Peter’s Bet - The $10K Challenge

Anthony Cox

Peter Laux has offered $10000 to anyone who can produce empirical evidence proving man-made global warming [AGW]. Peter’s offer is in the form of a Statutory Declaration, which is neither here nor there. Peter’s wording is:

I offer you $10,000.00 (AUS) for a conclusive argument based on empirical facts that increasing atmospheric CO2 from fossil fuel burning drives global climate warming

This is an invitation to treat which differs fundamentally from a contract and being bound by contractual terms. An invitation to treat can be thought of as a prelude to entering a contract and being bound by contractual terms. Basically Peter is inviting people to submit offers about the proof for AGW which he may then convert into contractual terms.

As part of this invitation to treat people were invited to submit their offers to the Climate Guy blog site of Denis Rancourt.

The invitation has attracted the usual alarmists, well-meaning and not. John Byatt, blogging as Duchess Judy John Byatt, has claimed he has satisfied the terms of the contract and is eligible for the $10000 bounty.

John’s ‘proof’ is that 

The RF for CO2 is currently 1.68Wm2

And that Peter has accepted this RF [radiative forcing] figure for CO2 by saying it is a: 

statement of RF for CO2 nothing more

Obviously Peter has not accepted that the finding by the IPCC that the RF of CO2 is currently 1.68Wm2 is a fact. He has merely acknowledged that the RF for CO2 of 1.68W/m^2 is what the IPCC has most recently produced.

The history of the IPCC’s figures for the RF for CO2 is a dynamic one. The RF for CO2 is usually expressed in a temperature response to a doubling of CO2. This temperature response in turn is a measure of the climate sensitivity of CO2. Christopher Monckton has found this climate sensitivity of CO2 has changed over the history of AGW and in the various IPCC reports.

The current figure for the RF of CO2 was produced in 1998 in Myhre et al in Table 3. The formula in Myrhe et al for calculating the RF of CO2 is a logarithmic formula because Beers Law says that increases in CO2 will have a decreasing effect. CO2 in 1850 when the modern warming began as the Little Ice Age ended was about 280 parts per million [the same as it was in 1750 as shown in the above IPCC chart for RF from 1750]. The current concentration of CO2 is about 400 parts per million. Putting those amounts into Myhre et al’s formula gives the following result:

F (W/m^2) = 5.35 ln (CO2 / CO2 [starting]) = 1.91W/m^2

So even using the IPCC’s own formula for calculating the RF for CO2 we get a difference. Admittedly the RF of 1.91W/m^2 is within the error range of the IPCC which is 1.68W/m^2 [1.33 – 2.03]. But the temperature range this RF should have produced is outside the temperature range consistent with such a forcing. That range should have been between 1.14C – 1.33C. In fact the temperature increase since 1880 has been 0.7C.

The RF for CO2 and the climate sensitivity for CO2 has been all over the place in the AGW science. For instance, apart from the contradictions from the IPCC, the seminal AGW paper by Foster and Rahmstorf finds a ‘pure’ temperature response from CO2 RF ranging from 0.014 to 0.018 K yr⁻¹

This finding translates to a climate sensitivity for CO2 RF of 1.4 – 1.8C which is markedly less than the IPCC range of 3.26 – 3.8ºC.

Also of interest is the comparison between the RF of CO2 and the RF of solar. Figure 9.1 from AR4 shows the result of RF from different sources including CO2 and solar:

Figure 9.1. Zonal mean atmospheric temperature change from 1890 to 1999 (°C per century) as simulated by the PCM model from (a) solar forcing, (b) volcanoes, (c) well-mixed greenhouse gases, (d) tropospheric and stratospheric ozone changes, (e) direct sulphate aerosol forcing and (f) the sum of all forcings. Plot is from 1,000 hPa to 10 hPa (shown on left scale) and from 0 km to 30 km (shown on right). See Appendix 9.C

The images clearly show the temperature result from solar (a) and CO2 [greenhouse gases but predominantly CO2, (c)] are different. This hasn’t stopped Real Climate, the major pro AGW and IPCC blog, from claiming there is an equivalence between RF from a doubling of CO2 and a 2% increase in solar.

But are 2XCO2 and a 2% increase in solar equivalent? Solar forcing is 341.5 W/m^2 of incident power [1366W/m^2/4 at the Top of Atmosphere] which heats the surface to 287K [384.7 W/m^2 of radiated power] for a net gain of 384.7/341.5 = 1.1 [solar forcing]. The IPCC claims that 3.7 W/m^2 of incremental forcing from 2XCO2 absorption causes a ~ 3C rise in the surface temperature. If you add 3C to 287K and convert to power, the Earth’s surface emits 401.1 W/m^2, which is an increase of 16.4 W/m^2. This means that the IPCC claim of gain, relative to power from CO2 forcing, is 16.4/3.7 = 4.43, which is about 4x higher than solar forcing which is not an equivalence.

The point of this is to show that the RF of CO2 is NOT a settled amount even in the AGW science. 

For anyone to say a particular RF for CO2 proves AGW is therefore absurd.

In my opinion Peter’s invitation to treat does not have to be converted into a contract subject to verification any time yet.

IPCC AR5 put into question by Peer reviewed Paper

Tibetan Plateau

We often hear from the Global Warming Nazis that the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age were restricted to parts of the Northern Hemisphere. Eg the IPCC and some gobbledy-gook from UNSkeptic Science. 

However peer reviewed papers say other wise. 

A recent paper by Datsenko et al published in Russian Meteorology and Hydrology

January 2014, Volume 39, Issue 1, pp 17-21  

has put into question  part of the IPCC AR5:

"It follows that the statement of the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change about the unprecedented nature of the current warming is unjustified."

Abstract (link) (bold added)

Comparison with the climate of the past centuries has demonstrated until recently the unprecedented warming at the scale of the last millennium at least. This is embodied in the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. However, recently the studies have appeared putting this statement into question. A new 1000-year long reconstruction based on the tree-ring variations of the long-living Chinese junipers (Sabina Przewalskii Kom.) growing in the northeastern part of the Tibetan Plateau reveals that the climate during and immediately after the medieval maximum of solar activity was warmer that the present-day one, all subsequent cooling coincided with the periods of low solar activity, and the warming in the 1970s–1990s followed a new maximum of the solar activity which peak fell on the 1960s.

Hat tip to CO2  Science

What was done
The six scientists - three Chinese and three Russian - developed a new 1000-year-long history of the temperature of the Northeastern Tibetan Plateau, based on a new method of analyzing very long tree-ring data that they developed and christened eigen analysis, which is described in detail in the studies of Yang et al. (2011a,b). This they did while working with Przewalskii juniper trees growing at a height of approximately 3000 meters in the mountainous region of China, many of which had been alive for over a full millennium.

What was learned
Datsenko et al. determined that "the climate during and immediately after the medieval maximum of solar activity was warmer than the present-day," and that all subsequent periods of cooling coincided with "periods of low solar activity." Furthermore, they note that S.G. Shiyatov, the most well-known Russian dendrochronologist, corroborates this viewpoint, in that the upper treeline history of the past millennium that he (Shiyatov, 2003) developed "corresponds well," as they describe it, "to the juniper growth reconstruction."

What it means
Put very bluntly, the Chinese/Russian research team states in their paper's concluding sentence that in regard to what they discovered, "it follows that the statement of the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change about the unprecedented nature of the current warming is unjustified."

More of CO2 Science's world wide MWP papers here  - CO2 Science - MWP project

The 97% Myth means 97% Failure of Alarmists

Global Warming Nazis (GWNs) stop showing your ignorance. This blog has previously exposed this 97% figure to be wrong many times (eg inter alia here, here and here) and it has also been exposed elsewhere as coming from flawed studies in many other locations.


And yet the GWNs keep rolling out this false figure.  One must ask why?

Is it because that is all they have? They know that the AGW hypothesis has been falsified. They know that they have no proof that increasing atmospheric CO2 from fossil fuel burning drives global climate warming.

Then there is that other false claim from the GWNs. Sceptics are funded by BigOil. Also false. (Pssst B/O...if you have a few mill to spare the bank account details are at the top of the page....)

This however has not stopped them from getting more and more shrill.

So, our side, the realists side of the "climate change" debate have to keep shooting down their falsehoods. One will be re-blasted here and then the MWP myth in our next post.

Joe Bast and Roy Spencer have written the latest exposee of the Myth of the Climate Change '97%'.

Last week Secretary of State John Kerry warned graduating students at Boston College of the "crippling consequences" of climate change. "Ninety-seven percent of the world's scientists," he added, "tell us this is urgent." 

Where did Mr. Kerry get the 97% figure? Perhaps from his boss, President Obama, who tweeted on May 16 that "Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: #climate change is real, man-made and dangerous." Or maybe from NASA, which posted (in more measured language) on its website, "Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities." 

Yet the assertion that 97% of scientists believe that climate change is a man-made, urgent problem is a fiction.

The first talk of the Naomi Oreskes "study" that is so ridiculous that surely neither side takes any notice of it. Then they move on to the Doran and Zimmerman 2009 study.

It reported the results of a two-question online survey of selected scientists. Mr. Doran and Ms. Zimmerman claimed "97 percent of climate scientists agree" that global temperatures have risen and that humans are a significant contributing factor.
The survey's questions don't reveal much of interest. Most scientists who are skeptical of catastrophic global warming nevertheless would answer "yes" to both questions. The survey was silent on whether the human impact is large enough to constitute a problem.

 Moving on to Anderegg:

His findings were published in Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences. Mr. Love Anderegg found that 97% to 98% of the 200 most prolific writers on climate change believe "anthropogenic greenhouse gases have been responsible for 'most' of the 'unequivocal' warming." There was no mention of how dangerous this climate change might be; and, of course, 200 researchers out of the thousands who have contributed to the climate science debate is not evidence of consensus.

Then they come to the most ridiculous study by Cook et al which was exposed by Lord Monckton on these pages HERE - where it was shown that Cook's 97.1% was in fact a miniscule 0.3%.

Finally, the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—which claims to speak for more than 2,500 scientists—is probably the most frequently cited source for the consensus. Its latest report claims that "human interference with the climate system is occurring, and climate change poses risks for human and natural systems." Yet relatively few have either written on or reviewed research having to do with the key question: How much of the temperature increase and other climate changes observed in the 20th century was caused by man-made greenhouse-gas emissions? The IPCC lists only 41 authors and editors of the relevant chapter of the Fifth Assessment Report addressing "anthropogenic and natural radiative forcing." 

Of the various petitions on global warming circulated for signatures by scientists, the one by the Petition Project, a group of physicists and physical chemists based in La Jolla, Calif., has by far the most signatures—more than 31,000 (more than 9,000 with a Ph.D.). It was most recently published in 2009, and most signers were added or reaffirmed since 2007. The petition states that "there is no convincing scientific 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." 

We could go on, but the larger point is plain. There is no basis for the claim that 97% of scientists believe that man-made climate change is a dangerous problem.