World May Not Be Warming, Say Scientists

The United Nations climate panel faces a new challenge with scientists casting doubt on its claim that global temperatures are rising inexorably because of human pollution.

In its last assessment the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said the evidence that the world was warming was “unequivocal”.

It warned that greenhouse gases had already heated the world by 0.7C and that there could be 5C-6C more warming by 2100, with devastating impacts on humanity and wildlife. However, new research, including work by British scientists, is casting doubt on such claims. Some even suggest the world may not be warming much at all.

“The temperature records cannot be relied on as indicators of global change,” said John Christy, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, a former lead author on the IPCC.

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts has recently issued a new set of global temperature readings covering the past 30 years, with thermometer readings augmented by satellite data.

Dr Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice at the Met Office, said: “This new set of data confirms the trend towards rising global temperatures and suggest that, if anything, the world is warming even more quickly than we had thought.”


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The doubts of Christy and a number of other researchers focus on the thousands of weather stations around the world, which have been used to collect temperature data over the past 150 years.

These stations, they believe, have been seriously compromised by factors such as urbanisation, changes in land use and, in many cases, being moved from site to site.

Christy has published research papers looking at these effects in three different regions: east Africa, and the American states of California and Alabama.

“The story is the same for each one,” he said. “The popular data sets show a lot of warming but the apparent temperature rise was actually caused by local factors affecting the weather stations, such as land development.”

The IPCC faces similar criticisms from Ross McKitrick, professor of economics at the University of Guelph, Canada, who was invited by the panel to review its last report.

The experience turned him into a strong critic and he has since published a research paper questioning its methods.

“We concluded, with overwhelming statistical significance, that the IPCC’s climate data are contaminated with surface effects from industrialisation and data quality problems. These add up to a large warming bias,” he said.

Such warnings are supported by a study of US weather stations co-written by Anthony Watts, an American meteorologist and climate change sceptic.

His study, which has not been peer reviewed, is illustrated with photographs of weather stations in locations where their readings are distorted by heat-generating equipment.

Some are next to air- conditioning units or are on waste treatment plants. One of the most infamous shows a weather station next to a waste incinerator.

Watts has also found examples overseas, such as the weather station at Rome airport, which catches the hot exhaust fumes emitted by taxiing jets.

In Britain, a weather station at Manchester airport was built when the surrounding land was mainly fields but is now surrounded by heat-generating buildings.

Terry Mills, professor of applied statistics and econometrics at Loughborough University, looked at the same data as the IPCC. He found that the warming trend it reported over the past 30 years or so was just as likely to be due to random fluctuations as to the impacts of greenhouse gases. Mills’s findings are to be published in Climatic Change, an environmental journal.

“The earth has gone through warming spells like these at least twice before in the last 1,000 years,” he said.

Kevin Trenberth, a lead author of the chapter of the IPCC report that deals with the observed temperature changes, said he accepted there were problems with the global thermometer record but these had been accounted for in the final report.

“It’s not just temperature rises that tell us the world is warming,” he said. “We also have physical changes like the fact that sea levels have risen around five inches since 1972, the Arctic icecap has declined by 40% and snow cover in the northern hemisphere has declined.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7026317.ece

 

THERE has been no global warming for 15 years, a key scientist admitted yesterday in a major U-turn.


Professor Phil Jones, who is at the centre of the “Climategate” affair, conceded that there has been no “statistically significant” rise in temperatures since 1995.

The admission comes as new research casts serious doubt on temperature records collected around the world and used to support the global warming theory.

Researchers said yesterday that warming recorded by weather stations was often caused by local factors rather than global change.

The revelations will be seized upon by sceptics as fresh evidence that the science of global warming is flawed and climate change is not man-made.

The Daily Express has led the way in exposing flaws in the arguments supporting global warming.

Last month we revealed how the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change was forced to admit its key claim that Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035 was “speculation” lifted from a 1999 magazine article. The influential IPCC then admitted it had got the key claim wrong and announced a review.


The Daily Express has also published a dossier listing 100 reasons why global warming was part of a natural cycle and not man-made.

Yesterday it emerged that Professor Jones, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, had admitted he has trouble “keeping track” of the information.

Colleagues have expressed concern that the reason he has refused Freedom of Information requests for the data is that he has lost some of the crucial papers.


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Professor Jones also conceded for the first time that the world may have been warmer in medieval times than now. Sceptics have long argued the world was warmer between 800 and 1300AD because of high temperatures in northern countries.

Climate change advocates have always said these temperatures cannot be compared to present day global warming figures because they only apply to one specific zone.

But Professor Jones said: “There is much debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent or not. The MWP is most clearly expressed in parts of North America, the North Atlantic and Europe and parts of Asia.

“For it to be global in extent, the MWP would need to be seen clearly in more records from the tropical regions and the southern hemisphere. There are very few climatic records for these latter two regions.

“Of course, if the MWP was shown to be global in extent and as warm or warmer than today, then obviously the late 20th century warmth would not be unprecedented.” Professor Jones first came under scrutiny when he stepped down as director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit in which leaked emails were said to show scientists were manipulating data.

Researchers were accused of deliberately removing a “blip” in findings between 1920 and 1940, which showed an increase in the Earth’s temperature.

John Christy, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama and a former lead author on the IPCC, said: “The apparent temperature rise was actually caused by local factors affecting the weather stations, such as land development.”

Ross McKitrick, of the University of Guelph, Canada, who was invited to review the IPCC’s last report said: “We concluded, with overwhelming statistical significance, that the IPCC’s climate data are contaminated with surface effects from industrialisation and data quality problems. These add up to a large warming bias.”

http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/158214

 

I don't know whether to laugh or cry ... tragic comedy, indeed

 

I am a fence sitter on whether the earth has warmed. I differ on what to do about it, because it is clear that the lefties are using this issue for political purposes. Again I reserve judgement, but I would not be one bit surprised to find out that politics corrupted the science to a large degree.

 

why is there so much opposition from conservatives over the distinct possibility that man's collective actions are changing the climate?

i don't get the hostility over this scientific possibility?

 

I'm not hostile to the idea, I'm hostile to lefties hijacking it for political purposes.

Religious types can be hostile to it for various reasons.

 

Serious? I find it more shocking that some "traders" have fallen for this charade.

 

Oh the Pride of Man !

To sit and think that we are so great and so powerful as to change
the planet and design of Gods created order.

It amazes me. The sheer arrogance of mankind to assume we have it
all figured out and estimate ourselves to such elevated proportions.


Mankind has its effect but mans pride is the a greater problem.

This grand swindle of the masses should make that clear.

 

Ins't anyone saying that man does not have any impact. It's the degree of impact. What people are "hostile" about is the radical left hijacking legitimate science, turning it in to another destroy America agenda, all the while posing as concerned citizens.

 

so, you agree that man's impact is leading to a climate change but argue with degree of progression?