There’s no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to ‘decarbonize’ the world’s economy..

Editor’s Note: The following has been signed by the 16 scientists listed at the end of the article:

A candidate for public office in any contemporary democracy may have to consider what, if anything, to do about “global warming.” Candidates should understand that the oft-repeated claim that nearly all scientists demand that something dramatic be done to stop global warming is not true. In fact, a large and growing number of distinguished scientists and engineers do not agree that drastic actions on global warming are needed.

In September, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ivar Giaever, a supporter of President Obama in the last election, publicly resigned from the American Physical Society (APS) with a letter that begins: “I did not renew [my membership] because I cannot live with the [APS policy] statement: ‘The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.’ In the APS it is OK to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible?”

In spite of a multidecade international campaign to enforce the message that increasing amounts of the “pollutant” carbon dioxide will destroy civilization, large numbers of scientists, many very prominent, share the opinions of Dr. Giaever. And the number of scientific “heretics” is growing with each passing year. The reason is a collection of stubborn scientific facts.

Perhaps the most inconvenient fact is the lack of global warming for well over 10 years now. This is known to the warming establishment, as one can see from the 2009 “Climategate” email of climate scientist Kevin Trenberth: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.” But the warming is only missing if one believes computer models where so-called feedbacks involving water vapor and clouds greatly amplify the small effect of CO2.

The lack of warming for more than a decade - indeed, the smaller-than-predicted warming over the 22 years since the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began issuing projections - suggests that computer models have greatly exaggerated how much warming additional CO2 can cause. Faced with this embarrassment, those promoting alarm have shifted their drumbeat from warming to weather extremes, to enable anything unusual that happens in our chaotic climate to be ascribed to CO2.

The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere’s life cycle. Plants do so much better with more CO2 that greenhouse operators often increase the CO2 concentrations by factors of three or four to get better growth. This is no surprise since plants and animals evolved when CO2 concentrations were about 10 times larger than they are today. Better plant varieties, chemical fertilizers and agricultural management contributed to the great increase in agricultural yields of the past century, but part of the increase almost certainly came from additional CO2 in the atmosphere.

Although the number of publicly dissenting scientists is growing, many young scientists furtively say that while they also have serious doubts about the global-warming message, they are afraid to speak up for fear of not being promoted - or worse. They have good reason to worry. In 2003, Dr. Chris de Freitas, the editor of the journal Climate Research, dared to publish a peer-reviewed article with the politically incorrect (but factually correct) conclusion that the recent warming is not unusual in the context of climate changes over the past thousand years. The international warming establishment quickly mounted a determined campaign to have Dr. de Freitas removed from his editorial job and fired from his university position. Fortunately, Dr. de Freitas was able to keep his university job.

This is not the way science is supposed to work, but we have seen it before - for example, in the frightening period when Trofim Lysenko hijacked biology in the Soviet Union. Soviet biologists who revealed that they believed in genes, which Lysenko maintained were a bourgeois fiction, were fired from their jobs. Many were sent to the gulag and some were condemned to death.

Why is there so much passion about global warming, and why has the issue become so vexing that the American Physical Society, from which Dr. Giaever resigned a few months ago, refused the seemingly reasonable request by many of its members to remove the word “incontrovertible” from its description of a scientific issue? There are several reasons, but a good place to start is the old question “cui bono?” Or the modern update, “Follow the money.”

Alarmism over climate is of great benefit to many, providing government funding for academic research and a reason for government bureaucracies to grow. Alarmism also offers an excuse for governments to raise taxes, taxpayer-funded subsidies for businesses that understand how to work the political system, and a lure for big donations to charitable foundations promising to save the planet. Lysenko and his team lived very well, and they fiercely defended their dogma and the privileges it brought them.

Speaking for many scientists and engineers who have looked carefully and independently at the science of climate, we have a message to any candidate for public office: There is no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to “decarbonize” the world’s economy. Even if one accepts the inflated climate forecasts of the IPCC, aggressive greenhouse-gas control policies are not justified economically.

A recent study of a wide variety of policy options by Yale economist William Nordhaus showed that nearly the highest benefit-to-cost ratio is achieved for a policy that allows 50 more years of economic growth unimpeded by greenhouse gas controls. This would be especially beneficial to the less-developed parts of the world that would like to share some of the same advantages of material well-being, health and life expectancy that the fully developed parts of the world enjoy now. Many other policy responses would have a negative return on investment. And it is likely that more CO2 and the modest warming that may come with it will be an overall benefit to the planet.

If elected officials feel compelled to “do something” about climate, we recommend supporting the excellent scientists who are increasing our understanding of climate with well-designed instruments on satellites, in the oceans and on land, and in the analysis of observational data. The better we understand climate, the better we can cope with its ever-changing nature, which has complicated human life throughout history. However, much of the huge private and government investment in climate is badly in need of critical review.

Every candidate should support rational measures to protect and improve our environment, but it makes no sense at all to back expensive programs that divert resources from real needs and are based on alarming but untenable claims of “incontrovertible” evidence.

Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris; J. Scott Armstrong, cofounder of the Journal of Forecasting and the International Journal of Forecasting; Jan Breslow, head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, Rockefeller University; Roger Cohen, fellow, American Physical Society; Edward David, member, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences; William Happer, professor of physics, Princeton; Michael Kelly, professor of technology, University of Cambridge, U.K.; William Kininmonth, former head of climate research at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology; Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric sciences, MIT; James McGrath, professor of chemistry, Virginia Technical University; Rodney Nichols, former president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences; Burt Rutan, aerospace engineer, designer of Voyager and SpaceShipOne; Harrison H. Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut and former U.S. senator; Nir Shaviv, professor of astrophysics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Henk Tennekes, former director, Royal Dutch Meteorological Service; Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva.

2009 ClimateGate email: Warmist MacCracken suggests that Phil Jones start working on a “backup” in case Jones’ prediction of warming is wrong

ClimateGate FOIA grepper! - if the sulfate hypothesis is right, then your prediction of warming might end up being wrong

In any case, if the sulfate hypothesis is right, then your prediction of warming might end up being wrong. I think we have been too readily explaining the slow changes over past decade as a result of variability--that explanation is wearing thin. I would just suggest, as a backup to your prediction, that you also do some checking on the sulfate issue, just so you might have a quantified explanation in case the prediction is wrong. Otherwise, the Skeptics will be all over us--the world is really cooling, the models are no good, etc. And all this just as the US is about ready to get serious on the issue.

We all, and you all in particular, need to be prepared.

Best, Mike MacCracken [Note that Obama’s chief science advisor, John Holdren, is copied on this email]

According to research jumped on in Reuters based on no domain knowledge by clueless bureaucrats on the dole (sound familiar?):

- A weaker sun over the next 90 years is not likely to significantly delay a rise in global temperature caused by greenhouse gases,a report said Monday.

The study, by Britain’s Meteorological Office and the university of Reading, found that the Sun’s output would decrease up until 2100 but this would only lead to a fall in global temperatures of 0.08 degrees Celsius.

Scientists have warned that more extreme weather is likely across the globe this century as the Earth’s climate warms.

The world is expected to heat up by over 2 degrees Celsius this century due to increased greenhouse gas emissions.

Current global pledges to cut carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions are not seen as sufficient to stop the planet heating up beyond 2 degrees, a threshold scientists say risks an unstable climate in which weather extremes are common.

“This research shows that the most likely change in the sun’s output will not have a big impact on global temperatures or do much to slow the warming we expect from greenhouse gases,” said Gareth Jones, climate change detection scientist at the Met Office.

Astrophysicist Meteorologist and Climate Forecaster Piers Corbyn responds:

This UK Met Office and BBC promoted statement (Reuters) is extremely delusional and dishonest and a cover-up of reality.

(Full article)

Their ‘expectation’ that the world will warm by 2C this century ‘due to increased greenhouse gas emissions’ is proven drivel based on their own failed self-serving fraudulent models.

They deliberately choose to know almost nothing about solar influences on earth’s weather and climate and create ‘information’ designed to deceive.

It is the largely predictable vast changes in solar charged particle flux and sun-earth magnetic connectivity which control weather and climate.

That is why we at WeatherAction.com long range forecasters:

1. Confidently predict that the world will continue general cooling to 2035 - see presentation in submission to UK parliament enquiry into Dec 2010 supercold which we predicted

and

2. Systematically predict and will continue to predict extreme weather events and situations many months ahead around the world

The CO2 driver theory of weather and climate is delusional nonsense propagated by a self-serving failed sect.  Their ‘theory’ fails to explain past weather and climate; all its predictions over the last ten years have failed and it cannot and never will predict anything.

The dangerous delusional CO2 sect must be destroyed before it’s diktats destroy the world economy and thousands more lives are lost from the chosen refusal of governments across the world to allow the application of scientific advanced forecasting of extreme weather which can help reduce disruption and destruction and save money and lives.

Thanks,
Piers Corbyn, MSc ARCS FRAS FRMetS,
WeatherAction.com long range weather and climate forecasters

See also some very different concluding solar research by David Archibald here.

Hello Everyone,

Oregonians will finally get a chance to hear what three Oregon scientists would have told them in November, if it had not been for the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.  At the very last minute, they pulled the plug on the scientific meeting of the American Meteorological Society, scheduled to occur at OMSI.

Here is the new schedule and official announcement from the AMS:

MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT
(Cancelled November Global Warming Meeting Rescheduled)

WHAT: The much talked about Oregon Chapter of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) meeting on anthropogenic (human caused) global warming has been rescheduled! Come take a look at the science, both the logic and the evidence. Is human caused global warming the greatest scientific myth of our generation?

WHEN: Wednesday, January 25th 2012 from 7-9 PM. Please plan to arrive early. A large turnout is expected. There will be a no-host social hour in the Shilo restaurant from 5-7pm. Come eat dinner and/or have a beverage. Catch up with friends and colleagues!

WHERE: Portland Airport Shilo Inn Convention Center Ballroom 11707 NE Airport Way, Portland, OR 97220. Hotel directions: http://tinyurl.com/7jmpz3m

COST: FREE and open to the general public. Media is also welcome. Please re-forward this communication to all those who may have originally received it in November.

GUEST SPEAKERS: Former Oregon State Climatologist George Taylor, Meteorologist Chuck Wiese and Physicist Gordon Fulks, PhD.

AGENDA: Come hear Mr. Taylor, Mr. Wiese and Dr. Fulks explore what they consider to be the many problems with the theory of catastrophic human-caused climate change. They will also present their own forecasts for the next decade, century, millennium and beyond. There will also be a public Q & A session at the conclusion of the meeting.

Here is a little history:

In November, what do you suppose panicked OMSI into an irrational decision that was even condemned by The Oregonian newspaper?  Apparently, Professor Phil Mote of Oregon State University and other leaders of the Global Warming cartel in Oregon were concerned that we would threaten their claims that our planet is headed for catastrophe unless we continue to fund their climate hysteria.  With OMSI also heavily involved in the hysteria and related crony capitalism, they saw no option but to silence the opposition.  The utter stupidity of this was, as The Oregonian pointed out, to call attention to the arguments against climate hysteria.  Despite their call for “Balance,” it was crystal clear to everyone that the climate cartel was worried that we three musketeers would convince other scientists and the general public that man-made global warming was a “hoax.” It was a risk they could not take.  (The Oregon AMS changed “hoax” to “myth” in their meeting title above to please OMSI and their own board members who support the hysteria.)

What was so dangerous about the truth that would cause OMSI and Mote to blunder in the way they did?  A few years ago, they were riding very high with everything going their way.  With only token opposition from then Oregon State Climatologist George Taylor and a global temperature that had risen slightly over the 20th century along with carbon dioxide, it was easy to convince the unsophisticated that man-made carbon dioxide was to blame.  All they had to do was get rid of George, and they could live happily ever after.  A debate was arranged at OMSI between Taylor and Mote, and the ensuing controversy forced George out of his position at OSU as State Climatologist.

But rather than quiet the opposition, this brought it more out into the open, with meteorologist Chuck Wiese, astrophysicist Gordon Fulks, and others taking up the battle in Oregon.  Subsequent events, especially ClimateGate I and II, showed widespread bad behavior in the climate cartel that brought into question their abilities and honesty.  The climate itself favored skeptics by refusing to warm as alarmists continued to predict.  Privately, alarmists lamented their inability to explain climate variations over the last 15 years, while publically they embraced ever more ridiculous theories such as Global Warming ‘could mean colder winters.’

To find out the truth as best we know it, please join us at the Airport Shilo Inn on Wednesday January 25 from 7 to 9 pm.

Gordon J. Fulks, PhD (Physics)
Corbett, Oregon USA

P.S. I am grateful to the Oregon Chapter of the American Meteorological Society for making this meeting possible.  They have risen above the bad behavior of their national organization which has a policy supporting climate hysteria.  We hope that their courage will extend beyond this one meeting into a new era of openness where opposing ideas can be discussed without any demands for political correctness.

To accomplish this, they will need to divorce themselves from their still close links to the climate cartel and especially to OMSI.  Although OMSI normally offers them free space for their meetings, this ‘no cost’ comes at a very high price: control of the agenda.  ‘Agenda-driven science’ is the scourge of modern science, with problems extending far beyond climate science.  They should realize that any ‘science’ where the result is predetermined by political authorities is not science at all.  Furthermore, any ‘science’ that cannot be questioned is not science at all.

Does the Oregon AMS Board really understand this?  Time will tell.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is a federal agency that does a lot of excellent work related to weather, climate and the oceans. In fact, it is the primary sponsor of CIRES here at the University of Colorado where I serve as a Fellow. However, NOAA has been publishing information related to disasters that is extremely misleading and scientifically inaccurate.

The graph above (enlarged) shows NOAA’s tally of “billion dollar disasters” which NOAA defines as “the 1980-2005 events which resulted in at least $1 billion in overall damages/costs at the time of the event” (emphasis added, source here in PDF).  The bolded part of that sentence is where NOAA’s methodology has a serious flaw, as $1 billion does not mean the same thing today as it did in 1980.  In fact, adjusting just for inflation means that $1 billion today would have been the equivalent of $400 million in 1980. And that is not all, because there has been considerable development across the nation since 1980, meaning that there is more property and wealth to be damaged, $1 billion in damage today is actually equivalent to about $170 million in 1980.

Events which would have caused $1 billion in damage today, but did not when they occurred are not included in the NOAA listing. So by focusing on a $1 billion threshold, as $1 billion comes to represent less and less over time, NOAA has built in a strong bias in their analysis which creates the illusion of trend. If the point of the analysis is to say something about trends in weather, it will always be better to look at weather data, not damage data. 

Think of this analogy: Imagine if you had a shopping cart and added up the number products in your basket costing more than $5. In 1980 you would not have very many, and today you’d have a lot. Would a index of “number of products costing more than $5 in a basket” tell you anything about the overall cost of food?  No.

The New York Times recently published an editorial that serves as a good example of how NOAA’s data is misleading (Nature however is not fooled):

A typical year in the United States features three or four weather disasters costing more than $1 billion. In 2009 there were nine. Last year brought a dozen, at a cost of $52 billion, making it the most extreme year for weather since accurate record keeping began in the 19th century.

To be sure, 2011 saw some very extreme events in the United States. But was it the “most extreme year for weather” since the 19th century? Not by a long shot, whether the metric is dollar damage or loss of life.

The NOAA “billion dollar” data has only 1 event from 1980 costing $1 billion, a major drought.  I have quickly compiled a list of other events that would have certainly resulted in more than $1 billion in damage were they to occur today and a second list of events that lack detailed accounting, but would be worth a further look (note that a rigorous analysis would implement the methodology of economic normalization that we have applied in a range of contexts).

1980 Disasters Greater than $1 Billion in Normalized 2011 Dollars But Not on the NOAA List

Certain additions:

Hurricane Allen - Aug 9, 1980 - $2.0 billion
Grand Island Tornadoes - June 3, 1980 - $1.7 billion
Western Wisconsin Derecho—July 16, 1980 - $3.8 billion
California/Arizona Floods—February 13-21, 1980 -$2.0 billion

Other candidates for inclusion but lacking a rigorous quantitative accounting:

Hawaii storms—January
Hampton Roads “Circus” Blizzard— January
Texas/Alabama/Louisiana Storms—May
Midwest Floods—June
Panorama Fire—December

There are thus 4 events that clearly would have been $1 billion events had they occurred in 2011 and I can find 5 other candidates for which data is lacking, but which could possibly have reached $170 million in damage in 1980 (especially if data collection were as intensive as today).  Regardless, of whether the total is 4 or 9 missed events or somewhere in the middle, NOAA’s data misses at least 80% of the billion dollar disasters in 1980. Not good. No doubt that a reanalysis of the years 1981 to present would turn up many more such events that failed to meet the contemporary billion-dollar threshold but would certainly do so today.

It is extremely misleading to use economic impacts as the basis for making claims about weather and climate. NOAA should take immediate steps to improve the scientific quality of its tabulation of “billion dollar disasters” lest it find itself accused of misleading the public and decision makers with scientifically unsound information.

Driven by plunging temperatures, hundreds of manatees stampeded south on the Intracoastal Waterway over the past two days toward the warm water of power plant discharges in Riviera Beach and Fort Lauderdale.

Cold snaps have emerged as a leading killer of manatees over the past three years, exceeding deaths by boat collisions, according to figures kept by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

“Manatees are tropical animals so they start to suffer when the water temperature goes below 68 degrees,” said Kathryn Curtin, a contract biologist for the U.S. Geological Survey based at Port Everglades.

An aerial count Wednesday in Broward County found 63 manatees heading toward Port Everglades, where the Florida Power & Light plant sucks in water for cooling and emits it at a higher temperature. A total of 472 manatees were counted in Broward Wednesday, and that number could climb to 800 or so if the cold weather continues, said Pat Quinn, the county’s manatee coordinator.

In Riviera Beach, where the power plant is offline for modernization, FPL provides heated water anyway for manatees that have learned to expect it. The company turned on the heaters for the first time Tuesday night, said Paul Davis, Palm Beach County’s manatee coordinator. Although hard numbers were not available, he said there were probably hundreds in the county, particularly around the plant.

At Port Everglades, manatees could be seen swimming around a basin popular with mothers with calves. Curtin said calves are particularly vulnerable to cold, making new mothers among the first to show up at the power plant when temperatures drop.

The Fish and Wildlife commission said Wednesday that cold weather killed 112 manatees last year, 282 in 2010 and 56 in 2009, much higher numbers than in previous years. Over the same three-year period, boats killed 258 manatees.

“We are concerned about the number of manatee deaths the past three years, including those resulting from exposure to cold weather,” said Gil McRae, director of the commission’s Research Institute. “Over the next few years, we will use data from monitoring programs to better understand any long-term implications for the population.”

The cold also makes manatees more vulnerable to collisions with boats, because they travel between power plant refuges and sources of food that could be miles away. Although Palm Beach County has extensive stands of sea grass, Broward does not, forcing manatees to travel long distances for meals.

At Port Everglades, Curtin works in a program that tracks manatees by the unique pattern of prop scars on their backs. She said 80-90 percent of manatees have these scars, which allow researchers to track manatees’ movements, calving and other aspects of their life histories.

Power plants became more important to manatees as natural sources of warm water dried up, due to human consumption or development.

New Paper: The Sun’s Impact On Earth’s Temperature Goes Far Beyond the simplistic total solar irradiance (TSI)

TSI is the only measure Warmists will consider

A recent paper published by the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar Terrestial Physics (74) 2012 87-93 and authored by Souza Echer et al. suggests that solar cycles, to a substantial extent, drive global temperatures, and that likely through amplification mechanisms.

The paper is titled: “On the relationship between global, hemispheric and latitudinal averaged air surface temperature (GISS time series) and solar activity”

The authors decomposed average air surface temperature series obtained from GISS and sunspot number (Rz) from 1880 - 2005 to see if a correlation could be found. They performed a cross correlation analysis between band-passed filtered data around 11-year and 22 years.

Although the authors did not find a strong correlation with the 11-year solar cycle, they found a “very significant correlation” in the 22-year Hale cycle band. The abstract states:

A very significant correlation (Rz 0.57 to 0.80) is found in the 22 yr solar Hale cycle band (16 - 32 years ) with lags from zero to four years between latitudinal averages air surface temperature and Rz. Therefore it seems that the 22 yr magnetic field solar cycle might have a higher effect on Earth’s climate than solar variations related to the 11-yr sunspot cycle.”

Well then, can we not assume that if the 22-year cycles have an impact, also the 78-year, 210-year, and 1000-year solar activity cycles must have a “significant correlation” with the earth’s climate too? Already there are dozens of proxy records showing that this is precisely the case.

Recall that the CO2 warmists in their half-baked models stubbornly keep focusing only on total solar irradiance (TSI), which itself varies only about 0.1% over an 11-year cycle (and thus by itself is no real climate driver) and ignore all the other amplification mechanisms. Well, the results of this study, as do dozens of others studies, show you can’t do that. Like it or not - the sun is a real player. Eventually the CO2 warmists will have to admit this, as anyone with even just an inkling of intuition would do.

Obviously there are others who feel the same way when it comes to the role of the sun on the earth’s climate. Another paper just published at the same journal shows that other scientists are hot on the sun’s trail. Here Magee and Kavic in their paper titled: “Probing the climatological impact of a cosmic ray–cloud connection through low-frequency radio observations” suspect a solar mechanism and so propose a method of observation. In the abstract they write:

…in order to establish whether or not such a relationship exists, measurements of short-timescale solar events, individual cosmic ray events, and spatially correlated cloud parameters could be of great significance. Here we propose such a comparison using observations from a pair of radio telescopes arrays,the Long Wavelength Array (LWA) and the Eight-meter-wavelength Transient Array (ETA). These low-frequency radio arrays have a unique ability to simultaneously conduct solar, ionospheric and cosmic rays observations and are thus ideal for such a comparison.:

The direction of climate science and investigation is clear. The real discoveries will involve unraveling the solar mechanisms, and not baking simplistic, straight-line CO2-temperature models. With each new study, the CO2 warmists look more and more like broken records that keep repeating: CO2…CO2…CO2…CO2…

Obviously some scientists just aren’t clever enough to snap out of it.

SOURCE (See the original for links)

Shock News : Sea Level Almost As High As Eight Years Ago

Sea level has been rising over the last few months (as it does every Northern Hemisphere autumn) and is almost as high now as when Envisat started taking measurements in 2003. If sea level continues to rise at this rate, an ant may drown sometime in the next millennium. Or perhaps not.

SOURCE (See the original for links)

Apologies, apologies! I’ve been on sabbatical, working on several other projects during the past months and have been remiss in my column writing. So it’s time to put pen to paper and continue where I left off:  exposing the greatest fraud in the history of science: the theory (yes, theory) of man-made global warming, aka “climate change” and “climate disruption.” (The charlatans and ignoramuses promoting this alarmist nonsense can’t decide what name to give their junk science.)

From this day forward, I will endeavor to regularly inform, enlighten and entertain those readers (both skeptics and self-confessed warmists) who are exposed daily to a constant stream of climate change propaganda peddled by lazy, uninquisitive reporters who willingly serve as advocate-stenographers (Andrew Revkin, are you reading?) for global warming alarmism.

As I’ve done in the past, let me mention one very important point:  the theory of human-induced global warming is exactly that—a theory.  The scientists promoting it—the Jim Hansens, Kenneth Trenberths and Phil Joneses of the world—have never demonstrated conclusively that human CO2 emissions are warming the planet. Even laymen researchers who’ve done a few hours of homework (and don’t rely on PR releases for their data) know that humans produce a whopping 0.28 percent of the so-called greenhouse gases, with anthropogenic (man-made) CO2 accounting for a minuscule 0.117 percent of the total. Using a real-world comparison, 0.117 percent of a football field would equal just over four inches.

The warmists’ scientific conclusions are based purely on climate modeling, not experimentation, observation or hard empirical data. Worse, they’ve turned the scientific method on its head. Instead of constructing a theory and then rigorously testing and re-testing to see if it stands up to scientific examination, they start with a pre-ordained conclusion (i.e., fossil fuel-based CO2 emissions cause the earth to warm) and then manipulate and tune their computer models to churn out data that support it. In short, human-induced global warming is the product of laboratory computer simulations and over-active imaginations; it doesn’t exist in the real world.

Another article of faith that deserves a healthy dose of skepticism—from warmists and lukewarmists alike—is the so-called greenhouse theory. According to this sacrosanct doctrine, CO2 and other greenhouse gases “trap” infrared readiation, thus acting like a thermal blanket, raising the earth’s atmospheric temperature to a cozy 33 degrees centigrade. Lucky humanity: Without this atmospheric greenhouse guardian, we’d spend a small fortune heating our homes while arming ourselves against nuisance polar bears roaming the countryside.

It should be noted that the greenhouse theory is relatively modern in origin and, as astrophysicist Joseph Postma observes, “is never mentioned in any fundamental work of thermodynamics, physical kinetics or radiation theory.” Try as you may, you won’t find the terms greenhouse effect or glass-house effect mentioned in any classical textbooks on experimental or theoretical physics.

According to Postma, “the Greenhouse Effect is indeed a theory; it is not a benign empirical fact, such as the existence of the sun, for example. As a theory it has a scientific development which is open to inspection and review.”

But in the minds of the warmists, questioning the theology of greenhouse warming is akin to blasphemy. Better to be caught red-handed showering with a 12-year-old in a Penn State locker room.

As W.R. Pratt points out in his article, “The Science is Settled?” a scientific hypothesis is not established science.  Yes, the greenhouse hypothesis has been around for 180 years since it was first proposed in the 1820s by Joseph Fourier and later refined by John Tyndall, professor of physics at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in the 1850s.  But, according to Pratt, the hypothesis remains unproven despite arguments to the contrary.

As he explains:

“In order to single out certain atmospheric gases and demonize them as the culprits responsible for atmospheric warming, it was necessary to attribute certain characteristics to the so-called ‘Greenhouse Gases’ with regard to radiant heat, which would set them apart from the two most abundant atmospheric gases, Oxygen and Nitrogen.”

According to Pratt, Tyndall fallaciously argued that oxygen and nitrogen are “practically transparent to radiant heat,” a hypothesis that serves as the foundation of today’s AGW fraud. He challenges Tyndall’s thesis:

“It has been suggested that the ability of oxygen and nitrogen to absorb heat is virtually undetectable under laboratory conditions but it must be remembered that the quantities examined under such conditions would be minute. These two gases alone make up 99% of all the atmosphere, so their overall effect on atmospheric temperature is not to be underestimated.

“Firstly, Oxygen and Nitrogen both have higher specific heat capacities than CO2 [see:Specific heat capacity of Gases]. Secondly, and above all, Oxygen and Nitrogen, of course, do indeed absorb infrared radiation [see: Infrared absorption bands for OXYGEN and A close-up of an infrared absorption band for NITROGEN]. The problem for the hypothesis of the ‘Greenhouse Effect’ and, of course, AGW itself is that the basic premise on which the hypothesis is based is false.”

Is Pratt correct?  I don’t know, but his arguments deserve a fair hearing. As skeptics have long argued, science is about debate and the dogged pursuit of facts supported by down-and-dirty research and rigorous experimentation. Science thrives on different points of view that are openly debated. But it suffers when scientists who should know better argue that the “science is settled” (science is never settled) while ridiculing and denouncing anyone who expresses opposing viewpoints.

As the Nobel Prize-winnng American physicist Richard P. Feynman once said,

“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.”

WELCOME BACK KIRK, YOU HAVE BEEN MISSED.