Scientific audit of a report from the Climate Commission “The Critical Decade - Climate science, risks and responses” M ay, 2011 Bob Carter, David Evans, Stewart Franks, William Kininmonth PART II - SCIEN CE AUDIT [Return to PART I – INTRODUCTION, DISCUSSION & CONCLUSIONS] The key messages of The Critical Decade are reproduced below in italic print , followed by our comments in ordinary type. We have not included figures, which can be found in the references cited at the end or in our previous critiques 1 . 1. There is no doubt that the climate is changing. The evidence is overwhelming and clear. The debate is not about whether climate is changing, and of course the evidence is overwhelming that it is. Rather, the issue is whether human-related carbon dioxide emissions are causing dangerous global warming. And even if warming has occurred, that in itself is obviously not evidence that human emissions were the cause. Neither the IPCC nor the Climate Commission have provided substantive empirical evidence for either dangerous warming or for a human causation for the mild warming that occurred in the late 20 th century. The atmosphere is warming, the ocean is warming, ice is being lost from glaciers and ice caps and sea levels are rising. The biological world is changing in response to a warming world Whether atmospheric warming is perceived as occurring depends entirely upon the period of time under consideration 2 . For example 3 : • Earth has cooled over the last 10,000 years (since the peak warming of the Holocene climatic optimum). • Earth has cooled since 1,000 years ago (the Late 20th Century Warm Period not achieving the temperatures of the Mediaeval Warm Period). • Earth has warmed since 400 years ago (post-Little Ice Warming). • Earth warmed between 1979 and 1998 (Late 20th century warming). • Earth has cooled slightly since 2001 (last 10 years). That the atmosphere has failed to warm since 2001 4 , over the same ten year period that carbon dioxide has increased by ~5% (which represents nearly one quarter of all human emissionsof carbon dioxide that have occurred since 1751) 5 , is a test for dangerous global warming and its causation - a test that the hypothesis of carbon dioxide causation fails. Ocean temperature