German Scientists change on Global Warming
by Klaus-Eckart Puls and Sebastian Lüning (translated, edited by P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone)
Currently this 2012/13 winter in Germany and over large parts of Europe we’ve been finding lots of cold, snow and ice – the fifth winter of this type in a row. Who can still recall the prognoses and claims of some alarmists of the established climate science community, like this one [1]?:
‘Winter with strong frosts and lots of snow like 20 years ago will cease to exist at our latitudes,’ said scientist Mojib Latif of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg.”
This quote comes from an interview with SPIEGEL in the year 2000. The headline: “Good-bye winter: No more snow? In Germany bitter cold winters are now a thing of the past.”
However, perhaps Professor Latif meant this as a joke because the article appeared on April 1, 2000! In this regard, one could simply dismiss the comment – had that claim by Latif not been repeated by other climate scientists, e.g. [2]:
“The very mild winters of the last decades can be attributed mainly to the anthropogenic greenhouse effect. As a consequence, we are for example seeing a reduction in snowfall. When every 50-year-old was able to go skating as a kid almost every winter, kids today often have to wait many years for larger amounts of snow.”
Well, kids haven’t had to wait at all for the last 5 winters! If that weren’t enough, in 2005 Mojib Latif spoke out once again [3], this time making a 50-year prediction:
In 2050, no more snow in the lowlands; Mainz (dpa). According to climate scientist Mojib Latif of Kiel, winters in Germany will become warmer. Without future climate protection, ‘In 2050 there will no longer be snow in Germany – at least not in the lowlands,’ said the professor of the Institute for Ocean Sciences of the University of Kiel on ZDF television. The observed trend to warmer winters will continue on.
So are we allowed to ask, where has this trend been for the last 5 winters?
In a conference report of the Dow Jones News GmbH [4] the “…renowned climate scientist of Kiel Prof. Mojib Latif…” is quoted:
‘The scenarios discussed by scientists see a further warming of 1.4 to 5.8 °C on average by the end of the century. In Germany there will be no longer frost or snow by then; in hot climate zones there will be ‘desolation’.”
In the meantime, all these statements have since been contradicted: Nature is doing something completely different…the exact opposite!
The first climate warmists to scramble to make a major forecasting adjustment already in 2010 were from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) – and did so through BILD tabloid [5]:
The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research sees the hard winters as being the result of global warming: Icy Arctic winds will be triggered by it and reach all the way to Europe unhindered due to climate change in the Arctic.”
‘Could be,’ may have been the first reaction of a BILD reader. However they likely immediately followed up with the question: Why do scientists always come up with such explanations after the fact? The alarmists used a sleight of hand, and magically and rapidly came up with a rabbit from a hat. [6]:
“A new study shows the relationship between Arctic sea ice cover in the summer and winter weather in Central Europe. […] The probability of cold, snowy winters in Central Europe increases when the Arctic summer has little sea ice.“
Did they ever have such a climate model before the cold winters of the last years? NO! This is precisely the point that WELTWOCHE magazine couldn’t help but notice [7]:
‘…are three cold winters… a coincidence?’… ‘Such winters are inconvenient not only for those who freeze in them, but also for those had announced warmer temperatures because of the CO2 emissions.’ … ‘The reality is, writes American climate scientist JUDAH COHEN, that we are not freezing despite climate change, but because of it.’ … ‘Such an explanation would be convincing only if it had not come afterwards. Indeed just the opposite had been announced for decades. We can recall DAVID VINER of the British Climate Research Unit. In the year 2000 VINER said that snowfall in Great Britain soon would be rare and a sensation. Children will not know what snow is.”
Former television meteorologist Wolfgang Thüne takes apart the entire matter by using factual meteorological aspects [8]:
“The AWI hypothesis published here [AWI press release] now says:
‘The available model calculations show that the air pressure difference when there is less summertime Arctic sea ice cover is less in the following winter, and thus allow cold Arctic air to plunge to the mid latitudes.’
If that were the case, then we should have had cold winters for the last 20 years because this is about how long we’ve been having relatively minimal sesa ice cover.
If this AWI hypothesis were indeed scientifically conclusive, then the North Atlantic Oscillation Index would have to have been negative for the last 30 years – but the opposite is true as the following graphic depicts: positive 22, negative 7, +/- zero 1! Even in the last 10 years it’s only fifty-fifty.”
Figure: North Atlantic Oscillation Index [9]
Whether it’s the cold winters in Europe or the global temperature development, climate scientists now find themselves with their models up the creek without a paddle. Global warming has stagnated for 15 years [10]:
….however it has long been known that the climate has developed differently than what was predicted: Warming has stalled for 15 years, the rising trend of the global mean temperature hasn’t continued since. The stagnation leads to the assumption that global warming has stopped.’ NASA concedes.”
This fact has been discussed a long time already in the English speaking media, and has now reached the German public [11]. This is very inconvenient because for a long time we had been hearing [12]:
“The warming is developing as predicted. The models were also tested in climates of the past. There’s no reason not to trust the models.”
That obviously can now be perceived in another way [13]:
‘The climate models are not consistent with the currently observed climate development’, said Jochem Marotzke, Director of the Hamburg Max-Planck-Institute for Meteorology.”
And Marozke [14]:
According to our first calculations, it would have to warm up a lot and abruptly in the coming years. But we do not trust these prognoses along the way. The simulations should have also seen the temperature increase stagnation – and that didn’t happen.”
Kevin Trenberth [15] wrote on 11 October 2009 [16] of hockey stick inventor Michael Mann:
The fact is that we cannot account for the lack of warming at the moment and it’s a travesty that we can’t.”
What did our colleague in Kiel say?
“…kids today often have to wait many years for large amounts of snow.”
So children, as you can see, also professors make mistakes – sometimes even 5 years in a row. Just look out the window!
Summary:
Neither the winters nor the global temperatures are doing what the climate alarmists and models predicted. This is an embarassment for the established climate science community. However, malice is not warranted because scientific history has always been connected to being on the wrong path. Errors are permitted, but they must be corrected as quickly as possible when they are detected.
Now we have to look ahead and bring the proportion of the man-made and natural climate factors back into balance in the models. One thing is already clear: The sworn climate catastrophe is not taking place.
Figure: Winter temperatures in Germany over the last 25 years (DJF). Source: Josef Kowatsch. Data from the DWD German Weather Service.
Quotes:
[1] http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,71456,00.html; 01.04.2000
[2] DIE ZEIT, 27. März 2002, Nr. 14, DOSSIER, Das große Schmelzen hat begonnen: Abbrechende Eisberge, schwere Überschwemmungen und andere Folgen der globalen Erwärmung / Von Mojib Latif
[3] Leipziger Volkszeitung, 1./2. October 2005
[4] Dow Jones News GmbH Frankfurter Beratungsunternehmen 3c Climate Change Consulting GmbH, Bericht über die Konferenz am 28. und 29. März 2006 “Fachwelt entdeckt Klimahandel als Quelle für Investment und Finanzierung”
[5] BILD, 23.12.2010, S.7
[6] AWI, Presse-Mitt. 26.01.2012,
[7] WELTWOCHE, Frostbeulen der Erderwärmung, 1/2011, p.40
[9] Quelle: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timo/datapages/naoi.htm
[10] http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/stillstand-der-temperatur-erklaerungen-fuer-pause-der-klimaerwaermung-a-877941.html ; 18.01.2013
[11] http://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/news-cache/klima-skepsis-erreicht-auch-die-deutschen-medien/; 30.01.2013
[12] Leipniz-Inst. Kiel, Mojib Latif, in : BILD , 20.09.07, p.13
[13] FOCUS: (http://www.focus.de/wissen/weltraum/odenwalds_universum/tid-25498/neuer-bericht-sorgt-fuer-kontroverseerderwaermung-eine-frage-deransicht_aid_737040.html ; 16.04.2012)
[14] J. Marotzke, MPI HH, in: DER SPIEGEL, 27.02.2012, p. 113
[15] National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Co., USA
[16] Trenberth-Email, uncovered in the ClimateGate scandal 2009, email 1255352257*, here quoted from: DIE WELT, 03.12.09, p.3