Global warming...yes again

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Sun, Not Man, Main Cause of Climate Change, New Study Says
By Monisha Bansal
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
December 11, 2007

(CNSNews.com) - According to a new study on global warming, climate scientists at the University of Rochester, the University of Alabama, and the University of Virginia found that the climate change models based on human influence do not match observed warming.

That is contrary to the views held by former Vice President Al Gore, who accepted the Nobel Prize on Monday along with the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and who thinks that climate change is largely caused by human action.

Gore wants nations to tax carbon dioxide emissions and not build any new coal plants, among other steps. "It is time to make peace with the planet," Gore said in his Nobel speech, as reported by the Associated Press. "We must quickly mobilize our civilization with the urgency and resolve that has previously been seen only when nations mobilized for war."

The new report, which challenges the claims of Gore and the IPCC, was published in the December 2007 issue of the International Journal of Climatology of the Royal Meteorological Society.

The report was written by David Douglass at the University of Rochester, John Christy at the University of Alabama, and Benjamin Pearson and S. Fred Singer at the University of Virginia.

"Our findings basically are that fingerprints - that is to say the pattern of warming - that's predicted by greenhouse models does not match the fingerprints of observations, so there is a disconnect between greenhouse models and the actual reality of observations," Singer told Cybercast News Service.

"This means that the greenhouse effect - while real - is not very important in producing climate change," he said. "It's a lot smaller than what the models calculate."

Singer said the reason why the models "overestimate the effectiveness of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is that the models ignore what are called negative feedbacks which occur in the atmosphere, such as clouds, which reduce the effect of the greenhouse gases."

"Their models just don't consider them properly," he said.

But Bracken Hendricks, a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress, told Cybercast News Service, that the study is "radically out of step with the complete scientific consensus."

"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is not just a report. It's not just a random gathering of scientists. It's the largest scientific body ever assembled," he said. "Their most recent assessment determined that there's 90 percent certainty that global climate change is happening and that it is caused by human beings."

But Singer said, "We have to remember that the climate has always been changing ever since we have records, and we have geologic records going back millions and millions of years. We know that there have been huge climate changes on the earth long before human beings actually came into existence.

"We are fairly sure that what's causing the warming are changes in the sun," he said. "These are very subtle changes that are very difficult to observe. The sun is really a quite variable star."

Hendricks, however, said because of the IPCC report, "the assertion that this is caused by increased solar activity or these sorts of things is out of step with the vast consensus."

"It's dangerous to get into a game of dueling science," he added. "We don't want to be gambling with the fate of the planet."

But Singer said because global warming is a natural event. "There is little point to try to control emission of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, which means that all of this legislation and all of these efforts to find substitutes for fossil fuels are pointless, useless and very, very expensive," he said.

Hendricks countered, saying that alternative energy will be a multi-billion dollar industry and "an opportunity to revitalize our global competitiveness" through innovation and job creation.
 
United Nation Climate change, Bali
Skeptical Scientists Urge World To ‘Have the Courage to Do Nothing’ At UN Conference
By EPW Blog Tuesday, December 11, 2007

BALI, Indonesia - An international team of scientists skeptical of man-made climate fears promoted by the UN and former Vice President Al Gore, descended on Bali this week to urge the world to “have the courage to do nothing” in response to UN demands.

Lord Christopher Monckton, a UK climate researcher, had a blunt message for UN climate conference participants on Monday.

“Climate change is a non problem. The right answer to a non problem is to have the courage to do nothing,” Monckton told participants.

“The UN conference is a complete waste of our time and your money and we should no longer pay the slightest attention to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,)” Monckton added. (LINK)

Monckton also noted that the UN has not been overly welcoming to the group of skeptical scientists.

“UN organizers refused my credentials and appeared desperate that I should not come to this conference. They have also made several attempts to interfere with our public meetings,” Monckton explained.

“It is a circus here,” agreed Australian scientist Dr. David Evans. Evans is making scientific presentations to delegates and journalists at the conference revealing the latest peer-reviewed studies that refute the UN’s climate claims.

“This is the most lavish conference I have ever been to, but I am only a scientist and I actually only go to the science conferences,” Evans said, noting the luxury of the tropical resort. (Note: An analysis by Bloomberg News on December 6 found: “Government officials and activists flying to Bali, Indonesia, for the United Nations meeting on climate change will cause as much pollution as 20,000 cars in a year.” - LINK)

Evans, a mathematician who did carbon accounting for the Australian government, recently converted to a skeptical scientist about man-made global warming after reviewing the new scientific studies. (LINK)

“We now have quite a lot of evidence that carbon emissions definitely don’t cause global warming. We have the missing [human] signature [in the atmosphere], we have the IPCC models being wrong and we have the lack of a temperature going up the last 5 years,” Evans said in an interview with the Inhofe EPW Press Blog. Evans authored a November 28 2007 paper “Carbon Emissions Don’t Cause Global Warming.” (LINK)

Evans touted a new peer-reviewed study by a team of scientists appearing in the December 2007 issue of the International Journal of Climatology of the Royal Meteorological Society which found “Warming is naturally caused and shows no human influence.” (LINK)

“Most of the people here have jobs that are very well paid and they depend on the idea that carbon emissions cause global warming. They are not going to be very receptive to the idea that well actually the science has gone off in a different direction,” Evans explained.

[Inhofe EPW Press Blog Note: Several other recent peer-reviewed studies have cast considerable doubt about man-made global warming fears. For most recent sampling see: New Peer-Reviewed Study finds ‘Solar changes significantly alter climate’ (11-3-07) (LINK) & “New Peer-Reviewed Study Halves the Global Average Surface Temperature Trend 1980 - 2002” (LINK) & New Study finds Medieval Warm Period ‘0.3C Warmer than 20th Century’ (LINK) For a more comprehensive sampling of peer-reviewed studies earlier in 2007 see “New Peer-Reviewed Scientific Studies Chill Global Warming Fears” LINK ]
‘IPCC is unsound’

UN IPCC reviewer and climate researcher Dr. Vincent Gray of New Zealand, an expert reviewer on every single draft of the IPCC reports since its inception going back to 1990, had a clear message to UN participants.

“There is no evidence that carbon dioxide increases are having any affect whatsoever on the climate,” Gray, who shares in the Nobel Prize awarded to the UN IPCC, explained. (LINK)

“All the science of the IPCC is unsound. I have come to this conclusion after a very long time. If you examine every single proposition of the IPCC thoroughly, you find that the science somewhere fails,” Gray, who wrote the book “The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of “Climate Change 2001,” said.

“It fails not only from the data, but it fails in the statistics, and the mathematics,” he added.
‘Dangerous time for science’

Evans, who believes the UN has heavily politicized science, warned there is going to be a “dangerous time for science” ahead.

“We have a split here. Official science driven by politics, money and power, goes in one direction. Unofficial science, which is more determined by what is actually happening with the [climate] data, has now started to move off in a different direction” away from fears of a man-made climate crisis, Evans explained.

“The two are splitting. This is always a dangerous time for science and a dangerous time for politics. Historically science always wins these battles but there can be a lot of causalities and a lot of time in between,” he concluded.
Carbon trading ‘fraud?’

New Zealander Bryan Leland of the International Climate Science Coalition warned participants that all the UN promoted discussions of “carbon trading” should be viewed with suspicion.

“I am an energy engineer and I know something about electricity trading and I know enough about carbon trading and the inaccuracies of carbon trading to know that carbon trading is more about fraud than it is about anything else,” Leland said.

“We should probably ask why we have 10,000 people here [in Bali] in a futile attempt to ‘solve’ a [climate] problem that probably does not exist,” Leland added.
‘Simply not work’

Owen McShane, the head of the International Climate Science Coalition, also worried that a UN promoted global approach to economics would mean financial ruin for many nations.

“I don’t think this conference can actually achieve anything because it seems to be saying that we are going to draw up one protocol for every country in the world to follow,” McShane said. (LINK)

“Now these countries and these economies are so diverse that trying to presume you can put all of these feet into one shoe will simply not work,” McShane explained.

“Having the same set of rules apply to everybody will blow some economies apart totally while others will be unscathed and I wouldn’t be surprised if the ones who remain unscathed are the ones who write the rules,” he added.
‘Nothing happening at this conference’

Professor Dr. William Alexander, emeritus of the University of Pretoria in South Africa and a former member of the United Nations Scientific and Technical Committee on Natural Disasters, warned poor nations and their residents that the UN policies could mean more poverty and thus more death.

“My message is specifically for the poor people of Africa. And there is nothing happening at this conference that can help them one little bit but there is the potential that they could be damaged,” Alexander said. (LINK)

“The government and people of Africa will have their attention drawn to reducing climate change instead of reducing poverty,” Alexander added.
Posted 12/11 at 08:49 AM Email (Permalink)
 
Leave it to the newspapers to make a mountain out of a molehill. All that the paper actually looked at was tropical - not global - temperatures.

Wiley InterScience :: Session Cookies

The real irony is that to extract their data set the authors of this study used a *computer model*, which the newspaper article so readily disparages.

At the end of the day this study disagrees completely with several other studies using the exact same data set. Which makes one wonder how they got a result so different from others using the same numbers.

I wouldn't make any victory claims yet - the fact that they are so far off of what others have found, using the same data, is concerning.

Bryan
 
Blog: Science Survey: Less Than Half of all Published Scientists Endorse Global Warming Theory


IPCC co-chairs for Netherlands and Sierra Leone debate changes to the Report Summary.
Comprehensive survey of published climate research reveals changing viewpoints

In 2004, history professor Naomi Oreskes performed a survey of research papers on climate change. Examining peer-reviewed papers published on the ISI Web of Science database from 1993 to 2003, she found a majority supported the "consensus view," defined as humans were having at least some effect on global climate change. Oreskes' work has been repeatedly cited, but as some of its data is now nearly 15 years old, its conclusions are becoming somewhat dated.

Medical researcher Dr. Klaus-Martin Schulte recently updated this research. Using the same database and search terms as Oreskes, he examined all papers published from 2004 to February 2007. The results have been submitted to the journal Energy and Environment, of which DailyTech has obtained a pre-publication copy. The figures are surprising.

Of 528 total papers on climate change, only 38 (7%) gave an explicit endorsement of the consensus. If one considers "implicit" endorsement (accepting the consensus without explicit statement), the figure rises to 45%. However, while only 32 papers (6%) reject the consensus outright, the largest category (48%) are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis. This is no "consensus."

The figures are even more shocking when one remembers the watered-down definition of consensus here. Not only does it not require supporting that man is the "primary" cause of warming, but it doesn't require any belief or support for "catastrophic" global warming. In fact of all papers published in this period (2004 to February 2007), only a single one makes any reference to climate change leading to catastrophic results.

These changing viewpoints represent the advances in climate science over the past decade. While today we are even more certain the earth is warming, we are less certain about the root causes. More importantly, research has shown us that -- whatever the cause may be -- the amount of warming is unlikely to cause any great calamity for mankind or the planet itself.

Schulte's survey contradicts the United Nation IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report (2007), which gave a figure of "90% likely" man was having an impact on world temperatures. But does the IPCC represent a consensus view of world scientists? Despite media claims of "thousands of scientists" involved in the report, the actual text is written by a much smaller number of "lead authors." The introductory "Summary for Policymakers" -- the only portion usually quoted in the media -- is written not by scientists at all, but by politicians, and approved, word-by-word, by political representatives from member nations. By IPCC policy, the individual report chapters -- the only text actually written by scientists -- are edited to "ensure compliance" with the summary, which is typically published months before the actual report itself.

By contrast, the ISI Web of Science database covers 8,700 journals and publications, including every leading scientific journal in the world.
 
Bryan ...no victory claims at all ...just putting out articles concerning the evidence ...relax AGW is still a theory under construction ...
 
i find that Skull's sources tend to be politically rather than scientifically motivated

ironic, since they so often seek to crucify Gore for politicizing global warming

from a scientific standpoint, that study is questionable at best ... and it directly conflicts with 90% of all observable data (you can always find minority opinions in every scientific field; that doesn't make them right)

btw, we know for a fact that for the past 20 years, solar output has continued to decrease, while the exponential increase in both CO2 and global temperatures continues unabated ...

and the sun has been through a relative dormant period during the past 200 years ... coinciding with global warming

personally, i don't find the sun theory convincing
 
Andy ..I lambast Mr Gore because "I BELIEVE" he is a low rate street hustler bent on pitching and then cashing in on carbon trades ...thats is my only grip against the man ...that doesn't mean I'm not cashing in on LEED engineering ...if you folks via your tax dollars are willing to pay for LEED I'm all to willing to charge you for it..and of course I do it as a betterment for your new governement facilities. Lets just say I would prefer that he not upset the apple cart by shouting so loud and so flagrantly!

There is a ton of money to be made in the GW frenzy ... I'm just backing my truck up to haul some of it away.
 
There is a ton of money to be made in the GW frenzy ...


you are very biased against any evidence supporting global warming, as you yourself just admit (it's a "frenzy"), and thus tend to discount it, while emphasizing opposing evidence only

basically, you act out of ideology (you believe GW is bunk) and not out of a sincere desire to find what the evidence really says

(that's just my opinion, i could be wrong, of course)
 
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Andy ... I know for a fact the earth is warming ...it has been for 18,000 years ... and I suspect it will continue to warm till the beginning of the next ice age. Of that I am sure. is it AGW ... I am skeptical.

I am no kool aide drinker ...however I do make my living off of designing and wiring government facilities and currently am cashing in on the LEED engineering requirements for said business. The GW frenzy is real and IMHO wasteful in that the government is making commitments which will be very costly to meet and more importantly maintain. As a tax payer I see how our government spends our money first hand since I was on the front edge of the ATFP requirments (anti-terrorism force protection) of the last 15 yrs... From a government contractors view I am over joyed ... as a tax payer I am appauled ...but there you have it the dilema ...pay my bills and keep my guys employed or walk away and allow someone else to take over my business advantage.

Andy just to let you know my average ( I have 14 full time) journeyman level electrician starts @ $45.50/ hr which translates into ~$95,000.00 / year ...I have two guys in San Mateo county making $63.50/hr full time ... Your tax dollars at work ...btw included are full medical, dental and 401 k contibuting ...oh yea those wages are set by the Davis Bacon ACT and are not negotiable we submit certified payroll reports every week on all of our projects ...again this is your tax dollars at work! Consider this as well those are wages paid the burden on those wages alone is 15% ...just a thought.
 

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