The Good Lord Speaks

Some observations about global climate change from Lord Monckton:

1. For the last seven years global temperatures have been cooling at the rate equivalent to 2.1degrees C/century.

2. Observed increases in CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere is well below the IPCC estimate for this time period – if the current trend continues, CO2 concentrations will be app. 575 ppm by 2100 as opposed to the IPCC’s 836 ppm – a difference of 32%. This despite continued increases in emissions.

3. There is compelling evidence that much of the warming that did occur in the 20th century was due to solar activities. During the period 1645-1715 the sun was less active than it had been for the past 10,000 years. Then the sun increased its activities for some 300 years until, during the 70 years 1925-1995, the sun was as active as at anytime during the past 11,400 years – peaking in 1960. The International Astronomical Union (2004) concluded that the sun, not CO2, was responsible for warming patterns seen over the last 25- years and that solar activity was now likely to decline. Other studies suggest that the sun caused 68% of the warming that occurred in the twentieth century, which ended in 1998.

4. Sea ice in the arctic winter shows little real change over the last thirty years – any changes are well within patterns of natural variability over time. The arctic was in fact warmer in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s than it is now.

5. In the Antarctic sea ice reached a record high in 2007 – and again shows little change in winter levels over a thirty year period.

6. Glaciers have been melting slowly since 1800-1820 – no acceleration of the trend since this time has been observed.

7. Northern hemisphere snow cover, on which 40% of the world’s population depends for water, reached a record high in 2007/8.

8. Global temperatures were warmer by some 7C than the present throughout most of the past half billion years; 5C warmer in each of the last four interglacial periods; 2-3 degrees warmer than in most of the last 10,000 years and 1-3C warmer in the medieval warm period.