From Christopher Monckton of Brenchley in Durban, South Africa
It. Ain’t. Gonna. Happen. This is the ghastly secret that almost all the delegates here in Durban are desperate to conceal. Paper after paper, result after result, shows that the “global warming” we can expect from a doubling of CO2 concentration this century is just one Celsius degree or perhaps 2 Fahrenheit degrees, not the 3-4 C° once predicted by the UN’s well-tarnished climate panel.
When a journalist with South Africa’s national broadcaster interviewed me in the conference center, I told him the climate scam was just that – a scam. He replied that that was a merely emotional argument. So I gave him the following scientific argument, and explained to him that – simple though the truth is – it is just complicated enough that the IPCC and the global-warming profiteers have thus far gotten away with confusing the general public, and the average scientifically-illiterate politician, and, with respect, the average journalist.
Take all the greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere and keep the Earth’s albedo magically the same as today’s. How much cooler would it be? All are agreed that it would be around 33 Celsius degrees cooler. This is climate theory 101. So, how much radiative forcing causes the 33 C° warming that arises from the presence – as opposed to total absence – of all the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere? The answer – again straight out of the usual suspects’ playbook – is around 100 Watts per square meter.
Accordingly, the equilibrium system climate sensitivity parameter is 33/100 = 0.33 Celsius per Watt per square meter, after just about all temperature feedbacks have acted. Multiply this key parameter by 3.7 Watts per square meter, which is the IPCC’s own value for the radiative forcing from a doubling of CO2 concentration, and you get a warming of just 1.2 C° per CO2 doubling. But that is just one-third of the 3.3 C° the IPCC predicts.
This theoretical value of 1.2 C° is remarkably robust: it uses the IPCC’s own data and methods, applied to the entire history of the atmosphere, to demonstrate just how low climate sensitivity really is. When I pointed out this simple but powerful result to scientists recently at the Santa Fe climate conference organized by the Los Alamos National Laboratory, one of them said, “Ah, yes, but what evidence do you have that today’s climate exhibits the same sensitivity as the total system sensitivity?”
The answer is that the world is now in a position to verify this theoretical result by measurement. In August this year, Dr. Blasing of the Carbon Dioxide Information and Analysis Center in the United States quietly published a bombshell. Few noticed. His detailed estimate is that all the manmade greenhouse gases added to the air by us since 1750 have caused as much as 3 Watts per square meter of radiative forcing between them.
From this 3 Watts per square meter, in line with IPCC data, we must be fair and deduct 1 Watt per square meter to allow for manmade climate influences that cause cooling, such as soot and other particulates that act as helpful little parasols shading us from the Sun and keeping us cooler than we should otherwise be.
How much warming did this manmade net 2 Watts per square meter of forcing cause? Around 0.8 Celsius of warming has occurred since 1750, of which – if the IPCC is right – 50-100% was attributable to us. So the equilibrium climate sensitivity parameter since 1750 (again, most of the temperature feedbacks that the IPCC wrongly imagines will amplify warming hugely will have acted by now) is 0.2-0.4 Celsius per Watt per square meter.
Multiply that key parameter by 3.7 and the warming we can expect from a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration is just 0.75-1.5 Celsius. Those estimates neatly bracket the equilibrium system sensitivity of 1.2 C° that we calculated earlier by well-established theory.
So the sensitivity of the climate over the most recent quarter of the millennium is very much the same as the sensitivity of the climate throughout the past 4.5 billion years – at around one-third of the IPCC’s central estimate. Frankly, one Celsius degree of warming this century will simply not be worth worrying about. It will do far more good than harm. Not a cent should be spent trying to prevent it.
As President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic pointed out at a recent climate conference in Cambridge, if we leave less wealth to our successors because we have wasted trillions on the non-problem of global warming, we harm future generations by denying them the full inheritance they would otherwise have received.
But don’t expect any of the delegates here to get the point. They are making far too much money out of the climate scam –at taxpayers’ expense – to want to do anything other than recite that The Science Is Settled. As the West goes bust, drowned under the sheer cost of the ever-expanding State, the UN, the IPCC, the UNFCCC, the UNEP and the WMO are luxuries we can no longer afford and will no longer pay for. Time to shut them all down and make their self-serving, rent-seeking bureaucrats go out into the real world and do a proper job.
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Wonderful stuff, Lord M, thank you!
Well . . . never thought I’d see the day: an AGW believer being lauded by the majority on this site. . . . Admittedly he writes and talks a good game, but his analysis is basically free floating in terms of the real world if it isn’t contextualised in an explanation of natural variability in order that its predictive power can be verified or otherwise. At the moment his argument is just a less extreme version of that deployed by the “team” minus their political dimension of course and that is the more important and welcome difference. But like them he has the luxury of the option of blaming natural variation if his estimation of 1K is out either way.
The “team” will of course be very encouraged by this display on the flagship of scepticism. Real sceptics are much thinner on the ground than they probably suspected.
Gail Combs,
Your trenberth cartoon analysis is faulty, see:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/02/ncars-dr-kevin-treberths-ugly-intolerance-of-dissenting-views-from-other-scientists/#comment-818316
Even Lord Monkton has it wrong.
Take all the ‘greenhouse gasses’ out of the atmosphere and the temperature WOULD REMAIN THE SAME. Because the extra temperature that alarmists accuse GHG’s to supply comes from adiabatic compression. Why does a ‘fridge work? Adiabatic compression and contraction. Why does a bicycle pump get hot when pumping up a tyre? Adiabatic compression.
At the 1000mb level in the atmosphere of Jupiter the temperature is around 300K ( around 25C). The temperature at the same pressure level on Venus is the same 300K.
The theory of greenhouse gasses is a false one and even the experiment done by Anthony trying to replicate the Gore heating trick showed that CO2 does not heat up faster than air.
Has the earths temperature equilibrated yet with the year of 1940 contribution of extra CO2 compared to just natural contributions? How about 1941? 42? Do you see where I am going here. How long does 2 ppm of additional CO2 each year take for equilibrium to be reached? The extra CO2 now in the atmosphere assumed to be from human contributions from pre-industrial times wasn’t just dumped into the atmosphere all at once.
Has the extra CO2 from the single year of 1940 to now, that’s 70 years, reached a point where we can say the temperature with that extra years contribution of CO2 has now equilibrated? Is it less than 100 % ? if its 100%, when did it become 100% ? I guess I am asking, what’s the lag time, or what’s the mathematical formula or function for additional CO2 before temps have equilibrated.
Sorry to explain it in different ways twice, but there seem to be assumptions that there is a large amount of missing heat that the global warming theory says should be there, and it is being explained away as not showing up yet because the earth hasn’t equilibrated yet to the extra amount of CO2.
How can you use this excuse without showing any math. It isn’t science without that math.
Just to be sure you get my meaning. I don’t expect last weeks extra CO2 to have reached equilibrium, or last years, but surely the CO2 from many years ago must have most if not all of its contribution equilibrated by now.
This question is not directed to Monckton of Brenchley, but to those who use equilibrium excuses to explain away the missing heat. In other words this is probably just a rhetorical question, as I don’t expect an answer.
@joel Shore (aka yet another clueless troll)
“Ah…You do realize, I hope, that scientists have done this calculation and do not agree with you. There is an awful lot of carbon stored in coal reserves, and quite a bit also available in tar sands and other less conventional sources.”
Monkey say, monkey do….or should it be “Scientists say…so it must be The Way”
And where do you imagine that carbon within the coal reserves came from? Was it, possibly, wait for it….atmospheric carbon dioxide consumed by plant matter…..carbon based life forms…..?
What goes around, comes around.
Its a cycle, stupid.
Sometimes its up there, sometimes its down below.
Unlike AGW trolls who are always…out there….
Nothing makes a better model of the Earth than the Earth itself. Nothing is left out and everything is to scale. The Earth has been much warmer according to the physical record and at times has had an atmosphere with a far greater proportion of carbon-dioxide. The experiment has been run repeatedly. Despite being given such assistance it, the Earth, has not tipped into irreversible thermal runaway.
(The changing position and shape of the continents should not affect the question. Continents are nothing to the mighty molecule that holds the whole Earth in its sway. Some say.)
KR says,
“Monckton acknowledges feedbacks in the 33C total greenhouse effect, but completely ignores them when claiming climate sensitivity is 1.2C/doubling – he’s claiming zero feedbacks. And that is just not an honest presentation.”
No. Monckton is not claiming that 1.2c of doubling is with zero feedbacks – it is you who are making that claim. Let me try and explain again:
Lord Monckton has used the temperature increase that the Earth has experience due to greenhouse gases – 33k – and then divided this by 100 to get the climate sensitivity. Why 100? Because that is what he claims is the consensual figure for the total forcing due to greenhouse gases – 100 watts per metre squared. This gives a ballpark value of 0.33k per watt of forcing. He then asks – what is the forcing predicted to occur due to a doubling of co2? A figure of 3.7 watts per metre squared is then used. So, if the warming due to greenhouse gases gives a sensistivity of 0.33k, then the projected warming for another 3.7 watts of forcing must be 1.2k.
That’s all there is to it. There is nothing in there about ignoring feedbacks. I don’t know where you get this idea from. On second thoughts, perhaps I do. It is generally agreed that doubling co2 without feedbacks would lead to an increase in temperature of 1.2k. This is coincidental, but Monckton’s calculation does have one interesting idea. It shows that the warming to be expected including all feedbacks is the same as the theoretical warming as per Stefan Boltzman, that would occur without feedbacks. In other words, the net effect of feedbacks is close to zero. This would suggest negative feedbacks are also operating (as Lindzen has often claimed). Whatever the reason, he is not saying that 1.2k is warming without feedbacks, but that 1.2k is the warming and feedbacks appear to cancel each other out.
If you still have problems understanding this, please say, stating the points you disagree with or don’t understand and I will try and help you.
That is no doubt what *you* would expect in your CO2 obsessed fantasy world. Why do I say that? It’s simple. I say that because in that one short sentence you took not one, but *two* gigantic leaps of faith for your religious cult …
[1] You just assigned 100% (not 99% or 50% or 30%) of that alleged CO2 100ppm increase to the human industrial revolution, and nothing at all from volcanoes or LIA warmup or the 800 year lag.
[2] You just assigned 100% (not 99% or 50% or 30%) of that alleged (~average~) temperature rise to CO2 increase and nothing at all from the warmup since the LIA.
Therefore the only logical conclusion is that your religion obviously implies that the Little Ice Age never even happened. We are still in the same climate as the ‘Little Ice Age’ but for man’s horrible activities which cranked up the temp a whole degree or so.
I might ask if you and your comrades would really prefer to live in the climate of the 17th or 18th or 19th centuries but you would pass it of as rhetorical and not answer anyway. Likewise I might also ask if you and your comrades would really prefer to live in a pre-industrial society with it’s dramatically shorter lifespan and complete lack of comfort. But I won’t.
This is why so many people see your green religious cult as an amalgamation of Heaven’s Gate and Jonestown (suicide) with a side order of Scientology (cash scam) thrown in.
The only way to achieve this fossil fuel-less fantasy world is to go back to candles, animal oil lamps, fur coats and fireplaces. Yeah, that’ll work well. Hundreds of millions of homes and apartment complexes in the USA, *each* with candles burning and fireplaces in use. What could possible go wrong! Entire cities will burn to the ground once again. And there’s this, consider what happens when we cut all the forests down to get wood (forests that have benefited immensely by the sane and logical move to *fossil* fuels), CO2 levels will increase anyway because we will destroy more natural carbon sinks. Congratulations!
The only other possible scenario involves liquidating more people than Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot ever dreamed by several orders of magnitude. Is that where green takes us? Of course it is.
@KR
No doubt you can demonstrate your knowledge and analytical wisdom in a debate with Monckton.
Challenge him to one.
Bring a pencil, you may want to take notes.
“~1.1 to 1.2°C warming for a doubling of CO2 is exactly what the science says – prior to feedbacks!”
Whose ‘science”? You have taken certain statements by certain people and accepted them as ‘science’ while statements from other people are ‘nonsense’ because they do not agree with those of the first. Do you accept Micheal Mann’s work on temperature series as ‘science’? I don’t.
Apparently you find some people to be the priests of science who have to be believed and other who are not of the annointed. Well, there is no room for priestcraft in science.
>The feedbacks are what are expected to take matters to 3.3°C…
Excuse me, but who has such expectations? Certainly not serious investigations of feedbacks in the past 5 years. The figure of 3.3 was generated from simple GCM’s more than a decade ago and is defended to the death (the death of logic) by a crowd which may include you on the basis that the models produced believable results. I suggest that the models are not a reliable source of information and your second post wherein you cite a model as your authority for proof of the figure is correct is ridiculous.
>…– and while the exact magnitude of feedbacks can be discussed, Monckton is simply ignoring them here.
As you clearly do not understand what Monckton has written, and several posters above have pointed out your error, it is perhaps better that you take some time off the catch up with the state of the art.
You mention several worn canards about how the heat is hidden, ‘oceans are big,’ and how Beck and Ramsdorf refuted anyone. These are the arguments of the past dragged up when you are stuck in a corner.
The sensitivity is 3.3 is not there, the models were wrong, the amplification by water vapour is not only what you have imagined but quite possibly low or even negative as extra heat dissipation from the lower troposhpere via convection is strongly linked to temperature. Read Bejan, A who actually knows about convective heat dissipation.
>”This bit by Monckton is complete and utter nonsense.”
This is typical of your communications. You have so much to say that is personal epithet that were you to now produce an argument that might give me pause, your history of ad hominem as a strange form of scientific argument rules you out as a witness. If you spent perhaps less time telling me what a terrible person it is who make such cogent arguments you would yourself be more believable. Why not go the whole hog and imagine it is 1620 and point to Monckton and shout, “He’s a witch! He’s a witch!”. You could could get some villagers riled up to perhaps cast him on a fire. It might silence him better than your hopeless straw-clutching. But it will not enhance the sensitivity of the atmosphere.
Your main rebuttal consists of
– he is leaving out the feedbacks (which are included and was pointed out to you several times)
– he is an unbelievable guy, just like you
– he does not understand and misrepresents the facts, which you on the other hand have full knowledge of by virtue of your having read other works which you accept and believe
– that Trenberth’s missing ocean heat is the reason we are not much hotter this year than 10 years ago
– that water vapour is a feedback not a forcing (ably demonstrated by Willis to be a forcing, but him you do not regard as having priestly robes)
As the most important GHG by far is water vapour it is not clear how far you will get in understanding the climate if you persist in parrotting the initial (and incorrect) response by the Team that H2O is ‘only a feedback’. Good grief we have moved on that that simplistic notion more than a decade ago. I believe you do not undestand this point be cause you said that basically if there were no non-condensible GHG’s there would be no water vapour in the atmosphere. That statement is models all the way down. You programme a model to say so, then cite the output of the model as proof of your conjecture. This is an interesting variation of ‘you get what you give’.
Monckton of Brenchley:
We have your back. Do not be overly concerned by trolls and detractors here. We will deal with them. Concentrate on your Durban mission. The world is being slowly strangled, not by CO2, but by evil, corrupted men, who have designs on the very freedoms they are exploiting.
I may be an old man, but when I grow up, I want to be just like you… fearless and wise. GK
It’s interesting that Mr. Monckton actually gives a form of advertizement to a well-reasoned critic who exposes Monckton’s techniques of misinformation. Included, very specifically, is commentary about Monckton’s debate techniques – how he’s able to buffalo people through technique, not expertise. Since so many here on WUWT are enamored of his debate prowess, this would seem of great interest to posters here at WUWT. “Potholer54” discusses that aspect with spot-on clarity. Here’s a link to part 1 of 5. Please take a few minutes to better understand why so many are justifiably critical of Mr. Monckton. Again, he’s accurately viewed as showman with specific intent, and that’s not truth or honesty.
KR/Vince Causey– you 2 may have started a polite discussion let me add this I am a skeptic of C-AGW. Catastrophic — AGW. I find the most credible skeptics Lindzen, Crichton and –yes– good Lord Monckton. The physics of AGW is sound, and so is the 1.2C limit of temp increase from doubling CO2. That’s AGW theory. Where does “C” come from? Feedbacks. Where does the the 3.3C runaway global warming come from? MODEL OUTPUT! KR, you have to admit these facts, so your belief structure is based on model output. So, where does model output come from? Depends. Does the model take real data and make logical sense of it? Those models do exist– because of engineering models planes fly and bridges stand without having to use trial and error. Other models are suspect– take for example the Mortgage Backed Securities risk model ca. 2005 — how did that end up? So KR, since your belief structure is tied up in these feedback models, you may want to examine their validity. We know Mann’s dendrothermometer model suffered from dubious data and fraudulent cherry picking data. You’ll find that the IPCC models do the same with regard to positive feedback assumptions to get to 3.3C, in order to get to CATASTROPHIC GW, because if it isn’t Ctastrophic, no one will give them any money or power. Carry on.
Jack Greer says: December 6, 2011 at 8:16 am “…well-reasoned critic…”
Jack, in a masochistic half-hour last night I viewed “Potholer”‘s videos. The man is a dishonest hack playing “gotcha” with a sincere sounding, plummy voice (and as they say, “once you can fake sincerity you’ve got it made”). It constantly amazes me how folks like you can swallow drivel like that with relish and then congratulate yourselves on your critical thinking skills. Potholer is a professional journalist, Jack. Does that give you a clue?
Drat! I neglected to include the link, above. Here it is- in fact, here THEY are, as the debate technique is featured in part 2:
1 => http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gyk3rSqjgsY&feature=related
2 => http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjxCRtGMB-A&feature=related
3 => http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arkBsZTO_0w&feature=related
4 => http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW1HR8zU0MU&feature=related
5 => http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGiWy0DGJ9s&feature=related
Yes, Monckton has a degree in journalism and therefore should know better – I think that’s addressed in clip 5.
rep49, and I mean this in the most serious way, if the skeptics here at WUWT can view these videos and not clearly see Monckton’s technique of, in my opinion, intentional deception, my goodness, there’s no hope for you as reasonable, thinking individuals. Seriously.
Monckton of Brenchley says:
I have clearly explained in the previous comment why your calculation does not include the water vapor feedback: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/05/monckton-on-sensitivity-training-at-durban/#comment-819743
Since this seems to be falling on deaf ears, let me try to do it using an analogy. Suppose that Bill Gates makes an offer that for every dollar the public contributes to fight hunger, he’ll throw in $4. Now, let’s suppose that this program operates for one year: The public contributes $20 million, Bill Gates throws in another $80 million, and it is found that with this total of $100 million, 1 million people can be fed.
How much would the public have to contribute in order to feed 5 million hungry people the next year? What Monckton would say is the following: Since we have found it takes $100 million to feed 1 million people, it costs $100 to feed one person. Therefore, you should multiply the 5 million by the $100 and the conclusion is that the public has to contribute $500 million.
What I am arguing is that Monckton is ignoring the “Bill Gates” feedback. In fact, the public only has to contribute $100 million because Bill Gates will throw in $400 million for a total of $500 million and hence 5 million people will be fed.
What Monckton seems to be saying in response is that his calculation included the Bill Gates feedback because he calculated the result that it costs $100 per person to feed the poor using both the amount that the public had contributed ($20 million) and the amount from the Bill Gates feedback ($80 million).
Can people now see why Monckton’s argument is incorrect? It really isn’t that difficult.
View from the Solent. Great link to the Guardian article. CO2 increased by half in 20 years.
Question: If CO2 causes AGW because of man. And the scientist at the CRU tell us the earth is going to heat up. We should have seen same warming in the last 20 years, if CO2 has increased by half in 20 years.
Where is the warming?
My conclusion: CO2 does not cause AGW.
Jack Greer says: December 6, 2011 at 9:01 am
I mean this in the most serious way, if the skeptics here at WUWT can view these videos and not clearly see Monckton’s technique of, in my opinion, intentional deception, my goodness, there’s no hope for you as reasonable, thinking individuals. Seriously.
rep49 is my handle on another site and I asked the moderators to edit it. Sorry for the confusion. I think your last sentence just about sums it up: confirmation bias and arrogance…. not to mention that it sounds like a thinly veiled threat: “…most serious way…” Really? Seriously? Monckton was there to witness how a scientific curiousity got turned into a major political gambit. It was never about “the science”. I really shudder to think of people like you being in charge of things…. but I figure you won’t be. Believers like you should really learn from the past: find out what happened to the Old Bolsheviks.
“As the West goes bust, drowned under the sheer cost of the ever-expanding State, the UN, the IPCC, the UNFCCC, the UNEP and the WMO are luxuries we can no longer afford and will no longer pay for. Time to shut them all down and make their self-serving, rent-seeking bureaucrats go out into the real world and do a proper job.”
Hear, hear… Lord Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley !
I would like to see Jack Greer and Joel Shore team up and debate Lord Monckton, two on one if they like. Moderator, debate rules and venue chosen by mutual agreement. That way Jack won’t have anything to snivel about, and Joel can go into his esoteric explanations while never looking out the window to see that there is no climate disruption in progress; tha planet is falsifying his belief system.
Just FYI, Monckton’s last couple of debates – where there were strict rules and moderation:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/20/monckton-wins-national-press-club-debate-on-climate
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/24/lord-monckton-wins-global-warming-debate-at-oxford-union
I don’t make climate predictions, but in this case I predict that Jack and Joel will tuck their tails between their hind legs and decline to issue the challenge. Pot shots from the sidelines are their style.
John,
You included your own counter-argument. Touch a bicycle tire a few minutes after pumping it up. It has the same pressure as the gas in the pump at the last stroke. But it isn’t hot. It’s the act of INCREASING the pressure in the pump that causes the temperature increase, not the pressure itself. Pumping requires work, and that work gets converted into heat energy that can be felt on the bicycle pump walls, and gets radiated away quickly by the tire walls. Therefore the adiabatic compression argument does not work because the pressure at each altitude is approximately constant and not changing (no energy expended).
Joel Shore,
Let me try and understand your analogy, and then see if I agree with it.
You are saying that raising the first $100m to feed 1 million people is the equivalent to Monckton’s argument that greenhouse gases have raised temperatures by 33k using 100 watts per metre squared of forcing. When you divide $100m by 1 million people it therefore costs $100 per person.
You then go on to say by analogy, that Monckton’s argument is saying that to feed 5 million people the public would have to raise $5m, whereas, because of the Gates feedback, they only have to raise $100m.
The problem I have with this argument is that it implicitly includes the feedback into the 100 watts per metre squared greenhouse gas forcing mentioned above. In other words, you are saying that this 100 watts is not just greenhouse gas forcing but forcing plus all feedbacks, and therefore the actual greenhouse gas forcing without the feedbacks would be a lot less. Or to put it another way, the 100 watts includes feedbacks whereas the 3.7 watts for a doubling does not include feedbacks.
I am not sure you are right.
I don’t think that 100 watts includes feedbacks. I’ve never seen anywhere feedbacks to be assigned flux densities. The Trenberth energy budget diagram shows the back radiation from greenhouse gases, but there is nothing on feedbacks. Feedbacks are computed within models using given forcings. I know Monckton explicitly mentions that feedbacks have “fully acted” but I took that to mean that the resultant temperature increase must obviously be because of forcing plus feedback, not that the 100 watts figure itself included feedbacks.
However, if you can convince me with evidence that that 100 watts includes feedbacks then I will concede the point.
@Robert E. Phelan says:
December 6, 2011 at 9:36 am
The videos document cold, hard facts and techniques that I have witnessed first hand in live interviews with Monckton. It’s not confirmation bias, it’s blatantly obvious to reasonable people, Robert. Fabricated quotes, constantly misrepresenting scientific articles, being corrected fabricated quotes or by article authors re: misrepresentations but then proceeding with continued offenses, complete misunderstanding of fundamental climate scientific findings, and on infinitum. I’ve heard him make statements in radio interviews on a given scientific topic that is designed to generate a specific impression. Invariably when a knowledgeable listener calls and challenges Monckton’s claim he backtracks with a knowing comment that leaves a different, more accurate impression. In other words, he misleads with absolute intent. He does it continually and you folks are like zombies oblivious to damning evidence that expose Monckton for what he is … a showman and charlatan with a mission.
Just one modification to my Bill Gates feedback analogy ( http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/05/monckton-on-sensitivity-training-at-durban/#comment-820816 ): It is more perfectly analogous to the current situation if one assumes that Bill Gates does not publicly disclose the rate at which he matches contributions. Hence, the data you have is that when the total amount of money (both public contributions + Bill Gates undisclosed matching) was $100 million, one was able to feed 1 million people. And, the question becomes how much the public would have to contribute to feed 5 million people.
To actually see how well the Monckton-like claim that the public would have to contribute $500 million, one can then assume that we, as omniscient beings watching this, happen to know that the Bill Gates feedback operates by him contributing at a 4-to-1 ratio. We could then see how well the Monckton-like claim compares to the reality that the public would only have to contribute $100 million. And, the answer is clearly that the Monckton-like claim fails miserably because the amount that it predicts the public must contribute is correct only if the Bill Gates feedback were completely absent.
Smokey says:
What you call “pot shots from the sidelines” are in fact engaging Monckton on the substantive points that he has made here. Monckton has made an argument so let’s evaluate the argument.
This is a better way to proceed than to have a public debate, since the evolution vs creation arguments have shown that public debates are not a very good way to have the best science “win” (unless you believe that creationism is the best science). And, if you actually think about this, it is not surprising why a skilled debater for the “skeptic” side will tend to win in such forums: All that person has to do is raise doubts, so if they make enough poor arguments, it simply takes too long to rebut all of the arguments. You, Smokey, are a perfect example of this…We waste all of our time explaining many times whey certain graphs you posted are deceptive…and yet you continue to waste our time with these deceptions.
Better to do what we are doing here: Monckton is presenting an argument which he clearly thinks is quite brilliant and we are evaluating it.
Joel Shore,
“However, if you are going to argue this, then what you are arguing is that you don’t believe in the positive feedbacks; you have not shown from real-world data that the earth’s climate system does not have such positive feedbacks (which is what Monckton is essentially claiming to have shown).”
No, it has nothing to do with “belief” in positive feedbacks or not, Monckton could just be showing that the earth does not have NET positive feedback, which is the key scientific dispute. Even though water vapor is a positive feedback, there is no evidence that the net feedback of the water cycle taken as a whole is positive rather than negative in the current climate regime. ALL the AR4 climate models under represented the increase in precipitation associated with the warming by more than a factor of two, see Wentz’s publication in Science (2007). A couple more turns of the water cycle can transport a lot of heat higher in the troposphere. The surface albedo feedback is positive too, but ALL the models are correlated in under representing that as well, while allegedly “matching” the climate doubling the error with some other component (thinking linearly). (Andreas Roesch 2007). The models eventually catch up with the surface feedback and run wild after 2050 or so. Just about every other significant feedback in the climate system is negative, it is a heat engine after all, transporting heat to higher altitudes and poleward to radiate it into space. Clouds are probably the biggest area of uncertainty, the albedo of the earth without them is much lower 0.09 to 0.14, giving a planck temperature of just below freezeing globally average. So the much warmer tropics would be liberating a lot of water vapor even without CO2, snowball earth is not a forgone conclusion.
If you have any conclusive model independent evidence that the NET feedback to CO2 forcing in the current climate regime is positive rather than negative then you know something the rest of the climate community doesn’t, and we would all hope that you would share it.