Is the
Western Climate Establishment
?
Dr David Evans
Official Thermometer,
Urbana Ohio USA
See any problems?
Photo courtesy of Anthony Watts, www.surfacestations.org and Steve Tiemeier
Official Thermometer,
Bainbridge Georgia USA
What about here?
Photo courtesy of Anthony Watts, www.surfacestations.org and Joel McDade
Why do they Measure
Temperature Like This?
• GW is tenths of a degree per century, so
any slight artificial nudge is important
• Official siting requirements:
– 30 meters from an artificial source of heat
– Level open clearing with typical ground cover
• 89% of 860 surveyed NOAA thermometers
(of 1,221) are too close to an artificial
source of heat
Marysville California
Now dropped, but data back to 1897 still in official record
Photo courtesy of Anthony Watts and www.surfacestations.org
Marysville California
The view from near the air conditioner exhausts
Photo courtesy of Anthony Watts and www.surfacestations.org
Why do they Measure
Temperature Like This?
• What motive could there be, other than to
inflate official temperatures?
• Why have we only found out about it
because volunteers went out and
photographed the official thermometers?
• Money not a problem: NOAA budget $4b+
Wastewater is Warm!
Wastewater treatment tanks in Ontario Oregon
Hey, wouldn’t wastewater treatment plants be good places to measure global warming?
Photo courtesy of Anthony Watts and www.surfacestations.org
Sedro Woolley, Washington
Photo courtesy of Anthony Watts, www.surfacestations.org and Don and Liz Healy
Titusville, Florida
Level open clearing, with ground cover typical of the region ???
Photo courtesy of Anthony Watts, www.surfacestations.org and Don Kostuch
Why Won’t the Media Cover it?
• Why hasn’t the media published any of
these photographs?
• Is the media failing to do its job, covering
up for the climate establishment?
Baltimore Customs House
Couldn’t they at least move the thermometer away from the a/c?
Photo courtesy of Anthony Watts and www.surfacestations.org
Urban Heat Island
• Microclimate around a thermometer can
change due to urban encroachment —
asphalt, concrete, buildings, air
conditioners, cars, electrical appliances,
changes in vegetation, etc.
• City of 1 million, compared to surrounds:
– 1 to 3°C warmer on average
– Up to 12°C warmer in evenings
Observatory Hill, Sydney
Started recording temperatures 1858, when Sydney population was 60,000.
Photo courtesy of Anthony Watts
Observatory Hill, Sydney
Today
Photo courtesy of Anthony Watts
Global Network of Official
Thermometers
• 54% of thermometers are
at airports
– Tarmac radiates heat
(raises minimum and daily
temperature readings)
– Thermometers cop
occasional blasts of jet
exhaust
• Same network used by
GISS, HadCrut, NCDC
Rome Airport
Svalbard Airport, Norway
The tarmac is the warmest surface around (kept clear in winter).
Thermometer also nudged by jet exhaust and steam de-icers.
Photo courtesy of Anthony Watts
What Are They Measuring?
• 80%+ of official global thermometers are at
airports or in urban areas.
• Thermometers are placed to measure the
growth and use of cities, air conditioners,
planes, water treatment plants, cars, buses,
trucks, asphalt, concrete, and tarmac.
• They measure temperatures at the globe’s
warmest localities, not global temperatures.
• They are measuring urban warming and
airport warming, not global warming!
• How have the climate establishment been
able to get away with this?
• Where are the regulators and auditors?
• Drug companies or financial institutions
would be busted if they were this deceptive!
More Thermometer Tricks, 1
• “Adjustments” to raw temperature data
increase apparent warming substantially. In
the USA, official adjustments account for
nearly the entire temperature rise from the
1930s to 2000.
• They revise the official adjusted
temperatures after a decade or so to
increase recent warming.
Adjusted Temperature
Raw Temperature
More Thermometer Tricks, 2
• Nearly 6,000 official global thermometers in
1980s. Now just 1,079. The removals
increased the proportion of thermometers:
– At airports (warmer than surrounds)
– Nearer the equator (it’s hotter at the equator)
– At lower altitudes (it’s colder in the mountains)
• They hide the raw temperatures
and how they adjusted them.
They evaded FOIs. They claim
to have lost the original data.
Why?
• Why would the climate establishment play
these tricks, if their case and data were
strong?
• Don’t these tricks strongly imply that their
case is weak or wrong?
• And that they know it?
What Difference Does It Make?
• Warmest Year = 2006
• Warming trend continuing
Oh no! We’re all going to fry!
Satellites
• Alternate method of
measuring global
temperature
• 24/7
• All land and ocean,
except near poles
• Initial calibration problems
long since fixed
• Most reliable, extensive,
and unbiased method
•
•
•
•
Warmest Year = 1998
Warming trend to about 2001, then level
Large El Nino spike in 1998
Large El Nino spike in 2010, peaked in March
Not so bad. Hmmm, how can warming have leveled off when our emissions are increasing!?!
An Admission
• Dr Phil Jones, head of the Climate
Research Unit (CRU) at the University of
East Anglia in the UK.
• February 2010, in a BBC interview
• “from 1995 to the present
there has been no statisticallysignificant global warming”
• Cooling since 2002, but too
short to be statistically
significant
Ocean Temperatures
• Argo started mid-2003.
• 3,000+ floats, cover all the oceans
• Ocean data before Argo is nearly worthless.
Argo Results
• Argo results are not made public.
• Have to ask Josh Willis and get lucky.
• Last data given out to anyone outside the
establishment, AFAIK, was to early 2008:
The Argo Scandal
• Why no website showing the latest global
ocean temperature as measured by Argo?
• The western public have paid for this
crucial data.
• In science, you should share your data.
• If Argo showed warming oceans, wouldn’t it
would be publicized endlessly?
• Good news! We can only conclude that
Argo is not showing ocean warming.
Temperature Record for Last
2,000 Years
Use best data in each period:
– 1979 – Now: Satellites
– 1850 – 1979: Land thermometers
– 16 AD – 1850: Loehle’s reconstruction, 18
proxies over wide geographical range:
sediments, boreholes, pollen, oxygen-18,
stalagmites, magnesium to calcium ratios,
algae, and cave formation. No tree rings. First
reconstruction in which every proxy calibrated
to temperature in peer-reviewed article.
Current global warming trend started before 1700, some 310 years ago.
If the pattern persists, we’re going to see a couple of decades of cooling soon.
Human Emissions of CO2
• US Department of Energy has figures on
worldwide emissions back to 1751 from:
– Fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas)
– Cement production
– Gas flaring
• Deforestation omitted, but is relatively small
– Offset by reforestation, afforestation, new crops
– Accelerated by fossil fuels, post 1850
– European forests replaced by coal by 1751
• Current global warming trend started before 1700.
• Human emissions were negligible before 1850.
• Human emissions did not cause or start current global warming trend.
Human emissions don’t appear to be affecting the rate of warming either.
Human CO2 Emissions Are The
Alleged Cause, But…
• Have you ever seen a graph before that
compares human CO2 emissions and
temperature?
• Alleged cause and effect never compared!?!
• Comparison destroys the idea that human
CO2 is causing global warming.
• <1% of human emissions before 1850
• 85% after 1945
• 25% after 1998—yet no warming!
Establishment Revises History
• Comparison of human CO2 and temperature
makes theory of man-made global warming
theory look foolish and absurd
• Establishment needed to make start of
global warming coincide with ramp up in
human emissions, say 1910.
• One small bureaucratic problem…
IPCC First Assessment Report,
1990
IPCC Second Assessment Report,
1996
Both show the current global warming trend starting before 1700.
Mann’s Hockey Stick, 1998
The most influential climate graph ever.
Matches the start date of the current global warming trend to human CO2 emissions.
Hockey Stick Uncovered As a
Fraud by 2006
• Widely discredited in scientific circles
outside the western climate establishment.
• Statistical processing emphasizes hockeystick shaped proxies, almost ignores others.
• Although Mann used a variety of
temperature proxies as inputs, only the tree
rings from bristlecone pines really counted.
• Bristlecone pines are notorious for a growth
spurt in the twentieth century for reasons not
directly connected to temperature
Wegman Cans Mann
US Congress appointed three independent
leading statisticians, headed by Professor
Edward Wegman, to report in 2006.
– “In general, we found [Mann’s methods] to be
somewhat obscure and incomplete and the
criticisms [by their main critics] to be valid and
compelling”
– “Moreover, the work has been sufficiently
politicized that this community can hardly
reassess their public positions without losing
credibility.”
Other Climate Establishments:
The Chinese
• Torpedoed Copenhagen negotiations 2009
• Say more research is needed to establish
whether warming is man-made (Xie
Zhenhua, Jan 2010).
• August 2010: Book appeared in statesanctioned bookstores, suggesting the
Chinese government completely rejects the
theory—Low Carbon Plot, by Gou Hongyang
The Chinese: Low Carbon Plot
“ Will the increase in Carbon Dioxide definitely
lead to the planet warming? Although there
have been many many reports published by
research institutes that verify this, but from
the viewpoint of the history of man, and
scientific method, the theories have not yet
achieved scientific proof.”
The Chinese: Low Carbon Plot
Argues that the theory of man-made global
warming is “a conspiracy between Western
governments and business to protect their
own way of life, at the expense of the entire
developing world—in other words, 80% of
the world’s population.”
(From book review, “The Dragon’s Dissent”)
The Russians
• Always opposed the theory of man-made
global warming: “Reject the very idea that
carbon dioxide may be responsible for
global warming.”
• Climate is heavily influenced by solar cycles.
The Indians
• National Action Plan on Climate
Change in 2008: “No firm link
between the documented [climate]
changes described below and
warming due to anthropogenic
climate change has yet been
established.”
• February 2010: Indian government
sets up its own body to monitor the
effects of global warming because
it “cannot rely” on the IPCC.
Other Climate Establishments
Disagree
• Largest emitters: China, USA, Russia, India
• Climate establishments are independent.
• 3 of 4 don’t agree with the CO2 theory
Our media often remind us that almost “all
climate scientists” agree that humans are
causing global warming.
No, only most western climate scientists.
Most Western Climate
Scientists Believe Global
Warming is Man-Made
• True, but murky.
• Believers took over bodies that fund western
climate science in late 1980s - early 1990s:
– Fired skeptics, or hindered their careers. Al
Gore sacked some while VP.
– Hired only people who believed the theory.
• Consequently all authority figures in western
climate science are believers.
It’s Never Going To Change
• No corrective mechanisms exist in
government funded climate science:
– No competition (no private climate research)
– No auditing (like financial areas)
– No regulation (like food and drugs)
– No organized and funded opposition to test or
criticize theories and champion alternatives
• Anyone who speaks out comes under peerpressure to be quiet, because it threatens
funding and careers.
Their Opposition is Old or Retired
• The only current climate scientists
who are skeptical are a few old
blokes who were appointed
before 1990 and refuse to budge,
e.g. Richard Lindzen at MIT is
approaching 70.
• Climate scientists who speak out are nearly
all retired, no longer dependent on
government climate money.
Example: Joanne Simpson, the first woman
to receive a PhD in meteorology and
“among the most preeminent scientists of
the last 100 years”, worked for NASA but in
retirement said:
“ Since I am no longer
affiliated with any
organization nor receive
any funding, I can speak
quite frankly. … But as a
scientist I remain skeptical.”
Shenanigans At The Heart
• The argument for man-made GW is:
1. Humans raising CO2 levels
2. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, so surface
temperatures rise: “Direct warming”.
3. Earth responds to direct warming: “feedbacks”.
Feedbacks amplify the direct warming threefold.
• Chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
• Ample evidence for first two links.
• No evidence for the 3rd link, which provides
two thirds of the projected warming.
Why?
• The climate establishment and media only
talk about the first two links.
• Hardly anyone knows about the third link.
• If the case for man-made global warming is
strong, why this obfuscation?
• The effect of the feedbacks is the crucial
question in climate science.
1.
2.
3.
There is an Empirical Test for
The Feedback Link!!
• Expressed as a pattern of warming in the
atmosphere.
• Climate models all predict a hotspot, a strong
warming in the atmosphere over the tropics at
about 12 km.
• Hotspot is the amplifying feedbacks in action.
Climate Model “Predictions”
Source: US CCSP 2006, p. 25. Similar in IPCC 2007, p.675.
Observations
Source: US CCSP 2006, p. 116
This is all the data there is, or ever will be, until we have another episode of global warming.
Comparison
Conclusions:
1. Climate models are wrong
2. Man-made global warming is greatly exaggerated
The Establishment Response
1. Ignore it. Discrepancy first apparent ~1995.
2. Deny the data. 2008. No, data too credible.
3. Find the hotspot in the data! 2008. Adjusted
the data in accordance with various theories
and radiosonde wind data, reprocess it:
Sherwood, 2008, “Finds” the Hotspot
Source: Journal of Climate, Vol. 21, p.5346
(“short thick bars indicate latitudes discussed in text where sonde
adjustments in the troposphere still appear inadequate”)
Can you see the problem?
The Old Color Scale Trick !!
• The color of zero change—it’s red!
• So if the atmosphere stayed at exactly the
same temperature everywhere, Sherwood’s
interpretation would be an all-red graph!
• The reds in his diagram blend together and it
is impossible to see where his “hotspot” might
be.
• His “hotspot” is too faint anyway, because the
hotspot in the climate models is at least 0.6°C
over two decades.
Why?
• If Sherwood used the same color scale as
the previous diagrams, it would be obvious
he had not found the hotspot.
• What purpose could that color scale serve,
except to mislead?
• Even if you don’t understand the hotspot
stuff, isn’t a tricky color scale like this a sign
of deception, a solid hint they are trying to
hide something?
Gore’s Convenient Lie
• Gore’s Movie, An Inconvenient Truth,
convinced many that CO2 and temperature
are highly correlated — so raising CO2 levels
will raise temperatures.
Gore Omitted a Tiny Tiny Detail
• Changes in temperature happen 800 years
on average before the corresponding
changes in CO2.
• Established by 2003, Gore’s movie 2005.
• Gore lied (by omission).
• Mr. Gore owns and runs companies involved
in curbing carbon emissions.
• Net worth $2 million in 2000  approaching
$1,000 million in 2009.
Why?
• Why didn’t the climate establishment or the
media publicly correct Gore’s lie?
• Doesn’t this show that the climate
establishment and media are playing politics
rather than disinterestedly searching for and
publishing the truth?
Conclusions
• The obvious cheating of the western climate
establishment strongly suggests they are
hiding something and thus are wrong.
• That their cheating is so blatant suggests
that the media has not put them under any
real scrutiny.
Car-Park Warming
Now dropped, but data back to 1897 still in official record
Photo courtesy of Anthony Watts and www.surfacestations.org
Human CO2 Emissions—Relevant How?
Human emissions did not cause or start current global warming trend.
Human CO2 Emissions—Relevant How?
Human emissions don’t appear to be affecting the rate of warming either.
Climate Models Wrong,
Exaggerate
Ocean Cooling,
Kept Hidden
Do You Trust Them?
The tarmac is the warmest surface around (kept clear in winter).
Thermometer also nudged by jet exhaust and steam de-icers.
Photo courtesy of Anthony Watts
Is the Western Climate
Establishment Corrupt?
Paper soon to be published at
sciencespeak.com