It’s not the climate, but the tide of opinion that’s changing in Europe and around the globe
Guest post by Dr. Hans Labohm
The upcoming climate change (and wealth redistribution) summit in Cancun – coupled with Bjorn Lomborg’s ongoing publicity campaign for his new film – makes one thing painfully obvious. The fight against the delusion of dangerous man-made global warming remains an uphill struggle.
For decades the climate debate has been obfuscated by cherry-picking, spin-doctoring and scare-mongering by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other climate alarmists, including the environmental movement and mainstream media. Their massive effort to overstate the threat of man-made warming has left its imprint on public opinion.
But the tide seems to be turning. The Climate Conference fiasco in Copenhagen, Climategate scandal and stabilization of worldwide temperatures since 1995 have given rise to growing doubts about the putative threat of “dangerous global warming” or “global climate disruption.” Indeed, even Phil Jones, director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit and one of the main players in Climategate, now acknowledges that there has been no measurable warming since 1995, despite steadily rising atmospheric carbon dioxide.
People are paying attention, and opinion polls in many countries show a dramatic fall in the ranking of climate change among people’s major concerns. They are also beginning to understand that major rain and snow storms, hurricanes and other weather extremes are caused by solar-driven changes in global jet streams and warm-cold fronts, not by CO2, and that claims about recent years being the “warmest ever” are based on false or falsified temperature data.
In various parts of the world, the climate debate displays different features. The US and other parts of the non-European Anglo-Saxon world feature highly polarized and politicized debates along the left/right divide. In Europe, all major political parties are still toeing the “official” IPCC line. In both arenas, with a few notable exceptions, skeptical views – even from well-known scientists with impeccable credentials – tend to be ignored and/or actively suppressed by governments, academia and the media.
However, skepticism about manmade climate disasters is gradually gaining ground nevertheless.
In my own country, The Netherlands, for instance, it has even received some official recognition, thus dissolving the information monopoly of climate alarmists. The Standing Committee on Environment of the Lower House even organized a one-day hearing, where both climate chaos adherents and disaster skeptics could freely discuss their different views before key parliamentarians who decide climate policy.
This hearing was followed by a special seminar organized by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences, using the same format but focusing on scientific topics. The Academy will soon publish a report about this seminar.
Europe often brags about its emission trading scheme (ETS), regarding itself as the vanguard of an international climate policy. In the European view, the Copenhagen climate summit should have produced a worldwide extension and sharpening of its ETS. But the vast majority of countries in the world refused to follow Europe’s example, so the meeting turned into a fiasco. Its follow-up in Cancun at year’s end will surely produce a similar result. And for good reason.
Contrary to official claims, Europe’s experience with ETS is dismally bad. The system is expensive and prone to massive fraud. More importantly, it serves no useful purpose.
The European Environmental Agency tracks Europe’s performance regarding the reduction of CO2 emissions. Its latest report states: “The European Union’s greenhouse gas inventory report … shows that emissions have not only continued their downward trend in 2008, but have also picked up pace. The EU-27’s emissions stood 11.3% below their 1990 levels, while EU-15 achieved a reduction of 6.9% compared to Kyoto base-year levels.”
On the face of it, the scheme seems to be pretty successful. However, much of the downward trend was due to the global economic recession, not to the ETS. Moreover, both climate chaos proponents and climate disaster skeptics agree that the scheme will have no detectable impact whatsoever on worldwide temperatures – perhaps 0.1 degrees – though this crucial piece of information has been carefully and deliberately shielded from the public eye.
What about renewable energy as an alternative? Consider these EU costs for various sources of electricity in cents per kilowatt-hour: nuclear 4, coal 4, natural gas 5, onshore wind 13, biomass 16 … solar 56!
Obviously, the price tag for renewables is extremely high, compared to hydrocarbons. The additional costs can be justified either by imminent fossil fuel scarcity (the “oil peak”), which would send petroleum and coal prices through the roof, or by the threat of man-made global warming. But on closer inspection neither argument is tenable.
The authoritative International Energy Agency does not foresee any substantial scarcity of oil and gas in the near to medium future, and coal reserves remain sufficient for centuries to come. As to global warming, the absence of a statistically significant increase in average worldwide temperatures since 1995 obliterates that assertion.
Meanwhile, recent peer-reviewed studies indicate that increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere (natural or man-made) have minimal effects on climate change – while others demonstrate that, on balance, this plant-fertilizing gas is beneficial, rather than harmful, for mankind and the biosphere.
All this argues for a closer look at the cost/benefit relationship of investing in renewable energy projects, to prevent a massive waste of financial and natural resources on unreliable and thus uncompetitive forms of energy. Since every cloud has a silver lining, the ongoing economic crisis might give extra impetus toward that end.
______________
Hans Labohm is a former professor at the Dutch Institute of International Relations and guest teacher at the Netherlands Institute for Defense Studies. He has been an IPCC reviewer and has written extensively on global warming, petroleum economics and other topics.
Climate change no longer scary in Europe
It’s not the climate, but the tide of opinion that’s changing in Europe and around the globe
Dr. Hans Labohm
The upcoming climate change (and wealth redistribution) summit in Cancun – coupled with Bjorn Lomborg’s ongoing publicity campaign for his new film – makes one thing painfully obvious. The fight against the delusion of dangerous man-made global warming remains an uphill struggle.
For decades the climate debate has been obfuscated by cherry-picking, spin-doctoring and scare-mongering by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other climate alarmists, including the environmental movement and mainstream media. Their massive effort to overstate the threat of man-made warming has left its imprint on public opinion.
But the tide seems to be turning. The Climate Conference fiasco in Copenhagen, Climategate scandal and stabilization of worldwide temperatures since 1995 have given rise to growing doubts about the putative threat of “dangerous global warming” or “global climate disruption.” Indeed, even Phil Jones, director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit and one of the main players in Climategate, now acknowledges that there has been no measurable warming since 1995, despite steadily rising atmospheric carbon dioxide.
People are paying attention, and opinion polls in many countries show a dramatic fall in the ranking of climate change among people’s major concerns. They are also beginning to understand that major rain and snow storms, hurricanes and other weather extremes are caused by solar-driven changes in global jet streams and warm-cold fronts, not by CO2, and that claims about recent years being the “warmest ever” are based on false or falsified temperature data.
In various parts of the world, the climate debate displays different features. The US and other parts of the non-European Anglo-Saxon world feature highly polarized and politicized debates along the left/right divide. In Europe, all major political parties are still toeing the “official” IPCC line. In both arenas, with a few notable exceptions, skeptical views – even from well-known scientists with impeccable credentials – tend to be ignored and/or actively suppressed by governments, academia and the media.
However, skepticism about manmade climate disasters is gradually gaining ground nevertheless.
In my own country, The Netherlands, for instance, it has even received some official recognition, thus dissolving the information monopoly of climate alarmists. The Standing Committee on Environment of the Lower House even organized a one-day hearing, where both climate chaos adherents and disaster skeptics could freely discuss their different views before key parliamentarians who decide climate policy.
This hearing was followed by a special seminar organized by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences, using the same format but focusing on scientific topics. The Academy will soon publish a report about this seminar.
Europe often brags about its emission trading scheme (ETS), regarding itself as the vanguard of an international climate policy. In the European view, the Copenhagen climate summit should have produced a worldwide extension and sharpening of its ETS. But the vast majority of countries in the world refused to follow Europe’s example, so the meeting turned into a fiasco. Its follow-up in Cancun at year’s end will surely produce a similar result. And for good reason.
Contrary to official claims, Europe’s experience with ETS is dismally bad. The system is expensive and prone to massive fraud. More importantly, it serves no useful purpose.
The European Environmental Agency tracks Europe’s performance regarding the reduction of CO2 emissions. Its latest report states: “The European Union’s greenhouse gas inventory report … shows that emissions have not only continued their downward trend in 2008, but have also picked up pace. The EU-27’s emissions stood 11.3% below their 1990 levels, while EU-15 achieved a reduction of 6.9% compared to Kyoto base-year levels.”
On the face of it, the scheme seems to be pretty successful. However, much of the downward trend was due to the global economic recession, not to the ETS. Moreover, both climate chaos proponents and climate disaster skeptics agree that the scheme will have no detectable impact whatsoever on worldwide temperatures – perhaps 0.1 degrees – though this crucial piece of information has been carefully and deliberately shielded from the public eye.
What about renewable energy as an alternative? Consider these EU costs for various sources of electricity in cents per kilowatt-hour: nuclear 4, coal 4, natural gas 5, onshore wind 13, biomass 16 … solar 56!
Obviously, the price tag for renewables is extremely high, compared to hydrocarbons. The additional costs can be justified either by imminent fossil fuel scarcity (the “oil peak”), which would send petroleum and coal prices through the roof, or by the threat of man-made global warming. But on closer inspection neither argument is tenable.
The authoritative International Energy Agency does not foresee any substantial scarcity of oil and gas in the near to medium future, and coal reserves remain sufficient for centuries to come. As to global warming, the absence of a statistically significant increase in average worldwide temperatures since 1995 obliterates that assertion.
Meanwhile, recent peer-reviewed studies indicate that increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere (natural or man-made) have minimal effects on climate change – while others demonstrate that, on balance, this plant-fertilizing gas is beneficial, rather than harmful, for mankind and the biosphere.
All this argues for a closer look at the cost/benefit relationship of investing in renewable energy projects, to prevent a massive waste of financial and natural resources on unreliable and thus uncompetitive forms of energy. Since every cloud has a silver lining, the ongoing economic crisis might give extra impetus toward that end.
______________
Hans Labohm is a former professor at the Dutch Institute of International Relations and guest teacher at the Netherlands Institute for Defense Studies. He has been an IPCC reviewer and has written extensively on global warming, petroleum economics and other topics.
Climate change no longer scary in Europe
It’s not the climate, but the tide of opinion that’s changing in Europe and around the globe
Dr. Hans Labohm
The upcoming climate change (and wealth redistribution) summit in Cancun – coupled with Bjorn Lomborg’s ongoing publicity campaign for his new film – makes one thing painfully obvious. The fight against the delusion of dangerous man-made global warming remains an uphill struggle.
For decades the climate debate has been obfuscated by cherry-picking, spin-doctoring and scare-mongering by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other climate alarmists, including the environmental movement and mainstream media. Their massive effort to overstate the threat of man-made warming has left its imprint on public opinion.
But the tide seems to be turning. The Climate Conference fiasco in Copenhagen, Climategate scandal and stabilization of worldwide temperatures since 1995 have given rise to growing doubts about the putative threat of “dangerous global warming” or “global climate disruption.” Indeed, even Phil Jones, director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit and one of the main players in Climategate, now acknowledges that there has been no measurable warming since 1995, despite steadily rising atmospheric carbon dioxide.
People are paying attention, and opinion polls in many countries show a dramatic fall in the ranking of climate change among people’s major concerns. They are also beginning to understand that major rain and snow storms, hurricanes and other weather extremes are caused by solar-driven changes in global jet streams and warm-cold fronts, not by CO2, and that claims about recent years being the “warmest ever” are based on false or falsified temperature data.
In various parts of the world, the climate debate displays different features. The US and other parts of the non-European Anglo-Saxon world feature highly polarized and politicized debates along the left/right divide. In Europe, all major political parties are still toeing the “official” IPCC line. In both arenas, with a few notable exceptions, skeptical views – even from well-known scientists with impeccable credentials – tend to be ignored and/or actively suppressed by governments, academia and the media.
However, skepticism about manmade climate disasters is gradually gaining ground nevertheless.
In my own country, The Netherlands, for instance, it has even received some official recognition, thus dissolving the information monopoly of climate alarmists. The Standing Committee on Environment of the Lower House even organized a one-day hearing, where both climate chaos adherents and disaster skeptics could freely discuss their different views before key parliamentarians who decide climate policy.
This hearing was followed by a special seminar organized by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences, using the same format but focusing on scientific topics. The Academy will soon publish a report about this seminar.
Europe often brags about its emission trading scheme (ETS), regarding itself as the vanguard of an international climate policy. In the European view, the Copenhagen climate summit should have produced a worldwide extension and sharpening of its ETS. But the vast majority of countries in the world refused to follow Europe’s example, so the meeting turned into a fiasco. Its follow-up in Cancun at year’s end will surely produce a similar result. And for good reason.
Contrary to official claims, Europe’s experience with ETS is dismally bad. The system is expensive and prone to massive fraud. More importantly, it serves no useful purpose.
The European Environmental Agency tracks Europe’s performance regarding the reduction of CO2 emissions. Its latest report states: “The European Union’s greenhouse gas inventory report … shows that emissions have not only continued their downward trend in 2008, but have also picked up pace. The EU-27’s emissions stood 11.3% below their 1990 levels, while EU-15 achieved a reduction of 6.9% compared to Kyoto base-year levels.”
On the face of it, the scheme seems to be pretty successful. However, much of the downward trend was due to the global economic recession, not to the ETS. Moreover, both climate chaos proponents and climate disaster skeptics agree that the scheme will have no detectable impact whatsoever on worldwide temperatures – perhaps 0.1 degrees – though this crucial piece of information has been carefully and deliberately shielded from the public eye.
What about renewable energy as an alternative? Consider these EU costs for various sources of electricity in cents per kilowatt-hour: nuclear 4, coal 4, natural gas 5, onshore wind 13, biomass 16 … solar 56!
Obviously, the price tag for renewables is extremely high, compared to hydrocarbons. The additional costs can be justified either by imminent fossil fuel scarcity (the “oil peak”), which would send petroleum and coal prices through the roof, or by the threat of man-made global warming. But on closer inspection neither argument is tenable.
The authoritative International Energy Agency does not foresee any substantial scarcity of oil and gas in the near to medium future, and coal reserves remain sufficient for centuries to come. As to global warming, the absence of a statistically significant increase in average worldwide temperatures since 1995 obliterates that assertion.
Meanwhile, recent peer-reviewed studies indicate that increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere (natural or man-made) have minimal effects on climate change – while others demonstrate that, on balance, this plant-fertilizing gas is beneficial, rather than harmful, for mankind and the biosphere.
All this argues for a closer look at the cost/benefit relationship of investing in renewable energy projects, to prevent a massive waste of financial and natural resources on unreliable and thus uncompetitive forms of energy. Since every cloud has a silver lining, the ongoing economic crisis might give extra impetus toward that end.
______________
Hans Labohm is a former professor at the Dutch Institute of International Relations and guest teacher at the Netherlands Institute for Defense Studies. He has been an IPCC reviewer and has written extensively on global warming, petroleum economics and other topics.
Richard S Courtney says:
November 23, 2010 at 1:39 pm
RR Kampen, you have disputed my observation by saying;
“The short version of this answer might read: wait just another year. Perhaps this year will get the temperature rise in the 95% confidence level already.”
LOL. Of course it “might” or it might not change this year or some future year.
Actually, I knew it does this year. But – did you not check this?
You should do a small course in statistics, maybe. Or Labohm should. E.g. to find out that a somewhat lower statistical significance of a trend found in data does NOT mean the trend doesn’t exist.
In the context of this discussion about the period of 1995-2009 inclusive the reality is thus:
– There is a measurable upward trend and it is measured at +0.12 K/decade;
– On the (rather small!) dataset in consideration the chance that this trend could be attributed to coincidence (or ‘noise’) is slightly, but just slightly, over 5%.
2010 has reinforced the significance level of said trend, that is also a fraction stronger because this was a very warm year.
This is clear enough. I will not return to this subject.
RR Kampen:
Thank you for the laugh you gave me by your saying to me:
“You should do a small course in statistics, maybe. Or Labohm should. E.g. to find out that a somewhat lower statistical significance of a trend found in data does NOT mean the trend doesn’t exist.”
Of course it doesn’t! Indeed, I said as such above.
But you and Slioch both need to learn that it DOES mean you cannot know if there is or is not a trend which is either positive or negative. And that means Labohm’s statement is right.
And you tell me that I need to do a course on statistics! I laughed so much I had tears from my eyes.
Richard
Slioch says:
November 25, 2010 at 1:14 am
“BTW the five year average centred on 2002 is 0.413C – ie no change in the five year averages between 2002 and 2007.”
Thank you very much! That clears it up. Now as for your statement above, you are in effect saying there was no change for the last 10 years from 2000 to 2009. Right? The IPCC did not predict this.
Richard S Courtney says:
November 25, 2010 at 10:54 am
[..]
But you and Slioch both need to learn that it DOES mean you cannot know if there is or is not a trend which is either positive or negative.
There is a trend.
It is measurable.
It is positive at +0.12 K/decade.
And it’s chances of being coincidental are slightly over 5%. In other words, there is a close to 95% chance the trend is NOT coincidental, but is a REAL trend (which, of course, on a 10% confidence level is quite significant).
This science being empirical there is no mathematical knowing involved, of course. That’s why significance levels are used just about universally in all empirical sciences.
Werner Brozek says:
November 25, 2010 at 5:11 pm
claimed, “you are in effect saying there was no change for the last 10 years from 2000 to 2009. ”
No I am not, and nor does that follow from that data. The figures I gave were the five year average global temperature anomalies from HADCRUT centred on 2002 and 2007. They therefore refer to those two years, not 2000 and 2009.
It is not yet possible to give the five year figure centred on 2009 for (I hope) an obvious reason. Comparing temperatures of individual years has little significance because of the large amount of annual variation (noise), but, for interest, 2000 was 0.271C and 2009 was 0.438C. Another way of looking at the period 2000 to 2009 is to find the best fit linear curve to the annual data, shown here:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2000/to:2010/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2000/to:2010/trend
As you can see, the trend is almost flat (+0.03degC/decade), but, as I hope is now clear, trends based on just 10 years data have less significance than trends based on 15 years (discussed above). Or, in other words, a trend derived from just 10 years data is more the result of noise rather than long-term trend than is a trend based on 15 years data.
Here is a job for you. See how many periods of ten years you can find in the HADRUT data since 1975 that have a more or less flat or even declining temperature trend. Here is the graph. To get you started I have found one for you:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1975/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1975/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1988/to:1997/trend
Let me know how you get on.
“The IPCC did not predict this.”
Indeed they didn’t! The IPCC made NO prediction for the period 2000 to 2009. They didn’t predict the snow that greeted me when I woke this morning either, or the fact that it rained on my birthday.
Slioch and RR Kampen:
I write to ask why you persist.
Nobody is being taken in by the nonsense you are posting. Few if any casual readers of this thread will have bothered to read all the way down the thread to here. And nobody who understands elementary statistics will think other than that you are deliberately trying to mislead or that you are ignorant idiots.
So, why are you posting your nonsense? I really do want to know because I would like to gain some understanding of the strange mindset of AGW-promoters which seems incomprehensible.
Richard
Richard S Courtney says:
November 26, 2010 at 4:09 am
Slioch and RR Kampen:
I write to ask why you persist.
I have the comparable interest: I research what drives otherwise good scientists to throw overboard all scientific égards and prudence when the subject is climate change. E.g. you prove a non-understanding of even most fundamental concepts in statistics like ‘trend’, ‘measurability’ and ‘significance’. It actually reminds me of a certain perseverence in misstating the meaning of the triple point of a certain substance.
Generally I’m trying to find out why people move heaven and earth to ‘prove’ the warming of past century can be attributed to just about anything except the most trivial, most probable cause: the strong concentration increase of one of the most important GHG’s. I can understand why the energy industry might have a stake in clouding this reality, but I cannot understand why independent people like mr. Watts himself would put so much hard work in trying this.
Finally, even if no-one reads it, a contribution stating some facts clearly can always be referenced later, even if only for an ‘I told you so’.
RR Kampen says:
November 26, 2010 at 5:39 am
“I can understand why the energy industry might have a stake in clouding this reality”
Yes, indeed, and no more so than the coal industry, since coal is the most carbon intensive of fuels.
But maybe that is the source of Richard S Courtney’s particular “strange mindset” in this matter since, according an entry in Sourcewatch, (now apparently removed), Courtney was once “a Technical Editor for CoalTrans International (journal of the international coal trading industry) … and … In the early 1990s Courtney was a Senior Material Scientist of the National Coal Board (also known as British Coal) and a Science and Technology spokesman of the British Association of Colliery Management.”
It must be hard if you have spent much of your earlier life promoting the use of a particular substance to then be told later on that you have been abetting the destruction of the world. One way of dealing with such a misfortune might be to refer to anything that relates to this new way of thinking as “nonsense”, however nonsensical that itself may be.
Responding to Kampen’s argumentum ad ignorantium, which assumes that CO2 has to be the cause of global warming because he can’t think of another cause, Slioch makes an ad hominem attack on Richard Courtney, assuming that his background must cause him to be hopelessly biased, instead of accepting that such experience allows him to speak more knowledgeably.
Further confusion in that wacky argument comes from the fact that CO2 has never been shown to be anything but harmless and beneficial. Because coal power is by far the cheapest power, its use allows billions of people the opportunity to lift themselves out of poverty. To greens, this is a bad thing.
Finally, the scolding finger of the holier-than-thou eco-contingent is invariably pointed at the West, while giving China and other countries a free pass. Rank hypocrisy, no?
Slioch I hear ya. I have nothing but kind words for those developers along the Columbia Gorge who promoted the many windfarms there, now iced up and useless in freezing rain.
Smokey says:
November 26, 2010 at 9:36 am
“ad hominem”? Really? I was careful only to use such descriptions of Richard as he had used of me: namely, writing “nonsense”and having a “strange mindset” and to suggest an explanation for those aspects of his behaviour as he had asked of me. I don’t think Richard could legitimately complain of that. And you should not so so on his behalf.
Slioch:
I do not criticise you for publicising some of my past activities. On the contrary, I am proud of the matters you mention but too modest to broadcast them myself, so I thank you for telling others of them.
But I am disapointed that you chose not to answer my question. Of course, you are entitled to ignore it as you have. But I really am interested to know why you and other AGW-promoters so often insist on presenting absolute nonsense of the kind you have above. I fail to understand why you do it when it can only damage your cause.
And when it is pointed out both that it is nonsense and why it is nonsense you – and your fellows – often repeat it, as you have done above. This proclaims that you know what you are saying is not an honest mistake of the kind we all make from time to time, and it demonstrates that you are doing it deliberately. This, too, can only harm your cause.
I am genuinely puzzled by it. The behaviour makes no sense to me.
So, I really would like to know why you and other AGW-promoters do it so often.
Richard
Slioch says:
November 26, 2010 at 1:32 am
“The figures I gave were the five year average global temperature anomalies from HADCRUT centred on 2002 and 2007. They therefore refer to those two years, not 2000 and 2009.”
Correct me if I am wrong, but a five year average global temperature anomaly from HADCRUT centred on 2002 goes from 2000 to 2004, right? And a five year average global temperature anomaly from HADCRUT centred on 2007 goes from 2005 to 2009, right? So could I not say if the two anomalies are the same, then there was no change for 10 years? Furthermore, if “They therefore refer to those two years” then 2002 was 0.465 and 2007 was 0.402, so by just referring to those two years, the slope is negative.
You also say “As you can see, the trend is almost flat (+0.03degC/decade), but, as I hope is now clear,”. For argument sake, I will accept this as true. That means a change of 0.3 deg C per century. At this rate it will take a long, long time to reach the supposedly bad 2 degree mark. But as you correctly point out, it is only a decade. So do you not think it would be wise to see if this trend continues for a few more years before taking drastic action that may never be necessary?
“Indeed they didn’t! The IPCC made NO prediction for the period 2000 to 2009.” That is not what I had in mind. I was thinking of their scenarios that the increase would be from 2.4 to 5.3 per century and certainly not the 0.3 per century that happened in the last decade.
I know that 2010 is not over yet, but taking the value of 0.499 to the end of October for 2010, the five year average global temperature anomaly from HADCRUT centred on 2003 gives 0.4554, but the five year average global temperature anomaly from HADCRUT centred on 2008 gives 0.4188 so 2001 to 2010 definitely gives a negative slope, correct?
@Werner;
The reason the Warmists struggle and obfuscate so desperately against accepting, or even discussing, the recent negative slope is that it calls into question the omnipotence of the Magic Thermostat. Just as the failure of the tree ring proxies post 1960 threw doubt on the validity of all prior graphs etc. based on them.
Once you kick out a foundation stone, the walls begin to cave in.
It sure is fun to watch!
Werner Brozek says:
November 26, 2010 at 5:50 pm
Well, you really seem to be making heavy weather of this, but to answer your questions:
“a five year average global temperature anomaly from HADCRUT centred on 2002 goes from 2000 to 2004, right?” Correct
“And a five year average global temperature anomaly from HADCRUT centred on 2007 goes from 2005 to 2009, right?” Correct
“So could I not say if the two anomalies are the same, then there was no change for 10 years?” Well, you could say it, but if you did you would be wrong.
“Furthermore, if “They therefore refer to those two years” then 2002 was 0.465 and 2007 was 0.402, so by just referring to those two years, the slope is negative.”
Yes, but that just illustrates how misleading it is to draw conclusions to single year figures – no conclusion you reach by so doing is significant. This becomes obvious when you choose a different starting year: 2000, for example, has an anomaly of 0.271C, so if you had started with that year you would have concluded that the slope was strongly positive, which would have been just as misleading. Choosing particular years to illustrate the point you are wanting to show is called “cherry picking”. It has been used by people like Bob Carter of Australia who started the “It’s been cooling since 1998 canard”. Misinformers like Bob Carter know that many people don’t understand these matters very well and are easily fooled – particularly if they want to believe that the Earth isn’t warming.
That is why I used the five year average anomalies: averaging over five years smooths out most, but not all, of the annual variation. Ideally one would use a much longer time span, but, of course, if you do that it means you cannot say anything about recent events: so the method used has to be a compromise. Phil Jones statement about the period 1995-2009 inclusive was saying much the same – that even from that fifteen year period it was not (quite) yet possible to be 95% confident that there was a long-term warming trend, since there was a small chance that the records could have been caused just by annual variation rather than long-term warming.
“the trend is almost flat (+0.03degC/decade), but, as I hope is now clear,”. For argument sake, I will accept this as true. That means a change of 0.3 deg C per century.”
No it does not!! That is the source of your confusion about the IPCC. A trend measured over a short time period of one decade does NOT imply or mean that the trend will continue for a century. Nor does a forecast of an increase of “from 2.4 to 5.3 per century” in any way imply that there should be an increase of 0.24 to 0.53C per decade, or that a measured increase of 0.03C/decade is in any way inconsistent with that.
I asked to do some work previously – to look at the HADCRUT3 graph since 1975 to find how many flat periods of about 10 years you could find in an otherwise obviously rising trend. Had you bothered to do so, you would had found about three, and if you had then bothered t think about the meaning of that you would not now be asking these absurd questions.
Finally, you refer to the period from 2003 to 2008, using five year averages. Your arithmetic is correct – the last five years has been cooler than the five years you chose centred on 2003. What you have shown is that for the five year period centred on 2006, there was a decrease in global five year average temperatures.
Now, I’ve just spent five minutes – that is all it took – investigating the entire HADCRUT3 series from 1975 to see if there were any other years besides 2006 when that occurred. There are six other years: they are 2005, 1992, 1991, 1984, 1983 and 1982. The point? Even with an overall rising trend, if there is a large amount of annual variability, then periods of falling temperature are not only to be expected, they are INEVITABLE. That is what annual variability inevitably produces.
RE: Slioch says:
November 28, 2010 at 2:36 am
Indeed. Hence, it also stands that an overall rising trend be it 30 years or 75 years, etc. is to be expected when viewing climatic state in geologic time. Viewing climate properly. A warming climate over a brief span of 30, 75, 150 years is to be expected, many of them in fact, in relation to a span of 3,000 years or 10,000 years, etc. History, data, provides proof of that. The trend over a century does not imply, by necessity, the trend will continue for another hundred years. Again, history and data substantiate that fact. Statistically it is possible, in many ways, to state the warming of the past 100 – 150 years was expected. An expected event occurring regardless of man’s presence or the industrial age.
The only thing truly unnatural about the warming during the last century was the reaction of some humans to it. They need not fear. It will turn cold, very cold, soon enough.
An interesting point, but I think you confuse two different things. My contributions to this thread have been concerned with how one recognises a long-term trend from a past temperature/time series. I have not been concerned (here) with the cause(s) of the long-term trend nor whether they are expected to continue into the future. Nothing that I have said herein would be different were the causes of any warming in the last few decades been caused by heat rays from the planet Zog.
Nor is the truth of the paragraph that you reproduce dependent upon the data referring to temperature and time: it is a characteristic of any set of data which is based upon a long-term linear trend of slope of N per unit time, length, or some other measure, upon which is superimposed variation of about 10N per unit time, length etc.
It does not follow that because we can identify a temperature/time series with those characteristics in recent decades that therefore similar characteristics pertain to much longer time scales – it seems to me a complete non-sequitur.
You also seem to believe that the “periods of falling temperature” in my above discussion were significant of a change in long-term trend: the whole point is that that is decidedly NOT (necessarily) the case. What I explained above is that, in a series of data that can be represented by a constant linear upward long-term trend of increasing temperature, upon which is imposed large annual variations, then there will inevitably exist periods of falling temperatures lasting for several years: that is simply a mathematical fact. Identifying such periods of falling temperature as signifying a change in long-term trend, therefore, is not justified.
Thank you for your comments Slioch. It was always my understanding that the slope of the best fit line gives the trend between the two years in question. I had never used this five year averaging until you brought it up. You say “Even with an overall rising trend, if there is a large amount of annual variability, then periods of falling temperature are not only to be expected, they are INEVITABLE.”
Have you told this to Phil Jones and Kevin Trenberth? They seemed EXTREMELY troubled by these sorts of things that you just take for granted. Around October 2009, Kevin Trenberth said, “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.”
Phil Jones, July 5, 2005: “The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998. Okay it has but it is only seven years of data and it isn’t statistically significant.”
What could Phil Jones say today about what happened since 1998? It is certainly NOT that we are in a crises and have to act within a year or two to avoid a catastrophe.
(P.S. Thank you for your comment Brian.)
Werner Brozek says:
November 28, 2010 at 3:06 pm
“slope of the best fit line gives the trend between the two years in question”
It gives the best fit to all the data points between and including the two years in question.
Trenberth’s statement is concerned with the REASONS for the large annual variations in average global temperatures that are observed – ie what causes them? – where does the heat go?. My contributions above were concerned with the EFFECT of those variations upon the temperature/time series. Those are two separate issues.
Phil Jones is a fine scientist but he is clearly not the most media-savvy of commentators and sometimes makes statements that the misinformers and charlatans can distort. There were two facts with respect to 1998 when Jones made this statement: i) 1998 was the year with the highest global average temperature according to the HADCRUT series for which he is involved, hence in that respect any year thereafter was cooler than 1998, and ii) there was (and is) no statistically significant evidence that the long-term trend of rising global temperatures had changed. Trying to get those two points across in a way accessible to the general public, in the face of hostile distortions by misinformers, was a difficult task – and he didn’t do very well.
It is that long-term trend, and projections that it will markedly steepen, that is the cause for concern and the imperative to act. 1998 is an irrelevance in that respect.
Slioch:
At November 28, 2010 at 11:27 am you assert:
“My contributions to this thread have been concerned with how one recognises a long-term trend from a past temperature/time series.”
No!
Your “contributions to this thread” have been a dispute of the accurate statement by Hans Labohm that said,
““Phil Jones, director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit and one of the main players in Climategate, now acknowledges that there has been no measurable warming since 1995.”
Indeed, your first post to this thread was at November 22, 2010 at 11:09 am and it began by saying:
“Dr. Hans Labohm claims, “Phil Jones, director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit and one of the main players in Climategate, now acknowledges that there has been no measurable warming since 1995.”
Nonsense. Phil Jones has stated nothing of the kind and nor is it true.
If Dr Labohm either doesn’t understand what Phil Jones stated about warming since 1995 (with reference to the HADCRU figures) or is deliberately trying to mislead his readers. ….”
In the subsequent debate you were repeatedly shown to be wrong in that Labohm’s statement is correct and, therefore, your implication that Labohm “is deliberately trying to mislead his readers” was an unfounded smear.
It is extremely disingenuous for you to now claim “My contributions to this thread have been concerned with how one recognises a long-term trend from a past temperature/time series.”
Instead of pretending that falsehood you should be offering an apology to Hans Labohm.
Richard
Henry@Slioch Re. Your Contribution
I am with Richard. You owe all of us an apology.
Unfortunately, I think you are one of those that will never apologise.
Not even when the truth is staring right at you and when the snow is heaping up at your front door, higher than it ever was before.
There are none so blind as those who do not want to see.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
Richard Courtney and HenryP
I’ve explained in some detail why Dr. Hans Labohm’s statement was wrong and I do not intend to go over it all again. My postings on the issue, and those of R R Kampen, explain the situation clearly and comprehensively enough, and that will have to do.
eehhhh…
Not only never an apology,
also always wanting to have the last word….
Apologize Slioch.
“Slioch says:
November 29, 2010 at 1:05 am
ii) there was (and is) no statistically significant evidence that the long-term trend of rising global temperatures had changed.”
For the moment, let us ignore 1995 to 2009. And also let us ignore the strong El Nino of 1998. Would you agree that if we ignore all El Ninos and La Ninas between 1998 and 2010, that there was essentially NO CHANGE for the last 13 years?
An analogy for the present situation would be if someone was diagnosed with cancer in 1998 and the doctor said a very risky amputation was needed. But 13 years went by and the cancer seems to have gone into remission. What should one do? I believe it would be prudent to wait a few years to see if the remission continues. At this point, you talk about “projections that it will markedly steepen”. Other talk of 20 years of cooling. Who is right? No one knows for sure if that “long-term trend” will continue. What have we got to lose by doing nothing for a few years except for gathering accurate data to see what trend develops next?