The Global Warming "debate"

[sirs]

Now that we've settled the nonsense that "the debate is over" regarding man made global warming, what now?  So much has been invested into it, CA having passed draconian legislation based now on data that was often manipulated, erroneously recorded, if not simply fabricated.  How did so many fall for it, and worse, get so many of our state governments to push so many job killing regulations?

Perhaps it was because these folks spoke with such "authority".  Ok, I can buy that.  When someone who is supposed to be well educated in the field makes such supposed solid conclusions, I can see how so many might fall in line.  But why weren't the results more fully scrutinized??  Why pass such harmful economical laws and regulations, without 1st fully vetting the "data" that's being used to make such conclusions.  Here in CA, we have all kinds of job killing regulations to go into effect, at exactly the wrong time, again based now on data demonstrated to be "questionable" at best

It would be both prudent and appropriate for Gore to hand back both his Nobel Prize and Academy Award, since the vast majority of his "conclusions" were based on the "conclusions" coming out of the UN and the Anglia University, both now who's fella's in charge have conceded no appreciable warming over the last 10years, even some cooling. 

Yet, those that have this innate pathological need to control everyone remain steadfast....it's Bush's fault, I mean, it's man's fault that the earth is cooling, I mean warming.  Ironically its largely the same mindset in folks who are convinced Bush went to Iraq for the oil, but was too incompotent to procure it, since of course had he procured it, that would have been proof he went in for the oil, but since he didn't, that's proof he went in for the oil

[sirs]

[sirs]

Another IPCC Error: Antarctic Sea Ice Increase Underestimated by 50%
Filed under: Antarctic, Climate Changes ?

Several errors have been recently uncovered in the 4th Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). These include problems with Himalayan glaciers, African agriculture, Amazon rainforests, Dutch geography, and attribution of damages from extreme weather events. More seem to turn up daily. Most of these errors stem from the IPCC?s reliance on non-peer reviewed sources.

The defenders of the IPCC have contended that most of these errors are minor in significance and are confined to the Working Group II Report (the one on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability) of the IPCC which was put together by representatives from various regional interests and that there was not as much hard science available to call upon as there was in the Working Group I report (?The Physical Science Basis?). The IPCC defenders argue that there have been no (or practically no) problems identified in the Working Group I (WGI) report on the science.

We humbly disagree.

In fact, the WGI report is built upon a process which, as revealed by the Climategate emails, is, by its very nature, designed not to produce an accurate view of the state of climate science, but instead to be an ?assessment? of the state of climate science?an assessment largely driven by preconceived ideas of the IPCC design team and promulgated by various elite chapter authors. The end result of this ?assessment? is to elevate evidence which supports the preconceived ideas and denigrate (or ignore) ideas that run counter to it.

These practices are clearly laid bare in several recent Petitions to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)?petitions asking the EPA to reconsider its ?Endangerment Finding? that anthropogenic greenhouse gases endanger our public health and welfare. The basis of the various petitions is that the process is so flawed that the IPCC cannot be considered a reliable provider of the true state of climate science, something that the EPA heavily relies on the IPCC to be. The most thorough of these petitions contains over 200 pages of descriptions of IPCC problems and it a true eye-opener into how bad things had become.

There is no doubt that the 200+ pages would continue to swell further had the submission deadline not been so tight. New material is being revealed daily.

Just last week, the IPCC?s (and thus EPA?s) primary assertion that ?Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG [greenhouse gas] concentrations? was shown to be wrong. This argument isn?t included in the Petition.

This adds yet another problem to the growing list of errors in the IPCC WGI report, this one concerns Antarctic sea ice trends.

While all the press is about the observed declines in Arctic sea ice extent in recent decades, little attention at all is paid to the fact that the sea ice extent in the Antarctic has been on the increase. No doubt the dearth of press coverage stems from the IPCC treatment of this topic.

In the IPCC AR4 the situation is described like this in Chapter 4, ?Observations: Changes in Snow, Ice, and Frozen Ground? (p. 351):

As an example, an updated version of the analysis done by Comiso (2003), spanning the period from November 1978 through December 2005, is shown in Figure 4.8. The annual mean ice extent anomalies are shown. There is a significant decreasing trend in arctic sea ice extent of ?33 ? 7.4 ? 103 km2 yr?1 (equivalent to ?2.7 ? 0.6% per decade), whereas the Antarctic results show a small positive trend of 5.6 ? 9.2 ? 103 km2 yr?1 (0.47 ? 0.8% per decade), which is not statistically significant. The uncertainties represent the 90% confidence interval around the trend estimate and the percentages are based on the 1978 to 2005 mean.

Notice that the IPCC states that the Antarctic increase in sea ice extent from November 1979-December 2005 is ?not statistically significant? which seems to give them good reason to play it down. For instance, in the Chapter 4, Executive Summary (p. 339), the sea ice bullet reads:

Satellite data indicate a continuation of the 2.7 ? 0.6% per decade decline in annual mean arctic sea ice extent since 1978. The decline for summer extent is larger than for winter, with the summer minimum declining at a rate of 7.4 ? 2.4% per decade since 1979. Other data indicate that the summer decline began around 1970. Similar observations in the Antarctic reveal larger interannual variability but no consistent trends.

Which in the AR4 Summary For Policymakers becomes two separate items:

Satellite data since 1978 show that annual average arctic sea ice extent has shrunk by 2.7 [2.1 to 3.3]% per decade, with larger decreases in summer of 7.4 [5.0 to 9.8]% per decade. These values are consistent with those reported in the TAR. {4.4}
and,

Antarctic sea ice extent continues to show interannual variability and localised changes but no statistically significant average trends, consistent with the lack of warming reflected in atmospheric temperatures averaged across the region. {3.2, 4.4}

?Continues to show?no statistically significant average trends?? Continues?

This is what the IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR), released in 2001, had to say about Antarctic sea ice trends (Chapter 3, p. 125):

Over the period 1979 to 1996, the Antarctic (Cavalieri et al., 1997; Parkinson et al., 1999) shows a weak increase of 1.3 ? 0.2%/decade.

By anyone?s reckoning, that is a statistically significant increase.

In the IPCC TAR Chapter 3 Executive Summary is this bullet point:

?Satellite data indicate that after a possible initial decrease in the mid-1970s, Antarctic sea-ice extent has stayed almost stable or even increased since 1978.

So, the IPCC AR4?s contention that sea ice trends in Antarctica ?continues? to show ?no statistically significant average trends? contrasts with what it had concluded in the TAR.

Interestingly, the AR4 did not include references to any previous study that showed that Antarctic sea ice trends were increasing in a statistically significant way. The AR4 did not include the TAR references of either Cavalieri et al., 1997, or Parkinson et al., 1999. Nor did the IPCC AR4 include a reference to Zwally et al., 2002, which found that:

The derived 20 year trend in sea ice extent from the monthly deviations is 11.18 ? 4.19 x 103 km2yr-1 or 0.98 ? 0.37% (decade)-1 for the entire Antarctic sea ice cover, which is significantly positive. [emphasis added]

and (also from Zwally et al. 2002),

Also, a recent analysis of Antarctic sea ice trends for 1978?1996 by Watkins and Simmonds [2000] found significant increases in both Antarctic sea ice extent and ice area, similar to the results in this paper. [emphasis added]

Watkins and Simmonds (2000) was also not cited by the AR4.

So just what did the IPCC AR4 authors cite in support of their ?assessment? that Antarctic sea ice extent was not increasing in a statistically significant manner? The answer is ?an updated version of the analysis done by Comiso (2003).? And just what is ?Comiso (2003)?? A book chapter!

Comiso, J.C., 2003: Large scale characteristics and variability of the global sea ice cover. In: Sea Ice - An Introduction to its Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and Geology [Thomas, D. and G.S. Dieckmann (eds.)]. Blackwell Science, Oxford, UK, pp. 112?142.

And the IPCC didn?t actually even use what was in the book chapter, but instead ?an updated version? of the ?analysis? that was in the book chapter.

And from this ?updated? analysis, the IPCC reported that the increase in Antarctic sea ice extent was an insignificant 5.6 ? 9.2 ? 103 km2 yr?1 (0.47 ? 0.8% per decade)?a value that was only about one-half of the increase reported in the peer-reviewed literature.

There are a few more things worth considering.

1) Josefino Comiso (the author of the above mentioned book chapter) was a contributing author of the IPCC AR4 Chapter 4, so the coordinating lead authors probably just turned directly to Comiso to provide an unpeer-reviewed update. (how convenient)
and
2) Comiso published a subsequent paper (along with Fumihiko Nishio) in 2008 that added only one additional year to the IPCC analysis (i.e. through 2006 instead of 2005), and once again found a statistically significant increase in Antarctic sea ice extent, with a value very similar to the value reported in the old TAR, that is:

When updated to 2006, the trends in ice extent and area ?in the Antarctic remains slight but positive at 0.9 ? 0.2 and 1.7 ? 0.3% per decade.

These trends are, again, by anyone?s reckoning, statistically significant.



Figure 1. Trend in Antarctic ice extent, November 1978 through December 2006 (source: Comiso and Nishio, 2008).

And just in case further evidence is needed, and recent 2009 paper by Turner et al. (on which Comiso was a co-author), concluded that:

Based on a new analysis of passive microwave satellite data, we demonstrate that the annual mean extent of Antarctic sea ice has increased at a statistically significant rate of 0.97% dec-1 since the late 1970s.

This rate of increase is nearly twice as great as the value given in the AR4 (from its non-peer-reviewed source).

So, the peer reviewed literature, both extant at the time of the AR4 as well as published since the release of the AR4, shows that there has been a significant increase in the extent of sea ice around Antarctica since the time of the first satellite observations observed in the late 1970s. And yet the AR4 somehow ?assessed? the evidence and determined not only that the increase was only half the rate established in the peer-reviewed literature, but also that it was statistically insignificant as well. And thus, the increase in sea ice in the Antarctic was downplayed in preference to highlighting the observed decline in sea ice in the Arctic.

It is little wonder why, considering that the AR4 found that ?Sea ice is projected to shrink in both the Arctic and Antarctic under all SRES scenarios.?


Where was the vetting??

[Kramer]

there is no debate!

they made it up and got caught

they are trying to control people

communism is now environmentalism

this is about freedom verse tyranny -- good verses evil
 

[sirs]

In Blizzard, Conservatives Mock Global Warming Alarmists, Left and Media Outraged
The left argues that everything from hurricanes, lack of snow and a plane crash to D.C. 'snowpocalypse' is evidence of global warming.

By Julia A. Seymour
Business & Media Institute
2/15/2010

Back to back Washington, D.C. blizzards prompted conservatives to mock the global warming crowd last week.

Grandchildren of Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., built an igloo on the National Mall and christened it ?Al Gore?s New Home.? Fox News anchor Glenn Beck employed his trademark sarcasm to make fun of the ?disappearance? of warming priest Al Gore and devotee Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. since the snowfall. Beck picked on Kennedy because of a 2008 op-ed lamenting that global warming had changed the D.C. climate leading to ?anemic winters.?

Left-wingers online at place like Huffington Post and Daily Kos, as well as members of the national news media were furious that the ?wingnuts? were using the blizzard to make fun of them. They rushed to defend their theory of man-made global warming (anthropogenic global warming or AGW) by claiming that the snowpocalypse was, in fact, caused by global warming.

?Science Guy? Bill Nye was so upset by it he attacked ?unpatriotic? climate skeptics on Feb. 10 during the ?Rachel Maddow Show? on MSNBC.

?To deny what scientists or scientific evidence is showing, is inappropriate. And as I said earlier, to me, when I get wound up, it's unpatriotic,? Nye declared. But there are more questions than ever regarding the science. Prof. Phil Jones, formerly of the Climate Research Unit, admitted this week to losing track of climate change data used to support warming theory and that there hasn?t been ?statistically significant? global warming since 1995.

Some of the critics lied about what most conservatives were arguing, accusing the right of saying the historic snowfall disproved global warming. That wasn?t the case, conservatives were merely turning the tables on the left: using mockery to show the absurdity of assigning a cause and effect relationship from weather events to climate change

The fact is that the weather is not climate. Before the ?snomageddon? (as many in D.C. called it), AGW believers constantly connected every weather event from heat waves killing thousands in Europe to Hurricane Katrina with global warming. It wasn?t until the weather started acting against them and conservatives suggested it might undermine their theories that they got touchy on the subject.

ABC?s Bill Blakemore admitted that weather is not climate on Jan. 8 in a feeble attempt to prevent critics from saying that a ?cold snap? across the northern hemisphere disproves global warming. Blakemore has a long history of advocating for global warming alarmism on ABC.

Of course weather isn?t climate, but the global warming alarmists like Blakemore want it both ways. They want weather and natural disasters to be proof of warming, but never proof contradicting it

But it?s not just weather. The media and the left have even more ridiculous assertions about climate change. Like the Kevin Bacon game they seem willing to connect everything to AGW.

Actor Danny Glover blamed global warming for the Haitian earthquake in January 2010. Leaving no tragedy unturned, Joseph Romm, a former Clinton official, actually wondered if the Minnesota bridge collapse in 2007 was a result of global warming.

In a blog post, Romm wrote: ?Some may object to even asking the question, ?Did climate change contribute to the Minneapolis bridge collapse?? My guess is those are the same people who deny that global warming is caused by humans or that it is a serious problem - the same people who inevitably say ?we can adapt to whatever climate change there is.??
 
A media outlet called GMANews.TV based in the Philippines was concerned that global warming was forcing poor women into prostitution. The Nov. 19, 2009 story said ?The effects of climate change have driven women in communities in coastal areas in poor countries like the Phillippines into dangerous work, and sometimes even the flesh trade."

Dr. John Brignell, a British engineering professor, has created a Web site linking to hundreds of media stories blaming AGW. In 2007, he had already posted more than 600 links with a number of unusual connections.

Contradictions like growth or shrinking of coral reefs, destruction or growth of bananas, and heavy or reduced snowfall were all on his list. A number of health ailments including allergies, asthma, cardiac arrest, cancer deaths in England, West Nile fever, cholera, malaria and yellow fever have also been linked.

Snowpocalypse Can?t Stop Faith in Warming.

According to AGW believers in and out of the news media, weather can only ever support global warming theory. Not even back-to-back East Coast blizzards that dumped more than two feet of snow in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area can freeze their faith.

The ?snowpocalypse? that shut down the federal government, schools and many businesses for several days became one more ?extreme? weather phenomenon in a long list attributed to global warming. It joined heat waves, wildfires, hurricanes, tropical storms, cyclones, tornadoes, ice shelf and glacial melt, dying polar bears and even lack of snowfall.

MSNBC?s Dylan Ratigan told viewers on Feb. 9, ?Here's the problem ? these ?snowpocalypses? that have been going through D.C. and other extreme weather events are precisely what climate scientists have been predicting, fearing and anticipating because of global warming.?

Ratigan and others have been upset by conservative mockery about global warming, given the record snowfall of the 2009-2010 winter. The MSNBC host criticized an ad by the Va. GOP designed to ridicule proposed climate change policies that could hurt the state?s job situation.

Talk about polar opposites. In 2010, Ratigan blamed blizzards on global warming. But just one year ago, NBC?s (MSNBC?s parent company) presidential historian Michael Beschloss claimed global warming could be responsible for the lack of Inauguration Day snow.

As the camera turned to President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and their two children walking to the reviewing box, Beschloss described the scene: ?And this wooden path that they?re walking down actually dates to many previous inaugurations because a lot of them had snow. It may just be that because of global warming the last few have not.?

That was a frigid January day ? 28 degrees at noon plus a severe wind chill ? and the coldest inauguration since 1985. Still, according to the news media it was a sign of the destruction caused by fossil fuels, SUVs and other human activity. 

But that?s just it. Logic doesn?t matter, according to alarmists the planet is warming, its mankind?s fault and so everything is a result of global warming.

Myron Ebell, director of energy and global warming policy at Competitive Enterprise Institute, told the Business & Media Institute that ?global warming alarmism isn?t really a scientific theory as much as it?s a political program.? That becomes most obvious, Ebell said, when they ?explain away the facts? such as more snowfall in the mid-Atlantic despite the IPCC prediction of less snow in the region due to global warming.

Even a tragic Air France plane crash was connected with global warming in Russia Today (RT) on June 4, 2009. Alexei Kokorin, a climatologist for the left-wing World Wildlife Fund?s Russia Climate Program, told RT ??A consequence of global warming is that the frequency and severity of such events (severe weather conditions) is higher. Unfortunately, the risk for airplanes, especially in tropical areas above water, will be higher. This could be difficult for pilots to understand.?

Another horrible disaster, Hurricane Katrina was also linked to manmade climate change. On May 23, 2006, ?Good Morning America? featured two previews: one of the hurricane season and one of Al Gore?s global warming movie, ?An Inconvenient Truth.? Gore has been criticized by some for his ?very heavy-handed? use of Katrina footage in the film.

Diane Sawyer linked the two saying, ?And of course, there are a lot of people who believe that global warming is in fact to blame, in part, for this surge in hurricanes. One of them, former Vice President Al Gore, who has re-emerged, leading a kind of call to action.? She wasn?t alone, CBS?s Hannah Storm and NBC?s Robert Bazell all tied hurricanes to global warming that year.

But there are scientific problems with that assertion that even television meteorologists have criticized. And in May 2008, National Geographic reported that a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) study found global warming could actually decrease hurricane activity by about 18 percent.

Newsweek, a newsmagazine that had repeatedly attacked climate skeptics as ?deniers,? has stated that there is ?unequivocal? evidence of global warming and ?90 percent certainty? that humans are responsible. In July 2007, the magazine called the 2003 European heat wave that killed thousands ?a human fingerprint? of global warming. They didn?t consider any other factors such as the lack of air conditioning in much of Europe.

Citing a scorching U.S. heat wave in 2006, CBS?s Bob Orr declared: ?Gulledge says there?s no longer any serious debate? on climate change. When it comes to the media there certainly isn?t ?serious debate,? there isn?t a debate at all since skeptics are outnumbered 13-to-1 on the broadcast networks and often excluded or buried in other reports.

According to the media, everything is proof of warming, even if scientists ? including CNN meteorologists ? contradict them. Ebell offered one reason that for the media?s constant defense of AGW.

?I think part of it is that the media which from time to time portray itself as anti-establishment is actually an integral part of the establishment (the liberal establishment). So you can be a bomb-thrower if you?re going after Richard Nixon,? Ebell said. ?but if they went after someone on their side? they would lose support. So whenever challenged on an issue like global warming, the media ?circle the wagons and defend their own.?

Fires, Tropical Storms, Hurricanes and Tornadoes Named Despite Scientific Opposition

Seasonal weather events like tornadoes and wildfires have all been used to generate fear of global warming. NBC?s primary global warmer, Anne Thompson, warned in 2008 that ?manmade carbon dioxide pollution, is making a bad situation worse.?

Thompson was referring to the rise in named tropical storms and active hurricanes that year. ?This is the theory: carbon dioxide raises the ocean?s temperature, both at and below the water?s surface, providing more fuel for any storm,? Thompson said.

The same day, ABC?s Dan Harris connected hurricanes to global warming, citing the journal Nature. But other scientists, and even TV meteorologists, have disputed that relationship.

In 2005, NOAA concluded that the U.S. had been experiencing a cyclical upswing in hurricane activity in the Atlantic Ocean.

?NOAA attributes this increased activity to natural occurring cycles in tropical climate patterns near the equator,? the study said.

According to the Heartland Institute?s article about the study, Chris Landsea, science and operations officer at the NOAA National Hurricane Center in Miami, observed any impact global warming might have on hurricane activity is neither large nor immediate.

"We may be looking at stronger hurricanes by 5 percent," Landsea said. "And even that is a very small change that is still way off in the future."

In 2007, when wildfires ravaged California, CNN?s Anderson Cooper and Tom Foreman rushed to take advantage of the tragedy by connecting them to global warming. Reporting from Southern California, Cooper said: ?People are wondering if these fires are a result of global warming in some way.?

Foreman went so far as to predict a ?century of fires, just like what we?re seeing now? as a result of global warming. Although he cautioned that that one fire couldn?t be specifically cited as evidence: "Climatologists say, while we can't blame one fire on climate change, we can say that these factors are combining in that area [Southern California] to set up what could be a century of fires just like what we're seeing now.?

Cooper and Foreman didn?t bother to mention the refutation of their theory by another climate scientist. A scientist from UC Merced told the Washington Spokesman-Review that California the real reason for the wildfires were ?two staples of the region?s climatic history:? ?strong Santa Ana winds? and ?a drought that turned much of the hillsides to bone-dry kindling.?

"Neither can be attributed to climate change," said the UC Merced professor.

Warmer-in-chief Al Gore, whom the news media revere, labeled a Myanmar cyclone a ?consequence? of warming in May 2008. Standing behind a so-called ?consensus? Gore claimed global warming is forcing ocean temperatures to rise, which is causing storms, including cyclones and hurricanes, to intensify.

?It?s also important to note that the emerging consensus among the climate scientists is that even though any individual storm can?t be linked singularly to global warming ? we?ve always had hurricanes,? Gore said. ?Nevertheless, the trend toward more Category 5 storms ? the larger ones and the trend toward stronger and more destructive storms appears to be linked to global warming and specifically to the impact of global warming on higher ocean temperatures in the top couple of hundred feet of the ocean, which drives convection energy and moisture into these storms and makes them more powerful.?

Scientists, including cable meteorologists, have disputed this claim by Gore. CNN?s Rob Marciano and Chad Myers have both denied it. Marciano said ?global warming does not conclusively cause stronger hurricanes like we've seen? on Oct. 4, 2007 ?American Morning.? Myers has disputed the link between warming and tornadoes.

Marciano was pleased that a U.K. judge might ban Al Gore?s movie from schools because, as he put it ?There are definitely some inaccuracies.?

?You know, to think that we could affect weather all that much is pretty arrogant,? Myers said.

Right now, most of the news media are firmly entrenched in the global warming agenda, but that has not always been the case. For the past 100 years the media have peddled climate alarmism, but a Business & Media Institute study found that in roughly 30 year cycles the media switched from global cooling, to global warming, to cooling and back again to warning of catastrophic global warming.


Logic doesn?t matter

[sirs]

What to say to a 'warmer'
By MARK LANDSBAUM

At your next dinner party, here are some of the latest talking points to bring up when someone reminds you that Al Gore and the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won Nobel prizes for their work on global warming.

ClimateGate ? This scandal began the latest round of revelations when thousands of leaked documents from Britain's East Anglia Climate Research Unit showed systematic suppression and discrediting of climate skeptics' views and discarding of temperature data, suggesting a bias for making the case for warming. Why do such a thing if, as global warming defenders contend, the "science is settled?"

FOIGate ? The British government has since determined someone at East Anglia committed a crime by refusing to release global warming documents sought in 95 Freedom of Information Act requests. The CRU is one of three international agencies compiling global temperature data. If their stuff's so solid, why the secrecy?

ChinaGate ? An investigation by the U.K.'s left-leaning Guardian newspaper found evidence that Chinese weather station measurements not only were seriously flawed, but couldn't be located. "Where exactly are 42 weather monitoring stations in remote parts of rural China?" the paper asked. The paper's investigation also couldn't find corroboration of what Chinese scientists turned over to American scientists, leaving unanswered, "how much of the warming seen in recent decades is due to the local effects of spreading cities, rather than global warming?" The Guardian contends that researchers covered up the missing data for years.

HimalayaGate ? An Indian climate official admitted in January that, as lead author of the IPCC's Asian report, he intentionally exaggerated when claiming Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035 in order to prod governments into action. This fraudulent claim was not based on scientific research or peer-reviewed. Instead it was originally advanced by a researcher, since hired by a global warming research organization, who later admitted it was "speculation" lifted from a popular magazine. This political, not scientific, motivation at least got some researcher funded.

PachauriGate? Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman who accepted with Al Gore the Nobel Prize for scaring people witless, at first defended the Himalaya melting scenario. Critics, he said, practiced "voodoo science." After the melting-scam perpetrator 'fessed up, Pachauri admitted to making a mistake. But, he insisted, we still should trust him.

PachauriGate II ? Pachauri also claimed he didn't know before the 192-nation climate summit meeting in Copenhagen in December that the bogus Himalayan glacier claim was sheer speculation. But the London Times reported that a prominent science journalist said he had pointed out those errors in several e-mails and discussions to Pachauri, who "decided to overlook it." Stonewalling? Cover up? Pachauri says he was "preoccupied." Well, no sense spoiling the Copenhagen party, where countries like Pachauri's India hoped to wrench billions from countries like the United States to combat global warming's melting glaciers. Now there are calls for Pachauri's resignation.

SternGate ? One excuse for imposing worldwide climate crackdown has been the U.K.'s 2006 Stern Report, an economic doomsday prediction commissioned by the government. Now the U.K. Telegraph reports that quietly after publication "some of these predictions had been watered down because the scientific evidence on which they were based could not be verified." Among original claims now deleted were that northwest Australia has had stronger typhoons in recent decades, and that southern Australia lost rainfall because of rising ocean temperatures. Exaggerated claims get headlines. Later, news reporters disclose the truth. Why is that?

SternGate II ? A researcher now claims the Stern Report misquoted his work to suggest a firm link between global warming and more-frequent and severe floods and hurricanes. Robert Muir-Wood said his original research showed no such link. He accused Stern of "going far beyond what was an acceptable extrapolation of the evidence." We're shocked.

AmazonGate ? The London Times exposed another shocker: the IPCC claim that global warming will wipe out rain forests was fraudulent, yet advanced as "peer-reveiwed" science. The Times said the assertion actually "was based on an unsubstantiated claim by green campaigners who had little scientific expertise," "authored by two green activists" and lifted from a report from the World Wildlife Fund, an environmental pressure group. The "research" was based on a popular science magazine report that didn't bother to assess rainfall. Instead, it looked at the impact of logging and burning. The original report suggested "up to 40 percent" of Brazilian rain forest was extremely sensitive to small reductions in the amount of rainfall, but the IPCC expanded that to cover the entire Amazon, the Times reported.

PeerReviewGate ? The U.K. Sunday Telegraph has documented at least 16 nonpeer-reviewed reports (so far) from the advocacy group World Wildlife Fund that were used in the IPCC's climate change bible, which calls for capping manmade greenhouse gases.

RussiaGate ? Even when global warming alarmists base claims on scientific measurements, they've often had their finger on the scale. Russian think tank investigators evaluated thousands of documents and e-mails leaked from the East Anglia research center and concluded readings from the coldest regions of their nation had been omitted, driving average temperatures up about half a degree.

Russia-Gate II ? Speaking of Russia, a presentation last October to the Geological Society of America showed how tree-ring data from Russia indicated cooling after 1961, but was deceptively truncated and only artfully discussed in IPCC publications. Well, at least the tree-ring data made it into the IPCC report, albeit disguised and misrepresented.

U.S.Gate ? If Brits can't be trusted, are Yanks more reliable? The U.S. National Climate Data Center has been manipulating weather data too, say computer expert E. Michael Smith and meteorologist Joesph D'Aleo. Forty years ago there were 6,000 surface-temperature measuring stations, but only 1,500 by 1990, which coincides with what global warming alarmists say was a record temperature increase. Most of the deleted stations were in colder regions, just as in the Russian case, resulting in misleading higher average temperatures.

IceGate ? Hardly a continent has escaped global warming skewing. The IPCC based its findings of reductions in mountain ice in the Andes, Alps and in Africa on a feature story of climbers' anecdotes in a popular mountaineering magazine, and a dissertation by a Switzerland university student, quoting mountain guides. Peer-reviewed? Hype? Worse?

ResearchGate? The global warming camp is reeling so much lately it must have seemed like a major victory when a Penn State University inquiry into climate scientist Michael Mann found no misconduct regarding three accusations of climate research impropriety. But the university did find "further investigation is warranted" to determine whether Mann engaged in actions that "seriously deviated from accepted practices for proposing, conducting or reporting research or other scholarly activities." Being investigated for only one fraud is a global warming victory these days.

ReefGate? Let's not forget the alleged link between climate change and coral reef degradation. The IPCC cited not peer-reviewed literature, but advocacy articles by Greenpeace, the publicity-hungry advocacy group, as its sole source for this claim.

AfricaGate ? The IPCC claim that rising temperatures could cut in half agricultural yields in African countries turns out to have come from a 2003 paper published by a Canadian environmental think tank ? not a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

DutchGate ? The IPCC also claimed rising sea levels endanger the 55 percent of the Netherlands it says is below sea level. The portion of the Netherlands below sea level actually is 20 percent. The Dutch environment minister said she will no longer tolerate climate researchers' errors.

AlaskaGate ? Geologists for Space Studies in Geophysics and Oceanography and their U.S. and Canadian colleagues say previous studies largely overestimated by 40 percent Alaskan glacier loss for 40 years. This flawed data are fed into those computers to predict future warming.

Fold this column up and lay it next to your napkin the next time you have Al Gore or his ilk to dine. It should make interesting after-dinner conversation.


the Warmers vs the Deniers