Climate change alarmists may be just that

Here is a link to a paper titled "On the Existence of a Tropical Hot Spot & The Validity of EPA's C02 Endangerment Finding.

It appears that the alarmists view that climate change is a settled science is somewhat exaggerated.

Here are the abstract and conclusion from the paper.
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ABSTRACT

The objective of this research was to determine whether or not a straightforward application of the “proper mathematical methods” would support EPA’s basic claim that CO2 is a pollutant. These analysis results would appear to leave very, very little doubt but that EPA’s claim of a Tropical Hot Spot (THS), caused by rising atmospheric CO2 levels, simply does not exist in the real world. Also critically important, this analysis failed to find that the steadily rising Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations have had a statistically significant impact on any of the 14 temperature data sets that were analyzed. The temperature data measurements that were analyzed were taken by many different entities using balloons, satellites, buoys and various land based techniques. Needless to say, if regardless of data source, the structural analysis results are the same, the analysis findings should be considered highly credible. Thus, the analysis results invalidate each of the Three Lines of Evidence in its CO2 Endangerment Finding. Once EPA’s THS assumption is invalidated, it is obvious why the climate models EPA claims can be relied upon for policy analysis purposes, are also invalid. And, these results clearly demonstrate—14 separate and distinct times in fact--that once just the Natural Factor impacts on temperature data are accounted for, there is no “record setting” warming to be concerned about. In fact, there is no Natural Factor Adjusted Warming at all. Moreover, over the time period analyzed, these natural factors have involved historically quite normal solar, volcanic and ENSO activity. At this point, there is no statistically valid proof that past increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations have caused the officially reported rising, even claimed record setting temperatures.

BOTTOM-LINE: On the Existence of a "Tropical Hot Spot" & The Validity of EPA's CO2 Endangerment Finding.

Given the potential significance of this research, it is appropriate to question everything about it. Questioning everything is fair game from 1) the selection, by one of the authors, of the particular 14 temperature time series for this structural analysis process to 2) the particular econometric parameter estimation/structural analysis methods utilized to 3) the actual models estimated. On all three issues, the authors have attempted to be completely open.

Regarding the model used for Natural Factor Impact Adjustment, recall that the exact same linear functional form and 5 Natural Factor explanatory variables were used in all 14 structural analyses, except that the 1977 Pacific Shift variable is dropped for the Satellite data modeling since its data history begins in 1979. Also, the two NINO Buoy data time series required less analysis because neither had statistical significant time trends to begin with. So that counting the UAH tropical ocean discussed in Section XXIV immediately above, a detailed structural analysis was performed on 12 (13+1-2) temperature data sets.

The econometric modeling/structural analysis process output turned out to be remarkable in that, for all 12 temperature time series so analyzed, the results were invariably the same:

The identical (5 or 4 Natural Factor variables as appropriate for the data window) model worked very well for all 12 temperature data time series:

1.) Excluding (not surprisingly) the 150 mb stratosphere data model, literally all parameter estimates had the correct signs and very nearly all had quite high t Statistics easily confirming statistical significance. (The Durban-Watson statistics confirmed that all the reported t Statistics were reliable.) One exception involved the MEI variable outside the tropics -which was expected.

2.) The Natural Factor Adjustment Model Adjusted R Squares were all higher than relevant Naive forecasting models and very high (i.e., 0.70 -0.88) for such empirical work. Only the stratospheric and NOAA Contiguous U.S. temperature data models had lower Adjusted R Squares for the reasons discussed in Sections VIII and XVIII.

3.) The 14 time series analyzed constituted a robust test set in that they were produced by many different entities using different technologies involving Surface, Buoy, Balloon and Satellite temperature measurement.

These analysis results would appear to leave very, very little doubt but that EPA’s claim of a Tropical Hot Spot, caused by rising atmospheric CO2 levels, simply does not exist in the real world. Also critically important, this analysis failed to find that the steadily rising Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations have had a statistically significant impact on any of the 14 temperature time series that were analyzed.

Thus, the analysis results invalidate each of the Three Lines of Evidence in its CO2 Endangerment Finding. Once EPA’s THS assumption is invalidated, it is obvious why the climate models they claim can be relied upon, are also invalid. And, these results clearly demonstrate—14 separate and distinct times in fact--that once just the Natural Factor impacts on temperature data are accounted for, there is no “record setting” warming to be concerned about. In fact, there is no Natural Factor Adjusted Warming at all. Moreover, over the time period analyzed, these natural factors have involved historically quite normal solar, volcanic and ENSO activity.

At this point, there is no statistically valid proof that past increases in Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations have caused the officially reported rising, even claimed record setting temperatures. To validate such a claim will require mathematically credible, publically available structural analyses involving simultaneous equation parameter estimation techniques.

Finally, regarding the merits of the methodology used herein versus that used in developing the Climate Models relied upon in EPA’s Endangerment Finding, a quote from Congressional testimony seems is order here:

“The advantage of the simple statistical treatment {used herein} is that the complicated processes such as clouds, ocean-atmosphere interaction, aerosols, etc., are implicitly incorporated by the statistical relationships discovered from the actual data. Climate models attempt to calculate these highly non-linear processes from imperfect parameterizations (estimates) whereas the statistical model directly accounts for them since the bulk atmospheric temperature is the response-variable these processes impact. It is true that the statistical model does not know what each sub-process is or how each might interact with other processes. But it also must be made clear: it is an understatement to say that no IPCC climate model accurately incorporates all of the nonlinear processes that affect the system. I simply point out that because the model is constrained by the ultimate response variable (bulk temperature), these highly complex processes are included.

The fact that this statistical model {typically} explains 75-90 percent of the real annual temperature variability, depending on dataset, using these influences (ENSO, volcanoes, solar) is an indication the statistical model is useful. - - - - This result promotes the conclusion that this approach achieves greater scientific (and policy) utility than results from elaborate climate models which on average fail to reproduce the real world’s global average bulk temperature trend since 1979."