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Carbon dioxide and a warming climate are not problems, peer-reviewed paper says

According to a peer-reviewed paper published in the American Journal of Economics and Sociology in May 2024, “Carbon dioxide and a warming climate are not problems.”

The authors, Andy May and Marcel Crok, argue that the sceptical position on dangerous man-made climate change is supported by a comprehensive literature review.  In other words, those who are disparagingly labelled by the establishment as “climate change deniers” have credible evidence on their side.

Writing an overview of their paper, May and Crok said:

May and Crok’s paper is behind a paywall.  However, they have made the submitted version, which contains all the changes suggested by the peer-reviewers, publicly available: See HERE.

Carbon Dioxide and a Warming Climate are not problems

The main argument made in May and Crok’s paper is that the evidence presented by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (“IPCC”) to support the claim that human-caused climate change is dangerous is not convincing.

Firstly, the IPCC claims that human greenhouse gas emissions are the “main driver” of warming since 1979, but this is disputed. Natural climate oscillations like the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (“AMO”) can explain a significant portion of the 20th century warming.

The AMO is a cyclic phenomenon of sea surface temperature (“SST”) anomalies in the North Atlantic Ocean. It has a significant impact on global weather patterns. The theoretical measure of the variability of the SST of the North Atlantic Ocean is called the AMO index.

The AMO index oscillates between positive and negative phases. During the positive phase, the North Atlantic Ocean experiences warm SSTs, while during the negative phase, SSTs are cooler.  The AMO index is associated with shifts in hurricane activity, rainfall patterns and intensity, as well as changes in fish populations.

In their paper, May and Crok “detrend” the AMO index, i.e. plot the raw data rather than show the data as a trend line, and compare it to the UK Met Office’s HadCRUT4 detrended records (see below).

Carbon dioxide and a warming climate are not problems, peer-reviewed paper says
Figure 2. May and Marcel. Detrended North Atlantic sea surface temperatures (the AMO) compared to detrended HadCRUT4 global average surface temperatures.

The paper noted:

Secondly, the IPCC’s evidence for human influence, such as the “atmospheric fingerprint,” is disputed and the statistical methods used are questioned. Climate models also have issues, overestimating tropical tropospheric warming compared to observations.

The paper raises questions about the statistical methodology used by the IPCC to justify the “anthropogenic fingerprint” and argues that the statistical underpinnings of the anthropogenic fingerprint are seriously flawed.

The paper also discusses discrepancies between climate models and observations, particularly in the tropical troposphere. It points out that most Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (“CMIP”) and IPCC climate models overestimate warming in the tropical middle troposphere by a statistically significant amount.

May and Crok argue that there is no clear evidence of unusual or dangerous weather or climate events that can be definitively attributed to human-caused climate change. It cites trends in extreme weather events like hurricanes and droughts, which are either flat or declining, as well as declining economic losses from weather disasters as a fraction of GDP. This lack of clear evidence challenges the IPCC’s conclusions about the direct impact of human activities on extreme weather events.

In conclusion, the authors note that climate change, whether natural or human-caused, has both benefits and costs, but the IPCC only examines the downside risks and ignores the potential benefits, such as increased plant growth from higher CO2 levels.

They also point out that “fossil fuels” are not the problem they are made out to be and reducing them to zero will devastate economies and hurt the poor the most:

In the abstract for the paper, the authors had already explained:

There has been some criticism of May and Crok’s paper which the authors have addressed.  You can read their rebuttal on May’s website HERE.

Carbon dioxide and a warming climate are not problems, peer-reviewed paper says
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