Note: I posted this originally early this morning, something happened with wordpress.com hosting (I’m not sure what) and it disappeared, here it is again. – Anthony
Christopher Monckton of Brenchley replies to readers
I am most grateful to the many kind readers of www.wattsupwiththat.com who have commented on my open letter to the Australian Prime Minister. If you want to see a real “hockey-stick” graph, just look at the record of this wonderful website’s monthly hit-rates over the past couple of years.
May I answer some of the scientific and economic points raised by your readers?
Several readers raised the question whether the function ΔT = (4.7 ± 1) ln(C/C0) (in Celsius degrees) that I have derived for the rate of warming predicted by the IPCC in response to any given proportionate increase in CO2 concentration takes account not only of the direct forcing from CO2 enrichment of the atmosphere but also of any net-positive temperature feedbacks.
In fact the Monckton function does take account of feedbacks as well as forcings. Broadly speaking, the IPCC assumes (though this is almost certainly a monstrous exaggeration) that temperature feedbacks approximately triple any externally-forced initial warming. For the sake of minimizing any dispute, and solum ad argumentum (only for the sake of argument), I have simply calculated the warming the IPCC’s way, exaggerations and all.
One can test the function by calculating that 4.7 ln 2 (for a doubling of CO2) equals 3.26, the precise equilibrium temperature change, in Celsius degrees, predicted by the IPCC as its central estimate. For US and UK readers, the Monckton function in Fahrenheit degrees is ΔT = (8.5 ± 1.8) ln(C/C0).
My purpose in deriving this function was to facilitate instant calculation of the equilibrium temperature change predicted by the IPCC for any given change in CO2 concentration, without having to take separate account of the magnitude of the CO2 radiative forcing, of the Planck no-feedbacks climate sensitivity parameter, or of the sum of climate-relevant positive and negative temperature feedbacks.
A related question, also raised by several readers, was whether I should have taken account of the fact that not all feedbacks are linear. Since the IPCC assumes that all feedbacks are either linear or close enough to linear to be linearizable, I have adopted the same assumption, again solum ad argumentum, even though it is clear that the water vapor feedback, for instance, cannot be strictly linear.
Another reader has asked why I have calculated the effect of implementing the Copenhagen Accord only as far as 2020. This is the time-horizon for the Accord. The effect of the Accord over ten years would be to forestall warming of just 0.2 C° (0.35 F°) forestalled even if everyone complies fully. This outcome is so minuscule that extending the analysis beyond that date would be pointless, not least because by ten years from now it will be blindingly obvious to everyone a) that the climate is simply not warming anything like as fast (if at all) as the IPCC had ambitiously predicted, and b) that compliance with Copenhagen was little better than compliance with Kyoto. By 2020, the climate scare will be all over bar the shouting, and no one will be cutting CO2 emissions any more.
Another query was about whether I should have done the calculation on the basis of 7.5% of total CO2 emissions, rather than 7.5% of the additional 20 ppmv that we will emit on the trend of the past decade unless we cut emissions. Here, the enquirer is confusing emissions with concentration. CO2 emissions are rising at a near-exponential rate, but over the past decade CO2 concentration has risen at a strictly linear rate of a fraction over 2 ppmv/year. The IPCC’s case is that without our emissions CO2 concentration would stabilize, and would only drop back to its pre-industrial 278 ppmv after hundreds of years: therefore it is appropriate – solum ad argumentum, as ever – to hoist the IPCC with its own petard and to attribute all of the 2 ppmv/year increase in CO2 concentration to our current emissions, from which the calculation in the letter to Mr. Rudd follows.
Dr. Patrick Michaels, one of the most distinguished commentators on the climate scam, has done some excellent work demonstrating that over the past 30 years the relationship between CO2 emissions and CO2 concentration has remained broadly constant at approximately 14-15 billion tons CO2 emitted per 1 ppmv increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
Therefore, if we ignored the IPCC’s belief – which certainly does not represent the consensus in the scientific literature – that CO2 lingers in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, then the correct calculation would be to assume that without our current emissions CO2 concentration would fall swiftly back to 278 ppmv from its present 388 ppmv – a drop of 110 ppmv. Then, if we saved 7.5% of total emissions, we should reduce CO2 concentration by 7.5% of 110 ppmv, or around 8 ppmv, in which event the warming forestalled over the next ten years would be 0.1 C°, still not worth all those trillions.
Next, a reader says he will not believe the UN’s computer models until they are capable of modeling all of the natural as well as anthropogenic causes of “global warming”. However, even then modeling is of limited value, because the climate is not merely complex and non-linear but mathematically chaotic. Therefore, as Lorenz (1963) proved in the landmark climate paper that founded chaos theory, unless we know the initial state of the climate at any chosen moment to a precision that is forever unattainable in practice, reliable, very-long-term weather prediction is not available “by any method” – and “very-long-term”, as the Met Office in the UK has learned to its cost in each of the past three summers and in the current winter, means just a few weeks. It is better to rely upon observation and measurement than upon models.
Which leads to my next answer. A reader says he wishes I had supplied references to support my statements in the closing paragraphs of the letter that the measured radiative forcing from changes in cloud cover between 1983 and 2001 was at least five times greater than that from CO2. The forcing from CO2 over that period – the only period warming that we could have influenced even in theory – was just 0.8 Watts per square meter. The forcing from decreased cloud cover, expressed as the sum of 19 annual means, was 4.5 Watts per square meter.
A recent blog posting by me at www.scienceandpublicpolicy.org explains the theory behind the radiative influence of changes in cloud cover. Briefly, where low-altitude, low-latitude cloud cover diminishes, more short-wave radiation hits the Earth rather than being reflected harmlessly back to outer space. When it hits the Earth, it is displaced to the long wave and then heads back towards outer space. Therefore, the ERBE and CERES satellites, whose data is publicly available, will show simultaneous decreases in outgoing short-wave and increases in outgoing long-wave radiation if decreases in cloud cover are the cause, and vice versa for increases in cloud cover.
There are several good papers on this measured phenomenon. See e.g. Palle, E, Goode, P.RT., Montañes-Rodriguez, P., and Koonin, S.E., 2004, Changes in the Earth’s reflectance over the past two decades, Science 304, 1299-1301, doi:10.1126/science.1094070; or Pinker, R.T., Zhang, B., and Dutton, E.G., 2005, Do satellites detect trends in surface solar radiation?, Science 308, 850-854. It is also worth looking at the data from the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project, a “Mark-I-Eyeball” methodology which confirms the short-wave and long-wave measurements of the ERBE and CERES satellites.
My letter to Mr. Rudd also referred to measurements showing that outgoing radiation from the Earth’s surface increases as sea-surface temperatures increase, and does not diminish as all of the IPCC’s capable of being forced with changes in sea-surface temperatures predict. These measurements are reported and analyzed in Lindzen R.S., and Choi, Y.-S., 2009, On the determination of climate feedbacks from ERBE data, Geophysical Research Letters. I do not have the page reference, because I have the preprint that the authors kindly sent to me.
Another reader asked whether my letter had been “peer-reviewed”. Yes, I asked an eminent Professor in Australia to read it for me before it was sent to the Prime Minister and to other party leaders. Any errors, however, are mine alone.
A reader asks whether my letter to Mr. Rudd is available as a .pdf file. I have sent the file to Anthony Watts, who, I am sure, will kindly make it available to anyone who would like to see it. Thank you all very much for your kind interest: and, as always, thanks to Anthony for having given the letter a wider audience.
[Update: a pdf of Lord Monckton’s letter is available here. ]
A reader asks whether my letter to Mr. Rudd is available as a .pdf file. I have sent the file to Anthony Watts, who, I am sure, will kindly make it available to anyone who would like to see it. Thank you all very much for your kind interest: and, as always, thanks to Anthony for having given the letter a wider audience.
Kum Dollison (13:52:03) :
So 2009 was 0.21 C warmer than 2008. I’ve won a little money!
Did anyone spot Dr Spencer has changed his running average period to 25 months from the 13 months he’d used for the rest of the year? The much cooler temperatures of 2008 will now continue to contribute to the smoothed trend line for another year.
I’d be interested to learn what motivated the change.
Just wondering who it was that actually measured pre-industrial CO2 levels at roughly 280ppm? Who else backed up that claim? Have their analytical methods been verified? Did they archive a sample of pre-industrial atmosphere for posterity?
My son’s high school in Brussels automatically gave 0 to any student who used Wikipedia as source.
Eric Smith, in case you haven’t noticed, Margaret Thatcher has been out of office for many years, and is an old lady. I can appreciate the history lesson, but it has very little to do with today’s action, as Margaret Thatcher is no longer a player. If she were say, like Patchouri, a person directing and influencing decisions, references to her would be appropriate. To continually be bringing her actions up as being akin to Lord Monckton’s, is using her as a strawman argument.
I believe the tour we are discussing is to Australia, not America, and the letter is to the Australian PM.
There are a lot of murky players in this AGW scam, jumping on the money bandwagon. Big Oil is nothing compared to Big Government and Big Universities gobbling up cash.
Big Government the socialist version, takes money from the people to give to its friends and backers and voters. The Australian Govt ETS legislation is now going to give 50% of middle to lower income people more than it is (supposedly) going to cost them in higher prices. If this is not socialist vote buying, I don’t know what is. Socialist/Communist Governments are far more to be feared than Big Oil.
Big Oil is only interested in the financial bottom line, socialism is intent on intruding and controlling every area of each person’s daily life and thinking.
oakgeo (12:44:30) :
Lord Monkton’s original letter to Rudd calculates a forestalling of 0.02 C° in the decade 2010-2020, but this reply to readers says 0.2 C°. Based on the clear calculations in the Rudd letter, I believe that 0.02 C°/decade is correct.
It might be wise to make the correction in this post.
I noted that as well, but it would be appropriate to let LM do the editing.
As for our Kevin Rudd,his visionary sight is trained on horizons much further than the shores of Australia, to the highest level of the UN in fact. He is trained in diplomacy and consensus making and as has tied his horse firmly to the AGW post, I can envisage no change in his personal stance on AGW, nor that of the Government that he leads.
DirkH (14:16:17) :
“Listen: The climate models don’t even got the direction of the temperature change right over the last 10 years.”
UAH average 1999: 0.04 C
UAH average 2009: 0.26 C
Positive slope for fit to all the UAH data for the last decade. What values have you calculated?
As for Trenbeth’s quote, the “travesty” was in the lack of satellite instrumentation, not the lack of warming. As he said:
“What this is saying is we need better observations. What it’s not saying is that global warming is not here.”
Nice replies, Lord M. I notice you say you will reply to scientific and economic arguments – but not stylistic ones. I really do think a little less scathing ire and more cool rationality would help your very worthwhile cause. In marketing a cause, perception is reality. Don’t get caught up in the rhetoric just because you are articulate and witty. Keep it calm – erm, cool it…
A couple of points;
1) The USA has, through long addiction to Hollywood, come to associate Brits with either the bad guys: the ever articulate and excellent Alan Rickman (Die Hard) being one typical example, or, with upper class Twits – for example, Hugh Grant et al in 4 weddings – safely assumed to know nothing but to say it nicely.
We might therefore suppose that Al Gore might be tempted if he thought he could capitalise on this.
Al Gore was astute enough to recognise the value of films over the written word as being believed – Oliver Stone’s JFK proved that most movie audiences believe what is on film rather than what is in the Warren Report. His Disaster movie was thus a clever way to convince many movie goers of the “truth” of the title. So he is well acquainted with the tricks of the Hollywood trade.
But, he can’t be sure he can make either characterisation stick and while “An Inconvenient Truth” was a sure thing, virtually guaranteed to convince even if entirely fictitious (as it largely seems to have been), he has no such guarantees in a TV debate with CM who might be either a bad guy or an upper class twit or which might confuse Americans too much trying to make up their minds.
Plus, he is 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley – now we have a real problem. The madness of George the III was allegedly changed to the Madness of King George because audiences would wonder how they missed the previous two films…. and that might prove a distraction, or that being a viscount might invoke the love of “royalty” so common in republics. Not a Sir or a Dame, or even a Lord but a Viscount.
Oh dear.
No predicting the outcome.
Note this is not about what either says. Al Gore can tell lies on film and be believed but CM can tell the truth in print or on You Tube and not be believed…. winning arguments is not about the truth.
Sad, but there it is and on balance Al Gore might feel he could win the debate. But he also has Browns disease (Gordon Brown) that he lacks self belief. He has avoided even question times after photo ops. It might also be that he is good working from a prepared script or the idiot board but thinking on his feet might be one of his weaknesses and his reluctance to ever engage in conversation or discussions is designed to protect him from this. In all his political career, we ought to be able to discover just how good he is off the cuff compared to off the auto-cue.
Now while any politician knows it isn’t what is said but how it is said, the notorious debate between Nixon and Kennedy in the 1960s showed that the winner on the radio was not the winner in the same debates on TV.
Too much risk that AG might not be perceived to perform as well as CM. As CM showed when dealing with the “Hitler Youth” he can remain calm and incisive and accurate under pressure. Plus working with the truth makes it easier to respond which puts Al Gore at a disadvantage.
2) we need a new Internet law or a corollary to Godwin’s Law that covers references not just to Hitler but also to Margaret Thatcher. (Not to be confused with CM’s own reference to Hitler Youth which, in the circumstances was extremely apt. I also liked that CM did not back down when one of the “Hitler Youth” tried to play the race card by declaring himself Jewish. Bad move. It made his position worse, not better – he should not have been so ready to adopt Hitler Youth or Brownshirt tactics – especially if he expected to play the race card.)
3) We need another internet law, unless one exists, that covers people who use Wiki as a source. This ought to be an automatic argument loser, just like Godwins law and its proposed corollary – references to Margaret Thatcher (which can sometimes boomerang because to many people she was the greatest UK prime minister since Churchill).
Thank you for the clarification. If they assume the feedbacks are
basically linear, I wonder why we are spending so much money on their
supercomputers.
Using their own arguments against them is powerful but risky– ex falso
quodlibet.
Tom P (13:15:33),
Sorry, but the IPCC models are wrong. How do I know that? Because planet Earth tells us the IPCC is wrong: click
Being in error by over 100% means the entire alarmist contingent has been wrong all along. But we already knew that.
AND… I also know why the alarmist contingent hates Lord Monckton so much: what have they got? The clueless Al Gore? The conniving Gavin Schmidt? The insufferably arrogant & provably wrong Hokey Stick Mann?
While we have a guy who is polite, and intellectually superior to all those weenies put together — and he’s real Viscount! How cool is that?
No wonder they’re jealous.
“Don E (14:17:23) :
I would like to see a similar analysis done for methane. CO2 laws are proposed in the future. The future in now in San Francisco. We are being threatened with fines and penalties is we don’t sort our garbage. The rationale is that sorting garbage, keeping food scraps out of the landfill, will help to “stabilize” the climate by 2050.”
Simple superstition. We have that in Germany for 15 years or so now. Once i went to the glass recycling bin and it had written out the draconian punishment (up to 10000 Deutsche Mark) for throwing in bottles late in the evening. Understandable – the poor souls living there would not be able to sleep given the noise.
I decided to throw all recycable goods into the normal bin from that moment on – would anyone catch me the fine would be much less.
5 years ago a big old CRT monitor of mine died. The things were full of lead. I called the local utility and asked: Where do i put this? They told me: You can bring it to us or just throw it in the normal bin. I said: Are you sure? All that lead? Yes they said.
Don’t expect any logic. Sturgeons law applies.
Eric Smith:
At (14:06:30) you wrongly assert:
“Monckton has never acknowledged that his former partner in crime, Margaret Thatcher was the prime instigator of global warming politics. Nor that she created the Hadley Centre as part of her war against coal (and the miner’s union) , wishing to make room for oil (her husband was a director of Britoil) and nuclear power.”
Your assertions are incorrect in every detail.
Before explaining your errors, I need to point out two facts. Firstly, Lord Monckton’s right-wing political views are poles apart from my old-fashioned British socialist views. And, secondly, his and my views on AGW are the same: see
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=2938
AGW is a political issue that abuses science in its promotion. Lord Monckton and I share a desire to stop that abuse so we can cooperate in oposing it (as is demonstrated at the above URL). I admire him and his work, and our different political views do not diminish that admiration.
Taking your assertions in turn.
I can personally act as witness that on several occasions Lord Monckton has agreed the fact that Mrs Thatcher (now Baroness Thatcher) elevated AGW from having been an obscure scientific hypothesis to become an international political issue and that she created the Hadley Centre.
For the facts of the origin of AGW, please see my item at
http://www.john-daly.com/history.htm
It explains that Mrs Thatcher fostered the AGW issue as a method to generate her personal credibility among her international political peers. However, as the item at the URL says:
“Mrs Thatcher could not have promoted the global warming issue without the support of her UK political party. And they were willing to give it. Following the General Election of 1979, most of the incoming Cabinet had been members of the government which lost office in 1974. They blamed the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) for their 1974 defeat. They, therefore, desired an excuse for reducing the UK coal industry and, thus, the NUM’s power. Coal-fired power stations emit CO2 but nuclear power stations don’t. Global warming provided an excuse for reducing the UK’s dependence on coal by replacing it with nuclear power. ”
Please note that this does not mean Mrs Thatcher started the scare as a method to harm the coal industry and/or the NUM as some people – including you – have claimed. Her real reason was (as I say above) for reasons of her personal political advancement on the international political stage.
The explanation of this at the URl derived from an assessment I first conducted in 1980 and provided to the British Association of Colliery Management (BACM) in 1981. I updated part of that paper for the late John Daly in the late 1990s and he put the update on his web site at the URL.
In 1980 BACM was concerned that the UK’s coal mining industry was being affected by the ‘acid rain’ scare that then existed, so BACM commissioned me to investigate if there were similar scares which were likely to occur. I interviewed as many interested parties as I could identify and after that I drew up influence diagrams for each identified potential scare.
This revealed that two potential scares deserved attention; viz. anthropogenic (i.e. man-made) global warming (AGW) and micro-dust. Of these, AGW was by far the most likely to become a real threat.
At the time, AGW was so obscure an issue that BACM had not heard of it. But my analysis concluded that AGW would become so serious an ‘environmental’ issue that it would displace all other ‘environmental’ issues whether or not it obtained any supporting scientific evidence. This conclusion derived from the positive feedback loops in the AGW influence diagram and these loops are shown in the colour-coded influence diagram in the item at the URL. The issue gains impetus from political input to all the feedback loops, but remove all mention of ‘science’ (i.e. everything colour-coded green in the diagram) and the issue still runs. So, AGW appears to be an environmental issue but – in reality – it is a purely political issue.
BACM rejected my analysis as being “extreme” and, therefore, “far fetched”. Since then AGW has displaced all other ‘environmental’ issues but has yet to obtain any supporting scientific evidence. So, I leave it to others to assess if my 1981 paper was “extreme” and, therefore, “far fetched”.
So, from the beginning, AGW was a political issue. My complaint at AGW is that science is being abused for a political purpose, and I strongly assert that such abuse of science is wrong whatever the purpose. Hence, despite our great political differences, Lord Monckton and I share a common desire to stop the pretence that AGW is other than an abuse of science as a tool to promote a political agenda. The IPCC admits this pretence as I explain below.
In 2001 (before I was invited to join the Editorial Board of ‘Energy and Environment’: E&E) I published a refereed paper in E&E that discussed the IPCC SRES scenarios as reported in Chapter 2 of WG III of the IPCC Third Assessment Report (i.e. the TAR).
Its Conclusion section includes these closing statements:
“The Chapter is honest about one thing, though. It openly admits why it pretends such mumbo-jumbo is science. Its Introduction states that the Chapter considers “societal visions of the future” that “most share a common goal: to explore how to achieve a more desirable future state”. There are many differing opinions on what would be a “a more desirable future state” (c.f. those of Mussolini and Marx) but the Chapter does not overtly state its definition of “desirable”.
And the Chapter concludes: “Perhaps the most powerful conclusion emerging from both the post-SRES analyses and the review of the general futures literature is that it may be possible to very significantly reduce GHG emissions through integration of climate policies with general socio-economic policies, which are not customarily as climate policies at all.”
Simply, this conclusion of Chapter 2 of WG III TAR calls for changes to socio-economic policies that are not climate policies (at very least, this conclusion provides an excuse for such changes). And the Chapter’s Introduction states that these changes are intended to achieve “a more desirable future state” based on “societal visions of the future”.
This conclusion derived by the method that generated it for the purpose stated in the Chapter is an abuse of science. Indeed, it is not science to make predictions of how to change the future by use of selected scenarios when “no systematic analysis has published on the relationship between mitigation and baseline scenarios”: this is pseudo-science of precisely the same type as astrology. ”
Richard
Treeman (14:24:43)
“180 Years of Atmospheric CO2 Gas Analysis by Chemical Methods”
By Ermst-Georg Beck
http://ruby.fgcu.edu/courses/twimberley/EnviroPhilo/180Years.pdf
Dr. Timothy Ball’s article “Measurement of Pre-Industrial CO2 Levels”
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/FoS%20Pre-industrial%20CO2.pdf
Smokey (14:51:27) :
I’m sure you agree that increased temperatures have in the past pushed up CO2 concentrations with a time lag of up to one thousand years as the oceans degassed. Hence the measurements you show are for a system far from equilibrium.
The equilibrium concentration doubling temperature will therefore be larger than the value indicated by a fit to this data. But at least these measurements provides a lower limit, though one which is considerably larger than the doubling temperature Monckton himself would admit.
To everyone: you miss my point. I love the Mad Monck, but there’s no doubt his infatuation with the sound of his own voice somewhat distracts from his message. I’m just saying if you’re trying to win over the proletariat, try not being so smug.
You don’t have to use big words to prove you’re smart. You need to communicate to the masses in their own language.
Al Gore understands this. So does Obama. Last time I looked they both had Nobel Prizes. Monckton, on the other hand, is generally ridiculed in the media for his own vanity. He has no connection with the public, and thus little sway in terms of political persuasion.
As for Wikipedia not being a reliable reference: well stop whinging and edit it yourself. But, in Plimer’s case, you might find it hard finding anyone credible praising Heaven and Earth. He’s a publicity disaster.
If we want action on this subject it’s not enough to preach to the already converted. We need to convince the mainstream media our spokespeople are diligent scientists, and not just a bunch of eccentrics.
Jimmy Haigh (14:14:12) :
RE: “I ask again – why wasn’t His Lordship a sceptic back in the day’s of Thatcher?”
There was no CO2 ‘global warming’ ‘consensus view’ during Thatchers’ time in office, so what was exactly is you question about?
Margaret Thatcher served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990.
During Thatcher.
“(the) consensus view expressed by IPCC in 1990, when it was stated that the effect of increased carbon dioxide concentrations could not yet be identified in the observed record”
Thatcher leaves office then…
“This work played a critical role in the conclusion reached by the 1995 assessment of the IPCC that “the balance of evidence suggests that there has been a discernible human influence on global climate”.
Read up on it, check the history here and in other places, and then you can inform yourself and perhaps answer many of you own questions.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history/
JMANON (14:47:59) :
A couple of points;
…
Oh dear.
No predicting the outcome.
Note this is not about what either says. Al Gore can tell lies on film and be believed but CM can tell the truth in print or on You Tube and not be believed…. winning arguments is not about the truth.
—-
Reply: Perhaps, but while I’ve not seen a definitive poll about Gore’s believability, I’ve asked several associates what they think of Al Gore and all I get is eye rolls.
In their gut they know the guy’s a liar.
Hi, back again, Tom P, for you, the “travesty” mail:
Kevin Trenberth wrote:
> Hi all
> Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming? We are
> asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past two
> days for the coldest days on record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high
> the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it smashed the
> previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F and also
> a record low, well below the previous record low. This is January
> weather (see the Rockies baseball playoff game was canceled on saturday
> and then played last night in below freezing weather).
>
> Trenberth, K. E., 2009: An imperative for climate change planning:
> tracking Earth’s global energy. /Current Opinion in Environmental
> Sustainability/, *1*, 19-27, doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2009.06.001. [PDF]
>
> (A PDF of the published version can be obtained from the author.)
>
> The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment
> and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the
> August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more
> warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.
Now he says CERES data indicates a lot of warming but he doesn’t see it on the ground. That is how i interpret this.
And my own very subjective note is: We had the coldest 20th Dec since 1981 here where i live. This might of course be due to some microclimatic changes.
But i remember vividly that the AGW prophets warned us: Global warming is difficult to recognize. It doesn’t lead to extreme high records in the summer, no, it is rather that the nights don’t get as cold as they were, the winters will be a little warmer, you won’t really notice…
And that doesn’t describe what i see outside, sorry. Reality bites.
John Hooper (15:29:56) :
“Al Gore understands this. So does Obama. Last time I looked they both had Nobel Prizes. ”
—-
Reply: And that should give you a good indication just how worthwhile such an award is–pretty much worthless. I listen to either of them and my stomach turns.
“As for Wikipedia not being a reliable reference: well stop whinging and edit it yourself. ”
—-
Reply: Please refer to my (14:09:18) comment above. Wiki is a lost cause until they change their format.
Christopher writes:
“Dr. Patrick Michaels, one of the most distinguished commentators on the climate scam, has done some excellent work demonstrating that over the past 30 years the relationship between CO2 emissions and CO2 concentration has remained broadly constant at approximately 14-15 billion tons CO2 emitted per 1 ppmv increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration.”
Isn’t it true that measurements of airborne carbon dioxide concentrations depend on the assumption that CO2 molecules are distributed randomly “throughout” Earth’s atmosphere except near carbon sources or sinks on the surface? Isn’t this a scandal? I understand that there are few measurements of CO2 concentrations at 100 miles up because it is so expensive to make them. But shouldn’t we be candid about this and doubt our own science for its lack of empirical evidence.
The usual justification for the assumption is that CO2 does not condense the way water vapor does and, therefore, CO2 can be assumed to be distributed randomly. But does that make sense? CFCs don’t condense but we know that their “harmful actions” are not distributed randomly; rather, they gather nicely over the poles and, supposedly, create ozone holes just there but not over Nebraska. Isn’t it likely that CO2 has many unknown characteristics in the volume between the surface and the top of the atmosphere? Couldn’t there be rivers of CO2?
Thank you, Viscount, for your resolute opposition of the pernicious assault on our liberty and prosperity.
As I read this and your many other excellent articles, I reflect sadly that Western education systems are fast becoming incapable of producing minds like your own.
No wonder then, that the risable pseudo-science of AGW has so nearly proved the mechanism by which truly mediocre and malign individuals such as Rudd, Gore, Pachauri et al garner dictatorial power over us all.
When the history of this hitherto-incredible “Climate Change” episode is written, a few names will be remembered with honour. Steve McIntyre’s and your own will surely be foremost amongst them. No doubt at that point it will seem apposite to paraphrase Sir Winston; “Never in the defence of liberty and prosperity have so many owed so much to so few”, regarding your cool, rational defence of our civilization.
If the horrors of 20th Century totalitarianism have anything to teach, it is the banality of evil. Despotic regimes capture torpid populations in the way that slowly warming water boils a frog. While small men, enraged by the fact of their own inadequacy, still seek to impose themselves on the rest of us, there will remain a need for the knight errant.
Keep swinging, Viscount!
Thanks again,
Marc.
Monckton is a fighter, regardless of the ranting of some who have commented here that his armor is somewhat scuffed and his steed occasionally smells and has mud and blood on its hooves. For those who would have their champion immaculate and in polished silver, an Archangel among men, dream on. Lords and Ladies are as human as you or I and, if only occasionally, some even rise above the average. They’re similar to “scientists” you could say, some sub-par, many quite hum-hoo, and a few sehr-guts.
Outstanding.
Thank You Lord Monckton.
It is good we have a great argumentative world to be in . . . the best kind of world to do independent thought and action.
John
John Hooper:
I’ve listened to hours of Monckton’s lectures now and he hardly comes off as pompous. He sounds educated, which isn’t a crime last time I checked. You seem to imply it is.
I don’t think people should hide their education or their background. If we as parents endeavor to give our kids advantages we did not have, why should we then vilify the children who received them? Wealth is nothing to be ashamed of.
In fact, if Lord Monckton tried to effect some breezy, fake connection with the masses, that WOULD offend me. As someone who grew up in grinding poverty, nothing pisses me off more than some jackass (Gore, Obama, Hillary) trying to talk my language.
Monckton shows me respect by not talking down to me.
And BTW- Gore won the Nobel prize; ipso facto, it is worthless.