Guest essay by Larry Hamlin
The June 23, 1988 Democratic Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources hearing opened the door on climate alarmism in the nation with testimony from scientific “experts” and Committee Senators who offered speculation and conjecture on a host of weather and climate topics while sharing their scientifically unsupported and sensationalized doomsday perspectives. The complete record of the hearing’s proceedings can be found here.
This hearing is often celebrated by climate alarmists and cited as a milestone in establishing the alleged legitimacy of greenhouse gas emissions as the principal cause of increased global warming that also drives other global climate conditions. The hearing was front page headline news in the New York Times.
In reality the hearing’s climate alarmist statements and claims represented nothing but conjecture and speculation driven by the political ambitions of politicians and scientists seeking fame and additional government funding. The hearing failed to address scientifically proven and verifiable climate evidence.
For more than three decades since this hearing the Democratic Party has continued to engage in scientifically unsupported climate alarmism and relied instead upon conjecture, speculation and exaggeration while concealing the failure of climate model projections and more importantly the UN IPCC acknowledgment that climate models cannot provide accurate assessments of future climate states.
A detailed review of the statements and claims made by both the Senators and scientific “experts” presenting greenhouse gas and global warming information at the hearing when viewed in 2021 after 33 years of recorded climate data reveals how extraordinary flawed and mistaken the hearings proceedings were with the numerous failed claims being completely ignored by the main-stream media that continues to celebrate the climate alarmism symbolism of this hugely inaccurate and misleading hearing.
The incredibly flawed perspectives of this hearing rather than being celebrated as a major milestone of climate alarmism success instead represent everything that is wrong about climate alarmism’s use of politically motivated and contrived speculation, conjecture, exaggeration, distortion, and deception in making scientifically unsupported claims in addressing climate issues.
The hearing was held in the Senate Dirksen Office Building in Washington D.C. on a hot 101 Degree F day during an unseasonably warm heat wave (the highest temperature on record in Washington D.C. occurred on July 29, 1930 at 106 degrees F some 91 years ago) along with a major drought also underway in the Midwest and Southeastern regions of the country.
The hearing was Chaired by Democratic Senator Bennett Johnston of Louisiana whose opening statement introduced the primary hearing topics to be addressed which were the greenhouse effect and global warming and their impact on global climate.
Those presenting at the hearing included a number of Senators along with NASA scientist Dr. James Hansen, Environmental Defense Fund Senior Scientist Dr. Michael Oppenheimer, Dr. George Woodwell, Director of Woods Hole Research Center and others as noted below.
Some regions of the country were experiencing drought in 1988 that was significantly reducing production levels of soybeans, cotton, corn crops and other agricultural products. This drought became a major point of discussion at these hearings with presenter after presenter speculating devoid of any rational support that this droughts occurrence and severity were probably caused by increased greenhouse gases without offering any confirming scientific evidence regarding such claims.
The information provided below follows the course of the hearing from opening statement through subsequent presenters in order of appearance highlighting key portions of the presentations with comparisons using updated climate data since the hearing to assess the scientific legitimacy or lack thereof regarding the hearing’s climate claims. As arduous as this task is it is necessary to provide a clearer understanding of the hearing’s scientific ineptness and politically driven climate alarmist bias.
Conclusions are provided as noted in bold face type at the end of key discussion topics.
Senator Bennett opened the hearing by noting:
“The greenhouse effect has ripened beyond theory now. We know it is a fact. What we don’t know is how quickly it will come upon us as an emergency fact, how quickly it will ripen from just a matter of deep concern to a matter of severe emergency.
And what we don’t know about it is how we’re going to deal with it and how we’re going to get the American people to understand that perhaps this drought which we have today is not just an accidental drought, not just the kind of periodic drought which we have from time to time but is, in fact, the result of what man is doing to this planet.”
In his prepared statement Senate Bennett further noted:
“The current drought situation teaches us how important climate is to the nation’s social, economic, and physical well-being. The United States is currently mobilizing its political and financial resources to grapple with the enormous agricultural devastation of the present dry spell over the Midwest and Southeast portions of the United States. The present drought graphically illustrates only a small portion of the scenario which could transpire if global warming and climate change predictions are accurate.”
“Taking the proper steps to control the degree and pace of global warming will not be easy.”
“Nevertheless, the United Sates must take a concerted effort to increase its use of energy sources that emit relatively less carbon dioxide and other trace gases.”
Based upon this statement Senator Bennett had clearly tipped the Democrats hand by announcing in his opening remarks a conclusion that recent global warming is caused by increasing greenhouse gas emissions and as a consequence actions must be taken immediately to reduces these gases even before any confirming studies and analysis have even been identified much less undertaken.
Senator Bennett then turned the meeting over to Democratic Senator Wirth of Colorado to conduct the meeting. Further amplifying the greenhouse gas caused 1988 drought climate speculation Senator Wirth noted:
“In the past week, many of us have been seeing first-hand the effects of the drought that is occurring across the heart of this country. Meteorologists already are recording this as the worst drought this nation has experienced since the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s. The most productive soils and some of the mightiest rivers on earth are literally drying up.”
“Already, more than 50 per cent of the Northern Plain’s wheat, barley, and oats have been destroyed and the situation could get much worse.”
“We must begin to ask: is this a harbinger of things to come? Is this the first greenhouse stamp to leave its impression on our fragile global environment? I understand that Dr. Hansen will provide testimony that points clearly in that direction.”
A question asked by Republican Senator McClure of Idaho during the Q&A session of the hearing requested more scientific substance regarding the claimed connection between greenhouse gases and droughts with the response clearly exposing the speculation, conjecture and limitations of the climate “science” being addressed at the hearing.
Senator McClure:
“But that doesn’t explain the droughts of the 1930s. Was the drought in the middle 1930s a result of the greenhouse effect?”
Dr. Hansen:
“You will notice in the climate simulations which I presented we began the simulations in 1958. That was the international geophysical year. The measurements of atmospheric composition began at that time and have been accurate since that time.”
“It is more difficult to go back and simulate the 1930s because we don’t know what caused the 1930s to be warmer than the preceding decades. So, it is really difficult to say what caused the droughts in the 1930s.”
Regarding the numerous drought and heat wave claims made by Senators Bennett and Wirth as noted above analysis of climate information that has occurred since the hearing provides a much clearer picture of real-world heat wave and drought outcomes.
With the passage of 33 years since the Democratic Party’s politically contrived greenhouse effect and global warming hearing it is now appropriate to look at what actually happened regarding the occurrence of droughts both in the U.S. and globally using more than three decades of recorded data versus the climate alarmism speculation and conjecture expressed at the 1988 hearing concerning the mid 1980s drought as well as the occurrence and severity of future droughts in the U.S.
EPA data shows no increasing trend in the occurrence and severity of droughts in the U.S. over a period of more than a century with the droughts of the 19030s and 1950s clearly remaining the most extreme on record and dominating drought severity compared to the droughts of the 1980s and droughts of other decades as well.
EPA data also shows no trend of increased heat waves across the U.S. with the 1930s overwhelmingly dominating the occurrence of heat waves for a period of more than a century.
NOAA data on droughts shows no global increasing trend of severity of global droughts with the IPCC’s decades of regular climate reviews conducted since the 1988 hearing concluding “low confidence” in increasing global heat waves and drought severity due to the impact of increased greenhouse gases.
History has shown that the conjecture and speculated expressed at the Senate hearing between greenhouse gas emissions and the increased occurrence and severity of U.S. droughts and heat waves as well as increasing global droughts is unsupported by more than three decades of recorded global climate data that occurred after the 1988 hearing.
The Democratic Party’s hearing with their exaggerated climate alarmist claims speculating greenhouse gas emissions impacts being linked to the 1988 drought as well as likely causing future increased numbers and severity of droughts and heat waves have been proven WRONG.
The next presenter at the hearing offering views on greenhouse gases and their connection to global warming was Democratic Senator Max Baucus of Montana a long-time member of the Committee on Environment and Public Works.
The Statement of Senator Baucus noted the following key points:
“Like those who believe the stock market crash of October was a warning on the economy, we must ask ourselves if the drought we are facing is nature’s warning to mankind to clean up its act.” (As noted previously the hearings speculation regarding the occurrence and severity of droughts have proven to be WRONG.)
“The inhabitants of planet earth are quietly conducting a gigantic environmental experiment.”
“The experiment in question is the so-called greenhouse effect – the gradual warming of our atmosphere caused by an overload of carbon dioxide and other trace gases.”
“The projected increases in the greenhouse gases are predicted to cause unprecedented global and regional climate changes.”
“Temperature will increase. Current models predict an increase in average global temperature of 1.5 to 4.5 degrees C by year 2030. That is an increase of about 3 to 9 degrees F in only 40 years.” (The same future global average temperature anomaly increase claims are repeated numerous times by presenters during the course of the hearing.)
“Sea level could rise from one to four feet, inundating our coastlines and contaminating drinking water supplies with salt water.” (Presumably over the next 40 years as addressed in his temperature increase comments.)
“We are talking about a situation where mankind has finally wrestled control of the planet from Nature.” (This sounds like a quote from a 1950s science fiction movie.)
“If emissions continue on their present track, we will have committed Earth to a warming of 1.5 to 4.5 degrees C by 2030.”
The global temperature increases noted by Senator Baucus (along with other presenters) were derived from the NASA GISS climate model presented by Dr. James Hansen.
Figure 3 from the testimony of Dr. Hansen (Attachment A Figure 3) shown below addresses the climate model analysis of the 5-year running mean global average temperature anomaly for the period 1986 to 2060 for three greenhouse gas scenarios that were generated by the NASA GISS climate model discussed in more detail in Attachment A to Dr. Hansen’s testimony.
Scenario A (solid top line extending to 2060) represents continued increased growth of greenhouse gas emissions and shows that from year 1986 an increased temperature anomaly of about 4.5 degrees C during that period.
Scenario B (top dotted line extending to about 2030) represents continuing greenhouse gas emissions at levels consistent with 1986 emissions levels and shows an increase temperature anomaly of about 1.5 degrees C during that period.
Scenario C (bottom dotted line extending to about year 2040) represents significantly reduced emissions and shows an increased temperature anomaly of about 0.8 degrees C during that period starting in 1986.
The latest UAH satellite measured global average temperature anomaly for the period from 1979 to 2021 shows a decadal rate of increase of about 0.14 degrees C. For the period staring from 1986 to 2021 the rate of UAH global average temperature anomaly is also about 0.14 degrees C per decade which results in an increase of about 0.49 degrees C during this period.
The UAH 0.49 degrees C measured temperature anomaly increase from 1986 to year 2021 is far below the temperature anomaly increases represented by the NASA GISS model used in the Democrats 1988 hearing which shows temperature increases from 1986 to 2021 as being about 1.4 degrees C increase for Scenario A, about 1 degree C increase for scenario B and about 0.6 degrees C for Scenario C.
The Scenario A greenhouse gas emission case is closest to what has happened to global emissions since 1988 with continuing rapid growth in emissions driven by the world’s developing nations led by China and India that now account for 65% of all global emissions as well as all global emissions increases since about year 2006.
Global emissions increased 67% from 1988 to 2019 with the developing nations completely dominating this increase. U.S. emissions have declined since 2007 with reductions totaling about 1 billion metrics tons through 2019.
The UAH temperature anomaly increase of about 0.49 degrees C in the period between 1986 and 2021 is even below the Scenario C NASA GISS case (0.6 degrees C) which assumed significant reductions in global emissions that never happened.
Additionally the UAH annual global average temperature anomaly has plateaued since the year 2016 El Nino driven peak with trivially insignificant changes (hundredths of a degree C) in the annual global average temperature anomaly during this nearly 6 year-long global temperature hiatus period despite continuing large increases in global greenhouse gas emissions during this 6 year period.
Measurements of the global average temperature anomaly since the Democrats 1988 hearing clearly shows the NASA GISS climate model relied upon in these hearings grossly overstates the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on global temperatures.
The claims made by numerous Democratic Party Senators and scientific “experts” about global average temperature anomalies increasingly dramatically in the future because of increasing greenhouse gas emissions highlighted at this hearing (1.5 to 4.5 degrees C temperature anomaly increase by 2030) have been proven WRONG.
Senator Baucus claimed that because of greenhouse gas driven increasing global temperatures sea level could increase and rise by an additional one to four feet over the next 40 years.
NOAA tide gauge data has been updated to include measurements through year 2020 for hundreds of coastal tide gauges stations located around the U.S., Alaska, Hawaii and various other Pacific and Atlantic Island groups.
The longest recorded period of NOAA tide gauge measurements is the station located at the Battery in New York on the U.S. east coast which has been measuring coastal sea level rise at that location since 1856 some 164 years ago.
The rate of coastal sea level rise is 0.94 feet per century or 2.88 millimeters per year and has remained consistently at that rate with a 95% confidence level of only +/- 0.09 mm/yr. (for perspective the average thickness of a human fingernail is about 0.42 mm) as shown in the NOAA data below. The longer the recorded period of tide gauge measurements at any location the smaller the 95% confidence levels.
On the west coast of the U.S. the longest measured sea level rise tide gauge is located at San Francisco with a 123-year measurement record going back to the year 1897.
The rate of coastal sea level rise is 0.56 feet per century or 1.97 millimeters per year and has remained consistently at that rate with a 95% confidence level of only +/- 0.18 mm/yr. as shown in the NOAA data below.
On the Hawaiian Islands the longest NOAA tide gauge data measurement station is located at Honolulu with a measurement record of 115 years going back to 1905.
The rate of coastal sea level rise is 0.51 feet per century or 1.55 millimeters per year and has remained consistently at that rate with a 95% confidence level of only +/- 0.21 mm/yr. as shown in the NOAA data below.
Honolulu is the birthplace of President Obama who in June 2008 after securing the Democratic Party Presidential nomination made the claim that his election would be “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”
Climate science informed individuals know the oceans have been rising gradually for thousands of years since the end of the last ice age and continued to do so after Obama’s election. His misleading comments reflect the use of climate science deception and distortion as is the case for many Democratic Party politicians including those at the 1988 hearing.
NOAA tide gauge data updated through year 2020 measurements confirms that U.S. coastal sea level rise remain consistent and are not accelerating which is also the case for hundreds of other global tide gauge coastal locations under the worldwide GLOSS data measurement system.
Claims made at the Democratic Party’s hearing in 1988 that the rate of sea level rise is climbing ever higher and threatens to rapidly inundate our coastline because of increasing greenhouse gas emissions have been proven WRONG.
The hearing then moved on to the statements and presentation of Dr. James Hansen and the NASA GISS climate model used to supposedly represent the behavior of the global average temperature anomaly based upon the level of greenhouse gas emissions.
Dr. Hansen’s principal conclusions presented at the hearing are that the earth is warmer in 1988 than at any time in the history of instrumental measurements, that global warming is now sufficiently large that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship to the greenhouse effect and that the computer climate simulations show the greenhouse effect is already large enough to begin to affect the probability of extreme events such as summer heat waves with the model results implying that the heat wave/drought occurrences in the Southeast and Midwest of the U.S. may become more frequent in the next decade than climatological (1950-1980) statistics.
The EPA, NOAA and IPCC drought and heat wave data and analysis obtained over the past three decades as presented in a prior discussion clearly indicates that Dr. Hansen’s principal conclusions regarding these events increased likelihood and severity from 1988 and beyond as a result of increasing greenhouse gas emissions are unsupported by actual data.
Dr. Hansen indicated that they have made initial studies with state-of-the-art climate models as noted in the diagram below where three different scenarios (as described previously regarding the failed future temperature increases noted by Senator Baucus of 1.5 to 4.5 degrees C by year 2030) of future increased levels of greenhouse gas emissions are used to attempt to portray the impact on the annual global average temperature anomaly of these different levels of emissions.
“Our studies during the past several years at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies have focused on the expected transient climate change during the next few decades”
The measured annual global average temperature anomaly data is now available for three decades after the 1988 hearings.
The graph below from a WUWT article shows the updated GISS (yellow) and HADCRUT (blue) measured global average temperature anomaly data since 1988
and also includes Dr. Hansen’s original global average temperature anomaly data (red) from 1958 to 1986.
The next graph shows the measured global average temperature anomaly increases over the last three decades (yellow and blue) that clearly show that the NASA GISS computer model temperature anomaly estimates (purple) grossly overstates the impact of increasing greenhouse gas emissions on the global average temperature anomaly. Hansen Scenario A represents rapidly increasing greenhouse gas emissions that reflect the reality of continuing global emissions increases that have occurred since 1986 driven by huge emissions increases by the world’s developing nations.
The significantly lower measured global average temperature anomaly data since 1986 shows a much closer relationship to Hansen’s Scenario B and C lower temperatures projections which reflect significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions than have actually occurred.
There is nothing in these results that can confirm that man made actions are controlling global average temperature anomaly outcomes with these results just as likely reflecting natural climate variation driven outcomes.
It is clear that the 1988 hearing claims that increased greenhouse gas emissions will significantly increase future global average temperature anomaly outcomes have been grossly exaggerated and that the temperature increases presented in the hearing of 1.5 degrees C to 4.5 degrees C increase by year 2030 based on the NASA GISS computer model have been proven WRONG.
It is also clear that the real-world sensitivity of the global average temperature anomaly to increasing global greenhouse gas emissions has been greatly overstated with the computer model assumptions leading to this flawed conclusion also proven WRONG.
The next scientific “expert” presenter was Dr. Michael Oppenheimer, Senior Scientist, Environmental Defense Fund
The Statements by Dr. Oppenheimer noted the following key points:
“Global mean temperature will likely rise at about 0.6 degrees F per decade and sea level at about 2.5 inches per decade.”
“These rates are about six times recent history.”
“Furthermore, as long as greenhouse gases continue to grow in the atmosphere, there is no known natural limit to the warming short of catastrophic change.”
“Because the oceans are slow to heat, there is a lag between emissions and full manifestation of corresponding warming, a lag which some estimate at 40 years.”
“The world is now 1 degree F warmer than century ago and may become another 1 degree warmer even if conditions are curtailed today.”
“If climate changes rapidly, agricultural and water resources will be stressed.”
“Even if global food supplies are maintained, one need only look at the current Great Plains drought to see the human and economic cost associated with hot, dry weather in the grain belt. Weather of this sort we can expect with increasing frequency in the future.” (The claim of increasing U.S. heat waves and droughts is unsupported by data as previously discussed.)
“Every decade of delay and implementation of greenhouse gas abatement policies ultimately adds perhaps a degree F of warming and no policy can be fully implemented immediately in any event.”
“Slowing warming to an acceptable rate and ultimately stabilizing the atmosphere would require reductions in fossil emissions by 60% from present levels, along with similar reductions of other greenhouse gases.”
Dr. Oppenheimer’s claims are addressed as follows:
Prior information regarding the rate of increase of the global average temperature anomaly as determined by the UAH satellite measured data over the 33 years from 1988 to 2021 is 0.14 degrees C per decade or 0.252 degrees F per decade which is far below Dr. Oppenheimer’s claim of 0.6 degrees F per decade increase.
NOAA tide gauge data updated through year 2020 (more than three decades after the 1988 Senate hearings) estimates that the global absolute rate of sea level rise is about 0.7 inches per decade (between 1.7 to 1.8 mm/yr.) which is strikingly below Dr. Oppenheimer’s claim of 2.5 inches per decade increase.
Furthermore Dr. Oppenheimer’s claim that each decade of delay in implementing greenhouse gas abatement policies adds another 1 Degree F of warming would mean that the three decades of continued growth in greenhouse gas emissions that have occurrence since the 1988 hearing would have considerably increased his estimates of 0.6 degrees F temperature anomaly increase per decade and 2.5 inches of sea level rise increase per decade.
The measured results (a three-decade long post hearing period) of the temperature anomaly increase (0.252 degrees F per decade) and sea level rise per decade (0.7 inches per decade) show the claim that large additional increased temperature anomaly and sea level rise outcomes will occur for each missed decade of greenhouse gas abatement delay are unsupported.
Global greenhouse gas emissions have INCREASED over the period of 1988 to 2019 by 67% (driven and controlled by the world’s developing nations led by China and India) versus Dr. Oppenheimer’s claim that a level of emissions abatement of 60% REDUCTION from 1988 levels is required to slow warming to an acceptable rate.
Measured data do not support Dr. Oppenheimer’s claims of large increases of global average temperature anomaly and sea level rise occurring if greenhouse gases are not significantly reduced since the measured temperature anomaly and sea level rise increases were far below Dr. Oppenheimer’s claims even with increasing emissions.
The claim that “there is no known natural limit to warming” as long as greenhouse gases are added to the atmosphere is incorrect. The greenhouse gas warming effectiveness diminishes logarithmically with increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Dr. Oppenheimer’s claim that future global food shortages may occur because of increasing droughts and heat waves is unsupported by global food production data.
Global food production continues to climb and is at record levels. Global grain production in 2020-21 is forecast to increase to a record 2.224 billion metric tons according to the International Grain Council.
Record harvests of wheat and corn are also forecast at 774 million metric tons and 1.139 billion metric tons respectively. Soybean world production is also forecast up and just shy of the 2018-2019 record production level. Global rice production is also forecast to increase in 2020-21 to a peak of 504 million metric tons.
Dr. Oppenheimer’s key climate claims presented at the 1988 hearing as discussed above are unsupported by subsequent data as follows:
Claims of increasing rates of global average temperature anomaly and sea level rise (0.6 degrees C per decade and 2.5 inches per decade sea level rise) due to increased greenhouse gas emissions are unsupported based on measured data covering the three-decade period from 1988 to 2021. These claims have been proven WRONG.
Claims that significant increases of rates of global average temperature anomaly and sea level rise will occur for each decade of delay in global greenhouse gas abatement have been proven WRONG.
The claim that there is no natural limit to future global average temperature anomaly increases due to greenhouse gas emissions has been proven WRONG.
Claims that global food shortages could occur because of global average temperature anomaly increases caused by increased greenhouse gas emissions have been proven WRONG.
The next presenter was Dr. George Woodwell, Director, Woods Hole Research Center.
Dr. Woodwell noted the following key points:
“We are embarked on a period of drastic climate change.”
“We expect that that (doubling of carbon dioxide) would occur sometime early in the next century, 2030 or so.”
“We expect the means (global average temperature anomaly) to run for the earth as a whole somewhere between 1 and a half and 5 and a half degrees C.”
“The effect will be an increase in sea level of 30 cm to 1.5 m (about 1 foot to about 5 feet) over the next 50 – 100 years.”
“We have the potential, as Dr. Oppenheimer just pointed out, of changing climate zones, altering the productivity of agricultural and changing the potential of earth for fixing green plants and changing it drastically.”
“If warming proceeds rapidly enough to destroy forests (1 degree C per decade), that component can expand considerably.”
Dr. Woodwell’s claims are addressed as follows:
Previously discussed UAH satellite measured temperature anomaly data from 1988 to 2021 (33 years) shows a global average temperature anomaly rate of about 0.14 degrees C per decade or about 0.59 degrees C increase by year 2030 from 1988 versus Dr. Woodwell’s claims of 1.5 to 5.5 degrees C increase from year 1988 to 2030.
Previously discussed NOAA absolute global sea level rise rate of 0.7 inches per decade means a 50-year increase to year 2038 of 3.5 inches and a 100-year increase to year 2088 of 7 inches versus Dr. Woodwell’s claims of about 12 to 60 inches in the next 50 to 100 years. NOAA coastal tide gauge data updated to year 2020 at hundreds of locations are not showing acceleration of rates of coastal sea level rise.
Regarding potential reductions in global food production prior discussions document world record high food production levels of grains, wheat, corn, rice, soybeans, etc. Additionally, large population regions of the earth also reflect record high food production as noted in the items presented below addressing food production in China, India and South Africa.
Concerning negative impacts on global greening caused by increasing emissions of greenhouse gases NASA satellite observations reflect the opposite occurring as noted in the study below indicating that from a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetation lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years due to rising levels of CO2.
Regarding negative impacts of greenhouse gases on global forests a recent study by the University of Maryland shows otherwise as noted below.
“News headlines report a world constantly beset by deforestation and desertification, but new research suggests the planet may not be as tree-damaged as once thought.
Although agricultural expansion in the tropics has swallowed vast areas of the rainforest, climate change has allowed a greater number of new trees to grow in areas previously too cold to support them.
Scientists at the University of Maryland analyzed satellite pictures showing how the use of land on Planet Earth has altered over a 35-year period. The study, published in Nature journal, is the largest of its kind ever conducted.
The research suggests an area covering 2.24 million square kilometers – roughly the combined land surface of Texas and Alaska, two sizeable US states – has been added to global tree cover since 1982. This equates to 7% of the Earth’s surface covered by new trees”
Additionally claims that greenhouse gas increases are driving more forest fires around the world have also been shown to be wrong based on NASA satellite data as noted below.
Regarding Dr. Woodwell’s key comments we have the following conclusions:
Claims that the global average temperature anomaly will increase by 1.5 to 5.5 degrees C by year 2030 have been proven WRONG.
Claims that global sea level rise will further increase by 30 cm to 1.5 m in the next 50 to 100 years have been proven WRONG.
Claims that global agriculture production and world greening and forest growth will be negatively impacted by increasing greenhouse gas emissions have been proven WRONG.
There were a few other presenters at the hearing, but they basically continued to address the same type of claims as previously discussed.
Subsequent to the 1988 Senate hearing on global warming the UN IPCC has conducted a number of climate analysis reports and concluded that there are significant limitations to climate models being able to provide accurate future climate predictions that cannot be overcome.
The UN IPCC Third Assessment Report (AR3) was issued in year 2001 more than a decade after the 1988 hearing. That report finally acknowledged that it is not possible to develop climate models that can accurately model global climate and provide future climate predictions.
Specifically, the report in Section 14.2.2.2 noted:
“In sum, a strategy must recognize what is possible. In climate research and modeling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible. The most we can expect to achieve is the prediction of the probability distribution of the system’s future possible states by generation of ensembles model solutions.”
Claims at the 1988 Democratic global warming hearing that climate models can be developed to provide accurate assessments of future climate states have been proven WRONG.
UN IPCC Assessment Reports to date provide climate model scenarios (referred to as RCPs) that are used to suggest various possible climate states in the future. The RCPs that were included in the AR5 report issued in 2013 were identified as RCP 2.6, RCP 4.5, RCP 6.0 and RCP 8.5 with assumed greenhouse gas emissions varied from low scenario (2.6) to high scenario (8.5) along with numerous other assumptions.
However, these climate scenarios are all qualified as follows:
“The scenarios should be considered plausible and illustrative, and do not have probabilities attached to them.” (12.3.1; Box1.1)
Climate models may serve useful purposes in academic and scientific studies but they are based upon conjecture and speculation since the RCP’s climate scenarios utilized are simply “plausible” and “illustrative” and have no probabilities associated with their scenarios. These scenarios cannot be used to establish accurate assessments of future climate states.
The UN IPCC high carbon emission scenario RCP 8.5 has been challenged numerous times including by former chief scientist for Obama’s Energy Department Steven Koonin for positing completely ridiculous and implausible assumptions of increases in coal use a century from now which is just one of dozens of assumptions thrown into these scenarios.
“A drumroll moment was Zeke Hausfather and Glen Peter’s 2020 article in the journal Nature partly headlined: “Stop using the worst-case scenario for climate warming as the most likely outcome.”
“This followed the 2017 paper by Justin Ritchie and Hadi Dowlatabadi asking why climate scenarios posit implausible increases in coal burning a century from now. And I could go on. Roger Pielke Jr. and colleagues show how the RCP 8.5 scenario was born to give modelers a high-emissions scenario to play with, and how it came to be embraced despite being at odds with every real-world indicator concerning the expected course of future emissions.”
Yet this completely ridiculous scenario has been exploited by charlatan climate alarmist media such as the New York Times to manufacture unrealistic claims trying to mislead the country and its leaders that climate impacts in the future are much more severe than expected when in fact these claims are totally bogus and represent scientifically unsupported alarmist exaggerated propaganda.
“To this day, the print edition of the New York Times has never mentioned RCP 8.5, the unsupported emissions scenario on which so many of its climate jeremiads rest.”
The UN IPCC has failed to develop climate analysis scenarios that have defined probabilities and instead simply invented scenarios using conjecture and speculation that have no scientifically defined event probabilities. These scenarios are simply tools for exploring guess work which climate alarmist schemers are misrepresenting to the public and exploited by Biden and Democratic Party politicians to push economically damaging and unnecessary climate legislation and mandates.
This is exactly what the Democratic Party 1988 Senate Hearings on Global Warming represented as exposed by the incredible number of flawed conclusions, claims and models as identified above.
In addition to the flawed climate scenarios the UN IPCC computer models are also flawed and have failed to represent global average temperature anomalies with accuracy as noted in the graph below which shows the UN IPCC models (referred to as CMIP5 generation) failing to project results anywhere close to measured global average temperature anomalies from 1979 through 2018.
The most recent climate models developed are identified by the UN IPCC as IPCC Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 6 models (CMIP6 generation) that utilize about 50 different sets of models (magically if you create 50 climate models where each model can’t possibly be right and average them you end up with “robust” and useful outcomes according to climate alarmist scientists) to attempt to perform climate analysis forecasts of future climate outcomes.
A recent comparison of the effectiveness of the latest spread of UN IPCC model results trying to replicate the actual global average temperature anomaly measurements covering the period of 1979 to 2019 again shows very poor agreement with the actually measured global average temperatures anomaly data (dark green) during this period. Additionally, the CMIP6 models are increasingly divergent in temperature outcomes versus the CMIP5 models which is clearly moving in the wrong direction.
The differences between the UN IPCC model outcomes and measured temperature anomaly data are statistically significant and shows the models have been invalidated.
Use of UN IPCC climate scenarios and computer model outcomes are derived through use of conjecture and speculation and completely unsuited for purposes of regulatory driven mandates and commitments that require the expenditure of trillions of dollars of global capital which can be utilized for much greater benefit in dealing with known massive global problems including poverty, education and health care.
Climate alarmism started 33 years ago at the 1988 Democratic Party Senate hearings on global warming with these hearings clearly representing nothing but contrived speculation, conjecture, exaggeration, distortion, and deception in making scientifically unsupported claims in addressing climate issues.
The findings and conclusions of the 1988 Democratic Party Global Warming hearing have been proven WRONG.
The Democratic Party’s pattern of climate alarmist distortion and deception has continued for more than three decades and is thriving under the incompetent energy leadership of Biden, the Democratic Party and their media shills who want to impose massive economic damage upon the country that will accomplish absolutely nothing regarding global climate impacts with natural climate variation much more likely controlling global climate outcomes.
Biden’s going to prevent American banks from financing oil/gas/coal.
It will only raise global fossil fuel prices and make the US energy-dependent on volatile regions again. Particularly since Canadian imports will be limited by the Keystone cancellation.
Do you have a reference for that statement, Tom? If so, please add it. Biden yaks a lot and nothing happens most of the time, that’s all.
It’s a prediction based on the current trajectory of his actions and what the green nutters will focus on next when they see emissions aren’t dropping fast enough for their liking.
Sara,
Here is a reference: https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/natural-gas/012821-biden-climate-order-poses-questions-for-gas-project-finance-lng-efforts
“The order also called for the US to develop a climate finance plan, making use of multilateral and bilateral institutions, to help flow capital “toward climate-aligned investments and away from high-carbon investments.” The treasury secretary and secretary of state are tasked with submitting a plan to the president within 90 days.”
And another: https://www.energyvoice.com/oilandgas/294568/biden-hydrocarbons-financing-world/
“The Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury and Secretary of Energy, were tasked with working with the Export-Import Bank and various other agencies, including the Development Finance Corp.’s (DFC) CEO on the challenge.
These officials were asked to determine how the US “can promote ending international financing of carbon-intensive fossil fuel-based energy”. This was to come with “advancing sustainable development and a green recovery”. The government will carry this out “in consultation with the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs”.”
So, yes, he is.
HIgher gasoline prices and transportation costs take money right out of the poorest people’s pockets, along with all other taxpayers.
This potentially bankrupts small businesses and family finances and slows the growth of the economy which leads to job layoffs and cuts.
But the main thing is increases in transportation costs hurt the poorest people the most.
The next time you hear a politician suggest increasing gasoline taxes, ask that politician why he hates poor people.
If taxes need to be raised, a tax coming out of general revenue would be better for poor people and the economy than a tax on gasoline/transportation.
But, then we have the complication of Democrats and some ill-informed Republicans trying to reduce CO2 through the raising of taxes on it, which necessarily means transportation costs go higher, and the poor get poorer.
This Human-caused Climate Change scam has caused Mass Hysteria in a huge segment of our population and they are living in a False Reality and don’t realize it. Orson Welles would understand this situation.
Human psychology is complicated. Sometimes very destructive, like now, with regard to CO2 and its unscientific demonization.
“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say,
Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say,I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’”• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
I remember hearing this when I was in grade school. My first thought was of fear of starvation, since the farmers wouldn’t be able to plant or harvest crops for food.
I think since the late 1970’s (when I first heard this nonsense of running out of oil in 2000) we’ve done an excellent job of cleaning up the soil, water, and air.
Instead of celebrating what has been accomplished, scientists are insisting on scaring children with science fiction stories of human extinction because I drive a car that emits CO2 and use electricity that is partially generated by coal.
Ever since it became apparent to me, by the 1990’s, that there was no danger of running out of oil in my lifetime, or the next few generations even, I’ve been very skeptical of these wild claims.
“Running out of oil in 20 years” was a statement in my high school chemistry Book (“Modern Chemistry”, copyright 1954). Yes, I still have the book. So we have heard this claim for at least 70 years, and yet we still have oil.
Not only do we still have it we are swimming in it, and theres more than double the consumption now than 50 years ago, os there are twice as many people here now.
Poverty has also deceased rapidly letting more consumers afford hydrocarbons, so all in all that must be near treble the consumption of 50 years ago when they made their worthless claims.
Peak oil, peek and you will find it.
Yes, Overall the Biden “plan” will help us here in Alberta by choking usa supply and increasing world price.
Its also exactly what OPEC and Putin wanted.
Funny how Trump was the problem?
“Global Warming” was an issue in the so-called popular press for some time before Dr. Hansen’s famous 1988 congressional testimony. Here’s the You Tube Warming Warning featuring no less than Dr. Stephen Schneider in 1981 who a mere three years earlier was on Leonard Nemoy’s “In Search of the coming Ice Age ”
Warming Warning:
Here’s Nemoy’s In search of the coming Ice Age:
SP Nimoy, not Nemoy
Good juxtaposition.
A swing of just a few years were the “we are all going to die” narrative swung from the coming ice age to the coming blazing inferno of CAGW. It is impossible to make the Northeast and Midwest Millennials and GenZ’s understand:
1). how brutal winter could be in the mid to late 70s The air was so dry and cold that people affixed cardboard to the front grill of their cars to prevent the engine from freezing up as they drove down the highway. One Christmas in Central Illinois on the bluff above a river valley the local weather service registered 88 degree below zero wind chills. frostbite in seconds, death in minutes.
2) How much more pleasant it is to be hot in summer after said winter. Winters so cold you might freeze to death or loses fingers and toes to frostbite and that held on interminably
This whole narrative of the planet is burning and it is all your fault for burning fossil fuel is the greatest hoax the Faceless Cultural Elite have ever perpetuated on the “great unwashed” and under educated.
Our fearless leaders are truly full of themselves for cooking up this granddaddy of Hobgoblins to menace us villagers. Not only is half the world population clamoring to be led to some unspecified safety (Pick one: not warming, cooling, freezing, Ice Age) but the other half are being slandered and libeled as generic “Science Deniers.”
All the while these promoters of climate doom and gloom have deified a cheerleading child from Sweden with Asperger syndrome who cannot be denied. The one consolation skeptics have is that her hometown will be one of the first buried by advancing glaciers once the worm turns.
http://www.c3headlines.com
Click on Quotes.
Quote by Gus Hall, former leader of the Communist Party USA: “Human society cannot basically stop the destruction of the environment under capitalism. Socialism is the only structure that makes it possible.”
Thus, Socialism is not flawed, it’s made on purpose.
Where has socialism protected anything? Environment or their people?
Not Russia.
Not Germany.
Not China.
Not Cuba.
Not Venezuela.
Not even the socialist unions.
It seems my post is misunderstood, so I will try to elaborate :
Gus Hall wants to stop human prosperity under capitalism because of the completely wrong assumption that this free-market prosperity is the cause of the destruction of the environment.
He thus invokes socialism to solve “the problem” : prosperity under free-market.
I sarcastically agreed with him on this point :
“On one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but—which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what is the right balance between being effective and being honest.”
Dr. Stephen Schneider, former IPCC Coordinating Lead Author, APS Online, Aug./Sep. 1996
“…This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what is the right balance between being effective and being honest.”
The IPCC is a taxpayer funded government agency operating as a council of minions to offer up new ways to hyperbolize climate change as a menacing hobgoblin.
Stephen, you can start with not distorting the truth and rebuff the media from demonizing those skeptical of these embellished “end of days” doomsday reporting. Stop scaring the children half to death to make them obeisant to Central Authoritarian dictates.
N.B., all of the excuses to hide their greed, lies, glory seeking and outright fraud.
Self-centered selfishness from beginning to end.
Nor has dr. Schneider apologized for lack of humility, lack of scientific rigor, obscene hunger for the limelight, willingness to tell whatever lie is necessary to achieve alarmist ends, and quite willing to repeatedly make the same and similar claims.
Remind anyone of some other of the delusional climastrologists? Including a jealous self-centered one deserving the state pen?
“The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
I read all those scary stories back then and none of them ever provided any evidence for their claims and as we see, their claims turned out to be incorrect.
The current situation is no different: Lots of claims, and not one bit of evidence to back up those claims.
Science Delusion gone wild.
It sure is chilly outside for this time of year.
Schneider was one of those who was advocating Human-caused Global Cooling, and then switched over to advocating Human-caused Global Warming after the climate started to warm in the early 1980’s.
It looks to me like he was wrong both times. At least, there’s no evidence for anything he advocated as being human-caused which has turned out to be true.
That’s a long time to be wrong.
Time magazine says the climate is everything!
More breaking news. Now we learn that a co-founder of Earth Day did not compost his girlfriend as originally believed. Instead he mummified the body. My oh my, what a hypocrite.
Mummified huh? Well I guess that shows just how dry it was.
Because, as you and I know, Joe, when you don’t got a climate you got nothin’.
This won’t end any time soon, if ever. The Democrats can always generate as many virtual green voters (VGV’s) as they will need to keep themselves in power.
You might want to take a look at Jo Nova’s website today.
The main concern of the 1988 Senate hearing was the 1988 drought. It faded into weather history by 1990. Hansens “high-low-no” prediction somehow made him famous amongst Disney movie fans, who became the leaders of the future…..a testament to the power of the media….
“Even if it’s wrong, we still need to do it.”
This comment to a reporter from Sen. Tim Wirth could be a slogan for his whole Party.
That reminds me of an experience I had with Delaine Eastin, representative (D) for the East Bay, in California. She was one of the last deciding votes on the passage of California’s assault weapons law in 1989. She later had a town hall meeting, where I challenged her that I could prove that all of her rationalizations for voting for the legislation were false. She agreed to a meeting in her office. When I arrived, it was not only her, but the chiefs of police of all the municipalities in her district. Most stayed silent and it was mostly an exchange between me and the CoP of Fremont.
I made good on my promise, and because all of the police left immediately after it was over, practically tripping over each other in their haste, it was just myself and Delaine Eastin walking out alone. I asked her that, now that she had all the facts, if she felt it was a mistake voting for the legislation. I was stunned when she turned to me and said, “No, I think we need more laws like this!” Facts mean nothing to Democrats. There is a higher ‘truth’ than facts.
As an ironic twist to this story, she later went on to become the head of the state department of education. Who would be better qualified than someone who has no need for facts?
Eventually control freaks have to be treated with extreme prejudice!
And in case there is any doubt about whether or not that infamous hearing was stagecrafted, here it is from the horse’s ass – I mean mouth, Tim Wirth:
Did these actors and science screen play writers get royalties from the event? They should and there should be a comedy remake by Will Ferrell as Wirth.
From Columbia U., the current home of Jimmy Hansen. Replace natural gas with zero carbon gas?——————————————————————————————————————
“Investing in the US Natural Gas Pipeline System to Support Net-Zero Targets”
https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/research/report/investing-us-natural-gas-pipeline-system-support-net-zero-targets
Executive SummaryThe Biden administration’s move to bring the United States back into the Paris Agreement and lower greenhouse gas emissions to address climate change will, if carried through, lead to a reduction in fossil fuel consumption. Cutting back on the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas will be critical to transitioning the country to the lower-carbon energy system it needs to achieve decarbonization targets. But while it may seem counterintuitive, investing more in the domestic natural gas pipeline network could help the US reach net-zero emission goals more quickly and cheaply. Fortifying and upgrading the system could prepare the existing infrastructure to transport zero-carbon fuels as they become available and, in the meantime, reduce harmful methane leaks from natural gas.
Studies by energy agencies, universities, and the industry that model future US natural gas consumption consistently show continued use of natural gas for at least the next 30 years, even in scenarios where the country achieves net-zero targets by midcentury. There is no quick replacement for gas in the US energy mix. And for many of the needs natural gas currently meets, the eventual replacement may be zero-carbon gaseous fuels (e.g., hydrogen, biogas). These fuels may play a significant role in supporting reliability and making the energy transition more affordable—but they, too, will require a pipeline network for efficient delivery to markets and end users.
Building new pipelines is a time-consuming and costly process, especially when added to all the other infrastructure needs associated with the energy transition. When possible, adjusting existing infrastructure—already permitted and built—can help minimize the costs and accelerate the speed of the transition. The US has 2.5 million miles of natural gas pipeline infrastructure across the country, which, with investment, could be upgraded to cut emissions and be retrofitted for future transport of cleaner fuels.
However, investments in pipeline infrastructure have drawn concern that they would lock fossil fuels into the US energy mix for a longer period of time and work against the energy transition. Such concerns are understandable given the contribution of fossil fuels to the global climate crisis. But retrofitting and otherwise improving the existing pipeline system are not a choice between natural gas and electrification or between fossil fuels and zero-carbon fuels. Rather, these investments in existing infrastructure can support a pathway toward wider storage and delivery of cleaner and increasingly low-carbon gases while lowering the overall cost of the transition and ensuring reliability across the energy system. In the same way that the electric grid allows for increasingly low-carbon electrons to be transported, the natural gas grid should be viewed as a way to enable increasingly low-carbon molecules to be transported.
This paper, part of the work by Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy on natural gas and the energy transition, examines projections of continued natural gas use and the zero-carbon fuels that are poised to become a bigger part of the energy mix. It details the state of the existing US natural gas pipeline network and trends within this segment of the market, as well as technical considerations for moving new, zero-carbon fuels through the system. The findings, combined with potential net-zero goals, lead to recommendations for curbing greenhouse gas emissions caused by leakage in the existing network, as well as opportunities to refurbish sections to carry increasing levels of cleaner fuels. It focuses on policy options that will minimize environmental impacts and maximize economic benefits.
These options fall into two main categories: changing regulations on methane leak detection and repair to make the existing pipeline network as low emissions as possible while it still transports natural gas, and expanding on existing regulatory authority to allow for retrofitting the system for more hydrogen usage, along with increased R&D funding to test the integrity of the pipeline system with greater levels of hydrogen and other zero-carbon fuels. Specific recommendations include the following:
Let’s not forget that the National Academy of Sciences was so impressed by Hansen’s “scientific”, alarming predictions of global warming that they elected him as a member in 1996, at the time announcing his accomplishments of “. . . development of simplified and three-dimensional global climate models; explication of climate forcing mechanisms; analysis of current climate trends from observational data; and projections of anthropogenic impacts on the global climate system.” (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hansen)
There can be no finer an example of a once-respectable organization buying a pig-in-a-poke.
I worked out grid size for that model and I think I came up with 2 cells covered Montana. That was years ago so my memory might be faulty on that but they were huge I am sure of that part.
Send in the nitpickers and apologists.
I’m shocked they haven’t already shown up.
What have we learned in the last 33 years? Some experts (former bar tenders) tell us we must spend 10 trillion dollars over the next 10 years or else we will be doomed in 12 years, err, make that 11 years.
Well.. in the last 15years the national debt tripped and congress, senat and presidents on both sides did nothing about it (beside increasing spending or tax cuts)
Don´t they understand how crucial American economy depends on its credit rating?
How would you rate “spend like crazy”?
Adding a new and expensive position to the budget better be very well justyfied..
Spending is out of control. The only way to fix it is to give the president the line-item veto. Many State governors have a line-item veto. It’s time to give one to the President of the United States.
The line-item veto does not take power away from Congress as some contend. Congress has the option to override any veto of any bill if they have the votes. That is what is in place today and would still be in place after the president was given a line-item veto.
I saw a sign on tv today which was at a protest in Washington DC where climate change activists dumped manure on the street saying Biden’s climate change plan didn’t go far enough, and the sign said we only have 6 years and 293 days left before climate change destroys us.
I don’t know where they got that figure from but John Kerry says it will take nine years instead of six so we have a little breathing room.
Well Tom, in 2009 Prince Charles—you know, that renowned expert on climate change—issued a warning to the world that “the world has only ‘100 months to act” before the damage caused by global warming becomes irreversible. 100 months from mid-2009 would be equivalent to around mid-2017 . . . so our fate is sealed.
More recently, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, another renowned expert on climate change, warned us in early-2019, that “The world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change”. That translates to the world ending in early 2031 if humanity does not “address” climate change, whatever that means beyond just spending trillions of dollars aimlessly.
Thus, John Kerry is in the ballpark on his projection.
They way I figure it, people should buy life insurance policies good until about 2032 . . . and until then it’s laissez les bons temps rouler! 🙂
I remember that Prince Charles prediction. That was a good one. Good for a laugh. Then and now.
The alarmists are putting themselves out on a limb by claiming disaster is just around the corner, because people will shortly turn that corner and see the truth.
I remember well the summer of 1988. I lived in Michigan. It was the hottest heat wave I have ever experienced in my 74 years. The grass everywhere was brown and dead. My feet would crunch on the dead grass whenever walking on it. A farmer friend was trying to grow corn, and finally resorted to irrigating it from a lake that touched on a corner of one of his fields. The homeowners around the lake were furious, accusing him of stealing “their water”.
I was building a cabin at the time, and was, interestingly, installing a ground water heat pump during the heat wave. It was so hot inside the uninsulated frame, that I jerry rigged the heat exchanger from the ground water air conditioner to pass water from a well to the lake, and then blew a fan through it. It worked just a little, as long as I stood in the moving air. The heat pump turned out to be a disaster, and was replaced by a gas unit after only 10 years.
I hosted a summer gathering with friends from around the country. One car showed up with a Tim Wirth bumper sticker. Wirth was one of the culprits that that worked with Gore to organize this travesty. I let the occupants stay, anyway.
The measurements at “The Battery” are particularly valuable since the station is on a area of “Manhatten Schist” (ok, ok, I know) in a geologically quiet area. The station is neither rising or falling with relation to the overall geology. So many folks quote stations that have been built on rubbish and fill that has been heavily compacting over the years. Stations there are valuable to predict sea levels at their location, but useless in determining the total volume of the world’s oceans. There are smart people, there are dumb people, there are total idiots and then there are climate seancetists (sic).
You are saying that there is no isostatic rebound at the Battery?
I dont think that is what he said. He refers to being static to the overall geology – personally I would interpret that as being a very good measure of the isostatic rebound of he region, with no local effects eg aquifer drawdown, slit compaction etc. What do you think?
I asked the question because I would expect the bedrock at the Battery to be rising, even if there may be local areas of subsidence.
Every time I see something like “drought acceleration” I remember Lake Tahoe in the 1980’s. The Lake level was falling due to drought conditions. It went below the small dam at the outlet that attempts to regulate Truckee River flow rates. Then disaster struck. The wealthy people, living in mansions on the shore (see Godfather II) found their vintage Chris Craft wood speedboats tied to the dock but 30 feet from the water. A submersible with video was sent down to evaluate potential for further decline in lake level. At 90 feet below the natural lake rim they saw Indian stone rings (they placed large stones in a circle and bent branches over the circle and threw animal skins over it for a shelter). Drought acceleration? Get you some of that.
I have posted this before, probably more than 12 years ago, but I very much object to scientists who tailor a message per audience for the impact it will have, not for its truth.
In Hansen and Lebedeff Geophys. Res. Letters. Vol 15, n. 4, pp 323-326. We find the conclusion “… the 1987 global temperature relative to the 1951-1980 climatology is a warming of between 2 and 3 standard deviations. If a warming of 3 standard deviations is reached it will represent a trend significant at the 99% confidence level. However, a causal connection of the warming with the greenhouse effect requires examination of the expected climate system respoonse to a slowly evolving climate forcing, a subject beyond the scope of this paper.”
Hansen is expected to be careful and truthful with this audience — to not overstate his evidence. In fact, his evidence comes from assuming the temperature is distributed in a certain manner, but that is another issue.
Six months later, in his testimony before congress Hansen stated “… the global warming is now sufficiently large that we can ascribe with a high (99%) degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship to the greenhouse effect.”
Obviously the science is being represented differently to different audiences.
I picked up on that, too, Kevin. Jim Hansen either lied or is incompetent. There’s no other alternative.
How do you have an accidental drought? It makes as much sense as the rest of what they claim as truth. If the truth won’t get it done lie about it. Too bad their pants didn’t catch on fire.
Where is Hansen today? He should be saying that he is glad he was wrong and what a wonderful climate we have today.
He was recently encouraging his granddaughter to sue the federal government; the kids said there were entitled to a stable climate & that the Feds were constitutionally required to give provide them with a stable climate.
They found an appropriate whore of a judge in Oregon to conflate things and rule that access to a clean environment is a right. As a confirmation that Judge Aiken is a POS, the ninth circuit (of all courts) tossed it.
He is likely still in the slow process of showing his granddaughter what extreme length a man will go to for a little notoriety in the hope that people won’t think his life’s work was a waste.
The analysis above compares Hansen’s scenarios to the adjusted GISS data, not to the actual temperature ratings.
So Hansen was even further off base.
Its only in the adjustments that we have an issue?
An unsurprising and damning litany of failure, but I have a small suggestion.
Long-winded reports like this don’t get read by the general public, as they’re too clumsy for lazy people to read and too long for many editors to publish.
These predictions and outcomes need tabulating to give an unambiguous at-a-glance ‘Prediction’, ‘Reality’, and ‘True or False’ outcome table.
It needs to be social media friendly, so must fit on a single Twitter or Facebook post. That’s how many people will get to see this information and why MSM editors will be more likely to give coverage to it.
Okay, here’s what I take away from that:
1 – Worst heat wave ever in Chicago, AFTER the 1933 heat wave, which my mother told me about, was 1995. That was one very bad summer and if you didn’t have A/C, it could kill you. 735 people died from heat-related causes.
2 – Before that, 1954 heat wave nearly wiped out our garden in central Illinois.
3 – Those heat waves were followed by very cold, nasty winters. If there’s a relationship there, no one is exploring it.
4 – Anything that can create an anxiety attack in the general population can be exploited and rake in money for political purposes, and yet, people are still naive enough to fall for that low-quality side show and support it.
5 – Biden is a shill, a front for the people in Congress who want to have their way. He’s too weak minded to think for himself these days, so whatever he’s told to agree to, he will do so. And money will be wasted on ridiculous nonsense.
6 – Chicago weather guessers are now talking about “dangerous cold weather”, which they should have addressed in February 2011.
https://www.nbcchicago.com/weather/6-things-to-remember-as-dangerous-cold-moves-in-to-chicago-area/2429817/
7 – There was snow on my front steps this morning, and my grassy lawn and I got photos of it. Today is April 23. Never have I ever seen snow this late in the Spring. Harbinger of things to come? Maybe, maybe not, but it is freak-show weather in the short term. Heavy snows were noted in some western states.
8 – Summer heat is NOT GLOBAL WARMING. It is simply summer heat, and sometimes it just gets out of hand. But it is WEATHER, NOT CLIMATE.
I’m waiting for the next side show to ramp up.
“Summer heat is NOT GLOBAL WARMING. It is simply summer heat, and sometimes it just gets out of hand. But it is WEATHER, NOT CLIMATE.”
Summer heat is dependent on how long that high-pressure system sits on top of you. The longer it sits there, the hotter and drier it gets underneath the high-pressure dome.
Yes, and I think that is a stalled or blocked front when it happens. Then the cold air from somewhere moves in and shoves it along. Or maybe we get the start of a tornado swarm, which has happened more than once in the Midwest, because if the ground is also heated up, it releases it as “bubbles” (which I felt when I was flying gliders), and as warm air rises, it twists.
What is most salient about this, regardless of the things that Hansen got wrong, was the CERTAINTY of sweeping declaration they made back then. This implies that you can disregard all of the post 1989 data from NASA/ NOAA and all of the CAGW scientists and arrive at the same conclusion.
This is something I have never been able to do, so if you want to “hold people’s feet to the fire” ask them to perform this pre-1989 exercise. And as they won’t be able to, it strongly suggests that the whole movement was a sham from the start and that all of the science (post 1989) has been used to support (via adjustments, cherry picking, etc) Hansen’s assertion.
This in itself (evidence free assertion) is an indication of fraud and casts real doubt on the whole CO2 scare. IMHO
“it strongly suggests that the whole movement was a sham from the start and that all of the science (post 1989) has been used to support (via adjustments, cherry picking, etc) Hansen’s assertion.”
I believe that is what has happened.
So the DemoKKKrat Party of today is almost exactly like the party of 1988; a bunch of lying crooks who try to scare the voters into giving them the reins of power so they can protect the public from the imaginary threat!
But these days the Dims have added a total acceptance of the criminally insane as a plank in their platform and a cherished part of their constituency! Look at how many Dim leaders released inmates from jails and prisons, while locking down the law abiding and shuttering their businesses!
By pushing the imaginary boogeymen of racism and police shootings to go with their climate hysteria, the DemoKKKrats keep the sheeple bleating and cowering in fear; an ideal situation for fleecing them completely!
Demrats are the enemy within….the climate scam is just one of their destructive programs. CCP is the enemy abroad……very dangerous like the demrat party. Remember, Joey Biden is the very very best the demrats have to offer and he belongs in prison with his son Hunter.
I think that sums it up nicely. 🙂
“So the DemoKKKrat Party of today is almost exactly like the party of 1988; a bunch of lying crooks who try to scare the voters into giving them the reins of power so they can protect the public from the imaginary threat!”
The radical Democrats like Al Gore were definitely lying crooks, although the rank and file were a little more honest.
Today, just about all the Democrat politicians are lying crooks, with a few exceptions. Very few exceptions, unfortunately.
We’re hoping Senator Joe Manchin is one of those exceptions. If he is, then the Democrats in the Senate will not be able to abolish the filibuster rule, and that will give us a little respite until we can get the 2022 elections behind us, where we think Republicans will take control of the House or Senate or both.
Defend the Republic, Joe Manchin!
It’s so sad when I think of all the otherwise intelligent and sane people who still cling to this garbage thinking. Humans have no chance of being viable long term is the only clear signal I get out of it.
What I get out of it is human beings are easily misled. All it takes for too many is exposing them to the lie enough. They hear the lie repeated as being the truth long enough and they believe it is the truth.
It’s brainwashing plain and simple. The Leftwing Media is the means.
“Climate alarmism started 33 years ago …”
Remember Calendar in the 30s … the CO2 fraud, fiddling with CO2 measured data, fake models and pseudo-science begun almost a century ago (not to mention Svante Arrhenius whose hypothesis was destroyed by Angström at the very beginning of the last century).
The climate crooks turned around during the cooling of the 70s (Schneider, Paul R. Ehrlich) and flipped again when they understood the multi-decadal oceanic cycles were reverting.
I wonder how those clowns will flip again their fraud with the cooling phase ahead.
The whole global warming/climate change delusion can be summed up from just one of their failed predictions that sea level rise would be 1-4 feet in 40 years (from 1988) which is 2028, just 7 years from now. The fact that we don’t even see any sea level acceleration since 1988 should be the final nail in the coffin of their hyped predictions, which was done in a drought cycle circa 1988, which we know to be natural variation. Just like the 1930’s droughts. Their predictions have not come to pass, which is the litmus test for real science. But somehow, their hyped predictions are still held out as just around the corner, unless we ‘do something’.
So many real-world observations making a mockery of the alarmist’s claims.
Meanwhile, in NZ, our ‘leaders’ tell us there is ‘no doubt’ that climate change is an existential threat. They simply do not care about pesky facts. This is the real problem, isn’t it?
Our present government is ideology all the way, no reference to reality required. The only saving grace is they seem to be incapable of effectively executing anything at all.
They are effective at destroying things.
Same in UK. Climate change cr*p which is going to cost all of us a fortune without having any measurable impact on global temperature whatsoever (even if you believe in catastrophic warming) get’s nodded through Parliament with all-party support, there’s barely a single MP who’ll challenge it.
“Meanwhile, in NZ, our ‘leaders’ tell us there is ‘no doubt’ that climate change is an existential threat. They simply do not care about pesky facts. This is the real problem, isn’t it?”
Yes, that is the problem. As the old saying goes: None are so blind as those who will not see.
“To this day, the print edition of the New York Times has never mentioned RCP 8.5, the unsupported emissions scenario on which so many of its climate jeremiads rest.”
Keep in mind that the connection of emissions to atmospheric content was erroneously assumed by the IPCC. Proper analysis shows that our emissions are a small part of the CO2 increase .
At least in the quotes from the article, it was notable to me that the impact that we were expected to fear was warming (droughts, flooding from ice melting etc) but not extreme weather events.
Was that predicted in that hearing or was the shift from Global Warming to Climate Change just a means of hiding what every adult could experience – it wasn’t getting any warmer?
Not just on the climate scam, Democrats have always lied with abandon. The NYT has always been the Democrats propaganda outlet. Critical examination of Democrats claims aren’t not done by the NYT. The Leftist media simply parrots them on in a Pravda-like fashion to promote a narrative.
The Democrats motto has always been, “If we aren’t lyin’, we aren’t tryin’.”
When reading the “media” it is always wise to keep in mind that when it comes to news, disaster sells! The media makes it’s money by selling newspapers!
The Media has taken the side of the Democrats since the Vietnam war.
The United States has been monopolized by leftwing media since that time and the only conservative voice you could hear was Rush Limbaugh beginning in 1988, and then Fox News Channel came on the scene in 1996.
Before that, it was the leftwing perspective all the time on the news.
Wonderful article!
It’s long past the time to fully reconcile the climate and other catastrophic predictions with the observations.
Meteorologists do it every day with the weather.
If we acted like climate scientists, we could predict a major blizzard on Sunday, then when the actual weather was clear skies, we could tell everyone on Monday that we nailed the forecast…………. it snowed 200 miles away in Nowheres-ville.
Then continue to make forecasts like that every year for 30 years. That’s insane but is exactly what climate science has been doing. They get away with it because people are unable to go out side and tell if the climate is any different. They just have to believe the same people that told them that it was going to happen………….that it did happen.
And they/we are sold on the fact that projections of the climate and weather using computer simulations of the atmosphere, some unrealistically extreme but perfect to scare people for political agenda, going out 100 years based on subjectively choosing mathematical equations to program the computer with what they think…………..have a “science is settled” level of skill and reliability.
Then, when people are not getting scared enough, when the climate models bust, instead of adjusting them down to the reality of the science, adjust them UP to the reality of the necessary politics to scare people more.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Note the article below.
This is what the United Nations was saying then(1989)……………but I want to point out something significant with this article that has changed in the last few months.
I’ve been using this article for over a decade with my discussions, each time searching for it on Google. Below, is the title to the article that was there the entire time, which was the original title since the article came out.
Google, suddenly took off the title within the last couple of months!
This was obviously to make it harder to find so they can try to hide the evidence of the UN being totally wrong about their fake climate crisis predictions going back to this documented evidence over 3 decades ago.
https://apnews.com/article/bd45c372caf118ec99964ea547880cd0
U.N. Predicts Disaster if Global Warming Not Checked
PETER JAMES SPIELMANN June 29, 1989
https://apnews.com/article/bd45c372caf118ec99964ea547880cd0
UNITED NATIONS (AP) _ A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.
Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of ″eco- refugees,′ ′ threatening political chaos, said Noel Brown, director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program, or UNEP.
He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human control.
As the warming melts polar icecaps, ocean levels will rise by up to three feet, enough to cover the Maldives and other flat island nations, Brown told The Associated Press in an interview on Wednesday.
Coastal regions will be inundated; one-sixth of Bangladesh could be flooded, displacing a fourth of its 90 million people. A fifth of Egypt’s arable land in the Nile Delta would be flooded, cutting off its food supply, according to a joint UNEP and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study.
″Ecological refugees will become a major concern, and what’s worse is you may find that people can move to drier ground, but the soils and the natural resources may not support life. Africa doesn’t have to worry about …
John Kerry just announced plans to remove all carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Absolutely brilliant!
Did he stop breathing ?
Biden Climate Envoy John Kerry: “We Need to Get Carbon Dioxide Out of the Atmosphere”:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/04/biden-climate-envoy-john-kerry-need-get-carbon-dioxide-atmosphere-video/
What an idiot.
Lurch is rubber room material!
I don’t think he made reference to plants dying from lack of CO2. I get the impression that was not a concern of his. Perhaps it never entered his mind that CO2 might be beneficial to life on Earth.
Fools like Kerry will be the destruction of us all if we give him free reign.
To CharlesTM; This is a great summary that could be used to educate the general public. This is the kind of presentation/article that I recently asked you about. So i have saved it for possible future use. Hope that’s OK
Larry-
Thanks for a great point-by-point refutation of the 1988 Senate hearing. While a long read, it was the perfect Earth Day post,
Watch this brilliant video from Tony Heller titled “My Gift To Climate Alarmists,” which he describes as “my most concise expose of climate fraud.”
https://youtu.be/8455KEDitpU
Allan,
WOW! I agree, that this is one of the most convincing video’s or any presentation exposing several elements of the fake climate crisis ever!
And I’ve authored dozens of presentations myself!
Getting ready to add another one this evening:
Climate Reality discussions
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/27864/
As it is earth day and tonight is earth hour, I plan to celebrate that humans have so far avoided extinction such as this nasty beeatch of a planet has imposed on 99% of all species that have ever existed.
I will do so by turning on every light in and out of the house for an hour.
In your face, earth!!!
As I watch the snow fall here in calgary, with more coming over the weekend.
Hey Pat – I’m a big fan of global warming.
For Earth Day, I rent a semi and leave it running all night.
Best, Allan
[sarc/off]
good stuff but that’s a lotta info and graphs… good for nerds like many here but most “normal” people would never read something this long… gotta figure out how to provide this info to the populace in small easy to digest bites…. if not, all they’ll hear is cloudy with a chance of meatballs “blah, blah, blah, science, science, science… bigger”
Certainly highlights why science and the scientific method are not important in Catastrophic Climatology.
The CAGW/CC meme was political from the beginning.
Evidence manufactured to suit the chosen policy.
Remember Maurice Strong.
But on the bright side,the Cult of calamitous Climate has a perfect record,100% wrong for over 30 years.
And every citizen has learnt throughout this same time span,
If a Liberals Lips are moving,it is lying.
Climate Change in all its various names,is an intelligence test.
And a measure of gullibility.
We have been reenacting The Emperors New Clothes..For 3 decades..
I never imaged this hysteria could go on for so long.
Where are the thoughtful rebuttals from Nick Stokes? Not even any mindless blather from griff, Izaak, or Loydo?
I guess I will have to help them out.
Hansen had a scenario that has a temperature graph that sort of ends up around the right temperature for 2020. It doesn’t matter that like a blind pig finding an acorn, the scenario assumed dramatic reductions in CO2 emissions while the actual emissions exceeded the emissions that Hansen projected for the highest temperature rise. Because we’ve learned so much since then.
You see it’s all exactly right because one of Hansen’s wrong estimates of radiative forcing corresponded to about the right temperature. The fact that doing nothing about (in fact accelerating) emissions resulted in the benign outcome that Hansen said could only be achieved by essentially shutting down the economy, has no relevance on policy choices today. We must get to net zero! Because we’ve learned so much.
For example: Warming causes severe cooling. None of it is natural. Because. Yeah the same kind of extremes were seen in the 1930s, long before our CO2 emissions could have been significant, but that was long before I was born so it doesn’t say anything about today. Because we’ve learned so much.
And don’t let’s get started on sea level rise. Tide gauges that show the same tiny rise year after year at hundreds of sites cannot be taken seriously. It’s much more accurate to calculate the sea level from an adjusted measurement taken by a satellite. If you can’t see that that is self-evident, well I am at a loss to explain it further to you. We’ve learned so much.
And anyway, what difference does it make at this point whether the whole premise of three decades of hysteria was baseless? We need to look to the future. Wind and solar are the cheapest energy sources in human history. They’re so cheap that countries like Germany with the highest use of these technologies have the highest cost of electricity. We’ve learned so much. What does cost have to do with it anyway? The Children! The Science!
We’ve learned so much.
There are references in this piece to” Senator Bennett” when you mean to refer to “Senator Johnston,” full name J. Bennett Johnston.
From the article:
“Senator McClure:
“But that doesn’t explain the droughts of the 1930s. Was the drought in the middle 1930s a result of the greenhouse effect?”
Dr. Hansen:
“You will notice in the climate simulations which I presented we began the simulations in 1958. That was the international geophysical year. The measurements of atmospheric composition began at that time and have been accurate since that time.”
“It is more difficult to go back and simulate the 1930s because we don’t know what caused the 1930s to be warmer than the preceding decades. So, it is really difficult to say what caused the droughts in the 1930s.”
Hansen avoids answering the question.
The answer to the question is Mother Nature caused the climate of the 1930’s, until proven otherwise. The same goes for the current climate of the 21st Century.
About 33 years after all those dire predictions of global warming at the 1988 Senate hearings, and less than a month after Biden’s inauguration, there were major snowstorms in south Texas. What does Mother Nature have to do to knock these warm-mongers off their ridiculous soapbox?
Meanwhile, that extra CO2 in the air has caused forests to expand, and record crop harvests, so that despite having nearly twice the people that we had in 1988, fewer people are hungry. Why should anyone try to reverse such a trend?