Three videos presentations by climate and forecasting specialists, presented by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, challenge global warming predictions propounded by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC).
The skeptics include: Dr. Joseph D'Aleo, a former meteorology professor at Lyndon State College in Vermont and the first director of meteorology at The Weather Channel; Dr. Kesten Green, of the Business and Economics Forecasting Unit at Australia's Monash University, and: Dr. Jim O'Brien, State Climatologist of Florida and director of the Center for Ocean Atmospheric Prediction Studies.
D'Aleo suggests that the IPCC has greatly underestimated the role of oceans in climate shifts. Although he believes the sun is probably the ultimate driver, the meterologist says oceans correlate far better with temperature change than any other factor. D'Aleo points out that this year's shift from a warm El Nino current in the Pacific Ocean to a "super-cold La Nina" coincides with the biggest temperature drop in the entire weather record.
Media attention will soon shift from ice melt and warming to what D'Aleo calls WMD (weather of mass destruction). He forecasts an increase in hurricanes, colder weather, heavier snowfalls and more flooding due to persistent La Ninas over the next few decades. Because sensationalism sells, the television weatherman thinks the media and climate alarmists will blame these new events on man-made change. Not true, in his view, because similar weather events occurred from the 1940s through the 1960s when the Pacific Ocean last went through a cooling cycle.
Kesten Green claims that the IPCC climate models incorporate just 15% of the principles and procedures appropriate to scientific forecasting. Many IPCC scientists seem to be unaware of forecasting methodology as a scientific discipline, he adds. Instead, the Monash University specialist charges that the models' elaborate mathematical formulas reflect the IPCC staff's own opinions at both the input and output stages.
One senior scientist and author with the IPCC ducks the charge of unscientific methodology, according to Green, by saying the UN climate models do not constitute forecasts or predictions. However, the specific words "forecast" and "prediction" reoccur many times in IPCC reports and they're viewed that way by the public. If the IPCC in fact hasn't made scientific forecasts, the Australian queries, what reason is there to be worried about climate change at all?
Jim O'Brien addresses the fact that Florida and other Gulf states have experienced catastrophic hurricane damage in the past few years.The state climatologist notes that hurricane data prior the 1970 is poor because there were no weather satellites but this fact is easy to overlook. For instance, the media reported that Hurricane Wilma had the lowest central pressure ever recorded in the Atlantic. Newscasters failed to mention that this form of measuring storm strength had only been available for five years due to the availability of new satellite technology.
"It's very clear in both the Atlantic and the Pacific that there are no trends in hurricanes. The number of hurricanes are within plus or minus five percent," asserts O'Brien, an emeritus professor at Florida State University. He regrets that former U.S. vice-president Al Gore and many others are convinced that humanity now understand climate when in fact "I think there's still a lot to be learned."
These three short videos can be viewed at GlobalWarming.org, a climate science website sponsored by the Washington-based Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Source: DOB Magazine