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‘Climategate’ scientist says global warming is not new
Phil Jones admits that temperature rises are not significant - but defends climate change theory
Professor Phil Jones, the scientist at the centre of the 'climategate' row, has admitted that the current period of global warming may not be unprecedented in mankind's recent history. He has also agreed that an observed increase in global temperatures between 1995 and today is not statistically significant.
But, in a Q&A with the BBC, he threw down the gauntlet to climate change sceptics, saying they should stop criticising the mainstream view of anthropogenic climate change and use publicly available data to make their own climate graphs.
Jones was forced to admit that two previous periods of global warming, 1860-80 and 1910-1940, were similar to the period 1975-1998. When asked about the Medieval Warm Period, a time of higher temperatures in the northern hemisphere from 800-1300AD, which sceptics claim shows the current period of global warming is not unprecedented, Jones said it was debatable whether or not global temperatures in those days were higher than today.
Despite being forced to admit that data showing the earth had warmed between 1995 and today was statistically insignificant, Jones stands by the mainstream scientific view that global warming is happening and is caused by human activities. "The major datasets mostly agree," he told the BBC. "If some of our critics spent less time criticising us and prepared a dataset of their own, that would be much more constructive." He said sceptics should use data that is publicly available in the US.
But the reliability of the climate data itself is coming under increasing pressure. Jones's comments come on the same weekend that the Sunday Times highlighted a troubling reality about the way temperatures are recorded that has been known by climate scientists since the 1950s: that many of the world's land-based weather stations are affected by urbanisation.
Basically, many weather stations were built in open countryside, but because of creeping urbanisation over the past half-century are now on the edge of towns and cities, which make the temperature readings artificially high. Scientists have used statistical techniques in the past to take urbanisation into account, but some studies have questioned their effectiveness.
Two studies, published in 2006 and 2007, showed a strong correlation between increased temperatures and industrial development; temperature readings were higher in weather stations located in countries where cities were growing fastest. The latter paper was co-authored by Patrick Michaels, who accepts that global temperatures are rising, and Ross McKitrick, who reviewed the United Nations' International Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) 2007 report.
John Christy, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama and a former lead author on the IPCC told the Sunday Times: "The temperature records cannot be relied on as indicators of global change." Christy, who has been critical of the more sensational claims made about global warming, has done work with satellite temperature data, which is not subject to the same problems as land-based weather stations. He found that while warming is occurring, it is only around half of that suggested by land-based weather stations.
Christy told the Sunday Times that his studies into the effects of urbanisation and even the relocation of weather stations in east Africa and the United States have shown the same thing: "The popular data sets show a lot of warming but the apparent temperature rise was actually caused by local factors affecting the weather stations, such as land development." Of course, land only accounts for around 30 per cent of the earth's surface. Sea temperatures, meanwhile, continue to rise.
Interestingly, it was Christy's data that Phil Jones quoted in the BBC Q&A when he referred to people who think the cold winter we have been having is evidence that climate change is not happening. They don't realise that Christy's satellite record, he says, showed it had actually been the warmest January since records began in 1979. ·
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Mr Simmons, why do you bother? QUOTE: "our complex, mechanistic society depends on a ready supply of food" UNQUOTE. Do all societies, including Stone Age hunter-gatherers, depend on a 'ready supply of food'? What do you live on, fresh air?
Peter Simmons: "The runaway warming of five degrees and beyond is when things start getting hot". Runaway warming? Where have you got such a concept from - Al Gore, Greenpeace, WWF, science fiction comics? Please let us have the names of the atmospheric physicists who believe that nonsense. "The rest of the world's scientists are still producing data that is unquestioned". I think not! There is a HUGE amount of dispute about the data. Much of what has been propagated is bad science, or not science at all. Many scientists do not believe that climate is affected by human carbon emissions (which make up less than 4% of the carbon emissions anyway, as the rest comes from 'nature') to any significant degree. On the other hand, increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is a boon to plant growth, and thus the supply of food. It also makes crops more resitant to drought, heat, frost and salinity. All told, a world with higher levels of CO2 is a much better place to live in. I'm all in favour of much higher carbon emissions.
Another great lie is the fake satellite pictures of the Arctic and Antarctic icecaps which are growing along with Greenland's, proof positive that the earth is cooling.
Since the seas are two thirds of the Earth's surface, I think the fact that the seas have risen in temperature is far more significant than urbanisation's effect of land based recording. And considering that all the rainfall comes from evaporation of sea, that links with all observable effects such as increased precipitation wherther rain or snow. Anyone who thinks we have had no effect and can have no effect on the Earth's climate should ponder on the number; the human population is continuing to grow alarmingly and is out of control, usable arable land is being reduced by flooding and much of the topsoil has been exhausted from intensive agriculture for decades. Anyone who thinks that because we have had a more normal winter that warming isn't happening, is too simple minded to have an opinion. Unfortunately, the term 'Global warming' immediately makes the simple minded think of long hot summers, grape growing and wine making in England and the rejuvenation of British holiday resorts, but the average human couldn't tell the difference between two temperatures only a few degrees apart without instruments. The main effect, which is why the process is called climate change, is more water vapour in the atmosphere, more precipitation, and more floods. We won't bake to death, we'll probably starve since our complex, mechanistic society depends on a ready supply of food, and the bread basket of US-Canada will one day not have any grain to spare.
The runaway warming of five degrees and beyond is when things start getting hot, and that will happen if we do nothing.
Phil Jones is clearly trying to salvage his career and will say anything he thinks will help. The rest of the world's scientists are still producing data that is unquestioned. But the sceptics won't stop since they refuse to change and refuse to accept any evidence, being simplistic flatearthers at heart.
"John Christy, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama and a former lead author on the IPCC" versus professor Phil Jones...no contest. This is the same Professor Christy who appears in the documentary DVD 'The Great Global Warming Swindle' (2007), who says in the first few minutes of the film, "I've often heard it said that there's a consensus of thousands of scientists on the global warming issue, and that humans are causing a catastrophic change to the climate system. Well, I am one scientist, and there are many, who think that is simply not true". Or how about Prof. Philip Stott, Univ. of London, "If the whole global warming farrago collapsed, there'd be a whole lot of people out of a job" (about 5-6 minutes into the film). Or Prof Ian Clark, Earth Sciences, Univ. of Ottawa, "CO2 clearly cannot be causing temperature changes, it's a product of temperature, it's following temperature changes". So, is Professor Jones, U. of East Anglia, quoting the Prof. Christy, the worst person in the world to support his position, and therefore possibly out of a job?
Since the 20-year warming trend from the late 1970s is nothing unusual as similar trends occurred before, which no one attributes to anthropogenic causes. Since the temperatures today are not even as high as they were 1000, 2000 and 3000 years ago. Since there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995, the correlation between CO2 emissions and warming is not there. It would be rather difficult to extract a significantly significant correlation between anthropogenic CO2 (which itself is less than 4% of the total CO2 flux through natural causes - i.e. the natural 'carbon footprint' of the planet itself is 30 times that of man) and a not-statistically-significant warming/cooling trend. And that all amongst natural variation, the like of which we have seen before within living memory. The whole AGW theory is complete nonsense. That's why the IPCC reports have to be full of spin and not science. Stephen Schneider wrote guidelines for the IPCC lead authors:
" 'science for policy' must be recognized as a different enterprise than 'science' itself...one recommendation that should be applied throughout the report is that care should be taken to avoid vague or very broad statements with 'medium confidence' that are difficult to support or refute. For example, if we know very little, we often are indifferent to whether climate change will cause a positive or negative response in some variable....That says nothing profound unless we add quantitative modifiers on the amount of warming and the direction and severity of the biodiversity change. The point is to phrase all conclusions so as to avoid nearly indifferent statements based on speculative knowledge."
This technical jargon was better expressed by Stephen Schneider as follows:
"So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have...Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest" - Stephen Schneider