Global Warming: The summary

On the outside chance I might be wrong I elected to peruse the summary given to the politicos. It is definitely recommended reading and can be found here.

Be sure to read the footnotes...such as the 90% uncertainty intervals (and they don't know if they missed low or high....equally possible either way...which brings up a lot of interesting questions).

It is also scary....err, fascinating to note how much of this is based on modelings...as we all know, modelings are based on what they EXPECT to be happening, not what is happening. The tolerances and margins of error even in their modelings are in most cases large enough to account for their outlying expectations of change.

And some things...such as...you know how aerosols are terrible for the environment? According to p. 3 the aerosols are creating a Negative Forcing (a reduction in global temperature...)

The same page tells us radiative forcings are less than half of previous estimates...yes, they are missing their previous assumptions that badly. But I am SURE they know what they are doing now....

p. 4 points out that new analysis of old material gives new conclusions. Conveniently for proponents of g.w. these new ways of looking at it say something different than the old way.
Reminds me of certain historical about faces recently: for hundreds of years an event has been interpreted a particular way and suddenly someone says "No, they did not mean what they said they meant...what they really meant was this radically new thing" and suddenly the understanding of events changes radically. The accuracy is, of course, questionable.

I also note the conditions have worsened considerably since 1993. Coincidentally, in '93 they switched methods of guaging from Tide Guages to satellite altimetry. So instead of something at ground level with a 3 dimensional view we now get more accurate measurements from outer space. Good to know.

The report accepts as fact the heavily disputed argument that Greenland and Antarctica are shrinking. This is completely fair...but doing it as an assumption is not. By all the rules of logic this is a fallacy and most unfortunate. This is an important report and it is sad that so much of it is based on (ha ha ha) hot air.

Like the rise in sea level....not only are they pretty sure it is rising but....they think it might be NATURAL....but that won;t suit their purposes. Not sure why it was included in the report (p. 5) But it does lead to this gem:

For the period of 1961 to 2004, the sum of climate contributions is estimated to be smaller than the observed sea level rise.

In other words...the natural level of sea level rise is more than the terrifying levels allegedly caused by global warming. This is as terrifying as Nightmare on Elmstreet Part XI....

p. 6 points out that the areas with the highest rising temperature have high decadal variabilities...and these are consistent with changes observed in the 40s.

Same page, same verse; despite what we had been told, this page specifically says no increase in cyclones is observable. Interesting.

p. 10 points out any changes are insensitive to their models based on different amounts of Greenhouse Gas emissions. Hmmm....

As you go further in it becomes readily apparent they are driven not by reality but by politics. The climate as a whole is not getting warmer...it is in certain overall sections of the globe but other sections are getting cooler...IF the data they have is correct and IF the assumptions they make about what the temp used to be and what it is now and IF....well, you get the point....nor can they point to individual locales that are outside standard realms...but despite all the evidence they themselves put forth to the contrary they are presenting global warming as virtually assured fact...despite the fact they repeatedly say things are within normal decadonal changes, that this cycle has occurred before.

But watch the newspapers; I promise you they will present this as saying something completely outside the realms of what the report says.

I keep beating this horse because of how tired I am of hearing about it.

Fact: Global Warming is at BEST a hypothesis...and a fairly iffy one...but it will be accepted as proven fact. Hmm...what does that remind me of?
Hypothesis: Global Warming is driven more by certain political elements than by any legitimate scientific concern.

Too bad because a lot of legitimate environmental causes get caught in the blow back because, as is my nature, irritation and anger at the lies and manipulation tends to tip the scale over a long way the other direction. After nonsense like this I am more likely to do things deliberately harmful to the environment just to spite the media hype machine.