From: www.drroyspencer.com

By: Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.

Date: August 2, 2019

July 2019 Was Not the Warmest on Record

July 2019 was probably the 4th warmest of the last 41 years. Global “reanalysis” datasets need to start being used for monitoring of global surface temperatures. [NOTE: It turns out that the WMO, which announced July 2019 as a near-record, relies upon the ERA5 reanalysis which apparently departs substantially from the CFSv2 reanalysis, making my proposed reliance on only reanalysis data for surface temperature monitoring also subject to considerable uncertainty].

July 2019 Was Not the Warmest on Record

The members of the consensed climate science community are very quick to assert that the results of their research have been peer reviewed. However, the peers who have done the reviews are typically other members of the consensed climate science community. Some journals even permit the authors to select the peers who will perform the reviews. Dr. Patrick Michaels has described the peer review process as it is currently performed as “pal review”. We have discussed some of these issues previously (here).

Members of the consensed climate science community and their connections in scientific publishing have also conspired to prevent publication of research results produced by skeptical scientists, including scientists both refusing to function as peer reviewers and recommending rejection of papers for publication. Further discussion of this and related issues is available here.  

Dr. William Happer, a National Security Council science adviser, has recommended the establishment of a President’s Commission on Climate Security composed of climate scientists to conduct a critical review of the federal government reports and research programs related to the potential impacts of climate change on national security. The initial focus of the commission would be on DoD studies related to national security and on the Fourth National Climate Assessment. The commission would also review the science underlying these reports.

Members of the consensed climate science community and their allies have been very critical of the proposed commission, some even referring to it as “Stalinist”.  However, the intended mission of the commission is peer review of government-funded climate science in all its aspects: solicitation; award; conduct; supervision; peer review; and, publication. It is a due diligence review, triggered in part by continued warnings of climate catastrophies which have not occurred.

The Commission has not been established and the climate scientists who might participate have not been selected. However, several scientists have been identified as potential participants, including Dr. Judith Curry, Dr. John Christy and Dr. Richard Lindzen. Other potential participants include Steve McIntyre and Ross McKittrick, who have been critical of the statistical techniques used to analyze research results, including the Mann “Hockey Stick”.

The proposed commission would likely not include any members of the consensed climate science community, since they have conducted the research in question and analyzed and reported its results or have participated in peer review of the research. Therefore, their input is already in the record. However, it is likely that they would be called to meet with the commission if there are questions or concerns about their research and their analysis of the results.

The commission’s efforts would likely lead to questions regarding the provenance of climate data, the accuracy of the climate models, the uncertainties regarding climate sensitivity, forcings and feedbacks. These questions are the subject of skeptical research and analysis, but receive little attention in the scientific literature or the media.

The establishment of such a presidential commission seems little different from a corporate selection of an outside auditor to review its accounting and reporting procedures or employment of an outside consultant to review corporate structure and future business plans.

By: Clear Energy Alliance

Several recent media articles have suggested that even if the US adopted the Green New Deal, or somevariant thereof, which reduced or eliminated US CO2 emissions, the impact on global warming would be “barely measurable”. These suggestions betray a fundamental misunderstanding of the status of climate science. In reality, the impact would be unmeasurable and barely calculable.

Global annual CO2 emissions are not measurable, since most of the sources of CO2 emissions, both natural and anthropogenic, are not instrumented. Estimated annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions are calculated based on estimated annual fossil fuel consumption.

Global annual CO2 removal from the atmosphere by the global oceans and growing trees and plants is also estimated, based on changes in ocean temperatures and on estimated plant mass and uptake.

Future global CO2 emissions can only be projected with questionable accuracy, so it would not be possible to measure the impact of even measured reductions in any nation’s emissions on the uncertain estimates of future global emissions, assuming that any nation’s emissions could actually be measured.

The impact of increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations on global temperatures can only be estimated, based on estimates of climate sensitivity, forcings and feedbacks input into unverified climate models. It is not currently possible to separately measure the impacts of natural and anthropogenic changes on global temperatures. Global average temperatures have changed, both positively and negatively, prior to and subsequent to significant anthropogenic CO2 emissions; and, the causes of these changes are not clearly understood. However, it is clearly unreasonable to assume that these natural variations ceased when humans began emitting significant quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Similarly, any impacts of increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations on other aspects of climate, such as droughts, floods, tornadoes and hurricanes cannot be measured, though climate scientists have begun performing computer model-based attribution studies to estimate such impacts. However, these climate models are unverified and the factors entered into the models are estimates, rather than measured quantities. The frequency of occurrence, duration and severity of these natural events can be measured, but the data suggest that there is no clear anthropogenic signal in any aspect of any of the events. Such a signal might exist, but it is far exceeded by the range of historical natural variation in weather and climate.

Finally, the Social Cost of Carbon, which attempts to take into account all of the suspected negative impacts of increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations, is not based on measurements, but again on estimates of the potential adverse impacts produced by entering estimates of climate sensitivity, forcings and feedbacks into unverified climate models. No similar effort has been made to analyze the social benefits of carbon, though it is becoming progressively more obvious that such benefits exist. The greening of the globe documented by NASA satellites is attributed largely to the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations, though again the percentage attributable to increased CO2 is an estimate and not a measurement.

Climate science actually measures only atmospheric CO2 concentration, near-surface land and ocean temperatures and sea level; and, the temperature and sea level measurements are of limited accuracy. Climate science also counts weather events and measures their duration and intensity, but can only estimate the impact of increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations on these events.

By: Clear Energy Alliance

The International Organization for Standards (ISO) promulgates a broad range of standards developed by one or more of its 163 national members and agreed to by the membership. Companies globally are encouraged to adopt these standards in their business operations and customers are encouraged to do business with companies which have adopted the standards.

The ISO 14000 family of standards “ provides practical tools for companies and organizations of all kinds looking to manage their environmental responsibilities.” The Swedish Life Cycle Center has begun development of what would become ISO Standard 14008: Monetary Valuation of Environmental Impacts and Related Environmental Aspects.

ISO Standard 14008 includes, but is not limited to, the climate impacts of companies’ operations. The standard would subsume the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC), as well as a number of other aspects of companies’ operations which are judged to have impacts on the environment and sustainability. The standard is intended to accurately reflect both the positive and negative impacts of all aspects of companies’ operations. However, many of these impacts are extremely difficult to measure and to evaluate.

Sustainability is a very broad concept which is focused on 17 sustainable development goals. However, it is a difficult and time-consuming process to estimate, no less measure, the impacts of a specific company’s operations on each of these 17 sustainability goals. However, the adoption of ISO Standard 14008 would essentially require that the analyses be conducted and their results used to modify company operations.

However, the SCC is an indication of the technical limitations and economic risks associated with such international standards. For example, the values suggested for the SCC vary widely; and, the value selected for an analysis, or a regulation, or a law can have significant economic impacts on companies affected by the standard. There are competent studies which assert that the current SCC is negative; that is, the emissions of carbon dioxide are having a net positive effect on the environment. Some studies suggest that the positive effects would continue for the foreseeable future.

There is scant data on the current environmental impacts of incremental atmospheric CO2; and, there is no data on the potential future impacts. NASA’s analysis of the “Greening of the Globe” suggests that the primary contributor to the greening is the result of increased atmospheric CO2. Other studies have concluded that increased atmospheric CO2 has improved the efficiency with which many plants, including many food crops, use the water available to support their growth and productivity.

The concerns regarding the future SCC are based on unverified climate models, uncertain estimates of climate sensitivity and feedbacks, and prospective Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs).

There is also scant data available regarding the other environmental impacts of other aspects of companies’ operations. Therefore, the proposed standard would be based largely on expert estimates of current and projected future effects, again based largely on unverified models. While this might represent a reasonable basis for “recommendations” or “guidelines”, it hardly seems appropriate for an international standard which might be codified in regulation or law.

From: Science Direct

By: Daniel Sarewitz

How science makes environmental controversies worse

Abstract

I use the example of the 2000 US Presidential election to show that political controversies with technical underpinnings are not resolved by technical means. Then, drawing from examples such as climate change, genetically modified foods, and nuclear waste disposal, I explore the idea that scientific inquiry is inherently and unavoidably subject to becoming politicized in environmental controversies. I discuss three reasons for this. First, science supplies contesting parties with their own bodies of relevant, legitimated facts about nature, chosen in part because they help make sense of, and are made sensible by, particular interests and normative frameworks. Second, competing disciplinary approaches to understanding the scientific bases of an environmental controversy may be causally tied to competing value-based political or ethical positions. The necessity of looking at nature through a variety of disciplinary lenses brings with it a variety of normative lenses, as well. Third, it follows from the foregoing that scientific uncertainty, which so often occupies a central place in environmental controversies, can be understood not as a lack of scientific understanding but as the lack of coherence among competing scientific understandings, amplified by the various political, cultural, and institutional contexts within which science is carried out. In light of these observations, I briefly explore the problem of why some types of political controversies become “scientized” and others do not, and conclude that the value bases of disputes underlying environmental controversies must be fully articulated and adjudicated through political means before science can play an effective role in resolving environmental problems.

How science makes environmental controversies worse

The consensed climate science community, the media and progressive politicians are experiencing high anxiety regarding climate change. However, they have been relatively unsuccessful in building similar high anxiety among voters in the US, though certainly not for lack of trying. They have used progressively more strident rhetoric and produced more scary scenarios to little effect.

The progression of the language used when referring to the issue, to its projected consequences and to those who do not accept the consensus view of the issue is interesting and somewhat amusing.

ISSUE:

• global warming
• global weirding
• global heating
• climate change
• carbon pollution
• climate crisis
• climate emergency
• climate chaos
• existential threat
• climategeddon
• climate apocalypse
• our World War II

CONSEQUENCES:

• more, longer heat waves
• more, longer droughts
• more floods
• more, stronger tornadoes
• more, stronger tropical cyclones
• greater storm surge
• extreme weather
• rising sea levels
• island submergence
• more coastal flooding
• mass migration
• massive crop failures
• mass starvation
• 150 million deaths
• fireball Earth

SKEPTICS:

• climate deniers
• climate change deniers
• anti-science
• climate zombies
• climate misinformers
• oil industry shills
• deranged
• criminal
• crime against humanity
• treasonous
• throw in gulags
• should be euthanized
• should commit suicide

However, against this progressively more extreme rhetorical flourish, there is no apparent crisis. The predictions of events which have not occurred, such as the ice-free Arctic, disappearance of glaciers, the end of snow, perpetual drought in California and Texas, more frequent and stronger tropical cyclones and tornadoes, etc. remind people of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” and “Chicken Little”.

Attempts to distract from failed predictions, such as assertions that climate change can mean both warmer and colder, both more and less snow, both more and less rain, etc. have also been unsuccessful because they are fundamentally counterintuitive. People tend to trust their personal experience, which tells them that weather and seasons change, warmer and cooler, wetter and drier.

The media are quick to highlight stories about shortened ski seasons but have little to say about ski resorts open for skiing in early June. They were quick to point out lower water levels in the Great Lakes several years ago, but far less anxious to discuss record high water levels currently. They are quick to report on flood damage, but more reluctant to report on historical environmentalist resistance to the construction of flood control dams and levees. They were quick to report on the recent major hurricanes, but slow to report on the previous 12-year period with no major hurricanes. They cling to the old adage: “If it bleeds, it leads.”

Dr. David Wojik recently pointed out a common characteristic of the Pentagon climate change security studies and the National Climate Assessment. In each case: “The authors were specifically instructed to look at worst case scenarios, which are not a basis for action. Unfortunately these hypothetical scenarios were reported as real predictions, in part because some people actually believe them.” It is very likely that the authors of many of the federally funded “scary scenario” studies were given the same specific instructions.

By: American Thought Leaders - The Epoch Times

Numerous factors are causing high anxiety in the climate science and environmental communities and among US politicians:

• the current US Administration’s skepticism regarding climate change;
• the impending 2020 elections in the US;
• the proposed President’s Commission on Climate Security; 
• the legal challenge to the EPA 2009 Endangerment Finding;
• recent research suggesting lower climate sensitivity to increased CO2;
• acknowledgement that the climate models are “running hot”; and,
• the call for improved near-surface temperature measurement.

Perhaps the most dramatic manifestation of this high anxiety is the proposal for a Green New Deal, which was announced with great fanfare by Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D, NY) and Senator Edward Markey (D, MA) and is supported by half of the announced Democrat candidates for President. This approximately $100 trillion proposal combines rapid decarbonization of the US economy with a progressive wish list of environmental justice and social justice programs. The rallying cry of its supporters asserts that we have 12 years to save the planet, though rapid decarbonization of the US economy would have no measurable effect on climate change on a global scale.

A second political manifestation of this high anxiety is the formation of a Select Committee on the Climate Crisis by the majority in the US House of Representatives. This action, like the Green New Deal, assumes that the climate is in crisis and would focus on how to avert the worst perceived effects of that crisis. The fact that there is no apparent crisis appears to be of little concern to the House majority, though it is apparently the reason for the lack of concern regarding climate change among US voters.

Yet another political manifestation is the recent commitment of $500 million by financier and philanthropist Michael Bloomberg to support an enhanced lobbying effort to end the use of coal in the US. There are also ongoing efforts to end oil and gas exploration on public lands and to limit the use of hydraulic fracturing to enhance natural gas production. These efforts are accompanied by persistent demands that the US economy transition to 100% renewables by 2050. However, several prominent figures including former NASA GISS Director James Hansen, Bill Gates and Michael Shellenberger assert that 100% renewables is impractical and that nuclear energy will be required to satisfy US energy needs in a future, decarbonized economy.

The Administration’s positions regarding climate change have led to numerous personal attacks. One 2020 Democrat presidential candidate has described the President’s position regarding climate change as “treason”.  The New York Times has described his actions as “an attack on climate science”. Professor Michael Mann has described the proposed Commission on Climate Security as “Stalinist”.

Meanwhile, there is far less public anxiety within the climate science community regarding: the progressive falsification of the existing ensemble of climate models; the perceived need to improve near-surface temperature measurement and eliminate temperature data “adjustment”; uncertainties in sea level rise measurements; and, the lack of any apparent linkage between climate change and extreme weather events.

It appears that the “settled science” is not quite as settled as the climate science community, politicians and the media would have us believe.

From: Climate Etc.

By: Judith Curry

Date: June 21, 2019

Climate science’s ‘masking bias’ problem

How valid conclusions often lay hidden within research reports, masked by plausible but unjustified conclusions reached in those reports.  And how the IPCC institutionalizes such masking errors in climate science.

In the previous post, we discussed the motivated biases of individual climate researchers, stimulated by the paper by Lee Jussim, Joe Duarte and others entitled Interpretations and methods: Towards a more self-correcting social psychology

The Jussim et al. paper provides additional insights that are relevant to the motivated biases in climate change, which become particularly serious and problematic once these biases are institutionalized. Here are additional excerpts from Jussim et al. for the topic I would like to discuss in this post: ...

Climate science’s ‘masking bias’ problem

The two historical components of “The Big Lie” are exaggeration of the situation and repetition of the exaggerated situation. In the case of climate change, the UNFCCC, the IPCC, national governments and the consensed climate science community have consistently exaggerated the severity of the issues associated with climate change. Their persistent repetition of exaggerated position statements has fed the repetitious support of the government-controlled and corporate media, which still operate on the premise that: “If it bleeds, it leads.”.

However, it appears that the media are preparing to add a new component to “The Big Lie”, an organized and coordinated propaganda push unrelated to any specific topical event, but rather as preparation for a UN climate summit. Kip Hansen recently identified and analyzed this media effort.

“How does the media cover—or not cover—the biggest story of our time? Last fall, UN climate scientists announced that the world has 12 years to transform energy, agriculture, and other key industries if civilization is to avoid a catastrophe. We believe the news business must also transform.”

“The Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation assembled some of the world’s top journalists, scientists, and climate experts to devise a new playbook for journalism that’s compatible with the 1.5-degree future that scientists say must be achieved. We also held a town hall meeting on the coverage of climate change and the launch of an unprecedented, coordinated effort to change the media conversation.”

source: https://www.cjr.org/watchdog/climate-crisis-media.php/

Journalists are being contacted by e-mail by the Columbia Journalism Review to encourage media participation in a weeklong presentation of concentrated climate change coverage.

“Our ask of you is simple: commit to a week of focused climate coverage this September. We are organizing news outlets across the US and abroad—online and print, TV and audio, large and small—to run seven days of climate stories from September 16 through the climate summit UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres hosts in New York September 23. The stories you run are up to you, though we can offer ideas and background information and connect outlets looking for content with content providers looking for outlets.

We’d be happy to schedule a phone call to discuss this further.

Sincerely,

Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope

The Covering Climate Now movement is forming.

“A focused week of coverage

We’ll work to organize as much of the news media as possible—large and small, national and local—to commit to one week of focused coverage of climate change this September. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, is convening a summit in New York on September 23, where nations are urged to show how they will limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. We propose a week of concentrated climate coverage in the lead-up to the UN summit, beginning September 16.” [ source ]

It is difficult to describe this development as anything but a massive coordinated propaganda campaign, orchestrated by the Columbia Journalism Review and several major media outlets in support of the UN, national governments and the consensed climate science community..

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. H. L. Mencken

“We hold these truths to be self-evident…”

Weather

Weather characteristics can be measured.

Weather events can be counted.

Weather event impacts can be measured.

Weather event frequency and severity can be documented.

Changes in weather event frequency and severity can be documented and compared.

Weather events cannot be predicted accurately on seasonal scales.

Changes in weather event frequency and severity cannot be predicted on annual scale.

Climate

Ideal climate is undefined.

Ideal climate is subjective.

Climate is weather over a 30-year period.

Climate changes.

Climate changed (natural variation) before human influence.

Natural variation continues.

Natural variation is not well understood.

Natural variation cannot be distinguished from anthropogenic influences.

Anthropogenic influences cannot be distinguished by source.

Anthropogenic influences cannot be measured.

Climate sensitivity to CO2 is not known.

Climate forcings are not known.

Climate feedbacks are not known.

Climate change is not consistent globally.

Climate change is not universally positive or negative.

Climate change has contributed to global greening.

Observations

Observations include measurements and counts.

Data are readings taken from measuring instruments.

Data are NOT all created equal.

Data measured with inaccurate instruments are inaccurate.

Data which are “adjusted” are no longer data, but merely estimates.

Numbers “infilled” where no data are available are not data.

Sets of “adjusted” data are not datasets, but merely estimate sets.

Sets containing “adjusted” and “infilled” components are mixed sets.

Data errors might or might not be random.

Biases cause non-random errors.

Errors in estimate sets are not random since the ‘adjustments” are not random.

Errors in mixed sets are not random, since the “infilling” process is not random.

The Law of Large Numbers does not apply to climate temperature data.

            Climate temperature data are not identically distributed.

            Climate temperature sets are not randomly generated after “adjustment”.

            Climate temperature sets are not randomly generated after “infilling”.

Climate Models

Current climate models do not model all aspects of climate.

Current climate models do not accurately model past climate.

Current climate models do not accurately model current climate.

Current climate models cannot be expected to accurately model future climate.

Current climate models have not been verified.

Current climate models are not verifiable.

Current climate models are an unfit basis for policy decisions.

Climate models are being used to create worst case “scary scenarios”.

            Scary scenarios contribute nothing to advancing the science.

Climate models are being used to conduct weather event impact attribution studies.

            Attribution estimates cannot be verified.

Summary

It is far from self-evident that increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations are solely or predominantly responsible for observed changes in global climate.

It is far from self-evident that further increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations have led or would lead to changes in precipitation, storm frequency or intensity, sea level rise, glacier and sea ice volume and extent.

It is self-evident that there are numerous unknowns regarding climate which must be researched thoroughly before the numerous factors which affect climate become self-evident.

It is self-evident that the governments of the nations of the globe are unprepared to control what they clearly do not understand.

It is self-evident that the time has not come to surrender our independence to a socialist global government in an effort to save ourselves from changes in a poorly understood global climate.

One of the keys to “success” of “The Big Lie”, according to Joseph Goebbels, is that its proponents “keep repeating it”. This requires either a media controlled by the proponents of the lie, or a compliant / supportive media, or both. The US currently has both a government-controlled media (The Corporation for Public Broadcasting) and a compliant / supportive media. The US Federal government has, in the past, used the media not only to repeat the lie but to reinforce and enhance it. Numerous government-funded studies have developed “scary scenarios” of potential future cataclysm, which have then been publicized by the researchers with little attention to the underlying assumptions and then broadcast by a media driven by the adage “If it bleeds, it leads”.

This process has been underway long enough that it has taken up a life of its own. There are numerous examples of climate scientists attributing events such as floods, droughts, severe storms, etc. to climate change; or, stating that these events were made more frequent or more damaging as the result of climate change. These attributions are made “without any evidence”, in some cases based on unverified climate models. Professor Michael Mann, the self-appointed spokesperson of the consensed climate science community is a frequent source of these attributions.

However, the compliant / supportive media no longer rely exclusively on the assertions of climate scientists to implicate climate change in the occurrence, frequency or severity of unusual weather events. Rather, they simply assert that any event has somehow been affected by climate change. One recent example of this spontaneous attribution to climate change is this report on a tropical cyclone in Mozambique and Zimbabwe, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people and massive property damage. The report acknowledges that much of the death toll is the result of failure to evacuate and that much of the property damage was the result of inadequate building construction and inadequate surrounding infrastructure. Another example is this report on recent flooding in the upper Midwest, again attributing the severity of the event in part to climate change “without any evidence”.

The obvious intent of this combination of repetition, reinforcement and enhancement is to cause the public to reflexively associate adverse weather events with climate change; and, ultimately, to demand that government act to “fix the problem”. The media also acts to suppress information skeptical of this association, including refusal to include skeptics in panel discussions regarding climate issues.

As insidious as this reflexive attribution has become “without any evidence”, reporting of increases in the frequency or severity of weather events, despite conflicting evidence, is perhaps an even greater problem. Professor Roger Pielke, Jr. has presented evidence that there are no adverse trends in the frequency of severity of weather events such as hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and droughts in the period for which CO2 is accused of contributing to climate change. However, these presentations have received scant attention in the media.

From: Competitive Enterprise Institute

By: Marlo Lewis, Jr.

June 11, 2019

A Citizen’s Guide to Climate Change

Climate change is not a hoax, but as a political matter, it is a persistent pretext for expanding government control over the economy, redistributing wealth, and empowering unaccountable elites at the expense of voters and their elected representatives. This pretext rests on three falsehoods:

1. Science has determined that climate change is a “planetary emergency”—a rapidly unfolding global catastrophe.
2. A panoply of market-rigging interventionist policies, called “climate solutions” by their proponents, can deliver meaningful climate protection at reasonable cost.
3. Only deluded science deniers or greedy polluters oppose such policies.

A Citizen’s Guide to Climate Change