Climate Change Weekly #18
The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), already under severe criticism for violating the requirements of academic peer review and relying on secondary sources, comes under question again in a new report coproduced by three nonprofit research organizations.
Climate Change Reconsidered: 2011 Interim Report states, “natural causes are very likely to be [the] dominant” cause of climate change that took place in the twentieth and the start of the twenty-first centuries. The report also presents new research on a variety of additional climate change issues.
The 430-page report was coauthored and edited by three climate science researchers: Craig D. Idso, Ph.D. (at left), editor of the online journal CO2 Science and author of several books and scholarly articles on the effects of carbon dioxide on plant and animal life; Robert M. Carter, Ph.D., a marine geologist and research professor at James Cook University in Queensland, Australia; and S. Fred Singer, Ph.D., a distinguished atmospheric physicist and first director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service. Seven additional scientists and a policy expert on sustainable growth contributed to the volume.
The book is titled Climate Change Reconsidered: 2011 Interim Report because it precedes a comprehensive volume that is expected to be released in 2013. It focuses on scientific research released since publication of Climate Change Reconsidered: The 2009 Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC).
SOURCE: NIPCC
IN THIS ISSUE
Minority of Americans believe extreme weather claims … Astrophysicist Nir Shaviv explains importance of cosmic ray study … NASA data refute drought claims … Irene ends three-year hurricane drought … Cold water deadly for Florida corals … ClimateWiki update
MINORITY OF AMERICANS BELIEVE EXTREME WEATHER CLAIMS
Only 41 percent of Americans say global warming is creating more extreme weather events, according to a new Rasmussen poll. Forty-three percent (43%) disagree with that assessment, while 16 percent are not sure. This marks a large shift of public opinion since June 2008, when 51 percent said global warming is causing more extreme weather events, versus only 25 percent who disagreed.
SOURCE: Rasmussen Reports
ASTROPHYSICIST NIR SHAVIV EXPLAINS IMPORTANCE OF COSMIC RAY STUDY
Nir Shaviv, one of academia’s most highly respected astrophysicists, has published an excellent summary of how the cloud ionization study recently conducted by researchers at the CERN particle physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland supports a strong solar influence on global climate and cosmic ray theory in particular.
SOURCE: The Reference Frame
NASA DATA REFUTE DROUGHT CLAIMS
A new study by an international team of scientists strongly refutes a 2010 study claiming climate change and drought have induced a decline in global plant productivity during the past decade and posed a threat to global food security. New evidence from NASA satellite data show the earlier findings published by Zhao and Running resulted from several modeling errors, use of corrupted satellite data, and statistically insignificant trends.
SOURCE: Boston University
IRENE ENDS THREE-YEAR HURRICANE DROUGHT
When Hurricane Irene made landfall in North Carolina, it marked the first time in more than 1,000 days – just shy of three years – that a hurricane struck the contiguous United States. This matched the periods from 1980 through 1983 and 1999 through 2002 as the longest periods in recorded history that a hurricane did not strike the United States.
SOURCE: Forbes.com
COLD WATER DEADLY FOR FLORIDA CORALS
Corals off the coast of Florida died in record numbers in 2010 as a result of cold temperatures, scientists at the University of Miami report in the peer-reviewed science journal PLoS One. The cold temperatures in early 2010 were deadlier than bleaching events caused by warm water conditions, the scientists found.
SOURCE: University of Miami
CLIMATEWIKI UPDATE
The Heartland Institute has created a Web site, ClimateWiki.org, to help everyone – from high school students to scientists working in the field – quickly find the latest and most reliable information on climate science. Please send your suggestions for new pages or improvements to current ones to John Monaghan at [email protected]. And if you have new research to share, ClimateWiki.org is the perfect place.
An example from ClimateWiki, Funding Controversies, reads in part:
Funding becomes especially controversial when governments spend billions of dollars on “research” that sometimes amounts to little more than overt advocacy and propaganda. Global warming research has become a multi-billion-dollar industry that has a clear interest in sustaining the climate of fear and false certainty about the causes and consequences of climate change. Climate alarmists attempt to deflect attention to their own financial conflicts of interest by claiming that “skeptics” are funded by the fossil fuel industry and related interests.
If you have questions about The Heartland Institute, contact Jim Lakely, director of communications, [email protected] or call 312/377-4000.
RECOMMENDED SITES AND NEWSLETTERS
Power for USA
Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
ClimateWiki
Master Resource
The Climate Bet
International Climate Science Coalition
Climate Scientists’ Register
Science and Public Policy Institute
Climate Depot by Marc Morano
World Climate Report by Dr. Patrick Michaels
E-FACT Report by the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT)
Global Warming Policy Foundation by Benny Peiser
Biweekly Updates from the Cooler Heads Coalition
Climate and Environment Review by the Center Science and Public Policy
Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change by Craig Idso et al.
Watts Up With That? by Anthony Watts
ICECAP by Joseph D’Aleo
Climate Audit by Steve McIntyre
Climate Science by Roger Pielke Sr.
Junk Science by Steve Milloy
The Heartland Institute is a national, nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization whose mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. The Heartland Institute publishes the monthly newspaper Environment & Climate News and sponsors the International Conference on Climate Change, the largest regular gathering of global warming experts challenging the notion that humans are creating a global warming crisis. James M. Taylor is senior fellow for environment policy at The Heartland Institute and managing editor of Environment & Climate News.
The Climate Change Weekly Newsletter has been moved to HeartlandDailyNews.com. Please check there for future updates!
