The Global Warming Scare
by Peter Meyer
On December 15, 2009, Richard K. Moore sent a message to subscribers to his mailing list entitled global warming — The official NOAA ice core data. He included several graphs, derived from NOAA data from ice cores in central Greenland, showing ice temperature in degrees Centigrade plotted against historical time over the last 50,000 years. Since these graphs (on the riseup.net page) don't appear in all web browsers I reproduce them here:
Richard referenced the NOAA web page http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/metadata/noaa-icecore-2475.html as the source of the data used for these graphs, so I went to that site and (as Richard had done) I downloaded the data, loaded it into Excel, and plotted it. My graphs are in this Excel file.
Temperature in °C 3000 BC to present
Temperature in °C 9000 BC to present
Temperature in °C 11,000 BC to present
Temperature in °C 50,000 BC to present
After reading Richard's message, plotting the data and thinking about it, I sent the following two messages to Richard on December 15 (some [insertions] have been added):
Subject: global warming — The official NOAA ice core data
Following your investigation [as you said in your message], "I went to the official NOAA government site, and downloaded the raw data from the ice cores into Excel. I used Excel's charting feature, and compared it to" your graphs, and got the same results. Many thanks for this interesting presentation.
It certainly shows that the steep rise in temperature between about 1830 CE and about 1905 CE (the latest data from the ice cores) is far less than the steep rise which occurred 800-1000 CE at the start of the Medieval Warm Period, indicating that we have nothing to worry about.
My only reservation would be that the ice core data does not go beyond 1905, but even if that trend continued to 2000 it would still not be larger than the 800-1000 warming.
However, the AGW [Anthropogenic Global Warming] proponents could argue that even though, in the Medieval Warm Period, the temperature peaked at around 1030 CE and then went into major decline until 1257, there is no guarantee that the current warming phase will peak any time soon, and might continue upward. It might, but is there any evidence that it will? A case would have to be made that greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere since 1830 are the cause of the current warming phase and so (if they remain at current levels) will continue to push the temperature upward with no end in sight. This, I think, is the essential point of dispute, namely, whether the current warming phase can be explained in this way. But since the warming phase 800-1000 was [presumably] not due to the presence of greenhouse cases, such an explanation is dubious. Until climatologists can explain the 800-1000 warming phase I suspect we can't predict global temperature even in the near future.
Subject: global warming
Further to my previous message, it could be objected that the data for the last 50K years prior to 1900 are just for one spot in central Greenland, and evidence is needed that this temperature record can be extrapolated worldwide.
However, my main point remains, that climatologists (correct me if I am mistaken) cannot explain the much larger warming phase at the start of the Medieval Warm Period, so cannot claim that the current warming must be due to the effects of greenhouse gases. They could, however, deny that there was such a much larger warming phase, but AFAIK the occurrence of the MWP has been established.
Richard sent these two messages out on his mailing list and addeded the following reply:
Thanks for reproducing my little study. It seems we have our own distributed research center, with no pollution from funding.
As for whether Greenland was special, the NOAA has other ice data sets as well:
I haven't had a chance to look at those yet, please let me know if you do anything with them. However, note that the NOAA reassures us, below, that the Greenland set is typical. This is included at the top of the Greenland data-set file:ABSTRACT: Greenland ice-core records provide an exceptionally clear picture of many aspects of abrupt climate changes, and particularly of those associated with the Younger Dryas event, as reviewed here. Well-preserved annual layers can be counted confidently, with only 1% errors for the age of the end of the Younger Dryas 11,500 years before present. Ice-flow corrections allow reconstruction of snow accumulation rates over tens of thousands of years with little additional uncertainty. Glaciochemical and particulate data record atmospheric-loading changes with little uncertainty introduced by changes in snow accumulation. Confident paleothermometry is provided by site-specific calibrations using ice-isotopic ratios, borehole temperatures, and gas-isotopic ratios. Near-simultaneous changes in ice-core paleoclimatic indicators of local, regional, and more-widespread climate conditions demonstrate that much of the Earth experienced abrupt climate changes synchronous with Greenland within thirty years or less. Post-Younger Dryas changes have not duplicated the size, extent and rapidity of these paleoclimatic changes.
I agree with you that a case can still be made for global warming, if proof of CO2's alleged influence can be produced. But the biggest argument used so far by the global-warming crowd is that we are experiencing unprecedented and alarming temperatures, and that this correlates with CO2 levels. That argument seems to be just about demolished, although we still need to synchronize the ice-core data with thermometer records since about 1850, and then with the more recent satellite measurements.
As regards CO2's effect on climate based on other than correlation, I've seen little evidence for it, and a lot of evidence against. The IPCC's climate modelers start with the assumption that temperatures are alarming and that CO2 is the cause. Then they keep fiddling their weightings, and omitting offending data, to try to get the model to match their assumptions. A lot of research has been done since the IPCC first announced their position, which challenges their assumptions, and most of this has been ignored and dismissed by the IPCC without any logical basis.
There is a real tipping point involved in all this. I refer to the tipping point of 'consensus opinion'. Once that tipping point is reached, every 'responsible' media person and 'respectable pundit' must support the consensus opinion or be dismissed as a nutter. We then get a positive feedback loop, where the 'consensus' is supported by more and more 'unanimity'. In this case the feedback loop is more intense, because environmentalists were already worrying about CO2 before Gore pushed us over the tipping point with his pseudo documentary. The worry was has now become paranoia, due to the IPCC media hype, and the marginalizing of contrary views.
The evidence I've seen indicates that CO2 levels are well within the regulatory capacity of the Earth systems, and that the greenhouse effect of CO2 falls off logarithmically with the total amount of CO2. This would indicate that incremental CO2 added by humans has negligible effect, with or without regulation by other systems, such as precipitation. This is not intuitive. I was worried about CO2 as well, before I started investigating. I now give the danger about a 5% likelihood.
And no, they can't explain the Medieval Warm Period, which is why they try to subtract it out of their model by giving undue weight to atypical selected data sets. Meanwhile, solar-based models track temperature changes rather closely. But silly me, imagining the sun could have anything to do with temperature. Of course none of this means that burning more oil is a good thing, or that we don't need to achieve sustainability. That's the whole problem with this global warming hysteria: it's distracting from what needs to be done, and channeling our energy into making trillions for the cap-and-trade brokers, while the polluters will go right on polluting. People and corporations and industrial farming won't stop using oil, they'll just pay more for the privilege, and believe me the oil companies will get a big cut. Taxes have never stopped smoking or drinking and they won't reduce energy consumption. It's infrastructure changes we need, not ineffective sin taxes.
The article by Rudolph Kipp, The Medieval Warm Period — a global phenomenon. Unprecedented warming or unprecedented data manipulation?, was originally written in German, and the link above leads to a page with a translation into English which is a bit mangled but nevertheless is quite comprehensible. A quote from this page:
Until about the mid-90s of last century the medieval warm period was an undisputed fact among climate researchers. Accordingly, in the first IPCC assessment report from 1990 on page 202 figure 7c  could be found, showing the medieval warm period clearly warmer than modern times. However, for the responsible scientists the existence of this warm period soon became a thorn in their sides. If in the 12th century it was even warmer, with the absence of human influence, than today at the so far peak of industrialization, why should the today warming not be primarily driven by mainly natural causes.
Thus, the Medieval Warm Period was soon declared an odious affair ... [and] the machinery for the deletion of the medieval warm period was already running on full power.
Click on this link for one of the graphs from the Excel file. This shows the Medieval Warm Period as the peak from 1.2 thousand years BP (i.e., 800 CE) to 0.75 thousand years BP (i.e., 1250 CE). At its warmest the temperature was 1° C higher than in 1900 CE.
The following link leads to a graphic at the end of Rudolph Kipp's article which shows that the data provided by the Greenland ice cores does not just show a local Medieval Warm Period — it was a global phenomenon. This completes the refutation of the claim that we know that the current warming is due to the increase of greenhouse gases consequent upon industrial activity.
Of course, that activity might well be an important factor in the current warming, but until climatologists can explain the warming phase of the MWP we cannot be sure of that. And, as stated above, the current warming is far less than that of the MWP, and also of that of the warming period in the 2nd millennium BCE (3,300 years ago), when the temperature rose to 2.8°C above that of today, as shown in this graph (in the Excel file). And this graph shows that over the last 10,000 years there has been a long-term cooling trend, suggesting that we are headed into a new ice age.
The global warming scare is a huge scam designed to increase the profits of the corporate capitalists and the parasitic international bankers, to advance their goal of a world government (controlled by them, of course), and to impose even more "legal" restrictions upon the freedom of people to live according to how they themselves think best.
But freedom for people does not mean freedom for corporate business to exploit the natural environment, to denude hillsides of trees and to appropriate water so as to extort money from those who need it. The problem we face is not global warming but rampant capitalist exploitation of the environment and of everyone who doesn't belong to the capitalist ruling class. The solution is not "carbon trading" schemes (which would do nothing more than enrich the trade managers) but rather regaining popular control over exploitative corporations, and in the longer term a restructuring of society (or perhaps a social revolution) to curb capitalist greed and to provide common people with the means to live a decent life and to provide a decent education for their children.
... it is safe to say that the wealth of science points to a natural change in our climate, and the entire history of the world and of all humanity supports this hypothesis. Throughout history, as in the earliest African civilizations, it was the ability of different peoples to change and adapt to climate change, which determined their survival as a civilization.The folly of believing that humans can control the Earth's global climate would be exceeded only by the folly of actually trying to do so.
Today, we are trying to fight it. This is a dangerous road to walk, and history will not look kindly upon our scientific ignorance and politically fear-driven society. ... Trying to fight and stop a natural phenomenon is possibly one of the most ignorant and dangerous things humanity has ever engaged in. ...
Much of the people in the world have been riled up with predictions of a catastrophic end to mankind and the world unless we don't do something about so-called "man-made" climate change. Ironically enough, our refusal to adapt to a changing world, and instead a determination to fight it with our efforts to "go green" and "carbon neutral" may, in fact, cause the catastrophic end of our civilization. And sadly, in this instance, it would undeniably be a man-made disaster.— Andrew Gavin Marshall, Climate Change: Breaking the "Political Consensus"
- Richard Courtney: Global Warming: How It All Began
— with Margaret Thatcher's having a B.Sc. in chemistry
- Brian O'Leary: Copenhagen Climate Cacophony, Corruption and Nonsolutions
- CO2 Science
- Medieval Warm Period Project
- Ice Core Studies Prove CO2 Is Not the Powerful Climate Driver Climate Alarmists Make It Out to Be
- David Archibald: Solar Cycle 24: Implications for the United States (PDF file, 770 KB)
- Prof. Don J. Easterbrook: Global Cooling is Here
- Richard K. Moore: Climate Science: Observations versus Models
- Zbigniew Jaworowski, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc.: The Sun, Not Man, Still Rules Our Climate (5.17 MB PDF file)
- Theodor Landscheidt: Sonnenaktivität als dominanter Faktor der Klimadynamik
English translation: Solar Activity: A Dominant Factor in Climate Dynamics
- Michel Chossudovsky: Excluded from the Copenhagen Agenda: Environmental Modification Techniques (ENMOD) and Climate Change — The manipulation of climate for military use
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was set up to ensure that world leaders had the best possible scientific advice on climate change. But (chortle, chortle!) ...
The factors influencing Earth's global climate, and those influencing regional climates, are too many and interact with too much complexity for climate scientists to understand sufficiently to make even 1-year predictions. What we can predict is that if the banks are allowed to proceed with their "carbon trading" scam then they will make even more billions, at the expense of the social welfare of ordinary people. Therefore we (via our elected governments) should concentrate on curbing the greed of the banksters rather than on attempting to change global climate. But as long as governments are controlled by the 'financial elite' (and don't represent the interests of the people) this is unlikely to happen.
- Telegraph, UK (2010-01-20): UN climate panel admits 'mistake' over Himalayan glacier melting
The United Nations' climate science panel has admitted that it made a mistake by claiming that the Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) made the assertion two years ago, saying it was based on detailed research into the impact of global warming. ... The IPCC admitted that the prediction was based on a report written in a science journal ... the New Scientist, [which] was not even based on a research paper — it evolved from a short telephone interview with ... Dr Syed Hasnain, an Indian scientist ... [who] said that the claim was "speculation" and was not supported by any formal research. ... When finally published, the IPCC report ... went further, suggesting the likelihood of the glaciers melting was "very high".
- F. William Engdahl (2010-01-23): Glacier Meltdown: Another Scientific Scandal Involving the IPCC Climate Research Group
- Times Online (2010-01-24): UN climate panel blunders again over Himalayan glaciers
The chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has used bogus claims that Himalayan glaciers were melting to win grants worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. Rajendra Pachauri's Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), based in New Delhi, was awarded up to £310,000 by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the lion's share of a £2.5m EU grant funded by European taxpayers. It means that EU taxpayers are funding research into a scientific claim about glaciers that any ice researcher should immediately recognise as bogus.
Hilarious! The IPCC's credibility is now close to zero.
- Mohd Peter Davis: Global Warming
What causes climate change is the Earth's varying tilt and elliptical orbit around the sun and our solar system's long journey through the Milky Way, together with cosmic radiation from exploding stars. ... Scientist now know in principle how to feed the population during the next ice age, which climatologists say will begin with a mini-ice age by 2050, within the lifespan of half of the world's population.
- Washington's Blog (2010-12-27): Why is it so Cold? Should the Big Freeze Alter Our Approach to Climate Change?
- Xavier Rizos: Do we really understand how carbon trading works?
Don't really need to. All we need to understand is that it is a scam designed to increase the profits of the banks and any others who will run these carbon trading schemes.
The Next Scientific Frontier: Sun-Earth Interactions is a page on Washington's Blog (more usually concerned with current social/economic/political matters) with subsections:
- The Sun Affects Clouds and Ozone, Which In Turn Affect Climate
- The Sun's Output Changes the Rate of Radioactive Decay On Earth
- The Sun Interacts With the Earth In Numerous Other Ways
Also on the same website: Scientific Experiments by Top Laboratory Shows that Cosmic Rays Affect Cloud Formation, Which in Turn Affects Climate
Actually there is a threat, but it is not from bogus "global warming" but rather from an impending new ice age, as noted above, and as discussed in the articles linked to below.
- James Delingpole: Children just aren't going to know what sun is
That's what Dr David Viner, a "University of Easy Access climatologist" predicted in 2000. Of him Delingpole writes:
So ... a scientist from arguably Britain's most discredited university department — the Climatic Research Unit at the UEA — made a fool of himself and his employer by feeding to a newspaper wrongheaded disaster scenarios based on woefully inaccurate computer projections, thus lending spurious credibility to a massive media scaremongering campaign which has led to the squandering of billions of pounds on an entirely unnecessary scheme to "decarbonise" the UK economy. His reward for this has been to be granted a taxpayer-funded salary to go round the world spreading more abject nonsense about a mostly non-existent threat called "climate change."
The global warming scare is a scam, and misinformed or dishonest schemes such as Julia Gillard's carbon tax are going to cost ordinary people a bundle.
- David Rose: Forget global warming — it's Cycle 25 we need to worry about (and if NASA scientists are right the Thames will be freezing over again)
"World temperatures may end up a lot cooler than now for 50 years or more," said Henrik Svensmark, director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at Denmark's National Space Institute. "It will take a long battle to convince some climate scientists that the sun is important. It may well be that the sun is going to demonstrate this on its own, without the need for their help." He pointed out that, in claiming the effect of the solar minimum would be small, the Met Office was relying on the same computer models that are being undermined by the current pause in global-warming.
- Debbie Guest: Carbon tax 'alarmism' doesn't fit facts, scientists warn
"Alarmism also offers an excuse for governments to raise taxes, (for) taxpayer-funded subsidies for businesses that understand how to work the political system and (is) a lure for big donations to charitable foundations promising to save the planet."
- Washington's Blog (2012-04-15): Top Scientists, Government Agencies and Publications Have — For Over 100 Years — Been Terrified of a New Ice Age
No Need to Panic About Global Warming
There's no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to 'decarbonize' the world's economy.
A letter signed by 16 scientists and published in the Wall Street Journal, 2012-05-29.
Alarmism over climate is of great benefit to many, providing government funding for academic research and a reason for government bureaucracies to grow. Alarmism also offers an excuse for governments to raise taxes, taxpayer-funded subsidies for businesses that understand how to work the political system, and a lure for big donations to charitable foundations promising to save the planet. ...
There is no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to "decarbonize" the world's economy. Even if one accepts the inflated climate forecasts of the IPCC, aggressive greenhouse-gas control policies are not justified economically. ...
Every candidate [for public office] should support rational measures to protect and improve our environment, but it makes no sense at all to back expensive programs that divert resources from real needs and are based on alarming but untenable claims of "incontrovertible" evidence.
- David Crossland (2013-05-16): Europe loses credit as carbon trading scheme dwindles away
- Matt McGrath (BBC, 2013-05-19): Climate slowdown means extreme rates of warming 'not as likely'
Scientists say the recent downturn in the rate of global warming will lead to lower temperature rises in the short-term. ... "The most extreme projections are looking less likely than before." ... [T]here are ongoing uncertainties surrounding the role of aerosols in the atmosphere and around the issue of clouds.
Or can we infer that climate scientists really can't predict anything with a probability of greater than 50% about the climate in the coming centuries?
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