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APOCALYPSE CANCELLED THE GLOBAL WARMING DEBATE APOCALYPSE CANCELLED GLOBAL THE WARMING DEBATE Scientists argue that the "hockey stick" graph used by the UN to demonstrate recent trends in global warming is based on a false algorithm, and leads to wrong conclusions being drawn. n the Sunday Telegraph articles for 5 and 12 November 2006, I have done my best to steer between the strongly held opinions and propaganda statements of climate change true-believers and contrarians alike. Climate change is an inescapably political issue. I have spent several months reading the leading scientific papers and assessing the arguments put forward, often with passionate conviction, by the protagonists on both sides. The official case depends crucially on a series of assumptions whose truth has not been demonstrated, some of which are not easily testable. In particular, the temperature effect at the surface of the incompletely saturated peripheral absorption bands of CO> at the tropopause cannot be confidently estimated. Air and sea temperatures have failed to rise anything like as much as "global warming" theory predicts. Explanations for the shortfall of observed out-turn against theoretical projection are mutually inconsistent and scientifically dubious. I conclude that, on the balance of probabilities, the contrarians are significantly closer to the truth than the United Nations (UN) and its supporters. — Monckton of Brenchley Is there a scientific consensus about global warming? All climate scientists accept that there are more greenhouse gases in the air than there were, and that in consequence the world will warm somewhat. There is no consensus on the central question of how much warming there will be. The main area of dispute is about the magnitude of the temperature effect of carbon dioxide. Arrhenius (1896) was the first to calculate the effect of doubling atmospheric carbon dioxide, concluding that global temperature would rise by 8° C. In the 1970s, experiments showed that at the Earth's surface the principal absorption bands of atmospheric CO: were saturated, and it was thought that a doubling of CO2 might raise temperature by as little as 0.5° C. However, subsequent experiments indicated that in the much thinner air and much lower temperature at the tropopause—the top of the main atmospheric layer, around 5-11 miles up—the secondary absorption bands of CO: were not fully saturated. Some of the outgoing, long-wave radiation from the Earth's surface would be intercepted at the tropopause and scattered back into the troposphere. The UN's 1990 and 1996 Assessment Reports suggested that additional warming of 4.4 watts per square metre per second would occur. The 2001 report cut this figure to 3.7 watts. However, it is not clear how much of this additional energy reaches the surface. A submission to the UN by Dr Hugh Ellsaesser suggested that only 1.5 watts would reach the surface. See also De Laat et al. (2004) and Etheridge et al. (1996) for a discussion of man's contribution to the greenhouse effect. Leading climate scientists who strongly disagree with the view that additional carbon dioxide in the air will have the large effect on the climate suggested by the UN include Professor Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who recently received a £10,000 prize for courage in opposing conventional thinking. Some 41 scientists recently wrote to the Telegraph to say they were not part of, and were not convinced by, the "global warming" consensus. by Christopher Monckton (The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley) © 5 November 2006 Email: monckton@mail.com by Christopher Monckton (The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley) © 5 November 2006 Contrarians and the fossil fuel lobby: The Royal Society, in a current pamphlet entitled "A guide to facts and fictions about climate change", says: "There are some individuals and organisations, some of which are funded by the US oil industry, that seek to undermine the science of climate change and the work of the [UN] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change." NEXUS = 43 Email: monckton@mail.com DECEMBER 2006 — JANUARY 2007 www.nexusmagazine.com