According to the Spacedaily website,”a new study led by Nadine Unger of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City offers a more intuitive way to understand what’s changing the Earth’s climate. Rather than analyzing impacts by chemical species, scientists have analyzed the climate impacts by different economic sectors”.  In a paper published online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Unger and colleagues described how they used a climate model to estimate the impact of 13 sectors of the economy from 2000 to 2100. They based their calculations on real-world inventories of emissions collected by scientists around the world, and they assumed that those emissions would stay relatively constant in the future.

Inventories of emissions.   This study purports to be about “climate impacts by different economic sectors”.  It is nothing of the kind.  It studies only the proportions of man-made CO2, methane and aerosols introduced to the atmosphere by each sector.  Proportions, incidentally, that are only a fraction of what nature itself introduces.  But it sells itself as an analysis that “shows that emissions from the power, biomass burning, and industrial sectors of the economy promote aerosol-cloud interactions that exert a powerful cooling effect, while on-road transportation and household biofuels exacerbate cloud-related warming”.  How do they reach that conclusion?  By calculations based on the “climate impacts” of the emissions that they have studied.  It seems that they have assumed rather more than just the constancy of the emissions.

No impact has actually been measured.  The climate impacts are assumed from computer modelling that assigns climate impacts in the model parameters.  So if the present temperature variations of the earth are within a bull’s roar of the variations predicted by the models, it is assumed that the assigned impacts must be correct.   If the temperature variation cannot be explained without those assigned impacts, the impacts must be true.  That is argument from ignorance.  Nevertheless, “studies” like this one accept those impacts as the truth, and base their analysis on those assumptions.

There are many analyses that discredit those assumptions, but none from the AGW camp that actually test them.

Now, if the study had collected the data, verified it, classified it and produced an inventory of emissions by economic sector as its output, it would have been worth while.  It would have provided potentially valuable information about the emissions of the identified economic sectors.  We actually need the data.  Pollution was a problem long before the emergence of the AGW spectre, and will remain a concern long after AGW goes the way of Y2K and all the other false Armageddons.

But of course, it would not have obtained the necessary funding.  So instead, it calls itself a climate study and presents its results in the form of advocacy for the IPCC agenda.  And that makes this “study” nothing but propaganda using the language of scientific jargon.  We are seeing too much of this from GISS, the CRU, the IPCC et al.  Tragically, this study will swell the vast pool of so-called “overwhelming evidence” relied upon by evangelical AGW advocates, television pop-science presenters and tax-hungry politicians.  But then, that was why it was commissioned.

References:

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Road_Transport_Key_Driver_In_Global_Warming_999.html

Q&A Part Two: Prof. Phil Jones on Global Warming Rates

Phil Jones is director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA).  The BBC’s environment analyst Roger Harrabin interviewed Professor Jones recently.  Professor Jones’ answers to the first two questions reveal that there is nothing unusual about the rate of warming in the twentieth century.  They also reveal strength of character.

Here’s the question about latest rates of warming compared with other known rates:

Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?

Here is Phil Jones’ answer:

The warming rates for all 4 periods are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other.

Here are the trends and significances for each period:

.

Here’s the question about global temperature change since 1995:

Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming?

Here is Phil Jones’ answer:

Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level.

Jones is obviously uncomfortable about the implications of the questions (“Yes (I agree), but only just..”).  But he has the integrity to answer truthfully, knowing that the answers cast yet more doubt on the AGW cause, and especially on the IPCC, the CRU and the other organisations that promote AGW.

Because the first proves that there is nothing unusual about the rates of warming we have observed, even though there are now much higher levels of atmospheric CO2 that there were in 1880.  And the second confirms what skeptics have been saying for years – there has been no statistically significant global warming since 1995.  This is in spite of increased atmospheric CO2, and contrary to the exaggerated, repeated claims of accelerated global warming by NASA, the CRU and the IPCC.  So much for the need for urgent action.  We do have time to investigate properly the climatic effects of CO2, methane and whatever other demons are conjured up.

Now, if we could show that the Medieval Warm Period was as warm or warmer than present-day temperatures, and that it was global in extent, we could finally establish that the present global temperature is nothing out of the ordinary.  And that would mean that there is no need for any action at all – at least, not in respect of climate change.  Refreshingly, Phil Jones does not deny the MWP, and is aware of its impact on the debate.  See “References” section below for another blog on Phil Jones answers to the MWP question in the same interview, and how we can test the its extent and temperature during that period.

There are other real environmental issues with which we should deal, and other concerns about depending on diminishing commodities for our energy.  We don’t need global warming baloney to help us recognise those real issues – on the contrary, all the AGW noise has obscured them.

References:

Phil Jones on the MWP: http://www.herkinderkin.com/2010/02/phil-jones-on-the-medieval-warm-period/

BBC Interview with Phil Jones: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm

The IPCC was so determined to get its proselytising message out there that it rejected all advice and all criticism pointing out its lack of evidential backing for the extraordinary claims that it wanted to make.  Not just from outsiders and skeptics, but also from its own troops.

Like a man called Andrew Lacis of GISS.  Yep, that GISS – Hansen’s GISS.  Lacis criticised the executive summary of Chapter 9 of the IPCC report thus:

There is no scientific merit to be found in the Executive Summary. The presentation sounds like something put together by Greenpeace activists and their legal department. The points being made are made arbitrarily with legal sounding caveats without having established any foundation or basis in fact. The Executive Summary seems to be a political statement that is only designed to annoy greenhouse skeptics. Wasn’t the IPCC Assessment Report intended to be a scientific document that would merit solid backing from the climate science community – instead of forcing many climate scientists into having to agree with greenhouse skeptic criticisms that this is indeed a report with a clear and obvious political agenda. Attribution can not happen until understanding has been clearly demonstrated. Once the facts of climate change have been established and understood, attribution will become self-evident to all. The Executive Summary as it stands is beyond redemption and should simply be deleted.

He’s talking about the summary of the chapter of the report that “establishes” that the global warming is man-made – the one that is the basis of the clarion call to action.

The man is one of the climate science community.  It is very clear from his criticism that he is a scientist on the side of the warmers.  It is also clear that he wants the findings presented with scientific rigour, open to testing and scientific debate.  Which is what I would expect from a scientist.  Scientists are not afraid to have their theories examined.  In fact, they actively want that to happen.  That’s how knowledge evolves.

But the IPCC, as he observed, is about promoting a political agenda.  It is not about knowledge.  Lacis’s criticism was rejected as summarily as those from outside the ranks of the AGW lobby.  Nothing was going to stop the IPCC from pressing ahead with their baloney.

Andrew Lacis, maybe you should contact Penn & Teller.  They may disagree with you, but they at least would discuss that disagreement rationally.

Reference: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/09/hansen-colleague-rejected-ipcc-ar4-es-as-having-no-scientific-merit-but-what-does-ipcc-do/

But worse than that, almost all of the supposedly impartial mainstream media follow the same route.  Their reports usually end with prominent attention to a disclaimer.  Methinks they protest too much.

Here’s but one example, from “The Guardian”.  Reading this, one can almost hear old Bing Crosby accentuating the positive:

“This dramatic revision of the estimated impact of urbanization on temperatures in China does not change the global picture of temperature trends.” (Source: Fred Pearce, published on guardian.co.uk at 21.00 GMT on Monday 1 February 2010.

Oh, good grief!  Of course an analysis revealing a cover-up in one area of a report does not invalidate other areas of the report.  Not scientifically at any rate.  But it is yet another instance of incorrect official information from the climate change experts.  Phil Jones, with assistance from a Chinese colleague, had asserted that the Urban Heat Island effect on reported temperature rise in China is “an order of magnitude” less than other factors.  And that was a key finding of the IPCC 2007 report.  That’s right – information published by the IPCC and used to influence leaders.  And which Jones himself changed as quietly as possible in 2008, hoping nobody would notice.  Changed, that is, from “an order of magnitude less” to “at least 40%”!

Here are some other instances:

• Himalayan glaciers to disappear by 2035 – a key finding in the IPCC 2007 report, since vigorously defended by the head of the IPCC and then retracted with an assurance that it is “an isolated failure”.
• Distortions of records and concealment of sources by Mann, Hansen, Briffa, NASA, GISS and the IPCC
• email-documented collusion between the major players to continue their concealment of their sources
• Continuous attacks on the motives of sceptics (funny, real science thrives on scepticism).  Climate change scientists cast sceptics as the enemy and hence attempt to justify keeping them in the dark.

Now, can you still hear Bing Crosby?  I can’t.  I hear Monty Python’s “Bright Side”, with Penn & Teller in the chorus.

In isolation, each instance is bad.  Put them together and they demonstrate that we should view all communications from these parties with suspicion.  They have relinquished any authority in this field.  Their calls for urgent action are beginning to sound very hollow.

So here’s a Grumpy Old Man’s call for action.  I call for assessment and formal review of the men and the institutions they serve, their research and conclusions, and all the reports they have produced.  By scientific enquiry, as soon as possible.  The terms of reference must be defined by scientific institutions, and the panel that defines them must exclude all politicians, all academic or other bodies connected with the the IPCC, NASA, NOAA or any affiliated group, and in particular, all organisations whose charters involve climate change.  The enquirers themselves would have to be similarly uncontaminated.

I do not need to call for prosecutions.  Given the likely outcome of a scientific enquiry as defined above, they would follow.

First, the report from the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity  Incredibly, it claims that “Ocean acidity will increase by 150 percent by 2050, a rate of acidification 100 times greater than anything that has occurred in the last 20 million years. This will leave little chance for adaptation by marine organisms and cause the widespread dying off of the world’s corals. In addition, shelled organisms will not be able to survive the increased acidity, which will likely lead to a wide scale collapse of the marine food chain.  Ocean acidification is irreversible on timescales of at least tens of thousands of years, and substantial damage to ocean ecosystems can only be avoided by urgent and rapid reductions in global emissions of CO2.”

Second, a report published by the European Project on Ocean Acidification.  It states that the survival of a number of marine species is affected or threatened.  The study predicts that levels of aragonite will fall by 60% to 80% by 2095 across the northern hemisphere.  Aragonite is essential for marine organisms to make their skeletons and shells.  Dr John Baxter, a senior scientist with Scottish Natural Heritage, and the report’s co-author, says “The bottom line is the only way to slow this down or reverse it is aggressive and immediate cuts in CO2.  This is a very dangerous global experiment we’re undertaking here.”

What?  We guilty humans are about to kill off marine life?  A rise in the oceanic proportion of CO2 by one part per million per half-century would not go within a bull’s roar of  doing the kind of damage these people are talking about.  It’s bloody insignificant!  So why have they published the reports?

Here’s a clue…

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), known informally as the Biodiversity Convention, is an international legally binding treaty that was adopted in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992.  The Secretariat is institutionally linked to the United Nations Environment Programme, its host institution, and is located in Montreal, Canada.

The European Project on Ocean Acidification report was commissioned and funded by the European Union for the Copenhagen Climate Fest in December 2009, and presented there.

There’s your answer, in the names of the sponsors.  The United Nations and the European Union.  The reports were commissioned by the two bodies with the greatest interest in and the most to gain from causing public alarm and guilt over CO2 emissions.  They were commissioned with that specific aim.  And their conclusions are baloney.

P.S.  The reports are even sillier when you consider that not all the carbon dioxide emissions caused by man are absorbed by the oceans.  According to Skeptical Science (yep, the website that supports global warming), the oceans absorb only 6 gigatonnes net per year.  Humph!

P.P.S.  Sea water pH is somewhere between 7.5 and 8.4, depending on location and depth.  It is alkaline.  The addition of one part per million of CO2 in fifty years will make no appreciable difference to that.

References:

Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity Report:

http://oceanacidification.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/acid-oceans-global-warming%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98evil-twin%E2%80%99/

European Project Report, quoted in the “Guardian” article “Ocean Acidification Rates pose Disaster”, reporting on the Copenhagen Summit.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/10/ocean-acidification-epoca

Skeptical Science on Human CO2 Emissions and the Carbon Cycle

http://www.skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions.htm

This is organised religion at work – massive manipulation on a scale not seen since the Dark Ages.  Its purpose is the increase and entrench the power and wealth of the UN.  If it is not constrained it will impoverish us all – while the developing nations continue to develop, financed by our CO2 carbon-credit taxes.  Think about this:

From the time of Constantine until after the Renaissance, the dominant organised religion of the Western world set up the most enduring bureaucracy of all time to build and maintain its power.  It had it all – Fear of mortality, original sin, guilt about sexuality, the seven deadly sins, blessings, indulgences, tithing, the inquisition, the priesthood, cathedrals, the Swiss Guard and more.

It still exists, but its power is but a shadow of what it was in the Dark Ages.  Sadly, nature abhors a vacuum, even a power vacuum.  So, now we have the UN.  It already has many of the infrastructure elements of the old church.  But it has lacked the driving religion that is needed for really comprehensive power.

Until now.  Now, it has Anthropogenic Global Warming.  I have seen the priesthood (the IPCC) and that’s bad enough.  I am not keen to see what the UN will do for an inquisition.

The Key Components of Organised Religion:

Organised religion purports to bring us enlightenment, universal truth, knowledge of God and salvation.  It does nothing of the sort – it’s about control, wealth and power.  It achieves this by feeding us baloney, fostering fear and guilt, positioning itself as the sole path for forgiveness of our sins,  and charging us for that “service”.

It also builds infrastructure to support its aims.  The organisational infrastructure includes bureaucracies to maintain our fear and guilt, punish us when we don’t comply with their rules, collect our payments and recruit us as disciples to promote and enforce their views.  It also always includes a priesthood whose duties include propaganda to promote the baloney that is central to its control.  Some organised religions even maintain military and security organisations.  The physical infrastructure includes imposing cathedrals, churches and temples to which we are required to come for our regular indoctrination sessions and express our gratitude.

A key element of most organised religions is fostering of hatred for non-believers and dissenters.  Those who do not believe are branded as heathens.  Any expression of dissent or disagreement from believers is branded as heresy or blasphemy, and severely punished.

The climate tip-over is foretold in a study reported by “Scientific American” on 12 January 2010.  It finds that “even if the world’s governments manage to cut global emissions in half by 2050 and then do everything possible to limit emissions from 2050 on, society has only even odds of limiting global temperature increases to 2º, a goal noted in the recent Copenhagen Accord“.

The article says that “The science is not clear what level poses a threat, but some research suggests concentrations must remain at or below 450 parts-per-million to prevent drastic climate change.”  And it says that “emissions today are on the path to 550 ppm and beyond”.  The last quote in the article is from Gary Yohe, an economist at Wesleyan University (an economist – what’s he doing here in “Scientific American”?)  He says that “Tip an ecosystem or planetary process – such as the atmosphere – too far in one direction, and it may suddenly and irreversibly “flip” into an altered state that precludes any notion of going back to the unaltered version”.

The marine disaster is foretold in a report published by the EU-funded European Project on Ocean Acidification.   The report says that levels of aragonite, the type of calcium carbonate which is essential for marine organisms to make their skeletons and shells, will fall by 60% to 80% by 2095 across the northern hemisphere.  Dr John Baxter, a senior scientist with Scottish Natural Heritage, and the report’s co-author, says “The bottom line is the only way to slow this down or reverse it is aggressive and immediate cuts in CO2.  This is a very dangerous global experiment we’re undertaking here.”

Now, let’s put what they are saying into perspective:

Consider the geological history of Earth from the Cambrian period that began 600 million years ago.  In the latter part of the Cambrian period, about 530 million years ago, the proportion of atmospheric CO2 was nearly 7000 parts per million.  In the Late Ordovician period, about 430 million years ago, CO2 was at 4400 parts per million.

Today we are in the beginning of the Quaternary Period.  In all of the past 600 million years, CO2 levels have been less than 400 parts per million in only the Carboniferous period and the present.  For about 70 percent of the whole 600 million years, the proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere has been above 1000 parts per million.  1000 ppm – that’s well above the 550 million ppm they are rabbiting on about, up to peak of nearly 7000 ppm!  For 420 million years out of the last 600 million.

And guess what.  A funny thing didn’t happen in all of those 420 million years.  The sky did not fall.  That is, the ecosystem did not flip over to an irreversible state.  The Greenhouse Effect did not run away.  And, in the waters beneath an atmosphere containing 7000 ppm of CO2, the marine acidity did not kill the marine animals and plants that teemed in the Cambrian oceans.

P.S:

It’s a wonder the two “studies” didn’t say outright “Be afraid…  Be very afraid”.  They don’t use the words “Runaway Greenhouse Effect”, and they avoid any specifically testable conclusions,  but they want us to be afraid, all right.  Penn & Teller would love them.

In accord with good literary manners, I have enclosed the name of the scientific publication in quotes – viz: “Scientific American”.  I have no hesitation in also enclosing my final comment on the reported studies in quotes: “Yeah Right!”

References:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/10/ocean-acidification-epoca

The “Guardian” article “Ocean Acidification Rates pose Disaster”, reported on the Copenhagen Summit.

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html.  They quote:

Temperature after C.R. Scotese http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm
CO2 after R.A. Berner, 2001 (GEOCARB III)

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=climate-policy-analysis-goals-long-mid-term.

The study they quote was published by scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria, and the Energy Research Center in the Netherlands, under the auspices of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Now take out the bottle of champagne from the fridge, and open it.  Also open the champagne bottle on the bench.  What happens?  The cold bottle opens with a hiss or a pop, and the bottle sits with bubbles rising in it,  The warm bottle spurts champagne, overflowing the neck so violently that you lose half of the contents.  Now do the same with the bottles of carbonated water.  What happens?  Much the same thing – the cold one bubbles away gently, the warm one overflows.  Now put the cold bottle of water back in the fridge without replacing the cap, in preparation for the second part of the experiment (keep the cap aside – I’ll tell you why at the end).

Congratulations!  Pour yourself a drink of champagne – you deserve it.  You have just demonstrated the possibility that cold champagne (and water) hold more CO2 in solution than warm champagne (and water)!

The volume of water in the oceans is approximately 1.3 billion cubic kilometres, or 310 million cubic miles.  (Source : “The World Ocean.” The Columbia Encyclopedia. CD-ROM. 2007, 6th Ed. New York: Columbia University Press.)  Those oceans hold an awful lot of CO2.  So you have also demonstrated the possibility of something else.  Warmer oceans will hold less CO2 than cold oceans.  So we could expect that in the presence of global warming, the oceans (all 1.3 billion cubic kilometres of them) release CO2 directly into the atmosphere.  Rather a lot of CO2.

Hmmmm….  Is anyone wondering why the glacial records associate high levels of CO2 with high temperatures?  And why the CO2 rise always follows the temperature rise?  Don’t you think it possible that at least some of the CO2 is there because rather a lot of it would slowly bubble out of the oceans when they became warmer?   That would seem to expose Al Gore’s use of glacial records to support AGW theory for what it really is.  Poppycock.  Penn and Teller fodder.

Heh heh…  You have just wasted a bottle of champagne.  Cheer up – it is hard to be grumpy when you are drinking champagne.  So have another glass of champagne.  Go and relax for twenty-four hours, ready for the second part of the experiment.

After the twenty-four hours, go back to the fridge.  Open it and look at the bottle of carbonated water that you returned uncapped yesterday.  It’s no longer bubbling.  So if there is any CO2 remaining in it, it is held in solution.  Now remove the bottle from the fridge, screw the cap back on securely, and leave it on the bench at 21 degrees C for another twenty-four hours.

After the second twenty-four hours, open the warm bottle.  What happens?  It starts bubbling away.  And that’s the point of the second part of the experiment.  Congratulations, now you really have demonstrated that cold water holds more CO2 in solution than warm water!  If you have any more cold champagne, pour yourself one.  Otherwise, have a beer.

(The earlier part of the champagne experiment did not truly demonstrate that cold water holds more CO2 in solution than warm water.  It demonstrated only that when the pressure is released from water containing CO2 dissolved under pressure, it bubbles out more quickly if the water is warm.)

References:

Dr Jarl Ahlbeck “Increase of the Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration due to Ocean Warming” – see http://www.john-daly.com/oceanco2/oceanco2.htm

Scientist Neal Young said more than 100 icebergs — some measuring more than 200 metres (650 feet) across — were seen in just one cluster, indicating there could be hundreds more. He said they were the remains of a massive ice floe which split from the Antarctic as sea and air temperatures rise due to global warming.  He also said that he expected to see more icebergs in the area if the Earth’s temperature continues to increase. “If the current trends in global warming were to continue I would anticipate seeing more icebergs and the large ice shelves breaking up,” he said.

That’s rather breathless hype for a scientist, if that’s what a glaciologist is.  Global warming?  In 1931 as well, eh?  Looks like a candidate for a very high Penn & Teller rating!

As a southern hemisphere glaciologist, Neal Young should be well aware that Antarctic sea ice has grown since the 1970s at a rate of 100,000 square kilometres a decade.  (Some scientists who believe in Anthropogenic Global Warming put that down to the hole in the ozone, which supposedly limits the greenhouse effect caused by man-made CO2).

Young should also be well aware of the nature of Antarctic sea ice.  In the Arctic, some sea ice persists for years, but almost all Antarctic sea ice melts away and reforms annually.  That means that the massive ice floes break up every year.  Because every year (at least since mankind became aware of Antarctica), the waters around it have been warm enough in summer to melt almost all of the Antarctic sea ice.  And because it happens every year, the breakup of Antarctic ice floes therefore clearly has sod-all to do with Global Warming!  Every year, there is a greater area of ice shelf waiting to break up into ice floes.   The destination of the remnants (icebergs to you) is up to the winds and currents at the time, and how long they last depends on the temperature of the waters in which they float.  At best, claiming that icebergs getting close to New Zealand is because of Global Warming is nothing but chicken-licken-style poppycock.  And poppycock of that nature can only cause alarm – or is that the real point of it?

It leaves me with two questions:

• What sort of agencies fund Australian glaciology
• Have some or all of the funding agencies any connections with the IPCC?

P.S.  Like Neal Young, I also expect to see more icebergs and more large ice shelves breaking up.  But not because of Global Warming.  In fact, quite the opposite – local Antarctic cooling!  Each decade, there are 100,000 square kilometers more winter sea ice in Antarctica – that’s nearly half the area of New Zealand.  100,000 square kilometres more to break up in the summer.  That’s a hell of a lot of icebergs.

The IPCC scientists employ climate models incorporating man-made CO2 emissions to predict climate changes.  Their argument is to the effect that if the predictions are approximately correct and show an expected trend when CO2 is factored in (to their models), but fail to do so when it is removed, then that “proves” the Anthropogenic Global Warming theory.  AGW theory holds that man-made CO2 causes global warming, and that it will lead to a disastrous runaway greenhouse effect.

Scientists and thinkers have always used models to illustrate their theories about the universe.  The models did not test the theories; they illustrated them.  Yet Al Gore and the IPCC insist that the computer models provide supporting evidence for AGW.  Gore goes further – he says that “the science is settled” (!) and that there is scientific consensus in favour of AGW that proves the IPCC is correct.  As Penn and Teller would say, “Poppycock!” (or some other word to that effect).

Before the sixteenth century, there was almost universal scientific consensus that the earth was the centre of the universe, and that the sun, moon and all the stars revolved around it.  Western astronomers believed it absolutely.  Their picture was the one described by Ptolemy, a brilliant Greek scientist, astronomer and mathematician, who published his work in Egypt about 150 AD.  In his model, stars were on the rim of a large outer sphere which rotated  approximately once each day.  The planets, the Sun, and the Moon each had their own, smaller sphere.  His model was unable to account for an inconvenient truth – the paths of the sun and planets were not what one would expect from them as they orbited the earth.  So he added epicycles, deferents and equants to explain the differences.  Click here for a description of the added constructs.

To put it clearly, it never occurred to him to abandon the theory.  Instead, he tweaked the model.

Craftsmen in Europe built elegant mechanical models and astronomical clocks based on the conceptual model of Ptolemy.  The model didn’t get everything right, it left a few puzzling gaps.  But using it, astronomers could make calendar and astronomical predictions that were more accurate than the present-day global temperature predictions of the IPCC computer models.  Yep, it was a pretty impressive model, supported by the consensus of all of the world’s pre-eminent scientists for over a thousand years.

And one other thing.  Ptolemy’s geocentric model of the universe was flat, plain wrong.

P.S.

The IPCC scientists create the computer climate models with AGW as a given premise.  Their choices of the factors and parameters to include in their models, and the weightings to be given to each, are a matter of scientific controversy.  And then to top it all off, the IPCC scientists themselves are the ones who choose the raw temperature data on which to base the observations, and they are also the ones who “normalise” those data.  Climategate revealed the extent to which the input data for the models have been massaged.  Even if modelling was appropriate as a test of the theory, how could we possibly have any faith in their results?