Revisions to “Climate Change Science”

August 30, 2007    Original version published on FOS website

September 8, 2007    Added in Sea Level Rise section: “See here for a description of how satellite data is calibrated to the sea level rise of a set of tide gauges.”
In Sun and Cosmic Rays section, added Open Solar Flux plot.

October 5, 2007    Made several typo corrections based on email from Joy Clarke.
Changed in Sea Level Rise section, ”Any difference between the raw satellite measurement and the tide gauge measurement is assumed … at the tide gauge location.”
Added “Wöppelmann et al used global positioning satellite (GPS) …. Note that this estimate is 58% less than the estimate reported (1993 - 2003) in the IPCC AR4. See here from World Climate Report, and the study abstract here.”

October 14, 2007    In Heating of the Troposphere section, changed “This graph shows two analyses … The two analyses use different methods to adjust for factors such as orbital decay and inter-satellite differences.”

Added in An Inconvenient Truth section, a discussion of the British High Court ruling the AIT with a link to 11 inaccuracies.

Added in Heating of the Troposphere section, “This shows that most of the global temperature change can not be attributed to increasing CO2 concentrations.”

Added to Summary section, “Computer model results presented in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report shows that if CO2 is the main climate driver, the temperature profile in the atmosphere will show a unique and distinctive pattern - a CO2 fingerprint of global warming. Actual temperature data shows no such CO2 fingerprint. Therefore, the computer model data proves that CO2 is not the main climate driver.”

October 25, 2007    Updated Surface and Troposphere Temperature Trend Tropics graph, added GHCN 2006.

October 28, 2007    In Heating of the Troposphere section, replaced the MSU Tropical Temperature graph (from Climate Audit) with graph created by me, data to September 2007.

November 1, 2007    In Sun and Cosmic Rays section, added a graph of troposphere temperature vs. cosmic ray count from Svensmark’s rebuttal of the Lockwood paper, with a discussion and link to my critique of the Lockwood paper.  Added H. Svensmark and E. Friis-Christensen names to second paragraph.

November 4, 2007    In Urban Heat Island Effects (UHI) section, added a graph and discussion of the UHI effect by Steve McIntyre based on data from a Peterson (2003) study, with links to the Peterson study abstract and the Climate Audit article.

In An Inconvenient Truth section, added a link to an article listing 35 errors in AIT by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley.

November 10, 2007   In IPCC Hockey Stick section, added "The IPCC argues that there was little natural climate change over the last 1000 years, so that the temperature change over the last 100 years in unusual and likely caused by human activities." to the first paragraph. Added a discussion of the NRC 2006 Report and the Wegman 2006 Report, and the IPCC's failure to consider the reports' findings in the Fourth Assessment Report.

Added a link to Holland's paper - "Bias and Concealment in the IPCC Process: The 'Hockey Stick' Affair and its Implications".

Shortened a section name to "Sun and Cosmic Rays".

In IPCC and Model Projections, added "Researchers at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) reported in September 2007 that individual tropical warming cycles that served as proxies for global warming saw a decrease in the coverage of heat-trapping [high altitude] cirrus clouds .... If computer models incorporated this enhanced cooling effect from high clouds, "it would reduce estimates of future warming by over 75 percent," Spencer said.

Added to Summary section, "Real world data shows that high clouds cause a strong negative feedback on climate, but climate models assume that clouds cause a positive feedback."

November 11, 2007   In IPCC and Model Projections, added a discussion of the Earthshine project, which shows that the climate forcing of changing albedo is much greater than that due to 20th century CO2 increases.

December 26, 2007   Updated the Tropical Lower Troposphere Temperatures graph in the Heating of the Troposphere section to November 2007. Added "Lower" to the graph title.

Added the Global Lower Troposphere Temperatures graph updated to November 2007 in the Introduction section.

Added a comment in the Sun Does Correlate to Temperature section that if one corrects the Scafetta and West analysis to use the uncontaminated satellite data, you find that the Sun has contributed about 75% of the global warming of the last century.

December 30, 2007  In the Urban Heat Island section, added a discussion of a paper by Ross McKitrick and Patrick Michaels published December 2007 concerning the correlations between the surface temperature record and social economic indicators. They conclude that adjustments made to the surface temperature record to correct for the urban heat effects are inadequate, and if the record was fully corrected the surface temperature trend from 1980 to 2002 would be reduced in half. Also added a discussion of the surface versus the troposphere temperature trends, and noted that correcting the surface record would reduce its trend to closely match that of the troposphere record.

In the IPCC and Model Projections section, added a discussion of a paper by Douglass et al published December 2007. The paper compared the troposphere temperature trends in the tropics predicted from climate models to actual satellite and radiosonde observations. It concludes that computer model results and observed temperature trends are in disagreement in most of the tropical troposphere, being separated by more than twice the uncertainty of the model mean. In layers near 5 km, the modelled trend is 100 to 300% higher than observed, and, above 8 km, modelled and observed trends have opposite signs.

Added to the Summary section, "In atmosphere layers near 5 km, the modelled trend is 100 to 300% higher than observed." and "Fully correcting the land temperature record would reduce the warming trend from 1980 to 2002 in half."

In the CO2 - Temperature Correlation section, added a statement that the Sun may have caused 10 to 20% of the increase in CO2 during the last century.

December 31, 2007  In the Sun Activity Does Correlate with Temperature section, updated the discussion on the Scafetta and West solar contribution to climate change to include information from their November 2007 paper.

January 1, 2008  In the Sun Activity Does Correlate with Temperature section, added a plot of the level of Lake Victoria and sunspot number with a discussion about the paper "Linkages between solar activity, climate predictability and water resource development" by WJR Alexander et al, June 2007.

January 6, 2008  In the Sun Activity Does Correlate with Temperature section, modified the Scafetta & West graph of Sun proxies versus Northern Hemisphere temperatures to include the MSU lower troposphere record from 1979. Using the satellite temperature record eliminates much of the urban heat island effect that contaminates the surface temperature record.

In the No Consensus section, added a link and comments about an open letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations titled "UN Climate Conference Taking the World in Entirely the Wrong Direction".

January 8, 2008  Updated the Tropical Lower Troposphere Temperatures graph and the Global Lower Troposphere Temperatures graph to December 2007.  These graphs are updated monthly.