Contents (click on the title)

                       Summary For Policymakers

Chapter 1 -  History of the Greenhouse Effect

Chapter 2 -  `Climate Change', `Change of Climate',  or `Climate Variability'?

Chapter 3 -  Global Warming: What Evidence?

Chapter 4 -  Greenhouse Gases and Aerosols

Chapter 5 -  Sea Level

Chapter 6 -  Computer Climate Models                          

Chapter 7 -  Forecasting the Future   

Chapter 8 -  Extreme Events

                      A Note on Sources 

• Climate has always changed and nothing we can do will stop it from changing.
  

• There is no credible evidence that the earth is currently warming. Satellite measurements in the lower atmosphere for the past 23 years show no significant temperature change. The frequently quoted combined temperature record from weather stations is biased in favour of proximity to cities, airports. buildings, roads and vehicles, all of which have become slightly warmer over the years from increased energy consumption. Surface measurements from remote areas, or from countries with many well controlled sites ( such as the USA) show no evidence of significant warming.
  

• Sea level measurements are even more biased than weather stations. They are mainly near Northern Hemisphere ports, and are subject to local and short and long-term geological changes which are difficult to allow for. Sites in remote, low population places, such as the smaller Pacific islands show no evidence of recent sea level change.
  

• The earth’s temperature is warmer because of its atmosphere, and by the influence of greenhouse gases which partly prevent heat loss.
  

• The changes over the years in the properties of the most important of these gases, water vapour, and the clouds that form from it, are virtually unknown.
  

• The minor greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide is increasing in concentration linearly at the rate of 0.4% a year, and as a result, agricultural and forestry yields are increasing. There are no established harmful effects of this increase.
  

• The rate of increase of the only other important greenhouse gas, methane, has fallen steadily for the past 17 years. The concentration is currently falling.
  

• Computer climate models are based on the incorrect belief that changes in the greenhouse effect are the only influences on the climate.
  

• There are huge uncertainties in the model outputs which are unrecognised and unmeasured. They are so large that adjustment of model parameters can give model results which fit any climate, including one with no warming, and one that cools.
  

• No model has ever successfully predicted any future climate sequence. Despite this, future "projections" for as far ahead as several hundred years have been presented by the IPCC as plausible future trends, based on largely distorted "storylines", combined with untested models.
  

• The IPCC have provided a wealth of scientific information on the climate, but they have not established a case that increases in carbon dioxide are causing any harmful effects.
  

• Attempts to suggest a relationship with "unusual" weather events and changes in greenhouse gases have been unsuccessful.