For those of you who don’t know him, Joe Bastardi is one of the lead forecasters for AccuWeather. He’s also a global warming skeptic.
Fox news invited Greenpeace to come on and support their press reports here and here that:
“Climate change is driving a new generation of fires with unknown social and economic consequences,”
and
“With climate models predicting increased heat waves in the coming years, we are fast approaching a global emergency.”
These are statements from Miguel Soto, Greenpeace Spain forests campaigner. I think he’d be surprised to learn, and possibly even deny, that the biggest contributor to the cause of California wildfires was an ocean cooling event, La Nina.
Fox news invited Greenpeace to come on, they initially accepted. Then late declined. Perhaps they heard they’d be up against Joe Bastardi. Watch the video as Joe takes apart the Greenpeace argument and more.
For further background, see my arguments on 60 minutes recent re-run about global warming and wildfires.
More rubbish from 60 Minutes tonight. “The Age of Megafires”
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As I recall Lucia’s criticism of Monckton, it was that he chose a linear rate of increase over the next century, which arrives at the same temp in 2100 as IPCC, whereas the IPCC chose to use a non-linear curve which did not have quite as high a rate of increase early in the century, but ended up at the same point due to higher rates of change later in the century (how conventient).
The IPCC’s curve is directly contrary to the known physics of GHGs. The highest rate of temperature change will occur initially and then decline.
The origin of the IPCC’s curve is in the climate models which have to be heavily ‘massaged’ otherwise most of the warming occurs initially, and since we already know how much warming has occurred in this initial period, this would preclude a high CO2 sensitivity, unless they use this kind of warming curve.
While Lucia is correct in her criticism, Monckton’s graph is more scientifically defensible than the IPCC’s.
Oort cloud (13:08:20) : Fox is a Republican propaganda instrument. Most of what is said there has to be questioned. If I were the guy from Greenpeace, I wouldn’t have attended neither. Fox is definitely not on the list of sources I would refer to, when I try to make my layman mind (which to date is not made at all) on that debate, polarised to a mind-boggling extent.
If you were Greenpeace, you wouldn’t attend?? Why??
You should never be afraid of the truth, unless you have something to hide.
I would support Greenpeace with my dollars if they were not so tainted by extreme left-wing ideologies. They regularly shoot themselves in the foot.
Notice O’Reilly tried to immediately discredit Greenpeace, and Bastardi ran to their defense: “I’m not here to disparage them. They have done some good things.”
Good for him. Again…prima facie evidence as to why Bastardi is such a good scientist:
He wants the TRUTH.
And….to quote the X Files: “The truth is out there.”
Listening to scientists like him might help you make up your mind, Oort Cloud, and keep you from getting caught up in the greatest scientific fraud perpetuated since the Spanish Inquisition.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Vis-a-vis Fox/O’Reilly-let me just say that I think that even disregarding politics the man is difficult to watch. He is disgustingly full of himself. And I say this as a guy who doesn’t disagree with him frequently although sometimes and pretty angrily. But again, we are not talking about O’Reilly. We are not talking about Fox. It’s not even about Joe Bastardi. We are talking about the facts.
So maybe we can get back to me ripping apart drought apocalypticism? 🙂
Oh crud, he’s rubbing that smugness on me!
Hey, thanks to Ron de Haan and Smokey for the mention! That’s cool a couple of Anthony’s readers know about my site.
I do like the visual and wish had more time to work with. For those interested, I think this link has most of the charts/images/graphs/cartoons that I’ve used over past 10 months.
http://www.c3headlines.com/chartsimagespdfs/
Jim, C3H Editor
C3H Editor (20:36:15) :
No problem Jim, you’re welcome.
For your information:
The Cool Graph came via Climate Depot.
The first time I landed on your site was via a link from Algorelied.com
I did not wear my glasses and did not see where to click in order to access the article
behind the header.
But now I am used to it.
The more skeptic blogs the better.
Keep up the good work.
Ron de Haan (16:59:06) :
Anthony, what’s happening here: Roger Pielke Jr, debating Marc Moreno on Climate Tax? Do we have a Horse of Troy situation here?
I have regarded Pielke Jr to be a Skeptic. If a Skeptic is in favor of a Climate Tax,
what’s the use of being a Skeptic. One of our objectives is to fend of the legal measures to curb and tax CO2 emissions.
There is no difference between Pielke Jr and our German Scientist poster here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/07/german-climate-adviser-who-says-the-wests-carbon-quotas-are-used-up-once-co-authored-a-paper-saying-climate-models-are-flawed/
I regard this as a most damaging development.
If we would win the scientific arguments that the past rise in temperatures is caused by naturural cycles and “Skeptic scientists still endorse Cap & Trade or a Carbon Tax, this seriously undermines our cause. And so is a debate among Skeptics.
Would you be so kind to present your view on this matter?
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/09/inviting-marc-morano-to-debate.html
REPLY: Pielke Jr doe shave some lukewarmer leanings, I’m not sure why though he offered to step in for the WaPo reporter who ducked debate with Morano. Odd – A
Thanks for your response Anthony.
A Skeptic in favor of Carbon Tax is like a Pacifist collecting guns.
“I am against fire arms and the death penalty but I am going to shoot you anyhow”.
It does not make any sense to me!
As for warming and droughts, it is instructive to study the ice core records:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vostok-ice-core-petit.png
Watch that red curve and its anti correlation with heat: it is dust.
Dust comes from dry land, therefore drought.
It is more than evident from this long term record that Warm brings Wet.
The variations we observe on our time scale are that:result of the chaotic nature of weather/climate.
From me, just some simple logic. The Greenpeace article refers to ‘climate change’, which is generally considered to have started in the late 1970″s.
Joe Bastardi’s recent La Nina sits on top of the curve…on all the intervening global warming/climate change.
An argument against climate change consequences has to be made without the climate change.
Although then his La Nina’s “cooling” temperatures will be seen to be actually relatively warmer.
He should compare this current fire season with an early 1970s fire season. And try to show that they are similar.
“Heat waves, droughts, cyclical climate changes such as El Nino and other weather patterns can also increase the risk and alter the behavior of wildfires dramatically. Years of precipitation followed by warm periods have encouraged more widespread fires and longer fire seasons. Since the mid 1980s earlier snowmelt and associated warming has also been associated with an increase in length and severity of the wildfire season in the Western United States.” Wikipedia
“Robust statistical associations between wildfire and hydroclimate in western forests indicate that increased wildfire activity over recent decades reflects sub=regional responses to changes in climate. Historical observations exhibit an abrupt transition in the mid=1980s from a regime of infrequent large wildfires of short (average of 1 week) duration to one with much more frequent and longer burning (5 week) fires. This transition was marked by a shift toward unusually warm springs, longer summer dry seasons, drier vegetation (which provoked more and longer burning large wildfires) and longer fire seasons.” Westerling et.al., 2008 (a Wikipedia reference)
Nobody has mentioned the bark beetles that can now survive the warmer winters. Overall, they’ve killed more trees than have the forest fires.
Lightning will continue. Unfortunately, arson will continue. And the resulting damage continues to increase.
HendrikE (14:01:10) :
“Greenpeace just showed their true face by not showing up.”
No, no no, they could not find a parking space for the rainbow Warrior in front of the Fox Studio.
anna v (21:29:40) : “Watch that red curve and its anti correlation with heat: it is dust. Dust comes from dry land, therefore drought.”
The wisdom of the ages, folks.
Colder climes are both more windy and more dusty.
Fear the cold, not the heat.
Al Gore, and his ilk, were not only wrong, they are liable.
No need to point fingers now. Just need a proactive scientific approach for our species for the future.
Godspeed.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
No ad homs intended, but this discussion thread is way off track and so was Joe, bless his heart.
1. California (and the entire West) is subject to summer drought. There are very few years when fuels do NOT dry out. PDO, El Nino, etc, do NOT alter the regular annual pattern of summer drought.
2. Fire is fueled by biomass. Fuels govern fire. Devastating wildfires can occur when daily temps are relatively low. It does not have to be 100 degrees F for wildfires to burn uncontrollably. Wind is an important factor in fire spread, but winds are perennial. There are no lengthy periods without wind in most of the West.
3. Biomass accumulates, especially in non-tropical environments. Photosynthesis creates biomass at a faster rate than decay can consume it. That’s a fact — the evidence abounds.
4. The longer the hiatus between fires, the more fuel accumulates, and the more intense and severe the subsequent fire.
5. It is incorrect to blame California’s fires on climate change, PDO, El Nino, or other climate/weather phenomena, or arsonists for that matter. The ignition agent may be various, but the causal agent is fuel.
6. Pre-Columbian residents understood that by burning landscapes on a frequent, regular, seasonal basis, they could reduce fuel loadings and prevent catastrophic fires. Post-Columbian residents have failed to manage/reduce fuels in any significant way, and so modern fires are more intense, more severe, and often catastrophic.
7. If California wishes to prevent or mitigate fires, then fuel reduction/modification is the ONLY way to do that.
8. Such reduction/modification must be practiced on a landscape scale to effectively reduce the intensity, severity, and size of fires.
Extra: Westerling et al are wrong. There has been no measurable change in snow pack, snow melt date, summer dry season, etc. Furthermore, the implicit assumption that fuel loadings 30 years ago were identical to today is fatuous, a-biological, and demonstrably false. Biomass accumulates; there is significantly more fuel today. Any fire analysis that fails to consider fuels is woefully inadequate.
Saw Joe Bastardi on CBS morning show being interviewed by Harry Smith. Harry kept trying to push AWG talking points and Joe would not let him get away with it. Harry finally cut the segment short.
You can find a critical analysis on the report of greenpeace Spain on wildfires and climatic change in the blog “lucaria”, especially in the following post:
The future in flames? Or the smoke does not leave us to see the fire?
http://www.profor.org/profor/wp2/?p=991
Do they increase the big fires in Spain?
http://www.profor.org/profor/wp2/?p=977
A non-news: the fires have diminished to the half this summer in Spain
http://www.profor.org/profor/wp2/?p=1078
MartinGAtkins (11:10:04):
“O’Rielly invited Greenpeace on, so he was being fair and balanced.”
Ha ha, that must be the first time then. Most uncharacteristically!
Scott A. Mandia (10:01:21) states that “droughts increase in many areas” and links to a map and time-series of the global Palmer Drought Index.
For the area I’m familiar with, Australia, the map is out of date.
Victoria is the only substantial area now in drought:
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/rain_maps.cgi?map=contours&variable=drought&area=aus&period=36month®ion=aus&time=latest
Over the past century, Australia overall has enjoyed a slight increasing trend in rainfall with constant pan evaporation:
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rranom&area=aus&season=0112&ave_yr=15
There were major droughts in 1895-1902, 1914-15, 1937-45, 1965-68, 1982-83, 1991-1995.
In any (say) ten year period, some part of Australia can be expected to experience drought — always has been so, always will.
p.s.
The greens, similarly and shamelessly, exploited the tragic fires around Melbourne last summer for political capital.
Mike D. (22:36:52) :
No ad homs intended, but this discussion thread is way off track and so was Joe, bless his heart.
1. California (and the entire West) is subject to summer drought.
I live in southern Greece and we do not count summer drought, it is a given. Often rains stop in May and start in September/October.
We speak of drought when the level of rain falling through the year is way below average, and water tables retreat even in the mountains ,
and rivers and lakes are drying.
I would suppose that would be the type of drought discussed for California ?
Mike D. (22:36:52) :
“3. Biomass accumulates, especially in non-tropical environments. Photosynthesis creates biomass at a faster rate than decay can consume it. That’s a fact — the evidence abounds.”
The AGW crowd hadn’t thought of that one yet: claiming that increased CO2 creates more biomass, i.e. fuel for fires (not food for an ever increasing world population, of course)
Ron de Haan (21:28:46) :
“what’s the use of being a Skeptic. One of our objectives is to fend of the legal measures to curb and tax CO2 emissions.”
Ron, I strongly disagree. We should be skeptics only because we believe we have the right scientific arguments. The politics is only a derivative and should never be the reason for being a climate skeptic.
Debunking the myriad nasty effects that are postulated to arise from warming is not the same as debunking AGW. And nobody is an authority on climate change. Those who pretend to be are always proven wrong with their forecasts.
During the ice age scare the doom-mongers predicted exactly the same endless climate disasters as for the current warming scare. Guesswork is no substitute for science and you can’t call yourself an expert when you are continually wrong. My guess is that some things will be better and some worse but history tells us that life prefers warmth to cold. Imagine the panic if the sea level started to fall instead of rise.
Bill O’Reilly just barely broached a fascinating subject before the segment was over and time for the advertisers to give us the real skinny, and that was when he asked Bastardi why the paradigm that CO2=AGW has such strength and staying power even if it is wrong.
Oh, I like a Bastardi/Pielke Fils debate. It will be over policy with the science ‘settled’. Heh.
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Ron de Haan (19:17:17) :
Cool Graph:
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0120a5b89255970c-pi
Ron, you are as bad as the alarmists in the way you cherry-pick. Take the starting 1997 and you see warming or take a starting date 1999 (10 years) and you see warming. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1997/to:2009/trend/plot/rss/from:1997/to:2009
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1999/to:2009/trend/plot/uah/from:1999/to:2009
It’s obvious that with a starting date of 1998 ( El NIno ) we see a cooling trend. A more honest assessment is that warming has “plateaued” which was not foreseen by any of the GCM’s.
I have followed Ron’s posts for quite some time and have detected an attitude that is reminiscent of the alarmists, in the sense that he is biased and strongly politically motivated.
Patrick Moore, the co-founder of Greenpeace, has turned against it. I’m not sure if he is actually a sceptic, but be believes Greenpeace has become too extreme. I think a lot of people would agree with him.
In the UK, our own Patrick Moore is certainly a sceptic.
Chris
@Vincent (12:42:09) :
Have you read Ruddiman’s piece on AGW that began thousands of years ago? It is very interesting and here it is if you want it:
http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/met102/docs/Ruddiman_article.pdf
@Dave (12:50:45) :
The point I am making, and one can see on the image in my link from the first comment, is that droughts are increasing in areas that already have drought. These are precisly the places that need rain and are not getting it, esp. sub-Saharan regions.
@timetochooseagain (13:06:29) :
Your links are greatly appreciated (I always enjoy data to support an argument) but they discuss US locations. As the IPCC 2007 WGI and WGII reports discuss (and my image shows) is that droughts will be affecting places already experiencing drought. Scientists are especially concerned with sub-Sahara and southern Asia. More heat means more evaporation over land. Places that are dominated by sinking air such as those in the STHP belt, will not receive this moisture back from rains that cannot fall. Instead this moisture will fall on places that are already wet.
Scott 3:32:26
Please, the IPCC and its models don’t even get global projections right; it is amusing to watch you depend upon their regional projections. Besides, the globe is cooling so what is this ‘more heat’ business?
==================================
Chris Schoneveld (00:17:47) :
Ron de Haan (21:28:46) :
“what’s the use of being a Skeptic. One of our objectives is to fend of the legal measures to curb and tax CO2 emissions.”
Ron, I strongly disagree. We should be skeptics only because we believe we have the right scientific arguments. The politics is only a derivative and should never be the reason for being a climate skeptic.
Chris,
I agree and I should have formulated my remark in a better way.