UN climate cataclysm
predictions have no basis in fact and should not be taken seriously
Throughout the United Nations
Climate Change Conference wrapping up in Bonn, Germany this week, the world has
been inundated with the usual avalanche of manmade global warming alarmism. The
UN expects us to believe that extreme weather, shrinking sea ice, and sea level
rise will soon become much worse if we do not quickly phase out our use of
fossil fuels that provide over 80% of the world’s energy.
There is essentially nothing to
support these alarms, of course. We simply do not have adequate observational
data required to know or understand what has happened over the past century and
a half. Meaningful forecasts of future climate conditions are therefore
impossible.
Nevertheless, this year’s session has
been especially intense, since the meeting is being chaired by the island
nation of Fiji, a government that has taken climate change fears to extremes.
COP23 (the 23rd meeting
of the Conference of the Parties on climate change) conference president,
Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama, has called for “an absolute dedication
to meet the 1.5-degree target.” This is the arbitrary and most stringent goal
suggested by the Paris Agreement. In support of Bainimarama’s position, the
COP23/Fiji Website repeatedly cites frightening forecasts made by the UN
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
One prediction stated: “The
IPCC recently reported that temperatures will significantly increase in the
Sahel and Southern African regions, rainfall will significantly decrease, and
tropical storms will become more frequent and intense, with a projected 20 per
cent increase in cyclone activity.”
To make such dire
forecasts, the IPCC relies on computerized models built on data and formulas to
represent atmospheric conditions, and reflect the hypothesis that carbon
dioxide is the principal factor driving planetary warming and climate change.
However, we still do
not have a comprehensive, workable “theory of climate,” and thus do not have
valid formulas to properly represent how the atmosphere functions. We also lack
data to properly understand what weather was like over most of the planet even
in the recent past. Without a good understanding of past weather conditions, we
have no way to know the history, or the future, of average weather conditions –
what we call the climate.
An important data set
used by the computer models cited by the IPCC is the “HadCRUT4” global average
temperature history for the past 167 years. This was produced by the Hadley Centre
and the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, both based in the
United Kingdom.
Until the 1960s,
HadCRUT4 temperature data were collected using mercury thermometers located at
weather stations situated mostly in the United States, Japan, the UK, and
eastern Australia. Most of the rest of the planet had very few temperature
sensing stations, and none of the Earth’s oceans (which cover 70% of the planet)
had more than occasional stations separated from the next ones by thousands of
kilometers of no data. Temperatures over these vast empty
areas were simply “guesstimated.”
Making matters even
worse, data collected at weather stations in this sparse grid had, at best, an
accuracy of +/-0.5 degrees Celsius (0.9 degrees F), and oftentimes no better
than +/-1.0 degree C. Averaging such poor data in an attempt to determine past
or future global conditions cannot yield anything meaningful – and certainly
nothing accurate or valid enough to use in making critical energy policy
decisions.
Modern weather station
surface temperature data are now collected using precision thermocouples. But,
starting in the 1970s, less and less ground surface temperature data was used
for plots such as HadCRUT4. Initially, this was done because governments
believed satellite monitoring could take over from most of the ground surface
data collection.
However, the satellites
did not show the warming that climate activists and computer models had
forecast. So, bureaucrats closed many of the colder
rural surface temperature sensing stations, while many stations in the vast
frigid area of Siberia were closed for economic and other reasons. The net
result was that cold temperature data disappeared from more recent records – thereby
creating artificial warming trends, the very warming that alarmists predicted, desired
and needed for political purposes.
Today, we have
virtually no data for approximately 85% of the Earth’s surface. Indeed, there
are fewer weather stations in operation now than there were in 1960.
That means
HadCRUT4 and other surface temperature computations after about 1980 are
meaningless. Combining this with the sensitivity (accuracy) problems in the
early data, and the fact that we have almost no long-term data above Earth’s
surface, the conclusion is unavoidable:
It is not
possible to know how or whether Earth’s climate has varied over the past
century and a half. The data are
therefore useless for input to the computer models that form the basis of the
IPCC’s conclusions.
But
the lack of adequate surface data is only the start of the problem. The
computer models on which the climate scare is based are mathematical
constructions that require the input of data above Earth’s surface as well. The models divide the atmosphere
into cubes piled on top of each other, ideally with wind, humidity, cloud cover
and temperature conditions known for different altitudes. But we currently have
even less data above the surface than on it, and there is essentially no historical data at altitude.
Many people think the
planet is adequately covered by satellite observations –
data that is almost global 24/7 coverage and far more accurate than
anything determined at weather stations. But the satellites are unable to
collect data from the north and south poles, regions that are touted as
critical to understanding global warming.
Moreover,
space-based temperature data collection did not start until 1979, and 30 years
of weather data is required to generate a single data point on a climate graph.
The satellite record is far too short to allow us to come to any useful
conclusions about climate change.
In fact, there is insufficient data
of any kind – temperature, land and sea ice, glaciers, sea level,
extreme weather, ocean pH, et cetera – to be able to determine how today’s
climate differs from the past, much less predict the future. The
IPCC’s climate forecasts have no connection with the real world.
Sherlock
Holmes warned that “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.
Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to
suit facts.”
Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle wrote
this famous quote for fiction, of course. But it applies
perfectly to today’s global warming debate, especially where the IPCC’s scary conclusions
and forecasts are involved. Of course, this will not stop Bainimarama and
other conference leaders from citing IPCC “science” in support of their
warnings of future climate catastrophe.
We should use these facts to
spotlight and embarrass them every time.
___________
Dr. Tim Ball is an environmental consultant and former climatology
professor at the University of Winnipeg in Manitoba. Tom Harris is executive
director of the Ottawa, Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition.
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