By Dr. William J.R. Alexander, Professor Emeritus of the Department of Civil and Biosystems Engineering at the University of Pretoria in South Africa and a former member of the United Nations Scientific and Technical Committee on Natural Disasters.
Dr. Alexander’s Key Quote: “I have no more faith in global climate model (GCM) predictions than I have in all those emails from Nigeria advising me that I have won the Lotto, or those proposals from rich widows in Dubai who have just lost their husbands, or from the less frequent emails from my bank asking for details of my banking account. These GCMs are mathematical dinosaurs.”
Excerpt: These alarmist predictions have backfired. Environmental extremism, and now plain terrorism, is causing tremendous damage to the image of science. It is exacerbated by the failure of conscientious scientists to raise the alarm. Remaining silent is a deliberate decision for which they can be held accountable. […] Climate alarmist theory has collapsed. Where did they get it wrong? The answer is simple. They boarded the wrong vehicle (process models) and headed in the wrong direction (they ignored the road signs). To put it simply, their models replicate the complex atmospheric and oceanic processes and their interactions. For given input assumptions they produce a single set of outputs. The models are fundamentally incapable of detecting changes in these processes. This is why the IPCC has been in existence for 20 years. It has yet to produce statistically believable evidence of progressive climate changes in sub-continental Africa or elsewhere. The best that they can do is to produce model projections of unverifiable and therefore unchallengeable consequences. This is also why it has to resort to terrorist approaches based on mathematical models instead of an analysis of real world observations. It is intended to create media attention ahead of the Accra conference. The Royal Society adopted the same tactics ahead of the Nairobi conference two years ago. I have no more faith in global climate model (GCM) predictions than I have in all those emails from Nigeria advising me that I have won the Lotto, or those proposals from rich widows in Dubai who have just lost their husbands, or from the less frequent emails from my bank asking for details of my banking account. These GCMs are mathematical dinosaurs. Modern laptops are not only more efficient but they are more understandable. The public no longer have to rely on the edicts of the high priests with their questionable objectives and lack of real world knowledge and experiences. The model-based predictions of the inundation of parts of Cape Town and the Cape Peninsula by rising sea levels are an example.
by Will Alexander
alexwjr@iafrica.com
We are now witnessing the descent from climate alarmism, to extremism, to terrorism. The predicted flooding of parts of Cape Town is an example. The public are not easily fooled.
Sunday Times letters to the editor
“Your story that the Cape coastline would disappear in 25 years, would cause alarm and despondency here in Cape Town, but for two things. Firstly, the writer is better known for his political satire and secondly, the study appears to have been written with the help of the South African Weather Bureau, notorious for giving the wrong weather forecasts for the Cape. Is this perhaps the trial run for next year's April Fool's day?"
“I believe that global warming is the biggest scientific scam ever. There is no evidence to prove that the current climate variations are not a natural cycle.”
Credibility
While the globe was still warming and environmentalist claims were modest, the IPCC’s case was impregnable. In these modern times the environmentalists fed the media with scare stories in order to advance their cause. The media in turn had little interest in repeating the same warnings month after month. So, climate alarmists were forced to increase the level of alarmism. Environmental terrorism is the result.
Examples are the fraudulent predictions of the destruction of the animals and butterflies of the Kruger National Park, and the imminent loss of our Proteas (South Africa) and Quiver Trees (Namibia) as a result of climate change. These claims are included in the IPCC's reports where they were accepted without question by the gullible advisory panels.
The latest example is the direct threat to the habitability of South Africa’s coastal areas including flooding of the Cape Town harbour area and the Peninsula towns by a 20 m rise in sea level and two storey high waves. This time even the media were sceptical. A cartoonist in East London's Daily Despatch illustrated the public reaction in his cartoon. An interesting comment elsewhere is that Bloemfontein is considering appointing a harbourmaster!
These alarmist predictions have backfired. Environmental extremism, and now plain terrorism, is causing tremendous damage to the image of science. It is exacerbated by the failure of conscientious scientists to raise the alarm. Remaining silent is a deliberate decision for which they can be held accountable.
The basic problem goes much deeper. The following is the sequence that drives climate alarmism at both international and national levels.
1.Undesirable emissions (principally carbon dioxide) are discharged into the atmosphere.
2.The emissions create the greenhouse effect.
3.The globe warms as a consequence.
4.The warming results in a number of undesirable effects, including increases in floods, droughts, desertification, and threats to our unique plant and animal species.
5.These pose threats to the habitability of our planet.
Search for proof
Our concern is in Step 5. The direct causes are in Step 4. Where then, should we concentrate our search for evidence? The obvious answer lies in Step 4. Therein lies the proof of the pudding.
If no evidence of adverse consequences can be found in Step 4 then the whole IPCC edifice must collapse. This investigation requires a sound knowledge of the natural, multiyear variability of these processes before changes can be attributed to human activities. This is where I concentrated my efforts during the past 30 years. Despite a diligent study I could find no such evidence.
Unexpected confirmation is in Step 3. Global warming ceased 10 years ago. The globe is now starting to cool.
The vultures are already feasting on the IPCC carcass. At present they are concentrating on Step 2 - the greenhouse effect. The IPCC scientists obviously made a serious mistake when linking increasing carbon dioxide emissions with increasing global temperatures. What is it? What is interesting, is that just as in the real world, these vultures are already squabbling over several alternative reasons for the failure. The alarmists no longer have a case.
Failure of alarmism
Climate is a regional (1), multiyear (2), multi-process (3) phenomenon. Also, in the case of environmental processes, causality (4), has to be demonstrated (5), by concurrent changes (6) in the driving processes (7), typically rainfall (8) and to a lesser extent, temperature (9).
Claims based on observations over a period of less than 30 years, that a single plant or animal species is under stress in a single district, without numerical evidence of concurrent changes in rainfall and temperature, is altogether inadequate proof of climate changes in the wider region. Yet this is the basis for the alarmist claims in the IPCC reports. I have not seen a single report on regional, concurrent, multiyear, multi-process analyses. Our joint paper on this subject is a world first.
Where did they go wrong?
Climate alarmist theory has collapsed. Where did they get it wrong? The answer is simple. They boarded the wrong vehicle (process models) and headed in the wrong direction (they ignored the road signs).
To put it simply, their models replicate the complex atmospheric and oceanic processes and their interactions. For given input assumptions they produce a single set of outputs. The models are fundamentally incapable of detecting changes in these processes. This is why the IPCC has been in existence for 20 years. It has yet to produce statistically believable evidence of progressive climate changes in sub-continental Africa or elsewhere. The best that they can do is to produce model projections of unverifiable and therefore unchallengeable consequences.
This is also why it has to resort to terrorist approaches based on mathematical models instead of an analysis of real world observations. It is intended to create media attention ahead of the Accra conference. The Royal Society adopted the same tactics ahead of the Nairobi conference two years ago.
I have no more faith in global climate model (GCM) predictions than I have in all those emails from Nigeria advising me that I have won the Lotto, or those proposals from rich widows in Dubai who have just lost their husbands, or from the less frequent emails from my bank asking for details of my banking account.
These GCMs are mathematical dinosaurs. Modern laptops are not only more efficient but they are more understandable. The public no longer have to rely on the edicts of the high priests with their questionable objectives and lack of real world knowledge and experiences. The model-based predictions of the inundation of parts of Cape Town and the Cape Peninsula by rising sea levels are an example.
There was a time in my life when spreading alarm and despondency was a punishable offence. Cowardice in the face of the enemy could result in facing a firing squad. I swore an oath of allegiance to my country. Today there are no such legal or moral standards.
Prediction
All the signs point to the failure of the Accra conference to reach a meaningful conclusion. There has been no mention of this conference at all in the South African news media. The gaps are widening on several fronts. I believe that the future existence of the IPCC is under threat. We should have the verdict by the end of this week.
This whole climate change issue is about making sacrifices to avoid serious global consequences. But sacrifices will not fall evenly between the rich and poor nations. Now global cooling has cast serious doubts regarding the effectiveness of any sacrifices. The combination of the two makes a substantial agreement increasingly unlikely.
The following are some of the obstacles in the road leading towards binding international agreements by the end of 2009 required to replace the Kyoto protocol that expires in 2012. I will provide details later. The question is whether or not conditions are likely to be more favourable between now and the end of 2009. I have serious doubts. These are some of the issues that will have to be successfully addressed.
General
•Sacrifices without benefits.
•Differential adverse effects.
•Absence of enforcement methods, (enforcing body, criteria, punishments).
•Adverse effects on international competitiveness.
•Protectionism.
•Clashes with poverty alleviation.
•Restraints on the advancement to prosperity.
Political
•Rising instability, (for example among European Union nations).
•Trade not aid, (north-south).
•Competitiveness, (east-west)
•Poverty alleviation, (rich-poor).
Economic
•Economic playing fields are never level.
•Concerns about competitiveness -- internal and international.
•Subsidies.
•High fuel and electricity prices are causing as much damage as drought -- especially for subsistence farmers.
Scientific
•Process models versus observation models. (This is the fundamental weakness.)
•Process models are fundamentally incapable of generating synthetic time series that are the foundation of multiyear verification and practical applications.
•In observation models, the interest is in separating the signal from the noise. Coincidence IS causality, if there is enough of it! The criterion is sufficient accuracy not absolute accuracy, which is unattainable. This is the foundation of climate-related engineering applications from the time of the ancient Egyptians through to the present day.
•Mitigation versus adaptation. Mitigation will not succeed. Adaptation requires the application of observation theory.
•Science has given way to political opportunism and the greed for research funding.
•Science versus charlatanism. Believers versus sceptics. Alarmists versus truth seekers.
•Attempts to discredit those who disagree. (This is about to backfire.)
•Discrediting the role of solar activity will cost them dearly.
•Discrediting the need for multidisciplinary approaches is thoroughly unscientific..
•No controls on the alarmism (e.g commissions of enquiry).
Where do we go from here?
•If Accra fails?
•Towards adaptation to save their skins.
•But they have chosen the wrong road!
•There is no way that global climate models can be used for this purpose.
•The blame game.
Questions will be asked. Those who remained silent will not escape criticism. History has many examples.
Threats
I sincerely hope that the climate alarmists will not resort to personal attacks in defence of their scientifically fraudulent activities. Should they do so, I have a file of full of their dishonest practices. I will not hesitate to disclose them should the need arise.
Regards
