CARBONGATE – Global Warming Study Censored by EPA
25 06 2009
Related story:
Source inside EPA confirms claims of science being ignored, suppressed, by top EPA management
by Richard Morrison, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Washington, D.C., June 26, 2009—The Competitive Enterprise Institute is today making public an internal study on climate science which was suppressed by the Environmental Protection Agency. Internal EPA email messages, released by CEI earlier in the week, indicate that the report was kept under wraps and its author silenced because of pressure to support the Administration’s agenda of regulating carbon dioxide.
The report finds that EPA, by adopting the United Nations’ 2007 “Fourth Assessment” report, is relying on outdated research and is ignoring major new developments. Those developments include a continued decline in global temperatures, a new consensus that future hurricanes will not be more frequent or intense, and new findings that water vapor will moderate, rather than exacerbate, temperature.
New data also indicate that ocean cycles are probably the most important single factor in explaining temperature fluctuations, though solar cycles may play a role as well, and that reliable satellite data undercut the likelihood of endangerment from greenhouse gases. All of this demonstrates EPA should independently analyze the science, rather than just adopt the conclusions of outside organizations.
The released report is a draft version, prepared under EPA’s unusually short internal review schedule, and thus may contain inaccuracies which were corrected in the final report.
“While we hoped that EPA would release the final report, we’re tired of waiting for this agency to become transparent, even though its Administrator has been talking transparency since she took office. So we are releasing a draft version of the report ourselves, today,” said CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman.
Read the censored report here:
cei.org
wattsupwiththat.com
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A new 2009 paper finds that the crucial assumption in the GCM models used by the IPCC concerning strongly postive feedback from water vapor is not supported by empirical evidence and that the feedback is actually negative.
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C. Changes in GHG concentrations appear to have so little effect that it is difficult to find any effect inthe satellite temperature record, which started in 1978.
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These inconsistencies are so important and sufficiently astruse that ijn our view EPA needs to make an independent analysis of the science of global warming rather than adopting the conclusions of the IPCC and CCSP without much more careful and independent EPA staff review than is evidenced by the Draft TSP.
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1.2 Global Temperatures Have Declined Significantly Global temperatures have declined (Figure 1a) - extending the current run of time with a statistically robust lack of global temperature rise to eight years (Figure 1b), with some people arguing that it can be traced back for 12 years (Figure 1c).
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1.3 IPCC Global Temperature Projections Look Increasingly Doubtful
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1.7 Long-term Water Vapor Feedback Reported To Be Negative
A newly published papers in a peer-reviewed journal (Paltridge, 2009) reaches the potentially highly significant conclusion that ..... Negative trends in q as found in the NCEP data would imply that long-term water vapor feedback is negative - that it would reduce rather than amplify the response of the climate system to external forcing such as that from increases in atmospheric CO2.
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What all of this argues is that there is considerable doubt as to the validity of the IPCC GCM models because they do not correspond with observational data in a very important aspect.
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1.8 Scafetta and West: GHG Contribution to Global Warming May Be Much Smaller than Alleged by IPCC
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2 Some Major Inconsistencies in the Science of Global Warming that Need to be Explained
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cei.org
This report is completely devastating. It confirms all the things skeptics have been saying.
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The EPA's internal nightmare over global warming: Part 1
June 25, 2:54 PM
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Because I was on deadline (no excuse) I didn't credit Anthony Watts and his weblog Watts Up With That for a) alerting me to this issue in the first place, b) providing adequate background to help my understanding enough of the issue to proceed and c) facilitating contact with the source interviewed below. I have mentioned Mr. Watts and his weblog on numerous occasions (I'm not affiliated with them, by the way), but certainly not enough on this occasion. Watts Up With That, winner of the Science Blog of the Year, has once again provided an invaluable service to those interested in issues surrounding global warming.
A source inside the Environmental Protection Agency confirmed many of the claims made by analyst Alan Carlin, the economist/physicist who yesterday went public with accusations that science was being ignored in evaluating the danger of CO2.
The source, who chooses not to be identified for fear of retaliation, said that Carlin was rebuffed in his attempt to introduce scientific evidence that does not accord with the EPA's view of global warming, which largely relies on IPCC reports. The source also saw Carlin's report and said that it was 'based on 8 points of peer-reviewed, recent and relevant scientific publications' that cast doubt on the wisdom of regulating CO2 as a pollutant.
The EPA's draft Endangerment Finding was initially written over a year ago during the Bush administration, and Lisa Jackson (the new head of the EPA) and her team wanted to get the Finding out on or near Earth Day, according to a schedule that was made public about a week before formal publication of the proposal. The draft was submitted to agency workgroups with only one week for review and comment, which is unprecedented, and received only light comments--except for Carlin's.
Alan Carlin, who had hosted a series of seminars featuring peer-reviewed scientists who disagree with the IPCC reports (but were unattended by members of the workgroup developing the Endangerment Finding) went public (UPDATE: Mr. Carlin, who I interviewed this evening, says that he did not approach the Competitive Enterprise Institute and did not know they were involved until a reporter contacted him on Tuesday). via the Competitive Enterprise Institute after realising that there would be no debate about the science. The lectures by the scientists are available on the EPA website, but were not even mentioned in the Finding. Carlin was advised to get an attorney--and has since been reassigned to mundane work, some of which is normally performed by outside contractors.
All this comes despite the peculiar bind the EPA finds itself in. Regulating CO2 as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act is not something they really want to do--unless new legislation makes it possible for them to ignore smaller emitters. As it stands, the EPA would find it necessary to regulate entities as small as churches and schools, if they have buses that emit more than 250 tons of CO2 per year. But there is no certainty that new legislation will arrive at all, much less contain the restrictions the EPA needs.
Meanwhile, the many comments received by the EPA will now be evaluated. Our source indicates that it is most likely that the initial compilation and review will be conducted by outside contractors, who may also provide draft responses, which is really supposed to be done only by EPA staff. Our source notes that the EPA may not have the expertise to evaluate many of the comments, as they are more charged with dealing with the effects of global warming through regulation rather than determining the true nature of the cause. Our source says members of the workgroup complained to other EPA staff that they don't understand these issues, much less how to relate the scientific studies identified in Carlin's report to the IPCC report
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