Climate Depot's Marc Morano on FNC's "Your World," April 2, 2013

CLAIMS from the latest report by the Climate Commission, titled The Angry Summer, have been widely circulated through international media. On the basis of a few sporadic episodes, which in any other era would have been regarded as marginal weather (infrequent but perennial), the Climate Commission has proclaimed that such events are now the norm - the signature of climate change come home to roost.

This report is but the latest in a series of dire proclamations from this panel. It just happens to buttress the government's controversial carbon tax, a maladroit policy that will be pivotal in the forthcoming federal election.

The commission's position, as proclaimed by its chief commissioner, is that "the baseline has shifted" like "an athlete (who) takes steroids". "The same thing is happening to our climate system . . . We're getting fewer cold days and cold events and many more record hot events" (The New York Times, March 4).

The evocative nature of these claims is matched only by the imagination behind them. On a continental scale (the scale relevant to climate), Australian temperature this summer was unremarkable - it was within the range of previous variability.

In the coldest March in 43 years in the UK, thousands of people are dying as unreliable ‘green’ energy sources like wind and solar are crippled by the cold and snow leaving taxpayers stranded. Friends of Science warn North Americans to stop carbon taxes and relax climate change policies.

“In Alberta, Canada the Pembina Institute wants early closure of coal-fired plants, but Dr. Ross McKitrick’s review of their statistics shows the facts have been being skewed to drive a ‘green’ agenda,” says Ken Gregory, director of Friends of Science. “Do we want a heat or eat crisis in Alberta? People will die.”

Citing “misguided faith in green energy” and ‘problems of an energy policy that puts expensive, inefficient green power before coal-fired and nuclear power.” The Sunday Telegraph lambasted the UK government for “Too much green energy is bad for Britain.”

The UK has suffered a “heat or eat” crisis for years since the inception of climate change policies and carbon taxes. Friends of Science state that this crisis situation is unnecessary. They state that advanced research shows the sun is the main driver of climate change. A growing number of citizens are joining their push for a review of climate change legislation around the world.

Climate change scientists are in a tizzy that a sceptic is touring their country. If they're so sure about their proclamations of doom and gloom, why the alarm? Historically, people who knew that deep down their science was flawed imprisoned or killed anyone who strayed from "the word." But thank god we live in an enlightened age. Right?

From The New Zealand Herald:

New Zealand's top climate change scientists have rallied together to slam a visiting sceptic who is touring the country to proclaim global warming as a myth that should be ignored.

Several days ahead of “superstorm” Sandy's East Coast landfall in October 2012, many weather models — including those of the U.S.'s National Weather Service (NWS) — were still predicting the hurricane would dissipate back into the Atlantic Ocean.

But at least one, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), successfully predicted Hurricane Sandy would swing towards the mid-Atlantic Coast more than two days before the other models picked up on such a probability — advance notice that could have given those in harm’s way an important head start on emergency preparations.

Cliff Mass, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Washington in Seattle, says such a discrepancy in weather models not an isolated occurrence, but an alarming trend.

European industries and some European governments have recently begun to recognise that the unconventional gas revolution is no longer confined to North America, but is spreading globally. The energy revolution is having a big impact on the overall economic competitiveness of the US economy and industries towards rivals in Asia and Europe. Cheap shale gas also calls into question the renewable energy policies of the EU, particularly those of Germany. Foreign investments in European petrochemical companies are already shifting from Europe to the US. --Frank Umbach, Geopolitical Information Service, 19 March 2013

Natural gas began flowing out of the Tamar gas field off the coast of Israel yesterday, in a sign of Israel’s changing position in the global energy landscape. The Tamar field is the smaller of two adjacent reservoirs, and developing it was the largest infrastructure project in Israel’s history. Together, the Tamar field and its larger neighbor, named Leviathan, are among the largest offshore natural gas discoveries in the past decade. Beyond this milestone, the Tamar and Leviathan fields will change Israel’s position in the geopolitical and energy world. --Walter Russell Mead, The American Interest, 31 March 2013

There are few things sadder than the “climate denier.” He ignores the data and neglects the latest science. His rhetoric and policy proposals are dangerously disconnected from reality. He can’t recalibrate to take account of the latest evidence because, well, he’s a denier.

The new climate deniers are the liberals who, despite their obsession with climate change, have managed to miss the biggest story in climate science, which is that there hasn’t been any global warming for about a decade and a half.

“Over the past 15 years air temperatures at the Earth’s surface have been flat while greenhouse-gas emissions have continued to soar,” The Economist writes. “The world added roughly 100 billion tons of carbon to the atmosphere between 2000 and 2010. That is about a quarter of all the CO2 put there by humanity since 1750.” Yet, no more warming. 

Do you recall Lockwood’s paper?

Central Europeans right now are scratching their heads, wondering how on Earth they are still shoveling snow past Easter. March in Germany, according to the German Weather Service DWD, was the 6th coldest since measurements began in 1881. Britain has just seen it’s coldest March in 100 years. In fact over the last few winters hundreds of cold and snowfall records have been shattered.

Lockwood wasn’t alone in suspecting that climate is profoundly impacted by the sun. Now is a good time to recall these findings from scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research working with Lockwood, from a little less than 3 years ago in 2010. 3Sat television quoted MPI scientist Sami Solanki in 2010:

There hasn’t been sunspots and thus no activity on the sun for three years. Solar activity is on the increase, but it is completely unclear if the sun will reach the same level of activity we saw over the last decades. If it does, then it is improbable we will again have extreme cold winters, if our statistical analysis proves right. If it doesn’t, then everything is open.”

Europe is spending billions of tax dollars to delay global warming by less than two days because they’re “too proud” to stop subsidizing a non-competitive industry, Danish environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg said Saturday.

“We’re certainly paying a very large amount of money to have the bragging rights for Germany having the most solar and Denmark having the most wind,” Lomborg told Fox News’ John Stossel. “The Germans are paying about $110 billion on subsidies for these solar panels. The net effect for all of those investments will be to postpone global warming by 37 hours by the end of the century.”

Lomborg, a left-leaning environmentalist and author of “The Skeptical Environmentalist,” said the threat of global warming is real, but Europe isn’t addressing it the right way.

In 1991 the National Research Council proposed what has come to be a widely accepted definition of misconduct in science:

Misconduct in science is defined as fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism, in proposing, performing, or reporting research. Misconduct in science does not include errors of judgment; errors in the recording, selection, or analysis of data; differences in opinions involving the interpretation of data; or misconduct unrelated to the research process.

Arguments over data and methods are the lifeblood of science, and are not instances of misconduct.

However, here I document the gross misrepresentation of the findings of a recent scientific paper via press release which appears to skirt awfully close to crossing the line into research misconduct, as defined by the NRC. I recommend steps to fix this mess, saving face for all involved, and a chance for this small part of the climate community to take a step back toward unambiguous scientific integrity.

The paper I refer to is by Marcott et al. 2013, published recently in Science. A press release issued by the National Science Foundation, which funded the research, explains the core methodology and key conclusion of the paper as follows (emphasis added):