This Week in SCIENCE, Volume 327, Issue 5967, Food Security dated February 12 2010, is now available at:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol327/issue5967/twis.dtl
Standing High (requires free registration to view)
Excerpts:
Abstract:
Sea-Level Highstand 81,000 Years Ago in Mallorca
Jeffrey A. Dorale,1,* Bogdan P. Onac,2,* Joan J. Fornós,3 Joaquin Ginés,3 Angel Ginés,3 Paola Tuccimei,4 David W. Peate1
1 Department of Geoscience, University of Iowa, 121 Trowbridge Hall, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA.
2 Department of Geology, University of South Florida, 4202 East Fowler Avenue, SCA 528, Tampa, FL 33620, USA; and Department of Geology, Babes-Bolyai University, Emil Racovita Institute of Speleology Cluj, Romania.
3 Departament de Ciències de la Terra, Universitat de les Illes Balears, Carretera Valldemossa km 7.5, Palma de Mallorca, 07122, Spain.
4 Dipartimento di Scienze Geologiche, Università di Roma III, Largo St. Leonardo Murialdo, 1, 00146 Roma, Italy.
…
Sea-level rises and falls as Earth’s giant ice sheets shrink and grow. It has been thought that sea level around 81,000 years ago—well into the last glacial period—was 15 to 20 meters below that of today and, thus, that the ice sheets were more extensive. Dorale et al. (p. 860; see the Perspective by Edwards) now challenge this view. A speleothem that has been intermittently submerged in a cave on the island of Mallorca was dated to show that, historically, sea level was more than a meter above its present height. This data implies that temperatures were as high as or higher than now, even though the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was much lower.
…
, Bermuda [Ber (23, 24)], Grand Cayman [GC (25)], and Mallorca [Mal (1)]. (C) Sea-level reconstruction for Mallorca. Elevations and U/Th ages of encrusted speleothems throughout MIS 5 and at the onset of MIS 4 are shown (ages and 2{sigma} error bars are color-coded by sample; blue-colored ages are obtained from earlier studies (10). (D) The reconstructed ocean water {delta}18O, scaled as sea level (29). (E) 60°N June insolation (27). The vertical yellow bar denotes the timing of peak MIS 5a sea level recorded at Mallorca and shows a good correlation with 60°N June insolation and the reconstructed ocean water {delta}18O scaled as sea level."]”]
…
We therefore consider the simple interpretation of our data that eustatic sea level during MIS 5a stood around +1 m relative to present sea level, implying less ice on Earth 81,000 years ago than today. Although this interpretation conflicts with the generally accepted eustatic sea-level curve based on the far-field sites of Barbados and New Guinea, it is consistent with a number of other estimates from around the world, including those from the Bahamas, the U.S. Atlantic Coastal Plain, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, and California (4, 6, 22–26) (Fig. 2B). We considered the simple fact that this geographically diverse suite of sites spans a wide range of presumed isostatic states, yet the suite consistently indicates a late MIS 5a highstand of ~ +0 to 3 m (Fig. 2B). Bermuda and Mallorca, for example, are both tectonically stable, and both have MIS 5e/5a estimates of 2 to 3 and 1 to 2 m above modern sea level, respectively; whereas MIS 5e/5a estimates from Barbados are ~ +5 m and ~ –18 m (2). Any appeal to GIA to account for these discrepancies must somehow take into account the unlikely outcome that different ice centers on different continents (Laurentide versus Fennoscandian) would generate the virtually identical MIS 5e/5a relative sea-level histories of tectonically stable Bermuda and Mallorca. The very rapid onset and relatively brief nature of the MIS 5a highstand may have plausibly generated lags between the timing of sea-level changes and the timing of coral reef growth, and may provide a partial explanation as to why reefs on Barbados and New Guinea do not record a comparable eustatic height for this event. This and other factors that could be part of the apparent discrepancy are discussed in (9).
============
h/t to WUWT reader David Hagen
Hopefully the less ideological pro-AGW’s will; be looking at this sort of excellent research based on the real world, and will be thinking a lot about their position.
I know it is nothing new, but Science, as a journal, has been right up there with Nature in blocking this type of thing.
Have they finally found some integrity?
And some say you don’t have real science here! Think again.
This just shows that the environment responds the way it does regardless if we are on it or not.
This means the glacial/inter-glacial temperature and CO2 reconstructions from ice cores are completely wrong.
The reconstructions say it was 2C to 4C colder than present.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_core
Cue the, “Well just think of how bad things would have been IF CO2 had been elevated” spin.
Either sea level was a meter higher OR the land level at the location of measurement was 1 meter lower. Sea level at that distance into the past is all relative to the land surface, and means absolutely nothing.
REPLY: True, but they have a section in the complete paper where they ruled out isotasy issues. – Anthony
Philip_B said;
“This means the glacial/inter-glacial temperature and CO2 reconstructions from ice cores are completely wrong.”
As a proponent of Becks research I have always believed the ice cores to be wrong as I think the historic co2 readings from the 1830’s onwards are broadly correct. The two measurements are said to be incompatible and therefore ice cores ‘must’ be right.
Tonyb
Philip_B (15:46:23) :
I guess we all know that the CO2 concentration extracted from ice cores are questionable but I am not too sure if the concentration of CO2 in that cave was in equilibrium with that in the atmosphere. My guess is it was in equilibrium with that in the water. Not sure if the water in the cave was at equilibrium with sea water though.
Observe how various editors, authors and researchers are beginning to tippy-toe away from their previous AGW position. Who will make it to the door before the big rush? Who’ll be left in the room?
And who was behind all the misinformation?
Why not Bush and the Jews? Requires some tweaking…but the AGW gang will need some really solid, proven scapegoats to get out of this one.
For anyone interested I started playing with Cheifio’s dT/dt data and think I found some interesting tidbits.
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/12736
Cheers, AJStrata
Or was Mallorca 1 meter lower?
Is Mallorca that tectonically stable?
It is at the intersection of two major plates –
With the African plate creating enough pressure to build the Alps.
The entire Balearic chain is on a fault line.
I am simply asking.
Given the tectonic activity of the Mediterranean region –
I would have to see convincing evidence that this was not due to uplift.
I know what the warmers will say:
That was proven wrong long ago
That was caused by global warming
That is not peer reviewed
The author is obviously funded by oil companies
They use it with just about everything
Wierd, a brief melting period maybe??
Well, duh. Being a resident of Florida it always struck me as odd when warmists use the threat of rising sea levels as a consequence if we don’t change our ways, but it was common knowledge growing up that in the recent past (geologically speaking) almost all of the Florida peninsula was under water. I wondered why that was never brought up to refute the rising sea level claim by the warmists.
If I am reading the graph correctly, sea level maxima and minima seem to lag insolation maxima and minima by 2,000 to 10,000 years. If so, we might be at or just past the sea level peak of the Holocene interglacial.
More evidence that Milankovitch Cycles govern global climate change.
Probably a red herring but the Med is land-locked apart from the Straits of Gibraltar, with shallow sills. There is also a salinity density difference between Atlantic and Mediterranean, with complex tides and bores through the straights. It might have variably affected sea level equilibrium with the open oceans in the past.
This is no coming around, just an editorial strategy that backfired: I bet these papers were supposed to be drowned by the noise of the Copenhagen accord… hence their publication AFTER copenhagen. However this was without counting with climategate and the failure of COP15 and the renewed scrutiny…
It is obvious that since sea level is the datum by which land elevation is determined, an increase in CO2 concentration has caused the earth to rise
Just thinking out loud here, but isn’t there a theory floating around that up until the last 10,000 years or so the Black Sea was land locked and then flooded? I wonder how much that might have affected sea levels… would be interesting if it worked out to be about a meter(?)
Anywayz… just a random thought. Interesting read thanks!
A meter plus minus is just margin of error. The seas have risen and fallen 100 meters through the ice ages.
But what did I miss the last glaciation period started about about 120,000 bp and lasted until 11,000 bp. So how does this fit in the the established time lines?
As John Egan states, this is all about tectonics, not climate.
Sea levels were definitely ~250 feet lower 80,000 years ago.
This has got to give the warmists pause. (Not that they’ll openly admit it.)
I wonder how many other findings like this have been suppressed, spun, or soft-pedaled in the past.
The battle of the MSM networks on Climate Change is in full furry over the world record world wide snow storms. These neophyte climatologist reporters are a hoot to watch. MSNBC is parading out Bill Nye the Science Guy for Christ’s sake.
Dylan Ratigan Responds To Glenn Beck’s Global Warming Attack With His Own Chalkboard (VIDEO)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/11/dylan-ratigan-responds-to_n_459206.html
“This data implies that temperatures were as high as or higher than now”: really? I can see that the data are consistent with its having been as warm or warmer, but I don’t see why they imply that it was.
Anyway, the big deal is that it certainly implies that the science isn’t settled.
Off topic but worth mentioning.
Dallas is about to shatter almost all their snow records.
I wonder how the pro-agw crowd will spin this newest record snowfall being that it’s so far south.
The articles are grtting more and more desparate…
“Most climate scientists respond that the ferocious storms are consistent with forecasts that a heating planet will produce more frequent and more intense weather events.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/science/earth/11climate.html
Here’s another one;
The battle of the MSM networks on Climate Change is in full furry over the world record world wide snow storms. These neophyte climatologist reporters are a hoot to watch. MSNBC is parading out Bill Nye the Science Guy for Christ’s sake.
Colbert Rips Fox News For Using Snowstorm To Deny Global Warming (VIDEO)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/11/colbert-rips-fox-news-for_n_458075.html
Quote: Alan S (15:34:23) :
“I know it is nothing new, but Science, as a journal, has been right up there with Nature in blocking this type of thing.
Have they finally found some integrity?”
No. Science is running scared.
What will happen if decades of filth beneath the climategate iceberg come floating to the surface?
The public will see the unholy, international alliance of politicians, publishers, federal research agencies and news media that have been manipulating science as a tool of propaganda to control the people.
It is no mere coincidence when — the BBC, CBS, NBC, PBS, Nature, Science, the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, the US National Academy of Sciences, major newspapers, APS, ACS, AGU, major research institutions and universities, the Norwegian Nobel Committee, NASA, DOE, the UN’s IPCC, Al Gore, George Bush, Barack Obama, and the Met Office –- were all distributing the same misinformation.
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Emeritus Professor of
Nuclear & Space Science
Former NASA PI for Apollo
o/t
carl sagan quotes:
“Modern science has been a voyage into the unknown, with a lesson in humility waiting at every stop. Many passengers would rather have stayed home.”
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”
Where is the humility, or the evidence.
Slightly OT but over at AMSU-A http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
sea surface temps are showing a sharp rise over the last week or so of about 1/4 of a degree. That would equate to about 1.5 watts/m2 additional energy being radiated from 3/4 of the earth’s surface. Near surface channel? down. 14,000 ft channel? down. 25,000 ft channel? down. 36,000 ft channel? down. What? did the CO2 take the week off? Extra energy is coming out of the ocean surface and (gasp!) not even taking a pee break on its way to outer space?
Seriously is there a way to graph the channels versus each other instead of a given channel against the previous year? One week does not a dataset make.
I’ve contacted the SMH Online dept and The Sydney Morning Herald will be streaming the Monckton/Lambert debate live at 12.30 Sydney time.
You can see it on their main page http://www.smh.com.au/ it will appear in the main picture top left currently joyce/abbott.
for overseas viewers you can sync your time here.
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/
Sorry.
Not possible. They didn’t have SCUBA gear 81,000 years ago.
So the cabinet of the government of Tuvalu could not have conducted any meetings, now could they have?
/ sarcasm
OT
The Monckton – Lambert AGW debate in Sydney is starting right now.
You can watch it LIVE at http://www.smh.com.au
You don’t have to go back 81,000 years to see sea level changes occur sans benefit of SUVs and heavy industry. http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/cosquer/index.html
Well it seems obvious that a non light speed capable interstellar craft topped off it’s tanks about 18,000 years ago for the next leg of it’s voyage – there wasn’t anyone that would complain about it here at the time. So they sucked up 3 feet of water off the earth’s oceans for fuel – the missing three feet of ocean is explained without freezing anything and the lack of CO2 doesn’t matter. The question really is “how far could one travel with that much water/mass at sub light speed?”
(While they were here they built Nazca lines, pyramids, lost temples and the Sphinx to keep the crew’s morale up).
Also you will notice, I did not have to resort to chart’s, graphs, math or any other old fashioned methods to prove my statement. I bet I could sell a few thousand books to Bill Nye’s young people who are open to “new ideas”!
I know this strays way off topic but I hope someone will laugh.
Here is the Glenn Beck video that set off the MSNBC FOX media opinion war on man-made climate change.
The One Thing: 2/10
http://video.foxnews.com/v/4012082/the-one-thing-210
Well if California coast hasn’t budged an inch, the pics of 50 years on the Lost Coast are the truth of the matter. Nuthin’ going on as far as sea levels rising.
Colder ocean cycles mean contraction, so that is what we should expect to be happening.
Sorry, Oliver Manuel, but George Bush was the token global warming denier out of the sorry group you list. He took a lot of flak for it. When after several years of thrashings he made some token obeisance to the gods of environmental fascism, he was still treated as a warming denier.
Remember: information is the difference that makes a difference. If you try to make everyone equally stupid in the name of political correctness, it removes all the information.
Sounds more like the land rose and subsided than the sea level rose that high in the middle of the ice age.
The biggest benevolent bank with the little people’s best interest at heart receives major awards.
“Winners announced in voluntary carbon markets survey
London, 11 February: US investment bank JP Morgan has won three out of eight categories in Environmental Finance’s survey of the voluntary carbon markets.
The bank and its recent acquisitions, EcoSecurities and ClimateCare, were voted respectively Best Trading Company, Best Project Developer and Best Offset Retailer by the readers of Environmental Finance magazine.”
http://www.environmental-finance.com/onlinews/0211win.html
The international banksters own everything. Now they want to completely own you.
Hats off to Miskolczi and Sorokhtin and al. I’ve been studying this stuff for several years, trying to get a handle on all the standard CO2/GW theories, including the handwaving about back radiation and the various pretty pictures of heat flow in the atmosphere. None of it really made any sense when water is the most important greenhouse gas by far and readily available in such huge quantities. Coming up with the idea that CO2 absorbed enough radiation to cause any kind mlultiplier effect seemed totally superfluous. Not having the programming skills or mathematics available it seemed that a simple, overall model, like the one Arrhenius used to start all this, treating water as the major IR absorber would be the simplest and most effective model. Glad somebody has been able to do that.
ALL the various AGW models and all the hand-waving at the IPCC looked just like people trying to come up with an explanation in search of a problem. The earth has stayed at a relatively constant temperature for aeons, so all the radiation absorbed has to be re-radiated out. The only real question is how does the atmosphere and oceans work to insulate the heat loss and maintain the higher surface temperature. The upper bound to the atmosphere and the weird assumptions used by Arrhenius and continued to this day just seemed so wrong.
davidmhoffer: That is strange to see the SST’s go up like that, because both Unisys and NOAA seem to not be showing such a sharp rise in their anomaly maps in comparison to several days ago.
Exactly where in the oceans is causing the big rise, because I can’t find it in the anomaly maps?
Is this paper any good? It’s wrong to just assume that because it supports your position that it has merit.
I’m just a hack but…..
How did the study control for the movement of cave wall “up and down”? Admitedly I have not read the study but assuming the cave wall stayed still for 81,000 years is a point that should require considerable evidence. Where I live the seascape has change dramatically in the last 1,000 let alone 81,000.
I have to agree with John Egan (16:12:53). Alone this is not strong evidence. From, http://sepmstrata.org/Miocene-Mallorca/MioceneMallorcaIntro.html :
“The Upper Miocene rocks of the Balearic archipelago (Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza, Formentera and smaller islands) are commonly flat-lying limestones and dolostones,with only slight tilting and flexure, probably caused by normal and strikeslip faulting in the Late Neogene to Middle Pleistocene. ”
Again, http://www.ijs.speleo.it/pdf/66.548.36(2)_Gines_and_Gines.pdf:
“the present geological architecture
of the island is the result of a complex evolution involving
extensional processes -occurred from the Neogene to
the Quaternary- which are superimposed on the alpine
compressive structure. The Upper Miocene carbonate
platform of Migjorn [where the critical caves occur] was affected by such extensional tectonic activity and, in this way, the resulting coastal
morphology was mostly controlled by recent normal
faults which delimit the seaward border of the platform.
Furthermore, this extensional post-orogenic activity is
responsible for a marked tilting that affects the Migjorn
plateau, being depressed towards the south and uplifted
when reaching the W and NE ends of the karst area
(Fornós et al., 2002b). The differential uplifting left the
reefal Tortonian facies outcropping near the sea level at
the southernmost part of the island whereas it appears
higher than 40 m in the western and northeastern
borders of Migjorn.
There is no direct evidence that this tectonism died out in the Holocene.
But the comparisons with Bahamas, the U.S. Atlantic Coastal Plain, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, and California [the latter not such a good example] give credence to the authors’ conclusions.
The more we learn the more we don’t know!
geoff pohanka (16:14:21) :
“I know what the warmers will say:
…
The author is obviously funded by oil companies”
British Petroleum and Royal Dutch Shell have been funding the CRU since 1974.
This can only mean that it’s worse than we thought.
While I have no reason to disbelieve the article, I think that it is important to keep a level head and open mind when researching the climate change topic (http://wp.me/pduTk-2nv) It is vital that those who seek the truth and not just a political position to maintain integrity. Those with a political or personal stake in the controversy have done great damage to truth detecting with their lies, misstatements and conspiratorial altering of data to fit their worldview intstead of fitting their worldview to the data.
Michael:
“The international banksters own everything. Now they want to completely own you.”
I like the term ‘bankster’. Has a nice ring to it.
Adam from Kansas (18:17:52) :
davidmhoffer: That is strange to see the SST’s go up like that, because both Unisys and NOAA seem to not be showing such a sharp rise in their anomaly maps in comparison to several days ago.
Exactly where in the oceans is causing the big rise, because I can’t find it in the anomaly maps?>
I’m only looking at AMSU-A so I can’t answer your question, and I wouldn’t be qualified to in any event. That said I’m sorta surprised that some climalarmist hasn’t started screaming that we just hit the tipping point based on just that small part of the graph as it really stands out. I notice that there is a gap in the data entirely for a few days just before that and have just started wondering if the sensor was off line for a while due to some problem that is affecting current results.
On the other hand wouldn’t it be hilarious if it went up to say… I don’t know… number at random…. 3.7 Watts/m2 with all the other channels still trending down? CO2 MIA?
way o/t
u.s. budget 3.8 trillion.
if the $1 bills were lined up end to end, a photon of light (yes, in a vacuum) would take 32 minutes to cover the distance. correct?
Quote: Oliver Jack (17:58:14) :
“Sorry, Oliver Manuel, but George Bush was the token global warming denier out of the sorry group you list.”
I agree, Jack, that George Bush was the “token global warming denier”.
George Bush also took the advice of NAS President, Dr. Ralph Cicerone, in 2001 in formulating the US policy toward global climate change.
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
I must say I just finish watching the Lamberton Mockton Debate on Climate in Autrailia. Their was no contest Mocton overwhelmed Lamberton. I am sure the alarmists were not happy. Sincerely John.
janama (17:19:57) :
I’ve contacted the SMH Online dept and The Sydney Morning Herald will be streaming the Monckton/Lambert debate live at 12.30 Sydney time.
——-
Thanks so much for the link in your post – I followed it up and caught most of the debate. It was brilliant. Kudos to Tim Lambert for agreeing to battle Lord Monckton, but Monckton swept Lambert away. Amazing how often Lambert was appealing to authority and the huge ranks of climate scientists in concensus. A question, though. Monckton at one point referred to a theory that the El Nino is precipitated by undersea volcanic activity in the western Pacific. This one is new to me. WUWT?
I
For last 1.5+ hrs I was watching debate Moncton vs Lambert in Sydney
Two points.
1. I’m speachless
2. I feel sorry,…. no, I feel very sorry, no, I feel extremly very sorry for Lambert
Boys & Girls:
I’m not a warmist.
Just know that where I live several winter storms can wipe out a foredune and entie cliffs are casued to collapse, not to mention what goes on below the surface. Now in a far off cave the water level has been measured to move upward at a rate of 0.00123456 meters per century.
I’ll wait a bit longer to accept this a face value.
This info might not be “rock solid” black sea, tectonic activity,validity of the sampling. many things can be put in questions.
Maybe a trap to let the less cautious “deniers” get in and then publish a “rock solid” refutation?
Don’t worry, in three years time, pro-AGW scientists will go down there to produce their own tests and refute this finding or cast doubt on it. And so it goes ..
The report on the research is good, the conclusions look like B.S. (bad science) to me. After 3 readings I see to many loose ends or poor assumptions. The idea that the area in question has been elevation stable over the time period is very hard to accept. That said, There is evidence from all over the world that the oceans water level rises and lowers up to 3 feet on a requalar bases
Sorry to go completely off topic folks…
But I just need a peaceful haven for two minutes where I can scream at the top of my lungs and get it out of my system…
AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH !!! I am SO SICK of these AGW dogmatic freaks in the online forums !!! I can’t take it any more !!! There’s no rationale and reasoning with these robots, they are so bloody brain-washed !!! All they do is twist everything into circular semantics !!!
Okay.
I think I’m okay now.
I needed that.
Sorry… thank god for this sanctuary (I’m not bloody kidding). The rest of the internet is nuts, they are all blooming nuts !
I’m so very very grateful for these skeptic blogs, you have no idea !
I think I have to just simply stay away from all of the forums, these people are completely hopeless.
Okay, I’m going to go back to WUWT’s home page, read some refreshing posts and claw my way back to sanity.
Thank you for allowing me to vent.
/rant
Or was Mallorca a meter lower?
Caution!
If I understand correctly, the following have been considered “facts”:
A. ~17,000 years ago the oceans reached a minimum level of ~120 meters below present, marking the depth of the Ice Age.
B. Sometime since that low, as it rose to its present level, it broke through the Strait(s) of Gibraltar and brought the Mediterranean up to “Sea Level” in a relatively short period of time (swallowing ancient cities).
C. Sometime later the same occurred through the Bosporus, flooding cities (towns?) with a sudden rise of the Black Sea (giving rise to the Noah Flood/Ark Legend).
(B. & C. were unique to the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.)
D. ~85,000 years ago, during the long descent into the depth of the last major ice age the “average” world sea level rose for a few thousand years to only ~30 meters below present. (There were many somewhat smaller deviations in the 100,000+ year descent.)
E. ~82,000 years ago, the “sea level” rose to ~ 18 meters below present as measured at the Huon Peninsula of New Guinea.
Perhaps during that rise during the long descent into the depths of the ice age, the Mediterranean was still connected to the “Atlantic”? Or perhaps it was on its own already and was fed by rivers, glaciers, or… Or was the land level changing?
In any case, throughout the last 100,000 years, the sea level has been up and down significantly, over the short and long term. We may or may not live to see anything dramatic.
But the “publish or perish” mandate combined with please your superior in the academic hierarchy combined with a proliferation of Enviro-
Cult religious pressures, unethical ethicists, lawyers, (some of whom are politicians), and “academic” scientists who never check or understand the instrumentation and its limitations, which is giving them the data they massage to make the “truth”. And the journalists never did get science right, even back in the 40’s and 50’s.
I hope this doesn’t upset people I’d rather not upset.
I agree with Nick. The most sensible explanation is geology. Mallorca could have been lower. This doesn’t really prove much about the global sea levels, especially when we’re talking just about one meter. Sea levels were changing by 100 meters during tens of millennia, anyway, so why would suddenly we talk about this amazing 1-meter accuracy?
Just that the result goes in the “convenient way” for us doesn’t mean that it’s correct to correlate it with the climate. That would be the same distortion as the climate doomsday prophets are doing all the time, just with the opposite sign.
janama (17:19:57) :
A question, though. Monckton at one point referred to a theory that the El Nino is precipitated by undersea volcanic activity in the western Pacific. This one is new to me.
I think it has been discussed by Joe D’Aleo.
The Indian Ocean warm pool can feed warm water through the relatively shallow and tectonically active Indonesian islands into the west Pacific.
What is really interesting is that there is apparently very little difference between the MIS 5a and 5e sea-levels, only a meter or two. This is in good agreement with results from tectonically stable far-field areas like Australia and makes claims for sea-levels of 6 or even 9 meters during MIS 5e even more dubious than they were before.
This is important since claims for “runaway” sea-levels as a result of even moderate warming are largely based on the presumed high seal levels during the last interglacial.
John Egan (16:12:53) :
“I am simply asking.
Given the tectonic activity of the Mediterranean region –
I would have to see convincing evidence that this was not due to uplift.
As a structural geologist I can only agree with you.
I can’t find the paragraph that describes how Neanderthal SUVs brought about Neanderthal extinction. Shome mishtake shurley?
This doesn’t show that seeohtwo does or doesn’t play a role in warming, it merely shows that natural forcing factors are sufficiently strong to modulate temperatures in a manner consistent with amplitudes of temperature fluctuation seenin the past 250 years……
NickB. (16:30:54) :
Just thinking out loud here, but isn’t there a theory floating around that up until the last 10,000 years or so the Black Sea was land locked and then flooded? I wonder how much that might have affected sea levels… would be interesting if it worked out to be about a meter(?)
—
I know that theory and I often wonder about the water from the Danube, Dnieper, Dnister etc and what happened to it before the land dam broke, the Black has salinity roughly half that of the Atlantic etc. Suggesting an outflow of water.
So the question is where did it (the water) go before the Black Sea was connected to the Med? One of these days I’ll get round to calculating how long it took (would take) to fill a blocked off Black Sea with all that fresh water.
The mediteranean is a very special case and warrants a study subject of its own. It is tektonically very active and therefore not an ideal location from which to make definitive measurements. Never the less it is a reasonble piece of science with no notable biases.
Re Monckton vs Lambert.
I think there’s been a little abuse of observing the Fallacy of Appealing to Authority.
It’s perfectly acceptable to refer to peer-reviewed literature endorsed by multiple bodies of science to support your case.
It’s what’s done routinely in court. It’s done routinely in the press.
As such, referring to the studies of an expert witness would normally trump referring to the studies of an witness with dubious credibility.
Without such “authorities” Monckton too would be without a case. It’s not like he does his own research. He merely collates (cherry-picks) contrarian studies that support his position.
I’m not saying this validates AGW but of course it strengthens the case. Pretending otherwise truly is denial.
If you notice, we are now in the process of trying to discredit the authority (IPCC, CRU, NOAA, ETC). And there’s been a couple of wins. But really, this subject will not go forward with any credibility until these authorities line up with us. Forget about thinking otherwise, science always finds its way to the truth.
I suggest that you challenge them to make a bet. (Conclude your challenge with “puck/puck/puck” to encourage them to get cracking.)
There are three bets they can make on how warm 2010 will be (based on GISStemp’s online figures), at the well-known, Dublin-based event prediction site https://www.intrade.com (Click on Markets → Climate & Weather → Global Temperature). They are:
Will 2010 be THE warmest year on record? (32% chance)
Will 2010 be warmer than 2009? (31% chance)
Will 2010 be one of the five warmest years on record? (66% chance)
At least three noted warmists have given a “better than likely” estimate of the first question (and thus the second by implication, because 209 was close to being the warmest), and from that I infer that they are virtually certain that 2010 will not be noticeably cooler than recent years (the third question). Since the odds automatically adjust as punters place their bets on one side or the other, they and their followers seem not to have backed up their opinions with cash. The skeptics seem to be more willing to put their money where their mouth is.
There are also six other bets on future global temperature as well, having to do with the temperatures in the years 2011 through 2019. These haven’t yet attracted any betting and only a few bids and offers, so the odds are a guess. But a bettor can make a bid or offer he thinks is reasonable and wait for someone to take him up on it.
It’s a bit of a hassle to get registered, learn the bidding process, figure out how to navigate the site, etc. but it’s much more practical than trying to arrange a one-on-one bet with a distant, antagonistic stranger. (Other problems: who will hold the bet? Who will adjudicate disputes? What if one bettor wants to bet on one of the nine propositions mentioned above and the other wants to bet on another?) And Intrade has the advantage of allowing a bettor to exit his bet if he changes his mind or there’s an emergency, or if he thinks the odds have become unreasonably biased in his favor so that the bet is no longer attractive (rational).
Wow, Science Magazine printing an article on climate which is 180 degrees off message – looks like ‘cover your arse’ syndrome to me!
Oliver K. Manuel (17:13:04) :
“Have they finally found some integrity?”
No. Science is running scared.
What will happen if decades of filth beneath the climategate iceberg come floating to the surface?“
I think it more a case of when rather than if.
The way ‘science always finds its way to the truth’ is buy inviting and sincerely confronting the criticism of those who disagree with the established view. Science, as a social institution, is conjecture plus organised attempts at refutation by sceptics.
Isn’t this just weather?
>>Just thinking out loud here, but isn’t there a theory
>>floating around that up until the last 10,000 years or
>>so the Black Sea was land locked and then flooded? I
>>wonder how much that might have affected sea levels…
Yes, it was proven by cores, that struck salt flats, that the Black Sea almost dried up during the last ice age. Then, some 7000 BC, the Bosphorus was finally breached and “the largest waterfall in human memory” was unleashed as the Black Sea refilled.
However, if you compare the width of the Bosphorus and the Gibraltar Strait, I don’t think this would affect the levels of the Med.
But I have to agree, that the stability of Mallorca, geologically, would have to be better established before this report can be taken seriously.
.
I just love this website.
Now we have a really interesting paper being reviewed and debated.
I seem to have read somewhere once, maybe it was my granddaughter’s science classroom, that the heart of science is open discussion and debate of observations.
UK Sceptic (00:19:19) :
And didn’t they have problems with sticky gas pedals and brakes that didn’t work? And the recalls didn’t fix the problems?
The proper view of this research is to regard it with skepticism. What the paper does is invite further research in other parts of the world to add evidence in support or falsify the result. Nothing is proved or disproved by this paper.
This is the way science should be done.
Oliver K. Manuel (19:50:17) :
“George Bush also took the advice of NAS President, Dr. Ralph Cicerone, in 2001 in formulating the US policy toward global climate change. ”
Oliver, you have to remember that allmost all political parties in the west was forced to do this. Because all voters are brainwashed by media. Which again are brainwashed by post-modern science institutes.
So, as a politician, you have 2 choices;
1) Say no to post-modern science, and loose all voters, or , say yes, swollow hard, and go on……
Its terrible, but there you have it.
They’ve been very clever to follow Michael Hulmes advise. To redefine what Science is…. Its a travesty.
SandyInDerby (00:51:10) :
“So the question is where did it (the water) go before the Black Sea was connected to the Med? One of these days I’ll get round to calculating how long it took (would take) to fill a blocked off Black Sea with all that fresh water.”
The water went into the Mediterranean the same as now, only the Bosporus was a river rather than a strait. The effect on global sea level of the Black Sea being filled with fresh rather than brackish water is completely negligible.
As for tectonics, it does seem that the Tyrrhenian block (including the Balearics) may be just about the only part of the Mediterranean that is relatively stable. See for example:
Ferranti, L. et al. 2006. Markers of the last interglacial sea-level high stand along the coast of Italy: Tectonic implications. Quaternary International 145–146 (2006) 30–54.
Ralph (04:24:19) :
No salt layers in the Black Sea. It has never been dry, but mostly a fresh water lake isolated from the Mediterranean. It is very unlikely that it could ever dry out with the Danube, Dniestr, Dniepr and Don all draining into it.
Well, just because it’s getting colder and wetter doensn’t mean that its not getting warmer and drier! Pretty hard to argue with logic like that!
John Hooper (00:56:19) :
“Re Monckton vs Lambert.
I think there’s been a little abuse of observing the Fallacy of Appealing to Authority.
It’s perfectly acceptable to refer to peer-reviewed literature endorsed by multiple bodies of science to support your case.
It’s what’s done routinely in court. It’s done routinely in the press.
As such, referring to the studies of an expert witness would normally trump referring to the studies of an witness with dubious credibility.
Without such “authorities” Monckton too would be without a case. It’s not like he does his own research. He merely collates (cherry-picks) contrarian studies that support his position.”
______
When I mentioned that Tim Lambert in the Monckton-Lambert debate made constant appeals to authority, what I was implying – but realize I did not state clearly – was that rather than explain the mechanisms of what is going on, Lambert referred to individual studies as being done by recognized experts and therefore they must be right, or stated that since there is a huge consensus on a certain “scientific fact” then the fact must be right. Monckton relied more on logical arguments based on physics, known meteorology, problematic record-keeping and data manipulation, and so on. His arguments were massively more substantive. However, some of the science he used also was questionable, such as the argument that ENSO events are triggered by undersea vulcanism in the west Pacific. I’ve looked that one up and there is no agreement on this idea, since there is some statistical correlation but by no means any consistent causative evidence.
The Dorale et. al. article which forms the basis of this thread does look convincing; as someone noted above, however, the Mediterranean is a special case in terms of its oceanographic history. The authors seem to have done their best to answer this by indicating sea-level correlations in Bermuda and elsewhere. One wonders how they could definitively rule out isostatic effects, however.
Either the sea level was higher or the crust raised.
BTW regardless my motto is
“Humans are not responsible for global warming … politicians are”
I don’t think anyone mentioned this paper: Lambeck K, Bard, E. 2000. Sea-level change along the French Mediterranian coust for the past 30 000 years. Earth and planetary sciences letters 175, 203-222.
This indicates rising sea levels in Medit before the SUV. Interesting because of the potential role of sea level differences in the time span between absolute myth, prehistory, and history. The Mahabharata includes Krishna foretelling the sinking of Dwarka (India); archaeology has discovered a submerged Dwarka along with present-day, dry-land Dwarka. They have an estiamted data range of this phenomenon – subsidence or flooding – of 2000 to 300 BCE. There are submerged archaeological locations in the Nile delta in the same era: who would build a town under water? Also, in Jericho, arguably well-established before 2000-3000 years ago, there is a story of the walls falling. Archaeology supports that there was a former town, with a fallen wall, circa the Biblical timline (Kathleen Kenyon, etc.); this town sits between the hills and the valley of the Jordan, obviously with water from the hills providing the springs well-known in the area. It is possible that rising water in the Persian Gulf, which drains the Jordan, raised the water table in the Jordan Valley, weakening the ability of the underlying soil to support this substantial (had small residences or storage areas built into it, concordant with the story) wall. The wall collapse is on the “downhill” side of the old city, supporting this possibility. Whether a parade of a millin people could de-stabilize the soil is another topic for another day; but the submerged archaeology across this vicinity of the globe – Nile delta, trans-Jordan, and nortwestern subcontinent, demonstrate non-SUV rise in sea levels in the past few thousand years.
As for tectonics, it does seem that the Tyrrhenian block (including the Balearics) may be just about the only part of the Mediterranean that is relatively stable.>
I’ve always wondered how one would establish this. The only way to say that any one given thing has moved a certain amount over time is to be able to measure it against something that hasn’t moved. We don’t have anything that we KNOW hasn’t moved, so we can only compare multiple things to each other to compare relative distance, height, etc. I thought of parking a laser on the moon but that darn thing moves about 3.8 cm farther away each year.
come to think of it, that would mean it was about 3 km closer to earth 81,000 years ago. F=Gm1m2/r^2 current r=384,000 km, so gforce between moon and earth would have been about 1.5% higher meaning higher tides, etc. Med and Black Sea being low tidal oscillation no much difference, but high/low tide marks in high oscillation areas….?
The other interesting thing is that the paper suggests a way to correlate atmospheric insulation with sea levels.
Eyeballing the graphs suggests that sea level isn’t very responsive to changes in insulation at the upper end. Even when the insulation was ~550w/m^2 125k years ago, the sea level looks to be identical to today’s.
vigilantfish (06:38:40) :
Monckton relied more on logical arguments based on physics, known meteorology, problematic record-keeping and data manipulation, and so on. His arguments were massively more substantive. However, some of the science he used also was questionable, such as the argument that ENSO events are triggered by undersea vulcanism in the west Pacific. I’ve looked that one up and there is no agreement on this idea, since there is some statistical correlation but by no means any consistent causative evidence.
Yes, that’s the problem with Monckton. As witnessed with Glaciergate, you only need to be caught out on one exaggeration, let alone unsupported/debunked claim, and your entire house of credibility starts tumbling down around you.
Watching him debate is like yes, yes, yes, oh no Chris not the mud pie story again, mate, just leave it out. You’re just setting yourself up for ridicule.
I had a girlfriend who lied compulsively. She always had proof for all her outlandish stories, which was all you had to do was call one of her friends you didn’t know and ask them.
Monckton’s a bit the same. He cites fact after fact after fact – and it sounds great – but honestly, his audience rarely has any idea, certainly not as he speaks, whether his data is sound. The press then picks up one of his claims, rips it apart, leaving the rest of his argument likewise suspect.
Sometimes less is more.
The editorial boards of Science and Nature need to do some very serious review of their policies with respect to the critics of man made CC and man made GW. These two publications have been at the forefront for years of intentionally blocking and censoring those legitimate and scientific fact based evidenced papers that have challenged the lies and the fraud and the hoax that are man made CC and man made GW. The greens still cannot clearly, accurately, and precisely show and demonstrate the causal relationship between man’s behavior and the alleged man cause CC and GW. We are just supposed to accept their unproven hypotheses because their positions are “superior to the positions of the critics” and their work and causes are “so much more important” than that of the critics. If the data of the East Anglia CRU, NASA, and NOAA are so scary accurate, precise, and predictive, then why did Phil Jones and Michael Mann put up such obstacles to having such data reviewed by the Canadians M&M? Where was the skeptical media? Where were the critical thinking skills of the media when Al Gore told his lies. (By the way, Al Gore told the public that the earth’s subsurface is millions of degrees hot. It isn’t. It is 4,000 to 7,000 degrees C.) Science should not be for sale or be manipulated by the corrupt media and by corrupt scientists. Until the leaders in science decide that science is not to be manipulated and compromised to promote and support the lies, bias, distortions, and prejudiced policies of politicians, then the four corners of deceit shall remain academia, government, media, and science.
tty (05:56:21) :
SandyInDerby (00:51:10) :
“So the question is where did it (the water) go before the Black Sea was connected to the Med? One of these days I’ll get round to calculating how long it took (would take) to fill a blocked off Black Sea with all that fresh water.”
The water went into the Mediterranean the same as now, only the Bosporus was a river rather than a strait. The effect on global sea level of the Black Sea being filled with fresh rather than brackish water is completely negligible.
—-
So how did it (the Bosporus river) do that if there was a dam which was breached by water coming in from the Mediterranean which then formed the Black Sea? There must have been a depression which became the Black Sea? So why wasn’t it a lake before it became the Black Sea with the Bosporus river flowing out ?
I am very puzzled by it. “It’s not logical Captain”
>>No salt layers in the Black Sea. It has never been
>>dry, but mostly a fresh water lake isolated from
>>the Mediterranean. It is very unlikely that it could
>>ever dry out with the Danube, Dniestr, Dniepr and
>>Don all draining into it.
The Black Sea dried out to an extent that it was less than 50% its current area – a vast volume change. And yes, this left a series of salt pans around the perimeter. The rivers that fill the Black Sea are not sufficient to prevent evaporation of the sea to much lower levels – which is why the Bosphorus only flows in one direction.
See Ryan and Pitman “Noah’s Flood”. Despite the non-scientific title, this research was peer reviewed in ‘Nature Mag’.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/phenom_apr00.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v430/n7001/full/430718a.html
.
>>The water went into the Mediterranean the same
>>as now, only the Bosporus was a river rather than
>>a strait.
No it was not.
The world sea levels and the Med dropped below the level of the current Bosporus during the ice Age – thus the Black Sea started drying out (yes, not completely dry, but substantially dry).
After the Ice Age, sea levels rose again, and finally they reached the level of the Bosporus. The Bosporus would have been a ‘river’ for all of one or two WEEKS. After that, with such a head of water behind it, the Mediterranean would have eroded a bigger and bigger path through the Bosporus – resulting in a vast torrent.
Ryan and Pitman estimate the water in the Bosphorus moving at some 120 miles and hour and the resultant Bosporus waterfall being the largest in human memory – while the Black Sea filled at some 2km per hour (lateral displacement, so you could easily walk ahead of it, if you did not get cut off.)
A distant memory of this may be present in the Flood myths, and also in Homer’s Odyssey. The ‘clashing rocks’ are a reference to the Bosporus, and the myth indicates these rocks open and close, much like the Bosporus actually did. Incidentally, the epic of Gilgamesh describes a boat being pulled along by rocks, which is still a current method of navigating the Bosporus – rocks in a basket under a boat will be pulled along by the current and pull the boat along, as the current is still towards the evaporating Black Sea.
.
I haven’t seen that issue of SCIENCE yet; well unless it’s already buried under papers.
My initial reaction to the story, is that this is just another “anecdotal” piece of evidence, that reaffirms my belief that there really isn’t any correlation between CO2 and global climate; well certainly not in the manner of the first being causative of the second.
The 600 million year purported proxy record here:-
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/PageMill_Images/image277.gif
should convince anybody (assuming the data is correct) that global mean temperature IS NOT;and never has been, proportional to the logarithm of the atmospheric CO2 abundance; so Dr Steven Schneider’s invention, (apparently) of “Climate Senitivity.” as being the slope of that logarithmic relationship, simply doesn’t hold water. Sorry I just couldn’t resist.
I know that Lord Monckton, has used that ancient climate data graph in his presentations; perhaps someone who knows how to access the raw numbers used to plot it, could actually plot Temp vs log(CO2), so we can see just how wrong that concept is. I don’t care what base for the logs; but 2.0 would be a good choice to match with Schneider’s thesis.
But back to the current paper under discussion; it will be interesting reading to see where this leads,in the direction of just what the heck WAS actually going on 81,000 years ago,that led to this (apparent) result.
“”” u.k.(us) (17:13:24) :
o/t
carl sagan quotes:
“Modern science has been a voyage into the unknown, with a lesson in humility waiting at every stop. Many passengers would rather have stayed home.”
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”
Where is the humility, or the evidence. “””
Well this often repeated (purported) quote of Carl Sagan, has a nice touchy feely aura about it; one might almost describe it as “Churchillian.”
But of course, other than being immortalized along with “Billions and Billions” by Sagan, it is quite wrong.
The standards of scientific “proof” are fairly well understood, and the level of adequacy, is not influenced by the overall importance of the outcome.
If Sagan’s edict is to be assumed true; then one must also accept that non-extra-ordinary claims do not require extra-ordinary proof; in other words sloppy workmanship is ok if the outcome is not of great significance.
That will not do; one must always explore under every rock, for supporting evidence (or the contrary) for ANY claims; if one wants to have any scientific integrity at all.
In fact the outcome, of one’s work, should be the least of one’s concerns.
Getting the facts correct, is ALL that matters; not the eventual outcome of those revelations.
That’s so true. Overkill will kill you. Tone it down. If you don’t have a winning hand, play for a draw. Don’t open yourself to a counterpunch. Etc.
I live in Mallorca!!! lol!
On the stability of Mallorca – We had a small earthquake last weak in the bay of Palma.
http://www.euroweeklynews.com/2010020372292/news/mallorca/earthquake-in-palma-bay.html
As predicted, Monckton let us down by spending too much time bignoting himself and bluffing and not enough time checking his data.
http://bit.ly/bsTDld
http://bit.ly/98BKP0
This is exactly what we’re accusing the AGWers of doing. Get it together will you, Monckton!
John Hooper (04:21:44),
I watched the entire Lord Monckton/Tim Lambert debate. From your comment, I doubt that you did. Monckton never “bluffed,” not once. Where did you get that from? He was extremely knowledgeable, more so than Lambert, who was never able to show that Monckton was wrong on his facts. [Unfortunately, the viewers were not shown the charts and graphs that the audience was shown.]
Being a braggart and AGW purveyor, Lambert would naturally claim in his blog that he won the debate. In fact, he lost. I saw it all.
Throughout the debate Lord Monckton was confident, interesting, and had the facts at his fingertips much better than Tim Lambert, who often lapsed into technical minutiae, losing the audience in the process.
The audience was clearly won over by Monckton, who received repeated rounds of applause – quite a contrast to Lambert, who made his points and sat down to a quiet but polite audience.
By the Q&A session, Lambert’s body language and defeated attitude told the story, with his slumped shoulders, bowed head, and by allowing Monckton to answer questions directed at Lambert, or to either of them – with no rebuttal to Monckton’s energetic replies. By conceding the field of battle to his opponent, Lambert made it clear that he knew at that point who the victor was.
If Lambert has actually convinced himself now that he won the debate, he should watch it like the viewers did, and pay attention to the audience’s response. So should you.
John Hooper,
I have a problem with understanding your posts, and it seems to stem from confusion between the various meanings of the word ‘truth’
Pease could you post your definitions?
Monckton never “bluffed,” not once. Where did you get that from? He was extremely knowledgeable, more so than Lambert, who was never able to show that Monckton was wrong on his facts. [Unfortunately, the viewers were not shown the charts and graphs that the audience was shown.]
If Lambert has actually convinced himself now that he won the debate, he should watch it like the viewers did, and pay attention to the audience’s response. So should you.
So you’re saying Monckton won because a partisan crowd who paid to see him beat up a warmist cheered clapped him on?
And that’s not Argumentum ad Populum?
Me, I think it’s a little embarrassing to have the author of a paper you cite state you’ve misinterpreted their findings.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/upload/2010/02/debate_australia_tim_lambert.pdf
It’s not an isolated incident either, as you might recall from the fallout after ” The Great Global Warming Swindle”
Too many on this side of the debate are guilty of prematurely piling on.
John Hooper (06:29:29),
I pointed out who won the debate. You are certainly correct when you state that Monckton beat up on Lambert, who clearly couldn’t keep up with him. So now you come up with excuses why your hero lost. Too bad neither you nor Lambert can take it like men, you both make excuses and cry about it instead.
You are complaining about the outcome of the debate, by posting an anonymous link copied from the skeptic-censoring deltoid blog, but I doubt even with your cheerleading that Lambert would consent to another public spanking by Lord Monckton. Being humiliated once in front of a worldwide audience is quite enough for Lambert, I would think. [And: ‘prematurely piling on’?? I, for one, would love to see a rematch, because the first debate was so much fun.]
We all know you would never make your complaint of the audience’s decision about who won the debate if Timmy had won. Just like we all know who the honest scientific skeptics are here, and who are the chameleons.
supercritical (06:28:58) :
John Hooper,
I have a problem with understanding your posts, and it seems to stem from confusion between the various meanings of the word ‘truth’
Please could you post your definitions?
I suspect you’re being facetious, but nevertheless I see skepticism as a healthy part of the body of science, and I see forums like this as part of the extended “peer review” process.
Our goal as I see it is to help steer science not simply nay-say everything emanating from the establishment on principle.
Doing so not only puerile and counterproductive, but really is being a [snip].
It is reasonable to assume in good faith that the established body of science will gravitate towards a more watertight premise. One that punishes both the preposterous extrapolations of warmist doom, as well as the knee-jerk conspiracy theories too common on this board.
Don’t loose sight that we’re all on the side of science.
Lose not loose. Dammit.
Smokey (07:01:53) :
John Hooper (06:29:29),
I pointed out who won the debate. You are certainly correct when you state that Monckton beat up on Lambert, who clearly couldn’t keep up with him. So now you come up with excuses why your hero lost. Too bad neither you nor Lambert can take it like men, you both make excuses and cry about it instead.
Smokey,
Please note one link emanated from Andrew Bolt, the loudest skeptic in world media (often featured on this blog), who also echoes my sentiment. Go abuse him if it gets you off.
The other was an email from one of the sources quoted by our ally, Lord Monckton. Had you read the email you would see that Monckton’s talked-up source politely says our Lord has misunderstood (not even misrepresented) the paper.
Belligerently cheerleading regardless makes you look a fool. You would be better off direct your bile at Lord Monckton for letting you down. For letting science down.
I have no stake in this other than I can plainly see misrepresentation on the AGW front, but am frustrated by the often even sloppier cases against it.
Science isn’t about picking a team. It’s about punishing a theory.
John Hooper
I was serious in enquiring as to the ‘truth’ in your posts. For example the method of public competition (such as the Monckton/Lambert duel) will produce certain truths, but not scientific truths. Neither can a consensus of an established body, which again will produce certain truths, but not scientific ones.
In other words science is a method by which scientific truths can be discovered. For other kinds of truths, the other appropriate methods are required.
So when you posted on the duel I assumed you were communicating what struck you as ‘true’. But it was not clear to me because it did not make sense in the context of science, or politics, or sport.
[snip] We do not approve of calling people “denialists” here. ~dbs, mod.
Roger Knights (01:24:50) :
Not Amused (22:28:13) :
AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH !!! I am SO SICK of these AGW dogmatic freaks in the online forums !!! I can’t take it any more !!! There’s no rationale and reasoning with these robots, they are so bloody brain-washed !!! All they do is twist everything into circular semantics !!!
“I suggest that you challenge them to make a bet. . . .
At least three noted warmists have given a “better than likely” estimate of the first question (and thus the second by implication, because 209 was close to being the warmest), and from that I infer that they are virtually certain that 2010 will not be noticeably cooler than recent years (the third question). Since the odds automatically adjust as punters place their bets on one side or the other, they and their followers seem not to have backed up their opinions with cash. The skeptics seem to be more willing to put their money where their mouth is.”
That’s a questionable interpretation of the odds. There are a hundred and thirty years of instrument records, so absent a warming trend, the odds that 2010 will be one of the 5 warmest is 5/130 = 4%. The asking bid for “warmest” is 0.74 on the dollar (3 to 1). In other words, if you bet 2010 will not hitting the top five, and there is no warming trend, you would have a 96% chance of tripling your money.
Given the number of skeptics who claim “the world has been cooling since 1998” or crow about record snowfalls, I would think more of them would be willing to take a bet with an average 288% return.
Not Amused, don’t be a sucker. Roger clearly knows the ins and outs of Intrade; that means he’s probably smart enough to know that the world is rapidly warming. He’s likely trolling here for suckers who he can bait into betting against global warming, improving his own 33% return on his pro-warming bet.
John Hooper,
Again, I simply responded to your post [as you responded to those above you] by pointing out who won the debate. Other posters here saw the same debate and came to the same conclusion.
You don’t appear to see things like others do, as pointed out above. For example, you completely misrepresented what vigilantfish (06:38:40) stated. You should remember that fact checking is easy on a thread.
Psychological projection seems to be another of your traits. I was not ‘belligerently cheerleading,’ I was pointing out who won the debate. And since you think I’m a fool, that’s fine with me. I prefer to be underestimated.
There should be many more such formal debates. Unfortunately, Mr Lambert will undoubtedly be reluctant to again debate the always-willing Lord Monckton after being bested. [He certainly shouldn’t have used Mann’s debunked hokey stick chart as his claimed authority.]
It’s amusing to see the consternation this has caused in Lambert world. To understand how disreputable he is, see the post by “S. Lindsey” @8:09 a.m. on the Congenital Climate Abnormalities thread. Here at WUWT we regularly see comments like that. It is no compliment to alarmist blogs that they denigrate and censor opposing views. I suppose that since they cannot provide empirical evidence to support their CO2=CAGW hypothesis, it’s a face saving tactic.
Your impotent hatred of Lord Monckton will not change reality. Monckton has a long list of defeated debate opponents under his belt besides Lambert, including Gavin Schmidt, Pierrehumbert and others – who are now afraid to debate him.
Public humiliation is acutely distressing, especially when it is done by the always polite Lord Monckton, who wins his debates without name calling or raised voice, simply by showing the audience that the AGW emperor has no clothes.
@ George E. Smith (10:23:36) :
I liked the “Many passengers would rather have stayed home.”
part of his quote. Made me think of the “hockey team” et al, they SHOULD have stayed home.
Is the Lambert – Monckton debate on video anywhere?
.
At the end of the day, whether you deny evolution, or AGW, or argue that the Earth is flat, is 10,000 years old, you will always be able to “sell” that belief to somebody.
Clearly there are many people here who are gloating at the prospect of “winning” the argument, for example:
“I was not ‘belligerently cheerleading,’ I was pointing out who won the debate. And since you think I’m a fool, that’s fine with me. I prefer to be underestimated.”
Clearly somebody whose loyalties are not to the truth: his focus is merely on “winning.”
It might be better if the people who believe the science, like me, just come right out and admit that we may very well lose the public relations battle with the anti-AGW true believers. Anti-AGW believers may not be very cogent, but they are very loud, and they have the very great advantage that all they are trying to do is delay and confuse, when inaction is easier and more comfortable than action.
We need to get past the question of who will win the public debate. Anti-AGW believers probably will, at least to the extent they need to, at least until it’s too late. If we concede that, maybe they can get past the thrill of victory to think seriously about what evidence they would need to see to question their own convictions. If you are wrong, Smokey, how will you realize it, and what will you do about AGW?
Ralph (12:22:11),
I’ll see if I can find it. Someone posted the link just as the debate started, and I clicked on it. But I don’t remember where or under what article, so it may take a while to find it.
Robert (12:34:50),
First off, enough with the “deny” language. It is deliberately insulting. The proper term is skeptic. I am a skeptic, which every honest scientist is, first and foremost. Belief has nothing to do with it. Those preaching AGW want everyone to take their word for the coming global warming apocalypse, without providing any empirical evidence whatever that a rise in CO2 will cause any more than a little insignificant warming. If that.
You may not like it, but debate results are based on who won or lost; on who has the better argument. Since the purveyors of the CO2=Catastrophic AGW hypothesis have no solid, testable evidence showing it to be factual, debates like this are necessarily about who has convinced the audience that they have the better argument.
Your boy lost, just as Gavin Schmidt lost to Lord Monckton in their debate. That one was done better, however: prior to the debate the audience was polled about their belief in AGW. The majority were convinced that AGW was a fact. Following that debate, the same audience was again polled. The result: they had changed their minds, and the majority rejected the AGW argument. That is now happening world wide on sites like this. The debate is being decided, and the AGW side is losing it.
The AGW crowd have been desperately seeking something, anything, they can ‘gloat’ about, because they have been so consistently wrong, outmaneuvered and discredited by skeptical scientists. I was not gloating – only pointing out the audience’s applause, in response to being labeled a ‘fool’ and a ‘belligerent cheerleader’ by a chameleon who posts here as an AGW skeptic.
I appreciate the concession speech in your last couple of paragraphs. Even Phil Jones is beginning to sound like that now, on his own personal road to Damascus. More will follow. Because as it has been repeatedly pointed out here for quite some time, the truth will eventually emerge. That’s what is happening: click on “Climategate” at the top of the page. See the truth exposed.
As far as being “wrong” about CAGW, you are assuming there is any more evidence for it than for Prince Charles’ “grey goo” that he’s afraid will destroy the world. Are we to spend $trillions on that monster under the bed, too? Because there is about as much evidence for grey goo as there is for CAGW.
Read up on the null hypothesis, then get back to us.
Debate link: click
“First off, enough with the “deny” language. It is deliberately insulting. The proper term is skeptic. I am a skeptic, which every honest scientist is, first and foremost.”
I don’t agree with your self-description. Skepticism is a habit of mind, an approach to problems, one which, with a few noble exceptions, I have found sadly lacking in anti-AGW believers.
What is evident from your comments as well as those of many of your peers here is an attitude of uncritical acceptance and celebration of anything which seems to confirm your beliefs, and endless attacks on anything which threatens them. This is the hallmark of an ideologically driven belief system, and it is not “skeptical” merely because the position you are embracing is one rejected by most climate scientists. Being against instead of for something may make you a critic, but it doesn’t make you a skeptic.
“You may not like it, but debate results are based on who won or lost;”
“your boy lost”
“I appreciate the concession speech”
Again, I suggest you get past your desire to “win” the public relations fight (and you probably will, if not as overwhelmingly as you’ve lost the scientific debate) and take an interest in the truth. Get your focus off your dog in the fight, and address the real questions: what is the truth about global warming? How will you know if you have been mistaken about it? What evidence would make you question your belief that the vast majority of climate scientists are wrong about global warming?
A skeptic would have answers to those questions. I won’t be surprised if you don’t.
But there IS a warming trend and we’re at its peak, as a chart of the temperature trend of the past 130 years shows: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/ v On that page, GISS points out that “The ten warmest years all occur within the 12-year period 1997-2008.”
Further, 2009 is the 2nd warmest year on the GISS record (which is the record used by Intrade to settle bets), the trend up from 2008 is sharp, and Jan. 2010 has set an all-time record (per UAH). Even if there were no recent warming trend but only random variation — yet, given that 2009 happened to be in the upper 10% (say) of the historical range, the odds of 2010 being either THE warmest or among the five warmest would be considerably better than 1/130 or 5/130.
As I explained above, 2009 was the second warmest year on record and 2010’s January is setting a record, so there’s no reason to expect that 2010 is as likely to be as cool as, say, 1948 (which is much further away) as to be as warm as 2009 (i.e., among the top five). If yearly variations are random, as per your hypothesis, then the most likely prediction for next year is that it will most closely resemble this year.
Ha-ha! (For the record, I haven’t yet placed any temperature-related bets there. I plan to in a few weeks. When I have, I’ll “declare my interest” in any posts on the topic I submit here.)
I see that you, like me, enjoy turning the tables — i.e., amusingly suggesting that I’m playing a double game. That’s perceptive. There’s a saying in gambling circles that “there’s no right side to a bet, there’s only the right odds,” so I do have a “cushion shot” in mind — i.e., I might take the “Yes” (warmist) side of one of the bets I mentioned under certain circumstances. For instance, I think that 2010 will continue to rack up record high temperatures for the next two months and that eventually this trend (plus the predictions of Gavin, Hansen, and Ms. Pope) will tempt enough warmists to bet Yes on “THE warmest?” that the odds will rise over 50%.
I think that the actual rational odds ought to be 25%. Therefore what I plan to do is place a standing order to “buy” the bet at 25% (hoping it will dip down there again soon) and “sell” it at 50%. I might even buy it at its current 33% and aim to sell it at 55%. If it got higher, then I’d take the other (coolist) side of the bet.
Robert:
“I don’t agree with your self-description.”
That’s tough, Robert; I am a scientific skeptic. Most of the people on this “Best Science” site are skeptics. And if it weren’t for skeptics, you’d still be going to your local witch doctor to treat diseases. So be grateful.
You try to equate scientific skeptics with Holocaust deniers. Reprehensible. No wonder you’re confused about the role of skeptics. Their purpose is to ask questions regarding a new hypothesis, not answer them. I can easily answer your questions. Do you think you’re the first to ask them here? The problem is that the promoters of the CAGW hypothesis are the ones who repeatedly dodge skeptics’ questions, such as: show us the raw data and methods that you used to formulate your conclusions. Answer: *crickets*
Like mostf AGW purveyors, you’ve turned the scientific method on its head. It is those putting forth a hypothesis, such as CO2=CAGW, who have the burden of showing that it explains reality better than the long held theory of natural climate variability. So far, they have failed.
As climatologist Roy Spencer says, “No one has falsified the theory that the observed temperature changes are a consequence of natural variability.” If the climate ever exceeds its natural long term parameters, then you can start looking for a cause. Until then, it’s just natural variability.
Adding an extraneous entity like CO2 violates Occam’s Razor: Never increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything. ~William of Ockham (1285-1349).
You need to understand that skeptics have nothing to prove. The burden is entirely on the promoters of a new hypothesis: Ei incumbit probatio, qui dicit, non qui negat; cum per rerum naturam factum negantis probatio nulla sit. The proof lies upon him who affirms, not upon him who denies; since, by the nature of things, he who denies a fact cannot produce any proof.
Therefore, regarding the hypothesis that CO2 produced by human activity is causing “unprecedented” global warming which will lead to climate catastrophe: the onus lies upon those making that claim. Regarding the claim that there has been an alarming rise in global temperatures: the onus lies on those who say so. And they have the obligation to disclose all of their raw and adjusted data and methodologies to skeptical scientists – which they refuse to do.
The believers in the CO2=CAGW hypothesis have no empirical [real world], testable, reproducible, verifiable evidence showing that a given increase in CO2 will result in a measurable rise in temperature. So they try to put the burden back on skeptics, demanding that skeptics must prove a negative.
The insistence that CO2 is the central culprit in their hypothesis is an argumentum ad ignorantiam: the fallacy of assuming that something is true, simply because it hasn’t been proven false, or that it must be true because they haven’t thought of any alternative explanations. What they are lacking is empirical evidence showing a verifiable connection between a rise in CO2 and a rise in global temperature.
But there is no real world evidence that CO2 is anything other than a harmless and beneficial trace gas, comprising only 0.00038 of the atmosphere. To propose spending trillions of dollars to ‘mitigate’ a non-problem is extremely irresponsible. That money would be sidetracked from truly deserving areas of science, which have already been starved of funding due to the AGW scare.
Robert, you sound like someone in the humanities, with little technical expertise. Sociology? English Lit? Certainly you are no engineer or scientist; your misunderstanding of the scientific method is apparent. [C’mon, did I guess correctly? Was I close?]
“That’s tough, Robert; I am a scientific skeptic.”
Wrong on both counts. Again, you can’t answer the questions. Again, you spout unscientific nonsense, mangling such basic concepts as parsimony and the scientific hypothesis.
“You try to equate scientific skeptics with Holocaust deniers. Reprehensible.”
I guess your propensity of making stuff up is not limited to climate discussions. Godwin’s Law FAIL.
“No wonder you’re confused about the role of skeptics.Their purpose is to ask questions regarding a new hypothesis, not answer them.”
Sorry, no. Nor is AGW a new hypothesis. You are proposing a new hypothesis: that climate scientists are wrong about AGW, the unprecedented warming of the latter twentieth century is somehow being caused by “natural variation.” I question your unsupported hypothesis. Call me skeptical.
“I can easily answer your questions. Do you think you’re the first to ask them here?”
Then answer them.
“Like mostf AGW purveyors, you’ve turned the scientific method on its head. It is those putting forth a hypothesis, such as CO2=CAGW, who have the burden of showing that it explains reality better than the long held theory of natural climate variability. So far, they have failed.”
Sorry, “CAGW” is your term, which you have attributed to me without evidence. State it as a hypothesis, and the points for it and against it, and then we can discuss it.
The hypothesis, now the theory, of AGW, has succeeded by every rational and empirical test. That’s why faith-based critics like you are reduced to analyzing the posture of of scientists, rather than their data.
“What they are lacking is empirical evidence showing a verifiable connection between a rise in CO2 and a rise in global temperature.”
No, Smokey, you’re wrong. Look here:
http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Storms/Storms_Fig.05.pdf
Note the absorption bands of the radiation.
” propose spending trillions of dollars to ‘mitigate’ a non-problem is extremely irresponsible. That money would be sidetracked from truly deserving areas of science, which have already been starved of funding due to the AGW scare.”
Straw man argument. We might call it “catastrophic global warming migation theory”: despite economic analysis to the contrary, you assert (without evidence) that reducing carbon emissions would cost “trillions” of dollars.
“Robert, you sound like someone in the humanities, with little technical expertise.”
Again, rather than address the science, or answer the questions, you want to fight and argue. Maybe, you hope, a little ad hominem will get us into the kind of back-and-forth you like, and away from the uncomfortable science stuff you don’t want to deal with.
The questions still stand:
1) How will you know if you’re wrong about AGW? What evidence would lead you to question your beliefs?
2) How would you suggest we proceed if in fact you are wrong in your claim that CO2 is “a harmless trace gas” (speaking of comments that display a lack of literacy in basic science)?
Roger: I like your analysis of the odds. I’m curious if 2010 will be the warmest year on record, but I wouldn’t like to lay odds on it. Top five, though, seems like a pretty safe bet. I’m surprised you can get a 33% return on it. I’m thinking of opening an account myself.
Robert,
Since you’re a noob here, I highly recommend that you go through the WUWT archives. There is plenty to learn, and unlike the echo chamber alarmist blogs with a handful of true believers shouting the same globaloney at each other, WUWT allows all points of view – as you can see.
In the archives you will see the evolution of the “denier” label, and plenty of debate surrounding it. Yeah, yeah, godwin’s law, it’s all there. But that violation was by the alarmist contingent, not by skeptics. And anyone who claims that “denier” isn’t a deliberate insult taken straight from “Holocaust denier” is incredible. Don’t be incredible. You’re already on shaky ground here with what you believe to be the scientific method.
“The hypothesis, now the theory, of AGW, has succeeded by every rational and empirical test.”
So give us some of that empirical, falsifiable evidence showing that a specific, measurable rise in CO2 results in a measurable increase in global temperature …oh, that’s right. I already asked that. No answer – because there is no such evidence.
The fact is that CO2 rises as a function of temperature. In other words, CO2 rise is an effect of rising temperature, not a cause. Cause can not precede effect. At least not in my universe.
And the theory of natural climate variability, as taught in schools for many decades and elucidated by Dr Spencer above [an actual climatologist, not a sociologist], is the theory that must be falsified by any upstart hypothesis such as CAGW. Here’s a pretty good description of natural climate variability: click
Since you didn’t answer my question about your background, did I guess right? Non-science?
That being very likely, I’ll give you a break – and some worthwhile knowledge along the way. You asked…
1) How will you know if you’re wrong about AGW? What evidence would lead you to question your beliefs?
Backwards again. It is the CAGW hypothesis that must be defended, according to the scientific method, not skeptical scientists who question it.
The conjecture/hypothesis, which you won’t state so I will, is that a rise in CO2 will lead to runaway global warming and climate catastrophe. Shorthand: CO2=CAGW; even shorter: CAGW, or AGW.
The scientific method requires that a hypothesis [which in this case is more of a conjecture] must withstand falsification. Further, it must be structured in a way that allows falsification. Just like any religion, AGW does neither.
The AGW conjecture can not be falsified. Why? Because the raw, unadjusted data it is based on has been *ahem* “lost.” Thus, past instrumental temperature measurements can never be falsified.
We are now expected to take the word of the same people who have stated, in writing, that they fabricated entire temperature data sets to support their AGW hypothesis. In other words, we are expected to take it on faith.
Even worse for climate alarmists, the planet itself has falsified the CO2=CAGW conjecture by cooling for most of the past decade, even as harmless CO2 ramps up: click
Note that Hadley, GISS, and both satellite records all show cooling since 2002. In addition, the 3,300 ARGO buoys show deep ocean cooling.
Planet Earth is laughing at the hubris of the AGW contingent. So who should we believe? An English Lit major? Or Planet Earth?
2) How would you suggest we proceed if in fact you are wrong in your claim that CO2 is “a harmless trace gas” (speaking of comments that display a lack of literacy in basic science)?
Yes, a harmless trace gas, English Lit major. There is no empirical evidence showing that the atmospheric trace gas is harmful in any way. None. Furthermore, CO2 is a beneficial plant food that directly helps the world’s poorest to eat: click
Your questions lack rigor. Asking how we are to proceed if I am wrong is a completely “what if” question, which could be asked about nearly anything. What if there are alligators under your mother in law’s bed? What if global warming is caused by postal rate increases?
Questions like that are specifically what the scientific method was designed to weed out. One could just as easily claim that methane is the problem. But the alarmist crowd hung their collective hats on carbon dioxide, based on a recanted 1896 Arrenhius paper, and now they are looking extremely foolish. Their choice is to move the goal posts once again this late in the game, by admitting they were wrong about CO2, or to be a part of the slow motion train wreck that started with Climategate. Lose-lose.
If you really believe that my statement that CO2 is harmless is wrong, then show us, using real world evidence, how it is harmful in the trace amounts we’re discussing: 0.00038 of the atmosphere; one part in 2,600. Of course, you can’t. You’re just a humanities major. Or something similar. [Am I right? C’mon, ‘fess up! I stepped up and answered your questions. Thoroughly, and with plenty of citations. Fair is fair.]
“But that violation was by the alarmist contingent, not by skeptics.”
You brought it into this discussion, and while I would certainly class you as an “alarmist” and you’re certainly not a “skeptic,” I don’t think that was what you meant
“Since you didn’t answer my question about your background, did I guess right? Non-science? ”
What’s the point in making claims about our backgrounds that can’t be verified? Just because you don’t understand basic scientific concepts like a null hypothesis or parsimony, what does it gain us to speculate on your level of education of lack thereof? Nothing at all. It’s a distraction from the discussion of the facts, where you know you lose. Case in point:
“Note that Hadley, GISS, and both satellite records all show cooling since 2002.”
2005 was the hottest year on record according to the GISS data. So your claim is false. The oughts were the hottest decade on record, same source. January 2010 was the hottest ever recorded, by the satellite data. Even in this too-short term frame, your claim fails.
Let’s get to the meat: again, you refuse to answer the skeptic’s basic questions, and you justify your failure to do so with a misstatement of how scientific debates work, and lame excuses: “Your questions lack rigor.” Add rigor to the list of scientific concepts you don’t understand.
You state the hypothesis of “CAGW”: “a rise in CO2 will lead to runaway global warming and climate catastrophe.”
That’s vague to the point of uselessness. How big a rise? How much is “runaway”? What is your definition of “catastrophe”?
You’d be much better served with specific claims (all true/false):
1. CO2, methane, CFCs and other GHG warm the climate. Without them, it would be colder. With more of them, more solar energy is captured by the climate system instead of radiating into space.
2. The past several decades have shown progressive warming compared to the rest of the instrumental record. The warming trend falls well outside what could be explained by a standard distribution (p = very small).
3. The warming of the past several decades does not correspond with changes in the sun’s radiance, Milankovitch cycles, changes in the Earth’s albedo, or other natural forcings.
4. The increase in CO2 and other GHGs is primarily due to human activities, with some feedbacks.
Hence: The observed rise in CO2 and other GHGs is the most likely explanation for the rise in global temperature.
That would be one way to state the theory of AGW. But, of course, the problem with saying it that way, as opposed to the hyperbolic straw man you’ve constructed, is that 1-4 are all supported by rock-solid science, and once you concede 1-4, the conclusion is pretty obvious, even without the mountain of empirical data that supports it.
BTW, I like what you do here: “Yes, a harmless trace gas, English Lit major.” So we see you’ve proceeded from making stuff up with no evidence “you sound like someone in the humanities, with little technical expertise. Sociology? English Lit? Certainly you are no engineer or scientist;” and you rapidly progress from wishing something was so to assuming that it is: “English Lit major.” Such is your idea of “rigor.”
Again, the questions are:
1) How will you know if your hypothesis that AGW is not happening is false?
2) How do you think we should handle the problem of AGW if you are wrong?
Let’s add one more easy question for any real skeptic:
3) What are the three best arguments in favor of the theory of AGW?
Robert (16:42:03) :
Sorry, no. Nor is AGW a new hypothesis. You are proposing a new hypothesis: that climate scientists are wrong about AGW, the unprecedented warming of the latter twentieth century is somehow being caused by “natural variation.” I question your unsupported hypothesis. Call me skeptical.
A fair point. Too many self-anointed climate change “skeptics” aren’t really skeptics, but disciples of a few notable mouthpieces, who either stand apart from the peer-review process or have failed to gain traction with the mainstream consensus.
Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. And the claim of a worldwide conspiracy that’s fooled, or corrupted, every prominent scientific organization and journal in the world, with really only fringe dissent, is quite unprecedented.
So yes, there is a massive burden of proof on those asserting this claim.
And that’s why I contend to find the truth, we must debate within the scientific establishment, not against it.
That’s very well put, John. Confirmation bias is something that affects us all. I know it affects me. When I see an article, like Solomon et al recently, that suggests that climate change may not be advancing as fast as has been thought, I often find myself checking disappointment. Which is absurd. Better, if we have a choice, for me to be proven wrong and look silly, than for the most threatening possibilities of global warming to come to pass. I try and discipline my mind by greeting such findings, when they happen, positively, but it isn’t easy by any means!
Robert (07:12:50) :
That’s very well put, John. Confirmation bias is something that affects us all. I know it affects me.
Indeed. Yet, no doubt we disagree on other issues.
My bias is more against those who:
1. exploit any weather-related event as evidence of AGW.
2. assert we need to urgently tax/ration the planet into stability.
3. pile on blindly in support of whatever camp they’ve joined.
4. argue expensive energy or rationing as a morality.
5. deny our current energy model is sustainable.
I also fall into the skeptic’s camp who suspect
1. For whatever reason the Earth has been warming.
2. Am not yet convinced, but open to convincing, that it’s continuing trend.
3. The C02 may play some role, albeit only slight, in forcing the warming.
4. Oceans might be affected, though I’m not sure how.
5. If AGW really is an issue, we’re pretty much buggered.
6. Wind, solar, tidal. Expensive and impotent.
However, I see all research that undermines AGW as good news – so should anyone with a heart – and C02 to be less troubling as a pollutant than the very visible photochemical smog and particulates.
Robert (21:39:42):
“…while I would certainly class you as an “alarmist” and you’re certainly not a ‘skeptic,’…”
Robert me boi, the Devil quotes Scripture and you call me an alarmist. You can classify me any way you like, and you can insist that black is white, down is up, evil is good and unusual cold is caused by global warming. None of it is true, of course.
So. I was right. You’re background is not from the hard sciences. Around here, we can tell a poseur, you know.
OK, I’ll play the Q&A game even if you won’t:
1. Since the question is not quantified, I’ll be lenient and give you a Yes. But the effect is minuscule, and will never lead to a “tipping point.”
2. Wrong.
3. Wrong. Let me reiterate: Wrong.
4. As usual, no rigor. Are the feedbacks positive, or negative? Since you don’t know, I’ll guess you mean positive. In that case, the answer is No. See here. Per the IPCC itself, for every 34 molecules of CO2 emitted, 33 are from natural processes. One molecule of CO2 out of 34 is the result of human activity. You have been spoon fed false information by climate alarmist blogs. Stick around here, and learn the actual facts.
Moving on to the last two questions [see? I answer yours; you hide from mine]:
1. I don’t have a hypothesis. None. I am a scientific skeptic. The alarmist contingent has a hypothesis/conjecture: CO2=CAGW. Unfortunately for them, it has been falsified… by mother Earth herself.
2. The same way we handle the question of alligators under your mother in law’s bed: by following the scientific method.
3. As I previously showed you with a citation: catastrophic AGW is not a “theory.” It is a repeatedly falsified hypothesis/conjecture. But if you still want to believe that “theory” nonsense, it’s OK. Anyone can post here, there’s no censorship like there is on RealClimate. So, to answer your final 3 questions [noting for the record that you refuse to answer any questions yourself]:
1) “Because we can’t think of any alternate explanation, it just has to be due to CO2.” [An Argumentum ad ignorantium, like most AGW explanations.]
2) “We have a consensus of 52 IPCC scientists, all political appointees with their CAGW marching orders, and they can’t be wrong… can they?”
3) The global temperature has increased over the past century, correlating with an increase in a tiny trace gas and postal rates. The correlation with postal rates is a better fit.
I enjoy your questions, Robert, they’re fun and easy to answer. But stick to the humanities, and leave the science explanations to the engineers and physicists.
Around here, when you’re digging yourself a hole, my advice is to quit digging. If you don’t, you’re handing folks an opportunity to have some fun because you’re not up to speed on the subject.
Smokey,
I have a question for you:
So you’re convinced all these organizations (and more) are corrupt to the core and unlike your learned self, are incapable of recognizing the politicizing of bad climate science:
http://www.logicalscience.com/consensus/consensus.htm
And you have all the proof you need.
So while you’re on a roll. What else are they wrong about?
[John, I was in the process of responding to your posts when I saw that you had posted a question to me @10:05. I’ll post what I’ve already written, then answer your question below it]:
John Hooper (08:21:11),
I’m in agreement with just about everything you said in that post. Particularly the spending of [at last count] upwards of $50 billion in the U.S. alone on grants to study AGW. When you want pigeons, throw out bird seed. When you want AGW, throw out grants.
However, in your post @02:46:40, you appear to think that scientific skeptics are somehow special, or that people who are skeptics must pass some sort of litmus test to call themselves skeptics.
That is incorrect. Every honest scientist is a skeptic, first and foremost. It is a method, not a title.
I’d like to say a little bit about your list, John:
1. exploit any weather-related event as evidence of AGW.
The trouble with an issue like this is that straw men are all around; there’s always someone saying something grossly stupid just across the fence, who can become an easy proxy for “them.” We would never evaluate the strength of our own arguments by the loons on our own side, of course.
2. assert we need to urgently tax/ration the planet into stability.
Stability, of course, is not an option. It is reasonable to be very concerned, I would argue, when (or, as you might say, if) humans are rapidly changing the climate to one very different from the one humanity has enjoyed through the last 13,000 years of settled existence. The planet is our life support system, and rapidly warming the climate is like someone randomly fiddling with the knobs on your SCUBA when you’re a hundred feet under water. It could be fine. Probably not.
3. pile on blindly in support of whatever camp they’ve joined.
Yes.
4. argue expensive energy or rationing as a morality.
I would agree, if they are using moral suasion to short-circuit discussion of the need or efficacy of such a program, a la won’t-somebody-please-think-of-the-children. On the other hand, we do need to think of the children, as well as all the other people affected by climate change, which does make mitigating it a moral issue, I believe.
5. deny our current energy model is sustainable.
You mean in the sense of limited reserves? I’ve had that argument with my fellow greens until I was — well, green in the face. Peak oil and the like are nonsensical comments. On the other hand, if we burn a significant portion of the fossil fuels left in the ground, the warming is likely to be very dangerous.
I also fall into the skeptic’s camp who suspect
1. For whatever reason the Earth has been warming.
2. Am not yet convinced, but open to convincing, that it’s continuing trend.
What evidence are you looking for? Serious question.
3. The C02 may play some role, albeit only slight, in forcing the warming.
Why only slight? Venus, for example, has an atmosphere that is less than 1% CO2, yet the surface temperature is hot enough to melt lead. The greenhouse gas effect of CO2 was known far in advance of the debate over AGW.*
4. Oceans might be affected, though I’m not sure how.
Well, they’re getting more acidic, for one thing. Sources on request.
5. If AGW really is an issue, we’re pretty much buggered.
Yeah, that could be. To cheer myself up I try to remember that story about Richard Fenyman: How after working on the bomb, he sat in New York and watched people building bridges and skyscrapers and thought they were all wasting their time: it was all going to be nuked in short order. Who would have thought we’d get through sixty years with no more nukes used in anger? Sometimes humanity doesn’t disappoint.
6. Wind, solar, tidal. Expensive and impotent.
Too slow, certainly. Hansen’s new book, Storms of My Grandchildren, which I recommend, comes down strongly in favor of 4th-generation nuclear.
* Which points to how deep the conspiracy among the scientists must go. Climatologists and physicists were faking results on things like the greenhouse gas effect of CO2 for decades prior to the rollout of AGW! Think of the discipline, the planning it required. It all points to the Illuminati, doesn’t it?
Smokey (10:23:09) :
That is incorrect. Every honest scientist is a skeptic, first and foremost. It is a method, not a title.
Exactly. Which is why I have so much trouble accepting the assertion that all these scientific bodies are somehow blind.
Correction: Venus’ atmosphere is over 95% CO2.
John Hooper (10:05:44) :
I’m not sure what you’re responding to, since you don’t reference a particular comment or post. Where did I say all those organizations are corrupt to the core? You misrepresent me. I never said that. In fact, I’ve never seen that link before, not that its appeal to authority surprises me.
Of course there is plenty of corruption in the climate sciences, as we have seen in the Climategate emails. But most scientists are honest. They are simply being prudent by not speaking their minds – as we can see by the relatively large number of retired scientists who are openly critical of the AGW hypothesis, but who kept quiet while employed. That does not make them corrupt; I doubt you would risk your job by raising a contrary opinion. I wouldn’t either [but being retired now, I can say what I want].
You’ve taken my position a bridge too far. But I do agree that many organizations have been hijacked by pro-AGW activists, as Prof Richard Lindzen of MIT also points out.
I was the elected CFO [treasurer] of a large statewide organization, and I’ve seen first hand how easily an organization can be hijacked by even one activist. In fact, it is incredibly easy once one becomes knowledgeable about the bylaws, committees and subcommittees, key players, how motions can be structured to reach a predetermined agenda over time, and Roberts Rules of Order.
Once one or more influential activists are in place, it is easy to get other activists appointed to key positions. In fact many organizations, particularly those with unpaid volunteers serving on committees, often have a hard time finding enough willing members to fill all the positions. So an activist can often simply step into a vacant position.
And if the head of the organization is in agreement with an activist’s agenda, nothing can stop the propaganda push. Every organization keeps its membership contact list confidential for a number of reasons. But its committees and the governing board have access.
This problem has been discussed repeatedly here at WUWT. Dr Lindzen also points out the problem here.
The system has been gamed. As has been repeatedly pointed out here, the honest way to determine the views regarding AGW of the rank-and-file members in an organization [as opposed to the handful on the governing board] is to have each side [pro-AGW and skeptical scientists] appoint an equal number to an ad-hoc committee, with a remit to formulate the questions that will be sent out, in a secret ballot format, to the dues paying membership. Only those questions that contain mutually agreed language would be allowed. That way, the true views of the membership will be made clear.
But this is never done. Why not? Because those activists intend to use their position to speak in the name of the entire membership. Saul Alinsky explained the method in his Rules for Radicals.
It is surprisingly easy to redirect a professional organization, such as the APS, toward a particular agenda. The membership is interested in furthering the professional society, not in political advocacy. But the members do not have access to contact information, making it very difficult to organize in opposition to the board taking a pro-AGW position. And to most, it is simply a minor irritant that their journal uncritically endorses AGW; for the average member it is not worth the trouble of fighting a war with the society. It is easier to simply cancel their membership if they are in disagreement.
Also, almost every charitable foundation that has been in existence for more than twenty five years also funds AGW grants – but not grants to AGW skeptics – even though AGW was generally unknown 25 years or more ago when the foundation was set up. Foundations are, if anything, easier to hijack than professional organizations, because votes are traded: each trustee has their own funding interest, and all it takes is one from, e.g., the Grantham Foundation, to fund large AGW grants.
And the religious orders that are listed in your link are even easier to hijack. They are concerned with faith, not science. I challenge anyone to find a mainstream religion that promotes the skeptical scientific method over AGW.
The human nature of groups [as opposed to individuals] is easy to game. The methods have been known for quite a long time. The old Soviet Union made a continuous study of the nature of democratic organizations, as the Venona papers showed. Adam Smith, in his 1775 Wealth of Nations, pointed out that as soon as two shopkeepers get together, they begin to form a conspiracy to raise prices.
Anyone who believes that AGW isn’t primarily about massive tax increases and the growth of government is, to put it mildly, ignorant. There are, of course, well meaning people who sincerely believe in catastrophic AGW.
But make no mistake: the main driver of AGW is money and increased government bureaucracy and control. And the truly corrupt UN is salivating like ravenous hyenas at the prospect of its proposed annual .7% of GDP “World Tax” to ‘fight the effects of climate change.’
Naturally the tax would be paid by only the G-8 countries, into the opaque and unaccountable UN [staffed 99.9% by Pachauri-like creatures], and the fraction that emerged would be paid out to the other 184 countries – including “developing countries” like Russia, China, Brazil and India.
Does it need to be pointed out that there are always effects from climate change and there always have been, and that CO2 induced catastrophic AGW is completely unproven?
I notice that you’ve posted another follow-up comment, so I will post this, and answer any questions you may have. But I won’t argue [not that you’ve been argumentative], because this thread is stale, and I’m going to move on to the current articles.
Smokey still can’t answer the questions. Sad:
“I enjoy your questions, Robert, they’re fun and easy to answer.”
Yet you didn’t. You again failed to answer any of the “skeptic’s question,” trying to weasel out of them with various non sequiturs and quickly returning to ad hominem and arguments from authority:
“But stick to the humanities, and leave the science explanations to the engineers and physicists.”
Again, assuming that I don’t have a scientific background, because you wish it were true. Now implicitly claiming you have a scientific background, despite your failure to understand simple scientific and statistical concepts like the null hypothesis or parsimony (and here’s a pro tip for you when you’re impersonating someone with a science background: no one in the business calls parsimony “Occam’s razor.”
You’re no skeptic, Smokey. You’re a true believer, and fervent follower of a political movement attempting to discredit working scientists. You fail every test of the skeptic. You aren’t able to articulate the opposing position; you aren’t able to consider evidence that challenges your view; you aren’t able to imagine what the world would be like or what you would do if you were wrong. And you justify this ludicrously anti-science and flat-out irrational faith-based system with a complete misunderstanding of how science works.
You and your activist heroes (how ironic that you deride supposed activism by climate scientists when the anti-AGW believers’ spokepeople consist of virtually nothing else!) need to calm down and learn some basic intellectual honesty before there’s any hope of reaching you with rational thought.
I hope you do register there. There are hundreds of bets on many topics available (mostly politics-related).
At 66%, the bet on “Will 2010 be one of the five warmest years on record?” would return 50% a year if it pays off. (I.e., put down $2, get back $3.)
All the previous top-5 years are in the past decade, IIRC; 2009 was the 2nd warmest; January 2010 is setting a record and so is Feb. so far; and the hiatus since 2002 in the rising trend suggests that there is pent-up heat in the pipeline; so from a warmist’s perspective it’s very likely — say 87.5%, or 7/8, that this bet will be a winner. Here’s how a warmist should figure his expected return, allowing for a loss 1 time in 8:
7 bets of $2 = $14 + payoff of $7 = $21
1 bet of $2 a loss;
net payoff after 8 bets = $7 – $2 = $5
average payoff per $2 bet = $5 payoff / 8 bets = .62 cents
Expected return per $1 = .31 cents, or 31%
The odds on this bet have risen to 69%; people are realizing that it is a bargain. So the expected return (from a warmist’s perspective) is less, a bit under 30% now. But that’s a great expectation, so it’s still a good buy for him at odds of under 80% or so.
(BTW, a bettor doesn’t have to buy at the current odds %age. He can place a “bid” below the market price that will be executed only if the odds move in his direction.)
The real issue is how do we address the consequences of GW? Clearly GW exists and has in the past. Whether or not it is AGW or just plain old GW doesn’t matter. We are not going to stop and reverse it. The effort must be to destermine when and how much seas will rise and the consequences and then prepare. Those folks so caught up in AGW just want more government control
over our lives to try to reduce this great country to a basket case of global equality.
Dear Anthony (above),
At this time-depth, the control over isostatic effects really need to be very, very strict (less than 0.005 mm error in uplift or subsidence [est.]/y would seem to be req.). Are the controls really that strict (is this why morphological evidence from the Eemian always seems a bit elevated?)? Sea-level studies are notoriously hard, esp. with respect to acheiving close controls isostatic effects (e.g., see Ian Shennan papers in QSR). Certainly though, the paper achieves a better standard than the more recent (ASU) Overpeck work (that puts Eamian-style sea-level responses in the context of Holocene-style climate changes), the latter should have avoided the clique, listened to his father, and stuck with aeolian stuff! Anyway, the greater the time-depth, the greater the potential error.
Bruce
Sorry, Eemian, not Eamian the second time (cf. MIS 5e esp.). Also “…controls OVER isostatic…”).
Luboš Motl and several others here appear to think that this interesting paper supports their position. I would at least consider the contrary argument, that this paper suggest that the climate system is very sensitive to greenhouse gases.
Compare 80000 with 10000 years ago. The insolation levels at 60N is similar in both period. This new paper demonstrates that the sea-levels are similar, hence global ice volume must be similar, but the temperature over Greenland and Antarctica was much colder 80000 years ago. Why? One obvious difference in forcing factors between the two periods is that Holocene CO2 concentrations were much higher.