Response to the US Government’s “National Climate
Assessment Report (Draft)
Prepared by the Space and
Science Research Corporation (SSRC) Orlando, Florida
Release Date: Wednesday,
January 16, 2013
Upon review of the January 11,
2013 draft of the National Climate Assessment Report (NCAR), the Space and
Science Research Corporation has issued the following opinion.
1. General.
a. Background. The draft report, like its predecessors, is primarily
based on the well known greenhouse gas theory of manmade climate change. It
relies heavily on the same corpus of science that has been developed by the
United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UN-IPCC), since its
formation in 1988.
Future projections for the
Earth’s climate and impacts on the United States (US) elucidated in the NCAR
are in turn reliant on global climate models (GCM) driven by the greenhouse gas
(GHG) theory which, like the UN-IPCC and previous US government climate
reports, have produced a number of future climate scenarios and outcomes linked
to mankind’s production of GHG, but mostly carbon dioxide (CO2).
b. Summary Opinion. The
draft NCAR has a number of significant faults that in total make it an
unreliable document for climate policy planning in the government,
environmental, industrial, economic, educational, and public sectors.
It is a heavily biased, one
sided assessment of the Earth’s climate status, climate causes and effects. Its
predicted future climate scenarios for the Earth are either still subject to
debate or unlikely to happen because of their dependency on the greenhouse gas
theory.
The report’s eleven findings
and numerous supposed facts about the current status of the Earth’s climate
cannot in all cases be supported by the available information from
international and even the US government’s own climate data bases. Most of the
findings are either in dispute or have a low probability of ever proving
correct. The findings appear to be derived from computer models similar to
those used at the UN-IPCC, and thus are adversely influenced by the same flaws
and lack of validation. 2
The
report completely ignores highly reliable natural cycle climate models in favor
of the unreliable greenhouse gas emission models which after many years of
concerted effort and substantial resources committed, have proven to be
ineffective in their ability to forecast climate change, that is, long term
global temperature variation.
Most of the reports
unnecessarily voluminous (over 1100) pages of data, climate status, impacts
from global warming, and findings can be fully explained and in most cases
better explained by natural cycles. The report clearly discounts at the outset,
that climate change, much less global warming is driven by the Sun, and of
course has chosen to use the weak GHG theory as its primary basis for climate
change cause and effect.
This long standing
difference of scientific opinion among those who have studied climate change is
unresolved by this report. If anything, this report attempts to reinforce the
alleged connection between GHG and climate change despite a growing mountain of
evidence that the GHG theory does not work and that current climate changes
could not be taking place if the GHG theory were correct.
Further, the report has not
recognized fundamental facts about our climate and its drivers and in fact,
makes misleading or unsubstantiated statements about the causes and effects of
climate change. For example, the report’s contention that weather extremes
being seen worldwide are tied to GHG is a great leap in logic where the data to
support this allegation is speculative at best. It is far more plausible that
these extremes may be related to the ongoing transition from the past global
warming era to the new cold climate era where competing global weather patterns
are in a state of rapid, thermodynamic flux.
The most profound fault in the
draft NCAR is that it has entirely neglected to address the ongoing “solar
hibernation” which according to leading climate scientists and solar physicists
has a high probability to bring about a potentially dangerous new cold climate
era. This hibernation which results in a reduction in the Sun’s radiation that
warms the Earth, according to the SSRC, has already brought about the end of
global warming and the distinct downward trend now being observed in the
Earth’s temperatures.
This glaring omission of the
ongoing climate change indicates this report was not compiled based on
objective science, current climate status, or a comprehensive understanding of
how climate change occurs.
2. Specific Findings. The failings of the NCAR are fundamental in nature.
While the past UN and US government reports over the last six years have
focused on the role of mankind’s industrial output of GHG, these organizations
and their reports, like this draft NCAR, have routinely erred in that they have
dismissed or ignored other highly regarded theories of climate change and other
major factors that contribute to climate change, most critically, the role the
Sun plays in climate variations. 3
Detailed
findings of the review of the draft NCAR are as follows:
a. The Report Relies on a
Flawed Theory. This particular report
is surprising in that it still maintains that the Earth’s future climate
variations will be caused by man’s industrial output when most past results
have shown this is not likely and the GHG theory, which was originally
disproved after it was made popular in 1896, continues to be unreliable in
climate modeling.
A review of past US government
and UN-IPCC reports demonstrates that past projections using the GHG linked GCM
were virtually all wrong. Global temperature variations forecast by these past
reports did not materialize either in the best case or worst case scenarios of
mankind’s CO2 production.
Simply put, those reports
including this draft report that are dependent on GHG models, have routinely
shown these climate models do not work and when used in climate prediction have
likewise been unsuccessful.
This demonstrated inability of
the GHG theory of climate change to be accurate in climate prediction was
reinforced with the release of the similar UN-IPCC climate report (AR4 of
2007). This report depicted future climate variations (i.e.global temperatures)
based on CO2 produced by mankind. Using numerous CGM, substantial resources and
personnel, this culmination of a state-of-the art climate report predicted four
scenarios tied to CO2 production and atmospheric concentration. As of January
2013, all these GHG scenarios have been proven wrong, most to a significant
degree. The draft NCAR cites that, “… a new set of model simulations has been
introduced (2009) that include more Earth system physics and chemistry and have
higher resolution.”
However, a review of Figure
1-1 (page 20) and its several reproduced versions throughout the report show
that even these supposed better climate models have once again failed to
accurately predict global temperature trends. Temperature projections in the
draft NCAR report already vary widely from actual temperature trends. If one
cannot perform this essential global temperature forecast function accurately,
then all other climate predictions and impact assessments derived from it are
unusable. Producing a report that is a huge 1100+ pages long does nothing to
alter this reality.
Again, the greenhouse gas
theory does not work and predictions of future climate change using the theory,
as found in this draft report, like past UN-IPCC and other US government
climate reports, should not be considered reliable or of value to those dealing
with climate change planning and prediction. 4
b. The Report Contains Claims That Cannot Be Verified or Are in
Conflict With Well Known Information. The
basic question of the report’s veracity is in serious doubt. Numerous claims
and assertions for the state of the Earth’s climate that have been made in the
NCAR draft cannot be verified using the US government’s own climate data. In
effect, the report, like predecessor UN and US government climate reports, is
riddled with climate status assertions where the data to back it up does not
exist, is still in dispute, or exists in a limited form. For example, the
report claims that,” …the rate of sea level rise over the past 20 years has
roughly doubled.” (page 20). No evidence was provided to support this
assertion. This doubling of sea level rate of rise is not supported by the
facts. According to the SSRC using US government and university data sources,
the sea level ‘rate-of rise’ though fluctuating, has been declining steadily
since 1998. This point is omitted from the report.
c. Failure to Disclose
Current Climate Status and Trends.
The draft NCAR fails to address major climate variations that are or have
already taken place that essentially negate some of the main findings of the
report and its reliance on GCM developed from the GHG theory of manmade climate
change. These major recent climate change events that have been minimized or
ignored by the NCAR draft point to a disconcerting trend in this and past
reports by the US government that hide what is really happening with the
Earth’s climate. A brief summary of some of these major climate trends and
events omitted from the NCAR include the following:
(1) The End of Global
Warming Has Been Covered Up. Despite
claims in the draft NCAR to the contrary, global warming, defined as a long
term trend of progressive growth in the atmospheric temperature average on
Earth, has ended. The SSRC position is that the past global warming was always
caused by the Sun and it ended right on schedule according to natural cycle
theory! Technically, there is no longer a state of global warming on Earth even
though the report uses this non-existent climate threat as its most important
consideration throughout the report.
This is a crucial point in
the climate debate. Since there is no longer any global warming even though CO2
is still increasing and since global warming was supposedly caused by mankind’s
CO2 production, then we are left with the unavoidable conclusion that mankind’s
CO2 production was not the primary driver of climate change after all. The
draft NCAR simply avoids this “eight hundred pound gorilla in the room.”
The last peak in global
temperatures was in 1998, fifteen years ago, according to charted temperatures
from multiple US and international sources. It should be noted that there has
been no effective growth in the Earth’s average atmospheric temperature for
between fourteen and sixteen years. This vital piece of climate data is
deemphasized almost to the point of exclusion in the draft report. 5
Questions
remain about whether 2005 or 2010 were warmer in total, but the latest data
show 1998 was still the year where the peak temperature was reached. Global
temperatures for 2012 do not change this conclusion despite recent reports of
record temperatures in the US. Here it should be noted that the US occupies
only 1.7% of the Earth’s surface area and a record temperature during a single
year for the US cannot be reasonably extrapolated to the entire planet as a
climate trend where worldwide temperature variations over many years must be
examined.
The report’s attempt to
downplay the end of global warming by trying to classify the past roughly
fifteen years without global temperature growth as too small a time frame for
evaluation is more a wish than science.
(2) Evidence of A Declining
Temperature Trend Is Hidden. The
draft NCAR has completely hidden the well known downward trend in the Earth’s
atmospheric temperatures and oceans that has been in place since 1998. Using
the US governments own data, many researchers who study climate, are well aware
that the Earth’s temperature trend is downward. Using international and US
government data, a one hundred year, and a thirty year temperature trend
analysis (fifth order polynomial curve, HADCRUT data base) both show the
average peak of global warming likely took place between 2007 and 2008 with the
hottest year occurring earlier in 1998. A cooling trend is clearly visible in
this charted data.
The draft report stresses warm
years in the data but consistently fails to recognize cold years – it is a
biased report favoring warming vs. cooling.
The draft NCAR does not
satisfactorily resolve the glaring discrepancy between actual climate status
which displays a long term atmospheric cooling trend and its claim that the
Earth is still warming.
(3) The Report Has
Misleading Claims of Rising Sea Levels for the Future. The ‘rate of annual sea level rise’ which tells us
where sea levels are headed in the future, has been on a clear downward trend
since 1998 and according to research done at the SSRC, may soon result in an
extended period of declining sea levels lasting for years. This trend in rate
of sea level rise is not mentioned in the draft report. This is a critical
failure.
Also, even though there was an
historic decline in global sea levels over an almost two year period
(2009-2011), the most since modern satellite readings have been made, this key
anomaly in sea level trends was not mentioned in the report per se.
Additionally, during several years since 1998 the rate actually became
negative, i.e., sea levels shrank. Once more, this is an indicator of a biased
report that emphasizes warming data and minimizes or eliminates cooling data
and trends. Though sea levels are still rising if only at a lesser rate, the
report assumes they will continue indefinitely as long as mankind’s production
of GHG continues unabated. Yet the report’s contention that there is strong
correlation between GHG emissions and sea level rise has not been independently
verified and is strongly disputed within the scientific community. It is
predominantly based once again on the flawed GCM that have yet to see
validation. 6
(4) Ocean Temperature Trends Toward Cooling Are Absent. The report is particularly deficient in its
treatment of the temperature trends in the oceans. For example, the Pacific
Decadal Oscillation (PDO) has demonstrated it has been in a thirty year trend
of colder temperatures in the north Pacific. The Atlantic Multi-Decadal
Oscillation (AMO) is now at peak of heating and its cyclical pattern indicates
it will soon be on a 30-40 year declining temperature curve. Both of these
important ocean temperature curves will be coincident and jointly in cold phase
soon creating a dominant cold temperature period affecting the entire Northern
Hemisphere for decades. These essential components to estimating ocean temperatures
in the northern hemisphere are missing from the report - another fundamental
error.
Ocean temperatures play a
significant role in climate variation, sea level rise, and especially in their
precedence to land and atmospheric temperatures. This revelation that a major
element to sea level forecasting has been left out of this important report is
by itself sufficient to set aside all estimates of sea level prediction
contained in the report. Glacial ice status discussed below, adds to this
opinion of this portion of the draft NCAR report’s inadequacies.
(5) The NCAR Draft Hides or
Omits Critical Facts on Glacial Ice Status. An independent examination of the global ice mass balance by the SSRC
using US government and international sources has shown that the total amount
of glacial ice has been growing since 1998 and it is not on a long term path of
shrinking as the draft report indicates; far from it. Though glacial ice was
likely declining up to 1998, that trend has now reversed. This key trend in glacial
ice for whatever reason has been removed from the report’s findings and
discussion – another serious mistake in the report which reflects poorly on the
report’s credibility. In addition, the Antarctic, where 90% of the world’s
glacial ice resides, is likely to continue to add mass in the foreseeable
future and remain too cold to melt. Even the last UN-IPCC report from 2007
recognized this fact. A well- known thirty year growth pattern in Antarctic sea
ice is also missing from this report.
This situation is also part of
a disturbing history of poor scientific integrity and credibility in government
manmade global warming predictions. For example, a past UN-IPCC climate
report’s claims of the disappearance of all Himalayan mountain glacial ice by
2035 and a NOAA claim of an Arctic without sea ice by the end of 2008 have both
been shown to be unfounded.
The range of 1-4 feet in global
sea level rise by the year 2100 (page 86) and references to a 6ft or greater
rise are similarly not viewed as realistic. Although the question of melting
glacial ice is important to sea level rise, it is not well covered in this
report. Much information that should be included is not and research reports
that conflict with this report’s findings on melting glacial ice predictions
are not discussed. This report continues the disappointing history of US
government glacial ice status errors, with incomplete and misleading data and
suspect melting estimates which gives the reader cause for concern about the
veracity of any predicted threat of glacial melting mentioned in this report.
Not disclosed in this report is the fact that various US government agency
estimates for how much glacial ice exists and where, are widely divergent,
especially when compared to international estimates. 7
No comments:
Post a Comment