🚀 go-pugleaf

World may not be warming, say scientists
Climate Research on weather stations casts doubt on the UN claim that
temperatures are rising
Jonathan Leake


The United Nations climate panel faces a new challenge with scientists
casting
doubt on its claim that global temperatures are rising inexorably because
of
human pollution.

In its last assessment the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) said
the evidence that the world was warming was �unequivocal�.

It warned that greenhouse gases had already heated the world by 0.7C and
that
there could be 5C-6C more warming by 2100, with devastating impacts on
humanity
and wildlife. However, new research, including work by British scientists,
is
casting doubt on such claims. Some even suggest the world may not be
warming
much at all.

�The temperature records cannot be relied on as indicators of global
change,�
said John Christy, professor of atmospheric science at the University of
Alabama
in Huntsville, a former lead author on the IPCC.

Related Links

    * Member of climate e-mail inquiry panel resigns

    * Science chief demands climate change honesty

The doubts of Christy and a number of other researchers focus on the
thousands
of weather stations around the world, which have been used to collect
temperature data over the past 150 years.

These stations, they believe, have been seriously compromised by factors
such as
urbanisation, changes in land use and, in many cases, being moved from
site to
site.

Christy has published research papers looking at these effects in three
different regions: east Africa, and the American states of California and
Alabama.

�The story is the same for each one,� he said. �The popular data sets show
a lot
of warming but the apparent temperature rise was actually caused by local
factors affecting the weather stations, such as land development.�

The IPCC faces similar criticisms from Ross McKitrick, professor of
economics at
the University of Guelph, Canada, who was invited by the panel to review
its
last report.

The experience turned him into a strong critic and he has since published
a
research paper questioning its methods.

�We concluded, with overwhelming statistical significance, that the IPCC�s
climate data are contaminated with surface effects from industrialisation
and
data quality problems. These add up to a large warming bias,� he said.

Such warnings are supported by a study of US weather stations co-written
by
Anthony Watts, an American meteorologist and climate change sceptic.

His study, which has not been peer reviewed, is illustrated with
photographs of
weather stations in locations where their readings are distorted by
heat-generating equipment.

Some are next to air- conditioning units or are on waste treatment
plants. One
of the most infamous shows a weather station next to a waste incinerator.

Watts has also found examples overseas, such as the weather station at
Rome
airport, which catches the hot exhaust fumes emitted by taxiing jets.

In Britain, a weather station at Manchester airport was built when the
surrounding land was mainly fields but is now surrounded by
heat-generating
buildings.

Terry Mills, professor of applied statistics and econometrics at
Loughborough
University, looked at the same data as the IPCC. He found that the warming
trend
it reported over the past 30 years or so was just as likely to be due to
random
fluctuations as to the impacts of greenhouse gases. Mills�s findings are
to be
published in Climatic Change, an environmental journal.

�The earth has gone through warming spells like these at least twice
before in
the last 1,000 years,� he said.

Kevin Trenberth, a lead author of the chapter of the IPCC report that
deals with
the observed temperature changes, said he accepted there were problems
with the
global thermometer record but these had been accounted for in the final
report.

�It�s not just temperature rises that tell us the world is warming,� he
said.
�We also have physical changes like the fact that sea levels have risen
around
five inches since 1972, the Arctic icecap has declined by 40% and snow
cover in
the northern hemisphere has declined.�

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts has recently issued
a new
set of global temperature readings covering the past 30 years, with
thermometer
readings augmented by satellite data.

Dr Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice at the Met Office,
said: �This new
set of data confirms the trend towards rising global temperatures and
suggest
that, if anything, the world is warming even more quickly than we had
thought.�

Surface temperature records: policy driven deception? - a report by Joseph
D�Aleo and Anthony Watts

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7026317.ece

_______________________________________________
Skeptix mailing list
Skeptix@lists.opn.org
http://lists.opn.org/mailman/listinfo/skeptix_lists.opn.org


--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: news@netfront.net ---