UPDATED: This opinion piece from Professor Henrik Svensmark was published September 9th in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Originally the translation was from Google translation with some post translation cleanup of jumbled words or phrases by myself. Now as of Sept 12, the translation is by Nigel Calder. Hat tip to Carsten Arnholm of Norway for bringing this to my attention and especially for translation facilitation by Ágúst H Bjarnason – Anthony
Translation approved by Henrik Svensmark
While the Sun sleeps
Henrik Svensmark, Professor, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen
“In fact global warming has stopped and a cooling is beginning. No climate model has predicted a cooling of the Earth – quite the contrary. And this means that the projections of future climate are unreliable,” writes Henrik Svensmark.
The star that keeps us alive has, over the last few years, been almost free of sunspots, which are the usual signs of the Sun’s magnetic activity. Last week [4 September 2009] the scientific team behind the satellite SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) reported, “It is likely that the current year’s number of blank days will be the longest in about 100 years.” Everything indicates that the Sun is going into some kind of hibernation, and the obvious question is what significance that has for us on Earth.
If you ask the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which represents the current consensus on climate change, the answer is a reassuring “nothing”. But history and recent research suggest that is probably completely wrong. Why? Let’s take a closer look.
Solar activity has always varied. Around the year 1000, we had a period of very high solar activity, which coincided with the Medieval Warm Period. It was a time when frosts in May were almost unknown – a matter of great importance for a good harvest. Vikings settled in Greenland and explored the coast of North America. On the whole it was a good time. For example, China’s population doubled in this period.
But after about 1300 solar activity declined and the world began to get colder. It was the beginning of the episode we now call the Little Ice Age. In this cold time, all the Viking settlements in Greenland disappeared. Sweden surprised Denmark by marching across the ice, and in London the Thames froze repeatedly. But more serious were the long periods of crop failures, which resulted in poorly nourished populations, reduced in Europe by about 30 per cent because of disease and hunger.
It’s important to realise that the Little Ice Age was a global event. It ended in the late 19th Century and was followed by increasing solar activity. Over the past 50 years solar activity has been at its highest since the medieval warmth of 1000 years ago. But now it appears that the Sun has changed again, and is returning towards what solar scientists call a “grand minimum” such as we saw in the Little Ice Age.
The match between solar activity and climate through the ages is sometimes explained away as coincidence. Yet it turns out that, almost no matter when you look and not just in the last 1000 years, there is a link. Solar activity has repeatedly fluctuated between high and low during the past 10,000 years. In fact the Sun spent about 17 per cent of those 10,000 years in a sleeping mode, with a cooling Earth the result.
You may wonder why the international climate panel IPCC does not believe that the Sun’s changing activity affects the climate. The reason is that it considers only changes in solar radiation. That would be the simplest way for the Sun to change the climate – a bit like turning up and down the brightness of a light bulb.
Satellite measurements have shown that the variations of solar radiation are too small to explain climate change. But the panel has closed its eyes to another, much more powerful way for the Sun to affect Earth’s climate. In 1996 we discovered a surprising influence of the Sun – its impact on Earth’s cloud cover. High-energy accelerated particles coming from exploded stars, the cosmic rays, help to form clouds.
When the Sun is active, its magnetic field is better at shielding us against the cosmic rays coming from outer space, before they reach our planet. By regulating the Earth’s cloud cover, the Sun can turn the temperature up and down. High solar activity means fewer clouds and and a warmer world. Low solar activity and poorer shielding against cosmic rays result in increased cloud cover and hence a cooling. As the Sun’s magnetism doubled in strength during the 20th century, this natural mechanism may be responsible for a large part of global warming seen then.
That also explains why most climate scientists try to ignore this possibility. It does not favour their idea that the 20th century temperature rise was mainly due to human emissions of CO2. If the Sun provoked a significant part of warming in the 20th Century, then the contribution by CO2 must necessarily be smaller.
Ever since we put forward our theory in 1996, it has been subjected to very sharp criticism, which is normal in science.
First it was said that a link between clouds and solar activity could not be correct, because no physical mechanism was known. But in 2006, after many years of work, we completed experiments at DTU Space that demonstrated the existence of a physical mechanism. The cosmic rays help to form aerosols, which are the seeds for cloud formation.
Then came the criticism that the mechanism we found in the laboratory could not work in the real atmosphere, and therefore had no practical significance. We have just rejected that criticism emphatically.
It turns out that the Sun itself performs what might be called natural experiments. Giant solar eruptions can cause the cosmic ray intensity on earth to dive suddenly over a few days. In the days following an eruption, cloud cover can fall by about 4 per cent. And the amount of liquid water in cloud droplets is reduced by almost 7 per cent. Here is a very large effect – indeed so great that in popular terms the Earth’s clouds originate in space.
So we have watched the Sun’s magnetic activity with increasing concern, since it began to wane in the mid-1990s.
That the Sun might now fall asleep in a deep minimum was suggested by solar scientists at a meeting in Kiruna in Sweden two years ago. So when Nigel Calder and I updated our book The Chilling Stars, we wrote a little provocatively that “we are advising our friends to enjoy global warming while it lasts.”
In fact global warming has stopped and a cooling is beginning. Mojib Latif from the University of Kiel argued at the recent UN World Climate Conference in Geneva that the cooling may continue through the next 10 to 20 years. His explanation was a natural change in the North Atlantic circulation, not in solar activity. But no matter how you interpret them, natural variations in climate are making a comeback.
The outcome may be that the Sun itself will demonstrate its importance for climate and so challenge the theories of global warming. No climate model has predicted a cooling of the Earth – quite the contrary. And this means that the projections of future climate are unreliable. A forecast saying it may be either warmer or colder for 50 years is not very useful, and science is not yet able to predict solar activity.
So in many ways we stand at a crossroads. The near future will be extremely interesting. I think it is important to accept that Nature pays no heed to what we humans think about it. Will the greenhouse theory survive a significant cooling of the Earth? Not in its current dominant form. Unfortunately, tomorrow’s climate challenges will be quite different from the greenhouse theory’s predictions. Perhaps it will become fashionable again to investigate the Sun’s impact on our climate.
–
Professor Henrik Svensmark is director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at DTU Space. His book The Chilling Stars has also been published in Danish as Klima og Kosmos Gads Forlag, DK ISBN 9788712043508)
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masonmart (23:49:30) :
Monbiot refused to debate the issues with Plimer (as all AGW proponents refuse debate with knowledgeable skeptics) and I, who know nothing, would gladly debate Climate change with Monbiot.
Monbiot has stated that he will not debate unless written answers are provided to his questions. These answers have not been provided therefore no debate.
As you have read Plimers book from which all answers may be obtained (according to Plimer) Perhaps you could answer both Plimer and Monbiots questions here?
Q to Plimer
1. The first graph in your book (Figure 1, page 11). How do you explain the discrepancy between the HadCRUT3 figure and your claim?
2. Figure 3 (page 25) is a graph purporting to show that most of the warming in the 20th Century took place before 1945 closely resembles the global temperature graph in the first edition of Martin Durkin’s film The Great Global Warming Swindle – since retracted as false. What is the source for the graph you used?
3. You maintain that “the last two years of global cooling have erased nearly thirty years of temperature increase.” (page 25)
a. Please give the source for your claim.
b. How do you reconcile it with the published data?
In your discussion of global temperature trends, you maintain that “NASA now states that […] the warmest year was 1934.” (p99)
a. Are you aware that this applies only to the United States?
b. Was this a mistake or did you deliberately confuse these two datasets?
5. Discussing climate trends in the Arctic, you state that “the sea ice has expanded” (p198). Again, you give no reference.
a. Please give a source for this claim.
b. How do you explain the discrepancy between this claim and the published data? http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
6. You state that “If the current atmospheric CO2 content of 380 ppmv were doubled to 760 ppmv […] [a]n increase of 0.5C is likely” (p366). Again you give no source. Please provide a reference for this claim.
7. You claim that “About 98% of the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere is due to water vapour.” (p370). Ian Enting says “In some cases the numbers given by Plimer are exaggerated to such an extent as to imply that without water vapour, Earth’s temperature would be below absolute zero – a physical impossibility.”
a. Please provide a reference for your claim about water vapour.
b. Please explain how your two statements (98% of the greenhouse effect is caused by water vapour and 18C can be attributed to CO2) can both be true
8. You cite a paper by Charles F Keller as the source of your claim that “satellites and radiosondes show that there is no global warming.” (p382)
a. How did you manage to reverse the findings of this paper?
b. Was it a mistake or was it deliberate misrepresentation?
9. You state “The Hadley Centre in the UK has shown that warming stopped in 1998″ (p391). Again you produce no reference.
a. Please give a reference for your claim.
b. How do you explain the discrepancy between your account of what the Hadley Centre says and theirs?
10. You state that “Volcanoes produce more CO2 than the world’s cars and industries combined.” (p413)
a. Please provide a reference for your claim.
b. How do you explain the discrepancy between this claim and the published data?
11. You maintain that “termite methane emissions are 20 times potent than human CO2 emissions”. (p472) Please provide a source for this claim.
Plimer to Monbiot
1. From the distribution of the vines, olives, citrus and grain crops in Europe, UK and Greenland, calculate the temperature in the Roman and Medieval Warmings and the required atmospheric CO2 content at sea level to drive such warmings. What are the errors in your calculation? Reconcile your calculations with at least five atmospheric CO2 proxies. Show all calculations and justify all assumptions.
2. Tabulate the CO2 exhalation rates over the last 15,000 years from (i) terrestrial and submarine volcanism (including maars, gas vents, geysers and springs) and calc-silicate mineral formation, and (ii) CH4 oxidation to CO2 derived from CH4 exhalation by terrestrial and submarine volcanism, natural hydrocarbon leakage from sediments and sedimentary rocks, methane hydrates, soils, microbiological decay of plant material, arthropods, ruminants and terrestrial methanogenic bacteria to a depth of 4 km. From these data, what is the C12, C13 and C14 content of atmospheric CO2 each thousand years over the last 15,000 years and what are the resultant atmospheric CO2 residence times? All assumptions need to be documented and justified.
3. From first principles, calculate the effects on atmospheric temperature at sea level by changes in cloudiness of 0.5%, 1% and 2% at 0%, 20%, 40%, 60% and 80% humidity. What changes in cloudiness would have been necessary to drive the Roman Warming, Dark Ages, Medieval Warming and Little Ice Age? Show all calculations and justify all assumptions.
4. Calculate the changes in atmospheric C12 and C13 content of CO2 and CH4 from crack-seal deformation. What is the influence of this source of gases on atmospheric CO2 residence time since 1850? Validate assumptions and show all calculations.
5. From CO2 proxies, carbonate rock and mineral volumes and stable isotopes, calculate the CO2 forcing of temperature in the Huronian, Neoproterozoic, Ordovician, Permo-Carboniferous and Jurassic ice ages. Why is the “faint Sun paradox” inapplicable to the Phanerozoic ice ages in the light of your calculations? All assumptions must be validated and calculations and sources of information must be shown.
6. From ocean current velocity, palaeotemperature and atmosphere measurements of ice cores and stable and radiogenic isotopes of seawater, atmospheric CO2 and fluid inclusions in ice and using atmospheric CO2 residence times of 4, 12, 50 and 400 years, numerically demonstrate that the modern increase in atmospheric CO2 could not derive from the Medieval Warming.
7. Calculate the changes in the atmospheric transmissivity of radiant energy over the last 2,000 years derived from a variable ingress of stellar, meteoritic and cometary dust, terrestrial dust, terrestrial volcanic aerosols and industrial aerosols. How can your calculations show whether atmospheric temperature changes are related to aerosols? All assumptions must be justified and calculations and sources of information must be shown.
8. Calculate 10 Ma time flitches using W/R ratios of 10, 100 and 500 for the heat addition to the oceans, oceanic pH changes and CO2 additions to bottom waters by alteration of sea floor rocks to greenschist and amphibolite facies assemblages, the cooling of new submarine volcanic rocks (including MORBs) and the heat, CO2 and CH4 additions from springs and gas vents since the opening of the Atlantic Ocean. From your calculations, relate the heat balance to global climate over these 10 Ma flitches. What are the errors in your calculations? Show all calculations and discuss the validity of any assumptions made.
9. Calculate the rate of isostatic sinking of the Pacific Ocean floor resulting from post LGM loading by water, the rate of compensatory land level rise, the rate of gravitationally-induced sea level rise and sea level changes from morphological changes to the ocean floor. Numerically reconcile your answer with the post LGM sea level rise, oceanic thermal expansion and coral atoll drilling in the South Pacific Ocean. What are the relative proportions of sea level change derived from your calculations?
10. From atmospheric CO2 measurements, stable isotopes, radiogenic Kr and hemispheric transport of volcanic aerosols, calculate the rate of mixing of CO2 between the hemispheres of planet Earth and reconcile this mixing with CO2 solubility, CO2 chemical kinetic data, CO2 stable and cosmogenic isotopes, the natural sequestration rates of CO2 from the atmosphere into plankton, oceans, carbonate sediments and cements, hydrothermal alteration, soils, bacteria and plants for each continent and ocean. All assumptions must be justified and calculations and sources of information must be shown. Calculations may need to be corrected for differences in 12CO2, 13CO2 and 14CO2 kinetic adsorption and/or molecular variations in oceanic dissolution rates.
11. Calculate from first principles the variability of climate, the warming and cooling rates and global sea level changes from the Bölling to the present and compare and contrast the variability, maximum warming and maximum sea level change rates over this time period to that from 1850 to the present. Using your calculations, how can natural and human-induced changes be differentiated? All assumptions must be justified and calculations and sources of information must be shown.
12. Calculate the volume of particulate and sulphurous aerosols and CO2 and CH4 coeval with the last three major mass extinctions of life. Use the figures derived from these calculations to numerically demonstrate the effects of terrestrial, deep submarine, hot spot and mid ocean ridge volcanism on planktonic and terrestrial life on Earth. What are the errors in your calculations?
13. From the annual average burning of hydrocarbons, lignite, bituminous coal and natural and coal gas, smelting, production of cement, cropping, irrigation and deforestation, use the 25µm, 7µm and 2.5µm wavelengths to calculate the effect that gaseous, liquid and solid H2O have on atmospheric temperature at sea level and at 5 km altitude at latitudes of 20º, 40º, 60º and 80ºS. How does the effect of H2O compare with the effect of CO2 derived from the same sources? All assumptions must be justified and calculations and sources of information must be shown.
Remember Plimer says his questions’ answers can be found in his books.
So we have Monbiot mainly requesting sources of Plimer’s eronious statements (surely a simple request to answer?) and Plimer requesting a journalist to provide original scientific research and to derive models from first principles. As Monbiot admits – he is not a research scientist so the questions are outside his knowledge.
Some of Monbiots questions (have now been answered on realclimate)
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/09/14/correspondence-with-ian-plimer/
anna v (00:36:51) :
Proof is in the pudding: the existing CO2 ,though growing ,has not managed to stop a cooling PDO and it will stop the ice age
IFF radiation input/output to the earth is BALANCED (in=out) global warming/cooling will not happen. There will be weather, seasons, PDOs etc. but IFF in=out the averaged temperature over decades will be constant. Short term Temperatures will fluctuate!!!!!!!
If in is not equal to out then temperatures averaged over decades will show a rise/fall. If in-out difference is small then average temperature change will be small compared to weather, seasons, PDO etc. BUT there is still a trend up or down which will be obvious when temperatures are averaged over long enough periods. This is where we are. Weather, seasons, PDOs happen giving wandering temperature but do not negate small continuous changes to the in/out balance.
The flip from ice age to temperate will be caused by a long term in/out balance change not by weather, seasons, PDO or other transient events.
Phlogiston (21:37:15) : We need to snap out of this linear catholic logic and understand that this is a non-equilibrium / non-linear quasi chaotic system.
Certainly! It is so interesting and entertaining and to read such cool comments here at WUWT. The term “linear catholic logic” is wonderful! Note that I must agree with Dr. Svalgaard that in most cases we need to use human based linear logic because that is our strong side. However, it is indeed possibly to do accurate calculations and predictions with nonlinear logic as well, and this is not jumping-to-conclusion in a disordered and intuitive manner. Instead it is an acknowledgement of the well known fact that a small variation may lead to little change to the overall dynamics within one drainage basin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drainage_basin
However, try to make a small change that makes the system jump to another drainage basin – the resulting dynamic will be entirely different. This is the main difference between linear and nonlinear logic.
Joel Shore:
It is becoming increasingly difficult to accept the disconnect between your assertions and empirical reality. You provide another unreal assertion by saying:
“You should also understand that a slide into a glacial period generally happens rather slowly. The rate is less than 0.1 C/century. By contrast, the warming is currently running about 0.16 C/decade…or more than 10 times as fast.”
I wonder where you get such ideas because they cannot be found in the scientific literature.
Transition between glacial and interglacial states consists as a series of rapid ‘flickers’ between the glacial and interglacial states until the global climate remains fixed in one of the two states. And the rate of temperature change during the transition of a ‘flicker’ is much higher than 0.1 C/century. The Younger Drias is one such ‘flicker’ event.
Please see
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/abrupt/data4.html
for an account of the Younger Drias from a source you may be willing to accept.
That account says;
“The end of the Younger Dryas, about 11,500 years ago, was particularly abrupt. In Greenland, temperatures rose 10° C (18° F) in a decade (Figure 6; Cuffey and Clow, 1997).”
Is it necessary to point out to you that “10° C (18° F) in a decade” is much much more than “0.1 C/century”?
And that account also says:
“The Younger Dryas is clearly observable in paleoclimate records from many parts of the world”
so please do not try the usual ‘warmist excuse’ that historic temperature changes were not global.
A useful discussion of the ‘flickers’ during the transition from the most recent glacial to the present interglacial state can be seen in the WUWT thread at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/02/26/%E2%80%9Dclimate-flicker%E2%80%9D-at-the-end-of-the-last-glacial-period/
I add that the existence of these ‘flickers’ is another piece of empirical evidence for the bi-stability of the global climate system. If the system is not bi-stable then why does the rapidly changing global temperature of a flicker always stop changing when it reaches the glacial or interglacial condition? As the saying goes, enquiring minds want to know.
Richard
bill:
Well, isn’t he special… NOT. George Monbiot is nothing but a cowardly alarmist who tucks his tail between his legs at the first sign of someone who knows about the subject, which appears to be typical of all alarmists. He is deathly afraid that by debating he will show his ignorance of the subject, or he is afraid he will get tangled up in his lies. Probably both.
Hell of a HE-RO you’ve got there, bill.
Plimer hasn’t hidden out until pre-screened questions are answered. It is Monbiot [literally: “Moonbat”] who is hiding out, not Plimer. This is typical of the whole moonbat/alarmist crowd, from Michael Mann, to Al Gore, to Gavin Schmidt, to William Connolley, to Rajenda Pachauri, and everyone else spreading the CO2=AGW canard. They scurry away like cockroaches when the light is turned on them.
When they all hide out, you know they’re selling a pig in a poke.
[And please, referring to the no-account realclimate blog as any kind of authority reeks of desperation. It’s like having Pee Wee Herman narrate the Mike Tyson/Evander Holyfield fight.]
Richard S Courtney (04:56:03) :
And that account also says:
“The Younger Dryas is clearly observable in paleoclimate records from many parts of the world”
so please do not try the usual ‘warmist excuse’ that historic temperature changes were not global.
it may be in many parts of the world but not all. Ice core data from antarctica shows no younger dryas 20C drop just a dip of 2C:
http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/6826/iceage040kkq1.jpg
Re: Smokey (05:19:26) :
“Then George Monbiot is nothing but a cowardly alarmist, which is typical of all alarmists. He is deathly afraid that by debating he will show his ignorance of the subject, or he is afraid he will get tangled up in his lies. Probably both.”
He wants written debate in order to expose his ignorance – or knowledge – in a way everybody can see and attack for the rest of his life. That is not cowardly. It is courageous.
bill (04:03:11) :
And?
Still the CO2 contribution is so weak it cannot reverse the PDO. Joel suggests it will reverse the coming ice age .
And if they ( AGWers) do not hide out they take a page out of the diary of a student I used to know: he studied in depth a specific chapter ignoring the bulk of the course program. When the question came he would ignore it and write a brilliant essay on the subject he knew. This worked better in oral exams.
Smokey (05:19:26) :
Then George Monbiot is nothing but a cowardly alarmist, which is typical of all alarmists. He is deathly afraid that by debating he will show his ignorance of the subject, or he is afraid he will get tangled up in his lies. Probably both.
Hell of a HE-RO you’ve got there, bill.
I have no heroes. I believe few people. But Monbiot and many others have shown Plimer to have made claims without stating sources. This as you have said here many times is unexceptable. It is important to get the truth on the table in written form befor the shouting starts.
Monbiot admits he is not a climate scientist so opposing Plimmer will be difficult. Plimmer has a good handle on irrelevant tech-speak.
As my questions above were not answered I will ask you.
1. what do governments expect out of following AGW (it isn’t popularity! More taxes=loss of next election).
2. What do researchers expect. Funding will only last a few years until AGW is disproved (in your view) then their names will become a source of derision like Charles Dawson (piltdown man). I would suggest that most scientists would not aim for this ending to their lives.
These kinds of things are what has worried me about the AWG/IPCC view of climate as this slowly changing and largely predictable system, with enough preparation time to avert events 100 years out. It completely removes from sight the far greater danger of sudden abrupt enormous unforeseeable changes inside 10 years.
The realisation that such changes have occurred should be the one thing that climatology screams about. Where are our backup systems? How would we survive that? But greenie culture frames the problem in terms of their favorite values and images, so it is about joining together, cooperating, bringing harmony and balance, reducing greed and selfishness. Problems that require a different worldview don’t exist for them.
anna v (05:31:58) :
Still the CO2 contribution is so weak it cannot reverse the PDO. Joel suggests it will reverse the coming ice age .
Assume the ice age would come in 1000 years
Assume AGW is 0.1C/decade
Assume no neg feedback
Global temps would be 10C higher in 1000 years. There is a good chance this will prevent an Ice age!
The assumptions are not good but you see the reasoning?
RR Kampen (05:27:45):
‘Courageous’?? Are you kidding? Mondiot is like Monty Python’s courageous knight: “Run away! Run away!”
A ‘written debate’ isn’t a debate at all. It’s correspondence. Actual debate is what terrifies alarmists.
“2. What do researchers expect. Funding will only last a few years until AGW is disproved (in your view) then their names will become a source of derision like Charles Dawson (piltdown man). I would suggest that most scientists would not aim for this ending to their lives.”
Hrrumph ! It is obvious that there are many who will go with the flow for funding now and will quietly slide away as the howls of derision rise. These guys are scientists, not priests and moral fibre is not part of the selection process.
I expect that many of the grant-chasers now will become the witch-finders when the lunacies of alarmism become universally acknowledged and science has to rebuild its credibility.
The psychology of why people will vigorously defend somebody else’s scientific hypotheses while refusing to learn the science so as to be able reason it for themselves, is a book waiting to be written.
Thanks to Watts Up With That? for the English translation of this article.
Some months ago, I published an article on Coccolithphores mentionning the carbon dioxide trapping capability of these microscopic algae and the negative feedback they have on the whole carbon cycle.
http://www.dofollownet.com/ScienceNature/Could_Cocolithphores_Save_The_Earth_From_Global_Warming
In one of the comments to this article, the site administrator mentionned the role that these algae were also playing in cloud formation:
” Coccolithophores play an important role in clouds formation, and the clouds have a negative feedback on phytoplankton growth cycle.
In fact, Coccolithophores release dimethyl sulphonioproprionate (DMSP) in the atmosphere, which later can convert into dimethyl sulphide (DMS), a cloud condensation promoter.”
I wonder if any model has ever included this complex mechanism in its prediction.
Thank you all, each one for addressing my questions. I’m a retired engineer, but no climate scientist. I can only imagine how many variables you guys have to deal with. Just want to let you all know how much I enjoy reading these discussion threads. Even though we may not be in the dominant discipline of a discussion, most scientists and engineers can somewhat follow a technical discussion at least a little. I am usually just a reader and rarely comment or have a question. Not sure, but there may be thousand of others like me. Again thanks.
Richard S Courtney: My understanding is that the rapid climate changes of which you speak were large changes in local conditions (likely due to changes in oceans currents and such) but with little effect on the global temperature. If you have evidence otherwise, I would be curious to hear it.
As for your rantings in your post of 01:39:21, I find the irony pretty rich when you talk about trying to “oppose the perversion of science by political activity”.
Sincere and grateful thanks for your comments. It pleases me that your comments demonstrate that at least one person has chosen to evaluate my contribution and not to be deflected from that consideration by Joel Shore’s smokescreen of bluster, untruths and evasions.
Science is about acknowledging we have no certainty and merely have a best understanding in the light of present knowledge. But political activity is about asserting certainty where none exists.
In my opinion we need to oppose the perversion of science by political activity, and we need to oppose it with every tool at our disposal.
Importantly, we need effective tools for the defence of science against political activity, and I would like to find some.
Therefore, those of us who are concerned to stop political objectives distorting scientific investigation need to find effective responses to Joel Shore and his fellows. Clearly, my presentation of logic, facts and reason were not effective: they rolled off him like water from a duck’s back.
So, I hope you and others will note whether Joel Shore responds to your question and attempts to answer it. Addressing whatever answer he provides to you – or noting his failure to provide an answer – is important because his behaviour here is typical of AGW-advocates. If we cannot convince him of the enquiring nature of science then it is not likely we can convince others like him.
We need to find effective tools to defend science against political activity.
Whoops…Ignore everything after the first paragraph of my previous post, which was sent in prematurely and consists mainly of my copy of Richard’s statements that I was planning to respond to.
I’ll have more on that later.
Joel Shore (08:55:04) has gone off the deep end, right into Projectionland.
It is the lavish pouring of tax money, 99% into the AGW side, and the outside funding from George Soros, the Tides Foundation, Fenton Communications, Heinz-Kerry, and similar Leftist/Marxist individuals and groups that feeds the bogus AGW science. Without that money, and lots of it, the fake AGW propaganda would quickly die on the vine.
It is the political activity by Hansen and others [always those on the Left], breathlessly reported by their enablers in Big Media, that has perverted climate science. The blame must be laid directly at the feet of those who lie every day about what is happening, when they know full well that every event is explained by natural climate variation, not by fraud-based AGW.
The people pushing AGW are stealing from the taxpayers for one simple reason: because they can. That doesn’t make them any less dishonest. They’ve learned to game the system, in part by using their tools to re-post AGW propaganda on various sites. Promoting the AGW agenda while presumably being paid by taxpayers for honest work is no different than the Attorney General refusing to prosecute voter intimidation simply because of the skin color of those doing the intimidating.
Posting here that “We need to find effective tools to defend science against political activity” is blatantly disingenuous. Instead, that message should be posted on all the alarmist blogs — where it might do some good. Here, we already know what’s going on. If you aren’t part of the solution, you are definitely part of the problem.
Joel Shore:
You have done it again!
I wrote:
“And that account also says:
“The Younger Dryas is clearly observable in paleoclimate records from many parts of the world”
so please do not try the usual ‘warmist excuse’ that historic temperature changes were not global.”
And you responded:
“Richard S Courtney: My understanding is that the rapid climate changes of which you speak were large changes in local conditions (likely due to changes in oceans currents and such) but with little effect on the global temperature. If you have evidence otherwise, I would be curious to hear it. ”
Jeeez! There are words for people who behave as you do but they cannot be used in this forum because there are ladies present.
Richard
Richard S Courtney (09:59:43) :
Joel Shaw is asking you to provide evidence of your assertion that the younger dryas was global.
I have shown that it did not extend to the antarctic ice sheet.
http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/6826/iceage040kkq1.jpg
Data from vostok / gisp
You obviosly have evidence to back your claim from elsewhere. Please may we see it?
bill (05:43:56) :
“anna v (05:31:58) :
Still the CO2 contribution is so weak it cannot reverse the PDO. Joel suggests it will reverse the coming ice age .”
Assume the ice age would come in 1000 years
Assume AGW is 0.1C/decade
Assume no neg feedback
Global temps would be 10C higher in 1000 years. There is a good chance this will prevent an Ice age!
The assumptions are not good but you see the reasoning?
The “reasoning” is specious. It is assuming that a linear trend can truly describe what is a chaotic non linear system, and that for 10000 years.
All roads have to take the first step. Already from first step, these last ten years , the worm has turned and the linear approximation is off ( not that for a physicist this would not be self evident even without data, but it is good that the data is there). That is what I mean that “CO2 cannot reverse the PDO”.
anna v (00:36:51) “Proof is in the pudding: the existing CO2 ,though growing ,has not managed to stop a cooling PDO and it will stop the ice age?”
Lol– good one Anna.
Re: Phlogiston (21:37:15)
It was the time that I spent (years ago) studying evolutionary biology & population genetics that made me realize much of what you are saying. My impression in following these threads is that scientists in some disciplines do not encounter (or at least are reluctant to acknowledge) sheer complexity. Biologists are certainly in no position to deny it.
Invariant (04:17:50) “However, try to make a small change that makes the system jump to another drainage basin – the resulting dynamic will be entirely different. This is the main difference between linear and nonlinear logic.”
…and, importantly, once the conditional-dependencies are worked out (i.e. what causes jumps between basins of attraction), there may be opportunity for linear expression.
Example: prediction of mainstream human behaviour by an observer who is unaware of ‘the week’, statutory holidays, & vacations. The discovery of vacations, in particular, might constitute a major breakthrough in explaining correlation-breakdowns.
Can we imagine the derision of the conventionalists prior to that moment?
“Look here – on Wednesday, Dec. 25 – your model fails – I dismiss your nonsense…”
If only people had the patience to manually use multi-dimensional coplots rather than rely on multivariate statistical algorithms that cannot see beyond narrow assumptions… (‘Coplot’ is short for ‘conditioning plot’.)
Of course if the masses were able to think conditionally, that might cause a problem for people shouting the following:
–
“Climate change could be disastrous for global health”
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090916/climate_change_090916/20090916?hub=Health
“A weak response to climate change could be catastrophic for international health, leading doctors said in two British medical journals Wednesday.”
“We call on doctors to demand that their politicians listen to the clear facts that have been identified in relation to climate change and act now.”
Key words: “clear facts” “demand” “act now”
Top key word: “demand”
Anyone promoting excessively-linear logic in the climate discussion is suspect? – perhaps. Conditioning variables should at least get lip-service.