At The Conservative Woman, Paul Homewood summarizes the findings of a new report for the US Department of Energy:
A report by five independent, eminent scientists has blown apart the myth of catastrophic climate change, destroying the case for Net Zero in the process.
Judith Curry, Roy Spencer, Ross McKitrick, John Christy and Steve Koonin are all highly respected leaders in their respective fields. Their report was commissioned by the US Department of Energy (DOE) but written with no editorial oversight by the DOE and with no political influence whatsoever. Although it specifically covers the US, its findings have worldwide ramifications.
The 151-page report, A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the US Climate, reviews scientific certainties and uncertainties in how anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas emissions have affected, or will affect, the nation’s climate, extreme weather events, and selected metrics of societal well-being.
Maybe the most relevant part concerns extreme weather. According to the report: ‘Most extreme weather events in the US do not show long-term trends. Claims of increased frequency or intensity of hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and droughts are not supported by US historical data. Additionally, forest management practices are often overlooked in assessing changes in wildfire activity. Global sea level has risen approximately 8 inches since 1900, but there are significant regional variations driven primarily by local land subsidence; US tide gauge measurements in aggregate show no obvious acceleration in sea level rise beyond the historical average rate.
A few graphs from the report tell the story, and you can see them at the end of this article.
- US landfalling hurricanes show no long-term trends, either in frequency or intensity;
- Heatwaves were much worse than now before the 1960s;
- Temperature extremes are reducing, as a greater number of extremely hot days is more than offset by fewer extremely cold ones;
- There has been a marked decline in the number of the strongest tornadoes, EF3 to EF5, since the 1970s. The increased numbers of weaker tornadoes is the result of better observation methods, including Doppler radar, not an actual increase;
- US droughts were much more severe for most of the historical record going back to 1895;
- While wildfire activity has marginally increased since the 1980s, it was considerably worse up to the Second World War. Most of these long-term changes are caused by fire management practices, not climate changes;
- Tide gauges all around the US show the same story – a slow and steady sea level rise beginning in the mid 19thC. The rate of rise can vary considerably from station to station because of local factors. New York and the rest of the Atlantic Coast, for example, has been subsiding since the Ice Age; Galveston is sinking as a direct result of groundwater withdrawals.
The scientists pour scorn on weather attribution computer models, which have become the media’s go-to source for climate apocalypse stories. These attribution models routinely claim that extreme weather events have been made more likely because of global warming. They are dismissed in the report, which highlights the lack of high-quality data and reliance on deficient climate models. Other scientists have not been so kind!
