If the IPCC was Selling Manmade Global Warming as a Product, Would the FTC Stop Their Deceptive Ads?

Guest post by Bob Tisdale

Many visitors here and at WattsUpWithThat will remember that a little over three years ago I published my first posts that illustrated how the process of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) created what appeared to be upward shifts in the sea surface temperature anomalies of major portions of the global oceans. (Refer to those posts here and here, and the cross posts at WattsUpWithThat here and here.) In numerous follow-up posts since then, I have discussed, illustrated and animated the processes that cause those upward shifts.

I’ve also published a series of posts over the past year about the climate models used by the IPCC in their 4th Assessment Report (AR4). Those posts show how poorly those models simulated the rates at which global surface temperatures warmed and cooled when the 20th Century is broken down into the 2 warming periods and 2 “flat temperature” periods—periods that are acknowledged by the IPCC. There was also a post that showed how poorly the climate models used by the IPCC simulated sea surface temperatures over the last 30 years for the individual ocean basins on time-series and zonal-mean(latitude-based) bases. Many of those posts were also cross posted at WattsUpWithThat.

I’ve collected the content of all of those posts in an ebook (pdf format) titled If the IPCC was Selling Manmade Global Warming as a Product, Would the FTC Stop Their Deceptive Ads? (13MB) $5.00 (U.S.)

Cover art by Josh of CartoonsByJosh

I have tried take myself out of technical-writer mode to make the book reader-friendly. This, hopefully, will help those without technical backgrounds understand the story being told by the data. The book contains very basic discussions, including why temperature anomalies are being used in the graphs instead of absolute temperatures. Since the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a major contributor to the rise in global sea surface temperatures during the satellite era, there is a 70-page section devoted to the many interrelated processes of ENSO. That section begins with very basic illustrations and discussions of trade winds and ocean currents in the Pacific Ocean, and ends with links to a series of animations. The ENSO section alone includes over 50 illustrations. In total, there are more than 200 illustrations in the book. I’ve also included a section that introduces the reader to the KNMI Climate Explorer, which is the source of the observations- and model-based data presented in the book. Using screen captures, it walks the reader, step by step, from downloading data, to entering the data into a spreadsheet, to creating a graph, to adding linear trend lines with equations.

All that for a grand total of $5.00. Please buy a copy.

– Download immediately after purchase through PayPal account or with Credit and Debit Cards

– 240+ pages with over 200 illustrations

A copy of the introduction, table of contents, and closing can be found here:

Introduction-Table of Contents-Closing of If the IPCC was Selling Manmade Global Warming as a Product

The following are the opening notes:

Dear Readers,

This book does not present some new-fangled theory about manmade global warming. This is the story told by the instrument-based global surface temperature data and by the output data from the climate models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to simulate those global temperatures. I’m simply presenting the story told by the data and providing background information in layman terms to help you understand the story the data has been telling all along.

The book is based on my blog posts over the past three years at Climate Observations. Many of those posts have been cross posted by Anthony Watts at WattsUpWithThat, which is the world’s most-viewed website on global warming and climate change. I have, however, attempted in this book to present the discussions in very basic layman terms, where possible, with hope of making it easier to understand, especially by those without technical backgrounds.

Similar to my blog posts, I’ve kept many of the graphs at full page width. The reason: the data in the graphs, not my discussions of them, are what confirms or contradicts the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming, or are what shows if the models can or cannot reproduce the rates at which global surface temperatures warmed and cooled over the 20thCentury. In a blog post, there are no page breaks, and page formatting is not a concern. The number of large graphs in this book, unfortunately, causes page formatting problems; only one graph at full page width will fit on a page. So there are pages with a graph and some text and blank space. If this book was a print version, the blank space would be a problem, but this is an ebook. The blank space doesn’t add to publishing costs.

Thank you for your interest in the topics discussed in this work. And, of course, my thanks to Josh of CartoonsbyJosh for the cover art.

Each page of the downloaded pdf is watermarked, starting with “Prepared exclusively for…” As far as I can tell, that’s standard language for pdf stamping. That does not mean I wrote the book exclusively for you. It means your downloaded copy was watermarked for you to remind you that your copy is for your use only.

I have no plans to publish hard cover or paperback versions. I also looked into Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and have decided against it for now. Kindle Direct Publishing converts color images to black and white, and that would make most of the comparison graphs difficult to view. I also don’t believe links would work, and there are a plethora of links in the text, similar to a blog post.

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Editor
February 15, 2012 9:11 am

Thanks, Anthony.

Tom in Florida
February 15, 2012 9:28 am

Just purchased my copy. Thanks

jonathan frodsham
February 15, 2012 9:29 am

Anthony! I went to buy it but it is not a Kindle version. When will you have it on Amazon?
I live in Vietnam.
Have your readers seen this:
If you have not already heard and read this; please do. Great stuff, I like this guy: SENATOR JAMES INHOFE (R-OKLAHOMA)
Sen. Inhofe Talks to NewsBusters About Global Warming, Gingrich and Politico’s Energy Policy Maker of the Year
By Noel Sheppard | November 30, 2011 | 20:08
Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2011/11/30/sen-inhofe-talks-newsbusters-about-global-warming-gingrich-and-politi#ixzz1mTCWWWC4
Thanks and keep up the good work.

jonathan frodsham
February 15, 2012 9:40 am

Just got mine.Thank you Anthony!

Ian Rudge
February 15, 2012 9:46 am

A bit unfair on homeopathists I reckon. At least there is SOME evidence that their stuff might actually help people.

JPeden
February 15, 2012 9:55 am

Bought it.

February 15, 2012 10:08 am

Another great cartoon from Josh.
The homeopathy was invoked by Gavin of the ‘Real Climate’ blog as a response to a comment of mine:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/01/unforced-variations-jan-2012/comment-page-3/#comment-224607
where I was occasional contributor (the cartoon history: vuk-tallbloke-josh)
I cannibalised some of the other Josh’s stuff and this version
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CHshow.htm
had well over 2000 hits.
Gavin has banned my posts despite getting his PhD from the same university I got an MSc some years earlier, suffice to say neither of us studied climate, environmental or earth sciences. I hope his science is healthier than his sense of humour.

February 15, 2012 10:08 am

“It doesn’t matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.” –Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace
The ideological origin of the warmist scare-mongers is indelible. This isn’t a conspiracy theory. The trail, going back to Club of Rome, is littered with their own words, proclaiming the leftist dream, or leftist scientists and leftist politicians telegraphing their agreement with this leftist dream + their intent to deceive on AGW: http://www.c3headlines.com/global-warming-quotes-climate-change-quotes.html
Obama’s Science Czar John Holdren in ’73 called for the “de-development of the United States.” Why is it that the solution to g warming just happens to be -exactly- what the eco-idealists had demanded years before: cutting industrial production. It stretches credulity to think that this is just a wild coincidence. Not a chance.
The Cry Wolfers (read the fable) had most of us duped good, for a long time. But now, with the CGate emails and Hide the Decline etc etc, their deceptive intent, and ideological motives, is undeniable. ALL their predictions of disaster, and ALL their models, have failed.
Indeed, the wheels have fallen off their deception mobile. Yet these guys seem unfazed, moving apace like mindless automatons they roll out fresh baloney daily it seems, and new, but transparently false — and laughable — predictions of doom. A joke.
I don’t think CO2 is a primary.. or secondary … driver of climate. Spread the word on this ~ 3 minute video which gives 90% of the final word on CO2, plus it shows algor in the fundamental deception: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK_WyvfcJyg

Richard B. Woods
February 15, 2012 10:09 am

If AGW theory is a hoax, then how do you explain the Evans and Puckrin 2006 results (http://ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2006/techprogram/paper_100737.htm) , which show that the measured downward longwave radiation from anthropogenic greenhouse gases indicate that “an energy flux imbalance of 3.5 W/m2 has been created by anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases since 1850”?

February 15, 2012 10:14 am

A fine looking presentation, download was flawless, and I am proud to have my name on each page.

SAMURAI
February 15, 2012 10:17 am

Hi Anthony-san:
I tried to purchase your book from Japan, but there seems to be a bug in the address portion of card payment protocol, as it would only allow the first three digits of a seven digit postal code, and therefore would not allow the transaction to complete.

February 15, 2012 10:28 am

Ian Rudge says:
February 15, 2012 at 9:46 am
A bit unfair on homeopathists I reckon. At least there is SOME evidence that their stuff might actually help people.
=================================================================
I doubt that there is any REAL evidence that it helps.
At least it can’t hurt you unless you choose to use that instead of real medicine for an illness.
I will believe in “alternative” medicine when they prove that there is “alternative” physics, mathematics etc

Kevin
February 15, 2012 10:43 am

Thanks Bob and Anthony, just bought my copy.

David Jones
February 15, 2012 10:56 am

Comment for Bob
I paid my $5.00 to paypal today by credir card (receipt # available) but they would not let me download. When I clicked on your link on the page with the receipt I got a message that my paypal account was blocked with a $0.00 balance. Technically they are correct; I have tried many times over the past few years to close my paypal account, which they point blank refuse to do. I do not and will not use paypal, basically because I do not trust them and will not reactivate my account with them because I do not want an account with them.
Can you let me know how I can now download your book. Thanks

February 15, 2012 11:15 am

OT but might be of some interest
Two days of geomagnetic storms
http://flux.phys.uit.no/cgi-bin/plotgeodata.cgi?Comps=dhz&tint=1mnt&block=0&day=14&mnt=02&year=2012&site=tro2a
Last night was relatively strong, much stronger then one night before.
There are two coronal holes facing the Earth
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/img2.htm
new geomagnetic disturbance is just starting, wait and see how it will compare to the Valentine’s day one?

February 15, 2012 11:16 am

Richard B. Woods:
I think the science-is-settled-certainty of the model’s results as suggested in the abstract was addressed here:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/11/in-their-own-words-the-ipcc-on-climate-feedbacks/

Richard B. Woods
February 15, 2012 11:36 am

StudioBronze:
Okay, so let’s set aside the science-is-settled-certainty aspect.
How does one explain the Evans 2006 measurements of downward longwave radiation from anthropogenic GHGs if AGW theory is not correct?

Peridot
February 15, 2012 11:44 am

I bought the download but cannot access it due to having no password. How do I get my money’s worth?

Silver Ralph
February 15, 2012 12:12 pm

Note to Bob:
If you put the book onto Lulu.com, it can be purchased as a colour PDF. And the book can be copy-safeguarded with DRM (Digital Rights Management), which stops copyingnof PDFs.
Also, it you put it onto Kindle, the original PDF is NOT converted to black and white. Thus anyone purchasing the file with a Kindle Fire tablet, will see the book in colour.
.

Bob Diaz
February 15, 2012 12:18 pm

Can the FTC regulate Faith based Organizations?
Because AGW supporters have to believe and never question.

Nerd
February 15, 2012 12:52 pm

Matthew W says:
February 15, 2012 at 10:28 am
Ian Rudge says:
February 15, 2012 at 9:46 am
A bit unfair on homeopathists I reckon. At least there is SOME evidence that their stuff might actually help people.
=================================================================
I doubt that there is any REAL evidence that it helps.
At least it can’t hurt you unless you choose to use that instead of real medicine for an illness.
I will believe in “alternative” medicine when they prove that there is “alternative” physics, mathematics etc
==========
Not sure where Vitamin D fits in but you’d be surprise how many chronic diseases you’d fix by taking vitamin D at the right dosage (no difference than fixing vitamin D deficiency). Thankfully, the latest studies are flowing in showing that we may have needed much more vitamin D than previously thought…
http://www.biochemj.org/bj/441/0061/bj4410061.htm
I take 5000 IU a day during just to prevent cold, flu, sinus infection during the winter and also drastically reduce risk of getting cancer (any one of at least 18 types of cancer including melanoma) in the long run. The recommended amount is only 600 IU a day. Think 5,000 IU a day is a lot? Try 20,000 IU from the sun exposure after 30 minutes for white people with shirt off between 10am and 2 pm. However we work inside all day. We sit inside during the summer because it’s cool inside. Air pollution blocks UVB from reaching us. The darker the skin is, the longer it takes to reach 20,000 IU (6-10 times longer than white people).
Yet CDC tells us to ignore widespread vitamin D deficiency – http://www.naturalnews.com/032202_vitamin_D_deficiency_disease.html – so… ask yourself… how many of these vaccines were created due to vitamin D deficiency when simply taking enough vitamin D supplement is all it takes?

February 15, 2012 1:00 pm

If AGW theory is a hoax, then how do you explain the Evans and Puckrin 2006 results (http://ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2006/techprogram/paper_100737.htm) , which show that the measured downward longwave radiation from anthropogenic greenhouse gases indicate that “an energy flux imbalance of 3.5 W/m2 has been created by anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases since 1850″?
To give your post the serious answer that it deserves, there are two reasons.
First of all, your post begins with a straw man. “Skeptics think AGW is a hoax.” I’m a skeptic but I certainly don’t. Most of the people who post on this blog, I think acknowledge that the GHE is real and responsible for a fraction of the Earth’s mean surface temperature and indirectly “climate”. However, in your post you left out the critical “C”. Most of the skeptics on this list don’t believe in Catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, and yeah, we do tend to be very skeptical of papers that publish one thing, then assert something else utterly without foundation.
For example, in your post (and in the associated paper) the missing “C” is there by implication. 3.5 W/m^2 over a mere 150 years! Oh my! And this can be positively and believably predicted by only a few years of surface observations we can now be certain that we know what the GHE was in 1850 because there are no possible confounding effects that might contribute to or modulate the GHE in ways left out of our model.
Leaving alone the issue of whether this itself is believable — model computations by their nature tend to verify the assumptions built into them by their programmers because one never builds them blind, one always goes back and tunes them until they do — where is the factor of 3-5 positive feedback predicted by the IPCC in all of this that is required for the “C”? Not so much there.
Second, a truly dedicated skeptic might note that this paper is looking at the wrong end of the pipe. The paper seems by hypothesis to consider upwelling or downwelling radiation to be the only factors that heat or cool the surface, and then only in an appallingly linear fashion. In fact, there are many heat transport mechanisms at work here, and some of them might well modulate the overall rates at which surface warming occurs. I personally dislike any discussion of the GHE that references upwelling and downwelling radiation because it is remarkably difficult to actually chart the flow of heat in the global atmosphere on this basis, where there is continuous mass transport of heat via convection that very probably has every bit as great an effect on mean surface temperatures as direct surface radiation, at least when one doesn’t live in the middle of the dry, relatively calm, Sahara desert. In the middle of the Sahara the actual atmospheric GHG mediated GHE might be resolvable in terms of downwelling radiation — in moist old windy stormy Canada it is not, I think.
Fortunately, one can look at the other end of the pipe — one can look at the greenhouse effect in the one place it really matters — the top of the troposphere, where greenhouse cooling of the greenhouse gases occurs. At the top of the atmosphere life is far simpler. One doesn’t care how heat is transported or “trapped” or anything else down below. One cares about one thing, and one thing only — the measured TOA IR spectrum, integrated over the surface of the planet and over all frequencies. That is what has to balance total non-reflected insolation. The GHE is then reduced to its simplest possible terms. Some parts of the TOA emission come from cold GHGs high in the troposphere. Those bands, and their associated “temperature” are clearly visible in IR spectra. Some parts of the TOA emission come from the surface, in e.g. the water window. Some parts come from e.g. water vapor in clouds or the air in between. To the extent that parts of the spectrum emit colder, other parts must emit warmer to compensate given constant solar heat input.
Of course one is not given constant solar heat input. There is now direct evidence that the Earth’s albedo is increasing (obtained from studying lunar reflection of Earthlight) even as TOA TSI is diminishing as the sun moves further out from the 9000 year Grand Solar Maximum of the twentieth century — the one CAGW enthusiasts like to pretend could not possibly have had anything to do with the warming of the late 70s to the 1998 El Nino. But of course they also like to “deny” that there was a Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age because if there were, it suggests that the natural variation of the climate is as great or greater than any gain associated with AGW due to many factors, not just greenhouse gases. Humans and their goats probably created the Sahara desert — land use and redistribution of water may “own” part of the warming observed over the last 160 years along with changing solar state and complex system feedback in the major global decadal climate oscillations and oceanic heat transport systems. It is a bit silly, don’t you think, to imagine that you can make predictions concerning the heat flow through what is quite literally the world’s most difficult open system coupled Navier-Stokes problem based on the presumed value of just a tiny handful of parameters! The entire system is quite capable of reorganizing itself spontaneously to alter global average temperatures by a factor larger than the supposed GHE gain.
Finally, by focusing on the TOA IR the skeptic gets rid of a whole lot of rubbish that can lead to results of entire computations, however well-intentioned, being mere garbage themselves on the GIGO principle. The lower atmosphere is already optically thick in CO_2 and relatively stable elsewhere. Adding more CO_2 there has almost no global effect on surface upwelling or downwelling radiation levels, however much it might locally warm a city or airport as part of the UHI effect. What matters is the temperature of the overhead emitters as they lose the energy to space. The warmer they emit, the cooler the entire system underneath them in the unblocked bands. The cooler they emit, the warmer.
This reduces everything associated with CO_2 — not feedback, not all GHGs, not aerosols, just CO_2 — to the single question — how, exactly does the outgoing IR emission temperature of the upper troposphere in the CO_2 band change with CO_2 concentration?
I think there is a strong case to be made that the answer is “hardly at all”. The ENSO modulates it far more than secular changes in CO_2 by forcibly uplifting the tropopause in the warm tropics, but the tropopause in general has not significantly changed in height in the entire period of time that we have been measuring it. After all, its height is not a linear function of CO_2 concentration — it is determined by a mix of the wet and dry ALR, the associated pressure-density profile, the details of the varying composition of the stratosphere (which has become 10% drier since the solar state returned to “normal” and nobody quite knows why, they only know in retrospect that the extra water there was probably responsible for as much as 30% of the warming of the 80’s right there), and of course the complex action of the major decadal oscillations, that change whole major portions of the globe from being places that on average uplift the tropopause to places that drop it down, modulating the GHE far more than the CO_2 concentration ever does in the process.
There is some reason to believe that there is a weak (logarithmic) boost to the CO_2 mediated GHE from increased concentration, but even that may be overwhelmed by negative feedback in the water cycle.
You don’t have to believe any or all of this as you like — I’m just pointing out that it is really pretty easy to be a rational skeptic even through the trauma of learning of a model computation that proves beyond any doubt that there has been 3.5 W/m^2 net forcing due to all GHGs since 1850, reliable because it is based on a few years — in fact, reading the paper and looking at the table it appeared to be a very few years — of measuring the downwelling IR spectrum in Canada. I’m certain that this result is perfectly general and describes downwelling IR in the Sahara, over the tropical Pacific, and elsewhere perfectly well, just as I’m certain that clouds have absolutely no effect save to transform the modest AGW actually observed into the “C”AGW that justifies spending a few trillion dollars over a decade against the small chance that overall feedback will end up being positive, be as large and catastrophic as Hansen claims, and cause the oceans to boil (his claim, again, however unbelievable). Hell, he’s never been right so far, but there is always a chance of it, right?
Not.
A lot of skeptics, you see, aren’t religious GHE-denying zealots. We’re just lukewarmist. Sure, there is some AGW, but where’s the need to panic and authorize the wholesale looting of modern civilization against the small chance of a sky-is-falling level of catastrophic threat. All the more so when even the proponents of most of the measures agree that they won’t have any meaningful effect but to redistribute wealth from rich countries to poor ones. Could that be the real agenda here?
Even more all the more so when one considers that if we as a species do nothing special, the ordinary expected progress of technology and predicted changes in the sheer economics of the recovery of unmined fossil fuel resources make it nearly certain that long before CO_2 doubles, humans will stop using carbon much for fuel. In thirty years coal burning power plants will be as obsolete as TV antennas on rooftops or mainframe computers, and this will happen no matter what anybody does with regard to carbon trading. Sure, we could speed up the process by making rational decisions now (and save ourselves a bunch of money in the long run with selected investments) but the last thing in the world one wants to do is hobble the economies of the energy producers in the developed countries with carbon trading and wealth redistribution schemes. One wants them to have lots of money to invest in new technologies as they reach the price point compared to fossil fuels that make them the only rational way to generate new electricity, for example. It wouldn’t hurt to build more nuclear fission power plants in the meantime as well, ideally with Thorium technology that is nearly nuclear-proliferation proof. And if and when thermonuclear fusion becomes economically feasible and efficient, the game is over. Power will never again be scarce, and will never again come from burning carbon anywhere but maybe — maybe — in cars, where it is still difficult to store 35 KW-hours of energy in the volume of one US gallon any way except in gasoline.
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Ed_B
February 15, 2012 1:09 pm

Richard B. Woods says:
February 15, 2012 at 11:36 am
“How does one explain the Evans 2006 measurements of downward longwave radiation from anthropogenic GHGs if AGW theory is not correct?”
IMO it is the view of most here that the theory is correct, but it has negligable effect on the earths temperature due to water vapour giving negative feedback. It is CAGW, ie, the alarmists 20 foot sea level rises that bring out the skeptics in full force.
Personally, I doubt that we will ever be able to measure the warming due to the extra CO2 we have added. The error bars are too wide. The negative feedbacks too strong.
The recent demonstration of how it is gravity/pressure working on our planets atmosphere, combined with the sun, which gives us the greenhouse effect also has to be refuted, and so far no warmist has done so. As I understand it, the standard CO2 theory cannot even predict the warming on the other planets, whereas the gravity/pressure theory can.
In any case, extra warming is good, and extra CO2 is doubly good. I like the idea that my driving a car is feeding the planet!

Sparks
February 15, 2012 1:36 pm

Richard B. Woods says:
February 15, 2012 at 11:36 am
“How does one explain the Evans 2006 measurements of downward longwave radiation from anthropogenic GHGs if AGW theory is not correct?”
Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR) is the energy leaving the earth as infrared radiation at low energy, what level of low energy NOT leaving the earth is acceptable? or as a function of temperature, what is to stop it from cooling? as Heat energy tends to move from warmer areas to colder areas, Atmospheric gases? at what point do Atmospheric gases, oceans and land surface area NOT transport heat energy from warmer areas to colder areas? Inferring that Anthropogenic sources of longwave radiation will cause a catastrophic amount of global warming by blocking that transport of heat energy is a silly idea, especially when two of the proposed culprits of agw are extremely beneficial (if not necessity) for life on earth, one is CO2 which is part of an important trace gas and the other is warmth. The “AGW theory” as you call it is a FAIL.

Editor
February 15, 2012 1:42 pm

Peridot says: “I bought the download but cannot access it due to having no password. How do I get my money’s worth?”
No password is required. After the purchase, they should have returned you to the original webpage(automatically) where the file was accessable. Try clicking on the link again and checking to see if you can download the file. It should still be available to you. If not, leave me another message here:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/ebook-if-the-ipcc-was-selling-manmade-global-warming-as-a-product-would-the-ftc-stop-their-deceptive-ads/

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