The Week That Was July 10, 2010
Quote of the Week
“There is no reason to give them any data, in my opinion, and I think we do so at our own peril! –
Michael Mann in email to Phil Jones
This Week
By Ken Haapala, Executive Vice President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
This week, much of the US, particularly the Northeast, experienced a heat wave. Immediately the chorus of global warmers began the refrain “The Hottest Year Ever.” NASA GISS started some time ago and now NOAA has joined in. (Please see “heat wave” below.) Readers of TWTW may recall that earlier this year when much of the inhabited Northern Hemisphere was extremely cold, Roy Spencer was reporting that the average satellite measured global temperature was well above normal – most likely from the El Niño, that was then occurring. The average atmospheric temperature has been dropping since March, but Spencer reports in June the average temperature was still 0.44 deg. C above the norm for the entire record from Jan. 1979 to June 2010. (Please see: www.drroyspencer.com.)
The temperatures for the first six months of this year average a bit below the peak year of 1998, which corresponded with a strong El Niño. John Christy says the difference is not statistically significant. Of course, the IPCC and the global warming chorus do not recognize that El Niños may cause global warming, claiming that the events are too short. But if they do, and if the El Niño continues to abate, then NOAA and NASA GISS would have committed the logical fallacy of hasty generalization and the chorus will have some explaining to do.
The NOAA announcement, below, is based on land and sea surface data. Joe D’Aleo and Anthony Watts have exposed the NOAA land data as biased. (Please see the report which was updated in June at: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals /policy_driven_deception.html). (For an update on some US stations please see http://wattsupwiththat.com/).
NOAA reports that the May sea surfaces were the second highest on record, the highest being in 1998. However, Roy Spencer reports on June 17 that sea surface temperatures as measured by satellites are plunging as the El Niño subsides. The satellite measurements by the AMSR-E instruments started in 2002. Just as it will be interesting to compare NASA GISS calculated data for the Arctic later this summer with the Danish instrument observations, it will be interesting to compare the NOAA announcements of sea surface temperature with the AMSR-E measurements. If both the NOAA and the satellite measurements show a fall with the subsidence of the El Niño, then the NOAA research will affirm the importance of El Niño events and the IPCC may be forced to consider El Niños as a natural cause of global warming (not likely).
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Last week, we began a brief review of Roy Spencer’s new book, The Great Global Warming Blunder. Spencer describes how, using data from the new CERES satellite instruments and a home computer, he created a simple, one-equation climate model. Spencer thinks he has separated the feedback signal from the forcing signal in the data, and that the net feedback from carbon dioxide warming is negative. If so, 2 the upper bound of warming from a doubling of carbon dioxide is no more than 1.1° C, (2° F) and Spencer thinks it may be as little as one-half that.
After estimating that feedbacks are negative, Spencer develops his thoughts that clouds are the primary cause of temperature change over the 20th Century. Clouds are virtually ignored by the IPCC reports and assumed to be constant except as a feedback of warming from CO2 forcing (warming causes fewer clouds). Anyone who has read HH Lamb may find the IPCC’s position of considering clouds a constant surprising, because Lamb presents contemporary evidence indicating that, in Europe at least, during the Little Ice Age the skies were generally overcast with low clouds having a cooling effect.
Spencer then develops his argument that the principal driver in changing cloud cover is the naturally changing Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). He states that the PDO alone explains most of the temperature change for the 20th Century and 75% of the 20th Century warming. If so, the recent changes temperatures are a result of natural oscillation in the climate system itself.
Spencer’s work demands a hard look from climate researchers. The models used by the IPCC produce a wide range of results, in part because the varying models contain a wide range of feedback estimates. This wide range, in turn, indicates there is something wrong with the procedures used to estimate feedback. Thus, feedback remains a varying assumption in the models. Until the assumptions are fully tested, climate science as articulated by the IPCC remains a giant logical fallacy – Petitio Principii – that which must be proven is assumed (to be true).
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The number of the week is 3. Three separate British entities have investigated ClimateGate and the Climatic Research Unit (CRU): a select committee of the House of Commons, the Oxburgh Commission of the Royal Society, and the Muir Russell team (MR) which is the subject of today’s science editorial. Three separate British entities have failed to investigate the science. Three for three – a trifecta. Is it that the CRU does not do science? As reader Tom Sheahen points out following quote from item 23 in the MR summary is revealing: “We do not find that it is misleading to curtail reconstructions at some point per se, or to splice data, but we believe that both of these procedures should have been made plain – ideally in the figure but certainly clearly described in either the caption or the text.”
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Cap and tax appears to be disappearing from the agenda of the US Congress. The latest word is that Congress will leave a week early for its summer recess and not return until mid-September. The indications are that the November election will be very bloody for incumbents. This has created speculation that the administration and Congressional leaders may try a “lame duck” session after the election, but before the new Congress comes into session, in order to enact bills that are opposed by the public. (Please see the comments by Steve Malloy under Articles.)
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The new NASA administrator, Charles Bolden, announced that President Obama has given him three principal objectives – none of which are directly related to space research. (Please see “U.S. Space Program Bows to Mecca” under Articles).
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BP appears to be ahead of schedule to cap the well that is releasing oil into the Gulf of Mexico. It is probably prudent to proceed carefully to do the job properly. However, there is no excuse for the lack of a “sense of urgency” which the administration has demonstrated in cleaning up the consequences of the spill.
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This week we are beginning a new feature. Certain reviews of scientific reports by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change will be referenced under “Review of Articles by NIPCC.”
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Next week we will start a new feature of brief reviews of books on subjects of interest.
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SEPP Amplification: Last week we briefly discussed a new poll of climate change experts. Alert readers Tom Sheahen and Donna Bethell pointed out serious issues with the primary question, as presented in the articles. Below is the statement with the issues in bold face:
Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a survey of 14 climate science experts conducted by a team led by Professor Granger Morgan of Carnegie Mellon University revealed that 9 out of the 14 (64%) believe there is: “a 90% or more chance that the earth will reach a “tipping point” by the year 2200 if the IPCC worst-case scenario continues.”
The IPCC worst case is an 11 degree C rise in temperatures, and there is no indication the worst case is happening. Extremism is apparently the norm among climate science experts.