The Real Results of "Combating" Global Warming

Weather records are a state secret

Everyone has enjoyed the discomfiture of the Met Office, caught out over its April forecast that we were in for a "barbecue summer" – not least because this is the third year running that our weathermen have got their predictions for both summer and winter hopelessly wrong. In 2007 and 2008 they forecast that summers would be warmer and drier, and winters milder than average – just before temperatures plunged and the heavens opened, deluging us with abnormal rain or snow according to season.

One cause of the blunders that have made the Met Office a laughing stock is less widely appreciated, however. It is that the multi-million pound computer it uses to assist its short-term forecasting for Britain is also one of the four main official sources of data used by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to predict global warming. In this respect the IPCC's computer models have proved just as wrong in predicting global temperatures as the Met Office has been in forecasting those mild winters and heatwave summers.

Back in 1990, Mrs Thatcher, temporarily under the spell of the prophets of runaway global warming, authorised lavish funding for the then-head of the Met Office, Sir John Houghton, to set up its Hadley Centre in Exeter, as a "world-class centre for research into climate change". It was linked to the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, to create a record of global temperatures based on surface weather stations across the world, a data set known as HadCrut. Sir John himself played a key role at the top of the new IPCC as chairman of its scientific working group.

Sir John was a fervent believer in the theory that the cause of global warming is man-made CO2, and the HadCrut computer models, run by his CRU ally Professor Phil Jones, were programmed accordingly. Sir John (and the Hadley Centre) continued to play a central part in the running of the IPCC, selecting many of the contributors to its reports that were the main driver of global warming alarm. He and Prof Jones were also prominent champions of the IPCC's notorious "hockey stick" graph, which rewrote climate history by suggesting that global temperatures had suddenly shot up in the late 20th century to easily their highest level in history.

In recent years, however, the whole theory has come under increasing fire because, as CO2 levels continue to rise, temperatures have failed to follow suit as the IPCC's computer models predicted they should. Part of the reason why the Met Office has made such a mess of its forecasts for Britain is that they are based on the same models which failed to predict the declining trend in world temperatures since 2001.

In recent months, in fact, a curious little drama has been unfolding over attempts by Steve McIntyre, a Canadian statistical expert, to get the Met Office and the CRU to divulge the computer data on which they base their temperature record. Mr McIntyre was not only the chief demolisher of the "hockey stick", showing how it was based on a seriously skewed computer model, but later exposed the "adjustments" which had skewed the other official record of surface temperatures, run by Dr James Hansen of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. (The two other official sources of temperature data are based on satellite measurements.)

When Mr McIntyre made Freedom of Information requests to see the data used to construct the HadCrut record (as he has chronicled on his ClimateAudit blog) he was given an almighty brush-off, the Met Office saying that this information was strictly confidential and that to release it would damage Britain's "international relations" with all the countries that supplied it.

The idea that temperature records might be a state secret seems strange enough, but when the policies of governments across the world are based on that data it becomes odder still that no outsider should be allowed to see it. Weirdest of all, however, is the Met Office's claim that to release the data would "damage the trust that scientists have in those scientists who happen to be employed in the public sector".

Doesn't the Met Office realise that trust in it has already been damaged enough by its batty predictions of "barbecue summers"? If it wants to restore that trust, it should first come clean about its data, and then reprogramme its computer to give us forecasts that are not skewed by its obsession with global warming – which is not happening.

BBC viewers were treated last week to the bizarre spectacle of Mr Ban
Ki-moon standing on an Arctic ice-floe making a series of statements so laughable that it was hard to believe such a man can be Secretary-General of the UN. Thanks to global warming, he claimed, "100 billion tons" of polar ice are melting each year, so that within 30 years the Arctic could be "ice-free". This was supported by a WWF claim that the ice is melting so fast that, by 2100, sea-levels could rise by 1.2 metres (four feet), which would lead to "floods affecting a quarter of the world".

Everything about this oft-repeated item was propaganda of the silliest kind. Standing 700 miles from the Pole, as near as the stubbornly present ice would allow his ship to go, Mr Ban seemed unaware that, although some 10 million square kilometres (3.8 million square miles) of sea-ice melts each summer, each September the Arctic starts to freeze again. And the extent of the ice now is 500,000 sq km (190,000 sq m) greater than it was this time last year – which was, in turn, 500,000 sq km more than in September 2007, the lowest point recently recorded (see the Cryosphere Today website). By April, after months of darkness, it will be back up to 14 million sq km (5.4 million sq m) or more.

Mr Ban seems equally unaware that, even if all that sea-ice were to melt, this would no more raise sea-levels than a cube of ice melting in a gin and tonic increases the volume of liquid in the glass. If he is relying for his "100 billion tons" on land ice melting in Antarctica and Greenland, he should note that much of their ice sheets are growing rather than shrinking. His "100 billion tons" is fantasy.

Similarly worthy of the Booker Prize for fiction was WWF's claim that sea levels might rise by four feet (twice the most extreme guess by those UN computer models), let alone the ludicrous claim that this would flood "a quarter of the world". But Mr Ban was indulging in this childish publicity stunt for the same reason the BBC, the Royal Society and others have lately been banging on about various mad schemes for "climate engineering", such as putting up vast mirrors in space to keep out the sun's rays or lining our motorways with artificial trees to suck deadly CO2 out of the air, to be taken away and buried in holes in the ground.

Why are they all going off their heads like this, in emulation of the "projector" that Gulliver met on his travels, in the Academy of Lagado, who had designed a scheme for extracting sunbeams from cucumbers? It is because they are desperately trying to whip up alarm over global warming before December's planned "climate treaty" in Copenhagen, when all evidence suggests that they are not going to get the successor to the Kyoto Protocol they want.

The countries of the developing world, led by China, India, Russia and Brazil, continue to insist that, since global warming is all the fault of the already developed countries of the West, it is up to the West to cut its CO2 emissions by 80 per cent, while the rest of the world is allowed to catch up. Some, such as China, are prepared to make token emission cuts, but only so long as they are compensated by the West to the tune of trillions of pounds a year. As some of the gloomier warmists admit, Copenhagen looks to be a dead duck.

According to Government figures, however, we in Britain are already committed to spending, under the Climate Change Act, £18 billion every year between now and 2050 on this nonsense – daft light bulbs (see below), electricity blackouts and all. In other words, we are only beginning to see some of the nastier consequences of this crazy make-believe, based on nothing more substantial than the kind of gibberish we got last week from Mr "Light Bulb" Ban and the BBC.

Industrialized nations already send about $21-billion in environmental aid to developing nations each year, most of it destined for clean air and water projects. But that is a trifle of what is needed, according to a United Nations body. Last week, the World Economic and Social Survey (UNWESS) concluded that between US$500-billion and US$600-billion -- more than 20 times current aid levels -- will be required annually if developed nations are to cut their greenhouse emissions without slowing their economies.

That figure is absurd and more proof that world climate talks aimed at reaching a successor agreement to the Kyoto accords are as much or more about wealth redistribution from the world's richest nations to everyone else than they are about the environment.

The United Nations hopes to conclude a new world climate treaty in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December. But in negotiations for this new accord, the environment and climate change have moved to the back seat. Representatives from emerging economies

have insisted for the past six months or more that their economies must be protected from any downturns caused by reducing their emissions of CO2 and other so-called greenhouse gases. And China, India and other developing nations such as Brazil and Indonesia insist that since most of the extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was put there by industrialized nations while they were making themselves rich, it should be industrialized nations that foot the half-a-trillion dollar annual bill.

China's government estimated that even more would be needed, perhaps as much as a trillion dollars a year. Last week, central government economists in Beijing concluded it would cost US$438-billion per year by 2030 for China to even come close to meeting projected UN emission targets. That would be about 7.5% of China's GDP in 20 years, an astronomical sum. And China's government made it clear it had no intentions of footing that bill itself, either through higher taxes or in jobs cut.

While its economy has been growing by 10% or more a year for the past decade, China's emissions have been growing by at least 12% annually, very likely more. The country is opening an average of one coal-fired electrical plant each week. Even with over $400-billion in ecoaid within two decades, China is likely to be able to cut its emissions growth to only 3.4% annually, not the 0.8% to 1.0% wanted by the UN.

All this money could be sent to China by Canada, the United States, Britain, Australia, France, Germany and other industrialized countries, at great economic cost to each of them, and still China would not live up to the UN's standards.

Nonetheless, the UNWESS called on developed-world governments to get behind a climate "Marshall Plan," a reference to the massive aid and economic programs created by the Americans following the Second World War to help rebuild Europe's shattered economies. But even the Marshall Plan would pale in comparison to the UN's climate fantasies.

The world's wealthiest nations do not have that much money to throw around. The report's authors insist the number is achievable because it is "only" 1% of worldwide GDP. But to demand it from just a couple of dozen "rich" countries would mean an additional $3,000 to $4,000 dollars a year in taxes from each family in the industrialized world, a sum that would kill jobs and growth and lower the standard of living in those nations. (Funny, the UN is always concerned about keeping developing nations whole in all these discussions, but never bats an eye at plans that would devastate developed nations, likely because the world body believes the developed world's comfort is unfair.)

The unrealistic financial demands of emerging nations is the principal reason G20 finance ministers could not reach an environmental funding agreement last weekend in London and why both G20 leaders summiting in Pittsburgh later this month and UN climate representatives meeting in New York are unlikely to come to any agreements on costs.

There are almost no scientific discussions of note going on over the new Copenhagen accord. Money has become the dominant topic for the upcoming conference, which isn't surprising. The UN has never been as concerned about preventing global warming as it is about using the issue for social, political and economic ends.

http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/story.html?id=1977543&p=2

The Obama administration opened a new front in its effort to impose $31.5 billion in taxes on oil and gas companies, saying that the nation puts too much emphasis on oil and gas at the expense of other industries.

The chief economist in the Obama administration's Treasury Department testified before a Senate panel that current subsidies "lead to overinvestment" in the oil and gas industry. That went beyond previous statements about the need to protect taxpayers and was the clearest signal yet that the federal government hopes to end its role in nurturing domestic oil and gas production.

"To the extent that current subsidies for the oil and gas industry encourage the overproduction of oil and natural gas, they divert resources from other, potentially more efficient investments, and they are inconsistent with the Obama administration's goals to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and build a new, clean energy economy," Alan Krueger, the Treasury's chief economist, told the panel.

"That's absurd," said Devon Energy Corp. (DVN) Chief Executive Larry Nichols, the chairman of the American Petroleum Institute, before the panel. "At a time when respected energy studies agree on the need to increase all sources of domestic energy, it makes absolutely no sense to discourage production of our leading sources, oil and natural gas."

For years, Republicans encouraged oil as part of an "all of the above" strategy intended to reduce reliance on imports, especially from unstable parts of the world. But the Obama administration is trying to shift the debate amid a focus on global warming. Oil is viewed by the Obama administration as part of the problem because transportation accounts for more than a quarter of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

The new rhetoric isn't sitting well with Congress. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, warned that the U.S. would be "at a tremendous disadvantage" if the country turned its back on oil, gas and coal. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., a moderate voice in the Democratic party, cited "concerns" about some of the proposals, urging sensitivity to regional interests. Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., used stronger language.

"We are 62% imported from not very friendly countries right now on oil," Bunning said. Krueger replied: "That's correct. The best way for us to reduce" -- but Bunning cut him off. "Is to become less independent -- is that what you're saying?" Bunning said.

The Obama administration also may run into inconsistencies as it shapes its own energy program. By taking away tax incentives for gas production, the U.S. would be discouraging a cleaner-burning fossil fuel that is seen by some environmentalists as central to transitioning away from coal.

"This counterproductive approach is also at odds with the administration's own carbon reduction policy because it would discourage the production of natural gas, our cleanest fossil fuel," said Nichols.

Calling it an "insurance policy" for Pacific Northwest salmon, the Obama administration on Tuesday offered up a tougher conservation plan for the fish that includes climate-change monitoring and the "last-resort" possibility of removing dams.

Contrary to what is said in the popular media, water (H2O) is the most important greenhouse gas in Earth's atmosphere, not the small amount of demonized CO2. But aside from acting as a greenhouse gas, water vapor plays an active role in shaping global atmospheric circulation and thus Earth's climate. Water does this by undergoing state changes—from liquid to vapor and back again—allowing water vapor to carry significant amounts of latent heat from the warm equatorial regions toward the poles. The importance of this heat transfer mechanism in climate regulation is poorly understood but new data have begun to show the impact is major. One thing is certain, most widely used climate models do not correctly account for the complex dynamics of water vapor.

In a detailed study of the mechanisms and effects of water vapor, to be published in Reviews of Geophysics, Tapio Schneider and Xavier Levine of the California Institute of Technology, and Paul A. O’Gorman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have expanded our knowledge of water's role in climate regulation while showing just how poorly understood the Earth climate system really is. Our level of collective ignorance is explained at the start of the paper:

Although the mechanisms are not well understood, it is widely appreciated that heating and cooling of air through phase changes of water are integral to moist convection and dynamics in the equatorial region. But that water vapor plays an active and important role in dynamics globally is less widely appreciated, and how it does so is only beginning to be investigated.

As we reported in The Resilient earth, the role of water as a greenhouse gas was first methodically investigated by Irish scientist John Tyndall in the mid 19th century. An accomplished mountaineer, Tyndall was fascinated by Louis Agassiz's daring proposal of ice ages, in which glaciers once covered enormous parts of the world. Looking for mechanisms to explain climate change, he established the absorptive power of clear aqueous vapour—water vapor. To investigate this phenomenon he constructed the first spectrophotometer, shown below.

The rest here.

“MITCHELL Taylor is a Polar Bear researcher who has caught more polar bears and worked on more polar bear groups than any other, but he was effectively ostracized from the Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) specifically because he has publicly expressed doubts that there is a crisis due to carbon dioxide emissions.

“Dr Andy Derocher, the outgoing chairman of the PSBG and Professor at the University of Alberta, wrote to inform Taylor that he was not welcome at the 2009 meeting of the PBSG.

“Keep in mind as you read his comments (below) that Taylor had arranged funding to attend the meeting in Copenhagen, and has been at every meeting of this group since 1981. With 30 years of experience in polar bear research, it goes without saying that he has something to contribute to any discussion about polar bear conservation. This is the original email from Derocher to Taylor explaining why he was not invited:

Hi Mitch,

The world is a political place and for polar bears, more so now than ever before. I have no problem with dissenting views as long as they are supportable by logic, scientific reasoning, and the literature.

I do believe, as do many Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) members, that for the sake of polar bear conservation, views that run counter to human induced climate change are extremely unhelpful. In this vein, your positions and statements in the Manhattan Declaration, the Frontier Institute, and the Science and Public Policy Institute are inconsistent with positions taken by the PBSG.

I too was not surprised by the members not endorsing an invitation.

Nothing I heard had to do with your science on harvesting or your research on polar bears – it was the positions you’ve taken on global warming that brought opposition.

Time will tell who is correct but the scientific literature is not on the side of those arguing against human induced climate change.
I look forward to having someone else chair the PBSG.

Best regards,
Andy (Derocher) …

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