It Didn't Start With Climategate, TerryRC

The whistleblower at the University of East Anglia who leaked emails and other documents that reveal the fraud that is being perpetrated by the world's leading global warming alarmists did us all a great service. But it is important to realize that the deception didn't just begin: rather, the global warming hysteria movement has been shot through with fraud from the start.

The most important document in the history of the anthropogenic global warming movement was the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Second Assessment Report, which was published under the auspices of the United Nations in 1996. This report was the principal basis for the Kyoto Accord which was signed in 1997, and for the nonsense that has been inflicted on the world's elementary school students ever since.

But the Second Assessment Report was hijacked by an AGW activist who re-wrote key conclusions and injected a level of alarmism that had not been present in the consensus document. You can get the whole story here, along with a great deal more information about the global warming controversy. The Science and Environmental Project summarized what happened as follows:

IPCC assessment reports, and particularly their Summaries for Policymakers (SPM), are noted for their selective use of information and their bias to support the political goal of control of fossil fuels in order to fight an alleged anthropogenic global warming (AGW).

Perhaps the most blatant example is IPCC's Second Assessment Report (SAR), completed in 1995 and published in 1996. Its SPM contains the memorable phrase "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate." You may recall that this 1996 IPCC report played a key role in the political deliberations that led to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

This ambiguous phrase suggests a group of climate scientists, examining both human and natural influences on climate change, looking at published scientific research, and carefully weighing their decision. Nothing of the sort has ever happened. The IPCC has consistently ignored the major natural influences on climate change and has focused almost entirely on human causes, especially on GH gases and more especially on carbon dioxide, which is linked to industrial activities and therefore 'bad' almost by definition.

How then did the IPCC-SAR arrive at "balance of evidence"? It was the work of a then-relatively-junior scientist, Dr Benjamin D. Santer of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), who has recently re-emerged as a major actor in ClimateGate. As a Convening Lead Author of a crucial IPCC chapter, Santer carefully removed any verbiage denying that human influences might be the major or almost exclusive cause of warming and substituted new language. There is no evidence that he ever consulted any of his fellow IPCC authors, nor do we know who instructed him to make these changes and later approved the text deletions and insertions that fundamentally transformed IPCC-SAR.

The event is described by Nature [381(1006):539] and in a 1996 WSJ article by the late Professor Frederick Seitz (See also my Science Editorial #2-09). Seitz compared the draft of IPCC Chapter 8 (Detection and Attribution) and the final printed text. He noted that, before printing, key phrases had been deleted from the draft that had earlier been approved by its several scientist-authors.

This is from Professor Seitz's 1996 Wall Street Journal article:

This IPCC report, like all others, is held in such high regard largely because it has been peer-reviewed. That is, it has been read, discussed, modified and approved by an international body of experts. These scientists have laid their reputations on the line. But this report is not what it appears to be--it is not the version that was approved by the contributing scientists listed on the title page. In my more than 60 years as a member of the American scientific community, including service as president of both the National Academy of Sciences and the American Physical Society, I have never witnessed a more disturbing corruption of the peer-review process than the events that led to this IPCC report.

A comparison between the report approved by the contributing scientists and the published version reveals that key changes were made after the scientists had met and accepted what they thought was the final peer-reviewed version. The scientists were assuming that the IPCC would obey the IPCC Rules--a body of regulations that is supposed to govern the panel's actions. Nothing in the IPCC Rules permits anyone to change a scientific report after it has been accepted by the panel of scientific contributors and the full IPCC.

The participating scientists accepted "The Science of Climate Change" in Madrid last November; the full IPCC accepted it the following month in Rome. But more than 15 sections in Chapter 8 of the report--the key chapter setting out the scientific evidence for and against a human influence over climate--were changed or deleted after the scientists charged with examining this question had accepted the supposedly final text. Few of these changes were merely cosmetic; nearly all worked to remove hints of the skepticism with which many scientists regard claims that human activities are having a major impact on climate in general and on global warming in particular.

The following passages are examples of those included in the approved report but deleted from the supposedly peer-reviewed published version:

"None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed [climate] changes to the specific cause of increases in greenhouse gases." "No study to date has positively attributed all or part [of the climate change observed to date] to anthropogenic [man-made] causes." "Any claims of positive detection of significant climate change are likely to remain controversial until uncertainties in the total natural variability of the climate system are reduced."

He nailed down the likelihood that adding more CO2 would increase the interference with infrared radiation. Going beyond this qualitative result, Plass calculated that doubling the level would bring a 3-4°C rise. Assuming that emissions would continue at the current rate, he expected that human activity would raise the average global temperature "at the rate of 1.1 degree C per century."

Once meteorologists understood that ocean uptake was slow, they found it possible that CO2 levels had been rising, just as Callendar insisted.(35) Yet it was only a possibility, for the measurements were all dubious. By the mid 1950s, researchers were saying that it was important to measure, much more accurately, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.(36)

A Scandinavian group accordingly set up a network of 15 measuring stations in their countries. Their only finding, however, was a high noise level. Their measurements apparently fluctuated from day to day as different air masses passed through, with differences between stations as high as a factor of two.

Charles David (Dave) Keeling held a different view. As he pursued local measurements of the gas in California, he saw that it might be possible to hunt down and remove the sources of noise. Technical advances in infrared instrumentation allowed an order of magnitude improvement over previous techniques for measuring gases like CO2.

Revelle's simple aim was to establish a baseline "snapshot" of CO2 values around the world, averaging over the large variations he expected to see from place to place and from time to time. After a couple of decades, somebody could come back, take another snapshot, and see if the average CO2 concentration had risen. Keeling did much better than that with his new instruments. With painstaking series of measurements in the pristine air of Antarctica and high atop the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii, he nailed down precisely a stable baseline level of CO2 in the atmosphere.

In 1960, with only two full years of Antarctic data in hand, Keeling reported that this baseline level had risen. The rate of the rise was approximately what would be expected if the oceans were not swallowing up most industrial emissions.

TerryRC wrote: But proving CO2 interferes with IR radiation does not prove that it causes increased warming of the earth’s surface. To do that, the CO2 would have to retain the IR generated heat energy for several hours, which it doesn’t.

Says who? Did you pull that fact out of your copious ass?

TerryRC wrote: It [IR] is reradiated as soon as the molecule reached the proper energy state.

TerryRC wrote: The problem is that it is reradiated randomly. This means that some of it doesn't go back out to space and leave the system. That bit is radiated and absorbed by other molecules or the surface.

TerryRC wrote: You just make shit up, don't you, Sammy.

TerryRC wrote:

You still have not backed up this statement, Sammy:

But proving CO2 interferes with IR radiation does not prove that it causes increased warming of the earth’s surface. To do that, the CO2 would have to retain the IR generated heat energy for several hours, which it doesn’t.

TerryRC wrote:Now you have an additional statement that you can't back up:

And yes, some of it that is absorbed by the molecules in the air doesn't immediately get reradiated back out to space, but only a smidgen of it.

You just make shit up, don't you.

TerryRC wrote:BTW, I'm dying to know what MY socialist agenda is, Sammy.

TerryRC wrote: You are a liar that can't even show how I am a "socialist".

TerryRC wrote: I don't know why people on this board respect you. You are a bully and the truth is not in you.

TerryRC wrote: TRC, put a bowliing ball in your kitchen oven, heat it up to 500 degrees, take it out and place it on the table, ..... then touch it all over with your finger and then tell me which spot on it is not reradiating IR energy.

That statement has NOTHING to do with your manufactured assertions that, to cause global warming, CO2 would have to hold absorbed heat for hours and that, even though the reradiated heat is scattered randomly, only a "smidgen".

Keep pulling those arguments out of your ass, Sammy.

TerryRC wrote: Terry, step outside in your skivvies today ...... and see how long that "hot CO2" keeps you warm.

It was your argument that the CO2 would have to "stay hot", not mine.

TerryRC wrote:I don't have to, Willy has been doing that for weeks n' week.

No, he hasn't.

Making people respect the rights of others has nothing to do with socialism.

Can't you find your own words, you lying pansy?

Because I am an honest and truthful "educating" bully.

You fib all of the time and quote sources you don't understand. GIMME A BREAK, it is you that lack any scientific understanding.

I saw you get owned on the Gazette site when you started talking about "pyrons" in a AGW argument. That was a good one. GIMME A BREAK, you are so stupid and clueless that you didn't realize that post was ficticious satire ....... even though I signed it "Eritas".

You tried to character attack me by questioning an observation on an unrelated subject THAT I NEVER EVEN MADE (re: DDT).

Yep. You are real honest.

Silly man, since you think CO2 is the cause of global warming then give us your explanition as to how it does it ....... if it can't store up the solar energey it absorbs. Let's see how you pull that outta yer arse.

First, I don't blame it all on CO2. There are other gasses that do the same. Also there are other factors like cloud cover and ice cover (albedo) involved. At least get my stance correct. It is the honest thing to do. No one can keep your stance correct because you can't make up your mind which which side of the fence to stand on.

CO2 absorbs heat and re-releases it in a random direction. Some goes back to earth to be absorbed and re-radiated or reflected. Some is grabbed by other greenhouse gasses to be re-radiated again. Most goes to space.

The more gas molecules present, the less likely an individual heat wave is to get back to space unmolested. In other words, the more gas, the less heat that directly leaves the system. No shidt, Dick Tracy, where did you get your first clue?

The heat bounces around like a pachinko ball, or a beam of light in a room full of small mirrors. Sure it does, but only it that beam of light strikes one of those small mirrors ...... which is about as likely as "throwing a 'F' at a rolling doughnut" except for when there is a high percentage of H20 vapor (clouds, mists, fogs).

Think of it like a reflective blanket with small holes in it. Some heat gets out, some heat gets reflected back at you. The blanket, itself, doesn't absorb the heat. HORSESHIDT, you best be thinking of it like a fishnet with extremely large holes in it.

If the Sunlight was striking as many gas molecules as you think it is then you wouldn't be able to see any farther than say 10 feet in front of you.

DUMBASS, haven't you ever been out in or driven your car when it was really foggy?

OH, surprise, surprise, ....... its same ole, same ole TRC. Wonders never cease, do they.

CO2 keeps heating the earth up cause it stores the heat to do it with ....... but CO2 won't keep yer arse warm because it don't store any heat to do it with.

A typical meaningless Sammy statement.

Stop putting words in my mouth. Attributing an incorrect statement to me is not honest. YADA, YADA, YADA, ....we know, ..... you were for AGW before you were against AGW and now you are betwixt and between AGW because you are trying to CYA to prove you have been right all along.