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IPCC AR4

The final IPCC WG-1 AR4 report is now available on-line.

Steve McIntyre has analysis. Luboš Motl has comments:

Officially, we have had the summary for policymakers (SPM) only - until now. You may see that the long document contains a lot of serious albeit boring science and data. Concerned members of the IPCC have however (mis)interpreted the results in catchy ways in their summary. Journalists are even more concerned and their presentation is much closer to nutcases like Al Gore than the boring content of the IPCC report. This multi-level hysterization and cherry-picking is a primary mechanism fuelling this whole global idiocy.

Update: bump and note that there's a surprising lack of news reporting on the release of the final AR4 report. Nothing near the attention that the media gave to the Summary for Policymakers.

Canada's Clean Air Act

May it rest in peace.

Gray: we're not to blame

THE United States' leading hurricane forecaster says global ocean currents, not human-produced carbon dioxide, are responsible for global warming.

William Gray, a Colorado State University researcher, also said the Earth may begin to cool on its own in five to 10 years.

Speaking to a group of Republican MPs, Dr Gray had harsh words for researchers and politicians who said man-made greenhouse gases were responsible for global warming.

"They are blaming it all on humans, which is crazy," he said.

"We're not the cause of it."

Source.

Climate change... on Mars

More evidence that Mars is warming at rate similar to Earth:

Mars is being hit by rapid climate change and it is happening so fast that the red planet could lose its southern ice cap, writes Jonathan Leake.

Scientists from Nasa say that Mars has warmed by about 0.5C since the 1970s. This is similar to the warming experienced on Earth over approximately the same period.

Since there is no known life on Mars it suggests rapid changes in planetary climates could be natural phenomena.

The mechanism at work on Mars appears, however, to be different from that on Earth. One of the researchers, Lori Fenton, believes variations in radiation and temperature across the surface of the Red Planet are generating strong winds.

Now, for the really technical answer to what is causing these variations in radiation and temperature click here or here.

In a paper published in the journal Nature, she suggests that such winds can stir up giant dust storms, trapping heat and raising the planet’s temperature.

Fenton’s team unearthed heat maps of the Martian surface from Nasa’s Viking mission in the 1970s and compared them with maps gathered more than two decades later by Mars Global Surveyor. They found there had been widespread changes, with some areas becoming darker.

When a surface darkens it absorbs more heat, eventually radiating that heat back to warm the thin Martian atmosphere: lighter surfaces have the opposite effect. The temperature differences between the two are thought to be stirring up more winds, and dust, creating a cycle that is warming the planet.

Do you agree with Al Gore?

The majority of listeners of AM900 CHML radio in Hamilton, Ontario do not.

The real costs of green

Hang onto your wallets, the IPCC is about to take the global warming swindle to the next level...

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- The costs of cutting greenhouse gases and who will pay for doing it are likely to be the key issues at a major U.N.-backed climate change meeting of scientists and diplomats in the Thai capital this week, participants said Sunday.

Note the reference to scientists above although the topic of determining "who will pay" is purely political. The CNN article quoted above contains all the usual fear-mongering about the dire consequences of not taking action to stop global warming. We've heard it all before.

But then there's this one little paragraph which gives away the IPCC's real agenda:

Developing countries are likely to demand that richer countries help them adapt to warming global temperatures, which are expected to cause widespread flooding, droughts and rising sea levels.

They're not asking, they're demanding! Those scientists from developing countries! How can we here in the evil, greenhouse gas spewing rich countries ever have the nerve to say no? It's not enough that reducing greenhouse gas emissions will have disastrous effects on our own economies; in the noble crusade against climate change we soon will be expected to foot the bill for adaptation by "developing countries".

I wonder exactly how the dictatorial governments of all those 3rd world developing countries really intend to spend the billions of $$$ in aid money they will soon be extorting demanding from us? Will it be used to help their citizens? Or will it all go to support dictators and government elites like the billions of dollars of previous foreign aid money?

Now that the Goracle, Kooky Suzuki, Citizen Dion & company have managed to convince most people that they need to feel deeply, deeply guilty for causing global warming, the IPCC is about to swoop, to cash in on that guilt and begin the process of extorting $ billions more from us.

This is just more proof that Kyoto is essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations. Unfortunately, none of our political leaders any longer has the guts to say so.

Kyoto is a complete and total fraud

The Goracle blessed Toronto with an appearance yesterday - and offered some criticism of the Canadian government's policy on climate change, saying it was a...

"complete and total fraud. It is designed to mislead the Canadian people"

Environment Minister John Baird responded to that remark:

"It is difficult to accept criticism from someone who preaches about climate change, but who never submitted the Kyoto Protocol to a vote in the United States Senate, who never did as much as Canada is now doing to fight climate change during eight years in office, and who has campaigned exclusively for hundreds of Democratic candidates who have weaker plans to fight greenhouse gases than Canada's New Government."

"I wish Al Gore had asked to be briefed on the plan," Baird said in an interview that aired Sunday on CTV's Question Period.

"You know, it's easy when you've had the big job and then you're on the side lines -- it's easy to complain," Baird added. "My responsibility, our government's responsibility, is to act. If we came forward with our environmental plan in the United States, they'd call it revolutionary because it's so tough."

It is growing tiresome watching these politicians stumbling over each other to see who can out-green who, while nobody has the guts to speak the truth about Kyoto and climate change.

To paraphrase the words of the Goracle, Kyoto is a complete and total fraud. It is designed to mislead the Canadian people.

Crunching the IPCC's numbers

The following analysis was sent to me by an astute reader, who is also a geophysicist, who says that he prepared this:

"only using data that the IPCC agrees with; in particular the long term global temperature and CO2 concentrations back to 1856 which have been published by them in support of their AGW premise. (The IPCC has never disagreed with the lower troposphere temperatures from satellites they only have commented on the differences between the satellite data and the land based data.)

"The kicker is that when their own data is held up to physical reality it shows their entire premise to be wrong."

The emphasis and tables have been added by me. Here are the results of number crunching of the IPCC accepted data:

THREE YEARS AND THREE DATA POINTS

The year 1990 was selected as the reference year for the Kyoto Accord.
In 1990 human emissions of CO2 from fossil fuels was 21,230 megatonnes.
In 1990 atmospheric concentration of CO2 was 354.16ppmv (year average from Mauna Loa observatory). In 1990 the global temperature was 14.075 degrees C (year average from MSU satellite data for the lower troposphere referenced to 14 degrees C for a relative absolute temperature)

In 2003 the global temperature from this satellite data dropped from 14.317 degrees C of the previous year to 14.272 degrees C. The temperature dropped again in 2004, went up in 2005, and dropped again in 2006 representing a net cooling of 0.044 degrees C over the last four years indicating that global warming is likely over.

In 2003 human emissions of CO2 from fossil fuels was 25,030 megatonnes.
In 2003 atmospheric concentration of CO2 was 375.79ppmv.
In 2003 the global temperature was 14.272 degrees C.

The year 2006 is the last complete year for these data.
In 2006 human emissions of CO2 from fossil fuels was 29,330 megatonnes.
In 2006 atmospheric concentration of CO2 was 381.89ppmv.
In 2006 the global temperature was 14.272 degrees C.

I've added this table to place the numbers side by side for comparison:

YEAR	CO2 emissions	CO2 concentration	Global Temp
1990	21,230 Mtonnes	354.16 ppmv	14.075 C
2003	25,030 Mtonnes	375.79 ppmv	14.272 C
2006	29,330 Mtonnes	381.89 ppmv	14.272 C

Kyoto is based on the direct relationship between CO2 emissions and CO2 concentration.
From 1990 to 2003 emissions increased from 21,230 to 25,030 megatonnes or 292 megatonnes per year.
From 2003 to 2006 emissions increased from 25,030 to 29,330megatonnes or 1435 megatonnes per year.
This represents an increase in the rate of emissions of 491% (this alarming rate of increase was duly noted at the conference in Nairobi last year using 2001as the pivotal date and “over a four fold increase” stated.)

If there is a direct linear relationship between CO2 emissions and concentration then this same 491% increase should have taken place in the rate of atmospheric CO2 concentration increase.

From 1990 to 2003 the concentration of atmospheric CO2 increased from 254.16ppmv to 375.79ppmv or 1.66ppmv per year.
From 2003 to 2006 the concentration of atmospheric CO2 increased from 375.79ppmv to 381.89ppmv or 2.03ppmv per year.
This represents an increase in the rate of atmospheric CO2 concentration of only 22% yet the emissions rate increased by 491%.

Another table added:

PERIOD	CO2 Emissions rate increase		CO2 concentration rate increase
1990-2003	292 Mtonnes		1.66 ppmv
2003-2006	1,435 Mtonnes	+491%	2.03 ppmv	+22%

If emissions are increasing at a rate over 20 times greater than the increase in concentration then it is clear that human emissions are not primarily responsible for the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration and consequentially not primarily responsible for global warming for those who subscribe to the Greenhouse Gas hypothesis of global warming.

Since human emissions can be calculated in actual tonnage, simple algebra can show the relative contributions of CO2 to the atmospheric concentration from human and other sources.

In 2006 this equates to humans contributing 1435 megatonnes to the concentration increase and other sources presumably natural (such as out gassing of the oceans and volcanoes) contributing 4836 megatonnes.
This is a clear statement that human emissions are only contributing 29.7% of the atmospheric CO2 increase and therefore any statement that human emissions are the major cause of global warming is clearly false.

Another table added:

YEAR	CO2 Emissions from Humans	CO2 Emissions from other
2006	1,435 Mtonnes	4836 Mtonnes

The sharp increase in human emissions took place in 2001 as was pointed out by the IPCC. If the same calculation is done using the 5 years before and after 2001 the human emissions contribution to the atmospheric concentration is reduced to 27%, and if the natural emissions are increasing as would be suggested by out gassing theory this number would be reduced even further.

All of the predictions for a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere by 2050 or 2100 are based on emissions not actual measured atmospheric CO2 concentration.
The 2006 concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is 381.89ppmv and the increase from 2005 was 2.15ppmv with the rate increasing at 0.15ppmv/year each year.
In 2050, 44 years from now, the concentration will have increased by 101.2ppmv to 483.1ppmv which is far from a doubling of 760ppmv, and even in 2100 the concentration will only be 598.1ppmv.

Quite simply, the actual physical data indicates that even if we increase our emissions at our current alarming rates we will have met the concentration objectives of the Kyoto Accord by staying well under a doubling of atmospheric CO2 by 2100.

The global temperature change as a function of human emissions is a further indication that the premise for Kyoto is wrong.
The global temperature increased from 1990 to 2003 from 14.075 to 14.272 degrees C or about 0.015 degrees C per year.
The global temperature was exactly the same in 2003 and 2006 indicating zero increase between those years.

Remarkably the zero increase in global temperature took place when the emissions were increasing at over 20 times the rate for the period that the temperature was increasing at 0.015 degrees C per year. By any scientific standard this would negate any possible correlation of human CO2 emissions with global temperature change.

In fact the temperature data over the last 150 years compared to the CO2 concentration data as presented by the IPCC prove that CO2 concentration itself cannot be correlated with global temperature changes.

A close inspection of the temperature graph will show that instead of a continuous temperature rise since the turn of the century there are two almost linear trends of global temperature increase separated by the well documented minor cooling that took place from about 1943 to 1975. The trend from 1975 to 2006 has a slope of about 0.02 degrees C per year. The earlier trend from about 1911 to 1943 also has the near identical slope of 0.02 degrees C per year.

The change in atmospheric CO2 concentration as presented by the IPCC shows an increase of less than 0.3ppmv per year from 1911 to 1943 but that rate increases by over 6 times to just under 2ppmv per year from 1975 to 2006.

PERIOD	Change in CO2 concentration per year	Change in Temperature per year
1911-1943	0.3ppmv	0.02 C
1975-2006	~2.0ppmv	0.02 C

If two concentration rate increases, one six times the other, produce the same rate of temperature increase there are only two possible conclusions; either there is no relationship between CO2 concentration and global temperature; or there is such a rapidly decreasing exponential relationship that it would take several doublings of CO2 concentration to achieve the same amount of temperature increase that occurred from 1975 to 2006.

(While the first conclusion that there is no relationship between CO2 changes and global temperatures is more likely, the second possible conclusion points to the likelihood that the parts of the 4.2micron band and the 13.5micron band that are unique CO2 infrared radiation capture are nearly saturated and additional CO2 concentration has progressively less an less effect in a decreasing exponential fashion.)

In Summary the actual physical data used by the IPCC clearly demonstrates that:

1. Human emissions are not the primary source for increased concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere and in fact represent less than 30% of the contribution.
2. Human emissions cannot be responsible for global temperature changes.
3. Changes in concentration of atmospheric CO2 have virtually no effect on global temperature.

This simple demonstration of basic science using IPCC data begs the question why was this not done by the IPCC scientists who are all top scientists more than capable of recognizing these simple shortcomings of the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis?

The short answer is that the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is not a scientific entity, but a political body. And it's politicians like Mr. Dion, Ms. May, Mr. Layton, Mr. Duceppe and now, sadly Mr. Baird who don't want to recognize these simple shortcomings of the global warming crusade.

The Bear Facts

Excerpt from an article at the Western Standard:

And so it is that environmental groups such as the World Wildlife Fund have begun using images of the polar bear to draw the world's attention to global warming. Their argument goes something like this: humans should cut back on their emissions of greenhouse gases, because those gases are warming the atmosphere at an alarming rate, causing temperatures in the Arctic to rise. As a result, sea ice forms less frequently, and polar bears are losing the icy platforms from which they hunt for seals. The bears, therefore, might die off because of global warming, which leads directly to the grand finale--a plea to save the polar bear by giving money to the fight against global warming.

(...)

However, all that's known for sure about the world's polar bear population is that it is in flux. It is stable in many areas, decreasing in a few and increasing in a few others, according to a new status table compiled by the Polar Bear Specialist Group of the World Conservation Union. Lily Peacock, the government of Nunavut's polar bear biologist, reveals there are large gaps in the research, and that experts can't truthfully say whether the overall population is rising or falling. "That's why, when we talk about the entire world's population, we say between 20,000 and 25,000," Peacock says. But if this figure is accurate, then polar bear numbers have actually more than doubled in the past half-century. More than half of the world's polar bears can be found in Canada, and about 90 per cent of these make their homes in Nunavut.

Read the full article here (free registration required)

Carbon offset swindle

Oh, what a surprise...

A Financial Times investigation has uncovered widespread failings in the new markets for greenhouse gases, suggesting some organisations are paying for emissions reductions that do not take place. (...)

The FT investigation found:

■ Widespread instances of people and organisations buying worthless credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions.

■ Industrial companies profiting from doing very little – or from gaining carbon credits on the basis of efficiency gains from which they have already benefited substantially.

■ Brokers providing services of questionable or no value.

■ A shortage of verification, making it difficult for buyers to assess the true value of carbon credits.

■ Companies and individuals being charged over the odds for the private purchase of European Union carbon permits that have plummeted in value because they do not result in emissions cuts.

One square

Story.