Climate change theory to be tested?

Wednesday, 27 August 2008

 Climate change theory to be tested?

An article in today's Canberra Times in Australia by Simon Grose has just lifted the lid of the climate change pot a little higher. It shows that some climate change scientists who rejected claims the sun was responsible for the Earth's changing climate are starting, grudgingly, to have second thoughts. But even when they do, they defy all logic by making claims about future warming that have no basis in science. Such stories have been quietly popping on the surface since at least May this year. But this is one of the better ones, as in the best traditions of the 'believer' of man-made causes of climate change, Grose admits:

I have given this ''solar forcing'' explanation of global warming little credence until I attended a forum at the Academy of Science earlier this year and heard it from a scientist of undoubted integrity and expertise in this area. A former head of CSIRO's division of space science, Dr Ken McCracken was awarded the Australia Prize the precursor of the Prime Minister's Science Prize in 1995.

This is further evidence of selective hearing when it comes to politicians and the media. As it was Russian scientists who Grose says first observed the sun's patterns and claimed warming was a direct result of sun spot activity, he chose to disregard it. (What about Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark? He is not Russian.) However he will not disregard this latest information that will blow a huge hole in the repeated claims of the IPCC and numerous governments, because:

McCracken is adamantly not a climate change sceptic, agreeing that rising fossil-fuel emissions will be a long-term cause of rising global temperatures.

But his analysis of the sun's cyclical activity and global climate records has led him to the view that we are entering a period of up to two decades in which reduced solar activity may either flatten the upward trend of global temperatures or even cause a slight and temporary cooling. In a paper given in 2005 to a ''soiree'' hosted by then president of the Academy of Science, Professor Jim Peacock, McCracken said the sun was the most active it had been over 1000 years of scientific observation. This made it inevitable that its activity would decrease over the next two decades in line with historically observed solar cycles.

''The reduced 'forcing' might compensate, or over-compensate, for the effects of the increasing concentration of greenhouse gases,'' he said. ''It is likely that there will be a cessation of around 20 years in the increase in world temperature, or possibly a decrease by 0.1 [degrees] or more.''

This suggests a continuing prejudice that ignores the science and bases views on faith in favoured individuals. Why does this undermine the IPCC? Because none of the model and projections spoon-fed to governments, non-governmental organisations (NGO) or the public, ever predicted this cooling phase. The infamous hockey stick made no allowance for such an event because scientists chose to manipulate statistics to arrive at a pre-set outcome. Their very actions fuelled the scepticism they now complain about. What will Fred Pearce, with his reliance on IPCC reports, make of the news that global cooling is accompanying reduced sun spot activity?

The problem is, IPCC supported scientists worked to find a way of disproving - to their own satisfaction only - the idea that warming of our planet was as a result of increased activity on the sun. So now there is increasing evidence of solar influence on our climate (which is common sense) they are being pushed into a corner where they would have to contradict their own stated findings. Even now, as Grose demonstrates, there are scientists who are so wedded to the idea of AGW, no change in our climate will sway their views. Any deviation from their routemap is shrugged off as a 'temporary' blip or a 'minor' change and every comment ends with a claim that warming will return, bigger and badder than ever before:

[Grose] put this to Dr David Jones, head of climate analysis for the Bureau of Meteorology's National Climate Centre, whose overarching judgment is that the warming effect of fossil fuel emissions is an increasingly dominant factor on global temperature to the extent that it will not be slowed by lower solar activity.

After an email conversation, Jones said he and McCracken are in general agreement but differ on emphasis and one key judgment. ''Natural solar variability is potentially important, but the climate history and physics tell us that the probability of this factor sufficiently cooling the planet to offset the enhanced greenhouse effect is distinctly remote,'' Jones wrote.

The main point of disagreement was McCracken's view that the rate of global warming could be eased or reduced by a fall in solar activity. ''I have never seen a credible paper published using a climate model that shows this,'' Jones wrote. [I wonder, did he ever see a paper that suggested there would be cooling period he found credible...?]

He points to recent data which indicates that global temperatures are probably rising faster than previously thought, raising the urgency of calls from climate scientists for political action to reduce emissions. [This despite absolute proof there has been no warmingsince 1998 and we have experienced cooling in the last two years.] Yet any uncertainty over the sun's influence creates a lever that climate sceptics and developing nations will seize upon to stall such action.

Grose goes on to say that because the 'warmists' cannot agree if the cooling phase will reverse the effects of warming in recent decades or simply keep temperatures where they are, saying; "The dilemma for the science sector is a classic: how to communicate uncertainty." I disagree. Am I alone in finding it frustrating that before this there was absolute certainty that we were causing warming and it was getting worse? Now, rather than accept they may have got things wrong, the scientists still supporting the IPCC's mantra that warming is guaranteed, are suggesting it might just not happen when and how they said it would. For me the dilemma facing 'warmist' scientists is to find a face-saving way of:

• accepting there is substantial solar influence on our climate after rejecting that notion and blaming mankind for warming
  
• explaining why none of their models or projections showed a cooling period that is increasingly being accepted as imminent
  
• maintaining their original position that AGW is real and man will continue to warm the climate... after the cooling phase they did not see coming

It is worrying that a scientist feels the need to state that science needs to be honest about what could now happen. That could easily be interpreted as suggesting science - in the guise of the IPCC - has not been open and transparent about evidence that contradicts their claims. Grose starts to round off his article with the following observations, that are worrying for the IPCC gang:

As McCracken rightly observed in 2005, a lull in temperature rises would provide a wonderful opportunity for political and technological effort to gain the initiative in the fight against climate change by turning global emissions around and thus hopefully avoid worst-case warming scenarios when the sun's fires stoke up again mid-century.

But he also noted the risk that mainstream climate science, led by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, would be seen by its critics and others to have been ill-informed at best or misleading at worst, diminishing its credibility and eroding political commitment to emission reductions.

McCracken believes science should be upfront. ''I believe that we must state firmly that a cooling is possible in the near future, but that the warming would then resume 10-20 years hence,'' he said via email. ''It will be very hard to argue for public trust if we say nothing about the possibility, and then try to argue our way out after it happens. Using an Aussie rules analogy, that would be like giving the climate sceptics a free kick 10m in front of goal.''

There is a question that has to be asked of scientists who predicted with absolute certainty that warming would be constant and irreversible unless mankind changed its behaviour...

If it was not possible to model or predict from the sun's previous behaviour that a drop in its activity would lead to a cooling phase on this planet, how is it possible to predict that such a phase would only last for around 10-20 years, and then state with any certainty that warming would resume after that?

It looks as though climate change theory is now about to be put to the test. Not because of new models and projections or pressure from people sceptical of the 'evidence' presented so far. But because ofactual climate activity that could now call into question the very claims, assertions and predictions upon which governments and NGOs have adopted positions on global warming and how to combat it. Lets see how the 'evidence' stacks up against nature.