Carbon delusions and limited models

The relentless war on carbon is justified by the false assumption that global temperature is controlled by human production of two carbon-bearing “Greenhouse Gases”. The scary forecasts of runaway heating are based on complex and circumscribed, carbon-centric, computerised Global Circulation Models built for the UN IPCC. These models omit many significant climate factors and rely heavily on dodgy temperature records and unproven assumptions about two natural trace gases in the atmosphere.

The models fail to explain Earth’s long history of changing climate and ignore the powerful role of interacting cycles in the solar system which determine how much solar energy is absorbed and reflected by Earth’s atmosphere, clouds and surface. Several ancient societies and some modern mavericks, without help from million dollar computers, recognised that the sun, moon and major planets produce cyclic changes in Earth’s climate.

The IPCC models misread the positive and negative temperature feedbacks from water vapour (the main greenhouse gas) and their accounting for natural processes in the carbon cycle is based on very incomplete knowledge and numerous unproven assumptions.

See: Errors in the IPCC Global Circulation Models:
http://jo.nova.s3.amazonaws.com/guest/david-evans/media-release-evans-climate.pdf
http://sciencespeak.com/climate-basic.html

The dreaded “greenhouse gases” (carbon dioxide and methane) are natural gases. Man did not create them — they occur naturally in comets and planets, and have been far more plentiful in previous atmospheres on Earth. They are abundant in the oceans and the atmosphere, and are buried in deposits of gas, oil, coal, shale, methane clathrates and vast beds of limestone. Land and sea plants absorb CO2 and micro-organisms absorb methane in the deep ocean.

Earth emits natural carbon-bearing gases in huge and largely unknown and unpredictable quantities. Carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and various hydrocarbons such as ethane, methane and propane bubble out of the ocean floor, seep out of swamps, bubble naturally out of rivers, are released in oil seeps, water wells and bores, and are sometimes delivered via water pipes into drinking water. They are also released whenever carbon-bearing rocks such as coal and shale are eroded naturally, catch fire or are disturbed by earthquakes, construction activities or mining. The vast offshore deposits of frozen methane are released naturally when geothermal heat or volcanic intrusions melt the ice containing the methane.

See: Widespread methane leakage from ocean floor off US coast:
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-28898223

Earth also entombs carbon in sediments and organic matter transported from the land by rivers and buried in swamps and deltas or swept from the land into the oceans by typhoons and tsunamis. These will eventually become limestone, shale and coal deposits, probably containing fossil evidence of a long-gone human era.

Recent measurements of the distribution of atmospheric carbon dioxide over the surface of the earth produced surprises — several of the heavy concentrations of carbon dioxide do not follow man’s heavy industry but occur over places like the Congo, Indonesia and the Amazon (possibly seasonal emanations from soil or forests).

See: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Distribution from the OCO2 Satellite:
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=oco-2+data&espv=2&biw=1920&bih=955&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwisnPqglu3LAhWGL6YKHcEmCoAQsAQIMg#imgrc=kRW3ayOOn1mbqM%3A

Earth’s crust is flexed daily by the gravity-driven Earth tide. This movement opens and shuts joints and pores in rocks and soil and allows earth gases to be squeezed towards the surface. The crust is also dragged, raised and lowered by sub-surface movements, which release more trapped gases.

Volcanic activity produces large but variable emissions of carbon dioxide, particularly if igneous rocks intrude on beds of coal, oil shale or limestone. The periodic massive outpourings of undersea basalts along the mid-ocean ridges cause large oceanic degassing.

Oceans and the biosphere are wild cards in the carbon cycle. Warming oceans, rotting vegetation, ruminants and termites all expel large and unmeasured quantities of carbon-bearing gases. Cooling oceans and growing animals and plants take up carbon compounds and, if there is more CO2 in the atmosphere, oceans and plants will take up more, thus providing a natural stabilising effect. Eucalypt forests extract carbon dioxide for growth, but also emit hydrocarbons from leaves, producing the blue haze on distant hills on hot days. Soil carbon comes and goes depending on weather, biological activity and farm management practices.

Where are the measurements of the production and consumption of atmospheric carbon compounds by the vast herds of antelopes and reindeer, cattle and sheep, or zebra and wildebeest? Who measures the effects of termites and locusts, droughts and floods, bushfires and biofuel plantations, bacteria and fungi, algae and krill, seaweeds and sardines, oceans and volcanoes, grasslands and forests, decomposing rocks, sedimentation and underground waters? What about the heat, CO2 generated and waste products buried by huge cities?

Earth’s total supply of carbon does not change, it just moves continually around the great carbon cycle residing temporarily as gases, liquids or solids in the atmosphere, oceans, biosphere and lithosphere.

Currently the supplies of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are recovering gently from record lows. No one knows exactly where it is all coming from but limited measurements and extrapolations indicate that about 96% of the CO2 added annually to the atmosphere is from nature. The only part of the carbon cycle that is measured with reasonable accuracy is the remaining 4% of atmospheric CO2 produced through man’s recycling of coal, oil and gas.

See: Most of CO2 rise comes from natural sources:
http://notrickszone.com/2013/03/02/most-of-the-rise-in-co2-likely-comes-from-natural-sources/#sthash.moKAPaHR.dpbs

We are asked to believe that we can use dubious estimates and forecasts of this minor component of the carbon cycle as the determining input for computer models to forecast future climate for decades ahead.

But to use these one-dimensional forecasts to justify disruptive energy policies is a costly delusion.

Viv Forbes,
Rosewood
Qld, Australia
forbes@carbon-sense.com

The author has qualifications in geology, physics, chemistry and maths and is a semi-retired geologist with long interest and experience in geologic history and the carbon cycle. He has spent his life in public service, exploration, financial analysis, mining and grazing and has minor interests in a small coking coal mine and breeding cattle and sheep.

Visits: 92

22 Thoughts on “Carbon delusions and limited models

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  3. Richard C (NZ) on 18/04/2016 at 7:35 pm said:

    >”The IPCC models misread the positive and negative temperature feedbacks from water vapour (the main greenhouse gas)”

    The best performing IPCC model at surface (INMCM4) is an outlier in this respect. Less water vapour for feedback than any other model (among other items).

    >”Earth emits natural carbon-bearing gases in huge and largely unknown and unpredictable quantities.”

    And what Al Gore’s ‘Inconvenient truth’ conveniently omits to disclose is that on a scale of 100s of thousands of years, temperature LEADS CO2 by 200 – 800 years in the ice-core data that he makes out to be the big “evidence” for the CO2 conjecture.

    The IPCC model paradigm is similarly back-to-front i.e. CO2 is an INPUT parameter to their models.

    Here’s what happens when CO2 is generated as an OUTPUT from the system in accordance with the correct temp-CO2 lead-lag sequence:

    ‘A TSI-Driven (solar) Climate Model’

    February 8, 2016 by Jeff Patterson

    “The fidelity with which this model replicates the observed atmospheric CO2 concentration has significant implications for attributing the source of the rise in CO2 (and by inference the rise in global temperature) observed since 1880. There is no statistically significant signal of an anthropogenic contribution to the residual plotted Figure 3c. Thus the entirety of the observed post-industrial rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration can be directly attributed to the variation in TSI, the only forcing applied to the system whose output accounts for 99.5% ( r2=.995) of the observational record.

    How then, does this naturally occurring CO2 impact global temperature? To explore this we will develop a system model which when combined with the CO2 generating system of Figure 4 can replicate the decadal scale global temperature record with impressive accuracy.

    Researchers have long noted the relationship between TSI and global mean temperature.[5] We hypothesize that this too is due to the lagged accumulation of oceanic heat content, the delay being perhaps the transit time of the thermohaline circulation. A system model that implements this hypothesis is shown in Figure 5.”

    “The results (figure 10) correlate well with observational time series (r = .984).”

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/02/08/a-tsi-driven-solar-climate-model/comment-page-1/

    Goes a long way towards modeling Multi-Decadal Variation/Oscillation (MDV/MDO).
    Long system lag (“oceanic delay”), well in excess of 70 years depending on TSI input series.
    Cannot be accused of “curve fitting”

  4. Richard C (NZ) on 18/04/2016 at 10:00 pm said:

    >”More on the criminalization of dissent from Daniel Greenfield”

    Good synopsis Andy, but it neglects the legal issues which are myriad. I expect some “unintended consequences” in that regard (see below)

    However, in the vein of “Gore’s Inconvenient Truth ecohoax flick” Greenfield says:

    The Big Green group of prosecutors was launched by Al Gore, whose Big Green investments have made him a very rich man. Gore is the chairman of Generation Investment Management, a UK investment management firm that focuses on environmental investments. Its funds are valued at $7.3 billion. Gore’s Inconvenient Truth ecohoax flick was financed by the head of the Capricorn Investment Group. Al Gore invests in Green Energy and then runs campaigns urging government Green investments.

    Now Gore has moved beyond that blatant conflict of interest to trying to criminalize rival industries.

    This may not end well for Al Gore.

    Re legal issues, (see also ‘Controversy and scandal’ thread):

    ‘Emails reveal NY AG Schneiderman. other AG’s colluding with Al Gore and greens to investigate climate skeptics’

    http://junkscience.com/2016/04/emails-reveal-ny-ag-schneiderman-other-ags-colluding-with-al-gore-and-greens-to-investigate-climate-skeptics/

    By colluding they have may have committed a federal crime:

    ‘Dear attorneys general, conspiring against free speech is a crime’

    Glenn Harlan Reynolds, April 11, 2016

    Liberal law enforcers shouldn’t break the law to shut up climate change dissenters.

    Federal law makes it a felony “for two or more persons to agree together to injure, threaten, or intimidate a person in any state, territory or district in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him/her by the Constitution or the laws of the Unites States, (or because of his/her having exercised the same).”

    I wonder if U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Claude Walker, or California Attorney General Kamala Harris, or New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman have read this federal statute. Because what they’re doing looks like a concerted scheme to restrict the First Amendment free speech rights of people they don’t agree with. They should look up 18 U.S.C. Sec. 241, I am sure they each have it somewhere in their offices.

    Continues>>>>>>
    http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/04/11/attorney-generals-conspire-free-speech-schneiderman-harris-exxon-cei-column/82878218/

    This could all backfire badly on Schneiderman, Walker, Harris, and Gore.

  5. Richard C (NZ) on 19/04/2016 at 10:17 am said:

    New York AG Tried To Cover Up Activist Involvement In Exxon Probe
    http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/new-york-ag-tried-to-cover-up-activist-involvement-in-exxon-probe.html

    Left-wing activists spent years planning climate investigations
    New York AG launches climate investigation, takes fire
    http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/left-wing-activists-spent-years-planning-climate-investigations.html

    “Smoke & Fumes,” Part Deux: Exxon Knew “The entire theory of climatic changes by CO2 variations is questionable.”

    “So, way back in 1963, the entire oil industry knew exactly what we know today: The entire theory of climatic changes by CO2 variations is questionable.”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/04/18/smoke-fumes-part-deux-exxon-knew-the-entire-theory-of-climatic-changes-by-co2-variations-is-questionable/

  6. Richard C (NZ) on 19/04/2016 at 10:31 am said:

    From “Smoke & Fumes”:

    In my [David Middleton] previous post on this subject [hotlink], we examined some of the documents which supposedly proved that ExxonMobil and the oil industry in general “had the underlying knowledge of climate change even 60 years ago.” This is funny for at least two reasons:

    1. Oil companies employ a lot of sedimentary geologists and two of the primary components of sedimentary geology are 1) paleogeography and 2) paleoclimatology. So the oil industry has “had the underlying knowledge of climate change” for a very long time.

    2. ExxonMobil’s (Humble Oil back then) underlying knowledge of climate change was that “the theory that climatic variations are effected by variations in the CO2 content [was becoming] very questionable.”

    # # #

    Much mirth in comments so far. for example:

    Sparky April 18, 2016 at 1:14 pm

    I’ve always thought that It is a kind of backhanded complement, that the Green Blob assume that Exxon’s scientists were so good back in the day that they could do with mere pen and paper, what it has taken massive funding,whole armies of scientists and super computers galore to achieve today !

    Bob Tisdale April 18, 2016 at 2:55 pm

    Thanks, David. I wonder whether that [Möller (1963)] was one of the consensus papers????

  7. Richard C (NZ) on 19/04/2016 at 11:32 am said:

    ‘A Climategate-like bombshell: State Attorney Generals colluded with Green groups to punish political opponents’

    by Chris Horner, April 18, 2016

    […]

    In the end, it seems the only parties that may be breaking the law are those colluding AGs in their scheme to silence political opposition, while seeking funds for their preferred policy agenda. It is they who need to come clean.

    CLICK HERE TO READ THE EMAILS [hotlink – see below]

    Chris Horner is an attorney in Washington, D.C. who obtained the email records for the Energy & Environment Legal Institute. He is also a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/04/18/a-climategate-like-bombshell-state-attorney-generals-colluded-with-green-groups-to-punish-political-opponents/

    AG collusion emails:

    http://eelegal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Master-VT-OAG-docs-of-note.pdf

  8. Richard C (NZ) on 19/04/2016 at 12:17 pm said:

    ‘Al Gore and State Attorney Generals start another climate witch hunt (Update: schism develops)’

    […]

    UPDATE: all is not well in Goreville

    Democratic Attorneys General Refuse to Join Rockefeller-Backed Climate Investigation

    3:03pm EDT March 29, 2016

    by Steve Everley
    steve@energyindepth.org , Dallas, Tex.

    A press conference today featuring Al Gore and more than a dozen state attorneys general was expected to reveal new state-level investigations of U.S. energy companies regarding climate change. But the vast majority of AGs standing on stage refused to join such an effort, signaling a lack of interest in wasting their own states’ resources.

    Last year, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced that he had launched an investigation into fossil fuel companies regarding what the New York Times called “possible climate change lies.” The investigation was based entirely on a series of controversial articles written by researchers at the Columbia School of Journalism and InsideClimate News, which selectively pulled statements from company documents to suggest Exxon Mobil’s public policy advocacy was inconsistent with its own research.

    Unsurprisingly, environmental activists embraced the articles, and even began an online campaign – complete with the hash tag #ExxonKnew on Twitter – to pressure state and federal officials to launch investigations into so-called “climate denial.” To date, they have succeeded in convincing Schneiderman as well as the attorneys general for California and Massachusetts.

    But Democratic attorneys general from New Mexico, Washington, D.C., Rhode Island, Maine, Illinois, Virginia, Maryland, Connecticut, and Vermont – all of whom stood on the stage next to Al Gore today – refused to announce that they would be launching their own investigations. In fact, reporters covering the event struggled to find much of anything new in what the officials were promising. The Huffington Post even conceded that the AGs “were vague on what exactly they have planned.”

    Editorial boards across the country have criticized the #ExxonKnew campaign as an attempt to “stamp out all disagreement,” while also worrying about the legal precedent of pursuing “criminal penalties over those involved in a scientific debate.” An editorial from Bloomberg News called Schneiderman’s investigation a “dangerous arrogation of power.”

    Legal experts have also questioned the merits of New York’s investigation. John Coffee, a law professor at Columbia University, told the New York Times that a “leading obstacle [to a conviction] would be the First Amendment, as climate change is a matter of robust public debate.”

    Paying for Media, Policy Outcomes

    Although Schneiderman’s office contends the investigation is based on allegations of “fraud,” one of the groups who funded the research underpinning Schneiderman’s investigation – the Rockefeller Family Fund – admitted last week that their funding of non-profit news entities, including Columbia and InsideClimate News, was geared toward achieving “better climate policy.”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/03/29/al-gore-and-state-attorney-generals-start-another-climate-witch-hunt/

    WSJ Confirms Collusion Behind #ExxonKnew

    The new campaign’s goals include “to establish in public’s mind that Exxon is a corrupt institution that has pushed humanity (and all creation) toward climate chaos and grave harm,”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/04/13/wsj-confirms-collusion-behind-exxonknew/

  9. Richard C (NZ) on 19/04/2016 at 12:43 pm said:

    >”AG collusion emails:”
    http://eelegal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Master-VT-OAG-docs-of-note.pdf

    Take a look at page 21 pdf:

    Climate Coalition of Attorneys General

    Principles [abbrev.]
    # Climate Change is Real
    # Climate Change Pollution Is The Primary Driver
    # People Are Being Harmed
    # Immediate Action Is Necessary

    Pledge [abbrev.]
    [….yada yada……]
    # Engage The Public
    Raise public awareness regarding the impacts to public health, safety, our environment and our economy caused by climate change

    # # #

    Superficial ignorant misleading incorrect Leftist drivel.

    These AGs are the criminals.

  10. Richard C (NZ) on 19/04/2016 at 1:01 pm said:

    >”AG collusion emails” page 21 pdf

    Climate Coalition of Attorneys General

    Principles

    # Climate Change is Real
    The evidence that global temperatures have been rising over the last century-plus is unequivocal.

    # Climate Change Pollution Is The Primary Driver
    Natural forces do not explain the observed global warming trend

    # # #

    This is completely at odds with IPCC anthro attribution which only begins at 1951 and only states “more than half” 1951 – 2010.

    But in the 21st century the IPCC tacitly concedes (Chapter 9: Hiatus) natural forces have been the primary driver and that there has been no “Climate Change Pollution” driven warming (and that 97.37% of their models are junk – 111/114).

    These AGs are stuck in a 20th century time warp with heads full of incorrect information.

  11. Richard C (NZ) on 19/04/2016 at 1:34 pm said:

    ‘CEI Will Surmount Crimethink Persecution’

    Kent Lassman • April 13, 2016

    “Unfortunately, some who disagree with our ideas would prefer we succumb to heavy-handed intimidation. They have forgotten that the protections of the U.S. Constitution provide essential instruction on the role and scope of government—including the abusive use of state authority to limit speech and association.”

    https://cei.org/blog/cei-will-surmount-crimethink-persecution

  12. Andy on 19/04/2016 at 1:51 pm said:

    Sea levels could rise 1.1m by end of the century- Royal Society

    http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201797595/sea-levels-could-rise-1-point-1m-by-end-of-the-century-royal-society

    I suppose if you keep repeating the lie, eventually people believe you

  13. Richard C (NZ) on 19/04/2016 at 1:58 pm said:

    Lassman, CEI:

    Some of our critics view the subpoena as nothing more than a taste of CEI’s own medicine. After all, they argue, hasn’t CEI harassed scientists and professors for private emails and data?

    Unequivocally, the answer is NO.

    Like countless journalists, policy groups, and private citizens, CEI relies on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and other public records laws to encourage government accountability and transparency. There should be no controversy when private individuals seek information about the use of taxpayer funds by government employees. It is rhetorically convenient and intellectually lazy to overlook the fundamental differences between a subpoena from an attorney general, operating in concert with his peers from 17 states, and a private organization’s legitimate use of FOIA requests.

    Let’s be perfectly clear. The subpoena is based on an implied allegation of criminal wrongdoing; a FOIA request is not. CEI makes FOIA requests as a check on government overreach and misconduct.

    With this subpoena, Walker has abused his authority by punishing private activity protected by the U.S. Constitution.

    […]

    A reasonable person might ask, “What does CEI say about climate change that makes these people so nervous?”

    # # #

    The answer seems to be “[CEI] do not believe it is a planetary emergency”:

    ‘Time for a Sensible Sense of Congress Resolution on Climate Change’

    Marlo Lewis, Jr. • June 17, 2015

    […]

    # Climate change is not a planetary emergency;

    # Affordable, plentiful, and reliable fossil fuels make the climate safer and the environment more livable; and

    # The national and global campaign to tax, regulate, and mandate mankind “beyond” fossil fuels is bound to be either an expensive exercise in futility or a humanitarian disaster.

    A proposed model for such a resolution follows.

    Sense of Congress Amendment on Climate Change

    It is the sense of Congress that:

    1. Climate change is real. Climate is average weather over time. Both regional and global climate change naturally on various time scales. Human activity can influence climate by changing the planet’s surface and atmosphere, altering the balance of incoming shortwave solar radiation and outgoing longwave radiation.

    2. Although some portion of global warming since 1951 is likely due to greenhouse gas emissions, scientists cannot yet reliably quantify the specific anthropogenic contribution. For example, the IPCC has yet to arrive at a convincing explanation for the warming from 1910 to 1940, the cooling from 1940 to 1975, and plateau from 1997 to present.

    3. Climatic warmth in earlier periods coincided with, and likely contributed to, improvements in agriculture, economic development, and human health. The amount of recent warming—about 0.8°C since 1880—is modest and not a cause for alarm. The Northern hemisphere was several degrees Celsius warmer than today’s climate for thousands of years during the Holocene climate optimum (roughly 5,000 to 9,000 years ago), and numerous studies indicate the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods were warmer than the present.

    4. Humans are adaptable and resilient. Today, people live in a wide range of environments long considered inhospitable, from the equator to the Arctic, from desert to tundra. “We survived ice ages with primitive technologies,” points out Professor Richard Tol, an expert on the economics of climate change. “The idea that climate change poses an existential threat to humankind is laughable.”

    5. The alleged climate science “consensus” is unraveling. Concerns over global warming are largely based on speculative climate-model impact scenarios. However, climate prediction models endorsed by the IPCC increasingly diverge from observed temperatures. Ninety-five percent of model projections are warmer than observations over the past 36 years. The models are on the verge of statistical failure.

    6. Despite relying on climate models that run too hot, the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) tacitly rejects the catastrophe narrative popularized by Al Gore and other climate activists. Specifically, the IPCC concludes that in the 21st Century, Atlantic Ocean circulation collapse is “very unlikely,” ice sheet collapse is “exceptionally unlikely,” and catastrophic release of methane from melting permafrost is “very unlikely.”

    7. The IPCC’s latest report (AR5) finds no evidence of a link between global warming and the cost of natural disasters:
    “Current datasets indicate no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the past century … No robust trends in annual numbers of tropical storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes counts have been identified over the past 100 years in the North Atlantic basin.”
    “In summary, confidence in large scale changes in the intensity of extreme extra-tropical cyclones since 1900 is low.”
    “In summary, there continues to be a lack of evidence and thus low confidence regarding the sign of trend in the magnitude and/or frequency of floods on a global scale.”
    “[T]here is low confidence in detection and attribution of changes in drought over global land areas since the mid-20th century.”

    8. Hurricanes have not increased in frequency and intensity in the United States since 1900, and there has been no trend in global hurricane landfalls since 1970. Since 2006, Northern hemisphere and global accumulated cyclone energy, a measure of hurricane strength, has decreased to its lowest levels since the early 1970s.

    9. Lower sensitivity means less warming and smaller climate impacts than predicted by IPCC models. Since 2011, more than a dozen peer-reviewed studies have challenged the IPCC’s estimates of climate sensitivity—how much warming results from a doubling of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) greenhouse gas concentrations.

    10. Consistent with those studies, more than 30 percent of all industrial carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions since 1750 occurred after 1996. Yet, during the past 18.5 years there has been no warming trend in the Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) satellite record and hardly any in the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) satellite record of global average temperature in the bulk atmosphere (troposphere).

    11. Human beings using CO2-emitting energy did not take a safe climate and make it dangerous; they took a dangerous climate and made it vastly safer and more livable. Since the 1920s, aggregate deaths and death rates worldwide related to extreme weather declined by 93 percent and 98 percent, respectively.

    12. For most of human history, drought has been the deadliest extreme weather event. In the 1920s, drought killed an estimated 470,000 people worldwide. Since then, deaths and death rates from droughts declined by 99.98 percent and 99.99 percent, respectively. The chief reason is a dramatic increase in global food production and food security. Fossil fuels power farm machinery, are used to produce fertilizers and pesticides, enable food to be transported affordably over long distances, provide electricity for refrigeration, and support economic development, creating the surpluses that enable richer nations or communities to aid poorer nations or communities after a natural disaster strikes.

    13. While damage from hurricanes and other extreme weather events increased in absolute terms over the past 60 years, that is due to societal changes rather than any ascertainable changes in climate. Once damage estimates are adjusted for increases in population, wealth, and inflation, the apparent trend in long-term weather-related property damages disappears. Globally, adjusted weather-related losses have not increased. Since 1990, such damages have decreased as a proportion of global GDP by about 25 percent.

    14. Thousands of laboratory and field observations confirm that rising CO2 concentrations boost plant photosynthetic activity, yield productivity, water-use efficiency, and resistance to environmental stresses. Climate researcher Craig Idso estimates that rising CO2 concentrations boosted global crop production by $3.2 trillion during 1961-2011, and will increase output by another $9.8 trillion between now and 2050.

    15. The usual proposed global warming “solutions”—including carbon taxes, cap-and-trade schemes, renewable energy production quotas, CO2 performance standards for power plants, and moratoria and bans on fossil energy production and trade—are either costly exercises in futility or “cures” worse than the alleged disease.

    16. Unilateral reductions in U.S. CO2 emissions will have no discernible impact on global climate change. The United States emits only 16 percent of global CO2 emissions—a percentage that will decline as China, India, and other developing countries industrialize. China alone could add 389 gigawatts of coal generation capacity between now and 2040—an increment larger than current U.S. coal capacity.

    17. A carbon tax, or its regulatory equivalent, could cumulatively cost hundreds of thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of dollars in lost household purchasing power, and trillions in lost GDP over the next 15 years, for no detectable reduction in global temperatures and sea-level rise by 2100. The hypothetical climate benefits in the policy-relevant future would be even more miniscule.

    18. If, alternatively, governments commit to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 60 percent below 2010 levels by 2050, as urged by the European Union and major environmental groups, climate policy becomes a prescription for humanitarian disaster.

    19. Even if industrial countries miraculously reduce their emissions to zero, meeting the 60-by-50 target would still require developing countries to reduce their emissions 35 percent below current levels. If, less unrealistically, as the Obama administration proposes, the U.S. and other industrial countries reduce their emissions by 80 percent below current levels, developing countries would have to cut their current emissions by almost half. Yet billions of people in developing countries still lack access to commercial energy, roughly 87 percent of which comes from fossil fuels.

    20. The potential for disaster is obvious. Globally, poverty is the number one cause of preventable illness and premature death. Developing countries require affordable, scalable energy to lift their peoples out of poverty. Thus, as development expert Deepak Lal observes: “The greatest threat to the alleviation of the structural poverty of the Third World is the continuing campaign by western governments, egged on by some climate scientists and green activists, to curb greenhouse gas emissions, primarily the CO2 from burning fossil fuels.”

    https://cei.org/content/time-sensible-sense-congress-resolution-climate-change

    These statements are criminal intent worthy of RICO investigation?

    I don’t think so.

  14. Richard C (NZ) on 19/04/2016 at 2:05 pm said:

    >”Sea levels could rise 1.1m by end of the century- Royal Society”

    Then Radio NZ goes on – “A new report by leading New Zealand scientists is warning two thirds of New Zealanders are living in flood-prone areas, leaving them at the mercy of climate change.”

    What? Does SLR now encompass “flood-prone areas” ?

  15. Richard C (NZ) on 20/04/2016 at 3:06 pm said:

    MUST READ (yes MUST)

    Gavin Schmidt and Reference Period “Trickery”

    Steve McIntyre, posted on Apr 19, 2016

    In the past few weeks, I’ve been re-examining the long-standing dispute over the discrepancy between models and observations in the tropical troposphere. My interest was prompted in part by Gavin Schmidt’s recent attack on a graphic used by John Christy in numerous presentations (see recent discussion here by Judy Curry). Schmidt made the sort of offensive allegations that he makes far too often:

    @curryja use of Christy’s misleading graph instead is the sign of partisan not a scientist. YMMV. tweet;

    @curryja Hey, if you think it’s fine to hide uncertainties, error bars & exaggerate differences to make political points, go right ahead. tweet.

    As a result, Curry decided not to use Christy’s graphic in her recent presentation to a congressional committee. In today’s post, I’ll examine the validity (or lack) of Schmidt’s critique.

    Schmidt’s primary dispute, as best as I can understand it, was about Christy’s centering of model and observation data to achieve a common origin in 1979, the start of the satellite period, a technique which (obviously) shows a greater discrepancy at the end of the period than if the data had been centered in the middle of the period. I’ll show support for Christy’s method from his long-time adversary, Carl Mears, whose own comparison of models and observations used a short early centering period (1979-83) “so the changes over time can be more easily seen”. Whereas both Christy and Mears provided rational arguments for their baseline decision, Schmidt’s argument was little more than shouting.

    Background

    The full history of the controversy over the discrepancy between models and observations in the tropical troposphere is voluminous. While the main protagonists have been Christy, Douglass and Spencer on one side and Santer, Schmidt, Thorne and others on the other side, Ross McKitrick and I have also commented on this topic in the past, and McKitrick et al (2010) was discussed at some length by IPCC AR5, unfortunately, as too often, deceptively on key points

    […]

    Conclusion

    There is nothing mysterious about using the gap between models and observations at the end of the period as a measure of differing trends. When Secretariat defeated the field in the 1973 Belmont by 25 lengths, even contemporary climate scientists did not dispute that Secretariat ran faster than the other horses.

    Even Ben Santer has not tried to challenge whether there was a “statistically significant difference” between Steph Curry’s epic 3-point shooting in 2015-6 and leaders in other seasons. Last weekend, NYT Sports illustrated the gap between Steph Curry and previous 3-point leaders using a spaghetti graph (see below) that, like the Christy graph, started the comparisons with a common origin. The visual force comes in large measure from the separation at the end.

    If NYT Sports had centered the series in the middle of the season (in Bart Verheggen style), then Curry’s separation at the end of the season would be cut in half. If NYT Sports had centered the series on the first half (in the style of Gavin Schmidt’s “reasonable baseline”), Curry’s separation at the end of the season would likewise be reduced. Obviously, such attempts to diminish the separation would be rejected as laughable.

    There is a real discrepancy between models and observations in the tropical troposphere. If the point at issue is the difference in trend during the satellite period (1979 on), then, as Carl Mears observed, it is entirely reasonable to use center the data on an early reference period such as the 1979-84 used by Mears or the 1979-83 period used by Christy and Spencer (or the closely related value of the trend in 1979) so that (in Mears’ words) “the changes over time can be more easily seen”.

    Varying Schmidt’s words, doing anything else will result in “hiding” and minimizing “differences to make political points”, which, once again in Schmidt’s words, “is the sign of partisan not a scientist.”

    There are other issues pertaining to the comparison of models and observations which I intend to comment on and/or re-visit.

    https://climateaudit.org/2016/04/19/gavin-schmidt-and-reference-period-trickery/

    # # #

    Note Carl Mears RSS graph “Figure 2. From RSS” (yellow models, blue observations).

    https://climateaudit.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/rss_model_ts_compare_trop30.png?w=1024

    The original graph at the RSS website only had a black line representing observations. Mears altered the graph to show uncertainty at the behest of Thomas from Hot Topic (he posted his discussion with Mears in comments at HT).

    In some ways, I think it actually casts an even worse light on the models because the obs uncertainly band now encroaches the zero anomaly baseline more-so than the previous black line did. It doesn’t really help the models that the upper obs limit now encroaches the models lower limit, which was what Thomas wanted to achieve.

    [RT, any chance you could “reblog” Steve McIntyre’s post? This is a VERY hot topic among the big hitters of climate]

  16. Richard C (NZ) on 20/04/2016 at 3:32 pm said:

    >”Mears altered the graph to show uncertainty at the behest of Thomas from Hot Topic (he posted his discussion with Mears in comments at HT).”

    Mears also brought the graph up to date.

    Thomas says: January 23, 2016 at 1:56 pm

    I would really like to also know why the RSS data set website:
    http://www.remss.com/research/climate#Atmospheric-Temperature
    Has not updated their temperature graphs on their home page since 2013!!

    It is a hoot is it not that they are now over two years behind. This is partly what allows dumb wits to cite the RSS data of the recent decades and claim that it shows “no warming”. While the data include the ElNino of 1998 they are so far blind to 2014 and 2015, which broke all records.

    Further: If you look at the RSS climate page:
    http://www.remss.com/research/climate

    Their most cited graphs show a thin black line for their “measurements” with zero error! While showing a wide yellow band for climate simulations. The truth is: the RSS measurements rely on a very complex model that converts radiation signals arriving at the chips of their satelites somehow into a “temperature” reading.
    The actual error bands in their models surely are significant. So why are they not shown to the public on their most cited data page?

    http://hot-topic.co.nz/too-hot-and-here-comes-the-surge-2/#comment-47175

    Thomas says: January 23, 2016 at 2:39 pm

    To add to this: Here is a graph from Climate Feedback / Skeptical Science showing the uncertainty in the RSS data compared to HadCRUT4:
    http://skepticalscience.com//pics/rss_ensemble_box.png

    RSS uncertainty is about 5 x that of HadCRUT4 !
    Yet the RSS temp line is shown with a thin black line in their graphs, inviting people such as Curz, Monckton and others to abuse them to their ends.

    http://hot-topic.co.nz/too-hot-and-here-comes-the-surge-2/#comment-47176

    Thomas says: January 24, 2016 at 2:44 pm

    I have been in discussion with Mears and hopefully, we will see an update of the RSS climate homepage sometime soon to reflect the latest data, which might put and end to the abuse these data endured by the denier sphere.

    One finds the actual RSS data on their site but I think the deniers never dig deeper anyway:

    http://images.remss.com/msu/msu_time_series.html

    http://hot-topic.co.nz/too-hot-and-here-comes-the-surge-2/#comment-47178

    Thomas says: January 29, 2016 at 9:11 pm

    As I had suggested in discussions with him, Mears has now updated the RSS climate page: http://www.remss.com/research/climate

    The new graphs show the date range to 2015 and also show the Satellite data uncertainty bands.

    http://images.remss.com/figures/climate/RSS_Model_TS_compare_globe.png

    You may need to clear your browser cache before the new site content replaces the old.

    Perhaps the denier crowd won’t be fooled by the data that easily any more now.

    http://hot-topic.co.nz/too-hot-and-here-comes-the-surge-2/#comment-47203

    # # #

    >”It is a hoot is it not that they are now over two years behind. This is partly what allows dumb wits to cite the RSS data of the recent decades and claim that it shows “no warming”.”

    >”One finds the actual RSS data on their site but I think the deniers never dig deeper anyway:”

    Heh, “deniers” are right up to speed on this Thomas, and always have been. RSS is on the way back down:

    2016 0.788
    2016.08 1.267
    2016.17 1.193
    http://woodfortrees.org/data/rss-land

    Soon we’ll be back to “no warming” again after the El Nino. Will Thomas screech for Carl Mears to update the RSS webpage graph when RSS is back to “no warming”?

    I doubt it.

  17. Richard C (NZ) on 20/04/2016 at 3:43 pm said:

    >”I submitted a comment showing Thomas’ HT comments re Mears and RSS. It’s gone into the spam trap – too many links”

    Hopefully RT digs it out. Meantime, here’s the HT thread header:

    Thomas says: January 23, 2016 at 1:56 pm

    I would really like to also know why the RSS data set website:
    http://www.remss.com/research/climate#Atmospheric-Temperature
    Has not updated their temperature graphs on their home page since 2013!!

    It is a hoot is it not that they are now over two years behind. This is partly what allows dumb wits to cite the RSS data of the recent decades and claim that it shows “no warming”. While the data include the ElNino of 1998 they are so far blind to 2014 and 2015, which broke all records.

    Further: If you look at the RSS climate page:
    http://www.remss.com/research/climate

    Their most cited graphs show a thin black line for their “measurements” with zero error! While showing a wide yellow band for climate simulations. The truth is: the RSS measurements rely on a very complex model that converts radiation signals arriving at the chips of their satelites somehow into a “temperature” reading.
    The actual error bands in their models surely are significant. So why are they not shown to the public on their most cited data page?

    http://hot-topic.co.nz/too-hot-and-here-comes-the-surge-2/#comment-47175

    # # #

    Just scroll down for the rest of Thomas’s comments re RSS/Mears..

    RSS data is now on the way back down from El Nino highs (i.e. back to “no warming” soon). Will Thomas be on to Carl Mears to update the RSS webpage when that happens?

    I doubt it.

  18. Richard C (NZ) on 20/04/2016 at 4:28 pm said:

    Thanks RT, this (models vs obs, and ENSO-neutral obs) is the critical issue over the nest 5 years to 2020 IMO (apart from TOA energy balance).

    There’s plenty of tricks being employed to cast the models in the best light possible but as time goes on, and the divergence increases, the trickery is becoming ever more desperate.

  19. Richard C (NZ) on 20/04/2016 at 5:31 pm said:

    >”There’s plenty of tricks being employed to cast the models in the best light possible but as time goes on, and the divergence increases, the trickery is becoming ever more desperate.”

    For example, Schmidt and a recent Mann et al paper have taken to “adjusting” model output to compare to observations.

    This is bogus and back-to-front (as is much climate science). The only valid apples-to-apples models-obs comparison is unadjusted model output to ENSO-neutral and MDV-neutral observations. This is because the models are ENSO-neutral and MDV-neutral (as I keep banging on about).

    Be VERY careful about what you are REALLY looking at when a warmy puts a models vs obs graph in front of you. Rahmstorf Tweeted one such graph from Mann et al but there’s no way for a novice of telling what the respective series are because the information has been left off (natch). The only way to spot the “adjusted” series is by knowing exactly what the respective original profiles look like.

  20. Andy on 23/04/2016 at 2:23 pm said:

    I think the RSNZ have finally “jumped the shark”

    Sea level rise threat to NZ coasts

    http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/301826/sea-level-rise-threat-to-nz-coasts

    The kicker is this line

    Not only would it be hotter and drier in some parts, but high CO2 levels would increase plant size in some cases, creating more material available to burn.

    So they acknowledge that CO2 increases plant growth, but this is a bad thing because there is greater fire risk

    Should we start chopping down all the trees?

  21. Richard C (NZ) on 24/04/2016 at 2:02 pm said:

    Cartoons by Josh – My Horse Won!
    https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/gavin-horse.jpg

    Inspired by Steve MicIntyre’s post:

    Gavin Schmidt and Reference Period “Trickery”
    https://climateaudit.org/2016/04/19/gavin-schmidt-and-reference-period-trickery/

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