SOURCE:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
SUMMARY:\
SEPP submitted comments on the draft U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) Decadal Strategic Plan, 2022-2031). These comments differed from comments submitted to SEC two weeks ago.
One, the Kagan dissent to West Virginia v. EPA was discussed.
Two, the filing of William Happer and Richard Lindzen in The State of Louisiana, et al. v. Joseph R. Biden, Jr. et al. was cited as presenting the deficiencies of the reports by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since 1995.
Three, the latest description of the HITRAN database from its website was presented including specifically named greenhouse gases and an updated article in Nature. Four, the successes of infrared devices such as night-vision goggles and precision infrared guided weapons were used to assert the validity of the HITRAN and MOTRAN databases. These would not work if greenhouse gases “trap” all heat energy (infrared) leaving the surface of the earth (a common misunderstanding). Finally, a new conclusion was submitted. ...
In Sri Lanka and Europe, farmers are protesting “green” policies by shallow-thinking politicians. One can express it as the farmers of the green revolution fight the city folk of green policies.
A research report from glaciers in the Andes gives a clear example of how research is distorted by political ideology. ...
RIP Patrick J. Michaels: Born in 1950, Pat Michaels obtained an A.B. in biological science in 1971 and an M.S. in biology in 1975 from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in ecological climatology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He was a research professor of Environmental Sciences at University of Virginia for 30 years, where he was a close friend and colleague of S. Fred Singer, who founded SEPP. ...
Temperature projections for the 21st century made in the Third Assessment Report (TAR) [AR3, 2001] of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicate a rise of 1.4 to 5.8°C for 1990–2100.
However, several independent lines of evidence suggest that the projections at the upper end of this range are not well supported. Since the publication of the TAR, several findings have appeared in the scientific literature that challenge many of the assumptions that generated the TAR temperature range. Incorporating new findings on the radiative forcing of black carbon (BC) aerosols, the magnitude of the climate sensitivity, and the strength of the climate/carbon cycle feedbacks into a simple upwelling diffusion/energy balance model similar to the one that was used in the TAR, we find that the range of projected warming for the 1990–2100 period is reduced to 1.1–2.8°C.
When we adjust the TAR emissions scenarios to include an atmospheric CO2 pathway that is based upon observed CO2 increases during the past 25 yr., we find a warming range of 1.5–2.6°C prior to the adjustments for the new findings.
Factoring in these findings along with the adjusted CO2 pathway reduces the range to 1.0–1.6°C. And thirdly, a simple empirical adjustment to the average of a large family of models, based upon observed changes in temperature, yields a warming range of 1.3–3.0°C, with a central value of 1.9°C. The constancy of these somewhat independent results encourages us to conclude that 21st century warming will be modest and near the low end of the IPCC TAR projections.
This resulted in the usual accusations of being funded by fossil fuel entities, with little or no supporting physical evidence. Despite these attacks, Pat Michaels remained positive in outlook and maintained his professional integrity throughout his life. He will be missed.
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Call for Public Comment USGCRP: SEPP submitted comments on the draft USGCRP Decadal Strategic Plan, 2022-2031). Excluding endnotes, SEPP’s summary stated:
“Summary: In her dissent in West Virginia v. EPA (2022), Justice Kagan treated the U. S. Global Change Research Program, Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4, 2017) as if it were scientific evidence. It is not. It is not physical evidence, and it is not even a sound assessment of the physical evidence. It is a political opinion by those with degrees in science who have abandoned the scientific method to persuade others, special pleading.
To set the stage, we briefly discuss the scientific method and then show how the results in NCA4 derive from speculations about the greenhouse effect. The results are contradicted by fifty years of observations of what is actually occurring in the atmosphere. These observations and associated calculations support forty-three years of atmospheric temperature trends showing there is no climate crisis from the use of fossil fuels.
If the strategic plan of the upcoming USGCRP does not include the extensive physical evidence proving that greenhouse gases are warming the atmosphere modestly, not dangerously, then it is nothing more than a political effort to mislead the American public and the Federal Courts.
[The deficiencies of the reports by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since 1995 are ably discussed by professors William Happer and Richard Lindzen in their Amicus Curiae brief in The State of Louisiana, et al. v. Joseph R. Biden, Jr. et al. filed on June 22, 2022, and will not be discussed here except to say that the IPCC has corrupted the peer review process and the studies used by those who try to justify the IPCC findings.]”
As with SEPP’s comments to the SEC a brief description of the development of the scientific method was provided. This was followed by a description of discovery of greenhouse gases by John Tyndall and the misunderstanding of Tyndall’s experiments by Svante Arrhenius. This was followed by a description of MODTRAN and a new description of HITRAN from its website:
“HITRAN is an acronym for high-resolution transmission molecular absorption database. HITRAN is a compilation of spectroscopic parameters that a variety of computer codes use to predict and simulate the transmission and emission of light in the atmosphere. The database is a long-running project started by the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories (AFCRL) in the late 1960s in response to the need for detailed knowledge of the infrared properties of the atmosphere. A history of the HITRAN database has recently been summarized in the following article: [Boldface added]
“For almost 50 years the HITRAN molecular spectroscopic database has been the standard archive for transmission and radiance calculations. Laurence Rothman reviews its history and some applications.”
“The HITRAN compilation, and its associated database HITEMP (high-temperature spectroscopic absorption parameters), are developed and maintained at the Atomic and Molecular Physics Division, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.”
“HITRAN online provides access to the latest version of the HITRAN molecular spectroscopic database.”
“Scientific Objectives
The simultaneous developments of high-resolution laboratory instrumentation (such as the Fourier transform spectrometer), the digital computer and storage, and sensitive detectors and the means to carry them on board high-altitude balloons and space craft provided the stimulus to create a machine-readable archive of the fundamental properties of molecular transitions. It was then possible to simulate transmission and radiance in the terrestrial atmosphere by applying known radiative-transfer equations. Thus, was born the original HITRAN molecular absorption line parameters database.
“The initial HITRAN was limited to the seven main telluric atmospheric absorbers in the infrared: H2O, CO2, O3, N2O, CO, CH4, and O2. The most significant of the isotopologues of these molecular species was also included. The initial HITRAN database included only the basic parameters necessary to solve the Lambert-Beers law of transmission, namely the line center of a transition, the intensity of the transition, and the lower-state energy. In addition, the air-broadened Lorentz width was included as well as the unique quantum identifications of the upper and lower states of each transition.
The description continues but interested readers can find it at the link below. SEPP added a statement regarding validation of the databases:
“Validation of Databases: The publicly available databases are validated by the use of optically guided precision munitions and “night vision” devices operating in the infrared range of electromagnetic energy, which is precisely the range involved in the earth’s surface losing heat to space.
For example, the Sidewinder air-to air-missile was first deployed in 1956 and with refinements is still in use today. The guidance system does not need to “see” the exhaust of a jet engine, just the heat signature on the fuselage is sufficient. With a range up to 22 miles, the latest versions can operate “head on” and can be launched from a wide variety of ground launches and aircraft with operating altitudes up to 50,000 feet. For the missile to operate properly, the calculations on how greenhouse gases influence infrared radiation have to be correct. The missiles cannot operate effectively in frequencies were greenhouse gases effectively block infrared radiation.”
The comments go through the work of van Wijngaarden and Happer and the amplification by Hayden. It concludes:
“Conclusion: The reports produced by the UN and the US government greatly exaggerate a warming from a doubling of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The temperature data taken by over forty-three years of satellite observations and weather balloon observations plus weather reanalysis data show this deficiency. Using the proper field of physics to understand the greenhouse effect, the proper mathematics (which includes integral and differential calculus as well as probability theory), and the proper databases based on atmospheric observations and calculations therefrom, competent physicists have calculated the maximum extent to which a doubling of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases will increase temperatures is less than twenty-five percent of the average speculated in the Charney Report, repeated in the NCA.
If the USGCRP continues to use results based on speculative assumptions made over forty years ago and continues to ignore that these assumptions are contradicted by over fifty years of data from observations and experiments from validated databases, it will betray the trust the public and the Supreme Court has placed in government-funded science.”
Of course, TWTW does not have any expectations that this administration will make any changes, but the comments provide grounds for questions. ...
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Green v. Green: One of the latest fads in “green” policies by politicians who are clueless is organic farming – no synthetic fertilizers. After all, synthetic fertilizers are made from petroleum. For example, nitrogen fertilizer is made by combining the nitrogen in the air with hydrogen in methane to produce ammonia (NH3). The ammonia is then used to create other forms of nitrogen including ammonium nitrate and urea (ammonia + CO2). Many agriculture experts consider the Haber-Bosch process for fixing nitrogen with hydrogen to produce ammonia is one of the great advances of the 20th century. Now green politicians condemn it?
In the Wall Street Journal, reporter Tunku Varadarajan writes:
“The Green Revolution of Norman Borlaug, the American agronomist who did more to feed the world than any man before or since, set Sri Lanka on the path to agricultural abundance in 1970. It was built around chemical fertilizers and crops bred to be disease-resistant. Fifty-two years later, Sri Lanka has pulled off a revolution that is “antigreen” in the modern sense, toppling its president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
In an uprising that has its roots in Mr. Rajapaksa’s imperious decision to impose organic farming on the entire country—which led to widespread hunger after the agricultural economy collapsed—Sri Lanka’s people have wrought the first contra-organic national uprising in history.”
Mr. Rajapaksa was an American citizen until 2019, the year he was elected Sri Lanka’s president. He has now fled the country. After discussing the political turmoil that griped Sri Lanka for years reporter Varadarajan states:
On April 27, 2021—with no warning, and with no attempt to teach farmers how to cope with the change—he announced a ban on all synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Henceforth, he decreed, Sri Lankan agriculture would be 100% organic. Agronomists and other scientists warned loudly of the catastrophe that would ensue, but they were ignored. This Sri Lankan Nero listened to no one.
Except, of course, to Ms. Shiva [not identified in the article] and other woke environmentalists, who rejoiced at the epochal nature of Mr. Rajapaksa’s decision. ‘Let us all join hands with Sri Lanka,’ Ms. Shiva tweeted on June 10, 2021, ‘taking steps towards a #PoisonFree #PoisonCartelFree world for our health & the health of the planet.’ Lost in all the ideological ululation was another likely explanation for Mr. Rajapaksa’s action: So debt-ridden was Sri Lanka—to China, in particular—that he may have decided to forgo imported fertilizer and pesticide as a money-saving measure.
After discussing the collapse in rice and tea production and farmers allowing fields to go fallow, the reporter continues:
So extensive was the damage done by his organic diktat that Mr. Rajapaksa had to reverse himself by November 2021. His scientific ineptitude was now matched by his economic illiteracy. Battling to salvage his political reputation, he agreed to compensate farmers for their losses, the bill for which totaled more than the money he’d ostensibly saved the country by banning imports of fertilizer in April 2021.
Organic activist groups are still in denial. The U.K.-based Soil Association tweeted this: ‘Lots of lessons to be learnt from Sri Lanka, but ‘see, organic doesn’t work’ isn’t one of them.’ Mr. Rajapaksa, for his part, has had to pay for his hubris with his job. Had he not fled the country, it is more than likely that he would have paid for it with his life. Would that have made him a Green Martyr? We’ll never know. Sri Lanka must now turn to better ways: accountability, democracy, the rule of law and yes, modern scientific farming that can feed all of its 22 million people.
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Number of the Week: $3 Billion per year. The opening paragraph of the Executive Summary of the draft U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) Decadal Strategic Plan, 2022-2031) states:
The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) coordinates research across 13 Federal agencies to understand the human-caused and natural processes that influence our planet. Building on a foundation of more than $3 billion in annual investments in Federal research and development, science conducted by USGCRP agencies informs the Nation to navigate the challenges of a changing environment and identify opportunities for a more resilient future.
Over more than three decades, USGCRP and its member agencies have worked together to understand the processes—particularly climate change—that are reshaping Earth’s environment and capacity to sustain life.
Thirty years with thirteen agencies now spending $3 billion per year have not figured out where the greenhouse effect occurs, much less how to measure it? The best it can do is cite the deficient reports of the IPCC, 2021?