ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Moments after the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UN IPCC) released a summary of its latest global-warming report on September 27, top climate scientists and experts were already reading through it and trashing the methods, findings, claims, and more. In fact, based on leaked drafts of the controversial report, critics had been debunking and ridiculing the UN’s climate claims for weeks prior to the official release. Once the summary report was officially released in Stockholm, the deluge of criticism accelerated, with more than a few top scientists calling for the UN IPCC to be disbanded entirely.

The latest climate document claimed that despite more than 16 years of essentially no increase in global temperatures in defiance of UN theories and predictions, politically selected IPCC experts were more certain than ever that humans were to blame for global warming — 95 percent sure, to be precise. While it is not entirely clear how the IPCC calculated the “percent” certainty, the claim has confused some of the world’s most respected climate scientists. “How they can justify this is beyond me,” notedProfessor Judith Curry, chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

“It makes no sense that the IPCC was claiming that its confidence in its forecasts and conclusions has increased,” Dr. Curry was also quoted as saying in news reports. “This is incomprehensible to me; the IPCC projections are overconfident, especially given the report’s admitted areas of doubt. The consensus-seeking process used by the IPCC creates and amplifies biases in the science. It should be abandoned in favor of a more traditional review that presents arguments for and against — which would better support scientific progress, and be more useful for policy makers.” 

Indeed, aside from attempting to downplay the lack of warming, the UN has essentially boxed itself into a corner with its latest climate report. “IPCC has thrown down the gauntlet — if the pause continues beyond 15 years (well it already has), they are toast,” Professor Curry noted on her climate website in an analysis offering her initial thoughts about the UN’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). “Even though they still use the word ‘most’ in the attribution statement, they go all out and pretty much say [the temperature increase] is all AGW [anthropogenic, or man-made, global warming].”

In another commentary about the report, Dr. Curry said it was time to shut down the whole IPCC. “The diagnosis of paradigm paralysis seems fatal in the case of the IPCC, given the widespread nature of the infection and intrinsic motivated reasoning,” she explained. “We need to put down the IPCC as soon as possible — not to protect the patient who seems to be thriving in its own little cocoon, but for the sake of the rest of us whom it is trying to infect with its disease. Fortunately much of the population seems to be immune, but some governments seem highly susceptible to the disease. However, the precautionary principle demands that we not take any risks here, and hence the IPCC should be put down.”

Numerous other prominent scientists — even many who have worked with the IPCC and accept some of its global-warming theories — have been equally critical. Meteorology Professor Richard Lindzen at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who served as a lead author with the third IPCC report, for example, told Climate Depot that he thought the UN body had “truly sunk to a level of hilarious incoherence” with its latest assessment. “They are proclaiming increased confidence in their models as the discrepancies between their models and observations increase,” added Dr. Lindzen, who has published hundreds of scientific papers.

The UN-promoted theory about the missing warming being hidden somewhere in the ocean, Lindzen continued, is really an admission that its climate models do not accurately simulate natural internal variability in the system. Because the claim that human activity is responsible for global warming depends on the models being able to do just that, the IPCC is essentially admitting, “somewhat obscurely,” that its crucial assumption is unjustified, the MIT expert explained. 

“Finally, in attributing warming to man, they fail to point out that the warming has been small, and totally consistent with there being nothing to be alarmed about,” the scientist and professor concluded. “It is quite amazing to see the contortions the IPCC has to go through in order to keep the international climate agenda going.” 

Meanwhile, climate experts Patrick Michaels and Paul "Chip" Knappenberger with the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute were calling for the UN report to be “torn up and tossed out” along with “the entire IPCC process which produced such a misleading (and potentially dangerous) document.” In analyses of the report published in various media outlets and on Cato’s website, the two experts lambasted the report with extremely harsh comments, blasting it as “an embarrassment of internal inconsistency,” “beyond misleading,” “entirely self-serving,” and more. 

“The Humpty Dumpty-esque report once claiming to represent the ‘consensus of scientists’ has fallen from its exalted wall and cracked to pieces under the burdensome weight of its own cumbersome and self-serving processes, which is why all the governments’ scientists and all the governments’ men cannot put the IPCC report together again,” they wrote, saying the IPCC’s climate models needed fixing as evidenced by the fact that the UN could not even track the Earth’s average temperature for the last 10 to 20 years. The IPCC report, the two experts continued, was not only “obsolete on its release, but completely useless as a basis to form opinions (or policy) related to human energy choices and their influence on the climate.”

Dr. Benny Peiser with the Global Warming Policy Foundation had harsh words for the latest IPCC report, too, saying it was based on flawed models that cannot accurately predict future temperature changes.  “The IPCC are gambling that temperatures will rise soon. My own reading of the report is it's more a political message than a scientific one,” he explained. “They ignore the fact that their models have a problem, and they are unable to say when the temperature will start rising again. That is a gamble.” 

In media comments, Dr. Peiser blasted the leaked version of the report as a “staggering concoction of confusion, speculation and sheer ignorance.” He said the IPCC appeared to have run out of answers to explain away the “widening gap” between its predictions and reality — a fact that even most of the establishment media have started to notice. In the last 16 years, there has been essentially no increase in temperature, he explained, and before 1980, the world saw some three decades of cooling. Indeed, since 1950, there have only been 20 years of warming, Dr. Peiser noted, adding that nobody knows when temperatures will start rising again. 

“If climate scientists were honest enough to acknowledge their predictions were for excessive warming they would have to admit that their climate models could be in serious trouble,” he said. “Around the world, governments are wasting trillions of [British] pounds on useless technology which have no effect on the climate but are causing economic hardship and environmental damage. The IPCC is doing a huge disservice to proper science with such tactics and more and more people are losing trust in their claims and predictions. Unless global temperatures begin to rise again in the next few years it is very likely going to suffer an existential blow to its credibility.”

Climatologist Dr. Roy Warren Spencer, who serves as principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and formerly worked as a Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, was equally critical of the latest UN report. Probably the “biggest omission of the report,” he said, “continues to be the almost total neglect of natural forcing mechanisms of climate change.” Overall, Dr. Spencer said the IPCC summary report released last week “reveals a dogged attempt to salvage the IPCC’s credibility amidst mounting evidence that it has gone overboard in its attempts to scare the global public over the last quarter century.” 

Other experts criticized a variety of major omissions in the report, too. Executive Vice President Ken Haapala with the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP), for example, compared and contrasted the IPCC report with another major climate report that takes a more realistic approach. Produced by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), the “Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science and the Summary for Policymakers” paints a very different picture using many of the same studies cited by the UN. 

Among other major concerns cited by Haapala and other experts is the fact that the sensitivity of the climate to increases in carbon dioxide is missing from the IPCC report. “Yet, this is the entire political issue,” he noted. “Is the climate sensitive to human emissions of CO2 or not? Does an increase in the molecules of CO2 from 3 to 4 per 10,000 parts of air make a difference in climate?” The UN does not know. 

“Further, the report glosses over the fact that there has been no statistically significant rise in surface temperatures for over 16 years,” Haapala continued, echoing criticism worldwide about the UN effort to downplay the elephant in the room. “Instead, it asserts a greater certainty in its work than prior reports. It reduced the uncertainty from 10% to 5%, with no empirical basis.... The purpose of a physical science is to describe nature, and to understand how it works. It is becoming increasingly evident that IPCC science does not describe nature. Yet, the IPCC intensifies its certainty in its work?”

As The New American has been reporting, numerous independent scientists and organizations have warned in recent years — and especially in the last few months — that the Earth may be facing a period of global cooling. With sun activity on the decline and ice growing at the poles, evidence for the argument continues to grow. In the wake of the latest IPCC report, meanwhile, more than a few critics have pointed out again that the placement of temperature gauges near cities and other urban areas may be skewing the data cited by the UN to bolster its theories. Climate scientist and accredited IPCC reviewer Nic Lewis noted that if 2001, 2002, or 2003 were used as a starting point, it would suggest that the globe has actually been cooling by a statistically insignificant 0.02 C to 0.05 C per decade.   

Finally, scientists all over the world are now openly saying that this IPCC report should be the last — even some who support its theories and calls for a global carbon regime. Professor Myles Allen with Oxford University’s Climate Research Network, who has worked extensively with the IPCC but has blasted many of the anti-carbon schemes pursued by governments as a waste of time and money, said the AR5 ought to be the final UN IPCC report. “Its cumbersome production process misrepresents how science works,” he was quoted as saying. “The idea of producing a document of near-biblical infallibility is a misrepresentation of how science works, and we need to look very carefully about what the IPCC does in the future.”

At this point, the number of independent experts calling for an end to the largely discredited UN panel and its reports is growing fast. Some prominent voices in the climate discussion have even been calling for the “climate scamsters” to be prosecuted and jailed as a way to deter future scientific fraud. Much of the establishment media continues to parrot UN climate scaremongering, but it appears increasingly likely that, unlike the growing polar bear population, the IPCC is standing on thin ice.   

Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, politics, and more. He can be reached atanewman@thenewamerican.com.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

By PATRICK J. MICHAELS and PAUL C. "CHIP" KNAPPENBERGER

The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) today released the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of the physical science volume of its Fifth Assessment Report. The SPM is the most widely-read section of the IPCC reports and purports to summarize and highlight the contents of the thousand-odd pages of the full report. The SPM is agreed to word by word by the international attendees of the IPCC’s final editorial meeting which concluded as the SPM was released.

The Humpty Dumpty-esque report once claiming to represent the “consensus of scientists” has fallen from its exalted wall and cracked to pieces under the burdensome weight of its own cumbersome and self-serving processes, which is why all the governments’ scientists and all the governments’ men cannot put the IPCC report together again.

The pace of climate science far surpasses the glacial movements of large, cumbersome international efforts at consensus building, such as the IPCC, which is why the new report has experienced such a disastrous crack-up.

For example, just this past May, a blockbuster finding was published that the climate sensitivity—how much the earth’s average surface temperature increases as a response to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations—is some 40% less than the average value characteristic of the collection of climate models that the IPCC used to produce the projections of future climate change—projections which are at the heart of the IPCC reports. But by the time this paper was published (and several others with similar conclusions), it was far too late to go back and try to fix the climate models and then rerun the projections.

The  fact is that the IPCC’s climate models need fixing. Prima facie evidence is that they cannot even track the evolution of broadest measure of climate, the earth’s average temperature, for the last 10-20 years.  Despite this being widely obvious to everyone, it didn’t find its way into the scientific literature (although not without trying) until earlier this month.

As a result, the latest science on two key issues: how much the earth will warm as a result of human greenhouse gas emissions, and how well climate models perform in projecting the warming, are largely not incorporated in the new IPCC report.

Which renders the new IPCC report, and its “four years’ work by hundreds of experts” not only obsolete on its release, but completely useless as a basis to form opinions (or policy) related to human energy choices and their influence on the climate.

The IPCC report should be torn up and tossed out, and with it, the entire IPCC process which produced such a misleading (and potentially dangerous) document.

We review the problems with the new IPCC report and the political consequences of relying on it in a couple of recent op-eds, one in the National Review (“The IPCC Political Suicide Pill”) and the other at Fox News (“UN’s new climate change report an embarrassment, self-serving and beyond misleading”), as well as a myriad of blog posts.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

by Judith Curry

Diagnosis: paradigm paralysis, caused by motivated reasoning, oversimplification, and consensus seeking; worsened and made permanent by a vicious positive feedback effect at the climate science-policy interface.

In a previous post, I discussed the IPCC’s diagnosis of a planetary fever and their prescription for planet Earth.  In this post, I provide a diagnosis and prescription for the IPCC.

In the 1990’s, the world’s nations embarked on a path to prevent dangerous anthropogenic climate change by stabilization of the concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases, which was codified by the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) treaty. The IPCC scientific assessments play a primary role in legitimizing national and international policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This objective has led to the IPCC assessments being framed around identifying anthropogenic influences on climate, dangerous environmental and socio-economic impacts of climate change, and stabilization of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.

At the time of establishment of the UNFCCC, there was as yet no clear signal of anthropogenic warming in the observations, as per the IPCC First Assessment Report (FAR) in 1990. It wasn’t until the IPCC’s Second Assessment Report in 1995 that a ‘discernible’ human influence on global climate was identified. The scientific support for the UNFCCC treaty was not based on observations, but rather on our theoretical understanding of the greenhouse effect and simulations from global climate models.  In the early 1990’s there was the belief in the feasibility of reducing uncertainties in climate science and climate models, and a consensus seeking approach was formalized by the IPCC. General circulation climate models became elevated to the central role by policy actors and scientists from other fields investigating climate change impacts and applications – this has in turn has elevated the role and position of these climate models in climate change research. Very substantial investments have been made in further developing climate models, with the expectations that these models will provide actionable information for policy makers.

In 2006/2007, climate change had soared to the top of the international political agenda, as a result of Hurricane Katrina, Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, publication of the IPCC AR4 in 2007, and award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore and the IPCC.  It was claimed that the science was settled, and that it clearly demanded radical policy and governmental action to substantially cut CO2 emissions.

Symptoms of the disease

Seven years later, with the release of the IPCC AR5, we find ourselves between the metaphorical rock and a hard place with regards to climate science and policy:

• as temperatures have declined and climate models have failed to predict this decline, the IPCC has gained confidence in catastrophic warming and dismisses the pause as unpredictable climate variability
• substantial criticisms are already being made of the IPCC AR5 Reports as well as of the IPCC process itself; IPCC insiders are bemoaning their loss of their scientific and political influence; the mainstream media seems not to be paying much attention to the AR5 SPM; and even IPCC insiders are realizing the need for a radical change
• global CO2 emissions continue to increase at higher than expected rates and a growing realization of the infeasibility of meeting emissions targets
• failure of the UNFCCC Conference of Parties to accomplish much since 2009 beyond agreeing to establish future meetings
• Growing realization that you can’t control climate by emissions reductions
• European countries and Australia are backing away from their emission reductions policies as they realize their economic cost and political unpopularity
• increasing levels of shrillness on both sides of the political debate, with the ‘warm side’ steeped in moral panic and hyperbole

And finally:

• after several decades and expenditures in the bazillions, the IPCC still has not provided a convincing argument for how much warming in the 20th century has been caused by humans.
• the politically charged rhetoric has contaminated academic climate research and the institutions that support climate research, so that individuals and institutions have become advocates; scientists with a perspective that is not consistent with the consensus are at best marginalized (difficult to obtain funding and get papers published by ‘gatekeeping’ journal editors) or at worst ostracized by labels of ‘denier’ or ‘heretic.’
• decision makers needing regionally specific climate change  information are being provided by the climate community with either nothing or potentially misleading predictions from climate models.

Diagnosis of the cause of the disease

How and why did we land between a rock and a hard place on the climate change issue?  There are probably many contributing reasons, but the most fundamental and profound reason is arguably that both the problem and solution were vastly oversimplified back in 1990 by the UNFCCC/IPCC, where the framed both the problem and the solution as irreducibly global. This framing was locked in by a self-reinforcing consensus-seeking approach to the science and a ‘speaking consensus to power’ approach for decision making that pointed to only one possible course of policy action – radical emissions reductions. The climate community has worked for more than 20 years to establish a scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change. The IPCC consensus building process played a useful role in the early synthesis of the scientific knowledge. However, the ongoing scientific consensus seeking process has had the unintended consequence of oversimplifying both the problem and its solution and hyper-politicizing both, introducing biases into the both the science and related decision making processes.

In their Wrong Trousers essay, Prins and Rayner argue that we have made the wrong cognitive choices in our attempts to define the problem of climate change, by relying on strategies that worked previously with ozone, sulphur emissions and nuclear bombs. While these issues may share some superficial similarities with the climate change problems, they are ‘tame’ problems (complicated, but with defined and achievable end-states), whereas climate change is ‘wicked’ (comprising open, complex and imperfectly understood systems). For wicked problems, effective policy requires profound integration of technical knowledge with understanding of social and natural systems. In a wicked problem, there is no end to causal chains in interacting open systems, and every wicked problem can be considered as a symptom of another problem; if we attempt to simplify the problem, we become risk becoming prisoners of our own assumptions.

The framing of the climate change problem by the UNFCCC/IPCC and the early articulation of a preferred policy option by the UNFCCC has arguably marginalized research on broader issues surrounding climate variability and change, resulting in an overconfident assessment of the importance of greenhouse gases in future climate change and stifling the development of a broader range of policy options.  The result of this simplified framing of a wicked problem is that we lack the kinds of information to more broadly understand climate change and societal vulnerability.

Paradigm paralysis is the inability or refusal to see beyond the current models of thinking. The vast amount of scientific and political capital invested in the IPCC has become self-reinforcing, so it is not clear how move past this paralysis as long as the IPCC remains in existence. The wickedness of the climate change problem makes if difficult to identify points of irrefutable failure in either the science or the policies, although the IPCC’s insistence that the pause is irrelevant and temporary could provide just such a refutation if the pause continues. In any event, there is a growing realization of that neither the science or policy efforts are making much progress, and particularly in view of the failure climate models to predict the stagnation in warming, and that perhaps it is time to step back and see if we can do a better job of understanding and predicting climate variability and change and reducing societal and ecosystem vulnerabilities.

Broader implications of the disease 

Specifically with regards to climate research, for the past decade most of the resources have been expended on providing projections of future climate change using complex Earth system models, assessing and interpreting the output of climate models, and application of the output of climate models by the climate impacts community.

The large investment in climate modeling, both in the U.S. and internationally, has been made with the expectation that climate models will support decision making on both mitigation and adaptation responses to climate change.  So, are these complex global climate models especially useful for decision makers?  The hope, and the potential, of climate models for providing credible regional climate change scenarios have not been realized. 

With the failure of climate models to simulate the pause and regional climate variability, we have arguably reached the point of diminishing returns from this particular path of climate modeling – not just for decision support but also for scientific understanding of the climate system.  In pursuit of this climate modeling path, the climate modeling community — and the funding agencies and the policy makers — have locked themselves into a single climate modeling framework with a focus on production runs for the IPCC, which has been very expensive in terms of funding and personnel. An unintended consequence of this strategy is that there has been very little left over for true climate modeling innovations and fundamental research into climate dynamics and theory — such research would not only support amelioration of deficiencies and failures in the current climate modeling systems, but would also lay the foundations for disruptive advances in our understanding of the climate system and our ability to predict emergent phenomena such as abrupt climate change.

As a result, we’ve lost a generation of climate dynamicists, who have been focused on climate models rather than on climate dynamics and theory that is needed to understand the effects of the sun on climate, the network of natural internal variability on multiple time scales, the mathematics of extreme events, and predictability of a complex system characterized by spatio-temporal chaos. New structural forms are needed for climate models that are capable of simulating the natural internal variability of the coupled ocean-atmosphere system on timescales from days to millennia and that can accurately account for the fast thermodynamic feedback processes associated with clouds and water vapor.
Hoping and expecting to rely on information from climate models about projected regional climate change to guide adaptation response has diverted attention from using observational, historical and paleoclimate data from the region to more usefully develop the basis for future scenarios. Further, increased scientific focus on subseasonal (weeks) and seasonal (months) weather/climate forecasts could produce the basis for tactical adaptation practices with substantial societal benefits.

Securing the common interest on local and regional scales (referred to by Brunner and Lynch as “adaptive governance”) provides the rationale for effective climate adaptation strategies. This requires abandoning the irreducibly global consensus seeking approach in favor of open debate and discussion of a broad range of policy options that stimulate local and regional solutions to the multifaceted and interrelated issues surrounding climate change.

The IPCC needs to get out of the way so that scientists and policy makers can better do their jobs.

Conclusion

The diagnosis of paradigm paralysis seems fatal in the case of the IPCC, given the widespread nature of the infection and intrinsic motivated reasoning.  We need to put down the IPCC as soon as possible – not to protect the patient who seems to be thriving in its own little cocoon, but for the sake of the rest of us whom it is trying to infect with its disease.  Fortunately much of the population seems to be immune, but some governments seem highly susceptible to the disease. However, the precautionary principle demands that we not take any risks here, and hence the IPCC should be put down.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

It is becoming clear that not only do many scientists dispute the asserted global warming crisis, but these skeptical scientists may indeed form a scientific consensus. 

Don’t look now, but maybe a scientific consensus exists concerning global warming after all. Only 36 percent of geoscientists and engineers believe that humans are creating a global warming crisis, according to a survey reported in the peer-reviewedOrganization Studies. By contrast, a strong majority of the 1,077 respondents believe that nature is the primary cause of recent global warming and/or that future global warming will not be a very serious problem.

The survey results show geoscientists (also known as earth scientists) and engineers hold similar views as meteorologists. Two recent surveys of meteorologists (summarized here and here) revealed similar skepticism of alarmist global warming claims.

According to the newly published survey of geoscientists and engineers, merely 36 percent of respondents fit the “Comply with Kyoto” model. The scientists in this group “express the strong belief that climate change is happening, that it is not a normal cycle of nature, and humans are the main or central cause.”

The authors of the survey report, however, note that the overwhelming majority of scientists fall within four other models, each of which is skeptical of alarmist global warming claims.

The survey finds that 24 percent of the scientist respondents fit the “Nature Is Overwhelming” model. “In their diagnostic framing, they believe that changes to the climate are natural, normal cycles of the Earth.” Moreover, “they strongly disagree that climate change poses any significant public risk and see no impact on their personal lives.”

Another group of scientists fit the “Fatalists” model. These scientists, comprising 17 percent of the respondents, “diagnose climate change as both human- and naturally caused. ‘Fatalists’ consider climate change to be a smaller public risk with little impact on their personal life. They are skeptical that the scientific debate is settled regarding the IPCC modeling.” These scientists are likely to ask, “How can anyone take action if research is biased?”

The next largest group of scientists, comprising 10 percent of respondents, fit the “Economic Responsibility” model. These scientists “diagnose climate change as being natural or human caused. More than any other group, they underscore that the ‘real’ cause of climate change is unknown as nature is forever changing and uncontrollable. Similar to the ‘nature is overwhelming’ adherents, they disagree that climate change poses any significant public risk and see no impact on their personal life. They are also less likely to believe that the scientific debate is settled and that the IPCC modeling is accurate. In their prognostic framing, they point to the harm the Kyoto Protocol and all regulation will do to the economy.”

The final group of scientists, comprising 5 percent of the respondents, fit the “Regulation Activists” model. These scientists “diagnose climate change as being both human- and naturally caused, posing a moderate public risk, with only slight impact on their personal life.” Moreover, “They are also skeptical with regard to the scientific debate being settled and are the most indecisive whether IPCC modeling is accurate.”

Taken together, these four skeptical groups numerically blow away the 36 percent of scientists who believe global warming is human caused and a serious concern.

One interesting aspect of this new survey is the unmistakably alarmist bent of the survey takers. They frequently use terms such as “denier” to describe scientists who are skeptical of an asserted global warming crisis, and they refer to skeptical scientists as “speaking against climate science” rather than “speaking against asserted climate projections.” Accordingly, alarmists will have a hard time arguing the survey is biased or somehow connected to the ‘vast right-wing climate denial machine.’

Another interesting aspect of this new survey is that it reports on the beliefs of scientists themselves rather than bureaucrats who often publish alarmist statements without polling their member scientists. We now have meteorologists, geoscientists and engineers all reporting that they are skeptics of an asserted global warming crisis, yet the bureaucrats of these organizations frequently suck up to the media and suck up to government grant providers by trying to tell us the opposite of what their scientist members actually believe.

People who look behind the self-serving statements by global warming alarmists about an alleged “consensus” have always known that no such alarmist consensus exists among scientists. Now that we have access to hard surveys of scientists themselves, it is becoming clear that not only do many scientists dispute the asserted global warming crisis, but these skeptical scientists may indeed form a scientific consensus.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

INTRODUCTION:

More than 1,000 dissenting scientists (updates previous 700 scientist report) from around the globe have now challenged man-made global warming claims made by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and former Vice President Al Gore. This new 2010 321-page Climate Depot Special Report — updated from the 2007 groundbreaking U.S. Senate Report of over 400 scientists who voiced skepticism about the so-called global warming “consensus” — features the skeptical voices of over 1,000 international scientists, including many current and former UN IPCC scientists, who have now turned against the UN IPCC. This updated 2010 report includes a dramatic increase of over 300 additional (and growing) scientists and climate researchers since the last update in March 2009. This report’s release coincides with the 2010 UN global warming summit in being held in Cancun.

The more than 300 additional scientists added to this report since March 2009 (21 months ago), represents an average of nearly four skeptical scientists a week speaking out publicly. The well over 1,000 dissenting scientists are almost 20 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media-hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers.

The chorus of skeptical scientific voices grew louder in 2010 as the Climategate scandal — which involved the upper echelon of UN IPCC scientists — detonated upon on the international climate movement. “I view Climategate as science fraud, pure and simple,” said noted Princeton Physicist Dr. Robert Austin shortly after the scandal broke. Climategate prompted UN IPCC scientists to turn on each other. UN IPCC scientist Eduardo Zorita publicly declaredthat his Climategate colleagues Michael Mann and Phil Jones “should be barred from the IPCC process…They are not credible anymore.” Zorita also noted how insular the IPCC science had become. “By writing these lines I will just probably achieve that a few of my future studies will, again, not see the light of publication,” Zorita wrote. A UN lead author Richard Tol grew disillusioned with the IPCC and lamented that it had been “captured” and demanded that “the Chair of IPCC and the Chairs of the IPCC Working Groups should be removed.” Tol also publicly called for the “suspension” of IPCC Process in 2010 after being invited by the UN to participate as lead author again in the next IPCC Report. [Note: Zorita and Tol are not included in the count of dissenting scientists in this report.]

Other UN scientists were more blunt. A South African UN scientist declared the UN IPCC a “worthless carcass” and noted IPCC chair Pachauri is in “disgrace”. He also explained that the “fraudulent science continues to be exposed.” Alexander, a former member of the UN Scientific and Technical Committee on Natural Disasters harshly critiqued the UN. “‘I was subjected to vilification tactics at the time. I persisted. Now, at long last, my persistence has been rewarded…There is no believable evidence to support [the IPCC] claims. I rest my case!” See: S. African UN Scientist Calls it! ‘Climate change – RIP: Cause of Death: No scientifically believable evidence…Deliberate manipulation to suit political objectives’ [Also see: New Report: UN Scientists Speak Out On Global Warming -- As Skeptics!] Geologist Dr. Don Easterbrook, a professor of geology at Western Washington University, summed up the scandal on December 3, 2010: “The corruption within the IPCC revealed by the Climategate scandal, the doctoring of data and the refusal to admit mistakes have so severely tainted the IPCC that it is no longer a credible agency.”

Selected Highlights of the Updated 2010 Report featuring over 1,000 international scientists dissenting from man-made climate fears:

“We’re not scientifically there yet. Despite what you may have heard in the media, there is nothing like a consensus of scientific opinion that this is a problem. Because there is natural variability in the weather, you cannot statistically know for another 150 years.” — UN IPCC’s Tom Tripp, a member of the UN IPCC since 2004 and listed as one of the lead authors and serves as the Director of Technical Services & Development for U.S. Magnesium.

“Any reasonable scientific analysis must conclude the basic theory wrong!!” — NASA Scientist Dr. Leonard Weinstein who worked 35 years at the NASA Langley Research Center and finished his career there as a Senior Research Scientist. Weinstein is presently a Senior Research Fellow at the National Institute of Aerospace.

“Please remain calm: The Earth will heal itself — Climate is beyond our power to control…Earth doesn’t care about governments or their legislation. You can’t find much actual global warming in present-day weather observations. Climate change is a matter of geologic time, something that the earth routinely does on its own without asking anyone’s permission or explaining itself.” — Nobel Prize-Winning Stanford University Physicist Dr. Robert B. Laughlin, who won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1998, and was formerly a research scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

“In essence, the jig is up. The whole thing is a fraud. And even the fraudsters that fudged data are admitting to temperature history that they used to say didn’t happen…Perhaps what has doomed the Climategate fraudsters the most was their brazenness in fudging the data” — Dr. Christopher J. Kobus, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Oakland University, specializes in alternative energy, thermal transport phenomena, two-phase flow and fluid and thermal energy systems.

“The energy mankind generates is so small compared to that overall energy budget that it simply cannot affect the climate…The planet’s climate is doing its own thing, but we cannot pinpoint significant trends in changes to it because it dates back millions of years while the study of it began only recently. We are children of the Sun; we simply lack data to draw the proper conclusions.” — Russian Scientist Dr. Anatoly Levitin, the head of geomagnetic variations laboratory at the Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, Ionosphere and Radiowave Propagation of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

“Hundreds of billion dollars have been wasted with the attempt of imposing a Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) theory that is not supported by physical world evidences…AGW has been forcefully imposed by means of a barrage of scare stories and indoctrination that begins in the elementary school textbooks.” — Brazilian Geologist Geraldo Luís Lino, who authored the 2009 book “The Global Warming Fraud: How a Natural Phenomenon Was Converted into a False World Emergency.”

“I am an environmentalist,” but “I must disagree with Mr. Gore” — Chemistry Professor Dr. Mary Mumper, the chair of the Chemistry Department at Frostburg State University in Maryland, during her presentation titled “Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide and Global Warming, the Skeptic’s View.”

“I am ashamed of what climate science has become today.” The science “community is relying on an inadequate model to blame CO2 and innocent citizens for global warming in order to generate funding and to gain attention. If this is what ‘science’ has become today, I, as a scientist, am ashamed.” — Research Chemist William C. Gilbert published a study in August 2010 in the journal Energy & Environment titled “The thermodynamic relationship between surface temperature and water vapor concentration in the troposphere” and he published a paper in August 2009 titled “Atmospheric Temperature Distribution in a Gravitational Field.” [Update December 9, 2010]

“The dysfunctional nature of the climate sciences is nothing short of a scandal. Science is too important for our society to be misused in the way it has been done within the Climate Science Community.” The global warming establishment “has actively suppressed research results presented by researchers that do not comply with the dogma of the IPCC.” — Swedish Climatologist Dr. Hans Jelbring, of the Paleogeophysics & Geodynamics Unit at Stockholm University. [Updated December 9, 2010. Corrects Jelbring's quote.]

“Those who call themselves ‘Green planet advocates’ should be arguing for a CO2- fertilized atmosphere, not a CO2-starved atmosphere…Diversity increases when the planet was warm AND had high CO2 atmospheric content…Al Gore’s personal behavior supports a green planet – his enormous energy use with his 4 homes and his bizjet, does indeed help make the planet greener. Kudos, Al for doing your part to save the planet.” — Renowned engineer and aviation/space pioneer Burt Rutan, who was named “100 most influential people in the world, 2004″ by Time Magazine and Newsweek called him “the man responsible for more innovations in modern aviation than any living engineer.”

“Global warming is the central tenet of this new belief system in much the same way that the Resurrection is the central tenet of Christianity. Al Gore has taken a role corresponding to that of St Paul in proselytizing the new faith…My skepticism about AGW arises from the fact that as a physicist who has worked in closely related areas, I know how poor the underlying science is. In effect the scientific method has been abandoned in this field.” — Atmospheric Physicist Dr. John Reid, who worked with Australia’s CSIRO’s (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization) Division of Oceanography and worked in surface gravity waves (ocean waves) research.

“We maintain there is no reason whatsoever to worry about man-made climate change, because there is no evidence whatsoever that such a thing is happening.” — Greek Earth scientists Antonis Christofides and Nikos Mamassis of the National Technical University of Athens’ Department of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering.

“There are clear cycles during which both temperature and salinity rise and fall. These cycles are related to solar activity…In my opinion and that of our institute, the problems connected to the current stage of warming are being exaggerated. What we are dealing with is not a global warming of the atmosphere or of the oceans.” — Biologist Pavel Makarevich of the Biological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

“Because the greenhouse effect is temporary rather than permanent, predictions of significant global warming in the 21st century by IPCC are not supported by the data.” — Hebrew University Professor Dr. Michael Beenstock an honorary fellow with Institute for Economic Affairs who published a study challenging man-made global warming claims titled “Polynomial Cointegration Tests of the Anthropogenic Theory of Global Warming.”

“The whole idea of anthropogenic global warming is completely unfounded. There appears to have been money gained by Michael Mann, Al Gore and UN IPCC’s Rajendra Pachauri as a consequence of this deception, so it’s fraud.” — South African astrophysicist Hilton Ratcliffe, a member of the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa (ASSA) and the Astronomical Society of the Pacific and a Fellow of the British Institute of Physics.

End Selected Excerpts

#

The rapidity of the global warming establishment’s collapse would have been unheard of just two years ago.Prominent physicist Hal Lewis resigned from American Physical Society, calling “Global warming the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life.” UK astrophysicist Piers Corbyn was blunt about what Climategate revealed: “The case for climate fears is blown to smithereens…the whole theory should be destroyed and discarded and UN conference should be closed.”

Even the usually reliable news media has started questioning the global warming claims. Newsweek Magazine wrote in May 2010 about the “uncertain science” and how “climate researchers have lost the public’s trust” from a “cascade of scandals” from the UN IPCC. Newsweek compared the leaders of the climate science community to “used-car salesmen. “Once celebrated climate researchers are feeling like the used-car salesmen” and the magazine noted that “some of IPCC’s most-quoted data and recommendations were taken straight out of unchecked activist brochures, newspaper articles…Just as damaging, many climate scientists have responded to critiques by questioning the integrity of their critics, rather than by supplying data and reasoned arguments.” For full list of Climategate related scandals See: Climate Scandals: List Of 94 Climate-Gates — 94 climate-gates total — 28 new gates — 145 links to reports with details

As the global warming edifice crumbled in 2010, the movement lost one of its leading lights due to the Climategate revelations. Dr. Judith Curry, the chair of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences at GA Institute of Tech, explained her defection from the global warming activist movement. “There is ‘a lack of willingness in the climate change community to steer away from groupthink…’ They are setting themselves up as second-rate scientists by not engaging,” Curry wrote in 2010. Curry critiqued the UN IPCC for promoting “dogma” and clinging to the “religious importance” of the IPCC’s claims. “They will tolerate no dissent and seek to trample anyone who challenges them,” Curry lamented. “The IPCC assessment process had a substantial element of schoolyard bullies, trying to insulate their shoddy science from outside scrutiny and attacks by skeptics…the IPCC and its conclusions were set on a track to become a self fulfilling prophecy,” Curry wrote. Curry called the Climategate fallout nothing short of a “rather spectacular unraveling of the climate change juggernaut…I immediately realized that [Climategate] could bring down the IPCC…I became concerned about the integrity of our entire field…While my colleagues seemed focused on protecting the reputations of the scientists involved and assuring people that the ‘science hadn’t changed.” [Note: Curry is not included in the count of dissenting scientists in this report.] Also see: ‘High Priestess of Global Warming’ No More! Former Warmist Judith Curry Admits To Being ‘Duped Into Supporting IPCC’ – ‘If the IPCC is dogma, then count me in as a heretic’] [Note: There were many Cilmategate inquiries that sought to downplay Climategate, but they fell short of their goal and were labeled as nothing more than the "global warming establishment exonerating the global warming establishment." See here, here, and here. The InterAcademy Council (IAC) was the most competent of the inquires.]

As new data and science continued to call into question man-made global warming claims, one of the movements leading fear promoters shocked the world by beginning to retreat from his dire predictions. Green guru James Lovelock warned in 2007 that, “Before this century is over, billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic.” Lovelock illustrates how the climate of the climate change movement has been transformed in the last year. In May 2010, Lovelock shocked the world by announcing: “Everybody might be wrong. Climate change may not happen as fast as we thought, and we may have 1,000 years to sort it out.” Lovelock went even father by noting how the science of global warming is in its infancy and “we haven’t got the physics worked out yet.” “The great climate science centers around the world are more than well aware how weak their science is. If you talk to them privately they’re scared stiff of the fact that they don’t really know what the clouds and the aerosols are doing. They could be absolutely running the show. We haven’t got the physics worked out yet,” Lovelock explained. Lovelock now openly praises skeptics and worries that climate fear promotion is akin to religion. In March of 2010,Lovelock said: “The skeptics have kept us sane…They have kept us from regarding climate science as a religion. It had gone too far that way.” [Note: Lovelock is not included in the count of dissenting scientists in this report.] [Note: Even the UN has grown more uncertain about the science. See: UN Fears (More) Global Cooling Commeth! IPCC Scientist Warns UN: We may be about to enter 'one or even 2 decades during which temps cool' -- Admits 'Jury is still out' on ocean cycle's temp impact!]

More woes for the movement were felt when left-leaning environmental activists began jumping ship. See: Left-wing Env. Scientist Denis Rancourt Bails Out Of Global Warming Movement: Declares it a ‘corrupt social phenomenon…strictly an imaginary problem of the 1st World middleclass’ & Meet the green who doubts ‘The Science’: Environmentalist Peter Taylor ‘explains why he’s skeptical about manmade global warming — and why greens are so intolerant’ & Activists at green festivals expressing doubts over man-made climate fears. “One college professor, confided to me in private conversation that, ‘I’m not sure climate change is real,’” according to a report from the New York Green Festival.

2010 saw the once vaunted UN IPCC now become the object of ridicule and scrutiny. In June 2010, Climate ScientistMike Hulme took apart a key claim. Hulme noted that claims such as “2,500 of the world’s leading scientists have reached a consensus that human activities are having a significant influence on the climate” are disingenuous. Hulme noted that the key scientific case for Co2 driving global warming was reached by a very small gaggle of people. “That particular consensus judgment, as are many others in the IPCC reports, is reached by only a few dozen experts in the specific field of detection and attribution studies; other IPCC authors are experts in other fields.” [Note: Hulme is not included in the count of dissenting scientists in this report.]

In another blow to the UN IPCC’s carefully crafted image, was Scientist Dr. William Schlesinger admission in that only 20% of UN IPCC scientists deal with climate. Schlesinger said, “Something on the order of 20 percent [of UN scientists] have had some dealing with climate.” By Schlesinger’s own admission, 80% of the UN IPCC membership has no dealing with the climate as part of their academic studies. Also note, that climate requires a wide range of disciplines: See: ‘There are more than 100 expert sub disciplines involved in climate change studies’ & Science magazine confused about who is a ‘prominent climate scientist’ — ‘there is no specific climate discipline’ & Claims of ‘overwhelming majority’ of scientists exposed as laughable! ‘There are just 94 authors responsible for compiling the report in which…the [UN IPCC's] modeling case for alarm rests’

The notion of climate “tipping points”, popularized by former Vice President Al Gore and NASA Scientist James Hansen, became the object of derision as well in 2010. See: 190-year climate ‘tipping point’ issued — Despite fact that UN began 10-Year ‘Climate Tipping Point’ in 1989! Climate Depot Factsheet on Inconvenient History of Global Warming ‘Tipping Points’ — Hours, Days, Months, Years, Millennium — Earth ‘Serially Doomed’

Once respected global warming stalwarts like NASA’s James Hansen descended into political and ideological activism by being arrested multiple times protesting coal use. Hansen also endorsed a book which calls for ‘”ridding the world of Industrial Civilization”. Hansen declared the author “has it right…the system is the problem.” Hansen did this despite the fact that the book proposes ‘”razing cities to the ground, blowing up dams and switching off the greenhouse gas emissions machine.” The Grist eco-magazine writer David Roberts noted in August 2010: “‘I know I’m not supposed to say this, but James Hansen managed his transition from scientist to activist terribly. All influence lost.”

Energy Sec. Chu came under fire for claiming science told him what the world was going to be like 100 years from now. See: Obama’s ‘Climate Astrologer’: Energy Sec. Chu claims he knows ‘what the future will be 100 years from now’

Obama Science Advisor John Holdren found his knowledge of the science of climate change come under scrutiny after he issued a bizarre warning about the possible loss of WINTER sea ice in the arctic. See: Obama science advisor: John Holdren ridiculed for claiming Arctic could be ICE FREE IN WINTER!

The U.S. Congressional cap-and-trade bill collapse and the UN climate treaty failure has left disillusioned within the global warming movement. Gore has admitted to feeling “a little depressed.” And it has left a spectacle of world leaders promising verbal non-binding agreements to limit the earth’s temp have left modern society attempting to ape primitive cultures efforts to control the climate. See: Blaming all recent weather events on man-made global warming is akin to astrology & Climate Astrology — ‘It Has Been Foretold’ of Extreme Weather: ‘UN IPCC science has a status similar to interpretations of Nostradamus and the Mayan calendars’

In addition, the scientific underpinnings and the public support around the globe has dropped so significantly that there is now open talk of moving on to the “next eco-scare” Demoted: UN officially throws global warming under the bus: UN now says case for saving species ‘more powerful than climate change’ – May 21, 2010 & Time for next eco-scare already?! As Global Warming Movement Collapses, Activists Already ‘Test-Marketing’ the Next Eco-Fear! ‘Laughing Gas’ Crisis? Oxygen Crisis? Plastics?

The carefully crafted “consensus” of man-made global warming has unraveled. See:

Prominent Geologist Dr. Easterbrook Slams Geological Society of America’s climate statement ‘as easily refuted by data that clearly shows no correlation between CO2 and global climate change’ & American Meteorological Society Members Reject Man-made Climate Claims: 75% Do Not Agree With UN IPCC Claims — 29% Agree ‘Global Warming is a Scam’ & Meteorologists Reject U.N.’s Global Warming Claims: Only 1 in 4 American Meteorological Society broadcast meteorologists agree with UN

In 2009, the world’s largest science group, the American Chemical Society (ACS) was “startled” by an outpouring of scientists rejecting man-made climate fears, with many calling for the removal of the ACS’s climate activist editor.

A 2010 Open Letter signed by more than 130 German scientists urging German Chancellor to “reconsider” her climate views. See: ‘Consensus’ Takes Another Hit! More than 130 German Scientists Dissent Over Global Warming Claims! Call Climate Fears ‘Pseudo ‘Religion’; Urge Chancellor to ‘reconsider’ views – August 4, 2009 More than 100 international scientists challenged President Obama’s climate claims, calling them “simply incorrect.” In December 8 2009, 166 scientists from around the world wrote an Open Letter to the UN Secretary-General rebuking the UN and declaring that “the science is NOT settled.” On May 1, 2009, the American Physical Society (APS) Council decided to review its current climate statement via a high-level subcommittee of respected senior scientists. The decision was prompted after a group of over 80 prominent physicists petitioned the APS revise its global warming position andmore than 250 scientists urged a change in the group’s climate statement in 2010. The physicists wrote to APS governing board: “Measured or reconstructed temperature records indicate that 20th – 21st century changes are neither exceptional nor persistent, and the historical and geological records show many periods warmer than today.” An American Physical Society editor conceded that a “considerable presence” of scientific skeptics exists.

Russian scientists “rejected the very idea that carbon dioxide may be responsible for global warming”. India Issued a report challenging global warming fears. International Scientists demanded the UN IPCC “be called to account and cease its deceptive practices,” and a 2008 canvass of more than 51,000 Canadian scientists revealed 68% disagree that global warming science is “settled.”

Scientific meetings are being dominated by a growing number of skeptical scientists. The prestigious International Geological Congress, dubbed the geologists’ equivalent of the Olympic Games, was held in Norway in August 2008 and prominently featured the voices of scientists skeptical of man-made global warming fears. [See: Skeptical scientists overwhelm conference: '2/3 of presenters and question-askers were hostile to, even dismissive of, the UN IPCC' & see full reports here & here - Also see: UN IPCC's William Schlesinger admits in 2009 that only 20% of IPCC scientists deal with climate ]

Despite these developments, global warming promoters have sought to cite a survey alleging 97% of climatologists agree with the “consensus” view. But the survey does not hold up to scrutiny. See: ‘Consensus’ claims challenged: Only 77 scientists were interviewed to get 97.4% agreement — ‘It would be interesting to learn who these individuals are’ & Climate Con: 97% ‘Consensus’ Claim is only 76 Anonymous Self-Selected Climatologists

#

This Climate Depot Special Report is not a “list” of scientists, but a report that includes full biographies of each scientist and their quotes, papers and links for further reading. The scientists featured in the report express their views in their own words, complete with their intended subtleties and caveats. This report features the names, biographies, academic/institutional affiliation, and quotes of literally hundreds of additional international scientists who publicly dissented from man-made climate fears. This report lists the scientists by name, country of residence, and academic/institutional affiliation. It also features their own words, biographies, and web links to their peer reviewed studies, scientific analyses and original source materials as gathered from directly from the scientists or from public statements, news outlets, and websites in 2007 and 2008.

The distinguished scientists featured in this new report are experts in diverse fields, including: climatology; geology; biology; glaciology; biogeography; meteorology; oceanography; economics; chemistry; mathematics; environmental sciences; astrophysics, engineering; physics and paleoclimatology. Some of those profiled have won Nobel Prizes for their outstanding contribution to their field of expertise and many shared a portion of the UN IPCC Nobel Peace Prize with Vice President Gore. Additionally, these scientists hail from prestigious institutions worldwide, including: Harvard University; NASA; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR); Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the UN IPCC; the Danish National Space Center; U.S. Department of Energy; Princeton University; the Environmental Protection Agency; University of Pennsylvania; Hebrew University of Jerusalem; the International Arctic Research Centre; the Pasteur Institute in Paris; Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute; the University of Helsinki; the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S., France, and Russia; the University of Pretoria; University of Notre Dame; Abo Akademi University in Finland; University of La Plata in Argentina; Stockholm University; Punjab University in India; University of Melbourne; Columbia University; the World Federation of Scientists; and the University of London.

Background: Only 52 Scientists Participated in UN IPCC Summary

The notion of “hundreds” or “thousands” of UN scientists agreeing to a scientific statement does not hold up to scrutiny. (See report debunking “consensus” LINK) Recent research by Australian climate data analyst John McLean revealed that the IPCC’s peer-review process for the Summary for Policymakers leaves much to be desired. (LINK) (LINK) (LINK) & (LINK) (Note: The 52 scientists who participated in the 2007 IPCC Summary for Policymakers had to adhere to the wishes of the UN political leaders and delegates in a process described as more closely resembling a political party’s convention platform battle, not a scientific process – LINK)

Proponents of man-made global warming like to note how the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the American Meteorological Society (AMS) have issued statements endorsing the so-called “consensus” view that man is driving global warming. But both the NAS and AMS never allowed member scientists to directly vote on these climate statements. Essentially, only two dozen or so members on the governing boards of these institutions produced the “consensus” statements. This report gives a voice to the rank-and-file scientists who were shut out of the process. (LINK)

The NAS has come under fire for its lobbying practices. See: NAS Pres. Ralph Cicerone Turns Science Org. into political advocacy group: $6 million NAS study is used to lobby for global warming bill & Cicerone’s Shame: NAS Urges Carbon Tax, Becomes Advocacy Group — ‘political appointees heading politicized scientific institutions that are virtually 100% dependent on gov’t funding’ MIT’s Richard Lindzen harshly rebuked NAS president Cicerone in his Congressional testimony in November 2010. Lindzen testified: “Cicerone [of NAS] is saying that regardless of evidence the answer is predetermined. If government wants carbon control, that is the answer that the Academies will provide.” [ Also See: MIT Climate Scientist Exposes 'Corrupted Science' in Devastating Critique – November 29, 2008 ]

While the scientists contained in this report hold a diverse range of views, they generally rally around several key points. 1) The Earth is currently well within natural climate variability. 2) Almost all climate fear is generated by unproven computer model predictions. 3) An abundance of peer-reviewed studies continue to debunk rising CO2 fears and, 4) “Consensus” has been manufactured for political, not scientific purposes.

Scientists caution that the key to remember is “climate change is governed by hundreds of factors, or variables,” not just CO2. UK Professor Emeritus of Biogeography Philip Stott of the University of London decried the notion that CO2 is the main climate driver. “As I have said, over and over again, the fundamental point has always been this: climate change is governed by hundreds of factors, or variables, and the very idea that we can manage climate change predictably by understanding and manipulating at the margins one politically-selected factor is as misguided as it gets,” Stott wrote in 2008. Even the climate activists at RealClimate.org let this fact slip out in a September 20, 2008 article. “The actual temperature rise is an emergent property resulting from interactions among hundreds of factors,” RealClimate.org admitted in a rare moment of candor.]

Read Full Report: Link to Complete 321-Page PDF Special Report:

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

97% of climate experts agree humans are causing global warming.

Climate Myth...

There is no consensus

The Petition Project features over 31,000 scientists signing the petition stating "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide will, in the forseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere ...". (Petition Project)

Science achieves a consensus when scientists stop arguing.  When a question is first asked – like ‘what would happen if we put a load more CO2 in the atmosphere?’ – there may be many hypotheses about cause and effect. Over a period of time, each idea is tested and retested – the processes of the scientific method – because all scientists know that reputation and kudos go to those who find the right answer (and everyone else becomes an irrelevant footnote in the history of science).  Nearly all hypotheses will fall by the wayside during this testing period, because only one is going to answer the question properly, without leaving all kinds of odd dangling bits that don’t quite add up. Bad theories are usually rather untidy.

But the testing period must come to an end. Gradually, the focus of investigation narrows down to those avenues that continue to make sense, that still add up, and quite often a good theory will reveal additional answers, or make powerful predictions, that add substance to the theory.

So a consensus in science is different from a political one. There is no vote. Scientists just give up arguing because the sheer weight of consistent evidence is too compelling, the tide too strong to swim against any longer. Scientists change their minds on the basis of the evidence, and a consensus emerges over time. Not only do scientists stop arguing, they also start relying on each other's work. All science depends on that which precedes it, and when one scientist builds on the work of another, he acknowledges the work of others through citations. The work that forms the foundation of climate change science is cited with great frequency by many other scientists, demonstrating that the theory is widely accepted - and relied upon.

In the scientific field of climate studies – which is informed by many different disciplines – the consensus is demonstrated by the number of scientists who have stopped arguing about what is causing climate change – and that’s nearly all of them.  A survey of 928 peer-reviewed abstracts on the subject 'global climate change' published between 1993 and 2003 shows that not a single paper rejected the consensus position that global warming is man caused (Oreskes 2004). 

A follow-up study by the Skeptical Science team of over 12,000 peer-reviewed abstracts on the subjects of 'global warming' and 'global climate change' published between 1991 and 2011 found that of the papers taking a position on the cause of global warming, over 97% agreed that humans are causing it (Cook 2013).  The scientific authors of the papers were also contacted and asked to rate their own papers, and again over 97% whose papers took a position on the cause said humans are causing global warming.

Lead author John Cook created a short video abstract summarizing the study:

Several studies have confirmed that “...the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes”. (Doran 2009). In other words, more than 97% of scientists working in the disciplines contributing to studies of ourclimate, accept that climate change is almost certainly being caused by human activities.

We should also consider official scientific bodies and what they think about climate change. There are no national or major scientific institutions anywhere in the world that dispute the theory of anthropogenic climate change. Not one.

In the field of climate science, the consensus is unequivocal: human activities are causing climate change.

J. M. Gregory,a N. J. White,b J. A. Church,b M. F. P. Bierkens,c J. E. Box,d M. R. van den Broeke,e J. G.Cogley,f X. Fettweis,g E. Hanna,h P. Huybrechts,i L. F. Konikow,j P. W. Leclercq,e B. Marzeion,k J.Oerlemans,e M. E. Tamisiea,l Y. Wada,m L. M. Wake,n and R. S. W. van de Walea NCAS-Climate, University of Reading, Reading, and Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, United Kingdom

b CAWCR, CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Hobart, Australia

c Department of Physical Geography, Utrecht University, Utrecht, and Deltares, Delft, Netherlands

d Byrd Polar Research Center, and Department of Geography, Atmospheric Sciences Program, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

e Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands

f Department of Geography, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada

g Département de Géographie, Université de Liège, Liège, Belgium, and Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands

h Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom

i Earth System Sciences, and Departement Geografie, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium

j U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia

k Centre of Climate and Cryosphere, Institute of Meteorology and Geophysics, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

l National Oceanography Centre, Liverpool, United Kingdom

m Department of Physical Geography, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands

n Department of Geography, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada








AbstractConfidence in projections of global-mean sea level rise (GMSLR) depends on an ability to account for GMSLR during the twentieth century. There are contributions from ocean thermal expansion, mass loss from glaciers and ice sheets, groundwater extraction, and reservoir impoundment. Progress has been made toward solving the “enigma” of twentieth-century GMSLR, which is that the observed GMSLR has previously been found to exceed the sum of estimated contributions, especially for the earlier decades. The authors propose the following: thermal expansion simulated by climate models may previously have been underestimated because of their not including volcanic forcing in their control state; the rate of glacier mass loss was larger than previously estimated and was not smaller in the first half than in the second half of the century; the Greenland ice sheet could have made a positive contribution throughout the century; and groundwater depletion and reservoir impoundment, which are of opposite sign, may have been approximately equal in magnitude. It is possible to reconstruct the time series of GMSLR from the quantified contributions, apart from a constant residual term, which is small enough to be explained as a long-term contribution from the Antarctic ice sheet. The reconstructions account for the observation that the rate of GMSLR was not much larger during the last 50 years than during the twentieth century as a whole, despite the increasing anthropogenic forcing. Semiempirical methods for projecting GMSLR depend on the existence of a relationship between global climate change and the rate of GMSLR, but the implication of the authors' closure of the budget is that such a relationship is weak or absent during the twentieth century.