Critical Scientists

This post is about an open letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon in the Financial Times. The Open letter was written after a speech he gave at the UN General Assembly and another one which he gave at Yale University and a last one during a webcast presented by Al Gore. In these speeches the talked about climate change and extreme weather. Here is a citation from what he said at the UN General Assembly: 

“Extreme weather due to climate change is the new normal … Our challenge remains, clear and urgent: to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to strengthen adaptation to … even larger climate shocks … and to reach a legally binding climate agreement by 2015 … This should be one of the main lessons of Hurricane Sandy.”

Ban Ki-Moon at UN General Assembly on 9 November 2012 

At the other locations he said similar things about the weather and climate. But there is a group of people who disagree with the things he said in these speeches and is why they wrote an open letter to the Financial Times. In that letter they state with bold letters after citation the opinion of Ban Ki-Moon: 

We the undersigned, qualified in climate-related matters, wish to state that current scientific knowledge does not substantiate your assertions. 

To strengthen their statement they say that according to data released by the MET office there is no significant warming in the last 16 years and that at the same time the CO2 levels have risen 9%, which contradicts. They say: 

Global warming that has not occurred cannot have caused the extreme weather of the past few years. Whether, when and how atmospheric warming will resume is unknown. The science is unclear. Some scientists point out that near-term natural cooling, linked to variations in solar output, is also a distinct possibility.  

Financial times 29 November 2012 

The hypothesis that CO2 causes substantial warming and danger is not supported by evidence according to them. They also say that his own IPCC does not support the claims he makes about extreme weather. After that they cite the NOAA report ‘’State of the Climate 2008 in which the NOAA says that: ‘’ that 15 years or more without any statistically-significant warming would indicate a discrepancy between observation and prediction’’ With 16 years of no significant warming this has happened which proves that according to the writers that the climate models are wrong. Than they switch their approach and ask Ban Ki-Moon to change his approach: 

Based upon these considerations, we ask that you desist from exploiting the misery of the families of those who lost their lives or properties in tropical storm Sandy by making unsupportable claims that human influences caused that storm. They did not. We also ask that you acknowledge that policy actions by the U.N., or by the signatory nations to the UNFCCC, that aim to reduce CO2 emissions are unlikely to exercise any significant influence on future climate. Climate policies therefore need to focus on preparation for, and adaptation to, all dangerous climatic events however caused.

Financial times 29 November 2012  

Than follows a list with the names of people who support this letter. In total 134 persons. 

This open letter is not so much a criticism towards Ban Ki-Moon about his statements on extreme weather, they criticise the whole concept of Global warming caused by humans. Many of the people who sighted this letter are well known climate sceptics and often deniers. One of the persons who signed the open letter is Edwin X. Berry who compares the position of climate change deniers with the position of Copernicus who found out that the earth was round and not flat but was faced with prosecution by the Catholic Church, see Here. Also Joe Bastardi signed this letter. I have talked about him in my post about extreme weather in American newspapers. I’m not saying that everyone that signed this letter is stupid and ignorant. Many work at highly respected universities and have PhD’s in all sorts of climate related matter but there are some questions. 

The main point that made in the letter is that there is no evidence to support man made climate change on which the whole notion of more extreme weather events is based. CO2 has no connection with a warming earth. As evidence for their stance they use a very controversial study done by Judith Curry that claimed that the warming of the earth has stopped 16 years ago. The study was made famous by the Mail on Sunday. There is much criticism about this study from many other scientists, for example the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature institute. A institute where Curry also does research herself. Only the oceans did not show warming during the last decade, land temperatures did rise.  See This post in the Guardian for some more criticism. Judith Curry herself did not sign this letter. Many scientists still say that Global warming is happening and is caused by humans. Which makes the claim about raising CO2 levels without warming not undisputed. Another weird thing is that they use the NOAA 2008 report instead of the later and updated 2011. Why, did NOAA changed its opinion in the 2011 version and did no longer make their claim about 15 year without  statistically-significant warming?. In the second part of their letter they focus more on the ‘’global warming policies’’ and why they are unnecessary. They ask Ban Ki-Moon to stop using victims from natural disasters such as hurricane Sandy for his own agenda and policies. But while saying that they don’t say that a number of individual extreme weather events have been linked to climate change. In the letter they suggest that Ban-Ki Moon does not have any ground to claim but that is certainly not true. And again this letter says that it speaks about extreme weather and climate change but it does not, it questions the whole concept not just the extreme weather part.  

The open letter in the Financial Times, 29 November 2012. Written by 134 scientists Here

Speech that Ban Ki-Moon gave for the UN General Assembly Here

Speech that Ban Ki-Moon gave at Yale University Here

The study by Judith Curry has not yet been published in a journal

Article made by the Mail on Sunday about the 16 years without warming ( 13 October 2012) Here

Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Here