I have been invited to give a presentation at the International Climate Change Conference in New York City today. My presentation is titled:
A Hands-On Study of Station Siting and Data Quality Issues for the United States Historical Climatology Network
It will be a much updated version of the presentation I gave at Dr. Roger Pielke’s conference in August 2007 at UCAR.
Sunday night was opening registration and a welcome reception. There are over 500 attendees, and nearly 100 presentations being given.
I was surprised to learn that Al Gore had been offered an opportunity to address this conference, and his usual $200,000 speaking fee and expenses were met, but that he declined.
I also know that invitations went out to NASA GISS principal scientists Dr. James Hansen, and Dr. Gavin Schmidt weeks ago as evidenced by their writeup of the issue on their blog, RealClimate.org a week or so ago.
They have declined the formal invitation sent, even though it would be easy for them to attend, given that NASA GISS is located just a few blocks away at Columbia University.
Since recent polls indicate that about 50% of Americans remain unconvinced that global warming is a serious issue, it would seem this would be a perfect place for Mr. Gore, Dr. James Hansen, and Dr. Gavin Schmidt to bridge the crevasse.
I am truly disappointed that Mr. Gore in particular has chosen to ignore that half of the population, and this conference that speaks to that half. Therefore I hope Dr. Hansen, and Dr. Schmidt will reconsider and walk the few blocks or hop a taxi to attend.
I will be the first to welcome them, I’ll even pick up cab fare. This is not a hostile group here, but one with questions and ideas. I know it is often difficult to face opposing views, but I think the importance attached to the issue calls for statesmen like Gore and leading scientists like Hansen to make an effort to address those who want to look beyond what is seen published in the main stream media.
UPDATE: Several people have asked to see the slide show that I presented at the ICCC on Monday. I have uploaded it to my server and you can see it here. Click on the first title slide to start, then see the arrow controls to advance etc.
I’d be especially interested in Gavin Schmidt’s take on the spotless sun.
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Anthony,
Perhaps Al Gore could not make the NY meeting because he was presenting his views on climate change at the TED conference.
http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/03/al-gore-makes-i.html
I think the TED group needs to schedule a counterpoint next year. By this time next year we may have further evidence that the world is not is a doomsday situation like Al likes to project nor is it getting hotter.
By the way, TED does not pay for its presenters so he did it for free.
“I was surprised to learn that Al Gore had been offered an opportunity to address this conference, and his usual $200,000 speaking fee and expenses were met, but that he declined.”
No surprise there – he’s a politician, and his only interest is in pushing AGW/AGCC propaganda. Beside’s, “the debate is over”, as far as he’s concerned.
“I also know that invitations went out to NASA GISS principal scientists Dr. James Hansen, and Dr. Gavin Schmidt as evidenced by their writeup of the issue on their blog, RealClimate.org
They have also declined, even though it would be easy for them to attend, given that NASA GISS is located just a few blocks away at Columbia University.”
No surprise there, either. They won’t show, because they know all they have is their C02 propaganda, not science.
It’s good to welcome them, though, because it shows what hypocrites and moral cowards they are when they don’t show up.
“Since recent polls indicate that about 50% of Americans remain unconvinced that global warming is a serious issue”
You’re lucky. In europe almost everybody believes in the hype of global warming. If you dare to show any doubts, you’re seen as a revisionist and selfish person. Al-Gore is seen as an hero, here. Every policitians are talking about making new green taxes.
I am sorry they declined to attend. I guess if you feel that you have a captive audience and don’t have to prove your position you don’t have to speak to the public that is unsure of your position. I just wonder if they ever look at the new data and studies that are begining to emerge. Hansen and Schmidt have wonderful minds and should be open to new ideas at any time.
Bill
I wonder why the whole of the climate change science isn’t conducted under the auspices “open science”.
Jerry, thanks for the link to the Wired piece. It is a very good update on where Al Gore is going. In the last paragraph, he is quoted saying this much:
“I think we ought to approach this challenge with a sense of profound joy and gratitude that we are the generation about which, a thousand years from now, philharmonic orchestras and poets and singers will celebrate by saying they were the ones that found it within themselves to solve this crisis and lay the basis for our bright and optimistic future.”
Thanks a lot for keeping us posted and informed.
Are the media there? Which media is there?
Does anyone else know where I can find media reports on this event?
Where are Bill O’Reilly, Rush, NewsMax, Drudge etc. ??
Concerning Gore, he very likely feels that debate is not part of a democracy.
I think he’s a subscriber of a Putin-democracy.
If they had the proof of AGW, they’d show up and put it on the table and settle this once and for all. Their problem is simple: They don’t have the proof!
Concerning Gavin Schmidt,
I demanded he put his money where his climate mouth is; and bet on sea level rises: 10 cm or less in the next 10 yrs, I win.
10 cm or more sea level rise in the next 10 years, he wins. Bet: $100K.
He refused! Is anyone surprised? They don’t even believe their own predictions and models.
IN FACT he refused to say at which sea level he would bet. (My guess is that it would be a sea level rise of maybe 1 cm / decade.)
THAT MEANS: NO CATASTROPHE!
Try to get any alarmists to bet on a sea level rise in the next 10 years.
You won’t find a single one ready to money down on their own projections. End of discussion.
“I’ll even pick up cab fare”
I hear Al rides a pretty expensive cab these days.
Hansen and Schmidt may have have wonderful minds, Bill, but they seem to keep losing them. If they had only gone to the ICCC and faced a group of free-thinkers, and answered all their questions, perhaps they could have found them again.
😉
Hansen can again claim that he was silenced by a bureaucrat (himself). It is amazing that this guy keeps complaining about officials interference when he is the first one to wish to silence other from speaking up.
It is easy to say that the Heartland institutute is an oil puppet, yet the oil puppet gave everyone a chance to make their case, unlike the IPCC who refuse to acknolede any other views.
Good luck at the conference! Hope your presentation goes well.
I’d be there, but its expensive!
Kim Re Gavin and the RC party line:
As far as I can tell they’re sticking with the “the correlation of Global temperature rises and Solar TSI has fallen off since 1980”.
Part of the problem appears to be academicians like Solanki of Max Planck that can put out a paper with the above assertion and the next paper saying “Solar output is currently at higher levels than any time in the last 11,000 years.”
Looking at his CV, Sami has a co-authored paper every 2 weeks over the last quarter century! Peer review isn’t working any magic; the cherry-pickers can believe whatever they choose.
“….questions and ideas….”
No wonder they’re all staying away.
Those are two very dangerous things to modern climate science.
“his usual $200,000 speaking fee”
Holy Moly! I’ll tell ’em anything they want to hear for that!
As far as I can tell they’re sticking with the “the correlation of Global temperature rises and Solar TSI has fallen off since 1980″.
Maybe they have fallen off–with the measurements. But maybe the measurements aren’t so accurate themselves.
Maybe Mr. D’Aleo’s PDO correlation would fit even better if the post 1980 increases were, say, exaggerated by a tenth of a degree or three.
In the summer of 1959 and for a couple of years after that I worked as a student trainee for the state of Ohio US Climatologist, who had been with the weather service for many years. He mentioned that temperatures seemed to be going up a little at various sites, but discounted it being a real change by telling me how the weather stations had changed over the years. For example, airports were more busy (and that was before jets), cities were larger, etc. I always remembered that when I heard about “global warming”. Keep up the good work in your investigations of temperature recording sites. You might consider tracking them back into the ’20s and 30’s to see what the adjacent conditions were then.
Al won’t go because he doesn’t want to give up his Nobel.
Gary Gulrud,
Concerning Solar TSI, I have read much on various websites (warmists as well as skeptics), and the noise seems to have drowned out clear explanation. Is there a reference that you would recommend for clarity — one that explains how TSI (or other solar indicators) is measured, why warmists believe that TSI and temperatures are not correlated, and what are the weak points of their analysis? (I am familiar with the correlation work D’Aleo.)
I strongly doubt that Gavin or Mike declined the invitation to the group therapy organised by the Heartland “there is no such thing as tobacco produced cancer” -institute. They didnt answer.
A I, not sure it’s very muddled.
I highly recommend Nir Shaviv’s site, siencebits.com.
These two posts, http://www.sciencebits.com/CO2orSolar and http://www.sciencebits.com/CosmicRaysClimate, are very good reads, but they don’t get into the TSI measurments.
Basically, warmers seem to look at the trend over the past century, but there are many diffent types of solar activity and while solar activity has peaked around 80, many also say it is still higher than in the past (as you said). I’m not sure sure about the 80s date, I think real decine happened later.
Read the comment in Nir’s posts, very interesting stuff. Basically, the types of cosmic rays approaching earch vary independently and the types that affect cloud cover are less correlated with solar activty than cosmic rays in general. Warmers lump all CRs together, Nir looks at the high energy level rays.
I’m a bit skeptical, but as Nir explains it, there are also significant lags (similar to the ones assumed for CO2, warming of the oceans and such). They explain part of the continued rise after solar activity begins to decline.
Peter Stott is a highly regard modeler who falls into the warmer camp. His models include:
He doesn’t indicate the size of the trend in the paper though.
An Inquirer:
Excellent question! I do remember a recent quote here, probably Jim Arndt, of Leif Svalgaard’s saying everyone (doubtless meaning expert) has a different definition. Leif’s site I believe is http://www.leif.org and has a published and prepublished library.
I’d also check wikipedia for the RC party line. They will say TSI is about 1365 Watts/meter squared. This value varies 0.1% from a given solar sunspot minimum to maximum. It may vary 1% or more routinely over 2 century cycles (Gleissberg?).
At IceCap there is also a fine library including a long paper by Gerlich and Teuschner(sp?)-may have to use the search tool to find it there. Important issue they mention is that the visible light spectrum, normally what is refered to by TotalSolarIrradiance is actually only 40% of incident light, remainder being 40% IR and 20% UV. During solar flares UV on its own can jump 100% (associated with sunspots).
TSI may or may not include the IR and UV components by every definition.
This, however, still leaves unaccounted, particle radiation carried by the solar wind knotted in the IMF. Pulses of this current are especially noticable now during solar minimum (coronal hole induced auroras) and as the IMF flips southward can enter unimpeded into earth’s atmosphere. The pulses are on the order of teraWatt inputs.
By these criteria TSI does not represent the total energy received by the earth by any common definition.
42. M. R. Allen, P. A. Stott, J. F. B. Mitchell, R. Schnur, T. L. Delworth, Nature 407, 617 (2000) .
43 J. U. Beer et al., in The Sun as a Variable Star: Solar and Stellar Irradiance Variability, Proceedings of IAU Colloquium 143, 20 to 25 June 1993, J. M. Pap, C. Frohlich, H. S. Hudson, S. K. Solanki, Eds. (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994), pp. 291-300.
44. M. Lockwood, R. Stamper, M. N. Wild, Nature 399, 437 (1999) .
45. D. V. Hoyt and K. H. Schatten, J. Geophys. Res. 98, 18895 (1993) .
12. J. Lean and D. Rind, J. Clim. 11, 3069 (1998) [CrossRef].
22. J. Lean, J. Beer, R. Bradley, Geophys. Res. Lett. 22, 3195 (1995) [CrossRef] [ISI].
“They didnt answer”. Proving they’re not only hypocrites and moral cowards, but rude as well.
The TED conference blurb detailing Al Gore’s views is very telling: He essentially says that eventually we’ll be as hot as Venus once we’ve dumped all our carbon into the atmosphere. Completely lost on Nobel Al is the fact that Venus is 42M miles CLOSER to our primary source of heat energy, the Sun! Clearly another prime example of his cluelessness on science topics. What a putz.
8 years as VP and all Gore did was loosen tailpipe emissions standards.