A group of four scientists has sent a letter to the UN’s IPCC asking them to “admit that there is no observational evidence in measured data going back 22,000 years or even millions of years that CO2 levels (whether from man or nature) have driven or are driving world temperatures.”

This is reprint of the letter sent to the IPCC on Monday, April 14

14 April 2008

Dear Dr. Pachauri and others associated with IPCC

We are writing to you and others associated with the IPCC position – that man’s CO2 is a driver of global warming and climate change – to ask that you now in view of the evidence retract support from the current IPCC position [as in footnote 1] and admit that there is no observational evidence in measured data going back 22,000 years or even millions of years that CO2 levels (whether from man or nature) have driven or are driving world temperatures or climate change.

If you believe there is evidence of the CO2 driver theory in the available data please present a graph of it.

We draw your attention to three observational refutations of the IPCC position (and note there are more). Ice-core data from the ACIA (Arctic Climate Impact Assessment) shows that temperatures have fallen since around 4,000 years ago (the Bronze Age Climate Optimum) while CO2 levels have risen, yet this graphical data was not included in the IPCC Summary for Policymakers (Fig. SPM1 Feb07) which graphed the CO2 rise.

More recent data shows that in the opposite sense to IPCC predictions world temperatures have not risen and indeed have fallen over the past 10 years while CO2 levels have risen dramatically.
The up-dated temperature measurements have been released by the NASA’s Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) [1] as well as by the UK’s Hadley Climate Research Unit (Temperature v. 3, variance adjusted - Hadley CRUT3v) [2]. In parallel, readings of atmospheric concentrations of CO2 have been released by the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii [3]. They have been combined in graphical form by Joe D’Aleo [4], and are shown below.

These latest temperature readings represent averages of records obtained from standardized meteorological stations from around the planet, located in both urban as well as rural settings. They are augmented by satellite data, now generally accepted as ultimately authoritative, since they have a global footprint and are not easily vulnerable to manipulation nor observer error. What is also clear from the graphs is that average global temperatures have been in stasis for almost a decade, and may now even be falling.

A third important observation is that contrary to the CO2 driver theory, temperatures in the upper troposphere (where most jets fly) have fallen over the past two decades. [Footnote 2]

IPCC policy is already leading to economic and unintended environmental damage. Specifically the policy of burning food - maize as biofuel - has contributed to sharp rises in food prices which are causing great hardship in many countries and is also now leading to increased deforestation in Brazil, Malaysia, Indonesia, Togo, Cambodia, Nigeria, Burundi, Sri Lanka, Benin and Uganda for cultivation of crops [5].

Given the economic devastation that is already happening and which is now widely recognised will continue to flow from this policy, what possible justification can there be for its retention?

We ask you and all those whose names are associated with IPCC policy to accept the scientific observations and renounce current IPCC policy.

Yours sincerely,

Hans Schreuder, Analytical Chemist, mMensa, hans@tech-know.eu

Piers Corbyn, Astrophysicist UK, Dir. WeatherAction.com, piers@weatheraction.com

Dr Don Parkes, Prof. Em. Human Ecology, Australia, dnp@networksmm.com.au

Svend Hendriksen, Nobel Peace Prize 1988 (shared), Greenland, hendriksen@greennet.gl

Cc: IPCC’s yu.izrael@g23.relcom.ru christy@nsstc.uah.edu spencer@nsstc.uah.edu dy.pitman@gmail.com

Tim Yeo MP (Chairman Environmental Audit Committee) Lord Martin Rees (President Royal Society)

Gordon Brown MP David Cameron MP Nick Glegg MP

Footnote 1: Two heavily publicised quotations which emerged from your organisation, respectively in February and December last year, are:

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. It is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent (except Antarctica) (Figure SPM.4).{2.4} [6] and

The 2007 IPCC report, compiled by several hundred climate scientists, has unequivocally concluded that our climate is warming rapidly, and that we are now at least 90% certain that this is mostly due to human activities. The amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere now far exceeds the natural range of the past 650,000 years, and it is rising very quickly due to human activity. If this trend is not halted soon, many millions of people will be at risk from extreme events such as heat waves, drought, floods and storms, our coasts and cities will be threatened by rising sea levels, and many ecosystems, plants and animal species will be in serious danger of extinction. (Summary statement, Bali Conference.) [7].

Footnote 2: “Data over the past two decades indicates that temperatures have actually declined in the upper troposphere, even though there has been some minor upward trends in temperature at sea level and lower altitudes. This completely contradicts conventional global warming models. Before we radically rearrange the political economy of the world because some scientists claim anthropogenic CO2 is the cause of climate change, it might be worthwhile for anyone taking a position on the topic to consider whether or not this is indeed “well settled science.” Dr. Richard Lindzen, MIT, March 2008.

References:

1. http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/msu.html

2. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature

3. http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

4. http://icecap.us/index.php/go/experts Joseph D’Aleo, Certified Consultant Meteorologist,

Fellow of the American Meteorological Society (AMS), Executive Director Icecap.us

5. http://rainforests.mongabay.com/0801.htm

6. http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf

7. http://www.climate.unsw.edu.au/bali/

Here’s a presentation made by Professor Bob Carter from Australia. He is a paleontologist, stratigrapher, marine geologist and environmental scientist with more than thirty years professional experience.

The movie clip is 37 minutes long and not the best quality, but still well worth seeing. I encourage you all to watch it.

The other night, I amused myself by looking up all the people on IPCC’s Core Writing Team (the 4th report). Here are the results of the Swedish jury:

Name - Title
Bernstein, Lenny - Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering
Bosch, Peter - Technical Support Unit
Canziani, Osvaldo - Professor, Applied Meteorology
Chen, Zhenlin - Deputy Director-General of the Department of International Cooperation, China Meteorological Administration
Christ, Renate - Secretary IPCC
Davidson, Ogunlade - Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Hare, William - B.Sc. in Environmental Science and Physics, visiting scientist on leave from Greenpeace
Huq, Saleemul - B.Sc. and Ph.D. in Plant Sciences
Karoly, David - Professor, Meteorology
Kattsov, Vladimir - Doctor of Sciences in Physics and Mathematics with a specialty in atmosphere and hydrosphere physics
Kundzewicz, Zbyszek- International Association of Hydrological Sciences
Liu, Jian - Secretariat, IPCC
Lohmann, Ulrike - Professor, Experimental Atmospheric Physics
Manning, Martin - Former head of the IPCC Technical Support Unit, Professor at Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand
Matsuno, Taroh - Fundamental contributions to the theory of waves and wave flow interaction in geophysical systems
Menne, Bettina - Medical Officer, WHO
Metz, Bert - Dr. in Chemical Engineering
Mirza, Monirul - Environmental scientist
Nicholls, Neville - Senior Principal Research Scientist and Leader, Climate Forecasting Group, Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre
Nurse, Leonard - M.Sc. Climatology
Pachauri, Rajendra - Chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Palutikof, Jean - Technical Support Unit IPCC
Parry, Martin - Professor, Environmental Science
Qin, Dahe - Head of the China Meteorological Administration
Ravindranath, Nijavalli - BSc. and MSc. in Agriculture, Ph.D. in Humanities-Economics
Reisinger, Andy - Ph.D. in Environmental Physics
Ren, Jiawen - Research specialty: glaciology
Riahi, Keywan - Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Management, and Economics
Rosenzweig, Cynthia - B.Sc. in Agricultural Sciences
Rusticucci, Matilde - Meteorologist
Schneider, Stephen - Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and Plasma Physics
Sokona, Youba - Executive Secretary of the Sahara and Sahel Observatory (OSS)
Solomon, Susan - Atmospheric Chemistry
Stott, Peter - Climate scientist
Stouffer, Ronald - M.Sc. in Meteorology
Sugiyama, Taishi - Senior Researcher at the Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry
Swart, Rob - Head of the Technical Support Unit
Tirpak, Dennis, Director of the Global Change Division, Office of Policy and Planning, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Vogel, Coleen - Professor, Sustainability, climatologist by training
Yohe, Gary - M.A., Mathematics, M.Phil. and Ph.D., Economics, Environmental economist

40 people, whereof 18 with a clear link to climate studies. Although I could be wrong, since I’m no expert in these issues. Next, I’m thinking of contacting them to see if they agree with IPCC’s latest report.

The Flood is near! A large chunk of the Wilkins ice shelf in Antarctica is hanging by a thread ready to collapse into the sea. A clear sign of global warming! Antarctica is a thermometer that can’t be ignored, states Times Online today. And I fully agree.

The thing is that the Wilkins ice shelf is hardly the same as Antarctica. It is a part of the Antarctic peninsula, the northernmost part of the mainland of Antarctica, and almost the only part of that continent that extends outside the Antarctic Circle. See the relation between the peninsula and the rest of the continent in the picture below.

Let me ask you, if you lose a hair, do you automatically assume you are going bald? Times Online obviously does.

But there is no longer any reasonable doubt that climate change is the cause; that it would take centuries of lower temperatures for these ice shelves to re-form; and that if they do not, the great ice sheets of the Antarctic interior will be the next to melt.

Times Online admits though that all the eight ice shelf collapses in the past 30 years have occurred on the Antarctic Peninsula and that there is evidence that mean temperature at the South Pole is actually falling. But Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the IPCC, has seized on the Wilkins event to give warning of “irreversible and abrupt changes” including cataclysmic sea level rises.

In the light of world temperatures slightly falling I guess IPCC is desperately catching at every straw.

Science Daily reports today that scientists have for the first time detected regionally elevated atmospheric CO2 originating from manmade emissions. Using data from the SCIAMACHY instrument aboard ESA’s Envisat environmental satellite, they have found an extended plume over Europe’s most populated area, the region from Amsterdam in the Netherlands to Frankfurt, Germany.

I can almost see the alarmists dancing with rapture. However, we should first have a closer look on the diagram.

In the picture above, we can clearly see the areas of higher CO2 concentration marked in red. But look at the scale below the diagram. The difference between high and “normal” is measly 2.5 ppm. How is that for significant contribution? Also, let’s not forget that the IPCC predicts that increasing CO2 concentrations will result in a warmer climate. I got my hand read once. None of the predictions made then came true.

Dr Michael Buchwitz from the Institute of Environmental Physics (IUP) at the University of Bremen in Germany says that carbon dioxide emissions occur naturally as well as being created through human activities, like the burning of fossil fuels (oil, coal, gas) for power generation, industry and traffic. Dr Buchwitz doesn’t mention the CO2 we all emit in our breath. It kind of makes sense that there is more CO2 in a densely populated area, such as the Netherlands.

“The natural CO2 fluxes between the atmosphere and the Earth’s surface are typically much larger then the CO2 fluxes arising from manmade CO2 emissions, making the detection of regional anthropogenic CO2 emission signals quite difficult,” Buchwitz explains. “This does not mean, however, that the anthropogenic fluxes are of minor importance. In fact, the opposite is true because the manmade fluxes are only going in one direction whereas the natural fluxes operate in both directions, taking up atmospheric CO2 when plants grow, but releasing most or all of it again when the plants decay.”

Dr Buchwitz admits though that significant gaps remain in the knowledge of CO2 sources, such as fires, volcanic activity and the respiration of living organisms, and its natural sinks, such as the land and the ocean. He also says “more studies are needed before definitive quantitative conclusions concerning CO2 emissions can be drawn”.

That leaves us with a nice little diagram that basically means zilch. Or as Shakespeare would say: “Much ado about nothing”.

Source: European Space Agency (2008, March 19). Satellite Makes First Ever Observation Of Regionally Elevated Carbon Dioxide From Manmade Emissions. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 19, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com– /releases/2008/03/080318110330.htm

The Washington Post story on the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) shows just how persistently the media favors climate alarmism and how little interest they have in reporting any research that diverges from the alarmist orthodoxy. It is standard fare to sew doubt about the suspect’s credibility, but The Washington Post way of comparing the NIPCC report to the IPCC’s ditto of last year was most unfavorable.

After reminding readers that the IPCC and former U.S. vice-president Al Gore shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for their work on climate change, the paper then added: “While the IPCC enlisted several hundred scientists from more than 100 countries to work over five years to produce its series of reports, the NIPCC document is the work of 23 authors from 15 nations, some of them not scientists.”

Hundreds of scientists may in some way have contributed to the IPCC’s report, but just 62 wrote the chapter said to “prove” that man is behind global warming. And just 52 people, many of them non-scientists, wrote the IPCC’s Summary.

The thing is that no matter what the IPCC and its defenders claim, The Washington Post and other outlets should report objectively. Meanwhile, the motives and sources of all skeptics are instantly suspected and ridiculed.

Here’s an example. Inspired by all the fantastic presentations given at the New York conference last week, I wrote a debate article and sent it to all the major daily papers in Sweden (which is where I live). While most of them ignored me, I got a polite answer from the most prestigious one (Svenska Dagbladet). The editor made it clear that there isn’t any space available and wished me luck somewhere else.

Of course, I recognized this as pure bullshit. There is always space available for breaking news. So I replied, equally politely.

It’s unfortunate that you turn down an article that questions today’s biggest issue on the environmental agenda. Unfortunately, I am well aware of your true motives. It’s not about lack of space, it is about good old censorship.

The answer came swiftly. And this time it was honest.

Dear Maggie,
You are fully entitled to your own opinions, even if they are contrary to most of the serious scientists in the world.

To think that humans do not affect the climate is extreme and I won’t publish such a view in this paper. It is simply not credible.

All the best,
Sune Olofson
Svenska Dagbladet

In other words, I have been labeled an extremist. But let me ask you, which is more extreme?

To think that the global warming is moderate and its consequences positive for humans as well as animal and plant life? That it is part of the Earth’s natural climate changes? That human activity does not have a significant effect on the climate and there is nothing to worry about?

Or is it perhaps more extreme to think that we are witnessing the greatest catastrophe ever, one that will claim millions of lives and forever change the face of the planet? That we must radically reduce our emissions through all kinds of imperative measures, thus risking stagnation of world economy? That we should use agricultural land for production of expensive and inefficient biofuels, which results in runaway prices on basic foodstuffs and aggravated hunger and starvation?

You be the judge.