Source: SPPI

Lord Monckton

by Christopher Monckton

1. CO2 concentration has risen by 10% in the past 23 years, but the RSS satellite global lower-troposphere temperature-anomaly record shows warming over that period that is statistically indistinguishable from zero. How come?

2. Aristotle, 2350 years ago, demonstrated that to argue from “consensus” is a logical fallacy – the headcount fallacy. Some 95% of all published arguments for alarm about our influence on the climate say we must believe the “consensus”. Why was Aristotle wrong?

3. Aristotle, 2350 years ago, demonstrated that to argue that the “consensus” is a “consensus” of experts is a logical fallacy – the fallacy of appeal to authority. What has changed since 2350 years ago to make argument from appeal to authority acceptable rather than fallacious? (more…)

Source:  SPPI

Sea level is NOT rising

New Paper posted at SPPI

by Professsor Morner, world-class expert on sea level

Main points

• - At most, global average sea level is rising at a rate equivalent to 2-3 inches per century. It is probably not rising at all.
• - Sea level is measured both by tide gauges and, since 1992, by satellite altimetry. One of the keepers of the satellite record told Professor Mörner that the record had been interfered with to show sea level rising, because the raw data from the satellites showed no increase in global sea level at all.
• - The raw data from the TOPEX/POSEIDON sea-level satellites, which operated from 1993-2000, shows a slight uptrend in sea level. However, after exclusion of the distorting effects of the Great El Niño Southern Oscillation of 1997/1998, a naturally-occurring event, the sea-level trend is zero. (more…)

Source:  NoTrickZone

How often do we hear screams “head for the hills, sea levels are rising fast!” from alarmists like James Extreme Hansen of GISS and Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)?

Yet, study after study show that there is no evidence of accelerating sea level rise. All sea level fluctuations are within the normal range of variation. Nothing unusual is happening. (more…)

Source: NIPCC

[SPPI Note:  on sea level, see these paper:

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/reprint/the_great_sealevel_humbug.html?Itemid=0

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/south_pacific.html?Itemid=0

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/when_sea_level_change.html?Itemid=0 ]

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Reference
Willis, J.K., Lyman, J.M., Johnson, G.C. and Gilson, J. 2009. In situ data biases and recent ocean heat content variability. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 26: 846-852

Authors Willis et al. (2009) write that “as the Earth warms due to the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the vast majority of the excess heat is expected to go toward warming the oceans (Levitus et al., 2005; Hansen et al., 2005),” but they note that “a large and apparently significant cooling in OHCA [ocean heat content anomaly] between 2003 and 2005 was reported by Lyman et al. (2006),” casting doubt on the theory in some people’s minds and doubts on the measurements in other people’s minds.

To help resolve this important issue, Willis et al. analyzed potential biases in expendable bathythermograph (XBT) data, as well as data obtained from the Argo array of profiling floats, which were used in making the OHCA calculations. (more…)

Source:  E&E reporter

SPPI Note:  for an in-depth look at sea level facts, see:

South Pacific Sea Level: A Reassessment

The Great Sea-Level Humbug: There Is No Alarming Sea Level Rise!

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An oceanographer and a Texas-based research organization are accusing the state’s environmental agency of censoring references to sea level rise and climate change in a new report on the health of Galveston Bay.

John Anderson, professor of oceanography at Rice University, said the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, or TCEQ, had removed every reference to “sea level rise, human influenced changes, changes in sediment supply due to the construction of dams and things of that nature.” (more…)

Source:  Provo Daily Herald

Charles Finkl, the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Coastal Research, which published a peer-reviewed study by NSW researcher Phil Watson that rekindled a fierce debate about sea level rises, said modelling was necessary but should be taken with a grain of salt.

He accused the CSIRO of refusing to consider questions raised by Mr Watson’s research for its modelling, predicting a worst-case scenario sea level rise of up to 1.1m by 2100. (more…)

Source:  Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr.

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[SPPI Note:  See SPPI papers on sea level rise:

Carbon Dioxide and the Earth’s Future, Pursuing the Prudent

South Pacific Sea Level: A Reassessment

Sea Level Changes and Tsunamis, Environmental Stress and Migration Overseas

An Open Letter to President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives

Sea Level in the Southwest Pacific is Stable

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Madhav Khandekar has provided us with another informative guest post.

Madhav Khandekar is a former research scientist from Environment Canada and is presently on the Editorial Board of the international Journal Natural Hazards (Kluwer Netherlands). Khandekar was an Expert Reviewer for the IPCC 2007 climate change documents and his latest contribution to sea level rise is a Chapter (Global warming, glacier melt and future sea level rise) in the Book “Global Warming” published by Sciyo Publishers (Sciyo.com) October 2010.

Global warming, glacier melt and sea level rise: need for more realistic future estimates by  Madhav Khandekar

There is now a heightened interest on the possibility of rapid melting of world-wide glaciers and ice caps ( e.g., Greenland and Antarctic ice caps) as a result of ongoing warming which could lead to escalated sea level rise in the ‘near future’. Sea Level Rise (SLR) is an important climate change parameter which is being intensely discussed at present in the context of human-induced global warming and the climate change debate. Many newspaper articles as well as science magazine articles often refer to world-wide glacier melts and the possibility of sea level rise of 3 to 7 ft (1 to 2m) over the next fifty to one hundred years. (more…)

Source:  Climate Change Weekly

by James Taylor

Faced with the embarrassing fact that sea level is not rising nearly as much as alarmist computer models predict, the University of Colorado’s NASA-funded Sea Level Research Group has announced it will begin adding a scientifically unjustified 0.3 millimeters per year to its Global Mean Sea Level Time Series.

Human civilization readily adapted to the seven inches of sea-level rise that occurred during the twentieth century. Alarmists, however, claim global warming will cause sea level to rise much more rapidly during the coming century. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) gives a mean estimate of 15 inches of sea-level rise during the twenty-first century. High-profile alarmists often predict three feet. Some even predict 20 feet. (more…)

Catastrophic sea level rise is one of the most valued hole cards played by alarmists in the global warming debate. In An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore showed computer generated images of what Manhattan would look like if sea level rose 20 feet. Building on this theme, elevation charts of coastal cities have become a staple in global warming presentations by Al Gore wannabes. But what happens when sea level in the real world does not rise nearly as much as alarmists predict? If you are a NASA-funded gatekeeper of sea level data, you merely doctor the data.

Faced with the embarrassing fact that sea level is not rising nearly as much as has been predicted, the University of Colorado’s NASA-funded Sea Level Research Group has announced it will begin adding a nonexistent 0.3 millimeters per year to its Global Mean Sea Level Time Series. As a result, alarmists will be able to present sea level charts asserting an accelerating rise in sea level that is not occurring in the real world. (more…)

Source:  CO2 Science

by Craig and Sherwood Idso

Special Issue
This week we announce the release of our newest major report, Carbon Dioxide and Earth’s Future: Pursuing the Prudent Path. Based on the voluminous periodic reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the ongoing rise in the atmosphere’s CO2 concentration has come to be viewed as a monumental danger — not only to human society, but to the world of nature as well. But are the horrific “doomsday scenarios” promulgated by the climate alarmists as set-in-stone as the public is led to believe? Do we really know all of the complex and interacting processes that should be included in the models upon which these scenarios are based? And can we properly reduce those processes into manageable computer code so as to produce reliable forecasts 50 or 100 years into the future? At present, the only way to properly answer these questions is to compare climate model projections with real-world observations. Theory is one thing, but empirical reality is quite another. The former may or may not be correct, but the latter is always right. As such, the only truly objective method to evaluate climate model projections is by comparing them with real-world data. (more…)

Source:  NewScientist

SPPI Note: Tuvalu has been the face of small island nation states during international negotiations for a climate treaty. In 2003, for example, Tuvalu’s prime minister earned headlines by presenting the United Nations with a bill for the damages caused to small islands by rising sea-levels. So it should come as a great relief to the people of Tuvalu that 86% of the islands that comprise the country are growing thanks to sediment and coral accretion, according to a study this week from the New Scientist.  Claims that sea-level rise is “already accelerating” is contradicted by empirical evidence.  See page 15 of the SPPI Monthly Report:

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/co2_report_apr_2010.pdf

Also see: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/reprint/sea_level_in_sothwest_pacific_stable.html?Itemid=0

“Graphs of sea level for twelve locations in the southwest Pacific show stable sea level for about ten years over the region. The data are compared with results from elsewhere, all of which suggest that any rise of global sea level is negligible.”

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AGAINST all the odds, a number of shape-shifting islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean are standing up to the effects of climate change. (more…)

From Professor Nils-Axel Mörner

• Professor Mörner wrote the following letter to Nature, which refused to print it, so we are posting it here.

Sir – I read your December editorial comments with interest and surprise. In the December 3 editorial you say nearly 100% believe in the IPCC’s scenarios and in its handling of the “global warming” case. Your journal surely represents one of the highest authorities in science. This calls for considerable responsibility on your part. Science is a process of continuous searching.

The Climategate emails you discussed in the December 3 editorial may not be so important, though they show scientific and cultural bad behaviour. Much more important are the real facts. Far too often they seem to run directly opposite to what is being claimed in the IPCC reports. Another point is the use of real and claimed specialists. Far too often the IPCC puts aside leading specialists are in favour of people not specialized in the subject but chosen because they can be relied upon to give a report in full support of the scenario asked for. This is a very unscientific approach.

I can assure you that this has been the case with the IPCC’s chapters on sea-level changes, my own field of specialization. Glaciological changes are nothing like as simple and straightforward as claimed in the IPCC’s reports. Also, it seems clear that the imagined issue of threats to health allegedly posed by warmer weather was quite wrongly handled by the IPCC.

Even the core issue, the relationship between temperature and greenhouse gases, seems far from clear. In this situation, we simply need to return to basic science, and this is what you and your journal are supposed to be all about.

In your December 24 editorial you write that the Copenhagen agreement “lends fresh urgency to challenges in science and communications”. I agree, but I am sure that those challenges would now be best exercised by a rediscovery of true scientific values (a task in which your journal ought to play a central role), and by a full reorganization of the IPCC in time for the Fifth Assessment Report in 2013/14.

Let us join in an appeal for a general “rediscovery of scientific values” in ressearch projects, in reports, in reviews, in debates and in publications.

Nils-Axel Mörner. Ph.D., Sea Level specialist,
Former head of Paleogeophysics & Geodynamics at Stockholm University

From The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley

The desperation of the climate extremists as global temperatures plummet for the tenth year in a row is growing. Stephen Schneider, professor of environmental biology and “global change” at Stanford University, said today:

• “We can no longer prevent global warming — it is upon us. Rapidly melting polar icecaps, acidification of the oceans, loss of coral reefs, longer droughts, more devastating wildfires, and sea level rise that threatens island nations and seacoasts everywhere are clear signs of change in Earth’s climate. Disruptions of the monsoon seasons in India and China already threaten crop yields resulting in more frequent and severe food shortages than in the recent past … If we continue ‘business as usual’ our habitat could be disrupted beyond recognition, with consequences for our way of life that we cannot now foresee. Without vigorous and immediate follow-up to the Copenhagen conference and well-conceived action we are all threatened by accelerating and irreversible changes to our planet.”

Nonsense. Here’s why. (more…)

From The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley in Copenhagen

In the Grand Ceremonial Hall of the University of Copenhagen, a splendid Nordic classical space overlooking the Church of our Lady in the heart of the old city, rows of repellent, blue plastic chairs surrounded the podium from which no less a personage than Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, was to speak.

I had arrived in good time to take my seat among the dignitaries in the front row. Rapidly, the room filled with enthusiastic Greenies and enviro-zombs waiting to hear the latest from ye Holy Bookes of Ipecac, yea verily.

The official party shambled in and perched on the blue plastic chairs next to me. Pachauri was just a couple of seats away, so I gave him a letter from me and Senator Fielding of Australia, pointing out that the headline graph in the IPCC’s 2007 report, purporting to show that the rate of warming over the past 150 years had itself accelerated, was fraudulent.

Would he use the bogus graph in his lecture? I had seen him do so when he received an honorary doctorate from the University of New South Wales. I watched and waited.

Sure enough, he used the bogus graph. I decided to wait until he had finished, and ask a question then.

Pachauri then produced the now wearisome list of lies, fibs, fabrications and exaggerations that comprise the entire case for alarm about “global warming”. He delivered it in a tired, unenthusiastic voice, knowing that a growing majority of the world’s peoples – particularly in those countries where comment is free – no longer believe a word the IPCC says.

They are right not to believe. Science is not a belief system. But here is what Pachauri invited the audience in Copenhagen to believe. (more…)