Sir, – The presidents of assorted Colleges of Physicians wrote
recently to the BMJ and The Lancet(1) to say Western-driven “global
warming” is the biggest health threat the world faces, deserts in Africa
are consequently advancing, and at the Copenhagen climate conference
doctors should “demand that their politicians listen to the clear facts”
about climate change.
Doctors have no business making any such “demand”. None of the letter’s
signatories has a track record in the mathematics or physics of climate.
There has been no atmospheric “global warming” for almost 15 years and
rapid cooling for 9 years (2). The oceans have cooled for at least five
years (3), and there has been no net heat-energy gain in the climate-
relevant upper or mixed layer for almost 70 years (4), implying that the
global radiation imbalance that, if “global warming” is serious, must
accumulate in the oceans is entirely absent. Warmer weather is better for
health than cooler (5). The deserts in Africa are by no means universally
advancing: the largest, the Sahara, has shrunk by 300,000 km2 in the past
30 years (6), (7).
It is now known that at CO2 doubling the warming effect of this
blameless trace gas, formerly present in the atmosphere without ill
effects at up to 20 times today’s concentration, is less than one-sixth of
the IPCC’s central estimate of 3.26 K – i.e. a harmless and beneficial 0.5
-0.6 K. Recently, this low climate sensitivity has been definitively
established by measurement (8). Physicians should confine themselves to
their important but limited sphere of expertise. The unfashionable but
correct response to the non-problem of “global warming” is to have the
courage to do nothing.
1) Lim, V., et al. Politicians must heed effects of climate change.
BMJ 2009;339:b3672 (19 September).
2) Hadley/CRU, NCDC, RSS and UAH. Monthly global-temperature
anomalies, 1995-date.
3) ARGO bathythermograph project. Monthly Global monthly sea-surface
temperature anomalies, 2004-2008.
4) Douglass, D., and R.S. Knox. 2009. Ocean heat content and Earth’s
radiation imbalance. Physics Letters A [in press].
5) Laaidi, M., Laaidi, K. and Besancenot, J.-P. 2006. Temperature-
related mortality in France, a comparison between regions with different
climates from the perspective of global warming. International Journal of
Biometeorology 51: 145-153.
6) Nicholson, S.E., C.J. Tucker, and M.B. Ba. 1998.
Desertification, drought, and surface vegetation: An example from the West
African Sahel. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 79: 815-
829.
7) Prince, S.D., E. Brown De Colstoun, and L.L. Kravitz. 1998.
Evidence from rain-use efficiencies does not indicate extensive Sahelian
desertification. Global Change Biology 4: 359-374.
8) e.g. Lindzen R. S., Y.-S. Choi. 2009. On the determination of
climate feedbacks from ERBE data, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L16705,
doi:10.1029/2009GL039628.
Rapid Response:
The Low Climate Sensitivity of CO2
The Editor, British Medical Journal.
Sir, – The presidents of assorted Colleges of Physicians wrote
recently to the BMJ and The Lancet(1) to say Western-driven “global
warming” is the biggest health threat the world faces, deserts in Africa
are consequently advancing, and at the Copenhagen climate conference
doctors should “demand that their politicians listen to the clear facts”
about climate change.
Doctors have no business making any such “demand”. None of the letter’s
signatories has a track record in the mathematics or physics of climate.
There has been no atmospheric “global warming” for almost 15 years and
rapid cooling for 9 years (2). The oceans have cooled for at least five
years (3), and there has been no net heat-energy gain in the climate-
relevant upper or mixed layer for almost 70 years (4), implying that the
global radiation imbalance that, if “global warming” is serious, must
accumulate in the oceans is entirely absent. Warmer weather is better for
health than cooler (5). The deserts in Africa are by no means universally
advancing: the largest, the Sahara, has shrunk by 300,000 km2 in the past
30 years (6), (7).
It is now known that at CO2 doubling the warming effect of this
blameless trace gas, formerly present in the atmosphere without ill
effects at up to 20 times today’s concentration, is less than one-sixth of
the IPCC’s central estimate of 3.26 K – i.e. a harmless and beneficial 0.5
-0.6 K. Recently, this low climate sensitivity has been definitively
established by measurement (8). Physicians should confine themselves to
their important but limited sphere of expertise. The unfashionable but
correct response to the non-problem of “global warming” is to have the
courage to do nothing.
Yours faithfully, –
Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
Klaus-Martin Schulte, MD, FRCS; Consultant Surgeon
1) Lim, V., et al. Politicians must heed effects of climate change.
BMJ 2009;339:b3672 (19 September).
2) Hadley/CRU, NCDC, RSS and UAH. Monthly global-temperature
anomalies, 1995-date.
3) ARGO bathythermograph project. Monthly Global monthly sea-surface
temperature anomalies, 2004-2008.
4) Douglass, D., and R.S. Knox. 2009. Ocean heat content and Earth’s
radiation imbalance. Physics Letters A [in press].
5) Laaidi, M., Laaidi, K. and Besancenot, J.-P. 2006. Temperature-
related mortality in France, a comparison between regions with different
climates from the perspective of global warming. International Journal of
Biometeorology 51: 145-153.
6) Nicholson, S.E., C.J. Tucker, and M.B. Ba. 1998.
Desertification, drought, and surface vegetation: An example from the West
African Sahel. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 79: 815-
829.
7) Prince, S.D., E. Brown De Colstoun, and L.L. Kravitz. 1998.
Evidence from rain-use efficiencies does not indicate extensive Sahelian
desertification. Global Change Biology 4: 359-374.
8) e.g. Lindzen R. S., Y.-S. Choi. 2009. On the determination of
climate feedbacks from ERBE data, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L16705,
doi:10.1029/2009GL039628.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests