Climate misinformation from Norway spreads internationally
Edgar Hertwich
Professor of Industrial Ecology at Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
Colleagues in the Climate Advisory Board report that they have been confronted with the arguments presented in a discussion note posted on the website of Statistics Norway. The note caused controversy in the Norwegian media, and researchers from several institutions criticized numerous aspects of the note.
The note does not have the character of a scientific publication, it does not contain a review of prior research in the area and contains a thin, selective, outdated, and biased literature list.
The introductory chapters are off topic, containing statements about climate modelling and atmospheric physics that are mistaken, false, and inappropriate.
Choice of temperature measurements is very selective and represents only 6% of the Earth’s surface.
Not considering any factors influencing temperatures means that well-understood natural variations and known human influences are treated as noise, reducing the sensitivity of the method and making it harder to detect the influence of CO2.
One of the notes authors, John K. Dagsvik, acknowledges that they try to detect global warming examining one measurement station a time. This leads to a low sensitivity of their method and ignores that temperatures are increasing synchronously across stations.
Apparently the note is garnering a lot of interest and creating confusion also in other countries. Many readers will benefit from having a basic understanding of climate science and become familiar with some of the standard arguments of climate denial. I have tried to create clarity in two blog posts.