Report Treats Complex Topic In Naive Way

The Age

Wednesday July 16, 2008

Bob Carter - Bob Carter is a marine geologist and environmental scientist at James Cook University, Queensland.

Records used to represent global average temperature show that Earth has not warmed since 1998 and has been cooling since 2002, writes Bob Carter.

PROFESSOR Ross Garnaut is a distinguished economist. Global warming is a scientific subject. Spotted the problem yet?

This lack of competence is exemplified by the first sentence of the news release that accompanied last week's draft Garnaut report, which reads: "Australians are facing risks of damaging climate change."

No careful scientist would write such a statement. First, because, as written, it is vacuously self-evident - tantamount to saying the sun will rise tomorrow. Second, because it is ambiguous and does not mean what it says.

In fact the statement is coded, and was, as intended, read by the media and public as: "Australians are facing risks of damaging global warming caused by human emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide". As thus rephrased, Garnaut's opening statement has no factual basis.

Garnaut concedes his inability to make scientific judgement by saying: "The review takes as its starting point, on the balance of probabilities and not as a matter of belief, the majority opinion of the Australian and international scientific communities that human activities resulted in substantial global warming from the mid-20th century, and that continued growth in greenhouse gas concentrations caused by human-induced emissions would generate high risks of dangerous climate change."

This, apart from being a naive way to treat a complex scientific topic, is yet more code. It means the review has accepted holus-bolus, and without independent checks, the advice about global warming that has been provided in the 2007 4th Assessment Report (4AR) of the politically motivated Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Thereby, in the absence of proper due diligence, Australian domestic policy is now effectively being set by the United Nations. Worse, buried in the code, is the factually incorrect statement that there has been substantial global warming since the mid-20th century.

In reality, the best instrumental record of that length (from weather balloon radiosondes) shows no warming since 1958. Also, no one - and manifestly not Garnaut, who has ignored all advice except that of the IPCC - knows what the "majority" scientific opinion is.

Even if they did, it is an astonishing suggestion that a matter of significant science policy should be determined by a show of hands. Vote-counting is a political activity; science is about demonstrated, factually tested truths.

The IPCC's fourth report was closed off from considering new scientific input in May 2006. Because of this, the report's fashionable opinion that the climate is warming dangerously due to human influence suffers from two irredeemable flaws.

First, the science in 4AR is in general more than two years out of date; it is therefore significantly uninformed, in particular about the actual path of recent climate change.

Second, the IPCC judgement that dangerous human-caused warming is occurring, or will occur, is based entirely on projections (not predictions) from unvalidated and unsuccessful computer models.

In regard to the first point - current climate change - all four major international records used to represent global average temperature now show that Earth has not warmed since 1998 and has been cooling since 2002; and this despite an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide of almost 5%.

One probable cause of the cooling is the still-extending length of the solar quiet period between sunspot cycles 23 and 24. Noting this, solar physicists are projecting that cooling will continue for a decade or more, and may be as severe as that of the historically notorious "Little Ice Age".

In regard, to the IPCC's unvalidated computer model projections, all such models are of the type that CSIRO uses, and about which it comments in its climate consultancy reports to government and industry, that:

"This report relates to climate change scenarios based on computer modelling. Models involve simplifications of the real processes that are not fully understood.

"Accordingly, no responsibility will be accepted by CSIRO or the Queensland Government for the accuracy of forecasts or predictions inferred from this report or for any person's interpretations, deductions, conclusions or actions in reliance on this report."

Using outdated and incorrect science, which itself is largely based on PlayStation-4 computer gaming, Garnaut heaps further uncertain economic computer modelling on top. In accord with the well-known acronym garbage-in-garbage-out (GIGO), no useful conclusions can possibly result.

Garnaut's economic review of climate change policy is an edifice built on a profoundly flawed "scientific" base.

Introduction of the penal carbon dioxide taxation system that he proposes will severely damage the Australian economy. At the same time, it will have an impact most on those who are already socio-economically disadvantaged.

The intended pain will result in zero gain, for, incredibly, implementation of even the strictest emissions trading scheme will produce no measurable change to climate.

Only one conclusion is possible. The emissions trading system recommended in the draft Garnaut report is in equal measure unnecessary, immoral and irresponsible.

Bob Carter is a marine geologist and environmental scientist at James Cook University, Queensland.

© 2008 The Age

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