Dec
Decadal trend busts AGW Theory
Ok, so two-thirds of the US has been covered by snow this winter. Very much the same has been seen across Europe, too. But I, like other climate commentators, keep hammering home the point that weather is not climate. Extreme occurrences of wind, rain, snow, warmth or cold that pass in a week, a month within a season do not, in themselves, prove or disprove climate change. However, climatologists do pay heed to what they term decadal trends, or weather events that persist for periods for up to ten years and beyond. It is by applying the decadal trend test that any skeptic can readily disprove the theory of catastrophic man-made climate change.
We do this by taking the decadal data and applying the scientific principle of “Disprovability” to the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). For AGW to be a credible scientific theory it must show either (a) that a phenomenon always follows one or more rules, or, (b) it proposes a mechanism for a phenomenon that is reflected in one or more rules that are always followed, or (c) it specifies attributes of a phenomenon that are defined by one or more rules that are always followed.
The disprovability comes into play once the rules of the proposed theory are constructed (i.e. the theory of man made climate change states that increases in human-caused carbon emissions cause catastrophic global warming). Thus if there is no observable catastrophic climate change despite the fact CO2 levels are claimed to have risen 30%, then the theory is busted. A fair test has to be applied so that we can determine whether the theory is true for a particular trial. This means that we need a reliable trial period through which we can gather data to plug into the rule to see whether the rule works or not.
It is simply a principle of logic that the “always” part is disproved by a single exception but not proved by any number of verifications. You can have a theory that does not follow these principles, but if it can’t be tested it’s not a scientific theory by definition (i.e. alarmists cannot be allowed to claim that global warming causes global cooling – a ‘heads I win, tails you lose’ logical fallacy as per the Aristotelian method). Fortunately, for all skeptics we don’t need to conduct any further trials to bust the global warming theory under the definition of testability–the theory need only to have in principle an observable condition that would disprove it (e.g. a decadal climatic trend).
Decadal Trends
Here we can see what the decadal trends (acknowledgment: remiss.com) are showing for those data sets collected by MSU channel TLT, MSU/AMSU channel TMT, MSU/AMSU channel TTS, and MSU/AMSU channel TLS. Trend maps are computed over the time period for each channel that contains complete years of valid data. Globally averaged trends computed over latitudes from 82.5S to 82.5N (70S to 82.5N for channel TLT) are shown in the table below, and include data through November, 2009:
|
Start Time |
Stop Time |
# Years |
Global Trend |
||
|
Channel TLT |
1979 |
2009-2011 |
30+ |
0.153 K/decade |
|
|
Channel TMT |
1979 |
2009-2011 |
30+ |
0.089 K/decade |
|
|
Channel TTS |
1987 |
2009-2011 |
22+ |
-0.023 K/decade |
|
|
Channel TLS |
1979 |
2009-2011 |
30+ |
-0.325 K/decade |
What the four channels of verifiable climate data show us is both an anomaly of some cooling and some warming but when the results are averaged by decade we see a net cooling, not warming. Sadly for the doomsayers, there is no evidence for any net warming, let alone catastrophic runaway warming attributable to man made emissions. These numbers don’t lie.
Our knowledge is thereby guided or constrained in the right direction by eliminating all the directions that don’t stand up to a test of their criteria against measured reality. Short-term weather events being misleading must not guide us. Sensible observers will take into account the more reliable decadal position. Thus, it is a fair and logical conclusion to deduce from the observed decadal climatic data that the Earth has shown hemispheric variability but based on the decadal data, we are hard pressed to find a link between climate and man-made CO2 emissions. But, more importantly, what it busted absolutely is that no catastrophic climate change has been caused by human emissions of carbon dioxide.
Should this be of any surprise to the core of climate scientists who provided their reports to the UN’s IPCC? No, because not one scientist cited by the IPCC either claims to have proved, nor foresaw, any “catastrophic” climate change. The word just doesn’t appear anywhere in the scientists findings. The word only shows up in idle speculation, in the bluff and bluster of policy makers and self-serving politicians. The British media, once so much in love with the environmental lobbyists of the left, are now starting to wake up to such facts. In one headline the Daily Express shouts loud, in upper case, about climate “FRAUD.”
In the article, climate author and expert, Professor Ian Plimer of Adelaide and Melbourne Universities, said there was a huge momentum behind the climate change lobby. Suggesting that many scientists are in it for the money, he said: “The climate comrades are trying to keep the gravy train going. Governments are also keen on putting their hands as deep as possible into our pockets. From the Climategate leaked emails this is what disgraced Professor Jones had to say:
“I hope I don’t get a call from congress ! I’m hoping that no-one there realizes I have a US DoE grant and have had this (with Tom W.) for the last 25 years.”
Source: eastangliaemails.com
Possibly related posts:
- Now satellite radiation data debunks global warming theory
- Washington Times: man-caused catastrophic global warming theory is dead, and it needs to be buried
- The AGW theory is dying yet the carbon market goes on
- God help us! Can the earth survive until 2016?
- Major new analysis by Aussies show IPCC manipulated data
You’ve delivered another well-reasoned piece of work, Mr. O’Sullivan. Of course, the religionists who “believe in” AGW won’t think so, in the least.
I call it the Church of AGW Hey Watch Out. They remind me of a group from the 1800s called the Millerites (forerunners of the 2nd Day Adventists, 7th Day Adventists and the Jehovah’s Witnesses). William Miller prophesied that Jesus would return to pick up His chosen on October 22, 1844. As we know, both the Deity and the event failed to materialize.
A Boston newspaper asked, accurately and sarcastically, “What? Not gone up yet? We thought you’d gone up!”
The point is, the Millerites were bitterly disappointed that the Earth kept turning merrily along. They lamented that the chaos, mass death and untold misery attendant to the end of the world had not happened as scheduled.
I think the AGW crowd feels the same wayabout the evidence which clearly shows that, AGW, whether real or imagined, has NOT been shown to pose a threat to humanity.
If I’m right, how crazy is that? How could someone cling to and love apocalypse more than safety and freedom?
thanks, humanpersonjr. It’s a fair point you make that the self-loathing doomsayers really turn rather ugly at the first hint of good news about the non-problem over the climate. It seems the human race can’t help reproducing the genetically pre-disposed terminally morbid.
I tried to clean up the grammatical errors in the comment, but the “Edit” function didn’t work.
I’ll look into it, thanks.
The sun goes through an 11 year cycle of activity, by averaging over each decade you are creating an artificial oscillation in global temperatures which is the product of the two frequencies, 10×11 = 110 years.
To put it simply decades in which the solar minima occurred but not the maxima are the coolest, decades in which the maxima occurred but not the minima are the warmest. By changing when each ten year interval starts (for example instead of 1980-1990 you used 1985-1995) you can move the 110 year cycle back and forth however you like, create apparent increases or decreases where ever you like.
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliasing