Closing Arguments

In civil trial cases, the standard of proof is based on the preponderance of evidence and not on “reasonable doubt.” The complete set of case arguments should be tested, one by one, against available evidence, and then as a whole for coherence. The winning case is the one that is correct most often and the one that hangs together the best.

Imagine a court, with a judge presiding over the human-caused Climate Change case, and with you as a member of the jury. If you have been following the arguments presented by the natural climate change attorney, supported by a plethora of evidence:

then you will have all that you need to deliver the verdict.

The attorney for natural climate change will now proceed with closing arguments.

Your honour, members of the jury, I will now summarise my arguments in favour of natural climate change and in opposition to human-caused climate change, based on atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

Virtually all modern pro-AGW claims are based on Dr. Michael Mann’s “Hockey Stick Graph.” Prior to 1998, palaeontologists and historians the world over used a well-regarded collection of temperature proxies, fossils, drawings and other historical records to argue for the existence of the Medieval Warm Period (WMP) and the Little Ice Age (LIA) in recent history. Once the UN IPCC and Al Gore adopted the Hockey Stick graph as the cornerstone of their climate change argument, everything changed. To say that the Hockey Stick caused a significant level of controversy within the scientific community would be a gross understatement. Dr. Mann refused to release data for peer review on the basis of Intellectual Property rights. Anyway, his actions, quite extraordinary in the context of scientific enquiry, led to accusations, which in turn led to law suits and counter-suits, even a contempt of court on the part of Dr. Mann, but still no Hockey Stick data.

Despite ongoing efforts to delay and obstruct, the facts were slowly unveiled via a series of leaked emails and documents (referred to as Climategate) and some relentless investigation and analysis on the part of two Canadians – statistician, Steve McIntyre and Professor Ross McKitrick.

There is strong evidence to suggest that in creating his Hockey Stick graph, Dr. Mann commenced with an a priori commitment to the belief that rising CO2 emissions are the primary cause of global warming. All of his efforts then went into finding data that ONLY supported this belief. How could such a suggestion be made, reasonably? Well, to begin with, Dr. Mann deliberately excluded ANY paleo climate proxy data that supported the MWP and LIA positions and ONLY selected data that indicated a steady decline in temperature until the beginning of the industrial era and then a rise after that. Climategate emails prove this point. He decided to splice the instrumental temperature record onto proxy data in the mid-late 1900’s when the latter no longer served his purpose and included this graph in a Nature magazine article. Climategate emails prove this point. When replying about this “splicing” practice on a forum post, he denounced it, vehemently. Obviously, he didn’t bank on the release of personal email to uncover his hypocrisy.

Hockey Stick graph showing deleted proxy data that did not suit

In a similar vein, Phil Jones, the Director of the Climate Research Unit, admitted a like deception when describing a graph for the 2007 UN IPCC report. His selective use of the (now departed) CRU deputy Director Keith Briffa’s tree-ring data and

“Mike’s Nature trick,”

enabled this deception, designed to

“hide the [temperature] decline.”

In an email to Michael Mann, Keith Briffa

“agonized over the best course of action… the Mann et reconstruction (and others) DO INDEED show evidence of Medieval warmth.”

Briffa’s lead authorship of a 2007 UN IPCC report chapter was his last high-profile scientific article. Once McIntyre broke through the Freedom of Information (FOI) appeals process, Briffa’s hand was finally forced to release proxy data. It would appear that the embarrassment concerning the revealed deception caused Briffa to retreat into the shadows.

So, what do we make of Mann’s straight-jacketed hockey stick shaft? Accepted paleo climate evidence, coupled with the obviously biased data splicing deceptive practices renders Mann’s shaft a cheap, Chinese knock-off.

Let’s move on. What of the pro-AGW claim that the 20^th century temperature rise is “unprecedented” and due to industrial era rises in atmospheric CO2 levels alone? The relationship between temperature and CO2 since 1920 (the Hockey-stick blade) should be much easier to measure and prove than its paleo cousin. Surely! This relationship on its own – or not – should be sufficient to settle this case. I will now recap the evidence presented, commencing with an assessment of the modern temperature record.

The Global Historical Climatological Network (GHCN) is the world’s source for global temperature data. The GHCN is comprised of three main global temperature histories: the combined CRU-Hadley record (HadCRUT), the NASA-GISS (GISTEMP) record, and the NOAA record. We are grateful for the efforts of Canadian Professor of Economics, Ross McKitrick for his significant research and peer-reviewed articles on the integrity of the temperature data managed by the GHCN.

Thermal Image of Las Vegas, NV at night

The investigative work of McKitrick et al identified a number of serious issues with the GHCN temperature data including:

a dismissal of the true effect of the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect (applying a paltry 0.1 degrees C per Century adjustment);
the disappearance of half of the USHCN weather stations around 1990 with a move away from higher altitudes and latitudes, away from the coast and towards airport locations (all with significant UHI biases);
over 70 % of US weather stations are very low quality with measurement errors greater than 2 degrees C;
the Sea Surface Temperature (SST)
The 0.5 degrees C blip in SST measurement

measurement record is replete with errors including the absorption of a 0.5 degrees C “blip” when US and UK vessel numbers changed abruptly in 1945

“…which could fundamentally change the picture of mid-century warming;”

a homogenisation algorithm which contaminates clean with dirty temperature data; and
adjustments to historical temperature records cooling pre-1980 data by 0.2 degrees C and warming post-1980 data by 0.1 degree C.

The size of adjustment factors and when they apply

The homogenised data set has created a steeper and straighter Hockey-Stick blade, adding 0.3 degrees C to the data over time. The data appears to have been infused deliberately with factors that cool the past, warm the present and minimise the mid-century cooling period. Can this appearance be shown as resulting from deceptive actions or simply “dumb luck?” Let me argue for the former.

In addition to the six data issues mentioned above are the following facts:

The owner of the GHCN is Phil Jones; the same Phil Jones who used “Mike’s Nature trick to hide the decline.”
Phil Jones confided (in a July 8 2004 email) that he and co-author Kevin Trenberth were determined to keep McKitrick’s evidence out of the IPCC report.

“I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer review literature is” wrote Jones.

In 2004, Jones admitted to an interviewer that

“even if WMO agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?”

In 2009, a Freedom of Information request was submitted to the CRU to release the raw weather station data and its processing methods for inspection. Phil Jones refused to release the data claiming that it was lost / destroyed. Yes, the fundamental data upon which all Global Warming policy is based, has been lost or destroyed by the official owner.
It must be noted that the period 1951-1980 has been selected as the reference period for all modern temperature reporting trends. The implications of issue f) above are that:
- modern temperature anomaly figures all have a 0.2 degrees C bias baked into the reference period (they are 0.2 degrees larger than otherwise) and
- modern temperature anomaly figures all have a 0.1 degree C bias baked into their current figure (they are 0.1 degrees larger than otherwise).
In summary, modern temperature anomaly figures are 0.3 degrees C larger than the raw data may indicate.
However, with the raw base data lost / destroyed, the current temperature record cannot be reconstructed and none of Professor Ross McKitrick’s issues can be confirmed.
The Connolly-Soon paper on the role of solar variability on Northern hemisphere temperatures (2015) found that

“as much as 86% of the warming trend in the ‘all [China] stations’ estimate for the 1951-1990 period may be urbanization bias.”

Chine Researchers Huang and Lu made a similar finding (2015) concluding that

“the average warming rates of huge cities and megalopolises are significantly higher than those of medium-sized cities and small cities, indicating that the UHI has a significant effect on climate warming.”

The first ever audit of the IPCC’s go to temperature data set (HadCRUT4) was conducted in 2017 by John McLean Phd. The dataset was has found be so riddled with [over 70] errors and “freakishly improbable data” that it is effectively useless.

A final point to note here is that current Climate Reference Network (CRN) data is only provided as a relative “anomaly” figure, thereby baking in the adjustments made to other data sets. An absolute temperature figure from the CRN is simply not available.

No “official” temperature data set can be trusted to measure the anomaly in temperature from any past reference period. The CRN temperature data is useful in that it is highly accurate and can be compared over time. It has been in place since 2005 and can begin to show a temperature trend with some confidence level. However, it cannot be trusted to measure temperature anomaly from the reference period (1951 – 1980), unless 0.3 degrees C is removed from this figure.

To put some icing on this cake, I invite you to examine the Youtube video entitled: “Statistical Analysis strongly shows that Carbon Dioxide cannot be the Cause of Global Warming.” The authors used the IPCC’s preferred data set (HadCRUT) and the IPCC’s own criteria to demonstrate that CO2 is “UNLIKELY” to be the major contributor to Global Warming.

If CO2 cannot be the major or even a significant driver of warming, let’s examine the evidence for other factors that might be driving climate change.

In a previous hearing, evidence was submitted regarding the collaboration between the Irish father and son duo, Ronan and Michael Connelly and the astrophysicist, Willie Soon. By isolating high quality rural weather stations (with the UHI effect and homogenisation bias removed), a remarkably good correlation exists between temperature data and the Hoyt and Schatten solar estimate – rejected by the IPCC once the Hockey Stick appeared. They wrote:

“Therefore, if the Hoyt & Schatten reconstruction is a reasonably accurate estimate of solar activity trends (see Section 2.2), and our mostly-rural temperature trend estimates are reasonably accurate (as seems to be the case from Section 4), then this suggests that Northern Hemisphere surface air temperature trends have been heavily influenced by changes in Total Solar Irradiance since at least 1881.”

I should note that the IPCC’s Climate Models (CMIP5 and beyond) all assume that the sun has no significant effect on warming the earth’s temperature.

But let’s not rely on this Connolly-Soon study alone. In 2013, the Irish scientists analysed millions of weather balloon data sets to demonstrate that the earth’s atmosphere behaves as an ideal gas. What does that mean? In an ideal gas, there are no hot or cold pockets of air; it is all well-mixed. The Connolly’s analysis of weather balloon data exhibited a Coefficient of Correlation of 0.997 with their thermodynamic equations.

Let’s stop for a moment and let that sink in. The computer asked the data “can you show me a hot or cold pocket of air compared to what I’m expecting to see” and the data said “NO” – billions of times. Only very, very rarely did the data said “hold on – perhaps.” The computer is exhausted and the DATA now demands that the Radiative Greenhouse effect CANNOT be operating from the ground level up through half of the Stratosphere (when the weather balloon bursts), accounting for 80-90 % of the earth’s atmosphere. The surface temperature MUST be modulated by something OTHER THAN the so-called CO2 “warming blanket.” The Connolly’s have proposed an alternative mechanism for heat energy transfer through the atmosphere.

Nikolov and Zeller – surface temperatures of hard celestial bodies are based on solar irradiance and atmospheric pressure, regardless of gas composition

Let’s not forget about the work of Ned Nikolov and Karl Zeller, who studied NASA data to show that the composition of atmosphere surrounding a hard, celestial body has NO influence on surface temperature. Instead, they showed that temperature relies on solar irradiance and atmospheric pressure (again, with a Coefficient of Correlation over 0.99). Their findings support that of the Connolly’s and Willie Soon, despite the fact that all scientists came to the same conclusion, using vastly different data sources. Nikolov and Zeller have obviously upset the scientific apple-cart, with many scientific journals refusing to publish their reports.

Allow me to pause for a moment while I summarise some key facts:

The official global temperature data is compromised, biasing the current temperature anomaly by 0.3 degrees C;
The owners have acted in bad faith, manipulating and even destroying or losing raw historical data in an attempt to hide their actions;
Even the biased data does not support the CO2 warming theory, according to the IPCC’s own criteria;
Different studies using multiple sources of data from varied perspectives refute the Radiative Greenhouse effect. There is no relationship between CO2 and temperature;
Although the climate system is very complex, the empirical evidence does support a relationship between solar irradiance and surface temperature;
Alarmist claims for polar bear extinction, coral destruction and sea level rises are unsupported by data. Polar bears thrive, coral regenerates and Obama bought a mansion on the beach; and
CO2 is not pollution. Instead, increased atmospheric CO2 levels have helped to green the earth, resulting in record crop yields.

We are now heading into a pivotal time for this debate and it has everything to do with the sun. It is just earth’s light-bulb or does it have a real bearing on the climate?

About five to ten years ago, a debate reignited regarding the impacts of a predicted Grand Solar Minimum – a solar cycle in which the sun retreats into relative hibernation.

AGW protagonists, notably NASA, argued that warming due to CO2 levels would be far greater than any reduction in solar activity. In 2010, many AGW proponents were giddy at the prospects that this year could be the hottest on record. The New York Times reported on a NASA study that

“conclude[d] that there has been no reduction in the global warming trend of 0.15-0.20 deg C per decade that began in the late 1970s.”

On the pro-AGW skepticalscience.com website, a 2012 article on the current state of global warming examined the effect of changing solar cycles and dismissed solar irradiance as trivial within the context of global warming. They wrote:

“Reviewing the evidence, the authors concluded that rapid global warming is likely in the next few years.”

They go on to state that

“with a warming climate … warm extreme temperatures become more common place, and cold extremes less common.”

More predictions about coming winters include

“…the past two unusually cool winters in the United States and Europe do not alter the expectation that middle latitude winters will tend to become warmer as global warming continues.”

They finish with:

“We conclude that the slowdown of warming is likely to prove illusory, with more rapid warming appearing over the next few years.”

Note: emphasis has been added to some of the above quotes to contrast them with recent climatic reality to be discussed later.

NASA temperature graph is based on data with known bias and errors. The SATIRE-T2 solar estimates are selected by NASA to support their narrative. They differ from the estimates used by Soon (Hoyt & Schatten).

NASA produces graphs like the one below indicating that reducing solar activity does not influence the steadily rising temperatures.

In 2019, Astrophysicist Valentina Zharkova published a paper in Nature magazine confirming a Grand Solar Minimum (GSM) from 2020 to 2055 where all four magnetic fields of the sun go out of phase. It was later retracted following a loud outcry from the pro-AGW scientific community. The detractors challenged Zharkova’s base assumptions regarding the earth-Sun orbital distance during this time period. Oh, and they also didn’t like the bit about solar activity being a major contributor to climate change. So Nature retracted her paper. I guess that’s one way to gain a consensus – silence anyone with an opposing view!

The relative stability of the earth’s average surface temperature over the past 15 years has either been “debunked” or gone virtually undetected in the media. In fact, you’ll only read about the “myth” of the warming pause or slow-down, if you continue to page 2 on your google search.

Articles such as:

Global warming ‘hiatus’ is the climate change myth that refuses to die (The Conversation, 2018)
The ‘imminent mini ice age’ myth is back, and it’s still wrong (The Guardian, 2018)
The Global Warming Hiatus: Making A Mountain Out of a Mole Hill (Forbes, 2019)

are but a small sample of what you’ll see on the net.

In response to questions from climate naturalists about the apparent slow-down, pro-AGW science says:

We are still warming (although we are not)
It’s the El Nino/La Nina phenomenon (but these are normal weather events)
It’s the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (yes, climate is complex; more than just CO2 effects)
There’s a greater transfer of heat to the ocean (really? But why?)
It’s lower sunspot activity (but I thought you discounted the effects of the sun?)
It’s volcanic eruptions and warming occurring in the upper troposphere rather than at the surface (now you’re clutching at straws!).

I guess, when you control the data, the scientific journals and the media, you control the narrative.

But wait. Don’t we have some good quality data? What does that have to tell us?

As you will recall from a previous argument, the Climate Reference Network (CRN) was established in 2005 to provide a high-quality network of weather stations, all in rural locations and designed to eliminate known forms of measurement bias. The CRN data (2005 – present) is the only temperature data that can be trusted.

Although it covers only the USA, the CRN is a useful proxy for global temperature. The graph of monthly average temperatures from 2005 through May 2020 shows that there has been no discernible rise in temperature, despite CO2 levels rising over 8 % during this time.

Meteorologists identified El Niño conditions in 2005, 2012 and 2016, causing spikes in warming. Once normal Pacific Ocean temperatures were restored, surface temperatures returned to their reduced temperature levels.

It’s a good thing that AGW proponents admit that weather effects such as El Nino are simply that – weather – and not climate effects. Even Kevin Trenberth (a colleague of Phil Jones) stated that “we have seen rapid warming recently, but it is an example of natural variation that is associated with changes in the Pacific rather than climate change.”

The CRN data from 2005 through May of 2020 was examined and smoothed (using an Excel Exponential filter) to reduce some of the noise. The temperature anomaly has not budged from the 2005 anomaly level of 0.44 degrees C, of which 0.1 degrees C was introduced by “temperature adjustment.” NASA’s conclusions are simply in error.

Thanks to Phil Jones, no-one is able to access the world’s raw temperature data to construct an unbiased temperature data set. So, all my analyst was able to do was to graft the CRN 2005 – 2020 data to the Connolly-Soon data to create a “clean” Northern-Hemisphere – US data set that covers the period from 1920 through 2020. The Keeling Curve (atmospheric CO2 levels) was then overlaid in the best-possible way to try to fit it with the accurate temperature data. So, what does 100 years of unbiased surface temperature data tell us about its relationships with CO2 and Solar Irradiance? As you will note, my analyst was unable to source a more up to date TSI estimate used by Soon, so it stops near 2005. However, we know that it should reduce in line with the Grand Solar Minimum.

It is true, that 15 years is a short time on which to base long-term predictions about the impact of the sun on temperature. However, 100 years is sufficient to demonstrate that CO2 is NOT the main driver. It is only close from 1970 through 2005. Otherwise, forget about it! Hence you see why attempts were made to flatten the 1940 – 1970 cooling period with adjustments and blips, warm the post 1980’s and explain away the recent warming hiatus. When all you have is a CO2, everything looks like a nail!

You may not have heard much on the media regarding record cold temperatures across many parts of the world recently, unless, of course, you’ve seen the Outsiders Weather & Ice-Age Watch. The media is hoping that you don’t notice as you shiver in your ugg boots. With some luck it will get hot again and they will not have to invent any more tall tales. One of their go-to stories – Greenland’s ice sheets – is now a problem. They have been melting gradually for over 100 years as the world emerged from the Little Ice Age. AGW proponents have argued that the melting is due to CO2. Climate Naturalists believe that it’s far more complex than that – a mix of solar activity, cloud cover, winds, ocean currents etc. However, despite today’s record levels of CO2, the earth is not warming appreciably and I’ll be; Greenland’s ice sheets have reversed course! They began growing and have continued their growth trend of the past few years. Never before has the mass balance of ice and snow grown by 4 Giga Tonnes in a single day in June. Hey NASA, what about your bold predictions that “the slowdown of warming is likely to prove illusory, with more rapid warming appearing over the next few years” and “cold extremes less common?” The Greenland Ice sheet Surface Mass Balance may replace the polar bear as the Climate Change canary in the coal mine!

Your honour, members of the jury, I’ll now complete this closing argument with a few indisputable facts:

Paleo climate records were manipulated to rewrite climate history;
The official instrumental temperature record has been manipulated and data has been lost or destroyed by the owner to obscure the wrongdoing;
The reported temperature rise has more to do with the Urban Heat Island effect and measurement errors than with CO2;
This was all done in an attempt to support a fictitious, “unprecedented rise in temperature” narrative designed to manufacture a climate crisis;
CO2 does not correlate with temperature across the last 100 years;
The RGHE mechanism is supposedly simple and CO2 is touted as the primary driver of warming; yet
Complex and convoluted reasons are used to explain why CO2 could not warm the earth over the past 15 years.

Occam’s razor demands that we dismiss the man-made climate change argument. It does not correspond to evidence in the particular and it certainly doesn’t produce a coherent argument. A broken clock is correct twice per day. Man-made Climate Change does not rise to the level of a broken clock.

Members of the jury, on the preponderance of evidence, I contend that the sun and other natural causes are a far more plausible reasons for climate change than man-made CO2. I rest my case.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Archives

Categories

Meta