What’s the truth about climate warming, e’rr change?

I will put my hand up to subscribing to the notion of humans having such an effect on Earth’s atmosphere that climate warming was likely, inevitable and could be the destruction of life, as we know it.  It seemed to fit the idea of mankind being disconnected from the planet and completely out of touch with the reality that our Earth is a fragile place, our atmosphere a (relatively) very thin ‘skin’ around our planet and few of us spare a second thought for protecting the environment for the generations to come.

But gradually the faint sounds of opposition to the ‘simple’ argument that man is screwing up the Planet have become clearer.  The latest is a very clear cry.

Paul Hudson is the weather presenter and climate correspondent for the BBC Look North programme in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire (UK).  As his Blog explains:

I’ve been interested in the weather and climate for as long as I can remember, and worked as a forecaster with the (UK) Met Office for more than ten years locally and at the international unit before joining the BBC in October 2007. Here I divide my time between forecasting and reporting on stories about climate change and its implications for people’s everyday lives.

Anyway, Paul’s latest Post in his Blog is causing quite a stir.  The title makes it obvious, “Whatever happened to global warming?”

As Paul writes:

The title of this may be a surprise. So might the fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not last year, or 2007, but 1998. For the last decade we have not observed any increase in global temperatures. What’s more, climate models did not forecast it even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise. So what on earth is going on?

Debra Saunders of Rasmussen Reports picks up on this and expands it by saying:

Western Washington University geologist Don J. Easterbrook presented research last year that suggests that the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) caused warmer temperatures in the 1980s and 1990s. With Pacific sea surface temperatures cooling, Easterbrook expects 30 years of global cooling.

EPA analyst Alan Carlin — an MIT-trained economist with a degree in physics — referred to “solar variability” and Easterbrook’s work in a document that warned that politics had prompted the EPA and other countries to pay “too little attention to the science of global warming” as partisans ignored the lack of global warming over the last 10 years. At first, the EPA buried the paper, then it permitted Carlin to post it on his personal Web site.

Alan Carlin’s Blog, Carline Economics,  is a really interesting website and while looking for the article mentioned by Debra Saunders above, I found myself ‘distracted’ by many other interesting posts.  Anyway, the paper that Carlin wrote I think is linked to a web page here.

But probably easier to read is a Post that Alan published on August 9th on his Blog mentioned above.  It is called Why the UN GHG Hypothesis Should Be Rejected on Scientific Grounds. Right from the opening paragraph, Alan doesn’t mince his words:

In a previous post I explained why I believe that the United Nations GHG hypothesis that significant global warming will occur as a result of increasing greenhouse gas (such as CO2) levels is implausible.  In this post I will explain why I believe that the best available evidence indicates that the hypothesis is not just implausible but rather should and can be rejected on scientific grounds.

If you want to know more about Alan, then one can go here to find out.  As you may have guessed, he’s a smart guy.

How has the establishment reacted to Carlin’s paper saying that the science is flawed?  More of that in an instant.  But, first, a personal reflection.

Many years ago I started a company in the UK providing flight briefing services to aviation.  It’s still running although not now with any involvement from me.  We sourced much of our meteorological data from the UK Met Office. I got to know many people at the Met Office and built up an understanding that a significant amount of research money was being given to the Met Office Hadley Centre for climate change research.  Call me cynical but when the politics seem to be in favour of ‘climate warming’ (great opportunity to increase taxes) and one’s funding is from government, it must be very difficult to end up with the sort of conclusion that Alan Carlin has.  But, as I said, call me cynical!

Back to some of the reactions to Carlin’s paper. Here’s the National Review Institute commenting on an article in the New York Times:

Several days before key Senators introduce that body’s version of controversial global warming “cap-and-trade” legislation, and several months after EPA whistle-blower Dr. Alan Carlin drew attention to the fact that the recent published scientific literature presents a decided tilt against prevailing “global warming” scientific wisdom, the New York Times has run a piece diminishing Dr. Carlin’s stature and findings. The September 24th John M. Broder article reads:

Alan Carlin, a 72-year-old analyst and economist, had labored in obscurity in a little-known office at the Environmental Protection Agency since the Nixon administration.

In June, however, he became a sudden celebrity with the surfacing of a few e-mail messages that seemed to show that his contrarian views on global warming had been suppressed by his superiors because they were inconvenient to the Obama administration’s climate change policy. Conservative commentators and Congressional Republicans said he had been muzzled because he did not toe the liberal line.

But a closer look at his case and a broader set of internal E.P.A. documents obtained by The New York Times under the Freedom of Information Act paint a more complicated picture.

I will leave readers to form their own opinion but one thing is sure, this debate is going to run and run.

This is how Debra Saunders closes that Rasmussen Report:

Over the years, global warming alarmists have sought to stifle debate by arguing that there was no debate. They bullied dissenters and ex-communicated non-believers from their panels. In the name of science, disciples made it a virtue to not recognize the existence of scientists such as MIT’s Richard Lindzen and Colorado State University’s William Gray.

For a long time, that approach worked. But after 11 years without record temperatures that had the seas spilling over the Statue of Liberty’s toes, they are going to have to change tactics.

They’re going to have to rely on real data, not failed models, scare stories and the Big Lie that everyone who counts agrees with them.

Exactly!

By Paul Handover

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