John Christy: Is the world even warming?

So, are you saying the jet blast from two or possibly four turbofan aircraft engines might somehow affect the readings on our temperature sensor a few yards away? Is that important? Rome Airport (from WUWT)

It’s like a house of cards in a (global warming intensified) hurricane. Bits flying everywhere – the fragile structure reduced to its constituent molecules. That’s what the global warming movement looks like right now. All four wheels have parted company from the bandwagon, it’s out of gas, driverless, out of control, sliding towards the edge of a thousand metre drop, and all we can do is look on and watch the ghastly spectacle unfold before our eyes.

THE UN climate panel faces a new challenge, with scientists casting doubt on its claim that global temperatures are rising inexorably because of human pollution.

In its last assessment, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that greenhouse gases had already heated the world by 0.7C and there could be 5-6C more warming by 2100.

New research has cast doubt on such claims.

“The temperature records cannot be relied on as indicators of global change,” said John Christy, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama, in Huntsville, and a former lead author on the IPCC.

The doubts of Professor Christy and several other researchers focus on the thousands of weather stations around the world, which have been used to collect temperature data over the past 150 years.

They believe these stations have been seriously compromised by factors such as urbanisation, changes in land use and, frequently, being moved from site to site.

Professor Christy has published research papers looking at these effects in three different regions: east Africa and the US states of California and Alabama.

“The story is the same for each one,” he said. “The popular data sets show a lot of warming but the apparent temperature rise was actually caused by local factors affecting the weather stations, such as land development.”

Read it here. Original Times article here. UK Telegraph article here.