A Good Denier Day

First a note to our readers. The American Physical Society wants you to know that the paper published by Lord Monckton and the posting by Jeffrey Marque does not represent a change in APS policy. On the APS home page:

The American Physical Society reaffirms the following position on climate change, adopted by its governing body, the APS Council, on November 18, 2007:



"Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate."

Whew! That was close. Why, as Dr. David Evans writes in The Australian:

The world has spent $50 billion on global warming since 1990[.]

And a lot of that money has been spent on scientists. Even so, more research is needed, as any scientist will tell you.

The flap over at the APS is over a forum posting. The editor of the forum on Physics and Society made an announcement:

With this issue of Physics & Society, we kick off a debate concerning one of the main conclusions of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN body which, together with Al Gore, recently won the Nobel Prize for its work concerning climate change research. There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution.

One of the kickoff articles is by the controversialist Lord Monckton, “Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered,” and carries a red banner on the APS site:

This article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article’s conclusions.

Leaving aside the Council of the American Physical Society’s disagreement, Lord Monckton argues that the assumptions of the UN’s IPCC are incorrect. The climate is probably not senstive to changes in CO2.

One of the tell-tales of anthropogenic forcing ought to be a hotspot in the earth’s atmosphere at the equator, writes Lord Monckton. Only trouble is: It ain’t there. Dr. Evans:

The signature of an increased greenhouse effect is a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics. We have been measuring the atmosphere for decades using radiosondes: weather balloons with thermometers that radio back the temperature as the balloon ascends through the atmosphere. They show no hot spot. Whatsoever.

However, and this is important, don’t forget the warning notice at the top of Lord Monckton’s article:

The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article’s conclusions.

That’s something to think about. The $50 billion in research money, I mean.