Global Cooling? Perhaps Not.
It looks like Investors Business Daily is getting in on the act. They write:
Back in 1991, before Al Gore first shouted that the Earth was in the balance, the Danish Meteorological Institute released a study using data that went back centuries that showed that global temperatures closely tracked solar cycles.
To many, those data were convincing. Now, Canadian scientists are seeking additional funding for more and better “eyes” with which to observe our sun, which has a bigger impact on Earth’s climate than all the tailpipes and smokestacks on our planet combined.
And they’re worried about global cooling, not warming.
Kenneth Tapping, a solar researcher and project director for Canada’s National Research Council, is among those looking at the sun for evidence of an increase in sunspot activity.
Solar activity fluctuates in an 11-year cycle. But so far in this cycle, the sun has been disturbingly quiet. The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century.
Such an event occurred in the 17th century. The observation of sunspots showed extraordinarily low levels of magnetism on the sun, with little or no 11-year cycle.
This solar hibernation corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. Frigid winters and cold summers during that period led to massive crop failures, famine and death in Northern Europe.
Tapping reports no change in the sun’s magnetic field so far this cycle and warns that if the sun remains quiet for another year or two, it may indicate a repeat of that period of drastic cooling of the Earth, bringing massive snowfall and severe weather to the Northern Hemisphere.
Tapping oversees the operation of a 60-year-old radio telescope that he calls a “stethoscope for the sun.” But he and his colleagues need better equipment.
In Canada, where radio-telescopic monitoring of the sun has been conducted since the end of World War II, a new instrument, the next-generation solar flux monitor, could measure the sun’s emissions more rapidly and accurately.
As we have noted many times, perhaps the biggest impact on the Earth’s climate over time has been the sun.
Of course, never one to think critically when somebody tells him what he wants to hear, frequent anti-AGW commenter Number9 eats this up over at TennesseeFree.com:
Better hope this is not the case. It would make Global Warming look like a good deal. This has actually happened before. It wasn’t pleasant.
Of course, I pointed out in comments that for one thing, the Maunder minimum is still quite controversial as a cause for the “Little Ice Age,” and I’ve pointed out several times that the best information we have says that solar variance could account for at most a quarter of the warming we’ve been seeing.
But I’m not a scientist. I just do basic research. And, when I noticed that the IBD never actually directly quoted Dr. Tapping, and only talked about him (all of the direct quotes come from R. Timothy Patterson, a fairly well-known AGW denier), I decided to do something that the “fine journalists” over at IBD couldn’t be bothered to do: I contacted Dr. Tapping directly and asked him about it. Dr. Tapping responds:
Hi Tom,
Thanks for the message. The stuff on the web came from a casual chat
with someone who managed to misunderstand what I said and then put the
result on the web, which is probably a big caution for me regarding the
future.It is true that the beginning of the next solar cycle is late, but not so
late that we are getting worried, merely curious.It is the opinion of scientists, including me, that global warming is a
major issue, and that it might be too late to do anything about it
already. If there is a cooling due to the solar activity cycle laying off
for a bit, then the a period of solar cooling could be a much-needed
respite giving us more time to attack the problem of greenhouse gases,
with the caveat that if we do not, things will be far worse when things
turn on again after a few decades. However, once again it is early days
and we cannot at the moment conclude there is another minimum started.Thanks for the heads-up.
Regards,
Ken
Wait, what? A business magazine and a mostly right-wing web site took a scientists statements and work out of context in the service of a political agenda? Stop the presses!
Given the history of the anti-AGW movement and their ever-moving target, $10 says they ignore how wrong they were on this one, and instead seize on the “might be too late to do anything about it” part as their next windmill to tilt at.
NOTE: Upon requesting permission to publish the above, Dr. Tapping responds:
Please feel free to quote what I said. I think it is a real shame
that we sometimes see the downside of the freedom of the web, and that an
investment journal would quote reports like that without going to their
source.
Clearly, Dr. Tapping is a tough man to get a hold of, given that John Q. Nobody in Memphis, TN [that would be me] was able to correspond with him twice in one day. Mental note: Don’t trust anything you read in the Investors Business Daily.
And extra-special thanks to Dr. Tapping for being so cooperative in all of this.
Cross-posted at Lean Left.
[…] Cross-posted at TennesseeFree.com […]
So basically, they don’t know. That works both ways doesn’t it?
That’s what I call a major-league slam dunk … caught red-handed manipulating a scientist’s quotes out of context to deliver a false conclusion. Thanks for the much needed expose of the way conservative science deniers manipulate information, grasping at straws to further a political agenda. You can bet this misinformation is red meat for the weak-minded conservative blog community and is making the rounds like a virus. Of course Drudge has linked to this story, a virtual clearing house of wingnut ignorance and lies.
Number 9:
It’s not about what we don’t know; it’s about what we do know. They don’t know if we’re in a Maunder minimum right now. They do know that human activity exacerbates global warming, and that even if we are in a Maunder minimum, any cooling that may result from that will be at best a brief (and much-needed) respite from current warming trends.
This comment on my earlier post; re-posting here.
Because of the relevance!
Are you debunking, William, for purely scientific reasons, or because of your own “political motivations”; your war on Conservatives and Republicans?
Actually, your war is on our Capitalist Economic system, which for the most part has given humanity the electronic and other structural tools needed to collectively advance our race past the animalistic, and has allowed our race at this moment to reach crescendo, the point where we are the most enlightened, intelligent, flourished, and remarkable we’ve ever attained. So much so that everyone else wants to be here; China wants what we want, and, except for a very few nations, we are at the top of the heap.
There is room to change, there is room to improve. There are those of us who would improve the way things are done without destroying where and who we are in the process. Al Gore has proposed catastrophic economic change, for reasons that are well beyond a few tenths of a degree of global warming. I believe he hates capitalism so much, that he would destroy what we have attained (and return us to a much less sophisticated point in history) to ‘get’ his way. And he is using junk science to do so, while attempting to stifle those scientists who disagree.
Look to your own heart, William. Do you really want Al Gore to lead you on his quest to cultural and technological devolution?
Welcome aboard Tgirsch.
Ser8d,
Once again, you are assuming that because I am not a politically motivated science denier like you, I am in favor of “catastrophic economic changes”. Baseless assumption. I know it’s hard to rise above your wingnut culture but do your best to seperate science from politics. Don’t fall for shit like that stuff you and #9 posted, that has just been exposed as fraudulent.
Well It is the solar cycle. Man has so little effect it would be almost unmeasurable and meaningless. On the dvd ‘the global warming swindle’ the outakes has a chapter on this. It is a great presentation.
Another ignorant conservative. It’s really no surprise these people can be manipulated so easily, to get their vote based on fear and some vague notion of “values.”
OK “Mickey”
I’ll try to explain it to you. Yes, you are right there are ’solar cycles’ - the most important solar cycle that affects climate over a period of thousands of years is called a Milankovitch cycle. These cycles occur every 100,000 years and have shown very regular reoccuring peaks and valleys of global temperature and CO2 levels. These regular cycles have been in place for at least 600,000 years as determined by ice core samples. However there has been a sudden adn extreme deviation from this regular pattern, an extreme spike in CO2 and temperature that has occured exactly simultaneously and at the same rate as the advent of fossile fuel burning. This abrupt spike in CO2 and temperature is not part of the normal solar Milankovitch cycle, something has thrown off the natural balance to create the biggest and most abrupt spike of CO2 in human history. Now that you know it is not part of a natural solar cycle, can you guess what might be causing this?
No the spike in CO2 and temps did not occur simultaneously. The Global warming crowd says, increase in CO2 comes first then increase in Temp. But the data says, increase in Temp first then increase in CO2.
You can cry all you like, the DATA don’t lie.
oh , William , your graph is misleading (typical tree hugger style). You only go back 400,000 years. When you talk about GLOBAL things go back Millions of years…
You will see that Now, yes even Now CO2 levels are the LOWEST still in the last 500 Million years. So, why where they so high 500 Million years ago? All the SUV’s back then? Oh, where was this graph made? Where is the Data?
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/99/7/4167#B18
Welcome aboard Tgirsch.
Mickey, What you fail to undersatnd is that it is more valid to make climate compasions to a relatively recent geologic period, such as the last million years, since 10s and hundreds of millions of years ago, the ocean chemistry was quite different as was volcanic and tectonic activity. For example, during the Paleocene epoch, about 55 million years ago, North America, still joined with Greenland broke free from Eurasia, opening the Norwegian Sea. The Atlantic and Indian Oceans continued to expand rapidly. Australia split from Antarctica and moved rapidly northward, as India did more than 40 million years earlier. This was a time of major tectonic activity and vulcanism. Comparing periods such as these to the last million years to make a point about global warming is silly, invalid, and ignorant.
A spike in CO2 like we are experiencing today is uncharted territory. It certainly has happened before, but not since man has been around, a scant 2.5 million years. We can look to see the affect of CO2 on temperature during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), a period in which oceanic and atmospheric circulation was upset, leading to mass extinction. During this event, the planet heated up in one of the most rapid and extreme global warming events recorded in geologic history. Sea surface temperatures rose between 5 and 8°C over a period of a few thousand years. If the projectons are even close, we are heading toward another extinction level event, but don’t worry, we won’t be around to see it. Remember, it only took a change of 5 to 8°C over a few thousand years, we’re looking now at a much more rapid and dramatic change.
Mickey, some advice: get some education.
Mickey:
Well It is the solar cycle. Man has so little effect it would be almost unmeasurable and meaningless.
Did you even bother reading? I explicitly pointed out that solar variance could only account for a quarter of current warming at most. Most believe it’s a lot less than that. And as you’d know if you’d read, the sun’s output has been lessening for about a decade, while the planet continues to warm at an alarming rate. How can the sun be warming responsibility the planet if its intensity is on a decade-long downturn?
As to your 500 million years ago stuff, I think William addressed that quite nicely.
Serr8d:
Way to address the substance, there, buddy.
But where is there reasoning that MAN has done anything that may have ANY effect on the Climate? None!
William, even if the globe is warming, So What? Our abundance of planetary species do much better in warm climes. We may lose a few species, but over a few hundreds of thousands of years, others will evolve to take their places.
Why do you just look to only human’s lousy lifespans as timescales? Mickey was exactly right…we are but bare scratches on the geological history of this planet. When finally we humans are done (replaced or extinct) there will be other species evolved, to take our places.
You deny any personal ‘political’ involvement in all of this Global Warmology. Well, that’s absolutely a lie. You’ve espoused the leftist viewpoint from day one, and would jump on any bandwagon that is against Conservatives, and now I’m saying you’re anti-Capitalist as well.
Own it William, you too are a partisan hack.
You deny any personal ‘political’ involvement in all of this Global Warmology. Well, that’s absolutely a lie.
You will not be able to give us evidence to support that accusation, because I have never proposed or endorsed on global warming mitigation strategies. I come from a position of reality and science. You come from a position with a political agenda and that is why your opinions are tainted, lack validity.
They do know that human activity exacerbates global warming,
Oh really?
“They” are the so called scientist that agree with tgirsch’s viewpoint. Other scientist need not apply.
I come from a position of reality and science. You come from a position with a political agenda and that is why your opinions are tainted, lack validity.
That is getting a little deep. Sounds like rubber and glue.
Mickey:
But where is there reasoning that MAN has done anything that may have ANY effect on the Climate? None!
Are you really that ignorant of the issue? CO2 is a greenhouse gas, which contributes to warming. Nobody — and I mean nobody with an ounce of credibility — denies this. Burning fossil fuels produces CO2, which increases the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, which increases that warming effect. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere right now is the highest it’s been in human history, and the only change that explains that increase is human consumption of fossil fuels. It’s really not that difficult to connect those dots.
Serr8d:
William, even if the globe is warming, So What? Our abundance of planetary species do much better in warm climes.
Oh, for the love of Christ, if you’re going to debate this subject, you could at least try to know something about it. I would hope for something more intelligent than “I like warm, warm good.” If the climate models are correct, global warming will result in less frequent rain, and more intense rain when we do get it, a cycle of storms and droughts that’s Not Good for crops. Until we invent a Star Trek like protein-resequencer, we still need crops.
Further, if mountain glaciers continue to disappear at their current rate, water for irrigation may not be our only problem. Water for drinking could become a problem. Glacier melt provides a steady supply of fresh water to Western North America. When those are gone, then what?
Plus, among the species that really like it warm are some particularly nasty diseases, who might find the warmer climate quite welcoming.
Basically, there could be a few positive changes from a warming world, but these are far outweighed by the negatives.
Number 9:
“They” are the so called scientist that agree with tgirsch’s viewpoint. Other scientist need not apply.
“They” happen to be the overwhelming majority of scientists in related fields. It’s not like I’ve cherry-picked from a very small minority. That’s your job.
water vapor is 99. % of greenhouse gas. CO2 .1 % Dont you thing water 3/4 of the globe has more to do with it?
Right Mickey,
The fact that the rat of fossil fuel burning mirrors exactly the CO2 rise, must be just some weid coincidence, or maybe a liberal conspiracy?
rate
Mickey:
Except that the concentration of water vapor in the atmosphere hasn’t changed at all, while the concentration of CO2 has changed drastically. Were it not for that, you might have actually had a point.
But keep ‘em coming. It will be interesting to see what oft-discredited objection you’ll throw against the wall next in hopes it will stick. I’m thinking about starting a pool…
Kinda cold out there…
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080211/D8UNSGJG0.html
Call Al Gore, I’m ready for some heat.
Or, translating #9’s last comment into English, “I’m too stupid to know the difference between weather and climate.”
Any time it rains in Arizona, it proves that they’re not in the desert!
[Contact: Marc Morano - Marc_Morano@EPW.Senate.GOV — Matthew Dempsey - Matthew_Dempsey@EPW.Senate.gov - U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (Minority)]
Click here to bypass introduction and go to the report.
U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007
Senate Report Debunks “Consensus”
Report Released on December 20, 2007
U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (Minority)
UPDATE: Former Vice President Al Gore responds to Senate report within hours of release. (LINK)
UPDATE 1/29/08: Senate report impacting climate debate. Sampling of international coverage of report: UK Telegraph; Boston Herald; Canada’s National Post; New York Times; Fox News; CNNMoney.com; Human Events; Croatia’s Javno; The Cincinnati Enquirer; WorldNetDaily.com; United Press International (UPI); Spero News; New Zealand Herald; CNSNews.com; Real Clear Politics; PA’s Morning Call; Investor’s Business Daily; Philippine’s Manila Standard; Colorado Springs Gazette; Canada Free Press; Newsmax.com; CA’s Orange County Register; Nashua Telegraph; Yahoo News; & Australia’s Herald Sun;
UPDATE: IMPACT: Scientist ponders reconsidering his view of man-made climate fears after Senate report of 400 scientists (LINK)
INTRODUCTION:
Over 400 prominent scientists from more than two dozen countries recently voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called “consensus” on man-made global warming. These scientists, many of whom are current and former participants in the UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), criticized the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore.
The new report issued by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s office of the GOP Ranking Member details the views of the scientists, the overwhelming majority of whom spoke out in 2007.
Even some in the establishment media now appear to be taking notice of the growing number of skeptical scientists. In October, the Washington Post Staff Writer Juliet Eilperin conceded the obvious, writing that climate skeptics “appear to be expanding rather than shrinking.” Many scientists from around the world have dubbed 2007 as the year man-made global warming fears “bite the dust.” (LINK) In addition, many scientists who are also progressive environmentalists believe climate fear promotion has “co-opted” the green movement. (LINK)
This blockbuster Senate report lists the scientists by name, country of residence, and academic/institutional affiliation. It also features their own words, biographies, and weblinks to their peer reviewed studies and original source materials as gathered from public statements, various news outlets, and websites in 2007. This new “consensus busters” report is poised to redefine the debate.
Many of the scientists featured in this report consistently stated that numerous colleagues shared their views, but they will not speak out publicly for fear of retribution. Atmospheric scientist Dr. Nathan Paldor, Professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, author of almost 70 peer-reviewed studies, explains how many of his fellow scientists have been intimidated.
“Many of my colleagues with whom I spoke share these views and report on their inability to publish their skepticism in the scientific or public media,” Paldor wrote. [Note: See also July 2007 Senate report detailing how skeptical scientists have faced threats and intimidation - LINK ]
Scientists from Around the World Dissent
This new report details how teams of international scientists are dissenting from the UN IPCC’s view of climate science. In such nations as Germany, Brazil, the Netherlands, Russia, Argentina, New Zealand and France, nations, scientists banded together in 2007 to oppose climate alarmism. In addition, over 100 prominent international scientists sent an open letter in December 2007 to the UN stating attempts to control climate were “futile.” (LINK)
Paleoclimatologist Dr. Tim Patterson, professor in the department of Earth Sciences at Carleton University in Ottawa, recently converted from a believer in man-made climate change to a skeptic. Patterson noted that the notion of a “consensus” of scientists aligned with the UN IPCC or former Vice President Al Gore is false. “I was at the Geological Society of America meeting in Philadelphia in the fall and I would say that people with my opinion were probably in the majority.”
This new committee report, a first of its kind, comes after the UN IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri implied that there were only “about a dozen” skeptical scientists left in the world. (LINK) Former Vice President Gore has claimed that scientists skeptical of climate change are akin to “flat Earth society members” and similar in number to those who “believe the moon landing was actually staged in a movie lot in Arizona.” (LINK) & (LINK)
The distinguished scientists featured in this new report are experts in diverse fields, including: climatology; geology; biology; glaciology; biogeography; meteorology; oceanography; economics; chemistry; mathematics; environmental sciences; engineering; physics and paleoclimatology. Some of those profiled have won Nobel Prizes for their outstanding contribution to their field of expertise and many shared a portion of the UN IPCC Nobel Peace Prize with Vice President Gore.
Additionally, these scientists hail from prestigious institutions worldwide, including: Harvard University; NASA; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR); Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the UN IPCC; the Danish National Space Center; U.S. Department of Energy; Princeton University; the Environmental Protection Agency; University of Pennsylvania; Hebrew University of Jerusalem; the International Arctic Research Centre; the Pasteur Institute in Paris; the Belgian Weather Institute; Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute; the University of Helsinki; the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S., France, and Russia; the University of Pretoria; University of Notre Dame; Stockholm University; University of Melbourne; Columbia University; the World Federation of Scientists; and the University of London.
The voices of many of these hundreds of scientists serve as a direct challenge to the often media-hyped “consensus” that the debate is “settled.”
A May 2007 Senate report detailed scientists who had recently converted from believers in man-made global warming to skepticism. [See May 15, 2007 report: Climate Momentum Shifting: Prominent Scientists Reverse Belief in Man-made Global Warming - Now Skeptics: Growing Number of Scientists Convert to Skeptics After Reviewing New Research – (LINK) - In addition, an August 2007 report detailed how proponents of man-made global warming fears enjoy a monumental funding advantage over skeptical scientists. LINK) ]
The report counters the claims made by the promoters of man-made global warming fears that the number of skeptical scientists is dwindling.
Examples of “consensus” claims made by promoters of man-made climate fears:
Former Vice President Al Gore (November 5, 2007): “There are still people who believe that the Earth is flat.” (LINK) Gore also compared global warming skeptics to people who “believe the moon landing was actually staged in a movie lot in Arizona.” (June 20, 2006 - LINK)
CNN’s Miles O’Brien (July 23, 2007): “The scientific debate is over,” O’Brien said. “We’re done.” O’Brien also declared on CNN on February 9, 2006 that scientific skeptics of man-made catastrophic global warming “are bought and paid for by the fossil fuel industry, usually.” (LINK)
On July 27, 2006, Associated Press reporter Seth Borenstein described a scientist as “one of the few remaining scientists skeptical of the global warming harm caused by industries that burn fossil fuels.” (LINK)
Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the IPCC view on the number of skeptical scientists as quoted on Feb. 20, 2003: “About 300 years ago, a Flat Earth Society was founded by those who did not believe the world was round. That society still exists; it probably has about a dozen members.” (LINK)
Agence France-Press (AFP Press) article (December 4, 2007): The article noted that a prominent skeptic “finds himself increasingly alone in his claim that climate change poses no imminent threat to the planet.”
Andrew Dessler in the eco-publication Grist Magazine (November 21, 2007): “While some people claim there are lots of skeptical climate scientists out there, if you actually try to find one, you keep turning up the same two dozen or so (e.g., Singer, Lindzen, Michaels, Christy, etc., etc.). These skeptics are endlessly recycled by the denial machine, so someone not paying close attention might think there are lots of them out there — but that’s not the case.” (LINK)
The Washington Post asserted on May 23, 2006 that there were only “a handful of skeptics” of man-made climate fears. (LINK)
UN special climate envoy Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland on May 10, 2007 declared the climate debate “over” and added “it’s completely immoral, even, to question” the UN’s scientific “consensus.” (LINK)
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer said it was “criminally irresponsible” to ignore the urgency of global warming on November 12, 2007. (LINK)
ABC News Global Warming Reporter Bill Blakemore reported on August 30, 2006: “After extensive searches, ABC News has found no such [scientific] debate” on global warming. (LINK)
# #
Brief highlights of the report featuring over 400 international scientists:
Israel: Dr. Nathan Paldor, Professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has authored almost 70 peer-reviewed studies and won several awards. “First, temperature changes, as well as rates of temperature changes (both increase and decrease) of magnitudes similar to that reported by IPCC to have occurred since the Industrial revolution (about 0.8C in 150 years or even 0.4C in the last 35 years) have occurred in Earth’s climatic history. There’s nothing special about the recent rise!”
Russia: Russian scientist Dr. Oleg Sorochtin of the Institute of Oceanology at the Russian Academy of Sciences has authored more than 300 studies, nine books, and a 2006 paper titled “The Evolution and the Prediction of Global Climate Changes on Earth.” “Even if the concentration of ‘greenhouse gases’ double man would not perceive the temperature impact,” Sorochtin wrote. (Note: Name also sometimes translated to spell Sorokhtin)
Spain: Anton Uriarte, a professor of Physical Geography at the University of the Basque Country in Spain and author of a book on the paleoclimate, rejected man-made climate fears in 2007. “There’s no need to be worried. It’s very interesting to study [climate change], but there’s no need to be worried,” Uriate wrote.
Netherlands: Atmospheric scientist Dr. Hendrik Tennekes, a scientific pioneer in the development of numerical weather prediction and former director of research at The Netherlands’ Royal National Meteorological Institute, and an internationally recognized expert in atmospheric boundary layer processes, “I find the Doomsday picture Al Gore is painting - a six-meter sea level rise, fifteen times the IPCC number - entirely without merit,” Tennekes wrote. “I protest vigorously the idea that the climate reacts like a home heating system to a changed setting of the thermostat: just turn the dial, and the desired temperature will soon be reached.”
Brazil: Chief Meteorologist Eugenio Hackbart of the MetSul Meteorologia Weather Center in Sao Leopoldo - Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil declared himself a skeptic. “The media is promoting an unprecedented hyping related to global warming. The media and many scientists are ignoring very important facts that point to a natural variation in the climate system as the cause of the recent global warming,” Hackbart wrote on May 30, 2007.
France: Climatologist Dr. Marcel Leroux, former professor at Université Jean Moulin and director of the Laboratory of Climatology, Risks, and Environment in Lyon, is a climate skeptic. Leroux wrote a 2005 book titled Global Warming - Myth or Reality? - The Erring Ways of Climatology. “Day after day, the same mantra - that ‘the Earth is warming up’ - is churned out in all its forms. As ‘the ice melts’ and ‘sea level rises,’ the Apocalypse looms ever nearer! Without realizing it, or perhaps without wishing to, the average citizen in bamboozled, lobotomized, lulled into mindless acceptance. … Non-believers in the greenhouse scenario are in the position of those long ago who doubted the existence of God … fortunately for them, the Inquisition is no longer with us!”
Norway: Geologist/Geochemist Dr. Tom V. Segalstad, a professor and head of the Geological Museum at the University of Oslo and formerly an expert reviewer with the UN IPCC: “It is a search for a mythical CO2 sink to explain an immeasurable CO2 lifetime to fit a hypothetical CO2 computer model that purports to show that an impossible amount of fossil fuel burning is heating the atmosphere. It is all a fiction.”
Finland: Dr. Boris Winterhalter, retired Senior Marine Researcher of the Geological Survey of Finland and former professor of marine geology at University of Helsinki, criticized the media for what he considered its alarming climate coverage. “The effect of solar winds on cosmic radiation has just recently been established and, furthermore, there seems to be a good correlation between cloudiness and variations in the intensity of cosmic radiation. Here we have a mechanism which is a far better explanation to variations in global climate than the attempts by IPCC to blame it all on anthropogenic input of greenhouse gases,” Winterhalter said.
Germany: Paleoclimate expert Augusto Mangini of the University of Heidelberg in Germany, criticized the UN IPCC summary. “I consider the part of the IPCC report, which I can really judge as an expert, i.e. the reconstruction of the paleoclimate, wrong,” Mangini noted in an April 5, 2007 article. He added: “The earth will not die.”
Canada: IPCC 2007 Expert Reviewer Madhav Khandekar, a Ph.D meteorologist, a scientist with the Natural Resources Stewardship Project who has over 45 years experience in climatology, meteorology and oceanography, and who has published nearly 100 papers, reports, book reviews and a book on Ocean Wave Analysis and Modeling: “To my dismay, IPCC authors ignored all my comments and suggestions for major changes in the FOD (First Order Draft) and sent me the SOD (Second Order Draft) with essentially the same text as the FOD. None of the authors of the chapter bothered to directly communicate with me (or with other expert reviewers with whom I communicate on a regular basis) on many issues that were raised in my review. This is not an acceptable scientific review process.”
Czech Republic: Czech-born U.S. climatologist Dr. George Kukla, a research scientist with the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, expressed climate skepticism in 2007. “The only thing to worry about is the damage that can be done by worrying. Why are some scientists worried? Perhaps because they feel that to stop worrying may mean to stop being paid,” Kukla told Gelf Magazine on April 24, 2007.
India: One of India’s leading geologists, B.P. Radhakrishna, President of the Geological Society of India, expressed climate skepticism in 2007. “We appear to be overplaying this global warming issue as global warming is nothing new. It has happened in the past, not once but several times, giving rise to glacial-interglacial cycles.”
USA: Climatologist Robert Durrenberger, past president of the American Association of State Climatologists, and one of the climatologists who gathered at Woods Hole to review the National Climate Program Plan in July, 1979: “Al Gore brought me back to the battle and prompted me to do renewed research in the field of climatology. And because of all the misinformation that Gore and his army have been spreading about climate change I have decided that ‘real’ climatologists should try to help the public understand the nature of the problem.”
Italy: Internationally renowned scientist Dr. Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists and a retired Professor of Advanced Physics at the University of Bologna in Italy, who has published over 800 scientific papers: “Significant new peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming.”
New Zealand: IPCC reviewer and climate researcher and scientist Dr. Vincent Gray, an expert reviewer on every single draft of the IPCC reports going back to 1990 and author of The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of “Climate Change 2001: “The [IPCC] ‘Summary for Policymakers’ might get a few readers, but the main purpose of the report is to provide a spurious scientific backup for the absurd claims of the worldwide environmentalist lobby that it has been established scientifically that increases in carbon dioxide are harmful to the climate. It just does not matter that this ain’t so.”
South Africa: Dr. Kelvin Kemm, formerly a scientist at South Africa’s Atomic Energy Corporation who holds degrees in nuclear physics and mathematics: “The global-warming mania continues with more and more hype and less and less thinking. With religious zeal, people look for issues or events to blame on global warming.”
Poland: Physicist Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski, Chairman of the Central Laboratory for the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Radiological Protection in Warsaw: “We thus find ourselves in the situation that the entire theory of man-made global warming-with its repercussions in science, and its important consequences for politics and the global economy-is based on ice core studies that provided a false picture of the atmospheric CO2 levels.”
Australia: Prize-wining Geologist Dr. Ian Plimer, a professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Adelaide in Australia: “There is new work emerging even in the last few weeks that shows we can have a very close correlation between the temperatures of the Earth and supernova and solar radiation.”
Britain: Dr. Richard Courtney, a UN IPCC expert reviewer and a UK-based climate and atmospheric science consultant: “To date, no convincing evidence for AGW (anthropogenic global warming) has been discovered. And recent global climate behavior is not consistent with AGW model predictions.”
China: Chinese Scientists Say C02 Impact on Warming May Be ‘Excessively Exaggerated’ - Scientists Lin Zhen-Shan’s and Sun Xian’s 2007 study published in the peer-reviewed journal Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics: “Although the CO2 greenhouse effect on global climate change is unsuspicious, it could have been excessively exaggerated.” Their study asserted that “it is high time to reconsider the trend of global climate change.”
Denmark: Space physicist Dr. Eigil Friis-Christensen is the director of the Danish National Space Centre, a member of the space research advisory committee of the Swedish National Space Board, a member of a NASA working group, and a member of the European Space Agency who has authored or co-authored around 100 peer-reviewed papers and chairs the Institute of Space Physics: “The sun is the source of the energy that causes the motion of the atmosphere and thereby controls weather and climate. Any change in the energy from the sun received at the Earth’s surface will therefore affect climate.”
Belgium: Climate scientist Luc Debontridder of the Belgium Weather Institute’s Royal Meteorological Institute (RMI) co-authored a study in August 2007 which dismissed a decisive role of CO2 in global warming: “CO2 is not the big bogeyman of climate change and global warming. “Not CO2, but water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas. It is responsible for at least 75 % of the greenhouse effect. This is a simple scientific fact, but Al Gore’s movie has hyped CO2 so much that nobody seems to take note of it.”
Sweden: Geologist Dr. Wibjorn Karlen, professor emeritus of the Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology at Stockholm University, critiqued the Associated Press for hyping promoting climate fears in 2007. “Another of these hysterical views of our climate. Newspapers should think about the damage they are doing to many persons, particularly young kids, by spreading the exaggerated views of a human impact on climate.”
USA: Dr. David Wojick is a UN IPCC expert reviewer, who earned his PhD in Philosophy of Science and co-founded the Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie-Mellon University: “In point of fact, the hypothesis that solar variability and not human activity is warming the oceans goes a long way to explain the puzzling idea that the Earth’s surface may be warming while the atmosphere is not. The GHG (greenhouse gas) hypothesis does not do this.” Wojick added: “The public is not well served by this constant drumbeat of false alarms fed by computer models manipulated by advocates.”
# # #
Background: Only 52 Scientists Participated in UN IPCC Summary
The over 400 skeptical scientists featured in this new report outnumber by nearly eight time the number of scientists who participated in the 2007 UN IPCC Summary for Policymakers. The notion of “hundreds” or “thousands” of UN scientists agreeing to a scientific statement does not hold up to scrutiny. (See report debunking “consensus” LINK) Recent research by Australian climate data analyst John McLean revealed that the IPCC’s peer-review process for the Summary for Policymakers leaves much to be desired. (LINK) & (LINK) (Note: The 52 scientists who participated in the 2007 IPCC Summary for Policymakers had to adhere to the wishes of the UN political leaders and delegates in a process described as more closely resembling a political party’s convention platform battle, not a scientific process - LINK)
Proponents of man-made global warming like to note how the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the American Meteorological Society (AMS) have issued statements endorsing the so-called “consensus” view that man is driving global warming. But both the NAS and AMS never allowed member scientists to directly vote on these climate statements. Essentially, only two dozen or so members on the governing boards of these institutions produced the “consensus” statements. This report gives a voice to the rank-and-file scientists who were shut out of the process. (LINK)
The most recent attempt to imply there was an overwhelming scientific “consensus” in favor of man-made global warming fears came in December 2007 during the UN climate conference in Bali. A letter signed by only 215 scientists urged the UN to mandate deep cuts in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. But absent from the letter were the signatures of these alleged “thousands” of scientists. (See AP article: - LINK )
UN IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri urged the world at the December 2007 UN climate conference in Bali, Indonesia to “Please listen to the voice of science.”
The science has continued to grow loud and clear in 2007. In addition to the growing number of scientists expressing skepticism, an abundance of recent peer-reviewed studies have cast considerable doubt about man-made global warming fears. A November 3, 2007 peer-reviewed study found that “solar changes significantly alter climate.” (LINK) A December 2007 peer-reviewed study recalculated and halved the global average surface temperature trend between 1980 - 2002. (LINK) Another new study found the Medieval Warm Period “0.3C warmer than 20th century” (LINK)
A peer-reviewed study by a team of scientists found that “warming is naturally caused and shows no human influence.” (LINK) - Another November 2007 peer-reviewed study in the journal Physical Geography found “Long-term climate change is driven by solar insolation changes.” (LINK ) These recent studies were in addition to the abundance of peer-reviewed studies earlier in 2007. - See “New Peer-Reviewed Scientific Studies Chill Global Warming Fears” (LINK )
With this new report of profiling 400 skeptical scientists, the world can finally hear the voices of the “silent majority” of scientists.
FULL SENATE REPORT: U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007
December 20, 2007
This report is in the spirit of enlightenment philosopher Denis Diderot who reportedly said, “Skepticism is the first step towards truth.”
[Disclaimer: The following scientists named in this report have expressed a range of views from skepticism to outright rejection of predictions of catastrophic man-made global warming. As in all science, there is no lock step single view.]
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport#report
Sorry only meant to copy the first 2 paragraphs… and the last www address
TNA: Those same people would say that science has spoken, that CO2 is the cause. What do you say?
Dr. Robinson: Gore, et al., tell us that CO2 is a pollutant, and that humans have caused this terrible problem. But actually the atmosphere contains lots of carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide, water, and oxygen are required for life. Without these substances in the atmosphere, life would not be possible. All of the carbon in our bodies originates as atmospheric carbon dioxide. Plus, we’re only adding moderately and temporarily to CO2 levels. Carbon dioxide moves through the atmosphere on its way to the oceans and biosphere. Human use has caused a transient increase during the past century — from about 0.03 percent to 0.04 percent of atmospheric molecules. Man is producing about 8 gigatons per year, and yet there are 40,000 gigatons in the biosphere and oceans.
TNA: Which come from?
Dr. Robinson: Which are just there — created as part of nature. Between 1880 and 1890, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere was about 295 ppm [parts per million]. For comparison, this office right now is rising toward 1,000 ppm because we’re all exhaling carbon dioxide.
The human-caused increase in the atmosphere is not permanent, but temporary. This increase is only being maintained by our production and, as soon as we stop producing at some later time when our technology advances, it will go back to its naturally controlled level.
When we use hydrocarbons, the resulting carbon dioxide goes through the atmosphere on its way to the oceans and biosphere, so there is a rise in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide has a very short half-time of about seven years in the atmosphere. However, while it is in higher concentration, it is wonderful for us because it makes our plants grow faster, which markedly increases the amounts and diversity of plant and animal life.