Congress Finally Hearing Truth About Myth Of Man-Caused Global Warming

It is nice to see some historical scientifically verifiable facts laid out for all to see which clearly destroy the myth of man-caused global warming. There is an abundance of this kind geologic information that has been ignored by the global warming alarmists and so called "climate scientists". Al Gore? As always, he is a hypocrite, fraud and a buffoon.....albeit a wealthy one.
Peter

Testimony of The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley

Before Congress, 6 May 2010

The Select Committee, in its letter inviting testimony for the present hearing, cites

various scientific bodies as having concluded that –

1. The global climate has warmed;

2. Human activities account for most of the warming since the mid-20

th

century;

3. Climate change is already causing a broad range of impacts in the United States;

4. The impacts of climate change are expected to grow in the coming decades.

The first statement requires heavy qualification and, since the second is wrong, the third

and fourth are without foundation and must fall.

The Select Committee has requested answers to the following questions:

1. What are the observed changes to the climate system?

Carbon dioxide concentration:

In the Neoproterozoic Era, ~750 million years ago,

dolomitic rocks, containing ~40% CO2 bonded not only with calcium ions but also with

magnesium, were precipitated from the oceans worldwide by a reaction that could not

have occurred unless the atmospheric concentration of CO2 had been ~300,000 parts

per million by volume. Yet in that era equatorial glaciers came and went twice at sea

level.

Today, the concentration is ~773 times less, at ~388 ppmv: yet there are no equatorial

glaciers at sea level. If the warming effect of CO2 were anything like as great as the

vested-interest groups now seek to maintain, then, even after allowing for greater

surface albedo and 5% less solar radiation, those glaciers could not possibly have existed

(personal communication from Professor Ian Plimer, confirmed by on-site inspection of

dolomitic and tillite deposits at Arkaroola Northern Flinders Ranges, South Australia).

In the Cambrian Era, ~550 million years ago, limestones, containing some 44% CO2

bonded with calcium ions, were precipitated from the oceans. At that time, atmospheric

CO2 concentration was ~7000 ppmv, or ~18 times today’s (IPCC, 2001): yet it was at

that time that the calcite corals first achieved algal symbiosis. In the Jurassic era, ~175

million years ago, atmospheric CO2 concentration was ~6000 ppmv, or ~15 times

today’s (IPCC, 2001): yet it was then that the delicate aragonite corals came into being.

Therefore, today’s CO2 concentration, though perhaps the highest in 20 million years, is

by no means exceptional or damaging. Indeed, it has been argued that trees and plants

have been part-starved of CO2 throughout that period (Senate testimony of Professor

Will Happer, Princeton University, 2009). It is also known that a doubling of today’s

CO2 concentration, projected to occur later this century (IPCC, 2007), would increase

the yield of some staple crops by up to 40% (lecture by Dr. Leighton Steward,

Parliament Chamber, Copenhagen, December 2009).

Global mean surface temperature:

Throughout most of the past 550 million years,

global temperatures were ~7 K (13 F°) warmer than the present. In each of the past four

interglacial warm periods over the past 650,000 years, temperatures were warmer than

the present by several degrees (A.A. Gore,

An Inconvenient Truth

, 2006).

In the current or Holocene warm period, which began 11,400 years ago at the abrupt

termination of the Younger Dryas cooling event, some 7500 years were warmer than the

present (Cuffey & Clow, 1997), and, in particular, the medieval, Roman, Minoan, and

Holocene Climate Optima were warmer than the present (Cuffey & Clow, 1997).

The “global warming” that ceased late in 2001 (since when there has been a global

cooling trend for eight full years) had begun in 1695, towards the end of the Maunder

Minimum, a period of 70 years from 1645-1715 when the Sun was less active than at any

time in the past 11,400 years (Hathaway, 2004). Solar activity increased with a rapidity

unprecedented in the Holocene, reaching a Grand Solar Maximum during a period of 70

years from 1925-1995 when the Sun was very nearly as active as it had been at any time

in the past 11,400 years (Hathaway, 2004; Usoskin, 2003; Solanki, 2005).

The first instrumental record of global temperatures was kept in Central England from

1659. From 1695-1735, a period of 40 years preceding the onset of the Industrial

Revolution in 1750, temperatures in central England, which are a respectable proxy for

global temperatures, rose by 2.2 K (4 F°). Yet global temperatures have risen by only

0.65 K (1.2 F°) since 1950, and 0.7 K (1.3 F°) in the whole of the 20

th

century.

Throughout the 21

st

century, global temperatures have followed a declining trend.

Accordingly, neither global mean surface temperature nor its rates of change in recent

decades have been exceptional, unusual, inexplicable, or unprecedented.

Ocean “acidification”:

It has been suggested that the oceans have “acidified” – or,

more correctly, become less alkaline – by 0.1 acid-base units in recent decades.

However, the fact of a movement towards neutrality in ocean chemistry, if such a

movement has occurred, tells us nothing of the cause, which cannot be attributed to

increases in CO2 concentration. There is 70 times as much CO2 dissolved in the oceans

as there is in the atmosphere, and some 30% of any CO2 we add to the atmosphere will

eventually dissolve into the oceans. Accordingly, a doubling of CO2 concentration,

expected later this century, would raise the oceanic partial pressure of CO2 by 30% of

one-seventieth of what is already there. And that is an increase of 0.4% at most. Even

this minuscule and chemically-irrelevant perturbation is probably overstated, since any

“global warming” that resulted from the doubling of CO2 concentration would warm the

oceans and cause them to outgas CO2, reducing the oceanic partial pressure.

Seawater is a highly buffered solution – it can take up a huge amount of dissolved

inorganic carbon without significant effect on pH. There is not the slightest possibility

that the oceans could approach the neutral pH of pure water (pH 7.0), even if all the

fossil fuel reserves in the world were burned. A change in pH of 0.2 units this century,

from its present 8.2 to 8.0, even if it were possible, would leave the sea containing no

more than 10% of the “acidic” positively-charged hydrogen ions that occur in pure

water. If ocean “acidification” is happening, then CO2 is not and will not be the culprit.

2. What evidence provides attribution of these changes to human

activities?

In the global instrumental record, which commenced in 1850, the three supradecadal

periods of most rapid warming were 1860-1880, 1910-1940, and 1975-2001. Warming

rates in all three periods were identical at ~0.16 K (0.3 F°) per decade.

During the first two of these three periods, observations were insufficient to establish

the causes of the warming: however, the principal cause cannot have been atmospheric

CO2 enrichment, because, on any view, mankind’s emissions of CO2 had not increased

enough to cause any measurable warming on a global scale during those short periods.

In fact, the third period of rapid global warming, 1975-2001, was the only period of

warming since 1950. From 1950-1975, and again from 2001-2010, global temperatures

fell slightly (HadCRUTv3, cited in IPCC, 2007).

What, then, caused the third period of warming? Most of that third and most recent

period of rapid warming fell within the satellite era, and the satellites confirmed

measurements from ground stations showing a considerable, and naturally-occurring,

global brightening from 1983-2001 (Pinker

et al.,

2005).

Allowing for the fact that Dr. Pinker’s result depended in part on the datasets of

outgoing radiative flux from the ERBE satellite that had not been corrected at that time

for orbital decay, it is possible to infer a net increase in surface radiative flux amounting

to 0.106 W m

–2 year–1 over the period, compared with the 0.16 W m–2 year–1

found by

Dr. Pinker.

Elementary radiative-transfer calculations demonstrate that a natural surface global

brightening amounting to ~1.9 W m

–2

over the 18-year period of study would be

expected – using the IPCC’s own methodology – to have caused a transient warming of 1

K (1.8 F°). To put this naturally-occurring global brightening into perspective, the

IPCC’s estimated total of all the anthropogenic influences on climate combined in the

256 years 1750-2005 is only 1.6 W m

–2

.

Taking into account a further projected warming, using IPCC methods, of ~0.5 K (0.9

F°) from CO2 and other anthropogenic sources, projected warming of 1.5 K (2.7 F°)

should have occurred.

However, only a quarter of this projected warming was observed, suggesting the

possibility that the IPCC may have overestimated the warming effect of greenhouse

gases fourfold. This result is in line with similar result obtained by other methods: for

instance, Lindzen & Choi (2009, 2010 submitted) find that the warming rate to be

expected as a result of anthropogenic activities is one-quarter to one-fifth of the IPCC’s

central estimate.

There is no consensus on how much warming a given increase in CO2 will cause.

3. Assuming ad argumentum that the IPCC’s projections of future

warming are correct, what policy measures should be taken?

Warming at the very much reduced rate that measured (as opposed to merely modeled)

results suggest would be 0.7-0.8 K (1.3-1.4 F°) at CO2 doubling. That would be harmless

and beneficial – a doubling of CO2 concentration would increase yields of some staple

crops by 40%. Therefore, one need not anticipate any significant adverse impact from

CO2-induced “global warming”. “Global warming” is a non-problem, and the correct

policy response to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing.

However,

ad argumentum,

let us assume that the IPCC is correct in finding that a

warming of 3.26 ± 0.69 K (5.9 ± 1.2 F°: IPCC, 2007, ch.10, box 10.2) might occur at CO2

doubling. We generalize this central prediction, deriving a simple equation to tell us how

much warming the IPCC would predict for any given change in CO2 concentration –

ΔTS

≈ (8.5 ± 1.8) ln(C/C

o) F°

Thus, the change in surface temperature in Fahrenheit degrees, as predicted by the

IPCC, would be 6.7 to 10.3 (with a central estimate of 8.5) times the logarithm of the

proportionate increase in CO2 concentration. We check the equation by using it to work

out the warming the IPCC would predict at CO2 doubling: 8.5 ln 2

≈

5.9 F°.

Using this equation, we can determine just how much “global warming” would be

forestalled if the entire world were to shut down its economies and emit no carbon

dioxide at all for an entire year. The atmospheric concentration of CO2 is 388 parts per

million by volume. Our emissions of 30 bn tons of CO2 a year are causing this

concentration to rise at 2 ppmv/year, and this ratio of 15 bn tons of emissions to each

additional ppmv of CO2 concentration has remained constant for 30 years.

Then the “global warming” that we might forestall if we shut down the entire global

carbon economy for a full year would be 8.5 ln[(388+2)/388] = 0.044 F°. At that rate,

almost a quarter of a century of global zero-carbon activity would be needed in order to

forestall just one Fahrenheit degree of “global warming”.

Two conclusions ineluctably follow. First, it would be orders of magnitude more costeffective

to adapt to any “global warming” that might occur than to try to prevent it from

occurring by trying to tax or regulate emissions of carbon dioxide in any way.

Secondly, there is no hurry. Even after 23 years doing nothing to address the imagined

problem, and even if the IPCC has not exaggerated CO2’s warming effect fourfold, the

world will be just 1 F° warmer than it is today. If the IPCC has exaggerated fourfold, the

world can do nothing for almost a century before global temperature rises by 1 F°.

There are many urgent priorities that need the attention of Congress, and it is not for me

as an invited guest in your country to say what they are. Yet I can say this much: on any

view, “global warming” is not one of them.