Via Friends of Science, Press Release today.
IPCC SR15 Climate Change Report is Based on Faulty Premises that Will Lead to Poor Public Policy says Friends of Science Society in New Rebuttal
Friends of Science Society has issued a new report entitled “Faulty Premises = Poor Public Policy on Climate,” rebutting the catastrophic climate claims, the misguided, ineffective solutions, and ludicrous carbon tax proposals in the IPCC SR15 climate change report issued Oct. 8, 2018. Link: ipcc.ch/report/sr15/
“Faulty Premises…” report deconstructs the IPCC climate claims by referencing expert commentaries, some by past IPCC expert reviewers, showing that climate science is filled with uncertainties. The view is that it is futile to try to use carbon dioxide reduction as a climate change thermostat. Adaptation is a preferable path.
Past IPCC expert reviewer and former WMO regional expert, Dr. Madhav Khandekar prepared a report for the Alberta government in 2000, exploring the “Uncertainties in Greenhouse Gas Induced Climate Change.” Interviewed this spring in Calgary, where he was one of the guest speakers for Friends of Science Society’s annual event, Dr. Khandekar stated that in his view, “…these uncertainties on greenhouse gas induced climate change remain and there are many more.”
“Faulty Premises…” also refers to a work by the late Prof. Philip Lloyd of South Africa, who was a Coordinating Lead Author for the IPCC Special Report on Carbon Capture and Storage (2004) and a Reviewer for the Third and Fourth IPCC Assessment Reports. His work is a detailed critique of IPCC sources, methods and conclusions.
Friends of Science Society published an economic review of the carbon tax proposals of the IPCC SR15, The reduction of CO2 emissions to meet the IPCC proposed target of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial temperatures would cost about $880/tonne CO2 (carbon dioxide) in mitigation expenditures (the median of the estimated range of costs) in 2030. The reduction of CO2 emissions would cause a further loss of of $8/tonne CO2 by the loss of the benefits of CO2 fertilization and the net benefits of warming, meaning a net loss of $888 per tonne of CO2 reduction.
The IPCC SR15 is reckless in recommending rapid decarbonization, and setting an impossible 12-year deadline, says Friends of Science. Society would collapse into anarchy within days without fossil fuels. Wind and solar cannot support even basic society, as outlined by Prof. Michael J. Kelly of Cambridge University as early as 2010.
“Faulty Premises…” explores the many commercial conflicts of interests that are pushing for global cap and trade, vested interests in renewables, and global carbon law – rejecting all of these as a danger to democracy and not a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution.
The report quotes Roger Pielke, Jr. “Take away the speculative technology embedded across scenarios and models and the entire policy architecture of the Paris Agreement and its parent, the UNFCCC, falls to pieces…. Carbon dioxide removal at massive scale is science fiction…” from his insightful commentary in the August 2018 edition of Issues in Science and Technology.
REPORT LINK (PDF): Faulty Premises Poor Public Policy on Climate Oct 30 2018 FINAL
Executive summary:
Climate science is a complex blend of chaotic, dynamic systems. The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Summary Report 15 (SR15) attempts to predict the implications of a 1.5°Celsius (C) rise in Global Surface Mean Temperatures (GSMT) over the temperature of the pre-industrial era. The focus of the report is on the influence of human industrial emissions of carbon dioxide as the assumed driver of climate change and recent warming. Despite the number of scientists involved, science can go astray for no other reason than a singular focus through ‘the same lens.’
Friends of Science Society is critical of the IPCC SR15 report, pointing out the following:
- We are in the Meghalayan, not the Anthropocene. The IPCC SR15 report claims to view climate change through “the lens of the Anthropocene.” This term is popularly used to describe a modern geological period wherein humans are assumed to have a larger impact on the world than nature. On July 13, 2018, the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) issued a statement that the earth is now in the Meghalayan, a period that began 4,200 years ago. In response to questions as to why the term “Anthropocene” had not been included, at least for the past 50 years of presumed human influence, the IUGS responded that the term “Anthropocene” has not even been submitted for consideration and that the term has only sociological, not scientific relevance. The IPCC should not use this ‘lens.’
- All climate models (simulations) used by the IPCC run ‘too hot’ versus observations. The computer simulations project future warming (thus being the rationale for global warming climate policies) show significantly higher temperatures than what is being observed. Only the Russian climate model and satellite/weather balloon data closely match present temperatures in the lower troposphere. This suggests that most climate models ascribe too great an effect of warming (climate sensitivity) to carbon dioxide. This means the climate models should not be used to set public policy.
- No temperature can be accurately measured to a precision of less than ±0.1°C. global temperature data is a metric of averaged and adjusted data from many sources, suggesting that a 0.5°C difference in temperature is moot and an arbitrary figure. It does not reference an actual measurement of earth’s temperature; people are being misled.
- The IPCC claims, in its founding principles, to be policy neutral. However, the IPCC SR15 makes many recommendations regarding Carbon Dioxide Removal Systems (CDRS), most of which are untested and unvetted and proposed with no cost-benefit analysis. Such recommendations are contrary to the purpose of the IPCC and should be disregarded by policymakers. The IPCC should simply report on scientific findings.
- Rapid decarbonization is impossible and unrealistic as proposed by the IPCC.The world runs on more than 80% fossil fuels for energy; all other forms of power generation, including hydro, nuclear, wind and solar are completely reliant on fossil fuels for their creation. Millions of people would die if rapid decarbonization was implemented. There is no suitable, equitable alternative to fossil fuel energy for modern society. Any official, international body of scientists who are recommending a course of action leading to mass deaths should be disbanded.
- There is no clear evidence that the changes or warming since the mid-1800s are caused by human use of fossil fuels – though indeed there has been some warming and various perceptible changes in some natural features. Indeed, the range of climate change discussed falls well within natural variation since 1850. Likewise, global temperature records are incomplete, inconsistent, methods/placement of monitoring stations have changed, and temperatures are not monitored at equidistant places at the same time. The validity of the Global Average Surface Temperature is imprecise.
- The proposed remedies of wind and solar increase carbon dioxide and cause warming. Rather than reduce fossil fuel use or aid in carbon dioxide reduction, wind and solar in fact require vast quantities of fossil fuels for productions, installation, and natural gas back-up – resulting in an increase in carbon dioxide. Wind and solar are ineffective, expensive and cause power grids to destabilize, putting society at risk, harming industry, jobs, and consumers through heat-or-eat poverty. The devices are made of bonded materials and are largely unrecyclable. Wind and solar are contrary to sustainability and environmental goals.
- Extreme weather events are an integral part of climate. The IPCC’s AR5 report and their SREX special report on extreme weather both make it clear that human effects on climate are not deemed to increase extreme weather events; neither is an increase of carbon dioxide. The IPCC should clarify this with the media rather than allowing the press to engage in terrifying hyperbole.
- Extremely disproportionate cost-benefit ratio should dissuade policy makers and citizens from following IPCC SR15 recommendations on carbon pricing.The cost of emissions reduction in 2030 is about 95 times the benefit assuming the climate sensitivity to CO2 from the climate models. When using the Lewis and Curry 2015 climate sensitivity estimate determined from measurements, the cost of emissions reduction in 2030 is about 210 times the benefit, however this estimate doesn’t account for natural climate change. Using the best economic model that include benefits of warming and CO2 fertilization of crops, and accounting for the natural warming from 1850, each $880 spent on mitigating a tonne of CO2 would prevent a net benefit of $8, increasing the loss to $888 per tonne of CO2 mitigation. Indeed, Dr. Judith Curry notes that carbon reduction efforts to ‘stabilize climate’ may be futile in the face of natural climate change.
- The science is not settled. Anderegg et al (2010)[1] revealed that 34% of IPCC contributing authors disagreed with the IPCC declaration on human influence on climate. Hundreds of other scientists have disputed IPCC findings on human-causation in peer-reviewed papers, books, blogs and videos. There is inadequate scientific review by the IPCC of the Nongovernmental International Panel Climate Change reports. There is limited review of natural forces of the sun and planetary dynamics, and natural internal variability like ocean currents, volcanic eruptions and tectonic activity and its correlation to earth’s magnetism (and thus solar influence). Reducing carbon dioxide from human industrial activity is a futile response to the continuous climate changes on earth; adaptation and investment in resilient infrastructure and response is a better use of public funds.
In the video: Climate scientist Dr. Madhav Khandekar is a former Environment Canada research scientist, past IPCC expert reviewer, WMO regional expert, long-term member of CMOS – Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society. In the year 2000, Dr. Khandekar was commissioned by the Alberta government to do an evaluation of the science that was said to support the Kyoto Accord. His report “Uncertainties in Greenhouse Gas Induced Climate Change” is here: https://archive.org/details/uncertain… Surprisingly, those uncertainties have not changed much in 18 years and he says “there are many more.” Dr. Khandekar explains that much of climate science is based on computer models which early on predicted significant warming, but that’s not what years of temperature observations show. Warming has been nominal compared to computer modelled projections. Governments have used those ‘hot’ modelled simulations to set climate policies, but they do not reflect reality.
About
Friends of Science Society is an independent group of earth, atmospheric and solar scientists, engineers, and citizens who are celebrating its 16th year of offering climate science insights. After a thorough review of a broad spectrum of literature on climate change, Friends of Science Society has concluded that the sun is the main driver of climate change, not carbon dioxide (CO2).
Why do skeptics dignify the IPCC’s reports by rebutting them on scientific grounds when they’re not scientific documents to begin with?
Seriously, why would any scientifically-inclined person waste a single calorie reading a text that was drafted, edited, vetoed and approved line-by-line by political attachés and employees of financially-interested NGOs?
What can such a brochure possibly have to tell us about the Earth’s atmosphere?
I’ve never got an explanation from fellow skeptics for this bizarre strategy of ours.
And I’m afraid it won’t help to say “only the SPMs are politicised—the underlying report is a serious scholarly review.”
No it isn’t. The IPCC is open about this: the “underlying report” is doctored to conform with the SPM, not the other way around. That’s their practice. There’s even a section heading to the effect of “Changes to the [underlying science section] to ensure consistency with the Summary for Policy Makers.”
The farcical nature of the entire exercise is not a secret.
So why do I seem to be the only person who’s laughing at the ridiculous forest, while the rest of you are drafting reasoned responses to the trees?
Have you all gone forest-blind??
To those familiar with my usual schtick, this is a departure from it, so I should probably obviate any possible misinterpretation by deploying this “non-sarc” tag…
/ COMMENT TO BE TAKEN AT FACE VALUE, FOR A CHANGE
I agree with you. The report is politics, all the way down.
Tom,
There are some seriously smart people on our side. So why do they fail to get it, STILL, after 30 years of getting our heads handed to us by intellectual nullities who by all rights should be serving us fries at McDonalds?
How would you suggest we go about getting it through our fellow skeptics’ reinforced-concrete calvaria that the IPCC uses the tropicopolitical method, not the scientific method, to churn out its reports?
And that, ergo, said reports are Not Even Science?
It’s not that they’re BAD science. They’re not “invalid” science. They’re not “scientifically inaccurate” or “scientifically misleading” or “wrong on the science” or “based on faulty science” or “scientifically sloppy.”
They’re BENEATH SCIENTIFIC CONSIDERATION.
The only proper response is ridicule; sneers; condescending dismissal.
Deride and conquer, people. Al Gore gets this. Naomi Oreskes gets this. Rajendra “World’s Most Hands-on Boss” Pachauri got this. Bob Ward gets this.
Think about it, guys. WWTAD (what would the alarmists do)? Can you seriously imagine they’d waste time coming up with a rigorous scientific rebuttal to the arguments we make? Have they ever done so? No. Because the alarmists get it. They know how to fight a war of perceptions. We, painfully obviously, do not.
The more science we hurl back at the enemy, the more we play into their hands by confirming the perception (among politicians and the scientifically-naive public) that the enemy IS science.
How many more decades do my fellow WUWT readers propose we spend walking into the same trap?
Should we, maybe, maintain this strategy til 2050 or so, just to make ABSOLUTELY sure (p < 0.05) it doesn't work?
For a bunch of smart people, we're comically slow learners.
It is really hard to maintain the proper attitude of amused contempt.
Meh…Alinsky wrote a book about it:
“Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon,” is Rule #5.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_for_Radicals
Sycomputing,
yes, it’s one of those perversities of history, isn’t it?
Alinsky writes a book explaining, step by step, how to beat people like Alinsky.
And nobody at this site believes him, because he’s Alinsky.
And nobody at this site believes him, because he’s Alinsky.
Not true, Middleton does!!
But see when we do it then they write boo-hoo articles for the NY Times claiming we’re trying to kill them. I guess that’s something of a reverse #9 + #11.
“But see when we do it then they write boo-hoo articles for the NY Times claiming we’re trying to kill them. ”
Good. That’s what success looks like.
Ridicule your enemy, then sit back as he makes himself even more ridiculous by being a histrionic drama queen on the pages of the national newspaper of record.
The public doesn’t have a hope of understanding the “Rebuttal” in the OP, and nor do its elected officials. The sum total the average person takes away from a post like this is “the IPCC has thousands of serious scientists, whose serious science has provoked a work of counter-science from a tiny handful of less-serious scientists, and alas, the atmosphere is so diabolically complex that all an Ethnic Musicology major like me can do is assume that the vast majority of scientists are probably correct, and the tiny minority are probably not.”
On the other hand everyone who can read English understands, intuitively, that Michael Mann’s tantrums are not those of a serious person.
So, multiple choice time.
If we had to choose (which we do), would it make more sense for us to focus our efforts on:
A. the ongoing but futile attempt to produce thicker reports faster than the IPCC can excrete theirs?
or
B. teasing Michael Mann?
For my part, I prefer the correct answer. What about you guys, which of the two tactics do you vote for: the empirically vindicated one, or the definition of insanity?
I know, I know, it’s a tough one.
What about you guys, which of the two tactics do you vote for: the empirically vindicated one, or the definition of insanity?
Here, do something with this. I’m not going to, as I’m especially inept at it. It’s right up your proposed alley:
http://www.thestupidithurts.org/
I’ll even keep paying for the hosting and domain for a while, until you can get it paying for itself.
🙂
Sycomputing,
thanks for all your ideas. (And to Anthony for hosting your O/T advice.) I’m not sure what I’m meant to “do” with that blog (other than enjoy reading it) though. Being neither US-based nor fascinated with partisan politics I’m afraid I’d have little to add to the content itself. Could you flesh out what you’re proposing a bit further? Email me if you have a chance
All the best
Brad
Brad Keyes, you have perfectly described the warmists strategy, and thus why they are still winning, as skeptics/realists are left alone to play among themselves in their little sandbox.
Thanks. Your imagery is even better! So how do we get anyone else to understand this, preferably sometime before Ragnarok? Would hand-puppets help? I’m tired of being a prophet in the wilderness.
I have asked this question before… How to get the general public to understand? The only credible answer I got is that we can’t… The only way out is through the thermometer, if/when temperatures start to fall and continue falling until it becomes clear we have entered a new cooling cycle. Then, “scientists” will be coming out with whole new sets of hypothesis and models to explain the cooling, and Climate Ayatollahs will have to change their preachings.
Bernard,
thanks, but I was actually referring to what ought to be, but frustratingly isn’t, a much easier problem:
How do we get people who already see through the CAGW scam to give up the mutual-admiration sandbox games that have gotten us nowhere in 30 years and consider that maybe, just maybe, it’s time to consider a change of strategy?
And it’s not even as if we don’t know any effective strategies. There’s a whole playbook full of them: the alarmist playbook. It’s on every skeptic’s bookshelf. But you and I are the only skeptics (I exaggerate only slightly!) who’ve bothered reading it.
Does everyone else enjoy losing the climate wars?
Perhaps because we are very uncomfortable with the implications of policy based evidence manufacturing.
This, if accepted as the true state of affairs,means our governing personnel have attacked the foundations of civil society.
So this means war.
John,
you might be on to something. If it’s a case of Intolerable Truth, bear in mind that the solution (as per usual) is humor. If we can laugh at an unthinkable horror, it becomes thinkable.
Feel free to quote the History of the Climate Debate next time somebody mentions the IPCC in a tone of reverence:
1988:
IPCC created
The Panel’s mission is to periodically provide a big room—ideally in a hotel or resort—where Policy gets a chance to tell Science what to tell Policy to do, in a policy-neutral way.
Did you know? The IPCC’s estimates of certainty, confidence and risk are determined subjectively on a sliding scale of adjectives—the same wisdom-of-crowds technology that almost put the Challenger into space! (For an accessible description of the process used by IPCC authors, see Professor Richard Feynman’s NASA memoirs, Science Can Be Defined as the Trust in the Guesses of Experts.)
If the report has validity in the eyes of policy makers and goes unchallenged, it becomes policy.
The purpose of debunking this document is exactly the same as debunking actual science. Common knowledge of the BS in it bubbles up to the policy makers. Ignore it at your peril.
Almost no politicians will disagree with CAGW. They will give lip service even if they turn around and do the opposite.
At some point, challenging CAGW becomes like an affront to apple pie and mother’s milk. The irony is that even the alarmists acknowledge that most Americans think climate change is a non-issue. link
Thanks for your thoughts David. I wish I had time to answer you, and the other commenters who’ve risen to my challenge, point by point. I don’t. But please see my 5:17pm reply to Tom above.
davidmhoffer
+1
“Why do skeptics dignify the IPCC’s reports by rebutting them on scientific grounds when they’re not scientific documents to begin with?”
Rebutting non-scientific documents with documents based on scientific grounds, in my opinion, is not “dignifying” IPCC’s reports as what they are not. Rather, such rebutting seemingly points to this very fact — that IPCC’s reports are NOT what some might pretend that they are. How better to scoop up bull excrement than with a shovel? Scientific rebuttal is the shovel that places IPCC’s reports where they belong, in the pseudo-science toilet.
“Seriously, why would any scientifically-inclined person waste a single calorie reading a text that was drafted, edited, vetoed and approved line-by-line by political attachés and employees of financially-interested NGOs?”
Well, that’s how information is organized and distributed as public information. How else would you suggest a movement be structured to counter the IPCC? If the IPCC is politically amplified, then a counter-IPCC effort being politically amplified does not seem all that inappropriate. How do you eliminate all political motivations from information and education? — I think that you cannot. Any point of view has to gain broad support via political means.
Well, you make a good point.
I think ideally someone would, instead of refuting a political document, dig down to the scientific studies it is based on, and present a document that is consistent with the actual result of those studies, and present it in exactly the same format. I think it would be very illuminating and very hard to refute – use their same references against them.
/ COMMENT TO BE TAKEN AT FACE VALUE, FOR A CHANGE
Someone, somewhere, is “struggling” to understand…
Why do skeptics dignify the IPCC’s reports by rebutting them on scientific grounds when they’re not scientific documents to begin with?
Great question. If not science then what? You can’t do it on logical grounds. You’ve already pointed out how the reports don’t make any sense.
So we don’t have science and you can’t refute Stupid. How to traverse the chasm?
Were I to give some intellectual credit to the ilks of they, I’d say it’s almost like an evil genius sort of plan on their part…
Sy,
“You’ve already pointed out how the reports don’t make any sense.”
I think you’re confusing me with someone else. I haven’t read an IPCC report in years. I neither know nor care if they make any sense.
Why would I? I get my science from scientists, not activists at a tropical resort.
Note: this is the line our enemy would use in our situation, because our enemy knows how to debate. I know how to debate. The rest of the skeptosphere apparently has no idea.
Surely there’s a[n] [in]famous book in the makings here, is there not???
“Rules for Keyesians” or something similar?
You’d be all the rage for a new generation of practical skeptoclimabloggerists. And you could have your own Wiki entry.
I’d appreciate a signed, first edition copy (hardback only please) for my contribution to the idea.
Rule #1: shamelessly steal the ideas of your allies, friends and family when they come up with brilliant titles for books.
Brad Keyes, name one mainstream media outlet that does not treat the IPCC reports as science? If you can’t, then you have answered your own question as to why the reports need to be rebutted. Don’t overthink it.
Thanks Louis.
Name one mainstream media outlet that does not treat the IPCC reports as science? If you can’t, then you have answered your own question as to why the reports need to be ridiculed, loud and clear, as NONscientific, not legitimized by a scientific rebuttal. Don’t overthink it.
The masses will *never* understand a complex technical dispute.
But they might just be capable of understanding the following point, if anyone bothered pointing it out to them:
The IPCC uses the tropicopolitical method, not the scientific method, to churn out its reports.
That’s why, IMHO, such a sentence is useful, whereas press releases like the OP are useless (with all due respect to the well-meaning and scientifically-diligent authors).
Oh, I see. If you simply tell the masses that the IPCC does not use science to churn out its reports, and you use a big word like “tropicopolitical,” everyone will simply take your word for it. There’s no need to debate them point by point with scientific rebuttals because that would ‘legitimize’ them.
Where have I heard that argument before? Oh, now I remember. It is the same argument global warmers use against skeptics when they don’t want to engage in debate. They say they don’t want to legitimize skeptical arguments by debating them. I’m sorry, but that argument doesn’t work for them and it doesn’t work for you, either. An appeal to authority, especially when that authority is just you, is not better than a good debate. When a scientist or group of scientists publish a report that they claim is based on science, the only way to combat it is to examine its claims point by point using science. That’s how science is done. Just ignoring it because you don’t want to legitimize it, or simply proclaiming it is not science, will not change the minds of the world’s policy makers one iota. They already think the reports are science. That’s why the reports have to be debunked using science. Granted, doing so will not change a lot of minds. That’s because policy makers are more interested in justifying their agenda than they are in science. But that doesn’t mean the case shouldn’t be made.
Louis,
“Oh, I see.”
You really don’t.
“If you simply tell the masses that the IPCC does not use science to churn out its reports…”
…you’ll obviously get nowhere. But if you use MY strategy (EXPLAIN to the masses that the IPCC doesn’t use the scientific method, quoting its ipsissima verba which make no secret of this fact) then they might just listen.
“and you use a big word like “tropicopolitical,””
The phrase “the Tropicopolitical Method” was an example of an advanced technique called “wit”. If you don’t get it, never mind.
“…everyone will simply take your word for it.”
No, but they may just take (say) the Chairman of the IPCC’s word for it when he openly admits to the laughably unscientific process the Panel uses.
“Where have I heard that argument before?”
Which argument? The one you just tried to put into my mouth?
No idea. You didn’t hear it from me.
“They say they don’t want to legitimize skeptical arguments by debating them. I’m sorry, but that argument doesn’t work for them”
Look around you. It obviously HAS worked.
” and it doesn’t work for you, either.”
Well we’ll never know if we never try, will we?
Joking aside, I’m all for debating. (I can’t believe someone could read my comment and think otherwise.) We’re just doing it wrong.
Hi Brad, We chose this approach that blends science and policy/politics because most policymakers and most members of the public are not scientists. But they need some information to show them where and how we dispute the scientific claims on the other side of the fence. Many dissenting scientists and columnists will write a column or blog post or two, but rarely do we see an effort to offer the public and policymakers are rebuttal report.
Since the IPCC is taken at face value as ‘the world’s stop scientists’ and as the ‘climate experts’ – simply telling the public/policymakers that “oh, they do a rewrite in a room for the SPM where they all must agree line by line” – even though it is true, will be seen as simply trying to smear “The Vatican of Climate.”
So, that’s how we came to this structure. We welcome comments and insights from others on how it strikes you. Thanks very much, Michelle Stirling, Communications Manager
Michelle,
“simply telling the public/policymakers that “oh, they do a rewrite in a room for the SPM where they all must agree line by line” – even though it is true, will be seen as simply trying to smear “The Vatican of Climate.””
But that “smear” of the IPCC is a direct quote from the IPCC. It’s not my allegation—it’s the openly-advertised, official policy of the IPCC.
The IPCC is going out of its way to try to tell the world that it DOESN’T DO SCIENCE.
We’re busily undermining that message by issuing rebuttals of the IPCC’s “science.”
It’s our fault that the public has such a high opinion of the IPCC.
As Alanis Morrissette said: isn’t it moronic?
No , we are not forest blind, we are aware that somebody is trying to set the forest on fire, i.e. something has to be done. That something is not to ignore the attempt at arson. Even waiting for nature to put out the fire (as will happen with the inevitable slide to an ice age) is not good policy. It is seldom that rain puts out forest fires.
Scientific rebuttals are an effort to neutralize the gasoline, or trigger mechanism or … And make the public aware that there is danger in following policies based on fantasy and religious, not scientific, beliefs.
Personally, I got bored with the whole problem when I realized there is no real danger of my summer house going under water, and that it is all an economic “milk the stupid” scheme, “what matters if a few million in underdeveloped countries die of starvation” . I am happy to see that there are still people active in trying to defuse the triggers.
If you have a better way of stopping a man made disaster, you should tell us.
Anna,
“If you have a better way of stopping a man made disaster, you should tell us.”
I agree. That’s why I did. 🙂
You mean laughing when somebody is trying to set fire to the forest will stop the fire from starting?
They try to set up a pyramid scheme to milk the stupid and decrease the population of underdeveloped countries and the answer should be laughter?
Exactly. Nice to know somebody round here can read.
Deride and conquer. Mockery makes ordinary people feel *embarrassed* to associate with ridiculous movements.
Support for the KKK was fatally eroded thanks to a campaign of satire.
People like jokes. They listen to jokes. They don’t listen to humorless denunciations.
I read Watts’ comment with the same concern, answering for myself that IPCC is taken seriously by enough people who try to use its fallacies and false premises as if they were true science that it’s not possible to get heard without addressing the f&fp’s. McCluhan said “perception is reality”, and we live in such a world.
I challenged IPCC on the output of the 5th report in 2005 at a public forum at a nearby community college. It was video’d by the IT folks there and is now on YT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ixT-_MYZgY&lc=z22fix4xkzygc1ueracdp430gmlup3av1hpnoun4vixw03c010c
After 12 years more, my only concern is that it was too “scientific”, too “educational” for its own good; while I have learned much that I did not know then, the major “rebuttals” have been the old “peer-reviewed” game and the assertion that I did not provide a counterexplanation, an alternative theory. Now I know a good one (US Standard Atmosphere) I didn’t know then, and STILL my major opposition on facebook and Quora comes from people who want to show graphs of rising CO2, graphs of rising temperature, graphs of 800,000 years of cycles….all the old news cut and pasted from 1990s…
As I patiently explain better ways to understand the details, dismantling the points one by one, I STILL find I can get to a point where the proponent has lost all his pawns, down 4 major pieces, and his queen is about to get forked and he’ll sweep the board over the last key point that he thinks proves all.
So often, the discussions involve having to explain what common physics and chemistry concepts mean, then show that the meaning makes AGW fail as a hypothesis.
It is all very frustrating, but I persist as I’m sure most here do as well.
As an amusing (to most here) and troubling demonstration of poor critical reasoning skills, I posted ““Global Warming” is widely thought to be based on work by Fourier, Tyndall and Arrhenius. If it’s argued against, AGW’ers demand “peer reviewed” publications. Is there any evidence that Fourier’s, Tyndall’s or Arrhenius’ lectures were pre-reviewed?” as a question on Quora to raise doubt about the peer review process.
In angry responses, most want to know why I challenge F,T and A as scientists!
To one such writer I put it more distinctly “F,T and A all published first, and THEN were reviewed, while argumentative AGWers want the review FIRST, then IFF [sic] nihil obstat,publication may follow. No caps there btw, b/c the editor works with BOLD, italics…
There is not one liberal in Canada that can say carbon dioxide, it is POLLUTION and the Alberta oilsands are always referred to as the Tarsands. Listen to the politial programs featuring any number of journalists and they are using the same language. This goes on daily over andover and………..
Because the only way to confront falsehood is with truth, not more lies.
Who are you replying to, Rocketscientist?
I don’t see anybody in this thread advocating the use of lies. (Did Stephan Lewandowsky show up and I missed it?) Your point strikes me as rather obvious.
Poor public policy???…the UN/IPCC is the poster child for poor public policy
…they can’t possibly believe the “science’ they are cramming down everyone’s throat and do this
My comment to the Friends of Science is repeated here:
The human abetted component of CO2 that remains in the atmosphere each year is less than 2% of all CO2 emitted by all sources. What level of insanity must exist to assume that even draconian reductions by humans will have ANY effect, other than condemnation of billions to abject poverty, among those who can survive. CO2 reduction thus amounts to genocide!!!
I wonder if you could supply the source for the claim humans only account for 2%. My understanding is that pretty much most/all the increase in the last 100 years can be attributed to mans activities. The bottom line is if we had not released the CO2 we have, we would still be under 300 not be at 400ppm. That is significant.
Simon
So fluctuations in atmospheric CO2 over millions of years before man existed didn’t happen, because man didn’t exist?
Is that what you’re suggesting?
“,i>My understanding is that pretty much most/all the increase in the last 100 years can be attributed to mans activities.”
Your understanding is naive in the extreme.
“”So fluctuations in atmospheric CO2 over millions of years before man existed didn’t happen, because man didn’t exist?”
Interesting.
You are aware that instead of “millions of years”
Atmospheric CO2 has increased by greater than 40% in just ~150 years?
And to boot has an isotopic signature that matches ancient carbon.
Also to what would you attribute the natural carbon cycle’s severe disruption in order for the increased CO2 to occur in just a short time period/
“Your understanding is naive in the extreme.”
No, your “understanding” is ideologically biased in the extreme, and in no way considers the science.
It has nothing to do with being “ancient.” Plants preferentially take up 12C rather than 13C. Fossil fuels, presumably composed of organic material originally derived from plants, are assumed to be depleted in δ13C. The atmospheric δ13C depletion that has been observed is assumed to be due to the Suess Effect.
One slight problem…
The red curve in Figure 5 is the Flinders Reef δ13C that was cited as “Human Fingerprint #1” in Skeptical Science’s The Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism. The rate of δ13C depletion is quite similar to that of the lacustrine deposit on the Yucatan. The Flinders Reef data do not extend back before the Little Ice Age; so there is no way to tell if the modern depletion is an anomaly, if the δ13C was anomalously elevated during the 18th and 19th centuries and the depletion is simply a return to the norm or if δ13C is cyclical.
Carbon isotope excursions (CIE) featuring strong δ13C depletion are commonly associated with past warming periods.
One other slight problem… Fossil fuels are often enriched in δ13C relative to biogenic methane.
δ13C depletion decreases with thermal maturity of natural gas.
Biogenic methane is more δ13C depleted than thermogenic methane. The vast majority of natural gas production is thermogenic methane.
https://debunkhouse.files.wordpress.com/2018/09/origin-of-hydrocarbon-gas-shows-and-gas-seeps-pdf.pdf
δ13C in crude oil varies widely even within individual basins…
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260632803_Geochemical_evaluation_of_East_Sirte_Basin_Libya_petroleum_systems_and_oil_provenance/figures?lo=1
δ14C isn’t diagnostic or indicative of “ancient” carbon (50,000 years old isn’t geologically ancient)…
http://cdiac.ess-dive.lbl.gov/trends/co2/modern_isotopes.html
While δ13C may be related to fossil fuel combustion, it’s far from a “fingerprint.”
The 40% rise in atmospheric CO2 over the past 150 years doesn’t even break out of the Cenozoic noise level.
Just about every method of estimating pre-industrial Late Quaternary CO2 levels apart from Antarctic ice cores shows much larger magnitudes and ranges of CO2 concentrations with far more dynamic CO2 development through time… because they are all higher resolution measurements than 99% of Antarctic ice cores.
Steinthorsdottir et al., 2013 plant stomata chronology demonstrates sharp rises in atmospheric CO2 near the end of the Bølling/Allerød interstadial (400-450 ppm) and at the onset of the Holocene (>300 ppm).
Dozens of plant stomata chronologies over the past 20 years have yielded similar results.
Kubota et al, 2014 found periods of anomalously low pH and high pCO2 near the transitions from Heinrich Stadial 1 (8.08-8.15 & 300-350 μatm) to the Bølling/Allerød, during the Bølling/Allerød interstadial (8.15-8.20 & >300 μatm) and at the onset of the Holocene (8.02-8.10 & 350-420 μatm).
Some time ago CO2 chronologies from Greenland ice cores were cast aside because they consistently indicated higher and more variable CO2 levels during the Late Quaternary. It was assumed that in situ chemical reactions from volcanic dust were the cause of these anomalies. However, CO2 chronologies from Greenland ice cores clearly demonstrate a sharp, short-duration decline during the Younger Dryas. Antarctic ice cores of comparable age cannot resolve such short duration shifts in atmospheric CO2.
Stomata chronologies clearly demonstrate an abrupt spike in in atmospheric CO2 during the Bølling-Allerød interstadial (GI-1), followed by a sharp decline during the Younger Dryas stadial (GS-1). The secular rise from the last glacial maximum (LGM) to the Holocene (H) coupled with the smoothing effect of the gas age distribution in the Antarctic ice core creates a false impression of rising CO2 during the Younger Dryas.
For that matter, the magnitude, range and dynamism of Antarctic ice core CO2 varies with resolution.
This is a composite of several Antarctic ice cores.
The spike to 368 ppmv is only seen in the very high-resolution DE08 ice core from Law Dome. This is what it looks like if I degrade the resolution of DE08 to that of the lower-resolution older cores…
The lower resolution data couldn’t resolve a century-scale shift in CO2 even if one had occurred.
Most of the Gorebal Warming mythology is the result of the correlation of low resolution Antarctic ice cores to higher resolution temperature measurements and proxies.
Maybe this isn’t what your going for, but I love when folks throw out the “CO2 has increased 40%.” Percentages can be highly misleading. CO2 also increased 40% when it went from 100ppp to 140ppm, and from 200ppm to 280ppm, and hundreds of other combinations. I’m just a layman, but I thought it was the concentration that counts?
David,
Your second graph has ppb methane on one axis (for the bold lines) and proportion of C13 (in methane, I assume) on the other (for the fine lines) – not “amount,” as you say. This is significant. One explanation is that there is relatively more methane coming from sources such as vegetation, water bodies, agriculture, thawing permafrost, etc. over time compared to fossil fuels – this could be partly a product of global warming, as well as the increase in meat consumption. If I’m interpreting the graph correctly, it does not actually demonstrate that methane from fossil fuels is declining. As you known, methane is short-lived in the atmosphere, breaking down to CO2 (I read a while ago that methane seems to be breaking down more quickly, and researchers didn’t know why – FWIW).
Stomatal densities are indirect estimates of CO2 levels, and they can be affected by other things, such as moisture levels. They are not a particularly good indicator of past levels of atmospheric CO2 – the wide difference between those indices and other proxies demonstrates that.
“Just about every method of estimating pre-industrial Late Quaternary CO2 levels apart from Antarctic ice cores shows much larger magnitudes and ranges of CO2 concentrations with far more dynamic CO2 development through time… because they are all higher resolution measurements than 99% of Antarctic ice cores.”
They also disagree with each other, by a lot! Again, they are indirect estimates of CO2 levels, and they are biological proxies, which are subject to a variety of factors. Oceanic pH has a big impact on CO2, too. Is that taken into account in the foramen data?
One explanation for the Younger Dryas is that there was a massive influx of freshwater into the North Atlantic, causing it to cool through slower thermohaline circulation. This could cause a greater CO2 sink. Perhaps this played a role in the Greenland ice core results? I don’t know, this is my own speculation. Maybe in combination with volcanic activity the effect was strengthened?
The DE08 resolution just adds evidence to the idea that the CO2 is rising at a very rapid rate. What’s the point of changing the resolution? Yes, other ice cores may lack that resolution, but that doesn’t mean that there were wild fluctuations we are missing.
But perhaps the most obvious argument concerning anthropogenic CO2 is that we KNOW we are emitting it in huge quantities. Some is going into the ocean, some into plants, but much of it is going into the atmosphere. There is no other way to account for the rapid rise, even ignoring the isotope data. It’s not like anthropogenic CO2 is going into plants, and natural CO2 is going into the atmosphere.
I know you think I’m usually wrong. I’m sure I am sometimes wrong. But at least I think about this stuff and look for alternative explanations.
Simon: “That is significant.”
???
The atmosphere has gone from 99.97% not CO2 to be 99.96% not CO2.
That is insignificant.
“The atmosphere has gone from 99.97% not CO2 to be 99.96% not CO2.
That is insignificant.”
But is “insignificant” enough to green the planet.
As is so often lauded here.
So significance can be sherry-picked eh?
Don’t know about the sherry, but CO2 is certainly significant when it comes to greening the planet. That is it’s main role, although it also has a warming function. From what I have come to understand the main warming effect of CO2 is contained within the first 80 ppm. After that the warming effect of higher concentrations rapidly decreases.
That makes sense to my mind as otherwise I would think that there would be a clearly seen warm trend over the last 20 years, considering that around 37% of the total 40% CO2 increase over 150+ years entered the atmosphere in the last 20 years.
As has been explained to you before. Two different scales.
Any movement away from the near starvation CO2 levels 200 years ago is going to have a major impact on plant life.
A small increase in one of the least important green house gasses is not going to have an equal impact.
Anthony,
Something else to consider: Thanks to the OCO-2 satellite, we know that there is considerable outgassing of CO2 in the oceans, especially in the tropics. That CO2 comes from biogenic decomposition. The sources also selectively incorporated C12, whether modern or 800 years old. The argument for anthropogenic source is not as clear cut as you would have us believe.
Clyde,
Let me get this straight.
Can we agree that humans have emitted a whole heck of a lot of CO2? Is that fair to say?
Can we also agree that CO2 cycles between the atmosphere and the oceans and land (biota, primarily)?
Why would natural processes become a net source of CO2 that increases the amount of atmospheric CO2, while the anthropogenic CO2 simply disappears?
Why would the oceans be outgassing more CO2 in some areas unless their temperature is increasing? What is causing that temperature increase?
Why is the pH of the oceans decreasing?
Why is the Earth greening, and still there’s a rise in atmospheric CO2?
You have to look at the system as a whole, not just individual components.
Kristi,
“Can we agree that humans have emitted a whole heck of a lot of CO2? Is that fair to say?” Yes, but it is only important if it results in significant warming. That isn’t clear because the sensitivity estimate has been declining for years and the most current estimates suggest a negligible impact.
“Can we also agree that CO2 cycles between the atmosphere and the oceans and land (biota, primarily)?” Yes.
“Why would natural processes become a net source of CO2 that increases the amount of atmospheric CO2, while the anthropogenic CO2 simply disappears?” Anthropogenic CO2 doesn’t disappear. But, even with isotopic analysis, it is difficult to differentiate from sources such as outgassing.
Why would the oceans be outgassing more CO2 in some areas unless their temperature is increasing? What is causing that temperature increase?
“Why is the pH of the oceans decreasing?” It isn’t clear that it is. The problem areas that have received the most coverage are areas where there is abundant upwelling and can vary from hour to hour. Do a search for Monterey Bay Aquarium water chemistry. Those working in the field have dismissed historical measurements and created a model to estimate what the past was like. Yet, if one goes back to older texts, such as by Kroskopf, the measured values encompass the range claimed for today. See this:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/09/15/are-the-oceans-becoming-more-acidic/
“Why is the Earth greening, and still there’s a rise in atmospheric CO2?” Because there is virtually always a time lag between changes in a dynamic system and the consequences.
Clyde,
“Because there is virtually always a time lag between changes in a dynamic system and the consequences.”
Ahhh! Indeed.
“Yes, but it is only important if it results in significant warming. That isn’t clear because the sensitivity estimate has been declining for years and the most current estimates suggest a negligible impact.”
The most current estimates – one has to look no only at how recent they are, but their credibility. There have been plenty of estimates, but I’ve looked at the research behind some of the ones that find very low estimates, and most of them have not been very credible, suffering from methodological and theoretical errors.
Then there’s the observational record of warming, and the potential causes. This has been examined at length. It is simply not realistic to ascribe the warming to another cause given the empirical data. The theory alone is very sound; no one has ever been able to disprove it. Those who say “it’s the sun” or whatever simply ignore the theory.
Kristi,
You said, “It is simply not realistic to ascribe the warming to another cause given the empirical data.” We have been around on this before! The best recent evidence from the Law Dome ice core suggests that warming preceded CO2 increase by about 800 years. Whatever caused that warming may well be responsible for the current warming. It is not good science to offer only one hypothesis (CO2) to explain something for which we are not certain of the cause — especially when there is evidence that typically the warming precedes the CO2. The anthropogenic CO2 may be a spurious correlation and not the cause of the current warming trend.
Clyde,
” The best recent evidence from the Law Dome ice core suggests that warming preceded CO2 increase by about 800 years. ”
And there is a hypothesis for that: Solar changes cause an initial shift from down to upward trend (or the reverse), then that caused CO2 to be released (or absorbed), followed by a feedback, with CO2 causing warming. Temperature tracks CO2 so well in the ice cores over the last 800,000 that it’s hard to imagine there isn’t some kind of relationship there.
Switching to the modern age, the relationship among all the major drivers that we know of, we can graph the changes with and without the influence of CO2, and only the models that include CO2 follow the observed temperature – and they do so very well. It’s not just a matter of one hypothesis, it’s a matter of testing multiple hypotheses.
“Whatever caused that warming may well be responsible for the current warming.”
But “whatever” is not an explanation. “Coming out of the LIA” is not an explanation. “Natural variation” is not an explanation.
AGW cannot be directly tested through controlled experiments using multiple Earths, but it can through modeling. Modeling is an acceptable way to test scientific hypotheses. It’s not as strong a test as experiments that use control and manipulated replicates (which are also subject to uncertainty), but sometimes it’s all one has. Through modeling of subsets of data it is possible to do experiments.
Caption:Time series of global mean surface air temperature anomalies in observations and simulations of CanESM2 of CMIP5. Black lines show observed global mean annual mean temperatures from HadCRUT3, and the thin colored lines show the global mean temperature from five-member ensembles of CanESM2 forced with (a) anthropogenic and natural forcings (ALL), (b) natural forcing only (NAT), (c) greenhouse gases only (GHGs), and (d) aerosols only (AER). All anomalies are calculated relative to the period 1851–1900, and ensemble means are shown by the thick colored lines [Gillett et al., 2012]
Caption: Although Earth’s temperature fluctuates naturally, human influence on climate has eclipsed the magnitude of natural temperature changes over the past 120 years. Natural influences on temperature—El Niño, solar variability, and volcanic aerosols—have varied approximately plus and minus 0.2° C (0.4° F), (averaging to about zero), while human influences have contributed roughly 0.8° C (1° F) of warming since 1889. (Graphs adapted from Lean et al., 2008.)
AGW has both theory and observational evidence going for it. Based on observations, other mechanisms we know of can be ruled out.
“Whatever” has nothing going for it. If skeptics want to prove that AGW is wrong, they need to provide a mechanism AND evidence AND disprove the theory.
“To put this another way, when you claim that virtually all of the world’s climatologists are wrong and the earth is actually warming naturally, you have just placed the burden of proof on you to provide evidence for that claim. In other words, simply citing previous warming events does not prove that the current warming is natural.”
(I know the “virtually all” is contentious. “The vast majority,” though, shouldn’t be – imagine it says that if it makes you feel better.)
https://thelogicofscience.com/2016/06/06/global-warming-isnt-natural-and-heres-how-we-know/
“The anthropogenic CO2 may be a spurious correlation and not the cause of the current warming trend”
The relationship between increase in CO2 and the greening of the Earth may be a spurious correlation, too, but that is accepted by most skeptics without question as evidence for an effect of CO2 – some even claim it’s the only evidence. Why don’t contrarian scientists look for other reasons in that case? Why do skeptics accept it so readily?
I bet one could look at the comments about a paper without knowing what they were referring to and gauge just from whether skeptics’ reactions were positive or negative if it supports (C)AGW or not.
Kristi,
You said, “And there is a hypothesis for that:…” But, that doesn’t make it true! It is JUST a hypothesis to explain why the dogma isn’t being observed. You went on to say, “it’s hard to imagine there isn’t some kind of relationship there.” Indeed, there IS a relationship! It is that warming releases CO2. There may be a minor feedback that amplifies the warming, but the CO2 doesn’t appear to be the Prime Mover. Inasmuch as it is well known that the Arctic and Antarctic are very dry, it is reasonable to speculate that once Earth started to warm, at the end of the last Ice Age, the humidity increased. That would have been a stronger ‘greenhouse’ stimulant than CO2.
You claim, “and only the models that include CO2 follow the observed temperature ” As I illustrated in a recent WUWT article, contrary to the claims of the Media, Hansen’s 1988 prediction was quite poor. Of all the models, only the Russian model(s) seem to be reliable enough to to test your claim.
You claimed, “But “whatever” is not an explanation. ” Nature does what it will. It does not require us to understand or be able to explain. It is what it is! Being able to explain it is necessary to forecast, but it will not cease to function if we can’t explain it.
You apparently believe that “Modeling is an acceptable way to test scientific hypotheses.” Models are very complex hypotheses. Modeling can provide insights on how a dynamic system works. However, at best, the model can be shown to be wrong, falsifying the hypothesis. This necessitates changing the ‘hypothesis.’ If there is little or no agreement with reality (measurements!) then the model has no utility for prediction, which is the entire reason for trying to make a model — a model with skill. In the Scientific Method, if a hypothesis has never been invalidated, and continues to provide results that agree with reality, it will then be promoted to being a theory. But, it can still be invalidated by a single experiment. That is why, after more than 100 years, Einstein’s theories continue to be tested.
You said, “If skeptics want to prove that AGW is wrong, they need to provide a mechanism AND evidence AND disprove the theory.” No, they do not have the burden of proof . It is NOT up to skeptics to provide an alternative hypothesis. It has been shown that the models all run hot (except the Russian model). Hansen’s 1988 model didn’t perform as well as a simple linear extrapolation of past temperatures. There is no long-term correlation between CO2 and Earth temperatures. Those facts invalidate the current paradigm as embodied in the GCM hypothesis. I don’t think that you really understand the Scientific Method! As Carl Sagan was fond of repeating, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.” The current claim that CO2 alone is the ‘control knob’ on weather is an extraordinary claim. The extraordinary proof is “not in evidence.” You, personally, apparently accept many claims without critically examining them.
This is unclear. The oceans, when warming, ‘off gas” CO2 as solubility decreases. One of the reasons increases in CO2 lag the increase in temperatures on millennial scales is this oceanic effect (basic chemistry embodied).
“The bottom line is if we had not released the CO2 we have, we would still be under 300 not be at 400ppm. That is significant.”
The USA has lowered it’s CO2 emissions back to 1991 levels….atmospheric CO2 was ~350ppm in 1991
…left up to the USA it would be back to 350ppm again
It’s no longer our problem, we didn’t create the increase
Latitude October 31, 2018 at 12:48 pm …
“The USA has lowered it’s CO2 emissions … It’s no longer our problem …”
CO2 is NOT a problem.
I know that…and you know that…but for someone like Simon you have to rub their nose in it
Simon
And while I’m at it, your 300 ppm atmospheric CO2 saturation is an awful lot closer to 150 ppm than 400 ppm. At 150 ppm all meaningful plant life begins to die shortly thereafter animals, including humankind if, indeed, it hasn’t already self destructed through food shortage induced riots and wars.
Common sense dictates that whilst most plant life meaningful to life on earth flourishes around 1,200 ppm, that should be our target atmospheric CO2 minimum. And as we are also aware, the increase in atmospheric CO2 from 280 ppm to the current 410 ppm since before the Industrial Revolution (circa 1850, some 168 years ago, not 100 as you believe) has not had any meaningful impact on severe weather events other than a slight coincidental decrease.
Ally to that the 14% increase in planetary greening over 35 years of satellite observations directly attributed to increased CO2 (measured in virgin areas, i.e those areas largely untouched by man) which was likened to, two continents the size of mainland USA worth of extra vegetation by one of the NASA authors of the study.
So far, the evidence for the defence of increased atmospheric CO2 is pretty positive and, empirical.
On the downside of course, are the claims that increases in atmospheric CO2 will cause the planet to warm out of control. The problem is, no one has ever demonstrated it by empirical means. Not no one, not ever; and by all means look for the studies, none that haven’t been discredited are available, despite the vast sums spent on ‘climate science’.
The very foundation upon which the AGW scam is predicated cannot be empirically demonstrated.
What else?……Oh yea! Sea level, steadily rising by around 8 inches per century, and it’s been the same for centuries.
Polar ice melting? Greenland is gaining ice mass, yes it is melting faster as it approaches the sea, but that’s because the extra ice is squeezing ancient ice into the sea.
There has been an iceberg bobbing around the southern ocean for 18 years! As reported on WUWT within hours of this post. If it takes that long to not melt a tiny speck of ice relative to it’s source, just how long do you imagine it would take to melt the entire Antarctic? 1,000 years? during which time the ‘climate’ will have changed multiple times, with or without man.
Well said, HS.
“Common sense dictates that whilst most plant life meaningful to life on earth flourishes around 1,200 ppm,”
No “common-sense” dictates that mankind has flourished at 280ppm CO2 and that is entirely sufficient.
When life “flourished at 1200ppm” mankind wasn’t around.
In order to get from here to there considerable changes must occur in the climate.
You deny that any of those changes will be harmful? (rhetorical)
Please give us the Sky-dragon slaying physics that you would have to replace the physics of the GHE on Earth, in order that those changes in a journey from 400 to 12000 ppm CO2 would not be in any way harmful.
“has not had any meaningful impact on severe weather events other than a slight coincidental decrease.”
Just a guess but maybe that’s because it’s NOT expected to have had any “meaningful” impact as yet? (sarc)
If only as that cannot yet be determined.
The “impacts” are to come for our descendants.
The dominant AGW signal is only recently emerging above the ‘noise’ of natural variation.
So attribution is not statistically sig at the moment.
“So far, the evidence for the defence of increased atmospheric CO2 is pretty positive and, empirical.”
Err, no – only if you deny empirical science is it.
But then again – that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy here I know.
“The very foundation upon which the AGW scam is predicated cannot be empirically demonstrated.”
It most certainly can and has been – but an echo-chamber of naysayers that is WUWT will not ever accept it.
And anyone coming here will not find it.
The fact that empirical science (~150 years of it) and the consensus of that empiricism says otherwise is of course evidence of a “scam”.
If you say so my friend.
“Sea level, steadily rising by around 8 inches per century, and it’s been the same for centuries.”
Another strawman.
Please provide evidence (from the IPCC) that SL was expected to be increasing at a greater rate than currently observed.
It’s to come in future decades.
“here has been an iceberg bobbing around the southern ocean for 18 years! As reported on WUWT within hours of this post. If it takes that long to not melt a tiny speck of ice relative to it’s source, just how long do you imagine it would take to melt the entire Antarctic? 1,000 years? during which time the ‘climate’ will have changed multiple times, with or without man.”
Why would an iceberg in the S ocean melting slowly “prove” to you that AGW is a scam?
And warming has to melt the Antarctic inside 1000 years to be significant?
Bizarre logic.
It will actually take far longer than that – as you’d know if you understood the science.
Which – via circular logic, you will not find here and why you are here.
Anthony…..CO2 levels went from 280 to 400…when it was supposed to have the most effect
…a increase of 120ppm
…and the only observed “change” was the plant greening…nothing else speeded up that anyone can prove
It’s going to be hard to make someone believe another 100ppm is going to kill us all…when it will have an even less effect
:No “common-sense” dictates that mankind has flourished at 280ppm CO2 :
no…common sense dictates that we know plant growth markedly slows down at 200ppm…
…and that plant growth slowed to where it was not reducing CO2 levels faster than it could be replaced
CO2 levels were limiting….the increase in CO2 has caused plants to grow faster…carbon
Once again, Anthony demonstrates that his only skill is attempting to change the subject.
For most of the history of man, starvation and disease were normal, if we were to use your (as usual) insane logic, this would be proof that starvation and disease are good and we should kill all the doctors.
Another attempt to move the goal posts when you attempt to tie a claim that CO2 has little impact to claims that it has no impact.
That is intellectually dishonest, and so are you.
Regarding sea level rise, here’s a story that claims it has been accelerating.
https://sealevel.nasa.gov/news/141/keeping-score-on-earths-rising-seas
“has not had any meaningful impact on severe weather events other than a slight coincidental decrease.”
According to the IPCC’s list of empirical observations, it is likely that there has been an increase in “Heavy precipitation events. Increase in the frequency, intensity, and/or amount of heavy precipitation”
“Increases in intense tropical cyclone activity” have been “virtually certain in the North Atlantic since 1970.”
“The frequency and intensity of drought has likely increased in the Mediterranean and West Africa, and likely decreased in central North America and north-west Australia”
“Warm spells/heat waves. Frequency and/or duration increases over most land areas” – “Likely in large parts of Europe, Asia and Australia”
One can argue that the IPCC is lying, corrupt, whatever. But that’s not evidence that it’s wrong. It’s important to pay attention to the level of likelihood – the IPCC makes explicit the level of certainty. The fact that there is some evidence for these changes at the very least suggests that it’s wrong to assume they aren’t happening.
The greening of the planet is partly the result of CO2 increase, but that’s not the whole explanation. Climate change has an effect, too, but it’s effects are regional, so they necessarily account for a smaller proportion of the overall change.
Escalating the CO2 to 1200 ppm would be truly catastrophic if it happened quickly (over the course of a few centuries or less). It’s ridiculous to compare the carefully regulated conditions of greenhouses with what happens in nature, or the conditions of the world millions of years ago with current ones. The sun wasn’t as strong then, and it takes time for the biota to adapt to any climate change.
Modern urbanites have lost the sense of how closely our fortunes are tied to the relative stability of ecosystems and their functions.
Simon,
If I drew a picture of 300 parts per million and placed it beside a picture of 400 parts per million, I doubt that you could discern a difference in the two pictures, even with a magnifying glass.
Parts … Per … Million
300/1,000,000 = 0.0003
400/1,000,000 = 0.0004
0.0004 – 0.0003 = 0.0001
So, what Thomas H said — insignificant.
Robert,
Sorry to be blunt, but what you say is entirely irrelevant.
1. The greenhouse effect is real.
2. CO2 has increased by roughly a third in 100 years. That means temperatures will rise
3. We see they are rising meaning the science is almost certainly right.
4. This nonsense was around twenty years ago. I seem to recall some Australian geologist (Ian Plimer) arguing that volcanos spew more CO2 than man. They don’t. We are responsible for the increase. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/volcano-carbon-emissions/
5. This is a good example of why some use the D word for people who deny the reality of the situation we find ourselves in.
David’s cute little picture suggests carbon flux to sinks is 272.9 pg C/y. Something wrong here.
I don’t understand the point of the rest.
Start here:
This chart shows 3% Human contribution and 1.5% reabsorption. The IPCC doesn’t show this chart anymore as the reductions they have in mind will not have ANY effect on climate. Recent updates have the Human contribution at 4% with 50% reabsorption now leaving the 2% figure vs 1.5% I mentioned. Additional slides on this subject were shown at ICCC-10, zeroing in on the minuscule impact that the Paris proposals would “achieve;” utter nonsense, except when it comes to tax and revenue generation, which is what Paris really was all about!
Simon
There are several good sources to understand CO2 flow in the atmosphere all of which contradict and have been ignored by IPCC. Check out:
https://edberry.com/blog/climate-physics/agw-hypothesis/climate-change-emperors-have-no-clothes/;
Harde2017;
Videos by Murray Salby
The IPCC position that all the increase in atmospheric CO2 since the industrial revolution is not valid.
Too right! The majority of CO2 is and always has been released by the oceans. Nowhere, anywhere, except in the minds of alarmists, is 300ppm considered an optimum amount of this gas of life. It it were, greenhouse growers would not routinely raise the level in their houses to 1000ppm or higher. At 180ppm plants begin to die and at 150ppm all life perishes.
“Too right! The majority of CO2 is and always has been released by the oceans. ”
Really…. link please?
Simon,
What hasn’t been explained is why, when looking at OCO-2 maps, the CO2 levels are highest over the tropical oceans and the Amazon Basin. The presumed anthropogenic sources are difficult to see. For example, the prolific use of coal to generate electricity in the Four Corners area of the US should stand out like a sore thumb with a downwind plume extending for tens of miles because there is little vegetation to absorb the CO2 and few competing natural sources. Yet, one doesn’t see it! Clearly, humans are contributing to the Carbon Cycle. However, it appears to be swamped by the natural sources, which are governed by temperatures and atmospheric partial pressures.
Tomwys, about half of our annual CO2 emissions stay in the atmosphere and half are absorbed by Earth’s CO2 sinks, land plants and oceans. Willis E
wrote an excellent post at https://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/07/some-people-claim-that-theres-a-human-to-blame/ Willis concludes” I say humans are responsible for the change in atmospheric CO2″,
There is a large annual flux into the sinks of about 210 GtC and 205.5 GtC out to the atmosphere, while we emit about 9 GtC. The net annual into the sinks is 4.5 GtC. Our emissions are about 4% of the annual flux out of the sinks due to the seasons, but this ignores the flux into the sinks.
The preponderance of evidence shows the ocean is the main cause of the increase in atmospheric CO2.
The atmospheric
Bob Tisdale tossed a non sequitur out there recently in reviewing rates of change in warming in the T record since 1880, noting that rates in the decade up to the mid 1940s were the same as in the 1990s. His graph of this seemed to illustrate a “bumping into a ceiling” rate of 0.15C per decade. He said perhaps this is a climate maximum rate. I have speculated since the IPCC massive changes in the start date for anthropo warming metrics from 1950 to 1850 and the reduction from 2C as dangerous, to 1.5C of the Paris Accord that with no change in industrial energy sources, 1.5C was chosen because all signs suggested this to be a maximum to some influential warm proponents.
A ‘tell’ for me was the desperation of pushing day one back a century to 1850 so they could bankroll 0.8 precious degree of warming that they didnt have before. They don’t want posterity to conclude CO2 turned out to be inconsequential after all!
The desperation has been ratcheted up to hysterical, comical proportions giving us 12 years or death. They know that if they dont get an agreement at keast (that would be enough because they can cook the success whether we actually do anything or not), the jig will be up. Hey, I’m all-in on a temperature not reaching 1.5C by 2100 (from 1850) even burning our way through fossil fuels unrestrained. Note, we have the first half of the 1.5C over 140years no statistical warming for the last 20yrs.
…..also equals faulty motivations and undue influence on the report recommendations from the users.
First I’ve heard of Friends of Science Society.
Guess that means I need to get around more, or change reading habits and other things need doing.
~~~~~~~~~
Somewhere there is a calculation (accuracy unknown by me) that uses of carbon based fuels should add 4ppm per year to the atmosphere’s concentration of CO2. The measured amount is 2 ppm.
The ability of Earth’s systems to keep up with the increased emissions is an interesting issue.
One can wonder if the ways the CO2 is removed have grown with the use – think faster plant growth – will remain as emissions drop. If so, as emissions drop at some point, will Earth’s systems continue long-term to remove 2ppm, or more.
Just to be safe, let’s get to 800 – 1,000.
John F. Hultquist
“Just to be safe, let’s get to 800 – 1,000
Agreed. The science is settled, our consensus is 100%. Let’s go!
Faulty premises that are first-order forcings of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change, economic and social misalignments, that create whole classes of refugees and collateral damage at both ends of the bridge.
I’d pay good money to see him one-on-one with Trudeau. (thank goodness for spellcheck)
I haven’t read all the comments so this may be a duplication. However, the orange curve for RCP 6.0 in the spaghetti graph is mislabelled as BAU 2 at the right and should be BAU 1. Although this is perhaps just a nit, such inexcusable sloppiness undermines the credibility of the whole presentation. You should be able to do better than this, FOS!
Stonehenge, your comment should show where you found the “spaghetti graph” that you are criticizing. There in no such graph in our report “Faulty Premises”. There is an IPCC spaghetti graph shown in the video of Dr. Khandekar that shows the RCP 6.0 and other RCP temperature projections. The IPCC can label their projections any way they want to. FOS did not create the IPCC graph.
No 7 above states this-
7.” The proposed remedies of wind and solar increase carbon dioxide and cause warming. Rather than reduce fossil fuel use or aid in carbon dioxide reduction, wind and solar in fact require vast quantities of fossil fuels for productions, installation, and natural gas back-up – resulting in an increase in carbon dioxide. Wind and solar are ineffective, expensive and cause power grids to destabilize, putting society at risk, harming industry, jobs, and consumers through heat-or-eat poverty. The devices are made of bonded materials and are largely unrecyclable. Wind and solar are contrary to sustainability and environmental goals”.
But can anyone provide us with science or numbers about this claim? Why does Wind and Solar INCREASE co2 emissions and where are the actual studies that prove this to be the case? But please no wishful thinking, just link us to the studies that make this claim? Just asking, anyone have the links?
C’mon Neville, stop all this hanging about. We’re depending on you, man. Go right ahead and build your own array of giant windmills and a photovoltaic solar panel farm that shows us what the CO2 savings could really be, if only in your dreams.
You can start by fashioning both the huge steel blades and steel towers of those windmills. How much iron and coal will you mine with huge internal combustion engine vehicles and diesel-electric hauled rail cars to deliver it to the smelting furnaces and how much coked coal will you burn to produce that steel? Now bed all those tall towers very solidly in (steel again) reinforced concrete foundations. How much CO2 will you release producing all that cement from limestone? Now prepare a reasonably remote site with diesel propelled leveling equipment and transport the tonnage of your windmill parts there with fossil fueled vehicles and erecting cranes, and then maintain them over their useful lifetime before you decommission and remove them with like equipment. [We know you’re not just going to leave them there for us to deal with after each round of useful longevity.] And don’t neglect to provide the 80+% conventional power plant backup that is not really being replaced, for those intervals when the wind is inadequate or is excessive for safe employment.
Now you can get to work purifying silicon in high temp furnaces, slicing it into solar cells, securing the wastes of those mined toxic doping elements, and generating the abundant electricity to produce the aluminum for the panel housings and mounts from bauxite you’ve also transported from the mines. Then its just a matter of again transporting and erecting everything at a remote prepared site, and again decommissioning and removing them when no longer productive, as well as providing the conventional power backup when the sun don’t shine.
Piece of cake. And just picture your pride as you drive others out to show off your own alternative energy sites in an all-electric vehicle, imagining that the metal it’s made from and the electricity it consumes also has nothing to do with coal or fossil fuel power generation. I’m confident you are going to find this pretty irresistible.
Gosh Doc tell me something I don’t know? I’m not a true believer at all ,but I’m interested in any studies that provides actual data and evidence.
BTW Lomborg’s latest data from the IEA tells us that fra-dulent Solar &Wind energy provides just 0.8% of the world’s TOTAL energy and this may increase to just 3.6% by 2040. So it’s a total CON.
And even Dr Hansen calls S&W just “BS and fra-d.”
Neville,
See this presentation of a report by the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers:
https://www.ospe.on.ca/public/documents/presentations/ontarios-electricity-dilemma.pdf
Go to page 15 titled “Why Will Emissions Double as We Add Wind and Solar Plants?”
“When you add wind and solar you are actually forced to reduce nuclear generation to make room for more natural gas generation to provide flexible backup.” Wind and solar with backup produces electricity at 200 grams CO2/kWh, which is 5 times the 40 grams CO2/kWh in 2015 in Ontario.
“Flexible electric storage is too expensive at the moment.”
This presupposes that this will always be the case.
“Wind and solar with natural gas backup produces electricity at about 200 grams of CO2 emissions/kWh. Therefore adding wind and solar to Ontario’s grid drives CO2 emissions higher. From 2016 to 2032 as Ontario phases out nuclear capacity to make room for wind and solar, CO2 emissions will double (2013 LTEP data).”
This appears to be a regional argument, and might not hold true in general. In countries/regions that don’t already have nuclear as a mainstay of power, it seems that the equation might be different.
Hey hey kids, it’s time for your favorite show, ‘Logic With Kristi’!
You say: “P(x) at the moment.”
Kristi raises you: “This assumes that P(x) will always be the case.”
Well, that’s all we’ve got time for.
Stay tuned next Saturday morning for more laughs!
The rebuttal covers the fact the solution won’t work and is not the best economic way forward, agreed. However it doesn’t address how we all redistribute world wealth, address gender and race inequalities and all the other things that climate science now includes 🙂
The most damning thing about this high profile document is that the policy implications are based wholly on a carbon budget for 1.5C and that carbon budget is based on a spurious TCRE correlation. Please see
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/05/06/tcr-transient-climate-response/
The Friends of Science Society has had a pretty sketchy history. An audit by the University of Calgary led to their pulling out of the relationship. Although FoS says it’s not a lobbying organization, there have been lobbyists associated with it, and they have funded radio ads for elections. Tim Ball, an FoS science advisor, has met several times with conservative lawmakers. And they have taken money from fossil fuel companies. That’s just a little of the dirty laundry of FoS.
Friends of Science is a political organization, not a scientific one.
Some of the criticisms listed here I agree with. I think the IPCC is not being realistic in the goals they suggest, and I agree that the economic hardship would be too great to try to fulfill them. But others are nonsense.
“There is no clear evidence that the changes or warming since the mid-1800s are caused by human use of fossil fuels”
(Sigh.)
(“The validity of the Global Average Surface Temperature is imprecise.” How can validity be imprecise?)
“Extreme weather events are an integral part of climate. The IPCC’s AR5 report and their SREX special report on extreme weather both make it clear that human effects on climate are not deemed to increase extreme weather events”
No they don’t.
“Extremely disproportionate cost-benefit ratio should dissuade policy makers and citizens from following IPCC SR15 recommendations on carbon pricing.The cost of emissions reduction in 2030 is about 95 times the benefit assuming the climate sensitivity to CO2 from the climate models.”
This calculation is simplistic, to say the least.
From the “rebuttal”:
“The IPCC SR15 report claims the warming will reduce food security, but a study shows that warming has contributed 8% to the greening of the planet. CO2 fertilization contributed 70% of the observed greening trend.”
This tired old argument? Can’t they do better than this? It fails to take into account the variety of factors that contribute to crop yields, including temperature, precipitation, herbivores, humidity, soil processes…on and on. Yes, “Crop yields continue to increase….U.S. is producing nearly three times as much corn per acre as in 1964.” This is due to many factors, is only about the U.S., and is irrelevant to the argument.
Then a section on the health benefits of warm temperatures. This is also simplistic. The data they quote are regional. Measuring the fatalities due to heat and cold is difficult. It depends on lag time studied and the sample population, often doesn’t take into account illness due to other factors, and is dependent on humidity and access to air conditioning.
“The IPCC SR15 statement that a 0.5 °C increase in temperature will cause coral reefs to decline by 70 -90% is ludicrous. Geologists know that much of the oil and gas reserves come from coral reefs formed when temperatures were much higher.”
“Ludicrous” – a nice, scientific word. This doesn’t take into account that critters evolve, or that some corals are more adaptable than others.
“The science is not settled. Anderegg et al (2010)[1] revealed that 34% of IPCC contributing authors disagreed with the IPCC declaration on human influence on climate.”
This is a good sign, in a way. It shows that there were a variety of views represented in the overall generation of the report. But the data are from at least 8 years ago.
“There is limited review of natural forces of the sun and planetary dynamics, and natural internal variability like ocean currents, volcanic eruptions and tectonic activity and its correlation to earth’s magnetism (and thus solar influence).”
This doesn’t mean they haven’t been studied.
“After a thorough review of a broad spectrum of literature on climate change, Friends of Science Society has concluded that the sun is the main driver of climate change, not carbon dioxide (CO2). ” THIS is a case of denial.
“Reducing carbon dioxide from human industrial activity is a futile response to the continuous climate changes on earth; adaptation and investment in resilient infrastructure and response is a better use of public funds.”
It doesn’t have to be an either/or approach. I believe there is good reason to do what is practical to lower CO2 emissions, with some sacrifice, but not so much that it will destroy the economy or cause “millions of deaths.” There are many good reasons to slow global warming and move toward stopping it. Letting it continue unabated is asking for eventual disaster. I’m not a catastrophist, I’m just thinking about the long-term effects. They are far more diverse than the normal things discussed, those that directly affect humans. We are far more economically dependent on the stability of ecosystems than most people realize. Just one example is the forestry industry. Warmer winters is leading to greater abundance and wider range of damaging insects such as emerald ash borer, gypsy moth, and bark boring beetles. The cost in lost timber revenue alone is in the hundreds of millions, and the indirect effects go far beyond that.
Adaptation is expensive, and there are likely to be such diverse ways we will have to adapt that the money for it will be spread thin. But if we slow climate change, we will have more time to respond as we see what we will have to do. Farmers will be able to convert their crops. People can slowly move away from the shore, rather than have a bust in real estate prices (home values in some flood-prone areas are already decreasing). The next administration can re-introduce the regulations Trump killed to ensure federally-funded infrastructure is able to cope with floods, where applicable.
Or we could studiously deny the evidence, put off adaptation, burn through our fossil fuel reserves, and make our children and grandchildren and the rest of the world deal with the costs of our irresponsibility.
………………………………….
I can’t believe (or maybe I can) that the economics paper cited yet again takes an opportunity to bash Mann and his hockey stick. It’s like they had to find a way to stick it in there somewhere. What is the obsession with a paper that’s 20 years old? How ridiculous. It’s saying something that there haven’t been any other studies since worth spending so much time trying to discredit.
Most of your answer rebuttals are as simple as what you are complaining about and a couple are so wrong they are a form of denial in there own right. The one I really love is the concept that people will be forced to move away from the shore and you are happy to see that. Can I ask if you then open up new areas and they get hit by floods, landslides or earthquakes etc do you compensate them because you put them in harms way?
Newsflash to all you crazies there is no place on Earth the probability of a natural disaster is zero. Even if you accept sea level is moving up it is at such a slow pace it makes no appreciable difference to risk. The only way you can make the risk applicable is to drag the date forward one hundred or two hundred years. The problem with that analysis is almost zero of the infrastructure is designed to have a lifespan of 100-200 years. Like most things when the infrastructure is planned to be replaced you only replace it if with viable options for the period going forward. The idea that property prices on the coast are suddenly going to crash is beyond stupid they won’t change rapidly because sea level isn’t changing rapidly. If sea level does come into play the prices will change slowly and you can already see that with coastal towns subject to erosion issues. Indeed all around the world there are already houses perched in precarious positions and they have great value yet under your definition they are supposedly worthless.
Fortunately in Australia the precautionary principle when used in these situations got tested and belted in the court. Any council trying to enforce planning based on sea level rise would lose in court and it has been pretty much universally accepted and most simply councils simple offer advice on how sea level projections would effect a property. Usually the process undertaken is called “Accommodate for the risk”.
Lb,
“The one I really love is the concept that people will be forced to move away from the shore and you are happy to see that. ”
Why should I be happy to see that?
Coastal flooding is on the rise in many areas, not just due to increases in absolute sea level, but relative sea level.
Homeowners in Miami Beach, which has seen consistent flooding during king tides, already talk about a housing market crash. The city is spending $100 million on new infrastructure.
I’m not suggesting that things like this are inevitable. They are potentialities.
Forecasting economic costs very difficult, even more uncertain than forecasting climate change, since not only are the effects of climate change uncertain, but it’s impossible to know what the costs/benefits of all the effects might be; most of them aren’t even considered in simplistic analyses like the one cited in the rebuttal.
To ignore the known potential problems is as bad as saying they will definitely happen.
The fact that there is so much uncertainty is one reason I don’t advocate making drastic changes like the IPCC advocates. It is also the reason I don’t think we should do nothing.
“According to you all that area should pick up and move the reality is for a significant but reasonable cost you can simply put up a sea wall and you are good for another 500 years or so.”
I never suggested anyone “should” move.
I should also add an example from Perth in Western Australia because it has been well studied
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-02/sea-levels-threaten-key-perth-infrastructure,-researchers-say/8998962
One of the main highways in Perth will go under if sea levels rise, you can see how low the area is in the photos. According to you all that area should pick up and move the reality is for a significant but reasonable cost you can simply put up a sea wall and you are good for another 500 years or so.
I can also tell you the cost of houses in the South Perth area which everyone agrees will go under in a sea level rise has not changed and in fact has faired better than most other suburbs.
https://reiwa.com.au/suburb/south-perth/
The median price for a house on a block of land that is going to be flooded is $1.3M but according to you they should all move.
Kristi,
You said, ” It fails to take into account the variety of factors that contribute to crop yields,…” I think that you are confusing the “Green Revolution” of agriculture with the recent finding from the analysis of Landsat imagery that shows that there is an overall increase in vegetation throughout the world. My recollection is that it was something like an 18% increase, not 8%. This is in ADDITION to the increase in crop yields resulting from changes in agricultural practices.
Clyde,
No, I’m not confusing the two, they are.
Kristi,
You said, “That’s just a little of the dirty laundry of FoS.” That is essentially an ad hominem attack! The question is whether the material they have published is correct, not who funded the publication. If you personally feel that past actions taint the conclusions (without bothering to read it), it is your choice to not read it. But, you cannot logically claim that the conclusions are wrong based on your subjective opinion of the un-analyzed work.
You asked, “What is the obsession with a paper that’s 20 years old?” The answer is that there are still many people in your camp who believe the Hockey Stick is a valid representation of the history of Earth temperatures. It is like a vampire that won’t stay down without putting a fresh stake in its heart.
Clyde,
I didn’t go into a detailed explanation of why I call it “dirty laundry.” It has nothing to do with the truth/falsity of the rebuttal, but it does have something to do with its credibility. Sourcewatch has a long article about the organization. Maybe you think the site is leftist, but that does not mean that it’s filled with lies. FoS is not what it purports to be in its literature. It is significant that U of C dissolved their relationship with FoS after an audit.
It’s not just Mann’s hockey stick that people refer to, it’s the hockey stick in general, which has been confirmed as generally accurate several times since.
And it’s not the same thing to refer to an established paradigm as to attack Mann’s hockey stick alone, or Mann himself. And the attacks are gratuitous, inserted into arguments that have nothing to do with it. And many have claimed that McIntyre and McKitrick’s analyses are themselves faulty – why is that never discussed here? Why is it assumed that Mann et al. made mistakes, but M&M didn’t?
The hockey stick is used as a tool to incite disbelief in science in general, just as Climategate is used as a tool to spread the idea that climate scientists as a whole are corrupt. The constant, endless, gratuitous references to both are propaganda.
So the Chinese study on temperatures in the PRC is intended to inspire doubt in science? The IPCC was more correct on paleoclimatology in 1990, before they diverged into whatever it was to eliminate the LIA and the Medieval Warm Period.
As you seem to follow this site, you know quite well there are other paleo proxies which show the 1990 IPCC temperature reconstruction was much closer to reality than Mann or any of his followers.
“As you seem to follow this site, you know quite well there are other paleo proxies which show the 1990 IPCC temperature reconstruction was much closer to reality than Mann or any of his followers.”
wrong. The 1990 chart for MWP was in error, it didnt even have any data source
and there are NO reconstructions that come close to the schematic chart.
Finally. it is not a matter of finding a chart you like. You can always do the
the job is to look at all reconstructions and judge them in light of their
assumptions and flaws.
In the same way that Gore singled out a chart he liked sceptics single out charts
they like.
ya cherry pickers on both sides.
Kristi,
You said, “I didn’t go into a detailed explanation of why I call it “dirty laundry.” It has nothing to do with the truth/falsity of the rebuttal,…” Surely you aren’t suggesting that only a “detailed explanation” qualifies as an ad hominem attack?
You also said, “…but it does have something to do with its credibility.” It may raise some red flags, but, ultimately, what is said should stand on its merit rather than your concern about “credibility.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
Clyde,
You might have a valid point about ad hominem, except that I proceeded to discuss the points in the article on their merit alone.
I also forgot to include my source, which goes into much greater detail.
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Friends_of_Science
See my reply to Ken Gregory if you don’t want to read the whole thing, which is long.
Kristi, Mann is still actively defending his hockey stick, despite it being over twenty years old, and discredited multiple times. Watch the debate between Mann and Judith Curry this year, and his presentation concentrates on it.
Tom,
M&M tried to discredit it multiple times. That’s not the same thing.
It’s no surprise that someone defends his own work 20 years later, especially when it still gets attacked. That’s far different from attacking someone else’s work for 20 years.
It’s not just M&M, but their criticism was dismissed, not rebutted. Treemometers? The infamous strip-bark pines?
The Chinese study did report a LIA in the territory of the PRC, as well as a Medieval Warm, so the original intent of showing declining temperatures since ~1000 AD until 1850 is rather untenable.
Tom Halla,
Where did you get the idea that the criticisms were simply dismissed? That is significant. It shows that at least some skeptics aren’t even aware of the response to M&M’s attempts to discredit the research. Even the PNAS analysis supported the hockey stick and subsequent similar reconstructions.
The criticisms – at least some of them – were rebutted. Their “red noise” analysis was faulty, for instance. M&M used a different number of components in their PCAs than Mann. In one paper, M&M omitted a bunch of data. There is one statistical error that Mann did commit, but it has been found that it didn’t substantially alter the results. There were some errors in the reporting of the data in the Supplement, and Mann issued a corrigendum. I don’t know, there may have been other criticisms, but M&M don’t have a very good track record. The Wegman Report, an attempt to support M&M, had some of the same faults, and some of it was plagiarized – deepscience did quite an extensive analysis of that.
“Treemometers”? Dendroclimatology is a perfectly legitimate area of science.
Strip-bark pines are not a species; strip-bark is a characteristic of some very old trees, particularly bristlecone pines, that can be a symptom of a change in growth rates.
“Dendrochronological work at Sheep Mountain in the White Mountains, CA has demonstrated that bristlecone pine trees in two forms, full‐bark and strip‐bark, have experienced different cambial growth rates over the past century or longer. The strip‐bark trees showed a greater growth increase than the full‐bark ones.”
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2486.1998.00204.x
“The strip-bark trees showed a characteristic increase in growth rates after about 1875. Furthermore, the difference in growth rates between the strip-bark trees and entire-bark companions increased with increasing soil moisture. A possible mechanism for these findings is that CO2 is affecting water-use efficiency, which in turn affects tree-ring growth. These results point to the importance of accounting for microsite variability in analyzing the potential role of CO2 in governing growth responses”
http://www.bioone.org/doi/pdf/10.1657/1523-0430(2003)035%5B0323:SVIDAG%5D2.0.CO%3B2
Ironically, this is added justification for substituting the instrumental record for the tree ring data, another thing for which Mann has been attacked.
Tom,
Read Mann’s excellent book, “The Hockey Stick Wars: Why An Endangered World Needs to Stop Arguing About the Hockey Stick and Move on to Other Non-Hockey-Stick-related Science Proving That We’re in Trouble Whether or Not The Hockey Stick Has Been Validated by Almost Dozens of Independent Political Inquests on Three Continents.”
Pay attention to chapters 12 through 31, which deal with how irrelevant the Hockey Stick is and why we need to stop using it to beat up all of science—from solid-state physics to lung-cancer research—which (as Kristi telepathically knows) has been our real agenda for far too long.
The hardcover edition is only twenty bucks and all of that money goes to a worthy cause (a legal fund for suing Canadians who defame the Stick).
Then get back to us.
Kristi,
What a great comment. Nuff said.
The first paragraph of Kristi’s comment claims to show “dirty laundry of FoS”, but it lists none. How does does a university’s decision that “led to their pulling out of the relationship” with FoS, equate with dirty laundry? The university ended the “relationship” because it wanted to protect the great amount of funding it receives from the alarmist federal government. We have funded radio ads and bill boards that give factual information and our opinions. We all should do this. Please go to https://friendsofscience.org/ and click on “Donate”!
Kristi falsely says “Friends of Science is a political organization” Nothing in our reports or my economic analysis of SR15 is political, other than the fact that politicians has made climate change a political subject.
Sorry, I meant to include a link to my information.
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Friends_of_Science
I should say that most of the things that are discussed there are over 10 years old, and FoS may have changed since then. But it’s hard to argue that it was never a political organization. For instance,
“However, in the FoS July, 2005 newsletter (at the time of initial planning and fundraising efforts for the ad campaign), FoS made its ultimate goal very clear :
“We need your donation. We have enough funds in the bank to keep going for only another 6 months. Our goal is to have a major impact on the next election.”
Or
“The Daily Oil Bulletin reported:
‘In the run-up to the last federal election, a Calgary-based group called the Friends of Science Society aired 30-second radio spots which attacked the Kyoto Accord. The paid advertisements warned that the global warming agreement is scientifically unsound and economically destructive to Canada. The message reached 200,000 people in Ontario ridings where polls showed the Liberals had only a slight lead.'”
Or (from U of C’s audit),
“Payments were made to Fleishman Hillard of $43,537.43 in fiscal 2007, to Morten Paulsen Consulting $54,211.06 in fiscal 2006 and Directors Chair of $30,991.20 in fiscal 2005. Some of these invoices were addressed to FOS but were paid from the Accounts. Payments to these vendors exceeded $25,000 in total and therefore there should have been written quotes. No evidence of written quotes was found in Business Operations’ files.”
These are lobbying organizations.
As for U of C’s decision,
“The University of Calgary has reviewed expenditures associated with two University research and trust accounts that were funded by donations accepted by the University from private donors acting on behalf of the Friends of Science. At the conclusion of its review, the University determined that some of the program funds had been used to support a partisan viewpoint on climate change, which made it necessary for the University to formally advise the Friends of Science that it would no longer accept funds on the organization’s behalf.”
…”In an accompanying press release, the University noted that it had ‘advised Elections Canada and Canada Revenue Agency of its concerns regarding the accounts, Friends of Science and the ongoing auditor’s review.'”
“According to the Calgary Foundation, the Science Education Fund grant agreement with the University of Calgary was for “academic research in the science of global warming and the production of education modules.” Yet FoS states that Barry Cooper’s research fund is “directed towards debate of climate science” and to “encourage debate on basic climate science.””
Saying that “The university ended the ‘relationship’ because it wanted to protect the great amount of funding it receives from the alarmist federal government” sounds like it’s meant to discredit the whole auditing process and what they found as a simple political maneuver. If all they wanted was to protect themselves, why do an audit in the first place? I don’t buy it.
………………………..
A more recent article, from 2016:
“A document, nearly 1,000 pages long, lists the Calgary-based Friends of Science Society as one of the creditors expecting to get money from the once-mighty coal company, Peabody Energy.”
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2016/06/16/news/exclusive-us-coal-giant-owed-money-canadian-climate-change-deniers
Of course it’s the sun. 100 Billion tons of hydrogen per second can’t be wrong.
The following comes from British ex-Prime Minister David Cameron writing with American politician John Kerry in the UK’s Daily Telegraph newspaper on page 18, Monday 29th October:
‘Then there is climate change, which has warmed the ocean to a dangerous degree causing the loss of half of the world’s coral reefs and changing the chemistry of the water by making it more acidic.’
Yet another example of endless continuing nonsense pumped out by those who should make it their business to know better.
I’ve often thought that the alarmists are way ahead of the sceptics as regards the creation and use of propaganda – not surprising if politicians are involved, of course.
The “do-nothing scenario” is always the base case in an analysis for decision-making under uncertainty. The IPCC disregards that scenario because it’s a political body, not a scientific one. It’s not using science to determine the best path forward; it’s using science to advance an agenda.
If it had come to its alarmist conclusions honestly, the IPCC would be advising the world to prepare itself to adjust to the coming climate change, not advising the world to embark on futile and expensive gestures that will do nothing to change the eventual outcome.
Steve O, you make important points that too few of us grasp.
But more careful word choice would be advisable, if only to obviate innocent and/or deliberate misunderstandings by the Other Side.
You write:
“The “do-nothing scenario” is always the base case in an analysis for decision-making under uncertainty. ”
But all decisions are made under SOME uncertainty.
Surely you wouldn’t claim “do-nothing” is the right answer to EVERY question.
I think you mean “encyclopedic iggnorance; complete lack of clue; zero evidence either way.” This is a more apt description of the sorry state of the art in climate futurology, isn’t it?
Brad,
You have made some excellent points and I plan to take advantage where I may* to use the various humor/mocking graphics I’ve come across in the past 13 years.
Your points have also given me further understanding of my reading of WUWT comments: We are the choir preaching to the choir while a few tone-deaf dysphonics complain about the music. Honestly, I’ve been doing this long enough to realize
1. They don’t like the sound they can’t hear
2. They have no interest in music, but claim to be authoritative critics thereof (see 1)
There are many here who argue better with each other than they have done (or need to) to show the AGW folks’ ideas hold no water (I use the term advisedly), and I wish them all well in their chosen hobby.
*”Where I may” means where I make money at it
“No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.”
Boswell: Life
I’ve decided to stop being a blockhead. GLTA!
William,
THANK YOU.
You sound as though you know something. PLEASE tell me if you have any advice about getting paid to write anti-catastrophism, even if it’s advice for n00bs, because that’s what I am. Ask Anthony for my email address (or you could just ask me: it’s bradley period keyes at-symbol gmail period com) if you’d be kind enough to write me.
Your humble apprentice in artistic starvation,
Brad
It’s quite on thing to ridicule the cretins pushing this nonsense and it’s quite another to ridicule the average person who only knows what they’ve been force fed all their lives. Gore, Obama, Michael Mann, etc., etc., deserve ridicule.
But the average person is just woefully ignorant and misinformed due to the influence of our media-propaganda complex and our failing education system. Making them look and feel like fools won’t make any converts.
To me the real question is why do we persist on using science and facts to combats beliefs that are completely based upon emotion? The ability to sway a person through logic and reason is entirely dependent upon how much their beliefs are based upon logic and reason (and facts).
Jeffery, that’s absolutely key:
make fun of the charlatans, not the people who fall for them!
Tactic 1 turns ordinary people against the charlatans who’ve fooled them; tactic 2 drives them straight back into the charlatans’ arms!
Your final paragraph Needs More Work. Having acknowledged the need to extend respect to believers, you then propose we treat them as messed-up Freudian patients who are intractable to reason because of an indissoluble enthralment to the dictates of their limbic system.
Just out of curiosity, Jeffery:
Given that a range of diverse and sometimes contradictory motivations for climate skepticism have been identified by science [source: science], what would you say is the main ideological or emotional driver behind YOUR disbelief in the science, personally?
What I’m really asking, of course, is: how does it feel to be asked a question like that? It’s a little insulting, isn’t it?
You can’t change anyone’s mind if you start out from a premise that insults their rationality. You’ve lost them at “hello.”
This is somewtjing upon thge occasion that I duscobewred that Miicrosft Word ia tirally scrapped and reeritten,
Here it is: You have no business changing the Wprd like this. I cannot fifd my previous work, period. You cut out my writings after opne pageof headlines and there ius no way to follow. Take a look at what Anpnthony Watts does with his list of articles, don’t re-invent thew world. You must emjoy seeing people jump tyhroouh hpps when mypor real business is eliminating hoopd. That is a total oncompetence by recemt computer scjool graduates or by old timers who never contributed moyjthing but empty-heades chanbgews It was a cmistake to letr thewm indulge in their fantasies., Tjey tyhoink they are improving the eorld but actually they are ,aking I worse. Scrap it and bring back the old. It is not perfect but at leastr we know what we are