Climate "science" predictions fail

- 1 May 2013

Real science operates by collecting data, inventing theories, developing models and making predictions that can be tested. If predictions fail, theories must be modified or discarded.

At the University of East Anglia (which lacked a physics department) climate science produced models that predicted global dangers so severe that immediate action was required.

Other groups joined, particularly NASA, GISS and NOAA - government agencies in the US. James Hansen of GISS testified before Congress in 1988 (with the air’conditioning secretly turned off for dramatic effect) predicting the flooding of New York ‘within 40 years’. Twenty’five years ago he predicted that the West Side Highway would be permanently underwater by 2028. Obviously this is not going to happen.

Climate ‘scientists’ claimed that humans were increasing Earth’s temperature by releasing CO2; if this was not stopped, Earth’s temperature would increase catastrophically. There was no time to waste on experiments. Models were sufficient proof.

Climate ‘scientists’ tried to avoid criticism by preventing critics having access to data, or publishing in climate journals.

It all unravelled in 2009 when emails were unwillingly released from UEA. Unbiased people should read the climate scientists’ emails; in private these ‘scientists’ did not believe their public claims. Here is a tiny selection:

“YOUR EYES ONLY. Delete after reading”; their emails read like spy stories.

When temperatures generated from tree ring data (which form the basis for much of the “Hockey Stick Graph” and other efforts at historical temperature reconstructions) conflicted with measured temperatures, a “trick” was used to “hide the decline” in reconstructed temperature.

“The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998. OK, it has …” Jones, head of department and later stood down by the University of East Anglia, one of the top ‘Climate Scientists’.

Some politicians were sensible; the experiment has been done. CO2 levels have increased steadily. But the earth has not warmed. Even the alarmists agree, there has been no warming for about 16 years. Further they now predict no warming in the near future.

Sceptics - libelled as ‘denialists’ - were right. Time for some real science.

Jim Ring

Nelson

Safe and unsafe skeptics

I have been a member of the Skeptics for over 30 years and I regard them as the SAFE Sceptics. You are people who are only sceptical about things that most people already agree to.

You expose cranks, fraudsters, quacks, psychics, ghosts, clairvoyants, astrologers, occultists, exorcists, and you do a good job, as we are surrounded by attempts to promote unidentified flying objects, the activities of aliens in our TV programmes and movies.

I have been an unsafe sceptic all of my life. I am a lapsed Catholic, lapsed communist, lapsed member of several political parties, and almost a lapsed scientist, as I am horrified at what passes for science today to the extent that I no longer dare admit to my Cambridge PhD in chemistry because of the sort of knowledge that can qualify nowadays and the special pleading that always goes with letters claiming to be from ‘Doctors’.

I had the distinction in 1992 for you to publish my article The Skeptical Environmentalist on your front page. That was in the days when the late Owen McShane was Editor, and he went on to declare his status as an ‘unsafe sceptic’ when he helped to found the NZ Climate Science Coalition. The title of my article was adopted by Bjorn Lomborg some years later.

I have been a commentator to every single one of the Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and not one of them has provided any evidence that our climate is exclusively determined by human emissions of greenhouse gases, a proposition which your correspondent Richard Hart of Tauranga accepts.

He would categorise me as a “denier” but I am unsure what it is that I am supposed to deny, apart from the statement I have just made. He would seem to be an ‘affirmer’ in which case I would be interested to know if he can present any evidence for this.

It is no use talking about ‘Global Warming’. There is no way that we could possibly measure the average temperature of the earth’s surface, and the botched up “Mean Global Surface Temperature Anomaly Record” does not qualify. But even this imperfect record has hardly changed for the past 15 years.

The UK Met Office is currently reeling once again as the UK has been hit by the fifth severe winter in a row after predicting the opposite every time.

You will doubtless be horrified by this letter and, at the very least it will be drastically abridged, but if you allow Mr Hart to disturb your ‘Safe’ sceptical status, you have asked for it.

Vincent Gray

Wellington

Climate change hypothesis supported by evidence

In NZ Skeptic 106, Richard Hart asks “do you believe in climate change?”, then reminds us that this is not quite the right question for a skeptic to ask.

I believe that there is more than sufficient evidence to accept the hypothesis that climate change is occurring, and that human actions are playing a significant role in this. This is based on the following observations.

• Verifiable changes in the environment are occurring (temperature rises, shrinking ice caps, increasing ocean acidity).
• The basic mechanism is clear ’ increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere traps more heat.
• Although the global ecosystem is dynamic and can adapt to changes such as increased carbon dioxide levels, with any dynamic system there are always limits beyond which the system cannot absorb changes without a significant “re’adjustment” (eg the ocean may absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to compensate for the higher concentrations but 1) there is a limit to how much can be absorbed, and 2) resulting changes in pH will affect sea life).
• The vast majority of climate change experts concur that anthropogenic climate change is real. Opponents have glibly argued that “science is not about consensus” but this is a flawed argument. The core of science is about consensus ’ this is why science provides the most reliable way of examining the world around us. The consensus is always open to challenge, provided this is backed with sufficient evidence to show it is a better hypothesis.
• Richard asks “How long did plate tectonics or evolution take to be accepted?” Plate tectonics was accepted by scientists within 50 years of it being proposed by Alfred Wegener in 1915. Evolution was also reasonably accepted by the scientific community once appropriate evidence was demonstrated (of course, large proportions of the non’scientific community still struggle with the idea and consequences of evolution; a useful analogy for anthropogenic climate change perhaps?).
• The idea of anthropogenic climate change was first mooted in the 1950s and 60s. At the time there was significant debate in the scientific community about the validity of this idea but it was eventually accepted by the scientific community. To overturn the current consensus would require extraordinary evidence, none of which I am aware.

There will of course be members of New Zealand Skeptics who disagree with me that there is abundant evidence to support anthropogenic climate change. There will also be those who agree with me, but disagree with my reasons for doing so. It is everyone’s right to believe what they want to. But as skeptics we should be confident that we have reached our own conclusions based on evidence and making all attempts to avoid bias where possible. We also need to be able to change our opinions if new evidence requires us to do so.

There is one thing that I hope all of our members will agree with, however. This debate has been lengthened and polluted by those who have used irrelevant, emotive and unscientific arguments; who have purposely tried to confuse the public understanding. This includes arguments such as “carbon dioxide helps plants grow so it can’t be bad”, “a concentration change of 80 ppm isn’t significant” and”scientists are on a climate change gravy train”. Even if we disagree about climate change, if we should all make an effort to challenge any type of bogus argument, no matter which ‘side’ is making it.

Michael Edmonds

Christchurch