Guest essay by Christopher Monckton
The American Geophysical Union, after three previous attempts at a policy statement on climate change, has just published yet a fourth. Christopher Monckton of Brenchley redrafts it to say what it should have said if the AGU’s objective had been the honest scientific truth.
Anthropogenic climate change requires no action
Our influence on the climate is minor but beneficial
Human activities are changing Earth’s climate, but – as the AGU must now concede – not by much. The atmospheric concentration of CO2 has increased from 0.03% before the Industrial Revolution to 0.04% today. Much of this alteration of 1 part in 10,000 of the atmospheric composition may have been caused by burning fossil fuels.
The world has warmed by 0.8 Cº over the past 140 years, but a recent survey of the abstracts of 11,944 scientific papers on global climate change showed only 43 abstracts, or 0.3% of the sample, endorsing the notion that humans were responsible for most of that warming. The mean residence time of a CO2 molecule in the atmosphere is 7 years, so the AGU must recognize that its earlier fears that anthropogenic emissions will influence the climate system for millennia have proven unfounded.
Observations show that recent modest increases in air and sea temperatures and in sea level have been well within natural variability. Atmospheric water vapor may or may not have increased: we lack the capacity to measure it accurately. Some (but not all) mountain glaciers have receded, and earlier claims that all ice in the Himalayas would be gone in 25 years have been withdrawn. Most of the world’s 160,000 glaciers are in the Antarctic, nearly all of which has cooled in the past 30 years.
Snow cover extent in the northern hemisphere reached a record high December value in 2012. There is no global measurement of permafrost, but its extent has probably changed little. Arctic sea ice has declined since 1979, but Antarctic sea ice has increased, and the AGU must apologize for having given only half the story before. These changes are within natural variability and need no further explanation, though humans may have had some small influence. The changes are consistent with explanations of climate change that rely on known natural influences but allow for some human contribution.
Climate models predict that global temperatures will continue to rise, with the amount of warming primarily determined by the level of emissions; that higher emissions of greenhouse gases will lead to larger warming and greater risks to society and ecosystems; and that some additional warming is unavoidable owing to past emissions. Yet the models have consistently over-predicted global atmospheric and oceanic warming. According to satellite measurements, for 16 years 8 months, or 200 months, there has been no global warming at all.
And, though some 0.2 Cº warming should have occurred since January 2005 according to the forthcoming Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the satellite records show no global warming at all since that date.
Climate change is not expected to be uniform over space or time. Deforestation, urbanization, and particulate pollution can have complex geographical, seasonal, and longer-term effects (both adverse and, as we now acknowledge, beneficial) on temperature, precipitation, and cloud properties. In addition, human-induced climate change may alter atmospheric circulation, but our influence cannot readily be distinguished from historical patterns of natural variability and storminess and is as likely to be beneficial as harmful, particularly in the short to medium term.
In the current climate, weather experienced at a given location or region varies from year to year; in a changing climate, both the nature of that variability and the basic patterns of weather experienced can change, sometimes in counter-intuitive ways – some areas may experience cooling, for instance. Indeed, taking the mean of the monthly surface or lower-troposphere global mean surface temperature anomalies from all five principal datasets, the cooling has been global throughout the 150 months since January 2001, representing one-eighth of the present century.
Impacts harmful to society, including increased extremes of heat, precipitation, and coastal high water, are currently no more frequent or intense than usual, and are unlikely to increase for as long as global temperatures continue to fail to rise as the AGU had formerly but erroneously predicted. Other projected outcomes, such threats to public health, water availability, agricultural productivity (particularly in low-latitude developing countries), coastal infrastructure, and biodiversity, are also unlikely in the circumstances. The AGU must now agree that previous talk of ocean “acidification” was incorrect, since the oceans are and must remain pronouncedly alkaline for as long as they are buffered by the rocks in the basins where they lie. Benefits of a warmer world (if and when warming resumes) will include increased availability of agricultural land formerly under permafrost in northern latitudes; reduced storminess as temperature differentials diminish; and greater crop yields thanks to a general growth in the net primary productivity of the world’s trees and plants owing to CO2 fertilization.
While important scientific uncertainties remain as to which particular impacts will be experienced where, the AGU must now accept that no uncertainties are known that could make the impacts of anthropogenic climate change significantly damaging. Furthermore, surprise outcomes, such as the unexpectedly rapid loss of Arctic summer sea ice, may entail even more dramatic advantages than anticipated. Trans-polar navigation and mineral exploration will be facilitated. However, it is known that much of the loss of Arctic sea ice is attributable to natural influences, and half of that loss since 1979 has been compensated by increases in Antarctic sea ice.
Actions that could diminish the benefits posed by climate change to society and ecosystems include the substantial emissions cuts the AGU once advocated in a futile attempt to reduce the magnitude of anthropogenic global warming, which has proven to be remarkably poorly correlated with increases in CO2 emissions. The community of scientists must learn to recognize that it has no responsibility to promote a particular negative viewpoint on climate change and its impacts. Improvements will come from pursuing the research needed to understand why the predicted climate change is not occurring, working with stakeholders to identify relevant information, and conveying results to decision makers and to the general public clearly, accurately, honestly, and without the previous negative prejudice for which the AGU must now humbly apologize.
Erroneous versions of the above statement were adopted by the American Geophysical Union in December 2003 and were revised and republished in December 2007, February 2012, and August 2013. In the face of the evidence, the AGU must now accept that its previous statements were inadequate.
I bow again to you M’Lord.
Dear Lord Monckton, if only the world were a little saner. But an organisation which seems to think Gleick is a hero for commiting a crime against untermensch “deniers” is not an organisation likely in my opinion to promote a sane view on anthropogenic climate change.
Excellent post Lord Monckton. Sadly an organisation which holds Gleick in high esteem is unlikely in my opinion to have anything sane to say about anthropogenic climate change.
Well, it’s clearly a much more accurate and reasonable statement than the one recently issued by the AGU, but to my mind there are a couple of significant errors:
“The mean residence time of a CO2 molecule in the atmosphere is 7 years” – that may be true but it isn’t the relevant factor. The relevant factor wrt excess atmospheric CO2 is the residence time of the excess, not of an individual molecule. The half-life of excess atmospheric CO2 would appear to be 10-15 years. Even that doesn’t tell the whole story, because what goes on in the ocean matters too, but it’s a better guide.
“There is no global measurement of permafrost, but its extent has probably changed little.” – without substantiation, that surely has no place in this document, given that this document purports to present substantiated information.
Good post. They can’t write that because then there would be little reason for funding research into “climate change.” Follow the money.
Thanks Lord, but in my opinion, the people who started all this, will never apologize.
So refreshing to see simple facts stated in plain English. No chance of this being repeated by the hoax mongers.
A good piece of reality Lord Monckton. It is a shame however that only a few will see this article and those who need to see it (political decision makers) won’t believe a word as they have already been indoctrinated.
Having just read Cipolla’s five fundamental laws of stupidity I would class CAGW activists in group 5 and the politicians whom have adopted CAGW as group 4
It might be helpful to turn this into a rigorously referenced, annotated and sourced article and then send it to every public official in the Western World, not to mention every Environmental Organisation in the world.
If I were the Prime Minister of the UK, I’d use it to make a major statement to the British public, committing in the next General Election manifesto to the criminalisation of statements which ‘demand change’ based on ‘irreversible climate change’, which would no doubt create a kerfuffle of monstrous verbal diarorrhea in the Press. The assumptions of free speech assume that everyone is sufficiently educated to see through the rubbish. With a generation of brainwashing of children, that is manifestly no longer the case. A little bit of the stick to the green doom-mongers is more than past due.
The punishment would be a loss of 15% of annual revenues or 50% of net assets, whichever were larger, which would wipe out any profits for any organisation not earning monopoly profits. It would be scaled appropriate to the size of organisation, aimed at delivering equal impact to billionaires as to small organisations. It’s the first fundamental legal reform necessary in the 21st century: making punishments equal in impact, rather than equal in value.
I’d also use it to withhold future contributions to the UN until the IPCC were either fundamentally reformed or abolished.
I wonder which other politicians globally would stand up and be counted in that manner, eh??
And I wonder how many people will withold their vote from any politicians who say that they WON’T??
Brilliantly put as usual! Fist class, no hype, woe is me we’re all going to hell in a hand cart, how refreshing! 😉 I just wish the UNIPCC could be as open & above all, honest! Just say it’s all about wealth transfer, from poor people in rich countries t rich people in poor countries!
There is a real problem with cash handouts in developing countries. I was talking to a civil engineer (well he was civil to me), telling me about an African country he was working in recently. There was a dirt road carrying about 200 vehicles per day, nothing to speak of, but because the World Bank & their cronies were doling the cash out, they said that “x%” of infrastructure must be tarmac laid as an improvement, so being one of few roads inexistence, it was tarmacked, & it still only carries about 200 vehicles per day!!! Improvements for the sake of improvements seems to be the order of the day to make rich bankers feel less guilty, why they should feel guilty at all I never know, it’s not even their money they’re spending, it’s ours!!!!!
“The changes are consistent with explanations of climate change that rely on known natural influences but allow for some human contribution”.
Yeah agree. Much of the scientific community is so blinded by its’ own propaganda that it can no longer tell what is real.
I like the quote from Nathanial Hawthorne:
“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true”.
Christopher, your efforts are stellar, brave, and not wasted, at least in the context of posterity. Let the record show that fact. When history looks back, your effort will be a sign that at least some people actually THOUGHT about the ‘problem’. As regards the AGU, however, your effort is wasted. Their agenda was already in place, and there is nothing you, or any of us of like mind, can do to change their myopic stance. They have rendered meaningless yet another learned society, in favour of toeing the company line.
In 1996 CO2 was measured at 360ppm. In May of this year it reached 400ppm. That’s an increase of 11%.
Given the lack of warming seen in the satellite data over sixteen years or say, perhaps this is an ‘inconvenient truth’ for Mr Gore and his followers?
Loving your work!
With all due respect sir, Honest and AGW are oxymorons when used together. Your statement is honest, and that is why it cannot be used in the AGW debate.
Mike Jonas:
A simple rewording would be fine:
“There is no global measurement of permafrost, but there is no reason to believe its extent has changed significantly”
I wonder what the make up of the AGU’s membership looks like.
It sounds like they have far too few geologists, as they would agree with everything Monckton has written and almost nothing in previous official statements. Far too many of its members must be pseudo-scientists of the alarmist climate kind,.who depend heavily on AGU’s previously erroneous statements as a rationale for their undeserved ‘research’ funding.
I cried tears of joy reading this refreshingly honest and enlightening policy statement by AGU on climate change. Although I wonder why the AGU feels compelled to advance any “policy statement” on scientific matters, it is comforting to know that the union has allowed the rising tide of evidence in this matter to float off the reef of climate hysteria and set its scientific ship aright. The AGU can now get back upon its former and most worthy course toward geophysical understanding.
On a side note, my child is being forced to present a short speech on the topic of climate change in her high school science class tomorrow. She has been unable to sleep at night for the last few weeks after returning from a symposium hosted by Al Gore a few weeks back and having her head filled with fearful exaggerations on the possible negative outcomes of a slightly warming climate. The psychological relief she experienced after reading this corrected AGU policy statement has not only given her a topic for tomorrow’s speech but has restored her sleep habits and natural girlish optimism. For this I owe the AGU a great debt of gratitude.
Thank you, thank you dear Sir Monckton for this clear headed and intellectually honest statement and congratulations to the AGU for selecting you to deliver it.
Where’s Anonymous when you need them? Hack the AGU email list, then send out this draft statement, together with an Agree/Disagree/Not Sure poll. I suspect that a very large number of those 62,000 claimed members would NOT support the official position.
You missed the final paragraph:
“We, the AGU, will now retire into the obscurity of the scientific backwater that we have occupied since plate tectonics was settled. We will say goodbye to the fame and the invitations to high places. We will relinquish the grant moneys and the tenures that suddenly came our way. We will say goodbye to the high salaries, the perks and the donations. The situation with the worlds climate is largely unchanged therefore we will go back to making unreported minor statements about geophysical changes. Goodbye everyone.”
Ain’t gonna happen.
Ivor Ward
Peter Miller says:
August 7, 2013 at 4:43 am
I wonder what the make up of the AGU’s membership looks like.
It sounds like they have far too few geologists, as they would agree with everything Monckton has written…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
If AGU is like the American Chemical Society the membership was never asked and the ‘Leadership’ is not necessarily scientists but PR types who produce the statements the Society puts out.
If honesty broke out among the climate ‘science’ community, why would research funding stop? Their admission would be that they don’t actually know why the climate changes, why the AMO & PDO change, what causes ENSO, how the sun works and how it influences us etc. Seems to me that there is whole list of unknowns that would be deserving of research funding rather than it being spent on ‘research’ to prove a theory that seems more unlikely as each year of increase in CO2 is matched by static – or falling? – temperatures. What about research into the effect on food production of another little ice age?
If only politicians-with-no-vested-interest-in-renewables would read these facts.
Most of the AGU, NASA, etc., recent warming came from temperature measurements in “now” urban areas. Why can’t this simple “urban heat island effect” be correctly fixed? Is it because they control the data and they want the “warmth”?
We discuss a 0.0002C temperature change in the deep oceans. But a +4C change in urban heat signature is ignored. How can we help them get their house in order????
Climate science supported by the politicians…
An old joke goes,:
A man is looking for an accountant, and asks 3 of them one question, How much is 2+2, the first two answer 4, the last accountant says ” what number are you thinking of”