A 15-year research project has revealed that changes in wind patterns are contributing to rising sea temperatures in the Southern Ocean.
ABC News: ‘Research shows Southern Ocean wind currents weakening’
CSIRO Media release: ‘Antarctic route highlights new ocean-climate links’
Thanks to Luke for alerting me to this story.
Christopher Monckton’s 2007 presentation to the Cambridge (University) Union
Monckton begins by saying that he is going to present a perspective on climate change science that the audience will have not seen in the media, from politicians or in reports on the science. Like Al Gore, Monckton is not a scientist and he has as much right as Al Gore to talk about climate change. His scientific approach is one of enquiry rather than advocacy. He talks about correct scientific method and quotes T. H. Huxley on scepticism being the improver of knowledge:
“The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.”
He then explains that the debate is not about whether we can freely pollute the planet without care for our fellow creatures, or their or our future, or whether we are adding greenhouse gases to atmosphere, because we are, or that adding greenhouse gases doesn’t enhance temperature – because it does.
Monckton turns his attention to climate alarmism about what might happen if the planet becomes a little warmer, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports.
Monckton points out that Sir John Houghton, the first IPCC chairman, said, “unless we announce disasters no one will listen.”
Al Gore is quoted as saying “I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is.”
The science is being exaggerated to make people listen and there is political bias regardless of scientific truth. Hurricane expert Chris Landsea, resigned from the IPCC in 2005, saying, “I have come to view the part of the IPCC to which my expertise is relevant as having become politicized.”
Monckton shows the error that he found in the supposedly highly scrutinised 2007 IPCC report on the melting of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, where there are four wrong decimal points causing the figures to be in error by a facor of 10. See more here on page 14.
The IPCC is a ‘corporation’ that puts itself first. It therefore has an interest in maintaining its existence and status.
In order to demonstrate IPCC political bias, Monckton shows 3 statements that were in the 1995 IPCC draft report:
1. None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed [climate] changes to the specific cause of increases in greenhouse gasses.
2. No study to date has positively attributed all or part [of observed of observed climate change] to anthropogenic causes.
3. Any claims of positive detection of significant climate change are likely to remain controversial until uncertainties in the total natural variability of the climate system are reduced.
Politicians ‘got at it’ and took out the above from the final report which stated:
“The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.”
The Consensus is questioned. Monckton suggests that the BBC has abandoned objectivity and then quotes a literature study of 539 papers published between 2004 and 2007, using the search term’ global climate change,’ where only one paper claimed catastrophe, but offered no evidence.
Hansen’s 1988 temperature predictions are examined. Scenario ‘C’ was based on CO2 in the atmosphere being stabilised, but the actual temperature trend has tracked this despite the non-stabilisation of CO2.
So are today’s temperatures unprecedented? Monckton talks about the Medieval Warm Period. The UN IPCC report of 1990 showed a clear Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and a Little Ice Age (LIA), but the IPCC 2001 report showed the ‘Hockey Stick’ graph 6 times in colour with no MWP. So how was this achieved? Data showing a hockey stick shape from Sheep Mountain in California was given 390 times the weighting of the data Mayberry Slough in Arizona, which had a MWP.
The tree ring data set that included MWP was left out, despite the researchers saying that it was included in the publications of 1998 and 1999. It was actually in a computer file marked ‘censored data.’ Monckton asserted that researchers should make both data and methods available to be checked by other scientists. The US National Academy of Sciences panel described the hockey stick as plausible at best, and the ‘validation skill’ not significantly different from zero.
Monckton then provides some of the evidence for a warm MWP:
Data from 6000 bore holes give a rough idea that there was a warm MWP, Stalagmites from the Austria Alps and Southern Africa, Sediments from Sombre lake, Signy Island in Maritime Antarctica, and Lake Huguangyan, Leechow, South China. Formanifera from the NorthWestern Arabian Sea, Oman. The Sargasso sea, North Island NZ, sediment core from Spanish Pyrenees, pollen profile from Northern Fennoscandia, 3 examples of glacial variations from Swiss Alps. Canada, British Columbia, Azores, two from coastal Peru, the summit of Greenland ice sheet. He then shows a graphic of a timescale sensitive reconstructed Northern Hemisphere temperature showing the MWP and the LIA. Next he shows a Sediment-based treeline for the species ‘Zelkova Carpinifolia’ demonstrating the Holocene Climate Optimum, the Roman Warm Period, and the MWP. He presents a slide of a 1340AD tree stump in California, well above today’s tree-line.
Monckton points out that warmer is better – most species live in the tropics and hardly any at the poles. He concludes that, because there was a MWP up to 3C warmer than today:
1. Today’s temperatures are not exceptional
2. Nature caused medieval climate warming
3. There was no medieval climate cataclysm
4. Nature may be causing most warming today
5. Climate catastrophe is not looming or likely
He then moves on to talk about natural causes of climate change where his attention inevitably turns to the sun.
First he mentions William Herschel who in 1801 noticed an inverse correlation between the number of sunspots in the 11-year cycle and the price of grain. He then quotes Solanki (2004) who claimed that the past 70 years of solar activity exceptional and similar to 8000 years ago. During the past 11400 years the sun has spent only 10% of the time at a similarly high level of magnetic activity and almost all earlier higher periods of activity were shorter than the current episode.The Sun has been more active than at any time since the last ice age
Monckton then shows a graph for 1880 – 1990 of CO2 and temperature mismatch, pointing out that there is not a good correlation.
A graph of solar cycle length plotted against temperature is a better match – Solanki/Fligg (1999), as is the Central England Temperature (CET) series plotted against sunspot number, for1750 to 2000.
The next slide is from Neff et al (2001), showing Monsoon activity tracking solar activity, followed by a graph of solar activity versus temperature for the Arctic (Soon, 2004).
So, how much influence can the sun have? A slide of the CET, the world’s longest instrumental temperature series, shows a 2.2C rise in just 35 years, 1700 to 1735, suggesting that the sun was the cause of the recovery from the Maunder Minimum. Monckton concedes that this is evidence from one place and one temperature series, but it is evidence nevertheless. He then shows a slide of the rising trend in solar activity from 1715 attributed to NASA’s David Hathaway, followed by conclusions from the International Astronomical Union Symposium in 2004:
1. Solar changes cause most climate change
2. Solar cycles are 11, 80, and 200 years long
3. The Sun caused today’s global warming
4. Today’s warming is normal, not unusual
5. Today’s global warming will end soon
So how do we distinguish natural from anthropogenic warming?
CO2 and temperature is not a good match as we have already seen.
A good match is temperature anomalies for 1979 to 2001 and tropical outgoing long wave radiation. Why? The sun is incident on the tropics – the azimuth angle is 90 degrees – so most heating is in the tropics – the atmospheric transport engine takes heat away from tropics to northern latitudes and to a lesser extent southern latitudes. So, the tropics are the place to look for a ‘hot spot’ of anthropogenic warming. Monckton shows the IPCC 2007 modelled climate forcings for anthropogenic greenhouse gasses, aerosols, ozone, plus solar and volcanic. If they are combined into a single graph, there should be an anthropogenic fingerprint or hot spot in the tropics. However, the fingerprint is absent from the actual troposphere data, or shows only a small signal at best, suggesting a small effect of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Monckton then discusses some of reasons why computer models are wrong and can’t provide proof of anthropogenic global warming, whereas a mathematical model of the pythagorous theorem can provide absolute proof. Physical sciences with inadequate data cannot provide proof. He quotes Syun-Ichi Akasofu as saying, “No supercomputer, no matter how powerful, is able to prove definitively a simplistic hypothesis that says the greenhouse effect is responsible for warming.”
Next, Monckton discusses the Stefan-Boltzmann equation and the huge range of temperature changes published in the literature for a doubling of CO2. Monckton’s own calculation, based on IPCC 2007, is 1.6C for a doubling of CO2, but the IPCC says 3C. He points out that Svante Arrhenius calculated a 4C to 8C temperature change for a doubling of CO2 in 1896, but in 1906, he had the Stefan-Boltzmann equation available to him and re-calculated everything to give 1.6C.
With the wide range of temperature predictions in mind, Monckton looks at the constraints on CO2, which mean that it is not a major factor in climate:
In 1750, CO2 was 0.03% by volume in the atmosphere; in 2007 it is about 0.04%, a change of +0.01%. The IPCC has reduced CO2 forcing by one-fifth in 12 years (1995 to 2007), yet it has kept climate sensitivity at 3C.
Monckton shows a graph of CO2 v temperature over 600,000 years where CO2 and temperature often go in opposite directions, suggesting CO2 is not the main driver of global temperature. The IPCC admits that CO2 went up to about 6000 ppmv in the Cambrian period and the global average temperature was 22C. He claims CO2 residency time is about 5 to 10 years from various publications. The IPCC claim 50 to 200 years based on “the time required for the atmosphere to adjust to a future equilibrium state if emissions change abruptly,” (IPCC 1990). Monckton considers that the IPCC definition has nothing to do with a genuine residency time.
Monckton’s conclusions on the constraints on CO2 as a cause of global temperature change are:
1. There is very little additional CO2 in the air
2. CO2 has few principle absorption bands
3. At the surface, water vapour dominates CO2
4. CO2’s effect diminishes logarithmically
5. CO2 is not potent, only 1/23 the effect of CH4
6. There’s no tropical mid-troposphere hot spot
7. CO2’s atmospheric residency time is short
8. CO2 correlates very poorly with temperature
He then moves on to some of the ’35 errors’ in Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ which I won’t dwell on as they are explained in detail here.
Monckton then discusses CO2 emissions saying that China is the one to watch; if the UK reduced emissions to zero, then they would be made up by just the increase in Chinese emissions in less than 2 years. Apply that to Europe, US and Canada, and then China plus India would make up the difference in their own emissions growth in 10 to 15 years. Shutting down the western economy will therefore not make any difference.
He presents a graphic of child mortality up to the age of 5 per thousand born, against CO2 emissions demonstrates that the higher the CO2 emissions per capita, the lower the child mortality. Population increase is faster in developing countries – denying developing CO2 emissions will likely increase their populations.
Monckton then attacks what he calls the murderous ‘Precautionary Principle’ as an expedience used by environmentalist lobby to push policies that would otherwise be unacceptable. He looks at two previous global scares: one real, and one bogus where the policies were wrong because of the effect of pressure groups.
The first is HIV, where he says the correct policy would have been to isolate cases in order to prevent spread of the disease, but this was regarded as totally unacceptable.
The result: 25 million died, with 40 million infected worldwide. 0.7% infected in the US, 1% is the epidemic threshold. 7.5% infected south of the Sahara.
The second is Malaria, where the 3 letters ‘DDT’ are absent from IPCC ramblings in its latest report.
Before DDT was ‘banned,’ there were 50,000 deaths per year from Malaria. After the ban, there were 1,000,000 deaths per year. As a result, excess deaths are put at between 30 and 50 million.
On 15th September 2006, the DDT ban was lifted by WHO. Dr Arata Kochi or WHO said, “Quite often in this field politics comes first and science second. We must take a position based on the science and the data.”
Monckton then addresses the claim by Gore and others that there are ‘moral issues’ in the climate change debate. He agrees that there are – exaggeration, alarmism, false claims, false claims of consensus, to allow insertion of false claims or data into reports by politicians, to exalt computer models over data, lack of objectivity, inflicting energy starvation, false denial of past temperatures higher than today’s, claiming extreme weather events are caused by humans, and so on, are all moral issues.
He concludes with reference to the human race, “We must get the science right, or we shall get the policy wrong. We have failed them and failed them before. We must not fail again.”
After the applause dies down, there is time for a number of good questions, which Monckton handles well. In my view the presentation was well prepared, well referenced and eloquently delivered, with emotional pleas over the genuine moral issues. Christopher Monckton comes across as a sincere man who is persuaded by objective science. The cause of climate realists has been enhanced by his involvement in the climate change debate, and this DVD is recommended viewing for those seeking an antidote to the daily dose of climate alarmism in the media, or an alternative scientific perspective.
The DVD is available here.
18th February 2008
Paul Biggs
A group of Australian and New Zealand organisations and scientists called on the governments of Australia and New Zealand to set up an Australia New Zealand Royal Commission on the Science of Global Warming (to be known as “the ANZIG Royal Commission” – the Australia New Zealand Inquiry into Global Warming).
Excerpt: We are all of the view that CO2 in the atmosphere is a benefit not a threat to humans, and there is no need to launch a massive assault on our lifestyle, industry and prosperity to solve a non problem. […] “The science is definitely not settled. Hundreds of qualified independent scientists around the world now question whether sufficient attention has been paid to the proven historical influence of natural solar cycles, and many other aspects of climate science. Since the scientific investigations for the IPCC fourth assessment report were completed 18 months ago, new research and new observations have cast serious doubt on many of the IPCC’s conclusions. “Everyone, from the highest government minister to the lowliest taxpaying consumer, must realise that unless it can be proved beyond reasonable doubt that carbon dioxide causes excessive global warming, there is no justification for imposing restrictions and costs on emitters of carbon dioxide. These burdens will pass inevitably on to the whole community, and will fall most heavily on those who can least afford them. No valid, verifiable scientific proof has yet been established. All we have are hypotheses and speculations based on computer models. Governments have a duty to create an opportunity for the full range of scientific evidence to be examined and evaluated. This can best be done by way of a Royal Commission of Inquiry,” Mr Forbes continued.
The full press release is reproduced below:
Thursday, 31 January 2008, 9:42 am
Press Release: New Zealand Climate Science Coalition
31 January 2008 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(being released simultaneously in Australia and New Zealand)
Time for an Australia New Zealand Royal Commission on Global Warming.
A group of Australian and New Zealand organisations and scientists today called on the governments of Australia and New Zealand to set up an Australia New Zealand Royal Commission on the Science of Global Warming (to be known as “the ANZIG Royal Commission” – the Australia New Zealand Inquiry into Global Warming).
The chairman of Australia’s Carbon Sense Coalition, Mr Viv Forbes, said that many groups and individuals in Australia and New Zealand had listened with alarm and disbelief to plans of both governments to saddle their people and industries with the burdens of carbon taxes and the risks of carbon trading which he described as “an open invitation to massive fraud”.
“We also fear the enormous costs of taxing and decimating our backbone industries of farming, mining, power generation, cement making, forestry, mineral processing and tourism and subsidising many expensive and ineffective alternate energy proposals. The very high costs to society of the actions being proposed require that we settle the science before forcing the whole ANZ community into a futile and expensive exercise to solve a problem that may not exist. ‘Do it just in case’ is not an option.
“The Australian Government has set up the Garnaut Review to look into the likely costs of various proposals for reducing carbon dioxide emissions. However, we need a parallel independent inquiry into the science to determine whether any action at all is required.
“The science is definitely not settled. Hundreds of qualified independent scientists around the world now question whether sufficient attention has been paid to the proven historical influence of natural solar cycles, and many other aspects of climate science. Since the scientific investigations for the IPCC fourth assessment report were completed 18 months ago, new research and new observations have cast serious doubt on many of the IPCC’s conclusions.
“Everyone, from the highest government minister to the lowliest taxpaying consumer, must realise that unless it can be proved beyond reasonable doubt that carbon dioxide causes excessive global warming, there is no justification for imposing restrictions and costs on emitters of carbon dioxide. These burdens will pass inevitably on to the whole community, and will fall most heavily on those who can least afford them. No valid, verifiable scientific proof has yet been established. All we have are hypotheses and speculations based on computer models. Governments have a duty to create an opportunity for the full range of scientific evidence to be examined and evaluated. This can best be done by way of a Royal Commission of Inquiry,” Mr Forbes continued.
“Australia and New Zealand are both heavily dependent on primary production and world trade, neither have nuclear power, and both are leaders in science in the southern hemisphere. The whole hemisphere would be very damaged by the global warming extremism of Al Gore and old Europe. Al Gore is more motivated by extreme Green politics than scientific truth while Old Europe believes that their nuclear capacity protects them from the carbon costs they plan to impose on others.”
Mr Forbes said that this proposal is the joint initiative of The Carbon Sense Coalition based in Australia and the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition, and is supported by individual scientists and industry representatives such as:
– Leon Ashby (Mt Gambier, SA), Chairman Landholders Institute, President Bushvision, and Centenary medal recipient for services to conservation and the environment.
– The Australian Beef Association, via its chairman Brad Bellinger (Ashford, NSW), director John Niven (Grenfell, NSW), director John Carter (Crookwell, NSW) and director, John Michelmore BAppSc(Chem), (Eyre, SA).
– Professor Bob Carter (QLD), palaeontologist, stratigrapher, marine geologist and environmental scientist, a research Professor at James Cook University (Qld) and University of Adelaide (SA).
– Howard Crozier (NSW), councillor of the NSW Farmers Federation and previously General Manager Finance and Administration of CSIRO.
– Emeritus Professor Lance Endersbee AO, Former Dean of Engineering and Pro-Vice Chancellor, Monash University. Past President, The Institution of Engineers, Australia (1980). Author, “A Voyage of Discovery”, a history of ideas about the earth (2005).
– Bryan Leyland MSc, FIEE, FIMechE, FIPENZ, MRSNZ, consulting engineer to the power industry and chairman of the Economics Panel of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition.
– Owen McShane, director of the Centre for Resource Management Studies in New Zealand, and chairman of the policy panel of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition.
– Dr Muriel Newman (NZ), proprietor of the New Zealand Centre for Political Research.
“We are all of the view that CO2 in the atmosphere is a benefit not a threat to humans, and there is no need to launch a massive assault on our lifestyle, industry and prosperity to solve a non problem.
“We have four recommendations:
1. That the Australian and New Zealand governments commission a joint public inquiry to investigate and report on the science underlying the claims that man-made CO2 causes dangerous global warming. This enquiry must consider whether it is likely that human activity has had a significant effect on global warming and the extent to which the policies being proposed to cut man’s greenhouse gas emissions are likely to affect global warming or any other aspects of climate.
2. That the inquiry be under the charge of at least three commissioners including at least one Australian and one New Zealander, preferably well qualified in science and able to take an objective, independent view of the IPCC process. The chairman should be skilled in obtaining and assessing evidence. (To ensure it has full jurisdiction in both countries, each government may appoint its own enquiry with one or two commissioners, and a common chairman, with meetings to be held concurrently, some in each country).
3. That the inquiry have the power and funding to initiate wide ranging scientific inquiries into all aspects of present knowledge on climate and to take and consider evidence on climate change and to analyse the likely effects of currently proposed policies on reducing carbon emissions.
4. That until such an inquiry has reported, no steps be taken to institute an emissions reduction programme of any kind in Australia or New Zealand.
Mr Forbes said that it is clear there is growing concern among the world scientific community about the conclusions being promoted by the IPCC.
“In contrast to the 2000 or so scientists who are claimed to have contributed to the IPCC (many of whom do not support the extremist political conclusions promoted by the IPCC) there are at least 20,000 scientists who have signed their names in public opposition to the IPCC. (See references below).
“In addition, many organisations, think tanks and business leaders have voiced opposition to the radical proposals from the IPCC, and many more are quietly dismayed. There is no consensus about the science, even if scientific questions could be decided by a show of hands. Scientific questions are determined by facts and evidence, and this is what a Royal Commission can discover and make public.
“In further support of this proposal we have appended links to various submissions made recently to the Garnaut Enquiry, and other relevant documents,” Mr Forbes concluded.
Terry Dunleavy, secretary of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition,
comments: “An ANZ approach to this vital issue is a natural flow-on from close co-operation already existing between the two trans-Tasman neighbours. Australia and New Zealand have one of the most open economic and trade relationships of any two countries. This is based on a comprehensive set of trade and economic arrangements, collectively known as Closer Economic Relations (CER), which underpin substantial flows of merchandise trade, services, investment, labour and visitors between the two countries. Implemented in 1983, CER has already seen such joint official bodies as:
• ANZSFA, the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Authority;
• JAS-ANZ covering classifications and standards in official statistics;
• Ensis, a joint venture of forestry R & D.
• Negotiations to form a joint Australia New Zealand Therapeutics Agency.
“In New Zealand, government advocates of a carbon emissions trading regime have referred to the desirability of harmonising with Australia. Surely, it is logical to first establish that there is scientific justification for the imposition of an economically burdensome carbon emissions scheme, before going down that costly track, whether together or separately. Two countries as close together as we are in so many official ways should have no difficulty in sorting out any jurisdictional complexities arising from the creation of a joint ANZAC Royal Commission to look at an issue that is so common to us both,” said Mr Dunleavy.
ENDS
1415 words
Authorised by:
Viv Forbes, BScApp, FAusIMM, FSIA
Chairman
The Carbon Sense Coalition
www.carbon-sense.com
Terry Dunleavy, MBE, JP
Secretary
The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition
New Zealand
http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php
Dr Muriel Newman
Director
New Zealand Centre for Political Research
Whangarei.
New Zealand
http://www.nzcpr.com/About.htm
Brad Bellinger
Chairman
Australian Beef Association
NSW
Howard Crozier
Executive Councilor of NSW Farmers Association
Australia.
—
References:
1. Submission by the Carbon Sense Coalition to the Garnaut Review:
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/garnaut-submission.pdf
2. Submission by the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition to the New Zealand Parliament in 2006, calling for a Royal Commission: http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=205&itemid=1
3. Submission by The Lavoisier Society to the Garnaut Review: http://www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/articles/GarnautFinalSubmission.pdf
4. Submission by Prof Bob Carter to the Garnaut Review:
5. Submission by Howard Cozier to the Garnaut Review: See Garnaut Review website.
6. Prominent Scientists Reverse Belief in Man-made global warming: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=927b9303-802a-23ad-494b-dccb00b51a12
7. 20,000 scientists sign petition against global warming hysteria:
http://www.oism.org/pproject/
8. Over 100 Prominent Scientists Warn UN: Attempting To Control Climate Is Futile:
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=164002
In 1997, fully 90% of US State Climatologists did NOT agree with the ADW Hypotheses (Quoted in Singer and Avery, 2007, 65-66)
9. Recent observations show that the world has not warmed since 1998, and 2007 is the coolest year since 2000:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2641
1998 no longer the hottest year on record in USA
10. Recent research shows the solar cycles, cosmic rays and clouds have a major effect on our climate:
Svensmark, H. and Calder, N., 2007. The Chilling Stars – a new theory of Climate Change, Icon Books. ISBN-10: 1-84046-815-7
11. It is generally agreed that if greenhouse warming was occurring, the strongest warming would be in the upper atmosphere above the tropics. Recent research shows this is not occurring, which indicates that warming is not being caused by greenhouse gases:
Douglass, D.H., J.R. Christy, B.D. Pearson, and S.F. Singer. 2007. A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions. International Journal of Climatology, DOI: 10.1002/joc.1651.
12. Australian Parliamentary Enquiry. Dissenting report on Geo-sequestration:
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/geosequestration-dissent.pdf
13. Prof David Henderson: Governments are Mishandling Climate Change Issues:
http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=181&itemid=1
14. Program for International Climate Change Conference in New York:
15. “Climate Change Re-examined”, Joel Kauffman, 2007:
http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/ccr.pdf
16. Lance Endersbee reported that temperature readings from 27 rural ground stations in Australia showed no sign of global warming over the 110 years of temperature records (to 1990). (Endersbee, L, 2005 “A Voyage of Discovery”, Fig 142 , page 244).
It’s long been said said that China was adding one new coal power plant per week to its grid. But the real news is worse: China is completing two new coal plants per week. If China’s carbon usage keeps pace with its economic growth, the country’s carbon dioxide emissions will reach 8 gigatons a year by 2030, which is equal to the entire world’s CO2 production today. If the Chinese economy steps into our carbon footprint, all other greenhouse gas reduction efforts will be for naught.
Alexis Madrigal, Wired, 8 February 2008
China has one of the largest coal reserves in the world, and coal accounts for 67% of its primary energy use, compared with 24% for the world average. China is currently bringing two additional coal-fired power plants to the electric power grid every week. In a hypothetical scenario in which carbon intensity keeps pace with a GDP growth rate of 7%, by 2030, China would be emitting as much as the world as a whole is today (8 GtC/year).
Ning Zeng et al., Science, 8 February 2008
Faced with electricity shortages in more than half the country, the Communist Party responded with an old-style mobilization campaign. Last week, President Hu Jintao visited the Tashan mine and ordered all state-owned mines to produce more coal, and produce it faster, in order to guarantee supply for power plants in the south.
The New York Times, 9 February 2008
China has long been a huge supplier of coal to itself and the rest of the world. But in the first half of last year, it imported more than it exported for the first time, setting off a near-doubling of most coal prices around the world. For the world, which uses coal for about 40% of its electricity, the result is similar to what happened after China became a net importer of oil in 1993.
The Wall Street Journal, 12 February 2008
The blogosphere is buzzing with talk of global non-warming or even global cooling.
First, another sceptic for Marc Morano’s list:
Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Art Douglas recently retired Chair of the Atmospheric Sciences Department Creighton University in Omaha Nebraska:
Ice pack belies global warming
Excerpt: Whatever the weather, Douglas said, it’s not being caused by global warming. If anything, the climate may be starting into a cooling period. Many were greatly alarmed at melting sea ice near the North Pole with about one-third of the normal ice pack melted by 2007. But Douglas said between November 2007 and January 2008 the entire Arctic Ocean froze over, with the ice pack forming farther south than normal. Ice is forming in places in Korea and Alaska where it normally doesn’t, and Siberia’s January snow cover was extensive. “We’ve really never seen anything like this for many, many years,” he said. And the impact has been enormous, with China importing coal “because of a super-cold winter.” The amount of sea ice is the largest ever seen in the Southern Hemisphere, and it has even snowed in Buenos Aires, Douglas said. “Within four or five months, it appears that a warming trend can go very rapidly in the other direction.” Douglas said the climate can quickly correct itself, restoring lower average temperatures in as little as two years. He said he doubts global warming. He said if greenhouse gases were responsible for global warming, both the Arctic and Antarctic would be experiencing warming, but they aren’t. Douglas said he believes the weather patterns the world is now experiencing are regional phenomena and not a global pattern. He also noted that the warmest year on record was 1998, but questioned why, if we’re in a warming trend, it hasn’t gotten any warmer than it was that year. Douglas said warming trends put more moisture in the atmosphere, resulting in more snow, which leads to cooling.
Lubos Motl’s The Reference Frame:
GISS: January 2008 was the coldest month since May 1995
Recently we noticed that according to the satellite data, January 2008 was the coldest month since 2000.
However, NASA’s GISS led by James Hansen offers us a more impressive figure extracted from the weather stations (land) and sea surface temperatures (ocean) – a methodology that normally leads to the fastest warming trend. According to the global temperature anomaly in January 2008 was 0.12 °C, the coldest reading since May 1995 when it was 0.08 °C: Hansen’s team hasn’t seen a cooler month for more than 150 months, not even during the 1995-1996, 1998-2000, 2000-2001 La Ninas. Also, January 2008, the globally coldest January since 1989, was exactly 0.75 °C cooler than January 2007.
If we were fans of the alarm and extrapolated the latter trend, we would deal with 75 °C of global cooling per century. That could indeed be a catastrophe. 😉 If we extrapolated the 0.28 °C month-on-month cooling since December, the cooling would remove 336 °C per century, dropping below 0 Kelvins before 2100. 🙂 Entertainingly enough, January 2008 was also 0.27 °C (anomaly-wise) colder than June 1988 when Hansen gave his infamous testimony before the U.S. Congress, predicting a dangerous warming in the following 20 years.
No, I am not comparing apples and oranges here. January 2008 was also 0.39 °C colder than January 1988. Incidentally, NCDC shows January 2008 as the global lands’ coldest January since January 1982.
La Nina (now referred to as a “strong one”) might be insufficient to explain the recent cool weather. An unusually quiet beginning of the solar cycle 24 might be another culprit. I won’t really endorse the predictions of a new ice age but I find it obvious that the solar activity matters; see also sunspots and climate.
Joseph D’Aleo (a big shot meteorologist) argues that the temperature is strongly correlated with the ENSO index (El Nino vs La Nina) but it lags by 2 months or so. With this assumption, we should expect the global cooling to continue in the following months. Also, he argues that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) that switched to the cold phase during this winter (the Great Pacific Climate Shift II?) shouldn’t be included separately: its effect is to increase the proportion of El Ninos (warm PDO phase) or La Ninas (cool PDO phase).
Anthony Watts of Watts Up With That?:
GISS Land-Ocean Index dives in Jan08, exceeding drops for UAH and RSS satellite data
Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) Land-Ocean Global temperature index data was released yesterday for the month of January, 2008. Like we’ve reported before for other datasets, including the RSS and UAH satellite temperature anomalies, GISS also had a sharp drop in January.
The GISS ΔT was -.75°C, which is larger than the satellite data from UAH ∆T of -.588°C and the RSS RSS ∆T of -.629°C
The ΔT of -.75°C from January 2007 to January 2008 appears to be the largest single year to year January drop for the entire GISS data set.
This is yet one more indication of the intensity of planet-wide cooler temperatures seen in January 2008, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere, which has seen record amounts of snow coverage extent as well as new record low surface temperatures in many places.
A note from blog contributor Arnost:
I’m not really sure that the strengthening of the La Nina is totally responsible for the January drop in temperatures. If you look at the latest NCDC global temp anomaly (+0.18C) and then at the component land and sea temps, it is the land temperatures that have plummeted – by something like 0.8C with the sea surface temps remaining more or less the same:
NCDC Global Combined
2007 11 0.4484
2007 12 0.3975
2008 1 0.1793
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/monthly.land_and_ocean.90S.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat
NCDC Global Land in deg C
2007 11 0.9856
2007 12 0.8042
2008 1 -0.0129
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/monthly.land.90S.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat
NCDC Global Ocean
2007 11 0.2536
2007 12 0.2498
2008 1 0.2481
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/monthly.ocean.90S.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat
This suggests that the sea surface temps are not the driver.
It also must be remembered that the Nina did not really kick in until mid 2007, and typically there’s up to a 6 month lag between ENSO and global temps. So its effects are only beginning to be felt now. Further, the Nina is at the moment only a borderline moderate/strong event – it does not make the top 7 over the last 60 years (check out Klaus Wolter’s MEI page http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/people/klaus.wolter/MEI/ ). So the current drop in temperatures up to now have likely been caused by another factor. And only the December and January drops may be considered as significantly Nina influenced.
To be fair, I would point out that the GISS January land temp has not decreased as much as the NCDC number (down by 0.3C). GISS does not break-up the land and sea temperatures (as far as I know) so their numbers are: GISS Land + Sea in January +0.18C (down from 0.40C) GISS Land in January +0.31C (down from 0.60C).
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts.txt
It will be interesting to see the HadCRU temps when they come out to see their split. It will also be interesting to see if NCDC corrects what probably is an error.
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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.
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