Since its establishment in 1988, the IPCC's many scientists have been mandated by its founders (the UN Environment Programme and World Meteorological Organization) to "make policy relevant – as opposed to policy-prescriptive – assessments of the existing worldwide literature on the scientific, technical and socio-economic aspects of climate change. Its earlier reports helped to inspire governments to adopt and implement the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol." https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ar4-wg1-frontmatter-1.pdf
The IPCC's wide remit included reports on the following aspects of climate change: The Physical Science Basis, Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability and Mitigation. Working Group 1 was tasked with reporting in the Assessment Reports on The Physical Science Basis and it is this which is briefly examined here.
Since 1988, the IPCC's Working Group 1 provided AR1 in 1990, a Supplementary Report in 1992, TAR Climate Change 2001 https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar3/wg1/ and many other reports and refinements on advice to governments listed here: https://www.ipcc.ch/reports/ In 2007, the IPCC WG1 provided its Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar4/wg1/ In 2013, WG1 produced a report for AR5 https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/ and again in 2021 for AR6 https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-i/
Any enquiry into the IPCC's work on The Physical Science Basis will have to note the unremitting focus on 'greenhouse gasses', to the exclusion of research into the many other factors involved in climate change such as, for example, the sun, moon, oceans, volcanoes, cosmic rays, Earth's orbit, its position in our galaxy and the passage of geological time that has witnessed warm ages and ice ages. However, since the IPCC was set up "...to inspire governments to adopt and implement the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol..." such a single-minded focus is only to be expected. Consequently, the IPCC and, in particular its activist supporters, have advised (cajoled, pressurised, coerced?) our political representatives to implement policies which reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
In Britain, these policies were enshrined in the 2008 UK and 2009 Scottish Climate Change Acts and much subsequent legislation designed to enforce, via four-yearly Carbon Budgets for example, the UN Environment Programme's intention to 'decarbonize' the world's industrial, transport, agricultural and domestic systems (in a process now called 'Net Zero.') Since our climate legislation has caused the closure of power stations, proliferation of wind turbines and solar panels and increased energy costs for businesses and households, it would be useful to examine carbon dioxide's actual impact on global atmospheric temperatures. There are three issues:
1. The 'saturation' point of carbon dioxide
IPCC reports indicate an assumption that the more carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere, the more the temperature will increase. This assumption is not only unproven; it is spurious. Many years before the industrial revolution's use of fossil fuels, carbon dioxide had already absorbed all available infrared radiation at what were very low densities in the atmosphere. Specifically, the lack of warming impact of carbon dioxide above very low density is due to its being a very efficient absorber of infrared radiation within the only available wavelength bands of 14 to 16 microns; a point reached when atmospheric quantities of carbon dioxide were around 100 to 150 parts per million. What little there is, with water vapour prevents Earth from freezing over! This phenomenon was discovered by Kurt Angstrom in 1900 and repeatedly confirmed by scientists since. Thus, further carbon dioxide emitted by humans or volcanoes or the oceans, cannot cause any more warming even with today's amount of about 400 ppm. For the details see:
W.A. Van Wijngaarden & W. Happer, Dependence of Earth's Thermal Radiation on Five Most Abundant Greenhouse Gases
W.A. Van Wijngaarden & W. Happer, Relative Potency of Greenhouse Molecules
S.I. Rasool & Stephen Schneider, Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols: Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate
Richard Lindzen, William Happer, CO2 Coalitionsummarised at:
C.B. Thorington, Thermodynamic Effects of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Revisited
Ole Humlum, Climate4youSee lowest graphs for most recent atmospheric temperature and carbon dioxide records and discussion
Jeremy Nieboer, Climate – CO2 Nature's Gift pp.34 to 41; pub. The Bruges Group, 2022
Don J. Easterbrook, Evidence-Based Climate Science pp.165 and 167; pub. Elsevier Inc., 2016
2. The quantity of natural carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere
The total weight of Earth's atmosphere is 5.5 quadrillion metric tons or
5,500,000,000,000,000 metric tons
The percentages of gases which make up this weight are:
Nitrogen 78%: 4,290,000,000,000,000 metric tons
Oxygen 21%: 1,155,000,000,000,000 metric tons
Argon 0.9%: 49,500,000,000,000 metric tons
Carbon dioxide 0.04%: 22,000,000,000,000 metric tons
Rest* 0.05935% 33,000,000,000,000 metric tons
*Water vapour, methane, neon, other trace gases
3. The quantity of anthropogenic carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
In 2021, the US Energy Information Administration recorded this to be 35,341 million metric tons, say, 36,000,000,000 mt.
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=79&t=11
As a percentage of Earth's atmosphere, this is a tiny 0.00065%.
To conclude, in their zeal to emphasise what they see as the 'challenge' to the climate posed by increasing atmospheric amounts of anthropogenic carbon dioxide, IPCC reports omit to note how insignificant these amounts actually are. And since more carbon dioxide cannot cause more warming, it would be common sense to repeal all our climate legislation.
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