Fred Singer, President of the Science and Environmental Policy Project and Professor Emeritus of Environmental Science at the University of Virginia, spoke at CSU (Colorado State University) in Ft. Collins on July 18th.  Unfortunately the room was not set up to allow Fred to present his visual aids, so Fred made his presentation without his many interesting charts. I was fortunate enough to also attend Fred’s presentation at NIST Boulder Laboratories in Boulder the following day, so was able to see the charts he referred to at the CSU presentation.

Fred’s presentation was based mainly on his report published in 2008 titled “Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate” (See Reference section below for link)

Fred highlighted the following major questions at the NIST presentation:

1. Is warming due to natural causes or anthropogenic (ie, due to human causes)? He described why this is both a Science issue and a Policy Issue.

2. Why is there a disparity between models? Using the data from 2007 IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) report  there is a clear discrepancy between the Model results and “fingerprints” (observed patterns of warming).

3. What causes Climate Variability?   In addition to greenhouse gasses, other factors like internal oscillations of the atmosphere-ocean system,  influence of clouds and solar activity need to be considered.

Fred also commented on evidence of abuses of the peer review process at IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and the Michael Mann Hockey Stick Chart as examples that clearly calls for an assessment by the scientific community to evaluate their behavior.  We suggest you view the presentations at the recent International Conference on Climate Change hosted by Heartland Institute. The theme of the conference was “Restoring the Scientific Method”. (See Reference section below for link)

At both presentations Fred commented on the global warming trend… yes, we are in a warming trend, however the current cycle is not unusual (for example: it was warmer during the Medieval Warm Period).

Chart from Roy Spencer’s Global Warming Website.

Also, this chart of global satellite-based temperatures shows a warming trend from 1910 thru 1940, then a cooling trend, increase beginning in 1975 with a “spike” in 1997… if CO2 was is a major contributor to warming then one would expect a steady increase in temperature over the last 100 years.  Chart from page 5, “Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate” paper by Fred Singer dated 2008

 

One more interesting chart, Global averaged satellite-based Temperature Chart for 1979 thru current year.
From Roy Spencer’s Global Warming Website

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We agree with Fred’s conclusion stated in his 2008 report,

Our imperfect understanding of the causes and consequences of climate change means the science is far from settled.  This, in turn, means proposed efforts to mitigate climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions are premature and misguided.  Any attempt to influence global temperatures by reducing such emissions would be both futile and expensive.

Reference:

“Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate”, report by S. Fred Singer, dated 2008

Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (MIPCC), “Climate Change Reconsidered”, released June 2009.

Roy Spencer’s Global Warming Website ( www.drroyspencer.com)

Sixth International Conference on Climate Change hosted by Heartland Institute in Washington, D.C. on June 30 to July 1, 2011. The scientists who spoke at this conference are committed to restoring the scientific method.  The conference theme was “Restoring the Scientific Method”.

http://climateconference.heartland.org/

Article in Colorodoan about Fred Singer’s presentation at CSU on July 18th, dated July 19, 2011.

How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff – great book to inform you how numbers can be used to fool you rather than inform.

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