The WA Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) wants every new project to aim for carbon neutrality, costing billions, almost certainly increasing pollution overseas, but hoping to lower temperatures over WA by 2100 AD.
The EPA is a scientific advisory body — the government doesn’t have to follow their advice — but if it does, and the advice was wrong — who is responsible for loss and damages which are foreseeable? The IPCC favoured models do not include solar magnetic, spectral or particle-flow parameters, and repeatedly fail. They are unaudited, unvalidated, and unaccountable. If the sun controls the climate these models will not show that. If the EPA is not doing due diligence on reports of a foreign committee, which person representing Western Australians is?
— Jo
Submission for the EPA Greenhouse Gas Emissions Assessment Guidance – Consultation
Joanne Nova, Sept 2, 2019: Submission ID: ANON-1TDB-D593-G.
___________________________
Question 1: Has the EPA done due diligence on the IPCC Climate Report?
The EPA’s core role is to “protect the environment and abate pollution”, Section 15 of the Act (s.15)
Therefore, the EPA would be legally obligated to assess the scientific evidence. The question upon which everything hinges was stated in the Background Paper thus:
“How serious are the projected environmental impacts of further greenhouse gas emissions?
“The EPA declares that human emissions are driving changes to the climate and the scientific data is “robust and compelling”. However the EPA does not list or discuss any data at all. It quotes The 2018 State of the Climate Report from the Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO, and the October 2018 IPCCs Special Report on Global Warming.
“Taken together, this information is of concern and cannot be dismissed as speculative or incorrect…
The EPA is not quoting evidence or data in the background paper. It is merely repeating committee reports. Given that management of the West Australian environment depends upon these forward projections, and billions of dollars depends upon the EPA guidelines, the onus of due diligence surely rests with the EPA, not with a foreign unaccountable organization such as the IPCC. While the media and activists may claim “thousands of scientists” are involved, in actuality, the number who have checked the key conclusions is small. For example the number of listed reviewers of Chapter Nine of the Fourth IPCC Assessment Report was only 601 , and these scientists only have to have read the draft chapter to be included. They don’t necessarily need to have critically audited it. Thousands of other scientists involved in the IPCC reports are specialists in adaption, mitigation, biology, markets, or some smaller aspect of climate science. They have assumed the assumptions and conclusions of Chapter Nine were correct.
Question 1: Has the EPA assessed or audited the IPCC Climate Report?
Question 1.1a: If so – which observational data sets shows that man-made CO2 causes dangerous warming? Or is the EPA policy dependent entirely on reports based on unverified and unvalidated climate models with a proven record of failure? (see below).
Question 1.1b: If the EPA has not independently assessed the data and evidence, will the EPA take responsibility for any damages that occur to the state (flora, fauna or citizens) if it recommends action based on unverified, unaudited climate models that peer reviewed papers already describe as “skillless”?2
Model failure is well documented
The one flaw that wipes out the crisis. Click to enlarge.
The direct warming effect of doubling CO2 will only lead to 1.2 °C of warming3 according to James Hansen, and the IPCC4 . Skeptics largely accept that, the contentious point is whether that warming is amplified by feedbacks as the IPCC contends5 , or dampened by feedbacks as the empirical evidence from 28 million weather balloons suggests.6 7 8 The CCSP Chapter 5, mentions “fingerprint” or variant of that, not just once, but 74 times. If the models are wrong on this one key feedback we would expect to see evidence from many sources, which we do.
The model predictions fail on almost every level and aspect. They are unable to predict temperatures on global scales, and also on regional, local, short term 9 10 , polar11 , and upper tropospheric scales12 13 too. They fail on humidity14 , rainfall15 , drought 16 and they fail on clouds.17 The common theme is that models don’t handle water well. This is obviously a big problem on a planet covered in water. Water holds 90% of all the energy on the surface,18 and both NASA19 and the IPCC20 admit water is the most important greenhouse gas. Furthermore the predictions of upper tropospheric water vapor, which are the most important feedback in the coupled climate models have been repeatedly and completely incorrect.21 22 This particular aspect of model predictions is known as “the missing hot spot” – the section of the atmosphere above the tropics around 10km altitude. It’s more important than any other single aspect, even than the direct effect of CO2. The amplification is called positive feedback, and this particular feedback from water molecules is one of the biggest single factors in climate models23 . There are claims that it doubles the effect of all other forms of warming24 .
The CCSP (Climate Change Science Project) published the predictions and observations as graphs in separate parts of its large 2006 report
Many top climate scientists have admitted and discussed the differences between modeled and observed trends on the most influential feedback system in the climate models:
“…‘potentially serious inconsistency’ between modelled and observed trends …discrepancies in the tropics remain to be resolved.” (Karl et al., 2006)
“Surprisingly, direct temperature observations from radiosonde and satellite data have often not shown this expected trend. (Sherwood et al, 2008)
“… the tropical troposphere had actually cooled slightly over the last 20 to 30 years (in sharp contrast to the computer model predictions… (Santer 2008)
… (most) models overestimate the warming trend in the tropical troposphere…The cause of this bias remains elusive. IPCC, 2013 (IPCC) 25
Models systematically overestimate nearly every other aspect
As expected, when the models are wrong on a key factor the predictions are systematically wrong in many outcomes. This includes sea-levels, where 1,000 tide gauges show the rise is only 1mm a year, far less than predicted. 26 27 Seas around Australia were rising just as fast around the time of the Great Depression as they are today.28 The raw satellite data agreed with this29 until it was adjusted in 2003, allegedly to match one subsiding gauge in Hong Kong. Satellites are now tracking every 20m rolling sandspit above the seas — and if seas were rising the beaches would be shrinking. Instead, when 709 islands in the Pacific and Indian oceans are studied, 89% have either stayed the same or got bigger.30 Not one island large enough to have human inhabitants was getting smaller. Sea levels also started rising long before human emissions of CO2 became significant. The IPCC favoured models can not explain why this warming started around 1800AD. 31 32
The models cannot explain the warming during the Medieval Warm Period either. There are claims this was not global, but scores of proxies from all over the world show that it was. 33 34 Furthermore, 6,000 boreholes drilled around the world agree that the warming effect was global. 35 36 37 38
In the oceans, the warming isn’t statistically significant, sea-levels started rising too early, aren’t rising fast enough, aren’t accelerating, nor are warming anywhere near as much as they predicted. Antarctica was supposed to be warming faster than almost anywhere but they were totally wrong. The vast Southern Ocean is cooling not warming. The only part of Antarctica that’s warming sits on top of a volcano chain where 91 new volcanoes were recently discovered.
There are many reasons the IPCC work can be dismissed as “speculative”
Argument from Authority or Ad Populum is fallacious reasoning and though skeptics are independent and vastly outnumber convinced scientists, that does not make them right, and does not form any part of the scientific argument put forward here. However, it does show that the EPA has not critically investigated the IPCC conclusions and forward projections. If they had, the EPA would be aware that the IPCC work is very much a speculative extrapolation with unverified, unvalidated modeling.
To that limited end, it’s worth noting that thousands of independent scientists are actively protesting the IPCC assumptions. Survey’s show most engineers and geologists39 , and half of the worlds meteorologists,40 and climate scientists do not agree with the IPCC’s level of certainty.41 Skeptics include Nobel Prize winners of Physics, and Freeman Dyson and 3 of the 4 surviving astronauts who walked on the moon. Unlike the IPCC, their opinions cannot be dismissed as “speculative”. Their claims are modest (that the climate is likely to continue changing at a similar rate to the last century and that IPCC is exaggerating the effect of CO2 by a factor of 2 – 10 fold). On the other hand the IPCC claims involve “unprecedented” changes, and rapid acceleration which is not shown in any dataset, only in model projections.
If the evidence was so overwhelming, and the debate not even worth having, why do the small number of officially recognized climate scientists find it so hard to convince other scientists? The laws of science are the same regardless of the branch of science. Atmospheric physics is still physics.
It is worth noting that the IPCC assessments are dependent on a few scientists who have behaved in profoundly unscientific ways: for example, hiding data, declines, history, adjustments and methods.
The BOM admits that its methods cannot be replicated: If it can’t be replicated, it isn’t science
The Bureau of Meteorology admits its methods cannot be described in full42 . Each station is adjusted by techniques that are not fully published. In their own words their methods of adjusting the data are:
“…a supervised process in which the roles of metadata and other information required some level of expertise and operator intervention.”
…several choices within the adjustment process remain a matter of expert judgment.
Does the EPA endorse scientific work that cannot be replicated and whose methods are not described in full? If the EPA does not carry out due diligence, it is implicitly accepting these profoundly unscientific standards.
Australia has always been a hot land. Our environment is surely adapted to that?
50 degree temperatures occurred right across Australia. Click to enlarge.
Archival history from Australian news reports suggests extreme heatwaves were common in the 1800’s. CO2 was low in the 1800s yet there are scores of references to 125F “in the shade” in our national newspaper archives, which is an astonishing 52°C. This was measured on non-standard equipment, but was sometimes done by expert scientists. Early explorers were trained to measure temperature. Charles Sturt recorded temperatures in the shade of 127F, 129F and even 132F, reporting that the ground was so hot, if matches fell on the sand they would ignite spontaneously.43 44 In 1846, Sir Thomas Mitchell also recorded 129F.45 He was afraid the thermometer would break as it “only reached 132F.” In 1860 John Mcdouall Stuart’s party measured 128F in the shade.46 Heat was so common that miners in 1878 had a policy to “knock off” work if the thermometer hit 112F (44.4°C). No air conditioners then. Despite the spikes of heat in the 1800s, by 1952 Australian scientists were discussing the cause of mysterious long cooling trends across a large part of the continent.47
Conservatively, even if some of these many recorded temperatures are overestimating the heat by 2 or 3 degrees Celsius, these temperatures would still show that Australia has always had extraordinary heatwaves.
There are many examples of Australian thermometers being inadequately sited, mysteriously adjusted, and readjusted. E.g. Streaky Bay, South Australia48 . For other examples see Climate Change: The Facts 2017.49
Parts 2 and 3 coming.
NOTE: The three images above are discussed in the submission, but not included. Next time…
REFERENCES
1 McLean, John (2007) An Analysis of the Review of the IPCC 4AR WG I Report, http://mclean.ch/climate/docs/IPCC_review_updated_analysis.pdf. Updated: McLean, John (2009) The IPCC can’t count its “expert scientists”, http://mclean.ch/climate/docs/IPCC_numbers.pdf
2 Hans von Storch, Armineh Barkhordarian, Klaus Hasselmann and Eduardo Zorita (2013) Can climate models explain the recent stagnation in global warming? Academia
3 Hansen J., A. Lacis, D. Rind, G. Russell, P. Stone, I. Fung, R. Ruedy and J. Lerner, (1984) Climate sensitivity: Analysis of feedback mechanisms. In Climate Processes and Climate Sensitivity, AGU Geophysical Monograph 29, Maurice Ewing Vol. 5. J.E. Hansen and T. Takahashi, Eds. American Geophysical Union, pp. 130-163 Abstract
4 See also Bony et al 2006, and the IPCC, AR4 Chapter 8, p 631.
5 Predicted “hot spot” changes 1958-1999. Synthesis and Assessment Report 1.1, 2006, CCSP, Chapter 1, p 25, based on Santer et al. 2000;
6 Hadley Radiosonde record: Synthesis and Assessment Report 1.1, 2006, CCSP,, Chapter 5, p116, recorded change/decade, Hadley Centre weather balloons 1979-1999, p. 116 , fig. 5.7E, from Thorne et al., 2005.
7 28 million radiosondes: NOAA, Integrated Global Radiosonde Archive, May 28th, 2010. https://web.archive.org/web/20100528012708/http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/igra/index.php?name=coverage
8 Durre et al (2005) Overview of the Integrated Global Radiosonde Archive, Journal of Climate, vol 19, page 53, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI3594.1
9 Anagnostopoulos, G. G., D. Koutsoyiannis, A. Christofides, A. Efstratiadis, and N. Mamassis, (2010). A comparison of local and aggregated climate model outputs with observed data’, Hydrological Sciences Journal, 55: 7, 1094 — 1110 PDF
10 Koutsoyiannis, D., Efstratiadis, A., Mamassis, N. & Christofides, A.(2008) On the credibility of climate predictions. Hydrol. Sci. J. 53(4), 671–684. changes PDF
11 Previdi, M. and Polvani, L. M. (2014), Climate system response to stratospheric ozone depletion and recovery. Q.J.R. Meteorol. Soc.. doi: 10.1002/qj.233
12 Christy J.R., Herman, B., Pielke, Sr., R, 3, Klotzbach, P., McNide, R.T., Hnilo J.J., Spencer R.W., Chase, T. and Douglass, D: (2010) What Do Observational Datasets Say about Modeled Tropospheric Temperature Trends since 1979? Remote Sensing 2010, 2, 2148-2169; doi:10.3390/rs2092148 PDF
13 Fu, Q, Manabe, S., and Johanson, C. (2011) On the warming in the tropical upper troposphere: Models vs observations, Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 38, L15704, doi:10.1029/2011GL048101, 2011 PDF Discussion
14 Paltridge, G., Arking, A., Pook, M., 2009. Trends in middle- and upper-level tropospheric humidity from NCEP reanalysis data. Theoretical and Applied Climatology, Volume 98, Numbers 3-4, pp. 351-35). PDF
15 See 10 Anagnostopolous 2010
16 Sheffield, Wood & Roderick (2012) Little change in global drought over the past 60 years, Letter Nature, vol 491, 437
17 Miller, M., Ghate, V., Zahn, R., (2012) The Radiation Budget of the West African Sahel 1 and its Controls: A Perspective from 2 Observations and Global Climate Models. in press Journal of Climate abstract PDF
18 Pielke Sr., R.A., (2003): Heat storage within the Earth system. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 84, 331-335.
19 http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WaterVapor/water_vapor3.php
20 IPCC, Assessment Report 4, 2007, Working Group 1, The Physical Science Basis, Chapter 8. PDF Page 632 online
21 Santer, B. D. (2006). US Climate Change Science Program 2006, Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere – Understanding and Reconciling Differences.
22 Singer, S. F. (2011). Lack of Consistency between Modeled and Observed Temperature Trends. Energy and Environment, Vol 22 No. 4, pp. 375 – 406.
23 Soden, B.J., and I.M. Held, 2006, An assessment of climate feedbacks in coupled ocean-atmosphere models. J. Clim. 19, 3354–3360.
24 Sherwood, S., Kursinski, E.R., Read, W.G. (2006) A Distribution Law for Free-Tropospheric Relative Humidity, Journal of Climate, Volume 19, Issue 24 (December 2006) abstract
25 IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, second order draft, Chapter Nine, page 218
26 Michael Beenstock, Daniel Felsenstein,*Eyal Frank & Yaniv Reingewertz, (2014) Tide gauge location and the measurement of global sea level rise, Environmental and Ecological Statistics, May 2014 Abstract
27 Nils‐Axel Mörner (2014) Deriving the Eustatic Sea Level Component in the Kattaegatt Sea, Global Perspectives on Geography (GPG). American Society of Science and Engineering, Volume 2, 2014, www.as‐se.org/gpg
28 White, Neil J., Haigh, Ivan D., Church, John A., Koen, Terry, Watson, Christopher S., Pritchard, Tim R., Watson, Phil J., Burgette, Reed J., McInnes, Kathleen L., You, Zai-Jin, Zhang, Xuebin, Tregoning, Paul: (2014) Australian Sea Levels – Trends, Regional Variability and Influencing Factors, Earth Science Reviews, doi: 10.1016/j.earscirev.2014.05.011
29 Morner. N.A. (2004) Estimating future sea level changes from past records, Global and Planetary Change 40 49–54 doi:10.1016/S0921-8181(03)00097-3 PDF
30 Duvat, V. K. E. (2018). A global assessment of atoll island planform changes over the past decades. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, e557. doi:10.1002/wcc.557
31 Jevrejeva, S., A. Grinsted, J. C. Moore, and S. Holgate (2006), Nonlinear trends and multiyear cycles in sea level records, J. Geophys. Res., 111
32 Jevrejeva, S., J. C. Moore, A. Grinsted, and P. L. Woodworth (2008), Recent global sea level acceleration started over 200 years ago?, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L08715, doi:10.1029/2008GL033611. PDF
33 Christiansen, B. and Ljungqvist F. C. (2012). The extra-tropical Northern Hemisphere temperature in the last two millennia: reconstructions of low-frequency variability. Climate of the Past, 8(2):765–786, 2012. abstract PDF NASA copy Discussion on CA noted a lack of complete archives and code
34 Ljungqvist, F. C., Krusic, P. J., Brattström, G., and Sundqvist, H. S (2012).: Northern Hemisphere temperature patterns in the last 12 centuries, Clim. Past, 8, 227-249, doi:10.5194/cp-8-227-2012, 2012. abstract PDF or try this PDF CO2science discussion
35 Huang, S., H. N. Pollack, and P. Y. Shen (1997), Late Quaternary temperature changes seen in world‐wide continental heat flow measurements, Geophys. Res. Lett., 24(15), 1947–1950. Abstract, PDF Discussion
36 Huang, S., H. N. Pollack, and P. Y. Shen (2000), Temperature trends over the past five centuries reconstructed from borehole temperatures, Nature, 403, 756– 758. PDF
37 Huang, S. (2004), Merging information from different resources for new insights intoclimate change in the past and future, Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, L13205, doi:10.1029/2004GL019781.
38 Huang, S. P., H. N. Pollack, and P.-Y. Shen (2008), A late Quaternary climate reconstruction based on borehole heat
flux data, borehole temperature data, and the instrumental record, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L13703, doi:10.1029/2008GL034187 PDF
39 Lefsrud and Meyer (2012) Science or Science Fiction? Professionals’ Discursive Construction of Climate Change, Organization Studies, vol. 33, 11: pp. 1477-1506. , First Published November 19, 2012.
40 Maibach, E., Perkins, D., Timm, K., Myers, T., Woods Placky, B., et al. (2017). A 2017 National Survey of Broadcast Meteorologists: Initial Findings. George Mason University, Fairfax, VA: Center for Climate Change Communication
41 Bart Strengers, Bart Verheggen and Kees Vringer (2015) Climate Science Survey, Questions and Responses, PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, pp 1 – 39
42 BOM Technical Advisory Forum report, June 2015. http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/acorn-sat/documents/2015_TAF_report.pdf Discussed: http://joannenova.com.au/2015/06/if-it-cant-be-replicated-it-isnt- science-bom-admits-temperature-adjustments-are-secret/
43 http://www.knowledgerush.com/paginated_txt/etext04/xpcst10/xpcst10_s1_p479_pages.html
44 Charles Sturt, Narrative of an expedition into Central Australia, 1844, Chapter 12. The University of Adelaide Library. https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/sturt/charles/s93n/chapter12.html Discussed: http://joannenova.com.au/2012/07/charles-sturts-time-so-hot-that-thermometers-exploded-was-australias-hottest-day-in-1828-53-9c/
45 Lt. Col. Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell Kt. D.C.L. Surveyor-General of New South Wales, Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia, 1846. The University of Adelaide Library. https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/m/mitchell/thomas/tropical/complete.html
46 Mr Stuart’s Party, The Cornwall Chronicle, Wed 23 Jan 1861, Page 5. http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/65567656,
47 Deacon, E.L. (1952) Climatic Change in Australia since 1880, Australian Journal of Physics, Volume 6, Pages 209-218. PDF
48 Streaky Bay’s Thermometer — Over Hot Bitumen for 31 long Years, (2019), http://joannenova.com.au/2019/08/feast-your-eyes-on-streaky-bays-thermometer-over-bitumen-for-31-long-hot-years/
49 Chapter 8, Mysterious Revisions to Australia’s long hot history, Climate Change: The Facts 2017. The Institute of Public Affairs, Connor Court. https://ipa.org.au/publications-ipa/books/climate-change-facts-2017-ebook-now-sale