September 30, 2013
The Honorable John Kerry
Secretary of State
Washington D.C. 20520
Dear Mr. Secretary:
Your press release dated September 27, 2013 Release of the Fifth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change clearly expresses your beliefs about climate science. It included:
This isn’t a run of the mill report to be dumped in a filing cabinet. This isn’t a political document produced by politicians.
It’s science.
Excuse me if I make a few clarifications. In reality, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Summary for Policymakers for their 5th Assessment Report was initially written by climate scientists for politicians. The language of the IPCC’s Summary for Policymakers was then amended by politicians during days of negotiations in Stockholm prior to publication.
Additionally, the vast majority of the scientific research reflected in that document was funded by governments. As a result, the IPCC Summary for Policymakers presents only research efforts that adhere to the agendas of the political entities that financed it.
Simply stated, the IPCC’s Summary for Policymakers was bought and paid for by politicians for political purposes.
You concluded your press release:
We do so because this is science, these are facts, and action is our only option.
I would have to guess that you have confidence on the IPCC’s projections of future climate. Climate models are used for those predictions. Those predictions are based on projections of future emissions of manmade greenhouse gases and of other anthropogenic factors. But, climate models are not facts; they are computer-aided speculation.
Further to climate models, the predictions assume the models properly simulate climate on Earth. I hate to be the bearer of bad news: the climate models used by the IPCC for their 5th Assessment Report simulate Earth’s climate so poorly they are not fit for their intended purposes.
I am an independent climate researcher, Mr. Secretary. I receive no funding other than from book sales and occasional tips from generous souls. I publish my findings at my blog Climate Observations and at the award-winning science blog WattsUpWithThat? I recently presented the modeled and observed warming rates of global land surface air temperatures and of global sea surface temperatures, covering the past three decades. That blog post was Models Fail: Land versus Sea Surface Warming Rates. The cross post at WattsUpWithThat is here. (See that post for the specifics on the datasets, model outputs and the time period used.) I compared the warming rates in a table, but the relationships are much easier to see in the two time-series graphs that follow.
Figure 1 compares the warming rates of the modeled and observed global land surface air temperatures over the past three-plus decades. The models performed well. They only overestimated the observed warming rate of land surface air temperatures by about 25%. The problem: they achieved that similarity in trends with skewed climate dynamics within the models.
The vast majority of the warming of global land surface air temperatures, Mr. Secretary, is in response to the warming of the sea surface temperatures of the global oceans. [See Compo and Sardeshmukh (2009) “Ocean Influences on Recent Continental Warming.”] In order to achieve the close match with the observed warming rate of land surface air temperatures, the modelers had to double the observed rate of warming of the surfaces of the global oceans over the past 31 years, as shown in Figure 2.
That clearly indicates the basic underlying physics within the models are unsound. Therefore, there are no reasons to believe the climate model-based predictions of future climate or any study that attempts to use climate models to attribute global warming and climate change to human influences.
In my earlier post linked above, I presented what appear to be the reasons why the modelers needed to force the oceans to warm at twice the observed rate. I won’t bore you with the details here. But, in summary, the climate models used by the IPCC do not — cannot — properly simulate the naturally occurring, coupled ocean-atmosphere processes that cause the surface of the oceans to warm and cool over multidecadal timeframes. (See Guilyardi et al. (2009) and Ruiz-Barradas, et al. (2013))
Those climate model failings stem from the focus of the climate science community on human-induced global warming and climate change — not on global warming and climate change regardless of the cause.
I have been publishing comparisons of data with climate models outputs for about two years. The climate models used by the IPCC clearly cannot simulate Earth’s surface temperatures, precipitation or sea ice area. Additionally, there are numerous scientific research papers that are very critical of how climate models perform specific functions. Looking at those papers independently, the faults do not appear too bad, but collectively they indicate the models are fatally flawed.
In my book Climate Models Fail, I have collected my past findings about climate models, and illustrated others, and I’ve presented highlights from the research papers critical of climate models. I would be happy to forward a link to a free copy of Climate Models Fail to your offices for your personal use. Please have one of your staff members leave a comment at my blog Climate Observations if that interests you.
In closing, I would like to ask a favor. I will ask that you help to change the focus of climate change research from “understanding the scientific basis of [the] risk of human-induced climate change” to “understanding the scientific basis of the risk of climate change”. (See IPCC organization History webpage)
The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) is concerned about the IPCC’s focus. See their document titled Submission by The Netherlands on the future of the IPCC. Under the heading of “The IPCC needs to adjust its principles”, KNMI begins:
We believe that limiting the scope of the IPCC to human-induced climate change is undesirable, especially because natural climate change is a crucial part of the total understanding of the climate system, including human-induced climate change.
Now consider that suggested change of focus came from a country with 20% of its land surface below sea level and about 50% of it only a meter above sea level. If any country should be concerned about climate change, it’s the Netherlands, and they have asked for a better understanding of natural climate change. I suggest to you that the United States should also ask for that same change in research scope.
With that change of focus, I personally believe, based on my own research, that climate researchers will find that the global warming and climate change we’ve experienced over the past three decades is primarily a response to naturally occurring coupled ocean-atmosphere processes, not manmade greenhouse gases. I also believe with the change in focus that, to the relief of most persons, future global warming and climate change will not be found to be catastrophic, but that we will have to plan for a long-term, naturally occurring rise in sea level. Sea levels were 4 to 8 meters (13 to 26 feet) higher during the Eemian (the last interglacial period) than they are today. (Refer to the press release for the 2013 paper by Dahl-Jensen, et al. “Eemian Interglacial Reconstructed From a Greenland Folded Ice Core”.) It would be prudent to plan for those same sea levels during this interglacial. Thankfully, with the slow rate of sea level rise, there should be loads of time to make sound economic decisions.
The people of the United States should be receiving honest appraisals of human-induced and naturally occurring global warming and climate change, not politically motivated conjecture.
Thank you very much for your time, Mr. Secretary.
Sincerely,
Bob Tisdale
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How do you know when someones lying to you? When its Political.
bon chance Bob, I don’t think we have a snowball in hell’s chance of affecting any of these clowns way of thinking. As you state, theirs is a religion and a way to tax; ours is science. He who pays the piper calls the tune.
This damn thing is a religion for the Left. Kerry has it backwards.
Hey Bob,
So far out of Kerry’s worldview that in the very small to vanishing chance that he reads it, he’ll regard it was the ravings of a lunatic. Still, worthy effort. Appreciate your fine work.
You were doing great, right up until you tried to explain the details.
Secretary Kerry is a politician. He has got a lot more on his plate than global warming at the moment. His recent comments were totally wrong, of course, but he will stop reading as soon as he sees the first graph.
It might have been better served if you just referenced him to the NICCP “Summary for Policymakers” report and left it at that.
http://heartland.org/media-library/pdfs/CCR-II/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
He probably wouldn’t even read that, but it is closer to the language he understands.
There is a 95% probability that Kerry is incapable of understanding this.
Fantastic letter, Bob. You’ve stated a case and supported it with data.
I wouldn’t expect Lerch to spend much time contemplating it though.
You’d likely have better luck with some fence sitting coastal, Red State Democrat senators. Landrieu of Louisiana maybe? Alaska has a (D) senator.
Thank you very much for your effort.
And these Red State democrats are up for reelection in ’14. Every one of them is vulnerable.
The USA, much like many European countries, is tiring of the wastefulness of government. This one is like no other and the liberal party will probably be looking to hold on to any seats they can.
Bob is misrepresenting the meaning and intention of what the KNMI said. I asked the KNMI for a clarification and this is what they sent me:
===
In response to your question, I must inform you that the mandate of the IPCC (Principles Governing IPCC Work) states the following:
“2. The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of *risk of human-induced climate change*, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy, although they may need to deal objectively with scientific, technical and socio-economic factors relevant to the application of particular policies.”
So here they only (explicitly) mention the anthropogenic component. We (the Dutch IPCC delegation) believe it is important that the scope of this statement should be widened, namely that natural variability should be explicitly mentioned in the mandate of the IPCC.
In practice, the IPCC reports (WG1 and 2) on climate change mention natural and anthropogenic factors, simply because of the fact that the human factor only gains credence when compared to natural changes.
The proposed change from the Netherlands is that the mandate of the IPCC should be much more in line with what they’ve been doing for years. This also makes clear that the response in the media is not true, namely that the Netherlands find that natural variability is more important than the human influence. As this isn’t the intent of the Dutch submission.
===
In other words this is about changing the IPCC mandate so that it matches what the IPCC already is doing in their reports.
Didn’t Hansen support Kerry’s presidential bid?
Didn’t Hansen receive a large sum of money from an organisation headed by Kerry’s wife Teresa Heinz?
Surely he will never read this!
Maybe if you had written your letter to that elitist, arrogant buffoon in French AND you had signed it as the mullah in chief of Iran, he perhaps would have attempted to read it; n’est pas?
So, we’re trying to convince John Kerry that his words are untrue and that he has been duped? No! John Kerry knows his words are untrue and he thinks that you have been duped. The fact that this thread was attempted, proves John Kerry is right. We are dupes to think the truth matters to those people.
Bob
Well said . The graph that persuaded me of the major impact of oceans on our climate was your Detrended Sea surface temperature Anomalies for the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans Pole to Pole. The peaks in this graph around 1880, 1940 and 2005 and the troughs near 1910 and 1975 match so closely the world global temperature swings . The interesting observations from this graph is that the ocean cycle seems to have peaked and may be heading to a trough by 2045? Cooler weather indicated if ocean SST anomalies are heading down.? This makes a lot more sense to me than a rising co2 which is supposed to raise global temperatures but has not done so for 16.8 years. now. IPCC is projecting temperatures to rise again by 0.2 C per decade . I don’ see this except in isolated El NINO years and even then , there are fewer strong climate altering El Ninos during global cooling cycles[ only one per decade]. The Arctic shows signs of starting to cool , the sun cycle is low and could be so for at least 2 decades more., so there is nothing on the horizon that may raise global temperatures by 0,2 C per decade for the next 20 years . I think Ipcc has dug them selves a hole that will be difficult to get out of .
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/figure-72.png
i was taught many years ago that letters to politicians should be short and direct (no more than 5 paragraphs) or they will pretty much be ignored. something with this much detail will cause them to go into TL;DR mode (too long; didnt read)
E Martin says:
September 30, 2013 at 8:04 am
There is a 95% probability that Kerry is incapable of understanding this.
That probability is actually very very low. Some people are mentally incapable of comprehending facts even when you hit them up the side of the head with a 2 x 4. Mules can understand a 2 x 4, John Kerry can not.
I hate to break it to you, but Bob, but you are talking to a rock. LITERALLY.
It would be a better world for us all if the administration had the least interest in what you’ve written. But that’s simply not the case. “Truth” for a politician is whatever supports his or her political agenda. To this administration, your pants are on fire, Bob. The President (and therefore Kerry) has clearly announced that he’s “lost patience” with truth-tellers such as you.
Almost forgot…
There is nothing “Honorable” about John Kerry. “Traitorous?” Yeah, that might fit. It definitely applies to his predecessor and current boss, who both willingly allowed 4 US citizens to die because of another gun running scheme.
My guess is that the “dead ambassadors can’t testify before congress” rule played quite heavily in their decision to pull the plug on rescue attempts.
Kerry is a fully paid up member of the church of the resurrection so getting him away from conjecture about Co2 has about the same chance as him denying God or Jesus ever did exist and there is no use showing these guys numbers or giving them graphs because the just don’t understand or recognise the subtlety of evidence they only have the capacity to comprehend what is said to them by people that they trust and that will not relate to anyone who says AGW is a fraud any time soon. Even if the ocean shrinks and the sky falls in it will not change their minds because as you well know when it comes to fanaticism America is more fundamentalist than Iran ever could be. Different subject but amplifies the issue, New Zealand has just banned an advert relating to breast cancer because they have rules about nipples being exposed on TV, you remember Janet Jackson mistakenly or deliberately exposed a nipple American TV and there was a huge outcry this from a nation that creates and produces two thirds of the planets pornography with my lap dancing clubs per head in the bible belt than again anywhere else on the planet. Hypocrisy is the key here but so is loss of face all of these guys have investment unlimited rhetoric in the promotion of AGW and Co2 being – no pun intended – the anti Christ politicians and the majority of the media come from the same gene pool the one that dictates if you have half a brain no talent but want to be noticed and get paid for doing mostly nothing worthwhile become a politician or a journalist or write Harry Potter books where a wizard can walk through walls but needs a key to open doors. You are dealing here with human nature at its most base level and they will need to be dragged kicking and screaming with ice a mile thick and still they will defend AGW because you cannot argue with belief and remember Obama is far worse than Kerry every could be he’s a lawyer!
Collin Maessen:
Your post at September 30, 2013 at 8:12 am quotes the Role of the IPCC but either misunderstands or misrepresents how the IPCC fulfils that Role.
I have recently explained this on other IPCC threads and do so here again for the benefit of others who have not seen it.
The IPCC is only permitted to say AGW is a significant problem because they are tasked to accept that there is a “risk of human-induced climate change” which requires “options for adaptation and mitigation” that can be selected as political polices and the IPCC is tasked to provide those “options”.
The IPCC considers natural factors affecting climate only in so far as those natural considerations support the contention that “of human-induced climate change” is dominant.
This is clearly stated in the “Principles” which govern the work of the IPCC. These are stated at
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/ipcc-principles/ipcc-principles.pdf
Near its beginning that document says
So, the IPCC does NOT exist to summarise climate science and it does not.
The IPCC exists to provide
(a) “information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change”
and
(b) “options for adaptation and mitigation” which pertain to “the application of particular policies”.
Hence, its “Role” demands that the IPCC accepts as a given that there is a “risk of human-induced climate change” which requires “options for adaptation and mitigation” which pertain to “the application of particular policies”.
The IPCC is pure pseudoscience intended to provide information to justify political actions; i.e.Lysenkoism.
Richard
Mr. Tisdale
With respect, the Secretary of State is a busy official preoccupied with all sorts of problems, and is unlikely to consider reading and even less attempting to analyse your detailed communication.
I would write:
Dear Sir
You may reconsider if to be more cautious in accepting report written by people who are likely to perpetuate previous erroneous reports with the aim of preserving their financial and employment circumstance.
Sir, as long as the IPCC reports are unquestionably accepted by the powers to be, the report authors are answerable to no one, while you sir, may well reconsider if to put your reputation on line at their behest.
Regards …
Bob,
You forget an important point. Stupid people do not know they are stupid, because they are stupid, and if rich and powerfull, are continuously told by those seeking favor that they are smart. So, it is not likely the Secretary will even understand what you have said. And, in the unlikely event that Kerry is not stupid, he will still support those policies which increase his power and control, irrespective of the truth which you have so skillfully laid out for him. But, nice try.
Measure emissions of co2 from major volcanic events, compare with whole human emissions since industrialisation, sit back and laugh at ipcc assertions of 50% human attribution for temperature risies…..
GeoLurking, took my thoughts straight out of my head.
vukcevic, Kerry is predominantly occupied with making a complete arse out of himself on the global stage and making the Russians laugh.