Global warming business team-players abandon the coalition.

It seems as if the global warming consensus continues to crumble. First there was climategate, exposing fraud, corruption of data, the destruction of data, and the suppression of dissenting voices within the scientific community. Then, there was the glaciergate scandal revealing sloppy work on the part of IPCC scientist; work that made it into the IPCC report. The report had glaring examples of simple subtraction and division errors that should embarrass a fifth grader.

Then Phil Jones, the East Anglia University scientist at the center of the Climategate scandal admits that the current period of global warming may be no greater than the previous two warming periods since the last little ice age. He also admits there has been no warming since 1996. On top of that, what started as just a very few scientist breaking their silence and dissenting on global warming has turned into a steady trickle of dissenting voices who are breaking from the pack. Many of these are not concluding that global warming is not occurring but they are questioning specific conclusions and the quality of certain research.

At the same time, more and more companies selling carbon credits were revealed to be nothing but scams and even "green power" that one can purchase from their local electric company was revealed by Mother Jones to be a scam.

This week there was another blow on the global warming front. BP America, Conoco Phillips, and Caterpillar dropped out of the main lobbying group for cap and trade, the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP).

It looks like the solid consensus is no longer quite so solid and the united front is no longer so united.

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What next on Global Warming?

I really don’t know what to believe about global warming any more. I am not a scientist. I only had the minimum required science courses in college. How is the average citizen to know the truth on complex matters like global warming?

Some years ago based on what I could learn, I became convinced that global warming was real. I thought the preponderance of the evidence supported the theory. (See, My Conversion on Global Warming) While the official scientific community seemed on board, the critics of the theory would drag out some unimpressive skeptic who was maybe a meteorologist or a TV weatherman or a “scientist” in an unrelated field. The big guns were on the side of those who supported global warming. I was not going to get my science from college dropout Rush Limbaugh. I concluded global warming theory must be real.

I was dismayed that many on the right continued to deny global warming. I thought those on the right should accept the science and then join the debate over the solutions. Even if one accepts that global warming is a reality, there is still much to debate. In fact, I thought the right would have the better solution for combating global warming than the left.

The right generally believes in progress and could advance a search for technological solutions while many on the left saw no solution except “green” energy and a reduction in our standard of living. The right understands the concept of the market and concepts like pricing externalities while the left sees only authoritarian command solutions to problems. I wanted the right to stop denying there was a problem and instead advance arguments for conservative solutions.

Now, I am not so sure. I am back in the skeptics column. Recent events have pushed me back. Climategate was a bombshell. The revelations of destroyed data, doctored data, fraud and silencing of critics shook my faith in the science.

Last week’s glaciergate revelations that major simple math errors were in the IPCC report makes me further doubt the science. If the work of the IPCC and the scientist who developed the reports is so sloppy that they miss very simple subtraction and division math, then why should I accept their complex computer math models than I can’t understand?

The revelations that some of these glaciergate errors were intentional in order to create a sense of urgency is further cause to doubt the whole science of global warming.

In addition, responsible credentialed “real” scientists are starting to poke holes in some of the theory or at least say the situation is not as dire as it was previously thought to be. Just today, I read a report that says that the amplification of the global warming due to carbon cycle feedback is “significantly less” than previously thought. This is not the work of global warming deniers with an agenda but is a new scientific finding. Read it, if in doubt.

Despite climategate, glaciergate, and new scientific finding that cast doubt on the rate at which global warming is occurring and on the strength of the consensus, I am still not ready to become a full-fledged global warming skeptic. I am not ready to join those who say the whole global warming science is the hoax of the century. I think research should continue. I don’t think we should do anything rash like even consider new treaties or a cap and trade bill until we have more certainty of the science.

I am not alone in shifting back toward the camp of the doubters. A recent poll conducted by the Yale Project on Climate Change and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication found that only 50 percent of Americans now say they are "somewhat" or "very worried" about global warming, a 13-point decrease in only two years. The percentage of Americans who think global warming is happening has declined 14 points, to 57 percent. The percentage of Americans who think global warming is caused mostly by human activities dropped 10 points, to 47 percent.

Where should we go from here? The believers in the theory should stop circling the wagons and protecting fraudulent and sloppy science for one thing. If you want to persuade me the problem is real, fire those who commit scientific fraud and destroy data and fire those who can’t do simple math. Work on gaining he public trust again. Stop silencing dissenting voices. Stop being activist and be scientist and the let the science take you where it will.

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Global Warming scientist admits faulty glacier data included purely to put political pressure on world leaders.

Dr Murari Lal who said a Himalayan glacier was melting at the alarming rate of 134 meters a year when he should have said it was melting at the rate of 23 meters a year and who said the glacier would disappear by 2035 when the real estimate was the year 2350 and who said that a study was "peer reviewed" when in fact it was a report from the World Wildlife Fund has admitted that he included false information in the IPCC report purely to put political pressure on world leaders. (link)

Given the revelations of Climategate and now Glaciergate, would anyone blame me if I lost my faith in the science of global warming?

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Dear Global Warming Scientist, I am not as smart as a global warming scientist but I think I am as smart as a fifth grader.

According to a recent news report, “Five glaring errors were discovered in one paragraph of the world's most authoritative report on global warming forcing the Nobel Prize-winning panel of climate scientists who wrote it to apologize and promise to be more careful.”

The glaring errors were in the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC is the UN affiliated body that is considered the ultimate authority on climate change. It is their report that persuades the nations of the world global warming is real, that is man made and will have terrible consequences if it is not addressed.

Here is one of those glaring errors in the IPCC report. The report says that between 1845 and 1965, the Himalayan Pindari Glacier shrank by 2,840 meters. It says that's a rate of 135.2 meters a year. Now here is the part where I think I am as smart as a fifth grader. I know that that is not correct.

I would assume global warming scientists have very smart computers and they could get this math question right. However you don’t have to have really sophisticated scientific program on your computer to do this math. I have a build-in calculator on my desk top. At work, at any one time, I have three or four cheap calculators lying around. Without a calculator however, I can still work this problem. I really do want to do my little part to help the advancement of science, so here is my letter to the scientist at IPCC.

Dear Global warming scientist,

I really want us to get this global warming science stuff right. It could have terrible consequences if we get it wrong. You see, I am not a global warming scientist so I have been depending on you. I have been trusting the experts. I was led to believe the smartest people in the world were working on this global warming science. Also, you had Al Gore helping you. I was trusting you.

I am disappointed in your sloppy work. Also that climategate thing with the fraud and silencing of dissenting voices and the destruction of data and manipulation of data concerned me. Nevertheless, I still have a hard time believing that the whole scientific world is in on a super big conspiracy. Anyway, I am going to try to help you with your most recent problem of the glaring mistakes in the IPCC report. To do that, I am going to try to put this math problem in the form of a written fifth grade math question and I am going to walk you through it.

Math question. If between the year 1965 and 1846 a glacier shrinks 2,840 meters, how many meters a year did it shrink?

Step one: Subtract 1845 from 1966. This is the really, really tricky part. Both 1965 and 1846 are between the start of the year 1846 and the end of the year 1965. This is why you have to read the question very, very carefully and you have to think about the question. I could draw a time line if it would help you. The answer is 121.

Step two: Divide 2,840 by 121. I know borrowing numbers is hard. And, wow, decimals are really, really difficult. The answer is 23.47. If you round it to one decimal point it is 23.5. (I will explain rounding another time.)

See, the real answer is 23.5 meters a year; not 135.2. I don’t know how you got that answer. If you had only missed it a little I could understand. I sometime get confused on step one myself. So if you had got that wrong by one year your answer might have been off a little. I could understand. I don’t known how in the world you got 135.2, however. Where did that number come from?

Ok, that is all of the time I have tonight. I will address the other glaring errors at a later time. In the meantime please, please double check your math. Maybe Al Gore has a calculator? You are about to cause me to lose my global warming religion.

Sincerely
Rod Williams

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Climategate scandals grows: more revelation of data tampering.

Climategate is proving to be bigger than just the revelations obtained from the e-mail hacking of a server used by the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia.

As reported by examiner.com,"For the past six days, several climate scientists have discovered an alarming trend: clear evidence of alteration of historical data at weather stations around the world, in order to support the contention of anthropogenic global warming (AGW)."

One of those scientist who reported a discrepancy between what his own research showed and what is reported in the official version of the UN Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) report is Robert Keen. Dr. Keen had conducted research into the climate of Alaska and found "no substantial difference in average temperature between 1935-1944 and the present time." The IPCC, however, found substantial warming over the past three decades.

This is serious stuff. Robert Keen is no amateur hack setting out to disprove climate change theory. Climatologist Dr. Richard Keen is a lecturer in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado, a member of the American Meteorological Society and has worked with the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Keen specializes in volcanic aerosols and climate change studies.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific body established by the United Nations Environment Program and the World Meteorological Organization. It reviews and assesses scientific, technical, and socio-economic work relevant to climate change, but does not carry out its own research. The IPCC was honoured, along with Al Gore, with the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

To see more on Dr. Keen's report on the discrepancy between what his research showed and the official IPCC report, see his published report, Alaska Climate – Station Data vs Adjusted GHCN/IPCC. In this report he says that the agency producing the information included in the IPCC report had to use the same data he used in his report since there his only one source of that data. "One can only guess," writes Keen, "what 'corrections' were applied to the GHCN and IPCC data sets."

Others who are discovering discrepancies in the data and what the "data with corrections" are showing are people with less credentials than Dr. Keen. Anthony Watts is a meteorologist who is editor of the blog What up with that? He is not a degreed scientist, but then neither is Al Gore. His research cast serious doubt on the finding of the IPCC. While I am going to take the finding of non-degreed scientist with a gain of salt, given the revealed use of "tricks" by degreed scientist to manipulate data in order to prove the theory of global warming, I am also taking the findings of those scientist with a grain of salt.

The establishment, including the scientific community and the mainstream media, refuse to pay serious attention to the doubt cast on the science of global warming by the revelations of climategate. They hope that if they continue to ignore it that nothing will change and they can maintain their "consensus," can marginalize their critics, and that this will all go away. Like the Wizard of Oz, they want us to ignore that man behind the curtain.

I am still not ready to call all global warming science "junk science." I am, however, very suspicious of the science. The burden of proof has been shifted. The data needs to be reevaluated by those not tainted by this scandal. Well-credentialed scientist whose financial well being is not dependent on a predetermined outcome need to look at the evidence with fresh eyes and an open mind. We need to know if global warming is a pending worldwide catastrophe of unprecedented proportions in the history of mankind, or if it is minor inconvenience we can address and live with, or if there is nothing to it.

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