Global Warming - How Valid and Serious?

[wayneL]

OMG! Dissent!

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming073107m.htm

http://www.dailytech.com/2007+Hurricane+Season+Wheres+the+Beef/article8253.htm

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index....Store_id=56dd129d-e40a-4bad-abd9-68c808e8809e

 

[2020hindsight]

Incidentally, one of those articles is just about hurricanes (but assumes global warming) ...
http://www.dailytech.com/2007+Hurricane+Season+Wheres+the+Beef/article8253.htm

Similarly, as I mentioned, it's a mild summer in Sydney this year as well - trouble is it's a string of scorchers in Melb & Adelaide. and the trend worldwide is increasing.

Another milder-than-normal season takes shape

During the active 2005 hurricane season, the usual doom-and-gloom prophets blamed the storms on global warming. "Nature's wrath," we were told, "hath been unleashed". Aided by a complaisant media, we were told this was our wakeup call, come to punish us for our SUV-driving ways.

Then disaster struck. The 2006 season not only didn't live up to predictions, it wound up being one of the quietest seasons of the past century. No matter. We were told to ignore this year-long blip, told that 2007 would come roaring back with a vengeance.

And yet, here we are, two full months into the season, and not a single hurricane has formed. Not one. Just two mild tropical storms, one of which didn't even strike land, and a third storm which never went above subtropical status. Hurricane forecasters are busily downgrading their predictions for the rest of the season.

And so it goes. The sky isn't falling yet. But what about the future? Will global warming wreck all our beach-going vacations?

There are two schools of thought regarding the effects of climate change on hurricane science. The first begins with the fact that hurricanes require warm water to form. Global warming means warmer water, leading to the naive conclusion is that more hurricanes will form. The second school realizes that hurricanes are heat engines -- driven not by raw temperature, but by temperature differentials between regions. Global warming warms the arctic and temperate belts, but not the tropics. This reduces the total energy available for major storm formation. It also increases upper-level wind shear, which tends to tear apart storms before they grow too strong. This school believes the long term effects of global warming will be fewer, milder storms

.

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11641

There is a link there an example of a forcing function (a wedge) imposed on a chaotic system (weather). They point out (the obvious) - as I'm sure we're all aware, that "one swallow does not a summer make".

http://www.clivar.org/science/magnets.php

These animations [courtesy of Rob Hine (ECMWF)] illustrate a number of climate issues which have caused conceptual difficulties from time to time:

Even though climate is chaotic, with weather states impossible to predict in detail more than a few days ahead, there is a predictable impact of anthropogenic forcing on the probability of occurrence of the naturally-occurring climatic regimes. This lies at the heart of the CLIVAR perspective on climate change - how anthropogenic forcing will affect the natural modes of climate variability.

In our chaotic climate, it is impossible (indeed meaningless) to try to attribute a specific (eg severe) weather event to anthropogenic global warming. Hence, it is a false dichotomy to suppose that some recently-occurring drought or flood is either on the one hand caused by global warming, or on the other hand is merely due to natural climate variability.

Rather, the correct way to address such an issue is to ask instead whether anthropogenic climate change will increase or decrease the probability of occurrence of the type of drought or flood which we (or journalists pursuing some weather story provoked by a recent drought or flood) are interested. Such probabilities can be obtained, for example, from the JSC/CLIVAR Working Group on Climate Modelling's multi-model ensemble, made for the IPCC fourth assessment report.

In a chaotic climate, one cannot expect the time-series of global temperature to increase monotonically under the impact of anthropogenic climate change. Hence, for example, global mean temperatures were especially warm in 1998 because of the occurrence of a substantial El-Niño event. By the bullet above, it is meaningless to attribute the 1998 El-Niño event to global warming. Only by looking over long enough periods of time can one see the trend in global mean temperature due to anthropogenic climate change, above the "noise" of climatic variability.

On the definition of climate :-
Climate defined as average of last 30 years (WMA) - although there is obviously statistical conclusions and probabilities if , for instance, in any decade, you get a string of hot years for instance.
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11641

Climate, however, is the bigger picture of a region's weather: the average, over 30 years (according to the World Meteorological Association's definition), of the weather pattern in a region. While weather changes fast on human timescales, climate changes fairly slowly. Getting reasonably accurate predictions is a matter of choosing the right timescale: days in the case of weather, decades in the case of climate.

But in the end, IPCC talk high probabilities, etc (including 90 and 95% confidence). We have to take the alarming melting of polar cap seriously, (imo) and try to steer things back. It's not as if the world has ever seen this much CO2 before. We are heading into unchartered waters - and the planet is not the place to conduct unprecedented experiments.

And as you have pointed out to me many times, pollution of all types is capable of being reduced with anthropogenic effort.

(PS as for one year being "mild" compared to "the trend" the solar cycle (11 year, Galileo) is at a low at the moment - let's check out the predictions in 2012 when it peaks again shall we)

 

[numbercruncher]

Antarctica's ice melting faster

Leigh Dayton, Science writer | January 15, 2008

THE most comprehensive study to date of Antarctica's ice confirms growing concern that the ice cap is melting faster than predicted.

The implications are that the global sea level will rise faster than expected, while a huge influx of freshwater into the salty oceans could alter ocean currents.

Antarctica holds 90 per cent of Earth's ice.

According to the new findings, snowfall is topping up ice in the continent's interior and East Antarctic has held its own. But West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula lost nearly 200 billion tonnes of ice in 2006 alone.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23053212-11949,00.html

 

[wayneL]

But in the end, IPCC talk high probabilities, etc (including 90 and 95% confidence). We have to take the alarming melting of polar cap seriously, (imo) and try to steer things back. It's not as if the world has ever seen this much CO2 before. We are heading into unchartered waters - and the planet is not the place to conduct unprecedented experiments.

And as you have pointed out to me many times, pollution of all types is capable of being reduced with anthropogenic effort.

(PS as for one year being "mild" compared to "the trend" the solar cycle (11 year, Galileo) is at a low at the moment - let's check out the predictions in 2012 when it peaks again shall we)

http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/12442121.html

There is much cherrypicking of weather events as the above link shows.

My view that concentration on AGW is aiming for a 1 pointer instead of a six pointer (in AFL parlance). Folks ignore 99% of the problem by focusing on so called greenhouse gases (incorrectly in view... I am now more convinced than ever). This is largely a function of "social proof"; it is now cool to fret over GW... while doing zip about it.

Meanwhile, global pollution continues unabated.

 

[2020hindsight]

it is now cool to fret over GW... while doing zip about it.

Meanwhile, global pollution continues unabated.

The only people (among the first world) doing zip about it are the yanks (with exception of the governator of CA) - at least the other countries are admitting there's a problem looming.

ok 95% chance of a problem ( same thing if you think about it - as a responsible manager)

 

[wayneL]

The only people (among the first world) doing zip about it are the yanks (with exception of the governator of CA) - at least the other countries are admitting there's a problem looming.

ok 95% chance of a problem ( same thing if you think about it - as a responsible manager)

IF AGW is real, the so called "measures" the rest of the world are employing is "fiddling while Rome burns", allegorically penny wise and pound foolish... futile.

 

[2020hindsight]

IF AGW is real, the so called "measures" the rest of the world are employing is "fiddling while Rome burns", allegorically penny wise and pound foolish... futile.

Bit hard to put Rome's fire out (need for action against any and ALL pollution) when people (eg Johnny Howard , who took 10 years to come around to the need for action against GW) keep sabotaging the fire engine, burying it with red herrings. (imo)

Where there's bureaucratic smokescreens, there's fire.

 

[aleckara]

THanks Smurf..

1. liberty, equality, fraternity, and get-it-through-your-thick-head-tax-on-power-and-growth-mentality

we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight in the banks, ....

2. .... and as you say, what happens in Aus is chicken feed to what will happen in China and India (as they try to get 10% of what we have). - still we have to do our share - especially as prorata we are one of the worst.

3. let's do it

4. seems to me that planes are running pretty much 100% full these days - gotta be a good start - put air prices up maybe.

petrochemicals? - could go back to using wool instead of synthetics I guess; polyethylene, plastics etc - millions of dumb products, guess we could could reduce by 50% if we cut out half the idiotic toys etc which usually break before boxing day? - at least many are recyclable )

5. let's do it

6. let's do it

7. ditto

8. ditto

9. "All technically very possible but simply tinkering around the edges with x% renewable electricity, a bit of insulation on hot water pipes and different light bulbs does little to take us off the constant growth in fossil fuels track."

agreed - let's stop tinkering and get serious.
give your wind turbines a go - and solar photovoltaic - even dams - although Traveston (for instance) is average depth 1.5m - not much power there m8.

If it turns out that they can't cope (and in themseves are just tinkering , albeit perhaps with a capital T) , then the next gerneration can go nuclear - in the interests that there might be a generation after them

Also put a massive tax on big petrol guzzling cars - also on car-racing events , even formula 1 etc - also on the US military etc

Electric cars are most likely going to run on two commodities and they aren't zinc, copper, gold for the fuel anyway.

They are lithium and platinum. I personally think battery tech has overtaken fuel cells with A123, Toshiba and others inventing things such as the battery that can charge at 5 minutes, and that can put out enough power to make a supercar.

Electric cars that can go the distance are possible. Hydrogen has its pitfalls.

So while I think Lithium is the commodity of the future for batteries i have placed my bets on platinum as well. In effect I have invested companies such as (ADY) for lithium and a platinum one (PLA) to get exposure to both these sectors.

 

[numbercruncher]

I think we are right on the cusp of Electric cars going mainstream, just a few short years.

Ever checked out Tesla Motors - backed by some of the co-founders of Google, you can buy their electric sports cars now (sold out of all 2008s they made) for about 100k - does 0 to 100klm in under 4secs , 2cents per mile running costs.

Alot more companies really close to production.


Everyone is so bullish on Oil prices, in the medium term I think theyll come under pressure, and certainly not the gains weve seen of the past.

 

[Rafa]

electric cars will do didly squat if the electricity is generated by coal c'mon fella's... we're clever than this... the problem can be fixed only by a whole scale change in the way we produce electricity...

that pretty much means geothermal, wave motion, hydro, plus solar / wind for those who have it... and maybe nuclear for those who don't have access to renewable sources.

this problem is two fold
1. Technological capability
2. overcoming vested interests.

We can also overcome this by a global recession / depression... but thats another story.

 

[wayneL]

My view that concentration on AGW is aiming for a 1 pointer instead of a six pointer (in AFL parlance). Folks ignore 99% of the problem by focusing on so called greenhouse gases (incorrectly in view... I am now more convinced than ever). This is largely a function of "social proof"; it is now cool to fret over GW... while doing zip about it.

Meanwhile, global pollution continues unabated.

FYI

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/...WAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/opinion/2008/01/15/do1501.xml

 

[Smurf1976]

electric cars will do didly squat if the electricity is generated by coal c'mon fella's... we're clever than this... the problem can be fixed only by a whole scale change in the way we produce electricity...

that pretty much means geothermal, wave motion, hydro, plus solar / wind for those who have it... and maybe nuclear for those who don't have access to renewable sources.

this problem is two fold
1. Technological capability
2. overcoming vested interests.

Hit the nail on the head there. Geothermal, wave, solar and wind to provide most of the actual energy. Hydro for the storage, firm generating capacity it provides and ability to rapidly alter output to match the supply from all sources with demand.

Once you have clean electricity, then you have a very easy means of shifting most things to clean energy.

A modest size factory (for example, a bakery or milk processing plant) isn't likely to invest in their own energy production. But if all they have to do is switch everything over to grid electricity and let the utility take care of the rest then it's easy and they're far more likely to do it.

I won't name who for confidentiality reasons, but I'll give an example. There's a nationally known name that operates a factory in Tas with 3 boilers. The electric one was the original source of process heat. Then came the 1967 power crisis so the oil-fired one was built. Then came the rain and oil price rises in the 70's so they went back to electric. Then with the second oil price spike and the end of dam construction in sight they built the coal-fired one in the 1980's.

Now here's the point. It makes NO difference whatsoever to the production process which boiler is running. Most of the workers wouldn't even realise when they switched over. It's steam whether it's from coal, oil or electricity. If we got back to 100% renewable electricity then it would be absolutely simple to get rid of the coal and oil in that factory. Same with anyone else using process heat in most applications.

Another one I know of is in the food manufacturing business. Their ovens were diesel fired until the recent emergence of a modest gas industry in Tas over the past 5 years. Now they're cooking with gas instead of diesel. And their customers wouldn't know anything changed. Another food processor made a change from imported (Vic) brown coal to gas and again there's no difference in the end product.

If you go to a hotel and take a shower, you generally wouldn't know if the water was heated by electricity, gas, oil or whatever. It's hot water. Just as you don't know how the shopping centre of public swimming pool is heated. Odds are you don't know whether your bread was baked in an electric or gas oven either. Anything involving heat, which is the dominant non-tranport energy use, is very easy to shift to another fuel.

Hence my being keen on getting to a 100% clean electricity supply. Do that and then we can get rid of a lot of other emissions too - basically everything except a few industrial processes and non-rail transport. But even with transport we can shift some of it to electricity. Electric car technology is reaching the point of being a "here and now" thing. And of course we ran electric buses 50 years ago in urban areas - we can do it if we have to.

 

[2020hindsight]

FYI

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/...WAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/opinion/2008/01/15/do1501.xml

wayne - hell, that is one brilliant article - thanks.

Further along the line, I went to a landfill site, those great muddy canyons of toxic waste. Looking around, I saw that most of the stuff was uneaten food in garish packaging. Once it was buried under the soil, attempts would be made to leach off the harmful emissions, but it was still there, thousands of tons of pointless waste, our selfish legacy to future generations living on a coughing planet

For some reason, there is no pride any longer in making do. Those who object to needless waste are considered tree-huggers, when, in fact, they are simply trying to be ethical in a way that comes naturally to people in other countries.

another example of waste (although not about food) .. of which I am guilty - and felt so at the time.
you buy a calendar it costs $5.
So when the Sun-Herald offered "free 2008 calendar" with each paper - $1.80 whatever - I bought three of them. (including copy for the mother-in-law, lol)

I mean I NEVER buy newspapers because of the bludy ridiculous amount of waste paper - (and why bother when you can get it on the internet anyway) - and here I am stuck with 3 useless papers - sheesh.

 

[numbercruncher]

GM have recently gone into a deal to produce biofuel ethanol from household and Industrial waste and reckon it could halve the cost of fuel .... big step in the right direction!

DETROIT, Michigan (AFP) — General Motors Corp. is planning on making biofuel with garbage at a cost of less than a dollar a gallon, the company's chief has said.

The US automaker has entered into a partnership with Illinois-based Coskata Inc. which has developed a way to make ethanol from practically any renewable source, including old tires and plant waste.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iH9YAIzz62utMFZLeHaG_Fn9PuEg

 

[Julia]

Now being proposed to ban plastic shopping bags. So instead people will buy heavier plastic bags to line kitchen bins.
What about all the plastic bottles as a result of the current fad where no one can walk around without clutching a bottle of water. Did everyone die of dehydration before we had the privilege of paying for bottles of ordinary water?
Then there's all the other plastic packaging. Seems like a disproportionate amount of attention to the shopping bags.

 

[numbercruncher]

They have to start somewhere plastic shopping bags is a valid target.

I think they really need to "popularise" doing the right thing, get all the famous folks on board, movie stars etc, once they go green the sheeples follow!

 

[Wysiwyg]

They have to start somewhere plastic shopping bags is a valid target.

I think they really need to "popularise" doing the right thing, get all the famous folks on board, movie stars etc, once they go green the sheeples follow!

I think "they" is half the problem.

 

[numbercruncher]

I think "they" is half the problem.

True and valid point ! But lets hope " they " can be half the solution as well and us sheeples the other half !

 

[wayneL]

Found next door at RC:

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=164002

Don't fight, adapt

We should give up futile attempts to combat climate change

Published: Wednesday, December 12, 2007
More On This Story


Open Letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations

Dec. 13, 2007

His Excellency Ban Ki-Moon

Secretary-General, United Nations

New York, N.Y.

Dear Mr. Secretary-General,

Re: UN climate conference taking the World in entirely the wrong direction

It is not possible to stop climate change, a natural phenomenon that has affected humanity through the ages. Geological, archaeological, oral and written histories all attest to the dramatic challenges posed to past societies from unanticipated changes in temperature, precipitation, winds and other climatic variables. We therefore need to equip nations to become resilient to the full range of these natural phenomena by promoting economic growth and wealth generation.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued increasingly alarming conclusions about the climatic influences of human-produced carbon dioxide (CO2), a non-polluting gas that is essential to plant photosynthesis. While we understand the evidence that has led them to view CO2 emissions as harmful, the IPCC's conclusions are quite inadequate as justification for implementing policies that will markedly diminish future prosperity. In particular, it is not established that it is possible to significantly alter global climate through cuts in human greenhouse gas emissions. On top of which, because attempts to cut emissions will slow development, the current UN approach of CO2 reduction is likely to increase human suffering from future climate change rather than to decrease it.

The IPCC Summaries for Policy Makers are the most widely read IPCC reports amongst politicians and non-scientists and are the basis for most climate change policy formulation. Yet these Summaries are prepared by a relatively small core writing team with the final drafts approved line-by-line

by *government *representatives. The great *majority of IPCC contributors and *reviewers, and the tens of thousands of other scientists who are qualified to comment on these matters, are not involved in the preparation of these documents. The summaries therefore cannot properly be represented as a consensus view among experts.

Contrary to the impression left by the IPCC Summary reports:

z Recent observations of phenomena such as glacial retreats, sea-level rise and the migration of temperature-sensitive species are not evidence for abnormal climate change, for none of these changes has been shown to lie outside the bounds of known natural variability.

z The average rate of warming of 0.1 to 0. 2 degrees Celsius per decade recorded by satellites during the late 20th century falls within known natural rates of warming and cooling over the last 10,000 years.

z Leading scientists, including some senior IPCC representatives, acknowledge that today's computer models cannot predict climate. Consistent with this, and despite computer projections of temperature rises, there has been no net global warming since 1998. That the current temperature plateau follows a late 20th-century period of warming is consistent with the continuation today of natural multi-decadal or millennial climate cycling.

In stark contrast to the often repeated assertion that the science of climate change is "settled," significant new peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming. But because IPCC working groups were generally instructed (see http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/docs/wg1_timetable_2006-08-14.pdf) to consider work published only through May, 2005, these important findings are not included in their reports; i.e., the IPCC assessment reports are already materially outdated.

The UN climate conference in Bali has been planned to take the world along a path of severe CO2 restrictions, ignoring the lessons apparent from the failure of the Kyoto Protocol, the chaotic nature of the European CO2 trading market, and the ineffectiveness of other costly initiatives to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Balanced cost/benefit analyses provide no support for the introduction of global measures to cap and reduce energy consumption for the purpose of restricting CO2 emissions. Furthermore, it is irrational to apply the "precautionary principle" because many scientists recognize that both climatic coolings and warmings are realistic possibilities over the medium-term future.

The current UN focus on "fighting climate change," as illustrated in the Nov. 27 UN Development Programme's Human Development Report, is distracting governments from adapting to the threat of inevitable natural climate changes, whatever forms they may take. National and international planning for such changes is needed, with a focus on helping our most vulnerable citizens adapt to conditions that lie ahead. Attempts to prevent global climate change from occurring are ultimately futile, and constitute a tragic misallocation of resources that would be better spent on humanity's real and pressing problems.

Yours faithfully,

 

[wayneL]

(cont.)

List of signatories http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=164004

Signatories of an open letter on the UN climate conference

Published: Tuesday, December 18, 2007

The following are signatories to the Dec. 13th letter to the Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations on the UN Climate conference in Bali:

Don Aitkin, PhD, Professor, social scientist, retired vice-chancellor and president, University of Canberra, Australia

William J.R. Alexander, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Civil and Biosystems Engineering, University of Pretoria, South Africa; Member, UN Scientific and Technical Committee on Natural Disasters, 1994-2000

Bjarne Andresen, PhD, physicist, Professor, The Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Geoff L. Austin, PhD, FNZIP, FRSNZ, Professor, Dept. of Physics, University of Auckland, New Zealand

Timothy F. Ball, PhD, environmental consultant, former climatology professor, University of Winnipeg

Ernst-Georg Beck, Dipl. Biol., Biologist, Merian-Schule Freiburg, Germany

Sonja A. Boehmer-Christiansen, PhD, Reader, Dept. of Geography, Hull University, U.K.; Editor, Energy & Environment journal

Chris C. Borel, PhD, remote sensing scientist, U.S.

Reid A. Bryson, PhD, DSc, DEngr, UNE P. Global 500 Laureate; Senior Scientist, Center for Climatic Research; Emeritus Professor of Meteorology, of Geography, and of Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin

Dan Carruthers, M.Sc., wildlife biology consultant specializing in animal ecology in Arctic and Subarctic regions, Alberta

R.M. Carter, PhD, Professor, Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia

Ian D. Clark, PhD, Professor, isotope hydrogeology and paleoclimatology, Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa

Richard S. Courtney, PhD, climate and atmospheric science consultant, IPCC expert reviewer, U.K.

Willem de Lange, PhD, Dept. of Earth and Ocean Sciences, School of Science and Engineering, Waikato University, New Zealand

David Deming, PhD (Geophysics), Associate Professor, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Oklahoma

Freeman J. Dyson, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton, N.J.

Don J. Easterbrook, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Geology, Western Washington University

Lance Endersbee, Emeritus Professor, former dean of Engineering and Pro-Vice Chancellor of Monasy University, Australia

Hans Erren, Doctorandus, geophysicist and climate specialist, Sittard, The Netherlands

Robert H. Essenhigh, PhD, E.G. Bailey Professor of Energy Conversion, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, The Ohio State University

Christopher Essex, PhD, Professor of Applied Mathematics and Associate Director of the Program in Theoretical Physics, University of Western Ontario

David Evans, PhD, mathematician, carbon accountant, computer and electrical engineer and head of 'Science Speak,' Australia

William Evans, PhD, editor, American Midland Naturalist; Dept. of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame

Stewart Franks, PhD, Professor, Hydroclimatologist, University of Newcastle, Australia

R. W. Gauldie, PhD, Research Professor, Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, School of Ocean Earth Sciences and Technology, University of Hawai'i at Manoa

Lee C. Gerhard, PhD, Senior Scientist Emeritus, University of Kansas; former director and state geologist, Kansas Geological Survey

Gerhard Gerlich, Professor for Mathematical and Theoretical Physics, Institut für Mathematische Physik der TU Braunschweig, Germany

Albrecht Glatzle, PhD, sc.agr., Agro-Biologist and Gerente ejecutivo, INTTAS, Paraguay

Fred Goldberg, PhD, Adjunct Professor, Royal Institute of Technology, Mechanical Engineering, Stockholm, Sweden

Vincent Gray, PhD, expert reviewer for the IPCC and author of The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of 'Climate Change 2001, Wellington, New Zealand

William M. Gray, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University and Head of the Tropical Meteorology Project

Howard Hayden, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of Connecticut

Louis Hissink MSc, M.A.I.G., editor, AIG News, and consulting geologist, Perth, Western Australia

Craig D. Idso, PhD, Chairman, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Arizona

Sherwood B. Idso, PhD, President, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, AZ, USA

Andrei Illarionov, PhD, Senior Fellow, Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity; founder and director of the Institute of Economic Analysis

Zbigniew Jaworowski, PhD, physicist, Chairman - Scientific Council of Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection, Warsaw, Poland

Jon Jenkins, PhD, MD, computer modelling - virology, NSW, Australia

Wibjorn Karlen, PhD, Emeritus Professor, Dept. of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, Sweden

Olavi Kärner, Ph.D., Research Associate, Dept. of Atmospheric Physics, Institute of Astrophysics and Atmospheric Physics, Toravere, Estonia

Joel M. Kauffman, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, University of the Sciences in Philadelphia

David Kear, PhD, FRSNZ, CMG, geologist, former Director-General of NZ Dept. of Scientific & Industrial Research, New Zealand

Madhav Khandekar, PhD, former research scientist, Environment Canada; editor, Climate Research (2003-05); editorial board member, Natural Hazards; IPCC expert reviewer 2007

William Kininmonth M.Sc., M.Admin., former head of Australia's National Climate Centre and a consultant to the World Meteorological organization's Commission for Climatology Jan J.H. Kop, MSc Ceng FICE (Civil Engineer Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers), Emeritus Prof. of Public Health Engineering, Technical University Delft, The Netherlands

Prof. R.W.J. Kouffeld, Emeritus Professor, Energy Conversion, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

Salomon Kroonenberg, PhD, Professor, Dept. of Geotechnology, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

Hans H.J. Labohm, PhD, economist, former advisor to the executive board, Clingendael Institute (The Netherlands Institute of International Relations), The Netherlands

The Rt. Hon. Lord Lawson of Blaby, economist; Chairman of the Central Europe Trust; former Chancellor of the Exchequer, U.K.

Douglas Leahey, PhD, meteorologist and air-quality consultant, Calgary

David R. Legates, PhD, Director, Center for Climatic Research, University of Delaware

Marcel Leroux, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Climatology, University of Lyon, France; former director of Laboratory of Climatology, Risks and Environment, CNRS

Bryan Leyland, International Climate Science Coalition, consultant and power engineer, Auckland, New Zealand

William Lindqvist, PhD, independent consulting geologist, Calif.

Richard S. Lindzen, PhD, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology