I recently propounded “Reid’s Law”, which is an “observational law” regarding climate.

“As an online discussion regarding climate grows longer, the probability of the term “denier” being used approaches 1.”

Reid’s Law has two corollaries:

“The less scientific and the more political a website is, the more probable it is that the term “denier” will appear in an original blog post.”

“The more liberal / progressive a media outlet is, the more probable it is that the term “denier” will appear in an original editorial, opinion piece or news story.”

A recent article on Bloomberg presents an interesting opportunity to illustrate one of the corollaries to Reid’s Law, as well as to illustrate the subtle changes in messaging which appear between the quoted statement of a public official and the journalistic perception of the official’s message. Bloomberg is generally recognized as a liberal or progressive media outlet.

The Bloomberg article is based on a response to a politically “loaded” question asked of new US EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt during an interview on CNBC’s "Squawk Box" on March 10th. Pruitt was asked if he agreed that human activity was a primary contributor to global warming. Pruitt’s response was as follows.

"Measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do, and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact. So no, I would not agree it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see."

The headline of the Bloomberg piece was titled: “EPA Chief Scott Pruitt Discounts Carbon’s Role in Warming Planet”; and, subtitled: “Says greenhouse gas is not a ‘primary contributor’ to warming”. The problem is that Pruitt neither said, nor intended to say, what the article’s title and subtitle suggest he did.

What he said is clear in the quote above from the article. Pruitt recognized that it is not currently possible to accurately measure the human impact on climate, no less its individual components, or to measure the impact of natural variation on climate. He also recognized that the degree of human impact is the subject of disagreement. Therefore, he declined to agree with the premise on which the question was based, since he did not believe he had sufficient information on which to base such agreement. Even the IPCC, in its Fifth Assessment Report, assigns 95% probability to the estimate that human activity is responsible for “more than half” of recent warming; and, that “probability” is questionable.

Later in the Bloomberg article, US Senator Brian Schatz (D, HI) is quoted as follows.

"It’s why we should have never confirmed him. It’s why he is unqualified to do that job. He held it together for one hearing, but he is a climate denier. There is no doubt about it."

Schatz accusation is, at the very least, hyperbolic and disingenuous. Some might consider it ignorant and duplicitous. Pruitt clearly does not deny that the earth has a climate, based on the quote above. He also clearly does not deny that the climate has warmed, or that there is human influence on climate warming, or even that the human influence is significant. Bloomberg’s choice of Schatz comment and its inclusion of the portion of the Schatz comment which includes the “denier” accusation is consistent with the distortion of Pruitt’s message earlier in the article.

The CNBC article regarding the interview with Pruitt is quite similar in tone to the Bloomberg article, more extensively quoting Senator Schatz. It also quotes Obama Administration climate negotiator Jeffrey Sachs as follows:

“President Trump dangerously wrong on climate change.”

Neither article bothers to quote or paraphrase anyone supportive of Pruitt, the positions he mentions or the distinctions he makes regarding human influence on climate change. Both Bloomberg and CNBC were even less objective, though far more supportive, in their coverage of prior Obama Administration EPA administrators Lisa Jackson and Gina McCarthy.

This is a detailed paper on the 2016 bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef. It contradicts the wide spread supposition that global warming is responsible for the bleaching. Instead it details how the effects of extreme low tides because of El Nino is responsible for it, the same as it has been in the past.

Falling Sea Level: The Critical Factor in 2016 Great Barrier Reef Bleaching!

The past several years featured a never-ending stream of stories about California’s never-ending drought and its supposed roots in climate change. The past few weeks have featured a stream of stories about California’s experience with an “atmospheric river”, which effectively ended the never-ending drought.

Climate models purportedly predicted the never-ending California drought, but not the rains and snows which ended it. Some commentators were critical of California’s failure to increase water storage capacity in the face of rapidly growing population. Other commentators suggested that it made no sense to build additional reservoirs, since there would be no rain and snow available to fill them.

The recent “atmospheric river” event, in the absence of additional reservoir capacity, resulted in the loss of trillions of gallons of water which might have been stored for future use by the state’s residents and by the state’s farmers, ranchers, orchardists and wine grape growers. Those trillions of gallons of water instead flowed unproductively back to the Pacific Ocean.

The “atmospheric river” event also highlighted problems with California’s existing infrastructure, especially the Oroville dam, which was extensively damaged as the reservoir rapidly refilled, followed by massive discharge of water down the dam’s main spillway, damaging the spillway and later the emergency spillway and the downstream channel. More than 185,000 residents of homes downstream of the dam were evacuated as the result of concerns that the dam might fail, inundating their homes.

Reports later revealed that the state had allocated funds from a bond issue for reservoir expansion and maintenance, but that the funds had not been spent on those projects. The state has now requested federal emergency funds to deal with the Oroville dam problem, despite the fact that the state has budgeted and unspent state funds available to make the necessary repairs.

The key issue now is planning for the future water needs of the state’s water consumers. California needs to approximately double its reservoir capacity to match the needs of its growing population, which has roughly doubled since the last reservoir was commissioned. Those construction projects will take years, once construction begins. They might require additional years to obtain the necessary environmental approvals and adjudicate the expected environmental lawsuits and appeals before construction can begin.

California would also be wise to maximize the hydroelectric generating capacity of these new dams, to assist the state in meeting its renewable energy supply goals.

Related Articles:

California Snowpack 185% of normal, another big snow on the way - Watts Up With That?

California’s Wasted Winter Rains (paywall) – The Wall Street Journal

What “permanent drought”? New all-time rainfall record set for California - Watts Up With That?

Mike Godwin, a Washington, DC attorney, propounded “Godwin’s Law” in 1990.

“As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”

Godwin describes this as an “observational law”, based on his experiences observing and participating in online comment threads.

I hereby propound “Reid’s Law”, which is also an “observational law”; and, arguably, a corollary to Godwin’s Law.

“As an online discussion regarding climate grows longer, the probability of the term “denier” being used approaches 1.”

Reid’s Law has two corollaries:

“The less scientific and the more political a website is, the more probable it is that the term “denier” will appear in an original blog post.”

“The more liberal / progressive a media outlet is, the more probable it is that the term “denier” will appear in an original editorial, opinion piece or news story.”

A Google search of related terms produces the following results:

•             468,000 hits -- “climate denier”
•             519,000 hits -- “climate change denier”
•             184,000 hits -- “anthropogenic climate change denier”
•             114,000 hits -- “catastrophic anthropogenic climate change denier”

The term “denier” and its variants are most likely to appear in blog posts at websites such as climateprogress.org, desmogblog.org, skepticalscience.org, scienceofdoom.org, scienceblogs.com/stoat and tamino.wordpress.com. However, they also appear in RealClimate.org, the semi-official website of the scientists at the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies.

The term “denier” and its variants are most likely to appear in editorials, opinion pieces and news stories in outlets such as the Associated Press, Reuters, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The New Republic, Bloomberg, The Huffington Post, Slate, MSNBC, CNN and NPR/NET.

The expression “climate denier” is ridiculous on its face, since no person of reasonable intelligence and education believes that the earth does not have a climate. However, this term, the shortest of the variants, is the most common term used, as verified by the results of the Google searches. It is the most convenient “sound bite” or “bumper sticker” accusation. It is also the closest in form to the expression “Holocaust Denier”, which is the image those using the expression “climate denier” wish to evoke.

The expression “climate change denier” is almost equally ridiculous, since any reasonably informed adult or high school student is aware that global climate has changed over the millennia, from ice ages (glacial periods) to inter-glacial periods, such as the current Holocene period. Anyone denying that climate changes is either ignorant or being deceptive.

The expression “anthropogenic climate change denier” is far less frequently used, mostly because it is somewhat awkward and not universally understood. There are people who deny that there is any human influence on climate change, though that position is not easily defensible; and, can be disproven by conducting a relatively simple experiment.

The expression “catastrophic anthropogenic climate change denier”, the least frequently used of the various expressions according to Google, is the expression that comes closest to the reality of climate change skepticism – skepticism that the recent climate change is primarily or exclusively of human origin and would lead to a global climate catastrophe. These are the aspects of the “climate consensus” that are based exclusively on the outputs of climate models which have not been verified and have not demonstrated skill at forecasting future conditions or events.

The term “denier” and its variants have become epithets which avoid the necessity of describing the nuances of climate skepticism, while also taking advantage of the negative implications of “Holocaust Denial” to cast aspersions on those who are genuinely skeptical of the analyses and future scenarios produced by the consensed climate science community. Referring to people as “deniers”, rather than as skeptics, is an attempt to delegitimize their skepticism; and, ultimately, to delegitimize them.

Related Article:

Influence of Labeling and Incivility on Climate Change Communication

The graph below originated with the Powerline blog in December, 2015 and was identified by National Review on December 14^th, 2015 as “The Only Climate Change Chart You Need to See”. This description became controversial, the subject of articles at The Washington Post, the Huffington Post, the New Republic and other “progressive” media. The Washington Post asserted that the chart showed the global average temperature anomaly on a temperature scale 50 times too great, comparing it to plotting the US National Debt on a chart with a “Y” axis of $0 - $900,000,000,000, even though the US National Debt has not yet exceeded $20 trillion.

However, the graph actually plots the average global annual temperature estimate over the period of the instrumental temperature record with a “Y” axis representative of the normal range of annual temperatures for a mid-latitude city, such as Wichita, KS as shown in the graph below, reproduced from my previous commentary “Additional Perspective”. The red shaded area on the graph below is the typical range of daily temperatures for the month of July, while the blue shaded area is the typical range of daily temperatures for the month of January in Wichita. Each shaded area represents a diurnal temperature range of approximately 20^oF, or more than 12 times the estimated increase in the average annual global temperature over the 135 year period shown in the graph. The difference between the warmest and coolest monthly average temperatures shown in the shaded areas shows an annual average temperature range of approximately 70^oF, or approximately 43 times the estimated increase in the average global annual temperature over the period.

Daily high and low temperatures in Wichita can vary by more than 30^oF; and, record high and low temperatures are 114^oF and -22^oF.

The graph “Y” axis does not extend to include the maximum and minimum temperatures experienced in the individual states of the United States, as shown in these graphics from NOAA, and certainly does not represent the extreme temperatures experienced in other areas of the globe, which range from 136^oF to -126^oF (approximately twice the range of the “Y” axis in the graph). Were the graph plotted with a “Y” axis representative of the maximum range of temperatures experienced around the globe, the increase in the average global annual temperature estimate would be barely visible.

During a typical year, especially during the Summer and Winter, the individual measuring station temperatures which are combined to calculate the average annual global temperature are tens of degrees Fahrenheit warmer and colder than the average annual global temperature, spanning the entire range of the “Y” axis of the graphs above. Therefore, it is either ignorant or duplicitous to suggest that the “Y” axis in these graphs is inappropriate or misleading.

The intent of the graph is to illustrate the relationship between the ~1.6^oF increase in average annual global temperature over the period of the instrumental temperature record and the much larger changes in diurnal and seasonal average temperatures regularly experienced in the mid-latitudes. It clearly portrays a very different scenario than the graphs with severely truncated “Y” axes typically used to emphasize the rate of increase of the average global annual temperature, such as the graph included in the article in The Washington Post.

The graph above does show the annual natural variation in the average global temperature estimate relative to the overall average increase in estimated temperature asserted to be the result of increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations, represented by the black line extending from the 1950 average global temperature estimate to the final point in the graph. The slope of the line is approximately 2.5^oF per century, though the slopes of the year to year natural variations are significantly greater.

On March 29, 2017 the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology held a hearing entitled Climate Science: Assumptions, Policy Implications, and the Scientific Method.  Testifying before the committee were Judith A Curry, John R. Christy, Michael E. Mann and Roger Pielke, Jr.  It is quite a contentious hearing with Michael Mann hurling insults at anyone with whom he disagrees.

All of the wittnesses' written testimony is linked to below the video.

      Full Committee Hearing- Climate Science: Assumptions, Policy Implications, and the Scientific Method      

Presidential Executive Order on Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth

- - - - - - -

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:

(b)  It is further in the national interest to ensure that the Nation's electricity is affordable, reliable, safe, secure, and clean, and that it can be produced from coal, natural gas, nuclear material, flowing water, and other domestic sources, including renewable sources. 

(d)  It further is the policy of the United States that, to the extent permitted by law, all agencies should take appropriate actions to promote clean air and clean water for the American people, while also respecting the proper roles of the Congress and the States concerning these matters in our constitutional republic.

Sec. 2.  Immediate Review of All Agency Actions that Potentially Burden the Safe, Efficient Development of Domestic Energy Resources.  (a)  The heads of agencies shall review all existing regulations, orders, guidance documents, policies, and any other similar agency actions (collectively, agency actions) that potentially burden the development or use of domestically produced energy resources, with particular attention to oil, natural gas, coal, and nuclear energy resources.  Such review shall not include agency actions that are mandated by law, necessary for the public interest, and consistent with the policy set forth in section 1 of this order. 

(c)  Within 45 days of the date of this order, the head of each agency with agency actions described in subsection (a) of this section shall develop and submit to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB Director) a plan to carry out the review required by subsection (a) of this section.  The plans shall also be sent to the Vice President, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, and the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality.  The head of any agency who determines that such agency does not have agency actions described in subsection (a) of this section shall submit to the OMB Director a written statement to that effect and, absent a determination by the OMB Director that such agency does have agency actions described in subsection (a) of this section, shall have no further responsibilities under this section.

(e)  The report shall be finalized within 180 days of the date of this order, unless the OMB Director, in consultation with the other officials who receive the draft final reports, extends that deadline.  

(g)  With respect to any agency action for which specific recommendations are made in a final report pursuant to subsection (e) of this section, the head of the relevant agency shall, as soon as practicable, suspend, revise, or rescind, or publish for notice and comment proposed rules suspending, revising, or rescinding, those actions, as appropriate and consistent with law.  Agencies shall endeavor to coordinate such regulatory reforms with their activities undertaken in compliance with Executive Order 13771 of January 30, 2017 (Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs).

(i)    Executive Order 13653 of November 1, 2013 (Preparing the United States for the Impacts of Climate Change); 

(iii)  The Presidential Memorandum of November 3, 2015 (Mitigating Impacts on Natural Resources from Development and Encouraging Related Private Investment); and

(b)  The following reports shall be rescinded: 

(ii)  The Report of the Executive Office of the President of March 2014 (Climate Action Plan Strategy to Reduce Methane Emissions).

(d)  The heads of all agencies shall identify existing agency actions related to or arising from the Presidential actions listed in subsection (a) of this section, the reports listed in subsection (b) of this section, or the final guidance listed in subsection (c) of this section.  Each agency shall, as soon as practicable, suspend, revise, or rescind, or publish for notice and comment proposed rules suspending, revising, or rescinding any such actions, as appropriate and consistent with law and with the policies set forth in section 1 of this order.  

(b)  This section applies to the following final or proposed rules:

(ii)   The final rule entitled "Standards of Performance for Greenhouse Gas Emissions from New, Modified, and Reconstructed Stationary Sources: Electric Utility Generating Units," 80 Fed. Reg. 64509 (October 23, 2015); and

(c)  The Administrator shall review and, if appropriate, as soon as practicable, take lawful action to suspend, revise, or rescind, as appropriate and consistent with law, the "Legal Memorandum Accompanying Clean Power Plan for Certain Issues," which was published in conjunction with the Clean Power Plan.  

Sec. 5.  Review of Estimates of the Social Cost of Carbon, Nitrous Oxide, and Methane for Regulatory Impact Analysis.  (a)  In order to ensure sound regulatory decision making, it is essential that agencies use estimates of costs and benefits in their regulatory analyses that are based on the best available science and economics.  

(i)    Technical Support Document:  Social Cost of Carbon for Regulatory Impact Analysis Under Executive Order 12866 (February 2010); 

(iii)  Technical Update of the Social Cost of Carbon for Regulatory Impact Analysis (November 2013); 

(v)    Addendum to the Technical Support Document for Social Cost of Carbon:  Application of the Methodology to Estimate the Social Cost of Methane and the Social Cost of Nitrous Oxide (August 2016); and

(c)  Effective immediately, when monetizing the value of changes in greenhouse gas emissions resulting from regulations, including with respect to the consideration of domestic versus international impacts and the consideration of appropriate discount rates, agencies shall ensure, to the extent permitted by law, that any such estimates are consistent with the guidance contained in OMB Circular A-4 of September 17, 2003 (Regulatory Analysis), which was issued after peer review and public comment and has been widely accepted for more than a decade as embodying the best practices for conducting regulatory cost-benefit analysis.

Sec. 7.  Review of Regulations Related to United States Oil and Gas Development.  (a)  The Administrator shall review the final rule entitled "Oil and Natural Gas Sector:  Emission Standards for New, Reconstructed, and Modified Sources," 81 Fed. Reg. 35824 (June 3, 2016), and any rules and guidance issued pursuant to it, for consistency with the policy set forth in section 1 of this order and, if appropriate, shall, as soon as practicable, suspend, revise, or rescind the guidance, or publish for notice and comment proposed rules suspending, revising, or rescinding those rules. 

(i)    The final rule entitled "Oil and Gas; Hydraulic Fracturing on Federal and Indian Lands," 80 Fed. Reg. 16128 (March 26, 2015);

(iii)  The final rule entitled "Management of Non Federal Oil and Gas Rights," 81 Fed. Reg. 79948 (November 14, 2016); and

(c)  The Administrator or the Secretary of the Interior, as applicable, shall promptly notify the Attorney General of any actions taken by them related to the rules identified in subsections (a) and (b) of this section so that the Attorney General may, as appropriate, provide notice of this order and any such action to any court with jurisdiction over pending litigation related to those rules, and may, in his discretion, request that the court stay the litigation or otherwise delay further litigation, or seek other appropriate relief consistent with this order, until the completion of the administrative actions described in subsections (a) and (b) of this section.  

(i)   the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or 

(b)  This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations. 

DONALD J. TRUMP

It is generally acknowledged that human influence on global climate was minimal prior to approximately 1950. Therefore, virtually all climate change prior to 1950 is considered to have been the result of natural climate variation or a climate response to natural causes. However, the consensed climate science community asserts that climate changes since 1950 are significantly / largely / predominantly / exclusively the result of human activity.

Prior to the period of the instrumental temperature record, our knowledge of global temperature changes relies on general reconstructions, based on analysis of ice cores, ocean sediments and an increasing number of additional sources. These reconstructions indicate that global temperatures have varied continuously, but over a relatively narrow range, for the past several thousand years.

The period of the global instrumental temperature record is generally agreed to begin in 1880, though the Central England Temperature (CET) record dates back to 1650. The graph below displays the global annual average temperature anomaly product prepared by the British Met Office.

The black diagonal line on the graph illustrates the slope of the change in the global annual temperature anomaly over the entire period on the global instrumental temperature record. The orange diagonal line on the graph illustrates the slope of the change in the global annual average temperature anomaly over the period since 1950, when human influence on global average temperature is generally considered to have begun. The slope of the black line is approximately 0.07^oC per decade. The slope of the orange line is approximately 0.14^oC per decade. Note that, according to the Hadley Centre, 2016 is the warmest year in the instrumental temperature record; and, that 2016 is also an El Nino year.

It is not possible to separate the natural variation from any human influence in this temperature anomaly record. It is obvious that the rate of global annual temperature increase over the period since 1950 is approximately double the rate of increase over the entire period of the instrumental temperature record. However, since the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations over the period has been relatively constant and the use of annual anomalies renders the seasonal variation in atmospheric CO2 concentrations moot, there is obviously significant natural variation in global annual temperature over the period.

The natural fluctuations in the global temperature anomaly are easier to visualize over shorter time periods, using the monthly global temperature anomaly estimate produced by the Hadley Centre.

The slope of the red diagonal line on the graph, drawn from the first to the last monthly global temperature anomaly estimate, is approximately 0.16^oC per decade. Again, it is not possible to separate the natural variation from any human influence in this temperature anomaly record. However, it is obvious that there is significant natural variation in the temperature anomalies. This is particularly obvious in the cases of the 1997/1998 and 2015/2016 El Nino events, both of which demonstrate natural event driven anomaly changes of 0.5 – 0.6^oC.

The natural variations in the global temperature anomalies are also obvious in the satellite temperature anomaly records, as illustrated by the UAH global lower atmosphere temperature anomaly record (below). The diagonal black line on the graph connects the first and last temperature anomaly estimates in the satellite record. The slope of the line is approximately 0.16^oC per decade. As in the previous examples, it is not possible to separate the natural variation from any human influence in this temperature anomaly record. However, the natural variation caused by the 1997/1998 and 2015/2016 El Nino events is very clearly visible.

While it might be possible to attribute a relatively smooth, gradual increase in the global temperature anomaly to the relatively smooth, gradual increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations, it is clearly not rational to attribute both the rapid increases and the rapid decreases in the anomalies around El Nino events to the gradual increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

The illustrations above of the instrumental and satellite temperature anomaly records are all plotted with a “Y” axis range of 2^oC or less. This truncation of the “Y” axis makes the relatively small changes in the temperature anomaly estimates far easier to see. However, the truncated “Y” axis also distorts the significance of the changes in the temperature anomalies. The graph below displays the global annual temperature anomaly over most of the instrumental temperature record, using essentially the same temperature anomaly records as those in the truncated illustrations above. The “Y” axis in this graph ranges from -10^oF to +110^oF (-23^oC to +43^oC), a representative annual temperature range for the mid-latitudes. While the increase in the global annual temperature is visible in the orange line in this graph, on close inspection, its relatively minimal significance is also far more clearly displayed.

Wichita, Kansas is a typical mid-latitude city located close to the geographic center of the contiguous United States. The average temperature plotted by the orange line in the above graph is very close to the current average temperature of 57^oF reported by the US National Weather Service for Wichita. The red shaded area in the graph above illustrates the typical daily average temperature range during the month of July in Wichita. The blue shaded area in the graph illustrates the typical daily average temperature range during the month of January in Wichita.

The reported increase in global annual temperature over the period of the instrumental temperature record is: approximately 8% of the daily average temperature variation experienced in Wichita throughout the year; approximately 3% of the seasonal average temperature variation; and, approximately 1.2% of the range of maximum and minimum temperature records.

The IPCC AR5 report expresses 95% confidence that more than half of the reported increase in global average temperature is the result of human influences, including gaseous and particulate emissions, land use changes and temperature “adjustments”. It is not currently possible to measure the relative effects of natural variation and human influences on global average temperature; and, it is not currently possible to measure the relative effects of the multiple potential human influences. Regardless, it is difficult to see imminent global catastrophe in the data we currently have available.

Climate science is important. Climate science is a mess. Climate science must be fixed. The new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator and the soon to be appointed new National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Administrators have an obligation, either to make the science worth the money being spent on it, or to reduce the money being spent on it to a level commensurate with its apparent value.

The Climategate scandal in 2009 and 2011 began the very public questioning of climate scientists and the conduct of climate science. Climategate exposed Frantic Researchers Adjusting Unsuitable Data, attempting to control peer review, attempting to control or discredit peer reviewed journals, attempting to prevent certain scientists and their research from being published and attempting to ruin the careers of certain scientists. The recent revelations about the conduct of NOAA researchers in the preparation and publication of ‘Possible Artifacts of Data Biases in the Recent Global Surface Warming Hiatus’ by Karl et al., Science 4 June 2015; and, the refusal of the NOAA Administrator to provide materials to a US House committee have rekindled the issue.

The new EPA, NOAA and NASA Administrators should immediately initiate a thorough, joint investigation of the acquisition, analysis and application of climate data by their agencies. This investigation should then expand to include those activities by other nations, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The initial focus of the investigation should be on data quality and data integrity. This should be followed by a focus on climate modeling and the application of climate models, particularly the need to verify climate models before using them as vehicles for producing questionable future scenarios.       

All the agencies using US and global near-surface temperature data to track global warming “adjust” the data because they either KNOW, or have strong reason to BELIEVE, that the data are flawed. The new NOAA and NASA Administrators should immediately question why the agencies have chosen to continue adjusting flawed data, rather than taking steps to ensure that the data they collect for analysis is accurate. Instrument calibration schedules and instrument enclosure and site maintenance schedules should be reviewed and amended as necessary to ensure data quality. Data archiving and storage procedures should also be reviewed and amended as required to ensure data integrity and accessibility. The new Administrators should establish firm policies regarding data and information access, with the expressed intent of eliminating the need for FOIA requests to obtain access.

These investigations and reviews should not be conducted by agency personnel, but rather by “tiger teams” of outside experts in all of the technical fields of concern, with support from agency personnel. Agency personnel should be notified that refusal to cooperate honestly, fully and timely with the tiger teams would be considered a notice of resignation from the agency; and, processed accordingly.

There is general recognition that the data available from satellites is more comprehensive than the data available from surface and near-surface sources. However, there is continuing disagreement regarding the relationship between satellite data and surface and near-surface data. The Administrators should redirect funds currently spent on studies applying unverified models to produce future scenarios of questionable value. These funds should be used instead to fund studies to resolve the differences between the various data sources, since such studies would likely result in an enhanced understanding of the atmosphere and the processes occurring within it.

The Climate Leadership Council has just released a new study “The Conservative Case for Carbon Dividends” and presented it to the Trump Administration for its consideration. The study identifies Four Pillars of a Carbon Dividends Plan:

            1. A GRADUALLY INCREASING CARBON TAX

            2. CARBON DIVIDENDS FOR ALL AMERICANS

            3. BORDER CARBON ADJUSTMENTS

            4. SIGNIFICANT REGULATORY ROLLBACK

Interestingly, the study focuses on the carbon dividend in its title, rather than on the carbon tax. I would argue that a carbon tax is hardly “conservative”. I would also argue that it is not a “market mechanism”, though it would rely on market mechanisms to adapt to the market distortions caused by the tax. The magnitude of the market distortion which would be caused by a carbon tax of ~$40 per ton of CO2 emissions is estimated to be ~$500 per US social security card holder. It would manifest in the economy as an increase in the cost of every good and service; a tax-driven cost push inflation of prices.

The study begins with the premise that global CO2 emissions are undesirable and must be reduced; that is, it assumes that continued CO2 emissions would lead to catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW). The study also begins with the premise, shared by many economists, that a carbon tax is the most efficient approach to reducing carbon emissions. The study suggests that the recommended carbon tax would be a Pigouvian tax; that is, a tax intended to discourage activities which lead to negative externalities. However, this suggestion ignores any positive externalities associated with CO2 emissions, though positive externalities exist; and, might well currently dominate at present. It is more likely that the recommended tax is simply a “sin” tax, particularly since it is intended to increase over time until the identified “sin” (CO2 emissions) is eliminated.

A carbon tax at a given level does not reliably produce a CO2 emissions reduction of a specific magnitude or percentage. This is particularly true in the short term, as the market response to the tax is affected both by the availability of economic alternative technologies and by the remaining economic useful life of existing equipment in service. The carbon tax does have the flexibility to be increased progressively, as required, to drive the desired emissions reduction. Clearly, the ultimate goal of the tax is to drive CO2 emissions in the US to zero, which would essentially require a transition to an all-electric energy economy, with all electricity provided by nuclear and / or renewables. It is unclear how high the carbon tax would have to be to achieve that objective. It is clear the tax would penalize the current transition from coal to natural gas as the predominant fuel for electric power generation, which has been largely responsible for the reductions in US CO2 emissions over the past several years. It might also constrain that transition in the short term, by discouraging investment in the additional natural gas pipeline and storage capacity required to supply the growing natural gas generation base.

The carbon dividend is a thinly disguised form of income redistribution, since it would provide a uniform quarterly dividend to all US social security cardholders, regardless of the amount of carbon tax, if any, directly or indirectly paid by that social security cardholder. The carbon dividend would likely be popular, particularly among the ~70% of social security cardholders expected to receive a dividend greater than their tax expense. The carbon tax would be imposed upstream of the consumer and would probably appear to be a price increase imposed by suppliers and service providers, rather than as a flow-through tax. Therefore, many dividend recipients would blame suppliers and service providers for the price increases, though they would thank the federal government for the dividend.

The border carbon adjustments process would be extremely complex and costly. There would likely be massive disagreements over the “carbon content” of manufactured goods and the impacts of any carbon emissions reduction efforts on the part of the government of the country in which the imported goods were manufactured. The numbers of products and the number of countries from which they are imported, combined with technology changes over time, would make this a long term ongoing process.

The “significant regulatory rollback” would fly in the face of the regulatory agencies’ imperative to survive and grow. Certainly the tax would be preferable to the current and growing command and control “rats nest” which is environmental regulation. However, in this instance, neither the regulatory morass nor the tax appears to be necessary, absent near-religious belief in the scenarios produced by unverified climate models.

In my early youth, I believed in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. In my advancing maturity, I find it impossible to believe in a revenue neutral tax. The history of “cap and trade” (cap and tax) legislation in the US strongly suggests that the Congress is incapable of producing such a tax.

Related Articles:

• The Carbon-Tax Scam – Townhall
• The Carbon Tax: Great Concept, Lousy Idea – Forbes
• A Conservative Answer to Climate Change (Paywall) – The Wall Street Journal

Here is an excellent article we would like to highlight from Cato Institute's Patrick J. Michaels.

At What Cost? Examining The Social Cost Of Carbon

"My testimony concerns the selective science that underlies the existing federal determination of the Social Cost of Carbon and how a more inclusive and considered process would have resulted in a lower value for the social cost of carbon."

The three primary producers of global near-surface temperature anomalies, NASA GISS(Goddard Institute for Space Studies), NOAA NCEI(National Centers for Environmental Information) and HadCRUT all begin the process with access to the same data. They then select a subset of the data, “adjust” the data to what they believe the data should have been; and, calculate the current “adjusted” anomalies from the previous ”adjusted” anomalies. NASA GISS alone “infills” temperature estimates where no data exist. Each producer then independently prepares their global temperature anomaly product.

The calculated anomaly in any given month relates directly to a global average temperature for that month. The difference between the calculated anomalies in any pair of months is thus the same as the difference between the calculated global average temperatures for those months. However, the differences reported by the three primary producers of global average temperature anomaly products from month to month, or year to year, are rarely the same; and, the changes are not always even in the same direction, warming or cooling.

The global average temperature anomaly differences reported by the three primary producers of global near-surface temperature anomalies for the months of November and December, 2016 are an interesting case in point. NASA GISS reported a decrease of 0.12^oC for the period. NOAA NCEI reported an increase of 0.04^oC. HadCRUT reported an increase of 0.07^oC. Each provider estimates a confidence range of +/- 0.10^oC for their reported anomalies. (NASA GISS: -0.22^oC / -0.12^oC / -0.02^oC; NOAA NCEI: -0.06^oC / +0.04^oC / +0.14^oC; HadCRUT: -0.03^oC / +0.07^oC / +0.17^oC) Therefore, the confidence ranges overlap, suggesting that the differences among the anomaly estimates are not statistically significant. However, it is clear that the global average near-surface temperature did not both increase and decrease from November to December.

The second decimal place in each of these reported anomalies is not the result of temperature measurement accuracy, but rather of numerical averaging of less accurate “adjusted” temperature estimates resulting from data “adjustment”. The Law of Large Numbers states that it can be appropriate to express calculated averages to greater precision than the precision of the numbers being averaged, if the errors in the individual numbers are random. However, the nature of the factors which cause individual temperature measurements to be inaccurate and thus require “adjustment” suggests that the resulting errors are not random. Certainly, the “adjustments” made to the data are not random. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that reporting global average near-surface temperatures to greater precision than the underlying “adjusted” temperature data is appropriate.

The near-surface global temperature anomaly data for 2016 have been collected, selected, infilled, “adjusted” and analyzed. The results are in; and, again, they are anomalous. NASA GISS(Goddard Institute for Space Studies) and NOAA NCEI(National Centers for Environmental Information) both report the average anomaly for 2016 as 0.99^oC. This represents an increase of 0.13^oC for the NASA GISS anomaly, compared with 2015; but, an increase of 0.09^oC for the NOAA NCEI anomaly, compared with 2015. Both NASA GISS and NOAA NCEI place the confidence limits on their reported anomaly at +/- 0.10^oC, or approximately the same magnitude as the reported year to year global average anomaly change. Both NASA GISS and NOAA NCEI estimate that the influence of the 2015/2016 El Nino contributed 0.12^oC to the increase in the reported anomaly for 2016, 0.01^oC less than the global average anomaly increase reported by NASA GISS and 0.03^oC more than the global average anomaly increase reported by NOAA NCEI. That is, essentially all of the 2016 global average temperature anomaly increase reported by both agencies was the result of the influence of the 2015/2016 El Nino, which was very similar in magnitude to the 1997/1998 El Nino, which are the two strongest El Ninos recorded in the instrumental temperature record. HadCRUT reported an average anomaly of 0.774^oC, an increase of 0.14^oC from the 2015 average anomaly. HadCRUT estimated similar confidence limits and a similar El Nino contribution.

All of the near-surface temperature anomaly products reported dramatic drops in their anomalies, beginning in the Spring of 2016, though these drops were from record high monthly peaks driven by the El Nino. The NASA GISS anomaly dropped from a high of 1.36^oC to a December 2016 level of 0.81^oC, a change of -0.55^oC. The NOAA NCEI anomaly dropped from a high of 1.22^oC to 0.79^oC, a change of -0.43^oC. The HadCRUT4 anomaly dropped from a high of 1.08oC to 0.59^oC, a change of -0.49^oC. This a variance of 0.12^oC between the near-surface temperature anomaly products, approximately equal to the magnitude of the reported 2016 anomaly increases, the estimated impact of the 2015/2016 El Nino and half the confidence range claimed for the reported anomalies.

University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH)  and Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) both reported that 2016 was 0.02^oC warmer than 1998, which both sources still report as the previous warmest year in the satellite temperature record. Dr. Roy Spencer of UAH stated that the increase in the reported temperature anomaly between 1998 and 2016 would have had to be ~0.10^oC to be statistically significant. The UAH anomaly dropped from a 2016 high of 0.83^oC to a December 2016 level of 0.24^oC, a change of -0.59^oC. The RSS anomaly dropped from a 2016 high of 1.0^oC to a December level of 0.23^oC, a change of -0.77^oC. Both the UAH and RSS anomalies show the dramatic impact of the 2015/2016 El Nino. Both anomalies suggest that the “Pause” has returned, since they show no statistically significant warming since at least 1998.

The question now is whether there will be a La Nina in 2017; and, if so, the extent to which it will further reduce the post El Nino anomalies.

Here is an excellent paper on climate models by Dr. Judith Curry and The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF).

Climate Models for the Layman

"This report attempts to describe the debate surrounding GCMs to an educated but nontechnical audience."

Steve Goreham, the author of the book Climatism! Science, Common Sense, and the 21^st Century's Hottest Topic coined the term Climatism, which he defines as “the belief that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are destroying the Earth's climate". Arguably, the definition should include the assertion “that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are destroying the Earth's climate", even absent belief in the assertion.

Ari Halperin manages the blog Climatism. (https://climatism.wordpress.com/) Early in 2016, Halperin authored a guest essay on Watts Up With That (http://wattsupwiththat.com) entitled Who unleashed Climatism (https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/17/who-unleashed-climatism/) in which he discusses the origins of climate alarmism at length. He concludes that: “Climatism is a foreign assault on America. The aggressor is not another nation-state, but an alliance of UN agencies and environmental NGOs.”

Leo Goldstein (http://defyccc.com/) has recently posted two guest essays on Watts Up With That: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/12/23/the-command-control-center-of-climate-alarmism/; and, https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/01/05/is-climate-alarmism-governance-at-war-with-the-usa/. Goldstein has coined two new terms in these essays: Climate Alarmism Governance (CAG); and, Climintern (Climatist International). Goldstein traces the history of CAG from the founding of the Climate Action Network (CAN) in 1989. CAN now has 1100+ members globally. CAN, the UN and numerous foundations provide CAG; and, are referred to collectively as the Climintern.

The Climintern refers to the analyses provided by Halperin and Goldstein as conspiracy theories. Others might refer to them as conspiracy exposes or histories. The documentation they provide in these essays clearly establishes the nature and scope of CAG and the influence of the Climintern. Their analyses are well worth reading. They provide a historical record of how climatism has proceeded from its earliest days to today; and, how it works to influence global and national climate policy through the UNFCCC and the UN IPCC.

“If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.” (HT: James Whitcomb Riley)