UN IPCC Scientist: 'No convincing scientific arguments to support claim that increases in greenhouse gases are harmful to the climate'  

Tuesday, May 05, 2009By Marc Morano  –  Climate Depot

Selected excerpts from UN IPCC scientist's recent testimony.

IPCC reviewer and climate researcher and chemist Dr. Vincent Gray of New Zealand is an expert reviewer on every single draft of the IPCC reports going back to 1990 and author of The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of "Climate Change 2001. Dr. Gray's research is featured on page 155 of the 2009 edition of the 255-page "U.S. Senate Minority Report Update: More Than 700 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims"

Below are selected excerpts of his testimony before New Zealand's Committee for the Emissions Trading Scheme Review May 5, 2009:

I am an experienced research chemist, with a PhD from Cambridge 1946, and a long research career in the UK, France, Canada, New Zealand and China. I have over 100 scientific publications, many of them on climate science, which I have studied intensively for the past 18 years.

I have been an Expert Reviewer for the IPCC Reports since the beginning in 1990.I submitted 1,898 comments to the last (fourth) Working Group I (Science) Report.

I was recently invited to the Beijing Climate Center as a Visiting Scholar and I recently lectured to a Conference in New York.

I have reluctantly concluded, after detailed study of the evidence presented by the IPCC, that there are no convincing scientific arguments to support the claim that increases in greenhouse gases are harmful to the climate. [...]

The IPCC “central/benchmark projections” are based on a combination pf ridiculously oversimplified models and unrealistic futures scenarios. The projections themselves conflict with the current fall in global temperatures, the absence of any warming in New Zealand, and the lack of local evidence of sea level change. [...]

The presumed dangers of failing to implement the Emissions Trading Scheme appear to be illusory. We have enough problems coping with the current economic crisis without burdening ourselves with additional costs to our manufacturing and farming industries and adopting uneconomic sources of energy. [...]

Changes in climate can have many causes, some of which are partially understood, but the influence of increases in greenhouse gases are not likely to be important if there is no detectable warming resulting from them. [...] In reality the sun only shines in the daytime. The earth absorbs energy by day and emits it by night. It rotates, so that all surfaces have a diurnal and seasonal cycle. There is no energy balance anywhere, and no net energy balance either, as there are warming and cooling cycles of different lengths. Also none of the greenhouse gases are “well-mixed”, so the assumption by models that they are is wrong. [...]

The first IPCC Working Group I Report "Climate Change", published in 1990, provided the first set of climate models, from which the Panel made predictions about future global temperature change. It contained a Chapter 4 entitled "Validation of Climate Models". A similar Chapter appeared in the First Draft of the Second (1995) Report. I sent in a comment pointing out that the Title of this Chapter was inappropriate, since no Climate Model had ever been "validated" in the sense understood by computer engineers. They agreed with me. The same Chapter in the next Draft was entitled "Evaluation of Computer Models", and they had changed the word "validation" to "evaluation" throughout the Chapter no less than fifty times. Since then, they have never used the word “validation”, and their models now never make “predictions”, but “projections”, dependent only on the prior assumptions.

"Validation" is a term used by computer engineers for the procedure that has to be applied to computer models before they can be considered useful for future prediction. This procedure must involve successful prediction of the range of circumstances for which it is to be used. Unless this is done there is no evidence of how accurate the predictions can be.

Not only has no computer climate model ever been subjected to this process, no IPCC Report has even discussed how it might be done. As a result, computer models cannot make "predictions", they only provide "projections" which are based on the value of the assumptions made in their preparation. Also there is no evidence as to how accurate they might be. This is one reason why the IPCC never gives opinions on the relative importance of the many models. There is no probability range for the models, and there is no "central" model. They do, however, seem prepared to provide “best estimates” and “likely ranges” .which are no more than guesswork. One early example of such a “best estimate” was decided by “a show of hands” by model providers.

Dr. Gray's research is featured on page 155 of the 2009 edition of the 255-page "U.S. Senate Minority Report Update: More Than 700 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims"

Comments 0 Print    Filed under: emissions, global warming, science
Get updates by email
  1. Der Spiegel: German Scientist: 'I Feel Duped on Climate Change...The climate catastrophe is not occurring' -- 'Dozens of Solar Researchers Agree with Me'
  2. Climate change induced jellyfish blooms debunked! 'New study has found claims of a jellyfish plague are scientifically unsubstantiated'
  3. New study: 'A significant measure of negative feedback to global warming' -- It is little wonder that rate of global temp rise during this period has been so paltry!'
  4. New Study: 'The Himalayas and nearby peaks have lost no ice in past 10 years' -- Scientists 'stunned'
  5. Study: Earth's Polar Ice Melting Less Than Thought
  6. Update: New peer-reviewed study concludes 20th century warming was 'within the range of natural variability over the last 12 centuries'
  7. Just Released NOAA Data Shows January Temperatures Cooling At -17.3°F/Century Rate; U.S. At -4.1°F/Century Rate
  8. Fmr. Harvard U. Physicist Dr. Lubos Motl Praises Santorum's skeptical climate view: 'I would subscribe every letter Santorum has said' (Video clip of Santorum's views)
  9. New film targets kids: EPA partners with tree-hugging Dr. Seuss character who 'speaks for the trees and fights rampant industrialism'
  10. Prof. Judith Curry declares 'Its time to abandon the concept of consensus' -- 'Courtesy of CRU emails, we now understand the sausage making that went into creating the consensus'
  11. Scientific Consensus? 'Consensus is a proxy for 'common wisdom' or 'commonly believed'...a nose count. It is not, of course, science'
  12. HadCRUT Coverage : Worse Than It Seems: 'The map shows typical HadCRUT land coverage in 1860s. Land coverage is well below 10%,yet global temps are reported to 0.001 precision. A complete farce'
  13. Two more scientists change sides in the AGW debate: Der Spiegel featured a 4-page exclusive interview with Vahrenholt, where he repeated that the IPCC has ignored a large part of climate science'
  14. Atmospheric physicist Dr. Fred Singer says Climategate revealed ''The people who did the IPCC reports were essentially crooks'
  15. Climategate update: Climate Audit's McIntyre catches the University of East Anglia in a web of lies
  1. Flashback April 2009: Democrats Refuse to Allow Skeptic to Testify Alongside Gore At Congressional Hearing
  2. Morano: 'The scientific reality is that from A-Z, the scientific case for man-made climate fears has collapsed'
  3. Climate Ethics Prof. Donald Brown Exposed for 'vacuous spinning of science and subpar understanding of climate bill' (Dab57@psu.edu)
  4. Watch Now: Climate Depot's Morano on Fox News talking Climategate, UN and latest science
  5. The Vindication of EPA's Alan Carlin: 'In 2009, when EPA announced its 'endangerment' finding...Carlin, a 35-year veteran EPA employee...produced a 98-page critique'
  6. Sec. Chu's assertions 'quite simply being proven wrong by the latest climate data'
  7. Climate Depot's Marc Morano Statement on NYT OpEd Comparing Warming fears to Frankenstein, Y2k & 'UFO Cults'
  8. Climate Depot Wins Another Award! Daily Caller: Climate Depot Shares '2010 Award for Political Incorrectness' with Sen. Inhofe!
  9. Flashback: Gore: U.S. Climate Bill Will Help Bring About 'Global Governance'
  10. Tarot Cards for 'Climate Astrology': Natural Resources Defense Council: 'Unusual amounts of snow or lack of snow are all signs of global warming'
  11. Watch Now! Climate Depot's Morano in MSNBC TV Debate with Daniel Weiss of Center for Am. Progress: Morano: 'The whole entire [warming] industry has been exposed as sub-prime science'
  12. Damage Control?! Is this the Scientific Method? UN IPCC: We 'firmly stands behind' our report: Global warming conclusions 'have been approved word by word by the GOVERNMENTS of the world'
  13. Read All About it! Climate Depot Exclusive - Continuously Updated 'ClimateGate' News Round Up
  14. Gore leaves car idling for one hour during speech; Opts for Swedish government jet over public transportation
  15. SPECIAL REPORT: More Than 1000 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims - Challenge UN IPCC & Gore
  1. Flashback April 2009: Democrats Refuse to Allow Skeptic to Testify Alongside Gore At Congressional Hearing
  2. Morano: 'The scientific reality is that from A-Z, the scientific case for man-made climate fears has collapsed'
  3. Climate Ethics Prof. Donald Brown Exposed for 'vacuous spinning of science and subpar understanding of climate bill' (Dab57@psu.edu)
  4. Watch Now: Climate Depot's Morano on Fox News talking Climategate, UN and latest science
  5. The Vindication of EPA's Alan Carlin: 'In 2009, when EPA announced its 'endangerment' finding...Carlin, a 35-year veteran EPA employee...produced a 98-page critique'
  6. Sec. Chu's assertions 'quite simply being proven wrong by the latest climate data'
  7. Climate Depot's Marc Morano Statement on NYT OpEd Comparing Warming fears to Frankenstein, Y2k & 'UFO Cults'
  8. Climate Depot Wins Another Award! Daily Caller: Climate Depot Shares '2010 Award for Political Incorrectness' with Sen. Inhofe!
  9. Flashback: Gore: U.S. Climate Bill Will Help Bring About 'Global Governance'
  10. Tarot Cards for 'Climate Astrology': Natural Resources Defense Council: 'Unusual amounts of snow or lack of snow are all signs of global warming'
  11. Watch Now! Climate Depot's Morano in MSNBC TV Debate with Daniel Weiss of Center for Am. Progress: Morano: 'The whole entire [warming] industry has been exposed as sub-prime science'
  12. Damage Control?! Is this the Scientific Method? UN IPCC: We 'firmly stands behind' our report: Global warming conclusions 'have been approved word by word by the GOVERNMENTS of the world'
  13. Read All About it! Climate Depot Exclusive - Continuously Updated 'ClimateGate' News Round Up
  14. Gore leaves car idling for one hour during speech; Opts for Swedish government jet over public transportation
  15. SPECIAL REPORT: More Than 1000 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims - Challenge UN IPCC & Gore