The Global Warming Bollocks
Firstly, we are not Global Warming deniers, the climate in the part of the atmosphere we inhabit is warming and the data is irrefutable.
What we contend is that Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is insignificant compared to natural, cyclical global warming.
AGW is supposedly the product of man-made Greenhouse Gasses (primarily CO2 emissions) causing a measureable effect in the global climatic greenhouse effect.
THE SCIENCE IS DEBATABLE
Greenhouse theory (and never forget it is just that: A THEORY which we don't fully understand) would suggest a positive feedback effect leading to ever warmer temperatures. Unfortunately for the theorists, this would show larger increases in temperature as you rise through the troposphere. The data suggests otherwise, with temperatures changes at ground level not matched by the lower troposphere, and even worse, a cooling of the lower stratosphere according to measurements from NASA microwave sounding units (MSUs) and weather balloons. I quote "These differences are the basis for discussions over whether our knowledge of how the atmosphere works might be in error, since the warming aloft in the troposphere should be at least as strong as that observed at the surface."
This becomes significant when you realise that this theory is one of the supporting pillars of the Climate Modelling Programs which are used to give the predictions of sensational catastrophic scenarios so loved by the the AGW devotees and their media poodles.
Initially it was attempted to blame ozone depletion for the cooling in the lower stratosphere. This cannot be reconciled with the consistent cooling even though ozone levels are no longer decreasing and in fact significantly increasing in places. Mind you, the ground figures are distorted as a result of urban heat islands (for convenience most ground stations are built near/in urban areas), and sometimes downright stupidity, eg
Hot exhaust = Instant 'global warming' Nicely insulated by bushes
Where ground stations have become compromised through human activity modellers 'correct' for these anomalies apparently. How do they quantify the corrections? Why not sort out the data corruption at source? Oh no, they would rather take corrupt data and further corrupt it to 'correct it', before putting it into their modelling programs to further crunch the numbers. Sound accurate to you ? Peter Dietze discusses some of the errors in the modelling rather better than I can phrase it.
Further, the dogged concentration on CO2 as the culprit is misleading. Water vapour is the real power behind the Greenhouse throne. Best explained here by people more knowledgeable than me. It shows just how insignificant anthropogenic CO2 is in the overall picture.
A final fly in the ointment regarding CO2 as the forcing agent in temperature increases. The graph below (note the x-axis runs right to left) shows that, over millennia, CO2 level rises have lagged behind temperature increases by 800 years (+/-200)
THE DATA IS DODGY
The IPCC made great use of work by Mann et al in IPCC TAR and
this became the default reference, (the infamous Hockey Stick Graph) which omitted the so called Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period.
Prior to this they used this graph
Unfortunately since a review by McIntyre and McKitrick much tit for tat name-calling and reviews-of reviews-of reviews by both 'sides' has clouded the issue somewhat and the Mann data has in fact been omitted from IPCC AR4 as far as I know.
Esper et al 2005 compared previous studies and the diagram below shows their findings.
What is obvious is that the Mann figures show the lowest average anomalies in both the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. This smoothing effect makes the hockey stick graph all the more dramatic as it gives a (false) impression of very stable temperatures until the late twentieth century. Why then did the IPCC use this particular study? Perhaps they wanted the most dramatic effect to support their findings?
Jaworowski 2007 is a more complete disection of the bad science and politics which runs all the way through IPCC AR4.
DOESN'T FIT YOUR ARGUMENT? IGNORE IT
Some work the IPCC do not make use of is the large body of work relating to solar forcing of the climate changes. IPCC AR4 lists climate forcings in a table and assigns them all Levels Of Scientific Understanding (LOSU). Those assigned a LOSU in the 'low' category include solar irradiance and aerosol/cloud albedo effect, which I would say are pretty important. Worst of all, a 'very low' rating is applied to Solar Eruptivity and therefore excluded altogether! Are they really suggesting that in discussions about Global Warming they leave out the data about the primary source of energy input to the system? Incredible.
Let's look at the data which is deemed irrelevant...
This is pretty self-explanatory. Which is the better fit against temperature anomalies, CO2 or sunspot activity? If CO2 is responsible, why does temperature fall between 1947 and 1970 while CO2 levels increase by about 6% ?
Look at a graph of solar activity vs temperature. Note the right hand Y-axis is inverted. This is because the plot is of length of solar cycles, and the shorter solar cycles are more eruptive.
Another effect of increased solar eruptivity is the increased solar wind deflecting more galactic cosmic rays (GCR). A noted effect of GCR is to increase cloud formation which in turn increases the albedo of the earth ie, it reflects more sunlight back into space, leading to cooling. So, increased solar activity = decreased levels of GCR reaching the atmosphere = lower albedo = higher temperatures. See below.
With such good 'fit' in terms of solar vs temperature data I would have thought it was worthy of consideration in the debate. One of the foremost researchers in this field is Dr Theodor Landscheidt, and his work can be found here.
NATURAL CYCLES / EVENTS
Landscheidt covers the most significant of these, the solar cycles, in his article above. They cover the precession, axial tilt, and eccentricities in orbit of the Earth relative to the sun.
Another natural event is the Dansgaard/Oescheger Event. These are noted at the end of the last ice age where there were sudden, rapid temperature increases, normally around 5°C over a 40 year period, with a notable 8°C increase over 40 years about 11500 years ago. Makes our 0.6°C over 100 years look a bit pathetic really, doesn't it?
A further point of interest; there currently appears to be global warming occuring on Mars. Surely with all the billions spent on sending probes past, around, and onto this planet we should have spotted the 4x4s those inconsiderate Martians are driving around to kill their planet?
Oh, it's happening on Pluto as well.
WILL NOBODY THINK OF THE PENGUINS
"The ice caps are melting, we will all drown" we have been told. Well, the sea level will rise significantly and displace/kill millions of people at least.
May I refer you to;
Antarctic Ice
Joughlin, Tulaczyk found that rather than thinning, the west antarctic ice sheet thickened by approximately 26 billion tonnes in 2002. They also concluded the marginal thinning was due mainly to changes in ocean currents rather than changes in atmospheric temperatures.
Arctic Ice
Zwally et al 2005 found thinning at the margins of the ice sheet and thickening inland to the extent of an overall increase of 11(+/-3) billion tonnes/year over the period 1992-2002
All of the above is partly why I remain firmly sceptical of the whole anthropogenic global warming argument.
I've deliberately avoided the politics of all this. That is fuel for another article.
In the meantime, I'm going to keep on burning as much Super Unleaded as I can at the Nordschleife, flying when I feel like it, and leaving my TV on standby and my PC running.
DJ