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Reaping the Hurricane (leading expert withdraws his name from U.N. report on global warming)
The American Prowler ^ | 1/21/2005 | Patrick J. Michaels

Posted on 01/20/2005 10:35:57 PM PST by nickcarraway

Dr. Christopher Landsea, a scientist at the Hurricane Research Division of the U.S. Department of Commerce and one of the world's foremost experts on hurricanes, has publicly resigned from authorship of an upcoming United Nations report on climate change. Landsea charged that the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is "both being motivated by pre-conceived agendas and being scientifically unsound."

He has a point. The IPCC is more of a political body than a scientific authority. Its members are selected by their respective governments and approved by the UN Secretariat. This is not an unbiased, blind process.

Remember those press conferences last fall where esteemed scientists blamed the severity of the 2004 hurricane season on global warming? One of them was another federal employee, Kevin Trenberth. According to Landsea, Trenberth hasn't "performed any research on hurricane variability." Nonetheless, he is the U.N.'s designated "Lead Author" for the chapter of the report that discusses hurricanes and global warming, and as a result would supervise Landsea's contributions.

According to Landsea, "Given Dr. Trenberth's role as the IPCC's Lead Author responsible for preparing the text on hurricanes, his public statements so far outside of current scientific understanding led me to concern that it would be very difficult for the IPCC process to proceed objectively with regards to the assessment on hurricane activity."

Indeed, there is absolutely no evidence that hurricane frequency or severity has increased because of global warming. In fact, the only detectable change in Atlantic hurricanes is a decline in average maximum wind speed, as shown in Landsea's own published scientific writing.

Trenberth also advocates the position that global warming will make "El Nino" stronger, with very little scientific evidence. El Ninos are periodic reversals of Pacific trade winds that change storm tracks thousands of miles away. They also destroy Atlantic hurricanes. If global warming actually did make El Ninos more frequent or stronger, hurricane intensity should decrease.

Landsea appealed to the head of the UN's climate panel, Rajenda Pachauri, to uphold genuine scientific inquiry.

He should have known better. Pachauri penned the foreword to the 2004 report, "Up in Smoke," distributed by environmental activists including Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund. Referring to hurricanes, it said "in a world in which global warming is already happening, such severe weather events are likely to be more frequent, and extreme."

Pachauri dismissed Landsea's complaint out of hand, which led to the scientist's principled resignation.


IF ELEMENTS OF THIS story trigger a sense of déjà vu, then readers have been paying attention. There was a minor stir last fall when two government scientists predicted a slight (6 percent) increase in hurricane strength over the next century, due to global warming.

They arrived at this prediction by using a computer model that assumed carbon dioxide will leach into the atmosphere at a rate that is twice what has been observed in recent decades. The model fails miserably when it attempts to forecast hurricanes in the real world, because it assumes no changes in hurricane environments as the planet warms. Critical scientists knew about the model's shortcomings, but they held their piece.

This is becoming a pattern. Scientists, or people claiming the mantle of science, advance terribly flawed claims that the sky is falling; climate scientists who understand that this is false say next to nothing.

Why?

There are several reasons. Just as medical doctors care about human suffering, environmental scientists are often philosophically concerned about what they judge to be environmental degradation. Neither concern is "scientific" in the sense that it is concerned with testing theories against available evidence, but they do influence the way scientists behave.

Then there's the money. Climatology used to be very un-cool, and largely un-funded. It was an impoverished backwater until global warming came along. Now it's a tremendous sink hole for tax dollars.

The next federal budget is likely to propose around $4 billion for research on climate change. That money will only be allocated if global warming is presented as a severe threat to our health and well-being on the level of AIDS or cancer. So we end up with under-funded voices of sanity and a lot of well-funded Chicken Little-types.

So far, this level of distortion has carried no cost to the prestige of the dissemblers. The United Nations now passes itself off as the world's authority on the effects of climate change and tropical cyclones while keeping a propagandist on the payroll. Perhaps President Bush, who ultimately must approve U.S. members for the panel, should approve none, effectively withdrawing his government from this pseudoscientific charade.

Patrick J. Michaels is Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies at the Cato Institute and author of Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: climatechange; commerce; globalwarming; landsea; science; unitednations

1 posted on 01/20/2005 10:35:58 PM PST by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway
Landsea charged that the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is "both being motivated by pre-conceived agendas and being scientifically unsound"

Welcome to reality, Prof. Have an SUV :)

2 posted on 01/20/2005 10:43:40 PM PST by Fenris6 (3 Purple Hearts in 4 months w/o missing a day of work? He's either John Rambo or a Fraud)
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To: nickcarraway; farmfriend

Good news bump.


3 posted on 01/20/2005 10:44:53 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach (A Proud member of Free Republic ~~The New Face of the Fourth Estate since 1996.)
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To: nickcarraway

bump!


4 posted on 01/20/2005 10:48:06 PM PST by sunshine state
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To: Fenris6

I have a friend in the NWS who is a rabid Democrat, and he thinks Global Warming is basically a crock.


5 posted on 01/20/2005 10:53:21 PM PST by Strategerist
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To: nickcarraway

The 'hockey stick' is broken.


6 posted on 01/20/2005 10:54:59 PM PST by Petronski (Alles klar, Herr Kommissar?)
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To: nickcarraway

Also as someone who reads a great many papers on tropical cyclones, and follows the science, Landsea is absolutely everywhere, and essentially as prominent in the field as Stephen Hawking was in Physics.

I literally have never heard of this Trenberth guy in my life before.


7 posted on 01/20/2005 10:59:11 PM PST by Strategerist
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To: cogitator
One for you.
8 posted on 01/20/2005 11:05:58 PM PST by Carry_Okie (There are people in power who are truly evil.)
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To: nickcarraway

Michael Crichton's latest book "State of Fear" should be required reading in all high schools and colleges. Crichton thorougly debunks the mythology of "global warming."

Global warming is a joke and a sham. It is merely a scare tactic used by bureaucrats and leftists to regulate capitalism and to control people.


9 posted on 01/20/2005 11:06:44 PM PST by Maynerd
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To: Maynerd

Bias in science. The idea is not new. We delude ourselves if we think we are immune. Hidden agendas and power grab plots recur throughout history.


10 posted on 01/21/2005 12:29:53 AM PST by carumba
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To: nickcarraway; abbi_normal_2; Ace2U; adam_az; Alamo-Girl; Alas; alfons; alphadog; amom; ...
Rights, farms, environment ping.
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.
11 posted on 01/22/2005 11:36:07 AM PST by farmfriend ( Congratulations. You are everything we've come to expect from years of government training.)
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To: nickcarraway

Damn cosmotologists.


12 posted on 01/22/2005 11:44:16 AM PST by VeniVidiVici (Got Wood?)
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To: farmfriend

BTT!!!!!!


13 posted on 01/22/2005 12:05:06 PM PST by E.G.C.
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To: farmfriend; glock rocks; Squantos
>>Pachauri dismissed Landsea's complaint out of hand, which led to the scientist's principled resignation.<< We aren't alone or so it appears.
14 posted on 01/22/2005 12:12:18 PM PST by B4Ranch (Don't remain seated until this ride comes to a full and complete stop! We're going the wrong way!)
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To: Strategerist
Landsea is absolutely everywhere, and essentially as prominent in the field as Stephen Hawking was in Physics.

The sad thing is, this man's career is probably going to be ruined because of the bullies in the U.N. and other global warming myth groups. I feel sorry for the guy that he's one of the lone persons standing up to this dangerous group.
15 posted on 01/22/2005 12:19:56 PM PST by Brian328i
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To: Maynerd

"Global warming is a joke and a sham. It is merely a scare tactic used by bureaucrats and leftists to regulate capitalism and to control people."

More specifically, to destry capitalism in America. These are the reincarnated communists and hippies from the 60's.



16 posted on 01/22/2005 2:05:53 PM PST by international american (Tagline not convinced.............................)
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To: B4Ranch

Not alone, no. But the fact that this global warming scam ever got the coverage it has received thus far is an unmitigated disgrace.


17 posted on 01/22/2005 2:08:22 PM PST by international american (Tagline not convinced.............................)
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To: nickcarraway
Landsea charged that the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is "both being motivated by pre-conceived agendas and being scientifically unsound.

Geeze, it took him long enough.

18 posted on 01/22/2005 2:10:51 PM PST by Dustbunny (The only good terrorist is a dead terrorist)
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To: Maynerd
Global warming is a joke and a sham. It is merely a scare tactic used by bureaucrats and leftists to regulate capitalism and to control people.

Exactly !!

19 posted on 01/22/2005 2:11:51 PM PST by Dustbunny (The only good terrorist is a dead terrorist)
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