Bishop Hill writes of a new paper, one so “toe curling” it is worth mentioning here to get more exposure. He writes:
This is science? This is progress?
Reports on Progress in Physics, a journal published by the Institute of Physics here in the UK, has published a paper by Raymond Orbach, an engineer at the University of Texas at Austin. It’s available in return for free registration, and I actually think it’s worth it, if only because it’s so toe-curling.
In some ways the paper’s title tells you all you need to know about it. `Our Sustainable Earth’ looks at (you guessed it) eight climate myths propagated by bad people. Like every other set of climate myths you have ever seen, each of the myths is entirely devoid of sources – Orbach has taken them from this page at his university’s website. Where they got them from is a mystery.
In fact, absence of citations is a bit of an issue. Here’s how Orbach starts to deal with claims about the medieval warm period.
Climate scientists now understand that the Medieval Warm Period was caused by an increase in solar radiation and a decrease in volcanic activity, which both promote warming. Other evidence suggests ocean circulation patterns shifted to bring warmer seawater into the North Atlantic. Those kinds of natural changes have not been detected in the past few decades.
Interesting claims – but where did they come from? We are not told. We are expected to take Prof Obach on trust. At the risk of repeating myself, one would never get away with this kind of thing on a blog.
(PS: Note to Prof Orbach – the ocean near the top of the globe is the Arctic (with a c in the middle). And it’s Santer not Senter.
You couldn’t make it up. Oh, wait…
It’s the juggernaut of misinformation that drives AGW. How much more trash are they going to load into the back of their artic? 😉
o gawd….not again
We have ‘Artics’ here in the UK. Short for ‘Articulated Lorry’, which is what Americans call ‘Semi-trailers, I believe. ‘Finding Artic warming especially high during the past decade’ is worrying – we don’t want those blooming great trucks catching fire on our roads, do we?
In the UK an ‘artic’ is an articulated lorry.
Orbach should have consulted RealClimate before he published his nonsensical paper. The discussion of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) in the Orbach paper…
“Other evidence suggests ocean circulation patterns shifted to bring warmer seawater into the North Atlantic. Those kinds of natural changes have not been detected in the past few decades.”
…is contradicted by the RealClimate AMO webpage:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/11/atlantic-multidecadal-oscillation-amo/
RealClimate writes: “This pattern is believed to describe some of the observed early 20th century (1920s-1930s) high-latitude Northern Hemisphere warming and some, but not all, of the high-latitude warming observed in the late 20th century.”
Orbach also notes how the GISS Land-Ocean Temperature Index data includes the Arctic, but he should have noted the bogus method GISS employs to extend land surface temperature data out over open ocean (in areas with seasonal sea ice). In effect, GISS deletes Sea Surface Temperature data so that they can replace it with land surface data, with its greater variability. Refer to:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2010/05/31/giss-deletes-arctic-and-southern-ocean-sea-surface-temperature-data/
Another hastily-scrawled memegurgitation? I think so. What is doubly irking, however, is the “Artic”. That’s about as slap-dash as it gets. Noting p** me off more than grammatical laziness, coupled with geographic ignorance. There is just no excuse for it at all. Then add in the vacuous, tossed-together ‘science’…???
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps
NB: lowest global sea level temp for this day in past 10 years!
That statement alone is beyond parody.
Wait wait wait… so what did they blame Chinese coal for just the other day?
He needs to do a science refresher.
“The climactic consequences of this human dominated increase in atmospheric CO2 define a geologic epoch that has been termed the ‘Anthropocene.'”
I’ve found that “c” missing from Arctic. He put it in the “climactic” consequences.
This is a professor with tenure at University of Texas?
Is the University accredited?
I wonder who the reviewers were on this ?
(PS: Note to Prof Orbach – the ocean near the top of the globe is the Arctic (with a c in the middle). And it’s Santer not Senter.
Maybe he found Santa at the Artic?
Mike Bromley the Kurd says:
October 12, 2011 at 1:36 am
“… What is doubly irking, however, is the “Artic”. That’s about as slap-dash as it gets. Noting p** me off more than grammatical laziness, …”
================================================================
‘Noting’? Murphy’s Law with a vengeance! 😉
hey check out figure 8 and myth 3, apparently the hotspot exists after all! I assume he is using the ‘thermometers dont measure heat, wind measures heat by proxy’ argument for claiming the existance of the hot spot.
This whole thing reads like an advanced high school student’s essay, no maths i notice.
“Sunspot activity …does vary in a regular
11-year cycle, but since at least 1950, average sunspot activity
has remained flat.”
-umm so either its stable since 1950, or its flat. And I’m pretty sure its not flat, I notice there are no citiations for this claim.
-umm so either its an 11 year cycle, or its flat since 1950, cant really be both. And I’m pretty sure its not flat, I notice there are no citiations for this claim.
*mod oops feel free to unmangle my last posts:)
“Flawn academic center”? Is that flawed English for “flawed”?
Mike Bromley the Kurd: “Noting p** me off more than grammatical laziness…”
Bad spelling is also quite annoying.
As noted on Climate Realist, 4% x 4/10,000ths = 16/1,000,000ths = 1/62,500th part of the atmosphere, meaning that 62,499/62500ths are perfaectly natural. More importantly, as AR$ et al notes, these are estimates, not detailed figures. (This guy needs to read his history too, & read the lette rfrom Sir Joseh Banks (President of the Royal Society) to the Lords of the Admiralty in 1817, regarding the “much abated” ice cover in the Arctic Circle due to an unknown source of warmth!) If they can show me how they make a very small number create a very big number, I’ll take 0.01& of their gross profits, because they’ll be genius’s! This crap needs loading in with the Met Office study that the UV & EUV variation from Solar output causes “weather”, but not “climate”!!!!!! They really have become so amazingly arrogant that they must think everyone is so stupid to be taken in by it all, but that’s what you get when one becomes so arrogant!!!
Prof Orbach really likes commas.
What’s ‘toe curling’ is googling Prof Orbach and seeing this from the UT Austin announcement of his hiring. Aug 1, 2009 “has been appointed director of The University of Texas at Austin’s Energy Institute, a multi-disciplinary institute that combines the strengths of the university’s schools and colleges to advance solutions to today’s energy-related challenges.”
This has to be some kind of joke directed at Dr Orbach, doesn’t it?
From the above, the enitre quote somehow did not get into the post. here’s the entire quote, “Dr. Raymond Lee Orbach, the U.S. Department of Energy’s first undersecretary for science, has been appointed director of The University of Texas at Austin’s Energy Institute, a multi-disciplinary institute that combines the strengths of the university’s schools and colleges to advance solutions to today’s energy-related challenges.”
This gentleman was a DOE Undersecretary for Science? God save us all, 1984 is here.
So… UK researchers Extrapolate Arctic warming from Global Temperatures and GISS Estimates the Arctic temperature… I seem to remember reading that the satellites can only measure up as far as 80 degrees north (and south) so my real question is this.
Does anyone actually measure the Arctic (and Antarctica for that matter) temperature with any great degree of accuracy?
And to round off, another question… If the poles are showing the greatest amount of warming over the last decade or two and these Estimates are off, is there a record for global temperature between 80 north and 80 south that I can find anywhere WITHOUT the polar guesswork?
common sense says:
October 12, 2011 at 1:40 am
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps
“NB: lowest global sea level temp for this day in past 10 years!”
Hey, ever wondered why the global sea temp is low at the moment?
How about why the global sea levels have not risen much lately, although the ice is still melting. Now where did all that water go?
Could it be that all those record rains that have been causing catastrophic flooding recently is due to increased evaporation due to global warming? And all that extra water that’s been sucked up and dumped on land is making it’s way back into the oceans – keep an eye on the sea levels as that happens….
“The scientific data do not support the claim…” I’m assuming he means “does not”? Clearly proofreading is optional at Texas. Its like he worked all weekend on another project and remembered Sunday night that this was due Monday at 8am.
Any student he has ever docked points for spelling errors has to be hyperventilating.
Maybe the good professor will organize an “Occupy The Artic” protest.
Lead on, professor!
Tell me, why should I believe anyone who can’t spell ‘Arctick’? 🙂
Even the Aggiest of Aggies can spell better than this Tea Sipper.
Dr. Orbach scored a perfect trfecta: Ignorance of Quaternary geology, ignorance of Hansonian data manufacturing methods and he misspelled Arctic & climatic in a paper dealing with Arctic climatic variation.
Here’s a link to CET data:
http://www.newtownweather.co.uk/cetdata/cetdata.html
Make your own minds up.
Of course, understanding that the accuracy of records may not be so good 300 years ago as now. May not be consistent.
A better test is how many times the Thames froze over in London. That’s never happened in my lifetime, although we’ve had some pretty cold winters.
Those records surely exist somewhere.
Perhaps someone would like to make them accessible to those at this site?!
Daggett says ““The scientific data do not support the claim…” I’m assuming he means “does not”? ”
Actually Daggett data is plural, the singular being datum.
The Earth is flat, how many times do I have to keep on saying it? The EARTH is FLAT!
Cold is hot, how many time do I have to keep on saying it? Cold is HOT!
Got it?
Save me from Apostles. Keep going chaps, we have your measure
Rhys Jaggar says:
October 12, 2011 at 4:10 am
If memory serves, my father told me once that the last time he knew the Thames had frozen was back in 1947-8 or thereabouts, I will do some research. A guy back then drove an Austin Ruby or 7 model across it too, will come back on it later! 🙂
“The problem with that analysis is that it is incorrect” – Herman Cain.
The joys of typographical errors aside, I posted the following at “bishop hill”, where commenters made fun of Orbach’s claim about “”…the ‘greenhouse’ effect of solar radiation being trapped by gases in the upper atmosphere…”:
I have been trying to tell people that the atmosphere is warmed by direct absorption of incident solar infrared radiation, not from the ground up, based upon the hard quantitative fact I uncovered, in my comparison of temperatures in the atmospheres of Venus and Earth, that the Venus T at any given pressure is just 17% higher than the Earth T at that same pressure, and that is just what is required by the difference in the two planets’ distances from the Sun, and nothing else. Thus there is no greenhouse effect (greater warming with greater atmospheric carbon dioxide) and no albedo effect (the Venus atmosphere is warmed by 1.91 times the power per unit area as is Earth, again as precisely provided by Venus’s smaller distance from the Sun, even though the thick clouds of Venus reflect much of the visible radiation from the Sun). So point Mr. Orbach to my blog article, “Venus: No Greenhouse Effect”, where he (and any other interested reader) can see that the atmosphere IS warmed, fundamentally, by absorbing incident solar radiation. No one is going to make progress in climate science until my Venus/Earth comparison is properly confronted and generally accepted, thus establishing a true climate consensus to replace the current incompetent one.
…
We all make mistakes, but I try to focus upon the ones that miseducate the world (or those that ironically correct such miseducation), rather than make it laugh. That makes me a party pooper in the current tattered intellectual climate.
“The climactic consequences of this human dominated increase in atmospheric CO2 define a geologic epoch that has been termed the ‘Anthropocene.’”
I have said this many times before; when I was in undergrad science, we used to joke about calling modern times the ‘anthropocene’. It was a science-geek type of joke that was oftern heard after a few too many brewskis at the local watering hole. Now it is an official geological epoch? I find this deeply offensive, and I’m guessing that this is now taught in undergrad science. Science today is unfamiliar to me now.
Thank Ghu this schmuck is “an engineer at the University of Texas at Austin.”
If he were in the private sector and doing any work likely to result in mechanical, chemical, industrial, or electrical engineering projects achieving operation, I’d be looking for the sort of massive bloodshed and death seen at Bhopal in 1984.
Ok, the logic is that if NASA GISS is wrong and HAD, UAH and RSS are right – then we HAVE HAD global cooling since 1998? Isn’t that exactly what Orbach is saying? 🙂
With educators like this teaching our kids, It’s no wonder that “Johnny can’t read.”
DaveF says:
October 12, 2011 at 1:16 am
We have ‘Artics’ here in the UK. Short for ‘Articulated Lorry’, which is what Americans call ‘Semi-trailers, I believe. ‘Finding Artic warming especially high during the past decade’ is worrying – we don’t want those blooming great trucks catching fire on our roads, do we?
_____________________________________________
If we do not want those “blooming great trucks catching fire on our roads” then we had better return to the use of asbestos brake pads. Brake fires are all to common when coming down off high mountains which is why fire extinquishers are carried. Had a friend use up not only his extinguisher but his cousin’s (luckily following him) to putting out a brake fire not too long ago.
Another typo. “We are expected to take Prof Obach on trust.” Should be Orbach.
Now we know why A&M decided to move to the SEC.
We’ve been told, over and over, that they won’t listen to anything we say, unless it’s supported by a “peer-reviewed” paper. Papers like this one.
It’s also amazing that, in appearing to be scientifically honest, they’ll put out facts that they think support their claim.
Such as this “fact” (paraphrased):
“GISS determined that 2010 statistically tied with 2005 for warmist on record, and that 1998 is in a statistical tie for third with 5 other years (’02, ’03, ’06, ’07, and ’09)”.
They say this doesn’t support global cooling.
When 5 of the last 10 years are tied for third with a period 13 years ago, it sure doesn’t support runaway global warming, either.
“At the risk of repeating myself, one would never get away with this kind of thing on a blog.”
Well, not on a well read blog such as WUWT, anyway. “Peer review” here can be thorough and tough.
Some blogs are fanatics fueling fanatics and anything goes there. That form of “peer review” appears to exist at Reports on Progress in Physics, even if it does claim:
“Reports on Progress in Physics publishes review articles covering all branches of physics, written by invited authors who are worldwide experts in their field..
From website: http://iopscience.iop.org/0034-4885/
Alex. Sinclair says:
October 12, 2011 at 4:13 am
Daggett says ““The scientific data do not support the claim…” I’m assuming he means “does not”? ”
Actually Daggett data is plural, the singular being datum.
A question: What is the plural of Ordnance Datum?
POD has:
data n.pl. (also treated as sing., although the singular form is strictly datum) 1 known facts used for inference or in reckoning. 2 quantities or characters operated on by a computer etc. [Latin data from do give]
Usage (1) In scientific, philosophical, and general use, this word is usually considered to denote a number of items and is thus treated as plural with datum as the singular. (2) In computing and allied subjects (and sometimes in general use), it is treated as a mass (or collective) noun and used with words like this, that, and much, with singular verbs, e.g. useful data has been collected. Some people consider use (2) to be incorrect but it is more common than use (1). However, data is not a singular countable noun and cannot be preceded by a, every, each, either, or neither, or be given a plural form datas.
Oh dear … the contagion is spreading … appears that the National Hurricane Center is confused (or perhaps that’s geographically challenged) about where Tropical Storm Irwin is at … pull up the Warnings/Cone map and … can it be? … it’s 0° lat 0° long … that’s off the coast of Africa.
Check it out … but you might want to do a screencap for chuckles
Go to the NHC for the Eastern Pacific:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/?epac
then pull up the Warnings/Cone map for Irwin (you can even see it in the thumbnail):
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_ep1+shtml/094654.shtml?5-daynl#contents
Hmmmmm … Zero Zero Island … my age is showing…..
There are a couple of rules down here in Texas Y’all will have to learn.
1. If a scientist in Austin makes a claim about anything, it’s probably the opposite of what he claims. (example; on September 30, the state climatologist made the claim that our drought could last 10 years. It’s been raining fairly steadily ever since that dire pronouncement)
2. Austin, the capitol of Texas, is the home of every liberal in the state. Most of these are AGW proponents who will shrilly scream at you their belief should you make the mistake of mentioning that the weather seems nice today.
http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2011/09/30/climatologist-says-texas-drought-could-last-until-2020/
Rhys Jaggar says:
October 12, 2011 at 4:10 am
Here’s a link to CET data:
Why does the data stop at 2006?
Take a look at the official Met Office numbers:-
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/
Take particular note of their red trendline
IPCC uses HadCRUT. Why dear proffessor uses GISS?
“Climate scientists now understand …”
I stopped reading after that…
By the way, it looks like “the team” based climate science peer review process is working quite well! Here’s the abstract for the next paper that’s been approved for publication…
“Man made Globle Warming in the Antartic”
by Grant Money
“In this paper, the warming of the Antartic is found be do too Globle Warming by CO2 and other bad gases. Uncontrovertible evidence from estimates made by NASA GISS Modle E studies show that man is responsible for the melting of Antartica, and that we’re all going to drown from rising sea levels (see also “An Inconvenient Truth”, Al Gore, 2006). In addition, it is shown that the negative impacts of Globle Warming will be intensified unless additional funding is provided for research, irregardless of the actual climate.”
Ditto Alex’s comment, Daggett. Data is often mistakenly used as a singular. Honest mistake, but still a mistake. Generally, though, I’ve found that beating up on spelling and grammatical errors–especially on the fly on message boards or comment areas– is bad karma. Almost inevitably I’ll drop a letter or add an apostrophe in the wrong place either in that post or immediately following.
Artic? – I would say it’s the modern day version of “Driving a coach and horses” through the story…
No wonder science is now extinct in the USA. From his CV you would think this guy was another Dr. Feynman.
240 papers of THIS quality??? I think I am going to be sick….
The guy make the US higher education system look like an absolute JOKE! But then it now IS a joke and corporations are no longer willing to hire US grads. Surveys of corporations consistently find that businesses are focused outside the U.S. to recruit necessary talent. A second study finds College students lack scientific literacy …by 12th-grade, we’re at the bottom of the heap, outperforming only two countries, Cyprus and South Africa. and another study finds Every Textbook Left Behind
A very sad state of affairs given our current economic mess and this guy is a contributing factor.
Mr. Raymond Lee Orbach:
Physicist “B.S. in Physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1956 and a Ph.D. degree in Physics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1960. Orbach began his academic career as a postdoctoral fellow at Oxford University in 1960 and became an assistant professor of applied physics at Harvard University in 1961.
Orbach’s research in theoretical and experimental physics has resulted in the publication of more than 240 scientific articles, and he is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
From 1982 to 1992, he served as the Provost of the College of Letters and Science at UCLA, and from 1992 to 2002 as Chancellor of the University of California, Riverside…..” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_L._Orbach
For this type of stuff I figure Wiki is just fine. Connolley probably wrote this glowing CV himself.
It looks like we don’t need draconian approaches- (pg 3)- “Finally, two examples are presented that can potentiallyreduce CO2 emissions substantially in an economically viable manner. That is, substantial CO2 emission reduction need not reduce our standard of living, or require the deleterious consequences of a tax on carbon, a carbon cap and trade, or draconian regulations.”
Does this mean that CARB will change their approach………….. I think not.
Did anyone else notice that the good doctor has taken up academic residence in the Flawn Academic Center? Isn’t Flawn the past perfect tense of Flaw? Might explain a lot about his paper. :^()
Fools and knaves! Who among ye dares question the mighty Peer Reviewers once they have spoken, “Artic”?
For, Yea, It is Written.
@Martin says:
October 12, 2011 at 3:34 am
You make me laugh ‘How about why the global sea levels have not risen much lately, although the ice is still melting. Now where did all that water go?’
This ‘ill learn ya : http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/10/nsf-just-now-figures-out-archimedes-buoyancy-principle/ and now Martin.
With the touting of peer review being the pinnacle of street cred among AGW proponents, the back story MUST be to determine who did the peer review. One will find plenty of evidence pointing to “back scratching”. My hunch? The entire cabal of peer reviewers of papers touting AGWing is a dark cess pool of back scratchers. It will be the next —gate.
Stolen from the Bishiop Hill comments The points are to juicy not to pass on. (Hat tip to the Bishop Hill Blog & company)
It took 9 months to get through the review process and no one caught the spelling mistakes???
“…Prof Orbach who quoted Marc Airhart who quoted SkS…”
And a link to Marc Airhart: http://www.nasw.org/users/marcopolo/index.html
—————–
Remember Hansen’s “Woe is me” about scientist not being able to communicate??? Well here is the evidence to show it is an out right lie.
Marc Airhart
“About Me
I am currently a science writer for the University of Texas at Austin’s Jackson School of Geosciences….. I also freelance write about science, nature, society and the environment for print, radio and online outlets….
After over a thousand conversations with scientists, I can talk science with the best of them. I’m an accomplished interviewer who can put experts at ease and capture a compelling story. I’m also skilled at condensing technical information into a clear, concise and entertaining presentation….
I am a long-time member of the National Association of Science Writers.”
ERRRrrrrr Mr. Hansen your slip is showing.
Wow. That’s embarrassing for my alma mater. At least we don’t have to claim Dessler.
“Transient to equilibrium temperature changes take centuries to develop….”
So perhaps the American Indians were secretely using coal-fired smoke signals?
so most of this “warming” comes from Artic temperatures which are not actually measured but extrapolated from hundreds if not thousands of miles away … what could go wrong ?
To quote from the theme tune of the BBC Comedy show about a
dodgy London street-trader, “Del Boy”, called “Only Fools & Horses”
Stick a pony in me pocket,
I’ll fetch the suitcase from the van,
Cos if you want the best ’uns,
But you don’t ask questions,
Then brother, I’m your man.
’Cos where it all comes from is a mystery,
It’s like the changin’ of the seasons,
And the tides of the sea…….
&etc.
(pony = 25 UK Pounds – cash)
Del Boy, was famous for getting things of the back of a lorry,
or out of an “artic”, which he then sold on as “hookey gear”,
around the street markets of London. Has Del Boy been selling
“hookey papers” to these so called “peer reviewed journals” ?
We should be told !!!!!
Only Fools Season1 Episode1, “Big Brother” available on VEOH Video
You need the VEOH Player to see the whole show (FREE registration)
but if you don’t have that installed you can still listen to the theme tune
with the above lyrics in it, and see the first 6 minutes of the show.
Question: What’s the difference between “Del Boy” & Raymond Orbach ?
How long will it take a citizen to believe in government integrity. A single lie destroys a whole reputation of integrity- Baltasar Gracian. The data – datum does apply. Will the ‘association with the industrial revolution’ continue for a century long debate?
Seemingly the Rosebud Battle of summer 1876 and the follow up Greasy Grass Battle continued 130 years of debate. Really hot by some, and government is no longer a player excepting the archaeological science gathering. There seems to be no clearly defined recipe of this U.S. Cavalry ‘Last Stand’ except the known ending. Some new evidence satisfies a question, while another piece asks a new question. Is a cake only as good as the recipe.
I haven’t bothered to read the article/drivel yet. However, a quick ‘bing’ indicates that several sentences above were taken from this site: http://www.utexas.edu/know/2010/11/08/climate_myth1/
…where the author is listed as Marc Airhart. So this article is just:
1) A copy-and-paste marketing exercise
2) Normal climatology plagiarism
3) Propaganda
4) A sad reflection on the state of peer review
It is totally in line with the settled science.
“Raymond Orbach, an engineer at the University of Texas”
We should, perhaps, be grateful that he is not building bridges for a living.
Alex. Sinclair says:
October 12, 2011 at 4:13 am
Once upon a time, literate people would treat ‘data’ as a collective noun. This is appropriate because a single datum (data point) proves nothing. A data set might prove something. What I think we have here is an example of hyper-correction by someone who is illiterate about the nature of data. Sadly, this annoying usage seems to have caught on.
Now, taking sentences from the Orbach paper, it is time to do a word search at RC and Skeptical Science (the blog whose simple acronym shall not be mentioned in the same sentence with the acronym for Stainless Steel).
Bets on the probability of hits anyone? If any hits are found, will we find more from RC and Skeptical Science than from Wikipedia?
John
polkyb says:
October 12, 2011 at 3:30 am
“Does anyone actually measure the Arctic (and Antarctica for that matter) temperature with any great degree of accuracy?”
DMI, the Danish Meteorological Institute, has some 70 floating buoys or so for that.
Wasn’t volcanic activity low during the warming of the recent past warming?
Martin says:
October 12, 2011 at 3:34 am
Hey, ever wondered why the global sea temp is low at the moment?
How about why the global sea levels have not risen much lately, although the ice is still melting.
Now where did all that water go?
Martin, are you trying out for Andy Rooney’s old job?
Come on, you know it’s that Halliburton company, doing all that fracturing (or should I say fracking). They’re pumping all that water underground giving Gia a bad enema. Soon she will get us humans all back, wipe us out, and start over with the monkeys \sarc off
Anyone wanna bet this gets regurgitated through the media spin machine? If this garbage (that’s french for peer reviewed) makes it through, all we can do is laugh in self defence.
“That’s about as slap-dash as it gets. Noting p** me off more than grammatical laziness, ”
““The scientific data do not support the claim…” I’m assuming he means “does not”?
“Dr. Orbach scored a perfect trfecta:”
I suggest that all you English majors stop complaining about the good doctor’s spelling and grammar, very few of your posts are error free.
‘common sense says:
October 12, 2011 at 1:40 am
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps
NB: lowest global sea level temp for this day in past 10 years!’
All I’m getting here is a Error message. Has it been removed as an Inconvenient Truth?
The esteemed Texas Tribune has picked up the story…give it two days.
Alex. Sinclair says:
“Actually Daggett data is plural, the singular being datum.”
That would be true under it’s original ussage in Latin. However, as used in modern English, data is considered a mass noun like oil or dirt and as such it has NO singular form.
It seems that the new AGW strategy is to point out all of the information which is contrary to their models and theories as being “exceptions” in some way to real climate. However, it is apparent to anyone using logic that all of these “exceptions” over time are part and parcel to what makes up real climate. Along with the lack of citations, it smells of desparation to me.
Darn … you missed it. NHC got it corrected. But at least I’ve got the screencap, so I know it was real.
Let’s see if I got this:
2005 and 2010 are in a statistical tie for first.
1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2007 and 2009 are in a statistical tie for third.
Unless 2005 and 2010 were several standard deviations from the average, that would imply that the period 1998 to 2010 exhibited warming that was statisticaly insignificant.
Now how is it that GISS comes up with a statisticaly insignificant temperature change from 1998 to 2010 that is different from the statisticaly insignificant temperature change over the same period from HacCrut? Well,,, HadCrut uses the highly innacurate method of extrapolating Arctic temperatures from global temperatures, while GISS uses the highly innacurate method of estimating Arctic temperatures. Estimates based on what we don’t know, but obviously estimates from unknown sources are more accurate than extrapolations from known sources!
Yet, they both conclude that warming since 1998 is statisticaly insignificant. It appears that the difference of a few hundredths of a degree between them is an argument as to whose insignifcant results are the least insignificant.
Now if I may move on to the most laughable part of the first few paragraphs, if the only difference between the two data sets is the Arctic, then remove that from both and compare them. Ooops, that would give us totaly and completely insignificant warming since 1998 (a big step up from plain old insignificant) with both HadCrut and Giss in agreement. That would lead to the following conclusion:
If there has been any significant warming world wide since 1998, it has been entirely contained in the Arctic. We don’t know how bad it is of course, because all we have to go on are two data sets, one of which is extrapolated and one of which is estimated. Denmark’s actual measured data since 1958http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php isn’t used by either GISS or HadCrut because it is actual data and who would use actual data when you’ve got extrapolations and estimates instead?
But hey, I’m OK going with Raymond Orbach. Nothing significant world wide, and if anything significant IS happening, it is contained to the Arctic. We don’t know for certain what is going on temperature wise, but the polar bear population has quadrupled in the last couple of decades (although my understanding from the WWF is that just because the population has quadrupled, it doesn’t mean they aren’t going extinct. I’m uncertain if the extinction is an estimate or an extrapolation).
That’s what I got from those first few paragraphs, I didn’t read the rest. Are they just as stunned? I mean stunning?
This is more than astonishing. First you need to understand who Dr. Orbach is. Read his background at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki.Ramond_L._Orbach . Then will understand that he was in charge of all science funding at the DOE during his tenture as Under Secretary for Science. It was this department that has funded Phil Jones in the past, and funds Ben Santer and the climate modelling efforts at Lawrence Livermore Lab among many others. The research budget just for the Biological and Environmentaal Research section (which includes climate) is over US$ 400 million for this year.
From his lack of understanding of many issues and his highly prejudicial treatment of different views, it is not surprising that many scientists have found it difficult to get their projects funded if they did not share the CAGW viewpoint.
He’s even claiming to have found the tropical troposphere “hotspot” when even Dr.Syukuro Manabe, the godfather of climate modeling, now agrees with Fred Singer that it’s not there (see Fu, 2011) and that climate models overstate the warming by 2 to 4 times.
Besides the article being an embarassment, it provides strong evidence of the high probability of exclusionary standards in funding climate science.
Raymond Orbach, Director, Energy Institute, University of Texas at Austin has a letter published in today’s (Oct 12) Wall Street Journal where he states that “as shown recently by Benjamin Santer et al., one must average over at least 17 years of data to reduce annual (or even decadal) variabilities to detect overall trends”, that “RSS v3.3 displays a consistent warming trend (from January 1980 to December 2010) of 0.152 degrees C per decade”, and that “minimal warming over a single decade does not disprove the existence of a slowly evolving anthropogenic warming signal.” I believe the money quote is “does not…disprove anthropogenic warming” as I understand that the theory of anthropogenic global warming cannot be disproven.
They’re now becoming DESPERATE to reduce CO2 but it isn’t to save the planet – it’s to save their own a@@. As the cooling trend becomes more and more obvious to everyone their opportunity to connect it to CO2 reduction is evaporating before their eyes. If there is any way for them to claim a reduction of human CO2 ‘might’ be the reason for cooling – they’ll take whatever they can get their greedy hands on to keep the gravy train rolling.
I can almost hear them in five years if they get their way, “Our efforts to curb CO2 have resulted in a 10% reduction of human emissions and that appears to have been enough to stem the tide of global warming .. for now.”
Hello Mauna Loa – http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/ccgg/trends/co2_data_mlo.png
Even us IT professionals no longer concern ourselves about whether data is plural or singular. We also don’t worry about whether to say us IT professionals or we IT professionals. Remember, most of us are public school graduates.
The “Climate Change Myths” piece in the University Of Texas At Austin (“What Starts Here Changes The World”) is written by Marc Airhart, main Science Writer for internal and external communication at the Jackson School of Geosciences at UofT Austin.
http://www.jsg.utexas.edu/people/do-gf.html
Mythbuster Marc is also responsible for demolishing the Urban Heat Island effect (Myth #6) http://www.utexas.edu/know/2010/11/15/climate_myth6/
“Update: Richard Muller, a U.C. Berkeley physicist leading a team creating its own independent record of 20th Century global surface temperatures, says their preliminary results agree well with the three other major groups evaluating temperature trends (NASA, NOAA and the UK’s Met Office). The result is significant because
the research was designed to show that the other three efforts were biased
particularly with respect to underestimating the importance of the heat island effect. The new research is funded by the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, “the nation’s most prominent funders of efforts to prevent curbs on the burning of fossil fuels,” according to the LA Times. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-climate-berkeley-20110404,0,772697.story”
Eternal vigilance of fossil fuel bias is needed. If the Muller team reaches the wrong conclusion, you are forewarned.
The insidious tentacles reach everywhere, however.. Further down the Dean’s Office personnel list we discover that Luciano Correa is in charge of managing the royalty assets of the Jackson School
“more than 1,300 oil and gas wells”.
Say it isn’t so!
How about no warming for 15 years? I just graphed RSS data yesterday. No warming from 1997 to 2011. The warmistas are grasping at straws.
I’m certainly not a proponent of AGW and very much a skeptic – or denier, depending upon your climate change perspective. However, I am human and do make grammar and spelling mistakes – not unlike the good professor. There are, though, some mistakes that have been posted in the thread that may not be… fair.
For example – while the term “climatic” is a better fit when viewed within the context of the accompanying sentence, it’s possible Orbach was trying to emphasize the term “consequences” by using the adjective “climactic” as in: constituting a climax or peak… of consequences.
Also, the verb tense associated with the term “data” typically references the plural (i.e., the data do) rather than the singular (i.e., the data does).
These clarifications notwithstanding, other faux paus do exist in the paper (as published online). In the Introduction alone, the following “concerns” are noted:
1. improper noun/verb associations (e.g., “Recent evidence from many sources all point to…”). The evidence “points” because “from many sources” is a prepositional phrase that modifies the noun evidence. The term “all” adds confusion to the noun/verb pair and represents the inappropriate use of an absolute;
2. inconsistent hyphenation (e.g., short term vs. long-term);
3. awkward sentence transitions (e.g., “The issues are increases in long-term global temperatures, human responsibility for these increases, and if so, what can be done about it?”) . The assertion is that these ARE; thus, why muddle the sentence flow with “if so”…?
4. missing parallelism (e.g., “This paper summarizes data from recent relevant reports, first with respect to the question of global warming.”) Unfortunately, the author fails to provide a “second” or “third,” although a “finally” is detailed three paragraphs later.
5. confused personality (e.g., “Section 7 summarizes our findings, and expectations for the future.) The article clearly references one author – Raymond L Orbach; therefore, it’s unclear as to the persons are that constitute the “our,” when the author discusses the paper’s findings.
Although many of us have specks, motes, and planks aplenty for our eyes, the paper was published in a scientific journal managed by the Institute of Physics (IOP) Publishing, Ltd. This journal is sadly lacking in editorial skills and/or experience. Although it asserts that the author is responsible for proofing their manuscript, a competent editor would have flagged the concerns – sparing the journal and author embarrassment.
It’s possible, though, that such mistakes were raised by the editor but discarded by Orbach as unnecessarily costly to correct; IOP Publishing does warn that, “Only essential corrections should be made. You may be charged for excessive corrections arising from your own errors or omissions,” – http://authors.iop.org/atom/help.nsf/0/BB0C7FB81A28560B8025701F005AA63E?OpenDocument#_Toc29 . Regardless and were I a professor grading the paper as submitted, its grammar and spelling would receive a C to C-. This paper is not written in the caliber required of a scientific journal. The content is (unfortunately) trashed drivel, but admittedly, one person’s trash is another’s treasure – science be damned.
I recommend Orbach contact L.H. Greene, the person named as the paper’s inviter, and request he be removed from the latter’s contact listing.
The claim is that the only difference between GISS and the UK is how they treat the Arctic. (If math is not your strong point, jump to #15.)
I have done some “back of the envelope calculations” to see if this is a valid assumption. I challenge any GISS supporter to challenge my assumptions and/or calculations and show that I am way out to lunch. If you cannot do this, I will assume it is the GISS calculations that are out to lunch.
Here are my assumptions and/or calculations: (I will generally work to 2 significant digits.)
1. The surface area of Earth is 5.1 x 10^8 km squared.
2. The RSS data is only good to 82.5 degrees. (I will assume this applies to HADCRUT3 as well.)
3. It is almost exclusively the northern Arctic that is presumably way warmer and not Antarctica. For example, we always read about the northern ice melting and not what the southern areas are gaining in ice.
4. The circumference of Earth is 40,000 km.
5. I will assume the area between 82.5 degrees and 90 degrees can be assumed to be a flat circle so spherical trigonometry is not needed.
6. The area of a circle is pi r ^2.
7. The distance between 82.5 degrees and 90.0 degrees is 40,000 x 7.5/360 = 830 km
8. The area in the north polar region above 82.5 degrees is 2.2 x 10^6 km squared.
9. The ratio of the area between the whole earth and the north polar region above 82.5 degrees is 5.1 x 10^8 km squared/2.2 x 10^6 km squared = 230.
10. Let us compare GISS and HADCRUT3 for 2010 and 1998.
11. According to GISS, the difference in anomaly was 0.07 degrees C higher for 2010 versus 1998.
12. According to HADCRUT3, it was 0.07 degrees C higher for 1998 versus 2010.
13. The net difference between 1998 and 2010 between HADCRUT3 and GISS is 0.14 degrees C.
14. If we are to assume the only difference between these is due to GISS accurately accounting for what happens above 82.5 degrees, then this area had to be 230 x 0.14 = 32 degrees warmer in 2010 than 1998.
15. If we assume the site at http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php can be trusted for temperatures above 80 degrees north, we see very little difference between 1998 and 2010. The 2010 seems slightly warmer, but nothing remotely close to 32 degrees warmer as an average for the whole year.
Readers may disagree with some assumptions I used, but whatever issue anyone may have, does it affect the final conclusion about the lack of superiority of GISS data to any real extent?
@naturalclimate:
““The problem with that analysis is that it is incorrect” – Herman Cain.”
Just think of how many times, and in how many different situations Cain is going to be able to employ that line if he gets elected President. He could be addressing James Hansen, Al Gore, Michael Mann, any Keynesian economist… the potential list goes on forever!
“Beth Cooper says:
October 12, 2011 at 3:57 am
Tell me, why should I believe anyone who can’t spell ‘Arctick’? :-)”
—————
Well, an arctick is a rare white arachnid, blending in extremely well with ice and snow, Ixodes polarius, which feeds on the blood of drowned polar bears. It is threatened by global warming because as the ice and snow melt, it will be easy to spot by predators and eaten to extinction. See Charles Monnett and his 2006 article on drowned polar bears in Polar Biology.
j/k
I think we could solve any global warming problems by just getting these people to quit blowing hot air everywhere.
This fellow is a professor at the University of Texas. Nothing more need be said.
However…
BOOMER SOONER
Via the “myths” web page ( http://www.utexas.edu/know/2010/11/15/climate_myth6/ )
“…if you remove all ground based weather stations that are within six kilometers of populations over 30,000 people, on the assumption that these are the stations most likely to be affected by the urban heat island effect, the warming trends remain essentially the same.”
Why wouldn’t these folks mention the weather stations Anthony is famous for pointing out INSIDE of the population areas? Call me an idiot if I have it wrong, my assumption would be that those city-located stations are the ones most likely to be affected.
And here I thought the AGW freakouts were telling me the Arctic was so cold last wenter that it melted the ozone layer????
more AGW whiplash.
I’m not sure if I should laugh or cry. I think both, i.e. laugh so hard I cry. I see it was an invited paper and I know nothing about the institute of physics or Mr. Greene. I suspect strongly that if this is example of what they publish I don’t want to either.
Alex. Sinclair says:
October 12, 2011 at 4:13 am
“Once upon a time, literate people would treat ‘data’ as a collective noun.”
Believe me, literate people still do.
You are all so mean!
Just because the guy is totally ignorant is no reason to rain on his parade.
Is he not an expert? He says so, and that must be true.
And how dare you criticize him for his writing? If his paper were well written, it would be far easier to debunk his conclusions. Fuzzy writing is the best defense against criticism. If you can’t understand what an author means, you can’t easily disagree with him/her.
And besides those artic ice sheets persistently refuse to go away. Everybody said they would. And here they come again.
And the explorers never made it to the magnetic north pole, either. Oh, well.
It was such a nice idea.
Gail Combs says:
October 12, 2011 at 6:10 am
No wonder science is now extinct in the USA. From his CV you would think this guy was another Dr. Feynman. . . .
Gail,
Politicians really prefer a populace that is handled like mushrooms – i.e. kept in the dark and fed on b.s. Neither party in the US really supports an educated populace. The right prefers the simpler “can’t afford” approach, which simply keeps schools dark, while the left insists on course content that has a high b.s.fraction.
Nothing good ever came out of Travis County. Well, at least OU whipped up on them during the Red River Shoot out, and A&M will have their turn in December. Next up a mauling by OSU.
Gig ’em.
John says:
October 12, 2011 at 10:31 am
Gail Combs says:
October 12, 2011 at 6:10 am
No wonder science is now extinct in the USA. From his CV you would think this guy was another Dr. Feynman. . . .
“Gail,
Politicians really prefer a populace that is handled like mushrooms – i.e. kept in the dark and fed on b.s. Neither party in the US really supports an educated populace. The right prefers the simpler “can’t afford” approach, which simply keeps schools dark, while the left insists on course content that has a high b.s.fraction.”
Actually, we do not want “dark” schools but prefer to not be taxed to support incompetence and propaganda or public employee unions that support the same.
My fine alma mater, The University of Texas, once again has caused me to hang my head in shame and disgust. Their recent parroting of the AGW meme is beyond belief. This has resulted in many, many of our Alumni (who are known as Texas Exes, by the way) to suspend our contributions to the University. http://texasexes.org/
I had hoped, though, that the University would find and hire professors that actually know how to spell. Proper spelling was a requirement in my undergraduate days there in the 70s, even in the Engineering department. Our graded papers received two grades, one from the Engineering professor, and the other from an English professor. The paper’s grade was the average of the two. We became quite proficient at using the dictionary, and a thesaurus.
For any UT administrators reading this, once again, don’t bother sending the annual solicitation letter to me.
Roger Sowell, ’77 BS in chemical engineering, UT Austin.
Its a fine example of why ‘trust me I am scientists’ is such as rubbish idea in practice.
Once again a journal pushes out AGW supporting article that would be failed if it was an undergraduate assessment handing in at a university, just how low are the standards applied for these things ?
Maybe he’s trying to make Aggies look smart for a change.
Martin says:
October 12, 2011 at 3:34 am
“How about why the global sea levels have not risen much lately, although the ice is still melting. Now where did all that water go?
Could it be that all those record rains that have been causing catastrophic flooding recently is due to increased evaporation due to global warming? And all that extra water that’s been sucked up and dumped on land is making it’s way back into the oceans – keep an eye on the sea levels as that happens….”
Martin, under the assumption that AGW is happening, the increased evaporation would persist, catastrophic flooding would persist, and a new equilibrium with lower sea levels would persist. You just invented Antropogenic Sea Level Drop. Congratulations. You should publish it in a peer-reviewed journal. As it explains inconvenient data within the framework of CAGW, you will sail through peer review like a Dessler.
The Cockrell Family must be so proud.
As an engineer it is that he is a professor of engineering that is most galling. But then again, fond of them as I am, some of my (professorial ) mentors at university were not the most worldly or practical of people. Academia can be a sedentary environment for an engineer. Sorry all you academics out there.
Dear Mr. Raymond Orbach:
Things are going very badly in the Artic. It used to be that a lot of ice was thought to be missing there, but now it seems there is a lot of C missing there, and, as usual, Trenberth doesn’t know where it is.
We need first hand analysis pronto. Please, for the sake of the world, schedule a visit to the Artic as soon as possible. Let us know when you get there.
“Flawn” is the pluperfect tense of “flew”, similar to “scrod” being the pluperfect tense of “screw”.
Roger Sowell
Did you happen to see Figure 14 in the paper? In that schematic it illustrates (by my way of looking at it) the separation of CO2 from N2 via a heat exchanger. I’m confused. I’m an “aqueous” guy, so I don’t rightly know for sure; but, I was under the impression that separating CO2 from N2 is rather difficult.
http://sequestration.mit.edu/pdf/introduction_to_capture.pdf
Any help in reducing my bewilderment would be appreciated.
You have to ask the question – “what would make a politician go back on an absolute commitment not to introduce a tax?”
“What would it take to make such a public breach of faith worth while?
“What would do that, do you think?”
He are an engineer, well I are an engineer too so whom expects people like we to spell write anyway? Its a porevn fcat taht pepole can unredstnad msiselpsled wrods prefcteley fnie aywnay.
“DirkH says:
October 12, 2011 at 7:42 am
polkyb says:
October 12, 2011 at 3:30 am
“Does anyone actually measure the Arctic (and Antarctica for that matter) temperature with any great degree of accuracy?”
DMI, the Danish Meteorological Institute, has some 70 floating buoys or so for that.”
I find myself wondering what use a floating buoy is at measuring atmospheric temperature in either an ice field in the north, or on Land in the south?
Would it not be better to just disregard the area’s where there is no temperature data, rather than to guess at it by using reference data from over 1000 kilometers away?
polkyb
“Would it not be better to just disregard the area’s where there is no temperature data”
No, no, no! Those are the best locations for data invention! No one can prove you’re wrong. You can make it trend however you like.
Neo-AGW Progress Report.
Not these* “science cheats”.
Lizard May said: “‘Well, we don’t really like to let people know when we have cheaters’,” she said in an interview.”
…-
“Science cheats must be exposed: [Liberal] MP”
“Like the recent Nature editorial, Hsu says scientists who engage in serious research misconduct should be publicly identified.
“If it is done on purpose I am in favour of pretty harsh consequences,” says Hsu. He says those who plagiarize, or fake or fudge studies or experiments should be named.
Green Party leader Elizabeth May agrees.
“You can’t be known as a country that has any kind of claim on legitimacy in science but say: ‘Well, we don’t really like to let people know when we have cheaters’,” she said in an interview.
“I don’t think you can build academic and scientific excellence with that kind of policy,” says May,”.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/10/12/science-cheats-must-be-found-mp/
…-
*Not these “science cheats”:
“ClimateGate Who’s Who – Conspirators Names and Quotes
Prof. Phil Jones
“I’ve just completed Mike’s nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”
“PS I’m getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU station temperature data. Don’t any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act!”
If he [Steven McIntyre] pays 10 pounds (which he hasn’t yet) I am supposed to go through my emails and he can get anything I’ve written about him. About 2 months ago I deleted loads of emails, so have very little – if anything at all.
“Mike, can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis. Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address. We will be getting Casper to do likewise.
Dr. Mick Kelly
Told Paul Horsman of Greenpeace “The IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] reports and the broader climate negotiations were working to the globalization agenda driven by organizations like the WTO [World Trade Organization].”
Prof. Michael E. Mann
I did this knowing that Phil and I are likely to have to respond to more crap criticisms from the idiots in the near future, so best to clean up the code and provide to some of my close colleagues in case they want to test it, etc. Please feel free to use this code for your own internal purposes, but don’t pass it along where it may get into the hands of the wrong people.
On the other hand, you might want to visit the thread and post replies yourself. We can hold comments up in the queue and contact you about whether or not you think they should be screened through or not, and if so any comments you’d like to include.
Tom Wigley
We probably need to say more about this. Land warming since 1980 has been twice the ocean warming – and skeptics might claim that this proves that urban warming is real and important.
Thomas R Karl
I will continue to refuse such data requests in the future. Nor will I provide McIntyre with computer programs, email correspondence, etc. I fee very strongly about these issues.”
http://conspiracyrealitytv.com/climategate-whos-who-conspirators-names-and-quotes/
Oxford English Dictionary – monotonic – a. Uttered in monotone;
That boring?
Also.., (Math.) either never decreasing or never increasing; hence ~ically.
Santa traded in the sled for an Artic, hence the warming at the North Pole.
@John W, I had a look a the article, and Figure 14 and its description. The reference [28] is to an unpublished paper, so no good there.
I think the diagram in Fig 14 must be overly simplified, and shows “heat exchanger” with power plant flue gas incoming, with hot but low-pressure brine also incoming. The brine appears to be cooled (color changes from red to blue, the standard convention for cooling). The nitrogen appears to be vented from the heat exchanger. If it were a heat exchanger, the CO2/N2 mixture would heat up, as the brine is cooled. However, that makes no sense because we would want to chill the CO2 in order to remove it from the Nitrogen.
This Fig 14 appears to have a “black box” labeled “heat exchanger” but I suspect there is far more to that black box. The article states that the brine entering the heat exchanger is at approximately 300 degrees F. That is not very hot, but it would be sufficiently hot to run a thermal chilling unit, such as an absorption chiller. I haven’t run the numbers to see if that would be sufficiently cold to condense out the CO2.
There does not appear to be sufficient information to determine what is going on in Figure 14.
“This gentleman was a DOE Undersecretary for Science? God save us all, 1984 is here.”
I think that helps explain the content of this paper,. He’s been out of touch with reality after spending too long in the DOE.
dtbronzich says:
October 12, 2011 at 5:54 am
…… Austin, the capitol of Texas, is the home of every liberal in the state.
____________
Is Austin the Contaiment Area for Relocated Califonians? You know the ones who wrecked the economy of California and then headed to Texas when they lost their jobs and want to do a rinse and repeat to Texas.
We have one here in North Carolina for Yankees, we call it C.A.R.Y.
TomT says:
October 12, 2011 at 7:56 am
….I suggest that all you English majors stop complaining about the good doctor’s spelling and grammar, very few of your posts are error free.
_________________________________________
We are all well aware of that Tom, however we are writing for a blog in real time without anyway to correct after we push the “Button”
Also we do not have an editor and two well educated professionals “supposedly” checking out what we wrote FOR NINE MONTHS before it is published.
Apples and Oranges.
John says:
October 12, 2011 at 10:31 am
Gail Combs says:
No wonder science is now extinct in the USA. From his CV you would think this guy was another Dr. Feynman. . . .
____________________________
Gail,
Politicians really prefer a populace that is handled like mushrooms
____________________________
Oh I am well aware of that. John Dewey (Father of Progressive Education) Actually ran experiments on children to see how he could “Dumb Down” kids to make them into mushrooms instead of strong willed individualists. The key he found was the ability to read. You will also note that in US schools many states only require one year of science and two of math (and therefore logic) to graduate from high school.
…the U.S. ranks 21st out of 29 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries in mathematics scores, with nearly one-quarter of students unable to solve the easiest level of questions….In 2000, 28 percent of all freshmen entering a degree-granting institution required remedial coursework http://www.edreform.com/_upload/CER_JunkFoodDiet.pdf
No wonder more and more parents are home schooling. I recommend it every chance I get.
Thanks Roger,
“However, that makes no sense because we would want to chill the CO2 in order to remove it from the Nitrogen.“
That’s what I thought, but considering it was peer reviewed I thought I might have misinterpreted something.
I’m thinking an editor should resign over this paper that should never have been published!
Gail Combs says:
October 12, 2011 at 6:10 am
————————————————————————
Having read the Wiki information, how did anyone come to the conclusion that Dr. Orbach is an engineer? He is Chair of Engineering, but no where do I see that he studied engineering. He did physics and other things, but does Texas give “engineering” credits to people who have never studied or practiced engineering? In Canada, if he claimed to be an engineer without proper accreditation, he could be charged. Are the rules different in Texas? Roger Sowell – is Dr. Orbach a registered engineer in Texas or is he just an appointee to an administrative position that includes engineering? Is he a Professional Engineer or an administrator in charge of engineering? Project Managers need not be engineers, but the designers had better be. As an administrator or physicist, maybe he can say what he likes without being technically correct.
__________________________________________________________________
Roger Sowell says:
October 12, 2011 at 12:51 pm
My fine alma mater, The University of Texas, once again has caused me to hang my head in shame and disgust.
From the article introduction:
Reports on Progress in Physics, a journal published by the Institute of Physics here in the UK, has published a paper by Raymond Orbach, an engineer at the University of Texas at Austin.
___________________________________________________________________
From what I read in the press releases, Dr. Orbach is an administrator of an engineering program and not an engineer, but that may just be my read. Someone in Texas could probably check with the registrar. He doesn’t show up in a search of registered Texas engineers: http://www.tbpe.state.tx.us/search_pe.php?search=pe&intPE=&txtLastName=orbach&txtFirstName=raymond&txtCity=&txtState=TX&txtEmployer=&txtExpires=&txtBranch=&txtStatus=
Gail Combs says:
October 12, 2011 at 7:20 pm
No wonder more and more parents are home schooling. I recommend it every chance I get.
—————
You got ‘balls’ to write that. I agree with you.
Must….resist….urge…. oh, heck with it.
How did this get published? 😀
Gail Combs says:
October 12, 2011 at 7:20 pm
“You will also note that in US schools many states only require one year of science and two of math (and therefore logic) to graduate from high school.”
In college, logic is an elective. However, one of the dirty little secrets of academia is that there is an ongoing war (yes, war) between professors of Logic (Philosophy) and professors of English/Humanities/Social Sciences/Progressive Science/Whatever. The main criticism of logicians offered by fellow academics is that logicians produce arguments that are obvious and, therefore, trivial. I hope that thought has everyone ROFLOL (rolling on the floor laughing out loud). The goal of logic is to render argument in a step by step fashion that makes each step obvious. It never occurs to the critics of logic that not one of them has the ability to formulate their arguments in a fashion that makes them obvious or reveals their logical defects. Of course when you are a Progressive serving Gaia, the flight of the imagination is everything.
Gail Combs says:
October 12, 2011 at 6:10 am
“Mr. Raymond Lee Orbach:
Physicist “B.S. in Physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1956”
He is about 73 years old. So, most likely, he has a figurehead position.
dtbronzich says:
October 12, 2011 at 5:54 am
“There are a couple of rules down here in Texas Y’all will have to learn.
1. If a scientist in Austin makes a claim about anything, it’s probably the opposite of what he claims. (example; on September 30, the state climatologist made the claim that our drought could last 10 years. It’s been raining fairly steadily ever since that dire pronouncement)”
Why did he wait so long to make the pronouncement?
No doubt the good professor has been listening to Obama, who routinely says ‘Artic.’
While that is not as bad as ‘corpsemen,’ it is still very grating from the smartest president ever.
Theo Goodwin says:
October 12, 2011 at 9:47 pm
Gail Combs says:
October 12, 2011 at 6:10 am
“Mr. Raymond Lee Orbach:
Physicist “B.S. in Physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1956″
He is about 73 years old. So, most likely, he has a figurehead position.
________________________________
Actually it makes him around 76 or 77 if he graduated at 20 or 21. He is certainly old enough to not be as “sharp” as he once was. Clogged arteries and all that comes to mind.
I would not be surprised to find that this paper was “ghost written” by an undergrad. and Orbach’s name attached. Still you would think someone would have proof read the darn thing. My Husband has edited several papers for scientists in China and one from Russia to prepare them for submission for publication in peer reviewed journals, so that type of service is available.
That opening paragraph describing the last decade as hottest ever is really encapsulates all that is wrong with the AGW climate cult hoax. The spelling is bad enough but the content is breathtaking in scope.
It is the sum total of people like Hansen jiggering with past data (1934 for example) and cherry picking locations in the modern era. In my mind this is practically criminal. The damage that these people are intentionally inflicting on ‘Science’ is astounding and apparently knows no bounds.
Anyone that thinks the past 4 or so years are the hottest anything should be wearing a straitjacket and kept away from sharp objects.
*****
Rhys Jaggar says:
October 12, 2011 at 4:10 am
A better test is how many times the Thames froze over in London. That’s never happened in my lifetime, although we’ve had some pretty cold winters.
*****
I don’t think you can go by that any more — there’s too much thermal “pollution” in rivers, etc, in urban areas now. Just a half-degree temp increase of the water can keep it from freezing.
On the light-hearted side, middle-aged British viewers may remember the 1980’s advert for “Arctic Roll”
The penultimate line “Numbers aren’t a problem…..” is what makes me smile.
When I saw this I really LOL’d. Ray Orbach inhabited my student house at Caltech, one year my junior. I had previously heard about his science advisor job in the Looney Beltway and could scarcely believe it. This dude (a descriptor for Texans) was considered to be a real putz by us other guys. How could Mr. Doofus go to Washington? And how could Dr. Greengas assemble such an inconsequential pseudo-scientific fly spec that demolishes credulity? I’ll bet he is a star at APS (AmPhysSoc) from which real and nobel scientists are fleeing. His teachers such as Feynman and Pauling must be spinning i their graves.
For posterity, and so you can avoid giving the IOP your personal infoz.
http://www.filefactory.com/file/ce48421/n/our_sustainable_earth_-_Raymond_L_Orbach.pdf
According to a Wikipedia article, up till the early 19th century the Thames was “broader and shallower” and had not been embanked. As a result it now runs faster than it once did, so it would take some serious cooling to freeze it up again.
(I saw this mentioned somewhere else, which is why I looked it up just now – I’ll bet it was on an earlier WUWT comment thread.)