Guest essay by Dr. Don J. Easterbrook, Professor of Geology, Western Washington University
Mark Twain popularized the saying “There are liars, damn liars, and statisticians.” After reading the recently-released [IPCC AR5] report, we can now add, ‘there are liars, damn liars, and IPCC.” When compared to the also recently published NIPCC (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change) 1000+-page volume of data on climate change with thousands of peer-reviewed references, the inescapable conclusion is that the IPCC report must be considered the grossest misrepresentation of data ever published. As MIT climate scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen stated, “The latest IPCC report has truly sunk to the level of hilarious incoherence—it is quite amazing to see the contortions the IPCC has to go through in order to keep the international climate agenda going.”
From the IPCC 2013 Report
After all these years, IPCC still doesn’t get it—we’ve been thawing out from the Little Ice Age for several hundred years but still are not yet back to pre-Little Ice Age temperatures that prevailed for 90% of the past 10,000 years. Warming and cooling has been going on for millions of years, long before CO2 could have had anything to do with it, so warming in itself certainly doesn’t prove that it was caused by CO2.
Their misrepresentation of data is ridiculous. In Fig. 1, the IPCC report purports to show warming of 0.5°C (0.9°F) since 1980, yet surface temperature measurements indicate no warming over the past 17 years (Fig. 2) and satellite temperature data shows the August 13 temperature only 0.12°C (0.21°F) above the 1908 temperature (Spencer, 2013). IPCC shows a decadal warming of 0.6°C (1°F) since 1980 but the temperature over the past decade has actually cooled, not warmed.
Fig 1. IPCC graph of temperatures. Fig. 2. Measured surface temperatures for the past decade (modified from Monckton, 2013)
From the IPCC Report
There just isn’t any nice way to say this—it’s is an outright lie. A vast published literature exists showing that recent warming is not only not unusual, but more intense warming has occurred many times in the past centuries and millennia. As a reviewer of the IPCC report, I called this to their attention, so they cannot have been unaware of it. For example, more than 20 periods of warming in the past five centuries can be found in the Greenland GISP2 ice core (Fig. 3) (Easterbrook, 2011), the Medieval and Roman Warm Periods were warmer than recent warming (Fig. 4), and about 90% of the past 10,000 years were warmer than present (Fig. 5).
Figure. 3. More than 20 periods of warming in the past 500 years. (Greenland GISP2 ice core, Easterbrook, 2011)
Figure 4. Temperatures of the Medieval and Roman Warm Periods were higher than recent temperatures.
Figure 5. ~90 of temperatures during the past 10,000 years were significantly warmer than recent warming.
(Cuffy and Clow, 1997; Alley, 2000).
Not only was recent warming not unusual, there have been at least three periods of warming/cooling in the past 15,000 years that have been 20 times more intense, and at least 15 have been 5 times as intense. (Easterbrook, 2011)
Figure 6. Intensity of warming and cooling in the past 15,000 years. (Easterbrook, 2011)
From the 2013 IPCC Report
As shown by the figures above from peer-reviewed, published literature, this statement is false. No one disputes that the climate has warmed since the little ice age 1300-1915 AD—we are still thawing out from the Little Ice Age. Virtually all of this warming occurred long before CO2 could possibly have a causal factor.
From the 2013 IPCC Report
This is a gross misrepresentation of data. The Antarctic ice sheet has not been losing mass—the East Antarctic ice sheet, which contains about 90% of the world’s fresh water, is not melting–it’s growing! The same is true for Antarctic shelf ice. The only part of Antarctica that may be losing ice is the West Antarctic Peninsula, which contains less than 10% of Antarctic ice. Temperature records at the South Pole show no warming since records began in 1957.
Some melting has occurred in Greenland during the 1978-1998 warming, but that is not at all unusual. Temperatures in Greenland were warmer in the 1930s than during the recent warming and Greenland seems to be following global warming and cooling periods.
Arctic sea ice declined during the 1978-1998 warm period, but has waxed and waned in this way with every period of warming and cooling so that is not in any way unusual. Arctic sea ice expanded by 60% in 2013. Antarctic sea ice has increased by about 1 million km2 (but IPCC makes no mention of this!). The total extent of global sea ice has not diminished in recent decades.
The statement that Northern Hemisphere snow cover has “continued to decrease in extent extent” is false (despite the IPCC claim of ‘high confidence’ is false. Snow extent in the Northern Hemisphere shows no decline since 1967 and five of the six snowiest winters have occurred since 2003 (Fig. 7).
Figure 7. Snow extent in the Northern Hemisphere since 1967.
From the 2013 IPCC Report
Sea level rise over the past century has varied from 1-3mm/yr, averaging 1.7mm/yr (7 inches/yr)from 1900-2000 (Fig.8.) Sea level rose at a fairly constant rate from 1993 to about 2005 but the rate of rise has flattened out since then (Fig. 9). What is obvious from these curves is that sea level is continuing to rise at a rate of about 7 inches per century, and there is no evidence of accelerating sea level rise. Nor is there any basis for blaming it on CO2 because sea level has been rising on for 150 years, long before CO2 levels began to rise after 1945.
Figure 8. Past sea level rise. Figure 9. Sea level rise from 1993-2013. (Note: SLR graph updated on 10/4/13 to reflect recent version 7 release from University of Colorado)
Conclusions
These are only a few examples of the highly biased, misrepresentations of material in the 2013 IPCC report. As seen by the examples above, it isn’t science at all—it’s dogmatic, political, propaganda.
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Don J. Easterbrook says:
October 5, 2013 at 10:03 am
“ATTEMPTING TO MEASURE TEMPERATURE BY LOOKING AT SPRING SNOW COVER WOULD BE A NONSTARTER BECAUSE LOW SPRING SNOW COVER COULD JUST AS EASILY BE DUE TO A LOW SNOW WINTER.”
Whether the snow cover is thick or thin it thaws when the temperature is above 0C. It takes a bit longer of course if it is thick.
“ATMOSPHERIC WATER VAPOR HAS ACTUALLY DECREASED SINCE 1947,”
I think you are talking about global values here, whereas areas with snow cover are mainly found in high latitudes. In Arctic regions warmer temperatures in autumn and winter keep sea and lakes free of ice longer, thus increasing evaporation and precipitation in the form of snow.
Wrecked a Fire, at least, Otzi does prove that warming is not a problem (in addition to proving that human CO2 is climatologically irrelevant). Thus, Envirostalinism is stopped dead in its tracks.
Thus, we should not cripple our economies by taxing profits in order to subsidize perpetually negative R.O.I. junk like those wretched bird-slaughtering (for no net benefit) windmills. Nor should we limit anyone’s freedom to eat as many hamburgers or to get as low gas mileage (Ha! The metric system hasn’t taken THAT term over, yet:)) as one wants. FREE MARKETS FOREVER!
And, don’t sweat the typos. Even the best among us do it, sometimes (and non-scientists like I msiteihp;y al theiw tim #), imean #(:))
wrecktafire says:
October 5, 2013 at 2:35 pm
“All it says to me is that humans were there before the snow became a year-round feature of that particular landscape.”
Quite right and it WAS warmer in the mid Holocene, at least by 2C. There’s no question about that. The point is that if it had been warmer than now during the Roman Warm Period and MWP these artifacts and the 5000 year old Otsi would have been exposed and decomposed. There have been 9000 year old pieces of birch bark found in a thawing glacier in the Swedish Scandes. Why weren’t they exposed during earlier warm periods?
Don, thanks for the reply about the winter/spring issue. After Mosh sought to make this into a big flap, I suspected that you might have fully intended to have used the winter graph. I notice he wasn’t too interested in actually discussing that issue. But he sure was interested in turning a molehill into a mountain. Unfortunately, this area is so politically charged, there are always those who wish to focus on minor errors to score points in a propaganda battle. I also appreciate your impulse toward brevity. I myself have been accused by alarmists of being long-winded when I’m only trying to be precise so as to make it more difficult for them to misinterpret my arguments. 🙂 Thanks for a very interesting analysis.
Climate Agnostic, you say: “In Arctic regions warmer temperatures in autumn and winter keep sea and lakes free of ice longer, thus increasing evaporation and precipitation in the form of snow.” But a post later you say: “Quite right and it WAS warmer in the mid Holocene, at least by 2C. There’s no question about that. The point is that if it had been warmer than now during the Roman Warm Period and MWP these artifacts and the 5000 year old Otsi would have been exposed and decomposed.”
Why would the artifacts be exposed if warming arctic regions (as you say) have more precipitation due to increase evaporation? Aren’t you contradicting yourself?
The thing that bothers me about the spring snow vs. winter snow question, as well as the meaning of the un-buried artifacts is my experience as a “spring skier” and drinker of the snowpack (via the Hetch Hetchy water system). I have watched–nay, obsessed about–spring snowpack for 35 years in the Lake Tahoe and San Bernardino mountain areas, and it seems that the main drivers are the jetstream and the California current, plus the firehose of moisture that we can get from Hawaii. Kicking the dead horse that died in my previous post, I think these are very localized/regionalized patterns, and say nothing about global temperatures.
Chris Schoneveld says:
October 5, 2013 at 11:09 pm
“Why would the artifacts be exposed if warming arctic regions (as you say) have more precipitation due to increase evaporation? Aren’t you contradicting yourself?”
We are discussing two different things here. Snow which falls in winter and melts during spring and summer vs. glacier melt. Otzi and many artifacts have been exposed in melting and receeding glaciers, especially in the Alps. These glaciers are not affected by more precipitation in Arctic regions. Glaciers were formed by snow which didn’t melt for thousands of years due to colder conditions. When the climate warms the glacier ice melts. Otzi was well preserved in glacier ice for 5000 years and had it been warmer since then he would have been exposed.
I don’t believe the inference in your last sentence is valid, i.e., that if it been warmer since [when he was buried] then he would have been exposed”.
Wasn’t Otzi’s exposure a function of many things:
* how deeply he was buried
* duration of warm periods since then
* cloud cover during warm periods since then
* rain during warm periods since then?
In short, aren’t you assuming a lot?
“In Fig. 1, the IPCC report purports to show warming of 0.5°C (0.9°F) since 1980, yet surface temperature measurements indicate no warming over the past 17 years (Fig. 2) and satellite temperature data shows the August 13 temperature only 0.12°C (0.21°F) above the 1908 temperature (Spencer, 2013). IPCC shows a decadal warming of 0.6°C (1°F) since 1980 but the temperature over the past decade has actually cooled, not warmed.”
Then Jeff Alberts concludes:
“And you’re comparing the temp of a single day (august 13th) against some non-specific 1908 temperature? Very weak argument. Perhaps you meant to write this differently, but as a skeptic, it’s laughable.”
From the above-yes typos are (still today….10/6/2013) present. But some people actually think that Don’s reference to “August 13 temperature” actually referred to ONE DAY-August 13th??? These people had no problem ASSUMING he meant August 13th of SOME YEAR….but weren’t sharp enough to ASSUME (like a normal person) that he must have been referring to August OF 2013???
You know as in “…and satellite temperature data shows the August 2013 temperature only 0.12 C(0.21F) above the 1980 (NOT 1908) temperature (Spencer 2013).”
I don’t know Mr. Easterbrook or his credentials well. Apparently he didn’t have anyone review his essay for typos etc, which isn’t a crime or high treason in science as far as I’m concerned. As a skeptic on his side however, I would beg him to be more careful in the future, as each little typo and innocent mistake becomes a club with which idiots will attempt to beat his arguments to death. Especially when the typos are NUMBERS regarding dates and temps-which are vital to any climate discussion.
Perhaps Anthony or Dr Easterbrook would take a moment to go over the entire essay or ask someone to edit it fully and then repost it? Just a suggestion.
wrecktafire says:
October 6, 2013 at 9:46 am
“Wasn’t Otzi’s exposure a function of many things:
* how deeply he was buried
* duration of warm periods since then
* cloud cover during warm periods since then
* rain during warm periods since then?”
How deeply Otzi was buried nobody can tell. There have been several cold periods during the last 5000 years when glaciers in the Alps advanced and grew in thickness, for instance LIA, which would have buried the corpse deeper.
Warm periods like Roman WP and MWP in Europe lasted 200-300 years at least . Our own Modern WP has lasted no more than 100 years.
Whether there was more cloud cover or rain during those warm periods is naturally difficult to know but according to paleo reconstructions the climate was similar to our own warm period.
There’s an interesting study published in May this year, a reconstruction of temperatures 2000 years back in most of the continents (except Africa), which concludes:
“Recent warming reversed the long-term cooling; during the period AD 1971–2000, the area-weighted average reconstructed temperature was higher than any other time in nearly 1,400 years.”
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n5/full/ngeo1797.html
You just made my point. Otzi tells us zero about how warm it has been.
wrecktafire says:
October 6, 2013 at 2:20 pm
“You just made my point. Otzi tells us zero about how warm it has been.”
Well, if that’s how you interpret my comment it is fine with me. I’m not trying to “convert” you.
No wonder the IPCC didn’t want to focus your attention on winter snow extent.
Since then the Northern Hemisphere has had five of the six snowiest winters on record.
AR5…. is that short for Assault Report 5? Just curious.
I don’t really care if Climate change is real – I just want to begin investing early on into the carbon-trading market. While you guys are busy arguing, I’m going to get rich! suckers!
Besides – if the world cleans itself up and treats the environment better as a result of a possible lie – who cares? The world needs to pollute less and this is a good way to get people to do it.
Now excuse me while I exhale some carbon and pay for a licence for the right to do so.
Jon’s point is apt and incisive. Even if the IPCC is alarmist and exaggerating, in what kind of world is the process of curtailing human wastage and despoilment somehow a danger to be avoided? How is the IPCC’s message to be negatively construed as politicized propaganda, when the money and resources available to ‘green’ campaigning and awareness is dwarfed by the hundreds of billions of dollars of CO2-pumping oil-interests? What have we to gain from listening to climate-change alarmists? A more ecologically-conscious, less polluted world? Oh dear! Let’s avoid that path of ruin!
Civilization has flourished for less than 1% of higher primate evolution because of relatively stable climates. Many previous civilizations have already all but erased themselves from history simply by overloading the ecologies they depended on. It’s possible the IPCC is alarmist because their warnings have been ignored by the population or obfuscated by big-oil and politics, and the possible collapse of a global civilization would be impossible to stop if it started. We have to get working on solutions…. and eco-imperialist finance capitalism is NOT sustainable in the long term.
What would you climate skeptics advocate? Continue on the same path and just ignore the possibility of climate change? Keep pumping out the CO2 and methane; keep clearing away the jungles and forests; keep watching arable land get blown into the ocean; keep watching the deserts grow; keep birthing millions of new people a year and demanding more and more production from a thinning, emptying environment? Yes, let’s ignore the IPCC, pretend humanity is technologically invulnerable, and keep doing all of that until God returns to earth and restocks the oceans, replants the trees, refills the aquifers with unpolluted water, and shits good soil back over all the deserts. Good plan, skeptics. Because that IS your plan when you’re so determined to discredit the only large-scale voices for environmental conservatism. Climate change WILL happen, whether it is human driven or not, and the world is currently filled with billions of dependent people with no survival skills.
Thanks, dbstealy.
To which I would add: David J., you need to catch up. Have you not noticed that BP is in the solar panel business? That oil giants are in the biofuel business? That lightbulb makers are spending millions trying to get lightbulb mandates written into law? That you are being bombarded with green messages by corporate America and the multinational green energy lobby? That the rich countries with all the green technology are trying to force poor countries to buy this stuff? Yes, conservation is a good thing, but if you think it is a pure, unadulterated, unalloyed good thing to do, whatever the cost, you have fallen into the trap of (a) the redistributionists (b) the anti-human crowd (starvation is good!) and (c) the part of the business community that is going to get filthy rich making you think you are saving the planet by buying their stuff.
As Mr. Stealey says, we have to use our heads as well as our emotions. We also need to do the math–add up the costs and benefits of everything that is proposed. And telling the truth is an essential part of that.
David J. says:
Even if the IPCC is alarmist and exaggerating, in what kind of world is the process of curtailing human wastage and despoilment somehow a danger to be avoided?
Try to keep one issue at a time in mind. The IPCC is alarmist and exaggerating. That means they are not truthful. If they are lying to ‘save the planet’ it is called Noble Cause Corruption.
David J. continues:
How is the IPCC’s message to be negatively construed as politicized propaganda, when the money and resources available to ‘green’ campaigning and awareness is dwarfed by the hundreds of billions of dollars of CO2-pumping oil-interests?
David, you make it too easy. You certainly are a fossil fuel consumer, therefore you directly contribute to those hundreds of $billions. You voluntarily pay to support them — but then you criticize them for what they provide for you.
Next, you write: Civilization has flourished for less than 1% of higher primate evolution because of relatively stable climates.
Not really, David. Evolution was taking place long before the Holocene. True, humans proliferated during warm periods. But so what? It is a fact that those warm periods were not caused by rising CO2, so the entire “carbon” scare is grant-propelled nonsense. As CO2 rises, global temperatures have been falling. Next, you ask:
What would you climate skeptics advocate? Continue on the same path and just ignore the possibility of climate change? Keep pumping out the CO2 and methane; keep clearing away the jungles and forests; keep watching arable land get blown into the ocean; keep watching the deserts grow; keep birthing millions of new people a year and demanding more and more production from a thinning, emptying environment?
First, the climate always changes. Always has, always will. Only Michael Mann says otherwise: his hokey stick chart shows unchanging temperatures until the industrial revolution. But of course, Mann’s chart has been so thoroughly debunked that it is an embarassment that the IPCC can no longer publish.
Next, we are on the right path, no thanks to the self-serving enviro-lobby. The U.S. refused to sign Kyoto, but we are reducing our “carbon” emissions. So we certainly do not need to be preached at by do-gooders.
Finally, your wild-eyed Chicken Little rant about the ‘ocean, jungles and forests’ is simply an emotional outburst that accomplishes nothing productive. In reality, modern industrial society has done more to protect the environment and people than anything done by the eco crowd. You literally owe your health, wealth and longevity to industry. Whales exist because of industrial activity; there is no “thinning, emptying environment”, and your “large-scale voices for environmental conservatism” is a bunch of nonsense. The IPCC was set up and exists for ulterior reasons:
“One must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.”
~ Ottmar Edenhofer, Co-Chair, UN/IPCC WG3
Well meaning folks like yourself are being used to advance the UN’s agenda. I know you will probably not agree. But I am writing this to speak to other readers, and give them a rational skeptic’s view. Human nature being what it is, you will probably keep drinking that Kool Aid. Because Noble Cause Corruption is a feel-good fallacy, which requires critical thinking to overcome. But alarmists act based on feelings, not on thinking, as your comments show.