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
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
@ur momisugly Bushbunny (re: 10:23pm) — not to hijack thread, but to direct you to a very brief answer to your Q:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/01/now-what-who-goes-and-who-stays-during-government-shutdown/
The military and essential services go on.
The main cause: Democrats wanted it ALL their way or … . The Republicans, GOD, BLESS THEM, said, for once, “No.” This is the best thing to happen for a long time. Shut that whole stinking hellhole of lies and socialist tyranny down. Hopefully, in the end, Dopebamacare WILL perish, but, for now the Government Medicine crowd is still grinning with delight. No, I’m not a member of the G.O.P. (Grand Old Party = Republicans), but I vote that way.
Patrick B says: “‘It would be prudent to plan for those same sea levels during this interglacial.’ This is a stupid statement…”
Actually it’s not.
Patrick B continued: “…planning for anything happening more than 50 years out shows a lack of understanding how the world works.”
I didn’t put a time period on my statement. You did. Did I say one needs to plan for the entire rise in one step? Nope.
Regards
Bob says: “I appreciate your effort to impart some reasonable information to Secretary Kerry, but he will assuredly never read the article.”
I really didn’t expect him to, but one never can tell what some people might read on a given day. To tell you the truth, the open letter was a gimmick to get more people to look at a model-data comparison post. And it worked. This post got A LOT of views yesterday here at WUWT and at my blog.
I get visits at my blog from the State Dept occasionally, according to the stats software I use. (No idea what level bureaucrat. It could be a guard just eating up time on the internet for all I know.) Regardless, so far there have been no visits from them (at my website) for this post. But I’ll give them a day or two.
Let’s all go for a ride on Kerry’s 76-foot yacht, or his private jet!
Another carbon hypocrite.
John Kerry, “the Ted Williams of climate change advocacy”, with Exxon stock, five luxury homes, 76-foot yacht, SUV, and a private jet: “I don’t know what ‘cap and trade’ means” http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2013/01/john-kerry-ted-williams-of-climate.html
AleaJactaEst says:
September 30, 2013 at 7:49 am
“He who pays the piper calls the tune”
Unfortunately this is not the case here, politicians are “paying the piper” with taxpayers’ (our) money, so it is we, the taxpayers’, who should be calling the tune.
Yes, bushbunny, it is official. http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/memoranda/2013/m-13-24.pdf
The party of NO has responded to their constituency and are playing with fire again. And this does not bode well for the debt ceiling clash too, for sure. So our country will likely get another credit downgrade. The bulk of GDP growth will be cut for the forth quarter. Job growth definitely will be tabled. All because some crazy people don’t wish us to have affordable healthcare and are scared to death we might actually like it.
Alan Robertson says:
September 30, 2013 at 3:42 pm
Jim G says:
September 30, 2013 at 3:33 pm
______________
“Leave her alone, why dontcha. She’s redheaded.”
Oh, no! I’ll need to be looking over my shoulder for quite sometime, possibly forever, as she is also a woman and they never forget. My wife can tell me date, time, where we were, and what I was wearing last time I pissed her off.
That Janice, she really turns me on with being the political animal. That is extra sexy! Tell you what, everyone take a note, if Janice will send this guy some money to repeal The Affordable Healthcare reform, I will officially become a staunch Republican supporter again. I will document my journey back and maybe Simon and Schuster or somebody will publish it. Yipper!
http://once.unicornmedia.com/now/od/auto/3aaae01e-e0f4-439d-aa7a-8d5e3e774105/db6630fb-4bb5-45b9-ba6e-04014bcf7f30/n_maddow_1care_130918/n_maddow_1care_130918.once?UMADPARAMsite=47422&UMADPARAMzone=182329
Your path to success
Is one phone call away
Are you ready?
Give all of your money!
If you truly believe
Act now to reserve your seat
Are you ready?
Send all of your money!
Give me all of your money
The less that you know is
To profit from ignorance
Are you ready?
Taking all of your money!
Televise fear in the home
Don’t believe everything you read
Pay attention!
You’re giving all of your money!
Give me all of your money!
Sorry, RichardCourtney I was being sarcastic.
I wrote “Messrs Courtney and Tisdale should give way to Mr. Maessen. They do not speak double Dutch. He does.” I thought that only someone qualified in double Dutch could interpret the KNMI statement in the way that he does but I see that others also do not read it in the same way as I do..
“The IPCC needs to adjust its principles. 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. ”
I understood this to mean that the IPCC should focus on attempting to understand natural climate change (if such is possible) and the part that humans play (if any) rather than focussing on what is supposed to be CAGW. and only looking at natural sources in so far as they might add or detract from CAGW.
Bob Tisdale says:
October 1, 2013 at 12:21 am
Patrick B says: “‘It would be prudent to plan for those same sea levels during this interglacial.’ This is a stupid statement…”
Actually it’s not.
Patrick B continued: “…planning for anything happening more than 50 years out shows a lack of understanding how the world works.”
I didn’t put a time period on my statement. You did. Did I say one needs to plan for the entire rise in one step? Nope.
Bob Tisdale says:
October 1, 2013 at 12:21 am
Patrick B says: “‘It would be prudent to plan for those same sea levels during this interglacial.’ This is a stupid statement…”
Actually it’s not.
Patrick B continued: “…planning for anything happening more than 50 years out shows a lack of understanding how the world works.”
I didn’t put a time period on my statement. You did. Did I say one needs to plan for the entire rise in one step? Nope.
Regards
Bob Tisdale,
Well Bob, your statement is stupid – and yes, by implication you indicated a time period. So aside from using a child’s argument (“…is not.”) you are wrong. You said we should plan for a sea level rise of 13 -26 feet. So at today’s rate, how far in the future is this? That’s one hell of long time away – I used fifty years because it’s so much shorter, and my argument is still true – society and much of our physical plant turns over in that time. The argument becomes even stronger if you use 100 years – which is still a small fraction of the time it will take to get 13 -26 feet of sea level rise. So Bob, how long will it take to get that rise? Over a 1,000 years at today’s rates? So you think it makes sense to plan for an event more than 1,000 years out? As I said, that’s just stupid. Your failure to immediately recognize the absurdity of your statement means I have to question the rest of your work – even though I agree with its premise.
[Cut-and-paste repeats in the above make little of it clear, and few quotes readable. Do you want to delete and try again? mod]
Bob, you’re ignoring what I received from the KNMI that explains that what you’re saying about the passage you’re quoting is a (accidental) misrepresentation. I can understand that you might not want to take my word that this is an actual statement from the KNMI. But ignoring it isn’t a valid response, taking me up on the offer to verify this message would be.
I’ve explained it a bit more in my follow up blog post:
http://www.realsceptic.com/2013/10/01/cant-reason-climate-sceptics/
I will not correct my original blog post (reasoning for that is present in the blog post I referred you to). However, what I am going to do is disengage with you on this issue as there’s nothing further to gain if you are not interested in listening to constructive criticism.
Bob Tisdale says:
October 1, 2013 at 1:42 am
Bob says: “I appreciate your effort to impart some reasonable information to Secretary Kerry, but he will assuredly never read the article.”
I really didn’t expect him to, but one never can tell what some people might read on a given day. To tell you the truth, the open letter was a gimmick to get more people to look at a model-data comparison post. And it worked. This post got A LOT of views yesterday here at WUWT and at my blog.
I get visits at my blog from the State Dept occasionally, according to the stats software I use. (No idea what level bureaucrat. It could be a guard just eating up time on the internet for all I know.) Regardless, so far there have been no visits from them (at my website) for this post. But I’ll give them a day or two.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
My suggestion is to get 31,000 scientists to sign your letter. 🙂
Kerry is part of the cabal that plans to institute a Soviet-style one-party dictatorship, along with Harry Reid, who has revealed the sale of his soul to der Fuehrer in the Fuehrercare fight in Congress. And the IPCC (Invariably Perverse Corrupt Cabal) report will be cited by these miscreants as justification for their actions.
Bob, I applaud your efforts but as other posters here have said, you’re talking to a lump of coal. The fundamental tenet of the global warming/leftist religion is, never listen to anything that contradicts your dogma. These people cannot be reached by reason and facts, and because they are determined to trample the Constitution and silence all dissent at every level, it will be difficult if not impossible to get through to them by any means short of armed force.
Just wait for der Fuehrer to issue executive orders to silence Fox News, this blog and any other dissenters. It’s coming.
Hi Bob,
I see Collin gave a response to you above. Here is another blog about the intention the KNMI had with the quote you use:
http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/the-dutch-view-on-the-future-of-the-ipcc-what-it-does-and-what-it-does-not-say/
That confirms Collin’s findings. There you can find from the horse’s mouth the following:
“With the Dutch proposal, the IPCC’s mandate will be much more in line with what is already common practice for years.”
So it is not about a change of focus, it is about getting the official mandate to agree with common practice (i.e. considering both natural influences on climate and human caused changes on climate, which is what the IPCC already does to separate one from the other; see my second comment on this thread).
Further above you respond to Collin:
No, it was not a quote from the IPCC, but from the KNMI’s IPCC delegation. Those who made the quote you used in the first place. Them saying what they meant with it.
That someone being from the KNMI’s IPCC delegation. Those who made the quote you used in the first place. Them saying what they meant with it.
Well, when you say that “The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) is concerned about the IPCC’s focus.” and “…they have asked for a better understanding of natural climate change.” and then compare that to what the KNMI say when they explain what they meant with the quote, some people (me included) might have some doubts about your self-assuredness.
Nice one Bob!
Read it some time ago, including the comments (you see Collin there again btw). I assume there is always someone who clicks on a link, so you are wrong on both accounts.
Yes, and No. There was someone wondering about what that paragraph was supposed to mean. How it should be interpreted. Asking his readers if someone knew more about the reasoning behind it. Someone willing to listen to arguments. Not someone saying “And I can assure you that I have not misinterpreted it.” which would be the hallmark of someone convinced by his own infallibility.
I actually included the link to show that interpretations of certain texts can be unclear. I am sorry that I did not spell this out more clearly. There was me thinking a sharp mind as yours would grasp this immediately.
Rather than Kerry’s opinion
“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.”
It would be better stated (with apologies to Dorothy Parker)
This isn’t a run of the mill report to be tossed aside lightly.
It should be thrown, and with great force…
Another of her remarks that would be applicable to AR5 is
“You can’t teach an old dogma new tricks.”
The truth probably lies closer to
“This isn’t a scientific document produced by scientists. It’s politics”….
Here’s hoping more and more folks (including those in government) get a clue and see through the “damned lies” being foisted upon us via faulty “statistics” of IPCC et. al.
Patrick B: Are you aware that building codes (FEMA) have changed recently for shoreline communities? The adaptation is already underway.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-08-22/femas-new-flood-maps-pressure-homeowners-to-raise-their-houses
Have a nice day.
Sisi and Collin: You’re wasting your time here. Anyone with reading comprehension skills can understand the KNMI statement I linked and further understand that I have not misrepresented that document. What you claim to have quoted from your email does not change the document from KNMI.
Adios.
Ed Mertin says:
October 1, 2013 at 5:15 am
Yes, bushbunny, it is official. http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/memoranda/2013/m-13-24.pdf
The party of NO has responded to their constituency and are playing with fire again. And this does not bode well for the debt ceiling clash too, for sure. So our country will likely get another credit downgrade. The bulk of GDP growth will be cut for the forth quarter. Job growth definitely will be tabled. All because some crazy people don’t wish us to have affordable healthcare and are scared to death we might actually like it.
+++++++++++++++++++
Ed: perhaps you miss the point. You conflate Obamacare with affordable health care. This means you are confused. It’s not affordable and that’s the point. If it were affordable, it would not need “massive funding” The point is that it has directly made insurance as a whole cost much more. It also is leading to job losses or people being moved to 30 hour weeks. The unions want out of it… You know this right? Or maybe you do not know this.
If you think spending 7 trillion (more than we’ve collected in tax revenues) in 4.5 years is a good thing, you’d be one of the crazy people. Debt was less than 10 Trillion then and is not 17 Trillion. When interest rates rise, the interest on the debt will be crushing –or did you know understand this either?
Mario
In 98% of the runs, the IPCCs climate models fail to reproduce observed land temperature for the period 1951-2012. Based on this, it is only fair to say that, in general, IPCCs climate models are a total failure. If these models cannot reproduce past climate, they are absolutely useless in predicting future climate.
This fact alone should be enough for the UN to dismantle the IPCC as it is today.
Instead we see that politicians have a renewed confidence in the IPCC.
The IPCC has tried but totally failed to explain why there has been a temperature standstill for the past 12+ years in land temperature. They have used volcanoes and hiding warmth in deep oceans as excuses. They have not admitted that their models are flawed and useless, and that all recent experiments and observed data reduce CO2s plausible force as a greenhouse gas, and that there are no evidence for a positive forcing.
The media has covered the IPCCs report with the usual lack of in-depth scrutiny. The bandwagon of payed-off scientists and politicians have once again popped up and repeated the mantra of their propagandist dogma. After this the media have all shut up about the matter.
Now, instead of action we see inaction from this mambo-jambo media circus. This is not science. These are not the facts. But still the IPCC, the International Providers of Climate Cheating, live.
But slowly the public is getting educated, and slowly they begin to see the truth, Australia has thrown the Carbon tax in the garbage can. Saudi-Arabia is beginning to request changes to the SFPP. And more will follow.
A lag of 12+ years in temp rise, whilst CO2 rises as before, will not go unnoticed by the public. And from now on, it is down hill for temperature, according to solar scientists and geologists. Mr. Secretary John Kerry may believe that his lack of common sense will be trusted by the public. But I think they are ALL turning skeptics, as they see that this dogma has gone from ‘Global Warming’ to ‘Climate Change’ to ‘No change’.
The public will see that the skeptics were right all along. Even if John Kerry will not.
In a valid modeling project, that would mean only the 2% would be kept, and variants of them tried for future forecasts. But that will never happen, for 2 reasons.
1) It would put most climate modelers out on the street.
2) The 2% are the ones with the lowest CS, and the IPCC is not prepared to accept that.
A one act play entitled “Science, John Kerry Style”
The Cast:Government funded Climate scientists and Enviro NGO activists play the Greedy Charlatans
John Kerry and his progreesive ilk play the Dark Ones
The Plot:
A theory of doom clung to by Greedy Charlatans despite the theory having been disproved by empirical evidence. The falsification of the theory represents good tidings for all Earthlings, yet the greedy charlatans don’t like it; because they were being paid to perpetuate the fear and alarm behind the false theory.. The people who had arranged payments to the Greedy Charlatans are the Dark Ones. The Dark Ones don’t care about Earth per se. They care about controlling the Earth, politically through central planning. Central planning where the Dark Ones are the Planners.
Loathe and prove wrong the Greedy Charlatans
Identify and fear the Dark Ones.
“You’re wasting your time here.”
This could very well be the case. I see two possibilities. The first is that you are not capable of understanding what others try to tell you (for whatever reason: incapacity, tunnel vision, misunderstanding, conspiracy thinking, overly big ego, etc.). In this case there would be a chance that I am not wasting my time by explaining it to you again. I’ll pass! The second is that you do not want to understand what others try to tell you because it does not fit your narrative. In that case any discussion here would only benefit onlookers, but would be a waste of time if my goal was to let you take in any arguments you don’t like.
Onlookers may decide for themselves. For the benefit of the onlookers I give this link to your reaction to Collin on your own blog:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2013/09/30/open-letter-to-the-honorable-john-kerry-u-s-secretary-of-state/#comment-13151
In which you say:
Which to me means you want inconvenient discussions to just go away.
Ciao.