by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Michael Steketee, writing in The Australian in January 2011, echoed the BBC (whose journalists’ pension fund is heavily weighted towards “green” “investments”) and other climate-extremist vested interests in claiming that 2010 was the warmest year on record worldwide. Mr. Steketee’s short article makes two dozen questionable assertions, which either require heavy qualification or are downright false. His assertions will be printed in bold face: the truth will appear in Roman face.
1. BASED ON PRELIMINARY DATA TO NOVEMBER 30, SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURES AROUND AUSTRALIA WERE THE WARMEST ON RECORD LAST YEAR, AS WERE THOSE FOR THE PAST DECADE.
The record only began ten decades ago. As for sea temperatures, they are less significant for analyzing “global warming” than estimated total ocean heat content. A recent paper by Professors David Douglass and Robert Knox of Rochester University, New York, has established that – contrary to various climate-extremist assertions – there has been no net accumulation of “missing energy” in the form of heat in the oceans worldwide in the six years since ocean heat content was first reliably measured by the 3000 automated ARGO bathythermographs in 2003. This finding implies that the amount of warming we can expect from even quite a large increase in CO2 concentration is far less than the IPCC and other climate-extremist groups maintain.
2. THE WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANISATION SAYS THE YEAR TO THE END OF OCTOBER WAS THE WARMEST SINCE INSTRUMENTAL CLIMATE RECORDS STARTED IN 1850 – 0.55 C° ABOVE THE 1961-90 AVERAGE OF 14 C°.
It is easy to cherry-pick periods of less than a calendar year and say they establish a new record. The cherry-picking of the first nine months of 2010 is particularly unacceptable, since that period was dominated by a substantial El Niño Southern Oscillation, a sudden alteration in the pattern of ocean currents worldwide that leads to warmer weather for several months all round the world. The last few months of the year, carefully excluded from Mr. Steketee’s statement, showed the beginnings of a La Niña event, which tends largely to reverse the effect of its preceding El Niño and make the world cooler. Indeed, the calendar year from January to December 2010, according to the reliable RSS and UAH satellite records, was not the warmest on record. Besides, what is important is how fast the world is warming. In fact, the rate of warming from 1975-2001, at 0.16 C° per decade, was the fastest rate to be sustained for more than a decade in the 160-year record, but exactly the same rate occurred from 1860-1880 and again from 1910-1940, when we could not possibly have had anything to do with it. Since late 2001 there has been virtually no “global warming” at all.
3. THE LAST DECADE ALSO WAS THE WARMEST ON RECORD.
After 300 years of global warming, during nearly all of which we could not on any view have influenced the climate to a measurable degree, it is scarcely surprising that recent decades will be warmer than earlier decades. That is what one would expect. If one has been climbing up a steep hill for a long time, one should not be surprised to find oneself higher up at the end of the climb than at the beginning.
4. THE WORLD IS NOT COOLER COMPARED TO 1998.
Actually, it is cooler. There was a remarkable spike in global temperatures in 1998, caused not by manmade “global warming” but by a Great El Niño event – an alteration in the pattern of ocean currents that begins in the equatorial eastern Pacific and spreads around the globe, lasting a few months. In the first nine months of 2010 there was another substantial El Niño, but even at its peak it did not match the Great El Niño of 1998.
5. THE TRENDS HAPPEN TO FOLLOW CLOSELY THE PREDICTIONS OVER THE PAST 40 YEARS OF TEMPERATURE RISES RESULTING FROM INCREASED GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS.
In the 40 years since 1970, global temperatures have risen at a linear rate equivalent to around 1.3 C°/century. CO2 concentration is rising in a straight line at just 2 ppmv/year at present and, even if it were to accelerate to an exponential rate of increase, the corresponding temperature increase would be expected to rise merely in a straight line. On any view, 1.3 C° of further “global warming” this century would be harmless. The IPCC is predicting 3.4 C°, but since the turn of the millennium on 1 January 2001 global temperature has risen (taking the average of the two satellite datasets) at a rate equivalent to just 0.6 C°/century, rather less than the warming rate of the entire 20th century. In these numbers, there is nothing whatever to worry about – except the tendency of some journalists to conceal them.
6. MOST SCIENTISTS AGREE THAT DOUBLING THE CARBON DIOXIDE IN THE ATMOSPHERE IS LIKELY TO LEAD TO WARMING OF 2-3 C°.
It is doubtful whether Mr. Steketee had consulted “most scientists”. Most scientists, not being climate scientists, rightly take no view on the climate debate. Most climate scientists have not studied the question of how much warming a given increase in CO2 concentration will cause: therefore, whatever opinion they may have is not much more valuable than that of a layman. Most of the few dozen scientists worldwide whom Prof. Richard Lindzen of MIT estimates have actually studied climate sensitivity to the point of publication in a learned journal have reached their results not by measurement and observation but by mere modeling. The models predict warming in the range mentioned by Mr. Steketee, but at numerous crucial points the models are known to reflect the climate inaccurately. In particular, the models predict that if and only if Man is the cause of warming, the tropical upper air, six miles above the ground, should warm up to thrice as fast as the surface, but this tropical upper-troposphere “hot-spot” has not been observed in 50 years of measurement by balloon-mounted radiosondes, sondes dropped from high-flying aircraft,
or satellites. Also, the models predict that every Celsius degree of warming should increase evaporation from the Earth’s surface by 1-3%, but the observed increase is more like 6%. From this it is simple to calculate that the IPCC has overestimated fourfold the amount of warming we can expect from adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Take away that prodigious exaggeration, demonstrated repeatedly in scientific papers but never reported by the likes of Mr. Steketee, and the climate “crisis” vanishes.
7. WARMING OF 2-3 C° RISKS SIGNIFICANT ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC DAMAGE.
Actually, the IPCC’s current thinking is that up to 2° of warming compared with the present would be harmless and even beneficial. Since far greater temperatures than this have been the rule on Earth for most of the past 600 million years, there is no sound scientific basis for the assumption that “significant environmental and economic damage” would result from so small an additional warming. However, significant economic damage is already resulting from the costly but pointlessly Canute-like attempts governments to try to make “global warming” go away.
8. GREENHOUSE GAS CONCENTRATIONS ROSE BY 27.5% FROM 1990-2009.
Since anthropogenic effects on the climate are net-zero except for CO2, we need only consider CO2 concentration, which was 353 parts per million by volume in 1990 and is 390 ppmv now, an increase not of 27.5% but of just 10.5%.
9. ARCTIC SEA ICE SHRANK TO ITS THIRD-LOWEST AREA IN THE SATELLITE RECORDS, OFFSET ONLY SLIGHTLY BY GROWTH IN ANTARCTIC SEA ICE.
In fact, the global sea-ice record shows virtually no change throughout the past 30 years, because the quite rapid loss of Arctic sea ice since the satellites were watching has been matched by a near-equally rapid gain of Antarctic sea ice. Indeed, when the summer extent of Arctic sea ice reached its lowest point in the 30-year record in mid-September 2007, just three weeks later the Antarctic sea extent reached a 30-year record high. The record low was widely reported; the corresponding record high was almost entirely unreported.
10. GLOBAL SNOW COVER IS FALLING, INFERENTIALLY BECAUSE OF MAN’S INFLUENCE.
In fact, a new record high for snow cover was set in the winter of 2008/2009, and there is some chance that a further record high will be set this year.
11. GLOBAL SEA LEVELS ARE RISING, INFERENTIALLY BECAUSE OF MAN’S INFLUENCE.
In fact, the rate of increase in sea level has not changed since satellites first began measuring it reliably in 1993. It is a dizzying 1 ft/century – not vastly greater than the 8 inches/century that had previously been inferred from tide-gauges. A recent paper has confirmed what marine biologists had long suspected: coral atolls simply grow to meet the light as the sea rises, and some of them have even gained land mass recently according to a
just-published scientific paper. Professor Niklas Mörner, who has been studying sea level for a third of a century, says it is physically impossible for sea level to rise at much above its present rate, and he expects 4-8 inches of sea level rise this century, if anything rather below the rate of increase in the last century. In the 11,400 years since the end of the last Ice Age, sea level has risen at an average of 4 feet/century, though it is now rising much more slowly because very nearly all of the land-based ice that is at low enough latitudes and altitudes to melt has long since gone.
12. MUNICH RE SAYS 2010 SAW THE SECOND-HIGHEST NUMBER OF NATURAL CATASTROPHES SINCE 1980, 90% OF THEM WEATHER-RELATED.
There are really only three categories of insurable natural catastrophe – meteorological, epidemiological, and seismic (volcanism, earthquakes, tsunamis, etc.). Except during years when major seismic disasters occur (such as the tsunami caused by an earthquake in 2000), or when major pandemics kill large numbers at an unexpected rate (and that did not happen in 2010), weather-related natural disasters always account for getting on for 90% of all such disasters. Because the climate is a mathematically-chaotic object, the incidence of weather-related disasters is highly variable from year to year, and there is no good reason to attribute the major events of 2010 to manmade “global warming”.
13. THE TEMPERATURE OF 46.4 C° IN MELBOURNE ONE SATURDAY IN 2010 WAS MORE THAN 3 C° ABOVE THE PREVIOUS HIGHEST FOR FEBRUARY.
February is the height of summer in Melbourne. Since the planet has been warming for 300 years, it is not surprising to find high-temperature records being broken from time to time. However, some very spectacular cold-weather records were also broken both in early 2010, when all 49 contiguous United States were covered in snow for the first time since satellite monitoring began 30 years ago, and in December, which was the coldest final month of the year in central England since records began 352 years ago. However, neither the hot-weather nor the cold-weather extremes of 2010 have much to do with manmade “global warming”; like the heatwave of 2003 in Europe that is said to have killed 35,000 people, they are known to have been caused by an unusual pattern of what meteorologists call “blocking highs” – comparatively rare areas of stable high pressure that dislodge the jet-streams from their usual path and lock weather systems in place for days or sometimes even months at a time. No link has been established between the frequency, intensity, or duration of blocking highs and manmade “global warming”.
14. IN MOSCOW, JULY 2010 WAS MORE THAN 2 C° ABOVE THE PREVIOUS TEMPERATURE RECORD, AND TEMPERATURE ON 29 JULY WAS 38.2 C°.
And the lowest-ever temperatures have been measured in several British and US locations in the past 12 months. Cherry-picking individual extreme-weather events that point in one direction only, when there are thousands of such events that also point in another direction, is neither sound science nor sound journalism.
15. THE HEATWAVE AND FOREST FIRES IN CENTRAL RUSSIA KILLED AT LEAST 56,000, MAKING IT THE WORST NATURAL DISASTER IN RUSSIA’S HISTORY.
More cherry-picking, and the notion that the forest fires were the worst natural disaster in Russia’s history is questionable. Intense cold – such as when General January and General February defeated Corporal Hitler at the gates of Stalingrad in 1941 – has many times killed hundreds of thousands in Russia.
16. IN PAKISTAN, 1769 WERE KILLED IN THE COUNTRY’S WORST-EVER FLOODS.
In fact, the floods were not the worst ever: merely the worst since 1980. The region has long been prone to flooding, and has flooded catastrophically at infrequent intervals when a blocking high combined with unusually strong runoff of snow from the Himalayas swells the numerous rivers of the region (Punjab, or panj-aub, means “five rivers”). The flooding was not caused by manmade “global warming” but by a blocking high.
17. THE HURRICANE SEASON IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC WAS ONE OF THE MOST SEVERE IN THE LAST CENTURY.
In fact, Dr. Ryan Maue of Florida State University, who maintains the Accumulated Cyclone Energy Index, a 24-month running sum of the frequency, intensity and duration of all tropical cyclones, typhoons and hurricanes round the world, says that the index is at its least value in the past 30 years, and close to its least value in 50 years. For 150 years the number of landfalling Atlantic hurricanes has shown no trend at all: this is a long and reliable record, because one does not require complex instrumentation to know that one has been struck by a hurricane.
18. EVEN CAUTIOUS SCIENTISTS TEND TO SAY WE CAN BLAME MANMADE CLIMATE CHANGE.
Cautious scientists say no such thing. Even the excitable and exaggeration-prone IPCC has repeatedly stated that individual extreme-weather events cannot be attributed to manmade “global warming”, and it would be particularly incautious of any scientist to blame the blocking highs that caused nearly all of the weather-related damage in 2010 on us when these are long-established, naturally-occurring phenomena.
19. CLIMATE CHANGE HAS CONTRIBUTED TO THE 20% DECLINE IN RAINFALL IN PARTS OF SOUTHERN AUSTRALIA OVER THE PAST 40 YEARS.
Climate change began 4,567 million years ago, on that Thursday when the Earth first formed (as Prof. Plimer puts it). The question is whether manmade climate change has contributed to the drought. Interestingly, there has been very heavy rainfall in previously drought-ridden parts of southern Australia in each of the last two years. Australia has a desert climate: it is no surprise, therefore, that periods of drought – sometimes prolonged – will occur. One of the longest records of drought and flood we have is the Nilometer, dating back 5000 years. Periods of drought far more savage than anything seen in modern times were frequent occurrences, and entire regions of Egypt became uninhabitable as a result. A 20% decline in rainfall in a single region, therefore, cannot be safely attributed to anything other than the natural variability of the climate.
20. THERE IS STRONG EVIDENCE THAT “GLOBAL WARMING” MADE THE BUSH-FIRES AROUND MELBOURNE WORSE.
There is no such evidence. As the IPCC has repeatedly said, ascribing individual, local extreme-weather events to “global warming” is impermissible.
21. THERE HAS BEEN A SUCCESSION OF EXTRAORDINARY HEATWAVES, WITH BIG JUMPS IN RECORD TEMPERATURES, STARTING IN EUROPE IN 2003 AND CONTINUING ALL AROUND THE WORLD, CULMINATING IN RUSSIA LAST YEAR. MORE THAN 17 COUNTRIES BROKE THEIR MAXIMUM TEMPERATURE RECORDS IN 2010, AND “YOU REALLY HAVE TO STRAIN CREDIBILITY TO SAY IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CLIMATE CHANGE.”
The heatwave in Europe in 2003 is known to have been caused by a blocking high similar to those which gave Russia its record high temperatures in 2010 and kept the monsoon fixed over Pakistan for long enough to cause catastrophic flooding. You really have to stretch credibility to say it has anything to do with manmade “global warming”. Though that heatwave may have killed 35,000 right across Europe, a three-day cold snap in Britain the previous year had killed 21,000 just in one country. The net effect of warmer worldwide weather, therefore, is to reduce deaths, not to increase them. That is why periods such as the Holocene Climate Optimum, when temperatures were 3 C° warmer than the present for most of the time between 6000 and 8000 years ago, are called “optima”: warmer weather is better for most Earth species – including Man – than colder weather.
22. FOR 20 YEARS MORE HOT-WEATHER THAN COLD-WEATHER TEMPERATURE RECORDS HAVE BEEN SET.
This is merely another way of saying that temperatures today are generally higher than they were 20 years ago. Since there has been some warming, more hot-weather than cold-weather records have been set. Not exactly surprising, and not exactly alarming either: for the mere fact of warming tells us nothing about the cause of the warming, particularly when the rate of warming in recent decades has been no greater than what has been seen in two previous quarter-century periods over the past 160 years.
23. EVEN IF GREENHOUSE-GAS EMISSIONS WERE TO STABILIZE AT LITTLE MORE THAN TODAY’S LEVELS, 2 C° OF FURTHER WARMING WILL OCCUR – FOUR TIMES THE INCREASE OVER THE PAST 30 YEARS.
This value of 2 C° – like too many others in this regrettably fictitious article – appears to have been plucked out of thin air. Let us do the math. We can ignore all Man’s influences on the climate except CO2 because, up to now, they have been self-canceling, as the table of “radiative forcings” in the IPCC’s most recent quinquennial Assessment Report shows. In 1750, before the Industrial Revolution, the concentration of CO2 was 278 ppmv. Now it is 390 ppmv. Taking the multi-model mean central estimate from Box 10.2 on p.798 of the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report, plus or minus one standard deviation, we can derive the following simple equation for the total amount of warming to be expected in 1000 years’
time, when the climate has fully settled to equilibrium after the perturbation that our carbon emissions to date are thought to have caused:
ΔTequ = (4.7 ± 1) ln(390/278) F°
Let us generously go one standard deviation above the central estimate: thus, a high-end estimate of the total equilibrium warming the IPCC would expect as a result of our CO2 emissions since 1750 is 5.7 times the natural logarithm of the proportionate increase in CO2 concentration in the 260-year period: i.e. 1.9 C°. Even this total since 1750 to the present is below the 2 C° Mr. Setekee says is lurking in the pipeline.
Now, to pretend that manmade “global warming” is a problem as big as the IPCC says it is, and that there will be more warming in the pipeline even if we freeze our emissions at today’s levels, we have to pretend that all of the observed warming since 1750 – i.e. about 1.2 C° – was our fault. So we deduct that 1.2 C° from the 1.9 C° equilibrium warming. Just 0.7 C° of warmer weather is still to come, at equilibrium.
However, various climate extremists have published papers saying that equilibrium warming will not occur for 1000 years (or even, in a particularly fatuous recent paper, 3000 years). The IPCC itself only expects about 57% of equilibrium warming to occur by 2100: the rest will take so long to arrive that even our children’s children will not be around to notice, and the residual warming will happen so gradually that everyone and everything will have plenty of time to adjust.
Bottom line, then: by 2100 we can expect not 2 C° of further “global warming” as a result of our emissions so far, but 0.4 C° at most. The truth, as ever in the climate debate, is a great deal less thrilling than the lie.
24. ADAPTATION TO THE CONSEQUENCES OF “GLOBAL WARMING” WILL GET MORE DIFFICULT THE LONGER WE DELAY.
This assertion, too, has no scientific basis whatsoever. The costs of adaptation are chiefly an economic rather than a climatological question. Every serious economic analysis (I exclude the discredited propaganda exercise of Stern, with its absurd near-zero discount rate and its rate of “global warming” well in excess of the IPCC’s most extreme projections) has demonstrated that the costs of waiting and adapting to any adverse consequences that may arise from “global warming”, even if per impossibile that warming were to occur at the rapid rate imagined by the IPCC but not yet seen in the instrumental temperature record, would be orders of magnitude cheaper and more cost-effective than any Canute-like attempt to prevent any further “global warming” by taxing and regulating CO2 emissions. It follows that adaptation to the consequences of “global warming” will get easier and cheaper the longer we wait: for then we will only have to adapt to the probably few and minor consequences that will eventually occur, and not until they occur, and only where and to the extent that they occur.
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A PDF version of this document is available here
The Lord has done well, he’s a hero in my books. Stekette should be held up to ridicule by the ABC’s Media Watch. Silly me, that will never happen.
Geez… can’t we just burn his book?
(and release some of the CO2 in it 😉
A good summary of the arguments against this scheme to transfer money to corrupt third world dictators via the Western governments (who take their fraction first!) and the UN’s nest of bureaucrats (who will take their fraction second, third, and always.)
Regarding the bushfires around Melbourne. There is a link to Global Warming. Ratbag left wing governments, under the influence of Global Warming fanatics, made it nearly impossible to burn off fallen branches in winter. Eventually the fuel build up made disaster inevitable. That same fanaticism kept in power a left wing government that appointed a chief commissioner of police who decided that she wasn’t needed to be in charge of evacuations and fire fighting, and that she should get her hair done while the fires raged.
John says:
January 9, 2011 at 12:24 am
Geez… can’t we just burn his book?
(and release some of the CO2 in it 😉 Perhaps his beard rather than his book. Once we start burning books we then have no hard record of stupidity for posterity.
Flood and drought dominated regimes have been well documented in Australian hydrology since the mid 1980’s. These are 20 to 40 years periods of floods or droughts as the name implies. Average rainfall has actually trended mildly upward over the 20th Century and the official BOM graph showing this is here – http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/rain.shtml
What the CSIRO did in their 2007 report was to implicitly assume that changes in regional rainfalls between the flood dominated regime (FDR) of 1945 to 1975 and the drought dominated regime of 1976 to 1998 was all caused by global warming. They then proceeded to linearly extend to apparent trend into the future.
This is such astonishing nonsense. As I say – FDR and DDR are so well known in Australian hydrology that I suspect that some poor bastard in the CSIRO was told to produce a report that had the answer that was wanted and no-one else had a bloody clue. The poor bastard had no option but to fudge it.
In the longer term (over a hundred years) – there might be a couple of areas in southern Australia that have recent records that are outside of the historic limits.
Much of Australian rainfall is of course driven by ENSO – both directly and through interactions with the Indian and Southern Oceans. One of the things I found especially galling in the Sketekee article is the attribution of the current La Nina to global warming. This is after a decade and more of attributing the “Great Pacific Climate Shift’ (from La Nina to El Nino dominant conditions) in 1976/1977 to global warming.
Nothing of course could be further from the truth. ENSO is of course a chaotic system – one that bifurcates every couple of decades. ENSO is not really an ‘oscillation’ – but it is a system that is non stationary and non Gaussian over decades to millenia. Recent speculation by Lockwood and Curry inter alia suggest a top down influence from UV warming of oxone in the upper atmosphere.
It was like watching Muhammed Ali fight a 50 pound weakling,
Copy edits:
Item 1, Monckton should have echoed Stekete’s original “sea surface temperatures,” instead of omitting it in his “As for sea temperatures,” which weakens and blurs the point he’s making. (Temperatures of the surface vs. temperatures of the volume.)
Item 13: “in early 2010, when all 49 contiguous United States were covered in snow …”. Change “contiguous” to “continental.”
Item 17 doesn’t rebut Stekete’s point, which should have been conceded, followed by the phrase “OTOH,” followed by the current text.
Item 18: Don’t hyphenate adverbial compound modifiers like “naturally-occurring phenomena.”
Item 24: Italicize “per impossibile”
Nice brisk job otherwise, as usual.
“THE TRENDS HAPPEN TO FOLLOW CLOSELY THE PREDICTIONS”
O rly?
http://i55.tinypic.com/14mf04i.jpg
Actually, there are only 48 contiguous states.
Readers, please realise that Mike Steketee is a journalist who writes about politics with a left-wing slant. His knowledge of politics and like social trivia- unfortunately- is no doubt considerable; his knowledge of science, minuscule, as so evident in his opinion piece on AGW in The Australian. So don’t waste your time – there are better things to do than being critical of left wing journos who populate the MSM – they won’t change their mind or appreciate that there is high uncertainty in the complex science of our dynamic climate – the science is too remote from and infinitely more complex than the shallow world of political commentary.
I haven’t checked but you might be able to say all 50 states. It does snow in Hawaii in winter, on the summits of Mauna Loa, Mauna Kea and Haleakala
Mike Steketee’s article contains one glaring error of fact which needs pointing out and which Monckton doesn’t do:
Steketee claims “So far the increase since the mid-18th century of all greenhouse gases has been 38 per cent, including a 27.5 per cent rise from 1990 to 2009.”
This may be true if you ignore WATER VAPOR, by far the most prevalent greenhouse gas at roughly 20 times the concentration of all other greenhouse gases. If you include water vapour the increase is a much less alarming 1-2% or so.
“The Australian” is by far Australia’s best newspaper. It, however, is pretty appalling in absolute terms and with only a few exceptions its journalists are pretty poor examples of their craft. Surely Rupert Murdoch can do better.
I always enjoy seeing Monckton spanking an ecotard.
Just wait for all the troll comments trying desperately to rubbish Monckton. I predict there will be a bumper crop! And all spouting the usual specious nonsense.
Monckton:
Can I ask where this 5000 year record is located? I have the Nilometer data for ~900 years (from 622-1469 CE) so where is this longer record?
Nice job that man. Have a g’n’t on me.
That Stekete didn’t wait to the end of the year to write all this suggests he was worried that the data for the entire year wouldn’t show it was the warmest on record.
Thank you Christopher Monckton. It was frustrating being unable to post comment to Steketee’s evangelism. Even though replies were invited and I submitted one, none was published. This is not unusual, the Australian has a habit of wasting people’s time. With this article especially, I would have been very surprised if it had been otherwise. The article was titled: “Global weather disasters a sign the heat is on”.
http://tinyurl.com/2ucc4hz
Well heat was not permitted to be applied to that assertion and those that followed.
Steketee knows he is misleading by trying to argue “trends follow closely the predictions”. The IPCC predictions for this decade have failed. As have Hansens. So he digs for a 40 year old prediction valid to the year 2000. That trend has failed to continue this decade.
Also, notice how the Australian is still inviting comments to this article, but has refused to publish any.
Not unlike the ABC webite the Drum, which shut down comments after only 12, for this ABC Science show justification for supporting the Earth Gaia Hypothesis.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/01/07/3108365.htm?site=thedrum
Excellent and he didn’t even mention Urban heat island effect giving an upward temperature bias and higher extreme weather impact because of increased wealth/infrastructure and building on flood plains and a growing population to be damaged by it.
One more mini copy-edit: Nils-Axel Mörner, not Niklas, unless that’s his long-lost brother.
The problem is that all those Warmista-claims is read by everyone in the MSM.
Only a few reads this.
So they keep on hammering the message, and a lot of people fall for it.
Goebbels would be proud.
By a very happy coincidence, the annual mean average temperature of 1659, the very first year of the oldest temperature dataset in the world -Central England Temperatures-is exactly the same as for 2010 at 8.83C.
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/cetml1659on.dat
Makes you think doesn’t it?
tonyb
Great work by Lord Monckton. I read the paper this weekend and found it rather annoying because even I could pick a hafl dozen glaring errors in the article. I am glad that someone of Moncktonc calibre has done the job properly.
Very important information from Carl Chapman above as well. Let’s make sure that that is not forgotten.
Chris Monckton scores: he wins!
Great job, as usual.
4. THE WORLD IS NOT COOLER COMPARED TO 1998.
Actually, it is cooler.
22. FOR 20 YEARS MORE HOT-WEATHER THAN COLD-WEATHER TEMPERATURE RECORDS HAVE BEEN SET.
This is merely another way of saying that temperatures today are generally higher than they were 20 years ago. Since there has been some warming, …….
Poor Chris sounds a bit confused here. Cooler one minute, warmer the next……………
Also, regarding point 2, La Nina dominated the last nine months of 2010. BOM data shows El Nino died in March 2010. Read about it here :
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/enlist/index.shtml
I saw the Steketee article in the Weekend Australian and quickly saw the tack that he was taking. I stopped reading it immediately because I have no respect for most Australian journalists who are just dumb sheep. I am delighted but also amazed that Lord Monckton took the time to demolish the Steketee garbage.
It is a sad reflection on this nation that there are only about four journalists that are capable of telling things as they are – the rest (many dozens) are group think, left wing morons who parrot each other endlessly. I hope for a day when broadbased investigative journalism comes to this country. In the meantime I hang desperately to the coat tails of the pathfinders Andrew Bolt, Piers Akerman and few others.
Cheers for them and Lord Monckton
I begv of someone to please please please setup an account at forums.treehugger.com and post this in the their global warming proganda forum. i would but I’m permanently banned for calling into question their religion. It would make my day if someone could do that.
smacca says:
January 9, 2011 at 3:21 am
I respectfully suggest you read and digest both points more carefully.
you may note that 1998-2011 is less than 20yrs, so the two points do not cross as you suggest, but that would require careful reading (and understanding) of Moncktons words.
Tonyb said temperatures in 1659 were exactly the same as for 2010 at 8.83C, so I had a look at the agricultural records and found 1658 may have been colder.
‘The winter, in the early part of the year, is reported to have been the severest within living memory in England. The summer was cold with continuous northerly winds.’
Sounds like NAO negative.
Thank you again Lord Monkton!
and Anthony:-)
No Aussies are surprised the Australian or ABC wont print comments that prove how erroneous they are..simply isn’t allowed!
Murdochs on the CCgravytrain too, and I bet the ABC also has some pensions tied into a carbon scam somewhere..
anyone who needs an adrenaline rage rush could listen to the podcast of this Saturdays 8th Jan
science???show, where R williams gave an hour to inane and factually wrong reportage by some american bimbo..re climate scares, pathetic and annoying.
Anthony: I have a very limited connection, and I don’t know if this getting across (here or on Tips and Notes). I was involved in a discussion at SFGate, with a Peter Gleick. One of your moderators had challenged him to post here, which Gleick not so pleasantly declined.
In order to encourage him, I offered money to a charity of his choice, to post an article here, with your blessing, of course.
This is a transcript from the page:
macuser
4:37 PM on January 2, 2011
As a moderator on the internet’s “Best Science” site, I invite Mr Gleick to submit an article, which will be published.
Of course, Gleick probably doesn’t have the stones to stand and deliver an article. But the invitation is there:
http://wattsupwiththat.com
petergleick
1:01 PM on January 7, 2011
Don’t see Watt’s biased website on any list of “best science” on the web. And Watt was a runner up on the BS Award nominees because of the misinformation he consistently promotes.
LesJohnson
12:37 AM on January 9, 2011
Peter: Not much for research, are you? WUWT won 2008 Science Blog of the year, and is one of the top 4 science blogs of 2011.
http://www.wikio.com/blogs/top/Sciences
But, this begs the question: wouldn’t you want to try to reach out to a new audience, rather than preach to the choir?
Or do you feel out of your comfort zone, if skeptical, inquiring minds are present?
Tell you what, Peter. If you post an article to WUWT (with Watt’s approval, of course), I will donate $1000 to any charity you specify. All you have to do is answer any reasonable, science based questions posed by readers, for 3 days.
Am I good for the money? Joe Romm didn’t think so, and wouldn’t take my bet. But I did split Tom Fuller’s bet with Romm. I also tried to convince Romm to debate Roger Peilke jr, for $10,000, but Joe turned that down. However, Roger P. can confirm that I did donate the promised money (which was 2500 if Joe would not accept) to Roger’s charity, MSF.
So, what do you say, Peter?
REPLY: Works for me. You have my blessings. Still waiting for Tamino to accept his offer too. – Anthony
Monckton: Formerly of the Tory Party, now deputy leader of UKIP. Next election, I’m voting UKIP!
@Simon langton January 9, 2011 at 3:21 am
“The MSM crossed the line from any pretence at journalistic integrity into eco-activism. Any claim, no matter how ludicrous, was published without scrutiny or question. Any dissenting voice was openly called a “denier”. The reporting, what little there was of it, of any dissenting papers or studies was buried deep and usually marginalised by a pro AGW commentator.”
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2010/12/21/the-msm-and-climate-alarmism/
Pointman
Roger Knights says:
January 9, 2011 at 1:21 am
“….Item 17 doesn’t rebut Stekete’s point, which should have been conceded, followed by the phrase “OTOH,” followed by the current text,,,”.
It all depends upon how one classes “severe” and/or measures ‘severity’. As I understand and recall matters (without checking the data for which I apologise), the number of named storms was high but the total energy contents of the storms for the season was not particularly high. On such basis, it would be fair to say that the 2010 season was not severe.
From an economic and human terms perspective, the crucial factor is the number of storms making landfall. The 2010 season was low in this regard and therefore fair to say that the 2010 season was not severe.
It is always difficult to make century long comparisons particularly when measurement standards have altered. Pre the satellite era, there may have been many storms which simply went un noticed. Now we can spot storms well out to sea in the middle of nowhere (in the sens of being far from man’s habitat). Because of better methods of observing and tracking, one would inevitable expect to see an increase in the number of storms and an increase in those which are observed to develop into named storms. However, this may be no more than a reflection of improved methods of detection/observation/measurement and one should be slow to read too much into this and to ascribe a trend from this.
More generally, since I have not read the book, I would not wish to make comment or pass judgment. I find generally that Lord Monkton speaks much sense and is usually able to explain the significance of things at a level that the general public (not needing to be scientists) can understand and appreciate.
John A says:
January 9, 2011 at 1:51 am
Monckton:
One of the longest records of drought and flood we have is the Nilometer, dating back 5000 years
Can I ask where this 5000 year record is located? I have the Nilometer data for ~900 years (from 622-1469 CE) so where is this longer record?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I’m not writing for Christopher Monckton, but try this link:
http://www.waterhistory.org/histories/cairo/
They quote the 5000 years (in the first paragraph) but after only a brief look I can’t see any detail as to where that number originated.
Darren Parker says:
January 9, 2011 at 3:32 am
I beg of someone to please please please set up an account at forums.treehugger.com and post this in the their global warming propaganda forum. I would but I’m permanently banned for calling into question their religion. It would make my day if someone could do that.
+++++++++++++++++++
Your command is my wish – please follow the link:
http://forums.treehugger.com/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=14018&p=122607#p122607
Re “13. ….46.4 C° IN MELBOURNE.”
Odds on too that our frantically alarmist Bureau of Meteorology failed to make adequate or appropriate allowance for the urban heat island effect there.
Good stuff, but seriously, why bother? Steketee is a left-wing GW catastrophist rant-meister who knows nothing about the subject. Anyone with half a brain who reads The Australian knows to skip over Steketee’s column like they know to skip Phillip Adams’ – both of them should go and work for The Age instead. A sledgehammer to crack a nut, I’m afraid, or a nut-case, perhaps. Direct your efforts at a more worthy target next time.
During biblical times, there were many records of floods, droughts, hail, locusts, etc. Early Man’s attempts to explain these phenomena involved placing blame on himself and invoking god or gods who were punishing or sending a message. Now thousands of years later we observe the same phenomena, we also blame ourselves, but now we invoke ourselves as the cause. Nothing has changed except our egos have grown to the status of gods of yore and have even displaced the omnipotent and omniscient gods themselves. Are we gods? I think not.
I hope the next phase of human evolution is the acceptance of the laws of the universe and a humbleness of our knowledge and abilities.
It seems barely credible that alarmist ‘journalists’ get away with writing such error-laden nonsense – how do such individuals get published, or do these types sit at their computers and interview each other?
Science teaching in high schools in the English-speaking world has a lot to answer for when most of the populations who completed their high school education in that world in the last half-century don’t understand really basic stuff such as how to plot daily max and min temperatures, how the carbon cycle operates, or the differing physical mechanisms which propagate the fauna of forests that are native to the various and extremely different antipodean climates.
Lord Monckton has done a precision job debunking this ignoramus, but it saddens me that it is neccessary.
Nice – a typical ‘Monckton-Rebuttal’!
Just one minor quibble:
“Intense cold – such as when General January and General February defeated Corporal Hitler at the gates of Stalingrad in 1941 – has many times killed hundreds of thousands in Russia.”
Sorry, the defeat at the ‘gates of Stalingrad’ took place in 1943.
1941 saw the defeat at the gates of Moscow.
Don’t like nit-picking, but it is best to be precise and not leave loopholes for you-know-who to exploit.
Following Monckton’s Missives we now have Monckton’s Missile, a Weapon of Mass Debunking if ever I saw one.
smacca said:
I doubt anyone else got confused with Monckton’s citing then commenting. That resolution is not so with your poor rendering, which doesn’t distinguish between your own comments and quotes. Your remark, about his supposed confusion, was confusing itself – and a bit weird.
Except that that page doesn’t say when the 2010 La Nina cycle started, does it?. This one does:
http://tinyurl.com/37gaab6
It says it started to develop in late May and gained strength in recent months. In other words, it’s only in the last few months that it really took hold.
Your other mistake is one that many warmists make, assuming to talk down from struggling mediocrity.
How does one pronounce that name with all the e’s and a k in it?
Martin Brumby says:
January 9, 2011 at 1:46 am
“I always enjoy seeing Monckton spanking an ecotard.
Just wait for all the troll comments trying desperately to rubbish Monckton. I predict there will be a bumper crop! And all spouting the usual specious nonsense.”
I predict there will be a bunch of trolls bringing up the usual ‘membership of House of Lords’ argument as a strawman to try and discredit the article.
The Australian is quite open in its position about supporting AGW. However, they do not like references or being held to account.
The fact remains as Lord Monckton points out, that it is the skeptics who believe in climate change and the catastrophists who believe this is the ideal climate which should not be changed. They believe huge taxes and people dying from cold are desirable methods of stopping the climate from changing.
20. THERE IS STRONG EVIDENCE THAT “GLOBAL WARMING” MADE THE BUSH-FIRES AROUND MELBOURNE WORSE.
They were made worse by environmetal laws stopping householders from clearing scrub/trees from the close proximity of their houses, this helped the spread not Global Warming.
Wrong. Here’s how Accuweather sums up the 2010 season–as in the top quintile in terms of ACE since 1950:
Wrong. The Atlantic Hurricane season’s impacts are not limited to the US. Including the Caribbean, the impact was not low. Here’s Accuweather again:
And landfalls are a mere matter of chance, says Accuweather below. If we’re talking about whether the climate is getting worse–and that’s what Steketee WAS talking about–the ACE is the relevant aspect, not whether we dodged a bullet. Some other aspect may have importance, but it’s a diversion to bring it in as though doing so was being “responsive.”
I wonder what happened to the hole in the ozone layer????
PS: The reason I point things like this out is that Monckton, by over-egging his pudding, gives his enemies an opportunity for a counterpunch and, worse, to say or imply that all or most of his criticism is similarly dodgy. That’s been their tactic so far, and it’s been lamentably successful.
DWH says:
January 9, 2011 at 1:40 am
Readers, please realise that Mike Steketee is a journalist who writes about politics with a left-wing slant. His knowledge of politics and like social trivia- unfortunately- is no doubt considerable; his knowledge of science, minuscule, as so evident in his opinion piece on AGW in The Australian. So don’t waste your time – there are better things to do than being critical of left wing journos who populate the MSM – they won’t change their mind or appreciate that there is high uncertainty in the complex science of our dynamic climate – the science is too remote from and infinitely more complex than the shallow world of political commentary.
“better things to do with our time….”
We ignored Steketee-types and MSM assertions too long. Lord Monckton does us all a valuable service taking the time to refute, point-by-painful-point, Steketeee’s dissembling. We wouldn’t be up against this wall of cap-n-trade if we had be more energetic earlier. Rise up and refute them. That’s why we got ’em on the run now. McIntyre invested so much energy into refuting Mann’s hockey-stick. Anybody could see Mann was expunging the medieval Warm period but somebody needed to do the math and PROVE him wrong. We need to refute all the journalistic and the scientific propaganda. Answering them is hard work, it’s time consuming, expensive, draining; so man up. Thank you Lord Monckton and all your comrades too. May your tribe increase. Please don’t go find something better to do with your time.
Roger Knights says:
January 9, 2011 at 5:17 am
The 2010 season has an ACE index of 160, ranking 12th overall since 1950. The ACE indices of 1995 and 1933 were 228 and 213, respectively.
===================================================
Roger, this is just moving the goal posts again.
There is no possible way to get an accurate comparison between 1933 ACE and 2010 Ace.
In 1933 storms had to be seen, which means they missed a lot of storms.
In 2010, they name, measure, and count every two clouds within sight of each other. Storms that you can count their lifetime in minutes.
I’m sure the 1933 ACE was a whole lot higher than what they think it was.
PPS: I’ve just noticed that I’m guilty of the same offense I condemn. My second “Wrong” above wasn’t justified. I should have said, “Not necessarily.” I don’t know how much the damage in the Caribbean amounted to, so I wasn’t sure enough of my facts to be so absolute.
This illustrates how one gets carried away in the heat of combat. It’s better to think strategically (long-term), not tactically, and avoid overstatement, etc.
This is such a useful summary, must bookmark for future reference!
According to Prof Ryan Maue ACE is at 50yr lows.
On the snow cover in the US last year–all 50 states, all 49 continental states, and all 48 contiguous states had some snow cover at the same time. But not all were snow-covered. To be snow-covered implies that the entire state was covered, and that just didn’t happen. Minor point, great article.
I hate the language, catastrophic weather events. Weather, for the most part, just is and sometimes man is in the way, like a tree falling on someone (tragic event), or no one (natural life cycle of said tree).
Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said: “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
(Through the Looking Glass, Chapter 5)
*****
And then you ask yourself: “Self, how many other impossible things did they convince me to believe?
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/05/autism.vaccines/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN1
Regards,
Steamboat Jack (Jon Jewett’s evil twin) . . [better posted at Tips & Notes ]
Interesting link on giss temp measuring
http://www.liveweatherblogs.com/prometweatherblogs/12/2/4064/The-Problem-with-Measuring-and-Understanding-Global-Temperature
I suppose Steketee’s column will be included as peer-reviewed literature in the next IPCC Report?
@tonyb.
Thanks for the link to central England temps (it opens with excel, folks). You’re right, mean temp 1569 same as 2010!
What a terrific conversation stopper 🙂
Oops — 1659. But what’s a century between friends?
A copy should go to our dear Department of Energy And Climate Change (why the two are linked I have no idea – how about a Ministry of Defence and Soil Mechanics..??) – James Hunter is the guy who wrote to me from the department with – you’ve guessed it – the throwaway line that ‘climate change is one of the serious threats which we face’…
The temperature reached a high of 46.4 C on February 7, 2009 (not 2010), coming in at 0.8C below the record set 160 years ago:
=========
“Thursday was one of the most oppressively hot days we have experienced for some years. In the early morning the atmosphere was perfectly scorching, and at eleven o’clock the thermometer stood as high as 117° [47.2°C], in the shade.”
–The Argus, Melbourne, February 8, 1851
=========
“Even cautious scientists ……
Well at least Steketee pegs the AGW lot as reckless, careless scientists.
Perhaps there are unknown effects on the brain from living close to the ozone hole over Antarctica. The UV fried the neurons or something.
I’m surprised that the pro-AGW Australian press hasn’t blamed the Queensland floods on global warming (maybe they have..!) – but as anyone who has seen the news footage of the floods in Rockhampton will have noticed, there is a brief shot of a pole showing dates of previous flood levels in that area. ALL the previous records are ABOVE the current level – the highest (way above the present level) was, I believe (the shot cuts away quickly) 1924…
Roger Knights says:
“And landfalls are a mere matter of chance, says Accuweather below. If we’re talking about whether the climate is getting worse–and that’s what Steketee WAS talking about–the ACE is the relevant aspect, not whether we dodged a bullet. Some other aspect may have importance, but it’s a diversion to bring it in as though doing so was being “responsive.””
Wrong. It was proper for Monkton to point out that total hurricanes worldwide were lower rather than cherry picking data to make it look impressive. He was only using landfalls in the example because reliable records don’t go back 150 years otherwise.
Monckton’s relevant quote:
“In fact, Dr. Ryan Maue of Florida State University, who maintains the Accumulated Cyclone Energy Index, a 24-month running sum of the frequency, intensity and duration of all tropical cyclones, typhoons and hurricanes round the world, says that the index is at its least value in the past 30 years, and close to its least value in 50 years. For 150 years the number of landfalling Atlantic hurricanes has shown no trend at all: this is a long and reliable record, because one does not require complex instrumentation to know that one has been struck by a hurricane.”
5. THE TRENDS HAPPEN TO FOLLOW CLOSELY THE PREDICTIONS OVER THE PAST 40 YEARS OF TEMPERATURE RISES RESULTING FROM INCREASED GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS.
Two blatant lies in one sentence.
Firstly hindcasts are not “predictions”, they are made AFTER the event and hence do not suggest the non-prediction was made with any skill or insight. 20/20 hindsight is easy, as is fiddling your model to produce desired results over a limited backcast period.
Second, there is no “happens to” , it is the programming of the models that are DESIGNED to produce this result. When they do not produce the required match to recent temperature rise they are considered defective and are adjusted.
What they don’t “happen” to do is match the only period for which they did produce predictions: the beginning of the 21st century.
Here , the predictions “happen to” fail abysmally and clearly demonstrate that the totally speculative amplification of the CO2 forcing was a totally unfounded.
David L.’s comments- brilliant
“On the snow cover in the US last year–all 50 states, all 49 continental states, and all 48 contiguous states had some snow cover at the same time. But not all were snow-covered. To be snow-covered implies that the entire state was covered, and that just didn’t happen. Minor point, great article.”
Not so “minor”. Unfortunately HRH Monckton is just as prone to bullshit and exaggeration and is often quite simply ill-informed.
A moments reflection would show that Hawaii and Alaska are physically separate and that Monckton’s 49 contiguous states is as nonsensical as his “snow-covered” claim and as inaccurate as his assertion that Antarctic increase is “nearly the same” as Arctic loss.
It seems his main tactic is fight fire with fire , ie. to fight bullshit science with bullshit science.
I don’t think trying to contradict one lie with another is particularly convincing or useful. But then again I’m not a Lord of the Realm , I’m a mere surf, so I could be wrong.
The 5000 year time frame mentioned WRT Nilometers is the length of time that their use has been documented. A near continuous written record of observations from them is only available for about 1400 years.
You can find a discussion of this record here:
http://stuff.mit.edu/people/eltahir/www/Publications_files/1999%20Eltahir%20Wang%20nilometers%20GRL.pdf
“One of the longest records of drought and flood we have is the Nilometer, dating back 5000 years. ” is an inexact statement, since this record is by no means continuous and more than one Nilometer was involved.
LevelGaze says in reply to me
January 9, 2011 at 7:10 am
@tonyb.
Thanks for the link to central England temps (it opens with excel, folks). You’re right, mean temp 1569 same as 2010!
What a terrific conversation stopper 🙂
***
Yes, I’m dying to go to the pub and say casually, “by the way, did you know…”
tonyb
Srarzmun: I think if the entire state of Hawaii, or Florida for that matter, was covered in snow, that would be a reason to be alarmed about climate change. But not the sort of climate change the warmists are talking about.
P.
Monckton confused contiguous with continental.
an innocuous mistake.
Rather the same as substituting surf for serf.
Hang ten dude.
Enjoy your Serfing/
A minor quibble:
Para 21: “… a three-day cold snap in Britain the previous year had killed 21,000 just in one country.”
According to an Office for National Statistics report, excess mortality in England and Wales attributed to the cold winter of 2001/02 (Dec – Mar) was estimated at 27,230. Similarly, 2002/03 was provisionally put at 24,000.
Not quite 21,000 over three days in onecountry! This, of course, excludes Scotland, where historically the per capita rate is even greater because it’s colder.
Still, always good to see a wannabe alarmonger soundly and deservedly thrashed.
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/mort1003.pdf
Global sea ice, all in, has declined since 2000. But after a step change down, it has not varied much in the last several years. Arctic sea ice was at historically measured lows in December–a key reason why Britain’s temperatures were also at historically measured lows.
The rate of sea level rise, according to the Univ. Col. Boulder, has declined to 3.0-3.1 mm/year, from 3.2-3.4 mm per year a few years ago. That’s about a foot per century.
In December 2010, the world was cooler than in 1998. The year 2010 will be the second warmest in the satellite record. There has been no statistical warming since 1995 (Phil Jones).
The Great Tsunami occurred on Dec. 26, 2004, not 2000. 230,000 people are thought to have died. This year–2004–mostly likely saw the greatest number of deaths due to natural calamity in the last ten years.
Roger Knights says:
January 9, 2011 at 5:17 am
richard verney says:
January 9, 2011 at 4:00 am
Roger Knights says:
January 9, 2011 at 1:21 am
“….Item 17 doesn’t rebut Stekete’s point, which should have been conceded, followed by the phrase “OTOH,” followed by the current text,,,”.
It all depends upon how one classes “severe” and/or measures ‘severity’. As I understand and recall matters (without checking the data for which I apologise), the number of named storms was high but the total energy contents of the storms for the season was not particularly high. On such basis, it would be fair to say that the 2010 season was not severe.
Wrong. Here’s how Accuweather sums up the 2010 season–as in the top quintile in terms of ACE since 1950:
….The 2010 season has an ACE index of 160, ranking 12th overall since 1950. The ACE indices of 1995 and 1933 were 228 and 213, respectively…”
Personally, I consider my post to be correct in that it is a question of how one interprets the expression “severe.” Whilst I accept that there is a certian amount of subjective interpretation in all of this, I, personally, would not say that the 2010 season which ranked 12th on the basis of the ACE index and with an ACE measurement of just 70.1% of that of the 1995 season, justifies the statement used by Steketee “THE HURRICANE SEASON IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC WAS ONE OF THE MOST SEVERE IN THE LAST CENTURY.”
I agree with the observation of latitude when he says:
January 9, 2011 at 6:02 am
“Roger Knights says:
January 9, 2011 at 5:17 am
The 2010 season has an ACE index of 160, ranking 12th overall since 1950. The ACE indices of 1995 and 1933 were 228 and 213, respectively.
===================================================
Roger, this is just moving the goal posts again.
There is no possible way to get an accurate comparison between 1933 ACE and 2010 Ace.
In 1933 storms had to be seen, which means they missed a lot of storms.
In 2010, they name, measure, and count every two clouds within sight of each other. Storms that you can count their lifetime in minutes.
I’m sure the 1933 ACE was a whole lot higher than what they think it was.”
As I said in my post, I have not checked the data and therefore would not wish to argue facts in detail. As regards damage in the Caribbean, my recollection is that there was relatively little coverage in the UK MSM of susbtantial damage although problems in Haiti compounding the earthquake damage were reported. This, of course, does not mean that there was significant damage and I would not like to belittle the suffering caused to anyone caught up in a Hirricane and accordingly I will not expand upon my previous post.
Very informative piece, thanks!
Very interesting. Hard to find in Germany!
[snip – calls for religious connections, promotes religious website, take it elsewhere per our policy page – moderator]
In general, a typical Monckton piece: some of it very good, some a bit weak; a bit sloppy on some details (date of Stalingrad, as pointed out, and a typo in the reference to the number of contiguous US states, etc.). It’s a pity that his response to number 5 (whether actual temperature is tracking the models’ predictions) is not responsive to the point. There is one commenter (Juraj V) who linked to a (somewhat hard to discern) graph: are there any other useful commentaries on this point?
“In the first nine months of 2010 there was another substantial El Niño, but even at its peak it did not match the Great El Niño of 1998.”
I think he’s got this backwards.
The first nine months of 2010 was warmer than the first 9 months of 1998. Even though, as he says, the el Nino of 1998 was stronger. Also in 1998 we weren’t in a deep solar minimum. That implies the world is comparatively warmer – all other things being unequal – in 2010 than in 1998.
“smacca says:
January 9, 2011 at 3:21 am
Also, regarding point 2, La Nina dominated the last nine months of 2010. BOM data shows El Nino died in March 2010. Read about it here :…”
As was pointed out before, it ended a month or two later, however UAH satellite data for September 2010 was at 0.48 which was a RECORD HIGH SEPTEMBER reading. Check it out at http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
There is often a time lag between the end of a La Nina and the end of its effects on temperature. So with respect to UAH, I see nothing wrong with: “The cherry-picking of the first nine months of 2010 is particularly unacceptable, since that period was dominated by a substantial El Niño Southern Oscillation,..”
“In particular, the models predict that if and only if Man is the cause of warming, the tropical upper air, six miles above the ground, should warm up to thrice as fast as the surface, but this tropical upper-troposphere “hot-spot” has not been observed”
This is completely incorrect. The models predict that should happen through any cause of warming, not just if man is the cause
“3. THE LAST DECADE ALSO WAS THE WARMEST ON RECORD.”
To this he claims to be unsurprised. He expects that. Why then in point #4 does he suggest the world has cooled since 1998. That would actually surely cause him not to expect the last decade to be the warmest on record.
Quote:
‘amicus curiae says:
January 9, 2011 at 3:50 am
Thank you again Lord Monkton!
and Anthony:-)
No Aussies are surprised the Australian or ABC wont print comments that prove how erroneous they are..simply isn’t allowed!’ Unquote.
I would be surprised that “The Australian” which is by far Australia’s most centre leaning newspaper would not print all views that aim to find truth.
But I would be not be surprised about the ABC which has been dominated by a culture of hard left leaning journalists for decades.
And I would not be surprised that the ABC ‘s Karen Barlow, on her mission to the Mertz Glacier in Antarctica on the Aurora Australis, will be finding lots more “evidence” of global warming that will make Lord Monckton choke over his cornflakes:
http://blogs.abc.net.au/news/2010/12/journey-to-the-white-continent.html
I posted a comment to ‘Heinrich’ Romm in which he blamed the revent rain deluge on the warmest sea surface temperatures on the record. I asked then why in the last decade of the warmest sea surface temperatures did Australia suffer years of drought. My comment never made it through. ;>)
Romm is living in denial. The Australian drought is almost over due to global warming / cooling / climate change / staying the same.
onion says:
“This is completely incorrect. The models predict that should happen through any cause of warming, not just if man is the cause”
First, if humans are not the cause of global warming, then it is natural, and there is nothing to be done about it. So sit back, and enjoy the pleasant weather.
Regarding the “fingerprint” of global warming – the tropospheric hot spot – sorry to disappoint you, but the “fingerprint” was the output of a model. It never existed in the real world; observation shows that it doesn’t exist.
Your CAGW conjecture is in complete disarray. Why do you keep digging your hole deeper? Do you enjoy being consistently wrong?
Dam the records, a little peer review:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2010.08.016
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007AGUFMPP11A0203F
http://geology.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/21/3/227
Historical perspective:
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/historic-variation-in-arctic-ice-tony-b/
“a three-day cold snap in Britain the previous year had killed 21,000 just in one country” I have no memory of such a catastrophy! surely amistake of a factor of at least 100 ?
DWH says:
January 9, 2011 at 1:40 am
“Readers, please realise that Mike Steketee is a journalist who writes about politics with a left-wing slant….there are better things to do than being critical of left wing journos who populate the MSM – they won’t change their mind or appreciate that there is high uncertainty in the complex science of our dynamic climate – the science is too remote from and infinitely more complex than the shallow world of political commentary.”
I guess you haven’t noticed that “political commentary”, i.e., propaganda, is all ipcc CAGW Climate Science is – so that Steketee is actually practicing ipcc style Climate Science almost as well as it can be done, according to its own directedly anti-science “method”?
Or, DWH, maybe the problem is that you have noticed it?
It’s “University of Rochester”.
I just heard the Weather Channel talking about how Global Warming can cause all this cold weather. You’ll all be happy to know that the hot spot over the sea between Alaska and Siberia is due to the warm water melting the ice causing a high pressure system that is re-directing the jet stream. Too bad that warm water can’t get down to the three Russian fishing ships frozen in place just north of Japan.
onion says:
January 9, 2011 at 11:26 am
I thought it was quite clear that Monckton considers the natural warming over 300yrs and that therefore it would make logical sense that ANY later period (as in any time since 300yrs ago!) temps would naturally be slightly warmer than before. Ergo, any later decade would be more likely to be warmer than a preceding one. Is that really too difficult to grasp? You do understand that the climate is currently warmer than the last ice age? You do understand that in order for the climate to be warmer SINCE the last ice age, that some warming has occurred and that the most recent decades will thus be warmer than older ones? Duh?
“Smokey says:
January 9, 2011 at 11:43 am
onion says:
“This is completely incorrect. The models predict that should happen through any cause of warming, not just if man is the cause”
First, if humans are not the cause of global warming, then it is natural, and there is nothing to be done about it. So sit back, and enjoy the pleasant weather. Regarding the “fingerprint” of global warming – the tropospheric hot spot – sorry to disappoint you, but the “fingerprint” was the output of a model. It never existed in the real world; observation shows that it doesn’t exist.”
——
The hotspot is expected whether the warming is natural or man-made, thus my take on it is that the word fingerprint is wrong in this situation (fingerprint would describe a phenomenon that could distinguish between causes). The hotspot is a predicted response to global warming. I would say it’s a more fundamental prediction than ‘predicted by climate models’ would let on. It’s a prediction from the moist adiabatic lapse rate, so I would say it was more a meteorological prediction (that as the surface warms it will warm higher aloft – as the moist adiabatic lapse rate is curved, not linear) applied to longterm warming. In so much as climate models exhibit such a hotspot this is just following on from that meteorological prediction and that the models don’t exhibit anything that opposes that effect somehow.
I agree the hotspot isn’t found in observations, but wouldn’t rule out this being a fault of the observations. If it is a fault of the models it’s because a process that counters the effect is currently unknown. It bears mentioning that my take on this is that discovery and inclusion of such an effect into models may actually increase climate sensitivity or even not affect it significantly at all. This bears mentioning because I feel there is a general assumption is that a missing hotspot must mean model climate sensitivity is too high, but I have not seen any evidence for why that should be the case.
My view is that a missing hotspot in observations suggests climate models are wrong, but then that’s hardly the only thing that makes me think models are wrong. The cloud uncertainty is a bigger issue IMO as that more clearly and significantly directly bears on climate sensitivity.
I guess India should take comfort from the fact of global warming as deaths from freezing weather increase.
“Cold wave tightens grip over N. India, 51 deaths overnight in UP
United News of India
New Delhi, January 8, 2011
Cold weather conditions tightened their grip over North India with 51 deaths overnight in Uttar Pradesh as Leh in Jammu and Kashmir shivered at minus 14 degrees Celsius.
Severe cold weather has damaged 60 to 80 per cent crops and vegetables in 250 villages of Ujjain district in Madhya Pradesh. Besides it has claimed 20 lives in the state.
Fifty one people died overnight due to intensified cold conditions in Uttar Pradesh. With this the toll reached 188 in the state.”
http://netindian.in/news/2011/01/08/0009933/cold-wave-tightens-grip-over-n-india-51-deaths-overnight
Kev-in-UK says:
January 9, 2011 at 12:19 pm
I thought it was quite clear that Monckton considers the natural warming over 300yrs and that therefore it would make logical sense that ANY later period (as in any time since 300yrs ago!) temps would naturally be slightly warmer than before.
—–
My take on the line “3. THE LAST DECADE ALSO WAS THE WARMEST ON RECORD.” is that it’s highlighting that the last decade (00s) was warmer than the previous one (90s), which is suggesting that the warming has continued past 1998.
Ergo, any later decade would be more likely to be warmer than a preceding one. Is that really too difficult to grasp? You do understand that the climate is currently warmer than the last ice age? You do understand that in order for the climate to be warmer SINCE the last ice age, that some warming has occurred and that the most recent decades will thus be warmer than older ones? Duh?
OT: another modeling career…
http://www.calgaryherald.com/technology/Another+century+emissions+will+fuel+years+climate+change+Study/4082721/story.html
1,000 years run on a radiative model, courtesy of taxpayers, here is what Shawn Marshall and another bunch of mannequins have come up with!
Simon from Sydney says:
January 9, 2011 at 4:23 am
“Good stuff, but seriously, why bother? Steketee is a left-wing GW catastrophist rant-meister who knows nothing about the subject. Anyone with half a brain who reads The Australian knows to skip over Steketee’s column like they know to skip Phillip Adams’ – both of them should go and work for The Age instead. A sledgehammer to crack a nut, I’m afraid, or a nut-case, perhaps. Direct your efforts at a more worthy target next time.”
Steketee or not, Monckton skewers MSM parrotts nicely.
It is too easy to get bogged down in detail and be fighting alligators while your aim is to drain the swamp.
Monckton missed a great opportunity to keep it short and simple and simply point out that Steketee is wrong about the increase in greenhouse gases because water vapor is greenhouse gas and in fact by far the most prevalent one and that the increase in total greenhouse gases is very small like 1 -2 % , not the 38% that Steketee claims.
Monckton’s criticisms will now get lost in the noise as shown on this thread.
20. THERE IS STRONG EVIDENCE THAT “GLOBAL WARMING” MADE THE BUSH-FIRES AROUND MELBOURNE WORSE.
They were made worse by environmetal laws stopping householders from clearing scrub/trees from the close proximity of their houses, this helped the spread not Global Warming.
———————————
What is more, despite the knowledge that this was so, there is, once again, a huge regrowth of brush,(wattles, eucalypts, etc.) in places like Marysville. I felt a sort of despair when I visited and saw this for myself a few weeks ago.
onion says:
January 9, 2011 at 12:33 pm
Not sure I followed that post. But to be clear, trying to split hairs is rather tedious. In 2) Monckton clearly says
”Since late 2001 there has been virtually no “global warming” at all.” Jones actually reckons its since 1995, but qualifies with the term ‘statistically significant’. I think you should accept the same qualification – basically, if there is any warming since the late 90’s its statistically insignificant but the fact remains that warming has been ongoing for at least 300 yrs, so on a decadal scale, a later decade would be expected to be warmer than a previous one. At least, that’s how I read Moncktons point(s), so I do not see any error.
David @ 7:45 am:
Yes, I saw that too, and wondered at the term ‘unprecedented’. The floods are very widespread though. I feel so sorry for all those affected.
There is one factor that might tend to make people think things are becoming worse. It is that, thanks to modern communications, we all know so much more, so immediately, of what is happening in the world. News media love disasters, so they will certainly ensure that we hear about them.
P Solar @ 8:23:
Did you mean ‘serf’ ?
Why should not a Lord of the Realm not have a valid opinion?
After reading this article & the comments ~ methinks even this coffee much needs ‘warming’…decidedly ‘local’, tho…’going global’ would be a tad too much.
I suggest this sport (while indeed necessary) this ‘verbal boxing’ (with Monckton indeed serving up KO’s to even seemingly adroit Aussie (chicken little) scientists) boils down ~ yet again ~ to a rather basic ‘them’ vs. ‘us’ scenario:
THEM: ‘WE ‘ARE’ GOD.’ which is merely: “We want to PLAY God” (said in the teensy tiny screeching tones of a few thousand Shirley McClains)
US: “NO… YOU’RE NOT.” (as hundreds of thousands casually look over shoulders toward the screeching) …because, “You’re all about HOT AIR and keeping folks: #1. AFRAID and #2. In the DARK” (said in a confident and polite ~ though, indeed – ‘thunderous’ – response.)
I thank Goodness for home schooling. I thank Goodness for the indomitable human spirit. I thank Goodness that ‘real men’ (while charmingly fallible, still) choose to boldly stand to inspire others & to refute propaganda – wherever it is found on this globe.
You all inspire. I thank all of you.
Now…rather than ‘nuke’ that coffee… I’ll put the kettle on the boil…grab my smokes… and lean back and enjoy life on the front veranda on yet another breezy & lovely South Australian morning
Cynthia Lauren
Us
I meant ‘Why should a Lord of the Realm not have a valid opinion?’….obviously it’s getting late and a bit of shut-eye is needed!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/21/worlds-worst-heatwave-the-marble-bar-heatwave-1923-24/
Better than ‘it was cold at Stalingrad’, is snippets from history of previous conditions of raging peat fires in Russia, posted by marchesarosa August 22,2010 at 8:49 am
Another great Monckton debunk-the-debunker piece. I’d like to recommend something really ripe for debunking – if Chris Monckton / everyone / anyone here would do it.
Start with the picture here. Have fun.
Proceed to the whole pdf “guide” here.
Then add the final de-debunk to the OurClimate app.
Kev-in-UK says:
January 9, 2011 at 3:40 am
smacca says:
January 9, 2011 at 3:21 am
I respectfully suggest you read and digest both points more carefully.
Kev,
I am well aware of the point you make. But Monckton, as always, is just a little vague in his responses.
As usual with a Monkton piece, its well written and persuasive, but has simple errors that undermine its plausibility when examined at a more than superficial level.
This seems common with media articles aimed at a non-scientific readership, the writing may convince the layman, (and the choir) but is rejected by the better informed. The same problem with errors and simplifications to the point of inaccuracy are seen in the article he is attacking. And I agree with a number of his criticisms.
Two aspects tend to reduce Monkton’s credibility from my POV.
One- The inclusion of Nils-Axel Mörner is rather like quoting Behe or Demski in a discussion on evolution. It instantly reduces your credibility to a very low level. The rest of the statement on sea level seems to gloss over the fact that the rise of a foot in the last 100 years follows sea levels that have been essentially unchanged for several thousand years. Certainly the recent rate of sea level rise is far greater than any seen since human societies kept written records.
Two- The assertion that it is to be expected that the records show decadel warming because we have been warming from ‘Natural’ causes since the end of the ice age.
This is not accurate. The Holocene maximum – so far! – was shortly after the Eurasian and American ice-caps melted. Since then temperatures have been falling with some decadel to century variation – LIA and MWP for instance. But ascribing the recent warming to one of these ‘natural’ variations begs the question – what is the CAUSE of the ‘natural’ variation.
‘Natural’ variation is only ever description, NOT an explanation.
EVEN IF GREENHOUSE-GAS EMISSIONS WERE TO STABILIZE AT LITTLE MORE THAN TODAY’S LEVELS, 2 C° OF FURTHER WARMING WILL OCCUR – FOUR TIMES THE INCREASE OVER THE PAST 30 YEARS.
Wow, comparing an estimated rise over a century to the rise over 30 years, which already means a factor of 3.3 and getting worked up over an estimated factor of 4.
How to lie with statistics 101.
Smokey:
“Regarding the “fingerprint” of global warming – the tropospheric hot spot – sorry to disappoint you, but the “fingerprint” was the output of a model. It never existed in the real world; observation shows that it doesn’t exist. ”
The observations do show that the hotspot exists. It happens to be smaller than predicted. A good deal smaller. What one can conclude from this is as follows.
A. The method of comparing them is in error ( using a ensemble of models )
B. The models don’t represent the process accurately enough.
C. The observations have more error , bias than was thought.
D. Some combination of A,B, and C.
“Looking back, most of our Cape Verde systems over the past month have fortunately followed a similar track and recurved out into the open Atlantic and have not been significant threats to the United States. Why is this? well hurricanes are steered by the flow of air over a large depth of the troposphere. They typically move around large and deep areas of high pressure (ridge). Well typically during the peak of the hurricane season a well established ridge is present over the central Atlantic, known as the Bermuda-Azores High. Often tropical systems follow the southern extent of the ridge westward as this is the “path of least resistance”. If the ridge does not extent far enough westward the system will simply rotate around the ridge and move more northward. This has been the case this season, as a series of upper-level low pressure areas or troughs have passed through the flow and weaken or erode the western side of the Bermuda High, thus allowing tropical systems to follow the “easy” path northward around the ridge. In 2004 and 2005 this was a different story as the ridge extended far enough westward to simply push systems toward the continental United States. Although this is a very simplistic representation of the steering regimes of tropical cyclones it gives a general idea how Cape Verde storms often progress. Predicting this pattern prior to the season is quite difficult, thus estimating the risk to areas of coastline before the start of a hurricane season is a tremendous forecasting challenge. As far as activity for this season, despite the slow start it is well on its way to being a very active year. So far this season has featured 11 named storms, 5 hurricanes, and 4 major hurricanes (Danielle, Earl, Igor, and Julia), an average season has 10-6-2. So with about 45% of the season remaining it looks like the seasonal forecasts of an active year will verify.”
http://ttuhrt.blogspot.com/2010/09/2010-atlantic-hurricane-season-so-far.html
http://www.nnvl.noaa.gov/MediaDetail.php?MediaID=595&MediaTypeID=2
Re UK Excess Winter Deaths
Government data here
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=574
and in more detail here (pdf)
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/deaths1110.pdf
or regional data from here
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/ssdataset.asp?vlnk=7089
Sean McHugh says:
January 9, 2011 at 4:53 am
smacca said:
Poor Chris sounds a bit confused here. Cooler one minute, warmer the next……………
I doubt anyone else got confused with Monckton’s citing then commenting. That resolution is not so with your poor rendering, which doesn’t distinguish between your own comments and quotes. Your remark, about his supposed confusion, was confusing itself – and a bit weird.
Sean,
as I stated earlier, Monckton is always a little vague. It gives him room to move if required.
In regard to El Nino, Monckton states,
“The last few months of the year, carefully excluded from Mr. Steketee’s statement, showed the beginnings of a La Niña event, “.
You should have read the BOM link a little more carefully. The last paragraph states.
“So Australia’s rainfall patterns had switched from being typical of El Niño well before the main ENSO indicators had shown strong signs of retreating to neutral values, although SSTs had been in slow decline since the end of December. A more emphatic sign was the 25.8 rise in the SOI from March to April 2010 which heralded the end of the event as far as broadscale indicators were concerned. ”
A positive SOI indicates La Nina, therefore, we entered a La Nina pattern in April 2010.
I prefer to go to the source of the data, instead of reading a newspaper report.
Why would this dude post in 2011 about things that have more current data? Hide the decline! It’s not the first time or last time, but when you think about it the only conclusion is they are cherry picking the data they want to push. Bastards!
the north qld floods are merely the biggest in 50 or nearly a hundred years. other flooding in the outback are the biggest in 70 years, but for Steketee it’s all “unprecedented”:
5 Jan: SMH: Kym Agius: Rocky may be spared from massive peak
The river reached 9.2 metres on Wednesday afternoon, short of the 9.4m peak predicted…
The 9.4m peak would have matched the 1954 flood but would have fallen short of the 10.11m reached in 1918…
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/rocky-may-be-spared-from-massive-peak-20110105-19fbs.html
8 Jan: SMH, Australia: Erik Jensen: A way of life for the proud swampers
But the royal visit did not earn a mention in town – all people wanted to talk about was how Rockhampton withstood the 1954 flood, the second highest peak since the devastating flood of 1918….
http://www.smh.com.au/national/a-way-of-life-for-the-proud-swampers-20110107-19ito.html
same day, same newspaper company, Fairfax, even the same journo, yet note the difference from the above account:
8 Jan: Age, Australia: Andrew Rule and Erik Jensen: When the water came
Climate change or not, there is little argument this flood is bigger than those of 1954 and 1991 and rivals legendary floods of 1918 and 1893, part of local folk memory…
http://www.theage.com.au/national/when-the-water-came-20110107-19ix0.html
btw, the rain is lovely.
smacca says:
January 9, 2011 at 1:45 pm
Monckton is vague? Yes, perhaps he is less than detailed in some of his repostes but you have to accept that he is trying to rebutt in a similar vein to the accusation – i.e. without detailed science and references, etc. Horese for courses and all that! I mean, there would be very little point in describing reams of science (which he personally may well not understand in detail anyway) against a basically presented set of premises by some clearly non-scientific journalist type!
This kind of harks to the whole ‘fault’ of the AGW theme – which is that instead of it being correctly and honestly debated amongst scientists – it has been deliberately promoted in MSM for ‘effect’ – take your pick what that ‘effect’ is intended to be – but the end result is the same in that the general public are being spoon fed a half story. And that is frankly wrong (and I would say the same if it was simply anti-AGW stuff in the MSM).
“Wrong. Here’s how Accuweather sums up the 2010 season–as in the top quintile in terms of ACE since 1950: As November draws to a close, AccuWeather.com takes a look back at the intense and unusual 2010 Atlantic hurricane season. In what was one of the top five most active seasons on record, the United States was unusually spared most of the activity and severe conditions.”
Interesting that the ACE in the North Atlantic was specified here. I believe Monckton’s point was that world wide ACE was as low as ever observed in the satellite era. Isn’t this global warming, oops I mean climate change, oops I mean climate disruption GLOBAL in scope. Doesn’t selecting one of the few regions where there was an increase in ACE rather than a decrease represent cherry picking?
stevenmosher says:
January 9, 2011 at 2:12 pm
Steven – very valid points but there should be some suggestion of liklihood of where the ‘error’ lies.
A. The method of comparing them is in error ( using a ensemble of models )
– is kind of against observational based science because the theory (or model in this case) should at least reasonably match the observations otherwise the theory is usually assumed to be wrong – at least initially! (and after decades of AGW, you’d think that we were getting pretty good at ‘looking’ for the right data? – if not, then scrap it, because we have wasted an awful lot of time and money on it and still don’t have a clue!)
B. The models don’t represent the process accurately enough.
– this is surely a very high probability given the scale of the problem and the number and sizes of the various processes involved in ‘climate’
C. The observations have more error , bias than was thought.
– always difficult, but realistically, there is a low probability of major flaws – errors in measurements etc, will always be present but in the context of climate (i.e. the vast number of variables) any single set of measurements should not really be used as a defining characteristic.
D. Some combination of A,B, and C.
– of course, but I think if you asked anyone where the likely ‘errors’ are – they would mostly suggest that it will be the models and some (or many) of their assumptions that are wrong – not the ‘basic’ observations – I say, ‘basic’, because at this stage many observations are mostly basic!
Blocking (Omega) highs in the Canadian Prairies are a god send. They may not be everywhere in the world, but for us bring them on. BTW they seem to be declining lately, maybe they moved to Europe, Pakistan and Russia?
Monckton 1 vs Steketee 0
“Its like someone backed up a truck full of failure and dumped it all on Steketee’s nice green lawn…”
“onion says:
January 9, 2011 at 11:26 am
“3. THE LAST DECADE ALSO WAS THE WARMEST ON RECORD.”
To this he claims to be unsurprised. He expects that. Why then in point #4 does he suggest the world has cooled since 1998. That would actually surely cause him not to expect the last decade to be the warmest on record.”
Both statements are completely true according to the Hadcrut3 data. As an illustration, imagine a mountain climber going UP A STEEP mountain between 1990 and 1998. He reaches the top in 1998 and then VERY SLOWLY goes down during the next 12 years. If you take the average height from 2000 to 2009, it is higher than the average height from 1990 to 1999. But this does not negate the fact that the peak was reached in 1998.
izen,
Being of sceptical nature and certainly not a member of any choir, I quite liked your comment.
Who said anything about 1933? I suppose the same criticism could be made of the 1950 hurricane assessment, but the counter argument to that would be that seasons in the satellite era have not been scored substantially higher than those in the preceding years, starting in 1950.
Even if that is not the case, if the difference is only a matter of 20% (say), that would only downgrade the 2010 season from its #12 ranking to (say) a #20 ranking (out of 60 years). That would still support my claim that the 2010 season could not remotely be called low one.
Not the Atlantic ACE, which is what Steketee, Monckton, and I were discussing.
Steketee’s claim was:
I have no argument with your statement that “It was proper for Monkton to point out that total hurricanes worldwide were lower….” Indeed, I suggested that he include it. My objection was to his implication that this diversion amounted to a refutation of Steketee’s claim, which it wasn’t.
OK, you’ve got a point. But so did I. Monckton should have put his second sentence first, since that’s the one that directly responds to the topic under discussion (North Atlantic hurricanes). Not doing so is diversive. And he should have prefaced it with this concession, “It’s true that we have had an active hurricane season this year, but it’s not anything to get alarmed about.”
2. THE WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANISATION SAYS THE YEAR TO THE END OF OCTOBER WAS THE WARMEST SINCE INSTRUMENTAL CLIMATE RECORDS STARTED IN 1850 – 0.55 C° ABOVE THE 1961-90 AVERAGE OF 14 C°.
Thank you, Christopher.
As you clearly establish, cherries are Mike Steketee’s favourite fruit.
We now know the UK has had its coldest December since nationwide records began a century ago. Temperatures averaged minus 1C, well below the long-term average of 4.2C. Presumably this “weather disaster” was also “a sign the heat is on”? In Warmerland, of course, whatever happens is caused by (human-induced) global warming, even (unpredicted) cooling.
For Steketee, the latest news on annual global mean temperatures (excluding Australia) – a dubious statistical artefact – is “not so promising”. The UN World Meteorological Organisation indeed indicated just before Cancun that 2010’s nominal value was “the highest on record”, and “currently estimated at 0.55°C ± 0.11°C above the 1961–1990 annual average of 14.00°C”.
However, the WMO’s selection of a 1961-1990 “standard reference period” is a (questionable) convention, even assuming “adjusted” annual average global temperature datasets are reliable. Had it used a different period, for example 1981-2010, the global combined sea surface and land surface air temperature anomaly for 2010 (January – October) would have been 50 per cent lower at only +0.28C ± 0.11°C.
Being duped may be “ preferable to being fried” for Steketee, but others would prefer less spin and more frankness from UN agencies like the WMO.
Alice (in Warmerland)
izen says: Jan 9 1:46 pm
Certainly the recent rate of sea level rise is far greater than any seen since human societies kept written records.
Geology is kind of record writ in stone, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/06/basic-geology-part-3-sea-level-rises-during-interglacial-periods/
Among those mentioned is India where archeology ongoing, but importantly where there are actual written records of great antiquity by which such great changes in sea level rise can be gleaned and compared (also by the astronomical data re events, found in this vast body of literature) – see section 5. (Not an easy page to read).
http://slideshare.net/amlanroychowdhury/the-mother-of-all-civilization
In Mahabharata’s Musal Parva, the Dwarka is mentioned as being gradually swallowed by the ocean. Krishna had forewarned the residents of Dwaraka to vacate the city before the sea submerged it.
…
Krishna asked Vishwakarman, the architect of the gods to build him a city more beautiful than any before it. Krishna ….built on the sunken remains of a previous kingdom, Kushasthali, which itself was built on older ruins, all underwater. Krishna reclaimed a hundred miles of land from the sea ..
izen says:
“The inclusion of Nils-Axel Mörner is rather like quoting Behe or Demski in a discussion on evolution. It instantly reduces your credibility to a very low level.”
==========================
Actually, it is YOUR credibility that just dropped into the sub-basement.
Nils-Axel Mörner is one of the premier if not THE premier sea-level experts on the planet.
Besides most of your post being trash, your statement above was the trashiest of all.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Steketee overstated with his “most” in “most severe.” He should have said, “one of the more severe….” That would be in agreement with Accuweather’s claim of it being “intense.” (Another case of overstatement coming back to bite one.)
But your original statement wasn’t a disagreement with “most severe.” It was a disagreement with “severe” alone. That’s what I took issue with, and that’s why you’re still Wrong. You stated:
Total energy contents the past season was in the top quintile (top 20%; 12th out of 60 past years). Top quintile qualifies as a five-star rating, or severe. On such basis, it would be fair to say that the 2010 season was severe. Far from “not particularly high.”
See my response above.
Oops–I meant to outdent that last paragraph (mine), rather than indent it.
13. THE TEMPERATURE OF 46.4 C° IN MELBOURNE ONE SATURDAY IN 2010 WAS MORE THAN 3 C° ABOVE THE PREVIOUS HIGHEST FOR FEBRUARY.
While Saturday 7 February was certainly a brutal day, 46.4 C° in Melbourne. There are a couple of points of qualification worthy of making.
First the Melbourne weather station is located such that temperature readings taken now would bear little relation to those recorded in Melbourne in 1855 when official records began. Melbourne’s population is now 4 million, compared with about 20,000 in early 1851. Also the site of the Melbourne Weather Station is hopelessly compromised by UHI.
Second there is doubt whether in fact the temperature recorded by BOM on 7 February 2010 was the highest temperature recorded in Melbourne. Andrew Bolt explains:
20. THERE IS STRONG EVIDENCE THAT “GLOBAL WARMING” MADE THE BUSH-FIRES AROUND MELBOURNE WORSE
The Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria on 7 February 2009 were catastrophic, no question. However, the Black Thursday fires that occurred in Victoria on 6 February 1851 arguably were worse in terms of area burned i.e. an estimated 5 million hectares compared 1 million hectares in 2009.
Khwarizmi is quite right about 1851 being hotter in Melbourne than 2009. Annei is also right about Greenie Laws putting communities at risk and I don’t know why a Class Action hasn’t been started against State and Local Governments over it
“David says:
January 9, 2011 at 7:45 am”
I saw that too. 1994/5 was higher than 2010/2011, 1954/5 was higher still and the highest I saw was 1910, considerably higher than todays flood. But there are more affected people this time around. But still I argue, if you live on a flood plain, expect floods at some point in time.
This flood event in Aus, IMO, mirrors the policies of the last few decades in the UK. Pro-AGW supporters planned for more warm events in the UK. We now know what poor policiy and planning leads to.
To be accurate my Lord, Mr. Steketee’s article states “The temperature of 46.4C in Melbourne on Black Saturday”, and a check of the records shows Black Saturday occurred in 2009, and not 2010. The highest recorded temperature for Melbourne in February 2010 was 35.3C according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM).
Mr Steketee’s article is full of emotive appeal, but little scientific import. However, I do not want you to be open to criticism of misquoting dates etc, as we both know how this can be exploited by the self-appointed furies of global warming.
As noted elsewhere in the comments above, the Melbourne temperature station is now on a sliver of land between two major roads, and large building developments, so I doubt it meets the BOM’s required basis of precise, reproducible, and independent measurement. I know this site well, as I walk past it every day during the traffic jams and tow-away zones that ensure idling trucks stand by it within 6-8 feet.
The only strange thing about the article in the Australian was that the Australian is well-known for mainly printing nonsense on climate change. The Australian might be starting to wake up to the realities of how we are warming the planet. (Or maybe it’s just a temporary sop to the critics of its woeful erroneous reporting in recent times.)
Of course it’s pretty hard to deny global warming these days if you live in Australia. The signs of AGW-induced climate change are everywhere from more frequent major flooding up north to heat, drought and when it rains it buckets down south. No more of that sweet Melbourne drizzle or mild temperate, if variable, climate – it’s extreme torrential rain or extreme heat and drought these days.
Khwarizmi says:
=========
“Thursday was one of the most oppressively hot days we have experienced for some years. In the early morning the atmosphere was perfectly scorching, and at eleven o’clock the thermometer stood as high as 117° [47.2°C], in the shade.”
–The Argus, Melbourne, February 8, 1851
=========
But that was before it was adjusted downwards to account for today’s warming. 😉
A few years ago, Mike Steketee wrote a column extolling the great things California was doing with green technology, how good this was proving for their economy and how Australia should follow suit. It was published in the Australian. In view of California’s current economic woes and the resignation of its governor, it would be interesting to read it again. Does anyone have the link?
Steketee is a serial Alarmist. He has been parrotting the IPCC’s claptrap for some time now, without even the slightest hint of journalistic analysis.
You might note that even though there is a comments section to his article, that as at the date of this message, two days after his article was published online, that not one single comment has been published in response.
I know, at least, that one response was made to Steketee’s article – my own – and it was made two days ago as soon as I read his ridiculous article, but I can only imagine it didn’t pass muster because it was critical of the article.
It would be a very interesting exercise indeed to obtain the full texts of the responses to Steketee’s article. I have no doubt that the comments would be almost unanimously critical and that that is the reason they are not published.
Greg J
Melbourne, OZ
@-savethesharks says:
“Nils-Axel Mörner is one of the premier if not THE premier sea-level experts on the planet.”
This statement is almost the inverse of reality. He is a joke in the scientific community for his views ungrounded in any data, the advocation of dowsing and strange beliefs in the racial origin of northern Europeans.
http://circleh.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/damning-evidence-of-fraud-by-nils-axel-morner/
Sou says:
January 9, 2011 at 8:13 pm
Of course it’s pretty hard to deny global warming these days if you live in Australia. The signs of AGW-induced climate change are everywhere from more frequent major flooding up north to heat, drought and when it rains it buckets down south. No more of that sweet Melbourne drizzle or mild temperate, if variable, climate – it’s extreme torrential rain or extreme heat and drought these days.
Well, Sou, since ipcc CO2CAGW Climate Science is not doing real, scientific method, science, it really can’t prove anything; and it hasn’t yet shown that any of the World’s ongoing weather-climate events it keeps frenetically bringing to our attention ex post facto and often even against its predictions, are outside the realm of normal variability. These events allegedly attributed uniquely to “your” CO2CAGW are instead always found to be not new! = FAIL
Climate Science’s CO2CAGW claims nearly always fail. For example, it can’t explain the past temp. record without CO2 – because it first dials in a significant CO2 effect to its Models, then simply adjusts the other factors as needed to fit – but it can’t make any successful predictions with CO2! = FAIL
And doesn’t it bother you at all that you never hear of any benefits to our World’s current state of warmth, or of benefits going forward given its increasing warmth, and in comparison to cooling? = FAIL
If not, then you are going to be easily deluded. = FAIL
Whats on in the Australian ? First up they let an IPCC warmanista (Pitman) try and bring out the same old tired (and now falsified) arguments in favour of warming – CO2 levels, sea levels, catastrophe, catastrophe and more catastrophe. Then the editor lets Steketee come up with this dose of surrealism.
From the comments above, it looks like they were swamped with comments about basic factual errors in the Steketee piece. The interesting thing is why the editorial staff let this go to print without some basic checking. Or did it have the imprimateur of the editorial staff for other reasons ?
A free murdoch press ride for a carbon tax in return for freeing up some of the anti siphoning rules or a slice of NBN perhaps ?
And do you think those little willies at the ABC will ask any questions ?
Forget the CO2, this needs more O2.
I’m curious about Steketee’s figure of 56,000 as the death toll in the Russian heat wave – it looks a bit on the high side. The only figure I can find online is an estimate of 15,000, and it’s not clear whether that’s meant to include deaths directly from wildfire.
Izen: if that ad hominem filled piece is really your rebuttal, perhaps you should consider a course or two in fundamental logic? Really, you people would get a lot more respect if you could simply debate facts aand science logically rather than commit every possible fallacy while asking people to accept you know what you’re talking about.
Mark
Mostly unsubstantiated cherry picking and personal observations. To pick up on some of the most glaring…
Even if 2010 does not come out the hottest it will still be in the top 3 even considering the La Nina event.
He does not dispute the past decade as the hottest on record, but dismisses it as like ‘climbing up a steep hill.’ Yes that makes a lot of scientific sense. Isn’t recent decades hotter than previous decades the whole definition of global warming? Proof of climate change dismissed with utter rubbish.
The figures do not support that the world is cooler now. (and you don’t give any)
Their is no basis to suggest that temp should increase at the same rate as CO2, their are positive and negative feedbacks and tipping points as well as natural variability. This proves zero.
Yes no individual weather event is proof of climate change but the increasing nature of extreme weather events is a disturbing trend that is predicted by climate change.
Recent satellite measurements do indicate the troposphere warming.
If this is the kind of disastrous weather we are experiencing with a 0.7 deg rise, I don’t think you are going to like 2-3 deg very much.
He dismisses Pakistan, Russia the floods, drought in WA etc as has happened before, but in the same year?
Yes climate change started 4 billion years ago, and how many humans were here then? also how many and where and what was the weather and the oceans like 200 million years ago. Statements such as these mean nothing and talk about the natural growth of the planet and not the man made effects that are changing the planet at an accelerated rate now.
I could go on but I am probably to long now. This article is nonsense.
Sou says:
January 9, 2011 at 8:13 pm
“No more of that sweet Melbourne drizzle or mild temperate, if variable, climate – it’s extreme torrential rain or extreme heat and drought these days.”
You mean it’s “ops normal” as it has always been in Oz. I spent 5 years in Melbourne in 1971(it felt like it anyway) doing my BoM meteorologist course.
Only solution for Melborne is to nuke from orbit.
izen says:
January 9, 2011 at 10:48 pm
@ – savethesharks says:
“Nils-Axel Morner is one of the premier if not THE premier sea-level experts on the planet.”
This statement is almost the inverse of reality. He is a joke in the scientific community for his views ungrounded in any data,
But…, this is the argument he has with AGWScience, that it doesn’t use real data, but computer models. The reason the Met can’t get a grip on the weather, or the effect of the volcanic ash from Iceland and grounded all flights. AGWScience isn’t actually rooted in real science which still insists on looking at what’s actually happening.
The worst aspect of the AGWScience imagination fraud, is as he pointed out in his letter to the governor of the Maldives, that it creates a climate of fear for the people where none exists.
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/10/20/maldives-president-all-wet-on-sea-level.aspx
This man has spent his working life actually measuring sea-levels, before all the hype from AGW began messing with it, if you’d rather rely on AGW science which chooses to ignore real information for which it substitutes skewed computer models that’s entirely up to you, but to force such an opinion on the people who are actually affected by this kind of misinformation is doing them a great disservice.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/5067351/Rise-of-sea-levels-is-the-greatest-lie-ever-told.html
What I think particularly sad for those promoting such deliberate lies coming from selfish interests of others, is that the wealth of knowledge we do have about the way our world works, such as land rebounding at the start of the Holocene after the ice covering melted and raised sea levels c350 ft and the way coral atolls are formed and our links with our past through recorded history and archeology and so on, are still an unexplored territory. Massive sea-level rises have been part of man’s immediate and long term history and because we now understand this we can make sense of all kinds of things associated with it such as being able to answer questions like ‘why does Ireland have fewer animal species than England?’
Real science doesn’t need to keep re-adjusting ‘data’ to fit a theory.
@-Myrrh says:
“Geology is kind of record writ in stone,
Among those mentioned is India where archeology ongoing, but importantly where there are actual written records of great antiquity by which such great changes in sea level rise can be gleaned and compared”
Such local geology and written records only indicate local changes, NOT global sea level and represent shifts in land level rather than sea level.
The Page you link to from Watts about past sea level rise has a graph that shows quite clearly that after the rapid rise at the end of the glacial period there is little indication of sea level rise since around 6000 years before the present.
This is confirmed by early written records. Chinese and Summerian records report the time and location of solar and lunar eclipses. These constrain the rate at which tidal slowing of the Earths’ rotation has occurred. This slowing is closely related to the sea level, if sea level had been rising at a foot per century since 6000 BPE the difference in sea level would have altered the tidal slowing and the eclipse dates would not match.
The historical reports of flooding or inundation are local. The eclipse data indicate global sea level and are unequivical. There has been no significant change in sea level for around 6000 years until the last century.
Sou:
What ‘sweet Melbourne drizzle’? I lived there a total of 16 years plus quite a few more recent visits. I’ve never remembered ‘Sweet Melbourne drizzle’….just a highly variable climate interspersed with torrential downpours. The climate left me wishing to be back in England with ‘Sweet English drizzle’.
izen – land movements haven’t stopped since the last great melt, which was local to the local people of the time, happening on a global scale…
Southhampton is still sinking into the sea and Scotland is still rising, from this real global warming effect which had nothing to do with us or CO2.
http://debunkhouse.wordpress.com/2010/05/20/the-national-academy-of-sciences-forecasts-sea-level-rise-of-22-mmyr/
The reason this con has been so successful is because it is so huge. It’s difficult to believe that something promoted by so many people world-wide could possibly be a lie. My first delve into this argument brought out my first objection, that AGW kept going on and on and on about the last hundred years. Of course it’s got warmer since the little Ice Age. If you’re going to take your temperature measurements from the end of an extreme cold event that’s what you’ll get as we come into a warm cycle after it. That’s why they created the Hockey Stick, to hide the MWP and LIA. Since it has been shown conclusively that these same people fiddled data and even went so far as to go to places as New Zealand to manipulate their temperature records, why on earth would you trust them?
Real scientists do their best to put real data into their computers to analyse for possible outcomes. In the real world where the workings of real machines depend on such veracity it becomes obvious pretty quickly if the data are wrong. Yet somehow in AGWScience, people can put into their models whatever they want, and as long as the scare story is big enough their funding keeps coming.
Real data show that our Holocene is coming to an end if the same pattern of the last 600,000 years or so is anything to go by, there are rises into higher and dips into lower temperatures during the last 10,000 years, but the trend is downward. If you really want something to worry about, at least worry about something that could really be a real problem for us.
Monckton is as sloppy as his opponents in his research. I have no idea what his source is for saying the floods in Pakistan were only the worst since 1980, but I suspect that he is here misreporting the widely-disseminated media statement “worst flood in eighty years”, referring to the 1929 floods. But apparently even that info is wrong, at least a source i found at my first Google attempt (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/pakistan-denies-graft-worsened-floods/story-e6frg6so-1225903148901) says the following: “That 1929 flood discharged 250,000 cubic metres per second (cusec) [a cusec is one cubic foot per second you mean cumec surely . . mod] of water into the river systems. This month’s discharge exceeded 440,000 [cumecs].”
Some of the points made by Monkton have been refuted by Steketee in a recent post on the Australian’s web site.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/mike-steketees-response-to-christopher-monckton/story-e6frg6xf-1225985171179
Monkton has a record of distortions and misrepresentations which should make anyone skeptical of anything he says.
Mike Steketee’s response to Christopher Monckton
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/mike-steketees-response-to-christopher-monckton/story-e6frg6xf-1225985171179
Seems a fair reply.
On #20 what made the bush fires worse was that “environmentalists” ignorant of the fact that natural fires are part of the eco-system had, for many years, prevented the burning off or other removal of brushwood. Hence when the fire inevitably came it was far more irresistable than necessary & many people unnecessarily died.
So not only a lie but a cynical abuse of a tragedy caused by the se eco-fascists.
We must accept that that claim & so many others here represent the very highest standard of honesty to which Steketee & indeed any other “environmentalist” unwilling to openly dissociate themselves from it, aspires.
They remain lies which no remotely honest person or movement could maintain.
Now we have a La Nina and colder sea temperatures, will the seas start absorbing more CO2 and decrease the atmospheric CO2 concentrations?
.
There are so many errors in Monckton’s article that it is hard to know where to start. Here is one egregious example.
“6. MOST SCIENTISTS AGREE THAT DOUBLING THE CARBON DIOXIDE IN THE ATMOSPHERE IS LIKELY TO LEAD TO WARMING OF 2-3 C°.
It is doubtful whether Mr. Steketee had consulted “most scientists”. Most scientists, not being climate scientists, rightly take no view on the climate debate. Most climate scientists have not studied the question of how much warming a given increase in CO2 concentration will cause: therefore, whatever opinion they may have is not much more valuable than that of a layman. Most of the few dozen scientists worldwide whom Prof. Richard Lindzen of MIT estimates have actually studied climate sensitivity to the point of publication in a learned journal have reached their results not by measurement and observation but by mere modeling.”
I wonder what other method Monckton can suggest to make predictions besides “mere modelling”.
” The models predict warming in the range mentioned by Mr. Steketee, but at numerous crucial points the models are known to reflect the climate inaccurately. In particular, the models predict that if and only if Man is the cause of warming, the tropical upper air, six miles above the ground, should warm up to thrice as fast as the surface, but this tropical upper-troposphere “hot-spot” has not been observed in 50 years of measurement by balloon-mounted radiosondes, sondes dropped from high-flying aircraft,
or satellites.”
The tropical hot spot is predicted by basic physics of weather and climate, anytime the tropical oceans warm due to the lapse rate of warm moist air. It is not exclusively a property of warming created by Greenhouse gases. The past impression that the upper troposphere has not warmed is a result of equipment problems with the balloons and satellite data analysis problems. Both the satellite and balloon have been corrected and the warming of the upper atmosphere has been found. [ you need to provide proof rather than a simple declaration . . . mod]
“Also, the models predict that every Celsius degree of warming should increase evaporation from the Earth’s surface by 1-3%, but the observed increase is more like 6%. From this it is simple to calculate that the IPCC has overestimated fourfold the amount of warming we can expect from adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Take away that prodigious exaggeration, demonstrated repeatedly in scientific papers but never reported by the likes of Mr. Steketee, and the climate “crisis” vanishes.”
I am not familiar with the papers that say evaporation should increase by 1-3%.
In fact simple physics says that a 1C increase in temperature results in a 6% increase in moisture content, based on the water vapor pressure curve, which should increase the greenhouse effect according to the models. In fact this 6% has been observed by satellite measurements in agreement with the models.
If Monckton doesn’t know these basic well known items, he should not be listened to on the subject of climate at all.
Neil Craig says:
January 10, 2011 at 9:24 am
“On #20 what made the bush fires worse was that “environmentalists” ignorant of the fact that natural fires are part of the eco-system had, for many years, prevented the burning off or other removal of brushwood. Hence when the fire inevitably came it was far more irresistable than necessary & many people unnecessarily died.
So not only a lie but a cynical abuse of a tragedy caused by the se eco-fascists.
We must accept that that claim & so many others here represent the very highest standard of honesty to which Steketee & indeed any other “environmentalist” unwilling to openly dissociate themselves from it, aspires.
They remain lies which no remotely honest person or movement could maintain.”
I haven’t found any evidence that opposition to clearing of brush was implicated in the incidence of multiple bush fires in the neighborhood of Melbourne in Feb of 2009. There were multiple fires due to drought and arson, some in forested areas and some in grasslands. Here is an exhaustive account. No word of clearing of brush. Naturally occurring and human set brush fires are an old story in Australia, but with increasing drought and temperatures in recent times they are becoming more severe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Saturday_bushfires
As many as 400 individual fires were recorded on 7 February. Following the events of 7 February 2009, that date has since been referred to as Black Saturday
Steketee has replied to Monckton’s article:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/mike-steketees-response-to-christopher-monckton/story-e6frg6xf-1225985171179
49 Contiguous States? Did he get his geography lesson from Obama? 😉
Myrrh says
“Real data show that our Holocene is coming to an end if the same pattern of the last 600,000 years or so is anything to go by, there are rises into higher and dips into lower temperatures during the last 10,000 years, but the trend is downward.”
Really: then how do you explain this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png
Nothing explains the current warming in such a short time frame except by the influence of man made actions.
“Michael says:
January 10, 2011 at 8:04 pm”
It is rather unfortunate for you to use Wikipedia link for your science references.
[But if the Wikipedia data is accurate and adequate, then the Wikipedia data is acceptable and useful – but it must be checked as firmly as NASA’a/NSF/NSRDC/NOAA’s data … 8<) Robt]
Michael says:
“Nothing explains the current warming in such a short time frame except by the influence of man made actions.”
That, folks, is a classic example of an argumentum ad ignorantium: the fallacy that argues, “Because I can’t think of any other possible causes, then global warming must be due to human activity.”
Nonsense. There are other causes. The current temperature rise has happened repeatedly in the past, as this chart based on Phil Jones’ data clearly shows.
And current temperatures are right in the middle of normal for the Holocene.
Finally, there is no correlation between temeprature and CO2 – which follows temperature rises on millennium scale time frames.
Thus, Michael’s argument is simply baseless opinion; conjecture. Whatever effect CO2 has is minuscule and insignificant – except on agricultural production, which has risen substantially as a result of the addition to this essential trace gas.
Mike Steketee’s response to Christopher Monckton:
“That puts a bit of a dent in the argument that the world has been cooling since 1998.” In other words, warming did not end in 1998, as some argue.”
A closer look at Hadcrut3 reveals something interesting. (Although the year 2010 was very warm, the warmth was more due to the relatively strong El Nino at the start of the year rather than CO2.) But despite the warm 2010, according to Hadcrut3, the average anomaly for the last five years (2006 to 2010) was 0.42. However the average anomaly for the previous five years (2001 to 2005) was 0.46. This basically means it cooled off during the decade. An analysis of other data sets in a similar manner also shows this cooling trend.
The above is also totally consistent with Phil Jones comment in the February interview:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm
C – Do you agree that from January 2002 to the present there has been statistically significant global cooling?
No. This period is even shorter than 1995-2009. The trend this time is negative (-0.12C per decade), but this trend is not statistically significant.
“[But if the Wikipedia data is accurate and adequate, then the Wikipedia data is acceptable and useful – but it must be checked as firmly as NASA’a/NSF/NSRDC/NOAA’s data … 8<) Robt]"
Yes IF, and its a big IF. Wiki has been proven to be inaccurate plenty of times before, and not only in science. I will take any post with a link to Wikipedia with a pinch of salt.
““[But if the Wikipedia data is accurate and adequate, then the Wikipedia data is acceptable and useful- but it must be checked as firmly as …”
Thats funny, I don’t see anyone else providing a similar graph that plots data from multiple sources. You provide one cherry picked data set that vaguely fits your argument.
The Hadley data shows that the trend down was shorter and so the trend up at 1975 has begun at a higher point, so even though it is still .16/decade it is higher than the previous 2. Proof for climate change, thank you.
Similarly the co2 v temps data shows that as co2 has risen the downward trend has stopped at a higher point and the upward trend is longer, again suggestive of the effect of co2 on the temperature. Werner starts breaking up the decade to try to cherry pick a period like all climate denialists to fit their religious belief that man can do anything without consequence. You are not going to get smooth graphs their are seasonal, annual, decadel and longer natural variability cycles to contend with, such as the el nino which cannot excuse the longer trends as that happens cyclically.
Thanks for all the data the help proving climate change is appreciated.
Didn’t take long but the floods in Queensland, Australia, is being spun as proof of climate change. LMAO Trouble is, the floods were worse in 1974 and, at least in Brockhampton, higher in 1910.
“Michael says:
January 10, 2011 at 10:13 pm”
Cheery picking huh? In the style of Mann, Hansen, Jones, Briffa etc etc etc…? Sorry, I like cherries, but I don’t pick them.
Hi Patrick
I think the point that is being missed is the amount of climate related disasters in such a short period of time. Obviously no one weather event is proof or disproof of climate change as you can often find worse in the historical record, the fact is that all these are happening in such a short space of time, and happening repeatedly in the case of those floods. Surely does it not make you pause and worry, just a bit?
Add to that 18 nations set record highs in 2010 and all the other records broken and talked about lately and I certainly get the uneasy feeling something is wrong. It makes sense when you look at the science, weather is just the movement of air dependent on many factors including the difference in temp between the land, ocean and atmosphere. As temp changes the weather shifts and becomes more extreme, add to that the increase of moisture in the atmosphere has by 4% due to the warming and you have a recipe for concern. Please think about this more critically as we need to do something.
“Michael says:
January 11, 2011 at 1:04 am”
Really? The problem with “historical records”, in terms of the modern, computer generated, era, is that thay are all “adjusted”, or “corrected”.
It appears there is nothing more extreme than what is in the minds of climate scientists, and more worrying, climate modellers.
Questions for you. Which century and year did more people die and did more hurricanes strike land in the US? Is that proof of “climate change (CC)” (As no-one “denies” CC), or more importantly, which it appears in this instance that you are missing the point, proof of AGW? Also, can you prove C02 is driving, unstoppable and catastrophic, climate change given the carboniferous period?
Michael says:
January 10 2011 at 8:04 pm
<Really: then how do you explain this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png
Nothing explains the current warming in such a short time frame except by the influence of man made actions.
What warming? The main graph shows the decline from the extremely steep and rapid rise out of the last ice age glacial into the Holocene. This is when gazillion tons of ice melted as temperatures soared. This is real warming. Sea levels rose c350 feet. Where there was dry land before now there was the North Sea. From the maximum it’s been downhill ever since. Look at the Vostok graph – the same pattern repeated for hundreds of thousands of years. Like a heartbeat reading.
The only data going against that shown in these studies is that marked in the little box, which it says wasn’t used in main map, the Recent Proxies which have conclusively been found to have been designed to show a trend which isn’t there.
It doesn’t make clear which lines belong to which study, but the Reconstructed Temperature shows which is out of phase with the general drift of the Holocene, the Hockey Stick. Shown to be fraudulently constructed and maintained by political control.
In the blurb it says that our Holocene appears relatively stable compared with the previous, this is not saying that our Holocene had stable temperatures until the Hockey Stick proved we’re AGWarming.
If you look at the Vostok you’ll see an interesting difference at the beginning between previous and our Holocene. What should have been an even steeper rise at the beginning of our Holocene was stopped and then continued up to the great melt. This is when the Younger Drayas came and hit us, bringing us back into the ice age for a thousand years – when practically all the animals associated with previous hundreds of thousands of years, like the mamoth and sabre tooth tiger, from large to small were caught out in a mass extinction event. To date this is thought to be from a comet which hit somewhere in Canada. After this set back the temperature began to rise again but with the momentum of these regular rises now somewhat curtailed, not quite reaching the height expected. The drop since our high is still according to the general pattern of 100,000 year beat, going down, down, down, but with more hiccups on the way down.
Some speculate that because of this set back at the beginning, it might extend our Holocene a tad longer than expected before the recurring pattern of rapid decent back into ice for another 100,000 years.
There have been many studies now which now show how rapid these changes have been, but what is important to remember, is that these really dramatic global warming and global cooling events had NOTHING to do with US.
Not in the last million or so years and not now. And, NOTHING to do with CO2.
The only anomaly here is the artificially constructed temperatures designed to put the blame us and CO2.
There is your explanation. You are quite right, nothing else explains it except man’s influence by his actions in fiddling with temperature records.
You can continue to dance to their tune and believe all their excuses against all the evidence which shows how they manipulated and lied about this, or you can see for yourself that if it was really as they were saying, they wouldn’t have needed to fiddle and lie. The New Zealand manipulation is now known and beyond dispute, the government has had to back down from using the CRU’s Salinger constructed temperatures. What that also shows is how long in the making this con has been, no wonder by now it’s so difficult to untangle all the threads which have gone into making this man-made blanket of conman warming.
A malignant influence.
The models need adjusting to take into account factors in position or measuring instruments or patchy data or to take out influencing factors that don’t apply now etc, that is the problem with historical, and it is what computers are good at. What proof would be good enough for you? I certainly think that the body of evidence is more than enough, see here for a pictorial summary http://www.skepticalscience.com/The-many-lines-of-evidence-for-global-warming-in-a-single-graphic.html .
Most of the graphs of trends are quite clear as I explained above, the weight of evidence is enough to justify action.
A response from Steketee.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/mike-steketees-response-to-christopher-monckton/story-e6frg6xf-1225985171179
The term “weasel words” springs to mind when reading his ineffective attempt to counter Monckton.
Michael, you’ve got the wrong end of the argument from me, I’ve already found so much proof that this is a con that I’m no longer looking for proof that it isn’t. However, even though you think AGW and all associated is correct, Monckton’s last point should be the clincher even for you.
This is already an obscene amount of money being conned by taxes and idiotic fuel solutions which aren’t from the majority people who can’t afford it, all to make fat cats even fatter. Just as they first created the banking crisis and conned the people to pay their gambling debts by taking cuts in salaries and jobs and services, so AGW is a scam. Control by fear over something that doesn’t exist, and so vocally supported by the very people being conned.
And what don’t we have yet? We don’t have one smidgin of proof from AGWScience that CO2 can raise global temperatures. We certainly have proof that it has not done so in the last 600,000 years of really genuinely dramatic global warming and cooling.
I’ve even seen the Vostok graph printed backwards.., mustn’t draw attention to the fact that CO2 rises follow temperature 800 years later.
Which is where we are now, 800 years after the MWP.
Michael says:
“Most of the graphs of trends are quite clear as I explained above, the weight of evidence is enough to justify action.”
I prefer not to click on a mis-named alarmist blog run by a cartoonist, but I will respond to your panicky call to action.
The central argument in the entire debate is over carbon dioxide [or “carbon” to the scientifically illiterate]. The demonizing of CO2 is necessary to governments because modern society cannot exist without emitting this harmless and beneficial trace gas. And because CO2 emissions can be quantified, they can easily be taxed.
That is what the entire scare is about – as Ottmar Edenhofer, co-chair of the UN/IPCC’s Working Group III on Mitigation of Climate Change has made crystal clear.
Edenhofer stated:
Edenhofer admitted that “climate policy is redistributing the world’s wealth” and said “it’s a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization.” In other words, ‘climate policy’ is the excuse for world government and the confiscation of your wealth, to be handed out to governments willing to join the push.
Edenhofer further admitted that expropriating the wealth of the G-8 countries “has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, or with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.”
Any excuse to raise taxes and prices, eh? When an IPCC chieftain admits that the global warming/CO2 bunkum is a front for a big one-world government, how can you cling to their propagandistic narrative that global warming and more CO2 is bad?
What is bad is the push toward totalitarianism by the thoroughly corrupt UN. The climate scare is simply a pretext to justify the money/power grab, as Edenhofer now admits.
“Michael says:
January 10, 2011 at 10:13 pm
Werner starts breaking up the decade to try to cherry pick a period like all climate denialists…”
James Hansen and others also talked about the last decade at:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2010/20101211_TemperatureAndEurope.pdf
A quote from this article is:
“Contrary to frequent assertions that global warming slowed in the past decade, as discussed in our paper in press, global warming has proceeded in the current decade just as fast as in the prior two decades.”
Please reconcile the above statement with the five green bar graphs for 5 and 10 years, including GISS at: http://www.climate4you.com/GlobalTemperatures.htm#Comparing%20global%20temperature%20estimates
Myrrh says: “The only data going against that shown in these studies is that marked in the little box, which it says wasn’t used in main map,” So your saying lets discard the recent data because the current rise is so steep over such a short space of time it can’t be shown on a map covering thousands of years? and
“Michael, you’ve got the wrong end of the argument from me, I’ve already found so much proof that this is a con that I’m no longer looking for proof that it isn’t. ” So may I assume you no longer call yourself a skeptic and are actively looking at ways to discount every proof with coloured glasses?
I do not demonize CO2, yes it is a gas, an important gas that has been shown in experiments and by explanation using simple physics to be a greenhouse gas that helps our planet regulate its temperature to make it livable for humans. To little or to much and we would be in trouble. This is fact accepted by even most [snip . . skeptics]. That being said how can anyone think that disturbing that balance by pumping billions of tons of it into the atmosphere at a rate that the planet cannot absorb and thereby increasing its % in the atmosphere could be done without consequence? This is arrogance at its most extreme. There is overwhelming proof from multiple sources (link above) and the hockey stick has been confirmed several times with other sources of data.
Instead you wish me to believe that governments (mostly democratic and therefore can be chucked out), and a majority of the worlds climate scientists and scientific organisations are colluding on a massive scam that is designed to redistribute wealth for…really why would they do that, how does it be benefit democratic governments and scientists? Do you believe we landed on the moon or was it staged?
Finally adaptation only works if you believe the changes will occur slowly enough for us to be able to adapt. I think the evidence supports the fact that it will happen quicker than we can adapt even if we start now and the sooner we do act the less painful and cheaper it will be.
“Please reconcile the above statement with the five green bar graphs for 5 and 10 years, including GISS at: http://www.climate4you.com/GlobalTemperatures.htm#Comparing%20global%20temperature%20estimates”
Easy, the trend is obviously going up, what are you looking at?
Michael says: So may I assume you no longer call yourself a skeptic and are actively looking at ways to discount every proof with coloured glasses?
Right, but through my research into this, and I spent a long time following the arguments and checking things for myself, the coloured glasses I’m looking through are sunglasses to protect against being blinded by AGWScience’s global warming claims. I can now recognise it as a con. There’s no reason to change my mind, it’s just become easier now to spot the deceptions. Real science is based on fact, on data, on observation, on rational analysis – if AGWScience was real science, its promoters wouldn’t have to lie and manipulate temperature records and cherry pick single trees to con us.
I do not demonize CO2, yes it is a gas, an important gas that has been shown in experiments and by explanation using simple physics to be a greenhouse gas that helps our planet regulate its temperatuere to make it livable for humans.
Yes it is an important gas, all carbon life forms developed because of it. You are around 20% carbon, your lungs need around 6% carbon dioxide in each breath to use oxygen and transport it to the rest of your body, without it or with reduced levels, less than 5.5% is going down into danger levels, you will struggle to breathe. It is the food source of all plant life on earth which uses photosynthesis, plants breathe it in to form sugars and so on and breathe out oxygen in doing so, it’s the building block of their bodies and through them ours; the oxygen in our atmosphere comes from plants producing it from carbon dioxide in photosynthesis. Carbon dioxide is food for all carbon life in the Carbon Life Cycle, we are Carbon Life Forms. It is insignificant in any other role, insignificant to anything known as a ‘greenhouse gas’, which is primarily water in the Water Cycle. Carbon Dioxide’s primary purpose is to produce life on earth as we know it.
Too little or too much and we would be in trouble.
Exactly. At 250 ppm or less plant life everywhere would begin to struggle for survival, carbon dioxide is not “well-mixed” in the atmosphere because it is heavier than air and so sinks to where plants are able to use it, and in growing conditions in the warmth, summer and so on, the levels around plants is around 400-450 ppm. Much higher levels are introduced in greenhouses (real ones) to improve plant growth, stress levels go down and they need less water, anywhere from 550ppm to 1500ppm. If you have pot plants in the house, talk to them, you will be delivering the c 4% of CO2 in your exhaled breath and so feeding them, they will be healthier for it. When not utilising CO2 for photosynthesis plants breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide as we do, so they add this to their surroundings also, raising levels.
This is fact accepted by even most [snip ..skeptics]. that being said how can anyone think that disturbing that balance by pumping billions of tons of it into the atmosphere at a rate that the planet cannot absorb and therby increasing its % in the atmosphere coul be done without consequence? This is arrogance at its most extreme.
Not the real facts as I’ve just presented. What balance? The more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere the healthier the plants around the globe will grow and so better food production for us and for all the animal life dependant on them. The only arrogance here is from AGWScience which promotes and teaches children that carbon dioxide is a poison. This is either in ignorance or deliberate, whichever, the effect is downright evil.
There is overwhelming proof from multiple sources (link above) and the hockey stick has been confirmed several times with other sources of data.
Instead you wish me to believe that governments (mostly democratic and therefore can be chucked out), and a majority of the worlds climate scientists and scientific organisations are colluding on a massive scam that is designed to redistribute weath for .. really why would they do that, how does it benefit democratic governments and scientists?
Shrug, if you only read AGWScience excuses for their deliberate manipulation of data that’s what you’ll end up thinking. If the Hockey Stick was truly representative of our temperature changes since coming our of the Little Ice Age, there would have been no need for them to spend so much time and effort distorting the temperature records.
Do yourself a favour re governments, read the history of the New Zealand alterations by Salinger from CRU going there and fiddling the figures, there’s been a long fight about this and finally the NZgovernment has conceded that these CRU artificial warming data was designed to show rises in NZ temperatures where no such warming existed, they, the actual records, were corrupted. What Salinger couldn’t do there was what has been done at CRU on home territory, to ‘lose’ the original data.
This has been a scam for a long time, the long con. The ‘idea’ of this being to redistribute wealth is also part of the scam, it’s a distraction, the people of the third world are being stopped from developing their resources to better their lives. The con is to take financial control of people and resources globally by the same people that print your banknotes. If you don’t know how money is created out of debt and crashes manipulated for the greater wealth grab of only some, then you’d do well to explore it. If you’re American then read up on how the government gave printing banknotes to private banking companies, the Federal Reserve, in 1913 – that’s the scam. The FR charges interest to the government for this service and taxes are collected via the IRS, a private company, to pay these interests. Etc. If you want to know who is behind such a long con, follow to those who had the money to organise it. Lots of bit players have come on board, they are useful fuel to keep the machine turning.
Do you believe we landed on the moon or was it staged?
One tactic, well understood psychology of manipulation, is to treat others as if they’re insane or stupid by saying things such as the above and so implying that whatever they say can be discounted; and another good example is to label those questioning the AGWScience ‘conspiracy theorists’, as if this is some kind of slight and insulting and again, that because these kind of people therefore ‘believe all kinds of stupid things’, though unproven, implying they’re not really intelligent as those who don’t.
What I’ve found is that people are generally intelligent, different talents, but this is subject to information they’re getting in. If a child taught now in school that carbon dioxide is a pollutant, a toxic, a poison, that putting more of into the atmosphere will create a climate catastrophe and it will all be his fault if he does this, then that is brainwashing. It doesn’t matter how intelligent they are, people being people generally take things on trust. That’s what makes us human, our capacity for co-operation often to extreme unselfish ends (in defending others for example). The only way to get through to the truth here is to examine it for yourself. That means exploring both sides of the argument. When I was doing this I found the weight of evidence showing that AGW was deliberate manipulation, for all kinds of reasons, and so a manufactured scam, grew to the point where my doubts had to be put aside – it became obvious then in all sorts of areas. Bearing in mind that much of it is regurgitated without thinking, because people generally have no reason to distrust the continual pushing of this being ‘scientific consensus’ and so on and taken as real, is only part of the picture. Most people don’t think about it because of that and because they’re involved in living their own lives. These are the ones who won’t understand what is happening, why they are being taxed ’til they squeak and having fuel rises several times a year… We’re all in this together aren’t we? Yes, we should tighten our belts and take pay cuts ‘to get our economy back on track’.. And we’re so easily distracted from the implications of the poor being forced to become poorer by outrage genenerated for a while about bankers’ bonuses or something equally insignificant in the financial scheme of this.
Sadly, the deeper one explores the more extraordinary the scam is found to be. It’s very clever to manipulate ‘science’ to give credibility, because science has a reputation for being realistic, rational and based on facts. But as any totalitarian in history of politics and religion shows, sell the story and people will follow, as long as there’s something in it for them they’ll even go to the extremes of waging war on others and counting the carnage an expression of ‘bravery’. I have a dream… that there will come a time when humanity doesn’t forget its history, and reflecting properly on it will find another way to exist together. It’s the Nelson Mandela’s of this world who I consider to be heroes.
“Michael says:
January 11, 2011 at 9:19 pm
“Please reconcile the above statement with the five green bar graphs for 5 and 10 years, including GISS at: http://www.climate4you.com/GlobalTemperatures.htm#Comparing%20global%20temperature%20estimates”
Easy, the trend is obviously going up, what are you looking at?”
I am looking at the green bar graphs below the first set of graphs. And specifically, the 5 year and 10 year ones. Note that the most recent 5 years ones are smaller than the 10 years ones in every case. So in other words, it was cooler from 2006 to 2010 on the average than from 2001 to 2005.
Now in order for Hansen to make the claim that “global warming has proceeded in the current decade just as fast as in the prior two decades”, he would have had to “break up the decade” like I did, right?
But in my opinion, those bar graphs prove Hansen wrong. Remember we are not talking about high temperatures during the decade. They were high. What we are talking about is the rate of change of those temperatures, and if we neglect El Ninos and La Ninas, there has basically been no change for the last dozen years, and possibly a slight cooling, but certainly no warming rate as was the case between 1975 and 1998.
Have you posted the response by Steketee anywhere?
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/mike-steketees-response-to-christopher-monckton/story-e6frg6xf-1225985171179
I really can’t comprehend why you still post the fact-free paranoid ramblings of Monckton.
REPLY: Has the Australian printed Monckton’s response anywhere? If you can convince the Australian to give equal time to Mr. Monckton for his rebuttal, I’ll happily make Steketee’s response front page here. Certainly seems fair. BTW what do you do for the Museum Victoria? Do you manage the AGW scare exhibits? – Anthony
“I am looking at the green bar graphs below the first set of graphs. And specifically, the 5 year and 10 year ones. Note that the most recent 5 years ones are smaller than the 10 years ones in every case. ”
Your cherry picking again and ignoring all the graphs where the trend up is fairly clear. You also cannot ignore El Ninos and La Ninas as they are part of the climate system and becoming more intense due to the ocean warming. They become part of all the averages being looked at. There are also other seasonal, annual and decadal cycles to take into account and so looking at a single short period is deceptive. Generally climate wise you are supposed to look at at least 30 years. The trends are clear and the warnings in the climate trends itself are becoming stronger every day. The increasing extreme weather events the science predicts are being seen.
Myrrrh their is not much more I can say, your mind is made up. I am quite happy to accept how useful and beneficial co2 is for us and our plants in our everyday lives but that does not detract from the well accepted fact that it is a greenhouse gas and tiny concentrations mean very little in science. Their are many examples where a tiny amount of some chemical can catalyse a large reaction at slightly larger amounts than an even tinier amount. Since I believe that, and after all the reading I have done and science I have seen, it is not hard to see that pumping billions of tons of the co2 that was trapped over millions of years, to give us the favorable conditions we currently enjoy, can and will probably be disastrous for us. Don’t forget the feedbacks that are increasing the water vapour in the atmosphere you mentioned, currently 4%.
Also while governments do manipulate and individual leaders have focussed on their own personal interests I cannot see how that can translate into a situation where most if not all governments, most scientists and scientific organisations are colluding in some massive scam. Also with everything I have read and seen and with the evidence and personal observations of conditions on the planet it seems logical that we are warming and that co2, a well known greenhouse gas that is increasing at the same time is the cause. The planets may love it but will we? How habitable will our planet be with the increasing levels of disasters and records broken? How can changing the composition of the atmosphere which regulates our temperature and determines the movement or air (weather) not cause things to change.
What you say I cannot reconcile with basic logic, actions have consequences, those consequences affect governments and scientists and have them worried about our future. Sometimes they are over zealous as they try to convince us to change our ways for our own good but they are human. We should let them do their job and they need our support, and with it, they can develop newer and better technologies and methods for the next revolution of sustainable and renewable advancement to take the human race into their next golden age. Keep putting up road blocks and we may very easily be retrofitting caves while the planet rebalances itself.
“Michael says:
January 12, 2011 at 7:04 pm
Generally climate wise you are supposed to look at at least 30 years.”
True, and I can do much better than the last ten years. See page 21 of http://sciencespeak.com/MissingSignature.pdf
Here we see a pattern over 130 years. A sine wave repeats itself every 60 years and what has happened over the last ten years is very consistent with what has been happening over the last 130 years. The IPCC predictions are way off from the actual temperatures. So there is no reason at this time to be alarmed.
[There] is not even agreement on the exact signature or even if the same signature may apply to several different types of forcings and [there] is also disagreement on whether it is a signature at all. Some measurements in the short term do confirm predictions and long term don’t. This area of climate science is [too] murky and the measurements to questionable to confirm anything, it also assumes that if one line of evidence is wrong then it must all be wrong. http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/2/9/2148/pdf
Climate change depends on many lines of evidence from sea level change and warming, surface temp from stations and satellites, increased coral bleaching, atmospheric energy imbalance, retreating glaciers and ice sheets etc, changing and increasing weather events. To throw the baby out with the bathwater on one line of evidence that nobody on both sides is sure about is illogical.
Michael – my mind is made up because I have never seen any rational data supporting the idea that CO2 has the power to raise global temperatures and because all the data produced by AGWScience shows consistent massaging to fit its claim that it does.
I, for one, do not see any reason to doubt my own analysis of the argument.
Show me actual proof that CO2 is even capable of doing this. There is none, I’ve asked and asked and asked, but AGWScience which claims this is robust and settled can’t give actual data for proof.
Instead, it keeps coming up with revised excuses to explain the non-existence of any actual cause and effect. Where is the proof that it accumulates in the atmosphere defying gravity and known science re molecular weight? Where is the proof that it has been shown historically to be the cause of global warming?
This is religion, not science, AGW insists we put our faith in these people who have consistently shown themselves corrupt because they are not real scientists and this now has a political agenda going at great pace to produce more of this corruption. Real scientists extrapolate from data, AGW tweaks data to fit. This is a scam of such vast proportions because it has taken decades to grow to that, with more and more disparate interests coming on board for the ride having been educated in the non-science fact of AGW. Most operate out of ignorance, governing bodies and lay people both; told to trust the science, they do. It’s only those who actually make the effort to explore the claims who can see how the facts of AGW are claimed but never proved, but, this is for all practical purposes hidden in the noise of the overblown faith position. Thanks but no thanks.
A well known fact, the more CO2 we pump in the more plant life will eat it, the stronger it will grow the more benefit there will be for our food production. Plants need warmth to grow.
There isn’t a problem in the first place.
“Michael says:
January 12, 2011 at 10:48 pm
Some measurements in the short term do confirm predictions and long term don’t.”
Since things are not too conclusive, perhaps we need more study before making huge expensive changes? When I debated things about a year ago, I said to others that if two of the next four years beat the 1998 mark, I would seriously reconsider my position. (By the way, I trust the satellite data and Hadcrut3, but not GISS.) Now 2010 came close, however 1998 was not beaten. And with this La Nina, it does not look like 2011 will beat 1998. So I would like to wait and see if 2012 and 2013 beat 1998. If not, I would not consider global warming a crisis.
Myrrh you did not explain what sort of proof you require? Even your own cycles explanation predicts we should be cooling, so even no warming should give you pause. Instead NASA has just released that 2010 was tied hottest year on record with 2005 and that the previous decade was the hottest on record, how do you explain that? Their is evidence all around us, temperatures, mass coral bleachings, oceans warming, ocean acidification, increasing extreme weather events and more all at a time when our sun is in a stable or cool period and your own cycle theory predicts we should be cooling.
It is irrelevant if a few plants are happy if all the fish are dead and our environment is so inhospitable we can’t find anywhere safe to live. The proof is all around you, the climate is not the kind of thing you can put in a test tube and measure ph balance. It is determined by a large range of effects at the same time as there has been a measurable increase of co2 in the atmosphere. A + B = C. There is no other precipitating event that you can point to that can cause the range of effects we are experiencing. Simple physics tells us co2 is a greenhouse gas, co2 rises, effects are observed, you spend all your time looking for ways to discount the facts and then say proof isn’t their. Yes it is.
“Since things are not too conclusive, perhaps we need more study before making huge expensive changes? ”
We should always continue studying as the more information coming in the better models and the better decisions we can make, but we should not wait. The consequences for waiting if mainstream science is right far exceed the cost of doing something now. Ocean warming and acidification is bleaching our coral, affecting our algae and phytoplankton, deforestation and urbanisation are all reducing our ability to absorb CO2, while at the same time we are increasing by billions of tonnes a year the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, it does not make sense that this can be done without consequence. This is irrational and illogical and is more like a religious belief. We influence nature every day and we influence the atmosphere as can be seen in the increased CO2.
http://www.voxy.co.nz/national/warmest-equal-year-ends-warmest-decade-record/5/78431
So Werner you only trust data from Hadcrut3, and just released it shows that 2010 ties with 1998 and that the 2001 to 2010 decade was the hottest on record and that the previous decade was the 2nd highest, will you reconsider your position now? Surely you can see that basing your position on a single year is illogical.
Michael – I’m asking for actual proof that CO2 has the power to effect these nightmare cataclysmic scenarios which AGWs keep spouting in ever greater degrees of shrillness and rising threats of violence against those who don’t belong to the Church of Climatology.
Even your own cycles explanation predicts we should be cooling, so even no warming should give you pause.
What makes you assume it hasn’t already?
Instead NASA has just released that 2010 was tied hottest year on record with 2005 and that the previous decade was the hottest on record, how do you explain that?
Perhaps I haven’t explained myself well enough, but I thought my references to corrupt data would not have raised such a question. Again, please read the saga of New Zealand re this deliberate corruption organised from CRU. Add to that all the other ‘adjustments’ and I now don’t give any temp data credibility that begins with the same scare tactic to bolster the con. If you look for it, and WUWT is a very good resource here, you’ll find plenty of detail of this corruption of data; and the book on the front page here, The Hockey Stick Illusion, is recommended. I haven’t read it yet, but I spent a considerable amount of time on this aspect researching it for myself while I was trying to understand the arguments.
Their is evidence all around us, temperatures, mass coral bleachings, oceans warming, ocean acidification, increasing extreme weather events and more all at a time when our sun is in a stable or cool period and your own cycle theory predicts we should be cooling.
Evidence of what? That climate changes. What exactly does that prove? I’m asking for specific proof, specific data, there should be reams of it, proving that CO2 has the capability of doing what AGWScience says it can do. I’ve yet to find it. And have never been given it whenever I’ve asked for it. What I get instead is the variation on a theme as you give it here – “simple physics, CO2 rises, effects are observed” etc.
But no such simple physics exists, just absurd claims about the properties of CO2 using a mangling of real science; no such effects are ever observed, just the continual repetition that it is proved without ever giving proof. Really, I’ve looked. And you’re doing it here too. Avoiding it.
An example. Bandied about by AGWs as ‘settled science’ is the: ‘CO2 levels have remained constant for x hundred thousand years and only since man has been burning fossil fuels the amount is rising and and the world is warming and it’s all mankind’s fault because it shows that CO2 is causing the warming.’
? I don’t mean to be rude here, because my head was spinning from all these kinds of statements when I first heard them, but does that really make any sense?
When I began to explore the subject to understand this I learned a lot more about ice ages than I had known before, fascinating subject and I get really easily distracted, but think about it. What this is saying is that for these hundreds of thousands of years carbon dioxide had nothing at all to do with the dramatic and really cataclysmic events of global warming and cooling as we went in and out of interglacials. Nada, zilch. It all happens regardless of the CO2 level, is what this is actually saying. Therefore, it is saying, CO2 is irrelevant to the huge changes of temperature in the cataclysmic global warming events with real hundreds of feet sea level rises, as shown in Vostok. Interglacials come and go.
So why should this particular warming event in our cycles be any different? If CO2 was irrelevant to the changes all this time, it can’t be relevant now.
Then you might realise, actually this cycle is being downplayed by AGW and time time lag of c800 years brushed aside. Vostok is only referenced to ‘prove’ that CO2 levels haven’t changed in this time, and the pretence is immediately pushed to the fore that temperatures have ‘remained constant until CO2 was introduced with industry’. Now that’s a disjunct. One can only see it’s a sleight of a magicians hand by not forgetting that our global temperatures as Vostok shows are not at this mythical ‘hardly changed until man’s industrial output’.
That’s why AGW denies that the MWP and LIA were global, for example, and an immense amount of effort went into producing the Hockey Stick to further this deception, and by continually bringing attention around to the ‘last hundred years’ as a distraction from the fact that in the statement that CO2 levels haven’t changed for hundreds of thousand of years, actual, real, cataclysmic global warming and cooling were going on.
So, what I’m asking for is something you can’t provide, because AGWScience doesn’t provide it and you can’t prove it. Because it’s obvious from well-established knowledge of ice ages and data such as Vostok that we can all see for ourselves, CO2 was irrelvant. That’s simple logic. AGW works very hard to distract us from this simple observation which immediately falsifies its claims about CO2.
You don’t provide me with proof that CO2 causes global warming because there is none. Instead you come back with the same catalogue of scare stories attributing these to CO2 levels when you haven’t yet proved that CO2 drives global warming. And no, I’m not getting distracted this time, I’ve looked into all those also.
Examples such as these and others of their ilk contain the same sleight of hand relying on suspension of logical connection by stirring up the emotions as a distraction in lieu of proving cause and effect.
Prove that CO2 drives global warming.
Myrrh so many issues…
For starters science does not work how you understand it. Most of science is based on theories, predictions are made and if the predictions hold then the theory is strengthened, otherwise it is adjusted or dumped for a new theory. Some well known and well accepted theories have stood for hundreds of years but cannot be proved in your simplistic sense. Your CRT tele and GPS uses calculations from the theory of relativity to work but you cannot prove it.
The proof I give in actual data you don’t accept because you have fallen for skeptic propaganda. Science is a huge field with the wide range of people and all their failings as in any other discipline, because one has let you down(in your eyes) or conspiracies have been manufactured to discredit others does not deter from all the real science and data this theory rests on. I have no way to counter that, I accept well known and renowned organisations and their data over ramblings of the few disgruntled.
You rely on history to much, all data before several 100 years is guesswork and even then nobody says that co2 is the only driver of the planet. Their are many other greenhouse gases, volcanos, planetary wanderings, temp changes of the sun over its lifetime, heat from our centre plus much more. Most episodes in the past we have good workable theories for but their are no proofs there. Similar conditions to our distant past will be unlikely to occur again as the sun and the planet has past that point in its development.
Regardless this point in our history is the only time man has been significant enough to influence the planet to this degree, co2 levels are rising (do you dispute those as well), the isotopes tell us the majority of the excess is from burning fossil fuels and that our planet cannot cope with the excess or they would not be rising.
Temperatures are rising, ocean acidification and warming is rising, extreme weather events are rising, plus more and there is no other cause found. Like I said A+B=C, if you refuse to accept mainstream science data and organisations I have no more to add, you are unwilling to accept the proof that is at 90% confidence according to predictions, which make it a fairly strong theory in Science terms. Waiting until the planet is inhospitable so you can have the type of proof you require is unacceptable.
For the record, Monckton is shown to be absolutely and without a doubt wrong on the following post.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/01/14/monckton-skewers-truth/
Not even close actually. It is regarding Sea Ice. Isn’t there some quality control we can keep here with some of the posts that are allowed through?
Robert:
Is “quality control” the new alarmist euphemism for the routine censorship that tamino practices daily?
Lord Monckton has probably forgotten more about the climate than Grant Foster ever learned. That being the case, I propose a debate between Viscount Monckton and Mr Foster. Of course, “tamino” doesn’t have the stones for it. But it would be very interesting.
Alarmists don’t even realize it, but they suffer from Monckton Derangement Syndrome, just like the Left are victims of Palin Derangement Syndrome and Bush Derangement Syndrome. The common thread is derangement.
@Myrrh, try this link for starters: http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature-intermediate.htm
“Michael says:
January 13, 2011 at 11:48 pm
So Werner you only trust data from Hadcrut3, and just released it shows that 2010 ties with 1998”
Thank you for that. I must confess to some confusion regarding the 0.52 values for both 1998 and 2010. The following site that I go by has 1998 at 0.548 and 2010 at 0.493 up to November of 2010.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3gl.txt
But even so, 2010 was a strong El Nino year. And even though the El Nino ended around the middle of the year, its effect on temperature lasted much longer. UAH had the warmest September on its record, and GISS had the warmest November on its record. Had 2010 been tied without the help of an El Nino, that would have been much more impressive.
With regards to other comments, I do believe CO2 is a greenhouse gas and I fully accept that the concentration went from 280 ppm in 1750 to 390 ppm today. However of the 0.8 C that the temperatures went up since 1880, I would only give man-made CO2 credit for 0.2 C. So at this point, I do not believe any catastrophe awaits us due to man-made CO2. We have far more urgent things to worry about. For starters, the Mexican president should be far more alarmed about the drug killings in Mexico than the tiny effect our CO2 is having on Mexico.
Michael – AGWScience doesn’t work the way I understand science to work. Most of science is bases on fact, theories stay theories unless facts are obtained to prove them. The general theory of relativity is still a theory, not a science fact. Most theories are created by first examing the facts found in the natural world, and trying to make sense of them. Like the man who first proposed that continents moved. If you don’t know that history do read up on it.
What science isn’t is imagining a theory and then claiming it is proved when every part of the theory is already falsified. That’s called scientific fraud. Which is why we see this constant pattern from AGW of having to re-adjust past temperature data and now this sad about face from years of proclaiming CO2 will cause steep rising global temperatures that will end up in us living in a baked and flooded world to ‘warming means cooling’, because it can’t account for the weather.. And, even sillier, that ‘our models are improving all the time’, having failed to show any relation to real conditions in any of the models past or present. GIGO, AGWScience continues to put in parameters which it makes up, as in the example Emile gives, my post below.
You can make up anything you want as a hypothesis, but until you can prove it has legs it can’t walk even as theory, which might have some use in the real world. To demand from an already falsified and full of illogical constructs that people change their lives and be forced to pay loads of money in green taxes to support the Greenshirt elites, is criminal. That is obviously a con in any other adventure of the unprincipled. The old folk that get targetted by the oh so concerned ‘builder’ who sees dreadful problems with their roofs and can fix it for a small sum which cost grows with the availability of funds. So AGW ‘scientists’, claiming they are real scientists doesn’t pass the discernment test, by their fruits we know them, they can’t think and they act as any petty con artist. The bigger the scale the more successful they are in convincing that this scale gives them credibility, but organised crime is what they’re successful at; by creating a ‘pyramid scheme’ of oiks below them, wittingly or unwittingly bolstering the crime, they can continue to brainwash that they’re the experts and there really is something dreadfully wrong with your roof, you can trust them.
The proof I give in actual data you don’t accept because you have fallen for skeptic propaganda.
You haven’t given me any proof. That facts here that you keep giving me data from the people who are in control of faking it does not constitute proof. I am asking you for specific proof re your claims for CO2. Prove it has the capacity to drive temperature, prove it. All data shows it is irrelevant to global temperature changes. In other words, the vast amount of data we already have already falsifies this claim for CO2. That’s why you, and generic you, never come back with anything rational. You have not proved that there is any connection at all between CO2 and global climate changes. You have not proved by experimentation that CO2 has any of the abilities claimed for it in AGW. You have not shown any connection between A and B, actual real science in between is missing. It may well seem entirely reasonable to you that ‘CO2 is rising and cataclysmic global climate changes are happening therefore CO2 is the cause’, but there’s a gap there, a logical disjunct. It goes against actual data which show that CO2 is irrelevant to these changes.
Those who forget history … The ‘last hundred years’ mantra is full of junk ideas, claiming junk ideas are science is no substitute for producing real science. You have yet to do so.
……………………………………………….
Emile – from your link above: CO2 amplifies warming
Prove that CO2 can even do this.
Nothing in CO2 following temperature rises, which this link admits was not caused by CO2, by around 800 years would suggest any link anyway, rationally. What your site proposes is that 800 years of rising temperature is being influence by rises of CO2, but, what the data actually show is that there is no rise of CO2 until 800 years after temperature rises. What’s so difficult about 800 years after? It means that CO2 doesn’t begin rising until 800 years have passed. Showing that CO2 is not playing any part in driving temperature and has nothing to do with the rising temperature levels for all those 800 years. For example, we’re at c 800 years after the MWP, we’d expect to see rising CO2 levels, now.
Again, this is data showing that CO2 is not playing any part in driving temperature and irrelevant to the AGW concept that CO2 is ‘amplifying’ it, therefore driving is global warming is disproved.
Another example of the magicians sleight of hand by disjunct and distraction, whether by unthinking repetition of the trick or as primary creator of the disjunct, he presents flawed logic as rational science. Why would anyone want to put their faith into ideas propounded by people who can’t even think straight?
Myrrh Says “…The old folk that get targetted by the oh so concerned ‘builder’ who sees dreadful problems with their roofs and can fix it for a small sum which cost grows with the availability of funds. So AGW ‘scientists’, claiming they are real scientists doesn’t pass the discernment test, by their fruits we know them, they can’t think and they act as any petty con artist. The bigger the scale the more successful they are in convincing that this scale gives them credibility, but organised crime is what they’re successful at; by creating a ‘pyramid scheme’ of oiks below them, wittingly or unwittingly bolstering the crime, they can continue to brainwash that they’re the experts and there really is something dreadfully wrong with your roof, you can trust them…”
What would you accept as proof?
Michael – I’d accept real science, but, I’ve really looked into this and I haven’t found any. I ask that question because that’s what I asked for in the beginning of my journey into this argument and not getting any proof I investigated for myself why I wasn’t given any. What I was given was as examples above, claims that kept having this disjunct between A and B. It happens in every aspect of the statements AGWScience makes so it is very difficult to get to grips with it, I had the time and the interest, most people take it on trust because they’ve got better things to do with their lives as I once did.. (grin).
Just looking at the things you’ve said, there’s an awfully big area of knowledge required to find out about CO2 and its properties and the history in science and the history of it in this argument; temperature likewise, ocean acidification, rising sea levels.. I began by questioning two things I was told, temp and CO2.
When I said, ‘hold on a minute, of course the temperature has gone up since the Little Ice Age as it had gone down to that from a previous higher one so any measurement taken from the depths of the LIA is going to show upward trend’, I was given Mann’s Hockey Stick to prove that temperatures ‘had remained flattish and unchanged for the last 1000 years’ – which is contrary to everything we already know because we do actually have an enormous body of knowledge through the history of the last 2000 years. What I saw in the AGWScience claim was that this beginning point of taking the LIA and claiming it represented ‘a constant and benign climate which we’re now changing’ couldn’t make sense, ‘couldn’t’ being the operative word. Then finding that this claim was being deliberately maintained by all kinds of methods, from creating the Hockey Stick in the first place to hide that great changes in climate had happened in the last two thousand years, to eliminate the MWP and LIA, which entailed cherry picking data, one tree Biffa, and designing a number cruncher which gave the hockey stick regardless of the numbers given it to crunch, to the deliberate tampering of historical temperature records, such as in New Zealand, where the original data could still be accessed and so this claim of rising temperatures eventually disproved, and in England, where the FOI request came back with the excuse that the originally records had been lost. Both these last organised by CRU, Salinger went to NZ in the early ’70’s to cook the books, so exploring that history takes one into the politics of the day. And so on.
And that’s together with having to learn about ice ages and interglacials and CO2 measurements – which is necessary to explore to see the point I’ve made here, that there’s a disjunct in the logic between A and B, A:CO2 levels haven’t changed for hundreds of thousands of years and B:rising CO2 levels from our production are driving warming. If CO2 had nothing to do with the vast and dramatic changes we went through in glacials and interglacials then it is irrelevant now, etc., but how will you see that if you don’t have any knowledge of ice ages? And more importantly, if you don’t link this knowledge once you have it, to the actual AGW claim relevant.
The etc. being all the nuances that come in this AGWScience package, such as you’ve given, that CO2 levels have gone up. There are two ways of approaching this, to look at the measurements in the ice cores and the science behind that, are these methods good enough to establish what the levels were over all these hundreds of thousands of years, and to look at the recent history of measurements in science, Beck v Mauna Loa. I explored Mauna Loa, there is no way they can say they are measuring ‘background’ CO2 and that their measurements come from a ‘pristine site uncontaminated by local imput’ – they’re sitting on the world’s largest active volcano for a start.. And the history shows that Keeling began by cherry picking a low number for CO2 levels from all the previous work that had been done looking at levels, and he did this because he had an agenda. And that agenda takes us into the maintaining the fiction through his son in Scripps and now, with other interests in the wider political background exploiting it in seriousness since the 70’s.
And that’s before exploring the claims for the molecule carbon dioxide. I’ve grown very attached to this molecule, it is much maligned in AGW. And my CO2 molecule is feeling just a tad envious that it can’t do all the things the AGWCO2 molecule can do; it can’t defy gravity and air pressure and rise of its own volition to mix thoroughly in the atmosphere, it can’t stay up in the atmosphere accumulating for hundreds and thousands of years defying its weight through the lighter air molecules around it. I reassure him, supermen models, hero and antihero, are for comic books, to entertain because they defy real science. That’s why we enjoy them, because we understand the disjunct in the tale they’re telling, supermen can fly through the air, we can’t.
So, I’m asking for proof of any real science that backs up any of the claims made. I haven’t found any in the areas I’ve explored, and as you read the imput from posters here you’ll find the same in the areas they’ve explored. What we do keep finding is these logical disjuncts in the claims.
A really good discussion to read through is the one currently on the go about Trenberth http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/12/trenberths-upcoming-ams-meeting-talk-climategate-thoughts/ which looks at the logic content of his statements.
When one gets to grips with this, it becomes astonishingly obvious that what is happening is that science in AGW has been sidelined completely, they’ve changed the definition and claim their definition is science; facts no longer matter and any fact that contradicts, falsifies any of their claims, shouldn’t even be heard.
Sorry, that should be AGW taking a temperature base for their graphs from the end of the LIA, not from the middle. They do say there was a drop in temp before but they’ve flattened this out to make it appear insignificant.
Werner you keep changing the goal posts “But even so, 2010 was a strong El Nino year. ” Earlier on you said if it was beaten, you would reconsider. Also keep in mind that 2010 finished with a La Nina and it still matched the El Nino year of 1998.
Myrrh remember when I said this…
“You rely on history to much, all data before several 100 years is guesswork and even then nobody says that co2 is the only driver of the planet. Their are many other greenhouse gases, volcanos, planetary wanderings, temp changes of the sun over its lifetime, heat from our centre plus much more. Most episodes in the past we have good workable theories for but their are no proofs there. Similar conditions to our distant past will be unlikely to occur again as the sun and the planet has past that point in its development. ”
but you say “If CO2 had nothing to do with the vast and dramatic changes we went through in glacials and interglacials then it is irrelevant now, ”
Just because co2 is not the only driver of Climate Change, and I freely admit it doesn’t come even close, that does not follow that it isn’t now. At no time in Earths history have we been able to influence the atmosphere to this degree over such a short space of time and in that regard history has only limited relevance, especially when a lot of the temperature of history and its causes are guesswork, but even then their are workable theories for most of it.
I also believe in the basic goodness of most people and believe that the majority of scientists and governments have the well being of the planet at heart. In their zeal they might overreact to some things and some do have their own agendas, just like their will be some skeptics with their own agendas who are only famous because they are controversial. I also understand and agree with the science and do a lot of reading on the topic from the science sites as well as regularly troll skeptic ones.
I also acknowledge the data presented in the form of temperature rises, co2, ocean warming and acidification, coral bleaching, loss of arctic ice, increasing extreme weather events (especially flooding as the moisture from evaporation increases, see pakistan, queensland, victoria, brazil) etc and accept with a high degree of probability that the effects of increasing co2 in the atmosphere is the cause. (note co2 is not bad or good, just the effects of it increasing and the changing balance of the atmosphere).
I also have a different understanding of theory in science and the meaning of proof, as most accepted facts in science are theories and most of what we know and accept cannot be proved in the simplistic understanding of the word. Relativity works and is accepted, the weight and size of an electron, the composition of the atom, the distance to stars and galaxies, gravity itself etc, cannot be measured or ‘proved’ in that understanding of the word.
see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory#Theories_as_models
see: http://www.kitp.ucsb.edu/kitp-explained/role-of-theory-in-science
I know this won’t make any difference to you as your mind is made up, and anything I offer is dismissed as tainted, made up and unacceptable, so in that respect I can’t argue the science with you. But that is where I am coming from.
Far be it from me to pretend that I am a climate specialist – I am just an engineer, and instead of listening to Al Gore and his mob – I prefer to do some numbers.
It is not hard to calculate the total energy delivered to Earth by our Sun – from Sun’s temperature, black body radiation, the size of Sun, Earth, and distances involved.
The power of solar radiation calculated this way is slightly over 1.3KW per square meter.
This gives total energy delivered to Earth as about 5.4×10^24 Joules/year, about half of which reaches Earth’s surface – say 2.7×10^24.
Total energy production by mankind is currently about 5×10^20 Joules/year.
Our contribution to energy balance is then less than 0.02%. We can’t even measure the total energy with error as small as this.
Nature is many things – but is not stupid. In other words – it is a stable system.
What the “climate change fanatics” propose is that we tax everyone until they bleed in order to slightly influence the 0.02% of the energy balance – and this somehow is going to change the balance of the whole system.
Somehow I do not think that this would work, or that the “climate change fanatics” are stupid – but for sure, a small, selected group of people would become very, very rich – if the proposed carbon tax etc. becomes reality.
Life on Earth survived for hundreds of millions of years – all without Al Gore, IPCC, climate “experts” and carbon tax.
It is a nice con, though.
“Michael says:
January 15, 2011 at 5:46 pm
Werner you keep changing the goal posts “But even so, 2010 was a strong El Nino year. ” Earlier on you said if it was beaten, you would reconsider.”
My original goal post was the Hadcrut3 data at
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3gl.txt
Your Hadcrut3 data is very different. It is a real puzzle to me how two strong El Nino years can have opposite effects. Namely the above site had 0.548 for 1998 and 0.493 for 2010, but this still only goes to November. Yet both end up at 0.52 somehow. Can you please provide a link to a data set that lets me verify for myself that the 2010 actually ends up at 0.52? Not even the following has it to December:
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/
“Far be it from me to pretend that I am a climate specialist – I am just an engineer, and instead of listening to Al Gore and his mob – I prefer to do some numbers.”
Les you are not measuring a plank of wood, in a building, being out by a minuscule % may not mean much, but when it comes to chemicals it is all about reaction and balance. The make up of your body also includes sulphur, phosphorous, chlorine, copper, lead, iron, uranium, thorium, mercury and arsenic, among many others. Arsenic for instance can be beneficial medically in tiny amounts, but add just a tiny bit more…I think you know where I am going with this.
The typical skeptic says “hey it is a tiny portion of the atmosphere or it is a tiny warming effect or it has happened millions of times without us etc”. None of these are relevant or really have any meaning when discussing whether the changing balance of the atmosphere can cause changes harmful to us or whether we are the ones causing it now. Negative arguments are not proof, they are beliefs. Beliefs that are not borne out in many areas of nature where small amounts can precipitate big reactions. Just look at the change of certain chemicals in your body that effect moods, heart rate etc. Like most things in nature it is about balance, and we are changing that balance and it is illogical to believe that changing balance will not have an effect.
[snip. Let’s have a discussion, instead of constantly linking to a blog that lacks the courtesy to put WUWT on their blog-roll, as WUWT does for them. ~dbs, mod.]
Michael says:
“Like most things in nature it is about balance, and we are changing that balance and it is illogical to believe that changing balance will not have an effect.”
I am in total agreement. The effect of increased CO2 is apparent, and entirely beneficial:
click1
click2
click3
click4
click5
“I am in total agreement. The effect of increased CO2 is apparent, and entirely beneficial:”
Smokey, I am not a plant! what about the effects of the warming on coral, algae and phytoplankton? I hope you don’t like eating fish. What about the climate change effects on weather. Pretty hard to grow something when your farm keeps getting flooded out, I certainly don’t see my fruit and vegetables getting cheaper anytime soon.
Michael – thank you for a condescending explanation regarding the difference between a plank of wood and the processes governed by nonlinear partial differential equations with variable coefficients.
You actually provide arguments against your own reasoning.
Yes – the system is complex. Yes – small changes can lead to relatively large responses. Yes – we didn’t even start understanding all the feedbacks, not to mention actual description of the system. As such – all computer models are an exercise in futility – as by definition they can’t describe a complex system where chaotic changes take place.
What is known, however, is that:
-the system is stable in general terms – the best proof is you being alive today
-the climate was much hotter and much colder too -before the humanity even came into existence
-levels of CO2 have been both higher and lower than today – before the first barrel of oil was pumped.
-the computer models are not consistent – and require fudge factors – conveniently selected to provide the politically correct answers.
Trying to convince everybody that we actually can control and influence processes of this scale and complexity by means of taxation – requires a lot of arrogance, or a lot of stupidity, or both.
In reality, though, maybe it just requires a cynical and unscrupulous attitude – knowing that if taxation doesn’t help – at least some people can get rich on the scheme.
Maybe the time will come when climate science will have a right to be called Science – but this time is somewhat distant yet. People like Gore (with eager participation from people like you) would like to announce that this time has already arrived – because this would open the door for them to start trading in earnest – selling nothing – for a very real cash.
You may not call it a scam. I do.
Michael you said:
Myrrh remember when I said this… “You rely on history to much, all data before several 100 years is guesswork and even then nobody says that CO2 is the only driver of the planet. Their are mnay other greenhouse gases, volcanos, planetary wanderings, temp changes of the sun over its lifetime, heat from our centre plus much more. Most episodes in the past we have good workable theories for but their are no proofs there. Similar conditions to our distant past will be unlikely to occur again as the sun the planet has past that point in its development.”
but you say “If CO2 had nothing to do with the vast and dramatic changes we went through in glacials and interglacials then it is irrelevant now,”
Just because CO2 is not the only driver of Climate Change, and I freely admit it doesn’t come even close, that does not follow that it isn’t now. At no time in Earths history have we been able to influence the atmospher to this degree over such a short space of time and that regard history has only limited relevance, especially when a lot of the temperature of history and its causes are guessswork, but even then their are workable theories for most of it.
Yes, I remember you saying that. It sounded exactly the argument made by AGWScientists, that the facts don’t matter and shouldn’t be listened to. As you’ve brought it up again I guess I’ll just have to deal with it, I was put off by the length of reply I’d have to give. I’ll try and shorten it.
Our knowledge of history and the changes in climate is far from being guesswork, we are now in an extraordinarily wonderful position of global communication and amazing scientific advancement. We have access to the histories of peoples all over the world through our lives now, our stories, our own accounts in traditions and literature and through archeology – there is much that has been lost of course, but as it stands we have never before, to our present knowledge, known so much about ourselves and our world. Our advancements in knowing how the world works has come on in leaps and bounds over the last few centuries in all kinds of fields; genetics, geography, astronomy, medicine, language, biology and so on.
One of the things we know very clearly from our past is our history of ice ages, we might not yet know all the detail of the how and why, but we know them really well now.
We have established, for example, how what is now the islands in ‘Britain’ came to be an entity over timescales of millions of years during which the different parts travelled in the movement of tectonic plates, we know from the rocks which parts where attached to North America, we know how much was covered in the several ice age glacials, we know that huge temperature changes to hot happened by the bones of the rhinos and fossil plants we’ve found before the beginning of the last glacial 100,000 years ago, we know how much land we lost at the beginning of our present interglacial, our Holocene, when the glacial ended and the Irish and North Sea were created from the gazillion tons on melting ice raising sea levels over 300 feet; it’s a fascinating history.
We know this through the co-operation and communication from all kinds of specialist fields putting the pieces of the jigsaw together for our mutual enlightenment; this is what science is, the exploration of our natural world for the love of it. Hence it is called Natural Science, and the Natural Philosopher for example, a physicist. This is our history and we are very far from being ignorant about it.
If CO2 was irrelevant in all these changes as a driver of temperature, it can’t suddenly become relevant now. That’s simply illogical. In saying “That CO2 is not the only driver of temperature”, you are being illogical.
If it had nothing to do with any previous driving of temperature then it can’t be included in ‘those things that drive temperature now’.
Just because you’re saying it, doesn’t make it true. You’ve pulled that out of thin air, like a rabbit from a hat.
That’s why you don’t like history, or all the knowledge we have gained in it, because the history of Carbon Dioxide shows it has never been a driver of global warming. Instead, what you have replaced the lack of cause and effect with, is superstition.
You are no different here to the primitive who establishing himself in a position of power tells his people that the sun will stop rising if his priesthood of hand picked cronies don’t have a human sacrifice every week from which they must tear the still living heart from the body even though there is no relationship of cause and effect between doing this and the sun rising every day.
There’s no correlation of cause and effect in your claim because it is established that CO2 had nothing to do with previous driving of temperatures. You admit this in your AGWScience. You say CO2 levels have not changed for all these hundreds of thousands of years of dramatic Climate Change..
Do you notice something there? You don’t actually ever say that. AGWScience never finishes the sentence. It stops at ‘the CO2 levels haven’t changed for hundreds of thousands of years’. And then it skips to superstition. ‘CO2 levels have changed because of man’s imput since the Industrial Age, so CO2 is driving the warm we are experiencing now after the immense cold of the LIA..’ Except you don’t say that do you? You skip the actual reason we are experiencing warming now, because we’re still coming out of the very low temperatures of the LIA which we sank into from the previous high of the MWP.., because superstition isn’t about cause and effect, and as real cause and effect contradicts, it so it does in AGW, so you flatten out LIA and MWP and produce Hockey Sticks, which programme manipulates any set of random numbers given to produce them.
Some might well have remembered that the sun rose regularly before these priests began demanding living hearts to keep it rising every morning, but they were probably bullied to agree, and the next generation taught it was true and so the tradition established as true scientific fact taught by consensus priesthood in authority over them who must be believed and obeyed.
AGWScience is exactly that, superstition. At every claim look for the elision, the conflation, the disjunct in logical connection. Magicians tricks to distract, together with the constant bombardment by the establishment in the ‘authority of the priesthood’ for use against the oiks browbeaten to believe it’s true and ostracised if they don’t. Because they only our best interests at heart.. Some of us still remember real science. And can see the sleight of hand in presenting superstition masquerading as fact by those more interested in establishing egotistical power over others and their destinies, than actually giving a damn for their real welfare or real science.
Measurement of something is of course ‘relative’ to the what is decided to be the rule against which it is measured. But through that we can know the weight of molecules relative to each other, and from this we know that a Carbon Dioxide molecule is much heavier than air which obviously makes nonsense of AGWScience claims that it can ‘stay up in the atmosphere for hundreds and thousands of years accumulating in a blanket’.
The other examples you give are of this same sleight of hand ilk, “ocean warming and acidification, coral bleaching, loss of arctic ice, extreme weather events (especially flooding as the moisture from evaporation increases etc” . What proof do you have that this has anything to do with the CO2 molecule? Just because you say it has is not a proof.
When I began exploring this argument I read both sides of it and questioned both sides. I am convinced that there is no real science behind AGW claims. All I have found is this recurring pattern of logical disjunct in the explanations and claims, and an extraordinary amount of effort to present this as ‘true’ when it is obviously not -which is a technique mastered by magicians and dictators. I have made my judgement of it, what I am giving you is some of what I found.
Look for the disjunct in the facts presented, don’t get distracted by analysing what is a theory.
The “ocean acidification scam” is the latest out of the AGWScience Propaganda Ministry. http://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/ocean-acidification-scam/
All I can say is, if you really care about the environment, care that AGWScience is perverting the truth by replacing natural science education of the the next generation with emotive fear fuelled superstition, and full of deceit to maintain that superstition. Some of those involved know exactly that it’s this they’re doing, even if the majority are ignorant of being manipulated because they take things on trust.
CO2 is Good For You
And – Michael – any theory of a small change causing huge effects must rely on a positive feedback loop.
There are very few natural processes that rely on a positive feedback – one of them being a nuclear reaction. Even so – the Sun appears to be stable enough…
But then – you will probably tell me that a controlled fission reaction is not too far away…
One can’t argue with a religious (or cult if you prefer) belief…and let’s not forget, that every cult promises hell and damnation for non-believers, while quickly and efficiently extracting good old cash from brainwashed believers.
“If CO2 was irrelevant in all these changes as a driver of temperature, it can’t suddenly become relevant now. That’s simply illogical. In saying “That CO2 is not the only driver of temperature”, you are being illogical. ”
Saying that “CO2 is not the ONLY driver of temperature” is not the same as saying “If CO2 was irrelevant in all these changes as a driver of temperature, it can’t suddenly become relevant now.” You put a lot of words in my mouth and assign meaning that do not reflect what I said.
Illogical and arrogant is thinking that you can pump as much CO2 into the atmosphere as you like without consequence. No we cannot control the climate but we can and should monitor and control what we put into our atmosphere that are determinants of climate. History is full of examples of harmless and safe coming back to bite us in the bum.
[But, do you actually have any evidence linking Anthropogenic CO2 to temperature change? Robt]
Michael
I have just had the mind-numbing experience of reading the entire thread and my hat is off to you. You have remained polite in the face of arrant stupidity and kept on fighting the good fight. Keep up the good work.
If “fighting the good fight” means constantly trumpeting disaster scenarios based not on evidence, but on Al Gore-style scare tactics, then there is nothing “good” about it.
I’ve shown conclusively in my links @ 5:42 pm above that more CO2 is beneficial. Yet there is not one bit of proof that the increase in this harmless, beneficial trace gas has caused any problems. None.
Thus, Michael must be counted among the dwindling ranks of True Believers. Facts will not have any effect on him. His mind is closed to the benefits of more food growing in a warmer climate, and all he is capable of seeing is looming disaster.
“I’ve shown conclusively in my links @ 5:42 pm above that more CO2 is beneficial. Yet there is not one bit of proof that the increase in this harmless, beneficial trace gas has caused any problems. None.”
I base all my decisions on facts. The well known fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. The fact that temperatures are rising at the same time as CO2 is rising. The facts of warming oceans, increased coral bleaching events, rising oceans, lower atmosphere warming while upper atmosphere cooling, increasing extreme weather events consistent with models and much more. The moisture in the atmosphere has increased by 4% and as I have pointed out I am not a plant, and that happy plants will not be much good if they are flooded out regularly. These are all based on data by climate scientists, and just because you dispute the data does not follow that I am not making rational and logical decisions.
A believer is somebody who believes that he can change the composition of a crucial gas in our atmosphere by an undetermined amount without consequence. You cannot prove that such spewing of billions of tonnes of CO2 per year into our climate system cannot and will not change the climate and our weather patterns. Mere observations should cause most reasonable people to pause. Their is no belief necessary to me the evidence is increasing daily.
“Mulga Bill says:
January 17, 2011 at 6:33 am
Michael
I have just had the mind-numbing experience of reading the entire thread and my hat is off to you. You have remained polite in the face of arrant stupidity and kept on fighting the good fight. Keep up the good work.”
Thanks 🙂
Michael says:
“The well known fact that CO2 is a minor anthropogenic greenhouse gas.” Fixed it for you. De nada.
“The facts of warming oceans” Wrong. ARGO data shows cooling oceans.
“increased coral bleaching events” Wrong. Turns out this is an annual phenomenon unrelated to AGW. No connection whatever with CO2. The actual correlation shows increased calcification with increased CO2.
“rising oceans” Wrong. The change – due to the emergence from the LIA – is decelerating. And ocean heat content is falling.
“upper atmosphere cooling” This is a red herring. The “fingerprint” of AGW was trumpeted as the prediction of the tropospheric “hot spot.” When that failed to happen, the goal posts were then moved to stratospheric cooling. Typical of the shenanigans and mendacity coming from the globaloney crowd.
” The moisture in the atmosphere has increased by 4%” Wrong. Where do you get your misinformation? ‘Skeptical’ Science? climate progress? realclimate?
“increasing extreme weather events” Wrong. Catastrophic weather events have been steadily decreasing: click1, click2, click3.
“…and much more.” Since your “facts” have been debunked, no doubt your “much more” would be equally easy to deconstruct. For example, as beneficial CO2 rises, the rate of change of temperature increase is declining, thus breaking the assumed link between CO2 and temperature.
In addition to Lord Monckton’s 24 points refuting Steketee, the spurious correlations between CO2 and the warming due to the planet’s emergence from the LIA are no more valid than this.
Here’s my model prediction: Michael and the couple of other True Believers here will reject all facts which refute their belief system, and they will pay no attention to the dozens of commentators who are all trying to reason with them by using verifiable facts. Against all the evidence, the True Believers will continue to believe that a harmless and beneficial trace gas is the principal driver of the climate, and is the cause of all their problems.
That’s my model prediction. And as we shall see, it is more accurate than any climate model.
What is a dead give-away in this whole scam is the lack of any consistent proposal.
No one says this (for instance): “In the next 10 years a legislation will be introduced to limit fuel consumption of an average passenger car to less than 5l/100km. All coal and oil fuelled power plants will be phased out during the next 20 years. Research on alternative energy sources will start next year in the following facilities: etc. etc. The objective is to reduce/increase/change this and that – and it will be measured and assessed in the following manner etc. etc.”
No – they can’t say that – because this would require actual budget, the progress could be monitored, and (God forbid) – some people could actually be held accountable.
In short – an average whorehouse has a better business plan and management.
Instead – they propose introduction of carbon credits – which is exactly a no-product, which requires no investment, is almost impossible to control, and creates vast opportunities for the high priests of the scam – to get rich. And – when it does not change the climate – it will, of course, be the fault of the public…
Make no mistake – this is the largest economic scam in the history of humankind. The principle – a new tax on everything you do – including breathing (well – it produces the “poisonous” gas – CO2 – doesn’t it ?). This tax will affect everything – from cooking your meal to taking a bus to work.
In other words – diverting a significant portion of everyone’s income – into private pockets and into the coffers of world governments. Trillions of dollars are at stake – no wonder that no punches are being pulled, and that the original data has a habit of disappearing, being lost, or being selectively used and manipulated. After all – how many people in a hospital will ask for credentials when they see a guy in a white coat saying “Good morning, I am your doctor” ? Or – how many will question the existence of fire – when seeing a guy in a fire-proof suit and helmet who says “Fire Brigade – get out, there is a fire” ?
There is a good reason for subjects such as history or physics being taught at a very superficial level in schools today. No one needs educated citizens – at least not in their majority. Which in turn will allow any kind of social engineering – and, of course, vast, uncontrolled profits – for the selected ones.
I have sufficient education and preparation to at least understand the scale and complexity of the problem. Also – to critically assess the quality of at least some of the arguments presented by the high priests of the climate change cult. And – it does not convince me.
We live in times where information overload is common, and where all kind of bogus, biased or irrelevant information is delivered to the public with the preceding qualifier: “Experts say that ….” – and it replaces thinking and common sense in most cases. We are being conditioned to be compliant, to be politically correct, to not ask embarrassing questions, to not rock the boat, to give away the responsibilities and rights – and it starts in pre-schools.
It is a good thing that I will not be walking this world for very long now. But while I live – certain things are going to happen only over my dead body – and I am not joking.
Leo Tolstoy:
“I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.”
Les says:
January 17, 2011 at 1:35 pm
Excellent post!
Most of your links were cherry picked regional issues, hardly meaningful, but typical. I can also paste a bunch of links.
See my first post on this thread on Monckton.
I also believe that you will reject all facts which refute your belief system, and you will pay no attention to the dozens of commentators who are all trying to reason with you by using verifiable facts.
“What is a dead give-away in this whole scam is the lack of any consistent proposal.”
This is nearly impossible on a global system and with 3 or 4 year cycle political systems. Far from Climate change being a rort for governments, it is very difficult for them to get anything done. Unless you have a price on carbon (and I prefer a tax, more straightforward and less rortable by business), business’s will not put the necessary R&D and effort into changing to more sustainable and renewable sources of energy. The cost to the planet needs to factored into the price of fossil fuels to send the signal that other sources are more desirable and now more cost effective.
Michael re Saying that “CO2 is not the ONLY driver of temperature” is not the same as saying “If CO2 was irrelevant in all these changes as a driver of temprature, it can’t suddenly become relevant now.” You put a lot of words in my mouth and assign meaning that do not reflect what I said.
Not what I was doing. What I’m referring to is this as an example of the logical disjunct inherent in AGWScience claims. That two statements are made with critical information elided, giving the impression of logical continuity where none exists.
The AGW claim is that CO2 level has not changed in any significant degree for the last 600,000 years or so. What is missing here is that during this period very real and dramatic global warming happened as we came out of ice age conditions and into interglacials in recurring cycles of around 100,000 years. Since the AGW claim is that CO2 hasn’t changed in all that time what it is actually saying, is that CO2 has been irrelevant to the massive global warmings in this vast amount of time.
EXCEPT, it doesn’t actually say it. One has to read between the lines and know something about the regularity of our ice ages to make that connection for oneself. That’s the logical conclusion from the AGW statement that CO2 levels haven’t changed.
So, what I am saying is, you cannot then say that CO2 is one of the drivers now, because looked at logically, the AGW claim is actually saying that CO2 was never a driver.
Why has CO2 suddenly become a driver when it showed no propensity to be that for over 600,000 years?
The gist of my post was that AGW does this kind of thing all the time, it takes out bits from one statement to the next by jumping directly to another claim about CO2 which, in this case, is proved false by its first statement. In other words, ‘that CO2 is a driver now’ is already falsified by the AGW claim that ‘CO2 levels didn’t change in our past history’. Since it had nothing to do with it then, I am saying, you cannot say it has something to do with driving temperature now.
And Robt’s question.
Anyway, there are two aspects in this argument about AGW which bother me particularly, that science has been usurped to promote particular agendas and the nature of some of these agendas.
Rather a mixed bag of interests have jumped onto the AGW bandwagon since the early environmentalism of the thirties against coal (which brought in Keeling in the fifties to cherry pick a low CO2 ‘background’ level, from which less than two years later he confidently announced there was a definite trend upwards from man’s industrial output which he found while measuring CO2 from the world’s highest active volcano in an area of extreme volcanic activity where he was guaranteed a copious supply of the stuff to use in further adjustments), through to the banking and big business interests of today which had got their act more of less together by the seventies and have been driving governments and global warming ever since.
Trenberth’s upcoming speech, link below, touches on two aspects I’d like to bring to your attention.
The first is the science with the aide-memoire “Hide the decline” – an example of how science fact is manipulated purely to fuel anthropogenic global warming claims:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/understanding_climategates_hid.html
Please spend time going through it, it’s a very good introduction to the background and methods rampant in the corruption of temperature data, necessary for AGWScience claims, because if temperatures now are not outside any natural variation we’ve had in our past climate changes, then there is no basis for the AGW scare blaming man’s production of CO2.
It is imperative then for those promoting AGW, as Trenberth is doing in the speech he’s to deliver at the AMS, to continue to produce data backing up this AGWScience created scenario. He does so by continuing to claim that he and AGWScientists represent science fact which cannot be argued about, and that those arguing against this are charlatans and shouldn’t be listened to. Who are the real charlatans here? Those who have to manipulate temperature records or those arguing against the corruption of data?
Trenberth says those involved in Climategate were exonerated of any wrong doing and therefore what he is saying is approved real science and can’t be argued about. That these hearings were fixed by the powers that be, the government et al, in order for this crucial evidence of corruption to be downplayed you can research for yourselves, but remember, that CRU’s active involvement in fixing temperature records extends beyond Britain. New Zealand in the early seventies an example, is part and parcel of CRU’s agenda from the very beginning of serious political and business interests in promoting AGW. Still funded by oil interests and the EPA.
Read what Trenberth is hiding here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/13/trenberths-upcoming-ams-meeting-talk-climategate-thoughts/
The second aspect I want to cover from this speech relates to one particular agenda backing AGW. There are so many on the bandwagon now, but this goes back to the roots and as a concept is being disseminated widely now, overpopulation as a problem.
Trenberth begins his speech by saying the talk is in honour of his “friend and colleague Stephen Schneider, who was pre-eminent in communicating climate change to the public”. Schneider of course famously said that scientific integrity could be replaced by dishonesty in promoting one’s cause and Trenberth’s dishonesty clear in just the above example, but what else is Trenberth advocating for?
Beginning in part 6, Trenberth says re what can be done to reduce emissions and change climate, “However, by itself, I view this as short-sighted, as the steps required are so revolutionary as to be highly unlikely to be achieved. Instead, we must recognize that while there is considerable merit in slowing the pace of climate change, and we should work to reduce emissions, it is also essential that much stronger steps be taken to plan for and adapt to the change that is surely coming. How we cope with challenges ahead and build more resiliency in our system, are major questions that should be higher on the agenda.”
Then a paragraph of filling, then:
“The growing population and demands for higher standards of living mean that the planet is already over-poulated, and far too many things are simply not sustainable in anything like their current form. The atmosphere is a global common, shared by all. As we continue to exploit it and use it as a dumping ground, the outcome is the “tragedy of the commons” and we all lose. Unfortunately, society is not ready to face up to these challenges and the needed changes in the way we create order and govern ourselves. Population issues are largely missing from the discussion, such as it is. Nonetheless, a number of pragmatic steps are possible, but they require planning for decades ahead, not simply the time until the next election.”
And then he goes into more blurb without elaborating on this theme, or viral meme, the acceptability of eugenics by government control.
Where does it come from? Did he get it from his honoured friend and colleague Schneider, or from somewhere else?
UNESCO (United Nations Educational Social and Cultural Organisation) It’s Purpose and its Philosophy – Julian Huxley 1946 – ‘Thus even though it is quite true that radical eugenics policy will be for many years politically and psychologically impossible it will be important for UNESCO to see that the public mind is informed of the issues at stake so that much that is now unthinkable may at least become thinkable”.
A short intro for the Huxley connection: http://fgservices1947.wordpress.com/2010/09/global-warming-eugenics-and-the-fabians
And further to the beginnings from Mead to the Schneider connection: http://dradge.com/2010/07/where-the-global-warming-hoax-was-born/
So, nothing in the confirmed AGWScience corruption or in the philosophy of its leading lights, steeped in and proud of using dishonesty to spread their belief in their own superiority to manage others, leads me anywhere but to wonder if they share a common sociopathic gene, now that would be ironic. And what can be done about it if they do, perhaps a tweak here and there..?
..of course, it would be purely on a voluntary basis..
Whether it’s from ego to rule, from some form of sickness, a desire for accumulating wealth regardless of consequences to those enslaved in bad work practices or from asset stripping of countries, even to creating wars for control, what a lot of the agendas have in common is not really giving a damn about others. That’s just sad. Perhaps there will be a different paradigm shift from the one the Huxley crowd are hoping for, that these agendas will be seen for what they really are and perhaps instead what will come to the fore is that quality which is at the heart of all our intelligent creativity, co-operation to mutual benefit.
[Extra info on hide the decline history – http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/GW_Part1_PreHistoricalRecord.htm
and state of play with Mann –
http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/enviro-extremists/8119-the-global-warming-court-battle
and Salinger/CRU cooking NZ data
http://www.suite101.com/content/legal-defeat-for-global-warming-in-kiwigate-scandal-a294157
If after having read through all these links, Michael, not just mine, you still think I should change my mind and become a believer in AGW, I’d be interested in hearing your reasons. Until then, there’s nothing more I have to add.]
Be well.
Its not working, so I will remove some bits?
Most of your links were cherry picked regional issues, hardly meaningful, but typical. I can also paste a bunch of links.
See my first post on this thread on Monckton, where I answer all his half truths and irrelevant statements.
I also believe that you will reject all facts which refute your belief system, and you will pay no attention to the dozens of commentators who are all trying to reason with you by using verifiable facts.
“What is a dead give-away in this whole scam is the lack of any consistent proposal.”
This is nearly impossible on a global system and with 3 or 4 year cycle political systems. Far from Climate change being a rort for governments, it is very difficult for them to get anything done. Unless you have a price on carbon (and I prefer a tax, more straightforward and less rortable by business), business’s will not put the necessary R&D and effort into changing to a more sustainable and renewable sources of energy. The cost to the planet needs to factored into the price of fossil fuels to send the signal that other sources are more desirable and now more cost effective.
Myrrh and all. I would respond to your ridiculous claims in regards to the past proving it can’t happen now, but I fear I am being censored. None of my posts are coming up.
Typical
[Nope, not censored. Several of your posts did repeat the same things, and repeated phrases in repeated posts on different threads with repeated similar links automatically (and properly) go to “spam.” But none were censored. Robt]
Ok, I am doing something wrong with my html.
In the quotes after the href I am putting the website, and in the quotes after title I am putting what I want displayed. Is that not the right way to do it?
[Reply: Don’t use quotes, just do the href thing. Close the tag with /a in brackets. ~dbs, mod.]
okay I will give up on trying to use HTML tags for now.
These were the links I was trying to put up.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-change/guide/what-is-it/why
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/global-weather-disasters-a-sign-the-heat-is-on/story-e6frg6zo-1225983256858
http://www.skepticalscience.com/evidence-for-global-warming-basic.htm
http://climateprogress.org/2010/12/29/ben-santer-attribution-extreme-weather-events-to-climate-change/
http://climateprogress.org/2011/01/12/noaa-2010-tied-with-2005-for-hottest-year-on-record/
http://www.coralcoe.org.au/news_stories/regionalbleaching.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7198/abs/nature07080.html
So Myrrh, you start by saying that you were not trying to put words in my mouth and then you do this…
“EXCEPT, it doesn’t actually say it. One has to read between the lines and know something about the regularity of our ice ages to make that connection for oneself. That’s the logical conclusion from the AGW statement that CO2 levels haven’t changed. ”
This has got to be the most ridiculous argument I’ve heard so far, you said it, not them, nobody else is saying it. The Vostok ice core records show CO2 jumping as often as temperature. You’re again putting words in people’s mouth and completely making up your own argument.
“So, what I am saying is, you cannot then say that CO2 is one of the drivers now, because looked at logically, the AGW claim is actually saying that CO2 was never a driver. ”
No they are not. This is where the sceptic argument is more a belief than science, you are so convinced that you are right you see things that aren’t there. As I understand it, and I could be wrong, is that 600,000 years ago as we came out of a major global ice age, it was the CO2 and methane emitted by volcano that got it out of the ice age in the first place, and if that is true we have CO2 to thank or we might still be a snowball.
“Since it had nothing to do with it then, I am saying, you cannot say it has something to do with driving temperature now. ”
This is the same as saying that if forest fires occurred naturally in the past they cannot be lit by man now. I guess we better stop looking for those arsonists. This is clearly a ridiculous argument, for one thing this is the first time in Earth’s history that man has been spewing billions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere in such a short timeframe. If this has happened in the past and nothing bad happened then you might have an argument, (note I said might, we would still need to look at solar activity, planetary activity and other drivers), but this has never happened before. You make the same sort of claim over and over again,
“because if temperatures now are not outside any natural variation we’ve had in our past climate changes, then there is no basis for the AGW scare blaming man’s production of CO2. ”
1+2 does not equal 10. There has been something like 6 different investigations on the so-called climate gate and they have all been cleared. It was nothing but a beat up of cherry picked data taken out of context in people’s personal e-mails, how about you publish all your e-mails, personal and business, for the last decade and I’ll see if I can make it out to be nasty by picking stuff out. I have looked into climate gate and it was a mountain in a molehill and even then with only about one small area and doesn’t change the avalanche of climate science on climate change.
Your conspiracy theories don’t hold any weight with me, to say that most governments in the world and the vast majority of scientists and scientific organisations are part of some huge conspiracy for some nefarious ends stretches credibility beyond breaking point. It is an attack on science itself and that is both wrong and dangerous. Like I have said before most governments and scientists primary goal is the betterment of humankind. Democratic governments don’t stay in government long enough to benefit from such a long-term strategy, and clearly since this has been going on for decades most governments have already changed power several times.
While we continue to put hard-working scientists, that have done nothing more than to try to save mankind from himself by selflessly promoting and explaining the science of climate change, through endless investigations and committees, the planet will suffer through severe droughts, increasingly severe floods, an increasingly hostile ocean for its inhabitants (our food) and a less inhabitable planet for us all. This is no less than this generations witchhunts or McCarthy era.
Correction, I meant 600 million not 600,000. Didn’t realise my error until I reread it once it was posted.
While I am here though and just to reiterate, I know CO2 on its own is a fairly harmful gas, I know it has changed in the past, i know that it hasn’t always forced temperature, 4 billion years is a long time and its been through a lot. Their are lots of factors that have influenced the development of the world as we know it and none of them mean that in this unique point in our history, with the industrialisation of man that we cannot influence our world in a bad way, and that a harmless gas in excess can destabilise the balance and make life more uncomfortable for ourselves.
Lets not let our arrogance, self importance and self interest, much this up for our children.
Thanks for reading
Woops I meant harmless gas. I better get some sleep.
“Woops I meant harmless gas.”
Freudian slip?☺
We know that a good propaganda is a skillful mix of truths, half-truths and outright lies.
It looks like the climate change cultists took a page (more like a handful) from the book by Dr Goebbels.
Before any drug enters the market – there is a long proces involved: research, animal tests, clinical tests, assessments, evaluation of side effects, costs, etc. etc.
How come that the process is not being followed for possibly the largest and most difficult and expensive project (as advertised) in human history ? How come that a solution is proposed before even the problem is properly identified ?
Let’s depart from this subject, Michael, and assume (for the sake of the discussion only) that you land in a hospital for some reason (needless to say, I wish you a lot of health, to be clear).
SCENARIO ONE (close to what we see with the climate change saga):
The doctor says:
“Michael, we did some testing – and you are very seriously ill. There is absolutely no doubt that the situation is critical. All data indicate that there is no time to lose – or it may be too late. Yes, we know that we have been wrong before – but this time we are right for sure.
You are lucky – you are in the hands of the best specialists.
However, we need to act now. You require an operation – and it is going to fix the problem. Everyone agrees that you need it.
The bad news is that it is going to cost a bit – but it is necessary, so you better start getting ready.
In fact, we have already contacted your bank, your insurer, your employer and started making necessary arrangements – but do not worry, we know what is best for you. After all – we have your best interest in mind.”
SCENARIO TWO (second opinion):
The consultant says:
“Michael – I did have a look at the test results – and it looks like not all the results confirm the initial diagnosis. I can’t be 100% sure – because I didn’t get all the data (despite repeated requests). In addition – some of the test results are not available because they somehow disappeared – and what you have been shown, appears like a hand-picked set of data.
You may be ill – but I revised your history, and it looks like you had identical symptoms many times before – in fact, they were much more severe. So – it looks to me like it is something cyclical, and I am not exactly sure that there is a real problem here.
You have been told that everyone agrees you need an operation – but there are some members of the team who don’t, and they even resigned in protest. In fact, majority of my colleagues agree, that, at the very least, we would need more testing and research to even make sure that your condition is actually a reason for serious concern.
The operation which you are to be subjected to, was never done before – and all indications are that it will not fix anything – but the chances are that you will never walk again, and for sure you will require a lot of frequent and costly medical treatment after the operation.
In short – you will need to sell your home and use your kids’ college funds to even think about it.
Why is it so expensive you ask ? Well, your surgeon (and all the team members) are on the commision – after the hospital takes its cut, that is. Also – the suppliers of drugs and equipment – you name it. In short – there are many people interested in you having this operation – as there is money in it for them…
In fact, the surgeon who talked to you was suspected of malpractice and falsifying medical records to get more operations going.
But – he knows a lot of people in the administration of the hospital, so at this moment at least no one can touch him.
Of course, Michael, you need to cut down the number of Big Whackos you eat – but this is common sense….
Now, Michael, you need to make your decision regarding the operation.”
Michael, you said:
So Myrrh, you start by saying that you were not trying to put words in my mouth and then you do this..
“EXCEPT, it doesn’t actually say it. One has to read between the lines and know something about the regularity of our ice ages to make that connection for oneself. That’s the logical conclusion from the AGW statement that CO2 levels haven’t change.”
This has got to be the most ridiculous argument I’ve heard so far, you said it, not them, nobody else is saying it. The Vostok ice core records show CO2 jumping as often as temperature. You’re again putting words in people’s mouth and completely making up your own argument.
I’m obviously not very good at explaining what I mean here. What I am trying to show is the disjunct in logic by an example from AGWScience, chosen here because you have used part of it our discussion. Perhaps if I spent some time on it I could express it algebraically, as it is, you’ll just have to make do with my poor attempts using English as best I can, please be patient with me. But let me try a slightly different tack. The problem is as Robt noted by his question too, that certain things are said in AGWScience that are not proved; which AGWScience has never given definitive explanations, which are ‘plucked from the air’, and, those following AGWScience use these as if they are ‘real science fact’ as you did in saying “CO2 is not the only driver of temperature” – where is the proof from AGWScience that CO2 is a driver of global temperature at all? Let alone so powerful that it can melt all the ice in the world? There is none given. What is actually said about this in AGWScience? It says it isn’t true.
Another typical example of the unsubstantiated claim that ‘CO2 is a driver of temperature’: http://www.skepticalscience.com/Climate-change-from-40-million-years-ago-shows-climate-sensitivity-to-CO2.html
In post 18, the Moderator responds: “Under modern conditions, which are quite well understood, CO2 is considered to be the biggest control knob of global temperatures, but not the only one. The sum balance of all forcings and feedbacks (of which CO2 acts as both) determines global temperatures.”
Note the “which are quite well understood”. This is a recurring meme in AGWScience while never actually showing any proof to any specific claim made accompanying this meme. If you really want to understand what I’m saying here, please go and search AGW for actual proof from AGWScience that ‘CO2 is the biggest control knob’ and ‘driver of global temperature’.
This meme, ‘well known, established’ and variations of this, are thrown in by AGW, even after giving actual data, and which if not included would, one hopes, cause the reader to think.
Looking at what is actually said by IPCC, is that AGW confirms from the actual real science data available that CO2 rises follow rises in global temperature by several hundred to a thousand years LATER.
http://www.eoearth.org/article/IPCC_Fourth_Assessment_Report,_Group_I:_Chapter_6
6.4.1 Climate Forcings and Responses Over Glacial-Interglacial Cycles
The ice core record indicates that greenhouse gases co-varied with antarctic temperature over glacial-interglacial cycles, suggesting a close link between natural atmospheric greenhouse gas variations and temperature (Box 6.2). Variations in CO2 over the last 420 kyr broadly followed antarctic temperature, typically by several centuries to a millennium (Mudelsee, 2001). ..
CLEARLY, CO2 is not “the biggest control knob”. CLEARLY it is not the Driver of global temperatures. It is absolutely ludicrous to claim that it is since all, all, the many and various studies gathering this information consistently show that CO2 is an EFFECT of rising temperatures. The Rising Temperatures are the Main Knob of Rising CO2 Levels.
Carbon Dioxide has NEVER, not ever, been shown to be a driver of global temperatures. And we now have hundreds of thousands of years worth of data.
What you are actually claiming, even if you are not saying it, is that CO2 begins to drive global temperature hundreds of years before its own level rises. That CO2 has such marvellous, wonderful, extraordinary powers, that while still in hypothermia it produces a magical something that drives our temperature dramatically upward all around the world by several degrees, out of the Ice Age and into Global Warming Interglacials, causing gazillion tons of ice to melt and sea level to rise more than 300 feet. Regularly, every hundred thousand years. Then, when this amazingly powerful molecule decides that it’s now warm enough for it, it starts to travel spreading itself into the atmosphere..
so.., when twenty thousand or so years later it gets a bit tired or something it decides to go for a nap, and in doing this mostly disappears leaving a lesser amount of itself in the atmosphere, and by doing this it causes global temperatures to plummet because, CO2 drives temperatures..?
When actually, it still follows temperature by hundreds and hundreds of years, because we know from all this data that Carbon Dioxide is NOT the driver of global temperatures but a Follower in its fashion. When global temperatures fall back into the ice age, CO2 levels begin dropping by following several hundreds of years later.
So, you cannot say carbon dioxide is”one of the drivers”, because Science shows it isn’t even one of them.
This is the logical disjunct. AGW has to use real science here, but by also claiming something else contrary to it without giving any proof to contradict the actual science, and by constant repetition of the untruth, the real science slips into a kind of mental void.
The very fact that AGW itself actually shows that CO2 is never a driver, means that AGW has already falsified any claim it then makes to say it is.
Therefore, you cannot say that CO2 “is one of the drivers”.
(To falsify something is to show proof that a claim is not true.)
This is what I mean, as an example, that AGWScience continually produces such sleight of hand, magicians’ tricks, to distract from the actual fact that a claim is not true. It is not always as easy to show this sleight of hand, this trickery, but this is an excellent indisputable example of it; because here it can be seen clearly, AGWScience itself has already falsified the claim.
Does the AGWCO2 molecule wear its pants on the outside?
And – something to read on long winter evenings:
http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html
Myrrh said:
“What you are actually claiming, even if you are not saying it,”
No I am not, you really should stop making statements like that. You clearly need to read again what I wrote. How about you prove that there has been any time in the whole past of the planet that matches conditions today. That including solar activity being at a low cycle, CO2 increasing (can be measured) at a fast rate over a tiny timeframe in the planet’s history and temperatures rising following the CO2, and everything else being fairly stable. Also this data would need to be foolproof (taken with actual measuring tools) with no margin for error for me to accept it. You seem to have much more faith in educated geusses than you do in actual measurements, accepted theories and science.
Did you know that particle physics, the branch of science that determines how our whole electronic industry functions, atoms, nuclear reactions, radiation et cetera, is based on probability. You cannot say at any point in time where a particle is with 100% accuracy. It is always based on probability. Science is not as black and white as you think it is.
“Carbon Dioxide has NEVER, not ever, been shown to be a driver of global temperatures. And we now have hundreds of thousands of years worth of data.”
It either sounds like here that you do not believe CO2 is a greenhouse gas or you do not believe in greenhouse gases at all. You do realise that most skeptics actually do believe in greenhouse gases and that CO2 is one, they just argue on its relative strength in changing the atmosphere and the effect of negative and positive feedbacks. Try the following sites for a bit of an education.
http://school.familyeducation.com/outdoor-games/greenhouse-effect/37442.html
http://www.picotech.com/experiments/global/globalwarming.html
http://www.practicalchemistry.org/experiments/the-greenhouse-effect,296,EX.html
Maybe you would like to try some experiments yourself, without greenhouse gases the planet would be a snowball.
I find everything else you are saying quite a mess, you are trying to use word games and triple negatives to prove aomething that does not exist. You need to really do some research to understand the science, your not making any sense. You need to stop reading muck raking sites out on witch hunts and read critically the peer reviewed information. Try also observation, it has been a shocking 12 months for floods. See Pakistan, Queensland, Victoria, Sri Lanka, Brazil and the Philippines. I am not saying that any one weather event proves anything but long-term climate manifests itself as the weather in the short term and you cannot say our weather has been normal. 100 year and 200 year event are being bandied around the news all the time lately. Climate change means just that climate will change in ways that will make life increasingly more uncomfortable for us. Lets stop arguing about semantics and start looking for some solutions.
Michael says:
“…you cannot say our weather has been normal. 100 year and 200 year event are being bandied around the news all the time lately. Climate change means just that climate will change in ways that will make life increasingly more uncomfortable for us.”
This isn’t for Michael; his mind is made up and closed tight. But to counter his misinformation, here are some [accurate] facts so everyone else can see his globaloney:
click1
click2
click3
click4
click5
click6
click7
click8
click9
click10
Nothing out of the ordinary is occurring. That is a fact. But True Believers discard inconvenient facts due to cognitive dissonance. They simply can not accept that there is nothing extraordinary going on. They are members of the Cult of Doom.
Hi Les.
I would have to look at the organisations the doctors belonged to, the numbers of doctors agreeing to disagreeing and the support to those doctors from the hospital and on whose side the big drug lobby were supporting. If a great % of the doctors from reputable medical organisations and with a great deal of hospital support said I should have the operation, then I would make that choice.
This is the crux, isn’t it. Better than choosing the axe to grind, fringe scientists and pseudoscientists with opposition governments and individuals trying to make a name for themselves and supported by the most profitable corporations on the planet (oil companies). Their are multiple times more money in it for the oil companies than anyone else. Who do you think lobbies those politicians on witch hunts manufacturing grant fraud. Most of the time the control of the grants weren’t in the hands making the money, or they did not get the money or the money just isn’t that much in the first place. How about comparing the average salary of a climate scientist to a politician or an oil executive. Also I mean salary (their take home, discretionary spending amount) not the money spent on their research for labs, staff and equipment.
“This isn’t for Michael; his mind is made up and closed tight. But to counter his misinformation, here are some [accurate] facts so everyone else can see his globaloney:”
ditto
Also your facts are cherry picked, mostly irrelevent, and out of date. You focus on the US (not global), on one area and fatalities do not answer the question of where or why. Technology, early warning, faster response times, not urban areas (like storms last year, there were lots of them but none made landfall in the US). I wish you skeptics would actually act like skeptics and examine both sides with the same critical eye. Where REALLY is the money, who REALLY does benefit, what does the ACTUAL science as a whole say, and WHAT is happening to the weather.
Then you might say better safe than sorry as their is no turning back if you are wrong. The upside being at the end of it (at worst) we will have a renewable and sustainable economy that will bring long term benefits to our children, childrens children, and they will thankyou for the cleaner air, cleaner water, abundant food and more habitable and comfortable environment.
Have to agree with Michael on one thing: fatalities have nothing to do with climate. But it is also worth noticing that since we use satellites – we do not miss any major storm, tornado or hurricane. In the past we might have some missed.
And the trend is – diminishing number…
Michael said:
Myrrh said: “What you are actually claiming, even if you are not saying it,”
No I am not, you really should stop making statements like that. you clearly need to read again what I wrote.
I’m about to give up..
CO2 cannot be a driver or one of the drivers of global temperature, because, it doesn’t begin to rise until around 800 years after global temperatures rise. This is accepted science, both in real science and in AGWScience, for how our climate has been for the last 600,000+ years. The same pattern repeating every 100,000 years. Therefore, CO2 is not, is shown to be not, cannot be, a driver of global warming.
What you are implying, by saying that CO2 drives temperatures, is that CO2 magically arranges for global temperatures to rise, and then 800 years later, begins to spread in the atmosphere when the temperatures have risen. This is the hallmark of superstitious thinking.
You are saying CO2 is a driver because AGWScience says it. However, AGWScience also acknowledges that this is false because it agrees that CO2 follows global temperature rises and does not precede them. Therefore, AGW has already falsified this second claim it makes about CO2 being the driver of temperature. In other words,
AGWScience is lying when it says that CO2 is the driver of global temperatures.
Effects follow causes. CO2 rising behind global temperatures is an Effect.
What is so difficult to understand about cause and effect? Causes come before effects.
Rising global temperatures are the cause of rising CO2 levels. And it takes hundreds of years before CO2 levels begin to rise following this cause.
Carbon dioxide follows rises and falls in temperature. It is never shown to be the driver, it is always an effect.
This is the pattern we are in, in our current Ice Age as we go in and out of interglacials. Other periods show no sign of CO2 driving global temperatures either. In other words, CO2 has f’all to do with driving global temperatures.
Carbon Dioxide is irrelevant to causing rises and falls in temperatures.
To claim otherwise is to leave science and descend into superstitious belief which imagines causes for effects, because it doesn’t know any better.
AGWScience does know better. That’s why it consistently and deliberately lies, consistently and deliberately massages temperature records, consistently and deliberately uses half truths like this to con those who haven’t examined through to the simple logic.
Whatever is driving these great climate changes we have had in the last 600,000 years, it can’t be CO2. Can’t be. No matter how many other superstitious things you say about carbon dioxide to try and make it ‘appear’ to fit the AGW claim.
And, if you look at as closely at the these other other claims, you’ll find the same pattern of half truths. Deliberately manufactured by those who do know the difference between cause and effect and in ignorance by those who haven’t examined the claims closely enough. And sometimes in expediency, often seen in studies by those who give it lip service by tagging a line referring to it onto their report, their interest being in getting funded to do their research..
Anyway, what you’re promoting here is an ideology full of superstitious reasoning, real science has already falsified the premise.
In England the Al Gore film was ruled ideology, not science. And ruled that it could not be shown in schools as if it was actually presenting science facts.
http://www.paulmacrae.com/?p=21
So, you can keep believing in your superstitious new religion pretending it is science, but don’t expect me to join you.
How does CO2 stay up in the atmosphere accumulating for hundreds and thousands of years, when it is heavier than air?
Myrrh says:
January 19, 2011 at 2:24 am
Whatever is driving these great climate changes we have had in the last 600,000 years, it can’t be CO2. Can’t be. No matter how many other superstitious things you say about carbon dioxide to try and make it ‘appear’ to fit the AGW claim.
———————-
That’s right CO2 hasn’t been driving climate change over the last 600,000 years. I don’t think any published climate scientist is saying that either.
What they are saying is that when the Earth comes out of an ice age, the warming is not initiated by CO2 but by changes in the Earth’s orbit. The warming causes the oceans to give up CO2. The CO2 amplifies the warming and mixes through the atmosphere, spreading warming throughout the planet.
The increased CO2 in the atmosphere amplifies the original warming. The relatively weak forcing from Milankovitch cycles is insufficient to cause the dramatic temperature change taking our climate out of an ice age. However, the amplifying effect of CO2 is consistent with the observed warming.
This proves that CO2 can and does effect the global climate. The difference now is that humans are pumping out large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, similar to what the oceans did as we came out of the last ice age and which is known to have an effect on global climate.
Climate reacts to whatever forces it to change at the time; humans are now the dominant forcing.
The difference is now that Humans are pumping out large amounts of CO2
Les, Myrrh, Smokey… I kept the last 25 or so ‘comments’ aside and have finally had time to read them.
Brilliant. Simply and heartily brilliant.
Thank You for taking the time to read and write what you do. I’m speechless, which admittedly ~ doesn’t happen often…but, my head just ‘may’ be bigger for all the thoughts I’ve taken in… truly expansive and SIMPLE TO FOLLOW thoughts, Guys.
Oh…and… Micheal? Methinks you’ve been out-thought by three truly inspiring minds.
Just F.Y.I., you understand…. *LOVED the Leo Tolstoy quote as well… will saunter
to the back veranda to peek up at the stars and allow all my gratefulness to you guys just ‘rise’…or…is that sink…? No matter. I’ll also thank GOD that eugenics has been unmasked for what it is and that I may continue to smile & expel CO2 with no dramas just because of folks like you three.
My most sincere thanks, indeed to you all.
Cynthia Lauren
“You are saying CO2 is a driver because AGWScience says it.”
No, because real normal science have been saying it for a very long time. General physics and actual experiments can show how CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Do you read my posts?
“AGWScience is lying when it says that CO2 is the driver of global temperatures. ”
Science has never said that it is THE driver, it is one of a possible many drivers, it is just the only one that explains whats happening now as Science has checked all the other possible drivers that it is aware of to a 95% confidence.
“CO2 cannot be a driver or one of the drivers of global temperature, because, it doesn’t begin to rise until around 800 years after global temperatures rise. This is accepted science, both in real science and in AGWScience, for how our climate has been for the last 600,000+ years.””This is the pattern we are in, in our current Ice Age as we go in and out of interglacials.”
The current theory is that the reason we go in and out of the ice ages you are talking about is due to a planetary cycle that changes our orbit around the sun. This is well known and is not relevent in our current predicament. What it shows is that CO2 amplifies the effect as they feed each other. I also explained how greenhouse gases took us out of the snowball earth stage 650 million years ago. It has been a turbulant 4 billion years and their has been much planetary action.
“Carbon Dioxide is irrelevant to causing rises and falls in temperatures. To claim otherwise is to leave science and descend into superstitious belief which imagines causes for effects, because it doesn’t know any better.”
No it doesn’t, this is where you struggle to understand that CO2 has been influential in the past and it hasn’t been influential, but that does not follow that it cannot be influential now. The transitive dependency just doesn’t exist. Their are many factors, feedbacks and cycles to take into account, some are relevant in some situations and others not. Also the particular set of circumstances we are in has never happened before, you have nothing to compare it to.
“And, if you look at as closely at the these other other claims, you’ll find the same pattern of half truths. ”
The half truths are mostly on the skeptic side. Did you look at my original response to Moncktons claims? Most are either half truths or irrelevent to the current situation, making connections where none exist. They act as common thieves breaking into computers and then cherry pick and blow out statements making conspiracies where none exists. Where those thieves caught and prosecuted? They attack hard working honest scientists like Michael Mann, who has also been cleared, but enlist politicians looking to make names for themselves to tie them up in useless, taxpayer funded inquiries. Why? Fossil fuels is a 9 trillion dollar industry, thats where the real money is. Do you remember smoking being harmless? Much the same arguments and where was all the money? Most scientists generally want to better mankind.
“How does CO2 stay up in the atmosphere accumulating for hundreds and thousands of years, when it is heavier than air?”
Not sure what you are getting at here? Air is not a single molecule in a stagnant, stale and still environment. Air is made up of many things including Nitrogen, Oxygen, Argon, CO2, Neon, Helium ++ etc in a constantly swirling moving environment. CO2 is also not stagnant it gets taken up by oceans and plants and is thrown out by volcanoes, decaying plants, fossil fuels, breathing. Normally this is pretty much in balance, but currently it is not in balance due to the amount we are adding is swamping the ability of the environment to take it up. So frankly I do not understand the question.
“I’m about to give up..” I should be saying that, not you. I am not a skeptic, I have read and investigated and made a decision on what I know thus far. I was hoping that if you are actually a skeptic you would be looking critically at both sides and I could convince YOU. I have been trying really hard 🙂
Myrrh – just wanted to respond to one of your central claims. You’ve repeatedly said that:
C1) In the past, rises in CO2 have followed (by ~800 years) rises in global temperature
There is agreement by all sides on this point.
You go on to claim that:
C2) C02 cannot be a “driver” (a cause) of rises in global temperature
You’ve repeatedly argued that C2 follows from C1. As far as I can tell, your reason for thinking that C2 follows from C1 is the principle that “effects must follow (i.e. come later in time than) causes.”
Is that, so far, a fair representation of your thinking?
If so, then I have to strenuously disagree with the logic of your argument. C2 does not logically follow from C1 (even in conjunction with the principle that causes precede effects). Here’s why. It can be – and often is – the case that one type of event (call it X) causes another type of event (call it Y), and that Y causes X (either at different times, or, in a sense, “simultaneously.”) Here are some examples.
Consider Nervous Ned. He hates giving public speeches. Whenever he does, his level of anxiety (call that X) rises. When his level of anxiety (X) rises, the level of verbal mistakes (call that Y) he makes also tends to rise. So, X is one of the causes of Y.
When Ned starts making more mistakes in his speech, however, it has the tendency to make Ned even more anxious. That is, Y causes X (a rise in the level of mistakes causes a rise in the level of his anxiety). This, as one might expect, causes him to make yet further mistakes, which causes yet a further increase in anxiety, and so on.
In this case, both types of event, X and Y, act as causes of each other. Each is a positive feedback for the other.
Suppose that up to now, we’ve only ever observed cases in which Ned’s level of anxiety rose before he started making mistakes, so that Y has only ever been observed to “lag” X. Would this show that Y is not – cannot be – a cause of X? Of course not.
Suppose that on a given occasion, Ned’s level of anxiety has not risen. He is talking, but not at all unduly nervous in doing so. He makes a few verbal mistakes. Would it be surprising if we found that, as a result, his level of anxiety began to rise? Of course not. And wouldn’t we expect that, then, to cause a yet further increase in verbal mistakes? Of course. In this case, we’d have found that verbal mistakes “initiated” the self-reinforcing loop, whereas in the past we’d observed levels of anxiety “initiating” the loop. Is this contradictory? Is this a “logical disjunct”? Is this a violation of the principle that “causes must precede effects”? Of course not.
If you gave it some critical reflection, I think you (and others) would start to notice that there are all sorts of natural processes that fit this pattern of causation. For instance, drinking and depression can tend to cause each other – sometimes the one “initiates” the other, and other times, the other “initiates” the one. Or consider what happens when some inexperienced drivers get stuck in the snow. Some tend to floor the accelerator, causing the surface under their tires to become even more slippery, which can cause such drivers to try to accelerate even more, and so on. Such causal relationships are ubiquitous. They show that it is possible for X-type events to be causes of Y-type events, and for Y-type events to be causes of X-type events.
This shows that C2 does not follow from C1. I have not shown (nor have I tried to show) that a rise in C02 is a “driver” of a rise in global temperature. What I hope to have shown, however, is that, as a matter of logic, there is absolutely no problem in claiming that an increase in C02 can be a cause of an increase in global temperature even if in the past rises in C02 have consistently followed, rather than preceded, rises in temperature. So this particular objection falls flat. Does that seem like a fair assessment of this particular objection (again, notice I’ve not so far given any positive reason for accepting the claim that C02 is a cause of temperature, but merely diagnosed a common mistake in objecting to that claim)?
Michael says that oil companies are the most profitable companies on the planet.
Wrong, as in so many other false assertions.
The average return on equity for oil companies is ≈9%. Many other industries return far more to their shareholders, and have a greater net worth. Google is worth far more than Exxon [the biggest U.S. oil company].
Falsus in unum, falsus in omis.
I’ve conclusively debunked Michael’s claim that weather disasters are getting worse. Being blinded by cognitive dissonance, he cannot see how wrong he was about his claim that weather is getting worse.
Falsus in unum, falsus in omis.
His religion does not allow him to question empirical facts that amount to heresy in his mind. But others see his false examples, and understand his delusion. It’s a common one. However, the public is becoming aware that the so-called “facts” parroted by CAGW believers are erroneous. Including the putative “fact” that CO2 will trigger catastrophic AGW. It never has before, and it isn’t doing it now.
Falsus in unum, falsus in omis.
Brian,
Thanks for your comment. But those are pretty far out analogies. You should keep in mind that the claim that there is a self-reinforcing positive feedback between CO2 and water vapor is a conjecture. It is speculation, with no empirical, testable evidence showing that it has ever happened during the Holocene or before.
For example, at a time when CO2 remained very low [≈280 ppmv], the planet experienced a rapid rise in temperature of 27°F! — within ten years!
Natural climate variability fully explains the very mild 0.7°C warming over the past 150 years. That minor warming has happened repeatedly throughout the Holocene, without any correlation to CO2 levels. That strongly suggests that the current warming is only coincidental with the rise in CO2. And over the past 15 years, that apparent correlation has broken down entirely.
CO2 may have an effect on temperature, but it is too small to measure. Many other forcings overwhelm it. Skeptical scientists — the only honest kind of scientists — look at these verifiable facts, and are not convinced of the conjecture that CO2 drives the climate. It is a flimsy conjecture based largely on hand-waving and “what ifs.”
It is certainly much too weak a conjecture to justify wreaking havoc on the U.S. economy by trying to mitigate a harmless and beneficial trace gas, when China alone is emitting much more CO2 than America.
And China is only one of numerous countries doing the same thing. Rational folks look at the situation, and at Al Gore’s beachfront purchases, and at the profligate waste by thousands of UN/IPCC scientists, NGOs, QUANGOS, tenured university drones, etc., all flying into Cancun and staying in $450 a night hotel rooms, feasting on champagne, brie, caviar and lobster at the public’s expense — and conclude that money and politics is fueling the CAGW scare. Because the science certainly doesn’t support the climate alarmist crowd’s beliefs.
Smokey said:
the claim that there is a self-reinforcing positive feedback between CO2 and water vapor [did you mean temperature?] is a conjecture. It is speculation, with no empirical, testable evidence showing that it has ever happened during the Holocene or before.
For example, at a time when CO2 remained very low [≈280 ppmv], the planet experienced a rapid rise in temperature of 27°F! — within ten years!
I’m afraid I don’t understand how this is an example of the claim that there is no positive feedback btw. CO2 and temperature. Claiming that X and Y mutually reinforce each other is obviously consistent with claiming that X is not the only thing that reinforces Y (and vice versa), no? Using my example of Nervous Ned, it’d be unsurprising if other things besides making verbal mistakes also contributed to an increase in his level of anxiety – for instance, being chased by a bear, or having an argument with a sibling. Surely it would be bizarre to argue as follows:
One time, Ned made no verbal mistakes, and yet had an incredible surge in anxiety – all in a very short time!
Therefore, we have good reason to suspect that making verbal mistakes does not contribute to a rise in anxiety.
That’s clearly fallacious, no? Perhaps what explains the surge in anxiety is one of the many other causes of anxiety (e.g. fighting with a sibling). Perhaps many surges in anxiety have been caused by things other than verbal mistakes. Would that give us reason to deny the claim that verbal mistakes can contribute to anxiety? Of course not.
None of what I’ve just said would show that verbal mistakes do in fact contribute to anxiety. But again, my point is just to draw attention to what appear to be obviously fallacious inferences in the objections that have been raised against the claim that C02 can be a “driver” of temperature. Everyone grants that there are other additional causes of global temperature changes, so why would an instance in which temperature rises in the absence of a significant (short-term) change in CO2 be any sort of evidence for the lack of a significant feedback effect (which typically lags temperature rise by 800-1000 years, not 10 years)? Could you explain again this particular example (low CO2 w/ a spike in temp), and what you took it to show?
Brian,
I meant what I said: “…the claim that there is a self-reinforcing positive feedback between CO2 and water vapor…”. That is the conjecture of the climate alarmist contingent. My link shows that CO2 is irrelevant to temperature changes.
You asked: “Could you explain again this particular example (low CO2 w/ a spike in temp), and what you took it to show?”
I already explained it for you. But I’ll explain it one more time:
Natural climate variability fully explains the very mild 0.7°C warming over the past 150 years. That minor warming has happened repeatedly throughout the Holocene, without any correlation to CO2 levels. That strongly suggests that the current warming is only coincidental with the rise in CO2. And over the past 15 years, that apparent correlation has broken down entirely.
Occam’s Razor states that the simplest explanation is the best explanation. Natural climate variability is simple to understand, and has never been falsified [it is the climate null hypothesis].
According to the Razor, the addition of an extraneous variable is undesirable:
“One should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything.”
~William of Ockham, 1285-1349
CO2 is an extraneous entity, and it is completely unnecessary to explain the very *mild* 0.7° warming over the past century and a half. The scientifically illiterate demonization of “carbon” [by which the uneducated mean CO2] is based on the repeatedly falsified claim that CO2 will lead to catastrophic runaway global warming. There is no empirical evidence that has ever happened in the past due to CO2. Real world geologic evidence shows the CO2=CAGW conjecture to be nonsense.
In natural global warming, there is a closer correlation to postal rates than to CO2.
“One should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything.”
~William of Ockham, 1285-1349
“…so, it follows that by presenting the FACTS with the LEAST amount of extraneous verbiage (unless one TRULY wants/intends to ‘cloud the issue’, ie: ~ like purposely befuddling & confounding the reader in order to have him/her abandon his tenacity and therefore, to have him SHUT UP and meekly sit down) for ANYONE to hide behind.”
Guys. William was right. Deliberate obfuscation has gone on since ‘The Garden’.
It began, methinks with: “Did God REALLY say…?”
From then till today ~ the easiest way to achieve the Truth about an issue ~ is to surrender one’s ego ‘AT THE DOOR’ before one enters in to the fray. I have been praying about this for over one year now and wholeheartedly believe that the reason why Science is ‘targeted’ (all Target store customers, please forgive the non-politically correct analogy) is because the humans involved in it have allowed their hearts to become corrupted. NOT a good thing, ladies and gentlemen.
A bit of humility, the ability to laugh at oneself (that happens most often when you possess the capacity to LOVE yourself, p.s.) and accept a truly sincere hug from another – (in other words, just being a ‘human’ bright or otherwise) – and this whole ‘Climate Non-science’ would be over and all of you would be invited to this beach across from our home… Ahhh….one can dream. Yet – quizzically – I now wonder if even ‘dreaming’ soon will become a thing of the past…for it seems these folks that loathe ‘skeptics’ are indeed either: cunning, or conned, and mostly get really really nasty, defensive or angry. (Therefore, I pray.)
There are only two roads, Gentlemen. Thankfully, no one can force one or the other upon anyone. Here’s to ‘freedom and God-given wisdom’ and may it forever shine.
Cynthia Lauren
Michael, you keep thinking I’m not reading what you’ve said, but I have been, but you bring out so many different points it’s not been possible to deal with them all. I don’t have the time to come back to this until tomorrow, but will endeavour to go through your last post in more detail.
Brian, but, there is obvious cause in ‘becoming more nervous and making more mistakes’, but again even there such a feedback to extreme is still a conjecture. There is no cause ‘CO2 drives temperature’, not even in ‘feedback’, the ‘feedback’ is not proven.
If such a feedback existed we would see an exponential rise of temperature through our interglacial history as soon as CO2 kicked in, show me where this exists. Where is the ‘feedback’?
Michael – you said:
“How about comparing the average salary of a climate scientist to a politician or an oil executive. Also I mean salary (their take home, discretionary spending amount) not the money spent on their research for labs, staff and equipment.”
I have no issue with the amount of money spent on research and equipment.
What I have an issue with, though, is that a future of all of us is riding on theories and computer models which use selected and not fully published set of data (to mention just one aspect).
Yes – by all means: do the research, publish ALL info, including the original source data and measurements, publish the details of the computer models – and subject it all to scrutiny. Climate science is very multi-disciplinary – and it would surely benefit from the insight of scientists who are specialists in disciplines like chemistry, oceanography, atmospheric research, physics, thermodynamics, chemistry – you name it. I dare to say that there are not many (if any) of the basic sciences and few (of the applied sciences) which would not find the issue of climate change dynamics – related to their field of expertise.
Treating climate science as a separate discipline makes sense from a point of getting grants and administration, but as a science – it just applies (or rather it should apply) the known laws and principles – because, as once had been said – “nihil novi sub sole”.
Instead – it is jealously guarded from the “not initiated” – in regards to data and models used to predict the dire future – if the tax is not imposed on world’s population immediately.
Regarding the “average salary” – I do not know: what I know is that over $2.5 billion this year is going to be spent on grants related to climate research, and that Al Gore is currently asking over $170k per appearance. Please do not tell me that there is no conflict of interest here.
I have been walking this Earth long enough to have no illusions left regarding good will and intentions of governments. As far as UN goes – it would be hard to find an institution which is more inefficient, wasteful, and lacking the cojones to solve any of the existing problems. Under watchful eye of UN – millions of people had been slaughtered in genocide wars, billions of dollars had been delivered straight to pockets of dictators all over the world – and, for the most part, posting to UN is regarded worldwide as a plum position, devoid of any responsibility, but full of perks – and usually quite decent salary. In other words – seeing the world – at someone else’s expense.
So – please spare me the remarks of governments acting in my interest. They mostly act in their own interest – but it would be really nice if they remembered that (at least in some countries) they are the elected representatives. Which, of course, is more of a theory than the practice.
Thanks for the reply, Smokey.
Two points.
First, do you agree that the following argument – which Myrrh’s comments seem to endorse – is logically invalid (i.e. that the premises, even if true, do not guarantee the truth of the conclusion)? Here it is:
P1) In the past, rise in temperature has preceded rise in CO2
P2) Effects cannot precede their causes
C) Therefore, a rise in CO2 cannot be a cause of a rise in temperature
Do you think that the conclusion follows from those premises? Or do you think that this is a mistake in logic? (Note: agreeing that this is fallacious would not show that a rise in CO2 can cause a rise in temperature; it would only show that this argument fails to establish its conclusion.)
Second, forgive me if I still am not quite clear on what you meant your example of the 27F rise in temperature over 10 years to show, but let me try again. Is this how you thought of that particular case functioning?
P1) In Greenland, average temperature rose 27F over 10 years, while levels of CO2 remained quite low
P2) If (as most scientists claim) CO2 and temperature are (“non-trivially”) causally related, P1 would have to be false
C) Therefore, CO2 and temperature are not (or only “trivially”) causally related
This argument is (unlike Myrrh’s) logically valid. Does it represent (at least roughly) the work that this particular example of a 27F spike in temperature is supposed to do for your case? If it does, then I’d think that those who affirm AGW would claim that your argument, while valid, is unsound, in virtue of P2 being false. My question to you, then, would be: why do you think (if this is what you think) that if temperature and CO2 are causally related, we should not get events like the 27F spike happening in the absence of a dramatic rise in CO2?
More generally, why should we think that, if temperature and CO2 are causally related, then we should expect to see a direct correlation between CO2 levels at a time, and global average temperatures at that time? (AGW theorists don’t make such a claim, do they?)
Hi Brian,
I can answer all your questions. In fact, they have all been discussed in detail here over the past 3 – 4 years. The WUWT search function will get you to the relevant articles and discussion. And there is no censorship here, so you will see both sides of the debate.
But before I get into any endless question answering going back-and-forth, let’s return to first principles:
There is no discernable, measurable difference between the current climate in temperature, trends or their parameters from those same temperatures, trends or parameters during the Holocene. It has all happened before, just like it is happening today. Nothing unusual is occurring.
Temperatures have risen as fast, or faster in the past; they have declined as fast, or faster, too. Current temperatures are pretty close to the middle range over the past 10,000 years of the Holocene.
The fact that today’s temperatures, rate of rise, trend, etc., are no different from numerous times in the past supports the null hypothesis – which must be falsified for the alternative CO2=CAGW hypothesis to be valid, since CO2 has risen substantially over the course of the industrial revolution; almost 40%. That is a significant rise.
Therefore, if CO2 caused global harm, we should have seen strong, verifiable evidence of the damage by now. But there is no verifiable global damage due to CO2. None. For every example given, there are equally plausible, or more plausible explanations that exclude CO2.
The fallacy of the argumentum ad ignorantium is constantly used by alarmists to blame a harmless trace gas for anything and everything: “Since I can’t think of any other reason for this effect, then CO2 must be the cause!” That argument is not acceptable under the scientific method. [And please also avoid the fallacy of the Precautionary Principle: “We can’t take any chances! Think of the children!”]
I can document the statements above. My question to you is: since there is no measurable change between now and the past 10 millennia [and, in fact, much farther back in time], what empirical, testable, verifiable evidence [excluding models; models are not evidence] can you provide, which conclusively shows global harm due specifically to the rise in CO2?
That question must be answered according to the scientific method. [If you’re unsure about the scientific method and falsification/testability, see Karl Popper.]
Otherwise, you must acknowledge that the null hypothesis is valid, and therefore no blame can be laid at the feet of a harmless trace gas, since there has been no change from past geologic eras, when CO2 levels were low and remained steady – or ramped up to thousands of ppmv, as the planet descended into an Ice Age.
Please provide rigorous evidence of global damage due directly to the rise in CO2, without any extraneous variables thrown in to muddy the waters. Or, you agree that the null hypothesis remains un-falsified, in which case we are on the same page.
The Hadcrut3 data for December is now out. You can check the numbers here where it shows 2010 was tied for third spot:
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3gl.txt
Or you can check the graph here where it is in second place:
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/
So 1998 is still the mark to beat according to Hadcut3.
You have to go back to the 1940s to find a time according to the Hadcrut3 data where the previous high mark was not beaten in ten years or less.
Werner – I did have a look at the data (BTW, isn’t CRU the outfit whose adherence to truth has been put in question before…OK – just teasing :).
So what exactly does it show or prove ?
That the temperature is raising ?
Or that it is falling ?
I do not care one way or the other: what I care about is:
1) Taxation is not likely to change Earth’s temperature
2) If climate researchers want to be called scientists – they need to follow the scientific method a bit more closely: transparency, access to data, clearly defined criteria for accepting/refuting of their theories, empirical evidence confirming their theories.
If a computer model is considered to be a proof of global warming or cooling – then this is very far from (real) science. A bit more is needed than a positive review from a buddy and a publication in a friendly journal…
For instance – all publications where the original data was “lost”, or “misplaced”, or “adjusted” – should be immediately withdrawn – to start with.
“Les says:
January 19, 2011 at 8:23 pm
So what exactly does it show or prove ?”
The IPCC had a range of predictions as to what should happen to temperatures if their theory was correct. See page 21 of the article below to see how their predictions are matching with reality:
http://sciencespeak.com/MissingSignature.pdf
So if their theory was correct, the 1998 mark should have been beaten several times by now, even without the help of an El Nino that we had in 2010. The way I see it, every year that the 1998 mark does not get beaten by Hadcrut3, that is another nail in the coffin for CAGW. And with the La Nina affecting things now, no one is predicting any record in 2011 either.
Michael, I’ll make a start at answering your post, will continue later.
You said, re my “You are saying CO2 is a driver because AGWScience says it.”
No, because real normal science have been saying it for a very long time. General physics and actual experiments can show how CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Do you read my posts?,
& re my ” AGWScience is lying when it says that CO2 is the driver of global temperatures.”
Science has never said that it is THE driver, it is one of a posssible many drivers, it is just the only one that explains what’s happening now as Science has checked all other possible drivers that it is aware of to a 95% confidence.
I stand by what I’ve said, you’re saying it because AGW is saying it, and you’re saying it now. Show me the physics and actual experiments which back up what you’ve just said as coming from actual physics and experiment apart from AGWScience claims, which you’ve yet to show me even exist.
Again, if Carbon Dioxide is shown never to have driven the vast global temperature changes in the past so other factors were at play in these great events of huge flooding and freezing, how has it suddenly become the only driver now? So you are exactly saying what you say has never been said in Science, that it is THE driver.
In other words, you’re right Science has never said it, only AGWScience says it and you’re repeating it.
What does AGW say about it being a greenhouse gas? It points to Arrhenius and says, ‘see, it’s a done thing, the father of greenhouse and of global warming by CO2, he established the idea and gave a figure for doubling, etc.’. What it doesn’t say is that he later revised this in light of further information on the subject, it doesn’t say that he was specifically referring to carbonic acid in the paper they reference, it doesn’t say that he thought global warming would be a good thing for us, it doesn’t say that his ideas were discredited later.
Here’s a link to a discussion about Arrhenius last year on WUWT – http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/13/6995/ The points I’ve made come from posters in the discussion (Monckton’s post points out the further revision Arrhenius made), and there’s other interesting stuff which will help with adjusting perspective. But one in particular I’ll look at here.
DocMartyn’s post April 14, 2009 at 7:23 pm says:
It should be remembered that Knut Angstrom kicked Arrhenius’s ass with respect to his extinction coefficient, and hence, his CO2 driven global warming postulate.
And links to a book Physics of the Air by W.J. Humphreys which I’ve found can be read online here: http://www.archive.org/details/physicsoftheairs032485mbp
From which: 7. (c) The Carbon Dioxide Theory – This theory, advocated by Tyndall, Arrhenius, Chamberlin, and others, is based on the selective absorption of carbon dioxide for radiation of different wave lengths, and on its assumed variation amount.
It is true that carbon dioxide is more absorptive of terrestrial than of solar radiations, and that it, therefore, produces a greenhouse or blanketing effect, and it is also, probably true that its amount in the atmosphere has varied through appreciable ranges, as a result of volcanic and other additions on the one hand, and of oceanic absorption and chemical combination on the other. But it is not possible to say exactly how great an effect a given change in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would have on the temperature of the earth. However, by bringing a number of known facts to bear on the subject it seems feasible to determine its approximate value. Thus the experiments of Schaefer show that, at atmospheric pressure, a column of carbon dioxide 50 cm. long is ample for maximum absorption, since one of this length absorbs quite as completely as does a column 200 cm. long at the same density. Also, the experiments of Angstrom, and those of E. v. Bahr, show that the absorption of radiation by carbon dioxide, or other gas, increases with increase of pressure, and, what is of great importance, that, both qualitatively and quantitatively, this increase of absorption is exactly the same whether the given higher pressure be obtained by compression of the pure gas to a column of shorter length, or, leaving the column unchanged, by the simple addition of an inert gas.
According to these experiments, if a given column or quantity of carbon dioxide at a pressure 50 mm. absorbs 20 per cent of the incident selective radiation, then, at 100 mm it will absorb 25 per cent, at 200 mm. 30 per cent, at 400 mm. 35 per cent, and at 800 mm about 38.5 per cent.
Now, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is equivalent to a column of the pure gas, at ordinary room temperature and atmospheric pressure, of, roughly, 250 cm. in length. Hence, as a little calculation proves, using the coefficients of absorption at different pressures given by the experiments of Anstrom and E. v. Bahr, just described, the carbon dioxide now in the atmosphere must, under its present vertical distribution, absorb radiation very approximately as would a column 475 cm. long of the pure gas at the barometic pressure of 400 mm. But Schaefer’s experiments, above referred to, show that such a column would be just as effective an absorber as a cylinder two or three time this length, and, on the other hand, no more effective than a column one-half or one-fourth as long; in each case, the absorption would be complete in the selective regions of the gas in question.
Hence, finally, doubling or halving the amount of carbon dioxide now in the atmosphere, since this would make but little difference in the pressure, would not appreciably affect the total amount of radiation actually absorbed by it, whether of terrestrial or of solar origin, though it would affect the vertical distribution or location of the absorption.
Again, as explained by Abbot and Fowle, the water vapor always present in the atmosphere, because of its high coefficients of absorption in substantially the same regions where carbon dioxide is effective, leaves but little radiation for the latter to take up. Hence, for this reason, as well as for the one given above, either doubling or halving the present amount of carbon dioxide could alter but little the total amount of radiation actually absorbed by the atmosphere, and, therefore, seemingly, could not appreciably change the average temperature of the earth, or be at all effective in the production of marked climatic changes.
This is looking at theories on causes of ice ages, he does go on to wonder if CO2 above variation of absorption of water vapour might contribute to global cooling. But anyway, do you have any physics and experimentation from AGWScience to contradict this?
Much more work has been done since which confirms that CO2 is insignificant in the scheme of things, even the recent AIRS data said that CO2 was insignificant compared with the water vapour – and water vapour is something the AGW models just don’t like dealing with because they want to put all the blame on CO2. AIRS also said that CO2 was lumpy and not at all well mixed in the atmosphere.
So you see, another example of half truth from AGW, missing out vital information from Science which contradicts its hypothesis, deliberately leading supporters to believe that real Science confirms it when it clearly doesn’t.
For now.
“If a computer model is considered to be a proof of global warming or cooling – then this is very far from (real) science. A bit more is needed than a positive review from a buddy and a publication in a friendly journal…”
This is ridiculous, the problem is that you don’t understand science, it is the same as looking at math and thinking it works like arithmetic. A maths teacher will tell you that arithmetic is adding and multiplying, whereas math is statistics, probability, calculus, geometry et cetera.
You call what I think is a belief, but on my side I have actual genuine scientists who have specialised and spent years in a field of study. They look at actual data and spend their time evaluating the data and searching for more data, and aggregating data from other sources together, and seeking experts in other fields to complement and explain their work to them. They then pass those conclusions around and accept criticism from their colleagues and adjust and fix. They then publish that data and the results for the whole world to criticise and examine and where errors are found they fix those. The majority of the raw data you seek is available. Also you should not cherry pick your data but aggregate many sources together. For instance I’m quite happy to accept Hadcrut 3 but as I understand it, it is not a global measurement, it misses out the Arctic.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Quick-and-Dirty-GHCN-Analysis.html
On your side you have self-proclaimed experts and ex-politicians proclaiming that everything is one big conspiracy were all the governments (and a lot of them aren’t friendly to each other), all the scientists and scientific bodies are colluding in some huge scam that in reality hardly benefits any of them. Your proof is based on data from thousands and millions of years ago before man existed that came from ice cores in one area to say that man did not cause this so how could man cause it now. You say it’s all natural as if that is an excuse when all the natural causes are well-known and have been accounted for. If anything the planetary cycle were in and measurements from the sun tell us we should be cooling, lucky for us or things would be much worse. But the data says were warming and over the same timeframe as CO2 is rising, a well-known greenhouse gas accepted scientifically and experimentally. You say that a model cannot explain the climate when the fact is the theory is based on models and cold hard facts and evidence from many areas. Apart from that models and theories in science are like the math in mathematics, most of what runs the world around us are based on models and theories. If the standard model of physics, a theory, did not work neither would the computer you are using to view this, GPS, television, microwave et cetera. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Model
Apply your own Ockhams razor, is a global conspiracy and convoluted twisting of generally accepted science and data, more believable than basic data that says a greenhouse gas is rising at the same time as temp and we have ruled out all other causes.
Your side is not based on proven facts and theories it is based on the other side is wrong, so I know which one I consider a belief.
“…Michael says that oil companies are the most profitable companies on the planet.
Wrong, as in so many other false assertions.”
To quote the Fortune 500 magazine for 2010
“Oil companies are the biggest money makers on this year’s Global 500, including besieged BP.”
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2010/
“We all see a pattern here – topping the charts are companies from oil & gas industries, as much as we often hate and curse them for ruining the environment.”
http://www.penn-olson.com/2010/08/30/the-worlds-most-profitable-companies-infographic/
and of couse this does not count the major sources of oil those Arab countries and Arab Billionaires.
—
“…I’ve conclusively debunked Michael’s claim that weather disasters are getting worse.”
Are you joking? You consider your cherry picked irrelevencies proof? You have a very low standard of proof and the ignore the mountains of evidence for climate change.
“Perhaps we should start looking harder at the present. Recent extreme weather events include not only the Victorian bushfires and record floods in Queensland. According to the international insurance group Munich Re, 2010 saw the second-highest number of natural catastrophes since 1980, with 90 per cent of them weather-related.”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/global-weather-disasters-a-sign-the-heat-is-on/story-e6frg6zo-1225983256858
and a pretty strong start to 2011.
—
“…It is certainly much too weak a conjecture to justify wreaking havoc on the U.S. economy by trying to mitigate a harmless and beneficial trace gas, when China alone is emitting much more CO2 than America. ”
China is demonstrably making large strides and big efforts in cutting emissions and developing renewable industries. They are likely to become world leaders in it. Why, they are struggling with the problem on a daily basis and can see the future problems unfolding and want to be ahead of the pack.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/11/2842415.htm
—
“…“One should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything.”
~William of Ockham, 1285-1349”
I agree, so lets have a look at that. So in the absence of any natural basis for the current increase in temperature and considering that CO2 is rising at the same time, the most straightforward explanation is that mans pumping of billions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere is causing temps to rise. Natural variability is not an answer, most natural causes can be pinpointed and measured. Real scientists know them and have done this.
—
“…Regarding the “average salary” – I do not know: what I know is that over $2.5 billion this year is going to be spent on grants related to climate research, ”
This is pocket change to the 9 trillion dollar oil industry, and trillion dollar economies. Remember you are talking global, whats that approx 30c each for an issue that has the potential of ruining our way of life?
Myrrh,
whether Michael comments back to you or not I would like to comment on yours. That is a very good pieceoif information you just laid out, especially on Humphrey’s book and the experiments within.
It took me literally three month’s on and off to absorb Miskolczi’s paper well enough to were I could clearly see what he did and how he did it in his analysis of the radiosondes data. Don’t know if you are aware of his work or the depth you have gone to understand it. But there is a surprising parallel between his results and Humphrey’s you pointed out. That is when he took the measures of the absorption of LWIR across the last 61 years he found virtually no variance when all latitude bands and season are combined each year and this 61 years is during the largest increase of co2 concentration since the industrial revolution began.
I guess what I am saying is Miskolczi’s radiosonde analysis shows exactly what Humphrey was point out in Schaefer’s experiments.
If you do take the time to read Miskolczi’s papers, or already have and not understood exactly, here’s a tip. Don’t get thrown by his parameters. They do not mean what you generally read in K&T’s budget or from IPCC. Ed is not the same as the arrow of downward LW flux in Trenberth’s graphic. He did it as I had always viewed this complex system, first remove the knowns. The Ed equal Au is just a portion of the IR flux, it is the portion of ground to surface and surface to ground resonance that exists in the lower troposphere and is by physics and Kirchhoff’s law guaranteed to be zero over any long period of time, as a year. That removes the greatest amount of energy flux from the problem that we concretely know, not that it’s exact value at any instant, or at all, but that over time they are equal. His analysis then goes to dissect the remaining energy flows. That is what took me so long to notice the discrepancy to ‘normal’ AGWspeak and what he was doing. Forget for a moment IPCC’s thought pattern, his whole approach is different.
After doing all of his analysis, a plot of the absorption (optical path length) from all GHG’s of the LWIR across 61 years all fall basically on top of each other. Sixty one dots on top of themselves being the ground to space portion of the flow. The othr portion leaving earth is the up half of the IR within the atmosphere.
To me that shows Humphrey to be exactly correct in what he was saying in the book.
I might now ask, have you ever investigated this aspect?
Myrrh said: “I stand by what I’ve said, you’re saying it because AGW is saying it, and you’re saying it now. Show me the physics and actual experiments which back up what you’ve just said as coming from actual physics and experiment apart from AGWScience claims, which you’ve yet to show me even exist.”
Michael said: “Try the following sites for a bit of an education.
http://school.familyeducation.com/outdoor-games/greenhouse-effect/37442.html
http://www.picotech.com/experiments/global/globalwarming.html
http://www.practicalchemistry.org/experiments/the-greenhouse-effect,296,EX.html
Maybe you would like to try some experiments yourself, without greenhouse gases the planet would be a snowball.”
You are not reading what I write, or at least not understanding it. This is not AGWscience (whatever that is) its basic science done in high schools.
Thanks, Werner – very nice article.
Les said: “1) Taxation is not likely to change Earth’s temperature”
As has been said 1,000,000 times, no one is claiming taxation changes the Earth’s temperature. What we say is taxation is the most efficient means to change behaviour and focus research into desirable areas. It is used to factor in the cost of the damage to the environment into the price of fossil fuel so that a more realistic cost is obtained. At the moment it is the cheapest because you dig it out of the ground and burn it. This does not take into account pollution, increased CO2 in the atmosphere, and that it is not renewable. I know you guys have enough understanding to understand that but you purposely ignore it and proclaim the simplistic argument. I say again act like sceptics and examine all sides with the same critical eye without discounting and ignoring data from one side because somebody told you to.
Also follow the REAL money, who actually does profit at your expense, Governments as individuals don’t get to keep the money, scientists are accountable for their grants and normally are not paid much. The people who win are oil company executives and individuals who have made this their claim to fame.
But of course, Michael – I do not understand science 🙂
“This is ridiculous, the problem is that you don’t understand science, it is the same as looking at math and thinking it works like arithmetic.” You wrote it.
Simple solution to a problem – heh ?
The real problem. Michael, is that climate science is not a science at all…
At best it could be described as “applied science” – if it followed strictly scientific principles. But, alas, it does it only when it suits its preconceived ideas, while discarding it totally when convenient – or when inconvenient facts are discovered.
Believe it or not – I do not really care who is right. It may well be that we humans are causing a run-away climate problem. Even if similiar climate changes (much more severe if we are to believe scientific data) took place many times in the past – all without our input.
But so far it hasn’t been proven SCIENTIFICALLY. The gravitational constant does not need to be modified every 10 years to matcht the observations – because scientific principles have been used to determine it. Objects fall toward Earth – not away from it. Of course – this is all subject to a relatively simple theory in terms of observation, explanation and measurement.
Climate changes are not happening due to some mystical “climate change laws”. Climate changes are subject to laws of physics, thermodynamics, chemistry etc. etc. – very well known for the most part.
Science, Michael, is NOT formulating an outcome, then creating a theory (based mostly on debatable computer models), and supporting it with selected facts while discarding inconvenient facts.
Real science looks for any available proof to discard a theory. Strength of the theory is judged on how well it resists attempts to find a proof against it.
Climate change theories do that – by constantly changing goal posts, by backflips, by finally making them non-verifiable – because they try to explain any possible outcome.
Floods – climate change. Droughts – climate change. Hot – climate change. Cold – climate change. Ice – climate change. No ice – climate change. And climate change, as we all know, is driven by CO2 – generated by humans. The solution – taxation. BS.
Climate science, in particular, is mostly political and financial interests – and whatever science is actually applied – serves mostly to add air od respectability to the whole affair.
This is not science, Michael. I know that many honest scientist working on climate research would be outraged reading this – and rightfully so, at least to some extent.
But the whole issue is now so thoroughly hijacked by political and financial circles – that, IMHO, there is no hope. Or, maybe there is…we just need to wait.
The fact that a lot of our money (mostly yours) is going to be stolen by the crooks who claim the climate control powers – does not worry me too much either.
I just started building a house – in a rather remote area. For the most part – it is going to be self-sufficient. I will quit working and paying taxes – and will stick my hand out – like the politicians, bankers and some climate scientists do – and like them, will get some money for nothing. Since I am not very young – this will do it for me – although I could work for another 10-15 years. You, on the other hand, will be in circulation much longer, because – I am guessing – you are much younger than me.
At least it looks like it.
Myrrh said “Much more work has been done since which confirms that CO2 is insignificant in the scheme of things, even the recent AIRS data said that CO2 was insignificant compared with the water vapour – and water vapour is something the AGW models just don’t like dealing with because they want to put all the blame on CO2. AIRS also said that CO2 was lumpy and not at all well mixed in the atmosphere.”
Physical Chemistry of CO2 absorption
http://www.skepticalscience.com/The-Physical-Chemistry-of-Carbon-Dioxide-Absorption.html
PDF showing all the calculations
http://www.hfranzen.org/GWPPT6.pdf
What AIRS says
http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/AIRS/gesNews/airs_co2_global_trend
Also Science does not ignore water vapour.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/water-vapor-greenhouse-gas.htm
Where did Brian go?? Is he avoiding my specific question @January 19, 2011 at 4:09 pm am above?
That’s OK, maybe Michael can answer it. Stay within the parameters of the question, please. No linkys, you can speak for yourself. I want to hear your thoughts on the matter.
Oh, and thanx for your different definition of “profitable,” Michael. There are a number of definitions for what is profitable. I gave the return on shareholder equity, which is only about 9% for oil companies. The “biggest” one you selected, Exxon Mobil, has a ROI of less than 9%. That’s profitable, but not outstanding. Many companies do better.
And rather than demonize a company whose products you willingly pay for, why not just buy some shares of Exxon? Then you can share in their humongous profits. You can be an oil baron! Or does hating them while leaving your savings in a savings or checking account paying ≈1% make more sense to you?
Now, on to the question of the null hypothesis! Take your time, I’m retired. I can wait.☺
Michael – this link talks about the same issues as the PDF – but is written better (easier to read, that is).
http://scienceofdoom.com/2009/11/28/co2-an-insignificant-trace-gas-part-one/
As I said before, though, a notion that taxation can change climate is absurd – irrespective of accuracy and validity of warming models. It looks to me like Earth follows its own schedule and plan regarding climate changes anyway – I am a big fan of taking a long view, and the past history of Earth indicates that the forces at work here are way bigger than our ability to control them – even if we end the civilization by commiting a mass suicide.
Wayne – thank you for your comments. I don’t have a science background, just basics from school, so while I now understand enough to be able to follow Humphrey’s explanation I haven’t had the time to explore it any further in greater detail. I have to say that’s been one of the frustrating aspects since I first wondered why people were arguing about AGW, that it goes into so many fascinating areas most of which I’ve had to leave as I continued to try and make sense of the variety of AGW claims and the arguments for and against. But you’ve piqued my curiosity here, and I’ll certainly bear your advice in mind when I read Miskolczi.
Cynthia – thanks for your Ockham reminder, like the ‘you don’t really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother’. It should certainly apply to the basics of any arguing about a something, but I find with AGW supporters that their belief in the meme ‘the science is settled’ makes this complicated because each claim, from my research so far, has proved to have the actual science missing and supporters for the most part refuse to engage with this problem by beginning examination of it again on a basic level. This isn’t entirely their fault, it’s very hard to even think for a moment that information presented by ‘august and mainstream’ bodies promoting the correctness of AGWScience could be wrong in this. It came as quite a shock to me to find how widespread the meme; now taught in schools as basic science it has become a brainwashing of the younger generations who are still in their formative years and with no reason to doubt the information being given to them.
Michael –
Slow down, please. You keep missing the points I’m trying to make and this is adding to the problem I have in trying to reply to all the points you’ve been making.
My main point around which I’m working is that AGWScience is not real science, but at every junction deviates from presenting the full facts of real scientific knowledge and because it has to do this to maintain the illusion of being ‘science based’. Understand this please, you are not presenting me with new AGW material I don’t know anything about. I’ve already been through countless such examples and read countless arguments pro and con about them. I’ve given the arguments pro and con a lot of thought. When I began I had no reason to doubt what AGW supporters were saying. In other words, if I came into this with any bias at all, it was with a bias to not doubt that AGW was true, because, as for the many like me, it was something in the background of my life which I had no reason to give any thought to. It didn’t take me long to begin spotting the flaws, but I did feel as if I was on a see-saw for quite a while when it went into areas I didn’t know anything about, and each side’s arguments seemed right to me until I read the replies to them..
So, let’s take the sites you’ve given me for my education..
http://school.familyeducation.com/outdoor-games/greenhouse-effect/37442.html
The Greenhouse Effect Experiments
With all the talk about global warming these days, do you know how to explain the greenhouse effect to your kids? For a great example of this phenomenon, look no further than your own driveway! Did you know… You can observe all the principles of the greenhouse effect in a parked car in the sun:
Really? The earth and its atmosphere is like a car parked in the sun with the windows closed? Ditto the greenhouse picture. A closed system presented as if correct to explain the greenhouse? Try parking your car in the sun with all the windows open, does it make a difference? Opening the windows in the greenhouse?
But note, it says: Some of the gases in earth’s atmosphere act like the glass in the car windows. They let in solar energy and block or absorb infrared energy. As a result the atmosphere gets warmer.
Hmm, “some of the gases in the earth’s atmosphere act like the glass in the car windows”
So, in earth’s atmosphere there are bits of ‘gas glass’ acting like the windows in a closed car or closed greenhouse.
Then the picture should at least be a greenhouse with a certain percentage of its window glass smashed, equal to the amount of ‘greenhouse gases’ to our real atmosphere, size for size.
How much ‘glass’ is there in our atmosphere? How much of that greenhouse depicted would have any glass left if compared? Enough to still be called a greenhouse, do you think? Enough glass in our atmosphere to make our global atmosphere get warmer?
It goes further
What does pollution have to do with it?
In all, 30 greenhouse gases have been discovered to date, including carbon dioxide (CO2), water vapor, methane and ozone. But lately new gases are being added to the mix: Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). These are the harmful gases produced by cars and factories, and we humans are responsible!
This is what really makes me very, very angry with AGW, because it isn’t true.
Your next link, http://www.practicalchemistry.org/experiments/the-greenhouse-effect,296,EX.html
Read the responses from Tom Bolger and Alan M Calverd, and please think about them.
http://www.picotech.com/experiments/global/globalwarming.html
Introduction A build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to the use of fossil fuels and other industrial processes has led to an increase in the earth’s temperature. Since 1896 it has been known that these gases (carbon dioxide, methan and nitrous oxide) help stop the earth’s infrared radiation from escaping into space and it is this that maintains the earth’s relatively warm temperature.
This goes on to give an experiment. But first, is there anything of real science in these opening lines?
In just these ideas:”A build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to the use of fossil fuels and other industrial processes has led to an increase in the earth’s temperature. is enough material to explore and analyse to check if what it’s saying is true or not.
Has there been a build-up of greenhouse gases? Measured against what levels and when, where, and how were these past and present measurements recorded?
Look at Becks v Mauna Loa, for example. Do you think that Mauna Loa can be a “pristine” site from which to measure “background levels of CO2 uncontaminated by local conditions”, which is how it’s described by AGWScience, when its measured from the top of the world’s largest active volcano and surrounded in active volcanoes in the area of a volcanic hot spot beneath the warm sea, constantly producing massive amounts of carbon dioxide as it builds more volcanoes? It’s like measuring the smoke from a cigarette in a room full of smokers, and with no way to tell apart which smoke comes from which cigarette because they’re all exactly the same and thoroughly combined by the time it reaches the instruments measuring. The claim that there is a ‘background CO2’ being accurately measured is simply irrational. Then, when you look into how the ‘base’ measurement was first established by Keeling, cherry picking a low number so he could add his agenda driven ‘increasing man-made CO2 from fossil fuels’ to his ever-rising line on his graph.. etc. etc.
Can these gases build-up in the atmosphere? How does Carbon dioxide do this? It is heavier than air. One and a half times heavier than air. It therefore always sinks through air down to the ground unless another force is acting on it. Carbon Dioxide near the ground does not readily rise into the atmosphere because it is heavier than air. Read again the analysis of the experiment above. So how does this gas which is constantly reverting to type and displacing air to come to the ground, stay up in the air to “build-up”? Accumulating AGWScience says, for hundreds and even thousands of years..
We can see from ice core like Vostok that Methane and CO2 rise behind temperature ( http://motis.blogspot.com/2006/07/carbon-dioxide-and-temperatures-ice.html ), maybe we are adding more through burning fossil fuels and industry, but is this actually having any real effect on our global temperatures? As we’ve already gone through, if these are shown to not be drivers of temperature in the past, no sign of them boosting temperatures by their entry behind global warming, how have they suddenly acquired this new property to be able to do this? (How many pieces of glass are they in our atmosphere and how large?)
Mr Calverd summed it up perfectly. It’s a travesty.
Read instead http://ww.suite101.com/content/laws-of-physics-ready-to-defeat–the-global-warming-theory-a230496
What does Nahle mean when he says: “Atmospheric gases act only as conveyors of heat”?
Re AGWSCience’s water vapour feedback – http://kirkmyers.wordpress.com/2010/07/14/harvard-astrophysicist-dismisses-agw-theory-challenges-peers-to-take-back-climate-science/
If you want to explore further and just for heck of reading a scientist whose interest is in looking at our natural world to see how it works.
We already do know much about how our physical world works. It really is a travesty to keep having this non-science which violates the actual well known and understood basic laws of physics, which engineers and other applied scientists use daily in their work, to keep being presented in these ‘teachings’.
As I’ve tried to convey to you, one has to look at every single statement made and pick it apart to see what is being really being said. Ask the questions, find out what other scientists, whose work would be nonsense if they didn’t use basic physics in their jobs, think about it. If miners didn’t know that methane being lighter than air rises to collect in the ceiling and carbon dioxide being heavier sinks to pool on the ground, we wouldn’t have miners left to pass on that they didn’t know… This was understood to happen before science began to explain what was happening, that these were two different gases with different properties, different weights and so on.
“Since 1896 it has been known that these gases …” Indeed, and known that Arrhenius changed his mind, and known that he got it wrong anyway..
So, what questions can be asked about the experiment on that last link? “Comparison of Thermal Properties of Air and Carbon Dioxide”.
Your “Null Hypothesis”, is a non-issue and not relevant to the current situation at hand. I have gone over why this is so several times in the posts above but will try and summarise in a simpler way for you. For example let’s look at year 8152 from your single area, single region Vostok ice core data, as it seems to be at the particularly high end. Before I can answer that question can you provide me with some additional data.
What volcanic activity occurred that year? tell you what, you can average the decade :- 0
What was the solar activity that year? (I believe the sun was hotter then, but be specific)
What were the precise positions of the landmasses?
What was Earths orbit?
What actual plant and animal species (including numbers) were available on the planet?
What was the composition of the oceans and their temperature?
What was the composition of the air and temperature, from a representative sample of spots around the globe?
Also your graph does not show CO2 concentration, please show for various spots and altitudes around the globe.
What was the actual population of mankind and the amount of CO2 they were emitting?
Get back to me when you have that data. Until then I cannot give you a reasoned scientific response. This is where it is obvious that you are not a skeptic looking for a scientific explanation but instead attacking the other side with religious fervour protecting your beliefs. You will look to irrelevant data, global conspiracies, self-proclaimed experts and personal attacks on scientists (and real ones if the threats to the CRU scientists are to be believed) before you would believe actual data, scientists who have specialised in the area, scientific organisations and the observations from your own eyes. The way you’re trying to prove your case would be funny if the consequences weren’t so serious.
Smokey says: “Oh, and thanx for your different definition of “profitable,” ”
You’re Welcome! Most shareholders have no real control over the company, it is the oil tycoons and executives calling the shots.
Smokey says: “And rather than demonize a company”
I do not demonise companies or gases. I look at effects, companies want to make money so to change their behaviour you would need to use taxation or legislation. Gases are doing what their composition requires them to do. They are neither good nor evil (though you keep trying to give them that connotation) but their effects are good for us at some concentrations and situations and bad for us at others.
Smokey says: “Now, on to the question of the null hypothesis! Take your time, I’m retired. I can wait.☺”
Yes you have pointed out several times you don’t really care and that I should not look at the situation in terms of the precautionary principle. While that’s okay for you, I have children and one of those are having children and I desperately worry about the world we are going to leave them. If scientists (with 95% confidence), my own investigations and reading and my own observations are telling me that something is likely to be wrong but we can fix it now before it’s too late then I say fix it now. What you always choose to ignore by ignoring the precautionary principle is that if you are wrong (and surely how arrogant are you?) the consequences are truly horrendous. This is not a game.
Michael – re snowball earth. The theory is still much in debate that there even was such a thing. Several articles of the research being done on this, with some saying they’ve shown it could have been this, because, others saying it couldn’t, because..
There’s a collection here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070323104746.htm
If everything was frozen then CO2 levels would have gone down with the drop in temperature, as Vostok etc. show, and not risen until the world was warm enough for it to begin appearing again, so where would the CO2 have come from to take the earth out of this? Nothing alive on land or in the sea, no plants or animals producing CO2, so only from the actions as we still have of earth transferring heat from beneath the crust. Which, I think, in itself could be enough to warm us up again and for life as we know it to begin again, in the Carbon Life Cycle (you’re around 20% carbon, the rest mostly water). But it would be the heat melting the ice, the carbon dioxide as irrelevant then as it is now.
We know that descent back into ice ages can happen extremely rapidly. When geologists first appreciated the long time scales involved in such things as erosion and began to get an idea of how long the earth was in existence, they became entrenched in the view that great geological change happens only gradually, their thinking had to change when they finally accepted that massive changes could take place in very short periods of time. (*) Estimates around now of how quickly we can get in and out of our ice age has been revised down, from thousands of years to hundreds to a couple of decades and even to ‘practically instantly’. All depends where and when and so on.
Mountains of ice, mile+ high which we have in our ice age, when it begins to melt will often keep its boundary longer as ice than in the centre, this is when dramatic flooding occurs. As when the boundary of ice at the edge of what is now the North Sea finally broke and the vast lake it had been damming burst out. As ice melts at the bottom of these walls it causes the ice above and around it to move and crack, and this instability speeds up. The principle can be seen in glaciers and their movement in carrying massive boulders for hundreds of miles as they gouge out a path for themselves through mountains, they’re sliding on water.
A snowball earth would not, I imagine, have stopped the internal working of the earth which is constantly trying to release the pressure of its internal heat. At some point, beginning from the moment the water or land above was frozen, this would begin to melt and cause the ice above to melt and move further. How long it would take to unfreeze a solid block of sea and land I have no idea, but as it would do so first along whatever fault lines and volcanic activity was around it should eventually cause the unfreeze even from such a scenario. As the crust begins moving forming more fault lines, more volcanoes, breaking up into plates and so on and releasing more heat. In the same kind of fits and starts we see from the beginning of our own Holocene probably.
(*) The story of how entrenched positions clinging to bad science can be changed.
http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/scablands.htm
http://www.thegreatstory.org/scablands.html
Another example in the idea of tectonic plates and that land masses moved apart had the same initial response of the many entrenched in their beliefs refusing even to consider what another was producing in evidence. He didn’t live long enough to see his reasoning proved correct.
http://www.pangaea.org/wegener.htm
Myrrh said: “Which, I think, in itself could be enough to warm us up again and for life as we know it to begin again, in the Carbon Life Cycle (you’re around 20% carbon, the rest mostly water). But it would be the heat melting the ice, the carbon dioxide as irrelevant then as it is now.”
One of the theories was that explosive volcanoes was what helped bring us out of the ice age. I am not sure if you know but the gases Volcanoes emit are greenhouse gases including CO2. I also particularly enjoyed how you searched high and low in your religious fervour to bring up a study from 1929 discounting all the science, scientific bodies, current theories and modern measuring equipment to prove a point that wasn’t even on the current topic. Yes I know about Miskolczi and errors have been pointed out in the math. But of course you will only believe what supports your fervent belief and discount or discredit anything that doesn’t.
But of course skeptics believe they know more than governments, scientific bodies, and scientists and can tell which modern measuring equipment and theories are valid to choose from. It must be nice knowing everything. Sort of omnipresent…
Les Said: “As I said before, though, a notion that taxation can change climate is absurd”
I agree, and for the umpteenth time not what anyone, including me says. Is it a comprehension issue?
Obviously I cannot reason with people who continually misquote and misrepresent what I say and cherry pick to prove points, and consider limited regional data from 10s of 1000s of years ago to more accurately represent the global situation now than current data from current modern measuring equipment evaluated by scientists specialising in the field. Talk about arrogant and conceited.
http://hot-topic.co.nz/easterbrooks-wrong-again/
“The last word goes to Richard Alley, who points out that however interesting the study of past climate may be, it doesn’t help us where we’re heading:
Whether temperatures have been warmer or colder in the past is largely irrelevant to the impacts of the ongoing warming. If you don’t care about humans and the other species here, global warming may not be all that important; nature has caused warmer and colder times in the past, and life survived. But, those warmer and colder times did not come when there were almost seven billion people living as we do. The best science says that if our warming becomes large, its influences on us will be primarily negative, and the temperature of the Holocene or the Cretaceous has no bearing on that. Furthermore, the existence of warmer and colder times in the past does not remove our fingerprints from the current warming, any more than the existence of natural fires would remove an arsonist’s fingerprints from a can of flammable liquid. If anything, nature has been pushing to cool the climate over the last few decades, but warming has occurred.”
Hi Smokey! I don’t see that you asked any questions of me in your post from 1/19, 9:58am.
By contrast, though you said that you could “answer all my questions,” I didn’t see anywhere where you answered either of my very simple, straightforward questions in my post of 1/19, 2:55pm. For your benefit, here they are:
Question #1:
Consider the following common argument, which Myrrh appears to endorse:
P1) In the past, rise in temperature has preceded rise in CO2
P2) Effects cannot precede their causes
C) Therefore, a rise in CO2 cannot be a cause of a rise in temperature
Do you think that the conclusion follows from those premises? Or do you think that this is a mistake in logic? (Note: agreeing that this is fallacious would not show that a rise in CO2 can cause a rise in temperature; it would only show that this argument fails to establish its conclusion.)
Question #2:
In reference to the example you brought up in which temperatures in Greenland went up 27F in 10 years despite CO2 remaining relatively low, does the following argument fairly represent (at least roughly) how you thought of that particular case functioning?
P1) In Greenland, average temperature rose 27F over 10 years, while levels of CO2 remained quite low
P2) If (as most scientists claim) CO2 and temperature are (“non-trivially”) causally related, P1 would have to be false
C) Therefore, CO2 and temperature are not (or only “trivially”) causally related
This argument is (unlike Myrrh’s argument above) logically valid. Does it represent (at least roughly) the work that this particular example of a 27F spike in temperature is supposed to do for your overall case?
Again, in your “response” to me, you seemed to ignore these specific, straightforward questions, and instead switched to speaking about a whole range of “big picture” issues. I prefer to think slowly and carefully, one issue at a time; I find it unhelpful to try to address “everything” all at once. If you’re still interested, could you take a stab at answering my two questions? (And again, I don’t know which question(s) from your 9:58am post you meant for me to address – I don’t see any questions there, but perhaps you meant a different post?)
Thanks!
Michael said: One of the theories was that explosive volcanoes was what helped bring us out of the ice age. I am not sure if you know but the gases Volcanoes emit are greenhouse gases including CO2.
? It was these I was referring to. As it’s shown that CO2 levels do not start to increase until nearly a thousand years after temperatures even begin rising, they are obviously completely irrelevant to dramatic increases in global warming. Whatever the causes of global warming, therefore, happen without being at all bothered by CO2 levels. What you still haven’t addressed is that these have not stopped and so can not be dismissed as insignificant by replacing these with CO2, the known non-driver of these dramatic changes, as the main driver now. The logic isn’t there.
I also particularly enjoyed how you searched high and low in your religious fervour to bring up a study from 1929 discounting all the science, scientific bodies, current theories and moder measuring equipment to prove a point that wasn’t even on the current topic.
I brought it into the conversion because you kept insisting I was ignoring it and that I didn’t understand the ‘greenhouse’ effect. It was also another very good example of the point I’m making here, that AGWScience by elision and half truths manufactures a clever sleight of hand, making those taking it on trust believe that there is real science and real rational thinking behind its claims.
As is the example of the irrationality of using CO2 as the main driver of temperatures now when it is obviously nonsense to anyone who looks at what is actually being said, and what has, critically, being left unsaid.
AGWScience never connects the claims A and B it makes, because ‘the science’ in between is missing to make this logical. It leaps directly from one to the other because The real science in between falsifies its claims.
So, the AGWGreenhouse is based on Arrhenius’ earlier 1896 paper, and ignores that he revised this later, and that later work by others showed his hypothesis was wrong, as I outlined above. I assumed from your insistence on your superior knowledge of the science about the ‘greenhouse effect’ that you were familiar where these AGW claims came from. Now you know. There is no actual tested science that agrees with Arrhenius. For AGW to keep using his early work regardless of the advances made later in understanding shows deliberate disregard for RealScience. The AGWGreehouse claim is falsified here. You cannot keep using the argument that RealScience backs AGW claims about this, because it doesn’t.
AGW supporters are taking far too much on trust from AGW scaremongers. The page linked below is good on why AGWGreenhouse scenario is a non-starter. From actual well know real science, as knowledge of physical facts confirmed, from the exploration of gases and atmosphere after the first tentative questioning of reasons for our climate changes from around the time of the the earlier Arrhenius paper. Please read the WUWT page I linked to on Arrhenius and the explanation in Humphrey’s book to understand AGWScience’s use of the falsified claim about IR absorption etc. and to help follow the information here:
http://junkscience.com/Greenhouse/index.html
And read this just to get a ‘feel’ for how our atmosphere really works in the transport of energy, convection not radiation the prime mover and the water cycle the ‘greenhouse gas’ that cools the earth. Cloud cover may temporarily ‘trap’ heat, but the direction of heat transfer from the earth is ever upwards, water vapour taking the heat away from the earth and rising into cooler atmosphere above, condensing.
That’s why AGW models do not include water in the models except as in their imaginary ‘forcing’ from CO2 which they base on the earlier Arrhenius, and even that they’ve put through their usual garbling process, because they would have to admit that the real greenhouse gas effect includes the cycle of water removing heat from the earth, not just cooling by deflecting heat from reaching the earth by cloud cover as in the models.
Please remember my point here, that when looking more closely at the AGW claims for carbon dioxide you will always find how a sleight of hand has been used to give the appearance of backing for the claim when real science has already falsified these concepts in basic physics. And then you might start to ask yourself, why are they doing this so consistently?
For example, looking at one of the pages you linked to later: http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/AIRS/gesNews/airs_co2_global_trend
provides yet another evidence of rising global concentrations.
Hmm, as I touched on briefly, this ‘pattern’ of rising concentrations was manufactured first by Keeling and his son continued to be in charge of showing that such a thing existed in his co-ordination of data from Scripps. As we’ve seen with temperature data, so many ‘adjustments’ as made to keep the illusion of ‘rising carbon dioxide levels because of man-made causes’ that the first question should be from what base? Keeling’s imaginary ‘background’ level was cherry picked to show a constant rise over time because he was against the use of coal, an early greenie. Only someone with an agenda would announce that he had found such a trend after less than two years of gathering information, some trend…
That’s besides all the other nonsense he claimed to be able to do from measuring CO2 levels in possibly the greatest and the most consistently CO2 producing hot spot in the world! These ‘rising levels’ have been gradually catching up to all the known at the time measurements of CO2 in the atmosphere when Keeling first cherry picked his low bottom line, and in all the studies since and currently which show these high levels of CO2 are close to the ground and thin as they get higher in the atmosphere. CO2 is local production, it doesn’t like travelling much, it is heavier than air and will always sink displacing air to reach the ground. Etc.
Out of 16 major gaseous components of dry atmosphere, CO2 holds fourth place by concentration, being about a thousand times “thinner” than Nitrogen and Oxygen.
In dry air? Missing out water because … And this concentration is actually what? At .035% just how is that sufficient amount compared with the 99% percentage of Nitrogen and Oxygen to make any difference in heat transport? Or against the percentage of water vapour in the atmosphere, which must be included if trying to understand our climate. ‘Dry air’ is a lab construct, much like ‘average’ and ‘ideal gas’, the water cycle around the globe in both its aspects of cooling and warming can’t be excluded as the main ‘greenhouse gas’, which AGW does in its models.
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/molecular_mass-air-d_679.html
Nevertheless, CO2 is the second most potent green house gas of Earth’s atmosphere, trailing only the water wapour by warming potency.
Yeah, right, insignificant amount, again only looking at warming and not cooling in the ‘greenhouse’ budget re water, and excluding completely the greenhouse gases of oxygen and nitrogen in our real greenhouse earth, which is the whole atmosphere as the greenhouse. Within this the extremes of warming by the sun and cooling by its absence, day and night, summer and winter, are what make our planet the ‘goldilocks’ one. Vast areas teeming with life in the circulation of heat and water and wind (moving air).
The trend of CO2 concentration retrieved by AIRS shows no signs of leveling, thus leaving little doubt that the global CO2 concentrations will be reaching 390 parts per million (ppm) by the end of 2010.
Trend as I’ve mentioned above, is an AGW agenda driven construct. But this gives the ‘impression’ that there is this ‘blanket’ of CO2 building up in the atmosphere – which is then falsified by AGW itself but on another page of the AIRS data linked to from this introduction.
http://airs.jpl.nasa.gov/AIRS_CO2_Data/About_AIRS_Co2_Data/
Significant Finding from AIRS Data
Carbon dioxide is not homogeneous in the mid-troposphere; previously it was thought to be well-mixed Etc.
As I said, AIRS found CO2 to not be a well-mixed homogeneous whole, which is the fiction told by AGW.
AIRS concluded that water vapour was the most important factor and that this would come as a shock to those who (AGW) who thought otherwise and ignored its importance in its own right, and that CO2 was insignificant. The link to that particular gem is now hard to find, perhaps others will have better luck.
But still, here, ignoring the AIRS findings that CO2 is not a homogenous blanket but bitty and lumpy subject to the atmosphere’s transport systems (and explained also by its weight relative to air), AGWScience continues to push the falsified information as ‘science fact’.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/water-vapor-greenhouse-gas.htm
Besides all the other parroting of falsified facts we’ve already looked at it has this:
Thus the amount held in the atmosphere as water vapour varies greatly in just hours and days as result of the prevailing weather in any location. So even though water vapour is the greatest greenhouse gas, it is relatively short-lived. On the other hand, CO2 is removed from the air by natural geological-scale processes and these take a long time to work. Consequently CO2 stays in our atmosphere for years and even centuries. A small additional amount has a much more long-term effect.
? AIRS significant findings in the page above says CO2 part of that prevailing weather in any location. So, as likewise neither water nor heat is well-mixed in the atmosphere, but, against all these forces of weather and gravity and pressure acting on CO2 to move it around, AGW claims CO2 has such superpowers that it moves itself to mix thoroughly in the atmosphere remaining aloof from them, and so stays up in the air accumulating for hundreds and thousands of years..? How?
CO2 comes down to earth every time it rains, gets driven down by winds and when all is calm even for a mo, being heavier than air it displaces air to fall to earth.
Anyway Michael, I hope I’ve given you enough examples of what I found when I began exploring for you to see that AGWScience is not as it presents itself. It’s only by clever manipulation, juxtaposition, elision, sleight of hand, and adjustments of data and by playing with half truths as here, its own AIRS data falsifying its own claims, that it has managed to get away with so far, but, mainly, through shouting down the atheists who keep having the audacity to point out that the emperor isn’t wearing any clothes.
If nothing else, I hope I’ve given you something to think about.
Where’s Brian?? I looked forward to his response to my question, since he was being genuinely inquisitive as far as I could tell.
Michael, on the other hand, is suffering from a severe case of cognitive dissonance. His “On/Off” switch has been wired around, and he can’t reset; he cannot have an open mind; the planet could decline into an Ice Age over the next decade, and he would still be insisting that non-existent catastrophic AGW is right around the corner.
Michael devotes a lot of energy trying to convince us that the “Null Hypothesis is a non-issue and not relevant to the current situation at hand.”
Wrong. Climatologist Dr Roy Spencer explains it this way: No one has falsified the hypothesis that the observed temperature changes are a consequence of natural variability.
Michael’s rejection of the climate null hypothesis is a rejection of the scientific method. It is just wishful thinking based on cognitive dissonance. [Scientific skeptics are largely immune from cognitive dissonance, because skeptics ar only asking questions, which put together amount to: “Can you prove it?”]
The null hypothesis is part of the scientific method, and the climate null hypothesis is central to the climate debate. The fact that it debunks CO2=CAGW is what Michael can’t face, so he contorts himself into a pretzel trying to avoid answering the specific question: What putative global harm/damage has occurred as a direct result of the 40% increase in CO2? In fact, there is no verifiable evidence of any global damage due to CO2. So Michael goes off on other tangents.
Michael threw out some spurious questions that in his cognitive dissonance-afflicted mind refute the null hypothesis. That is nonsense:
Michael: “What volcanic activity occurred that year? tell you what, you can average the decade.”
Red herring argument. There is geologic evidence that significant volcanic activity is relatively rare. We don’t experience a Krakatoa every decade, or even every century, and the effect of much smaller eruptions such as Pinatubo and Mt. St. Helens dissipates within a few years at most.
Michael: “What was the solar activity that year? (I believe the sun was hotter then, but be specific)”
Michael’s belief is wrong. I will be specific: The Sun is hotter now than it was during the prior eight millennia of the Holocene. Michael’s belief shows he is still far down on the learning curve. The Sun has been cooler the farther we go into the past. More than a billion years ago it was ≈25% cooler.
Michael: “What were the precise positions of the landmasses?”
Answer: Essentially identical to today, throughout the Holocene – which is the most recent sliver of time in the earth’s 4.6 billion year history. The continents are in the same relative configuration; they move at about the rate your fingernails grow. In 10,000 years you might have fingernails a couple hundred feet long. But that is nothing compared with continental land masses, so that minuscule factor has no effect on the climate null hypothesis. Michael’s question is simply due to a lack of knowledge.
Michael: “What was Earths orbit?”
Another red herring argument: Atomic clocks verify that the earth’s orbit and rotation have not varied by even one second over the past 10 millennia.
Michael: “What actual plant and animal species (including numbers) were available on the planet?”
Plant and animal species are in constant flux, even today. But the biosphere is what matters, not the turnover, and the biosphere is dependent upon CO2 levels. More CO2 = a larger, more diverse biosphere. Charts available on request.
Michael: “What was the composition of the oceans and their temperature?”
Answer: the same as today, within very narrow error bars. pH levels are within null hypothesis norms. Prof Richard Lindzen states that “there is ample evidence” that the earth’s temperature at the equator has not varied by more than ±1°C over the past billion years from current temperatures. Earth is a water world; 71% of the planet is ocean. If the ocean’s parameters had changed significantly, we would be hearing about it 24/7/365, because it would have falsified the null. That is why Trenberth is so desperate to replace the long-accepted climate null hypothesis with his own cherry-picked “null” hypothesis.
Michael: “What was the composition of the air and temperature, from a representative sample of spots around the globe?”
The Greenland GISP-2 and Vostok ice cores are proxies for air temperature, and they show the same warming and cooling in both hemispheres. Trying to re-frame the question by insisting on air temps is a diversionary tactic. The anomalies shown by the representative ice cores show that the climate has fluctuated by several degrees up and down during the Holocene. And ice core proxies are universally accepted as being accurate – unlike Mann’s and Briffa’s treemometers.
Michael: “Also your graph does not show CO2 concentration, please show for various spots and altitudes around the globe.”
CO2 concentrations are taken from ice core samples. Of course Michael is trying to move the goal posts to impossible positions by demanding “various spots and altitudes.” When you can’t refute the facts, question the sources, eh?
The sources we have are ice core samples – empirical evidence – which show CO2 levels over the past 420,000 years. Note that CO2 follows temperature.
Michael: “What was the actual population of mankind and the amount of CO2 they were emitting?”
The population was in the very low millions early in the Holocene, and their CO2 emissions were so negligible as to be unmeasurable, which supports the null hypothesis: today the population is 6.7 billion, and CO2 concentration has risen to 390 ppmv. Yet there is no discernable difference between the climate during the Holocene and today’s climate. None. No verifiable global harm attributable to the rise in CO2 can be shown. Therefore, CO2 has no measurable effect on the planet, except for verified increases in agricultural productivity. It’s all good.
Michael engages in psychological projection; imputing his faults onto others when he says: “it is obvious that you are not a skeptic looking for a scientific explanation but instead attacking the other side with religious fervour protecting your beliefs.”
Ah, but I am a scientific skeptic. Those like Michael who are promoting the baseless CO2=CAGW conjecture are the religious zealots, akin to Leon Festinger’s Mrs Keech, who founded the flying saucer cult, the Seekers, which Festinger infiltrated. Festinger wrote his book about the experience [When Prophesy Fails], showing that even when the predictions of the cult were debunked [the flying saucers did not arrive as prophesied – just as CAGW is not arriving as prophesied], cultmembers couldn’t let go of their beliefs. A flying saucer was supposed to take the cult away, sparing them before the earth was destroyed. When it didn’t arrive, their belief system was actually ratcheted up. Festinger’s term for this phenomenon is “cognitive dissonance.”
So what happened when the flying saucer didn’t arrive? Mrs Keech simply re-set the date of arrival. When the flying saucer again did not arrive, Mrs Keech had a mental communication: because her cult was so good, the flying saucers didn’t have to take them away, and the earth would be spared.
The Seekers was a religious cult, very similar to the CAGW cult: when the predictions don’t materialize, they ratchet up their belief system. In the cult Festinger studied, the intersting aspect was that rather than realizing Mrs Keech’s prophesy had been debunked, cult members didn’t abandon the cult, but redoubled their efforts to convert others. Sound familiar, Michael?
True belief is based on cognitive dissonance, which infects other beliefs. Michael says: “Most shareholders have no real control over the company, it is the oil tycoons and executives calling the shots.”
Again, that is contradicted by reality. “Most shareholders” voted for the CEO and Board of Directors in a legal election. Majority rules. The control that sharehoolders have over a company is in their right to vote for the executives. Calling them “oil tycoons” is demonizing corporate officers legally elected by shareholders. That pejorative results from cognitive dissonance. They are not “tycoons,” they are legally elected officers with a fiduciary duty to maximize profits. And if they continue to do so, they will probably be re-elected.
Finally, Michael asserts: “What you always choose to ignore by ignoring the precautionary principle is that if you are wrong (and surely how arrogant are you?) the consequences are truly horrendous. This is not a game.”
It has been discussed on WUWT that the odds of a catastrophic asteroid strike are enormous compared with the non-existent harm from an increase in a beneficial trace gas. The probability is non trivial: recently a large asteroid passed between the moon and the earth – and NASA was unaware of its existence until it had already passed.
For only a small fraction of what is being wasted on “global warming studies,” we could have an early warning system for NEO’s. With enough advance knowledge, an asteroid can be deflected. But once cognitive dissonance takes hold, its victims become religious cultists. Any diversion of funds from their chosen religion is seen as apostasy. Accusing questioning skeptics of being “religious” is simply projection on the part of a CAGW cultist.
Smokey – scroll up. You’ll see my response at 9:13am.
Hi Brian,
My apologies, I must have scrolled right past your response.
You said you couldn’t find my question. OK, I guess we’re both having trouble finding things. Here it is, from my post above:
I’ll check out your answer, then answer your two questions.
Myrrh – Miskolczi’s ideas should be treated with a pinch of salt – as some of his assumptions are rather risky – so be careful 🙂
Fortunately – he is not the only one trying to construct a comprehensive theory which would explain stability of the system – with or without CO2 being present.
And – it appears that at least some of them start giving reasonable answers.
Regarding nitrogen and oxygen – these gases are transparent to the radiation coming from the Sun. So – the radiation is absorbed by land and water.
Then it is radiated up in different wavelengths – and CO2 – but also water vapour – are no longer transparent to it. Greenhouse effect follows.
This is all well known -but CO2 is responsible for only about 16% of the effect, while water vapour for about 60%.
Here comes the climate changers’ argument -“but CO2 is well mixed, while water vapour is only in the lower areas of the atmosphere etc. etc.”
This is also a fact – that water vapour levels, unlike CO2 – can change VERY rapidly. Shouldn’t it be looked at with much more attention ?
What the climate changers do, however – they cherry pick one fact, concentrate on it, then they say that “the science is settled”.
This, as far as I am concerned – is not science, it is just a scam.
I said before – good propaganda is a mix of truths, half-truths, and lies.
Michael – you must be joking asking for “Get back to me when you have that data.”
The onus of proving something is on the proponent of a theory, not on the sceptics. You seem not to have any idea that a theory is false until proven right, not the other way around.
The “other way” is precisely the approach all religious, cult, and – recently – at least some of the climate scare believers, have chosen to follow.
The PDF (and the better formulated, but essentially presenting the same approach in the link I posted) – makes sense, yes.
Of course – the energy balance in the PDF is so simplistic – that it can’t be used a serious attempt to prove anything. But – as an example, and to illustrate the principles of physical chemistry – is very good indeed, if one can follow and understand the physical laws and data involved – which I can.
The facts described there should ring an alarm bell – but for the reasons totally opposite to your agenda…
The facts about CO2 and the basics regarding greenhouse effect are for the most part true – but SOMEHOW FAIL TO MATERIALIZE THE DESIRED EFFECT – and do not provide explanation regarding climate changes in the past.
The logical conclusion should be – WE DO NOT KNOW HOW IT REALLY WORKS. The CO2 is part of the puzzle – where is the rest ? Why did glaciation happen in the past ? How did ice ages ended and why ?
Instead – “the science is settled”…
Science does not start at the point where the first confirmatory answers are found.
Science starts wher NO facts or analysis results can be found which would contradict the theory – and not because for ther lack of trying.
A lot of climate scientists and followers (like you) seem to forget that. An example – “this science is settled” etc. etc.
It is not settled – until many thousands of scientists who don’t agree with the approach, method and conclusions of climate science- are convinced.
Climate scientists should be trying to find facts and data which could potentially contradict their theories – not prevent other people from publishing their findings and their approach.
But, in the meantime, we can always rise taxes – can’t we ?
And yes, I noticed that you declared a “votum separatum” – but you don’t call the shots here, do you ?
Les – re taking Miskolczi with a pinch of salt.., 🙂 one thing I particularly enjoy about WUWT is this kind of exchange from the interaction of people with interests in all the wide range of aspects scientific, that there’s an argument about something is like a magnet drawing me in. Which is how I first got interested in exploring AGW, when someone set up a discussion taking on all comers against the concept – until then I hadn’t realised it was being questioned. And the ‘it is well-known’ meme now out of habit spurs me to check out what others are saying, this is how I found that AGW had so infiltrated thinking by promoting science flaws as scientific fact that even those against AGW hypothesis often accepted them as real science if they were outside their particular field of knowledge. There was a lot of discussion already around the meme ‘the atmosphere transparent to IR’, but the arguments concentrated more on re-radiation via CO2 and its ‘saturation’ point and there were fewer discussions, hardly any I could find, about the ‘well-mixed in the atmosphere’ meme. As I knew a little about weights of gases I found this last easier to think about, by questioning AGW’s explanation.
#
You said: Regarding nitrogen and oxygen – these gases are transparent to the radiation coming from the Sun. So – the radiation is absorbed by land and water.
Then it is radiated up in different wavelengths – and CO2 – but also water vapour – are no longer transparent to it. Greenhouse effect follows. This is all well known – but CO2 is responsible for only about 16% of the effect, while water vapour for about 60%.
What had me struggling about this at first was the imbalance between the AGW claim that IR re-radiated back from CO2 caused the earth to heat and extra minute amounts of it would create huge amounts of heat globally and with that AGW’s lack of reference to any other heating going on in our atmosphere. (Not the aspect I looked at above, that these were of such small quantities compared with atmosphere, etc.)
The first I’ve gone into above, that Carbon Dioxide never previously having shown any propensity for being any kind of a driver of temperature in the really vast and dramatic changes in the interglacial/glacial pattern in our climate history, had suddenly taken over the role of whatever it is that does drive these changes, and these real drivers, which haven’t been shown to have stopped, have been dismissed as “insignificant”.
However, even adding water vapour to the reasons for rejecting CO2 as the “main driver” of AGWScience, doesn’t address this point, that the amount of IR re-radiated from them might well exist as IR, but not as heat – in other words – just how far can that travel as heat? Or stay trapped as heat?
We’re talking about AGW saying that IR trapped in CO2 delays heat loss from the earth and in bouncing back and forth continually adds to the heat on the earth driving global warming, adding water into that concept to make CO2 of lesser value than it had as AGW’s major driver, and so water vapour playing the greater part and CO2 the lesser, doesn’t address the problem I have with the concept. Just how much has IR radiating and re-radiating in the water and CO2 in the atmosphere have to do with actual heating?
If you take a photo with an infrared camera of a person at night in a forest you’ll pick up the IR being radiated from points of greater heat as bright spots. It is very site specific on that person, coming from the warmest bits, but, the whole body is actually radiating IR as AGW keep pushing the idea, as are the trees around that person; the ‘everything above absolute zero radiates IR’ tack. But these other areas of the body and the trees aren’t picked out as bright spots by the camera because it’s the intensity of IR radiated from greater heat that shows as strong light. That intensity comes from heat, the rest of the IR is of not much account re amount of heat compared with it. Standing next to a tree in a snowy forest isn’t going to keep you warm from the IR it’s radiating because the IR isn’t radiating heat to any palpable level. The middle of the snowy forest might be warmer than outside it on an open plain, but if cold enough in minus degrees, being surrounded by trees emitting IR as light won’t stop you freezing to death.
What I’m saying is that this concentration of argument pro and con on CO2 with or without Water added to the mix, doesn’t explain how this as ‘greenhouse gas’ can radiate actual heat back to the earth, or trap heat from escaping quicker than it would otherwise. I think the whole argument is a red herring because AGW keeps talking about heat but avoids discussing it by misapplying the concept of heat to light and so anti-AGW are pulled into arguing about IR as light as if it’s heat.
So, what I’m trying to say is that although the claim is that only ‘greenhouse’ gases trap IR, this is being equated with heat while it’s actually describing light, it’s another sleight of hand. That IR has an insignificant part to play in the transport of heat at any distance from a Carbon Dioxide molecule (the pictures show IR re-radiated back to the ground from high in the atmosphere) and not taking into account that the rest of the atmosphere when heated, the oxygen and nitrogen, are also giving off IR, and they are the major constituents of the atmosphere, is simply ignored by AGW.
Anyway, I found, mainly by lurking in discussions, that the responses to AGWScience from applied science people such as engineers where the only ones helpful in pinpointing the problem I was struggling to articulate, because these understood the difference well they could explain it.
And this page is a good summary of the problem I had with AGW, even coming from ‘major scientific bodies’, solved with the real science solution from real scientists.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/the_hidden_flaw_in_greenhouse.html
Alan Siddons says: Recently, I chanced upon an Atmospheric Science Educator Guide published by NASA. Aimed at students in grades 5 through 8, it helps teachers explain how so-called “greenhouse gases” warm our planet Earth.
These guides are interesting on a number of levels, so I recommend that you look them over. But what caught my eye was this:
o Question: Do all of the gases in our atmosphere absorb heat?
o Answer: (Allow students to discuss their ideas. Don’t provide the answer at this time.)
Indeed, that’s a good one to think over yourself. Almost all of what we’re breathing is nitrogen and oxygen –do these gases absorb heat? Lakes and rocks absorb heat, after all, and thereby reach a higher temperature. So can nitrogen and oxygen molecules do the same?
Well, I won’t keep you hanging. After allowing students to discuss it, the instructor is instructed to give them the final verdict.
o Answer: No. Only some gases have the unique property of being able to absorb heat.
These are the infrared-absorbing “greenhouse gases,” of course, substances like carbon dioxide and water vaor, and not nitrogen and oxygen.
Now, is something wrong here? Most definitely, for NASA has a finger on the scale. Let’s review a few basics that NASA should have outlined.
What do think?
Les, sorry, I have to go out now, will come back to the rest of your post later.
Smokey – I don’t see any dialectical relevance between anything I’ve posted and your questions to me. I posted to ask about a specific and common form of argument, one that (among others) Myrrh has repeatedly put forward. That argument moves from the claim that rises in CO2 have, in the past, occurred after rises in temperature, to the claim that this shows that rises in CO2 cannot cause rises in temperature. My posts have asked whether this move – inferring the second claim from the first – is logically valid. I gave reasons for thinking that this is a fallacious argument.
Your “responses” have not addressed this question. First you mentioned – in what seemed to be an attempt to respond to my question – the example of Greenland’s temperature rising 27F in 10 years in the absence of a sharp rise in CO2. I didn’t see how that fact had any bearing on the issue I had raised, so I asked you about how you thought it was relevant to anything I had said. (There being good reasons to be skeptical wouldn’t show that the argument I’ve targeted has any merit to it, would it?)
In “response,” you’ve instead asked me a very general question about global harm resulting from a rise in CO2. Again, you seem to think that this question will somehow help us make progress on something I’ve said or asked about. For the life of me, I can’t see the relevance.
It would be a bit like me “answering” your question by switching the topic to something completely different, e.g. saying “but the Greenland ice sheet has lost more than twice as much ice this year as the average of the past 30 years. Explain that! And don’t forget about Occam’s Razor – wouldn’t it be simpler to appeal to a common factor (e.g. warming, or CO2) than to give “individual” explanations for Greenland, for glaciers, for migrating species, etc.?”
Saying something like that would go no distance toward addressing your questions, right? Even if it might be interesting to talk about such things as the widespread misunderstanding and misapplication of Occam’s Razor, the use of single data points to support or refute claims of longer-term trends and so on, it’s just a change of subject, no?
I was merely trying to give reason to excise one particular bad (yet common) argument from discussions of climate change – one that’s been featured prominently in this discussion thread. One at a time seems best, no?
Brian says:
“…you’ve instead asked me a very general question about global harm resulting from a rise in CO2.”
Wrong. I asked you a very specific question, within very specific parameters. There is no wiggle room in my question.
In response, you chose to dissemble.
I’ve asked the same question of many in the climate alarmist camp. Not one has been able to identify any verifiable global harm due to the rise in CO2.
That is because there is no damage due to CO2. It is an entirely harmless and beneficial trace gas. More is better. The current atmosphere is starved of CO2.
By dodging the specific question I asked, you are implicitly acknowledging that the rise in CO2 has caused no global harm. And the extremely *mild* 0.7° temperature rise over the past century is completely indistinguishable from numerous rises throughout the Holocene; some much steeper in a shorter time period – and during a time when CO2 levels did not change.
Warming is good; cold kills. That is a provable fact.
Like everyone else in the alarmist crowd, you’re terrified of the snake you’re convinced is under your bed. But when you get up the courage to look under the bed… there is no snake. And there never was.
Answer my question, or admit that you cannot show any measurable difference between the null hypothesis and the alternate CO2=CAGW conjecture. By not being able to show that the CO2=CAGW conjecture can falsify the null hypothesis by showing a quantifiable amount of harm to the globe from the rise in CO2, your conjecture fails. They cannot both be right. Unlike CO2=CAGW, the null hypothesis has never been falsified.
Smokey – In my previous post, I almost included a statement intending to preempt just the sort of ad hominem non-response you gave, but I thought it wouldn’t be necessary. I’m disappointed I was wrong.
I weary of interacting with interlocutors who do not converse in good faith. For instance, what gives you the impression that I am “in the alarmist crowd”? Or that I am “convinced” of anything (other than that the arguments I’ve carefully laid out are fallacious)? Care to provide any evidence for your assumption?
How about this: for sake of argument, I will grant that there is no evidence proving that global harm results from a rise in CO2.
Now do you wish to address the questions I’ve raised about a very common – but in my view mistaken – argument that has appeared on this site, and in this particular thread, numerous times? Or my question concerning why you thought that mentioning a 27F spike in Greenland temps was relevant to assessing (my take on) Myrrh’s particular argument? (Notice – as I’ve said many times – that what I just granted to you has no bearing on these questions I’ve posed to you!)
It’s fine if that does not interest you – there is no obligation to engage with these (simple) questions. But there is a dialectical expectation that, since you addressed your initial comments to me in a way that implied that you took yourself to be responding to my original comments (about Myrrh’s argument), it is fair for me to point out that you did not, in fact, give a response at all – you simply starting asking me unrelated questions. (They are unrelated because answering them would not shed any light on the topic I brought up.) In other words, don’t pretend to be responding to (i.e. dialectically engaging with) my comment if in fact you are just trying to start a new conversation.
Smokey – maybe a little parable will make my position clearer, by analogy. In case it isn’t obvious, A = Myrrh (and others who use that argument), B = me, C = you.
A: “2010 was the warmest year on record; this proves that global warming is occurring.”
B: “It doesn’t follow from the fact that 2010 was the warmest year on record that long-term global warming is occurring; one data point doesn’t establish a trend, and it’s the trend that’s relevant.”
C: “Thanks for your comment, B. But there are all sorts of data proving that there is a trend – pick any data source you want, and there’s a trend upwards over the last, say, 30 years.”
B: “I don’t understand how that’s relevant to my point. I just said that you can’t infer the existence of a trend from a single data point. Do you agree? Isn’t that fallacious?”
C: “I can answer all your questions. Numerous independent lines of evidence establish a statistically significant trend, both over the last 30 years, and since the dramatic rise in CO2 began about 150 years ago. If you control for known exogenous factors, like solar cycles, volcanic activity, etc., there is a pronounced warming trend. It fits just what we would expect if CO2 acted the way we say it does. So, prove to me that there is no warming. Be sure to reference the relevant statistical methods.”
B: “I don’t get it. I was just trying to rule out one particular argument – a common one – as being fallacious. One sees it a lot – people point to recent records as being proof of a trend. Maybe there is a trend – but that’s not established by pointing to a record high year. Do you agree that that particular argument fails?”
C: “Oh you denialist! You can’t answer a simple question – I’ve asked it many times before of denialists, and they can’t answer it – so that proves that you’ve got your head in the sand! You’ve tacitly acknowledge I’m right! I win!”
Get it? Wouldn’t you find C a rather frustrating interlocutor? Wouldn’t C’s behavior be confusing? Don’t you think B would at this point rightfully make it clear to C that, although C took himself to be replying to B’s point, C did not in fact do so, and instead began a new conversation that bore no relevance to B’s point?
Brian says:
P1) In the past, rise in temperature has preceded rise in CO2
P2) Effects cannot precede their causes
C) Therefore, a rise in CO2 cannot be a cause of a rise in temperature
Do you think that the conclusion follows from those premises? Or do you think that this is a mistake in logic? (Note: agreeing that this is fallacious would not show that a rise in CO2 can cause a rise in temperature; it would only show that this argument fails to establish its conclusion.)
Fine, if you want to pick nits, there are no hard and fast “conclusions” in science, only theories that are amendable. [And CO2=CAGW is not a theory; neither is it an hypothesis. It was, but it has been reduced to a conjecture, as I will show below. Words matter. Please don’t try to elevate a falsified hypothesis to a theory.]
The conclusion can be that CO2 could cause a slight warming, so a mental construct can be made that CO2 causes a small rise in temperature. But that is not the conjecture. The conjecture is that a rise in CO2 will bring about positive feedback, causing climate catastrophe. The real world does not agree.
In reality the effect is small, and overwhelmed by other much more significant effects – which has been my unchanging position for the last several years, not just here today. The problem in the real world is that the climate sensitivity number was wildly overstated, by 300 – 600%: the IPCC and others claim 3° – 6° per doubling.
Preposterous. If it was that high, temperature would closely track changes in CO2. It doesn’t. In fact, it appears as likely as not that the rise in CO2 is simply coincidental with the rise in temperature. Or, it may be the delayed effect of the much warmer MWP. And there are no proven positive feedbacks, since positive feedbacks would lead to runaway global warming; that has not happened. What we observe are cycles within specific parameters, no different than past cycles, and well within those parameters.
Second, forgive me if I still am not quite clear on what you meant your example of the 27F rise in temperature over 10 years to show, but let me try again. Is this how you thought of that particular case functioning?
P1) In Greenland, average temperature rose 27F over 10 years, while levels of CO2 remained quite low
P2) If (as most scientists claim) CO2 and temperature are (“non-trivially”) causally related, P1 would have to be false
C) Therefore, CO2 and temperature are not (or only “trivially”) causally related
My question to you, then, would be: why do you think (if this is what you think) that if temperature and CO2 are causally related, we should not get events like the 27F spike happening in the absence of a dramatic rise in CO2?
You assume too much. For example, you assume that climate ‘science’ is mature, that its basis rests on tested theories, and that there is broad general agreement on cause and effect. None of those things are true.
The relationship between CO2 and rising temperatures is the same as the relationship between opening a cold and a warm beer: the warm beer outgasses much more CO2. When oceans warm, CO2 is outgassed. That is why CO2 follows temeprature in the geologic record.
Don’t read any more into it than that. Your assumption seems to be that CO2 is the primary driver of the climate, and you disregard more important factors such as the AMO, PDO, AO, el Nino, la Nina, clouds, cosmic rays, etc.
“I will grant that there is no evidence proving that global harm results from a rise in CO2.”
Bingo.
The null hypothesis remains un-falsified, thus falsifying the alternative hypothesis. QED.
The null hypothesis is what scientists test the alternative hypothesis against. If there is no difference, the alternative hypothesis is rejected. The null hypothesis is ‘the statistical hypothesis that states that there are no differences between observed and expected data.’ Since you cannot show that there is a quantifiable, measurable difference in the global climate before or after the industrial revolution, the CO2=CAGW conjecture is falsified.
[And: ‘For the sake of argument’? No. For the sake of factual observations. There is no evidence that the increase in CO2 has caused any global problems at all.]
I don’t understand your attempts at logic, since empirical observations show the logic to be faulty – probably because climate science is in its infancy. You’re assuming you know everything about what makes the climate tick. None of us knows enough about it.
Prof Richard Feynman put those speculating in their place: if real world observations/experiments don’t agree with the theory [or law, or hypothesis, or conjecture], then the theory is wrong. “That’s all there is to it.”
CO2=CAGW does not agree with observation, and no testable, replicable experiment has been done that falsifies the empirical [real world] observations in the ice core record. So although it’s remotely possible that CO2 follows temperature, and then turns around, and by a convoluted chain of untested inferences triggers runaway global warming and climate catastrophe, you need to show a testable mechanism.
Finally, the 27° F spike in temperatures was merely intended to show that CO2 was not an actor. Many scientists claim that CO2 and temperature are related, but IMHO they grossly overestimate the effect. My example showed that despite low CO2 levels, other factors caused the temperature rise. Don’t read more into it than that.
Myrrh – just to clarify: I haven’t joined the dark side yet 🙂
But – if the climate change religion is to be successfully fought – we can’t use arguments that, on closer examination, are no better than what they use.
That is why I am trying (sometimes) to point out (to you, but also to other people) – that you should be careful with the arguments you use – becaue some of them are either weak or simply incorrect – which give Al Gore and his mob more ammo.
The article by Alan Siddon kind of makes me laugh and cry at the same time. He tries to refute the CO2 greenhouse theory – and uses false arguments in the process.
As I said above – Al Gor and his cronies must be very happy…
For instance – Al Sidon says:
“Heat is transferred and absorbed in several ways, then, and no substance is immune to being heated, which means that all gases absorb heat — contrary to what NASA tells children.”
and:
“Why does NASA go wrong? Because it has a flimsy yet lucrative theory to foist on the taxpaying public, that’s why. As the space agency explains in the Main Lesson Concept, the core idea of greenhouse theory is that downward radiation from greenhouse gases raises the earth’s surface temperature higher than solar heating can.”
In short – Al Sidon does not understand a thing.
Let’s review his first statement: all true – except “…contrary to what NASA tells children.”
Gases absorb heat – absolutely true. What Al Sidon does not understand is this: planetary bodies (like Earth) display absorption/emission characteristics very close to black body.
This means they can absorb radiation in every wavelength – and heat up in the process – until thermodynamic equilibrium is reached with the source of radiation.
Gases, in general, don’t. Almost all of Sun’s radiation has wavelength below 4 micrometers: almost all of Earth’s radiation is above 4 micrometers. This is due to surface temperature.
Atmosphere (including CO2) is almost 100% transparent to Sun’s radiation. In other words – no heating from there (well – certain portion is absorbed, but let’s skip this – just for the purpose of this explanation).
Solar radiation hits the Earth, is absorbed – and re-radiated up in different wavelengths.
Greenhouse gases are NOT transparent to Earth’s radiation – and heat up. This heat is partially transferred to other atmospheric gases (conduction) – and partially re-radiated BOTH UP and DOWN. The portion going UP – we do not need to be concerned with, the portion going DOWN is absorbed by Earth. Earth’s surface temperature needs to raise to bring energy balance into equilibrium.
This is the VERY BASIC mechanism explaining why the sum total of the radiation that Earth receives is more than the radiation delivered by Sun, and this is the cornerstone of “greenhouse effect”.
I am not going to question the mechanism – because I know and understand the laws of physics that govern it.
(NOTE: The sum total of outgoing energy, though, is equal to the total energy delivered by Sun – as observed from ABOVE the Earth atmosphere: sensor pointed toward Sun will pick up 237W/m2, sensor pointed toward Earth will pick up 237W/m2. And yes – Sun’s radiation will be in wavelengths shorter than 4 micrometers, it will need to be divided by 4 to account for total Earth surface, and multiplied by 0.7 to account for albedo, and Earth’s radiation will be in wavelengths above 4 micrometers – so anybody reading this please do not try to correct me here, or I am going to lose my patience :).
The problem IS NOT WITH THIS MECHANISM.
The problem is with energy balance. The observed difference between Earth’s actual average temperature and the thermodynamic equilibrium temperature (in the absence of atmosphere) is ALL attributed to CO2. In this way – the CO2 runaway greenhouse effect is a self-fulfilling prophecy. And this is where the science ends, and cult influence starts, mixed with greed and political interests.
If climate science was really a science – the climate scientists would be busy as hell trying to find the missing parts of the puzzle. Instead – some of them at least – only look for facts which, on the surface of it, support the CO2 theory. Otherwise – their grants would be removed, and the whole thing would fade into oblivion. That’s why all the opposition is being silenced, and anyone outside IPCC is not a “climate scientist” and his opinion is to be disregarded.
Regarding the second statement – here is the link with what NASA thinks about the issue.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/EnergyBalance/
Pretty good, I think.
The key – for the untrained eye like mine – is the albedo. Higher Earth temperature = more vater vapor in the atmosphere = higher albedo = less solar radiation hitting Earth’s surface = less IR radiation going up = less heat from greenhouse gases = new equilibrium. It would be warmer – yes. How much ? The point is: at this time – ANYBODY’S GUESS IS EQUALLY GOOD.
Since there are so many questions remaining – in particular the past history of Earth which shows VAST variations in climate – the science should look for answers – not Al Gore with his pocket ready to receive taxpayer money.
Les continued: Here comes the climate changers’ argument – “but CO2 is well mixed, while water vapour is only in the lower areas of the atmosphere etc. etc.”
This is also a fact -that water vapour levels, unlike CO2 – can change VERY rapidly. Shouldn’t it be looked at with much more attention?
What the climate changers do, however -they cherry pick one fact, concentrate on it, then they say that “the science is settled”.
This, as far as I am concerned – is not science, it is just a scam.
I said before – good propaganda is a mix of truths, half-truths, and lies.
I questioned the “well-mixed” re CO2, and found they were using weird physics again as they do with IR mixing up heat with light. That’s how conmen sound plausible, but when this comes from actual respected as scientific bodies such as NASA, it’s extremely difficult to even get a supporter of AGW to even look at different explanations of the science – the real science sounds to them like some kind of innovation. That’s why we get them asking for proof that they’re wrong and not accepting it.
And it’s very cleverly done. Their avoidance of dealing with the greater amount of water to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, their models excising water’s forcing role in its own right by claiming that it’s not something that can be modelled.., has taken a bashing since AIRS freaked them out by saying they concluded that water was the prime mover as this ‘greenhouse gas’ and CO2 insignificant in comparison, and that modellers would have to rethink this. That was at the end of 2009 I think, I’ll have a look for it again, and since then we have this from early 2010:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18457-water-vapour-worse-climate-change-villain-than-thought.html
A rise in water vapour in the atmosphere fuelled 30% of the global warming that took place during the 1990’s. This discovery suggests that the potent greenhouse gas plays a bigger role in climate change that we previously imagined.
That last “that” looks like it’s a typo and should be “than”, but maybe it’s a Freudian slip; they had actually previously imagined it, but weren’t going to let on until forced by the AIRS data.. 🙂
Don’t know how they got their “third of the warming”.
But whenever they’re confronted with anything which rocks their boat they’ll find a new spin to explain it, however convoluted the science or data becomes in the new adjustment, and, it never changes their “consensus view that human emissions drive climate change” says a climate modeller at the University of Bern..
So now global warming causes harsh winters, and this will get repeated and repeated and repeated until it becomes the new meme and global warming melting ice caps and creating a parched earth will be avoided until it becomes a footnote in AGW history, ‘we’ve got better models now and really we’ve always said that…, and the polar bears are going to die because the ice isn’t melting and they can’t fish’
I really do feel sorry for this generation brought up to believe AGW junk science is real because it does come with ‘scientific authority’. I really can’t make sense of NASA which produced that teacher’s guide. A conman works by knowing what the truth is, and weaving a deception around that – it’s not rocket science to be know the difference between light and heat so how many at NASA know that’s twisted?
“…the difference between light and heat…”
In fact – there is none – if treated as forms of energy. Everything else – is just transformation of energy from one form to the other. At the bottom of it – there is nothing but energy.
Les – shrug, I don’t live in a world where only water vapour and carbon dioxide get hot in the atmosphere, nor in a world where gas molecules have no volume and are not subject to pressure and gravity and where the only method of transferring energy is radiation. In other words, I live in the real world.
My house is nicely warm and dry at the moment with the oil powered central heating system on (without it on in the winter the house is cold and damp), all the radiatiors on the two floors, ground and first, are on the same setting, I have an open staircase leading to the first floor, it’s hotter there than downstairs because hot air rises.
Myrrh quotes New Scientist:
A rise in water vapour in the atmosphere fuelled 30% of the global warming that took place during the 1990′s.
New Scientist perpetuates false information in order to support its CAGW propaganda. Global relative humidity is declining.
Old Scientist is right, findings confirmed by two intrepid contributors
http://www.wallaceandgromit.com/films/granddayout
And thus the science is settled… Unfortunately – on both sides of the argument there are many misconceptions – and, in general, laws of physics have nothing to do with reality.
Or – so they wish…
What misconception re heat and light? The reason cloud cover initially can ‘trap’ heat is because water has a higher capacity to store heat, it takes longer to heat up and longer to cool; in cloudless nights the air cools more rapidly. Carbon dioxide is even less able to do this than oxygen and nitrogen, releasing its heat practically instantly to getting it, it can’t trap heat.
There was a BBC propaganda programme last year, maybe it was the year before, which showed a typical AGWScience experiment to ‘prove’ carbon dioxide was a problem. One jar of carbon dioxide and one of ‘air’ were heated for comparison. The oohs and aahs, and instant conversions from sceptics to believers in the audience, was accomplished by showing that in the time given the jar of carbon dioxide was heating up so much more quickly than the jar of ‘air’. So this ‘proved’ that carbon dioxide was a problem in the atmosphere.
No indication of what the jar of ‘air’ contained, but my bet that it had a goodly amount of water vapour because oxygen and nitrogen only slightly more able to retain heat than carbon dioxide. So, no comparison re constituent parts, the timing stopped as soon as carbon dioxide was shown to be ‘so much hotter’, (the jar of air therefore not tested to see how long it would take to get to the same temperature), and no timing to see how long it took these to cool from the same temperature. What kind of experiment is that?
Water vapour on both sides of argument is ‘well-known’ to be a greenhouse gas and the meme that this adds to heating the earth is prevalent. It’s also only half the picture as is the jar experiment. The water cycle cools the earth and this is water’s main role in our real greenhouse atmosphere. The meme that ‘greenhouse gases warm the earth’ and the earth would be so much colder if they weren’t there isn’t what is actually happening. Wherever water vapour is it first takes heat away from the earth and with its much greater heat capacity it does this very efficiently and more as water vapour is lighter than air to begin with. When it cools at height and condenses it releases that heat as it turns back into heavier denser water to come down as rain.
Water vapour is not ‘well-mixed’ in the atmosphere but variable to local conditions, deserts not the same as balmy seaside in South Pacific…, so also carbon dioxide, which doesn’t take to travelling being heavier than air it’s a bit of a stay at home. If the atmosphere was ‘well-mixed’ then water vapour and heat would also be well-mixed and that’s clearly not what is observed. How carbon-dioxide can be ‘well-mixed’ against the physics of the real world is a mystery only to be solved in AGWScience which has a physics all of its own, having stepped through the looking glass anything is possible it its world.
Hey Myrrh,
There was a BBC propaganda programme last year, maybe it was the year before, which showed a typical AGWScience experiment to ‘prove’ carbon dioxide was a problem. One jar of carbon dioxide and one of ‘air’ were heated for comparison. The oohs and aahs, and instant conversions from sceptics to believers in the audience, was accomplished by showing that in the time given the jar of carbon dioxide was heating up so much more quickly than the jar of ‘air’. So this ‘proved’ that carbon dioxide was a problem in the atmosphere.
No indication of what the jar of ‘air’ contained, but my bet that it had a goodly amount of water vapour because oxygen and nitrogen only slightly more able to retain heat than carbon dioxide. So, no comparison re constituent parts, the timing stopped as soon as carbon dioxide was shown to be ‘so much hotter’, (the jar of air therefore not tested to see how long it would take to get to the same temperature), and no timing to see how long it took these to cool from the same temperature. What kind of experiment is that?
So what you are saying is that if you see an actual experiment which shows something which you don’t want to see, then you assume that the people doing the experiment are dishonest and trying to mislead you?
Its extremely unlikely that you’ll ever be convinced of anything at all…….
John – the experiment was bull. It gave absolutely no information about carbon dioxide except that it got hot quicker than air, the conclusion, ‘therefore CO2 is a dangerous greenhouse has which is going to drive global warming’ was not possible from that incomplete analysis.
I’m not saying they were dishonest, I said it was another propaganda piece from the Beeb. I don’t thing the majority of those promoting it are dishonest, I think they really believe AGWScience and this experiment is just another example of the ‘proofs of science’ they’ve been given to back up the idea that there’s real science behind this, when its junk science and experiment showing nothing; like the picture of the greenhouse and hot car. But like the previous examples I’ve given, there’s no connection of real science between A and B in any of the claims, to go from ‘look how quickly carbon dioxide gets hot’ compared with a jar of air of unknown constituent parts, to saying this ‘proves’ what AGW says about carbon dioxide is just unadulterated nonsense.
That’s all AGW claims are, they keep mixing up real science, taking bits from one aspect of properties and misapplying it to another, as par for the course. The well-mixed for example is also explained by ideal gas laws, so we have carbon dioxide which is heavier than air and subject to gravity and pressure being described as moving at great speed through the atmosphere thoroughly mixing, of its own volition!
This confusion between light and heat is just another example of the AGWScience technique of misapplication. I do think, however, that if there was a whoever who first began finding such ‘proofs’ then he could well have known the difference, but just as likely that it was scientific incompetence from the beginning which just growed and growed like topsy.
How can Carbon Dioxide which is 1.5 times heavier than air stay up in the atmosphere for hundreds and thousands of years?
Myrrh…this has been answered…you have asked this question before…
http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2010/10/is_co2_well_mixed.php
The way this is going – I will have to join the cult of man-made climate change – just to differentiate and separate myself from people who use idiotic arguments in attempt to defeat the cult…
There is a lot of good science behind climate research. Not all scientists are crooks. The issue has been hijacked by big finance and politicians. Learn some physics and thermodynamics – then you will have a chance. Otherwise you just making a laughing stock of yourself and make the task more difficult for people who actually can understand what is going on (and I do not necessarily count myself among their numbers).
Enough said.
This may also be an interesting observation in support of Earth’s albedo having the most influence (at least short-term) on the amount of solar radiation received by Earth – and, in consequence, observed temperatures.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2007/10/17/earths-albedo-tells-a-interesting-story/
So what answer did I get? That the wind mixed it up? But of course, we live in a washing machine on a perpetual wash cycle with no respite.
AIRS categorically showed that CO2 is not well-mixed in the atmosphere. Regardless those pushing the concept ‘well-mixed’ don’t understand why it isn’t well-mixed and can’t explain how it is well-mixed, that stands.
Myrrh…
Here is the link to AIRS.
http://airs.jpl.nasa.gov/story_archive/Measuring_CO2_from_Space/Measurement_to_Science/
You need to read what they write – carefully. They do not consider CO2 to be well mixed – because its concentration varies by UP TO 1 %. WHOA !
This means – it may be, say, 380ppm +-1.5ppm.
What practical difference would it make ?
Considering that CO2 production is not uniform – I would call this mixing pretty good…
Daily variations are way bigger than that…
Again – the cult needs to be kept honest – but please, let’s use sensible arguments…
It makes a difference because even this is an admission finally that the concept “well-mixed” AS IT IS DESCRIBED by AGW supporters, is nonsense. ‘”Thoroughly mixed”, “homogeneous”, “so mixed that it can’t be unmixed”. With this the claim that it accumulates in this “homogeneous whole for hundreds and thousands of years”.
This is what was stated in AIRS significant findings conclusion.
That it would come as a shock to those who thought it was this “homogeneous whole”.
You clearly don’t appreciate the concept that AGW pushed here, this falsifies it. Not that they care much when they’re confronted even with their own data which falsifies their claims. Vostok and time lag of CO2 is now answered by the new meme from them, history doesn’t matter..
They, the AIRS people, said they don’t understand what they’re seeing, of course they don’t. They’ve never worked to observation of the real world, but pull concepts out of thin air and find out of context physics to ‘explain’ their concepts. They continually shut their eyes to all observed data, they can’t do so here.
To present AGW’s mythical “well-mixed” they give two basic nonsense physics, “the winds thoroughly mix it up” and “ideal gas laws/brownian motion”.
Winds do not mix thoroughly around the globe nor are they constant, this explanation is simply ridiculous. It it were true for carbon dioxide it would be true for heat, for water. By producing another imaginary concept, that CO2 is different from water vapour, doesn’t address the problem that heat isn’t thoroughly mixed around the globe which it would have to be if this can be claimed for CO2. Their imaginary solution for water vapour not being well-mixed is to say that it has a different life-cycle to CO2, which is not proved by observation and is against the actual properties of CO2 which being heavier than air, “does not readily rise into the atmosphere”. This latter quote is from one of AGW’s official sources, re volcanoes . If it doesn’t readily rise into the air then how can it become “well-mixed”? It can’t. It is subject to outside forces to move it, wind, water, heat, etc. and as AIRS admits, ‘it appears that wind plays a bigger part than was thought’; wind is limiting, it follows paths. Real wind, not this imaginary constant mixing wind that AGW presents as if the atmosphere is in ceaseless turmoil. How far and how strong is the wind moving in your area? I’ve just looked out the window, there’s no wind, not even the fine tops of the trees moving. Any CO2 which “does not readily rise up into the atmosphere” being produced today in my locality, ain’t going nowhere.
And conversely, any CO2 in the atmosphere around me is going to be sinking downwards, because CO2 being heavier than air displaces air. It no more readily stays up in the air than it readily rises up into it. AGW does not describe the physical world.
Carbon Dioxide cannot stay up in the air of its own volition, it is subject to local forces and is constrained by its own properties. Nor is the atmosphere empty space with CO2 molecules rushing around at great speeds bouncing off other molecules until it is thoroughly mixed, which is the other ‘reason’ given by taking ideal gas laws out of context of real gravity and real air pressure and real volume. AGW doesn’t have any feel at all for the real physical world at the end of their noses. It seems to me you are giving them far more credibility with reference to their capacity to understand and use actual science than they are due.
They are not scientists, they are an ideological group using out of context ideas from science to create their own imaginary world.
More, another ‘scientific reason’ given by AGW that CO2 is “well-mixed” in the atmosphere is because it stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, giving this imaginary wind or Brownian motion or whatever lots of time to thoroughly mix it, this covered above, but, as with all other such statements, uncomfortable facts which falsify this have a habit of intruding; facts from their own sources.
Regardless of which way one poses the problem, the existing CO2 in the atmosphere has a mean residence time of 1.5 years using IPCC data, 3.2 years using University of Colorado data, or 4.9 years using Texas A&M data. The half lives are 0.65 years, 1.83 years, and 3.0 years, respectively. This is not “decades to centuries” as proclaimed by the Consensus. [Climate Change 2001, Technical Summary of the Working Group I Report, p.25.]
On: http://www.freeconservates.com/vb/showthread.php?49327-On-Why-Co2-Is-Known-Not-To-Have-Accumulated-In-The-Atmosphere-amp-What-Is-Happening-Wit
That hasn’t stopped the Hansen and his blind followers claiming CO2 has these supermolecule powers to stay up in the atmosphere for even thousands of years!
Which makes more sense? That the shorter times are in accord with CO2’s actual properties or that CO2 has become this supermolecule defying gravity against all know physics to stay up accumulating in the atmosphere for supermolecule lengths of time?
What does AGW do with these uncomfortable facts? Firstly, it keeps ignoring them, then it tries to find ways it can garble an excuse for them. All the while it keeps claiming their supermolecule CO2 has these extraordinary powers against wind and rain, it readily dissolves in water in the real world and comes down every time it rains, and gravity.
How can CO2 which readily comes down under its own weight and through the actions of wind and rain clearing it from the atmosphere, stay up accumulating? HOW??!!
It doesn’t matter how much CO2 is pumped into the atmosphere at any one source, half a ton or 10, when it dissolves in the water of clouds and comes pouring back to earth it takes all of it with it. There isn’t some supermolecule CO2 resisting getting dissolved, holding itself aloof from the processess it’s in, let alone capable of defying gravity.
One good rainfall and it clears the air of all dust and dirt and CO2. Rain drops form around dust, CO2 dissolves in water and has a natural bent to do so. Recognise that fresh smell of clean air after a fall of rain?
A typical page of typical AGW excuses, blaming the IPCC for ‘confusing the issue with uncomfortable facts’ against the AGWScience brainnumbing rants of thousands of years :
http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0812/full/climate.2008.122.html
I do hope you can see the irony in the statement therein: The longevity of CO2 in the atmosphere is probably the least well understood part of the global warming issue,” says paleoclimatologist Peter Fawcell of the University of New Mexico. “And it’s not because it isn’t well documented in the PICC report. It is, but it is buried under a lot of other material.”
compared with, for example:
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2009/01/what-is-average-lifetime-of-atmospheric.html
Which makes more sense?
All I am saying, Myrrh, do not let yourself be carried away…
? Carried away? Why has this suddenly become about me? These are sensible arguments, I don’t know why you’re not responding to them and instead making it personal.
These people are impacting all our lives to a malignant extent by pushing this ideology backed up with corrupt and quite frankly, idiotic science. I see no reason to say nice things about this pseudo-science belief system than I would about marxism or any or totalitarian political/religious organisation, but this is world-wide. Many have tried to achieve that kind of domination in the past, some are succeeding now through this indoctrination. This is backed by governments, banking and big business and off the wall environmentalists, rather a lot of whom believe their lives superior to those not of their ilk and think mass extermination of these others as ‘a very good idea’.
You want to take their doctrines seriously as science that’s up to you, but even if only one of those trapped in this manipulated AGW net gets free by reading the discussions on this site, I think the whole of the enterprise would have been worth while.
These are questions they should be asking of those promoting it to them, their teachers, college professors, members of parliament, senators – the more information they get pointing out how far the AGW claims are from scientific reality the easier it will be for them to ask the questions. These are basic science concepts that any junior level child should be taught. The last century was chock-a-block full of regimes imposing their ideolgies on the people to the extent that no-one was allowed to question anything, that’s a history worth remembering here.
It would be informative for all who have posted on this thread to wait a few days and then read all the posts from top to bottom, read Mr Steketee’s response to Lord Monckton, and then go to scepticalscience.com and read the rebuttals presented therein (there are more to follow). That should give you pause. In that pause try and consider what your life will be like if the ‘alarmists’ as you call them are right yet we do nothing. (I assume that by then, if you have an open mind, you will, at the very least, have doubts regarding what The Lord Monckton says.) I am not saying you have to change your mind, but at least, you will be have seen that it is worth delving deeper before posting such things as:
John says:
January 9, 2011 at 12:24 am
Geez… can’t we just burn his book?
(and release some of the CO2 in it 😉 Perhaps his beard rather than his book. Once we start burning books we then have no hard record of stupidity for posterity.
Seriously, can there be any place for such sentiments in a debate with the potential to kill millions if one side is right, yet the other side win?
By all means carry on as you are, but at least do it with a more responsible attitude than ‘If he or she is against action on Climate Change, then they are automatically one of the good guys’. You owe it to your children, if not yourselves, to do at least that much. My conclusion is that if there is a conspiracy, it is very much on the part of the few experts (by comparison with those who say we should act) who say we should do nothing. I have no idea what motivates each individual, but I am sure that The Lord Monckton’s life is a lot more fun than that of almost all of those reading this. Flitting around the world, being lauded as an expert, which he appears not to be, pretending that he represents the House of Lords, who have had to write to him telling him to stop, is quite a nice life. I leave you to guess at The Lord Monckton’s motives, but I doubt the costs come out of his pocket.
The Lord Monckton is not alone. There are a considerable number of senior executives whose pay and bonuses hinge upon a ‘business as usual’ approach. If they choose to support a disinformation campaign, I can hardly condemn them, they are only doing what comes naturally: playing the system to their own ends. It is the system, not them, that needs to change. If there is no disinformation campaign, then it is pure coincidence that they have chosen to employ the same people that the tobacco industry employed to deny that smoking causes lung cancer and the refrigerant manufactures employed to deny that CFCs deplete the ozone layer. I personally doubt that it is a coincidence, but I did at least consider it carefully before I came to that conclusion. All I ask is that all of us do the same.
This issue is not hypothetical. Climate Change is occurring for whatever reason and whichever way of tackling it (or not tackling it) pans out, it has the potential to impinge significantly on all our lives for a long while to come.
It would be informative for all who have posted on this thread to wait a few days and then read all the posts from top to bottom, read Mr Steketee’s response to Lord Monckton http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/mike-steketees-response-to-christopher-monckton/story-e6frg6xf-1225985171179, and then go to scepticalscience.com and read the rebuttals presented therein (there are more to follow). That should give you pause. In that pause try and consider what your life will be like if the ‘alarmists’ as they are known are right yet we do nothing. (I assume that by then, if you have an open mind, you will, at the very least, have doubts regarding what The Lord Monckton says.) I am not saying you have to change your mind, but at least, you will be have seen that it is worth delving deeper before posting such things as:
John says:
January 9, 2011 at 12:24 am
Geez… can’t we just burn his book?
(and release some of the CO2 in it 😉 Perhaps his beard rather than his book. Once we start burning books we then have no hard record of stupidity for posterity.
Seriously, can there be any place for such sentiments in a debate with the potential to kill millions if one side is right, yet the other side win?
By all means carry on as you are, but at least do it with a more responsible attitude than ‘If he or she is against action on Climate Change, then they are automatically one of the good guys’. You owe it to your children, if not yourselves, to do at least that much. My conclusion is that if there is a conspiracy, it is very much on the part of the few who say we should do nothing experts (by comparison with the number of those exports who say we should act). I have no idea what motivates each individual, but I am sure that The Lord Monckton’s life is a lot more fun than that of almost all of those reading this. Flitting around the world, being lauded as an expert, which he appears not to be, pretending that he represents the House of Lords, who have had to write to him telling him to stop, is quite a nice life. I leave you to guess at The Lord Monckton’s motives, but I doubt the costs come out of his pocket.
The Lord Monckton is not alone. There are a considerable number of senior executives whose pay and bonuses hinge upon a ‘business as usual’ approach. If they choose to support a disinformation campaign, I can hardly condemn them, they are only doing what comes naturally: playing the system to their own ends. It is the system, not them, that needs to change. If there is no disinformation campaign, then it is pure coincidence that they have chosen to employ the same people that the tobacco industry employed to deny that smoking causes lung cancer and the refrigerant manufactures employed to deny that CFCs deplete the ozone layer. I personally doubt that it is a coincidence, but I did at least consider it carefully before I came to that conclusion. All I ask is that all of us do the same.
This issue is not hypothetical. Climate Change is occurring for whatever reason and whichever way of tackling it (or not tackling it) pans out, it has the potential to impinge significantly on all our lives for a long time to come.
Mel:
“In that pause try and consider what your life will be like if the ‘alarmists’ as you call them are right yet we do nothing.”
No one denies that the climate is changing. It always was, it always will. We should start thinking how to ride it out, not how to stop it. And – this goes without saying – stop wasting resources, stop burning whatever can be burnt – but NOT because of climate change, but because because this is stupid and wasteful.
If we are to research renewable energy sources, more efficient internal combustion engines, energy efficient production techniques – I am all for it.
But – not because Al Gore’s Hollywood-like doomsday scenarion, supported by science, which, to the best of my knowledge, is far from “settled”.
And this goes for both sides of the argument.
Mel – why don’t you say global warming anymore?
No one anti the dogma of AGW, Anthropogenic Global Warming, are against the concept of “climate change”, in fact, that has always the answer to those pushing the idea of man-made global warming, that climate changes. Try reading actual data on how our climate has changed, and especially at those times that AGW with its corrupt Hockey Stick and One Tree Briffa went to extraordinary lengths to hide, to create the pretence that climate hadn’t changed for the last thousand years, that there wasn’t a MWP or LIA of any account.
But there was, http://green-agenda.com/greenland.html
http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php
In other words, climate changes.
What AGW’s are having a problem with, is that their claim that CO2 is constantly driving up temperatures and that is not happening. Since 1998 there has been an awful lot of effort put into hiding the decline.. Including the emphasis now put on calling it “climate change” rather than “man-made global warming”, unfortunately for AGW’s, their campaign to frighten the socks off everyone by claiming it was global warming and it’s all our fault and that the earth would flood from all the ice caps melting was rather successful, people do still remember that.
Now of course, AGW’s are confronted with their worst fears from the shock of having to deal with the 1999 Vostok data and the cooling they’ve been recording since 1998, because it is turning into freezing across all those Northern hemisphere areas where brainwashing was the greatest. And people are getting peed off with the new change in story, that global warming causes freezing. Do you think we’re all stupid? We’re still all waiting for it to get warmer…
As you’ve been telling us for last several decades that it would. Give us the warming!
Is there any correlation in cause and effect I wonder, between AGW’s realising that global temperatures had stopped rising and the amount of legislations put into place to extract as much financial gain from the “global warming meme”, in personal wealth creation from selling carbon dioxide and such and government wealth through green taxes?
I also wonder if within that, the plan was always to restrict the people of Africa from utitlising their fuel sources to take them out of starvation and into good health, to be able to use these resources unemcumbered by population of any size objecting to it? If the following is what is actually being planned for?
Those not AGW’s who continue to say that climate changes pointed out that if the pattern seen in Vostok and others continues, the most likely scenario for us is a steep temperature decline back into the ice age from which we came out around 10-12 thousand years ago. I don’t doubt that there are AGW’s who know this and keep pushing the man-made fault anyway, to their financial advantage.
So please, stop using the new meme “that deniers are against action on Climate Change”, it shows you’ve not actually been paying attention to any of our arguments, and, please remember that our arguments are still against your concept of “man-made global warming”.
So, how long before all the ice in the Arctic and Antarctic melts?
Les, what action do you think we should take if the descent back into the ice age is in the next hundred or so years?
http://m.climaterealists.com/index.php?id=2516
And, re Michael’s use of the new meme from AGW – that history doesn’t matter, it’s only what the temperature is doing now that should be considered.
http://climateaudit.org/2005/11/18/archaeological-finds-in-retreating-swiss-glacier/
Of course those driving the AGW agenda by giving their acolytes new memes to spread far wide are now saying, forget the historical temperature records. They might discover that climate actually does change.
Myrrh
I will not stoop your level of debate. In fact it was the immature level of debate found herein, of which your posts are typical, that drove me to put my fingers to the keyboard. This is too important an issue for any of us to adhere blindly to our beliefs. I am only involved because I am worried about my grandchildren and if you ever mature enough to take on properly the responsibilities that come with parenthood, you will understand the point that I am making (and your level of debate will improve significantly).
If we take for example your mantra: “CO2 follows temperature and therefore the current warming cannot possibly be due to the current level of CO2.” That statement is true for all known previous warming events. Does that prove the point? By no means. Your mind appears to be closed to asking why the CO2 increases at all. Having looked at the science, I can see the link between the Milankovitch cycles and temperature. Clearly you cannot, or more likely, you won’t. If you could, you would see that our pumping CO2 into the atmosphere shortcircuits the process. The time lag from the time that the Milankovitch cycle initially slightly warms the atmosphere to when the various mechanisms that eventually produce the CO2 that amplifies that warming kick in is irrelevant. Talk about ‘Don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up.’ I suppose it is pointless drawing your attention to the fact that the current increase in CO2 is the first time in the life of this planet that human beings have pumped vast amounts of it into the atmosphere and that invalidates any conclusions drawn from the past.
It is sad to see someone blindly follow the lead given by others without having the courage to go out on a path of their own choosing; resorting instead to personal attacks on the integrity of all those who have a different point of view.
To answer your first question:
Mel – why don’t you say global warming anymore?
I would have thought it obvious, but will spell it out for you. Global Warming sounds nice. We have even had politicians in the U.K. extolling the virtues of a warmer climate, such as having cafes with outside terraces etc, but that is politicians for you. Climate Change is what results from Global Warming. To use the expression ‘Climate Change’ tends to stop the rather asinine “What about this winter then? Don’t try and tell me the planet is warming!” type of comments. There is sound science that clearly shows that we can expect winters to be more severe in a warmer world. I.e. the climate has changed.
The implications of your question is that I am following some tactic devised by what you call ‘alarmists’. Please do not make such assumptions. I am my own man and will tell it the way I see, not how some puppet master wants it told.
From my point of view, I see the whole debate regarding whether the current warming is human in origin or not to be a rather clever ploy on the part of those who, for reasons best known to themselves, do not want us, as a species, to do anything that might upset ‘business as usual.’ I have yet to see anyone, yourself included, explain why the temperature of this planet is many degrees warmer than it should be based on its distance from the sun that does not hinge on the greenhouse effect. Seeing as the greenhouse effect has been investigated ad nauseam since Fourier first proposed it in the 1820s and is now considered proven science, it is clear we need to reduce the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, regardless of their origin.
So Myrrh, a simple question: Is the greenhouse effect nonsense. If so, you will be flying in the face of nearly 200 year’s worth of science. To do that, you will need to show very good evidence. Your usual invective will not suffice. If it isn’t nonsense, please explain why we should not do our best to reduce the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The temperature is rising, as the compilation of 10 temperature data sets found at http://skepticalscience.com/ clearly shows, so you cannot legitimately argue that there is no need to act, unless of course you can show that the current trajectory of the warming will somehow suddenly and dramatically change for the better.
At a personal level, I would prefer not to have to change the status quo. I am not wealthy and consider that there is a risk that the changes that are needed will adversely affect my pension. However, I think that I owe it to my grandchildren to try and make their prospects better than what I can see at present. After all, my generation more than most is culpable for any harmful effects resulting from our endeavours.
Ps sorry for the large amount of bold type, I am new to html and there is no preview function. All I was trying to do was put ‘regardless of their origin’ in bold.
[Snip. Calling people “deniers” is against site Policy. ~dbs, mod.]
I have grandchildren and I am very concerned about their welfare. But bankrupting their future – condemning them to a life of persistent poverty and need (not want, need) trying to catch a snipe that is not due to man’s actions, but to factors beyond his control is not caring for them. It assuages our guilt in the short term, and makes us “feel good” about making a difference, when in fact we will make no difference (other than to lines some fat cat’s pockets) and condemn them to a life of subsistence instead of enrichment.
You have it backwards. He has nothing to prove. You have to prove that the null hypothesis is wrong, something that has yet to be done. That is basic science.
That has yet to be even remotely tested and affirmed, much less proven. What we do know is that climate change is the only given from the history of the earth, and that at times, it does cause global warming, not the other way around. It may be the other way around (putting the A in there for you), but then that is what you have to prove.
That is the critical flaw in your logic. No one has yet proven that the temperature is warmer than “it should be” for any reason. Until you can define how the temperature is affected by all the factors, you cannot say ‘what should be’ with anything other than a religious belief.
In science there are 2 types of error. And you are asking us to potentially commit the worst one, type 1, with no proof. Your attempt at using a site such as that one to try to shame someone into silence will not work since the logical approach at this point is to NOT ACT. Until you know what you are doing, it is best not doing it.
PhilJourdan
O.K., you are right in all that you say, all that you will say in the future, and all that you have said in the past.
I know better than to get embroiled in a long winded discussion with someone who is always right, even when they are wrong. If 200 years of scientific endeavour won’t convince you, a lot of it before the fossil fuel industry had cause to be worried about any threat to their profits and hence a reason to mount campaign similar to that mounted by the tobacco industry, nothing will.
If I have to desribe people as sceptical, which is something that all scientists are, rather than call them ‘deniers,’ when others can freely describe those on the other side of the debate as ‘alarmists,’ I have to conclude that it is not worth contributing to the debate on this site.
Mel Tisdale says:
January 26, 2011 at 9:49 am
Sorry Mel, I had no idea you could not take debate and criticism. You are welcome to believe as you want. I was pointing out errors for others to see, since you have made it clear you never make any in your own eyes.
But since you brought it up, I would ask you to cite the studies from 200 years ago that are germaine to your points.
Mel – are you still reading this? If so let me know and I’ll reply to your post (sorry for the delay).
As far as I can tell Watts has not acknowledged Steketee’s rebuttal of Monckton’s critique which raises serious questions about who has skewered who.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/mike-steketees-response-to-christopher-monckton/story-e6frg6xf-1225985171179
But you need look no further than the cover of Monckton’s paper presented at the top of the page to conclude once again that Watts puts up a blaring headline while failing to do the most cursory check of the veracity of the claims he makes.
The title is in quotation marks on the cover of Moncktons “2010 Was The Warmest Year On Record”, below which appears a photograph of Steketee and the mast head of The Australian. In the opening para Monckton again attributes this “quote” to Steketee .
The problem is Steketee says no such thing. The article actually states:
“the WMO was confident enough last month to say that 2010 would rate in the top three warmest years.”
For a site which has pretensions to scientific rigour this is not a trivial difference.
Monckton has form for this sort of thing. Even the Australian climate skeptic politician Barnaby Joyce says of Monckton:
“Barnaby Joyce…believes Monckton is on the fringe of the debate and unhelpful to those who question human induced climate change.”
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/blogs/greenlines/lord-monckton-is-on-the-fringe-barnaby-joyce/20100120-mlfq.html
REPLY: As I said before, if the newspaper will print Monckton’s rebuttal, I’ll gladly print Steketee’s and give it top billing. Perhaps you can convince them to do that. – Anthony
About “who skewerd who”..
“CSIRO research has identified climate change as contributing to the 20 per cent decline in rainfall in southwest Western Australia…”
And this is the revelation ? Change in rainfall IS part of a climate change, so the above statement is axiomatic. Pity that CSIRO is wasting our tax money in order to lend credibility (?) to such earth shattering self-fulfilling prophecies.