Andrew at Popular Technology has taken the time (quite a bit of it) to compile a list of papers that have skeptical views. It is reproduced in full here. My thanks to him for doing this. – Anthony

450 Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism of  AGW caused Global Warming

A 2000-year global temperature reconstruction based on non-treering proxies (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 1049-1058, December 2007)
- Craig Loehle

- Reply To: Comments on Loehle, “correction To: A 2000-Year Global Temperature Reconstruction Based on Non-Tree Ring Proxies”
(Energy & Environment, Volume 19, Number 5, pp. 775-776, September 2008)
- Craig Loehle

A Climate of Doubt about Global Warming
(Environmental Geosciences, Volume 7 Issue 4, pp. 213, December 2000)
- Robert C. Balling Jr.

A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions (PDF)
(International Journal of Climatology, Volume 28, Issue 13, pp. 1693-1701, December 2007)
- David H. Douglass, John R. Christy, Benjamin D. Pearson, S. Fred Singer

A critical review of the hypothesis that climate change is caused by carbon dioxide
(Energy & Environment, Volume 11, Number 6, pp. 631-638, November 2000)
- Heinz Hug

A new dynamical mechanism for major climate shifts (PDF)
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 34, Issue 13, July 2007)
- Anastasios A. Tsonis, Kyle Swanson, Sergey Kravtsov

A scientific agenda for climate policy? (PDF)
(Nature, Volume 372, Issue 6505, pp. 400-402, December 1994)
- Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen

A test of corrections for extraneous signals in gridded surface temperature data (PDF)
(Climate Research, Volume 26, Number 2, pp. 159-173, May 2004)
- Ross McKitrick, Patrick J. Michaels

- Are temperature trends affected by economic activity? Reply to Benestad (2004) (PDF)
(Climate Research, Volume 27, Number 2, pp. 175–176, October 2004)
- Ross McKitrick, Patrick J. Michaels

- A test of corrections for extraneous signals in gridded surface temperature data: Erratum (PDF)
(Climate Research, Volume 27, Number 3, pp. 265-268, December 2004)
- Ross McKitrick, Patrick J. Michaels

Altitude dependence of atmospheric temperature trends: Climate models versus observation (PDF)
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 31, Issue 13, July 2004)
- David H. Douglass, Benjamin D. Pearson, S. Fred Singer

* An Alternative Explanation for Differential Temperature Trends at the Surface and in the Lower Troposphere (PDF)
(Submitted to the Journal of Geophysical Research, February 2009)
- Philip J. Klotzbach, Roger A. Pielke Sr., Roger A. Pielke Jr., John R. Christy, Richard T. McNider

An assessment of validation experiments conducted on computer models of global climate using the general circulation model of the UK’s Hadley Centre
(Energy & Environment, Volume 10, Number 5, pp. 491-502, September 1999)
- Richard S. Courtney

Analysis of trends in the variability of daily and monthly historical temperature measurements (PDF)
(Climate Research, Volume 10, Number 1, pp. 27-33, April 1998)
- Patrick J. Michaels, Robert C. Balling Jr, Russell S. Vose, Paul C. Knappenberger

Ancient atmosphere- Validity of ice records
(Environmental Science and Pollution Research, Volume 1, Number 3, September 1994)
- Zbigniew Jaworowski

Are Climate Model Projections Reliable Enough For Climate Policy?
(Energy & Environment, Volume 15, Number 3, pp. 521-525, July 2004)
- Madhav L. Khandekar

Are observed changes in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere really dangerous? (PDF)
(Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology, Volume 50, Number 2, pp. 297-327, June 2002)
- C. R. de Freitas

Are there connections between the Earth’s magnetic field and climate? (PDF)
(Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Volume 253, Issues 3-4, pp. 328-339, January 2007)
- Vincent Courtillot, Yves Gallet, Jean-Louis Le Mouël, Frédéric Fluteau, Agnès Genevey

- Response to comment on “Are there connections between Earth’s magnetic field and climate?, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 253, 328–339, 2007″ by Bard, E., and Delaygue, M., Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., in press, 2007 (PDF)
(Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Volume 265, Issues 1-2, pp. 308-311, January 2008)
- Vincent Courtillot, Yves Gallet, Jean-Louis Le Mouël, Frédéric Fluteau, Agnès Genevey

Atmospheric CO2 and global warming: a critical review (PDF)
(Norwegian Polar Institute Letters, Volume 119, May 1992)
- Zbigniew Jaworowski, Tom V. Segalstad, V. Hisdal

Can increasing carbon dioxide cause climate change? (PDF)
(Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 94, pp. 8335-8342, August 1997)
- Richard S. Lindzen

Carbon dioxide forcing alone insufficient to explain Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum warming
(Nature Geoscience, Volume 2, 576-580, July 2009)
- Richard E. Zeebe, James C. Zachos, Gerald R. Dickens

Climate as a Result of the Earth Heat Reflection (PDF)
(Latvian Journal of Physics and Technical Sciences, Volume 46, Number 2, pp. 29-40, May 2009)
- J. Barkāns, D. Žalostība

Climate Change – A Natural Hazard
(Energy & Environment, Volume 14, Numbers 2-3, pp. 215-232, May 2003)
- William Kininmonth

Climate Change and the Earth’s Magnetic Poles, A Possible Connection
(Energy & Environment, Volume 20, Numbers 1-2, pp. 75-83, January 2009)
- Adrian K. Kerton

Climate change: Conflict of observational science, theory, and politics
(AAPG Bulletin, Volume 88, Number 9, pp. 1211-1220, September 2004)
- Lee C. Gerhard

- Climate change: Conflict of observational science, theory, and politics: Reply
(AAPG Bulletin, Volume 90, Number 3, pp. 409-412, March 2006)
- Lee C. Gerhard

Climate Change: Dangers of a Singular Approach and Consideration of a Sensible Strategy
(Energy & Environment, Volume 20, Numbers 1-2 , pp. 201-205, January 2009)
- Tim F. Ball

Climate change: detection and attribution of trends from long-term geologic data
(Ecological Modelling, Volume 171, Issue 4, pp. 433-450, February 2004)
- Craig Loehle

Climate change in the Arctic and its empirical diagnostics
(Energy & Environment, Volume 10, Number 5, pp. 469-482, September 1999)
- V.V. Adamenko, K.Y. Kondratyev, C.A. Varotsos

Climate Change is Nothing New! (PDF)
(New Concepts In Global Tectonics, Number 42, March 2007)
- Lance Endersbee

Climate change projections lack reality check
(Weather, Volume 61, Issue 7, pp. 212, December 2006)
- Madhav L. Khandekar

Climate Change Re-examined (PDF)
(Journal of Scientific Exploration, Volume 21, Number 4, pp. 723–749, 2007)
- Joel M. Kauffman

Climate Chaotic Instability: Statistical Determination and Theoretical Background
(Environmetrics, Volume 8, Issue 5, pp. 517-532, December 1998)
- Raymond Sneyers

Climate Dynamics and Global Change
(Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics, Volume 26, pg 353-378, January 1994)
- Richard S. Lindzen

Climate outlook to 2030 (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Number 5, pp. 615-619, September 2007)
- David C. Archibald

Climate Prediction as an Initial Value Problem (PDF)
(Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Volume 79, Number 12, pp. 2743-2746, December 1998)
- Roger A. Pielke Sr.

Climate projections: Past performance no guarantee of future skill? (PDF)
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 36, Issue 13, July 2009)
- Catherine Reifen, Ralf Toumi

Climate science and the phlogiston theory: weighing the evidence (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 3-4, pp. 441-447, July 2007)
- Arthur Rörsch

Climate stability: an inconvenient proof
(Civil Engineering, Volume 160, Issue 2, pp. 66-72, May 2007)
- David Bellamy, Jack Barrett

Climate Variations and the Enhanced Greenhouse Effect
(Ambio, Volume 27, Number 4, pp. 270-274, June 1998)
- Wibjörn Karlén

CO2 as a primary driver of Phanerozoic climate: Comment (PDF)
(GSA Today, Volume 14, Issue 7, pp. 18–18, July 2004)
- Nir Shaviv, Jan Veizer

CO2-induced global warming: a skeptic’s view of potential climate change (PDF)
(Climate Research, Volume 10, Number 1, pp. 69–82, April 1998)
- Sherwood B. Idso

Cooling of Atmosphere Due to CO2 Emission
(Energy Sources, Part A: Recovery, Utilization, and Environmental Effects, Volume 30, Issue 1, pp. 1-9, January 2008)
- G. V. Chilingar, L. F. Khilyuk, O. G. Sorokhtin

Comment on “Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change” (PDF)
(Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union, Volume 90, Number 27, July 2009)
- Roland Granqvist

Conflicting Signals of Climatic Change in the Upper Indus Basin (PDF)
(Journal of Climate, Volume 19, Issue 17, pp. 4276–4293, September 2006)
- H. J. Fowler, D. R. Archer

Cooling of the Global Ocean Since 2003
(Energy & Environment, Volume 20, Numbers 1-2, pp. 101-104, January 2009)
- Craig Loehle

Dangerous global warming remains unproven
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Number 1, pp. 167-169, January 2007)
- Robert M. Carter

Differential trends in tropical sea surface and atmospheric temperatures since 1979
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 28, Number 1, pp. 183–186, January 2001)
- John R. Christy, D.E. Parker, S.J. Brown, I. Macadam, M. Stendel, W.B. Norris

Disparity of tropospheric and surface temperature trends: New evidence (PDF)
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 31, Issue 13, July 2004)
- David H. Douglass, Benjamin D. Pearson, S. Fred Singer, Paul C. Knappenberger, Patrick J. Michaels

Do deep ocean temperature records verify models? (PDF)
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 29, Issue 8, pp. 95-1, April 2002)
- Richard S. Lindzen

Do Facts Matter Anymore?
(Energy & Environment, Volume 14, Numbers 2-3, pp. 323-326, May 2003)
- Patrick J. Michaels

Do glaciers tell a true atmospheric CO2 story? (PDF)
(Science of the Total Environment, Volume 114, pp. 227-284, August 1992)
- Zbigniew Jaworowski, Tom V. Segalstad, N. Ono

Documentation of uncertainties and biases associated with surface temperature measurement sites for climate change assessment (PDF)
(Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Volume 88, Number 6, pp. 913-928, June 2007)
- Roger A. Pielke Sr. et al.

Does a Global Temperature Exist? (PDF)
(Journal of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics, Volume 32, Issue 1, pp. 1–27, February 2007)
- Christopher Essex, Ross McKitrick, Bjarne Andresen

Does CO2 really drive global warming?
(Chemical Innovation, Volume 31, Number 5, pp 44-46, May 2001)
- Robert H. Essenhigh

Earth’s rising atmospheric CO2 concentration: Impacts on the biosphere
(Energy & Environment, Volume 12, Number 4, pp. 287-310, July 2001)
- Craig D. Idso

Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (PDF)
(Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Volume 12, Number 3, pp. 79-90, Fall 2007)
- Arthur B. Robinson, Noah E. Robinson, Willie H. Soon

Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (PDF)
(Climate Research, Volume 13, Number 2, pp. 149–164, October 1999)
- Arthur B. Robinson, Zachary W. Robinson, Willie H. Soon, Sallie L. Baliunas

Estimation and representation of long-term (>40 year) trends of Northern-Hemisphere-gridded surface temperature: A note of caution (PDF)
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 31, Number 3, February 2004)
- Willie H. Soon, David R. Legates, Sallie L. Baliunas

Evidence Delimiting Past Global Climate Changes
(Environmental Geosciences, Volume 6, Issue 3, pp. 151, September 1999)
- John P. Bluemle, Joseph M. Sabel, Wibjörn Karlén

Evidence for decoupling of atmospheric CO2 and global climate during the Phanerozoic eon
(Nature, Volume 408, Issue 6813, pp. 698-701, December 2000)
- Ján Veizer, Yves Godderis, Louis M. François

Evidence for “publication Bias” Concerning Global Warming in Science and Nature
(Energy & Environment, Volume 19, Number 2, pp. 287-301, March 2008)
- Patrick J. Michaels

Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics (PDF)
(International Journal of Modern Physics B, Volume 23, Issue 03, pp. 275-364, January 2009)
- Gerhard Gerlich, Ralf D. Tscheuschner

Global Climate Models Violate Scaling of the Observed Atmospheric Variability (PDF)
(Physical Review Letters, Volume 89, Number 2, July 2002)
- R. B. Govindan, Dmitry Vyushin, Armin Bunde, Stephen Brenner, Shlomo Havlin, Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber

Global Warming (PDF)
(Progress in Physical Geography, Volume 27, Number 3, pp. 448-455, September 2003)
- Willie H. Soon, Sallie L. Baliunas

Global Warming: A Reduced Threat? (PDF)
(Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Volume 73, Issue 10, pp. 1563–1577, October 1992)
- Patrick J. Michaels, David E. Stooksbury

Global warming and long-term climatic changes: a progress report
(Environmental Geology, Volume 46, Numbers 6-7, pp. 970-979, October 2004)
- L. F. Khilyuk, G. V. Chilingar

Global Warming and the Accumulation of Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere
(Energy & Environment, Volume 16, Number 1, pp. 101-126, January 2005)
- Arthur Rörsch, Richard S. Courtney, Dick Thoenes

Global warming and the mining of oceanic methane hydrate
(Topics in Catalysis, Volume 32, Numbers 3-4, pp. 95-99, March 2005)
- Chung-Chieng Lai, David Dietrich, Malcolm Bowman

Global Warming: Correcting the Data (PDF)
(Regulation, Volume 31, Number 3, pp.46-52, 2008)
- Patrick J. Michaels

Global Warming: Forecasts by Scientists Versus Scientific Forecasts (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 997-1021, December 2007)
- Keston C. Green, J. Scott Armstrong

Global Warming: Is Sanity Returning?
(Energy & Environment, Volume 20, Number 5, pp. 721-731, September 2009)
- Nigel Lawson

Global Warming: Myth or Reality? The Actual Evolution of the Weather Dynamics
(Energy & Environment, Volume 14, Numbers 2-3, pp. 297-322, May 2003)
- Marcel Leroux

Global Warming: The Origin and Nature of the Alleged Scientific Consensus (PDF)
(Regulation, Volume 15, Number 2, pp. 87-98, 1992)
- Richard S. Lindzen

Greenhouse effect in semi-transparent planetary atmospheres (PDF)
(Quarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Service, Volume 111, Number 1, pp. 1-40, 2007)
- Ferenc M. Miskolczi

Greenhouse gases and greenhouse effect
(Environmental Geology, Volume 58, Issue 6, pp.1207-1213, September 2009)
- G. V. Chilingar, O. G. Sorokhtin, L. Khilyuk, M. V. Gorfunkel

Greenhouse molecules, their spectra and function in the atmosphere (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 16, Number 6, pp. 1037-1045, November 2005)
- Jack Barrett

How Dry is the Tropical Free Troposphere? Implications for Global Warming Theory (PDF)
(Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Volume 78, Issue 6, pp. 1097–1106, June 1997)
- Roy W. Spencer, William D. Braswell

Human effect on global climate?
(Nature, Volume 384, Issue 6609, pp. 522-523, December 1996)
- Patrick J. Michaels, Paul C. Knappenberger

Human Contribution to Climate Change Remains Questionable
(Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union, Volume 80, Issue 16, pp. 183-183, April 1999)
- S. Fred Singer

Impact of urbanization and land-use change on climate (PDF)
(Nature, Volume 423, Number 6939, pp. 528-531, May 2003)
- Eugenia Kalnay, Ming Cai

Implications of the Secondary Role of Carbon Dioxide and Methane Forcing in Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future (PDF)
(Physical Geography, Volume 28, Number 2, pp. 97-125, March 2007)
- Willie H. Soon

In defense of Milankovitch (PDF)
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 33, Number 24, December 2006)
- Gerard Roe

Industrial CO2 emissions as a proxy for anthropogenic influence on lower tropospheric temperature trends (PDF)
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 31, Issue 5, March 2004)
- A. T. J. de Laat, A. N. Maurellis

Influence of the Southern Oscillation on tropospheric temperature
(Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 114, Issue D14, July 2009)
- John D. McLean, Chris de Freitas, Robert M. Carter

Irreproducible Results in Thompson et al., “Abrupt Tropical Climate Change: Past and Present” (PNAS 2006)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 20, Number 3, pp. 367-373, July 2009)
- J. Huston McCulloch

Is the enhancement of global warming important?
(Energy & Environment, Volume 12, Number 4, pp. 335-341, July 2001)
- M.C.R. Symons, Jack Barrett

Key Aspects of Global Climate Change
(Energy & Environment, Volume 15, Number 3, pp. 469-503, July 2004)
- Ya. K. Kondratyev

Limits on CO2 Climate Forcing from Recent Temperature Data of Earth (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 20, Numbers 1-2, pp. 177-189, January 2009)
- David H. Douglass, John R. Christy

Methodology and Results of Calculating Central California Surface Temperature Trends: Evidence of Human-Induced Climate Change?
(Journal of Climate, Volume 19, Issue 4, February 2006)
- John R. Christy, W.B. Norris, K. Redmond, K. Gallo

Microclimate Exposures of Surface-Based Weather Stations: Implications For The Assessment of Long-Term Temperature Trends (PDF)
(Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Volume 86, Issue 4, April 2005)
- Christopher A. Davey, Roger A. Pielke Sr.

Modeling climatic effects of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions: unknowns and uncertainties (PDF)
(Climate Research, Volume 18, Number 3, pp. 259–275, November 2001)
- Willie H. Soon, Sallie L. Baliunas, Sherwood B. Idso, Kirill Ya. Kondratyev, Eric S. Posmentier

- Modeling climatic effects of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions: unknowns and uncertainties. Reply to Risbey (2002) (PDF)
(Climate Research, Volume 22, Number 2, pp. 187–188, September 2002)
- Willie H. Soon, Sallie L. Baliunas, Sherwood B. Idso, Kirill Ya. Kondratyev, Eric S. Posmentier

- Modeling climatic effects of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions: unknowns and uncertainties. Reply to Karoly et al. (2003) (PDF)
(Climate Research, Volume 24, Number 1, pp. 93–94, June 2003)
- Willie H. Soon, Sallie L. Baliunas, Sherwood B. Idso, Kirill Ya. Kondratyev, Eric S. Posmentier

Multi-scale analysis of global temperature changes and trend of a drop in temperature in the next 20 years
(Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics, Volume 95, January 2007)
- Lin Zhen-Shan, Sun Xian

Nature of observed temperature changes across the United States during the 20th century (PDF)
(Climate Research, Volume 17, Number 1, pp. 45–53, July 2001)
- Paul C. Knappenberger, Patrick J. Michaels, Robert E. Davis

Natural signals in the MSU lower tropospheric temperature record
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 27, Number 18, pp. 2905–2908, September 2000)
- Patrick J. Michaels, Paul C. Knappenberger

New Little Ice Age Instead of Global Warming?
(Energy & Environment, Volume 14, Numbers 2-3, pp. 327-350, May 2003)
- Landscheidt T.

Observed warming in cold anticyclones (PDF)
(Climate Research, Volume 14, Number 1, pp. 1–6, January 2000)
- Patrick J. Michaels, Paul C. Knappenberger, Robert C. Balling Jr, Robert E. Davis

Ocean heat content and Earth’s radiation imbalance
(Physics Letters A, Volume 373, Issue 36, pp. 3296-3300, August 2009)
- David H. Douglassa, Robert S. Knox

Oceanic influences on recent continental warming (PDF)
(Climate Dynamics, Volume 32, Numbers 2-3, pp. 333-342, February 2009)
- G.P. Compo, P.D. Sardeshmukh

On a possibility of estimating the feedback sign of the Earth climate system (PDF)
(Proceedings of the Estonian Academy of Sciences: Engineering, Volume 13, Number 3, pp. 260-268, September 2007)
- Olavi Kamer

On global forces of nature driving the Earth’s climate. Are humans involved? (PDF)
(Environmental Geology, Volume 50, Number 6, August 2006)
- L. F. Khilyuk, G. V. Chilingar

On nonstationarity and antipersistency in global temperature series (PDF)
(Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 107, Issue D20, October 2002)
- Olavi Kamer

On the credibility of climate predictions (PDF)
(Hydrological Sciences Journal, Volume 53, Number 4, pp. 671-684, August 2008)
- D. Koutsoyiannis, A. Efstratiadis, N. Mamassis, and A. Christofides

On the determination of climate feedbacks from ERBE data (PDF)
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 36, Issue 16, August 2009)
- Richard S. Lindzen, Yong-Sang Choi

On the sensitivity of the atmosphere to the doubling of the carbon dioxide concentration and on water vapour feedback
(Energy & Environment, Volume 17, Number 4, pp. 603-607, July 2006)
- Jack Barrett, David Bellamy, Heinz Hug

Overlooked scientific issues in assessing hypothesized greenhouse gas warming (PDF)
(Environmental Software, Volume 6, Number 2, pp. 100-107, 1991)
- Roger A. Pielke Sr.

Potential Biases in Feedback Diagnosis from Observational Data: A Simple Model Demonstration (PDF)
(Journal of Climate, Volume 21, Issue 21, November 2008)
- Roy W. Spencer, William D. Braswell

Potential Consequences of Increasing Atmospheric CO2 Concentration Compared to Other Environmental Problems (PDF)
(Technology, Volume 7S, pp. 189-213, 2000)
- Indur M. Goklany

Potential Dependence of Global Warming on the Residence Time (RT) in the Atmosphere of Anthropogenically Sourced Carbon Dioxide
(Energy Fuels, Volume 23, Number 5, pp 2773–2784, April 2009)
- Robert H. Essenhigh

Problems in evaluating regional and local trends in temperature: an example from eastern Colorado, USA (PDF)
(International Journal of Climatology, Volume 22, Issue 4, pp. 421-434, April 2002)
- Roger A. Pielke Sr. et al.

- Response to W. Aeschbach-Hertig rebuttal of “On global forces of nature driving the Earth’s climate. Are humans involved?” by L. F. Khilyuk and G. V. Chilingar
(Environmental Geology, Volume 54, Number 7, June 2008)
- L. F. Khilyuk, G. V. Chilingar

Phanerozoic Climatic Zones and Paleogeography with a Consideration of Atmospheric CO2 Levels
(Paleontological Journal, Volume 2, pp. 3-11, February 2003)
- A. J. Boucot, Chen Xu, C. R. Scotese

Proxy climatic and environmental changes of the past 1000 years (PDF)
(Climate Research, Volume 23, Number 2, pp. 89–110, January 2003)
- Willie H. Soon, Sallie L. Baliunas

Quantifying the influence of anthropogenic surface processes and inhomogeneities on gridded global climate data (PDF)
(Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 112, Issue D24, December 2007)
- Ross R. McKitrick, Patrick J. Michaels

Rate and Magnitude of Past Global Climate Changes (PDF)
(Environmental Geosciences, Volume 6, Number 2, pp. 63-75, June 1999)
- John P. Bluemle, Joseph M. Sabel, Wibjörn Karlén

Rate of Increasing Concentrations of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Controlled by Natural Temperature Variations (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 19, Number 7, pp. 995-1011, December 2008)
- Fred Goldberg

Recent Changes in the Climate: Natural or Forced by Human Activity
(Ambio, Volume 37, Number sp14, pp. 483–488, November 2008)
- Wibjörn Karlén

Recent climate observations disagreement with projections (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 20, Number 4, pp. 595-596, August 2009)
- David R. B. Stockwell

Recent Global Warming: An Artifact of a Too-Short Temperature Record? (PDF)
(Ambio, Volume 34, Number 3, pp. 263–264, May 2005)
- Wibjörn Karlén

Review and impacts of climate change uncertainties
(Futures, Volume 25, Number 8, pp. 850-863, 1993)
- M.E. Fernau, W.J. Makofske, D.W. South

Revised 21st century temperature projections (PDF)
(Climate Research, Volume 23, Number 1, pp. 1–9, 2002)
- Patrick J. Michaels, Paul C. Knappenberger, Oliver W. Frauenfeld, Robert E. Davis

Science, Equity, and the War against Carbon
(Science, Technology & Human Values, Volume 28, Number 1, pp. 69-92, 2003)
- Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen

Scientific Consensus on Climate Change? (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 19, Number 2, pp. 281-286, March 2008)
- Klaus-Martin Schulte

Seductive Simulations? Uncertainty Distribution Around Climate Models (PDF)
(Social Studies of Science, Volume 35, Number 6, pp. 895-922, December 2005)
- Myanna Lahsen

Some Coolness Concerning Global Warming (PDF)
(Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Volume 71, Issue 3, pp. 288–299, March 1990)
- Richard S. Lindzen

Some examples of negative feedback in the Earth climate system (PDF)
(Central European Journal of Physics, Volume 3, Number 2, June 2005)
- Olavi Kärner

Sources and Sinks of Carbon Dioxide (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 20, Numbers 1-2 , pp. 105-121, January 2009)
- Tom Quirk

Statistical analysis does not support a human influence on climate
(Energy & Environment, Volume 13, Number 3, pp. 329-331, July 2002)
- S. Fred Singer

Surface Temperature Variations in East Africa and Possible Causes
(Journal of Climate, Volume 22, Issue 12, pp. 3342–335, June 2009)
- John R. Christy, William B. Norris, Richard T. McNider

Taking GreenHouse Warming Seriously (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 937-950, December 2007)
- Richard S. Lindzen

Temperature trends in the lower atmosphere
(Energy & Environment, Volume 17, Number 5, pp. 707-714, September 2006)
- Vincent Gray

Temporal Variability in Local Air Temperature Series Shows Negative Feedback (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 1059-1072, December 2007)
- Olavi Kärner

Test for harmful collinearity among predictor variables used in modeling global temperature (PDF)
(Climate Research, Volume 24, Number 1, pp. 15-18, June 2003)
- David H. Douglass, B. David Clader, John R. Christy, Patrick J. Michaels, David A. Belsley

The carbon dioxide thermometer and the cause of global warming
(Energy & Environment, Volume 10, Number 1, pp. 1-18, January 1999)
- N. Calder

The cause of global warming (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 11, Number 6, pp. 613-629, November 2000)
- Vincent Gray

The continuing search for an anthropogenic climate change signal: Limitations of correlation-based approaches
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 24, Number 18, pp. 2319–2322, 1997)
- David R. Legates, Robert E. Davis

The Double Standard in Environmental Science (PDF)
(Regulation, Volume 30, Number 2, pp.16-22, 2007)
- Stanley W. Trimble

The Fraud Allegation Against Some Climatic Research of Wei-Chyung Wang (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 985-995, December 2007)
- Douglas J. Keenan

The Global Warming Debate: A Review of the State of Science (PDF)
(Pure and Applied Geophysics, Volume 162, Issue 8-9, pp. 1557-1586, August 2005)
Madhav L. Khandekar, TS Murty, P Chittibabu

The greenhouse effect and global change: review and reappraisal
(International Journal of Environmental Studies, Volume 36, Numbers 1-2, pp. 55-71, July 1990)
- Patrick J. Michaels

The “Greenhouse Effect” as a Function of Atmospheric Mass
(Energy & Environment, Volume 14, Numbers 2-3, pp. 351-356, May 2003)
- Hans Jelbring

The Interaction of Climate Change and the Carbon Dioxide Cycle
(Energy & Environment, Volume 16, Number 2, pp. 217-238, March 2005)
- Arthur Rörsch, Richard S. Courtney, Dick Thoenes

The Letter Science Magazine Rejected
(Energy & Environment, Volume 16, Numbers 3-4, pp. 685-688, July 2005)
- Benny Peiser

The roles of carbon dioxide and water vapour in warming and cooling the earth’s troposphere
(Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy, Volume 51, Issue 3, Pages 415-417, March 1995)
- Jack Barrett

The value of climate forecasting
(Surveys in Geophysics, Volume 7, Number 3, June 1985)
- Garth W. Paltridge

The Way of Warming (PDF)
(Regulation, Volume 23, Number 3, 2000)
- Patrick J. Michaels

“The Wernerian syndrome”; aspects of global climate change; an analysis of assumptions, data, and conclusions
(Environmental Geosciences, Volume 3, Number 4, pp. 204-210, December 1996)
- Lee C. Gerhard

Trend Analysis of RSS and UAH MSU Global Temperature Data (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 20, Number 7, pp. 1087-1098, October 2009)
- Craig Loehle

Trends in middle- and upper-level tropospheric humidity from NCEP reanalysis data (PDF)
(Theoretical and Applied Climatology, Volume 98, Numbers 3-4, pp. 351-359, February 2009)
- Garth Paltridge, Albert Arking, Michael Pook

Tropospheric temperature change since 1979 from tropical radiosonde and satellite measurements
(Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 112, Issue D6, March 2007)
- John R. Christy, William B. Norris, Roy W. Spencer, Justin J. Hnilo

Uncertainties in assessing global warming during the 20th century: disagreement between key data sources
(Energy & Environment, Volume 17, Number 5, pp. 685-706, September 2006)
- Maxim Ogurtsov, Markus Lindholm

Unresolved issues with the assessment of multidecadal global land surface temperature trends (PDF)
(Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 112, Issue D24, December 2007)
- Roger A. Pielke Sr. et al.

- Reply to comment by David E. Parker et al. on “Unresolved issues with the assessment of multidecadal global land surface temperature trends” (PDF)
(Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 114, Issue D5, March 2009)
- Roger A. Pielke Sr. et al.

Useless Arithmetic: Ten Points to Ponder When Using Mathematical Models in Environmental Decision Making (PDF)
(Public Administration Review, Volume 68, Issue 3, pp. 470-479, March 2008)
- Linda Pilkey-Jarvis, Orrin H. Pilkey

Validity of climate change forecasting for public policy decision making (PDF)
(International Journal of Forecasting, doi:10.1016, May 2009)
- Kesten C. Green, J. Scott Armstrong, Willie Soon

What may we conclude about global tropospheric temperature trends?
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 31, Issue 6, March 2004)
- John R. Christy, William B. Norris

When Was The Hottest Summer? A State Climatologist Struggles for an Answer
(Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Volume 83, Issue 5, pp. 723-734, May 2002)
- John R. Christy

An Inconvenient Truth:

An Inconvenient Truth : a focus on its portrayal of the hydrologic cycle
(GeoJournal, Volume 70, Number 1, pp. 15-19, September 2007)
- David R. Legates

An Inconvenient Truth : blurring the lines between science and science fiction
(GeoJournal, Volume 70, Number 1, pp. 11-14, September 2007)
- Roy W. Spencer

Antarctica:

A doubling in snow accumulation in the western Antarctic Peninsula since 1850
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 35, Issue 1, January 2008)
- Elizabeth R. Thomas, Gareth J. Marshall, Joseph R. McConnell

Active volcanism beneath the West Antarctic ice sheet and implications for ice-sheet stability
(Nature, Volume 361, Number 6412, p. 526-529, February 1993)
- Donald D. Blankenship et al.

An updated Antarctic melt record through 2009 and its linkages to high-latitude and tropical climate variability
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 36, Issue 18, September 2009)
- Marco Tedesco, Andrew J. Monaghan

Antarctic climate cooling and terrestrial ecosystem response
(Nature, Volume 415, Number 6871, pp. 517-520, January 2002)
- Peter T. Doran et al.

First survey of Antarctic sub–ice shelf sediments reveals mid-Holocene ice shelf retreat
(Geology, Volume 29, Number 9, pp. 787-790, September 2001)
- Carol J. Pudsey, Jeffrey Evans

Orbitally induced oscillations in the East Antarctic ice sheet at the Oligocene/Miocene boundary
(Nature, Volume 413, Number 6857, pp. 719-723 , October 2001)
- Tim R. Naish et al.

Past and Future Grounding-Line Retreat of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet
(Science, Volume 286. Number 5438, pp. 280-283, October 1999)
- H. Conway, B. L. Hall, G. H. Denton, A. M. Gades, E. D. Waddington

Snowfall-Driven Growth in East Antarctic Ice Sheet Mitigates Recent Sea-Level Rise
(Science, Volume 308, Number 5730, pp. 1898-1901, June 2005)
- Curt H. Davis, Yonghong Li, Joseph R. McConnell, Markus M. Frey, Edward Hanna

Arctic:

Actual and insolation-weighted Northern Hemisphere snow cover and sea-ice between 1973–2002
(Climate Dynamics, Volume 22, Issue 6-7, pp. 591-595, June 2004)
- Roger A. Pielke Sr., G. Liston, W. Chapman, D. Robinson

Accounts from 19th-century Canadian Arctic Explorers’ Logs Reflect Present Climate Conditions
(Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union, Volume 84, Issue 40, pp. 410-412, 2003)
- James E. Overland, Kevin Wood

Arctic sea ice thickness remained constant during the 1990s
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 28, Issue 6, pp. 1039-1042, March 2001)
- P. Winsor

Has Arctic Sea Ice Rapidly Thinned? (PDF)
(Journal of Climate, Volume 15, Issue 13, pp.1691-1701, July 2002)
- Greg Holloway,Tessa Sou

Historical variability of sea ice edge position in the Nordic Seas
(Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 111, Issue C1, January 2006)
- Dmitry V. Divine, Chad Dick

Holocene fluctuations in Arctic sea-ice cover: dinocyst-based reconstructions for the eastern Chukchi Sea
(Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, Volume 45, Number 11, pp. 1377-1397, November 2008)
- J.L. McKay et al.

Sea-ice decline due to more than warming alone
(Nature, Volume 450, Issue 7166, pp. 27, November 2007)
- Julia Slingo, Rowan Sutton

Solar Arctic-Mediated Climate Variation on Multidecadal to Centennial Timescales: Empirical Evidence, Mechanistic Explanation, and Testable Consequences (PDF)
(Physical Geography, Volume 30, Number 2, March-April 2009)
- Willie H. Soon

Variable solar irradiance as a plausible agent for multidecadal variations in the Arctic-wide surface air temperature record of the past 130 years (PDF)
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 32, Issue 16, August 2005)
- Willie H. Soon

Variations in the age of Arctic sea-ice and summer sea-ice extent
(Geophyscial Research Letters, Volume 31, Issue 9, May 2004)
- Ignatius G. Rigor, John M. Wallace

Clouds:

Cloud and radiation budget changes associated with tropical intraseasonal oscillations
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 34, Issue 15, August 2007)
- Roy W. Spencer, William D. Braswell, John R. Christy, Justin Hnilo

Does the Earth Have an Adaptive Infrared Iris? (PDF)
(Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Volume 82, Issue 3, pp. 417-432, March 2001)
- Richard S. Lindzen, Ming-Dah Chou, Arthur Y. Hou

- Comment on “No Evidence for Iris” (PDF)
(Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Volume 83, Issue 9, pp. 1345–1349, September 2002)
- Richard S. Lindzen, Ming-Dah Chou, Arthur Y. Hou

- Reply to: “Tropical cirrus and water vapor: an effective Earth infrared iris feedback?” (PDF)
(Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Volume 2, Issue 2, pp. 99-101, May 2002)
- Ming-Dah Chou, Richard S. Lindzen, Arthur Y. Hou

- Comments on “The Iris Hypothesis: A Negative or Positive Cloud Feedback?” (PDF)
(Journal of Climate, Volume 15, Issue 18, September 2002)
- Ming-Dah Chou, Richard S. Lindzen, Arthur Y. Hou

- Reply to Comment on “Does the Earth Have an Adaptive Infrared Iris?” (PDF)
(Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Volume 83, Issue 4, pp. 598-600, April, 2002)
- Richard S. Lindzen, Ming-Dah Chou, Arthur Y. Hou

Radiative effect of cirrus with different optical properties over the tropics in MODIS and CERES observations (PDF)
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 33, Issue 21, November 2006)
- Yong-Sang Choi, Chang-Hoi Ho

Validation of the cloud property retrievals from the MTSAT-1R imagery using MODIS observations (PDF)
(International Journal of Remote Sensing, 2009)
- Yong-Sang Choi, Chang-Hoi Ho

CO2 lags Temperature changes:

Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration Across the Mid-Pleistocene Transition
(Science, Volume 324, Number 5934, pp. 1551-1554, June 2009)
- Bärbel Hönisch, N. Gary Hemming, David Archer, Mark Siddall, Jerry F. McManus

“The lack of a gradual decrease in interglacial PCO2 does not support the suggestion that a long-term drawdown of atmospheric CO2 was the main cause of the climate transition.”

Atmospheric CO2 Concentration from 60 to 20 kyr BP from the Taylor Dome ice core, Antarctica (PDF)
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 27, Issue 5, March 2000)
- Andreas Inderm¨uhle, Eric Monnin, Bernhard Stauer, Thomas F. Stocker

“The lag was calculated for which the correlation coefficient of the CO2 record and the corresponding temperatures values reached a maximum. The simulation yields a lag of (1200 ± 700) yr.”

Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations over the Last Glacial Termination
(Science, Volume 291. Number 5501, January 2001)
- Eric Monnin, Andreas Indermühle, André Dällenbach, Jacqueline Flückiger, Bernhard Stauffer, Thomas F. Stocker, Dominique Raynaud, Jean-Marc Barnola

“The start of the CO2 increase thus lagged the start of the [temperature] increase by 800 ± 600 years.”

Ice core records of atmospheric CO2 around the last three glacial terminations
(Science, Volume 283, Number 5408, pp. 1712-1714, March 1999)
- Hubertus Fischer, Martin Wahlen, Jesse Smith, Derek Mastroianni, Bruce Deck

“High-resolution records from Antarctic ice cores show that carbon dioxide concentrations increased by 80 to 100 parts per million by volume 600 ± 400 years after the warming of the last three deglaciations.”

Southern Hemisphere and Deep-Sea Warming Led Deglacial Atmospheric CO2 Rise and Tropical Warming
(Science, Volume 318, Issue 5849, September 2007)
- Lowell Stott, Axel Timmermann, Robert Thunell

“Deep sea temperatures warmed by ~2C between 19 and 17 ka B.P. (thousand years before present), leading the rise in atmospheric CO2 and tropical surface ocean warming by ~1000 years.”

The phase relations among atmospheric CO2 content, temperature and global ice volume over the past 420 ka (PDF)
(Quaternary Science Reviews, Volume 20, Issue 4, pp. 583-589, February 2001)
- Manfred Mudelsee

“Over the full 420 ka of the Vostok record, CO2 variations lag behind atmospheric temperature changes in the Southern Hemisphere by 1.3±1.0 ka”

Timing of Atmospheric CO2 and Antarctic Temperature Changes Across Termination III
(Science, Volume 299, Number 5613, March 2003)
- Nicolas Caillon, Jeffrey P. Severinghaus, Jean Jouzel, Jean-Marc Barnola, Jiancheng Kang, Volodya Y. Lipenkov

“The sequence of events during Termination III suggests that the CO2 increase lagged Antarctic deglacial warming by 800 ± 200 years and preceded the Northern Hemisphere deglaciation.”

Coral Reefs:

A critique of a method to determine long-term decline of coral reef ecosystems (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Number 6, pp. 783-796, November 2007)
- Peter V. Ridd

Bikini Atoll coral biodiversity resilience five decades after nuclear testing (PDF)
(Marine Pollution Bulletin, Volume 56, Issue 3, pp. 503-515, March 2008)
- Zoe T. Richardsa, Maria Begerd, Silvia Pincae, Carden C. Wallace

Coral reef calcification and climate change: The effect of ocean warming (PDF)
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 31, Number 22, November 2004)
- Ben I. McNeil, Richard J. Matear, David J. Barnes

Reef corals bleach to survive change
(Nature, Volume 411, Issue 6839, pp. 765-766, June 2001)
- Andrew C. Baker

Deaths:

Changing Heat-Related Mortality in the United States (PDF)
(Environmental Health Perspectives, Volume 111, Number 14, pp. 1712-1718, November 2003)
- Robert E. Davis, Paul C. Knappenberger, Patrick J. Michaels, Wendy M. Novicoff

Cold—an underrated risk factor for health
(Environmental Research, Volume 92, Issue 1, pp. 8-13, May 2003)
- James B. Mercer

Decadal changes in heat-related human mortality in the eastern United States (PDF)
(Climate Research, Volume 22, Number 2, pp. 175-184. September 2002)
- Robert E. Davis, Paul C. Knappenberger, Wendy M. Novicoff, Patrick J. Michaels

Global Health Threats: Global Warming in Perspective (PDF)
(Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Volume 14, Number 3, pp. 69-75, 2009)
- Indur M. Goklany

Heat related mortality in warm and cold regions of Europe: observational study
(British Medical Journal, Volume 321, Number 7262, pp. 670-673, September 2000)
- W. R. Keatinge et al.

Seasonality of climate–human mortality relationships in US cities and impacts of climate change (PDF)
(Climate Research, Volume 26, Number 1, pp. 61-76, April 2004)
- Robert E. Davis, Paul C. Knappenberger, Patrick J. Michaels,
Wendy M. Novicoff

Temperature-related mortality in France, a comparison between regions with different climates from the perspective of global warming
(International Journal of Biometeorology, Volume 51, Number 2, November 2006)
- Mohamed Laaidi, Karine Laaidi, Jean-Pierre Besancenot

U.S. Trends in Crude Death Rates Due to Extreme Heat and Cold Ascribed to Weather, 1979-97
(Technology, Volume 7S, pp. 165-173, 2000)
- Indur M. Goklany, Sorin R. Straja

Was the 2003 European summer heat wave unusual in a global context? (PDF)
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 33, Issue 23, December 2006)
- Thomas N. Chase, Klaus Wolter, Roger A. Pielke Sr., Ichtiaque Rasool

Floods:

Claim of Largest Flood on Record Proves False
(Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union, Volume 84, Number 12, pp. 109-109, 2003)
- N. A. Sheffer et al.

Floods, droughts and climate change
(South African Journal of Science, Volume 91, Number 8, pp. 403-408, August 1995)
- W.J.R. Alexander

Human Factors Explain the Increased Losses from Weather and Climate Extremes (PDF)
(Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Volume 81, Issue 3, pp.437-442, March 2000)
- Stanley A. Changnon, Roger A. Pielke Jr., David Changnon, Richard T. Sylves, Roger Pulwarty

Nine Fallacies of Floods (PDF)
(Climatic Change, Volume 42, Number 2, June 1999)
- Roger A. Pielke Jr.

No upward trends in the occurrence of extreme floods in central Europe
(Nature, Volume 425, Issue 6954, pp. 166-169, September 2003)
- Manfred Mudelsee, Michael Börngen, Gerd Tetzlaff, Uwe Grünewald

Palaeoclimatic and archaeological evidence for a 200-yr recurrence of floods and droughts linking California, Mesoamerica and South America over the past 2000 years
(Holocene, Volume 13, Number 5, pp. 763-778, 2003)
- Amdt Schimmelmann, Carina B. Lange, Betty J. Meggers

Glaciers:

Kilimanjaro Glaciers: Recent areal extent from satellite data and new interpretation of observed 20th century retreat rates (PDF)
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 33, Issue 16, August 2006)
- Nicolas J. Cullen et al.

Modern Glacier Retreat on Kilimanjaro as Evidence of Climate Change: Observations and Fact (PDF)
(International journal of climatology, Volume 24, Number 3, pp. 329-339, March 2004)
- Georg Kaser et al.

Recent glacier advances in Norway and New Zealand: A comparison of their glaciological and meteorological causes
(Geografiska Annaler: Series A, Physical Geography, Volume 87, Issue 1, pp. 141-157, March 2005)
- T. Chinn et al.

The Shrinking Glaciers of Kilimanjaro: Can Global Warming Be Blamed?
(American Scientist, Volume 95, Number 4, pp. 318-325, July 2007)
- PW Mote, G Kaser

Very high-elevation Mont Blanc glaciated areas not affected by the 20th century climate change
(Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 112, Issue D9, May 2007)
- C. Vincent, E. Le Meur, D. Six, M. Funk, M. Hoelzle, S. Preunkert

Greenland:

Global Warming and the Greenland Ice Sheet (PDF)
(Climatic Change, Volume 63, Numbers 1-2, pp. 201-221, March 2004)
- Petr Chylek, Jason E. Box, Glen Lesins

Greenland warming of 1920–1930 and 1995–2005
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 33, Issue 11, June 2006)
- Petr Chylek, M. K. Dubey, G. Lesins

Rapid Changes in Ice Discharge from Greenland Outlet Glaciers
(Science, Volume 315, Number 5818, pp. 1559-1561, March 2007)
- Ian M. Howat, Ian Joughin, Ted A. Scambos

Recent cooling in coastal southern Greenland and relation with the North Atlantic Oscillation
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 30, Issue 3, pp. 32-1, February 2003)
- Edward Hanna, John Cappelen

Recent Ice-Sheet Growth in the Interior of Greenland
(Science, Volume 310, Number 5750, pp. 1013-1016, November 2005)
- Ola M. Johannessen, Kirill Khvorostovsky, Martin W. Miles, Leonid P. Bobylev

Gulf Stream:

Gulf Stream safe if wind blows and Earth turns
(Nature, Volume 428, Issue 6983, April 2004)
- Carl Wunsch

Hockey Stick: (MBH98)

Corrections to the Mann et al (1998) Proxy Data Base and Northern Hemisphere Average Temperature Series (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 14, Number 6, pp. 751-771, November 2003)
- Stephen McIntyre, Ross McKitrick

The M&M Critique of the MBH98 Northern Hemisphere Climate Index: Update and Implications (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 16, Number 1, pp. 69-100, January 2005)
- Stephen McIntyre, Ross McKitrick

Hockey sticks, principal components, and spurious significance (PDF)
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 32, Issue 3, February 2005)
- Stephen McIntyre, Ross McKitrick

“Their method, when tested on persistent red noise, nearly always produces a hockey stick shape”

- Reply to comment by Huybers on “Hockey sticks, principal components, and spurious significance” (PDF)
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 32, October 2005)
- Stephen McIntyre, Ross McKitrick

- Reply to comment by von Storch and Zorita on “Hockey sticks, principal components, and spurious significance” (PDF)
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 32, October 2005)
- Stephen McIntyre, Ross McKitrick

Highly variable Northern Hemisphere temperatures reconstructed from low- and high-resolution proxy data (PDF)
(Nature, Volume 433, Issue 7026, pp. 613-617, February 2005)
- Anders Moberg, Dmitry M. Sonechkin, Karin Holmgren, Nina M. Datsenko and Wibjörn Karlén

Comment on “The Spatial Extent of 20th-Century Warmth in the Context of the Past 1200 Years”
(Science, Volume 316, Number 5833, pp. 1844, June 2007)
- Gerd Bürger

Bias and Concealment in the IPCC Process: The “Hockey-Stick” Affair and Its Implications
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 951-983, December 2007)
- David Holland

A mathematical analysis of the divergence problem in dendroclimatology (PDF)
(Climatic Change, Volume 94, Numbers 3-4, pp. 233-245, June 2008)
- C. Loehle

Proxy inconsistency and other problems in millennial paleoclimate reconstructions (PDF)
(Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 106, Number 6, February 2009)
- Stephen McIntyre, Ross McKitrick

Hurricanes:

Are there trends in hurricane destruction? (PDF)
(Nature, Volume 438, Number 7071, pp. E11, December 2005)
- Roger A. Pielke Jr.

Can We Detect Trends in Extreme Tropical Cyclones? (PDF)
(Science, Volume 313, Number 5786, pp. 452-454, July 2006)
- Christopher W. Landsea, Bruce A. Harper, Karl Hoarau, John A. Knaff

Causes of the Unusually Destructive 2004 Atlantic Basin Hurricane Season (PDF)
(Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Volume 87, Issue 10, October 2006)
- Philip J. Klotzbach, William M. Gray

Comments on “Impacts of CO2-Induced Warming on Simulated Hurricane Intensity and Precipitation: Sensitivity to the Choice of Climate Model and Convective Scheme”
(Journal of Climate, Volume 18, Issue 23, December 2005)
- Patrick J. Michaels, Paul C. Knappenberger, Christopher Landsea

Counting Atlantic Tropical Cyclones Back to 1900 (PDF)
(Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union, Volume 88, Number 18, pp. 197, May 2007)
- Christopher W. Landsea

Hurricanes and Global Warming (PDF)
(Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Volume 86, Issue 11, November 2005)
- Roger A. Pielke Jr., Christopher W. Landsea, M. Mayfield, J. Laver, R. Pasch

- Reply to “Hurricanes and Global Warming—Potential Linkages and Consequences” (PDF)
(Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Volume 87, Issue 5, May 2006)
- Roger A. Pielke Jr., Christopher W. Landsea, M. Mayfield, J. Laver, R. Pasch

Hurricanes and Global Warming (PDF)
(Nature, Volume 438, Number 7071, pp. E11-E12, December 2005)
- Christopher W. Landsea

Landscape and Regional Impacts of Hurricanes in New England
(Ecological Monographs, Volume 71, Number 1, pp. 27-48, February 2001)
- Emery R. Boose, Kristen E. Chamberlin, David R. Foster

Normalized Hurricane Damages in the United States: 1925–95 (PDF)
(Weather and Forecasting, Volume 13, Issue 3, September 1998)
- Roger A. Pielke Jr., Christopher W. Landsea

Normalized Hurricane Damage in the United States: 1900–2005 (PDF)
(Natural Hazards, Volume 9, Issue 1, pp. 29-42, February 2008)
- Roger A. Pielke Jr., Joel Gratz, Christopher W. Landsea, Douglas Collins, Mark A. Saunders, Rade Musulin6

Sea-surface temperatures and tropical cyclones in the Atlantic basin
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 33, Issue 9, May 2006)
- Patrick J. Michaels, Paul C. Knappenberger, Robert E. Davis

Simulated reduction in Atlantic hurricane frequency under twenty-first-century warming conditions
(Nature Geoscience, Volume 1, Number 6, pp. 359-364, June 2008)
- Thomas R. Knutson et al.

Trends in global tropical cyclone activity over the past twenty years (1986–2005) (PDF)
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 33, Issue 11, May 2006)
- Philip J. Klotzbach

Tropical Cyclones and Global Climate Change: A Post-IPCC Assessment (PDF)
(Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Volume 79, Issue 1, January 1998)
- A. Henderson-Sellers, H. Zhang, G. Berz, K. Emanuel, W. Gray, C. Landsea, G. Holland, J. Lighthill, S.-L. Shieh, P. Webster, K. McGuffie

Malaria:

Climate Change and Mosquito-Borne Disease (PDF)
(Environmental Health Perspectives, Volume 109, Supplement 1, March 2001)
- Paul Reiter

From Shakespeare to Defoe: Malaria in England in the Little Ice Age (PDF)
(Emerging Infectious Diseases, Volume 6, Number 1, January–February 2000)
- Paul Reiter

Global warming and malaria: a call for accuracy
(Lancet Infectious Diseases, Volume 4, Issue 6, pp. 323-324, June 2004)
- Paul Reiter, C. Thomas, P. Atkinson, S. Hay, S. Randolph, D. Rogers, G. Shanks, R. Snow, A. Spielman

Global warming and malaria: knowing the horse before hitching the cart
(Malaria Journal, Volume 7, Supplement 1, December 2008)
- Paul Reiter

Malaria and Global Warming in Perspective? (PDF)
(Emerging Infectious Diseases, Volume 6, Number 4, pp. 438-9. July-August 2000)
- Paul Reiter

Medieval Warming Period – Little Ice Age:

A 700 year record of Southern Hemisphere extratropical climate variability
(Annals of Glaciology, Volume 39, Number 1, pp.127-132, June 2004)
- P.A Mayewski et al.

Caribbean sea surface temperatures: Two‐to‐three degrees cooler than present during the Little Ice Age
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 27, Issue 20, pp. 3365-3368, Octonber 2000)
- Amos Winter, Hiroshi Ishioroshi, Tsuyoshi Watanabe, Tadamichi Oba, John R. Christy

Coherent High- and Low-Latitude Climate Variability During the Holocene Warm Period
(Science, Volume 288, Number 5474, pp. 2198-2202, June 2000)
- Peter deMenocal, Joseph Ortiz, Tom Guilderson, Michael Sarnthein

Evidence for a ‘Medieval Warm Period’ in a 1,100 year tree-ring reconstruction of past austral summer temperatures in New Zealand
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 29, Number 14, pp. 1-4, July 2002)
- E. R. Cook, J. G. Palmer, R. D’Arrigo

Evidence for a warmer period during the 12th and 13th centuries AD from chironomid assemblages in Southampton Island, Nunavut, Canada
(Quaternary Research, Volume 72, Issue 1, pp. 27-37, July 2009)
- Nicolas Rolland et al.

Evidence for the existence of the medieval warm period in China
(Climatic Change, Volume 26, Numbers 2-3, pp. 289-297, March 1994)
- De’Er Zhang

Glacial geological evidence for the medieval warm period
(Climatic Change, Volume 26, Numbers 2-3, pp. 143-169, March 1994)
- Jean M. Grove, Roy Switsur

Late Holocene surface ocean conditions of the Norwegian Sea (Vøring Plateau)
(Paleoceanography, Volume 18, Number 2, June 2003)
- Carin Andersson, Bjørg Risebrobakken, Eystein Jansen, Svein Olaf Dahl

Low-Frequency Signals in Long Tree-Ring Chronologies for Reconstructing Past Temperature Variability
(Science, Volume 295, Number 5563, pp. 2250-2253, March 2002)
- Jan Esper, Edward R. Cook, Fritz H. Schweingruber

Medieval climate warming and aridity as indicated by multiproxy evidence from the Kola Peninsula, Russia
(Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, Volume 209, Issues 1-4, pp. 113-125, July 2004)
- K. V. Kremenetski, T. Boettger, G. M. MacDonald, T. Vaschalova, L. Sulerzhitsky, A. Hiller

Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age and 20th century temperature variability from Chesapeake Bay
(Global and Planetary Change, Volume 36, Issues 1-2, pp. 17-29, March 2003)
- T. M. Cronin, G. S. Dwyer, T. Kamiya, S. Schwede, D. A. Willard

Reconstructing Climatic and Environmental Changes of the Past 1000 Years: A Reappraisal (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 14, Numbers 2-3, pp. 233-296, May 2003)
- Willie H. Soon, Sallie L. Baliunas, Sherwood B. Idso, Craig Idso, David R. Legates

“Many records reveal that the 20th century is likely not the warmest nor a uniquely extreme climatic period of the last millennium.”

The Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period in the Sargasso Sea
(Science, Volume 274, Number 5292, pp. 1503-1508, November 29, 1996)
- Lloyd D. Keigwin

The Little Ice Age and Medieval Warming in South Africa
(South African Journal of Science, Volume 96, Number 3, pp. 121-126, 2000)
- P. D. Tyson, W. Karlén, K. Holmgren and G. A. Heiss

The Little Ice Age as Recorded in the Stratigraphy of the Tropical Quelccaya Ice Cap
(Science, Volume 234, Number 4774, pp. 361-364, October 1986)
- L.G. Thompson, E. Mosley-Thompson, W. Dansgaard, P.M. Grootes

The ‘Mediaeval Warm Period’ drought recorded in Lake Huguangyan, tropical South China
(Holocene, Volume 12, Number 5, pp. 511-516, 2002)
- Guoqiang Chu, Jiaqi Liu, Qing Sun, Houyuan Lu, Zhaoyan Gu, Wenyuan Wang, Tungsheng Liu

The Medieval Warm Period in the Daihai Area
(Journal of Lake Sciences, Volume 14, Number 3, pp. 209-216, September 2002)
- Z. Jin, J. Shen, S. Wang, E. Zhang

Time scales and trends in the central England temperature data (1659–1990): A wavelet analysis
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 24, Issue 11, pp. 1351-1354, June 1997)
- Sallie Baliunas, Peter Frick, Dmitry Sokoloff, Willie Soon

Torneträsk tree-ring width and density ad 500–2004: a test of climatic sensitivity and a new 1500-year reconstruction of north Fennoscandian summers
(Climate Dynamics, Volume 31, Numbers 7-8, December 2008)
- Håkan Grudd

Tree-ring and glacial evidence for the medieval warm epoch and the little ice age in southern South America
(Climatic Change, Volume 26, Numbers 2-3, March 1994)
- Ricardo Villalba

Was the Medieval Warm Period Global? (PDF)
(Science, Volume 291, Number 5508, pp. 1497-1499, February 2001)
- Wallace S. Broecker

“The Little Ice Age and the subsequent warming were global in extent. Several Holocene fluctuations in snowline, comparable in magnitude to that of the post-Little Ice Age warming, occurred in the Swiss Alps. Borehole records both in polar ice and in wells from all continents suggest the existence of a Medieval Warm Period. Finally, two multidecade-duration droughts plagued the western United States during the latter part of the Medieval Warm Period. I consider this evidence sufficiently convincing to merit an intensification of studies aimed at elucidating Holocene climate fluctuations, upon which the warming due to greenhouse gases is superimposed.”

Ocean Acidification:

Elevated water temperature and carbon dioxide concentration increase the growth of a keystone echinoderm
(Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 106, Issue 23, pp. 9316-9321, June 2009)
- Rebecca A. Gooding, Christopher D. G. Harley, Emily Tang

Modern-age buildup of CO2 and its effects on seawater acidity and salinity
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 33, Number 10, May 2006)
- Hugo A. Loáiciga

“This paper’s results concerning average seawater salinity and acidity show that, on a global scale and over the time scales considered (hundreds of years), there would not be accentuated changes in either seawater salinity or acidity from the observed or hypothesized rises in atmospheric CO2 concentrations.”

Phytoplankton Calcification in a High-CO2 World
(Science, Volume 320, Number 5874, pp. 336-340, April 2008)
- M. Debora Iglesias-Rodriguez et al.

Permafrost:

Ancient Permafrost and a Future, Warmer Arctic
(Science, Volume 321, Number 5896, pp. 1648, September 2008)
- Duane G. Froese, John A. Westgate, Alberto V. Reyes, Randolph J. Enkin, Shari J. Preece

“We report the presence of relict ground ice in subarctic Canada that is greater than 700,000 years old, with the implication that ground ice in this area has survived past interglaciations that were warmer and of longer duration than the present interglaciation.”

Near-surface permafrost degradation: How severe during the 21st century?
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 34, Issue 9, May 2007)
- G. Delisle

“Based on paleoclimatic data and in consequence of this study, it is suggested that scenarios calling for massive release of methane in the near future from degrading permafrost are questionable.”

Polar Bears:

Polar bears of western Hudson Bay and climate change: Are warming spring air temperatures the “ultimate” survival control factor? (PDF)
(Ecological Complexity, Volume 4, Issue 3, pp. 73-84, September 2007)
- M.G. Dyck, W. Soon, R.K. Baydack, D.R. Legates, S. Baliunas, T.F. Ball, L.O. Hancock

- Reply to response to Dyck et al. (2007) on polar bears and climate change in western Hudson Bay by Stirling et al. (2008)
(Ecological Complexity, Volume 5, Issue 4, pp. 289-302, December 2008)
- M.G. Dyck, W. Soon, R.K. Baydack, D.R. Legates, S. Baliunas, T.F. Ball, L.O. Hancock

Polar Bear Population Forecasts: A Public-Policy Forecasting Audit (PDF)
(Interfaces, Volume 75, April 2008)
- J. Scott Armstrong, Kesten C. Green, Willie H. Soon

Sea Level:

Estimating future sea level changes from past records (PDF)
(Global and Planetary Change, Volume 40, Issues 1-2, pp. 49-54, January 2004)
- Nils-Axel Mörner

- Comment on comment by Nerem et al. (2007) on “Estimating future sea level changes from past records” by Nils-Axel Mörner (2004)
(Global and Planetary Change, Volume 62, Issues 3-4, Pages 219-220, June 2008)
- Nils-Axel Mörner

Geocentric sea-level trend estimates from GPS analyses at relevant tide gauges world-wide (PDF)
(Global and Planetary Change, Volume 57, Issues 3-4, pp. 396-406, June 2007)
- G. Wöppelmann, B. Martin Miguez, M.-N. Bouin, Z. Altamimi

Global Warming and Sea Level Rise (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 20, Number 7, pp. 1067-1074, 2009)
- Madhav L. Khandekar

New perspectives for the future of the Maldives (PDF)
(Global and Planetary Change, Volume 40, Issue 1-2, pp. 177-182, January 2004)
- Nils-Axel Mörner, Michael Tooley, Goran Possnert

- Reply to the comment of P.S. Kench et al. on “New perspectives for the future of the Maldives” by N.A. Morner et al.
(Global and Planetary Change, Volume 47, Issue 1, pp. 70-71, February 2005)
- Nils-Axel Mörner, Michael Tooley

Snowfall-Driven Growth in East Antarctic Ice Sheet Mitigates Recent Sea-Level Rise
(Science, Volume 308, Number 5730, pp. 1898-1901, June 2005)
- Curt H. Davis, Yonghong Li, Joseph R. McConnell, Markus M. Frey, Edward Hanna)

Sea Level Changes and Tsunamis, Environmental Stress and Migration Overseas: The Case of the Maldives and Sri Lanka (PDF)
(International Quarterly for Asian Studies, Volume 38, Number 3–4, pp. 353–374, November 2007)
- Nils-Axel Mörner

The Maldives project: a future free from sea-level flooding
(Contemporary South Asia, Volume 13, Number 2, pp. 149-155, June 2004)
- Nils-Axel Mörner

Species Extinctions:

Dangers of crying wolf over risk of extinctions
(Nature, Volume 428, Issue 6985, pp. 799, April 2004)
- Richard J. Ladle, Paul Jepson, Miguel B. Araújo & Robert J. Whittaker

Riding the Wave: Reconciling the Roles of Disease and Climate Change in Amphibian Declines
(PLoS Biology, Volume 6, Number 3, pp. 441-454, March 2008)
- Karen R. Lips, Jay Diffendorfer, Joseph R. Mendelson III, Michael W. Sears

Storms:

Changes in Global Monsoon Circulations Since 1950
(Natural Hazards, Volume 29, Number 2, pp. 229-254, June 2003)
- T. N. Chase, J. A. Knaff, R. A. Pielke Sr., E. Kalnay

Changing storminess? An analysis of long-term sea level data sets (PDF)
(Climate Research, Volume 11, Number 2, pp. 161-172, March 1999)
- W. Bijl, R. Flather, J. G. de Ronde, T. Schmith

Characteristics of long-duration precipitation events across the United States
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 34, Issue 22, November 2007)
- David M. Brommer, Randall S. Cerveny, Robert C. Balling Jr.

Climate change and extratropical storminess in the United States: An assessment?
(Journal of the American Water Resources Association, Volume 35, Number 6, pp. 1387-1398, December 1999)
- Bruce P. Hayden

Comment on WMO Statement on Extreme Weather Events
(Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union, Volume 84, Issue 41, pp. 428-428 , February 2003)
- Madhav L. Khandekar

Compilation and Discussion of Trends in Severe Storms in the United States: Popular Perception v. Climate Reality
(Natural Hazards, Volume 29, Number 2, pp. 103-112, June 2003)
- Robert C. Balling Jr., Randall S. Cerveny

Extreme Weather Trends Vs. Dangerous Climate Change: A Need for Critical Reassessment
(Energy & Environment, Volume 16, Number 2, pp. 327-332, March 2005)
- Madhav L. Khandekar

Indian Monsoon Variability in a Global Warming Scenario
(Natural Hazards, Volume 29, Number 2, pp. 189-206, June 2003)
- R. H. Kripalani, Ashwini Kulkarni, S. S. Sabade, M. L Khandekar

North American Trends in Extreme Precipitation
(Natural Hazards, Volume 29, Number 2, pp. 291-305, June, 2003)
- Kenneth E. Kunkel

Scandinavian storminess since about 1800
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 31, Issue 20, October 2004)
- Lars Bärring, Hans von Storch

Seasonal, interannual, and decadal variability of storm surges at Tauranga, New Zealand
(New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, Volume 34, Number 3, pp. 419-434, September 2000)
- W. P. De Lange, J. G. Gibb

Surges, atmospheric pressure and wind change and flooding probability on the Atlantic coast of France
(Oceanologica Acta, Volume 23, Number 6, pp. 643-661, November 2000)
- P.A. Pirazzoli

Trends in precipitation on the wettest days of the year across the contiguous USA?
(International Journal of Climatology, Volume 24, Number 15, pp. 1873-1882, December 2004)
- Patrick J. Michaels, Paul C. Knappenberger, Oliver W. Frauenfeld, Robert E. Davis

Twentieth-Century Storm Activity along the U.S. East Coast (PDF)
(Journal of Climate, Volume 13, Issue 10, pp. 1748-1761, May 2000)
- Keqi Zhang, Bruce C. Douglas, Stephen P. Leatherman

Tornadoes:

Normalized Damage from Major Tornadoes in the United States: 1890–1999 (PDF)
(Weather and Forecasting, Volume 16, Issue 1, pp. 168-176, February 2001)
- Harold E. Brooks, Charles A. Doswell III

1,500-Year Climate Cycle:

A Pervasive Millennial-Scale Cycle in North Atlantic Holocene and Glacial Climates
(Science, Volume 278, Number 5341, pp. 1257-1266, November 1997)
- Gerard Bond et al.

A Variable Sun Paces Millennial Climate
(Science, Volume 294, Number 5546, pp. 1431-1433, November 2001)
- Richard A. Kerr

Cyclic Variation and Solar Forcing of Holocene Climate in the Alaskan Subarctic
(Science, Volume 301, Number 5641, pp. 1890-1893, September 2003)
- Feng Sheng Hu et al.

Decadal to millennial cyclicity in varves and turbidites from the Arabian Sea: hypothesis of tidal origin
(Global and Planetary Change, Volume 34, Issues 3-4, pp. 313-325, November 2002)
- W. H. Bergera, U. von Rad

Late Holocene approximately 1500 yr climatic periodicities and their implications
(Geology, Volume 26, Number 5, pp. 471-473, May 1998)
- Ian D. Campbell et al.

Possible solar origin of the 1,470-year glacial climate cycle demonstrated in a coupled model
(Nature, Volume 438, Issue 70695, pp. 208-211, November 2005)
- Holger Braun et al.

The 1,800-year oceanic tidal cycle: A possible cause of rapid climate change
(Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 97, Number 8, pp. 3814-3819, April 2000)
- Charles D. Keeling, Timothy P. Whorf

The origin of the 1500-year climate cycles in Holocene North-Atlantic records (PDF)
(Climate of the Past, Volume 3, Issue 2, pp.679-692, 2007)
- M. Debret et al.

Timing of abrupt climate change: A precise clock
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 30, Issue 10, pp. 17-1, May 2003)
- Stefan Rahmstorf

Timing of Millennial-Scale Climate Change in Antarctica and Greenland During the Last Glacial Period
(Science, Volume 291, Issue 5501, pp. 109-112, January 2001)
- Thomas Blunier, Edward J. Brook

Widespread evidence of 1500 yr climate variability in North America during the past 14 000 yr
(Geology, Volume 30, Issue 5, pp. 455-458, May 2002)
- André E. Viau et al.

Cosmic Rays:

Solar variability influences on weather and climate: Possible connections through cosmic ray fluxes and storm intensification
(Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 94, Number D12, pp. 14783-14792, October 1989)
- Brian A, Tinsley, Geoffrey M. Brown, Philip H. Scherrer

Hale-cycle effects in cosmic-ray intensity during the last four cycles
(Astrophysics and Space Science, Volume 246, Number 1, March 1996)
- H. Mavromichalaki, A. Belehaki, X. Rafios, I. Tsagouri

Variation of Cosmic Ray Flux and Global Cloud Coverage – a Missing Link in Solar-Climate Relationships (PDF)
(Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, Volume 59, Number 11, pp. 1225-1232, July 1997)
- Henrik Svensmark, Eigil Friis-Christensen

- Reply to comments on “Variation of cosmic ray flux and global cloud coverage – a missing link in solar-climate relationships” (PDF)
(Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, Volume 62, Issue 1, pp. 79-80, January 2000)
- Henrik Svensmark, Eigil Friis-Christensen

Influence of Cosmic Rays on Earth’s Climate (PDF)
(Physical Review Letters, Volume 81, Issue 22, pp. 5027-5030, November 1998)
- Henrik Svensmark

Cosmic rays and Earth’s climate (PDF)
(Space Science Reviews, Volume 93, Numbers 1-2, pp. 175-185, July 2000)
- Henrik Svensmark

Cosmic rays and climate: The influence of cosmic rays on terrestrial clouds and global warming
(Astronomy & Geophysics, Volume 41, Issue 4, pp. 4.18-4.22, August 2000)
- E Pallé Bagó, C J Butler

Cosmic Rays, Clouds, and Climate (PDF)
(Space Science Reviews, Volume 94, Numbers 1-2, pp. 215-230, November 2000)
- Nigel Marsh, Henrik Svensmark

Low cloud properties influenced by cosmic rays
(Physical Review Letters, Volume 85, Issue 23, pp. 5004-5007, December 2000)
- Nigel D Marsh, Henrik Svensmark

On the relationship of cosmic ray flux and precipitation
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 28, Number 8, pp. 1527–1530, April 2001)
- Dominic R. Kniveton and Martin C. Todd

Altitude variations of cosmic ray induced production of aerosols: Implications for global cloudiness and climate
(Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 107, Issue A7, pp. SIA 8-1, July 2002)
- Fangqun Yu

Cosmic Ray Diffusion from the Galactic Spiral Arms, Iron Meteorites, and a Possible Climatic Connection (PDF)
(Physical Review Letters, Volume 89, Number 5, July 2002)
- Nir J. Shaviv

The Spiral Structure of the Milky Way, Cosmic Rays, and Ice Age Epochs on Earth
(New Astronomy, Volume 8, Issue 1, pp. 39-77, January 2003)
- Nir J. Shaviv

Galactic cosmic ray and El Niño–Southern Oscillation trends in International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project D2 low-cloud properties
(Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 108, Number D6, pp. AAC 6-1, March 2003)
- Nigel Marsh, Henrik Svensmark

Solar Influence on Earth’s Climate
(Space Science Reviews, Volume 107, Numbers 1-2, pp. 317-325, April 2003)
- Nigel Marsh, Henrik Svensmark

Toward a solution to the early faint Sun paradox: A lower cosmic ray flux from a stronger solar wind (PDF)
(Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 108, Number A12, pp. SSH 3-1, December 2003)
- Nir J. Shaviv

Latitudinal dependence of low cloud amount on cosmic ray induced ionization
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 31, Issue 16, August 2004)
- I.G. Usoskin, N.Marsh, G.A. Kovaltsov, K.Mursula, O.G. Gladysheva

The effects of galactic cosmic rays, modulated by solar terrestrial magnetic fields, on the climate
(Russian Journal of Earth Sciences, Volume 6, Number 5, October 2004)
- V. A. Dergachev, P. B. Dmitriev, O. M. Raspopov, B. Van Geel

Formation of large NAT particles and denitrification in polar stratosphere: possible role of cosmic rays and effect of solar activity
(Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Volume 4, Issue 1, pp.1037-1062, November 2004)
- F. Yu

Long-term variations of the surface pressure in the North Atlantic and possible association with solar activity and galactic cosmic rays
(Advances in Space Research, Volume 35, Issue 3, pp. 484-490, May 2005)
- S.V. Veretenenko, , V.A. Dergachev, P.B. Dmitriyev

On climate response to changes in the cosmic ray flux and radiative budget
(Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 110, Issue A8, August 2005)
- Nir J. Shaviv

Cosmic rays and the biosphere over 4 billion years
(Astronomical Notes, Volume 327, Issue 9, pp. 871, 2006)
- Henrik Svensmark

Empirical evidence for a nonlinear effect of galactic cosmic rays on clouds (PDF)
(Proceedings of the Royal Society A, Volume 462, Issue 2068, pp. 1221-1233, April 2006)
- R. Giles Harrison, David B. Stephenson

Interstellar-Terrestrial Relations: Variable Cosmic Environments, The Dynamic Heliosphere, and Their Imprints on Terrestrial Archives and Climate
(Space Science Reviews, Volume 127, Numbers 1-4, December 2006)
- K. Scherer, H. Fichtner, T. Borrmann, J. Beer, L. Desorgher, E. Flükiger, H. Fahr, S. Ferreira, U. Langner, M. Potgieter, B. Heber, J. Masarik, N. Shaviv, J. Veizer

Cosmoclimatology: a new theory emerges (PDF)
(Astronomy & Geophysics, Volume 48, Issue 1, pp. 1.18-1.24, February 2007)
- Henrik Svensmark

Evidence for a physical linkage between galactic cosmic rays and regional climate time series
(Advances in Space Research, Volume 40, Issue 3, pp. 353-364, February 2007)
- Charles A. Perrya

Experimental evidence for the role of ions in particle nucleation under atmospheric conditions (PDF)
(Proceedings of the Royal Society A, Volume 463, Number 2078, p 385-396, February 2007)
- Henrik Svensmark et al.

200-year variations in cosmic rays modulated by solar activity and their climatic response
(Bulletin of the Russian Academy of Sciences: Physics, Volume 71, Number 7, July 2007)
- O. M. Raspopov, V. A. Dergachev

On the possible contribution of solar-cosmic factors to the global warming of XX century
(Bulletin of the Russian Academy of Sciences: Physics, Volume 71, Number 7, July 2007)
- M. G. Ogurtsov

Cosmic rays and climate of the Earth: possible connection
(Comptes Rendus Geosciences, Volume 340, Issue 7, pp. 441-450, July 2008)
- Ilya G. Usoskina, Gennady A. Kovaltsovb

Cosmic Rays and Climate
(Surveys in Geophysics, Volume 28, Numbers 5-6, November 2007)
- Jasper Kirkby

Coal and fuel burning effects on the atmosphere as mediated by the atmospheric electric field and galactic cosmic rays flux
(International Journal of Global Warming, Volume 1, Numbers 1-2, pp. 57-65, July 2009)
- Reis, A. Heitor, Serrano, Claudia

Cosmic ray decreases affect atmospheric aerosols and clouds
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 36, Issue 15, August 2009)
- Henrik Svensmark, Torsten Bondo, Jacob Svensmark

A relationship between galactic cosmic radiation and tree rings
(New Phytologist, Volume 184, Issue 3, pp. 545-551, September 2009)
- Sigrid Dengel, Dominik Aeby and John Grace

Solar:

80–120 yr Long-term solar induced effects on the earth, past and predictions
(Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, Volume 31, Issues 1-3, pp. 113-122, 2006)
- Shahinaz Moustafa Yousef

A decadal solar effect in the tropics in July–August (PDF)
(Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, Volume 66, Issue 18, pp. 1767-1778, December 2004)
- Harry van Loona, Gerald A. Meehlb, Julie M. Arblaster

A mechanism for sun-climate connection
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 32, Issue 23, December 2005)
- Sultan Hameed, Jae N. Lee

A new pathway for communicating the 11-year solar cycle signal to the QBO
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 32, Issue 18, September 2005)
- Eugene C. Cordero, Terrence R. Nathan

Amplifying the Pacific Climate System Response to a Small 11-Year Solar Cycle Forcing
(Science, Volume 325, Number 5944, pp. 1114-1118, August 2009)
- Gerald A. Meehl, Julie M. Arblaster, Katja Matthes, Fabrizio Sassi, Harry van Loon

Celestial Climate Driver: A Perspective from Four Billion Years of the Carbon Cycle (PDF)
(Geoscience Canada, Volume 32, Number 1, March 2005)
- Ján Veizer

Celestial driver of Phanerozoic climate?
(GSA Today, Volume 13, Issue 7, pp. 4-10, July 2003)
- Nir J. Shaviv, Ján Veizer

Century-scale solar variability and Alaskan temperature change over the past millennium
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 31, Issue 15, August 2004)
- Gregory C. Wiles et al.

Climate cyclicity in late Holocene anoxic marine sediments from the Seymour-Belize Inlet Complex (PDF)
(Marine Geology, Volume 242, Issues 1-3, pp. 123-140, August 2007)
- R. Timothy Patterson, Andreas Prokoph, Eduard Reinhardt, Helen M. Roe

Comparison of proxy records of climate change and solar forcing
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 23, Issue 4, pp. 359-362, February 1996)
- Crowley, Thomas J., Kim, Kwang-Yul

Cyclic Variation and Solar Forcing of Holocene Climate in the Alaskan Subarctic (PDF)
(Science, Volume 301, Number 5641, pp. 1890-1893, September 2003)
- Feng Sheng Hu et al.

Earth’s Heat Source – The Sun (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 20, Numbers 1-2, pp. 131-144, January 2009)
- Oliver K. Manuel

Earth’s Radiative Equilibrium in the Solar Irradiance (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 20, Numbers 1-2, pp. 85-95, January 2009)
- Martin Hertzberg

Eleven-year solar cycle signal throughout the lower atmosphere
(Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 109, Issue D21, November 2004)
- K. Coughlin, K. K. Tung

Evidence for a solar signature in 20th-century temperature data from the USA and Europe (PDF)
(Comptes Rendus Geosciences, Volume 340, Issue 7, pp. 421-430, July 2008)
- Jean-Louis Le Mouël, Vincent Courtillot, Elena Blanter, Mikhail Shnirman

Evidence of Solar Variation in Tree-Ring-Based Climate Reconstructions
(Solar Physics, Volume 205, Number 2, pp. 403-417, February 2002)
- M.G. Ogurtsov , G.E. Kocharov, M. Lindholm, J. Meriläinen, M. Eronen, Yu.A. Nagovitsyn

Geophysical, archaeological, and historical evidence support a solar-output model for climate change
(Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 97, Number 23, pp. 12433-12438, November 2000)
- Charles A. Perry, Kenneth J. Hsu

Global Temperature Forced by Solar Irradiation and Greenhouse Gases? (PDF)
(Ambio, Volume 30, Number 6, pp. 349-350, September 2001)
- Wibjörn Karlén

Has solar variability caused climate change that affected human culture?
(Advances in Space Research, Volume 40, Issue 7, pp. 1173-1180, March 2007)
- Joan Feynmana

Imprint of Galactic dynamics on Earth’s climate (PDF)
(Astronomical Notes, Volume 327, Issue 9, pp. 866-870, October 2006)
- H. Svensmark

Inference of Solar Irradiance Variability from Terrestrial Temperature Changes, 1880–1993: an Astrophysical Application of the Sun-Climate Connection (PDF)
(Astrophysical Journal, Volume 472, pp. 891, December 1996)
- Willie H. Soon, Eric S. Posmentier, Sallie L. Baliunas

Is solar variability reflected in the Nile River?
(Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 111, Issue D21, November 2006)
- Alexander Ruzmaikin, Joan Feynman, Yuk L. Yung

Length of the Solar Cycle: An Indicator of Solar Activity Closely Associated with Climate
(Science, Volume 254, Number 5032, pp. 698-700, November 1991)
- E. Friis-Christensen, K. Lassen

Linkages Between Solar Activity and Climatic Responses
(Energy & Environment, Volume 16, Number 2, pp. 239-254, March 2005)
- William J.R. Alexander et al.

Linkages between solar activity, climate predictability and water resource development (PDF)
(Journal of the South African Institution of Civil Engineering, Volume 49, Number 2, pp. 32–44, June 2007)
- William J.R. Alexander, F Bailey, D B Bredenkamp, A van der Merwe, N Willemse

Long-Period Cycles of the Sun’s Activity Recorded in Direct Solar Data and Proxies
(Solar Physics, Volume 211, Numbers 1-2, December 2002)
- M.G. Ogurtsov, Yu.A. Nagovitsyn, G.E. Kocharov, H. Jungner

Millennium Scale Sunspot Reconstruction: Evidence For an Unusually Active Sun Since the 1940’s (PDF)
(Physical Review Letters, Volume 91, Issue 21, November 2003)
- Ilya G. Usoskin, Sami K. Solanki, Manfred Schüssler, Kalevi Mursula, Katja Alanko

On solar forcing of Holocene climate: evidence from Scandinavia
(The Holocene, Volume 6, Number 3, pp. 359-365, 1996)
- Wibjörn Karlén, Johan Kuylenstierna

Once again about global warming and solar activity (PDF)
(Journal of the Italian Astronomical Society, Volume 76, pp. 969, 2005)
- K. Georgieva, C. Bianchi, B. Kirov

Orbital Controls on the El Niño/Southern Oscillation and the Tropical Climate
(Paleoceanogrpahy, Volume 14, Number 4, pp. 441–456, 1999)
- A. C. Clement, R. Seager, M. A. Cane

Palaeoenvironmental evidence for solar forcing of Holocene climate: linkages to solar science
(Progress in Physical Geography, Volume 23, Number 2, pp. 181-204, 1999)
- Frank M. Chambers, Michael I. Ogle, Jeffrey J. Blackford

Persistent Solar Influence on North Atlantic Climate During the Holocene
(Science, Volume 294, Number 5549, pp. 2130-2136, December 2001)
- Gerard Bond et al.

Phenomenological solar contribution to the 1900–2000 global surface warming (PDF)
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 33, Issue 5, March 2006)
- N. Scafetta, B. J. West

Phenomenological solar signature in 400 years of reconstructed Northern Hemisphere temperature record (PDF)
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 33, Issue 17, September 2006)
- N. Scafetta, B. J. West

Possible geomagnetic activity effects on weather
(Annales Geophysicae, Volume 17, Number 7, pp. 925-932, July 1999)
- J. Bochníček, P. Hejda1, V. Bucha, J. Pýcha

Possible solar forcing of century-scale drought frequency in the northern Great Plains
(Geology, Volume 27, Number 3, pp. 263-266, Mar 1999)
- Zicheng Yu, Emi Ito

Regional tropospheric responses to long-term solar activity variations
(Advances in Space Research, Volume 40, Issue 7, pp. 1167-1172, 2007)
- O.M. Raspopov, V.A. Dergachev, A.V. Kuzmin, O.V. Kozyreva, M.G. Ogurtsov, T. Kolström and E. Lopatin

Rhodes Fairbridge and the idea that the solar system regulates the Earth’s climate (PDF)
(Journal of Coastal Research, Issue 50, pp. 955-968, 2007)
- Richard Mackey

Solar activity variations and global temperature
(Energy The International Journal, Volume 18, Number 12, pp. 1273-1284, 1993)
- Friis-Christensen, Eigil

Solar and climate signal records in tree ring width from Chile (AD 1587–1994)
(Planetary and Space Science, Volume 55, Issues 1-2, pp. 158-164, January 2007)
- Nivaor Rodolfo Rigozoa et al.

Solar correlates of Southern Hemisphere mid-latitude climate variability
(International Journal of Climatology, Volume 22, Issue 8, pp. 901-915, May 2002)
- Ronald E. Thresher

Solar cycles 24 and 25 and predicted climate response
(Energy & Environment, Volume 17, Number 1, pp. 29-35, January 2006)
- David C. Archibald

Solar Cycle Variability, Ozone, and Climate
(Science, Volume 284, Number 5412, pp. 305-308, April 1999)
- Drew Shindell, David Rind, Nambeth Balachandran, Judith Lean, Patrick Lonergan

Solar Forcing of Changes in Atmospheric Circulation, Earth’s Rotation and Climate (PDF)
(The Open Atmospheric Science Journal, Volume 2, pp. 181-184, August 2008)
- Adriano Mazzarella

Solar Forcing of Climate. 1: Solar Variability
(Space Science Reviews, Volume 120, Numbers 3-4, pp. 197-241, October 2005)
- C. De Jager

Solar Forcing of Climate. 2: Evidence from the Past
(Space Science Reviews, Volume 120, Numbers 3-4, pp. 243-286, October 2005)
- Gerard J. M. Versteegh

Solar Forcing of Drought Frequency in the Maya Lowlands
(Science, Volume 292, Number 5520, pp. 1367-1370, May 2001)
- David A. Hodell, Mark Brenner, Jason H. Curtis, Thomas Guilderson

Solar forcing of the polar atmosphere (PDF)
(Annals of Glaciology, Volume 41, Issue 1, pp. 147-154, 2005)
- Andrew Mayewski et al.

Solar influence on the spatial structure of the NAO during the winter 1900-1999
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 30, Issue 4, pp. 24-1, February 2003)
- Kunihiko Kodera

Solar total irradiance variation and the global sea surface temperature record
(Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 96, Number D2, pp. 2835–2844, February 1991)
- George C. Reid

Solar variability and climate change: Geomagnetic aa index and global surface temperature
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 25, Issue 7, pp. 1035-1038, January 1998)
- E.W. Cliver, V. Boriakoff, J. Feynman

Solar variability and ring widths in fossil trees
(Il Nuovo Cimento C, Volume 19, Number 4, July 1996)
- S. Cecchini, M. Galli, T. Nanni, L. Ruggiero

Solar Variability Over the Past Several Millennia (PDF)
(Space Science Reviews, Volume 125, Issue 1-4, pp. 67-79, December 2006)
- J. Beer, M. Vonmoos, R. Muscheler

Suggestive correlations between the brightness of Neptune, solar variability, and Earth’s temperature
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 34, Issue 8, April 2007)
- H. B. Hammel, G. W. Lockwood

Sun-Climate Linkage Now Confirmed
(Energy & Environment, Volume 20, Numbers 1-2, pp. 123-130, January 2009)
- Adriano Mazzarella

Sunspots, the QBO, and the stratospheric temperature in the north polar region
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 14, Issue 5, p. 535-537, May 1987)
- Karin Labitzke

Sunspots, the QBO and the stratosphere in the North Polar Region – 20 years later
(Meteorologische Zeitschrift, Volume 15, Number 3, pp. 355-363, June 2006)
- Karin Labitzke et al.

Sunspots, the QBO, and the Stratosphere in the North Polar Region: An Update
(Advances in Global Change Research, Volume 33, pp. 347-357, 2007)
- Karin Labitzke et al.

Superfluidity in the Solar Interior: Implications for Solar Eruptions and Climate (PDF)
(Journal of Fusion Energy, Volume 21, Numbers 3-4, pp. 193-198, December 2002)
- Oliver K. Manuel, Barry W. Ninham, Stig E. Friberg

Surface warming by the solar cycle as revealed by the composite mean difference projection
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 34, Issue 14, July 2007)
- Charles D. Camp, Ka Kit Tung

The 60-year solar modulation of global air temperature: the Earth’s rotation and atmospheric circulation connection
(Theoretical and Applied Climatology, Volume 88, Numbers 3-4, March 2007)
- Adriano Mazzarella

The influence of the 11 yr solar cycle on the interannual–centennial climate variability
(Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, Volume 67, Issues 8-9, pp. 793-805 ,May-June 2005)
- Hengyi Weng

The Influence of the Solar Cycle and QBO on the Late-Winter Stratospheric Polar Vortex
(Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, Volume 64, Issue 4, pp. 1267–1283, April 2007)
- Charles D. Camp, Ka-Kit Tung

The link between the solar dynamo and climate – The evidence from a long mean air temperature series from Northern Ireland
(Irish Astronomical Journal, Volume 21, Number 3-4, pp. 251-254, September 1994)
- C.J. Butler, D.J. Johnston

The signal of the 11-year sunspot cycle in the upper troposphere-lower stratosphere
(Space Science Reviews, Volume 80, Numbers 3-4, pp. 393-410, May 1997)
- K. Labitzke, H. van Loon

The Sun–Earth Connection in Time Scales from Years to Decades and Centuries
(Space Science Reviews, Volume 95, Numbers 1-2, pp. 625-637, January 2001)
- T.I. Pulkkinen, H. Nevanlinna, P.J. Pulkkinen, M. Lockwood

The Sun’s Role in Regulating the Earth’s Climate Dynamics
(Energy & Environment, Volume 20, Numbers 1-2, pp. 25-73, January 2009)
- Richard Mackey

Understanding Solar Behaviour and its Influence on Climate
(Energy & Environment, Volume 20, Numbers 1-2, pp. 145-159, January 2009)
- Timo Niroma

Using the oceans as a calorimeter to quantify the solar radiative forcing
(Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 113, Issue A11, November 2008)
- Nir J. Shaviv

Variations of solar coronal hole area and terrestrial lower tropospheric air temperature from 1979 to mid-1998: astronomical forcings of change in earth’s climate? (PDF)
(New Astronomy, Volume 4, Issue 8, pp. 563-579, January 2000)
- Willie H. Soon, Sallie L Baliunas, Eric S. Posmentier, P. Okeke

Variability of the solar cycle length during the past five centuries and the apparent association with terrestrial climate
(Journal of Atmospheric and Terrestrial Physics, Volume 57, Issue 8, pp. 835-845, July 1995)
- K. Lassen, E. Friis-Christensen

Variations in Radiocarbon Concentration and Sunspot Activity
(Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 66, Issue 1, pp.273, January 1961)
- Stuiver, M.

Variations in the Earth’s Orbit: Pacemaker of the Ice Ages
(Science, Volume 194, Number 4270, pp. 1121-1132, December 1976)
- J. D. Hays, John Imbrie, N. J. Shackleton

What do we really know about the Sun-climate connection?
(Advances in Space Research, Volume 20, Issue 4-5, pp. 913-921, September 1997)
- Eigil Friis-Christensen, Henrik Svensmark

Will We Face Global Warming in the Nearest Future?
(Geomagnetism and Aeronomy, Volume 43, pp. 124-127, 2003)
- V. S. Bashkirtsev, G. P. Mashnich

IPCC:

Biased Policy Advice from The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 929-936, December 2007)
- Richard S.J. Tol

Crystal balls, virtual realities and ’storylines’
(Energy & Environment, Volume 12, Number 4, pp. 343-349, July 2001)
- Richard S. Courtney

Has the IPCC exaggerated adverse impact of Global Warming on human societies? (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 19, Number 5, pp. 713-719, September 2008)
- Madhav L. Khandekar

The IPCC Emission Scenarios: An Economic-Statistical Critique
(Energy & Environment, Volume 14, Numbers 2-3, pp. 159-185, May 2003)
- Ian Castles, David R. Henderson

The IPCC future projections: are they plausible? (PDF)
(Climate Research, Volume 10, Number 2, pp. 155–162, August 1998)
- Vincent Gray

The IPCC: Structure, Processes and Politics Climate Change – the Failure of Science
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 1073-1078, December 2007)
- William J.R. Alexander

The UN IPCC’s Artful Bias: Summary of Findings: Glaring Omissions, False Confidence and Misleading Statistics in the Summary for Policymakers
(Energy & Environment, Volume 13, Number 3, pp. 311-328, July 2002)
- Wojick D. E.

Kyoto Protocol:

A 2004 View of the Kyoto Protocol
(Energy & Environment, Volume 15, Number 3, pp. 505-511, July 2004)
- S. Fred Singer

After Kyoto: A Global Scramble for Advantage (PDF)
(The Independent Review, Volume 4, Number 1, pp. 19-40, 1999)
- Bruce Yandle

Climate Change: Beyond Kyoto
(Energy & Environment, Volume 16, Number 5, pp. 763-766, September 2005)
- Anne, Lauvergeon

Climate policy and uncertainty
(Energy & Environment, Volume 12, Numbers 5-6, pp. 415-423, November 2001)
- Catrinus J. Jepma

Clouds Over Kyoto (PDF)
(Regulation, Volume 21, Number 1, pp. 57-63, 1998)
- Jerry Taylor

The Role of the IPCC is To Assess Climate Change Not Advocate Kyoto
(Energy & Environment, Volume 15, Number 3, pp. 369-373, July 2004)
- Ian Castles

Time to ditch Kyoto
(Nature, Volume 449, Issue 7165, pp. 973-975, October 2007)
- Gwyn Prins, Steve Rayner

Socio-Economic:

Best practices in prediction for decision-making: Lessons from the atmospheric and earth sciences (PDF)
(Ecology, Volume 84, Number 6, pp. 1351-1358, June 2003)
- Roger A. Pielke Jr., Richard T. Conant

Calling the Carbon Bluff: Why Not Tie Carbon Taxes to Actual Levels of Warming? Both Skeptics and Alarmists Should Expect Their Wishes to Be Answered (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 19, Number 5, pp. 707-711, September 2008)
- Ross McKitrick

Climate Change 2007: Lifting the taboo on adaptation
(Nature, Volume 445, Issue 7128, pp. 597-598, February 2007)
- Roger A. Pielke Jr, Gwyn Prins, Steve Rayner, Daniel Sarewitz

Climate change and the world bank: Opportunity for global governance?
(Energy & Environment, Volume 10, Number 1, pp. 27-50, January 1999)
- Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen

Climate Policy : Quo Vadis?
(Energy & Environment, Volume 20, Numbers 1-2, pp. 207-213, January 2009)
- Hans Labohm

Climate Vulnerability and the Indispensable Value of Industrial Capitalism
(Energy & Environment, Volume 20, Number 5, pp. 733-745, September 2009)
- Keith H. Lockitch

Discounting the Future (PDF)
(Regulation, Volume 32, Number 1, pp. 36-40, 2009)
- Indur M. Goklany

Environmentalism in the light of Menger and Mises (PDF)
(Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, Volume 5, Number 2, pp. 3-15, June 2002)
- George Reisman

Free speech about climate change
(Society, Volume 44, Number 4, May 2007)
- Christopher Monckton

Global Warming and Its Dangers (PDF)
(The Independent Review, Volume 8, Number 4, 2004)
- Jeffrey R. Clark, Dwight R. Lee

Global Warming, the Politicization of Science, and Michael Crichton’s State of Fear (PDF)
(Journal of Scientific Exploration, Volume 19, Number 2, pp. 247-256, 2005)
- David Deming

Global Warming: The Social Construction of A Quasi-Reality?
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Number 6, pp. 805-813, November 2007)
- Dennis Ambler

Governments and Climate Change Issues: The case for a new approach
(Energy & Environment, Volume 17, Number 4, pp. 619-632, July 2006)
- David R. Henderson

Governments and Climate Change Issues: The case for rethinking
(World Economics Journal, Volume 8, Issue 2, April 2007)
- David R. Henderson

How Serious is the Global Warming Threat?
(Society, Volume 44, Number 5, pp. 45-50, September 2007)
- Roy W. Spencer

Integrated strategies to reduce vulnerability and advance adaptation, mitigation, and sustainable development (PDF)
(Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Volume 12, Number 5, pp. 755-786, June 2007)
- Indur M. Goklany

Is a Richer-but-warmer World Better than Poorer-but-cooler Worlds?
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 1023-1048, December 2007)
- Indur M. Goklany

Is Climate Change the “Defining Challenge of Our Age”? (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 20, Number 3, pp. 279-302, July 2009)
- Indur M. Goklany

Managing Planet Earth; Adaptation and Cosmology (PDF)
(The Cato Journal, Volume 19 Number 1, pp. 69-83, 1999 )
- Curtis A. Pendergraft

Mitigation versus compensation in global warming policy (PDF)
(Economics Bulletin, Volume 17, pp. 1-6, December 2001)
- Ross McKitrick

Relative Contributions of Global Warming to Various Climate Sensitive Risks, and their Implications for Adaptation and Mitigation (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 14, Number 6, pp. 797-822, November 2003)
- Indur M. Goklany

Rolling the DICE: William Nordhaus’s Dubious Case for a Carbon Tax (PDF)
(The Independent Review, Volume 14, Number 2, 2009)
- Robert P. Murphy

Science and Environmental Policy-Making: Bias-Proofing the Assessment Process (PDF)
(Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Volume 53, Number 4, pp. 275-290, December 2005)
- Ross McKitrick

Scientific Shortcomings in the EPA’s Endangerment Finding from Greenhouse Gases (PDF)
(The Cato Journal, Volume 29 Number 3, pp. 497-521, 2009)
- Patrick J. Michaels, Paul C. Knappenberger

Should We Have Acted Thirty Years Ago to Prevent Climate Change? (PDF)
(The Independent Review, Volume 11, Number 2, 2006)
- Randall G. Holcombe

Strategies to Enhance Adaptability: Technological Change, Economic Growth and Free Trade (PDF)
(Climatic Change, Volume 30, pp. 427-449, 1995)
- Indur M. Goklany

The Eco-Industrial Complex in USA – Global Warming and Rent-Seeking Coalitions
(Energy & Environment, Volume 19, Number 7, pp. 941-958, December 2008)
- Ivan Jankovic

The evolution of an energy contrarian
(Annual Review of Energy and the Environment, Volume 211, pp. 31-67, November 1996)
- Henry R. Linden

The Government Grant System: Inhibitor of Truth and Innovation? (PDF)
(Journal of Information Ethics, Volume 16, Number 1, Spring 2007)
- Donald W. Miller

The Politicised Science of Greenhouse Climate Change
(Energy & Environment, Volume 15, Number 5, pp. 853-860, September 2004)
- Garth Paltridge

The Real Climate Change Morality Crisis: Climate change initiatives perpetuate poverty, disease and premature death
(Energy & Environment, Volume 20, Number 5, pp. 763-777, September 2009)
- Paul Driessen

Turning the big knob: An evaluation of the use of energy policy to modulate future climate impacts
(Energy & Environment, Volume 11, Number 3, pp. 255-275, May 2000)
- Roger A. Pielke Jr., R. Klein, D. Sarewitz)

When scientists politicize science: making sense of controversy over The Skeptical Environmentalist (PDF)
(Environmental Science & Policy, Volume 7, Issue 5, pp. 405-417, October 2004)
- Roger A. Pielke Jr.

Stern Review:

Climate Science and the Stern Review (PDF)
(World Economics, Volume 8, Number 2, April–June 2007)
- Robert M. Carter, C. R. de Freitas, Indur M. Goklany, David Holland, Richard S. Lindzen

The Stern Review: A Dual Critique (PDF)
(World Economics, Volume 7, Number 4, pp. 165-232, October–December 2006)
- Robert M. Carter, C. R. de Freitas, Indur M. Goklany, David Holland, Richard S. Lindzen, Ian Byatt, Ian Castles, Indur M. Goklany, David Henderson, Nigel Lawson, Ross McKitrick, Julian Morris, Alan Peacock, Colin Robinson, Robert Skidelsky

- Response to Simmonds and Steffen (PDF)
(World Economics, Volume 8, Number 2, April–June 2007)
- David Holland, Robert M. Carter, C. R. de Freitas, Indur M. Goklany, Richard S. Lindzen

Is Stern Review on climate change alarmist?
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Number 5, pp. 521-532, September 2007)
- S. Niggol Seo

The Stern Review on Climate Change: Inconvenient Sensitivities
(Energy & Environment, Volume 20, Number 5, pp. 779-798, September 2009)
- Sergey Mityakov, Christof Rühl

Paper Count: 450

Journal Citation List:

AAPG Bulletin
Advances in Global Change Research
Advances in Space Research
Ambio
Annales Geophysicae
Annals of Glaciology
Annual Review of Energy and the Environment
Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics
Astronomical Notes
Astronomy & Geophysics
Astrophysics and Space Science
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
Bulletin of the Russian Academy of Sciences: Physics
Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology
Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics
Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences
Central European Journal of Physics
Chemical Innovation
Climate Dynamics
Climate of the Past
Climate Research
Climatic Change
Comptes Rendus Geosciences
Contemporary South Asia
Earth and Planetary Science Letters
Ecological Complexity
Ecological Monographs
Ecology
Economics Bulletin
Emerging Infectious Diseases
Energy & Environment *
Energy Fuels
Energy Sources
Energy The International Journal
Environmental Geology
Environmental Geosciences
Environmental Health Perspectives
Environmental Research
Environmental Science & Policy
Environmental Science and Pollution Research
Environmental Software
Environmetrics
Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union
Futures
Geografiska Annaler: Series A, Physical Geography
GeoJournal
Geology
Geomagnetism and Aeronomy
Geophysical Research Letters
Geoscience Canada
Global and Planetary Change
GSA Today
Holocene
Hydrological Sciences Journal
Il Nuovo Cimento C
Interfaces
International Journal of Biometeorology
International Journal of Climatology
International Journal of Environmental Studies
International Journal of Forecasting
International Journal of Global Warming
International Journal of Modern Physics
International Journal of Remote Sensing
International Quarterly for Asian Studies
Irish Astronomical Journal
Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons
Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics
Journal of Climate
Journal of Coastal Research
Journal of Fusion Energy
Journal of Geophysical Research
Journal of Information Ethics
Journal of Lake Sciences
Journal of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics
Journal of Scientific Exploration
Journal of the American Water Resources Association
Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences
Journal of the Italian Astronomical Society
Journal of the South African Institution of Civil Engineering
Lancet Infectious Diseases
Latvian Journal of Physics and Technical Sciences
Malaria Journal
Marine Geology
Marine Pollution Bulletin
Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics
Meteorologische Zeitschrift
Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change
Natural Hazards Review
Nature
Nature Geoscience
New Astronomy
New Concepts In Global Tectonics
New Phytologist
New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research
Norwegian Polar Institute Letters
Oceanologica Acta
Paleontological Journal
Paleoceanography
Physical Geography
Physical Review Letters
Physics Letters A
Planetary and Space Science
PLoS Biology
Proceedings of the Estonian Academy of Sciences
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Proceedings of the Royal Society
Progress in Physical Geography
Public Administration Review
Pure and Applied Geophysics
Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics
Quarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Service
Quaternary Research
Quaternary Science Reviews
Regulation *
Russian Journal of Earth Sciences
Science
Science of the Total Environment
Science, Technology & Human Values
Social Studies of Science
Society
Solar Physics
South African Journal of Science
Space Science Reviews
Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy
Surveys in Geophysics
Technology
The Cato Journal *
The Independent Review
The Open Atmospheric Science Journal
Theoretical and Applied Climatology
Topics in Catalysis
Weather
Weather and Forecasting
World Economics Journal

Journal Count: 135

* Energy & Environment is a peer-reviewed interdisciplinary academic journal (ISSN: 0958-305X)
- Indexed in Compendex, EBSCO, Environment Abstracts, Google Scholar, Ingenta, JournalSeek and SCOPUS
- EBSCO; Energy & Environment: Peer-Reviewed – Yes, Academic Journal – Yes (PDF)

* Regulation is a peer-reviewed academic journal (ISSN: 0147-0590)
- EBSCO; Regulation: Peer-Reviewed – Yes, Academic Journal – Yes
- iCONN; Regulation: Peer-Reviewed – Yes (PDF)
- ProQuest; Regulation: Peer-Reviewed – Yes

* The Cato Journal is a peer-reviewed academic journal (ISSN: 0273-3072)
- EBSCO; Cato Journal: Peer-Reviewed – Yes, Academic Journal – Yes (PDF)
- iCONN; Cato Journal: Peer-Reviewed – Yes (PDF)
- ProQuest; Cato Journal: Peer-Reviewed – Yes

Notes – The papers support skepticism of “man-made” global warming or the environmental or economic effects of. Comments, Erratum, Replies and Responses are not included in the peer-reviewed paper count.

Resources:
The Anti “Man-Made” Global Warming Resource
The Anti Wikipedia Resource
The Truth about RealClimate.org

County-level land-use changes from 1950 to 2000, based on censuses of population, housing, and agriculture. A) change in population density; B) change in land area settled at “exurban densities” (i.e., 1 house per 1 to 40 acres); C) change in percent cropland (Brown et al. 2005).

From a Georgia Tech Press Release:

Reducing Greenhouse Gases May Not Be Enough to Slow Climate Change

Georgia Tech City and Regional Planning Professor Brian Stone publishes a paper in the December edition of Environmental Science and Technology that suggests policymakers need to address the influence of global deforestation and urbanization on climate change, in addition to greenhouse gas emissions.

According to Stone’s paper, as the international community meets in Copenhagen in December to develop a new framework for responding to climate change, policymakers need to give serious consideration to broadening the range of management strategies beyond greenhouse gas reductions alone.

“Across the U.S. as a whole, approximately 50 percent of the warming that has occurred since 1950 is due to land use changes (usually in the form of clearing forest for crops or cities) rather than to the emission of greenhouse gases,” said Stone.  “Most large U.S. cities, including Atlanta, are warming at more than twice the rate of the planet as a whole – a rate that is mostly attributable to land use change.  As a result, emissions reduction programs – like the cap and trade program under consideration by the U.S. Congress – may not sufficiently slow climate change in large cities where most people live and where land use change is the dominant driver of warming.”

According to Stone’s research, slowing the rate of forest loss around the world, and regenerating forests where lost, could significantly slow the pace of global warming.

“Treaty negotiators should formally recognize land use change as a key driver of warming,” said Stone.  “The role of land use in global warming is the most important climate-related story that has not been widely covered in the media.”

Stone recommends slowing what he terms the “green loss effect” through the planting of millions of trees in urbanized areas and through the protection and regeneration of global forests outside of urbanized regions.  Forested areas provide the combined benefits of directly cooling the atmosphere and of absorbing greenhouse gases, leading to additional cooling.  Green architecture in cities, including green roofs and more highly reflective construction materials, would further contribute to a slowing of warming rates.  Stone envisions local and state governments taking the lead in addressing the land use drivers of climate change, while the federal government takes the lead in implementing carbon reduction initiatives, like cap and trade programs.

“As we look to address the climate change issue from a land use perspective, there is a huge opportunity for local and state governments,” said Stone.  “Presently, local government capacity is largely unharnessed in climate management structures under consideration by the U.S. Congress.  Yet local governments possess extensive powers to manage the land use activities in both the urban and rural areas.”

The Environmental Science and Technology article is available at http://pubs.acs.org/journal/esthag.

For more on land use change in the USA, see this NASA resource

Transcript in English from the TV network website here (h/t to Goran Frojdh)

MOT: Climate catastrophe cancelled
Finnish Broadcasting Co. YLE, TV1, Nov 11th 2009 at 8.00 pm.

Voiceover (VO), reporter Martti Backman: Governments around the world are preparing for a grand climate conference, which should decide how humanity responds to the threat of a climate catastrophe. Negotiations are under way to replace the Kyoto treaty with a new treaty of Copenhagen.

VO: The threat is based on assessments by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC. According to the panel, the Earth is going through an unprecedented period of temperature increase, caused by man and his carbon dioxide emissions from burning coal and oil.

(Pictures from An Incovenient Truth)

The Earth’s climate has always been changing. But now we are told that warming is happening faster than ever. The view is based on this figure.

(Picture: The global warming hockey stick graph. Music: Electric organ sounds from an ice-hockey game)

VO: This ten-year-old figure, dubbed as the hockey stick, was meant to revolutionize the dominant view of global climate history. The stick’s handle stretches for almost a thousand years, creating an impression of a steady climate, and its’ rising blade in the late 1900’s is proof of sudden, strong warming, which is caused by man.

According to the older view, climate has naturally varied considerably over the past millennium, and in the middle ages it was clearly warmer than today. But in the hockey stick graph, the Medieval Warm Period and the little ice age after it have disappeared. The hockey stick was promoted to honorary status in the IPCC’s third assessment report’s cover. It became the logo of catastrophic climate change. The stick was used to back up the claim that, 1998 was the warmest year of the millennium.

Steve McIntyre: ”At the time I was doing mining exploration business and I just wondered, in the most casual possible way, how they knew that. So that led me start looking at the data and six years later, I’m still doing it”.

VO: The Canadian statistician Steve McIntyre had doubts about the scientific strength of the hockey stick graph, and he decided to unravel the numbers behind it, with the diligence of an auditor. The father of the hockey stick, professor Michael Mann resisted McIntyre’s efforts to get hold of his research data, and it wasn’t until 2003 that McIntyre succeeded in getting access to the data.

McIntyre: ” It turned out that he had modified a principal components method incorrectly and the modified method produced hockey stick-shaped graphs ninety-nine percent of the time. It also emphasized a class of proxies, strip-bark bristlecone pines that previous authors had said were not actually a temperature proxy”.

VO: Temperature records measured by thermometers are at most 150 years long. Earlier histories have to be reconstructed with so-called proxies, or surrogate thermometers. Past climates are deduced for example from tree rings and lake sediments or varves.

The shape of the hockey stick was to a large extent caused by tree rings from a few North American bristlecone pines. McIntyre succeeded in deconstructing the stick. The United States National Academy of Sciences set up a committee to investigate his findings. The committee found that, McIntyre had been right to question the temperature reconstruction and announced that, bristlecone pines should no more be used as proof of climate change.

Steve McIntyre, an outsider in climate science, had succeeded in breaking Mann’s hockey stick, the icon of the climate change movement. But the story was not over. A whole factory started to produce new sticks to replace the broken one.

McIntyre: “There was another class of study, which used a series of tree rings from a scientist called Keith Briffa, from Northern Russia, from a site called Yamal, and this had an even bigger hockey stick-shape than the Michael Mann -hockey stick and this one – - has been used in multiple studies as well and so, over the past few years I’ve been trying to get information about how this particular series was constructed”.

VO: Keith Briffa is one of the big names in climate research. He is a professor in the IPCC’s scientific stronghold in Britain, the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. He is also a lead author of the past climate chapters of the IPCC’s assessment reports.

McIntyre had to fight for three years to get Briffa’s Yamal data under his microscope. But a lot happened before that.

The well-known medieval warmth was disturbing to the scientists close to the IPCC, the so-called hockey team. In the mid 1990’s the American geologist David Deming received an astonishing e-mail, in which one prominent climate researcher announced to his colleagues:

Actor’s voice: “We have to get rid of the medieval warm period.”

(Picture of Deming’s written statement from the Senate Environmental committee website)

VO: Deming testified about the e-mail at hearings in the United States congress.

Soon after this e-mail, Keith Briffa published a study, where the millennial temperature history looked like this: (the upper curve appears on screen)

VO: The Briffa study was based on a very limited number of tree ring samples from the so-called Polar Urals region in Siberia. With the help of just three short tree ring series he claimed that the year 1032 in the middle of the balmy middle ages, had been the coldest in the millennium. And the modern period appeared to be very warm. A real hockey stick.

A couple of years later, Briffa’s colleague returned to Siberia to drill new tree ring samples. When they were added to Briffa’s original data, the curve looked surprisingly like this: (lower curve appears on screen, the curves merge).

The hockey stick had disappeared, and the medieval warm period had been reinstated as warmer than the present.

McIntyre: “Unfortunately, this updated Polar Urals result was never published and Briffa, in his works since 2000, has made no – - reference to this updated study”.

VO: The updated Polar Urals series was forgotten. Instead, Briffa replaced his original weak Polar Urals data in 2000 with new tree ring series drilled from the Yamal peninsula hundreds of kilometers away. With this data, the climate reconstruction looks like this: (lower curve appears).

VO: The blade of the hockey stick rises at the end of the millennium stronger than ever and the medieval warm period is clearly shadowed by it, if not made to vanish completely.

Yamal data became the most important temperature proxy for all later hockey sticks, and it was used in at least seven temperature reconstruction studies.

But McIntyre knew something about the construction of hockey sticks, and he could not believe in the Yamal curve. The contradiction to established paleoclimatic knowledge was simply too big.

McIntyre: “And the question is just, why was the Polar Urals update not reported? And if the Yamal series was going to be used rather than Polar Urals, that should have been clearly explained to readers. The criteria for preferring one rather than the other should have been also clearly explained”.

VO: Finnish Lapland lies at the same latitudes as Yamal, and there are plenty of Finnish studies on past climates based on tree rings. These studies are considered to be among the best in the world, for their sample quality as well as methodologically. What kinds of hockey sticks have been found in them?

Kari Mielikäinen, professor of forest research (Metla, Finland): “We have this long series going back over 7,000 years, and there’s no hockey stick there.”

VO: Briffa’s Yamal hockey stick was published in the prestigious journal Science. McIntyre asked for a copy of the raw data from Yamal.

McIntyre: ”Briffa refused. The editors of Science refused to require Briffa to provide the measurement data…”

VO: It took McIntyre three years to get hold of the data, although one of the most important rules in science is that, raw data should be made available to anybody who is interested in checking and replicating a study.

Finally Briffa made a “mistake”. He published yet another article based on the Yamal data in a journal of the British Royal Society. The prestigious scientific society held on to the principle of data transparency and forced Briffa to make his raw data public. In September this year, the Canadian climate auditor had his forebodings confirmed.

McIntyre: ”So after, after sort of, three years of frustration and trying to examine the data that Briffa had used and probably four years of people saying that this data supported the Michael Mann -work on other grounds, it was really quite frustrating to find that it was built up on ten trees that had been not randomly selected”.

VO: So the Yamal data included only ten living trees from the 1990’s, and the rapid growth of these individuals caused the steep rise of the hockey stick blade. In Finnish dendrological studies, hardly anything would be said based on just ten trees. What’s demanded is at least 50 trees for each year, and several other quality criteria as well. How have these criteria been observed in the Yamal data?

Kari Mielikäinen (professor of forest research, Finnish Forest Research Institute Metla): “Rather weakly it seems. It looks like there are problems with both cohort structure and also the regional distribution (of the sample).”

VO: McIntyre conducted a simple statistical exercise. He replaced the 10-tree Yamal sample by a larger 34-tree sample collected from the same area. (In this figure) the added material is depicted with the black curve, and the combination of both data sets as a green curve.

VO: The hockey stick blade disappears, or actually turns downwards. And the medieval period is again warmer than the present.

McIntyre: ”I think that the preferential selection of Yamal, rather than Polar Urals, biases the result that’s presented to the public”.

VO: All good proxy-based climatic reconstructions should compare the results with adjacently located measurements from thermometers. When this is done in the Yamal area, it emerges that none of the near-by weather stations have recorded warming that would explain the hockey stick graph. In other words, if those ten trees have grown abnormally fast in the 1990’s it is due to something else than heat.

Mielikäinen: “If you choose one convenient series just to prove a point, be it a hockey stick or anything, you are definitely on a wrong track.”

VO: Problems with tree ring studies will be addressed next summer in an international scientific congress chaired by Mielikäinen in Rovaniemi (Finnish Lapland).

(pause)

VO: The author of the Yamal reconstruction, Keith Briffa, has disputed the criticism aimed at his study, but it still draws heated debate.

Briffa’s employer, the IPCC-affiliated climate research unit CRU maintains a global database of temperature measurements from weather stations. This database is central to the conclusion that global temperatures have risen to a worrying extent during the past 40 years. The CRU has combined thermometer readings into a global average with a method which it refuses to disclose, but which allegedly has brought added value to the raw data. McIntyre has requested the data from CRU director Phil Jones, but he has been turned down, and others as well.

McIntyre: “An Australian named Warwick Hughes had asked for the data and Warwick Hughes had published some articles that had been critical of how the temperature histories had been prepared, and Jones said ‘Why should I send – we have twenty-five years invested in this, why should I send the data to you when your only objective is to find anything wrong with it?”, which is a very unscientific statement.”

VO: The CRU database is the most important scientific justification for the demands that the most ambitious treaty in mankind’s history should be finalized in Copenhagen in December. In spite of this, there is no way to replicate its’ validity.

Recently the CRU director Phil Jones has announced that the original measurement data does not exist anymore because of data storage difficulties. A dog ate the world’s most important scientific measurement homework.

(Pause, move to Korttajärvi, central Finland.)

VO: Materials for the hockey stick factory have also been collected from Finland.

Reporter Backman, standing on a jetty: “This small Korttajärvi in Jyväskylä has become a focal point in the international climate debate. Based on samples taken from its’ bottom sediments, some foreign researchers claim that, an unprecedented warming occurred at the end of the 20th century. Finnish researchers, on the other hand, have used the lake to show that climate has always changed, even more than recently, and irrespective of human influence.”

VO: Five years ago, one of the Korttajärvi researchers responded to MOT’s question about the IPCC’s claim that recent temperatures are highest in a thousand years.

(Interview footage from MOT archive, 2004)

Ojala: “Based on these studies it seems that this claim is not quite true, at least for the Northern hemisphere, at least for Scandinavia. We’ve clearly had much warmer winters here in the Nautajärvi and Korttajärvi area, than what we are experiencing now.”

Question by Backman: “What’s your estimate, how much warmer was the medieval period in Finland, compared to the present?”

Ojala: “It is difficult to say exactly. But we may speak of half a degree (Celsius), even a whole degree based on several European studies.”

VO: At least two research teams close to the IPCC added the sediment data collected by Finnish researchers as part of their own paleoclimatic model reconstructions. This was done with agreement, but the Finns were surprised to see that in a study published this September, their data and interpretation of its’ meaning had been turned upside down. Here is the millennial temperature reconstruction from Korttajärvi done by the Finns:

VO: And here we have the same data presented by the hockey team:

VO: A nice hockey stick has emerged from the Korttajärvi mud. What in the Finnish study signified cold, had been turned into warmth in the IPCC science and vice versa. This interpretation passed the scientific peer review.

Dr. Atte Korhola, professor of environmental change at the University of Helsinki, is an expert in lake sediment studies.

Atte Korhola: “Some curves and data have been used upside down, and this is not a compliment to climate science. And in this context it is relevant to note that the same people who are behind this are running what may be the world’s most influential climate website, RealClimate. With this they are contributing to the credibility of science – or reducing it. And in my opinion this is alarming because it bears on the credibility of the field, and if these kinds of things emerge often – that data have been used insufficiently or even falsely, or if data series have been truncated or they have not been appropriately published (for replication), it obviously erodes the credibility, and this is a serious problem.”

VO: The author of the September study, Darrell Kaufman, admitted his mistake two weeks ago and sent a correction to the journal Science. But the main author of a previous study, Michael Mann, the father of the original hockey stick, still sticks to the claim that a hockey stick was found at the bottom of lake Korttajärvi.

(Pause)

VO: The climate studies used by the UN affiliated IPCC are usually computer simulations, based on models emulating the behavior of global climate. Some traditional researchers have criticized studies based on just computer simulations, calling it “playstation climatology”.

According to the most prominent computer models, human activity should cause global warming that looks like this:

(Graph showing rising projections to 2100.)

But the measurements show that, real temperature has so far varied like this:

(Graph showing land and satellite based measurements of global temperature until 2009 – clearly below the model simulations.)

VO: A poorly known fact is that, global climate stopped warming after a two-decade period (in the late 1900’s). Since 1998 there has been no statistically measured global warming. Instead, the climate has slightly cooled for several years. Not one of the climate models used by the IPCC was able to predict this turn of events.

Some new studies predict the cooling phase to continue longer, maybe for a couple of decades. In spite of that, many leading scientists affiliated with the IPCC still claim that global warming continues, even faster than predicted.

Meanwhile, some of the catastrophic consequences predicted by the models have been revealed as overblown. The Arctic sea ice has started to recover from its’ minimum area recorded two years ago, Antarctic melting has slowed down to a minimum during measured history, sea level rise has not accelerated from its’ previous rate, and hurricane seasons have been mild. Nature has not obeyed the manuscript.

Korhola: “In late summer 2008 I was in England, where all newspapers ran a front-page story about a scenario predicting the total disappearance of Arctic sea ice by that summer. And these predictions were distributed by two leading researchers of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, Mark Serreze and Jay Zwally. Well, what happened was that these predictions did not come true, but that 2008 was clearly a better year than 2007 with the collapse in ice extent, which was apparently caused by anomalous atmospheric pressure and wind conditions in the Arctic regions.”

VO: Richard Lindzen is a professor of climate science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technololy, one of the world’s most prestigious science universities. He is one of the few scientists who do not study climate by simulating it with computer models. He studies observations from the real natural world.

Richard Lindzen: “This field is completely sick in that way, I mean, you have models you know that they don’t work, you know they don’t reproduce a - phenomenon, but you bend data to fit the model. I don’t think this can go on for long without being embarrassing”.

VO: In September, Lindzen published a study that hit the core of the climate debate. Based on radiation measurements, he calculated how much the doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration could really warm up the Earth.

The Earth is protected from cosmic freezing by the atmospheric gas blanket. According to the catastrophic warming theory, the CO2 emitted from burning oil and coal thickens the blanket and thus causes the temperature to rise dangerously.

An undisputed scientific fact is that, a doubling of CO2 in itself is enough to cause a one degree (Celsius) of atmospheric warming, which would not be a problem. But the climate models have been fed with the assumption that the warming caused by CO2 increased the concentration of water vapor, which in turn would further thicken the blanket and multiply the total warming a couple of times, up to a fateful six degrees.

Lindzen: “The models do exactly what they are supposed to, given their sensitivity. They all show the blanket thickens and it thickens by the amount consistent with the sensitivity of the models do of doubling of CO2. Do the same thing to nature, and it does exactly the opposite, and it does it more powerfully. So you have all the models agreeing with each other, and all of them wrong compared to nature.”

VO: The question of water vapor feedback is the key in determining the threat of a climate catastrophe. The climate models assume that, the higher the surface temperature rises, the thicker the warming blanket gets. But is this really happening?

Lindzen and his team compared sea-level temperatures with the satellite-based measurements of incoming and outgoing radiation in the upper atmosphere. While all computer models show that, as the surface temperature rises, less radiation escapes to space:

(Graph of 11 model simulations with downward sloping lines)

VO: The reality measured from nature is exactly diametrical:

(The 12th diagram ‘ERBE’ by Lindzen added to the graph set, showing a rising curve)

VO: It turned out that, cloud cover changes as the surface warms, but it was not getting thicker; it was thinning. In this way, nature prevents the atmosphere from excessive heating. The cloud cover reacts to temperature changes like an eye’s iris to changes in light, by contracting or expanding. Lindzen calls this thermostatic behavior the Iris-effect.

And what is the significance of this effect to the estimates of human-caused climatic warming?

Lindzen: “It’s saying that, instead of the one degree being magnified, it should be shrunk by at least a half.”

Question by Backman: “And how much would this sensitivity be in degrees of Celsius?”

Lindzen: “Now, in terms of degrees of Celsius it says that we shall expect doubling the CO2 might contribute in the order of half a degree to the global mean temperature anomaly.”

Backman: “And how big a problem is that?”

Lindzen: “None. We see that from month to month, year to year all the time. I mean the truth is, we have seen already two thirds, three quarters of a degree. This is not the period when the world is falling apart. It’s a period when the population has grown, when famine has been defeated, when people live longer than ever and there is large number of people that are supposedly terribly warming the earth, are living better for the most part.”

VO: Lindzen’s study shows with measurements that the assumption of an impending climate catastrophe is basically wrong. The IPCC camp has reacted to the study with complege silence.

Lindzen: “I think it’s because it’s so simple and obvious, and I think even the alarmist groups know that the better part of wisdom is not to publicize this.”

VO: Professor Atte Kohola is not skeptical of the potential threat of climatic warming like his colleague in Boston, but both scientists are worried about the politicizion of climate science.

Korhola: “Especially now with the Copenhagen conference approaching, one gets the impression that also among scientists, many have lost control. Especially when you compare original studies to how they are presented to the public, in the mass media, there is a huge gap in what comes out. We get a lot of material with terms like dramatic, catastrophic, unprecedented, and among some researchers there is even talk of planetary doom and saving the planet.”

Lindzen: “The real question is, why the last few years have seen this huge boost with all these crazy movies – “Inconvenient truth” – nonsense spewed out, hysteria? We are all going to die, if we don’t change our light bulbs immediately. I can only say, somebody must have noticed that the temperature has stopped increasing and they had all these agendas by now to make billions of dollars, and do this and do that, get people to pay taxes and feel happy about it, because they are saving the earth and so on. So you have the politicians, the bureaucrats, the scientists and so on, and all felt you know that if the temperature continues this way, this is finished if we don’t get it through immediately so the volume has increased.”

VO: MOT asked for an interview with the director of the Finnish meteorological institute, Dr. Petteri Taalas, who is sympathetic to the IPCC’s main line. He refused.

UPDATE: VIDEO NOW ONLINE

Lindzen and McIntyre’s Finnish TV interview – issues that US journalists fail to investigate

Guest post by Erl Happ

Solar Powered Stirling Cycle Engine

What follows is a general theory of natural climate variation supported by observation of the changing temperature of the atmosphere and the sea between 1948 and September 2009. This work suggests that strong warming after 1978 is an entirely natural phenomenon.

Imagine a small planet about the size of the Earth orbiting a sun just like our own. The planet has an atmosphere composed of nitrogen (76%), oxygen (23%) and trace gases (1%) of which argon makes up half of that one percent.

Let us further imagine that the sun bombards the Earth with radiation so energetic as to destroy the integrity of nitrogen and oxygen in the planet’s upper atmosphere. The region where this occurs may be called the ‘ionosphere’. When superheated at the highest elevations it can be known as the ‘thermosphere’.  The electrically unbalanced particles of the ionosphere possess negative or a positive polarity. Like iron filings scattered across a piece of paper atop a magnetized iron bar, atmospheric ions orient themselves according to the lines of the planets magnetic field. Rotating with the planet, the ionosphere is a place of constant flux.  Particles are energized on the dayside and dragged into a long tail on the night-side by the pressure of the solar wind, a highly magnetized stream of helium and hydrogen emanating from the sun. There is an exchange of energy between the wind and the ionosphere and particles are accelerated in one direction or the other and re-distributed according to the tension imposed by the constantly changing electromagnetic medium.

As ionized particles radiate energy and cool they will join up with particles of opposite polarity. The junction of one with the other moves the union closer to a ‘neutral’ state.  The orgy of irradiation, excitement, and reorientation, begins anew each day as the sun appears above the horizon. Recombination occurs mainly at night.

Nitrogen requires the most energetic short wave radiation to achieve the ionic state. This energy is available at a higher altitude. Oxygen ions are scarce at altitudes where nitrogen ions are formed because when the music stops, ions of nitrogen grab oxygen partners just as happily as nitrogen partners and there are many more nitrogen partners than oxygen partners.

Where free oxygen ions exist, they do so at a lower level where there is insufficient very short wave radiation to ionize nitrogen.

So, we have two regions of an ionosphere, the lower oxygen rich and the upper oxygen poor and nitrogen rich, ‘ionically’ speaking.

Ions of oxygen will hold hands in groups of three in a molecule called ozone. Although this happens only to a limited extent, it nevertheless creates an ozone rich layer. We call it the stratosphere.

The cumbersome ozone molecule has an ability to trap the relatively long wave radiation of the planet and also some radiation from the sun at the long end of the short wave spectrum.  Consequently this ozone rich layer is warmer than the atmosphere above and below it.

The depth of the atmosphere beneath the ozone rich layer is, in the context of the size of the earth, hardly skin deep (only 10Km at mid latitudes and 15Km at the equator) but nevertheless sufficient to effectively cool the Earth. In dry air the lapse rate is 10°C per kilometer. The upper troposphere is very much colder than the surface of the planet. So we must (reluctantly perhaps) conclude that the atmosphere is a very effective vent for surface heat.

Though about three quarters of the atmosphere is below the stratosphere and free of the influence of an electromagnetic field, the remaining portion of the atmosphere is very much under its influence. That part is much more than half of one percent, the quantity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

The tropical troposphere tends to lose energy by decompression associated with uplift whereas the subtropical latitudes is a place of descending, compressing air where long wave radiation is the chief means of energy removal. Where decompression is vigorous, the upper troposphere cools to minus 85°C. Elsewhere it reaches a temperature of about minus 55°C. As the equatorial region has warmed the quantum of long wave radiation from the near equatorial zone has diminished while in the subtropics where the air is descending, it has increased.

The surface of the planet is 70% water and the atmosphere near the surface is water vapor rich. Because the air at 1000 meters elevation is already between 6 and 10°C cooler than the surface, clouds of moisture form in rising air. At an elevation of two to four kilometers condensing moisture forms, not water droplets, but ice crystals of many and varied patterns and considerable surface area. Ice crystals populate the atmosphere at a density so low as to make them virtually invisible. But, the ice crystal zone stretches from about 2km to 25km in elevation and it is therefore very much deeper and potentially more reflective than the water droplet zone.

Sensibly therefore, we might expect the temperature at the surface of the planet to relate strongly to the extent of ice crystal formation. Since the upper atmosphere tends to have much the same level of moisture all the time, the population of ice crystals varies inversely with air temperature.

How could the temperature of the ice cloud region change?

The concentration of ozone in the stratosphere and upper troposphere depends upon the rate of mixing of oxygen hungry, mesospheric nitrogen ions into the stratosphere. Where does this mixing occur?

Most of the land is in the northern hemisphere but there is none at the northern pole. Strangely there is a massive landmass at the southern pole. Here the surface is very cold all the year round and particularly so in winter.

The temperature of the Antarctic ice mound is always below the freezing point of water. Any precipitation that falls upon it is trapped. Ice surface area doubles in winter by virtue of the freezing of the sea on its margin. A downdraft is present at all times and it is particularly powerful in winter.

The circulation of the atmosphere is driven by differences in surface temperature and the release of latent heat giving rise to columns of rising air particularly over the tropical rain forests. Air descends over the cold oceans in the subtropics and also over the Polar Regions especially in their winter season when the pole is dark and the surface is at its coldest.

The column of descending air over the Antarctic continent stretches into the mesosphere.

Because nitrogen from the mesosphere enters the stratosphere primarily over the Antarctic continent there is less ozone in the southern hemisphere than the northern hemisphere. But when the downward flow of air within the vortex stalls, ozone builds up throughout the stratosphere and to a more limited but very influential extent in the upper troposphere. The mixing rate of ozone into the upper troposphere varies with latitude.

As the ozone content of the ice cloud region rises, so does its temperature. This depletes ice cloud allowing more solar radiation to reach the surface.

Can a reorientation in the direction, mass density or speed of the ‘solar wind’ or perhaps a change in the intensity of ionizing radiation or a change in the Earth’s magnetic field or a mix of all three shift air from high to low latitudes, lowering surface pressure there and raising it somewhere else? Unambiguously, the answer is yes. There is no process internal to the Earth itself that could account for this shift in the atmosphere. It depends wholly upon the magnetic fields in the ionosphere and the exchange of energy between the solar wind and the ionized atmsophere. So, the distribution of the atmosphere by latitude is determined by the sun and the earth together.

Figure 1 shows the loss of atmospheric pressure at 70-90° south latitude after 1948. Most of the depletion occurred before 1976. However, the forces that created this changed state have continued to maintain it.  Not only can the atmosphere move, it can be held in position by the electromagnetic force and it will stay in place until that force relaxes.

Figure 1

Change in surface atmsopheric pressure

Where and when did surface pressure change?

Figure 2 compares the period of global warming after 1977 to the period of relatively stable or cooling temperature prior to 1977. After 1977 we see much lower pressure in winter and spring with the loss of pressure increasing with latitude between 40° and 90° south latitude.

Between the equator and 30° south latitude surface atmospheric pressure has increased. At 40-50° south, which may be a transition zone, surface pressure increased in summer and fell in winter with greatest loss in September. Very similar dynamics manifest at 30-40° south but by and large this latitude has been once of increasing atmospheric pressure.

Figure 2

Looking now at the northern hemisphere as represented in figure 3, we observe a loss of pressure in the winter months at high latitudes with losses also in June, August and September. However, the loss of pressure is no more than 1mb, much less than in the southern hemisphere where pressure fell by 2 to 8mb south of 50° south latitude.

After 1977 atmospheric pressure increased in mid year between the equator and 50° north latitude. There is obviously a tendency for pressure to increase at high latitudes in the northern summer at the same time as pressure falls in the southern hemisphere. This represents an atmospheric shift from high latitudes of the southern hemisphere into the entirety of the northern hemisphere in northern summer. This should tend to increase northern vortex activity in the wing months of the northern winter.

Peak months for loss of pressure in high latitudes of the northern hemisphere are November through to February. At this time pressure rises at 40-50° south latitude (aqua line in figure 2). This represents an atmospheric shift from the northern to the southern hemisphere in northern winter. However, there is another contributing factor. It is probable that the Arctic vortex suffers from competitive downdraft activity over the very cold Siberian and North American land masses. It is noticeable that pressure loss in midwinter is greater at 60-70°N (olive green) than at 80-90°N (red).

The ‘Arctic Oscillation Index’ records change in the relationship between surface pressure close to the northern pole and that at mid latitudes in the northern hemisphere. Change in the index goes along with change in the nature of western European weather.  It is apparent that there are complex influences driving the Arctic Oscillation and paradoxically the most important of these influences is the state of the competing downdrafts over Antarctica, continental Asia and North America. But in physical terms, the real driving force is electromagnetic.

Figure 3

The relationship between pressure and surface temperature in the tropics

Figure 4 shows the relationship between atmospheric pressure near the equator and sea surface temperature at 20° north to 20° south globally. Warming of the tropics goes hand in hand with increased surface atmospheric pressure. This is a key understanding. It is counter-intuitive because hot air is less dense and will rise in the middle of a low pressure area. But here we have hot air under increased pressure. We are accustomed to observing high pressure air that is associated with subsidence and cloud free skies in the subtropics. This is different. This pressure regime is determined by a shift in the atmosphere from high to low latitudes.

The relationship between these variables is mediated by the change in atmospheric moisture levels. An illustration of this relationship is the failure of the tropics to warm when pressure increased in the year 1999-2000. The precipitation event that followed the marked increase in atmospheric moisture during the El Nino event of 1997-8 created its own momentum (increased atmospheric moisture and cloud cover) and overwhelmed the possibility of a response to the increase in pressure a year later, itself a response to electromagnetic activity in the upper atmosphere. If one appreciates this, we can dispense with the usual statistical tests, proceeding according to logic and the eye. Many a baby has been thrown out with the bathwater after the application of an inappropriate statistical test.

Figure 4

We know that El Nino activity in the Pacific is accompanied by a slackening of the Trades as the pressure difference between the south east Pacific (high pressure) and Indonesia (low pressure) falls away. Figure 5shows that, when pressure rises in the Indonesian region, it falls very strongly in the waters off the coast of Chile. The weakening of the trade winds is a marker for El Nino activity in the Pacific. The change in pressure relations driving the trade winds is due to the movement of the atmosphere. That movement has its origin in electromagnetic activity in the upper atmosphere.

A glance at figure 5 reveals that the globe cools when surface atmospheric pressure in the Indonesian region falls below its long term mean.  There is much greater activity in terms of pressure change in the waters off Chile than in the Indonesian theatre.  Change in Chilean waters appears to precede change in Indonesia.

A shift in the atmosphere from high to low latitudes increases pressure at 30-40° south latitude. However, in the waters off Chile, we see a loss of pressure as pressure builds at the equator and this is particularly noticeable in March and September when geomagnetic activity peaks due to the favorable orientation of the Earth to the sun at the equinoxes. Surface pressure off Chile at 30-40° south behaves atypically for the latitude. It moves with polar pressure rather than low latitude pressure. This makes the Pacific particularly susceptible to influence from shifts in the atmosphere.

Figure 5

Figure 6 shows that when atmospheric pressure falls off Chile (in figure 6 pressure is inverted so that a rise in the pressure line actually represents falling pressure) sea surface temperature in the intake region for Nino 1 and Nino 2 warms. An increase in the temperature of tropical waters follows as a matter of course. The thing that controls the atmospheric pressure controls the temperature of tropical waters and ultimately the globe. That ‘thing’ is the electromagnetic force in the upper atmosphere. The change in surface temperature is due to a change in the ratio between radiation received at the limits of the atmosphere (almost a constant) and radiation reflected by ice crystals. Variation in reflection is responsible for change in the intensity of radiation received at the surface.

Figure 6

The temperature of the polar stratosphere increases at the time of the year when atmospheric pressure falls.

Figure 7 indicates a marked increase in stratospheric temperature at 10hPa post 1977 that is coincident with the fall in atmospheric pressure illustrated in figure 2.

There can be no shadow of doubt that the increase in the temperature of the upper stratosphere over Antarctica is associated with falling atmospheric pressure, the collapse of the vortex and a diminution of the flow of mesospheric nitrogen ions into the stratosphere. This allows an increase in ozone concentration which accounts for the increase in temperature both in the stratosphere and at the surface.

Ozone absorbs long wave radiation from the earth and UVB from the sun and this energy is rapidly transmitted to adjacent molecules. The upper atmosphere warms and as ice crystal population falls in southern winter and spring, the temperature of the sea increases in the intake zones for the equatorial currents. In the Pacific this is called El Nino. The conventional explanation of this warming is at odds with reality. Most of the warming activity occurs outside the tropics. It is most pronounced in late winter and spring in the southern hemisphere and it is patently a phenomenon that shows up with greater intensity after the climate shift of 1978. Indeed, the increased frequency and intensity of southern hemisphere warming in spring lies at the heart of the warming of the globe after 1978.

Figure 7

Figure 8 shows that the warming of the northern stratosphere at 10hpa in the middle of northern winter is insignificant if compared to the warming of the southern stratosphere. Stratospheric warming and cooling is just as lopsided as the distribution of the land between the hemispheres.

Some observers attribute sudden stratospheric warming in the polar night to ‘planetary waves’. But planetary waves are more evident in the northern than the southern hemisphere. These observers  maintain that the Earthly climate system is free of external influences.  Copernicus feared the response of the keepers of the conventional wisdom when he suggested that the sun was at the centre of the solar system rather than the Earth. He kept his opinions to himself until his theories were published close to his death in 1543. Galileo supported the Copernican viewpoint in a forthright fashion in 1632, was tried by his peers in the ‘Inquisition’ and spent the rest of his life in detention.  Geo-centrism is alive and well to this day and it thrives in the field of climate science. Trial by ones peers can be a harrowing affair. As Galileo would no doubt observe, if he were here to tell us:  ‘Most of them are a bunch of ignorant ******.

Figure 8

The extent of warming of the polar stratosphere in winter increases with elevation

Figure 9 reveals that temperature gain in the Antarctic stratosphere after 1977 increases with elevation. This is in conformity with the notion that a mesospheric influence on stratospheric ozone is the driver of stratospheric temperature at the poles and it acts via a variation in vortex activity brought on by change in the weight of the atmospheric column as expressed in changing surface pressure.

Figure 9

Figure 10, relating to the northern hemisphere shows temperature gain increasing with altitude as is the case in the southern hemisphere. Peak temperature gain is in February when surface pressure loss after 1977 is maximal (see figure 3).

Figure 10

Figure 11 shows the relationship between surface atmospheric pressure in the tropics and the aa index of geomagnetic activity. Anomalies are calculated with respect to mean monthly data for the period 1948-2009. The trend lines are third order polynomials selected for best fit.  It appears that this cycle may be about 80 years from trough to trough. A cycle of about this length has been called the Gleissburg cycle. The currently falling pressure at the equator heralds cooling. A simple projection of trend indicates perhaps thirty years of cooling ahead.

In considering figure 11 one must bear in mind that the atmosphere must first be ionized before it comes under the influence of the solar wind. We know little about the cycles in very short wave ionizing radiation. Nor, it seems do we know much about the driving force behind the change in the Earth’s magnetic field. The electromagnetic movement of the atmosphere is a multi-factorial phenomenon. Figure 11 deals with a single contributing factor and compares its oscillation with surface pressure near the equator. The field of change is much wider than the equator. The dynamics of pressure change are driven by many factors including the tilt of the Earth’s axis of rotation, the revolution of the earth around the sun, the distribution of the land and the sea, the variation in the temperature of the sea at the same latitude, variations in the magnetic emanations from the Sun and variations in the strength of the Earth’s magnetic field from place to place. At times surface pressure at both poles moves in the same direction and at other times pressure increases at one pole and decreases at the other. The atmosphere behaves quite differently when the earth is warm to when it is cool. The pressure systems move at quite different latitudes along with the jet stream.

Accordingly, one cannot say that geomagnetic activity drives surface temperature. It contributes as one element of a complex matrix in a constantly changing climate system. Do the climate modelers realize this?

Figure 11

Figure 12 is astonishing in its symmetry.  Prior to 1977 peak anomalies in 30hpa temperature at 80-90°S latitude occurred in April-May. After 1977 peak anomalies occur in October.  After 1977 October anomalies are as strongly positive as they were negative prior to 1977. This change relates directly to the warming of the southern oceans in southern winter-spring that is expressed in El Nino activity in the Pacific. But the Pacific is only one of the theatres of action in the global tropics. All theatres of action are affected by change in atmospheric pressure in Antarctica.

Figure 12

Figure 13 shows 30hpa temperature anomalies at 80-90°north in the Arctic. Again the symmetry is astonishing. Let there be no mistake. Here is evidence that the climate system is alternating between two very different modes of activity. One is a cooling mode and the other a warming mode. Temperature anomalies are positive only for a period of time, and they move to the  negative. When October anomalies are positive in Antarctica they are negative in the Arctic and vice versa.

Figure 13

Consequences of the warming mode of 1977-2009 for the temperature in the ice cloud zone of the upper troposphere

Figure 14 shows the character of the warming mode that prevailed after 1977 in the northern upper troposphere at 200hPa. There is sufficient ozone at this level for temperature to be driven by vortex phenomena rather than surface phenomena. At 200hPa, temperature change seems to be an amplified version of what happens at the surface. Of course this is nonsense. Changes at the surface reflect in miniature the more exaggerated and independently determined change that occurs above. But I diverge, and must return to the narrative.

In relation to the northern hemisphere: After 1977, at latitudes greater than 50° north, the upper troposphere warmed slightly in summer between June and November but is actually cooler during the winter months.  At low latitudes the troposphere is warmer all year but particularly so in northern winter. I hope some greenhouse theorists read this. Perhaps they can explain how the upper troposphere can warm when outgoing long wave radiation is at its annual minimum.

Figure 14

Figure 15 illustrates the dramatic influence of the warm mode on temperature in the southern hemisphere upper troposphere. Strong warming occurs between 20 and 70° south latitude. Peak warming occurs about the time of the equinoxes when the coupling of the solar wind with the Earth’s atmosphere is strongest.

When the polar vortex stalls, it allows ozone levels to rise at high altitudes above the pole. A strong peak in 200hpa temperature occurs in September at 80-90° south latitude and this peak appears at mid latitudes within a month, testifying to the speedy rate of mixing of ozone into the upper troposphere at 200hpa.

Figure 15

Surface temperature follows the lead of the stratosphere via change in ice cloud density

Figure 16 shows the relationship between the 20hpa temperature anomaly at 10° north to 10° south latitude on the one hand and  sea surface temperature in the in-feed zone in the south east Pacific near Chile on the other. The obvious way that the stratosphere and upper troposphere can affect surface temperature is via change in ice cloud density affecting the reflectivity of the atmosphere. An increase in temperature reduces ice cloud density allowing more radiation to reach the surface.

High amplitude variation in 20hPa temperature is seen between 1950 and 1976 when geomagnetic activity, stratospheric and surface temperature was depressed. This phenomenon might be interpreted this way: When stratospheric temperature is low due to low ozone content (high surface pressure at the pole and strong vortex) a small reduction in the inflow of nitrogen ions from the mesosphere can produce a large change in ozone and 20hpa temperature. The law of diminishing returns applies.  In periods where ozone levels are already high (low atmospheric pressure and collapsed vortex), the extent of change in 20hpa temperature from further collapse in the vortex is small.

After the year 2000 the flux in 20hpa temperature is large as it was during the cooling period prior to 1977.

Sea surface temperature in the south east Pacific follows 20hpa temperature with more fidelity and vigour after 1978 when change in southern hemisphere 200hpa temperature became the dominant mode of ENSO variation. Patently, the heating trend between 1977 and 2000 is due to a marked increase in the temperature of the ice cloud zone.

Figure 16

Figure 17 shows the relationship between 200 hPa (upper troposphere ice cloud zone) temperature and sea surface temperature at 40-50° north.

When the upper troposphere warms strongly, relative humidity must fall and the surface temperature response to high amplitude change in upper troposphere temperature then lacks coherence and vigour. Compare the cooling period after 1998 with the warming period ten years earlier. This observation suggests there is little increase in atmospheric moisture content as the troposphere warms. Moisture content, if it increases at all, lags the temperature increase. There is no amplifier here for a greenhouse effect.

Figure 17

Figure 18 shows the increase in surface pressure that accompanies warming at 40-50° north latitude.  The increase in pressure relates to falling pressure at the poles and an increase in the temperature of the stratosphere as ozone content builds.

Figure 18

Figure 19 shows the repeating pattern of positive anomalies in 20hpa temperature in southern spring  at 70-90° south and the frequent symmetry in the rise in sea surface temperature at 40-50° north. The relationship between these two variables will never be absolutely deterministic because of the other influences that impinge. Firstly, there is the independent activity in the northern vortex as it becomes more or less active leading into northern winter. Secondly, the flux in high altitude specific humidity determines the response rate. Thirdly, the atmosphere is never homogeneous consisting as it does of a series of traveling pressure cells responding to forces that move them as a band either towards or away from the poles.

Repeating positive anomalies in southern spring is the essence of the change that occurred in the climate system after 1978. When these anomalies disappear, the earth will cool. This can only happen as the atmospheric shift away from Antarctica goes into reverse.

Figure 19

There is great interest in the driver of sea surface temperature in the North Atlantic and the North Pacific. Enormous  store is put in the notion that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation is capable of influencing global temperatures and potentially reversing the trend in global warming. However, the actual forces determining sea surface and global temperature lie in the upper atmosphere rather than in the oceans themselves. There is no mystery as to where warm water appears or does not appear. It is always at the surface and it is always dissipating into the atmosphere via evaporative transfer, surface contact and radiation. There is only one thing that can warm the surface of the sea on a large scale and that is solar radiation.

The temperature of the southern stratosphere increased much more than the northern stratosphere after 1977

In line with the dominance of the southern vortex in determining stratospheric temperature we would expect a strong increase in temperature in the high latitudes of the southern hemisphere over the period of study. Figure 20 shows a 12 month moving average of 30hpa temperature in selected latitude bands of the southern hemisphere. It is apparent that the last great rise in 30hpa temperature at 80-90° south occurred just prior to the climate shift of 1978. Can planetary wave theorists explain this warming of the stratosphere above Antarctica at this time?

What theory explains why the high latitudes of the southern hemisphere have warmed so strongly while in low latitudes the stratosphere has cooled? Changes in gas composition will not suffice. Planetary waves will not suffice.

As the atmosphere shifts to mid and low latitudes the zone of heaviest ozone concentration in the stratosphere moves a little further away from the earth. This produces cooling. There has been a continuous fall in 30hpa temperature at 0-10° south latitude over the period. This may be due in part to the reduction in outgoing long wave radiation as cooling via decompression has become more important close to the equator. But, between 20° and 40° south the cooling of the stratosphere is likely related to the local thickening of the atmosphere.

Figure 20

Figure 21 shows that, as the atmosphere in the northern hemisphere has ‘thickened’, due to the atmospheric shift, 30hpa temperature has declined slightly at all latitudes. This has nothing to do with greenhouse gas activity in the troposphere. Greenhouse theorists who maintain that the stratosphere cools while the troposphere increases in temperature may care to comment on the rise in the temperature of the rctic stratosphere between 1948 and 1978!

Figure 21

Two climate modes

“Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. The sun is much too sultry and one must avoid its ultry violet rays”. Noel Coward 1932.

Perhaps Noel Coward’s observation is particularly pertinent in the southern hemispherewhere there is less ozone to absorb UVB. During the warming mode, protective ice crystals evaporate, allowing the surface to warm. Most of the warming activity post 1978 has been in the southern hemisphere in late winter and spring. This warming activity is plainly driven by shifts in atmospheric pressure affecting vortex activity.

The warming mode:

1. There is a shift of the atmosphere from the poles towards mid and low latitudes under electromagnetic forcing of ionized air.
2. Weakening of the polar vortexes curtails the flow of ionized nitrogen into the upper stratosphere allowing the survival of oxygen ions and increased ozone formation.
3. Intermixing of ozone into the upper troposphere raises temperature in the ice cloud zone. Ice crystals evaporate.
4. More solar radiation reaches the surface which warms.
5. In the southern hemisphere 200hpa temperature rises much more than in the northern hemisphere exhibiting strong equinoctial maxima.
6. Peak anomalies in stratospheric temperature occur in September-October rather than March.
7. A southern spring deficit in ice cloud density promotes warming across all southern latitudes which promotes the El Nino pattern of sea surface temperature at the equator.

The Cooling Mode

1. Surface atmospheric pressure increases at the poles as the electromagnetic force in the ionosphere/thermosphere relaxes.  This happens at solar minimum as the quantum of ionizing radiation falls to its lowest levels. It also tends to happen at solar maximum as the suns magnetic polarity reverses and magnetic fields emanating from the sun tend to be self cancelling. The manifestation in the Pacific Ocean is La Nina cooling.
2. Strengthening of the polar vortexes introduces ionized nitrogen into the stratosphere reducing the population of oxygen ions and ozone.
3. A loss of ozone in the ice cloud zone reduces temperature enhancing the formation of reflective ice crystals.
4. Less solar radiation reaches the surface which cools.
5. A generally low ozone level in the stratosphere results in high amplitude change in stratospheric temperature during the ENSO cycle. This is expressed in high amplitude variation in 20hpa temperature at the equator. At the surface the swing from El Nino warming to La Nina cooling is more violent and extreme.
6. Change is more extreme in the southern hemisphere where the polar vortex is generally cooler especially at the highest altitudes. In the cool mode stratospheric temperature exhibits a March maximum probably in line with enhancement of orbital rather than geomagnetic influences on stratospheric temperature. The earth is closest to the sun in January.
7. A cooler stratosphere and upper troposphere in southern spring promotes ice cloud formation reducing the flux of solar radiation to the surface establishing a La Nina dominant regime in the Pacific Ocean.

The pattern of change from the cool to the warm mode and back again is well expressed in figure 22 showing the pattern of change of the (Darwin –Tahiti) Southern Oscillation Index when compartmentalized according to solar cycle time intervals. A fall in this index represents warming. A dramatic fall in the index occurred about 1978. With the end of solar cycle 23 the globe is emerging from the strongest period of warming in the period of the instrumental record. The Southern Oscillation Index, based on barometric pressure, is not affected by the distortions present in the temperature record.

Figure 22

The smoking gun for natural climate variation is an increase in the temperature of the southern stratosphere and troposphere increasing with latitude all the way to the southern pole with a marked variation in southern hemisphere temperature in winter/spring between cool and warm episodes. This determines the strength of El Nino warming events across the tropics.

The smoking gun for greenhouse effects should be a generalized warming at all latitudes without any marked seasonal bias. If there were to be a seasonal bias it should be present as an increase in temperature above the norm when outgoing long wave radiation is maximal in the summer season. There should be no great difference between the hemispheres. That is far from what is actually observed. The evidence suggests that natural variation rather than anthropogenic influences drives climate change.

Conclusion

Between 1948 and 1976 the tropics and the globe as a whole was fairly stable in temperature with obvious cooling discernable in the decade prior to 1976. From 1977 through to 2000 the tropics and the globe warmed. By comparing data from the earlier period with that for the later period one can discern change in the atmosphere that resulted in more solar radiation reaching the surface of the earth causing it to warm.

Atmospheric conditions in the near earth environment are strongly influenced by the sun. The observed warming of the last decades of the twentieth century can be attributed to natural influences. There is no evidence of any warming signature due to the increased presence of so called ‘greenhouses gases’. It is suggested that the greenhouse hypothesis takes little cognizance of the manner in which the atmosphere actually functions. The atmosphere cools the planet but a change in its temperature causes a change in ice crystal density and the quantum of radiation reaching the surface.

Climatic models suggest that any greenhouse effect should be strongest in the tropical upper troposphere where water vapor is in higher concentration. In point of fact warming of the upper troposphere at the equator is less likely as the globe warms because the quantum of outgoing radiation diminishes as convection and de-compressive cooling is enhanced. It is in the subtropics that outgoing long wave radiation increases and in particular in the high pressure cells where the air is descending and warming and the sky tends to be cloud -free both in terms of liquid and ice crystal density.  A water vapor feedback mechanism would require an increase in specific humidity levels in these high pressure areas. The reverse is observed. If a greenhouse effect were present it would be unamplified and tiny. Any warming tendency in these areas is more likely to be due to a loss of ice cloud density than a greenhouse effect.

If the Earth enters a period of cooling, as it has since 1998, it suggests that the natural factor is pre-eminent. If there is a strong relationship between ice cloud density and surface temperature it confirms the point that moisture in the upper troposphere cools rather than warms the planet and the basis of the greenhouse feedback mechanism is negated. Without a water vapor amplifier a change in so called ‘greenhouse gas’ levels can have little or no effect upon surface temperature.

If we can rid ourselves of the foolish mantra that surface temperature is governed by so called greenhouse gas, much unnecessary pain can be avoided. We are threatened by zealous governments keen to interfere in markets, raise taxation and redistribute incomes. The absurd notion that carbon is a pollutant is daily promoted.  ‘Will of the wisp’ schemes to generate renewable energy burden the public purse. Nothing is to be gained by these stratagems. Innovation has its own rewards and investment in all forms of innovation is already well enough subsidized and feverishly exploited. Man needs no urging to innovate and will do so quite happily in the absence of artificially inflated monetary incentives. The introduction of market distorting incentives and disincentives destroys rather than creates wealth. This is the tool of the central planner, the social activist, the miscreant.

Distraction and absurdity are our unhappy lot, parading as morality and virtue. Snake oil salesmen multiply by the minute. These are unfortunate times.

There are none so blind as those who will not see. The authority of ‘Science’ and the United Nations organization has been subverted to the activists cause. This is a sorry time for mankind. It is a time when belief is substituted for science and the two are irretrievably tangled and confused.

DATA

The data used in this study can be downloaded from: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/data/timeseries/timeseries1.pl

As I understand it the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis project uses a computer model to cross check the validity of data from many sources with the aim of representing the surface and the atmosphere of the entire globe. Data for one atmospheric parameter is related to other parameters that vary together in a known fashion. When a temperature recording station shifts site there is a discontinuity in the data. The reanalysis project is designed to overcome this sort of problem. This dataset is particularly valuable for research on climate change.

The sea surface data from the NCEP/NCAR dataset exhibits much greater variability than other datasets. The NCEP/NCAR data reflecs skin temperatures that respond to atmospheric change. Winter minima are lower while summer maxima are similar. Change is faster in the skin data with earlier seasonal maxima and minima. Sea surface temperature data incorporates ice and land surface temperature at high latitudes.

I understand that satellite derived sea surface temperature data for areas beyond about 60° latitude requires an adjustment for the extent of floating ice. Some SST datasets do not extend to higher latitudes. Because the NCEP/NCAR dataset provides skin temperature it covers all latitudes.

Some sources of SST data relate more to a near surface rather than a skin temperature reflecting the origin of data in the measurement of water temperature from engine intake, bucket or floating buoy. This is not the case with the NCEP/NCAR dataset.

A survey report titled Climate Confidence Monitor commissioned in part by the Earthwatch Institute, World Wildlife Fund, and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute shows that confidence that we can actually manage climate change has been falling for the last two years in most countries:

Click to enlarge

The question was: “I believe we will stop climate change”.

They cite in the report:

A fall in optimism and low levels of confidence in leaders suggest that people are becoming more pessimistic about the scale of the challenge that climate change presents.

I suppose that is one way to spin it. Here’s some other findings from the report.

First here is the report that you can read yourself:

click for PDF

Here’s a graph I found interesting:

The answers suggest to me that the responses are more about saving money than saving the planet.

h/t to WUWT reader PaulM

No that’s not a typo. Midges have just helped define the MWP, despite the claims of “proof” yesterday.

Another recent contradictory study to involving those pesky Chironomids. In this case, more fish during warming periods seem to account for less larval midge remains.

Summer Temperatures Reconstruction in the Northern French Alps

Thanks to Alan Siddons for collecting this material.

Guest post by Dr. Tony Brown

From Their Past Your Future - click for website

“Personal carbon rations would have to be mandatory, imposed by Government in the same way that food rationing was introduced in the UK in 1939… Each person would receive an electronic card containing their year’s carbon credits …see the Tyndall Centre’s study on “domestic tradable quotas”… and their recent establishment on the political agenda…the card would have to be presented when purchasing energy or travel services, and the correct amount of carbon deducted. The technologies and systems already in place for direct debit systems and credit cards could be used.”

(Environmental Audit Committee minutes-House Of Commons-London)

Preface. This is a factual account of the highly politicised concept of catastrophic man made climate change. The views quoted above are supported in principle by the UK govt but said to be ahead of their time. However, the means to achieve them are now being quietly introduced into main stream thinking through the systematic use of a political agenda that uses the alarming notion of catastrophic man made climate change as the means to force through a measure of social engineering unequalled in the UK in modern times.

In promoting this notion, alternative and well researched views that oppose the science lying behind the unproven hypothesis are stifled, and derision heaped on those pointing out previous well documented warming and cooling periods that occur in, as yet, little understood cycles throughout our history.

This is a long and complex document so it is suggested that a read through of the text that can be seen on your screen should serve as a useful introduction to the highways and byways of our political and scientific establishments. Additional information is provided in many of the links-some deserving of considerable time- so a second much more leisurely examination of the account will enable the reader to acquire a deeper knowledge of the subversion of science in pursuit of political objectives.

******

Crossing the Rubicon: An advert to change hearts and minds.

Finnish Professor Atte Korhola said:

“When later generations learn about climate science, they will classify the beginning of 21st century as an embarrassing chapter in history of science. They will wonder our time, and use it as a warning of how the core values and criteria of science were allowed little by little to be forgotten as the actual research topic — climate change — turned into a political and social playground.”

An advert on “climate change” – aired for the first time in Oct 2009 – is part of a long term £6 million campaign to “change the hearts and minds” of a mainly sceptical British public. This form of communication is known as “ad-doctrination.”

Link 1

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6867046.ece

It was shown at peak time on one of the mainstream British TV stations, with the message that it is unacceptable, indeed irresponsible, to be a climate sceptic, as there will be catastrophic consequences for your grandchildren if you don’t get on board. This chimes with the Governments declaration that it is also ‘anti social’ to oppose wind farms.

There is a British govt department who were behind the rationale for this advert that is known as The ‘Dept of Energy and Climate Change’ which is a 2008 spin off  from a longer established dept called Defra. At this point it is useful to backtrack a little to see when the UK government got turned on to climate change and exchanged rhetoric and ‘warm words’ for action.

Link 2

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article3176458.ece

Margaret Becket headed Defra .from June 2001 to May 2006 with the brief;

“To lobby for the UK in other international negotiations on sustainable development and climate change.”

Defra have been key in shaping and promoting climate policy and the Hadley Centre (for Climate research) is largely funded to the tune of many millions of pounds through Defra’s Global Atmospheric division. Additional resources come from the Ministry of Defence and European Commission. Tony Blair’s fervent conversion to the climate cause seems to have led directly to Steven Byres organising the ‘Stopping Dangerous Climate Change’ conference at Hadley (Met office) in Jan 2005.

Link 3

http://randd.defra.gov.uk/Document.aspx?Document=GA01012_6499_FRP.doc

Extract;

5.1 Alignment of the Climate Prediction Programme with Defra’s business and science objectives

The Climate Prediction Programme was not an academic research programme; its work plan and deliverables was driven by Defra’s requirements for science to inform UK government policy on climate change mitigation and adaptation. As the policy requirements changed, so did the research programme objectives. In this section we show how the work described in the CPP Annexes contributed to one or more of the science and business objectives and issues, as published in the Global Atmosphere section of the current strategy for the Climate, Energy and Environmental Risk (CEER) Directorate for 2003-2006. The full strategy can be seen at:

Link 4

www.defra.gov.uk/science/s_is/directorates/asp.

Our convoluted story starts with Defra:

Here is Defras “Communication strategy scoping report” which directly led to Futerras “new rules of the game.” Futerra is a very high powered “sustainability  communicator” (or Environmental PR Agency)

Link 5

http://www.defra.gov.uk/evidence/social/behaviour/documents/behaviours-1206-scoping.pdf

Extracts:

“This work has contributed to a shared understanding of the vision for environmental behaviour to underpin ‘one planet living’

“As part of our mapping of Defras work we drew up an initial set of ‘desired’ behaviours”.

This scoping report was the original basis for the advert on British TV through implementing Futerras “New rules of the game”.

Link 6

http://www.futerra.co.uk/downloads/NewRules:NewGame.pdf

These are their Directors and credentials:

Link 7

http://www.futerra.co.uk/about_us/directors

These are some of their clients:

Link 8
http://www.futerra.co.uk/clients/

Which includes the BBC.

Extract from Futerra web site:

“Various BBC teams have enjoyed training sessions on communicating sustainable development. Participants have ranged from producers for EastEnders ( a popular soap) to researchers on the CBeebies channel.” (The latter a Childrens’ channel)

The BBC appears to have shown reporting bias on the subject for several years and perhaps the genesis for this attutude lies with their being indoctrinated with the ‘right’ message at one of these meetings.

Further information on the background of the activities of Futerra and related research by an organisation called the Institute for Public Policy research is given below.

Link 9

http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=47

Link 10

http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=60

The Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) is a leading left of centre think tank, which seems to have a revolving door with Labour. That the climate message should not be seen as “too alarming” was a message carried by the BBC as can be seen here:

Link 11

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5236482.stm

This is a report by Richard Black environment correspondent for the Corporation, concerning IPPR acting on advice provided by Futerra.

Extract:

“The style of climate change discourse is that we maximise the problem and minimise the solution”

Solitaire Townsend, Futerra

Richard Black is already very knowledgeable on Earth matters, so may not have felt it necessary to have attended one of Futerra’s training sessions on “communicating sustainable development.”

Part of Defra metamorposed in October 2008 into;

Link 12

http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/about/about.aspx

The already mentioned “Department of Energy and Climate Change”

The Four principals involved are Ed Miliband, Lord Hunt, Joan Ruddock, David Kidney.

Joan Ruddock’s work focuses largely on “how we can change behaviour across UK society and reach an ambitious global agreement to reduce our carbon emissions in a fair and effective way”.

Joan needs no introduction to British readers.

Link 13

http://www.joanruddock.org.uk/index.php?id=13

For years she was chair of CND (Campaign for Nuclear disarmament) Eventually moved to Defra and ended up in this new dept.

Ed Miliband is a senior Labour Govt figure. His father was Ralph Miliband, the Marxist political theorist, one of the most influential left-wingers of his generation. Ed’s girl friend is an environmental lawyer.
From here:

Link 14
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/article4449710.ece

Britain likes to think of itself as a long time leader in climate action, but the EU and the G8 only got on board in 2005 with this matter:

Link 15

http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:eGPj89Zrb2EJ:ecologic.eu/download/zeitschriftenartikel/meyer-ohlendorf/g8_impact_on_international_climate_change_negotiations.pdf+tony+blair+ad+hoc+working+group+for+annex+first+session&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

or as a pdf

Link 16

http://ecologic.eu/download/zeitschriftenartikel/meyer-ohlendorf/g8_impact_on_international_climate_change_negotiations.pdf

Extract:

“The UK Prime Minister Tony Blair defined climate change as ‘probably, long-term the single most important issue we face as a global community,’ and made climate change one of his priority topics during the UK’s G8 Presidency, along with Africa. Climate change was also made a priority for the UK’s EU Presidency (1 July 2005 – 31 December 2005). In a keynote speech on climate change, Tony Blair set out three ambitious targets for the UK’s G8 Presidency in 2005:

“To secure an agreement as to the basic science on climate change and the threat it poses, to provide the foundation for further action;

“To reach agreement on a process to speed up the science, technology and other measuresnecessary to meet the threat;

“To engage countries outside the G8 who have growing energy needs, like China and India.”

To put this information into context we need to examine the run up to key events in 2005, as this led to the step change increase in the political promotion of climate change. As the British have been leaders, so it is fitting that the next part of our story – which preceded the events in link 12 and 13 – takes place at the Mother of Parliaments with the Environmental Audit Committee of the House of Commons.

The EAC had met regularly for some years and report their findings in detail after examining memorandum and questioning some of those they viewed as ‘expert witnesses.’ The relevance of this particular report of the EAC cited here, is that it was written just before the UK took over EU presidency AND the chair of the G8 in 2005. These are two very influential positions that fell to Tony Blair who was getting ‘on message’ with climate change and saw the opportunity to cement Britain’s pre eminence in this field-the Americans being decidedly “off message” and out of the picture through the refusal of George Bush to ratify the Kyoto agreement.

The report, intended to shape international policy on climate change during that influential year, has a tone that is decidedly apocalyptic That the science is settled is a recurring theme (this was prior to the IPCC assessment in 2007) with no mention of natures contribution to co2 levels, the overwhelming importance of water vapour, nor of cyclic variations in our climate. Indeed, no other information was being considered that would show that the science was not as settled as the protagonists claimed.

At this point we take this next series of links concerning this particular report of the EAC as part of one story and return to the link numbering system just before number 17, when we conclude our examination of this report and continue with the piecing together of the wider political climate change jigsaw.

http://www.gci.org.uk/briefings/EAC_Final_C&C.pdf

This report of the Environmental audit committee is subtitled

“Fourth report of session 2004/5 published March 2005″

The next few extracts come from “Conclusions and Recommendations” at the start of the document. However the whole piece is well worth reading. The footnotes in particular give some interesting snippets of information on who is informing UK policy.

Item 26: “In the context of the G8 the UK could pursue a broader range of complementary policies including the need for greater coordinated effort low carbon research (sic) the scope for developing forms of international traction and in particular the need to embed environmental objectives more firmly within a range of international organisations.”

Item 27: “It is simply not credible to suggest that the scale of the (co2) reductions which are required can possibly be achieved without significant behavioural change.”

(Note: The term used, “significant behavioural change,” is similar to that used in the extract at link 2.)

Item 28: It can be seen that the highly alarmist viewpoint detailed here echoes the recent comments about “thermo dynamic crimes”*.

(Note: *The increasingly frenetic tone of the climate debate in the UK can be seen in this comment from David Mackay that was made public just before the first airing of the advert.)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6860181.ece

“Setting fire to chemicals like gas should be made a thermodynamic crime,” he said. “If people want heat they should be forced to get it from heat pumps. That would be a sensible piece of legislation.”

Who is David Mackay?

(From the same link above) “Speaking last week on his first day as chief scientist at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, MacKay set out a vision of how Britain could generate the threefold increase in electricity it needs, with nuclear power at its heart. DECC is the govt dept that is the successor to Defra in climate change.”

Mackay has also been an expert witness in front of this EAC committee.

Those individuals and organisations who presented information for the report that we are examining in detail here are listed in this document:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/cmenvaud/105/10502.htm

All the minutes on the fourth report of the EAC are here:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmenvaud.htm

The next extracts are taken from this document and for reasons of space are by no means exhaustive, but are reasonably representative.

Question 133 onwards from Friends of the Earth giving witness in a Q and A format.

“Do you think there needs to be a different approach to the setting of the targets? It seems to some of us that the targets have been set as some sort of political horse-trading.”

Miss Worthington: “Yes, absolutely.”

Q137 Chairman: “Do you have any idea how that process might be reformed?”

Miss Worthington: “Anything would be an improvement. Essentially it was exactly horse-trading, where countries simply went into a darkened room and beat each other up. We had no methodology attached to it at all.”

Q137 Chairman: “Do you think that the way in which, for example, most of the allocations were handed out free in the European Union scheme, has hindered or helped matters?”

Miss Worthington: “Practically, it has meant that it can get off the ground. Environmentally, it certainly breaches the polluter-pays principle quite spectacularly. We would advocate a move towards 100% auctioning. Not only would that give government a revenue stream upfront which you could then redirect, but it would stop all the horse trading around projections which are causing everybody complete nightmares, both over in Defra and DTI and other parts of government at the moment.”

(Questions 40-61 on 17 Nov 2004 are particularly interesting.)

Q41 Mr Challen: “I was just thinking of Winston Churchill’s comment that democracy is a bad way of organising society but all the other alternatives are worse. Picking up from your submission, is that your view about emissions trading systems?”

Mr Lanchbery: “Yes, it probably is. A lot of claims are made for emissions trading, for example that it provides certainty. No, it does not provide certainty unless you have got an absolutely rock-crushing compliance regime.”

“Each government, would you agree, should look at how they can get their public on board directly rather than simply saying this is an objective for our policy makers in Whitehall.”

Mr Lanchbery: “It is an appealing concept. It was mooted some time ago. I remember having a meeting with the European Commissioner at which it was mooted. I think it is a matter of practicality really though. Although most well-educated people again would be okay with it and you could see them using their carbon credit, it might be difficult for an elderly person to take any advantage of it. I can see the appeal of it, I just wonder about the practicality of it.

“It is an interesting question. Getting the public on board and using fiscal instruments to do that are not necessarily the same thing and your natural response is to think fiscal instruments doing anything is likely to alienate the public, but I think probably of all the mechanisms available the notion of per capita allowances that can be traded electronically through a credit card system—and I know the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research has done some investigation of this—is quite appealing if it is technically feasible because as well as being economically efficient it is also socially progressive in that a person who does not have many means and does not travel very much at least has an asset that they can sell to an affluent person who does wish to travel more. It has some social progressivity about it, too. It is quite an appealing way. There are obviously other fiscal measures, taxation in particular, and we would all be in favour of a variety of fiscal measures for achieving different purposes, so we argue, for example, for a well-to-wheel carbon tax on vehicle fuels.

“Do you think that without such measures as that—and that is music to my ears on DTQs by the way—we could achieve any more stringent or radical post-Kyoto targets because, after all, the domestic sector in this country contributes about 40% of our emissions.”

Dr Jefferiss: “I think that there are other policy mechanisms for driving reductions in the non-industrial sector. It is really a question of whether the Government will have the political will to implement them. Certainly, as you indicated, energy efficiency measures in the domestic sector in particular could achieve significant cuts but the fear, naturally, is a political one and the fuel poor in particular will be adversely affected. Our response to that would be that it would be much more politically expedient and effective to tackle fuel poverty head on and remove that as an obstacle to introducing a rational taxation system for energy or for carbon use. I think it is really a question of not whether there are other policy influences but whether there is the political will to deploy them. The same with fuel duty on transport.”

(Note: This link gives an explanation of DTQ’s [Domestic Tradable Quotas].)

http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/research/energy/downloads/pct/dtq-and-pca.pdf

To continue: Appendix 7 “Memorandum from the Green party” makes fascinating reading.

“However, much of the carbon dioxide that is presently produced is wasted in transporting goods from one market to another. Trade should be reduced so that it returns to being a means of obtaining goods that are not available locally, according to the principle of trade subsidiarity.

“Proposal:  The Committee should investigate the possibility of creating a new global currency for carbon trading. Such a currency would need to be backed by and administered by the UN.”

(The suggested carbon quota per capita are mentioned in table 1, 2, and 3)

“The IPCC, the RCEP and more recently the UK government have accepted the need for global CO2 reductions of 60% by 2050. However, if these global reductions are to be made in an equitable fashion, the higher-polluting countries like the UK must make bigger reductions. This would translate into a UK target more like 90% by 2050 at the very latest, with clear and definite targets at stages along the way.

“We would also propose, as a short-term measure en route to a full system of eco-taxation, the reintroduction of the fuel tax escalator, which was removed for reasons of political expediency that ignored the requirements for CO2 reductions.

“The national road building programme must be scrapped, and the resulting £30 billion saving invested in a package of emissions-reducing policies including 20% traffic reduction within 10 years.”

Appendix 12 “Memorandum from Institute of Policy Studies” (This highly influential body is also mentioned in the main body of this story)

“Attention therefore needs to be given beyond these solutions towards measures of sufficiency, of social and institutional reform, and of modifications to lifestyles with much lower energy inputs and lower carbon emissions.

“The only logical way (to cut CO2) is by the introduction of personal carbon rationing, which would cover the 50% of total UK emissions which come from household energy use and personal transport, including international air travel. (The Tyndall Centre study on domestic tradable quotas discusses methods of ‘rationing’ the remainder of emissions in the economy). Personal carbon rations would have to be mandatory, imposed by Government in the same way that food rationing was introduced in the UK in 1939. A voluntary alternative to carbon rationing would be highly unlikely to make significant savings as recent history suggests that individuals would be unwilling to start taking action for the common good unless they saw others doing likewise—and the ‘free-rider’ would have far too much to gain. Appeals to reason and conscience have not been effective in achieving major changes in our irresponsible consumption patterns. In circumstances such as this, when the wider public interest is at considerable risk and the fact that the changes are made is of critical importance to the welfare of the community and, in this case, future generations, Government intervention is in our view imperative.

“The administration of carbon rationing should be simple. Each person would receive an electronic card containing their year’s carbon credits (see the Tyndall Centre’s study on ‘domestic tradable quotas’ and their recent establishment on the political agenda in Colin Challen’s Private Member’s Bill). The card would have to be presented when purchasing energy or travel services, and the correct amount of carbon deducted. The technologies and systems already in place for direct debit systems and credit cards could be used.

(My highlighting and emphasis)

CONCLUSIONS

21.  Personal carbon rations offer a positive, fair and effective way of making the carbon savings necessary to prevent “potentially disastrous climate change”.

Of course attendance at this committee can be an entirely different thing to exerting actual influence, but the obvious bias to those from the environmental groups-who appear to be pushing at an open door- and against the representatives of industry such as Shell and BAA can be seen when following the full transcripts.

We now revert to our main narrative. The following year was the first meeting of the ‘ad hoc group’ to set up integrated action betwen the EU, G8 and the IPCC working groups. Both these parties and the UN (who sponsor the IPCC) are following ‘Agenda 21’ In the case of climate change that relates to the work of the IPCC whose findings are endorsed by those countries following the agenda, and who therefore subsequently have a legal obligation to implement that agenda. This includes teaching climate propaganda to our school children through Sage 21.

Agenda 21 is linked to the AD Hoc working group of the IPCC negotiations that are leading to the Copenhagen summit in December 2009. The group has five chairs, of whom several have been termed green activists. Several of them have openly written of the need for a new world governance. The SAGE21 education agenda from the UN clearly sets out to influence schools.

The Agenda 21 aims has been endorsed at UK Govt level, and councils and govt bodies have been instructed to follow this agenda.

Below is the first session of the AD Hoc group in 2006,  which is the prelude to the meeting of world leaders in Copenhangen in December 2009 to sign a treaty to combat “dangerous climate change.”

Link 17

http://unfccc.int/files/meetings/cop_11/application/pdf/cmp1_00_consideration_of_commitments_under_3.9.pdf

Good resumé of events below:

Link 18
http://www.iisd.ca/vol12/enb12357e.html

These are the minutes and action plan of latest meeting in April 2009

link 19
http://unfccc.int/meetings/items/4381.php

This is the ad hoc working group composition and its aims, that have fed into the UN report above. There are many individual sections worth exploring as they concern negotiating points and amendments for the Copenhagen summit.

Link 20

http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2008/awg6/eng/08.pdf

These are the key chairs:

Harald Dovland Norway –chair minister for environment http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-180526631.html

Mam Konate of Mali Vice chair http://www.iisd.ca/climate/cop11/enbots/enbots1704e.html

Chan Woo-Kim   Republic of Korea http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:py3_vPi45-wJ:www.unescap.org/esd/environment/mced/singg/documents/Programme_SINGG_Final.pdf+chan-woo+kim+republic+of+korea&cd=18&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

Ms Christiana Figueres Costa Rica http://figueresonline.com/

Nuno Lacasta Portugal http://www.wcl.american.edu/environment/lacasta.cfm

Brian Smith New Zealand

Marcelo Rocha Brazil http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file50347.pdf

This is the ‘information note’ (Background) for the meeting

Link 21

http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/032709_informationnote.pdf

It appears to be a UN document to substantially re-shape the world through the medium of the threat of catastrophic climate change.

Whilst readers should scrutinise each line for themselves in order to see what many had always believed was an agenda behind the IPCC, some highlights are;

Page 6 item 17

Page 8 item 25 and 27

Page 9 item 34

Page 10 item 37

Page 14 item 60

Conclusions on p15

Here is the effective draft of the Copenhagen treaty produced by the Ad Hoc working group.

Link 22

http://wattsupwiththat.com/?s=copenhagen+draft+treaty

(Click on PDF once linked in)

Page 67 and 122 are of particular interest. This from p. 122:

16. [Adverse economic and social consequences of response measures [shall][should] be addressed by proper economic, social and environmental actions, including promoting and supporting economic diversification and the development and dissemination of win-win technologies in the affected countries, paying particular attention to the needs and concerns of the poorest and most vulnerable developing country Parties.]

Alternative to paragraph 16:

[Adverse economic and social consequences of response measures shall be addressed by various means, including but not limited to promoting, supporting and enabling economic diversification, funding, insurance and the development, transfer and dissemination of win-win technologies in the affected countries, such as cleaner fossil fuel technologies, gas flaring reduction, and carbon capture and storage technologies.]

17. [[Developed [and developing] countries] [Developed and developing country Parties] [All Parties] [shall] [should]:]
(a) Compensate for damage to the LDCs’ economy and also compensate for lost opportunities, resources, lives, land and dignity, as many will become environmental refugees

(b) Africa, in the context of environmental justice, should be equitably compensated for environmental, social and economic losses arising from the implementation of response measures.

In comparing the draft to the overall aims of Agenda 21 (in Link  23), it can be seen the logical progression that has been taken in order to implement Agenda 21 through the means of the dangerous climate change hypothesis .

Link 23

http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/

Extract:

Internationally Agreed Development Goals & Climate Change:

“Internationally agreed frameworks and goals have set an agenda for integrating climate change and sustainable development. Agenda 21, which addresses climate change under its Chapter 9 (Protection of the atmosphere), recognizes that activities that may be undertaken in pursuit of the objectives defined therein should be coordinated with social and economic development in an integrated manner, with a view to avoiding adverse impacts on the latter, taking into full account the legitimate priority needs of developing countries for the achievement of sustained economic growth and the eradication of poverty.”

Both Agenda 21 and the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI) assert that the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the key instrument for addressing climate change. The Kyoto Protocol, which entered into force on 16 February 2005, sets binding emission reductions targets for industrialized countries for the first commitment period 2008-2012.

Britain has always liked to see itself at the forefront of the fight against ‘dangerous climate change’ and the subject has been highly politically charged since Margaret Thatcher decided to promote it as a reason to favour Nuclear over coal and made a speech on the world stage about the subject in 1988. She then opened the Hadley Centre in 1990 who ever since have-through Defra – offered considerable practical and financial support to the IPCC.

It helps that the Chief Scientific Advisor to Defra and Director of Strategy at the Tyndall Centre for “Climate Change Research”, is an old friend and advisor of ex-VP Gore, namely Professor Robert Watson.

He was IPCC chairman before Pachauri and when asked in 1997 at Kyoto about the growing number of climate scientists who challenged the conclusions of the UN, that man-induced global warming was real and promised cataclysmic consequences, Watson responded by dismissing all dissenting scientists as pawns of the fossil fuel industry. “The science is settled” he said, “and we’re not going to reopen it here.”

These links show Watson as representing Defra and Tyndall. The second is newer.

Link 24

http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:82ff4Gvql-gJ:www.guardian.co.uk/education/2007/sep/20/highereducation.uk+professor+robert+watson+defra&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

Link25

http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/content/%C2%A345m-boost-tyndall-centre

Link 26

Provides some interesting background.

http://sovereignty.net/p/clim/kyotorpt.htm

The nature of Defra support is described here in this DEFRA staff document  relating to the Nobel Prize award for IPCC and Al Gore: http://www.civilservice.gov.uk/news/2007/December/Defra-IPCC.aspx

“Defra provides financial support to the co-chairs and their supporting secretariats. As such the UK has provided underpinning funding for almost one-third of the major scientific reports produced by the IPCC, which the Nobel committee believes have ‘created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming.’ “

Link 27. The full strategy can be seen at:

www.defra.gov.uk/science/s_is/directorates/asp.

Extract:

5.1 Alignment of the Climate Prediction Programme with Defra’s business and science objectives

“The Climate Prediction Programme was not an academic research programme; its work plan and deliverables was driven by Defra’s requirements for science to inform UK government policy on climate change mitigation and adaptation. As the policy requirements changed, so did the research programme objectives. In this section we show how the work described in the CPP Annexes contributed to one or more of the science and business objectives and issues, as published in the Global Atmosphere section of the current strategy for the Climate, Energy and Environmental Risk (CEER) Directorate for 2003-2006. Defra and now the dept for energy and climate change, see AGW as being the vehicle to promote ‘one planet living’ “

From the Met office web site

Link 28

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/hadleycentre/

Three events occurred in 1988 that assisted greatly in bringing the issue of man-made climate change to the notice of politicians:* A World Ministerial Conference on Climate Change in June hosted by the government of Canada *A speech in September by Margaret Thatcher where she mentioned the  Anthropogenic climate change and the importance of action to combat it. * The first meeting of the IPCC in Geneva in November 1988. Delegates from various countries agreed to set up an international assessment of the science of change, together with its likely impacts and the policy options.

In December 1988 the UK Government announced it was committed to extending its influence internationally to provide information about climate change and to supporting appropriate research. Discussions were held with the Department of the Environment to strengthen climate research at the Met Office. This led, in November 1989, to an announcement of a new centre for climate change research in the Met Office — then called the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research. Margaret Thatcher opened this in 1990; it has since moved-as part of the Met office- to Exeter.”

The wheel has turned full cycle as the science becomes irrelevant to the politics. Observations that things aren’t as the models predicted are ignored, the planet has failed to read the script by inconveniently cooling for nearly a decade, whilst sea levels stubbornly refuse to rise beyond natural variability. The effects of the Jet stream is little understood and historic precedents for cyclic variability in our climate dismissed. Far from the ‘science being settled’, it is very poorly understood as yet. Even the Met office admit they have no idea –despite being world leaders- as to how much sea level will rise and its relationship to melting ice sheets, as this recent advert shows:

Polar ice-sheet modelling scientist

Salary: £25,500 + competitive benefits, including Civil Service Pension

Generic Role: Senior Scientist

Profession: Science

Permanent post at the Met Office, Exeter

Closing date for applications: 11 June 2009

Background information

A significant uncertainty in future projections of sea level is associated with dynamical changes in the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets and a key aspect of this uncertainty is the role of ice shelves, how they might respond to climate change, and the effect this could have on the ice sheets. The goal of the post is to contribute to improved scenarios of sea-level rise, which is an important aspect of climate change, with large coastal impacts.

Specific job purpose

Incorporate a model of ice shelves into the Met Office Hadley Centre climate model to develop a capability to make projections of rapid changes in ice sheets, thereby leading to improved scenarios of future sea-level rise.”

So the poitics that started this all off have come back to the fore with the TV advert. This time through a Labour govt who have a penchant for control, taxes and an idealistic view of the world. Clearly they share this idea.

Link 29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_of_Rome

“The common enemy of humanity is man. In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these
dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.”

– Club of Rome,
(premier environmental think-tank, with numerous high profile and influential members)

This is not to say that anyone in this complex saga has done anything illegal in following and promoting their own particular world view through the message of collective social responsibility, woven into the apocalyptic notion of catastrophic man made climate change.

However, the nature of the highly convoluted linking of dedicated and sincere organisations and individuals with their own interpretation of the science, means the process is not at all transparent, dissenting voices have been ignored, and there is an element of “group think” in order to conform secure desired outcomes. In effect public money has been used to promote a politically inspired ideology subject to substantial mission creep, in order to meet political aims.

Politicians and the media who share the “one world living” viewpoint have probably not been as assiduous as they should in questioning the science (because many want to believe it)  Many others who may not share this world viewpoint have been equally as guilty in nodding through what has been put in front of them. The taxation, social, and cost elements of “environmental”policies has also not been clearly spelt out to the population, and are of fundamental importance to everyone as they will have a dramatic impact on their way of life, basic freedoms and finances.

“H.L.Mencken wrote: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

The science behind the IPCC has always been debatale at best – but never openly debated. It has now become the means to persuade the populace to follow broader social objectives in a “one world” scenario.

” ‘Jacta alea esto,’ Let the die be cast! Let the game be ventured!”

That was the famous declaration of Cæsar when, at the Rubicon, after long
hesitation, he finally decided to march to Rome,

With the airing of this advert a political line has been crossed. The die is cast.

Tonyb

I say BRING IT ON. Finally we’ll get to put this absurdity about the connection between global warming and hurricanes to rest, because, it doesn’t exist. I hope the defense will bring in the findings of Ryan Maue at FSU COAPS as shown below.

12-month running sums of Accumulated Cyclone Energy for the entire globe. 1979-current

From the Wall Street Journal Law Blog

For years, leading plaintiffs’ lawyers have promised a legal assault on industrial America for contributing to global warming.

So far, the trial bar has had limited success. The hurdles to such suits are pretty obvious: How do you apportion fault and link particular plaintiffs’ injuries to the pollution emitted by a particular group of defendants?

Today, though, plaintiffs’ lawyers may be a gloating a bit, after a favorable ruling Friday from the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, which is regarded as one of the more conservative circuit courts in the country. Here’s a link to the ruling.

The suit was brought by landowners in Mississippi, who claim that oil and coal companies emitted greenhouse gasses that contributed to global warming that, in turn, caused a rise in sea levels, adding to Hurricane Katrina’s ferocity. (See photo of Bay St. Louis, Miss., after the storm.)

For a nice overview of the ruling, and its significance in the climate change battle, check out this blog post by J. Russell Jackson, a Skadden Arps partner who specializes in mass tort litigation. The post likens the Katrina plaintiffs’ claims, which set out a chain of causation, to the litigation equivalent of “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.”

The central question before the Fifth Circuit was whether the plaintiffs had standing, or whether they could demonstrate that their injuries were “fairly traceable” to the defendant’s actions. The defendants predictably assert that the link is “too attenuated.”

Read the entire article here

h/t Ron De Haan

Reposted from comments on the new Urban Future thread here

Originally from the blog Fightin’ Words

Above: Obama’s last visit to Copenhagen didn’t work out so well for the USA.

The Minnesota Free Market Institute hosted an event at Bethel University in St. Paul on Wednesday evening. Keynote speaker Lord Christopher Monckton, former science adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, gave a scathing and lengthy presentation, complete with detailed charts, graphs, facts, and figures which culminated in the utter decimation of both the pop culture concept of global warming and the credible threat of any significant anthropomorphic climate change.

A detailed summary of Monckton’s presentation will be available here once compiled. However, a segment of his remarks justify immediate publication. If credible, the concern Monckton speaks to may well prove the single most important issue facing the American nation, bigger than health care, bigger than cap and trade, and worth every citizen’s focused attention.

Here were Monckton’s closing remarks, as dictated from my audio recording:

At [the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in] Copenhagen, this December, weeks away, a treaty will be signed. Your president will sign it. Most of the third world countries will sign it, because they think they’re going to get money out of it. Most of the left-wing regime from the European Union will rubber stamp it. Virtually nobody won’t sign it.

I read that treaty. And what it says is this, that a world government is going to be created. The word “government” actually appears as the first of three purposes of the new entity. The second purpose is the transfer of wealth from the countries of the West to third world countries, in satisfication of what is called, coyly, “climate debt” – because we’ve been burning CO2 and they haven’t. We’ve been screwing up the climate and they haven’t. And the third purpose of this new entity, this government, is enforcement.

How many of you think that the word “election” or “democracy” or “vote” or “ballot” occurs anywhere in the 200 pages of that treaty? Quite right, it doesn’t appear once. So, at last, the communists who piled out of the Berlin Wall and into the environmental movement, who took over Greenpeace so that my friends who funded it left within a year, because [the communists] captured it – Now the apotheosis as at hand. They are about to impose a communist world government on the world. You have a president who has very strong sympathies with that point of view. He’s going to sign it. He’ll sign anything. He’s a Nobel Peace Prize [winner]; of course he’ll sign it.

[laughter]

And the trouble is this; if that treaty is signed, if your Constitution says that it takes precedence over your Constitution (sic), and you can’t resign from that treaty unless you get agreement from all the other state parties – And because you’ll be the biggest paying country, they’re not going to let you out of it.

So, thank you, America. You were the beacon of freedom to the world. It is a privilege merely to stand on this soil of freedom while it is still free. But, in the next few weeks, unless you stop it, your president will sign your freedom, your democracy, and your humanity away forever. And neither you nor any subsequent government you may elect will have any power whatsoever to take it back. That is how serious it is. I’ve read the treaty. I’ve seen this stuff about [world] government and climate debt and enforcement. They are going to do this to you whether you like it or not.

But I think it is here, here in your great nation, which I so love and I so admire – it is here that perhaps, at this eleventh hour, at the fifty-ninth minute and fifty-ninth second, you will rise up and you will stop your president from signing that dreadful treaty, that purposeless treaty. For there is no problem with climate and, even if there were, an economic treaty does nothing to [help] it.

So I end by saying to you the words that Winston Churchill addressed to your president in the darkest hour before the dawn of freedom in the Second World War. He quoted from your great poet Longfellow:

Sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!

Lord Monckton giving a presentation - photo by Derek Warnecke

Lord Monckton received a standing ovation and took a series of questions from members of the audience. Among those questions were these relevent to the forthcoming Copenhagen treaty:

Question: The current administration and the Democratic majority in Congress has shown little regard for the will of the people. They’re trying to pass a serious government agenda, and serious taxation and burdens on future generations. And there seems to be little to stop them. How do you propose we stop Obama from doing this, because I see no way to stop him from signing anything in Copenhagen. I believe that’s his agenda and he’ll do it.

I don’t minimize the difficulty. But on this subject – I don’t really do politics, because it’s not right. In the end, your politics is for you. The correct procedure is for you to get onto your representatives, both in the US Senate where the bill has yet to go through (you can try and stop that) and in [the House], and get them to demand their right of audience (which they all have) with the president and tell him about this treaty. There are many very powerful people in this room, wealthy people, influential people. Get onto the media, tell them about this treaty. If they go to www.wattsupwiththat.com, they will find (if they look carefully enough) a copy of that treaty, because I arranged for it to be posted there not so long ago. Let them read it, and let the press tell the people that their democracy is about to be taken away for no good purpose, at least [with] no scientific basis [in reference to climate change]. Tell the press to say this. Tell the press to say that, even if there is a problem [with climate change], you don’t want your democracy taken away. It really is as simple as that.

[Update: this section on a question from an attendee to the presentation has been removed from this WUWT article because even though Monckton clearly refuted it, it is turning into a debate over presidential eligibility that I don't want at WUWT. If you want to see it and discuss it. Do it at the original blog entry Fightin' Words - Anthony]

Regardless of whether global warming is taking place or caused to any degree by human activity, we do not want a global government empowered to tax Americans without elected representation or anything analogous to constitutional protections. The Founding Fathers would roll over in their graves if they knew their progeny allowed a foreign power such authority, effectively undoing their every effort in an act of Anti-American Revolution. If that is our imminent course, we need to put all else on hold and focus on stopping it. If American sovereignty is ceded, all other debate is irrelevant.

Edited to add @ 8:31 am:

Skimming through the treaty, I came across verification of Monckton’s assessment of the new entity’s purpose:

38. The scheme for the new institutional arrangement under the Convention will be based on three basic pillars: government; facilitative mechanism; and financial mechanism, and the basic organization of which will include the following:

World Government (heading added)
a) The government will be ruled by the COP with the support of a new subsidiary body on adaptation, and of an Executive Board responsible for the management of the new funds and the related facilitative processes and bodies. The current Convention secretariat will operate as such, as appropriate.

To Redistribute Wealth (heading added)
b) The Convention’s financial mechanism will include a multilateral climate change fund including five windows: (a) an Adaptation window, (b) a Compensation window, to address loss and damage from climate change impacts [read: the "climate debt" Monckton refers to], including insurance, rehabilitation and compensatory components, © a Technology window; (d) a Mitigation window; and (e) a REDD window, to support a multi-phases process for positive forest incentives relating to REDD actions.

With Enforcement Authority (heading added)
c) The Convention’s facilitative mechanism will include: (a) work programmes for adaptation and mitigation; (b) a long-term REDD process; © a short-term technology action plan; (d) an expert group on adaptation established by the subsidiary body on adaptation, and expert groups on mitigation, technologies and on monitoring, reporting and verification; and (e) an international registry for the monitoring, reporting and verification of compliance of emission reduction commitments, and the transfer of technical and financial resources from developed countries to developing countries. The secretariat will provide technical and administrative support, including a new centre for information exchange [read; enforcement].

UPDATE: Thanks to WUWT reader “Michael” who post the URL on another unrelated thread, we now have video of Lord Monckton’s presentation:

Guest post by Indur Goklany

The Economist’s print edition has published my letter taking it to task for a pretty uninformed piece it published on the impacts of climate change last month. Although the editors changed the title, dropped the references which I furnish reflexively, and is somewhat briefer, the printed version is for the most part quite faithful to the spirit of the original.  I am furnishing the original below for the benefit of your readers who may be interested in checking my statements and going beyond the “he said, she said” nature of most exchanges on the opinion pages of newspapers and magazines.

********************************************

A badly developed climate backgrounder

SIR — The Economist’s article, A bad climate for development (September 17), which also serves as a backgrounder for an online debate on climate change, is not only selective in the information it presents, it is riddled with speculation and unsubstantiated claims.

For example, its chart 3 presents portions of two of three panels in figure 2.1 of the World Development Report 2010.  But the panel that it chooses not to display shows that deaths from all climate related disasters have actually declined at least since 1981–85 despite (a) an enormous increase in the population at risk, namely, the world’s population, and (b) the fact that older data has a greater tendency to underestimate the number and casualties of extreme weather events. The original source of the data (Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, CRED) states that the increase in the data until 1995 “is explained partly by better reporting of disasters in general, partly due to active data collection efforts by CRED and partly due to real increases in certain types of disasters.”[1] They also state that they are unable to say whether the latter increases are due to climate change.

Secondly, the backgrounder cites estimates sponsored by the World Health Organisation and published in Comparative Quantification of Health Risks that attributed 150,000 deaths and a loss of 5.5m disability-adjusted life years — a measure of the global burden of disease — to climate change in the year 2000.  But these studies also show that at least twenty other risk factors contributed more to death and disease.[2] That is, there are many more important health problems facing the world than climate change.

Thirdly, the article goes on to claim that the indirect harm to public health from the impact of climate change on water supplies, crop yields and disease is “hugely greater.” But what’s the evidence for this?

In fact, access to safe water, improved sanitation, crop yields, and life expectancy has never been higher in the history of mankind.[3] This is true for both the developing and developed worlds. Much of this has been enabled, directly or indirectly, by economic surpluses generated by the use of fossil fuels and other greenhouse gas generating activities such as fertilizer usage, pumping water for irrigation, and use of farm machinery. And crop yields, in particular, are also higher today than ever partly because of higher concentrations of CO₂, without which yields would be zero.

Fourthly, the backgrounder claims that global warming is causing both droughts and floods. Regardless of whether this is the case, deaths from droughts have declined by 99.9% since the 1920s, and 99% from floods since the 1930s.[4] In fact, since the 1920s, average annual deaths from all extreme weather events have dropped by 95 percent while annual death rates, which factor in population growth, have been reduced by 99 percent.

One item, however, where I agree with the backgrounder is that projections of the future impacts of climate change are “no more than educated guesses” although, as Alexander Pope might have said, a little education is a dangerous thing.

Indur M. Goklany

Notes

[2] Goklany IM. Climate change is not the biggest health threat. Lancet 2009; 374: 973-74.

[3] Goklany IM. The Improving State of the World: Why We’re Living Longer, Healthier, More Comfortable Lives on a Cleaner Planet (Cato Institute, Washington, DC, 2007).

[4] Goklany IM. Death and Death Rates Due to Extreme Weather Events:  Global and U.S. Trends, 1900-2006, in The Civil Society Report on Climate Change, November 2007, available at http://goklany.org/library/deaths%20death%20rates%20from%20extreme%20events%202007.pdf.

It’s really rather sad that you can read about Svensmark’s climate research in an Iranian news outlet (FARS) but you won’t see any mention of it in American press, such as in the NYT. A search for Svensmark (and also cosmic rays) yields nothing. Maybe Andy Revkin just hasn’t gotten around to it yet, but if I were in his shoes, I wouldn’t enjoy being scooped by Iran. WUWT covered this story, complete with comments direct from Dr. Svensmark, nearly one month ago. See here.

Here’s the story from FARS:

===

TEHRAN (FNA)- New research by the National Space Institute in the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) validated 13 years of discoveries that point to a key role for cosmic rays in climate change.

Billions of tons of water droplets vanish from the atmosphere in events that reveal in detail how the Sun and the stars control our everyday clouds.

DTU Researchers have traced the consequences of eruptions on the Sun that screen the Earth from some of the cosmic rays – the energetic particles raining down on our planet from exploded stars.

“The Sun makes fantastic natural experiments that allow us to test our ideas about its effects on the climate,” lead author of a report newly published in Geophysical Research Letters Prof. Henrik Svensmark said.

When solar explosions interfere with the cosmic rays there is a temporary shortage of small aerosols, chemical specks in the air that normally grow until water vapor can condense on them, so seeding the liquid water droplets of low-level clouds.

Because of the shortage, clouds over the ocean can lose as much as 7 per cent of their liquid water within seven or eight days of the cosmic-ray minimum.

“A link between the Sun, cosmic rays, aerosols, and liquid-water clouds appears to exist on a global scale,” the report concludes.

This research, to which Torsten Bondo and Jacob Svensmark contributed, validates 13 years of discoveries that point to a key role for cosmic rays in climate change.

In particular, it connects observable variations in the world’s cloudiness to laboratory experiments in Copenhagen showing how cosmic rays help to make the all-important aerosols.

Other investigators have reported difficulty in finding significant effects of the solar eruptions on clouds, and Henrik Svensmark understands their problem.

“It’s like trying to see tigers hidden in the jungle, because clouds change a lot from day to day whatever the cosmic rays are doing,” he says.

The first task for a successful hunt was to work out when “tigers” were most likely to show themselves, by identifying the most promising instances of sudden drops in the count of cosmic rays, called Forbush decreases.

Previous research in Copenhagen predicted that the effects should be most notice-able in the lowest 3000 meters of the atmosphere. The team identified 26 Forbush decreases since 1987 that caused the biggest reductions in cosmic rays at low altitudes, and set about looking for the consequences.

The first global impact of the shortage of cosmic rays is a subtle change in the color of sunlight, as seen by ground stations of the aerosol robotic network AERONET.

By analyzing its records during and after the reductions in cosmic rays, the DTU team found that violet light from the Sun looked brighter than usual. A shortage of small aerosols, which normally scatter violet light as it passes through the air, was the most likely reason. The color change was greatest about five days after the minimum counts of cosmic rays.

Henrik Svensmark and his team were not surprised by it, because the immediate action of cosmic rays, seen in laboratory experiments, creates micro-clusters of sulphuric acid and water molecules that are too small to affect the AERONET observations.

Only when they have spent a few days growing in size should they begin to show up, or else be noticeable by their absence. The evidence from the aftermath of the Forbush decreases, as scrutinized by the Danish team, gives aerosol experts valuable information about the formation and fate of small aerosols in the Earth’s atmosphere.

Although capable of affecting sunlight after five days, the growing aerosols would not yet be large enough to collect water droplets. The full impact on clouds only becomes evident two or three days later.

It takes the form of a loss of low-altitude clouds, because of the earlier loss of small aerosols that would normally have grown into “cloud condensation nuclei” capable of seeding the clouds.

“Then it’s like noticing bare patches in a field, where a farmer forgot to sow the seeds,” Svensmark explains. “Three independent sets of satellite observations all tell a similar story of clouds disappearing, about a week after the minimum of cosmic rays.”

Averaging satellite data on the liquid-water content of clouds over the oceans, for the five strongest Forbush decreases from 2001 to 2005, the DTU team found a 7 per cent decrease, as mentioned earlier.

That translates into 3 billion tons of liquid water vanishing from the sky. The water remains the-re in vapor form, but unlike cloud droplets it does not get in the way of sunlight trying to warm the ocean. After the same five Forbush decreases, satellites measuring the extent of liquid-water clouds revealed an average reduction of 4 per cent. Other satellites showed a similar 5 per cent reduction in clouds below 3200 meters over the ocean.

“The effect of the solar explosions on the Earth’s cloudiness is huge,” Henrik Svensmark comments.

“A loss of clouds of 4 or 5 per cent may not sound very much, but it briefly increases the sunlight reaching the oceans by about 2 watt per square meter, and that’s equivalent to all the global warming during the 20th Century.”

The Forbush decreases are too short-lived to have a lasting effect on the climate, but they dramatize the mechanism that works more patiently during the 11-year solar cycle.

When the Sun becomes more active, the decline in low-altitude cosmic radiation is greater than that seen in most Forbush events and the loss of low cloud cover persists for long enough to warm the world.

That explains, according to the DTU team, the alternations of warming and cooling seen in the lower atmosphere and in the oceans during solar cycles.

The director of the Danish National Space Institute, DTU, Eigil Friis-Christensen, was co-author with Svensmark of an early report on the effect of cosmic rays on cloud cover, back in 1996.

Commenting on the latest paper he said, “The evidence has piled up, first for the link between cosmic rays and low-level clouds and then, by experiment and observation, for the mechanism involving aerosols. All these consistent scientific results illustrate that the current climate models used to predict future climate are lacking important parts of the physics”.

From a Press Release from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology

Every cloud is different from the next. It is therefore important to study the types of cloud systems in which aerosols have the greatest influence. Image: Max Planck Institute for Meteorology / Stevens

Do dust particles curb climate change?

A knowledge gap exists in the area of climate research: for decades, scientists have been asking themselves whether, and to what extent man-made aerosols, that is, dust particles suspended in the atmosphere, enlarge the cloud cover and thus curb climate warming. Research has made little or no progress on this issue. Two scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg (MPI-M) and the American National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) report in the journal Nature that the interaction between aerosols, clouds and precipitation is strongly dependent on factors that have not been adequately researched up to now. They urge the adoption of a research concept that will close this gap in the knowledge. (Nature, October 1st, 2009)

Greenhouse gases that heat up the earth’s atmosphere have their adversaries: dust particles suspended in the atmosphere which are known as aerosols. They arise naturally, for example when wind blows up desert dust, and through human activities. A large proportion of the man-made aerosols arise from sulfur dioxides that are generated, in turn, by the combustion of fossil fuels.

The aerosols are viewed as climate coolers, which compensate in part for the heating up of the earth by greenhouse gases. Climate researchers imagine the workings of this cooling mechanism in very simple terms: when aerosols penetrate clouds, they attract water molecules and therefore act as condensation seeds for drops of water. The more aerosol particles suspended in the cloud, the more drops of water are formed. When man-made dust particles join the natural ones, the number of drops increases. As a result, the average size of the drops decreases. Because smaller drops do not fall to the ground, the aerosols prevent the cloud from raining out and extend its lifetime. Consequently, the cloud cover over the earth’s surface increases. Because clouds reflect the solar radiation and throw it back into space, less heat collects in the atmosphere than when the sky is clear. Climate researchers refer to this mechanism as the “cloud lifetime effect”.

To date, however, it has not been possible to quantify the influence of the cloud lifetime effect on climate. The estimates vary hugely and range from no influence whatsoever to a cooling effect that is sufficient to more than compensate for the heating effect of carbon dioxide.

According to Bjorn Stevens from the MPI-M and Graham Feingold from the Earth System Research Laboratory at NOAA in Washington D.C the enormous uncertainty surrounding this phenomenon is indicative of the fact that the explanation of the cooling mechanism generated by aerosols is oversimplified. The two cloud researchers have analyzed the specialist literature published on this topic since the 1970s. In their survey of the literature they encountered observations that disagree with the cloud lifetime effect: for example, a field study carried out a few years ago found that clouds in the Trade Wind region rain out more quickly rather than more slowly in the presence of virtually opaque aerosols.

On the completion of their analysis of the literature, Stevens and Feingold came to the following conclusion: “Clouds react to aerosols in a very complex way and the reaction is strongly dependent on the type and state of the cloud,” says Stevens. Therefore the aerosol problem is a cloud problem. “We climate researchers must focus more on cloud systems and understand them better,” he stresses.

As the researchers write, processes in the clouds that counteract or even negate the influence of the aerosol particles have not been taken into account up to now. One example: when a cumulus cloud comes into contact with aerosols, it does not rain out. However, this has certain consequences: the fluid rises and evaporates above the cloud. The air that lies above the cloud cools down and becomes susceptible to the upward extension of the cumulus cloud. Higher cumulus clouds rain out more easily than lower ones. This is what causes precipitation. Therefore, in such situations the aerosol does not prevent the cloud from raining out.

Stevens and Feingold believe that due to such buffer mechanisms the cooling effect of the aerosols is likely to be minimal. They admit, however, that the cloud lifetime effect is not unsuitable per se as a way of explaining the processes triggered by aerosols in the clouds. “All cloud types and states cannot, however, be lumped together,” says Stevens. He calls for rethinking aerosol research and makes a comparison with cancer research: “People used to think that cancer was based on a single mechanism. Today, it is known that each type of cancer must be researched individually,” says the scientist.

According to Stevens and Feingold, research must first identify the cloud systems on which aerosols have the greatest influence. They suggest starting with particularly common types of cloud, for example flat cumulus clouds over the oceans (Trade Wind cumuli), which cover 40 percent of the global seas.

A research project to be undertaken jointly by the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology and the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology in Miami will make a start on this. The two-year empirical field study will commence on the Caribbean island of Barbados, which is located in the Trade Wind region, in 2010. The researchers will install remote sensing instruments on the island’s windward side that will focus on the clouds coming from the open ocean. The land measurements will be complemented by measurements taken in the clouds themselves by HALO, the German research aircraft. The data from this measurement campaign should help the scientists to reach a better understanding of the relationships between cloud cover, precipitation, local meteorological conditions and aerosols.

Related links:

[1] Aerosols, Clouds, Precipitation and Climate: Barbados Field Study

http://www.mpimet.mpg.de/en/presse/pressemitteilungen/aerosole-wolken-niederschlag-und-klima-messkampgne-auf-barbados-geplant.html

[2] HALO Website (The High Altitude and LOng Range Research Aircraft)

http://www.halo.dlr.de/

Original work:

Bjorn Stevens, Graham Feingold
Untangling aerosol effects on clouds and precipitation in a buffered system
Nature, October 1st 2009, Volume 461, pages 607 – 613

Trees may be better rain gauges than they are thermometers.  From a press release of:

Killer’ Southeast Drought Low on Scale, Says Study

Others Were Far Worse; Population, Planning Are the Real Problems

Lake Allatoona, Ga., November 2007

A 2005-2007 dry spell in the southeastern United States destroyed billions of dollars of crops, drained municipal reservoirs and sparked legal wars among a half-dozen states—but the havoc came not from exceptional dryness but booming population and bad planning, says a new study. Researchers from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory defied conventional wisdom about the drought by showing that it was mild compared to many others, and in fact no worse than one just a decade ago. According to the study, climate change has so far played no detectable role in the frequency or severity of droughts in the region, and its future effects there are uncertain; but droughts there are essentially unpredictable, and could strike again at any time. The study appears in the October edition of the Journal of Climate.

“The drought that caused so much trouble was pathetically normal and short, far less than what the climate system is capable of generating,” said lead author Richard Seager, a climate modeler at Lamont. “People were saying that this was a 100-year drought, but it was pretty run-of-the-mill. The problem is, in the last 10 years population has grown phenomenally, and hardly anyone, including the politicians, has been paying any attention.”

Region wide, the drought ran from late 2005 to winter 2007-2008, though many areas in the south were still dry until last week, when the weather turned conclusively, and flooding killed at least eight people. During the height of the dry period, Atlanta’s main reservoir sank more than 14 feet, usage restrictions were declared in many areas, and states became embroiled in lawsuits among themselves and with the federal government over use of water in rivers and reservoirs.

Seager and his coauthors Alexandrina Tzanova and Jennifer Nakamura put the period in context by comparing it with instrumental weather records from the last century and studies of tree-growth rings, which vary according to rainfall, for the last 1,000 years. These records show that far more severe, extended region-wide events came in 1555-1574, 1798-1826 and 1834-1861, with certain areas suffering beyond those times. The 1500s drought, which ran into the 1600s in some areas, has been linked by other studies to the destruction of early Spanish and English New World colonies, including Jamestown, Va., where 80 percent of settlers died in a short time. The 20th century turned out relatively wet, but the study showed that even a 1998-2002 drought was worse than that in 2005-2007.

Southeast U.S. rainfall reconstructed from tree rings, 16th-20th centuries

The factor that has changed in the meantime is population. In 1990, Georgia, which uses a quarter of the region’s water, had 6.5 million people. By 2007, there were 9.5 million—up almost 50 percent in 17 years. The population is still ascending, driven largely by migration. However, little has been done to increase water storage or reduce consumption. There has been increased sewage discharge near water supplies, and vast tracts of land have been covered with impermeable roofs, roads and parking lots, which drain rainfall away rapidly instead of storing it.

Previous studies by Seager and colleagues have shown that droughts in the American Southwest and Great Plains states are controlled by cyclic changes in tropical Pacific Ocean sea-surface temperatures –the El Niño-Southern Oscillation cycle. This means that dry weather, which goes along with the cold phase of the cycle, can be predicted to some extent. However, in the current study, the scientists found only a weak correlation between Southeast weather and the tropical Pacific. Instead, says Seager, dry spells appear to be generated by random changes in regional atmospheric circulation. This means weather could dry up at any time.

Seager’s studies also suggest that manmade warming is beginning to perturb precipitation patterns across the globe. As a result, he says, the Southwest may have already entered a period of long-term aridity. In contrast, global warming does not appear to have yet affected rainfall one way or the other in the Southeast. Most climate models project that higher temperatures will actually increase rainfall there—but as temperature rises, evaporation will also increase. At best, says Seager, the two effects may balance each other out; at worst, evaporation will prove stronger, and result in drier soils and reduced river flows in the long term. “Climate change should not be counted on to solve the Southeast’s water woes, and is, in fact, as likely to make things worse as it is better,” says the paper.

“It was a lot drier in the 19th century than it has been recently, but there were so few people around, it didn’t harm anyone,” said Seager. “Now, we are building big urban centers that make us vulnerable to even slight downturns.”

The Federal Emergency Management Agency estimated that national losses due to drought ran around $8 billion a year in the 1990s, but they are probably higher now. Mark Svoboda, a climatologist at the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska who was not involved in the research, said of the study’s results: “This should be a wake-up call. If this is not the worst case scenario, what are we going to do when the worst-case scenario arrives?”

David Stahle, a tree-ring scientist at the University of Arkansas who made the link between 1500s-1600s droughts and the struggles of early Southeast colonies, said settlers then were particularly vulnerable because they had just arrived and lacked sufficient infrastructure or backup supplies. He called the Lamont study “a bedtime story with a moral for modern times.”

“Are we returning to a period of sensitivity and danger like the colonists experienced?” said Stahle. “In a way, yes, it looks like we are.”

Here’s the latest poll from Bloomberg on most important issues facing the country:

Climate change ranks dead last in importance. Source: PollingReport.com

Now compare what the American People think to what Obama thinks in his UN speech today.

The following is the text of Obama’s speech as prepared for delivery today at the UN:

Good morning. I want to thank the Secretary-General for organizing this summit, and all the leaders who are participating. That so many of us are here today is a recognition that the threat from climate change is serious, it is urgent, and it is growing. Our generation’s response to this challenge will be judged by history, for if we fail to meet it — boldly, swiftly, and together — we risk consigning future generations to an irreversible catastrophe.

No nation, however large or small, wealthy or poor, can escape the impact of climate change. Rising sea levels threaten every coastline. More powerful storms and floods threaten every continent. More frequent drought and crop failures breed hunger and conflict in places where hunger and conflict already thrive. On shrinking islands, families are already being forced to flee their homes as climate refugees.

The security and stability of each nation and all peoples — our prosperity, our health, our safety — are in jeopardy. And the time we have to reverse this tide is running out.

And yet, we can reverse it. John F. Kennedy once observed that “Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man.” It is true that for too many years, mankind has been slow to respond to or even recognize the magnitude of the climate threat. It is true of my own country as well. We recognize that. But this is a new day. It is a new era. And I am proud to say that the United States has done more to promote clean energy and reduce carbon pollution in the last eight months than at any other time in our history.

We’re making our government’s largest ever investment in renewable energy — an investment aimed at doubling the generating capacity from wind and other renewable resources in three years. Across America, entrepreneurs are constructing wind turbines and solar panels and batteries for hybrid cars with the help of loan guarantees and tax credits — projects that are creating new jobs and new industries. We’re investing billions to cut energy waste in our homes, buildings, and appliances — helping American families save money on energy bills in the process. We’ve proposed the very first national policy aimed at both increasing fuel economy and reducing greenhouse gas pollution for all new cars and trucks — a standard that will also save consumers money and our nation oil. We’re moving forward with our nation’s first offshore wind energy projects. We’re investing billions to capture carbon pollution so that we can clean up our coal plants. Just this week, we announced that for the first time ever, we’ll begin tracking how much greenhouse gas pollution is being emitted throughout the country. Later this week, I will work with my colleagues at the G20 to phase out fossil fuel subsidies so that we can better address our climate challenge. And already, we know that the recent drop in overall U.S. emissions is due in part to steps that promote greater efficiency and greater use of renewable energy.

Most importantly, the House of Representatives passed an energy and climate bill in June that would finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy for American businesses and dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. One committee has already acted on this bill in the Senate and I look forward to engaging with others as we move forward.

Because no one nation can meet this challenge alone, the United States has also engaged more allies and partners in finding a solution than ever before. In April, we convened the first of what have now been six meetings of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate here in the United States. In Trinidad, I proposed an Energy and Climate Partnership for the Americas. We’ve worked through the World Bank to promote renewable energy projects and technologies in the developing world. And we have put climate at the top of our diplomatic agenda when it comes to our relationships with countries from China to Brazil; India to Mexico; Africa to Europe.

Taken together, these steps represent an historic recognition on behalf of the American people and their government. We understand the gravity of the climate threat.

We are determined to act. And we will meet our responsibility to future generations.

But though many of our nations have taken bold actions and share in this determination, we did not come here today to celebrate progress. We came because there is so much more progress to be made. We came because there is so much more work to be done.

It is work that will not be easy. As we head towards Copenhagen, there should be no illusions that the hardest part of our journey is in front of us. We seek sweeping but necessary change in the midst of a global recession, where every nation’s most immediate priority is reviving their economy and putting their people back to work. And so all of us will face doubts and difficulties in our own capitals as we try to reach a lasting solution to the climate challenge.

But difficulty is no excuse for complacency. Unease is no excuse for inaction. And we must not allow the perfect to become the enemy of progress. Each of us must do what we can when we can to grow our economies without endangering our planet — and we must all do it together. We must seize the opportunity to make Copenhagen a significant step forward in the global fight against climate change.

We also cannot allow the old divisions that have characterized the climate debate for so many years to block our progress. Yes, the developed nations that caused much of the damage to our climate over the last century still have a responsibility to lead. And we will continue to do so by investing in renewable energy, promoting greater efficiency, and slashing our emissions to reach the targets we set for 2020 and our long-term goal for 2050.

But those rapidly-growing developing nations that will produce nearly all the growth in global carbon emissions in the decades ahead must do their part as well. Some of these nations have already made great strides with the development and deployment of clean energy. Still, they will need to commit to strong measures at home and agree to stand behind those commitments just as the developed nations must stand behind their own. We cannot meet this challenge unless all the largest emitters of greenhouse gas pollution act together.

There is no other way.

We must also energize our efforts to put other developing nations — especially the poorest and most vulnerable on a path to sustainable growth. These nations do not have the same resources to combat climate change as countries like the United States or China do, but they have the most immediate stake in a solution. For these are the nations that are already living with the unfolding effects of a warming planet — famine and drought; disappearing coastal villages and the conflict that arises from scarce resources. Their future is no longer a choice between a growing economy and a cleaner planet, because their survival depends on both. It will do little good to alleviate poverty if you can no longer harvest your crops or find drinkable water.

That is why we have a responsibility to provide the financial and technical assistance needed to help these nations adapt to the impacts of climate change and pursue low-carbon development.

What we are seeking, after all, is not simply an agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions. We seek an agreement that will allow all nations to grow and raise living standards without endangering the planet. By developing and disseminating clean technology and sharing our know-how, we can help developing nations leap-frog dirty energy technologies and reduce dangerous emissions.

As we meet here today, the good news is that after too many years of inaction and denial, there is finally widespread recognition of the urgency of the challenge before us. We know what needs to be done. We know that our planet’s future depends on a global commitment to permanently reduce greenhouse gas pollution. We know that if we put the right rules and incentives in place, we will unleash the creative power of our best scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs to build a better world. And so many nations have already taken the first steps on the journey towards that goal.

But the journey is long. The journey is hard. And we don’t have much time left to make it. It is a journey that will require each of us to persevere through setback, and fight for every inch of progress, even when it comes in fits and starts. So let us begin. For if we are flexible and pragmatic; if we can resolve to work tirelessly in common effort, then we will achieve our common purpose: a world that is safer, cleaner, and healthier than the one we found; and a future that is worthy of our children. Thank you.

UPDATE: From Daily Finance

Activists behind NY Post parody detained by police

The New York Post does not have a sense of humor about itself, it would seem.

Early this morning, some 2,000 activists affiliated with a group called The Yes Men handed out copies of a 32-page parody issue calling attention to climate change. But when volunteers tried to distribute copies outside the Post’s offices, they were detained by police and their papers were confiscated, says an eyewitness.

This won’t last long. I’m sure the New York Post won’t take kindly to ripping off their image and brand wholesale to promote this agenda.

The website is: http://nypost-se.com/ The “FAKE” label is mine so that this image doesn’t get confused with the real New York Post at http://www.nypost.com/

click for larger image

This fake version of the New York Post website seems to be part of the “New York Climate Week” effort, though it is hard to tell if it is connected or the work of a misguided person or sympathetic organization. Whomever it is behind it, it isn’t convincing anyone except for the galactically stupid.

As one attorney once said:

“Have you no sense of decency?”

- Joeseph Welch, June 9, 1954, during the McCarthy Senate hearings

The nypost-se.com domain name when looked up by WHOIS at Network Solutions does not appear to resolve to the New York Post, at 1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036-8790, but rather at another NYC address and a private individual.

So what’s next, fake celebrity endorsements?

By their own admission, the people who created the fake website apparently also distributed some newspapers they printed.

http://vimeo.com/6676567

Although the 32-page New York Post is a fake, everything in it is 100% true, with all facts carefully checked by a team of editors and climate change experts.

It will be interesting to see if the usual suspects will join in to denounce this abuse of journalistic ethics or if they’ll simply stay silent and say to themselves “the end justifies the means”.

The real New York Climate Week website is here:

http://www.climateweeknyc.org/

hat tip to Tom Nelson:

http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2009/09/read-it-here-fake-ny-post-promotes.html

Click to enlarge - Dead walruses litter the beach Thursday, September 17, 2009, on the shore of Icy Cape - Image: Tony Fischbach of the U.S. Geological Survey and distributed via The Associated Press

All over the web today, there’s the theme of: “dead walrus = caused by climate change”. On the Climate Progress blog they have this picture of the dead walruses (seen at left) which have been circulated by the Associated Press. I found the source photo on the Alaskan Daily News (ADN) here.

While uncredited on Climate Progress, the photo appears to have been taken from an airplane or helicopter by Tony Fischbach of the  U.S. Geological Survey and distributed via The Associated Press.

In the ADN news article two things stand out:

1- The USFWS official quoted in the article,  says that he doesn’t know the cause of the deaths:

“It’s just too early to say until we can get someone on the ground,” Woods said.

They report the dead walruses appeared to be mostly new calves or yearlings. However, neither the age of the dead walruses nor the cause of death is known, said Bruce Woods, spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

2- The AP reporter, Dan Joling,  gives a platform to somebody who also isn’t on the ground, or even Alaska but works in San Francisco, who assigns climate change as the blame:

Shaye Wolf, spokeswoman for the Center for Biological Diversity, said the walrus deaths were alarming.

“It provides another indicator that climate change is taking a brutal toll on the Arctic,” she said.

This isn’t the first time AP writer Jolin has had a story angle downplayed by Brice Woods. The other poster child for Arctic climate change, the polar bear was part of a 2006 AP story where woods also downplayed the significance.

Before I say anything further, let me point out that I’m no expert on Alaskan wildlife. That being said, neither is Joe Romm and many of the other bloggers who repeated the AP story. So, I’m no more qualified to comment than any of them are. But since they’ve advanced a theory, I wish to do so also. I want to draw your attention to something curious in the Fischbach photograph that many websites used, but made no commentary on outside of the “dead walrus = caused by climate change” script.

Expand the photo above. Note that every walrus has what appears to be blood on it. I counted seven in the photo, each having a one or more red spots that seem to be bloody in origin. I can’t tell if the heads and tusks are on them carcasses either. Maybe somebody who knows what a dead beach walrus is supposed to look like can tell better? Hold onto that thought for a bit.

One of the theories from the “dead walrus = caused by climate change” theme is “Retreating sea ice might have taken away some of the platforms walrus use to hunt and rest, pushing to walrus to shore.”

Here’s a summary on the walrus from the University of Michigan:

Walruses prefer to inhabit areas with ice floes in the shallower regions near the coasts of Arctic waterways. Their seasonal migration patterns coincide with the changes in the ice. In the winter, walruses move south as the Arctic ice expands, and in the summer they retreat north as the ice recedes. This migration can cover distances of 3000 km. Individuals concentrate where the ice is relatively thin and dispersed in the winter. In the summer time, bulls may use isolated coastal beaches and rocky islets. Cows and young prefer to stay on ice floes in all seasons (Nowak 1991, Parker 1990).

And so says the theory, because they were pushed to shore, they were trampled by a stampede. No other cause is considered in this recent blast of news stories.

A stampede can be triggered by a polar bear, a plane or other perceived threat to the herd. That’s certainly possible. It has happened before according to this report from the Seattle Times in 2007:

Walruses are vulnerable to stampedes when they gather in such large numbers. The appearance of a polar bear, a hunter or a low-flying airplane can send them rushing to the water.

Sure enough, scientists received reports of hundreds and hundreds of walruses dead of internal injuries suffered in stampedes. Many of the youngest and weakest animals, mostly calves born in the spring, were crushed.

Biologist Anatoly Kochnev of Russia’s Pacific Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography estimated 3,000 to 4,000 walruses out of population of perhaps 200,000 died, or two or three times the usual number on shoreline haulouts.

He said the animals only started appearing on shore for extended periods in the late 1990s, after the sea ice receded.

“The reason is the global warming,” Kochnev said.

Here’s the article photo that shows a trampled walrus:

ANATOLY A. KOCHNEV / AP

This photo provided by Pacific Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography shows a dead walrus, foreground, after a stampede on Cape Vankarem, Russia in March, 2007.

Here’s another photo and story from the same time period, from Physorg.com

Headless Walruses Alarm Alaska Officials

August 16th, 2007 By MARY PEMBERTON, Associated Press Writer

A dead walrus without its ivory tusks lay washed up on a beach of Norton sound off the coast of Nome, Alaska on Wednesday Aug. 15, 2007. The larger than normal number of walrus carcasses washing up on the beaches of Norton Sound has prompted an investigation by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. (AP Photo/Diana Haecker)

(AP) — An unusually high number of walrus carcasses missing their heads and ivory tusks have washed up on beaches this summer, alarming wildlife officials.

###

No mention of “global warming” in that story. It also didn’t get much coverage. Old news, poachers at work, move along nothing to see here.

But it brings up an interesting question. In the Fischbach photo above that prompted the latest round of “dead walrus = caused by climate change” stories, we have seven of seven carcasses apparently with blood on them. Many of them appear to have blood only at one end. In the 2007 Kochnev dead walrus photo above, attributed to trampling, we don’t see any blood as would be expected by a trampling, which usually causes death by internal injuries and traumatic asphyxiation.

In the paper on traumatic asphyxiation, they don’t attribute much to blunt force injuries, and there’s no mention of blood. True, its about humans, but humans are mammals with lungs also and I can’t find any papers on walrus tramplings. I’d venture it to be undocumented.

I suppose it is possible that some blood might be seen in a mass trampling of walrii, but in seven out of seven carcasses?

Another possible explanation that fits the blood evidence in the Fischbach photo might be illegal poaching for tusks. With the walrus on the beach and within easy reach of anyone with a rifle, they’d make easy targets, but that seems to not to be in the realm of possibilities for our current news writers and bloggers.

Here’s an article that talks about the walrus in depth and notes the poaching issue:

Although both the United States and Russia have prohibited hunting except by native peoples, some conservationists contend that this “subsistence” hunting is now primarily commercial. Poaching has increased since an international moratorium on international trade of elephant ivory was enacted (walrus ivory is a good substitute for many purposes). Between poaching and the legal killing of 10,000-15,000 walruses in the eastern and western Arctic each year, the population of all walruses is likely to decrease greatly.

Now again I’m no expert on Alaskan wildlife but in the current news context, why isn’t anyone mentioning the poaching issue at all?

The International Whaling Ban was put into effect in 1986. This too put a big crimp on the illicit world market for ivory, driving the price up.

Since then there’s been quite a bit of walrus poaching for ivory.

In 1992, the CBS Evening News did a report on Walrus poaching:

(Studio: Dan Rather) Report introduced.

(Washington: Rita Braver) Walrus poaching ring in Alaska featured; excerpt shown of poaching videotaped by undercover United States Fish and Wildlife agent. [Fish and Wildlife Service director, John TURNER - talks about illegal ivory trading.] Details given, videotape excerpt shown of bogus trading post sting operation by United States Fish and Wildlife agents. [Special agent Adam O'HARA - comments on poachers.]

Here’s a prosecution in the news in 2004:

Men accused of shooting animals to sell tusks – without using the rest of them

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FAIRBANKS – Five Gambell men are accused of poaching walruses in the Bering Sea to sell the tusks. http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/080804/sta_poaching.shtml

An here’s a recent investigative report that has been turned into a book.  “Animal Investigators: How the World’s First Wildlife Forensics Lab Is Solving Crimes and Saving Endangered Species”

Excerpts:

At a recent meeting, leaders of the Alaska Native walrus hunting community had urged him to investigate illegal walrus hunting.  While most Alaskan Natives scorned “headhunting,” —killing a walrus simply for its ivory tusks—Crane could see numerous examples from the seat of his plane.  Local residents typically blamed the Russian villages on the other side of the Bering Strait.  They claimed time and waves brought the dead animals to Alaska and that local Inuit hunters took the tusks – the only part that could be salvaged from the decomposing bodies.

Had the animals died naturally and then had their heads cut off?  Or had they been killed for their tusks?  Did Russian bullets kill the animals?  Had Alaskans?  The situation had been going on for years, and it was time to put an end to it.  Crane needed definitive answers.

Normally, Crane would have sent the items to the lab for analysis.  This time, the sheer size and number of the bodies forced a different approach.  A team of forensic scientists, composed of FWS Lab Director Ken Goddard, Deputy Director Edgard (Ed) Espinoza, and veterinary medical examiner Richard (Dick) Stroud, would go to the scene.

Like the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Animal Investigators spotted dead walrus from the air. Then they went onto the beach to give the full CSI treatment.

Photo from the book - spotting dead walrus along the Alaskan coast - click for large image

But what if Animal Investigators had simply shrugged their shoulders and said “eh, global warming”?

We know the Arctic has had warm spells before, such as occurred in 1922.

November 2nd, 1922. Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt.

The walrus apparently did OK then, as it has through millenia before man. Why all of the sudden then is the main cause of walrus deaths attributed to “global warming”. Is it reporting bias, like we’ve seen with extreme weather events now viewed by satellite and Doppler radar that would have gone unnoticed in the past? Given that we now have broad eyes and ears in the Arctic, are we simply more attuned than 100 years ago? Id say that is a factor.

Bu also, why when given a news photo showing seven apparently bloody walrus carcasses has nobody raised the possibility of poaching?

Nobody, including me, wants to see our Alaskan wildlife die or be killed through greed, stupidity, or carelessness. But before we go slapping on that catch all label of “global warming did it”, even before the primary wildlife investigators of this weeks event get a chance to get on the ground and determine the cause, we owe it to the animals and to ourselves to look at all the possibilities and to wait to determine the true cause before we go laying blame.

Otherwise, walrus poaching might just get a free pass under the guise of “global warming did it”.

The Chinese civilization has existed survived intact far longer than any other in human history, and they have records of that civilization that span 2-3 thousand years BC. They’ve seen more climate change than any other civilization.

Xiao Ziniu

The Guardian recently interviewed Xiao Ziniu, the director general of the Beijing Climate Center.

Excerpts:

A 2C rise in global temperatures will not necessarily result in the calamity predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), China’s most senior climatologist has told the Guardian.

He had this bit of wisdom to pass along:

“There is no agreed conclusion about how much change is dangerous,” Xiao said. “Whether the climate turns warmer or cooler, there are both positive and negative effects. We are not focusing on what will happen with a one degree or two degree increase, we are looking at what level will be a danger to the environment. In Chinese history, there have been many periods warmer than today.”

He added:

“Climate prediction has only come into operation in recent years. The accuracy of the prediction is very low because the climate is affected by many mechanisms we do not fully understand.”

We would do well to listen.

More important, we should take note of the fact that China laughs in the face of the west when it comes to regulating their own economy through self imposed emissions goals, while the west cuts back its manufacturing capability, China surges forward.

Nixon awakened a sleeping giant. They’ll squish us like a bug economically and in many other areas. For example China just this week broke ground on a fourth space launch complex.

China will likely go to the moon before the US returns there, perhaps as early as 2014. Meanwhile they aren’t worried about anything, whether it be the atmospheric or the political climate.

In looking at this map from the Beijing Climate Center, it is notable how they see things differently.

UPDATED: This opinion piece from Professor Henrik Svensmark was published September 9th in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Originally the translation was from Google translation with some post translation cleanup of jumbled words or phrases by myself. Now as of Sept 12, the translation is by Nigel Calder.  Hat tip to Carsten Arnholm of Norway for bringing this to my attention and especially for translation facilitation by Ágúst H Bjarnason – Anthony

Spotless Cueball: Catania observatory photosphere image August 31st, 2009 - click for larger image

While the sun sleeps

Translation approved by Henrik Svensmark

While the Sun sleeps
Henrik Svensmark, Professor, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen

“In fact global warming has stopped and a cooling is beginning. No climate model has predicted a cooling of the Earth – quite the contrary. And this means that the projections of future climate are unreliable,” writes Henrik Svensmark.

The star that keeps us alive has, over the last few years, been almost free of sunspots, which are the usual signs of the Sun’s magnetic activity. Last week [4 September 2009] the scientific team behind the satellite SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) reported, “It is likely that the current year’s number of blank days will be the longest in about 100 years.” Everything indicates that the Sun is going into some kind of hibernation, and the obvious question is what significance that has for us on Earth.

If you ask the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which represents the current consensus on climate change, the answer is a reassuring “nothing”. But history and recent research suggest that is probably completely wrong. Why? Let’s take a closer look.

Solar activity has always varied. Around the year 1000, we had a period of very high solar activity, which coincided with the Medieval Warm Period. It was a time when frosts in May were almost unknown – a matter of great importance for a good harvest. Vikings settled in Greenland and explored the coast of North America. On the whole it was a good time. For example, China’s population doubled in this period.

But after about 1300 solar activity declined and the world began to get colder. It was the beginning of the episode we now call the Little Ice Age. In this cold time, all the Viking settlements in Greenland disappeared. Sweden surprised Denmark by marching across the ice, and in London the Thames froze repeatedly. But more serious were the long periods of crop failures, which resulted in poorly nourished populations, reduced in Europe by about 30 per cent because of disease and hunger.

"The March across the Belts was a campaign between January 30 and February 8, 1658 during the Northern Wars where Swedish king Karl X Gustav led the Swedish army from Jutland across the ice of the Little Belt and the Great Belt to reach Zealand (Danish: Sjælland). The risky but vastly successful crossing was a crushing blow to Denmark, and led to the Treaty of Roskilde later that year...." - Click for larger image.

It’s important to realise that the Little Ice Age was a global event. It ended in the late 19th Century and was followed by increasing solar activity. Over the past 50 years solar activity has been at its highest since the medieval warmth of 1000 years ago. But now it appears that the Sun has changed again, and is returning towards what solar scientists call a “grand minimum” such as we saw in the Little Ice Age.

The match between solar activity and climate through the ages is sometimes explained away as coincidence. Yet it turns out that, almost no matter when you look and not just in the last 1000 years, there is a link. Solar activity has repeatedly fluctuated between high and low during the past 10,000 years. In fact the Sun spent about 17 per cent of those 10,000 years in a sleeping mode, with a cooling Earth the result.

You may wonder why the international climate panel IPCC does not believe that the Sun’s changing activity affects the climate. The reason is that it considers only changes in solar radiation. That would be the simplest way for the Sun to change the climate – a bit like turning up and down the brightness of a light bulb.

Satellite measurements have shown that the variations of solar radiation are too small to explain climate change. But the panel has closed its eyes to another, much more powerful way for the Sun to affect Earth’s climate. In 1996 we discovered a surprising influence of the Sun – its impact on Earth’s cloud cover. High-energy accelerated particles coming from exploded stars, the cosmic rays, help to form clouds.

When the Sun is active, its magnetic field is better at shielding us against the cosmic rays coming from outer space, before they reach our planet. By regulating the Earth’s cloud cover, the Sun can turn the temperature up and down. High solar activity means fewer clouds and and a warmer world. Low solar activity and poorer shielding against cosmic rays result in increased cloud cover and hence a cooling. As the Sun’s magnetism doubled in strength during the 20th century, this natural mechanism may be responsible for a large part of global warming seen then.

That also explains why most climate scientists try to ignore this possibility. It does not favour their idea that the 20th century temperature rise was mainly due to human emissions of CO2. If the Sun provoked a significant part of warming in the 20th Century, then the contribution by CO2 must necessarily be smaller.

Ever since we put forward our theory in 1996, it has been subjected to very sharp criticism, which is normal in science.

First it was said that a link between clouds and solar activity could not be correct, because no physical mechanism was known. But in 2006, after many years of work, we completed experiments at DTU Space that demonstrated the existence of a physical mechanism. The cosmic rays help to form aerosols, which are the seeds for cloud formation.

Then came the criticism that the mechanism we found in the laboratory could not work in the real atmosphere, and therefore had no practical significance. We have just rejected that criticism emphatically.

It turns out that the Sun itself performs what might be called natural experiments. Giant solar eruptions can cause the cosmic ray intensity on earth to dive suddenly over a few days. In the days following an eruption, cloud cover can fall by about 4 per cent. And the amount of liquid water in cloud droplets is reduced by almost 7 per cent. Here is a very large effect – indeed so great that in popular terms the Earth’s clouds originate in space.

So we have watched the Sun’s magnetic activity with increasing concern, since it began to wane in the mid-1990s.

That the Sun might now fall asleep in a deep minimum was suggested by solar scientists at a meeting in Kiruna in Sweden two years ago. So when Nigel Calder and I updated our book The Chilling Stars, we wrote a little provocatively that “we are advising our friends to enjoy global warming while it lasts.”

In fact global warming has stopped and a cooling is beginning. Mojib Latif from the University of Kiel argued at the recent UN World Climate Conference in Geneva that the cooling may continue through the next 10 to 20 years. His explanation was a natural change in the North Atlantic circulation, not in solar activity. But no matter how you interpret them, natural variations in climate are making a comeback.

The outcome may be that the Sun itself will demonstrate its importance for climate and so challenge the theories of global warming. No climate model has predicted a cooling of the Earth – quite the contrary. And this means that the projections of future climate are unreliable. A forecast saying it may be either warmer or colder for 50 years is not very useful, and science is not yet able to predict solar activity.

So in many ways we stand at a crossroads. The near future will be extremely interesting. I think it is important to accept that Nature pays no heed to what we humans think about it. Will the greenhouse theory survive a significant cooling of the Earth? Not in its current dominant form. Unfortunately, tomorrow’s climate challenges will be quite different from the greenhouse theory’s predictions. Perhaps it will become fashionable again to investigate the Sun’s impact on our climate.

-

Professor Henrik Svensmark is director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at DTU Space. His book The Chilling Stars has also been published in Danish as Klima og Kosmos Gads Forlag, DK ISBN 9788712043508)

Forecasting the Earth’s Temperature

by David Whitehouse via Benny Peiser’s CCnet

The recent spate of scientific papers that are attempting to predict what the earth’s temperature might be in the coming decades, and also explain the current global temperature standstill, are very interesting because of the methods used to analyse temperature variations, and because they illustrate the limitations of our knowledge.

Recall that only one or two annual data points ago many scientists, as well as the most vocal ‘campaigners,’ dismissed the very idea that the world’s average annual temperature had not changed in the past decade. Today it is an observational fact that can no longer be ignored. We should also not forget that nobody anticipated it. Now, post facto, scientists are looking for an explanation, and in doing so we are seeing AGW in a new light.

The main conclusion, and perhaps it’s no surprise, to be drawn about what will happen to global temperatures is that nobody knows.

The other conclusion to be drawn is that without exception the papers assume a constantly increasing AGW in line with the increase of CO2. This means that any forecast will ultimately lead to rising temperatures as AGW is forever upward and natural variations have their limits. But there is another way of looking at the data. Instead of assuming an increasing AGW why not look for evidence of it in the actual data. In other words let the data have primacy over the theory.

Lean and Ride try to isolate and analyse the various factors that affect decadal changes in the temperature record; El Nino, volcanic aerosols, solar irradiance and AGW. Their formula that links these factors together into a time series is quite simple (indeed there is nothing complicated about any of the papers looking at future temperature trends) though in the actual research paper there is not enough information to follow through their calculations completely.

El Nino typically produces 0.2 deg C warming, volcanic aerosols 0.3 deg C cooling on short timescales, solar irradiance 0.1 deg C (I will come back to this figure in a subsequent post) and the IPCC estimate of AGW is 0.1 deg C per decade.

It should also be noted that natural forces are able to produce a 0.5 deg C increase, although over a longer period. The 0.5 deg C warming observed between say 1850 and 1940 is not due to AGW.

The temperature increase since 1980 is in fact smaller than the rise seen between 1850 – 1940, approx 0.4 deg C. This took place in less than two decades and was followed by the current standstill. A fact often overlooked is that this recent temperature increase was much greater than that due to the postulated AGW effect (0.1 deg C per decade). It must have included natural increases of a greater magnitude.

This is curious. If the recent temperature standstill, 2002-2008, is due to natural factors counteracting AGW, and AGW was only a minor component of the 1980 -1998 temperature rise, then one could logically take the viewpoint that the increase could be due to a conspiracy of natural factors forcing the temperature up rather than keeping the  temperature down post 2002. One cannot have one rule for the period 2002 – 2008 and another for 1980 -1998!

Lean and Rind estimate that 73% of the temperature variability observed in recent decades is natural. However, looking at the observed range of natural variants, and their uncertainties, one could make a case that the AGW component, which has only possibly shown itself between 1980 – 98, is not a required part of the dataset. Indeed, if one did not have in the back of one’s mind the rising CO2 concentration and the physics of the greenhouse effect, one could make out a good case for reproducing the post 1980 temperature dataset with no AGW!

Natural variations dominate any supposed AGW component over timescales of 3 – 4 decades. If that is so then how should be regard 18 years of warming and decades of standstills or cooling in an AGW context? At what point do we question the hypothesis of CO2 induced warming?

Lean and Rind (2009) look at the various factors known to cause variability in the earths temperature over decadal timescales. They come to the conclusion that between 2009-14 global temperatures will rise quickly by 0.15 deg C – faster than the 0.1 deg C per decade deduced as AGW by the IPCC. Then, in the period 2014-19, there will be only a 0.03 deg C increase. They believe this will be chiefly because of the effect of solar irradiance changes over the solar cycle. Lean and Rind see the 2014-19 period as being similar to the 2002-8 temperature standstill which they say has been caused by a decline in solar irradiance counteracting AGW.

This should case some of the more strident commentators to reflect. Many papers have been published dismissing the sun as a significant factor in AGW. The gist of them is that solar effects dominated up to 1950, but recently it has been swamped by AGW. Now however, we see that the previously dismissed tiny solar effect is able to hold AGW in check for well over a decade – in fact forcing a temperature standstill of duration comparable to the recent warming spell.

At least the predictions from the various papers are testable. Lean and Rind (2009) predict rapid warming. Looking at the other forecasts for near-future temperature changes we have Smith et al (2007) predicting warming, and Keenlyside et al (2008) predicting cooling.

At this point I am reminded that James Hansen ‘raised the alarm’ about global warming in 1988 when he had less than a decade of noisy global warming data on which to base his concern. The amount of warming he observed between 1980 and 1988 was far smaller than known natural variations and far larger than the IPCC would go on to say was due to AGW during that period. So whatever the eventual outcome of the AGW debate, logically Hansen had no scientific case.

There are considerable uncertainties in our understanding of natural factors that affect the earth’s temperature record. Given the IPCC’s estimate of the strength of the postulated AGW warming, it is clear that those uncertainties are larger than the AGW effect that may have been observed.

References:

Lean and Rind 2009, Geophys Res Lett 36, L15708

Smith et al Science 2007, 317, 796 – 799

Keenlyside et al 2008, Nature 453, 84 – 88