By Joseph D’Aleo, CCM, AMS Fellow
INTRODUCTION
The US congress sub-committee on Energy and Commerce Committee held hearings on whether to restrict in some way the EPA’s regulatory authority relative to greenhouse gas emissions.
There were 7 scientists invited to testify. Three of the four who argued not to restrict the EPA played a key role in the last IPCC report (and will also in the next one) and generally started with the position that IPCC science was sound and there was a consensus of all real scientists.
In the attached analysis we take a look at the IPCC based science. We are going to ignore all the many ‘gates’ that were uncovered like the Himalayan glaciers, Amazon rain forests, how many real scientists there were who authored the key summaries and all the issues as to whether the summaries truly reflected the scientific information in the chapters and despite claims to the contrary, how a significant percentage of citations were not peer reviewed.
We will not attempt to address the issues of sensitivity for CO2 or solar and cloud and water vapor feedbacks relative to the models. We will also ignore the many model shortcomings – like inability to forecast regional patterns, ocean oscillations, etc. Each of these alone discredit the consensus ‘settled science claim.
We will focus on how actual data compares to the consensus science, model based virtual world view of climate.
We will look at some of the major findings, assessments or model predictions from the IPCC and other national climate centers and NGOs, that we believe have failed and let you decide then whether or not the their science and model projections should be the bedrock onto which we build public policy.
The ten issues:
1. Warming is said to be unprecedented and accelerating. It is neither.
2. Global warming is not GLOBAL
3. Winters would grow increasingly warm
4. The entire Northern Hemisphere would experience less snow and snowcover
5. The arctic oscillation (AO) would become increasingly positive, aiding in the warming
6. Global warming would lead to a permanent or semi-permanent El Nino
7. Atmosphere will warm faster than surface (because that is where the heat trapping gases are).
Enlarged. Balloon data for actual 100-300 mb from 20S-20N from NOAA ARL Angell (anomalies relative to base period 1968-1977) compared to models forecasts of warming 20S-20N 100-300mb. Note the cooling observed where models suggest most GHG warming. This is similar to depictions from Singer etal NIPCC 2007 and others.
8. Record highs and heat waves are increasing
9. Sea levels are rising at an increasing, alarming rate
10. Droughts and floods will worsen
We have actually made a list of 30 such ‘failures’ or ‘shortcomings’, but decided to focus on the first ten.
See the analysis part 1 and part 2.
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Oh no!!!!!
Global Warming causes earthquakes, aaand locks tectonic plates so they don’t move!!!
It is a travesty that it is the hidden heat that causes this:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/03/18/global-warming-stopped-earthquakes-before-it-caused-them/
10!
That’s a nice round number and a rather large one in the context of hypothesis testing.
My 9th grade science teacher told me 1 was enough.
Since the acceleration of anthropogenic carbon dioxide began around 1945, sixty five years seems like a pretty good time to wait for a look back at the record. Even any slow feedbacks would have had decades to do their dirty work. — John M Reynolds
Dang, they show the proper graph, but miss the years? HadCrut shows slight cooling 2001- 2011.17. 2002-2009 shows a rather significant cooling….. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2002/to:2009/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2002/to:2009/trend
Got through the first one, much spankage.
The unfudged, unadjusted, unadulterated numbers tell an unambiguous story, and that is that the CAGW wrong. When will people begin to see this incontrovertible FACT?
I excuse all politicians and Greenies from answering this query as it would prove to be detrimental to their collective cranial integrity.
IF Scientific Consensus is the correct way to the question, then let’s look back to the time when the “Scientific Consensus” said that the sun went around the Earth. At that time, only a few dared to question the “Consensus” of the majority. I would hate to think what would have happened if all agreed that, “The Debate is over!” and they stopped trying to find a better answer.
Reality and truth does not care how people vote or believe, it is what it is. We are left to search for the answer and the person person who comes up with something may not be correct.
Bob Diaz
7. The atmosphere should warm faster because the moist adiabatic lapse rate drops with temperature, i.e., in warmer air there is more water vapor that condenses as the air rises, and this slows the cooling you get when it expands from the lower pressure.
Check Lindzen’s testimony page 18-19 for the view of a skeptic on this issue:
http://democrats.science.house.gov/Media/file/Commdocs/hearings/2010/Energy/17nov/Lindzen_Testimony.pdf
“The resolution of the discrepancy demands that either the upper troposphere measurements are wrong, the surface measurements are wrong or both.”
My guess would be the troposphere measurement. Instrumentation on weather balloons isn’t perfect, and you only need to be off by 20 meter altitude or so to ruin the trend.
I read the whole thing.
Absolutely terrific.
Inhofe should get a copy.
Thanks for that.
Hrmmm..
Won’t they just move the goalposts again? They call it “Climate Change” now, for a reason…
If we see colder winters with more snow, and more “year without a summer”, it’s climate change.
Advancing glaciers, more snow… climate change.
A global temperature anomaly in the negative, and getting colder… climate change.
It’s much easier for the public to swallow the above than if you replace “climate change” with “global warming”, and that’s why the name change: It allows them to claim any weather or temperature change or trend is “climate change”. An early spring? Climate change! a late spring? Climate Change! An average spring? Compare it to a non-average one in the past and call it climate change.
Of course, they’re still stuck with saying CO2 is heating the planet. Sort of… I’m seriously predicting that, within two years, they’ll switch to claiming it’s cooling the planet and putting us at risk for a new ice age.
Like the article, but the way a couple of the bullets on your list are presented is sorta confusing. Looks like in some cases you are intent on debunking your own views. ??Or is it just my own reading in-comprehension.
jmrSudbury says:
“Since the acceleration of anthropogenic carbon dioxide began around 1945, sixty five years seems like a pretty good time to wait for a look back at the record. Even any slow feedbacks would have had decades to do their dirty work.”
That is a point I continually try to make. A ≈40% increase in CO2 is a very significant rise. If CO2 would lead to runaway global warming as predicted, we would have certainly seen very significant warming by now, and the temperature would be closely tracking the rise in CO2. But it doesn’t.
In fact, on a global scale over the past decade, there is an inverse relationship between the rise in CO2 and temperature. And as we see here, rises in CO2 follow rises in temperature, therefore CO2 is a function of temperature, not a significant cause.
The planet has been warming, in fits and starts, since the LIA, at about 0.35°C per century. The current patterns, trends and parameters of the current warming since 1850 are indistinguishable from the past, when CO2 was much lower. According to empirical observations, there is simply no global evidence that CO2 makes any difference at all. And as Prof Richard Feynman points out, if a hypothesis disagrees with observations, it’s wrong. Therefore the CO2=AGW conjecture is wrong.
Arizona CJ says:
March 21, 2011 at 2:35 pm
The Climate Change alarm began prior to 1900, when thermometers became widespread. Each time the cycles change, so does the nature of the alarm.
Cold, Hot, Cold, Hot and now back to Cold again.
And, just like previous episodes of climate alarm, give them a few more years for reality to sink in, and it will be Global Cooling causes Coming Ice Age all over again.
Anyone know if Markey or Waxman were actually at the testimony. ?
A regression against a calendar date will give you about the same results as Joe gets with his regression against Co2, a non parametric correlation coefficient of about 0.4. Of course both have failed rather badly since 2000 and failed during the cooling into the last AMO bottom in the 1970s. But you can never get too careful, you know. Outlaw calendars.
Excellent report. The data presented are more credible as early indicators of the onset a new ice age than as indicators of global warming.
@Smokey
“The planet has been warming, in fits and starts, since the LIA, at about 0.35°C per century.”
Really, the whole planet?
Can you actually prove it based on a proper amount of observations alone? Backed up by proxy data?
The mix and match and ad hoc patching of statistical data from poor to worse to fairly good to a multiple of different types of hardware all assumed stellar, later manipulated based on everything from looney assumption to qualified presumptions, proves nothing but its own statistical context (and the green looney tone propaganda. )
First order of business should have been to compile proper statistical data without mixing and matching and manipulating as you please, where each set are supposed to fully, or in part, back up all the other respectively to confirm the real world, all taking into account such things as technological advances and population growth and subsequent growth of villages, town and cities. Out all that a somewhat proper statistical average could’ve been computed, at least per each technological period, going backwards. Such simple, but probably very tedious work, has yet to be done, instead we’re supposed to believe a few eccentric kook’s measurements from cities like London proper to mean proper global average from those times in 1750’s through 1850’s and beyond to such a point in time where things got a bit more industrious (I freely disregard the present day proxy kook’s garbage, since they obviously can’t manage their data properly, let alone do statistics it would seem.)
Fortunately I did not find.
The word moon.
In the report IPCC 4.
The links Part 1 and Part 2 don’t work for me.
Arizona CJ says:
March 21, 2011 at 2:35 pm
You must have a great spot there in The “Zone” to hide from the loonies, so you may have not had a chance to keep up. We left “Climate Change” some short time ago, zoomed past “Climate Disruption” and are now in Climate Chaos.
I understand that the new name for global warming/climate change/climate disruption is Climate Unpredictable/Weather.
Thanks from the heart to Joseph D’Aleo and Anthony Watts. You are doing more to protect the Marketplace of Ideas than anyone else.
Never forget: “If simulations were hypotheses then dreamers would predict.”
More on these topics.
Sea levels rise is decelerating.
http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/2011/02/determining-the-true-acceleration-of-sea-level-rise/
Snow Coverage
http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/2011/03/snow-coverage-update-winter-of-2011/
Now the station data isn’t even detecting the ENSO events….
http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/2011/03/new-mystery-with-the-station-temperature-data/
I don’t usually comment on here, but Thomas commented “Instrumentation on weather balloons isn’t perfect, and you only need to be off by 20 meter altitude or so to ruin the trend.”
I wouldn’t have a problem with this except for one thing – massive numbers of repeats of the experiment are being conducted, every day, for 50 years, and so if there were errors of 20m altitude on an occasional instance it would surely be overwhelmed by the rest of the observational data.
With regard to decreasing tropospheric absolute humidity: would you care to comment on catastrophic-anthropogenic-global-warming proponents’ contention that stratospheric humidity is increasing and that this is a particularly important contributor to the greenhouse effect? (Given what must be the low partial pressures at those altitudes, that contention doesn’t sound too plausible to me, but I’m a layman.)
This is a very useful and important paper which brings together the science well. Unfortunately the language is “scientific” and is a bit hard to follow. I would recommend that someone with a literary or journalism background do some editing as this could be a very powerful document.
It would also be very good to start with a summary.
I have copied below a few extracts form the text below where there were superfluous commas or phrasing could be improved.
See the downtrend in the temperatures in the layer where the greenhouse warming is modeled the greatest!
UK Met Office under int4ense public
coldest December in more than 40 years, the German Weather Service (DWD) said. See report here. The average temperature in December was 4.3 degrees C below the past records on average, the DWD said. People have never seen such a freezing December since 1969.
The bitter cold was mainly stuck in the north and east
For the first time since 1981, all people in every place of the country celebrated “a white Christmas” together in this December. In western Poland, the city of Poznan had a snowfall total of 58 inches.
Snowcover for the hemisphere has been increasing the last 45 years with records abounding the last 4 years. A new record was set for this December/January this past winter, last year ranks 2nd for that period. 1977/78 was third, 2007/08 fourth.
For the entire winter, 2009/10 was top, 1977/78 second and 2010/11 third greatest, 2007/08 not far behind.
After the fact, scientists scurried to find an excuse
the coldest air furthest south, as we saw in
from surface to 500mb shows most the tropical atmosphere has over ten times the water content of the polar and middle latitudes.
Also tropospheric relative and specific humidity has significantly declined since ‘safe CO2 levels’ of 1948, 2) atmospheric
Global teleconnections are most similar to the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s when frequent snowy cold winters caused the world to increasingly think an ice age was coming.
THE ARCTIC BLAMED
In Europe, the heavy snow was attributed to global warming induced reduction in arctic ice and warmer North Atlantic and arctic waters, which was said to produce
temperatures, more snow with a suppressed storm track in the United States and cold and
– Gore and a atmospheric scientist from the Mauna Loa Observatory foresee a permanent El Niño
multidecadal scale, flip flops of ocean temperature patterns in the Pacific Basin, a pattern known as the Pacific decadal Oscillation. .
UAH and RSS in a positive way
congress in 2000, climate change
Meehl etal opined based on models
nighttime temperatures are most affected by urban heat island
increasing at an alarming rate, at or above the
Eric Rignot has also again with models has again made the claim that increasing
with a only a brief pop with the El Nino of 2009/10).
due to the arctic oscillation, above normal is still below zero F in most areas.