Well said John Kelmar. Universities are publicly funded bodies who are vey happy to spend taxpayer's money, read "our money", which includes very large salaries for VCs. To claim that the university takes a "view" on climate change, on either side of the debate, admits to a partiality by UWA which is totlally inappropriate for such an institution and would seem to be more in keeping with ensuring more funding for climate research and other extravagances at this place of higher learning - sorry, which was a place of higher learning!

Dear Kathleen,

It would be a useful progression in this very sad and sorry "debate" if both sides would listen to each other and try to explain clearly their positions from a scientific point of view. For the IPCC and CSIRO to state as their main claim that, (in spite of the suggested thousands of "peer reviewed" publications) "We believe that most of the warming in the second half of the 20th century was very likely due to increases in the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide" does not provide a lot of confidence in their science. This statement, referred to me by Dr Penny Whetton, head of Climate Science at CSIRO and a contributing author to the IPCC, as their mantra behind the assumptions used in feeding input data to their model, includes three basic caveats. 1. "Most" of the warming! But no actual estimate of the proportion. 2. "The second half" of the 20th C - explaining, after being questioned that this refers ONLY to the limited period 1979 to 1995 when both carbon dioxide and global temperatures were increasing with any consistency. Earlier similar increases in T (1920 to 1940) and even faster increases from 1850 to 1880, are ignored because they cannot be connected with significant increases in CO2. 3. “very likely” – is it 90% likely as first suggested, now 95% in AR4 and 100% according to Professor Will Steffen in his report from the Federal Government’s Climate Commission. This does not correspond to a statement which demonstrates any confidence in their science. However, it does explain the reason for the wide concern, almost in the form of panic, when publications such as Ian Plimer’s book, with all its frailties as a general statement to the public, and Bob Carter’s, smaller but necessarily more closely edited work, and the quite overt opposition by the CRU team under Phil Jones, to the original Editor of JGR who published John McLean’s paper, explaining the 1979 warming period in terms of the sudden changes in the Southern Oscillation Index. As revealed in the exposed CRU UEA emails, this editor was almost immediately replaced under pressure from the Climate Research Unit upon which JGR continues to feed, and a “rebuttal”was published which misrepresented McLean’s data by claiming their Fig 7, used “detrended data”, but the usual right of reply by the initial authors, invited correctly by the editor, was refused publication space on the grounds that it only repeated what was in the original – even though the rebuttal was based on a totally false claim. So much for “peer” review.

Enough of that. In recent times there have been some scientific revelations – two in fact, a breath of fresh air, from senior members of the climate people’s community. First, quite some time ago, the reason that carbon dioxide is blamed for Global Warming, was explained by Andy Pitman Head of UNSW Climate Unit. On a question as to what evidence there was to make the claim that CO2 was responsible for an Enhanced Green House Effect in those selected years, ’79 – ’95, Professor Pitman explained “Well. That was the only thing that was increasing. What else could it be.” Matter closed! Never mind past increases of similar rate and magnitude when CO2 was not increasing and the recent observations that the temperature is not now increasing while CO2 continues to do so at an accelerated rate! Secondly, and more recently, David Karoly, in an interview on Television, revealed that the process of using models involved including a forcing – some assumed quantity of heat added because of IR absorption by CO2 – and running the model programme to obtain a distribution of climates around the world. You then looked for a pattern upon which both the model and the earth agreed, even though there was still great uncertainty in the behaviour of some of the more important parameters, (IPCC AR4 2007) such as convection, precipitation and clouds, La Nina, El Nino and the PDO – so long as the temperature came out roughly correct – from 1 C to 4 C according to IPCC. This is probably the first time that anyone has revealed to the public and to scientists outside the closed world of “climate” just how the models were used to project their various scenarios. It has been explained on several occasions, that the word “scenarios” is used now in place of “projections”, because the latter implied that the model results were attempting to “predict” what the climate should be like in 2050 or 2100 or when the concentration of CO2 doubling occurred. Rather, “scenario” suggests that “one” of the patterns of climate out of several, might occur in certain circumstances when CO2 concentrations had doubled, and the natural climate events were “not too strong” and” if carbon dioxide were responsible for an EHGE”, just as was being assumed.
The paucity of material demonstrating convincingly, that carbon dioxide is to blame, is obvious as soon as one takes up the confident invitation to read the references quoted in the IPCC reports. Ignoring of course the many “pulications” extracted from environmental magazines, Scientific American and the ever popular “Science”, one finds an inordinate concentration on such research as deteremining what could happen to the migration of Minke Whales, if the temperature of the globe increases by 1, 2, 3 or 4 C, compared to their current annual migrations etc. The number of publications which actually address the critical questions of the spectroscopy and behaviour of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is numbered in tens rather than in hundreds and certainly not the “thousands”. This proportion is illustrated again by the report from Professor Will Steffen and the Australian Climate Commission, where out of 180 reference publications, only four refer in any way directly to the behaviour of carbon dioxide. One of these four is of course the expression of the 115 year old hypothesis of Svante Arrhenius, while another is a biography of Callendar, by a non-scientific author. Thus there are actually only two which vaguely address the real issue.
Yet in spite of all that is lacking, supporters of the IPCC position, now joined by Professor Robson, have no compunction in belittling scientists of the capacity of Freeman Dyson, Richard Lindzen, Andrew Wilkie, Roy Spencer, David Evans, Bob Carter, Jack Barrett, Heinze Hug.…… each of whom, from careers studying relevant science in atmospheric physics, geology, meteorology… have come independently to the same conlusion: that the IPCC claims are exaggerated in their wild estimates of projected warming – sorry again, in the scenarios they have painted. These results are of course presented in many “peer”reviewed publications – but the authors are “deniers” and skeptics so their work doesn’t count. Let's see if we can change that earlier reticence and get more of the IPCC science out into the public domain for the information of other scientists. Pitman and Karoly are to be applauded for opening up a little at least. Surely, similar robust science from the IPCC and CSIRO as well as CRU will be able to withstand any criticisms these silly sceptics might present.
Sincerely,
John Nicol
jonicol18@bigpond.com http://www/ruralsoft.com.au/climatescientific

Michael Boswell and James Harrison. Firstly, I did make a mistake in suggesting that Gina Rinehart was sponsoring the talk at UWA and of course the comment I admit was a bit snide. So I am sorry for that. I had believed she had sponsored both talks. As regard to funding, the poverty you express of Federally funded UWA and the suggested balance of Gina Rinehart’s bank account would lead me to believe that there would be significant expectation on the part of the VC for some endowment and I would be surprised if the University has not already been a significant recipient over the years. While the University had not invited Monckton, someone within the University must have helped to organise his visit and there was no call for the VC to speak out.

You both would have a belief in the statement made by the IPCC which serves as their mantra, but possibly do not realise that when questioned as to what evidence they can show which clearly demonstrates that Global Warming is caused by increases in carbon dioxide they say only that: "We BELIEVE that MOST of the increase in global temperatures (>50%) during the second half of the twentieth century was VERY LIKELY due to increases in the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide”. Pressed further for evidence and they will say only that their modelling shows that carbon dioxide is to blame – as Andy Ptman said “Carbon Dioxide is the only thing that was increasing in that critical period from 1979 to 1996”. Most ( 99.9%) of the “thousands” of peer reviewed papers so often quoted as demonstrating the Green House Effect are simply in the field of important environmental work. The papers they quote justifying the expectation that CO2 is the cause of the measured warming are simply those of Fourier (1826) Tyndall(1874) and Arrhenius (1895) plus a couple of redrafts of these original papers by Callendar. This is exemplified in the ealier initial report from the Federal Committee on Climate Change, written mainly by Professor Will Steffen of ANU Climate Group, a member of that committee. Of 180 references given only four (4) made any mention of carbon dioxide, one of which was the old Arrhenius paper and one was a biography of Callendar by a non-scientific writer.

You have a perfect right to hold a belief in the IPCC, and if you didn’t then we would not be able to have this interesting debate. Lord Monckton is also entitled to his views and those who feel he should be given a platform to air those views in Australia, should be able to make use of publicly funded utilities for that purpose, just as freely as others who take the opposing view. The charter of universities includes this type of service to the public which is the reason a large number of staff give their time freely supporting community projects where their expertise is useful. Your claim that Chris Monckton has no qualifications to speak as he does, should be compared to statements made by Professor Garnaut, economist, in his report to the Government, in which he saw fit to provide, in an official document, of advice which he had absolutely no understanding whatsoever. See part 2 of http://www.ruralsoft.com.au/co2/Garnaut_Report_summary-20June.pdf in which he questions contrary claims that warming has not been observed since 1998. Ironically for him, the group at Boston, (Kaufmann & Mann plus 2), who have been as you would know, among the worlds highest profile proponents of the carbon dioxide hypothesis, (Mann - hockey stick etc.) have recently published a paper discussing the reasons that there has been no warming from 1998 to 2008.
“ Reconciling anthropogenic climate change with observed temperature 1998-2008”
Robert K. Kaufmann°', Heikki Kauppi b, Michael L. Mann', and James H. Stock'

Department of Geography and Environment, Center for Energy and Environmental Studies, Boston University, 675 Commonwealth Avenue (Room 457). Boston, MA 02215; 'Department of Economics, University of Turku, Fl 20014, Turku, Finland; and 'Department of Economics, Harvard University, 1805 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Edited by Robert E. Dickinson, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, and approved June 2, 2011 (received for review February 16, 2011)

On the other hand, while having no formal qualification in science, Chris Moncktion has read widely and has spent significant time in making himself aware of the facts regarding atmospheric carbon dioxide. He has done his own calculations on the magnitude of the climate sensitivity to increased carbon dioxide in an invitation paper published in the monthly magazine of the American Physical Society. The paper has been available also on the net for some time but appears to not yet have been rebutted. See http://www.ruralsoft.com.au/co2/Clim_Sens.pdf. For other information on Climate Change you might like to look at http://www.ruralsoft.com.au/co2/climate_and_co2.pdf. I also have a little blog without much on it, but you might like to look at http://www.ruralsoft.com.au/climatescientific where you will of course find some controversial items but will have a chance to comment on them as well.
John Nicol jonicol@bigpond.com