NZCLIMATE & ENVIRO TRUTH NO 157
OCTOBER 10. 2007
SCIENTIFIC FRAUD
There is no evidence that carbon dioxide emissions have any harmful effect on the climate.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which has the task of trying to find such evidence, has therefore had to resort to a whole series of
distortions, manipulations and fabrications in order to satisfy the demands of those who require scientific support for their bizarre new religion.
The examples are now many, so let us give a list.
The public has been led to believe that "global temperature" is increasing, by means of a compilation called "mean annual global temperature anomaly". They are unaware that this is based on a large number of faulty data and unacceptable mathematics from which no genuine average could ever be obtained.
1.1 Representative Samples
Perhaps it is a bit too much to expect universal understanding of mathematical
statistics, but surely all of us must be aware that you cannot obtain a genuine
average unless you start with a representative sample. Those conducting public
opinion polls know very well that their results are meaningless unless they have a sample which covers the whole population in a random and representative fashion.
Examples of what happens when this goes astray are well known; because you soon find out if your result is wrong.
Similarly, the television authorities have to have some way of setting rates for
advertisers. Unless they do so, the rates will be unfair and they lose money. They go to a lot of trouble in finding a representative sample upon whose TV sets they can put their set boxes which determine their rates.
The whole point of these examples, is, that you soon find out when you are wrong.
Climate "projections" and even "predictions" are always so far ahead that nobody can check on them; so they get away with false claims.
It is just not possible to obtain a representative sample of the earth's surface as
the beginning of an attempt to discover average temperature. So what do they do? They take the measurements made by meteorological stations and get an average from them. But these are nearly all near cities and do not include most of the earth's surface. Such an average is worthless, and there is no way it can be "corrected".
1.2 Start with an Average
Then, surely, if you wanted a "global average" you must start with some sort of "local average" . NO actual measurement of a local average temperature has ever been made; or at least published. What do they use, then? They try to claim that they can show a sequence from 1850, so they are forced to use the only measurements of temperature that were made at that time, and for that matter, up to the present day in most places. This involves only one temperature measurement a day, from a maximum and minimum thermometer. So the only measurements you have are a daily maximum and a daily minimum with an unrepresentative sample. It is assumed that the mean of
these quantities represents some sort of average. This was once believed in 1850; but not today. Modern statistics does not recognise such an "average", which can depart from a genuine average by large and unknown amounts, incapable of being calculated. A recent comparison I made for some New Zealand weather stations shows that the errors can be larger than the claimed effects of greenhouse warming.
1.3 The Time of Measurement Bias
The "maximum/minimum" temperature is only measured once, but it refers to the previous 24 hours, not to a normal day. The time of measurement varies from place to place and time to time, and is often not recorded. US workers have tried to "correct" the US figures by carrying out comparisons between proper averages and the max/min average and applying a "TOB" (Time Of measurement Bias) correction to all their figures. This correction has a very large measure of uncertainty, and is unlikely to be applicable to any country except the US.
All the same, by applying this correction, the US workers have shown that there is no evidence for "global warming" for the US over the last 100 years.
1.4 A Convenient Mishap
With one exception. There seems to have been a convenient "mishap" to assist Al Gore, who in his recent film claimed that 2004 was the highest temperature ever recorded. It turns out they forgot to apply the TOB correction to the last few figures. If Steve McIntyre had not noticed it they might have got away with it, but when he pointed it out they had to change it and prove Al Gore a liar (not difficult). Now, the highest temperature ever recorded in the USA was in 1934 not 2004.
1.5 The Urbanization Bias
The unrepresentative meteorological temperatures are measured in places of
increasing population, more buildings, more concrete, growing vegetation, more cars, more heating. They are subject to urban heating. The evidence that this is happening is overwhelming. It is the only authentic "anthropogenic" effect on the climate.
The IPCC have tried hard to find some evidence to show this is not so. The following is copied from my Newsletter No 154
"The example most quoted is P D Jones, P Ya Groisman, M Coughlan, N Plummer, W C Wang & T R Karl 1990. "Assessment of urbanization effects in time series of surface air temperature over land", Nature 347 169-172.
Jones et al examined an "extensive" set of rural-station temperature data for
three regions of the world; European parts of the Soviet Union, Western Australia and Eastern China. When combined with similar analyses for the contiguous United States, the results are representative of 20% of the land area of the Northern Hemisphere and 10% of the Southern Hemisphere
They worked out the linear slope of temperature anomalies for the rural series in each case and compared it with the same slope for several gridded series. For the Western USSR, this was 1901-1987, and 1930-1987, for Eastern Australia it was 1930-1988 compared with 1930-1997, for Eastern China it was 1954-1983, and for the contiguous United States it was 1901-1984 The differences were only significant at the 5% level for Eastern Australia and one set of Eastern China
They concluded "It is unlikely that the remaining unsampled areas of the developing countries in tropical climates, or other highly populated parts of Europe, could significantly increase the overall urban bias above 0.05ºC during the twentieth century"
Although Jones et al. in subsequent publications have sometimes indicated that they apply this correction to their global series, it is unclear whether they have done so in the more recent publications.
There are several things wrong with this paper.
The quality of the data is even worse than usual, as they admit: "It is
unfortunate that separate maximum and minimum temperature data are not more widely available"
The qualification for a "rural" site is a population below 10,000 for Western
Soviet Union, below 35,000 for Eastern Australia, and below 100,000 for Eastern China. There is ample evidence (in my paper above to start with) that urban effects exist in such places.
*Even these countries raise doubts. Russia had a tyrannical regime where statistics were frequently manipulated for political, purposes. China had a major famine from the "Great Leap Forward", and also a manipulation of statistics.
*Two of the countries, the contiguous USA and China have such reliable records that, when corrected, they show no global warming, or residual urban influence. The United States cannot be regarded as "typical" of the world.
The abstract reads as follows
"We used 1954-1983 surface temperature from 42 Chinese urban (average population 1.7 million) and rural (average population 150,000), station pairs to study the urban heat island effects. Despite the fact that the rural stations are not true rural stations, the magnitude of the heat islands was calculated to average 0.23ºC over the thirty year period, with a minimum value (0.19ºC) during the 1964-1973 decade and maximum (0.28ºC) during the most recent decades"
This study by two authors of the previous paper, appears to have used the same
stations that were claimed to have no urban bias in the first paper, and now there is an urban bias even if "rural" now includes places with population as high as 150,000.
The early paper. Jones et al, states, of Eastern China:
"The stations were selected on the basis of station history: we chose those with
few. if any, changes in instrumentation, location or observation times"
Wang et al say:
“They were chosen based on station histories, we chose those with few, if any,
changes in instrumentation, location, or observation times"
It's as if both papers were written at the same time and different conclusions made from the same data.
Recently Doug Keenan at
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D_lrg.gif
has shown that many of the Chinese stations moved several times over the period in question, in one case 15 km.
I give several other examples in Newsletter 154 of doubtful papers used by the IPCC to claim there is no urbanization bias. They suppress, of course, the massive evidence that it exists.
1.6. Quality Control
There is no quality control on meteorological stations. Nobody knows how many sites are close to towns, buildings, central heating pipes; what sort of instruments are used. who measures, how often.
Some years ago the Australians published pictures of their weather stations. They were withdrawn hurriedly after roars of laughter from the sceptics. Hardly any were suitable.
They have re-emerged with a new set of photos, all of which look marvellous, Maybe this is why world temperatures are not going up any more.
Recent studies in the US have shown that many of their stations are not suitable; even those designated as part of their prestige "GHCN (Global Historical Climatology Network). It is about time there was an international audit of meteorological stations
1.7 The Hockey Stick
This graph was fabricated in order to show that current "global temperatures" are "unprecedented"
It involved joining together three completely different graphs. The first from
"proxy" data going back 1000 years, the second, the familiar "mean annual global temperature anomaly", the third, their "projections" for the future. The first part specialized in eliminating the "medieval warm period" and the "little ice age" against all the evidence for these periods. They even formed a feature of the first IPCC Report. The second I have already shown to be shonky. The third is dealt with below.
It turned out the first one was shonky too. McIntyre and McKitrick, two Canadian scientists, having been initially deprived of access to the data, eventually showed that it had been calculated wrongly and when you used the correct mathematics it restored the medieval warm period so that it was even warmer in the 14th century than it is today.
The IPCC did not supply an honest reply to this criticism. They do not admit they were wrong to this day, and many lecturers still use this faked graph. All the same, the IPCC have dropped the graph from their publications.
1.8 Sea Surface Temperature
You cannot hope to get near to an average global temperature unless you include the 71% of the earth's surface that is ocean. There are many temperature measurements made from ships, but the quality control is much worse than on the land, and even then, whole regions have no figures. One investigator has claimed to have found a way of incorporating the data, but the American workers have never accepted this, and they have to resort to a whole host of dubious devices to claim that their figures are "global" It is very suspicious that incorporating the sea surface measurements seems to make little difference
The IPCC have taken full advantage of the ignorance of the public, and of many scientists of the extent to which correlation can establish causation.
The problem can be noted by the following:
"WASHINGTON (AP) The results of a new survey conducted by pollsters
suggest that, contrary to common scientific wisdom, correlation does in
fact imply causation"
The usual statement of the principle is as follows:
“A correlation, however convincing, does not prove a cause and effect relationship.”
Google gives many examples of how true this is.
I have attended many lectures trying to persuade me that "global warming" is caused by increased carbon dioxide emissions, and most of them rely entirely on correlations. Nobody ever suggests that these do not constitute proof.
Wikipedia has an extremely interesting article on the subject of Correlation and
Causation which presents the formal mathematical statistic position. It is, however, a little complicated. Some prefer to say that correlation does not imply causation, and then you have decide what is meant by "imply". The dictionary says "indicate or suggest", then you can argue as to what
these mean.
Others get more complex still and come up with the following:
"when the data have been gathered by experimental means and confounds have been eliminated, correlation does imply causation"
Whichever these definitions you may believe, the IPCC violates all of them.
I have shown above that data of temperature averages have not actually been
gathered at all. In their "simulations", the IPCC choose to omit any "confound" that does not suit them (such as the El Niño/Southern Oscillation). They distort and play down all the "confounds" and pretend they are negligible.
Then to make sure, they use another trick. Instead of using “correlation", which
they know is unhelpful, they invent a concept called "attribution" which has the
useful "attribute" that the best attribution can be considered to be right. They
have yet another way of avoiding correlation called "fingerprints".
An important function of science is that from an understanding of the world it might be possible to forecast what might happen next. The scientific generalizations knows as LAWS have been used for forecasting from their beginning. Before they could ever be used, however, they had to be shown that they actually worked, at least within the range of prediction. By using statistical methods, it impossible to provide a measure for the accuracy of the forecast.
Computer models, using a range of "laws", and other parameters are now widely used. But they must, as usual, be tested to show that they work for future prediction, before they can be used
The IPCC ignores the requirement that the models must be shown to work, altogether. They even say:
"Scenarios are not predictions of the future and should not be used as such".
and
"Since scenarios deal with the future they cannot be compared with observations.”
The early Report had a Chapter, "Validation of Models". When I pointed out that no model has ever been validated they changed the word "validated" to "evaluated" no less that fifty times in the Chapter.
3.1, The Gut Feelings of "Experts"
So how can you "evaluate" a model if you are not allowed to test it properly? They came up with a brilliant idea. Why not ask the people who produce the models what they think of them? Surely they have gut feelings as to whether the model works.
And then, ask them to put a fake "probability" figure on the model creator's gut
feeling. Give it levels of "likelihood" and you have "proved" whether the models are any good. Of course, these are not "predictions" they are "projections".
The IPCC never makes "forecasts". But this does not seem to worry the politicians and the general public who do not understand that the gut feelings of people financially dependent on models are the only basis for these "projections". They cheerfully convert them into captain forecasts, sufficient to consign the world to an economically damaging assault on energy supply.
The sinking of the island of Tuvalu, and other Pacific islands became an early
environmentalist slogan. Unfortunately, local measurement showed that it was not happening.. So a panic research study was set up in 1991 at Flinders University, Adelaide with the firm order that Tuvalu must be made to sink. They replaced the tide-gauges of 12 Pacific Islands with the most modern equipment and they instructed it to show a steady rise. These were all in operation in 1994. and have now been going for 13 years
The project is a miserable failure. All the 12 stations show no tendency for their sea level to rise for 13 years.. But the authors have found a cop-out. There was a hurricane in the Pacific in 1988 which caused a depression in all of the
tide-gauges. Eureka! they can now get out their pocket calculators and run a linear regression, and, miraculously, it shows an overall steady rise. The only trouble is that there was no sea level rise at all since 1999, and Tuvalu itself actually rose in 2004. But the belief is so strong nobody seems to care about actual facts.
5, RADIATIVE FORCING AND ENERGY BALANCE
As this is getting a bit long, I refer you to my Newsletters No 154 {Faking the
Figures) and 155 (Non-Linear Equations) on how they have fabricated false figures for "Radiative Forcing" and for the supposed "Global "Energy Balance"
The catalogue of mathematical and scientific errors perpetrated by the IPCC
increases every day, and perhaps one day will be part of a dossier against them. I apologise for length and for repeating material I have already given you, but I hope it will persuade you that the IPCC is not a regular scientific organisation but one set up to support the global warming lobby at any costs, including the loss of scientific integrity. In the absence of actual evidence, what else could they do but what I have just catalogued?