A group of scientists led by senior NASA climate adviser Gavin Schmidt has heavily criticised a recent Daily Sceptic article that presented new evidence from the results of meteorology balloons showing global temperatures had slowed over the last two decades. Writing in the Climate Feedback ‘fact-checking’ blog, the scientists note that the Daily Sceptic article claimed: “Global warming started to run out of steam over two decades ago… Half of the apparent global temperature increases from January 1910 to January 2000 is due to administrative adjustments.” The article is said to be “Inaccurate”.
The first part of the statement is a view held by many eminent scientists analysing data from accurate satellites. The second part of the claim is made by Professor Ole Humlum of the University of Oslo. The 50% adjustment refers to the figures produced by the NASA-connected GISS surface temperature dataset. The ‘fact check’ does not dispute the figure, but Schmidt dismisses the 90-year trend as “just a cherry pick”. Meteorologist Victor Venema from the University of Bonn complained that the term “administrative adjustments” was not used in science.
Our article was published on May 19th under the heading: “New evidence shows global warming has slowed dramatically over last 20 years”. We reported that in a major re-evaluation of 40 years of telemetric data from meteorology balloons rising through the troposphere, scientists confirmed that temperatures had mostly paused since around 1998. We linked to the original research, and published the following graphs, so that readers could take a view on our statement.
The graphs show the results for the northern hemisphere up to 70°N and the tropics. Most of the warming over the last 40 years occurred up to the late 1990s. The tropics, it was noted, had warmed less than the north, and in fact at 11 km it is difficult to discern any significant warming at all. We also reported that temperature pauses from 1998-2010, and a current one lasting 91 months, had been largely wiped from all major surface temperature datasets. Over the last decade, the U.K. Met Office has added 30% heating to recent figures in its HadCRUT record and depressed earlier measurements.
We also noted that all these ‘adjustments’ provided covering fire for journalists quoting ‘scientists say’, to claim continuing warming and provide ongoing support for the political Net Zero agenda.
The author of the balloon report, the Italian meteorologist Fabio Madonna, takes issue with our analysis. He notes that in his paper, “it is never mentioned that ‘temperatures have mostly paused since around 1998’”, although he accepts there was a slowdown in the northern hemisphere from that date. He argues that the results from the tropics at 300hPa (11 km) show a “significant warming after 2000… in line with the statement by the IPCC”.
Perish the thought that Madonna is cherry picking a low 2000 date after a very strong El Niño surge to make his point. In attempting to spot statistical trends, the longer period used the better – 90-years, for instance, is excellent – and I stand by my observation that there has not been much warming seen in this record for the tropics for over 40 years. The two pauses noted are clearly seen, and the fall from another very powerful El Niño oscillation in 2016 is noticeable. Venema at least spots the considerable powers your correspondent brings to analysing this data, noting that Chris Morrison’s “actual evidence” seems to be his “own research eye-ball estimate of warming”. Presumably covering himself in case it is proved the author’s eyesight is not faulty, he notes that Madonna’s evidence is “just one dataset of many”.
Most of the arguments deployed against the Daily Sceptic and other investigatory work are along the lines, ‘look at the surface datasets, be fearful of the future predictions made by models and read your IPCC bible’. GISS director Schmidt argues that temperature corrections are made to accommodate new stations and algorithms are updated. In fact, trying to arrive at a global surface temperature is the product of measurement, model computations, smoothing, proxy data and estimations. For that reason, the continuous and accurate satellite measurements are often seen as a better source of temperature data.
Of course, Schmidt is keen to support surface temperature databases, but he is also keen to promote the record of climate models. Writing in the Spectator last year, he noted that some might be wary of basing decision on models, especially given the problems in forecasting the Covid pandemic. But it was important to realise that most outcomes depend on the overall trend, he said, and not on the “fine details of any given model”. He went on to argue that the track record of models going back to the 1970s “shows they have skilfully predicted the trends of the past decades”.
“Skilfully predicted” is one way of describing the track record. Others are available. The above graph was produced by Professor Nicola Scafetta of the University of Naples. It plots 38 of the major models showing their predictions set against the thick green line of the satellite record. In his view, the models should be “dismissed and not used by policymakers”. Schmidt is understandably cautious about focusing on the “fine details” – this presumably being a reference to the fact that the models are never correct in their forecasts. In fact, we can see that the predictions started to go haywire 25 years ago, no doubt coincidentally just as the global warming fright started to gain political traction. No doubt again by coincidence, from around this time the major temperature datasets started to heat up their recent record, removing the slowdowns and pauses seen in the satellite data.
In 2013, Schmidt appeared on an American TV show with Dr. Roy Spencer, a fellow NASA scientist. Dr. Spencer compiles the widely-used University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) satellite data record. Schmidt refused to sit down in the same studio with Dr. Spencer and debate climate science. He suggested he did not need to be arguing with people “just to make good TV”. At 6.30 minutes he is invited to meet Dr. Spencer, but said he was not interested in staying.
The authors of the Climate Feedback ‘fact check’ are ungenerous to those who hold sceptical views and presume to argue from their own authority and that of the IPCC. The Daily Sceptic is said to be a website with “a history of publishing scientifically unfounded claims”: the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which published Professor Humlum’s work, is said by Venema to be an “anti-science think tank”, while Chris Morrison “presents” himself as a former financial journalist (it’s true, I should know, I was there).
Venema goes on to suggest that claims of “administrative adjustments” correspond to the “conspiracy theory” that an “open group of thousands of scientists from all over the world and numerous disciplines, are conspiring against humanity by pretending that the world warms more than it actually warms”. Who knows, but the common exam request, ‘Discuss’, springs to mind. Heaven forbid that any climate scientist would seek to ‘hide the decline’.
I concluded a recent article with the words of the distinguished atmospheric physicist Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT, who said the current climate narrative was “absurd”, yet it had universal acceptance. In a “normal world”, the counter-arguments would be compelling, he argued. I added: “Perhaps it is the trillions of dollars being diverted into every green project under the sun, and the relentless propaganda from grant-dependent academics and agenda-driven journalists, along with the political control offered to elite groups in society by Net Zero, that currently says it is not absurd.”
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor
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Look him up on Linkedin…
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nigeltopping
“…Building a global community of climate champions to halve emissions by 2030.”
Another grifter overdue an appointment with Nemesis.
More proof that the “climate crisis” is an ideological component of the rising total-control state – a state where the Party’s onerous rules and regulations don’t apply to senior Party officials. I seem to remember reading about a similar system operating in Soviet Russia.
They are totally impervious to accusations of hypocrisy – for them that’s part of the thrill of being in charge.
Yes – which accounts for the astounding fact that these climate liars actually don’t care if we notice their hypocrisy.
They see themselves as the Kommissariat, above and beyond such petty concepts as accountability and any requirement to practice what they preach… On the bright side, this kind of attitude awakens more and more people to the fact that the whole thing is a massive money-transfer scheme.
Nothing is too good for the representatives of the workers, Comrade.
Even if there were a frequent flier tax, who would be paying his taxes? Our children, via government borrowing. After all, the UK government has a vital role to play in mangrove conservation. It’s nice to see the Tories finally waking up on this one but I wouldn’t trust them to do anything different.
…and recommended that everyone in Africa should do the same rather than seek hydrocarbon fueled industrial development. [That bit is not actually true, I hope].
That’s Climate Justice, no doubt.
Blimey, who’s this? Either he’s got a glass eye or he’s part cyborg;
”This is Klaus Schwab’s replacement at the WEF.
Peter Brabeck-Letmathe has been appointed interim chairman at the World Economic Forum, after Klaus Schwab stepped down as chairman and from his position on the board.”
https://x.com/OliLondonTV/status/1914706946814603491
Part???
The final sentence in the original Telegraph report just seems to leave us hanging. ” It is understood that the committee did not pay the cost of his travel.” I sense that the real story would have been to find out who is bankrolling his excursions, and for what purpose. Why didn’t a journalist on a supposedly serious paper like the DT think to ask this?
Situation normal… another grifter on a no-doubt massive salary, creaming it on the back of this bollox.
The argument trotted out in favour of all these conferences is pants, they are not converting anyone, they are preaching to the already converted, and to those making a comfortable living out of it.
I wonder what will happen to these people when the paradgm shift is complete. They will probably try to weasel out of it by saying that never really believed it. Just look at these specimens.
Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because it’s excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience – Adam Smith.
This guy will be immune to any concept of hypocrisy, due to his uber righteous cause. We mere mortals should be grateful for his heroic efforts.
Many of the folk I know and meet are deeply concerned with the effects of the so called ‘CO2 greenhouse effect’, ‘global warming’ or its more recent title ‘climate change’. I do not share their conviction that climate change, if it is occurring at the rates reported, is as a direct result of man made CO2 emissions.
I remember learning in school history lessons that people used to hold fairs on the frozen river Thames in Tudor times, that the Romans grew grapes in York and even against Hadrian’s Wall between England and the wild tribes of today’s Scotland. Where Britain now stands has been both tropical and under ice sheets. Climate changes I do not deny. A warming climate may produce higher historically recorded levels of CO2 as a result of increased vegetation.
I reckon that a majority of those most deeply concerned with the effect of man-made CO2 climate change are the same people who are generally concerned with the environment, wildlife, pollution, the squandering of natural resources, reduction of habitat and so on. This is my finding when I talk to such folk.
Those who are old enough to have formed opinions on such matters before the ‘man-made greenhouse climate global change warming’ paradigm seriously took-off were previously, in the vast majority, all strongly anti nuclear-power yet are now, in the main, reluctantly accepting or even advocating it.
These CO2 warriors and worriers even support the plethora of ‘Carbon Taxes’ and ‘Carbon Trading’ that have been piggybacked in with the CO2 paradigm, (designed to keep the UN, governments, authorities and corporates on side with a package of benefit for them too).
Accept or not my assertion CO2 warming is a fake, public support for nuclear energy has reached a record high as policy leaders voice the ‘need’ for new nuclear power plants.
Taking the Mick
You’ve got to love that quote from the Conservative Energy spokesman, Andrew Bowie.
“Mr Miliband driven net zero zealotry…Kemi Badenoch and I have been clear that Net Zero by 2050 would involve significant cost to the country and to the consumer and it is simply not sustainable.”
A couple of reminders:
1. Although Labour introduced the Climate Change Act, it was THE CONSERVATIVES who increased the CO2 reduction target from 80% to 100% (net zero).
2. The Conservatives are still committed to net zero. Hence Mr Bowie’s weasel words about it “involving significant cost” and being “unsustainable” without actually promising to scrap it.