Global Warming, The Temperature Record & The 97% Consensus

There's an old joke about a golfer whose best club in his bag was a pencil. So it would seem with those who are responsible for maintaining the temperature records. We've known for twenty years that they've been adjusting the historical climate data to make the records fit their theories. The latest on this is from Christopher Booker in his recent column, The fiddling with temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever:

When future generations look back on the global-warming scare of the past 30 years, nothing will shock them more than the extent to which the official temperature records – on which the entire panic ultimately rested – were systematically “adjusted” to show the Earth as having warmed much more than the actual data justified.

Two weeks ago, under the headline “How we are being tricked by flawed data on global warming”, I wrote about Paul Homewood, who, on his Notalotofpeopleknowthat blog, had checked the published temperature graphs for three weather stations in Paraguay against the temperatures that had originally been recorded. In each instance, the actual trend of 60 years of data had been dramatically reversed, so that a cooling trend was changed to one that showed a marked warming.

This was only the latest of many examples of a practice long recognised by expert observers around the world – one that raises an ever larger question mark over the entire official surface-temperature record. . . .

Following my last article, Homewood checked a swathe of other South American weather stations around the original three. In each case he found the same suspicious one-way “adjustments”. First these were made by the US government’s Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN). They were then amplified by two of the main official surface records, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (Giss) and the National Climate Data Center (NCDC), which use the warming trends to estimate temperatures across the vast regions of the Earth where no measurements are taken. Yet these are the very records on which scientists and politicians rely for their belief in “global warming”.

Homewood has now turned his attention to the weather stations across much of the Arctic, between Canada (51 degrees W) and the heart of Siberia (87 degrees E). Again, in nearly every case, the same one-way adjustments have been made, to show warming up to 1 degree C or more higher than was indicated by the data that was actually recorded. This has surprised no one more than Traust Jonsson, who was long in charge of climate research for the Iceland met office (and with whom Homewood has been in touch). Jonsson was amazed to see how the new version completely “disappears” Iceland’s “sea ice years” around 1970, when a period of extreme cooling almost devastated his country’s economy. . . .

Of much more serious significance, however, is the way this wholesale manipulation of the official temperature record – for reasons GHCN and Giss have never plausibly explained – has become the real elephant in the room of the greatest and most costly scare the world has known. This really does begin to look like one of the greatest scientific scandals of all time.

Then there is the claim that, among climate scientists, a 97% consensus exists that "climate change is real, man-made and dangerous." That number comes from a study, if it can be called that, by John Cook, a PhD student in psychology at the University of Queensland in Australia. This from Prof. Richard Tol commenting on that paper:

The 97 percent claim was taken from a study paper by Australian John Cook, Climate Communications Fellow for the Global change Institute at the University of Queensland, and his colleagues, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters in May, 2013. The paper says nothing about the would-be dangers of climate change and it counts the number of publications, rather than the number of scientists, in support of human-made climate change. Never let facts get in the way of a good story.

The paper is a treasure trove of how-not-to lessons for a graduate class on survey design and analysis: the sample was not representative, statistical tests were ignored, and the results were misinterpreted.

What was an incompetent piece of research has become a highly influential study, its many errors covered up.

Some of the mistakes in the study should be obvious to all. There are hundreds of papers on the causes of climate change, and thousands of papers on the impacts of climate change and climate policy. Cook focused on the latter. A paper on the impact of a carbon tax on emissions was taken as evidence that the world is warming. A paper on the impact of climate change on the Red Panda was taken as evidence that humans caused this warming. And even a paper on the television coverage of climate change was seen by Cook as proof that carbon dioxide is to blame.

Cook and Co. analysed somewhere between 11,944 and 12,876 papers – they can’t get their story straight on the sample size – but only 64 of these explicitly state that humans are the primary cause of recent global warming. A reexamination of their data brought that number down to 41 [emphasis added]. That is half a per cent or less of the total, rather than 97 percent.

The remainder of Cook’s “evidence” is papers that said that humans caused some climate change and, more importantly, papers that Cook’s colleagues thought said as much.

There is vigorous debate about how much humans have contributed to climate change, but no one argues the effect is zero. By emitting greenhouse gases, changing the landscape, rerouting rivers, and huddling together in cities, we change the climate – perhaps by a little, perhaps by a lot – but not one expert doubts we do. However, a true consensus – 100 per cent agreement – does not serve to demonize those experts who raise credible concerns with the state of climate research.

The trouble does not end there. Cook has been reluctant to share his data for others to scrutinize. He has claimed that some data are protected by confidentiality agreements, even when they are not. He was claimed that some data were not collected, even when they were. The paper claims that each abstract was read by two independent readers, but they freely compared notes. Cook and Co. collected data, inspected the results, collected more data, inspected the results again, changed their data classification, collected yet more data, inspected the results once more, and changed their data classification again, before they found their magic 97 percent. People who express concern about the method have been smeared. . . .

This all stinks of a canard. Even as questions arise, the left is engaged in an all out push to ensconce human caused climate change as dogma and as a primary driver of our laws and social policy. The push is on through Common Core to teach anthropogenic global warming as settled science in grades K-12. With all of the dangers we face in the foreign arena, from a newly energized China and Russia to nuclear proliferation throughout the Middle East and the continuing existential danger from radical Islam, President Obama spoke at the Coast Guard academy claiming that our greatest national security threat is climate change. With all of the horrendous issues facing the black community today in Obama's America, with growing violence, single motherhood, horrid schools and declining economic opportunities, Michelle Obama spoke at Oberlin College and claimed that climate change was the new civil rights movement.

Actually, it is hard to think of anything more perfectly designed to screw the middle and lower middle class than the many "green" policies and costs that would arise out of a full embrace of the climate change canard. That carbon tax on fossil fuels would go to feed the left, but it would act as regressive tax on all Americans. Just as it is hard to think of anything less pressing to our national security than anthropogenic climate change.

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Twenty Two Climate Truths & One Rant (Updated)

From WUWT, a particularly good summary of the gaping holes in Anthropogenic Global Warming theory (hereinafter, "AGW"):

The 22 Inconvenient Truths

1. The Mean Global Temperature has been stable since 1997, despite a continuous increase of the CO2 content of the air: how could one say that the increase of the CO2 content of the air is the cause of the increase of the temperature? (discussion: p. 4)

2. 57% of the cumulative anthropic emissions since the beginning of the Industrial revolution have been emitted since 1997, but the temperature has been stable. How to uphold that anthropic CO2 emissions (or anthropic cumulative emissions) cause an increase of the Mean Global Temperature?

[Note 1: since 1880 the only one period where Global Mean Temperature and CO2 content of the air increased simultaneously has been 1978-1997. From 1910 to 1940, the Global Mean Temperature increased at about the same rate as over 1978-1997, while CO2 anthropic emissions were almost negligible. Over 1950-1978 while CO2 anthropic emissions increased rapidly the Global Mean Temperature dropped. From Vostok and other ice cores we know that it’s the increase of the temperature that drives the subsequent increase of the CO2 content of the air, thanks to ocean out-gassing, and not the opposite. The same process is still at work nowadays] (discussion: p. 7)

3. The amount of CO2 of the air from anthropic emissions is today no more than 6% of the total CO2 in the air (as shown by the isotopic ratios 13C/12C) instead of the 25% to 30% said by IPCC. (discussion: p. 9)

4. The lifetime of CO2 molecules in the atmosphere is about 5 years instead of the 100 years said by IPCC. (discussion: p. 10)

5. The changes of the Mean Global Temperature are more or less sinusoidal with a well defined 60 year period. We are at a maximum of the sinusoid(s) and hence the next years should be cooler as has been observed after 1950. (discussion: p. 12)

6. The absorption of the radiation from the surface by the CO2 of the air is nearly saturated. Measuring with a spectrometer what is left from the radiation of a broadband infrared source (say a black body heated at 1000°C) after crossing the equivalent of some tens or hundreds of meters of the air, shows that the main CO2 bands (4.3 µm and 15 µm) have been replaced by the emission spectrum of the CO2 which is radiated at the temperature of the trace-gas. (discussion: p. 14)

7. In some geological periods the CO2 content of the air has been up to 20 times today’s content, and there has been no runaway temperature increase! Why would our CO2 emissions have a cataclysmic impact? The laws of Nature are the same whatever the place and the time. (discussion: p. 17)

8. The sea level is increasing by about 1.3 mm/year according to the data of the tide-gauges (after correction of the emergence or subsidence of the rock to which the tide gauge is attached, nowadays precisely known thanks to high precision GPS instrumentation); no acceleration has been observed during the last decades; the raw measurements at Brest since 1846 and at Marseille since the 1880s are slightly less than 1.3 mm/year. (discussion: p. 18)

9. The “hot spot” in the inter-tropical high troposphere is, according to all “models” and to the IPCC reports, the indubitable proof of the water vapour feedback amplification of the warming: it has not been observed and does not exist. (discussion: p. 20)

10. The water vapour content of the air has been roughly constant since more than 50 years but the humidity of the upper layers of the troposphere has been decreasing: the IPCC foretold the opposite to assert its “positive water vapour feedback” with increasing CO2. The observed “feedback” is negative. (discussion: p.22)

11. The maximum surface of the Antarctic ice-pack has been increasing every year since we have satellite observations. (discussion: p. 24)

12. The sum of the surfaces of the Arctic and Antarctic icepacks is about constant, their trends are phase-opposite; hence their total albedo is about constant. (discussion: p. 25)

13. The measurements from the 3000 oceanic ARGO buoys since 2003 may suggest a slight decrease of the oceanic heat content between the surface and a depth 700 m with very significant regional differences. (discussion: p. 27)

14. The observed outgoing longwave emission (or thermal infrared) of the globe is increasing, contrary to what models say on a would-be “radiative imbalance”; the “blanket” effect of CO2 or CH4 “greenhouse gases” is not seen. (discussion:p. 29)

15. The Stefan Boltzmann formula does not apply to gases, as they are neither black bodies, nor grey bodies: why does the IPCC community use it for gases ? (discussion: p. 30)

16. The trace gases absorb the radiation of the surface and radiate at the temperature of the air which is, at some height, most of the time slightly lower that of the surface. The trace-gases cannot “heat the surface“, according to the second principle of thermodynamics which prohibits heat transfer from a cooler body to a warmer body. (discussion: p. 32)

17. The temperatures have always driven the CO2 content of the air, never the reverse. Nowadays the net increment of the CO2 content of the air follows very closely the inter-tropical temperature anomaly. (discussion: p. 33)

18. The CLOUD project at the European Center for Nuclear Research is probing the Svensmark-Shaviv hypothesis on the role of cosmic rays modulated by the solar magnetic field on the low cloud coverage; the first and encouraging results have been published in Nature. (discussion: p. 36)

19. Numerical “Climate models” are not consistent regarding cloud coverage which is the main driver of the surface temperatures. Project Earthshine (Earthshine is the ghostly glow of the dark side of the Moon) has been measuring changes of the terrestrial albedo in relation to cloud coverage data; according to cloud coverage data available since 1983, the albedo of the Earth has decreased from 1984 to 1998, then increased up to 2004 in sync with the Mean Global Temperature. (discussion: p. 37)

20. The forecasts of the “climate models” are diverging more and more from the observations. A model is not a scientific proof of a fact and if proven false by observations (or falsified) it must be discarded, or audited and corrected. We are still waiting for the IPCC models to be discarded or revised; but alas IPCC uses the models financed by the taxpayers both to “prove” attributions to greenhouse gas and to support forecasts of doom. (discussion: p. 40)

21. As said by IPCC in its TAR (2001) “we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.” Has this state of affairs changed since 2001? Surely not for scientific reasons. (discussion: p. 43)

22. Last but not least the IPCC is neither a scientific organization nor an independent organization: the summary for policy makers, the only part of the report read by international organizations, politicians and media is written under the very close supervision of the representative of the countries and of the non-governmental pressure groups.

The governing body of the IPCC is made of a minority of scientists almost all of them promoters of the environmentalist ideology, and a majority of state representatives and of non-governmental green organizations. (discussion: p. 46)

Do read the entire post along with the explanatory appendix. This is as good a summary as I've seen in some time. The first two facts noted by the author are really the meat of it all. The foundational theory of AGW is that, as more CO2 is pumped into our atmosphere, temperatures will rise proportionately. There is no support for this theory in the historical record predating modern temperature records, nor does the theory find any empirical support in the modern records, given that we have been pumping large amounts of CO2 into the air since 1997 with NO corresponding rise in temperature.

I am always amazed when the left, most of whom seem to embrace the AGW theory, accuse the right of being "anti-science" or "science deniers." It stands reality on its head. In a sane world, the gaping holes in AGW theory would lead scientists to discard the theory and start anew. The reality is that, as more facts show the fatal flaws with AGW theory, the left just becomes more strident in trying to shut down debate and in their claims that "the science is settled."

The truth is that there is much more than science at stake for the AGW crowd. For a very significant number of players, there are hundreds of billions of dollars at play in this scam, whether from carbon credits, renewable energy scams, cushy jobs at foundations, or even outright transfers of wealth from wealthy countries to third world nations (all to be administered by the UN, of course). And there seem to be more than a few watermelons (green on the outside, red on the inside) pushing this AGW canard for whom the thought of saving Gaia comes with an underlying motivation to do away with capitalism and democracy. Then there are the scientists riding the gravy train of grants and recognition who have, in some cases, falsified or presented deeply misleading research, as well as attempted to severely restrict the voices of any who would raise questions about AGW. And lastly, there are the useful idiots at the bottom who unthinkingly embrace AGW and go to bed thinking themselves not only morally superior for doing so, but as they are constantly told by AGW cheerleaders, much smarter than those on the right who object to AGW on the basis of unreliable and contrary data.

No area of science is more bastardized than "climate science." I have no problems following science experiments wherever they might lead, so long as the scientific method is practiced. But all too often in climate science, there is a complete failure in this regards. It is criminal the number of climate scientists who fail to adhere to the scientific method, trying to claim peer review as the gold standard of reliability rather than a complete posting of their experiment in such detail as to allow for reproduction and verification by other scientists. Even as I write this, the EPA is preparing to issue regulations that will cost our economy tens of billions of dollars, and which regulations are based on "secret science" that has never been made public so as to subject it to reproduction or verification. It is a mockery to call it "science." It is faith being sold as science.

Yet another significant concern I have is with the numerous unexplained changes to the historical record of our temperature data, something that Jim Hansen, then at NASA, started doing in the late 90's and which continues to this day. As it stands, I have no faith whatsoever in the historical temperature record relied upon by the UN IPCC. Though, it should be noted, those records only begin about the 1880's, with the first relatively reliable efforts to collect data from thermometers.

This is not an academic debate about AGW. People's lives across the world are being effected by this scam. Hundreds of billions of dollars that could be used productively are being wasted in this fraud. Economies are being strangled by regulations designed to drive out a trace gas necessary for life on this planet. It is a travesty and, indeed, criminal. A very large number of people need to be jailed over this fraud.

Update: A perfect illustration of why such green energy scams are unforgivable in their impacts on people's lives comes from Germany:

According to EU data, Germany’s average residential electricity rate is 29.8 cents per kilowatt hour. This is approximately double the 14.2 cents and 15.9 cents per kWh paid by residents of Germany’s neighbors Poland and France, respectively, and almost two and a half times the U.S. average of 12 cents per kWh. Germany’s industrial electricity rate of 16 cents per kWh is also much higher than France’s 9.6 cents or Poland’s 8.3 cents. The average German per capita electricity consumption is 0.8 kilowatts. At a composite rate of 24 cents per kWh, this works out to a yearly bill of $1,700 per person, experienced either directly in utility bills or indirectly through increased costs of goods and services. The median household income in Germany is $33,000, so if we assume an average of two people per household, the electricity cost would amount to more than 10 percent of available income. And that is for the median-income household. The amount of electricity that people need does not scale in proportion to their paychecks. For the rich, $1,700 per year in electric bills might be a pittance, or at most a nuisance. But for the poor who are just scraping by, such a burden is simply brutal.

HT: Instapundit

While here at home, we are but a half step behind Germany:

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is preparing to finalize its Clean Power Plan, which aims to reduce power plant carbon dioxide emissions by 30% from 2005 levels over the next 15 years. Looking at some of the best-case scenarios for CO2 reductions, the plan could potentially cut roughly 300 million tons of CO2 annually. Because global man-made CO2 emissions reach roughly 30 billion tons annually, it’s estimated that the EPA plan could result in a possible 1% reduction in annual man-made CO2. Overall, man-made CO2 accounts for only 4% of total atmospheric CO2. So the true atmospheric reduction in CO2 from the EPA plan would be approximately 0.04%. The cost for this plan is estimated at $50 billion annually, with the loss of roughly 15,000 U.S. jobs each year. Increases in household utility bills could reach $100 billion annually.

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Wolf Bytes: The 'We're Watching You' Edition

Taking joy in one's holidays: A Rube Goldberg Passover Celebration

Indiana isn’t targeting gays; liberals are targeting religion: Indiana's RFRA & The New Intolerance

And the shameless leftie hypocrisy award has to go to Apple CEO Tim Cook, who just bashed Indiana for their RFRA: Apple Does Business In Countries That Execute Homosexuals

Perhaps some of the left's priorities are misplaced: It’s Legal to Kill Babies, But Let’s Worry About a Gay Person’s Right to Cake

Of course, religion in the west is not the penultimate target of the left: Noam Chomsky On How The Foundational Document of Western Civilization, The Magna Carta, "Messed Up The World"

Would that the left showed the same degree of concern for the ever growing e-mail scandal: Hillary, despite claiming that she set up a private e-mail account so she could use one receptor device, regularly used two devices for her e-mail

Even Nixon wasn't this shameless: Hillary Wiped Her Personal Server Clean, Quite Possibly In Violation Of Several Criminal Statutes

Meanwhile, we get to live life in a socialist regulatory bureaucracy run wild: You Are Probably Breaking The Law Right Now
While I agree with Prof. Reynold's comments about partial correction, the real correction is to reestablish the Constitutional balance. Nothing should pass with the force of legislation that has not been voted upon by our elected representatives. See Art. 1 Sec. 1 of our Constitution.

Peer review is not a measure of reliability or accuracy, nor is it in any way a substitute for the scientific method: The Peerless Pitfalls of Peer Review

And while on the subject of peer reviewed articles: Institute of Physics Accused of Corruption as Climate Change '97% Consensus' Claim is Debunked

South Korea doesn't have a welfare state: The Sea Women of South Korea

Let's round this out with the greatest hits of MSNBC:

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Wolf Bytes: The Missing Trillion Dollars Edition

The Left Only Knows How To Exploit An Economy, Not Run One: Obama's Economic Estimates Of Growth Come Up A Trillion Short, And What Gains There Are Have Gone To The Top 20%

It's not just that facts don't matter, the AGW crowd are just mailing it in these days: UW Madison Says Climate Change Hurting Soy Crops Amid Record Yields

It's not pretty: Some Brits Take A Glimpse At A Developing Post-America World

Tradition: 5,000 Years Ago, Egyptians Brewed Beer In Tel Aviv

Let's start that dialogue: Genderflecting With Pep Boys

The anti-science left: Will Agriculture Be Allowed To Feed 9 Billion People With GMO Crops?

The benefits of multiculturalism, and is there no viking blood still flowing through the veins of Swedish men?: Sweden Now The Rape Capital Of The World

I never would have thought it possible: Poetic Math

I prefer to get mine directly from the source: Don't Buy Breastmilk Off The Internet

It would make for an interesting trip: Algorithm Used To Plan The Mother Of All Roadtrips

We can dream, can't we: The Ten Most Common "Shades Of Gray" For Men and Women

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Arrogance, AGW, Achenbach & Science

In the debate over climate change, the central allegation of the skeptics is that the science saying it’s real and a serious threat is politically tinged, driven by environmental activism and not hard data. That’s not true, and it slanders honest scientists. But the claim becomes more likely to be seen as plausible if scientists go beyond their professional expertise and begin advocating specific policies.

Joel Achenbach, Why science is so hard to believe. Washington Post, Feb. 12, 2015

Joel Achenbach has written an article in the Post aimed at marginalizing those who question the canard of man-made global warming. This is, in many ways, a left / right issue. The vast numbers of those who fully support AGW are on the left. Alarmingly, they intend to use the supposedly settled science in support of AGW to rework the world's economy and impose a sort of green communism on the world.

Those opposed to this radical plan do not contest "climate change," but fall along an entire spectrum from those who question whether carbon dioxide is the culprit to those who believe that the vastly overblown threat of devestation -- based on failed computer modeling -- do not justify the radical left wing plans.

Ignoring the varied concerns of all who oppose the left, Achenbach sets up a straw man who is irrational and being led astray by a small number of science prostitutes being paid by dark money for their advocacy. Achenbach compares his strawman to a litany of other irrational people in a list that bears some scrutiny:

1. People of Portland who refuse to floridate their water. Achenbach fails to note that Portland is the bluest of blue left wing cities.
2. Anti-vaxxers. Achenbach fails to note that this is largely a movement of the left.
3. Anti-GMO. Achenbach fails to note that this is almost entirely a movement of the left.
4. People who contested that the earth revolves around the sun in the 16th century.
5. Those who were concerned that ebola might be spread by airborne transmission.

That last one is particularly of note. Achenbach writes:

The world crackles with real and imaginary hazards, and distinguishing the former from the latter isn’t easy. Should we be afraid that the Ebola virus, which is spread only by direct contact with bodily fluids, will mutate into an airborne super-plague? The scientific consensus says that’s extremely unlikely: No virus has ever been observed to completely change its mode of transmission in humans, and there’s zero evidence that the latest strain of Ebola is any different. But Google “airborne Ebola” and you’ll enter a dystopia where this virus has almost supernatural powers, including the power to kill us all.

Considering that ebola mortality can range from 20% to 90% -- figures on par with the mortality rate for the Black Plague that killed half of Europe in the 14th century -- only a fool would not be concerned. Thankfully, according to Achenbach, we are saved by the scientific consensus . . . . Or at least we were until, on Feb. 19, when the Washington Post ran a story, "Limited airborne transmission of Ebola is ‘very likely,’ new analysis says."

Perhaps the most offensive part of Achenbach's article is when he explains the scientific method, implying that the science of AGW is based on legitimate studies that can be reproduced by other scientists. Reproducability is the sina que non of science. The problem with so very much of AGW "science" is that the scientists do not put out sufficient information to allow their results to be analyzed by others. Steve MacIntrye has made a cottage industry out of trying to get AGW researchers to actually conform to the scientific method. The most recent glaring example of grad student Mike Wallace who wanted to analyze a study by two NOAA scientists that, they claimed before Congress, showed that the oceans were acidifying and in significant danger because of excessive carbon dioxide. When Wallace contacted the study's authors because their underlying data wasn't archived -- per the scientific method -- the authors gave Wallace the run around and then threatened his career for pursuing the matter further. It turns out that the study ignored all of the historic data that showed the oceans are not acidifying. The study was a fraud.

Wallace's experience is not an anamoly. As I pointed out in The Not So Settled Science of AGW, the scientists pushing anthropogenic global warming, as long ago as Michael Mann's hockey stick, stopped adhering to the scientific method and tried to substitute peer review in its place as the standard for reliability. It's a fraud and a travesty. Indeed, the greatest change needed in relation to government funding of science is an absolute requirement that any funded research requires the authors to post all information necessary for their experiment to be analyzed and reproduced. Anything less is not science.

After reading Achenbach's article, I am pretty sure that his target audience were those who blindly accept AGW. Achenbach is trying to reassure them of their intellectual superiority in comparison to the irrationality of the skeptics on the right. His problem is, like the science of AGW itself, his arguments do not withstand the least bit of scrutiny. As to the right, the science of AGW is so hard to believe because there are huge questions regarding the validity of the studies and computer models. As to the left and their problems with floridation, vaccines and the like, well, it would appear that they are irrational deniers of largely settled science.

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The Proven Science About Carbon Dioxide

Here is what we actually know about CO2:

1. Current CO2 levels in the atmosphere are about 400 parts per million today. They have risen about 30 or 40 ppm over the past sixteen years, during which time there has been no planetary warming.

2. In geological terms, CO2 levels are much lower today than in the past. Some 65 million years ago, CO2 levels were at 3,000 parts per million. Believe it or not, life flourished.

3. During warming and cooling trends on geologic scales, CO2 levels have been a lagging indicator, showing increases after planetary warming. There is no evidence of CO2 levels ever having driven planetary warming. The belief that CO2 increases will drive planetary warming are found only in modern warmie computer models.

4. CO2 is necessary for plant growth. More CO2 means better agricultural yields. And indeed, some scientists have tied our ability to feed an ever expanding population to the industrial revolution and increasing atmospheric CO2.

Nevertheless, the warmies have been sliming CO2 as a dangerous pollutant. Today, in the WSJ, two scientists, former Apollo 17 astronaut, former Sen. and now professor of engineering at the Univ. of Wisconsin, Harrison Schmitt, and Princeton Univ. physics professor William Harper, respond:

Of all of the world's chemical compounds, none has a worse reputation than carbon dioxide. Thanks to the single-minded demonization of this natural and essential atmospheric gas by advocates of government control of energy production, the conventional wisdom about carbon dioxide is that it is a dangerous pollutant. That's simply not the case. Contrary to what some would have us believe, increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will benefit the increasing population on the planet by increasing agricultural productivity.

The cessation of observed global warming for the past decade or so has shown how exaggerated NASA's and most other computer predictions of human-caused warming have been—and how little correlation warming has with concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide. As many scientists have pointed out, variations in global temperature correlate much better with solar activity and with complicated cycles of the oceans and atmosphere. There isn't the slightest evidence that more carbon dioxide has caused more extreme weather.

The current levels of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere, approaching 400 parts per million, are low by the standards of geological and plant evolutionary history. Levels were 3,000 ppm, or more, until the Paleogene period (beginning about 65 million years ago). For most plants, and for the animals and humans that use them, more carbon dioxide, far from being a "pollutant" in need of reduction, would be a benefit. This is already widely recognized by operators of commercial greenhouses, who artificially increase the carbon dioxide levels to 1,000 ppm or more to improve the growth and quality of their plants.

Using energy from sunlight—together with the catalytic action of an ancient enzyme called rubisco, the most abundant protein on earth—plants convert carbon dioxide from the air into carbohydrates and other useful molecules. Rubisco catalyzes the attachment of a carbon-dioxide molecule to another five-carbon molecule to make two three-carbon molecules, which are subsequently converted into carbohydrates. (Since the useful product from the carbon dioxide capture consists of three-carbon molecules, plants that use this simple process are called C3 plants.) C3 plants, such as wheat, rice, soybeans, cotton and many forage crops, evolved when there was much more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than today. So these agricultural staples are actually undernourished in carbon dioxide relative to their original design. , , ,

We know that carbon dioxide has been a much larger fraction of the earth's atmosphere than it is today, and the geological record shows that life flourished on land and in the oceans during those times. The incredible list of supposed horrors that increasing carbon dioxide will bring the world is pure belief disguised as science.

Do read the whole article.

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A Short Summary Of Why The Theory Of Man Made Global Warming Has Failed

Prof. Bob Carter, an Aussie scientist, gives a very good summary of why the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) has failed. That theory has at its heart the hypothesis that carbon dioxide is the biggest driver of our climate and that, as carbon dioxide increases in the atmosphere, our temperatures will warm proportionately. This from a post by Prof. Carter at WUWT:

Though you wouldn’t know it from the antagonistic nature of public discussions about global warming, a large measure of scientific agreement and shared interpretation exists amongst nearly all scientists who consider the issue. The common ground . . . includes:

· that climate has always changed and always will,

· that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and warms the lower atmosphere,

· that human emissions are accumulating in the atmosphere,

· that a global warming of around 0.5OC occurred in the 20th century, but

· that global warming has ceased over the last 15 years.

The scientific argument over DAGW is therefore about none of these things. Rather, it is almost entirely about three other, albeit related, issues. They are:

· the amount of net warming that is, or will be, produced by human-related emissions,

· whether any actual evidence exists for dangerous warming of human causation over the last 50 years, and

· whether the IPCC’s computer models can provide accurate climate predictions 100 years into the future.

. . . My answers would be: insignificant, none and no.

What can possibly explain such disparate responses to a largely agreed set of factual climate data?

. . . Given the great natural variability exhibited by climate records, and the failure to date to compartmentalize or identify a human signal within them, the proper null hypothesis – because it is the simplest consistent with the known facts – is that global climate changes are presumed to be natural, unless and until specific evidence is forthcoming for human causation.

It is one of the more extraordinary facts about the IPCC that the research studies it favours mostly proceed using an (unjustified) inversion of the null hypothesis – namely that global climate changes are presumed to be due to human-related carbon dioxide emissions, unless and until specific evidence indicates otherwise.

What hypothesis do we wish to test?

. . . The DAGW hypothesis that I want to test here is precisely and only “that dangerous global warming is being caused, or will be, by human-related carbon dioxide emissions”. To be “dangerous”, at a minimum the change must exceed the magnitude or rate of warmings that are known to be associated with normal weather and climatic variability.

What evidence can we use to test the DAGW hypothesis?

Many different lines of evidence can be used to test the DAGW hypothesis. Here I have space to present just five, all of which are based upon real world empirical data. For more information, please read both Dr. Hayhoe’s and my book.

Consider the following tests:

(i) Over the last 16 years, global average temperature, as measured by both thermometers and satellite sensors, has displayed no statistically significant warming; over the same period, atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased by 10%.

Large increases in carbon dioxide have therefore not only failed to produce dangerous warming, but failed to produce any warming at all. Hypothesis fails.

(ii) During the 20th century, a global warming of between 0.4O C and 0.7O C occurred, at a maximum rate, in the early decades of the century, of about 1.7O C/century. In comparison, our best regional climate records show that over the last 10,000 years natural climate cycling has resulted in temperature highs up to at least 1O C warmer than today, at rates of warming up to 2.5O C/century.

In other words, both the rate and magnitude of 20th century warming falls well within the envelope of natural climate change. Hypothesis fails, twice.

(iii) If global temperature is controlled primarily by atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, then changes in carbon dioxide should precede parallel changes in temperature.

In fact, the opposite relationship applies at all time scales. Temperature change precedes carbon dioxide change by about 5 months during the annual seasonal cycle, and by about 700-1000 years during ice age climatic cycling. Hypothesis fails.

(iv) The IPCC’s computer general circulation models, which factor in the effect of increasing carbon dioxide, project that global warming should be occurring at a rate of +2.0O C/century.

In fact, no warming at all has occurred in either the atmosphere or the ocean for more than the last decade. The models are clearly faulty, and allocate too great a warming effect for the extra carbon dioxide (technically, they are said to overestimate the climate sensitivity). Hypothesis fails.

(v) The same computer models predict that a fingerprint of greenhouse-gas-induced warming will be the creation of an atmospheric hot spot at heights of 8-10 km in equatorial regions, and enhanced warming also near both poles.

Given that we already know that the models are faulty, it shouldn’t surprise us to discover that direct measurements by both weather balloon radiosondes and satellite sensors show the absence of surface warming in Antarctica, and a complete absence of the predicted low latitude atmospheric hot spot. Hypothesis fails, twice.

. . . .

Summary

The current scientific reality is that the IPCC’s hypothesis of dangerous global warming has been repeatedly tested, and fails. Despite the expenditure of large sums of money over the last 25 years (more than $100 billion), and great research effort by IPCC-related and other (independent) scientists, to date no scientific study has established a certain link between changes in any significant environmental parameter and human-caused carbon dioxide emissions. . . .

My one caveat to Dr. Carter's summary would be that I have zero trust in the assertion that any warming has occurred in the 20th century, simply because I do not trust the temperature records maintained by global warming theories high priest, James Hansen. Hansen has modified our temperature records on more than one occasion, always reducing older temperatures from the early and mid 20th century while increasing modern temperatures. He should be in jail.

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IPCC Reviewer - "There Is Not A Scrap Of Evidence" Supporting Anthropogenic Global Warming

From Dr. Vincent Gray:

I have been an Expert Reviewer on every one of the Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and I can tell you that there is not a scrap of evidence in any of them that human emissions of carbon dioxide have any harmful effect on the climate.

How have they got away with it?

Attempts to "simulate" their unreliable and manipulated past climate "data" have been failures, yet are claimed as successes, But even if the "data" were genuine and the simulation successful it does not prove anything. Correlation, however convincing is not evidence of causation. The only way you can demonstrate the success of any theory is successful prediction of future climate over the whole range it is intended to be used, to a satisfactory level of accuracy. This has already been done with Newton's Laws of motion and Darwin's theories of evolution. It has not been done with the "global warming" theory. There has been no successful attempt to predict any future climate event. They do not even pretend they can do it, as they only provide "projections" from their models, not "predictions": .

How have they persuaded us that they are able to predict future climate?

They operate a system called "attribution". This is a combination of "simulation" (correlation), and "assessment" by "experts". The "experts" are all paid to provide the models that they are assessing. These assessments are therefore an elaborate and comprehensive conflict of interest.

They apply a whole series of "likelihoods" to each "assessment" and apply a fake "statistical significance" which, unlike those normally applied to genuine science, have no background of actual experimental observations.

(H/T Counting Cats)

Dr. Gray's stinging criticism of the IPCC for their computer model antics goes hand in glove with similar criticism by IPCC Reviewer Alec Rawls and Dr. David Evans. AGW theory is on its last legs. With no global warming for the past 15 years, virtually the entire theory of AGW now rests on Kevin Trenberth's untested hypothisis - generated by a computer model of course - that all of the missing global surface warming has transferred to the ocean deeps. AGW cannot be allowed to die a quiet death. There needs to be an accounting when all is said and done.

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The Regressive Green Agenda & A History Lesson

At Oh What Now, the blogger, a retired marine engineer, has reposted a brilliant "comment" that he left at the radical green site, DeSmog Blog. In the comment - an essay, really - Nick discusses man's history of innovation in response to climate change and then challenges the modern greenie agenda as highly regressive:

Green thinking - more harm than good?

When the climate took a turn for the worse during the so-called Younger Dryas period some 12,000 years ago, our ancestors didn’t don a hair shirt and hope for the best. They innovated. A sharp return to ice age like conditions helped precipitate the development of agriculture in the Levant, a hugely successful innovation that soon diffused to other settled regions. So if contemporary climate change is to be taken as seriously as many Greens urge, our response should also be innovation driven. Why then does much of our current Green thinking focus on environmentally and socially regressive ideas?

While the development of agriculture during the Neolithic revolution was to change the world for the better, the real awakening from millennia of Malthusian stagnation was the industrial revolution. Whether through the far-reaching ideas of the Scottish enlightenment or the innovations of James Watt, it was realised that the future could be radically different from the past.

For example, in the late 19th century the growing use of steam power enabled energy and labour costs to decouple for the first time in human history. Energy became cheap while prosperity soared, not through crass consumerism, but through badly needed economic growth that provided an escape from agrarian poverty. It is the surplus from that innovation driven growth that now enables the provision of public services such as health and education. Nurses nurse and teachers teach only because someone else is providing their Joules, Calories and other material needs.

While innovation has undeniably delivered immense improvements in the human condition, innovation is also the principal route through which human needs can gradually be decoupled from the environment. . . .

Do read it all. It is simply a superb essay that I recommend to everyone.

I would add two things. One, Nick does his analysis assuming that green agenda is predicated on protecting Gaia. I don't. It appears to me that the green agenda and the acts taken to further it are, in large measure, a vehicle for gaining political power with a mandate to control man's activities. When you add that as an additional rubric for analysis, I think many of the green's acts and positions make musch more sense.

Further, Nick notes that his comment on DeSmog blog only lasted two days before it was deleted. Lefties, particularly the more radical ones, are not willing to tolerate any opinion that conflicts with their dogma. They don't debate facts, they just want to impose their beliefs. Such fanatics are, in equal measure, insecure, totalitarian and dangerous.

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Victor Davis Hanson Makes An Excellent Point

This from Victor Davis Hanson writing at PJM:

Conservatives are put into awkward positions of critiquing liberal ideas on grounds that they are impractical, unworkable, or counterproductive. Yet rarely, at least outside the religious sphere, do they identify the progressive as often immoral. And the unfortunate result is that they have often ceded moral claims to supposedly dreamy, utopian, and well-meaning progressives, when in fact the latter increasingly have little moral ground to stand upon.

Having pondered that for a bit, its clear that VDS has articulated an insightful and important point. VDS goes into detail, explaining how radical environmentalism, multiculturalism, illegal immigration, and affirmative action make his point. Do read his entire article. This is a suggestion that all on the right should take to heart. It is decades beyond time for the right to stop ceding the moral high ground to those on the left who are merely posing atop it.

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Why I Take Nothing From Warmies At Face Value

Nothing makes me see red in the AGW debates like another warmie hiding data, thus negating the scientific method. Yet it seems to be SOP for warmies. The latest example comes from a urinating match between Michael Mann and Hu McColloch. You can read about it at Climate Audit. The passage that caught my eye was this:

If all of Thompson’s cores had been fully archived at the NCDC’s website, as is customary for this sort of data, it would be feasible to back out which ones he used by a least squares regression on decadal averages of all of them, region by region. The excluded ones would then simply show a zero coefficient. However, with the notable exception of Quelccaya, Thompson has kept most of this primarily NSF-funded data to himself (and a few select friends, apparently), for one, two, or even three decades after it was collected.

This is criminal. But there is a very simple solution. Anyone who accepts public funding for their research but who then refuses to make all data and methods fully available to the public should thereafter be permanently ineligible for all future public grants.

If they are not following the scientific method, than it is not science. Indeed, their findings are useless but for warmie propaganda.

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Warmie Models Versus Reality

Dr. David Evans of Australia has written what amounts to a primer for non-scientists on the failure of warmie computer modeling. Warmie models are all predicated on the basic assumption that as CO2 increases, temperatures will increase. More specifically, it is not just the increasing CO2, but how other natural systems of our earth - referred to in the warmie world as "feedbacks" - react to the increasing CO2 in the atmosphere that are supposed to cause the warming. The warmies make these feedbacks a threefold multiplier in attempting to project global warming. As Dr. Evan's explains:

Feedbacks are due to the ways the Earth reacts to the direct warming effect of the CO2. The threefold amplification by feedbacks is based on the assumption, or guess, made around 1980, that more warming due to CO2 will cause more evaporation from the oceans and that this extra water vapor will in turn lead to even more heat trapping because water vapor is the main greenhouse gas. And extra heat will cause even more evaporation, and so on. This amplification is built into all the climate models. The amount of amplification is estimated by assuming that nearly all the industrial-age warming is due to our CO2.

So, how have the warmie models held up against the data?  For full and detailed explanations, see Dr. Evan's post.  But the quick down and dirty from the graphs:

1. Jim Hansen's 1998 Projections

2. IPCC 1990 Computer Model Projections

3. ARGO Sea Temperature Data vs. Models

4, Atmospheric "Hot Spot"

This one requires a little explanation. If the warmie models were accurate, data should show a hot spot in mid to upper atmosphere centered over the equator.

5.  Outgoing radiation versus ocean temperatures.

This is another one that requires some explaination:

The top left graph shows what has actually happened - as oceans warm, more heat is radiated into space. All of the rest of the graphs are from climate models.  As you can tell from the slope, they each project that the opposite will occur, that as ocean temperatures increase, more of the heat will be trapped on earth and less radiated into space.

As Dr. Evan's concludes:

The climate models get them all wrong. The missing hotspot and outgoing radiation data both, independently, prove that the amplification in the climate models is not present. Without the amplification, the climate model temperature predictions would be cut by at least two thirds, which would explain why they overestimated the recent air and ocean temperature increases.

Therefore:

1. The climate models are fundamentally flawed. Their assumed threefold amplification by feedbacks does not in fact exist.

2. The climate models overestimate temperature rises due to CO2 by at least a factor of three.

The skeptical view is compatible with the data.

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Just What Does "Debate" Mean To The Warmies?

To justify his acts in fraudulently obtaining the Heartland Institute documents (for background, see here), warmie scientist Peter Gleick issued a mea culpa, stating in relevant part:

I will not comment on the substance or implications of the materials; others have and are doing so. I only note that the scientific understanding of the reality and risks of climate change is strong, compelling, and increasingly disturbing, and a rational public debate is desperately needed. My judgment was blinded by my frustration with the ongoing efforts — often anonymous, well-funded, and coordinated — to attack climate science and scientists and prevent this debate, and by the lack of transparency of the organizations involved.

Oh really?

It turns out that on January 13, the Heartland Institute formally invited Peter Glieck to appear at their annual dinner to engage in . . .wait for it . . . a rational public debate over global warming. The offer came with all expenses paid plus a $5,000 donation to the charity of Glieck's choice. Glieck ultimately refused the invitation shortly before his act of fraud (well, fraud at least, and most likely forgery in addition). Climate Audit has all the details. If this doesn't spike the hypocrisy meter, nothing will.

And indeed, note that Glieck is accusing the innocent Heartland of doing what Glieck has actually done. Shameless bastard.

But Glieck is not alone in this. He is parroting the warmie line about the need for "rational public debate." The problem is that you don't get that from the warmies. What you get is evasion and dirty tricks on a grand scale in order to delegitimize contrary thought without having to debate. That was the whole gist of Climategate 1 and Climategate 2. What Glieck did was just take that refusal to the next slightly higher level of anti-science and hypocrisy.

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A Response To The Warmie Nonsense

In a post here, I pointed out that surface temperatures have not increased in the past 15 years, that all of the IPCC climate models had failed, and that the warmies' AGW theory, that temperatures will increase in direct proportion to the amount of CO2 pumped by humans into the atmosphere, had proven false. Indeed, today, AGW theory rests on a single untested hypothesis from warmie scientist Kevin Trenberth. As I quoted Trenberth from his essay in the WSJ:

[C]omputer models have recently shown that during periods when there is a smaller increase of surface temperatures, warming is occurring elsewhere in the climate system, typically in the deep ocean. Such periods are a relatively common climate phenomenon, are consistent with our physical understanding of how the climate system works, and certainly do not invalidate our understanding of human-induced warming or the models used to simulate that warming.

Trenberth had written the above in response to an essay by sixteen sceptic scientists, "No Need to Panic About Global Warming,". Those same scientists have now responded to Trenberth's essay, including his claim that global warming is continuing, just only in the deep ocean. This from the WSJ:

[A]n important gauge of scientific expertise is the ability to make successful predictions. When predictions fail, we say the theory is "falsified" and we should look for the reasons for the failure. Shown in the nearby graph is the measured annual temperature of the earth since 1989, just before the first report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Also shown are the projections of the likely increase of temperature, as published in the Summaries of each of the four IPCC reports, the first in the year 1990 and the last in the year 2007.

The Trenberth letter tells us that "computer models have recently shown that during periods when there is a smaller increase of surface temperatures, warming is occurring elsewhere in the climate system, typically in the deep ocean." The ARGO system of diving buoys is providing increasingly reliable data on the temperature of the upper layers of the ocean, where much of any heat from global warming must reside. But much like the surface temperature shown in the graph, the heat content of the upper layers of the world's oceans is not increasing nearly as fast as IPCC models predict, perhaps not increasing at all. Why should we now believe exaggerating IPCC models that tell us of "missing heat" hiding in the one place where it cannot yet be reliably measured—the deep ocean?

Why indeed?

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Oh What A Tangled Web AGW Fanatics Weave . . .

The Heartland Institute is a tiny libertarian think tank that does a yeomans' job of promoting the many studies and scientific findings that run contrary to the global warming dogma. They run on a shoestring annual budget of $6 million and employ all of 40 people. And yet by pointing out the chinks in the AGW armor, they have become a huge thorn in the side of those who want all to accept unquestioningly the canard of man-made global warming.

A weak ago, on Valentine's Day, there was an "anonymous leak" of documents originating from the Heartland Institute, including one damning "2012 strategy" document that conveniently proved all the things the AGW fanatic crowd just knew to be true about evil global warming deniers - my own personal favorite being that Heartland was conspiring to stop k-12 grades from "teaching science." Within hours of the release, warmie blogs were awash with the news, twitter was on fire with it, and Suzanne Goldenberg wrote an article at the Guardian, highlighting all the juicy bits from the strategy document.

Except . . . it wasn't a "leak," and Heartland claimed that the damning "2012 strategy" document was a forgery. As to the "strategy" document, numerous people pulled that apart to see if it would withstand scrutiny. Megan McArdle at the Atlantic published the best analysis of why the "strategy" document did not appear at all genuine based on technical evidence, along with a follow-up. As to the substance of what appeared in the strategy document, Steve MacIntyre at Climate Audit evaluated its authenticity and found it to be sorely lacking:

On or before Feb 13, the “unknown person” or an associate (who subsequently called himself Heartland Insider), fabricated a document entitled “Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy Memo”. Its pdf version was created on Feb 13 at 12:41 Pacific time.

Although media that were duped by the fake memo have tried to argue that its contents are fully supported by the board documents, in my opinion, numerous claims in the fake memo, including the money quotes that animated so many articles, are readily seen to be unsupported by the unfabricated documents, as well as being untrue.

1. The fake memo stated that Heartland planned to develop a Global Warming curriculum aimed at “dissuading teachers from teaching science”. This damning phrase occurs nowhere in the board documents or elsewhere.

2. The fake memo put the Koch foundation, prominent in climate activist demonology, in a place of particular prominence and stated that it was funding Heartland’s climate programs to the tune of $200,000 in 2011 and that greater contributions were being sought in 2012. In fact, Koch had contributed only $25,000 to Heartland’s Health Care (HCN) program in 2011 and $200,000 was being sought for this program in 2012. (Quite aside from other marks of forgery, it is inconceivable to me that Bast would make this sort of error in a board memo.)

3. The fake memo stated that Heartland was seeking contributions for their climate programs “especially from corporations whose interests are threatened by climate policies”. There is no support for this in the document and it appears to be untrue: the board documents show that Heartland’s climate activities were almost entirely financed by an individual.

4. The fake memo exaggerated the scale of Heartland’s climate programs. It said that they sponsored NIPCC to “undermine” the IPCC (a term not used in the actual documents and a word more characteristic of activist than skeptical literature) and that, additionally, it “paid a team of writers” to produce editions of Climate Change Reconsidered (actual documents – team 0f “scientists”, double-counting the expenditures.

5. The fake memo said that it was “important to keep opposing voices out” of Forbes, which was characterized as having previously been “reliably anti-climate”, but which had now begun “to allow high-profile climate scientists (such as Gleick) to post warmist science essays that counter our own”. There is nothing remotely supporting this assertion in board documents or elsewhere. The anomalous prominence of Gleick (as opposed to the more logical Hansen, Gore or Mann, Jones and the Climategaters) attracted attention in later commentary.

6. The fake memo said that Heartland was coordinating “with external networks (such as WUWT and other groups capable of rapidly mobilizing responses to new scientific findings, news stories, or unfavorable blog posts”, a sort of skeptic answer to the Climate Rapid Response Team of Scott Mandia, John Abraham and Peter Gleick. There is nothing in the actual documents to support this.

7. The fake memo proposed the cultivation of “more neutral voices” such as Revkin and Curry, an idea that surprised both Revkin and Curry and which is not supported in the actual documents.

8. The fake memo gave the impression of “increased” activity in 2012, describing Heartland as “part of a growing network of groups working the climate issues, some of which [they] support financially”, whereas the actual documents showed reduced activity in 2012, as a result of declining funding, with no plans to hold the climate conference that they had sponsored for the previous few years.

Lucia observes in a post today that the fake memo also purports to show intentional deception on the part of Heartland officers by, for example, deliberately concealing the confidential memo from part of the board of directors (“distributed to a subset of Institute Board and senior staff”). See her post for other examples.

As to the "leak," there was no disgruntled "insider" seeking to expose the truth. It turns out that someone had posed as a board member to trick a secretary at Heartland to send them a copy of briefing documents. And today, we now know who that someone was - warmie scientist Peter Gleick, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a frequent lecturer on "integrity in science," and indeed, until today apparently, a member of the American Geophysical Union's (AGU) Task Force on Scientific Ethics. You can read more on Mr. Gliek at the Telegraph, where James Delingpole is obviously enjoying the warmie angst.

At any rate, Mr. Gliek, issued a limited mea culpa today, admitting to fraudulently obtaining the briefing documents, claiming that his actions were justified by Heartland and those who dare question AGW, and further claiming that the 2012 Strategy document was not forged:

At the beginning of 2012, I received an anonymous document in the mail describing what appeared to be details of the Heartland Institute’s climate program strategy. It contained information about their funders and the Institute’s apparent efforts to muddy public understanding about climate science and policy. I do not know the source of that original document but assumed it was sent to me because of my past exchanges with Heartland and because I was named in it.

Given the potential impact however, I attempted to confirm the accuracy of the information in this document. In an effort to do so, and in a serious lapse of my own and professional judgment and ethics, I solicited and received additional materials directly from the Heartland Institute under someone else’s name. The materials the Heartland Institute sent to me confirmed many of the facts in the original document, including especially their 2012 fundraising strategy and budget. I forwarded, anonymously, the documents I had received to a set of journalists and experts working on climate issues. I can explicitly confirm, as can the Heartland Institute, that the documents they emailed to me are identical to the documents that have been made public. I made no changes or alterations of any kind to any of the Heartland Institute documents or to the original anonymous communication.

I will not comment on the substance or implications of the materials; others have and are doing so. I only note that the scientific understanding of the reality and risks of climate change is strong, compelling, and increasingly disturbing, and a rational public debate is desperately needed. My judgment was blinded by my frustration with the ongoing efforts — often anonymous, well-funded, and coordinated — to attack climate science and scientists and prevent this debate, and by the lack of transparency of the organizations involved. Nevertheless I deeply regret my own actions in this case. I offer my personal apologies to all those affected.

The many bloggers who have been touting the 2012 Strategy document now claim that Gliek has "authenticated" it for them. They are being willfully blind and refusing to ask even the most basic questions.

This is going to be resolved very quickly. Someone very soon - whether it be law enforcement or a civil attorney for Heartland - is going to demand those "original" documents Gliek claims to have received in January. Just as a threshold matter, if all he can produce is a copy of the 2012 Strategy memo with metadata showing a February 13 creation date, this will all come crashing down around his ears. Indeed, the warmies who are still staking their reputation on Gliek ought to be the first ones demanding he produce the originals that he claims now to have received in January.

The Heartland Institute, which previously issued cease and desist letters to all of the blogs and papers who had made use of the 2012 strategy forgery, released this statement today in response to Mr. Gliek's partial confession:

Earlier this evening, Peter Gleick, a prominent figure in the global warming movement, confessed to stealing electronic documents from The Heartland Institute in an attempt to discredit and embarrass a group that disagrees with his views.

Gleick’s crime was a serious one. The documents he admits stealing contained personal information about Heartland staff members, donors, and allies, the release of which has violated their privacy and endangered their personal safety.

An additional document Gleick represented as coming from The Heartland Institute, a forged memo purporting to set out our strategies on global warming, has been extensively cited by newspapers and in news releases and articles posted on Web sites and blogs around the world. It has caused major and permanent damage to the reputations of The Heartland Institute and many of the scientists, policy experts, and organizations we work with.

A mere apology is not enough to undo the damage.

In his statement, Gleick claims he committed this crime because he believed The Heartland Institute was preventing a “rational debate” from taking place over global warming. This is unbelievable. Heartland has repeatedly asked for real debate on this important topic. Gleick himself was specifically invited to attend a Heartland event to debate global warming just days before he stole the documents. He turned down the invitation.

Gleick also claims he did not write the forged memo, but only stole the documents to confirm the content of the memo he received from an anonymous source. This too is unbelievable. Many independent commentators already have concluded the memo was most likely written by Gleick.

We hope Gleick will make a more complete confession in the next few days.

We are consulting with legal counsel to determine our next steps and plan to release a more complete statement about the situation tomorrow. In the meantime, we ask again that publishers, bloggers, and Web site hosts take the stolen and fraudulent documents off their sites, remove defamatory commentary based on them, and issue retractions.

So that is where we stand today. The warmie blogs and publishers are refusing to budge on their claims that the 2012 Strategy document is anything but true based on the statement of Mr. Gliek. I personally applaud them for their utter refusal to look at this with any intellectual honesty. It will only bring more damage to their own cause. Heartland, it appears,is going to pursue this legally. I have a feeling this situation will, like fresh wine, just improve dramatically with time.

There have been several reactions of note to Gleick's revelations. Andrew Revkin, the NYT's go-to guy for the warmie crowd, has issued a damning indictment of Gleick:

Peter H. Gleick, a water and climate analyst who has been studying aspects of global warming for more than two decades, in recent years became an aggressive critic of organizations and individuals casting doubt on the seriousness of greenhouse-driven climate change. He used blogs, congressional testimony, group letters and other means to make his case.

Now, Gleick has admitted to an act that leaves his reputation in ruins and threatens to undercut the cause he spent so much time pursuing. . . .

Another question, of course, is who wrote the climate strategy document that Gleick now says was mailed to him. His admitted acts of deception in acquiring the cache of authentic Heartland documents surely will sustain suspicion that he created the summary, which Heartland’s leadership insists is fake.

One way or the other, Gleick’s use of deception in pursuit of his cause after years of calling out climate deception has destroyed his credibility and harmed others. (Some of the released documents contain information about Heartland employees that has no bearing on the climate fight.) That is his personal tragedy and shame (and I’m sure devastating for his colleagues, friends and family).

The broader tragedy is that his decision to go to such extremes in his fight with Heartland has greatly set back any prospects of the country having the “rational public debate” that he wrote — correctly — is so desperately needed.

Climate scientist Dr. Judith Curry also offered her own trenchant observations on Gleick's unique form of ethics and finds it a mirror image of Climategate:

Gleick’s ‘integrity’ seems to have nothing to do with scientific integrity, but rather loyalty to and consistency with what I have called the UNFCCC/IPCC ideology. . .

It is fine for people (and scientists) have political ideologies. The problem comes in when you use politics to defend your science, and you use science to demand policies.

Gleick’s unethical action with respect to integrity has been to push fealty to the UNFCCC/IPCC ideology under the guise of promoting integrity and ethics in science. . .

When ‘Heartlandgate’ first broke, I saw no parallels with Climategate. Now, with the involvement of Gleick, there most certainly are parallels. There is the common theme of climate scientists compromising personal and professional ethics, integrity, and responsibility, all in the interests of a ’cause’. . .

And from a twitter from IPCC lead author Richard Tol: "Environmentalists are their own worst enemy. Phil Jones, Michael Mann, Peter Gleick. What fools."

With Mr. Tol's statement in mind - some parting thoughts. Science done within the confines of the scientific method is as trustworthy a source of data as we will ever have. The problem for the AGW crowd is that they gave up on science long ago. When Michael Mann rewrites climate history while withholding the underlying methods and data to test his theory, when Ken Briffa does the cherry picking job of all time on Yamal, when James Hansen adjusts our temperature record at every turn to make warming appear from nowhere, and when Kevin Trenberth demands that we embrace the 'reality' of AGW on the sole basis of an untested hypothesis, then its clear that the AGW crowd who accuse "deniers" of being anti-science have turned reality on its head. Gleick's actions fit in perfectly with the spirit - and ethics - of those "climate scientists" The reality is that they are becoming more shrill and more desperate by the moment as it appears that new research - and indeed, surface temperatures - are not cooperating with their apocalyptic AGW meme. Their angst is well founded. This from WSJ today:

[A]n important gauge of scientific expertise is the ability to make successful predictions. When predictions fail, we say the theory is "falsified" and we should look for the reasons for the failure. Shown in the nearby graph is the measured annual temperature of the earth since 1989, just before the first report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Also shown are the projections of the likely increase of temperature, as published in the Summaries of each of the four IPCC reports, the first in the year 1990 and the last in the year 2007.

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