The International Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) charter states that the organization’s purpose is to look for human induced climate change. The Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) does not have this problem. If we find support for human induced climate change, we say so. If we do not find support for human induced climate change, we say so. In fact, the first NIPCC report, of which I was a lead author, was called ‘Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate.’
We see no evidence in the climate record that the increase in C02, which is real, has any appreciable effect on the global temperature. IPCC relies heavily on the surface temperature data, which is distorted by a deletion of a number of surface stations. The ‘best’ stations were kept—the ones around temperature islands and by airports.
Now the Climategate leak has shown that the surface temperature data that IPCC relies on is based on distorted raw data and algorithms that they will not share with the science community. The scientists implicated in Climategate have misused peer review and pressured journal editors to prevent publication of research that questions their research. They have taken control of the IPCC process and they have smeared opponents personally, rather than critiquing the research.
IPCC’s mandate states that its role is to assess the science in a comprehensive, objective, open, and transparent manner. Unfortunately, the process has been anything but comprehensive, objective, open, and transparent. Climategate exposed this flawed process, and now it turns out that global warming might have been ‘man made’ after all.
I have traveled around Europe for a month now, talking to colleagues and people who are concerned about the draconian policies being put in place. But we are winning the science battle; the alarmist has no evidence.
The World Meteorological Organization (UN-WMO) wanted to set the tone for the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen by releasing a statement that says that the past decade has shown some of the warmest tempratures on record, based on the 160 year of instrumental data we have. Intended or not, the statement created the impression that anthropogenic global warming is the cause of increased temperature and that the IPCC was correct after all. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The WMO confuses (purposely?) two quite different concepts: temperatures, which are measured in degrees Celsius, and temperature trends, which is measured in degrees Celsius per year. Temperatures are of course at their highest right now as we are recovering from the Little Ice Age in the 1700’s. It may even become higher without any human assistance. It may even reach the high values seen in the Medieval Warm Period around 1100AD.
But the temperature trends are heading downwards, even as greenhouse gasses like C02 are increasing in the atmosphere. This negative correlation contradicts the results of the models that IPCC relies on and indicates that anthropogenic global warming is quite small.
We are winning the science battle over climate change, because IPCC’s fabrication is unraveling, but we have not yet won the war. This will take just a bit more time.
Dr. Fred Singer is the President of The Science & Environmental Policy Project and Professor Emeritus of environmental science at the University of Virginia.
