Climate of Confusion – Part III Remainder of the Case for Manmade Warming

There are numerous and serious flaws with reported terrestrial temperatures. 
Climate of Confusion – Part III
Remainder of the Case for Manmade Warming
By: George Noga – October 27, 2019

        This is the third of seven parts; you can read the first two parts on our website: www.mllg.us. In this part we address the UN-IPCC, US National Climate Assessment, rising temperatures, extreme weather, rising sea level and melting icecaps and glaciers.

           UN-IPCC: Other than the putative 97% scientific consensus described in Part II, the IPCC is the most frequently cited authority for anthropogenic warming. The IPCC has made many alarming, dire and even apocalyptic pronouncements; but they also have stated that “Moderate warming is a net benefit to humanity“. The IPCC, in its most recent report, simply states: “Human interference with the climate system is occurring and climate change poses risks for human and natural systems.” This hardly rises to the level of a clarion call for drastic action to fight an existential threat.

         IPCC reports, glommed onto by the media, are summaries of thousands of pages of raw data; they are written by politicians (not scientists) and often are at variance with the underlying data. As a governmental body, the IPCC is inherently political and its scientists are compromised by lucrative grants and cowed by political correctness. A recent IPCC report described a worst case scenario in which manmade warming would lower global GDP by only 14 one-hundredths of one percent per year to 2100.

        US National Climate Assessment: The most recent assessment stated that in the worst case, the GDP of the US would be 4% greater in 2090 if there were no human effect on climate. This is a nothing burger.

         Rising Temperatures: Frenzied media reporting of high temperatures makes this the third biggest reason people believe in manmade warming. But there are numerous and serious flaws with reported temperature data; the top ten are listed below.

  1. We are in a 200-year secular warming cycle independent of human causation.
  2. Temperature has not increased in 20 years except for a few El Nino years.
  3. Human adjustments to terrestrial data explain almost all the increase because prior years were adjusted downward to make it appear warming is increasing.
  4. Many terrestrial measurements are taken in UHIs – urban heat islands.
  5. Satellite data (which are unadjusted) show no significant recent warming.
  6. Record temperatures occur in normal years; there’s always a record somewhere. Days over 100 degrees have not increased in the US.
  7. Of all twentieth century warming, 75% occurred from 1910 to 1945.
  8. Cooling was the norm from 1946 to 1975; remember the global cooling panic.
  9. Warming resumed from 1976 to 1998 and has paused from 1999 to present.
  10. Temperature increases in fits and starts with pauses and intervals of cooling. This pattern is inconsistent with manmade warming but not secular warming.

Extreme Weather, Sea Level, Icecaps, Glaciers: These are the remaining reasons people believe in manmade warming. As with temperature data however, there are troublesome flaws and contradictions; the main ones are listed below.

  1. Reinsurance leader, Munich Re, analyzed weather-related losses and found: “No statistically significant trend for weather-related losses in the last 20 years.
  2. Harvey in 2017 was the first hurricane to hit Florida in 12 years, shattering the prior record of 5 hurricane-free years that had stood for 165 years.
  3. Until very recently, the Arctic icecap had been shrinking but the Antarctic icecap, which is ten times larger, had been increasing.
  4. Greenland has been discharging ice into the sea setting off a media frenzy. Per NOAA and Danish Meteorological Society, Greenland’s ice mass is increasing and it is this ice buildup that is pushing peripheral ice into the sea.
  5. The net effect of fires in the Amazon rainforest on oxygen is zero – per National Geographic. Thanks to CO2, Earth is the greenest it ever has been.
  6. Gore’s film cited Glacier National Park (adjacent to our Montana summer home) as ground zero for melting glaciers. Some GNP glaciers are growing again. GNP officials are busy replacing signs saying “Glaciers will be gone by 2020″ with new signs that proclaim: “Glaciers may disappear in future generations“.

Even if global temperatures were rising, there was more extreme weather, more record high temperatures, rising sea levels, shrinking icecaps and receding glaciers, there is no way to determine what, if any, part is the result of anthropological causation instead of the 200-year secular warming cycle.

Evidence of manmade warming is, at best, dodgy, leading us to ask where the burden of proof should lie? It can’t be with those who believe humans are not the cause, if for no other reason, because it is impossible to prove a negative. Logically, if believers in manmade causation want 8 billion humans to make enormous sacrifices, shouldn’t they be required to prove their case with clear and convincing evidence?


Next on October 30th is Part IV of Climate of Confusion – Don’t miss it.
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