A look at Anthropogenic Global Warming

by Fergus Reilly PhD, a “climate science independent skeptic”

“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act” ... George Orwell^[1]

an encapsulation of Fergus' presentation at Accidentally Carbon Street
in Maleny on April 23rd, 2010

The temperature records in that report correspond to the red line in this graph.^[4]

In 1995, the IPCC released its Second 5-yearly Assessment Report on climate change (SAR)^[5], in a blaze of publicity, which contained the now infamous phrase that there was “a discernible human influence on global climate”.

In 1999 a new graph was created^[6] (the blue line) which seemed to validate Anthropogenic Global Warming.

In 2005 a third graph appeared^[7] - the black line - which appears as a compromise.

These graphs are at the core of Anthropogenic Global Warming and are the foundations upon which the Emissions Trading Scheme and the Carbon Trading Market are being built.

And they are different - sufficiently different to make me wonder what honest basis there is for Climate Change and Global Warming as a man-made phenomenon.

Much has been said about the potential catastrophic consequences facing our planet in general and mankind in particular as a result of climate change or - as it has come to be labeled - Anthropogenic Global Warming.

There is a polarisation of viewpoints with little middle ground - a polarisation which is causing some distasteful consequences of its own around the world^{[8][9][10][11][12]}.

There is perhaps a growing view of mankind as being guilty and that “we must be made to pay for our sins”.

Some suggest that the best way we can be made to pay is through an ETS (Emissions Trading Scheme)^[13] - a global tax creating a Carbon Trading market^[14].

Another cash cow for entities - like banks - to generate trillions in revenue by sequestering our earnings. Entities whose track record in dispersing public monies has been prominently demonstrated in their disbursement^[15][16] of the billions of bailout dollars in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis^[17].^[18].

A classic case of disaster capitalism^[19]

One major consequence of one branch of science^[20] - Climate Science^[21] - becoming the exclusive province of fabulous funding (over US$79 billion to date) is that some of the fundamental disciplines of science itself appear to be being sacrificed on an altar of profit-motivated political PR with banks, business, government and environmentalists fiercely jockeying for prominence, influence and funding.

Specifically there is a great reluctance to express any doubt as this can detrimentally influence career, income, reputation or funding^[22][23].

On the other hand expressing certitude is encouraged by positive influence on those very same things.

So where does that leave the “uninitiated masses”?

For every credentialed scientist espousing a runaway climate out of control as a consequence of untrammeled global human activity, there is another, equally credentialed, suggesting all the data is not in and much of the data being cited is either wrong, missing, fraudulent, flawed, lost, irrelevant or simply non-independently-peer-reviewed nonsense.

Most of us folk don't have the time, inclination or wherewithal to actively pursue the matter for ourselves.

How can we take the heat out of the situation and chill enough to find the facts for ourselves?

Science is not a consensus-driven forum like government. Science is not an opinion-based field such as the arts. Science is not a political plaything like the health care system.

Yet Climate Science has come to display just those traits.

Honest science is concerned with discovering the truth through measurement or observation and experimentation. Some of us ordinary folks, portrayed as non-peer-reviewed non-climate-scientists are finding ourselves confused and sometimes ridiculed for having an opinion that is in any way different from the IPCC's.

I believe we have nowhere to turn to but our own willingness to pay attention and think for ourselves.

And why would we want to that?

The banks (and we all are familiar with their track record with our money^[15][16] of the billions of bailout dollars in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis^[17].^[18]) want us to trade carbon^[24][25][26].

Last year world wide carbon trading was well over $100 billion and is set to grow exponentially.

Where do you think that money is coming from?

Some have even suggested that if we are at all interested in helping our grandchildren live a life free from financial slavery^[27] we need to get a grip on what is happening right here right now.

Science is supposedly immune to personal agendas and subjective biases, it is, to me, a disciplined and tireless quest for unsullied knowledge, prizing, above all else, sufficient accurate raw data and valid properly peer-reviewed methodology adhering thoroughly to the scientific method^[42] sometimes regarded as the “greatest development of humanity”.

Frequently science has demonstrated the futility of notions such as "the science is settled".

Yet that is what is being espoused - the science relating to man-made potentially catastrophic climate change is “settled”^[43] and therefore no further debate or discussion will be tolerated or entered into - the judge's decision is final!

Nor, therefore, seems there any reason to waste our time with transparent peer-reviewing delays while there is such a clear armageddon^[44] hurtling down on us from God-knows what direction. threatening an extinction-level event^[45].

Instead there is a strong, persuasive media-delivered acceptance of what seems to me to be non-independently-peer-reviewed scientific opportunism.

AGW proponents are continually insisting that only peer-reviewed papers carry any weight, fortunately all the material used herein has been reviewed by a peer^[46] and is, therefore peer-reviewed.

In 1999 Dr Michael Mann of the Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts was the primary author of a new paper published in “Geophysical Research Letters”^[48][49].^[6] Here is the graph published in that paper - it was originally acknowledged as applying ONLY to the Northern hemisphere.

In Science it is standard practice that authors make available the raw data and methodology used, in fact many respected publications insist on it as part of their editorial standards, yet no one was able to obtain access to the data or the methodology Dr Mann used for several years following publication.

Dr Mann refused to release either the information he was basing his work on or how he was using that information to reach the visually striking results portrayed in the hockey stick graph until legal action was taken - a most singular occurrence in the world of scientific discourse and discovery.

It seems that, despite the importance of this graph, the colossal and foreboding edifice being erected at break-neck speed upon it and the dire consequences being proposed and imposed on all humanity, for several years no independent researcher was able to verify its validity or assess its methodology until well after a considerable agitation had been generated amongst mankind.

The yellow area above indicates possible error range - the data graphed by the black line in this portion was obtained from tree-rings.

Rings from 12 trees to be precise.

Trees growing in a small and remote part of Siberia.

The red line above shows data obtained from 20th century surface temperature records obtained from temperature recording instruments and weather stations around the world with a large proportion in the Untited States.

“Artifact of Man-made Heat Islands”

Back around the turn of the century most weather stations were in open fields near some settlement but sufficiently far away to prevent the urban influence on the readings.

Throughout the 20th century urban sprawl resulted in many weather stations becoming engulfed and they are now measuring microclimates within a heat island.

It is hard to know how much this has affected the measurement of "global" temperature but the respected figure is at least 1.4° Fahrenheit.At no time has this significant contribution to the significance of weather station temperature readings been acknowledged or mentioned.

Here is some independent research

Here is how Peter, an American teenager^[50], with the active support of his father, used publicly-available data to chart the divergence between urban temperature measurements and nearby rural ones.

They found 28 pairs which charted like this - a 1.5° Fahrenheit (nearly 1° centigrade) divergence.

It does not, please note, relate directly to the “Average Global Surface Temperature” but merely to the measurement of temperatures which have been used to develop a number which purports to be representative of an “Average Global Surface Temperature”

The IPCC and over $79,000,000,000 - that's right billion - invested in scientific research seems to have been unable to discover this significant influence but have preferred to focus on a few trees in a remote area of the frozen north and the arguable premise that their growth is influenced primarily by the Earth's average global temperature.

Peter's work demonstrates that the Hockey Stick graph's construction and conclusions drawn from it are clearly flawed science - any conclusions drawn from such a process are invalid and so any courses of action suggested by it should be ignored. Especially any scheme which proposes creating the biggest “tax” ever levied in the history of mankind by non-government concerns for no perceived improvement of the situation and giving it all to privately-owned entities, under the guise of an “Emissions Trading Scheme”^[51], to play with as they wish on a Carbon Credit Market.

Our collective governance measures proved not meet to the task of formulating a global agreement to deal with this phantasm at Copenhagen and so, I suspect, we will see a growing pressure to create a “world government” well beyond the influence of the vast majority of we humans sharing the surface of this wonderful planet, and answerable to no-one but so-called "Market Forces".

But that's only a suspicion. Of mine. The substance of which falls without the scope of this page. However, if you are interested in this aspect I strongly recommend The Skeptics Handbook II^[2] as a concise, comprehensive and stimulating read - its free to download.

The trouble with tree rings

Tree ring data is clearly problematic when used as an indication of local temperature - let alone global temperature.

Here is a cross-section of a single tree - we can safely assume that, globally-speaking, the temperature was at all times the same on the north, south, east and west of the tree.

Yet the rings clearly show significant variance (measured as 144%), in one single tree!

Using hockeystickology, we could infer that the “global temperature” was consistently higher on one side of this tree than the other!

You might think that would be sufficient to discredit the methodology and hence the validity of the conclusions drawn.

Especially when the conclusions were at such odds with established climate history.

But wait, there;s more.....

The U.S. National Assessment^[52] reproduced Mann's original graph labeling it a “CO₂ and Temperature” history suggesting carbon involvement on absolutely no basis whatsoever.

This version also omits the wide error margins that were included with the original Mann graph (the yellow area of the original graph shown above).

The publication of this spurious chart was accompanied by this statement “New studies indicate that temperatures in recent decades are higher than at any time in at least the past 1,000 years”, was the Medieval Warm Period finally laid to rest?

This statement was highly influential in creating the atmosphere leading up to the manufacturing of the Kyoto Protocol^[53].

The plot thickens.....

Another hockey stick graph

• much of the data had been taken from dead or partially fossilised trees
• only 15 (possibly just 8?) living trees contributed to the sharp rise in the 20th century
• one freakish tree virtually transformed the graph.
• samples of 34 living trees from the same location which showed no increase had been ignored (see lower graph)

While this doesn't sound too dramatic it is certainly sufficient to, once again, show the hockey stick graph - the fundamental basis, and only tangible evidence, for AGW together with all it ensues - is scientifically flawed and is certainly no basis for all the impositions humanity is poised to collectively impose on itself, taking more from those with less, giving more to those with excess.

But what about Man-made CO₂

Take a look at this^[57] - another graph, but that's science for you - it shows the arctic air temperature (blue line) and the Solar irradiance (red line) from 1870 to 2005 (roughly).

Both have been measured by instruments designed to record the precise scientific value of the factor they are measuring.

Below them is a graph of the human carbon use which is - for me - an accurate chart of the production of man-made CO₂.

Any suggestion that temperature is being influenced by carbon emissions and not the sun looks just plain wrong to me.

How does the IPCC deal with this?

Here's the way as I see it.... (this is the video which fell victim to the technological killing field on the night).