Sunday 24 August 2014

An evidential analysis of global warming

Assuming an acceptance of the scientific formulae, such as CO2 adding 1C per doubling, and the basics of the greenhouse effect itself, this is a legal analysis of the elements of man made global warming using principles normally used in assessing the evidence in a criminal trial, where the entire prosecution is presented as a case to beat the null hypothesis, ie the defendant is guilty, beyond reasonable doubt. As mankind is on trial for a civil wrong and punished by financial penalties this is an added similarity to a criminal trial, as both need to beat the null hypothesis beyond reasonable doubt, and technically there is no official reason to even provide evidence for the defence as the case ought to stand up by itself. In fact this rarely happens as the defence provide true alibi evidence in a false prosecution, as well as cross examining the prosecution as they are all actually wrong in reality. This can be proved totally when another person is latterly found guilty of the same offence, and otherwise by weight of evidence. The similarity of both is unless they can be proved beyond reasonable doubt they are void ab initio, non-existent in reality.

I will take each element used by scientists in their papers and run it through the same process a judge would use in deciding both the admissibility, ie whether it stands up as evidence at all, and if so its value- direct, supporting or tenuous.

Known advantages of warming, unknown disadvantages: 

Although many experts claim it is not physically possible to prove the greenhouse effect, I will take it as read as the UN themselves provided the formula for significant global warming, a rise above 2C where the known (from historic records) benefits of global warming are outweighed by the unknown (we have no direct knowledge) problems. This itself is disputed, as using models the UN and their teams claim they do know what will happen, so we begin with secondary evidence versus direct. This is because numerous records from just the last warmer period, the medieval, proves beyond any doubt there was more food, fewer wars, less energy usage and fewer deaths from cold. The known element here (no doubt at all) is more people die of extreme cold than heat, as only the weaker members of society die of heat while everyone dies of cold equally.

So the first issue is the evidence for advantages of warming versus problems is far stronger, as based on direct knowledge opposed to speculated.

Feedback:

The next and vital element is the reason converting the 1C rise for doubling of CO2 (expected around 2100) is positive feedback, nearly all from evaporating oceans sending more water vapour into the atmosphere, which is theorised and can now be directly measured by satellites. Indirectly it can also be measured as if the temperature only rises by the base amount or so then it directly proves (as the temperature and increase in humidity from added water vapour are directly linked) it is absent or lower than modelled. This is first level, direct evidence. The temperature has risen 0.8C since 1850 and CO2 has conveniently risen about 50%. That means even if all the rise was from CO2 (which it isn't) it would only rise 1.6C at 520ppm, which the UN agree is good news and not able to cause significant disruption. As the temperature had been rising since the little ice age, as it always rises or falls between them all, the official (albeit very hard to find) attribution to CO2 is 0.5-6C, of which a doubling almost exactly matches the bare figure for doubling with no feedback. As water evaporates evenly, and there is no paper expecting delays in feedback (the models predict a 0.2C rise on average per decade) the direct evidence is the guilt of positive feedback was at home with its wife, not out partying in the atmosphere. It's not even absent by inference, NASA have measured its decline, and this is clearly a trend, and its AQUA satellite also discovered one reason it was reducing was it was being replaced by the added CO2 in the bands causing warming, which is many times less powerful than the water vapour it is replacing. That I would call a good alibi.

Global humidity


Direct and secondary evidence:

Law and science, as all life and logic shares, has primary and secondary effects. It is not possible for a temperature rise without a cause, even when we aren't sure what it is. Evaporation, sea level rise, and ice melt are the three major effects of a rising temperature. Sea level rises half from expansion and half from land ice melts, nearly all from Greenland plus some land based glaciers, as the Antarctic averages -46C and cannot melt under normal circumstances regardless of the CO2. You can directly measure the expansion and ice loss per C and less, and that has been forecast that the current <2mm rise per year could rise to 4mm or more. Switching to inches which I can follow properly, that would currently mean a rise from the 8 inches in the 20th century to around 12 inches at the current 3mm rise a year. That is not significant, as James Hansen is talking about up to 20 feet by 2100, which is not based on any evidence at all, and manages to invent Hansen's own new law of physics, by displaying a graph showing a logarithmic rise in sea level rather than the usual linear, with the rise waiting right till the end of the 21st century, ensuring none of us can ever know either way. Also (to see another element of doubt) the ancient land based measurements appear to be rising at a stable rate as in the 20th century while only the less directly measurable satellites show the added 1mm rise. There is at least one example of both faulty temperature satellites being used for years, which may have provided enough temperature rise alone for concern, and the entire system being calibrated slightly too high, adding the 1mm from the error alone. Ice core problems

Of course such a tactic in business and law would not only be frowned upon, but rejected and possibly considered for contempt of court or worse. I will leave this to your own judgement as little in the field of global warming cannot be understood by the lay person when looking at the gross data rather than the theories which are behind it.

Temperature adjustments:

The temperature driving these three elements is not agreed at all. The past and present temperatures are all adjusted and revised constantly, and the legal alarm which went off with the present temperatures are when adjusted for heat islands and missing weather stations etc, nearly all the graphs are tilted up at the present however they started off. (LINK) This is the territory of police constables who find a similar story turning up in all their interviews, showing the witnesses and suspects got together in advance to concoct a story. Where random figures all look regular (as they did in the Dutch fake sociological study in city centres, which was the only way they found they had been written in his house rather than in the field as claimed) there are alarm bells ringing pointing to a common element of manipulation. Filling in the gaps as you choose Australian adjustments

The UN themselves have set the standard for adjustments, although in their credit after three major revisions, the third in 2014 was actually slightly higher in the past than the last flattening. But each time their cheerleaders say that they have vastly improved their means to measure the past temperature, meaning you can discard the old models and use the new ones, until a few years later they bring out yet another one. How can you tell which is the best and if the latest is the last? You can't.

Inconsistency:

Incosistency is a shrieking siren in a court case. If ten witnesses to a road accident describe the speed and appearance of the cars and the drivers differently, only one can be right, and you don't know which one. If enough disagree the case must be dismissed. The scientists here use two measurements, the direct data and the anomaly, the change from a chosen point in time, which is meant to compare old and new and iron out any noise and other variations. Then you take the sets of each, for every possible criterion, and find they disagree. Not slightly or occasionally but as the norm. Going back to our road accident, how would you know which of the many varieties of past and present measurements are genuine, and which are either adjusted, filled in for empty areas unable to be measured directly, and entirely made up. Look at these for examples covering pretty much everything. World temperature variations

Future based evidence:

One thing you can never hear in a court case, besides a few medical civil cases, is a future prognosis, and criminal cases entirely are based on the past. In science there are two ways to predict, or forecast as they prefer to use, linear and non-linear. Linear are not only predictable but almost guaranteed, as they are linked systems like the solar system and can be followed for millions of years past and future reliably. Unless something is linear it is chaotic. These are also called closed and open systems. A closed system does not allow any loss to outside, like a real greenhouse has a glass roof blocking all air totally. An open system is the theoretical greenhouse above the earth, made of gas, totally permeable and constantly moving. You should begin to be seeing the differences now, although both are treated the same by the media and politicians. But when the UN themselves state clearly "The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible." yet ignore their own advice, as does the entire climate science community. Weather forecasts before the global warming meme were never more than six months ahead, normally three, as the probability gets closer to 50-50 the further ahead you go until it becomes no better than random. Why would this change for many years ahead (the current IPCC report goes ahead a few hundred years) for climate?

Induction:

Science, law and life all state you cannot generalise from the particular to the general. So if you read National Geographic, New Scientist and Nature magazines, why are most of the pieces on global warming, most based on newly published peer reviewed papers, either looking at local changes in ice, wildlife, temperature or rainfall? Interesting as it may be, firstly the major consideration must always lead the minor. If the UN say these problems will occur from 1-3C, and we have not yet reached 1C, how can they suggest any changes are from a temperature rise at all, let alone local ones? The answer is they can't. Not at all. They are providing irrelevant evidence. If it was added and collected and showed a trend for the entire world, like the temperature and sea level rises, then you could naturally assume a cause, even if you weren't sure what it was. But they don't do that, you get minute details about local plant changes in some remote part of the world, migration patterns of animals changing, difference in fish where they are being caught in larger numbers, and water distribution in areas affected by irrigation and deforestation, damming rivers and digging canals to explain every single change directly without any reference to the temperature. How and why inductive material beats the peer review is beyond the scope of science, and the reasons again simple enough to deduce (the proper method at all times) by the readers themselves.

Speculation:

The second class of paper, equally represented in said journals and most media reports, are speculation. This of course is both outside the realm of law as irrelevant, and science outside the shortest future runs of chaotic open systems. But they still do it, and with absolutely no limits, and only some including the literal grey areas of error margins, much like losing a bet on nearly every number on a roulette wheel. They have fixed the odds so much in their favour if you invested in one of their schemes you would lose if the temperature rose between 1 and 6C and they would claim the cash invested for themselves. Is that a good or fair deal? Obviously not. But this is what they rely on almost entirely, partly as it is not yet happening by actual temperatures alone, and partly as we will never know as even they know it can't happen at all in our lifetimes so we have all been forced into a policy which will never pay out.

Claims about the speed of change are rife. The basis of man made warming is such changes themselves are within the normal range, but the current speed is unique. That is simply wrong. I only read in Thursday's Times (21-8-14) they now think Neanderthal man was wiped out by a Heinrich Event, a drop of 10C in a single year. And our current rise is unique?

Errors:

There are degrees of errors, everyone makes human mistakes, but there is a level impossible to reproduce by carelessness, and therefore almost certainly has to be deliberate. One, such as the use of a high-reading satellite for many years before its discovery (probably) and then not adjusting the past figures to account for it can never be accounted for by an oversight. But if this next example even happened once, rather than extend from the particular I can use the alternative of precedent to cover this, which means if it can happen at all (like exceeding the speed of light or getting out more power than you put in a system) it is possible. Here is an example where an exact amount of ice was being lost from the largest non-polar glaciers in the world, until someone actually measured it- they had not only made the entire thing up but even to the exact figures. That is another element of a case, the credibility of the witness, and this was a massive one at the top of the chain, and the precedent if they have been caught simply writing figures from their desk, exactly like the criminally convicted Dutch professor, how many more times have they done it?

"The world's greatest snow-capped peaks, which run in a chain from the Himalayas to Tian Shan on the border of China and Kyrgyzstan, have lost no ice over the last decade, new research shows.

The discovery has stunned scientists, who had believed that around 50bn tonnes of meltwater were being shed each year and not being replaced by new snowfall."


Guardian article 

Unknowns and dismissed alibis/defences:

Leaving the realm of the prosecution, we have a pretty strong case for the defence. Not necessarily a direct alibi with photographic and DNA evidence or I wouldn't be here writing this now, but definitely reasonable doubt, all you need for an acquittal. These include claims over solar influences (sunspots and irradiance), both dismissed as trivial by the UN, past cycles corresponding to present cycles independent of CO2 (very high confidence), CO2 rising after the temperature rises as it is emitted by the ocean (accepted, the counterclaim being today's event is unique in history from burning fossil fuel so not happening in the usual way now), and of course a simple lack of rising temperature at the required rate. Decadal oceanic oscillations also appear to correspond to the 30 year sine wave of recent temperatures (only measured directly since 1850), and the more you add the closer it follows the line, most when combined with solar activity. A pretty good fit and consequent evidence of an alternative driver of temperature changes. Absence of evidence speaks far more for the case than any other, as if the prosecution cannot produce a body, a witness or even direct evidence the defendant was even there then the case is dropped before trial by the judge.  

Solar forcing Oceanic cycles

Speculation is not part of a legal trial at all, so would simply never appear, but applying their own criteria prior to the emergence of serious climatology in the 1980s, meteorologists would not look more than six months ahead, and always give the odds per month for the chance of a win. Not any more. Induction is void, so a court would simply dismiss every single paper claiming a different migration route for moose in NW Canada is because of global warming, or the Himalayan tulips are moving 10 miles north a year. Interesting but meaningless in the context they are claiming to use them in.
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Looking at the evidence as laid out, summing up, I will sort it from the direct (best) to the worst, and hopefully will present the entire system so you can see the relative value of each and every known element.

Temperature: Direct, indirect (when estimated where not directly measured) and adjusted. High, medium and uncertain value respectively.

Sea level: Direct- very high confidence Satellite- high confidence

Ice coverage: Direct coverage- very high confidence (visible for coverage by satellite views) Thickness- medium (as much is impossible to measure beyond a certain depth).

CO2 greenhouse effect: High as reflected by measurements relative to temperature after a 50% rise.

Positive feedback: High as directly measured by satellites and indirectly by the linked temperature.

Models of the future: Inadmissible as based on unproven and largely untestable material with vast areas not included such as clouds, aerosol and water vapour as unable to forecast with any reasonable consistency.

Local conditions: Irrelevant, only admissible if represent a total worldwide trend, otherwise not significant of anything.

History: Very high to medium, depending on its source. Ice cores for example are riven with problems as the air can both degrade and vary in nature, while tree rings can grow from added water and CO2 as well as temperature and can easily be selected for local conditions and then attempt to be used to represent the whole area, which is induction. Written and known direct evidence is very high, as grapes can only grow at specific temperatures, so wine grown in the north of England from local fruit meant there had to be a higher temperature than present. It also proves temperatures can go up by as many and more degrees than present, and the direct effects on society and nature.

Equations: Not to be confused with the real world. You cannot find an effect in isolation however directly it can be measured mathematically or experimentally. They are indirect and either indicate the world basically follows them, as in a 1C rise for doubling CO2 which is based on 160 years of evidence, or clearly not as there is no increase in temperature above this.
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Witness testimony:

Professor William Gray (for the defence), Colorado University:

You don’t believe global warming is causing climate change?
G: No. If it is, it is causing such a small part that it is negligible. I’m not disputing that there has been global warming. There was a lot of global warming in the 1930s and ’40s, and then there was a slight global cooling from the middle ’40s to the early ’70s. And there has been warming since the middle ’70s, especially in the last 10 years. But this is natural, due to ocean circulation changes and other factors. It is not human induced.

Colin McNickle, Tribune Review: "Throughout most of the world, cold-related deaths are far more numerous than heat-related deaths. In absolute terms, a warmer climate would mean that additional deaths due to heat would be much smaller than the reduction in deaths due to cold. The effects of heat on humans are also manageable with simple adaptive measures."

Martin Agerup, the economist president of the Danish Academy for Future Studies and one of the lead authors of "The impacts for climate change: An appraisal for the future":
 
"Predictions of extreme (global warming) impacts are based on scenarios of future emissions of greenhouse gases that are fundamentally flawed. These scenarios employ faulty logic, faulty science and faulty economics, thereby massively over-estimating future emissions and any warming that might result." "Future changes in sea level are based on models that over-estimate current sea-level change by 100 percent. If observations rather than models are used, estimates of future sea-level rises are far more modest ... in the next 100 years."  

Berkeley University BEST report: This totally reproduced Michael Mann's hockey stick diagram (using the same data, so it would wouldn't it), but then tucked this paragraph away in the notes. Such changes may be independent responses to a common forcing (e.g.greenhouse gases); however, it is also possible that some of the land warming is a direct response to changes in the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation region. If the long-term AMO changes have been driven by greenhouse gases then the AMO region may serve as a positive feedback that amplifies the effect of greenhouse gas forcing over land. On the other hand, some of the long-term change in the AMO could be driven by natural variability, e.g. fluctuations in thermohaline flow. In that case the human component of global warming may be somewhat overestimated.”

In court this would weaken their case as brings in a material uncertainty.

More from the IPCC directly: "Projections of climate change and its impacts beyond about 2050 are strongly scenario- and model-dependent, and improved projections would require improved understanding of sources of uncertainty and enhancements in systematic observation networks. {WGII TS.6}"
"Uncertainty in the equilibrium climate sensitivity creates uncertainty
in the expected warming for a given CO2-eq stabilisation
scenario. Uncertainty in the carbon cycle feedback creates uncertainty
in the emissions trajectory required to achieve a particular
stabilisation level."
Dr Tim Ball, climatologist.
 
So there’s a classic example of the kind of thing that bothered me. About twenty years ago, I started saying ‘Well why are they pushing the peer review?’… And now of course we realise it’s because they had control of their own process. That’s clearly exposed in these emails."
 
David Deming,    2005
A major person working in the area of climate change and global warming sent me an astonishing email that said, ‘We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.’"
Syun-Ichi Akasofu 2008
No supercomputer, however powerful, is able to prove definitively a simplistic hypothesis that says the greenhouse effect is responsible for warming... The models are tuned to assume a high climate sensitivity, so a high climate sensitivity is what they find.”

IPCC

Climate has always varied on all time-scales, so the observed changes may be natural.”  
Eavesdropping is also allowed in court, as long as carried out within the law. Here are four choice off the record comments in personal communications:
 "Observations do not show rising temperatures throughout the tropical troposphere unless you accept one single study and approach and discount a wealth of others. This is just downright dangerous. We need to communicate the uncertainty and be honest. Phil, hopefully we can find time to discuss these further if necessary"
"I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run."
"It seems that a few people have a very strong say, and no matter how much talking goes on beforehand, the big decisions are made at the eleventh hour by a select core group."
"Mike, The Figure you sent is very deceptive [...] there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model results by individual authors and by IPCC"
 

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