Articles Tagged "Reply To Letter"

Is there or isn't there a scientific consensus on climate change?

And does it matter?

What's brought me here now is the letter published in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) about 10 days ago, in which a group of 16 scientists declared there was "no need to panic on global warming".

"A large and growing number of distinguished scientists and engineers do not agree that drastic actions on global warming are needed," it says.

In other words - in a meme that's become very familiar over the last few years - "the consensus is cracking".

The recent exchange of letters entitled "No Need to Panic About Global Warming" and "Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate" are, either implicitly or explicitly, appeals to politicians based mainly on arguments from "Authority". It is tragic that what should have been an objective evaluation of the available data by independent scientists, has instead degenerated into a partisan political diatribe.

Weather and Climate are controlled by natural laws on a scale that is enormous compared to the scale of human activity. Those natural laws engender forces and motions in the Earth's atmosphere, its oceans, and its surface that are beyond human control. Weather and Climate existed long before humans appeared on Earth, and they will continue to exist in the same way long after we are gone, either individually or collectively as the human race.

Those forces and motions are driven by the following phenomenon. First, there is the motion of the Earth relative to the Sun: the periodic changes in its elliptical orbit, the rotation of the Earth about its axis, the periodic changes in the tilt of that axis, and the periodic precession of that axis. Second, there is the variation in Solar activity which causes changes in the amount of radiant energy that reaches the Earth and also causes variations in the Cosmic Ray input into its atmosphere, which effect the Earth's cloudiness. Third, there is the distribution of land and water on the Earth's surface which controls the temperature distribution of the atmosphere, the availability of moisture, monsoon effects, and the paths and intensities of hurricanes, typhoons, and other storms. Fourth, there is the topography of the Earth's land mass which causes copious precipitation on the windward side of mountains and aridity on the leeward side. Fifth, there are the motions within the Earth's oceans that determine moisture availability and its surface temperature distribution (El Nino and La Nina cycles).

I have carefully read and digested Erica Fuhrmeister's piece on geoengineering (Fighting climate change through geoengineering May 26 baltimoresun.com) The thrust of her comments is on various ways to combat "global warming," which is neither man-made nor under man's control. Once again you have used valuable space on your editorial commentary pages in an attempt to misinform the public concerning the disproved "global warming" concept. Indeed, the climate is continuing to cool and warm in cycles, as it always does. The changes which we have witnessed in the last century are all within the range of similar episodes over the last millennium.

The much-touted "consensus" of climate scientists has been proven to be the work of a small group of men working on government grants. The fact that you have obtained and published the writings of a starry-eyed undergraduate instead of an expert on the subject should warn you that only misinformed people would write such drivel. The last two decades of scientific research have proven that "global warming" is not an unusual phenomenon and should not be addressed as man-made or under man's control.

The current focus on carbon dioxide has nearly run its course, as it has been clearly shown that it is not harmful. In fact, the slight increase in its tiny concentration will assist agriculture and help to feed the starving people of the world. More important is the fact that all methods of reducing carbon dioxide would quickly impoverish the world without making the slightest difference.

The Following letters are between Jack Van Wingerden and a certain Dr. Mann....The opening letter is from Jack Van Wingerden 8th April at mlive.com

Several recent letters have proposed we modify our behavior to prevent the destruction of the Earth within the next few decades. I am going to make a simple assumption that these people were not around during the last great scientific debate (1970s) about the world entering a new ice age.

The people describing the horrors of this inevitable ice age were researchers who needed more money from the government to improve their climate models and study possible solutions for the problem. Further research was needed because you really had to have an intimate knowledge of the problem to be able to suggest how to alter the outcome.

Now we have similar requests from various researchers requiring much more money to study global warming in order to allow them to prevent the cataclysmic results of temperature change. These researchers have these huge models that they have created at government expense that they claim need more money to improve their accuracy. Former Vice President Al Gore has stated in the past that the discussion is over and human being-caused global warming is fact. If that is true, why do these people need more money?

One of the tests of a good model is to input old data and see if the results matched reality. The climate models tested this way did not work. The “climate-gate” scandal has surfaced and the original data shows the last decade to have been a reversal of the previous 20-year temperature trend (oscillating system?) and further disproved the claims of the most vociferous warmists, Michael Mann in particular. His data made the medieval warming period (800-1400 AD) and the Little Ice Age (1600-1850 AD) disappear. But, it was used to justify the Kyoto treaty, U.S. policy and the U.N.’s global warming activities.

Ellen Douglas submitted a letter to the editors about Climate change. Ellen said that those that don't believe in it are the ill informed and loud minority. Funny, seems to me the "loud" is coming from global warming proponents. She goes on to say that 97 percent of scientists that study climate change are in consensus and 3 percent are not. And, many of the 3 percent have little or no training in climate related sciences. I wonder how she knows that? Ellen also said that the vast majority understands that climate change is real. How does she know that? And, if this is all true, why did Ellen feel so compelled to write the letter in the first place? Why isn't she satisfied knowing the vast majority agrees with her? Does she feel threatened? Why the condescending tone? Why is there such a feeling of urgency and desperation in her words?

Ellen went on to say that, "as for those who are confused about climate change, this is quite understandable because it's a complicated issue." Well, Ellen, good for you that you understand this complicated issue so well. Please be patient with the ill-informed as we struggle to reach your level of intellect.

Ellen also said that those who grew up in New England will tell you that the climate is very different now than it was when we were children. Really? It is? How so? Apparently, Ellen has personally polled everyone in New England. Ellen, you must be exhausted. Well I grew up in New Hampshire, and I haven't noticed any difference. Ellen offers no facts or resources, so I will. Go to the Web site, the Northeast Regional Climate Center, for a little information on this past winter. On the home page is the headline, "A Long Cold Winter." In the ensuing article it said several Northeast cities had averages that were in the 20 coldest on record. Hmmm, global warming?

Take time out to read the following letters from Canada, as they debate the impact of less weather surface stations, mentioned here, Surface Temperature Records: Policy Driven Deception?, last week

Re: " 'lIllogical approach' fills void left by climate authorities," by George Witt, Letters, Dec. 14.

In this letter, George Witt made several misleading and incorrect allegations concerning the reliability of the global temperature record, as well as the credibility of groups who produce them. I do share Witt's concern about the rapid decline of monitoring sites used to generate these global analyses, especially given that the Canadian Arctic is among the fastest warming regions of the world.

And it is a mystery why so few of the available Canadian stations make it into the Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN) database used by NASA. Regardless, the Clear Climate Code team (Nick Barnes) has demonstrated that the exclusion of monitoring sites from Canada has virtually no impact on temperature trends for regions of the globe north of 64 N. Their analysis showed that region is warming at over 5 C per century (30-year trend), compared to the long-term global warming trend near 2 C per century.

Witt refers to a recent study which suggests that inappropriate station location makes U.S. temperature trends unreliable. However, a peer-reviewed paper (Menne et al. 2010) has shown that the temperature trend over the U.S. derived using all data is almost identical to the trend derived using a subset of data with ideally located stations. In fact, including the "problem" sites produces a lower rate of warming.

Dear Editor (Washington Post)

Pls consider the appended Letter for early publication.

It corrects a factually incorrect Letter published on Oct 17

In responding to Congressman Joe Barton’s letter of Oct 12, Prof Gerald North (Letter, Oct 17) claims that “we have not found any evidence that his [Prof Michael Mann’s] results were incorrect or even out of line with other works published since his original papers.” This statement is factually incorrect: There are numerous papers, published in peer-reviewed journals, which show clearly that the 20th century was not the warmest in the past 1000 years (as claimed by Mann).

Medieval temperatures were substantially greater – and so were temperatures during the earlier Roman Warm Period. All of this is in addition to the valid criticism of the statistical methodology used by Mann. Tellingly, Canadian Prof. Steven McIntyre and Ross McKitrick showed that even random data fed into the faulty Mann theory would always yield a record-warmest 20th century.

(Prof.) S. Fred Singer, former director of the US Weather Satellite Service, is coauthor of best-seller "Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years"

WHAT breathtaking Aarrogance from Kevin Bray to suggest that a responsible newspaper like this one [Yorkshire Evening Post] should give different levels of coverage to the opposing views on the evidence for (man made) climate change.

It is precisely because the 'global warming' lobby devote so much effort to shouting down or suppressing publication of opposing views that many people are sceptical and wonder what it is they want to hide.

Scientific papers – even some from eminent climate scientists – have been refused publication in eminent journals because they fail to conform to the received wisdom of a vocal majority, data has been screened to filter out anything which doesn't support their arguments, scaremongering fairy stories have been put forward as genuine research only to be embarrassingly withdrawn later when 'real' scientists spotted the subterfuge and made it public.

Earth's climate has warmed and cooled many times over the millennia and will continue to do so, but as yet no convincing argument has been advanced to show that any changes which may or may not be taking place now (i.e. beyond normal random fluctuations) are as a result of mankind's activities.

On the first of February, 2010, Dr. John A. Shanahan sent a letter regarding the future of American energy policy to Dr. John P. Holdren, Director of the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy and President Obama's Science Advisor. Attached to the letter were more than thirty pages of signatories—309 scientists, engineers and citizens from 22 countries and 36 US states. The purpose of the letter was to ask for a clarification of the Obama administration's stand on nuclear energy policy. Dr. Shanahan's conclusion: if anyone thinks that the current administration's nuclear policy solves America's energy problems, they have no idea what they are talking about.

The entire world in engaged in efforts to build a secure and ecologically sound energy future, yet the US government continues to dither over energy policy. With the exception of grandstanding sound bite events, like the announcement by President Obama that the Federal Government would offer secure loans to build the first new American nuclear power plant in the nearly four decades, nothing has been done to secure the future or craft a coherent US energy policy.

John Shanahan, a Denver-based civil engineer who has worked on numerous nuclear power plant projects, wrote a letter to President Obama's Science Advisor John Holdren about the administration’s support for nuclear energy. Shanahan met Holdren in California, forty years ago, and they had kept in touch since then. Frustrated with America's lack of progress on the energy front, John contacted a number of his nuclear friends, and they drew up a letter to the President's Science Advisor. This is how the letter starts: