Guest post by The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
UPDATE: A new condensed rebuttal from Monckton for easier reading is available below.
Once again I have much to thank Anthony Watts and his millions of readers for. My inbox has been full of kind messages from people who have now had the chance to dip into my point-by-point evisceration of Associate Professor Abraham’s lengthy, unprovoked, and widely-circulated personal attack on me.
Latest news – sent to me by two readers of Anthony’s outstanding blog – is that Abraham, inferentially on orders from the Trustees of his university acting on advice from their lawyers, has (without telling me) re-recorded his entire 83-minute talk to take out the very many direct accusations of “misrepresentation”, “complete fabrication”, “sleight of hand” etc. etc. that he had hurled at me in the original version of his talk. For instance, he now seems to have appreciated his unwisdom in having accused me of having “misrepresented” the work of scientists I had not even cited in the first place.
Taking out his direct libels has reduced the length of his talk by 10 minutes. To my own lawyers, Abraham’s retreat will be of interest, because it is in effect an admission that his talk is libelous, and that he and his university know it is libelous. Though his new version corrects some of the stupider and more egregious errors in the original, many crass errors remain, including errors of simple arithmetic that are surely disfiguring in a “scientist” presuming to correct mine.
At several points in the new version, Abraham rashly persists in misrepresenting me to third-party scientists, getting hostile quotations from them in response to what I had not said, and using them against me. He thus persists even though – having received my long letter detailing his defalcations a month ago, long before he recorded the new version of his talk – he can no longer legitimately maintain that any of his numerous remaining libels is a mere inadvertence.
Plenty of libels indeed remain in the new version of Abraham’s talk: he has even been imprudent enough to add quite a new and serious early in his talk, having failed yet again to check his facts with me. In the new version of Abraham’s talk, every remaining libel will be regarded by the courts as malice, because he was told exactly what libels he had perpetrated, and was given a fair chance to retract and apologize, but he has wilfully chosen to persist in and repeat many of the libels. And when the courts find that his talk was and remains malicious, then he will have thrown away the one defense that might otherwise have worked for him – that in US law a public figure who sues for libel must be able to prove malice. I can prove it, in spades.
Several of you have posted up comments asking to see the full (and entertaining) correspondence between me, the professor, his university, and its lawyers. The ever-splendid Joanne Nova is kindly hosting the correspondence, so that we can spread the word as widely as possible across the Web to counter the malevolence of the many climate-extremist websites that are now ruing their earlier and too hasty endorsement of Abraham’s libels. Not one of them contacted me to check anything before describing me as “the fallen idol of climate skepticism”, “a sad joke”, etc., etc.
May I ask your kind readers once more for their help? Would as many of you as possible do what some of you have already been good enough to do? Please contact Father Dennis J. Dease, President of St. Thomas University, djdease@stthomas.edu, and invite him – even at this eleventh hour – to take down Abraham’s talk altogether from the University’s servers, and to instigate a disciplinary inquiry into the Professor’s unprofessional conduct, particularly in the matter of his lies to third parties about what I had said in my talk at Bethel University eight months ago? That would be a real help.
It is sometimes a cold and lonely road we follow in pursuit of the truth, and the support of Anthony and his readers has been a great comfort to me. Thank you all again.
====================
See also: A detailed rebuttal to Abraham from Monckton
And
A new condensed rebuttal for easier reading is here
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Paul.
USA =/= the Earth.
The Earth has been warming for the last 10 years.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:2000/trend/plot/uah/from:2000
(Similar results using any of the instrumental climate records)
In any case, short-term effects dominate trends for such a short time period. Solar fluctuations have an effect, but these are deemed to be small. For example, 2009 had very little solar activity, yet it was one of the warmest years on record. Surely it should have been one of the coldest. In fact, 2009 was a very warm year mainly due to an el Nino on top of the underlying warming from CO2.
The long-term correlation between temps and CO2 is a good fit.
Reasonable skeptics have moved on from the solar/cosmic ray argument and accept that increased CO2 is bound to warm the planet (Spencer, Christie and Pielke agree). The argument now from the skeptic camp is to what degree warming will occur, whether it will be deleterious or not, and/or whether adapting is a better course of action than mitigation.
http://climvis.ncdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/cag3/hr-display3.pl
Barry, run the numbers yourself. There is no way you can make this year warmer than the last 10 years. The temps are declining.
Barry, no matter how you cut it, the USA temps are dropping, they are still skiing in the ALPs, Australia just had its worst winter and South America just had it worst winter. The Arctic broke even this year. 250 glaciers are growing per “Ice Age Now”.
We are looking at 30 years of colder than normal winters.
Even the world temp chart dropped a notch or two.
The numbers don’t lie.
Where are the big bad 19 hurricanes at? The Caribbean takes month to cook up a tropical storm.
Go to my work at nationalforestlawblog.Com October Newsletter and get an education.
When the Earth is cooling:
South America and Australia are just six months ahead of what we are going to get.
And, we are six months ahead of what they are going to get.
It is getting colder. Did you forget last Winter, already? It wasn’t a fluke. That was a preview.
I only know three people who where saying it was going to be a bad winter for the last two years, a Russian, Farmer’s Almanac and myself.
This past Winter was as cold as 1984, just a few years after scientists were crying, “Ice Age”. Last year was as cold as 1996. Australia just had the worst winter in 130 years. That is 1880, the 2d year of a mild sunspot cycle.
Look at my charts for that year.
Paul
Paul, you’re talking about short-term events and specific localities (I don’t live in the US, BTW). You’re talking about weather fluctuations. Speak in terms of 20 years or longer, and talk about the whole planet, and you’ll be talking about global climate.
For example, the last 10 years in my country, national temperatures have a significant upwards trend.
http://reg.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi
Does this mean the globe is warming? No, it’s not enough data to say anything about global trends. Does this mean the climate of Australia is getting warmer? Again, no – you need to choose a longer period – 20 years is a fair minimum. (Some skeptics at this board insist on nothing less than a 60 year period)
Over a 20 year period, the climates of the US, Australia and the Earth have become warmer.
Weather predictions further than a few weeks are extremely difficult to make. It’s not so difficult for climate projections, because over the long term, annual and decadal fluctuations tend to even out. In 1988, James Hansen ‘predicted’ that the world would warm. He couldn’t tell you the temperature in a future year, or even the steepness of the trend, but he was essentially right. 22 years on the globe is warmer. Hansen ran with a higher climate sensitivity than now reckoned (he went with ~4C climate sensitivity – it’s been reduced to ~3C since then). Had he applied more recent climate sensitivity values, the observed trend would be very close to his mid-range projection.
Why is it easier to project climate change than predict weather? The law of large numbers. Your misapprehensions about climate come from applying the law of few numbers.
Again, the US is not the globe. The smaller the area, the shorter period, the more random variability will dominate any underlying trend.
Have there ever been any experiments with gas balloons proving or disproving this “theory?” It seems to me that it should be easy to release several balloons with different amounts of CO2 and enough helium/hydrogen (whichever that would not mask the results) that the balloon would ascend high enough to get meaningful data.
Also, If the CO2 is “capturing” the suns radiation then it is NOT striking the earth (land, water, buildings, etc.). Wouldn’t the amount captured by the CO2 equal the amount that was NOT captured by the earth and balance out the equation? Further wouldn’t the earth also “re-radiate” the energy it does capture which would also cause an amplification of heat (think city heat island effect) and cause global warming. Therefore, we should destroy all cities. Why is the amplification factor from 300-500 ppm of CO2 so much greater than that of dark rocks, buildings, land masses, oceans, etc.? The black slate in my foyer is still very warm to the touch the morning after a sunny day, even though the air above it is quite cool. Why do they use Argon in the triple pane “HI-e” windows instead of CO2 if CO2 is such a good “trap” for heat?
If you think this is absurd, so do I, but it seems much more plausible than AGW from CO2.
No, CO2 absorbs in the infrared spectrum (upwelling radiation), not in the short-wave, sunlight spectrum (downwelling radiation).
I agree that the rest of your post is absurd.
Hey Barry,
Go ahead and freeze to death. Join the millions that believe like you, believe in global warming, believe it can’t happen here.
Join the Defense Department, FEMA, 50 State Governors, The Senate, the liberals, the bunny lovers, the tree hugers, animal rights groups,. Join all those people who won’t understand the winters and the drought and who continue down this path to destruction because they trust the EPA, NASA and the NOAA who have been bred by the IPCC. Join the people who believe in man-made global warming and man-made solutions.
These people refuse to understand a God Given attribute for our life and that is sunspots. He gave them for a purpose. He makes the planet a nice place to live with them. He has all but shut sunspot production down.
PM Putin listened to his scientists and has directed action in preparation for what is coming; 30 years of bad winters. Now, he is dealing with drought.
Our government here in the US has man-made global warming policies. They are breaching electric power dams, banning coal power plants and have atomic plants that must close with no new ones in the making.
The Pope told is to quit using food for fuel. We made more.
The USA is broke.
USA! USA! USA!
Welcome to Judgment Day!
I think of it more as a cleansing. He has to thin the herd just like a Rancher so there will be room for what He wants, not what we think He wants. What a way to evolve life! He just turns down the Earth’s thermostat for a while or for a long time. He does it every century has done that 5 other times creating Ice Ages.
He is a jealous God, but he doesn’t need an Ice Age for acts of Judgment. That is why I think of this as a cleansing; a thinning of the herd. He needs some space by 2100.
Feel safe, yet?
Paul
WTF at some peoples reasoned and logical opinions on this matter.
It’s kind of scary !
Paul Pierett (09:34):
No offense intended… reading between the lines of your posting… correct me if I’m wrong… you’re religious, aren’t you? No, please don’t be embarrassed! We understand that some people have this… er… condition.
The reason I ask is this: we AGW sceptics like to deal in provable fact; we have an unhealthy obsession with something called ‘scientific method’. (Yes, I know… BORING… but that’s the…. er… the cross we have to bear, so to speak!) I have an idea for you: Why don’t you pop over to Real Climate? You’ll find like-minded people there, people like you who have faith. Faith’s good, yeah? Faith is “the inclination to maintain a position or belief regardless of contrary evidence”.
When you get to RC just ask for Gavin. The secret password is “USA! USA! USA!”. Gavin will be glad to have a new recruit of your charm and intellect.
As a Saint Thomas alumni, I will be writing in support of Abraham. He produced a professional and courteous response to Monckton that deserves far more attention among Monckton’s own followers. Aren’t global warming skeptics always complaining that the other side is trying to silence them? Isn’t silencing a critic the only plausible purpose for Monckton’s request? Unfortunately for Monckton, American courts require libel claims to actually be false.
Pierett makes the following claim:
“…Australia just had its worst winter…”
Without any reference or other supporting evidence.
I am sceptical of Pierett’s claim for the following reasons:
– Winter is not yet over
– Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology has not yet released figures for Winter 2010
However, if we look at BoM’s latest statements, we get:
“Maximum temperatures averaged over Australia were 0.36°C above normal, being mostly below normal in the Northern Territory and Queensland, and mostly above normal elsewhere. Tasmania and Western Australia were especially warm. Tasmania had its equal-highest autumn maximum temperatures on record, with anomalies of 1-2°C throughout and site records set in the southeast. Most of Western Australia had maxima at least 1°C above normal, reaching 2-3°C in the inland Pilbara, and ranked in the highest decile; the only cooler areas were the southwest coast between Kalbarri and Esperance, and the north and east Kimberley. It was also 1°C or more above normal on parts of the South Australian and Victorian coasts, as well as on the NT Top End coast and northern Cape York Peninsula, with all these areas locally reaching the highest decile.
Below-normal maxima covered most of Queensland and the Northern Territory, except for the NT Top End, Cape York Peninsula and the eastern coastal fringe of Queensland. Anomalies were mostly modest, only reaching −1°C in a few areas east of Alice Springs and around Cunnamulla.
Minimum temperatures were generally above normal. Nationally they were 0.72°C above average (11th highest on record) and ranked in the top ten in four states. The only significant areas which were cooler than normal, and those only slightly so, were in western Queensland south of Mount Isa (extending into the far northwest of NSW), and on parts of the west coast of Western Australia, especially around Perth.
Minima were 1°C or more above normal in many inland and northern areas, including the eastern half of Western Australia, the northern half of the Northern Territory, much of northern South Australia, and the Queensland Gulf coast and parts of Cape York Peninsula. Peak anomalies of around +2°C occurred in the western Top End and the WA interior. Much of this area was in the highest decile, with records set in the western Top End. Most of Victoria and Tasmania were also in the highest decile, except for the Wimmera (Victoria) and central midlands (Tasmania), with anomalies mostly around +1°C. “
Re: IAU 2004 Citation in Monckton talk
In Christopher Monckton’s presentation, he said:
“The International Astronomical Union in 2004 held a symposium on it. They concluded that was the case. They said we are now going to get global cooling because the Sun has turned itself off for a bit.”
and the slide accompanying the talk containing the following phrases:
“Solar changes cause most climate change
The Sun caused today’s global warming
Today’s warming is normal, not unusual
Today’s global warming will end soon
IAU (2004)”
I corresponded with Christopher Monckton on the evidence for the comments and the slide. He agreed that the basis for the claim was a paper by H.I. Abdussamatov presented at the IAU sympossium in St. Petersburg in 2004 and that there was no evidence that either the IAU or the IAU symposium as a whole agreed with the Abdussamatov paper.
Brent, let’s go meta here. I think we can actually agree on our views towards religion, fancy that!
Yet this thread here is about Abraham supposedly climbing down – the contrast between this statement and reality beautifully symbolises most of what Lord Monckton has to say, right? I see that many commenters here, from about half-way down the thread onwards, have provided thoughtful posts. There seems to be a large number of posters on typically ‘sceptic’ sites, such as this one, JoNova or The Blackboard, who are understandably very uncomfortable with the Viscount’s antics – given that his ‘rebuttal’ consists of a lot or irrelvant non sequiturs and easily debunked mis-information – see various commenters above.
In using your data the mean fluctuates with the sampling. If you have a small sample, the zero point will float.
The second thing I learned in dealing with data came from a farmer. It is all about dew point and BTU. You may thing it is not that cold, but the farmer is up all night worried about his crops, your veggies.
The other concern is the lost of livestock to cold.
Scotland lost 17,000 lambs.
Mongolia lost millions of livestock.
Here in the US, two farmers were threatened with charges because livestock died from winter. One case in Penn. And the other in Florida. Fl didn’t pressed charges and Penn. did. I couldn’t find a follow up to the Penn. Case.
I expect much more here USA each year as it gets colder.
Paul
Brent,
I am not a bit religious and I will join any web I need to get the word out. Believers don’t need me.
Don’t ask Him anything and don’t ask for His help.
Extremely dangerous.
He might show you something Stephen Spielberg dreams of.
Did you know there is a race of people on Earth, who belong to Him and claim to have been around 350,000 years? That is 3.5 Ice Ages.
It is totally contrary to Christian teachings. That is why they don’t like me much. I stepped through the mirror.
You won’t find that info outside of Asia Minor and Iraq except in one book owned by Billy Graham Crusades and is on many book shelfs. The rest of the proof is in the British Museum.
The three main Faiths out of the Middle East revolve around Abram. That is your only clue I will give you.
Being in Iraq had its benefits.
Tootles.
Paul
“Quentin Wallace says:
July 21, 2010 at 3:26 am
Werner: But it is about the way figures and mathematics are presented can be used to manipulate an audience.”
I completely agree!
Suppose there is a greenhouse gas labeled Z which is 100 times stronger than carbon dioxide and is in the air at a concentration of 1 part per trillion. Let us presume that enough of this gas escapes from a factory to raise the global concentration to 10 parts per trillion. This could be reported in two different ways. A headline could read: “Negligible amounts of greenhouse gas escape”, or if you wanted a really scary one, you could say: “Extremely strong greenhouse gas increases in concentration by 1000%!!” In this case, I would say while the percentage is accurate, it is totally misleading. Do you agree?
On the other hand, I could say that two people had a fat content that had a mass of 10 kg. Without a context, it is totally meaningless. If the first person were a child whose total mass was 30 kg, it would be serious. But if the second person were an athlete whose total mass was 70 kg, it would be a totally different matter. So in this case, saying the % of fat in the first person is 33% and it is 14% in the second would be much more meaningful. Do you agree?
So let us relate this to the issue at hand. The global temperature went up by about 0.8 C over the last 130 years. I do NOT expect you to agree with my next point, but I am willing to agree that 0.2 C is due to increased CO2 by man. The average global temperature is 15 C or 288 K. An increase of 0.2 K would be a percentage increase of 0.2/288 = about 0.07%.
As for the increase in CO2, Christopher Monckton even helped an Australian debater out as I recall on this point and stated that the percent increase was 39% from 1750. It could also be stated as an absolute increase of 0.039% – 0.028% = 0.011% which is what was objected to.
Now even if you wish to insist that all of the 0.8 C increase, or 0.28% is due to the added man-made CO2, which number is closer to capturing the insignificance of this added CO2?
I said in the previous post that both methods were equally valid. But after you prompted me to rethink this issue, using the above examples as a guide, I believe Christopher Monckton’s 0.011% is better than the scare-mongering 39% figure. As you said: “But it is about the way figures and mathematics are presented can be used to manipulate an audience.” What does Monckton hope to achieve and what does Abraham hope to achieve?
Werner Brozek says: July 23, 2010 at 9:51 pm
Hi Werner:
Looks like we agree on this point.
I did try and argue the point in isolation. Both figures are mathematically correct.
As you say both figures are also fairly meaningless out of context.
You could use either “headline figure” as a audience manipulating tool.
Monckton is obviously of the opinion that a “small” (again as you state, small and big are relative terms) increase of CO2 has a negligible effect; so he uses the 0.01% figure to reinforce his argument.
Abraham counters this with the 39% figure because he thinks that what might seem like a small increase might have a “significant” effect.
I think Monckton actually used this as an audience manipulating tool in his original presentation. Abraham has only countered to reveal the trick. Well I think so – I did say that Abraham should maybe have stayed away from this one in my previous post.
If you were to believe that “small” increases in CO2 are “insignificant” then you may feel justified in doing this.
You say finally – “What does Monckton hope to achieve and what does Abraham hope to achieve?”
Well in my opinion, Monckton was trying to achieve audience manipulation and Abraham (maybe using some unfortunate language) was trying to reveal this manipulation (regardless of any opinions of whether CO2 has any “significant” effect or not).
Without giving any basis for your opinion. Kind of a demonstration of what Abraham has been criticising.
It’s hard to read motives, but the result is that Monckton seems to be implying that all the atmosphere – all the gases in it – are greenhouse gases. Thus, man’s contribution seems puny. Abraham points out that our contribution to atmospheric CO2 concentrations above natural levels is quite significant. Because Monckton’s argument implies a false premise, Abraham’s short-cut rebuttal does a good enough job of dealing with that – or at least, that’s how I read it.
A longer, more convincing argument might incorporate relative strength of GHGs in the atmosphere, historical and geological records of concentration, temperature and what that indicates, which would line up with Abraham’s take on the matter.
But I don’t blame Abraham for doing a reduced version – explaining the science is always a trade-off between covering as much as possible and being an effective communicator to a lay audience. The trouble is, the subject is complex, and the more one iterates that complexity, the more viewers you lose. Monckton knows this, and therefore his slides are bold and simplistic, with absolute statements devoid of any doubts, uncertainties or ambiguity. Real live science papers highlight uncertainties as a matter of course, but this is not effective language for populist engagement. Abraham’s video, while not in any way in the form of a scientific study, tries to make a stronger bridge to science for the lay public in order to rebut Monckton.
I can go into further detail on CO2/temps, if replied to. I’m also conscious of the trade-off between being accurate and being accessible when making posts.
barry says: July 24, 2010 at 7:13 am
I agree with your 2nd paragraph; as well as your comments on complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity, and the problems involved in presenting complex issues to a lay audience.
I tried not to get involved with detail in my above posts and just address the issue of audience manipulation in isolation, without being partisan about the science.
Barry or Quentin, since you seem to have access to some of the AGW data and I’m only new to this debate, can you help please me with a basic understanding of the theory?
Apparently manmade CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere at the rate of about 15Gtonnes per year. How much energy is absorbed by that mass of CO2 and radiated back to warm the Earth? Now, suppose that all this energy is absorbed by the oceans, how much would that amount of energy cause the ocean temperature to raise per year? (I guess we should look at the top 2,000 to 3,000 meters only as that is what we have temperature data about and is probably the extent of any warming)
I’m interested to see if the numbers stack up and the observed warming in the ocean fits this data. I know that some warming of the oceans will increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere because of the lower solubility of CO2 in warm water but the sums should still give some idea if the mathematics of the whole AGW theory is in the ballpark or not.
Can you please help?
John R, I’ve just noticed a recent post here that explains the greenhouse effect.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/23/quantifying-the-greenhouse-effect/
You will have to think in terms longer than a year if you want to assess climate. Annual temperatures fluctuate much more chaotically than long-term, owing to the internal dynamics of the system.
Assess in 20 year blocks at a minimum, and 30 year blocks as an ideal. (Some people here will avow you need longer time periods to assess climate).
You can get sea surface stats from here:
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
I’d recommend using the whole time period. There are many factors at play – Oceans absorb more heat than land, but they also absorb more slowly. I don’t have deeper ocean data to hand, but there are plenty of studies out there on that. Look for studies assessing two decades or more for climate.
http://agwobserver.wordpress.com/2009/08/10/papers-on-ocean-temperature/
Good luck!
“Quentin Wallace says:
July 24, 2010 at 4:13 am
Well in my opinion, Monckton was trying to achieve audience manipulation and Abraham (maybe using some unfortunate language) was trying to reveal this manipulation (regardless of any opinions of whether CO2 has any “significant” effect or not).”
I would not phrase it this way. Instead of saying Abraham “was trying to reveal this manipulation”, I would say Abraham was interested in “promoting his own manipulation.” : – )
You also say “If you were to believe that “small” increases in CO2 are “insignificant” then you may feel justified in doing this.”
In my opinion, an increase of 39% is fairly significant, however the effect on temperature of this 39% is relatively insignificant.
And this leads to Barry’s email: ” barry says:
July 24, 2010 at 7:13 am
The global temperature went up by about 0.8 C over the last 130 years. I do NOT expect you to agree with my next point, but I am willing to agree that 0.2 C is due to increased CO2 by man
Without giving any basis for your opinion. Kind of a demonstration of what Abraham has been criticising.”
I am more than happy to explain my reasoning, but I did not do so originally since that was not the main point of the discussion.
(If you would like the URL for anything I am mentioning below, just ask.)
I am sure you are familiar with the GISS temperature data set that goes from 1880 to 2010. It has 3 spikes where the temperature went up at around 0.16 C per decade. I will quote part of the BBC interview with Phil Jones here:
“A – Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?
So, in answer to the question, the warming rates for all 4 periods are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other.
Here are the trends and significances for each period:
Period Length Trend
(Degrees C per decade) Significance
1860-1880 21 0.163 Yes
1910-1940 31 0.15 Yes
1975-1998 24 0.166 Yes
1975-2009 35 0.161 Yes”
So if this is the case, why should only the increase from 1975 on be attributed to CO2? It appears that from 1880 to 1945, the temperature went up 0.4 of the 0.8 degrees without any real help from CO2 since the added CO2 concentration was not that significant before 1945. So that leaves the last 0.4 C to be explained. I see nothing too unreasonable in the assumption that half of this increase is due to the same natural variation that caused the earlier spikes. But I will acknowledge that no one on either side of the debate can prove how much of the increase is due to CO2.
A second reason I do not attribute too much warming due to CO2 is the lack of a hot spot in the upper troposphere which ought to be there if CO2 were mainly responsible for the warming. For a 26 page article on this topic, see: “http://sciencespeak.com/MissingSignature.pdf ”
A third reason is the article at: “http://www.john-daly.com/bull-121.htm” A sentence from this article says: “It is well recognised that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is such that its infra red absorption is close to saturation, particularly with the most prominent absorption band (15mm). Further absorption with increase of concentration is considered to take place around the fringes of this band and in minor bands.”
You may well disagree with this conclusion, but you have to agree that if we ignore both El Ninos and La Ninas for the last dozen years, there has been very little change in global temperature, despite CO2 steadily rising due to man’s influence. Even Phil Jones would not argue that point.
” JohnR says:
July 24, 2010 at 6:53 pm
Now, suppose that all this energy is absorbed by the oceans, how much would that amount of energy cause the ocean temperature to raise per year?”
If I may respond here, from the reading I have done, my best guess is that about 50% of man’s emissions of CO2 since 1750 are in the atmosphere, about 40% are dissolved in the oceans, and about 10% has been used by plants via an increased rate of photosynthesis. The 40% that goes into the oceans do not make the oceans warmer. It is the 50% that is in the air that presumably causes the air to get warmer, and as the air gets warmer, this heat find its way to the surface of the ocean. However if the air temperature does not change, as has been more or less the case for the last dozen years, then there is no reason ocean temperatures should change.
However assuming air temperatures went up by 0.8 over the last 130 years, the same should have happened to the ocean surface temperature. But the big question on which there is much debate is how much of this 0.8 C was due to man-made CO2.
Moncton must be nuts and is a traitor to the human race! He should be locked up in a loony bin.
[might try spelling his name correctly before you spout such things, make you look sill ~mod]
Professor Abraham provided reference after reference and showed time and again counter argument’s to Monkton’s talk using the words from the original authors that Monkton, himself, cites in his own presentation. If Al Gore had presented such a factually challenged piece in his documentary, as Monkton did in his, the mob on this website would be in hysterics. Abraham gave a cool, calm and decidedly balanced review of Lord Monkton’s talk.
Score: Abraham 100 Monkton 2
I would love seeing this thing go to some official court – then when the evidence is presented the whole world will be able to clearly see what a liar the good “Lord” is!