Climate Change–The Facts
By Paul Homewood
I have been asked by a couple of people to produce a simple climate change factsheet, and it might be worth bookmarking for future use.
I have kept it simple, with no graphs or references. As those familiar with this blog, everything below has been fully covered a number of times. Anybody who needs more explanation on a particular item only needs to ask.
Any comments are welcome.
CLIMATE CHANGE – THE FACTS
1) Global Temperatures
It is generally reckoned that global temperatures have risen by about 1C since the late 19thC. This however is only a guesstimate at best, as most of the world had very little climate data in those days
According to satellite data, temperatures have not increased since 1998.
2) Little Ice Age
Any discussion of temperature rise since the 19thC needs to be put in the context of the Little Ice Age, which lasted around 500 years and ended in the late 19thC.
Scientists believe that this was the coldest period since the end of the Ice Age, and evidence shows that it was a worldwide event, although timings were not always the same.
The Little Ice Age succeeded the Medieval Warm Period, which again appears to have been a global event, during which temperatures were at similar levels as today.
3) Glaciers
Melting of glaciers is often held up as “proof” of global warming. But in fact they began retreating in the 19thC, long before current “man-made” global warming. There is particularly strong evidence of this fact, as Alaskan and Alpine glaciers were already being closely surveyed as early as the late 18thC.
As the glaciers in Alaska retreat, they are uncovering the remains of ancient forests, which have been carbon dated back to the Middle Ages, indicating the glaciers were much smaller then. Exactly the same has occurred in Patagonia.
Evidence from around the world, including South America and New Zealand, confirms that there was a massive growth in the size of glaciers between the Middle Ages and the end of the Little Ice Age.
Glaciologists have established that many glaciers in both Greenland and Iceland reached their post ice age maxima during the 18th and 19thC.
4) Arctic
We hear a lot about temperatures rising in the Arctic, and icecaps melting.
In fact, temperatures around the Arctic are little different now to what they were in the 1930s and 40s. Subsequently they fell sharply in the 1970s and 80s, before rising again. This cycle appears to be connected to multi-decadal ocean cycles
Arctic sea ice retreated as a result until 2007, since when it has remained stable. Satellite data for sea ice extent is only available since 1979, in the middle of the colder interlude, and therefore cannot provide reliable long term trends.
The ice cap in Greenland has also been slowly melting, but the amounts involved are extremely tiny in relation to the total ice mass. Again, long term temperature records in Greenland show that temperatures were as high in the 1930s and 40s.
On a longer timescale, scientists also know that temperatures throughout the Arctic have been much higher than now for the last 10000 years.
5) Antarctica
Sea ice around Antarctica has been stable since 1979, if anything increasing slightly.
NASA have established that the Antarctic ice cap has actually been growing since 1992, because snowfall has more than offset thinning glaciers.
6) Sea levels
Since the ending of the Little Ice Age in the late 19thC, global sea levels have risen by about 8 inches. Sea levels around the UK give a similar result, after allowing for vertical land movement. (Most of England has been sinking since the ice age).
The recent rate of rise has been slightly higher, about 10 inches per century, but sea levels were also rising at a similar rate in the mid 20thC.
7) Extreme weather
There is no persuasive evidence that extreme weather is getting either more common or severe:
a) According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), there is no evidence of any long term increase in hurricane activity.
b) US data confirms that tornado activity has declined since the 1970s, when proper records began. Notably data also shows that there are now fewer of the most violent tornadoes.
c) The IPCC also report little evidence that flooding is getting worse.
d) Equally they find little proof that droughts are becoming worse globally, though there inevitably regional differences.
e) Wildfires, contrary to popular myth, are claiming many less acres than they did in the past.
One of the biggest sources for the myth of extreme weather is 24/7 media coverage, which now brings events into our homes which would have gone unreported not long ago.
In the UK, long term data also provides no evidence of an increase in extreme weather, such as storms, floods and droughts.
8) UK climate trends
According to official Met Office data, UK temperatures stopped rising about fifteen years ago. The summer of 1976 remains the hottest on record, as well as having the most intense heatwaves.
Furthermore there is no evidence of any significant changes in rainfall trends, other than in Scotland which has experienced higher rainfall in recent decades.
9) Climate projections
All of the scary forecasts concerning temperatures, sea level rise etc are based on computer modelling of the climate. However these models have consistently grossly overestimated the small rise in temperatures actually experienced.
10) UK Climate Change Act
The 2008 Climate Change Act committed the UK to reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by 80% from 1990 levels by 2050.
Since the Act was passed, the UK’s CO2 emissions have reduced by 183 Mt, representing 31% of 1990 levels. However this has come at a great cost.
This year, subsidies for renewable energy are forecast to hit £12.2bn, equivalent to about £450 per household.
This year however, Parliament approved changes to the Act which alter the target from an 80% cut to 100%. Official estimates put the cost of this at £50bn a year by 2050, some £1800 per household.
11) Global emissions
While UK emissions have dropped by 183 Mt since 2008, global emissions have increased by 3389 Mt. UK emissions are now only a tiny 1% of global ones.
Despite the hype, the Paris Climate Agreement, signed in 2015, won’t do anything to reduce emissions, as most countries plan to carry on increasing them until at least 2030. Notably these include China and India, who account for 35% of the world’s carbon dioxide.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Brilliant. Many thanks Paul.
Nicely done, Paul – many thanks. Now I have a succinct sheet of facts to show my four grandchildren.
Evening Paul:
Good effort, well done and thanks. Most useful. I’ll see if I can persuade my MP to read it!
Including a paragraph about polar bears might be useful and, under extreme weather, a mention of hurricanes would be helpful.
As and when you have time, links to source data that support each of these statements would be extremely valuable as this is always the challenge when one advances these points as a response to the catastrophist’s claims.
Cheers – John Dr John L. Thorogood Tel: +(44)-7831-203-708, Email: John.Thorogood@DrillingGC.com
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so”, Mark Twain
Perhaps the most egregious error of the climate fear-mongers is the belief that carbon dioxide is the”control knob” for global temperature, despite there being no data that substantiates this claim. Perhaps youmight address this?
Lee, regarding CO2 truths, please see …
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332245803_27_bullet_points_prove_global_warming_by_the_sun_not_CO2_by_a_GEOLOGIST_for_a_change
14,000 visits in 6 months.
Excellent post, Paul. Thank you for everything you do.
Regards from Roger
Just suggesting that Paul include a statement to that effect in this piece, seeing as how that assumption must be challenged at every level.
Paul,
Whilst you don’t want to over-complicate things, I would suggest a basic section on the underlying science of the Greenhouse Effect and Greenhouse gases. Of particular importance is ECS – the supposed increase in surface temperature resulting from a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere. Many argue that it’s 1K or less, a level of little importance to the Earth’s flora and fauna.
The over-riding point is that many learned people simply dispute that CO2 is a control knob of the climate at all. Everything can be explained by other, well-understood, phenomena such as Milankovitch cycles, ENSO and even gravity. You don’t need CO2 level to explain any weather that we have seen during our lifetimes.
I hope that is helpful.
Ian
If Paul gets into explaining the greenhouse effect/gases (other than perhaps a small pie chart of actual GHG’s) doubling of atmospheric CO2, Milankovitch etc. the public just switch off because it gets ‘sciency.’
Perhaps 10% of the planet has a science degree, yet every uneducated member of the population has a single vote, the same as the most educated scientist (at least in Democratic countries).
Alarmists stole the political high ground long ago when sceptics were still trying to explain the science to an audience who didn’t have a clue what they were talking about. There is no point in attempting to change a scientist’s mind on the subject, quite apart from them being only 10% of the voting public. The answer is to have more, simple sound bites that Joe Soap can recall during a debate in the pub.
Arm the public with simple facts like, there were 50,000 Excess Winter Deaths in England and Wales during the winter of 2017/2018.
In the Indian heatwave of 2017 there were 222 (Yep, two hundred and twenty two). Some 200m people in India live on less than $1.25 a day and are considered in extreme poverty. So what’s wrong with a warmer planet if those people can survive it?
All very good points Scotty. I do, however, feel that it’s important at least to point out that the whole global warming movement is founded on science that, in all probability, is fundamentally unsound. The science isn’t settled. Take the “CO2-is-the-control-knob-for-the-Earth’s-climate” scientific concept away and the whole house of cards crumbles. The concept will then become another debunked scare story, like many others brilliantly described by Booker in his book “Scared to Death…”. The only difference, of course, will be the simply staggering scale and cost of the myth.
Yes, the facts on what actually kills would be a useful addition.
Especially using the UN’s own numbers.
Ian
Good points. However, I’m beginning to rethink the whole idea of convincing utterly stupid and dogmatic climate alarmists. It’s a bit like Brexit I expect. If we held another referendum tomorrow the result would probably be exactly the same.
I have spent the last few days explaining simple enough concepts to my 38 year old son over facebook. All he kept replying with were activist videos on the 97% consensus, Shell, and a decade old Exxonknew document amongst other nonsense arguments of his own. These represent ‘scientific evidence’ to him.
Sadly, as I frequently express, I suspect the only way these people will be convinced is by the very thing we sceptics don’t want to happen, happens: global cooling.
Reblogged this on Climate Collections.
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
Excellent. Cheers, Paul.
‘As and when you have time, links to source data that support each of these statements would be extremely valuable as this is always the challenge when one advances these points as a response to the catastrophist’s claims.’
Just what I was hoping for. Would be a great help.
You’ll find all this if you trawl through the list of Paul’s posts over the years. Facts, figures, graphs etc.
Yes, a separate (‘advanced’) version with links to the relevant blogposts would be very useful.
Thank you Paul, most useful ammunition.
Reblogged this on Climate- Science.press.
‘It is generally reckoned that global temperatures have risen by about 1C since the late 19thC. This however is only a guesstimate at best, as most of the world had very little climate data in those days’.
That’s the crux of the matter.
The southern hemisphere is particularly short of data until the satellite record cuts in in the 1970s. That data indicates that warmest month near surface air temperatures have not increased for three decades.
It is puzzling that we are told that the Northern Hemisphere is warming faster than ever, but when asked for how much faster no data appear. In 1900 the NH was 0.6°C above the average and the SH was 0.6°C below that. (Phil Jones et. al.). Today the globe is ~14.83°C and there must be some value for the warmer NH and SH that will average out. What is it?
Any change in global average temperature tend to affect the NH more as it is mostly land with some ocean, the SH is the opposite. The upshot is that the NH is more affected by atmospheric changes than oceanic ones, SH with all that ocean tend to change later and slower, and slightly less dramatically, as the oceans act as a very big thermal buffer.
Tomomason? I understand that. My problem is to find out how much these have changed if the NH is warming faster because of our added CO2.
I cannot even find the 20th century means for the two hemispheres, much less the current values. Climate change…change the facts? Or don’t provide them?
The main problem is that there is zero verified empirical evidence for CO2 warming the planet. So there is no evidence that the NH or SH are affected by it.
All there is just the infamous climate models providing the UN-IPCC and their minions with what they laughably call ‘evidence’.
Roy Spencer shows the difference between the NH and the SH temperatures (see http://www.drroyspencer.com/2019/10/uah-global-temperature-update-for-september-2019-0-61-deg-c/ ) but none of that has been verified as the effects of atmospheric CO2.
Thank you. A pity that most reporters aren’t reading it.
Nicely judged, Mr H.
Paul,
Thank you for laying out most of the facts in a succinct fashion.
However the facts you mention are all effects, not the cause.
The underlying fact is that there is simply no physical mechanism by which the addition of atmospheric Carbon Dioxide can have any significant effect on ‘global temperature’.
If more discussion was centred on the flawed assumption that an ECS even exists we would not have to debate the facts of evidence. Such an exercise (arguing the evidence) merely allows climate so-called scientists to continue weasling out of the true debate – arguing the cause.
Best regards,
Arfur
Thank you for this which is definitely useful. I do have a few editorial thoughts which I hope you find helpful.
At the end of 4) I don’t think you mean ‘higher than now for the last 10000 years’ when you have just mentioned the LIA. ‘higher during some periods in the last 10000 years’ perhaps?
At the end of 6) the words ‘sea(sic) were also rising at a similar rate in the mid 20th C’ raise the question of what you mean by ‘recent’ at the start of the sentence. If there was a lull in the rate of increase after the middle of the century before the rate increased again, when did the recent higher rate start of increase resume?
The word ‘are’ is missing from the end of 7) d) which should perhaps end ‘though there are inevitably regional differences’.
I make these rather trivial points because your brief will I hope get wide circulation.
You left out the most fundamental reason, the lack of a hot spot in the upper troposhere in the tropics. David Evans (?), husband of Joanna Nova, essentially says this is what drives it all.
Paul
There is a good contribution on this subject by Paul Driessen over at WUWT (https://tinyurl.com/y3bbo2u4) and an extremely good article written by Matt Ridley on the volumes of land and materials necessary for wind turbines. The numbers are mind boggling (https://tinyurl.com/y32nkuyz).
If you don’t mind, I would welcome having a bash at expanding on what you have done to include some of those, and a few other pertinent facts.
It might be useful to break it down into separate sections so people can post them over a week or month on their own facebook and Twitter accounts without giving their audience a long tome to read.
@hotscot
This is a long tome – https://www.use-due-diligence-on-climate.org/
& it needs bringing up to date, but you may find some useful stuff.
You are right about small ‘sound-bites’.
@ HotScot: Hey my friend! That first link to Paul Driessen actually takes you (one) to C-Fact and an article by Larry Bell.
Sorry, my earlier comment,which itself contained a mistake, also went in the wrong place.
I’ve looked at what is going on worldwide and it is obvious that the man made climate change brigade is in front, not because they are right but because they are able to grab the attention of governments and MSM. if you have vast resources behind you, it is not that difficult to influence the general populace and, once started, it is difficult to oppose. Who wants to admit that they have been hoodwinked?
Until the alternative view has access to widespread coverage and proper debate it will lag behind. What is needed is sufficient funds to buy exposure in a widespread variety of widely read MSM to inform and influence a wider audience that will begin to question what is now being presented as fact.
It perhaps should begin with a collective agreement with scientists who don’t subscribe to today’s narrative and who are willing to form a body, similar to the IPCC maybe, to challenge, with evidence, the ‘Acceped science” so that it is not accepted. It must have a united front.
The next question is where do they get financial backing. I have no answer to this but there must be a group of people out there that don’t fall for the collective wisdom of the IPCC.
The IPCC is well funded and organised. Take a leaf out of their book.
I concur, Michael. I’ve also been thinking that that is the best, or only, way to combat the scaremongers. With so many millionaires in the world today, one would think that one, or even a few, of them would be willing to help.
Maybe a few of us could get together and start crowdfunding to buy space in the MSM?
The views of the journalist/academic/political caste are unrepresentative and the MSM misleading.
I think you are being unduly pessimistic, when people are faced with harsh so-called mitigation measures they revolt, even in reticent First World anglophone countries — eventually.
Exhibit A: Brexit.
I_am_not_a_robot
Your “Exhibit A: Brexit” doesn’t exactly persuade me that Michael Adams is being ‘unduly pessimistic’. Indeed, I wonder if you are being unduly optimistic – in the sense that perhaps you are content that ‘things can’t get any worse’.
Since, notwithstanding Cameron’s £9M booklet, Project Fear and the admonitions of President Obama and armies of other members of the ‘Elites’, 17.4 Million citizens voted for Brexit on 23 June 2016; is the option of Brexit that they voted for, even still on offer?
Will it be delivered (even in Boris Johnson’s thoroughly emasculated version) any time soon?
Notwithstanding the fact that (if Polls are at all credible) people are increasingly sceptical of the authoritarian, elitist, anti-democratic, corrupt, insanely bureaucratic and malevolent EU, are we closer to leaving in any meaningful way?
Even after we pony up the £39 Billion?
Can we even have the much demanded election?
In the present situation, one can only rejoice that the British public are apparently overwhelmingly more interested in the outcome of Strictly Come X-Factor and the Rugby World Cup than they are in politics (or even in their chance of physical survival, sensibly considering the implications of Saint Greta’s & XR’s demands.)
If we were not such a phlegmatic bunch, some dreadful person might even consider that the loathsome (as alleged by the Grauniad) ideology of Tommy Mair might at least enable leave voters of at least one or two constituencies to express an opinion.
Heaven forfend!
Nicely done. Will keep posting this on twitter @uk_ecology – a good overview.
Good synopsis.
I wonder, though, whether you could have a link from each point to a linked list with one or maybe two scientific references in support of each. So, for example, for the climate projections you could have the well-known graph “Tropical mid-Tropospheric Temperature Variations – Models v. Observations” that shows all but one model over-predicting, plus, perhaps, the recent paper from Patrick Frank which shows the innate errors of modeling.
The reason this would be useful is that in discussion with our Warmist colleagues, it would allow a slam dunk argument on each point. “This is what I believe – this is the scientific basis – what’s your argument…?”
Best wishes,
Dr John Brydon Adelaide, Australia.
On Tue, Oct 29, 2019 at 8:07 AM NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT wrote:
> Paul Homewood posted: “By Paul Homewood I have been asked by a couple of > people to produce a simple climate change factsheet, and it might be worth > bookmarking for future use. I have kept it simple, with no graphs or > references. As those familiar with this blog, every” >
Number 4, the Arctic, at the end, do you mean 10,000 years?
Excellent, Paul. Many thanks for this article. Something else to add to my, already bulging, armoury.
Emissions comments imply that they are a problem, whereas all the extra CO2 seems to do is improve photosynthesis yields? Same applies to the famous carbon footprint? Needs to be put to bed as a fallacy?
Half of these appear to be debunked here:
https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php
so your probably correct about the other half, but then you are preaching to the converted here.
Would be interested on your critique on the other ecological ippc reports i.e. on soil erosion & bio-diversity, very few arguments against these?
Note the skepticalscience site is an extreme alarmist blog (wwf funded) that is full of fake nonsense. It gets boring but you can always debunk the skepticalscience fake debunking.
sorry, not convinced by your argument.
as for the dubious funding statement….. several legally binding confessions of climate denial scientists confessing to being paid by the fossil fuel industry are on that site: https://skepticalscience.com/i-was-an-exxon-funded-climate-scientist.html
… when i checked this appeared to be factual.
pls supply evidence that the main funding for this site is wwf. And evidence that wwf has vested interests.
also i can find no one arguing against the other two ippc reports (bio-diversity, and soil) as false? Do we agree that therefore these are factually correct?
Hayhoe is a joke.
And bio diversity and soil have nothing to do with climate change
Raphael, you stick with your beliefs and we will stick with ours.
Have you bothered to look at just how many thousands of Scientists are now being paid by Big Oil to disagree with the consensus science on climate?
It increases every year, it must be costing them a fortune.
Why don’t you ask Paul how much he gets paid for presenting facts?
I hope raphael understands irony!
A key fact is that there is no more absorbtion to be had in the wavelength band where CO2 actually absorbs as it’s saturated by water vapour (and existing CO2) already. This is observed in the transmission spectrum. Hence, more CO2 will make no difference to global temps – yet it’s reported as if it’s all linear – it isn’t.
Excellent and very useful.
Paul
The alarmists like to say there will be more extreme weather and this will result in more deaths. It might be worth adding a short paragraph showing the huge reduction in death from extreme weather events since the 18th century. Largely due to better communications and weather monitoring plus houses that don’t blow over in a breeze. No doubt you can find the statistics.
A quick search found this paper https://reason.org/wp-content/uploads/files/deaths_from_extreme_weather_1900_2010.pdf
The paper only goes back to 1900
+1
Paul: according to the latest EDGAR figures (https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/overview.php?v=booklet2019) in 2018 China and India accounted for 37 percent of global emissions.
You could add that natural CO2 is 0.04% of the atmosphere and only 4% of that is man-made. So the climate legislation should be repealed because the original claim is bogus.
Yes the killer point is that atmosphere only contains 0.04% CO2 (400parts per million) which you can visualise as 40cm out of 1km of air. Thats sod all. So to drive climate it must be really powerful – which it isnt. It has a tiny radiative capacity in a couple of wavelengths that often dont count because H2O has absorbed all the available radiation anyway. You cant demonstrate CO2 warming in a school classroom because the effects are too small to measure without complex spectroscopy.
The science equation is:
There’s sod all CO2 in atmosphere x co2 has sod all warming capacity = CO2 does sod all to climate.
I work with CO2 and have blanketed wine with a 1 mtre depth of Co2. No warming detected, indeed it appears to have a slight cooling effect.
Co2 cannot change climate! Ergo, something else does. Oh look, the suns come from behind the clouds and its getting warmer! 2 nights ago it got cold with no cloud cover (but CO2 was all there doing nothing), last night was warmer with cloud cover though the CO2 was the same. Hey Greta – if you look up you might see the light!
Bobn, many years ago when I used to blog/email/write about science aspects, I asked ‘warmistas’ if they ever thought about controlling and reducing anthropogenic water vapour. Never got an answer to that. I also corresponded with Prof Iain Stewart about his Planet Oil programmes. His 2009 experiment where the heat of a candle is absorbed by CO2 I told him was ‘utterly UNscientific’ (and I am not a scientist by profession.) He had put a candle into a closed container of 100% CO2. And he lectures at a college and does documentaries for the BBC! I finished a letter by saying I hoped he would live to regret the disgraceful role he has played.
The BBC could illustrate how much that 400 ppm weighs by illustrating what happens to a few tons of dry ice when it sublimates. This is why the CCS technology will never work at scale… Carbon weighs too much after it is oxidized. Alarmist “green” politicians just don’t get it. One ppm is almost 8,000 million tons, and any more becomes a real climate engineering challenge, regardless of how much carbon is taxed.
I note the parliamentary gift(?) to future generations (CC Act). Some of them better get usefully qualified, working and thinking quick because alternatives are nowhere near adequate. Wrong path technology is not it…..along with Brexit gaming!
Please send this to Greta and her hysterical advisors who might be savvy enough to understand
Reblogged this on Wolsten and commented:
An excellent summary of the basic facts about climate change. It’s easy to ask where are the references but from my experience very few climate zealots are convinced by the detail, preferring to ignore arguments that go counter to their beliefs. Anyone that is open to persuasion (as I was 15 years ago) should find this material thought provoking enough to undertake their own discovery guided by these topics. I shall be sharing widely, thank you Paul.
Very good thanks but it’s a shame you used the phrase “scientists believe” in the Little Ice Age section. That’s very jarring for me as it’s what we get all the time from the other side.
When faced with these facts the only question my son asks me is “Why would they lie?” Or “If this is true then we would see it on TV”.
It’s relatively easy to put these ideas to a person but almost impossible to explain the “why?”.
Any ideas anyone?
You,llhave to read up the origins as basically a few “scientists” started the hoax as part of a United Nations effort to enforce global govt.
Yeah – I know it sounds like a James Bond plot , but then big green money (Al Gore, Goldman Sachs, Renewable and Solar billionaires etc) got involved and the rest is history .
Goal corruption of science aided by the pathetic elite controlled media who don,t have a journalist between them ( with apologies to Delingpole)
Show him the Climategate emails.
The reason that they lie is simple – Cash.
Cash for their Uni, cash & prestige for them and a lot more cash for the people behind it.
Anyone disagreeing gets ostracised, defunded and/or sacked.
Look up Peter Ridd as an example, Judith Curry, and Susan Crockford as others.
AC…A great rejoinder! Try submitting an alternative, skeptical version of “global warming” to AAAS, SCIENCE. Rejection! Even before a referee could be chosen…one who might even be objective. The science is settled! But, of course, most people here are “preaching to the converted” so a waste of time? Very sad for science going forward.
Excellent Aide Memoire! If it serves to correct the BBC’s distortions it will. in time, achieve a status similar to that of the ‘Mappa Mundi’.
I made up my own little fact sheet as follows:
GLOBAL WARMING – THE ELEMENTARY FACTS
Climate is the most complex, non-linear, chaotic system known to man and therefore, by definition, cannot be predicted. To ignore chaos is fraud.
Carbon dioxide is a tasteless, odourless, colourless, non-polluting gas essential for all life on Earth.
A typical sample of dry air consists of 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen and the remainder consisting mainly of the inert gas, argon. Carbon dioxide is at 0.04% of the atmosphere. Methane is at 0.000175%.
96% of carbon dioxide comes from natural sources – the remaining 4% from man`s activities.
The UK produces 2% of the latter which equates to just 0.08% of the total. Cars in the UK account for about 15% of the latter which equates to just 0.012% of the world total.
In the last century the world`s average temperature apparently increased by just 0.6 degrees C
The largest “greenhouse” gas by far is water vapour at around 96% of all “greenhouse” gases.
Other more significant factors affecting the climate include cosmic rays, solar magnetic cycles, sunspot cycles, changes in the earth`s orbit around the sun, volcanic activity, changes in land use (land clearance) to name but a few.
Rising temperatures historically precede increases in CO2 not vice versa.
To infer that CO2 produced by man is the major factor in climate change is fraud. The climate has and always will change naturally, affected by factors as indicated above.
Changes in the amount of CO2 did not cause the Roman Warm Period, the Medieval Warm Period or the Little Ice Age. Man wasn`t around in sufficient numbers in those days to have any effect.
The rate of change in sea levels has not changed in at least the last hundred years.
Summary of the Oregon Petition signed by nearly 18,000 scientists and interested parties following the Kyoto agreement:-
“There is no convincing evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane or other greenhouse gases, is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth`s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth`s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural and animal environments of the Earth”.
The Anthropegenic (manmade) global warming enthusiasts are trying to shut down genuine scientific research and debate on climate change. This is anathema to science whose very essence is to research and challenge all theories that are put forward.
The science is not settled as is claimed. See https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com for in-depth analysis of various claims.
The whole ‘greenhouse gas’ thing is a red herring. Solar input of various kinds and atmospheric pressure are the primary factors, the latter determined by gravity and the mass of the atmosphere – not its composition.
These factors lead to the lapse rates.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapse_rate
Everything else is operating within those parameters.
Quotes dry air – but nothing about the greenhouse contribution from water vapour. If I understand it correctly, this has a bigger influence than the meagre contribution from CO2??
Otherwise a v. good summary.
I do state that water vapour is the largest “greenhouse” gas.
‘Moist adiabatic lapse rate’ is covered in the link.
I am struck by how many of these things rely on adjustments or corrections by climate scientists. The mathematical and statistical gymnastics are very impressive.
After that we get into projections of the future where novel mathematics and statistics are often employed to prove the point. Climate models have their own set of adjustments, corrections and fudges.
Science that points out the uncertainty of all these things is not allowed, and unless you are foolish you dare not mention the Sun!
Very useful Paul.
John Cooknell, the extent of fake temperature charts is only exceeded by the Fake Main Stream Media which vilifies everything President Trump stands for.
I often visit Tony Hellers and Joanne Nova blogs where they show the fraudulent adjustments of past temperatures to fit the global warming agenda.
It’s called ‘follow the money’
Something that has worried us for many years is the brainwashing of children in schools. Windfarm companies have been allowed to provide books with stories about friendly turbines saving us from climate change as well as videos and other events. Our attempts to counter this have failed because we don’t have their money and the authorities don’t allow it. One recent example is a school in Highland with new “eco friendly” lighting; the press article states it gives better light for the children and is more economical, which is fine. The Council says it will help save the planet! Is it any wonder a whole generation is growing up believing this dangerous rubbish because if that’s what they’re taught, why wouldn’t they? Of course it goes home to their parents as well.
Brenda, it is globally-funded and ideological. Starting with the United Nations Environment Programme, you can read the history. The EU lavishly funds UK environmental organisations like the Friends of theEarth. If you listen to a session of MEPs most of them spout ‘climate change’ and how we must do something about it. As inane as it is dangerous. And in the UK any propaganda pushers can always quote the climate legislation which is why we need a referendum to repeal it all.
I am still puzzled why Russia gets away without a mention in all these posts about carbon contributions?
They are a small player in emisions compared to India or china. Also they largely think the climate alarmist stuff is cow dung. They sensibly carry on keeping warm by burning fossil fuels and encouraging the west to destroy itself.
Not really. In 2018, Russia accounted for 1.8 billion tons of CO2 – compared with India’s 2.5 billion, making them the fourth greatest global emitter, contributing 4.61% of the total. And their per capita emissions at 12.14 tons (India’s were 1.94) were almost twice those of the EU28.
As does China.
Thanks Paul: Nice summary. Everyone has an opinion of what has been missed but I agree it must be kept simple and concise. What a lot of believers fail to realize is the lack of empirical evidence supporting CO2’s ability to warm the planet all the while the plethora in contradiction. The only supporting evidence are man made models built with the assumption of warming which have greatly exaggerated expected warming and have been consistently wrong over the past 30 years.
More snippets could include: hard surface planetary temperatures can be predicted to within 2 degrees based solely on atmospheric pressure and distance from sun, historic balloon temperature records show no warming in the troposphere, pollen studies show the north was warmer by 2 to 5 degrees from 2000 BC to 9000 BC, viking settlements have been discovered in the melting debris of glaciers, Greenland was habitable during the medieval warm period, but not during the little ice age….
Para 6. have you missed the word ‘levels’ re sea?
Excellent printable fact sheet.
Thanks, fixed
Paul, you may like to peruse this Cfact story’s forum’s explanations as well, to see if there is anything useful to add.
https://www.cfact.org/2019/10/28/a-fine-irish-overview-of-skeptical-climate-science/
I am going to take a look.
Paul one other aspect that does not get anywhere near enough emphasis is the fact that the increase in the so called Average Temperature is due to increases in the Minimum Temperature and not the Maximum Temperature.
This fact is hidden by alarmists by never printing both, only the average.
Plus there is unknown amounts of UHI involved.
You could also add that half of the Increase in the Average Temperature is due to Authorised Adjustments.
How about adding NASA’s own Global Greening stat for CO2?
Paul, a nice roundup of why it is Solar and Cloud Cover over at No Trick Zone.
https://notrickszone.com/2019/10/28/scientists-the-entirety-of-the-1979-2017-global-temperature-change-can-be-explained-by-natural-forcing/#comments
Great, most helpful. I thought people might find a list of all the warmist predictions that have come true useful too – so here it is:-
Thanks Paul – an excellent, punchy summary of the key points
You may want to consider adding something about the resilience of nature. I think it’s correct to say that all of the fauna and flora that are around today survived the earlier warm spells, like the Holocene Optimum (ice-free Arctic, etc).
They also survived the last ice age and the much hotter interglacial before it (I think).
Another suggestion would be to put together a complementary summary on all the myriad benefits of fossil fuels. It’s my impression that few people are aware of how they have enabled the production of reliable, affordable power and energy which is the cornerstone of our civilisation. Beyond that, there is even less awareness of their role in so many modern materials, fertilisers, pharmaceuticals and so on.
A clever video designer could produce an amusing and informative little feature, starting with, say, a modern home and then steadily stripping away everything that is powered by or derived from fossil fuels. It would end with a Flintstone man, huddled in a cave, gnawing a bone.
Here is a simple statement of some facts.
1.Our atmosphere protects us from the ravages of outer space, (E.g. the temperature difference across the moon amounts to 270-300 degrees).
2. The carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere is 400ppm or 0.00004%, it has increased by 0.00002% over the last 800,000 years.
3. Water vapour has a greater green house effect than carbon dioxide and is at 4% at STP a million times higher than carbon dioxide.
4. How is it that sentient humans can possibly believe that this trivial change to our protective blanket can result in catastrophic climate change?
5. I must have made a significant error somewhere, please explain where.
Your error is at 2. 400ppm = 0.04%
Smartmart, your figure for CO2 is TOO tiny. I have checked with Philip Foster (scientist) who says that it is 0.04%. This is the correct figure for 400 parts per million or ppm of global atmosphere. The anthropogenice input is 4% of this 0.04% which comes to a grand amount of 16 ppm. Hardly global warming material. Perhaps it’s high time to repeal the climate legislation and all the renewables obligations…..
Excellent summary. Good to keep it flagged ‘front page’ so that people can be easily referred to it.
For what it’s worth:
“Modern alarmism relies on the results of some rather crude 19th century experiments by Tyndall and Arrhenius on CO2. Arrhenius calculated that the earth’s average temperature was 30K warmer than it should be because of its presence. Few paid much attention to this result, as it was a mere curiosity, until the 1980s when the AGW scare began. No one could test his hypothetical conclusion anyway; at least until the moon landings, when surface thermometers were left to record the moon’s surface temperatures. NASA published the results and they showed that the moon also had a 30K higher average temperature that calculated. No greenhouse gases on the moon.
So the whole edifice of alarm is based on faulty 19th century physics. The juggernaut now rolls on, feeding on fear and money, crushing human prosperity and freedom in its path. As they say in zoos, “Please do not feed this animal”.
Penultimate line of penultimate paragraph should read:
…and they also showed that the moon also had a 30K higher average temperature than (not that)…
Throughout the Geological record: CO2 rises lag T rises.
End.
Also of note re CO2 sequestration (aka Carbon Capture) …
The atmosphere is NOT an isolated bio-system, it is part of the structural and biological global system of this beautiful planet.
If you attempt to ‘decarbonize’ the atmosphere then the CO2 partial pressure differential with the oceans/seas/lakes/etc. would increase, and CO2 would vent from them to reestablish an atmospheric equilibrium!
If at the current oceanic SST (sea surface temperature) and global atmospheric temperatures, the atmospheric CO2 level must be 410ppm, then that is where it will be.
NO AMOUNT of CO2 sequestration will prevent it.
Paul – I thought the Cinque Ports proved sea levels were WAY higher in the past ?
HH Lamb certainly believed that
Dear Elaine I had a lovely afternoon – thank you very much! This is the article I mentioned, giving an overview of the myths around climate change. Well, a date for the election – at last – so an interesting time ahead! Love Gillian xx
Sent from my iPad
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A little while back the BBC were reporting on one of the ER demos and started quoted some of the ‘Climate Catastrophe’ figures. they quoted that the concern was a 1degree rise in temperature since 1850 (pretty much what you quoted, Paul). This set me thinking having been involved with precision, certificated mercury thermometers in my early scientific career. It struck me that to consider a difference of 1 degree between thermometers in 1850 and those used now (electronic?) as being significant was absolutely meaningless. this wouldn’t even take into account the possibility of reading errors (very easy with a mercury thermometer). It seems absolutely inconceivable that this multi-trillion dollar farce is based on such obvious falsehoods !!
Watch Prof John Christy’s excellent lecture here.
Paul, I love your work but I personally would put a single very clear graph with each point. I have a very visual way of seeing and understanding.
A poll for alarmist lawyers Client Earth shows what we might be up against as the lies have become ingrained in an ignorant public bombarded by scare stories. I have seen a report on TalkTalk’s site but I don’t know the source. Claim is that over half of people will be looking at climate change in the election but without sight of the full survey you can’t be sure how biased it was given who commissioned it.
‘client earth’ have a letter in today’s DT and rattling on about the cons green bill and how it doesn’t go far enough…………..ambulance chasers doin’ climate bollox pure fresher than fresh clean air the next great scam’ and legal therein, stricture gives them all wet dreams. However, out of the Empire and ECJ though and they’d all be well and truly ****ed – something to look forwards to – methinks, all ambulance chasers/yuman rites lawyers up sh*7 creek is, very appealling.
on other matters, also relating to your post;
“Claim is that over half of people will be looking at climate change in the election”
Is that so?
To me, that sounds very much like wishful thinking and thus is without doubt, a total crock.
Paul
Thank you for giving us an interesting summary. It will not change the mind of any warmist fanatic, but it is a useful top-down view of where we are in the climate debate.
I stole most of it for my site, added a few bits and pieces and a Climate Credo, which we obstreperous ones can repeat to ourselves at bedtime. It is important to keep our own spirits up in this battle.
http://figures-of-speech.com/2019/10/climate-facts.htm
Thanks once again.
Great summary. Thanks.
Please send to the BBC for their website!!
To make it perfect 4 to 6 bibliographic references to each item of the summary should be added
Could you provide a reference for the claim that sstellite data shows global temperatures have not riswn since 1998?
https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/
Paul
I think Emissions should be number one as it is the catch cry of people like Xtinction Rebellion and even respectable governments; we must reduce our emissions. If the global average temperature has not gone up since 1998 while CO2 has increased by 4 times the rate during the warming of the 30s, then CO2 is not causing warming and if it does not do that HOW does it cause climate change? One way is that increased vegetation (forests grasslands and crops) due to CO2 will be cooling and feeding the planet!
I have some changes to the text as well but I can’t get the highlighting to show so could you let me have an email address please?
Our recent election in Canada points out the poor research by the Liberal party and Justin Trudeau. I have also done my own research on CO2 and have viewed most of the videos and interviews done on the 50to1.net project from 2012.
I believe Canada as a nation may find itself spending money foolishly to also turn the CO2 knob down with only a 1.6% carbon footprint.
Data and devices such as the smartphone I am typing on have manipulated the public and governments into believing the end is near. If this continues here the division of Canada will become a reality.
Thank you. This is a marvelous summary for those of us who are not scientifically literate but sense that this whole climate orthodoxy is a fraud. It is important that I (we) try to improve our scientific literacy but, until then, this is a very good summary.
I would like to crowdfund the manufacture of a “Climate Crisis Cow Corrector”: A small transparent plastic cube representing ice with the skeleton of a cow inside. An engraved message on the base will give approximate carbon dating of the skeleton and current or recent location where found (Greenland ice sheet).
That’s it. Research for back up facts needs to be accurate of course. But as we all know the Vikings colonized and farmed Greenland several hundred years ago.
Depending on funds available I would like us to distribute all at once, for free, one of these “CCCs” to select members of the media, politicians and climate “scientists” or academics as well as High Schools, Elementary Schools and Universities in USA, Canada, UK, and Europe.
Let me have your thoughts.
N Glass