Those Stubborn Climate Modelers Absolutely Insist on Being Wrong

The previous set of wrongheaded climate models, CMIP5, generated too much warming over the sea and in the tropical troposphere (the lower, most dense, layer of the Earth's atmosphere).  The current CMIPS6 models cause excessive warming all over the Earth in both the lower and the middle troposphere.  It has long been recognized that too much warming in the tropical troposphere causes greater latitudinal temperature gradients that would cause too much warming worldwide.  The errors of the CMIPS5 models were not addressed.  Instead, the bias of the modelers in favor of exaggerated man-made global warming has led to their creation of a new generation of models that actually makes the errors of the previous models worse.  Apparently, these "scientists" believe that when you are proven wrong, the job of science is to develop models and theories that are even more wrong.  These CMIPS6 climate models are supposed to provide the basis for the next UN IPCC report on how man's use of hydrocarbon fuels will cause catastrophic global warming.

A new paper by Dann M. Mitchell et al.,  examines the temperature trends in the troposphere and stratosphere in the tropics for 48 of the CMIPS6 climate models, each of which is supposed to represent the well-understood consensus climate science, despite the differences in their predictions.  The essence of the results of this analysis by Mitchell et al. is shown in this figure from their manuscript accepted for publication in Environmental Research Letters:

The overwrite on the right-most graph is part of the word manuscript on this pre-publication paper.  The vertical atmosphere altitude is given in terms of the pressure in hPa, where an hPa is 100 Pa.  The x-axis gives the change in temperature per decade in Kelvins (a change of 1 Kelvin equals a change of 1 degree Centigrade).  There is warming in the troposphere and cooling in the stratosphere in the left-most graph, so you can tell the pressure at which the stratosphere begins by looking for the intersection with the zero trend line.

The left-most graph is the measured (black) and the model (red and blue) change in temperature/decade for the period 1979 to 2014.  The black measurements are based on three sets of data: RICH1.5 radiosondes, RAOBCORE1.5 radiosondes, and the Reanalysis ERA5/5.1.  The red horizontal lines indicate the so-called 95% uncertainty range of temperature rate change of the models which try to predict the ocean surface temperatures.  The blue model results are for those models that assume the measured ocean temperatures, rather than trying to predict them.  The red models that try to predict the ocean temperatures increase their errors with excessively high warming rates over the oceans at the surface.  Then, on top of that, they predict increasingly larger warming trends as they climb upwards through the troposphere.  The predictions for the cooling in the stratosphere seem to be much better for these models in the 1979-2014 period, but this is scientifically illusory.

The middle and the right graph separate out the 1979-1997 and the 1998-2014 periods of time.  In the earlier period, the models gave too little cooling in the stratosphere, while in the later period they gave too much cooling.  Putting these offsetting errors together, produced a seemingly good agreement in the stratosphere in the combined period from 1979 to 2014.  However, it is clear from the shorter period results that the modelers did not really know what they were doing.  The actual measured rates show little to no cooling in the stratosphere after 1997, while the models insist on cooling rates similar to those for the 1979-1997 period.

From 1998 to 2014, the CMIPS5 models excessively warmed at rates of 4 to 5 times faster than did the actual temperature measurements.  The CMIPS6 models are not improved.  They are especially in error in the upper troposphere at pressures of about 200 hPa.  There is one especially wrongheaded model and it is the one the Canadian government relies upon for its policies on global warming.  It yields a tropospheric warming rate about 7 times the observed warming rate.  Those poor, poor Canadians!  Governmental energy policies based on a seven-fold exaggeration of a "problem" sure does create real problems.

There is also an evaluation of the CMIPS6 models by McKitrick and Christy which has been accepted for publication by Earth and Space Science.  These authors had found that there was a warming bias in the CMIPS5 models in the tropical mid-troposphere in earlier analyses.  Their new work demonstrates that the CMIPS6 models are even more biased towards warming.  This increased warming is seen in their predictions in both the lower and middle troposphere at all latitudes - the tropics and beyond.  They found that the models using higher Equilibrium Climate Sensitivities (>3.4K) warmed faster than those using lower values of the ECS, but both sets of models all predicted faster than the observed rate of warming.  The observed rate of warming in the lower troposphere is given as 0.15 K/decade, while the lower ECS value set of models with an average ECS of 2.7K gave a lower troposphere warming rate of 0.21K/decade.  The observed middle troposphere warming rate is 0.09K/decade.  To get the right rate of warming, the models would have to use ECS values in the 1 to 2 K range.

In conclusion, the climate modelers, whose models are the basis for man-made global warming, continue to show that they do not understand the science and that their degree of understanding is not improving.  Yet, we can rest assured that many governmental bodies will continue to determine their energy-use policies based on their failed understanding of the science.  There will continue to be claims that they represent the consensus on well-understood science.  It is pretty much impossible to understand the stubborn persistence in the belief in the failed catastrophic man-made global warming hypothesis as a matter of science.

Their clinging to this erroneous belief is a matter of payoffs, environmental religion, and socialist politics lusting to wrest away more and more control of the management of our individual lives. 

Why don't these black lives matter? by Paul Driessen

Child labor, human rights abuses and deaths are routinely ignored by Greens and Democrats

Marathon Petroleum recently announced it will “indefinitely idle” its Martinez Refinery. The decision will remove hundreds of jobs, billions of dollars, and nearly 7 million gallons of gasoline, diesel and other petroleum liquids per day from the energy-hungry California economy. It will also send fuel prices even higher for minority and other poor families that already pay by far the highest gasoline prices in the continental United States: $1.32 more per gallon of regular than in Louisiana and Texas.

California’s green and political interests don’t want drilling or fracking, pipelines, or nuclear, coal or hydroelectric power plants – or mining for the materials needed to manufacture electric cars. They prefer to have that work done somewhere else, and just import the energy, cars and consumer goods.

They’ve long wanted a totally electric vehicle (EV) fleet, which they claim would be clean, ethical, climate-friendly and sustainable. Of course, those labels hold up only so long as they look solely at activities and emissions within California state boundaries – and not where the mining, manufacturing and electricity generation take place. That kind of “life cycle” analysis would totally disrupt their claims.

Consider copper. A typical internal combustion engine uses about 50 pounds (23 kilograms) of this vital everyday metal, the International Copper Association says. A hybrid car requires almost 90 lb (40 kg); a plug-in EV needs 132 lb (60 kg); and a big electric bus can use up to 812 lb (369 kg) of copper. If all 15,000,000 California cars were EVs, they would need almost 1,000,000 tons of copper.

But copper ores average just 0.5% metal by weight, notes energy analyst Mark Mills. That means 200,000,000 tons of ore would have to be dug up, crushed, processed and refined to get that much copper. Almost every step in that process would require fossil fuels – and emit carbon dioxide and pollutants.

That’s just California. According to Cambridge University Emeritus Professor of Technology Michael Kelly, replacing all the United Kingdom’s vehicles with next-generation EVs would require more than half the world’s annual production of copper; twice its annual cobalt; three quarters of its yearly lithium carbonate output; and nearly its entire annual production of neodymium.

Just one electric car or backup-power battery weighs 1,000 pounds and requires extracting and processing some 500,000 pounds of various ores, Mills says. The true costs of “green” energy are staggering.

Imagine replacing all of the USA’s nearly 300,000,000 cars, SUVs, pickup trucks, buses, trucks and other vehicles with electric versions under the Green New Deal – and then charging them daily. The millions of wind turbines, billions of solar panels, billions of backup-power batteries, thousands of miles of new transmission lines, grid upgrades and million or so fast charging stations all across America would also require copper, concrete, all these other metals and many more materials, in incomprehensible quantities.

Alaska’s Pebble Mine deposit has an estimated 35 million tons of high-grade copper ore and 3 million tons of molybdenum and other critical GND ores. The copper alone is nearly two times the world’s 2019 output of that essential element. Permits were blocked for years for questionable reasons. But the US Army Corps of Engineers recently found that mining would not have a “measurable effect” on sockeye salmon numbers in the Bristol Bay watershed and should be allowed to proceed, under tough US pollution control, reclamation, wildlife protection, workplace safety, fair wage and child labor laws.

Environmentalists intend to delay the Pebble Mine as long as possible – and block other US exploration and mining projects. That’s why most mining and processing is done overseas, much of it in China and Mongolia or by Chinese companies in Africa, Asia and Latin America, where none of these laws apply.

Most of the world’s rare earth ores are extracted near Baotou, Inner Mongolia by pumping acid into the ground, then processed using more acids and chemicals. Producing one ton of rare earth metals releases up to 420,000 cubic feet of toxic gases, 2,600 cubic feet of acidic wastewater, and a ton of radioactive waste. The resulting black sludge is piped into a foul, lifeless lake. Numerous local people suffer from severe skin and respiratory diseases, children are born with soft bones, and cancer rates have soared.

Lithium comes largely from Tibet and arid highlands of the Argentina-Bolivia-Chile “lithium triangle.” Dead, toxic fish join carcasses of cows and yaks floating down Tibet’s Liqi River, which has been poisoned by the Ganzizhou Rongda mine. Native people in the ABC triangle say lithium operations contaminate streams needed for humans, livestock and irrigation, and leave mountains of discarded salt.

The world’s top producer of cobalt is the Democratic Republic of Congo, where some 40,000 children as young as four toil with their parents for less than $2 a day up to 12 hours a day. Many die in cave-ins, or more slowly from constant exposure to toxic, radioactive mud, dust, water and air that puts dangerous levels of cobalt, lead, uranium and other heavy metals into their bodies. The cobalt ore is sent to China for processing by the Chinese-owned Congo Dongfang International Mining Company.

That’s just to meet current raw material requirements. Try to picture the raw material demands, Third World mining and child labor conditions, and ecological destruction, under the Green New Deal.

Liberals often say they support sustainable, ethical coffee, sneakers, handbags and diamonds. No child labor, sweat shops or unsafe conditions tolerated. But it’s a different story with green energy and EVs. In 2019, California Assembly Bill 735 proposed that the state certify that “zero emission” electric vehicles sold there are free of any materials or components that involve child labor. Democrats voted it down. The matter is complicated, they “explained.” It would be too hard to enforce, cost too much and imperil state climate goals. And besides, lots of other industries also use child labor. (So shut up about it.)

Last month, the US House of Representatives had an opportunity to legislate a national certification that federally funded electric buses and charging stations would not include minerals mined with child labor. The Transportation Committee approved the amendment 43-19 (all 19 nay votes were Democrats). But Pete DeFazio(D-OR) quietly replaced the enforceable certification language with a meaningless statement that “it is the policy of the United States” that funds “should not be used” for items involving child labor.

DeFazio claimed certification is unnecessary because US trade agreements prohibit child labor. But there is no agreement with Congo, and China has shown no interest in ending child labor in its supply chains. (Plus, the matter is complicated, hard to enforce and perilous for climate and Green New Deal goals.)

It’s easy for Nancy Pelosi and her colleagues to wear Kente cloth stoles in solidarity with Black Lives Matter. And for Sierra Club staff to criticize the organization’s “history and culture of white supremacy” – what I call callous, deadly and arguably racist eco-imperialism and carbon colonialism. We need real reform, and an end to the cancel culture that silences discussion about the horrors of what’s going on in too many non-white areas of the United States and world.

 

The human and ecological realities of GND policies cry out for debate. So do the violence and death that preceded and followed George Floyd’s inexcusable death. Not just the 25 police killings of unarmed blacks all across America in 2019 that have become the narrow focus of Black Lives Matter, politicians and rioters. But also the murders of David Dorn, Patrick Underwood and other police officers; Mekhi James, LeGend Taliferro, Secoriea Turner and other black children gunned down by their fellow blacks; and as many as 7,000 American black men, women and children murdered by blacks every year.

In Chicago, over the July 4 weekend, police reported 87 shootings and 17 deaths, and nearly a dozen of those shot were children caught in the crossfire, the New York Post despaired. In fact, the black-on-black Windy City murder toll over almost any two recent successive weekends exceeds those 25 police killings.

“Every single person who has been shot in New York City [so far] this July, nearly 100 in total, has been a member of the minority community,” NBC News reporter Tom Winter tweeted, “and 97% of shooting victims in June were members of the city’s minority community.” The solution is defunding the police?

ALL these African, Asian, Latin American and minority American lives matter. It’s time to talk about it honestly, figure out what’s really driving the inhumanity, and create a world we can be proud to live in.

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy, environment, climate and human rights issues.