The Salt Lake Tribune – July 16, 2009
Article Excerpt: Tom Tripp, a member of the UN IPCC since 2004, is listed as one of 450 IPCC “lead authors” who reviewed reports from 800 contributing writers whose work in turn, was reviewed by more than 2,500 experts worldwide. (Tripp, a metallurgical engineer, is the Director of Technical Services & Development for U.S. Magnesium.) […]
At Thursday’s [Utah Farm Bureau] convention, Tripp found a receptive audience among the 250 people attending the conference. He said there is so much of a natural variability in weather it makes it difficult to come to a scientifically valid conclusion that global warming is man made. “It well may be, but we’re not scientifically there yet.”
Tripp also criticized modeling schemes to evaluate global warming, but stopped short of commenting on climate modeling used by the IPCC, saying “I don’t have the expertise.” Full article here:
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Oliver Ramsay (19:40:48) :
“I’m quite surprised at the number of posts showing reverence for experts. What’s up with that?”
You’re quite surprised are you, yeah, what IS up with that?
Oh I get it now, you’re not really surprised at all and that gives you right to be condescending to the commoners at WUWT.
Riight, that makes perfect sense when you think you’re talking to sub par flat earth intellects on the crazy interwebzzzz.
Frankly, it’s damn insulting and makes no sense when you are trying to talk smartly to us shills for the oil industry and lovers of nuke Armageddon fission factories.
Yes, all us slack jaw energy evil doers hang out at the #1 science blog and strut our irreverence to most outside thought or science.
Well, dang, unless we can make us some $$$ by selling cheap energy to innocent unsuspecting children of the next generation. Bwahhahaaha, you can’t stop us! We will control the world with cheap energy whilst saving the next generations billions(oh wait, I mean trillions. A billion just doesn’t cut it anymore with the 2009 bail out correction, erm? Sorry, rescission/depression that inflates the prices on oil, don’tchyea know?) in wasted resources for a non existent problem. A natural occurring of warming, then cooling, then warming again and now a cooling over the last 30 years. Wow, I lived it!
You think I have reverence for a IPCC hack experts who gladly excepted money and 1/1000 of a noble prize for their stamp of approval. But now they question the volatility of the modeling data years later, on something they admit knowing very little about at the time?! WTF?
Oh yeah, this big chance they took years later to bring forth a “win(deflect) win” situation for themselves!.. Meh.
Reverence ? Now that IS truly funny! Bwaahahaha!
So, who do I vote for if I want to make a stand on Global Warming. Extremists cant be the alternative!
tallbloke YHM
Tripp, a metallurgical engineer, is the Director of Technical Services & Development for U.S. Magnesium.)
Hold on here, this guys not a Climate Scientist!!!!
It doesn’t really matter if you are a climate scientist or not. If you have any experience of engineering or physics you come across this push-pull effect when trying to get to the bottom of some process. But some people always call it too soon and then make so much of a fuss trying to back pedal when all they needed to do was say ‘we may be calling this too soon’ so lets keep investigating. I guess its human nature, the Red Queen effect so to speak. AGW has gone off a bit too strong and now we are seeing some doubt and cracks (i.e. cooling trend for now but then back to CO2-driven warming = the pipeline we were talking about is actually much much longer but trust us its still there) when ultimately we still haven’t really progressed any further in our understanding of the principal and secondary drivers of climate.
And lastly, any enginneer and especially physicist learns to respect our interactions with Nature and not to shout out with hubris when we think we have her figured out
The Goracle has just visited Melbourne and he refused to meet with Steve Fielding to discuss with the Senator why the planet has not warmed over the past 15 years while atmospheric CO2 has increased.
I am not a scientist, but I am eager to learn about an issue, the response to which can have a major effect on our future well-being. I enjoy being educated by the many fine scientists who contribute to this wonderful blog and I believe you have convinced me that a major determinate of our climate is the interaction among cosmic rays’ ability to affect our atmosphere through cloud formation, which in turn is influenced by the output of our sun. Apparently there appears to be a strong correlation between the level of cosmic ray activity and cloud cover as well as a strong correlation between the radiance of the sun and cosmic ray activity. Am I wrong in my understanding?
Notwithstanding the forgoing, from a public policy perspective shouldn’t the questions be (1) is gradual warming since the little ice age bad for mankind; assuming arguendo that it is(2) is there anything that man can do about it, and assuming arguendo, if we can, (3) does the prospective benefit justify the costs?
Anthony,
You have labelled the graph that you show “one example of an unresolved issue”. However, a more accurate label would be, “one example of a deceptive graph from ICECAP”.
That graph has the relative axes for CO2 and temperature scaled so that the temperature would only be expected to go up at the same rate as the CO2 if the transient climate sensitivity (TCS) were about 9 C per CO2 doubling. The actual IPCC best estimate of the TCS is about 1/5 or 1/4 of this. If the graph were scaled appropriately, there would no longer be any appearance of a strong disagreement between the CO2 and temperature. (What would be clear is that given the noisiness in the temperature data, the time period in question is too short to say whether the trends are aligned or not.)
I have pointed this fact out about this graph (or similar versions of it) many, many times here on WUWT (mainly in response to Smokey’s linking to it) so it is quite frustrating to see people continuing to use it.
Gerard (06:04:06) :
Steve Fielding should be made Australian of the decade in my opinion. To have even one politician with his integrity is a huge bonus. He might just manage to save Australia from this ETS madness.
http://www.stevefielding.com.au/blog/comments/the_real_reason_ill_fight_in_the_senate_on_climate_change/
His statement of “I don’t have the expertise” wrt modeling leads me to the observation that neither does the IPCC.
Joel, surely there is only deception if the temperature is going up at a similar rate to CO2 and the scales are deliberately biased to show a difference. Surely what the graph is showing is that temperature isn’t rising while CO2 is? The scales are irrelevant especially as even if temperature were rising it wouldn’t necessarily rise at the same rate as CO2. I believe that Al Gore’s famous saw tooth graph had the scales deliberately distorted to show temperature rising exactly in line with CO2.
I just can’t figure out why some really rich person(s) or organization(s) can’t just put together a class action law suit, claiming fraud and/or some violation of some civil or moral right and stick it to these AGW thieves.
Drag these charlatans into court, stick them under oath, use the evidence discovery process to expose the customized models, tricked up data sets, special unique adjusting and smoothing algorithms that claim just 1/10,000 th more CO2 in the atmosphere will end all life on this planet and then tear them a new one.
If you can sue McDonalds for millions for coffee that is served to HOT why not sue them for billions for creating a money making scam that will hurt the vast majority while enriching a thieving minority.
COME ON. JUST DO IT. MAKE IT A PAY PER VIEW COURT EVENT.
Serenity now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Brian Dobson (1:07-7/18), I have enjoyed your comments. Regarding this one, I once thought in much the same way. Almost everyone on this site seems committed to renewable energy and most have made significant changes in their own lives and have helped their communities do the same. What you are reading (“unflagging use of fossil fuels”) is the knowledge of most commenters that we do not yet have the technology to move QUUICKLY in this direction and we need the affluence/prosperity of current energy resources in order to develop the renewables. The AGW people who pretend they are “green” are asking (and acting) to bankrupt the developed world (for whatever purposes); if this happens, we will move toward “dark ages” rather than advance with renewables through technological development. Ask yourself how long each cycle of technological development has taken before it becomes relatively inexpensive and useable by large numbers of people around the world. Also notice that the one country in the forefront of democratizing technology and (cleaning up pollution by-products) has been the U.S.A.
To help ease your current concerns I suggest Musings From the Chiefio, E.M. Smith, a regular on WUWT. “There’s no shortage of stuff” and “There’s no shortage of energy.”
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/category/world-economics/
Okay. It was fifty degrees this morning when I woke up. Fifty. Five-Zero. I am 40 and was born in this same town. It has never (NEVER) reached 50 degrees in the middle of July. I ain’t sayin’ no ice age, y’all, but it sure ain’t no global warmin’. As you might could tell, I ain’t got no education and I sure ain’t no scientist, but how can anyone say the entire globe is heating up? In the article the dude said, “I don’t have the expertise.” Well, neither do I. But if this cap and trade nonsense is allowed to continue… it’ll be worse than any of these knuckleheads’ AGW supposed scenarios.
Yes, climate can cause horrible conditions for humanity. So can idiots in power, and the ignorance that keeps them in power. Thanks for providing a forum in which ignorance can be reduced. It’s the real reason why those in power hate blogs.
Joel Shore (06:39:19),
You poor baby! Things haven’t been going your way lately, have they?
Here’s another chart that will get your panties in a bunch: click
Sorry about the wedgie. Is that graph deceptive, too? Apparently you believe that all the graphs that debunk AGW are ‘deceptive’.
For a truly deceptive graph, see here. Y-axis trickery. Starting at zero ppmv, it’s not nearly so alarming.
To put the CO2 concentration in perspective: click.
The fact is that rising CO2 emissions are a function of rising temperature across all time scales; a higher temperature causes CO2 outgassing, not vice versa. It’s like a warm beer, see? Higher temps = more CO2.
Anyway, more harmless, beneficial CO2 added to the atmosphere can not cause more than a very tiny, fraction of a degree warming — and sensible people want a warmer climate, not a colder one.
Natural global warming causes increased natural CO2 emissions, that’s all that is going on here. But I suspect you already knew that.
It is worth looking at exactly how Tom Tripp is an “IPCC lead author”.
WTH already found the relevant document. Yes, Tom Tripp is indeed lead author of Volume 3, “Industrial Processes and Product Use”. However, this is a volume of the “2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories”.
The IPCC is organized as follows:
1. Working Group I – The Physical Science Basis
2. Working Group II – Climate Change Impacts, Adaption and Vulnerability
3. Working Group III – Mitigation of Climate Change
4. National Greenhouse Gas Inventories Programme
5. Data Distribution Centre
So Tripp has helped to write the guidelines for GHG bookkeeping, according to which the past GHG emissions are compiled and offered to the scientists to ponder. He seems to have had no part in either the actual data collection nor in the writing of the AR4 synthesis report.
Ask yourself: How does the above make him qualified to assess “It well may be, but we’re not scientifically there yet.”?!?
Ask yourself: When someone talking about climate science is introduced as a “IPCC lead author”, do you or do you not consider this to mean “lead author of the IPCC synthesis report”? I consider this a stretching of someone’s credentials. If you do not think so, please show me another instance of an “IPCC lead author” commenting on the science of climate, who was not involved in the actual synthesis reports.
Neil (04:26:01) :
tallbloke YHM
Neil, TVR 🙂
Stephen Wilde (01:54:45) :
The equilibrium temperature of Earth’s climate system is not set by the sea surface temperature as normally defined.
The equilibrium temperature is set by the net global average temperature of the oceanic water which lies just below the layer of ocean surface involved in the evaporative process.
Which presumably is not measurable by satellite so we only have estimates of ocean heat content to go on, which are too blunt an instrument, even if they weren’t systematically underestimated to fit the co2 forcing.
But you are saying we can infer it from the lower tropospheric temp. Right?
“…difficult to come to a scientifically valid conclusion that global warming is man made.” …“we’re not scientifically there yet.” Though commendable, I find these statements still rather frightening, as it implies a definite agenda: that of getting there, meaning proving AGW/CC. Still, not surprising, as that has always been the assumption of the IPCC, and is the very basis for its existence.
“…natural variability in weather…” Yes, of course it would be WEATHER that is naturally variable, not climate. Perhaps if he could just show a bit more backbone, I’d be more impressed.
Gary (07:17:38) :
Well said sir. You don’t need an education to be intelligent.
tallbloke (08:11:53)
I think the best we can do without a vast network of sensors in the oceans is to determine the direction of trend.
To do that we need to identify the average net latitudinal position of all the air circulation systems combined to determine whether the global air temperature is rising or falling.
However one need not be too specific to get a general idea.
From 1975 to 2000 many observed the poleward shift. Around 2000 I observed an equatorward shift.
The systems are currently well equatorward and cold weather reports are proliferating.
How much money and time needs to be spent on greater precision ?
We are not in control, we are not responsible, we never will be.
Neil
Thanks for those two letters. I keep hoping Cameron’s outfit is just keeping its powder dry until next May, whereupon it will suddenely “discover” the anti-AGW science and embrace the rationalist view. But it isn’t going to happen. I am therefore off to Canada, where I will buy a sharp axe, a long rifle, a large box of ammunition and a cabin in the woods. I’ll post the Lat & Long here idc so that AGW impoverished refugees can join me. Entry requirements are 1000 rounds (calibre to be confirmed), and a marriageable daughter.
Stephen Wilde (09:41:31) :
tallbloke (08:11:53)
I think the best we can do without a vast network of sensors in the oceans is to determine the direction of trend.
To do that we need to identify the average net latitudinal position of all the air circulation systems combined to determine whether the global air temperature is rising or falling.
Well there is ARGO of course, for the future and recent past.
I’ve calculated that the ocean was stashing ~2.3% of the available incoming isolation between 1993 and 2003 and had been since the strong solar cycle at the start of the ’80’s. Your expansion of the tropical troposphere polewards would create a bigger volume for radiated heat from the tropical ocean to fill. That would raise global tropospheric temps in general. It would also reduce outgoing longwave radiation which is indeed what we see form the record. That would have the knock-on effect of reducing stratospheric temperature, which is also what we see in the observational record. The Equatorward shift in 2000 coincides with the start of the 4W/m^2 increase in OLR and the stabilising of stratospheric temperatures.
I’m liking your hypothesis more and more.
It’s also dawned on me why the global temp didn’t drop much postwar. The oceans were topped up with heat from the 1930-1940 strong solar period, plus the whopper cycle in the fifties which didn’t seem to lift surface temps much. It was getting stashed in the ocean to rebuild the heat reserves depleted by the postwar emission and subsequent cold PDO.
Your poleward shift would also explain the increased storage in the north atlantic and it’s associated high late C20th anomaly, due to increased humidity restricting ocean heat emission. That also helps explains the low increase in OLR during the solar min of solar cycle 22. And therefore the increase in trapped heat. There’s your global warming.
Do we get a prize?
So in a nutshell, your poleward shift didn’t act as a governor or regulator for the earth as a whole, but redistributed tropical heat over a much bigger area, including a lot more landmass, regulating the excess heat buildup in the tropics.