ONE week ago the Sydney Morning Herald published an opinion piece by Michael Raupach from CSIRO and fourteen other Australian scientists making four key claims to support the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). A regular reader and commentator at this weblog, Cohenite, explains that the claims are not supported by the available evidence:
1. The world is warming
The first conclusion is that the world has been warming since 1850. This is generally correct but what Professor Raupach et al. don’t mention is the warming follows a particularly cold period called the Little Ice Age [LIA] which ended in 1850. The correlation of a decline in solar activity with the LIA is well established with various measures of solar activity showing an increase at the same time as the world warmed after 1850.
Professor Raupach et al. say that most of the warming since 1850 has happened since 1950. This is incorrect. The temperature data from both the official English agency, HADCRUT, and the land-based American temperature agency, NASAGISS, show an increase in temperature from 1910 to 1944 which is equivalent to the temperature increase from 1976 to 1998. [Read more…] about Climate Change Not Poised to Feed on Itself
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.