CERES-Science

According to current computer models, snow cover should have been decreasing year-on-year since the mid-20th century. The models make this claim because of global warming. They also predict that this trend will continue and even accelerate. They suggest that soon many countries will no longer experience snow. But, what has actually happened to snow cover? In this video, we compare the claims of the computer models to the observed historical records. We find the models got it wrong for all four seasons. Relevant links: 🔹 For the relevant discussion on snow cover in the IPCC’s latest (2021) assessment report, see Section 2.3.2.2 “Terrestrial Snow Cover” in Chapter 2 of Working Group 1’s 6th Assessment Report (AR6): https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/chapter/chapter-2/ 🔹 The paper by Connolly et al. discussed in the video is as follows: R. Connolly, M. Connolly, W. Soon, D.R. Legates, R.G. Cionco and V. M. Velasco Herrera (2019). “Northern hemisphere snow-cover trends (1967-2018): A comparison between climate models and observations”. Geosciences, 9(3), 135. Link here: https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences9030135 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹 ⭐ If you want to support the work of CERES, please visit us at https://www.ceres-science.com/support-us 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹 🚩 Disclaimer: Some of the scientific opinions expressed in this video disagree with those of the latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports and several other scientific bodies. The current policies of many social media platforms emphasize that when providing educational, documentary, scientific or artistic content discussing climate change, context for any such disagreements should be provided. For such context: • Youtube recommends www.un.org/en/climatechange/what-is-climate-change • Facebook recommends www.facebook.com/hubs/climate_science_information_center • Alternatively, to view the latest IPCC reports, visit www.ipcc.ch

On February 24th, 2023, CERES co-team leader, Dr. Willie Soon presented a talk at the Heartland Institute's 15th International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC15). His talk was entitled, "Global warming: Mostly human-caused or mostly natural?" Relevant links: 🔹 The slides for his presentation can be downloaded from https://www.ceres-science.com/post/iccc15 🔹 For details on the latest ICCC conference, see https://climateconference.heartland.org/. For access to an archive of all the ICCC conferences since 2008, see https://climateconferences.heartland.org/. 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹 ⭐ If you want to support the work of CERES, please visit us at https://www.ceres-science.com/support-us 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹 🚩 Disclaimer: Some of the scientific opinions expressed in this video disagree with those of the latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports and several other scientific bodies. The current policies of many social media platforms emphasize that when providing educational, documentary, scientific or artistic content discussing climate change, context for any such disagreements should be provided. For such context: 🔹 Youtube recommends www.un.org/en/climatechange/what-is-climate-change 🔹 Facebook recommends www.facebook.com/hubs/climate_science_information_center 🔹 Alternatively, to view the latest IPCC reports, visit www.ipcc.ch

In recent years, social media platforms and media outlets have been using “independent fact-checkers” to label content as “misinformation” or not. But, what happens when the fact-checkers get it wrong? In August 2021, a journalist, Alex Newman, reported on two different scientific assessments of climate change that were published around the same time. He interviewed authors from both reports and other scientists and reported on their different scientific opinions on this important scientific topic. However, after his article started to go viral on social media, one of Facebook’s “independent fact-checkers”, Climate Feedback, claimed it was “Incorrect” and “Misleading”. Was Climate Feedback carrying out a genuine “fact-check” or were they just doing a “narrative-check”? Here, Dr. Willie Soon, a co-author of one of the scientific assessments that Alex Newman was reporting on, gives his opinion. Clip taken from Dr. Willie Soon’s April 11, 2022 talk at Hillsdale College in D.C., “The Weaponization of Science: Politics, Vilification, and the Climate Debate”. For a link to the full talk (1:07:12), see https://vimeo.com/710864737/c408cafffe (slides available here: https://tinyurl.com/48n6tkmw) Relevant links: 🔹 Alex Newman’s Epoch Times article: https://www.theepochtimes.com/challenging-un-study-finds-sun-not-co2-may-be-behind-global-warming_3950089.html 🔹 Climate Feedback’s “fact-check” of Alex Newman: https://climatefeedback.org/claimreview/solar-forcing-is-not-the-main-cause-of-current-global-warming-contrary-to-claim-by-alex-newman-in-the-epoch-times/ 🔹 CERES’ “fact-check fact-check” of Climate Feedback: https://www.ceres-science.com/post/open-letter-a-recent-climate-feedback-fact-check-article-makes-multiple-false-and-misleading-clai 🔹 Dr. Willie Soon and Dr. Ronan Connolly’s response in Epoch Times: https://www.theepochtimes.com/fact-checks-by-non-experts-are-shutting-down-genuine-scientific-inquiry_4008914.html The two scientific assessments that Alex Newman was comparing: ⭐ 1. The Connolly et al. (2021) peer-reviewed paper: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1674-4527/21/6/131 ⭐ 2. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s Working Group 1 6th Assessment Report (2021): https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-i/ 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹 ⭐ If you want to support the work of CERES, please visit us at https://www.ceres-science.com/support-us 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹 🚩 Disclaimer: Some of the scientific opinions expressed in this video disagree with those of the latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports and several other scientific bodies. The current policies of many social media platforms emphasize that when providing educational, documentary, scientific or artistic content discussing climate change, context for any such disagreements should be provided. For such context: 🔹 Youtube recommends www.un.org/en/climatechange/what-is-climate-change 🔹 Facebook recommends www.facebook.com/hubs/climate_science_information_center 🔹 Alternatively, to view the latest IPCC reports, visit www.ipcc.ch

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s most recent 6th Assessment Report (AR6, 2021) concluded that the global warming since the 19th century is mostly human-caused. The reports explicitly ruled out the possibility that solar activity was a major factor. However, a few weeks before the IPCC report was published, an independent and comprehensive scientific review was published in the peer-reviewed journal, Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics. This review suggests that solar activity could potentially explain most of the global warming since the 19th century. Dr. Willie Soon, a co-author of this review, talks here about possible reasons for the different scientific opinions. Clip taken from Dr. Soon’s April 11, 2022 talk at Hillsdale College in D.C., “The Weaponization of Science: Politics, Vilification, and the Climate Debate”. For a link to the full talk (1:07:12), see https://vimeo.com/710864737/c408cafffe. Slides for the full talk available at https://tinyurl.com/48n6tkmw). Relevant links: ⭐ The “How much has the Sun influenced Northern Hemisphere temperature trends? An ongoing debate” peer-reviewed paper referred to in the clip can be downloaded here: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1674-4527/21/6/131 ⭐ To access the latest IPCC reports, please visit their website at https://www.ipcc.ch/. The most relevant IPCC report is Working Group 1 (WG1)’s 6th Assessment Report (AR6). ⭐ If you want to support the work of CERES, please visit us at https://www.ceres-science.com/support-us 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹 🚩 Disclaimer: Some of the scientific opinions expressed in this video disagree with those of the latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports and several other scientific bodies. The current policies of many social media platforms emphasize that when providing educational, documentary, scientific or artistic content discussing climate change, context for any such disagreements should be provided. For such context: 🔹 Youtube recommends www.un.org/en/climatechange/what-is-climate-change 🔹 Facebook recommends www.facebook.com/hubs/climate_science_information_center 🔹 Alternatively, to view the latest IPCC reports, visit www.ipcc.ch

In 1999, a bombshell scientific paper was published by three scientists (Mann, Bradley & Hughes). The paper concluded that the 1990s were the hottest decade in at least 1000 years. It became known as the “hockey stick study” and convinced many scientists that recent global warming was unprecedented, human-caused and alarming. However, in 2003, a group of different scientists (led by Soon and Baliunas) published two scientific papers that came to a very different conclusion. They concluded that there was a similar “Medieval Warm Period” roughly 1000 years ago – long before the Industrial Revolution, in the age of the Vikings, the Maya, the Chinese Tang and Song dynasties, and other Middle-Age cultures. These conclusions by Soon and colleagues led to a lot of outrage and even prompted several editors of one of the journals to resign in mass protest. Wikipedia even has a page dedicated to this controversy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soon_and_Baliunas_controversy But, were Soon and Baliunas right or wrong? Here, Dr. Soon reflects on the controversy and explains why he thinks he was right. Clip taken from Dr. Willie Soon’s April 11, 2022 talk at Hillsdale College in D.C., “The Weaponization of Science: Politics, Vilification, and the Climate Debate”. For a link to the full talk (1:07:12), see https://vimeo.com/710864737/c408cafffe. Slides for the talk can be downloaded from https://tinyurl.com/48n6tkmw). Relevant links: Prof. Mann and colleagues’ famous “hockey stick” study: 🔹 Mann, Bradley & Hughes (1999), "Northern hemisphere temperatures during the past millennium: Inferences, uncertainties, and limitations", Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 26. https://doi.org/10.1029/1999GL900070 Dr. Soon and colleagues’ studies that disagreed with the hockey stick study: ⭐ Soon & Baliunas (2003), “Proxy climatic and environmental changes of the past 1000 years”, Climate Research, Vol. 23. https://doi.org/10.3354/cr023089 ⭐ Soon, Baliunas, Idso, Idso & Legates (2003), “Reconstructing climatic and environmental changes of the past 1000 years: A reappraisal”, Energy & Environment, Vol. 14. Paywalled abstract: https://doi.org/10.1260/095830503765184619; Pdf: https://tinyurl.com/wykk2up4 Prof. Mann and colleagues’ criticism of Dr. Soon and colleagues’ papers: 🔹 Mann et al. (2003), “On past temperatures and anomalous late-20th-century warmth”, Eos, Vol. 84. https://doi.org/10.1029/2003EO270003 Dr. Soon and colleagues’ response: ⭐ Soon, Baliunas & Legates, (2003), “Comment on ‘On past temperatures and anomalous late-20th-century warmth’”, Eos, Vol. 84. https://doi.org/10.1029/2003EO440007 Prof. Storch and colleagues’ criticism of the hockey stick they published shortly after resigning as editor-in-chief of Climate Research: 🔹 Von Storch et al. (2004), “Reconstructing past climate from noisy data”, Science, Vol. 306. Paywalled abstract: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1096109; Pdf: https://tinyurl.com/2s36r23s The 2022 study that Dr. Soon mentions near the end of the clip: 🔹 Lüning & Lengsfeld (2022), "How Reliable Are Global Temperature Reconstructions of the Common Era?", Earth, Vol. 3. https://doi.org/10.3390/earth3010024 ⭐ If you want to support the work of CERES, please visit us at https://www.ceres-science.com/support-us 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹 🚩 Disclaimer: Some of the scientific opinions expressed in this video disagree with those of the latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports and several other scientific bodies. The current policies of many social media platforms emphasize that when providing educational, documentary, scientific or artistic content discussing climate change, context for any such disagreements should be provided. For such context: 🔹 Youtube recommends www.un.org/en/climatechange/what-is-climate-change 🔹 Facebook recommends www.facebook.com/hubs/climate_science_information_center 🔹 Alternatively, to view the latest IPCC reports, visit www.ipcc.ch

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) publish very influential “Assessment Reports” on climate change science every 6-7 years. These reports are widely-assumed by many to represent a comprehensive and scientifically objective review of all the key relevant scientific studies and findings. But, is this true? Dr. Soon is one of the many climate scientists whose work was reviewed by the IPCC’s latest 6th Assessment Report (AR6, 2021). Here, he discusses whether they did a good job in describing his scientific findings. He is unimpressed. Clip taken from Dr. Willie Soon’s April 11, 2022 talk at Hillsdale College in D.C., “The Weaponization of Science: Politics, Vilification, and the Climate Debate”. For a link to the full talk (1:07:12), see https://vimeo.com/710864737/c408cafffe. The slides for the talk can be downloaded from https://tinyurl.com/48n6tkmw) Relevant links: 🔹 The IPCC Working Group 1 (WG1)’s 6th Assessment Report (AR6). https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/ Dr. Soon’s 2015 paper discussing both the urbanization bias problem and the underestimation of the role of solar activity in recent climate change: ⭐ Soon, Connolly & Connolly (2015), "Re-evaluating the role of solar variability on Northern Hemisphere temperature trends since the 19th century", Earth-Science Reviews, Vol. 150. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2015.08.010 The co-chair of IPCC AR6’s 2017 paper that accurately highlighted the importance and significance of the Soon, Connolly & Connolly (2015) paper: 🔹 Chen & Zhai (2017), "Persisting and strong warming hiatus over eastern China during the past two decades", Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 12. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa822b Dr. Soon’s 2019 paper that IPCC AR6 selectively reported to imply it agreed with the IPCC: ⭐ Connolly, Connolly, Soon et al. (2019), "Northern Hemisphere Snow-Cover Trends (1967–2018): A Comparison between Climate Models and Observations", Geosciences, Vol. 9. https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences9030135 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹 ⭐ If you want to support the work of CERES, please visit us at https://www.ceres-science.com/support-us 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹 🚩 Disclaimer: Some of the scientific opinions expressed in this video disagree with those of the latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports and several other scientific bodies. The current policies of many social media platforms emphasize that when providing educational, documentary, scientific or artistic content discussing climate change, context for any such disagreements should be provided. For such context: 🔹 Youtube recommends www.un.org/en/climatechange/what-is-climate-change 🔹 Facebook recommends www.facebook.com/hubs/climate_science_information_center 🔹 Alternatively, to view the latest IPCC reports, visit www.ipcc.ch

In 2013, a highly influential study (Cook et al., 2013) was published that claimed 97% of the abstracts of scientific papers on the topics “global climate change” or “global warming” agreed that global warming is human-caused. An “abstract” is the short 150-300 word summary that usually is provided with a scientific paper so that researchers can quickly figure out if the paper is relevant or not before deciding to reading it. This Cook et al. (2013) study has been widely assumed to have proven that there is a 97% “scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW)”. It is frequently quoted as “definitive proof” that any scientists that disagree with this claim only represent a fringe minority. However, shortly after this 2013 study was published, a group of four researchers (Legates, Soon, Briggs & Monckton) published their own study. They had decided to dig into Cook et al. (2013)’s data. The results were shocking – only 41 of the 11,944 abstracts analysed by the Cook et al. (2013) study explicitly stated that global warming is mostly human-caused. Here one of the co-authors, Dr. Willie Soon, summarises their findings. Clip taken from Dr. Soon’s April 11, 2022 talk at Hillsdale College in D.C., “The Weaponization of Science: Politics, Vilification, and the Climate Debate”. For a link to the full talk (1:07:12), see https://vimeo.com/710864737/c408cafffe. The slides for the talk can be downloaded from https://tinyurl.com/48n6tkmw) Relevant links: 🔹 Cook et al. (2013), "Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature", Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 8. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024 🔹 Legates, Soon, Briggs & Monckton (2015), "Climate Consensus and ‘Misinformation’: A Rejoinder to Agnotology, Scientific Consensus, and the Teaching and Learning of Climate Change", Science and Education, Vol. 24. Paywalled link to the journal page: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-013-9647-9. Free pre-print version of the paper: https://tinyurl.com/yckawjet. 🔹 Short webpage summarising the key findings of Legates et al. (2015): https://www.ceres-science.com/scientific-opinion-on-climate-change ⭐ If you want to support the work of CERES, please visit us at https://www.ceres-science.com/support-us 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹 🚩 Disclaimer: Some of the scientific opinions expressed in this video disagree with those of the latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports and several other scientific bodies. The current policies of many social media platforms emphasize that when providing educational, documentary, scientific or artistic content discussing climate change, context for any such disagreements should be provided. For such context: 🔹 Youtube recommends www.un.org/en/climatechange/what-is-climate-change 🔹 Facebook recommends www.facebook.com/hubs/climate_science_information_center 🔹 Alternatively, to view the latest IPCC reports, visit www.ipcc.ch

Greenpeace is one of the most influential and best known environmental Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). Many people regard them as a compassionate organization that is chiefly concerned about protecting the environment and “doing the right thing.” When the organization was first founded and became active in the 1960s and 1970s, it mostly focused on short-lived practical campaigns over specific issues that had definite solutions that could be easily implemented. As a result, they achieved many impressive victories that significantly changed international policies on nuclear testing, excessive whaling and unchecked seal-hunting. These early campaigns gave them a well-deserved reputation as an organization focused on finding real solutions to real problems. However, in recent decades, Greenpeace appears to have shifted to being a campaigning business rather than an organization campaigning to solve problems. One of the drawbacks to a campaigning business is that once the campaign issue is solved, the campaign stops making money for the business. To overcome this, Greenpeace has found that emotionally-appealing campaigns with unrealizable “easy solutions” can be an unending source of revenue. One potential problem is that potential donors might wonder why these allegedly “easy solutions” never seem to be implemented. Greenpeace turn this “problem” into a feature, by inventing “villains” that they claim are frustrating Greenpeace’s “solutions”. This makes Greenpeace appear to be the hero even more, leading to further fund-raising campaigns. Many of their campaigns since the late-1980s have focused on concerns about human-caused global warming. Dr. Willie Soon has been one of the targets used by Greenpeace to make more money. Here, Dr. Soon talks about his experience in being tarred as an alleged “climate villain”. Clip taken from Dr. Soon’s April 11, 2022 talk at Hillsdale College in D.C., “The Weaponization of Science: Politics, Vilification, and the Climate Debate”. For a link to the full talk (1:07:12), see https://vimeo.com/710864737/c408cafffe. The slides for the talk can be downloaded from https://tinyurl.com/48n6tkmw) Relevant link: 🔹 Connolly, Connolly, Soon, Moore & Connolly (2018), “Analysis of Greenpeace’s business model & philosophy: Greenpeace wants a piece of your green”. Available here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329680852_Analysis_of_Greenpeace's_business_model_philosophy_Greenpeace_wants_a_piece_of_your_green ⭐ If you want to support the work of CERES, please visit us at https://www.ceres-science.com/support-us 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹 🚩 Disclaimer: Some of the scientific opinions expressed in this video disagree with those of the latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports and several other scientific bodies. The current policies of many social media platforms emphasize that when providing educational, documentary, scientific or artistic content discussing climate change, context for any such disagreements should be provided. For such context: 🔹 Youtube recommends www.un.org/en/climatechange/what-is-climate-change 🔹 Facebook recommends www.facebook.com/hubs/climate_science_information_center 🔹 Alternatively, to view the latest IPCC reports, visit www.ipcc.ch

Dr. Willie Soon is a scientist who has been actively researching the causes of climate change since the 1990s, with more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles on the subject. However, his findings have often contradicted the dogmatic claims made by many media outlets, politicians and scientific organizations. Specifically, his research suggests that recent climate change seems to be mostly natural, rather than strictly human-caused. This has made him a very inconvenient scientist for some people. One group that his work has been very inconvenient for is Greenpeace. Therefore, in 2015, a former Greenpeace activist, Kert Davies, carried out a smear campaign against Dr. Soon. Davies’ hatchet job was picked up uncritically by many high-profile media outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post and the Boston Globe. Dr. Soon worked at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics from 1991 until 2022. The Harvard-Smithsonian is a very influential research institute and as soon as Davies’ claims were published, without any investigation, the Smithsonian immediately issued a knee-jerk response seemingly distancing themselves from both Dr. Soon and his research. Following their rushed initial statement, the Smithsonian began a long and careful investigation to see if Dr. Soon did anything wrong or improper, or if there was any problems with his scientific findings. Five years later, after finding nothing wrong with Dr. Soon and his research, the Smithsonian finished their investigation and quietly removed their initial rushed statement. It seems they discovered the old adage, “act in haste, repent at leisure”, has some truth. Clip taken from Dr. Soon’s April 11, 2022 talk in Washington D.C., “The Weaponization of Science: Politics, Vilification, and the Climate Debate”. The slides for the talk can be downloaded from https://tinyurl.com/49sbxhru ⭐ If you want to support the work of CERES, please visit us at https://www.ceres-science.com/support-us 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹 🚩 Disclaimer: Some of the scientific opinions expressed in this video disagree with those of the latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports and several other scientific bodies. The current policies of many social media platforms emphasize that when providing educational, documentary, scientific or artistic content discussing climate change, context for any such disagreements should be provided. For such context: 🔹 Youtube recommends www.un.org/en/climatechange/what-is-climate-change 🔹 Facebook recommends www.facebook.com/hubs/climate_science_information_center 🔹 Alternatively, to view the latest IPCC reports, visit www.ipcc.ch

Dr. Willie Soon is a scientist who has been actively researching the causes of climate change since the 1990s. He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles on the subject. However, his findings often contradict the dogmatic claims made by many media outlets, politicians and scientific organizations. Specifically, his research suggests that recent climate change seems to be mostly natural, rather than strictly human-caused. This has made him a very inconvenient scientist for some people. For this reason, in 2015, a former Greenpeace activist, Kert Davies, decided to turn Dr. Soon into a “climate villain” and asserted that he was in the pay of the fossil fuel industry. Davies’ smear campaign was picked up uncritically by many high-profile media outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post and the Boston Globe. Here, Dr. Soon responds to this hatchet job and the ensuing witch-burning he experienced. He proves his innocence and highlights the hypocrisy of some of those who repeated the baseless smears against him without any investigation. Clip taken from Dr. Soon’s April 11, 2022 talk at Hillsdale College in D.C., “The Weaponization of Science: Politics, Vilification, and the Climate Debate”. For a link to the full talk (1:07:12), see https://vimeo.com/710864737/c408cafffe. The slides for the talk can be downloaded from https://tinyurl.com/49sbxhru) Relevant links: 🔹 Dr. Willie Soon’s bio: https://www.ceres-science.com/willie-soon 🔹 Dr. Soon’s publications list (Google Scholar): https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=9eW4WvQAAAAJ ⭐ If you want to support the work of CERES, please visit us at https://www.ceres-science.com/support-us 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹 🚩 Disclaimer: Some of the scientific opinions expressed in this video disagree with those of the latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports and several other scientific bodies. The current policies of many social media platforms emphasize that when providing educational, documentary, scientific or artistic content discussing climate change, context for any such disagreements should be provided. For such context: 🔹 Youtube recommends www.un.org/en/climatechange/what-is-climate-change 🔹 Facebook recommends www.facebook.com/hubs/climate_science_information_center 🔹 Alternatively, to view the latest IPCC reports, visit www.ipcc.ch