The Guardian uses
pseudo-science to libel John Christy
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
One Dana Nuccitelli, a co-author of
the 2013 paper that found 0.5% consensus to the effect that recent global
warming was mostly manmade and reported it as 97.1%, leading Queensland police
to inform a Brisbane citizen who had complained to them that a “deception” had
been perpetrated, has published an article in the British newspaper The Guardian making numerous inaccurate
assertions calculated to libel Dr John Christy of the University of Alabama in
connection with his now-famous chart showing the ever-growing discrepancy
between models’ wild predictions and the slow, harmless, unexciting rise in
global temperature since 1979.
The chart, described by Nutticelli as
“simply another example of cherry picked data … presented in a multiply
misleading way”, shows his comments. Each comment is then given in more detail
in bold face, followed by the truth
in Roman face.
1.
“The data are misleadingly misaligned” to start in
1979, so as “to visually exaggerate any difference between the models and data”.
Instead, Mr Nutticelli opines that they should have been aligned to a common
baseline some decades in length.
Altering
the baselines does not alter the trends. Nevertheless, to test Mr Nucccitelli’s
allegation that Dr Christy had “misleadingly misaligned” the data, trends on
the models’ predictions (red), satellites’ observations (green) and radiosondes’ measurements (blue) were expressed as centennial-equivalent warming
rates of 2.22,
1.00 and 0.86 Celsius degrees respectively. The
warming rate predicted by the models is thus some 2.2-2.5 times the warming rates observed by
the satellites and radiosondes. The graph, therefore, correctly reflects a real
and widening discrepancy between prediction and observation. Note also that the
CMIP5 predictions were made in about 2010, so that nearly all the red curve
represents hindcasts: yet still the models’ trend is excessive.
2. “No
uncertainty ranges are shown whatsoever”. When they are taken into account, “the
observations are consistent with the range of model projections”.
Data
since 1979 for the CMIP5 models were not to hand. However, in 1990 IPCC (AR1,
p. xxiv), on the basis of “substantial confidence” that the models on which it
relied had captured all essential features of the climate, predicted
near-linear warming of 1.0 [0.7, 1.5] Celsius degrees over the 36 years
1990-2025, equivalent to 2.78 [1.94, 4.17] Cº/century.
The boundary between the two zones, marked with the red needle in the
clock-graph below, is the IPCC’s then best prediction: warming equivalent to
about 2.8 C°/century by now.
The very wide range of predictions made by the
IPCC is shown as orange and red regions. The observed warming on the RSS and
UAH satellite datasets, again expressed as centennial equivalents, is shown by
the two green needles. The HadCRUT4 dataset, to Dr Jones’ credit, publishes its
combined measurement, coverage and bias uncertainties, which are about 0.16
Celsius degrees either side of the central estimate. The satellite
uncertainties are smaller. It is plain that there is no overlap whatsoever
between the exaggerated predictions made by IPCC in 1990 and the rates of
global warming since then shown by the satellites.
3.
“Observational data disagreements are hidden,” because “Christy’s graph also
averages together multiple different observational datasets, which aren’t in
terribly close agreement.”
In the present context, disagreements between trends
on the RSS and UAH satellite datasets, for instance, would only be material if
either of the datasets showed a trend close to the trend on the models’
predictions: otherwise, such differences would be inconsequential when set
against the far wider difference between the trend on each observational
dataset and the trend on the models’ predictions.
To test whether the two satellite datasets “aren’t
in terribly close agreement”, their spline-curves and trends from 1979-2015
were separately determined and plotted. Results showed that the two curves are
visibly in reasonable agreement.
To verify this, copy each graph on to a PowerPoint
slide, start the presentation and then use the up and down arrows in rapid
succession to make a blink-comparator.
Their centennial-equivalent trends are within a tenth
of a degree of one another, whereas the differences between each of the two
observed trends and the model-predicted trend are each an order of magnitude
greater than the difference between them.
4.
“The chart isn’t peer-reviewed or easily reproducible”, in that “Christy doesn’t say which observational data sets
he’s averaging together”.
Mr
Nutticelli did not email Dr Christy and simply ask for the information. On one
occasion when I asked Dr Christy for some data to assist me in a paper I was
writing, I received the requested data within 24 hours. My questions about the
data were answered promptly, courteously, fully and helpfully. Furthermore, the
chart is plainly labeled indicating that it was prepared using the online and
publicly available Climate Explorer program and data maintained by the Royal
Netherlands Meteorological Institute.
Had
Mr Nutticelli done a little homework, he would have been able to find the
following widely-circulated graph that actually lists 73 of the models used by
Dr Christy, and shows IPCC’s ever-increasing confidence in the “consensus”
proposition that recent global warming was mostly manmade. In fact, as Mr
Nuccitelli knows full well (for his own data file of 11,944 climate science
papers shows it), the “consensus” is only 0.5%. But that is by the bye: the
main point here is that it is the trends on the predictions compared with those
on the observational data that matter, and, on all 73 models, the trends are
higher than those on the real-world data.
5.
“We don’t live on Mount Everest: the
average elevation of the bulk atmosphere shown in Christy’s graph is 25,000
feet, which is just below the peak of Mount Everest, and not far below the
elevation at which commercial aircraft generally fly. The temperature at such
high elevations isn’t very relevant to humans.”
Mr Nutticelli seems unaware that IPCC (2007),
following Santer (2003), regarded the atmosphere six to eight miles up as
highly relevant to humans: for that was the altitude of the model-predicted
tropical mid-troposphere “hot spot”, the supposed “fingerprint” of manmade
warming. The “hot spot” was supposed to warm at twice or thrice the tropical
surface rate:
The models were as wrong about this as about
everything else. There is no “hot spot”, as the following graph from Karl et al. (2006) shows.
If, therefore, Santer and IPCC had been correct that
the “hot spot” was a fingerprint of anthropogenic global warming, the absence
of the “hot spot” would have been the end of the profitable climate scam.
However, the models and those who profit from their bizarre predictions were as
wrong about this as they are about their other global-temperature predictions.
The truth is that the “hot spot” ought to appear if
there is any significant warming of the atmosphere, and that its absence in
real-world radiosonde measurements, shown in Karl’s graph, provides powerful
confirmation that the satellite lower-troposphere datasets, rather than the surface
tamperature datasets that Mr Nutticelli criticizes Dr Christy (keeper of the
UAH satellite dataset) for not showing on his graph, are accurate in showing
little or no warming over the past two decades.
Furthermore, since the rate of warming diminishes
with altitude, the effect of including the mid-troposphere with the lower
troposphere in Dr Christy’s graph is actually to show a discrepancy between
models’ predictions and real-world observations that is somewhat smaller than it
would have been if the analysis had been confined to the lower troposphere
alone.
Mr Nutticelli also seems unaware that no small
reason why John Christy’s graph shows temperature changes in the combined
mid-troposphere and lower troposphere is that these are the zones in which the
radiosondes take their readings.
6.
“The rest of the global warming data show climate models are accurate. … For
example, climate models have done an excellent job predicting how much
temperatures at the Earth’s surface would warm.”
To test this remarkable assertion, the predictions of
medium-term global warming made by the IPCC in 1990, 1995 and 2001 (red
needles) were compared with the observed warming rates reported by three
terrestrial (blue needles) and two satellite (green needles) datasets. The
results showed that over each timescale – 26, 21 and 15 years respectively –
the models had very greatly over-predicted the warming rate.
7. “And then there’s ocean heating. … Climate
models are doing a very good job predicting the rate at which the oceans are
heating up.”
Mr Nutticelli appears unaware that in
the 11 full years of ARGO bathythermograph data that are available at the time
of writing, from 2004-2014, the rate of warming of the upper mile and a quarter
of the ocean was equivalent to just 1 Celsius degree every 430 years, as the
graph of ARGO data shows.
Furthermore, the temperature profile at
different strata shows little or no warming at the surface and an increasing
warming rate with depth, raising the possibility that, contrary to Mr
Nutticelli’s theory that the atmosphere is warming the ocean, the ocean is
instead being warmed from below, perhaps by some increase in the largely
unmonitored magmatic intrusions into the abyssal strata from the 3.5 million
subsea volcanoes and vents most of which Man has never visited or studied,
particularly at the mid-ocean tectonic divergence boundaries, notably the
highly active boundary in the eastern equatorial Pacific.
How good a job are the models really
doing in their attempts to predict global temperatures? Here are a few more examples:
Mr
Nutticelli’s scientifically illiterate attempts to challenge Dr Christy’s graph
are accordingly misconceived, inaccurate and misleading.
A
report of the inaccuracies should be sent to the editor of The Guardian with a request for an explanation, for the
inaccuracies, delivered in the snide, supercilious tone that is Mr Nutticelli’s
disfiguring trademark, are calculated to be unfairly damaging to Dr Christy’s
reputation as a scientist.
In
the event that the editor fails to take appropriate action against Mr
Nutticelli and his low brand of yellow journalism, the case should be referred
to the newspaper editors’ watchdog body by way of a formal complaint, whereupon
The Guardian will be compelled to
correct its inaccuracies.
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