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Why No Dangerous Rise in Temperatures Threatens

Address to Economic Society (Queensland), 17 February 2010
By Des Moore

Full article text as downloadable PDF

Summary Points

• There is no scientific consensus that urgent government action is needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to prevent dangerous increases in temperature arising from increasing use by humans of fossil fuels. Well over 30,000 scientists are sceptics or dissenters and Copenhagen and Climategate indicate it unlikely any binding global agreement will be reached to reduce emissions. Former influential CRU head (Jones) has now told the BBC the vast majority of scientists do not think the debate on climate change is over;
• Analyses of the situation by Ross Garnaut for all Australian Governments have many defects;
• Although agreeing there are large uncertainties in the science, Garnaut has wrongly accepted it and the application of the precautionary principle. Great uncertainties also about the possible timing/extent of temperature increases themselves rule that out;
• Analysis by Treasury/Garnaut of minimal adverse economic effects from mitigatory action to stabilise CO2 concentration levels at 550ppm by 2050 contrast with other analyses suggesting large adverse effects;
• Analysis of the potential availability of fossil fuels, including reserves,  suggests complete usage would leave concentration levels below 550ppm – so, no need for govt action to reduce emissions!;
• Garnaut’s conclusion that Australian real GDP would be 700% higher in 2100 even if no mitigatory action is taken suggests the priority should be private sector adaptation rather than government action to handle temperature changes. New commercial technologies will become available to supply non-emission producing requirements; 
• The IPCC undertakes no scientific research and appears to have been written mainly by those sympathetic to the warmist view. Its main advisers are of the same ilk. Peer reviews by members of the “club” are meaningless;
• Many individual scientists and groups of scientists, including contributors to IPCC reports, have in fact expressed scepticism of or dissent from the IPCC view. These include Australian scientists who (inter alia) audited responses to Climate Change Minister Wong’s answers to Senator Fielding and concluded  no warming since 1997; no strong evidence that CO2 emissions are causing global warming; and no scientific consensus exists;
• The IPCC (and advisers) portray temperature changes by using decadal averages. These show warming trends which do not appear when annual averages are used and they “hide” the increase of 0.6 of a degree in the mid 1970s (equal to 75% of the total increase over the past century) due to the Great Pacific Climate Shift. That event had no connection to fossil fuel emissions. In his BBC interview, the CRU’s Dr Jones overlooked (sic) this event as a natural influence on temperatures  and also overlooked (sic) the flat or falling temperature periods over the last century;
• An examination of annual changes in temperature and in concentration levels of CO2 over the past century shows no statistical relationship but includes two periods of steady temperatures when quite strong increases in concentration levels occurred;
• An examination of changes to Darwin temperatures by the Bureau of Metorology suggest “adjustments” that have created a warming trend that did not occur;
• Claims that existing temperatures are at the highest level recorded or higher than in the past fail to take account of both the non-emissions caused rise from the Great Pacific Climate Shift and the strong (indirect) evidence that temperatures were higher in the Medieval and Roman periods. Dr Jones claimed in his BBC interview that there is insufficient evidence to determine what happened in the Southern Hemisphere during the Medieval period; 
• Analyses of ice cores show that a long history of past temperatures increases before CO2 concentration level increases;
• Analyses of changes in sea levels and in the extent of ice coverage in the Arctic and Antarctic suggest no potential substantive threats from abnormal floodings or increased meltings. Warnings that large numbers of houses are exposed to flooding are grossly exaggerated;
• The Great Barrier Reef has recovered from large bleachings that seemingly occur during El Ninos (which are not connected to emissions);
• Even if temperatures increase there is no sound basis for the modelling by Garnaut of adverse rainfall projections for the Murray Darling Basin or for expecting the Murray Darling Basin to cease agricultural production;
• The IPCC summary of various warming and cooling influences has such a wide range of possibilities that its selection of an average increase in radiation of 1.6 watts per square metre appears arbitrary and wide open to challenge;
• IPCC estimates of the greenhouse effect coming from the radiation back to earth from CO2 concentration levels fail to allow for the accepted research showing  no linear relationship between temperatures and CO2 concentrations and that even a doubling of concentration levels would increase temperatures by only a very small proportion;
• IPCC modelling of temperature projections significantly understate the temperature reducing effects of evaporation from oceans (70% of the earth) that offset the initial temperature rising effect from the “greenhouse” radiation back from the concentrations in the atmosphere.
• The fundamental faults in IPCC analysis lead to the conclusion that the best policy is one based on adaptation by the private sector to temperature increases as and when they occur.

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