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Memo 32/08
IPCC meltdown
Will Alexander alexwjr@iafrica.com
Thursday 21 August 2008
Probable collapse of climate talks
A year or so ago the world seemed to be heading towards a safer and more pleasant place in
which to live and raise our families. But now the nations of the world are heading in the
opposite direction. The G8 nations met in Japan last month. They failed to reach a
meaningful agreement on trade, poverty alleviation and climate change. The World Trade
Organisation (WTO) also failed to reach agreement on freeing up international trade that
would benefit the poorer nations. Within the past week Russia flexed its muscles and invaded
Georgia. The political situation in Zimbabwe is on a knife edge. The world is heading for an
economic recession as the costs of food and fuel rise with consequent increases in poverty,
malnutrition and disease.
The next round of the UNFCCC’s gatherings starts in Accra, Ghana today. It is the third such
conference since the Bali conference in December last year. At least another five are
scheduled before the final conference in Copenhagen next year. This is the self-imposed
deadline for agreement on an international accord for nations to implement compulsory
measures to control their undesirable greenhouse gas emissions.
For the first time, there is high-level pessimism regarding the success of achieving this
objective. The survival of the IPCC itself is now under threat. The following are some short
extracts from news reports published in yesterday's issue of CCNet.
IPCC WARNS: CLIMATE TALKS FACE POSSIBLE COLLAPSE
The Economic Times of India, 19 August 2008
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Developmental_Issues/_Africa_meeting
IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri called last month on Europe to "show the
way." If it does not, he said, "I am afraid that all attempts to manage the problem of
climate change will collapse."
Rich nations will come under pressure at climate talks in Africa this week to get
specific about how quickly and by how much they intend to cut their carbon
footprints, said the UN climate chief.
Negotiations since a breakthrough in Bali last year have been stymied by a rift
between rich and developing nations. China and India have called on developed
countries to lead the way in cutting CO2 emissions, while the United States and Japan
say these industrialising giants must also agree to binding commitments. The
European Union stands somewhere in between, having pledged to reduce carbon
pollution by at least 20 percent before 2020, compared to 1990 levels.
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The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned that even
deeper cuts worldwide may be needed to stave off potentially catastrophic impacts
from global warming ranging from drought to extreme weather to rising sea levels.
Time is running out to reach an accord, said de Boer, executive secretary of the UN
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the forum for worldwide
talks on tackling climate change and its effects. "The Accra meeting is very important
in terms of determining what instruments rich countries can use in order to achieve
their targets over the longer term," de Boer said.
The meeting will also focus on technical and financial assistance for developing
countries, both to help cut emissions and to cope with the consequences of climate
change.
De Boer criticised the G8 summit goal -- unveiled last month – of halving global
warming emissions by 2050 as too vague and too distant. "Are we talking about a
binding target or an aspirational target? Who is going to be taking what share of that
target? These things are not clear," he said.
The baseline against which the goal is to be measured, he added, is also unclear:
Europe uses 1990, the IPCC has recommended 2000, and the Japanese prime minister
spoke after the summit of 2008.
Copyright 2008, ET
===========
CLIMATE TALKS REMAIN DEADLOCKED
Associated Press, 20 August 2008
http://www.pr-inside.com/climate-negotiators-reconvene-this-week-r764040
.htm
Negotiators assemble this week in the Ghanaian capital of Accra to
resume work on a new climate change treaty as they discuss ways to prod
developing countries to join the fight against global warming.
But the latest round of talks comes at an awkward moment, with the
world's poor more worried about the immediate cost of food and fuel than
the uncertain long-term effects of climate change.
The weeklong U.N. climate conference opens Thursday, with more than
1,000 delegates in attendance, to work on an agreement to regulate
emissions of greenhouse gases.
Scientists say the gases trap the earth's heat and already have begun to
cause more severe tropical storms, harsher droughts in arid areas and
melting ice packs in the Arctic.
They have a December 2009 deadline to complete one of the most complex
international accords ever negotiated, designed to halve by mid-century
the amount of carbon dioxide discharged into the atmosphere from
transportation, industry and power generation.
Accra is the third conference since then, and at least another five are
scheduled before an agreement is due to be wrapped up in Copenhagen,
Denmark, next year. The intensity of negotiations reflect deep political
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divisions over many of the thousands of details that require nailing
down.
Progress has been frustratingly slow. Dovland says the Accra talks will
falter "unless we come with a spirit of cooperation, trying to resolve
things instead of making things more and more complicated."
Years of negotiations have shown the limits of what countries are
willing to sacrifice, said Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the
U.N. Convention on Climate Change and the man overseeing the
negotiations.
Rich countries will not accept heavy burdens on their economies, and
developing countries will not agree to constraints on their growth. "If
you don't meet those basic criteria you are not going to achieve
success," he said.
Copyright 2008, AP
Comic relief
With all this doom-and-gloom there is an urgent need for some comic relief. Our climate
alarmists have risen to the occasion.
The Sunday Times carried a half page article with the headline Flooding could devastate
Cape in 25 years – study says huge tracts of land around Cape Town could be drowned by
two storey high waves. WOW!!!
Here are a few statements from the article.
South Africa's coastal cities and regions face potential devastation from rising sea
levels, with damage that could run into tens of billions of Rands. Until recently, the
horrifying scenario of vast chunks of territory being flooded by waves as high as
6.5 m was considered unlikely this century -- if not remote. But, according to a study
commissioned by the City of Cape Town, there is a one-in-five chance that this could
happen in the next 25 years.
[Note that the latest projections for rising sea levels are an increase of less than knee-height
during the next 100 years. So what will generate these two-storey high waves within the next
25 years?]
The port authorities are also doing similar assessment work. The insurance industry is
taking note as well.
The study warns that there is a 95% chance that the Peninsula will be struck by at
least one 2.5 m event within the next 25 years. This would result in damages of about
R2.5 billion to infrastructure and the tourism and property sectors.
There is an 80% chance that the city will be hit by a 4.5 m event. This would cost
almost R24-billion and leave about 61 km2 of the city covered by water for a short
period.
In the event of the worst-case scenario, 95 km2 of the city would be flooded, with
damages in purely commercial terms estimated at about R55-billion.
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The article lists areas around the Peninsula that would be devoured by the sea. It ends by
saying that the full report can be obtained from the City of Cape Town's website
www.capetown.gov.za
I could not find the report on the website but there was a media release dated 9 May 2008
headed City plans for global warming and rising sea levels. It contains confirmation of this
extreme alarmism. On closer scrutiny the source of the alarmism becomes obvious. There are
frequent references to scenarios generated by a model! These are short extracts from the
media release.
With over 307 km of coastline, the City of Cape Town has the longest stretch of sea
frontage of any metropolitan authority in South Africa. As such, it is particularly
vulnerable to global climate change predictions which will result in amongst others, a
rise in sea levels and an increase in intensity and frequency of storm events.
The predicted implications of climate change were modelled based on existing
information and internationally accepted predictions of future scenarios. The model
portrays what could be expected as current day worst-case storm events, increased
storm intensity and frequency as a result of climate change within 10 years and
finally long-term inundation implications if the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets
melted.
Now hold your breath.
The third scenario entails the wholesale melting of Greenland and West Antarctic ice
sheets which is anticipated to greatly contribute to sea level rises and coastal
inundation. There is uncertainty about the extent and timing of the melting of these
polar ice sheets, however the implications for the city would be an increase of up to
20 m in mean sea level.
This is absolutely impossible and appears nowhere in the IPCC reports. Who produced this
alarmist nonsense? We can only guess. The municipality has swallowed it all -- hook, line
and sinker.
Who will tell the mayor?
Who will tell the mayor that similar alarmist predictions were made in the past and
subsequently shown to be without scientific foundation? Here are some examples.

The globe stopped warming 10 years ago and has now entered a cooling phase. This
completely undermines the very foundation of climate change theory.

There were claims that rising sea levels would submerge parts of Bangladesh. The
Bangladesh authorities have denied that this is happening.

There were claims that the glaciers on the Himalayas had started to melt and this
would create huge water supply problems for south-eastern Asia. The Indian and
Chinese authorities have denied that this is happening.

There were claims that the Pacific Islands were slowly being submerged by rising sea
levels. The latest observations using sophisticated observation methods have
demonstrated that this is not happening.

There were claims that Kilimanjaro's glaciers are retreating as a result of global
warming. The Tanzanian authorities have denied that this is a permanent trend.
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
As I have repeatedly stated, there is absolutely no evidence in South Africa of adverse
changes in rainfall, river flow, droughts, floods and desertification caused by human
activities. Nor is there any evidence whatsoever of those hugely alarmist predictions
of dramatic losses of plant and animal species. This is pure nonsense.
Solar linkage confirmed
I have just received a copy of a Research Communication from the Vice-President for
Research of the Ohio University in the USA dated 19 August. The title of the report is New
climate record shows century-long droughts in eastern North America and their relation to
solar activity. The study confirms that during periods when the earth received less solar
radiation, the Atlantic Ocean cooled, icebergs increased and precipitation fell, creating a
series of century-long droughts. The person who forwarded it to me said in his email
Confirms what you are saying Will.
The linkage between variations in solar activity and the hydrometeorological processes has
been a personal interest ever since my first technical report on the subject published in 1978.
As explained in my last memo, the climate alarmists have refused to acknowledge this
linkage because it is impossible to replicate it in their process-based mathematical
models. So they tried to suppress it.
Here are some recent examples reported on the Internet. A year ago I could only find one
reference that predicted imminent global cooling. Now the Internet is full of them. Climate
alarmists can no longer ignore the contrarian research. Heads will roll when the public,
politicians and decision makers finally realise that they have been duped. That day is not far
away.
[My apologies for the scrappy nature of the quotes due to space limitations.]
8 February 2008. Statistician Dr. Richard Mackey wrote: “The science of climate dynamics:
continues to publish findings about solar/climate relationships and internal variability of the
climate system that invalidate the account of the Earth’s climate dynamics presented by the
IPCC; predicts the likelihood of an extended period of global cooling, if the emergent solar
cycle 24 has a low amplitude, as seems increasingly likely on the basis of current science,”
“Low amplitude solar activity cycles generally result in a cooler global climate. Two or more
such cycles in succession usually result in severe cooling. In the past such sequences have
induced cold epochs referred to as little ice ages. There is increasing evidence that the
emergent solar cycle 24 will be low amplitude and followed by one or two more low
amplitude cycles.”
1 March 2008. Geologist Dr. Don J. Easterbrook, Emeritus Professor at Western Washington
University, “The average of the four main temperature measuring methods is slightly cooler
since 2002 (except for a brief el Niño interruption) and record breaking cooling this winter.
The argument that this is too short a time period to be meaningful would be valid were it not
for the fact that this cooling exactly fits the pattern of timing of warm/cool cycles over the
past 400 years.”
2 March 2008. Geologist David Archibald of Australia wrote a scientific paper titled "Solar
Cycles 24 and 25 and Predicted Climate Response" in Energy and Environment in 2006. He
demonstrated that the Sun drives climate, and used that demonstrated relationship to predict
the Earth’s climate to 2030. It is a prediction of imminent cooling. “Surely a few more years
of cooling will leave only the true believers in their misanthropic ideology, and the truly
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idiotic. Not only will it continue, substantial cooling next decade is in the bag based on
current solar behaviour.”
March 2008. Canadian Climatologist Dr. Timothy Ball wrote: “If we are facing a crisis at all,
I think it is that we are preparing for warming when it is looking like we are cooling. We are
preparing for the wrong thing.”
March 2008. UK Astrophysicist Piers Corbyn: “There is no evidence that CO2 has ever
driven or will ever drive world temperatures and climate change. The consequence of that is
that worrying about CO2 is irrelevant. Our prediction is world temperatures will continue to
decline until 2014 and probably continue to decline after that.”
30 April 2008. New Peer-Reviewed Study Says: “Global warming will stop until at least
2015 because of natural variations in the climate.” Researchers studying long-term changes in
sea temperatures said they now expect a "lull" for up to a decade while natural variations in
climate cancel out the increases caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions. MIT
Climate Scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen’s March 2008 presentation of data from the Hadley
Centre of the UK Met Office found the Earth has had “no statistically significant warming
since 1995.”
1 May 2008. NEW JASON SATELLITE INDICATES 23-YEAR GLOBAL COOLING
Dennis Avery, Environmental Economist and Global Warming Co-author.
2 May 2008. Will J.R. Alexander, Emeritus Professor of the Department of Civil and
Biosystems Engineering at the University of Pretoria in South Africa and a former member of
the United Nations Scientific and Technical Committee on Natural Disasters. “This whole
climate change issue is rapidly disintegrating. From now onwards climate alarmists will be on
the retreat. All indications are that we are now on the threshold of global cooling associated
with the second and less active solar cycle.”
5 May 2008. New peer-reviewed study shows Arctic COOLING over last 1500 years! New
report finds global sea ice GROWING: World sea ice in April 2008 reached levels that were
‘unprecedented’ for the month of April in over 25 years.
31 May 2008. National Post: Global Cooling! Spotless Sun prompts scientists to fear
dramatic turn for the worse. What alarms Dr. Chapman and others may be an anomaly of
some kind, and the sun may soon revert to form. But if it doesn’t – and with each passing
day, the speculation in the scientific community grows that it will not – we could be entering
a new epoch that few would welcome... Several renowned scientists have been predicting for
some time that the world could enter a period of cooling right around now, with
consequences that could be dire.
2 June 2008. Livingston and Penn paper: “Sunspots may vanish by 2015″. Long-time manmade global warming advocates NASA assure us that significant sunspot activity will return
in 2012, but a recent paper on recent solar trends by William Livingston and Matthew Penn
of the National Solar Observatory in Tucson, predicts that sunspots will all but vanish after
2015. Since the sun, and not carbon dioxide, is the principle driver of climate change, a
dearth of sunspot activity would herald a repeat of the Maunder Minimum, the name given to
the period roughly from 1645 to 1715, when sunspots became exceedingly rare and
contributed to the onset of the Little Ice Age during which Europe and North America were
hit by bitterly cold winters and the Thames river in London completely froze.
3 June 2008. Dr. Bruce West, Chief Scientist, Mathematical & Information Science
Directorate, Army Research Office. Sun, Not Man, Is Causing Climate Change. Changes in
the earth’s average surface temperature are directly linked to the short-term statistical
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fluctuations in the Sun’s irradiance and the longer-term solar cycles. The Sun’s turbulent
dynamics are linked with the Earth's complex ecosystem. He argues that these groups have
done a poor job modelling the Sun's impact, however, and that's why they have "significantly
over-estimated the anthropogenic contribution to global warming."
9 June 2008. Science Daily: Scientists not sure why Sun continues to be dead. The sun has
been laying low for the past couple of years, producing no sunspots and giving a break to
satellites. The scientists said periods of inactivity are normal for the sun, but this period has
gone on longer than usual. The next cycle is just beginning and is expected to reach its peak
sometime around 2012. Today's sun, however, is as inactive as it was two years ago, and
scientists aren't sure why. In the past, they observed that the sun once went 50 years without
producing sunspots. That period, from approximately 1650 to 1700, occurred during the
middle of a little ice age on Earth that lasted from as early as the mid-15th century to as late
as the mid-19th century.
15 June 2008. Meteorologist Anthony Watts. More Signs of the Sun Slowing Down. It
appears we continue to slide into a deeper than normal solar minima, one not seen in decades.
Given the signs, I think we are about to embark upon a grand experiment, over which we
have no control. As of June 2008, we now have 32 months of the Ap hovering around a value
just slightly above zero, with occasional blips of noise. What is most striking is that since
1932, there have not been ANY years prior to 2007 that have zero data.
June 2008. Meteorologist Anthony Watts details the cooling temperatures in a report titled
“Global Temperature Dives in May.” The new global temperature data reveals a whopping
three quarters of a degree Celsius drop in temperatures since January 2007. Watts reported
late yesterday that the cooling is “equal in magnitude to the generally agreed upon ‘global
warming signal’ of the last 100 years.”
29 June 2008. Australian Astronomical Society warns of global COOLING as Sun's activity
'significantly diminishes'.
12 July 2008. Four prominent scientists warn the global warming trend is done, and a cooling
trend is about to kick in. All agreed the earth is in a warm cycle right now, and has been for a
while, but that is about to change significantly.
14 July 2008. Atmospheric Scientist Tennekes, former director of research at The
Netherlands' Royal National Meteorological Institute. 'Sun may cause some cooling. No
evidence at all for catastrophic global warming.'
18 July 2008 Arctic ice INCREASES by nearly a half million square miles over same time
period in 2007. Arctic sea ice extent on July 16 stood at 8.91 million square kilometres.
While extent was below the 1979 to 2000 average of 9.91 million square kilometres, it was
1.05 million square kilometres above the value for July 16, 2007.
13 August 2008. Is there a cold future just lying in wait for us? Based on the past Armagh
measurements, this suggests that over the next two decades, global temperatures may fall by
about 2 degrees C — that is, to a level lower than any we have seen in the last 100 years.
However, temperatures have already fallen by about 0.5 degrees C over the past 12 months
and, if this is only the start of it, it would be a serious concern.
14 August 2008. Dearth Of Sunspot Activity To Herald New Ice Age? A top observatory that
has been measuring sun cycles for over 200 years predicts that global temperatures will drop
by two degrees over the next two decades as solar activity grinds to a halt and the planet
drastically cools down, potentially heralding the onset of a new ice age. Following the end of
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the Sun’s most active period in over 11,000 years, the last 10 years have displayed a clear
cooling trend as temperatures post-1998 levelled out and are now plummeting.
16 August 2008. Mexican scientist Victor Manuel Velasco warns Earth will enter Little Ice
Age for up to 80 Years due to decrease in solar activity. The prognosis on the emergence of a
new Ice Age has little uncertainty as to their dates. The latest could arrive in approximately
two years. In early July, satellite data indicate that this period of global cooling could even
have already begun, since 2005.
20 August 2007. Australian engineer Dr. Peter Harris authored a paper entitled "Probability
of Sudden Global Cooling." The study Harris authored found that "the data...clearly shows
the nominal 100KY cycle for glaciation and the interglacial phases and it shows that we have
reached the end of the typical interglacial cycle and are due for a sudden cooling climate
change. Based on this analysis we can say that there is a probability of 94% of imminent
global cooling and the beginning of the coming ice age."
[Undated references:]
Paleoclimatologist Tim Patterson, professor in the department of Earth Sciences at Carleton
University in Ottawa. We should prepare now for dangerous global cooling. Solar scientists
predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe solar cycle of the past
two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth. Beginning to plan for
adaptation to such a cool period, one which may continue well beyond one 11-year cycle, as
did the Little Ice Age, should be a priority for governments. It is global cooling, not warming,
that is the major climate threat to the world.
John Zyrkowski. Solar Declines Freeze Global Warming, Drops Seas. The temperature
record tracks the sun’s decline in energy output over the past 10 years, a conclusive proof is
made that the zigzag historic temperature record is forced to change by the major changes in
the sun’s energy. Using solar forces only from 1880 to 1960, the increase to 0.61° C in 1998
then the recent decline to 0.32° C over 1960 is accurately forecast to within several
hundredths of a degree.
Solar physicists Galina Mashnich and Vladimir Bashkirtsev, of the Institute of SolarTerrestrial Physics of the Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences, believe the
climate is driven by the sun and predict global cooling will soon occur.
Dr. Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of Space Research for the Pulkovo Observatory in
Russia, predicted the decline in solar irradiance is going to lead to global cooling by 2015 and
"will inevitably lead to a deep freeze around 2055-60."
Dr. Oleg Sorokhtin, Merited Scientist of Russia and fellow of the Russian Academy of
Natural Sciences, and staff researcher of the Oceanology Institute. A cold spell soon to
replace global warming. Earth is now at the peak of one of its passing warm spells. It started
in the 17th century when there was no industrial influence on the climate to speak of and no
such thing as the hothouse effect. The current warming is evidently a natural process and
utterly independent of hothouse gases. Carbon dioxide is not to blame for global climate
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change. Solar activity is many times more powerful than the energy produced by the whole of
humankind. Man’s influence on nature is a drop in the ocean.
Meteorologist Jim Clark. “Global Cooling is Imminent! It was about this time (1990’s) that
Dr. Bill Gray, the famed hurricane climatologist, began speaking out against the global
warming crisis. He didn’t just stop at criticizing the scary climate models, but went so far as
to predict GLOBAL COOLING in the first half of the 21st Century. Now, nearly 15 years
later, it looks like Dr. Gray may be right! The planet has not warmed over the last decade
and climate factors seem to be lining up for a global cool down, despite the ever increasing
concentration of atmospheric CO2. The approaching ‘cold snap’ is not a global crisis, but
when it is all said and done, we will likely have a better appreciation for the relative warmth
we have enjoyed recently.”
Geophysicist Dr. Phil Chapman, an astronautical engineer warned of a coming ice age.
“There is no doubt that the next little ice age would be much worse than the previous one and
much more harmful than anything warming may do. Millions will starve if we do nothing to
prepare for it (such as planning changes in agriculture to compensate), and millions more will
die from cold-related diseases. All those urging action to curb global warming need to take
off the blinkers and give some thought to what we should do if we are facing global cooling
instead. It will be difficult for people to face the truth when their reputations, careers,
government grants or hopes for social change depend on global warming, but the fate of
civilization may be at stake.”
Can the IPCC survive?
In the IPCC’s favour, climate change alarmism has huge international support at all levels.
The glue that holds it together is environmentalism. This has great attractions especially in
the media. This in turn keeps the politicians, international policymakers and climate alarmists
in business. But this environmentalism comes at a price. The Green movements are asking
too much.
National economies are under threat. Developing countries have to make difficult choices.
These choices will become easier as the realisation grows that the underlying science is
seriously in error. Not only did global warming cease 10 years ago, but the onset of global
cooling has become a major scientific concern. This concern only got underway within the
past six months. It still has a long way to go.
The current Accra meeting will provide interesting insights on the likely future of the IPCC.
We can be very sure of one thing. If the global cooling continues, the vultures will gather in
ever-increasing numbers. The hyenas will observe the descending vultures and they too will
be drawn to the feast. There is enough meat on the IPCC carcass for everyone.
Even the elephants may start searching for some juicy things to eat. We have irrefutable
scientific evidence of this from an Internet sequence posted in Namibia.
Regards
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