NZCLIMATE & ENVIRO TRUTH NO 88
DECEMBER 11th 2005
 
Evidence Doesn't matter !
 
I pointed out in Newsletter 86 that the evidence for the Greenhouse Effect has almost collapsed. Two further papers have now appeared which assist in its demise.
 
The paper by Thorne. Parker, Christy and Mears, "Uncertainties in Climate Trends" (Bull American Meteorological SocOctober 2005, 1437-1442), says "We can no longer absolutely conclude whether globally the troposphere is cooling or warming relative to the surface".
 
They say also "Although we use upper-air temperatures, we contend that structural uncertainty will be generic to all climate data records"
 
This remark is surely intended to cast doubt on the reliability of the surface temperature datasets, where there is disagreement between the several compilers, and where there has been no reply to the statistical evidence that they are biased by urbanisation errors.
 
They also say "We cannot use climate models to differentiate between observational datasets as the models may be wrong"
 
This demolishes a very common IPCC procedure for attempting to decide between different observed trends. "The models may be wrong"  Tut tut..

Then  there is the paper by Timothy  A  Cohn and  Harry F Lins, "Nature's Style: Naturally Trendy". Geophys Research Letters  2005, Vol L23402, doi:1029/2005GL024476, which shows that the  procedures used by P.D Jones et al  to establish trends in the surface temperature record are mathematically unsound. They say
"the concept of statistical significance is meaningless when discussing poorly understood systems"  and

"with respect to temperature data there is overwhelming evidence that the planet has warmed during the past century. But could this warming be due to natural dynamics? Given what we know about the complexity, long-term persistence and non-linearity of the climate system. it seems the answer might be yes. Finally that reported trends are real yet insignificant indicates a worrisome possibility: natural climatic excursions might be much larger than we imagine. So large, perhaps, that they render insignificant the changes, human-induced or otherwise, observed during the past century"

A mistake there. How can you know that human-induced changes have been "observed" if the natural changes might be much greater?

They are all slowly coming round to an admission that there is no evidence in support of the view that greenhouse gases are affecting the earth's temperature..
But does it matter? Who cares? The enviros have succeeded in  convincing everybody that it is true whether there is evidence or not. We are wasting our time. It is like trying to persuade the Pope that God does not exist.

Vincent Gray
75 Silverstream Road
Crofton Downs
Wellington 6004
New Zealand
Phone/Fax 064 4 9735939
"It's not the things you don't know that fool you.
It's the things you do know that aint so"
Josh Billings