Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate

A Report of NIPCC[Non-Governmental International Panel on Climate Change]

Prof. S. Fred Singer University of Virginia/SEPP <singer@sepp.org>

Keynote talk, March 3, 2008International Climate Conference

Marriott Marquis Hotel, Times Square, NYC

Basic Issue: Is Global Warming Human-Caused or Natural?

• Human-Caused: CO2 is a greenhouse (GH) gas and is increasing• Natural Climate Variation:Climate has always been warming or cooling

• Q: So how can one tell the cause?

• A: Compare calculated pattern of warming with observed pattern. Do the ‘fingerprints’ match or differ?

“The science is settled” – Al Gore

• But not in the way he imagined it: Global Warming is mostly of natural origin. The human contribution is not significant

• Therefore climate change is unstoppable• We look at the warming pattern calculated

from GH models and compare with the pattern measured by weather balloons

CCSP 1.1 – Chapter 1, Figure 1.3F PCM Simulations of Zonal-Mean Atmospheric Temperature Change

CCSP 1.1 – Chapter 5, Figure 7E

A more detailed view of the disparity: Douglass, Christy, Pearson, Singer - 2007

NO significant anthropogenic warming seen in the data

• NIPCC vs. IPCC: • What NIPCC did was to ‘connect the dots’ --

using the available information from model results and observations

• The same information was available to the IPCC from published work, including also from the US Government’s CCSP Report [2006]

• But IPCC chose to ignore these facts, because they conflicted with the conclusion that GW is anthropogenic

Two further questions

• Q: Why do climate models over-estimate the warming effects of greenhouse gases?

• A: The models ignore ‘negative feedbacks’ from clouds and likely also from water vapor.

• Q: Then what are the principal causes of climate variations (on decadal time scales)?

• A: Likely variability of solar activity (solar wind and magnetic fields affecting cosmic rays – and thereby cloudiness)

Solar-Activity Changes are the Main Cause of Climate Change

• Stalagmites provide a convenient record:• The stalagmite record shows a remarkably

close correlation between C-14 and O-18 over a period of more than 3,000 years

• Carbon-14 is generated in the atmosphere by cosmic rays and is a proxy for solar activity

• Oxygen-18 is a proxy for temperature

[Neff et al 2001]

What About Sea Level Rise?• Predictions of the IPCC – from 1990 to 2007 --

have decreased dramatically.• Their 2007 value is 18 - 59 cm by 2100.• James Hansen (and Al Gore) predict 600 cm!

• Our best value is 18 - 20 cm -- based on the absence of acceleration during the 20th century

• But since 18 cm/century rise has been ongoing for centuries, we expect no incremental rise in SL – no matter what the cause of warming.

 

IPCC 1990

IPCC 1995

IPCC 2001

2007 Draft

IPCC 2007

Hansen (H)

Rahmst. (R)

Singer (S)

Max 367 124 77 43 59 600 140 20

Min 10 3 11 14 18 600 50 18

Sea Level Rise to 2100

S

R

H

CO2 Mitigation is Not Needed

• Cap & Trade: pointless, political, expensive• Ethanol: ineffective and wasteful; subsidized• Wind, Solar: marginally useful, with subsidies• Carbon Capture: not needed and very costly.• Instead:• Generate Electric power from secure and low-

cost coal/nuclear: phase out natural gas and use as transportation fuel, feedstock, etc