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mountain glaciers have receded, and earlier claims that all ice in the Himalayas would be gone in 25 years have been withdrawn.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”
I’m about half way through Lee Smolin’s The Trouble with Physics (2006, HMH) in which he lays much difficulty on our mis-understanding and abuse of TIME.
Might not temperature, as the average kinetic energy of the random microscopic motions of constituent microscopic particles such as electrons, atoms, and molecules, be the wrong parameter for measures of macroscopic – BIG – masses such as a planet, its landforms, oceans and atmospheres.
In my work it was constantly drilled that meters did not indicate the most limiting location parameter.
I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t sound right and needs further explanation.
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.
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and that is after adding to measured temps to adjust for UHI………..
AGU the important letter is U for Union, like all unions they damage the country they operate in.
Nicely done. 10/10 to you, amigo: No doubt battalions of AGU brownshirt/Red Guards are already unsheathing their “long knives.”
NeilC says:
August 7, 2013 at 4:06 am
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
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Just read the 5 laws. A remarkable piece of deduction, especially the nothing that stupid is more dangerous than criminal, because you can predict and defend against criminals. However the basic irrationality of stupid makes defense impossible.
An interesting result of the 5 laws is that selecting politicians at random, similar to how we select juries, would yield a better result (less stupid people in politics) than the current system of popular vote.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-03-18/random-selection-could-improve-democracy/2653044
Another keeper, thanks!
Well said,Lord Monckton. I would only add this quote…
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.
Albert Einstein
This is as much an indictment of science professional organizations (and some religious orders) as it is a level-headed retelling of the facts and the situation analysis of climate science and its stated vow to influence policy. It effectively doubles the body count of damage from science fraud and related policy manipulation. If this were the Dust Bowl era we would have FDR invest national resources in ineffective and generalized climate response in place of Lend Lease, economic recovery act programs, and localized (targeted) program response.
The atmospheric CO2 in 1958 was 0.0315% and has risen to 0.0395 in 2013, a rise of 0.008%. Isn’t it amazing that an increase of 0.008% in a gas that accounts for only 3.5% of the greenhouse effect is supposed to cause global warming of 6-10 degrees F by 2100? Even more amazing is that while CO2 rose from 0.0315% to 0.0338 from 1958 to 1980, global temperatures cooled, rather than increased, and the warmest decade of the century, the 1930s (unless you tamper with the data), occurred BEFORE atmospheric CO2 began to soar after 1945! But perhaps most amazing of all is how people who call themselves scientists (AGU) are willing to accept failed model predictions over real-time data.
– – – – – – – –
Christopher Monckton,
Your closing sentences {which I quoted above} present a pathway to understanding the fundamental reason for why so much of the science community in the area of climate was ideologically biased toward finding only danger in burning fossil fuels. It (much of the scientific community) was biased because it started with an ideological based faith in an ‘a priori’ false premise that man’s burning of fossil must be harmful; they took the premise because they fundamentally feel that man’s essence is in opposition to nature.
Where did their malevolently biased faith and feelings about man’s essence come from? I think we need to delve into the history of philosophy for the answer. My take => The seeds of malevolence, in my view, started with philosophies that advocate the concepts of dual reality.
John
A perfect description of the state of the climate and of genuine climate science today. Well done! Of course, Obama, the EPA and all the other Chicken Littles of the world and the grant grubbers of the scientific establishment will pay absolutely no attention to the essay of truth by Monckton and go merrily on their way predicting gloom, doom and disaster.
In your above discussion of global surface temperatures, you repeatedly refer to the “mean” of the temperature data sets to get global mean surface temperature change. Now “mean” has a very different mathematical outcome than “average”. For example, the “average” of the several data sets gives a specific, single result. (The average is conducted point-by-point.) The “mean” can be done several ways. Do you take the “mean” point-by-point (date-by-date) switching the value for a given date to the “mean” of the several data points for that specific date? (This means that the temperature value for a given date may be the value from one data set, while the adjacent data point might be the value from a different data set.) Or, do you take the “mean” of the date sets as a whole, choosing the single data set that in some undefined fashion that is the “mean”. Given certain pathological data sets, the “mean” can be vastly different than the “average”. In my scientific opinion, assuming the general validity of the data sets, an “average” of the data sets might be more appropriate.
Marvel should make a movie about Lord Monckton. He’s a genuine superhero !!
Chances are when it was sent up few were interested and less felt they could give time to this AGU panel. So those that were ‘concerned ‘ got a free run on it and because few cared , originally non one notice what it put out. This shows how even a small cohort of ‘dedicated’ people can shape the ‘public view ‘ of an organisation no matter how big , if that organisation does not have any checks in place to cope with ‘disinterest’. And now its [too] late AGU are committed to this stance , as those on the panel will be dug in and fortified to ensures their ‘correct views’ are the ones that dominate and while backing down means both taken them on and admitting in public to mistakes , which can be very hard to do .
The best AGU members can do is walk , which after the disgraceful stance AGU took over Gleck they should have already have done .
When a proposed scientific theory is eventually proved wrong, I don’t see the utility in apologizing. However, if it can be shown that shoddy research and premature statements were made that led to harm to individuals, the science community needs to chastise the offending researcher(s) by retracting papers and imposing further restrictions on future research endeavors. This is where the research community fails with few exceptions.
I cringe when I see the comment that carbon dioxide is a plant fertilizer; it is not. Photosynthesis is a photo-chemical reaction whereby carbohydrate is synthesised in plant cells, in the chloroplasts to be exact, from carbon dioxide and water in the presence of light and oxygen is the by-product. Chloropyhll is the catalyst for this reaction. It is the basis of life since animals do not synthesise carbohydrate and rely on plants, either directly of indirectly, for their energy source which is carbohydrate.
Life is based on the carbon atom and yet there appears to be little understanding of the fundamental chemistry. The carbon cycle is well understood, the problem is that the AGW industry appears to be scientifically illiterate.
In the midst of Mr. Monckton’s argument, I’m disappointed to find the terms “model” and “predict.” In the literature of climatology, these terms are polysemic, that is they have more than one meaning. That they are polysemic makes of Monckton’s argument an example of an equivocation. By logical rule, one may not draw a proper conclusion from an equivocation. To draw such a conclusion, as Monckton does, is an equivocation fallacy.
AGU, Richard Alley and climate zombie.
One problem with the increased CO2 Monckton didn’t mention – overly aggressive plants.
Indeed, it’s getting so I don’t dare to mow anymore.
16-years and 8 months of Global “Nothing”. Great post!
Christopher Monckton (being an American I can’t subscribe to the hereditary basis of lordships , queens, and such 😉 ), I applaud you. Keep up the independent thought and I will vote you for King, lord knows the UK needs change. Currently the USA needs change of equal magnitude.
Keep up the independent thought. It is a winner!
The international army of ones keeps ringing in my head!
I have commented on AGU elsewhere but what I said bears repeating because the science of the AGU statement is simply wrong. Once their erroneous arguments are exposed you can judge for yourself just how really bad bad their propaganda is.
The AGU Statement on Climate Change in August 2013 uses incorrect science to justify an irrational response to the alleged human-caused global warming. For them, human-caused increases in greenhouse gases are responsibe for most of the 0.8 degrees Celsius warming over the past 140 years. There is no scientific support for this statement but there is strong evidence that human-caused increase of carbon dioxide is beneficial to crops and forests and increases the efficiency of water use by photosynthesizing plants [1]. Before we go any further let us understand that carbon dioxide really is the only greenhouse gas of significance they can point to, and using the plural is just creating a smokescreen. Their claim is that our past, present, and future emissions will influence the climate system for millennia. They claim also that the climate changes involved are consistent with long-understood physics and their predictions of how the climate is expected to respond. These predictions can be ignored as irrelevant since their physics is all wrong. The physics they use goes back to Arrhenius, is incomplete, and applies only when carbon dioxide is the only greenhouse gas. But it is not – water vapor is much more important and they both simultaneously absorb OLR, the out-going long-wave radiation. When more than one greenhouse gas simultaneously absorb in the infrared their total combined absorption effect is not the arithmetic sum of their individual absorption effects. A theory that does apply to this situation was developed by the Hungarian scientist Ferenc Miskiolczi. What happens is that an optimum absorption window is established by the several absorbers involved. It is maintained jointly by the gases present. For the earth atmosphere where carbon dioxide and water vapor are the gases the infrared optical thickness of their joint optimum absorption window is 1.87. This is equivalent to 15 percent transmittance or 85 percent absorption of OLR . Suppose that we now add more carbon dioxide to air. What happens is that CO2 immediately starts to absorb in the IR and total atmospheric absorption rises above the 1.87 limit. When this happens water vapor begins to diminish and some may actually rain out until the total absorption is again down to 1.87. The result is that the extra absorption from the added carbon dioxide has been effectively neutralized. This is equivalent to a negative water vapor feedback, the exact opposite of positive feedback that IPCC uses. They put it into their computerized climate models and it can boost the meager Arrhenius warming from carbon dioxide alone by a factor of two or three. Small wonder that their supercomputers are predicting dangerous warming ahead. Fact is, almost all of their predictions have been higher than actual measurements. The question now is, who is right – Miskolczi or IPCC? During the six years that Miskolczi’s peer reviewed paper [2]has been out not one so-called “climate” scientist has seen fit to even acknowledge its existence. And no peer reviewed rebuttals have appeared. But in 2010 Miskolczi found a way [3] to use existing data to prove his theory. Using NOAA database of weather balloon observations that goes back to 1948 he studied the infrared absorption of the atmosphere over time. And discovered that the absorption had been constant for the last 61 years while carbon dioxide at the same time went up by 21.6 percent.. This is precisely what his theory predicted. And no absorption meant no greenhouse effect, case closed. Now let’s look at the consequences of this. Miskolczi theory supplies the missing physics that they thought they knew. His theory also explains why there is no warming today. Actually, there has been no warming for the last 15 years but all this is denied by the predictions of warming we get and is missing from the AGU statement.. There is also more carbon dioxide in the air than ever before but it simply refuses to do its greenhouse thing . Again as predicted by the Miskolczi theory. It is a safe bet that the greenhouse effect never even existed. The alternative, to claim that it somehow got lost fifteen years ago, is an absurdity. It follows therefore that all past warming identified as greenhouse warming is natural warming, misidentified. This also explains why it is impossible for that warming of 0.8 degrees over 140 years to be human-caused greenhouse warming. And their claim that past, present, and future emissions will stay with us for millennia is also absurd. It contradicts the analysis of the Keeling curve and results from carbon 14 from atmospheric tests in the fifties. It is interesting to speculate why the pause is being denied. This is not a recent thing because two years before the issuance of the last IPCC report in 2007 experts already knew that the climate had stalled. The IPCC was formally established in 1988, same year as Hansen’s presentation to the Senate. The present pause in warming goes back to 1998, a time just ten years after the foundation of the IPCC. The pause itself has lasted for 15 years by now, five years longer than the preceding ten IPCC years without a pause.This entitles the pause to be considered the climate norm by now. Unfortunately, for more than half of its existence the IPCC has been talking of an imaginary climate that does not exist and spending real money to hide this fact. And AGU has swallowed it whole and supports all the nonsense put out by IPCC. They accept that global temperature will rise and to be determined by emissions. And then as a non sequitur they suggest substantial emissions cuts that are not backed up by any scientific reasoning. They do acknowledge that surprise outcomes, like the unexpected loss of Arctic summer sea ice, can happen. That last thing really annoyed me because two years ago I published a paper on Arctic warming [4] that proved two things. First, that it was not greenhouse warming, and second, that its cause was North Atlantic currents carrying warm Gulf Stream water into the Arctic Ocean. These guys just don’t know the scientific literature in their own field but they get to write this propaganda piece in the name of a supposedly reputable scientific organization.
[1] Keenan et al., ” Increase in forest water-use efficiency as atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations rise” Nature 499, 324–327 Issue 7458 (July 2013) doi:10.1038/nature12291; See attached commet on web site.
[2] Ferenc M. Miskolczi, “Greenhouse effect in semi-transparent planetary atmospheres” Quarterly Journal of Hungarian Meteorological Service” 111:1 1-40 January-March 2007)
[3] Ferenc M. Miskolczi, “The stable stationary value of the earth’s global average atmospheric Planck-weighted greenhouse-gas optical thickness.” Energy & Environment 21(4):243-262 (2010)
[4] Arno Arrak, “Arctic Warming Is not Greenhouse Warming” E&E 22(8):1069-1083 (2011)
Aaron says:
August 7, 2013 at 4:44 am…..
As much as I am happy that your daughter will now not only sleep well at night, but have the basis for a great class presentation on CAGW (the truth), I think you should understand that this post is not an AGU statement: it is how Lord Monckton – and many more of us – would wish it to be.
I hope you can comment somewhere here on how your daughter got on. Best of luck to her!
Dear snotrocket,
All in fun, sir. This was just a lighthearted jest.
But would it not be great if Monckton actually became the spokeperson for the AGU?
Gotta love the guy. He put them in their place beautifully.
Bravo! It is excellent, as we have come to expect from you. Thank you for all you do to advance honest science and policy.
I’ve noticed the sinusoidal variation in CO2 concentration measurements in Hawaii, both on a diurnal and seasonal time frame. The changes are significant when compared to the trend rate for increasing CO2 concentrations. I believe that these oscillations in CO2 concentrations shout: IT’S THE OCEANS, STUPID!
Based on the CO2 and temperature data at the HI measurement site, someone should be able to calculate what percentage of the CO2 concentration change over the past 150 years (or since 1950) is due to fossil fuel consumption and what is due to the warming of the oceans. My guess is less than 10% due to our burning of fossil fuels. Willis, this should be in your power house. (pun intended)
Any takers?
Bill
It does make you wonder how much Antarctic ice it would take for the AGU to notice—double, triple, or everything below the equator?
Mike Jonas says:
August 7, 2013 at 3:49 am
[residence time not important, half-life is]
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I thought that half-life = residence-time * ln(2). A half-life of 14 years implies a mean residence time of around 20 years. Is the half-life of the excess different than the half-life of “that which is not the excess”, or is the mean residence time of 7 years incorrect? A mean residence time of 7 years implies a half-life of around 5 years.
A very thoughtful statement! If only the statement of the AGU panel were so well considered.
Lord Moncton states:
“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 reported atmospheric concentrations of CO2 represents dry air as sampled at a relatively few locations over the past several decades. Preindustrial [CO2] is measured differently and the samples are from other locations (ice cores and sediments). Stitching these datasets together is statistically unjustified and difficult to interpret.
Before determining [CO2] in air, all water vapor is removed from a sample. The amount of water in sampled air is variable and usually much greater than the amount of carbon dioxide in the sample. The concentration of water vapor in hot humid air is more than 100 times the concentration of carbon dioxide in that air. Even in the coldest driest air, the concentration of water vapor may be 10 times the concentration of carbon dioxide. Furthermore, water vapor absorbs IR over a broader spectrum than carbon dioxide.
In warm humid environments, such as over the tropical and subtropical oceans, carbon dioxide does not contribute significantly to the GHE. The relative contribution of carbon dioxide to the GHE generally increases at higher latitudes and in colder and dryer environments. Near the poles during winter the [CO2] is relatively high, but little atmospheric heat is absorbed because of the lack of daytime warming.
Of all the human contributions to climate change, adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere may be one of the least for our concern. We don’t even know how much is added to the oceans and the atmosphere from natural sources.
I’m not too clear on the need for an organization to have a “climate policy statement” . What is the business driver? Keep the troops in line?
Here is an environmentalist that has his priorities right. Many of the others have lost their way and are chasing a phantom gases in the night.
http://societymatters.org/2009/07/13/befriending-thugs-who-love-the-planet/
Mike N says:
August 7, 2013 at 11:01 am
I thought that half-life = residence-time * ln(2). A half-life of 14 years implies a mean residence time of around 20 years. Is the half-life of the excess different than the half-life of “that which is not the excess”, or is the mean residence time of 7 years incorrect? A mean residence time of 7 years implies a half-life of around 5 years.
The usual confusion between residence time and “excess decay time” at work…
The average residence time for any CO2 molecule (whatever its origin) is slightly over 5 years as ~150 GtC is exchanged between the atmosphere and other reservoirs. That gives a residence time for 800 GtC in the atmosphere of 800/150 = 5.33 years.
The residence time only shows how long any CO2 molecule in average resides in the atmosphere before being catched by a tree or the oceans, but that says next to nothing about what happens with any excess amount of CO2 in the atmosphere above equilibrium. At this moment the CO2 levels are about 100 ppmv (212 GtC) above the temperature dictated (pre-industrial) equilibrium. The extra atmospheric pressure makes that the oceans and vegetation sink some 4 GtC extra CO2/year. That gives an e-fold time for extra CO2 of 212/4 = 53 years or a half life tine of ~40 years…
Excellent, thank you so much, Ferdinand, for clearing that up for me. I didn’t think hard enough about “excess over equilibrium”.
docstephens says:
August 7, 2013 at 11:33 am
Stitching these datasets together is statistically unjustified and difficult to interpret.
Much depends of the resolution. Fortunately, ice cores have a broad range of resolutions, where the shortest (2 out of 3 Law Dome cores) are less than a decade. Moreover these have an overlap of ~20 years (1960-1980) with the direct measurements at the South Pole:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/law_dome_sp_co2.jpg
The drawback of a good resolution (as result of a high accumulation rate) is that one could go only 150 years back in time, before bedrock was reached. But as several ice cores with increasing worse resolution, but longer periods of time, overlap each other, the total picture could be extended to 800 kyr back in time with a resolution for the oldest part of ~560 years.
Does the AGU have statements on any other scientific field of study?
@Owen says: “Marvel should make a movie about Lord Monckton. He’s a genuine superhero !!
I think its already being done. SkepticalScience already released some early publicity shots honoring his valor and unrelenting commitment to the struggle. Didn’t you see his pictures?
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/weareskeptics.jpg
Logical analysis reveals grounds for denial of superhero status to either Monckton or the AGU. In logical form, Monckton’s argument resembles the AGU’s in the respect that it contains the polysemic terms “model” and “predict.” By the definition of terms, Monckton’s argument and the AGU’s are both equivocations. Further, when Monckton and the AGU draw conclusions from their respective arguments, both parties are guilty of the same deceptive argument, known as the equivocation fallacy. It would be inappropriate to award superhero status to a person or organization who convinced us that a policy on CO2 emissions was right via a deceptive argument, wouldn’t it?
The equivocation fallacy can be avoided through disambiguation of the terms in which the respective arguments are made. When this is done ( http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=7923 ), the 200 billion US$ investigation of global warming to which the AGU and Monckton have been a party is revealed to have failed in its purpose of supporting public policy on CO2 emissions. This sorry state of affairs has, however, been obscured through applications of the equivocation fallacy that include the position statements of the AGU and Monckton.
Beautifully done and, as we’ve seen before, your words do have wide influence. I thank you for your most wonderful tenacity.
Honestly — Can Lourde Monckton even see straight?
He’s so damned googly-eyed, I honestly can’t tell.
And if he can’t see straight, how can he think straight?
I can’t wait for the Potholer version.
The AGW industry is about money. You have it and they want it .AGW more appropriately links to Al Gore’s Wallet and the rest of this rent seeking traveling scam. What happened to the Chicago Climate Exchange ? Who funded it ? Who made a ton of money from it before it tanked?
Lord Monckton is a hero but even hero’s need help .I’m in.
Just sent a link to this post to the “contact us” general mail box of the AGU. The comment I attached in part was “it is my hope that someone in your organization will grow some ethical backbone and use the “FACTS” presented.”
Thank you Mr Monckton! Excellent post!
Stan says:
August 7, 2013 at 7:44 pm
Honestly — Can Lourde Monckton even see straight?
He’s so damned googly-eyed, I honestly can’t tell.
And if he can’t see straight, how can he think straight?
=============================
The Trolls have come out.. No facts so they must attack the poster and not the facts..
Try reading the facts he presents and refute them rather than acting like a two year old…
@Robert Orme at 8:29 am
I cringe when I see the comment that carbon dioxide is a plant fertilizer; it is not.
How do you feel about the term “carbon pollution“?
If “plant fertilizer” is a cringe worthy word for carbon dioxide, what is a better word when higher levels of carbon dioxide lead to higher rates of photosynthesis and higher rates of plant growth?
@terry Oldberg says 5:56 pm
… the 200 billion US$ investigation of global warming to which the AGU and Monckton have been a party is revealed to have failed in its purpose of supporting public policy on CO2 emissions.
the AGU and Monckton have been a party ?????
It is obvious to me who here is the one equivocating.
Stephen Rasey:
I challenge you to prove your contentions that: a) Monckton and the AGU have not jointly been guilty of using the equivocation fallacy and b) I have been guilty of this offence.
@Jimbo at 1:03 pm
Here is an environmentalist [Mike Fey] that has his priorities right.
Seems to me his priorities are to find the right authoritarian. I wonder how he might feel about EPA administrators (/sarc).
Mike Jonas Aug 7 3:49 am, Canman Aug 7 6:30 am, Mike N. Aug 7 11:01 am:
A strict reaction kinetic discussion of the concepts underlying terms such as “residence time” and “excess residence time” can be found in Paper 1 at the site http://www.False-alarm.net.
Mike N – I see the Ferdinand Engelbeen has already answered your question, but I was preparing mine in parallel so I’ll post it anyway. It’s basically the same answer. You ask about residence time vs half-life. This is how I understand it, but note I don’t claim to be an expert:-The major absorber of CO2 from the atmosphere is the ocean, and it is the ocean-atmosphere interface that largely determines the half-life of excess atmospheric CO2 [‘excess’ refers to CO2 partial pressure difference between ocean and atmosphere]. The biosphere is absorbing and re-emitting large quantities of CO2 annually while having little overall effect on multi-year time scales. Thanks to the biosphere, the mean residence time of an individual CO2 molecule in the atmosphere is quite short. ie, for CO2, the ‘standard’ relationship between half-life and mean residence time doesn’t apply.
Gösta Pettersson – Thanks for those links. Somehow I’ll have to find time to read them. I have done some work on this, however, and my findings tally pretty well with the IPCC’s. The picture is of excess atmospheric CO2 (see definition in above para) having a half-life of about 12 years, but of the ocean CO2 concentration changing too, so that equilibrium is a moving target. The whole thing gets very messy if you start to get caught up in chemical reactions in the ocean, but the essential point is that CO2 is absorbed much more quickly into the upper ocean than it is transported from there to the deeper ocean. Maybe I’m missing something, of course.
Typo – “I see that Ferdinand …..”.
I do disagree with Ferdinand on the half-life. I put it at 12-13 years, not his 40 years. But I would have to check we are talking about the exact same thing.
Gösta Pettersson @1:46pm,
Thanks for the link, but I’m afraid it’s a bit over my head. Richard Alley says high atmospheric concentrations of CO2 are lowered over thousands of years by the weathering of rocks. This makes a residence time of 7 years seem rather surprising, although I don’t have a good enough understanding of it to rule it out. Richard Alley is a very good speaker with a coherent description of CO2 over geological time. I haven’t found much criticism of him on blogs.
http://www.agu.org/news/press/pr_archives/2013/2013-38.shtml
“”The newly approved statement will be reported to the AGU membership in the 20 August 2013 issue of Eos, the source of record for all AGU proceedings.
The 15-person panel that reviewed and updated the position statement included the following:
Amy Clement, Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami (approve)
John Farrington, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (approve)
Susan Joy Hassol, Climate Communication (approve)
Robert Hirsch, U.S. Geological Survey (approve)
Peter Huybers, Harvard University (approve)
Peter Lemke, Alfred Wegener Institute (approve)
Gerald North, Texas A&M University (approve, panel chair)
Michael Oppenheimer, Princeton University (approve)
Roger Pielke Sr., University of Colorado Boulder (dissent)
Ben Santer, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (approve)
Gavin Schmidt, Goddard Institute for Space Studies, NASA (approve)
Leonard A. Smith, London School of Economics (approve)
Eric Sundquist, U.S. Geological Survey (approve)
Pieter Tans, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (approve)
Learn more about the revised statement, the previous statement, and all AGU position statements.””
@terry Oldberg 2:21 pm
Stephen Rasey, I challenge you to prove your contentions that: a) Monckton and the AGU have not jointly been guilty of using the equivocation fallacy.
It was not my contention at all.
Your statement that I took issue was “200 billion US$ investigation of global warming to which the AGU and Monckton have been a party…..”
Which more than implies Monckton shares with the AGU (‘have been a party”) with the 200 billion US$ investigation. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Stephen Rasey:
Thank you for taking the time to clarify your contentions. So far as I know, Mr. Monckton has not shared in the 200 billion US$. The entity that Monckton has shared with members of the AGU is not the funding for global warming research but rather is a deceptive argument of the form of the equivocation fallacy. A consequence from this deception is for conclusions reached by the AGU and by Monckton in their respective policy statements to be logically improper.
The equivocation fallacy is fostered through the use of the polysemic terms “model” and “prediction” in the arguments of the AGU and Monckton. It can be eliminated through a disambiguation that results in a one-to-one relationship between terms and meanings. I present such a disambiguation in the article at http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=7923 .
When the terminology of global warming arguments is thusly disambiguated, it is revealed ( http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=7923 ) that the research on global warming that has thus far been conducted has had a faulty methodology. A consequence is for the 200 billion US$ to have been spent without providing a basis for policy decisions on CO2 emissions. About all that can be said about the results of this research that is of significance for public policy is that 200 billion US$ in public money produced no usable result but seemed, as a result of a deceptive argument, to have produced one.
@richard Holle 9:55 pm
“”The newly approved statement will be reported to the AGU membership in the 20 August 2013 issue of Eos, the source of record for all AGU proceedings.
Oh, isn’t that nice! That AGU membership gets to read the statement in Eos in 12 days.
Yeah, like all 62,000 members had a hand in the statement.
Terry Oldberg 8:37 am
The entity that Monckton has shared with members of the AGU ….
There you go again. By saying Monckton and AGU share things, you are equivocating in the extreme. Context is everything. Equivocation is exposed by context.
Monckton shares with the leaders of the AGU a familiarity with the English language. Not much else.
Contextually, Economically, Philosophically, Epistemologically, Grammatically, Rhetorically, Objectively and Logically, Monckton’s communication shares little with that produced by an AGU committee and is far superior in communicating knowledge and ideas. The AGU has him beat on politics and power and equivocations.
Stephen Rasey:
Your comparison of Monckton to the AGU is incomplete and misleading. Like the AGU, Monckton states his argument using the polysemic terms “model” and “predict” thus making an equivocation of this argument. Then, like the AGU, he draws conclusions from this argument. In doing so he, like the AGU, is guilty of the deceptive argument which is known to philosophers as the “equivocation fallacy.” By accusing me of use of same fallacy, you’ve changed the topic from the position statements of Monckton and the AGU to the unrelated topic of me. This is an example of an ad hominem fallacy. The presence of it invalidates your argument.
Do you agree or disagree regarding the presence of the equivocation fallacy in the position statements of the AGU and Monckton? If you disagree, what is your argument?
By the way, your claim that “equivocation is exposed by context” is inconsistent with use of the term “equivocation” in the philosophical literature. In this literature, an “equivocation” is an argument wherein a term changes meaning the the midst of this argument. By logical rule, a proper conclusion may not be drawn from an equivocation. To draw a conclusion from an equivocation is the “equivocation fallacy.”
@terry Oldberg 12:46 pm
I disagree. I reread the Monckton rewrite of the AGU statement and my respect for his writing style and clarity only increased. There is no equivocation fallacy in it at all.
He makes many simple declarative statements. He quantifies where possible, unlike the AGU. He uses the terms “may” (7 times), “can” (2), “unlikely” (2), “might” (not at all), sparingly. I view Monckton’s statement as exemplary in clarity and objectivity.
You, judging from your WRBriggs piece, are hooked on the supposition that a climate model cannot be verified and therefor cannot “predict”. I agree that their verification is neigh impossible, but models and modelers CAN and DO predict — It is just through observations they seem to be lousy predictors.
Tarot card readers and astrologers predict all the time, but I personally I make and alter no decisions based upon those predictions for I view them to be worthless based upon theory and observation. I hold the IPCC and their allies in equal regard to Tarot Card Readers because their respective predictions have similar vagueness and accuracy, plus I observe a shared motivation to extract as much money from their Marks as possible.
You might hold that Monckton committed an equivocation fallacy because he wrote: “Climate models predict that global temperatures will continue to rise….. “. His rebuttal is parallel to the AGU statement that refers to those models. Even if the AGU commits the fallacy with respect to models, Monckton commits no fallacy by referring to the models only to destroy their value and authority by exposing how badly the models overestimate predictions compared to observations over the past two decades.
While we are on the subject of equivocating, let us dispense with the subterfuge that “predictions” and “projections” are different things. When “projections” are used to support an advocacy policy or decision, they become predictions made by the advocate. Using two words to mean the same thing is as logically fallacious as using the same word for two concepts.
So enough! with trying to tar Monckton and the AGU committee with the same Equivocation Fallacy Brush. The AGU committee might very well deserve that tar. Monckton should not be splattered so indiscriminately.
Stephen Rasey:
For reference, I present the following proof of the contention that Monckton is guilty of the equivocation fallacy.
For an equivocation fallacy to be present, it is necessary and sufficient for the following two ingredients to be present:
1) An argument is made that contains one or more polysemic terms and
2) One or more conclusions that are drawn from this argument.
In the literature of climatology, the terms “model” and “predict” are polysemic ( http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=7923 ) and are used by Monckton in making his argument. Monckton draws conclusions from this argument. Thus, Monckton is guilty of the equivocation fallacy.
QED
In your attempt at refutation of this proof, you deny that “predict” and “project” have different meanings. However, this denial does not refute my proof. To refute it, one would have to prove that the terms “model” and “predict” are both monosemic. This cannot be done, for I have proved both of them to be polysemic ( http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=7923 ). In this way, your attempt at refutation fails.
A barrier to understanding for you seems to lie in the fact that in the disambiguated terminology that I develop in the above referenced paper I use the words “predict” and “project” in reference to differing meanings. In the non-disambiguated language of the climatology literature, the word “predict” has (at least) these two meanings. However, my use of these two words is immaterial for I could have used the made up words XXX and YYY in reference to the respective meanings and the conclusion would have been the same. The conclusion would have been that in the literature of climatology, “predict” is polysemic..
Stephen Rasey:
Your point is correct. The IPCC DOES make predictions (e.g. of “committed warming”) and computer model projections become predictions when used as forecasts (e.g. by the IPCC).
So, you are right, and I write to offer some friendly advice; i.e.
try to resist the temptation to reply to Terry Oldberg.
I have learned from repeated experience that such interaction will be (to be polite) unproductive.
Richard
richardscourtney:
Inasmuch as I have addressed these issues in a pair of peer reviewed articles, both of them reviewed by distinguished climatologists, your advice to Rasey that my arguments should be ignored is supremely anti-intellectual. Have you published peer reviewed articles on the equivocation fallacy in climatological arguments? I’m not aware of any.
you deny that “predict” and “project” have different meanings.
I deny that “project” has a different meaning than “predict” when advocates use a “projection” as a “prediction” in support of their advocacy. Context is everything.
You have used the words “model” and “predict” in the same sentence. Are you guilty of the Eq. Fallacy? No, because you make the argument against that connection. Monckton used “model” and “prediction” because he was arguing against the AGU committee use of that connection.
Enough. You have failed to convince me you are correct. You last post has convinced me you are clouding the issue with unimportant matters.
Stephen Rasey:
For the record, I’ll point out that I have proved my contention and you have failed to refute this proof. Thus, though failing to signify your capitulation, you have functionally capitulated.
Terry Oldberg:
re your post addressed to me at August 10, 2013 at 10:52 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/07/the-agu-policy-statement-as-redrafted-by-monckton/#comment-1386373
Your appeal to authority (of both peer review and your opinion of yourself) has been read, noted and ignored.
In the unlikely event that you provide something worthy of response then I would be willing to reply to it.
Richard
richardscourtney:
It is not hard to guess the motivation of a person such as yourself in seeking avoidance of participation in a debate on a side that has already lost the battle.
By the way, the fallacy to which you make reference is appeal to illegitimate authority. In the peer review system, a referee is a legitimate authority. Appeal to legitimate authority is no fallacy.
Terry Oldberg:
Yawn!
Richard
Terry Oldberg 11:16 am
In the peer review system, a referee is a legitimate authority.
Appeal to legitimate authority is no fallacy.
Wow! You are writing to the wrong audience.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/20/the-illogic-of-climate-hysteria/
A fallacy is a deceptive argument that appears to be logically valid but is in fact invalid. Its conclusion will be unreliable at best, downright false at worst.
– argumentum ad populum – the consensus or headcount fallacy
– argumentum ad verecundiam, the reputation or appeal-to-authority fallacy
– argumentum ad ignorantiam, the fallacy of arguing from ignorance.
– argumentum ad misericordiam, the fallacy of inappropriate pity.
– post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, the argument from false cause.
– argumentum ad petitionem principii, the circular-argument fallacy
– a dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid, the fallacy of accident, from the general to the particular.
– fallacy a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter, the fallacy of converse accident, from the particular to the general.
– argumentum ad hominem, the attack on the man rather than on his argument.
– the argumentum ad baculum, the argument of force (the nastiest of all)
As for the legitimacy of “Peer Review”, do a search of “Pal Review” and see how much argumentum ad verecundiam is worth. Three of many links below:
Peer Review, Pal Review, and Broccoli WUWT Feb. 17, 2011.
BEST: What I agree with and what I disagree with – plus a call for additional transparency to prevent “pal” review WUWT Oct. 21, 2011.
Peer Evil – the rotten business model of modern science WUWT Jun 25, 2013.
Terry Oldberg – Your statement “By the way, the fallacy to which you make reference is appeal to illegitimate authority. In the peer review system, a referee is a legitimate authority. Appeal to legitimate authority is no fallacy.” is incorrect. Every appeal to authority is in itself logically invalid, because it contains the assumption that the authority cannot be wrong. But any authority, no matter how legitimate, can indeed be wrong. The letter from 100 scientists to Einstein would be a reasonable example. The Helicobacter pylori story another. The only value in an appeal to authority lies in the arguments used by that authority, not in the authority itself.
Earlier, you stated: “For an equivocation fallacy to be present, it is necessary and sufficient for the following two ingredients to be present: 1) An argument is made that contains one or more polysemic terms and 2) One or more conclusions that are drawn from his argument.“. That too is incorrect. There are two more necessary conditions, namely that a term with more than one meaning is used in the wrong meaning, and that the usage is material to the argument.
@Mike Jonas at 3:44 pm
A very succinct refutation. Nary a word without effect.
It was a good idea to draw our attention to this
Simon,
Given that the NY Times and the Economist among many others now acknowledge that global warming has stopped, how do you view those events on your planet?
I don’t read the New York Times but I do read the Economist. You’re misquoting. The Economist repeatedly states that AGW is real and frequently discusses policies to deal with it.
Simon:
Thankyou for informing me in your post at August 12, 2013 at 12:40 pm
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/07/the-agu-policy-statement-as-redrafted-by-monckton/#comment-1387854
Well, that convinces me. The empirical climate data which ALL denies AGW must be wrong because the Economist repeatedly states that AGW is real. /sarc
Richard
You need approximately 30 data points to be statistically significant. Cherry-picking the 1997/98 El Nino event as a start-point isn’t valid either.
On your advice, I started reading the New York Times. They state that AGW is real and happening too. Maybe it’s a conspiracy…..