East European Nations Reject New Climate Targets
In this newsletter:
1) East European Nations Reject New Climate Targets
GWPF News, 15 July 2020
2) EU Only Earmarks Peanuts For Climate Targets, Green Energy NGO Laments
EurActiv, 14 July 2020
3) Greta Thunberg Fury: Arch-Rival Launches Devastating Vow To Crush Teen Activist's Argument
Daily Express, 11 July 2020
4) China’s Green Energy Charade Exposed
Bloomberg, 14 July 2020
5) Climate Models: No Warming For 30 Years – Possibly
GWPF Observatory, 14 July 2020
6) Fact Sheet: UK Flooding and Rainfall
GWPF Factsheet
GWPF Factsheet
7) Patrick Michaels: Climate Predictions: “It’s Worse Than We Thought”
Real Clear Energy, 14 July 2020
Real Clear Energy, 14 July 2020
8) Sterling Burnett: Cancel Culture Dominates Climate Research, Cancelling the Scientific Method
The Epoch Times, 14 July 2020
The Epoch Times, 14 July 2020
Full details:
1) East European Nations Reject New Climate Targets
GWPF News, 15 July 2020
The European Union remains deeply divided over plans to increase its CO2 emissions targets, with East European ministers refusing to commit to bigger cuts.
The EU has agreed to unilaterally cut greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030. This target has been criticised by climate activists who claim that more radical cuts are needed to prevent ‘catastrophic’ climate change.
Responding to this campaign, the European Commission plans to publish an impact assessment of the additional cost of a revised CO2 target to 50% or 55% by 2030. The EU would then need to agree a new target with member states and lawmakers.
According to Reuters, a meeting of environment ministers from the EU’s 27 member states failed to find agree on whether the target should be raised at all.
“Some are sceptical,” German Environment Minister Svenja Schulze said after the meeting.
On Monday, Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Czech Republic and Hungary wrote to the European Commission, announcing that they will not support a new CO2 target until they have seen the Commission’s economic impact assessment.
Full story
2) EU Only Earmarks Peanuts For Climate Targets, Green Energy NGO Laments
EurActiv, 14 July 2020
EU recovery fund leaves €2 trillion investment gap towards climate targets
A European Commission proposal for the European Union’s long-term budget and recovery fund risks leaving a huge shortfall in the “green” investment needed to meet Europe’s climate goals, researchers said on Tuesday (14 July).
With the coronavirus pandemic plunging the EU into a deep recession, leaders from its 27 countries will meet in Brussels on Friday to attempt to agree the bloc’s budget for 2021-27 and an economic stimulus fund.
The EU Commission has proposed a €1.85 trillion package, which it says will drive a recovery in Europe’s virus-hit economies based on “green” industries and technologies that help to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases fuelling climate change.
But only €80 billion are firmly earmarked for climate protection, according to an analysis by the consultancy Climate & Company and think tank Agora Energiewende, both German-based, being published on Tuesday.
That would pale against the €2.4 trillion in low-carbon investments that the researchers said were needed by 2027 to meet the EU’s current emissions-cutting goals.
They said investment priorities should be rapidly expanding renewable power generating capacity, clean hydrogen production, energy-saving building renovations and electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
“There is a real discrepancy between the narrative we are seeing at the highest political level and the details of the proposals,” said Matthias Buck, head of European energy policy at Agora Energiewende.
Full story
3) Greta Thunberg Fury: Arch-Rival Launches Devastating Vow To Crush Teen Activist's Argument
Daily Express, 11 July 2020
GRETA THUNBERG's arch-rival Naomi Seibt has brutally challenged the teen activist to "debate me" after mocking her stance on climate change and urging her to stop "spreading panic, but offer hope".
GWPF News, 15 July 2020
The European Union remains deeply divided over plans to increase its CO2 emissions targets, with East European ministers refusing to commit to bigger cuts.
The EU has agreed to unilaterally cut greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030. This target has been criticised by climate activists who claim that more radical cuts are needed to prevent ‘catastrophic’ climate change.
Responding to this campaign, the European Commission plans to publish an impact assessment of the additional cost of a revised CO2 target to 50% or 55% by 2030. The EU would then need to agree a new target with member states and lawmakers.
According to Reuters, a meeting of environment ministers from the EU’s 27 member states failed to find agree on whether the target should be raised at all.
“Some are sceptical,” German Environment Minister Svenja Schulze said after the meeting.
On Monday, Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Czech Republic and Hungary wrote to the European Commission, announcing that they will not support a new CO2 target until they have seen the Commission’s economic impact assessment.
Full story
2) EU Only Earmarks Peanuts For Climate Targets, Green Energy NGO Laments
EurActiv, 14 July 2020
EU recovery fund leaves €2 trillion investment gap towards climate targets
A European Commission proposal for the European Union’s long-term budget and recovery fund risks leaving a huge shortfall in the “green” investment needed to meet Europe’s climate goals, researchers said on Tuesday (14 July).
With the coronavirus pandemic plunging the EU into a deep recession, leaders from its 27 countries will meet in Brussels on Friday to attempt to agree the bloc’s budget for 2021-27 and an economic stimulus fund.
The EU Commission has proposed a €1.85 trillion package, which it says will drive a recovery in Europe’s virus-hit economies based on “green” industries and technologies that help to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases fuelling climate change.
But only €80 billion are firmly earmarked for climate protection, according to an analysis by the consultancy Climate & Company and think tank Agora Energiewende, both German-based, being published on Tuesday.
That would pale against the €2.4 trillion in low-carbon investments that the researchers said were needed by 2027 to meet the EU’s current emissions-cutting goals.
They said investment priorities should be rapidly expanding renewable power generating capacity, clean hydrogen production, energy-saving building renovations and electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
“There is a real discrepancy between the narrative we are seeing at the highest political level and the details of the proposals,” said Matthias Buck, head of European energy policy at Agora Energiewende.
Full story
3) Greta Thunberg Fury: Arch-Rival Launches Devastating Vow To Crush Teen Activist's Argument
Daily Express, 11 July 2020
GRETA THUNBERG's arch-rival Naomi Seibt has brutally challenged the teen activist to "debate me" after mocking her stance on climate change and urging her to stop "spreading panic, but offer hope".
Greta Thunberg's arch-rival Naomi Seibt launches devastating vow to crush teen activist's argument
Ms Seibt, known throughout the world as the anti-Greta Thunberg of climate change, made the demand after she was snubbed by the EU despite Ms Thunberg being allowed to push her point across to MEPs about the myths of global warming.
The 19-year-old German has pleaded with institutions to listen to the other side of the debate, which focuses on how the gloomy outlook on carbon emissions is addressed throughout the media.
Ms Seibt, who has previously claimed rival Ms Thunberg has spread "panic around climate change when she should be offering hope", agrees carbon dioxide - a by-product from the use of fossil fuels - does affect climate change.
However, she argues that the real damage it causes is considerably lower than the likes of Ms Thunberg allege.
And after seeing Ms Thunberg invited to talk to EU leaders earlier this year - despite coronavirus lockdown conditions being imposed - Ms Seibt wanted a chance to discuss the bill and other arrangements that could be made.
When asked by Express.co.uk whether she expected to ever be asked to speak to the EU, she said: “I don’t think so because they are so immersed in their beliefs that they don’t want anyone from the outside to come in and talk to them.
"Even if I tried to reach out to them I don’t think they would allow me to speak and that’s why I accept every opportunity for an interview or to speak because I would love to talk to someone on the other side.
"And if anybody is willing to debate me, even if Greta is willing to debate me, I’m willing to come any time and debate them on the issue.”
Her exclusive comments came amid the announcement that Brussels intended to create new legislation in order to eliminate carbon emissions to become the world's first "carbon neutral continent".
The Green Deal - the name of the EU’s proposal - was created in a bid to curb panic and is the basis of a new growth strategy for those in the bloc.
Full story
4) China’s Green Energy Charade Exposed
Bloomberg, 14 July 2020
Renewable energy debt could grow to $151 billion by 2032 without policy change
Ms Seibt, known throughout the world as the anti-Greta Thunberg of climate change, made the demand after she was snubbed by the EU despite Ms Thunberg being allowed to push her point across to MEPs about the myths of global warming.
The 19-year-old German has pleaded with institutions to listen to the other side of the debate, which focuses on how the gloomy outlook on carbon emissions is addressed throughout the media.
Ms Seibt, who has previously claimed rival Ms Thunberg has spread "panic around climate change when she should be offering hope", agrees carbon dioxide - a by-product from the use of fossil fuels - does affect climate change.
However, she argues that the real damage it causes is considerably lower than the likes of Ms Thunberg allege.
And after seeing Ms Thunberg invited to talk to EU leaders earlier this year - despite coronavirus lockdown conditions being imposed - Ms Seibt wanted a chance to discuss the bill and other arrangements that could be made.
When asked by Express.co.uk whether she expected to ever be asked to speak to the EU, she said: “I don’t think so because they are so immersed in their beliefs that they don’t want anyone from the outside to come in and talk to them.
"Even if I tried to reach out to them I don’t think they would allow me to speak and that’s why I accept every opportunity for an interview or to speak because I would love to talk to someone on the other side.
"And if anybody is willing to debate me, even if Greta is willing to debate me, I’m willing to come any time and debate them on the issue.”
Her exclusive comments came amid the announcement that Brussels intended to create new legislation in order to eliminate carbon emissions to become the world's first "carbon neutral continent".
The Green Deal - the name of the EU’s proposal - was created in a bid to curb panic and is the basis of a new growth strategy for those in the bloc.
Full story
4) China’s Green Energy Charade Exposed
Bloomberg, 14 July 2020
Renewable energy debt could grow to $151 billion by 2032 without policy change
China has used offers of generous subsidies to amass the world’s largest array of wind and solar power. But there’s a problem: it’s not fully paying them.
Renewable energy projects have grown far faster in recent years than the pool of money the government sets aside to pay the fees it promised them.
The result is a total debt of $42 billion and growing, according to one analyst, with a payoff not seen until 2041 without a change in policy.
While China is moving away from subsidies for new projects, the delayed payments are weighing on developers and restricting their ability to borrow more money to fund new generation. The issue is of particular importance because of the huge amounts of money pouring into the sector in China -- $818 billion in the last decade, more than double any other country, according to BloombergNEF.
“Without structural change to address the issue, the subsidy receivables in the whole industry would continue to grow and drag companies’ balance sheets and investment capabilities,” Tony Fei, an analyst with BOCI Research Ltd., said in a July 6 note.
China for several years now hasn’t been paying its full subsidy bill, and the mountain of debt keeps growing higher. The government funds the payments with a surcharge on electricity bills, and hasn’t been willing to increase that or find new sources as the number of subsidy-eligible wind and solar projects soared last decade.
Full story
5) Climate Models: No Warming For 30 Years – Possibly
GWPF Observatory, 14 July 2020
Dr David Whitehouse, GWPF Science Editor
A new study demonstrates how a prolonged warming pause or even global cooling may happen in coming years despite increasing levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases — caused by natural climatic variability.
Renewable energy projects have grown far faster in recent years than the pool of money the government sets aside to pay the fees it promised them.
The result is a total debt of $42 billion and growing, according to one analyst, with a payoff not seen until 2041 without a change in policy.
While China is moving away from subsidies for new projects, the delayed payments are weighing on developers and restricting their ability to borrow more money to fund new generation. The issue is of particular importance because of the huge amounts of money pouring into the sector in China -- $818 billion in the last decade, more than double any other country, according to BloombergNEF.
“Without structural change to address the issue, the subsidy receivables in the whole industry would continue to grow and drag companies’ balance sheets and investment capabilities,” Tony Fei, an analyst with BOCI Research Ltd., said in a July 6 note.
China for several years now hasn’t been paying its full subsidy bill, and the mountain of debt keeps growing higher. The government funds the payments with a surcharge on electricity bills, and hasn’t been willing to increase that or find new sources as the number of subsidy-eligible wind and solar projects soared last decade.
Full story
5) Climate Models: No Warming For 30 Years – Possibly
GWPF Observatory, 14 July 2020
Dr David Whitehouse, GWPF Science Editor
A new study demonstrates how a prolonged warming pause or even global cooling may happen in coming years despite increasing levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases — caused by natural climatic variability.
Natural climatic variability has always been a topic that contains a lot of unknowns, but it has been rarely explicitly stated just how little we know about it. Such variability has been habitually underplayed as it was “obvious” that the major driver of global temperature was the accumulation of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, with natural variability a weaker effect.
But the global temperature data of this century demonstrate that natural variability has dominated in the form of El Ninos. ‘Doesn’t matter’, came the reply, ‘just wait and the signal of greenhouse warming will emerge out of the noise of natural climatic variability.’
How long will we have to wait for that signal? Quite a long time, according to some researchers as more papers acknowledge that natural climatic variability has a major, if not a dominant influence on global temperature trends.
With the usual proviso concerning climatic predictions there seems to be a growing number of research papers suggesting that the global average temperature of at least the next five years will remain largely unchanged. The reason: natural climatic variability.
Only last week the UK Met Office produced figures suggesting that there is only a 1 in 34 chance that the 1.5°C threshold will be exceeded for the next five year period. Now a new paper by climate modellers extends such predictions, suggesting that because of natural variability the average global temperature up to 2049 could remain relatively unchanged – even with the largest increase in greenhouse gas emissions.
Using two types of computer models in a first of its kind study, Nicola Maher of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, Germany, and colleagues writing in Environmental Research Letters looked at the 2019-2034 period concluding that,
"We first confirm that on short-term time-scales (15-years) temperature trends are dominated by internal variability. This result is shown to be remarkably robust.”
Looking even further ahead they say that natural variability remains important,
"… even out to thirty years large parts of the globe could still experience no-warming due to internal variability,” they add.
The researchers demonstrate internal climatic variability and its importance in driving the climate change that we observe. With a series of maps they visualise both the maximum and minimum global, future trends that could occur on short and mid-term timescales. They also demonstrate clearly the global cooling that could occur under levels of increasing greenhouse gases — caused by internal variability.
In percentages, the role of internal climatic variability. Source: Maher et al., 2020
The researchers state:
"In the short-term all points on the globe could individually experience cooling or no warming, although in a probabilistic sense they are much more likely to warm.”
Looking beyond the short-term they add,
"We find that even on the mid-term time-scale a large proportion of the globe could by chance still not experience a warming trend due to internal variability, although this result is somewhat model dependent.”
In the past climate extremists have grasped natural El Ninos and enlisted them as examples of rapid greenhouse global warming. It’s a disingenuous approach that may become harder and harder to do if research like this is any indication.
Feedback: David.Whitehouse@thegwpf.com
But the global temperature data of this century demonstrate that natural variability has dominated in the form of El Ninos. ‘Doesn’t matter’, came the reply, ‘just wait and the signal of greenhouse warming will emerge out of the noise of natural climatic variability.’
How long will we have to wait for that signal? Quite a long time, according to some researchers as more papers acknowledge that natural climatic variability has a major, if not a dominant influence on global temperature trends.
With the usual proviso concerning climatic predictions there seems to be a growing number of research papers suggesting that the global average temperature of at least the next five years will remain largely unchanged. The reason: natural climatic variability.
Only last week the UK Met Office produced figures suggesting that there is only a 1 in 34 chance that the 1.5°C threshold will be exceeded for the next five year period. Now a new paper by climate modellers extends such predictions, suggesting that because of natural variability the average global temperature up to 2049 could remain relatively unchanged – even with the largest increase in greenhouse gas emissions.
Using two types of computer models in a first of its kind study, Nicola Maher of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, Germany, and colleagues writing in Environmental Research Letters looked at the 2019-2034 period concluding that,
"We first confirm that on short-term time-scales (15-years) temperature trends are dominated by internal variability. This result is shown to be remarkably robust.”
Looking even further ahead they say that natural variability remains important,
"… even out to thirty years large parts of the globe could still experience no-warming due to internal variability,” they add.
The researchers demonstrate internal climatic variability and its importance in driving the climate change that we observe. With a series of maps they visualise both the maximum and minimum global, future trends that could occur on short and mid-term timescales. They also demonstrate clearly the global cooling that could occur under levels of increasing greenhouse gases — caused by internal variability.
In percentages, the role of internal climatic variability. Source: Maher et al., 2020
The researchers state:
"In the short-term all points on the globe could individually experience cooling or no warming, although in a probabilistic sense they are much more likely to warm.”
Looking beyond the short-term they add,
"We find that even on the mid-term time-scale a large proportion of the globe could by chance still not experience a warming trend due to internal variability, although this result is somewhat model dependent.”
In the past climate extremists have grasped natural El Ninos and enlisted them as examples of rapid greenhouse global warming. It’s a disingenuous approach that may become harder and harder to do if research like this is any indication.
Feedback: David.Whitehouse@thegwpf.com
6) Fact Sheet: UK Flooding and Rainfall
GWPF Factsheet
In response to this winter’s severe floods there have been some alarming claims about climate change and the impact it may be having on flooding throughout Britain. But what does the evidence actually show?
Recent intense rainfall
Source: Met Office
Rainfall in February 2020 was the heaviest February rainfall on record for the UK as a whole, but also notably in both England and Wales, which suffered severe floods as a result.
This kind of event is very unusual. However, before drawing broader lessons, it is important to review the historical data, so we can place it in the context of longer-term trends.
Long-term precipitation trends
According to Met Office data, England, Wales and Northern Ireland have not seen any significant increases in annual rainfall since 1910. In Scotland however, precipitation levels have risen slightly since the 1970s. There also have been seasonal variations in rainfall trends, with winters becoming wetter in recent decades and summers becoming slightly drier.
Source: Met Office
Going back further, to 1766, the England and Wales precipitation series shows that annual rainfall has been remarkably consistent since that time.
Source: England and Wales Precipitation Series, Met Office
Looking specifically at the prevalence of sustained heavy rainfall, of the kind that can lead to flooding, a small positive trend of 0–3 mm/decade in maximum annual consecutive five-day precipitation has been identified over recent decades.
However, the trend was only statistically significant in parts of Scotland and during the winter. The period covered was 1960–2018.
It has been suggested that these modest changes are related to anthropogenic climate change, because of increased moisture in the air owing to warmer temperatures (the Clausius–Clapeyron relation).
However, trend attribution is complicated by interference from cyclical drivers of natural variability. The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which are recognised drivers of natural climate variability, have been found to influence extreme rainfall in the UK.
Impact on flooding
Changes in precipitation levels do not necessarily equate to increases in the intensity, extent, or harmfulness of flooding. This depends on many factors, such as land management, investment in flood defences, population dynamics, as well as other physical processes.
A recent study showed that the percentage of the population in Europe exposed to river flooding has been falling since 1960, and that the UK specifically has seen a decline in the percentage of people at risk of flood over the period 1870–2016.
The study also looked at financial losses caused by flooding and found that between 1870 and 2016, after adjusting for demographic and economic growth, there were no significant trends in flood losses, both on European scale, and for individual countries. However, the biggest shift in financial losses occurs for the period between 1950 and 2016 where the negative trend (−2.6% per year) is statistically significant.
GWPF Factsheet
In response to this winter’s severe floods there have been some alarming claims about climate change and the impact it may be having on flooding throughout Britain. But what does the evidence actually show?
Recent intense rainfall
Source: Met Office
Rainfall in February 2020 was the heaviest February rainfall on record for the UK as a whole, but also notably in both England and Wales, which suffered severe floods as a result.
This kind of event is very unusual. However, before drawing broader lessons, it is important to review the historical data, so we can place it in the context of longer-term trends.
Long-term precipitation trends
According to Met Office data, England, Wales and Northern Ireland have not seen any significant increases in annual rainfall since 1910. In Scotland however, precipitation levels have risen slightly since the 1970s. There also have been seasonal variations in rainfall trends, with winters becoming wetter in recent decades and summers becoming slightly drier.
Source: Met Office
Going back further, to 1766, the England and Wales precipitation series shows that annual rainfall has been remarkably consistent since that time.
Source: England and Wales Precipitation Series, Met Office
Looking specifically at the prevalence of sustained heavy rainfall, of the kind that can lead to flooding, a small positive trend of 0–3 mm/decade in maximum annual consecutive five-day precipitation has been identified over recent decades.
However, the trend was only statistically significant in parts of Scotland and during the winter. The period covered was 1960–2018.
It has been suggested that these modest changes are related to anthropogenic climate change, because of increased moisture in the air owing to warmer temperatures (the Clausius–Clapeyron relation).
However, trend attribution is complicated by interference from cyclical drivers of natural variability. The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which are recognised drivers of natural climate variability, have been found to influence extreme rainfall in the UK.
Impact on flooding
Changes in precipitation levels do not necessarily equate to increases in the intensity, extent, or harmfulness of flooding. This depends on many factors, such as land management, investment in flood defences, population dynamics, as well as other physical processes.
A recent study showed that the percentage of the population in Europe exposed to river flooding has been falling since 1960, and that the UK specifically has seen a decline in the percentage of people at risk of flood over the period 1870–2016.
The study also looked at financial losses caused by flooding and found that between 1870 and 2016, after adjusting for demographic and economic growth, there were no significant trends in flood losses, both on European scale, and for individual countries. However, the biggest shift in financial losses occurs for the period between 1950 and 2016 where the negative trend (−2.6% per year) is statistically significant.
Source: Trends in flood losses in Europe over the past 150 years. Nat Commun 9, 1985 (2018)
Full fact sheet
Full fact sheet
7) Patrick Michaels: Climate Predictions: “It’s Worse Than We Thought”
Real Clear Energy, 14 July 2020
As the temperature of the eastern U.S. normally reaches its summer maximum around the last week of July, every year at this time we are bombarded with tired “climate change is worse than we thought” (WTWT) stories.
These stories take time to produce, from imagination to final copy to editing to publication, so they have usually been submitted well in advance of the summer peak. Hence, orchestrated fear.
For once, I’m in agreement about the WTWT meme, but it’s about the climate models, not the climate itself.
Every seven years or so, our friends at the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) produce a new “scientific assessment” of climate, including forecasts to the year 2100 (and, in some cases, even beyond). These reports have only one basis: quantitative calculations known as “general circulation models,” or increasingly comprehensive “earth system models.”
Each report is based on a suite of standardized models that are collated into a “Coupled Model Intercomparison Project” (CMIP). The fifth one, CMIP5, was the forecasting basis for the last (2013) IPCC report.
Anyone can access the CMIP models at a Netherlands website known as KNMI Climate Explorer. A few years ago, John Christy, now interim dean of science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, did just that and plotted the output of all 32 families of models over the vast tropics. He looked at the whole lower atmosphere there, from the surface up to the stratosphere, and found that the models were predicting twice as much warming since 1979 than had been observed at altitude—a critical systematic error that misdirects the prime moving force for the earth’s global climate circulation, driving everything from agriculturally critical midlatitude precipitation to the likelihood of hurricane formation.
One model got it right: the Russian INM-CM4 (Institute for Numerical Mathematics–Climate Model Four), but it also predicted the least warming—by far—of all the CMIP5 models.
At the surface, the 2013 IPCC report predicted a climate “sensitivity” (the amount of warming resulting from the doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide) of 1.5⁰C–4.5⁰C, based on the spread of the CMIP5 models. The sensitivity of the cold Russian model was 2.1⁰C.
You’d think that, in the seven-year period between CMIP5 and CMIP6, the modeling community would address the critical errors that all the other models were making. But CMIP6 models are out and are indeed “worse than we thought.” While their error in the tropical atmosphere is very close to the same as it was in CMIP5 (which isn’t good), the range of global predictions is even larger than before. This is also not a good sign, especially because it has been documented that the models are “tuned” to give an answer that the modeling team wants.
Full post
Real Clear Energy, 14 July 2020
As the temperature of the eastern U.S. normally reaches its summer maximum around the last week of July, every year at this time we are bombarded with tired “climate change is worse than we thought” (WTWT) stories.
These stories take time to produce, from imagination to final copy to editing to publication, so they have usually been submitted well in advance of the summer peak. Hence, orchestrated fear.
For once, I’m in agreement about the WTWT meme, but it’s about the climate models, not the climate itself.
Every seven years or so, our friends at the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) produce a new “scientific assessment” of climate, including forecasts to the year 2100 (and, in some cases, even beyond). These reports have only one basis: quantitative calculations known as “general circulation models,” or increasingly comprehensive “earth system models.”
Each report is based on a suite of standardized models that are collated into a “Coupled Model Intercomparison Project” (CMIP). The fifth one, CMIP5, was the forecasting basis for the last (2013) IPCC report.
Anyone can access the CMIP models at a Netherlands website known as KNMI Climate Explorer. A few years ago, John Christy, now interim dean of science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, did just that and plotted the output of all 32 families of models over the vast tropics. He looked at the whole lower atmosphere there, from the surface up to the stratosphere, and found that the models were predicting twice as much warming since 1979 than had been observed at altitude—a critical systematic error that misdirects the prime moving force for the earth’s global climate circulation, driving everything from agriculturally critical midlatitude precipitation to the likelihood of hurricane formation.
One model got it right: the Russian INM-CM4 (Institute for Numerical Mathematics–Climate Model Four), but it also predicted the least warming—by far—of all the CMIP5 models.
At the surface, the 2013 IPCC report predicted a climate “sensitivity” (the amount of warming resulting from the doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide) of 1.5⁰C–4.5⁰C, based on the spread of the CMIP5 models. The sensitivity of the cold Russian model was 2.1⁰C.
You’d think that, in the seven-year period between CMIP5 and CMIP6, the modeling community would address the critical errors that all the other models were making. But CMIP6 models are out and are indeed “worse than we thought.” While their error in the tropical atmosphere is very close to the same as it was in CMIP5 (which isn’t good), the range of global predictions is even larger than before. This is also not a good sign, especially because it has been documented that the models are “tuned” to give an answer that the modeling team wants.
Full post
8) Sterling Burnett: Cancel Culture Dominates Climate Research, Cancelling the Scientific Method
The Epoch Times, 14 July 2020
For more than two decades, politically connected climate scientists have been leading the cancel culture movement.
Contrary to popular perception, “cancel culture,” in which people or their opinions are shamed and shut out of discussion when they don’t conform to whatever those shouting the loudest or rioting in the streets believe, is not a new phenomenon.
For more than two decades, politically connected climate scientists have been leading the cancel culture movement.
These researchers abandoned the pursuit of knowledge and human progress for the pursuit of political power to impose their vision of how society should be shaped. Rather than seeking understanding of the world through the use of the scientific method and its reliance upon data and empirical falsification, they’ve promoted the political notion of consensus as how knowledge is obtained, and comity, rather than experimentation, as how progress is made.
They “cancel” through personal attacks, denial of funding, removing “opponents” from positions, and suppressing the research of any researcher or analyst who dares to disagree with the so-called consensus position humans are causing catastrophic climate change.
Honest scientists who cling to the quaint notion that climate change theory should be tested against data are deemed retrograde or climate deniers, whose views are not worthy of being considered in these days of post-modern climate science. Indeed, many cancelers advocate for imprisoning climate skeptics.
Let’s look at just a couple of examples of where academic conferences and media headlines have given consensus, cancel culture science pride of place over the facts when it comes to alarming climate claims.
Based solely on the unsupported assertions of consensus climate researchers, the media has been flooded with stories claiming human caused climate change is causing famine and starvation.
In late June 2020, Cornell Alliance for Science claimed farmers in sub-Saharan Africa were desperate for new farm technologies and crops to fight a climate change induced decline in crop production that the Alliance claimed was “driving millions [of Africans] into hunger.” Yet data from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization shows cereal (staple) food crop production across southern Africa has grown substantially, and fairly steadily, since at least the 1960s. Moreover, the past 10 years have provided the 10 highest crop yields in sub-Saharan African history.
Dozens of similarly false claims linking supposed anthropogenic climate change to an agricultural apocalypse were covered by outlets such as Google News, GQ, the New Republic, and Roll Call, over the past couple of months. Yet, had the journalists writing the stories showed a little bit of investigative initiative they could have easily discovered hundreds of field experiments and studies collected on CO2 Science, much of which was distilled or summarized in the exhaustive report by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts. These reports show crop yields have been booming and hunger and malnutrition declining as, and in large part because, carbon dioxide concentrations have been rising.
Following the Democratic playbook per Rahm Emmanuel of “never letting a crisis go to waste,” radical climate alarmists have also manipulated science to assert climate change is making pandemics more frequent and deadlier. Dozens of media outlets, including Jurist Legal, the Los Angeles Times, MSNBC, and Time magazine published articles during the midst of the coronavirus pandemic claiming human caused climate change, if not already making the incidences of pandemics more likely, would make them more frequent and more deadly in the future.
For instance, an article in Pro-Publica blatantly lied when it stated, “vector-borne diseases—those carried by insects like mosquitoes and ticks and transferred in the blood of infected people—are also on the rise as warming weather and erratic precipitation vastly expand the geographic regions vulnerable to contagion.”
The body of scientific literature, as detailed in Chapter Four of Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels, shows there is no factual basis for this claim.
Studies from Africa, to England and Wales, to North and South America, to Thailand and beyond find any link between human climate change and the spread of malaria, Dengue fever, West Nile virus, and other vector-borne diseases, either grossly overstated or outright false.
Indeed, historically, colder periods are linked to famine, as crops fail, and the rapid spread of pandemics, like the bubonic plague that ran rampant during the little ice age. By contrast, pandemics typically wane, though not disappear, and hunger and malnutrition decline sharply during relatively warm periods.
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The Epoch Times, 14 July 2020
For more than two decades, politically connected climate scientists have been leading the cancel culture movement.
Contrary to popular perception, “cancel culture,” in which people or their opinions are shamed and shut out of discussion when they don’t conform to whatever those shouting the loudest or rioting in the streets believe, is not a new phenomenon.
For more than two decades, politically connected climate scientists have been leading the cancel culture movement.
These researchers abandoned the pursuit of knowledge and human progress for the pursuit of political power to impose their vision of how society should be shaped. Rather than seeking understanding of the world through the use of the scientific method and its reliance upon data and empirical falsification, they’ve promoted the political notion of consensus as how knowledge is obtained, and comity, rather than experimentation, as how progress is made.
They “cancel” through personal attacks, denial of funding, removing “opponents” from positions, and suppressing the research of any researcher or analyst who dares to disagree with the so-called consensus position humans are causing catastrophic climate change.
Honest scientists who cling to the quaint notion that climate change theory should be tested against data are deemed retrograde or climate deniers, whose views are not worthy of being considered in these days of post-modern climate science. Indeed, many cancelers advocate for imprisoning climate skeptics.
Let’s look at just a couple of examples of where academic conferences and media headlines have given consensus, cancel culture science pride of place over the facts when it comes to alarming climate claims.
Based solely on the unsupported assertions of consensus climate researchers, the media has been flooded with stories claiming human caused climate change is causing famine and starvation.
In late June 2020, Cornell Alliance for Science claimed farmers in sub-Saharan Africa were desperate for new farm technologies and crops to fight a climate change induced decline in crop production that the Alliance claimed was “driving millions [of Africans] into hunger.” Yet data from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization shows cereal (staple) food crop production across southern Africa has grown substantially, and fairly steadily, since at least the 1960s. Moreover, the past 10 years have provided the 10 highest crop yields in sub-Saharan African history.
Dozens of similarly false claims linking supposed anthropogenic climate change to an agricultural apocalypse were covered by outlets such as Google News, GQ, the New Republic, and Roll Call, over the past couple of months. Yet, had the journalists writing the stories showed a little bit of investigative initiative they could have easily discovered hundreds of field experiments and studies collected on CO2 Science, much of which was distilled or summarized in the exhaustive report by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts. These reports show crop yields have been booming and hunger and malnutrition declining as, and in large part because, carbon dioxide concentrations have been rising.
Following the Democratic playbook per Rahm Emmanuel of “never letting a crisis go to waste,” radical climate alarmists have also manipulated science to assert climate change is making pandemics more frequent and deadlier. Dozens of media outlets, including Jurist Legal, the Los Angeles Times, MSNBC, and Time magazine published articles during the midst of the coronavirus pandemic claiming human caused climate change, if not already making the incidences of pandemics more likely, would make them more frequent and more deadly in the future.
For instance, an article in Pro-Publica blatantly lied when it stated, “vector-borne diseases—those carried by insects like mosquitoes and ticks and transferred in the blood of infected people—are also on the rise as warming weather and erratic precipitation vastly expand the geographic regions vulnerable to contagion.”
The body of scientific literature, as detailed in Chapter Four of Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels, shows there is no factual basis for this claim.
Studies from Africa, to England and Wales, to North and South America, to Thailand and beyond find any link between human climate change and the spread of malaria, Dengue fever, West Nile virus, and other vector-borne diseases, either grossly overstated or outright false.
Indeed, historically, colder periods are linked to famine, as crops fail, and the rapid spread of pandemics, like the bubonic plague that ran rampant during the little ice age. By contrast, pandemics typically wane, though not disappear, and hunger and malnutrition decline sharply during relatively warm periods.
Full post
The London-based Global Warming Policy Forum is a world leading think tank on global warming policy issues. The GWPF newsletter is prepared by Director Dr Benny Peiser - for more information, please visit the website at www.thegwpf.com.
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