New NASA temperature data just another reason to re-assess global warming scare

US being hoodwinked into draconian climate policies

By Dr. Timothy Ball & Tom Harris

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Imagine basing a country's energy and economic policy on an incomplete, unproven theory -- a theory based entirely on computer models in which one minor variable is considered the sole driver for the entire global climate system.

This is precisely what Al Gore, U.S. Senate environment committee chairman Barbara Boxer and others want their nation to do.   They expect Americans to accept on blind faith the thesis that human carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are causing catastrophic climate change.  Boxer, Gore and their allies readily resort to emotional bullying against anyone who dares question this dogma. Their pronouncements -- Boxer's juvenile "the American people have the will to slow, stop and reverse global warming" is a prime example - are merely displays of arrogance that expose their lack of basic science understanding (or their complete disrespect of public intelligence). The policies they advocate are wholly unjustified scientifically and have extraordinarily damaging economic implications for the developed world.

Science advances through hypotheses based on a set of assumptions. Other scientists challenge and test those assumptions in what philosopher Karl Popper called the practice of 'falsibility.' Trying to disprove hypothesis is what real science is all about.  Yet the hypothesis that human addition of CO2 would lead to significantly enhanced greenhouse warming was quickly accepted without this normal scientific challenge. As Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, Professor of Meteorology in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences said, the consensus was reached before the research had even begun.  Adherents to the hypothesis began defending the increasingly indefensible by launching personal attacks, essentially trying to frighten scientific opponents into silence. 

Yet, much to the frustration of alarmists, solid scientific evidence continues to mount against the flawed notion that human CO2 emissions are a problem.

For instance, last month NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) made significant changes to their temperature records, downgrading the magnitude of recent rises. This was precipitated by discovery of errors in NASA methodologies by Canadian researcher Steve McIntyre, already well-know for his debunking of the now infamous 'hockey stick' temperature graph that was a fundamental pillar of the 2001 UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report.

Dr. James Hansen, as Director of GISS, is responsible for NASA temperature records. An ardent Gore supporter, Hansen often plays conflicting roles simultaneously - within one week of the change to the NASA record he posted a Blog diatribe, not officially through his employer's channels, but as a private citizen. Therein, he claimed the temperature changes were insignificant (in reality, they are highly significant) and likened climate warming skeptics to "court jesters" in the pay of industry. Hanson also played this duplicitous game when he made a sensationalist climate change presentation to Congress as a private citizen.  Such strongly held and outspoken views likely influence, and so are inconsistent with, his activities as a scientist/executive at NASA.  

Before McIntyre's discovery, NASA considered 1998 the warmest year in the continental U.S.; now, as explained by Paul Driessen in Monday's Canada Free Press, it is 1934, with 1998 second and 1921 third.  When human production of CO2 was minimal, in the 1930's, four of the 10 warmest years are now seen to have occurred.  The past decade now includes only three of the ten warmest years.  Will Gore withdraw An Inconvenient Truth pending necessary corrections? 

A second 'proof' of human CO2-caused warming, according to the IPCC, was a claimed increase in global temperatures of about 1°F over 130 years.  This was asserted to be outside natural variability. But the uncertainty in the measurements was over ±0.3°F, meaning possible values could vary by as much as 66% of the total change.  The source of this temperature calculation, University of East Anglia's Professor Phil Jones, has refused to disclose which temperature records were used and how he 'adjusted' them.  Clearly, IPCC conclusions must be viewed with considerable suspicion until they provide full disclosure on the Jones data.

Computer models are the basis of all forecasts used by alarmists.  And these models used temperature data that is now known to be suspect or completely wrong.   Will Gore, Boxer and the IPCC call for a re-evaluation of the global warming scare.  Don't bet on it - accurate science was never a hallmark of this crusade.

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