By their consistent refusal to acknowledge the accumulated facts of climate history, the mantle of “climate denier” has rightfully passed on to those who continue to promote misinformation and the unwarranted fear of manmade climate change.  It is time that the fabricators of fear be so labeled.

These new-age denialists have elevated their computer models above the real world of factual observations. Prof. Chris Folland, Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research set the standard for climate pseudo-science. “The data doesn't matter. We're not basing our recommendations on the data. We're basing them on the climate models.” 

 "The models are convenient fictions that provide something very useful,”:  Dr. David Frame, Climate modeler, Oxford University. Indeed so, since the designer of the model can decide which “very useful” output is desired.  The baking of a cake is a useful analogy.  The cook decides which ingredients to include in the recipe, the quantity of each, the final shape and name of the cake.  It could be named a lemon meringue, but if the lemon flavoring is omitted, it certainly will not be a valid lemon meringue.

Computer climate modeling has formed the basis for the continuing plethora of climate scare stories. The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) calls them “scenarios,” but these computer fabrications are treated by the media, politicians, and general public more like predictions.  The common ingredient in the dozens of these General Circulation Models (GCM) used by the U.N. and its supporters is the assumed primary role of manmade carbon dioxide in driving Earth’s climate. They assert that the role of manmade carbon dioxide is the singular answer to making their climate models work, and thereby match some carefully chosen period of climate history.  Like the lemon in the cake, the prime role of fossil fuel carbon dioxide in driving the results of their climate computers is the one essential ingredient purposely baked into the computer/cake.  “Lemon in, lemon out.”

The full list of climate determinants (“cake ingredients”), their multiple interactions, relative temporal significance, and relative quantitative importance remain beyond current scientific understanding. Even the basic records of global temperature, surface or atmospheric, are in dispute because of faulty measurement technology, selective editing, missing data sites, and urban heat contamination.    Yet, manmade carbon dioxide has been computer preprogrammed to a predetermined prime importance as the main determinant of global temperature and climate change.

What does the Earth say about the climate computer models?  The real-world record documents no warming for the past 17 years, even as atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased about 9 per cent.  How bad were the computer models? A recent paper  found that “global warming over the past 20 years is significantly less than that calculated from 117 simulations of the climate by 37 models.”   Oops.

The deniers claim deadly sea level rise based on their computers.  The actual record shows that recent global sea level rise has decelerated 31 per cent. Oops.

Did the U.S. have an extreme weather year in 2013?  Tornadoes? The number of tornadoes in the US in 2013 was the lowest total since 2000 and the lowest total in several decades.  Oops.

 U.S. wildfires?  The number of wildfires across the US in 2013 is the lowest it has been in the past ten years and the acreage involved is at the second lowest level in that same time period. (http://www.nifc.gov/)

U.S. extreme heat in 2013?  Extreme heat was down across the US for 2013. The number of 100 degree days across the country during 2013 was down, and may have been the lowest in about 100 years of records. (NOAA, USHCN reporting stations; through August)

U.S. hurricanes?  The U.S. is in the longest period since the Civil War Era without a major hurricane strike in the US (i.e., category 3, 4 or 5). The last major hurricane to strike the US was Hurricane Wilma in 2005.

So who are the climate deniers?  The U.N.’s IPCC would be the presumptive leader, as it was founded to find the imprint of “human induced” climate change.   Other drivers of climate were largely dismissed unless they could be shown to support the pre-determined conclusion that there was a significant human fingerprint.  This body is a political entity, not a scientific research organization. It is notable that even as earlier IPCC predictions of the impact of increasing  atmospheric carbon dioxide have proved false, and their magnitudes lessened in subsequent IPCC reports, the organization remains unrepentant in its claims of certainty.

Notable scientific organizations such as the World Meteorological Organization (present at the founding of the IPCC), the American Meteorological Society, and the American Physical Society have, at the leadership level, supported the premise of harmful climate change, primarily caused by manmade carbon dioxide. Their published papers are mostly skeptical of climate drivers not based on manmade carbon dioxide.  Most recently, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has declared itself firmly in the skeptics’ camp by issuing its report to “Recognize Climate Change Risks.” The failure of climate modeling predictions is not acknowledged…the relevance is denied.

There are many individuals including Al Gore, science advisor John Holdren, and John Podesta who are skeptics of scientific reports which point out the disconnect between the manmade climate change mantra, and the actual physical record.

Most notable is the lack of a definitive scientific report that can identify and quantify the impact of human carbon dioxide on global climate, and distinguish it from the natural background of climate change over time.  The presumptive human influence signal is lost as background noise in the over-riding signal of normal climate variability.

The deniers of computer-generated climate failures are denying the real world.

Charles Battig, MD , Piedmont Chapter president, VA-Scientists and Engineers for Energy and Environment (VA-SEEE). His website is www.climateis.com