New Research Report Shows CO2 Has No Significant Effect on Temperatures

As discussed last week, several reports have shown in the last year or two that carbon dioxide (CO₂) does not significantly affect global temperatures, contrary to endless repetitions to the contrary by climate alarmists and the mainstream press. Today some of the same authors of the reports discussed last week have released a new report that among other things makes a similar point using a different data set, making a total of 15 such data sets between the earlier reports and this new report. This is like doing 15 experiments using different observations of the same phenomenon and reaching the same conclusion each time. As explained last week, I believe this “no significant effect” finding is the most important finding of climate research in the last few years.

The release of this new report today was accompanied by the following press release:

PRESS RELEASE
Comment on “Examination of space-based bulk atmospheric temperatures used in climate research” by Christy et al. (2018)
Research Report
by James P. Wallace III, Joseph S. D’Aleo, & Craig D. Idso
Third Edition, May, 2018

A just released peer reviewed Climate Science Research Report has once again proven that it is all but certain that EPA’s basic claim that CO₂ is a pollutant is totally false. All research was done pro bono.

This research was carried out using as its temperature data the UAH TLT 6.0 atmospheric temperature data. UAH data has been clearly shown to be the very best data available. This research involved the use of mathematical methods of econometrics specifically designed for structural analysis of time series data. These methods have been demonstrated to be highly credible when applied to data such as the UAH temperature data.

The Christy et al (2018) paper discussed in this Research Report does provide lower temperature linear trend positive slope estimates than do many other researchers. However, quite properly, the Christy et al. (2018) paper does not claim that this lower linear trend positive slope finding implies anything whatsoever regarding a proof that CO₂ has had a statistical significant impact on the Earth’s temperature over the last 50 years or so.

This Research Report argues that this statistical significance issue must be addressed using appropriate mathematical methods. Such methods are once again used in this new research and prove that increasing atmospheric CO₂concentrations did not have a statistically significant impact on the UAH TLT 6.0 temperature data set over the period 1979 to 2016.

In fact, this Research Report demonstrates that there was a “Pause” in UAH TLT temperature trend increases over the 1995 to 2016 period. This is a time period over which atmospheric CO2 concentrations increased by over 12.0%.

Furthermore, based on a well-known solar activity forecast (Abdussamatov 2015) and specific assumptions on the other natural explanatory variables (i.e., volcanic and oceanic/ENSO activity), this new Research Report also provides a long-term forecast that UAH TLT temperatures are very likely to exhibit a declining trend over the period through 2026 at the least.

But, the Research Report points out that, even if temperature data had happened to have had a statistically significant downward sloping trend, it would not have guaranteed that CO₂ had not had a statistically significant positive impact on temperature. It simply would have required the use of the proper mathematical tools to obtain the statistical results to have proved it. This is why all of the focus on the magnitude of the slope of linear temperature trends by most climate scientists makes no sense to analysts experienced in econometrics-based structural analysis.

Finally, making another key technical point, the Research Report argues against the use of reanalysis data in structural analysis since its use makes mathematically rigorous hypothesis testing virtually impossible.

The merits of the econometrics-based statistical methodology used in this Research Report and its predecessors versus that used in developing the Climate Models relied upon in EPA’s CO₂ Endangerment Finding becomes more obvious every day, the explanation for which has been further discussed in highly relevant Congressional Testimony quoted at length in this Comment.