by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Michael Steketee, writing in The Australian in January 2011, echoed the BBC (whose journalists’ pension fund is heavily weighted towards “green” “investments”) and other climate-extremist vested interests in claiming that 2010 was the warmest year on record worldwide. Mr. Steketee’s short article makes two dozen questionable assertions, which either require heavy qualification or are downright false. His assertions will be printed in bold face: the truth will appear in Roman face.
1. BASED ON PRELIMINARY DATA TO NOVEMBER 30, SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURES AROUND AUSTRALIA WERE THE WARMEST ON RECORD LAST YEAR, AS WERE THOSE FOR THE PAST DECADE.
The record only began ten decades ago. As for sea temperatures, they are less significant for analyzing “global warming” than estimated total ocean heat content. A recent paper by Professors David Douglass and Robert Knox of Rochester University, New York, has established that – contrary to various climate-extremist assertions – there has been no net accumulation of “missing energy” in the form of heat in the oceans worldwide in the six years since ocean heat content was first reliably measured by the 3000 automated ARGO bathythermographs in 2003. This finding implies that the amount of warming we can expect from even quite a large increase in CO2 concentration is far less than the IPCC and other climate-extremist groups maintain.
2. THE WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANISATION SAYS THE YEAR TO THE END OF OCTOBER WAS THE WARMEST SINCE INSTRUMENTAL CLIMATE RECORDS STARTED IN 1850 – 0.55 C° ABOVE THE 1961-90 AVERAGE OF 14 C°.
It is easy to cherry-pick periods of less than a calendar year and say they establish a new record. The cherry-picking of the first nine months of 2010 is particularly unacceptable, since that period was dominated by a substantial El Niño Southern Oscillation, a sudden alteration in the pattern of ocean currents worldwide that leads to warmer weather for several months all round the world. The last few months of the year, carefully excluded from Mr. Steketee’s statement, showed the beginnings of a La Niña event, which tends largely to reverse the effect of its preceding El Niño and make the world cooler. Indeed, the calendar year from January to December 2010, according to the reliable RSS and UAH satellite records, was not the warmest on record. Besides, what is important is how fast the world is warming. In fact, the rate of warming from 1975-2001, at 0.16 C° per decade, was the fastest rate to be sustained for more than a decade in the 160-year record, but exactly the same rate occurred from 1860-1880 and again from 1910-1940, when we could not possibly have had anything to do with it. Since late 2001 there has been virtually no “global warming” at all.
3. THE LAST DECADE ALSO WAS THE WARMEST ON RECORD.
After 300 years of global warming, during nearly all of which we could not on any view have influenced the climate to a measurable degree, it is scarcely surprising that recent decades will be warmer than earlier decades. That is what one would expect. If one has been climbing up a steep hill for a long time, one should not be surprised to find oneself higher up at the end of the climb than at the beginning.
4. THE WORLD IS NOT COOLER COMPARED TO 1998.
Actually, it is cooler. There was a remarkable spike in global temperatures in 1998, caused not by manmade “global warming” but by a Great El Niño event – an alteration in the pattern of ocean currents that begins in the equatorial eastern Pacific and spreads around the globe, lasting a few months. In the first nine months of 2010 there was another substantial El Niño, but even at its peak it did not match the Great El Niño of 1998.
5. THE TRENDS HAPPEN TO FOLLOW CLOSELY THE PREDICTIONS OVER THE PAST 40 YEARS OF TEMPERATURE RISES RESULTING FROM INCREASED GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS.
In the 40 years since 1970, global temperatures have risen at a linear rate equivalent to around 1.3 C°/century. CO2 concentration is rising in a straight line at just 2 ppmv/year at present and, even if it were to accelerate to an exponential rate of increase, the corresponding temperature increase would be expected to rise merely in a straight line. On any view, 1.3 C° of further “global warming” this century would be harmless. The IPCC is predicting 3.4 C°, but since the turn of the millennium on 1 January 2001 global temperature has risen (taking the average of the two satellite datasets) at a rate equivalent to just 0.6 C°/century, rather less than the warming rate of the entire 20th century. In these numbers, there is nothing whatever to worry about – except the tendency of some journalists to conceal them.
6. MOST SCIENTISTS AGREE THAT DOUBLING THE CARBON DIOXIDE IN THE ATMOSPHERE IS LIKELY TO LEAD TO WARMING OF 2-3 C°.
It is doubtful whether Mr. Steketee had consulted “most scientists”. Most scientists, not being climate scientists, rightly take no view on the climate debate. Most climate scientists have not studied the question of how much warming a given increase in CO2 concentration will cause: therefore, whatever opinion they may have is not much more valuable than that of a layman. Most of the few dozen scientists worldwide whom Prof. Richard Lindzen of MIT estimates have actually studied climate sensitivity to the point of publication in a learned journal have reached their results not by measurement and observation but by mere modeling. The models predict warming in the range mentioned by Mr. Steketee, but at numerous crucial points the models are known to reflect the climate inaccurately. In particular, the models predict that if and only if Man is the cause of warming, the tropical upper air, six miles above the ground, should warm up to thrice as fast as the surface, but this tropical upper-troposphere “hot-spot” has not been observed in 50 years of measurement by balloon-mounted radiosondes, sondes dropped from high-flying aircraft,
or satellites. Also, the models predict that every Celsius degree of warming should increase evaporation from the Earth’s surface by 1-3%, but the observed increase is more like 6%. From this it is simple to calculate that the IPCC has overestimated fourfold the amount of warming we can expect from adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Take away that prodigious exaggeration, demonstrated repeatedly in scientific papers but never reported by the likes of Mr. Steketee, and the climate “crisis” vanishes.
7. WARMING OF 2-3 C° RISKS SIGNIFICANT ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC DAMAGE.
Actually, the IPCC’s current thinking is that up to 2° of warming compared with the present would be harmless and even beneficial. Since far greater temperatures than this have been the rule on Earth for most of the past 600 million years, there is no sound scientific basis for the assumption that “significant environmental and economic damage” would result from so small an additional warming. However, significant economic damage is already resulting from the costly but pointlessly Canute-like attempts governments to try to make “global warming” go away.
8. GREENHOUSE GAS CONCENTRATIONS ROSE BY 27.5% FROM 1990-2009.
Since anthropogenic effects on the climate are net-zero except for CO2, we need only consider CO2 concentration, which was 353 parts per million by volume in 1990 and is 390 ppmv now, an increase not of 27.5% but of just 10.5%.
9. ARCTIC SEA ICE SHRANK TO ITS THIRD-LOWEST AREA IN THE SATELLITE RECORDS, OFFSET ONLY SLIGHTLY BY GROWTH IN ANTARCTIC SEA ICE.
In fact, the global sea-ice record shows virtually no change throughout the past 30 years, because the quite rapid loss of Arctic sea ice since the satellites were watching has been matched by a near-equally rapid gain of Antarctic sea ice. Indeed, when the summer extent of Arctic sea ice reached its lowest point in the 30-year record in mid-September 2007, just three weeks later the Antarctic sea extent reached a 30-year record high. The record low was widely reported; the corresponding record high was almost entirely unreported.
10. GLOBAL SNOW COVER IS FALLING, INFERENTIALLY BECAUSE OF MAN’S INFLUENCE.
In fact, a new record high for snow cover was set in the winter of 2008/2009, and there is some chance that a further record high will be set this year.
11. GLOBAL SEA LEVELS ARE RISING, INFERENTIALLY BECAUSE OF MAN’S INFLUENCE.
In fact, the rate of increase in sea level has not changed since satellites first began measuring it reliably in 1993. It is a dizzying 1 ft/century – not vastly greater than the 8 inches/century that had previously been inferred from tide-gauges. A recent paper has confirmed what marine biologists had long suspected: coral atolls simply grow to meet the light as the sea rises, and some of them have even gained land mass recently according to a
just-published scientific paper. Professor Niklas Mörner, who has been studying sea level for a third of a century, says it is physically impossible for sea level to rise at much above its present rate, and he expects 4-8 inches of sea level rise this century, if anything rather below the rate of increase in the last century. In the 11,400 years since the end of the last Ice Age, sea level has risen at an average of 4 feet/century, though it is now rising much more slowly because very nearly all of the land-based ice that is at low enough latitudes and altitudes to melt has long since gone.
12. MUNICH RE SAYS 2010 SAW THE SECOND-HIGHEST NUMBER OF NATURAL CATASTROPHES SINCE 1980, 90% OF THEM WEATHER-RELATED.
There are really only three categories of insurable natural catastrophe – meteorological, epidemiological, and seismic (volcanism, earthquakes, tsunamis, etc.). Except during years when major seismic disasters occur (such as the tsunami caused by an earthquake in 2000), or when major pandemics kill large numbers at an unexpected rate (and that did not happen in 2010), weather-related natural disasters always account for getting on for 90% of all such disasters. Because the climate is a mathematically-chaotic object, the incidence of weather-related disasters is highly variable from year to year, and there is no good reason to attribute the major events of 2010 to manmade “global warming”.
13. THE TEMPERATURE OF 46.4 C° IN MELBOURNE ONE SATURDAY IN 2010 WAS MORE THAN 3 C° ABOVE THE PREVIOUS HIGHEST FOR FEBRUARY.
February is the height of summer in Melbourne. Since the planet has been warming for 300 years, it is not surprising to find high-temperature records being broken from time to time. However, some very spectacular cold-weather records were also broken both in early 2010, when all 49 contiguous United States were covered in snow for the first time since satellite monitoring began 30 years ago, and in December, which was the coldest final month of the year in central England since records began 352 years ago. However, neither the hot-weather nor the cold-weather extremes of 2010 have much to do with manmade “global warming”; like the heatwave of 2003 in Europe that is said to have killed 35,000 people, they are known to have been caused by an unusual pattern of what meteorologists call “blocking highs” – comparatively rare areas of stable high pressure that dislodge the jet-streams from their usual path and lock weather systems in place for days or sometimes even months at a time. No link has been established between the frequency, intensity, or duration of blocking highs and manmade “global warming”.
14. IN MOSCOW, JULY 2010 WAS MORE THAN 2 C° ABOVE THE PREVIOUS TEMPERATURE RECORD, AND TEMPERATURE ON 29 JULY WAS 38.2 C°.
And the lowest-ever temperatures have been measured in several British and US locations in the past 12 months. Cherry-picking individual extreme-weather events that point in one direction only, when there are thousands of such events that also point in another direction, is neither sound science nor sound journalism.
15. THE HEATWAVE AND FOREST FIRES IN CENTRAL RUSSIA KILLED AT LEAST 56,000, MAKING IT THE WORST NATURAL DISASTER IN RUSSIA’S HISTORY.
More cherry-picking, and the notion that the forest fires were the worst natural disaster in Russia’s history is questionable. Intense cold – such as when General January and General February defeated Corporal Hitler at the gates of Stalingrad in 1941 – has many times killed hundreds of thousands in Russia.
16. IN PAKISTAN, 1769 WERE KILLED IN THE COUNTRY’S WORST-EVER FLOODS.
In fact, the floods were not the worst ever: merely the worst since 1980. The region has long been prone to flooding, and has flooded catastrophically at infrequent intervals when a blocking high combined with unusually strong runoff of snow from the Himalayas swells the numerous rivers of the region (Punjab, or panj-aub, means “five rivers”). The flooding was not caused by manmade “global warming” but by a blocking high.
17. THE HURRICANE SEASON IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC WAS ONE OF THE MOST SEVERE IN THE LAST CENTURY.
In fact, Dr. Ryan Maue of Florida State University, who maintains the Accumulated Cyclone Energy Index, a 24-month running sum of the frequency, intensity and duration of all tropical cyclones, typhoons and hurricanes round the world, says that the index is at its least value in the past 30 years, and close to its least value in 50 years. For 150 years the number of landfalling Atlantic hurricanes has shown no trend at all: this is a long and reliable record, because one does not require complex instrumentation to know that one has been struck by a hurricane.
18. EVEN CAUTIOUS SCIENTISTS TEND TO SAY WE CAN BLAME MANMADE CLIMATE CHANGE.
Cautious scientists say no such thing. Even the excitable and exaggeration-prone IPCC has repeatedly stated that individual extreme-weather events cannot be attributed to manmade “global warming”, and it would be particularly incautious of any scientist to blame the blocking highs that caused nearly all of the weather-related damage in 2010 on us when these are long-established, naturally-occurring phenomena.
19. CLIMATE CHANGE HAS CONTRIBUTED TO THE 20% DECLINE IN RAINFALL IN PARTS OF SOUTHERN AUSTRALIA OVER THE PAST 40 YEARS.
Climate change began 4,567 million years ago, on that Thursday when the Earth first formed (as Prof. Plimer puts it). The question is whether manmade climate change has contributed to the drought. Interestingly, there has been very heavy rainfall in previously drought-ridden parts of southern Australia in each of the last two years. Australia has a desert climate: it is no surprise, therefore, that periods of drought – sometimes prolonged – will occur. One of the longest records of drought and flood we have is the Nilometer, dating back 5000 years. Periods of drought far more savage than anything seen in modern times were frequent occurrences, and entire regions of Egypt became uninhabitable as a result. A 20% decline in rainfall in a single region, therefore, cannot be safely attributed to anything other than the natural variability of the climate.
20. THERE IS STRONG EVIDENCE THAT “GLOBAL WARMING” MADE THE BUSH-FIRES AROUND MELBOURNE WORSE.
There is no such evidence. As the IPCC has repeatedly said, ascribing individual, local extreme-weather events to “global warming” is impermissible.
21. THERE HAS BEEN A SUCCESSION OF EXTRAORDINARY HEATWAVES, WITH BIG JUMPS IN RECORD TEMPERATURES, STARTING IN EUROPE IN 2003 AND CONTINUING ALL AROUND THE WORLD, CULMINATING IN RUSSIA LAST YEAR. MORE THAN 17 COUNTRIES BROKE THEIR MAXIMUM TEMPERATURE RECORDS IN 2010, AND “YOU REALLY HAVE TO STRAIN CREDIBILITY TO SAY IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CLIMATE CHANGE.”
The heatwave in Europe in 2003 is known to have been caused by a blocking high similar to those which gave Russia its record high temperatures in 2010 and kept the monsoon fixed over Pakistan for long enough to cause catastrophic flooding. You really have to stretch credibility to say it has anything to do with manmade “global warming”. Though that heatwave may have killed 35,000 right across Europe, a three-day cold snap in Britain the previous year had killed 21,000 just in one country. The net effect of warmer worldwide weather, therefore, is to reduce deaths, not to increase them. That is why periods such as the Holocene Climate Optimum, when temperatures were 3 C° warmer than the present for most of the time between 6000 and 8000 years ago, are called “optima”: warmer weather is better for most Earth species – including Man – than colder weather.
22. FOR 20 YEARS MORE HOT-WEATHER THAN COLD-WEATHER TEMPERATURE RECORDS HAVE BEEN SET.
This is merely another way of saying that temperatures today are generally higher than they were 20 years ago. Since there has been some warming, more hot-weather than cold-weather records have been set. Not exactly surprising, and not exactly alarming either: for the mere fact of warming tells us nothing about the cause of the warming, particularly when the rate of warming in recent decades has been no greater than what has been seen in two previous quarter-century periods over the past 160 years.
23. EVEN IF GREENHOUSE-GAS EMISSIONS WERE TO STABILIZE AT LITTLE MORE THAN TODAY’S LEVELS, 2 C° OF FURTHER WARMING WILL OCCUR – FOUR TIMES THE INCREASE OVER THE PAST 30 YEARS.
This value of 2 C° – like too many others in this regrettably fictitious article – appears to have been plucked out of thin air. Let us do the math. We can ignore all Man’s influences on the climate except CO2 because, up to now, they have been self-canceling, as the table of “radiative forcings” in the IPCC’s most recent quinquennial Assessment Report shows. In 1750, before the Industrial Revolution, the concentration of CO2 was 278 ppmv. Now it is 390 ppmv. Taking the multi-model mean central estimate from Box 10.2 on p.798 of the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report, plus or minus one standard deviation, we can derive the following simple equation for the total amount of warming to be expected in 1000 years’
time, when the climate has fully settled to equilibrium after the perturbation that our carbon emissions to date are thought to have caused:
ΔTequ = (4.7 ± 1) ln(390/278) F°
Let us generously go one standard deviation above the central estimate: thus, a high-end estimate of the total equilibrium warming the IPCC would expect as a result of our CO2 emissions since 1750 is 5.7 times the natural logarithm of the proportionate increase in CO2 concentration in the 260-year period: i.e. 1.9 C°. Even this total since 1750 to the present is below the 2 C° Mr. Setekee says is lurking in the pipeline.
Now, to pretend that manmade “global warming” is a problem as big as the IPCC says it is, and that there will be more warming in the pipeline even if we freeze our emissions at today’s levels, we have to pretend that all of the observed warming since 1750 – i.e. about 1.2 C° – was our fault. So we deduct that 1.2 C° from the 1.9 C° equilibrium warming. Just 0.7 C° of warmer weather is still to come, at equilibrium.
However, various climate extremists have published papers saying that equilibrium warming will not occur for 1000 years (or even, in a particularly fatuous recent paper, 3000 years). The IPCC itself only expects about 57% of equilibrium warming to occur by 2100: the rest will take so long to arrive that even our children’s children will not be around to notice, and the residual warming will happen so gradually that everyone and everything will have plenty of time to adjust.
Bottom line, then: by 2100 we can expect not 2 C° of further “global warming” as a result of our emissions so far, but 0.4 C° at most. The truth, as ever in the climate debate, is a great deal less thrilling than the lie.
24. ADAPTATION TO THE CONSEQUENCES OF “GLOBAL WARMING” WILL GET MORE DIFFICULT THE LONGER WE DELAY.
This assertion, too, has no scientific basis whatsoever. The costs of adaptation are chiefly an economic rather than a climatological question. Every serious economic analysis (I exclude the discredited propaganda exercise of Stern, with its absurd near-zero discount rate and its rate of “global warming” well in excess of the IPCC’s most extreme projections) has demonstrated that the costs of waiting and adapting to any adverse consequences that may arise from “global warming”, even if per impossibile that warming were to occur at the rapid rate imagined by the IPCC but not yet seen in the instrumental temperature record, would be orders of magnitude cheaper and more cost-effective than any Canute-like attempt to prevent any further “global warming” by taxing and regulating CO2 emissions. It follows that adaptation to the consequences of “global warming” will get easier and cheaper the longer we wait: for then we will only have to adapt to the probably few and minor consequences that will eventually occur, and not until they occur, and only where and to the extent that they occur.
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A PDF version of this document is available here
Correction, I meant 600 million not 600,000. Didn’t realise my error until I reread it once it was posted.
While I am here though and just to reiterate, I know CO2 on its own is a fairly harmful gas, I know it has changed in the past, i know that it hasn’t always forced temperature, 4 billion years is a long time and its been through a lot. Their are lots of factors that have influenced the development of the world as we know it and none of them mean that in this unique point in our history, with the industrialisation of man that we cannot influence our world in a bad way, and that a harmless gas in excess can destabilise the balance and make life more uncomfortable for ourselves.
Lets not let our arrogance, self importance and self interest, much this up for our children.
Thanks for reading
Woops I meant harmless gas. I better get some sleep.
“Woops I meant harmless gas.”
Freudian slip?☺
We know that a good propaganda is a skillful mix of truths, half-truths and outright lies.
It looks like the climate change cultists took a page (more like a handful) from the book by Dr Goebbels.
Before any drug enters the market – there is a long proces involved: research, animal tests, clinical tests, assessments, evaluation of side effects, costs, etc. etc.
How come that the process is not being followed for possibly the largest and most difficult and expensive project (as advertised) in human history ? How come that a solution is proposed before even the problem is properly identified ?
Let’s depart from this subject, Michael, and assume (for the sake of the discussion only) that you land in a hospital for some reason (needless to say, I wish you a lot of health, to be clear).
SCENARIO ONE (close to what we see with the climate change saga):
The doctor says:
“Michael, we did some testing – and you are very seriously ill. There is absolutely no doubt that the situation is critical. All data indicate that there is no time to lose – or it may be too late. Yes, we know that we have been wrong before – but this time we are right for sure.
You are lucky – you are in the hands of the best specialists.
However, we need to act now. You require an operation – and it is going to fix the problem. Everyone agrees that you need it.
The bad news is that it is going to cost a bit – but it is necessary, so you better start getting ready.
In fact, we have already contacted your bank, your insurer, your employer and started making necessary arrangements – but do not worry, we know what is best for you. After all – we have your best interest in mind.”
SCENARIO TWO (second opinion):
The consultant says:
“Michael – I did have a look at the test results – and it looks like not all the results confirm the initial diagnosis. I can’t be 100% sure – because I didn’t get all the data (despite repeated requests). In addition – some of the test results are not available because they somehow disappeared – and what you have been shown, appears like a hand-picked set of data.
You may be ill – but I revised your history, and it looks like you had identical symptoms many times before – in fact, they were much more severe. So – it looks to me like it is something cyclical, and I am not exactly sure that there is a real problem here.
You have been told that everyone agrees you need an operation – but there are some members of the team who don’t, and they even resigned in protest. In fact, majority of my colleagues agree, that, at the very least, we would need more testing and research to even make sure that your condition is actually a reason for serious concern.
The operation which you are to be subjected to, was never done before – and all indications are that it will not fix anything – but the chances are that you will never walk again, and for sure you will require a lot of frequent and costly medical treatment after the operation.
In short – you will need to sell your home and use your kids’ college funds to even think about it.
Why is it so expensive you ask ? Well, your surgeon (and all the team members) are on the commision – after the hospital takes its cut, that is. Also – the suppliers of drugs and equipment – you name it. In short – there are many people interested in you having this operation – as there is money in it for them…
In fact, the surgeon who talked to you was suspected of malpractice and falsifying medical records to get more operations going.
But – he knows a lot of people in the administration of the hospital, so at this moment at least no one can touch him.
Of course, Michael, you need to cut down the number of Big Whackos you eat – but this is common sense….
Now, Michael, you need to make your decision regarding the operation.”
Michael, you said:
So Myrrh, you start by saying that you were not trying to put words in my mouth and then you do this..
“EXCEPT, it doesn’t actually say it. One has to read between the lines and know something about the regularity of our ice ages to make that connection for oneself. That’s the logical conclusion from the AGW statement that CO2 levels haven’t change.”
This has got to be the most ridiculous argument I’ve heard so far, you said it, not them, nobody else is saying it. The Vostok ice core records show CO2 jumping as often as temperature. You’re again putting words in people’s mouth and completely making up your own argument.
I’m obviously not very good at explaining what I mean here. What I am trying to show is the disjunct in logic by an example from AGWScience, chosen here because you have used part of it our discussion. Perhaps if I spent some time on it I could express it algebraically, as it is, you’ll just have to make do with my poor attempts using English as best I can, please be patient with me. But let me try a slightly different tack. The problem is as Robt noted by his question too, that certain things are said in AGWScience that are not proved; which AGWScience has never given definitive explanations, which are ‘plucked from the air’, and, those following AGWScience use these as if they are ‘real science fact’ as you did in saying “CO2 is not the only driver of temperature” – where is the proof from AGWScience that CO2 is a driver of global temperature at all? Let alone so powerful that it can melt all the ice in the world? There is none given. What is actually said about this in AGWScience? It says it isn’t true.
Another typical example of the unsubstantiated claim that ‘CO2 is a driver of temperature’: http://www.skepticalscience.com/Climate-change-from-40-million-years-ago-shows-climate-sensitivity-to-CO2.html
In post 18, the Moderator responds: “Under modern conditions, which are quite well understood, CO2 is considered to be the biggest control knob of global temperatures, but not the only one. The sum balance of all forcings and feedbacks (of which CO2 acts as both) determines global temperatures.”
Note the “which are quite well understood”. This is a recurring meme in AGWScience while never actually showing any proof to any specific claim made accompanying this meme. If you really want to understand what I’m saying here, please go and search AGW for actual proof from AGWScience that ‘CO2 is the biggest control knob’ and ‘driver of global temperature’.
This meme, ‘well known, established’ and variations of this, are thrown in by AGW, even after giving actual data, and which if not included would, one hopes, cause the reader to think.
Looking at what is actually said by IPCC, is that AGW confirms from the actual real science data available that CO2 rises follow rises in global temperature by several hundred to a thousand years LATER.
http://www.eoearth.org/article/IPCC_Fourth_Assessment_Report,_Group_I:_Chapter_6
6.4.1 Climate Forcings and Responses Over Glacial-Interglacial Cycles
The ice core record indicates that greenhouse gases co-varied with antarctic temperature over glacial-interglacial cycles, suggesting a close link between natural atmospheric greenhouse gas variations and temperature (Box 6.2). Variations in CO2 over the last 420 kyr broadly followed antarctic temperature, typically by several centuries to a millennium (Mudelsee, 2001). ..
CLEARLY, CO2 is not “the biggest control knob”. CLEARLY it is not the Driver of global temperatures. It is absolutely ludicrous to claim that it is since all, all, the many and various studies gathering this information consistently show that CO2 is an EFFECT of rising temperatures. The Rising Temperatures are the Main Knob of Rising CO2 Levels.
Carbon Dioxide has NEVER, not ever, been shown to be a driver of global temperatures. And we now have hundreds of thousands of years worth of data.
What you are actually claiming, even if you are not saying it, is that CO2 begins to drive global temperature hundreds of years before its own level rises. That CO2 has such marvellous, wonderful, extraordinary powers, that while still in hypothermia it produces a magical something that drives our temperature dramatically upward all around the world by several degrees, out of the Ice Age and into Global Warming Interglacials, causing gazillion tons of ice to melt and sea level to rise more than 300 feet. Regularly, every hundred thousand years. Then, when this amazingly powerful molecule decides that it’s now warm enough for it, it starts to travel spreading itself into the atmosphere..
so.., when twenty thousand or so years later it gets a bit tired or something it decides to go for a nap, and in doing this mostly disappears leaving a lesser amount of itself in the atmosphere, and by doing this it causes global temperatures to plummet because, CO2 drives temperatures..?
When actually, it still follows temperature by hundreds and hundreds of years, because we know from all this data that Carbon Dioxide is NOT the driver of global temperatures but a Follower in its fashion. When global temperatures fall back into the ice age, CO2 levels begin dropping by following several hundreds of years later.
So, you cannot say carbon dioxide is”one of the drivers”, because Science shows it isn’t even one of them.
This is the logical disjunct. AGW has to use real science here, but by also claiming something else contrary to it without giving any proof to contradict the actual science, and by constant repetition of the untruth, the real science slips into a kind of mental void.
The very fact that AGW itself actually shows that CO2 is never a driver, means that AGW has already falsified any claim it then makes to say it is.
Therefore, you cannot say that CO2 “is one of the drivers”.
(To falsify something is to show proof that a claim is not true.)
This is what I mean, as an example, that AGWScience continually produces such sleight of hand, magicians’ tricks, to distract from the actual fact that a claim is not true. It is not always as easy to show this sleight of hand, this trickery, but this is an excellent indisputable example of it; because here it can be seen clearly, AGWScience itself has already falsified the claim.
Does the AGWCO2 molecule wear its pants on the outside?
And – something to read on long winter evenings:
http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html
Myrrh said:
“What you are actually claiming, even if you are not saying it,”
No I am not, you really should stop making statements like that. You clearly need to read again what I wrote. How about you prove that there has been any time in the whole past of the planet that matches conditions today. That including solar activity being at a low cycle, CO2 increasing (can be measured) at a fast rate over a tiny timeframe in the planet’s history and temperatures rising following the CO2, and everything else being fairly stable. Also this data would need to be foolproof (taken with actual measuring tools) with no margin for error for me to accept it. You seem to have much more faith in educated geusses than you do in actual measurements, accepted theories and science.
Did you know that particle physics, the branch of science that determines how our whole electronic industry functions, atoms, nuclear reactions, radiation et cetera, is based on probability. You cannot say at any point in time where a particle is with 100% accuracy. It is always based on probability. Science is not as black and white as you think it is.
“Carbon Dioxide has NEVER, not ever, been shown to be a driver of global temperatures. And we now have hundreds of thousands of years worth of data.”
It either sounds like here that you do not believe CO2 is a greenhouse gas or you do not believe in greenhouse gases at all. You do realise that most skeptics actually do believe in greenhouse gases and that CO2 is one, they just argue on its relative strength in changing the atmosphere and the effect of negative and positive feedbacks. Try the following sites for a bit of an education.
http://school.familyeducation.com/outdoor-games/greenhouse-effect/37442.html
http://www.picotech.com/experiments/global/globalwarming.html
http://www.practicalchemistry.org/experiments/the-greenhouse-effect,296,EX.html
Maybe you would like to try some experiments yourself, without greenhouse gases the planet would be a snowball.
I find everything else you are saying quite a mess, you are trying to use word games and triple negatives to prove aomething that does not exist. You need to really do some research to understand the science, your not making any sense. You need to stop reading muck raking sites out on witch hunts and read critically the peer reviewed information. Try also observation, it has been a shocking 12 months for floods. See Pakistan, Queensland, Victoria, Sri Lanka, Brazil and the Philippines. I am not saying that any one weather event proves anything but long-term climate manifests itself as the weather in the short term and you cannot say our weather has been normal. 100 year and 200 year event are being bandied around the news all the time lately. Climate change means just that climate will change in ways that will make life increasingly more uncomfortable for us. Lets stop arguing about semantics and start looking for some solutions.
Michael says:
“…you cannot say our weather has been normal. 100 year and 200 year event are being bandied around the news all the time lately. Climate change means just that climate will change in ways that will make life increasingly more uncomfortable for us.”
This isn’t for Michael; his mind is made up and closed tight. But to counter his misinformation, here are some [accurate] facts so everyone else can see his globaloney:
click1
click2
click3
click4
click5
click6
click7
click8
click9
click10
Nothing out of the ordinary is occurring. That is a fact. But True Believers discard inconvenient facts due to cognitive dissonance. They simply can not accept that there is nothing extraordinary going on. They are members of the Cult of Doom.
Hi Les.
I would have to look at the organisations the doctors belonged to, the numbers of doctors agreeing to disagreeing and the support to those doctors from the hospital and on whose side the big drug lobby were supporting. If a great % of the doctors from reputable medical organisations and with a great deal of hospital support said I should have the operation, then I would make that choice.
This is the crux, isn’t it. Better than choosing the axe to grind, fringe scientists and pseudoscientists with opposition governments and individuals trying to make a name for themselves and supported by the most profitable corporations on the planet (oil companies). Their are multiple times more money in it for the oil companies than anyone else. Who do you think lobbies those politicians on witch hunts manufacturing grant fraud. Most of the time the control of the grants weren’t in the hands making the money, or they did not get the money or the money just isn’t that much in the first place. How about comparing the average salary of a climate scientist to a politician or an oil executive. Also I mean salary (their take home, discretionary spending amount) not the money spent on their research for labs, staff and equipment.
“This isn’t for Michael; his mind is made up and closed tight. But to counter his misinformation, here are some [accurate] facts so everyone else can see his globaloney:”
ditto
Also your facts are cherry picked, mostly irrelevent, and out of date. You focus on the US (not global), on one area and fatalities do not answer the question of where or why. Technology, early warning, faster response times, not urban areas (like storms last year, there were lots of them but none made landfall in the US). I wish you skeptics would actually act like skeptics and examine both sides with the same critical eye. Where REALLY is the money, who REALLY does benefit, what does the ACTUAL science as a whole say, and WHAT is happening to the weather.
Then you might say better safe than sorry as their is no turning back if you are wrong. The upside being at the end of it (at worst) we will have a renewable and sustainable economy that will bring long term benefits to our children, childrens children, and they will thankyou for the cleaner air, cleaner water, abundant food and more habitable and comfortable environment.
Have to agree with Michael on one thing: fatalities have nothing to do with climate. But it is also worth noticing that since we use satellites – we do not miss any major storm, tornado or hurricane. In the past we might have some missed.
And the trend is – diminishing number…
Michael said:
Myrrh said: “What you are actually claiming, even if you are not saying it,”
No I am not, you really should stop making statements like that. you clearly need to read again what I wrote.
I’m about to give up..
CO2 cannot be a driver or one of the drivers of global temperature, because, it doesn’t begin to rise until around 800 years after global temperatures rise. This is accepted science, both in real science and in AGWScience, for how our climate has been for the last 600,000+ years. The same pattern repeating every 100,000 years. Therefore, CO2 is not, is shown to be not, cannot be, a driver of global warming.
What you are implying, by saying that CO2 drives temperatures, is that CO2 magically arranges for global temperatures to rise, and then 800 years later, begins to spread in the atmosphere when the temperatures have risen. This is the hallmark of superstitious thinking.
You are saying CO2 is a driver because AGWScience says it. However, AGWScience also acknowledges that this is false because it agrees that CO2 follows global temperature rises and does not precede them. Therefore, AGW has already falsified this second claim it makes about CO2 being the driver of temperature. In other words,
AGWScience is lying when it says that CO2 is the driver of global temperatures.
Effects follow causes. CO2 rising behind global temperatures is an Effect.
What is so difficult to understand about cause and effect? Causes come before effects.
Rising global temperatures are the cause of rising CO2 levels. And it takes hundreds of years before CO2 levels begin to rise following this cause.
Carbon dioxide follows rises and falls in temperature. It is never shown to be the driver, it is always an effect.
This is the pattern we are in, in our current Ice Age as we go in and out of interglacials. Other periods show no sign of CO2 driving global temperatures either. In other words, CO2 has f’all to do with driving global temperatures.
Carbon Dioxide is irrelevant to causing rises and falls in temperatures.
To claim otherwise is to leave science and descend into superstitious belief which imagines causes for effects, because it doesn’t know any better.
AGWScience does know better. That’s why it consistently and deliberately lies, consistently and deliberately massages temperature records, consistently and deliberately uses half truths like this to con those who haven’t examined through to the simple logic.
Whatever is driving these great climate changes we have had in the last 600,000 years, it can’t be CO2. Can’t be. No matter how many other superstitious things you say about carbon dioxide to try and make it ‘appear’ to fit the AGW claim.
And, if you look at as closely at the these other other claims, you’ll find the same pattern of half truths. Deliberately manufactured by those who do know the difference between cause and effect and in ignorance by those who haven’t examined the claims closely enough. And sometimes in expediency, often seen in studies by those who give it lip service by tagging a line referring to it onto their report, their interest being in getting funded to do their research..
Anyway, what you’re promoting here is an ideology full of superstitious reasoning, real science has already falsified the premise.
In England the Al Gore film was ruled ideology, not science. And ruled that it could not be shown in schools as if it was actually presenting science facts.
http://www.paulmacrae.com/?p=21
So, you can keep believing in your superstitious new religion pretending it is science, but don’t expect me to join you.
How does CO2 stay up in the atmosphere accumulating for hundreds and thousands of years, when it is heavier than air?
Myrrh says:
January 19, 2011 at 2:24 am
Whatever is driving these great climate changes we have had in the last 600,000 years, it can’t be CO2. Can’t be. No matter how many other superstitious things you say about carbon dioxide to try and make it ‘appear’ to fit the AGW claim.
———————-
That’s right CO2 hasn’t been driving climate change over the last 600,000 years. I don’t think any published climate scientist is saying that either.
What they are saying is that when the Earth comes out of an ice age, the warming is not initiated by CO2 but by changes in the Earth’s orbit. The warming causes the oceans to give up CO2. The CO2 amplifies the warming and mixes through the atmosphere, spreading warming throughout the planet.
The increased CO2 in the atmosphere amplifies the original warming. The relatively weak forcing from Milankovitch cycles is insufficient to cause the dramatic temperature change taking our climate out of an ice age. However, the amplifying effect of CO2 is consistent with the observed warming.
This proves that CO2 can and does effect the global climate. The difference now is that humans are pumping out large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, similar to what the oceans did as we came out of the last ice age and which is known to have an effect on global climate.
Climate reacts to whatever forces it to change at the time; humans are now the dominant forcing.
The difference is now that Humans are pumping out large amounts of CO2
Les, Myrrh, Smokey… I kept the last 25 or so ‘comments’ aside and have finally had time to read them.
Brilliant. Simply and heartily brilliant.
Thank You for taking the time to read and write what you do. I’m speechless, which admittedly ~ doesn’t happen often…but, my head just ‘may’ be bigger for all the thoughts I’ve taken in… truly expansive and SIMPLE TO FOLLOW thoughts, Guys.
Oh…and… Micheal? Methinks you’ve been out-thought by three truly inspiring minds.
Just F.Y.I., you understand…. *LOVED the Leo Tolstoy quote as well… will saunter
to the back veranda to peek up at the stars and allow all my gratefulness to you guys just ‘rise’…or…is that sink…? No matter. I’ll also thank GOD that eugenics has been unmasked for what it is and that I may continue to smile & expel CO2 with no dramas just because of folks like you three.
My most sincere thanks, indeed to you all.
Cynthia Lauren
“You are saying CO2 is a driver because AGWScience says it.”
No, because real normal science have been saying it for a very long time. General physics and actual experiments can show how CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Do you read my posts?
“AGWScience is lying when it says that CO2 is the driver of global temperatures. ”
Science has never said that it is THE driver, it is one of a possible many drivers, it is just the only one that explains whats happening now as Science has checked all the other possible drivers that it is aware of to a 95% confidence.
“CO2 cannot be a driver or one of the drivers of global temperature, because, it doesn’t begin to rise until around 800 years after global temperatures rise. This is accepted science, both in real science and in AGWScience, for how our climate has been for the last 600,000+ years.””This is the pattern we are in, in our current Ice Age as we go in and out of interglacials.”
The current theory is that the reason we go in and out of the ice ages you are talking about is due to a planetary cycle that changes our orbit around the sun. This is well known and is not relevent in our current predicament. What it shows is that CO2 amplifies the effect as they feed each other. I also explained how greenhouse gases took us out of the snowball earth stage 650 million years ago. It has been a turbulant 4 billion years and their has been much planetary action.
“Carbon Dioxide is irrelevant to causing rises and falls in temperatures. To claim otherwise is to leave science and descend into superstitious belief which imagines causes for effects, because it doesn’t know any better.”
No it doesn’t, this is where you struggle to understand that CO2 has been influential in the past and it hasn’t been influential, but that does not follow that it cannot be influential now. The transitive dependency just doesn’t exist. Their are many factors, feedbacks and cycles to take into account, some are relevant in some situations and others not. Also the particular set of circumstances we are in has never happened before, you have nothing to compare it to.
“And, if you look at as closely at the these other other claims, you’ll find the same pattern of half truths. ”
The half truths are mostly on the skeptic side. Did you look at my original response to Moncktons claims? Most are either half truths or irrelevent to the current situation, making connections where none exist. They act as common thieves breaking into computers and then cherry pick and blow out statements making conspiracies where none exists. Where those thieves caught and prosecuted? They attack hard working honest scientists like Michael Mann, who has also been cleared, but enlist politicians looking to make names for themselves to tie them up in useless, taxpayer funded inquiries. Why? Fossil fuels is a 9 trillion dollar industry, thats where the real money is. Do you remember smoking being harmless? Much the same arguments and where was all the money? Most scientists generally want to better mankind.
“How does CO2 stay up in the atmosphere accumulating for hundreds and thousands of years, when it is heavier than air?”
Not sure what you are getting at here? Air is not a single molecule in a stagnant, stale and still environment. Air is made up of many things including Nitrogen, Oxygen, Argon, CO2, Neon, Helium ++ etc in a constantly swirling moving environment. CO2 is also not stagnant it gets taken up by oceans and plants and is thrown out by volcanoes, decaying plants, fossil fuels, breathing. Normally this is pretty much in balance, but currently it is not in balance due to the amount we are adding is swamping the ability of the environment to take it up. So frankly I do not understand the question.
“I’m about to give up..” I should be saying that, not you. I am not a skeptic, I have read and investigated and made a decision on what I know thus far. I was hoping that if you are actually a skeptic you would be looking critically at both sides and I could convince YOU. I have been trying really hard 🙂
Myrrh – just wanted to respond to one of your central claims. You’ve repeatedly said that:
C1) In the past, rises in CO2 have followed (by ~800 years) rises in global temperature
There is agreement by all sides on this point.
You go on to claim that:
C2) C02 cannot be a “driver” (a cause) of rises in global temperature
You’ve repeatedly argued that C2 follows from C1. As far as I can tell, your reason for thinking that C2 follows from C1 is the principle that “effects must follow (i.e. come later in time than) causes.”
Is that, so far, a fair representation of your thinking?
If so, then I have to strenuously disagree with the logic of your argument. C2 does not logically follow from C1 (even in conjunction with the principle that causes precede effects). Here’s why. It can be – and often is – the case that one type of event (call it X) causes another type of event (call it Y), and that Y causes X (either at different times, or, in a sense, “simultaneously.”) Here are some examples.
Consider Nervous Ned. He hates giving public speeches. Whenever he does, his level of anxiety (call that X) rises. When his level of anxiety (X) rises, the level of verbal mistakes (call that Y) he makes also tends to rise. So, X is one of the causes of Y.
When Ned starts making more mistakes in his speech, however, it has the tendency to make Ned even more anxious. That is, Y causes X (a rise in the level of mistakes causes a rise in the level of his anxiety). This, as one might expect, causes him to make yet further mistakes, which causes yet a further increase in anxiety, and so on.
In this case, both types of event, X and Y, act as causes of each other. Each is a positive feedback for the other.
Suppose that up to now, we’ve only ever observed cases in which Ned’s level of anxiety rose before he started making mistakes, so that Y has only ever been observed to “lag” X. Would this show that Y is not – cannot be – a cause of X? Of course not.
Suppose that on a given occasion, Ned’s level of anxiety has not risen. He is talking, but not at all unduly nervous in doing so. He makes a few verbal mistakes. Would it be surprising if we found that, as a result, his level of anxiety began to rise? Of course not. And wouldn’t we expect that, then, to cause a yet further increase in verbal mistakes? Of course. In this case, we’d have found that verbal mistakes “initiated” the self-reinforcing loop, whereas in the past we’d observed levels of anxiety “initiating” the loop. Is this contradictory? Is this a “logical disjunct”? Is this a violation of the principle that “causes must precede effects”? Of course not.
If you gave it some critical reflection, I think you (and others) would start to notice that there are all sorts of natural processes that fit this pattern of causation. For instance, drinking and depression can tend to cause each other – sometimes the one “initiates” the other, and other times, the other “initiates” the one. Or consider what happens when some inexperienced drivers get stuck in the snow. Some tend to floor the accelerator, causing the surface under their tires to become even more slippery, which can cause such drivers to try to accelerate even more, and so on. Such causal relationships are ubiquitous. They show that it is possible for X-type events to be causes of Y-type events, and for Y-type events to be causes of X-type events.
This shows that C2 does not follow from C1. I have not shown (nor have I tried to show) that a rise in C02 is a “driver” of a rise in global temperature. What I hope to have shown, however, is that, as a matter of logic, there is absolutely no problem in claiming that an increase in C02 can be a cause of an increase in global temperature even if in the past rises in C02 have consistently followed, rather than preceded, rises in temperature. So this particular objection falls flat. Does that seem like a fair assessment of this particular objection (again, notice I’ve not so far given any positive reason for accepting the claim that C02 is a cause of temperature, but merely diagnosed a common mistake in objecting to that claim)?
Michael says that oil companies are the most profitable companies on the planet.
Wrong, as in so many other false assertions.
The average return on equity for oil companies is ≈9%. Many other industries return far more to their shareholders, and have a greater net worth. Google is worth far more than Exxon [the biggest U.S. oil company].
Falsus in unum, falsus in omis.
I’ve conclusively debunked Michael’s claim that weather disasters are getting worse. Being blinded by cognitive dissonance, he cannot see how wrong he was about his claim that weather is getting worse.
Falsus in unum, falsus in omis.
His religion does not allow him to question empirical facts that amount to heresy in his mind. But others see his false examples, and understand his delusion. It’s a common one. However, the public is becoming aware that the so-called “facts” parroted by CAGW believers are erroneous. Including the putative “fact” that CO2 will trigger catastrophic AGW. It never has before, and it isn’t doing it now.
Falsus in unum, falsus in omis.
Brian,
Thanks for your comment. But those are pretty far out analogies. You should keep in mind that the claim that there is a self-reinforcing positive feedback between CO2 and water vapor is a conjecture. It is speculation, with no empirical, testable evidence showing that it has ever happened during the Holocene or before.
For example, at a time when CO2 remained very low [≈280 ppmv], the planet experienced a rapid rise in temperature of 27°F! — within ten years!
Natural climate variability fully explains the very mild 0.7°C warming over the past 150 years. That minor warming has happened repeatedly throughout the Holocene, without any correlation to CO2 levels. That strongly suggests that the current warming is only coincidental with the rise in CO2. And over the past 15 years, that apparent correlation has broken down entirely.
CO2 may have an effect on temperature, but it is too small to measure. Many other forcings overwhelm it. Skeptical scientists — the only honest kind of scientists — look at these verifiable facts, and are not convinced of the conjecture that CO2 drives the climate. It is a flimsy conjecture based largely on hand-waving and “what ifs.”
It is certainly much too weak a conjecture to justify wreaking havoc on the U.S. economy by trying to mitigate a harmless and beneficial trace gas, when China alone is emitting much more CO2 than America.
And China is only one of numerous countries doing the same thing. Rational folks look at the situation, and at Al Gore’s beachfront purchases, and at the profligate waste by thousands of UN/IPCC scientists, NGOs, QUANGOS, tenured university drones, etc., all flying into Cancun and staying in $450 a night hotel rooms, feasting on champagne, brie, caviar and lobster at the public’s expense — and conclude that money and politics is fueling the CAGW scare. Because the science certainly doesn’t support the climate alarmist crowd’s beliefs.
Smokey said:
the claim that there is a self-reinforcing positive feedback between CO2 and water vapor [did you mean temperature?] is a conjecture. It is speculation, with no empirical, testable evidence showing that it has ever happened during the Holocene or before.
For example, at a time when CO2 remained very low [≈280 ppmv], the planet experienced a rapid rise in temperature of 27°F! — within ten years!
I’m afraid I don’t understand how this is an example of the claim that there is no positive feedback btw. CO2 and temperature. Claiming that X and Y mutually reinforce each other is obviously consistent with claiming that X is not the only thing that reinforces Y (and vice versa), no? Using my example of Nervous Ned, it’d be unsurprising if other things besides making verbal mistakes also contributed to an increase in his level of anxiety – for instance, being chased by a bear, or having an argument with a sibling. Surely it would be bizarre to argue as follows:
One time, Ned made no verbal mistakes, and yet had an incredible surge in anxiety – all in a very short time!
Therefore, we have good reason to suspect that making verbal mistakes does not contribute to a rise in anxiety.
That’s clearly fallacious, no? Perhaps what explains the surge in anxiety is one of the many other causes of anxiety (e.g. fighting with a sibling). Perhaps many surges in anxiety have been caused by things other than verbal mistakes. Would that give us reason to deny the claim that verbal mistakes can contribute to anxiety? Of course not.
None of what I’ve just said would show that verbal mistakes do in fact contribute to anxiety. But again, my point is just to draw attention to what appear to be obviously fallacious inferences in the objections that have been raised against the claim that C02 can be a “driver” of temperature. Everyone grants that there are other additional causes of global temperature changes, so why would an instance in which temperature rises in the absence of a significant (short-term) change in CO2 be any sort of evidence for the lack of a significant feedback effect (which typically lags temperature rise by 800-1000 years, not 10 years)? Could you explain again this particular example (low CO2 w/ a spike in temp), and what you took it to show?
Brian,
I meant what I said: “…the claim that there is a self-reinforcing positive feedback between CO2 and water vapor…”. That is the conjecture of the climate alarmist contingent. My link shows that CO2 is irrelevant to temperature changes.
You asked: “Could you explain again this particular example (low CO2 w/ a spike in temp), and what you took it to show?”
I already explained it for you. But I’ll explain it one more time:
Natural climate variability fully explains the very mild 0.7°C warming over the past 150 years. That minor warming has happened repeatedly throughout the Holocene, without any correlation to CO2 levels. That strongly suggests that the current warming is only coincidental with the rise in CO2. And over the past 15 years, that apparent correlation has broken down entirely.
Occam’s Razor states that the simplest explanation is the best explanation. Natural climate variability is simple to understand, and has never been falsified [it is the climate null hypothesis].
According to the Razor, the addition of an extraneous variable is undesirable:
“One should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything.”
~William of Ockham, 1285-1349
CO2 is an extraneous entity, and it is completely unnecessary to explain the very *mild* 0.7° warming over the past century and a half. The scientifically illiterate demonization of “carbon” [by which the uneducated mean CO2] is based on the repeatedly falsified claim that CO2 will lead to catastrophic runaway global warming. There is no empirical evidence that has ever happened in the past due to CO2. Real world geologic evidence shows the CO2=CAGW conjecture to be nonsense.
In natural global warming, there is a closer correlation to postal rates than to CO2.
“One should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything.”
~William of Ockham, 1285-1349
“…so, it follows that by presenting the FACTS with the LEAST amount of extraneous verbiage (unless one TRULY wants/intends to ‘cloud the issue’, ie: ~ like purposely befuddling & confounding the reader in order to have him/her abandon his tenacity and therefore, to have him SHUT UP and meekly sit down) for ANYONE to hide behind.”
Guys. William was right. Deliberate obfuscation has gone on since ‘The Garden’.
It began, methinks with: “Did God REALLY say…?”
From then till today ~ the easiest way to achieve the Truth about an issue ~ is to surrender one’s ego ‘AT THE DOOR’ before one enters in to the fray. I have been praying about this for over one year now and wholeheartedly believe that the reason why Science is ‘targeted’ (all Target store customers, please forgive the non-politically correct analogy) is because the humans involved in it have allowed their hearts to become corrupted. NOT a good thing, ladies and gentlemen.
A bit of humility, the ability to laugh at oneself (that happens most often when you possess the capacity to LOVE yourself, p.s.) and accept a truly sincere hug from another – (in other words, just being a ‘human’ bright or otherwise) – and this whole ‘Climate Non-science’ would be over and all of you would be invited to this beach across from our home… Ahhh….one can dream. Yet – quizzically – I now wonder if even ‘dreaming’ soon will become a thing of the past…for it seems these folks that loathe ‘skeptics’ are indeed either: cunning, or conned, and mostly get really really nasty, defensive or angry. (Therefore, I pray.)
There are only two roads, Gentlemen. Thankfully, no one can force one or the other upon anyone. Here’s to ‘freedom and God-given wisdom’ and may it forever shine.
Cynthia Lauren
Michael, you keep thinking I’m not reading what you’ve said, but I have been, but you bring out so many different points it’s not been possible to deal with them all. I don’t have the time to come back to this until tomorrow, but will endeavour to go through your last post in more detail.
Brian, but, there is obvious cause in ‘becoming more nervous and making more mistakes’, but again even there such a feedback to extreme is still a conjecture. There is no cause ‘CO2 drives temperature’, not even in ‘feedback’, the ‘feedback’ is not proven.
If such a feedback existed we would see an exponential rise of temperature through our interglacial history as soon as CO2 kicked in, show me where this exists. Where is the ‘feedback’?
Michael – you said:
“How about comparing the average salary of a climate scientist to a politician or an oil executive. Also I mean salary (their take home, discretionary spending amount) not the money spent on their research for labs, staff and equipment.”
I have no issue with the amount of money spent on research and equipment.
What I have an issue with, though, is that a future of all of us is riding on theories and computer models which use selected and not fully published set of data (to mention just one aspect).
Yes – by all means: do the research, publish ALL info, including the original source data and measurements, publish the details of the computer models – and subject it all to scrutiny. Climate science is very multi-disciplinary – and it would surely benefit from the insight of scientists who are specialists in disciplines like chemistry, oceanography, atmospheric research, physics, thermodynamics, chemistry – you name it. I dare to say that there are not many (if any) of the basic sciences and few (of the applied sciences) which would not find the issue of climate change dynamics – related to their field of expertise.
Treating climate science as a separate discipline makes sense from a point of getting grants and administration, but as a science – it just applies (or rather it should apply) the known laws and principles – because, as once had been said – “nihil novi sub sole”.
Instead – it is jealously guarded from the “not initiated” – in regards to data and models used to predict the dire future – if the tax is not imposed on world’s population immediately.
Regarding the “average salary” – I do not know: what I know is that over $2.5 billion this year is going to be spent on grants related to climate research, and that Al Gore is currently asking over $170k per appearance. Please do not tell me that there is no conflict of interest here.
I have been walking this Earth long enough to have no illusions left regarding good will and intentions of governments. As far as UN goes – it would be hard to find an institution which is more inefficient, wasteful, and lacking the cojones to solve any of the existing problems. Under watchful eye of UN – millions of people had been slaughtered in genocide wars, billions of dollars had been delivered straight to pockets of dictators all over the world – and, for the most part, posting to UN is regarded worldwide as a plum position, devoid of any responsibility, but full of perks – and usually quite decent salary. In other words – seeing the world – at someone else’s expense.
So – please spare me the remarks of governments acting in my interest. They mostly act in their own interest – but it would be really nice if they remembered that (at least in some countries) they are the elected representatives. Which, of course, is more of a theory than the practice.
Thanks for the reply, Smokey.
Two points.
First, do you agree that the following argument – which Myrrh’s comments seem to endorse – is logically invalid (i.e. that the premises, even if true, do not guarantee the truth of the conclusion)? Here it is:
P1) In the past, rise in temperature has preceded rise in CO2
P2) Effects cannot precede their causes
C) Therefore, a rise in CO2 cannot be a cause of a rise in temperature
Do you think that the conclusion follows from those premises? Or do you think that this is a mistake in logic? (Note: agreeing that this is fallacious would not show that a rise in CO2 can cause a rise in temperature; it would only show that this argument fails to establish its conclusion.)
Second, forgive me if I still am not quite clear on what you meant your example of the 27F rise in temperature over 10 years to show, but let me try again. Is this how you thought of that particular case functioning?
P1) In Greenland, average temperature rose 27F over 10 years, while levels of CO2 remained quite low
P2) If (as most scientists claim) CO2 and temperature are (“non-trivially”) causally related, P1 would have to be false
C) Therefore, CO2 and temperature are not (or only “trivially”) causally related
This argument is (unlike Myrrh’s) logically valid. Does it represent (at least roughly) the work that this particular example of a 27F spike in temperature is supposed to do for your case? If it does, then I’d think that those who affirm AGW would claim that your argument, while valid, is unsound, in virtue of P2 being false. My question to you, then, would be: why do you think (if this is what you think) that if temperature and CO2 are causally related, we should not get events like the 27F spike happening in the absence of a dramatic rise in CO2?
More generally, why should we think that, if temperature and CO2 are causally related, then we should expect to see a direct correlation between CO2 levels at a time, and global average temperatures at that time? (AGW theorists don’t make such a claim, do they?)
Hi Brian,
I can answer all your questions. In fact, they have all been discussed in detail here over the past 3 – 4 years. The WUWT search function will get you to the relevant articles and discussion. And there is no censorship here, so you will see both sides of the debate.
But before I get into any endless question answering going back-and-forth, let’s return to first principles:
There is no discernable, measurable difference between the current climate in temperature, trends or their parameters from those same temperatures, trends or parameters during the Holocene. It has all happened before, just like it is happening today. Nothing unusual is occurring.
Temperatures have risen as fast, or faster in the past; they have declined as fast, or faster, too. Current temperatures are pretty close to the middle range over the past 10,000 years of the Holocene.
The fact that today’s temperatures, rate of rise, trend, etc., are no different from numerous times in the past supports the null hypothesis – which must be falsified for the alternative CO2=CAGW hypothesis to be valid, since CO2 has risen substantially over the course of the industrial revolution; almost 40%. That is a significant rise.
Therefore, if CO2 caused global harm, we should have seen strong, verifiable evidence of the damage by now. But there is no verifiable global damage due to CO2. None. For every example given, there are equally plausible, or more plausible explanations that exclude CO2.
The fallacy of the argumentum ad ignorantium is constantly used by alarmists to blame a harmless trace gas for anything and everything: “Since I can’t think of any other reason for this effect, then CO2 must be the cause!” That argument is not acceptable under the scientific method. [And please also avoid the fallacy of the Precautionary Principle: “We can’t take any chances! Think of the children!”]
I can document the statements above. My question to you is: since there is no measurable change between now and the past 10 millennia [and, in fact, much farther back in time], what empirical, testable, verifiable evidence [excluding models; models are not evidence] can you provide, which conclusively shows global harm due specifically to the rise in CO2?
That question must be answered according to the scientific method. [If you’re unsure about the scientific method and falsification/testability, see Karl Popper.]
Otherwise, you must acknowledge that the null hypothesis is valid, and therefore no blame can be laid at the feet of a harmless trace gas, since there has been no change from past geologic eras, when CO2 levels were low and remained steady – or ramped up to thousands of ppmv, as the planet descended into an Ice Age.
Please provide rigorous evidence of global damage due directly to the rise in CO2, without any extraneous variables thrown in to muddy the waters. Or, you agree that the null hypothesis remains un-falsified, in which case we are on the same page.