This post will remain at the top for a few days, new stories will appear below this one
UPDATE1: Andrew Revkin at the NYT weighs in, and semi endorses the leak, see update below – Anthony
UPDATE2: Alternate links have been sent to me, should go faster now. – Anthony
UPDATE3: The main site is down but a large “all in one” RAR file (and bittorrent) has been created by a readers, see below. – Anthony
UPDATE4: 7:30AM PST 12/14/12 reactions are now coming in worldwide, see here, and the IPCC is going to issue a statement today. – Anthony
UPDATE5: 8:30AM PST 12/14/12 The IPCC has issued a statement on the leak, see below. -Anthony
UPDATE6: 12PM PST 12/14/12 The real bombshell of the report is now evident, a lack of warming to match model projections, see it here
UPDATE7: 12:30PM PST 12/14/12 Prof. Roger Pielke Jr. Analysis of UN IPCC Draft report : IPCC ‘shows almost complete reversal from AR4 on trends in drought, hurricanes, floods’
UPDATE8: 5PM PST 12/14/12 Another IPCC reviewer speaks out, this time about water vapor trends – actual data and IPCC contradict each other.
UPDATE9: 2PM PST 12/16/12 A rebuttal to Steven Sherwood and the solar forcing pundits of the IPCC AR5 draft leak
Full AR5 draft leaked here, contains game-changing admission of enhanced solar forcing
(Alec Rawls) I participated in “expert review” of the Second Order Draft of AR5 (the next IPCC report), Working Group 1 (“The Scientific Basis”), and am now making the full draft available to the public. I believe that the leaking of this draft is entirely legal, that the taxpayer funded report report is properly in the public domain under the Freedom of Information Act, and that making it available to the public is in any case protected by established legal and ethical standards, but web hosting companies are not in the business of making such determinations so interested readers are encouraged to please download copies of the report for further dissemination in case this content is removed as a possible terms-of-service violation. My reasons for leaking the report are explained below. Here are the chapters:
From http://www.stopgreensuicide.com/
(which is down now, see updated links below in update #2)
Chapter 2: Observations: Atmosphere and Surface
Chapter 3: Observations: Ocean
Chapter 4: Observations: Cryosphere
Chapter 5: Information from Paleoclimate Archives
Chapter 6: Carbon and Other Biogeochemical Cycles
Chapter 7: Clouds and Aerosols
Chapter 8: Anthropogenic and Natural Radiative Forcing
Chapter 9: Evaluation of Climate Models
Chapter 10: Detection and Attribution of Climate Change: from Global to Regional
Chapter 11: Near-term Climate Change: Projections and Predictability
Chapter 12: Long-term Climate Change: Projections, Commitments and Irreversibility
Chapter 14: Climate Phenomena and their Relevance for Future Regional Climate Change
Why leak the draft report?
By Alec Rawls (email) [writing at http://www.stopgreensuicide.com/ ]
General principles
The ethics of leaking tax-payer funded documents requires weighing the “public’s right to know” against any harm to the public interest that may result. The press often leaks even in the face of extreme such harm, as when the New York Times published details of how the Bush administration was tracking terrorist financing with the help of the private sector Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), causing this very successful anti-terror program to immediately collapse.
That was a bad leak, doing great harm to expose something that nobody needed to know about. With the UN’s IPCC reports the calculus is reversed. UN “climate chief” Christina Figueres explains what is at stake for the public:
… we are inspiring government, private sector, and civil society to [make] the biggest transformation that they have ever undertaken. The Industrial Revolution was also a transformation, but it wasn’t a guided transformation from a centralized policy perspective. This is a centralized transformation that is taking place because governments have decided that they need to listen to science.
So may we please see this “science” on the basis of which our existing energy infrastructure is to be ripped out in favor of non-existent “green” energy? The only reason for secrecy in the first place is to enhance the UN’s political control over a scientific story line that is aimed explicitly at policy makers. Thus the drafts ought to fall within the reach of the Freedom of Information Act.
The Obama administration implicitly acknowledged this when it tried to evade FOIA by setting up private “backdoor channels” for communications with the IPCC. If NCAR’s Gerald Meehl (a lead author of AR5’s chapter on near-term climate change), has working copies of the draft report (and he’s only one of dozens of U.S. government researchers who would), then by law the draft report (now finished) should be available to the public.
The IPCC’s official reason for wanting secrecy (as they explained it to Steve McIntyre in January 2012) is so that criticisms of the drafts are not spread out across the internet but get funneled through the UN’s comment process. If there is any merit to that rationale it is now moot. The comment period ended November 30th so the comment process can no longer be affected by publication.
As for my personal confidentiality agreement with the IPCC, I regard that as vitiated by the systematic dishonesty of the report (“omitted variable fraud” as I called it in my FOD comments). This is a general principle of journalistic confidentiality: bad faith on one side breaks the agreement on the other. They can’t ask reviewers to become complicit in their dishonesty by remaining silent about it.
Then there is the specific content of the Second Order Draft where the addition of one single sentence demands the release of the whole. That sentence is an astounding bit of honesty, a killing admission that completely undercuts the main premise and the main conclusion of the full report, revealing the fundamental dishonesty of the whole.
Lead story from the Second Order Draft: strong evidence for solar forcing beyond TSI now acknowledged by IPCC
Compared to the First Order Draft, the SOD now adds the following sentence, indicated in bold (page 7-43, lines 1-5, emphasis added):
Many empirical relationships have been reported between GCR or cosmogenic isotope archives and some aspects of the climate system (e.g., Bond et al., 2001; Dengel et al., 2009; Ram and Stolz, 1999). The forcing from changes in total solar irradiance alone does not seem to account for these observations, implying the existence of an amplifying mechanism such as the hypothesized GCR-cloud link. We focus here on observed relationships between GCR and aerosol and cloud properties.
The Chapter 7 authors are admitting strong evidence (“many empirical relationships”) for enhanced solar forcing (forcing beyond total solar irradiance, or TSI), even if they don’t know what the mechanism is. This directly undercuts the main premise of the report, as stated in Chapter 8 (page 8-4, lines 54-57):
There is very high confidence that natural forcing is a small fraction of the anthropogenic forcing. In particular, over the past three decades (since 1980), robust evidence from satellite observations of the TSI and volcanic aerosols demonstrate a near-zero (–0.04 W m–2) change in the natural forcing compared to the anthropogenic AF increase of ~1.0 ± 0.3 W m–2.
The Chapter 8 authors (a different group than the Chapter 7 authors) are explicit here that their claim about natural forcing being small compared to anthropogenic forcing is based on an analysis in which the only solar forcing that is taken into account is TSI. This can be verified from the radiative forcing table on page 8-39 where the only solar variable included in the IPCC’s computer models is seen to be “solar irradiance.”
This analysis, where post-1980 warming gets attributed to the human release of CO2 on the grounds that it cannot be attributed to solar irradiance, cannot stand in the face of the Chapter 7 admission of substantial evidence for solar forcing beyond solar irradiance. Once the evidence for enhanced solar forcing is taken into account we can have no confidence that natural forcing is small compared to anthropogenic forcing.
The Chapter 8 premise that natural forcing is relatively small leads directly to the main conclusion of the entire report, stated in the first sentence of the Executive Summary (the very first sentence of the entire report): that advances since AR4 “further strengthen the basis for human activities being the primary driver in climate change” (p.1-2, lines 3-5). This headline conclusion is a direct descendant of the assumption that the only solar forcing is TSI, a claim that their own report no longer accepts.
The report still barely hints at the mountain of evidence for enhanced solar forcing, or the magnitude of the evidenced effect. Dozens of studies (section two here) have found between a .4 and .7 degree of correlation between solar activity and various climate indices, suggesting that solar activity “explains” in the statistical sense something like half of all past temperature change, very little of which could be explained by the very slight variation in TSI. At least the Chapter 7 team is now being explicit about what this evidence means: that some mechanism of enhanced solar forcing must be at work.
My full submitted comments (which I will post later) elaborate several important points. For instance, note that the Chapter 8 premise (page 8-4, lines 54-57) assumes that it is the change in the level of forcing since 1980, not the level of forcing, that would be causing warming. Solar activity was at historically high levels at least through the end of solar cycle 22 (1996), yet the IPCC is assuming that because this high level of solar forcing was roughly constant from 1950 until it fell off during solar cycle 23 it could not have caused post-1980 warming. In effect they are claiming that you can’t heat a pot of water by turning the burner to maximum and leaving it there, that you have to keep turning the flame up to get continued warming, an un-scientific absurdity that I have been writing about for several years (most recently in my post about Isaac Held’s bogus 2-box model of ocean equilibration).
The admission of strong evidence for enhanced solar forcing changes everything. The climate alarmists can’t continue to claim that warming was almost entirely due to human activity over a period when solar warming effects, now acknowledged to be important, were at a maximum. The final draft of AR5 WG1 is not scheduled to be released for another year but the public needs to know now how the main premises and conclusions of the IPCC story line have been undercut by the IPCC itself.
President Obama is already pushing a carbon tax premised on the fear that CO2 is causing dangerous global warming. Last week his people were at the UN’s climate meeting in Doha pretending that Hurricane Sandy was caused by human increments to CO2 as UN insiders assured the public that the next IPCC report will “scare the wits out of everyone” with its ramped-up predictions of human-caused global warming to come, but this is not where the evidence points, not if climate change is in any substantial measure driven by the sun, which has now gone quiet and is exerting what influence it has in the cooling direction.
The acknowledgement of strong evidence for enhanced solar forcing should upend the IPCC’s entire agenda. The easiest way for the UN to handle this disruptive admission would be to remove it from their final draft, which is another reason to make the draft report public now. The devastating admission needs to be known so that the IPCC can’t quietly take it back.
Will some press organization please host the leaked report?
Most of us have to worry about staying within cautiously written and cautiously applied terms-of-service agreements. That’s why I created this new website. If it gets taken down nothing else gets taken with it. Media companies don’t have this problem. They have their own servers and publishing things like the draft IPCC report is supposed to be their bailiwick.
If the press has First Amendment protection for the publication of leaked materials even when substantial national security interests are at stake (the Supreme Court precedent set in the Pentagon Papers case), then it can certainly republish a leaked draft of a climate science report where there is no public interest in secrecy. The leaker could be at risk (the case against Pentagon leaker Daniel Ellsberg was thrown out for government misconduct, not because his activity was found to be protected) but the press is safe, and their services would be appreciated.
United States taxpayers have funded climate science to the tune of well over 80 billion dollars, all channeled through the funding bureaucracy established by Vice President Albert “the end is nigh” Gore when he served as President Clinton’s “climate czar.” That Gore-built bureaucracy is still to this day striving to insure that not a penny of all those taxpayer billions ever goes to any researcher who is not committed to the premature conclusion that human contributions to atmospheric CO2 are causing dangerous global warming (despite the lack of any statistically significant warming for more than 15 years).
Acolytes of this bought “consensus” want to see what new propaganda their tax dollars have wrought and so do the skeptics. It’s unanimous, and an already twice-vetted draft is sitting now in thousands of government offices around the world. Time to fork it over to the people.
=============================================================
UPDATE1: Andrew Revkin writes in a story at the NYT Dot Earth today:
It’s important, before anyone attacks Rawls for posting the drafts (this is distinct from his views on their contents), to consider that panel report drafts at various stages of preparation have been leaked in the past by people with entirely different points of view.
That was the case in 2000, when I was leaked a final draft of the summary for policy makers of the second science report from the panel ahead of that year’s round of climate treaty negotiations. As I explained in the resulting news story, “A copy of the summary was obtained by The New York Times from someone who was eager to have the findings disseminated before the meetings in The Hague.”
Here’s a question I sent tonight to a variety of analysts of the panel’s workings over the years:
The leaker, Alec Rawls, clearly has a spin. But I’ve long thought that I.P.C.C. was in a weird losing game in trying to boost credibility through more semi-open review while trying to maintain confidentiality at same time. I’m sympathetic to the idea of having more of the I.P.C.C. process being fully open (a layered Public Library of Science-style approach to review can preserve the sanity of authors) in this age of enforced transparency (WikiLeaks being the most famous example).
I’ll post answers as they come in.
Full story at DotEarth
==============================================================
UPDATE2: Alternative links for AR5 WG1 SOD. At each page click on the button that says “create download link,” then “click here to download”:
Summary for Policymakers
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363425211/SummaryForPolicymakers_WG1AR5-SPM_FOD_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 1: Introduction
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363425214/Ch1-Introduction_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch01_All_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 2: Observations: Atmosphere and Surface
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363436270/Ch2_Obs-atmosur_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch02_All_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 3: Observations: Ocean
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363436276/Ch3_Obs-oceans_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch03_All_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 4: Observations: Cryosphere
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363436279/Ch4_obs-cryo_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch04_All_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 5: Information from Paleoclimate Archives
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363436282/Ch5_Paleo_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch05_All_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 6: Carbon and Other Biogeochemical Cycles
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363436285/Ch6_Carbonbio_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch06_All_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 7: Clouds and Aerosols
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363436286/Ch7_Clouds-aerosols_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch07_All_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 8: Anthropogenic and Natural Radiative Forcing
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363425217/Ch8_Radiative-forcing_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch08_All_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 8 Supplement
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363436312/Ch8_supplement_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch08_SM_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 9: Evaluation of Climate Models
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363436298/Ch9_models_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch09_All_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 10: Detection and Attribution of Climate Change: from Global to Regional
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363436302/Ch10_attribution_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch10_All_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 11: Near-term Climate Change: Projections and Predictability
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363436303/Ch11_near-term_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch11_All_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 12: Long-term Climate Change: Projections, Commitments and Irreversibility
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363425220/Ch12_long-term_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch12_All_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 13: Sea Level Change
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363425221/Ch13_sea-level_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch13_All_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 14: Climate Phenomena and their Relevance for Future Regional Climate Change
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363425222/Ch14_future-regional_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch14_All_Final.pdf.html
Chapter 14 Supplement
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363436309/Ch14_supplement_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch14_SM_Final.pdf.html
Technical Summary
http://www.peejeshare.com/files/363425223/TechnicalSummary_WG1AR5-TS_FOD_All_Final.pdf.html
======================================================
UPDATE3: a large “all in one” RAR file has been created by a reader “hippo”
Link to the entire set of documents, as single RAR archive:
http://www.filedropper.com/wwwstopgreensuicidecom
And now a bittorrent magnet link:
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:3f31ecb2a557732ea8d42e14b87aca7efb5dbcc7&dn=IPCCAR5&tr=http%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A80%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.publicbt.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.cc.de%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.istole.it%3A80
reader “krischel” writes:
It’s a folder with each individual PDF in it.
If you have a torrent client like Transmission, you should be able to copy/paste open up that magnet URL and start downloading.
Replaced Link with the newer one. -ModE
==================================================
UPDATE4: 7:30AM PST 12/14/12 reactions are now coming in worldwide, see here, and the IPCC is going to issue a statement today.
UPDATE5: IPCC statement here: http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/ar5/statement/Statement_WGI_AR5_SOD.pdf
Full text here in this WUWT post (easier reading)
davidmhoffer says:
December 14, 2012 at 9:08 am
totally agree David.
Indeed, if Anthony note your comment (and this one) – he might perhaps consider a crowdsourcing review arrangement whereby us commentators can review individual chapters in groups and report back?
it would save a lot of time and ensure detailed and careful reading of each chapter instead of a few of us just speed reading the lot!
Anthony – What do you think? Ask for volunteers and arrange for say half a dozen reviewers for each chapter. Assign the reviewers randomly (unless you know that some have a special expertise in some sections?) and share email addresses between the volunteers in each group for conferring purposes. I’m up for it – would be an easy way to get the stuff carefully reviewed over the Xmas break in time for detailed ‘publication’ in the new year?
Good heavens.
when are they ever going to realize that it started cooling?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to:2012/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to:2012/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2002/to:2012/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2002/to:2012/trend/plot/rss/from:2002/to:2012/plot/rss/from:2002/to:2012/trend
do we first have to enter into a little ice age?
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
“we can have no confidence that natural forcing is small compared to anthropogenic forcing.”
Let’s say that’s true. Does that necessarily imply we can have a high degree of confidence that humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions have no serious consequences? From a public policy perspective are we well served in such an assumption?
@Kev-in-Uk and @davidmhoffer I’m with you both on this. I think it would be interesting to have at least another thread ( or a thread per chapter ) where people might go to discuss the talking points in the whole report ( as unfinished as it is ). You never know, if there are some serious mistakes made we could have a hand in changing the opinions of some who will be in the next process of the report.
Stephen Wilde says:
December 13, 2012 at 1:29 pm
More meridional jets give the required cloudiness and albedo increase without having to involve GCRs and the Svensmark hypothesis.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Who said there has to be just one ‘Control Knob’? That is the defining fallacy of the IPCC. The odds that there are Confounding variables are great given what we already know of climate.
Darn link did not work. Confounding variables =>>> http://udel.edu/~mcdonald/statsampling.html
So, the author, Dr. Sheffield, completely disagrees with Mr Rawls as to the meaning of what he wrote. In the summary of Chapter 7, one can read that the effects of variation in solar radiation are negligible. Do you really think that misunderstanding a paragraph really means the author has made a big admission?. If you can’t understand what the author of a review is saying or if you disagree with conclusions, you should start reading the original cited studies upon which a review, such as the IPCC reports is based. Science is not like politics, where something miss stated or potentially misunderstood (such as “the 47%”) has meaning. If you don’t understand what a review paper is saying, you need to read it more carefully and to go back to the original sources and citations. If you find a paragraph in a scientific article that disagrees with the author’s conclusions and summary, probably you are misunderstanding what the author was trying to say.
Congratulations – standing up takes guts.
The ones who stand up are the heroes of free speech and democracy and deserve our thanks and respect. I wish I could shake your hand
I must admit, to becoming interested, in the political and propaganda posturing by the extreme AGW movement and the IPCC.
The skeptics, it appears have scientific analysis. observations, and solar change on our side.
Svensmark estimated that the sun was responsible for 75% of the 20th century warming. Paleo data shows past cycles of warming followed by cooling that correlate with changes in the solar magnetic cycle. The solar magnetic cycle is slowing down; it appears the sun will be spotless next year. It appears there will be cooling, back tracking all of the 20th century warming, over the next few years. The question is not if there will be cooling, but rather when the cooling will commence and how much.
A lack of warming can be explained away as heat hiding in the deep ocean – which is odd as there is also a lack of warming of the ocean surface temperature and a lack warming of the top 700 m of the ocean – there is no such out for global cooling.
How will the general public response and what will be the US government response when it becomes obvious that the IPCC and hundreds of climate scientists where absolutely incorrect, that the science was manipulated?
Of course, this article is in direct contradiction to reality, and a pure distortion of facts:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23005-leaked-ipcc-report-reaffirms-dangerous-climate-change.html
I’ll be surprised if this post makes it through Anthony Watt’s censorship, though.
REPLY: Only government can impose censorship, you should know that since you work for a government entity. Besides, how can making an open discussion of the IPCC report be categorized as “censorship”? Your logic is bizarre, as many government created arguments are. The NS sees only what it wishes, but wait for the next post and tell me again about censorship. – Anthony
mpainter says:
Untrue. The world is not warming. The last warming trend ended before this century began, some fifteen years ago.
Untrue. The world is definitely warming. Your denialist overlords have already abandoned this line of argument, I suggest you do the same.
The warming trend has continued, unabated. I suspect you will retort with “But starting with a base year of 1998….”
REPLY: wait till you see the next post, straight from the IPCC, and please tell us again how the world isn’t warming after that, it will make our day. – Anthony
Tzo:
Your post at December 14, 2012 at 10:49 am says in its entirety
Your first sentence makes an unfounded assertion.
You follow that with a link to a propaganda source.
Your second and final sentence makes an untrue assertion that Anthony Watts censors WUWT in the same manner as warmunists censor their blogs.
It really is very sad how warmunists assume others used the nefarious practices which they use themselves.
Richard
It has been picked up by the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20726355
IPCC AR5 draft leaked, contains game-changing admission of enhanced solar forcing
Over-wrought again. The idea was introduced for the purpose of claiming that it was not justified by any evidence. How is that “game-changing”?
I don’t understand why anyone is surprised at the finding. William Herschel undstood the connection between the sun and clmate a long time ago. He did not udnerstand the mechanism, but he understood the results.
http://www.real-science.com/astronomer-william-herschel-sunspots-wheat
We still do not understand the mechanism, but at least we are gaining ground. To deny this connection, as proven by observation, is silly at best, and devious at worst.
It is too bad that it has taken “climate Scientists”, to finally figure out something that has been widespread knowledge in the Ag community for decades.
@Tzo.
The New Scientist has a similar agenda to the BBC and the Guardian in these matters. I would trust them and their authors no more than i would trust Fox News when getting reliable, unbalanced reporting.
you say: The warming trend has continued, unabated. I suspect you will retort with “But starting with a base year of 1998….”
I will retort with this. why do you people persist with this idea that with regard to recent warming or lack thereof, that it is possible to cherry pick an arbitrary date in the past to suit an argument?
When you are trying to determine the answer to ‘Warming appears to have ceased it’s upward trend recently, how long has this been going on?” then your start point is today. It’s your only option.
You may not pick a point in history to suit. you pick the point closest to today for which you have relevant data and you work backwards up until the very point at which your hypothesis fails. So the date in the past where the hypothesis that the rate of change in global warming temperature data ceases its positive trend is some 17 years ago or 1995.
It is therefore safe to say that since 1996 or the best part of the last 16 years the previously positive trend in temperature ceased to be positive to any significant amount. 1996 is your end point, not the start point.
You mentioned 1998 so I’ve assumed a lot here because you don’t elaborate but I think I’m on the right track. You can’t cherry-pick anything when asking this particular question. You start now and let the data show us what they will.
If we look at reliable temperature data from Hadcrut 3 or 4 without muddling them together with all manner of shenanigans then the data shows us that mean global temperatures have not continued unabated. I refuse to acknowledge the GISS data until they explain why they repeatedly adjust historical temperatures down and recent temperatures up with no notice that this has been going on.
[snip – g2-91a96892c9b157ef8c7ff35a46563741 is not a valid name – mod]
Alec Rawls:The report still barely hints at the mountain of evidence for enhanced solar forcing, or the magnitude of the evidenced effect.
That sounds like the “same” game, not a “changed” game.
Tzo says:
December 14, 2012 at 10:49 am
“Of course, this article is in direct contradiction to reality, and a pure distortion of facts . . .”
There are no facts that empirically prove that human induced warming is a significant contributor to the slight warm period we’ve experienced in the past 30 years. There is only correlation and as you should know by now, correlation is not causation. Until they empirically eliminate any an all other possible causes of the warming, and they’ve not even begun to do that, the science cannot be considered conclusive or, most importantly, a legitimate foundation for disruptive cultural and economic changes that are being forced down people’s throats prematurely. There are many other potential causes of the warming, natural variability being only one. There is not even a shred of credible evidence that any warming we have experienced or will experience will, on the scale of things, have adverse consequences for human life on the planet.
Possible that these IPCC ever so smart ones, had they lived out in the open where the sun shines, possible that they would have learned amost as much as the old ones of
http://www.nps.gov/chuc/index.htm
A few curved stones, some long, long term observations.
Possible that the air conditioning was just a bit to cool for them and when they went out to the car to ride home the warming reason just sliped their little green pointed heads.
G: “All of what I’m saying is based on scientific peer review, done by people who have undergone years of scientific training and who put their careers on the line making these assertions.”
Dear troll “G”:
Repeating the lies of Michael Mann and the other CAGW Lysenkoists does not impress. The “peer review” you cite has been shown repeatedly to be deliberately fraudulent.
What part this do you not understand? “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is !”
( Phil Jones to Michael Mann: http://www.di2.nu/foia/1089318616.txt)
And your claims of “years of scientific training” is a deliberate strawman so you can ignore the demonstrated fact that your “climate scientists” REFUSE to follow the Scientific Method. They keep their data and workings secret. The reason being that their “studies” you so admire are frauds.
The Hockey Stick. Yamal. Upside-Down Tijlander. Sheep Mountain. Short-centered Principle Components Analysis. Climategate. Gleickgate. 28Gate.
Fraud after fraud after fraud by the cretins YOU admire.
A.D. Everard says:
December 13, 2012 at 2:14 pm
Alec, this is brilliant. Thank you!
C’mon, MSM, here’s a chance to prove your worth!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You have got to be kidding. The MSM has been in on the CAGW scam from the very beginning.
Talk about Cognitive Dissonance! Either he (and many others) are completely ignorant or they have their head in the sand when it comes to who controls the media.
The banker’s stake in CAGW
As you read this do not forget, GE is the world’s second largest company after J P Morgan Chase
Paper by Stefania Vitali, James B. Glattfelder, Stefano Battiston
GE’s stake in CAGW
Now on to control of the media
Stephen B. Burke is Comcast Corporation President
Then there is GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt. Obama appointed Immelt as chair of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. The new council replaces the Economic Recovery Advisory Board. This would be hysterically funny if it was not so dangerous.
Jeff Immelt has made it plan his loyalties are not with the USA.
Thank you for all your replies. I must say I was impressed by the civility and intelligence in most of their contents. I’m afraid as it’s Friday night I’ll be engaged for the evening so only have time for one decent reply, which I will choose to direct to @richardscourtney
“I get my “information” from the IPCC and primary sources (i.e. published scientific papers).
It seems that you get your information from propagandists.”
Untrue sir. I check the source of all the important information I use to make up my mind. I get it all from scientific literature.
“I know for certain fact that any putative anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is too small for it to be discernible.”
Right here is your problem. ‘Certain fact’. There is no such thing. There are theorems, which are understood to be true, assuming previously accepted axioms. Then there are scientific theories which attempt to describe reality, which will NEVER be understood to be certain facts. They only get closer to the truth. That you can say unequivocally that AGW is negligible, calls into question your capacity for logical scrutiny – as well as your puzzling disregard for the viewpoint of the IPCC, which you previously stated is an organisation from which you get your information.
CO2 has a significant effect on global temperature:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-understanding-and.html
http://www.grida.no/graphicslib/thumbs/1805c933-493c-4b85-be16-ad06eb342332/large/historical-trends-in-carbon-dioxide-concentrations-and-temperature-on-a-geological-and-recent-time-scale_a210.jpg
“There are no discernable effects of AGW.”
Ocean acidity is rising faster than the past 300 million years (a very long time).
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120307145430.htm
Glacier retreat:
http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/fig2-18.htm
Sea level rise:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006/2005GL024826.shtml
“GHGs are not “well above any natural average.”
Yes they are. Significantly higher:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/current_ghg.html
“The world is not warming.”
It is:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/
“Atmospheric CO2 concentration has been increasing in the atmosphere but it is not known – and cannot be known with present information – if that rise is natural or is a result of the anthropogenic CO2 emission.”
It is:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/06/how-much-of-the-recent-cosub2sub-increase-is-due-to-human-activities/
http://www.bgc.mpg.de/service/iso_gas_lab/publications/PG_WB_IJMS.pdf
“There is no evidence of increased droughts and no evidence of increased floods.”
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1633.html
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/JHM544.1
http://fp.arizona.edu/kkh/hwrs/pdfs/trends/T-loster-Flood-Trends-summary-Reinsureance-Co.pdf
“Arctic ice is floating so its melting does not increase sea level (try melting an ice cube in a glass of water and you will be able to observe that there is no change to the water level in the glass).”
I am aware of this misunderstanding. However it is the land-based ice that is truly dangerous, and indeed melting. Land and sea based ice at both poles have melted, and have contributed to global sea level rise.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6111/1183
“However, also please note that you have made a logical fallacy: a statement is not right merely because it is made by an authority.”
I never said my statement was “right”, I just said where I got it from.
“The public are being sold an untrue scare for reasons of personal interests by a wide variety of sources.”
What is the more likely:
-gigantic megacorporations are using their vast financial powers to influence global perception of climate change to preserve/increase profits
or
-the global scientific establishment are using their limited financial powers to influence global perception of climate change, in order to increase government funding for their scientific projects (and at no increase to their personal quality of life).
I can tell you the first one is more likely, because it happened:
http://www.econ.upf.edu/~lemenestrel/IMG/pdf/climatepolicy.pdf
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/01/exxon-mobil-climate-change-sceptics-funding
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/30/us-oil-donated-millions-climate-sceptics
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jun/28/climate-change-sceptic-willie-soon
Now in conclusion, I will pose to you a logical problem of two dimensions. The first dimension is whether we make the transition to a low carbon economy, or carry on burning fossil fuels at their current rate. The second is our knowledge of whether climate change’s effects will be benign to us and our planet’s biosphere, or will cause catastrophic damage.
Now I will give the four outcomes of those possibilities:
We continue to burn fossil fuels, but it turns out to be benign. While the biosphere and our wellbeing is intact, we hit peak oil, and our economy grinds to a halt. There are massive economic and civil unrest, but nothing too bad.
We make the transition to a low carbon economy, and it turns out climate change was benign anyway, and it turns out the majority of the comments on this page are correct – everyone was being sold a lie, and it was a lot of panic for nothing. Still, we have a low carbon economy, we’re no longer dependent on fossil fuels. Green economy produces jobs, so any economic negative effects are offset somewhat.
We make the transition to a low carbon economy, and it turns out that climate change is very dangerous. We avoid most of the catastrophe, and have a newfound sense of responsibility about our planet. We are made aware of the dangers of ignoring scientific consensus above trusting (generally speaking) isolated individuals who are influenced by corporate powers.
We do nothing, and climate change turns out to be very dangerous. Tens of millions of people are displaced. Food shortages. Resource conflicts. Runaway climate change caused by methane deposits. Nature hopefully stabilises, and some of humanity of hopefully left to rebuild.
So, which is the most preferable pair of outcomes? Do we do something, or nothing?
Thanks for reading.
G,
There are no empirical measurements of AGW. It may well exist, but if so it is too small to measure, and therefore it can be disregarded for all practical purposes. Too much time, money and effort has been wasted chasing the AGW will o’ the wisp.
Doug Allen says:
December 13, 2012 at 2:31 pm
….For instance, you present no evidence for your claim that “President Obama is already pushing a carbon tax…”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The evidence is pretty obvious with 1,560,000 hits from a seach on President Obama “carbon tax” 2012
Here are a couple in the top tier
13 November 2012: Al Gore calls on Barack Obama to ‘act boldly’ on climate change Former vice-president and climate champion urges re-elected president to immediately begin pushing for a carbon tax
According to one former member of the White House Climate Change Task Force under President Clinton, President Obama may have plans to implement a carbon tax as soon as the fiscal cliff negotiations are settled.
Obama himself is a bit wishy-washy right now because he knows he does not have support but he makes it clear the issue is not going away.
President Obama on a carbon tax
….And I am a firm believer that climate change is real, that it is impacted by human behavior and carbon emissions. And as a consequence, I think we’ve got an obligation to future generations to do something about it….
…we haven’t done as much as we need to. So what I’m going to be doing over the next several weeks, next several months, is having a conversation, a wide-ranging conversation with scientists, engineers and elected officials to find out what can — what more can we do to make short-term progress in reducing carbons, and then working through an education process that I think is necessary, a discussion, the conversation across the country….
I don’t know what — what either Democrats or Republicans are prepared to do at this point,… There’s no doubt that for us to take on climate change in a serious way would involve making some tough political choices….
[Here is the golden nugget in the interview gc]
I think the American people right now have been so focused and will continue to be focused on our economy and jobs and growth that, you know, if the message is somehow we’re going to ignore jobs and growth simply to address climate change, I don’t think anybody’s going to go for that.…
Q.It sounds like you’re saying, though — (off mic) — probably still short of a consensus on some kind of — (off mic).
PRESIDENT OBAMA: I — that I’m pretty certain of. And look, we’re — we’re still trying to debate whether we can just make sure that middle-class families don’t get a tax hike. Let’s see if we can resolve that. That should be easy. This one’s hard. But it’s important because, you know, one of the things that we don’t always factor in are the costs involved in these natural disasters. We’d — we just put them off as — as something that’s unconnected to our behavior right now, and I think what, based on the evidence, we’re seeing is — is that what we do now is going to have an impact and a cost down the road if — if — if we don’t do something about it.
The take home from that interview is:
1. Obama has not changed his mind
2. Obama realizes more propaganda is needed to brainwash the masses and the recalcitrant members of Congress so he is going to consult experts on how to manipulate them.
3. Obama knows the masses are focused on a failing economy and a carbon tax would at this time be political suicide for those supporters in Congress.
They already tried the Carbon Tax and got a creaming in the 2010 elections. As of November 30, 2010, there were at least 21 new senators and 65 new representatives.
The issue has been buried for a little while but it is not at all dead and that is what is important for everyone to know.