Scientific Heresy

‘Excellent’ – ‘well written’ – ‘impressive’ – ‘superb’ – ‘devastating’ are just a few of the comments describing it.  I’ve read it.  It is absolutely impressive.

The article is a speech given by Matt Ridley on 31 October, to the Royal Society of Arts in Edinburgh.

Can I encourage you, dear reader, whoever you might be, if you have 20 minutes, to click the link and read the article?

http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/11/1/scientific-heresy.html

It’s excellent, well written, impressive, superb and devastating.

Posted in Climate Science, Economics, Environment, Human cost | 3 Comments

New Satellite Data Contradicts Carbon Dioxide Climate Theory

This article is by John O’Sullivan. I repeat it here completely. I would not normally do this but John has just been fired and his articles have been removed from the internet. I am a tad sceptical about the satellite findings – but here’s a copy for you to read anyway my friends …

New Japanese Satellite Data – NHK World

Industrialized nations emit far less carbon dioxide than the Third World, according to latest evidence from Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

Global warming alarmism is turned on its head and the supposed role of carbon dioxide in
climate change may be wrong, if the latest evidence from Japan’s scientists is to be believed.

Japanese national broadcaster, NHK World, broke the astonishing story on their main Sunday evening news bulletin (October 30, 2011). Television viewers learned that the country’s groundbreaking IBUKU satellite, launched in June 2009, appears to have scorched an indelible hole in conventional global warming theory.

Standing in front of a telling array of colorful graphs, sober-suited Yasuhiro Sasano, Director of Japan’s National Institute for Environmental Studies told viewers, “The [IBUKU satellite] map is to help us discover how much each region needs to reduce CO2 [carbon dioxide] emissions.”

Industrialized Nations World’s Lowest CO2 ‘Polluters’

Indeed, the map at which JAXA spokesman Sasano was pointing (see photo above) had been expected by most experts to show that western nations are to blame for substantial increases in atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide, causing global warming. But to an officious looking TV interviewer Sasano turned greenhouse gas theory on it’s head.

According to UN science the greenhouse gas theory says more CO2 entering the atmosphere will warm the planet, while less CO2 is associated with cooling.

Gesturing to an indelible deep green hue streaked across the United States and Europe viewers were told, “in the high latitudes of the Northern hemisphere emissions were less than absorption levels.”

Sasano proceeded to explain the color-coding system of the iconic maps showing where regions were either absorbing or emitting the trace atmospheric gas. Regions were alternately colored red (for high CO2 emission), white (low or neutral CO2 emissions) and green (no emissions: CO2 absorbers).

Bizarrely, the IBUKU maps prove exactly the opposite of all conventional expectations revealing that the least industrialized regions are the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases on the planet.

Yes, you read that correctly: the U.S. and western European nations are areas where CO2 levels are lowest. This new evidence defies the consensus view promoted by mainstream newspapers, such as the New York Times.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had long claimed that, “there is a consensus among scientists that manmade emissions of greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide (CO2), are harming global climate.”

The Japanese satellite map shows regions colored the deepest leaf green (net absorbers of CO2) being predominantly those developed nations of Europe and North America; thus indicating built up environments absorbed more CO2 than they emitted into the atmosphere.

By contrast the bulk of the regions colored red (so-called ‘carbon polluters’) were in undeveloped, densely-forested equatorial regions of Africa and South America.

Huge Headache for Climate Policymakers.

JAXA boasts that, “we can reduce the error of the estimated values when we introduce IBUKI’s observation data compared to that of the values calculated in a conventional way based on ground observation data.”

To all policymakers who study the Japanese maps it is apparent that the areas of greatest CO2 emissions are those regions with least human development and most natural vegetation: Equatorial Third World nations.

The Japanese evidence also disproves the often-cited hypothesis that Siberia and other areas of northern Russia were natural vents for large scale CO2 outgassing, exacerbating global warming fears.

In effect, this compelling new data appears to show that the ashphalt and concreted industrial nations are ‘mopping up’ carbon dioxide faster than their manufacturers and consumers can emit it. If this is confirmed, it means a cornerstone of man-made global warming may be in serious doubt.

Can Western Nations Still Proceed with Carbon Taxes?

But now that these so-called “global warming gases” have been precisely measured across the planet the quandary for international policymakers is what to do about plans to further implement international targets for CO2 reduction.

World leaders are getting set to face the latest round of UN climate change talks in Durban next month and must discuss a replacement for the soon to expire Kyoto Protocol, which binds nations to limited CO2 emissions.

The dilemma is whether the established UN global warming policy of the ‘polluter pays’ can any longer be sensibly upheld. Conventional political thinking at previous UN climate conferences was to ‘offset’ carbon emissions by making the worst polluters pay higher ‘carbon taxes.’ But that theory now appears to be rendered redundant being that western economies, believed to be the worst offenders, are in fact, contributing either negligible or no measurable CO2 emissions whatsoever.

Indeed, the IBUKU data indicates that the areas of highest CO2 emissions are precisely those regions with most vegetation and least industry and thus less able to pay.

Thus, the unthinkable could be made real: the greenhouse gas theory of climate change may collapse in the face of empirical evidence that industrialization is shown to have no link to global warming.

For more information the IBUKU achievement is published in the Scientific Online Letters on the Atmosphere (an online thesis magazine) issued by the Meteorological Society of Japan.

Sources: JAXA, Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, Greenhouse Gas Observation Satellite ‘IBUKI’ (GOSAT), accessed online: October 30, 2011.

Gillis, J.,’Study Affirms Consensus on Climate Change,’ New York Times, (nytimes.com: accessed online: October 30, 2011)

Posted in Climate Science, Environment | 4 Comments

The low carbon economy winding down in the UK?

“Tories tear green credentials to shreds”, is the headline of an item at BusinessGreen.  The article starts:

“Has there been a more anti-environmental political conference at any point over the past decade than this year’s annual Conservative party jamboree in Manchester?

The answer is almost certainly not, and after a week of high-carbon policy announcements and sidelining of environmental issues, the hard-fought political consensus on the urgent need to create a world-leading, low-carbon economy seems under serious threat for the first time in a decade.”

Meanwhile New Zealand continues with it’s pointless emissions trading scheme and Australia decides what it’s going to do very soon.

http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/james-blog/2114854/tories-tear-green-credentials-shreds

 

Posted in Politics | 8 Comments

Huge shale gas find in UK, reported by BBC Northwest evening news

There could be enough gas to save the UK from their death spiral of increasing energy costs.  People are wondering if its too good to be true.  Well it sounds very much to me that its real enough alright.  Very similar to what is happening in other parts of the world. The UK government should do its best to harness this resource and help bring the country back to the great nation it once was.

As far as the fire from taps is concerned; that was happening at that place in the US a long time before they did any fracking there.  And what’s more; the guy who made that video knew that.  He just ‘decided’ not to mention it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtR_Lu3Pd80&feature=youtu.be

Posted in Economics, Energy, Environment, Geology | Leave a comment

Another two professors resign, protesting their institutions’ stance on global warming

Following in the footsteps of Hal Lewis …

Prof Ivar Giaver, 82, an elected fellow of the American Physical Society, has resigned from the society; protesting its stance on global warming.  He is a US based Norwegian physicist and is chief technology officer at Applied Biophysics and a retired academic at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

The APS declares in its policy statement,

Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate.  They are emitted from fossil fuel combustion and a range of industrial and agricultural processes.  The evidence is incontrovertible: global warming is occurring.  If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur.  We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.

In an email to APS’s executive, Prof Giaver said he “cannot live” with its official statement on global warming.

Prof Dr Ir Henri Masson has resigned from the European Society of Engineers and Industrialists.

Dr Masson was event co-ordinator of an upcoming conference.   Among the line-up of speakers were Fred Singer and Claes Johnson.  Both speakers hold ‘skeptical’ views on climate change.  This came to the attention of IPCC Vice Chair van Ypersele who moved quickly to demand the ‘disinvitation’ of these two distinguished speakers.

The attitude by SEII leadership was so intolerable to Masson, that they would not allow scientific debate on this important scientific topic, he chose to resign.

More detailed articles at The Telegraph and NoTricksZone:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8786565/War-of-words-over-global-warming-as-Nobel-laureate-resigns-in-protest.html
http://notrickszone.com/2011/09/24/another-professor-resigns-this-one-from-the-belgian-european-society-of-engineers-and-industrialists-seii/

Posted in Climate Science, Politics | 4 Comments

Fiddle or Fumble at NIWA

It is reported at the Climate Conversation blog that New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd (NIWA) have not properly followed their approved process for making temperature adjustments (for legitimate things like the urban heat island effect and station movements).  NIWA seems to have done whatever they liked to continue to show ‘global warming’ in New Zealand.

“It seems incredible that this agency has a monopoly on advice to the government on global warming when they’ve blatantly cooked the books to inflate the New Zealand temperature record. Who’s going to call them to account? Is their Minister paying attention?”

I highly recommend the article.

http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/2011/08/fraud-or-fumble-from-niwa/

Posted in Climate Science | Leave a comment

A paper on observed climate sensitivity by Lindzen and Choi, May 2011

Yup, CO2’s going up and the models say the temperature should be going up too – but the temperature isn’t going up.  So why is that?

I would expect that most people who are seriously interested in global warming know the IPCC models incorporate positive feedback factors. These feedback factors multiply the effect of CO2’s warming by several times.

A recent paper accepted by the Asia Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences, by Lindzen (MIT, USA) and Choi (EWU, Korea), May 2011, ‘On the observational determination of climate sensitivity and its implications’ investigates the topic by comparing changes in satellite measured outgoing radiation with changes in sea surface temperatures.  The paper updates their earlier work published in 2009. The last few sentences from their May 2011 abstract states

‘We find again that the outgoing radiation resulting from SST [sea surface temperature] fluctuations exceeds the zero feedback response thus implying negative feedback. In contrast to this, the calculated TOA [top of atmosphere] outgoing radiation fluxes from 11 [IPCC] atmospheric models forced by the SST are less than the zero feedback response, consistent with the positive feedbacks that characterise these models. The results imply that the models are exaggerating climate sensitivity.’

Posted in Climate Science | 9 Comments

Some more on how the sun affects cloud formation

DTU Space scientists have directly demonstrated in a new experiment that cosmic radiation can create small floating particles – so-called aerosols – in the atmosphere.  By doing so, they substantiate the connection between the Sun’s magnetic activity and the Earth’s climate.

This seriously challenges CO2 as being the main temperature controller knob.

Here is the link to the article at Scottish Sceptic.  There’s a good series of videos available there too.

http://www.turn180.ie/?p=318

Posted in Climate Science, Environment, Solar | Leave a comment

Cosmics Leaving Outdoor Droplets – CLOUD

It was observed by Danish physicists (Fris Christensen and Lassen) that global temperature correlated very well with sunspot count.  This was put forward as important in the global warming debate.  However the idea never made it into the IPCC models.  This was because the direct heating effect of the sun (total solar irradiation, or TSI) had been measured, and shown to vary only a little with sun spots.

Because TSI is near constant, the sun has been considered a ‘constant’ in the IPCC models.  One of the results of this is that the temperature increase has been ‘attributed’ to increasing atmospheric CO2 and the ‘feedback effects’ of water vapour. (Water vapour is a bigger greenhouse gas than CO2).

However, some recent scientific work is showing that the sun has other climatic effects.  In addition to TSI, the sun also has magnetic and cosmic effects.  These vary much more than TSI, with sunspot activity.

Jasper Kirkby leads a team of about 50 scientists in a project called ‘CLOUD’.  They are looking into one of these mechanisms.  They are investigating how the sun’s cosmic effects might affect the formation of clouds.

Here’s a couple of pieces from the article:

‘ … “We are trying to understand what the connection is – if any – between a cosmic ray going through the atmosphere and a change in clouds,” Kirkby explains.  A cosmic ray is a sub-atomic particle created by supernovae explosions somewhere in the Milky Way. He adds, perhaps stating the obvious, that “it is clearly not as simple as that”.  There is no doubt that CLOUD could have important ramifications.  If some of the theories Kirkby and his team are testing are proven, they could suggest that the natural, rather than man-made, component of current climate change is greater than previously thought.  …’

‘… Satellite measurements show a correlation between the intensity of cosmic rays, which varies with the sunspot cycle, and the amount of cloud cover. It is complex science but the aim of CLOUD is to gain an understanding of this apparent connection. “As far as I’m concerned,” Kirkby continues, “until this natural contribution to climate change is well understood there will be a big uncertainty as to what is going on with mankind’s contribution.”…’

And a link to the whole article:

http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/06/12/more-about-the-cern-cloud-experiment-from-jasper-kirkby/

Posted in Climate Science, Environment, Solar | 2 Comments

The two main effects of NZ’s new emissions target – unknown, could be exorbitant high cost and yet negligible climate benefit

On 5 April I wrote to Dr Nick Smith, New Zealand’s Minister for Climate Change Issues, asking what will be the expected economic cost and temperature reduction benefit from the Government’s new emissions reduction target.  The new target:  to reduce emissions to 50% of 1990 levels by 2050.

Here is my email with the two questions:

Dear  … …  [Dr Smith’s secretary]

I recently read a news item in ‘Energy News’ about the ETS target, ie: to reduce emissions to 50% of 1990 level by 2050.  Would you mind passing on a couple of cost/benefit questions to Dr Smith.

What will be the cost of this to our economy?  And if the reductions were achieved, what would the temperature reduction be?

I have now received his reply and among other things Dr Smith said in regard to the economic cost of the reductions, that the 40 year period makes it very difficult to accurately predict the cost and that if our trade competitors were not taking similar action the economic cost to New Zealand could be exorbitant.

My summary – the cost is unknown but would be very large.

In regards to temperature change Dr Smith mentioned a two degree ‘safety’ limit that some people think provides some assurance against climate impacts if don’t go over it.  He also mentions that if the world globally cut emissions by at least 50% by 2050, there is a 50% chance we might not exceed the two degree ‘safety’ limit.  According to the figures in his letter New Zealand contributes to 0.2 per cent toward global emissions.  So our 0.2% ‘share’ of the 2 degree reduction is 0.004 degrees.  That’s 4 one thousandths of a degree.  So, if we did achieve the 50 per cent cut by 2050, we have a 50 per cent chance of reducing the temperature in 2050 by 4 one thousandths of a degree.  Dr Smith uses the word ‘negligible’ to describe this.  How appropriate.  And further, he says if we act alone, “It would be irresponsible to expose New Zealand to large economic costs for no environmental gain.”

My summary – the temperature reduction would be negligible, not even measurable by the best instrumentation, and completely lost in natural variations.

However, Dr Smith finishes his letter with this, ”I  am certain that the 2050 emissions reduction target reflects the best balance between New Zealand’s environmental responsibilities and economic needs”.   I disagree.  This target does not reflect balance.   It is a huge economic cost with neither benefit to New Zealanders nor the environment.

There are other points that Dr Smith made, not directly related to my two questions that need further discussion.  So I guess I need to write back.  Rest assured, when I’ve done that, I’ll post that letter here too.

Here is Dr Smith’s complete reply so you can check the context and my interpretation.

Thank you for your email of 5 April 2011 about the 2050 emissions reduction target.

The 2050 emissions reduction target is relevant to the Government’s response to climate change as it is a commitment to transition to a low carbon economy over the longer term.  The target, which follows the current Kyoto Protocol approach, is on the basis of net emissions in the future, relative to gross emissions in 1990.  This target is ambitious yet credible and will provide certainty over the long‑term direction of climate change policy.  This will allow taxpayers, business, industries and farmers to plan and invest accordingly.

The 40 year time period makes it very difficult to accurately predict the costs of the 2050 emissions reduction target to the economy.  The 2050 target is an aspirational target set to work with a range of other emissions reduction measures to cut New Zealand’s overall emissions over time.

Scientists believe that if we limit global warming to a two degree limit it will provide some assurance that we can avoid many of the dangerous climate impacts.  There is around a 50 per cent chance of staying below this two degree limit if global emissions peak in the next ten years and we reduce global emissions by at least 50 per cent by 2050.  The Government has also put a range of climate change policies in place, which will help to support the reductions of emissions achieved through the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme.

The Government also believes that as climate change is an international environmental issue, successful mitigation depends on acting in concert with other countries.  New Zealand only contributes approximately 0.2 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.  Acting alone, the environmental benefit of emissions reductions by New Zealand would be negligible.  Furthermore, the economic costs to New Zealand could be exorbitant if trade competitors were not taking similar action.  It would be irresponsible to expose New Zealand to large economic costs for no environmental gain.

In accordance with this view, the New Zealand Government is an active and constructive participant in international negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Kyoto Protocol.  The agreements made in the UNFCCC negotiations in Cancun in December 2010 were a significant step forward.  The Government will continue to negotiate for a workable, comprehensive and legally binding successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol in 2011.

I am certain that the 2050 emissions reduction target reflects the best balance between New Zealand’s environmental responsibilities and economic needs.

 

Posted in Climate Science, Economics, Environment, Politics | 4 Comments