Jul 18 2008
Group Representing 50,000 Scientists Says “Hold On” On Global Warming
Major Update Below!
The science regarding the cause of the recent warming trend across the Globe (which in the past decade as actually been a cooling trend) has just become un-settled. I have posted on this matter many times (see here for all my posts on Global Warming) and note lots of data that conflicts with the theory that man-made CO2 is the major driver behind the temperature swings.
From evidence of ‘global warming’ detected on Mars and Jupiter to measurements taken from over 20 years disproving all of the UN IPCC predictions for this time period, the evidence has been mounting against the ‘settled’ theories from the Church of Al Gore/IPCC. Major new finds, such as massive underwater volcanic action under the norther ice cap, have begun to hint at other natural forces at work (which explains why the sea ice is growing in the south and shrunk in the north).
Accurate prediction of future behavior of a system is mandatory to prove scientific theories, it is an core element of the scientific method. Nothing moves from ‘theory’ to ‘fact’ without showing the theory works under all conditions. And when the IPCC came out, after 10 years of flat Global temperatures, and changed their prediction to foresee a decade of Global Cooling they basically admitted their original theory was wrong and they tried to ‘fix’ it on an unsuspecting public, naive of the riggers of the scientific method. Before we spend Trillions of Dollars and negatively disrupt the lives of just about every human being on the planet, we deserve to know our actions are based on solid evidence. And most scientists agree.
This week a body representing 50,000 physicists has publicly declared the science of Global Warming open for debate and unsettled.
The American Physical Society, an organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists, has reversed its stance on climate change and is now proclaiming that many of its members disbelieve in human-induced global warming. The APS is also sponsoring public debate on the validity of global warming science. The leadership of the society had previously called the evidence for global warming “incontrovertible.â€
In a posting to the APS forum, editor Jeffrey Marque explains,â€There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution.â€
Let the debate begin, and let the facts (not hype) lead us to an answer. BTW, all this goes to show laurels and citations like the Nobel Prize don’t always convey correctness in science, and too many times only reflect political correctness in the eyes of an elite (and out of touch) few.
Update: More here.
Major Update:  A recent peer-reviewed analysis of the UN IPCC global climate models used as the basis for their Chicken Little cries that the sky is falling (or, in their case, the sky is overheating) shows that the IPCC models are in serious error.  And I mean ‘serious’. The problem with the models, as now shown mathematically, is they over state the effect of CO2 on global climate by 500-2000%:
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) concluded that anthropogenic CO2 emissions probably caused more than half of the “global warming†of the past 50 years and would cause further rapid warming. However, global mean surface temperature has not risen since 1998 and may have fallen since late 2001. The present analysis suggests that the failure of the IPCC’s models to predict this and many other climatic phenomena arises from defects in its evaluation of the three factors whose product is climate sensitivity:
- Radiative forcing ΔF;
- The no-feedbacks climate sensitivity parameter κ; and
- The feedback multiplier Æ’.
Some reasons why the IPCC’s estimates may be excessive and unsafe are explained. More importantly, the conclusion is that, perhaps, there is no “climate crisisâ€, and that currently-fashionable efforts by governments to reduce anthropogenic CO2emissions are pointless, may be ill-conceived, and could even be harmful.
…
The IPCC overstates the radiative forcing caused by increased CO2Â concentration at least threefold because the models upon which it relies have been programmed fundamentally to misunderstand the difference between tropical and extra-tropical climates, and to apply global averages that lead to error.
The IPCC overstates the value of the base climate sensitivity parameter for a similar reason. Indeed, its methodology would in effect repeal the fundamental equation of radiative transfer (Eqn. 18), yielding the impossible result that at every level of the atmosphere ever-smaller forcings would induce ever-greater temperature increases, even in the absence of any temperature feedbacks.
The IPCC overstates temperature feedbacks to such an extent that the sum of the high-end values that it has now, for the first time, quantified would cross the instability threshold in the Bode feedback equation and induce a runaway greenhouse effect that has not occurred even in geological times despite CO2 concentrations almost 20 times today’s, and temperatures up to 7 ºC higher than today’s.
The assessment these errors introduce errors of 500-2000% are from this summary of the scientific paper. To try and put this into some perspective let’s say you wanted to drive 5 miles to your friends house and you overestimated the drive as the IPCC missed the mark on CO2. Â At 500% (5 times) overestimation you would drive 25 miles, or 20 miles too far. Â At 2000% you would drive 100 miles and miss your destination by 95 miles. Folks, this is not even close.
Meant to add this diagram the paper and some explanation:
The Black line (A) and Blue line (B) show the predictions in 1988 from ‘scientist’ James Hanson if nothing was done about CO2. As I noted before, the IPCC in 1990 agreed to the general prediction shown in the Yellow Line (D). For the record, nothing was done about CO2 in the intervening years and it has increased pretty much as expected. The Green Line (A) is what Hansen predicted would happen if we held CO2 levels constant – which we did not do!
Now for reality. Lines E-F and G-H show actual measurements and projections. These measurements show that despite Hansen’s and the IPCC’s claims that CO2 levels had to be held steady to control warming, the actual data shows the climate acting AS IF CO2 levels were held steady to 1988-2000 levels. Â QED: since we did not hold CO2 steady and the trends STILL followed the projected recovery path, CO2 cannot be the driving force on Climate.
 H/T to the website Icecap for reference.
From my undersatnding, a peer review is a review if the actual experiment was documented corectly and then that article is put into a Journal of some sort. Then itis up to the Journal’s readership to test and see if the conclusionsare right or not. But over the past several years, thru internet and other means, the public is seeing the “peer-reviewed” studies and taking them as being 100% accurate. That is not the case and should never be. And the “peer-review” process has been tainted by bias for the past couple decades also on who and what studies get into these Journals.
Peer-review is not the be all and end all of science.
With that said, the whole Goracle fantasy of Manbearpig is unraveling. More and More scientists are coming out against this theory that was formed by models, in which you get junk in / junk out.
AJ,
Norm has a point. It took me less than a minute to discover your error about APS’ position. I did also notice that there are a number of other conservative blogs that reached this same erroneous conclusion because they were so excited to write about the supposed smoking gun to disprove the global warming theory that they didn’t take the extra minute to verify whether it was true. Maybe you simply assumed these other blogs were correct and it was a honest mistake (although you really should do a little more research before you write on topics). Regardless, several of us have pointed out the glaring flaw in the central premise of your post and you have yet to respond or correct your post. Come on AJ, your credibility is on the line. We all want to know – should we continue reading your global warming posts to get a different perspective than the mainstream articles on this issue or should we ignore them because we know now that you don’t care if your posts are inaccurate and/or misleading so long as it supports your pre-conceived conclusion?
aj you posted that 50,000 scientists had said “hold on”. you were flat out wrong. no ifs ands or buts. you can spew all the personal attacks you want, as you always do and will continue to. but you were absolutely wrong. so who is clueless?
Gee Conman, I took me less than a second to read it and agree. What’s your point? The IPCC models are still spewing garbage. Are you one of those ‘process’ over ‘correctness’ types? Have you seen me arguing the corrections?
AJ,
I’m a correctness over process type. If the title and premise of your post was about why you think the IPCC modeling is flawed, I wouldn’t be pushing this issue. But it is not. The title and premise of your post claim that the 50,000 scientist who are part of APS changed their position on global warming and the supposed peer-reviewed publication by Lord Monckton supports this shift. Your statements that APS changed its position on global warming, that APS agrees with the Lord Monckton publication and that the Lord Monckton publication has been peer-reviewed are all completely wrong. In fact, the truth is the exact opposite on all three accounts.
Anyone who reads your post without reviewing all of the comments pointing out these inaccuracies will be completely mislead. Why wouldn’t you want to post an update correcting this error? If you want to demonstrate that you truly believe we should “let the facts (not hype) lead us to an answer” as you claim in the post and avoid looking like you don’t know what you are talking about for those that actually read the comments, it seems like an update with the correction is a no-brainer.
Conman,
I wrote the post as is, and the corrections are in the comments. I don’t need a nag – thanks.
You still do not get it. Many scientists do not believe in Manbearpig. It is a myth. Almost all of the IPCC models havebeen debunked and none havecome true. Why would anybody listen to a bunch of bureaucrats anyway. Many scientists that were on the IPCC did not agree with the IPCC report, some even sued to get their names taken off of it.
If CO2 is causing the Earth temps to rise, why are all the other planets also rising at the same rate, we do not have SUVs on them do we???? And whyis it that the IPCC reports that 1998 was the hottest year, but we cometo findout that many years in the 30s were hotter.
Another thing that bugs me is the use of “Global Climate”. There is no such thing. Climatology is a localized science, scuh asthe Climate ofSt. Louis, or the Climate of Florida. There is no such thing as Global Climate.
And if you see where we get our temperature readings from, you would think twice about this being anywhere close to being scientific. Most temperature gauges are not in compliance with what you would call scientifically placed. Most are near urban sprawl, or black top parkling lots, or next to air conditioning units.
Another thingis thatit is mathematically inpossibleto get the averagemean temperature for the Earth. So all the Doom and Gloom is all for money. Just followwhere money goesto. Without Global Warming many scientists would be out of work.
I agree with Stix. AGW is a myth invented by huckster grant-seekers and environmarxists.
If anything, the sun being inactive the way it is, we’re headed towards Global Cooling right now.
Well, climate does warm and cool globally. And humans do cause local temperature changes by urban development and agricultural practices. But the data we have been using to show AGW is bad.
For example … lets say the global climate doesn’t change. And lets say I have 10 monitoring stations. Over time, urban creep is encroaching on three of them, forests have been cut down and fields planted around two of them, and two of them are in desert areas that are now heavily irrigated and farmed. The remaining three stations are unchanged in the area surrounding them.
Now over a 10 year period we see that three unchanged stations show no long term trend. The three with urban creep show increases in both daytime high and nighttime low temperatures as do the ones with the cut down forests. The ones in the desert with irrigation show no increase in daytime highs but do show an increase in nighttime lows which increases the “average” temperature.
So add all those up and divide by 10 and you will find that the average temperature has increased … yet climate didn’t change at all.
Then someone notices something … they notice that in the 19th century we had a horrible problem globally with pirates. In the 20th century the climate warmed as we got pirates under control. Low and behold … in 2007 and 2008 we have an increasing problem with pirates off the coast of Somalia and bingo … temperatures are starting to drop again so a thesis is put forth that global warming is caused by a lack of pirates on the high seas.
There is one measurement that is an accurate read of the heat content of the earth’s atmosphere and that is the temperature of the oceans. Average ocean temperatures have cooled slightly since 2004. SURFACE temperatures of the ocean are a function of the breeze blowing across it but temperatures of the first dozen meters or so tell the story. There is a program of drifting buoys that drop to depth, then rise to the surface taking the temperature as they go and when they get to the surface, they report the result by satellite. Temperatures are dropping. There are no cleared fields, irrigated desert, or urban sprawl in the ocean.
Imagine if you had a group of 10 people and you took their temperature and averaged it over the 10. Now imagine two of them are sick and so you announce that since the average is now higher, they are all sick and must get treatment that costs billions of dollars. It is just stupid. It is dumb. But they get away with it because 50% of the population is below the median intelligence level and simply believes whatever they are told and don’t trust their own judgment enough to question what they are being fed.
And another thing to keep in mind is that all this bruhaha is over 0.5 degrees of warming over an entire century. Temperatures have not warmed at all in the past decade. Temperatures have cooled significantly in the past year. Any of you live in Seattle? Still no huckleberries in Rainier National Park yet … the ground is still covered with two feet of snow in many areas. There won’t be any berries until the end of August at this rate.
I was reading an article on Science Daily today about “rescuing” species stranded by “global warming” and I thought it amazing what morons they take people for. Or maybe they are so caught up in the cognitive dissonance that the fact that there is no warming just doesn’t register with them.
Sort of like the icebreaker load of “environmentalists” who were determined to travel the Northwest Passage this year from West to East. They were on the most powerful non-nuclear icebreaker in the world … they got stuck in the ice. They could not believe it. They were blaming the ships crew, they could not believe there would be more ice than the ship could get through. They were stuck there for three weeks. They never were able to make their journey.
I still see articles that claim there will be less sea ice in the Arctic this year than last … and the opposite is true. There is over 1 million km more ice and this year’s melt is falling further and further behind last year.
Lord Monckton is mighty upset today! Apparently his paper WAS reviewed and he made changes based on those reviews. He is really upset about that disclaimer that has now appeared on the site where his paper is published.
Now he wants to know exactly who put that disclaimer there, why, and under what authority.
Pass the popcorn please!
CP,
How much you want to bet that disclaimer was added later?
AJStrata
I *know* it was added later. It was added late yesterday, I believe, after the paper had been there for a couple of days and started getting a lot of attention. I suspect someone threatened to move the APS offices to the boiler room if they didn’t do something like that. When it comes to climate, it isn’t science anymore … it is politics. Even if you find no evidence of warming, you still have to pay lip service to it or you find your funding cut off. It is the biggest sham ever foisted on the world’s population ever.
CP – OK, I was just guessing. Is there a cached version of the old site so we can back up this guy?
Never mind, I see the debate is going full throttle! Seems the Church of Al Gore is trying to start a modern-day Inquisition.
From the American Physical Society news:
“In May, Council tabled a motion by Robert Austin that would have replaced the current APS statement on climate change with a new one much more skeptical of the evidence for, and consequences of, anthropogenic global warming. At its November 8 meeting, Council took it off the table and brought it to a vote.
The result: the motion was soundly defeated, with no one voting in favor and only one abstention. Even Austin voted against it.”
http://aps.org/publications/apsnews/200912/climate.cfm
By the way, if all human activities stopped today the warming will continue for 1,000 years. Nice going.