Month: June 2018

Daily News 15 Jun 2018

NSF study: ‘…current carbon dioxide levels are not enough to destabilize the land-based ice on Antarctica’

We covered this yesterday, but today the official press release came out, so worth covering again. Via Eurekalert

Land-based portion of massive East Antarctic ice sheet retreated little during past eight million years

But increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels could affect stability and potential for sea level rise

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

Large parts of the massive East Antarctic Ice Sheet did not retreat significantly during a time when atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations were similar to today’s levels, according to a team of researchers funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The finding could have significant implications for global sea level rise.

The East Antarctic Ice Sheet is one of three major ice sheets closely watched by scientists as global temperatures and carbon dioxide levels increase, glaciers melt and sea levels rise. Of the three, the East Antarctic Ice Sheet is the largest potential contributor to sea level rise.

To gauge the ice sheet’s stability, researchers took ultra-sensitive analytical measurements of chemical signatures in sediment samples taken from the ice sheet’s sea bed. They concluded that some ice on the southernmost part of the continent could be stable in a warming climate, as was the case during the Pliocene Epoch.

But they also caution that ongoing, rising carbon emissions mean that carbon dioxide levels will soon surpass the benchmark set during the Pliocene — approximately 5.3 to 2.6 million years ago — the last time Earth experienced carbon dioxide levels higher than 400 parts per million.

The findings were published today in the journal Nature.

The researchers relied on samples taken as part of the international ANtarctic geological DRILLing (ANDRILL) project. NSF funded the U.S. participation in ANDRILL.

This is image is by Peter Rejcek / NSF. CREDIT
Peter Rejcek / NSF

Examining sediment samples delivered from land-based sections of the ice sheet, the researchers found those areas that drain into Antarctica’s Ross Sea have been stable for the past 8 million years.

The geological history of the massive ice sheet — frozen both above and, in many places, below the ocean’s surface — has been difficult to pinpoint. The absence of data about the East Antarctic Ice Sheet’s response to warming in the past have hindered efforts to predict its role in future sea level rise.

This study focused on the portion of the ice sheet that sits above the ocean. It holds enough water to cause as much as 34 meters of sea level rise if the ice sheet were to melt completely.

Another component of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, marine-based ice, sits below sea level and is thus directly affected by the ocean.

“Based on this evidence from the Pliocene, today’s current carbon dioxide levels are not enough to destabilize the land-based ice on the Antarctic continent,” said Jeremy Shakun, an assistant professor of Earth and Environmental Science at Boston College and a lead author on the paper.

“This does not mean that at current atmospheric carbon dioxide levels Antarctica won’t contribute to sea level rise. Marine-based ice is already starting to add to sea level rise and alone could contribute as much as 20 meters. We’re saying that the terrestrial segment of the ice sheet is more resilient at current carbon-dioxide levels.”

Shakun’s co-authors on the paper include Carling C. Hay, also of Boston College; researchers Lee B. Corbett, Paul R. Bierman, Kristen Underwood and Donna M. Rizzo of the University of Vermont; Susan R. Zimmerman of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; Marc W. Caffee of Purdue University; and Tim Naish and Nicholas R. Golledge of Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.

Estimates on global sea level rise due to melt from the East Antarctic Ice Sheet during the Pliocene vary from 5 meters to more than 40 meters higher than today. The upper end of this range would imply that most of the ice on the planet melted, enough to raise sea levels by 63 meters.

If the land-based East Antarctic Ice Sheet was stable during the Pliocene, as Shakun and colleagues suggest, the Pliocene total could have been at most 30 meters.

The researchers analyzed sediment contained in drill cores taken from the sea floor. These cores contain geological records, but also chemical signatures — in particular, the rare isotopes beryllium-10 and aluminum-26, which were extracted at the NSF-funded Community Cosmogenic Facility at the University of Vermont and measured using particle accelerators at Purdue University and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Both isotopes are found in rock surfaces that have been exposed to cosmic radiation bombarding the Earth from outer space. Researchers usually examine rock samples from hillsides, mountain tops and rivers to determine where and when ice retreated during prior geological eras.

Shakun and some of the co-authors of the latest report used a different approach two years ago to offer one of the most comprehensive climatological accounts ever compiled of the Greenland Ice Sheet, dating back 7.5 million years.

In the Greenland study, levels of beryllium-10 found in sandy deposits brought out to sea in icebergs suggested the ice sheet has been a “persistent and dynamic” presence that melted and re-formed periodically in response to temperature fluctuations. The findings helped confirm that the Greenland Ice Sheet is a sensitive responder to global climate change.

Earlier studies of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet indicated that some marine-based portions of the ice sheet and its neighboring West Antarctic Ice Sheet retreated during the Pliocene. But it was unclear whether terrestrial ice also retreated.

Their analysis found “extremely low” concentrations of beryllium and aluminum isotopes in quartz sand in the marine sediment samples taken in the region, which leads to the conclusion that the ice sheet has been stable for millions of years.

While the sediment was the product of erosion from the continent, the low levels of tell-tale chemical signatures reveal that the sediment experienced only minimal exposure to cosmic radiation, leading the team to conclude East Antarctica must have remained covered in ice.

According to the paper’s authors, “the findings indicate that atmospheric warming during the past eight million years was insufficient to cause widespread and/or long-lasting meltback of the EAIS margin onto land.”

The findings not only clarify the past impact of rising temperatures on East Antarctic ice, said Shakun, but confirm the accuracy of models scientists are using to assess past and future consequences of a warming planet.

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June 15, 2018 at 01:08PM

Daily News 15 Jun 2018

An Open Letter To The Geological Society

By Paul Homewood

GWPF carry the story of a letter recently sent to the president of the Geological Society by a group of concerned current and former members:

The President
Geological Society of London

Dear President

We are writing as a group of concerned primarily geoscientists, half of whom are or were Fellows, (names and affiliations listed below). Our concern is that the Society’s position on Climate Change (aka Anthropogenic Global Warming or AGW), is outdated and one-sided, and is distracting attention and funding from real issues of pollution such as plastic and other noxious industrial and domestic waste. To address this, we proposed to Colin Summerhayes that the 2010 and 2013 GSL Position Papers be posted on the Energy Matters blog, so that all sides of the discussion could be aired; and we are very grateful to Colin for effecting and taking part in this (http://euanmearns.com/the-geological-society-of-londons-statement-on-climate-change/). In addition, Colin continues to engage in an open and spirited email correspondence with some of us on the pros and cons of AGW.

The GSL position papers state they have been prepared ‘based on analysis of geological evidence, and not on analysis of recent temperature or satellite data, or climate model projections.’ And certainly, a key finding, ‘the only plausible explanation for the rate and extent of temperature increase since 1900, is the exponential rise in CO₂ and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution’, is not in line with the IPCC claim (in AR5 SPM), that ‘Anthropogenic influences have likely affected the global water cycle since 1960’, and that ‘more than half’ of the warming since 1951 is due to AGW. The IPCC also claim that ‘Anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions since the pre-industrial era (variously claimed to be between 1750-1880) have driven large increases in the atmospheric concentrations of … CO₂’, which nobody seriously denies, but they do not claim that this resulted in warming before 1951/60, as the GSL appears to.

The IPCC position matches observations that almost half of the warming that has occurred over the last 150 or so years since industrialisation, had already happened by 1943, well before the rapid rise of industrial CO₂. This difference of opinion is critical, for if CO₂ did not cause the pre-1943 warming, the claimed consensus that Catastrophic AGW is caused by human CO₂ emissions since the Industrial Revolution, which is supported by GSL, must be mistaken.

While there remain other areas of disagreement over the science of Global Warming and Climate Change (which are not the same thing), we can probably all agree that the 2010 position paper and the 2013 addendum need updating. And as this update will be critical in deciding future climate policy world-wide, we propose that any updated paper should come from a full and open discussion of the science, and not just from the ideas of a small group however well qualified. We suggest that such a process could be achieved by adopting methods of review used by other professional societies, particularly the APS, AAPG, and APPEA copies of which are attached.

We also believe the GSL has a responsibility to refute the exaggerated claims that swirl around the fringes of the Climate Change debate, undermining the real science – such as that CO₂ and Climate Change cause:

more hurricanes, more rain, more drought, more asthma and now, even more terrorism (through drought in Africa),
the exceptional cold and warm recorded over most of the sub-Arctic, Northern Hemisphere during the past winter and spring are what we should ‘expect’ from Global Warming.

As this letter makes clear, it is not true that 97% of scientists unreservedly accept that AGW theory is fixed, or that carbon and CO₂are ‘pollutants’ and their production should be penalised; how can the primary nutrient in photosynthesis be a pollutant? We also note that 700 scientists have made submissions to the US Senate expressing dissent from the consensus and 166 climate scientists issued a challenge to Ban Ki Moon on the eve of the Copenhagen Climate Summit in 2009 to provide proof of human induced global warming, which he did not do.

Even once respectable journals like the New Scientist, still uncritically peddle such social media nonsense as the infamous Hockey Stick, that seems to have lost the otherwise well documented Medieval Warm period. ‘Global Warming’ is on everyone’s lips with each month/year claimed to be the ‘hottest ever’ – based on IPCC’s ‘adjusted’ land and marine temperature data; however, the ‘pause’ in average temperatures since the 1998 el Niño, as documented by almost all recent temperature data, suggests global warming is no longer happening. Both claims cannot be correct, and, by saying nothing about these differences, the Society is supporting rather than resolving them.

By restricting the review to the geological evidence, independently of IPCC theory and modelling, the GSL signalled an independent scientific approach. But by excluding an evaluation of the modern climate record, the committee has failed to notice or account for these and other inconsistencies in AGW theory.

The Energy Matters blog was a useful first step in focusing on these issues but, as it is not ‘peer reviewed’[i] in the way that scientific papers generally are, we suggest something more formal is needed, such as a 2-day conference to explore all sides of the issues raised, with a strong neutral moderator.

Topics for such a dialogue could examine the evidence that

CO₂ alone as the principle driver of temperature, or climate.
Climate Change is largely real, natural, and mostly beyond our control.
Manipulation of climate data has been used to support ‘global warming’.[ii]
Most climate alarms are little more than scaremongering.
CO₂ is mainly beneficial, NOT dangerous but blanket decarbonisation is.
Industrial effluents and plastics, deforestation and overfishing are dangerous– and are being side-lined by the focus on CO₂ emissions.

The world’s climate system, as defined by the IPCC, [iii] is a ‘coupled non-linear chaotic system”, for which “the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible’. This is due to the impossibility of describing precisely the initial conditions, and to instability generated by the mathematics causing cumulative errors in the modelling process, which combine to make a ‘correct’ solution impossible. This alone should make the authors of the GSL statements cautious about their very confident acceptance that CO₂ alone has driven temperature and climate since 1900.The IPCC AR documents address some of the uncertainties, and are generally much less biased than the SPMs (Summary for Policymakers) which get all the media attention, which is unfortunate, as it is apparent that they are largely written not by scientists but by an ‘assemblage of representatives from governments and NGOs, with only a small scientific representation.’[iv] Their heavy political bias not only undermines the scientific content, it supercharges the ‘overwhelming consensus for human induced climate change’ which is mindlessly promulgated by the media year in, year out. The façade of consensus, helped by the data adjustments promised in the Climategate emails, negates the ‘creative conflict between theory and data’ which is missing in this debate and which we suggest the GSL can revive. It is to be hoped that the frequent use of conditionals ‘may’ and ‘could’ in the current papers will be reduced, as a document that will affect government policy for years needs to be more specific about the levels of uncertainty in its pronouncements.

We also note the difficulty of publishing anything that does not confirm the IPCC AGW position, again, as promised in Climategate emails; and also, the ‘ad hominem’ attacks rather than data refutation that too often characterises the debate, and we hope that this will not prevent the committee considering data that does not appear to support its position paper conclusions.

We do not expect that all of our concerns will survive the test of time, and we assume GSL would similarly accept that new data may well change the ‘consensus’. Climate models fail to model past climates accurately and consistently overestimate future temperature trends, nor are they able to explain the following:

The current hiatus or pause in warming.
Why the 285 ppm of atmospheric CO₂ estimated for the beginning of the Industrial Revolution is in any way, a desirable benchmark. It coincides with the Victorian Little Ice Age, a period of starvation and population decline, which cannot possibly be a desirable target, unless you want to depopulate the earth.
Climate models always predict higher temperatures than actually occur
The absence of the predicted tropospheric hotspot – the ‘fingerprint of AGW’.
CO₂and temperature were higher than today during the previous 50 million years plus, with no CAGW effects, why not?
The natural warming of 8°C and ~100ppm increase in CO₂during the Holocene up to the 1800s, and the subsequent 125 ppm increase in CO₂ after 1950, accompanied by a miserly ~1°C temperature rise.
The Holocene enigma of generally falling but fluctuating temperatures from ~3,000_BP, accompanied by rising CO₂ that predates industrial CO₂emissions.
How AGW theory relies on radiative transfer only to heat the planet, and seemingly ignores insolation, enthalpy and water vapour.
The inability of the science of AGW to sharpen the range of estimates of climate sensitivity (currently between 1.5^oC and 6.4°C according to GSL)
despite over 30 years of hugely funded effort; surely the science has failed?
Earth System Sensitivity concept introduced by GSL, which ‘could be twice’ climate sensitivity’ noted above (2013 Addendum, page 4)

Such rational failures have to be of concern to the GSL as they demonstrate that CO₂ alone does not, nay cannot drive global warming, so how can it drive climate change? And if it does not, there is no reason for the uncritical acceptance of the UN/IPCC focus on penalising CO₂
emissions?

The discussions in the Energy Matters blog suggests that the GSL position papers do not ‘prove’ that average global temperatures are accurately measured or agreed, or that human CO₂driven ‘warming’ is real and/or dangerous, or that CO₂ is effective in changing the climate beyond natural variability. The position papers would not have included the beneficial effects of CO₂ in greening the planet, as this was not widely reported until July 2013 CSIRO study. However, the benefits that cheap reliable electricity can bring in preventing over 4 million annual deaths from indoor air pollution from burning bio and other solid fuels, has been obvious for some time. Even if CO₂ did drive some warming, is it more dangerous to more people than this very real pollution faced daily by well over 200 million in the developing world?

We fully support the Society’s involvement in the climate change debate but believe that the apparent failures of AGW theory noted herein, calls for a re-think. Climate is and always will change, but the evidence that this is due primarily to CO_2, is not forthcoming. If the strong natural forcings that are so well described in the GSL papers have more impact than CO₂, then we should be spending more of our limited resources on finding ways to adapt to negative climate change.

We are aware that the board has duties to the Society, to the prestige of the science and to Fellows, in that order perhaps, but think any formal statement by the Society should at least acknowledge the views of dissenting Fellows. Climate Change (which is only ever portrayed, without any justification, as dangerous) has become the critical issue of our time and informed dissent, cannot be swept under the carpet or dismissed as ‘unscientific’ or ‘denialist’, as it too often is; ‘Rebellion is the deepest root of science; the refusal to accept the present order of things,’[v] but seemingly not anymore in Climate Studies.

The GSL has taken a strong independent position; the Carbon Cycle is a genuine geological concern, but interpretation of the data is subject to increasing uncertainty as one goes back or forward in time, so firm conclusions based only on experimental data (the geological record) are likely to be unsound. As one of my correspondents puts it ‘The Society can make comments regarding the complexity of the physics and mathematics and inevitable uncertainty of predictions of nonlinear dynamical system behaviour etc., and there is nothing wrong with having a debate about this… But … their conclusions are unwarranted and unsound science if based on geological evidence alone.’

Science is supposed to use all the available tools at its disposal and by excluding the modern record it would be even more sound to avoid tacit support for the proposition that ‘the science is settled’. And even if everything the IPCC is frightened of looks inescapable, applying the precautionary principle by penalising carbon regardless has shut down debate creating more harm than benefit. Better by far to look at ways of mitigating possible effects until the evidence becomes firmer, one way or the other.

The strength of the Society is that Fellowship is not just open to people who share a current ‘consensus’, what was once accepted has often fallen by the wayside as arguments are overturned; Murchison and Sedgwick, uniformitarianism and catastrophism, Piltdown Man.

We would like to make a presentation of our findings to the board, as much of what is relevant can best be understood with reference to data. However, we have no wish to monopolise this discussion in any way, as we believe the issues need raising before as many interested parties as possible. And it is for this reason we are calling this an open letter and will circulate it through media channels after the forthcoming AGM.

Yours sincerely

Howard Dewhirst FGS,

on behalf of the following:

Active fellows:
Geology unless stated

Chris Atkinson
Singapore
BSc, PhD
FGS, PESGB, SEAPEX

Nigel Banks
United Kingdom
BA, DPhil
FGS, AAPG, SPE, PESGB

Dave Bodecott
United Kingdom
BSc, MSc
FGS, AAPG, PESGB, IOD

David Boote
United Kingdom
MSc, PhD
FGS, AAPG, PESGB

Bernard Cooper
United Kingdom
BSc
FGS

John Cope
United Kingdom
BSc, PhD, DSc, C. Geol
FGS (Snr Fellow), GA

Cameron Davies
United Kingdom
BSc, PhD, DIC
FGS

Howard Dewhirst
United Kingdom
BA, MA
FGS, AAPG, SPE, PESGB, PESA

Tim Harper
United Kingdom
BSc, PhD, MSc, DIC, C. Eng
FGS, IOM3,

Graham Heard
United Kingdom
BSc
FGS, CGeol, PESGB, AAPG, PESA

David Jenkins
United Kingdom
MA, PhD
FGS, AAPG,

Chris Matchette-Downes
United Kingdom
BSc, MSc, C. Geol
FGS, PESGB

James Moffatt
South Africa
MA
FGS, GSA, AAPG, EAEG, PESGB

Philip Mulholland
United Kingdom
BA, MSc
FGS, AAPG, EAGE, PESGB

Michael Oates
United Kingdom
BSc, PhD
FGS, GA

Ian Plimer
Australia
BSc, PhD
FGS (Hon), FTSE, FAIMM

Chris Pullan
United Kingdom
BSc
FGS, PESGB

Michael Ridd
United Kingdom
BSc, PhD
FGS

Michael Seymour
United Kingdom
MA, MSc, DIC
FGS, PESGB (former Chair)

Richard Stabbins
United Kingdom
BSc, PhD, C. Geol
FGS (Snr Fellow), PESGB (Hon Mbr)

Barry Squire
United Kingdom
BSc, PhD
FGS

David Warwick
United Kingdom
BSc
FGS, PESGB

Alastair Woodrow
United Kingdom
BSc (Physics)
FGS, EAGE, EI, PESGB

Wyss Yim
Hong Kong China
DSc, PhD, DIC
FGS

Enzo Zappaterra
United Kingdom
PhD, C. Pet Geol
FGS, AAPG, PESGB

Former fellows:

David Bowen
United Kingdom
BSc, PhD
FGS (former); Life Fellow INQUA

Frank Brophy
Australia

Gary Couples
United Kingdom
BS, MA, PhD
FGS (former), SPE, AGU, AAPG

Trish Dewhirst
Australia
BSc, B. Ecom
FGS, AusIMM, PESGB (all former)

Henry John Dodwell
United Kingdom
BSc, MSc
FGS (former), currently PESGB

Martin Keeley
United Kingdom
BSc, PhD
FGS (former),

Dennis Paterson
United Kingdom
BSc, MSc, DIC
FGS, AAPG, PESGB (all former)

William J Pyke
United Kingdom
BS, MSc, MA
FGS (former),

Concerned colleagues:

Nils-Axel Morner
Sweden
PhD
P&G, ICG

Tim Ball
Canada
BA, MA, PhD

Dave Bratton
USA
Na
Na

Doug Buerger
Australia
BSc, MPhil
Aus IMM, MAICD

John Conolly
Australia
BSc, MSc, PhD
AAPG, PESA

Isabel Davies
United Kingdom
BSc, MSc, DIC
PESGB

Paul Dostal
Australia
BE
MIE Aust (former)

Philip Foster
United Kingdom
MA
SMP

Ashley Francis
United Kingdom
BSc
FRAS, EAGE, SEG, PESGB, IAMG, BSSS, MI Soil Sci

Andrew Gillies
Australia
BSc
Aus IMM

Peter Gill
United Kingdom
BSc (Physics)
FEI, Inst P, CEng, C Phys, Eur. Ing

John Graham
United Kingdom
BA
EAGE, SEG retired

Tom Harris
Canada
B Eng, M Eng,
ICSC

Bruce Harvey
Australia
BSc, MBA
Aus IMM

Michael Haseler
United Kingdom
BSc (Physics), MBA
na

Robert Heath
United Kingdom
BSc (Physics)
SPG India (EAGE, SEG & PESGB, all former)

Yvon Houde
Canada
AAPG, SEG, SPE, HGS, CSPG

Richard Karn
Australia
BA, MA
na

Pamela Klein
Portugal
BSc MSc
ICG,

Richard Lindzen
USA
PhD
MIT, Mbr US NAS

Sebastian Luening
Germany
Dr habil
AGU

Andy May
USA
BSc
AAPG, SPE, SPWLA

Peter McCarthy
Australia
BSc, M. Geosc
AusIMM, MAICD

Robert Merrill
USA
PhD
AAPG, SPE, GSA

Paul Messenger
Australia
BSc, PhD
Aus IMM (former), GSA (former)

Steve Munro
New Zealand
BSc, Post-Grad Dipl, MBA
ASEG

Thomas E O’Connor
USA
BS, MS
AAPG, Houston Geo. Soc

Alex Pope
USA
BS
NASA retired

Gordon P Riddler
United Kingdom
BSc, MBA
CEng, FIMMM

Bill Trojan
USA
BS, MS
AAPG, Westminster College SLC Utah

Mark Wharton
United Kingdom
na
na

Subsequent signatories:

Viv Forbes
Australia
BSc
AusIMM

Peter B Gibbs
United Kingdom
BSc
FGS, PESGB

Roger Higgs
United Kingdom
BSc, MSc, DPhil
AAPG, (FGS, PESGB, GSA, SEPM former)

Simon Kendall
United Kingdom
BSc, MSc
FGS (former)

Carlos Venturini
United Kingdom
BSc, MSc, PG Dipl
FGS, PESGB

Links:

APS: American Physical Society: https://www.aps.org/policy/statements/upload/climate-review-framing.pdf https://www.aps.org/policy/statements/climate/index.cfm

AAPG: http://www.searchanddiscovery.com/documents/gerhard/index.htm

AIChE: https://www.aiche.org/resources/publications/cep/2017/july/che-context-members-will-shape-aiches-climate-change-policy

APPEA: https://www.appea.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Climate-Change-Policy-Principles-APPEA-final.pdf

SPE: http://webevents.spe.org/webinar/13400

CAPP: Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers; https://www.capp.ca/responsible-development/air-and-climate/climate-change

Climate Change Tutorial; District Court of California, 10/3/2018. http://co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Happer-Koonin-Lindzen.pdf

GWPF: https://www.thegwpf.org/state-of-the-climate-report-reveals-23-year-temperature-pause-in-the-stratosphere/

Letter to Scott Pruitt EPA: https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/06-07-18%20EPA%20Pruitt%20NIPCC%20Submission.pd.pdf

Selected Blogs:

http://euanmearns.com/the-geological-society-of-londons-statement-on-climate-change/

https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2018/03/State-of-the-Climate2017.pdf

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2018/01/17/the-geological-society-of-londons-statement-on-climate-change/

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/01/30/what-are-in-fact-the-grounds-for-concern-about-global-warming/comment-page-1/#comment-2730698

Covering email sent to GSL President 1^st June 2018

Dear President,

Attached is an open letter to yourself as President of the Geological Society of London, together a series of referenced attachments. The letter is written in the spirit of scientific enquiry, not political correctness and has been prepared on behalf of a group of colleagues, whose names are included in the letter, to raise the possibility of a new edition of the GSL’s position papers on climate change. We wish to raise awareness of the seriousness of our concern by making this an open letter, and plan to issue it to the media after the Society has had an opportunity to consider it. We do this not to pressure the Society in any way, but because, as we note in the letter, a new GSL position paper ‘will be critical in deciding future climate policy world-wide’, hence ‘any updated paper should come from a full and open discussion of the science, and not just from the ideas of a small group’.

We are particularly impressed by the thoroughness of the American Physical Society Climate Change Statement Review Workshop Framing Document and the Climate Change Statement Review Subcommittee, 20 December 2013, copies of which we attach, together with examples from other societies and other relevant publications which we hope you will find useful in any approach a review.

The issue of Climate Change is too important for it to be the preserve of a small group of Fellows, no matter how well intentioned and qualified. Despite what you might read in the media, and as this letter shows, 97% of scientists do not accept the IPCC Theory of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming and we don’t believe the GSL should do so quite as unquestioningly as they have done heretofor.

We have no special agenda but to seek the truth lost in what has become a hugely political issue, where open dialogue has become almost impossible. We are sure this is something the GSL would be concerned with and would want to take a lead in restoring the balance.

Yours Sincerely

Howard Dewhirst

[i] Peer reviewing is only of value if the reviewers are without bias, which is increasingly rare in politicised sciences such as climate change; the web, like Guttenberg’s press, has opened up new vistas of thought and expression.

[ii] https://thsresearch.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/ef-gast-data-research-report-062717.pdf

[iii] Chapter 8 of the 2000 IPCC report titled “Model Evaluation”

[iv] https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0809/0809.3762.pdf

[v] Carlo Rovelli: The Order of Time.2017

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June 15, 2018 at 12:30PM

Daily News 15 Jun 2018

What Will Be the Outcome of the Great Climate Scam?

An interesting question is what will be the outcome of the great climate scam? If Hillary Clinton had won in 2016 it is clear that all coal fossil fuel power plants would have been shut down and even some of the natural gas plants. By that time it would have become evident that all that would have been accomplished was that the builders of “renewable” power plants would have been enriched and the ratepayers and taxpayers would have paid the much higher costs of “renewable” electricity and suffered from lower reliability of wind and solar plants. There would be no significant effect on global temperatures.

But Hillary did not win. Unless EPA is willing to reevaluate the greenhouse gas Endangerment Finding, there seems likely to be a long period of legal uncertainty while EPA tries to revoke the Obama climate-related regulations and is rebuffed by the courts because of the continued existence of the EF. In the meantime, global temperatures may start to fall–not because of any government action but because of naturally-caused lower solar activity, changes in naturally-caused oceanic cycles, increasing cloud cover on Earth, and lower temperatures as more incoming radiation from the sun is reflected back into space by the increased clouds. It will presumably become ever more evident that CO₂ has no significant effect on temperatures in the real world, but the climate alarmists are unlikely to ever admit this despite falling global temperatures and ever increasing divergence between the alarmists’ climate models and the satellite temperature record. It may take a new generation before the Climate-Industrial Complex will actually be willing to admit that CO₂ has no significant effect on temperatures despite the critical evidence for this.

This outcome is clearly very messy, but preferable to wasting more trillions of ratepayer and taxpayer dollars and to suffering reduced electricity reliability on the basis of bad science. But a better outcome would be for EPA to reevaluate and revoke the Endangerment Finding, which should end the scam in the US.

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June 15, 2018 at 11:52AM

Daily News 15 Jun 2018

This is science? Penguin huddling behavior is the new proxy for climate change

This is science? Penguin huddling behavior is the new proxy for climate change | Watts Up With That?

This is science? Penguin huddling behavior is the new proxy for climate change

Sometimes, you just have to laugh. This is from the AGU, EoS and it was an actual funded science study, published in an applied physic journal no less. Personally, with them making the jump from weather to climate in describing weather event driven penguin behavior in this press release, it looks like emperor junk science to me.

The conclusion? “The findings agree with the well-established idea that the penguins huddle primarily for warmth and not for protection against predators…”

Newsflash: Adult emperor penguins have no predators on land, where they huddle. Only chicks are at risk from predators when they don’t huddle. What next? Penguin regurgitation rate as a proxy for local CO2 levels? Penguin poop as a proxy for Antarctic albedo?

SMH. I weep for science.

Emperor Penguins’ Huddles Change in Response to Weather

How quickly the penguins huddled when weather worsened provided clues about their feeding success and how climate change may alter the Antarctic biosphere, according to scientists.

By Kimberly M. S. Cartier