UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon says, “Unless we fight climate change, unless we stop this trend, we’ll have devastating consequences for humanity.”
Other leaders make similar silly statements. Obama claims the “threat from climate change is serious, it is urgent, and it is growing.”
But which way is it growing? Which trend are they going to stop? The one predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
What’s Actually Happening?
Temperatures were predicted to increase but are declining (Figure 1). Even their lowest scenario says the world should be at least 0.3¬∞C warmer. Doesn’t sound like much but it equals half the warming they claim occurred in the preceding 130 years.
Figure 1: Global average temperature 2002 to 2009 and IPCC scenarios
As physicist David Douglass said, “If the facts are contrary to any predictions, then the hypothesis is wrong no matter how appealing.”
Facts Contradict Hypothesis
Many people pointed to facts contradicting the “appealing” hypothesis but were ignored or marginalized for several reasons. These included; apparent support from rising global temperatures between 1980 and 1998; evidence too technical for most people; effective personal attacks on skeptics; Gore’s slick propaganda movie An Inconvenient Truth despite 35 scientific errors; and the mainstream media was ignorant of the science and biased.
A plethora of evidence has not brought the hypothesis down. For example,
- The Medieval Warm Period 1000 years ago was warmer than today.
- The Holocene Optimum from 3000 to 8000 years ago was warmer than today.
- The last three Interglacial periods were warmer than the current one.
- The claim of 0.6 degrees C rise during industrial times was unverifiable because the scientist refused to disclose the evidence and then the government ‘lost’ the data.
- Four of the warmest years on record in the US were in the 1930s not the 1990s as claimed.
- 1934 was the warmest in the US not 1998 as claimed.
- The Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) adjusted historic data down to make the modern record relatively warmer.
- Temperature increases before CO2 in all records.
- CO2 levels currently at 388 ppm are the lowest in 300 million years.
- There’s a limit of at most 1.4 degrees C to the amount of temperature can increase even if CO2 doubles or triples.
- In the 20th century human production of CO2 didn’t fit the temperature record. From 1900 to 1940 human CO2 production levels were low but temperatures increased the most. From 1940 to 1980 human production levels increased the most but temperature declined.
- The models predicted the atmosphere would warm faster than the surface but the opposite is happening.
These are more than enough facts to show the hypothesis is wrong. Polls indicate the public is learning, but AGW proponents and politicians are not and continue to push their political agendas.
Nature Not Playing By The Rules
Now they face facts everyone can grasp. The Earth is cooling with record low temperatures everywhere, a contradiction with the IPCC hypothesis anyone can grasp without scientific understanding. Figure 2 shows 1998 was an unusually warm year attributed to El Nino. 1999 was cooler and AGW proponents correctly said the drop from 1998 was not evidence of a trend.
Figure 2: Global temperatures 1995 to 2009 and atmospheric CO2 levels.
Temperatures increased slightly again in 2000 (Figure 2) seeming to support the AGW contention. However, since 2002 temperatures declined gradually, making a trend that began in the Southern Hemisphere 10 years earlier global. AGW proponents are now trying to prove the trend doesn’t exist.
They play statistical games by pre-determining the trend by the starting point chosen. Choosing 2002 as a starting point appears to play the same game, however, there’s a major difference. The decline can’t happen according to the IPCC hypothesis. Their report says, “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations.”
“Very likely” is defined as greater than 90 percent likelihood.
They reinforce the point; “During the past 50 years, the sum of solar and volcanic forcings would likely have produced cooling. Observed patterns of warming and their changes are simulated only by models that include anthropogenic forcings.” But according to their Reports CO2 levels have continued to increase due to human additions. “Global GHG emissions due to human activities have grown since pre-industrial times, with an increase of 70% between 1970 and 2004.”
The second statement is also false because they don’t include two of the three known mechanisms of solar causes of temperature change in their models. They did acknowledge, “Difficulties remain in simulating and attributing observed temperature changes at smaller than continental scales” They must say this because they report, “It is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent (except Antarctica).” If CO2 was causing temperature increase it should be global. So what is happening cannot happen. The hypothesis and the models built on it are wrong. Temperature declining while CO2 increased did force one change; they switched focus from global warming to climate change.
Climate Change: What Happens When Nature Disobeys Government.
Political leaders say they are going to stop climate change. It is an arrogant, ignorant claim adopted because they accepted IPCC claims and then chose to ignore scientific evidence showing they were wrong. Now they’re ignoring nature, which doesn’t listen as the evidence shows. As Douglass says, “One finds the truth by making a hypothesis and comparing observations with the hypothesis.” The observations don’t support the hypothesis but that doesn’t matter because it fits the political objective. British MP Jeremy Thorpe said “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his friends for his political life.” Our leaders are laying the people down for their political lives. Sadly none of them will ever be held accountable, but the people will pay the price.
