To John Key and Nick Smith from Simon B 4 November 2009

This is my reply to your letter dated 07/10/09 and the included Article by the NZ Chief Science Advisor. I am sorry it has taken me so long to reply but Prof Gluckmann’s article took quite a while to digest.           I am totally shocked and horrified that you are satisfied that the most reliable information is that provided by the IPCC. But then I realize that much of the advice being given to you comes from parties with a conflict of interest. It must be accepted that there are vast amounts of money at stake in the Global Warming arena, Carbon Credits and the ETS legislation.

I have read most of the information available on the IPPC website (and have been doing so since the IPCC was first set up) and find it to be frequently misleading if not completely fraudulent. You must realize that the reputation of the IPPC currently lies in tatters as a result of investigations and revelations made (in some cases very recently) by responsible real scientists from around the Globe (some of these are from NZ).
The IPCC have been guilty of the worst possible crime in Science. They have allowed contributors to deliberately distort and manipulate data so that it supports a particular viewpoint.
Everyone makes mistakes but when it is revealed that data has been deliberately manipulated, that ‘evidence’ becomes completely invalid and must be discarded. The IPCC has adopted a stance based on many articles which have now been shown to be fraudulent and the IPCC must have known that if they have been doing their job properly.                    By association, the ‘prominent scientists’ in NZ (In the Royal Society, the Chief Scientific Advisor and the Climate Science Committee etc.) who have pushed this stance are also guilty and should be dismissed from their position. And don’t be deceived by the ‘so-called’ ‘Peer Review’ process which is widely touted as a watchdog but is in fact a sham (see later notes).
A small selection of topics which fall into this deceptive category is given below and these are then amplified in the background notes;
1)       The Siberian Tree-Core Debacle ( Probably the worst).
2)      The Hockey-Stick Debacle.
3)      The Sea-level Fiasco.
4)      The Kyoto Protocol and Carbon Credits Absurdity.
5)      The Siberian Tree Core Samples Debacle
6)      The Glaciers and Arctic Ice Shelf Controversy.

 
The Government is about to introduce a Bill on an Emission Trading Scheme and representatives are due to depart to the IPCC conference in Copenhagen in December. Therefore urgent action is required. The NZ representatives to that Conference should include people like Dr Vincent Gray,  Dr Chris de Freitas,  Dr Willem de Lange and Terry Dunleavy to present some balance. These people have worked for years to get some sanity into the IPPC reports and material being released to the NZ Ministers, the NZ Media and the public.
The Minister must realize that there has been a “Sea-Change” in attitude in New Zealand with many people now signing petitions and refusing to accept the “IPCC Party-Line” on Global Warming (Anthropogenic or otherwise).
However, Cynics would say that this is a “Win Win” situation for the Government. If it introduces stringent emission levies it will get the Greenies on side and the bulk of the mislead NZ public will applaud the Government for doing something for the Environment. Even the business community will fall into line when they learn of the special tariffs and subsidies that will be provided.
BUT IT WILL NOT MAKE ONE JOT OF DIFFERENCE TO THE CLIMATE BECAUSE THE IPCC  THEORIES, RECOMMENDATIONS AND STRATEGIES ARE BASED ON THE WORST SCIENCE EVER
Instead all the costs will trickle down to the workers in the form of raised prices for food, petrol, electricity  etc. Etc. So what we have here is another tax but disguised as being justified by Science. The Banks, the big Multinationals and the Power Companies will continue to make obscene profits while honest workers struggle to make ends meet and many former workers languish on the dole.
And, of course, the Government will be rubbing its hands in glee. With each cost rise the GST take of the Government goes up. That’s why they are so in favour of Free-Trade agreements. Doesn’t matter that it puts more workers out of jobs, the GST take still goes up and the Government can make magnanimous gestures giving out a million or two here, there and everywhere.
BUT THIS IS BASTARDISED SCIENCE AND I (for one) CANNOT  STAND ASIDE AND WATCH THIS TRAVESTY UNFOLD.
I love science as a pure and honest academic subject and have worked with it for over fifty years. Please don’t trample on it in this disgusting way.

         BACKGROUND NOTES

1)   The Siberian Tree Core Samples Debacle
In 1995 Keith Briffa at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Angliaproduced a paper which asserted that the Medieval Warm Period was actually really cold and that recent warming is unusually warm. Briffa asserted that both archaeological and historical records were wrong. These results were based on data obtained from tree core-samples taken from trees from Yamal in Siberia.
The results are basic to the claim by IPPC of Anthropolocial Global Warming. There have been eight (fully? Peer reviewed) studies using this Yamal data. But the IPPC never requested the original data and only on the insistence of the editors of the Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions B (and pressure from the US Senate) has the data been released. Of the original 252 cores Briffa first selected 12 cores and then produced his final findings based on ONLY three (3) core samples.  Later work by Mann, Bradley and Hughes based on that same pathetic sample came to the same result and with Briffa and Mann as chapter editors at the IPPC this fiasco became the emblematic “Logo of Global Warming”
Thanks to the work of Steve McIntyre the truth was finally revealed but it shows clearly how the IPPC claims of careful checking and Peer Review were just farcically slack. For nine years at least one paper per year appeared using Briffa’s Yamal composite to support a Hockey Stick-like result. Despite these papers appearing in top journals like Nature and Science not one of the journal reviewers or editors ever required Briffa to release his Yamal Data. When Steve McIntyre finally obtained the dismal data and it was brought to the attention of IPPC they refused to include it. So much for IPPC honesty and integrity!!!
(the full story is shown in Climate Realists.org.nz)
2) The Hockey-Stick Debacle.
In order to support their contention that recent Global Warming ??? can only be the result of AGW (Anthropological or man-made Global Warming) the IPPC researchers had to establish that temperature had been cold over the last millennium and only started warming when the release of green-house gases increased. The original graphs had some inconvenient hills and troughs (see my personal note below)so when the new graph appeared in 2001 Third Scientific Assessment Report of the IPCC it had been ‘smoothed’ out to give the shape of a ‘hockey-Stick lying on its side. This graph can be found five times in that publication (the more you repeat it, the truer it gets)!!! The authors of this graph appear to be Mann, Bradley and Hughes (Nature 1998 vol392:779-787). Two Canadian statistical experts, McIntyre and Mc Kitrick were worried by this graph and set out to audit it. They had great trouble getting the necessary information from Michael Mann who refused to release his computer code. In spite of that McIntyre and McKitrick analysed the data used to produced the graph. They found serious flaws and deliberate manipulation of the data. They even found that the statistical methods used by MBH98 ALWAYS produced a flat-handle hockey-stick shaped graph even when purely random numbers were used!!!!
The reason why the Hockey Stick is so important is that it tries to deny the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice-Age as well as the Dark Ages Cold Period and the Roman Warm period. These natural climate fluctuations were an embarrassment to their constant cold theory. In the IPPC first Scientific Assessment Repot (1990) these hills and troughs were shown but by the 2001 they had disappeared by sleight of hand.
Similar shenanigans have occurred with the recent temperature rise. The main Author is Phil Jones (Jones and Briffa 1992, The Holocene, vol 2:165-179) and when Warwick Hughes asked for the data, Jones replied “We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you when your aim is to try to find something wrong with it.”!!! What a Scientist ….NOT.
I have a personal involvement with this as I lived in Europe (Germany Army of Occupation) in the post-war period. I was witness to the coldest winter in Europe’s history when living there in 1947. Lakes and rivers that had never frozen before were solid and I vividly remember walking out on a lake 8 km wide and seeing many fish frozen into the ice under my feet. The point is not that it was cold but this was happening just after the whole of Europe had been part of a World War in which billions of litres of fuel had been burnt, many thousands of ships blown up, factories destroyed by fire. How many bullets, shells, mines etc. etc. had been exploded. At no time before or since has so much Carbon Dioxide been released into the air. And yet they got the coldest winter on record. And I haven’t mentioned the destruction of flora during that war. Flora which normally reduce the Carbon Dioxide in the air. I find it puzzling that the Global Warming Fanatics make no mention of this. And professor Stern completely ignored the Photosynthetic effect in his famous report
 
3) The Sea-level Fiasco.
We are constantly bombarded with reports that sea-levels are rising (as proof that temperatures are rising and the Polar Caps are melting). I frequently read that sea-levels have been rising by 0.07 CENTIMETERS per year (when it should be 0.07 mm which is negligible).
What is the true story? Well it is, in fact, extremely difficult to get any reliable data because amongst many other things plate-tectonic keep moving things around as does the Atmospheric Pressure changing. However work by Dr Willem de Lange (senior lecturer in Earth and Ocean Science at Waikato University) and Cliff Ollier (School of Earth and Environment, The University of Western Autralia) indicate that sea-levels in the Pacific are not rising.
The paper by Cliff Ollier is taken from “New Concepts in Global Tectonics Newsletter, no 51, June 2009”. This report is fascinating because it is based on wide-ranging data taken from twelve sites in the Pacific using very sophisticated sea-level monitoring equipment. Tuvalu is interesting as it is the island most commonly quoted as sinking beneath the sea. A tide gauge to measure sea level was installed at Tuvalu since 1977, run by the University of Hawaii. It showed negligible increase over TWO DECADES and between 1995 and 1999 the level FELL by 3 mm!
The same is true for all twelve stations with very minor variations across the Pacific. This paper is well worth reading (apparently El Nino-Southern Oscillation makes readings unreliable at times but the graphs which are shown in full do NOT show sea-level in that area rising.
Most interestingly, the installations set up by Australian Bureau of Meteorology’s National Tidal Centre run by Flinders University of Adelade were closed down in 2008(?) apparently because they were set up using funding to measure rising sea-levels and they had not detected a rise!!
It is amazing the lengths that the Global Warming Alarmists will go to suppress information. Or put another way, funding only comes to those who are supporting the IPPC hypothysies.
4)The Kyoto Protocol and Carbon Credits Absurdity.
Before going further I feel I should give my background details;
I studied in the UK at the University of Wales and gained a Bachelor of Science majoring in Geology and Chemistry. The Geology study is particularly important as it covered Glaciology, Vulcanology, Stratigraphy and Climate amongst many other things. We had Field-trips to see U-shaped valleys, Hanging Valleys and all sorts of Moraines. These confirmed that Ice-Ages had covered the UK in the past. I also dug out fossils of tropical coral myself from the cliff-faces around Cardiff which confirmed how hot it had been in the past. We studied temperature graphs that showed temperature fluctuations over many millions of years (not a paltry 50 year span) and of course, discussed all the then current theories about what was going to happen in the future. The prevailing theory was that it was going to get colder and that the Government should made preparations for this. (It is contended that this was one reason why the UK got into Atomic Energy generation so heavily … but I have doubts about that.)
Why am I wasting your time with (some would say) irrelevant details? The points is that these were FIRST HAND observations. There are certain Golden Rules in Science and this is the first of them.           Put great trust in Data you have collected yourself. This is often stated as “Believe only Half of what you see and Nothing of what you hear (or read)”. Not really practical but a good pinnacle to aim for.
It appears that the IPPC “Scientists” (or at least most of them) have never heard of this rule and certainly don’t abide by it!
After College I emmigrated to New Zealand and taught for forty years Secondary School Science, Physics and Chemistry. From my College days (1958) to the present day I have followed closely the Climate Debate (over fifty years).
I was teaching overseas when the Kyoto Protocol first came out and I was sure it was a practical joke. No sane person could agree to allow some countries to carry on polluting as long as they pay money to other (less polluting) countries. When I returned to NZ I fully expected the joke to be revealed but no, the people who signed up to it could not lose face by revealing they were not serious and many European developed countries had a lot to gain if the scheme was adopted. Then I found out this whole concept of ‘Carbon Credits’ had been dreamed up by the top people at Enron (you know the same people who closed down their power-plants to create a false power shortage in California so that they could charge more for each Unit). The Carbon Trading is like the Papal Indulgences in the Middle Ages when rich people could carry on committing sins as long as they paid big sums of money to the Pope!! And we have Carbon Credit scams being revealed now.
Next I read the strange numbers being put out over the increases in Carbon Dioxide levels. Often quoted was an increase of over 30%. This number came from the increase in percentage of Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere from 0.03 to 0.04 so that was an increase of 33% …… Right? Well actually, No its WRONG !!!! and any good Scientist should know that !! You cannot take a percentage of a percentage.
If you work out the correct percentage change of Carbon Dioxide as a fraction of the total composition of the Air it works out to be LESS THAN ONE PERCENT.  But that it not spectacular enough for the Global Warming Alarmist so they continue to trot out that 30% figure. Another distortion supported if not disseminated by the IPCC.                                                                My favourite example of this misuse of Maths appeared when the ARC set up a new bus service to Half-Moon bay. The service was badly supported so a Council officer was given the task of increasing support. He put ads in the local papers; put notices in shop windows and fliers around the streets. Later he was able to report (truthfully) that support for the service had increased by 100%. What he didn’t say was that there were now TWO passengers on each bus instead of the one passenger before!
Then we had the IPPC pronouncing that they were 90% certain that the rise in temperature was the result of Anthropogenic Activity (How much easier to say Man-made Emissions of Carbon Dioxide). First any Scientist worth his salt is very suspicious when he hears the number 90% certainty and secondly when no data was produced to support this conclusively. There were graphs but most of these were the product of Computer Modeling.
Computer Modeling is often described as being closer to Black Magic than to Science (and that not just my view). We did a little modeling (with fairly primitive main-frame computers) and it soon became obvious (and our tutors concurred) that you could get any result you wanted by juggling the parameters and software. Just take Weather Forecasting ….. one of the most intensively studied models and constantly upgraded and refined. Each night we watch the Isobars move across the map and forget that these are computer generated predictions. And even NIWA admit that their success rate for NZ daily weather forecasting is about 48%!!!! They get it right less than half the time!! And this is for a one day prediction!
Sure the IPPC can make predictions of how much the temperature will increase or decrease in five years time but if you don’t take in that those predictions have a less than 50% chance of being correct you are living in cloud cuckoo land …… and that is where some people want you to be!
Trees are Good but Grass Aint
When I returned I found out that we were being told that Trees were very good at soaking up Carbon Dioxide and sequestering it into Carbohydrates which locked up the Carbon and so lowered Carbon Dioxide level (note the use of the impressive word sequestering which you couldn’t ask what it meant because it indicated you were not well-educated. The same thing is supposed to happen when you talk of Concatenation. They don’t need to use these complicated words but the more you confuse the general public the easier it is to manipulate them!)
“But what about grass?” I asked. “ No use! It just doesn’t do enough of it …..”  Just try and tell that to farmers all around New Zealand who are raising (growing) many 600kg beasts in a few years. They beat trees hands down but that again does not fit in with the IPPC party line.
5)The Glaciers and Arctic Ice Shelve Controversy.
 
We are told that unprecedented Global Warming is are taking place and that all sorts of disasterous changes will result. But is that certain? The Otago University Arctic Ice-Core samples project has released some data which reveal many warmer periods in the Ordovician and Jurassic periods. Some of these raised temperatures by 7 degrees or more and there is no evidence that Carbon Dioxide levels were much higher at that time. But at other times the Carbon Dioxide levels are calculated as having risen by 500%. In the Carbonaceous Period (when green foliage flourished ) the Carbon dioxide levels dropped to very low levels but if anything the Temperatures were higher. The thickness of Ice-sheets are subject to claim and counterclaim. Some historical records are not contentious. The paintings which show people roasting chestnuts and skating in the middle of the fully frozen Thames cannot be contested. Nor the growing of grapes in the Midlands during the Roman occupation. And of course the settlement of Greenland by the Vikings and growing of green corn for over two hundred years until finally forced out by the return of the cold (Minor Ice-Age) is indisputable.
Dr Nick Smith, I must contest your statement that NZ glaciers are in retreat. A quick reference to any book on Glaciology shows that the state of a Glacier can be deduced by the shape of its ‘nose’ (this avoids having to wait for 10 years!). A Glacier in retreat has a gently sloping downwards and narrowing ‘nose’. The Fanz Josef glacier has a ‘nose’ which is wide and ends in a cliff-face as was verified by the many photographs taken when a tourist was killed earlier this year because he ignored the warning signs and approached the cliff. It must be advancing!
The Carbon Cycle
Why is it that the Global Alarmist keep very quiet about this natural cycle. Is it because so few people study real Chemistry and do not learn about Balanced Dynamic Equilibrium Systems and Le Chatelier’s Principal?
Just in case you don’t know (I’m sure you do but I need to present the full picture) there is a natural balance. Green Plants in the presence of Sunlight take in Carbon Dioxide and Photosynthesize in into Carbohydrates and release Oxygen (basically). All creatures during Respiration take in Oxygen and use it to convert Carbohydrates to Carbon Dioxide and energy which keeps them alive.  If there is an increase in Carbon Dioxide levels, animals etc are inhibited and plants flourish which then restores the balance. The opposite happens if the Carbon Dioxide levels fall. What the Global Alarmists contend that Carbon Dioxide is a pollutant and its concentration rises independently. That is wrong.     I recently heard a spokesman from NIWA state that acid levels in sea-water had risen by 30% (same old number). That shows his lack of knowledge of Chemistry. Sea-water is a “buffered” solution with the pH of the water kept at a constant level by the action of the mineral salts dissolved in the water. I worked in a lab which had the task of measuring the pH of sea-water on a weekly basis (more often if required) and its records went back over 15 years. Not once in that time had the Ph changed to any extent (within the detection limits of the measuring device.
6)Peer Reviews
The authors and members of IPPC constantly harp on about their report being “peer reviewed”. As a student I was most impressed with this concept as it involved a complete review (and often duplication of experiments) by an independent person or group. However all that seems to have changed. Now a peer review appears to be that the paper is read by a ‘mate’ who may even be in the same office and may be a superior or subordinate. They look for spelling mistakes and any obvious errors but there is no “indepth” investigation of the methodology and experimental process. From the statements above you can see that ‘peer review’ has become a sham and it not worth the paper on which it is written.
If you require confirmation of these assertion just look at the paper “Climate Change” by the Chief Scientific Advisor to the Prime Minister. It proudly announces that it was peer reviewed by Dr David Wratt  (Chair of the Royal Society of NZ’s Climate Committee).  Is it likely to be subjective when they both serve on the same committees and are will be going together to the IPCC Conference in Copenhagen? In fact I get the impression that most of Prof Gluckmann’s paper was in fact written by Dr Wratt (it certainly has his dismissive style.
SUNSPOTS
Real solid data is now coming out that shows that we are entering a period of quiescence in Sun-Spot activity (Visual observations, total irradiance, magnetic field strength, visible and UV emissions ). The Total Irradiance has decreased from a high spot of 1367 watts/metre squared in 1998 (strange that coincides with the highest Earth temperatures!). There has been a 35% decrease in the Sun’s Magnetic Field Strength, visible light radiance has decreased by 0.05% and UV radiation by 6% ( this data from the Ulysses satellite and monitored at Boulder, Canada). Scientists believe we are entering a period of extreme cold (as indicated by historical records …….. Sunspots were one of the first phenomena recorded by astronomers). If this is true then it will be the final fatal blow to AGW and will have very serious economic consequences.   Maybe the colder average temperatures experienced by NZ over the last eleven years are not an aberration and the Icebergs floating past Christchurch are meant to tell us something!         Skiing in November and people stranded by snow on the Napier Taupo road do not support unusual Global Warming !
COMMENT ON THE ARTICLE “CLIMATE CHANGE” BY Prof Peter Gluckmann (13/08/09)
Prof Gluckmann, I have read your article several times and find it to be well-written and serious in its examination of the complex matters of Climate Change. However I believe it is completely wrong in its conclusion, the deductions it draws and its blind support for the IPPC findings.  I realize that it is audacious of me (a lowly-qualified, retired school teacher) to challenge the views of the Chief Scientific Advisor to the NZ Government but I cannot stand back and watch the reputation of Science being thoroughly destroyed. Many of the statements in your article (like a lot of the ‘facts’ in Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth” are not completely false but neither are they completely true, just simply misleading!
                                Final Comments
I tried to get the book ‘Poles Apart” but the local library is having trouble retrieving their copy and I cannot wait. I did, however, view the TV program where he set out his conclusions and was not impressed. Especially as he did not name the ‘highly respected’ scientists he consulted.
I would urge you (again) to careful view the DVD “The Great Global Warming Swindle” and to take note of the qualifications of the contributors (Particularly Lord Lawson). I contend that there has been a “Sea Change” in the views   expressed on Climate Change and the IPCC. New Zealand needs to tread very carefully to avoid being the laughing stock of the world.
Around the world there are many organizations which contest the deductions of the IPCC. I would urge you to visit as many of these sites as you can and take time to digest their contents.
a)     The NZ Climate Science Coalition
b)     The Australian Climate Science Coalition
c)     The Carbon Sense Coalition
d)     The Lavosier Group (Australia)
f)       www.co2science.org
g)     The Climate Skeptics Party
h)     www.climaterealists.org.nz   (Neil and Esther Henderson).
The whisper is turning into a roar.     “You can fool some of the people some of the time”!!
Yours sincerely,
Simon Breeze     B.Sc. (University of Wales, UK)
3 Lysnar Road
Matakana, 
 Warkworth 0985
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