My name is Judy Ryan. I am a retired epidemiologist in Canberra, Australia. I became a global warming skeptic in June 2012 during a course run at the University of the Third Age by Marjorie Curtis. Marjory is a retired geologist and encouraged our class to write letters to the media questioning the science behind Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW). She was unaware at the time of just how well that idea would resonate with me and what the result would be. Needless to say, Marjory and I have become good friends and she is the co-signer on the public letters that I write to prominent climate alarmists. (CA’s)

Climate skepticism was regarded by many as a key factor in the result of the recent Australian elections. But our enduring goal is to defeat scientific corruption, then delay its recurrence for as long as possible. We realize that if we let this global warming scam die gracefully, its perpetrators may insidiously start on the next one. 

Marjorie and I decided to focus on the issue of possible scientific corruption in our public letters because (1) scientific discussion with CA advocates can inadvertently lend credibility to the underlying scam, (2) it is easier for the general public and the media to understand, and of much more interest to them.

Scientific research has changed the world. Now it needs to change itself

A simple idea underpins science: “trust, but verify”. Results should always be subject to challenge from experiment. That simple but powerful idea has generated a vast body of knowledge. Since its birth in the 17th century, modern science has changed the world beyond recognition, and overwhelmingly for the better.

But success can breed complacency. Modern scientists are doing too much trusting and not enough verifying—to the detriment of the whole of science, and of humanity.

Too many of the findings that fill the academic ether are the result of shoddy experiments or poor analysis (see article). A rule of thumb among biotechnology venture-capitalists is that half of published research cannot be replicated. Even that may be optimistic. Last year researchers at one biotech firm, Amgen, found they could reproduce just six of 53 “landmark” studies in cancer research. Earlier, a group at Bayer, a drug company, managed to repeat just a quarter of 67 similarly important papers. A leading computer scientist frets that three-quarters of papers in his subfield are bunk. In 2000-10 roughly 80,000 patients took part in clinical trials based on research that was later retracted because of mistakes or improprieties.

What a load of rubbish

Even when flawed research does not put people’s lives at risk—and much of it is too far from the market to do so—it squanders money and the efforts of some of the world’s best minds. The opportunity costs of stymied progress are hard to quantify, but they are likely to be vast. And they could be rising.

How do we know Anthony Watts of WUWT supports junk climate science? Just take a look at his latest foray on Twitter for the proof. Below are copies of an exchange (October 18, 2013) between Anthony Watts and Simon Conway-Smith as featured on the climateofsophistry.com blog. In them Mr. Watts is making some bold but irrational claims about the supposed greenhouse gas effect (GHE) and carbon dioxide (CO2) warming.

To us at “Slayersland” or more correctly, Principia Scientific International (PSI), these tweets demonstrate that Watts doesn’t understand the concept of the null hypothesis. He seems incapable of applying it to discredited ‘science’ that asserts carbon dioxide is a gas adding/trapping heat in our atmosphere making it warmer. Watts and others are still hanging on to the belief, despite growing evidence to the contrary, that CO2 must cause warming.

But as Conway-Smith suggests, the black and white facts of the past 17 years are proving to be an inconvenient truth. Global thermometers show no warming trend despite huge increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Doesn’t that then prove the null hypothesis – CO2 is not a warming gas?

AR5 Continues to Let The End Justify the Unscrupulous Means

Someone said economists try to predict the tide by measuring one wave. The IPCC essentially try to predict (project) the global temperature by measuring one variable. The IPCC compound their problems by projecting the temperature variable with the influence of the economic variable.

Use of circular arguments is standard operating procedures for the IPCC. For example, they assume a CO2 increase causes a temperature increase. They then create a model with that assumption and when the model output shows a temperature increase with a CO2 increase they claim it proves their assumption.

They double down on this by combining an economic model that projects a CO2 increase with their climate model projection. To make it look more accurate and reasonable they create scenarios based on their estimates of future developments. It creates what they want, namely that CO2 will increase and temperature will increase catastrophically unless we shut down fossil fuel based economies very quickly.

All their projections failed, even the lowest as, according to them, atmospheric CO2 continued to rise and global temperatures declined. As usual, instead of admitting their work and assumptions were wrong, they scramble to blur, obfuscate and counterattack.

It is a common mistake among many to think science is exclusive – it shouldn’t be. The scientific method is very much inclusive, it is INTENDED to empower the people. Luther Haave, Richard Courtney and myself produced the below description of the method, which to date has not been questioned to my knowledge.  The full version is at globalwarmingskeptics.info.

Excerpt:

Some scientists have become advocates of the hypothesis of an enhanced greenhouse effect. Kary Mullis, won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1993, and he writes in his book, Dancing Naked in the Mind Field, of such advocates:

“Scientists who speak out strongly about future ecological disaster and promote the notion that humans are responsible for any changes going on are highly suspect. Turn off the TV. Read your elementary science textbooks. You need to know what they are up to. It’s every man for himself as usual, and you are on your own.”

This paper attempts to aid non-scientists to assess scientific opinions on climate change and to discern the advocates whom Mullis condemns. The assessment requires no scientific knowledge except a basic understanding of the scientific method as explained by Karl Popper.

Popper argued that all science is based on hypotheses that must be tested to destruction. Sound evidence which does not fit with the hypothesis must logically cause it to be rejected. However, the other side of the same coin is that no hypothesis can ever be said to be proven. Over time, the body of evidence consistent with a successful hypothesis builds up to the extent that it becomes regarded as a theory, for example the theory of General Relativity, or Tectonic Plate theory.

Thomas Kuhn provided a different view of how scientists work. He introduced the concept of “normal science‟ to cover the situation where scientists work on various topics within a central paradigm. In contrast to Popper, the Kuhnian view is that “wrong” results (i.e. those which are in conflict with the prevailing paradigm) are considered to be due to errors on the part of the researcher rather than findings which damage the consensus view.

However, as conflicting evidence increases, a crisis point is reached where a new consensus view is arrived at and this generates a so-called paradigm shift. Simply, Kuhn says scientists are human and have human prejudices. Advocates of the man-made global warming hypothesis promote Kuhn’s view and repeatedly cite “consensus” as evidence. Simply, they proclaim that the number of “experts” who hold an opinion is “evidence” that the opinion is correct.

But opinions are formed by many things – including personal prejudices – so “consensus” is no help to persons who wish to discern the expert opinions that most closely match physical reality. Popper’s philosophy of science is more useful for those who want to decide between competing scientific opinions.

The Hockey Schtick blog highlights a new paper published in Geophysical Research Letters. It finds the natural North Atlantic Oscillation [NAO] controls temperatures of the Northern Hemisphere 15 to 20 years in advance, a lagged effect due to the large thermal inertia of the oceans. The authors find the NAO index can be used to predict Northern Hemisphere mean temperature multidecadal variability and the natural oceanic Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) 15–20 years in advance. A simple linear model based upon this theory predicted the ‘pause’ of global warming since about 2000 that IPCC models failed to predict, and projects Northern Hemisphere temperatures will “fall slightly” over the 15 years from 2012-2027. 

The NAO, in turn, has been linked to solar activity.

The terrible toll from Japan’s tsunami came from the wave, not radiation

I have watched a TV programme called ‘Fear Factor.’ In the series there are contestants who have to confront their worst fears to see who bales out and who can fight the fear and get through.

People who are afraid of heights are made to Bungee-jump off a high bridge, and people who are scared of spiders or insects are made to get in a bath full of spiders.

In virtually all cases the contestants later say that the fearful experience was not actually as bad as they feared. So the fear of the fear was greater than the fear itself ‘when the chips were down.’

This is often the case in life, that the fear of some factor turns out to be worse than the experience itself. The human mind builds a very scary image in the imagination. The imagination then feeds the fear.

If the picture in the imagination is not very specific or clear it is worse, because the fear factor feeds on the unknown.

This is what has happened in the public mind concerning nuclear power over the last half century. Concepts concerning nuclear reactions and nuclear radiation are in themselves complicated and mysterious.

Over the last couple of decades physics advances in fields such as quantum mechanics, which is linked to nuclear processes has compounded matters for the public. The image of strong and mysterious forces and effects is now well entrenched. There are Hollywood movies and TV programmes about space travellers or alien invaders who use time travel and quantum forces, and then battle to evade the dangerous intergalactic nuclear zones.

A consequence of all this is that internationally the public is now really ‘spooked’ when it comes to the topic of nuclear power. A real ‘fear factor’ looms over the mere word ‘nuclear.’ Newspapers love this, and really push imagery like; ‘nuclear leak’ or ‘radiation exposure.’

To a nuclear physicist like me, I look upon such public reaction half with amusement and half with dismay. The amusement comes from the fact that so many people can be scared so easily by so little. It is like shouting: “Ghost in the bedroom,” and everyone runs and hides in the hills.

The dismay reaction is that there is a body of anti-nuclear activists who do not want the public to know the truth, and the anti-nukes enjoy stoking the fear factor and maintaining public ignorance.

Let us now ponder the Fukushima nuclear incident which has been in the news again lately.

Firstly let us get something clear. There was no Fukushima nuclear disaster. Total number of people killed by nuclear radiation at Fukushima was zero. Total injured by radiation was zero. Total private property damaged by radiation….zero. There was no nuclear disaster. What there was, was a major media feeding frenzy fuelled by the rather remote possibility that there may have been a major radiation leak.

At the time, there was media frenzy that “reactors at Fukushima may suffer a core meltdown.” Dire warnings were issued. Well the reactors did suffer a core meltdown. What happened? Nothing.

Ranchers are still digging out thousands of their cattle that became buried in a record-setting snowstorm in South Dakota late last week and over the weekend.

One would think the death of 75,000 cows by upwards of five feet of snow might get some national attention, but as one blogger observed, it has taken some time for the news of the precipitation massacre to reach outside of local media.

“I searched the national news for more information. Nothing. Not a single report on any of major news sources that I found. Not CNN, not the NY Times, not MSNBC,” Dawn Wink wrote Tuesday. “I thought, ‘Well, it is early and the state remains without power and encased in snow, perhaps tomorrow.’ So I checked again the next day. Nothing. It has now been four days and no national news coverage.”

Wink dubbed it “The Blizzard that Never Was.”

National syndicated photo services also yield only a few results documenting the storm. The Weather Channel, taking photo submissions from locals, seems to have the most dramatic pictures of the scene.

At least four deaths were attributed to the weather, including a South Dakota man who collapsed while cleaning snow off his roof.

Gary Cammack, who ranches on the prairie near Union Center about 40 miles northeast of the Black Hills, said he lost about 70 cows and some calves, about 15 percent of his herd. A calf would normally sell for $1,000, while a mature cow would bring $1,500 or more, he said.

“It’s bad. It’s really bad. I’m the eternal optimist and this is really bad,” Cammack said. “The livestock loss is just catastrophic. … It’s pretty unbelievable.”

As public concern over man-made global warming continues to fall independent scientists speak out against relentless pro-green censorship in the mainstream media. Sinking ever deeper into such unethical bias is The Los Angeles Times which will no longer publish letters from climate change deniers, Times letters editor Paul Thornton wrote earlier this month.

Among independent scientists enraged by such a blatant anti-science and undemocratic approach are respected analysts, Professor J. Scott Armstrong and Dr. Martin Hertzberg.

Prof. Armstrong, of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and an expert in the field of Long-Range Forecasting, says that such “Censorship of skeptic global warming views by the press has been going on for many years.” 

While former U.S. Navy meteorologist, Dr Hertzberg, agrees with Armstrong that the climate alarmist case is now shown to be “so weak that even with widespread censorship, citizens are not persuaded.”

Like Armstrong, Hertzberg is delighted to see that more savvy citizens are turning to alternative sources of information and open debate on the Internet to better inform their decisions. 

It is on the world wide web where readers can freely find Armstrong’s study into the reliability of the alarmist claims of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Independently scientists found that the IPCC “violated 72 of 89 relevant scientific forecasting principles” despite claims by the LA Times and others that government-sponsored climatologists are reliable scientific authorities. Armstrong lamented that there is only one published peer-reviewed paper that claims to provide scientific forecasts of long-range global mean temperatures. That paper is a 2009 article in the International Journal of Forecasting by Kesten Green, Willie Soon and Professor Armstrong, himself.

Like hermit crabs, climate alarmists scramble to find new ways to hide, when put in a box

As children playing on the beach, we discovered a fascinating behavioral pattern among hermit crabs. Place a dozen in a cardboard box, and within minutes the crabs exit their shells and try to occupy another. This mild stress-induced response probably reflects their life-long drive to continue growing by repeatedly commandeering larger shells, to protect their vulnerable soft bodies.

Similarly, climate alarmists are now scrambling to find new shelter from the stress coming from a public that increasingly realizes their doom-and-gloom predictions of climate chaos are based on shoddy data, faulty computer models and perhaps outright deception. The alarmist scientists have put themselves in a climate cataclysm box, and are desperate to protect their reputations, predictions and funding.

Despite the absence of warming in actual measured temperature records over the last 16 years, and near-record lows in hurricane and tornado activity, they still cry “wolf” repeatedly and try to connect every unusual or “extreme” weather event to human emissions of plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide. (Actually, people account for only 4{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of all the CO2 that enters Earth’s atmosphere each year.)

Alarmists used their predictions of climate catastrophe to demand that the world transform its energy and economic systems, slash fossil fuel use, and accept lower living standards, in response to the politically manufactured science. Even as growing evidence conflicted with their dogma, the money, fame and power were too good to surrender for mere ethical reasons.

The impact on energy prices, national economies, jobs and people’s lives has been profound and negative. For example, in response to the unfounded alarmism, Germany moved aggressively toward wind and solar energy over the past 15 years – both politically and with taxpayer and investment spending. It also shied away from more nuclear power and saw its economy contract and energy-intensive companies shed jobs and threaten to move overseas. Now Germany is burning more coal and building new coal-fired power plants, in an attempt to reverse the economic disaster its “green” and “climate protection” policies unleashed, but its actions are still sending shock waves at investors around the world.

Science‘s John Bohannon has recently revealed the extent of poor or non-existent peer review in some journals that call themselves peer-reviewed, as Retraction Watch reported on here.

Now, an open-access publisher based in Rijeka, Croatia, called InTech, has cancelled its journal that was targeted and exposed by Science’s investigation. The journal was going to charge 400 euros to publish the paper by Bohannon.

The International Journal of Integrative Medicine has been “discontinued”, does “not accept submissions” and “is no longer active” states the publisher’s website.

The notice, posted just a day after Science published its piece, says:

“We regret to inform you that as of October 4th, 2013, the International Journal of Integrative Medicine is no longer active.

Authors who have paid the Article Processing Charge (APC) when submitting their research paper to this journal, will be refunded in full.

Articles published in the International Journal of Integrative Medicine up-to-date, will remain available online on the journal’s webpage.

For any further information regarding the International Journal of Integrative Medicine, please contact us at [email protected].

In an e-mail from InTech, which I already reported in Croatia’s Jutarnji List, InTech blames its scientific editors who operate outside the actual firm.

Aslak Grinsted has just posted a document, which is said to be “a nice figure which compares the 21st Century sea level projections”. I would say it is another one of all those exaggerations that the IPCC supporters seem to feel that have to produce to save the story.

Firstly, Grinsted claims the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite altimetry data gives the true reading of what has been going on in the last 20 years with global sea level. Therefore he – without any hesitation– proclaims that this value constitutes “an absolute lower limit” of the sea level by 2100.

This is certainly NOT true. The satellite altimetry data have been severely modified by quite subjective so-called “corrections”. Therefore, it cannot be used as a measure of actual sea level changes (e.g. 1, 2).

Secondly, the so-called “ice sheet experts” are said to give values equivalent to a sea level rise from 28 to 145 cm. This is a remarkable exaggeration, which violates physical laws and knowledge accumulated over a very long period of time (e.g. 1).

The only scientifically defendable value of the present rate of sea level changes is somewhere in the sector between ±0.0 to 1,7 mm/year sea level rise (see 1, 2). A value that is far below all the model predictions, as illustrated in the below figure.

Figure 1. Grinsted’s original diagram corrected to show actually observed sea level variations (red box) and its extension of the various model out-puts (yellow line).

Consequently, Grinsted presents a strongly exaggerated and incorrect picture.

The Environmental Movement is an anti-science pseudo religion which believes that humans are destroying “The Planet”, In order to promote this view they have set up organisations for their activists, such as Greenpeace, where every member and official had to propagate the official doctrine, imposed from above.

At the time, employment of scientists had fallen, Generous salaries, promotion and foreign travel was offered to those who would support this programme, combined with a campaign of elimination of critics by influence on Journal Editors, the Universities, Official Scientific Bodies and the international media.

The IPCC has now issued five major Reports. These have been amazingly successful in persuading governments all over the world that they can prevent what is alleged to control “global warming” by reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other minor ‘greenhouse gases.’

The IPCC ran into a problem that does not affect an organisation such as Greenpeace, Scientists are usually trained to think for themselves, and some of those who have been recruited to support the “climate change” programme find if difficult not to insert their reservations into the opinions that are proscribed for them.

CFC Destruction of Ozone was the Real Cause

Introduction

Here is an excerpt¹ from a paper written by a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) meteorologist; “Climate models used for estimating effects of increases in greenhouse gases show substantial increases in water vapor as the globe warms and this increased moisture would further increase the warming.” However, this meteorologist along with the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) crowd got it backwards about water vapor and CO₂ — they cool the earth like all other gases in our atmosphere!

Although moisture in the atmosphere does increase with warming, this is because the higher temperature causes more water to evaporate. With every pound of water evaporated 1,000 Btu is absorbed and that causes cooling. Further, increased water in the atmosphere causes further cooling (not warming) by reflecting more of the radiant energy from the Sun that is hitting the water vapor molecules back to outer space.

Al Gore presented the climate change fraud as well in his “Inconvenient Truth”, actually a “Convenient Lie” presentation of the Vostok Ice Core data, see below.

Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” Documentary — Cause and Effect Reversed

In this documentary, Al Gore fudged the Vostok Ice core temperature and CO₂ line graphs so it would show a CO₂ spike coming first in time, but the real graph showed just the opposite. See the data in a shorter time frame (240,000 Years Before Present rather than 420,000 Years Before Present as presented by Gore). This makes it easier to see which came first, Figure 1. 

Figure 1. Vostok, Antarctica Ice Core Data².

It is clearly seen that a global warming spike (blue line) always comes first. The spike warms the oceans, which slowly reduces the solubility of CO₂ in water that results in the liberation of CO₂ from the oceans around 800 years later (see Figure 2). Gore gave no explanation what would cause a CO₂ spike to occur in the first place, but then again he is a politician with an agenda to make him wealthy. See the most recent time of warming between the 500 year medieval warming period and the start of an increase in CO₂ in the atmosphere. One can see that CO₂ started increasing during a cooling period showing it was not controlled by the warming that started some 80 years later and it is about 800 years from the end of the medieval warming period. This is historically what happens. Dr. Michael Mann of Penn State, eliminated the Medieval Warming period, his hockey stick graph, – clearly a fabricated graph by “cherry picking” temperature data.

+ Euro Municipalities Now Ignoring Foolish Predictions Of Warm Winters

Last Thursday evening and yesterday winter made its debut in Southern Germany and Austria  – and how! Read more here.

German RTL television last night here (starting at 4:30) called it the “most severe start of winter in 200 years!“, saying many meteorologists were caught by surprise. Up to half a meter of snow fell at some locations.

Gone are the mild winters of the sort Europe seen in the 1990s and early 2000s. Indeed for central Europe the last 5 consecutive winters have all been colder than normal – a record!

These days are blockbuster times for German road salt manufacturers. In Europe municipalities have learned their lesson: ignore foolish predictions of warm winters, order huge quantities of salt, and do it early!

Municipalities and road commissioners were once led astray by climatologists’ predictions of increasingly warmer winters and led to thinking that these had become a thing of the past due to global warming (recall famous words of David Viner and Mojib Latif). One major daily even proclaimed that spring would arrive in January!

As a consequence of these false global warming predictions, municipalities unwisely kept much smaller stocks of road salt for expected shorter and milder winters. Road commissioners saw little reason to keep thousands of tons of road salt in stock.

Then beginning in 2009 came one harsh winter after another. Road maintenance crews and commissioners were caught red-faced. Suddenly municipalities were running out of salt by January and were even longer able to keep the most vital traffic arteries cleared. Traffic chaos ensued and motorists were left to fend for themselves. Municipalities were stunned and left scratching their heads. Weather-wise the exact opposite of what climatologists had predicted had taken place. They learned the hard way. Now they are no longer heeding the foolish forecasts of warm winters.

This week all hell is breaking loose in the crazy world of climate science blogging! Dr. Roy Spencer is Rattled, Willis Eschenbach is wilting and Anthony Watts has no clue. But as this latest spat among ‘climate experts’ hots up it takes an outsider from the ‘hard’ sciences to call it right. Climate research is being done by incompetents, says award-winning astrophysicist, Nir Shaviv (pictured).

Let’s take a snapshot of what Dr. Shaviv refers to. Leading skeptic climatologist, Dr Roy Spencer (University of Alabama, Huntsville) is currently trouncing Willis ‘Citizen Scientist’ Eschenbach‘s pet theory that localized emergent phenomena (eg thunderstorms) regulate temperature and that ‘forcing’ has little to do with it. Spencer counters that feedbacks only make sense over entire atmospheric circulation systems.

In his tirade, Dr Spencer appears to be calling Willis’s ideas either unoriginal or a plagiarism of Ramanathan and Collins (1991). Also, Spencer appears to be saying that ‘citizen scientists’ should first study for a PhD and only when fully accredited as an expert should they speak up (aka ‘Argument to Authority’). What a palava!