The Earth Is Warming, but Is CO2 the Cause?

Norway’s government commits a no-no by letting statisticians pose the most inconvenient question

By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. Excerpts:

"A paper published by the Norwegian government’s statistical agency, written by two of its retired experts, touching on this very subject has called forth so many shrieked accusations of climate apostasy that you know it must be interesting.

The authors ask a simple question: Are computerized climate simulations a sufficient basis for attributing observed warming to human CO2? After all, the Earth’s climate has been subject to substantial warming and cooling trends for millennia that remain unexplained and can’t be attributed to fossil fuels. As statisticians, their conclusion: “With the current level of knowledge, it seems impossible to determine how much of the temperature increase is due to emissions of CO2.”"

"Before 2015, as I’ve previously noted, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that 2005 and 2010 were equally warm to the second decimal. By 2015, the record was changed to claim 2010 was warmer than 2005. Such adjustments are common and the Norwegians point out the obvious: “It is impossible to evaluate the validity of such administrative changes for an outside user of these records.” In 2017, independent researcher Marcia Wyatt showed 16 such revisions had been made to the long-past temperature record in just the previous three years.

I’ve long argued that if a future climate scandal is lurking, it’s here. A spirit of disingenuousness already pervades NOAA’s use of these numbers to make “hottest year” and “hottest month” proclamations, ignoring its own stated margin of error, which is often a large multiple of the claimed temperature difference from one period to the next."

"The same week brought forth a new study from one of the most venerable of climate warriors, former NASA scientist James Hansen, whose own brand of discordance throws the climate crowd into a tizzy of cognitive dissonance. Warming will be worse, his paper predicts, for an ironic reason: Our success in reducing particulate exhaust from vehicles and power sources has reduced the atmospheric aerosols that slow warming. Mr. Hansen champions nuclear power, which remains anathema to many greens, and research into using aerosols artificially to cool the planet, even more anathema, since it doesn’t involve a giant convulsion of green socialism. You can bet most of his argument will be ignored except the part about faster warming, since it can be used to bludgeon any deniers who might be handy."