Real climate science the IPCC doesn’t want you to see

Guest essay by Paul Driessen

Once again, it’s the NIPCC versus the IPCC – facts versus gloom-and-doom assertions.

Earth’s average atmospheric temperatures haven’t increased in almost 17 years. It’s been eight years since a Category 3 hurricane hit the United States. Tornado frequency is at a multi-decade low ebb. Droughts are shorter and less extreme than during the Dust Bowl and 1950s. Sea ice is back to normal, after one of the coldest Arctic summers in decades. And sea levels continue to rise at a meager 4-8 inches per century.

Ignoring these facts, President Obama continues to insist that “dangerous” carbon dioxide emissions are causing “unprecedented” global warming, “more extreme” droughts and hurricanes, and rising seas that “threaten” coastal communities. With Congress refusing to enact job-killing taxes on hydrocarbon energy and CO2, his Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to unleash more job-killing carbon dioxide regulations, amid an economy that is already turning full-time jobs into part-time jobs and welfare.

America and the world desperately need some sound science and common sense on climate change.

Responding to the call, the Chicago-based Heartland Institute has just released the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change 2013 report, Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science.

The 1,018-page report convincingly and systematically challenges IPCC claims that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are causing “dangerous” global warming and climate change; that IPCC computer models can be relied on for alarming climate forecasts and scenarios; and that we need to take immediate, drastic action to prevent “unprecedented” climate and weather events that are no more frequent or unusual than what humans have had to adapt to and deal with for thousands of years.

The 14-page NIPCC Summary for Policymakers is easy to digest and should be required reading for legislators, regulators, journalists and anyone interested in climate change science. The summary and seven-chapter report were prepared by 50 climatologists and other scientists from 15 countries, under the direction of lead authors Craig Idso (USA), Robert Carter (Australia) and Fred Singer (USA).

Unfortunately, the “mainstream” media and climate alarm industry have no interest in reading the report, debating its contents or even letting people know it exists. They have staked their credibility, reputations, continued funding and greater control over our lives on perpetuating climate disaster myths. So it is up to the rest of us to ensure that the word gets out – and we do have that long overdue debate on climate.

Perhaps most important, say the NIPCC authors, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has greatly exaggerated the amount of warming that is likely to occur if atmospheric CO2 concentrations were to double, to around 800 ppm (0.08%). In fact, moderate warning up to 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) would cause no net harm to the environment or human well-being. Indeed, it would likely be beneficial, lengthening growing seasons and expanding croplands and many wildlife habitats, especially since more carbon dioxide would help plants grow faster and better, even under adverse conditions like pollution, limited water or hgh temperatures. By contrast, even 2 degrees C of cooling could be disastrous for agriculture and efforts to feed growing human populations, without plowing under more habitats.

The NIPCC also lays bare the false IPCC claims that computer models “prove” recent global warming is due to human CO2 emissions, and are able to forecast future global temperatures, climates and events. In reality, the models greatly exaggerate climate sensitivity to carbon dioxide levels; assume all warming since the industrial revolution began are due to human carbon dioxide; input data contaminated by urban heat island effects; and employ simplified configurations of vital drivers of Earth’s climate system (or simply ignorethem), such as solar variations, cosmic ray fluxes, winds, clouds, precipitation, volcanoes, ocean currents and recurrent phenomena like the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (El Nino and La Nina).

In computer lingo, this can be summarized as: Faulty assumptions, faulty data, faulty codes and algorithms, simplistic analytical methodologies and other garbage in – predictive garbage out.

The NIPCC authors conclude that existing climate models “are unable to make accurate projections of climate even ten years ahead, let alone the 100-year period that has been adopted by policy planners. The output of such models should therefore not be used to guide public policy formulation, until they have been validated [by comparison to actual observations] and shown to have predictive value.”

And yet, that is exactly how the deficient models are being used: to devise and justify policies, laws and regulations that stigmatize and penalize hydrocarbon use, promote and subsidize wind and solar energy, and have hugely negative effects on jobs, family energy bills, the overall economy and people’s lives.

Countries are spending countless billions of dollars annually on faulty to fraudulent IPCC climate models and studies that purport to link every adverse event or problem to manmade climate change; subsidized renewable energy programs that displace food crops and kill wildlife; adaptation and mitigation measures against future disasters that exist only in “scenarios” generated by the IPCC’s GIGO computer models; and welfare, food stamp and energy assistance programs for the newly unemployed and impoverished. Equally bad, they are losing tens of billions in royalty, tax and other revenue that they would receive if they were not blocking oil, gas and coal development and use – and destroying manufacturing jobs that depend on cheap, reliable energy, so that companies can compete in international marketplaces.

Meanwhile, a leaked draft of the forthcoming report from the IPCC itself reveals that even its scientists are backtracking from their past dire predictions of planetary disaster. Professor Ross McKitrick, chair of graduate studies at the University of Guelph (Ontario) economics department, put it bluntly in a brilliant Financial Post article. “Everything you need to know about the dilemma the IPCC faces is summed up in one remarkable graph,” he wrote.

The graph dramatically demonstrates that every UN IPCC climate model over the past 22 years (1990-2012) predicted that average global temperatures would be as much as 0.9 degrees C (1.6 degrees F) higher than they actually were! Considering how defective the models are, this is hardly surprising.

And yet, on this basis we are supposed to trash our hydrocarbon-based energy system and economy. It’s absolutely insane!

Two Climate Change Reconsidered briefings will be held next Monday, September 23, in Washington, DC – featuring NIPCC experts. Their title says it all:

“Climate Change Reconsidered: Science the UN will exclude from its next IPCC climate report”

The first will be at noon at the Heritage Foundation’s Allison Auditorium, 214 Massachusetts Avenue, NE and will be co-sponsored by the Heartland Institute. The second will be held at 3:00 pm in room 235 of the Rayburn House Office Building, and will be sponsored by the Cooler Heads Coalition. Hard copies of the NIPCC Summary for Policymakers will be available for all attendees.

The events will be followed by a media tour of the East Coast, featuring Professor Bob Carter and other NIPCC scientists. For further information consult the Heartland Institute and NIPCC websites.

Instead of employing the scientific method to prove or disprove its CO2-driven climate disaster hypothesis, using empirical evidence, the IPCC has routinely assumed its hypothesis is correct – and used selected data that support its claims, while ignoring anything that contradicts them, and refusing to debate any scientists who disagree with them. This can no longer be tolerated. Far too much is at stake.

Climate Change Reconsidered proves there is no “consensus” on dangerous manmade global warming – and raises the debate to a new level. Read it, get the word out about it, watch this Fox News segment, and take action. Your future, and your children’s future, depend on it.

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.