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WORLD.

Volume 1 No. 4

Report

Climate

A BI-WEEKLY REPORT ON GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE

"TORRENTIAL" RAINS INCREASE!

See Back Side

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one more day every two years in which rainfall exceeds two inches. Apparently. as reported in our last issue ("Karl Finds "No Smoking Gun, Vol. 1, No. 3), this is definitive proof that global warming is here. Why does a little extra rain in the central United States demonstrate global warming? Don't look for answers here-we have no idea. But since this study has garnered so much media attention, let's look at it a little more closely.

In a paper that appeared in the British journal Nature in September, Tom Karl, Richard Knight, and Neil Plummer examined trends in global land-based temperature and precipitation. Since similar temperature analyses have appeared elsewhere, the precipitation results gamered the most attention. Using the Historical Climate Network (the best data set for analysis of long-term trends since it is largely rural and has been subjected to significant quality control), based on aggregated daily records from more than 180 stations in the United States, Karl found significant trends in the yearly frequency of annual precipitation accounted for by "extreme" precipitation events (greater than two inches per day) Most of

these heavy rains fall during summer. However, there is no overall precipitation trend because of decreases in several lighter precipitation categories.

Vice-President Gore referred to these as increases in torrential rains." But we ask the following questions: 1) How "significant" are these trends? 2) Are they worth worrying about? 3) Are they indicative of global warming? 4) Are these rains really torrential?

We examined a large subset of the same data set used for summers (June through August) from 1910 to 1987; but, rather than averaging the data, we looked at the trends for individual stations. For each station, we computed the percentage of summer rainfall of more than two inches per day. A glance at the map shows most of the trends in the United States are indeed positive. But only four out of the 120 stations have statistically significant trends. This is fewer than would be expected by random chance.

Is the definitive proof of global warming really a few more days of summer rain in Highmore, South Dakota, and Gothenburg. Nebraska (or the other two stations with significant trends)? Karl et al. state that there are few positive trends in the other countries they examined. Hmmm...

Let's suspend disbelief for a moment and assume that these trends are meaningful. Is this really a problem? Most agricultural regions in the United States benefit from summer rain since this is the time of year when evaporation is highest and a plant's need for water the greatest. Ask any com grower if he would prefer an extra two-inch rainfall in midsummer. Assuming the Government's not paying him to lose money that year, his answer will be "#$%@, yes!” Are more heavy summer rains in the United States a global warming indicator? In the United States, daytime temperatures (which provide the fuel for thunderstorms) have actually declined over the last seven decades. To make conditions more unstable (conducive to thunderstorm formation). we have to cool the atmosphere from 20,000 to 50,000 feet; but all computer climate models predict warming in this layer. So, does this alleged global warming indicator invalidate these models?

Further, how torrential" are these rains? How accurate is the image of fields of com being washed away by these cloudbursts? We mapped the percentage of heavy rainfall (greater than two inches per day) accounted for by three-inch-per-day or greater rain events. Except for the Gulf Coast region, few instances of more than three inches of

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ast issue of this Report caused quite a stir when we alleged that all was not proper in the review process for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Specifically, we mentioned unfindable references and denial of specific data critical to a proper independent evaluation.

This finding comes at a critical juncture in the climate change issue. The Clinton Administration has just announced that its Climate Change Action Plan- the "voluntary" program to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000-has failed. Not coincidentally, global warming rhetoric is at high crescendo. Something's about to give, and we would not be surprised if the Administration soon proposes tradeable emission permits for greenhouse gases. They'll correctly predict that Congress will have no part of it, and forge a big issue for the 1996 election.

All of this, of course, depends largely upon the reliability of global warming science, and it is the IPCC that claims to be the colossus of credibility. If their review process is tainted, so is their science.

In the course of reviewing their new report, this editor noticed that the climate model that IPCC said best tracked the past climate (and therefore is most reliable in the future) only reduced its warming forecast for the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere for 2040 by 1°C to 2°C, and forecast a rise of 4°C to 6°C. This was of some concern, because older models, which are now acknowledged as inaccurate, predict that those latitudes should have warmed some 2o°C since 1950. The actual warming is zero.

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This would seem to mean that even the more "reliable" model is still making a large polar error and is too warm in the future. (Report Vol. 1, No. 2, tells how much the model's forecast warming has been reduced.) But that hypothesis could only be checked for truth if one compared the patterns of model behavior over the high Arctic with the patterns of reality as the greenhouse effect has changed.

Electronic Mail to U.K. Meteorological
Office (UKMO), May 10, 1995:

"In writing my review of the draft of the 1995 IPCC Assessment. I need to examine the transient latitude-longitude gridded output of the models. am particularly interested in certain spatial characteristics of this model that I think may be exceedingly germane to the 1995 (IPCC) Assessment." Reply from UKMO, May 11, 1995:

In view of the interests of my collaborators who have invested a lot of effort in producing these results. I feel it inappropriate to send you gridpoint data at present.

Electronic Mail to UKMO, May 11, 1995:

I do not understand your statement.... Science is a cooperative effort in which information should be freely shared....While I understand your feelings about the proprietary nature of results that are not yet published. your Nature paper will clearly be published long before reviews of IPCC are integrated. It is, in my mind. not proper to withhold scientific information to a colleague who has been asked by the IPCC itself to review its own work....I therefore ask you to reconsider your decision not to send me the gridded output from the models.

UKMO then sent two papers that were in review. One has been published in Nature, as the e-mail mentions.

Electronic Mail to UKMO, May 12, 1995: Thank you for sending the paper....It is apparent that you are not sending me the time series of the gridded latitudelongitude output from the models. I respect your decision. although I do not agree with it.

Reply from UKMO, May 12, 1995:

The data will be made available (within reason) at a later date..

Electronic Mail to UKMO, May 16, 1995: The reason I am so interested in the gridded data stems from

[UKMO goes on to refer to an unpublished manuscript on which we have agreed to make no public comment-Ed.)....conse. quently, it would be my working hypothesis that even a sulfate modified GCM (the type that best tracks past climate) would still be producing a large (and erroneous! arctic winter warming.... Perhaps now you see why I am so interested in the gridded timeseries. Maybe you'll reconsider?

I am sorry to trouble you but

I hope you agree that the credi

bility of the Atmospheric Sciences-everything we have worked for-lies in the global warming issue."

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World Climate Report is a research review edited by Patrick J. Michaels Funding for this publication is provided by Western Fuels Association, Inc. with additional funding by associated companies. Western Fuels operates on a notfor-profit basis as a fuel supplier to consumer-owned electric utilities. Direct any correspondence or inquiries to World Climate Report, P.O. Bax 455. Wy. Virginia 22945. World Climate Report is published bi-weekly. Not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts or photographs.

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I want to express my appreciation for your participation in the Committee's recent hearing on Global Change modelling. Your testimony was of great value to me and to the Committee.

Enclosed, you will find some additional questions which are intended to clarify certain points raised in the hearing and develop additional information for the Committee's use. Your written responses will be included as part of the hearing record. I ask that you provide your responses by February 15. You may contact Dr. William S. Smith of my staff at 202/225-4439 if you have any questions regarding this request.

Once again, thank you for your assistance.

Sincerely,

GEORGE E. BROWN, JR.
Ranking Democratic Member

ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD

FOR DR. WATSON

1. During the course of the hearing, Dr. Michaels provided a chart which purported to show that a key model used by the IPCC did not provide an adequate representation of temperature data in the 5,000-30,000 ft layer gathered by satellites over the past 20 years. Please provide your own views on the methodology and interpretation used in this chart and its significance, if any, to the validity of the IPCC models.

2. During the course of the hearing, Dr. Michaels provided a chart which purported to show that all of the temperature change from 1965 to 1994 occurred in one year, a feature which models cannot predict. Dr. Michaels implied that the inability of models to predict such behavior called into question their use for policy purposes. Please provide you own views on the methodology and interpretation used in this chart and its significance, if any, to the validity of climate models.

3. You testified that the IPCC assessment finds that aggregate global food production under projected climate change conditions should be able to keep pace with population growth and nutritional needs. In making this projection, how does the IPCC take into account the increasing air pollution in many developing countries, soil erosion and degradation, competing demands for land and water, growing populations, the need for fertilizers, sea level rise onto productive river delta lands, and other factors that may limit the ability of agriculture to shift or increase production? What is the range of uncertainty of this projection and what are the chances that the actual consequences could be much worse?

4. Dr. Michaels testified that the climate models most heavily cited by the IPCC 1992 supplementary report on climate change were known to contain large errors at the time of adoption of the Framework Convention on Climate Change and that such errors were not disclosed with the result that the model's uncertainties were not considered in the debate surrounding this issue. Please respond to this statement.

5. Dr. Michaels testified that in 1992, in association with the signing of the Rio Treaty, Congress was knowingly misled by witnesses v.ho withheld information regarding known errors in key models. Please respond to this statement.

6. Several witnesses have alluded to critical research programs needed to resolve the remaining uncertainties in the global warming theory. Please comment on the role and importance of the following programs and pending Congressional proposals:

PROGRAM

NOAA's Climate and Global Change
Program

PROPOSAL

Terminate program in its current form and restrict all NOAA research to seasonal and interannual variability (H.R. 2043).

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