, Chairman and President , Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) Global Mean Surface Temperature (GMST) Jan 30, 2010 [Note: This is another of a series of mini-editorials on the "junk science" influencing the global warming issue. Other topics will include the UN Environmental Program, and some individuals heavily involved in these matters.] The Global Mean Surface Temperature (GMST) is largely determined by the Sea Surface Temperature (SST) - since oceans cover 71% of the earth's surface. So even if the land data are manipulated to show a major warming (as the ClimateGate e-mails suggest), this should not affect the SST data - one would think. Unfortunately, SST has problems of its own: (1) Scarcity of data; and (2) Lack of compatibility of different methods of collecting data. For much of the 20th century, data came only from shipping routes -- and large parts of the world's oceans were not contributing data. Data collection came from samples gathered with buckets from sailing ships, first wooden buckets and later canvas ones (which required substantial corrections). After the advent of steamers, temperatures were measured at the inlets for engine cooling water (inlet temperature). Around 1980, satellites produced major changes: (1) Infrared emission from the sea surface was thought to measure temperature directly, But the method worked only in the absence of clouds and haze, and it responded to "skin" temperature rather than the bulk of the sea surface (as inlet temperatures). (2) The introduction of buoys, first "drifters"and then diving buoys, expanded geographic coverage. But this introduced a new problem: As I have discussed (see also NIPCC 2008 Fig 20), drifters measure temperatures in the upper 50cm, which are usually warmer than the "inlet temperatures." It is easily shown that the increasing fraction of data from drifters leads to an artificial warming trend. But don't the measurements of Ocean heat content show a warming? What better authority than the flawed paper by Hansen et al [Science 308:1431-35 (2005)]-that had proudly claimed to be the smoking gun for AGW. Its Fig 2 shows hardly any increase in observed stored heat between 1992 and 1996; Fig 3 shows a cooling of the upper layers in the equatorial region. There is poor correspondence to model runs (which strongly disagree with each other). These are all problems that require detailed corrections before one can accept the published SST results - and therefrom the IPCC's global surface warming trends. By comparison, the MSU (satellite) data show good agreement between tropospheric temperature over land and ocean (see NIPCC 2008 Fig 13), with little warming over land and even slightly less over oceans. To sum up: Both the land data and SST data tell us that the claimed rise of global surface temperature between 1979 and 1997, shown by IPCC, is probably much smaller or may even be non-existent. View The Week That Was in which this editorial appeared. Return to Top of Page SEPP SCIENCE EDITORIAL #4-2010 (in TWTW Jan 23, 2010) S. Fred Singer, Chairman and President , Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) Junkscience: Climategate Distortion of Temperature Data Jan 23, 2010 [Note: This is the sixth of a series of mini-editorials on the "junk science" influencing the global warming issue. Other topics will include the UN Environmental Program, and some individuals heavily involved in these matters.] We discuss here in some detail the way in which warming trends were introduced into the IPCC Report -- when in fact they did not exist or were extremely small. We focus on the period 1979 to 1997. There was cooling up to 1976; in 1998 there was a super-El-Nino and no subsequent warming. Our discussion is in three parts: (1) a "bottoms-up" approach; (2) the "top-down" approach; and next week I shall discuss (3) the treatment of sea surface temperatures (SST). (1) Bottoms-Up Distortion of Temperature Data The Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia (CRU-UEA), under the direction of Dr. Philip Jones, collected data from weather stations from around the world. These are almost all land-based stations, showing a high concentration in the United States and Western Europe and a lower concentration elsewhere -- with many parts of the globe hardly covered by reliable stations. There are a variety of problems with such data, and the investigators were aware of most of them. Many stations produce useless data, either because of inadequate maintenance, or because of their location. Anthony Watts (in his WUWT blog) has shown that even stations in the USA were badly placed and subject to local warming influences that were not adequately corrected. The surface of the earth is then divided into grid boxes, usually five degrees by five degrees. When there are several stations in a grid box, the investigators would choose those they considered most reliable - which in many cases meant urban stations, or stations at airports, that are well maintained. However, because of their location, they generally are subject to "urban heat-island" (UHI) effects, a local warming that increases with population and urban growth over time and suggests a temperature trend of a global nature. The investigators tried various ways to eliminate such local UHI trends, but were not very successful. The problem was greatly exacerbated by the closing of over half the world's weather stations between 1970 and 2000 (see NIPCC Summary, Fig 12- which in most cases removed rural stations but also stations from higher latitudes and altitudes that tended to show a lower warming trend or no warming trend at all. It should be obvious therefore that this drastic change in the sampling population would introduce a fictitious warming trend which is an artifact of the change. E. Michael Smith and Joseph D'Aleo have documented in some detail how such artificial temperature trends could be produced even when there was no global trend. [See http://www.americanthinker.com/2010... ] (2) The Top-Down (TD) Approach In many ways, the "Top-Down" (TD) approach to derive the Global Mean Surface Temperature (GMST) is to be preferred over "bottom-up" (deriving GMST by collecting data from weather stations and sea surface readings). The TD approach relies primarily on the data from weather satellites, the only truly global measuring system, using a single microwave sounding (MSU) instrument and therefore independent of the vagaries of individual weather stations and their thermometers. There are of course certain disadvantages: The MSU cannot measure temperatures at different levels of the atmosphere but derives instead a "weighted mean" of the vertical temperature profile; the times of observation are fixed by the orbit of the satellite; a change of satellite, and MSU instrument, requires an overlap in operating time to permit a recalibration. Nevertheless, by comparing different view angles, one can change the weight factors and obtain a temperature value for "Lower Troposphere." The University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH) group has shown good agreement of UAH results with those of radiosondes from weather balloons. As early as 1997, I noticed a disparity between temperature trends of satellites and surface trends, esp. in the tropics. (See Fig 9 in Hot Talk, Cold Science, 1997) The troposphere trends (between 1979 and 1995) were close to zero or even slightly negative, while surface trends showed a warming of about 0.05 deg per decade. This disparity is just the reverse of what one would expect from GH models [see IPCC-SAR] - namely a positive (warming) troposphere trend up to twice as large as the surface trend. In addition, I noticed that the proxy data to which I had access showed no surface warming (tree-ring data of Jacoby et al (Fig 16 in HTCS) and ice core data of Dahl-Jensen et al]. I tried very hard to obtain more proxy data but was not successful. For example, I noticed that Michael Mann's infamous hockeystick graph did not extend beyond 1979 and suspected that his proxy temperatures diverged from the instrumented surface results. Yet when I wrote to Mann about post-1980 proxy data, I received only a brusque negative reply. Thanks to "Climategate" we now know, what I had then suspected, i.e., that Mann and Jones were engaged in a scheme to "hide the decline [in post-1979 proxy temperatures]" To sum up: Both the satellite results and the proxy data tell us that the claimed rise of surface temperature between 1979 and 1997, shown by IPCC, is probably much smaller or even non-existent. View The Week That Was in which this editorial appeared. Return to Top of Page SEPP SCIENCE EDITORIAL #3-2010 (in TWTW Jan 16, 2010) S. Fred Singer, Chairman and President , Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) Junk Science #5: IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report [IPCC-AR4, 2007] Jan 16, 2010 [Note: This is the fifth of a series of mini-editorials on the junk science influencing the global warming issue. Other topics will include the UN Environmental Program, and some individuals heavily involved in these matters.] In line with its policy of "ramping up" its case for Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) and escalating climate fears, IPCC-AR4 concludes: "Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations" [my emphasis]. They helpfully explain that very likely means 90 to 99% certain. One wonders just how IPCC arrived at this rather precise estimate - since there is nothing in the report to back it up. By now, the IPCC has mercifully abandoned some of the "evidence" given in their earlier reports: They no longer feature the discredited "Hockeystick" graph (that had done away with the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age). They recognize that melting glaciers cannot illuminate the cause of warming and that shifting and often reversing CO2-temperature correlation does not support AGW. Instead, the "evidence" now advanced is essentially circumstantial. The logic which gets the IPCC to this conclusion (as pointed out in Scientific Alliance Newsletter 160) is as follows: 1. There has been a general rise in averaged measured surface temperatures over the past century. 2. At the same time, atmospheric concentrations of so-called 'greenhouse' gases, particularly carbon dioxide, have been rising. All the evidence points to the net increase being caused largely by burning fossil fuels. 3. Computer models of the climate (General Circulation Models) cannot account for the temperature changes on the basis of known natural variability in climate. 4. Therefore, the additional 'anthropogenic' carbon dioxide must be the primary driver of this change. Yet as Scientific Alliance states: On this unproven argument, a whole climate change industry has been built; academic researchers, civil servants, carbon traders, environmental and development NGOs, taxpayer-subsidised renewable energy companies and, of course, UN agencies beaver away in the shared assumption that this logic is compelling and demands concerted action." Can you spot the "hole" in the IPCC "logic"? The key word is "known." But they totally ignore the most important natural forcing: changing solar activity that modulates the intensity of galactic cosmic radiation (GCR) incident on the Earth. This fact seems known to everyone except the IPCC group dealing with the most important issue: the cause of climate change in the 20th century. See evidence in Fig 14 of NIPCC. It gets worse: IPCC-AR4 claims they can simulate past century's Global Mean Surface Temp (GMST) with "known" natural and anthropogenic forcings (as displayed in Fig 5 of NIPCC). But the uncertainties shown there are huge, especially for the indirect effects of aerosols. Of course, the major forcings from solar activity-GCR are not even considered; nor the effects of clouds that likely produce negative feedbacks rather than reinforcing the warming of GH gases. The upshot is that the IPCC's claim of matching the GMST is nothing else but an exercise in curvefitting, with several suitably chosen parameters. I would be impressed if IPCC could match mean zonal temp, not just GMST - or the atmospheric temp obtained from radiosondes and satellites - using the same chosen parameters. View The Week That Was in which this editorial appeared. Return to Top of Page SEPP SCIENCE EDITORIAL #2-2010 (in TWTW Jan 9, 2010) S. Fred Singer, Chairman and President , Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) Junk Science #4: IPCC Third Assessment Report [IPCC-TAR, 2001] Jan 9, 2010 [Note: This is the fourth of a series of mini-editorials on the junk science influencing the global warming issue. Other topics will include the IPCC's Assessment Report 4, the UN Environmental Program, and some individuals heavily involved in these matters.] In line with what seems to be an IPCC plan of claiming increasing confidence in AGW (anthropogenic global warming) with each successive report, the Summary of IPCC Third Assessment Report [IPCCTAR, 2001] promised new information to support a conclusion of AGW. This new information turned out to be the Hockeystick, a dramatic graph that showed temperatures since 1000 AD steadily decreasing - until, suddenly, here was a huge warming in the 20th century. No trace of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and the Little Ice Age (LIA), so clearly shown in earlier IPCC reports and supported by both physical and historic data. [See figure] See TWTW link below for Graphic. Source : Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate: Summary for Policymakers of the Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, Chicago, IL: The Heartland Institute, 2008. Figure 1 Difference in 1000 Year Temperature History from First to Third IPCC Report Historic Temperature Based On Empirical Data "Reconstructed Temperatures" from proxy analysis [Mann, Bradley, Hughes 1998] - "Observed Temperatures" from analysis of thermometer data [Jones, Hadley- CRU] The hockeystick (HS) graph was based on the "multi-proxy" (mainly using tree-ring data) analysis of Mann, Bradley, and Hughes (MBH) [Nature 1998]. Strangely, there was little challenge from the paleoclimate community, perhaps because the statistical method used to combine different kinds of proxy data was not familiar. Soon and Baliunas published a paper (with great difficulty) that contradicted MBH but they were shouted down. As I related (in Science Editorial #1-2010), I questioned Mann as to why his proxy analysis did not go beyond 1980. And Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick (MM), in Energy & Environment 2003, found many irregularities in the data that MBH had assembled. But it was only later that MM and Wegman et.al. discovered fatal errors in MBH's statistical methodology and in their tree-ring calibration. A convincing demonstration of this was that even random data treated with Mann's methodology would always yield a HS. While I consider it likely that Mann was not fully aware of his statistical problems in 1998, when he first published his analysis, any subsequent use of the HS to support AGW certainly borders on fraud. The National Academy of Sciences undertook to investigate the HS controversy and produced an ambivalent report that was used by some to "whitewash" MBH. It mildly criticized the MBH analysis but confusingly claimed that the 20th century was the warmest in the past 400 years - without mentioning that the 16th century was near the depth of the LIA. A Congressional investigation (headed by Rep. Joe Barton) pulled no punches and condemned not only the HS analysis but also the clique of scientists that protected it from legitimate criticism by withholding information, misusing the peer-review process, and even pressuring editors of scientific journals to turn down dissenting papers. The ClimateGate e-mails have served to confirm what had been known or suspected. A final word: The IPCC-TAR's case for AGW rested on the claim that the 20th century was "unusual" in the past 1000 years. But it was not. See, for example, the paper by Craig Loehle [E&E 2007], who did not use tree-ring data and showed a MWP substantially warmer than the 20th century. (For other examples, see the NIPCC Summary report.) Besides, there is nothing magic about 1000 years; there are many periods in the Holocene that are even warmer than the MWP. View The Week That Was in which this editorial appeared. Return to Top of Page SEPP SCIENCE EDITORIAL #1-2010 (in TWTW Jan 2, 2010) S. Fred Singer, Chairman and President , Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) Junk Science #3: IPCC Third Assessment Report (AR-3, 2001): Hockeystick and ClimateGate (CG) Jan 2, 2010 [Note: This is the third of a series of mini-editorials on the junk science influencing the global warmingissue. Other topics will include the IPCC's Assessment Report 4, the UN Environmental Program and some individuals heavily involved in these matters.] Has the Climate Really Warmed in the Past 30 Years? Around 1996-97, while writing my book Hot Talk Cold Science, I had a chance to study some published tree-ring data [by d'Arrigo and Jacoby] and ice-core data [Dahl-Jensen et al] that showed essentially no warming since 1940. At the same time, the available satellite data also showed essentially no warming since 1979. But all of the surface data did show a warming, and while US temperatures did not exceed those reached in the 1930s, the global temperatures were very much higher. Something didn't quite fit. Could it be that the global data were contaminated by urban heat island effects? Or perhaps by the fact that rural stations worldwide had been closed down after 1970? Could it be that just airports were warming? It seemed important to me to check out the available proxy data. The 1998 "hockey-stick" paper by Michael Mann et al. seemed like a good place to start. But I noticed that his analysis of proxy data stopped at 1979, just when things became interesting. I e-mailed him and asked him if post-1980 data were available and why he hadn't included them. He replied brusquely that suitable data were not available. I suspected then and I am more certain now that the reason he didn't use post-1980 data is that they would have showed no warming - and that would have destroyed his calibration and the rationale of the "hockey-stick." I have saved this exchange of e-mails. Of course, the hockeystick graph (with proxy data stopping in 1979 and instrumented data showing a steep rise after 1979) became the "clincher" in IPCC-TAR (AR-3): The 20th century was supposed to be the warmest in the past 1000 years. Baloney! The ice-core data of Dahl -Jensen and ocean-sediment data of Keigwin clearly showed the Medieval Warming Period and Little Ice Age. The CG mafia jumped on Soon and Baliunas who had collected many references showing a MWP and LIA. Besides, there was historical evidence supporting Soon-Baliunas. All that was attacked as being purely "local" but not global warming and cooling. Craig Loehle has now published a definitive temp record from proxy data (but omitting tree-ring data) that clearly shows a global warming 1000 years ago, exceeding current temperature. Of course, there was nothing ever magic about "1000 years." Everyone agrees that much warmer periods occurred during earlier periods of the Holocene. The CG mafia also attacked the satellite data - even after the researchers made minor corrections that produced hardly any change in reported temperature trends. Things looked good for the Hockeystick, and Michael Mann soon became the IPCC's poster boy. I took up the matter again in 2003 when McIntyre and McKitrick started to publish their critiques of the hockeystick. [I served as a reviewer of their first paper in Energy & Environment.] I corresponded extensively with Steve McIntyre in the hope of getting post-1980 proxy data, but he didn't seem very interested. In pursuing the matter further, I came across an e-mail message from Chick Keller claiming to have such proxy temperatures. When I asked for them, he replied that they were not his and he couldn't release them. I understood that, but asked for the source of the data so I could contact the source directly. After repeated attempts to get a reply from him, I concluded that he really did not have such data. Five years later I'm still looking to collect more proxy data that would give post-1980 surface temperatures and allow a comparison with instrumented values and with atmospheric temperatures from radiosondes and satellites. Once the CG investigations get underway, we may finally find out how a warming trend was "manufactured" from data that showed no such trend. Truly, we have "manmade" warming after all; except it may all be fake. View The Week That Was in which this editorial appeared. Return to Top of Page |
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