High-level climate conference in Porto, 7-8 September 2018: a special invitation to WUWT readers

By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley

Following the successful London climate conference of 2016, Professor Nils-Axel Mörner and Pamela Matlack-Klein are organizing a high-level conference on The basic science of a changing climate at the Facultate de Letras (Humanities Faculty) in the University of Porto, Portugal, for two action-packed days – Friday 7 September and Saturday 8 September 2018.

The website for the conference is https://www.portoconference2018.org/. Registration fees are 30-130 euros a head – remarkably reasonable for conferences of this quality. Special rates have also been arranged for accommodation.

The keynote opening speaker, Professor Christopher Essex of the University of Western Ontario, will talk on how to check whether the models are getting things right. Piers Corbyn will demonstrate that recent extreme weather in Europe is normal: we’ve seen it all before. Nils-Axel Mörner will discuss the ocean circulation in the Atlantic and the Gulf Stream oscillation.

Maria da Assunção Araújo and Pamela Matlack-Klein will describe the Portuguese sea-level project. Michael Limburg of EIKE will ask whether we can trust climate time series. Philip Foster will talk about the Nile as a climate engine. Ray Garnett and Madhave Khandekar will discuss solar variability and its likely future effect on global grain yields.

And that’s just the Friday morning. In the afternoon, Francois Gervais will reveal how estimates of climate sensitivity have been falling. Your own correspondent will discuss his team’s paper, On an error in defining temperature feedback. Camille Veyres will reveal 11 facts you need to know to avoid being deceived about global warming. Jamal Munishi will discuss the connection between equilibrium sensitivity and climate response. Professor Hermann Harde, one of the most knowledgeable of all skeptical scientists, will assess the relative contributions of the Sun and CO₂ to global warming. Hans Jelbring will examine regional greenhouse effects.

On Saturday morning, Piers Corbyn will review the mechanisms of climate change. Henri Masson will analyse complexity, causality and dynamics inside the climate system. Pavel Kalenda and his tream will expound how past levels of solar energy can be calculated from continental rocks. Don Easterbrook will discuss climate change and the cause of Little Ice Ages. Roger Tattersall and Stuart Graham will demonstrate that solar and interplanetary forces, not human activity, rule the climate. Jan-Erik Solheim will show that the length of the solar cycle can be used to predict local climate. Harald Yndestad will present the climate clock. Nils-Axel Mörner will talk about planetary oscillation and sea-level change. Nicola Scafetta will present a better understanding of natural climate variability.

On Saturday afternoon, Tom Wysmuller will reveal how the UNESCO International Geosciences Program (IGSP) sea-level predictions have failed. Antonio Silva will show that present sea-level changes pose little risk to coastlines. Professor Cliff Ollier will dismiss the climate-extremists’ fallback position, ocean “acidification”, as a myth. Peter Ridd, recently unfairly dismissed by his university for having dared to question the Party Line by pointing out that most coral-reef science was unduly alarmist, will be talking about the Great Barrier Reef, climate change and science. David Block will discuss salt and albedo. Conor McMenemie will analyse the weather effects of the Nile dam. Madhav Khandekar will look at the connection, if any, between recent cold-weather extremes and global warming. Howard Dewhirst and Robert Heath will present their letter to the Geological Society of London. Aziz Adam will consider the politics of climate change. Benoît Rittaud, a formidable French mathematician with a love of the history of the discipline, will lay out some historical cases of erroneous scientific “consensus”.

As if this feast of intellectual delights were not enough, there will be a closing vin d’honneur featuring port and cheese. Also, there are dark mutterings to the effect that I will play a Schubert piano sonata for the company. Well, you can’t have nowt but fun.

The Porto conference – as you can tell from the very low registration fees – is not being run for profit, but purely for the advancement of true science. It will be a first-rate opportunity not only to hear some of the leading climate researchers who do proper science (and one or two who don’t) but also to meet them and discuss their work. There are some presentations with whose content I know I am going to disagree, and I shall have the opportunity to let the presenters know my concerns. Niklas Mörner takes the commendably scientific view that all who have something to say, whether or not what they say seems right, should be fairly heard and, if necessary, fairly argued with.

To book your place at the conference and get special rates for accommodation close to the conference venue, go to https://www.portoconference2018.org/. Those who would rather not pay the registration fee in advance can pay at the door on the day, though that will cost quite a bit more than paying now. But the organizers will need to know how many are coming, so please register on the conference website as soon as you can. Looking forward to seeing you there!