Senator Kerry Misfires
ABOUT Global Warming and
National Security
by Christopher Monckton
SPPI Original Paper
August 12, 2009
Scl9nc«& PvWc PoMcv Initilvl*
■, -i mnc^rbramrl pdc ytrwe brnttm wairi'
"The lesson to the world
here is — when it comes
to science, never blindly
accept an explanation
from a politician or
scientists who have
turned political
for their own
private gain."
- Bob Ashworth
Chemical Engineer
16 U.S. Patents
"Science is the belief in the
ignorance of experts."
- Richard Feynman
Table of Contents
Summary for Policy Makers 4
The Scare 5
The Truth 6
"The extent of Antarctic sea ice will diminish" 6
"No Arctic sea ice in summer by 2013" 7
"Polar bears are at risk" 9
"More droughts and famines" 12
"Worse pandemics" 13
"More natural disasters" 15
"More resource scarcity" 18
"Human displacement on a staggering scale" 19
"A shrinking water supply in the Middle East" 20
"Complete disappearance of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035" 21
"A sea-level rise of 3 feet" 22
"Threat of catastrophic climate change" 25
"A grave and growing threat to stability and national security" 26
Conclusion
On the latest scientific evidence, the scare is over 31
Appendix
Contrasting Ideas about Climate Change and War 40
Senator Kerry Misfires about Global
Warming and National Security
by Christopher Monckton I August 12, 2009
Summary for Policy Makers
Senator John Kerry's statement in early August 2009 about "global warming" before the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which he chairs, was false in every particular, says
SPPl, leading him to draw the incorrect conclusion that "global warming" was a threat to
national security. The Senatorgot every fact wrong -
Wilkins Ice Shelf: Senator Kerry said the recent cracking of the thin "ice-bridge" linking the
Wilkins Ice Shelf to the Antarctic Ice Shelf was caused by "global warming". It was not: there
has been no statistically-significant "global warming" for almost 15 years.
Arctic ice-cap: Senator Kerry said the Arctic ice-cap would vanish in summer by 2013 because
of "global warming". It will not, and, even if it does, "global warming" will not be the cause:
there has been rapid global coo/ingfor very nearly eight years.
Polar bears: Senator Kerry said polar bears were under threat from "global warming". They
are not: their population has increased fivefold since the 1940s, and they survived the last
interglacial period 125,000 years ago, when there was no summer ice in the Arctic.
Famine and drought: Senator Kerry said "global warming" would bring more famine and
drought. It will not: "global warming", if and when it resumes, would cause the space
occupied by the atmosphere to hold more water vapor, reducing drought globally.
Pandemics: Senator Kerry said "global warming" would cause worse pandemics. It will not:
so-called "tropical" diseases can flourish even in Arctic temperatures. It is inadequate public-
health measures, not rising global temperatures, that spread supposedly "tropical"
diseases.
Natural disasters: Senator Kerry said "global warming" would cause more natural disasters.
It will not: hurricane activity is now at its lowest in half a century, despite warmer weather
worldwide; and patterns of flood and drought are much as they always were.
Climate refugees: Senator Kerry said "global warming would cause human displacement on
"a staggering scale". It will not: the only significant cause of human displacement would be
rapidly-rising sea level, but this is not happening and is not likely to happen.
Middle East water supply: Senator Kerry said "global warming" would shrink the water
supply in the Middle East. It will not: water has been scarce there for looo years, and
warmer weather is already moistening the atmosphere and greening hundreds of thousands
of square kilometers of the Sahara.
Asian water supply: Senator Kerry said "global warming" would melt the Himalayan
glaciers, drying up the water supply of a quarter of the planet's population. It will not: it is
Eurasian winter snow cover, not the glaciers, that supplies Asia with its water, and that
shows no trend in 50 years.
Sea level rising 3 feet: Senator Kerry said "global warming" would raise sea level 3 feet. It
will not: sea level rose 8 inches in the 20*'^ century, is currently not rising at all, and will rise
by little more than 1 foot in the 21^ century.
However, a series of recent scientific publications have established definitively that the UN
has grievously overstated the effect of CO2 on global temperature. There has been no
"global warming" in the upper or mixed layer of the oceans for six years. The model-
predicted tropical upper-troposphere "hot spot" is absent in observed reality, because
subsidence drying removes the additional water vapor that the models expect to find. And a
devastating paper just published demonstrates that far less outgoing long-wave radiation is
being trapped in the atmosphere than the models had predicted. The "global warming"
scare is now known to be just that - a scare.
The Scare
IN EARLY AUGUST 2009, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Al Gore's close
associate Senator John Kerry (D-ma), was told that massive crop devastation, melting
glaciers, water shortages, and millions of displaced people would drag the US military
into conflict if "global warming" went unchecked.
Senator Kerry recited Al Gore's well-worn litany of imagined consequences of "global
warming" - the recent disintegration of a sea-ice bridge connecting the Wilkins Ice Shelf to
the Antarctic continent; the prediction that in 2013 the Arctic will have its first ice-free
summer in at least 1000 years; the notion that polar bears are under threat from "global
warming"; more famine and drought; worse pandemics; more natural disasters; more
resource scarcity; human displacement on what he called "a staggering scale"; a shrinking
water supply in the Middle East; the predicted complete disappearance by 2035 of the water
from the Himalayan glaciers "which supply water to almost a billion people from China to
Afghanistan"; and the predicted immersion of the US naval base at Diego Garcia if sea level
rises 3 feet.
Retired Navy Vice-Admiral Lee F. Gunn, president of the "American Security Project", told
the Committee: "Addressing the consequences of changes in the Earth's climate is not
simply about saving polar bears or preserving the beauty of mountain glaciers. Climate
change is a threat to our national security."
Gunn and other military specialists said that "global
warming" might expand the Pentagon's humanitarian
missions, and might even change how it deploys its
fighting forces. Gunn said that "global warming"
would stress already unstable nations, creating
"climate conflicts". He added: "International conflicts
over resources, due to migrants, and/or as a means of
distraction are not only likely, but likely to exacerbate
the underlying climate change problem."
Senator Kerry described "global warming" as "a
grave and growing threat to global stability, human
security, and America's national security ... The threat
of catastrophic climate change is not an academic
concern for the future. It is already upon us, and its
effects are being felt worldwide, right now."
The facts and data of the
past and the present are
more than sufficient to
demonstrate that every
word quoted from
Senator Kerry and from
the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee is
baseless and false.
The Truth
Senator Kerry said: "Of course, the future has a way of humbling those who try to predict it
too precisely." As we shall see, the facts and data of the past and the present are more than
sufficient to demonstrate that every word quoted above from Senator Kerry and from the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee is baseless and false.
Let us begin by examining ser/'atim Senator Kerry's lurid but long-discredited list of imagined
inconveniences, misfortunes, disasters, catastrophes, cataclysms, Armageddons, and
Apocalypses.
"The extent of Antarctic sea ice will diminish"
For some decades it has been apparent that the Antarctic Peninsula and the adjacent
northern end of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, where the Wilkins Ice Shelf is to be found,
share an anomalous climate that is
not typical of the rest of Antarctica:
indeed, some authorities classify it
as a distinct climatic region. In this
region, amounting to little more
than 2% of the Antarctic continent,
seven ice shelves with a combined
area equivalent to less than 2% of the
land area of Texas have
disintegrated over the past decade.
However, studies of the sea-bed
beneath one of the largest of these shelves, the Larsen B shelf, show that the shelf had not
been present during the medieval warm period. Ice shelves come and go.
Studies of the sea-bed beneath one of
the largest of these shelves, the Larsen
B shelf, show that the shelf had not
been present during the medieval
warm period. Ice shelves come and go.
As for the not very substantial Wilkins ice bridge (above) mentioned by Senator Kerry, it re-
froze almost as soon as it had disintegrated. Nor can its transitory disintegration be
attributed to "global warming", because there has been no statistically-significant "global
warming" for almost 15 years and rapid global cooling for eight years. Furthermore, there
has been no statistically-significant regional warming in Antarctica for half a century, and the
extent of Antarctic sea ice reached a largely-unreported 30-year record high in October
2007, just one month after the extent of Arctic sea ice reached a universally-reported 30-year
low. Besides, as even the UN's climate panel has been compelled to admit, ascribing
individual extreme-weather events such as the disintegration of a handful of ice shelves in
one tiny region to "global warming" is impossible.
"No Arctic sea ice in summer by 2013"
Nearly all of the alarm about "global warming" arises from predictions that have been self-
evidently exaggerated by "global warming" profiteers hoping to gain financial or political
advantage by crying "Wolf!" to a largely scientifically-illiterate population. Senator Kerry's
prediction, echoing a similar prediction by Al Gore in late 2007, is that "global warming" will
make the Arctic Ocean ice-free in summer in just four years' time. Faced with such
extravagant predictions, a prudent citizen would ask two questions. First, what is the
evidence that such a prediction might come true? Secondly, even if the prediction came true,
what harm might arise?
We answer the first question definitively by the simple method of looking at the data. The
Japanese Meteorological Institute maintains a daily-updated plot of the past ten years' sea-
ice extent in the Arctic, expressed in millions of square kilometers. The plot follows a
seasonal sine-wave, with remarkably few deviations -
Jan Feb Mar Apr M ay
Jun
Jul
Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
The red curve representing sea-ice extent in 2009 is broadly coincident with the bright green
curve for 2005. It is likely, though not yet definite, that this year's summer sea-ice minimum
(red) will follow a path between that of 2005 (light green) and 2008 (orange) -
"^
!
"^
^'
Even the sea-ice extent during the summer minima of 2007 and 2008 comfortably exceeded
4 million km^. Also, studies by NASA have determined that the sudden decline in summer
sea-ice extent in July-October 2007 was caused by a shift in winds and currents, bringing
warmer air up from the tropics. This climatic shift owes little or nothing to "global warming"
- if only because there has been none for almost a decade and a half. On the evidence, then,
there is no realistic likelihood of an ice-free Arctic by 2013 and, even if there were, this
regional phenomenon could not be attributed to "global warming" because there has not
been any since 1995.
So much for the "Is it true?" question. Now for
"If it is true, so what?" It is possible that there
was no summer sea ice in the Arctic during the
medieval warm period, and also in the Roman
and Bronze Age warm periods. It is probable
that there was no summer sea ice in the Arctic
during the last interglacial temperature
optimum 125,000 years ago, when global
temperatures were 10° F warmer than the
present.
During the last Interglacial
temperature optinrium 125,000
years ago, global
temperatures were 10° F
warmer than the present.
Finally, it is certain that there was no summer sea ice in the Arctic 850,000 years ago, when
the entire land mass of Greenland was free of the ice sheet that is now several thousands of
feet thick. The absence of Arctic sea ice in the summer, if and when it comes about, will be
good for Arctic wildlife: after all, fewer than 1% of all species live at the Poles, where it is cold,
and the vast majority of species thrive in the tropics, where it is hot.
Nor would the absence of summer sea ice accelerate "global warming" by significantly
altering the Earth's albedo, as "global-warming" profiteers such as James Hansen have
suggested. The Sun's rays strike the Arctic at such a low angle that changes in albedo at such
high latitudes - and only for a third of the year - make little difference to global albedo.
Therefore, even if the sea ice in the Arctic were to disappear altogether (almost certainly
from natural rather than anthropogenic causes), the net effect on the planet's ecosystem
would be beneficial.
"Polar bears are at risk"
Here is a fact that has not been reported by most
major news media. There are five times as many
polar bears on Earth today as there were at the
end of the Second World War. That is scarcely the
profile of a species imminently menaced with
extinction. Yet no major speech by a "global-
warming" profiteer is complete without a
statutory reference to the supposed threat to
polar bears from disappearing Arctic sea ice.
There are five times as many
polar bears on Earth today as
there were at the end of the
Second World War.
As we have already established, Arctic sea ice is
not disappearing. Indeed, in the winter its
extent has scarcely changed for 30 years. Yet,
even if the sea ice were to disappear altogether
in the summer, polar bears would come to no
harm. They, and the seals on whose blubber
they feed, would merely do what they
presumably did in the medieval warm period -
they would move contentedly on to the land
surrounding the Arctic - Alasl<a, nortliern Canada, and Siberia. It is not usually reported that
all polar bears are born not on the ice-cap but in dens on the land. Polar bears' favorite
delicacy is blueberries, which do not grow on the ice-cap. The land surrounding the Arctic
ocean is as much a part of the natural habitat of polar
bears as the ocean and the ice-cap themselves.
Polar bears evolved from the land-based brown bear
some 200,000 years ago. They have survived all
manner of climatic extremes in that long period. They
have certainly survived previous absences of the Arctic
ice-cap. They would have no difficulty whatsoever in
surviving any future absence, whether the melting
was natural (as in the past) or anthropogenic.
The constant refrain from the "global-warming" profiteers about the imagined threat to
polar bears from warmer weather is an instance of the Aristotelian logical fallacy known as
the argumentum ad misericordiam - the special instance of the non sequitur that is the
argument from pity. Polar bears are cuddly, and we feel sorry for them up there in the lonely
Arctic as the ice melts beneath them: therefore "global warming" is a real problem. The
proposition only has to be stated and its absurdity becomes self-evident.
Polar bears are
cuddly, and we feel
sorry for them up
there in the lonely
Arctic as the ice
melts beneath
them; therefore
"global warming" is
a real problem. The
proposition only has
to be stated and its
absurdity becomes
self-evident.
Al Gore, one of the richest of the new "global-warming"
profiteers, devoted a substantial segment of his movie to
the fictitious threat posed by "global warming" to polar
bears. He showed a photograph of two rather grubby
polar bears perching on a disintegrating iceberg -
However, that photograph
was taken just feet from the
shore, and the bears were
merely basking as the
research ship from which
the picture was taken
passed them by.
Gore also said that polar
bears were dying in large
numbers because "global
warming" was melting so
much sea ice that they were
having to swim ever longer distances to reach the land.
This was a flagrant misinterpretation of Monnett and
Gleason (2006), a scientific paper that had reported the
deaths of just four polar bears in the Beaufort Sea. The
bears had in fact died in a storm, swamped by "high sea
states associated with stormy weather" -
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Furthermore, the Beaufort Sea has shown a very slight increase in the mean extent of sea ice
over the past 30 years: therefore, there was not and is not any scientific basis for Gore's
suggestion that the bears died because of an anthropogenic scarcity of sea ice in the region
where they drowned -
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In October 2007, two days before Gore received his share of the Nobel Peace Prize, Mr.
Justice Burton in the London High
Gourt ruled that nine "errors" in
Gore's movie had to be corrected
before innocent schoolchildren
could be exposed to it, requiring
the British Government to
circulate 77 pages of "corrective
guidance" to every school in
England. On the polar-bear
question, the judge said -
N[r. Justice Burton in the London Higii
Court ruied that nine "errors" in Gore's
movie iiad to be corrected before innocent
scliooichiidren couid be exposed to it.
11
"The only scientific study that either side before me can find in the
literature... indicates that four polar bears have recently been found drowned
because of a storm. There may in the future be drowning-related deaths of
polar bears if the trend of regression of pack-ice and/or longer open water
continues, but it plainly does not support Mr. Gore's description."
If Senator Kerry's staff had done their homework more diligently, they would have
discovered that the threat to polar bears is
minimal, but that there is an organized attempt on
the part of certain Arctic researchers to pretend
that the bears are under threat from "global
warming". At a recent conference in Copenhagen
on the subject, one of the world's leading
researchers on polar bears was excluded from
participating, on the ground, stated in writing by
the organizer, that his professional opinion to the
effect that "global warming" was harmless to
polar bears was unacceptable to the group. Not
only politicians but also scientists are profiteers by
the "global warming" scare, and they did not want one of their number to stand up and
point out the truths that we have published here. Polar bears are not at risk from
anthropogenic "global warming".
If Senator Kerry's staff had
done their homework more
diligently, they would have
discovered that the threat
to polar bears Is minimal.
"More droughts and famines"
Even the Old-Testament psalmists at their most excitable can scarcely have imagined so
exotic a catalogue of miseries as that which your average "global-warming profiteer invents.
No such catalogue would be complete
without the statutory mention of the
droughts and famines which we are
invited to imagine as the inevitable
consequences of "global warming".
However, famines do not occur in any
democratic country: they are always
the consequence not of any natural
adversity but of the inept despotism of
corrupt tyrants. Droughts and floods
occur at random, as they always have,
ever since the Egyptians first kept
climate records 10,000 years ago. No drought in recent years in the United States has been
anything like as severe as the drought in the Great Plains in the 1930s, graphically described
in John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath, The Sahara Desert has actually shrunk by
300,000 square kilometers in the past 30 years, as vegetation takes hold. So rapid has been
this greening of the Saharan margins that it is visible from space, and nomadic tribes have
been able to settle in regions uninhabited in living memory.
Even the Old-Testament psalmists at
their most excitable can scarcely have
Imagined so exotic a catalogue of
miseries as that which your average
"global-warming" profiteer Invents.
12
"Worse pandemics"
Inevitably, John Kerry mentioned the possibility of "worse pandemics" as a result of "global
warming". He ought to have known better. One of the most comprehensively-discredited
falsehoods about the imagined effects of "global warming" is that it will spread tropical
diseases to subtropical and temperate
regions. Yet the diseases that occur most
commonly in the tropics do so not
because the weather is warmer but
because governments in tropical regions
are less competent at providing efficient
medical care and public health than
governments elsewhere.
One of the most comprehensively-
discredited falsehoods about the
imagined effects of "global
warming" is that it will spread
tropical diseases to subtropical
and temperate regions.
Malaria, for instance, is not a tropical
disease. The worst outbreak in the past
century occurred in the 1920s in Siberia,
scarcely noted for its tropical climate.
Some 13 million people were infected and
600,000 died, 30,000 of them in the port of Arkhangelsk on the Arctic Circle. The anopheles
mosquito that carries the malaria parasite can survive in temperatures up to -15° F, though it
requires temperatures of 60° F or above during its short breeding season. It is not, therefore,
tropical. Indeed, it was prevalent throughout most of the United States until it was
eradicated by public health measures in 1949 -
The gray areas on the map show the extent of malaria in the United States in 1882.
West Nile Virus is another so-called "tropical" disease that is not in any way tropical. Al Gore
mentions it as a disease of "global warming" in his inaccurate book on the climate, but his
own map of how it spread throughout the United States demonstrates that its transmission
has nothing to do with warmer weather -
13
The map shows that the vector arrived, probably by ship, on the eastern seaboard of the US
in 1999 and then spread westward year by year. If anything, it spread a little more quickly in
the colder north than in the warmer south: certainly, there is no evidence that it was warmer
weather that facilitated the transmission of the disease.
Disease Cause
Arena virus
Rats
Avian influenza
Chickens
Dengue hemorrhagic fever
Mosquitoes
Ebola virus
Primates?
Escherischia Coli oi57:H7
Poor hygiene
Hanta virus
Rats
Human Immunodeficiency virus
Sexual transmission
Legionella
Air conditioning
Leptospirosis
Rats
Lyme disease
Ticks
Malaria
Anopheles mosquitoes
MDR tuberculosis
Cold weather
Nipah virus
Pigs
SARS
Cold weather
Vibrio Cholerae 0210
Poor hygiene
West Nile Virus
Mosquito
Yellow fever
Anopheles mosquitoes
The table above shows some of the commonest diseases that Al Gore's book described as
"tropical". However, not one of them is properly described as tropical: therefore, there is no
reason to suppose that warmer weather will facilitate their transmission. Indeed, some of
the diseases - MDR tuberculosis and SARS for instance - would become less prevalent in
generally warmer weather. Though the menace of plagues has a satisfyingly Biblical ring to
it, there is no scientific basis for Senator Kerry's declaration that "global warming" will
spread pandemics more rapidly or more frequently than a colder climate.
14
"More natural disasters"
Though the menace of plagues has a
satisfyingly Biblical ring to it, there
is no scientific basis for Senator
Kerry's declaration that "global
warming" will spread pandemics.
Among more than looo alleged
consequences of "global warming" that
have been sensationally reported in the
mainstream news media during the past
eight years of rapid global cooling, few
are more likely to win column inches
than the notion that natural disasters
will increase with warmer weather.
Unfortunately for Senator Kerry, who
recites this mantra without having
verified whether there is any truth in it, there is no truth in it at all.
Take hurricanes. At present, the accumulated cyclone energy index, which measures the
combined frequency, duration, and intensity of all hurricanes, typhoons, and tropical
cyclones worldwide, is almost at its least value in half a century, both globally and in the
Northern Hemisphere -
2200
2000
1800
1600
1+00 --
TC Accumulated Cyclone Energy
24-rnonth running sums
JTWCr^HCBeEt/OpsrsfionalTradis
Updated rhreughjvly 31, 2009
Ryan N. Maue
Florida State University
600
T 1 r~
79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10
What is more, the correlation between trends in hurricane activity and temperature trends is
very poor. Lack of correlation necessarily implies lack of causation. Warmer weather is not
causing more hurricanes. One of the most reliable long-run climate records is the annual
frequency of land-falling Atlantic hurricanes, which has been recorded for 150 years. It shows
absolutely no trend throughout the period, even though the world has warmed by around 1
Fahrenheit degree.
Or take floods. The floods in New Orleans were caused not by an exceptional hurricane, for
Katrina was only Category 3 when it made landfall, but by failure to maintain the levees.
15
Likewise, the floods in the Mississippi river basin were caused not by "global warming"
(there has not been any for a long time) but by the decision of local authorities to build up
the banks of the river, confining it to a narrow channel, preventing the natural flooding of
upstream flood-plains that would have
reduced the downstream rate of flow.
However, far more damage in the US
was done by floods earlier in the past
century, when the weather was globally
cooler than it is today. There is,
therefore, very little empirical evidence
that "global warming" has made floods
either more frequent or more damaging
in recent decades.
There is very little empirical evidence
that "global warmir^g" has made
floods either more frequent or more
damaging in recent decades.
In the Johnstown Flood of 1889, 2500 people died -
In Dayton, Ohio, a flood killed 527 people in 1913 -
16
This is a view of Smitli's Bridge, North Carolina, in 1916 -
Or take tornadoes. Though better weather monitoring systems are capable of identifying
more tornadoes than formerly, the frequency of severe tornadoes has been steadily
diminishing, as the data from the National Climatic Data Center's 2006 climate survey show -
200
O
-o
I 150
H
u
>
O
I 50
5
100
Number of Severe Tornados
in U.S. Is Decreasing
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
17
Likewise, deaths caused by tornadoes are falling -
600
500
CD
O
400
E
3
^
300
CO
=3
C
C
<
200
100
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
There is a good reason why extreme-weather events tend to become rarer as the weather
warms. One of the main drivers of climate is the difference between daytime and night-time
temperatures: it is this difference, rather than the absolute value of the temperatures, that
contributes to storminess. However, in a warmer world the differences between daytime
and night-time temperatures tend to diminish, reducing one of the causes of storminess.
Once again, on the evidence, there is no basis for Senator Kerry's apocalyptic notion that
"global warming" will increase extreme-weather events.
"More resource scarcity"
Only a politician certain that the news media are sleepily uncritical in their acceptance of
anything blamed on "global warming" would have dared to suggest that a change in the
weather will alter the quantity of natural resources with which our planet is endowed.
The only resource that is affected by bad weather is agriculture: however, worldwide
agricultural yields have continued to increase, as they usually do in warmer weather. If the
tundra of northern Siberia were to melt, billions of acres of cultivable land would be created,
and the vast northern forests that once existed there would return.
In some parts of the world, as now, shifting patterns of drought and flood would affect
agricultural yields in one direction or another, but there is remarkably little evidence of any
globally adverse effect on agriculture to date, and most analysts expect that a modest
"global warming" - if and when it resumes - would be generally beneficial to agriculture.
18
"Human displacement on a staggering scale"
Throughout history, shifts in the climate have triggered shifts in population. However, the
idea that warmer - as opposed to colder - weather would be likely to cause widespread
human displacement is largely unfounded.
The space occupied by the atmosphere can carry near-exponentially more water vapor as
the atmosphere warms: accordingly, many of the world's drier regions, such as the Sahara,
can expect moister air and hence a less desert climate than at present.
This gradual restoration of territories dried out by previous climate changes is already
leading to a beneficial displacement of population towards the newly-watered regions. The
Sahara has shrunk by 300,000 square kilometers in recent decades -
40
RAIN-OI>!.crved
RAIN-Melcosal
NDVI
I9S2
992 1994
The Sahara has shrunk by ^00,000 km^ in recent decades, allowing" nomadic tribes to return to territories
unpopulated m living memory. Source: Nicholson (1988, 2001).
It is only possible to posit a "staggering scale" of human displacement if one imagines, as Al
Gore fancifully did, that sea level will imminently rise by 20 feet as a result of "global
warming"; or, as James Hansen still more absurdly did, that sea level will rise by 246 feet.
There is no scientific reason
to imagine that sea /eve/ wiii
rise any faster in the 21^^
century than it did in the 20^^.
There is no scientific reason to imagine that sea
level will rise any faster in the 21^* century than it
did in the 20*^ and very good scientific reason to
conclude that it will not. Since sea level is not
going to rise any more spectacularly in the 21^*
century than it did in the 20**^, there is no case
for saying that "global warming" is about to
displace populations on what Senator Kerry calls
"a staggering scale".
19
"A shrinking water supply in the Middle East"
The Middle East has been dry since the over-grazing of the vast northern-littoral of the
African continent between the 6^'' and the 14^'' centuries destroyed the forests. The current
water shortage in the region has nothing to do with "global warming" and everything to do
with the failure of the nations concerned to replant their forests, and to ensure a balance
between their rapidly growing populations and a fixed water supply.
Archaeological excavation of the elaborate system of medieval qanats, very long
underground tunnels painstakingly dug with vast labour using primitive tools over many
generations to bring mountain water down into the arid plains of Araby, shows how long-
standing is the problem of water shortage in the Middle East, and how foolish it is of
Senator Kerry to blame the current water shortage in the region on "global warming".
A qanat, showing one of the characteristic wellhead accesses that faciUtated construction, ventiiation, and water
extraction. The English word "canal" is derived from the ciassical Arabic word "qanat". Picture source: John Baez.
This is one of many instances where "global-warming" profiteers attribute to "climate
change" phenomena that are obviously chiefly attributable to other causes. Nuclear-
powered and solar-powered desalination would readily bring the current Middle Eastern
water shortage to an end.
20
Cyprus, for instance, was offered two free desalination plants that were surplus to
requirements in Hong Kong some years ago, but failed to take advantage of the offer.
However, Cyprus - unlike most other Middle Eastern
countries - has devoted considerable effort to the replanting
of its north-western forest region and, within the next 50
years, can expect to reap some climatic benefit from the
exemplary regeneration that has resulted.
Remediation of
water shortage is
Jordan is looking at schemes to generate geothermal power
for desalination, but lacks the means to install either the
necessary technology or the national piped-water grid to take
advantage of it.
an engineering
problem and has
little to do with
"global warming".
Remediation of water shortage is an engineering problem
and has little to do with "global warming". In most regions of
the world where water shortage has become a problem, rapidly-growing population and
increased agricultural and industrial demand are far more important reasons for scarcity
than any shift in the climate.
"Complete disappearance of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035"
One of the most sensational of Senator Kerry's
imagined "global-warming" disasters is his
prediction of the complete disappearance by 2035
of the water from the Himalayan glaciers, which,
he fondly
imagines,
"supply
water to
almost a
Senator Kerry, like his
political ally Al Gore,
billion people from China to Afghanistan".
The ranking expert on the Himalayan glaciers, 9575
of which debouch into India from the high plateau
(above), is Professor M. I. Bhat of the Indian
Geological Survey, who has the advantage of access
to 200 years of observational data compiled by the
British Raj and maintained by the indigenous
successor administration. Professor Bhat's view is
that there is nothing remarkable in the current
pattern of advance and recession of the glaciers.
However, that is not the point.
Senator Kerry, like his political ally Al Gore, seems
unaware that it is not the mountain glaciers of the
seems unaware that it is
not the mountain glaciers
of the Himalayas that
provide almost a quarter
of the world's population
with their water supply,
but the winter snow-cover
in the Eurasian region of
the northern hemisphere.
21
Himalayas that provide almost a quarter of the world's population with their water supply,
but the winter snow-cover in the Eurasian region of the northern hemisphere.
The question, then, is this. By how much has the Eurasian winter snow cover diminished in
the 30 years since satellites have been capable of monitoring it? The answer - which has not,
of course, been published in any mainstream news medium - is that there has been no
diminution at ail in the vital snow cover. It is exactly as it has been for 30 years. The Rutgers
University Snow and Ice Laboratory compiles graphs showing the snow cover in each of the
five winter months -
There is no
35000000
H threat
30000000
M whatsoever
25000000
to the water
20000000
supplies of the
15000000
many nations
10000000
that depend
5000000
upon it.
-^V - ^ ' "^
////#/,##//,#//
The graphs, in millions of square kilometers, are entirely clear: there is no trend whatsoever
in Eurasian snow cover. Therefore, there is no threat whatsoever to the water supplies of
the many nations that depend upon it.
"A sea-level rise of 3 feet"
Let us give Senator Kerry some credit for having abandoned Al Gore's fantasy of an
imminent 20ft sea-level rise (and, by implication, his financial beneficiary James Hansen's
dream of a 246ft rise). Senator Kerry's Foreign Relations Committee has confined its
speculation to little more than a 3ft rise, which, the
Committee unwisely concludes, would flood the US naval
base on the British territory of Diego Garcia.
For tiiree full years,
However, for many centuries humankind has had the
capacity to build sea walls. If there were any danger of an
imminent 3ft rise in sea level, it would be a comparatively
inexpensive matter to build sea walls to keep the rising
waves at bay. However, fortunately there is no need for
any such intervention.
since the beginning
of 2005, sea level has
not been rising at all.
22
For three full years, since the beginning of 2005, sea level has not been rising at all. Neither
the Greenland nor the Antarctic ice-sheets have been melting at an accelerating rate, as is
often suggested: the Antarctic has not warmed for half a century, and, thought the extent of
the Greenland ice sheet has diminished by 0.03% over the past 30 years, the ice gained
thickness at a mean rate of 2 inches per year between 1993 and 2003. The DYE-2 DEW-line
radar station had to be jacked up by 27 feet during the 22 years of its operation as snow and
ice rapidly accumulated around it.
Though there have been numerous suggestions that sea level is rising "faster than
expected", the only reason why sea level
appears to have been rising more rapidly
since 1993 is that the method of
measurement changed. Before 1993, tide-
gages were used. After 1993, first the
TOPEX and then the JASON satellite were
used, and the small apparent increase in
the rate of sea-level rise (from 8 inches in
the 20*'^ century to a rate equivalent to 12
inches/century since 1993) occurred
precisely at the moment of the changeover, and is attributable solely to it.
The only reason why sea level
appears to have been rising more
rapidly since 1993 is that the
method of measurement changed.
Professor Niklas Moerner, who has studied sea level for a third of a century and has written
520 peer-reviewed papers on the subject, says that the scientists at the University of
Colorado who processed the sea-level data from the TOPEX and JASON satellites had
"reinterpreted" it so as artificially to increase the rate of sea-level rise. When Professor
Moerner asked why they had done this, they replied: "If we had not adjusted the data, sea
level would not have been shown to be rising." Even the "adjusted" sea-level data from the
satellite show no increase in sea level at all for three full years since the beginning of 2005 -
30
20
10
_l
w
< -10
-20
-30
40
■
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TOPEX
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irado 20(
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Rate = 3.2 ± 0.4 mm/yr
feasonal signals remove
i . . ■ J . . 1 . . ■ .
d
1 ^-
1934 1996 1998 2000 2002 20O4
2006 2008
23
Nor is there any reason why sea level should be increasing at present. For six years it has
been possible to measure the temperature of the upper 400 fathoms of the global ocean
with some accuracy, thanks to the 3300 automated bathythermograph buoys of the Argo
project. In that time, global sea temperatures have actually fallen. Yet it is absolutely
essential to the official theory of "global warming" that they should have risen. Carbon
dioxide concentration has been rising near-monotonically throughout the past six years: yet
the oceans, where at least 80% of the accumulated heat trapped by the extra "greenhouse
gases" is supposed to be stored, are getting cooler.
During the Holocene era - the interglacial period that commenced 11,400 years ago - sea
level has risen by at least 400 feet, at a mean rate of 4 feet per century, as great ice sheets
that covered North America and Northern Eurasia melted. By contrast, 20^'^-century sea-level
rise was just 8 inches, one-sixth of the mean centennial rate that had obtained since the last
Ice Age, because 90% of the world's remaining land-based ice, in Antarctica, and the 5% in
Greenland, is at latitudes and altitudes so high that it would not melt significantly unless
global mean surface temperatures remained at least 2 Celsius degrees (4 Fahrenheit
degrees) warmer than the present for at least several millennia (IPCC, 2007).
21^-century sea-level rise is predicted to be just 8 inches
(Moerner, 2004); or 1 ft 5 in (IPCC, 2007, central estimate).
The IPCC's current high-end estimate of <2 feet was
reduced by one-third compared with the 3 feet given in
the 2001 report, partly because of Professor Moerner's
papers. Since 1993, sea level has been rising at a rate
equivalent to 1 ft/century (Topex/Jason satellite altimetry.
Sea-level data are measured by satellite altimetry across
the whole ocean, and are compared to an idealized mean-
sea-level spheroid known as the reference geoid.
However, some important regional anomalies occur. The
tectonic plates that form the Earth's crust are moving not
only laterally but also vertically in relation to one another,
so that an island at the mouth of the Hooghly River, India,
that was formerly home to 10,000 people disappeared
some years ago, not because of rising sea level but
because regional tectonic subduction lowered the sea-
bed at that point.
Bangladesh, often
forecast to suffer
loss of land mass as
sea levels rise, has in
fact grown by
70,000 km^ in recent
years through silt
deposits in the
Ganges delta.
Bangladesh, often forecast to suffer loss of land mass as sea levels rise, has in fact grown by
70,000 km^ in recent years through silt deposits in the Ganges delta.
No Pacific atoll has shown any appreciable sea-level rise in the past 30 years: in the Maldives,
Professor Moerner has found no sea-level rise in 1250 years -
24
J J.,.o
Sea Jeve/ in the MaMives today is
much as it was 1250 years ago.
Source: Moerner (2004).
Corals are well capable of growing towards the light at a rate ten times the mean Holocene
sea-level rise of 4 ft/century. In eastern England, the coastline is sinking as the land mass
tilts eastward because of isostatic rebound following the melting of the glaciers of the
north-west during "global warming" 9000 years ago.
In late 2008, Professor Moerner told a debate at St. Andrew's University that sea-level rise,
the biggest of the "global warming" scares, was a "non-issue". The undergraduates duly
voted down a motion that "'global warming' is a global crisis".
"Threat of catastrophic climate change"
The supposed "threat of catastrophic
climate change", recited by Senator
Kerry, is all but non-existent in the
scientific literature. A survey by Schulte
(2008) of 539 papers containing the
search term "global climate change"
and published from the beginning of
2004 to early 2007 revealed not a single
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^™^^^^^^^^^^^ paper that offered any evidence that
anthropogenic "global warming" would prove catastrophic, and only one paper that even
mentioned the possibility of catastrophe.
The supposed "threat of catastrophic
climate change", recited by Senator
Kerry, is all but non-existent in the
scientific literature.
Principal results were as follows -
Papers chosen by the search term 1993-2003
"global climate change" (Oreskes)
2004-2007
(Schulte)
Papers published during the period
928
539
Publication rate (papers per year)
84
255
Explicitly supporting "consensus" | Not stated
7% (38)
Explicitly or implicitly supporting
75%
45% (244)
Explicitly rejecting "consensus"
0%
i.%(6)
Explicitly or implicitly rejecting
0%
6% (31)
Presenting new data or observations Not stated
24% (127)
New research about the "consensus" Not stated
2% (13)
Quantitative evidence for "consensus" Not stated
o%(o)
Any mention of "catastrophe" Not stated
0%(l)
Any evidence for "catastrophe" Not stated
0%(0)
25
This devastating result demonstrates iiow little support there is in the scientific literature for
the notion that manmade "global warming" may prove catastrophic. In this respect, once
again, the UN's climate assessments, with their generally apocalyptic Summaries for
Policymakers, do not fairly reflect the consensus in the scientific literature.
"A grave and growing threat to stability and national security"
The mismatch between the apocalyptic language
of Senator Kerry and the scientific evidence from
the real world is truly startling.
The mismatch between
the apocalyptic language
of Senator Kerry and the
scientific evidence from
the real world is truly
startling. First and
foremost, a "grave and
growing threat to national security" would imply either that global temperature is rising at
an ever-more-rapid rate or that atmospheric CO2 concentration is rising at an ever-more-
rapid rate. However, neither proposition is true.
Global temperature has been falling for almost eight years -
www. scienceandp ublicpolicy.org
Global montlily temperature anomalies, January 2002 to May 2009
IPCC predicts warmiog at +2.4, +3, +3.9. +4,7, +5.3 C/ceotury
The observed cooling trend is equivalent to 2 C/century
For almost eight years, giobai temperatures have been failing rapidly. The iPCCs predicted warmir}g path (pink
region) bears no relation to the global cooling that has been observed in the 21^^ century to date. Source: SPPI
global temperature index.
26
The UN's climate panel has sought to abolish the medieval warm period, so as to make it
falsely appear that today's mean global surface temperature is exceptional at least in the
past 1000 years -
0.5 -
0.0
-0.5
-1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1—
NORTHERN HEMISPHERE
-1.0 -
J_
1000
1200
Data from thermom9tGrs (red) and from tr9e rings.
corals. icG corGS and historical records (biuG).
J_
J_
J_
1400
1600
1800
200C
How the medieval warm period was "abollsiied": in 2001, the UN placed heavy emphasis or] a graph that
incorrectly abolished the medieval warm period and also exaggerated the measured temperature change in the
20^" century by so%.
However, the UN's now-notorious graph has long been demonstrated to have been
defective. It was incorrectly based on the use of temperature reconstructions based on the
breadth of annual tree-growth rings taken from cross-sections of bristlecone pines which
the UN itself had previously declared unsuitable on the ground that the pines grow more
rapidly and produce broader rings not only when the weather is warmer but also when there
is more CO2 in the atmosphere, and when it is wetter, giving misleading indications of
temperature change. Removing the bristlecone-pine temperature reconstructions and
relying on all other reconstructions immediately restores the medieval warm period. Also,
the compilers of the UN's defective graph had suppressed the actual temperature proxy
data for the medieval warm period itself, and had substituted estimates of their own,
without saying that they had done so. The restoration of the data also restores the medieval
warm period.
Though the UN claims to represent the scientific "consensus", on the question of the
medieval warm period the consensus is that it existed. More than 700 scientists from 400
institutions in 40 countries over 20 years have contributed to peer-reviewed papers
providing evidence that the medieval warm period was real, was global, and was warmer
than the present - a result that is of course uncongenial to the UN.
27
Worse, the red portion of the graph, that is said to represent the instrumentally-measured
temperature change over the past 150 years, exaggerates the warming since 1900 by 50%,
from 1.3 to 2 Fahrenheit degrees.
More recently, the UN has also sought to maintain that over the past 150 years the rate of
increase in mean global surface temperature has itself increased -
1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000
Lies, damned lies, and statistics: Global mean surface absolute temperature (Celsius degrees, right scale) and
temperature anoma//es (left scale), 1850-2005, The IPCCs looy report, cited with approval in a science lecture by
Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, the railroad engineer who is chairman of the IPCCs science working group, and in the
"Technical Support Document" in justification of the Environment Protection Agency's imminent finding that CO2
and five other gases are jointly or severa//y "dangerous" in terms of the Clean Air Act, contains the above graph
purporting to show that the rate at which the world is warming is inexorably increasing.
The UN's new graph, published in its 2007 climate assessment, is an egregious instance of
the endpoint fallacy, a dishonest and deliberate abuse of statistics by which false trends are
demonstrated by careful selection of endpoints or (in the present instance) startpoints
when evaluating data trends.
Global temperature is a stochastic dataset - it moves unpredictably up and down rather than
following any predetermined pattern. Accordingly, the choice of startpoints and endpoints
critically determines the apparent data trend. By carefully choosing successive 25-year
decrements, the UN is able to demonstrate, falsely, not only that there is a long-run
warming trend (which, incidentally, long predates any possible anthropogenic influence) but
also that the warming trend is inexorably increasing, the implication being that humankind's
influence is pushing us towards the "catastrophic climate change" of which Senator Kerry
has spoken.
28
However, it is easy to demonstrate that the UN's technique is a serious abuse of statistical
method. If we concentrate on the most recent part of the temperature record, and
arbitrarily choose successive four-year decrements commencing in 1993, the following four
graphs are generated from exactly the same data as those used in the UN's graph -
■n-nti . KidKCIUlpH Mirpol ici . rB.
vmitddciKcuilp a blicpallc^^tt
1«M CHHi l<m :WHI !IM; 'MM imib iium.,
]H] HM :•»
Any result you want: Beginning in 1993 (top left) and advancing the start-date successively by 4 years at a time,
the IPCCs own data show the world heading ever more rapidly for an Ice Age. Using the same data as the IPCC, we
reach a diametrically opposite (and equally unjustifiable) conclusion, proving the IPCCs abuse of statistical
method.
This result, apparently showing an ever-more-rapid fall in global temperatures, suggesting
the imminent return of the Earth to an ice age, relies upon the same statistical
prestidigitation as that of the UN's climate panel. The statistical abuse evident in the UN's
graph is a very serious matter. The rate at which global temperature is actually changing is,
on any view, central to the debate about the magnitude of anthropogenic "global
warming".
The UN's graph is a deliberate attempt falsely to suggest that the non-problem of "global
warming" is in fact a real and rapidly worsening crisis. Not one mainstream news medium
has yet exposed this and numerous other calculated misrepresentations and deliberate
errors in the UN's analysis.
If Railroad Engineer Pachauri's railroad lines are removed from the UN's graph, it can easily
be seen that there have been three periods of warming at identical rates over the past 150
years: 1860-1880, 1910-1940, and 1975-1998 -
29
0.6
-" \ • r
r Global mean temperature
Parallel
warmings:
^ - V J^
■
y Identical slopes
• Annual mean
Linear trend
^ Omoothed A«tI«A
d5% decad«l error bars
1860
i&eo
1900
1920
1940
1960
I9d0
2OO0
No anthropogenic signal: The world warmed at the same rate from 1860-1880 and from 1910-1940 as it did from
1S75-1SS8 (see the three parallel magenta trend-lines). The former two periods occurred before humankind can
possibly have had any significant influence on temperature. Therefore there is no anthropogenic signal in the
global temperature record, and no basis for the IPCCs assertion that the warming rate is accelerating.
In short, there has been no acceleration in the rate of "global warming": the rapid warming
rate between 1975 and 1998, a period during which humankind might in theory have had
some small influence on global temperature, was identical to that which was measured in
two similar previous periods during which we could have had no appreciable influence on
temperature whatsoever. Accordingly, and contrary to Senator Kerry's implication, there is
no evidence whatsoever for any anthropogenic signal in the temperature record.
As for CO2, the UN perpetrates a different but also misleading statistical error. Although the
UN predicts that CO2 concentration will rise exponentially towards 836 ppmv by 2100, and
although CO2 emissions have been running at the high end of the UN's predictions, the UN
has failed to take sufficient account of the fact, mentioned at length in its 2001 assessment
report but largely suppressed in its 2007 report, that climate science is currently unable to
add up the "carbon budget" in the atmosphere and biosphere to within 50% of the right
answer.
There is a "missing sink" of carbon that is taking CO2 out of the atmosphere far more quickly
than the UN's models predict. Indeed, despite the UN's prediction of an exponential
increase in CO2 concentration towards 836 ppmv by 2100, for the past eight years CO2
concentrations have been rising in no more than a straight line towards just 575 ppmv by
2100 -
30
^vww.scienceandpublicpoliey.or^
y 1
Global monthly C02 anomalies, January 2002 to May 2009
IPCC predicts trend at +362, +652 ppmv/century
The observed trend is equivalent to +203 ppmv/century
39ti
y^
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X
y'
IPCC 1
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2003
2009
Observed CO2 growth Is I'mear, and is also well below the exponential-growth curves (bounding the pale blue
region) predicted by the IPCC in its 20oy report. If CO2 continues on its present path, the fPCC's central
temperature projection for the year 2100 must be halved. Data source: NOAA.
This single result, on its own, strongly suggests that all of the UN's predictions for
anthropogenic warming over the 21^ century should be halved. Unless CO2 concentration
begins to rise at a more
rapid rate than that which
has been observed over
the past eight years, the
"crisis" imagined by the
UN cannot possibly
happen. Instead of a 6° F
warming over the 21^
century, all we can expect is a harmless 3° F warming - and only then if the effect of CO2 on
temperature as programmed into the UN's computer models is correct.
This single result, on its own, strongly suggests
that all of the UN's predictions for anthropogenic
warming over the 2t^* century should be halved.
Conclusion
On the latest scientific evidence, the scare is over.
From the failure of the oceans to warm at all in the past six years, it is evident that despite
the steadily-increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere the heat that is
supposed to be accumulating in the oceans is not accumulating there. Why is the heat not
accumulating? Where is all that imagined extra heat going?
31
All of the computer models on which the UN relies for its predictions of the future state of
the climate predict that, as a result of the "global warming" caused by anthropogenic
increases in the concentration of greenhouse gases, temperature at altitude in the tropics
will rise at thrice the surface rate. This prediction arises from the fact that the Clausius-
Clapeyron relation, one of the very few proven results in climatological physics, mandates
that as the atmosphere warms the space it occupies is capable of carrying near-
exponentially more water vapor - itself a powerful greenhouse gas which, because of its
sheer quantity in the atmosphere, is of far greater significance than carbon dioxide.
The model-predicted tropical upper-troposphere "hot spot" is a characteristic fingerprint of
anthropogenic greenhouse warming, readily distinguishable from all other sources of
warming -
Nntunil solar forcing
Natural volcanic forcing
1^ Tq Wz ebs giis '""'^1 ^bu jiN Tn i^s eis m
Anthropogenic GHG forcing Antiiropogenic ozone forcing
(d)'°
SON ;OfJ Eq 30S SOS
Anthropogenic aerosol forcing
60N SON Eq 305 60S
All forcings (a-e) combined
9 €
Modeled zonal mean atmospheric temperature change (X per century, 1S90-1999) in response to five distinct
forcings (a-e), and to all five forcings combined (f). Altitude is in hPa (left scale) and km (right scale) vs. platitude
(abscissa). Source: IPCC (2007).
32
All of the computer models on which the UN relies predict the differential warming rate in
the tropical upper troposphere without which it is not possible to claim that climate
sensitivity to additional greenhouse-gas concentrations is high. They are pre-programmed to
assume the existence of the "hot spot" -
NASA/NSIPP
GFDL
605 30S EQ
SNU
60S 30S EQ 30N 60N
NASA/GE0S5
2:
3C
5C
1'
9-
hPa
60S 30S EG 30N 60N
Latitude hPa
60S 30S LQ 30N 60N
Latitude X
-5 -4 -3 -2 -1
I I I T ~r
6
lor\a\ mean equi/fbrium temperoXure change (°C) at QO^ doub/ing ('2x QO^ - Qox\\.ro\), as a function of latitude and
pressure (hPa) for 4 general-circulation models. All show the projected fingerprint of anthropogenic greenhouse-
gas warming: the tropical mid-troposphere "hot-spot" is projected to warm at twice or even thrice the surface
rate. Source: Lee et al. (2007).
33
However, as Douglass et al. (2004) and Douglass et al. (2007) have demonstrated, the
projected fingerprint of anthropogenic greenhouse-gas warming in the tropical mid-
troposphere is not observed in
reality.
The projected fingerprint of anthropogenic
greenhouse-gas warming in the tropicai
mid-troposphere is not observed in reality.
The plot of real-world, observed
tropospheric rates of temperature
change from the Hadley Center for
Forecasting shows that in the
tropical upper troposphere, at
approximately 300 hectoPascals pressure, the model-projected fingerprint of anthropogenic
greenhouse warming is entirely absent. Indeed, it is absent from all observed records of
tropospheric temperature changes in the satellite and radiosonde eras -
i7n Eq T^s"
Latitude
3ds 4^S 7^
No "hot spot": Altitude-vs.-latitude plot of observed relative warming rates in the satellite era. The greater rate of
warming In the tropicai mid-troposphere that is projected by ger\erai-circulation models is absent in this and all
other observational datasets, whether satellite or radiosonde. Altitude units are hPa (left) and km (right). Source:
Hadley Centre for Forecasting (HadAT, 2006).
What, then, have the modelers gotten wrong? They have assumed - falsely, as it turns out -
that the concentration of water vapor will increase at all altitudes in the atmosphere. Their
error, as a recent paper by Paltridge et ol. (2009) demonstrates, is rooted in their obsession
with radiative transports in the Earth/troposphere system almost to the exclusion of the
significant non-radiative transports. Paltridge explains that one of these non-radiative heat
transports - movements of packets of air from one part of the atmosphere to another - is
34
known as "subsidence drying": moist air
tends to fall from higher to lower altitudes
in the troposphere, drying out the upper
troposphere.
If Paltridge is right, the subsidence drying
removes the main obstacle that might
prevent outgoing long-wave radiation
from escaping to space almost unimpeded.
The subsidence drying removes
the main obstade that might
prevent outgoing iong-wave
radiation from escaping to space
almost unimpeded.
Direct evidence that Paltridge is indeed
right is now to hand. A recent paper by Professor Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology - perhaps the most important paper ever to have been published on
the question whether the menace of catastrophic "global warming" might ever prove to be
real - has established that the outgoing long-wave radiation from the Earth's surface is
escaping into space, much as it always has.
The tiny additional proportion of the atmosphere that is occupied by greenhouse gases as a
result of all of humankind's enterprises and industries is now proven to be insufficient to
retain substantial heat-energy within the Earth/troposphere system. The "greenhouse
gases" are simply not trapping as much heat in the Earth's atmosphere as the UN's
computer models predict.
Tiie "greenliouse gases" are
simply not trapping as much heat
in the Earth's atmosphere as the
UN's computer models predict.
Professor Lindzen's landmark paper
demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt
that the "global warming" scare is over.
Yet his conclusions have not been reported
in any major news medium.
The mismatch between observed reality
(upper left scatter-plot in the graph below)
and the computer models on which the UN places such heavy and undue reliance is
astonishing, and revealing -
35
TRBT
TC50T
TcrrasToreFT
?&bklk-g\.o
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GFDL-CM2.1
GISS-ER
-CM3.0
IPSL-CM4
-6
-6
-6
-1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 -1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 -1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 -1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.C
MRI-CGCM2.3.2
MIROC3.2(hires)
MIROC3.2(medres) UKMO-HadGEMI
61 ' I ' I ' I ' I 61 ' I ' I ' I '~
-6
-6
-1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 -1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 -1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 -1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.C
ASST(K) ASST(K) ASST (K) ASST (K)
Observed reality vs. errorieous computer predictions: Scatter-plots of net flux of outgoing iong-wave radiation, as
measured by the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment satellites over a i^-year period ("upper left panel) and as
predicted by 11 of the computer models relied upon by the UN (all other panels), against change in global sea
surface temperature over the period. The mismatch between reality and prediction is entirely clear. It is this graph
that provides the final evidence that the UN has absurdly exaggerated the effect not only of COi but of all
greenhouse gases on global mean surface temperature. Source: Lindzen & Choi (2009).
Lindzen's examination of the glaring discrepancy between observed and predicted data
concludes that the "global warming" to be expected from a doubling of atmospheric CO2
concentration is just 1° F in the real world of observed climatic data, not the 6° F that the UN
takes as its central prediction based on mere computer models.
Let us summarize what we now know of the behavior of the climate.
Carbon dioxide now occupies scarcely one-ten-thousandth more of the atmosphere than it
did in 1750, before the Industrial Revolution. It is accumulating in the atmosphere, but at
only half the rate predicted by the models on which the UN's climate panel relies.
Notwithstanding that continuing accumulation, for a third of a century global surface
temperature has risen at less than half the rate the UN predicts for the future; for almost 15
36
years there has been no statistically-significant "global warming" at all; and for almost eight
years there has been statistically-significant global cooling. Tellingly, the oceans have not
warmed at all, and may even have cooled a little, over the six years during which accurate
observations have been possible. This
observation is fatal to the official theory of high
climate sensitivity.
We now know why CO2 is in fact exercising far
less effect on temperature than the models
predict: the model-predicted tropical upper-
troposphere "hot spot" is absent in observed
reality. We also know why the "hot spot" is
absent: subsidence drying is preventing the
accumulation of water vapor in the upper
troposphere without which that layer cannot
warm at thrice the surface rate.
Moreover, we now know by direct
measurement that outgoing long-wave
radiation is not being trapped within the
atmosphere by additional greenhouse gases to
anything like the extent that the UN's
computer models predict. Far more of that
radiation is escaping to outer space than had
been thought: therefore, it cannot warm the
atmosphere to anything like the degree that
the UN has predicted.
Senator Kerry, of course, does
not read the learned journals.
Nor do his staffers do so.
They are unaware of any of
the numerous other major
papers now being published
in the peer-reviewed
literature that demonstrate
every central aspect of the
"global warming" scare to be
baseless and exaggerated
beyond all science or reason.
The bottom line is this. Since CO2 concentration is now known to be growing at half the
predicted rate, and, since climate sensitivity to CO2 enrichment of the atmosphere is now
known to be not more than one-sixth of the UN's central estimate, anthropogenic "global
warming" over the coming century will be comfortably less than one-tenth of the UN's
central estimate. Instead of 6° F by 2100, we are looking at around 0.5° F by 2100. That
insignificant warming will be harmless and beneficial.
Senator Kerry, of course, does not read the learned journals. Nor do his staffers do so. Nor
do the other members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. They rely upon their
friends in the Left-dominated news media for their "science". Therefore, they are unaware
of the chain of evidence in the peer-reviewed, learned journals, culminating in Lindzen's
definitive result. They are unaware of any of the numerous other major papers now being
published in the peer-reviewed literature that demonstrate every central aspect of the
"global warming" scare to be baseless and exaggerated beyond all science or reason.
Unless the woeful scientific ignorance of our classe politique can be corrected in time, its
consequences for the people they nominally serve will be dire. The Waxman/Markey climate
Bill proclaims the intention of Congress to shut down five-sixths of the US economy over the
37
next few decades, in the specious name of Saving The Planet from an imagined man-made
catastrophe that science has definitively dismissed as being without foundation either in
climatological theory or in observed reality.
Even if there were a "climate crisis" on the
scale hoped for by Senator Kerry, shutting
down five-sixths of the US economy would
not avert that crisis. India and China have
now understood that the "crisis" has been
manufactured and has no basis in the real
world of hard science. They have
announced, repeatedly and rightly, that
they will continue to burn fossil fuels at an
ever-increasing rate, for the sake of lifting
their people out of poverty. For there is a
direct correlation between the per-capita consumption of fossil fuels and the prosperity and
consequently the life-expectancy of the nation -
There is a direct correlation
between the per-capita
consumption of fossil fuels and
the prosperity and consequently
the life-expectancy of the nation.
Chart Mapi
80-^
75-
ro-
es-
60
55-
50
45-
40-
35-
30-
25-
Hong Kong - 81
China- 71
Indonesia - 67
Japan - 81
US- 77
Russian Fed. -6S
India -63
Chad -44
••» t .
v^
South Africa - 46
Africa r"
.A
.m
0.01
0.1
10
100
Life expectancy (years: left scaie) vs. tons of carbon dioxide emitted per capita (log scale), by population (size of
circle). The more CO2 is emitted per capita, the greater the life-expectancy.
Also, it is only when prosperity is available to all that population stabilizes. Requiring China
and India to keep their people in poverty for the sake of reducing the world's "carbon
footprint" would, paradoxically, achieve precisely the opposite effect. Continuing poverty
would entail continuing population increase, with a consequent increase in carbon
emissions.
38
Worse, making Western nations poor via measures sucfi as tiie Waxman/Markey Biii would
lead to a massive population explosion in the West, compounding the increase in the world's
"carbon footprint" that will arise from
imprisoning the populations of India, China, and
other third-world nations in their current poverty.
The Waxman/Markey Bill
The Waxman/Markey Bill supported by Senator
Kerry is accordingly a non-solution to a non-
problem. Even if there were a problem, the
present US administration's solution is calculated
to make the problem many times worse.
supported by Senator Kerry
is accordingly a non-solution
to a non-problem.
However, as we have established, there is no climate problem. Senator Kerry should
remember that the correct solution to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing.
End of scare.
39
Appendix
Contrasting Ideas about Climate Change and War
Back in February, the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment of the U.S. House of
Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce held a hearing emitted "The Climate
Crisis: National Security, Economic, and Public Health Threats." World Climate Report's Pat
Michaels testified that we should be careful when assessing future threats from climate
change because our understanding of what climate change the future may bring is grossly
uncertain. Dr. Michaels backed up his contention by a demonstration that climate models
are having a tough time getting the present and recent past right — which casts a pall on
their future forecasts.
Also testifying at that hearing was General Gordon Sullivan (Ret.), President and Chief
Operating Officer, Association of the United States Army who discussed potential national
security threats from global warming — primarily from "unrest" in other parts of the world
as food and water supplies grow scarce in some regions.
tSfeti^SluSCflriiJ^dgi^i^pli^tJyQJini^gaair^ife^nrl^^aig^M^^ aeekritteP©tWirpi1oHri§ii^'ttwtifetails of
future climate changes is quite uncertain, expressed this sentiment to the Subcommittee
members on February 12, 2009:
Two years ago, 1 appeared at the first meeting of the Select Committee on Energy
Independence and Global Warming in my capacity as Chairman of the Military Advisory
Board to the CNA report on "National Security and the Threat of Climate Change"...
^*i sigl^^eljIf^jfe^i^lfiSg^^ Many areas of
the world that will be the hardest hit by climate change Impacts are already being
stressed by lack of water, lack of food, and political and social unrest. Adding
climate change to this mix will only serve to exacerbate the existing Instabilities.
• Third, projected climate change will add to tensions even in stable regions of the
world.
• And fourth, that climate change, national security and energy dependence are a
related set of global challenges.
in the two years since I appeared before the Committee, we've seen no evidence to
contradict those findings. In fact, we've only seen them reinforced.
Not so fast, according to Wendy Barnaby, editor of People & Science, the magazine
published by the British Science Association.
Ms. Barnaby set out to write a book detailing the history of "water wars" — wars fought
over water scarcity — with special interest on how climate change may impact such conflicts
in the future. Since all sorts of entities, including the United Nations, the World Bank, and
General Sullivan, have made grave prognostications about conflicts developing from global
warming's impact on water supply, Ms. Barnaby surely reckoned that a book detailing the
history of the subject would be a popular read.
But then she encountered a major roadblock — the more she looked for "water wars" the
more it became obvious that there just weren't any. Instead, she found that nations with
water deficits "solve their water shortages through trade and international agreements."
40
Ms. Barnaby detailed her investigations which ultimately led to her not writing the book
(since there was nothing to write about) in an essay titled "Do nations go to war over
water?"
H^r^jS Wb^V^h^:fQJrtKSht(Mt the popular myth of water wars somehow be dispelled or^ce
and for all. This will not only stop unsettling and incorrect predictions of international
conflict over water. It will also discourage a certain public resignation that climate
change will bring war, and focus attention instead on what politicians can do to avoid it:
most importantly, improve the conditions of trade for developing countries to
strengthen their economies. And it would help to convince water engineers and
managers, who still tend to see water shortages in terms of local supply and demand
that the solutions to water scarcity and security lay outside the water sector in the
water/food/ trade/ economic development nexus. It would be great if we could unclog
our stream of thought about the misleading notions of 'water wars'.
Maybe the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment will invite Ms. Barnaby to their next
hearing on climate change and national security for that they can get a more rounded
briefing on the topic. But, probably they won't, after all Ms. Barnaby includes this pearl of
wisdom, "There is something other than water for which shortages, or even the perceived
threat of future shortages, does cause war — oil," which is decidedly not what those in
control of the Subcommittee want to hear, after all, this is precisely the type of action
(perceived threat of oil shortages) which they are promoting!
Source: http://www.worldclimaterep ort.com/index.php/2009/03/24/contrasting-ideas-
about-climate-change-and-war/.
41
Cover photo of The Great Seal courtesy of the National Security Agency.
m 0^ .ft ^^M
Robert Ferguson
SPP! President
bferguson@sppinstitute.org
Woslilngton, D.C.
202-288-5699
SPPI
Science & Public Policy Institute
'$ciefKM-boseapotcyfoioO«iU>two'Ki
5501 Mercliant View Square
Box 209
Hoymarlcei, VA 20169-5699
www.scjenceandpublJcpolicy.Drg
42
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