Satellite data: No global warming for over 8 years

FPI / May 15, 2023

There has been no increase in global temperatures from July 2015 to March 2023, according to satellite readings, a recent analysis said.

"This fact-based claim draws on satellite readings from the University of Alabama in Huntsville that measure temperatures in the troposphere, a much more accurate method of keeping score than the shoddy records produced by ground-based weather stations," Christopher Mockton, a British consultant and policy adviser, wrote last month.

“The start and end dates of the New Pause are not cherry-picked,” wrote Monckton, an adviser for Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who now consults with the Heartland Institute on climate policy. “The end date is the present; the start date is the farthest back one can reach and still find a zero trend. It is what it is.”

Mockton went back even further, to the beginning of satellite measurements.

“The entire dataset for 44 years four months since December 1978,” says Monckton, “shows a less than terrifying long-run warming rate equivalent to 1.3 degrees/century, of which 0.3” degrees has already occurred, leaving a single degree “to go (on the current trend) until 2100.”

For over a third of a century since IPCC (1990), "global warming is proving to be so slower than the 0.3 degrees/decade that IPCC had then confidently predicted (and still predicts today)," Mockton wrote.

The data is relevant "to a question posed to two hapless representatives of the current U.S. maladministration" by Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy at a recent hearing.

The Senator began by asking Dr Robert Litterman, the chairman of the climate-related market risk subcommittee of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, how long he had been studying the climate question. Answer: 15 years. Next, Dr Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum. Answer: about 25 years.

Senator Kennedy: “Dr Litterman, how much will it cost to make the United States of America carbon-neutral by 2050?”

Litterman: “I don’t know, sir.”

Senator Kennedy: “So you’re advocating that we do these things but you don’t know the ultimate cost?”

Litterman: “Yes, absolutely, I certainly don’t know the ultimate cost and it’s very uncertain. It depends on innovations, it depends on …”

Senator Kennedy: “I’m just trying to lay a foundation here to understand your expert testimony. Dr Holtz-Eakin, do you know how much it will cost to make the United States of America carbon-neutral by 2050?”

Holtz-Eakin: “Depends how you do it. If we do it all with the Federal budget …”

Senator Kennedy: “Public and private dollars. It’s ultimately private dollars anyway.”

Holtz-Eakin: “I agree.”

Senator Kennedy: “So, how much?”

Holtz-Eakin: “You’re going to look at $50 trillion.”

Senator Kennedy: “$50 trillion?”

Holtz-Eakin: “Yes.”

Senator Kennedy: “OK, thank you. If we make the United States of America carbon-neutral by 2050, by spending $50 trillion, which you’re advocating, I gather …”

Holtz-Eakin: “No.”

Senator Kennedy: “OK, strike that last part. I’m wrong. You’re not advocating it. You’re advocating something.”

Holtz-Eakin: “If you’re going to do something, do something smart: that’s what I’m advocating.”

Senator Kennedy: “If we spend $50 trillion to make the United States of America carbon-neutral by 2050, how much will that lower world temperatures?”

Holtz-Eakin: “I can’t say, because I don’t know what China and India and the rest of the world has done.”

Senator Kennedy: “Have you heard anybody from the Biden administration say how much it would lower world temperatures?”

Holtz-Eakin: “No.”

Senator Kennedy: “Does anybody know how much it will lower world temperatures? [Pause] No?”

Holtz-Eakin: “No one can know for sure.”

Senator Kennedy: “OK. Dr Litterman, if we spend $50 trillion, or however much it takes, to make the United States of America carbon-neutral by 2050, how much will it lower world temperatures?”

Litterman: “Senator, that depends on the rest of the world. We have to work with the rest of the world. We’re in this together. It’s one world. We can’t put a wall around the United States and say …”

Senator Kennedy: “What if we spend $50 trillion, Europe co-operates, most Western democracies co-operate, but India and China don’t? How much will our $50 trillion lower world temperature?”

Litterman: “We’re in this together, Senator. We have to get the world to work together.”

Senator Kennedy: “I understand. I get that. How much will it lower world temperatures?”

Litterman: “If China and India do not help? I don’t know.”

Mockton noted that Kennedy's question "is one of the central questions in the climate debate, but no one in (UK) Parliament on this side of the pond would have had the wit, the courage or the persistence to ask it and go on asking it. I continue to be impressed with the calibre of your statesmen compared with our politicians."

Using "only mainstream, midrange data from scientific sources that the “Democrats” would regard as suitable," Mockton noted that, if all nations succeeded in attaining net zero emissions by 2050 there would be less than one-tenth of a Celsius degree decrease in global temperatures.

The United States is estimated to be responsible for 15% of global emissions. If it were able to attain net zero by 2050, the U.S.'s contribution "would reduce global temperature by less than one-seventieth of a degree," Mockton wrote. "That is the answer to Senator Kennedy’s question – the answer that 'Democrat' climate 'experts' with 15 and 25 years’ experience were altogether unable (or unwilling) to answer."

Using the Holtz-Eakin estimate of $50 trillion cost of U.S. net zero as a starting-point, "implies that the cost of global net zero would be $400 trillion. Given that McKinsey Consulting puts the capex cost alone at $275 trillion, and that opex is 2-3 times capex, the total cost could well be $900 trillion, more than twice Holtz-Eakin’s plucked-out-of-the-air guesstimate," Mockton wrote.

"In that event, each $1 billion spent on the futile attempt to attain net zero emissions would prevent approximately one ten-millionth of a degree of global warming – the worst value for money in history."

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