Ian Bradford: It is most likely going to get colder not warmer

The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), is a scientific body under the auspices of the United Nations.  It was established in 1988. The IPCC produces reports that support the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).  IPCC reports contain a Summary for Policy Holders- the most cited documents. 

The ultimate objective of the UNFCCC is “to stabilise the greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic  interference with the climate system.”  The IPCC does not carry out its own original research, nor does it do the work of monitoring climate or related phenomena itself. The IPCC bases it assessment on the published literature. Global warming and the greenhouse effect have become standards parts of its vocabulary. However, in the popular literature some positions of the IPCC are often uncritically taken. However there are quite a few authors who consider the IPCC projections very much oversized, citing strong arguments and scientifically verifiable facts. In the example of “Summary for Policymakers” from 2001 it can be seen that the standpoint of the IPCC is that anthropogenic influences are dominant in the contemporary climate variations, although in the report itself there are inconsistencies and ambiguities. One infers from the summary that it is unlikely that the warming in the past 100 years is due, in at least some part, to self regulation of the climate system.  

Most of the warming in the 20th century occurred during two periods: 1910 -1945 and 1976-2000. This means that possible anthropogenic effects could dominate only in the last quarter of the 20th century.

Ice cores show that the level of Carbon Dioxide before the Industrial Revolution began in 1760 was 280 parts per million (ppm). In 1945  the level of Carbon Dioxide was 310 ppm. So there had been an increase of just 30ppm over the 180 years since  1760 or that’s 1.6ppm per decade. That’s a very small increase. This means that every ten years less than two molecules of Carbon Dioxide for every one million other gas molecules were put into the atmosphere. Less than two Carbon Dioxide molecules every ten years is not going to do anything. All this time the temperature of the earth was rising. There appears to be no correlation between Carbon Dioxide levels and the temperature.  The temperature of the Earth was increasing by natural methods –not anthropogenic.

Below is a graph of CO2 levels from 1800. You can see that the part of the graph from 1800 to 1945 is almost a straight line. So we are justified in saying a 1.6ppm increase every decade. (Because the increase is very close to uniform).

From 1945 to 1976 the temperature fell but Carbon Dioxide levels  continued to rise.  (The blue line in the graph below).  

Natural factors are the cause of the temperature changes in the first half of that century, and no significant change in temperature was observed between 1946-1975.  The increase in the average temperature on the surface of the Earth during the 20th century was 0.6 ± 0.2 Deg C.  However this increase was predominantly carried out in two periods 1910-1945 when there was no anthropogenic impact and 1976-2000 when there was anthropogenic impact according to the IPCC. So a part of the increase can undoubtedly be attributed to natural factors up to 1945. So the increase in temperature of 0.6 Deg C cannot be solely attributed to anthropogenic impact. 

The rate of warming over the period 1998-2012 was averaged to 0.05 Deg C. per decade. That’s 5/100 of a degree. In mathematical terms this is “statistically insignificant.” In simple terms it means that it is so small that errors in measurement for example, could even be bigger than the average.  Below is the temperature graph for 1998 to 2012. The blue line is CO2. 

So effectively, there was NO increase in temperature during this period. BUT during the same period, the concentration of CO2 increased by 7%. Clearly this increase in CO2 did not have any significant  effect on global temperatures.                                                                                                                                    

Moreover, the set of satellite data Remote Sensing System RSS of temperature measurements in the first 8 km of the troposphere,  (That’s the first layer of the atmosphere above the Earth), in the latitude range 70 S to 82 N, showed a statistically insignificant cooling of – 0.05 Deg C per decade. The RSS data set shows no  global warming for all 213 months from Sept 1996 to May 2014. 

THESE RESULTS CLEARLY SHOW THAT CARBON DIOXIDE DOES NOT CAUSE GLOBAL WARMING. 

In 2013 the Economist, a prominent journalistic advocate of strong policies to control CO2 emissions, expressed their puzzlement on the absence of warming over the last 15 years. They observed that this flat period of global average temperature  occurred despite that CO2 emissions from human sources  continued at an increased rate. So we are talking about the period from 1998 to 2013 as indicated in the above graph. The standard climate models such as those used by the IPCC anticipated that such massive CO2 increases should have caused continuing increases in average global temperatures. 

Also in 2013 Fyfe, Gillett, and Zwiers, demonstrated that the current climate models have experienced a systematic failure. A finding very similar to Knappenberger and Michaels,  (2013).  The key is the large difference between the observed data and the computer forecasts which underlie much current policy.  While heating has not occurred as the IPCC forecasted  greatly increased global biomass is indeed demonstrated. In nearly all regions and globally, the overall effect is decidedly toward greening (de Jong et al 2012). This result is the opposite of what the IPCC expected.  CO2 enrichment also greatly increases a plant’s efficiency of use of water. A USDA and US Dept of Energy study, forecasted increased CO2 concentration was shown to cause up to 80% increase in agricultural productivity, and decreased use of water since the growth would occur faster and with more efficient water use by plants. The evidence implies that that the view that global temperature is far less sensitive to CO2 than many fear is likely correct. 

Past climate policy has very often been based principally on models that have not been borne out by experience. Models alone are not science. Models merely reflect the assumptions imbedded in them. In climate models and climate policy generally, those assumptions have apparently  not reflected demonstrated  evidence. Climate policy should reflect what experimental and empirical evidence show to be true. 

What of the Future? 

Significant linear relations are found between the average air temperature in a solar cycle and the length of the previous solar cycle, for 12 out of the 13 meteorological stations in Norway and in the North Atlantic.  A significant trend is found between the length of a cycle and the temperature in the next cycle. This enables predictions to be made about the temperature in the next cycle. A longer cycle predicts lower temperatures during the next cycle.  Richards et al analyzed the length of cycles from 1610 to 2000. They found a correspondence between long cycles and a minimum number of sunspots. Their study suggests that the length of sunspot cycles should increase gradually over the next 75 years, accompanied by a gradual decrease in the number of sunspots. This of course, means a gradual cooling of the Earth.  

The sun goes through warming and cooling cycles every 11 years. The cycles are tracked by the number of sunspots on the surface.  Record  keeping began in 1755 with cycle number 1.  Solar cycle 25 began in December 2019.  Half way through the 11 year cycle the Sun’s activity becomes very intense and stormy, leading to its peak or solar maximum. At the solar maximum the Sun’s north and south magnetic poles swop places and the Sun’s activity begins to quieten down, until it reaches a solar minimum. 

Sunspots are dark areas on the Sun’s surface. Intense magnetic fields push up from within the Sun’s interior. These areas are dark because they are cooler than the rest of the sun. The largest sunspot groups can cover large swaths of the Sun’s surface and be many times the size of the Earth.    The number of sunspots is a measure of the Sun’s activity.  

In 2019, 218 days went by without sunspots, the highest number of spotless days since 1913. At the end of December 2019 two reversed polarity sunspots appeared. These indicated that Solar cycle 25 had started. The maximum of this cycle is predicted to peak from mid 2024 through to mid 2025.  Cycle 25 will end around 2030. 

Below is a graph of solar activity from 1980-cycle 21 to a predicted cycle 26 mid-way between 2030 and 2040. 

The key point here is that solar activity is constantly falling off. Why is this significant?  If there are fewer solar storms, the Earth’s climate gets colder. This is exactly what happened between 1645 and 1715 when the normal 11 year sunspot cycle vanished. This period called the Maunder Minimum was accompanied by bitterly cold winters in the American colonies.  Fishing settlements in Iceland and Greenland were abandoned. Icebergs were seen near the English Channel.  The canals of Venice froze. It was a time of great hardship. 

There are a number of researchers who predict a cold spell which they are calling a Mini Ice Age. It would last for a few decades. Professor Zharkova claims it has already started. We shall just have to wait and see.

Ian Bradford, a science graduate, is a former teacher, lawyer, farmer and keen sportsman, who is writing a book about the fraud of anthropogenic climate change.