Well, this is awkward. Statistics Norway, aka Statistisk sentralbyrå or “the national statistical institute of Norway and the main producer of official statistics”, has just published a paper “To what extent are temperature levels changing due to greenhouse gas emissions?” The awkward part isn’t trying to grasp the subtleties of Norwegian since it’s also available in English. It’s that the Abstract bluntly declares that “standard climate models are rejected by time series data on global temperatures” while the conclusions state “the results imply that the effect of man-made CO2 emissions does not appear to be sufficiently strong to cause systematic changes in the pattern of the temperature fluctuations.” But the really awkward part is that a paper from a government agency dares to address openly so many questions the alarmist establishment has spent decades declaring taboo, from the historical record on climate to the existence of massive uncertainty among scientists on it.
For instance, the Introduction starts “A typical feature of observed temperature series over the last two centuries is that they show, more or less, an increasing trend…” which sounds like more of the same, especially from a government agency. Until you read:
“A key question is whether this tendency is part of a cycle, or whether the temperature pattern during this period deviates systematically from previous variations.”
And if the mere mention of natural temperature cycles of extraordinary magnitude is not enough to have Michael Mann piling tinder around a stake, the authors continue:
“Even if recent recorded temperature variations should turn out to deviate from previous variation patterns in a systematic way it is still a difficult challenge to establish how much of this change is due to increasing man-made emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases.”
And while you might think these troubled waters are about to be oiled over when they say “At present, there is apparently a high degree of consensus among many climate researchers that the temperature increase of the last decades is systematic (and partly man-made)”, they immediately add snidely “This is certainly the impression conveyed by the mass media.” And then footnote Steven Koonin and Judith Curry, and keep on going.
Including warming a historian’s heart by complaining that while global climate models (aka GCMs) attribute most warming since 1950 to humans:
“Temperature reconstructions indicate that there is a ‘warming’ trend that seems to have been going on for as long as approximately 400 years. Prior to the last 250 years or so, such a trend could only be due to natural causes.”
We won’t quote the entire paper, tempting as it is because of its reference, for instance, to:
“The preceding four interglacial periods… at about 125,000, 280,000, 325,000 and 415,000 years before now, with much longer glacial periods in between. All four previous interglacial periods are seen to be warmer than the present.”
It is more history. And yes, a huge problem for climate breakdown alarmism is that the long term presents both variability and warmth greater than anything we’ve experienced to which those ignorant of the past attach the pejorative “unprecedented”. But an even bigger problem, given the state of debate, is that agencies that can hardly be silenced by smears and threats of professional ruin are now putting such things forward frankly and boldly.
As for various attempts to kill off more recent warmings, the authors insist that temperature reconstructions in Greenland:
“with a new method that utilizes argon and nitrogen isotopic ratios from occluded air bubbles… indicate that warmer temperatures were the norm in the earlier part of the past 4,000 years, including century-long intervals nearly 1°C warmer than the decade (2001-2010).”
The point is not just that there was no breakdown, no tipping points and no annihilation of cute creatures at that temperature level. It’s that there really was a Minoan Warm Period warmer than today, with CO2 much lower and humans contributing little or nothing to it.
The heresy continues, with frank discussions of the sun’s impact on temperature and that of clouds. And a stinging review of the computer models’ incapacity even to predict the past after we know what happened.
The paper wraps up by summarizing the outcome of its investigations and its heresy thusly:
“the results imply that the effect of man-made CO2 emissions does not appear to be sufficiently strong to cause systematic changes in the pattern of the temperature fluctuations. In other words, our analysis indicates that with the current level of knowledge, it seems impossible to determine how much of the temperature increase is due to emissions of CO2.”
Meaning, if nothing else, that it is impossible to attribute nearly all of it to humans so the science is not settled. But it does mean more. Including that CO2 is not a convincing explanation. And that those who insist that it is and lash out at anyone who raises questions are ignorant as well as vicious.
Oh well, some may say, let the debate begin and the alarmists may well be vindicated. But our view is that the ferocity of their efforts to exclude such questions from mainstream settings, from universities to newspapers to legislatures, including the Guardian hurriedly rubbishing an Australian politician who dared express doubts (the journalist in question having a “diploma” in “Newspaper Journalism” so not a “climate scientist”), indicates their unease at what will happen if they are forced to lay down their halos and scriptures and start discussing actual science.
So thank you Statistics Norway, and let’s hear from Statistics Canada.