I’m proud to be a part of this second one hour long special report done by KUSI-TV and veteran TV meteorologist John Coleman. John is, in my opinion, the “Walter Cronkite of television weather”. His demeanor, humor, and delivery is reminiscent of that extraordinary television journalist.
I traveled to San Diego last week to tape my segment, and while I was there, I asked a few people I met at the TV station and at a restaurant what they thought about the first special last month. I was surprised to learn that the positive supporting comments far outnumbered the negative ones.
I also learned that the first special in January gave the station its highest rating ever for a one hour news report, so it is no surprise that they’d want to repeat that success. On a personal note, my entire taped presentation is not included here, and was edited for time. The end part where I refute NCDC didn’t make the final cut, perhaps the producer thought it too technical due to the graph of TOBS, FILNET, and RAW data that I used to show that NCDC’s claims about a cooling trend in poorly sited station doesn’t hold up. However, KUSI will make all the taped interviews available in their entirety, and I’ll post links to them when they are available for all to see. I should note that I don’t agree with the broad statement made in the video that “CO2 has no effect”. It does, but the magnitude of the direct effect and the feedback effects is disputed.
*The first KUSI program from January, “Global Warming: The Other Side”, can be viewed at:
http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/81583352.html
Additional footage and unedited full length interviews from that program are available here:
http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner
Here is all of the latest program, which aired Thursday Feb 18th, at 9PM PST:
Part one:
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Let’s see. 0.000390 is 1/3 of 1%? Really? Surely she meant to say: 1/3 of 1/10th of 1%; don’t you think?
scienceofdoom writes:
“Lindzen, Spencer, Christy – all believe the theory. But they also believe that the climate is very complex. That’s the source of their “disagreements” with IPCC science. Who is he talking about?”
Is your statement hopelessly vague on purpose? I will assume that it is not and that you are not a troll. Let me clarify for you. Yes, they all agree on the effects of CO2 on warming but, apparently, you will be surprised to learn that what they agree is that it will produce no more than one degree of warming in this century or ever. The kind of warming that Al Gore prays for requires that CO2 cause “forcings,” which means that CO2 causes water vapor to behave differently and produce warming up to three degrees this century. Lindzen is clear as a bell that he expects forcings to be trivial in impact. Christy just told us that his climate records do not support claims made about temperatures by GISS and various other groups. He also told us that temperatures in the bulk of the atmosphere are the important ones, not surface temperatures, which are what Climategaters use. Spencer has never supported forcings and has never seen a climate computer model that strikes him as more than a toy. By contrast, IPCC has never seen a forcing hypothesis that it did not immediately embrace. By the way, the actual evidence for forcings would be in temperature records, at this time, and these folks, especially Christy, just told you that it is not there.
Mr. Watts, it was a real pleasure to see you. You are one impressive speaker. Thank you so very much for this wonderful website, your other wonderful website, and all the great work that you do in defense of scientific method and a critical approach to scientific claims. You have earned at least a presidential commendation.
I found it interesting that is segment 5, the NCDC’s Tom Peterson says that the new stations have a cold bias they recognized in the mid ’90’s and have corrected. That means all of the temperatures made by the new automated thermometers have been adjusted up, and the older stations are being decimated in the database!
Argh! If I hear one more scientist from either side of the great debate claim that CO2 “traps” heat, I’m gonna explode!
Gawd, even a plumber like me knows that statement is wrong!
Great show Anthony, thanks for posting it and looking forward to seeing the pieces that didn’t make it to air.
Kum Dollison – beat me to it. wah.
But since we’re bashing details…. that wasn’t an igloo. Igloos are built of blocks of snow. When you pile snow up and then hollow it out, its called a quinzie (not certain if that’s the spelling). The opening should face south so that it traps the sun’s heat and warms up inside. Leave a layer of snow on the bottom though because if you don’t the sun’s heat will melt the frozen dirt and you will be camping in mud, even at 20 below C. Also poke a hole in the top, though not a big one. Do you know why?
BECAUSE IF YOU DON’T THE CO2 WILL COLLECT AND MAKE IT HARD TO BREATH. (You all thought I was going to claim it would melt the quinzie from the inside, didn’t you!)
Superb!
Leo G (20:50:09) :
Argh! If I hear one more scientist from either side of the great debate claim that CO2 “traps” heat, I’m gonna explode! >
Its not the scientists that you need to worry about. Its the politicians armed with a new way to “trap” your money.
scienceofdoom (17:29:14) :
John Coleman isn’t the only one who might not fully understand the greenhouse theory. I wonder if we need to be skeptical that anyone really “understands” it fully.
http://greenhouse.geologist-1011.net/
http://www.countingcats.com/?p=4745
Anyway I think we need to be charitable here and consider the medium. Coleman simplified a few things, quite appropriately given the target audience and the medium – prime time TV. You are right that he really breezed over the standard CO2 greenhouse effect mechanism. In fact what he did was combine (or confuse) the CO2 primary forcing with the H20 feedback argument. I think you are correct that the CO2 primary forcing mechanism is generally allowed while it is the H2O feedback, + or – and to what magnitude, that is controversial (or stated properly – unknown). Coleman mashed these 2 topics together in 1 short visual. But, honestly, talking about the model’s dependance on positive secondary feedbacks in detail would have been too much for his medium. Feedbacks are what he meant in this segment, the pictures revealed it subliminally, he planted the seed with his audience…
Actually a very well done and interesting presentation…however, February is now following January 2010 as a very warm month as we’re seeing temps near the surface not usually seen until the beginning of April. These are global tropospheric temps, averaged over land and sea. Without some rapid cooling in the next 8 days, February will become the warmest on instrument record, after the warmest January. See:
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
If there is an Ice Age in our future, is sure has a strange way of showing itself with all this tropospheric heat…
What did he say in the second part 2:00: that the Himalayas cover a tenth of the Earth’s surface? 😉 They would have to be like the whole Asia. 😉 I see it’s also written here:
http://qna.indiatimes.com/index.php?ref=permalinkquestion&question_id=84714
Was it supposed to be 1/200? It seems that 2.6 million squared kilometers is more realistic.
I’m very glad to have found this program this evening. I was fishing around on YouTube earlier today and didn’t find it. I think Minnesotans for Global Warming should cut an album…their parodies keep getting better.
That said…nobody seriously doubts the greenhouse effect. It is theoretically possible for anthropogenic CO2 emissions to result in a very slight increase in temperature. In reality I doubt we would ever be able to detect the signal through the noise of natural variability. It’s important to keep kicking the legs out from under the “catastrophic global warming due to man-made CO2” fraud, but what I found refreshing is that Coleman shed a light on what motivates “scientists” to perpetuate the fraud. Generally speaking, grant monies don’t flow to study a non-problem. Places like Scripps, NOAA, NASA, PSU, Stanford and even Lawrence Livermore have a vested interest in keeping the grants flowing and therefore keeping the fraud alive.
In the end, the fraudulent scientists are chump change hustlers and shameless fluffers for corrupt politicians. The truly scary players are the politicians who are invested in this fraud as a means to socialist control and tax revenues, environmentalist NGOs that lust after ever more influence and political clout and the big businesses who see literally trillions of dollars of wealth at stake.
Excellent show John Coleman, keep up the awesome work.
It bothers me when the “expert” from My side can’t get the simplest facts straight (even if he does have a beautiful voice.)
Great program. I remember John Coleman when he was breaking into the TV weather business in the 60s and 70s in Milwaukee. He had a reputation then as the “wacky weatherman,” probably because he was trying to make his mark. His work here is absolutely Churchillian and heroic, and he deserves a lot of credit for that. Great job, Anthony, by the way.
I’m still wondering why no one wants to argue about or deal with Miscolczi’s equations on CO2. He certainly makes a convincing mathematical case.
Wow, that’s a great video series. Good to see you on there, Anthony. Interesting work you did studying the temperature measuring stations. Mr. Coleman covered it all well.
Minnesotans For Global Warming “Three Below Honey” ©
“”Larry
I’m still wondering why no one wants to argue about or deal with Miscolczi’s equations on CO2. He certainly makes a convincing mathematical case.””
Yes, Miscolczi’s saturated greenhouse theory is the real killer of the catastrophic AGW alarm. The bullet from the smoking gun that killed AGW. I suspect that the AGW believers can’t really argue with Miscolczi so their tactic is to ignore him/ supress his idea (hence he had to leave NASA), hope he gives up and goes away and hope that the complexity of his argument is sufficient to keep it from the public eye.
Very telling that their answer to Miscolczi is political manoevering and not scientific debate. His theory could be to AGW what General relativity was to Newtonian Dynamics.
Its smart to turn the Global Media Weapon (GMW) against them.
And then, enjoy an old Lennon lyric, with a much better text;
I thought Coleman did a great job, but was very disappointed in an error in Part 8 by “Heather” where shee states CO2 has risen from a quarter of a percent to a third of a percent of the atmosphere. The basic point of what a small portion of the atmosphere is good, but the numbers quoted are a factor of ten TOO HIGH.
390 ppm = .039 % not .4 percent.
Also, some might dispute the accuracy of CO2 concentration as 270 to 280 ppm before industrialization based on Ernst Georg Beck: http://icecap.us/index.php/go/in-the-news/new_study_confirms_strong_variation_of_co2_in_the_past_millennium_and_an_oc/
Also, Coleman rejects significant forcing. In my opinion, it is not forcing that is exagerated, but rather sensitivity, Deg C/W/m^2 that is exagerated by the IPCC.
Expert estimates of this sensitivity range from .068 C/(WM-2) to .38 C/(WM-2) (3). The relatively common value based on multiple observations by Sherwood Idso (11) is .10 C/(WM-2). Idso’s .10 C/(WM-2) constitutes two of six methods that arrive at the .10 C/(WM-2) value by Daly http://www.john-daly.com/miniwarm.htm
Oh, the irony of it all!
Global Warming is stopping Windturbines….by freezing them to
a standtstill;
http://www.startribune.com/local/north/83506647.html
Anthony, watched this on Friday from KUSI’s own website; excellent piece of journalism.
One thing that strikes me is how calm, measured and straight forward all the interviewees were (your good-self included of course). No ranting, no alarm-ism, no name calling, no “taking the piss” as we Brits would say. Very nice and very refreshing – keeping it objective and rational like this can only help as it highlights the quasi-religious like fervour coming from t’other side…
Nice work,
Cheers
Mark
Coleman states quite clearly and publicly that Pachauri is guilty of fraud. Now if Pachauri is not guilty of fraud, he should be launching a defamation case against KUSI. If Pachauri does not defend his name, it amounts to an admission of guilt.
Somehow, I don’t think we’ll see Pachauri objecting.
Brent Crowder :
You are spot on in your last point – and something that many people don’t really understand.
It’s not the “first order forcing” of CO2 that’s in question. The physics is pretty basic. (For the “doubters” see the basic CO2 series )
It’s the feedback.
Theo Goodwin:
I don’t think we disagree! I’m just trying to guess who John Coleman thinks disagrees with the physics of CO2. No one.
It’s the complexity of feedback. But a novice watching John Coleman would think that the physics of CO2 “as accepted for 150 years” was in question by some IPCC reviewers.
No, what a few question is the feedback.
I’m sad to see the myth perpetuated by someone that should know better. I would have been very happy to see John Coleman say after Dr Somerville’s comment:
“All physicists and climate scientistis, including the skeptics of the IPCC, agree in the basic effect of CO2. That’s not in question. A doubling of CO2 would add 1.2’C increased temperature at the earth’s surface – with no feedbacks. What some expert reviewers of the IPCC disagree with is the amount of feedback. Some expect a negative feedback so the temperature rise won’t even reach 1.2’C…” (and so on)
Why is that so hard to say? Why the implication that the basic physics is in question?
scienceofdoom (17:29:14)
“CO2 Drives the Climate Hypothesis” is well understood? The only understanding I’m aware of between scientist is the relationship Of CO2 and a black body. When that understanding is applied to our “Climate System”, the “CO2 Drives the Climate Hypothesis” makes two assumptions. the “Amplification Number” or fudge factor of 2.5 (which was settled on between all the “Climate Modelers” after heated discussions. I would love to review those emails) and the amount of water that was being evaporated.
From my understanding the “CO2 Drives the Climate Hypothesis” should have two signature observation. The “Hot Spot” and an increase in “High level Heat trapping Clouds. Both of which have Not been found in observe climate data. With out hard evidence of the 2.5 Amplification, “CO2 Drives the Climate Hypothesis” is dead in the water.
And you wonder why there is mostly “Upward Adjustments” in our “Temperature Data”.