Note – this will be pinned as a top post for a few days. Other posts will appear below this one.
UPDATE: Josh weighs in with a Friday Funny.
UPDATE2: McKibben has a Forrest Gump moment with his latest propaganda video
I’m doing something I’ve never done before, I’m asking every reader of WUWT to write a letter to the editor this weekend. I don’t take this step lightly, but given what I’ve observed the last few days, I think it is time to stir the power of our collective WUWT community for the common good.
Readers may recall the debunkings I regularly put forth any time paid activists like Bill McKibben, Joe Romm, David Suzuki, or Brad Johnson (and others) try to make claims that human induced climate change is making our daily weather “more extreme”. You know and I know that this is “garbage science” (even worse than “junk science”) because it is an attempt to twist science to strike fear over climate into the hearts of the average citizen. It is an act of desperation, rooted in the fact that the modeled warming scenarios described by the scientist activist high priest of the global warming movement Dr. James Hansen, just have not come to pass. Climate feedbacks don’t seem to be strong, climate sensitivity doesn’t seem to be high, there’s been no statistically significant warming in the last decade, and thus the only thing left is to blame bouts of normally occurring severe weather on climate change. The level of thinking sophistication here isn’t much different from blaming witches for bad weather in medieval times, but the sophistication of telegraphing this message to the weak-minded is far more sophisticated than in those days.
And, yesterday, we saw a message similar to calls made during those dark times “she’s a witch, BURN her!” in Steve Zwick’s rant on Forbes.com where he says:
We know who the active denialists are – not the people who buy the lies, mind you, but the people who create the lies. Let’s start keeping track of them now, and when the famines come, let’s make them pay. Let’s let their houses burn. … They broke the climate. Why should the rest of us have to pay for it?
The level of delusional fail here is off the scale. If this were an isolated incident, we could simply laugh it off as the hateful rantings of a person afflicted with climate derangement syndrome. But there’s more.
Yesterday, it entered my children’s school (see below), and this week, we saw a survey on “extreme weather” conducted by Yale, use a phrase in the press release that is straight out of a propagandist organization, Bill McKibben’s 350.org. The heat is on to make climate all about the weather for propaganda purposes, and there’s no data to support it. It is a lie of global proportions. We need to step up. Here’s what I found in my children’s school yesterday:
At my children’s school yesterday, they had a book fair. In that book fair was this display from the publisher of a new book INsiders – Extreme Weather.
Of course you know what book I picked up to look at first, and it took me all of about 15 seconds to find this (I highlighted the relevant part digitally):
“Some scientists”? I think the author really meant “some activists”.
To be fair, there are some very good sections of the book well rooted in science, for example this one on lightning:
I know the author, H. Michael Mogil, who is well rooted in science, and who is a Certified Consulting Meteorologist. I can’t imagine him fully signing off on the climate=severe weather idea as McKibben et al put it. But, I think there was pressure from publishers to include the section on climate linkage, and I think he hedged his statement as best he could. My point is that is it beginning to pervade children’s books.
Also this week we had this poll released from Yale University, which got a ton of press thanks to it being carried in the Associated Press. It even made my own local newspaper.
The poll itself is a logical fallacy, with sloppy questions like this one:
I give it a thorough debunking here with a strong emphasis on the reporting bias introduced by our technologically saturated society. Anyone with a cellphone can report severe weather now and within minutes it can be known worldwide.
Here’s a quote from the lead author that was carried in news stories, bold mine:
“Most people in the country are looking at everything that’s happened; it just seems to be one disaster after another after another,” said Anthony A. Leiserowitz of Yale University, one of the researchers who commissioned the new poll. “People are starting to connect the dots.”
At the time, I didn’t note the significance of the “connect the dots” meme, but one of our sharp WUWT readers pointed out that this is the new catchphrase of Bill McKibben’s 350.org movement.
In tips and notes this morning, Nick Ryan confirmed this for me with this letter from McKibben he posted.
Subject: Good news.
From: organizers@350.org
To: nick_ryan@xxxx.xxx
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2012 18:57:30 +0000
Dear friends,
Good news this time.
At some point every one of us at 350 has thought to ourselves a little despairingly: is the world ever going to catch on to climate change? Today is one of those days when it feels like it just might happen.
A story on the front page of yesterday’s New York Times described a new poll — Americans in record numbers are understanding that the planet is warming because they’re seeing the “freaky” weather that comes with climate change.
And the story ends by describing the next step in this process: May 5, the giant Connect the Dots day that people are joining all around the globe: http://www.ClimateDots.org
When the zeitgeist conspires to help our efforts, we need to make the most of it. Two weeks is plenty of time to organize a beautiful photo for May 5, one that will help spread this idea. Are you in a place where flood and rain have caused havoc? Ten people with umbrellas can make a memorable “climate dot” for all the world to see. You’ll think of something appropriate for your place — and you can find lots of examples and ideas here.
This movement is growing quickly, and with not a moment to spare — new data from scientists like Jim Hansen at NASA shows that our carbon emissions have already made extreme weather many times more likely. We can’t take back the carbon we’ve already poured into the atmosphere, but if we work together hard and fast then we can keep it from getting steadily worse.
Earth Day is coming up this weekend, and there will be thousands of events across the US. Each one of them is a great place to spread the word about the big day of action on 5/5. When you’re on the front page of the Times it’s a sign that the message is starting to get through — but only one American in 300 reads that newspaper. Now it’s up to all of us to make sure that everyone around the world gets the message, and Connect the Dots day on 5/5 is our best chance to do that. Please join us.
Onwards,
Bill McKibben for 350.org
P.S. It is key to remember that these photos from May 5 are not just for their effect on that day. We need a bank of images showing the human face of global warming — pictures we’ll use for the hard and direct political work of the next few years. If people don’t know there’s a problem, they won’t try to solve it. So let’s show them on 5/5. Here’s a heartbreaking example, from some local activists in Texas:
Climate Activists in Texas
Clearly, due to the timing and the reference he made to “People are starting to connect the dots.”, the poll conducted by Anthony A. Leiserowitz of Yale University is just a tool that is connected to this 350.org “climatedots.org” campaign, it isn’t science, it is blatant advocacy disguised as science of the brand Dr. James Hansen practices.
So looking at what is going in total this week, I think it is time for us to exercise our own rights to free speech, and thus I’m asking WUWT readers to write letters to the editor to your local newspapers and magazines to counter what will surely be a blitz of advocacy in the coming days.
This tactic is used by these NGO’s so there is nothing wrong with it. It is free speech in the finest American tradition. There is one hitch though, and that’s the newspaper editors back-channel.
You see, one of the perks of being a journalist in the TV and radio news business is that I’m privy to how things work. In print media, editors have established a back-channel to alert each other of potential letter writing campaigns, such as those form letters like we see from “Forecast the Facts”.
The key is to make this your own letter, in your own words. While I can suggest topics, the letters need to be written in your own words for them to be accepted.
You can start here with this essay, and draw from it.
Warren Meyer made some excellent points yesterday in his Zwick rebuttal at Forbes:
A Vivid Reminder of How The Climate Debate is Broken
I really liked this part, which speaks to reporting bias (like we have with severe weather):
In the summer of 2001, a little boy in Mississippi lost an arm in a shark attack. The media went absolutely crazy. For weeks and months they highlighted every shark attack on the evening news. They ran aerial footage of sharks in the water near beaches. They coined the term “Summer of the Shark.” According to Wikipedia, shark attacks were the number three story, in terms of network news time dedicated, of the summer.
Bombarded by such coverage, most Americans responded to polls by saying they were concerned about the uptick in shark attacks. In fact, there were actually about 10% fewer shark attacks in 2001 than in 2000. Our perceptions were severely biased by the coverage.
How to write a letter:
1. Go to your local newspaper website, locate the guidelines for letters to the editor. Typical letter policies limit letters to 200-250 words.
2. Do your research, craft your letter carefully. Cite facts, cite statistics such as I offer on WUWT. Use your own words, don’t quote me, though quoting people like Professor Grady Dixon “…it would be a mistake to blame climate change for a seeming increase in tornadoes” is fine.
3. [added] Readers are submitting content ideas in comments, have a look at those. Fr example Steve E. writes: Dr. Roger Pielke Jr’s posting on the IPCC SREX Report, “A Handy Bullshit Button on Disasters and Climate Change” here: http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.ca/2012/03/handy-bullshit-button-on-disasters-and.html is also a good source for letter content.
4. Send it, being mindful of length and guidelines.
Thank you for your consideration. – Anthony
Is this the science? Extreme weather events are caused by the Earth trying to balance it’s energy budget. Global warming will warm the poles more than the equator, (polar amplification) this means that the temperature gradient between the poles and the equator will drop. Shouldn’t this mean LESS extreme weather events caused by warming, not more?
Minor note in second paragraph – “Suzuki”
REPLY: Fixed, thx, A
Letter writers may want to mention that Global Sea Ice extent is above average and Arctic Sea Ice extent is about average.
Im UK based and dont think this is targeted our way. However If 350.org gain any traction in local media over here ill be first to know (I work in the media), to write and to report back!
It would be a good idea, Anthony, if you collected all the various messages and letters written as follow up to this effort of yours, for later analysis about what your readers have chosen to highlight, how they did it and how ‘mainstream’ their views are (considering the fact that the IPCC itself recently stated nobody can tell if the climate is getting more extreme…so your view and mine on the topic are mainstream, whilst McKibben et al are the certified anti-science campaigners).
For example you could provide a site or email address where people could send the text of their letters.
To be honest I think that ignoring the “Connect the Dots” campaign would be far more effective. Also yawning and stretching.
I think comparing Bill McKibben with Rev Harold Camping would be the way to go – and how did people deal with Camping? By ignoring him and getting on with life.
REPLY: if it were just McKibben, I’d agree, but they have major press with this AP story on the poll, and it will be cited incessantly as “proof” Many people aren’t savvy enough to know they are being hyped by this in an organized way. That’s where we can help. – Anthony
It chimes in with what the BBC are doing over here. ‘Climate Weirding’ is the new ‘Global Warming/Climate Change/Climate Disruption’. They’ve realised that it isn’t going to warm and so pointing in alarm at the weather (which will always oblige by being contrary) is the plan.
I’m interested in how these memes spread though. I’d love to see the back channel comms between the BBC and the activist community. But we never will unless someone hacks them or has a Damascene conversion, I suppose.
All this is to build a wave of public opinion to crest June 20-22, 2012 at Rio+20.
http://www.uncsd2012.org/rio20/index.html – “The Future We Want”
A theme to consider in your letters is to describe the Future YOU want.
“Connect the dots” == “Global Climate ‘Summer of the Shark'” — sigh.
RE: Elbapo
“Im UK based and dont think this is targeted our way”
Er…I have a high school age son here in the UK. His science work course books are all about examples on the environment, pollution, climate change, dangers of alcohol, speed cameras, not eating fast food etc etc. His geography work course books are all about…environment, pollution, climate change, dangers of alcohol, speed cameras, not eating fast food etc etc. His french work course books are all about…environment, pollution, climate change, dangers of alcohol, speed cameras, not eating fast food etc etc – except in French! As my son said to me the other day, whilst I was going through his French homework on pollution in North Africa “wouldn’t it be nice to actually learn useful conversational French rather than how to carry on a global warming argument (from the side of the activists) in French”
Every subject now taught in UK high schools uses the same politically motivated and propoganda-based examples regardless of the subject. Its appalling.
It’s human nature. Here in Germany, before they started being concerned about warming, they were concerned about the Waldsterben, the acid rain induced dying of the forests. After that scare disappeared, instead of starting to enjoy life, they hopped on the next catastrophy bandwagon. The same people.
I think it’s to do with the thinking skills. They’re somehow miswired. Nothing makes my day like meeting one of them in a pub and listening to him.
Once I listened to 4 elderly women seated next to me in a German high speed train complaining to each other about their electrosensitivity. They were lively and not in pains, even though they were sitting under the strong electromagnetic field produced by, I think 6,000 V AC, transmitted through wires with no countering field adjacent, so that’s a huge field strength compared to the tiny field emanating from the usual 220 V cables in a house.
I didn’t want to interrupt their discussion, they obviously enjoyed complaining about this imaginary problem, so I didn’t tell them.
Stephen Rasey says:
April 20, 2012 at 8:57 am
“A theme to consider in your letters is to describe the Future YOU want.”
I’d like one with LENR-based energy production. Here are (enormously detailed) slides from the Larsen in Widom-Larsen theory:
http://www.slideshare.net/lewisglarsen/lattice-energy-llcnickelseed-lenr-networksapril-20-2011
I do not think that one can stop these activists appealing to reason. It is their only left option to go now, so they will go on and on in their twisted mind with “their science” and “their new modeled truth” . How easy would have been in the dark ages to appeal to peoples rationality to leave “the witches” alone if the priests would say they are guilty?
Read the sea level story from beggining to end – google translate is great – I haven’t found an english site that tells the whole story so concise and clear:
http://www.science-skeptical.de/blog/was-nicht-passt-wird-passend-gemacht-esa-korigiert-daten-zum-meeresspiegel/007386/
It is not only envisat, or Jason 2 or Jason 1, from decades it is only a story of unclarified adjustments up to paint the catastrophe.
What is important is to keep an eye on all the data keepers and not let them go with any unjustified adjustment – the ones who try this. Any unjustified adjustment should be highlighted red and blinking.
I am not so afraid for the children becoming brainwashed. When I look at the former communist countries and think how most of the people from those countries think about communists and their brainwashing…
What is important is to have a voice of reason that is being heard, and help the people make an educated choice. Keep on the good work WUWT team!
It’s called indoctrination and schools at all levels do it as a matter of course. Writing a letter to the editor of the local newspaper will be meaningless around here. They’re in bed with the AGW crowd.
Maybe leaning on the local school boards will do some good. Certainly, most of the school superintendents, armed with their Ed.D. degrees, are also in the AGW camp. One or two school superintendents around here have quit when school boards actually acted like a board of directors.
elbapo says:
April 20, 2012 at 8:37 am
Im UK based and dont think this is targeted our way. However If 350.org gain any traction in local media over here ill be first to know (I work in the media), to write and to report back!
Ditto for me! However, I never let a chance slip to irritate the BBC when they pump out garbage. So much so that for almost a year now the BBC 1, 7pm weekly magazine programme, The One Show, has stopped Lucie Siegel spouting her unchecked rants on Global Warming, at least for that period, getting her to do other stuff for which her left-leaning Guardian Journo style is more sutied. The numbe of times she interjected in one programme about how the IPCC had “proved” this or that! I also complain fiercely when nuclear power is subjected to its usual tirade of ignorance & missinformation & untruths! Shale gas will be the next one, mark my words, with the No Fracking UK campaign being pushed to the fore in due course! Good luck everyone I hope it works. Thankfully there are some science teachers in the UK who actually think about what they are forced to teach, & my friend Karen is one such!
Here in the Province of Alberta we have an election on 23 April. Along with this comes the usual muckraking, and the Calgary Herald newspaper published an opinion piece entitled “Dani the Denier” on candidate Danielle Smith, for her glib remarks about the science not being settled. The Herald is behind the incumbent provincial premier, so the dice are loaded. What ensues is the usual parroting of the climate meme, including the incredible remark that the Canadian government accepts the science as true, despite having publically drubbed the Kyoto Protocol. I’m working on a (probably unpublishable) letter to the editor…it still catches me off guard to see how sloppy some reporting can be when an agenda is the root.
http://blogs.calgaryherald.com/2012/04/17/scientists-respond-to-dani-the-denier/
I don’t want to alarm you, but a number of global warming computer models predicted you would write this article.
(heh)
Well done Anthony, lets send the Climate liars a message they need to hear.
“if we work together hard and fast”
I trust Bill McKibben has sold his car, turned off his central heating and purchased some bicycle clips (or lycra shorts)…
I dunno. Writing letters seems a bit tame compared to the long list of suggested “grassroots actions” suggested by McKibben in his call for disciples to “get angry” with “local media and politicians for failing to connect the dots in their coverage of “natural disasters.”
“Impacted Materials: Let the medium be the message. Form “dots” in public places out of materials that speak to the story of a local impact. Bring snow from a receding glacier to a public space and let it melt, form a mandala in your town square from crops that have died, draw a huge black dot in front of a politician’s office using the charcoal from a forest fire or bring the dry earth from a drought inside to form a dot in a shopping center or politicians office.”
Much easier to connect the dots between global warming and green/red authoritarianism.
It’s a solid line.
And growing ever bolder.
– BRING IT ON : it’s good that this is brought into schools, it provides excellent material for TEACHING kids about CRITICAL THINKING. Yes sure they go through a stage of believing it all, but later on they come across evidence that the truth on a certain aspect is quite different and start to think “hey why, did these people want me to believe something false ? Why is someone trying to indoctrinate me” And then they’ll be sure to start questioning other aspects & realise they shouldn’t be taking things at FACE VALUE. So when the next time CLIMATE SCARE PORN comes on TV they say “is that true ? why does some one want me to see only half the story ?”
– Sure the kids will start to “CONNECT THE DOTS” and that’s a good thing…the green activist PR teams don’t realise they are shooting themselves in the foot.
Global warming, happened.
Climate change, always happens.
Severe weather, always happens.
Global cooling, happening.
==============
Who is paying for these web sites? That’s just a scary amount of money being spent to push an idea without showing the science to back it. Saying on the video that warm air holds more water which leads to floods and that warmer air also leads to drought conditions – both at the same time! Astounding logical breaks.
“Show me the science”…perhaps that should be our catch phrase. After all – Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof – the creed the true skeptic stands behind.
Dr. Roger Pielke Jr’s posting on the IPCC SREX Report, “A Handy Bullshit Button on Disasters and Climate Change” here: http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.ca/2012/03/handy-bullshit-button-on-disasters-and.html is also a good source for letter content.
As I write this, (17:40), wind power is generating 7.6% of metered installed capacity after peaking at 12.5% at 14:30.
Earlier in the day, (11:00) wind was generating a meagre 60Mw or 1.3% of metered installed capacity.
According to our government, this our “sustainable” future.
DaveE.
The dots are already connected, courtesy of the UN. The sad part is that the US and our Allies at the end of WWII created this Frankenstein monster with the best of intentions. And we all know where that brick road leads.
Quote (includes links to source documents)
The upcoming United Nations environmental conference on sustainable development will consider a breathtaking array of carbon taxes, transfers of trillions of dollars from wealthy countries to poor ones, and new spending programs to guarantee that populations around the world are protected from the effects of the very programs the world organization wants to implement, according to stunning U.N. documents examined by Fox News.
The main goal of the much-touted, Rio + 20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, scheduled to be held in Brazil from June 20-23, and which Obama Administration officials have supported, is to make dramatic and enormously expensive changes in the way that the world does nearly everything—or, as one of the documents puts it, “a fundamental shift in the way we think and act.”
Among the proposals on how the “challenges can and must be addressed,” according to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon:
–More than $2.1 trillion a year in wealth transfers from rich countries to poorer ones, in the name of fostering “green infrastructure, ” “climate adaptation” and other “green economy” measures.
–New carbon taxes for industrialized countries that could cost about $250 billion a year, or 0.6 percent of Gross Domestic Product, by 2020. Other environmental taxes are mentioned, but not specified.
–Further unspecified price hikes that extend beyond fossil fuels to anything derived from agriculture, fisheries, forestry, or other kinds of land and water use, all of which would be radically reorganized. These cost changes would “contribute to a more level playing field between established, ‘brown’ technologies and newer, greener ones.”
— Major global social spending programs, including a “social protection floor” and “social safety nets” for the world’s most vulnerable social groups for reasons of “equity.”
–Even more social benefits for those displaced by the green economy revolution—including those put out of work in undesirable fossil fuel industries. The benefits, called “investments,” would include “access to nutritious food, health services, education, training and retraining, and unemployment benefits.”
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/04/20/tab-for-uns-rio-summit-trillions-per-year-in-taxes-transfers-and-price-hikes/#ixzz1sbIKsgRC
Bill McKibben has asked his readers (acolytes?) for photos of them suffering from ‘extreme weather’.
What say some of us here at WUWT send him some of us enjoying the weather? e.g. pictures of families laughing whilst having snow-ball fights, someone sat in a deckchair in the sun raising a lovely mojito cocktail towards the camera, or a romantic couple happily kicking through the autumn leaves?
I would really love to send him a picture of me in a pair of ‘budgie-smuggler’ speedos enjoying the sun by the pool, but the weathermen are predicting the coldest May for 100 years here in the UK – damn!
It appears there is an orchestrated pushback as articles appear, such as the Shakun et al paper, to counteract the successful refutation of AGW climate science and polls show the public are turning away from the issue for a variety of reasons and not only economic.
Here is my latest article on one aspect of what has and is happening.
http://drtimball.com/2012/nasa-giss-director-james-hansen-plays-climate-science-victimization-card/
As I have mentioned before this is a shift of tactics. Remember when skeptics pointed to cool weather events and Warmists said words to the effect:
Now that there has been no statistically significant warming for over a decade they now use……………….the weather argument. These people are a bunch of shameless scam artists who are targeting impressionable minds with their brazen lies and propaganda.
Why did the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883, killing upwards of 40,000 people, cause world-wide fears that Judgement Day was nigh, while the nearby Indonesian eruption of Tambora in 1815, approximately 10 times bigger, killing about 100,000 people, remained almost unknown? The difference was that in the intervening 68 years, trans-oceanic and trans-continental telegraph cables had been laid, allowing nearly real-time accounts of the cataclysm to be reported in the daily newspapers. There was a dramatic rise in the flow of information, but unfortunately no concomitant rise in the flow of understanding.
The increased social connectedness of the world, through the 24/7 news cycle and electronic social media, and the increased instrumentation of society, have combined to create the impression that all sorts of bad things have ominously increased, and that WE MUST BE CAUSING IT. Bad weather, bad earthquakes, bad diseases. In my field, the issue is cancer. I have friends and family members who are all convinced that cancer rates are skyrocketing due to cell phones, power lines, widespread groundwater contamination, military radars, food additives, Monsanto, BP, etc. The truth is that some cancers are rising, some are falling, but overall the trend since 1975 in both incidence and mortality has been downward, although not downward enough to anyone’s liking. We should also not dismiss that there are environmental causes of cancer, some natural like sunlight, and some man-made, like soot. It is sensible to try to limit these exposures.
When Bill McKibben and I were growing up in Lexington, Massachusetts, we had all kinds of extreme weather. The snows of ’69 which became the 2nd largest 3-day snow total, after being eclipsed by the Blizzard of ’78. The Battle of Lexington reenactment on the Battle Green every Patriot’s Day created a kind of annual memory snapshot of the weather on April 19th. I can remember going to the parade in sweltering 90 degree heat, and in calf-deep snow, under clear skies, or under a Nor’easter. For my whole life, I have harbored the impression that Patriot’s Day was the most extremely variable weather day of the year, because literally any kind of weather was a possibility.
Bill would now have us believe that the large, destructive fluctuations in weather that have always occurred are increasing, and increasingly our fault. This is madness. The data refutes all of this. If there has been any trend in Hurricanes, it has been slightly downward since Hurricane Belle nearly washed me off New Hampshire’s Wilderness Trail in 1976. The same is true for category F3-F5 tornadoes. All increases in losses from these phenomena are man-made only insofar as our population and assets are increasingly in their path. While it is true that the world has warmed slightly (approximately 0.55 C) since Bill McKibben and I slogged to fifth grade through the deep 1969 snow, there is no evidence that climate variability has increased, and every reason to believe that the impression of climate variability is the product of a heightened perception of our environment, without the concomitant heightened understanding that only comes with time.
Here is an earlier article explaining why the claim that warming causes more extreme weather is wrong.
http://drtimball.com/2012/claims-global-warming-increases-severe-weather-are-scientifically-incorrect/
So, global warming will warm the poles, will it?
But what about the germans?
Freaky zeitgeist, man. The anarcho Marxists are pouring out of the woodwork like cockroaches on crack. Ma and Pa Kettle aren’t fooled, but the NEWSPAPER EDITORS swallow it hook line and sinker, and get dragged into the boat where they flop around gasping for air.
I appreciate your request, Rev. Okay, I’ll see what I can do. But really, newspaper editors are morons and tools, headed for the Dustbin of History.
It’s all happening right here, on the Net, maybe not as fast as we’d like, but it’s happening. There isn’t a newspaper editor in the country that can hold a candle to you and to what you have accomplished. The masses are not mindless drones. The truth will out, digitally. The kids don’t read the paper — they’re busy on the Net.
KUTGW and don’t let the anarcho Marxist bedbugs bite.
In spite of use of junk science they may just win this If so, off the cliff we shall go, just as we reach the end of the good (warm) years. I’m stocking up on wood, ammo and food.
I think the collapse of Western nations has reached the point where we don’t need to waste our energy providing facts. The apocalyptic wackos are a VERY EXPENSIVE LUXURY, and most governments have quietly decided they’re not worth supporting. Facts had nothing to do with the gov’t decision to support the wackos, and facts will have nothing to do with the turnoff.
For the:
“We know who the active denialists are – not the people who buy the lies, mind you, but the people who create the lies. Let’s start keeping track of them now, and when the famines come, let’s make them pay. Let’s let their houses burn. … They broke the climate. Why should the rest of us have to pay for it?”
I’ll do him one better. I promise to way waste to my family and property. I’ll give away everything I own and suffer all unspeakable vengeance willingly.
When the famines don’t come because of AGW then I want all the money they intend to spend to drop c02 by .02% which, I believe, works out to 176 trillion dollars. Considering who I’m dealing with, I’d like that in gold, not cash.
Another sad thought: most of the young squishy minds today in the US are incapable of either reading or writing grammatically correct English. Science ability? Give me a break! The insides of their “technologically saturated” toys shall forever remain a mystery to most. Try comprehending your teenager’s iPad or his input back into it!
Anthony, I have written such letters as you suggest to my local papers; they have simply been ignored, yet letters are regularly printed (some in Spanglish!) supporting ObamaCare or Nancy Pelosi’s latest attempt to amend the First Amendment “out of the Constitution” (her words!) (Out! Out, damned spot!”) (sorry Bill /Sarc))
Mind you, I live in one of the reddest of States (the Republic of Texas!) but the media still live in their private Twilight Zones here! On TV I get better weather reports from watching Speed Channel, than from the Weather Channel! It is mind boggling and disheartening that the Internet is awash with such rubbish (not only AGW) that is aimed directly at the aforementioned squishy minds. Moreover, they likely do not not read the News outlets anyway. Such letters, even if published, will only be read by the choir.
Anyone have any suggestions to brighten my mood? In my 65 years, I have never seen such an upside down world as we currently must contend with. It’s raining here today, as a direct consequence of the cold front currently making its way across our great Nation, interacting with the warm, moist air of East Texas. Funny, how it had to cool off first to rain…
These people don’t care about fact, just spin and propaganda. Yaaaawn….
Weird weather – no trends
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/qj.776/full
Historically low global tropical cyclone activity
http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/gl1114/2011GL047711/2011GL047711.pdf
Floods – no increase in frequency, less intense
http://itia.ntua.gr/en/docinfo/1128/
Extreme weather events – no trend
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jastp.2011.01.021
Global precipitation – no trends
http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2005GL025393
Rate of sea level rise – deceleration over 80 years
http://www.jcronline.org/doi/abs/10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-10-00157.1
Forest fires – decreasing frequency
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.2307/3237261/abstract
Oh, I can connect dots, from Climategate 1 to Climategate II to Gleick to…
As Mike Bromley mentioned above, Alberta (of oilsands fame) is in the midst of an election and a newbi candidate for Premier, Dannielle Smith stated in a debate that climate science is not settled. An enormous bruhaha has followed and her large lead in the polls has fallen considerably. University of Alberta ecologist David Schindler has thrown all the mud he could at her: “I wonder if she thinks the flat Earth debate is settled?” Andrew Weaver of University of Victoria jumped in as well saying the proof for global warming is overwhelming, “as overwhelming as gravity”.
I’ve sent a letter to the Red Deer Advocate containing three quotes from the NASA astronaut letter stating unequivocally that “the science is NOT settled”. I love the irony that Schindler and Weaver would have to paint these astronauts as “flat earthers” too! I actually doubt it will be printed as the editor has twice ridiculed Smith’s stance. There is only Saturday’s paper prior to Monday’s election.
It may be good PR to enlist the support of your followers, writing letters to the editors around the country and elsewhere. But none of this changes the science, advanced by thousands of working scientists who have published their findings in the accepted fashion. Physics is still physics and chemistry is still chemistry. Neither respond to the positions of letter writers, no matter how numerous. SO far, the PR approach has been working. There is just no accounting for willful ignorance.
@ Dave Dodd says:
April 20, 2012 at 11:18 am
Anthony, I have written such letters as you suggest to my local papers; they have simply been ignored, yet letters are regularly printed (some in Spanglish!) supporting ObamaCare or Nancy Pelosi’s latest attempt to amend the First Amendment “out of the Constitution” (her words!) (Out! Out, damned spot!”) (sorry Bill /Sarc))
*************************************************************************************************
Thank God for the 2nd Amendment, and what little time we have left to stock up.
Hate to have to tell you all this but it is quite simply true that any excess energy we put into the atmosphere WILL cause an increase in the energy of the weather of the planet. Simple thermodynamics. The issue is literally that air pressure at sea level is regulated by gravity. The gravity doesn’t change so any increase in energy causes the circulation of the atmosphere to not only become faster, but change and become more active.
For years we’ve been discussing the “urban heat island” effect without quite connecting to the facts of weather. Urban heat islands DO affect the weather both locally and down-wind, Georgia Tech did some studies about it, Weather responded to I285’s heat signature on the radar.
So its not “global warming” or “anthro warming” that are causing it… its just increases in the efficiency of photo-conversion to heat at ground level.
The system MUST obey the law of thermodynamics so the system flows faster. The basic average pressure will not change.
Here in the Kitsilano district of Vancouver I have two notable neighbours. I’m very proud of one: the former RCMP vessel St. Roche. In the 1940s this small wooden ship traversed the North West Passage. Such were the arctic ice conditions then that a short time later it did it again, this time both ways. In fact, the St. Roche was the first vessel ever to circumnavigate North America, the south part being through the Panama Canal. She now lives at our Maritime Museum, right in plain sight.
I also have a deeply embarrassing neighbour. His name is David Suzuki, and he lives on the shoreline even closer to the St. Roche than I do. He proclaims loud concern about the present state of arctic ice. He likes money, fame, and multiple houses. He does not like debates.
Suzuki is a media darling here. Most people have forgotten the St. Roche. Would that it were the other way around.
“They broke the climate”
Words fail. THE climate? And who is “they”? You mean “Them”? Nine-foot mutant ants?
“Hey, Manolo! They broke the President, man!”
— Firesign Theatre, “Up Against The Wall of Science”
Alas, scientific truth is not what motivates the young climate activist; it is emotional truth. There is a widespread emotional need to feel that we have fallen from Eden because of sin against Mother Earth, and that we must band together and make sacrifices to the great cause of restoring the Garden. Even if the scientific truth is that damaging weather events are not increasing, or even decreasing, the “emotional truth” is that they are increasing because the emotional need to interpret them in terms of our collective sin against Earth is increasing.
There is no amount of data that will move these true believers. Seeing Bill McKibben get weepy on TV is what moves them. Only when a sympathetic reporter interviews a weepy Anthony Watts who decries the cost of insane carbon limiting measures to vulnerable children with large, sad eyes, and to their puppies, will we make progress.
@ prjindigo says:
April 20, 2012 at 11:46 am
Hate to have to tell you all this but it is quite simply true that any excess energy we put into the atmosphere WILL cause an increase in the energy of the weather of the planet. Simple thermodynamics. The issue is literally that air pressure at sea level is regulated by gravity. The gravity doesn’t change so any increase in energy causes the circulation of the atmosphere to not only become faster, but change and become more active.
****************************************************************************************************
Actually gravity does change – http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/04/110406-new-map-earth-gravity-geoid-goce-esa-nasa-science/
Where is you peer reviewed empirical evidence on extreme weather trends?
Here are mine:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/20/a-request-to-readers-write-a-connect-the-dots-letter-this-weekend/#comment-961958
How can you be so blase’ about the future of our planet? I think the catastrophes will be even worse than the Y2K catastrophe. You remember how all the banks, hospitals, government offices, stores and so on all stopped working and how we all starved to death? How could you forget that? Fortunately we were well informed by the hundreds upon hundreds of articles in the MSM so we knew in advance we were doomed.
Hugh Pepper says:
April 20, 2012 at 11:30 am
” Physics is still physics and chemistry is still chemistry. Neither respond to the positions of letter writers, no matter how numerous. SO far, the PR approach has been working. There is just no accounting for willful ignorance.”
Hugh Pepper, I hate to break it to you, but what happens inside a climate model is neither physics nor chemistry.
Rio is the endgame. Every sceptics attention needs to be on it. Who is attending, who is driving the agenda, where is the money coming from, and the go for their throats.
I suspect our friend will also have password to share around that time. No other time matters as much in stopping what is an attempt at a global coup d’etat.
This is a long document and I don’t see any references made to the established scientific facts regarding climate change. You jump right into this by talking about “paid activists” and your objection that they claim “human induced climate change is making our daily weather ‘more extreme.'” Viritually every significant scientific membership organization in the U.S. — organizations like AAAS, NAS, and AGU — as well as many international bodies — the Royal Society comes to mind — has issued a statement endorsing the fact that the Earth is warming and humans are significantly responsible for that. (In fact, I can’t think of an scientific body which has reached the opposite conclusion; perhaps you know of one.) You’re welcome to disagree with them. It’s just that I’d like to know if you’re on record agreeing with any of them or not, and why. Because then it helps me put into perspective whether the “paid activists” might be on the right or wrong track. Activists are typically known for their opinions. Scientists, on the other hard, work with hard facts. So, do you agree with any of these scientific organizations’ statements, or not?
prjindigo says:
April 20, 2012 at 11:46 am
“Hate to have to tell you all this but it is quite simply true that any excess energy we put into the atmosphere WILL cause an increase in the energy of the weather of the planet. Simple thermodynamics. ”
That means that the long term decline in hurricane activity indicates a cooling?
As Iwas taught in Marine Boot CAMP in 1969, “Sir!, Yes Sir!”
Pleased to do so even though I suspect the probability that my ‘local’ paper, the Washington Post, wil publish my letter to approach 0 as a limit.
Great article here: http://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_2_apocalyptic-daze.html
“Over the last half-century, leftist intellectuals have identified two great scapegoats for the world’s woes. First, Marxism designated capitalism as responsible for human misery. Second, “Third World” ideology, disappointed by the bourgeois indulgences of the working class, targeted the West, supposedly the inventor of slavery, colonialism, and imperialism. The guilty party that environmentalism now accuses—mankind itself, in its will to dominate the planet—is essentially a composite of the previous two, a capitalism invented by a West that oppresses peoples and destroys the earth. Indeed, environmentalism sees itself as the fulfillment of all earlier critiques. “There are only two solutions,” Bolivian president Evo Morales declared in 2009. “Either capitalism dies, or Mother Earth dies.””
http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z159/BMAONE23/CONNECTTHEDOTS.jpg
here is a good connect the dots
One letter to the Scotsman, another to the Glasgow Herald and another to the First Minister.
McKibben writes,”Two weeks is plenty of time to organize a beautiful photo for May 5, one that will help spread this idea. Are you in a place where flood and rain have caused havoc? Ten people with umbrellas can make a memorable “climate dot” for all the world to see. You’ll think of something appropriate for your place — and you can find lots of examples and ideas here.”
I say we send him bunches of photographs of mild, balmy weather, of people out enjoying this marvelous spring, of folks frolicking on the beach, etc. Let him connect those dots….
I’m working on it–but along the way I discovered that Jeff Masters has gone farther off the rails in a similar matter http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html
I commented there as follows:
The garbage science about Gorebal warming is the reason I no longe trust anything from The Wunderground (I used to think that was a poorly picked name, but the more I read here and about Ayers and Dohrne and their current work, the more I see the perfection of the choice.
I don’t trust NOAA, NASA, TWC, Wunderground, or you for anything except current raw data (I have not caught you futzing with that yet) as long it tracks with what I or somebody I trust can see.
And your current efforts drove me to write just now; the distrust is several years old since I discovered your PWSs a mile or two away from me consistently report temperatures significantly higher than what I see. (I reported them and you did not address the issue.)
It will be interesting to see if this article sees the light of day–I’ll post a copy at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/20/a-request-to-readers-write-a-connect-the-dots-letter-this-weekend/ in case a question comes up about what I said.
Actually there is a correlation between extreme weather and climate change. Both have always existed and always will. Causation may be another issue. Correlation does not always mean causation. In the early 80’s, I had a professor in organizational behavior who said that there was a near 100% correlation between the number of PhD’s in a state, and the number of goats in that state. He said it was a challenge to carry his goat when he moved from California to Ohio.
Unfortunately, the editors of our local paper do not post letters from those who oppose the claims of CAGW. I have written at least ten letters and even a letter asking as simple a question as what is the base line temperature for determining ‘too warm’ doesn’t get published.
One example would be the floods in Queensland Australia that occurred in 2010/2011. They had floods that were just as severe in 1893, and those were at a time when the CO2 was about 100ppm less than today (1893, 294.7 – today 394.45).
So how can activists insist that we return the world to the arbitrary value of 350ppm, when weather was just as extreme with lower levels?
Use their own data.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/ghgases/Fig1A.ext.txt
Pick an event, show the CO2 level for that year, and ask them how something that extreme happened with such low levels of CO2.
Hugh Pepper says:
April 20, 2012 at 11:30 am
“There is just no accounting for willful ignorance.”
A perfect quote from a no-account, who never has a scientific source backing his willfully ignorant belief system.
. . .
Phil C says:
“So, do you agree with any of these scientific organizations’ statements, or not?”
I’m with Prof Richard Lindzen, who points out that activists have taken control of these organizations.
The proof is in what they are doing, and not doing. These organizations tightly control access to their membership lists. They absolutely do not allow anything but the most biased polls to be conducted; and they presume to speak for their membership without allowing the members to have any say in their public statements. Members are absolutely not allowed to communicate with other members through the organizations’ membership lists.
Occasionally these organizations are forced to back down from their egregious and unscientific public positions. But the fact is they do not allow members, who know better, to have any input. Why not?
WUWT readers know that there is serious controversy over just about every aspect of the climate issue. It is all controversial. The science is far from being settled. Yet organizations like the AMS, the APS, etc., all take unequivocal stands that human emissions are the primary cause of ‘climate change’. They know there is no testable evidence supporting their anti-science pronouncements, and they know that a majority of their members do not share their views. So why do they do it? The answer is that the activists control the message, not skeptical scientists, who are the only honest kind of scientists.
Finally, Phil, you are just making the typical appeal to a political — not a scientific — authority.
prjindigo says:
April 20, 2012 at 11:46 am
“Hate to have to tell you all this but it is quite simply true that any excess energy we put into the atmosphere WILL cause an increase in the energy of the weather of the planet. Simple thermodynamics.”
I hate to have to tell you this, but you have no understanding of thermodynamics whatsoever. Weather is a “heat engine” and heat engines are driven by the CONTRAST in termperatures. The greater the contrast, the more powerful the “engine” can be. If there is no contrast, there is no action, no matter what the absolute temperature.
The mainstream AGW science tells us that the poles will warm more than the temperate zones, and the temperate zones more than the tropical zones, in response to the added radiative forcing of increased greenhouse gases. This will reduce the contrast in temperatures, reducing the potential for severe weather.
If the proponents of AGW theory were really interested in arguing the science, they would point to the documented DECREASE in severe tornados over the past century as supporting evidence of their theory. For tornados require a great contrast in temperatures to form. (They require some other conditions as well.) They are most common over the central/southeastern US in the spring because that is where and when you get the sharpest temperature gradients — between the still cold heartland and the warm Gulf of Mexico. The awful spring tornado seasons of 1974 and 2011 were notable for unusual cold over the central US from long-lasting snowpack, not for unusual warmth over the Gulf of Mexico.
i did call npr during pledge week to inform the phone monkey that there would be no donations until they stopped contributing to the global warming hoax. i’m sure they’ll get by from others who aren’t so judicious – like maybe H. Michael Mogil and others who compromise integrity for pennies.
falsus in uno, you know.
Well I would like to help you out, but I’m going to be busy with something more important this weekend; the annual celebration of Vladimir Lenin’s birthday. It is traditional to celebrate by planting trees, and taking care of private property in other ways; like working to get rid of private property so that nobody can make hay out of exploiting natural treasures..
So Sunday April 22 is the date we celebrate Lenin’s birthday; so I’ll be doing that by having a big barbecue in the Weber grill that I have in my backyard, in case someone wants to put an official GISS weather station; excuse me, that’s a climate station, in my back yard.
As an avid reader of Forbes, when James W. Michaels was editor, I never recall anything remotely similar in tone or substance to that which was recently published
“According to the New York Times many of his former writers and editors remember Mr. Michaels as much for his brutal assessments of their work as for his incisive teaching….A staunch contrarian, he did not let public opinion dictate the magazines views.” (source Wikipedia)
Today, Forbes is but a whisper of its proud past. Often the size of a pamphlet instead of its signature bound predecessors, it is clear they can no longer afford or attract the first rate, visionary authors whom once graced its pages.
A sad story indeed.
Hugh Pepper says:
April 20, 2012 at 11:30 am
“But none of this changes the science, advanced by thousands of working scientists who have published their findings in the accepted fashion.”
Are you under the illusion that there is a scientific consensus supporting a link between increased CO2 emissions and extreme weather events? If so, you are simply incorrect.
It is growing wearisome to have the “97%” and “consensus” trotted out to support all sorts of extreme alarmist positions for which there is no such consensus.
The part that is “widely agreed by working scientists” is also agreed by most of the people on this website. The parts that are debated – climate sensitivity, magnitude of feedbacks, usefulness of computer models, links with extreme weather events, etc – absolutely do not benefit from a uniform consensus, and it is intellectually dishonest to keep pretending that they do.
Would it be worth also sending a copy of that “Good News” letter from 350.org to newspapers everywhere? They might not print it but at least the editors will know the stories and pictures (10 people with umbrellas) coming in on May 5th is organized and fake.
What about quoting from it in comments and give a link to it maybe? Let the average reader know they’re being played for suckers by this crowd. People don’t like being manipulated.
What about bringing that letter to the newpaper readers’ attention earlier than May 5th? Would it nip it in the bud to post it whole or in part in comments prior to the day as a sort of in-coming bullshit alert? Reading that letter made it crystal clear that negative stories on that day will all be a set up. So, can we use their own letter against them in advance?
In the wake of ClimateGate I, II, and eventually III, people are also starting to connect the dots.
The counter-offensive is up and running in Canada.
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/04/19/vivian-krause-suzukis-funding/
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/04/18/suzuki-isnt-special
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2012/04/18/david-suzukis-smoke-mirrors/
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/04/16/the-david-suzuki-foundation-wait-a-minute-doesnt-that-have-something-to-do-with-david-suzuki/
I don’t know, I had to cancel my subscription to my local paper a couple of years ago after the editor decided to print a letter from a disgruntled state worker who only got a four percent raise insteasd of her customary six percent. It was a darn shame too, as my grandfather spent a lifetime setting type for that newspaper. But what the heck, I’ll give it a try. In my past life I had a number of letters printed in the AJC.
the only propaganda that can have any long term effects is the indoctrination of children.
until you get rid of the public schools, you expose your children to fatal infection and make them vectors for a pandemic of suicidal delusion.
blame the parents for their default – it’s too late, of course. there’s really no scapegoat that can absolve parents of their failure. they are guilty, guilty, guilty – and prepared to continue on the same path – oh, they find a million reasons to be lazy and neglect the most important years of education of their own offspring. but they learned at school that they can blame and rant as an alternative to minimal competence and marginal responsibility.
if you have a kid that grew up green, socialist and cannibalistic – prepare to reap what you sowed.
Anthony, this is my letter to the UK Daily Telegraph.
Sir, the lack of global warming and sea level rise and Arctic ice loss in the last 15 years, contrary to the alarmist predictions has caused the activists to rethink their strategy for scaring the life out of us. They are switching to try and link every extreme excursion of the weather (droughts, floods, hurricanes etc) to man’s activities. The main stream media has a poor record of checking such claims (most bought 100% into man made global warming) so I beseech the editors on your undoubtedly respected journal to please look carefully into the science behind the next batch of apocalyptic claims from the environmental activists. Greenpeace and World Wild Life Fund have huge budgets for propaganda and newspapers including yours have a bad tendency to just recycle their press release output with little questioning. This time round, the public deserve better from their press.
Phil C says:
April 20, 2012 at 12:09 pm
Ah yes, wouldn’t it be nice to load up that shiny silver bullet (a single one would do the job) and shoot that damn vampire where the sun don’t shine.
You don’t have one.
They have come full circle.
After years of chanting to us small minded people,”Weather is not climate”,
They are preaching “Weather IS Climate”@
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings.
This might be a good place to again ask questions that I ask from time to time, but for which I have never received answers that sounded like answers, to me?
The questions are:
What is the definition fo the word “weather”?
What is the definition of the word “climate”?
What is the difference between the two terms?
Some background for the questions in case it is useful: I grew up in the Los Angeles Basin; my father’s parents lived in Madera. From time to time we drove to visit them. My recollection is that from the foot of the Grapevine to someplace way north of there the terrain was what to my mind was typical desert, dry, dusty (a little salty, maybe); pretty barren. The Wiki article on Kesterson says in part “The climate of the San Joaquin Valley does not lend itself well to agricultural production and results in large scale irrigation projects in order to keep fertile farms in operation. According to some estimates, the climate of the San Joaquin Valley has approximately 10 inches (250 mm) of precipitation and over 90 inches (2,300 mm) of evaporation annually.[3]”
The implication is that the climate for an area is defined and exhaustively and completely stated by reciting the precipitation record table.
Now days, that area is (or was the last time I was through there–did the fish thing destroy it?) is lush and green, as a result of the irrigation that changed the climate.
My personal definition that I use when somebody says “What is your climate there (“there” now being the Great Plains near Omaha)?” is that “the winters can be cold and hostile and when the snows hit South Dakota hard the drifts here can be formidable; the summers can be brutal with temperatures into the 100’s. But you know, as the irrigated, plowed land gets converted to houses and streets, and the land farther west gets plowed and irrigated it seems to me that the weather along the rivers here (Missouri, Platte, and Elkhorn) (note the switch from “climate” to “weather”) has been getting milder in both summer and winter. The Spring (usually a Wednesday) and Fall (often the Thursday before Labor Day) are beautiful.”
Smokey says:
Phil, you are just making the typical appeal to a political — not a scientific — authority.
So Smokey, I guess you are saying that the major scientific organizations in the U.S. — AAAS, AGU, NAS, APS, etc. — are de facto political, not scientific organizations. If that’s the argument you’re making, I wonder if Anthony Watts agrees with you.
Rationality seems thin on the ground. The MSM thrive on the deranged rants of tin-pot climate despots when they cry out to be ignored and consigned to institutional care. The MSM add ‘credibility’ where there is none, and lack the intellectual capacity to move beyond ‘fast sell sensationalism’.
I wrote recently to a Radio reporter as follows:
‘Recent comments last week (associated with the snowy weather) with the clear implication that due to “climate change” the insurance industry were meeting more claims due to an increase of adverse weather events. Where is the critical journalism, the challenge to an industry
to show the evidence of cause and effect, as opposed to merely correlation, which is in this case, meaningless – except that the insurance industry profiteering will cost everyone more for no discernible benefit. I attach a recently published article – ‘Significant decline in storminess over southeast Australia since the late 19th century’. Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Journal 61 (2011) 23-30 for your information, and that of your colleagues.’
The MSM response:
‘Thanks, and for the extra info. I personally found your info enlightening and realised how ignorant many of us are with the environment changes etc’.
The sub text:
Personal positions are irrelevant. Policy on climate reporting is predetermined.
Keep up the pressure.
Already done this, and surprisingly, my letter got published this week :-O
The local freebie paper Sun, carried Matthew England’s “Grim warnings on extreme weather” on April 4.
My letter [quote]
This article is extremely on-sided. Anyone who cares to do a search on “Matthew England” on websites such as award-winning
http://joannenova.com.au and
http://www.australianclimatemadness.com
http://wattsupwiththat.com
Will find many comments by eminent scientists critical of both Dr England and the IPCC. New Zealander Dr Vincent Gray has been an Expert Reviewer on every one of the previous Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and recently referred to this process as an “elaborate fraud on the international community”.
There is in fact little evidence that extreme weather events are worsening, and none of the recent weather events in Australia are in any way unprecedented. Dr England’s comments on natural disaster management, infrastructure and planning are particularly condescending to those people, locally and nationally, who have been working in these fields for decades, trying to develop resilience to events that HAVE happened in the past and WILL happen again in the future.
I suggest the author of this article has a look at “The Delinquent Teenager” (“who was mistaken for the world’s top climate expert”). This is an exposé of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change by investigative journalist Donna Laframboise. Google it – only costs about $A5 to download.
Regards
Martin Clark
(Planning Consultant & Building Designer, Townsville) [endquote]
Following up on another comment:
“One example would be the floods in Queensland Australia that occurred in 2010/2011. They had floods that were just as severe in 1893 …”
And 1919 or thereabouts?. And 1974. 1974 had the same combination of weather patterns as 2010/2011. Same result. Big cyclone, big floods. So they built the Wyvenhoe Dam. Trouble is, Queensland has numerous river systems with 500,000 km2 catchments – and towns built along the courses and down near the estuaries. Duh.
I’ll also keep an eye on UK prediction of “Coldest May for 100 years”.
In May 1962 (I think – could have been ’61 or ’63) I climbed Great Malvern Hill. Couldn’t find the building (cafe?) until I realised it was underneath the snow …
May I connect the dots for the EPA with a 6 word essay?
“More carbon dioxide. More happy trees.”
Phil C,
I was referring to the leadership of the organizations, as opposed to the membership. I thought that was clear. The leadership is composed of many political activists, as Prof Lindzen makes clear. In fact, there is nothing I would change in my comment @12:58 pm above. Sorry you don’t like it. Sometimes the truth is painful.
I live in Teh Peoples Republic of Minnesota. Trying to get these leftist echo chambers to tell the truth instread of stumping for every looney leftard crusade is futile. I wish we could move them back towards actually reporting news, but that’s a failed campaign. It’s also why the dead tree media are dying here and the TV news is only holding on as it is the lazy man’s means of gathering the day’s events before tuning into ESPN for the evening. *sigh* I’d LOVE to have a TV “news” show. Fox isn’t too bad but even they have their failing presenters. I stick to the web.
Is it just another freaky coincidence that they selected May 5th, the birthday of Karl Marx, as their celebration date? Earth day falls on Lenin’s birthday, and now this brand new global warming holiday falls on the same day socialists celebrate the birth of Karl Marx. Strange.
I’ve lived in Texas for almost 50 years. During that time I have seen many extremes in weather – severe freezing conditions including a frozen White Rock Lake (1983), to heat waves that included 69 days above 100 degrees (1980), to dust storms, tornadoes etc. I’ve already connected the dots – Texas weather is wild and subject to change often.
if smokey won’t say it, phil, i will.
they are propaganda services, a special niched in the protest industry.
there is no economic justification for their existence; they are purely political.
they produce no durable values; they agitate for an agenda which is mainly to solicit funding and trade namelists for political consideration.
they have no honorable function and no honest culture has any use for them.
I’ve had many such letters published in our local rag. Keeping them short and pithy gives the best chance of publication. There’s always alarmist nut cases having replies published.
Boy’s textbook’s coverage of global warming is awful. But he says he zones out whenever they start talking climate. I asked him how’s that any different from his other subjects. Anyway, It was well stated by an earlier commenter, the schools are unwittingly creating critical thinkers, the exact opposite of their intended purpose.
Anthony, it would be nice to have a page with links to scientific work to reference. I know that there are fewer F3-F5 tornadoes but finding original work that shows this is difficult. You can find graph from NASA/NOHA etc that show all tornados but those are biased and show a rise as technology has found more not because more exist.
I know Roger Pielkie Jr. has done work on floods that show no rise but again, it is hard to link to that information directly.
We all know the fine work done by Ryan Maue has done and I can find that. But unfortunately this is one of the very few bits of science that is easily accessible.
It sure would be nice to have resources to get to quick and easily as we write letters…
Love this place and the education it provides!
I submitted a letter to the Oregonian:
Stop the Name-calling and Trust the Science
I am becoming increasingly concerned that extremist are trying to win the Climate argument by propaganda instead of science. Any scientific theory should be subject to rigorous testing to determine its correctness. But with the human-caused Climate Change theory, the proponents have been doing everything they can to subvert the scientific method. Instead they say that we don’t have time to test the hypothesis and that only a select few should be the gatekeepers of the methods, data, and conclusions. This is not science, this is a predetermined agenda-driven outcome. True science should welcome with open arms anyone that can prove them wrong.
Well the climate has been proving them wrong. Their predictions are not happening – warming is much less than predicted for example. So now they have moved to name calling – climate deniers (which shamefully evokes links to holocaust deniers). And beyond name calling we now have threats of “extreme weather” as signals of human-caused climate change. That is simply a lie. There is no statistical increase in extreme weather. Only the media coverage of extreme weather has increased, along with the extremist propaganda trying to repeat the lie enough times so that people believe it.
Can we please get back to the science, real science? And if the predictions are wrong, then the hypothesis is wrong.
ThinkingScientist @ April 20, 2012 at 9:09 am
State
indoctrinationeducation is appalling.Phil C @ April 20, 2012 at 1:51 pm
…you are saying that the major scientific organizations in the U.S. — AAAS, AGU, NAS, APS, etc. — are de facto political, not scientific organizations.
Yes, exactly that is what the guy is saying. Have you heard of Lysenko? This is not new; it ALWAYS happens when the state is the only
purchaserfunder of science – it’s called a monopsony, I believe.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopsony
My post appears to have got lost, it has not appeared.
[REPLY: Myrrh, you are a valued contributor to WUWT, but there are some conversations that we prefer not get started here. There are undoubtedly more suitable venues. -REP]
kim says on April 20, 2012 at 9:40 am:
“———-
Global cooling, happening.”
==============
Yes kim, you’re right – and global cooling has been happening, naturally, for many thousands of years – and CO2 is not going to trump it (that “naturally” bit I mean). –
But back to the “Letter to the Editor” writing, — – how do we explain, in our newspaper letters, that yes, even “skeptical scientists” concur that CO2 is a GHG and therefore does cause some of the warming, but it is only a little bit (about equal to the lowest IPCC estimates). –
How do we go on from there in 200 – 250 words?
I have tried to reason that there are no hard data in support of warming by CO2, and that furthermore there can be no experimental (or other data) supporting the theory that says that “thermal energy” from the surface can penetrate the atmosphere. – But alas to no avail. –
Well, can you name 10 scientists associated with “climate science” who do not believe CO2 cause any warming? – If yes, then try, by all means, to convince editors, journalists and readers with your reader’s letter that atmospheric CO2 increases do not matter. – If no, then you need more than 300 words to explain.
Until scientists realize that a temperature, in any object, above that of absolute zero (zero Kelvin or 0K) can only be achieved if energy from an external source is absorbed by the said object – and that for that reason – heat is a product of energy use and therefore cannot be classed as “Energy” and I am afraid we shall be much further into the “next Ice Age” before there is a real change of heart and minds.
Evasion. Anthony was objecting to the claim that AGW is causing more extreme weather. You responded by saying that scientific organizations have endorsed AGW. So what?
Larry Sheldon says:
April 20, 2012 at 1:50 pm
“What is the definition of the word “climate”?”
It is not average temperature, although some seem to think so.
The study of climate has a long history but, academically, the investigations of Wladimir Köppen involving plant distributions have become know because of the resulting colored maps. Plant zones being only found by tedious ground-work, the studies and resultant maps were difficult to update and complete in a fine-grained manner. Instrumentation allowed for greater coverage but required a shift in the things being measured. You can read about it here:
http://geography.about.com/od/physicalgeography/a/koppen.htm
Read about Wladimir Köppen here:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/322065/Wladimir-Koppen
Or there is Robert DeCourcy Ward’s old text, reproduced here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/33994889/Climate
It is #20, published in 1908.
As for “weather” – go outside – an old saying is – Weather is what you get, climate is how you know what to expect. That will be based on where you are and the timing and patterns of those things that the atmosphere brings.
Larry Sheldon says:
April 20, 2012 at 12:38 pm
I’m working on it–but along the way I discovered that Jeff Masters has gone farther off the rails in a similar matter http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html
—–
Wow, Dr. Masters actually recommended Skeptical Science website! It is nothing more than a propaganda website that is obviously set up to smear any scientists not sharing Master’s view on global warming caused by CO2. Look at the names they listed trying to smear them..
I fear we are partaking in a gun fight armed with knives.
I would not be surprised if there is a massive social media network behind this campaign.
However, I will chose to await an alarmist “letter to the editor” and then counter the specific points in that submission. Pre-emtive strikes are much harder to defend.
Sir
I note with consternation the concerted efforts around Earth Day to “join the dots” between extreme weather events and climate change. This campaign is designed to incite fear in the population by graphically showing that every flood, fire, famine or storm around the globe (i.e. local weather) indicates a catastrophically changing climate.
If warming is occurring at all (it is currently the same as it was 30 years ago), it will be beneficial to life on earth. There is no evidence that extreme weather events are increasing, let alone linked to climate change.
Greenpeace and World Wild Life Fund have huge budgets for propaganda. Newspapers including yours have a tendency to just recycle their press release output with little questioning or balance. This Earth Day, please balance their scary campaign with level-headed reporting of the facts.
Sincerely,
Mike Jowsey
Looking for constellations in the celestial sphere is the classic “connect the dots” exercise.
It is great for mythology, even if it does not have scientific value whatsoever.
“The stars within an asterism rarely have any substantial astrophysical relationship to each other, and their apparent proximity when viewed from Earth disguises the fact that they are far apart, some being much farther from Earth than others”
Anthony, the line before your highlighted phrase is even more dangerous. The atmosphere is nothing like a green house: the former is open and the latter is a closed system. Accepting their statement violate the basic premise of any argument about the effcts in the atmosphere.
Lutz Jacoby
Here is the letter I have sumited to the Union Tribune, my home town paper in San Diego. I have also set it as blog on my Colemans Corner web page.
Dear Readers of U-T,
When the Dalai Lama teamed up with two global warming scientists from the Scripps Oceanographic Institute during his San Diego visit, the symbolism reached the ultimate. There is was for all to see, the global warming scare is now as much of a belief as it is science. And, that is what makes it so difficult for those of us who know that the scientific hypothesis behind the anthropogenic (man-made) global warming has failed. Environmentalists, Al Gore inspired political liberals, the scientists whose livelihood depend on obtaining grants from the 2.7 billion dollars a year of our tax dollars that our Federal government spends a year to support the global warming scare now have a strong faith based following as well.
The basic science behind global warming is the theory that the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere as a result of the burning of fossil fuels to power our civilization, interacts with water vapor to produce a highly magnified greenhouse effect leading to uncontrolled, extreme global warming. Computer scientists put this assumed resulting “positive feedback” into their climate prediction models and came up with the extreme warming forecasts that lead to the scares about uncontrolled heat waves, polar ice melting, ocean water level rises and coastal flooding, the death of polar bears and millions of people. But that amplified effect has failed to occur in reality. Scientific measurements find the temperature impact form increased CO2 in insignificant. The glaciers and polar ice are not melting beyond the gradual natural result from the natural warming Earth has been enjoying over the last 12 thousand years of this interglacial period.
Many environmentalists suggest we go ahead with our the reduction of our carbon footprints as insurance, just in case the CO2 forcing turns out to be real despite the lack of scientific validation as of now. Well, if you want to take the safe route, turn in your smart phone and iPods, sell your car, turn off your A/C and furnace, cancel all airplane trips and wait it out. The solar and wind power alternative energy are incapable of powering our civilization as of now and show little sign of being up to the job in less than 50 years. And, this is despite billions of tax dollars of incentives and tax exemptions.
Meanwhile, scientists and engineers have reformulated our fuels, cleaned up our coal put catalytic converters on cars and scrubbers on smoke stacks and greatly refined the internal combustion engine reducing air pollution from our advanced civilization to a small, acceptable level. Now CO2 is the only significant exhaust gas and it is not a pollutant despite the anti-science ruling of the Environmental Protection Society. In fact, the increased CO2 in the atmosphere is a marvelous fertilizer and Earth is 20% greener as a result.
These are facts. Yet the dramatic anti-science drivel of the global warming zealots is the basis of so called research report news accounts regularly published without question by all forms of media.
Science will win out in the long run. But it is a difficult time for honest scientists.
Regards,
John Coleman
858-243-17078
jcoleman@kusi.com
http://www.kusi.com/category/195823/colemans-corner
Anthony,
There’s a lot more we could do (at WUWT and all skeptical blogs) with the “Connect the dots” meme. In fact I’d say Bill McKibben has handed us one on a plate.
He wants that phrase “People are starting to connect the dots.” to be connected with CAGW, well so be it. Let’s make it our own. There are so many “connect the dots” in skepticism…
Al Gore says sea level is gonna rise twenty feet. . . . Al Gore recently bought a $8 million oceanfront mansion in Montecito, California – connect the dots.
Get the idea?
It IS getting pretty bad out there. As I write this, another article in The New York Times laments that the Discovery Channel series, “Our Frozen Planet,” does NOT serve as sounding board for the warmists misleading theories on why polar and Greenland ice is decreasing (uh-huh), polar bears are declining (oh yeah), etc.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/21/business/media/discoverys-frozen-planet-is-silent-on-causes-of-climate-change.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hpw
The Financial Post has an article scheduled for Saturday’s paper written by Lord Moncton : Aristotle’s climate — the fallacies of global-warming hysteria.
And an article from Peter Foster : Time to celebrate, because Earth Day Backers and the UN were all wrong.
So something to look forward to while we suffer fools ungladly in the mean time.
Hijack the campaign so ‘Join The Dots’ shows the connections between scientists, activists, politicians and money.
Mr. (I’ll bet it is Dr.) John F. Hultquist said: “As for “weather” – go outside – an old saying is – Weather is what you get, climate is how you know what to expect. That will be based on where you are and the timing and patterns of those things that the atmosphere brings.”
Thank you very much.
I meant to mention in my little screed but forgot to, my own personal definition for “climate” is “average weather”, which is what leads me to answer questions about “climate” the way I do.
In reading stuff, like the Kesterson article for example, it looks to me that “temperature is climate” is a fairly recent invention, “precipitation is climate” going back a long ways. And around here it seems that the temperature is thought to follow the inverse of precipitation or moisture in the ground–“used to be really hot here (when it wasn’t freezing cold), but since so much land is being plowed and planted, it is cooler and rains more.
An having written that, I realize I don’t know how the Aquifer fits in this picture…..plowed ground evaporates? Center pivots? Dang I wish this would all settle down.
CONNECT THE DOTS:
NASA/GISS Director: James Hansen
Hansen’s underling: Gavin Schmidt
NASA web site contributors: Gavin Schmidt and Michael Mann
GISS Modeler: Gavin Schmidt
RealClimate run by: Gavin Schmidt
RealClimate owned by: Michael Mann
RealClimate contributor: WM Connolly
Wikipedia editor/censor: WM Connolly.
Those that write letters to the editors of major newspapers should not become discouraged if they don’t get published, as large newspapers received hundreds of letters daily. Keep trying those papers that are more conservative with their editorials. I have had several letters published in The Washington Times. Here is a link to one from a few years back.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/3/a-profession-dominated-by-amateurs/
Also try smaller newspapers as they get very few to pick from.
(Anthony, help me out here as I am not sure how to make a clickable link)
Interestingly, H. Michael Mogil is considered to be one of the 1000+ skeptical scientists on the Climate Depot list…
I thought it interesting that the responses of “Don’t know” to questions such as “Have each of the following types of extreme weather events become more or less common in your local area over the past few decades?” were in the 7-13% range.
Is it common in the US for 90% or so of people to have lived in the same local area for 30 years or more (‘the past few decades’), then to be able to remember with any accuracy what the weather was like over that period in order to make a valid comment on ‘more or less common’?
Given the increase of communications available in ‘the past few decades’, it would seem that our perception of increases in anything could be put down to the increasing reporting of such things rather than them actually increasing/decreasing/static.
Perception is not necessarily reality and perception is the only thing they have measured.
Of course this will be a conect the dots between global warming science and money.
perhaps we could also take time to comment here.
another suggestion would be to make an effort between now and Rio to send the WUWT web link to some new folks:
18 April: VTDigger: Press Release: “Connect The Dots” with 350.org Saturday, May 5 in Waitsfield, Vermont!
Contact
350.org Vermont
Press inquiries
rob@highermindmedia.com
Vermont has always led major events for 350.org’s days of action, and this will be the first one with 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben in attendance.
“As we see in so many hard-hit places around the world, our tiny state plays almost no part in causing global climate change, yet it is now experiencing escalating weather impacts. Now, it is time for Vermont to help ‘connect the dots’ for the world to see,” said Bill McKibben in explaining why he is leading the rally on May 5 in Waitsfield.
“For some time Vermont has inspired the world with innovative energy solutions, but after last year’s floods, it’s seen the real impacts of our global addiction to fossil fuels,” said David Stember, organizer for 350VT. “Because Vermont is willing to acknowledge and squarely face climate change, the country increasingly looks to us for hope that we can get out of this mess—not just with shovels and remarkable recovery efforts, but also by being a bold movement leader.”…
At 4 p.m. there will be an aerial group photo followed by a rally with 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben and local political leaders, as well as stories from Vermonters who have experienced the frontlines of our changing world…
http://vtdigger.org/2012/04/18/connect-the-dots-with-350-org-saturday-may-5-in-waitsfield-vermont/
CO2-induced clouds, rain and snow? Sounds like negative feedback, are they sure want to go there?
Have Some Sympathy for Scientists.
No I’m not a scientist. I even need spellcheck to spell scientist right and spell check.
I am starting to develop sympathy for the AGW true believers.
Being a scientist, mad or otherwise, must be hard. They have to have a high tolerance for tedium. All day it’s measure, record, measure, record… Boring.
Then after a couple of years working on something they passionately believe in, they prove themselves wrong. That has got to be tough to take. Sure the other scientists are saying things like “good job”, “You proved that something doesn’t work. That saves the rest of us a lot of time.”, “Great integrity”, “Can you reproduce your failure? Wouldn’t want to say something doesn’t work when it does because who would peer review that? It would be lost forever.”. But the company or university doesn’t make money and maybe loses prestige and you don’t publish.
Wait. Why don’t they publish? Knowing how something doesn’t work is important. That should be worth an abstract and a link. Hey Anthony. Start a publication. It could be called The Watts Up With That Scientific Journal of It Doesn’t Work. The studies must be properly done and reproducible. Preprints would be free but to see what passes peer-review is a $50.00 subscription. Don’t you have a regular contributor who needs a job? They could be the editor who convinces other scientists to peer-review for free. Well, I suppose they would have to be given a complimentary subscription. I like this idea. It would be great for somebody else to do.
But I digress.
There have been some recent articles on scientists with insufficient integrity. This means integrity can be hard in a normal climate. (pun intended)
Now let’s go back 30+ years. We had just gotten out of a period of very visible pollution and were becoming aware that the invisible pollutants were worse. There were a lot of unknowns that are now common knowledge, at least they are on WUWT. One could be excused for believing that human activity was changing the climate of the world toward our destruction.
Now let’s consider money and power. Because of our survival instinct you can scare people in a sound bite but it takes a long time to counter that. So equal time does not have equal effect. This issue was made for politicians and it was real. No lying or exaggeration necessary. The scientists and political leaders were legitimately going to be the heroes who save the world. So thousands of political leaders and many others associated with government were justified to hook their political power wagon to AGW. Poor countries were justified in guilting us out of money. And speaking of money, if you want to get rich, watch which way government wants to go and get out in front.
This has been going on for decades. What is the scientist going to do now? Say “Oops. Never mind.” They would have a lot of powerful people upset with them. All this time they were the heroes along with the scientists saving the world and now the scientists tell them they have spent all this time, money, power and they never were heroes. They would look like fools. Powerful rich people don’t like looking foolish because that perception of them is a big threat to their power. You think integrity is hard in a normal climate? Try standing against all of that and knowing you are going to lose your own power and future income would be in doubt. Sure the scientists would respect you and with that and a dollar you can buy a cheap cup of coffee. The mighty don’t like to fall so they are not going to fall alone. We have a very strong instinct to gain and hold onto power. Power will spin you head around.
Self respect is how much you like yourself. Self esteem is what deep down in the foundation of your psychology you “know” to be the real truth about yourself and how you fit into the world. So for decades you were the respected world saving hero and now that is all destroyed. That would be a severe psychological reality shift and terribly rough for anybody to handle.
So why would a slow typist like me write all of this? Because when people know that somebody, at least a little bit, knows what they are about to go through it’s a little less hard.
How do you change the mind of a person for whom the answer to the following question is a firm yes and how will that way of thinking effect their life?
If I am right and you are wrong does that make you a bad person?
I think this explains a lot. Especially if what they believe makes them a hero or gives them their sense of value as a person or defines their place and value in life. On those issues they don’t experience a discussion as an interesting talk. Instead it is a threat to everything that they are.
Hanging on the walls in every school back in the early 70’s, they used to have these big posters of dead forests, the skeletal branches clutching at the grey leaden sky, with the smoke stacks pouring out smog that morphed into the poisonous sky with the caption berating the children about the horrors of Acid rain…. Ohhh, those evil Factories. Burn them. Burn them I say!…
Then there were water cycle posters showing DDT coming from the evil farmers fields, flowing into the streams, the streams flowing into lakes and rivers, the rivers flowing into the sea and all along the way contaminating wildlife,eagles eating the rodents and their eggs breaking beneath them, all the lake insects dying the fish starving and then finally the evil DDT, farmer poisoned water flowing into the sea with people eating the fish and getting sick….. Ohhh, those evil Farmers. Burn them. Burn them I say!….
There were also anti logging posters as well, for that was the ecofascist cause celebre of the times, with evil paper pulp mills poisoning the waters with Dioxins in similar posters to the DDT ones…. Ohhh, those evil Wood cutters and Paper makers. Burn them. Burn them all I say!…..
40 years on acid rain is a non event…. They still log forests and make paper, fish still swim in the lakes, rivers and streams. There are still insects, rodents, eagles, fish and people…. and the scare tactics are still the same.
The only thing that has changed is me… I am thoroughly sick of Socialist propaganda poisoning young minds and turning good people into state enemies. Stuff ’em.
Seems part of the trouble simply is that most of the subject is well beyond the audience’s capacity to not jump to conclusions.
Saying “but TORNADOS” is insane, show me a reduction in average number of tornados in the peaks of the Sierra Nevada
I’ve read some of the comments and skimmed others.
Someone said something about the kids learning to think critically in school and (I think they were) implying that the propaganda about man causing all the climate change is not a big concern because the kids would apply the critical thinking they were learning and see through it. Don’t count on it.
In the mid 70’s I was hired for a semester as a teacher’s aide in a public junior high. I worked with two remedial reading teachers. I remember one of the reading exercises for the 7th & 8th graders went something like this:
“There are two things I like about my little brother Billy and two things I don’t like.
The two things I like are he’s easy to please and he’s fun to play with.
The two things I don’t like are he screams and cries a lot and he breaks everything I let him play with. Just yesterday he broke my favorite model plane.”
The follow up questions asked what the things were he liked and what the things were he didn’t like about his little brother Billy, just in case the story itself didn’t scramble their brains enough already. (I was going to add another, more subtle, example from the 9th graders’ material but I’m a slow typist and I think you get the idea.) I doubt if things have gotten better.
Definitely write the letters Anthony has requested but don’t assume the kids themselves will see through the propaganda.
If you’re a parent, pay attention to your kids school materials. You’re the parent. Teach them. Train them.
Proverbs 22:15 Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.
(WOW! The breeze from all those red flags popping up just blew the papers off my desk!)
The word translated “foolishness” here means “careless habit of mind and body”.
The “rod of correction” isn’t refering to beating the hell of them. It’s an orientalism. It was more like a swat from a willow switch in the one room school house of old. It’s not to punish but to get their attention so they can be corrected or taught.
My point is, while individual teachers in “the system” may be wonderful, “the system” that allows such things into the materials the teachers use isn’t geared to teaching the kids actual “critical thinking”. If you’re a parent, don’t abdicate your responsiblity.
End of Sermon. (Sorry)
Connect the dots? How about a counter slogan – correct the dolts.
Connect the Dots.
Perhaps exploit the fact that “dotty” means “mentally unbalanced”.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dotty
Alex Heyworth says:
April 20, 2012 at 10:34 pm
Connect the dots? How about a counter slogan – correct the dolts.
😎
One effective way to thwart a meme is to take it over.
Jenn Oates says:
April 20, 2012 at 11:29 am
Oh, I can connect dots, from Climategate 1 to Climategate II to Gleick to…
So, people can do there own versions of connect the dots.
Connect the dots is a horrible slogan because it can be subverted so easily. This is what Josh’s cartoon does, for example.
They need to hire some professionals
Looks like cryosphere today has decided to “freeze” NH ice data before it goes over the normal mark.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.arctic.png
“That is the ultimate solution, but how do we turn off the torrent of BS these guys are flooding us with?”
This is the question he asks, and the answer is, leave America. Here we have free speech. If you want to stop people expressing their thoughts, go someplace the law allows you to do that.
You may want to google ‘Aristotle’s 13 fallacies’ which I found from reading Moncktons piece below this article http://changingminds.org/disciplines/argument/fallacies/aristotle_fallacies.htm
some very useful pointers there
Martin Hoerling, leader of the climate extremes attribution team at NOAA, had some interesting comments to make on Rahmstorf’s paper on extreme weather. It may give some ideas.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/rahmstorfs-claims-of-increasing-extreme-weathera-damning-put-down-by-noaa-expert/
also this http://changingminds.org/disciplines/argument/fallacies/fallacies_alpha.htm
especially the appeal to fear
I think they have hired professionals of the type who make TV ads. Most TV ads seem to be targeted at the moron demographic. Having read plenty of letters and comments from AGWers at newspaper sites and similar, I’d say there is a substantial overlap between the two demographics.
Is this a globally concerted effort? Nobody has (hardly) mentioned “Global warming” in the media for a year here in sweden. And suddenly, a few days ago, all the alarmists were out in full force in prime time in different medias. Coincident? I think not…
“very subject now taught in UK high schools uses the same politically motivated and propoganda-based examples regardless of the subject. Its appalling”
Only in the state schools, where dictats are issued as to what can be taught and to who from state commissar level. The private schools pay scant attention to those, they are paid by parents to educate their children not indoctrinate them.
AND from my personal knowledge of the system in the UK known as “SureStart”, for PRE-school children, I can point-out that this indoctrination is used there as well in a mild sense. Then moves-on in primary school and gets more intense as the children get older.
Don’t forget “watermelons”, these are not greens teaching the children.
I keep wondering what peer-reviewed papers one can rely on that doesn’t show man made warming caused by CO2?
To me there’s so much mud-slinging from both the warmistas and the warming scepticals I have a hard time seeing anything but the dirt dripping from the proverbial walls.
I’m not a scientist, but a layman with a deep interest for my surroundings. Also English isn’t my native tounge so I wish to appologize for any spelling errors before hand.
I did a small experiment where I took the HadCRUT4 anomaly data and in a very non-scientific way plotted a graph and added a trend for the century and came up with a figure giving a warming of some 0.08 per century, I don’t find that very alarming but then who am I to tell?
sounds like a fun event!
21 April: Centre Daily: PSU to host climate change presentation
A group of Penn State faculty and one graduate student will give a presentation on climate change at 7 p.m. on April 30.
Their presentation, “Changing the Moral Climate on Climate Change,” will focus on climate change denial. Speakers include professor Michael Mann, director of Penn State’s Earth System Science Center, Nobel-Prize co-winner for his work on the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and author of “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars;” science, technology, and society professor Donald Brown, a former Clinton administration U.N. representative; psychology professor Janet Swim, who served as chairwoman of the 2009 American Psychological Association’s task force on the psychology of climate change; engineering professor Rick Schuhmann, an environmental engineer and director of Penn State’s Engineering Leadership program; and Peter Buckland, a graduate student studying educational theory and policy.
The presentation will take place in room 101 of Penn State’s Thomas Building. A question and answer session will take place after the presentation…
http://www.centredaily.com/2012/04/21/3170348/psu-to-host-climate-change-presentation.html
21 April: Radio Iowa: O. Kay Henderson: State senators disagree over “climate change” (audio)
On the eve of “Earth Day” this Sunday a handful of state senators got into a partisan squabble over “climate change.”
It was Senator Rob Hogg, a Democrat from Cedar Rapids, who got things started by reading a statement from a group of Iowa religious leaders, including his own Catholic bishop.
“This was the statement: ‘Climate change is one of the most pressing challenges facing our world today and as religious leaders representing diverse faith traditions we are called to reaffirm our committment to be responsible stewards of Earth’s resources and to act in love to our neighbors both locally and globally,’” Hogg said. “‘Scientists, including those representing 28 Iowa colleges and universities who recently released a statement, have warned us that changes in global climate patterns are brining more extreme weather events to Iowa, the United States and our world.’”
That prompted Republican Senator David Johnson of Ocheyedan to ridicule the idea that humans are the main cause of climate change…
“With all due respect to our religious leaders…how much are you willing to spend to reverse what you call global warming?” Johnson asked. “…The country of Spain made a huge transition to their economy for green energy. What was the result of that? Bankruptcy?”…
Johnson responded with a little yelling of his own.
“I’m on the side of the scientists I served with in Antartica and Greenland and I’m the only member of this body that has done that,” Johnson said. “And there is no agreement in the scientific community, no consensus that things have really changed because change happens.”
Not every senator exhibited a hot temper. There were some light-hearted moments in this episode.
Senator Joni Ernst of Red Oak openly admitted to being a Republican who drives a fuel-efficient Prius.
“I did it just because I’m fiscally conservative and driving a Buick Enclave all around my rather large (senate) district was just not affordable,” Ernst said.
That prompted Senator Tom Courtney, a Democrat from Burlington, to admit he drives a gas-guzzling Corvette convertible….ETC ETC
http://www.radioiowa.com/2012/04/21/state-senators-disagree-over-climate-change-audio/
No place for heated debate
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/21/business/media/discoverys-frozen-planet-is-silent-on-causes-of-climate-change.html?_r=1&hp
And so it goes on and on and on….
Talking about climate activism entering school materials. In the UK have an examination for our senior students called ‘General Studies Advanced level’. Its not really a ‘taught’ lesson and some hold it in contempt for that reason, even some Universities. However, I worked with a relative of a head of a read brick University who had an analysis done on students final degree level (1st, 2:1 …etc). They found that no matter the level of the university entry qualifications, those who scored highest in their final degree were very positively correlated with high success at General Studies.
General studies is ALL about critical thinking. This year a complete section is on Global warming. I can post the entire paper that students are given for for prereading before the actual exam. The pro AGW get 4 subsections compared to the con’s I section. What should students do…follow the heard … or make a stand and refute the arguments for AGW? Remember, its going to be watermelons marking this
Here is a history of the rise of eco-extremism, written by Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace.
http://www.greenspirit.com/key_issues/the_log.cfm?booknum=12&page=3
The Rise of Eco-Extremism
Two profound events triggered the split between those advocating a pragmatic or “liberal” approach to ecology and the new “zero-tolerance” attitude of the extremists. The first event, mentioned previously, was the widespread adoption of the environmental agenda by the mainstream of business and government. This left environmentalists with the choice of either being drawn into collaboration with their former “enemies” or of taking ever more extreme positions. Many environmentalists chose the latter route. They rejected the concept of “sustainable development” and took a strong “anti-development” stance.
Surprisingly enough the second event that caused the environmental movement to veer to the left was the fall of the Berlin Wall. Suddenly the international peace movement had a lot less to do. Pro-Soviet groups in the West were discredited. Many of their members moved into the environmental movement bringing with them their eco-Marxism and pro-Sandinista sentiments.
These factors have contributed to a new variant of the environmental movement that is so extreme that many people, including myself, believe its agenda is a greater threat to the global environment than that posed by mainstream society. Some of the features of eco-extremism are:
• It is anti-human. The human species is characterized as a “cancer” on the face of the earth. The extremists perpetuate the belief that all human activity is negative whereas the rest of nature is good. This results in alienation from nature and subverts the most important lesson of ecology; that we are all part of nature and interdependent with it. This aspect of environmental extremism leads to disdain and disrespect for fellow humans and the belief that it would be “good” if a disease such as AIDS were to wipe out most of the population.
• It is anti-technology and anti-science. Eco-extremists dream of returning to some kind of technologically primitive society. Horse-logging is the only kind of forestry they can fully support. All large machines are seen as inherently destructive and “unnatural’. The Sierra Club’s recent book, “Clearcut: the Tradgedy of Industrial Forestry”, is an excellent example of this perspective. “Western industrial society” is rejected in its entirety as is nearly every known forestry system including shelterwood, seed tree and small group selection. The word “Nature” is capitalized every time it is used and we are encouraged to “find our place” in the world through “shamanic journeying” and “swaying with the trees”. Science is invoked only as a means of justifying the adoption of beliefs that have no basis in science to begin with.
• It is anti-organization. Environmental extremists tend to expect the whole world to adopt anarchism as the model for individual behavior. This is expressed in their dislike of national governments, multinational corporations, and large institutions of all kinds. It would seem that this critique applies to all organizations except the environmental movement itself. Corporations are critisized for taking profits made in one country and investing them in other countries, this being proof that they have no “allegiance” to local communities. Where is the international environmental movements allegiance to local communities? How much of the money raised in the name of aboriginal peoples has been distributed to them? How much is dedicated to helping loggers thrown out of work by environmental campaigns? How much to research silvicultural systems that are environmentally and economically superior?
• It is anti-trade. Eco-extremists are not only opposed to “free trade” but to international trade in general. This is based on the belief that each “bioregion” should be self-sufficient in all its material needs. If it’s too cold to grow bananas – – too bad. Certainly anyone who studies ecology comes to realize the importance of natural geographic units such as watersheds, islands, and estuaries. As foolish as it is to ignore ecosystems it is adsurd to put fences around them as if they were independent of their neighbours. In its extreme version, bioregionalism is just another form of ultra-nationalism and gives rise to the same excesses of intolerance and xenophobia.
• It is anti-free enterprise. Despite the fact that communism and state socialism has failed, eco-extremists are basically anti-business. They dislike “competition” and are definitely opposed to profits. Anyone engaging in private business, particularly if they are sucessful, is characterized as greedy and lacking in morality. The extremists do not seem to find it necessary to put forward an alternative system of organization that would prove efficient at meeting the material needs of society. They are content to set themselves up as the critics of international free enterprise while offering nothing but idealistic platitudes in its place.
• It is anti-democratic. This is perhaps the most dangerous aspect of radical environmentalism. The very foundation of our society, liberal representative democracy, is rejected as being too “human-centered”. In the name of “speaking for the trees and other species” we are faced with a movement that would usher in an era of eco-fascism. The “planetary police” would “answer to no one but Mother Earth herself”.
• It is basically anti-civilization. In its essence, eco-extremism rejects virtually everything about modern life. We are told that nothing short of returning to primitive tribal society can save the earth from ecological collapse. No more cities, no more airplanes, no more polyester suits. It is a naive vision of a return to the Garden of Eden.
John @ 2.23am:
Not only state schools I’m afraid. Our eldest grandson told me that his school taught him that CO2 comprised 5% of the atmosphere! I got him to do some research and discover that his teacher was lying to him. This was at an English-style private school in Dubai.
We had a freak weather event in Manchester (the English one). We had a storm with hail stones the size of golf balls. Windows were broken, little old ladies cowered in their houses thinking they were being stoned by vandals, my car needed the roof replacing because of the dents, plants were destroyed etc. Weather doesn’t come much more extreme than that in England.
Oh, I forgot to mention, that was in the early 1970s.
So. What we have here is an organization that has finally put the icing on the cake. AGW scientists have been engaged in post-modern research described as drawing dot-to-dot. I would have to agree with that description. It certainly rises to the quality of said anthropogenic CO2-related global weirding research articles we have been discussing these many years.
Hugh Pepper says:
April 20, 2012 at 11:30 am
Ah Hugh the man of mighty mouth and no science, it seems you don’t want to come back and provide us with the science that you claim exists everywhere. Surely you must have multiple links to these amazing debunkings of everything that has been said here on WUWT, but yet you have presented us with nothing why? I know that most people here if presented with real (verifiable and reproducable) science will see the truth and change their way of thinking yet you offer nothing but an agrument from authority “trust the scientists they are right”. Well they have proven themselves to be liars and manipulators, so until they have real science benhind them with nary a model in sight you will get no faith from me in your quasi-religous nest of vipers that you have made your abode.
Can we start calling it ‘ terrorist’ science?
There was a telling from a man who was once in skylab oscillating above the Earth. With him were some other men and the first days each of them looks to the location on Earth their mothers have born them to live. But later on he has told they all have looked to the integer Earth.
I think this is an example showing that points of view depending on the angle of viewing.
Most of us do know, that viewpoints teaches by the authorities of isolated heaps of any kind are shifting only the balance of stupidity without any change in increasing the angle of the point of view.
This is to recognized when a campaign A {“your voice is needed in this fight – http://www.climatedots.org} is to balance with a campaign B.{“ write a ‘connect the dots’ letter this weekend”}. The anti campaign B is as stupid as the stupid campaign A.
There is a general principle in philosophy to recognize that a thing cannot be true and untrue at the same time, because this would be a contradiction. Despite this known principle, isolated heaps not only in religions (plural), or democracies (plural), but also in the intellectual heaps of conditioned/biased global warming economists unveil their low angle of view like the Sumerian proverb says: : “The traveler from distant places is a perennial lier.” (Samuel Noah Kramer, ‘The Sumerians’). It is a typical egocentric view from the level of the point of view of evolution: ‘The enemy is always the other”.
These days some security personal in the U.S.A. have said that if I would make a visit to the U.S. they first would know my profile, my identity and my personal data, and if I reject this idiosyncrasy, I’m not welcome. But there could be a problem. It could be that I have no interest to discuss or speak with persons in the U.S. That may be no problem to the security guard people, but it could be a problem to the people who do not think on the level of nations and their morality but on the timeless and a_local principles of philosophy.
OK. There is a untouchable right on the own things, on the own house. But not all, what is argued out of a person in his own house, his own country, his own nation, is owned by him, if this is the own of the other, or if there is no owner, because the things are immaterial or global or universal. Is there an ownership of climate, wind, rain or love?
There are claims on WUWT about peer reviewers like L.S. or W.E., claims known as fallacies; authorities are not scientific experts in general, maybe for their special discipline, and that this blog is most read in number on climate war does not mean that the sayings here are more true than one single different voice in this filtered S/N ratio. Science is free; independent from politics, warming economists, democracy, morality of the time. Science only can be if the consciousness is not biased from egocentric, like the geocentric world view prior to the consciousness of N. Copernicus. What is a centre? Is there a centre? If there is no centre or no centers (plural), there are no enemies.
There is no problem to moderate personal attacks from guests who do not accept the home policy. But to close a free speech is like to close the doors not only for suspect persons, suspect because they do not accept the home security of the U.S, but to all ‘enemies’ of the home.
“In Spain they created once an animal protection association needed urgently money.
They organized a large bullfighting for the cash.” (K. Tucholsky, 1930)
I think the principle of democracy are well founded in philosophy, but the principle cannot be limited to nations, not to countries, but to the integer world. I never have given a voting to others, because of the (holy) principle of democracy, which is not to be alienate, because it is an intrinsic reality of each living essence.
I will write no letter.
V.
“Protest, educate, document and volunteer”. I notice that “research” and “find empirical evidence” are conspicuously absent from their list of things that are supposedly required in order to demonstrate a causal link between the two phenomena.
Volker. The Life of Ryan comes to mind. That was beyond funny!
Or maybe it was the English equivalent of lorem ipsum. Brilliant! Unless of course you were being serious. In that case, my apologies for unintentional rudeness.
Wow, the people who quoted me both cherry-picked AND intentionally misrepresented my statements! Thank you for your contributions! I got a giggle that it was ‘but HURRICANES” and “but TORNADOS” in nature.
I don’t have to have a “peer reviewed” publication in order to prove the law of thermodynamics works, thank you, Jimbo!
Oh, I’m sure gravity varies, that’s why the multimillion dollar test center spread across a couple states in the southern US couldn’t find any change in gravity.
I emailed 350.org…
No matter how hard you try, what new PR campaign you bring out, how much money is given to you, what massaged “science” you announce, how scary your predictions, the weather/nature/empirical evidence will beat you every time.
The longer you leave it to admit the con, the harder it will be for you to resign with dignity.
You look like very nice people in your pictures.
Pamela Gray says:
April 21, 2012 at 6:48 am
“Or maybe it was the English equivalent of lorem ipsum. Brilliant! Unless of course you were being serious. In that case, my apologies for unintentional rudeness.“
There is a sumerian proverb: „Into an open mouth a fly enters”.
Things have always the meaning individuals give to it, because it is impossible to buy truth or seriousity, or the logic of fallacies. It’s not to me what is true; it’s up to the consumer of sayings.
Some people in our world belief that they have to control the mind of others especially if the other mind is in supposed contradiction to the given strong arguments.
The conclusion is: “All power to the xyz consumers, who know that arguing people ever talking ‘brilliant lorem ipsim’, because it well known that argumentation is a secret theology of deceivers.”
There are many deserts without academic conditioned minds.
I will not write a letter.
V.
Done.
Pointman
Once the dangers of global cooling became clear, warmism hysteria will stop.
To Whom It May Concern:
In the build-up to the Rio conference in June, we all are encouraged to “connect the dots” between CO2 in the atmosphere and incidents of extreme weather around the world. The claim is that rising CO2 is causing global warming, and that global warming causes more extreme weather (floods, droughts, heat waves, cold snaps, hurricanes, tornados, etc.). This claim has been repeated so often that many people accept it without any examination of the logic and facts supporting it.
First, it should be noted that all statistical measures of extreme weather show that such incidents have not been increasing with the rise in temperature apparently observed in the last part of the 20th century. Our awareness of such events is greatly heightened by modern media and hype, but in fact warming has not produced more extreme weather.
The claim is also contrary to global warming theory, which asserts that temperatures should rise more in polar and mid-tropical regions than near the equator. Since storms are the result of temperature differences, greater warming of cold regions should reduce frequency and severity of storms, and in fact that has been the observation.
Now that the warming has halted since 1998, we may well see cooler, rather than warmer temperatures in the future. In that event, the arctic may well become colder, and extreme weather increase as a result. But the change will be due to global cooling, not warming, and will be in spite of any increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. So, warming does not drive extreme weather, either in theory or in fact—that connection is disproved.
It is also not proven that rising CO2 causes global warming. In the last 15 years, CO2 has continued to rise, while temperature measures have been flat. Historically, ice cores show that changes in CO2 follow temperature changes, and not the other way around.
The dots do not connect as claimed.
Unfortunately, Anthony Watts is not up on the latest understanding of the relationship between global warming and the trend of weird weather. Here is the emerging understanding of what is going on:
http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2012/04/videos-probe-climate-changeextreme-weather-puzzles/
“Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University, has now published a study that supports what a number of scientists have suspected for some time — that changes in the northern polar ice are having dramatic effects on the course of the jet stream.
The jet stream, a high-level flow of winds circling the northern latitudes, is the boundary between cold air to the north and warm air to the south. It is powered by the temperature differential between arctic and temperate latitudes.
As the arctic warms, and that temperature differential declines, the jet slows, becomes weaker, and begins to meander. Those meandering waves in the jet are more subject to “blocking patterns,” where weather in effect gets “stuck” over part of the northern hemisphere.
It all suggests a mechanism for the number of long-lasting heat, drought, rain, snow, and flood events that have been so prevalent over the past several years…”
> Eric Adler April 21, 2012 at 10:28 am
The idea that extreme weather events are on the increase long been discredited, pushed only by those with advocacy agenda. And since global average temperatures have been flat for about 15 years now, if the Arctic is warming, it means areas must be cooling.
> Eric Adler April 21, 2012 at 10:28 am
The idea that extreme weather events are on the increase long been discredited, pushed only by those with advocacy agenda. And since global average temperatures have been flat for about 15 years now, if the Arctic is warming, it means OTHER areas must be cooling.
Is this definitely true? All day on climatedepot it said real science had 2server problems” noe admin has posted this:
http://www.real-science.com/attention-scientist-steven-goddard-dies-at-81
There is a brief notice posted at Real Science that states that Steven Goddard has died aged 81.
If true then very sad.
Punksta,
The idea that average global tmeperatures have been flat is wrong. The year 1998 was a strong El Nino year, which made the earth’s surface temperature hot, and 2011 was a strong La Nina year which cooled the earth’s surface. The ENSO cycle is an example of an internal variable which creates a lot of noise in the earth’s surface temperature. Eliminating the effects of internal variables shows that the underlying trend of the earth’s surface temperature is warming. This is shown by all of the major indices of the earths temperature, including the lower tropospheric satellite temperature records.
In fact, the real index of whether the earth is warming is the ocean heat content, which is increasing.
http://oceans.pmel.noaa.gov/
In fact the denial that the earth is warming is being pushed by those with a strong advocacy agenda. They dislike the idea that they need to change some of their behavior immediately, to prevent a future problem, at some economic cost, in order to head off a problem that will come in the future. As a result, they will seize on some fact or specious theory that can be used to deny that the existence of a problem that is not immediately evident.
Even now, as the ratio of record high temperatures versus record low temperatures is rapidly increasing with time, which is an indication of a warming climate, a denial campaign has been instituted. This is so despite the acceptance of the need to combat global warming by all major scientific organizations.
@Eric Adler:
How’s the rapidly melting Arctic ice going this year ROFL.
Eric Adler says:
April 21, 2012 at 12:06 pm
Er, uhm, how do I say it?
No! The number of record “high” temperatures is NOT increasing, NOR is it at a higher rate than before, NOR are the number of record highs (set, as you would expect from the earlier, pre-re-propagandized IPCC reports) back in the mid and late-30’s) greater now.
So, you are dead wrong in the claim.
Do you deny the deaths and misery you deliberately wish to inflict on billions as you arbitrarily deny them food, clean water, sewage and sanitation facilities, and housing and transportation?
Do you deny temperatures rose as fast (and faster) in earlier years – when CO2 was “constant”
Do you deny temperatures rose, were steady and fell while CO2 was constant?
Do you deny temperatures rose, fell and are near-constant as CO2 increased?
You – the CAGW theists – want the death of millions of inconvenient humans as you seek a socialist utopia of hypocritical elites, while you deny your hypocrisy and lack of evidence. Those of us who seek lower energy costs, better health, better lives and greater freedom for all are denying nothing.
omg. I just read that Steve Goddard of Real Science passed away last night. Is this true???
http://www.real-science.com/attention-scientist-steven-goddard-dies-at-81
RACookPE1978 says:
April 21, 2012 at 12:42 pm
“Er, uhm, how do I say it?
No! The number of record “high” temperatures is NOT increasing, NOR is it at a higher rate than before, NOR are the number of record highs (set, as you would expect from the earlier, pre-re-propagandized IPCC reports) back in the mid and late-30′s) greater now.
So, you are dead wrong in the claim. ”
Apparently you are unable to read what I wrote. I said that the ratio of highs to lows has increased. In fact if the number of record lows is decreasing, it is a sign that the nights are getting warmer, as would be expected if GHG’s are reducing the escape of heat from the earth’s surface.
As far as the plight of the poor, and less developed countries is concerned, they are currently strongly adversely affected by the kinds of weather events that will be intensified by global warming, droughts and floods, which destroy their food supply, and don’t have the resources to cope with this.
Your statements about temperature rising and falling, for reasons unrelated to CO2, don’t prove that CO2 is not currently causing climate change. You are commiting a logical fallacy with your argument. There are many drivers of climate change, and CO2 is only one of them.
In fact, the rise and fall of temperature as ice ages came and went, has been shown to be largely a result of CO2 feedback. This article is one of many which has shown that.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7392/full/nature10915.html
You are an extreme case of someone who misconstrues statements, and applies faulty logic, without realizing it, because of a desire to avoid cognitive dissonance.
e adler~ “Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University, has now published a study that supports what a number of scientists have suspected for some time — that changes in the northern polar ice are having dramatic effects on the course of the jet stream.”
Wow! And this if the very first time it has happened in the tens of millions of years the poles have existed!
(pstt, addled- that was Sarcasm)
RACookPE1978 says:
April 21, 2012 at 12:42 pm
“Eric Adler says:
April 21, 2012 at 12:06 pm
Er, uhm, how do I say it?
No! The number of record “high” temperatures is NOT increasing, NOR is it at a higher rate than before, NOR are the number of record highs (set, as you would expect from the earlier, pre-re-propagandized IPCC reports) back in the mid and late-30′s) greater now.
So, you are dead wrong in the claim.”
It seems that you are unable to read my post. I said the ratio of highs to lows has been increasing. If the number of low records is decreasing, it is a sign that the rate of escape of heat from the earth at night is decreasing, in agreement with the results expected from warming due to increased GHG’s.
“Do you deny the deaths and misery you deliberately wish to inflict on billions as you arbitrarily deny them food, clean water, sewage and sanitation facilities, and housing and transportation?”
In fact the poor less developed regions of the planet are where people are vulnerable to the destruction of their food and water supply by drought and floods, which are the expected to increase in frequency due to global warming. In fact, the effort to halt global warming due to GHG’s is out of concern for the poor, who will be less able to cope with the results.
“Do you deny temperatures rose as fast (and faster) in earlier years – when CO2 was “constant”
Do you deny temperatures rose, were steady and fell while CO2 was constant?
Do you deny temperatures rose, fell and are near-constant as CO2 increased?”
If this has happened on occasion it is not logical proof that CO2 cannot be responsible for global warming. The incidents which you claim happened, if they exists, only show that other factors, the sun, volcanoes, internal variation like changes in ocean currents, can cause global temperatures to change.
In fact, it has been shown that CO2 feedback has been responsible for most of the global temperature changes during the recent deglaciation:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7392/full/nature10915.html
“You – the CAGW theists – want the death of millions of inconvenient humans as you seek a socialist utopia of hypocritical elites, while you deny your hypocrisy and lack of evidence. Those of us who seek lower energy costs, better health, better lives and greater freedom for all are denying nothing.”
Your rant, and the way in which you misconstrue statements that you have read, make illogical statements claiming that CO2 cannot cause climate change, show that avoidance of cognitive dissonance is responsible for your views on AGW, rather than any reasoned understanding of the facts.
Just how is Carbon Dioxide moving the Jet Stream…?
What can’t this SuperMolecule do? All by itself it raises the temp of the Earth 33°C, but how nobody knows; all by itself it forms a thick insulating blanket around the Earth even though it’s in such small amounts that for all practical purposes this thick insulating blanket stopping the Earth cooling is 100% hole; and Now the mighty CO2SuperMolecule moves the Jet Stream. Must be wearing its knickers on the outside.
Eric, maybe Anthony does have this all wrong, but I guess that if you can show him genuine numerical evidence of weather wierding he will change his mind.
To be honest I dont see any evidence; indeed, if ‘wierding’ were true we should be seeing loads of graphs from the many meterological institutes around the world, instead we see just about nothing.
OK we have all got to come up some metrics for ‘wierding’ – how about the standard deviation of the monthly rainfall or temperature anomalies?
Here is a chart of the rolling SD of the monthly Central England Temperature (CET) anomaly series data from KNMI climate explorer:
http://tinypic.com/r/e82174/5
I dont see ‘wierding’ in fact, in the last decade we have been through the least wierd period for 275 years.
Climategate Email 0476.txt
It’s true that by comparison with the glacial world, the interglacial climate has been less “angry”. … My sense is that Wally B’s notion that the ‘angry beast’ is a creature of colder eras but not of warmer times has some support.
Eric Adler says:
RACookPE1978 makes “illogical statements claiming that CO2 cannot cause climate change…”
Eric Adler has been told repeatedly that his CO2 conjecture is evidence-free. If there is empirical evidence per the scientific method [verifiable, testable, falsifiable] showing that CO2 causes climate change, then Adler needs to post it.
Otherwise, RACookPE1978 is right. And in any case, he is right about the suffering and impoverishment that are a direct result of the unconscionable “carbon” scare. I cannot imagine how someone can rationalize the deliberate harm being done to the one-third of the earth’s population that subsists on less than $2 a day.
The only proven way out of poverty is with cheap energy and a relatively free market. When those two factors are present, a country’s population always emerges from poverty; there are no exceptions. But policies that deliberately restrict supply and cause energy to become expensive, and policies that replace the free market with government bureaucracy lead straight to misery and starvation.
Hypocrites like Eric Adler still use petroleum products every day, while implicitly telling the world’s poor that they must do without, to the point of starvation if necessary. I cannot see that as anything but evil.
“In fact the denial that the earth is warming is being pushed by those with a strong advocacy agenda. They dislike the idea that they need to change some of their behavior immediately, to prevent a future problem, at some economic cost, in order to head off a problem that will come in the future. As a result, they will seize on some fact or specious theory that can be used to deny that the existence of a problem that is not immediately evident.”
I doubt that there are many who read your words here at the mad dog WUWT web-site who deny “the Earth is warming.” I don’t dislike the idea of changing some of my behavior; I loathe the idea of changing my behavior because I like to eat food from Mexico, I like to drive my car on vacations and fly to Europe every year or two. I like liberty, freedom, and being warm in winter and cool in summer. How about you?
I am delighted when I read the Climate-gate emails (Mosher, you magnificent bastard, I bought your book) to see the the smarty pantses have not given up travel, fine dining, or any other damn thing either. If they are not about to leave for Bali they are just getting back from India. I am supposed to take seriously the views of the Love Guru when he has his own golf course and I don’t? Yeah, I know they are the Vanguard of the Revolution and deserve much more than the proles but it makes it difficult to take seriously their fear mongering.
CT says:
April 21, 2012 at 1:51 pm
“Eric, maybe Anthony does have this all wrong, but I guess that if you can show him genuine numerical evidence of weather wierding he will change his mind.
To be honest I dont see any evidence; indeed, if ‘wierding’ were true we should be seeing loads of graphs from the many meterological institutes around the world, instead we see just about nothing.”
This is not so. For details about the impact in the US check out this link:
http://www.globalchange.gov/images/cir/pdf/National.pdf
“One of the most striking changes in climate
observed over the United States has been
an increase in the frequency and intensity
of heavy downpours. This increase was
responsible for most of the observed increase
in overall precipitation during the last 50
years. The amount of precipitation falling in
the heaviest 1 percent of rain events increased
nearly 20 percent. During the past 50 years,
the largest increases in heavy precipitation
occurred in the Northeast and the Midwest.”
Check out the map on page 32, where the change was 67% in the Northeast. In my state of Vermont, the reconstruction of roads in the wake of the Irene, is taking this trend into account.
“During the 1930s, there was a high frequency
of heat waves due to high daytime temperatures
resulting in large part from an extended multi-year
period of intense drought. By contrast, in the past
3 to 4 decades, there has been an increasing trend
in high-humidity heat waves, which are characterized
by the persistence of extremely high nighttime
temperatures.112”
This is an indication that the reduction in the escape of heat from the earth is driving these events, which is consistent with GHG caused global warming.
a measure of the increase in heavy downpours is a metric of a lot of instrumentation artifacts, this is due to the fact that we’ve added logging rain gauges in the last 2 decades
Eric Adler said:
You mean the rain storm?
Sure Eric, it’s never happened before…
http://www.real-science.com/climate-liars-work-wikipedia-npr
We will miss you Steve.
As I keep saying on every suitable occasion, one should rely on what, astoundingly, officials of the IPCC themselves have to say – what I found, and quote, is at http://cleanenergypundit.blogspot.com/2011/10/west-is-facing-new-severe-recession.html
[SNIP: Jeff, I understand completely, but let’s not go there. -REP]
Since CO2 supposedly acts like a blanket the storms should get less violent !
Thermodynamics tells us that wind speed is proportional to temperature difference not absolute temperature.
DR says:
April 21, 2012 at 3:22 pm
“Sure Eric, it’s never happened before…
http://www.real-science.com/climate-liars-work-wikipedia-npr”
A hundred year flood is an impressive event. This map shows that a large number of locations received a once in a hundred year event from Virginia to Vermont.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/08/27/us/preparations-for-hurricane-irene-and-reports-of-damage.html
If some reporter misspoke and said it was the biggest rainstorm in centuries and was incorrect, so what?. It doesn’t prove that this was insignificant.
The statistics show that there has been a trend in the Northeast to bigger rainstorms and the models indicate that this trend is going to intensify. The government of my state is prudent for to design bridges and culverts to handle what is to come.
Netdr says:
April 21, 2012 at 4:50 pm
“Since CO2 supposedly acts like a blanket the storms should get less violent !
Thermodynamics tells us that wind speed is proportional to temperature difference not absolute temperature.”
This is an oversimplification. Wind speed is not the whole story. What actually appears to be happening, as I pointed out above, is that the jet stream is weakening, causing weather systems to remain in place longer. This leads to more extreme weather – heat waves lasting longer, and rain events lasting longer.
Eric Adler says:
“The statistics show that there has been a trend in the Northeast…”
The issue is global warming; actually, the lack of it. The Northeast is a relatively small region, and is not indicative of what is happening globally. Which is that the planet is in a “Goldilocks” climate. We couldn’t ask for anything better.
And:
“…the models indicate… ”
“The models” indicate anything that might increase the chances of a federal grant. They have nothing to do with reality, except by chance, and the models are consistently wrong. All of them. Only credulous head-nodders believe in always-wrong computer models over the empirical evidence that routinely falsifies them.
Eric Adler says:
April 21, 2012 at 12:06 pm
The idea that average global temperatures have been flat is wrong. The year 1998 was a strong El Nino year, which made the earth’s surface temperature hot, and 2011 was a strong La Nina year which cooled the earth’s surface. The ENSO cycle is an example of an internal variable which creates a lot of noise in the earth’s surface temperature. Eliminating the effects of internal variables shows that the underlying trend of the earth’s surface temperature is warming. This is shown by all of the major indices of the earths temperature, including the lower tropospheric satellite temperature records.
I do not agree with your conclusions above and here is why.
See the graph below and note the following and let me know if you think I am being unfair.
1. This last La Nina is NOT the warmest La Nina in the last 16 years.
2. The first flat green line (slope = -0.000125181 per year) extends for a period of 15 years and 5 months since November 1996.
3. The first flat green line starts and ends with a La Nina so there was no cherry picking here.
4. The second flat purple line starts in 2000 and also starts and ends with a La Nina.
5. CO2 went up steadily while the temperatures stayed flat.
6. If the right points are picked both before and after the huge El Nino of 1998, the slope line can be perfectly flat either way. That is because La Ninas around 1998 balance things out.
7. IF I wanted to cherry pick two slopes, I would have come up with either the brown line going up or the blue line going down, depending on what I wanted to show.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1995/plot/rss/from:1996.83/trend/plot/esrl-co2/from:1996.83/normalise/plot/rss/from:2000/trend/plot/rss/from:1997.9/trend/plot/rss/from:1995.83/trend
Bernal says:
April 21, 2012 at 2:48 pm
“I doubt that there are many who read your words here at the mad dog WUWT web-site who deny “the Earth is warming.”
I haven’t taken a poll of the posters, but it is noteworthy, that the owner of the web site, Anthony Watts, does deny that the earth is warming. He claims the temperature record is broken, and hailed the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature BEST project, when it was first announced, because he hoped it would show that GISS, NCDC and HADCRUT are all wrong. He believes that global warming is a result of manipulation of the temperature record and the Urban Heat Island Effect. When the BEST results validated these temperature records, Mr Watts cried foul.
.
The fact that scientists fly to international conferences doesn’t make them hypocrites. Pluggable hybrid vehicles, nuclear, solar and wind power hold promise to reduce GHG emissions drastically. It would also help to modify settlement patterns so more people could use human power or public transportation. This will not impoverish anyone.
Werner Brozek says:
April 21, 2012 at 5:45 pm
“Eric Adler says:
April 21, 2012 at 12:06 pm
“The idea that average global temperatures have been flat is wrong. The year 1998 was a strong El Nino year, which made the earth’s surface temperature hot, and 2011 was a strong La Nina year which cooled the earth’s surface. The ENSO cycle is an example of an internal variable which creates a lot of noise in the earth’s surface temperature. Eliminating the effects of internal variables shows that the underlying trend of the earth’s surface temperature is warming. This is shown by all of the major indices of the earths temperature, including the lower tropospheric satellite temperature records.”
I do not agree with your conclusions above and here is why.
See the graph below and note the following and let me know if you think I am being unfair.
1. This last La Nina is NOT the warmest La Nina in the last 16 years.”
You are correct. The last La Nina is the lowest La Nina in the last 16 years, which is what I wrote in my post. The second coldest La Nina was in 2007.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/
In addition the current solar cycle is quite weak. Despite this, the last decade is the warmest in the surface temperature record.
You used the UAH graph as your demonstration, rather than the surface temperature record.
It is well known that the lower troposherical satellite temperature record is much more sensitive to the ENSO cycle than the surface temperature, so the strong El Nino in 1998 will make that year the warmest. Adjusting the temperature record for ENSO, cycles, solar cycle and volcanoes a clear increasing temperature trend due to the Green House Gases emerges.
Smokey says:
April 21, 2012 at 5:31 pm
“Eric Adler says:
“The statistics show that there has been a trend in the Northeast…”
The issue is global warming; actually, the lack of it. The Northeast is a relatively small region, and is not indicative of what is happening globally. Which is that the planet is in a “Goldilocks” climate. We couldn’t ask for anything better.”
You can be relied upon to distort any point that is made to support the theory of AGW. Increase in intensity of rain events is going to be a regional effect of global warming. The Northeast, which gets a lot of rainfall, is where it is intensification of rainfall events is going to happen. All locations on the globe are not expected to see this phenomenon in equal measures.
Unfortunately, even the existence of “a clear increasing temperature trend” does mean that it was caused by CO2 emissions. The only “evidence” for such is the models’ output, which has been programmed to presume that increasing CO2 is the driver for the increased temperatures. The lack of an alternative hypothesis is indicative of the mindset of the alarmists rather than proof of their hypothesis.
Eric Adler,
Thank you for your model-based predictions of the future. I rarely make predictions myself, because reality has a habit of falsifying them.
You say — twice — that your predictions are “going to happen”. Well, we’ll see about that. But keep in mind that the alarmist crowd has been wrong about everything so far, and I wouldn’t bet against that particular trend changing any time soon.
And speaking of distortion, you say:
“You can be relied upon to distort any point that is made to support the theory of AGW.”
May I point out that there exists no such thing as “the theory of AGW”. That is like saying “the theory of Santa Claus.”
AGW is a conjecture. It is not testable or falsifiable; two requirements of a scientific theory [and of a scientific hypothesis, for that matter]. Only true believers would use a nonsense phrase like “AGW theory”. It’s what sets apart the wild-eyed eco-cultists from honest scientific skeptics.
Eric Adler says:
April 21, 2012 at 6:03 pm
the last decade is the warmest in the surface temperature record. ….You used the UAH graph as your demonstration, rather than the surface temperature record.
Actually I used RSS and you did say “(Warming) is shown by all of the major indices of the earths temperature, including the lower tropospheric satellite temperature records.”
With regards to the warmest decade, check out the following and scroll down:
http://www.climate4you.com/GlobalTemperatures.htm#Global%20temperature%20trends
Note that of the five temperature sets listed, three show a cooling over the last ten years and two show no change. So yes, I agree the last decade was the warmest on the temperature record, but the first five years of the past decade were warmer than the last five years. In addition, two even show cooling over the last 15 years!
Eric Adler. you missed this;
http://drtimball.com/2012/claims-global-warming-increases-severe-weather-are-scientifically-incorrect/
jaschrumpf says:
April 21, 2012 at 6:23 pm
“Unfortunately, even the existence of “a clear increasing temperature trend” does (not) mean that it was caused by CO2 emissions. The only “evidence” for such is the models’ output, which has been programmed to presume that increasing CO2 is the driver for the increased temperatures. The lack of an alternative hypothesis is indicative of the mindset of the alarmists rather than proof of their hypothesis.”
Your post is totally wrong. The fact that CO2 absorbs and reemits IR radiation, thereby reducing the rate of escape of heat from the earth atmosphere system, and increases its temperature, especially in the nighttime has been understood since 1859, when John Tyndall published his work on this. The fact that water vapor in the atmosphere is a feedback mechanism which amplifies an increase in temperature has also been understood for a long period of time, and has been confirmed by satellite measurements of H2O in the atmosphere. This is a valid, and confirmed physical theory, based on experimental evidence, not a presumption. Satellite measurements have confirmed the reduction in outgoing radiation intensity at the absorption lines of CO2 and H2O.
Instead of relying on websites run by anti AGW bloggers for your knowledge, you should consult more scientific web sites to educate yourself properly.
Adler conjectures:
“his is a valid, and confirmed physical theory…”
No, it is not a “theory”. If it was a theory it would make accurate predictions. But it cannot.
You really need to get up to speed on the difference between a scientific conjecture, hypothesis, theory, and law. Displaying your ignorance does not help your argument.
Eric Adler April 21, 2012 at 12:06
The idea that average global tmeperatures have been flat is wrong.
No it isn’t. Even at Realclimate they admit another few years of flatness and they will have to have a major rethink.
ENSO is ruled out. It’s been pretty much flat since 1997, ie about 15 years, and ENSO cycles are typically 5 years.
Ocean content. If there was even a grain of truth that ocean heat content clearly is going up, there would be no argument at all. But there isn’t. Why do you think Trenberth talks of the heat he so desparately hopes is ‘hiding’ down there ?
In fact the denial that the earth is warming is being pushed by those with a strong advocacy agenda.
It’s being pushed by people who look at the facts, and by people who are sick of being lied to by government lackies. Close to 100% of climate science is funded by government, which has a vested interest in convincing us that CAGW is true, since this means it (government) can increase taxes and other coercive controls over society. And from Climategate and the coverups of it, we know that dishonesty in climate ‘science’ is rife. And it’s not just a few rotten apples like Jones and Mann, since these people are still in their jobs – the failure to expel or discipline them tells us the whole barrel is rotten (with a few exceptions of course).
the ratio of record high temperatures versus record low temperatures is rapidly increasing with time
It isn’t.
Eric,
Your implicit claim that the feedack from clouds is understood to be large and positive, is quite simply ludicrous. We don’t even know the sign, let alone the magnitude.
Eric Adler says:
April 21, 2012 at 8:53 pm
You must be new in town. I envy your ignorance. It must be nice to live like that.
You think you’ve got it bad, here is a search run at the National Curriculum Website in Australia ( http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/Search?a=Science&q=climate+change ) of Government Propaganda inserted into the National Curriculum. Yes, everyone write letters to paper and School Principals where your children are being indoctrinanted – This list is just the Science Curriculum
investigating the effect of climate change on sea levels and biodiversity
ELBS1184 | Elaboration | Year 10 | Science | Science Understanding | Earth and space sciences
considering the role of science in identifying and explaining the causes of climate change
ELBS1202 | Elaboration | Year 10 | Science | Science as a Human Endeavour | Nature and development of science
considering the scientific knowledge used in discussions relating to climate change
ELBS1210 | Elaboration | Year 10 | Science | Science as a Human Endeavour | Use and influence of science
considering how computer modelling has improved knowledge and predictability of phenomena such as climate change and atmospheric pollution
ELBS1205 | Elaboration | Year 10 | Science | Science as a Human Endeavour | Nature and development of science
People can use scientific knowledge to evaluate whether they should accept claims, explanations or predictions
ACSHE194 | Content description | Year 10 | Science | Science as a Human Endeavour | Use and influence of science
Literacy
Personal and social capability
Critical and creative thinking
Ethical behaviour
Sustainability
Advances in scientific understanding often rely on developments in technology and technological advances are often linked to scientific discoveries
ACSHE192 | Content description | Year 10 | Science | Science as a Human Endeavour | Nature and development of science
Literacy
Sustainability
Global systems, including the carbon cycle, rely on interactions involving the biosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere
ACSSU189 | Content description | Year 10 | Science | Science Understanding | Earth and space sciences
Literacy
Critical and creative thinking
Ethical behaviour
Sustainability
Scientific understanding, including models and theories, are contestable and are refined over time through a process of review by the scientific community
ACSHE191 | Content description | Year 10 | Science | Science as a Human Endeavour | Nature and development of science
Information and communication technology capability
Critical and creative thinking
Sustainability
And, Eric
Even more laughable is your claim that switching to other energy sources “will not impoverish anyone”.
At least be honest and say something like: ok energy costs will rocket up (by a factor of 10?), energy will be vastly less convenient, and this will need to be brought about by means of a lurch towards a more totalitarian society – but at least the planet will not fry.
@Anthony Watts
Anthony, why am I seeing Barack Obama 2012 election ads on your site. I understand you need the advertising revenue but isn’t this a pretty big conflict of interest?
I would say this is akin to John Boehner publicly trashing Obamacare, yet at the same time investing in Cardinal health.
[Reply: WordPress/Google selects the ads, not Anthony. Click on them to provide a little income to WUWT… then disregard. ~dbs, mod.]
“Eric Adler says:
April 21, 2012 at 5:05 pm
A hundred year flood is an impressive event. This map shows that a large number of locations received a once in a hundred year event from Virginia to Vermont.”
You seem to have missed the implications of what you are saying. If a flood in a secular event, that means it has happened before and is not “unprecedented”, and at at a time when human emitted CO2 was much lower than it is now. And if it is “once in a hundred years”, that would seem to suggest that it had happened 2 hundred years ago, 3 hundred etc. (To be sure of this you would have to check local records, newspapers etc.)
I would be more inclined to ask why the Vermont authorities had not already been designing infrastructure with the known wildest variations in mind. Have you asked them? I suspect it’s because the policy makers believed in the AGW crapola.
I recently complained to the CBC about their coverage of the scam. Here’s what the the Ombudsman said in reply to my concerns:
CONCLUSION
The United States National Research Council, in summarizing the science on climate change, says “there is a strong, credible body of work, based on multiple lines of research, documenting that climate is changing and that these changes are in large part caused by human activities. While much remains to be learned, the core phenomenon, scientific questions, and hypotheses have been examined thoroughly and have stood firm in the face of serious scientific debate and careful examinations of alternative explanations.”
There has not been a peer-reviewed journal publication by climate scientists, nor any national or international scientific body of standing, dissenting with this view.
The relevant scientific consensus — that is, the consensus among scientists whose work is in the relevant field — is that climate changes are in large measure generated by such activities as burning fossil fuels and deforestation and are largely irreversible. The
4
relevant scientific discussion involves the extent of such damage and the principal political discussion involves how to tackle and mitigate the human-caused effects.
It is true that several scientists in other fields have expressed skepticism in popular media about climate change research, but they have not produced peer-reviewed material to support their opinions.
CBC’s standards, and those of most other news organizations, urge caution in dealing with any scientific or health claims that do not pass a scientific journal’s peer review. In the absence of such content, it would violate policy for CBC News to compare rigorous science with opinions and raise false hopes.
The segment put its focus on international performance, on policy and on the conference’s quandaries in effecting practical measures. It did not have any need to further review this science or in any way suggest the science was open for debate.
The segment’s focus was on the performance of countries under the Kyoto Protocol and on the ambitions for the Durban gathering. There remained uncertainty about the ability of leaders to reach an agreement.
McBean’s description of the IPCC report he co-wrote was not inaccurate. The report predicted more hot days, more heavy rains, and several other effects, and it determined that even seemingly minor shifts in climate could have profound, catastrophic consequences in heavily populated and economically developing regions of the world.
There was no violation of CBC Journalistic Standards and Practices.
Sincerely,
Kirk LaPointe
CBC Ombudsman
cc: Jim Handman, Executive Producer, Quirks & Quarks
Linda Groen, Director, CBC Radio Current Affairs
A truly stunning bit of arrogance/ignorance!
The best debunking material for AGW comes from real-science Steve Goddards site where there is a clear presentation of official temperature, ice data, etc., so well presented at times, in fact, that there is no comment required.
http://www.real-science.com
I hope this is not true as i took a look at Goddard,s site. I hope someone keeps up hisd good work RIP
http://www.real-science.com/attention-scientist-steven-goddard-dies-at-81
And the lies are:
• Climate is an unchanging, constant
• Normal weather patterns do not have ‘extremes’
• CO2 increase by itself is all that is required for the dire IPCC predictions
• The climate models have consistently and accurately predicted the surface temperature behavior over the past decade, as well as the lack of warming in the mid-troposphere
• Polar bears can’t swim and are declining in numbers
• Blah, blah, blah….
Don’t have time to write a letter to the editor and in any case not many readers of the local in my village.
Instead, I busted into several threads over at the Puffington Host. Easier and more effective for me, at least.
Anyway did my part as best I could.
Later……
Eric Adler says:
April 21, 2012 at 8:53 pm
>>>jaschrumpf says:
April 21, 2012 at 6:23 pm
“Unfortunately, even the existence of “a clear increasing temperature trend” does (not) mean that it was caused by CO2 emissions. The only “evidence” for such is the models’ output, which has been programmed to presume that increasing CO2 is the driver for the increased temperatures. The lack of an alternative hypothesis is indicative of the mindset of the alarmists rather than proof of their hypothesis.”<<<<
Your post is totally wrong. The fact that CO2 absorbs and reemits IR radiation, thereby reducing the rate of escape of heat from the earth atmosphere system, and increases its temperature, especially in the nighttime has been understood since 1859, when John Tyndall published his work on this. The fact that water vapor in the atmosphere is a feedback mechanism which amplifies an increase in temperature has also been understood for a long period of time, and has been confirmed by satellite measurements of H2O in the atmosphere. This is a valid, and confirmed physical theory, based on experimental evidence, not a presumption. Satellite measurements have confirmed the reduction in outgoing radiation intensity at the absorption lines of CO2 and H2O.
Instead of relying on websites run by anti AGW bloggers for your knowledge, you should consult more scientific web sites to educate yourself properly.
Eric, stating that someone is totally wrong when they are quoting observations only shows that you have not read what they have written.
There is only one problem with your heat causes more water vapor which causes more greenhouse effect fugue – and that is that it is NOT happening. Average worldwide humidity is dropping, there is no ‘tropospheric hotspot that there would be if the hypothesis you quote was true, and global temperatures have not risen in the last decade although CO2 continues to rise.
Therefore it is NOT TRUE to state: This is a valid, and confirmed physical theory, based on experimental evidence, not a presumption. Satellite measurements have confirmed the reduction in outgoing radiation intensity at the absorption lines of CO2 and H2O. The hypothesis that heat is absorbed by CO2 leading to increased temperatures leading to increased water vapor leading to more heat is absorbed by water vapor and more warming has been falsified. IT IS NOT GETTING WARMER there is no tropospheric hotspot AND satellite metrics from ERBE and others have shown that there is negative feedback to temperature rise.
What this means is that jaschrumpf is right, there are other things happening that have not been included in the models so the models are all wrong. They remain wrong, even though fudge factors based on the corrections needed rather than real world observations are being added to try to make them fit. It is also an interesting point that the models are all incorrect in the same sense – always too hot. This should be a flag to the modelers that there is a common underlying incorrect assumption. Probably the presumption that CO2 will continue to warm with no negative feedback and that a coupled chaotic atmosphere-ocean system will behave in a linear way; very basic errors.
Then my dear Volker, I have to ask, would you like catsup with those flies?
Here’s another quote you might like:
“Education is useless if all you ever do is impress yourself.” That would be especially true in a desert.
The quote is mine. Don’t need someone from Sumeria to speak for me.
On the upside, loved how you combined “brilliant” with “lorem ipsum”. Now that’s funny.
@Eric Adler
As you are so totally certain of everything – you could answer Jo Nova’s challenge here http://joannenova.com.au/2010/01/is-there-any-evidence/
This open challenge has been unanswered for 2 years. One would have thought that with all the leading lights of the AGW movement and billions being spent on ‘climate research’ and industries being shut down at a cost of trillions of dollars, that one of the climate ‘scientists’ would have been able to meet the challenge.
But so far the silence is deafening.
Perhaps with Rio+20 talking of bankrupting the industrialized nations, the climate ‘scientists’ have no right to remain silent in this.
You may edit and my letter:
Editor,
I have a degree in Science Education and have taught Ecology. I am very concerned about our environment, our air, and our water resources. I am also concerned about how our tax money is being spent.
Any careful study will show that the Earth has been been slowly warming sense the early eighteenth century, following the “Little Ice Age”. It may continue to warm, or not. That is not a bad thing.
The toughest among you here, in this area of Kansas, survived, even thrived during the warmer times of the 1930’s and 1950’s. Many of you need to look no farther than your own family history, back a couple of generations. Improved agricultural practices and equipment made recent warming less problematic, if worrisome.
If you recall your eight grade history, the great adventurers of the middle ages, the Vikings, invaded Europe and colonized Greenland and Vineland. Their former villages are being uncovered in Greenland and Newfoundland, Canada as the ice recedes from those places. They were able to survive there because it was warmer then than now. Several degrees warmer. They only abandoned those areas as the Earth cooled and drifted into the Little Ice Age beginning about 1300. Clear evidence of this is available if one looks past the current crop of environmental alarmists.
These alarmists would like to frighten you into raising taxes and penalties on industries that produce carbon dioxide, your oil companies and utility companies. They want to raise your taxes and utility rates to fight “Global Warming”. I suggest we all listen to them and oppose their efforts, especially during this next election. Many Democrats support these false science advocates. Many Republicans oppose them. It is in your best interest to pay close attention to what your favorite elected representatives advocate in this area.
I responded on my blog (www.idealtaxes.com) by pointing out that British Astrophysicist Piers Corbyn predicted the extreme weather in the USA in March based upon solar magnetic and lunar events. Here’s the quote that I transcribed from Corbyn’s April 2 you-tube video:
“The thirteenth to fifteenth of March, we specifically predicted this in our forecast in detail, we said there would be tornadoes and giant hail in the lower midwest. That happened.
“We also said, after that there would be a big heat wave in the central and eastern parts of the USA. That happened.
“And then we said that would turn into or change into something more forcused on Texas with intense heat in Texas. That happened.
“And then, finally, there was a cold blast just coming down from Canada in the Northeast part of America at the end of March carrying into April which we predicted.
Punksta says:
April 21, 2012 at 10:06 pm
“Eric Adler April 21, 2012 at 12:06
“The idea that average global tmeperatures have been flat is wrong.”
No it isn’t. Even at Realclimate they admit another few years of flatness and they will have to have a major rethink.”
Do you have a specific quote or post from their web site to support your statement?
“ENSO is ruled out. It’s been pretty much flat since 1997, ie about 15 years, and ENSO cycles are typically 5 years.”
This is not true. I provided a link to a graph of the ENSO index in a previous post. The strongest positive index value was +3 in 1998, and the strongest negative value was -2 in 2010. This has had a strong influence on temperatures in those years. Taking out the influence of volcanoes, ENSO and solar cycles, a clear warming trend emerges:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=1172
“Ocean content. If there was even a grain of truth that ocean heat content clearly is going up, there would be no argument at all. But there isn’t. Why do you think Trenberth talks of the heat he so desparately hopes is ‘hiding’ down there ?”
The graph of Ocean Heat content to which I linked shows, that it has increased substantially over the past 15 years. Trenberth believes that all of the heat gain has not been tracked.
It is ridiculous to claim that non- emissive sources of energy cost 10 times what fossil fuels cost. A combination of Solar, Wind and nuclear sources are economically viable alternatives to coal and gas. France has lived quite well with 70% of its power generated by nuclear reactors. Wind and solar do not cost 10 times the cost of coal or natural gas. They are currently competitive when assisted by tax credits of 30% of the price of installation.
It is clear that you are refusing to confront the facts that are presented to you, because they would challenge your beliefs. Your modis operandi is simply to deny the existence of the evidence that is put before you.
Ian W says:
April 22, 2012 at 7:10 am
“@Eric Adler
As you are so totally certain of everything – you could answer Jo Nova’s challenge here http://joannenova.com.au/2010/01/is-there-any-evidence/
This open challenge has been unanswered for 2 years. One would have thought that with all the leading lights of the AGW movement and billions being spent on ‘climate research’ and industries being shut down at a cost of trillions of dollars, that one of the climate ‘scientists’ would have been able to meet the challenge.
But so far the silence is deafening.”
It is because you are wearing earplugs.
It has been known for 150 years that absorption and emission of IR by GHG’s is responsible for preventing the escape of heat from the earth atmosphere system. The first estimate of the effect of doubling of CO2 due to industrial emissions was made by Nobel Laureate Svante Ahrennius in 1896. More careful measurements of spectra and temperature profiles of the atmosphere in the late 1950’s have improved the model paramenters. Satellite observations of the decreases in upward longwave radiation escaping from the top of the atmosphere, and the increase downward long wave radiation at the surface of the earth are direct evidence that
increases in CO2 and CH4 are responsible for the increase in temperatures over the past 40 years.
http://www.eumetsat.int/Home/Main/Publications/Conference_and_Workshop_Proceedings/groups/cps/documents/document/pdf_conf_p50_s9_01_harries_v.pdf
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009JD011800.shtml
Eric Adler says:
April 22, 2012 at 7:55 am
“It is clear that you are refusing to confront the facts that are presented to you, because they would challenge your beliefs. Your modis operandi is simply to deny the existence of the evidence that is put before you.”
That is funny. I was thinking that is EXACTLY what you have done.
Eric Adler says:
April 22, 2012 at 7:55 am
The graph of Ocean Heat content to which I linked shows, that it has increased substantially over the past 15 years. Trenberth believes that all of the heat gain has not been tracked.
I did some calculations with the following numbers:
Mass of air is 5 x 10^18 kg;
Specific heat capacity of air is 1 kJ/kgK
Assume a 3 C rise in air temperature due to AGW. (I do not agree with this scenario, But I am just crunching numbers assuming that is the case.)
Mass of oceans is 1.4 x 10^21 kg;
Specific heat capacity of ocean water is about 4 kJ/kgK
The question I am trying to answer is that IF we for the moment assume the air temperature were to potentially go up by 3 degrees C, but IF we then assume ALL this heat goes into the ocean instead, how much would the ocean warm up?
Using mct(air) = mct(ocean), I get an answer of 0.0027 C is the increase in the temperature of the ocean. Of course, this cannot be measured, nor would the ocean expand to any noticable degree with this added temperature. But IF Trenberth is right that the heat can go into the ocean, what are we worried about?
Strange that those “scientist” who are paid to study global warming think it is real and those scientists who are not paid do not believe it is real.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/19/former-nasa-scientists-astronauts-to-attend-heartland-institute-climate-conference/
Uh…no it is not direct evidence. A warming world can have an immediate impact on the number of things that begin to grow. I wish for early warm Springs. Why? I get tons more pasture grass. That cuts down on the need for additional hay bales. And gets cattle out earlier. Which means more rent payments. Wine growers love it too. Increasing Sun days and warming temperatures have expanded vineyards ever North. And folks who raise pumpkins and other types of gourds, and melons, and tomatoes. Then, all that additional vegetation dies out in the fall and the nutrients, along with the mulchy messes, get added to the soil and air.
CO2 could be a ride-along, not the driver. It will be interesting to see who is right. It certainly is the case that dangerous levels of CO2 have not been able to stop La Nina’s. Or the AO from flipping this way or that, or the great overturning current from overturning, etc, etc, etc. It seems to be rather weak in affecting natural short and long term oscillations, is it not?
Eric, I find your links of model-based research interesting. The circular reasoning in the first article you link to may be brought to light if you would cruise this one:
http://www.sustainablenuclear.org/PADs/PAD201008GOLDMAN.pdf
If we had listened…..
Global temperatures have been going down…
Arctic and Antarctic Ice has been going up…
Sea levels have been falling….
Hurricanes and tornadoes are normal…
Droughts, floods are normal…
etc etc
CO2 levels are rising at the same rate….
But if we had listened, we would all be living like some third world country….
…and they would all be taking credit for saving the world
….from something normal
Wouldn’t do any good to write to the one and only local rag in my town. It’s run by a bunch of treehugging liberals who wouldn’t be persuaded by the onset of another ice age.
Werner Brozek says:
April 22, 2012 at 8:42 am
Eric Adler says:
April 22, 2012 at 7:55 am
The graph of Ocean Heat content to which I linked shows, that it has increased substantially over the past 15 years. Trenberth believes that all of the heat gain has not been tracked.
I did some calculations with the following numbers:
Mass of air is 5 x 10^18 kg;
Specific heat capacity of air is 1 kJ/kgK
Assume a 3 C rise in air temperature due to AGW. (I do not agree with this scenario, But I am just crunching numbers assuming that is the case.)
Mass of oceans is 1.4 x 10^21 kg;
Specific heat capacity of ocean water is about 4 kJ/kgK
The question I am trying to answer is that IF we for the moment assume the air temperature were to potentially go up by 3 degrees C, but IF we then assume ALL this heat goes into the ocean instead, how much would the ocean warm up?
Using mct(air) = mct(ocean), I get an answer of 0.0027 C is the increase in the temperature of the ocean. Of course, this cannot be measured, nor would the ocean expand to any noticable degree with this added temperature. But IF Trenberth is right that the heat can go into the ocean, what are we worried about?”
You are making a lot of scientific errors in your thinking. The assumption that you are making that the ocean will warm uniformly is incorrect and has caused you to make a misleading calculation about ocean temperature. In addition, assuming that the heat capacity of the atmosphere and the heat stored therein is a relevant quantity to look at, shows that you have no understanding of what is happening.
You should look at this energy flow diagram to understand what is happening.
http://www.nar.ucar.edu/2009/ESSL/i2/images/i2_f_05_cgd_05.jpg
The small amount of heat stored by the atmosphere is inconsequential and irrelevant with respect to the heat fluxes moving between the earth (mostly ocean), atmosphere, and outer space.
The incoming heat from the sun, and downwelling radiation, which is not reflected, or emitted as upwelling radiation, or sent back to the atmosphere through convection or transpiration, is absorbed in the upper 300M of ocean. Over time a fraction is mixed into waters below that depth. This fraction is hard to trace. . Accurate tracking of the lateral and vertical flows of heat in the ocean is what Trenberth was concerned about in his quote, which was misinterpreted by so many “skeptic” web bloggers.
The surface of the ocean has been heating up as the various temperature records show. The rate of heating is variable because of fluctuations in ocean currents which mix the surface and bottom waters.
David Ball says:
April 22, 2012 at 8:43 am
“Strange that those “scientist” who are paid to study global warming think it is real and those scientists who are not paid do not believe it is real.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/19/former-nasa-scientists-astronauts-to-attend-heartland-institute-climate-conference/”
Do you really believe that attendees at a Heartland Institute climate conference is a valid statistical sample of paid versus non paid people? If so, you are not thinking clearly. Many of the attendees at the Heartland Institute are paid by conservative think tanks opposed to the GHG theory of global warming because it logically leads to more regulation of emissions. Opposition to government regulation is the raison d’etre for the institute itself.
If there are statistics somewhere to support your paid versus non paid argument, this can be interpreted in two ways:
1) The paid people are all corrupted and their theories are a hoax.
2) The people who have not studied this for a living are not as knowledgeable as those who are paid to do it.
I put my money on hypothesis number 2, based on the data that I have gathered.
I understand physics very well, having been a scientist and engineer prior to my retirement. The arguments against AGW posted here reflect so much ignorance, they are sufficient to convince me that number 2 is the correct explanation. In addition many scientific organizations and polls of scientists not paid to study climate science in particular also endorse the theory of AGW and polls of scientists in other fields show support for AGW among a majority.
I thought I’d just keep it short (maybe not sweet), draft:
——————————-
Has making a mountain out of a molehill become our society’s Achilles’ heel? We originally created agencies to determine mountains from molehills and to protect us from the mountains, but as the mountains were identified and their threats neutralized, smaller and smaller mounds had to be repackaged as mountains in order to justify the existence and expansion of these agencies. We spare no expense in order to retain experts to sniff out mountains masquerading as molehills in agencies such as OSHA, FDA, EPA, NASA and DOT. Our culture as reflected in our entertainment exalts the expert who recognizes the mountain even in its molehill disguise. We’ve become so used to reacting to molehills we barely notice the phrases that expose the repackaging from molehill to mountain, like “potential”, “could”, “may”, and “is consistent with” among others that will inevitably “connect the dots” from molehill to mountain.
———————————–
Edits/feedback appreciated.
I expect this meeting with the talk by Phil Jones of the CRU will be reported locally. An opportunity for anyone local to hear his views.
19:30 [East Anglia] Lecture (Norwich) Climate change – causes and consequences by Professor Phil Jones
Mon, 14 May, 19:30 – 21:00
Lancaster House 6th Form Centre, Norwich High School for Girls, Newmarket Road, Norwich, NR2 2HU. (map)
DescriptionProfessor Phil Jones from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia – the scientist at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ affair – will present the latest evidence on climate change and global warming.
Norfolk GA event, free to RGS-IBG members.
Perhaps the moderators could alert Christopher Moncton or Christopher Booker? I do not know how to reach them.
I have a question. Just what is a “scientist”?
Monckton’s disassembling of the alarmist’s position is dismissed because, “He’s not a scientist”. (Is Al Gore?)
Anthony Watt’s position is dismissed because, “He’s not a CLIMATE scientist”.
(Are only those who support AGW qualified to be called “climate” scientist?)
So someone please explain to me just what is a “scientist”? Just what is a “climate scientist”?
It seems that the Eric Adlers of the world would base the definitions on the conclusions reached. Or am I missing something?
One thing one does have to admit is that this level of discussion would never occur at RealClimate nor any of the other alarmist blogs. Eric Adler is giving as good as he’s getting, and it’s been going on for a couple of days now. Good luck getting that reception at “The Team”s favorite sites.
Now, I wouldn’t say Eric is getting the better of anyone. He did manage to miss my point that CO2 should be one of multiple hypotheses , and instead focused on his perception of my “ignorance” of CO2 as a greenhouse gas. But we all know that the crux of the AGW biscuit are the feedbacks, not the feeble 1.5C rise due to a doubling of CO2 concentrations. Those feedbacks are nowhere in sight; nor could they be, since geology (my degree) tells us that Earth’s atmosphere has had much higher levels of CO2 (up to 2000ppm) and never had “runaway greenhouse effects.”
It did, however, manage to have an ice age during one of those high CO2 periods.
Carl Sagan’s Popperian “baloney detection kit” absolutely requires multiple hypotheses, and sternly warns against getting “too attached” to one’s own. In fact, the “baloney” score looks like this for AGW:
Wherever possible, there must be independent confirmation of the facts.
Phil Jones refused to release his data because “you’ll just try to find something wrong with it.”
Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.
“The science is settled!,” we’re told.
Spin more than one hypothesis. If there’s something to be explained, think of all the ways it could be explained.
Except for the “deniers,” has any climate scientist proposed any other hypothesis for the observed warming since the 1850s other than CO2 increase?
Arguments from authority carry little weight — “authorities” have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future.Arguments from authority? “There’s a consensus.”
Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it’s yours.
Res ipsa loquitor.
Quantify. What is vague and qualitative is open to many explanations.
The original data in many cases is lost, and much of what we have to look at has been statistically altered in unknown, and therefore possibly incorrect, ways.
If there’s a chain of argument, every link in the chain must work (including the premise) — not just most of them.
Does every link in the AGW argument chain work? Really?
Occam’s Razor.
We observe changes in the earths’ climate. We know these changes have occurred previously throughout geological history. Do we really know enough regarding their causes then to be able to say unequivocally that human activity is causing them now?
Ask whether the hypothesis can be, at least in principle, falsified. Propositions that are untestable, unfalsifiable are not worth much.
I have yet to hear from an alarmist what would falsify the AGW hypothesis. The closest they’ve come is admitting that the flat temps of the past several years are problematic.
Gunga Din,
From my handy desktop dictionary:
scientist, noun, a person who is studying or has expert knowledge of one or more of the natural or physical sciences.
By that definition, both Anthony Watts and Lord Monckton qualify. Eric Adler, being a faith-based true believer, does not.
Eric, you ignore the fact that many people who are paid to study the climate do not share the conclusion that CO2 is the villian here. You also ignore the fact that there is more money to be had from government agencies if one does support the conclusion that CO2 is the villian than if one does not.
In every hoax, there are supporters who know it is a hoax and supporters who do not know of the hoax, but are conviced by the arguments in favor of it. When one reads email conversations between the principals of The Team where they argue among themselves about “hiding the decline” (the fact that the tail end of the dendrochronolgy series did not match the actual temperature observations made during the same period), and discussing having rival authors blacklisted and editors who published them fired… well, you should get the idea that good, honest science is not being practiced here.
Maybe some of you could add this to your letters…
http://traccc.gmu.edu/pdfs/student_research/Smokowicz.pdf
And not a single reference to the article I posted.
Pick and choose what you respond to. Hilarious. Who has the blinders on? 8^D !!
Here it is again; Eric Adler. you missed this;
http://drtimball.com/2012/claims-global-warming-increases-severe-weather-are-scientifically-incorrect/
dang….and all this time I was told that CO2 was just a bit player
…and it’s the feedbacks we have to worry about
Of course, no one has even figured out if the feedbacks are negative or positive or zero
If I’m interpreting the article correctly AGW sould lead to a lower temperature differential across the Zonal Index, which means less severe weather. Would “A” GW produce a different “footprint” in the ZI than “ordinary” GW? IOW, AGW says that the poles would heat faster than the rest of the world, but, for example, during the end of the last ice age, do we know if the rates or warming between the poles and the lower latitudes was any different?
If the Rossby Waves are produced by the cyclonic lows moving along the Zonal Index, wouldn’t stronger lows produce deeper Rossby Waves? And if AGW lowers the temperature differential across the Zonal Index, wouldn’t that produce less-strong lows up there and shallower Rossby Waves? Thus, just as tornadoes need a large temperature differential for a big breakout, the Rossby Waves need a large temperature differential to produce the lows that create them.
To sum up: AGW = less temp. diff. in the Zonal Index = less powerful lows = less severe weather.
Did I grasp the article’s meaning correctly?
Earth Day with George Carlin.
Caution: Language.
————————————————–
George Carlin: Earth Day
jaschrumpf says:
April 22, 2012 at 12:13 pm
…
All this doesn’t matter to the true believers of AGW though.
They keep claiming that the global average temperature is on a catastrophic rise and that this
will lead to more severe weather.
Still interesting how they went from: “Weather is NOT climate!” to the opposite view in a few years.
During the 20th century we had a temperature rise of some 0.15 degrees C and the trend for the 21st century is about half that (0.07 – 0.08). How anyone in their right mind get that to catastrophic is beyond me.
Eric Adler says:
April 22, 2012 at 10:02 am
You are making a lot of scientific errors in your thinking. The assumption that you are making that the ocean will warm uniformly is incorrect and has caused you to make a misleading calculation about ocean temperature.
The surface of the ocean has been heating up as the various temperature records show. The rate of heating is variable because of fluctuations in ocean currents which mix the surface and bottom waters.
Presumably we are talking about GLOBAL warming. Right? And if so, would not the oceans in the whole world warm up if the globe warmed up? Now I realize that the northern Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the earth, so I would agree that the oceans high up north may get more warming than the rest of the earth. So let us just assume that enough heat has gone into the ocean to raise the whole ocean by 0.1 C from 3.0 C to 3.1 C. But let us take this a step further and assume the heating was NOT uniform and a third of the deep ocean warmed to 3.3 C while the rest stayed at 3.0 C. This heat would never make it to the surface where the temperature averages 15 C. It would violate one of the laws of thermodynamics to go from cold to hot on a macroscopic scale. And we are talking about the deeper ocean so extra warmth gets very diluted by the time it gets deep. So I am still convinced that even a minor non-uniform heating of the ocean is nothing to be concerned about.
As for your assertion that “The surface of the ocean has been heating up as the various temperature records show.” There has been cooling of the surface for the last 10 years and no warming for the last 15 years. See
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1995/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1997.08/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002.08/trend
Eric Adler says:
April 22, 2012 at 10:27 am
I understand physics very well, having been a scientist and engineer prior to my retirement.
We are very similar in this regard! I have an engineering degree and taught high school chemistry and/or physics for 39 years before I retired.
Here’s my letter to the Editor of the Dominion in New Zealand:
====================================================
Sirs
It would appear the Climate Change movement – aka CAGW Activists – are rushing headlong to directly associate each and every extreme weather event be that hot or cold, drought or flood with Global Warming.
The new campaign is “Joining the Dots” – starting with a Yale survey that asks outrageously biased questions such as “Do you recall any unusual weather events in your local area that occurred in your area in the last 12 months” – perhaps most of us would answer that with YES considering last year’s snow fall.
However, even the IPCC regards Climate as being the averaging of events over a 30-year period – not just one-offs.
Regarding flooding, Bouziotas et al. presented a paper at the EGU and concluded:
Analysis of trends and of aggregated time series on climatic (30-year) scale does not indicate consistent trends worldwide. Despite common perception, in general, the detected trends are more negative (less intense floods in most recent years) than positive. Similarly, Svensson et al. (2005) and Di Baldassarre et al. (2010) did not find systematical change neither in flood increasing or decreasing numbers nor change in flood magnitudes in their analysis
We simply have better communications, a more diverse population, and a media frenzy just waiting to publish any shrill message – hey that sells papers !!
To quote a parallel from a recent Forbes article:
In the summer of 2001, a little boy in Mississippi lost an arm in a shark attack. The media went absolutely crazy. For weeks and months they highlighted every shark attack on the evening news. They ran aerial footage of sharks in the water near beaches. They coined the term “Summer of the Shark.” According to Wikipedia, shark attacks were the number three story, in terms of network news time dedicated, of the summer.
Andi Cockroft
(address supplied)
Gunga Din says:
April 22, 2012 at 11:07 am
…So someone please explain to me just what is a “scientist”? Just what is a “climate scientist”?
It seems that the Eric Adlers of the world would base the definitions on the conclusions reached. Or am I missing something?
_______________________________
In the post modern world a scientist is someone who produces data that is useful for advancing a political position. Trofim Denisovich Lysenko is an excellent example.
some postmodern science scholars have extended the scope of their critiques, declaring that much of modern science, like literary and historical analysis, is “socially constructed,” dependent on the social and political environment of the researchers, with no claim to fundamental truth
As soon as you hear some one using the “Consensus” (97% of scientists agree…) or an appeal to authority, you are probably looking at a “Post Modern Science” Real science depends on a falsifiable theory supported by real world data. With Post Modern Science when real world data is used you see the inappropriate use of statistics, adjustment of data and the reluctance to reveal the actual raw data. Therefore the real division between CAGW believers and “Deniers” is the division between post modern science and real world science.
They are two completely antagonistic world views.
@ Lady in Red,
Your letter is a masterpiece, but I wonder what newspaper will print something of that length (1134 words).
jaschrumpf says:
April 22, 2012 at 12:13 pm
You have correctly connected the dots. My father has always tried to make the complex as palatable as possible. He has been criticized for this. His goal is to take away from the warmists the advantage that most people have little understanding of even the basics of climate and are therefore easily mislead by people like Eric Adler. Nice work.
I repeat, do you have any peer reviewed evidence that the weather is getting weirder? It’s a simple question really. 😉
Eric Adler says:
April 22, 2012 at 8:20 am
Ian W says:
April 22, 2012 at 7:10 am
“@Eric Adler
As you are so totally certain of everything – you could answer Jo Nova’s challenge here http://joannenova.com.au/2010/01/is-there-any-evidence/
This open challenge has been unanswered for 2 years. One would have thought that with all the leading lights of the AGW movement and billions being spent on ‘climate research’ and industries being shut down at a cost of trillions of dollars, that one of the climate ‘scientists’ would have been able to meet the challenge.
But so far the silence is deafening.”
It is because you are wearing earplugs.
It has been known for 150 years that absorption and emission of IR by GHG’s is responsible for preventing the escape of heat from the earth atmosphere system. The first estimate of the effect of doubling of CO2 due to industrial emissions was made by Nobel Laureate Svante Ahrennius in 1896. More careful measurements of spectra and temperature profiles of the atmosphere in the late 1950′s have improved the model paramenters. Satellite observations of the decreases in upward longwave radiation escaping from the top of the atmosphere, and the increase downward long wave radiation at the surface of the earth are direct evidence that
increases in CO2 and CH4 are responsible for the increase in temperatures over the past 40 years.
http://www.eumetsat.int/Home/Main/Publications/Conference_and_Workshop_Proceedings/groups/cps/documents/document/pdf_conf_p50_s9_01_harries_v.pdf
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009JD011800.shtml
Eric carefully and slowly read what was said.
Yes – CO2 does absorb (then almost immediately re-emit) a narrow band of infra-red and this can be seen from satellites. This alone EVERYONE accepts is insufficient to lead to the warming since the Little Ice Age. So you can put Ahrennius aside as an argument (an appeal to authority with no effect on the conversation).
The AGW hypothesis then depends on more water vapor in the atmosphere (more humidity) leading to water vapor’s green house effect being added to CO2.
THIS HAS NOT HAPPENED indeed global humidity is dropping, no measurements of any kind have shown the tropical tropospheric hotspot that would appear if water vapor was behaving as claimed by the AGW hypothesis. IT IS NOT THERE.
Not only that but there has been no increase in temperatures for the last decade despite the increasing CO2. The models are all forecasting far higher figures the temperatures are even below the ‘business as normal’ figures that are modeled. SOMETHING IS WRONG with the AGW hypothesis.
The basic physics is fine but the ocean/atmosphere system is chaotic which means it will not behave in a linear way. It is becoming more apparent that as temperatures increase there is negative feedback. If you lived in the tropics you would be more aware of this.
So the AGW hypothesis is falsified. If you want to go to the Jo Nova site and provide incontrovertible evidence that AGW is happening – not that some parts of some of the physics is happening everyone knows that – but observational evidence of the AGW hypothesis in the chaotic climate system.. You won’t as no-one else has, because there isn’t any and all the predictions, forecasts, interpolations, projections have failed. .
jaschrumpf says:
April 22, 2012 at 11:12 am
“One thing one does have to admit is that this level of discussion would never occur at RealClimate nor any of the other alarmist blogs. Eric Adler is giving as good as he’s getting, and it’s been going on for a couple of days now. Good luck getting that reception at “The Team”s favorite sites.
Now, I wouldn’t say Eric is getting the better of anyone. He did manage to miss my point that CO2 should be one of multiple hypotheses , and instead focused on his perception of my “ignorance” of CO2 as a greenhouse gas. But we all know that the crux of the AGW biscuit are the feedbacks, not the feeble 1.5C rise due to a doubling of CO2 concentrations. Those feedbacks are nowhere in sight; nor could they be, since geology (my degree) tells us that Earth’s atmosphere has had much higher levels of CO2 (up to 2000ppm) and never had “runaway greenhouse effects.”
It did, however, manage to have an ice age during one of those high CO2 periods.”
There are two problems with your argument. Positive feedback does not imply a runaway condition. It implies amplification of forced excursions..
The second problem in your argument is the implicit assumption that CO2 is the only variable that matters. In fact 100’s of millions of years ago, when CO2 levels were much higher than today, the solar radiance was substantially less. For the most part, to the best of our ability to measure proxies, we find that high CO2 concentrations and high temperatures were well correlated.
http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/FACULTY
/POPP/Royer%20et%20al.%202004%20GSA%20Today.pdf
“…Here we review the
geologic records of CO2 and glaciations
and find that CO2 was low (1000 ppm) during other, warmer
periods. The CO2 record is likely robust
because independent proxy records
are highly correlated with CO2 predictions
from geochemical models…”
Werner Brozek says:
“As for your assertion that “The surface of the ocean has been heating up as the various temperature records show.” There has been cooling of the surface for the last 10 years and no warming for the last 15 years. See
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1995/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1997.08/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002.08/trend
”
The graph you show has a lot of noise. Despite the slopes, the uncertainty during the last 15 years is too large to show a clear trend one way or the other. It seems like cherry picking to me. If you look at the last 35 years, you can see an unmistakable warming trend modulated by ENSO cycles, which make the trend look noisy.
http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/T_moreFigs/
Gail Combs says:
April 22, 2012 at 1:07 pm
Gunga Din says:
April 22, 2012 at 11:07 am
Thank you, Gail. (and Smokey)
I thought it was something like that.
Positive feedback does not imply a runaway condition if they give rise to negative feedbacks to stop them. What negative feedbacks does “AGW theory” posit to stop the runaway condition? In the CO2-forcing scenarios I’ve read at places like RealClimate, the story usually goes like this: “Something [unknown] causes CO2 to increase. This causes temperatures to rise. Something [unknown] causes CO2 to decrease. Temperatures fall again.”
Sagan’s “baloney detector” requires that “all of the links in a chain or argument have to work (including the premise) — not just most of them.” The CAGW argument chain seems to have links that are missing entirely. What event caused atmospheric CO2 to increase in geologic eras past? What event caused them to decrease? Since the earth has never reached runaway greenhouse conditions before when CO2 was much, much higher, we must conclude that there are powerful negative feedbacks in the climate. What does CAGW “theory” state that these are?
Yes, we find that when temps increase, the oceans give off their stored CO2 into the atmosphere. That much is clear.
How much less solar radiation would be required to keep a 2000ppm CO2 concentration from creating runaway greenhouse effects? In fact, what difference would solar irradiation make at all? If the CO2 traps the heat, then it should be just a matter of time before even a lower level of solar radiation raises the Earth’s temperature significantly. A 300F flame will boil water more slowly than a 400F flame will, but it will ultimately boil it.
Too bad none of you are willing to put your money where your mouths are.
https://www.intrade.com/v4/markets/?eventClassId=20
[Reply: You’re new here. Commenters have been trading on Intrade and reporting on it here for years. ~dbs, mod.]
Ian W says:
April 22, 2012 at 1:53 pm
“Yes – CO2 does absorb (then almost immediately re-emit) a narrow band of infra-red and this can be seen from satellites. This alone EVERYONE accepts is insufficient to lead to the warming since the Little Ice Age. So you can put Ahrennius aside as an argument (an appeal to authority with no effect on the conversation).
The AGW hypothesis then depends on more water vapor in the atmosphere (more humidity) leading to water vapor’s green house effect being added to CO2.
THIS HAS NOT HAPPENED indeed global humidity is dropping, no measurements of any kind have shown the tropical tropospheric hotspot that would appear if water vapor was behaving as claimed by the AGW hypothesis. IT IS NOT THERE.”
Once again you are denying reality. Measurements of the atmosphere show that water vapor has been increasing with increasing temperatures.
hhttp://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/WaterVapor.htm
“Not only that but there has been no increase in temperatures for the last decade despite the increasing CO2. The models are all forecasting far higher figures the temperatures are even below the ‘business as normal’ figures that are modeled. SOMETHING IS WRONG with the AGW hypothesis.”
Climate models do not have the capability to predict ENSO indices, solar radiance variations, volcanoes, or changes in industrial pollution. It is no surprise that they cannot predict short term changes in climate with any accuracy. In the short term any forcing due to CO2 and natural feedbacks are smaller than these other influences on climate.
“The basic physics is fine but the ocean/atmosphere system is chaotic which means it will not behave in a linear way. It is becoming more apparent that as temperatures increase there is negative feedback. If you lived in the tropics you would be more aware of this.”
The temperature oscillations that took place during the ice ages show that positive feedback was at work. The small changes in insolation as a result of the Milankovitch cycles by themselves could never have caused the temperature changes that have been measured, or the changes in glaciation that occurred. Your claim of negative feedback is nonsense.
“So the AGW hypothesis is falsified. If you want to go to the Jo Nova site and provide incontrovertible evidence that AGW is happening – not that some parts of some of the physics is happening everyone knows that – but observational evidence of the AGW hypothesis in the chaotic climate system.. You won’t as no-one else has, because there isn’t any and all the predictions, forecasts, interpolations, projections have failed. .”
You and your fellow “skeptics” are simply ignoring or denying the evidence that scientists have provided.
Brian D Finch says: April 20, 2012 at 10:18 am
So, global warming will warm the poles, will it?
But what about the germans?
You have hit the nail on the head. The whole global warming thing is now just one huge comedy.
I was writing a letter today to a newspaper, and whereas a year ago I would be really concerned to get over facts, now I find my letters are just mocking them for holding such ridiculous views.
The biggest comedy is all the politicians who hitched themselves so enthusiastically, wholeheartedly and apparently iretrievably to the global warming bandwagon, who are just waking up to the fact it is a mass vote looser. They are like someone who has just woken up on the train, who has clearly just realised that the doors have shut tight … and this is/was their station.
It’s the way they both … try so hard to look as if nothing is wrong … whilst wildly looking around for a way out.
jaschrumpf says:
April 22, 2012 at 2:51 pm
” Eric Adler says:
April 22, 2012 at 1:57 pm
“There are two problems with your argument. Positive feedback does not imply a runaway condition. It implies amplification of forced excursions.. ”
Positive feedback does not imply a runaway condition if they give rise to negative feedbacks to stop them. What negative feedbacks does “AGW theory” posit to stop the runaway condition? In the CO2-forcing scenarios I’ve read at places like RealClimate, the story usually goes like this: “Something [unknown] causes CO2 to increase. This causes temperatures to rise. Something [unknown] causes CO2 to decrease. Temperatures fall again.””
The trigger for the glaciation and deglaciation is the Milankovitch cycle, i.e. wobble of the earth’s axis and precession of the major axis of the elliptical orbit. This changes the summer insolation in the northern hemisphere. The sequence of the last deglaciation has been recently studied in detail in a paper by Shakun.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7392/full/nature10915.html
I guess you are unfamiliar with the phenomenon of chemical equilibrium between a gas and the liquid solution containing the gas as a function of temperature. If the partial pressure increases above the equilibrium level, there is a tendency for the gas to go back into solution. In addition biological processes and weathering rocks tend to soak up CO2.
jaschrumpf says:
April 22, 2012 at 2:51 pm
” Eric Adler says:
April 22, 2012 at 1:57 pm
” The second problem in your argument is the implicit assumption that CO2 is the only variable that matters. In fact 100′s of millions of years ago, when CO2 levels were much higher than today, the solar radiance was substantially less. For the most part, to the best of our ability to measure proxies, we find that high CO2 concentrations and high temperatures were well correlated. ”
Yes, we find that when temps increase, the oceans give off their stored CO2 into the atmosphere. That much is clear.
How much less solar radiation would be required to keep a 2000ppm CO2 concentration from creating runaway greenhouse effects? In fact, what difference would solar irradiation make at all? If the CO2 traps the heat, then it should be just a matter of time before even a lower level of solar radiation raises the Earth’s temperature significantly. A 300F flame will boil water more slowly than a 400F flame will, but it will ultimately boil it.”
In fact we have estimates of how much solar radiance has increased, and models of the solar and CO2 forcing 300 Million years ago showing that eras of low forcing coincident with the large amounts of ice present on earth. Look at figure 2 on page 5668. (4 of 11) of the following paper on the Phanerozoic era:
http://droyer.web.wesleyan.edu/PhanCO2%28GCA%29.pdf
It’s funny how Warmists have shifted AWAY from global mean temps and onto…………….survey and opinion polls as well as weather events – which they told us was not the climate but just the weather. Might it have something to do with the temperature standstill? Heh, heh. 😉
Eric Adler says:
April 22, 2012 at 1:57 pm
For the most part, to the best of our ability to measure proxies, we find that high CO2 concentrations and high temperatures were well correlated.
True, but in the past, CO2 rose AFTER temperatures went up since warm ocean water dissolves less CO2 than cold water. See the following which shows carbon dioxide and methane and temperature on the same graph.
http://motls.blogspot.com/2006/07/carbon-dioxide-and-temperatures-ice.html
Note the spikes every 100,000 years or so. A perfectly natural explanation is Milankovitch cycles which causes warming and as a result of warming, the warmer oceans release all gases such as CO2 and CH4. Then when the cycle is in a cool phase, the oceans absorb these gases again to a greater degree.
But having said that, I DO agree that at present, humans are responsible for raising the CO2 from 280 ppm in 1750 to 390 ppm today. However its effect on temperature has been negligible over the last 10 to 15 years on any data set you wish to use. Even the brand new and improved Hadcrut4 has no warming for 11 years and 4 months. Here is how I arrived at that conclusion.
HADCRUT4 only goes to December 2010 so I had to be a bit creative. What I did was get the slope of HADCRUT3 from December 2000 to December 2010. Then I got the slope of HADCRUT3 from December 2000 to the present. The DIFFERENCE in slope was 0.00607 – 0.00165 = 0.00442 lower for the latter. The positive slope for HADCRUT4 was 0.00408. So IF HADCRUT4 were totally up to date, I conclude it would show no slope for at least 11 years and 4 months going back to December 2000. (It could be a month longer if the February anomaly for HADCRUT3 of 0.19 is ever officially published. On the basis of what GISS says about March, March would not change things either.) (By the way, doing the same thing with GISS gives the same conclusion.) See:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2000/to/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2000.9/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2000/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2000.9/to:2011/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2000.9/trend
Eric Adler says:
April 22, 2012 at 3:38 pm
“You and your fellow “skeptics” are simply ignoring or denying the evidence that scientists have provided.”
This is rich.
You’re confusing your causes with your effects. If [something] caused CO2 to rise, which caused Earth’s temperature to rise, but then the Milankovitch cycle causes temperature to drop… what makes the CO2 drop again? Since of course, it is not related to the Earth’s temperature, but a forcing of it.
Please don’t presume that I am unfamiliar with such basic chemical processes. I have a degree in geology, which required classes in chemistry and physics. The problem your statement demonstrates is that under global warming “theory” there are no negative feedbacks to stop the runaway greenhouse condition — at least, none that you’ve offered. When [something] causes CO2 to increase, raising the global temperatures and starting up all the positive feedbacks, and also reducing the ability of seawater to absorb CO2, then how does the influence of the Milankovich cycles cooling the planet cause the CO2 to drop?
Are you offering as explanation that the cooling brought about by the M-cycles drop the ocean temperatures enough for them to re-absorb the CO2, thus saving the planet from the greenhouse effect? Would this describe your model?: [something] raises atmospheric CO2. Temperatures rise. Positive feedbacks reinforce the effect, driving more CO2 out of the oceans and raising atmospheric water vapor. Then, before catastrophe can occur, the Milankovich cycles cool the earth again, overriding the effects of the greenhouse gases, and allowing the oceans to reabsorb the CO2 and the excess water vapor to fall out as precipitation, leading to new glaciers and another ice age?
jaschrumpf says:
April 22, 2012 at 4:23 pm
” Please don’t presume that I am unfamiliar with such basic chemical processes. I have a degree in geology, which required classes in chemistry and physics. The problem your statement demonstrates is that under global warming “theory” there are no negative feedbacks to stop the runaway greenhouse condition — at least, none that you’ve offered. When [something] causes CO2 to increase, raising the global temperatures and starting up all the positive feedbacks, and also reducing the ability of seawater to absorb CO2, then how does the influence of the Milankovich cycles cooling the planet cause the CO2 to drop?
Are you offering as explanation that the cooling brought about by the M-cycles drop the ocean temperatures enough for them to re-absorb the CO2, thus saving the planet from the greenhouse effect? Would this describe your model?: [something] raises atmospheric CO2. Temperatures rise. Positive feedbacks reinforce the effect, driving more CO2 out of the oceans and raising atmospheric water vapor. Then, before catastrophe can occur, the Milankovich cycles cool the earth again, overriding the effects of the greenhouse gases, and allowing the oceans to reabsorb the CO2 and the excess water vapor to fall out as precipitation, leading to new glaciers and another ice age?”
What you have forgotten about is that eventually a balance between incoming radiation and outgoing radiation establishes an equilibrium. When the temperature gets high enough, the energy radiated by the surface increases so much that the radiation escaping to space equals the incoming solar radiation, and no further temperature increase will occur. So no more CO2 will be emitted from the oceans and reduction in snow and ice cover ends. This is what limits the temperature increase.
Finally, as you stated, the temperature drops as the insolation goes away when the tilt toward the sun no longer is coincident with the northern hemisphere summer, causing an increase in snow cover which causes a further decrease in temperature causing absorption of CO2 etc. The feedback works in both directions. You ask if this is my model. It is not my model, it was developed by Arrhenius in 1896.
I did forget to address this point. The paper you reference makes some fascinating points regarding CO2 levels and ice ages, and solar radiance levels. I found this in the abstract to be very interesting:
Eric Adler says: @ April 22, 2012 at 1:57 pm
…There are two problems with your argument. Positive feedback does not imply a runaway condition. It implies amplification of forced excursions….
______________________________
ERRRRrrrr. I thought this was your (CAGW) cycle of positive feed back.
^CO2 causes ^temp -> increases in H2O evaporation -> ^temp -> increase ocean temp -> ^CO2 and the cycle repeats -> run away warming.
Willis E. (and my own observations) show as temperature increases from 90F to 100F thunderstorms form causing direct transport of heat to high altitudes. This causes cooling. A negative feed back effect.
But if you are agreeing that “Positive feedback does not imply a runaway condition.” Then there has to be another factor that kicks in (like tropical thunderstorms) that prevents run away warming. If that is the case what the heck is the problem?
Warmer is “wetter” (more evaporation) and warmer is better because plants love it, plants also love CO2 and it is a win win for farmers and for feeding an increasing population.
The real catastrophe waiting was the gradual reduction of CO2 to levels too low to support life. If the Ice Core CO2 measurements were correct, then the next glaciation with cooler water and more absorption of CO2 could have pulled the atmospheric CO2 below critical levels. The fact the earth has developed a couple alternate photosynthesis pathways in the “recent past” shows just how critical the problem was becoming. The earth was getting too darn close to the 200 ppm critical point (270 ppm). ..plants in environments with inadequate CO2 levels of below 200 ppm will generally cease to grow or produce.. Even without approaching 200 ppm, the low levels of CO2 were limiting the amount of CO2 converted into biomass. We now produce the same amount of wheat from three acres as we did from 5 acres a hundred years ago thanks to CO2 and fossil fuel based farming.
Just in case you missed it, there is a “new” addition to the Milankovitch cycles, the rate of change in the ice volume is the correct parameter to compare to the calculated insolation. (Nigel Calder had it correct back in 1974) http://earthweb.ess.washington.edu/roe/GerardWeb/Publications_files/Roe_Milankovitch_GRL06.pdf
David Ball says:
April 22, 2012 at 4:05 pm
“Eric Adler says:
April 22, 2012 at 3:38 pm
“You and your fellow “skeptics” are simply ignoring or denying the evidence that scientists have provided.”
This is rich.”
Earlier in this thread, you quoted a post by Tim Ball about Rossby waves, claiming they were the reason for the recent heat wave in the Eastern US and this had nothing to do with global warming. I pointed out that he is neglecting the work of Francis and Vavrus published on March 17 :
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2012GL051000.shtml
“Key Points
*Enhanced Arctic warming reduces poleward temperature gradient
* Weaker gradient affects waves in upper-level flow in two observable ways
* Both effects slow weather patterns, favoring extreme weather”
You ignored the link that I provided and the argument I made. How can ridicule my point about skeptics ignoring evidence? You should be embarrassed. I have learned not to expect an apology.
Werner Brozek says:
April 22, 2012 at 3:55 pm
“Eric Adler says:
April 22, 2012 at 1:57 pm
For the most part, to the best of our ability to measure proxies, we find that high CO2 concentrations and high temperatures were well correlated.
“True, but in the past, CO2 rose AFTER temperatures went up since warm ocean water dissolves less CO2 than cold water. See the following which shows carbon dioxide and methane and temperature on the same graph.
http://motls.blogspot.com/2006/07/carbon-dioxide-and-temperatures-ice.html
Note the spikes every 100,000 years or so. A perfectly natural explanation is Milankovitch cycles which causes warming and as a result of warming, the warmer oceans release all gases such as CO2 and CH4. Then when the cycle is in a cool phase, the oceans absorb these gases again to a greater degree.””
The problem with the graphs that you point to is that it is the Antarctic temperature is what is shown in the graphs. Recently global temperatures in the most recent deglaciation period have been extracted from proxies. It turns out that the Antarctic temperature increase leads the increase in average global temperature. When global temperatures are plotted versus CO2 increase is plotted, it becomes clear that CO2 increase can be responsible for the global temperature increase.
http://blogs.nature.com/from_the_lab_bench/communications/
“It was really simple science,” he said. “We said, we’ve got 80 records from around the world, let’s just slap them together, average them into a reconstruction of global temperature.” What a fabulous idea, for such “simple science”!
“What you see when you put them all together is a pattern of global warming at the end of the ice age that really strongly mirrors the rise in CO2 at the end of the ice age. Even more interesting, you find that the global temperature started warming a bit after the CO2 rose.” This is very different from the view that many people currently hold that temperature changed first during the last glacial melt. “That is true for Antartica, but if you look globally, that’s not the case,” Shakun said. “Global temperatures are following CO2.””
Your point about no warming in the last 11 years has no meaning in the context of the debate about global warming. Analysis of the data shows that the noise due the usual suspects will drown out a long term trend with a slope of 0.15C/decade. It is of no consequence which version of HADCRUT you decide to use.
Just what we need, another global warming alarmist’s Rorchach test, propagandizing people in the absence of scientific evidence.
…Measurements of the atmosphere show that water vapor has been increasing with increasing temperatures…..
_____________________
The correct tense is “WAS increasing” water vapor started declining in 2000 But Mauna Loa CO2 data shows a steady rise in CO2. Since the beginning of 2003, RSS has been dropping at 3.60C/century, UAH has been dropping at 2.84C/century, and GISS has been dropping at 0.96C/century, therefore temperature is also dropping.
Your “wiggle matching” of CO2 to H2O vapor and temperature no longer fits. Therefore your hypothesis of CO2 as the “Control Knob” is disproved.
Jan-Erik Solheim, Kjell Stordahl and Ole Humlum published a paper The long sunspot cycle 23 predicts a significant temperature decrease in cycle 24 Looks like they got it correct…. so far.
@ Eric Adler
The problem here is that you are not engaging your own brain – you are solely relying on others brains. I challenge you to drop all your preconceptions and do the math yourself. We will use round numbers to make it simpler
For example, a simple bounds test
Earth system observation suggests the earth is about 33 degrees warmer than it would be without an atmosphere – this includes the effects of all the GHGs as well as Nitrogen and Oxygen and all feedbacks. Given that CO2 is at 85% saturation, assume that CO2 drives the whole box and dice – ludicrous I know, but this is a bounds test. Calculate the maxmum effect on the climate if the remaining 15% of activity is included (the atmosphere becomes opaque at the CO2 wavelengths) ?
Noting, that your calculation above is making the implicit assuption that our atmosphere is now 100% CO2 at 1 atm – How does this compare with the IPCC worst case for a mere doubling ( 400PPM ) of CO2 rise, is the IPCC worst case scenario reasonable?
Or a simple extrapolation.
Take the temerature rise posited for the last 100 PPM of CO2 rise since the little ice age – you find a value dont trust me. Calculate the temperature rise for the next 100PPM and a doubling (400PPM) (noting than ln 0.75 = -0.28 ln 5/4 = 0.22 and Ln 2 is 0.69) hint 0.22/0.28 = 0.78 and 0.69/0.28=2.46 – You will need these ratios because Temperature responds to the natural logarithm of the CO2 rise.
Now, take a thought experiment.
Discount this value for the estimate that less than 100 percent of that warming was CO2 induced – Use your own percentage that you think is reasonable- well discuss it later
So, What worst case order of magnitude would you therefore expect A) the next 100PPM warming to deliver B) The next doubling (400 PPM warming) – Contrast this with the IPCCs worst case of 5 degrees C and the Australian Governments over 6 degrees C for the next 400PPM?
Now the IPCC has said that the next 2 degrees of warming is likely to be Nett beneficial to mankind, can you now estimate what that optimal CO2 level is and when that will be acheived using your estimate above
Go-on I challenge you – do the math, post it here and we can all take a look.
jaschrumpf says:
April 22, 2012 at 5:27 pm
You need to read more closely. The 6.8% or 23% increase in insolation does not represent the average over the entire year. It is the increase at the point of closest approach. The increase in solar radiation between the Phanerozoic times and the present does represent an average over the year. So you need a more detailed calculation than that which you have provided in order to compare the solar heating of the earth in the Phanerozoic and modern era.
Such mistakes are common in comments on blog posts. They are much rarer in peer reviewed publications. I expect that the scientists who wrote the paper knew enough to do such a calculation properly.
Eric Adler says:
“It turns out that the Antarctic temperature increase leads the increase in average global temperature. When global temperatures are plotted versus CO2 increase is plotted, it becomes clear that CO2 increase can be responsible for the global temperature increase.”
Wrong. Real world evidence shows that both hemispheres warmed and cooled together.
If it were not for citing grant-trolling papers based on models, you wouldn’t have much to say.
Gail Combs says:
April 22, 2012 at 5:42 pm
“Eric Adler says: @ April 22, 2012 at 1:57 pm
…There are two problems with your argument. Positive feedback does not imply a runaway condition. It implies amplification of forced excursions….
______________________________
ERRRRrrrr. I thought this was your (CAGW) cycle of positive feed back.
^CO2 causes ^temp -> increases in H2O evaporation -> ^temp -> increase ocean temp -> ^CO2 and the cycle repeats -> run away warming.”
The source of negative feedback is simple. As the earth warms, the increase in temperature causes in increase in radiation to outer space. When the outgoing radiation equals the incoming solar radiation absorbed by the earth atmosphere system, the temperature increase stops. This seems like such an obvious point, I didn’t think it needed to be mentioned, but I see I was wrong about that.
Eric Adler, you have the platitudes and talking points down pat, now how about backing it all up with data. Others seem to have been doing the work for you which you simply ignore and reply with more psychobabble. .
jaschrumpf says:
April 22, 2012 at 5:27 pm
…I did forget to address this point. The paper you reference makes some fascinating points regarding CO2 levels and ice ages, and solar radiance levels. I found this in the abstract to be very interesting:…
_____________________
Quite interesting indeed. Given all the hype I find it interesting how very level the temperature has been during the Holocene. Given man has been around for the entire time, about all you can say is the temperature has not varied as much as it did during previous interglacials. Kinda hard to tag us for disrupting the temperatures based on the Ice core data.
Greenland Ice Core
EPICA & Vostok Ice Cores
Eric Adler says:
“The source of negative feedback is simple. As the earth warms, the increase in temperature causes in increase in radiation to outer space. When the outgoing radiation equals the incoming solar radiation absorbed by the earth atmosphere system, the temperature increase stops. This seems like such an obvious point, I didn’t think it needed to be mentioned, but I see I was wrong about that.”
LOL, great point, that’s what skeptics have been saying for years:
http://www.masterresource.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/clip_image001_thumb1.jpg
Now, if you could just get that simple mechanism into the computer models.
I just discovered this truly troubling website, posted by Keith Farnish on Apr 15, 2012 #273
Hi Clyde, this is what some people are up to:
http://www.underminers.org
Nothing symbolic or conversational about it – real people doing real things (as opposed to, say, 350.org)
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/6599
don’t be disappointed if u don’t get published. it takes something really big to get the attention of the MSM:
22 April: UK Daily Mail: Katherine Faulkner: Why the cardboard in your loo roll is being slashed: Sainsbury’s trims size in bid to reduce environmental impact
Each roll will be 11 millimetres slimmer – 112mm instead of 123mm – while the number of sheets will remain as 240…
Sainsbury’s claims the move will avoid 500 annual lorry trips from suppliers to stores and save 140 tons of carbon dioxide…
It insists customers will not struggle to squeeze the new toilet rolls onto holders…
Miss Tucker said the change would give ‘an essential household product a lower carbon footprint.’ …
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2133643/Why-loo-roll-getting-smaller-Sainsburys-cuts-size-attempt-reduce-environmental-impact.html
Eric Adler says:
April 22, 2012 at 5:45 pm
“You ignored the link that I provided and the argument I made. How can ridicule my point about skeptics ignoring evidence? You should be embarrassed. I have learned not to expect an apology.”
Look back up the thread. You did not respond until the very end. Are thinking of a post you made to someone else? Did you even look at that paper or read Dr. Ball’s article? More importantly, do you understand what either article is saying? I am not the one who should be embarrassed. Another historical revisionist.
Connecting the dots: If I wanted America to fail
Eric Adler says:
April 22, 2012 at 6:09 pm
Your point about no warming in the last 11 years has no meaning in the context of the debate about global warming.
I agree with you only to a certain extent. To be truly meaningful, it should be longer, but on the other hand, I DO think it is long enough that I would want to wait and see what happens in the future before committing to spending trillions of dollars to capture carbon and the like. Eleven years of no warming certainly does not put me into a panic mode that something has to be done quickly.
P.S. Thank you Smokey!
Eric Adler says: @ April 22, 2012 at 6:41 pm
…..The source of negative feedback is simple. As the earth warms, the increase in temperature causes in increase in radiation to outer space. When the outgoing radiation equals the incoming solar radiation absorbed by the earth atmosphere system, the temperature increase stops. This seems like such an obvious point, I didn’t think it needed to be mentioned, but I see I was wrong about that.
________________________________
HUH? The incoming radiation and the outgoing radiation are going to be balanced. That goes without saying because of Kirchoff’s Law. Absorptivity and emissivity at all wavelengths must be equal at equilibrium and by conservation of energy it’s not possible at equilibrium to emit more than is absorbed. Before Kirchhoff’s law was even formulated, it was experimentally determined that a good absorber is a good emitter, and a poor absorber is a poor emitter. A temporary inbalance, yeah, long term NO!
By the way it is YOUR theory not mine that has an increase in CO2 increasing the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere and therefore causing “Runaway Global Warming” see Figure SPM.5 From IPCC 4th Assessment Report or CMIP5 Global Surface Temperature Anomaly Simulations Multi-Model Mean At Different Scenarios I do not see “the temperature increase stops” in those models.
Eric Adler says: @ April 22, 2012 at 6:41 pm
…..The source of negative feedback is simple. As the earth warms, the increase in temperature causes in increase in radiation to outer space. When the outgoing radiation equals the incoming solar radiation absorbed by the earth atmosphere system, the temperature increase stops. This seems like such an obvious point, I didn’t think it needed to be mentioned, but I see I was wrong about that.
___________________________________
By the way you do not mention a mechanism for the earth to dump the extra heat to outer space. It was I who mentioned thunderstorms.
As jaschrumpf says, Sagan’s “baloney detector” requires that “all of the links in a chain or argument have to work (including the premise) — not just most of them.” The CAGW argument chain seems to have links that are missing entirely…” I guess you just proved it since you gave a hand wave instead of an actual mechanism. And then you wonder why people are skeptical….
R. de Haan says: April 22, 2012 at 8:47 pm
“Connecting the dots: If I wanted America to fail”
An interesting video. Watch it and make up your own mind.
You may also want to read a history of the rise of eco-extremism, written by Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace.
http://www.greenspirit.com/key_issues/the_log.cfm?booknum=12&page=3
As your Canadian next-door neighbour, I do not want America to fail. I want America to succeed and prosper. In my previous career, I did my bit to help.
http://www.OilsandsExpert.com
I do not like conspiracy theories, and consider them with great reluctance. Nevertheless, I recently wrote this, based entirely on the evidence:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/13/warming-in-the-ushcn-is-mainly-an-artifact-of-adjustments/#comment-956136
[excerpt]
The CAGW scam is not, as many of us originally believed, the innocent errors of a close-knit team of highly dyslexic scientists.
The evidence from the ClimateGate emails and many other sources, and the intransigence of these global warming fraudsters when faced with the overwhelming failures of their scientific predictions, suggests much darker motives.
Why not write a letter which connects the most rediculously normal weather numbers and say that is proves there is climate change- e.g. 30 C summer max in Perth, 0C in Siberia, -30 C in Antarctica.
Gail Combs
April 22, 2012 at 6:29 pm
You claim water vapor and temperature have been declining for the past 10 years, and this shows that CO2 is not the temperature control knob claimed by climate scientists.
Your post if full of mistakes and misconceptions.
The noise in all the temperature graphs which start at 2003 is to great to ascribe a trend with any real confidence. The noise due to ENSO is likely to mask any trend as small as .15C/decade. Despite this fact, the “skeptics” constantly bring up these cherry picked short term graphs in an attempt to show that the global warming trend has ceased. When the influence of cyclical factors such as volcanoes, solar cycles and ENSO are removed from the temperature graph, a global warming trend reemerges. It is well known that the tropospheric satellite temperatures are more sensitive to ENSO than the surface temperature.
The title of the paper you referenced is :
“Stratospheric water vapor trends over Boulder, Colorado: Analysis of the 30 year Boulder record”
The water vapor data you are referring to is stratospheric water vapor, which has a different source from tropospheric water vapor.
It is difficult to measure a long term trend in global tropospheric water vapor content. Both balloon and satellite measurements are fraught with uncertainty. However there is a lot of data that confirms positive feedback due to water vapor as a function of temperature.
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2010/01/06/guest-post-by-andrew-dessler-on-the-water-vapor-feedback/
Allan MacRae says:
April 23, 2012 at 2:04 am
…..The CAGW scam is not, as many of us originally believed, the innocent errors of a close-knit team of highly dyslexic scientists.
The evidence from the ClimateGate emails and many other sources, and the intransigence of these global warming fraudsters when faced with the overwhelming failures of their scientific predictions, suggests much darker motives.
___________________________________
I have no doubt that science is not the motive of Phil Jones, Mann, Hansen and Eric Adler. One wonders where they think the (tax) money and lavish live style will be coming from when the entire world is impoverished by the United Nations and Agenda 21. The actual rulers will not want to share what goods are left or the political power There is certainly a history of turning on the Intelligentsia once the revolution is complete. People like Jones, Mann and Hansen have already shown they are traitors willing to undermine the present government, no ruler is going to want them at their back.
Gail Combs says:
April 23, 2012 at 12:57 am
“Eric Adler says: @ April 22, 2012 at 6:41 pm
…..The source of negative feedback is simple. As the earth warms, the increase in temperature causes in increase in radiation to outer space. When the outgoing radiation equals the incoming solar radiation absorbed by the earth atmosphere system, the temperature increase stops. This seems like such an obvious point, I didn’t think it needed to be mentioned, but I see I was wrong about that.
________________________________
HUH? The incoming radiation and the outgoing radiation are going to be balanced. That goes without saying because of Kirchoff’s Law. Absorptivity and emissivity at all wavelengths must be equal at equilibrium and by conservation of energy it’s not possible at equilibrium to emit more than is absorbed. Before Kirchhoff’s law was even formulated, it was experimentally determined that a good absorber is a good emitter, and a poor absorber is a poor emitter. A temporary inbalance, yeah, long term NO!”
Make up your mind. You previously claimed that the climate models predicted runaway warming due to positive feedback. After I pointed out that as the earth atmosphere system gets rid of its heat by radiation and the rate of radiation increases with temperature, there cannot be a runaway phenomenon. So now you admit that a runaway phenomenon is not intrinsic. But in the next paragraph, you say:
“By the way it is YOUR theory not mine that has an increase in CO2 increasing the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere and therefore causing “Runaway Global Warming” see Figure SPM.5 From IPCC 4th Assessment Report or CMIP5 Global Surface Temperature Anomaly Simulations Multi-Model Mean At Different Scenarios I do not see “the temperature increase stops” in those models.”
You are showing your ignorance of this subject. The graphs to which you link do not show a long enough time period to see the stabilization of temperature. Check out the graph on page 2 of this paper in the PNAS by Susan Solomon.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/01/28/0812721106.full.pdf+html
John West says:
April 22, 2012 at 7:42 pm
“Eric Adler says:
“The source of negative feedback is simple. As the earth warms, the increase in temperature causes in increase in radiation to outer space. When the outgoing radiation equals the incoming solar radiation absorbed by the earth atmosphere system, the temperature increase stops. This seems like such an obvious point, I didn’t think it needed to be mentioned, but I see I was wrong about that.”
LOL, great point, that’s what skeptics have been saying for years:
http://www.masterresource.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/clip_image001_thumb1.jpg
Now, if you could just get that simple mechanism into the computer models.”
Just what mechanism is that collection of graphs supposed to illustrate? What is it that the skeptics have been saying for years? The “skeptic” claim I was addressing is that
is that positive feedback inherently involves a runaway of temperature and CO2. I would be happy if all “skeptics” including yourself, and Gail Combs would stop making that claim.
Check the graph on page 2 of this paper, to see what happens to global temperatures after CO2 emissions stop according to climate models.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/01/28/0812721106.full.pdf+html
Eric Adler says: April 23, 2012 at 6:20 am
ENSO cyles average 5 years, yet temperatures have been level for three times as long as that. So the claim by “scientists” that this is masking the smaller CO2 effect is simply ludicrous.
When the influence of cyclical factors such as volcanoes, solar cycles and ENSO are removed from the temperature graph, a global warming trend reemerges.
A vaccuous claim, no one has yet managed to isolate the natural forcings. If they had, the debate would have long been over. Yet more propaganda from poltically paid “scientists”.
David Ball says:
April 22, 2012 at 8:40 pm
“Eric Adler says:
April 22, 2012 at 5:45 pm
“You ignored the link that I provided and the argument I made. How can ridicule my point about skeptics ignoring evidence? You should be embarrassed. I have learned not to expect an apology.”
Look back up the thread. You did not respond until the very end. Are thinking of a post you made to someone else? Did you even look at that paper or read Dr. Ball’s article? More importantly, do you understand what either article is saying? I am not the one who should be embarrassed. Another historical revisionist.”
I am not going to get into the personalities and conspiracy theories that are discussed in Tim Ball’s articlce to which you linked. The main scientific point that Tim Ball made was:
“Borenstein’s article appears to confirm the lack of understanding of climate mechanisms of the severe weather predictions. Warm weather over the eastern part of North America resulted from increased amplitude of the Rossby Waves. Deeper north/south Waves resulted in blocking so the warm conditions persisted through the second half of the winter over eastern North America. A diagram illustrates the position of Rossby Wave for winter 2011/2012.”
I pointed out that recent research, which Tim Ball is either unaware of, or is ignoring, shows that the blocking phenomenon is a result of the warming of the Arctic which weakens the jet stream and causes systems to stall, resulting in extreme weather. So the weather we have been having is actually connected to global warming. The post in which I first pointed this out is :
“Eric Adler says:
April 21, 2012 at 10:28 am
Unfortunately, Anthony Watts is not up on the latest understanding of the relationship between global warming and the trend of weird weather. Here is the emerging understanding of what is going on:
http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2012/04/videos-probe-climate-changeextreme-weather-puzzles/
”
This is before your post appeared.
“Punksta says:
April 23, 2012 at 7:19 am
“ENSO cyles average 5 years, yet temperatures have been level for three times as long as that. So the claim by “scientists” that this is masking the smaller CO2 effect is simply ludicrous.”
Enso cycles are not regular. Temperature variations in a single year due to ENSO can be as high as 0.5C. This can easily mask a trend of 0.15C per decade.
When the influence of cyclical factors such as volcanoes, solar cycles and ENSO are removed from the temperature graph, a global warming trend reemerges.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/the-real-global-warming-signal/
“A vaccuous claim, noone has yet managed to isolate the natural forcings. If they had, the debate would have long been over. Yet more propaganda from poltically paid “scientists”.”
The correlation between ENSO and global temperature is clear. The index is a measure of ENSO. Your statement is just hot air.
[Moderator’s Note: Eric, your posts contain far too many derogatory, insulting remarks directed at other commenters. Just state your case. -REP]
Gail Combs says:
April 23, 2012 at 6:29 am
“I have no doubt that science is not the motive of Phil Jones, Mann, Hansen and Eric Adler. One wonders where they think the (tax) money and lavish live style will be coming from when the entire world is impoverished by the United Nations and Agenda 21. The actual rulers will not want to share what goods are left or the political power There is certainly a history of turning on the Intelligentsia once the revolution is complete. People like Jones, Mann and Hansen have already shown they are traitors willing to undermine the present government, no ruler is going to want them at their back.”
You have just made clear why your understanding of the science is all screwed up. Your motivation for posting has nothing to do with science. You have a belief in a conspiracy theory.
Scientists want to take away our freedom! To advance the course of freedom, it is fair to use any pseudo scientific argument, not matter how wrong and foolish. The political stakes are so high.
So tell us, how far back does it go? The thery of global warming due to CO2 has a long history. Tyndall, did his work on trace gases in 1859, Arrhenius published his Climate Sensitivity Paper in 1896. Plass published his one dimensional computer simulations of heat transfer in the 50’s. Manabe published his climate model in the early ’70’s. Keeling established the Mauna Loa lab in 1958. Are any or all these scientists part of a conspiracy and political hacks?
Eric
That ENSO cycles are not regular makes no difference to the noise argument. They AVERAGE is five years, and the temp plateau is three times as long as that.
But if that’s too short a period for you, is there any length of time of non-increase that would cause you to reconsider your CAGW faith, or would you cling to it no matter what ?
As to your claim of hot air : if natural variation was reliably accounted for, there would be no argument at all. But it very obviously isn’t accounted for yet, hence the failure of models to predict eg the current plateau, and the ongoing debate and research on CAGW.
Punksta,
“..if natural variation was reliably accounted for, there would be no argument at all. But it very obviously isn’t accounted for yet, hence the failure of models to predict eg the current plateau, and the ongoing debate and research on CAGW.”
We have indices for ENSO, solar cycle. and the volcanic aerosals versus time. Regression has been used to determine their influence on global temperatures. The mechanisms by which these phenomena influence temperature are understood. This is a legitimate scientific procedure. The article was published in a respectable peer reviewed journal. For these reasons, your claim that natural variation was not accounted for is hot air.
“Conspiracy” is a tired old strawman. The real issue is much more straightgforward.
– CAGW thinking is funded by government, which outspends by many orders magnitude, everyone else in climate science put together
– Government stands to massively benefit from an acceptance of CAGW, since it justifies more taxes, more bureraucracies, a generally more totalitarian society
It’s more about vested interest – an exact parallel being when science funded by tobacco companies pronounced smoking to be perfectly healthy. In both cases, funding decisions are made on the basis of what will most serve the funder’s interest, ad they pick the projects and peolple that will best advance their cause. This is what is behind the rampant dishonesty and breakdown of the science process revealed in the Climategates.
You continue to duck the point : if natural variation had been accounted for, models would have been able to predict the current plateau. They could not.
Your claim of hot air is thus itself just hot air.
Punksta has it exactly right. That’s why Eric Adler’s head is about to explode.☺
I really wonder if Adler actually believes only he is right, and everyone else is wrong?
Punksta says:
April 23, 2012 at 9:30 am
“Conspiracy” is a tired old strawman. The real issue is much more straightgforward.
– CAGW thinking is funded by government, which outspends by many orders magnitude, everyone else in climate science put together
– Government stands to massively benefit from an acceptance of CAGW, since it justifies more taxes, more bureraucracies, a generally more totalitarian society
It’s more about vested interest – an exact parallel being when science funded by tobacco companies pronounced smoking to be perfectly healthy. In both cases, funding decisions are made on the basis of what will most serve the funder’s interest, ad they pick the projects and peolple that will best advance their cause. This is what is behind the rampant dishonesty and breakdown of the science process revealed in the Climategates.”
Most scientists who do the research are employed at universities where they have tenure. In addition, grants are given based on research proposals, not on the basis of specific results. In addition a lot of the research on climate scientists in the US took place under Republican administrations which have pushed the idea of SMALLER government. There is little evidence to back your conspiracy theory that scientists are taking a position to please “government”.
A conspiracy theory is used by AGW “skeptics” when scientific arguments are failing.
There have been a lot of politically oriented posts on this thread, which I haven’t joined. It is the science that interests me the most.
I haven’t felt the need to talk about oil money, right wing think tanks funded to oppose regulation of every sort, including tobacco smoke, acid rain, and other environmental concerns. In fact it has been well documented that the opposition to the idea of AGW does come from scientists and pseudo scientists who are funded by these organizations. In fact, most people engaged in this discussion are not paid to take a specific postion on AGW, and that includes scientists.
Punksta,
“You continue to duck the point : if natural variation had been accounted for, models would have been able to predict the current plateau. They could not.
Your claim of hot air is thus itself just hot air.”
More hot air. An empirical fit which accounts for natural variation in data, is different from a climate models. It appears that you don’t understand the difference.
Smokey says:
April 23, 2012 at 9:39 am
“Punksta has it exactly right. That’s why Eric Adler’s head is about to explode.☺
I really wonder if Adler actually believes only he is right, and everyone else is wrong?”
ONLY he? I am quoting research by climate scientists. It is you so called “skeptic” bloggers who get your information on this web site who need to rethink your position.
REPLY: Careful Eric, take aspirin before you read this: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/23/breaking-james-lovelock-back-down-on-climate-alarm/
Most scientists who do the research are employed at universities where they have tenure.
And universities are state-funded, which means they need to advance the interests of the state, and please the bureaucrats that dispense the money. It is no accident that the average ideological orientation of state-funded university personnel is decidedly more totalitarian/left than the population in general. Hence the popularity of CAGW.
In addition, grants are given based on research proposals, not on the basis of specific results.
Laughable nonsense. If you want government grant money, your best bet is to toe the pro-government line, ie feed the current paradigm.
In addition a lot of the research on climate scientists in the US took place under Republican administrations which have pushed the idea of SMALLER government.
Marginally smaller, at best. As noted, university academics and are notably more fascist (most vote Democrat) than the population in general – ie they want a less free society, one with more taxes and government control of society.
There is little evidence to back your conspiracy theory that scientists are taking a position to please “government”.
There is little evidence for your notion that that many skeptics anyone hold a conspiracy theory. As you keep ignoring, this conspiracy notion is purely a strawman dreamed up by intellectually bankrupt, ideologically precommitted alarmists. Most skeptics recognise it’s about vested interest and a confluence of interests – the state gets to fatten itself, and grant-farming scientists, who are anyway mostly of a more totalitarian orientation, grease their careers on our tax money.
So actually, the only person with a conspiracy here is you. You seem to think there is some secret pact whereby govenment-funded “scientists” can somehow get away with acting without regards to their paymaster’s interests. A sort of ‘angelic’ conspiracy. Whereas in reality we know from Climateagte etc that the “scientists” like Mann, Jones, etc, lie and cheat virtually without limit to push their advocacy.
There have been a lot of politically oriented posts on this thread, which I haven’t joined. It is the science that interests me the most.
Yes, you want to bury your head in the sand as regards the political control over science, pretend it’s objective. Pretend that hiding data, hiding declines, manipulating peer-review, etc etc, doesn’t matter. Pretend that the process of science has not been broken by political control.
As regards money, the (tax) spent advancing alarmism (basically on all the universities etc) outranks that spent on scepticism by a factor of thousands.
[snip. You cannot label others deniers here. Read the site Policy. ~dbs, mod.]
An empirical fit which accounts for natural variation in data, is different from a climate models. It appears that you don’t understand the difference.
It appears you don’t understand that if natural variation had been accounted for, as you claim, there would be no mystery as regards the CO2 effect, and for the same reason the models would cease being so completely useless, mere propaganda constructs.
My Earth Day letter to the editor….
I fell through the rabbit hole, into the world of climate change, several years ago after reading an English newspaper account about scientists at the University of East Anglia refusing to allow another to share their data and attempt to recreate their computer models predicting that the world was going to a climate hell in a hand basket.
I didn’t understand anything about the science itself, but I was indignant that supposed scientists would be secretive, refuse to share, to allow others to hone and improve upon their work.
What’s evangelical about global warming, Rev. Waldrop asked in Saturday’s paper. Everything. Global warming (or the new meme “climate change” because, you see, the world stopped warming a decade ago) is a scientific fraud. There is no there there. Billions of dollars are being spent by governments all over the globe to conduct fraudulent research – research only to further confirm the crisis or to study mitigation. There are hardly two research pennies being spent to challenge the thesis: man is rapidly destroying the planet; CO2 emissions are the problem; we can fix it.
Not one of those assumptions is predicated upon any repeatable, quality, observational science. It is all a function of tweaked computer models predicting disaster into the future, but, worse: the models are unable to replicate the weather and the climate we’ve already lived.
Of course we should be good stewards of the earth. But that has little to do with creating a new commodity market (beyond stocks and bonds and pork bellies and wheat futures) for the likes of Goldman Sachs, trading carbon chits around the world: you “pollute” (are all the living things emitting carbon dioxide really evil “polluters?”) less and sell your carbon token to someone in China who, then, gets to “pollute” more. And, big banking gets the commission. Is this your vision of the earth’s future?
I have no doubt that many, inside the maelstrom of the research, have come to believe themselves, but, sadly, it makes it no less fraud. No one – yep, no one – within the official climate science community will debate or publicly challenge anyone skeptical of their work. They wail and moan, sign groupthink letters confirming that “the science is settled,” but they will not engage.
Come on in, people; the water’s fine! You don’t need a degree in physics to understand what’s happening in “official climate science.” The Climategate correspondence is a hoot of idiotic arrogance. The wonderful Harry_ReadMe file written by the frustrated computer programmer – working for years to make sense out of computer code that crashed without error messages, working to make consistent data from an array of different sources (only to be told none of it mattered because “they” knew what the answer was, what “they” wanted) is the showcase of sloppy science. You can read about NOAA surface temperature stations located, all over the country, beside commercial air conditioners or in the path of jet engine exhaust. Would NOAA, a biggie, grown up and important government agency, do that? Yesh.
The global warming science and advocacy community is perpetuating an international fraud many times larger and more complex than the Lysenkso fraud which held the Soviet Union in thrall from the 1930’s into the 1950’s.
Just last month, Dr. Peter Gleick, head of the Pacific Institute and chair of the AGU’s scientific ethics committee, declined to participate in a Heartland Institute conference on climate science, but, the same day, Gleick posed as a Heartland board member who had “misplaced” board documents and tricked a Heartland employee into sending the proprietary material to him. When what he got wasn’t sufficiently damning in his estimation, he wrote, or had written (sleuths contend the writing style is Gleick’s), an overview memo, contending among other things, that the Heartland Institute was trying to intimidate high school science teachers into not teaching science! About Gleick’s memo, the Atlantic Monthly opined: “It reads like it was written from the secret villain lair in a Batman comic. By an intern.”
Gleick has resigned from the AGU science ethics committee and has stepped down, temporarily, as prez of the Pacific Institute, but he’s lecturing at Oxford University this week. (Is this too funny? I am not making this up.)
The good news is that the curtain has been whisked back and the fraud exposed. More important, the blogosphere is awash is in smart, thoughtful folk who care both about the climate and honest science.
Please see for yourself: my favorite sites are WattsUpWithThat.com and JudithCurry.com.
WattsUp was created by a brilliant former meteorologist and tv weather man (who is also deaf), Anthony Watts. Judith Curry’s site is pretty new. She is head of Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech and is almost the only mainstream scientist to debate and engage outside the hallowed walls of academe. For over a year after she began her on-line interactive discussion, folk in “The Community” issued a career fatwa, but, somehow, she survived. (I think she’s tenured. And gutsy.)
Bill McKibbon, author of Rev. Waldrop’s book review, “hangs out” at Joe Romm’s site, the Climate part of ThinkProgress.org, a funded blog, with paid staffers. The Climate part of ThinkProgress has a very focused, mostly virtual-high-fives, comments section. They have a low tolerance for questions or dissent. Because I asked questions that were too challenging, I’ve been banned completely: straight into the spam. (None of the blogs pushing catastrophic climate change with which I’m familiar tolerate questions, genuine interaction. The discussions at WattsUp and JudithCurry, however, are wide-ranging and thought-provoking. You can learn, play “fly on the wall” there.)
I can’t finish this letter without a mention of Steve McIntyre, a retired Canadian mining engineer. Over a decade ago, McIntyre saw a graph of global warming catastrophe that looked suspicious to him. Being curious, he wrote for information, for data. Denied. He wrote formal FOIA requests for the data. Also, denied. McIntyre, a soft-spoken, gentle, respectful — but persistent – (and quite brilliant) man, kept writing. For years. McIntyre’s gentle persistence precipitated Climategate and the fraud of contemporary climate science. McIntyre crashed the walls of science fraud. McIntyre’s story is too long for this letter, but his name will be written in bright lights one hundred years from now, and beyond, in the annals of the greats in science. (McIntyre’s website is ClimateAudit.org, but, mostly, it’s much too technical for me.)
(Anthony Watts and Judith Curry and Steve McIntyre maintain their sites as a labour of love. ThinkProgress has big bucks funding.)
Come on in, folk! Earth Day’s coming up. Take care of the earth. Take care, and be respectful, of all its creatures (including man). But, don’t be stupid.
….Lady in Red