Global warming?
Recently, the prestigious science magazine Nature published a lengthy article coauthored by 13 noted climatologists that claimed “The observed patterns of temperature change in [the atmosphere away from the earth’s surface] are similar to those predicted by state-of-the-art climate models.”1 The study, which covered the period from 1963 to 1987, showed a strong upward trend in the temperature data which was obtained from weather balloons.
The close correlation of the atmospheric temperatures with those predicted by the climate models, which included warming from greenhouse gases as well as cooling from sulfate aerosols, was immediately hailed as the “clearest evidence yet that humans may have affected global climate.”
But, as a perceptive study by Professor Patrick Michaels of the University of Virginia recently demonstrated, the alleged correlation stems from the period the researchers chose for their study.2 When Dr. Michaels included the data from a few years prior to 1963 and the eight years subsequent to 1987, the strong upward trend vanished.
The celebrated study was revealed to be little more than Statistical Fraud 101.
Something fishy here?
Over the past five years, the Worldwatch Institute’s annual publication Vital Signs has presented data on a number of the “trends that are shaping our future.”
Among the “trends” examined was the world’s annual fish catch, which was said to be at “unsustainable levels” due to “over-fishing” causing a reduction in fish stocks.
Each of the five annual volumes’ books has had a two-page segment dealing with the world’s fish catch, were titled, as follows:
1992: Fish Catch Falls
1993: Fish Catch No Longer Growing
1994: Fish Catch Stable
1995: Aquaculture Boosts Fish Catch
1996: World Fish Catch Hits New High
Thus, over the four-year period following 1992, when Worldwatch reported that 1990’s “world fish catch fell to 97 million [metric] tons, down from a record 100 million [metric] tons the preceding year,”3 and prospects were allegedly dim for future increases in production, Worldwatch was finally forced by subsequent events to admit that the “total fish harvest…[had] climbed to 109 million [metric] tons in 1994,” a new record.
Worldwatch continues to warn that “[fish] supplies cannot keep pace with increasing population.” But despite all their hype concerning “overfishing” and “depleted” fish stocks, fish harvests are somehow continuing to grow. Could it be that the fish aren’t listening?4
Endnotes
1 Santer, et al, “A search for human influences on the thermal structure of the atmosphere,” Nature, Vol. 382, 4 July 1996, pp. 39–46.
2 A ‘Clearest evidence’ for human ‘fingerprint’?, World Climate Report, Patrick J. Michaels, editor, Vol. 1, No. 21, 22 July 1996; also Vol. 1, No. 22, 5 August 1996.
3 Actually, much of the debate about minor yearly fluctuations in fish catch totals may be irrelevant in view of the World Resources Institute’s (WRI) assertion that as much as 24 million metric tons of fish are caught annually by the world’s artisanal (traditional) fishermen catches outside normal commercial channels and thus largely uncounted in the world totals. (World Resources 1987, WRI (New York: Basic Books), p. 135).
4 See “There’s still lots of fish in the sea,” Popcorn, PRI Review, V. 5, No. 3, May/June 1995.
