Climategate: More Science Fiction from the IPCC
I’ve always thought the IPCC should be considered science fiction rather than science. Literally. Jack Vance, described this past summer in the New York Times Magazine as “the greatest living writer of science fiction and fantasy,” used the acronym IPCC in his futuristic Demon Princes novels to represent the Interworld Police Coordination Company — sort of an intergalactic police force. Our own IPCC — the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — does indeed hope to police the world, but aims to free the Earth of carbon dioxide instead of human (and alien) criminals.
Jack Vance’s IPCC is far more connected with reality than ours.
Our IPCC’s latest fantasy concerns hurricanes, a subject of great interest to a resident of New Orleans like myself.
This is the essence of the IPCC Assessment Report 4 (WG1 chapter 3) executive summary on hurricanes:
Intense tropical cyclone activity has increased since about 1970. … Globally, estimates of the potential destructiveness of hurricanes show a significant upward trend since the mid-1970s, with a trend towards longer lifetimes and greater storm intensity. … These relationships have been reinforced by findings of a large increase in numbers and proportion of hurricanes reaching categories 4 and 5 globally. … numbers of hurricanes in the North Atlantic have also been above normal (based on 1981–2000 averages) in 9 of the last 11 years, culminating in the record-breaking 2005 season.
In reality, hurricanes, in both strength and in frequency, have been decreasing over the past four years. Ryan Maue of the Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies (COAPS) at Florida State University, a hurricane researcher, has shown that “global and Northern Hemisphere tropical cyclone activity remains near 30-year historical lows — three years in a row now of considerably below-average activity globally.”
The decrease is not only in the number of hurricanes, but also in the total energy (ACE) of hurricanes, both in the Atlantic and worldwide, as a graph of hurricane energy vs. time shows:
The hurricane energy has been dropping since 2005, and now is at levels not seen since the late 1970s.
The above figure uses a 24-month running sum. If one instead uses a 12-month running sum, one sees that the average hurricane energy dropped this past summer to the lowest level in 30 years:
The above graphs only cover the past 30 years, so let’s look at northern hemisphere hurricane total energy since 1970, for the months of May, June, and July:
Excellent work, Frank. The rebuttals that we can publish on the “settled” science of ClimateGate, the more educated the public will be on the huge fraud that has been perpetrated in the name of “saving the planet”. Thanks.
Hurricanes are fickle things. They go where they want, when they want. Other weather systems literally get pushed aside or absorbed.
If you look at their mapped movements, they can be seen to do very odd things. They can sometimes be completely random in their movement. One of them some decades back, actually did loop-de-loops along its entire course.
My point being: Hurrican movement is Random. If you look at the graphs, Hurricane power and number of hurricanes were Higher in 93, than they were in 05.
The only difference I can see between the two, is that more hurricanes happened, while running along their RAMDOM courses, to hit the US in 05.
No AGW involved here.
Sorry, forgot to add: May-July is the beginning of the season. I’d be curious to see that same chart for September-November.
Mr. Tipler,
I believe it is true that Katrina did essentially no damage in the Crescent City, the old city that sits on a crescent ridge next to the Mississippi. It includes what most folks know as the French Quarter. Am I right?
In Vance’s Demon Princes stories, there was also The Institute, a kind of cabal of elitists. One of the villains tried to take it over but fortunately the hero prevented him. Let’s hope something similar happens in our portion of the Gaean Reach.
Bravo, Dr. Tipler! Yours is still the best undergrad physics text too. What about the journals (JGR is mentioned in the emails) that published these wild speculations?
If you look closely at the graph of total hurricane energy above, you will see a ten or eleven year cycle. It would be interesting to know how this may correspond to other weather or climatic cycles. It is well known that the sun has a 22 year sunspot cycle – eleven years of low sunspot activity followed by eleven years of high activity.
The note about hurricane Katrina is correct. The damage to New Orleans was due to a failure of the levees. The levees failed precisely where they had been founded on piles that were not driven deep enough to get through a thick layer of subterranean peat – which has approximately the foundation strength of Jello. The Corps knew about the peat layer when those particular levees were built in the 1960′s, but failed to oversee the construction sufficiently to insure that the piles penetrated the peat and were founded in solid ground. There was a thorough story on this in the New York Times about six months after the flooding.
On another note, when Hurricane Andrew struck south Florida in 1989, the Dems, with the collusion of the MSM, had great success in blaming the devastation on George H. W. Bush, who was president at the time. Encouraged by their success, they were waiting in ambush, as it were, for the next hurricane to hit a metropolitan area under a Republican administration. The younger Bush should have been prepared for that, having seen what they did to his Dad 16 years before.
The point the IPCC is making is but one part of a larger team. A team with an agenda to mislead mankind.
Global warming, third world invasion into first world countries,(diversity), Homosexual marriage, ripping off the tax payer, supporting global government, global abortion etc…It is a full court press to mislead mankind from G-d’s Holy word. Mankind is a cancer, man causes storms, and man can be his own god, is the lie of the secular humanists Marxists.
I’m not off topic, as this IPCC example shows how correct I am. In the Bible (KJV), G-d’s wrath is poured out on a world that turns it’s back on G-d’s love for mankind. It is called Jesus Christ.
In so doing, G-d sends more earthquakes, volcanoes, and storms to cause mankind to repent. Yet, men curse G-d. A G-d that created us, Loved us, and gave us orders to follow.
So, we have the IPCC telling millions that which is happening on the earth is our fault, but not for the reasons G-d gave. Therefore, they mislead people away from the true truth. IPCC is part of a larger global team.
#8: A left liberal eco-wacko trying to portray AGW “deniers” as irrational religious kooks. Nice try Leatherneck.
weather modification can create events like the “inland hurricane” in Southern Illinois and tornados off the coast in Florida, historical massive snow storms in China (only meant to cause s o m e rain) and now coming this Thursday to the Eastern seaboard (Accuweather) “historical hurricane snow storm”.
I just watch these things and wonder. History Channel, July 2009 – watch it!
Why are you examining the total hurricane energy for the Northern Hemisphere for only the months of May, June, and July? It is my understanding that hurricane season lasts from May through November. In fact, that data you presented could easily be misleading because the strongest storms tend to hit later in the season. In the last 9 years, the strongest hurricanes have not hit before August (after your arbitrary cut-off of July).
2009 (May 28-Nov 10)- Strongest Storm: Bill (Aug 15-24) Cat 4
2008 (May 30-Nov 10)- Strongest Storm: Ike (Sept 1-13) Cat 4
2007 (May 9-Dec 13)- Strongest Storm: Dean (Aug 13-23) Cat 4
2006 (Jun 10-Oct 2)- Strongest Storm: Gordon (Sept 10-20) Cat 3 and Helene (Sept 12-24) Cat 3
2005 (June 8-Jan 6)- Strongest Storm: Wilma (Oct 15-26) Cat 5
2004 (July 31-Dec 3)- Strongest Storm: Ivan (Sept 2-24) Cat 5
2003 (April 20-Dec 11)- Strongest Storm: Isabel (Sept 6-20) Cat 5
2002 (July 14-Oct 16)- Strongest Storm: Isidore (Sept 14-27) Cat 3
2001 (June 4-Dec 6)- Strongest Storm: Michelle (Oct 29-Nov 6) Cat 4
2000 (June 7-Oct 29)- Strongest Storm: Keith (Sept 28-Oct 6) Cat 4
This information does not speak to hurricane volume or average hurricane intensity for the season, but one can easily see how hurricane statistics can be manipulated to serve an agenda. Your choice of a graph indicates that you can fall victim to the same preferential reporting of statistics that you accuse the IPCC of.
Alesin, only the last graph is for 3 months. The first 2 are for the whole season.
All I know is, the last few years have been empty shadows of 2005 in terms of numbers AND intensity. It makes sense for hurricanes to increase in intensity as the world warms– they get their energy, after all, over warm water. That’s the kind of simple science guys like me can figure out, or agree with on common sense grounds when others postulate it.
Trouble is, the warmies have had to explain fewer storms AND lower intensity storms while they continued to shriek about runaway warming.
Whereas the lack of storms/lack of intensity is far more simply and easily explained by COOLING, which in fact is what’s been going on these past few years.
Oh, has anyone mentioned no solar flares since 2006? No sunspots to speak of? Maunder Minimum, anyone?
simple science. The hotter the sun, the hotter the earth, and vice versa.
Our own IPCC — the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — does indeed hope to police the world, but aims to free the Earth of carbon dioxide instead of human…
That is my MSM-style quote (misquote?).
Anyway, humans, all billions of them and their food supply, mainly animals, trillions of them, produce carbon dioxide. The easiest way to curb carbon dioxide is to get rid of carbon dioxide producers, the humans.
In James Burke’s 1989 mockumentary, ‘After the Warming,’ the runs-the-world environmental group was called the ‘Planetary Management Authority.’
I really wish sometimes that the authors of these so-called AGW rebuttal pieces would contact me beforehand for updated graphics and perhaps a better explanation that the one given here…Just saying.
Welcome, Ryan! There’s plenty of room here for a better explanation, so pull up a chair, we’re all ears!
RNB,
Thanks for reminding me of Dr. Burke. He used to do a program on PBS called, “The Day the Universe Changed.” I loved it. In one program he described the effect of the Medieval Warm Period. It seemed to be an unmitigated good thing. Growing seasons were longer, people ate more, people gave more to the church-which built huge cathedrals with their extra funds. Oh, and one more thing…grapes were grown in southern Norway! And for those who’s history skills are challenged, the Black Death didn’t show its face until the reign of Richard II in the fourteenth century. Long after the MWP had come to an end.
Obviously, all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds…you can re-bury your head in the sand….
RULE BY BUSYBODY
a.n.ditchfield
______________________________________________________________________________________
The proper conduct of a rational being starts with respect for the minds of others.
In science, this means the exposure of one’s ideas to the scrutiny of other minds, often with conflicting views, in the peer-review process. In the study of human affairs such respect unfolds into curiosity about the working of different cultures and the role of mystical experiences in them, aroused by religious practices. Ultimately, law and institu-tions for its enforcement reflect religious concepts of what is right and what is wrong.
This was the approach taken by Richard Francis Burton, one of the greatest among the gifted Victorian scholars. His forty narratives of travels to exotic or uncharted spaces are well known, but his quest for ultimate knowledge through religious experience is revealed in Burton’s biography, written by Edward Rice.
As a secret agent of the Indian Army, in mid 19th century, Burton dressed the garb that suited the mission, developed fluency in languages and observed customs on the troublesome Northwest border, along Afghanistan. Burton was so thorough in his inquiries among Sikhs that he completed studies of holy books and went through the rituals to be accepted as a Sikh sage and preacher. He dedicated greater and longer attention to Islam and capped it with his pilgrimage to Mecca, the site forbidden to infidels.
At a time when Europeans despised what they saw as backward cultures, Burton and a group of like scholars approached them with open minds. From their findings emerged the college of oriental studies in Oxford, instrumental in shaping the na-tion-building effort that unified India into the biggest democracy in the world. European secularists would do well to apply their claimed scientific de-tachment to the study of the Christian religion as earnestly as Burton did.
In the opposite direction the Mother of Par-liaments, now in her second childhood, is making real Orwell’s nightmare of 1984. This is recent. In the 18th century all Europe was known as Christen-dom. On the Continent the French revolution broke the political power of the clergy and, in the 19th century, secularists continued the hostility in anti-clerical campaigns that swept Europe. English-speaking countries were untouched by these up-heavals and have remained, to this day, the Chris-tian societies they were in the 18th century.
Anti-clericals say that religious people are unenlightened enemies of science. Reason would rule the world if religion did not exist; there would be no more hatred to abet war and tyranny. Those of this persuasion preach scientism not science — the belief that science can explain all meaning of existence. They scorn religious believers and yet their own belief leads them to support things with no rhyme or reason and plenty of poison when scientism overreaches itself and morphs into Euro-pean ideologies.
In an alternative view Michael Crichton, with the authority of a Harvard trained medical doc-tor and former professor of anthropology at Cam-bridge, suggests that religion may be hardwired into the human brain. Suppressed in one form, it returns in another.
In a vast body of philosophical thought the Biblical kind of religion underpins reason. Histori-cally, Western science preceded the 18th century Enlightenment. The work of Newton can be traced to the biblical belief that the universe is the product of a rational Creator, who endowed man with rea-son so that he could ask questions about the natu-ral world. Noted religious-minded thinkers an-swered plenty of questions, from Newton and Des-cartes to Pasteur, to Mendel, Curie, and Zichichi. Their religious belief obviously had no adverse effect on the quality of their scientific work.
Biblical ethics form the backbone of Anglo-Saxon political institutions that evolved over one thousand years; they are not a code of conduct devised by enlightened 18th century gentlemen, as some secularists hold. One gentleman of the time was Jean Jacques Rousseau who devised a plan for a society ruled by reason in obedience to a nebulous “general will”, that would come when altar and throne were overturned. What came from fol-lowing the plan? A Europe devastated by 25 years of war contrived by the ambition of tyrants. Their thought fermented during the 19th century and dis-tilled into the totalitarian creeds of the 20th century, a witches’ brew so intoxicating that it exalts vio-lence as the highest form of human activity.
Even after the discredit of Nazism and Communism, the two spurious sons of the Enlight-enment, the effect lingers on. With the ascent of its secularism in the West, the drive to believe did not fade away. Contemporary secularists stopped prac-ticing religious faiths – but their urge was channeled into secular religions, as predicted by Crichton. Those prevalent today in leftist circles — scientism, relativism, environmentalism, egalitarianism, multi-culturalism, anti-Americanism, anti-Zionism — have a track record as enemies of liberty, science and reason. What is new is the spread of these ersatz creeds to English speaking countries.
Take environmentalism, a badge that identifies the modern “progressive”. It is irrational by Western standards. Ecology was a term coined by Ernst Haeckel, a biologist/philosopher anti-Christian politician who roamed forests to enter into commun-ion with Nature. His ruminations, based on a mysti-cal belief in the organic harmony of the universe, grew out of pagan ideas that reject reason. They demoted man from the biblically assigned post of master of creation to that of serf of demagogues beyond the pale of a rational brain. Haeckel’s ideas were expanded in the doctrine of Lebensraum, the pan-German geopolitics, the March to the East, eugenics; all converged to Nazism.
This came about because ideology, when it twists evidence to fit prejudice, stands against rea-son and so sacrifices the scientific search for truth to a grab for power. Environmentalism’s current cause, man-made global warming theory, is such a grab by unsavory interests. Politicians look forward to trillions of dollars of revenues by taxing energy; government bureaucrats crave the power that goes with the licensing of energy production and the rationing of its use; the traffic in carbon credits has fallen into the grip of racketeers.
Incredible is the spectacle of public policies designed to scrap industrial economies, based on a global warming hypothesis that may never be proven. It has alternative hypotheses against it and shows signs that much of the supporting “science” is at best sloppy and at worst fraudulent.
Like other ideologies, global warming alarmism claims immunity to questioning, however sound the objection against it. In 1992 Al Gore pro-claimed that the debate about global warming was over and the science settled, with all the certitude of a lawyer who says: “Case closed”. This claim of consensus irks those with training in science. They know that original scientific thought arises in inde-pendent minds questioning conventional wisdom and that no case is ever closed; true science rec-ognizes no authority above proof backed by ex-perimental evidence. In contrast, ideologues hold nothing to be scrutinized in a rational way; only ideology thrust on the faithful — and imposed with witch hunts against doubters.
Over fifteen years, 50 billion dollars of pub-lic funds were misspent to fabricate a “scientific consensus” that man-made global warming threat-ens the planet, based on questionable computer models that deliver what the political agenda of the sponsor demands.
On the other side stand scientists who study and propose alternatives to the richly en-dowed man-made global warming hypothesis. Branded as Deniers, Flat-earthers, they find little funding for research, suffer character assassination or professional exclusion. That was the fate of many earnest scientists on the wrong side of the tracks, but among them are scientists with stature too great be dismissed with name-calling:
· Richard Lindzen. Professor of meteorology at MIT. His studies are directed to the effect of water vapor and cloud cover on climate change, factors that he sees as much greater than man-made carbon dioxide.
· Henrik Svensmark. Recently explained the role of cosmic rays in the ionization of wa-ter vapor in the lower troposphere and the formation of clouds. UN models assume a constant cloud cover over the planet but a 4% shift in it has a bearing on climate equivalent to that of all of man-made car-bon dioxide over two centuries. The impor-tance of this study of the physics and chemistry of clouds may well be realized.
· S. Baliunas and W. Soon are two Harvard scientists who linked the long cycles of ice ages to matching astronomical cycles.
In addition, renowned physicists with achievements based on mathematical models, question the valid-ity of models of climate with tenuous links to ex-perimental evidence.
· Antonino Zichichi. The foremost physicist of Italy, discoverer of anti-matter, as scientific advisor of the Vatican, warned the clergy to stay away from the politics of global warm-ing that rests on invalid computer models.
· Freeman Dyson. The architect of the merger of three versions of quantum elec-trodynamics, and arguably the greatest British physicist alive, studied climate com-puter models and found them wanting.
· Claude Allegre, of the Institute of Geophys-ics of Paris, devised a dating system for rocks, based on isotopes, which revolution-ized the study of the chronology of geologi-cal changes. He recently published a book: L’Imposture Climatique, ou la Fausse Écologie, a title that shows a piece of his mind. An early supporter of the global warming cause, he turned away in disgust at the antics of environmental activists.
The vitriolic attacks of environmental propa-ganda backfire when they vilify scientists of this caliber as shills of the big bad oil companies.
The claim of Al Gore that 2500 United Na-tions climate scientists hold the last word, as trained professionals, has deceived a credulous public into believing that there is a climate science with predictive capacity, known to the select few. Until recent times no university offered a B.Sc. de-gree in climate science. Climate studies draw on one hundred different fields, such as: meteorology; oceanography; mathematics, physics; chemistry; geology; fluid mechanics; paleontology; botany; zoology; etc. There is no scientific consensus and no 2500 climate scientists around.
Another false claim is that the climate stud-ies summarized in the four Assessment Reports of the UN since 1990 are based on peer-reviewed science. What the Climategate scandals revealed is the failure of peer review, when a narrow circle of researchers under the same roof reviewed their own work, carried away by the notion that they were saving the planet.
What transpires is that peer-review of such studies remains to be done. If a paper on climate is found wanting, it should be withdrawn and all sub-sequent papers, based on it, should also be with-drawn, even if this means scrapping all Assessment Reports of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as a prelude to a fresh and unbi-ased start. As they stand, such UN Reports offer no justification for radical public policies to de-carbonize the world economy to roll it back to an 18th century agrarian economy.
Welcome to 1984, when the former Work-shop of the World would be denuded of industry in order to save the planet. Air travel should cease because it is against Nature. “If God wanted man to fly, man would have wings” is not a Christian belief; it is a tenet of environmental true believers.
There are calls by the relativistic ideologues to do away with science, since they say it is uncer-tain and blocks prompt action. In its place they de-mand “societal values”. The legal requirement that public regulatory powers be based on sound sci-ence now takes second place to the “precautionary principle”. In a nutshell, it establishes that where science is not settled, bureaucratic whim trumps science. An egregious case was the ban on use of aluminum sulfate in water supply treatment of a large Australian city, because some medical re-search had pointed to a possible link of aluminum to Alzheimer’s disease, Further medical research has since refuted such a link, but the ban remains because it is politically correct.
Such perversion by “post-normal science” finds a parallel in the secularist corrosion of political institutions of English speaking countries, previ-ously thought to be immune to it. The onslaught against civil liberties in Britain during the New La-bour years now spreads to the United States.
New Labour introduced Anti-Social Behav-iour Orders (ASBOs), decrees that tell individuals to behave how the authorities want – or else… A local authority can issue an ASBO forbidding an individ-ual from walking down a certain street, from swear-ing in public or from wearing specific clothes, with no legal proof that the citizen is guilty of anything. ASBOs are rulings at the whim of local officials and on the basis of hearsay, not evidence. Those who disobey an ASBO may be jailed for five years with-out trial. It is now popular, but will come full circle against those who find it fun to pester neighbors over trivialities. Civil liberties that hark back to Magna Charta will once again be cherished.
New Labour proposes ID cards, unheard of in English speaking countries; a list of suspect citi-zens in the hands of the powers-that-be. Only Czar-ist Russia had them, a century ago, when the world had abolished passports as a relic of 18th century oppressive regimes. Russians were then the butt of jokes: “A Russian has three parts: body, soul, and ID papers”. Mussolini liked the idea perfected by Lenin, and brought it to Italy, where citizens did not deserve the confidence of Fascist authorities. The ultimate use of ID is seen in North Korea: the owner of a bicycle must first call at a police station to re-cord the route he intends to follow.
In 1997 there were few CCTV surveillance cameras in the UK. Today Britain has one fifth of the world’s CCTV cameras, more than five million, one camera for every three households. Some cameras are equipped with automatic number-plate recognition, face recognition and behavior recogni-tion, with software to analyze movements in images in search of suspicious behavior. Operators in bun-kers use loudspeakers to shout orders at those who litter, loiter, or display movements deemed suspect to them.
Parliament had long refused to allow the creation of a police force in Britain, uncongenial with tradition and in view of the evil reputation of Continental police. But London was riddled with pickpockets. Robert Peel, as Home Secretary in 1829, got authority to form the Metropolitan Police, with the pledge that his “Bobbies” would remain unarmed. Firearms were kept under lock, and could only be carried by policemen after written authoriza-tion that laid down in precise terms the circum-stances under which they could be fired. In the 21st century, New Labour gave policemen arms and discretion in their use. There are now thousands of them on the streets, and an early victim was an innocent electrician, murdered by policemen while on his way to work.
A quest in British schools aims at finding “socially conscious” children to be pressed into service of the government to “remind adults to act responsibly on our streets,” as an official press release puts it. Turning children into informers is the practice of totalitarian regimes.
Pubs were traditionally free from restraints, as places where you could smoke, get drunk, shout, and swear to your heart’s content. Smoking is now banned in all pubs, clubs and workplaces across the UK. Toilets are now pasted with public health posters warning of the dangers of tobacco, alcohol, sexually transmitted diseases and drugs.
New Labour has turned the pub and other things into outlets for its propaganda. In 2005, the “Football and Health” drive was launched to har-ness the mass appeal of football to promote healthy living. “Football is an important part of many peo-ple’s lives; it provides great opportunities to get across key messages about healthy, active lives,” brazenly justified one New Labour minister. Football fans, that pay to enter a stadium to see a match, are now served leaflets, they never asked for, about sexual health, the dangers of smoking, how much fruit they should eat.
Couples who want to adopt a child to be brought up by a mother and father are rejected by adoption panels and vilified as “homophobic” when they declare themselves Christians. Secularists fear a biblical morality that regards an anti-human life-style as sinful.
Since Biblical religion underpins reason and morality, the erosion of science and civil liberties in the West has followed the erosion of traditional religion. In its place emerges lawless rule by busy-body, as it has been for most of history and still is, in much of a world that gropes to climb out of it.