Guest post by Thomas Fuller
It should be clear to all who are following climate issues that the establishment is flailing a bit in regards to how they should be dealing with a pesky public.
Ever since Climategate, Copenhagen, and a cold winter in western media capitals, their old techniques have been increasingly ineffective. Whereas before it was enough to combine a ‘sexy’ symbol, such as a polar bear or a Himalayan glacier, with a press release of a new paper showing how models predict doom for whatever symbol they used, now people seem to want things like data, whatever that is.
But there really isn’t enough data to make a definitive case for the type of climate change the establishment needs to command immediate and decisive action. (And it is my personal opinion that that is precisely the way it works–deciding the appropriate action and then searching for supporting information, of whatever quality they can drum up.)
Since then, we have seen some rather dubious attempts to play the media game differently, starting with an attack on Andrew Montford’s book ‘The Hockey Stick Illusion, where a blog aptly named Scholars and Rogues tried to mathematically prove that nobody needed to read the book, and then the sad coda to a great career for the late Stephen Schneider, where they hammered out a libelous paper purporting to show that establishment scientists were far more qualified (and better looking as well) than skeptics, which they did by looking only in English language publications, getting names and jobs wrong, and miscounting published papers.
That didn’t work. So they began also to run advertisements, such as jet planes crashing into skyscrapers, and the more recent explosion of skeptical children and soccer stars.
None of it is working right now. They literally cannot admit uncertainty, and they have lost the aura of invincibility–or at least authority. Criticism of the major skeptical figures hasn’t worked in the past–Lindzen, Spencer, Christy and others do not appear to have been damaged by accusations of tobacco use and being religious, and the screaming about conservative rich people giving liberal amounts of money to conservative think tanks is too obviously hypocritical when balanced against the amounts of money available to the establishment position. And it certainly hasn’t worked against new critics, such as Steve McIntyre or our host here.
The 10:10 video ‘No Pressure’ is a new symbol–not one that the Establishment will cherish. It’s a symbol of failure to communicate. They sent a message all right, just as the WWF, Stephen Schneider and Scholars and Rogues sent messages.
But they’re not listening–and so in the end they cannot communicate.
Thomas Fuller http://www.redbubble.com/people/hfuller
Good job Thomas Fuller.
The words now match the music.
Great opening vid with Strother Martin.
Something wicked this way comes…
Yes The Global Warmers are getting more desperate; but they are not out by any means.
1. We have to be more effective. Videos help a lot. Have a look at:
3PartVIDEO on Advances In solar-based forecasts+fight CarbonCon
AND in Comments section see MESSAGE to ED MILLIBAND the new UK Labour Party leader. See http://bit.ly/aGRw7v
2. Their desperation is now taking a dangerous eco-fascist turn which is extending into academia and cannot be ‘laughed away’. Please see COMMENT1 in
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=6383&linkbox=true&position=8
Many WUWT readers are too young to remember the singing satirist (and mathematician), Tom Lehrer. One of his famous lines, which certainly applies to climate alarmism, is:
If you can’t communicate, the least you can do is to shut up.
A failure to communicate? They’ve been doing this for a decade. Maybe it’s a questionable message?
“None of it is working right now.” – so that explains the dramatic increase in the green vote in the recent Australian election – right after the Watts tour no less.
And you talk of libelous papers when the daily tone here by commentators itself is libelous. Who hasn’t been called a fraud or corrupt by now?
hmmmmm….
REPLY: “libelous tone”? Heh, that’s a new one. Your comment is a perfect example of why dealing in hard facts is so hard for people like yourself. Libel is or isn’t, “tone” doesn’t cut it. If you want to accuse of libel, make a citation, otherwise take your “tone” elsewhere. – Anthony
Tom, I have been posting this message for the last six mionths, “quit the bashing, stick to the science, and treat us as adults, then, and only then will we the people be willing to sit down and listen to you!
Guess what? Not one of the established team members has ever replied, and some have not even allowed my comment through. Ironically, it seems that Gavin is the only one to try to go the extra yard now and then, as when he appeared on collide-a-scape and for a while was actually responding in an adult way. As for MT, he talks to us as though we are children, no respect for him at all.
“That didn’t work. So they began also to run advertisements, such as jet planes crashing into skyscrapers, and the more recent explosion of skeptical children and soccer stars”
Can’t wait to see the ads featuring OBL cuddling a penguin, tears welling, telling the west they’re guilty of scaring the children.
and after a summer that never really materialized in California to snow that is falling early in the mountains of Italy, government fed ‘scientists’ wonder why no one is listening to them.
The Establishment is caught in it’s own rhetoric.
A Skeptical Snowball rolls downhill, gathering many once ardent ‘the science is settled’ supporters.
Piers Corbyn says:
October 3, 2010 at 7:51 pm
We know, Piers, we know. The EPA has been directed to take measures that can only result in bringing great harm to America.
We vote in November, and that is our part to play.
I hope you and Joe Bastardi keep up with the real world weather forecast messages.
That stuff really counts in keeping things honest.
The myth – purveyors stories are becoming less credible by the day, in direct proportion to a better informed public. Love to see a WUWT graph on that.
Next step: close down the internet information channels?
If the coming winter in the northern hemisphere is as bad as I think it will be, that will be the coffin lid slamming shut.
I found this article recently and it seems to be a good summary of the state of the climate change movement and ties well into what is shown above. Its not new but a search of WUWT did not yield any hits so maybe it would be better late than never. Thanks goes out to John Brignell for a very well written account of how we got here.
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/religion.htm
I’m sure some readers, and especially Piers, will be interested in how the UK Met Office chooses to deliver its message on the reliability of its weather forecasting (via the Daily Telegraph)
“Michael Lawrence, a Met Office forecaster … said that while the Met Office always quantified the probability of long-term weather scenarios, others were not so rigorous.
“What these forecasters do is pit themselves in opposition to what we say and if they get it right they get a lot of publicity,” he lamented.
If they got it wrong “nobody knows who they are” so it did not matter, he added.
I must be tone deaf – haven’t come across any libelous tones here yet, 🙂
Well said.
One discrepancy though. You’re using the antiquated term, created by the progressives, “Climate Change”.
Either you’re behind the times, and not using Global Climate Disruption, or you’re just slow to catch the uptake.
I’d suggest you do not allow the opposing side to define the terms of the debate. Either stick to their original definition, and force them to live with it (“Global Warming”), or we finally begin to define the terms.
Global Warming, Climate Change, and now Global Climate Disruption. These have been the terms the establishment has used/refined in order to advance their arguments (or slow their backsliding).
Political Warming, Bank Account Warming, Global Progress Disruption, Anti-Science Alarmist, Ostrich Science, Chicken Little Science, or almost any number of other terms would be FAR more accurate in describing the processes and people involved (and screaming most loudly) in the debate.
Best wishes, and again, don’t just let the other side tilt the playing field by constantly redefining the terms of the debate.
What happens to respect for science if global warming goes down?
I wonder about that and even worry some. It used to be one trusted scientists, or the solid majority anyway, to walk the straight and narrow, be objective, and make a few mistakes of course — but not many.
However now, for the whole field, for those hundreds and thousands of scientists who signed global warming petitions, and every advocate who said, “The science is settled,” or words to that effect, and there was no vast uprising of scientists to say otherwise, there is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
The whole world of Western science will have shown itself to be no better than Soviet science with Lysenkoism. If that happens, it will be very sad.
David Davidovics,
Thanks for posting that great John Brignell essay. Really excellent.
Fool me once :
And you talk of libelous papers when the daily tone here by commentators itself is libelous. Who hasn’t been called a fraud or corrupt by now?
Reply:
It doesn’t help the cause for the alarmist when all their star players all spend their time (and millions) driving around in chauffeured cars, living in huge mansions, and cottages on secluded islands, or leave their “tour busses” running in the parking lot (for the sake of air conditioning) while they preach about the rest of the world keeping a small carbon footprint.
Damn their hypocrisy. They are all about being privileged and slinging bullshit to the masses!!! I can’t stand the green-asses that flew to Copenhagen to cheer on the hypocrites.
If you are going to try to get me on side, at the very least, lead by example!
Let me see Big Al in a Prius…it can even be bulletproof, I’m fine with that.
Good work Thomas. I think it is a case of mass “Cognitive Dissonance”. Pseudo-science is not my business but this geologist will take on a contract (government funded of course) to study it. I am not completely convinced this is just a communication failure, although it has been that. I more suspect the “great unwashed” has more sense then these “true believers” seem to think. They see through the sham and rhetoric on both sides and are looking for the lesser of evils since the middle ground seems to be nonexistent.
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
October 3, 2010 at 8:45 pm
If the coming N. Hemisphere La Nina is as strong as it is gathering up to be, it will be one to remember.
The Canadian Geese have been spotted flying south in the Central Valley of California.
The Sun is once again not co-operating, as regards to getting up to speed on those Omega Blocking Highs.
The absence of communication is not a flaw -it is a strategy.
Huxley,
I wouldn’t worry too much. Science has given us too much to just be abandoned, and most science is still done correctly, using verifiable research with irefutable results. However, when the time comes and global climate disruption turns out to not be that disrupting then it will be that no one believes in globalwarming and no one ever did. And the whole thing will be swept under the rug of history like so many others before.
Its not so much a failure in communication as it a failure to understand with whom they are communicating.
The 10:10 slaughter-fest, like the falling polar bears and plane crashing into Manhattan before it, are all about communicating with the converted, rather than trying to convince the rest.
I’m pretty sure it never crossed their minds that these ads might be seen as horrid and even psychotic. But if these were actually preaching to the choir, then it would not have mattered as this is what they have been preaching for twenty years. The converted would see it as an attempt to inject some humor in their otherwise depressing day of worrying about how the planet was going to hell.
Maybe I’m wrong, but at least this makes sense (in an admittedly twisted way) of their lack of remorse for making light of the killing of school kids.
When was the last time that the facts were made up to suit the policy? Oh yeah – that went well.
“They literally cannot admit uncertainty, and they have lost the aura of invincibility–or at least authority.”
It’s far worse than a communication failure, the science behind the failed CAGW conjecture is just plain wrong! Too many of the population of this tiny planet now realise that the evidence they use to try and prove their case has no substance, despite the massive PR campaign in the MSM. The inconvenient truth is that CAGW, designed to unite the world through a common call to action, has become a divisive issue with pro’s and con’s now dug into the trenches of of conflict
The ‘twelve just men’ of public opinion have examined the evidence and prophecies but have found it to be lacking and the case for CAGW has been thrown out of court:-
Climategate and the multitude of IPCCgates have shown how the data has been massaged and distorted to fit the conjecture (Hockey stick graph).
How FOI requests were refused to stop data verification.
How data was badly managed and lost or destroyed.
How the peer review process was subverted to suppress contradictory evidence.
How the MSM colluded with the IPCC cabal of cargo cult scientists to suppress opposing views.
How the ever growing and significant influence of our cities ‘heat island’ effect has been poorly managed in the global mean temperature data series.
The role of deterministic chaos in the creation of natural climate change has been ignored.
The computer GCM’s have failed in their predictions.
The forecast ‘equatorial tropical tropospheric hot-spot’ has failed to appear.
(The list goes on…..)
Failed prophecies include…..
Polar bears are thriving.
Global sea ice levels are ‘normal’.
No statistically significant warming for 15y.
Hurricanes have failed to increase in number and strength.
Snow has failed to become a rare occurrence – in fact rather more in the last few years.
No sudden increase has been seen in sea level rising.
No mass starvation – in fact world nutrition is improving.
No massive droughts – rainfall has been greater in the last few years.
The ghost of CAGW still continues to wander the earth, with the screams of the true believers in the cargo cult science of CAGW getting shriller and shriller, but our sun has had the final word in bringing down the curtain on this mythical crisis.
If all the scientists who have determined that most of the recent warming is due to GHG increases are wrong (that would be the great majority of them), then what is the primary cause? ENSO? Solar variability? Cosmic rays? Have the people at WUWT decided on that yet. Having read posts from this site for awhile I am unsure what you would consider to be the primary driver of recent climate change. As it stands, I will have to follow the more coherent message, that CO2 is a GHG and that our practice of emitting it is increasing its concentration in the atmosphere, which in turn is trapping heat and causing the troposphere to warm while the stratosphere cools.
Perhaps communication about climate science would flow better if there was less hubris and more humility on the part of the communicators.
Remember this?
“Science is a very human form of knowledge; we are always at the brink of the known, we always feel forward, for what is to be hoped. Every judgement in science stands on the edge of error, and is personal. All information is uncertain, we have to treat it with humility.
“There is no absolute knowledge, and those who claim it, whether scientists or dogmatists, open the door to tragedy. There are two parts to the human dilemma — one is that the belief that the end justifies the means; the other is the betrayal of the human spirit, the assertion of dogma that closes the mind.
“Science is a tribute to what we can know, although we are fallible. In the end, the words were said by Oliver Cromwell: “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.”
bgood2creation says:
October 3, 2010 at 10:18 pm
But why would you suppose there is any cause at all?
Weather is chaotic, close to random within its limits.
There is no cause for a roulette wheel turning up 30 reds in a streak, it is just random variation, and no reason to suppose that a warm or cool weather pattern lasting a decade or two or even a century has any cause either.
People often confuse cause with mechanism, for instance the mechanism of a series of cold decades might be colder ocean temperatures but they are not the cause.
What causes those cold ocean temperatures is another matter, it might be that there is one, perhaps the sun or other things, on the other hand it might just be the usual random fluctuations in the climate system.
We simply cannot tell: and have no way of doing so at the moment.
Kindest Regards
If you wish to practice a religion, and you choose to have faith in the Global Warming – Climate Change – Climate Disruption religion; that is your right and your privilege. If, however, you have the least interest in the rigors and discipline of science and the scientific method, demonstrating your faith in such a belief system has nothing to do with science beyond the pseeudo-scientific trappings and masquerades. At the present state of so-called climate science, the discipline being practiced by the IPCC and its supporters are tantamount to astrology and mysticism, insofar as they employ the symbols of science without complying with the fundamental requirements of the scientific method.
To demonstrate otherwise, you can begin by showing evidence that there really is such a thing as a Greenhouse Gas, other than the misnomer. You can then proceed to demonstrate how carbon dioxide can function as a GHG in the atmosphere. Then you can take the next step and demonstrate how carbon dioxide has the capability of increasing the mean temperature of the Earth proportional to its occurrence in atmospheric concentrations at the same rates of temperature change experienced by the Earth in all past geological periods as is being claimed at the present time.
You can aslo proceed to demonstrate how it is possible for a computational model that presently exists can possibly forecast or hindcast climactic events within less than 1C error rate as a substitute for empirical evidence from Nature.
If you ge this far, we can then proceed to the other problems which serve as obstacles to satisfying the requirements of the scientific method and its application to the Anthropogenic Global Warming, Climate Change, and Climate Disruption hypothesis.
Re begood2creation, the same thing, or not that caused the warming last time it happened. We haven’t denied the role of humans in creating a warmer planet, there is just scant evidence that it is co2, and there seems no evidence that it is increasing, tipping, flooding, melting, rising, dying, starving, sweating as had been promised for 20 years. We think it’s foolish to tell the world that soon were all going to die and in the same breath say that windmills are the answer, that the problem is so bad we must control every aspect of your life but not bad enough to build a nuclear power plant. Were old enough to have seen and heard this crap shoveled up before and we won’t accept it blindly and neither should you.
They came up with the “we need to communicate better” meme not long after Copenhagen and the bitter NH winter.
I don’t buy it one bit. What they really mean is “we couldn’t convince them with our dodgy science, so we must convince them with dodgy language.”
bgood2creation says:
October 3, 2010 at 10:18 pm
Science was never about ‘what else could it be’, but one thing you can be certain of: This is the 4th panic over climate in 130 years, consisting of 2 Ice Age scares and 2 Global Warming scares. The lastest episode just happens to be the worst one as far as imaginations go. HypoWarmia.
The post talks about playing the media game. Guess what; the mass media game doesn’t work, regardless how well you play it, because the mass media isn’t trusted. The Gallup poll at http://www.gallup.com/poll/143267/Distrust-Media-Edges-Record-High.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=syndication&utm_content=morelink&utm_term=Politics is discussed in an article that begins…
> Distrust in U.S. Media Edges Up to Record High
> Perceptions of liberal bias still far outnumber perceptions
> of conservative bias
> by Lymari Morales
> WASHINGTON, D.C. — For the fourth straight year, the majority
> of Americans say they have little or no trust in the mass media
> to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly. The 57% who
> now say this is a record high by one percentage point.
a jones,
Thanks for your reply . It is possible that it could be natural variability, I suppose, but I think it unlikely. I guess I could rephrase the question to be, “What is the most likely reason for the warming of the past few decades?” The IPCC answer you know well, “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations.” What is the WUWT answer to this question?
D. Patterson,
Perhaps you could tone down the rhetoric, please. To clarify, are you suggesting that there are no gases that exert a positive radiative forcing?
@David Davidovics October 3, 2010 at 8:53 pm (…)
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/religion.htm
Thanks for reminding me of that. Hadn’t read it for a long time
And now just to cheer you all up, a bit of relatively good news:
http://thegwpf.org/opinion-pros-a-cons/1577-jean-michel-belouve-french-academy-of-science-allows-science-debate.html
bgood2creation read D. Patterson says:
October 3, 2010 at 10:45 pm, a couple of times, one of them fancy coiled light emitters may then turn on if its not to cold.
@bgood2creation:
One simple reason: H2O is the main greenhouse gas.
Further:
– Climate models have build in a positive feedback from clouds. Should be negative
– Cosmic rays and the sun influence cloud formation on earth and therefore climate.
– CO2-levels follow warming. CO2 doesnt cause warming.
Theoretical a doubling of CO2 levels from 350 could have a warming effect of 1.2C. Only with positive feedback from clouds does the IPCC come to much higher warming.
Since feedback is negative, the warming effect will be nihil.
The CAGW warming ‘science’ is based on wrong assumptions and ignores other mechanisms.
CO2 is plantfood, not a pollutant.
“The 10:10 video ‘No Pressure’ is a new symbol–not one that the Establishment will cherish. It’s a symbol of failure to communicate.”
The video went viral as planned. The biggest carriers of viral video are children. This could in fact be part of a strategy outlined here by Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri.
bgood2creation says:
October 3, 2010 at 11:30 pm
People who think that a run of numbers somehow indicates an underlying cause which they imagine they understand are the delight of bookmakers and casinos.
You may think that there has been recent warming and that therefore it has some meaning and some cause. But it could just be nothing more than random variation.
People tend to see patterns in such things when there is actually none: why I do not know, it is something to do with the way our minds work or perhaps have evolved to work: which is what makes bookmakers and casinos rich.
As our instruments show periods of decades of sudden warming or cooling are nothing unusual: why they happen is another matter but we cannot even ascribe a mechanism for them let alone a cause.
If you want to see how this has happened in the past try Lubos Motl here:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/01/warming-trends-in-england-from-1659.html
He has various other analyses of the CET but you will have to search his site.
But I repeat it is a great mistake to assume you can see a pattern in what is essentially a random series of numbers.
After all did not Dr Jones [no relation] of CRU himself admit in an interview with the BBC that he could could not tell the difference between the latest sudden warming and that of the 1930’s or the 1880’s: each followed by a sharp period of cooling of course.
What he then said was that he believed there was a difference even though the evidence shows there was none. Belief is one thing. Science is another.
Kindest Regards
DirkH says:
October 4, 2010 at 12:41 am
“The video went viral as planned. The biggest carriers of viral video are children. ”
IOW, it could be a campaign aimed at a new target demographic, and not be a failure after all. If it succeeds in instilling an irrational fear of nonconformance with the wishes of Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri and the UNIPCC in children, they have succeeded.
10:10global.org was in this case just a front organisation that can be dropped now, just like Franny Armstrong and Richard Curtis; and the campaign will be continued through a different front organisation next time.
Come establishment heads throughout the land
And don’t criticize what you can’t understand
Your dads and your moms are beyond your command
Your ersatz road is rapidly agin’.
Please get out of the way if you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.
bgood2creation says:
October 3, 2010 at 10:18 pm
“If all the scientists who have determined that most of the recent warming is due to GHG increases are wrong (that would be the great majority of them), then what is the primary cause? ENSO? Solar variability? Cosmic rays? Have the people at WUWT decided on that yet.”
The most succinct response to your question is in Thomas Fuller’s article:
“None of it is working right now. They literally cannot admit uncertainty, and they have lost the aura of invincibility–or at least authority.”
I’ll give my commentary of that. The key word is uncertainty.
Real scientists have the intestinal fortitude to live with uncertainty. In my academic background, analytical chemistry, we attempt to be upfront about the uncertainty in whatever it is that we’re measuring. We have discussions about how we should define uncertainty, and how to directly and indirectly convey uncertainty to nonspecialists who read our articles. I even have a publication in the top journal in my field on that very topic. If anyone is interested, I’ll post a link.
On the other hand, followers of secular religions, like CAGW, feel very uncomfortable without a prefab worldview, which explains everything that’s important to them. And that fundamental insecurity is a huge hurdle to overcome in one’s intellectual development.
So, what’s the 800-pound gorilla of recent climate change? I freely admit that do not know. And you don’t either.
However I do know that there’s no–as in zero, zip, nada, and zilch–evidence that Larry Effect gases, like CO2 are the *primary* culprit. For example, the twenty-odd GCMs used by the IPCC all predict a mid-tropospheric hot spot in Earth’s equatorial regions, and radiosonde data show that that hot spot does not exist. CAGW is a thoroughly falsified hypothesis that is unworthy of being called a theory.
Even the Easter Bunny climate change hypothesis would be a better explanation. At least, that one has not been falsified yet!
Moreover it’s not necessary for the Anthony, the guest-posters, and commentators at WUWT to formulate a consensus opinion on climate change. We’re a diverse group of free-thinking individuals, who view the world from a variety of different perspectives. We’re not an academic mafia. However for the bah-humbugs (like me), skeptics, and lukewarmers among us, a common thread in our postings can be expressed as the famous line from an old Tom Cruise movie whose name I forget: “Show me the money!” We do not need the illusion of certitude to give meaning to our lives.
bgood2creation says:
October 3, 2010 at 11:30 pm
This, plus a small contribution from CO2 emissions.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/research-articles/global-warming-as-a-natural-response/
http://www.drroyspencer.com/global-warming-natural-or-manmade/
Daniel Hannan, in his Daily Telegraph blog, quotes the EU President Herman van Rompuy suggesting the following means of overcoming the failure to communicate a necessity for sanctions on people thus:
‘Whenever possible, decision-making rules on sanctions should be more automatic and based on a reverse majority rule, implying a Commission proposal is adopted unless rejected by the Council.’
If the Global Warmists would only adopt this procedure, they could do as they wished.
Oh, wait a minute…
The simple fact is that indicators such as the google news count for “global warming” have been on a steady decline since 2007.
YES 2007!!!
This decline in public interest is not as result of jokenhagen, climategate or the last cold winter. The public and Main Stream Media have been going off this subject for years. The most likely reasons are:-
1. Boredom with the story – how many times will people care to read about the prospective death of this or that furry animal?
2. The lack of predicted catastrophes – you can hype up one or two natural disasters and make people believe “something is happening”, but unless you can continually increase the hype year on year … decade on decade so that the public see for themselves increasing effects … they start to ignore the hype.
3. The lack of warming in the 21st century has undermined the credibility and urgency of the “imminent disaster “.
4. “It’s not affecting me”. Even if people believe in global warming, a decade is long enough for most people to assess whether they personally are experiencing any change for the worse or better. They don’t need expensive scientific equipment, satellites, a degree in mathematics to realise that they are clearing the same path from the same snow they remember their dads/grandparents doing. They can remember how hot summers used to be and they snow that the latest “heat wave” isn’t particularly unusual.
5. I like a bit of Autumn/fall sunshine. You can’t help people liking warmer weather. Even ardent believers will forget eventually themselves and enjoy the heat and moan about the cold.
This isn’t a failure to communicate, it is a failure for the mass ranks of professional communication to over ride the common sense of the populace and mainstream media.
Indeed, sorry to say this, but the success of wattsupwiththat is not so much a driver of the fall of the global warming scam, but is a symptom of its collapse!
Just slightly off topic : the inevitable 10:10 parodies….
http://anallseeingeye.blogspot.com/2010/10/1010-muslim-spoof.html
Message from the top: It’s OK to terrorise children for the cause.
Fool me once says:
October 3, 2010 at 8:06 pm
“- so that explains the dramatic increase in the green vote in the recent Australian election.”
One must understand that on the face of it, when confronted with the simple question “do you want a cleaner, efficient, safer world”, almost every individual will give you a resounding yes. With due respect and given the millions if not billions spent on driving the “doom” message into every household, it’s not surprising that the campaign is yielding results. Realistically, we have to acknowledge that the majority of people do not have the inclination, or the necessary skills to separate the wheat from the chaff as it were. Plus it’s a lot “cooler” these days, to be a “mother earth” activist than a stinking oil/coal demon. Never mind the fact that each individual owes his livelihood and standard of living to the “enemy”. Nobody here is against a more efficient, cleaner world; we just know that by running around hysterically, while agitating for control in order to impose crippling legislation, based on dubious knowledge, is not only “un-cool”, but perilously stupid.
Bgood2creation says
“…I will have to follow the more coherent message, that CO2 is a GHG and that our practice of emitting it is increasing its concentration in the atmosphere, which in turn is trapping heat and causing the troposphere to warm while the stratosphere cools…”
Bgood, we know CO2 is a GHG. And each time it’s doubled, its GHG effect doubles. But most of the GHG effect is not CO2, it’s water. And evidence – real evidence not models – has shown that as CO2 has increased, the vapour effect at critical heights has decreased (an apparent NEGATIVE feedback). Water, taken in conjunction with evaporation, condensation, and convection, has the strange property of being able to act as either positive or negative effect. And while IPCC has largely ignored it, the work of skeptical scientists has showed again and again that water appears to work as a homeostatic mechanism in the atmosphere. Hence life on earth has survived so long.
There’s more to counter the rest of what you said, but one step at a time.
It’s not coherence that counts. You have to look at all the significant evidence, for it to be true Science. Sorry but that takes a bit of effort. However, the effort is worth it.
IMO you are confused. These ‘messages’ are not intended to communicate. They come in the forms of epistle and sermon and are aimed at believers and are to be passed on as memes. To question them is the normal reaction of the sceptic who then is tasked with proving a negative which, of course, is fruitless: the classic theist & atheist discourse.
Richard Dawkins has claimed that science is corrosive to religion and he may be proved correct, but for science to have a chance of being effective, it has to be correct. The fact that it is probably not is the real problem to be overcome. The repository of ‘the science’ is the IPCC and it has gatekeepers at all entry points. Nothing short of storming it will get the result of the communication that you wish for. I believe (sorry) that the internet is playing a major part in that storming; for search engine read siege engine.
bgood2creation says:
October 3, 2010 at 11:30 pm
a jones,
Thanks for your reply . It is possible that it could be natural variability, I suppose, but I think it unlikely. I guess I could rephrase the question to be, “What is the most likely reason for the warming of the past few decades?” The IPCC answer you know well, “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations.” What is the WUWT answer to this question?
————————————————————————————
You can try and answer this question
What caused the warming of 1000 years ago (MWP) which is estimated at 0.5 to 1.0 degrees Celcius hotter then present time and what caused the warming 2000 years ago (RWP) which is estimated at being equivalent to present temps?
Answer that question and you would have the answer to the warming today.
Lucy Skywalker says:
October 4, 2010 at 1:48 am
“[…] Bgood, we know CO2 is a GHG. And each time it’s doubled, its GHG effect doubles.[…]”
Ahem no, each time it’s doubled, its GHG effect increases by a constant amount. That is the nature of a logarithmic function.
Nice post, Tom. I suspect that the simple truth, which Abraham Lincoln knew full well (you can fool all of the people…) is that the public are actually much smarter than they are given credit for by the ruling elites who are now flailing about in their attempts to retain control of the populace for their own enrichment. The relatively new factor is the very powerful tool we call the internet, which by its very nature is utterly and almost ruthlessly democratic, as witnessed by the manner in which the arrogant, the devious and the dishonest are ultimately exposed for what they are.
I’ve met greenies who look just like Franny Armstrong. They don’t like cars, they dress down into boyish clothes, they don’t like shopping or looking fashionable, they are vegan or vegetarian from an early age, and they have no aspirations to get high skills in a well paid profession, but would rather hang out with their friends just like they did when they were twelve. Now all of that is fine. But they still want to feel important, despite not having any useful skills like medicine or engineering or business. So they feel they are important (which is fine, as all humans are intrinsically valuable) but they have nothing useful to offer. So they become activists for a cause. The funny thing is that the planet us supposed to be in danger, but all we need to to is to adopt the lifestyle ilif these typical greenies. Now isn’t that a coincidence? What better way to make yourself feel important (even if you have no skills) than to believe that your no-skill no-money luser lifestyle is actually the most noble lifestyle and the most useful for saving the planet?? Isn’t it funny how the answer to the worlds problems just happens to be, “become more like me” ?! Meanwhile the successful people are the ones being productive and you know, consuming, and they make greenies look like losers, but no, it is the productive people who are bad, and the luser greens who are noble. I’m not trying to be mean to them, I’m just looking at the way in which even the quiet and gentle greens who dissavow material grasping, how these greens, how they also have needs. The need to feel important even when their chosen lifestyle is so chilled and unmaterialistic.
Adam says:
October 3, 2010 at 9:45 pm
Huxley,
I wouldn’t worry too much. Science has given us too much to just be abandoned, and most science is still done correctly, using verifiable research with irefutable results. However, when the time comes and global climate disruption turns out to not be that disrupting then it will be that no one believes in globalwarming and no one ever did. And the whole thing will be swept under the rug of history like so many others before.
I think this misses the point. The worrying thing here is that the establishment appears to have been able to bend the science. You cannot as an individual check every scientific proposition put forward by politicians or beaurocrats – you have to be able to take them on trust for them to have value. When the scientific method is bent this far, where else is it getting bent? I would suggest that some not particularly scientific scientists have been promoted over their more scientific colleagues because they were on message. Physical sciences will be unlikely to be damaged because they are difficult to bend – but all of the softer social sciences, medical claims and general environmental sciences are going to be badly damaged. I doubt it would take much of a skewing of the control group to claim a substance that was not damaging to humans was in fact damaging. This sort of science relies completely on the scientists being impartial and rigorous. The institutions that are supposed to guarantee that rigour and impartiality have been compromised. Would you accept an endorsement from the Royal Society at face value after their handling of climategate?
What is bizarre is that for a few years now the MSM seem to be going to greenpeace first and foremost for impact assesments of environmental stories – not the scientists.
There is no “denial movement”, only people who have looked at the evidence presented about so-called “man-made global warming” and found it wanting.
There is a massive programme of funding going into the promotion of AGW, including from DEFRA and DECC. In 2006, the Institute for Public Policy Research, where David Miliband once worked, produced a paper called “Warm Words”, in which he had this message:
“…it is our recommendation that, at least for popular communications, interested agencies now need to treat the argument as having been won. This means simply behaving as if man-made climate change is real, and that individual actions to prevent further change will be effective. The UK Government’s new climate-change slogan – ‘Together this generation will tackle climate change’ (Defra 2006) – is but an example of this approach. It constructs…its own factuality.”
This was written by a PR consultant and a novelist.
From 2001 to 2007, DEFRA spent £110 Million on environmental campaigns, a major part of which is devoted to promoting the concept of anthropogenic global warming. They are still spending our money on trying to convince us that we need to pay higher taxes on energy, even as the climate gets steadily colder.
I disagree with your statement that; “It isn’t working”. Have you paid attention to the regulations being drafted and issued by EPA, and sister organizations around the world? Of course it’s working.
Any man not believing in climate change spends a night in the box…
bgood2creation asks:
October 3, 2010 at 10:18 pm
“what is the primary cause [of recent warming]” if not GHG?
This is the classic, fallacious “what else could it be?” argument. Has bgood considered the possibility that we simply don’t know? Like the ancient Greeks, who knowing nothing of electromagnetism, put their faith in the “coherent message” that lightening was Zeus, in one his periodic snits, hurling thunderbolts from atop Mt. Olympus. After all, what else could it be?
Following a letter of mine to my MP, I have a reply from Chris Huhne the Secretary of State for Energy & Climate Change. (Well, he signed it at least!) Interestingly, my MP had written enclosing my letter to Greg Barker , the junior Minister for Climate Change, but it had been escalated to Huhne. I ust have hit a raw spot.
Regretably Huhne’s reply is hard copy & at present I don’t have it in electronic form. But among a lot of citing of IPCC stuff there are two comments I would like help on/ steer to where I can read up on the issues. I quote from his letter:
Quote A
“In his letter Mr Watkins suggests that changes in CO2 do not drive global warming. However, the lag between temperature and CO2 changes revealed in ice core records is likely related to the slow processes governing the deep ocean’s regulation of the atmospheric CO2 concentration”
Quote B
“There is direct experimental evidence for a strengthenenig greenhouse effect over the past few decades due to rising greenhouse gas emissions. This comes from satellite measurements showing a decrease in the outgoing long wave energy to space at wavelengths at which CO2 and methane (CH4) absorb energy(ref 1), and from surface measuements indicating an increase in infra-red downward radiation from the atmosphere to the Earth’s suface (ref 2)
ref1: Chen et al 2007 spectral signatures of cliate change in the earth’s infra red spectrum between 1970 & 2006
ref 2: Wang & Liang 2009 Global atmospheric downward long wave radiation over land surface under all-sky conditions from 1973 to 2008 (j. of Geophys Res vol 114)
My initial reaction to Q1 is that 800 yrs or so is a mighty slow process and if that is really the CO2 regulator then how come current concentrations are ascribed to human activity and/or teps are assumed to track CO2 concenrations with vastly shorter lag times.
Re Q2, I am short of knowledge. Do satellites have full coverage (eg of poles)? Even if true, negative feed back from H2O would dilute the temp effect? And I didn’t say CO2 had no effect, just no major effect in the real world climate system. And what is the quantitative effect measured here, in watts/sq meter I wonder? Is this the “missing heat” the non finding of which is a “travesty”?
Huhne goes on to say, in passing, ” positive feedbacks arise naturally from the physics underlying climate syste processes” and refs Chapter * of IPCC WG1.
He finishes as follows:
” The reduced global warming trend seen in recent years has been shown to be due to year- to -year and decadal scale natural climate variability. Decade long warm and cool periods have been seen before in the observation record. Such natural variations do not negate longer timescale trends & do not indicate any shortcomings in modern climate models.
In conclusion, although i accept that a sall minority of Earth scientisits dispute the IPCC review findings, the basic physics and observational records are clear and I am in no doubt that the risks of significant cliate changs, caused by unabated emissions, are very real. Given the potential global, regional and local impacts and consequences of future climate change, it therefore makes sense to restrict future global emissions.”
Well, folks, that is what you are up against. maybe the drafter of the letter felt a little pressed, if not desperate, but the political layer seems convinced and is pressing on. Mr Huhne is keen on windmills, for example.
Any comments welcome.
bgood2creation says:
October 3, 2010 at 11:30 pm
a jones,
Thanks for your reply . It is possible that it could be natural variability, I suppose, but I think it unlikely. I guess I could rephrase the question to be, “What is the most likely reason for the warming of the past few decades?” The IPCC answer you know well, “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations.” What is the WUWT answer to this question?
========================================================
bgood, welcome to the world of skepticism. As you can note by the various answers you’ve received, there is no “party” line. No marching orders. No corporate funding. No conformity. No conspiracy. Simply a bunch of free thinkers that know there isn’t “proof” of anything, yet. Many here will agree that CO2 is the main culprit, but simply don’t see anything that warrants such alarm. Many, as by the response will tell you that H2O is the GHG that’s doing the forcing. As has been pointed out, history tells us that the earth has warmed and cooled throughout its history. Why do we need to assign blame for this very small period of warming? If necessary, I would say we are seeing a synergistic affect of forcings that are poorly understood or simply not known to date. Further, I see where mankind has thrived better in warmer climates that cooler, so this alarmism is complete nonsense. The death spirals have been shown to be wrong. They can’t prove CO2 is the culprit even after 30 years of funding and study. And warmer is better. That’s my take. See, we don’t do consensus here.
bgood2creation says:
October 3, 2010 at 11:30 pm
a jones,
Thanks for your reply . It is possible that it could be natural variability, I suppose, but I think it unlikely. I guess I could rephrase the question to be, “What is the most likely reason for the warming of the past few decades?” The IPCC answer you know well, “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations.” What is the WUWT answer to this question?
The Answer Is: WE DON’T KNOW. The data is inconclusive because of it’s poor quality, mass manipulation and political use. We cannot even be certain that there has been any significant warming over the past 1000 years because data is both anecdotal and of poor quality. It seems possible that the MM was a real event, but of what depth? and the other warming periods could have been significant (roman and medieval) but the data has been so poorly managed and manipulated that we really don’t know. However, we are now in the age of satelite measurements, albeit embryonic, and therefore have an opportunity like never before to measure our planet accurately and without predjudice. Lets hope we can take it.
For those seeking an explanation of the Green gains in the Australian election, I agree with the premise that when faced with a simple good such as “Who is FOR cleaner water?”, what average person–on NO further investigation of policy, method, etc–will respond “No”?
I also offer the following Australian comedy take on the resaon (which does incorporate some of the above):
Thomas Fuller
—a cold winter in western media capitals—
This is an irrelevant occurrence if the public understands the real symptoms of the increased energy imbalance on the planet.
—new paper showing how models predict doom for whatever symbol they used, now people seem to want things like data, whatever that is. —
You seem to be insinuating that papers are released without data. Can you provide evidence for this?
—But there really isn’t enough data to make a definitive case for the type of climate change—
There is plenty enough work done of the last century on both observation, basic physics, and paleo-data to establish a highly probable risk of public danger for continuing to release heat trapping gases. There certainly isn’t data to refute to link between human action and the changing climate. You are accusing AGW proponents of argument from ignorance by arguing from ignorance. What do you consider scientifically definitive and exactly what damage would be needed to “do something”?
—And it is my personal opinion that that is precisely the way it works–deciding the appropriate action and then searching for supporting information, of whatever quality they can drum up—
Your opinion is irrelevant and factually incorrect. Research into climate change had been going on for decades before any ideas of “appropriate action”. This idea is quite laughable.
—-So they began also to run advertisements, such as jet planes crashing into skyscrapers—-
It is a well established fact that this ad was rejected by the WWF and never released by them. If you have proof that WWF used this ad, please provide it.
—They literally cannot admit uncertainty—
Would you mind opening the IPCC pdf and doing a search on the word uncertainty? Or do that for any science paper? This statement is just factually incorrect, and without correction, is purposefully misleading.
—But they’re not listening–and so in the end they cannot communicate.—
If this is the case, a few missteps doesn’t do the damage that articles like this one, where certain facts are dismissed, can confuse the public.
I’ve wondered how does one Disrupt the Global Climate and not equate weather to climate? These ephemeral atmospheric episodes called “weather” have nothing to do with “climate”, hence the Global Warmers (or whatever you want to call them) are utilizing one phenomena to define another, unrelated, phenomena (the old “weather isn’t climate” mantra).
Global Climate Disruption is a very poor term to represent their agenda and as a misnomer (a wrong or unsuitable name or term), will only cause them more anguish when it fails to resonate with a public that already views them as corrupt, inept, illogical, controlling, and power hungry.
Well, isn’t this interesting. Huhne is relying on satellite data, which is known to be false.
His letter is absurd, the only believable part being his protestations that he is convinced of the global warming theory himself. That much is self-evident, but he obviously has never bothered checking any of the “facts” he so-freely throws around to “prove” his ridiculous assertions. Definitely gets an “F” for that effort, which is just plain insulting the intelligence of all those he is so eager to heap carbon taxes.
To enlighten anyone not familiar with the errors of satellite data, here is something you might find interesting:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Satellite Data Fraud
Dr Charles R. Anderson; “It is now perfectly clear that there are no reliable worldwide temperature records, and that we have little more than anecdotal information on the temperature history of the Earth.”
http://co2insanity.com/2010/08/19/leading-us-physicist-labels-satellitegate-scandal-a-%E2%80%98catastrophe%E2%80%99/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Leading US Physicist Labels Satellitegate Scandal “A Catastrophe”.
Respected American physicist, Dr Charles R. Anderson has waded into the escalating Satellitegate controversy publishing a damning analysis on his blog.
In a fresh week of revelations when NOAA calls in their lawyers to handle the fallout, Anderson adds further fuel to the fire and fumes against NOAA, one of the four agencies charged with responsibility for collating global climate temperatures. NOAA is now fighting a rearguard legal defense to hold onto some semblance of credibility with growing evidence of systemic global warming data flaws by government climatologists.
Anderson, a successful Materials Physicist with his own laboratory, has looked closely at the evidence uncovered on NOAA. He has been astonished to discover, “Both higher altitudes and higher latitudes have been systematically removed from the measured temperature record with very poor and biased interpolated results taking their place.”
Like other esteemed scientists, Anderson has been quick to spot sinister flaws in official temperatures across northern Lake Michigan
http://climatechangedispatch.com/climate-reports/7479-us-government-in-massive-new-global-warming-scandal-noaa-disgraced
The website operated by the Michigan State University published ridiculously high surface water temperatures widely distributed over the lake many indicating super-boiling conditions. The fear is that these anomalies have been fed across the entire satellite dataset. The satellite that first ignited the fury is NOAA-16. But as we have since learned there are now five key satellites that have become either degraded or seriously comprised.
In his post, “Satellite Temperature Record Now Unreliable”
http://objectivistindividualist.blogspot.com/2010/08/satellite-temperature-record-now.html
Anderson’s findings are that NOAA sought to cover up the “sensor degradation” on their satellite, NOAA-16. The U.S. physicist agrees there may now be thousands of temperatures in the range of 415-604 degrees Fahrenheit automatically fed into computer climate models and contaminating climate models with a substantial warming bias. This may have gone on for a far longer period than the five years originally identified.
Anderson continues, “One has to marvel at either the scientific incompetence this reveals or the completely unethical behavior of NOAA and its paid researchers that is laid open before us.”
The Indian Government Knew of Faults in 2004
The Indian government was long ago onto these faults, too. Researcher, Devendra Singh, tried and failed to draw attention to the increasing problems with the satellite as early as 2004 but his paper remained largely ignored outside of his native homeland.
Indian scientist, Singh reported that NOAA-16 started malfunctioning due to a scan motor problem that caused a “barcode” appearance. Singh’s paper, “Performance of the NOAA-16 and AIRS temperature soundings over India” exposed the satellite’s growing faults and identified three key errors that needed to be addressed.
Singh writes, “The first one is the instrument observation error. The second is caused by the differences in the observation time and location between the satellite and radiosonde. The third is sampling error due to atmospheric horizontal inhomogeneity of the field of view (FOV).” These from India thus endorse Dr. Anderson’s findings.
NOAA Proven to have engaged in Long-term Cover Up
Investigations are proving increasingly that such data was flagged by non-NOAA agencies years ago, but NOAA declined to publish notice of the faults until the problem was publicized loudly and widely in the first “Satellitegate” article, “US Government in Massive New Global Warming Scandal – NOAA Disgraced.”
http://climatechangedispatch.com/climate-reports/7479-us-government-in-massive-new-global-warming-scandal-noaa-disgraced
Official explanations initially dismissed the findings, but then NOAA conceded their accuracy in the face of the evidence.
A succession of record warm temperatures in recent years may be based on contaminated satellite readings.
http://climateprogress.org/2010/02/16/noaa-warmest-january-on-record-in-both-satellite-records/
But NOAA spokesman, Program Coordinator, Chuck Pistis declined to clarify the extent of the satellite instrument problem or how long the fault might have gone undetected.
In another article, “Official: Satellite Failure Means Decade of Global Warming Data Doubtful”
http://climatechangedispatch.com/climate-reports/7491-official-satellite-failure-means-decade-of-global-warming-data-doubtful
we saw the smoking gun evidence of a cover up after examining the offending satellite’s AVHRR Subsystem Summary. The official summary shows no report of any ‘sensor degradation’ (NOAA’s admission) since its launch in September 2000.
http://www.oso.noaa.gov/poesstatus/componentStatusSummary.asp?spacecraft=16&subsystem=4
Subsystem Summary Details Censored Between 2005-10
But even more sinister is the fact that the official online summary now only shows events recorded up to 2005. All subsequent notations, that was on NOAA’s web pages showed entries inclusive to summer 2010 which have now been removed. However, climatechangefraud.com is displaying a sample of the missing evidence copied before NOAA took down the revealing web pages after it entered into “damage limitation” mode.
http://climatechangedispatch.com/images/stories/pics3/2010_Jul04_959EDT.gif
As events have unfolded we are also learning that major systemic failures in the rest of the satellite global data-collecting network were also not reported. Such serious flaws affect up to five U.S satellites as reported in an excellent article by Susan Bohan.
NOAA Tears Up its Own “Data Transparency” Policy
But rather than come clean, NOAA has ordered their lawyers to circle the wagons. Glenn Tallia, their Senior Counselor, wrote “The data and associated website at issue are not NOAA’s but instead are those of the Michigan State Sea Grant program. Thus, we have referred your email to the Michigan State Sea Grant program.”
Yes, Glenn, clearly the final data output was published by Michigan but the underlying fault is with your satellite!
With NOAA now hiding behind their attorneys we appear to see a contradiction of NOAA’s official pledge that ” The basic tenet of physical climate data management at NOAA is full and open data access” published in their document, “NOAA/National Climatic Data Center Open Access to Physical Climate Data Policy December 2009”.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/about/open-access-climate-data-policy.pdf
Sadly, we may now be at the start of yet another protracted delay and concealment process that tarnished NASA’s and CRU’s reputations in Climategate. We saw in that scandal that for 3-7 years the US and the UK government agencies cynically and unlawfully stymied Freedom of Information requests (FOIA).
NASA’s disgrace was affirmed in March 2010 when they finally conceded that their data was in worse shape than the much-maligned Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the UK’s University of East Anglia. CRU’s Professor Phil Jones only escaped criminal prosecution by way of a technicality.
The attorney credited with successfully forcing NASA to come clean was Christopher Horner, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
American Physicist Pick Out Key Issues
Meanwhile, back on his blog, Anderson points to the key issues that NOAA tries to cover up. He refers to how Charles Pistis, Program Coordinator of the Michigan Sea Grant project, tried to pass off the flawed data as being an accidental product of the satellite’s malfunction sensors taking readings off the top of clouds rather than the surface temperatures.
By contrast, Anderson cogently refutes this explanation showing that such bogus data was consistently of very high temperatures not associated with those detected from cloud tops. He advises it is fair to assume that NOAA were using this temperature anomaly to favorably hype a doom-saying agenda of ever-increasing temperatures that served the misinformation process of government propaganda.
As Pistis admitted, all such satellite data is fed automatically into records and apparently as long as it showed high enough temperatures to satisfy the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (AGW) advocates of those numbers were not going to make careful scrutiny for at least half a decade.
Anderson bemoans, “One has to marvel at either the scientific incompetence this reveals or the completely unethical behavior of NOAA and its paid researchers that is laid open before us. Charles Pistis has evaded the repeated question of whether the temperature measurement data from such satellites has gone into the NOAA temperature record. This sure suggests this is an awkward question to answer.”
Now Satellites NOAA-17 and 18 Suffer Calamities
While NOAA’s Nero fiddles ‘Rome’ continues to burn, and the satellite network just keeps on falling apart. After NOAA-16 bit the dust last NOAA-17 became rated ‘poor’ due to “scan motor degradation” while NOAA-18’s gyro’s are regarded by many now as good as dead. However, these satellites that each cross the US twice per day at twelve-hour intervals are still giving “direct readout”(HRPT or APT) or central processing to customers. So please, NOAA, tell us – is this GIGO still being fed into official climate models?
http://www.ofcm.gov/slso/2008/NSLSOP_Draft_V6.pdf
NOAA-17 appears in even worse condition. On February 12 and 19 2010, NOAA-17 concedes it has “AVHRR Scan Motor Degradation” with “Product(s) or Data Impacted.”
Beleaguered NOAA customers have been told, “direct readout users are going to have to deal with the missing data gaps as best they can.”
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/SATS/SPBULL/MSG0502024.01.txt
On August 9 2010, NOAA 17 was listed as on ‘poor’ with scan motor problems and rising motor currents. NOAA admits, “Constant rephase by the MIRP was causing data dropouts on all the HRPT stream and APT and GAC derivatives. Auto re-phase has now been disabled and the resulting AVHRR products are almost all unusable.”
NOAA continues with tests on ’17’ with a view to finding a solution. On page 53 we find that NOAA-17 has an inoperable AMSU Instrument.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/weather-satellite-reports/message/2352
The status for August 17, 2010 was RED (not operational) and NOAA is undertaking “urgent gyro tests on NOAA 18.”
More evidence proving NOAA is running a “degrading” satellite network can be read here.
http://www.oso.noaa.gov/poesstatus/spacecraftStatusSummary.asp?spacecraft=15
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Perhaps Mr Huhne would like to respond? Though, I’m not holding my breath.
REPLY: He may or may not, but I will. This analysis by Anderson, saying things like “favorably hype a doom-saying agenda” is ridiculous. There’s no cover up. This sensor degradation and failure is normal for the technology. Yes the temperatures were off, the sensor failed. It happened to NSIDC also. The only thing that can be said here is that they weren’t watching the output of automated SST product closely enough, which was the same issue with NSIDC when I caught them plotting faulty NOAA17 data. NOAA19 is now online and 100% and automated product are moving to that. If you look at the spacecraft status page:
http://www.oso.noaa.gov/poesstatus/spacecraftStatusSummary.asp?spacecraft=14
You’ll see this spacecraft was taken offline, after running for 12 years…and as you go through the spacecraft numbers, 15,through 19 you’ll see they get progressively better, with 19 being fully operational.
Technology fails with age. It’s normal. Just like an automobile losing a battery after 3 years, or needing a new water pump, spacecraft also have failures. Unlike your car, sometimes redundant sensors and systems keep it’s mission going. Also unlike a car, you just can’t gring it into the shop and ask them to swap in a new AMSU unit in an afternoon.
Despite many requests to carry this story on WUWT, I refused to, because it’s wrongly presented with the cover up angle. – Anthony
Joe Romm has written extensively about global warming having a messaging problem Thick headed sceptics were just not converting and buing into the message, Now they are more bold and open in sharing how they feel about sceptics.
The 10:10 video was up a very short time.
Then the fake apology.
They lavished praise and compliments on the producers and actors in the apology. That tells me they are convinced they have succeeded in messaging as they intended.
We get the Message Romm. It is one of hate. It is not scince at all.
bgood2creation says:
October 3, 2010 at 10:18 pm
As it stands, I will have to follow the more coherent message, that CO2 is a GHG and that our practice of emitting it is increasing its concentration in the atmosphere, which in turn is trapping heat and causing the troposphere to warm while the stratosphere cools.
You’ve been misinformed. Before you read anything else, you really should read the following link, posted by David Davidovics above. Once you read that, you can then go about learning more about how things like changes in the sun and oceans influence
our climate far more powerfully than C02. Enjoy!
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/religion.htm
OK Anthony. I take it all back. There was no cover-up.
Huhne is still wrong, though.
Tom,
I agree with virtually everything you say, except
“None of it is working right now. They literally cannot admit uncertainty, and they have lost the aura of invincibility–or at least authority. ”
For the administration it really does not matter what the uncertanity is/are. The administration will make it work. They are tone deaf to science and have the most radical environmentalists in key positions- think Holdren and Jackson, etc, etc. They ignore science and exaggerate daily. Holdren gave his alarmist presentation and never admitted, as any real scientists would, that there are lots of uncertanity and lack of scientific fact in his wild claims about global warming. He refuses to admit the IPCC errors and other aspects of Climagate. He should be required to read your book!!
The EPA is planning to jam things down our throat with some form of carbon tax, there is an illegal moritorium on offshore drilling, Leasing of oil/gas lands is at all time lows, more energy fertile lands are being placed off limits every week, the EPA is about to force E15 on the motorists, boaters, etc, we are being forced into small autos, they lie about the promise of alternative fuels, they are dumping huge $$$ into programs that are failing (e.g. biofuels from cellulosic sources to manfacture ethanol), Boxer the chairman is devoid of fairness in her energy hearings and demands to be adressed as Senator rather than M’am, and obama gives $$ to Mexico and Brazil so that they can drill offshore and onshore. All this with the MSM support.
The administration and the alarmists are losing on the science and the buy in from the public, but they are pushing the global warming agenda anyway since it will give the government more control over energy and our lives.
I feel like the skeptics are winning the scientific battle but losing the war on regulations, carbon restrictions/taxes and mandates.
gryposaurus, I would suggest that WWF reacted much the same way as 10:10 has done–and in a few years, someone will be blogging that 10:10 “rejected” No Pressure.
The WWF ad was entered in Cannes, and won an award, before being disappeared from YouTube and most other places, as documented with links on…this very blog.
I think most of the schools signed up are in the UK…
My childs headteacher, spoke to 10 10 this morning and has stopped all involvement with 10 10
The head was completely unaware of this video, and the 10 10 mindset..
May I suggest, anyone with children, sent the link to the guardian article, to thier schools headtecher/governors.
And ask them, please watch this video, read the co-founders words….
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/se…
Should you ever be involved with this…
Look up your school.
http://www.1010global.org/uk/education/schools
I am personally going to email ALL my local schools with this link, and advice them what my schools headteacher has done..
I hope that anyone else might do the same..
in there area..
your choice, no pressure !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
gryposaurus,
“Thomas Fuller
—a cold winter in western media capitals—
gryp – This is an irrelevant occurrence if the public understands the real symptoms of the increased energy imbalance on the planet.
======
Ridiculous. Of course they don’t understand.
TF – —new paper showing how models predict doom for whatever symbol they used, now people seem to want things like data, whatever that is. —
gryp – You seem to be insinuating that papers are released without data. Can you provide evidence for this?
=======================
I believe Tom is referring to the battles that Steve McIntyre and others have waged, using FOI laws to get to see data and algorithms. Surely you are not denying that any of this has occurred?
TF – —-So they began also to run advertisements, such as jet planes crashing into skyscrapers—-
gryp – It is a well established fact that this ad was rejected by the WWF and never released by them. If you have proof that WWF used this ad, please provide it.
==================
When did Tom write anything about WWF?
TF – —They literally cannot admit uncertainty—
gryp – Would you mind opening the IPCC pdf and doing a search on the word uncertainty? Or do that for any science paper? This statement is just factually incorrect, and without correction, is purposefully misleading.
=======================
In the Summary for policy makers, the assertion is made that human made greenhouse gases are ‘very likely’ responsible for the majority of 20th century warming. They define very likely to have a probability of at least 90% but less than 99% of being true. Now here’s the fun bit. Go into the IPCC pdf document and show me the statistical calculations from which th 90% probability was derived.
I’ll be waiting.
barbarausa :
—The WWF ad was entered in Cannes, and won an award, before being disappeared from YouTube and most other places, as documented with links on…this very blog.—
The ad was rejected by WWF. They never used it. Just because the ad company (after denying they did it) entered a film version of the ad into Cannes and won an award, it does not show that WWF used it. T Fuller attempted to say that this message came from proponents of AGW, which it did not. It came from Meio & Mensagem, an ad agency in Brazil. Please lets get some facts correct before making accusations.
Vince Causey:
—Ridiculous. Of course they don’t understand.—
So you think that a cold winter is relevant? And who doesn’t understand? The public? I wonder why.
—I believe Tom is referring to the battles that Steve McIntyre and others have waged, using FOI laws to get to see data and algorithms. Surely you are not denying that any of this has occurred?—
95 % of the data was available to the public. And climate scientists don’t control the dispersion of raw temperature data. And T Fuller clearly stated that scientists are releasing press reports about certain “symbols”. And then said “now people seem to want things like data, whatever that is”. This has nothing to do with the temperature data and code you are referring to.
—When did Tom write anything about WWF?—
The planes flying into buildings references the ad that WWF rejected.
—In the Summary for policy makers, the assertion is made that human made greenhouse gases are ‘very likely’ responsible for the majority of 20th century warming. —
This clearly shows the uncertainty that everyone says does not exist.
—They define very likely to have a probability of at least 90% but less than 99% of being true. Now here’s the fun bit. Go into the IPCC pdf document and show me the statistical calculations from which th 90% probability was derived. —
They are using all the evidence involved to come to that conclusion. Most experts think there is a higher degree of certainty, but the IPCC was, believe it not, a somewhat conservative document. But asking for a single calculation that leads the summary to include a ‘very likely’ (90-99%) causality is, of course, just a diversion. There is no such thing, not is it possible to do in any complicated science where variables cannot be laboratory controlled. The case is built upon basic physics, chemistry, observation, models, paleo-data, satellite temperature, proxies, etc. You could, if you’d like, ignore all that data, and focus on cover-ups, perceived conspiracies, and a small percentage of uncertainty, but, clearly the message is being distorted. It really should be one of intelligent caution, where uncertainty is measured against the risks to humanity and solutions based upon that, not non-solutions and dismissal based on distortions.
The ad agency is named DDB Brasil, not Meio & Mensagement. Meio & Mensagement is the ad industry trade publication company name that printed the story.
Tom Fuller,
Thank you for your article.
The ideal scenario of communication is as follows. The understanding of climate between two rational people is processed through a common language that is mutually agreed to and that is used consistently. What language is appropriate for the discussion of climate? For maximizing the possibility of objective understanding it must be a scientific language. The scientific language version of the understanding is distributed between “honest brokers” to the science community and to the open public. The vernacular language version is also made by the “honest brokers” in science. The “honest brokers” in the media (MSM or the independent blogosphere media) distribute both versions to all. In the case of the scientific version the communication by the “honest brokers” includes: all code, methodologies, data, metadata, and , FOI additional requests.
Of course that is the ideal. What we have seen in climate science of the last 2 (or more) decades was purposeful diversion from the ideal to advocate pre-determined policies and values.
We see it.
Now, the re-structuring back toward the pursuit of the ideal is the main task.
Looks like fun.
Viva the very first climate science renaissance.
John
gryposaurus,
“But asking for a single calculation that leads the summary to include a ‘very likely’ (90-99%) causality is, of course, just a diversion.”
Say what? Asking for the calculation for the 90% probability is a diversion?
But then you go on to say “There is no such thing, not is it possible to do in any complicated science where variables cannot be laboratory controlled.”
In other words, the figure was plucked from the air. Would that be to give a veneer of certainty to something that is inherently uncertain?
gryposaurus,
“—Ridiculous. Of course they don’t understand.—
So you think that a cold winter is relevant? And who doesn’t understand? The public? I wonder why.”
I assumed you were making the point that the public won’t be fooled by a cold winter if they understand radiative forcings. My response is they don’t, and they form opinions heuristically. So, I maintain that a few cold winters will cool their passion for AGW.
Real scientists have the intestinal fortitude to live with uncertainty. In my academic background, analytical chemistry, we attempt to be upfront about the uncertainty in whatever it is that we’re measuring. We have discussions about how we should define uncertainty, and how to directly and indirectly convey uncertainty to nonspecialists who read our articles. I even have a publication in the top journal in my field on that very topic. If anyone is interested, I’ll post a link.
Larry Fields says:
“Real scientists have the intestinal fortitude to live with uncertainty. In my academic background, analytical chemistry, we attempt to be upfront about the uncertainty in whatever it is that we’re measuring. We have discussions about how we should define uncertainty, and how to directly and indirectly convey uncertainty to nonspecialists who read our articles. I even have a publication in the top journal in my field on that very topic. If anyone is interested, I’ll post a link.”
I’d be interested in reading that. I do modelling as part of my job, and it is sometimes hard to explain to people that model results are not 100% certain.
Yup, I want things like data, whatever that is. But maybe here is a better explanation:
http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-09-29/news/white-america-has-lost-its-mind/5/
Bob Newhart said:
“Let me see Big Al in a Prius…it can even be bulletproof, I’m fine with that.”
Gonna need a lot of fossil fuel to move that extra weight.
—Say what? Asking for the calculation for the 90% probability is a diversion?—
Yes, it is a diversion because the IPCC doesn’t claim to have any such calculation. This was a statement that the experts (and others, see next paragraph) agreed on which would best show what the evidence suggests. And the I already listed some generalized areas that the evidence falls into.
—In other words, the figure was plucked from the air. Would that be to give a veneer of certainty to something that is inherently uncertain?—
These consensus opinions are generally done by many branches of science. Saying the figures are “plucked from the air” is not the reality. But in regards to the IPCC, the Summary for Policy makers is also approved by representatives of governments, not the IPCC board itself. This article may help you understand the way IPCC comes to its consensus.
————-
I apologize that I forgot to give credit the term “honest broker” from the source I got it from, Roger A. Pielke, Jr. Of course my use of the term does not imply it is his usage of the term.
John
…a few cold winters will cool their passion for AGW.
The recent cold winters plus ten years of basically flat temperatures are a big part of the problem the global warming advocates are having.
Ordinary folks are balking. Global warming hasn’t panned out the way they were told and now they aren’t going to be stampeded into the mammoth carbon tax and management schemes the global warming advocates demand.
Ordinary folks are now skeptics too.
True, the advocates can spin those facts in various ways as the global warming advocates do (weather vs climate, some number of the warmest years on record, decade-long lulls don’t violate the AGW models), but it won’t impress ordinary folks.
They know their weather, they know that the global warming advocates didn’t predict this lull, and, at least in the UK, the weather forecasts — no doubt influenced by the global warming models — were for warm winters, not cold ones.
Also many folks noticed the Orwellian shift from “global warming” to “climate change” and rightfully concluded that the advocates were pulling a bait-and-switch because maybe the science isn’t so settled after all.
I still think that labeling is a large part of the communication problem. The middle doesn’t hold, so the opposite ends are polarized.
I’m not complaining about name calling as being derogatory. I saying it limits your view of other people.
You can’t lump all people’s beliefs about ANYTHING together in nice packages. From what I’ve seen on these blogs, most skeptics are not anti-environment or anti-energy conservation, but honestly disagree with the science and conclusions reached by the IPCC et al. Most of those promoting the IPCC are not radicals pushing the 10-10 message, but are responsible people who believe the science is sound.
But instead of those that are able to discuss and debate, the conversation is dominated with more extreme positions. And unfortunately most of these are the least qualified to expound on science: actors, comedians and politicians.
gryposaurus: The 90% cited by the most recent IPCC report (it was 80% in previous reports) means 90% or “very likely.” It doesn’t mean “(90-99%) causality” as you claimed earlier.
Furthermore, the article you cite doesn’t explain how that percentage was obtained beyond a group of scientists who pooled their pluckings from the air, argued over them in some fashion and came to consensus. It’s not the same as a similar number presented in a medical drug trial study.
gryposaurus says:
October 4, 2010 at 5:51 am
“There is plenty enough work done of the last century on both observation, basic physics, and paleo-data to establish a highly probable risk of public danger for continuing to release heat trapping gases. ”
There is only one thing in the universe that can trap heat and that is a black hole. So please no more “heat trapping gases”.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/34962513/Elsasser1942
As to your “work done of the last century on both observation, basic physics,” see above and quotes below.
Quote:”It maybe noted that since the flux in carbon dioxide band is equal at any level, to a difinite fraction of the black body radiation corresponding to the temperature of that level both upward and downward direction, the resultant flux of carbon dioxide readiation vanishes in th approximation chart.”
Quote:”…Arrhenius in connection with his well known suggestion that the ice ages might be due to a change in the radiative properties of the atmosphere caused by a change in its carbon dioxide content, an idea which has long since been abandoned as an untenable speculation.”
If you can demonstate Dr. Elsasser wrong please do so.
The panel defines “very likely,” “extremely likely,” and “virtually certain” as indicating probabilities greater than 90%, 95%, and 99%, respectively.[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_of_recent_climate_change#cite_note-WG1-2007-AR4-0
Oops. My bad.
Djozar says:
October 4, 2010 at 10:39 am
“[…]From what I’ve seen on these blogs, most skeptics are anti-environment or anti-energy conservation, but honestly disagree with the science and conclusions reached by the IPCC et al. […]”
Djozar, there are frequent threads on WUWT that discuss the pros and cons of wind, solar, nuclear, fossil fuels conventional and unconventional. You will find proponents and opponents for each of these technologies on these threads and a level of technical detail that you find on no other blog i know of.
So i think you didn’t look hard.
Oh, and why do you find this level of technical detail here?
BECAUSE WE ARE THE PEOPLE WHO BUILD THIS STUFF.
Djozar says:
October 4, 2010 at 10:50 am
“Correction to my last post:
most skeptics are NOT anti-environment or anti-energy conservation, …”
Sorry – seen your correction too late… 😉
DirkH says:
Please see the correction above; fingers going faster than my mind.
I am a mechanical engineer, and yes I do read the blog.
“None of it is working right now. They literally cannot admit uncertainty, and they have lost the aura of invincibility”
============
I wish I could be so optimistic, Thomas. The global warming/climate change alarmism has always been mostly a media-driven (and therefore establishment-driven) issue. And I see no indication this is going to subside. Don’t be mislead by the fact that, on the scientific front, the cause for alarm has repeatedly been shown to be all holes and no basket. The overwhelming majority of the public lacks the time or the background (or both) to research the topic on their own, and must rely on what they hear in the daily news, which is nothing but a constant flow of alarmist propaganda. One might think that if something is clearly wrong with a scientific theory, the truth will eventually emerge. Maybe. But it can take a very very long time. The huge level of uncertainties and assumptions and vagueness that totally undermine the theory, also ensures that any aspect of it can be dragged into endless debate over increasingly minute levels of detail, which is wonderful to the extent it hides a view of the whole absurd picture, especially the extremely absurd notion that all the proposed measures would have any measurable effect on climate.
The objetc, from the point of view the establishment that generates and propagates the case for alarm, is simply to drive the case for alarm into people’s heads to a point sufficient for them to accept increasingly oppressive legislation to control and comercialize carbon. The scientific aspect, for the establishment, is just a side show they can keep confusing forever, if only because buyable scientists trying to make a living are a dime a dozen, and the exact nature of the relation between CO2 and climate allows endless room for quibbling. It also helps if you have control of the temperature sets.
But in the propaganda campaign, they have not only the control of the media, but also the enthusiastic participation (almost for free) of increasing numbers of “useful idiots” like the ones who produced the latest video. Once in a while their idiocy vastly overwhelms their usefulness, as happened in this instance, but in general they are very helpful.
Since skeptics have nearly zero influence over the media, the most effective means of fighting this nonsense is with good communicators who can see the whole forest, the whole picture of the scientific case for alarm, and produce with some regularity brief summaries of its general absurdity in a manner the general public can grasp. Extremely detailed discussions on narrow aspects of the whole picture, like the physics of radiation in the atmosphere and so on, are important for the scientific case, but do nothing against the extremely effective brain washing, the pre-packaged nonsense that the media keeps dropping on the public mind with such relentless regularity. Think about it. The reason these lunatics believed in the possible effectiveness of the blowup video, is that, in their minds, the impending catastrophe is beyond doubt and therefore beyond discussion. They probably feel the same as you would if, say, a big asteroid had been clearly identified on course to smash the earth in 4 years, and a group of sceptics kept saying we should not attempt to destroy it if we can. The fact that they feel this way is a tribute to the incredible effectiveness of the brain washing campaign.
So, no, I don’t see general perceptions changing radically any time soon. I hope I am wrong.
“What we have here is failure to obfuscate.”
Tannim111 says:
October 4, 2010 at 9:50 am
“I’d be interested in reading that. I do modelling as part of my job, and it is sometimes hard to explain to people that model results are not 100% certain.”
Part of the article is behind a paywall. Here’s a link to the first page.
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ac00298a079
Part of my M.S. thesis was a simplified example of an approach to data compression that used hybrid number systems. Eventually it dawned on me that I had precious little–beyond the Hackenbush Number System–to compare it with. Basically, the Anal. Chem. article is about a Brand X technique. However, there is some generic material about uncertainty included on that first page. Enjoy.
A mildly theological take on the ecomentality
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100056928/richard-curtis-and-the-ritual-slaughter-of-children-welcome-to-the-bloodlust-of-the-apocalyptic-imagination/
‘There’s nothing like the prospect of the ritual slaughter of children to excite prophecy believers, in my experience.’
Judith Curry has a blog post up at present on communicaton to the public by scientists. She has been mildly criticised by about half of the posters as many think scientists can only retain credibility by doing thier job i.e just doing the science. I suspect Judith still has not got past the view that scientists have a duty to advocate a particular viewpoint. I also suspect she underestimates the ability of the public to understand complex scientific issues.
One of the problems for those who wish to communicate science while advocating a political position is that there are many in the general public who eventually become curious. Curosity leads to investigation. The more “science cloaked advocacy” that is communicated to the public the more in-depth the eventual scrutiny by members of the public who by chance also do rather a lot of science. The actual level of scientfic uncertainty is gradually revealed and public confidence in the science diminishes towards the appropriate level.
Then the advocates begin to wonder why the message is not convincing the great unwashed masses. The problem for the advocates is now much greater because the public has been alerted and it will be much harder to convince them a second time. Most propaganda has a use-by date. Renewed efforts at “communication” of advocacy cloaked under a scientific veneer run up against the law of diminishing returns. This is where the debate is trending, potentially from both sides of the argument, i.e. towards a stalemate. Just now that would be a welcome position.
mkelly:-
—There is only one thing in the universe that can trap heat and that is a black hole. So please no more “heat trapping gases”.—-
This, of course, is only if you use “trapping” in the most extreme sense, which I don’t understand why you would. It’s well known that CO2 slows down, or absorbs heat, and this is according to Kirchhoff’s law of thermal radiation.
—-Quote:”It maybe noted that since the flux in carbon dioxide band is equal at any level, to a difinite fraction of the black body radiation corresponding to the temperature of that level both upward and downward direction, the resultant flux of carbon dioxide readiation vanishes in th approximation chart.”
Quote:”…Arrhenius in connection with his well known suggestion that the ice ages might be due to a change in the radiative properties of the atmosphere caused by a change in its carbon dioxide content, an idea which has long since been abandoned as an untenable speculation.”—-
The experiment that Elasser discusses here is likely the experiment done in 1904 in regards to the “suggestion” that Arrhenius made about CO2 and ice ages. Knut Ångström published an experiment that his assistant, Herr J. Koch did which tried to mimic the atmosphere using gases and tubes. Had he used longer tubes his results would have been closer to the truth, but this poor experiment (there was limited instrumentation at the time) was published and cited frequently later on. Herr Koch reported that when he cut the amount of gas in the tube by one-third, the amount of radiation that got through scarcely changed. The fact that gases are well mixed throughout the atmosphere has been known since military flight personal and scientists (from satellites) from several countries independently found this in the fifties. The first line-by-line spectra of the atmosphere was done by Plass; more were done, specifically Ramanathan, and lastly Myhre in the 90’s, which has the most recent and conservative number for CO2 radiative forcing, used by the IPCC.
—If you can demonstate Dr. Elsasser wrong please do so.—-
Satellite observation has already done so in the 1950’s. But again, this is work not even done by him; he is just citing it.
gryposaurus,
“These consensus opinions are generally done by many branches of science. Saying the figures are “plucked from the air” is not the reality.”
Ok. They get together and discuss what the probability is, based on their own opinions. That hardly adds much more credence to the 90% probability. Look, imo, to claim 90% probability is pure spin. You’re obviously fine with it, so fair enough, end of discussion.
@Rob R:
‘One of the problems for those who wish to communicate science while advocating a political position is that there are many in the general public who eventually become curious. Curosity leads to investigation. The more “science cloaked advocacy” that is communicated to the public the more in-depth the eventual scrutiny by members of the public who by chance also do rather a lot of science. The actual level of scientfic uncertainty is gradually revealed and public confidence in the science diminishes towards the appropriate level.’
Excellent point Rob – this is exactly what happened to me, from relatively complacent to fiercely antagonistic. Prior knowledge of historical climate (medieval and ancient) finally tripped my bs sensor after one of the ‘OMG we’re all going to die’ statements, along with a viewing of The Global Warming Swindle and then of the greasy snake oil of Gore’s revivalist rubbish.
And, to digress, 10:10 have lost their corporate sponsors. I bear a grin, just like Anthony’s smiley.
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/10/04/corporate-partners-out-as-1010
gryposaurus says:
October 4, 2010 at 1:11 pm
“This, of course, is only if you use “trapping” in the most extreme sense, which I don’t understand why you would. ”
Words have meanings. There is no extreme sense. Something that is trapped cannot escape. If you meant slow down say so, but CO2 cannot even do that.
At thermal equilibrium, the emissivity of a body (or surface) equals its absorptivity. This is Kirchoff’s Law of thermal radiation. It has nothing to do with slowing down heat.
If you read the paper by Dr. Elsasser, then you know he cited many peoples works including his own. His paper on radiative heat transfer in the atmosphere is still a oustanding piece of work.
His first quote I cited is the most operational of the two. As he stated the fluxes negate each other and CO2 ends up adding nothing to the radiative heat of the atmosphere.
Please telling me how satellite observation demonstrated him wrong.
Just wondering if anyone else at first thought the movie was ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”. lol… I clicked play and was like “WTH…This isn’t Indy!”. But it sure looked like it at first!
Anyway, back on topic, I would like to add that any data that indicates AGW is only the beginning in a long line of questions that must be answered, among many of which is whether our cutting back would even matter. I mean, assuming it was the case, who’s to say we could correct the mistakes of our forebearers by cutting it out altogether?
But proponents are so stuck on step one. Not only that, they resort to messages that get everyone up in arms over the tastefulness/intent. Just imagine how they would react to inquiry further down the line…
mkelly:
—-Words have meanings. There is no extreme sense. Something that is trapped cannot escape. If you meant slow down say so, but CO2 cannot even do that.—-
Yes, words do certainly have meaning and in which version of English does “trapped” mean that something cannot escape at some point? And yes, CO2 does certainly slow down the escape of heat into space. This is a well established fact.
—At thermal equilibrium, the emissivity of a body (or surface) equals its absorptivity. This is Kirchoff’s Law of thermal radiation. It has nothing to do with slowing down heat.—
No really, it very much does.
—-If you read the paper by Dr. Elsasser, then you know he cited many peoples works including his own. His paper on radiative heat transfer in the atmosphere is still a oustanding piece of work.
His first quote I cited is the most operational of the two. As he stated the fluxes negate each other and CO2 ends up adding nothing to the radiative heat of the atmosphere.
—-
What you need to understand is that these early pre-fifties experiments were done at sea level pressure which caused all the bands to overlap. When you go up into the atmosphere, these bands separate and mix differently.
And not surprizingly, when I go read the paper, the quotes you selected were taken out of context, and it appears Elsasser was developing theory based on Arrhenius’ work that was shown by satellites and airplane instruments 10-15 years later by military personal. Let’s look at that quote you use:
“Arrhenius in connection with his well known suggestion that the ice ages might be due to a change in the radiative properties of the atmosphere caused by a change in its carbon dioxide content, an idea which has long since been abandoned as an untenable speculation…”
Within the next few paragraphs in that paper (you look it up yourself on pages 76-78), he describes the recent work that uses the Arrhenius experiments and shows why they are important to atmospheric heat transfer.
Elsasser Quote:
“If the emissivities have been measured for both water vapor and carbon dioxide and for the thickness and temperatures obtaining in the atmosphere, the transfer problem is completely solved with an accuracy equal to that of these measurements — apart from a four-fold correction.”
He when goes on to describe the correction. He built his theory models on Arhennius’ work.
—Please telling me how satellite observation demonstrated him wrong.—
I’m afraid Elsasser’s theory and later the evidence for it obtained by aircraft and satellite has proven you wrong. I’d suggest reading your citations a bit more closely.
As far as the first quote, found on page 23, Elsasser saying that “It maybe noted that since the flux in carbon dioxide band is equal at any level, to a difinite fraction of the black body radiation corresponding to the temperature of that level both upward and downward direction, the resultant flux of carbon dioxide readiation vanishes in the approximation chart.” means that the CO2 layer in his chart has no direction preference and doesn’t even discuss the layer as an absorber in that situation. How can you make any definitive thoughts on temperature when he is only discussing one of the actions? Knocking down well established, well evidenced scientific theory is more difficult then selecting some quotes from a 60 year old paper that doesn’t say what you think it does. This is much more complicated.
It isn’t rhetoric. You engaged in rhetoric. I’m asking you to take the rhetorical terminology you used and justify their usage in a scientific context, if you can. Provide the scientific definition of “radiative forcing” you are employing in your question.
gryposaurus says:
October 4, 2010 at 5:04 pm
It has nothing to do with slowing down heat.—No really, it very much does.
Kirchoff’s Law a=e
I note no element of time or speed in Kirchoff’s Law. I have examined my heat transfer book several times and have found no speed indicated for heat using this law.
What is the speed of heat and how exactly does this law say heat is slowed down?
If you want to say that fv=c and speed is the speed of light OK but there is no slowing of that so please inform me.
mkelly:
These definitions are from Wiki, for searching and subsequent research if you question my explanation.
Kirchoff’s law of thermal radiation is: At thermal equilibrium, the emissivity of a body (or surface) equals its absorptivity.
Planck’s Law applies that to the electromagnetic spectrum. It describes the spectral radiance of electromagnetic radiation at all wavelengths emitted in the normal direction from a black body in a cavity in thermodynamic equilibrium.
The Stefan–Boltzmann law, also known as Stefan’s law, states that the total energy radiated per unit surface area of a black body per unit time (known variously as the black-body irradiance, energy flux density, radiant flux, or the emissive power), j*, is directly proportional to the fourth power of the black body’s thermodynamic temperature T (also called absolute temperature).
Before these theories, John Tyndall wrote in 1962:
Tyndall did simple lab experiments, shining light through different tubes of gases, CO2, water vapor, etc.
If you look at any spectra reading from CO2 gas, you will see it becomes very active at certain wavelengths (absorbs and emits long-wave radiation)
The more layers of CO2 in the atmosphere, the more “bodies” are there to slow down the heat energy from exiting our atmosphere into space. We have several detailed studies showing the imbalance of energy at human emission gas wavelengths growing since 1950.
The Tyndall paper is from 1862. A slight difference 😀
@robr
One of the problems for those who wish to communicate science while advocating a political position is that there are many in the general public who eventually become curious. Curosity leads to investigation. The more “science cloaked advocacy” that is communicated to the public the more in-depth the eventual scrutiny by members of the public who by chance also do rather a lot of science. The actual level of scientfic uncertainty is gradually revealed and public confidence in the science diminishes towards the appropriate level.
Exactly. I read ‘the Science is Settled’ once too often and began to wonder what sort of science it was that they were doing. And remembered some long ago work for my Masters in Atmospheric Chemistry and how we conducted that…and rapidly came to the conclusion that the science not only wasn’t settled, it had very little actual foundation at all. And that many of its online advocates were little more than screaming harpies.
Which has led to an interesting new hobby for me of commenting in blogs like this one and watching as the tide slowly turns away from the CAGW religion. I give it 10-20 years before the beast is fully dead…but it is already dying day by day. And ‘No Pressure’ just shortened its life by 5 years. One more blow like that and it will be fatally wounded. Bring it On
Psychologists tell us that humor often tries to cover deeply anti-social emotions with a socially acceptable smiley face, and that the emotion is often unconscious to the humorist. The 10.10 film demonstrates that \”campaign to reduce carbon emissions\” (or whatever they are calling it this week) is a watermelon campaign — green on the outside and red on the inside. Like their explicitly communist brethren these people would not hesitate to make their hostile fantasy real.