Image Credit: Climate4You.com
From The Telegraph – By London Mayor Boris Johnson
“The Sun is god!” cried JMW Turner as he died, and plenty of other people have thought there was much in his analysis. The Aztecs agreed, and so did the pharaohs of Egypt. We are an arrogant lot these days, and we tend to underestimate the importance of our governor and creator.
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As a species, we human beings have become so blind with conceit and self-love that we genuinely believe that the fate of the planet is in our hands — when the reality is that everything, or almost everything, depends on the behaviour and caprice of the gigantic thermonuclear fireball around which we revolve.
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I remember snow that used to come and settle for just long enough for a single decent snowball fight before turning to slush; I don’t remember winters like this. Two days ago I was cycling through Trafalgar Square and saw icicles on the traffic lights; and though I am sure plenty of readers will say I am just unobservant, I don’t think I have seen that before. I am all for theories about climate change, and would not for a moment dispute the wisdom or good intentions of the vast majority of scientists.
But I am also an empiricist; and I observe that something appears to be up with our winter weather, and to call it “warming” is obviously to strain the language. I see from the BBC website that there are scientists who say that “global warming” is indeed the cause of the cold and snowy winters we seem to be having. A team of Americans and Chinese experts have postulated that the melting of the Arctic ice means that the whole North Atlantic is being chilled as the floes start to break off — like a Martini refrigerated by ice cubes.
I do not have the expertise to comment on the Martini theory; I merely observe that there are at least some other reputable scientists who say that it is complete tosh, or at least that there is no evidence to support it. We are expecting the snow and cold to go on for several days, and though London transport has coped very well so far, with few delays or cancellations, I can’t help brooding on my own amateur meteorological observations. I wish I knew more about what is going on, and why. It is time to consult once again the learned astrophysicist, Piers Corbyn.
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When the solar acne diminishes, it seems that the Earth gets colder. No one contests that when the planet palpably cooled from 1645 to 1715 — the Maunder minimum, which saw the freezing of the Thames — there was a diminution of solar activity. The same point is made about the so-called Dalton minimum, from 1790 to 1830. And it is the view of Piers Corbyn that we are now seeing exactly the same phenomenon today.
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I am speaking only as a layman who observes that there is plenty of snow in our winters these days, and who wonders whether it might be time for government to start taking seriously the possibility — however remote — that Corbyn is right. If he is, that will have big implications for agriculture, tourism, transport, aviation policy and the economy as a whole. Of course it still seems a bit nuts to talk of the encroachment of a mini ice age.
But it doesn’t seem as nuts as it did five years ago. I look at the snowy waste outside, and I have an open mind.
Not saying anything about the accuracy of the content of the article, but it is certainly interesting that it was written by London Mayor and eventual Prime Minister hopeful Boris Johnson. The Guardian certainly isn’t amused.
The Guardian is never amused. Like all those on the left.
The Guardian may not be amused, but most of the comments there are quite amusing!
He’s an odd character, our Boris. I find it impossible to dislike him, even though I feel I ought to.
There is also something of a ‘George Dubya’ about him: An ability to consistently beat low expectations.
Classic! I just saw that on Drudge and was going to Facebook it and of course WUWT beat me to it. I think I will start saying The Beast from the East” is Global Warming’s middle name.
Johnson, (no relation I hasten to add), is one of the few politicians we have who actually seems to have a mind of his own and does at least appear to think for himself
It’s good to see Boris thinking about this and open to views that aren’t so warming. It’s hard for any politician to take sides in an issue that is so contentious, but more seem to be tiptoeing around the edge to see if it’s safe to wade deeper in and away from the Greenie so-called consensus. Good on him, I hope he makes PM.
Yes, a great many climate myopics could stand to visit their climoptometrist to extend their “vision”. What seemingly few people seem to recognize is the occurrence of another “mini ice age” might not actually be long-sighted enough. The Holocene is now half-aprecessional cycle old and change. Five of the last 6 interglacials have each lasted about half a precession cycle.
The possibility therefore exists that we could be at a climate junction often described these days as a tipping-point. Tipping the Holocene into extending itself with GHGs is perceived as a horror by many. Naturally tipping the Holocene into the next ice age, however, might bring great benefit to society by selecting-out those with climate myopia as well as other intellectual ailments.
The Guardian is one of the last bastions of ‘the science is settled’.
As science is NEVER settled, since it can never be proven, only disproven, one might ask if they understand the fundamental basis of science, which most certainly doesn’t comprise of ‘ask a few Professors what they think and spend 20 years promulgating their opinions as FACTS, without considering the cost implications of their expostulations, the link between scientist prosperity and scientist theory and the correlation between the simplicity of their theories and the complexity of the systems they study”.
Let us be absolutely clear: those scientists on record as saying that solar and oceanic factors are overwhelmed by carbon dioxide must lose positions, funding and respect if they try to gain future funding misappropriating the long-held convictions of skeptics whose integrity they have impugned for many years.
They made their bed, now they must lie in it.
Their bed is the seventy two virgin version of climate science, with carbon dioxide the key driver of it.
Oceanic modulations is not their creed and nor are SSWs caused by CMEs, X-flares etc etc. Solar output is not important according to them after all.
If they try to say that they are, fire them!!!!
According to GISS, December 2012 was the coldest in the northern hemisphere since December 2000.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/NH.Ts+dSST.txt
The minutia of CO2 and solar variation is apparently endlessly fascinating to many people who consider the elephant in the chair beside them boring stuff indeed.
It took the hide-bound Royal Navy40 years to adopt the (obviously useful) Beaufort Scale for determining the rigging of ships sails in gales of different strengths. But adopt it they eventually did. I truly hope Piers receives his due recognition before his tomb freezes over with a mile of ice.
Well said Boris, thanks for paying attention! And thanks for being better-read than average. We live in a changing world.
You’re lucky he just wrote in English – as a Torygraph columnist he generally regales us in Latin at some point. Perhaps “Sub sole nihil novi est” (there’s nothing new under the sun) might have been apt, or “et sceleratis sol oritur” (the sun even shines on the wicked) :-’)
According to Dr David Parker of the CRU….”snowfall will be a rare and exciting event”….the UK has weeks of rejoicing ahead ! ! !
Maybe OT, but I wish we could get the tab, or whatever it is called, back, to send things on by e-mail, and that used to appear at the bottom of every post so that we could forward it.
As a technodinosaur I now find it difficult to make others aware of information like that contained above. (I see that spellchecker does not like “technodinosaur”.)
I’ve never seen that gisp2 graph before, how reputable is it and why does no one talk about the very obvious cooling trend for the last few thousand years? There can be no argument about the statistical significance of that time period ….
A last someone is looking at what is really happening in the real world
Boris knows from Piers that Climate Alchemy has made a Big Mistake. It originated from Schwarzchild’s 1906 paper used to justify the Aarhenius ‘GHG blanket’. Houghton used this flawed thinking to claim you can have opposing streams of IR energy and that the heat from each is additive.
This breaches Maxwell’s Equations, specifically Poynting’s Theorem which states that the vectors can only add vectorially so the power of opposing wave fronts is subtractive not additive. Hansen et al picked up Houghton’s work in 1981. The result of this is vastly exaggerated warming via the water cycle, the imaginary positive feedback.
So, we are now seeing the result of the natural experiment that proves Houghton and Hansen got it wrong. There is virtually no CO2-AGW, some warming from water vapour side bands only.
At least the Mayor admits that he is a fairly ignorant layperson who does not read or understand the science. This post shows two graphs. Were they posted from the Mayor’s speech? The source of the graphs is something called “Climate4your.com. If I go to that web site will I find a peer-reviewed source, or are the graphs just something made up by the people who run the web site?
REPLY: Crimony Bill, you are an academic for a major university, with far better access to journals and data than we have. Do the work research yourself instead of whining about it – Anthony
“It really feels like the start of a mini ice age.”
I have no first hand knowledge of what the start of a mini ice age feels like. Brian Fagan has some interesting comments in his books, I would give more weight to his selection than to one of the new offerings.
Many of Fagan’s finds pertain to rain and crop failures, e.g. from “The Little Ice Age:”
It would take some effort to translate that into 21st century issues in a world where I can eat fresh asparagus every day of the year. Grey and raw seems to come through in many of the quotes Fagan found.
“The Guardian certainly isn’t amused.
Q: How many leftists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: That’s not funny!
I’ve got to say, as a life-long socialist, Boris Johnson is about the only hope the torys have of ever getting my vote. Buffoon? Maybe (on the face of it). Right wing? Naturally – what else would he be with his background!
But he’s also far more intelligent than most others in British politics – he can at least string a coherent argument together to support his opinions without resorting to insults. He also appears to possess a social conscience, which is something that the best of the Right always had before that dreadful woman appeared with her mantra of everyone for themselves / Screw Thy Neighbour.
I suspect lot of others in the UK feel the same way so, if he starts muttering doubts, expect the muttering to get louder.
Whatever the merits of Boris Johnson’s reflections, it is true what you say about the Guardian not being amused.
The Guardian is a left wing newspaper (nothing wrong with that) which prides itself on its website with a comment section called ‘Comment is Free’. Whilst comment may be free, free speech certainly isn’t as far the Guardian is concerned. In common with all left wing ideologues it cannot entertain differences of opinion. If you look at their comment section on ‘Comment is Free’ you will see that every commentator agrees with them. Wow – what perfection!
There are of course some mysterious entries which simply say
Which is to say, you agreed with Boris Johnson and not us – Not allowed!
Of course, it is always easy to give the impression of ‘consensus’ when all opposing views are deleted.
You want peer review, I’ll give you peer review. 😉
Forgive me if I don’t go down on bended knees over peer review.
Jimbo, you are entirely correct in pointing out that peer-review has not only been discredited but never was intended to hallmark a position.
It’s not just the UK shivering, but Europe.
“Snow covers Europe”
http://www.news24.com/Multimedia/World/Snow-covers-Europe-20130121-2