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Climate Science Update (1) from the ABD Motoring Milch Cow Under The Weather
The faltering hypothesis of carbon dioxide driven global warming is nevertheless regularly used to siphon ever more tax from the 'mobile milch cow' otherwise known as the motorist.
Climate alarmism has been at fever pitch for some time, yet the Association of British Drivers continues to base its views on peer reviewed science rather than the more hysterical sections of the media, or the banshee voice of environmentalism.
In the first of a series of climate science press releases, some of the latest papers of relevance to the ABD and the over-taxed British motorist are briefly reviewed below.
Surface/lower atmosphere temperature trends contradict models
A new paper from the University of Alabama research group provides more support for the claim made in Wag TV's C4 documentary 'The Great Global Warming Swindle' that the planet's surface warming is greater than the warming in the lower atmosphere (troposphere), which contradicts climate model predictions for enhanced greenhouse warming.
Previous unfounded criticisms of the Christy et al data have centred round an error correction of 0.035C, which ignored the fact that this was within their quoted margin of error of 0.05C.
This lack of any tropospheric amplification - along with errors in polar amplification, sea level change and the temperature trend - shows how inadequate climate modelling is and how unsuitable it is compared to objective data as a basis for making policy.
Christy J. R., W. B. Norris, R. W. Spencer, J. J. Hnilo (2007), http://tinyurl.com/356cku
Tropospheric temperature change since 1979 from tropical radiosonde and satellite measurements, J. Geophys. Res, 12, D06102, doi:10.1029/ 2005JD006881Ocean heat content contradicts models Next, a correction to the Lyman et al paper
http://tinyurl.com/2krp3v
Recent cooling of the upper ocean" is now available: The correction eliminates the cooling reported in the 2006 paper, but contrary to climate model predictions and to the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the warming of the 1990s and the very early 2000s has not continued. http://tinyurl.com/2lnuww
Correction to 'Recent Cooling of the Upper Ocean" by Josh K. Willis, John M. Lyman, Gregory C. Johnson and John Gilson.
Hurricane intensity is due to natural cycles Climate alarmists who were disappointed by a quiet 2006 hurricane season have suffered another blow which will also be felt by the Oscar Committee as a result of the latest hurricane research.
A new paper by Gabe Vecchi and Brian Soden has been published. Hurricane expert Dr Chris Landsea, who resigned from the IPCC in 2005 in protest against a politicised IPCC which, as Landsea pointed out, operates on pre-conceived agendas using unsound science, explains the significance of this paper in a guest post on Prometheus:
"My reading of the paper by Vecchi and Soden is that this is a very important contribution to the understanding of how global warming is affecting hurricane activity. The study thoroughly examines how the wind-shear and other parameters that can alter the number and intensity of hurricanes because of man-made global warming. What they found - surprisingly - is that in the Atlantic that the wind shear should increase significantly over a large portion of where hurricanes occur - making it more difficult for hurricanes to form and grow. This was identified in all of the 18 global climate models they examined. One implication to me is that this further provides evidence that the busy period we've seen in the Atlantic hurricanes since 1995 is due to natural cycles, rather than man-made causes. We've seen a big reduction in wind shear in the last thirteen hurricane seasons, which is OPPOSITE to the signal that Vecchi and Soden have linked to manmade global warming changes."
Paper: Vecchi G. A., B. J. Soden (2007), http://tinyurl.com/326tu6
Increased tropical Atlantic wind shear in model projections of global warming," Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L08702, doi:10.1029/ 2006GL028905. (PDF) Post: http://tinyurl.com/2n9xy9
Earth is not alone There has been some recent speculation about whether observed warming on Mars, Jupiter, Pluto and Titan points to a cosmic cause for global warming on Earth. A new paper now adds Neptune to the list. Extracts from the paper state: "...correlations between Neptune's brightness and Earth's temperature anomaly-and between Neptune and two models of solar variability-are visually compelling...If changing brightnesses and temperatures of two different planets are correlated, then some planetary climate changes may be due to variations in the solar system environment."
http://tinyurl.com/2kn6m3
Suggestive correlations between the brightness of Neptune, solar variability, and Earth's temperature" by Hammel, H. B.; Lockwood, G. W. Geophys. Res. Lett., Vol. 34, No. 8, L08203 10.1029/2006GL02876 4, 19 April 2007
IPCC reports unbalanced and flawed
The perceived communications stranglehold through the peer review process from appointee establishment figures keen to promote the faltering hypothesis of man-made warming is supported by one of the IPCC's own reviewers, who have set out how the IPCC's reports are immune from the peer review process and are allowed out with a high degree of nonsense still evident.
Professor Aynsley Kellow writes:
"I was a referee for Chapter 19 in the [IPCC] Report on 'Key Vulnerabilities and Risk Assessment', and made in essence the criticism... that the whole exercise fails to take account of the increases in wealth that give rise to the emissions that drive the climate models, that drive the impact models.
It is nonsensical to suggest that vulnerabilities will be as they would be if the projected climates impacted upon present developing countries. The Report persists in this nonsense in the face of at least this reviewer drawing it to their attention, so the persistence is quite wilful.
It is, of course, such a fundamental criticism that it virtually renders the whole report invalid, so it was not likely to be well received. I also added that the chapter exaggerated the hazards of climate change and almost totally ignored any benefits. I put it that the First Order Draft read as if (in a warmer, and therefore wetter, world) no rain would fall in any form that would be in any way useful to anyone: there would be only floods and droughts.
The Second Order Draft included some language to the effect that this was because the Committee had decided that it should be so, to which I responded that they should not then represent their analysis as a risk assessment, since any sensible risk assessment must include benefits as well as costs.
I'm not holding my breath for this criticism to be taken on board either, which underscores a fault in the whole peer review process for the IPCC: there is no chance of a Chapter ever being rejected for publication, no matter how flawed it might be."
As the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs has suggested, the UN IPCC structure and processes are in urgent need of an overhaul - at the very least. The current situation also represents an unsatisfactory monopoly, which has led to risible notions that fiscal attacks on the UK transport sector can succeed where King Cnut failed.
Today's political Cnuts have hijacked environmentalism with the benefit of a well-funded spin machine but this cannot defeat nature, or the electorate, for much longer.
Climate Change Propaganda Exercise
Part 2
IPCC 2007 Working Group II Report on Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
In an unprecedented effort to make climate alarmism newsworthy throughout 2007, the second of 4 reports has been released (April). Just 21 scientists wrote the Summary for Policy Makers (SPM) on the science of climate change, published in February.
May will see the release of the third part, which will focus on attempts to control the complex, non-linear climate system using a single small factor such as carbon dioxide.
The final summary report will be released in November, after sufficient time for its contents to be amended, in order to be consistent with the political SPM document.
ABD Environment spokesman Ben Adams said: "It is estimated that over $50 billion has been spent globally on climate research in the past 15 years, including largesse from governments keen to justify tax hikes and control mechanisms on enterprise and individual mobility, yet every research dollar spent by industry is criticised in a knee-jerk reaction.
Who do they think will swallow this latest information pollution?
The best evidence they can come up with to support man-made global warming includes flawed computer models, past rises in carbon dioxide lagging 800 years behind the rise in temperature, and trying unsuccessfully to correlate the modern temperature recovery from the depths of the Little Ice Age with post industrial revolution rises in carbon dioxide.
This lack of success has been overcome so far by a vast and well funded spin machine. Yet it remains true that no human signal can be seen in the climate data against the background of natural variability."
ABD spokesman Paul Biggs comments, "Computer modelled climate alarmism doesn't stand up to scrutiny by objective climate scientists. A new paper will shortly be published confirming the accuracy of the ineffectually maligned satellite data of Christy and Spencer showing surface warming is greater than the warming in the lower atmosphere, which contradicts and refutes climate models.
Wild claims that a warmer climate will bring the extinction of a quarter of species ignore the fact that the likes of the Amazon basin has seen past reductions of the rainforest during ice ages, not hotter climates of the past. The expected natural global cooling arriving within 20 years will hopefully make pointless jobs in the climate change industry extinct."
The SPM was late to press, and as 01 April has passed perhaps this latest scaremongering missed a deadline in order to warm up some climate alarmism following the cooling off and back pedalling seen in the SPM.
Given the mixed messages, political interference, and unsound science bemoaned by scientists inside and out, the ABD endorses suggestions from the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs for a complete overhaul of the structure and workings of the politicised UN IPCC before its PR machine runs out of exaggerated Armageddonist ecohype.
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