There follows a guest post by journalist Chris Morrison looking at a recent paper by the physicist Nicola Scafetta. It suggests that the main climate models used to predict rising global temperatures aren’t fit for purpose.
A devastating indictment of the accuracy of climate models is contained in a paper just published by the highly credentialed Physicist Nicola Scafetta from the University of Naples. Professor Scafetta analysed 38 of the main models and found that most had over-estimated global warming over the last 40 years and many of them should be “dismissed and not used by policymakers”.
But the majority still are. In the absence of conclusive proof that humans are causing all or most global warming, the science is deemed to be settled almost entirely on the basis of forecasts from models that have never been correct. And of course this lies at the heart of a drive to so-called net zero and the removal from human use of the one cheap and efficient fuel we all rely on to sustain a comfortable, healthy, modern lifestyle – namely, fossil fuel.
At the heart of the climate model problem is determining the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS). This is defined in climate science as the increase in the global mean surface temperature that follows a doubling of atmospheric CO2. Nobody knows what this figure is – the science for this crucial piece of the jigsaw is missing, unsettled you may say. So guesses are made and they usually range from 1C to as high as 6C. Models that use a higher figure invariably run hot and Professor Scafetta has proved them to be the least accurate in their forecasts.
Scafetta demonstrates this clearly in the graph (below). The thick green line is the actual average global temperature and all the other lines are the models’ projections. The red lines show the models that put the temperature at 6C. Interestingly, the models started to go haywire at a time when global warming was gaining political traction and debate on the science started to be discouraged. Perish the thought, of course, that the two are in any way related. Scafetta also goes into great detail about the performance of models in all latitudes and concludes “significant model data discrepancies are still observed over extended world regions for all models”.
Many scientists are highly sceptical about climate models. The reason the hypothesis that humans cause all or most global warming is unproven is that the atmosphere is too chaotic a place to pin the blame for warming (and cooling) on our meagre contribution to CO2 emissions, which accounts for about 3% of the total each year. Professor Scafetta points to the influence of the sun and other scientists look at the role of orbits, the moon, ocean currents, naturally occurring weather oscillations, volcanoes – the list is almost endless. We have little idea about the role of other greenhouse gases such as water vapour, which accounts for 6% of the atmosphere, and the way they all react with each other to increase, or decrease, their ability to trap heat.
More detailed research into this by Professor William Happer at Princeton has led him to conclude that a very low ECS, suggesting gentle if any warming, occurs when CO2 rises above the current atmospheric level of 420 parts per million. Far from being harmful, the extra CO2 is highly beneficial for plant growth and food. Slightly warmer temperatures can also be desirable. Homo Sapiens started in the tropics and only ventured out when the ice age started to lift – we like being warm and far more people die of the cold than the heat.
Failing to discuss the science behind climate change and simply blaming it all on humans is not science, it is anti-science, leading to faith-based green ideology. A plea for a more scientific approach was made two years ago by Professor Scaffeta along with a group of over 70 Italian scientists, including many distinguished academics, in a direct plea to Italian politicians. They stated that the human responsibility for climate change observed in the last century was “unjustifiably exaggerated and catastrophic predictions are not realistic”. Signatories of the letter included Antonino Zichichi, Professor emeritus of Physics and the discoverer of nuclear antimatter, and Renato Angelo Ricci, also an emeritus Professor of Physics and former President of the Italian Society of Physics. In total it was signed by 48 science professors. Needless to say it went unreported in the mainstream media at the time
The scientists said that climate models do not reproduce the observed natural variability of the climate of the past, notably the Medieval warm period and the hot Roman period, noted to be warmer than the present “despite the CO2 concentrations being lower than the current”. Of course, models are not alone in downplaying the balmy climate in medieval times. The IPCC produced its infamous hockey stick in 2001 to emphasise recent warming, but it disappeared quickly when the Climategate emails were published eight years later.
The Italian scientists were also of the opinion that the ECS is “considerably lower” than that estimated by the IPCC models. “The advanced alarmist forecasts, therefore, are not credible since they are based on models whose results contradict the experimental data,” they wrote. Natural variability, they said, “explains a substantial part of global warming observed since 1850″. Catastrophic predictions “are not realistic”.
And finally they have a swipe at the so-called 97% ‘settled’ consensus, a mad-up figure recently inflated to 99%. “In fact there is a remarkable variability of opinions among specialists – climatologists, meteorologists, geologists, geophysicists, astrophysicists – many of whom recognise an important natural contribution to global warming observed from the pre-industrial period and even from the post-war period to today.”
One minute to midnight to save the world, proclaimed Boris Johnson at COP26. Perhaps he forgot to put his clocks back last weekend.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
nice article
as is often pointed out. all cause mortality is the best metric but it suffers from 2 issues
1 – it doesn’t separate covid from lockdown deaths
2 – you can’t look at them without considering dry tinder effect
so well done for addressing (2). it is simply mad not to consider how many old people you have when looking at how many old people die
this is an issue for covid specifically because 95% of ‘covid’ deaths are actually just old age – maybe brought forward a little
And co-morbidities. That is probably a huge factor in deaths seen in USA and UK, with obesity, diabetes and other respiratory ailments too.
“. it is simply mad not to consider how many old people you have when looking at how many old people die” Unless your aim is not that of reflecting the truth, or the actual risk, but instead to exaggerate, frighten, obfuscate, deceive, bully.
You are, of course, absolutely right about separating out ‘Covid’ deaths.
But there’s no way round this other than rough estimates from aggregated research.
So – we end up with all-cause mortality by default. What we can say is that any really significant fatal epidemic will show up.
I think the best metric is all cause mortality, age and population adjusted
like this for the UK
https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/deathsintheukfrom1990to2020
if there is a tinder effect you can pick it out by eye
it would be good to have the above graphed for every country
ie
True, but it isn’t going to persuade the fanatics.
They want to believe. They need to believe.
Noah – this is good work. But do stop farting around in the fog of ‘excess mortality’ – a concept that is imprecise and variable. It’s always bollocks.
Just establish a credibly long baseline, and compare the year in question to deviation from it. Forget the habit of 3-5 years timescale ; anything under about 15 years is useless for comparative purposes, in a situation where comparisons between countries are, in any case, fraught with an impossible matrix of confounding variables (My general condemnation of the Johnson government doesn’t go so far as to lay the apparently higher mortality than most just at its door).
But the ‘dry tinder’ issue is vital. Do an analysis over 2- rather than 1-year periods, and the outcome is significant.
Differences in overall all cause mortality between Sweden and Denmark in 2020 are largely explained by differing approaches to care for the elderly.
Denmark and, indeed, Greece (which also had a good common cold coronavirus epidemic outcome) care for large numbers of their elderly in their own homes.
‘Danish policy calls for allowing the elderly to remain in their own homes for as long as possible. There where they have lived with their families, friends and neighbors, and where they feel at home.
If they fall ill or lose any of their functional abilities, they can be provided with home help and home nursing. Such care is provided free as part of the Danish welfare model, and is based on qualified social and health care personnel visiting the elderly at home, and helping with anything they find hard to do themselves.’
https://www.sosufvh.dk/international/the-danish-care-model
‘Due to the crisis and economic hardship, families opt to look after the elderly at home as pension benefits are a major source of income particularly among households with unemployed members.’
eurocarers.org/greece
Both countries have consequently largely avoided the nosocomial infection disasters in care homes elsewhere.
Not so in Sweden.
‘Sweden experienced disproportionate incidence among the very elderly and nearly half of all COVID-attributed deaths occurred in seniors’ care homes. Pierre discusses the institutional arrangements and challenges of the Swedish seniors’ care system that are likely to have contributed towards this failure: decentralized leadership often run at municipal level; privatization; underfunding of public care homes; highly mobile employees who work at multiple facilities; and workers lacking infectious disease training, equipment, and PPE. COVID-19 has similarly had an impact on seniors’ care facilities in many other developed countries including Canada, Spain, and France.’
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7797349/
There is a massive lesson there.
Families are a vital part of National Healthcare and should be treated as such, encouraged as an important matter for government policy.
Absolutely, the most important analysis is nosocomial vs community mortality. Only the former can reasonably be managed, but even then you have to balance quality of life in a care home vs infection control.
In the UK the Government has made life grim for residents, but at least they’ll be dying of depression and loneliness rather than covid. If it saves just one career….
Yes.
We kicked our elderly and infirm out of hospital; Sweden wouldn’t let them into hospital:
‘From March 2020 there was urgent pressure to free up 15,000 NHS beds for the anticipated wave of COVID-19 admissions. Hospitals, in effect, closed to all but urgent and emergency care. The government guidance applicable at that time directed rapid discharge of everyone clinically ready. Transfer off wards should be within one hour of a discharge decision to a designated discharge area, and then discharge from hospital as soon as possible, normally within two hours.’
https://www.scie.org.uk/care-providers/coronavirus-covid-19/commissioning/hospital-discharge-admissions
‘…increasing numbers of workers are also coming forward to criticise regional healthcare authorities for protocols which they say discourage care home workers from sending residents into hospital, and prevent care home and nursing staff from administering oxygen without a doctor’s approval, either as part of acute or palliative (end-of-life) services.
‘”They told us that we shouldn’t send anyone to the hospital, even if they may be 65 and have many years to live. We were told not to send them in,” says Latifa Löfvenberg, a nurse who worked in several care homes around Gävle, north of Stockholm, at the beginning of the pandemic.
“Some can have a lot of years left to live with loved ones, but they don’t have the chance… because they never make it to the hospital,” she says. “They suffocate to death. And it’s a lot of panic and it’s very hard to just stand by and watch.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52704836
i.e. died of old age and cancer.
Ivor Cummins highlighted the “dry tinder effect” related to Sweden around the middle of 2020.
Dry tinder- an AIER article from the summer 2020.
But facts never mattered and won’t ever matter here.
Whilst I agree that Sweden has not suffered excessive deaths and is a good example to show lockdowns and measures do not work, we need to take care with how we express this. Border closures have always been known to not work – viruses mutate and we cannot say that masks and social distancing are useless and then claim that perhaps they are the reasons why flu has not been as prominent. The biggest reason Sweden saw slightly more deaths than its neighbours was having had 2 light flu seasons in the prior years whereas their neighbours did not. Lets remain clear and ensure clarity in our arguments. We rightly pick up on the zealots for being contradictory, lets not start doing the same ourselves
Dry Tinder has to be the most relevant factor. Populations with a high number of immune compromised citizens [frail elderly] are bound to do the worst.