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Dan Pangburn said:
Hardly anyone is saying that the planet didn’t get warmer during the 20th century. Well, there is that question of whether UHI has been correctly accounted for, and the puzzling lack of concurrence of ground based data with satellite data. The media, politicians and businesses have been responding to pronouncements by the alarmists. The extant issue is whether humans had anything significant to do with Global Warming and whether they can do anything about it. A rigorous challenge of the complete picture shows that they didn’t and they can’t.
Continued Global Warming would have been a good thing, except for the political dopiness, but lately it has certainly changed character and the temperature trend may have changed direction again. Look at the numbers provided by NOAA (the other agencies tell similar stories). According to NOAA data (not their agenda-biased, thanks to Hansen, narrative reports), for the first 7 months of 2008 the AVERAGE GLOBAL TEMPERATURE IS LOWER than the average from 2000 thru 2007 by an amount equal to 13.5% of the total linearized increase during the 20th century. Since 2000, the CARBON DIOXIDE LEVEL HAS INCREASED by 13.6% of the total increase since the start of the Industrial Revolution.
But understanding global climate does not come from examining something so brief as the last decade, or even the last century. The ONLY predictors of significant Anthropogenic Global Warming are Global Climate Models (aka General Circulation Models) or GCMs. The only existing exact, correct computer of global climate is the planet itself. The output of this computer is recorded as climate history.
Apparently climatologists do not have much grounding in how feedback works. Unaware of their ignorance, they invoke net positive feedback in their GCMs. This causes the GCMs to predict significant ‘enhanced global warming’. Anyone who has the ability and interest to look at the NOAA data from Vostok Ice Cores for the last glaciation (and prior glaciations) will discover that, repeatedly, a temperature increasing trend changed to a decreasing trend with the carbon dioxide level higher than it had been when the temperature was increasing. Graphs of NOAA and other credible data, all fully sourced so they can be verified, can be seen at http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/pangburn.html. (The web site is controlled by Middlebury, not me.) Those who understand how feedback works will know that this temperature trend reversal is not possible with significant net positive feedback. Thus, as far as global climate is concerned and contrary to the assumption in the GCMs, significant net positive feedback from water vapor does not exist.
The infrared radiation energy that is absorbed by greenhouse gas molecules is immediately shared with the thousands of times more numerous nitrogen and oxygen molecules. In other words, the absorbed infrared energy is thermalized. That is what makes the air feel warm. Calculations (see http://www.warwickhughes.com/papers/barrett_ee05.pdf ) show that half of the infrared energy from the surface that ever gets absorbed gets absorbed within 24 meters of the surface. The absorbed energy is then primarily carried up by atmospheric convection currents and radiated to space by clouds and other emitters. This mechanism is well understood by scientists that are knowledgeable in optical spectroscopy. The process is not yet adequately accounted for in the GCMs. These faulty GCMs are the ONLY predictors of significant Anthropogenic Global Warming. Climate history refutes significant net positive feedback and thus refutes Anthropogenic Global Warming.
The multi-billion dollar government grants for ‘climate research’ depend for their continuation on ominous prediction of looming catastrophe requiring more study. A lot of people have been hoodwinked by this self-serving rhetoric. Many are eager to impose their will on others. Some are positioned to profit from it. An entire industry has evolved that exploits the fear of Anthropogenic Global Warming.
The so-called consensus is primarily climatologists who stand to benefit from dire predictions and their followers. Over 31,000 qualified scientists and engineers have signed a document stating that human activity has had no significant influence on climate. The list can be seen at http://www.petitionproject.org/gwdatabase/Signers_By_Last_Name.php . Compare this to the 2,500 scientific reviewers claimed by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to form a scientific consensus.
Group-think bias has corrupted the peer review process of articles related to climate. If the peer reviewers were not mesmerized by their incomplete computer programs and corrupted by the desire for job security there might be less bias.
No one can be sure where the average global temperature will go from here. According to Vostok ice core data it has been warmer than now four other times during the Holocene (the last 11,000 or so years) so eventual further rise is not out of the question. However, the change in pattern since 2001, the recent downtrend, and continued quiet sun are all indicating that the planet is in for a continuation of the cooling trend. The huge heat sink of the oceans will cause the cooling to be gradual, as was the warming.
# 29 August 2008 at 9:33 am

Skeptic (author) said:
Good analysis there, Dan. Thanks for the input.
# 29 August 2008 at 9:48 am

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