So this report came out about Global Warming and the media went ape, as they usually do. An interesting aspect to this report is that it was not the report, but the summary. You see they, meaning the IPCC, have taken the unusual step of releasing the summary before the actual report so they could continue to tweak the report itself. Seem a bit fishy? So does Christopher Monckton:
This strange separation of the publication dates has raised in some minds the possibility that the Summary (written by political representatives of governments) will be taken as a basis for altering the science chapters (written by scientists, and supposedly finalized and closed in December 2006).
And you can count me in as one who believes that this unheard-of tactic for a scientific report is politically based. But alas, when it comes to global warming we see a lot of strange tactics used by the followers of the temple of global warming.
Anyways, the media has chosen to ignore some aspects of this summary that I will attempt to highlight. The biggie, that the science of global warming has overestimated the rise in temperature and in effect the panic that was caused by their 2001 report:
The draft of the science chapters, now being circulated to governments for last-minute comments, reveals that the tendency of computers to over-predict rises in temperature and sea level has forced a major rethink.
The report’s generally more cautiously-expressed projections confirm scientists’ warnings that the UN’s heavy reliance on computer models had exaggerated the temperature effect of greenhouse-gas emissions.
Previous reports in 1990, 1995 and 2001 had been progressively more alarmist. In the final draft of the new report there is a change in tone. Though carbon dioxide in the air is increasing, global temperature is not.
Figures from the US National Climate Data Center show 2006 as about 0.03 degrees Celsius warmer worldwide than 2001. Since that is within the range of measurement error, global temperature has not risen in a statistically significant sense since the UN’s last report in 2001.
Sources at the center of the drafting say that, though the now-traditional efforts are being made to sound alarmist and scientific at the same time, key projections are being quietly cut.
One says: “Stern is dead. The figures in the final draft of the UN’s Fourth Assessment Report makes the recent report of your Treasury’s chief economist on the cost of climate change look like childish panic.”
The UN’s 2001 report showed that our greenhouse-gas emissions since 1750 had caused a “radiative forcing” of 2.43 watts per square metre. Our other effects on climate were shown as broadly self-cancelling.
In the current draft, the UN has cut its estimate of our net effect on climate by more than a third, to 1.6 watts per square metre. It now thinks pollutant particles reflecting sunlight back to space have a very strong cooling effect.
Are we seeing any of this in our MSM or from the hippies at DU and KOS? No way. That would create a calming effect for those who are not totally biased for global warming science. Meaning those with some common sense.
As a deterrent to direct comparisons between the two reports, the key table of “radiative forcings” – the list of human influences on the amount of heat-energy in the atmosphere – has been rotated by 90 degrees compared with the 2001 table.
The UN also uses a 90% “confidence interval” rather than the 95% interval that is normal statistical usage. This has the effect of giving the UN’s projections a misleading appearance of greater certainty.
The UN’s best estimate of projected temperature increase in response to CO2 reaching 560 parts per million, twice the level in 1750, was 3.5C in the 2001 report. Now it is down to 3C.
The 2007 draft concludes that it is very likely that we caused most of the rise in temperatures since 1940. It does not point out that for half that period, from 1940 to 1975, temperature actually fell even though carbon dioxide rose monotonically – higher every year than the previous year.
Hmmmm, so let me get this straight. The UN is announcing that we have caused the rise in temperature but failed to note that for the first half of that period temperatures fell while CO2 rose.
You think that would be important to note huh?
Of the UN’s six modeled scenarios, three are extreme exaggerations. Two assume that population will reach 15bn by 2100, though demographers say population will peak at 10bn in 40 years and then plummet. The UN’s high-end temperature projection to 2100, up from 5.8C to 6C, is based on these extreme and unrealistic scenarios.
The new report confirms the finding of the 2001 report that global warming will have little effect on the number of typhoons or hurricanes, though it may increase the intensity of some storms a little.
Computer models heavily relied on by the UN did not predict the considerable cooling of the oceans that has occurred since 2003 – a cooling which demonstrates that neither the frequency nor the intensity of the hurricanes in the year of Katrina was attributable to “global warming”.
The UN’s models also failed to predict the halt to the rise in methane concentrations in the air that began in 2001. And they did not predict the timing or size of the El Nino which hiked temperature in 1998. Without it, the satellite record shows little or no greenhouse warming. Landbased temperature records may accordingly overstate the problem.
Likewise the UN’s models have recently been found to have over-projected the observed rise in sea temperatures, which has had to be corrected downward to allow for over-reading by incorrectly-calibrated instrumentation.
The UN’s draft Summary for Policymakers contains no apology for the defective and discredited “hockey-stick” graph that erroneously abolished the warm climate of the Middle Ages, arousing in some minds the suspicion that the intellectual honesty of the IPCC process is deficient.
The honesty of the IPCC and the Global Warming Nimrods, or GWN, is deficient in so many ways. It’s become a industry, this global warming scaremongering, and to keep this industry rolling they have to tweak the science to fit their conclusions.
Dishonest, ignorant, and alarmist.
Which is why China and other developing countries will completely ignore the calls for a reductions in green house gases:
Ambiguities in the report, and considerable discrepancies between it and its predecessor, show that there is no scientific consensus on many points for which consensus is often claimed.
Overall, however, the report is drafted so as to allow environmental extremists to cite its high-end projections as evidence of the need for urgent action.
The ambiguities, together with the conspicuous failure to apologize for the discredited “hockeystick” graph, fully justify the decision of fast-developing third-world countries such as China and India not to yield to pressure from the EU at the recent Nairobi climate summit to cut their greenhouse-gas emissions.
China, with 30,000 coal mines, is opening a new pit every week and a new coal-fired power station every five days until 2012. Well before then, China will overtake the US as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases.
Even if a country the size of Britain were to shut down and cease using energy or cars altogether, the growth in carbon emissions in China would more than make up for our sacrifice long before the Kyoto agreement expires in 2012.
Even if the US were to shut down its entire economy, growth in emissions from fast-emerging new polluters such as China, India, Indonesia, Russia, and Brazil would replace the US emissions within the next quarter of a century.
So while the alarmists will continue to prop up their industry, their call to form a "consensus" of scientists have caused a report to be issued that ends the "panic".
In the meantime, there will be continuing pressure from a small but vociferous body of politicized scientists, bureaucrats, and lobby groups to suggest that the 2007 report is more alarming than its predecessors. However, the sharp downward revisions in the values of the two central variables – the human contribution to warming compared with 1750 and the projected rise in sea level to 2100 – indicates that the UN has come to appreciate the dangers that would have arisen if it were to have persisted in its former exaggerations.
The “consensus” clique are displeased at the UN’s new-found moderation, particularly in its halving of its upper-bound projection of the rise in sea level to 2100. But it was they who formerly insisted that the UN, with 2,000 participating scientists, represented the very heart of the “consensus”. Accordingly they find themselves unable convincingly to repudiate the findings of a body whose work they have hitherto represented to us as sacrosanct.
Though the mass media are now well-programmed to focus on the more alarmist aspects of the report, the halving of the sea-level projection is in effect a declaration, from the heart of the “consensus”, that the consequences of warmer worldwide weather will be minor and may be beneficial, that the worst scenarios are no longer probable, and that the panic is officially over.
You think this news will be broadcast through the MSM? Don’t bet on it.
Now for the moonbats who continue to say that the science is universally accepted I say balderdash: (I like that word, think I will use that a bit more)
Astrophysicist Nir Shariv, one of Israel’s top young scientists, describes the logic that led him — and most everyone else — to conclude that SUVs, coal plants and other things man-made cause global warming.
Step One Scientists for decades have postulated that increases in carbon dioxide and other gases could lead to a greenhouse effect.
Step Two As if on cue, the temperature rose over the course of the 20th century while greenhouse gases proliferated due to human activities.
Step Three No other mechanism explains the warming. Without another candidate, greenhouses gases necessarily became the cause.
Dr. Shariv, a prolific researcher who has made a name for himself assessing the movements of two-billion-year-old meteorites, no longer accepts this logic, or subscribes to these views. He has recanted: "Like many others, I was personally sure that CO2 is the bad culprit in the story of global warming. But after carefully digging into the evidence, I realized that things are far more complicated than the story sold to us by many climate scientists or the stories regurgitated by the media.
"In fact, there is much more than meets the eye."
Dr. Shariv’s digging led him to the surprising discovery that there is no concrete evidence — only speculation — that man-made greenhouse gases cause global warming. Even research from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change– the United Nations agency that heads the worldwide effort to combat global warming — is bereft of anything here inspiring confidence. In fact, according to the IPCC’s own findings, man’s role is so uncertain that there is a strong possibility that we have been cooling, not warming, the Earth. Unfortunately, our tools are too crude to reveal what man’s effect has been in the past, let alone predict how much warming or cooling we might cause in the future.
But we all know that the peoples temple of global warming will tell their followers to ignore the deniers, even if they’re entirely credible scientists. I mean global warming just HAS to be true.
Stupid is as stupid does.
Other’s Blogging:
See author page
Monckton’s 40 page overview of the subject is among the best. For anyone who really wants to get a fuller understanding of the issue that would be a great place to start.
After reading Monckton you’ll find the summary of Singer and Avery’s “Unstoppable Global Warming” captures most of Monckton’s conclusions in a few paragraphs.
The executive summary’s been at odds with the report since it’s debut. Not hard to understand why; none of the scientists who contribute to the report have responsibility for the executive summary so it can be anything anyone wants it to be. No worries about being called out for bad science since it has only a tangential relationship to the underlying science.
First of all, who is Christopher Monckton? He’s a journalist — not a scientist. Now, that doesn’t mean he can’t read the reports and draw his own conclusions. It’s a free world. However, you’re comparing this journalist’s paper to over 2500 climate scientists’ work. Let’s see… I’ll take the scientists. I’ll take this issue by issue to show why many of the claims made here don’t hold water.
No, it doesn’t. All of the working groups also submitted summaries for policy makers. There’s no conspiracy theory here. The full text has to be published in book form, which anyone who is familiar with the publishing process will tell you takes some time to do. The book is due out this summer. There’s no time for editing.
The science of climate change deals with long periods of time. You can’t take a small period and draw any meaningful conclusions from it, as our cooling period in the recent past has shown.
This is comparing apples to oranges. He is comparing the radiative forcing from our greenhouse gas emissions in the Third Assessment Report to our net effect on the climate in the Fourth Assessment Report. The net effect includes negative radiative forcings due to aerosols, among other things, which brings the total number down. He needs to either compare just the positive radiative forcing from the greenhouse gas emissions from both reports, or the net effect from both.
The new report states that “the combined radiative forcing due to increases in carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide is +2.30 [+2.07 to +2.53] W m-2…” And that’s not even including the “Tropospheric ozone changes due to emissions of ozone-forming chemicals (nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and hydrocarbons) [which] contribute +0.35 [+0.25 to +0.65] W m-2,” and “the direct radiative forcing due to changes in halocarbons [which contributes] +0.34 [+0.31 to +0.37] W m-2.”
Is this a joke? This smacks of paranoid conspiracy theorist nonsense. He’s actually complaining about the rotation of a table? Next.
Picky, picky. This has no bearing on the veracity of the claims made in the IPCC report.
The draft does not contain the number “1940”. I’ll quote the summary:
The report only references back to 1750, making the small cooling period you love to mention only a blip on a larger trend of warming.
No, you didn’t get it straight.
Yet another incorrect statement by Mr. Monckton. The “high-end temperature projection” he references is actuall 4.0C. It’s range is from 2.4C to 6.4C. Where he got 6C, I don’t know. The whole point of running different scenarios is that you have all possibilities covered. They have, and they’re projections are 0.6C, 1.8C, 2.4C, 2.4C, 2.8C, 3.4C, and 4.0C. I’d like to see his sources for what “demographers say”.
I’ll just provide you with the direct quote from the report, and you tell me if he correctly summarized it.
All they’ve said is that the increase in activity seems to follow an increase in temperatures, but that they need more data to be able to conclusively draw a correlation.
From the report:
Once again, Monckton is focused on a short term trend. Methane has increased dramatically over the past 250 years, and are higher than ever by more than double.
First of all, the “hockey-stick” graph has not been discredited. If by that Mr. Monckton means that there are skeptics who disagree with it, he may be correct. The majority of climate scientists believe that the warming period Monckton mentions was not experienced worldwide.
What does he want? For the report to exactly mirror the previous one? More data is becoming available and models are becoming more accurate. As a result, the conclusions are adjusted slightly. To state that this whole report should be trashed due to what he considers to be “ambiguities” is absurd.
Monckton, who is not an expert on the subject, has consistently misinterpreted or even deliberately mislead his readers about the data and conclusions within the IPCC report summary. I would recommend that anyone who wants to look at Monckton’s paper also actually read the report itself, instead of just taking his word about what it says.
Hey look everybody, Reasic disagree’s once again!
Let me see, do I take your analysis or Monckton’s?
Answer = Monckton
No matter how you swing it Reasic there is NOT a consensus of scientists who agree with you.
I have read that the IPCC itself is a consensus among empaneled scientists, most of which are not climate scientists. Oh sure, they are experts on the effects of climate change but have no credentials that would make them experts on the cause of climate change. Meanwhile the media will interview only a handful of the more prominent climate scientists and ignore those that disagree with the findings. Not surprising since our MSM tilts so far left, but you will pardon me for not falling for it. You want to, that your prerogative.
Keep driving that hybrid, Im sure it will help the impending doomsday.
Oh man, that is rich. You lefties take the cake man.
Once again, you don’t make any attempt at actually addressing any specific issues. You only make snide remarks. It’s also not my opinion versus Monckton’s. It’s Monckton’s versus 2500+ scientists. If you’ve “read” that the IPCC has a bunch of unqualified scientists involved, provide a source. Provide some names. Otherwise, you’re advancing hearsay and conspiracy theories.
Do you have to label everybody? You don’t know me. I’m not a hybrid-driving hippy. I don’t do peace rallies or marches. I don’t hike or bike or camp. I just believe the planet is warming. Give me an intelligent argument against it, or at the very least, debunk my claims about Monckton’s paper.
The actual report won’t be published for another three months to facilitate editing – i.e – to suit the summary.
Quotes the IPCC:
Changes (other than grammatical or minor editorial changes) made after acceptance by the Working Group or the Panel shall be those necessary to ensure consistency with the Summary for Policymakers or the Overview Chapter (Appendix A to the Principles Governing IPCC Work, p4/15)
This is completely unacceptable in ANY field of research.
Which is EXACTLY what proponents of human-based global warming have been doing since crying over in 1975.
Oh hell yes it has been:
In their two seminal papers, Mann and his colleagues purported to reconstruct Northern Hemisphere temperatures for the last thousand years. Since 1000, temperatures gradually decreased (the shaft of the hockey stick), only to increase sharply from 1900 onwards (the blade).The implication is obvious: Human interference caused this trend to change. McIntyre and McKitrick merely attempted to replicate this oft-quoted study. In doing so, they identified mistake after mistake. They also discovered that this fundamental reconstruction had never actually been replicated by the IPCC or any other scientist. In their replication, basically derived from the same data, temperatures in the 15th century were just as high as they are today — an outcome that takes the edge off the alarmist scenario of anthropogenic global warming. The criticism by the Canadians is mostly technical in nature: They claim that Mann and his colleagues have misused an established statistical method — principal component analysis (PCA) — so that their calculations simply mined data for hockey-stick shaped series and that Mann’s results are statistically meaningless.
Not satisfied with this answer?
Try these reports:
M&M
MM-Wo5
Wegman Report
Please provide proof of your qualifications in global climatology.
OK… I’m starting to understand. Reasic isn’t serious about this issue, it’s just a game.
I can play too!
Since this blog is titled “Flopping Aces” I’ll go with a poker meataphor:
I’ll see your 2,500 scientists and raise you 14,700!
You want to do that Reasic? I’m ready.
I’ve got the petition of 17,200 scientists who profoundly disagree with the conclusions you tout as sacrosanct.
If your main conclusion is that you ” just believe the planet is warming” then let’s talk.
But why be a deny any LEGITIMATE debate exists on the causes and necessary solutions (if any?)
WHY???
What’s your motive???
P.S. “First of all, the “hockey-stick” graph has not been discredited.” Really? So where’s the Medieval warm period and the Maunder Minimum on that hockey stick?
Come on! If you want to be taken seriously, then perhaps you need to take this subject seriously. I’m tired of the jokes!
Read: Computer modeling – the UN will not stop flogging this dead horse.
The problem is that there is no “balance of nature,” which implies a status quo that must be adhered to. The Earth has always been in a constant state of flux. Weather cycles run in terms of centuries, if not millennia. Geological cycles run in terms of millions of years. The mean temperature of the Earth has risen and fallen in cycles for billions of years, almost all of it without being affected in the slightest by human beings
Any serious report on natural cycles of global warming and cooling should reference geologic data back at least 500,000 years. It is interesting that the UN’s ‘reports’ consistently focus on the narrowest sliver of historical data.
The Earth is only just emerging from a depression in global mean temperature known as the Little Ice Age. Temperatures began to fall around the world in the 15th century, and began to rise again in the middle of the 19th.
Those who insist that a one-degree increase in global temperature since then is either unprecedented or cause for panic are indulging in bad science to “prove” a viewpoint they’ve already decided must be true.
Uh-huh…..
We are told that there is a “consensus among scientists” that humans are responsible for the coming destruction.
The problem is that most of those “scientists” are not climate change cause experts, but climate change impact experts. In other words, they study the effects of climate change, not its cause. Not mentioning that climate change research brings in big money these days.
Okay, Skye. You have a lot of small replies, so I’ll do my best to address what I can.
First, you quoted an IPCC procedural document. Here’s the rest of that paragraph:
You see, the changes they are talking about are to be made at the same time as the Summary. All they are saying is that the two must be consistent. This has already taken place, and now the editing is over and the full report is in publication. Here’s another quote from that document you referenced:
Skye, your timetable’s all screwed up. As I said, there’s no conspiracy theory here. This procedure is finished. Both the Summary and the main report are done.
Skye,
I said:
And you replied:
What is this supposed to prove? The majority of climate scientists are viewing our current warming trend compared to plenty of historical temperature data. My comment was in response to an observation of temperature change over a five year period.
I also wish you skeptics would quit bringing up that stupid cooling article from the 70’s. First of all, the science of climate change was in its infancy back then. Our current projections are far more accurate now, thanks to advanced technology and much more data. Also, it’s a friggin’ news article! At least show me some scientific research papers that make the same claims.
On the hockey stick issue, here’s an article for you:
You might want to quote some peer-reviewed work that supposedly debunks the hockey stick graph.
I’m no expert. And neither are any of you. However, I’m quoting the work of climate scientists. You all worship a journalist. I see how you’d want to compare Monckton to me, as it would make him look like a genius. However, I’m comparing our sources. Mine are scientists.
Mike, I made a serious effort at explaining what I consider to be flaws in Monckton’s arguments. What about that makes this a game? Yet again you’re making silly claims without actually addressing any of the facts or data, as I have.
Are you talking about the Oregon Petition? That was not 17,000 scientists. That thing was sent out to anybody and their mother who would sign it:
I have yet to see any convincing argument against global warming, so I believe the consensus view. You may not think so, but I’m open to the possibility that I’m wrong. You just haven’t provided any substantive arguments.
Oh, and on the hockey stick thing, see the above comment I made. I would like to see some real peer-reviewed research that debunks the hockey-stick graph.
Man, you are a hoot Reasic. Spout your sources as if they are all the chosen ones while ignoring ours. Not sure if you have gotten it thru your thick skull yet but we all understand that you bow before the alter of the scientists who agree with you and ignore the ones who don’t. A common practice with you libs.
You have obviously invested alot of time into this post of mine when you could be with your fellow brethren at KOS, so for that I guess I should thank you (cough sarcasm cough) but you have not changed anyone’s mind here. Global warming is a myth.
Get over it.
And please save me your long winded reply in which you say “but i’ve cited sources, you haven’t” in one thousand words.
Skye, let me try to explain for you what I think is happening in our climate, and you tell me which part of this you disagree with:
I think that there are greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. I believe that they are at much higher concentrations than ever before. I also believe that human activities, especially in recent years, emit those same greenhouse gases. Now, I draw the logical conclusion that A is true and B is true, therefore C is true(C, being that humans are the source of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.)
Now on to the effect of such gases. I believe that the greenhouse gases in our atmosphere produce a warming effect on the planet. As the concentration of the gases increases, more heat from the sun is trapped in.
One more logical step. If humans are the source of the high concentrations of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, and those gases have a warming effect on the planet, I then draw the conclusion that humans have caused this new warming trend.
Hopefully, this will help us settle our differences. Which of these statements do you disagree with? You pick one or more, and then we’ll debate that specific statement. Be sure to be ready to back up your claims with scientific research, though, and I’ll do the same.
Hey, Curt! 😛 I don’t read KOS, fyi.
Here’s the difference. It’s not simply me citing my sources and you citing yours. When I disagree with yours, I state what, specifically, I disagree with and then back it up. I can’t recall any of you actually taking on any of my claims. You just quote one or two sources and call it a day. Look at the one I just posted to Skye. I’d be interested in your response, too.
Alright… I’ve heard enough to reach a few conclusions.
Reasic admits he is no expert. I haven’t heard what other credentials he may claim in this field.
So I can only conclude that his opinions are not peer reviewed and he has no professional experience in environmental issues.
He can correct me if I am wrong.
But until I see verifiable documentation that his opinions are set upong a better foundation than his ideology, they are invalid and not worth discussing.
That’s the same rule he has applied to everyone else, so I apply it to him.
And I’m sitting here with my EPA badge. Show me yours and I’ll show you mine 🙂
It’s obvious to me we have another case of a lefty who wishes to have sole rights to set acceptable terms for a debate. That’s about as intellectually honest as Harry Reid’s claim that the Republicans are preventing debate in the Senate.
What I have not seen is any REAL evidence of Global Warming caused by man, How many Humvees did King Arthur have during the Medival Warm Period which happened to be much warmer than now.
How about the computers models that show as CO2 increases, water vapor (a much more potent Greenhouse Gas) will increase rapidly, yet this is not happening.
And some climate studies that take the strong El Nino year of 1998 into account do not show any warming.
And currently the trend has been towards more extremes if you look at the facts. The Northern Hemisphere is in one of the coldest winters in decades, it snowed in LA where it has not snowed since the 1950s and here in the low valleys of Southern Oregon we have snow on the ground for almost two weeks when the longest is usually ½ day.
Carl:
Let’s not forget that at the beginning of the hurricane season down south, where I live, it was predicted that global warming meant more strong hurricanes like the previous year and Katrina.
Didn’t turn out that way.
Here’s the US govt. chart tracking temperature changes that global warming zealots embrace as PROOF:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/2005/ann/global-blended-temp-pg.gif
If you extend the chart a bit further back you’ll see more ups and downs.
Happens all the time.
P.S. If you’re up for tackling some envirozealots, drop onto the comments here:
http://www.floppingaces.net/2007/02/16/more-environazi-silliness/index.html