The models are wrong
Today one mainstream newspaper finally caught up with the global warming skeptic community and recognized that a recent release of data from the United Kingdom’s Met Office shows that since 1996 the temperature of the climate has stalled. For the past sixteen years there has been no global warming, at all.
Three takeaways from this story.
- This period of no-warming has now been as long as the previous period of warming. In other words, the stall in warming is getting long enough now to be statistically significant.
- The Met Office revealed its biases by how it unveiled this fact. Previously, when their data suggested the climate was warming, they heralded that fact loudly with bold predictions of catastrophes to come. But when their data suggested their predictions were wrong and the climate wasn’t warming, they released the data with as little fanfare as possible.
- Finally, and most important, this data demonstrates clearly that all the computer models used by climate scientists to predict the future climate are patently wrong. They don’t understand what is happening, even if some of them refuse to admit it.
The last point is the most important. The early IPCC reports in the 1990s went into great detail about the many uncertainties that exist in the field. They didn’t know what the influence of pollution would be on future climate. They didn’t know what the influence of clouds would be on future climate. They didn’t know what the influence of the atmosphere’s water vapor would be on future climate. They didn’t know what the influence of variations of the Sun’s brightness would be on future climate.
And they didn’t know what the effect of the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would be on future climate. Compared to the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, which is probably the atmosphere’s most significant global warming component, carbon dioxide is merely a trace gas. Making this trace gas important enough to cause global warming remains a difficult and overly complex theory, and a theory that has not yet been proven.
Those early IPCC reports were very honest about these uncertainties. Later IPCC reports however have dismissed these uncertainties, even though subsequent research has done practically nothing to eliminate them. Instead, the last two IPCC reports have trumpeted the climate models as if these models were the same as actual data. The models, based on theory, said that the increase in carbon dioxide was going to cause the climate to warm, and that was that. Turn off those heaters. Shut down those coal factories. Stop making cars. Learn to freeze in the winter and sweat in the summer. We can’t have technology any more because it is going to kill us!
The fact is that these models were garbage. They are useful for trying to understand how the atmosphere functioned, but as predictors they were less than worthless. None of them have ever been able to predict anything, and to rely on them to make policies that will squelch human freedom and creativity is beyond foolish.
Skeptics have been pointing out this obvious fact now for the better part of two decades. We now have proof that they were right.
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For all of the years I covered climate change, I heard a dichotomy among the scientists. The modelers all confidently told me there was “no question” AGW was occurring and that they could track and predict it. The observationalists, however — the ones who were actually collecting the data — were unanimous. They said, in effect, “We don’t see it happening.”
In a way, this is worrisome, because the onset of a new ice age — which is due at any time — would truly be catastrophic for humanity. If the warming could prevent a new ice age — we’ve had nearly two dozen of them over the past couple of million years — that would spare quite a few countries and hundreds of major cities from dire circumstances.
The immediate harm is to science and to climate science in particular. It could take a generation or more for the field to regain its credibility, due to the arrogance and foolishness of those who allowed themselves to become a part of this monumental fraud.
Best to take some of the statements made in the article you cite:
“Ending the data then means it is possible to show a slight warming trend since 1997, but 2011 and the first eight months of 2012 were much cooler, and thus this trend is erased.”
Exactly. Which only highlights the problem of picking shorter periods of time in order to prove a point.
“Since 1880, when worldwide industrialisation began to gather pace and reliable statistics were first collected on a global scale, the world has warmed by 0.75 degrees Celsius….This (current) ‘plateau’ in rising temperatures does not mean that global warming won’t at some point resume.”
OK. On that we agree, and it is certainly a different conclusion than taking a short period of 15 years as the starting point.
“The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures. This means that the ‘plateau’ or ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for about 40 years.”
Well, thanks for picking a time period that proves the point you want to make. So referring to the MET office graph:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/image/j/l/warmingtrend.gif
Suppose you change your starting point to the year 2000, you would get a slightly warmer trend, and it is still 12 years long.
Better yet, in the above statement, the article says temperatures were declining, or stable, from the years 1940 to 1980. True. Suppose I pick the years 1953 through 1998 (45 years!). Would I be safe to conclude all computer models have been wrong, and the earth is warming even faster then they predicted?
And in the last paragraph and the article’s conclusion, it says:
“So let’s be clear. Yes: global warming is real, and some of it at least has been caused by the CO2 emitted by fossil fuels.”
Well, that’s at least a positive start for this Monday.
“Suppose you change your starting point to the year 2000, you would get a slightly warmer trend, and it is still 12 years long.”
Exactly.
Also if you start in May of 2012 you’d get a warming trend as well. But if you start in September, you’d get a cooling trend, but simply don’t report that cooling trend only focus on the warming trend from May onward. Global warming lives!! Wahoo!
It’s all about scale. The earth is very old…so too, should be the timeline of data that analyze it. Why is this so confusing? Long term (geologic/cosmologic) events require the requisit long term longitudinal studies if good science is to be done.
It’s funny watching people argue about warming. Fact is the Earth (covered 2/3rds by water) has warmed and cooled alternately for millions, if not billions of years.
The key limitations here seem to be:
1. Certain members of mankind suggest we can change the climate catastrophically (arrogance).
2. Men (scientists) view the temperature and weather through a dim lense, dimmed by our short lifespans (ignorance).
We should concerned about cooling in the short run due to the potential for crop failure and famines. Not warming. In Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, he suggested the Earth would be burned up by the Sun, in a couple billion years – as the Sun dies. So, again, just a matter of perspective.
-R
It will take more thana couple of articles showing that the models were wrong or that climate change has stalled to undo all of the brain washing that hasbeen going on for the last 22 some odd years by the mainstream media, but it is a start!
The main argument is that the warming we saw I the 20th century was due in large part due to CO2. So, if half that temperature rise could not be attributable to CO2 then the majority of global-warming-caused-by-CO2 would be drawn into question. Since about 30% of CO2’s increase has come since 2000, then we are about 3/5th of the way to meeting to point where most of the 20th century’s warming cannot be attributed to CO2. My estimate is that, provided temps stay flat, that day will come in about seven years from now.
“Since 1880, when worldwide industrialization began to gather pace and reliable statistics were first collected on a global scale, the world has warmed by 0.75 degrees Celsius..”
On that we don’t agree. In 1880 thermometers were not accurate and the were used in a few places like the USA, Europe and a few other locations. Far from global in scale. Global measurements started in 1979.
Based on a few thermometer readings from back then, taken in a few locations on the planet, and then concluding a global temp increase with accuracy down to 100th of a degree is fantasy.
People who implying that the increase is caused by human activity increases the fantasy.
True but just look how Climategate changed journalists opinions dramatically. Before the fall of 2009, there were almost no skeptic opinions presented in any form of media, except to show how ludicrous skeptics were, to attempt to humiliate them. Climategate woke them up, they’re not fully awake yet but it’s a vast improvement.
I predict they won’t stay flat. I predict global temperatures will gradually fall over the next 15 years.
Has anyone considered the danger of oxygen sequestration? When CO2 is pumped in the ground we loose two atoms of Oxygen. This not only means less to breath for us humans but reduces the amount of Oxygen that can combine with Hydrogen to form water vapor from which all potable water derives.
The natural sequestration that caused the oil and gas deposits to form probably changed the atmosphere. This change could have been unfavorable for the fern like plant life of the time. The dinosaurs could have become extinct because of carbon – oxygen sequestration.