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In his 2013 inaugural address, President Obama told Americans that the United States “will respond to the threat of climate change” and will take the lead for other countries to follow suit. Since the climate is always changing, it is possible that our way of life could be threatened by unpleasant changes such as a new glacial epoch. The President was, however, referring to the hypothesis that human carbon dioxide emissions are causing major, dangerous climate changes. If he follows this false assumption, then any resultant policy will be ineffective and could, itself, be dangerous.

Dr. Robert Carter, a specialist in paleo-environmental and paleo-climatic topics and author of the book, “Climate: the Counter Consensus,” shows how this hypothesis of dangerous anthropogenic global warming (DAGW) fails. Below are some excerpts from a long post titled “Global Warming: Anthropogenic or Not?” See full post here.

Many different lines of evidence can be used to test the Dangerous Anthropogenic Global Warming hypothesis (DAGW). Here are five pieces of evidence, all of which are based upon real world empirical data.

1. 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.

2. During the 20th century, a global warming of between 0.4̊C and 0.7̊C occurred, at a maximum rate, in the early decades of the century, of about 1.7̊C/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 1̊C warmer than today, at rates of warming up to 2.5̊C/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.

3. 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.

4. 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 +2.0̊C/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.

5. 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.

The 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.

So far, no evidence has been presented to disprove the null hypothesis.

The Heritage Foundation has some suggestions on how the U.S. can “take the lead” in climate policy, see here:

Undertake independent efforts to more accurately determine the severity of climate change and verify U.N. claims. The lack of warming in recent years is raising fundamental questions about the underlying assumptions of climate-change predictions. Undertaking actions with grave implications for the U.S. economy without greater confidence is irresponsible.

Work with a smaller group of nations through informal arrangements such as the Major Economies Forum to undertake appropriate steps that are cost effective, verifiable, and effectual.

Call for a moratorium on U.N. climate change conferences that emphasize financial transfers and
reinforce the flawed, ineffective Kyoto methodology of differentiated responsibilities.

Prohibit the EPA and other agencies from regulating greenhouse gas emissions and prohibiting the EPA and other agencies from using any funds to promulgate or enforce any regulation intended to mitigate global warming unless it is expressly authorized to do so by Congress.

 

UPDATE: This update is in response to comments below.

The comments are very instructive to the objective reader. They show how proponents of AGW divert attention from the main issue with ad hominem attacks, appeals to authority, appeals to a mythical consensus, and a Mr. Wolf even wonders how dare someone give me a platform to express an opinion. This shows that their passion is religious rather than scientific. It also shows they lack physical evidence to support their credulous belief in AGW.

Hidden in all the sound and fury, we see that not one of them presents physical evidence to show that human carbon dioxide emissions are the major cause of climate change or even a significant cause of climate change. Not one of them has presented evidence to refute the null hypothesis, i.e., that the climate variations are natural.

The facts show that the DAGW hypothesis fails the test when it comes to observational data.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 30th, 2013 at 9:25 am and is filed under Climate change, Politics. Tags for this post: AGW, CAGW, Carter, Climate change, DAGW, global warming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.