UPDATE: Below is Peter Hadfield’s response in entirety, submitted Feb 7th, 2012. I’ve made only some slight edits for formatting to fit. Comments are open. – Anthony
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Various You-Tube videos by a former “science writer” who uses a speleological pseudonym “potholer54” sneeringly deliver a series of petty smears about artfully-distorted and often inconsequential aspects of my talks on climate change. Here, briefly, I shall answer some of his silly allegations. I noted them down rather hastily, since I am disinclined to waste much time on him, so the sentences in quote-marks may not be word for word what he said, but I hope that they fairly convey his meaning.
For fuller answers to these allegations, many of which he has ineptly and confusedly recycled from a serially mendacious video by some no-account non-climatologist at a fourth-rank bible college in Nowheresville, Minnesota, please see my comprehensive written reply to that video at www.scienceandpublicpolicy.org. The guy couldn’t even get his elementary arithmetic right – not that the caveman mentions that fact, of course.
The allegations, with my answers, are as follows:
“Monckton says he advised Margaret Thatcher on climate change. He didn’t.” I did.
“Monckton says he wrote a peer-reviewed paper. He didn’t.” The editors of Physics and Society asked me to write a paper on climate sensitivity in 2008. The review editor reviewed it in the usual way and it was published in the July 2008 edition, which, like most previous editions, carried a headnote to the effect that Physics and Society published “reviewed articles”. Peer-review takes various forms. From the fact that the paper was invited, written, reviewed and then published, one supposes the journal had followed its own customary procedures. If it hadn’t, don’t blame me. Subsequent editions changed the wording of the headnote to say the journal published “non-peer-reviewed” articles, and the editors got the push. No mention of any of this by the caveman, of course.
“Monckton says the Earth is cooling. It isn’t.” At the time when I said the Earth was cooling, it had indeed been cooling since late 2001. The strong El Niño of 2010 canceled the cooling, and my recent talks and graphs have of course reflected that fact by stating instead that there has been no statistically-significant warming this millennium. The caveman made his video after the cooling had ended, but – without saying so – showed a slide from a presentation given by me while the cooling was still in effect. Was that honest of him?
“Monckton says Greenland is not melting. It is.” Well, it is now, but for 12 years from 1992-2003 inclusive, according to Johannessen et al. (2005), the mean spatially-averaged thickness of Greenland’s ice sheet increased by 5 cm (2 inches) per year, or 2 feet in total over the period. The high-altitude ice mass in central northern Greenland thickened fastest, more than matching a decline in ice thickness along the coastline. Since 2005, according to Johannessen et al. (2009), an ice mass that I calculate is equivalent to some six inches of the 2 feet of increase in Greenland’s ice thickness over the previous decade or so has gone back into the ocean, raising global sea levels by a not very terrifying 0.7 millimeters. According to the Aviso Envisat satellite, in the past eight years sea level has been rising at a rate equivalent to just 2 inches per century. Not per decade: per century. If so, where has all the additional ice that the usual suspects seem to imagine has melted from Greenland gone? Two possibilities: not as much ice has melted as we are being told, or its melting has had far less impact on sea level than we are being invited to believe.
“Monckton says there’s no systematic loss of sea-ice in the Arctic. There is.” No, I said that the 30-year record low ice extent of 2007 had been largely reversed in 2008 and 2009. The caveman, if he were capable of checking these or any data, would find this to be so. In fact, he knew this to be so, because the slide I was showing at that point in his video, taken from the University of Illinois’ Cryosphere monitoring program, shows it. Of course, the slide was only in the background of his video and was shown only for a few seconds. Since that particular talk of mine the Arctic sea ice has declined again and came close to its 2007 low in 2011. But it is arguable from the descriptions of melting Arctic ice in 1922 that there may have been less sea ice in the Arctic then than now.
“Monckton says there has been no correlation between temperature and CO2 for the past 500 million years. There has.” Well, there has in the past few thousand years, but the correlation since the Cambrian era has been spectacularly poor, as the slide (from a peer-reviewed paper) that the caveman fleetingly shows me using at that point demonstrates very clearly. For most of that long period, global temperatures were about 7 Celsius degrees warmer than the present: yet CO2 concentration has inexorably declined throughout the period.
“Monckton says a pre-Cambrian ice-planet shows CO2 has no effect on climate. It doesn’t.” No, I cited Professor Ian Plimer, a leading geologist, as having said that the formation of dolomitic rock 750 million years ago could not have taken place unless there had been 300,000 ppmv CO2 in the atmosphere: yet glaciers a mile high had come and gone twice at sea-level and at the Equator at that time. Professor Plimer had concluded that, even allowing for the fainter Sun and higher ice-albedo in those days, the equatorial glaciers could not have formed twice if the warming effect of CO2 were as great as the IPCC wants us to believe. At no point have I ever said CO2 has no effect on climate, for its effect was demonstrated by a simple but robust experiment as long ago as 1859. However, I have said, over and over again, that CO2 probably has a much smaller warming effect than the IPCC’s range of estimates. The caveman must have known that, because he says he has watched “hours and hours” of my videos. So why did he misrepresent me?
“Monckton said there had been no change in the Himalayan glaciers for 200 years. There has.” No, I cited Professor M.I. Bhat of the Indian Geological Survey, who had told me on several occasions that the pattern of advance and retreat of these glaciers was much as it had been in the 200 years since the British Raj had been keeping records. That is very far from the same thing as saying there had been “no change”: indeed, it is the opposite, for advance and retreat are both changes. Why did the caveman misrepresent me?
“Monckton says only one Himalayan glacier has been retreating. Many have.” No, I mentioned the Gangotri and Ronggbuk glaciers as being notable examples of glacial retreat in the Himalayas caused by geological instability in the region. To discuss one or two retreating glaciers is not the same thing as to say or imply that only one or two glaciers have been retreating. Why did the caveman misrepresent me? It is this kind of intellectual dishonesty that permeates the caveman’s cheesy videos. He has not the slightest intention of being accurate or fair. If he had, he would surely have mentioned that the IPCC tried for months to pretend that all of the glaciers in the Himalayas would be gone by 2035. The IPCC’s own “peer-reviewers” had said the figure should be “2350”, not “2035”, but the lead author of the chapter in question had left in the wrong figure, knowing it to be unverified, because, as he later publicly admitted, he wanted to influence governments.
The caveman says I misquoted the lead author who had left in the erroneous date for the extinction of the Himalayan glaciers, but here is what that author actually said in an interview with the Daily Mail: “We thought that if we can highlight it [the erroneous date], it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.” For good measure, he said I had misquoted Sir John Houghton, the IPCC’s first science chairman, who had said that unless we announced disasters no one would listen.
Sir John, too, tried to maintain that I had misquoted him, and even menaced me with a libel suit, until I told him I had a copy of the cutting from the London Sunday Telegraph of September 10, 1995, in which he had said, “If we want a good environmental policy in the future, we’ll have to have a disaster”, and that I also had a copy of an article in the Manchester Guardian of July 28, 2003, in which Sir John had luridly ascribed numerous specific natural disasters to “global warming”, which he described as “a weapon of mass destruction” that was “at least as dangerous as nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons, or indeed international terrorism”. Perhaps the caveman didn’t know any of this, but here’s the thing: I do not recall that he has ever bothered to check any of his “facts” with me (though, if he had, I wouldn’t have known because he lurks behind a pseudonym and, even though I am told he has revealed his identity I have no time to keep track of the pseudonyms of people who lack the courage and decency to publish under their own names).
“Monckton says Dr. Pinker found that a loss of cloud cover had caused recent warming. She disagreed.” No, I drew the conclusion from Dr. Pinker’s paper, and from several others, that cloud cover does not remain constant, but waxes and wanes broadly in step with the cooling and warming phases respectively of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. I did not misrepresent Dr. Pinker’s paper in any way: I merely used it as a source for my own calculations, which I presented at the annual seminar on planetary emergencies of the World Federation of Scientists in 2010, where they were well received. Less cloud cover, particularly in the tropics, naturally warms the Earth: the point is surely uncontroversial. If one removes the influence of this natural warming phase from the record since 1976, it is reasonable to deduce that climate sensitivity based on that period is much lower than the IPCC thinks. Strictly speaking, one should study temperature trends in multiples of 60 years, so as to ensure that the warming and cooling phases of the PDO cancel one another out.
Frankly, that’s quite enough of these dull allegations. There are others, but they are all as half-baked and dishonest as these and it would be tedious to deal with each one. You get the drift: the caveman is a zealot and we need not ask who paid him to watch “hours and hours” of my YouTube videos to realize from these examples that his videos are unreliable. More importantly, it would interfere with my research: I hope shortly to be in a position to demonstrate formally that climate sensitivity is unarguably little more than one-third of the IPCC’s central estimate. My objective is to reach the truth, not to distort it or misrepresent it as the caveman has done.
He concludes by challenging his small band of followers to check the scientific literature for themselves to establish that the Earth has been warming and that CO2 is “largely responsible”. Of course the Earth has been warming since 1750: I have at no point denied it, though that is the implication of the caveman’s statement.
And of course there are scientists who say CO2 is “largely responsible” for the warming: that is the principal conclusion of the IPCC’s 2007 report, reached on the basis of a fraudulent statistical abuse: comparison of the slopes of multiple arbitrarily-chosen trend-lines on the global-temperature dataset falsely to suggest that “global warming” is accelerating and that it is our fault. Not that one has ever heard the caveman utter a word of condemnation of the IPCC’s too-often fictional “science”. But it is also reasonable to mention the growing band of scientists who say CO2 may not be “largely responsible” but only partly responsible for the warming since 1950. Would it not have been fairer if the caveman had pointed that out?
Climate skeptics have come under intensive attack from various quarters, and the attacks have too often been as unpleasantly dishonest as those of the caveman. Also, there is evidence that someone has been spending a lot of money on trying malevolently to discredit those who dare to ask any questions at all about the party line on climate.
For instance, after a speech by me in in the US in October 2009 went viral and received a million YouTube hits in a week (possibly the fastest YouTube platinum ever for a speech), a Texan professor who monitors the seamier side of the internet got in touch to tell me that someone had paid the operators of various search engines a sum that he estimated at not less than $250,000 to enhance the page rankings of some two dozen specially-created web-pages containing meaningless jumbles of symbols among which the word “Monckton video” appeared.
These nonsense pages would not normally have attracted any hits at all, and the search engines would normally have ranked them well below the video that had gone platinum. The intention of this elaborate and expensive artifice, as the professor explained, was to ensure that anyone looking for the real video would instead find page after page of junk and simply give up. The viral chain was duly broken, but so many websites carried the video that more than 5 million people ended up seeing it, so the dishonestly-spent $250,000 was wasted.
At one level, of course, all of this attention is an unintended compliment. But no amount of sneering or smearing will alter two salient facts: the Earth has not been warming at anything like the predicted rate and is not now at all likely to do so; and, in any event, even if the climate-extremists’ predictions were right, it would be at least an order of magnitude more cost-effective to wait and adapt in a focused way to any adverse consequences of manmade “global warming” than it would be to tax, trade, regulate, reduce, or replace CO2 today.
The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
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Note: for anyone who wishes to see what this is about, you can see “potholer54” aka Peter Hadfield on Monckton at YouTube here – Anthony
UPDATE: Here is Peter Hadfield’s response in entirety, submitted Feb 7th, 2012. I’ve made only some slight edits for formatting to fit. – Anthony
Response from Peter Hadfield:
In January, Christopher Monckton criticized me on WUWT after I made a series of videos exposing errors in most of his claims. I have asked Anthony Watts for the opportunity to respond in kind, so that we can put Mr. Monckton’s verbatim assertions up against the documentary evidence he cites.
At first I was puzzled as to what Mr. Monckton was responding to in his WUWT guest-post, because he failed to address any of the rebuttals or the evidence I showed in my five videos. Then I realized he must have watched only the last video in the series, including a light-hearted 30-second ‘mistake count’. So in this response I am going to deal with what Mr. Monckton actually said, as shown and rebutted in my videos, rather than what he thinks I think he said, and what he thinks I rebutted.
Mr. Monckton doesn’t claim to be an expert, and neither do I. All I can do is to check and verify his claims. So the question is whether Mr. Monckton has reported the sources he cites accurately in order to reach his conclusions. I have made it very easy for you to check by playing clips of Mr. Monckton making these assertions in my videos, then showing images of the documentary evidence he cites. Since this response is text I will write out Mr. Monckton’s assertions verbatim and quote the documentary sources verbatim (with references in the body of the text.) References to the relevant video (linked at the bottom) and the time on the video where they are shown, will be shown in square brackets.
ON THE COOLING EARTH:
Since Mr. Monckton failed to address the evidence, but implies I was duplicitous in my timing, let’s see what my video actually showed. In a speech given in Melbourne in February 2009, Mr. Monckton said: “We’ve had nine years of a global cooling trend since the first of January 2001” [Ref 1 – 4:06] — and St. Paul in October 2009: “There has been global cooling for the last eight or nine years” [ibid.].
So in my video, the period Mr. Monckton was talking about was clearly identified in his own words, as well as in the graphs he showed, and I showed the dates the speeches were made, and the studies I cited covered the same period.
[“Waiting for Global Cooling” – R. Fawcett and D. Jones, National Climate Centre, Australian Bureau of Meteorology, April 2008]
[“Statisticians reject global cooling” — Associated Press 10/26/2009 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33482750/ns/us_news-environment/]
ON THE MELTING OF GREENLAND:
Again, let’s deal with what Mr. Monckton actually said, which is what I rebutted. In a speech in St. Paul in 2009, Mr. Monckton cited a paper by Ola Johannessen, and told the audience: “What he found was that between 1992 and 2003, the average thickness of the vast Greenland ice sheet increased by two inches a year.” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbW-aHvjOgM 11:40)
No, he found no such thing. Johannessen said he only measured the interior of Greenland above 1,500 metres [1 – 11:59] In fact, he specifically warns that the very conclusion Mr Monckton reaches cannot be made: “We cannot make an integrated assessment of elevation changes… for the whole Greenland Ice Sheet, including its outlet glaciers, from these observations alone, because the marginal areas are not measured completely…. ” [“Recent Ice-Sheet Growth in the Interior of Greenland” Ola M. Johannessen et al, Science November 2005]
ON THE LOSS OF ARCTIC ICE:
Mr. Monckton claimed there is no long-term systematic loss of ice in the Arctic, and I rebutted this with studies showing a decline in Arctic summer sea-ice extent since satellite measurements began in 1979. [1 – 8:20 onwards]
Mr. Monckton’s response: “I said that the 30-year record low ice extent of 2007 had been largely reversed in 2008 and 2009.”
So, as I said, he did not tell his audience there had been a 30-year decline. Quite the opposite – he said there was no long-term decline. Mr. Monckton showed his audience a slide covering just three years, referring to the 2007 low as a “temporary loss of sea ice” which had recovered by 2009. Then he told them: “So we’re not looking at a sort of long-term systematic loss of ice in the Arctic.” [1 – 8:27]
ON THE CORRELATION BETWEEN CO2 AND GLOBAL TEMPERATURES SINCE THE CAMBRIAN:
Mr. Monckton’s conclusion about a lack of correlation rests entirely on a graph showing CO2 concentration and temperature over the last 500 million years [3 – 0:04]. The graph uses temperature data from Scotese and CO2 data from Berner. Neither researcher supports Mr. Monckton’s ‘no correlation’ conclusion. On the contrary, Berner writes: “Over the long term there is indeed a correlation between CO2 and paleotemperature, as manifested by the greenhouse effect.” [“Geocarb III: A revised model of atmospheric CO2 over Phanerozoic time” — R. Berner and Z. Kothavala, American Journal of Science, Feb 2001]
How so? Because paleoclimatologists have to factor in solar output, which has been getting stronger over time [3 – 4:45]. If the rising curve of solar output is compared to global temperatures over the phanerozoic (500 million years) there is a similar lack of correlation. But it would be absurd to draw the conclusion that the sun therefore has no effect on climate.
So when gradually rising solar output is taken into account there is a very clear correlation between CO2 and global temperatures, and the source of Mr. Monckton’s data points that out. So does another senior researcher in the field [“CO2 as a primary driver of Phanerozoic climate” — D. Royer et al, GSA Today, March 2004].
ON THE PRE-CAMBRIAN ICE PLANET:
Again, let’s look at what I showed in my video, which was a clip of Mr. Monckton himself, speaking in a debate:
“750 million years ago, a mile of ice at the equator, ice planet all round, therefore at the surface 300,000 ppm of CO2. Will you tell me how that much CO2 could have been in the atmosphere and yet allowed that amount of ice at the equator?” [3 – 5:17]
Since Mr. Monckton thinks this is a puzzle for climatologists, let’s go through the well-understood explanation step by step.
Mr. Monckton agrees with the experts that the frozen planet was due to very weak solar output (about 8% less than today.) And he agrees that the high albedo (reflectivity) of this white surface would have reflected most of what little solar warmth the Earth did receive.
But he doesn’t seem to accept that volcanoes would have continued releasing CO2 into the atmosphere of this frozen planet over millions of years, and that this eventually warmed the planet enough to unfreeze it [“CO2 levels required for deglaciation of a ‘near-snowball’ Earth” T. Crowley et al, Geophysical Research Letters, 2001]. He cites no peer-reviewed research showing why paleoclimatologists are wrong. (No, the opinion of “a leading geologist” is not the same thing.)
ON HIMALAYAN GLACIERS:
Mr. Monckton writes in his WUWT response: “the pattern of advance and retreat of these glaciers was much as it had been in the 200 years since the British Raj had been keeping records. That is very far from the same thing as saying there had been “no change””
Then let’s look at what Mr. Monckton actually said to his audience in St. Paul:
“The glaciers are showing no particular change in 200 years. The only glacier that’s declined a little is Gangoltri.” [3 – 10:20]
So is it a pattern of advance and retreat? Or no particular change? Or only one glacier retreating? Which?
In his WUWT resp onse, Mr. Monckton went on to say: “To discuss one or two retreating glaciers is not the same thing as to say or imply that only one or two glaciers have been retreating.”
But you DID say it, Mr. Monckton. Here it is again: “Only one of them [Himalayan glaciers] is retreating a little and that’s Gangoltri.”
ON MISQUOTING MURARI LAL:
Speaking about Murari Lal, the man behind the IPCC’s 2035 disappearing glaciers fiasco, Mr. Monckton told his audience there was: “….an admission that he [Lal] knew that figure was wrong but had left it in anyway because he knew that the IPCC wanted to influence governments and politicians.”[4 – 3:50]
This is not even borne out by Monckton’s own source, cited in his response, which is a quote from Lal in the Daily Mail about the 2035 date: “We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.” Nowhere does Lal say he knew the figure was erroneous.
MISQUOTING SIR JOHN HOUGHTON:
Mr. Monckton claims Houghton wrote this in the Sunday Telegraph of September 10, 1995: “Unless we announce disasters, no one will listen.” [4 – 5:50]
And I maintain Houghton wrote: “If we want a good environmental policy in the future, we’ll have to have a disaster. It’s like safety on public transport. The only way humans will act is if there’s been an accident.”
Who is right? Well, both Mr. Monckton and I have exactly the same source [Sunday Telegraph, September 10, 1995], but I actually show an image of it in my video [4 – 7:24]. Take a look. Even though it turns out my quote is correct and Mr. Monckton’s is clearly a gross misquote, he still insists in his WUWT response that he got the quote right.
ON HIS CLAIMS ABOUT THE ROLE OF THE SUN…
Mr. Monckton showed and quoted an extract from a paper by Sami Solanki: “The level of solar activity during the past 70 years is exceptional, and the previous period of equally high activity occurred more than 8,000 years ago. We find that during the past 11,400 years the sun spent only of the order of 10% of the time at a similarly high level of magnetic activity and almost all of the earlier high-activity periods were shorter than the present episodoes on to come.” [5 – 1:21 onwards]
That could suggest the sun is a likely culprit for recent warming. But why didn’t Mr. Monckton tell or show his audience what Solanki wrote in the very next line?
“Although the rarity of the current episode of high average sunspot numbers may indicate that the Sun has contributed to the unusual climate change during the twentieth century, we point out that solar variability is unlikely to have been the dominant cause of the strong warming during the past three decades.” [“Unusual activity of the Sun during recent decades compared to the last 11,000 years” — S.K. Solanki et al, Nature Sep 2004]
ON THE ROLE OF THE SUN IN RECENT WARMING:
Mr. Monckton said: “The solar physicists – you might take Scafetta and West, say, in 2008, they attribute 69% of all the recent global warming to the sun.” [5 – 3:48]
No, they don’t. In my video [5 – 4:32] I showed the actual document Mr. Monckton refers to (an opinion piece) where Scafetta and West wrote: “We estimate that the sun could account for as much as 69% of the increase in the Earth’s average temperature.” [“Is climate sensitive to solar variability?” Nicola Scafetta and Bruce J. West, Physics Today March 2008]
I hope we all understand the difference between “69%” and “as much as 69%.” But what about all those other “solar physicists” who purportedly support Monckton’s position? Well, they don’t. Solanki’s figure is up to just 30%, Erlykin less than 14%, Bernstad 7%, Lean ‘negligable’and Lockwood –1.3% [5 — 4:40]
[4:41 “Can solar variability explain global warming since 1970?”– S. K. Solanki and N. A. Krivova, Journal of Geophysical Research, May 2003]
[“Solar Activity and the Mean Global Temperature”
A.D. Erlykin et al, Physics Geo 2009]
[“Solar trends and global warming” — R. Benestad and G. Schmidt, Journal of Geophysical Research” July 2009]
[“How natural and anthropogenic influences alter global and regional surface temperatures: 1889 to 2006” J. Lean and D. Rind, Geophysical Research Letters, Sep 2008]
[“Recent changes in solar outputs and the global mean surface temperature. III. Analysis of contributions to global mean air surface temperature rise” — M. Lockwood, June 2008]
Mr. Monckton then asserts that the International Astronomical Union (IAU) agrees with this conclusion (that the sun is largely responsible for recent warming.) After he had been confronted during a TV interview with the plain fact that it didn’t [5 – 5:49 “Meet the Climate Sceptics” BBC TV Feb 2011], Monckton gave a reason for the error in his WUWT response:
“I cited a paper given by Dr. Habibullo Abdussamatov at the 2004 symposium of the IAU in St. Petersburg, Fla, but put “IAU” at the foot of the slide rather than Dr. Abdussamatov’s name.”
Maybe so. But that doesn’t explain why Mr. Monckton continued to make exactly the same claim elsewhere. At St. Paul he said:
“Most solar physicists agree [that the sun is largely responsible for recent warming]. The International Astronomical Union in 2004 had a symposium on it, they concluded that that was the case.” [Monckton rebuttal – WUWT 16:27]
And in his film ‘Apocalypse No!’ a slide headed ‘International Astronomical Union Symposium in 2004’ was shown to an audience, along with its main conclusions. Third on the list, Monckton read: “The sun caused today’s global warming.”
Monckton told the audience: “This is not my conclusion, this is the conclusion of the International Astronomical Union Symposium in 2004. This is what they said, this is not me talking here.” [Monckton rebuttal – WUWT 16:34]
Mr. Monckton has to accept that this claim is completely spurious. This is why he dislikes detailed examinations of his sources. While he takes every opportunity to debate on stage, where his speaking skills are essential and his assertions can’t be checked, an online debate is far tougher, because every paper and fact CAN be checked. So come on, Mr. Monckton, let’s debate this on WUWT to see which of us has correctly read your sources.
The rebuttals I made are not “inconsequential aspects of my talks” as Mr. Monckton claims; they include almost every major topic he covers, from the melting of Arctic and glacial ice, to the role of the sun and the correlation between CO2 and temperature. His only recourse in his WUWT response was therefore to call me names, attack my character and my competence, and question my financing and my motivation… anything but answer the documentary evidence I presented. And then he adds one more error — a ridiculous claim that I asked my “small band of followers” to “check the scientific literature for themselves to establish that the Earth has been warming and that CO2 is “largely responsible.”
Since I can’t establish that myself, I certainly wouldn’t advise other amateurs to have a go. So I ask Mr. Monckton to cite the source for this claim, sure in the knowledge that once again we will see a yawning gap between what the source actually says (in this case, me) and what Mr. Monckton claims it says.
References: (Hadfield’s own videos)
1 — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbW-aHvjOgM
2 — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTY3FnsFZ7Q
3 — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpF48b6Lsbo
4 — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3giRaGNTMA
5 — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRCyctTvuCo
Regarding Greenland melting. Rutgers U seems to think it is turning white.
http://notrickszone.com/2012/01/10/rutgers-university-greenland-snow-cover-expanding-since-1967-turning-white/
Lord Monckton,
I realize that you’re a Peer, or a Blue-Blood line Royal, but you are a bona fide Lord.
So, how many peers does The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley have, and could they muster a decent peer review for a science mag? I don’t want to spark class envy or class warfare in the scientific ranks, but few have enough standing to hold your coat tails.
As a tough-as-nuts US DoD scientist specializing in Modeling, Simulation, & Analysis, and also a (former active duty) US Marine, I salute you! You are a valiant warrior!
Oops! I meant “not a Peer, or a Blue-Blood Royal” My lost word throws the whole post out of whack!
Lord Monckton said:
” I hope shortly to be in a position to demonstrate formally that climate sensitivity is unarguably little more than one-third of the IPCC’s central estimate.”
______
I shall very much enjoy reading or watching your demonstation of this. Especially, I will be interested in how you can conclude that transient sensitivity is “nearly equal” to equilibrium sensitivity, and hope that you show all your various research into the various potential long term earth systems that will affect eventual equalibrium sensitivity. As we don’t yet even know (and likely won’t, as CO2 levels continue to climb as several ppm per year) what the equalibrium sensitivity is to 390 ppm, we can’t possibly know what the equalibrium sensitivity will be to a doubling of CO2. Certainly there no simple scaling factor that you can plug into a formula that will let you know what a final equalibrium sensitivity is as the respsonse to each little nudge that we give the atmosphere is non-linear, and likely to be, much like the entrance to and exit from the Younger Dryas, a jump to a new state.
At any rate, I shall look forward greatly to your paper on sensitivity, and hope greatly that you are not simply talking about transient sensitivity, as it not the most important part of the issue.
The potholer-caveman would not be called ‘A Physicist’ would he? Sounds like the same level of expertise to me….
It’s a propaganda war, probably financed by Big Green.
German subsidized wind energy broke a record in electricity production in NOV/DEC 2011, nearly toppling the Czech grid over as we were swamping them with the surplus production. A lot of vested interests.(*)
Warmism is a billion dollar business due to the renewables subsidies; and they will keep fighting tooth and nail against anyone who threatens their revenue.
(*) German pro-wind power article celebrating it:
http://www.feelgreen.de/stuermische-tage-rekord-fuer-die-windenergie/id_52945244/index
Lubos with the Czech perspective:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2012/01/canada-greece-iran-germany.html#more
Lord Monckton, you don’t suffer fools gladly, and it is a pleasure to watch you open the can of logic whoop-ass on the caveman. I’d say you nuked him back to the stone age, but I believe that was his starting point.
Christopher
Funny how “potholer” has not taken the time to go after Mann and YAD061. Funny how he has not gone into Mann’s splicing techniques Funny no mention of GISS adjustments. No mention of CRU’s dog eating the data under Jones direction. Just a no fact attack on you via YouTube, He seems to pine for the limelight.
Thank You for all of your efforts.
Terry
Why do I find potholer so hard to listen to?
Just brilliant (as usual) Lord Christopher,
There are two visuals that spring to mind, that throws mud in the eyes of the warmistas when the melting of Greenland is brought up:-
Glacier Girl, a P38 ditched in 1942, buried under 25 storeys of ice in Greenland
http://p38assn.org/glacier-girl.htm
DEW line stations buried under ice in Greenland (Watts Up With That)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/30/the-ice-in-greenland-is-growing/
Jeff
Only $250,000 to silence Lord Monckton! seems much too small an amount. Cheap skates will have to try harder. 😎 pg
R. Gates says:
January 11, 2012 at 8:34 pm
So R., you’re telling us NONE of your sacred models attempt this? I can’t believe it!
(Note: if they do not, then those models are worthless, are they not?)
Christopher, well done as usual. Of course, most of this has already been rebutted. Potheader was never taken seriously, at least by rational people.
Now, I’ve come up with something which may interest you and the people here. Using Colorado University’s technique, to wit, integrating various scientifically derived datum, to give us sea level rise, We can see it manifested here….. http://sealevel.colorado.edu/files/2011_rel4/sl_global.png, I’ve devised a true decadal temp signal using the same methodology. We can see it here….. http://suyts.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/image_thumb11.png?w=574&h=420 My goodness! There must have been a shift of some sort and now the earth’s temps is inversely correlated to atmospheric CO2!!!!!
Seriously though, if the ice in Greenland is melting as they claim, then [that] water went somewhere. I believe many of us have been looking in the wrong place for the answers. Now, I’ve heard that some scientists have posited that the extra water manifested itself as rainfall, but only on terra firma and that we’ll see the sea level rise later. I don’t believe this to be the case. I think the atmosphere holds a variable amount of water. And I believe it is held in different forms in the atmosphere. Sadly, I’m at a loss as to how to proceed with the hypothesis.
R Gates – you say “As we don’t yet even know (and likely won’t, as CO2 levels continue to climb as several ppm per year) what the [equilibrium] sensitivity is to 390 ppm, we can’t possibly know what the equalibrium sensitivity will be to a doubling of CO2.“.
BS. It’s given in the IPCC report.
R. Gates says: January 11, 2012 at 8:34 pm
“equalibrium sensitivity.”….”equalibrium sensitivity”…….”equalibrium sensitivity”….
Even in Japan nobody around me (in chemistry/chemical engineering) writes “equalibrium” for “equilibrium”. Let me suspect that your major is far from natural science/engineering, though that doesn’t affect the quality of your comments.
[Usually, readers try not to criticize/criticise misspelling errors.. 8<) That is, unless you want to pay the mods more …. Robt]
Once again Christopher Monckton is both informative and entertaining…… He is the bane of the ecofascists. They handle the truth so poorly, that any mention of it offends them greatly. As for poor ol’ Caveman, he digs his pothole ever deeper in desperation…. Facts young fella, you need facts. No point digging past them…..;-)
I think you may have to wait in line — it sounds like a number of studies are finally being actually accepted for publication that indicate that the data so far already suffices to exclude the extreme limit of the climate sensitivity, and at this point the only question is determining the new best upper bounds. 1/3 sounds about right, given recent WUWT publications and discussions. But that’s still just an upper bound, pending models that actually work.
I also completely agree with your final conclusion. Even if you are wrong, and climate sensitivity is larger, doing “nothing” except continuing to support the technological development of improved e.g. solar technologies is enough to stave off almost any plausible future disaster. Solar PV technology is within a decade of break even to win a bit in favorable geographical zones already, and sheer economics will push carbon-based fuel utilization long before we hit any critical point if we do nothing but help the basic science and pilot projects along (the same way that we do many other areas of potential value in science and engineering).
rgb
Hi pothoer54,(who must read this blog) Please consider changing you name to mm54 (monckton’s mincemeat54) Mind 54 is an underestimate of course but we can’t get everything right can we?
Mike Jonas says:
January 11, 2012 at 9:44 pm
R Gates – you say “As we don’t yet even know (and likely won’t, as CO2 levels continue to climb as several ppm per year) what the [equilibrium] sensitivity is to 390 ppm, we can’t possibly know what the equalibrium sensitivity will be to a doubling of CO2.“.
BS. It’s given in the IPCC report.
——–
That was a good one…funny stuff.
Sneering at bible colleges is just a ….cheap, cheap shot. Ditto the reference to “Nowheresville”.
I wish Monckton would let us know which American “bible colleges” are the sources of criticism against him. Last time I checked, such criticism has come from such secular and high-toned schools as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc.
When “Mr. Blifil” gets done sniffing into his perfumed hanky, I hope he will deign to reply.
Methinks the learned and lordly Monckton does not understand that we colonials do not take kindly to HEREDITARY (aka genetically debilitated and socially/politically) English “nobility” pissing all over us Yanks.
So FRACK YOU, sir! by which, of course, I mean “inject copious amounts of high-pressure water up your anus, sirrah!”
(which is a shame, inasmuch as Monckton’s arguments “on the merits” against the AGW crowd are spot-on).
but — next time you folks here on WUWT deal with him, remember this: he’s a snob. A solid-gold electro-magnetic English upper-class-twit snob. Genuflecting in his direction only makes him despise you more.
As a committed believer that freedom of religion, speech, conscience etc is a human right I am obligated to participate in this debate. Daily the media inundates us with a campaign of fear that the climate future, and thus the world, is doomed by human success. While pollution, gluttonous consumerism, and the incredible greed of the elite class are serious threats, the efficient use of fossil fuels possibly leaving us with a slightly warmer and more productive planet, should properly be regarded as blessings. The debate is deadly serious, if the UN are permitted to lead us to their future, humanity can only weaken and diminish. It is our duty to always fight for our childrens future.
RockyRoad says:
January 11, 2012 at 9:36 pm
R. Gates says:
January 11, 2012 at 8:34 pm
… As we don’t yet even know (and likely won’t, as CO2 levels continue to climb as several ppm per year) what the equalibrium sensitivity is to 390 ppm, we can’t possibly know what the equalibrium sensitivity will be to a doubling of CO2. Certainly there no simple scaling factor that you can plug into a formula that will let you know what a final equalibrium sensitivity is as the respsonse to each little nudge that we give the atmosphere is non-linear, and likely to be, much like the entrance to and exit from the Younger Dryas, a jump to a new state.
So R., you’re telling us NONE of your sacred models attempt this? I can’t believe it!
(Note: if they do not, then those models are worthless, are they not?)
———–
They do not do so exceptionally well, IMO, but it doesn’t make them “worthless”– except perhaps in the minds of skeptics. Earth-system or true equilibrium sensitivity taking all slow feedbacks into account along with any potential jumps to new climate states is impossible, as even the full feedbacks of just one part- such as clouds, is so impossible complex that we may never get a handle on all the details. But the models are still useful. Personally, I think the best combination is looking at any data we can from time periods with similar CO2 levels to our own, and the comparing those finding to what the models say might exist in such time periods. By studying the paleodata, we are in essence aleady looking at the final equilibrium sensitivity to a given forcing. We may not know the exact path the climate system took to get to the equilibrium point, but if the paleodata begins to merge with what the models say, we might be capturing most of the feedbacks.
A minor correction: I should have said , “Genuflecting in his general direction only makes him despise you more.”
Anthony I am going to be fairly blunt here and if you or the Mods choose to strike this post I will not take it amiss. It’s your blog.
Before starting I would remind you that in most jurisdictions based on English law, which includes the USA, there is a distinction between defamation, I cannot call XYZ a crook, it is against the law, but I can say XYZ is a twerp because that is mere Vulgar Abuse and is not actionable.
So I am going to choose my words very carefully.
It happens that I know both these persons although of course of latter years we only meet occasionally in passing in some bunfight or another in London Town. And I seldom visit London Town these days.
Monckton is actually a very clever man, perhaps too clever for his own good. He always had a rather inflated view of his own importance.That he now goes about the world preaching his doctrine does not bother me. Did not Al Gore do it before him? And if he makes a penny or two, well that is show business.
As for potholer 54. Do you not love that beautiful BBC accent?. And the splendidly polished manners? Not to mention his elegant nitpicking and supposed precision. The epitome of a balanced report you might say. If you belong to the BBC, or possibly the Guardian.
Well let me tell you this boy is a **** of the very first water. A nastier piece of work you would have to go a long way to find. Forget the superb diction, the apparent courtesy, the overall air of being reasonable. There are such creatures upon the face of the earth, I imagine there have always have been, and always will be.
It reminds me of a wonderful Punch cartoon,a humorous English magazine, some hundred years ago, At that time there was much concern amongst the upper and middle classes about what you in the USA would call the yellow press. In England it was called the gutter press.
Anyway there is a Journalist standing in the effluvia which ran down the streets in those days saying to the passers by ‘ Another halfpenny and I’ll roll in it for yer.’
And you think times have changed?
Kindest Regards.
Anna Lemma says:
January 11, 2012 at 10:09 pm
Sneering at bible colleges is just a ….cheap, cheap shot. Ditto the reference to “Nowheresville”.
=========================================================
Anna, don’t get all huffy…… It was a professor Abraham, and it was a horrible misrepresentation of Christopher’s statements. It was vile, but Abraham’s video went virile in the alarmist world, and that was back when there were more than just the handful that remains. I believe the college is called St. Thomas….. at any rate, its old news, but like most of us, Christopher probably doesn’t forget unwarranted personal attacks. It was quite a time. It ended with the professor being forced to delete some of his more egregious misrepresentations. About 10 minutes worth as I recall.
You can read about it here…… http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/14/abraham-climbs-down/
Must have been tough to decide whether to respond to this guy. The threshold was met, and you gave back more than you got. Nice one.
Caveman is praised at http://www.good.is/post/peter-hadfield-has-an-excellent-youtube-channel where it is claimed he is converting skeptics. “Converting”? Is Caveman building a Jonestown for the faithful to flock to?
That is was a writer for New Scientist is one of the reasons I stopped reading it after 40 years. Absolutely unbearable warmist bilge.
R Gates: why to you persist in tapping the keys when you have nothing to say? You apparently have learned enough to be able to say that the sensitivity is unknown, yet you hardly ever fail to promote rising CO2 as the primary driver of temperature. 40% and all that. Methinks you should seek a new audience who does not about that putative connection.
Your own noosed petard now hangs over you: ‘several ppm per year’. That is your forecast, is it? How many is ‘several’? Let’s see what happens in the coming years. And the temperature implications? Got a figure there too, or just generalised warmist porridge?
Monckton: as always I look forward enthusiastically to your written works. Thanks for rolling a rock across the troglodyte’s door.
R. Gates says:
January 11, 2012 at 10:19 pm
“We may not know the exact path the climate system took to get to the equilibrium point, but if the paleodata begins to merge with what the models say, we might be capturing most of the feedbacks.”
Getting the right number for the wrong reason out of a model that you have tweaked to achieve exactly that is
a) futile
b) tautological
c) something that the people inclined to do that should fund out of their own pockets.
d) one should stop calling them scientists. Crackpots is nice, snappy, easy to remember and fits the bill perfectly.
Let me guess Anna, you attended a fourth-rate bible college in some nowheresville. feeling a bit touchy?
DirkH says:
January 11, 2012 at 10:47 pm
“Getting the right number for the wrong reason out of a model that you have tweaked to achieve exactly that is”
Or to clarify further: There is an infinite number of models that will deliver you the right hindcasting.
Robert Brown says: ………….Solar PV technology is within a decade of break even to win a bit in favorable geographical zones already, …………..
==================================================
lol, good one! It sure is! In thinly populated desert areas, and it will produce electricity when the need is at the lowest! Sorry, just couldn’t help myself……….. but, yes, I agree, long before atmospheric CO2 would do anything drastic, our fuels and energy will have changed to where it won’t be a problem anyway.
“Monckton says there has been no correlation between temperature and CO2 for the past 500 million years. There has.” Well, there has in the past few thousand years, but the correlation since the Cambrian era has been spectacularly poor, as the slide (from a peer-reviewed paper) that the caveman fleetingly shows me using at that point demonstrates very clearly. For most of that long period, global temperatures were about 7 Celsius degrees warmer than the present: yet CO2 concentration has inexorably declined throughout the period.
Perhaps the “correlation” between historic CO2 and temperature is the REALLY strong one shown in this data:
http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/289/logwarmingpaleoclimate.png
(Note the idiotic curve-fits – the real regression here is clearly zero except at the far left end. The problem for humanity is not too much CO2 but too little.)
Jas Sexton …
“Seriously though, if the ice in Greenland is melting as they claim, then [that] water went somewhere. I believe many of us have been looking in the wrong place for the answers. ”
Ever thought about the moisture holding capacity of the (co2 induced) expanding biosphere ?
e.g. all those peat bogs !, sahel, my garden !
I see you repeat Plimer’s Neoproterozoic dolomite/CO2/mile-high glaciers connection yet again.
a) his CO2 estimate is wayyyy too high
b) the dolomites are cap carbonates. They lie with unconformity upon the tillites (the glacial deposits). What they record is sea-level rise following deglaciation. If you or other readers here wish to discover more, use Google Scholar and “cap carbonates” for an interesting afternoon of reading.
Anna Lemma says:
January 11, 2012 at 10:35 pm
A minor correction: I should have said , “Genuflecting in his general direction only makes him despise you more.”
Anna, I have seen no indication of his despising any group, but after reading your comment he may feel inclined to do some French Monte Python something, in your general direction.
Cheers, and points to you Anna for dislikeing someone but still seeing the veracity of their comments.
should be Biomass not biosphere !
The bit about temperature and CO2 levels being correlated gave me a thought: Given that there’s an 800-year time lag and that Temperature leads CO2 timewise in this correlation — perhaps we can blame the Medieval Warming Period on the Industrial revolution!
MODERATOR: Can you kill the above post under WISE Math, or switch the user to my name [OK, I’ve tied myself in knots over this one. Please just submit the comment again. -REP]
JeffT says:
January 11, 2012 at 9:32 pm
Just brilliant (as usual) Lord Christopher,
There are two visuals that spring to mind, that throws mud in the eyes of the warmistas when the melting of Greenland is brought up:-
Glacier Girl, a P38 ditched in 1942, buried under 25 storeys of ice in Greenland
http://p38assn.org/glacier-girl.htm
DEW line stations buried under ice in Greenland (Watts Up With That)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/30/the-ice-in-greenland-is-growing/
Jeff
Back in 2001 I had Directv installed after not having cable for about 5 years. I gravitated towards National Geographic channel. I remember three instances where the programs (none having nothing to do with climate) as an aside would attribute some event to global warming. If someone’s ice was melting in their drink it was global warming. Slight exaggeration but only slight. This occurring only in two or three weeks of having cable again. Well then comes the documentary on the melting out of the P-38s of 250 feet of ice. As I recall they said 30 feet of snow a year for fifty years. The 30 feet a year eventually compacts into five feet of ice. Not one friggin mention of global warming! I recounted this on a news forum probably about 2 years later. Recently (last couple months) I saw someone mention the P-38 documentary on fark.com and the lack of any mention in the documentary about global warming. As we know now it’s now called climate change and what that is is anything they find advantageous to attribute to it.
I usually stay away from NatGeo now for that reason but I was watching a documentary on the Eskimos hunting Bowhead whales. I knew at some point they would proselytize about climate change and they didn’t fail. The first mention was the obvious; ice is melting. Apparently, ice never melted before in the warming season. Second was the whales that the Eskimos rely on are doing quite well after nearly being hunted to extinction. I knew they weren’t going to leave it there less someone get the wrong impression that climate calamity wasn’t sticking its nose into their survival. They brought up something about Killer whales and Walruses migrating further north due to their climate bogeyman and are impinging on the whales’ territory. Stay Tuned!
[snip. Clean up the language. ~dbs, mod.]
O/T from South Africa: http://sawdis1.blogspot.com/2012/01/storm-over-weather-law.html
Quote: “A storm is brewing over the government’s bid to severely punish those who issue severe weather warnings without official sanction.
The proposed SA Weather Service Amendment Bill makes it illegal to issue such warnings without written permission from the weather service, and those found guilty could face fines of up to R5 million or five years’ jail.
In the case of a second or subsequent conviction, a fine of up to R10m or 10 years’ jail will apply.”
Nothing in government works, and privateers such as SAWDOS are the only reliable warnings many could receive if needed. The proposed law is stupid and will kill people, how can we undermine this silliness?
Any ideas would be appreciated.
Back to regular programming, thanks 🙂
So who is the snob anna lemma?
You are the one attacking someone on the basis of his social class.
” solid-gold electro-magnetic”
errm … is that even possible?
You’re referring, as your next paragraph makes clear, to Lal. But he held a higher rank than lead author in the Asia Group; he was a co-ordinating lead author, one of four. There were many more lead authors. The lowest rank is author, aka contributing author. Donna Laframboise explains the hierarchy in chapter 4 of her book, “The Delinquent Teenager …”, at page 10, location 142.
zefal says:
January 11, 2012 at 11:54 pm
I, too, wait for anything and everything in most programmes on the subject to include some reference to global warming, climate change or the general evils of mankind and am seldom disappointed.
However, on the discovery channel last Sunday (in the uk), I watched, with amazement, a programme called ‘What’s Under America’. It was enthusiastically presented by Martin Sheen, and was an unashamed celebration of the part coal, oil, steel and industrial style wheat production play(ed) in the success of America as a nation. NO mention of climate change, or even pollution. Workers in these industries were interviewed and shared their pride in bringing power, construction and food to their fellow countrymen. Astonishing stuff! I am still wondering how it got aired………….
Mike Bromley the Canucklehead says:
January 11, 2012 at 8:48 pm
Why do I find potholer so hard to listen to?
Probably because he talks out of his pothole? 😉
“Monckton says there’s no systematic loss of sea-ice in the Arctic. There is.” No, I said that the 30-year record low ice extent of 2007 had been largely reversed in 2008 and 2009. The caveman, if he were capable of checking these or any data, would find this to be so. In fact, he knew this to be so, because the slide I was showing at that point in his video, taken from the University of Illinois’ Cryosphere monitoring program, shows it. Of course, the slide was only in the background of his video and was shown only for a few seconds. Since that particular talk of mine the Arctic sea ice has declined again and came close to its 2007 low in 2011. But it is arguable from the descriptions of melting Arctic ice in 1922 that there may have been less sea ice in the Arctic then than now.
Why, Mr Monckton (shall I call you “trogolodyte”, in keeping with your use of “caveman”?), did you even bother making the statement about the supposed reversal of the 2007 minimum in 2008 and 2009? Didn’t you think to yourself, neanderthal, that perhaps you should wait until an actual trend emerged instead of going off half cocked about a recovery? Or did you think about it, apeman, and then decide to do it any way?
CO2 is irrelevant to climate: http://motls.blogspot.com/2012/01/will-co2-save-us-from-next-ice-age.html
Anna Lemma is suffering from what used to be called “inverted snobbery” in the UK. It was largely because the ill educated working classes were not allowed a sense of their own value in the nineteenth century, through oppression by the moneyed classes. As money invariably led to elevation to the peerage this inferiority complex was was transferred to those who held titles. Happily since then, education has become universal and people from all areas of life can be educated and have a sense of their own self worth. Unhappily, some people, such as Anna Lemma, never acheived any appreciation of their own value as a human being and continue to denigrate others as a substitute for their own lack of acheivement.. Shame really.
In the mud, all around. Move along.
“Monckton says he advised Margaret Thatcher on climate change. He didn’t.” I did.
In order to be believed you will need to show proof.
“And of course there are scientists who say CO2 is “largely responsible” for the warming: that is the principal conclusion of the IPCC’s 2007 report, reached on the basis of a fraudulent statistical abuse:”
An allegation of fraudulent practice by the IPPC.
Prove it.
“comparison of the slopes of multiple arbitrarily-chosen trend-lines on the global-temperature dataset falsely to suggest that “global warming” is accelerating and that it is our fault.”
Prove it. Show proof that the data was used falsely.
‘ but Abraham’s video went virile in the alarmist world, ‘~ James Sexton
Ohhhh, James. I don’t think they’d publish the joke that just came to mind….
“For instance, after a speech by me in in the US in October 2009 went viral and received a million YouTube hits in a week (possibly the fastest YouTube platinum ever for a speech), a Texan professor who monitors the seamier side of the internet got in touch to tell me that someone had paid the operators of various search engines a sum that he estimated at not less than $250,000 to enhance the page rankings of some two dozen specially-created web-pages containing meaningless jumbles of symbols among which the word “Monckton video” appeared.”
Is there any proof or evidence for this or is it just hearsay from one of your friends.
A Lovell says:
January 12, 2012 at 1:03 am
Just looked it up and it originally aired in the US on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. That might have had something to do with its positive disposition & being devoid of any hectoring. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z93Wh3toE1k
I swear I’m not a cynic!
James Sexton says:
January 11, 2012 at 10:39 pm
Anna, don’t get all huffy……
———————————————-
No, she’s right, he should know better and we should expect better behaviour from a nobleman, it’s unwarranted to make a sweeping attack on bible colleges just because a moonbat is employed there. The Viscount should be aware that, those who don’t believe in God will believe anything, and if anyone is going to overturn AGW it will be evangelicals, whatever their failings.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/14/abraham-climbs-down/ shows in particular that St Thomas even convinced Abraham to withdraw some oh his lies, so it’s doubtful even his college should be condemned.
I read both sides of debates about climate change in bloggs and I also read the scientific literature. Whenever a writer mentions Monctkton or Plimmer as an authority, I only continue reading if I am in the mood for a good laugh. I can’t understand anyone who find either of these people a credible source of information about climate.
Glin says:
January 12, 2012 at 12:06 am
Of course, you were there and you know he’s lying, you tell ’em how it was! [These people are seriously disturbed.]
zefal says:
January 12, 2012 at 2:20 am
Ah………….!
Still, with Martin Sheen being a ‘robust liberal’ I’m still surprised. A baby step in the right direction perhaps?
I have yet to watch the rest of the series.
As expected, you misrepresent the criticisms, invent wild fantasies, and even deny that you said things which you appear saying in the videos.
“Monckton says he advised Margaret Thatcher on climate change. He didn’t.” – actually, you claimed more specifically to have been Margaret Thatcher’s science policy adviser. You weren’t.
Your search engine claim certainly never happened. It’s obviously completely made up.
And yes, video evidence shows you saying that Arctic ice was not declining. Denying that you said that is absurd.
“Monckton says there has been no correlation between temperature and CO2 for the past 500 million years. There has.” Well, there has in the past few thousand years, but the correlation since the Cambrian era has been spectacularly poor, as the slide (from a peer-reviewed paper) that the caveman fleetingly shows me using at that point demonstrates very clearly. For most of that long period, global temperatures were about 7 Celsius degrees warmer than the present: yet CO2 concentration has inexorably declined throughout the period
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
I really question whether there is any correlation between CO2 levels and temperature in either geological time scales or recent time scales as detailed in the instrument record.
If you have a proposition that CO2 controls temperature and as a matter of basic physics increases in CO2 levels inexorably leads to an increase in temperature (and conversely decreases in CO2 levels inexorably leads to a decrease in temperature) then when you see a stagnation of temperature notwithstanding changes in CO2 levels this suggests a lack of correlation. More significantly, should you see examples of trends which run opposite to the proposition (ie., rising CO2 levels and falling temperatures, or falling CO2 levels but rising temperatures) then alarm bells should be ringing since this is anti- correlation.
Of course, if that happened only once or may be twice there may be valid expanations as to why observation ois not correlating with the proposition, The point is though that on each and every occassion where there is no correlation an explanation as to why the basic proposition is not correlating with observation is required.
In the geological past, there have been many instances when CO2 levels have incresed and temperatures have remained static. Likewise where CO2 levels have fallen and temperatures have remained static. More significantly, there have been a number of occassions when CO2 levels have risen and yet temperatures have fallen and occassions where CO2 levels have fallen and yet temperatures have risen. There have been many examples of anti- correlation. Yet further still, and this is fundamnetal, even to the extent that there have been similarities in trend, it would now appear that CO2 lags temperature changes by 600 to 1000 years. To me all of this put together does not suggest correlation. Some similarities may be, coorrelation NO.
The same can be seen in the instrument record post 1850. It is only for a short period beteen mid/late 1970s and 2000 that temperatures and CO2 have risien largely in unison. But in the instrument record as a whole, there is no correlation. There are temperature rises before any significant changes in CO2 levels took place. There is a fall in temperature between mid 1940s and 1970s despite the rapid rise in CO2 levles and of course, there is the present hiatus during the last 10 to 15 years where temperatures have largely flat lined notwithstanding increases in CO2 levels.
I consider that a proper scrutin of both these records (and there is problems with both the geological and instrument record) suggests that there is no proper correlation. It is one of the great PR successes that the warmists have managed to get accross the message that there is correlation beween temperature and CO2 levels when a proper scruting of the record suggests that assertion is wron or at any rate seriously questionable.
[Using multiple screen names violate site Policy. ~dbs, mod.]
i used to put ants in a jar and shake them but this is much more grown up. 🙂
Mike Jonas says:
January 11, 2012 at 9:44 pm
BS. It’s given in the IPCC report.
True dat.
Seems someone has a lot of time to waste. Perhaps if he tried to do something productive, he would not have so much time to waste.
How does caveman explainthe story of “The Lost Squadron” a flight of aircraft that were left on the Greenland plateau in 1942, and recovered in recent years from under 268 ft of new ice? 25 stories of new ice in 60 years. This is what a receding glacier does? Sounds like the polar bear story, there were around 5000 in the 1950’s now there are 25,000 and in peril.
Lew Skannen says:
January 12, 2012 at 12:41 am
” solid-gold electro-magnetic”
errm … is that even possible?
——————————————————–
Placing a conductor inside an electromagnet would dramatically reduce its effectiveness, possibly making it useless. So a loose translation would be “rich and useless”. A nice dig on par with the Bible College from Nowheresville.
Rants are contagious.
There is an entire webpage devoted to the Battle between “Professor” Abraham and Lord Monckton at the Fraudulent Climate website. * Both versions of Abraham’s Adobe Presentations may be viewed together with Monckton’s responses on the same webpage.
* You can view an Abraham’s Presentation, and pause it at the appropriate point and scroll down to read moncktons answer, or view a video rebuttal of what Abraham alleges. Then hear Abraham next point and so on. Beware the loud guitar music at the start/end of the Monckton Videos. (is that Monckton himself on the Spanish Accoustic ?).
IMHO Abraham was prompted into giving his first assault by a third party, then when embarrassed by Monckton’s written reply, he altered his diatribe somewhat, in an attempt at mitigation, however he was soundly trounced by the video series of Monckton later on, and has not responded since, so far as I am aware. Abraham is shown to be a cantankerous and egregious egotist.
I propose a new addition to the “Mr. Men” family.
– “Mr. Smug” (apologies to Roger Hargreaves)
http://www.stthomas.edu/engineering/images/FacultyStaff/abrahamJohn.jpg
* Those presentations may take a VERY LONG time to load – perhaps even 5 minutes or more
See the webpage Monckton & Abraham from the QUICK PAGE MENU droplist at the website of “The Fraudulent Climate of Hokum Science”. (Click the name “Axel” above”)……
R. Gates on another thread says: “The upshot of all this, it could very well be that transient sensitivity is around 1.5C for a doubling of CO2″
R. Gates on this thread says: ..”we can’t possibly know what the equalibrium sensitivity will be to a doubling of CO2.”
Mr. Gates maybe you should not throw out numbers at all since you seem to be conflicted about what we know and what we “can’t possibly know”.
Lord M. :
I’m performing in a Choral service this weekend, with the 75 members of the primary student choir from what could be considered a “Bible College” (although it is fully certified as a Liberal Arts school, and runs cooperative programs with the U of MN and puts out Engineers, Chemists, Math Grads, etc..) Most of the young folks there are complete “Skeptics” on the AWG.
I tried tracking down Peter Hadfield, I found NO particular qualifications, except a “former science writer for New Science” or the like. Since I have a MINOR interest in the generic slaying of “Bible Colleges” from “Nowheresville” MN, I’d like to resolve that “association”. (I think, perhaps it is in error.” )
If it is the University of St. Thomas, that is a Jesuit school, Catholic background. Completely,, hopelessly left/liberal. And I would not count it as a “Bible College”. And as far as “Nowheresville” goes, if you ever need heart surgery (I PRAY not, really, I admire you so!) Just remember almost all “open heart” work was developed at the University of MN, during the 1950’s, where Christian Barnard received his advanced medical training.
I discussed with potholer54 many times under his videos. He is arrogant, dishonest, misrepresenting, very closed-minded and not objective at all.
Potholer54 claims his videos are about science, but they are not. Yes, cherrypicked science. In case of the Monckton videos they are a 100% pure attack on Monckton’s personality and not about the science Monckton is presenting. He refuses to deal with the reality about CO2 sensitivity.
Potholer54 also claims to be a science journalist, but any good journalist would quickly discover that climate science by the establishment is corrupt to the core.
Potholer54 therefore is no better than Samuel Wilberforce.
The bit about temperature and CO2 levels being correlated gave me a thought: Given that there’s an 800-year time lag and that Temperature leads CO2 timewise in this correlation — perhaps we can blame the Medieval Warming Period on the Industrial revolution!
Lord M, you may not be a non-peer but you are peerless. I always enjoy your writings, whether they comprise thrust or parry — or both.
(PS Thanks for the help REP!)
If it appeared on the web, it was Google-able … have you looked?
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Dear Lord Monckton,
I suspect you probably wish to think of yourself as a humble servant of the people, but you still ought to use your hereditary title in your byline. Our beleaguered world is in need of aristocracy, and you sir are a true aristocrat.
@ Matt: Our beleaguered world is in need of aristocracy, and you sir are a true aristocrat.
Agree!
I always wondered what would it be the characteristic of a “noble man”, and recently found that the answer to this question is: A person who can not betray its principles and convictions.
Have you noticed that ALL those who are behind these scams are either “useful fools” or who sell their “sold” to the “devil”?
That is why, too, they are the chosen ones, the unconditional servants or butlers of those who undeservedly aspire to achieve “Global Governance” for optimizing and maximizing their profits, obtained not from their own work but from the efforts of others.
So, My Lord, you should not forget the real objective of your noble efforts: To make possible the return of the traditional hierarchical and divine order and to throw out the merchants from the temple.
Anna Lemma says:
January 11, 2012 at 10:09 pm
So FRACK YOU, sir! by which, of course, I mean “inject copious amounts of high-pressure water up your anus, sirrah!”
(which is a shame, inasmuch as Monckton’s arguments “on the merits” against the AGW crowd are spot-on).
but — next time you folks here on WUWT deal with him, remember this: he’s a snob. A solid-gold electro-magnetic English upper-class-twit snob. Genuflecting in his direction only makes him despise you more.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Anna….it’s not spelled FRACK, it’s spelled FRAC. My, my, wouldn’t your mother be so proud of you….such language and in public!!
Frankly, real class shows here and it’s not on your part, Anna.
Lord Monckton, always a pleasure to read your articles. Keep up the good work!
I urge anyone reading this blog to check both sides of the argument and see whether this rebuttal stands the test of evidence.
OK, I thought the 300,000 ppm CO2 level was too high, but 750 mya is during stage 4 of the Great Oxygenation Event, so I was mistaken. Some time during that period, CO2 would have fallen through that level as oxygen became a significant component of the atmosphere.
It is a real shame, that one must use up valuable time and resources, squashing piss-ants. I find it doesn’t really help, as the formic acid released from their crushed bodies only attracts more piss-ants.
Christopher Monckton of Brenchley: Get back to work, and leave the piss-ants to us! GK
_Jim says:
January 12, 2012 at 6:38 am
SteveE says on January 12, 2012 at 2:14 am
…
Is there any proof or evidence for this or is it just hearsay from one of your friends.
If it appeared on the web, it was Google-able … have you looked?
———-
Yep, couldn’t find anything of the sort.
… it is also reasonable to mention the growing band of scientists who say CO2 may not be “largely responsible” but only partly responsible for the warming since 1950.
Who?
R. Craigen says:
January 12, 2012 at 6:29 am
The bit about temperature and CO2 levels being correlated gave me a thought: Given that there’s an 800-year time lag and that Temperature leads CO2 timewise in this correlation — perhaps we can blame the Medieval Warming Period on the Industrial revolution!
—
When the Earth comes out of an ice age, the warming is not initiated by CO2 but by changes in the Earth’s orbit. The warming causes the oceans to give up CO2. The CO2 amplifies the warming and mixes through the atmosphere, spreading warming throughout the planet. The difference is that the warming during the 20th century was not initiated by changes in the Earth’s orbit, but by increases in CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.
Hope that clears things up for you!
Macbeth says:
January 12, 2012 at 3:01 am
James Sexton says:
January 11, 2012 at 10:39 pm
Anna, don’t get all huffy……
———————————————-
No, she’s right, he should know better and we should expect better behaviour from a nobleman, it’s unwarranted to make a sweeping attack on bible colleges just because a moonbat is employed there. The Viscount should be aware that, those who don’t believe in God will believe anything, and if anyone is going to overturn AGW it will be evangelicals, whatever their failings.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/14/abraham-climbs-down/ shows in particular that St Thomas even convinced Abraham to withdraw some oh his lies, so it’s doubtful even his college should be condemned.
==============================================================
Mac, I view it differently. I expect better from a Bible College. As a Christian, I find it terribly disturbing that a Bible college would attack Monckton in that manner. It took the threat of legal action to prompt them into forcing Abraham to cut the 10 minutes out.
Religious figures and universities are not above criticism, indeed, they should hold themselves to a higher standard. St. Thomas failed in that regard. It is entirely possible to disagree with people regarding climate change. What happened with Abraham was a vile attempt at character assassination. St. Thomas gave Abraham entirely too much latitude if not acting on their behest.
“Monckton says there has been no correlation between temperature and CO2 for the past 500 million years. There has.” Well, there has in the past few thousand years, but the correlation since the Cambrian era has been spectacularly poor, as the slide (from a peer-reviewed paper) that the caveman fleetingly shows me using at that point demonstrates very clearly. For most of that long period, global temperatures were about 7 Celsius degrees warmer than the present: yet CO2 concentration has inexorably declined throughout the period.
—
This is simply not true Monckton, the paper that you extracted the data for CO2 from confirms the correlation in the conclusion:
“This means that over the long term there is indeed a correlation between CO2 and paleotemperature, as manifested by the atmospheric greenhouse effect.”
This has also been confirmed by other published papers such as:
http://www.atmosedu.com/Geol390/articles/RoyeretalCO2GSAToday'04PhanerozoicClimate.pdf
Which state in the conclusion:
“There is a good correlation between low levels of atmospheric CO2 and the presence of well-documented, long-lived, and aerially extensive continental glaciations.”
Basing your temperature curve on flat lines drawn a graph with no data to back them up is simply wrong. A more accurate graph to base it on would that in figure 4 in the above paper. That shows a much better correlation, however that doesn’t fit with your agenda.
Your statement that there is no correlation is simply wrong. This is why you have no credibility.
C.M. Carmichael says:
January 12, 2012 at 6:07 am
How does caveman explainthe story of “The Lost Squadron” a flight of aircraft that were left on the Greenland plateau in 1942, and recovered in recent years from under 268 ft of new ice? 25 stories of new ice in 60 years.
There is a simple explanation for that story: put something heavy on ice and if the temperature is not too low, the ice will melt under its weight. But the melting water refreezes above the heavy weight, together with new snow deposits and as the ice sheet advances slower near the bottom/sides, the weight is covered with newer layers over time. The disturbance of the ice layers would be found more downstreams…
Mac, I view it differently. I expect better from a Bible College. As a Christian, I find it terribly disturbing that a Bible college would attack Monckton in that manner.
True believers will often be as bad as none believers if not worse. You might expect these people to be better then other people, but reality shows us the truth that no matter your faith or creed, the true believers will be worse then the non believers because they believe their faith makes them better and justifies their actions kind of like a shield. As a Christian as well, I find that religion or not means nothing when it comes to your actions and your actions speak for themselves. You should not expect people to act in any way and the only way you judge other people is not by what they SAY they are but how they conduct themselves.
I mean, we can start by how many evil actions throughout history have been justified “in the name of God” and AGW is just another one to add to the stack.
It is also rather tame in comparison to the murder and bloodshed of the past. So what if the catholic church demeans a few people to get the correct message about climate change?
The Catholic Church used to burn witches to combat climate change in the middle ages so in essence it almost seems like demeaning sceptics of AGW is a step in the right direction. I have no problems with the Catholic Church in general or the Jesuits in general, but their actions speak for themselves and they conduct themselves in such a way and because they condone these actions and do not seperate themselves by casting those out who perform these actions they do condone these actions. So their actions tell us all we need to know about how they want the world to view them.
So yes, they are just as guilty of these actions as the perpetretators and they want to be viewed as people who demean people who view the world differently then they do just like in the time of Gallileo et al, well so be it.
Things may change, but some things will never change.
@Bible college lovers: I think Monckton’s comment was referencing the fact that bible colleges, as well as small colleges, tend not to have the strongest science programs. My limited experience with the grads from these schools supports this bias.
Alan Statham:
And yes, video evidence shows you saying that Arctic ice was not declining.
Got a link on that?
Lord Monckton, you would benefit from reading my paper on Arctic Warming (PDF at http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/arno-arrak.pdf). I prove not only that Arctic warming is not greenhouse warming but examine the case for greenhouse warming in general and show that no credible observations of it exist. And this is as it should be according to the work of Ferenc Miskolczi on the absorption of IR by the atmosphere.
I think you have that backwards; It was the general pop (population) that was enamored of animal, mineral and vegetable sacrifice until The Church came along …
.
Hmmm … must be due to the lack of the correct and/or necessary (and requisite) search terms.
Google is (near) infallible. Better than The Church I am given to understand by some …
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Mods, if you will allow a do-over for previous post …
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Can we use that logos with Climate Science and their modeled predictions, and the many prognosticators as well with their predictions (or do you prefer the term ‘extrapolations’) in general?
Many would argue that “What is ‘sauce’ for the gander is ‘sauce’ for the goose?” (also referred to an ‘the ethic of reciprocity’.)
Maybe “not so much” by you?
How about this story which appeared back in 2007: Over 4.5 Billion people could die from Global Warming-related causes by 2012 by John Stokes
How prescient, or non- prescient was that?
Does John Stokes earn the same SteveE imprimatur “This is why you have no credibility.” ?
.
Off topic, but in the spirit of global co-operation, I note the advertisement for European ski-ing at the top of this article.
For any Americans frustrated at the lack of snow pack in the Rockies right now, Europe has just had a once-in-a-decade storm series which has rendered much of the French, Swiss and Austrian alps covered in so much snow they don’t know what to do with it.
It’s low season until February, so if you can get away you won’t ever get a better time to ski europe – cold, sunny and perfect snow.
Later in the year, seriously dangerous avalanches and floods in the spring may follow……..
Blimey, troll central here today! Derailed the whole thing as usual by honing in on some minor side point.
Mods, do you use google analytics? If you dont you should. Always interesting to see the reffering page that people come from…
Just for fun I did a simple search on YouTube for “potholer54″ and found his page:
http://www.youtube.com/user/potholer54?blend=1&ob=video-mustangbase
About Me:
I’ve been a journalist for 20 years, 14 years as a science correspondent. My degree is in geology, but while working for a science magazine and several science programs I had to tackle a number of different fields, from quantum physics to microbiology. You’ll find a complete resume in the video “Who I Am.”
Peter Hadfield’s name appears in the video.
It would be interesting to hear/see a debate between Monckton & Hadfield.
Akshully, you got the name wrong, which lead to a search that turned up pages of garbage! It’s “What’s Beneath America?” zefal’s link above is to a 30-second trailer. Here’s the real link:
http://curiosity.discovery.com/question/whats-beneath-america-videos
A series of 2-3 minute clips. Some of the science is a bit iffy, but close enough for government work.
@Bible college lovers –
Just for reference:
“Bible” Colleges, Minnesota
Bethel – Baptist background,4 year B.S. accredited, produces math, science, chemistry, etc. majors, many pre-med students. Student Body – Very conservative, not AWG oriented at all.
Northwestern College – Originally Billy Graham/Baptist Backing. Competes with St. Olaf in terms of “conservatory” level of music training. As Bethel: 4 year Accredited, Has cooperative agreements with U of MN Eng., etc. Produces DUAL majors, music/science! NOT AWG oriented at all.
Northwestern Bible College: Formerly 2 year “true” Bible College, for penecostal Churches. Recently expanded to 4 year school Mostly social sciences, but fully accredited. NOT AWG or “humans are a plauge on the Earth oriented” at all.
St. Olaf: Oldest established “denominational” school in the state. Fully accredited, produces science majors, but in last 5 years has been “devoured” by the “Green Dragon” (Pity that!)
St. Thomas: As noted in previous post: Catholic, Jesuit, and completely lefty/loonie. Helped friend through Physical Science course in 1996. Read some of her “soft” classes papers. Personal politics of said person, just left of “Attilla the Hun”. Her soft science papers? Written in a completely “looney left” style. Graduated with a 3.85 GPA. None of her instructors knew she was conservative. BUT gave me PERSONAL EXPOSURE to politics/attitude of said school. NOT generally called a “Bible College” in any form. ALSO considered “prestigious”. Yet, like St. Olaf,
taken over by the “Green Dragon”. SO that is why I’m “concerned” about the “obscure Bible College” reference by Lord M. Distorts reality. Reality is that the most TOP NOTCH discipline and work these days comes from some of the traditional “Bible Colleges” in MN.
Heh. It seems both the characterization and your defensiveness are misplaced.
Far-left JESUIT college.
I admire and give props to Lord M., but wonder if his own family’s Catholicism caused a mental flip-flop, there!
SteveE says:
January 12, 2012 at 8:57 am
“Monckton says there has been no correlation between temperature and CO2 for the past 500 million years. There has.” Well, there has in the past few thousand years, but the correlation since the Cambrian era has been spectacularly poor, ………….–
This is simply not true Monckton, ………..
===================================================================
Gee Steve, take a look at the graphs offered from these two places…..
http://accweb.itr.maryville.edu/globalwarming/Student04/geolog2.jpg
http://www.newscientist.com/articleimages/mg21228392.300/1-hyperwarming-climate-could-turn-earths-poles-green.html
@ Brian H
I assume any secondary learning institution is “Far-left”. That still doesn’t alleviate their responsibilities towards truth. Though many conservatives would probably see this as an oxymoron.
Rhys;
Here’s the picture so far at Whistler-Blackcomb, the NA resort with the longest season:
http://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/NR/rdonlyres/0E7279AA-C84F-4FE7-9A02-8D25DEF36E62/0/weatherStatsGraph.jpg
November was huge, December a flop, and January still in process.
Let’s see if it will embed:
mkelly says:
January 12, 2012 at 6:22 am
R. Gates on another thread says: “The upshot of all this, it could very well be that transient sensitivity is around 1.5C for a doubling of CO2″
R. Gates on this thread says: ..”we can’t possibly know what the equalibrium sensitivity will be to a doubling of CO2.”
Mr. Gates maybe you should not throw out numbers at all since you seem to be conflicted about what we know and what we “can’t possibly know”.
_____
You do understand the difference between “transient” and “equilibrium” sensitivity, yes? And how models could potentially come fairly close to predicting transient sensitivity, assuming they got all the fast feedbacks fairly correct, and thus 1.5C transient sensivity could “very well be”, but equilibrium sensitivity is a much harder beast to crack as the slower earth system feedbacks (such as ice and biosphere), which may have a lot to do with where the equilibrium sensitivity settles, can take far longer to fully unfold, and thus the equilbrium point may not be reached for decades after the transient temperature is reached. This all gets back to my basic point that the good Lord Monckton cannot possibly know with any confidence that the transient sensitivity is “nearly equal” to the equilibrium sensitivity as we are not even sure what all the fast feedbacks are, and how much less we know what the slow feedbacks are and how they operate, and it is these slow feedbacks that shall ultimately separate the transient and the equilibrium sensitivity.
@Brian H says:
Easy!:Everybody knows the catholic church is divided in two sides: Left and Right. The left wing, the Jesuit Order, follows the “Theology of Liberation”, a concoction of the peruvian priest Gutierrez, which preaches that salvation happens by making a socialist revolution, and the “paradise” so obtained as reward it is not in heaven but here on earth. The Right, the traditional church, though has condemned the “Theology of Liberation”, surprisingly, before the conclusion of the Copenhagen summit on climate change, the pope himself said that all good christian should sign the treaty.
Crispin in Waterloo says: (to R. Gates)
“You apparently have learned enough to be able to say that the sensitivity is unknown, yet you hardly ever fail to promote rising CO2 as the primary driver of temperature.”
___
Please site the exact, precise place, that I claim that CO2 is the “primary driver” of temperature. A mixture of greenhouse gases keeps our planet warmer than it would be without them, and the mixture of them keeps the world warmer than the sum of their individual warming. (i.e. take away the non-condensing CO2 and we go back an ice planet within a few decades), such that with the two together, water vapor may contribute more, but take away CO2, and water vapor matters less. It is the combination of the two that keep us at the temperature we enjoy. The failure of some skeptics to fully understand the huge difference that combining a condensing with a non-condensing greenhouse gas is a huge vacuum of ignorance for them. But I sense, that at least for some skeptics, there is no real desire to fill that vacuum.
Gates keeps throwing out that 1.5°C figure for 2xCO2. But the planet disagrees. So, which one is right, Gates or the real world?
Max Hugoson:
Getting seriously OT here, but I guess the good Lord has opened the door….
The Bible Institute movement started as a means for laymen to enter activities traditionally restricted to a professional clergy. My sense is that the earliest incoming students were typically adults who decided to make a career change, and who frequently had a significant secular education. I’m pretty sure this was the case right after WWII, when my dad enrolled in St. Paul Bible Institute. (He already had a BS and MS from the University of Nebraska and later earned a PhD in Psychology from the University of Arizona.)
As time passed and the incoming class got younger and less experienced, the need for a wider general education became obvious and many of the schools moved to meet the need. St. Paul Bible Institute became St. Paul Bible College. Today it is Crown College, just outside Minneapolis.
It’s a trend. Simpson Bible Institute was Simpson Bible College when I graduated in 1958. Today it is Simpson University in Redding, CA. Pacific Bible College merged with two other schools to form today’s Azusa Pacific University.
So I have to agree with Anna Lemma that Lord M has taken a cheap shot. But as for getting bent out of shape and blowing smoke out of both ears, I am not so easily offended. The good lord was, after all provoked.
I could be more offended by his scurrilous treatment of cavemen. The cavemen I am familiar with were creative artists who left a record that draws thousands of visitors to Europe every year. They also were survivors, whose descendents walk the earth today. If this guy Potholer is supposed to be a caveman, then he is an imposter. ‘Piltdown’ comes to mind….
: > )
Smokey says:
Why don’t you tell us, Smokey? Since 2xCO2 is about 560ppm, and we’re currently around 390ppm. What do *you* know that we don’t? Are you claiming to be prescient?
Experience dictates that you will have a snarky (yet vacuous) comeback to this. I can guarantee that all your whacko libertarian “all that matters is me. Me. ME!” fans will be listening, but the rest of us… won’t. Pfft.
Steve Metzler says:
January 12, 2012 at 2:56 pm
Smokey says:
Gates keeps throwing out that 1.5°C figure for 2xCO2. But the planet disagrees. So, which one is right, Gates or the real world?
Why don’t you tell us, Smokey? Since 2xCO2 is about 560ppm, and we’re currently around 390ppm.
Yawn – the actual “figure” for CO2, as shown in this figure:
http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/289/logwarmingpaleoclimate.png
is of course zero – except at the low end when it starts killing plants.
I’ve been a member of the APS Forum on Physics and Society for many years, and “Physics and Society” is the NEWSLETTER of our forum. Nobody that I know of other than Lord Monckton has ever referred to it as a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
Monckton’s article may have been reviewed by the editor, but it was not a scientific review as that editor, by his own admission, was not qualified to review the scientific content of it.
That Monckton continues to represent this as a peer-reviewed publication, despite the editors of the journal saying that it is not, shows what we are dealing with here.
phlogiston says:
Oh, yeah. Silly me. For a moment there I forgot that the physical properties of CO2, as demonstrated over the past 200 years, do not matter at WUWT. Here instead CO2 behaves, somewhat mysteriously, in the exact fashion that your ideology wants it to behave.
Steve Metzler says:
January 12, 2012 at 2:56 pm
Smokey says:
Gates keeps throwing out that 1.5°C figure for 2xCO2. But the planet disagrees. So, which one is right, Gates or the real world?
Why don’t you tell us, Smokey?……………….
===========================================================
I can’t speak for Smokey, nor have I ever noted his whacko libertarian “all that matters is me. Me. ME!”, but that may be because I’m a bit self-absorbed, so I wouldn’t have noticed…… (couldn’t help it.) 🙂
Go here, http://suyts.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/if-only/ The calculations include all known variables which have occurred since we began keeping records. The answer is a high/low 1.06/0.93 or 42, whichever comes first.
Smokey says:
January 12, 2012 at 12:52 pm
Gates keeps throwing out that 1.5°C figure for 2xCO2. But the planet disagrees. So, which one is right, Gates or the real world?
_____
Let’s be clear about this…the 1.5C figure is in the range of potentials for the transient sensitivity of global temperatures for a doubling of CO2 from preindustrial levels. This would include only fast feedbacks. The actual equilibrium sensitivity would differ, and would not show up for many decades after CO2 reached 560 ppm, assuming of course, the CO2 didn’t keep right on rising past 560 ppm. 3C higher for the equilibrium sensitivity is well within the range of temps we saw last time CO2 was at current levels or higher…i.e. the mid to early Pliocene, and this would take in all feedbacks, fast, slow, negative, and positive. Note: For those into Chaos theory, If there is an attractor close by that is different than the glacial/interglacial oscillation we’ve seen over the past several million years and changes in CO2 could nudge the system toward it, the mid to early Pliocene is the most likely era the Earth’s climate would have been fluctuating around that attractor.
Steve Metzler,
Is it “snarky” to point out that you cared enough to comment, while claiming not to care?☺
OK, to correct your post, I’ll point out that Gates is the one regularly posting that 1.5°C number. You don’t like that I criticized it; I get that. Put out your own estimate if you want.
IMHO, the planet is clearly telling us that the sensitivity is lower than 1.5°C. My oft-repeated SWAG is ≈1.0°C, ±0.5°C.
But I could be wrong; the real number could be lower: Dr. Spencer says it’s ≈0.46°C; Drs. Idso [both pere & fils] say ≈0.37°C, and Dr. Miskolczi says 0.00°C. I think they know more about the subject than you or Gates, and certainly more than me. So I could be erring on the high side.
Finally, why do you and other climate alarmists like to throw in a political argument? I can’t count the number of times Joel Shore has called people he disagrees with “ideologues”, “right wing”, etc. FYI, I have friends all along the political spectrum. But I don’t bring it into science discussions; I suspect you folks do, because you don’t have the science to back up your falsified conjectures and your failed predictions.
Smokey, hi,
OK, I’ll bite. Given that we have managed to increase the global average temp by about .9 deg C since around 1950, according to BEST, and several other temp records… then why is 1.5 deg C out of the question, when going from 390ppm to 560ppm (since going from 280ppm (pre-industrial) to 390ppm already ‘accomplished’ *at least* .9 deg C)?
‘and several other temp records’
Sorry, that’s not what I meant to say, as BEST is obviously a re-analysis of previous land-based temp records. But you get the idea.
Smokey says:
January 12, 2012 at 4:30 pm
“IMHO, the planet is clearly telling us that the sensitivity is lower than 1.5°C. My oft-repeated SWAG is ≈1.0°C, ±0.5°C.”
____
Then is seems we agree. Your SWAG for “sensitivity” is in the same range as what several model studies have found…1.5C, but you’ve not said what kind of sensitivity you are talking about…transient or equilibrium? The 1.5C estimate by scientific studies is for transient only, and those researchers are rightly proud of coming to to that with smaller and smaller uncertainty bands (justified or not). But the real stickler becomes the equilibrium sensitivity, as this is where the hidden and unknown nonlinearities really start to show up in the earth-system responses. Thus the difference between the two is likely ot be large…unless you want to simply accept Lord Monckton’s assured proclamation that they are “nearly equal”, but I’ll be curious to find out what kind of justificaiton he has for his certainty as all the earth-system feedbacks have not been worked out (and may never be because of the nonlinearities) but are the subject of much research.
As usual, some replies to comments.
First, I did not make “a sweeping attack on Bible colleges generally”, as some have suggested: I made a particular comment about a single, fourth-rank Bible college (regrettably, one of my own denomination) whose personnel have not behaved as they should have done. So I do apologize to those who thought I was having a go at Bible colleges generally. Very few such colleges, of any denomination, would have behaved with such rampant disregard for truth, arithmetic, and courtesy as the “University” of “St. Thomas” did. A libel action is slowly grinding towards the courts.
Next, R. Gates wonders whether I understand the distinction between transient and equilibrium climate sensitivity. Yes, of course I do: the former is sensitivity where feedbacks are net-zero or have not acted fully, and the latter is sensitivity once the climate has settled to equilibrium after a perturbation, so that all feedbacks triggered by the perturbation have acted fully. The context of R. Gates’ remark was a brief mention in my head-posting that I was close to completing a formal proof (by contradiction) that climate sensitivity is perhaps one-third of the IPCC’s central estimate. R. Gates chose to condemn that proof before seeing it, which was perhaps unwise. The formal proof is proceeding well. The main argument is complete and, I think, definitive: but I am now going very carefully through the mainstream climate literature to ensure that the numerous premises which, taken together, entail the low-sensitivity conclusion are premises with which no one who trumpets “consensus” would easily be able to disagree. This process will take time, but the proof should be available for discussion here within a few weeks.
Then Joel Shore deploys his usual malice. He seems incapable of being civil. He is not pleased that I was able to produce evidence that the paper I wrote in the July 2008 edition of Physics and Society in response to a request from the commissioning editor was peer-reviewed, in that a) the journal at the time carried a strapline to the effect that it published “reviewed articles” on scientific and technical matters; b) the review editor himself, a professor of physics, reviewed the paper in great detail and asked for the derivation of every equation (several of which were new). Mr. Shore says that what I have been calling a “journal” is a “newsletter” and that what the journal calls “reviewed articles” are not reviewed articles. He adds that the review editor was not competent to review the article. In that event, as I have said before, don’t blame me.
“ThePowerOfX” says I have been “egregiously misquoting” people, but does not choose to provide even a single instance. The two instances I spotted in the caveman’s nauseous videos were answered in my head-posting. In both instances, the climate-extremists I had quoted had said what I had said they had said.
Mr. Metzler, in a pointlessly angry posting, wonders whether anyone at WattsUpWithThat accepts the physical properties of CO2 that were established 200 years ago. My post explicitly mentioned, with approval, John Tyndale’s experiment of 1859, which established that the greenhouse effect is real and that CO2 contributes to it. It is really no longer possible for the climate-extremist faction to continue to maintain that the scientific debate between skeptics and alarmists is about whether CO2 causes warming. It does: get used to it. The debate is about how much warming the CO2 causes – a quantitative, not a qualitative, question. And, as I hope shortly to prove, the warming that CO2 causes is not enough to worry about, still less to spend trillions on.
R. Gates says:
“Then is seems we agree.”
No, we only agree 25%.
Steve Metzler says:
“Given that we have managed to increase the global average temp by about .9 deg C since around 1950…”
You presume that the increase is anthropogenic. However, AGW is not a hypothesis, and it is certainly not a “theory”. It is only a scientific conjecture. It may be that CO2 is responsible for a fraction of the warming over the past century and a half, but there is no testable, empirical evidence, per the scientific method, which supports that conjecture. In fact, the same warming trend has happened repeatedly prior to the current run-up in CO2.
The warming that has occurred follows the same trend line since the LIA, and there is no way to separate any supposed anthropogenic ‘fingerprint’ from the natural warming. Occam’s Razor says that the simplest explanation is in all likelihood the correct explanation, and that extraneous variables [such as CO2] should not be assumed.
My own view is that part of the rise – a small part – is probably due to increased CO2. But on balance, the additional, mild warming is a net benefit to the biosphere. There is plenty of testable evidence showing that more CO2 results in higher agricultural productivity. And there is no evidence showing global damage or harm due to the increase in that tiny trace gas, therefore CO2 is ipso facto harmless.
Increased CO2 is harmless and beneficial at current and projected levels. That is a testable hypothesis, which has never been falsified per the scientific method. But not for lack of trying.
Lord Monckton said,
“R. Gates chose to condemn that proof before seeing it, which was perhaps unwise…”
———
I think the word condemn is a bit strong, and would characterize my feeling toward your upcoming proof as “intrigued but highly skeptical”. You have a keen intellect which I honestly admire and have no doubt that your proof will provide considerable mental exercise on my part. But the source of my skepticism is rooted more in the current status of our general knowledge about all the slow feedbacks that even go into bringing about the equilibrium temperature. Of particular interest will be your “nearly equal” statement related to Transient and Equilibrium sensitivity, as this in particular seems most out of bounds with what we know about even rudimentary climate response to an external forcing.
“a Texan professor who monitors the seamier side of the internet got in touch to tell me that someone had paid the operators of various search engines a sum that he estimated at not less than $250,000 to enhance the page rankings of some two dozen specially-created web-pages containing meaningless jumbles of symbols among which the word “Monckton video” appeared.”
I struggle to believe that professor was correct, if only because I’d expect a more reasonable cost to be in the region of a thousand times lower. You might have trouble finding someone to do the job for $250, but that’s the ballpark. I also find it very unlikely that anyone who used any phrase like ‘operators of various search engines’ knows what they’re talking about when it comes to the internet. (With respect to M of B, I don’t think he’d claim that as his field of expertise.)
Either the learned professor was a typically detached academic with no understanding of the real world, or MoB has perhaps misunderstood the technicalities and inadvertently scrambled the meaning somewhat – but what appears to be suggested isn’t technically possible..
Monckton of Brenchley says:
Here is the banner that has been put across the top of this article specifically to rebut your erroneous claims that it was peer-reviewed ( http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/monckton.cfm ):
R Gates: your first post in this thread. I have not read it all so maybe you answered. Define equilibrium sensitivity in a dynamic and chaotic eenvironment.
Monckton of Brenchley says:
January 12, 2012 at 5:38 pm
As usual, some replies to comments.
First, I did not make “a sweeping attack on Bible colleges generally”, as some have suggested: I made a particular comment about a single, fourth-rank Bible college (regrettably, one of my own denomination) whose personnel have not behaved as they should have done. So I do apologize to those who thought I was having a go at Bible colleges generally. Very few such colleges, of any denomination, would have behaved with such rampant disregard for truth, arithmetic, and courtesy as the “University” of “St. Thomas” did. A libel action is slowly grinding towards the courts.
Could be wrong here, but I was under the impression that ‘Bible’ colleges meant something a bit more specific in America than centres of theological studies, referring to those which hold ‘Bible only’ authority, so, a college of your denom wouldn’t be that.
Mr. Metzler, in a pointlessly angry posting, wonders whether anyone at WattsUpWithThat accepts the physical properties of CO2 that were established 200 years ago. My post explicitly mentioned, with approval, John Tyndale’s experiment of 1859, which established that the greenhouse effect is real and that CO2 contributes to it. It is really no longer possible for the climate-extremist faction to continue to maintain that the scientific debate between skeptics and alarmists is about whether CO2 causes warming. It does: get used to it. The debate is about how much warming the CO2 causes – a quantitative, not a qualitative, question. And, as I hope shortly to prove, the warming that CO2 causes is not enough to worry about, still less to spend trillions on.
Well, that might well be what you think the debate is, but my view is that there is no such critter as ‘greenhouse gas warming’ as the meme produced from the AGW Science Fiction Inc’s propaganda department has it…
You’ve mentioned this before, where exactly in Tyndall does this come from? I haven’t been able to find it. I take it you do mean John Tyndall here? What exactly does he say “which established that the greenhouse effect [as you have it] is real and that CO2 contributes to it.”?
Joel Shore obviously doesn’t understand that peer review doesn’t happen during publication, but rather, in follow-up commentary and real world experiments. And anyone with an ounce of common sense would understand that a comment such as: “Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate” is simply the spouting of an evidence-free conjecture. But by all means, Joel Shore is free to provide testable, empirical evidence showing conclusively that GHG’s are harming the global climate… if he is able to…
…but don’t hold your breath.☺
Let me guess Anna, you attended a fourth-rate bible college in some nowheresville. feeling a bit touchy?
+++
No, Anna’s got degrees in chemical engineering, history, and a J.D in law, all from very decent universities, thank you very much. Anna’s a member of the D.C. bar, as well.
But Anna hates pretentiousness and the kind of social SNOT and PHLEGM the Learned Lord is coughing up. Any first-year law student who began his brief with that kind of crap during a law class recitation would get slapped down mightily by the prof. Everyone learns not to do that twice.
It’s just chickenbleep. It is no different than calling someone a “denialist”. It is the “argument ad hominem” writ large. In Monckton’s case, extra large.
Everyone at WUWT approves of, indeed demands, arguments “on the merits”. As I said, I applaud Monckton’s smiting his AGW opponents hip and thigh, on the merits, but he should not stoop to bashing them for their (perceived) lack of intellectual and cultural/social deficiencies.
Just make the damn case!
per Wendy:
Anna….it’s not spelled FRACK, it’s spelled FRAC. My, my, wouldn’t your mother be so proud of you….such language and in public!!
Frankly, real class shows here and it’s not on your part, Anna.
——
In addition to not addressing my argument, Wendy is apparently unaware of the TV series “Battlestar Galactica, where “frack” was a substitute for that…. other word.
I recognize that, for some ,a certain amount of….cognitive dissonance… will apply when using one term to allude to another, but that used to be called…punning.
As for Frack being used to describe a process for extracting petroleum, I invite her to google the term. She will see it being used as a verb and a gerund.
Peace.
“Just then they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that rise from that plain. And no sooner did Don Quixote see them that he said to his squire, “Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished. Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. With their spoils we shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless.”
“What giants?” asked Sancho Panza.”
Extract from “Don Quixote” by Miguel de Cervantes
Who benefits?
Joel Shore says:
January 12, 2012 at 7:26 pm
Monckton of Brenchley says:
=============================
lmao @ Joel…… sorry man. You’re usually a bit more clever than this. You can fight this all you want, but, in the end, you’ll lose. Here is why…….. there is not technical definition as to what is “peer reviewed”. From there, you should see the folly, but I’ll expand for just a moment.
For as long as you dwell there, you cause people to look. And from there you really should see the fallacy. But, in case you do not, I’ll spell it out. Monckton submitted a paper. The physicist editor reviewed it. He caused it to be published. (All of this was out of Monckton’s control.)
In the mean time, e-mails have surfaced that show like minded climatologists were reviewing their friends’ papers. Now this isn’t subjective. What I’ve stated is objective. Do you really want to dwell in the peer-review process? More specifically, do you really want to attach any standards to such? If you do, any standards contrived, invalidates most of the climatology presented in the last 20 years. Unless, you believe known colleagues, reviewing papers of said colleagues, with the same perspective represents valid science. If you do believe such, people will laugh at you.
Joel, you should try more than this. Don’t worry about published/peer reviewed/accepted. If you can argue against the science and math, go for it. Believe it or not, there are some who watch, read, think, and test your assertions. WUWT recently went over 100 million hits! And all you have is to worry about what you believe is “peer reviewed” or not? That’s vapid. There are two possibilities. Either Christopher is correct, or he is not. If he is correct, does it matter how many or in what manner he was judged? If he is incorrect, if he was reviewed by 1000 scientists, would it matter? Joel, you’ve been here long enough to know, “peer reviewed” means jack. Peer review brought us the bats were dying, the bats were thriving, the trees were dying, the trees were thriving., the floods were increasing and the droughts were increasing all at the same time! Even the paleo brought us different MWP and LIA! And you’re worried about Christopher’s claim? That’s less than stupid.
Anthony, why not invite both Hadfield and Monckton to a online debate right here on WUWT?
Of course, without sound, we’d be missing out a terrific battle of the Queen’s English.
@ Anna, what bothers you so much, may, or may not be Christopher’s natural demeanor. But, it is effective. Yes, there is a way about him. Some will liken him to fingernails on the chalkboard. Others, it is soft violin music.
You, more than most here, should understand the subtle differences between being correct and effective, and how much more it means to be both. Likability doesn’t fall into the equation. I know you must understand this. I think you also understand the difference between respect and adulation. I don’t mean to irk you in any manner, but we’re not here because people like us. Most of us are skeptics. And, most of us are right. ………. from there, you can see that most of us will never win popularity contests. Some of us just go with it……. 🙂
Peace.
James Sexton
Steve Metzler says:
January 12, 2012 at 3:48 pm
phlogiston says:
Yawn – the actual “figure” for CO2, as shown in this figure:
http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/289/logwarmingpaleoclimate.png
is of course zero – except at the low end when it starts killing plants.
Oh, yeah. Silly me. For a moment there I forgot that the physical properties of CO2, as demonstrated over the past 200 years, do not matter at WUWT. Here instead CO2 behaves, somewhat mysteriously, in the exact fashion that your ideology wants it to behave.
Ferenc Miklosczi demonstrated from a thorough analysis of the CO2 photon absorption physics and atmospheric data, why the greenhouse effect of CO2 interacts with the greater greenhouse effect of water in a feedback system that results in zero sensitivity to additional inputs of CO2.
Ferenc Miklosczi was mugged and silenced in a despicable manner by the climate science mafia. Ask yourself – why was this political lynching necessary, if his science was wrong?
A description of his findings and theory can be read at: http://climateclash.com/2011/02/15/g8-co2-cannot-cause-any-more-%E2%80%9Cglobal-warming%E2%80%9D/
This can be downloaded in pdf form from:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B9p_cojT-pflN2MyMzk3YzQtN2U2OS00ODgwLTlhZmQtMmJhNWZjZmQzYjE3
Or from this link: http://wtrns.fr/AAigZs4Q1FsCKhq
Just to start with the IR absorption physics of CO2 and go from there to an understanding of atmospheric-solar thermal dynamics is a grossly complacent oversimplification. It is a monumental failure of reductionism and will serve future generations as a textbook example of such.
I’m a little confused. I read this, then rewatched the “Monckton Responds” videos on Potholer54’s channel. The videos accuse him of responding to someone else’s summary of the claims rather than his exact claims, but this newest response seems to be exactly what is happening again. For example, “Monckton says he advised Margaret Thatcher on climate change. He didn’t.” At this point, Potholer54 is telling him that he claimed to be her “Science Advisor” and saying perhaps he did, but that doesn’t make him her science advisor. Is this a repost of an old rebuttal?
Plus, there’s this above: “To discuss one or two retreating glaciers is not the same thing as to say or imply that only one or two glaciers have been retreating.”
The video shows Monckton saying “…no particular change in the last 200 years. The only glacier that’s declined a little is Gangotri…”
A response to a couple of commenters who question whether there is any evidence that a couple of dozen pages of meaningless symbols, each containing the words “Monckton video” en clair, appeared on the Web shortly after my speech in Minnesota in October 2009.
The pages certainly existed. When the Texas A&M professor reported them to me, I entered the words “Monckton video” into Google and found that, notwithstanding that my Minnesota speech had been seen by more than a million people at that time, its page ranking was below at least two dozen pages of gibberish which Google displayed first. One had to wade through more than two screenfuls of these nonsense pages before the true video appeared. That is how the viral chain was broken by those who did not want my message heard.
One commenter says that creating these pages would have cost only a few hundred dollars. Quite right. But the really high-ticket item, so the Professor told me, was getting the search-engines to give all two dozen of these rubbish pages – which no one would actually want to read, because there was nothing that made any sense in them except the words “Monckton video” – a page-ranking higher than that of the page containing my speech.
Once I had seen that the Professor was right about the nonsense pages, I saw to it that they were taken down within 24 hours. However, those who had put up the pages had succeeded by then in breaking the viral chain. Even a brief interruption is enough. But their costly and wicked strategy failed because by then so many other websites had posted up the video, so several more millions saw it before the pages of nonsense were removed.
And Joel Shore cites the American Physical Society as printing a statement in Physics and Society that my paper there was not peer-reviewed because the journal did not print peer-reviewed articles. I had of course already addressed that point: up to and including the edition in which my paper appeared, every edition stated that the journal printed “reviewed articles”. Thereafter, every edition carried a statement that the journal printed “non-peer-reviewed articles”. The Professor of Physics who reviewed my paper was more than competent to do so, because his intention was to make sure that a non-climatological readership would be able to understand the concepts I was discussing. To this end, he asked me to define various specialist terms, and also to make the derivation of each of my 30 equations specific. If he had thought it necessary to pass the paper on to a climatologist for further review, no doubt he would have done so; and, if he did not do so, the fault does not lie with me. I was requested to write a paper (it later transpired that the editors had had a recommendation that I should do so from a distinguished member of the faculty at the Argonne National Laboratory); I wrote one; it was reviewed in accordance with the journal’s usual procedures; and it was published, together with a strongly supportive editorial.
From this background, it is surely self-evident that the journal did have a peer-review procedure in place; that it applied that procedure to my paper; that the usual suspects then screamed and threw all of their toys out of the stroller; and the American Physical Society thereupon lied to the effect that papers in its journal were not peer-reviewed – a lie which it then maintained by its new statement to the effect that its custom was to publish “non-peer-reviewed” articles.
Finally, as one commenter has rightly pointed out, the Climategate emails present evidence for a series of systematic and far more damaging interferences with the normal process of peer review by the climate crooks who have been co-ordinating and driving this now-collapsed scare. One victim of their malevolent campaign of disruption and denial contacted me in tears as soon as the first batch of Climategate emails were published. He was upset not only at the outrageous way in which these wretches had furtively delayed publication of an important paper by him so that they could cobble together their own laughable attempt at a rebuttal and publish it simultaneously, but also at the manner in which the purity and rationality of science had been brought low.
Now, why is it that Joel Shore spends so much time and effort on what is at best a pointless semantic quibble about what is and what is not “peer review”, when he is sullenly, culpably silent about the Hockey Team’s arguably criminal interferences in the process of peer review? What is sauce for the goose is surely sauce for the turkeys too.
juanslayton, I replied already to tell you that the video evidence I referred to is in potholer54’s videos, the very subject of this post. For some reason my comment never appeared. I try again.
““Monckton says there’s no systematic loss of sea-ice in the Arctic. There is.” No, I said that the 30-year record low ice extent of 2007 had been largely reversed in 2008 and 2009” No, you said “So we’re not looking at a long term systematic loss of ice in the Arctic”. You appear on video saying exactly those words. Did you even watch the video you’re attempting to respond to?
‘Peer review’ has a very specific meaning in scientific publications; that the editor of APS reviewed the article is irrelevant, unless we are to start calling every editorially reviewed piece ‘peer reviewed’ too? This comment will likely undergo moderation; does that mean it has been ‘peer reviewed’? Of course not.
The right and honorable thing to do would be to accept that the newsletter is not in fact a peer reviewed article, irrespective of what was thought at the time of publication. That APS have added a disclaimer to the article specifically rebutting the notion that it was in any way peer reviewed demonstrates that regardless of what was thought, this article is NOT considered peer reviewed by the publisher, and you can’t really argue with that, can you?
Here is a link to a letter of complaint about the article: http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200810/shore.cfm
APS responded: ‘Editor’s response: The newsletter of the Forum on Physics & Society is not, and never has been, peer-reviewed.’
If Monckton was misled by APS at the time of writing, fine, but you cannot in light of this evidence continue to make the claim that the article was peer reviewed. The publishers say it wasn’t, they disclaim that it wasn’t, and further more they say the newsletters NEVER HAVE BEEN.
I think the evidence is quite clear.
” I noted them down rather hastily, since I am disinclined to waste much time on him”
Obviously the caveman really got under your (thin) skin to attempt to belittle him so.
Your equally childish (admittedly amusing) description of Prof. John Abrahams only serves to show how paranoid you are about anyone pointing out your errors.
Monckton has been pressured to respond to mistakes proven in Potholer54’s videos before shown in the WUWT post “Monckton answers a troll, Posted on September 18, 2011 by Anthony Watts” http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/18/monckton-answers-a-troll/
And Potholer54 rebuttal can be seen here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xx5h1KNMAA
Anna Lemma says:
January 12, 2012 at 9:44 pm
As for Frack being used to describe a process for extracting petroleum, I invite her to google the term. She will see it being used as a verb and a gerund.
______________________
Anna, I don’t need to google anything….the correct term /spelling is “FRAC”. We want accuracy in climate science terms, let’s make sure we are also being accurate in other areas. Media uses the term “FRACK”, industry does not.
Have an “accurate” day!
Lord Monckton writes:
“Now, why is it that Joel Shore spends so much time and effort on what is at best a pointless semantic quibble about what is and what is not “peer review”, when he is sullenly, culpably silent about the Hockey Team’s arguably criminal interferences in the process of peer review?”
Good question.
False premise. All we know is that temps have increased by about that amount since 1950. We have yet to prove the cause. indeed, the increase is not unprecedented, nor all the factors understood.
Wendy says:
January 13, 2012 at 4:06 am
Anna, I don’t need to google anything….the correct term /spelling is “FRAC”. We want accuracy in climate science terms, let’s make sure we are also being accurate in other areas. Media uses the term “FRACK”, industry does not.
Have an “accurate” day!
—–
The industry actually calls it hydraulic fracturing. Some shorten it to “fracing” but it’s not really an industry official term.
http://www.cuadrillaresources.com/what-we-do/technology/hydraulic-fracturing/
Hope you have a more accurate day than you’ve had so far!
James Sexton says:
The errors upon errors in this “paper” of Monckton’s have been well-documented by Arthur Smith: http://www.altenergyaction.org/Monckton.html Even Monckton does not use most of the arguments presented in that paper anymore, preferring to make arguments that are at least a bit more subtlely wrong. And, in fact, I have explained in detail why the argument there is wrong ( http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/30/feedback-about-feedbacks-and-suchlike-fooleries/#comment-848206 and http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/30/feedback-about-feedbacks-and-suchlike-fooleries/#comment-848211 .
@major9985
Thanks for linking to those videos, they really do show the rubbish that Monckton spouts out!
It seems many people on this blog really do think the sun shines out of Monckton’s posterior, this unfortunately blinds them to the BS that comes out of his mouth!
Monckton could you please tell me which of your two statements you now believe is correct please:
“There has indeed been a remarkable correlation between CO2 and temperatures over the past 500 million years” Monckton, September 18, 2011
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/18/monckton-answers-a-troll/
Or
“Well, there has in the past few thousand years, but the correlation since the Cambrian era has been spectacularly poor” Monckton, January 11, 2012
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/11/monckton-responds-to-potholer54/
Monckton of Brenchley says:
Yes…It is all a big plot by the APS.
The actual truth is this: You were asked to write something for that newsletter (apparently after an APS member who is a skeptic gave the editor your name as I understand it). However, this APS newsletter editor, somewhat naive, never dreamed that when they published your paper, it would be misrepresented by this sort of press release ( http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/press/proved_no_climate_crisis.html?Itemid=0 ) :
The APS was then forced into the position of having to clearly explain what everybody in the physics community already knew about that newsletter but the broader public did not, which it was in no way a peer-reviewed journal!
Basically, you played upon the naivety of an APS newsletter editor. They thought that you were making an honest, good-faith effort to argue your point-of-view to physicists and never dreamed that the real intention might be to use the APS to give false credibility for your ideas with the larger public.
A few more answers, just briefly:
Joel Shore cites Arthur Smith, who runs a climate-extremist campaigning website, as having “documented” the “errors upon errors” in my peer-reviewed paper in Physics and Society. However, when he tried to get Physics and Society to print a 3000-word attempted rebuttal (which I was easily able to refute, point by point, in a 3000-word refutation the same day), Physics and Society, realizing that what he had written was largely without scientific foundation, declined to print it. So he posted up his “documentation” of my “errors” on his own website – without, of course, publishing my reply. Commenters on Smith’s own website said that many of the supposed “errors” were silly quibbles.
Mr Shore then says I “do not use most of the arguments” in that paper any more. Since the arguments are rooted in mainstream science, of course I continue to use nearly all of them.
Yet again, and without any acknowledgement that I have already answered his scientifically-untenable attempt to maintain that the 101[86, 125] Watts per square meter of radiative forcing from the presence of the top five greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, mentioned by Kiehl and Trenberth (1997), included the forcings caused by temperature feedbacks.
I have already pointed out that Kiehl and Trenberth’s lengthy and detailed paper does not contain the word “feedback” at all, and that they denominate the forcings I mentioned in demonstrating that climate sensitivity is about one-third of the IPCC’s central estimate in Watts per square meter, the units in which forcings are measured, not in Watts per square meter per Kelvin, the units in which feedbacks are measured.
Mr. Shore, instead of answering these points, merely resorts to the intellectually-questionable device of merely repeating the links to his original incorrect assertions.
So let us provide some elementary, and definitive evidence, that Kiehl & Trenberth’s estimate of the radiative forcing caused by the presence (as opposed to the total absence) of the top five greenhouse gases is what they say it is – an estimate of the forcing – and not an estimate of the forcing plus any consequent temperature feedbacks.
Kiehl and Trenberth’s paper says, in effect, that about 27% of the total forcing from the top five greenhouse gases is attributable to CO2. And 27% of 101 Watts per square meter is around 27 Watts per square meter. What we need to do, therefore, is to find another “mainstream” way of calculating the forcing effect of all 392 ppmv of CO2 now in the atmosphere. A logarithmic function attributed by the IPCC to James Hansen allows us to determine the total CO2 forcing dF, before taking account of any feedbacks, even when the unperturbed concentration is zero, thus:
dF = 3.35 ln(1 + 1.2 x 392 + 0.005 x 392 squared + 0.0000014 x 392 cubed) = 24 W/m2
And that unquestionably pre-feedback value is pretty close to Kiehl & Trenberth’s implicit 27 Watts per square meter, from which it follows either that Kiehl and Trenberth’s value must a pre-feedback value or that feedbacks are a tiny fraction of what the IPCC tries to tell us they are. No amount of mere repetition of Mr. Shore’s error will make it anything other than an error.
Finally, a number of commenters have added some downright vulgar posts to this thread. For instance, SteveE talks about the Sun shining out of my posterior, blinding people to the “BS” that he says I “spout”. And the barely-literate “major9985” seems to be running a hate-mail campaign all of his own. I once asked the moderators why they allowed comments of that kind. Their answer – and it was a good one – was that it is important for Anthony’s readers to be able to see for themselves how the skeptics argue, usually with politeness and with patience and with science, and to see how – by painful contrast – the climate-extremists argue, all too often with illiteracy, innumeracy, vulgarity, vain repetition, wilful perversion of the truth, and outright hatred. A word to the wise: however crudely or cruelly you flog a long-dead horse, you will not bring it back to life. Move on!
Since there is no licensing board or professional test to become a peer reviewer, anyone who is a scientific peer with the requisite qualifications can review manuscripts. That is “peer review”, and no doubt Albert Einstein would fully agree.
The fact that print journals are doing a head-fake in pretending to be the sole Authority regarding who is, and who is not a peer reviewer is one reason they are rapidly losing credibility. The Climategate emails show conclusively that a small clique has hijacked and corrupted climate “peer review” beyond repair. Joel Shore is merely carrying their water for them.
Since there exists no professional standards board for who may be designated a ‘peer reviewer’, Joel Shore is merely displaying his insecurity when he tries to be a self-appointed authority on who is, and who is not, a peer reviewer. In Joel Shore’s world, only pals may be peer reviewers. But that opinion lacks credibility, and Joel should quit whining about it.
Thanks Joel Shore, major9985 and Steve E for showing how empty your minds and arguments are.
@R. Gates
“please site the exact, precise place, that I claim that CO2 is the “primary driver” of temperature.”
That is easy: when you say that, “A mixture of greenhouse gases keeps our planet warmer than it would be without them, and the mixture of them keeps the world warmer than the sum of their individual warming. (i.e. take away the non-condensing CO2 and we go back an ice planet within a few decades)”
You have said many similar things in the past. You have numerous times attributed all warming since the LIA to the 40% increase in CO2, both directly and by implication. Please recognise that you are speaking to people who understand warmist ‘cleverness’ and attribution by ‘implications’. Howver in the quote above which you thoughtfully provided immediately after you write asking for a citation, your implication is that without CO2 the planet would cool to a frozen Earth snowball.
This is I preseume, a reference the idea that water vapour is only a ‘feedback’ and without the blessing of live-giving CO2, no water vaopur would be present in the atmosphere as there would be no precious magical CO2 to drive it there. As we both know, this is nonsense so there is little point in making such implications as you have just done.
Water vapour is a forcing factor just like methane. Without CO2, we would have a dead planet with no large lifeforms but not because it was frozen. It would be because there is no CO2 to feed the plants.
You continue, “…such that with the two together, water vapor may contribute more, but take away CO2, and water vapor matters less.”
Less? You are implying that without CO2 there is perhaps ‘nearly no effect from water vapour’? What exactly then are you implying? What number would you put on it? Your oft-cited 40% CO2 rise and your oft-cited temperature rise are together in post after post, with your repeated implication that one must be leading to the other. The CO2 rose 40% and the temperature went up about 1.5 degrees. That is a very low sensitivity even if 100% of the temperature rise was caused by CO2, (as seems not to be the case). Why would removing all CO2 precipitate a massive drop if there is only a small rise, or portion of a small rise?
“It is the combination of the two that keep us at the temperature we enjoy.” There are many factors oether than CO2 and water that warm the planet. Willis is doing a good job if pointing that out.
The failure of some skeptics to fully understand the huge difference that combining a condensing with a non-condensing greenhouse gas is a huge vacuum of ignorance for them. But I sense, that at least for some skeptics, there is no real desire to fill that vacuum.”
Let’s review your points:
1. the mixture of them keeps the world warmer than the sum of their individual warming.
2. take away the non-condensing CO2 and we go back an ice planet
The second does not follow from the first for a whole variety of reasons. One of them is that CO2 is not the only non-condensing GHG – methane is there naturally, for instance. Another is that atmospheric heating is not only due to re-radiation of long-wave IR (“the greenhouse effect”) but also due to reactions with short-wave uv (e.g. tropospheric ozone). Another is that in a slightly cooler world there would be less cloud cover, therefore less reflection and more insolation of the surface leading to greater evaporation of water. Your thought experiment is a fail.
@Monckton of Brenchley
“it is important for Anthony’s readers to be able to see for themselves how the skeptics argue, usually with politeness and with patience and with science, and to see how – by painful contrast – the climate-extremists argue, all too often with illiteracy, innumeracy, vulgarity, vain repetition, wilful perversion of the truth, and outright hatred.”
Vulgarity:
“…delivered in a nasal and irritatingly matey tone (at least we are spared his face — he looks like an overcooked prawn),”
“confusedly recycled from a serially mendacious video by some no-account non-climatologist at a fourth-rank bible college in Nowheresville”
“The guy couldn’t even get his elementary arithmetic right – not that the caveman mentions that fact, of course.”
Wilful perversion of the truth:
“There has indeed been a remarkable correlation between CO2 and temperatures over the past 500 million years” Monckton, September 18, 2011
“Well, there has in the past few thousand years, but the correlation since the Cambrian era has been spectacularly poor” Monckton, January 11, 2012
“They [the NOAA] rely only on data from ships dropping canvas buckets down as they randomly pass across the oceans, and pulling up some water and sticking a thermometer in.” Monckton, 2009
“Mr. Monckton’s statement to the effect that we used temperature measurements of seawater gathered by dragging canvas buckets through the ocean are completely false. In fact, I know of no scientific group that would even think such a technique could supply useful measurements!”
Sydney Levitus, 2011
[Note: several very similar and redundant posts with the same quotes deleted. ~dbs, mod.]
[snip sorry – we have limits to hijacking threads and you’ve exceeded it. We get the point, you don’t like Monckton and you think he is hypocritcal. Time to move on. Please be as upset as you wish – Anthony]
[snip]
Lord Monckton said:
“So let us provide some elementary, and definitive evidence, that Kiehl & Trenberth’s estimate of the radiative forcing caused by the presence (as opposed to the total absence) of the top five greenhouse gases is what they say it is – an estimate of the forcing – and not an estimate of the forcing plus any consequent temperature feedbacks.
Kiehl and Trenberth’s paper says, in effect, that about 27% of the total forcing from the top five greenhouse gases is attributable to CO2. And 27% of 101 Watts per square meter is around 27 Watts per square meter. What we need to do, therefore, is to find another “mainstream” way of calculating the forcing effect of all 392 ppmv of CO2 now in the atmosphere. A logarithmic function attributed by the IPCC to James Hansen allows us to determine the total CO2 forcing dF, before taking account of any feedbacks, even when the unperturbed concentration is zero, thus:
dF = 3.35 ln(1 + 1.2 x 392 + 0.005 x 392 squared + 0.0000014 x 392 cubed) = 24 W/m2
And that unquestionably pre-feedback value is pretty close to Kiehl & Trenberth’s implicit 27 Watts per square meter, from which it follows either that Kiehl and Trenberth’s value must a pre-feedback value or that feedbacks are a tiny fraction of what the IPCC tries to tell us they are.
___________
Very well done, and I think essentially correct, and on target and at least not off by an order of magnitude. As Trenberth has estimated the total downward backradiation LW from the atmosphere to be approximately 333 W/m2, and if you take the average estimated contribution from CO2 of that total which is about 17%, then that would give you about 57 W/m2. But of course this 57 W/m2 might include at least some of the feedback effects (to the extent they exist), as it is based on measurements, and not model data, and thus might well be higher than the 24 or 27 W/m2 first order logarithmic calculation.
More difficult of course is estimating how any addtional W/m2 of forcing from additional CO2 will translate into temperature changes over the short term (transient response) or over the longer term (equilibrium response), and thus, we can eagerly await Lord Monckton’s upcoming paper on this with my particular interest in seeing how he will prove that these two responses will be “nearly equal”.
SteveE,
Can you understand the difference between thousands of years and 500 million years? And when have you ever been critical of Mann’s using corrupted proxies like Tiljander? Or are you completely blind to the fabrications and scientific misconduct endemic to the Mann/Jones clique?
Smokey says… “However, AGW is not a hypothesis, and it is certainly not a “theory”. It is only a scientific conjecture.”
Really? An idea that was first proposed over 100 years ago? An idea which was based on research that began almost 200 years ago now. An idea that has the support of more than 100,000 published research papers is only scientific conjecture?
Look, arguing climate sensitivity has some merit. You might want to constrain your discussion to this because saying that AGW is merely conjecture has absolutely no basis. I’m sure even prominent skeptics like Spencer and Christy would agree.
Honeycutt says:
“You might want to constrain your discussion to this because saying that AGW is merely conjecture has absolutely no basis.”
Wrong: Basis. Get up to speed. AGW is a conjecture for the basic reason that it is not testable. Hypotheses must be testable.
@Monckton of Brenchley
The criticism here is something you clearly find worth addressing, as you keep responding. It would be nice if you would address the ones who point out how you are shown on video saying one thing, then shown denying you said it, such as when you said only Gangotri was retreating. Potholer54 plays this over and over in his video, and your rebuttal here makes it seem like he’s referring to another quote by you entirely. You then knock down the strawman you constructed. I find this dishonest.
Monckton of Brenchley says:
Okay…So, if you really believe that, then here is a question for you: How did Kiehl and Trenberth separate the total radiative effect of water vapor into the effect from that water vapor that would be there even if the CO2 were removed and the effect from the water vapor that is added to the atmosphere as a result of the temperature increase due to CO2 (i.e., the feedback)? Did they do this using their psychic abilities? Did they describe anywhere how they did this? Is there in fact any smidgeon of evidence anywhere that they did this? I don’t think so.
That is because it was a paper discussing the radiative effects of the various greenhouse gases that are in the current atmosphere and not any attempt to discuss how these gases got into the atmosphere.
This is completely irrelevant. The problem is not with the CO2 forcing. The problem is with the “forcing” due to water vapor (& clouds). The relevant question is how much of that water vapor “forcing” would disappear if the temperature of the atmosphere were lowered due to the removal of the CO2 from the atmosphere.
SteveE says:
January 13, 2012 at 8:36 am
[snip sorry – we have limits to hijacking threads and you’ve exceeded it. We get the point, you don’t like Monckton and you think he is hypocritcal. Time to move on. Please be as upset as you wish – Anthony]
Hi Anthony,
I submitted several post but when I hit the post comment button the screen just refreshed and my comment wasn’t on the waiting moderation list, hence I submitted them again. I assume that a word in the quotes from Monckton put it in some auto-moderation queue. I only wanted to submit four posts all but one of them were published, the other were just duplicates that I altered slightly each time I resubmitted them.
Hope this helps explain the rational for the numerous comments submitted.
Regards
Steve
Smokey, I think you’ve misread my post both of those quotes are from Monckton:
“There has indeed been a remarkable correlation between CO2 and temperatures over the past 500 million years” Monckton, September 18, 2011
“Well, there has in the past few thousand years, but the correlation since the Cambrian era has been spectacularly poor” Monckton, January 11, 2012
As you can see they contradict each other, one he says there is a correlation going back 500 million years and the other he says it only goes back a few thousand.
I do understand the difference between thousands of years and 500 million years, please just reread my post.
Regards
Steve
Smokey
“AGW is a conjecture for the basic reason that it is not testable. Hypotheses must be testable.”
The philosophic requirement for testability is a logical test. That is, the hypothesis must be testable in principle. I’ll suggest that you start with reading AJ ayers and move on from there.
1. Everything happens according to God’s will, is not testable.
2. neptune is made of green cheese, is testable in principle. Go there and see. in practical
terms, we confirm these hypothesis in indirect ways.
a) if it were made of green cheese, we would expect to see x, y, z..
b) sensor returns are consistent with an explanation that says it is made of p, q and r
AGW is testable in principle passing the philosophical requirement, confirming it and testing it in practice depends on a wide variety of evidence.
Smokey
“Mr. Metzler, in a pointlessly angry posting, wonders whether anyone at WattsUpWithThat accepts the physical properties of CO2 that were established 200 years ago. My post explicitly mentioned, with approval, John Tyndale’s experiment of 1859, which established that the greenhouse effect is real and that CO2 contributes to it. It is really no longer possible for the climate-extremist faction to continue to maintain that the scientific debate between skeptics and alarmists is about whether CO2 causes warming. It does: get used to it. The debate is about how much warming the CO2 causes – a quantitative, not a qualitative, question. And, as I hope shortly to prove, the warming that CO2 causes is not enough to worry about, still less to spend trillions on.”
You better go tell Lord M, that AGW is not testable.
Sky dragons descend and take on the good lord.
maybe its time for WUWT to ban C02 “contrarians” along with the chem trail bunch.
GHGs warm the planet. The question is how much
steven mosher,
[First, the quote you posted above was not my quote. You make it appear that it is by posting my name above it.]
Steven, being testable “in principle” does not necessarily mean being testable in reality. Anything that does not violate causation is testable “in principle”. However, in order to comply with the scientific method, a conjecture must be testable in practice in order to be elevated to the status of a hypothesis.
The scientific method requires a hypothesis to be testable in the real world, so that others can attempt to replicate the claimed results. Pointing out that AGW is a conjecture is using the term correctly. Conjecture is the first step in the scientific method. It would settle most if not all of the debate if AGW was a testable hypothesis, and thus quantifiable. But the debate still rages, specifically due to the fact that AGW is still an untestable conjecture.
Smokey says:
Oh, yes! After all, evolution is a testable hypothesis…And, look how little debate we get about it! Why, there is even a majority of Americans who believe in it if you define it weakly enough!
Surely it is the business of science to enquire open-mindedly with the aim of determining the objective truth? Those who, like me, try to ask reasonable questions are assailed from one direction by the climate-extremists, who seem to resent any expression of doubt about the party line, and from the other by the “no-greenhouse-effect-exists” brigade.
What is the truth about the Himalayan glaciers? The IPCC maintained for years that all the ice would be gone from the Himalayas within 25 years of now. They were wrong: and Railroad Engineer Pachauri was wrong to say, month after month, that anyone who said they were wrong was anti-science. No, we were pro-science and anti- the party line.
Yet those who maunder on and on about whether Gangotri is the only glacier receding in the Himalayas seem uninterested either in correcting manifest errors in the party line or in trying to determine the objective scientific truth. The truth, as I have stated time and again, is that the pattern of advance and recession of the Himalayan glaciers is much as it has been in the 200 years since the Raj began keeping records. That, at any rate, is the opinion of Prof. M.I. Bhat, of the Indian Geological Survey, whose job is to monitor the 9,575 glaciers that debouch from the Himalayas into India. Gangotri has shown particularly strong recession, but that – according to Professor Bhat – is principally attributable to local geological disturbances,
To seize on one unscripted talk by me, in which I carelessly suggested in passing that Gangotri was the only glacier receding in the Himalayas (given that there are 9,575 of them, and given the climatic variability and geological instability of the Himalayas that would be an untenable proposition), and to go on and on and on and on about it when there are plenty of references to the correct position in other talks and writings by me seems less than reasonable.
And then there is the question of the correlation between CO2 concentration and temperatures over the past 500 million years. SteveE purports to quote an earlier posting by me, but he neglects to complete the quotation: I said that the causative direction appeared to be the opposite of that stated in the party line: namely, that in the paleoclimate it was temperature that changed first and CO2 concentration that followed it. And if one looks at the slide that I was showing at the point when the caveman took me to task, it is obvious from that slide that, whichever the direction of causation, over a sufficiently long timescale the correlation between the two variables is remarkably poor, though there are various periods within that long timescale where the correlation is excellent – except that it was the temperature changes that preceded and inferentially drove the CO2 concentration changes, and not – as the party line would have it – the other way about.
Finally, yet again, Joel Shore sullenly persists in his error about whether Kiehl and Trenberth’s value for the total radiative forcing from the presence of the top five greenhouse gases in the atmosphere included the effect of temperature feedbacks. The answer is that it did not. He has still failed to address the following points I have made:
1. Kiehl and Trenberth do not mention temperature feedbacks anywhere in their paper. They are concerned with forcings, because their paper is concerned with the annual energy budget of the Earth, and most feedbacks do not operate over such short timescales.
2. Kiehl and Trenberth denominate the forcings in Watts per square meter, the units in which forcings are expressed.
3. Kiehl and Trenberth do not denominate the forcings in Watts per square meter per Kelvin, the units in which temperature feedbacks are expressed.
Next, when I demonstrated, using one of the IPCC’s own forcing functions, that the radiative forcing (and only the forcing) from the presence of all the CO2 in the atmsophere was 24 Watts per square meter, very close to Kiehl and Trenberth’s 27 Watts per square meter CO2 forcing, and drew the obvious conclusion that either Kiehl and Trenberth were indeed talking only about forcings and not about feedbacks or that their implicit value for feedbacks is no more than an insignificant fraction of the tripling of the base forcing that the IPCC imagines, he dismissed the point – without even an attempt at argument – as irrelevant. Once again, I do not get the impression that Mr. Shore is in search of the scientific truth. If the pun be permitted, he seems more interested in Shoring up the party line even at points where it has long been seen to fail than in making any genuine attempt to understand the objective scientific truth. And truth alone, as Fr. Vincent McNabb used to say, is worthy of our entire devotion.
Monckton of Brenchley:
(A little confused on the right way to address you. Should I start this with Dear Lord? 🙂 )
“One commenter says that creating these pages would have cost only a few hundred dollars. Quite right. But the really high-ticket item, so the Professor told me, was getting the search-engines to give all two dozen of these rubbish pages – which no one would actually want to read, because there was nothing that made any sense in them except the words “Monckton video” – a page-ranking higher than that of the page containing my speech.”
Many thanks for your response, and I assume that was my post you were referring to. I’m still a little confused, or perhaps you are or the professor was, but I don’t know of any way to spend that much money doing what you describe. I have no doubt that it’s easy to create some pages full of gibberish, and indeed to get them to the top of the search rankings for any given term for a short time. But it costs, say, ten dollars a page, and you can’t help matters by paying Google. All you do is spam the links all over the place, like on these comments pages – hence the spam filtering. You can get a team of people in India or Taiwan or some such who’ll do it for peanuts.
Without additional information, my best guess for the figures the professor gave is that he took the cost to have a real site optimised for search engines in a sustainable, long-term way – a costly and complicated exercise – for which a reasonable figure might well be $10,000, and applied it inappropriately to a similar short-term process which is far less costly.
Otherwise, I can only imagine that there was presumed spending on adwords and similar – paid keywords on Google – but they are not capable of being used in the way you describe.
I can’t help wondering if this wasn’t actually just spam. These nonsense pages are not uncommonly created for ‘viral’ keywords. The resulting revenues are not high, which says a lot about the creation cost. One might adapt the old saying about not ascribing to malice that which can be explained by incompetence to the internet: never ascribe to malice that which can be explained as spam.
My apologies if I’ve missed some key fact which renders my speculation pointless; my intention is to help find a form of words which accurately conveys the concept you have in mind.
Smokey says:
January 13, 2012 at 9:44 am
Honeycutt says:
“You might want to constrain your discussion to this because saying that AGW is merely conjecture has absolutely no basis.”
Wrong: Basis. Get up to speed. AGW is a conjecture for the basic reason that it is not testable. Hypotheses must be testable.
________
You are nothing if not entertaining Smokey. This old meme of yours is of course quite silly. The Theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming, is just that…a theory. It might have been a “conjecture” a century ago, but has gone far beyond that. Of course, your insistence that it is just a “conjecture” helps to make it seem small and insignificant, and I would offer the “conjecture” that this brings great comfort to skeptics such yourself. At least some skeptics were bold enough to alter the title given to the Theory of AGW, and call it a “Sky Dragon”. Afterall, it would hardly be very exciting to suggest that they slew the terrible “Conjecture of AGW”. Doesn’t real grab the imagination now does it.
Gates, I understand that your mind is closed, but for the benefit of our numerous readers: AGW is a conjecture, because it is not empirically testable. If it were testable it would be quantifiable, and the presumed “human fingerprint” of global warming could then be accurately measured. But that is not the case, which is why there is an ongoing disagreement over the issue.
AGW is certainly not a “theory”, such as Evolution or Relativity. A theory is a hypothesis with at least one nontrivial validating datum, therefore AGW does not qualify. Theories make accurate predictions; AGW cannot. AGW is a conjecture based on radiative physics [and I agree with the AGW conjecture, although the effect is obviously very small; otherwise temperature would track CO2. It doesn’t].
Attempting to mis-classify AGW with the Theory of Relativity and the Theory of Evolution is nonsense, because AGW simply does not fit the definition of a theory. Or, for that matter, of a hypothesis. But thanx for your opinion. It shows that you misuse accepted scientific definitions in a lame attempt to support a weak argument. Good arguments do not need such rhetorical support.
• • •
Joel Shore says:
“Smokey says:
‘It would settle most if not all of the debate if AGW was a testable hypothesis, and thus quantifiable.’
“Oh, yes! After all, evolution is a testable hypothesis…And, look how little debate we get about it! Why, there is even a majority of Americans who believe in it if you define it weakly enough!”
Joel, put down the wine glass and try to think clearly. Evolution is a hypothesis; I’m surprised that you don’t know that all Theories and Laws are also hypotheses. And the fact that there is a raging debate over the AGW conjecture proves my point that AGW is not a hypothesis. If it were a hypothesis, it would be repeatedly testable and thus verifiable. It is neither empirically testable nor quantifiable. Guesstimates range from a cooling effect through more than 100% of the [natural] warming since the LIA! These are only opinions. Quantifiable, measuable testability would nail down the specific fraction of warming attributable to AGW. Unfortunately, there is no such testability. Thus, AGW remains a conjecture.
Correctly labeling AGW as a conjecture is the first step in the scientific method. But to elevate a conjecture to the status of a hypothesis requires that it must be testable, per the scientific method. AGW is not testable; it relies upon radiative physics. And there is a leap of faith required to presume that AGW is a hypothesis – based on a different hypothesis. Gates even insists that AGW is a Theory, putting him squarely in the lunatic fringe. You’re getting close yourself, and I would advise you to not take that final step by misusing scientific terminology.
It is simply untrue to claim that I have not answered this point (many times!), although it is such a pathetically weak argument to start with that the fact that it has become the mainstay of your argument shows how little actual argument you have.
I have explained to you that whether something is a forcing or a feedback depends on context. In particular, one has to imagine a certain experiment (i.e., changing some forcing or another) in order to decide what contributions might be feedbacks to that forcing. Since Kiehl and Trenberth are just trying to get the energy budget correct, they are not considering any such experiment: They are simply asking what the radiative effects are of the various components in our current atmosphere. E.g., they are not addressing how or why that particular amount of water vapor or clouds happen to be in the atmosphere. They are just taking them to be there in the amounts that they are and calculating the radiative effect of them.
And, your claim that most feedbacks do not operate over such short timescales” is laughable: Your proposed thought experiment to determine the climate sensitivity was to look at the difference between the atmosphere with all greenhouse gases present and all removed. You were presumably considering allowing as much time as necessary for the feedbacks to operate and give the equilibrium climate sensitivity.
To convert between these units of feedback and forcing, all you need to do is multiply by a temperature change. For example, if you imagine removing all of the CO2 from the atmosphere, that causes a certain temperature change. If you then take this temperature change and multiply by the value for the water vapor feedback, that will give you the resulting radiative effect that occurs due to the fact that this lower temperature results in less water vapor being present in the atmosphere. (In reality, you have to solve self-consistently, since as water vapor is removed, the temperature will drop more and this will cause a further reduction in water vapor…)
I said it was irrelevant because it is irrelevant. The experiment we are talking interested in is one in which CO2 is indeed a forcing. Hence, the question is not about how much of the CO2 should be considered a feedback rather than the forcing; rather, the question is how much of the water vapor and clouds should be considered a feedback rather than a forcing. I do not contest the notion that CO2 contributes a forcing of 27 W/m^2 in the current atmosphere.
Maybe you get that impression because of psychological projection: As a politician, you find it hard to imagine a life such as mine, devoted to scientific research and teaching and the search for scientific truth for truth’s sake. You try to look at me, but you only see only your own reflection in the mirror.
Here are the arguments of mine that you really truly have never even ATTEMPTED to answer:
(1) You have never attempted to engage the substance of my argument, namely, that some of the water vapor in the atmosphere would end up condensing out of the atmosphere if we removed only the CO2 from the atmosphere (because of the resulting temperature drop). This illustrates that we do not have to reduce the forcing by the full ~100 W/m^2 that you attribute to all the greenhouse elements in order to get the full temperature reduction of 33 K. I can understand why you refuse to engage this argument, since your best hope is just to ignore it and hope people don’t notice that you are doing that.
(2) You have never attempted to engage in a discussion of my “Bill Gates feedback” analogy that makes it clear, even for someone like yourself who seems to be so confused about forcings and feedbacks, what is wrong with your argument.
Yes, “petty smears” are terrible, aren’t they? And “artfully-distorted”, “inconsequential”, “silly allegations”, “disinclined to waste much time on him”, “ineptly and confusedly recycled”, “serially mendacious”, “no-account non-climatologist”, “fourth-rank bible college”, “Nowheresville”, “couldn’t even get his elementary arithmetic right”, and “caveman” are not at all infantile, are they?
video response from pothole
[SNIP: No, Lance, those are the videos Lord Monckton is responding to and Anthony has already linked to them in the article. -REP]
To see all of moncktons mistakes in context with evidence to back up where he went wrong, it is all pointed out in potholer54’s videos:
Lord Monckton Bunkum Part 1 – Global cooling and melting ice
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbW-aHvjOgM
Monckton Bunkum Part 2 – Sensitivity
[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTY3FnsFZ7Q
Monckton Bunkum Part 3 – Correlations and Himalayan glaciers
[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpF48b6Lsbo
Monckton Bunkum Part 4 — Quotes and misquotes
[4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3giRaGNTMA
Monckton bunkum Part 5 — What, MORE errors, my lord?
[5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRCyctTvuCo
[MODERATOR’S NOTE: Yes, by all means, watch the videos and see how Hadfield erects strawmen and then claims they are Lord Monckton’s mistakes. As Steve McIntyre often puts it, watch the pea under the thimble. -REP]
[SNIP: No, Lance, those are the videos Lord Monckton is responding to and Anthony has already linked to them in the article. -REP]
Sorry, didn’t see links in post, my bad.
Alan Statham says: January 13, 2012 at 5:47 pm
Alan, I would describe them as witty, elegant and accurate.
[MODERATOR’S NOTE: Yes, by all means, watch the videos and see how Hadfield erects strawmen and then claims they are Lord Monckton’s mistakes. As Steve McIntyre often puts it, watch the pea under the thimble. -REP]
This is a Challenge to everyone, post your findings.
[REPLY: Fine. I’ll go first. In the second part of his Monckton Answers a Troll video, available here, starting at 3:30, Hadfield comments on what he characterized as my “apology” to Lord Monckton: “… the moderator for Wattsupwiththat claimed that my rebuttals lacked any form of documentation….” … freeze the video and read the words. I was clearly referring to The Other Brian’s comment. I had no idea who or what a potholer54 was and I was certainly not going to mount a search to find out. Hadfield’s characterization, though, neatly fits his narrative. Careless or mendacious? You decide. -REP]
[snip – try toning it down – Anthony]
Smokey said:
“Gates, I understand that your mind is closed, but for the benefit of our numerous readers: AGW is a conjecture, because it is not empirically testable. If it were testable it would be quantifiable, and the presumed “human fingerprint” of global warming could then be accurately measured.
——
And so the testable and quantified AGW signal that Foster & Rahmstorf 2011 found:
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022
Doesn’t count, right? Because it doesn’t fit with the skeptical paradigm?
No, Smokey, my mind is far from closed, and there are many things related to the human fingerprint upon this planet, and the very operations of the planet itself that are far from settled, but as to whether AGW warming is a conjecture or theory is not one of those things.
major9985
“… the moderator for Wattsupwiththat claimed that my rebuttals lacked any form of documentation….” … freeze the video and read the words. I was clearly referring to The Other Brian’s comment.”
Let’s get at least one thing straightened out Mr. Watts about this totally over-the-top fuss that Lord Monckton has turned into a sideshow.
They were NOT my comments, is that clear, NOT my comments. I merely transcribed the summary that Peter Hadfield did in his final video in the “Monckton Bunkum” series.
You and a lot of others have obviously not watched the video so here it is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRCyctTvuCo
Go to 8 minutes 30 seconds and you will find almost the exact words I posted. I did have to change some wording so it made sense; the actual names of the scientists, and others, were removed and replaced with generalisations, but essentially it’s identical. But Peter Hadfield is right, I did misquote his by adding one word in one place.
But in Lord Monckton’s reply to my post he made childish remarks about a couple of typos I made – you see them all the time on blog sites like yours. These remarks are like the “caveman” comments he is now making – but that’s the good Lord for you.
[REPLY: NOT your comments? Here is the link. Your name. An unlinked reference to some no-named blogger. You certainly had enough to say in September. And your feelings are hurt because your spelling was criticized. Pathetic. -REP]
Dictionary meaning of Transcribe so they were NOT my comments – I’m sure the meaning would be clear to most people but alias not all.
Dictionary meaning of transcribe http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transcribed
so they were NOT my comments – I’m sure the meaning would be clear to most people but alias not all.
R Gates – there is a very simple way to settle your current argument with Smokey: tell us how AGW can be tested.
“AGW” needs to be defined, of course, and the IPCC definition of it is the reasonable one to use. The IPCC define it as follows – – – oh dear!, they don’t.
Wikipedia do describe it, and this could be taken as an implicit definition of AGW:
“Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth’s atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth’s average surface temperature increased by about 0.8 °C (1.4 °F) with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades.[2] Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and scientists are more than 90% certain most of it is caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases produced by human activities such as deforestation and burning fossil fuels.[3][4][5][6] These findings are recognized by the national science academies of all the major industrialized countries.[7][A]
Climate model projections are summarized in the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). They indicate that during the 21st century the global surface temperature is likely to rise a further 1.1 to 2.9 °C (2 to 5.2 °F) for their lowest emissions scenario and 2.4 to 6.4 °C (4.3 to 11.5 °F) for their highest.[8] The ranges of these estimates arise from the use of models with differing sensitivity to greenhouse gas concentrations.[9][10]“.
There is a very serious problem with this definition, which many here will spot instantly, and that is that it is a definition of “Global Warming”, not of “Anthropogenic Global Warming”. That merely demonstrates how corrupted this whole subject has become, but I would hope that we could rise above that, and accept it as a definition of AGW.
For those who do not like or trust Wikipedia, there is ‘The Free Dictionary’.
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Anthropogenic+global+warming
“global warming, the gradual increase of the temperature of the earth’s lower atmosphere as a result of the increase in greenhouse gases since the Industrial Revolution
.
The temperature of the atmosphere near the earth’s surface is warmed through a natural process called the greenhouse effect. Visible, shortwave light comes from the sun to the earth, passing unimpeded through a blanket of thermal, or greenhouse, gases composed largely of water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. Infrared radiation
reflects off the planet’s surface toward space but does not easily pass through the thermal blanket. Some of it is trapped and reflected downward, keeping the planet at an average temperature suitable to life, about 60°F; (16°C;).
Growth in industry, agriculture, and transportation since the Industrial Revolution has produced additional quantities of the natural greenhouse gases plus chlorofluorocarbons
and other gases, augmenting the thermal blanket. It is generally accepted that this increase in the quantity of greenhouse gases is trapping more heat and increasing global temperatures, making a process that has been beneficial to life potentially disruptive and harmful. During the 20th cent., the atmospheric temperature rose 1.1°F; (0.6°C;), and sea level rose several inches. Some projected, longer-term results of global warming include melting of polar ice, with a resulting rise in sea level and coastal flooding; disruption of drinking water supplies dependent on snow melts; profound changes in agriculture due to climate change; extinction of species as ecological niches disappear; more frequent tropical storms; and an increased incidence of tropical diseases.“.
OK, “Global Warming” is still corrupted, but we now have a reasonable picture of what AGW is:
– increases of greenhouse gases, created by mankind after the start of the industrial revolution, that have caused the global temperature to rise by about 0.6 deg C in the 20thC, and will cause the global temperature to rise by between 1.1 and 6.4 deg C in the 21stC. I include the ranges because the whole argument about AGW is about the strength of the effect and whether it is dangerous for the planet (ie, mankind). I don’t think that a microscopic warming effect would qualify as “AGW”, hence it is necessary to show test results quantifying the effect at something close to the figures given in the “definitions”.
R Gates’ latest (at time of writing this) post cited Foster and Ramsdorf. That paper is not and cannot possibly be a test of AGW. At no point in their paper do they even mention CO2 or greenhouse gases. At no point in their paper do they identify any actual global warming as being caused by any actual greenhouse gases. The whole paper is an “argument from ignorance” – “The resultant adjusted data show clearly, both visually and when subjected to statistical analysis, that the rate of global warming due to other factors (most likely these are exclusively anthropogenic) has been remarkably steady during the 32 years from 1979 through 2010. .
To say that an effect is “most likely” caused by “anthropogenic factors” when they haven’t even looked at those factors can hardly be described as a test of those factors. All they could legitimately conclude from their study is that the effect is caused by something that they have not looked at, which might be anthropogenic and might not. Provided; of course, that they have correctly quantified the factors that they did look at. In other words, they have not identified anything as being AGW.
oops the definition should be the effect of increased greenhouse gases, not the gases themselves.
It is clear that REP knew they where not the words of “The Other Brian” from his statement above,
“I had no idea who or what a potholer54 was and I was certainly not going to mount a search to find out. ”
You would think if the comments posted by “The Other Brian” was going to be made into a post by Anthony, a simple search would have been warranted??
So is this the way things work around here REP, no background checks for some rudimentary facts regarding the posts Anthony puts on the website. I would like to address the question to Anthony, but it is clear you have all the power and hide the comments you don’t want him to see. They should call the site whats up with REP.
REPLY: Actually, I’m the one who has snipped your comments, because I simply don’t tolerate certain types of threadjacking from anonymous hateful trolls like yourself. We get it, you don’t like Monckton, you don’t like me, you don’t like the moderators, and you don’t like WUWT. Message received – and we’ve noted that nothing would satisfy you, so we won’t play the game anymore. Be as upset as you wish, but you’re done here and all further messages go to the bit bucket. – Anthony
Is the temperature change from 3.7 W/m2 forcing from doubling CO2 really 1.0C (1.2C) (0.7C)? (the question is, is it really? have we measured something that provides some evidence)?
Is the temperature change at the surface, where we live, the same number?
Is the water vapour feedback really 2.0 W/m2 per 1.0C change in temperatures? (in the ice ages as well)?
Is the cloud feedback really 1.0 W/m2 per 1.0C change in temperatures? (in the ice ages as well, how come Antarctica actually has more clouds)?
———
Technically, these numbers are all tuned to produce 3.0C per doubling. Cloud feedback, for example doesn’t have really good theory behind it that we have confidence in. If these assumptions are lower than the above in how the real actual climate responds, then the sensitivity drops exponentially.
SteveE says:
January 13, 2012 at 6:15 am
Wendy says:
January 13, 2012 at 4:06 am
Anna, I don’t need to google anything….the correct term /spelling is “FRAC”. We want accuracy in climate science terms, let’s make sure we are also being accurate in other areas. Media uses the term “FRACK”, industry does not.
Have an “accurate” day!
—–
The industry actually calls it hydraulic fracturing. Some shorten it to “fracing” but it’s not really an industry official term.
http://www.cuadrillaresources.com/what-we-do/technology/hydraulic-fracturing/
Hope you have a more accurate day than you’ve had so far
………………………………………………………………………..
Thanks SteveE for verifying the correct spelling by industry as opposed to media!!
not quite what you were attempting to do, was it. 😉
BTW, neither I nor the geoscientists I work with plan to “hydraulically fracture” the next well, it’s “frac”.
TTFN
Hurrah! Joel Shore at last writes: “I do not contest the notion that CO2 contributes a forcing of 27 Watts per square meter in the current atmosphere”. Forcing, not feedback. The IPCC’s second function for determining the CO2 radiative forcing shows that the presence of CO2 contributes 24 Watts per square meter of forcing. Forcing, not feedback. The two values are near-identical, so we can be sure we are talking about forcing. Forcing, not feedback. Let’s go with 27 Watts per square meter, since Mr. Shore now accepts this value for the total CO2 forcing. Forcing, not feedback.
Since the total forcing from the presence of CO2 in the atmosphere today represents around 27 per cent of the forcing from the top five greenhouse gases (Kiehl & Trenberth, 1997), the total forcing from the presence of the top five greenhouse gases must be, as they say it is, 100 Watts per square meter or thereby. Forcing, not feedback.
As I have explained in previous posts, the total warming from the presence of all the greenhouse gases (which is near enough the same as that from the presence of the top five) is about 33 K. So the equilibrium climate-sensitivity parameter, given that over geological time most of the temperature feedbacks that are going to act will have acted, is 33/100, or 0.33 K per Watt per square meter. Multiply that by the 3.7 Watts per square meter radiative forcing from a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration and the equilibrium climate sensitivity is demonstrated to be 1.2 K in response to a doubling of CO2 concentration.
Since this 1.2 K is the equilibrium sensitivity that obtains after all feedbacks have acted fully, and since elementary methods (see e.g. Hansen, 1984; Roe, 2009) establish that 1.2 K is also the sensitivity that would obtain if there were no feedbacks or if they summed to zero, it is legitimate to deduce that temperature feedbacks, far from tripling the warming caused by the original forcing that triggered them, are indeed very close to net-zero.
Mr. Shore has been trying to suggest that I have assumed feedbacks to be net-zero and have then used that assumption to develop an argument that feedbacks are net-zero. That would be a petitio principii, or circular argument, and of course I am not guilty of it here. As the brief argument outlined above surely makes clear, my contention that feedbacks are likely to be net-zero is a corollary of the argument’s conclusion that pre- and post-feedback sensitivities are pretty much identical. It is manifestly not – as Mr. Shore has been implying without evidence in recent postings – one of my argument’s premises.
I hope he and others will now understand one of the many reasons why I suspect that climate sensitivity is not likely to be much more than one third of the IPCC’s central estimate, in which event there is no “climate crisis” and the trillions now being wasted on making this costly non-problem go away can be redeployed in directions where they are more likely to do some good, and to do it cost-effectively.
Actually, I have reasons to suspect that climate sensitivity may prove to be even less than 1.2 K per CO2 doubling: but those reasons depend upon questioning the premises used by the IPCC and those whom it cites with approval. One merit of the above argument demonstrating low climate sensitivity is that it merely assumes that the IPCC’s premises are true, removing a very large area of potential disagreement.
Once the premises are accepted as true, as it seems Mr. Shore now accepts them, the only question remaining is one of logic: do the premises necessarily entail the conclusion? If so, the argument is not only valid but sound, and the conclusion that climate sensitivity is low is as true as the premises are. And that, in a world where science and logic prevailed over passion and prejudice, would be the end of the story.
Monckton says: At no point have I ever said CO2 has no effect on climate, for its effect was demonstrated by a simple but robust experiment as long ago as 1859.
Henry@Monckton
If you stay with the closed box experiments, it will lead you onto a path to nowhere.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-Aug-2011
Rather say; there is (currently) no way to prove that the net effect of more CO2 in the air is warming rather than cooling.
Monckton of Brenchley says:
A good way to get the result that you want is to assume it, which is exactly what you have done here. By saying that all of the water vapor in the atmosphere has to be put in as a forcing, you are assuming that there is no water vapor feedback, i.e., you are assuming that in order to go from an atmosphere with no greenhouse gases to an atmosphere with greenhouse gases that have a radiative effect of 100 W/m^2, you have to put all those greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The reality of the situation is that if you put in the non-condensable greenhouse gases then the resulting temperature increase will cause a lot of water vapor to go into the atmosphere and will then give you a lot of the radiative effect of the water vapor without ever having to explicitly put the water vapor into the atmosphere.
Your calculation is a complete tautology: Nobody doubts that the direct radiative effect of the 100 W/m^2 of greenhouse gases is to raise the temperature by ~33 K. That is simply what elementary considerations (Stefan-Boltzmann) tell you! The question is rather, when you add the non-condensable greenhouses in, how much change do you get in the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere and hence its radiative effect, how much change do you get in the amount of clouds in the atmosphere and hence its radiative effect (both due to greenhouse effects and albedo), how much change do you get in the surface albedo due to changes in ice and snow and hence its radiative effect? That is the part you have not answered with your simple calculation…and that is the actual thing that we are trying to answer.
Your little calculation has told us exactly nothing that we did not already know.
And, I noticed that you have continued to avoid addressing the points that I have noted that you have failed to address. That is probably a wise debating move, although it does show us that perhaps even you do not really believe your own arguments.
That is exactly what you are guilty of. You have assumed that all of the water vapor in the atmosphere had to be put in as a forcing. If any of it came into the atmosphere as a result of a temperature increase, then your calculation is wrong.
You have assumed that the ice-albedo effect on on the amount of solar energy absorbed does not change as you raise the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. If it does, then the radiative effect of such melting ice will cause a further increase in temperature increase and your calculation will be wrong.
In other words, you have not put in any feedbacks into the calculation as feedbacks. Hence, all that you have done is repeat the no-feedback calculation!
I have not accepted your premises. In fact, I have shown you exactly and repeatedly exactly where your premises are wrong. They are wrong because the notions of forcing and feedback are defined in the context of a particular “experiment” carried out on the Earth’s climate system. Your assumption is that you could add all of the non-condensable greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere would remain completely unchanged…That is precisely the assumption that you are making in considering all of the current water vapor in the atmosphere to be a forcing and not a feedback. And, that assumption is frankly ridiculous; it defies common sense.
And, your only justification for assuming this is the fact that Kiehl and Trenberth refer to the water vapor as a forcing; however, it is clear that this is a matter of context. They call it a forcing because what they are trying to do is simply to figure out how much each of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere contributes to the total greenhouse effect. They are not looking at the question of what happens to water vapor when the amount of other greenhouse gases is changed. That is investigated, for example in the paper of Lacis et al. ( http://www.sciencemag.org/content/330/6002/356.short ) who show that in the climate models when you remove all of the non-condensable greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, you end up losing almost the whole atmospheric greenhouse effect.
@ the moderator:
You wrote: “Hadfield comments on what he characterized as my “apology” to Lord Monckton…”
= I characterized this as an apology because you wrote: “I… regret any distress such comments may occasion.” =
Was I wrong to describe this as an apology? You continue:
=”… the moderator for Wattsupwiththat claimed that my rebuttals lacked any form of documentation….” … freeze the video and read the words. I was clearly referring to The Other Brian’s comment. I had no idea who or what a potholer54 was and I was certainly not going to mount a search to find out. =
In fairness, the Other Brian stated clearly that he was summarizing my videos, and someone else even gave a link to them near the top of the comments page. No search had to be mounted, just the click of a mouse. Even so, I hope you agree that the fairest thing to write would have been that you had not seen my videos and could therefore not say whether they were backed by any documentation or not.
Peter Hadfield says: January 14, 2012 at 10:51 am
Welcome to Wattsupwiththat, Mr. Hadfield.
One of the tell-tales of the mendacious propagandist is taking words out of context and assigning his own meanings to them. My comment to Lord Monckton in full is here and I don’t think any fair-minded reader is going to interpret it as an obsequious, forelock tugging “… so dreadfully sorry, m’lord, and please be assured it will never happen again, yer worship….” I also happen to regret stepping on spiders, approving harsh criticism of the defenders of consensus science, and I especially regret giving any additional publicity to your odious videos. You may take those as “apologies”, too, if you wish.
You go on to write: In fairness, the Other Brian stated clearly that he was summarizing my videos, and someone else even gave a link to them… The Other Brian is responsible for what he posts, and that responsibility includes links. There are several moderators here at WUWT, reviewing as many as 2000 comments a day over a score of active threads. What I wrote about his comment was perfectly correct: a large number of allegations without citations. “Oh, gee, this may be important. I’d better review all the comments…” I am sorry, but a reference to some potholer54 does not meet the criterion. Posting your summary in the way he did it certainly implies his agreement and makes him responsible.
I notice that you have had nothing to say about how you twisted my comment in your video to imply I was writing about your videos rather than The Other Brian’s comment. I presume, then you agree that your video, in that regard at least, is mendacious. Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus.
Mr. Shore has now agreed with me that CO2 contributes a forcing (not containing any element of feedback) of 27 Watts per square meter. Now, it is generally well established in the literature that the forcing (not containing any element of feedback) from CO2 constitutes somewhere between 10% and 27% of the forcing (not containing any element of feedback) from all of the greenhouse gases, which accordingly exert between them 100 and 270 Watts per square meter of forcing (not containing any element of feedback). For the sake of making the premises of my argument as widely agreeable as possible, I took Kiehl & Trenberth’s total greenhouse-gas forcing of 100 Watts per square meter as the basis for my calculations.
Now that Mr. Shore has been compelled to accept that CO2 exerts a forcing (before we start taking any feedbacks into account) of 27 Watts per square meter, perhaps he would be kind enough to give me a citation from the peer-reviewed literature that indicates what proportion of the total forcing from all greenhouse gases (before we start taking any feedbacks into account) is represented by the 27 Watts per square meter from CO2.
If, as I think, the CO2 forcing accounts for between 10% and 20% of the forcing from all greenhouse gases, then climate sensitivity must be around 1.2 K, from which it follows that temperature feedbacks must be net-zero or thereby. It is not necessary for me to address the values of the individual feedbacks, none of which can be convincingly measured in any event, because my calculation is based on premises that I think most climate scientists would accept, and leads – in my submission validly – to a conclusion whose corollary is that temperature feedbacks are net-zero. As a matter of logic, therefore, it is necessary to demonstrate that my premises are false. And the best way to do that is to show me a paper, in the mainstream literature, that shows the forcing from CO2 to be something like thrice the 27% of total forcings given in Kiehl & Trenberth.
It is not appropriate to attack my argument by saying that the water-vapor feedback must be positive, for two reasons. First, as Paltridge et al. have demonstrated, the water-vapor feedback may not be positive at all. And, even if it were, the formidable temperature-stability of the past few hundred million years suggests that feedbacks are either net-zero or, if anything, somewhat net-negative. However, my argument does not in any way depend upon or require the determination of individual feedbacks or even of their sum. As I have said in an earlier entry here, my finding that feedbacks are net-zero is a corollary of my argument’s conclusion. The values of individual feedbacks, or of feedbacks collectively, play no part in my argument. Therefore, in defence of that argument I am not obliged to address the question what the magnitude or mechanism of various individual feedbacks might be.
Mr. Shore should, therefore, now address the reasonable question I have raised. If he thinks that the forcing from CO2, which he now agrees to be 27 Watts per square meter, is very substantially greater than the 27% of total forcing from the major greenhouse gases that is clear in Kiehl and Trenberth (1997), as it must be if his argument is to have any merit, then I need to see a reference justifying that substantially greater percentage. Otherwise, it necessarily follows that my argument stands valid and true: equilibrium and zero-feedback climate sensitivities are the same at 1.2 K, and that is indeed the end of the story.
I think it should be clear to anybody who understands the science at this point that Lord Monckton’s argument relies entirely on word games and studious avoidance of the discussion of the actual scientific arguments that I have raised. His entire argument rests on his refusal to acknowledge that the use of the word “forcing” and “feedback” depends on context.
Hence, in the context of considering the contribution of CO2 to the total radiative effect of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, he is correct that CO2 accounts for somewhere between about 10 and 27% (depending on whether one considers the amount temperatures would drop when the CO2 is removed with all other greenhouse gas levels held constant or if it is added to an atmosphere devoid of any greenhouse gases).
However, what he fails to address is that when CO2 levels change, the levels of water vapor are expected to change too and hence the total radiative effect of removing CO2 once other changes in greenhouse gas levels are considered can be considerably larger than just the radiative effect due to CO2 alone. By refusing to consider the fact that some of the 100 W/m^2 of “forcing” would really come about as a feedback if CO2 levels were changed, he has done a calculation that essentially neglects the water vapor feedback (and the ice-albedo feedback) and then disingenuously claimed that he has included them.
Since Monckton has refused to address the actual scientific arguments I have raised, I think we can conclude at this point that he is a very skillful debator but one whose arguments for a low climate sensitivity unfortunately lack any correct scientific foundation whatsoever. The fact that the argument that he presumably considers his most compelling for low climate sensitivity has been found to rest on word games rather than science, it must be inferred that all of his arguments are likely based on nothing more than smoke and mirrors.
The only interesting question for further speculation is whether Lord Monckton is truly this ignorant in his understanding of forcing and feedbacks or whether he knows he is incorrect but continues making an argument that is scientifically invalid for other reasons. I will not speculate on the answer to this question.
The fact that the argument that the IPCC presumably considers their most compelling for high climate sensitivity has been found to rest on “feedback” speculations rather than science, it must be inferred that all of their arguments are likely based on nothing more than smoke and mirrors. The only interesting question for further speculation is whether the IPCC is truly this ignorant in their understanding of the scientific process or whether they know they are incorrect but continue making an argument that is scientifically invalid for other reasons. I will not speculate on the answer to this question.
Now there’s an interesting proposition – Monckton Vs. the IPCC
Lord M wrote: “To seize on one unscripted talk by me, in which I carelessly suggested in passing that Gangotri was the only glacier receding in the Himalayas […], and to go on and on and on and on about it when there are plenty of references to the correct position in other talks and writings by me seems less than reasonable.”
This is an admision you were wrong when you said that, correct? It is good to see that you finally addressed it, even if with commentary that you think it’s petty to focus on this mistake of yours. Nobody expects that you must back out of your field because of one error (Well, I don’t anyway.)
My question then is, did you understand that this comment of yours was what was referred to when you wrote this, above?:
“Monckton says only one Himalayan glacier has been retreating. Many have.” No, I mentioned the Gangotri and Ronggbuk glaciers as being notable examples of glacial retreat in the Himalayas caused by geological instability in the region. To discuss one or two retreating glaciers is not the same thing as to say or imply that only one or two glaciers have been retreating. Why did the caveman misrepresent me?”
If you did Lord Monckton, then your answer should have been “yes” or even “yes but…” instead of “no.” If you didn’t understand, then I find it doubtful that you actually watched the videos where this quote of yours is played over and over.
To Joel Shore: It is not a “word game” to ask for a reference in the scientific literature to support your contention that the forcing from CO2 is about three times greater, as a fraction of the forcings from all major greenhouse gases, than the literature seems to me to suggest. This is no debating point. If you cannot produce a reference to back up your assertion, you lose.
The Lesser Brian keeps tripping on his lingua.
His (repetitious) Big Finish is a characteristic malaproprism. The expression he thinks he’s typing is , “Alas, not all.” But for him, “alias” is a perfectly acceptable alias for “alas”. Alas, it is not.
mod: typo,
malaproprismmalapropismHere we going playing the semantics game again. Whether I agreed or was responsible is irrelevant. The plain and indisputable fact is they were NOT my comments as has been claimed.
The links to videos had already been supplied by others and I referred to them in my post.
Semantics: the language used (as in advertising or political propaganda) to achieve a desired effect on an audience especially through the use of words with novel or dual meanings.
[REPLY: Let’s be clear: That thing with your pseudonym at the top was your comment. The contents of your comment are yours. You own them. Whether those ideas originated with you or someone else, you disseminated them with the intention of harming Lord Monckton. “I was just repeating what I heard” is not a very good defense in a libel case, nor does it stand as impressive testimony to your intellectual acumen. -REP]
@Mr.. REP
Sorry, but I did interpret your comment to Monckton as obsequious. The fact that you still refer to him as ‘Lord’ Monckton since his title as Lord has been debunked for sometime now is evidence of this.
Regarding not bothering to properly research Potholer54, laziness and ineptitude is not an excuse. If you didn’t have time to do your research, then you should not have taken the time to possibly post false allegations (which you did, since Potholer54 documented his claims very well).
As far as Potholer54 being odius, I don’t believe that he has ever sunk to the level of a grade-schooler and called Monckton anything resembling “caveman”.
[REPLY: My, my, my; so much fodder, so little time. I’m approving this one as an illustration of the low intellectual acuity and lack of reading skills that seem to characterize Mr. Hadfield’s acolytes. I’ll know your apology is sincere when you change your pseudonym to “thought-free-69”. -REP]
Glad to see you’re not perfect either Brian H
That is not what I am saying and furthermore you know that is not what I am saying. Although I declined to speculate on the last question that I raised in my previous post, I think the answer is becoming fairly obvious.
It’s also not wise to assume people’s motives when it comes to the Law.
After watching ALL the videos and the forensic approach taken by Peter Hadfield, my motive was merely to convey in written form, almost verbatim, what was in video #5 so people might watch all of them and make their own judgements – simple as that.
The videos were already public property, including the one I quoted from.
[REPLY: In England, Canada, the United States and Australia anyone who promulgates a libel is also guilty of libel. You never bothered to check for yourself, did you? Your little screed was not an invitation to people to rationally evaluate evidence for themselves, you were screeching at the top of your lungs about the perfidious Viscount of Brenchley. You also had nothing to say about Mr. Hadfield’s misrepresentation about me, did you? Monckton answered you…. why don’t you examine, for yourself, his claims and then make an informed judgment? -REP]
Mr REP, I am not surprised that you refused to publish my reply to your last post towards me. It is proof that you were defeated.
freethinker69 says: January 14, 2012 at 8:16 pm
Mr REP, I am not surprised that you refused to publish my reply to your last post towards me. It is proof that you were defeated.
Defeated? Hardly.
“…The fact that you still refer to him as ‘Lord’ Monckton since his title as Lord has been debunked…. Oh dear, he will be so surprised, as will Wikipedia and thepeerage.com:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Monckton,_3rd_Viscount_Monckton_of_Brenchley
http://www.thepeerage.com/i2065.htm#s30360
http://www.thepeerage.com/p8126.htm#i81260
You may not like the term, but it is in fact the correct form of address for a Viscount.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forms_of_address_in_the_United_Kingdom#Peers_and_peeresses
So, no, his claim to the title has not been “debunked”, which you would know if you’d bothered to do any research.
You may think that the use of the honorific is obsequious, but I usually refer to people by their proper titles. As far as I know, Mr. Hadfield is in fact a “Mr.” and I usually refer to Michael E. Mann as “Dr.” and would certainly address him as such if he should grace us with his presence. William Connolly was here earlier and I would not think of addressing him as “Bill”, but since I moderated only one of his comments without any remarks of my own, I never got the chance. A few of our commenters are bonafide Ph.D.s but regular commenters tend to be a bit more informal, so while Joel Shore is in fact a Ph.D. physicist he has never stood on that. Lazy Teenager is also, I believe, a Ph.D. but calling him Dr. Lazy Teenager would sound too rude. If there are any regular commenters who would prefer I use an honorific, please let me know and I promise to be as obsequious as you like.
Regarding not bothering to properly research Potholer54, laziness and ineptitude is not an excuse. If you didn’t have time to do your research…
Let’s see, I approved TOB’s comment. What else do you think I should have done? Lord Monckton himself responded here. Are you suggesting that I perhaps had an obligation to research and vet each of his claims… the way you obviously did for the potholer videos? My job at WUWT is to vet comments for language, civility and being on topic and make sure that the few topics Anthony does not want to discuss on his blog (religion, and illuminati/zionist conspiracies, to name two (you can see the rest here on the policy page) don’t get in.
”…you should not have taken the time to possibly post false allegations (which you did, since Potholer54 documented his claims very well)…”
That is one of the two instances I was referring to when mentioning your reading comprehension skills. I was, am, and will be referring to the appalling lack of references and evidence in TOB’s rant. You seem to have missed that part. It is also worth pointing out that Mr. Hadfield’s videos are snips of other videos. You never bothered to check their provenance, did you?
”As far as Potholer54 being odius…”
Reading comprehension issues again. The statement was “I especially regret giving any additional publicity to your odious videos” – nowhere do I suggest that Mr. Hadfield is himself odious (note the correct spelling, by the way). I stand by my opinion that his videos are odious: textbook examples of gotcha journalism, as his treatment of my response to Lord Monckton in the second part of his Monckton Responds video and his comment here at WUWT demonstrate.
Lord Monckton has, on occasion, made statements that have caused me to cringe, however he also been known to apologize. Don’t ask me to supply the reference, but I’m sure one of our other commenters who is less lazy and inept than myself will be happy to supply the link.
At one point about halfway down (I can’t blockquote to save my life or do any fancy stuff, sorry to say), Martin keeps saying “prove it” (I picture him sounding like the guy in the mouse suit in the DCON mousetrap ads who says “prove it”), well to him I say the proof of IPCC fraud has been posted thousands of times here. Just take a gander.
Freethinker69 – you’ve had better luck than me – Mr. REP has made an informed judgement and come up with a conclusion that sits well with him – strange and diverse thing the human condition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_condition
Observer the futility of feeding trolls.
REP said January 14, 2012 at 10:13 pm:
“Defeated? Hardly.
“…The fact that you still refer to him as ‘Lord’ Monckton since his title as Lord has been debunked…. Oh dear, he will be so surprised, as will Wikipedia and thepeerage.com:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Monckton,_3rd_Viscount_Monckton_of_Brenchley”
LOL. I read Monckton’s Wiki before I posted. You have since updated it. Here is what it said before you updated it:
“The House of Lords authorities have said Monckton is not and never has been a member and that there is no such thing as a non-voting or honorary member of the House.[6][24] In July 2011 the House took the “unprecedented step” of publishing online a cease and desist letter to Monckton from the Clerk of the Parliaments, which concluded, “I am publishing this letter on the parliamentary website so that anybody who wishes to check whether you are a Member of the House of Lords can view this official confirmation that you are not.”[25][26]”
That paragragh is now missing.
Here is the link showing the paragraph before you edited just a little while ago:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Christopher_Monckton,_3rd_Viscount_Monckton_of_Brenchley&diff=prev&oldid=471443288
Why must you lie to prove your point? Let’s see if you have the guts to allow this comment to be published. You have been defeated.
I live in Brisbane, we are having one of the coolest summers on record GREAT. Don’t bother wasting your breath on climate warming idiots, their argument will seem childish in a few years anyway. The Sun will take a few years to wake up, the Climate Warmist idiots may take longer, but hey wool might take off in price.
One takes it that Joel Shore is unable to cite a reference to back up his claims. A shame – I am always willing to learn. However, at present we have Mr. Shore’s admission that the radiative forcing from CO2 (excluding any feedbacks) is 27 Watts per square meter, as I had said it was; and his so-far-unverified assertion that the radiative forcings from the other greenhouse gases – around 74 Watts per square meter of them – somehow include feedbacks that the CO2 forcing does not include. If that were so, Kiehl & Trenberth would surely have said something to that effect: otherwise, one must assume, as I have assumed, that all of the forcings are expressed in the same units – Watts per square meter – and are, therefore, forcings containing no element of feedback.
[Note: Old news, since refuted. Read the WUWT archives for more info. Also, your ad hominem comments are getting tiresome, and violate site Policy. ~dbs, mod.]
lol. what’s wrong, REP? Too scared to post my PWNAGE of you? Oh well, I posted it on Potholer’s youtube channel and sent him a private message of how I caught you red-handed telling a lie.
[REPLY: Your really ARE a moron, aren’t you? Point 1: Monckton’s hereditary peerage and right to the honorific “Lord” has nothng to do with his membership in the House of Lords; Point 2: editing out that section of his wikipedia biography would have no effect on my argument; Point 3: the individual making the edits has been doing so since at least September and his talk page has at least one compliment from another editor praising his contributions; Point 4: I live on the East Coast of the United States… are you bright enough to figure out where the editor lives? Point 5: I have never edited a wikipedia entry; Point 6: I think Anthony will give me this one: you are done here. Don’t come back.]
[Please stop the name-calling. ~dbs, mod.]
[Snip.]
My My My…
Listen to the terse tone from Monckton, Mod’s, Ants.
One could easily presume that the merry cohort is feeling put upon.
Perhaps you might need to get used to it. Thats what happens when you back the wrong side. One is prone to looking foolish. Egg on face and all that.The ever ascending stridency is probably a good indicator of that fear of chicken ova.
By the way. Are you keeping track of the PIOMass trends for Ocean Ice Volumes? The sub 700M Ocean Heat Content figures? Read Meehl et al recently? Inconvenient ain’t it. Data.
Queue apoplectic response in 3…2…1…
{Snip. Insulting language. Strike two. ~dbs, mod.]
[snip. site Policy violation. ~dbs, mod.]
[snip. Old news, since debunked. ~dbs, mod.]
Henry@Glenn Tamblyn
Well, actually you are lucky. Here we love everybody, whether they like carbon or not. Not like other sites like Sceptical Science where they ban and censor people like me who dares to sing another tune,
like saying that more carbon dioxide is better….
Be blessed by knowing that driving a car (if you can still afford it) is good for the environment as it stimulates growth of more trees and greenery!
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
That’s not vulgar abuse, just a witty tweak: Hadfield is a speleologist–i.e., a cave explorer.
Monckton of Brenchley says:
I have answered this non-sensical claim multiple times:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/11/monckton-responds-to-potholer54/#comment-863044
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/11/monckton-responds-to-potholer54/#comment-863396
(to cite just a few examples in this thread)
You, on the other hand, have never even attempted to answer my scientific points. TMy scientific points therefore stand completely unchallenged. This is not surprising, since it is clear to anyone who understands feedbacks and forcings that they are correct.
In that case, I recommend reading the full article by Lacis et al.:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/330/6002/356.full
It explains quite clearly that “in round numbers, water vapor accounts for about 50% of Earth’s greenhouse effect, with clouds contributing 25%, CO2 20%, and the minor GHGs and aerosols accounting for the remaining 5%” However, it also explains how you lose most of the ~75% of the greenhouse effect due to water vapor and clouds simply by removing the CO2 and minor GHGs.
We’ll see if you really are “willing to learn”!
REPLY: Joel, that could apply to you as well, lately your hubris is getting a bit out of hand – Anthony
“REPLY: Your really ARE a moron, aren’t you? …”
~ REP ~
lol. It never fails …
Roger Knights says… “That’s not vulgar abuse, just a witty tweak: Hadfield is a speleologist–i.e., a cave explorer.”
It more of a childish rhetorical technique, something more commonly used on the schoolyard. It’s use is designed to cause the likeminded to fall into place behind the one “calling names.” It’s not very witty on the schoolyard and it’s certainly not very witty in a public response to someone. It’s a tactic that causes one to look like a bully in the eyes of the larger populace and also acts to reduce the number of bullies because the more reasonable individuals will silently divest themselves of their association with the person using such language. Of course it also causes those reduced numbers to become more vile and more vocal. All-in-all this is very consistent with MOB’s modus operandi. He’s less concerned with being correct than he is with creating a small, vocal, angry following.
Anthony: Lord Monckton was the one who made the claim that he is willing to learn. We will now find out if it is true. If I were you, I would be more concerned with the people lik Monckton who show hubris while spreading claims that are scientifically incorrect, rather than those of us who are trying to actually explain the correct science to people like Monckton who cannot defend their arguments scientifically but only through silly misdirection.
REPLY: I’m concerned with how people act on this blog. You have a tendency to serial thread bomb anything you disagree with, which is why your comments get an extra level of moderation. You also seem to have trouble getting along with other people here and elsewhere. Monckton doesn’t thread bomb, he condenses his responses. You could learn something from him too. – Anthony
freethinker69 says:
[Trying to refute Lord Monckton’s title]: “…his title as Lord has been debunked for sometime now…”
I’m a little surprised no one has posted this link yet:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/20/dont-mock-the-monck
The constant ad-hominem attacks against Lord Monckton are a weak fallback position, used because his attackers do not possess the scientific facts necessary to win the debate.
Scientific skeptics have no need to question or belittle Michael Mann’s or Phil Jones’ titles, because their ‘facts’ are easily falsified, thus ad-hom attacks are unnecessary. And to Lord Monckton’s credit, he stands toe to toe with those nipping at his ankles and fights it out. He doesn’t back down from live debates.
Compare that with limp-wristed academics like Abraham, Mann, Jones, and the rest of the cloistered ivory tower crowd, who run and hide whenever someone mentions the word “debate”. Taking potshots from the sidelines is more their style. It’s safer that way.
But I would love to see a real debate between Lord Monckton and Abraham, or potholer, or Joel Shore, or Mann, or Jones [or all against one], televised, with rules, venue and Moderator selected by mutual agreement. I suspect when the smoke cleared they wouldn’t know what hit them.
Anthony says:
Anthony,
I suggest perhaps you should take a broader view of how people act here. For example, you might ask if they make scientifically-honest and scientifically-correct arguments or if they use their debating skills to hide the fact that their science is incorrect (and in fact do not even try to defend their arguments scientifically but rather with word games). You might ask if, when they participate in threads, do they actually add scientific arguments and facts to those threads or do they just add noise and word games. Are they honest or deceptive in what they present?
Sure, I have difficulty getting along with some people around here. That is because there are a lot of people around here who make scientifically-incorrect arguments, refuse to acknowledge the obvious scientific mistakes in those arguments, and so forth. This website has many intelligent posters and readers but they tend to have a large gap between what they know and what they think that they know. I am actually one of the most humble, who acknowledges the fact that I can learn from the scientists in the field and their accumulated knowledge; there are many others here who have never read a textbook on climate science and/or do not have the physical science or mathematical background to analyze the scientific arguments but nonetheless feel that they are more knowledgeable on the subject than climate scientists. Do you think this is a good thing?
In the real world, where I am dealing with much more reasonable people, I am actually very easy to get along with. In fact, the irony is that you would find many more people saying that I should be more assertive with my thoughts, opinions, and needs than those that say I should be less so.
Smokey:
We’ve already seen what would happen from what has happened here: I would make scientific arguments and would be met by Monckton’s misdirection and word games. Monckton’s debating skills might well convince those who are not able to evaluate the actual scientific arguments, but among a scientific audience that would not be the case.
That is the reason why science is generally not settled by debating it before the public, and why people defending scientifically-incorrect ideas like creationism tend to want exactly that venue. It is simply a silly way to arrive at scientific truth.
For someone who avoids the scientific method like Dracula avoids the dawn, Joel Shore’s scardey-cat comment tickles my funny bone.☺
Not only has this been one of the liveliest discussion threads in a while but it seems to have coincided with a considerable number of edits & reversals on Monckton’s Wikipedia page.
Wikipedia edit history for Lord Monckton
Graph of edit stats since 2006
Quite an impressive start for 2012 🙂
Good job Anthony in allowing Monckton to respond to potholer54’s rebuttal videos, I also like how you ensured that we could all see potholer54 videos by adding a link to the bottom of Moncktons response. You have taken my concerns I put to you head on.
[SNIP: I think you know why. -REP]
I asked if Lord Monckton was really a Lord then why did the House of Lords send this out? The moderator didn’t publish my post and responded “I think you know why” , but I don’t know why. Like Lord Monckton, I am willing to learn, so could someone please tell me why? Thank you.
Fred Hillson,
As you can see from D Marshall’s post above, alarmist propagandists fight tooth and nail to misrepresent the facts with ad-hominem bilge, because that’s all they’ve got. Forget Connolley and his mendacious claque. Get the real skinny straight from the horse’s mouth here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/20/dont-mock-the-monck
Thank you, Smokey, but I read that article before posting my question. Mr. O’Donoghue’s legal opinion is just the opinion of one lawyer. If O’Donoghue is correct, why doesn’t Lord Monckton sue the House of Lords and get the court’s opinion? Certainly Lord Monckton’s reputation is on the line, and isn’t Lord’s Monckton’s reputation the reason why he is suing John Abraham? Thank you.
REPLY: Mr. Hillson, why do you keep changing handles? Previously you commented (quite angrily I might add) under the pseudonym “freethinker69”. Note that our site policy prohibits changing handles around. Choose one and stick with it. – Anthony
Joel Shore, explaining why he doesn’t want to debate Lord Monckton:
“I would make scientific arguments and would be met by Monckton’s misdirection and word games…”
Allow me to show why Joel runs from a debate with Lord Monckton…
“Fred Hillson” says:
“Mr. O’Donoghue’s legal opinion is just the opinion of one lawyer.”
And what is your C.V.? Or are you simply expressing your own baseless layman’s opinion? You fail at the authority stage, “Fred”.
**Posting again, if the post I submitted did not go through. My apologies if this is a double post.**
Anthony, I tried posting again under freethinker69 and it wasn’t going through. so was it not banned? Or does that screenname now work?
Smokey, my C.V. is irrelevant. The C.V. that has relevance is O’Donoghue’s His own website has his specialty listed as International Law including Extradition and Human Rights with a particular emphasis on appeals. That is quite different than a constitutional lawyer as he is listed in your link. Would you go to a real estate lawyer if you were getting a divorce? I think not.
Sorry, but the opinion of one single lawyer (and certainly not one working within his specialty) does not trump the official view of the UKs upper house..Not only that, but for Lord Monckton’s claim that he is an actual Lord to have any real validity, either statute law would need to be changed or the matter taken to court where a Judge would make a determination. Until then, O’Donoghue’s advice is merely an unsubstantiated opinion.
So the fact is, the House of Lord’s has made it more than clear that Monckton is not a Lord, nor has he ever been a Lord. Thank you.
“Fred Hillson” says:
“So the fact is, the House of Lord’s has made it more than clear that Monckton is not a Lord, nor has he ever been a Lord.”
The House of Lords has never made such a thing “clear”. That would have required passing a specific Motion [law], which was never done. And solicitor O’Donoghue is correct [and trumps your merely opinionated comment] in his educated analysis.
You have expressed your baseless opinion. Fine, everyone is entitled to an opinion, right or wrong. In your case, based on the facts, it is wrong. But have a nice day.
Smokey, since you only responded to a small portion of my previous post and did not acknowledge or deny the rest of it, I will therefore assume you had no rebuttal and agreed I was correct.
No onto your rebuttal:
The matter has indeed been brought up in the courts by the recent judgement in Baron Mereworth v Ministry of Justice (Crown Office).”
In May, Mr Justice Lewison threw out an action at the Royal Courts of Justice brought by Baron Mereworth, who maintains that it his hereditary entitlement to attend the Lords, despite the House of Lords Act 1999 debarring all but 92 of the 650 hereditary peers, including his late father Lord Oranmore and Browne. Mr Justice Lewison ruled: “In my judgement, the reference [in the House of Lords Act 1999] to a ‘member of the House of Lords’ is simply a reference to the right to sit and vote in that house … In a nutshell, membership of the House of Lords means the right to sit and vote in that house.”
Because of this judgement, Monckton was informed that he was not entitled to call himself a member of the House of Lodsd, nor should he use parliament’s famous portcullis symbol on his letterheads or lecture slides, as he has done for a number of years.
Since the judgement, Monckton has been using a slightly altered portcullis emblem on his lecture slides. The two chains hanging either side of portcullis are now kinked instead of straight. If Monckton himself felt he was correct, why did he change the portcullis emblem and also not bring his claim that he is a Lord into the judicial system?
Thank you.
Fred Hillson – Lord Monckton was and still is a Viscount (Lord). The House of Lords Act 1999 purported to remove his right to sit in the House, as explained here: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2008-09-29a.398.0
However, there is a constitutional argument about the Act. As Baroness Ashton explained
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200708/ldhansrd/text/80929w0021.htm#column_WA398
“The effect of Letters Patent creating peerages can he changed by legislation which has that specific effect. It cannot be changed by legislation of general application.”.
The problem is that the 1999 Act can be considered to be of “general application” because (as I understand the argument) it did not refer explicitly to those letters patent which it sought to overturn.
As a result, there is an ongoing constitutional argument, which not many of us here, I suspect, are qualified to pass judgement on.
In the meantime, it might be a good idea to stop the petty personal attacks and address the actual science. I suspect that it is Lord Monckton’s effectiveness in addressing the actual science that makes people like you resort to ad hominems.
It shouldn’t matter to anyone here whether Monckton’s claim on peerage is no stronger than Gore’s claim on the presidency. It should be about the validity of his arguments and rebuttals, nothing more.
If he’s wrong, it would make no difference to me if he was next in line to the throne.
If he’s right, he could be Borat in disguise for all I care.
On the matter of Monckton’s title, whilst I agree that it is irrelevant to the science, it is however deeply relevant to his credibility. This article paints a rather damning picture:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jul/18/climate-monckton-member-house-lords
On the radio show linked to in the article, Monckton makes the following claim:
‘Yes, but without the right to sit or vote … [The Lords] have not yet repealed by act of parliament the letters patent creating the peerage and until they do I am a member of the house, as my passport records. It says I am the Right Honourable Viscount Monckton of Brenchley. So get used to it.’ (Link here: http://blogs.abc.net.au/nsw/2011/07/lord-christopher-monckton-interview.html?site=sydney&program=702_breakfast)
The letter from the House of Lords says ‘Your assertion that you are a member, but without the right to sit or vote, is a contradiction in terms. No one denies that you are, by virtue of your letters patent, a peer. That is an entirely separate issue to membership of the House. This is borne out by the recent judgement in Baron Mereworth v Ministry of Justice (Crown Office).’
Not only is the publication of this letter unprecedented, but the content and indeed intention could not be clearer. I think, in light of this evidence, the matter is settled and that Monckton needs to take steps to ensure people are not confused or misled.
Mike Jonas,
Excellent comment. D Marshall’s is also on point.
From my handy online dictionary:
peer n. 1 a member of the nobility in Britain or Ireland, comprising the ranks of duke, marquess, earl, viscount, and baron.
Being an American, where these issues are the stuff of soap operas and breathless female talking heads, I prefer to rely on the dictionary definition of a peer, and leave it at that. There are those who cannot refute Lord Monckton’s debunking of their alarmist position, so they prefer instead to split hairs over what the dictionary definition actually means. FaceFirst’s own source states: “No one denies that you are, by virtue of your letters patent, a peer.”
Because they lack credible facts to support their conjectures, they attack the man. But it is just their opinion. That’s what’s going on here; opinion, no more and no less. Lord Monckton defends his position, and no one has produced a court case naming him. Until that happens, it’s like someone saying Mexicans are “beaners” and then wondering why they’re upset. People have the right to self-identify in America. [eg: the fake English royalty in Huckleberry Finn.]
This issue is a textbook example of a red herring argument: attempting to distract from the real issue. So to get back on track: I have repeatedly proposed a testable hypothesis that has withstood all attempts at falsification. Clearly the alarmist contingent would prefer to discuss soap operas, but I will repeat my hypothesis, and challenge any of them to try and falsify it, per the scientific method [meaning no computer models; testable, real world evidence only] :
At current and projected concentrations, CO2 is harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere.
Those unable to falsify that empirically testable hypothesis can return to their soap operas.
[“FaceFirst” will have credibility only if and when a court rules specifically against Lord Monckton’s claims. And Fred Hillson has overreached: I do not agree with anything he says unless I state that I agree.]
@REP: Thanks for the response. Whether or not your ‘regret’ to Mr. Monckton was an ‘apology’ or not, I am still puzzled as to why you thought it required “mount[ing] a search” to find my videos when the link was right there at the top of the page. However, now that you have found that I hope you will see that they are amply filled with documentation, of Mr. Monckton’s speeches and presentation stills, his sources, and a multitude of other papers.
It would be nice to have equal space for a response to accusations that I am a mathematically inept caveman, but in the absence of that, and given the shortage of space I have here, let me at least address one of my points that Mr. Monckton attempted to answer above. In a speech at St Paul in 2009, Mr. Monckton cited a paper by Ola Johannessen, and stated the following: “What he found was that between 1992 and 2003, the average thickness of the vast Greenland ice sheet increased by two inches a year.” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbW-aHvjOgM 11:40)
However, I checked Johannessen’s paper, and it turns out he was only talking about the interior of Greenland at an elevation above 1,500 metres, not the Greenland ice sheet as a whole. In fact, Johannessen specifically warns that the vey conclusion Mr Monckton reaches cannot be made: “We cannot make an integrated assessment of elevation changes… for the whole Greenland ice sheet.”
This is the point I made in my video that Mr. Monckton has failed to answer in his “response”. Since you are participating in this comments section, Mr. Monckton, over to you. I have cited two instances in the paper where Johannessen says no conclusion can be drawn about the nett loss of ice on Greenland as a whole. Please show me where the paper agrees with your conclusion that Johannessen’s findings of a thickness increase apply to the whole Greenland ice sheet.
REPLY: You are mistaken. You have no shortage of space, comments can be as long as you wish, including links, graphics, and videos. And, you have your own venue to publish in as well. This is the place to engage. – Anthony
“REPLY: In England, Canada, the United States and Australia anyone who promulgates a libel is also guilty of libel. You never bothered to check for yourself, did you? Your little screed was not an invitation to people to rationally evaluate evidence for themselves, you were screeching at the top of your lungs about the perfidious Viscount of Brenchley. You also had nothing to say about Mr. Hadfield’s misrepresentation about me, did you? Monckton answered you…. why don’t you examine, for yourself, his claims and then make an informed judgment? -REP]”
With all due respect you shouldn’t lecture others on libel when this article repeatedly makes libelous claims about Mr. Hadfield
Monckton has had his chance to explain himself, now it should be time for Mr. Hadfield to respond. Being biased is very easy to spot, but not as easy to forget.
Anthony, equal right of reply implies equal prominence. That means if your intention is to be other than a propaganda merchant for Christopher Monckton, you would grant Peter Hadfield the opportunity of a blog post in response to Monckton’s libels and misrepresentations. As fairness is not a quality you demonstrate to any measure, I will not hold my breathe.
@Smokey.
I am only repeating – and documenting – the views of the house of lords themselves. They have taken what is believed to be the unprecedented step of correcting Monckton in a public letter. They highlight a judgement that shows clearly that Monckton’s claim, that he is a member of the house of lords ‘but without the right to sit or vote’, is false. They do not, however, say that he doesn’t have a peerage. They specifically state in their letter that ‘Your assertion that you are a Member, but without the right to sit or vote, is a contradiction in terms. No-one denies that you are, by virtue of your letters Patent, a Peer. That is an entirely separate issue to membership of the House.’. I contend that these are points of fact, and are not up for debate as there it is, in black and white.
You seem to have latched on to the word ‘peer’ but what is in discussion here is a different issue. Monckton claims to be a member of the house of lords. The house of lords say he isn’t. If you can explain why the house of lords have got it wrong then I am all ears.
@Smokey
To follow up, you said:
‘”FaceFirst” will have credibility only if and when a court rules specifically against Lord Monckton’s claims.’
Please see Baron Mereworth v Ministry of Justice (Crown Office), in which Mr Justice Lewison stated:
“In my judgment, the reference [in the House of Lords Act 1999] to ‘a member of the House of Lords’ is simply a reference to the right to sit and vote in that House … In a nutshell, membership of the House of Lords means the right to sit and vote in that House. It does not mean entitlement to the dignity of a peerage.”
I have now provided an example of a court ruling specifically against Lord Monckton’s claims. I’m not seeking credibility, only the truth. The article got me to check the claims of both Monckton and Hadfield – as any good sceptical thinker should do – and on this particular point of fact I have found Monckton to be wanting.
@Smokey Your indignance is amusing, given your posting history. It’s not as if I tried to SwiftBoat the Viscount.
@Tom Curtis Poking Anthony in the eye isn’t likely to get him to agree
@Anthony If it’s not already been suggested, I’d like to see a moderated debate between Hadfield and Monckton right here, with comment posting restricted to only a few chosen experts from both camps. It shouldn’t be difficult to find 3 or 4 from either side among the regulars.
@Everyone Lord Monckton’s peerage is – and should be – irrelevant. I don’t recall it being a point of contention in ANY of Hadfield’s videos, which is the focus of this discussion.
FaceFirst,
You may be right. But I don’t really know, since I’m an American and the emotions raised over stuff like this seems a little absurd and old-timey to me. It is in the nature of revolutions that the new guard simply takes the place of the old guard; they never do away with the system.
Soviet communists simply mover into the Czar’s palaces; ill-mannered, poorly educated, provincial peasants taking the place of the aristocracy. Now it seems to me that the current crop of British bumpkins is jealously guarding their new life peerages and, frightened of any disparaging comparison between themselves and those they’ve arbitrarily replaced, they are making sure there’s no comparison to be made any more. Lord Monckton routinely makes mincemeat out of debate opponents, bitch-slapping them around in a public setting. Can’t have that, can we? So get rid of Monckton politically since they are incapable of besting him with questions of science.
This situation makes the UK class system seem even more clowish from over here. People whose only accomplishment in life is their lucky ability to garner votes in their districts leverage that luck into being the new dandies. [Now I can understand why John Lennon threw away his medals. They were only a token for the 95% tax rate he was forced to pay. And I’m assuming you know more about the House of Lords situation than I do, because I’ve not read the letter you referred to. Why even have a House of Lords, if it’s populated by political toadies?]
So now, let’s cut to the chase. This site is not about whose nobility is more real. That’s your thing, not ours. My concern is the hijacking of science by a reprehensible clique of climate charlatans, led by Mann and Jones. They avoid the scientific method and transparency like Dracula recoils from a crucifix. They are clearly in the game for the status, political power, fame, and the endless jaunts to holiday venues, all paid for by others, mostly taxpayers. And it is all based on a lie: the demonization of “carbon”.
Now I would like you to ‘fess up: admit that my oft-repeated hypothesis remains unfalsified:
At current and projected levels, CO2 is harmless and beneficial.
Because that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? The runaway global warming scare, which is based on the nonsense that an increase in harmless, beneficial CO2 will cause runaway global warmiing and climate catastrophe. No less an authority than the planet itself is debunking that nonsense.
So rather than hairsplitting over questions of pre-WWII aristocracy and how it has been perverted by politics, can we keep to the central issue? Either falsify my hypothesis in a testable way, per the scientific method, or admit that the global warming / “carbon” scare is every bit as political as the question of who is a peer, and whatever that means in 2012.
@ Smokey
I agree with you and DMarshall that Monckton’s peerage is irreverent in terms of the scientific debate. I do, however, think that is it incumbent on a site that proclaims to approach assertions with skepticism to assess all claims, who ever makes them. Monckton has made a claim and I investigated it. In this instance it has been shown conclusively that Monckton’s claim does not stand up to scrutiny.
This is important because once a person has been caught peddling untruths, it makes people more likely to question other claims made by that person. I think you would agree with that, wouldn’t you? This is the modus operandi of any ardent skeptic, and this site in particular has a responsibility to uphold these values.
On to your hypothesis. I think it is worded in such a way as to be uselessly vague. Beneficial to who? Harmless to who? In a warming world, there will of course be winners and losers. In it’s current form, your hypothesis isn’t testable using the scientific method as it lacks clarity. Ergo, it cannot be falsified using the scientific method as you ask, QED.
@Monckton
“SteveE purports to quote an earlier posting by me, but he neglects to complete the quotation”
Lets look at the full quotations then:
“There has indeed been a remarkable correlation between CO2 and temperatures over the past 500 million years – but repeated reanalyses of the data have shown that it was temperatures that changed first and CO2 concentration change that followed.”
“Well, there has in the past few thousand years, but the correlation since the Cambrian era has been spectacularly poor, as the slide (from a peer-reviewed paper) that the caveman fleetingly shows me using at that point demonstrates very clearly.”
Nope sorry in one you clear state that there is a remarkable correlation between CO2 and temperature over 500 million years and the other you clearly state that the correlation since the Cambrian (542 million years) has been spectacularly poor.
Changing you arguement to being about which changed first temperature or CO2 is not what was being discussed.
What you’re trying to do is what Potholer refers to as a Monckton Manoeuvre I believe, where you change you arguement to try and make it sound like you were right.
Now would you like to correctly respond to the allegation that you typed in the article above:
“Monckton says there has been no correlation between temperature and CO2 for the past 500 million years.”
In the article, Monckton says:
‘“Monckton says only one Himalayan glacier has been retreating. Many have.” No, I mentioned the Gangotri and Ronggbuk glaciers as being notable examples of glacial retreat in the Himalayas caused by geological instability in the region. To discuss one or two retreating glaciers is not the same thing as to say or imply that only one or two glaciers have been retreating.’
Yet in the video, Monckton says the following:
‘The glaciers are showing no particular change in 200 years. The only glacier that has declined a little is Gangotri’.
It clear from watching the video that Monckton makes the specific claim that ONLY Gangotri is showing decline, and that ‘all the others are doing fine’.
It is demonstrably false to suggest that it wasn’t implied that ONLY one glacier was declining as exactly that was said verbatim and on camera. This rebuttal of Hadfield’s point by Monckton does not stand up to scrutiny.
I think a site occupied by skeptics has a duty to independently check claims for themselves and I would like others to join me in doing so. Anything less isn’t skepticism as I understand it.
FaceFirst says:
“This is important because once a person has been caught peddling untruths, it makes people more likely to question other claims made by that person. I think you would agree with that, wouldn’t you?”
First off, these are all opinions. As I’ve repeatedly pointed out, there is no court decision naming Viscount Monckton, and the general law does not seem to apply. Therefore, both sides are only giving their opinions. By labeling an opinion as an “untruth”, you are making an ad hominem attack. In an honest debate that would cost you points, the same as if I labeled your opinion as being dishonest which, based on your own rationale, I could. But I won’t, because it is all opinion.
And once again you are falling back on this unconnected issue, because it’s all you’ve got. You cannot falsify my testable hypothesis, so you nitpick a different issue in order to avoid giving non-existent empirical evidence. Allow me to deconstruct:
First, “ardent” skeptic is a misnomer. The only honest kind of a scientist is a skeptical scientist. You are either a skeptic, or you’re not. There is no middle ground, and there are no varying degrees of skepticism. Skeptics have nothing to prove; it is those claiming that “carbon” is a problem who have the onus to show, per the scientific method, that they are correct. So far, they have abjectly failed.
Next, I deliberately word my hypothesis in as few words as possible, in order to avoid confusion. But you still claim to be unable to understand, so let me help: CO2 is beneficial to the biosphere. More is better. Period, full stop.
The planet is currently starved of CO2. You say there will be “winners and losers”. Please provide testable, empirical evidence, per the scientific method, showing global damage or harm due to the rise in CO2. Please, no models or speculation; this is the internet’s “Best Science” site, so stick to the scientific method, or go to pseudo-science blogs like tamino, climateprogress, or any of the many others peddling anti-science misinformation. If evidence does not pass the muster of the scientific method, it is simply not science.
As others can see, the hypothesis as stated is certainly testable. Simply provide data showing verifiable global harm due to the rise in CO2, if you can. For example, “ocean acidification” is an opinion claimed by some to show global harm caused by CO2. But that claim fails because the minuscule pH change [which is only an opinion at this point] is much smaller than either the error bars of the measuring instruments, or the normal diurnal pH changes. Further, the immense buffering capacity of the oceans will absolutely prevent “acidification”. The pH assertion is not testable because instruments have a much wider measurement tolerance than the pH changes claimed. Methane is another false claim that has been raised. It also fails the scientific method becuase methane concentrations have been decelerating, not increasing. And of course, methane is not CO2.
Regarding your assumption that CO2 is harmless is not testable, that is wrong. Simply provide verifiable, empirical, data-based evidence showing global harm due specifically to CO2. That is eminently testable; simply show global harm. The problem for the alarmist crowd is that they have no such evidence.
Next, you conflate “a warming world” with the hypothesis, which specifically states that CO2 is harmless. AGW is a conjecture, and since the planet has been warming along the same trend line since the LIA, it is only an unproved assumption that the natural warming trend is due to increased CO2. A small fraction of the warming may be due to rising CO2, but again, that is beneficial, not harmful. Warmth is good; cold kills.
If you cannot provide solid evidence of global harm, then CO2 is ipso facto “harmless.” Therefore the hypothesis is falsifiable simply prove global harm due to CO2. Thus, your “QED” is simply wrong – and silly sounding – rhetoric, which takes the place of verifiable data. Give me replicable, data-based, irrefutable facts, not mere opinion. Until then, the hypothesis remains standing.
Smokey says:
January 17, 2012 at 8:35 am
The argument is not about CO2 = Plant Food = Happy Biosphere, its about sensitivity and the increased warming that is being predicted from CO2 induced downward infrared radiation. Where do you think all the extra downward infrared radiation is going Smokey? People that have an open mind to real science don’t look at 10 year temperature trends, they also have the mind power to understand that the oceans are heat sinks. http://tinyurl.com/6pjtcpx
major9985,
Please pay attention. The post above presents a specific hypothesis: CO2 is harmless and beneficial. Sensitivity has nothing to do with it. Furthermore, there is a huge range of opinions about what the sensitivity number is. That is because there is no definitive evidence to support a specific sensitivity number, which anyway does not address the hypothesis.
Likewise with “downward radiation”. That does not address the hypothesis. Likewise with “temperature trends”. That also fails to address the hypothesis. And “ocean heat sinks”; that also avoids the hypothesis.
Those are each and every one of them strawman/red herring arguments. In order to falsify the stated hypothesis, you must provide testable, empirical data showing conclusively that CO2 is directly causing global harm.
I have proposed my simple and straightforward hypothesis; the onus is now on others to provide empirical evidence showing specific global harm that can only be tied to the rise in CO2 – if they can. Since you have provided no such evidence, your irrelevant opinions on unrelated issues are meaningless. Pay attention to what the hypothesis states, and stick to the requirements of the scientific method in any attempts at falsification.
Smokey says:
January 17, 2012 at 9:48 am
No Smokey, it is irrelevant if increased man made CO2 is beneficial to the biosphere. The debate is about the warming that has been predicted from increased CO2 in the atmosphere (http://thingsbreak.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/anthropogenic-and-natural-warming-inferred-from-changes-in-earths-energy-balance.pdf) and how climate sensitivity will react to that change.
major9985,
I asked you to pay attention to the specific hypothesis I presented. Instead, you went off again on another unrelated tangent. The hypothesis has nothing to say about “warming”, or “climate sensitivity”.
If you cannot falsify the specific hypothesis presented, you are no different than anyone else; that hypothesis has withstood all attempts at falsification.
By constantly changing the subject, and arguing instead about irrelevant matters not contained in the hypothesis, you make it clear that you are unable to falsify the hypothesis per the scientific method.
CO2 is globally harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere. More CO2 is better. If you challenge that, then the onus is on you to prove otherwise, by posting testable, empirical evidence [ie: no ‘computer models’ or irreproducible claims, opinions, or WAG’s]. Good luck.
Smokey says:
January 17, 2012 at 10:58 am
No smokey I don’t play games when it comes to serious topics like this..If CO2 increases temperatures to dangerous levels like science is suggesting, it is irrelevant that your garden is growing a bit better. . Lets all try to be adults here.
[SNIP: Don’t EVER try this again. -REP]
Thanks for the clarification, Anthony. However, there is a convention that the right of reply means equal prominence as well as equal space. A lot of people will read Mr. Monckton’s piece but very few will bother to scroll down through dozens of comments to see if I have posted my two-cents’ worth in reply. Even Mr. Monckton has so far failed to respond to the single point I have made in the comments section about Johannessen’s paper. Why the unwillingness to have a free and full debate, with an equal forum for both of us?
REPLY: Two reasons.
1. You have an online forum or your own, Monckton does not, which is why I allow him to publish here. Your videos were already given a fair exposure here.
2. You have not offered any equivalent “in kind”, nor even notified the subscribers on your forum of Monckton’s response.
I don’t see any reason to offer you a larger “right of reply” here (which I assume you mean you want a guest post) when reciprocity does not exist. Even if it did, I don’t work in video essays, nor does my moderator REP, so we’d have no easy way to respond on your channel. Mostly, you just want to take advantage of the high traffic that WUWT offers. There’s no benefit for me or WUWT readers to give you guest post status. As I said, you are welcome to write a detailed reply in comments. Best I can do is make a note of it in the main post with a link. Take it or leave it.
BTW when will you be applying your considerable video debunking skills to Al Gore? It seems he’s just as guilty of distortion as other topics you take on. If you are truly non-biased, let’s see you do one.
– Anthony
Thanks for the replies, Sorry, but as far as Monckton’s claim that he is a peer – I’m siding with UK’s upper house, who obviously has real constitutional lawyers on staff. I think siding with Monckton’s laywer (whose own website has his specialty listed as International Law including Extradition and Human Rights with a particular emphasis on appeals and therefore is not a constitutional lawyer as claimed by Monckton’s supporters) is naive. It’s not much different than siding with a retired paleontologist (Dr. Bob Carter) instead of an expert climatologist when discussing the subject of climate change.
Monckton himself has since changed the portcullis emblem on his lecture slides since being warned by the House of Lords that he is not entitled to use their porticulus emblem. Why did he change his porticulus emblem and then not have the matter settled in court if his reputation means so much to him? Maybe because if that happened then Monckton would be placed under oath and have the opportunity to be cross-examined on many of his questionable claims? I highly suspect that is the last position in which Monckton would want to be. That is also the reason Monckton will never sue John Abraham for libel and is instead offering nothing but an empty threat, much like non-scientist John Coleman and his 32,000 scientists did when threatening to sue Al Gore. And before you start comparing Gore to Monckton, please note that neither of their opinions mean anything to me regarding climate change. Neither one of them is a climatologist.
Fred Hillson, it is an arcane point, as befits the illogical system of hereditary peerage, but Monckton is undoubtedly a peer of the realm, ie, a Lord, in virtue of his being a Viscount. That entitles him to a better seat at a dinner table if his hosts employs the standard English rules of ettiquette. It may entitle him to a personal consultation with the Queen at his request. (That is an archaic right of peers which many believe to have lapsed, but which has not been tested in the courts as yet, nor explicitly extinguished by Parliament.) It also gains him, although it does not entitle him, to a large measure of unearned credibility among the gullible.
What is also true (almost completely beyond doubt) is that Monckton is not a Peer of Parliament, ie, a Member of the House of Lords. The almost depends completely on the very remote possibility that the legislation ending the right of Hereditary Peers to sit by right in the House of Lords being declared unconstitutional. Failing that, the Act declares that the Clerk of Parliaments is the being able to conclusively declare whether or not a Peer of the Realm is or is not a Peer of Parliament. The Clerk of Parliament’s has so declared. It follows that in the absence of a successful court case by Monckton, he is not a Member of the House of Lords, contrary to his claims, and contrary to his (at least twice) implied claim to be not just a member by a technicality (as he now claims) but to be an actual member of the legislature.
Peter Hadfield says:
“…there is a convention that the right of reply means equal prominence as well as equal space.”
You’re kidding, right? Explain your ‘right of reply’ to alarmist pseudo-science blogs like tamino, climateprogress, and the rest of the blogs that don’t allow even the most polite, on-point comments if they contradict the demonization of “carbon”.
• • •
major9985,
It is telling that you still cannot dispute the hypothesis I posted. If it were not for strawman and red herring arguments, you wouldn’t have much to say.
One thing is clear, though: my hypothesis remains unfalsified. CO2 is harmless to the planet and beneficial to the biosphere… which pretty much destroys the alarmist arguments demonizing “carbon”. But thanx for playing, sport, and Vanna has some lovely parting gifts for you on your way out.
• • •
Hillson & Curtis,
You’re both still fixated on Lord Monckton! What’s it like living in your moms’ basement? Bleating about British royalty sure beats trying to defend debunked alarmist ‘science’, doesn’t it?
People in the debate over AGW don’t make so many mistakes trying to push their argument as Monckton has and not even have the tenacity to rectifier their mistakes. In light of all the evidence and Moncktons complete lack to answer the claims put to him, is WUWT just going to let this injustice be swept under the carpet? The world is watching, and I think you are going to have to give your readers a bit more credit when it comes to intelligence to see what is going on here.
Smokey, I have no fixation on Monckton, other than to note that great acclaim a conspiracy theorist receives among so called climate skeptics. I was merely pointing out to Hillson that he was in error with regard to his claims on Monckton.
major9985,
As usual your posts contain no verifiable facts. Scientific facts are all that matters, so you can forget your lame ad-homs. Instead, give us a few verifiable scientific “facts” that Lord Monckton is wrong about. Run along now to Pseudo-Skeptical Pseudo-Science if you need some talking points.
And don’t forget to try and refute my hypothesis. If it cannot be credibly falsified in a testable manner per the scientific method, all the alarmist arguments are deconstructed.
Smokey says:
January 17, 2012 at 6:15 pm
Just to make it clear Smokey, you seem to negate the fact CO2 is a greenhouse gas which has been shown increasing the amount of downward infrared radiation hitting the earth. “harmless” I take it you got that excellent debating stance from Michele Bachmann.
I have referenced the one of many science papers that shows how much warming is caused by man (http://thingsbreak.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/anthropogenic-and-natural-warming-inferred-from-changes-in-earths-energy-balance.pdf). But I will let you get the last word regarding your ramblings smokey, there is more pending issues.
major,
Thank you for allowing me the last word.
I note that your link states: “…In essence, it is based on a regression of the observations onto model simulated patterns.” Thus, it is model-based, and merely opinion. Such pal-reviewed nonsense is the central problem in climate science, since it ignores the scientific method [which would easily deconstruct model-based nonsense].
My view is that Co2 is a GHG – but its effect is minuscule, and it should be disregarded as such.
And I note once again that you seem incapable of falsifying my hypothesis stating that CO2 is harmless and beneficial to the biosphere. If you cannot falsify that hypothesis, your climate alarmism fails.
It’s best to do your best to suggest findings and tests that could falsify your own hypothesis. Do your damnedest to imagine the toughest challenges or possible data findings you can. Then follow up and/or invite others to do so. That’s the pure quill “scientific method”.
@ Smokey
I replied that your hypothesis – ‘At current and projected levels, CO2 is harmless and beneficial.’ – was unscientific because it was so vague as to be untestable. In your response you say ‘I deliberately word my hypothesis in as few words as possible, in order to avoid confusion.’
You then go on to offer a new hypothesis:
‘CO2 is beneficial to the biosphere. More is better. Period, full stop.’
This rather begs the question; if the original hypothesis was worded to avoid confusion, why do you need to make adjustments to it to make it testable?
Anyway, we now have a new hypothesis that I think is testable. The hypothesis is:
‘CO2 is beneficial to the biosphere. More is better. Period, full stop.’
Now, in order to falsify this hypothesis, I would need to show an instance of more CO2 being in someway harmful to something in the biosphere. Because the biosphere is simply a sum of its parts, CO2 causing harm to any of the organisms making up the biosphere would render your hypothesis refuted.
Please read this:
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/adis/txr/2005/00000024/00000004/art00003
‘At higher concentrations it leads to an increased respiratory rate, tachycardia, cardiac arrhythmias and impaired consciousness. Concentrations >10% may cause convulsions, coma and death.’
I have now produced peer reviewed evidence that in fact more CO2 is not necessarily beneficial to the biosphere. This means your hypothesis is falsified. If you think I have missed the point, and that what you were getting at was something different, then that just proves my point that your original hypothesis was too vague (and this new one is too).
In light of this evidence, I take it you will now accept your hypothesis refuted and you will stop pestering people to try and falsify it.
Anthony, sorry, but you are incorrect on most points:
1) Monckton does indeed have an online forum – not only his own page on the SPPI website, where he publishes regularly, but also a YouTube channel, where his rebuttal of Abraham was posted. When Monckton was criticised in a comment on your website, you did not tell him he could respond to the criticism in his own section of the SPPI website, you gave him space on your website for a complete rebuttal. Yet when I am criticized, not in a comment but in a headlined piece, I am not given a similar opportunity to respond.
2) I have indeed invited Monckton to respond, and that offer has been in the ‘updates’ section of my channel for a while now. But Monckton needs no invitation anyway. Anyone, Monckton included, can post response videos to any of my videos. If Monckton ever did make a video response on my channel, I would even mirror his video to ensure that none of my 50,000 subscribers missed it. Monckton’s response on WUWT has been the subject of discussion on my channel page and I have posted a link to it.
3) =There’s no benefit for me or WUWT readers to give you guest post status.=
On this point I entirely agree, from a short-term perspective. My response would give details of how Monckton’s piece on your website was factually distorted, and supply evidence that supports my assertions and contradicts his. Since you seem to side rather heavily with Mr. Monckton, an open debate might bring some uncomfortable information to the attention of your readers. However, the right of reply is not meant to ‘benefit’ you, it is a courtesy granted in the interests of fairness and free debate. If my response is factually flawed, then you or Mr. Monckton are welcome to point out my errors and show that I am wrong. If, on the other hand, it turns out that my evidence is solid and that Mr. Monckton was wrong, this would also surely be of great benefit to both you and your readers. Let’s have an online debate to see who is right and who is wrong, and let your readers judge the outcome. So far Mr. Monckton seems unwilling to answer my points (as I would like to show, given the opportunity) or debate me, and you are not encouraging such an examination of the facts by giving him all the prominent space he wants and none at all to me.
4) Your question about Al Gore is clearly based on the fact that you have not watched my videos, for reasons that I understand and sympathise with. However, it is interesting that you make the automatic assumption that I have not criticized Gore in my videos or pointed out his errors – which I have. You then go on to criticize me for something you imagine I have not done! I have also criticized various media reports that exaggerate or invent the effects of climate change. My channel is dedicated to busting anti-science claptrap on both sides of this issue – as well as on subjects such as evolution, the age of the Earth, the Big Bang and even an expanding Earth.
Peter
REPLY: What I meant was that Monckton has no website exclusively his own, he relies on others, as you point out, SPPI, and WUWT.
I note you provide no links to videos on Al Gore, so it would seem you have not dedicated one to his many issues of distortion.
You are welcome to post any comments you want on this thread provided they are within site policy. There is no space limitation, you ca link to graphs (use tinypic) and videos (Use YouTube). I will then link that rebuttal into the main post where it is highly visible. There’s no possibility of a reply in your video channel, since none of us work in that like medium as you do, and your channel gets a mere fraction of the traffic that WUWT does. So, it is an inequitable trade for exposure anyway.
That’s my final offer, which I think is more than equitable, since I’m under no obligation of any kind. As they say in business when the negotiation is down to the last, take it or leave it.
Anthony
Confined as I am to the bottom of the comments section, I would still like Mr. Monckton to properly debate me point by point. I have taken just one question to start with, that of Ola Johannessen’s paper, which Mr. Monckton misrepresented in his talks. My re-iteration of the evidence which he did not discuss in his ‘response’ is a few comments above. Mr. Monckton, if you can expend the time and effort insulting me and thinking up perjoratives like ‘caveman’ surely you can expend a little effort explaining why Johannessen’s paper says something very different to what you claim it says.
REPLY: see my note in your comment above – Anthony
Brian H says:
“It’s best to do your best to suggest findings and tests that could falsify your own hypothesis. Do your damnedest to imagine the toughest challenges or possible data findings you can. Then follow up and/or invite others to do so. That’s the pure quill ‘scientific method’.”
Believe me, I’ve tried. I can find no evidence of global harm from CO2. None. The evidence just doesn’t exist.
• • •
FaceFirst,
Sorry. Fail. Your link does not refer to anything global. It is a link to physiological effects of CO2 in concentrations over 10%. My hypothesis specifically states ‘current and projected’ CO2 concentrations. Currently, CO2 comprises only a minuscule 0.00039 of the atmosphere. Projected concentrations are less than double that: a still minuscule 0.00078. That is nothing compared with 10%. Maybe on you planet my hypothesis is “refuted”, but not on Planet Earth.
The hypothesis that at current and projected concentrations CO2 is globally harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere remains unfalsified, despite attempts by folks with weak reading comprehension.
@ Smokey
You are, as I anticipated, shifting the goal posts, which rather demonstrates my point that your hypothesis as stated lacked clarity. To recap, you stated:
‘CO2 is beneficial to the biosphere. More is better. Period, full stop.’
I have shown that more is in fact NOT better. Taken too far, it kills humans. You have now stated a third iteration of your hypothesis:
‘The hypothesis that at current and projected concentrations CO2 is globally harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere’
This still lacks clarity if you ask me. Do you mean NET benefit? Or do you literally mean that in no instance is an increase in CO2 harmful to anything? I can only take this new hypothesis as stated, and it is easily refuted:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19782832
‘When CO(2) levels reached approximately 340 ppm, sporadic but highly destructive mass bleaching occurred in most reefs world-wide, often associated with El Niño events. Recovery was dependent on the vulnerability of individual reef areas and on the reef’s previous history and resilience. At today’s level of approximately 387 ppm, allowing a lag-time of 10 years for sea temperatures to respond, most reefs world-wide are committed to an irreversible decline…/
/…If CO(2) levels are allowed to reach 450 ppm (due to occur by 2030-2040 at the current rates), reefs will be in rapid and terminal decline world-wide from multiple synergies arising from mass bleaching, ocean acidification, and other environmental impacts. Damage to shallow reef communities will become extensive with consequent reduction of biodiversity followed by extinctions. Reefs will cease to be large-scale nursery grounds for fish and will cease to have most of their current value to humanity. There will be knock-on effects to ecosystems associated with reefs, and to other pelagic and benthic ecosystems. Should CO(2) levels reach 600 ppm reefs will be eroding geological structures with populations of surviving biota restricted to refuges.’
This paper shows that both current and projected CO2 levels does in fact impact negatively on certain parts of the biosphere, ergo you cannot say that it is ‘globally harmless’. I have now once again refuted your newest hypothesis, but I suspect from past performance you will adjust your hypothesis and hand wave this evidence…
FaceFirst,
I am enjoying this, because it is so easy to refute your belief system. You claim: “I have shown that more [CO2] is in fact NOT better. Taken too far, it kills humans.” A complete non sequitur. It is in fact you who are shifting the goal posts, not I. My hypothesis clearly states: “at current and projected levels.” You have shifted the goal posts, from 0.039% to >10%, twenty five times more than that stated in the hypothesis.
My boy served in the Navy on the USS Helena for six years. Continuous CO2 levels up to 5,000 ppmv were permitted for 4 months’ duration. A level of 2,000 ppmv was permitted indefinitely. I think the Navy knows more than you about the safety of CO2 levels.
Next, you ask: “Do you mean NET benefit?” Of course I mean on balance, as I have stated numerous times on WUWT. It is splitting hairs to say otherwise. I suppose someone could find some farfetched example and say, “Gotcha!” But I prefer to be rational. That said, I am unaware of any detrimental effects from the current rise in CO2.
Here are a few examples of the benefits of increased CO2:
click1
click2
click3
click4
click5
click6
click7
[More examples on request. Just ask.]
It is obvious that enhanced CO2 increases agricultural productivity. In a world where one-third of the population subsists on less than $2 a day, the rise in CO2 is saving lives. Therefore, it is a net benefit.
Finally, the 2009 paper you linked to has been debunked. The WUWT archives confirm that coral bleaching is a function of water temperature, not CO2. That paper is based on computer models and makes outlandish predictions. As I have repeatedly stated, to falsify my hypothesis requires empirical, testable evidence per the scientific method, and models are not evidence. And bear in mind the fact that “coral bleaching” has been moved to the back burner for one reason only: corals have since rebounded, recovering almost completely – while CO2 levels have steadily increased. Therefore, my hypothesis remains unfalsified.
@ Smokey
It seems that we are going to have to start version tracking your various hypothesis so that we can keep an eye on how you are adjusting them to deflect evidence.
Hypothesis V1 was – verbatim:
‘At current and projected levels, CO2 is harmless and beneficial.’
When I asked you to restate this as a testable hypothesis you came up with this:
Hypothesis V2:
‘CO2 is beneficial to the biosphere. More is better. Period, full stop.’
Which I refuted by showing that more wasn’t in fact better. You didn’t like this, so shifted the goal posts.
Hypothesis V3 changed again:
‘The hypothesis that at current and projected concentrations CO2 is globally harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere’
Which I refuted by showing that CO2 wasn’t, in fact globally harmless and that in some instances both current and projected levels do indeed cause harm.
We are now on to hypothesis V4:
‘Of course I mean on balance, as I have stated numerous times on WUWT’
Well, you may have stated this hypothesis before, but not to me and I can only deal with what I see here. I specifically made the point that your hypothesis needed clarification and you refuted that but clarified your position anyway…one wonders why.
If you had actually read the paper that I linked to, you would see that it doesn’t only focus on coral bleaching, but also covers the retardation in growth of coralline algae. Unless you want to argue that algae isn’t part of the biosphere, then your hypothesis is refuted. And in case you want to argue that coralline algae isn’t affected by CO2, here is another paper studying IN THE LAB the effects:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/w32h6064805l67k8/
Your original challenge to me was to produce empirical evidence to refute your claim CO2 is harmless. I have done so. Your hypothesis is refuted.
Faceplant sez:
How are you going to increase CO2 in the oceans if they’re getting warmer. Warmer oceans means less dissolved CO2, does it not?
Jeff Alberts,
Thank you for saving me some typing.
• • •
Faceplant:
There is only one hypothesis, with the key words “harmless” and “beneficial”. All the rest was provided in response to your complaints that you were confused, and unclear about the original statement. Most people who have responded have had no problem understanding it.
FaceFirst – I read the abstract of the last paper you cited. It was a laboratory experiment on the effect of increased CO2 “(air+1250 ppm)” on coral. But, according to SkepticalScience.com http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-residence-time.htm not even a modest fraction of this will happen inside the next 500-1000 years:
“ … It is true that an individual molecule of CO2 has a short residence time in the atmosphere. However, in most cases when a molecule of CO2 leaves the atmosphere it is simply swapping places with one in the ocean. … Dissolution of CO2 into the oceans is fast but the problem is that the top of the ocean is “getting full” and the bottleneck is thus the transfer of carbon from surface waters to the deep ocean. This transfer largely occurs by the slow ocean basin circulation and turn over (*3). This turnover takes 500-1000ish years. Therefore a time scale for CO2 warming potential out as far as 500 years is entirely reasonable (See IPCC 4th Assessment Report Section 2.10).“.
However, your attempts to falsify Smokey’s hypothesis do achieve one thing: they demonstrate that you do think that the hypothesis is falsifiable. I would be interested in knowing in what ways you think that AGW is falsifiable.
Mike Jonas,
As we know, at this point the AGW conjecture is not falsifiable. It may eventually turn out to have some validity. Maybe. But as of now it remains a conjecture; an opinion.
Personally, I tend toward the view that CO2 adds a minuscule amount of [beneficial] warming to the atmosphere. But that is simply my evidence-free opinion, since there is no testable, empirical evidence supporting that view.
Thank you for pointing out that FaceFirst is now [impotently] trying to falsify the hypothesis that CO2 is harmless and beneficial. FaceFirst is only trying to support a failed conjecture that he has been told is reality. But it requires more than being spoon-fed a belief system to overcome the rigour of the scientific method.
1) AGW is not falsifiable, therefore probably not true.
2) AGW might be falsifiable, therefore likely false.
Does that adequately sum up the falsifiability “conjecture”
@ Monckton of Brenchly and REP,
Was Ola Johannessen talking only about the interior of Greenland or the whole ice sheet when talking about the 2inch/ year increase in thickness?
Jeff Alberts, re Jan 18 3.57pm
Are you not neglecting that the amount of gas dissolved into a liquid also depends its partial pressure, ie the concentration of the gas?
You are welcome to post any comments you want on this thread provided they are within site policy. There is no space limitation, you ca link to graphs (use tinypic) and videos (Use YouTube). I will then link that rebuttal into the main post where it is highly visible. There’s no possibility of a reply in your video channel, since none of us work in that like medium as you do, and your channel gets a mere fraction of the traffic that WUWT does. So, it is an inequitable trade for exposure anyway.
That’s my final offer, which I think is more than equitable, since I’m under no obligation of any kind. As they say in business when the negotiation is down to the last, take it or leave it.
Anthony
—
This suggests to me that you know that Monckton’s arguments wouldn’t stand up to a debate and so are not willing to allow this to happen on your blog. It’s fair enough, this is your blog afterall, but it does seem like you are shying away from any open debate on the issues that Monckton raises.
Peter has been quite reasonable in asking for a reply article, and surely if it’s just the traffic you want I’m sure an open debate between him and Monckton on here would be a very popular article.
I suspect a more likely reason is simply you don’t want this debate to take place because you know what the outcome will be, Monckton is good at public speeches as long as he doesn’t have any chance of people pointing out his errors, that wouldn’t be so easy on here.
Hide behind the “inequitable trade for exposure” arguement if you want, it’s about as convincing as Monckton’s arguements anway!
SteveE,
I would pay a good admission price to see you debate Lord Monckton, who routinely spanks alarmists in moderated debates. AFAIK, Monckton has never lost a debate. But who knows, maybe your super intellect is upto the job.
@ Jeff Alberts
The hypothesis stated by smokey has nothing to do with temperature and I advise you to re-read what he has written carefully, and then look again at my replies in that context.
@ Smokey
I have repeatedly demonstrated that your hypothesis is false. More CO2 is not necessarily harmless. You have yet to address my evidence, nor have you admitted that you needed to clarify your hypothesis, which is what I originally suggested needed doing. Of course I do actually understand what you are driving at, but you rather arrogantly suggested that your hypothesis was fine as stated and that I was somehow inept. When I addressed your hypothesis AS STATED you needed to adjust it, thus proving my point for me.
Before moving on, I think it is only fair that I point out that you have yet again retreated to an untestable position. Your standards-of-evidence demands for your hypothesis (V3 + V4 IIRC) are:
‘Please provide testable, empirical evidence, per the scientific method, showing global damage or harm due to the rise in CO2. Please, no models or speculation’
Yet your hypothesis asked for ‘current and PROJECTED concentrations CO2’. So please tell me how we are going to provide empirical evidence for a projected CO2 level without modelling or, as you put it, ‘speculation’? Unless you want to test in the lab EVERY facet of the biosphere in controlled conditions (i.e. somehow come up with a ‘control’ Earth), then the hypothesis is unfalsifiable and therefore unscientific. If you want to adjust your standards of evidence to be more reasonable and realistic then it might be possible for it to be tested, but as it stands it isn’t.
@ Mike Jones
You too need to re-read the evidence that I presented in the context of the hypothesis as stated by Smokey. What you are saying is correct, but that isn’t relevant to the question that I was asked to provide evidence for at that time.
On to AGW. Of course AGW is falsifiable. All we would need is reliable and properly analyzed data that contradict the theory. This would take time, as the odd paper or observation here or there is unlikely to bring the whole theory down. It may be that parts of the theory are false or need refining; that would be entirely expected and not at all unusual for any type of explanatory framework, especially one dealing with such a complex issue.
————————————————-
As a general note to everyone, I notice that you have started calling me names. Yet these same people complain of ad hominem attacks against Monckton. The mind, it boggles.
Also, I notice that this comments section has been derailed from the original article; I will not be answering on subjects other that Monckton from here in as I regard it as off-topic and that doesn’t seem fair to others. Only a few of comments on this article have checked Monckton’s claims for themselves and what has been revealed is pretty alarming. I suggest that others continue to check the claims of Monckton and Hadfield so that WUWT can say that it is a skeptics website with a straight face.
=Monckton has no website exclusively his own=
I suggest you look at Mr. Monckton’s section of the SPPI website here: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/. This is exclusively his own. To argue that it is part of a website rather than an entire website might be splitting hairs. He has an outlet on the Internet, just as I have – except that he is allowed a guest post to respond to criticism on your channel and I am not.
=I note you provide no links to videos on Al Gore, so it would seem you have not dedicated one to his many issues of distortion.=
You didn’t ask me for a link to my videos about Al Gore; you didn’t even ask if I had criticized Al Gore, you simply assumed that I hadn’t. The links to all my videos have been posted several times on your channel. There is one called ‘Gore vs. Durkin’ which highlights Gore’s disingenuous claims about a 20-foot sea level rise and his unsubstantiated linking of heat waves in Europe to ‘global warming.’ In the first video of the series I highlighted his misleading claims about the link between CO2 and temperature over the quaternary.
=There’s no possibility of a reply in your video channel, since none of us work in that like medium as you do=
On the contrary, Anthony, if you feel I have misled people about your channel or your moderator’s apology or non-apology to Viscount Monckton, I would welcome a response from you in your usual format — written form — that I can post on the front page of my channel or, if you wish, show in a video which I will post without comment. I also have a policy of correcting factual errors, and have done so many times, so you are welcome to point out any errors you find.
However, the bone of contention over my comments about WUWT should not impede a free and fair debate about the issue of a rebuttal to Monckton, which is a matter of science. This shouldn’t be a pissing contest about who has the biggest site, because I freely admit that you’ve got a bigger one than me. This is about free and fair debate on a science issue. I have never seen a newspaper refuse a right of reply on the grounds that it is too big. If it is big enough to criticize an individual, then it should be big enough to publish a response.
= I’m under no obligation of any kind. =
Of course, not. My request for an equal response to Mr Monckton and a fair debate with him on your website is just that, a request.
Smokey says:
January 19, 2012 at 3:53 am
I would pay a good admission price to see you debate Lord Monckton, who routinely spanks alarmists in moderated debates. AFAIK, Monckton has never lost a debate. But who knows, maybe your super intellect is upto the job.
—
I’m not a great public debate person, so it probably wouldn’t be worth the money. The problem with Monckton’s debates are that you can say whatever you like and don’t have to back it up with any hard data. An online debate you do and can link to all your references. An online debate between Peter and Monckton would be interesting don’t you think. Or at least an article on here from Peter where he responds to Monckton’s claims?
Why the reluctance to allow Peter Hadfield to engage in free and open debate with Monckton Anthony? You’ve given Monckton a prominent platform to throw insults such as ‘Caveman’ at Hadfield – yet you refuse to give Hadfield, who has been impeccably polite even if you don’t agree with him, an equivalent opportunity to respond.
Of course you don’t have to do any such thing, but on this side of the pond it would be considered good manners to do so. Despite his noble title ‘Lord’ Monckton seems to have forgotten his, there’s no need for you to follow his example…
REPLY: I’ve offered him unlimited length, graphics, video, and an offer to put his response next to Monckton’s here in the body. Seems plenty polite enough to me, especially since I’ll never be able to respond on his channel as I don’t do that sort of stuff. Note that Hadfield never offered any opportunity for us to respond at the outset, he only offers it a s trade for getting what he wants, and I don’t consider the trade equitable. As a result of Moncktons response here he’s already gotten a huge amount of notice, but some folks always want more.
My offer as above stands, he can take it or leave it. The smart choice would be to take it rather than whine about it. – Anthony
@ Anthony,
I would be interested to hear the fruits of your own investigations into the claims of both Monckton and Hadfield. I assume that since serious doubt has been cast on the veracity of Monckton’s claims, you must be looking into the things he has said and checking to see if Hadfield is presenting the truth.
As owner of this site surely it is absolutely critical that the utmost care is taken to present the truth. If it turns out that Monckton has indeed been untruthful as Hadfield claims (and indeed he has if the instances that I have looked at are representative), one has to wonder what other untruths have been allowed on here elsewhere.
[Reply: This site allows all points of view. You are not the arbiter of truth. Present your opinion if you like, and others will present theirs. Readers will make up their own minds. ~dbs, mod.]
I don’t understand you Anthony – what Hadfield is asking for is quite simple – a blogpost on the same basis that you gave Monckton.
What’s so difficult about that?
As for Hadfield ‘not offering you any opportunity to respond at the outset’ – since you have in fact responded I don’t understand your point.
It would be much more convenient for us watchers to follow the debate if we could see it happening in one place, instead of flipping through different sites, and pages of comments.
Since you have ‘home advantage’ and Lord Monckton seems very confident of his position, then why the reticence to host a fair and open debate? Why do you feel the need to attach strings to your offer? Surely you’re confident your man can wipe the floor with the caveman Hadfield?
REPLY: Fair and open would include an equal opportunity on his venue. He works in some psuedo video documentary world that I don’t so there’ really no opportunity for me to respond. Since he gets a fraction of the traffic WUWT does, he’s just gunning for the traffic here. There’s no advantage to me nor any fairness of balance. Sorry, if you don’t like it, that’s my offer: he can write up anything he wants (within site policy) using words, videos, graphs, and I’ll put it right next to Monckton’s post here. If you and Mr. Hadfield thinks that when his content is placed right next to Monckton’s in the same post that somehow it “not fair” well then his position must be very weak indeed. Or, I could just be a prick like RealClimate, Tamino, Deltoid, Joe Romm, and a host of others and tell both you and him (if you were skeptics) to go to take a flying leap as they do to me regularly. I think my offer is more than fair, especially since I don’t have to offer anything at all.
Of course now the whining will begin anew. So, I’m not going to drag it out any further, If he doesn’t take me up on the offer within the next 24 hours, I’m simply going to close it and move on. – Anthony
@ dbs
I am deeply shocked at your response. I thought this site was about trying to get to the truth? How can anyone have any confidence in what is presented here if even the editors and owner are not checking the content for accuracy?
In this instance, what is being stated by both Hadfield and Monckton is not a point of view; either Hadfield is right or Monckton is right. I think that this site in particular has a duty to present as accurate information as possible, especially considering the numerous articles published here casting aspersions on other people’s work and accusing people of shoddy scholarship.
Anthony, I think that you missed Peter’s point previously about Monckton having his own YouTube channel. Contrary to the point you were trying to make as well about Monckton having to work through third party outlets, so does Peter – he’s in fact requesting that you allow him yours in the same fashion you have allowed Monckton. If you are upset that Peter did not go out of his way to ask you or Monckton to post a video on his own channel in response, before either of you asked yourselves (remember too, again, that Monckton has his own channel), why would that mean that Peter deserves no equal share when he does go out of his way to ask? If I am mistaken in that you had requested of Peter to be able to respond on his YouTube channel, prior to it being offered to you – which I must express personal doubt toward, as your ulterior excuse is apparently that you “don’t do that sort of stuff” – then please let me know.
REPLY: Then let him ask Monckton to respond on Monckton’s channel.
I’ve offered Hadfield the ability to write anything he wants (within site policy), including words, graphs, video, and offered to place it in the post right next to Monckton’s. Essentially in a point counterpoint style. The whining now is that somehow this isn’t “fair”.
Nobody offers me any counterpoint on their blogs (or newspapers, or magazines) when they slime me, WUWT, or WUWT guest posters, I’ve never had a single offer of “right of reply”. Mr. Hadfield’s belief in this as some sort of protocol is just that, a belief, not reality. I’m not even allowed to comment on many sites. Yet somehow, I’m being made out to be the bad guy here when I’m not obligated to offer anything. My offer is more than fair, and more than any of the angry alarmist blogs would offer me or any other skeptic. I’m getting rather tired of the whining, so I’m putting a time limit on it 24 hours from now or the offer closes. A smart person would take it.
– Anthony
Anthony, when you say this:
“I’ve offered Hadfield the ability to write anything he wants (within site policy), including words, graphs, video, and offered to place it in the post right next to Monckton’s. Essentially in a point counterpoint style.”
Are you offering Hadfield the opportunity to post something of equal length (2,400 words), intact and in its entirety, or are you proposing to edit in some way to achieve your desired “point counterpoint style”?
If so would you be proposing to make these edits yourself?
Wouldn’t it be better to save yourself the effort, and any accusations that you’d acted unfairly by simply posting Hadfield’s response intact with the title “potholer responds to Lord Monckton” and letting your astute readership make their own mind up?
REPLY: He can write any length, with any content within policy, and I’ll place it in the body of the post point-counterpoint style. He can take it or leave it. Hadfield can also get his own blog (Blogger and WordPress both offer free), write what we wants, and ask for a link which I’ll gladly post here.
That’s more than fair. If you feel it isn’t, you are free to disagree, but I’m not going to engage any more whining about it. – Anthony
[snip. The constantly repeated complaints about editorial decisions have reached the point of threadjacking. Enough. ~dbs, mod.]
Note to Peter Hadfield – please advise if you wish to take advantage of this offer. A simple yes/no answer is all I need.
You can write any word length (within reason, this post is 2400 words, though that’s not a limit, just a comparison), with any added content (images, video) within site policy, and I’ll place it in the body of the post point-counterpoint style. You can use Tinypic and Youtube and just post the URL’s and I’ll happily embed them for you.
You can also get your own blog (Blogger and WordPress both offer free), write what you wish, and ask for a link which I’ll gladly post here.
Please advise by 5PM PST 1/20
Dean Morrison,
You don’t know Anthony very well if you suspect that he would rig the deal. It’s a genuine and a generous offer. Now let’s see RealClimate make Steve McIntyre the same offer.
FaceFirst says:
January 19, 2012 at 2:18 pm
If Anthony did not post the reply from Monckton to Mr. Hadfield, we would not had been able to see if Monckton could back up claims put to him. I agree that in light of the facts against Monckton, it would be wise for WUWT to distance itself from him, but sometimes you have to publish works so that others can criticise it. And if Anthony started reviewing Moncktons work before publishing it, that would give Monckton more reason to say he has had his work peer reviewed!?!.
Len says: January 19, 2012 at 12:24 am
@ Monckton of Brenchly and REP,
Was Ola Johannessen talking only about the interior of Greenland or the whole ice sheet when talking about the 2inch/ year increase in thickness?
Now, why the heck would you ask that of me? I do not speak for Lord Monckton and do not always agree with him. Regarding Johannessen, I don’t have a clue. I have no idea if Johannessen is accurate, if Lord Monckton’s interpretation of Johannessen is accurate or if any response by Johannessen is accurate….. or whether claims to be able to measure the Greenland Ice cap to within inches is realistic. I do claim that Peter Hadfield’s treatment of me, as a moderator here, was unfair and inaccurate, You may also note that Peter Hadfield has not deleted, corrected or disavowed on his site the totally untrue and potentially libelous claims that I edited a wikipedia article to discredit a commenter here.
Anthony I asked if you were going to post any contribution from Hadfield intact, or whether you are going to edit it. It seems to me that when you say this:
“He can write any length, with any content within policy, and I’ll place it in the body of the post point-counterpoint style.”
– you are making the condition that you will not post his contribution intact, but edit it by breaking it up according to your own preference.
I’m afraid that, quite simply is not a reasonable demand to make, especially as you have admitted yourself you are on Lord Monckton’s side in this debate.
You can avoid any suspicion of a lack of good faith on your part by agreeing to post any reply from Hadfield unedited. Since I’m sure you’re a busy man you’ll also save yourself a lot of effort. You could then give Lord Monckton another opportunity to tear down Hadfield’s arguments, an opportunity he would no doubt relish. Since Hadfield will be exposing himself in print on your blog, he’d have no escape should the Lord Monckton seek to pursue him for any libellous claims.
I can’t see why you are so reluctant to take this very simple step, and to allow this debate to be conducted on a level playing field?
=Hadfield never offered any opportunity for us to respond at the outset, he only offers it a s trade for getting what he wants=
I never “offer” the opportunity to respond because the opportunity to respond is already and always there. I run a completely free and open channel, and I accept ALL response videos and correct any errors that are brought to my attention. No one has to negotiate or ask for a right of reply on my channel, it is just that — a fundamental right that I respect. Even now I am not “offering” you the opportunity to respond, I am trying to explain that you can respond in any format you like and it will be published on my channel. The only reason I am having to explain this to you is because you keep insisting that no such right exists.
=I’ll never be able to respond on his channel=
=He works in some psuedo video documentary world that I don’t so there’ really no opportunity for me to respond.=
Again, Anthony, you can respond on my channel in any way you like. If you can’t make a video, you can send a written response that I can post on my channel page. I have also offered (and this IS an offer, since you explained the legitimate problem you have with posting a video) I will put your written response into a video and post it myself.
=I’ve offered him unlimited length, graphics, video, and an offer to put his response next to Monckton’s here in the body=
Sorry, Anthony, I may have misunderstood. If you are now allowing me equal prominence “next to Monckton” – by which I hope you mean either side by side in a new guest post or in a guest post of equal prominence to Monckton, then many thanks, I accept. If you are offering to put my response in the comments section, with links, then I am not quite sure how that differs from what I am already doing.
Unfortunately I will be on the road for the next couple of weeks, so I will not be able to post replies here with much frequency. Whatever your offer is, I am making no demands on you, simply requesting. I will in any case draft my response to Monckton when I return to Australia in early February.
REPLY: My offer is to put whatever you write (within site policy and reasonable length, but no specific limit, plus images/videos -again within site policy) into the body of the Monckton post here, as a counterpoint to it, with the title Counterpoint above it, so that both sides of the issue are in one place for people to read. I don’t know I can be any clearer or fairer. I’ll make a notice of the update in the daily thread stream for all to see, but the point counterpoint happens in this thread in one place.
One caveat since it has come up since (see upthread) – you need to settle the separate issue with REP, separately, here in comments. I’m not going to post any response from you that contains that argument, focus on the issues raised by you and Monckton.
– Anthony
Dean Morrison – That was the weakest argument yet. Note that in Anthony’s last post he says “post the URL’s” – that’s a plural so it’s not Anthony who is “breaking it up” according to his own preference, but Peter Hadfield. Anthony has made a genuine offer, and it appears that Peter Hadfield simply does not want to take it up. End of story.
Mike Jonas – I don’t think you read the post properly – Anthony was clearly talking about the use of URL’s to post links to images and video:
“You can write any word length (within reason, this post is 2400 words, though that’s not a limit, just a comparison), with any added content (images, video) within site policy, and I’ll place it in the body of the post point-counterpoint style. You can use Tinypic and Youtube and just post the URL’s and I’ll happily embed them for you.”
By his insistence on posting ‘point/counterpoint’ style he’s talking about breaking up Hadfields text and interspersing it amongst Monckton’s – something that would not only be unorthodox and confusing – but would involve Anthony in making editorial decisions as to where to break and place the text that no-one should be forced to accept as a condition of publication.
Why insist on doing this when the simple expedient of posting an unedited reply is both simpler, and free from any possible accusations of interference? Presumably Monckton can be invited to respond – in point/counterpoint style if that’s his preference. If he’s confident of his position he should relish the opportunity, and if if feels that Hadfield oversteps the mark he’ll have him bang to rights if he wishes to sue him.
What’s the problem?
REPLY: You are overthinking, and apparently don’t understand what embedding means. I’m simply suggesting the title “Counterpoint” to Hadfield rebuttal – whatever it is. I have no plans to edit it unless violates site policy or says something actionable. I reserve that right as publisher – Anthony
The problem is Anthony is a “skeptic” who features “skeptical” primary posts. Mr. Monckton’s behavior has been indefensible and Anthony knows it. A very, very inconvenient truth. He doesn’t want to feature a new primary post at the top of his “skeptic” site that exposes that truth – he wants it buried in an old thread, or better yet, he wants Mr.Hadfield to decline.
REPLY: Are you brain damaged or just Shawshank style obtuse? I offered Hadfield the ability to put his rebuttal in this post, he’s accepted. – Anthony
Anthony:
“Nobody offers me any counterpoint on their blogs (or newspapers, or magazines) when they slime me, WUWT, or WUWT guest posters, I’ve never had a single offer of “right of reply”. Mr. Hadfield’s belief in this as some sort of protocol is just that, a belief, not reality. I’m not even allowed to comment on many sites. Yet somehow, I’m being made out to be the bad guy here when I’m not obligated to offer anything. ”
Well this would be your oportunity to show that you are better than them. Saying that they don’t other you something so you’re not going to give somebody else the same suggests that you are really just as bad as they are doesn’t it?
Rise above it!
“Anthony:
“Nobody offers me any counterpoint on their blogs (or newspapers, or magazines) when they slime me, WUWT, or WUWT guest posters, I’ve never had a single offer of “right of reply””
Actually Peter Hadfield has extended the offer of the right to reply to your guest poster Lord Monckton Anthony:
“I repeat my invitation to Mr. Monckton to post a video response on this channel.”
http://www.youtube.com/user/potholer54#p/a/u/2/9K74fzNAUq4
I can understand why quite reasonably Lord Monckton might not want to go to the trouble of making a video – in which case all the more reason to host a debate on equal terms on Monckton’s ‘home ground’ here.
On that basis the dispute can be settled on the basis of the strength of argument alone.
Surely neither you nor Monckton have anything to fear from such a debate Anthony?
Since you are in touch with Lord Monckton perhaps you ought to ask him if he really welcomes the level of protection you are affording him from Hadfield. I’d imagine he might be somewhat offended by any suggestion that he is in need of any protection whatsoever, and surely would be delighted at the prospect of taking on the caveman Hadfield mano-a-mano?
I think due the delay in the comments approval system here we’ve missed something:
“Sorry, Anthony, I may have misunderstood. If you are now allowing me equal prominence “next to Monckton” – by which I hope you mean either side by side in a new guest post or in a guest post of equal prominence to Monckton, then many thanks, I accept.”
There you go Anthony – Hadfield has accepted, I hope that no problems remain, and we can look forward to an interesting debate here.
I agree with Dean Morrison. Lord Monckton’s specialty is logical, fact-based debate, not video productions. Since Hadfield is the one who issued the challenge, then Lord Monckton has the right to select the weapons.
Forget the video games. Logic at twenty paces!
Actually I’d say Lord Monckton’s speciality is giving PowerPoint presentations to lay audiences – most of which are available on Youtube. It seems entirely appropriate to me for Peter Hadfield to respond in the same medium, where Monckton’s actual spoken words at these presentations can be compared side-by-side with his rather different statements elsewhere.
It would seem that Monckton has in fact already selected his weapon of choice – his guest post here on WUWT. Having selected not only the weapons but the battleground the only thing that remains is invite his opponent into the arena of combat.
I’m sure that as an honourable man Anthony has no intention of further disadvantaging Hadfield, especially as many people here think that victory over the puny intellect of the ‘caveman’ is surely a mere formality?
Let battle commence!
@ REP re Jan 19 8.35pm ie “Now, why the heck would you ask that of me? …. I don’t have a clue.”
I asked the question because it is a point that you are now very aware of from your discussions with Hadfield. It still has not been answered – at least not by Monckton. Your response that you don’t know the answer is fine, however I would like an answer from Monckton of Brenchley. It was he who started the whole thing off with his interpretation of Johannessen’s claim after all.
Regarding the wikipedia editing, I suggest you write something on Hadfield’s channel. One thing I am confident of is that Hadfield will not stand for inaccuracies or lies if they can be shown to be such to him. If mud has been thrown that was unjust, then hey, I’m on your side.
If you’d like to watch Monckton’s 21-part video response to Abraham’s 2010 critique, it’s on the CFACT YouTube channel.
Hadfield targets inaccuracies in both Gore’s and Durkin’s movies in part 4 of his series on climate change
= I don’t know I can be any clearer or fairer. =
With respect, you can, Anthony. You could give me exactly the same right of reply as you gave to Monckton. When he was criticized in a comment, you allowed him a guest post — a new piece that could be seen by anyone who logged onto your website. As you know, once a new piece has become dated, it slips off the front page of your website and no one who read the original Monckton piece will bother to revisit or re-read it to see if I have added a counterpoint two months later. They won’t know such a counterpoint has even been written if you don’t re-post it, or announce it on your front page, and you have made it clear that you don’t want to give my response this kind of publicity.
However, I can only request equal treatment, I cannot demand or expect it. All I can do is use your online facility to write a response of equal wording and hope that once you see how badly Monckton has misrepresented and misquoted his sources you might think this is worth bringing to the attention of your readers, and publish it as a guest post in the same way you did with Mr. Monckton’s response. If you choose not to, it’s your site and you are entitled to organize it as you please.
I have told fans of Al Gore – publicly, in print — that it does their cause no good to defend what are clearly errors and exaggerations. Similarly, I hope you will realize that there are some skeptics who misrepresent and misquote, and their errors should not be defended either. I have never accused either Al Gore or Christopher Monckton of lying because, as I said in a video, that means I would have to ascribe motivation to their actions, and I cannot read their minds. I can only check their sources and show where they are in error.
So once again this is entirely in your hands, and I will leave it with you. As I said, I won’t be able to access the Internet regularly until Feb 3, so please excuse any delay in replying.
REPLY: Mr. Hadfield, sometimes I think you are being purposely obtuse just so that you can sow controversy, such as when I requested a video transcript from you (due to my hearing issues, so I could be sure of what I’m hearing) and then you proceeded to browbeat me to explain why this isn’t needed.
What part of this do you not understand?
I’ll make a notice of the update in the daily thread stream for all to see, but the point counterpoint happens in this thread in one place.
That means a post, among all posts in the daily thread stream, saying there’s an update to this followed by a link to it. My intent is to have both arguments together in one place for people to see, so that they don’t have to go searching for the counterpoint. You clearly want them separated, so that people will only see your side. Well, that isn’t going to happen. They’ll be right next to each other. If that isn’t acceptable to you, then write nothing because that’s not negotiable.
For a supposed professional journalist, you seem more fixated on getting exposure, than on the facts, which is why you want a WUWT article (and the traffic it brings) so much. If you were solely interested in a factual counterpoint rebuttal, you’d just publish another video diatribe on your website, and request a link. You’ll get your coveted traffic via that update notice on the main page that day, just like any other story, assuming you write something that isn’t defamatory or otherwise out of bounds with site policy. I reserve the right to reject, and to demand a rewrite, of any submission that doesn’t meet those specifications, just like I do with any guest poster. If you don’t like those terms, then write nothing, because it isn’t negotiable.
And as noted above, issues with my moderators or editorial policy must be dealt with separately. That’s also not negotiable. You ignored that, so I’m making it clear again.
I don’t expect a reply, since you’ll be off grid. I also don’t expect you’ll appreciate that no other prominent climate blog gives such opportunity to opposition. If this is something you think is the correct form of debate, then I expect you’ll be asking Real Climate to include a guest essay from Steve McIntyre about why the hockey stick is a statistical fabrication, and post another potholer video diatribe about how Mann botched it badly. But you won’t because your bias and moral compass does not allow it. – Anthony
Mr Watts
If Mr Hadfield felt that Mann’s hockey stick deserved a video I’m sure he would make one. Do you not think that making remarks about Mr Hadfield’s moral compass is a somewhat dishonourable way to behave here? i think it’s a nasty and uncalled for remark. I find it particularly ironic that you are apparently able to asses Mr Hadfield’s conscience in a response to a post in which he stated that he does not attempt to read the minds of others. Your description of Mr Hadfield’s videos as diatribes suggests to me that you haven’t even bothered to watch them. If I am mistaken and you have watched the videos are you, on, Mr Monckton’s behalf as he has made no response himself, able to answer Mr Hadfield’s question regarding Johannessen’s findings on the thickness of the Greenland ice sheet? It seems a pretty straightforward matter to me.
Jim
Jim Cornelius,
Anthony wrote:
What’s wrong with that?? That seems eminently fair to both parties. It’s certainly far more fair and accommodating than any alarmist blog I can think of.
And saying: “If Mr Hadfield felt that Mann’s hockey stick deserved a video I’m sure he would make one” side-steps the point Anthony was making: RealClimate will never allow Steve McIntyre equal time, because McIntyre would easily shred Mann’s hokey stick nonsense. Like Gore, Mann is a total control freak, and he will never allow a contrary view if it is unscripted. But that is the offer Anthony is making.
Hadfield is a skilled video propagandist, and as such he has an advantage. Anthony is offering him far more than he is entitled to, but all you can do is complain that that every condition is not exactly to your liking. Well, that’s life, sport. Hadfield is getting more than he deserves IMHO, but Anthony is nothing if not fair. Hadfield should take what’s offered with alacrity, if he really believed he could show that Lord Monckton has been deliberately deceptive. But I suspect he knows that isn’t the case, so he’s waffling.
Smokey.
Why are giving me a reprise and a defence of Mr Watt’s offer to Mr Hadfield? I’ve offered no opinion on whether it is fair or not. Your entire comment offered in response to mine is a non sequitur. It almost seems as if you neglected to read past the first sentence and made an assumption about the rest of the comment. This make me wonder whther you might have made similar assumption s. Have bothered with viewing Mr Hadfield’s videos? if so are you able to pass comment on the answer Mr Hadfield’s question regarding Johannessen’s findings on the thickness of the Greenland ice sheet? If it’s of any help I can post links to the relevant statements by Mr Monckton.
Jim
Mr Watts, I too would like an answer to Peter Hadfield’s point about Greenland’s ice sheet. Was he correct or was Monckton correct? ie Was Johannessen referring only to the interior of Greenland, or the whole ice sheet when talking about the 2inch/ year increase in thickness?
What, pray tell, do you think Monckton’s guest posts are? And I don’t believe Mr.Hadfield is just trying to tell just his side of the story … actually, he needs both sides to make his points.
They can still be right next to each other in the context of the challenge in a new thread that isn’t stale and not encumbered by 325+ replies that were based solely on Mr Monckton OP. There is no real excuse, Anthony.
And BTW, no, I’m neither brain dead nor obtuse …. You? Clearly Mr. Hadfield did not accept your proposal. Ne accepted something closer to mine.
Jack Greer, I see you’re still sniveling because you can’t have everything your own way.
Anthony has made a very generous offer, but Hadfield lacks the cojones to accept. It would be great if RealClimate made Anthony’s offer to Steve McIntyre. But of course they won’t. And you will never complain to RC about that, will you?
Admit it, side-by-side equality isn’t good enough. You want to stack the deck your way. Well, there’s an easy way to do it: start your own blog. Then you can set all the rules. Or do you have a problem with that, too?
@ Anthony
It is customary in print for a right of reply to be offered, and maybe Peter Hadfield’s journalistic past is why he is seeking exactly this. My understanding of your offer is that Peter can add a reply to the bottom of this existing post, and whilst I am personally fine with that I can see why others on here would like to see a ‘proper’ post – it would demonstrate the WUWT team’s dedication to truth-seeking and show to everyone that it isn’t some kind of ‘old boys club’.
@ Peter Hadfield
Anthony will not, I suspect, give you a full post of your own and I think the best thing to do would be to accept his offer to allow all those at WUWT a chance to check your claims for themselves. You could (and indeed should) make a video relating to this exchange, and maybe that is enough for publicizing your reply?
I do hope you take up the offer as Monckton is a WUWT ‘regular’ and if what you claim is indeed true then I should imagine that quite a few people who read this blog (and of course Anthony himself) will be thankful for putting things straight. If however, you are incorrect as Monckton claims then he will no doubt be keen to demonstrate that here and preserve his reputation.
I only got far enough to notice that he constantly tries to insult Potholer 54. Whatever he has to say, I’m no longer interested.
@ Anthony
This section has gone VERY quiet which makes me understand Hadfield’s point. Maybe a guest post or some kind of post resurrection is indeed needed? I think it is only fair and would demonstrate this blog’s commitment to presenting accurate information.
@facefirst still doesn’t get it
I don’t get it either. If Mr Monckton can’t be bothered to address the questions Mr Hadfield has already asked him on this thread i.e. (re Johannessen’s findings) then why should Mr Hadfield have an confidence that adding his response to this thread is anything more than an attempt to save face and quietly bury it on your part? That may not be your intention but that’s certainly how it comes across.
@ Anthony
What don’t I ‘get’? If it’s the conditions of your offer, then yes I do ‘get it’. What I am sayings is that on reflection maybe the offer should indeed be restructured to ensure that any counterpoint is given if not equal then at least some prominence. Us readers want to be reassured that at the core of this site is the desire to present accurate information.
Or is it something else that I don’t ‘get’?
Personally, I think you should adjust your offer, maybe through reposting the original article on the front page for a time, so that readers of that original can see if the claims made against Monckton are in fact correct.
If they are, great, WUWT can be shown willing to present the truth, however inconvenient for regualr posters. If not, great, WUWT can be shown as having credible and reliable guest posters and any accusations of presenting a political message are undermined.
I don’t think there is anything to lose.
Can someone point me to Hadfield’s verification of Al Gore’s claims? I would like to check them as well.
Potholer:
I managed to read through four or five of your supposed counterpoints; I gave up as I seriously dislike rereading sentences repeatedly trying to figure out what point you’re trying to make.
You are seriously deluded in that you seem convinced that your rambling sentences are definitive rebuttals. Lord Monckton sticks to specific points and counters them with science, referencing not only the science but also the specific paragraphs and words used. Instead you twist the discussion so you can make it seem like you have triumphed and then you may link to a weak CAGW report or worse your own song and dance videos that supposedly gives you the absolute correct answer. There is no absolute answer in science and one or even two links or homemade graphs neither prove nor disprove a topic.
As others have suggested; identify the errors that are rampant and thoroughly abused (abundant propaganda) on the CAGW side. Right now it seems as if you’ve accepted all CAGW claims as religion.
My God that video was boring. I am sure Buster Keaton would have had more interesting things to say about climate than Peter Hadfield.
Since I do not think either Hadfield or Monkton have much to offer the debate I will leave them to their confragration.
This is exactly the type of reaction I expected here at WUWT. Good luck Mr. Hadfield. Even though you points are irrefutable, your response is buried in a stale thread and the usual subjects are passing around the box of blinders.
REPLY: Ah the ever irascible and whiny Mr. Greer (who’s MO is all about denigration here at WUWT) fails to notice that this “stale thread” gets top billing on WUWT today. And if he’s commenting here and are others, it can’t really be stale now can it? It’s already had about 1000 views in the little over an hour it has been up, by the end of the day, several thousand, like any other new post.
Your argument fails as usual. – Anthony
The abstract from Johannessen:
That says the average ice change over all of Greenland, including both the interior and the margins, is +54 cm per 11 years (barely under two inches per year). So Lord Monckton is correct and Dr. Hadfield wrong on that point, which was the first I bothered to check since it was most frequently questioned in the comments.
TedK,
Excellent points. Hadfield is just more noise. The planet – the ultimate Authority – is making it quite clear that CAGW is pseudo-scientific nonsense.
And FaceFirst says:
“@ Peter Hadfield: Anthony will not, I suspect, give you a full post of your own…”
FaceFirst, you were 100% wrong. Admit it.
I must object to the derisive use of the term “caveman.” Cavemen are uniquely positioned to know first-hand that warming of the climate is not entirely bad. We may be frightened and confused by the ravings of computer models, but we have an old-fashioned common sense that is grounded in reality, and that cuts through the mumbo-jumbo of IPCC reports. We are much more frightened of a cooling world than a warming one.
What a bore-hole.
Are all warmists as dull as the Hadfield version?
“Smithers! Fire up the V8’s, its bloody freezing round here!”
No, Tom_R, read what Johannessen actually reports in the text of his paper referenced by Monckton. Mr. Hadfield provides a video of Monckton making his claim and then he shows exactly what Johannessen reports in the body of his paper.
Mr. Hadfield cites an MSNBC ariticle that is very weak at best. This is the type of article the IPCC likes to cite as opposed to peer reviewed research. You have to do better than that sir. Isn’t the main point Monckton is making is that the predictions of accelerated warming have not occurred, and in fact we have had cooling over the last 10 plus years. I don’t believe he is making the claim that the period he cites is statistically significant in showing we are entering a global cooling period. But the results of this time period diverge from every single prediction the climate models produced. Some (adjusted!) temperature records show slight warming, satellites show cooling, and no records show any level of warming that could warrant concern. At what point will you admit the predictions over the last 25 plus years have failed?
And you seem to be acknowleding that the Sun has been a much more important driver of climate change than CO2 for as far back as we can see. We agree on that.
“Geocarb III: A revised model of atmospheric CO2 over Phanerozoic time” does not provide independent measures of CO2 and air temperature. It uses GCMs to calculate the air temperature response to CO2 levels. So, using Geocarb III to assert there exists a long-term correlation between CO2 and air temperature, as Mr. Hadfield does, is to merely assert a circular argument.
For an alternative point of view, see Shaviv and Veizer, “Celestial driver of Phanerozoic climate?” here (pdf)
My favourite part is where Peter quotes researchers that agree with AGW in order to contradict Monkton. On another point, Monkton says that El Niño in 2010 essentially cancelled cooling and updated his speech afterwards. What does Peter show? That Monkton’s speeches were from 2008 and 2009 confirming what Monkton had said. Besides, it’s still not warming.
The rest is just more silliness like this. The SIR JOHN HOUGHTON response had me laughing on the floor. Who’s side is Peter on anyhow? “No, the opinion of “a leading geologist” is not the same thing.” was hilarious. Geologists are the ones who first knew that AGW was a dubious claim because they knew that that the MWP was real and global. And now Peter wants to redefine who the experts are. Nice!
This entire response by Peter was a complete waste of time. I’m not sure that Peter understands the concept of rebuttal.
Here are a few:
ON THE COOLING EARTH:
A graph of January 2001 to December 2008 shows a linear cooling trend.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/to:2008/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/to:2008/trend
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:2001/to:2008/plot/rss/from:2001/to:2008/trend
UAH and GISS both show positive trends for that period. I don’t know what GISS showed back then though as they change their numbers.
ON THE MELTING OF GREENLAND:
On Greenland, “we cannot make an integrated assessment of elevation changes—let alone ice volume and its equivalent sea-level change—for the whole Greenland Ice Sheet, including its outlet glaciers, from these observations alone, be- cause the marginal areas are not measured completely using ERS-1/ERS-2 altimetry (see Fig. 1).” That did not stop the authors of the study from concluding that they “have presented new evidence of (i) decadal increase in surface elevation (È5 cm/year) within a study area comprising most of the Greenland Ice Sheet, 1992 to 2003, caused by accumulation over extensive areas in the interior of Greenland; (ii) divergence in elevation changes since the year 2000 for areas above and below 1500 m, with high-elevation increases and low-elevation decreases, the former in contrast to previous research (10, 13); and (iii) negative correlation between winter elevation changes and the NAO index, suggesting an underappreciated role of the winter season and the NAO for elevation changes—a wild card in Greenland Ice Sheet mass-balance scenarios under global warming.”
In other words, other than a marginal area that could not be measured, their conclusions speak to a decadal increase in Greenland’s surface elevation within a study area. Moncton was right.
ON THE PRE-CAMBRIAN ICE PLANET:
You are both wrong. The highest CO2 levels were 115 million years after the glaciation was subsiding.
“We also find that the 17O isotope anomalies of barites from Marinoan (approx635 million years ago) cap carbonates display a distinct negative spike (around -0.70permil), suggesting that by the time barite was precipitating in the immediate aftermath of a Neoproterozoic global glaciation, the [CO2] was at its highest level in the past 750 million years” — http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7194/full/nature06959.html
John M Reynolds
There are zero reasons – none – for not placing Mr. Hadfield’s reply along side with Mr. Monckton’s original points in a new so that thread replies focus on the comparative points made. Sure, it’s your site, Anthony, but don’t attempt to make claims of objectivity and fairness. You continually provide characters like Mr. Monckton unrestricted and featured “You clearly want them separated, so that people will only see your side.” posts pretty much whenever they please. Of course, that isn’t what Mr. Hadfield asked for. That’s my last comment on this unquestionably valid point.
REPLY: LOL! What a laugh! The reason for placing both together is that I offered a point-conterpoint to Mr. Hadfield, so that readers could see both sides of this very wordy debate (that also extends into video) all together, and they can make their own decisions. It seems you are in favor of hiding one side. We have a debate here – would you also support having two debaters on the same topic present their arguments in a hall separately, weeks apart, with references back to the “other debate two weeks ago” but not have the other debater’s presentation available to each audience during the debate? That sure seems to be what you are advocating.
I’m advocating having the debate in one place. Each side gets top billing notice on WUWT like any other story, and the traffic that brings. People can read the ENTIRE debate in one place. Tough noogies if that bothers you.
“Sure, it’s your site, Anthony, but don’t attempt to make claims of objectivity and fairness.”
Of course, I could be like Real Climate, Tamino, Joe Romm (where I’ve never seen “claims of objectivity and fairness”), and delete or borehole comments that challenge them, and offer nothing to HadField at all. I was under no obligation to offer anything. Yes I could have just said no, but I didn’t, and now the whining starts over some perceived slight due to my editorial formatting choice.
Well Mr. Greer, the moment you get one of those blogs to offer an unedited right of rebuttal to me and anyone else who is skeptical of the climate issue, and to make notice of that rebuttal at the very top of the blog as I have done today, is the moment you’ll actually have a valid point. In the meantime, once again, your argument fails.
Next you’ll be complaining that people had to click on the link on the main page to read it. -Anthony
@ Anthony: Sincere thanks for allowing Peter Hadfield to post his rebuttal of Chris Monkton’s original rebuttal (not that there was ever any doubt that you would – you positively invite non-sceptics to post opinions here). I anticipate that Monckton may have a further rebuttal – to which Hadfield may have his own – and so on. So be it. I will be interested to read what each man has to say.
I will also commend Mr. Watts for placing the rebuttal here. I think it is a great move, and I think Hadfield did a pretty good job.
More of this, and we might actually get down to facts. Good job.
@Tom_R said: February 7, 2012 at 10:05 am
&
@jmrsudbury said: February 7, 2012 at 10:38 am
Re: Greenland
Mr. Hadfield provided video with the time mark of Mr. Monckton’s Greenland claims along with Dr. Johannessen’s comments within the referenced paper and reference to further research. …. No, Mr. Monckton was not right in his claim.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbW-aHvjOgM at the 11:40 mark.
Tom_R, the “study area” is not the same thing as the entire Greenland ice sheet. Are you stupid?
If Lord Monckton looks over your work, does that make it peer-reviewed?
“That could suggest the sun is a likely culprit for recent warming. But why didn’t Mr. Monckton tell or show his audience what Solanki wrote in the very next line?”
“Although the rarity of the current episode of high average sunspot numbers may indicate that the Sun has contributed to the unusual climate change during the twentieth century, we point out that solar variability is unlikely to have been the dominant cause of the strong warming during the past three decades.” [“Unusual activity of the Sun during recent decades compared to the last 11,000 years” — S.K. Solanki et al, Nature Sep 2004]
++++++
The very next line was not a fact, it was an opinion. Absent that type of expression of opinion, Nature does not publish articles about the climate unless other reported facts already support a similar position. Absent complying facts, the opinion was needed to say the facts ‘probably’ couldn’t mean the obvious might be true.
The New Scientist Magazine admitted they demanded such things (for a time) in each article.
Tom_R: “Averaged over the study area” does not mean “averaged over all of Greenland”. It means “Averaged over the study area”. You and Monckton are both wrong.
Smokey: graphs of the last three years or of the last 10 years tell us nothing.
Anthony Watts: your slur about morals was truly pathetic.
“You have an online forum or your own, Monckton does not”
They both have youtube channels. Why make stuff up?
“He works in some psuedo video documentary world that I don’t so there’ really no opportunity for me to respond.”
A shame that your attempt at an infantile ad hominem attack was so poorly spelled. If you refuse to make videos (and that seems strange for someone who apparently used to work in television) then that’s your problem, not his.
“Since he gets a fraction of the traffic WUWT does, he’s just gunning for the traffic here”
That might be the most immature comment on this whole thread. You really embarrass yourself saying things like this.
REPLY: As for venues, I don’t work in video editing or video documentaries, to imply that because I “once worked in television” makes me an editor/documentary producer is feeble logic. And being profoundly hearing impaired, Hadfield’s narrative with his accent sounds like a mumble to me.
I asked him for a transcript, he said he didn’t have one.
And yet, despite how “terrible”you imply I am, here’s Hadfield’s response unedited and in entirety. I look forward to your arguments at RC and other venues to give skeptics such access.
-Anthony
Monckton gets pwned time and time again, nicely done.
@Jack Greer
Moncton’s quote:
“The colors indicate icesheet elevation change rate in cm/year, … from … satellite altimeter data, 1992 to 2003. The spatially averaged [increase] is 5.4 +/- 0.2 cm/year.”
From the paper:
“The colors indicate icesheet elevation change rate (dH/dt) in cm/year, derived from 11 years of ERS-1/ERS-2 satellite altimeter data, 1992 to 2003, excluding some icesheet marginal areas (white). The spatially averaged rate is +5.4 +/- 0.2 cm/year, or ~5 cm/year when corrected for isostatic uplift.”
I also quoted Dr. Johannessen’s comments from the paper.
Looking at http://maps.google.com/ ‘s satellite view of Greenland, it looks like much of the margins cannot be considered to be ice sheets as they melt each year. The leading edge of glaciers are measured in extent and not elevation. Lord Moncton included the appropriate ‘icesheets’ word permits the conclusions. You don’t like that he excluded the “excluding some icesheet marginal areas (white)” portion? Fine. I don’t mind it not being there as to me it is obvious.
The caveat is something to keep in mind, but it does not negate the conclusions.
John M Reynolds
“So is it a pattern of advance and retreat? Or no particular change? Or only one glacier retreating? Which?”
Does not a pattern of advance and retreat essentially equal no change? Put mathematically, does not 2 – 2 + 2 – 2 (advance and retreat) = 0 (no change). Mr. Hadfield appears to have an equivocation issue here in his reasoning. Regarding the “only one glacier retreating” comment, that’s commonly referred to as an exception, is it not? So, Lord Monckton’s quote (as detailed by Mr. Hadfield) could be restated as, “The glaciers are showing no particular change in 200 years[, except one…] glacier that’s declined a little is Gangoltri.”
While I’m still working my way through the rebuttal, I’m not finding any great “gotcha” from Mr. Hadfield. Like the example above, the majority of assertions appear to be focus on the minutia and not the meaningful.
potholer is typical of your middle class english twit with an arts degree. His knowledge of science is confined to reading entries on realclimate.org. Why Monckton bothers to respond to such an i**** is beyond me. @Potholer go read some Richard Feynman…shut up and calculate you fool
All this ‘he said, she said’ nonsense puts my head in a spin. I’d rather just [SNIP: Policy. -REP] and move on.
“The New Scientist Magazine admitted they demanded such things (for a time) in each article.”
Oh yeah? Quote a source for that claim, please.
The study area is almost all of Greenland, as Fig 1 in the paper shows. The area outside the study area is negligible.
Do you still beat your wife?
“potholer is typical of your middle class english twit with an arts degree. His knowledge of science is confined to reading entries on realclimate.org. Why Monckton bothers to respond to such an i**** is beyond me. @Potholer go read some Richard Feynman…shut up and calculate you fool”
And that typifies the level of maturity and intellectual rigour that prevails among Watts’s followers.
[Moderator’s Note: This is the last piece of rudeness or insult that will be tolerated in this thread. Address Hadfield’s or Monckton’s comments substantively or not at all. -REP]
Okay, here’s another equivocation… fallacy detailed by Mr. Hadfield which is focused on the minutia, too.
Mr. Hadfield asserts in the rebuttal to Sir John’s misquote by Lord Monckton, “Even though it turns out my quote is correct and Mr. Monckton’s is clearly a gross misquote, he still insists in his WUWT response that he got the quote right.”
But Lord Monckton’s WUWT response stated, “Sir John, too, tried to maintain that I had misquoted him, and even menaced me with a libel suit, until I told him I had a copy of the cutting from the London Sunday Telegraph of September 10, 1995, in which he had said, ‘If we want a good environmental policy in the future, we’ll have to have a disaster.’”
The WUWT response reads like a clarification to me (by Lord Monckton) of the video’s quote of, “Unless we announce disasters, no one will listen,” and aligns precisely to the quote referenced by Mr. Hadfield, does it not? I believe Mr. Hadfield is asserting there’s an “insistence” on Lord Monkton’s part that he got the video’s quote “right;” however, I fail to see such an assertion.
Interestingly, the referenced “Sunday Telegraph” article wrote, “Houghton warns that God may induce man to mend his ways with a disaster,” – http://john-adams.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/houghton-and-god.pdf . If you are “one of the Faith,” you listen when God speaks – period. When this notion is juxtaposed with Sir John’s quote above (as it relates to the need for having a disaster), I can understand how, “Unless we announce disasters, no one will listen,” could be extrapolated from the article’s content.
There’s no significant difference. See my response to Peter.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/310/5750/1013/F1.expansion.html
Lord Monckton, two words:
Thank You. Brilliant!
(oops, that’s three)
It’s a wonderful day in the neighbourhood!
It has become crystal clear to me that one side of this debate wants to engage in the science while the other claims to engage in the same thing but in fact does anything but. A job well done by the defenders of science, whose battle never ends…
So, essentially, Mr Potholer is on the tomato tomato quest of quote for quote acting the citazione fascista, yet forgets the citations’s original context which is of the utmost import.
Without the context a meaning has no content, it’s just an empty potholder. :p
Lmao…. On the cooling earth and he sends us to MSNBC. Trust them and not your lying eyes….
Here we go, the time period Monckton was referencing. Remember, alarmists have a difficulty with the present participle.
My gosh this was tedious! I had to read through Lord Monckton’s piece again for context and then endure the extremely unconvincing “rebuttal” from this potholer character. I was somewhat amused by the references potholer cited (e.g. MSNBC, rabid AGW organizations, studies from over 10 years ago) but I don’t think he managed to lay a glove on Lord Monckton.
Should be entertaining red meat for the trolls, though
@Jack Greer
..and please correct me if I am wrong Anthony, however I believe anyone is welcome to guest post here, and I also believe that Anthony has invited AGW proponents to do so. Most refuse because they feel safer posting on a warmist site where there’s little or no chance of debate, or objectivity. Of course they feel there is “fairness” there because of that.
Also, kudos to Mr Hadfield for being civil in his responses.
February 2009, Mr. Monckton said: “We’ve had nine years of a global cooling trend since the first of January 2001” [Ref 1 – 4:06] – and St. Paul in October 2009: “There has been global cooling for the last eight or nine years” [ibid.].
So in my video, the period Mr. Monckton was talking about was clearly identified in his own words,
Granted, it was only 8 years since January 2001 and February 2009. However with regards to the St. Paul speech in October 2009, let us assume we had the stats until the end of August 2009. So from January 2001 to August 2009 is 8.67 years, so there seems to be nothing wrong with saying “the last eight or nine years”. Your source tried to prove him wrong using a source that had 2005 as the hottest year. However if we take the average of the four main data sets and get the slope from January 2001 to the end of August 2009, we get a negative slope. That means cooling for “the period Mr. Monckton … clearly identified”.
#WoodForTrees Temperature Index
#Mean of HADCRUT3VGL, GISTEMP, UAH and RSS, offset to UAH/RSS baseline (-0.0975K)
#See http://www.woodfortrees.org/notes for details
#—————————————————-
#
#File: wti.txt
#
#Time series (wti) from 1979 to 2012
#Selected data from 2001
#Selected data up to 2009.67
#Least squares trend line; slope = -0.00881622 per year
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:1980/plot/wti/from:2001/to:2009.67/trend
Tom Murphy says:
February 7, 2012 at 12:11 pm
While I’m still working my way through the rebuttal, I’m not finding any great “gotcha” from Mr. Hadfield. Like the example above, the majority of assertions appear to be focus on the minutia and not the meaningful.
=====================================================
I agree, I would have expected a bit more from some one who seemed eager to engage…. after the first section on temps ….. I’ve sort of lost interest in seeing what Hadfield stated. It seems context is a difficult concept for some. It is also apparent some don’t have the ability to extract their own interpretations from information provided by others. Instead, they rely on the information and interpretation of said information from the source of the information. That’s a strange way to be. It means one can’t expand nor expound upon someone else’ work. That’s laughable.
“Johannessen said he only measured the interior of Greenland above 1,500 metres [1 – 11:59] In fact, he specifically warns that the very conclusion Mr Monckton reaches cannot be made: “We cannot make an integrated assessment of elevation changes… for the whole Greenland Ice Sheet, including its outlet glaciers,…….”
The ice sheet is a great example. Hadfield’s argument is because Monckton came to a different conclusion with the information Johannessen offered it must be wrong because Johannessen said so. That’s an excellent rebuttal, if one forfeits their prerogative to think for themselves. No way could anyone ever look at the same information and present two different conclusions. ….. 😐 Again, I find myself in mourning for western civilization.
Well, heck….. I left out the link to the cooling….. This covers from Jan 2001 to feb 2009.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/to:2009.16/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/to:2009.16/trend
Clearly that’s a cooling trend. Clearly, this covers the 8 or 9 years which was quoted.
Hadfield says, “So, as I said, he did not tell his audience there had been a 30-year decline.”
That’s ok Petey, because you’re not telling your audience where the ice was 30 years prior to that. Goose/gander and all of that.
How is it that it is confusing about what time frame he was talking about when you know the duration referenced on his slide? It’s difficult to believe this was an honest misunderstanding.
When you state, “Mr. Monckton said: “The solar physicists – you might take Scafetta and West, say, in 2008, they attribute 69% of all the recent global warming to the sun.” [5 – 3:48]
No, they don’t. In my video [5 – 4:32] I showed the actual document Mr. Monckton refers to (an opinion piece) where Scafetta and West wrote: “We estimate that the sun could account for as much as 69% of the increase in the Earth’s average temperature.” [“Is climate sensitive to solar variability?” Nicola Scafetta and Bruce J. West, Physics Today March 2008]”
You are having a discussion on semantics rather than refuting anything. You actually took the time to create a series of videos to have a semantic discussion. You’ve wasted a good portion of my time. This is a vapid discussion. Do you have anything substantive? What was the point of posting these weak responses?
JS;
And hasn’t NASA just recently quietly downgraded 2005 and 1998 to also-rans in the hottest year sweeps? You may need to update your graphs. It’ll be a ski slope, not a hockey stick!
😉
To Lord Monckton:
R. Gates says:
January 11, 2012 at 8:34 pm
Lord Monckton said:
” I hope shortly to be in a position to demonstrate formally that climate sensitivity is unarguably little more than one-third of the IPCC’s central estimate.”
_________________________________________________
Firstly, the original calculations of sensitivity were, I understand, based on an assumption that the Earth’s surface would have been -18 degrees C but for so-called greenhouse gases and water vapour.
However, in using Stefan-Boltzmann’s Law to calculate that -18 C figure one would have to have assumed that the Earth’s surface acted like a blackbody. A blackbody absorbs and emits only radiated energy, whereas at least half of all energy which transfers between the Earth’s surface and the first millimeter of the atmosphere does so by diffusion (molecular collision) and evaporation. Hence less than half the energy remains for radiation and, obviously, this greatly affects the calculation of that -18 degree C figure which, in a nutshell, is totally meaningless.
Secondly, spectroscopy proves that a gas does not absorb radiation from an emitter which is cooler than itself. Hence, the lower atmosphere does not absorb radiation coming from cooler carbon dioxide molecules above it. The same applies for solids and liquids in the Earth’s surface as Claes Johnson, a well-published Professor of Applied Mathematics has proved:http://www.csc.kth.se/~cgjoh/blackbodyslayer.pdf
Hence an atmospheric greenhouse effect supposedly due to “backradiation” is a physical impossibility.
I would like to suggest that it would be more productive to focus on these two solid facts of physics than to spend all your days arguing about whether Arctic or Greenland ice is melting, or whether the world is warming – which the 500 year trend is, but only by about 0.05 deg.C / decade, and only for another 50 to 200 years at the most.
To Lord Monckton
Firstly, the original calculations of sensitivity were, I understand, based on an assumption that the Earth’s surface would have been -18 degrees C but for so-called greenhouse gases and water vapour.
However, in using Stefan-Boltzmann’s Law to calculate that -18 C figure one would have to have assumed that the Earth’s surface acted like a blackbody. A blackbody absorbs and emits only radiated energy, whereas at least half of all energy which transfers between the Earth’s surface and the first millimeter of the atmosphere does so by diffusion (molecular collision) and evaporation. Hence less than half the energy remains for radiation and, obviously, this greatly affects the calculation of that -18 degree C figure which, in a nutshell, is totally meaningless.
Secondly, spectroscopy proves that a gas does not absorb radiation from an emitter which is cooler than itself. Hence, the lower atmosphere does not absorb radiation coming from cooler carbon dioxide molecules above it. The same applies for solids and liquids in the Earth’s surface as Claes Johnson, a well-published Professor of Applied Mathematics has proved:http://www.csc.kth.se/~cgjoh/blackbodyslayer.pdf
Hence an atmospheric greenhouse effect supposedly due to “backradiation” is a physical impossibility.
I would like to suggest that it would be more productive to focus on these two solid facts of physics than to spend all your days arguing about whether Arctic or Greenland ice is melting, or whether the world is warming, which the 500 year trend is, but only by about 0.05 deg.C / decade and only for another 50 to 200 years at the most. For details on this prediction see my site http://climate-change-theory.com
Moderator: Please delete the first of the above two posts – it seemed to disappear so I posted again with a slight variation.
[2:33 post is visible. Robt]
“the original calculations of sensitivity were, I understand, based on an assumption that the Earth’s surface would have been -18 degrees C but for so-called greenhouse gases and water vapour.”
You misunderstand, then. No such assumption exists.
“Secondly, spectroscopy proves that a gas does not absorb radiation from an emitter which is cooler than itself.”
Replace “does not absorb” with “absorbs” and you have the truth. Atoms and molecules are not clever enough to know which photons you want them to absorb. They absorb any that quantum physics allows, regardless of where they come from.
“only for another 50 to 200 years at the most.”
Plucked from the pure thin air.
Tom Murphy says:
“Interestingly, the referenced “Sunday Telegraph” article wrote, “Houghton warns that God may induce man to mend his ways with a disaster,” – http://john-adams.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/houghton-and-god.pdf . If you are “one of the Faith,” you listen when God speaks – period. When this notion is juxtaposed with Sir John’s quote above (as it relates to the need for having a disaster), I can understand how, “Unless we announce disasters, no one will listen,” could be extrapolated from the article’s content.”
If you read the news paper edition the quote: “If we want a good environmental policy in the future, we’ll have to have a disaster. It’s like safety on public”[…] is in there.
What Mr potholer the potholder and all hippie (we-shit-on-library-cards) communists seem to miss is when the good lord Monckton, and other rational people, actually quotes someone or merely goes he said she said. :p
Yes, Kudos to Mr Hadfield for his civil responses and demeanor and, more importantly, the content of his arguments … but, Dave, you haven’t read through this thread re: “anyone is welcome to guest post here”. Your answer is above concerning that issue.
Well, Dr. Dave, I hope you aren’t attempting to divine “context” from the way Mr. Monckton has re-framed it here at WUWT. The real context surrounds the veracity of skeptical arguments Mr. Monckton uses when addressing audiences or when participating in debates. I’d suggest you start with the videos provided by Mr. Hadfield. After all, that’s what Mr. Monckton was originally responding to.
To J Fischer:
If you wish to argue about the actual mathematics and physics in Johnson’s Computational Blackbody Radiation (which I linked) or give details regarding your assumed claim that the Earth’s surface acts like a blackbody (even though the surface/atmosphere interface is internal to the full Earth+atmosphere system which does act like a blackbody when viewed from space) then by all means present your calculations and data and I will happily discuss same.
A blackbody does in fact “detect” the frequency of incoming radiation and it does in fact scatter any such radiation for which the peak frequency is significantly lower than its own peak frequency of emission – without converting the energy in that radiation to thermal energy. That is a fact of physics. You cannot show me any experiment which proves otherwise, including any contrary result to that which I quoted for gases.
I don’t respond to the kind of assumed statements you made in your post – which is full of errors and totally lacking in proof or links to such.
It seems that rebuttals of this type are subject to context, interpretation and semantics. Was there a cooling trend between 2001-2008? Yes. Was it statistically significant? Probably not. On the other hand a warmest will vehemently point out that 2010 was the hottest year on record. But was that statistically significant? No. Although actually, after reading some of the comments in this thread I revisited GISS, RSS, HADCRUT3, and UAH, and I can’t find any support for the 2010 warmist claim, much less worry about statistical significance… Monckton might find it helpful to qualify his statements to a greater degree in the future, however, and respond to and anticipate criticisms that might arise.
love it potholer, mockton is moron, and its pretty obvious from the documents. his response cites no resources to corroborate his claims.
i’d also challenge anyone claiming there is “big money” in green science to follow the money the other way …. how maybe trillions of dollars are made every year by companies that don’t want every policy to change, and how many lobbyist do they employ? and lets add up the billions and billions of dollars in coal, gas, and oil subsidies every year?
if you follow the money, the money is in burning this planet to the ground, by far and away the most profitable. the entire budget of the NSF adds up to less money then even one coal companies yearly government subsidy.
Mr. Monckton, what you have just said, is the most insanely idiotic thing I have ever heard. At no point, in your rambling incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul.
gerglmuff and James Norton Zeitgeist,
You two must have clicked on the wrong link. Your comments belong on the Grauniad’s blog, not here on the internet’s Best Science site. We like citations and science here, not raving lunatics.
Further to my response to J Fischer above …
Suppose you somehow placed a small metal marble-sized ball inside a hollow soccer ball-sized metal sphere and then sucked all air out to form a vacuum inside. Now, let’s assume the small ball was a few degrees hotter than the surrounding sphere. Further assume that the outer sphere is large enough so that there is much more radiative flux coming from it than from the smaller ball. This would be due to its greater surface area which would more than compensate for its cooler temperature.
So, we have a net radiative flux going from the cooler sphere to the warmer small ball inside it.
Will the small ball start to get warmer or start to cool?
Physics says that the flow of thermal energy can only be from hot to cold. But we have net radiative flux going from cold to hot. Hence the small ball must be rejecting (scattering and reflecting) the cooler radiation from the larger sphere. The large sphere will however absorb and convert to thermal energy the warmer radiation from the small ball. They each “detect” the temperature of the other because they detect the peak frequency and that frequency is proportional to the absolute temperature – see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wien's_displacement_law
The significance of this fact of physics is that a warmer Earth surface does not convert radiation from a cooler atmosphere to thermal energy. So the radiative atmospheric greenhouse effect is debunked.
Jack Greer says:
February 7, 2012 at 3:45 pm
I’d suggest you start with the videos provided by Mr. Hadfield. After all, that’s what Mr. Monckton was originally responding to.
===================================================
lol, well you would if you want to miss the context and concentrate on semantics. But, the better place to start would be examining Monckton’s statements, first. Then listen to Hadfield’s drivel.
Jack, Hadfield started with an incorrect statement and it never got better.
ON THE COOLING EARTH….. There’s a link above which clearly shows Monckton was absolutely correct when he made his statements. I forced myself to read more, but, it just got exactly as Dr. Dave stated. Tedious. And a waste of time. We move to arguments of interpretations of data and Scafetta’s inferences as opposed to declarative statements. Given that Scafetta, like all who study the climate, are not speaking the Word of God, we all infer a qualifying word in front of declarative statements, anyway. This response from Hadfield was ….. weak and honestly a disappointment.
This seems to be a cold house for rationalist thinking.
[snip. Read the site Policy. ~dbs, mod.]
Thanks for all the responses. I suppose I should be encouraged by the fact that the best many people could do was to say that they found me boring, and an English twit, or that they gave up reading. It is, as I said, quite tough to debunk this kind of documented evidence, and much easier to resort to name-calling.
My thanks to those few who did have a go. If Monckton’s sources really do say what you think they say then it should be very easy for him to come online and show it.
There are too many comments to respond to, but I’ll be happy to respond to Mr. Monckton if and when he himself responds. However, there were thee common themes that several people commented on:
Firstly, a lot of people seem to think I used MSNBC as a source. This is not correct. I cited Associated Press as a source, and there are hundreds of media organizations that use AP material, including MSNBC and Fox News.
Secondly, there were a lot of questions as to why I don’t check Al Gore’s claims, and why I don’t point out errors on the “CAGW side.” Well of course, I do. There seems to be an assumption implicit in this charge that science is about taking “sides”, and that you can only attack the errors on the other “side” and you have to defend fabrications and exaggerations on your own “side” — and that it’s OK to fabricate and exaggerate as long as the other “side” does it too. The rationale of my channel is that it is NOT OK. Just because Al Gore gets things wrong does not mean Mr. Monckton is entitled to also. They both need to report accurately and both need to have their errors exposed. I have not only pointed out errors by Al Gore, but also by the BBC, Reuters, Al Jazeera, The Independent and many other media that exaggerate climate science, from the scare that it will shut down the Gulf Stream to the claim that it is inundating islands.
Thirdly, I am not rebutting Mr. Monckton with ‘established’ climate science except where I point out that he gives no reliable source. In most cases I am going to the sources Monckton himself cites. If Mr. Monckton says a paper says something, then either it says so or it doesn’t, and in most cases it doesn’t.
[Thank you for your effort in reading, and in replying, here. Robt]
So much fawning over Monckton, much of it due to the title, it seems, and much out of hand dismissal of Mr Hadfield. So many “facts” posited, uncited, so much posturing, but no-one from the Monckton camp, it seems, prepared to watch Peter Hadfield’s rather entertaining videos that merely ask Monckton to clarify why his assertions are at odds with the papers he purports to cite and, on occasion, at odds with his own prior talks.
gerglmuff says:
February 7, 2012 at 4:21 pm
i’d also challenge anyone claiming there is “big money” in green science to follow the money the other way …. how maybe trillions of dollars are made every year by companies that don’t want every policy to change, and how many lobbyist do they employ? and lets add up the billions and billions of dollars in coal, gas, and oil subsidies every year?
===============================================================
Thanks for the laughs. You’re either vacant or you don’t pay attention. Gas?
http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/208477-sierra-club-took-26m-from-gas-industry-to-fight-coal
Much of the funding for this inane alarmism is from these fellows….. http://www.us-cap.org/ Of course, BP, Conoco, and Caterpillar were part of all that until 2010. Immediately following, BP partnered with Berkeley U and warmist Secretary Steven Chu in a $500 million operation.
If you guys can’t even educate yourselves on the most simplest of diversions, how is it you believe you can make adequate judgements on anything else? There are many, many more examples of your Big Oil and Big Gas and Big….. blah, blah in bed with the warmists. And, the warmists in bed with them. When you come to understand what is happening, come back and I’ll explain why.
[snip. Read the site Policy. ~dbs, mod.]
Hadfield suffers from psychological projection, accusing Lord Monckton of Hadfield’s own faults.
To settle the issue, I propose a debate, which would no doubt end like these:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/24/lord-monckton-wins-global-warming-debate-at-oxford-union
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/20/monckton-wins-national-press-club-debate-on-climate
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/05/agw-proponents-lose-yet-another-debate-down-under
I am most grateful to Anthony Watts for allowing Mr. Hadfield to make various largely inaccurate and manifestly insubstantial points in response to my refutation of his criticisms of some of my talks about the climate.
Consider the contrast between the insubstantiality of Mr. Hadfield’s allegations and Mr. Justice Burton’s identification of nine serious “errors” in Al Gore’s sci-fi comedy horror movie in the 2007 London High Court case that resulted in the Department of Education sending 77 pages of corrective guidance to every school where the movie was to be shown:
Error one
Al Gore said that a sea-level rise of up to 20 feet would be caused by melting of either West Antarctica or Greenland “in the near future”.
The judge’s finding: “This is distinctly alarmist and part of Mr Gore’s ‘wake-up call’.” It was common ground that if Greenland melted it would release this amount of water – “but only after, and over, millennia.”
Error two
Gore said low-lying inhabited Pacific atolls were already “being inundated because of anthropogenic global warming.”
Judge: There was no evidence of any evacuation having yet happened.
Error three
Gore described global warming potentially “shutting down the Ocean Conveyor” – the process by which the Gulf Stream is carried over the North Atlantic to western Europe.
Judge: According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it was “very unlikely” it would be shut down, though it might slow down.
Error four
Gore asserted – by ridiculing the opposite view – that two graphs, one plotting a rise in CO2 and the other the rise in temperature over a period of 650,000 years, showed “an exact fit”.
Judge: Although there was general scientific agreement that there was a connection, “the two graphs do not establish what Mr Gore asserts”.
Error five
Gore said the disappearance of snow on Mount Kilimanjaro was expressly attributable to global warming.
Judge: This had “specifically impressed” David Miliband, the Environment Secretary, but the scientific consensus was that it cannot be established that the recession of snows on Mount Kilimanjaro is mainly attributable to human-induced climate change.
Error six
Gore used the drying up of Lake Chad as what the judge called “a prime example of a catastrophic result of global warming”.
Judge: “It is generally accepted that the evidence remains insufficient to establish such an attribution. It is apparently considered to be far more likely to result from other factors, such as population increase and over-grazing, and regional climate variability.”
Error seven
Gore attributed Hurricane Katrina and the devastation in New Orleans to global warming.
Judge: There is “insufficient evidence to show that”.
Error eight
Gore referred to a new scientific study showing that, for the first time, polar bears were being found that had actually drowned “swimming long distances – up to 60 miles – to find the ice”.
Judge: “The only scientific study that either side before me can find is one which indicates that four polar bears have recently been found drowned because of a storm.” That was not to say there might not in future be drowning-related deaths of bears if the trend of regression of pack ice continued – “but it plainly does not support Mr. Gore’s description”.
Error nine
Gore said coral reefs worldwide were bleaching because of global warming and other factors.
Judge: The IPCC had reported that, if temperatures were to rise by 1-3 degrees Celsius, there would be increased coral bleaching and mortality, unless the coral could adapt. But separating the impacts of stresses due to climate change from other stresses, such as over-fishing, and pollution was difficult.
A question arises from this painful contrast between the grave errors in Gore’s movie and what I shall bluntly call Mr. Hadfield’s nit-picking. Since Mr. Hadfield is so eager to correct every jot and tittle in the debate about the climate, why has he never – as far as I can discover – criticized these and other serious errors in Gore’s movie? Or in the documents of the IPCC? Or in the GISS temperature record? Or … well, the list is long and Mr. Hadfield’s silence deafening.
JS, the true believers are selective in what they want to accept as evidence. So when you confront them with the money trail their right eye twitches and the cognitive dissonance sets in.
Smokey:
do you need the numbers:
75.2 billion dollars in government subsidies to the oil companies from 2002-2008 – http://priceofoil.org/fossil-fuel-subsidies/
oil company yearly profits in 2011:
Exxon Mobil: 11 billion
Chevron: 6.2 billion
philips: 3 billion
http://www.forbes.com/2011/05/10/oil-company-earnings.html
4 of the top 5 (and 6 of the top 10) largest corporations in the world by revenue are oil companies:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_by_revenue
7.7 billion TOTAL budget for the NSF in 2011: http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=118642
so who is making all this money off green science? cause the numbers don’t lie … the money is oil, not science. and certainly not from the government either, roughly 2 dollars for every 1 dollar of government spending goes to oil and gas, compared to the ENTIRE national science foundation.
now, im not implying that government spending and profits should determine the scientific validity of ideas, but i am debunking the notion that these climate researchers are making tons of money selling a lie. there is a lot more money out there to say the exact opposite of what they are saying.
To everyone: Consider a patch of rock being warmed by the Sun in the morning. The IPCC says backradiation will add more thermal energy, so it must warm faster. (It is not just a matter of backradiation slowing the cooling rate – it must be consistent in whatever it does. Either it adds thermal energy or it doesn’t.)
At some time soon after noon the Sun will bring the rock to a maximum temperature before it starts to cool towards evening. When at that maximum will the backradiation cause it to warm more? How could it, becuase that would be transferring thermal energy from a cold source to a warmer body. It is simply against the laws of physics. It simply cannot and does not happen. Yet the IPCC “explanation” of the GHE says it does.
Prof Johnson has proven why it doesn’t in his Computational Blackbody Radiation. The GH theory is debunked.
mr monkton why are you attacking al gore? potholer debunks al gore whenever he finds incorrect information in his movies too.
do you have no response for potholers claims?
i have seen what you said, and then read the paper you cite, saying the exact opposite that you claim it does, and i too would like an explanation.
Peter Hadfield says:
February 7, 2012 at 4:47 pm
Secondly, there were a lot of questions as to why I don’t check Al Gore’s claims, and why I don’t point out errors on the “CAGW side.” Well of course, I do. There seems to be an assumption implicit in this charge that science is about taking “sides”, and that you can only attack the errors on the other “side” and you have to defend fabrications and exaggerations on your own “side” — and that it’s OK to fabricate and exaggerate as long as the other “side” does it too. The rationale of my channel is that it is NOT OK. Just because Al Gore gets things wrong does not mean Mr. Monckton is entitled to also. They both need to report accurately and both need to have their errors exposed. I have not only pointed out errors by Al Gore, but also by the BBC, Reuters, Al Jazeera, The Independent and many other media that exaggerate climate science, from the scare that it will shut down the Gulf Stream to the claim that it is inundating islands.
Please show us your explicit criticism and corrections to Hansen; to Bill Nye (“The Science Guy”); to the schemes of not just Al Gore but NOAA, GISS, NWS, APS and their ilk; or to the US democrat party during Pelosi’s CAGW-inspired energy restriction/taxation debates in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011; to Australia’s Labor Party as it breaks that country in the name of CAGW; to Obama’s and his “science” leaders as they developed the current energy deprivation schemes and wasted billions in taxpayer money on counter-CAGW “green energy” schemes for Obama supporters and fund-raisers; against the IPCC since the AR4 debacle. Quote us your opposition to the Euro schemes of wind and solar manipulation of their energy mess.
Show me your letters to the National Geographic magazine, the NY Times, LA Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, Time, AP, UPI, Discover magazine, or The Economist. Show me your letters to any European magazine listing the lies and exaggerations of the CAGW claims that you debunked.
I have seen NO public rebuttal of ANY CAGW propaganda by ANYBODY you claim as a “climate scientist” in your references or public statements. Only more propaganda for themselves, their dogma, and their future funding to murder innocent in the name of “fighting CAGW” ….
I like how stupid some of the people in the comments are on this blog, acting like “Lord Christopher’s” series of strawmans, misquotations, and purely incorrect assertions were even an excuse for an argument.
RACook –
if you watched potholers videos, you would see the explicit corrections potholer has for al gore.
Peter Hadfield says:
February 7, 2012 at 4:47 pm
Thanks for all the responses. I suppose I should be encouraged …….
=============================================================
Oh Goodness……. Peter you were directly refuted here. And this is your response? What of your temperature decline reference? What of the polar ice? You say his slide only shows 3 years but you attempt to refute his claim by going back beyond his point of reference and declare him omitting facts, but you are doing exactly the same! What was the arctic ice area prior to the 70s? http://www.real-science.com/goto/http://www.climatemonitor.it/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/1974.pdf
Then meaningless semantics about Scafetta’s statements? And you expect people to hang on to your ramblings? You end your Himalayan rebut with questions to Monckton?
There are not too many comments for you to respond to. You made exactly 10 rebuts to Monckton’s rebuttals. I haven’t read all of the comments, but likely you’ve received proper criticism on all ten which would honorably be responded to or conceded. And you end with 3 generalizations…….. that’s great coming from a guy concentrated on the minutia. You could have just tweeted that in.
I’ll ask again, do you have anything substantive?
Allen says:
February 7, 2012 at 4:58 pm
JS, the true believers are selective in what they want to accept as evidence. So when you confront them with the money trail their right eye twitches and the cognitive dissonance sets in.
============================================================
lol, indeed. It’s a strange thing to observe. It’s fascinating. $500 mil here or there, I guess is just numbers with zeroes and we all know zeroes count as nothing……
gerglmuff says:
February 7, 2012 at 5:10 pm
I specifically excluded Gore’s propaganda from my list, and specifically listed a number more important, more relevant policymakers in the CAGW schemes to extort 1.3 trillion in tax money fro US citizens under the propaganda of their CAGW cause.
Do you endorse the tens of thousands of Wikipedia edits made in CAGW topics to further propagandize this topic? Show me the documents that he has made stopping that practice to distort our children’s basic knowledge.
I am delighted that Mr. Monckton has responded here. But to my amazement he doesn’t even attempt any rebuttal of my evidence – instead he rebuts Al Gore!
Mr. Monckton, please addess the evidence I have presented. You and I are in complete agreement over the errors of Al Gore, and I have pointed them out in my videos. Here we are talking about YOUR errors, and trying to deflect attention onto someone else will not work. If you got these facts wrong, and you think they are so unimportant as to amount to ‘nitpicking,’ why not simply admit you got them wrong?
REPLY: Mr. Monckton tells me via email he’ll respond in some greater detail when he returns from his current trip. You yourself took two weeks, so cut some slack.
Right now he’s just echoing other commenters about your one side investigation techniques…we do look forward to your debunking Al Gore in a video (I’ve yet to see one dedicated to him let alone the five you dedicate to Monckton in references above, feel free to drop a link here), since you claim not to be biased in any way.
– Anthony
Doug Cotton: Shouting incorrect statements does not make them any less incorrect, so how about getting a bit less bold-happy?
“assumed claim that the Earth’s surface acts like a blackbody” – I told you once already, there is no such assumption.
“A blackbody does in fact “detect” the frequency of incoming radiation and it does in fact scatter any such radiation for which the peak frequency is significantly lower than its own peak frequency of emission” – nope. The definition of a black body is that it absorbs all radiation that falls on it. Which bit of “all” is it that you have a problem with?
Your garbled understanding of how radiation works has led you quite some way up the garden path. The net flow of energy is always from hotter to colder; that’s basic thermodynamics. That does not make warm bodies invisible to cooler ones. Photons and molecules do not behave as you seem to think they should. Have you ever read any introduction to quantum physics?
lmao…. ok, a couple of alarmists are here….. cool I wonder if they can explain Mr. Hadfield’s very first assertion……. he stated,
But, we don’t need studies. We can just go here….. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/to:2009.16/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/to:2009.16/trend
…to see that Christopher Monckton was accurate and truthful, while Hadfield was obfuscating. Once this is conceded, I’ll move on to the next item of contention.
gerglmuff,
You can’t even keep straight who you’re responding to:
“James Sexton says:
February 7, 2012 at 4:53 pm [ … ]”
I said nothing about oil, I merely pointed out that you commented like a lunatic. Now you can add “hypocrite” to your description, unless you can show us convincingly that you never use fossil fuels, or products made or grown using them.
Really, anyone who hates and demonizes a legitimate, law abiding industry that provides things that make their life much better than it would otherwise be, an industry that pays much more in taxes than it pays its shareholders in dividends, and which gives many $millions to eco-fascist groups every year, well, that person would have to be some kind of a lunatic, and a real hypocrite too, no?
[Snip. Use a legitimate email address, per site Policy. ~dbs, mod.]
@James Sexton
“You are having a discussion on semantics rather than refuting anything. You actually took the time to create a series of videos to have a semantic discussion. You’ve wasted a good portion of my time. This is a vapid discussion. Do you have anything substantive? What was the point of posting these weak responses?”
Well James, when the point of the videos are constant misreadings done by Lord Mockton of his own source material, semantic discussions become inevitable. I’m sorry if you feel accurately repeating the information you are citing is an insubstantive waste of time but those of us interesting in understanding the truth realize it’s contingent on understanding what people have said.
gerglmuff says:
February 7, 2012 at 4:59 pm
so who is making all this money off green science? cause the numbers don’t lie … the money is oil, not science. and certainly not from the government either, roughly 2 dollars for every 1 dollar of government spending goes to oil and gas, compared to the ENTIRE national science foundation.
=====================================================================
You just aren’t making the connection, are you? Gas and Oil are profiting from the vapid lunacy which passes for climate science.
After reading a few comments I feel as if nobody posting actually took the time to read the complete articles. Monckton here presents a thoroughly immature response. Instead of addressing the evidence and the inconsistencies (often outright falsehoods) that Hadfield exposes in his arguments, he calls him a caveman and other names. There is nothing intellectual or academic about his arguments. He does not cite sources accurately or at all (yet Hadfield always cites his sources and makes them readily available to readers, and I have yet to have found an inconsistency between his conclusions and the evidence he presents) and instead Monckton simply attacks Hadfield in playground bully fashion.
People on this site may be biased to wish to believe what Monckton writes without critically thinking about it. Hadfield however encourages critical thinking and accuracy. Present Hadfield with an error and he will admit his mistake and correct it. Present Monckton with an error of his and he has a tantrum, tries to cover up previous claims or lies.
If you have difficulty reading or listening to Hadfield then that is only because you do not like or do not wish to think in that way. Science doesn’t care about what you’d like to believe, science only cares for evidence and scrutiny. But try to! I implore you to see both sides of an argument before reaching a conclusion. The same goes for myself, I read what Monckton has to say as well as Hadfield, even if I may not like or wish to because I know I cannot draw conclusions without evidence.
When Copernicus concluded that the Earth goes around the Sun almost everyone was opposed to him because they did not wish to believe that. They liked the idea that the Earth was at the center. They were wrong. You may like to believe that we are changing the climate of this planet, but it is simply a fact, whether you like it or not. It is both immature and irresponsible to believe otherwise.
Smokey says:
February 7, 2012 at 5:36 pm
gerglmuff,
You can’t even keep straight who you’re responding to:
=====================================================
Sry Smoke, he was already heading out to space, my links probably sent him into orbit. Hopefully, between what you’ve stated and what I’ve shared with him, he’ll consider things in a different manner…….. holding my breath.
What I love here is how Moncktons supporters are damning over whether or not his title is valid and are quick to point out that they are just attacking the man and the ad hominem fallacy. Yet I hear none of them addressing Moncktons own use of the same tactics by calling Potholer54 a ‘caveman’ and him being a former ‘ “science writer” ‘. Ironic.
Jeremy says:
February 7, 2012 at 5:37 pm
@James Sexton
“You are having a discussion on semantics rather than refuting anything. You actually took the time to create a series of videos to have a semantic discussion. You’ve wasted a good portion of my time. This is a vapid discussion. Do you have anything substantive? What was the point of posting these weak responses?”
Well James, when the point of the videos are constant misreadings done by Lord Mockton of his own source material, semantic discussions become inevitable. I’m sorry if you feel accurately repeating the information you are citing is an insubstantive waste of time but those of us interesting in understanding the truth realize it’s contingent on understanding what people have said.
==========================================================
Okay, I’ve come to grips with the fact that the “present participle” is something alarmists don’t understand. For instance, I say “the earth has quit warming for over a decade”, the alarmist give me a 30 year graph. So, I’ve given up on hope they could understand the intricacies of the English language. But, then an alarmist uses that exact same scenario in reference to Monckton’s sea ice statement, but then comes back and states, ….paraphrasing….. “technically that’s not what they said, they said, could be, not is.”
Then your argument smacks of duplicity. Especially when the word “could” is universally implied in all scientific statements not associated with a scientific law.
I’m sorry you hold two separate standards. But, I’m used to it. Hypocrisy and duplicity is hallmarks of alarmists. This is congruent with their misanthropy.
James
Reading this comment section has been one of the most painful experiences I have ever endured, it was not enlightening nor entertaining and seemed to consist of Monckton fanboyism and an inept understanding of proper source citation and scientific debate.
A debate does not consist of one party ignoring the others valid rebuttals nor should it ever consist of one party stating X then having the other party point out the inconsistencies of X only to have the original party merely fall upon baseless judgments of the other parties character.
Come on, it can’t just be me that found Moncktons response to be childish playground babble that basically consisted of “NO U R WRONG! DUMMY!”, I’m more than fine with either side being correct, I have no partial bias in this entire situation (I am not blindly supporting a persons opinion), I just find it appalling that a man of science would reduce himself to the muck of character attacks in light of corrections to his assertions.
@ James Sexton
If you are really quibbling over the ON THE COOLING OF THE EARTH rebuttal, when there are nine more claims Monckton made that were factually in error, you must be really grasping at straws…
[snip – invalid email address – a real one is required per policy and oijonoj@ijhjojwg.com is just gobbledeygook – Anthony]
Look, I know this hassles some people so I thought I’d look up what Debrett’s says:
This the fourth grade in the peerage. A viscount is, in conversation, referred to as Lord (Chelmsford) rather than the Viscount Chelmsford.
There are two viscountcies where an ‘of’ is used in the title: the Viscount of Arbuthnott, and the Viscount of Oxford.
Ecclesiastical, ambassadorial and armed forces ranks precede a viscount’s rank in correspondence. For example, Major-General the Viscount ………
When a viscount is also a privy counsellor or has received a knighthood he may use the appropriate post-nominal letters.
The wife of a viscount is a viscountess and is known as Lady (Chelmsford). Use of the title viscountess in speech is socially incorrect unless it needs to be specifically mentioned, for example in a list of patrons.
How to address a Viscount and Viscountess
The recommended (social) style of address is as follows:
Beginning of letter Dear Lord/Lady Chelmsford
End of letter Yours sincerely
Envelope Viscount/Viscountess Chelmsford
Verbal communication Lord/Lady Chelmsford
Invitation* & joint form of address Lord and Lady Chelmsford
Description in conversation Lord/Lady Chelmsford
List of Directors or Patrons The Viscount/Viscountess Chelmsford
Place card The Viscount/Viscountess Chelmsford
Legal document The Right Honourable Frederic Viscount Chelmsford, The Right Honourable Charlotte Viscountess Chelmsford
For those that don’t know, Debrett’s is the repository of all things ettiquette. Some people who post on this site could really do with reading it.
With respect to Lord Monkton, This seems plain enough to me and I don’t really care what our rebellious cousins over the pond think.
J. Fischer says @5:28 pm [ … ]
J., you are on the wrong thread. This is the right one:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/03/monckton-responds-to-skeptical-science
I will answer your question there.
I would say the name “caveman” is flattery, he sure cherry pics his sources, quoting corruption is no answer, what we do know is there is more ice on Greenland than when the Vikings farmed it, actual real proof of the farms still being under a glacier, care to argue that my potholer?? How about turn of the last century reports of ice free areas in the arctic?? or the passage of German raiders through the NW passage in 39 (I think) now look today, way more ice, for real.
Jacob says:
February 7, 2012 at 6:09 pm
@ James Sexton
If you are really quibbling over the ON THE COOLING OF THE EARTH rebuttal, when there are nine more claims Monckton made that were factually in error, you must be really grasping at straws…
===================================================
lol, that was the first one. As I stated earlier, once this is conceded, I’ll move one. But, I find it strange that you found that comment of mine but not my others. Do you believe this was my only point of contention? And, do you believe I don’t have other valid points to make which I haven’t stated, yet?
The fact is I’ve made quite a few….. I can’t wait until we get to the pre-Cambrian era…..
I’d list all of my points of contention about Hadfield’s responses, but given the challenge a present participle gives alarmists, I wouldn’t press my luck on their ability to retain concepts of present participles stated in the past, so, one at a time it is.
gerglmuff, what you have just said, is the most insanely idiotic thing I have ever heard. At no point, in your rambling incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul.
J. Fischer says:
February 7, 2012 at 5:28 pm
“A blackbody does in fact “detect” the frequency of incoming radiation and it does in fact scatter any such radiation for which the peak frequency is significantly lower than its own peak frequency of emission” – nope.
_______________________________________
Yep – I presented proof – you did not present anything.
Instead of studying what Prof Johnson has proven computationally and then pointing out any error in the mathematics presented by this Professor of Applied Mathematics, Fischer’s response is an informative “nope” – rather like his other unsubstantiated claims.
The definition of a blackbody also says it emits all radiation that falls on it and that it does not transfer thermal energy by any means other than radiation. The Earth’s surface does not emit the SW radiation which falls upon it. The Earth’s surface does transfer thermal energy to the atmosphere and the deep oceans by several means other than radiation.
Hence the often-quoted -18 deg.C temperature for the Earth’s surface is not valid because it is calculated using the Stefan-Boltzmann Law for blackbodies, which the Earth is not. From that -18 deg.C comes the 33 deg.C warming figure that is supposed to be due to the supposed greenhouse effect, but which is not a correct value in the first place because the -18 C is not a correct figure. Carbon dioxide is supposed to contribute a portion of this incorrect 33 deg.C which is thus also an incorrect statement and a meaningless figure. The -18C is also calculated using the assumption that the Earth is a flat disk, which makes it nearly 90 degrees different from a figure calculated by integration over a 24 hour revolution of a real spherical Earth. But both are meaningless calculations because radiation is far less than the values used.
Yes, J.Fischer, in the 45 years since I completed my major in Physics I have continued to tutor and study such, together with climate science, I have indeed read an “introduction to quantum physics” /sarc
Sooner or later, my friend, you will learn that people on this forum expect sensible, well-argued points backed by evidence, not waffle like your “nope.” Your style of communication appears to be learnt from the IPCC et al.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
January 12, 2012 at 9:02 am
C.M. Carmichael says:
January 12, 2012 at 6:07 am
How does caveman explain the story of “The Lost Squadron” a flight of aircraft that were left on the Greenland plateau in 1942, and recovered in recent years from under 268 ft of new ice? 25 stories of new ice in 60 years.
There is a simple explanation for that story: put something heavy on ice and if the temperature is not too low, the ice will melt under its weight. But the melting water refreezes above the heavy weight, together with new snow deposits and as the ice sheet advances slower near the bottom/sides, the weight is covered with newer layers over time. The disturbance of the ice layers would be found more downstreams…
Ferdinand,
I doubt your explanation. While the pressure exerted by the undercarriage of these aircraft might plausibly cause them to sink at a rate exceeding the accumulation of snowfall, once the undercarriage was buried there would a very low loading pressure from these aluminum aircraft on the ice surface. The only reasonable explanation is that the airplanes were buried by accumulating snow.
[And this one is also erased. Robt]
[snip. Clean it up and try again. ~dbs, mod.]
[snip. Read the site Policy and abide by it if you want to post here. That includes a legit email address. ~dbs, mod.]
Oh my, haven’t the loonies had a lot of fun here?
For actual thinking persons who want some light relief (as if reading fatuous salutes to and defenses of the indefensible Mr Monkton weren’t enough of a giggle), may I suggest clicking on some of the URL links in the loonies’ names?
You’ll find the most incredible “science” you’ve ever heard of. It’s such a pity that most of it is thoroughly debunked on the various Wikipedia entries, try looking under “PseudoScience”, it’s a hoot. Well, at least the stuff that wasn’t debunked decades (or centuries) ago. That’s just boring, watching people who can’t cope with logical thinking defending “science” that’s so wrong, it’s not even wrong (to paraphrase Enrico Fermi). Reading this comment list, I kinda know how he must’ve felt.
I find it interesting that most of the “Monk-ies” attack ad-hominem preferentially, then straw-man arguments are rolled out, followed by non-sequiturs and bluster. But the vitriol is inversely proportional to the understanding of the actual subject being attacked by Mr Monkton, which always results in the most vitriol and the least humour. Pity it isn’t vice-versa.
But go clickety-click, it’s a hoot. I had no idea that so much was misunderstood so badly by so many.
Anthony Watts writes: “Mr. Monckton tells me via email he’ll respond in some greater detail when he returns from his current trip. You yourself took two weeks, so cut some slack.”
Mr. Monckton can take the slack he requires, I have never suggested otherwise. What I am suggesting is that he actually respond to the documentary evidence, not to my criticism or lack of criticism of Al Gore, not to how awful and biased he thinks my channel is, and not to my stupidity or morals. If he can answer the points, simply answer them.
“Oh and since you haven’t had the courtesy yet to thank me for giving you this venue, I’ll just say “you’re welcome”.”
Anthony, I have indeed sent you a very nice e-mail thanking you. I am in a completely different time zone to you, and my first thoughts when I saw this piece (late morning) were to read the dozens of comments that were already up there, and make an announcement on my channel that the rebuttal was posted. In your own words, please cut me some slack. I’m afraid these things can’t always happen with the speed you desire.
Best regards,
Peter
REPLY: Our comments crossed in the ether, so I’ve withdrawn my last sentence, thank you. – Anthony
Cephas Borg,
Thank you for a textbook example of an unthinking, un-cited, anti-science ad hominem attack. Now run along to Pseudo-Skeptical Pseudo-Science, or whatever thinly trafficked echo-chamber blog that sent you here.
Jacob says:
If you are really quibbling over the ON THE COOLING OF THE EARTH rebuttal, when there are nine more claims Monckton made that were factually in error, you must be really grasping at straws…
==========================
The problem is there are very few if any ‘factual errors’ and lots of arguments over “how” these facts should be interpreted. Lots of insults and name calling from both sides, of course.
My observations over the years with regard to the Monckton of Brenchley is that the facts that he does present are not always balanced. If he is right on a point, which might well be the case, there is nonetheless a failure on his part to address the counter arguments in his talks. I suspect if he did that, his case would be stronger as it would come across with greater balance. Sceptics like those to admit uncertainty and the Monckton of Brenchley would do himself favours if he qualified many of his claims.
On the other hand, his opponents wish to present him as a ‘raving lunatic’ or some such, but then when they have the opportunity to rebut, they come up with points like noting that *up* to 69% of warming might be attributable to the sun, not 69%. A fair if subtle point to make, but not exactly devastating as far as efforts at rebuttal are concerned.
Doug Cotton says:
February 7, 2012 at 4:00 pm
To J Fischer:
If you wish to argue about the actual mathematics and physics in Johnson’s Computational Blackbody Radiation (which I linked) or give details regarding your assumed claim that the Earth’s surface acts like a blackbody (even though the surface/atmosphere interface is internal to the full Earth+atmosphere system which does act like a blackbody when viewed from space) then by all means present your calculations and data and I will happily discuss same.
A blackbody does in fact “detect” the frequency of incoming radiation and it does in fact scatter any such radiation for which the peak frequency is significantly lower than its own peak frequency of emission – without converting the energy in that radiation to thermal energy. That is a fact of physics. You cannot show me any experiment which proves otherwise, including any contrary result to that which I quoted for gases.
This is nonsense, a Blackbody absorbs all radiation incident on it! Johnson’s paper is not science, and is not a fact of physics.
At least make an attempt at defending your misstatements, Mr Monckton. Feeble deflection.
Cephas Borg says:
February 7, 2012 at 6:40 pm
Oh my, haven’t the loonies had a lot of fun here?
=============================================
We would have expected nothing less from an alarmist. By all means, do click and comment.
J Fischer states that the flow of energy is always from warmer to cooler bodies, by which I presume he means the flow of thermal energy, whether by conduction or radiation. (The net flow of radiated energy can be in the opposite direction, as demonstrated in my post at 4:35pm.)
This is why backradiation from a cooler atmosphere cannot transfer thermal energy to a warmer surface. (For more detail see my post at 5:03pm.) So why does Fischer and the IPCC have a problem with that?
Please respond to my posts at 4:35pm and 5:03pm which discuss these issues.
J. Fischer says:
“The net flow of energy is always from hotter to colder; that’s basic thermodynamics. That does not make warm bodies invisible to cooler ones.”
. . .
I’m not convinced that is totally correct. But we are in agreement if you delete the word “net”.
I provided a thought experiment:
I could refine that thought experiment, but it’s good enough as it is. If you believe that the central atom would continue to get hotter from the billions of close by, cooler atoms emitting photons, please explain how that would work. And explain why that would not violate the 2nd Law.
I used atoms specifically to avoid giving wiggle room, such as using the word “net”. In this thought experiment, the ‘net’ number of photons – each carrying energy – would far exceed the number being emitted from the central atom. Thus, the central atom would keep increasing in temperature, far beyond its 600K. So tell me whether the central atom heats up, or whether it remains at or below 600K.
Sickening that someone would continue to misrepresent facts, change quotes, misrepresent sources, and distort data when potentialy the future of civilization is at stake. Maybe the “warmists” are wrong. Maybe. But use the FACTS. If you have to lie or distort data to convince people, that says something about your position… It’s weak.”potholer54″, and others, have called out Monckton using direct quotes that are factually wrong. When Monckton continues to use the same wording later, after learning of the error, that is lying. Despite “potholer54” refuting much of Monkton’s clains, often using the very same sources, Monkton still has not admitted a single distortion, bias, mistake, error, or misquote. (Whereas the “caveman” has an errata video, as well as in-video corrections, for his own mistakes.)
Mr. Monkton, global warming is a deadly serious issue. Even if completely natural (and even you don’t claim that), it could spark wars costing millions of lives. Even if completely natural, it will cost billions or trillions of dollars to mitigate the consequences. Even if physically benign, it still has major cost and social impact. Mankind, including your followers, deserve the truth, whatever that may be. Admit your mistakes, correct them, and stick to the facts.
Phil. says:
February 7, 2012 at 6:48 pm
This is nonsense, a Blackbody absorbs all radiation incident on it! Johnson’s paper is not science, and is not a fact of physics.
_______________________________________________________
The Earth’s surface is not a blackbody and does not act like either a black or grey body because …
(1) It does not re-emit the SW radiation it receives from the Sun.
(2) It does transfer thermal energy by means other than radiation.
As with all bodies, including gases, It does not convert to thermal energy any radiated energy which comes from a cooler source, because that would amount to transferring thermal energy from a cooler body to a warmer body, which is contrary to physics and with which even your friend J Fischer would appear to agree. Prof. Johnson’s work is entirely in keeping with these statements.
Please read all my previous posts this afternoon before responding, as I am not wishing to retype what is already explained in greater detail above.
Anthony, Hadfield has shown no bias. He took aim at Al Gore long before Monckton came into his sights.
John R. says:
“…global warming is a deadly serious issue. Even if completely natural (and even you don’t claim that), it could spark wars costing millions of lives. Even if completely natural, it will cost billions or trillions of dollars to mitigate the consequences. Even if physically benign, it still has major cost and social impact. Mankind, including your followers, deserve the truth, whatever that may be. Admit your mistakes, correct them, and stick to the facts.”
^An example of a modern day Chicken Little [Chicken Licken in the UK]. Even if there is natural warming, doom defeat and despair are coming! John R. is certain of it and so he will not accept the following facts, because he is a religious acolyte in the Church of CAGW. But for the more open-minded:
At current and projected levels, CO2 is harmless and beneficial. More is better. So is more warming. The “carbon” scare is just a false alarm perpetuated by mindless lemmings who get their pseudo-science in sound bites from the likes of Michael Mann, Al Gore, and potholer54. Science it ain’t.
gerglmuff says:
“mr monkton why are you attacking al gore? potholer debunks al gore whenever he finds incorrect information in his movies too.”
Mr. Hadfield does not debunk (i.e., expose the falseness or hollowness of a myth, idea, or belief) the global warming… bunk vis-à-vis Al Gore. Rather, he states we should not accept the “fact” that Vice President Al Gore is always correct when it comes to climate change. One could imply that Mr. Hadfield believes that Gore is mostly right, as opposed to always right. But I do not desire to ascribe words to Mr. Hadfield’s thought; they are his own already.
And yet Mr. Hadfield states, “[The] success [of changing a climate change skeptic’s mind], however, comes at a price. It means looking at the science – not scary and unrealistic images of submerged cities. It means accepting the fact that Al Gore is not always right, and he should not be defended when he’s wrong. It means acknowledging that while sceptics like Christopher Monckton and Martin Durkin fabricate a lot of their facts, many environmental activists tend to exaggerate theirs,” – http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/mar/29/youtube-climate-change-scepticism .
Thus, we see that Mr. Hadfield asserts that environmental activists (like Vice President Gore) only “exaggerate” the facts, while climate change skeptics (like Lord Monckton) fabricate their facts (i.e., they lie). This obvious whitewashing of climate alarmism by Mr. Hadfield reveals an inherent bias on his part, which taints (possibly unconsciously) his “debunking” of any… inconvenient truths. I believe this is the very point Lord Monckton tried to make in his reply to Mr. Hadfield’s rebuttal, which has been largely lost on the same and his apologists.
I can only presume that an activist is allowed such liberties (i.e., exaggerations of the facts) by Mr. Hadfield because of their need for an outward manifestation (even if only symbolic) of their inward passion for the cause they espouse. If this is true, then what does Mr. Hadfield assert motivates the climate change skeptic to… lie?
@Doug Cotton “This is why backradiation from a cooler atmosphere cannot transfer thermal energy to a warmer surface.” Dude, find a study that supports your case in regards to atmospheric effects, and post it. Can’t find one, then do your own study.
John R. says:
February 7, 2012 at 7:13 pm
Sickening that someone would continue to misrepresent facts, change quotes, misrepresent sources, and distort data when potentialy the future of civilization is at stake. Maybe the “warmists” are wrong. Maybe. But use the FACTS. If you have to lie or distort data to convince people, that says something about your position… It’s weak.”potholer54″, and others, have called out Monckton using direct quotes that are factually wrong………..
============================================
The other way around, sis. You got it backwards.
John R. says:
“…find a study that supports your case in regards to atmospheric effects, and post it.”
Allow me:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/8YearTemps.jpg
http://members.shaw.ca/sch25/FOS/GlobalTroposphereTemperaturesAverage.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_cHhMa7ARDDg/SoxiDu0taDI/AAAAAAAABFI/Z2yuZCWtzvc/s1600/Geocarb%2BIII-Mine-03.jpg
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0168e55964fe970c-pi
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Correlation_of_Carbon_Dioxide_with_Temperatures_Negative_Again.pdf
[SNIP. -REP]
John R. says:
February 7, 2012 at 7:24 pm
@Doug Cotton “This is why backradiation from a cooler atmosphere cannot transfer thermal energy to a warmer surface.” Dude, find a study that supports your case in regards to atmospheric effects, and post it. Can’t find one, then do your own study.
____________________________
Actually I did do my own backyard experiment and found no sign of any warming by backradiation as I reported recently on this forum.
But that aside, maybe this published paper will help you understand ….
http://principia-scientific.org/publications/New_Concise_Experiment_on_Backradiation.pdf
When you also read the other “experiments” I have described in posts 4:35pm & 5:03pm today we can continue this discussion. Personally I see no reason why the laws of physics should act differently in the atmosphere, but perhaps you can explain in more detail what on Earth (literally) you are talking about when you refer to “atmospheric effects.”
This is the kind of post that I came to this site to find:
http://i.imm.io/g6bB.png
I’m a fan of Peter Hadfield because I like science, and while I do not have the time to keep up to date with all the facts, Peter has always provided what has come across as a fairly factual synopsis on issues I find of interest. Plus, he has always sourced his points so that I could easily check out the details for myself.
Interestingly, when I came across this site I was expecting to find more of the same. I was expecting to learn more about climate change.
Instead, here is what I learned:
Climate change “cliques” come in 4 distinct groups:
1.) Poncies – fans of the “aristocracy” who pride breeding, false modesty, and pseudo-eloquence over genuine honesty and and elegant arguments. These groups seem to think that because of an over-debated accident of birth that Monckton is not only infallible, he’s also better than most people, and by the sheer force of their mindless flattery they might somehow touch his greatness.
I imagine that after they make some sort of pointless comment about how wonderful he is and how stupid anyone is for disagreeing with him, that they brag to their nearest loved-one that they “defended Lord Monckton’s honor”, with assorted bows and possibly powdered wigs to go with the affected syntax they use.
2.) Semantic Shamans – My heart goes out to these cousins of mine who mindlessly pursue common definitions, rather than common concepts. I get this, because I think language should be clear. However, even when we all speak English, we aren’t speaking the same language.
Somehow what gets lost in these debates is that it is more important to understand what someone is saying, rather than how they say it. I’ve gotten caught up in debates over definition before, and they can be distracting. Unless you fence in what you are saying, and everyone agrees to what they are talking about, it can be a plethora of painfully circular posts that go on ad infinum amongst two people who are on THE SAME SIDE OF THE DEBATE.
3.) The Skeptics Squared – these are people who accuse other people of not being skeptical. In other words, they are skeptical of their opponents skepticalness. “Because you don’t agree with this point, you are OBVIOUSLY not skeptical enough.”
This is just dumb.
Stop it.
These sites are so full of skepticism it borders on nihilism. We just sit on different decides of an argument that nobody can prove as easily as gravity because its a complicated issue.
Plus, there is a TON of bad information out there, and everybody thinks that their information is “not it”.
But…
Since we can’t all be right, and there are 2 sides to this issue, maybe we’re all a LITTLE wrong. Maybe. We aren’t going to get there calling other people names, or getting impatient with them for not seeing “the truth” as you know it – we’ll only get there by figuring out why we are so BAD at explaining our own arguments.
After all, if the arguments were any good, there wouldn’t be a debate. Don’t believe me? Fine.
Anybody want to argue the point that gravity exists?
No?
Well, then. That issue is pretty clear, so before we start calling people idiots and accusing them of too much credulity, let’s try to get better at explaining these obvious points.
4.) This group hurts the worst. It’s the “Not Moncktons”. Personally, I have found Monckton to be a pretentious prick with more supporters and respect than he deserves, but that’s hardly a basis for debating his arguments. However, the “Not Moncktons” seem to think that he is evil, wrong, and dastardly because he doesn’t play House with Lords, or something like that.
Even pointing out his uses of ad hominems does NOTHING to clarify the debate. Why, if I were someone who was not only good looking and humble, but incredibly intelligent and curious about this issue, I might think that entire website is filled with nothing but uninformed jackasses and people who HATE Monckton because his ideas are poo poo.
However, the truth of the matter is quite different.
There isn’t a conspiracy to make Monckton look stupid or smarter than he is.
The publisher of this site isn’t playing favorites.
Peter Hadfield isn’t some insipid “caveman” with uninspired arguments.
What we have are people that have an opinion, who have underestimated everybody else’s chances of being right. We don’t like to think of ourselves as closed-minded, but we all are.
All of us.
And if you were to admit it, if you were to be really honest with yourself, you’d admit that maybe you’re not as SURE of your arguments as you want everyone to believe you are.
Monckton has his fans… some are dogmatic in their adoration and others are just convinced by his arguments.
The publisher, thanks to a weird comment delay thing, has had to deal with a DELUGE of people responding to comments in posts outside of real-time, on a site that he runs, repeating himself ad nauseum and getting treated like he’s a prick.
He isn’t.
Peter isn’t a prick either, for asking for “fair reply”.
But the publisher isn’t a prick either for wanting to protect his assets and brand. He WAS doing as much as he felt was right, without causing himself a bunch of extra work.
So while doing the right thing doesn’t deserve a special pat on the back, he certainly doesn’t deserve condemnation for it either.
Just like noone should get special condemnation for not reading this ginormous comment post. It’s huge. If someone missed a point that was mentioned before, point it out politely.
There are delay in comment time for approval.
There are videos people don’t have the time or wherewithal to watch.
I say all this because, this is what I’ve learned by coming to this site.
This is what you have all taught me.
What you haven’t taught me was why I should care about your arguments.
You haven’t explained to me in a way that I can understand why what you are saying is somehow more believable than what others are saying.
I’m not a dumb man, and I don’t expect special favors.
But if this subject is something you want others to learn more about, I have to tell you…
You are doing this badly.
Not the site – the commentors and readers.
I’m a user, an expert at communicating online if you will.
I’m pretty good – I’ve sold millions of dollars in products online, and as you guys know, numbers don’t lie.
And my unsolicited yet expert opinion is that YOU are hurting the debate.
You are making it difficult for others to get informed.
You make the debates uninteresting and uninformative.
Your disregard for others has made the issue itself unpalatable to someone like me – a curious person interested in understanding a complex issue.
Look at the things I learned about Climate Change today. One post. Here: http://i.imm.io/g6bB.png
Thanks for your time.
Congratulations WUWT for publishing both tracts in full. Those who wish to maintain their respect for Mr Monckton, and feel comfortable believing climate change isn’t a problem, should just read Monckton’s comments and leave it at that.
Unfortunately if you ignore my advice and go on to read the points made by Mr Hadley then actually CHECK them for yourselves, you’ll see that in each case he is absolutely correct. This realization could leave you disillusioned and depressed.
Maintain your skepticism of climate science, but please don’t extend it to Mr Monckton as well. He’s on our side. So when he claims to have developed treatments for AIDS and MS, or if he says action on climate change will kill 5 to 6 billion people etc, just let the words flow over you and enjoy his lovely speaking voice instead.
John R. says:
February 7, 2012 at 7:13 pm
Sickening that someone would continue to misrepresent facts, change quotes, misrepresent sources, and distort data when potentialy the future of civilization is at stake. Maybe the “warmists” are wrong. Maybe. But use the FACTS. If you have to lie or distort data to convince people, that says something about your position… It’s weak.”potholer54″, and others, have called out Monckton using direct quotes that are factually wrong…… blather…..
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That’s backwards, sis. It is the other way around.
I’ll start where “potholer” started…… Monckton stated we’ve had cooling for 8-9 years. Hadfield attempted to refute him by referencing some vapid AP article…… myself and a few others have conclusively shown that the globe has, indeed cooled during the time frame Monckton referenced. And, it continues…….
Later, in Mr. Hadfield’s own words, “Mr. Monckton showed his audience a slide covering just three years, referring to the 2007 low as a “temporary loss of sea ice” which had recovered by 2009. Then he told them: “So we’re not looking at a sort of long-term systematic loss of ice in the Arctic.””
But, then Hadfield references 30 year old ice measurements to refute him……… I’m wondering, did time start in 1979? Or, is that a convenient point of reference from the alarmists? If you were to scroll up, I’ve offered a pdf from the CIA’s assessment in 1974. They stated the globe’s snow and ice cover has increased at least 10-15%. So, Hadfield is doing exactly what he’s accusing Monckton of. The fact is, both were technically correct in their statements. Both omitted/ignore scientific data prior to their point of reference. And it goes on and on from there……. what is often lost on alarmists, but not anyone one else with a reasoning synapse, is this is what Monckton is intentionally doing in many cases. Sure, Hadfield’s argument is correct, but if it is correct, he is duplicitous in his argument. And the alarmists fall for it every time. Ok, Monckton didn’t show all of the data available, but then, neither did Hadfield. He’s content to pretend arctic sea ice was in a static state prior to 1979 when no rational individual could possibly believe it.
His entire rebut rests on similar arguments. The Cambrians being the most humorous. But, the Himalayan being fairly funny as well. The Greenland rebut was basically arguing the infallibility of a published author. If he stated his data meant this, then no one else could possibly interpret the data otherwise….. even though that is in essence how science is done. More likely Hadfield meant to say “skeptics” shouldn’t interpret data…….
It is amazing to me how alarmists are so well versed in fallacious argument tactics but fail at legitimate argument tactics. I surmise it stems from the belief in others as opposed to reckoning their own self.
Quite amusing how some people think that Monckton is correct. All it took me is 10 minutes to see Monckton make several claims on video which I later confirmed to be false via unrelated (unbiased to this case) sources. Monckton is allowed to make mistakes, however his unwillingness to acknowledge them in my mind set him to a degree of such irrelevance that anything he says further is of the lowest priority.
Semantics is exactly what folks like you rely on, James. Perhaps if you had started with Mr. Hadfield’s “drivel” in the videos that Monckton originally responded to, as I suggested, you may have an inkling of the full original context. You know, the context where Mr. Monckton said there was a global cooling trend for the past 8-9 year and that the trend was statistically significant. Among his points, Mr. Hadfield’s explained that Mr. Monckton was able to show a cooling trend by controlling the start and end points of a micro-trend. He added that the micro-trend was not statistically significant, as claimed, because of the characteristics/variability of the data – the data variability requires examination of longer timelines. Mr. Hadfield is exactly right on all counts. Mr. Monckton misleads his audience with a specious, statistically insignificant micro-trend.
Dr Chris Hancock says:
February 7, 2012 at 7:46 pm
Congratulations WUWT for publishing both tracts in full. Those who wish to maintain their respect for Mr Monckton, and feel comfortable believing climate change isn’t a problem, should just read Monckton’s comments and leave it at that.
Unfortunately if you ignore my advice and go on to read the points made by Mr Hadley then actually CHECK them for yourselves, you’ll see that in each case he is absolutely correct. This realization could leave you disillusioned and depressed.
Maintain your skepticism of climate science, but please don’t extend it to Mr Monckton as well. He’s on our side. So when he claims to have developed treatments for AIDS and MS, or if he says action on climate change will kill 5 to 6 billion people etc, just let the words flow over you and enjoy his lovely speaking voice instead.
==============================================
DEAR GOD DO YOU CHILDREN NOT READ WHAT IS PRINTED ABOVE YOU??!?!?!??!?
As far as to the claim of killing people, let me be the first to let you know….. Doctor, people are already dying because of this fallacious bit of misanthropy.
Given your use of the abbreviation of Dr., I’ll assume you are a medical doctor. And, I’ll ask you how hospitals run without reliable electricity? The U.N. and it’s various tentacles withhold money for coal generation plants to developing nations, but offer money for whirlygigs and pinwheels. They don’t help with energy exploration, but they do displace (and murder) large groups of people to pay the governments not to develop their lands and plant trees which will grow anyway. Anyone who believes this is the way to save lives is either incredibly vapid or simply a misanthropist. Either way, they shouldn’t be in the medical profession.
Jack Greer says:
February 7, 2012 at 8:06 pm
James Sexton says:
February 7, 2012 at 4:38 pm
Jack Greer says:
February 7, 2012 at 3:45 pm
I’d suggest you start with the videos provided by Mr. Hadfield. After all, that’s what Mr. Monckton was originally responding to.
===================================================
lol, well you would if you want to miss the context and concentrate on semantics. But, the better place to start would be examining Monckton’s statements, first. Then listen to Hadfield’s drivel. … etc.
Semantics is exactly what folks like you rely on, James. Perhaps if you had started with Mr. Hadfield’s “drivel” in the videos that Monckton originally responded to, as I suggested,……..
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Jack, you know as well as I know the proper place to start is with the original source, not the source of what someone said about someone saying something. This is where people lose context. Further, if you scroll up to one of my many other comments, I provided a link to a HadCrut3 graph that shows exactly what Monckton was stating was correct and within the time frame of what he stated. …….. well heck I’ll show it again…… http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/to:2009.16/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/to:2009.16/trend
Now, don’t you feel just a little bit silly? You should.
Smokey says:
February 7, 2012 at 7:12 pm
Yes, Smokey, yours is similar to my “thought experiment” posted at 4:35pm today. But I don’t think we can expect any warmists to come to logical conclusions about thermal energy appearing to flow only from warmer to cooler bodies or gases. You see, the IPCC told them that photons (without mass or momentum) carry thermal energy along with them and spill it wherever they happen to crash into something with all the momentum they don’t have. Besides, it seems that only words, not science, flow from warm things.
These warmists don’t understand that radiated energy is something totally different from thermal energy. Thermal energy gets shared around by molecular collisions, whereas radiated energy has to go through a process of being converted to thermal energy by cooler molecules which are able to do so.
It’s like the sound of your voice which can be converted and broadcast as radio waves, but then may or may not be converted back to sound by something it strikes, like a radio receiver tuned to the right frequency. Ah, frequency! That’s what it’s all about. Does the radiation have a frequency above the cut-off?
But the warmists thought the surface was blind to frequency and they have never heard of resonance and near resonance, or indeed anything much to do with physics.
I finally believe the end of the cagw idiocy is near judging from the reaction from the trolls. I have never seen anything like this. I bet a lot of smart climate scientist will start to gradually change the tune they sing if they haven’t done so already. I think I finally have seen the legendary tipping point,
Geez, James. I can’t help it if you are completely lost. The videos are the original context. Mr. Hadfield acknowledged that Monckton showed a cooling trend. The problem is the micro-trend was statistically meaningless and misleading to the layperson for the several reason he outlines in the video. Go watch them, James.
Guys, why do we have to keep arguing on both sides about melting ice and temperature trends? You will always be able to find short-term trends which tell you one thing or the opposite – take your (cherry) pick.
In the long run, and I mean just that, the only thing that is important is for the world to come to a firm, scientific conclusion about whether or not the obvious long-term slow rise in temperatures over the last 400 years or so has been caused by totally natural processes beyond the control of mankind.
If that can be demonstrated then we need to look for correlations with possible natural causes, as indeed Dr Nicola Scafetta appears to have found and explained in an earlier article on WUWT.
if the causes are all natural and do in fact follow natural cycles (probably related to the Sun and/or planetary orbits) then we have to accept that mankind has no control and should thus focus research on ways of coping with such natural climate change which, in the next 500 or 600 years could well lead to significant cooling.
If the theory that there is a long-term (~1000 year) cyclic trend is correct, then projections of the observed long-term trend indicate a maximum within 200 years which should correspond to the trend being a little less than just one degree above the present in 2200. (See the green line on the plot at the foot of my Home page at http://climate-change-theory.com which shows a decreasing rate of increase.)
Those who offer to do research on possible natural causes are now well-overdue for their share of the grants.
re post by: Tom_R says: February 7, 2012 at 10:05 am
An increase in Greenland ice seems as per your post and Johannessen’s research seems to fit the story of the Glacier Girl far better than claims of ice loss…
In 1942 six P-38’s and two B-17 bombers were forced to ditch (crash land) on the southeastern edge of Greenland. The P-38 Lightning was one of the fastest planes in the sky during World War II. 50 years later, “The Lost Squadron” (book title of the story) of planes was found, with great difficulty, under 268 feet of ice – and drifted over a mile from the original landing/crash location. One of the planes was melted out using a “thermal meltdown generator,” then disassembling the plane at the bottom of the hole in a steam carved out cavern around the plane, and then lifting the parts to the surface. Recovery took 4 months.
Then the plane, in pieces, was shipped to Kentucky where it was reconstructed, with the many damaged parts (as you can imagine!) being either repaired or replaced. The site I linked to states: “When this project was completed, Glacier Girl was one of the most perfect warbird restorations ever. “This is going to be the finest P-38 in the world, and it may be the finest restoration of any warbird ever done,” said Cardin [The Project Coordinator].”” Apparently he estimates that 80% of The Glacier Girl are from the original plane.
Once completely restored, in 2002 the Glacier Girl was actually flown again.
It’s a fabulous story in and of itself – and the amount of ice the planes wound up buried under in only 50 years seemed contradictory to claims of massive melting of Greenland ice.
It is all about gardens growing better. With 7 billion and increasing – it is the over-riding consideration. Unless you think a forced culling of the human race is preferable. You are thinking as a child does – no prioritization. GK
Lord Monckton. Paragraph 1. If it isn’t a quote, you can’t put it in speech marks. Did you get GCSE English? You have immediately established your level of commitment to accuracy of research and the truth. Need we go further?
[snip – probably written drunk – try again]
Tom Murphy says:
February 7, 2012 at 7:24 pm
– http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/mar/29/youtube-climate-change-scepticism .
I went to this site. Mr. Hadfield makes a lot of sense, but I just cannot agree with the following:
“Of course, the evidence clearly shows that the climate is changing, largely because of man-made gases. And the consequences are likely to be dire.”
Exactly how does this agree with the recent statement from:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2093264/Forget-global-warming–Cycle-25-need-worry-NASA-scientists-right-Thames-freezing-again.html
“The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.
The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century.”
And since it does not seem to be temperatures that are changing, exactly how are we causing any climate change? The only conclusion I can come to is that somehow CO2 must be the culprit to cause devastation without the warming. I am well aware of the reasoning behind ocean level rise due to warming. But it is a total mystery to me why CO2 alone should have any huge effect on changing the climate. In the absence of warming, how did CO2 alone cause frosts in Florida in a recent winter; how does CO2 alone cause ocean levels to rise; how does CO2 alone cause hurricanes to be more severe? Etc.
Alex says on February 7, 2012 at 8:39 pm
I do believe you are correct. So many more trolls out of late.
Jack Greer says:
February 7, 2012 at 8:41 pm
James Sexton says:
February 7, 2012 at 8:18 pm
… Now, don’t you feel just a little bit silly? You should.
Geez, James. I can’t help it if you are completely lost. The videos are the original context. Mr. Hadfield acknowledged that Monckton showed a cooling trend. The problem is the micro-trend was statistically meaningless and misleading to the layperson for the several reason he outlines in the video. Go watch them, James.
==============================================
Geez Jack, you twit, I have watched them. Did you click on the damned link I provided? Do that and then come back to me and we can have a talk about what is and isn’t statistically meaningful, and the requisite criteria of such a label.
Another thing we can talk about is video clips selectively chose to portray a particular aspect of the video, which may not be reflective of the entire presentation. I was under the assumption you may have been aware of such tactics, but, sadly it seems I was mistaken…… you see, Jack, a common practice, when wishing to cast a person in a particular light is to take part of their statements, or in this case videos, and then address only those parts, regardless of the context of the totality of the presentation. This is exactly what Hadfield has done. You are either ignorant of this common ploy, or intentionally being deceptive to the readers here.
Go to the link I provide. Click on the raw data link if you don’t believe the graph run the numbers yourself and then come back and babble. If 0.1°C in less than 10 years isn’t significant, then neither is 0.6 over 100 years. But please, go to the link and address what I’ve shown and then come back. ….. this ought to be fun.
Indeed. Once “submerged” in ice, the planes would be “floating”, with only the net difference in displaced mass vs. plane weight operating. Since (AFAIK) the planes did not fill with ice, I suspect they were close to buoyant.
G. Karst says:
February 7, 2012 at 9:25 pm
major9985 says:
January 17, 2012 at 11:21 am
…it is irrelevant that your garden is growing a bit better. . Lets all try to be adults here.
It is all about gardens growing better. With 7 billion and increasing – it is the over-riding consideration. Unless you think a forced culling of the human race is preferable. ……….
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You know that is the intention. It is what is occurring today in Europe. http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16164350
First you take their property and means of sustaining. Then make energy unaccessible for everyone….. then they die. Rinse and repeat as necessary. The culling has started already.
re post by: Will Nitschke says: February 7, 2012 at 4:20 pm
While I certainly agree that it helps to try to word things as accurately as possible, a common problem with either speeches, research papers, or print articles is that one is strictly limited regarding the time or space available. Often it simply isn’t possible to qualify statements to nearly the degree one might like – let alone to the degree that would manage to obviate criticisms.
Potholer’s rebuttal seems insubstantial overall, and much of it seems to be either a petty semantics game or a failure to consider context and the conveyed meaning or intent – as do a number of the comments supporting Potholer. For example, Lord Monckton essentially says that contrary to numerous claims, overall Greenland isn’t losing ice, but gaining. He provides reference to a supporting research paper. Yet rather than debate the context ‘Greenland is losing vs. gaining,’ a number of comments here present a petty argument over the use of ‘entire’ vs. ‘vast majority’ or ‘very nearly all’ or “all but very small outlying areas” (or pick-your-very-short-phrase that manages to reasonably accurately convey the meaning of multiple sentences from the research paper). Sad, and a distraction rather than any sort of meaningful debate of the issues.
[snip – site policy – valid email address required and screw@you.com isn’t it, grow up, child]
Since Wikipedia has notoriously and blatantly been “cleansed” by W. Connolley of all data and entries which deflate, defeat, dispute, disparage or disprove the CAGW canon, it is true that the only articles you can find in Wikipedia are ones which parrot its claims and lame defensive screeds. Enjoy!
re posts by Doug Cotton
Doug, first, thank you very much for your comments and explanations regarding blackbody radiation, scattering, etc. I do vaguely remember learning what you are saying years ago in college physics.
I’ve just gotten to your February 7, 2012 at 4:35 pm post, with the small ball inside a large ball thought experiment, and had no problem with it – it’s correct as best I recall. I know from experience, however, that I can open blinds on windows receiving direct sunlight on a cold day outside, and the transfer of energy from sun to glass to interior of house can actually warm the house, which was already warmer than the temperatures outside, without using the furnace or any other heat source… So this seems to be a disconnect. Could you help me out here and explain how the two (metal spheres vs. house) actually fit the physics involved?
Thanks in advance!
The problem is (see definitions of temperature) that no meaning attaches to a single atom having a temperature. Temperature is a product of collisions. Self-collision has not yet been observed.
Follow the consequences of that observation, and you may “get” what is going on, in general terms. But there is a genuine conundrum here. What is concentrated low-frequency radiation like, in contrast to an equal energy-content amount of high-frequency radiation?
re post by: Alan Duval says: February 7, 2012 at 4:51 pm
Oh please. Talk about incorrect claims. I watched Potholer’s video back when this was first posted, feeling it only fair to evaluate his side too – and was, sorry to say it, disgusted with the waste of time, pettiness, semantics games, and lack of context and/or substance. There was nothing ‘entertaining’ about the video, and I watched the entire blasted thing. Others here have posted in the comments that they have also watched Potholer’s video(s). Yet here you are, claiming that we’re dismissing Potholer out of hand and no one has watched his video(s). What tripe.
Werner Brozek I would suggest you look up Potholer54’s Channel on youtube, along with Greenman3610, and DPRJones as they’ve all repeatedly debunked the erroneous claim that the planet isn’t warming when in fact and account to ever world authority that it is….
lol, mods, if your concerned about the problematic part of my post, feel free to take it out…… it’s late, and I’ve not much time left for this…….. well, … discourse.
Okay you do realize that the kind of people who would care about this, are also the kind to Actually fact check and read up on the claims being made against man-caused climate change right??
If he’s going to “respond” to Potholder, he should have at least tried to pretend to do his homework. Gosh, thanx for wasting my time. I mean, honestly, this is pathetic
James Sexton says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
February 7, 2012 at 10:10 pm ……..
Ok, I give up…. ????
Rational Db8 (easier for future reference than the formerly used Rational Debate) says:
February 7, 2012 at 10:29 pm
re posts by Doug Cotton
“energy from sun to glass to interior of house can actually warm … ”
__________________________
The frequencies of visible light and UV from the Sun are far greater than the frequencies of IR emitted within your house After all, the Sun is far hotter and of course warms the Earth’s surface every sunny day..
Mr. Hadfield,
If you persue the basis of Solanki’s statements about solar variability not being able to explain the warming “since 1970” or over “the last three decades”, it is based on simple linear correlation analysis. Solar forcing did not increase over that period. Similarly the increase in CO2 forcing could not explain the mid-century cooling. But the latter does not mean that the CO2 emitted during the cooling that was still around was not able to contribute to the recent warming. Similarly, the increase in solar activity that occurred in the first part of the century was still at a high level during those decades of rapid warming. Solanki’s reliance on a linear analysis was inappropriate to a nonlinear dynamic system and must necessarily lack an appreciation for the climate commitment studies that were published AFTER his papers by Wigley, Meehl and others. Both the mid-century cooling and the steepness of the warming trend afterwards are mostly attributed to variation in aerosols by the climate models, the same uncertainty in aerosols which are known to explain how climate models with over a factor of 2.5 disagreement in climate sensitivity can “agree” with each other. Of course, multi-decadal climate modes and not just aerosols may be a factor in explaining the mid-century cooling and a delay in response to the CO2 forcing and the high plateau in solar forcing.
Jennifer says:
February 7, 2012 at 10:52 pm
Werner Brozek I would suggest you look up Potholer54′s Channel on youtube, along with Greenman3610, and DPRJones as they’ve all repeatedly debunked the erroneous claim that the planet isn’t warming when in fact and account to ever world authority that it is….
==============================================================
Yes, because they define this…… http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997.5/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1997.5/trend ……. as warming, we should trust them and not our lying eyes. OR there’s this if you don’t like HadCrut….. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1997/plot/rss/from:1997/trend
For rational people, a flat trend for 15 years is difficult to discern as warming…… I know it’s that present participle which is the problem…….thank you for proving my posit from earlier. There is always GISS to show the warming trend…… http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:2002/plot/gistemp/from:2002/trend …….. yes dear, its been getting so hot the last 10 years or so. But, by all means, trust what “ever” world authority says….. don’t believe your lying eyes.
Just so people know, those are not my graphs. They are a graph of an environmentalist., the data used is verified as the data from the various world authorities. In fact, each graph has a link to the “raw data”. This will give you the data and the link from which the data came. People should go there.
Rational Db8 (easier for future reference than the formerly used Rational Debate) says:
While I certainly agree that it helps to try to word things as accurately as possible, a common problem with either speeches, research papers, or print articles is that one is strictly limited regarding the time or space available. Often it simply isn’t possible to qualify statements to nearly the degree one might like – let alone to the degree that would manage to obviate criticisms.
================================================
That is not quite what I mean’t. For example, if Monckton of Brenchley wishes to discuss the role of the sun in the climate system he should make it clear that his position is a minority one among solar physicists – or prove otherwise. He should point out that solar physics as we currently understand it, cannot adequately explain the warming that occurred circa 1980-98. There are various ways he might deal with this in a credible way, such by discussing new theories and evidence, the primitive nature of the science in this area, and so on. If he doesn’t do this, then he leaves himself open to various obvious lines of attack.
My impression is that most of the scientifically minded sceptics do have their reservations and often cast a jaundiced eye over many claims made by the Lord. On the other hand, his enemies do tend to underestimate him. To post comments here along the lines of “Everything Monckton wrote is factually wrong and I figured it out in 10 minutes” (no citations/links provided) doesn’t particularly make his critics look bright, most of whom have fallen over each in an effort to win the title of most vague and insulting.
r post: Doug Cotton says: February 7, 2012 at 11:19 pm
Ok, so if I understand correctly, you’re saying the visible & UV from the sun is high enough frequency to transfer/convert to thermal energy on impact/excitation, but the CO2 emitted spectra is a far lower frequency that cannot reach the necessary threshold? That would make perfect sense to me if I’ve got the basic concepts correct (won’t be surprised if my terminology is a bit off tho)…. Again, thanks in advance for a reply!
re post by: Will Nitschke says: February 8, 2012 at 12:07 am
Will, in general I agree with you that a balanced or reasonably correct impression of the overall situation needs to be provided. Consider, however, that typically when Lord Monckton speaks, it’s clearly to present the skeptical side and evidence to the all too regularly and publicly trumpted CAGW claims. Also, I still have to say that time and/or length constraints all too often make even the sort of ‘solar’ example you provide above impossible. Consider that entire lectures, books, lengthy research papers etc. are written on that very subject – that single subject, trying to make clear just what the science does or doesn’t show regarding solar effects on climate. In a 45 min (or pick your time frame) speech that covers many many different issues, not just solar, one simply cannot cover the ground while adding in even the 3 or 4 sentences you did in your post including the associated proof and/or controversial research. Then the speaker must add those types of caveats not just for the one small solar aspect, but similarly for each topic touched on.
What’s worse is that for virtually all of these topics there are quite a few contradictory research papers out there, conflicting views from the ‘experts,’ etc.
As to your second paragraph:
You’ve fallen into rampant speculation of issues for which we’ve no way to check or verify when you start getting into how many people of which disposition (regarding AGW) believe what.
Gotta agree with you, however, that the anti-Monckton’s and CAGW folks sure do seem to be the most vitriolic and least substantial on average. /my impression {grin}
How they have fallen!!!
Once they had the world at their beck and call as they argued whether it was 50m, 60m or 100m of catastrophic flooding. These days they are reduced to arguing whether the world is cooling or the temperature is stable on a blog with an audience of sceptics.
But, I will leave the teasing there. A few good points. … but when an individual like Monckton has the courage to stand out against the overwhelming odds stacked in favour of tyranny almost on his own, with few resources to draw on … when one person stands out against a fabrication of institutional lies and damned right money grabbing spin … he has to make an awful lot of mistakes before what he says is less trustworthy than his opponents.
Reading this thread, I am not now surprised they gave Socrates the hemlock, or that he drank it willingly enough.
-Cheers
@Rational Db8
“…Potholer’s rebuttal seems insubstantial overall, and much of it seems to be either a petty semantics game or a failure to consider context and the conveyed meaning or intent – as do a number of the comments supporting Potholer. For example, Lord Monckton essentially says that contrary to numerous claims, overall Greenland isn’t losing ice, but gaining. He provides reference to a supporting research paper. Yet rather than debate the context ‘Greenland is losing vs. gaining,’ a number of comments here present a petty argument over the use of ‘entire’ vs. ‘vast majority’ or ‘very nearly all’ or “all but very small outlying areas” (or pick-your-very-short-phrase that manages to reasonably accurately convey the meaning of multiple sentences from the research paper). Sad, and a distraction rather than any sort of meaningful debate of the issues…”
I second this, strongly. I have just spent (wasted) the best part of a morning reading this thread to determine whether there were indeed fundamental problems with some of Lord Monckton’s assertions, as implied. The rebuttals sounded firm, but at the end of the day they all came down to semantic arguments – and semantic arguments were then deployed in defence – resulting in a mediaeval ‘angels dancing on a pinhead’ discussion.
This kind of argument is frequently found in the ‘intelligent design’ boards. An admission is gained that ALL aspects of evolutionary theory are not FULLY determined, and this is then taken to mean that evolution is proven wrong. Small slips and semantic assumptions which were not specified are raised to show that various sentences are incorrect. Both sides will make such slips, so both sides have a lot of material to work with, and the discussion can then continue ad-infinitum.
I find this to be a great problem when discussing temperature anomaly rates. I maintain that a reasonable characterisation of the last 40 years is a steeply rising trend during the 1980/90s, followed by a flat trend thereafter. But if I state this to a warmist they will often respond by pointing out that the last 15 years are not precisely flat, so I am wrong….
Brilliant response Peter!
I look forward to Monckton having an online debate with you where we can all check his and your sources for ourselves.
Regards
Steve
Are comments being filtered/censored?
[No . . kbmod]
Seems they are.. at least that time I got a tenuous “Your comment is awaiting moderation.”.. What of my comment that I just tried to post that resulted in nothing? :
WOW
You people are disturbingly obsequious. Just the same as Monkton, himself, making baseless assertions and relying solely on ad hominems.
First, “potholer54″(Peter Hadfield) doesn’t make videos to serve any personal agenda. Otherwise, like Monkton, he’d use his real name and face and monetize his efforts. Instead, he lets facts speak for themselves, citing ALL of his material. He doesn’t promote his own opinions but sticks to sharing well-researched, peer-reviewed facts. Same as with his rebuttal here, backing up EVERYTHING he says.
Second, how can you all so sheepishly follow someone that contradicts himself so blatantly? Within this very “response” he goes from saying of course CO2 correlates with temperature to alluding that such assumptions are fraudulent. Then, you have Peter Hadfields videos SHOWING you Monkton making statements that he refutes making in his responses.
Last–Several of you have had the audacity to say that Peter Hadfield only makes personal attacks… Uh.. I think the 2 posts above are evidence enough of who relies on such tactics.
How can you people so deferentially defend such garbage(pertaining specifically to refutations themselves and not the subject of refutation) when you haven’t even informed yourselves of the material being debated(I.E. Peter Hadfield’s youtube videos)? How about you actually WATCH the videos, and you will see the blatant dishonesty being dished out by Monkton. Peter Hadfield doesn’t attack Monkton, but instead attacks the false information he poses.
It’s scary to think some of you possess the occupational/societal positions you purport. I’m of a mind to categorize the lot of you with the same kind of people that think Nibiru(planet x, whatever that garbage is) is on its way back to our solar system. People that blithely gobble up what they’re fed. Especially with Monkton’s absurd conspiracy theory of an agenda to deprive people of his youtube video.. LOL.
[Reply: Your comment is awaiting moderation because it’s 3 am here. Have some patience. ~ dbs, mod.]
Wow, why am I not surprised that comments are being filtered. My longer post(good thing I copied it in case this happened) didn’t go through at all and my innocuous inquiry “are comments being filtered/censored” is tenuously posted with “Your comment is awaiting moderation”
[Reply: It is the middle of the night here. Have some patience. ~ dbs, mod.]
Its amazing really how someone can get up on stage and misrepresent scientific papers, misquote individuals and even make things up, and then when that’s pointed out just wave it off as petty and inconsequential smears.
Doug Cotton: don’t be so repulsively dishonest as to claim that all I said was “nope”. Here is what I said again, in its entirety:
Now that I see how shoddy your attitude towards discussion is, that’s the last thing I’m going to say to you.
Smokey, your thought experiment about an atom at a temperature of 600K is invalid; individual atoms do not have temperatures, it’s a macroscopic property.
And Thank you Anthony for posting this. Can I ask if you have had any thoughts on how the response from Monckton will be presented? An addition to this post for a new article that’ll allow the proper online debate?
Regards
Steve
“we do look forward to your debunking Al Gore in a video (I’ve yet to see one dedicated to him let alone the five you dedicate to Monckton in references above, feel free to drop a link here), since you claim not to be biased in any way.”
How about getting over this childish attempt to deflect attention from the actual discussion? Or is it just too upsetting for you to see Monckton’s claims actually scrutinised?
> “Monckton says he advised Margaret Thatcher on climate change. He didn’t.” I did.
first, he never said that, he said that your supporters say that you have been her “science advisor”, that is, an official title, not that you’ve met her once in a party, and commented on her shoes. have you been THAT? (Margaret Thatcher’s science advisor)
[snip. “The use of the pejorative “denialists” violates site Policy. ~dbs, mod.]
The evidence for Christopher Moncktons lack of evidence is becoming more evident.
As usual, Peter, well said and well sourced.
All you need to know is in this Monkton interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w833cAs9EN0
Potholer54 is basically right, and Monckton is pretty much wrong. Dodgy Geezer says, ” I maintain that a reasonable characterisation of the last 40 years is a steeply rising trend during the 1980/90s, followed by a flat trend thereafter.”
I’ve not much of a problem with that, but Monckton does – he says that the last 10 years are cooling, not flat. So Dodgy Geezer, good to see that you don’t support Monckton.
Well done Potholer54! Mr Monkton was well and truly PWND!
As to anyone who fails to see that Mr Monkton is serially disingenuous obviously hasn’t actually compared what he said with the actual ‘sources’ he cites (regardless of your views on AGW).
Ah well – “None so blind as those that will not see.” – Matthew Henry
J. Fischer says:
“Smokey, your thought experiment about an atom at a temperature of 600K is invalid; individual atoms do not have temperatures, it’s a macroscopic property.”
. . .
Your reply dodges the issue. Explain why the central atom does not heat up… if you can.
Rolls … eyes. Smokey are you a Poe?
I think I need to state more plainly that Mr. Hadfield’s responses based upon the Solanki publications are based upon a lack of understanding of the weaknesses of that part of Solanki’s work in the context of more recent literature. It is not enough to proof text from any paper no matter how old or pertinent. There must be understanding of the limitations of the work and the current state of the science. The part of Solanki’s work that is relevant to Lord Monckton’s point is in regards to solar proxy data indicated that recent solar activity levels were unusually high. The part relating to Mr Hadfield’s usage was an outdated linear analysis uninformed by the climate commitment studies. Monckton’s point stands unless the activity level part of Solanki’s work has been revised or superceded.
Jim Cornelius,
Please explain what a “Poe” is. All I want to know is: can a cooler object warm a warmer object via radiation. Roll your eyes at any frequency you like, but try to answer the question. K? thanx.
[snip. Read the site Policy. ~dbs, mod.]
Smokey
Poe – from “Poe’s law, named after its author Nathan Poe, is an Internet adage reflecting the fact that without a clear indication of the author’s intent, it is difficult or impossible to tell the difference between sincere extremism and an exaggerated parody of extremism”. [Wikipedia].
A Poe is someone who presents themselves as supporting some extremist position (often but not exclusively a fundamentalist Christian position) but is actually a satirist. An accusation of someone being a Poe might be made if the accused makes a comment containing such inane stupidity that the chances of them actually being that stupid pale into insignificance compared to the chances that they are actually satirising the position they are defending.
You have already been informed that temperature is a function of atoms on a macroscopic level.
Funny how most of the commenters do not seem to have actually read the main article but still want to get their attention fix in the comments section. Oh wait, no it’s not. AFAICS, Peter is by far the more reasonable of the two — but hey make up your own mind (after reading the rebuttals).
re posts by: Jim Cornelius says: February 8, 2012 at 6:00 am
Oh for pete’s sake. So make it 2, or 4 atoms at 600K in the center of a billion cooler atoms. I can’t believe anyone is so dense as to not see what issue Smokey was getting at, and has to argue because he didn’t add a few more atoms at the center. Cut the obfuscation and answer Smokey’s question – or concede the point.
If climate change is bogus, can someone explain to me why I live in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada and there is not so much as a flake of snow on the ground and we had a green christmas. February 8, 2012 +3C and sunny. Should be -15C. If you do not believe in climate change, fine, go green for clean air. Its all a money grab, I’d rather the money go to wind power rather than coal.
@Smokey
Heat will flow from a colder object to a warmer one via radiation but the flow in the opposite direction will be greater.
Regarding Mr. Hadfield’s debunking of Lord Monckton’s assertion on the Himalayan glaciers melt date, we witness the fallacy of quoting out of context.
Lord Monckton claimed that Dr. Murari Lal, who was the co-lead author of the UN IPCC FAR’s Asia discussion (Chapter 10), included the erroneous 2035 date of Himalayan glacial disappearance – even though it was based solely on a speculative statement – solely to inflate the problem and ultimately influence the future decisions of policy makers. As a reminder to the readers, that statement was referenced by the IPCC within an article published in 1999 by “New Scientist” – http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18363-debate-heats-up-over-ipcc-melting-glaciers-claim.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news .
Lord Monckton rightly questions why a co-lead author would permit such a reference as supporting “evidence,” if only to influence (i.e., bias) policy makers along an alarmist perspective. Indeed, this outright “exaggeration” of the facts is what Mr. Hadfield asserts should not be defended when encountered, “[The success of changing a climate change skeptic’s mind] means accepting the fact that Al Gore [or Dr. Lal] is not always right, and he should not be defended when he’s wrong,” – http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/mar/29/youtube-climate-change-scepticism .
Interestingly, though, Mr. Hadfield displays an inherent bias by dismissing Lord Monckton’s legitimate point rather than accepting its correctness by not defending Dr. Lal’s wrongness, even if indirectly.
But just for clarifications sake, what did Lord Monckton’s reference that Mr. Hadfield believes is wrong?
Mr. Hadfield asserts in his response that the Dr. Lal’s influencing was never acknowledged by the same, “This is not even borne out by Monckton’s own source, cited in his response, which is a quote from Lal in the Daily Mail about the 2035 date: ‘We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.’ Nowhere does Lal say he knew the figure was erroneous.” And yet the UK (Daily) Mail Online (January 24, 2010) does state that, “Dr Murari Lal also said he was well aware the statement, in the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), did not rest on peer-reviewed scientific research,” – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245636/Glacier-scientists-says-knew-data-verified.html .
Mr. Hadfield (a bit too conveniently) forgot to include that sentence in his response. Placed in its proper context, Dr. Lal seemingly did place erroneous (i.e., not right but wrong) evidence in a report with an apparent attempt to influence (or deceive) policy makers to align their future decisions along the alarmist perspective.
Now, the far more interesting question here is why Mr. Hadfield, a person who asserts repeatedly his climate change candor, would promote Dr. Lal’s guesswork over Lord Monckton’s observation?
“Science is science because the knowledge we aquire (sic) comes from experimentation and observation, not guesswork, belief and hearsay,” – Peter Hadfield.
Uh, James, your graph is what Mr. Monckton presented and claimed was a statistically significant trend. I acknowledged that already and I also stated Mr. Hadfield had acknowledged that. You claim to have watched Mr. Hadfield’s videos he explains the most blatantly obvious points of statistical significance … it’s a calculated value/characteristic … yet you seem completely stumped on the issue. We can only surmise that a statistical wizard you are not. Let me illustrate the point by me picking the starting of data (another of Mr. Hadfields key points) found within the same range that you used.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2008/to:2009.16/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2008/to:2009.16/trend
Wow! Warming at a rate of about .2C per year. Now tell me that’s not significant.
It’s clear you feel sorry for the poor, beleaguered Mr. Monckton, thus your eyes-closed, fingers-in-ears posture. The real “context of the totality” is that Mr. Monckton travel’s the globe giving presentations with the specific objective to discredit the potential magnitude and impact of global warming and man’s role in creating it. This would be fine if it weren’t for the fact that Mr. Monckton’s skilled presentations are frequently riddled with mis/dis-information designed to support his key arguments and to leave his audiences with inaccurate impressions that are in accord with his objectives. The only real question is how much of the deception is driven by malice vs. ignorance. I tend to believe Mr. Monckton is a pretty bright guy.
Yes, that was fun.
GB – if you cannot comprehend time zones, what value does your comments have?! Please come back when you understand that the planet rotates. Then we will be able to discuss weather and maybe a little about climate. GK
Smokey: my reply does not dodge the issue. Your question does not make sense and cannot be answered. Temperature is not at atomic property.
John says:
February 8, 2012 at 6:44 am
@Smokey
Heat will flow from a colder object to a warmer one via radiation but the flow in the opposite direction will be greater.
Studying the fantastic paper from CLAES JOHNSON, called “Computational Black body Radiation” gives the clear answer. The papers name may misguide some readers, it also contains a very vivid description of the process that is backed up by maths.
CLAES JOHNSON is a professor of applied mathematics at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.
In a nutshell, all bodies radiate heat if their temperature is above absolute zero.
If we talk about black body ‘like’ examples, the amount of radiation they emit and the frequencies of emission follow laws named after the proposers/discoverers of said laws, Plank and Boltzman.
Black bodies absorb all radiation, but only emit a specified profile of radiation determined solely by the bodies temperature.
Johnson, discusses how, if a body can absorb all radiation but only radiate a lesser amount due to the carefully determined profile dependent upon the bodies temperature.
So, two bodies in proximity and different temperatures, the hotter body radiates at a greater intensity and over a higher and wider spectrum.
The cooler body receives the amount of radiation from the hotter body, the amount received due to the black body effect is related to its (lower) temperature, the excess radiation it receives causes it to warm up, As the cooler body warms up, its black body temperature profile increases, allowing it to emit more ‘black body’ constrained radiation.
Eventually, (for practical purposes) the cooler body reaches the same temperature as the warmer body, the both now radiate the same amount of radiation, both receive the same amount of radiation.
Hot bodies radiate to cool bodies and warm them,
Cool bodies radiate to hot bodies but have no effect.
Aside from him saying in a Russia Today interview that our entire atmosphere only accounts for 18-20 C of our temperature[@1:12 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKrw6ih8Gto%5D, he also claims in one speech that it was the US govt(or some nefarious organization therein) that tried to have HIV infected people isolated[@15:20 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zOXmJ4jd-8&feature=related%5D when he clearly states in another speech that it was HIM that campaigned to have HIV infected individuals isolated(even faking a cry on how he failed to accomplish this task and how many have died because he failed) [@2:16 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zOXmJ4jd-8&feature=related%5D.
Me listing those obvious lies is the exact same thing that Peter Hadfield(aka “potholer54”) has done. How can you guys listen to another thing Monckton says after such obvious lies and foolishness?
This should be called ‘Monckton Doesn’t Really Reply…’ because he fails to address the majority of critiques raised in Potholer54’s brilliant videos. How anyone can take Monckton seriously at this point is surely a reflection of their not having really looked. The man has been thoroughly debunked and shown among other things to misquote and misrepresent scientific papers; (even after being corrected by the author herself.. on Pinker’s paper for example, he continued to mis-characterize her work). Has exaggerated his own experience/credentials (“When I write a peer-reviewed paper I make sure that…” blah blah BS. As if this is something ever did, much less the regular event his comment suggests. It is especially pathetic (tho’ perhaps not surprising given that no charlatan likes to be exposed) that Monckton resorts to ad hominem in his ‘reply.’ Clearly, he cannot be taken seriously.
Hadfield deserves thanks and praise for a job well done! Given the small space he has to reply above (so watch the videos) he cannot begin to address all the points raised. The videos are entertaining and informative but do more than just debunk this mediocre character; they teach us to question authority. To use our critical abilities. To remember that just because someone sounds informed and/or confident (beware the rapid-fire parroting of lots of ‘facts, figures and conclusions.’ does not necessarily mean they know what they’re even talking about.
G. Karst says:
February 8, 2012 at 7:13 am
GB – if you cannot comprehend time zones, what value does your comments have?! Please come back when you understand that the planet rotates. Then we will be able to discuss weather and maybe a little about climate. GK
That is all you say because that is all you can say. Much like Monckton. Relying solely on ad hominems because you are incapable of addressing the points raised.
However, to address your trivial concerns: Wasn’t aware there was a time schedule for which posts could be made. I tried posting(of which you see a copy of in my other post) and NOTHING happened. So, I didn’t know if it went through at all. So, I made a short comment to see if that would go through (“Are comments being filtered/censored”). It did, with the attached notice that it was awaiting moderation. Thus, I assumed my longer post had been filtered for some odd reason of which I was unaware since I’d received no notification.
Cheers
Jack Greer says:
February 8, 2012 at 6:55 am
James Sexton says:
February 7, 2012 at 10:10 pm
==================================================
lmao…. that’s it? You came back with a graph of a year to illustrate, what exactly? Oh, I see, time. 1 year is to 9 as 9 is to 30. Is that what you’re attempting to state? You can, it’s wrong, but you knew that already.
But, this goes toward the totality of the presentation. You see, no one is refuting whether or not the globe has warmed. It generally has since coming out of the LIA. Causation is something else entirely. Tell me Jack, how quickly do GHGs start to absorb IR and re-emit the energy when in the atmosphere? Does they pause for 9-10 years before they start?
“so the sentences in quote-marks may not be word for word what he said, but I hope that they fairly convey his meaning.”
Anyone else find this disturbing? Munkton has obviously [SNIP: This is speculation and adds nothing. By the way, the proper spelling is “M-O-N-C-K-T-O-N”. -REP]
Steve Richards
No part of the proceeding text supports your final conclusion that “Cool bodies radiate to hot bodies but have no effect”.
As an aside could I suggest that thermal radiation is a well documented theory and there are many better explanations than the one you have chosen which may be worth looking at to give a less confusing overview of the subject. Comments such as “the excess radiation it receives causes it to warm up” suggest this isn’t the best source to use, there are many others.
Anyway with regards to “Cool bodies radiate to hot bodies but have no effect”. If not then were does the radiation go? Everything above absolute zero emits radiation in all directions and it will radiate towards the hot body as well. If it doesn’t interact does it then pass straight through? We can clearly see this is wrong. Otherwise you’d be able to detect the radition from a colder object through a warmer medium. If you point a infrared camera at the wall of your house I doubt very much you’ll see the radiation from the trees outside.
James Sexton says:
February 8, 2012 at 8:08 am
…
lmao…. that’s it? You came back with a graph of a year to illustrate, what exactly? Oh, I see, time. 1 year is to 9 as 9 is to 30. Is that what you’re attempting to state? You can, it’s wrong, but you knew that already. …lol. Do you not recognize when you’re the target of sport? We’re done, James. I’m more interested in observing how Mr. Monckton attempts to defend the indefensible, and exactly how tightly Mr. Monckton’s acolytes can affix their blinders before the blood actually stops.
John says:
February 8, 2012 at 8:38 am
I am sorry my explanation left doubts, my mistake.
Black body (BB) theory states that a BB, in thermal equilibrium emits as much radiation as it receives. If it receives more than it emits, its temperature will rise, output will rise until equilibrium is restored.
It can only emit specified amounts of radiation determined solely by its temperature (SB equation).
It can receive what ever you give it (obviously a massive radiation source will warm up any body BB or otherwise). If you give it more than it can emit, its temperature will rise.
So it is easy for the BB to receive rather than give.
The key:
Two situations;
1) Thermal equilibrium: two BB same temperature, both radiate and receive the same amount of radiation, towards each other, from each other, situation remains unchanging.
2) One BB hotter that other BB: both radiate towards each other, both ‘receive’ each others radiation.
2a) The warmer BB emits radiation at a higher temperature/frequency than the cooler BB. The cooler BB, being able to receive any and all radiation, takes in this higher level of radiation, any excess radiation above the SB limit causes the cooler body to warm.
2a) The cooler body emits radiation, at a lower temperature/frequency, has no effect on the warmer BB, because any BB will absorb all radiation if at or below its current frequency/temperature. Any radiation received over and above its BB temperature/frequency will cause the BB to warm.
Take that as a valuable lesson as to: how erroneous starting assumptions lead to erroneous conclusions. Now apply what you have learned to “climate science” and consensus. Welcome to the skeptical side of the argument. GK
Doug Cotton says:
February 7, 2012 at 7:19 pm
Phil. says:
February 7, 2012 at 6:48 pm
This is nonsense, a Blackbody absorbs all radiation incident on it! Johnson’s paper is not science, and is not a fact of physics.
_______________________________________________________
This was in reply to your erroneous statement regarding a Blackbody which indicates that you don’t know what one is!
“A blackbody does in fact “detect” the frequency of incoming radiation and it does in fact scatter any such radiation for which the peak frequency is significantly lower than its own peak frequency of emission – without converting the energy in that radiation to thermal energy. That is a fact of physics. You cannot show me any experiment which proves otherwise, including any contrary result to that which I quoted for gases”.
A blackbody does not behave like you describe it does not scatter any light incident upon it!
The Earth’s surface is not a blackbody and does not act like either a black or grey body because …
(1) It does not re-emit the SW radiation it receives from the Sun.
There is no requirement for a blackbody to do so, it will absorb all the light incident upon it and radiate at the frequencies appropriate to its temperature.
(2) It does transfer thermal energy by means other than radiation.
Again there is no requirement that a blackbody should not do so, just that it should have an emissivity of 1.0, it is still able to lose heat by conduction or convection.
As with all bodies, including gases, It does not convert to thermal energy any radiated energy which comes from a cooler source, because that would amount to transferring thermal energy from a cooler body to a warmer body, which is contrary to physics and with which even your friend J Fischer would appear to agree. Prof. Johnson’s work is entirely in keeping with these statements.
Not true, the blackbody is unaware of the temperature of the source of the light incident upon it and absorbs it all thereby converting it to thermal energy and emits radiation appropriate to the temperature it reaches. This is not contrary to any physics! The fact that Johnson’s work is in keeping with your incorrect statements is ‘prima facie’ evidence that he is also wrong.
Please read all my previous posts this afternoon before responding, as I am not wishing to retype what is already explained in greater detail above.
I’ve read them, as explained above they’re wrong.
Steve Richards says:
February 8, 2012 at 11:04 am
John says:
February 8, 2012 at 8:38 am
I am sorry my explanation left doubts, my mistake.
Black body (BB) theory states that a BB, in thermal equilibrium emits as much radiation as it receives. If it receives more than it emits, its temperature will rise, output will rise until equilibrium is restored.
True for an isolated BB, not for one in thermal contact with another body though.
It can only emit specified amounts of radiation determined solely by its temperature (SB equation).
It can receive what ever you give it (obviously a massive radiation source will warm up any body BB or otherwise). If you give it more than it can emit, its temperature will rise.
Steve Richards says:
February 8, 2012 at 11:04 am
Two situations;
1) Thermal equilibrium: two BB same temperature, both radiate and receive the same amount of radiation, towards each other, from each other, situation remains unchanging.
I assume that you are considering two identical blackbodies?
2) One BB hotter that other BB: both radiate towards each other, both ‘receive’ each others radiation.
Both absorb each other’s radiation.
2a) The warmer BB emits radiation at a higher temperature/frequency than the cooler BB. The cooler BB, being able to receive any and all radiation, takes in this higher level of radiation, any excess radiation above the SB limit causes the cooler body to warm.
Radiation has no temperature, if the total radiation absorbed is greater than that being emitted then the cooler body will warm.
2a) The cooler body emits radiation, at a lower temperature/frequency, has no effect on the warmer BB, because any BB will absorb all radiation if at or below its current frequency/temperature. Any radiation received over and above its BB temperature/frequency will cause the BB to warm.
The warmer body will absorb all the radiation incident upon it, if the total radiation absorbed is less than that being emitted then the warmer body will cool.
If you want to know what happens when two confessed non-experts (and their fans) go to battle over a scientific topic then kindly read the abysmal collection of comments on this page.
At least Peter Hadfield, in his infant knowledge of climate science, knows when a source is required, knows how to properly cite a source, knows how to properly read said source, responds in a respectful manner without ad homs, and is concerned with elucidating truth rather than fatuous propaganda and personal opinion. The same is clearly not true of Monckton. In fact, I’m puzzled as to how he acquired so many blind and lazy fanboys with such a glaring lack of attention to detail.
I first came across Pothole54 on youtube a couple of years ago, when I stumbled across this video:
http://www.youtube.com/user/potholer54?blend=1&ob=video-mustangbase#p/u/52/irVqVKdiohE
– the surprising title caught my attention!
Anyway, although I’m a fan of Potholer54, and like way he tries to debunk bunkum when he finds it, I do think he’s missing some bunkum debunking opportunities when it comes to AGW issues like the Hockey stick, and general level of hyped up BS that surrounds AGW….
On the subject of this thread, I’d say he wins his points about 75% of time!
25% Monckton wins…
James Sexton says:
February 8, 2012 at 12:05 am
Jennifer says:
February 7, 2012 at 10:52 pm
Thank you James, but was it a typo when you said: “There is always GISS to show the warming trend”? Even GISS is negative over the last 10 years:
#Time series (gistemp) from 1880 to 2012
#Selected data from 2002
#Least squares trend line; slope = -0.000177096 per year
Now I agree the magnitude is extremely small and NOT significant, but it certainly does not show warming.
I want to add a word about significance. Suppose the temperature reaches its peak at 3:00 P.M and you record the temperatures from 6:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M. If you were to plot a graph and draw the best straight line through all data, it would have a positive slope. But that does NOT mean the temperature could not be dropping after 3:00 P.M. Now if we assume the temperatures DO in fact drop after 3:00 P.M. what is wrong with stating that fact? Whether it is significant by a given dictionary definition or not is not relevant. So if Monckton claims the temperatures dropped over the last 8 years, and if the slope is indeed negative for this period, what is wrong with just saying so? You may disagree with how significant it is, but that does not mean it is not cooling over that period.
Up the thread, someone asked about the 2010 year being the warmest. It was the case for GISS, but not the other three main data sets. Lubos Motl has the highest 30 or so years for the four main data sets at: http://motls.blogspot.com/
Just go to his site and type in ‘RSS’ under ‘search’ if that is what you are interested in for example. Here are the warmest 6 for each data set:
RSS: 1 {1998, 0.55},
2 {2010, 0.476},
3 {2005, 0.334},
4 {2003, 0.324},
5 {2002, 0.316},
6 {2007, 0.261},
UAH: 1 {1998, 0.428},
2 {2010, 0.414},
3 {2005, 0.253},
4 {2002, 0.223},
5 {2009, 0.188},
6 {2003, 0.187},
GISS: 1 {2010, 0.63083333},
2 {2005, 0.61916667},
3 {2007, 0.58416667},
4 {1998, 0.58},
5 {2009, 0.5675},
6 {2002, 0.56333333},
Hadcrut3: 1 {1998, 0.548},
2 {2005, 0.482},
3 {2010, 0.478},
4 {2003, 0.475},
5 {2002, 0.465},
6 {2004, 0.447},
Note that three of the sets have 1998 as the hottest year.
If you want to know what happened over the last 10 years, taking an average of these four would show the following negative slope:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:1980/plot/wti/from:2002/trend
#WoodForTrees Temperature Index
#Mean of HADCRUT3VGL, GISTEMP, UAH and RSS, offset to UAH/RSS baseline (-0.0975K)
#See http://www.woodfortrees.org/notes for details
#—————————————————-
#
#File: wti.txt
#
#Time series (wti) from 1979 to 2012
#Selected data from 2002
#Least squares trend line; slope = -0.00342538 per year
“Tell me Jack, how quickly do GHGs start to absorb IR and re-emit the energy when in the atmosphere? Does they pause for 9-10 years before they start?”
~James Sexton February 8, 2012 at 8:08 am
Who says that CO2 warming has paused?
Thought Game \o/
If you removed 9 years of CO2 from the atmosphere, do you think it might result in cooler Mean Surface Temps?
G. Karst says:
February 8, 2012 at 11:09 am
Take that as a valuable lesson as to: how erroneous starting assumptions lead to erroneous conclusions. Now apply what you have learned to “climate science” and consensus. Welcome to the skeptical side of the argument. GK
Again.. because you can’t address what is actually relevant.
Brian H says:
February 7, 2012 at 10:30 pm
What is concentrated low-frequency radiation like, in contrast to an equal energy-content amount of high-frequency radiation?
Let me illustrate this with the following example. Suppose we had 500 three year old kids who could each lift a pound two feet up. Then we have a huge weightlifter who can lift 500 pounds two feet up all by himself. The energy is the same, but one is ‘high-frequency’ and the other ‘low-frequency’. And as far as atoms are concerned, at least as far as the photoelectric effect is concerned, the single high-frequency photon can do things that the 500 low-frequency photons cannot do.
A warm black body near a cooler black body will lose heat slower than if next to an even colder black body. The 4th power exponential makes this effect difficult to detect in most real world situations. Hmmm, I wonder if inductive heating is an example of a cooler object heating a warmer with only radiation?
I don’t know who this Potholer is, but I bothered watching his videos and he has a point. Not only did he point out several lies, or at least misinterpretations on Monckton’s part, which wouldn’t be too bad since everybody can be wrong about anything, but Monckton obviously tried to talk himself out of it without any arguments whatsoever. Calling someone a caveman a couple dozen times isn’t the right way.
I realize that this website is full of Monckton fans, but the way you’re handling this isn’t in agreement with the scienitfic method. Whether you like the person who’s right or wrong doesn’t matter. Potholer backed his claims up with evidence and it’s clear that he knows what he’s talking about. Just because you don’t like him or because you think Monckton is infallible doesn’t matter. He was and is wrong. Period. Plus, why should anybody call him “lord”? If I may quote “The House of Lords authorities have said Monckton is not and never has been a member and that there is no such thing as a non-voting or honorary member of the House.” Not only is he lying about his title, but if he feels like being the center of attention by making up a title, maybe he’s knowinlgy lying about other things as well.
Keep badmouthing Potholer all you want, but when it comes to this argument, he’s right and Monckton is wrong. A bigger fanbase and insults don’t count as any form of argument.
[Please correct your email address to a valid entry, or get your replies erased. Robt]
A note to Jack Greer, since he was wailing and whining (as were others) about Peter Hadfield not being able to get “proper exposure” due to me putting his rebuttal next to Monckton’s on the same thread so people could read both sides in one place.
Here’s a screencap from my stats page today:
After just one day, the updated Monckton-Hadfield post is the third most viewed in all WUWT posts in the past week with nearly 12,000 views and climbing. Not bad for (as Jack Greer put it) a “stale thread”.
Therefore, it is with certainty that I kindly suggest to Mr. Greer that he take his concerns about my editorial decision in this matter and insert them into the bodily orifice of his choice.
Cheers!
Anthony
jasonpettitt,
CO2 warming has paused in the past, consider the mid-century cooling, or was CO2 not rising during that time?
“If you removed 9 years of CO2 from the atmosphere, do you think it might result in cooler Mean Surface Temps?”
The climate would be cooler barring a mode shift, but the temperatures might not be cooler if natural variation was greater and resulting in warmer temperatures at the time. Without significant net positive feedback, the direct effects of the GHG forcing only result in about 1 degree C per doubling, which is less than natural variation. The climate could be warmer 100 years from now but the global temperature actually cooler for a few decades. Without significant net positive feedback, the warming may reach statistical significance, but not real human significance. That is why the science is focused on model based and model independent assessment of net feedback. Currently, the models are not ready to attribute and project a phenomena this small. Even the 0.1W/m^2 accuracy that Hansen admits is needed to assess the energy imbalance, may not be enough. Current models need to improve by at least a couple orders of magnitude.
Anthony, this is one epic thread and I commend the job you and your mods have done in keeping it reasonably clean. The trolls have attempted to hijack the thread but others come along to beat them down. It appears that sunshine is indeed the best disinfectant (props to Brandeis for that metaphor).
“CO2 warming has paused in the past, consider the mid-century cooling, or was CO2 not rising during that time?”
~Martin Lewitt
It did?
Did radiative physics temporarily stop do you suppose?
My point, of course, is that Mean Surface Temps are not an isolated plot of the enhanced greenhouse effect from CO2 emissions. They’re the amassed total of every anthropogenic and natural factor contributing to warming and every factor contributing to cooling. To claim to isolate the cause by doing no more than looking at ~9 years of surface temp data seems… well, lets just say I’m wearing my best quizzical face.
Anthony, I want to express my gratitude and appreciation for this spectacularly interesting post. There’s a lot of tension and hatred in the air, distraction also. It’s not easy to stay calm. I don’t agree with you on just about everything in life, but there are a few details that have caught my attention, such as your removal of the sentence where you said Mr. Hadfield had not had the courtesy to thank you, which really scored some points.
Through all the smoke and shouting, there is still room for some respect and decency.
re posts such as: Barnabas Mackay says: February 8, 2012 at 8:31 am and others along these lines…
Would the punctuation police please lay off, and especially stop the mendacious hysterics of “he lied!” in this regard? Lord Monckton made it clear up front that he was doing this little common and well known thing called paraphrasing. Had he simple put the paraphrase in asterisks ‘…’ rather than double asterisks “…” there’d be zero for any of you to complain about, even if he’d never bothered to say: “so the sentences in quote-marks may not be word for word what he said, but I hope that they fairly convey his meaning.” As he made it crystal clear up front he was paraphrasing, which avoids even the accidental misunderstanding by some of the difference between ‘…’ vs. “…” – attacks on this line are trivial and frankly absurd. Trying to claim he’s somehow lying or trying to deceive is, well, beyond words. I didn’t even dignify such claims with a response the first few instances, but here it is yet again in Barnabas’s comment.
That some quote Lord Monckton’s very clear caveat and the punctuation error in the same post and STILL try to make an issue of it….. good gawd. Just more evidence of hunting for the tiniest thing to make a Mount Everest out of a tiny anthill and attempt to distract from any discussion of substance.
REPLY: LOL! The fact that you are irritated and now go off on a different even more pointless tack pleases me immensely. Even Hadfield is satisfied with the results – Anthony
Jack Greer says:
“Wow! Warming at a rate of about .2C per year. Now tell me that’s not significant.”
What is significant is the fact that all of the cited warming happened within two months. Greer is a typical alarmist, trying to make a natural fluctuation into impending doom. Greer is either stupid or dishonest. And I don’t think he’s stupid. But of course, he is free to disagree.
This is a long term view of the natural warming from the LIA. Here is another view. And this graph, with a normal y-axis, shows why the alarmist crowd is sounding a false alarm.
The planet has been in a natural warming trend since the 1600’s. There is no indication that CO2 has any effect. It might, but any such effect is so small that it is not measurable. Thus, the CO2=CAGW conjecture, upon which the entire debate is centered, is based on belief, not on empirical measurements.
The alarmist crowd resorts to minor nitpicking like pothole’s for one reason: they do not have the science to support their belief system. And we can see that once a belief takes hold, it is almost impossible to make the scales fall from their eyes. They are immune to reason. Climate alarmism simply fills the hole that religion satisfies in others. Climate alarmism is pseudo-science, akin to astrology or Scientology, and its born-again true believers spout nonsense like: “Wow! Warming at a rate of about .2C per year. Now tell me that’s not significant.”
Werner Brozek says:
February 8, 2012 at 1:47 pm
James Sexton says:
February 8, 2012 at 12:05 am
Jennifer says:
February 7, 2012 at 10:52 pm
Thank you James, but was it a typo when you said: “There is always GISS to show the warming trend”?
===============================================
Werner, sorry for the confusion, but I was adding a bit of sarcasm. If you had clicked on the link I provided, you’d see that it does show the same slope as you stated. Sometimes, I forget that not everyone has my discussion/debate style. I entirely agree with the information you’ve provided.
REPLY: LOL! The fact that you are irritated and now go off on a different even more pointless tack pleases me immensely. Even Hadfield is satisfied with the results – Anthony
What are you talking about? I would suggest you review my earlier comments as I’ve been entirely consistent re: my “track”.
Start here, Anthony, and work your way down ==> http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/11/monckton-responds-to-potholer54/#comment-872507
I’m not sure about what “pleases you immensely” but others have commented, including, I believe, in this thread, about the childish, petty nature of many of your replies … just add your latest to the heap.
Your most recent cherping aside, setting up the direct interaction between Mr. Monckton and Mr. Hadfield is a huge plus. I greatly appreciate this possibility – it definitely adds value toward more accurate information and understanding. If you had put your pettiness aside from the beginning and given this phase of discussion it’s own thread, it would have been a bigger win for you.
jasonpettitt says:
February 8, 2012 at 3:22 pm
“CO2 warming has paused in the past, consider the mid-century cooling, or was CO2 not rising during that time?”
~Martin Lewitt
It did?
Did radiative physics temporarily stop do you suppose?
My point, of course, is that Mean Surface Temps are not an isolated plot of the enhanced greenhouse effect from CO2 emissions. They’re the amassed total of every anthropogenic and natural factor contributing to warming and every factor contributing to cooling. To claim to isolate the cause by doing no more than looking at ~9 years of surface temp data seems… well, lets just say I’m wearing my best quizzical face.
========================================================
You should wear your best quizzical face. Obviously, CO2 doesn’t have the impact on our temps as we were told. BTW, to answer your question, no, if we removed the last nine years of CO2, I would not expect the earth to cool. I don’t think is has that significant of an impact. ~9 years? lol, try 15 years for the most recent example. And, this answers the question. The earth hasn’t warmed in nearly 15 years with ever increasing CO2, so why would removing it cool it?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1997/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1997/trend
But, that’s not the worst of it….. In our past, we’ve had continual increase of CO2, but for 70 years, no increase in temps. http://suyts.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/30-years-is-needed-to-confirm-the-null-hypothesis/ No, I’m not doubting the properties of CO2, I’m just saying the significance of it is entirely overstated. One might wish to consider all of the IR bands which pass right through CO2.
Smokey says:
February 8, 2012 at 4:08 pm
Jack Greer says:
[snip. You were given a 48 hour time out. ~dbs, mod.]
“And this graph, with a normal y-axis, shows why the alarmist crowd is sounding a false alarm.”
Hahahaha! Fahrenheit, between 30 and 80? That’s normal?? I’ll say it again: Hahahaha! And you completely miss Jack Greer’s very simple point, which is that the trend he quoted is not statistically significant. Nor is the trend that Monckton quoted. But, surprise surprise surprise! You don’t like the not-real warming trend, but you luuurve that non-real cooling trend! Sorry, dude, but you can’t have it both ways.
Is Mr. Monckton going to enter into an online debate on this channel with Mr. Hadfield about the specific points rasied by Hadfield or not? It would be a simple process for all those watching to accurately check the relevant material to see which party had been dishonest and misrepresented their sources. I for one would like to see the person deceiving his audiences exposed.
jackson10 says:
February 8, 2012 at 2:24 pm
I don’t know who this Potholer is, but I bothered watching his videos and he has a point………..
==============================================
Oh dear, yes, everyone here is this naive. You don’t know who he is, but you watched his videos. Even though Hadfield is referenced a couple of hundred times here. But, you read the comments…… but don’t know who he is….. but if you read the comments, then you’d see Hadfield was more than adequately responded to. Then you blather crap about peerage which you obviously know nothing about.
Can I ask you a serious question? Why do people, so plainly dishonest and so plainly ignorant of the issues feel compelled to engage and display their dishonesty and ignorance? I see it often, I just don’t understand it…….
“Obviously”
~James Sexton
No.
“I’m not doubting the properties of CO2, I’m just saying the significance of it is entirely overstated”
~James Sexton
What you’re forgetting to do is any of the legwork needed to establish your claim that its significance is entirely overstated. And I shall carry on wearing my quizzical face until you do.
p.s. – Re your 70 years claim: you may find the following helpful
http://www.art.ccsu.edu/Gallery/2008-2009/Sustainable/Graph%20wikimedia.orgwikipediacommons990CO2-Temp.jpg
Damian says:
February 8, 2012 at 4:37 pm
Is Mr. Monckton going to enter into an online debate on this channel with Mr. Hadfield about the specific points rasied by Hadfield or not? It would be a simple process for all those watching to accurately check the relevant material to see which party had been dishonest and misrepresented their sources. I for one would like to see the person deceiving his audiences exposed.
=========================================================
Check the dates….. this is what is so funny for me. Monckton gives a presentation. Hadfield puts together a laborious 5 part series of video. Monckton, in due time responded here on Jan 11. Hadfield takes nearly a month to say…… well, not much…. he was wrong about the temps, he was wrong about the Himalayas, (a new paper is out in Nature today which verifies exactly what Monckton stated.) oops. Someone owes an apology…… He pointed out Monckton’s inferred “could” wasn’t explicitly stated. Hadfield shows he knows how to use quote marks appropriately, but doesn’t understand the concept of paraphrasing….. Hadfield used the exact same fallacy he’s accusing Monckton of with the ice cap…… what is there to respond to? It took Hadfield a month to respond with drivel. Why bother?
I believe both men where in various processes of travel and not able to respond due to work committments, nevertheles avoiding an online deba
te that can easily be critiqued by viewers does draw suspision on one party. Why so reluctant to have your lectures and speeches publicly checked for accuracy? Mr. Monckton should debate Hadfield right here as challenged on all the points Hadfield raised in his video’s
jasonpettitt says:
February 8, 2012 at 4:59 pm
“Obviously”
~James Sexton
==========================================
Yeh, and if I just had the belief in the veracity of that graph I might come away with a different perspective. But, that graph denies the reality of many things, history not being the least. Did you click on my second link I provided?
“What you’re forgetting to do is any of the legwork needed to establish your claim that its significance is entirely overstated.”
Jason, I’ve done the led work and have demonstrated it. If people wish to invent works of fiction to rationalize the times the earth doesn’t respond in the manner they wish, well, I can’t help that. But, hey, here’s a couple of graphs which show responses and temps and CO2….. http://suyts.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/what-does-this-mean/
That time concept is a bitch, isn’t it? So, tell me again, what is the amount of time we can expect temps to respond to atmospheric CO2? 9 years? 15 years? 70 years? No? None of them? Well if it isn’t 70 years then what happened in the 90s? Something that happened in 1910? Oh, wait! You showed me a graph of 1000 years! 1,000,000 seems like it should generally correlate as well. I do love conversing with sophists.
Jack Greer says:
February 8, 2012 at 4:29 pm
I was making sport of James Sexton re: cherry picking start points and too short timescales … the crimes Mr. Monckton is guilty of.
=======================================================
Hey, that’s good timing! I’m glad you’re back, Jack! Yes, timescales too short……. I asked about when we think that dastardly CO2 will kick in….. and I was kinda wondering how long it takes for it not to kick in before we concede that doesn’t really affect our temps. I’ve a series of graphs for you to check out at your leisure, of course, and maybe between you and Jason you can ‘splain this tricky stuff to me……. ’cause you guys are all sciency and that….. It’s weird, because I was under the impression CO2 immediately starts to absorb and then re-emit energy once it became excited……
http://suyts.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/30-years-is-needed-to-confirm-the-null-hypothesis/
and in today’s news we have:
” The Himalayas and nearby peaks have lost no ice in past 10 years, study shows”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/08/glaciers-mountains?intcmp=122
and here’s the money quote
“The scientists are careful to point out that lower-altitude glaciers in the Asian mountain ranges – sometimes dubbed the “third pole” – are definitely melting. Satellite images and reports confirm this. But over the study period from 2003-10 enough ice was added to the peaks to compensate.”
So it would seem climate scientists can now confirm that glaciers melt from the bottom and fill from the top.
Matt says:
February 8, 2012 at 6:36 am
“If climate change is bogus, can someone explain to me why I live in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada and there is not so much as a flake of snow on the ground and we had a green christmas. February 8, 2012 +3C and sunny. Should be -15C. If you do not believe in climate change, fine, go green for clean air. Its all a money grab, I’d rather the money go to wind power rather than coal.”
Matt:
I live down the road in London, Ontario. Our delightful (unless you are a snowmobiler or crosscountry skier) winter is easily explained. It’s called weather. Me being on the far side of 60 years old, I have experienced other mild and pleasant winters in Southern Ontario along with some brutal ones. I can even recall drinking coffee and eating pie on my deck with no coat on in January of 1980. We happen to be benefiting from the rather stagnant northerly excursion of the jet stream (Rossby wave) in Eastern North America bringing warm tropical air northward into our area. Just as we benefit from this northerly excursion, so other parts of the northern hemisphere are suffering from brutal cold due to the extreme southerly excursion of the jet stream. Witness the present cold snap in Europe with ice forming on the canals in Venice and many cold related deaths. And why do you think it should be -15C in Kitchener when the normals for today are -2C high and -9C low?
Harry Lebowski says:
“Hahahaha! Fahrenheit, between 30 and 80? That’s normal??”
You can’t be that clueless… can you?
Look at the chart again, and at least try to understand. [Hint: it’s the blue line that matters, not the range. And it would look about the same in °C. See?]
How is this Potholer a ‘Warmist’ by challenging Monckton? All I can see is someone who has checked references, discovered they were taken out of context or non-existent, and offered a rebuttal. Sounds like science to me, any other scientists or skeptics in here? Or (by the looks of the posts), do we have a comfy western lifestyle to defend at all cost?
Karl says:
February 8, 2012 at 9:26 pm
(idiotic blathing)… Or (by the looks of the posts), do we have a comfy western lifestyle to defend at all cost?
===============================
Karl, I don’t know where you’re at…… I don’t really care… but, if you’ve bothered to look around at this “life style”, you’d know there are people suffering all around you. You’ve got to be the most complete idiot who has ever bothered to come to this site. Oh, yeh, really comfy western lifestyle…. compared to what? The third-world countries which the U.N only funds whirly gigs instead of real power plants? Or the second-world countries whose citizens are literally freezing to death RIGHT NOW!!! Because of the vapid desire to deliver expensive and unreliable energy and fuel!!!!
[snip]
Rational Db8: “Often it simply isn’t possible to qualify statements to nearly the degree one might like – let alone to the degree that would manage to obviate criticisms.”
That’s a reasonable point, but one should always strive to accurately present the views of one’s opponents. Importantly, one should also strive to be true to one’s own words.
Case in point: the Houghton quote. According to Peter Hadfield, “Monckton claims Houghton wrote this in the Sunday Telegraph of September 10, 1995: “Unless we announce disasters, no one will listen.”
Monckton responds: “Sir John, too, tried to maintain that I had misquoted him, and even menaced me with a libel suit, until I told him I had a copy of the cutting from the London Sunday Telegraph of September 10, 1995, in which he had said, “If we want a good environmental policy in the future, we’ll have to have a disaster”…”
The alert reader will have noted that the two sentences are quite different in both words and meaning, and that Monckton does not defend his own words, but refers to the [correct] words of the newspaper. Monckton’s reluctance to stand by his own words does not engender confidence in his veracity.
It may be that His Lordship has a busy schedule and in his haste overlooked Hadfield’s words. Nevertheless, words do matter, because they not only reveal one’s attitude to the truth, but also the character of the speaker.
I’ve watched Hadfield’s videos and read Monckton’s rebuttals. All I can conclude as a complete outsider in this debate is Monckton has a whole of explaining and apologizing to do. Hadfield clearly shows Monckton misrepresents research data and changes his claims several times when confronted.
Did the believers even watch Hadfield’s videos?
Why is everyone in this forum so rude? It seems to go both ways too, “alarmists” and “apologists” alike. Why is a civil debate such a difficult thing? I planned to add some examples, but that would be pointless since more than half of the comments above are uncivil, some extremely so.
Peter Hadfield is uncivil too, but at least in a more polemic and less “stick it up the *ss you moron” fashion. But Christopher Monckton refers to Hadfield as a “caveman”.
Shouldn’t correct facts backed up by peer reviewed scientific literature be able to speak for themselves? Why behave like school children?
I think he is making he is making a joke Johannes.
caveman = potholer, i.e. a man who spends his time in caves. Not so much abuse as having a little fun at Hadfields ridiculous nom de guerre. I’m all for keeping it good humoured, potholer54 takes himself far to seriously as it is.
😉
“Jason, I’ve done the [leg] work and have demonstrated it. If people wish to invent works of fiction to rationalize the times the earth doesn’t respond in the manner they wish, well, I can’t help that. But, hey, here’s a couple of graphs which show responses and temps and CO2….. http://suyts.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/what-does-this-mean/”
~James Sexton
No you haven’t. Not once.
None of you graphs show temperature sensitivity to CO2. None of those graphs isolate GHG forcing, let alone the CO2 part. None of your graphs (or your interpretations of them) account for the logarithmic relationship between CO2 and temps. And none of your graphs account for any of the myriad of factors that influence climate.
You’ve not done ANY of the analysis needed to assess the influence of CO2. Other people (smart people) have.
That you refer to physics as fiction tells me that you’re probably firmly attached to predetermined conclusions and that you’re closed to reason. Perhaps Anthony has more patience than me and could put some posts together on what science and careful estimates really say about historical and contemporary influence of CO2 on climate.
GSW: “I think he is making […] a joke Johannes.”
Yeah I saw the joke, but it was still ad hominem and unnecessary. Hadfield does it himself sometimes, and I enjoy it when it is done in a relaxed context, but not in a more serious discussion. And to me, this is serious stuff.
GSW: “I’m all for keeping it good humoured, potholer54 takes himself far to seriously as it is.”
I strongly disagree. If he is correct in his statements, that Mockton has made so many errors, then this is indeed a serious issue. Whether global warming is truth or false, this is serious. And ad hominem attacks greatly detracts from the issue at hand. Don’t call someone troll unless you have proven so (and it’s nearly impossible to prove intent). Don’t call someone an idiot however idiotic the reasoning is. Just behave yourselves with civility and respect.
I’m not at all surprised to find that my post was filtered by the moderator, given this site’s obvious bias against science. While the reason given was that I used “the pejorative term Climate Change Denialist”, I don’t actually believe that use of pejorative terms was the reason. I believe that the actual reason was that I used pejorative terms for the “wrong side” of the “debate”. This is evidenced by the limitless use of pejorative terms by those posters who support the site’s bias, including Monckton’s own use of “caveman” to describe the excessively polite Hadfield. I expect you to deny this post as well, no matter how carefully I attempt to word it to be polite. I again state the key point of my last post, for the moderator only since I believe you will filter this as well: You have made your bias clear by your works. True skeptics like Hadfield will continue to check your information very carefully and will continue to expect you to produce biased half-truths. The following is an example of what I’m talking about, in this case the cherry-picking of data sets to produce the desired results from legitimate data sets:
Again and again in this thread, posters have used graphs like this one:
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/to:2008/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/to:2008/trend
to show a recent cooling trend. The intent appears to be to cast doubt on the long term trend by carefully choosing the portion of the data that produces the results one wants, ignoring the fact that as the climate is a very complex system with many natural cycles and other such sources of variability, short term data sets are useless for spotting the long term trends. An example of this can be seen with a simple thought experiment: take a 1 year daily data set of temperature data for a single point in the northern hemisphere. Now choose a subset of the data set, lets say from August through December. Clearly we have a cooling trend! If we wait another six months, obviously it will be colder still! Or we could take all of our data set and fit the trend line: The line is now flat! We con now expect next year to be much like last year. Now lets apply some of the same principles to the graph above so beloved by the posters here, the one showing the recent cooling trend using only 7 years of data. First, one showing 15 years, from 1996 to 2011:
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1996/to:2011/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1996/to:2011/trend
Lookie! Now the same data set shows clear warming over the same period! This is likely more accurate, but still doesn’t include anywhere near all the data available. How about the same data set over 30 years?
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1981/to:2011/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1981/to:2011/trend
60 years?
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1951/to:2011/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1951/to:2011/trend
100 years?
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1911/to:2011/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1911/to:2011/trend
The point should be obvious: If one wants an accurate picture of long term AGW trends, he should use as much data as he has, not cherry-pick a portion of the data set with an unreasonably short period, shorter than some of the natural cycles that impact the data set. This is simply a single example of the dishonest manipulation of the data sets perpetrated again and again on the pages of this website, both in the articles themselves and the supporting comments you allow to be published, while you reliably censor anyone in opposition who calls your side anything but “skeptics” and allow your supporters to use pejorative terms unrestricted.
Publish my whole comment and respond without being pejorative yourself. I dare you.
I’ve always been on the side of Monckton. But calling someone a “caveman” is not what I expect from someone who claims to be a member of the House of Lords (incorrectly, as it appears).
A dispassionate reading of the rebuttal and a watching of the initial videos confirms that Hadfield’s criticisms are robust and that Monckton’s representations are shaky at best.
In light of this evidence, I take it that the skeptical readers of WUWT will now check the claims of all guest posters from now on, so as not to be misled in the future. What we cannot allow is for this site to be regarded as a platform for misinformation, and Anthony in particular has a lot of credibility to gain from ousting authors who misrepresent facts.
“the sentences in quote-marks may not be word for word what he said, but I hope that they fairly convey his meaning.”
What?! 😀
You even don’t understand, or care, about stablished rules of qouting others, now wonder you don’t know what peer review means.
Next time when you don’t have the exact qoute, or as you don’t want to spend your invaluable time on finding the exact qoute, just paraphrase it and don’t put it in qoutation marks. It’s that simple.
Reading through a lot of the comments here provides a sterling showcase of “bro science” at its best. Armchair experts, who have most likely never conducted or published any actual research in their lives (at least pertaining to the relevant field of study), spouting worthless conjecture about how they believe matters such as solar physics, oceanography etc. should work – all under the premise that the people with actual qualifications who do it for a living have somehow gotten it wrong or are lying. Just unbelievable.
In a lot of the comments no actual science is even discussed at all; just sycophantic Monckton fans lashing out with personal attacks, or parroting the same tired mantra about the IPCC being a corrupt syndicate of bureaucrats and evil socialists seeking to consolidate a world Marxist government. It is worth noting that the Pulitzer Prize-winning publication Politifact evaluated this claim in 2009 and deemed it “not only unsupported but preposterous”, for which Monckton was bestowed their prestigious ‘Pants on Fire’ award.
The infamous ‘Hockey Stick’ graph is also routinely stigmatized and referred to pejoratively, despite the fact that it has been investigated, corroborated and deemed methodologically sound by the National Academy of Sciences. Why is this rarely mentioned by anyone?
The whole issue of appealing to authority is an interesting double standard that seems to arise often in Monckton’s repertoire. He will, one one hand, insist that science is not done by consensus and that the IPCC et al. can’t be trusted, yet in the same breath assert that everything he says can be backed up by the very peer review process which he so readily derides and dismisses. He will invoke the opinions of obscure researchers with questionable credibility, and in some cases reputable scientists (Prof R. Pinker) who have gone so far as to outwardly contradict and disown his specious interpretation of their work.
His overall message appears to be “The experts agree with me…unless they don’t…in which case they’re wrong”.
Sorry, but you can’t have it both ways.
Bottom line: Monckton’s response was essentially nothing but a string of weak ad-hominems which didn’t even come close to debasing of any of the points made by Hadfield, and I’m not surprised. His intellectual dishonesty has been well exposed and is pretty much untenable at this point. The most beautiful part about it is that Hadfield doesn’t even really need to cast any aspersions of his own, but simply contrast the most damning contradictions made by Monckton in his own words by presenting them side by side, verbatim. Should anyone argue that anything has been taken out of context, sources are thoroughly provided so that they can be examined in their entirety.
Potholer has addressed [snip . . if you wish to refer to someone by all means do so but try for accuracy not childish nonsense . . kbmod] sloppy science in such a thorough and meticulous manner. Anyone paying close attention to the full argument can see that [snip . . ibid] is a fraud.
Snappy work as always Potholer54.
I object strenuously to Monckton’s attitude when accused of intellectual dishonesty and misrepresenting the research of more highly acclaimed scientists than himself. His recourse to snide jabs and his lack of any sort of cohesive referencing with regard to quotations and papers has about it the air of the demagogue rather than that of the researcher. Misrepresentation of another researcher’s intellectual premise and research is the height of poor scientific method.
Keep the game clean 🙂
jasonpettitt says:
February 9, 2012 at 1:23 am
“That you refer to physics as fiction tells me……”
============================================
I never once did refer to physics as fiction. And, I’d appreciate it of you withdraw your baseless lie. I find it incredibly ironic that you would project that towards me, when the very last graphic you offered for me to look at, http://www.art.ccsu.edu/Gallery/2008-2009/Sustainable/Graph%20wikimedia.orgwikipediacommons990CO2-Temp.jpg ………. IS IN A DAMNED ART GALLERY!!!! And you think that has anything to do with physics? You are aware, are you not, that the science most of those graphics are derived from isn’t the application of physics, but rather, biology, or more specifically, dendrochronology. You don’t even know what science you’re babbling about and you send me works of art to buttress your arguments.
Some more irony,…… one of the leading advocates of this psuedo-science, Mike Mann, has just been part of a recently published study which at least acknowledges one of my criticisms of this inanity. …. to wit….. they can’t really detect the low end of the temp signal from trees. If you can’t detect the low end, then you can’t possibly come up with an average. Again, while there are physical processes involved, this isn’t an application of what is commonly known as the school of physics. Further, we also need to understand, the other chronologies suffer from similar weaknesses as well.
Continuing…. it isn’t my intention to demonstrate why CO2 and temps don’t relate to each other, it suffices that I only show that they don’t. And, I have. I have shown it on decadal timescales as well as a 1/2 century and longer timescale. I’ve offered other evidence which shows CO2 and temps don’t follow one another. If you don’t like it, arguing against the accuracy of the temp record. Or argue against atmospheric CO2 beliefs.
Jason, if you want to argue the maths, that’s fine, I’m more than happy to do so. If you want to argue the sciences, you should at the very least understand what school of thought you’re arguing, and you really need to understand that neither physics, nor biology put much stock in WORKS OF ART..
Didn’t anyone read both articles in their entirety? Its mind blowing that most of these comments are based on hype rather than the peer review. People, I implore you to read the peer review and learn how to analyze it. Stop reading just ARTICLES. They don’t count. ONLY the peer reviewed data can help one understand the measurements, not what someone says on stage or on a video. LOOK at the peer review. LOOK at the source peer review scientific papers NOT articles, speeches, etc. PLEASE GET A BRAIN!!!
*sigh*
Why am i not surprised “Lord” Monc has to resort to childish name calling? It’s so childish you’d think Peter must have started it by calling him “googlie-eyed monckton” or something… and then a dozen of LM’s cronies jumping in on the tongue lashing without first checking the facts. it’s embarrassing.
REPLY: Actually, its a play on his nom de plume, potholer… most people miss that as you have. -A
Let’s see… Mockton provided no sources in his article to contrast his arguments against the data (zero points). Potholer provided all sources in his article to contrast his arguments against the data (100 points). Where are the sources, Mockton? I can’t read a driveling article of personal attacks against someone and expect it to be an elevated topic. That’s why I don’t read People magazine. I prefer National Geographic and Smithsonian. Maybe you can be published in People mag? As an intellectually honest person, I can only believe an argument if it is backed up by the original studies and articles, because I will never take someone’s word for it. As a citizen of the free world, I will not sacrifice my freedom to choose based on taking someone’s word for it. I need sources so that I can check the accuracy for myself, because I refuse to believe either side unless they provide sources that I can check. Thank you.
lljames says:
“ONLY the peer reviewed data can help one understand the measurements…”
Ridiculous. You can learn more here, and you will read both sides of the debate, not just the sanitized views coming out of the journal industry. Modern peer review is a big money construct. If Albert Einstein had to deal with today’s journals he would have a difficult time getting published, because he was well outside the “consensus”.
Apparently you are not aware that the climate peer review system has been utterly corrupted. It is actually “pal review”, as has been demonstrated time after time in the Climategate emails. A small clique of self-serving reprobates led by Michael Mann connived to force mass resignations from journal boards, dishonestly conspired to artificially increase the number of peer reviewed publications, got scientists fired for simply expressing scientific views that Mann disagreed with, and covertly arranged to have friendly “anonymous” reviewers promptly approve their papers, while skeptical scientists [the only honest kind of scientist] were forced to wait for years in some cases to get published [if they got published at all], while Mann and his pals typically gets his submissions published within a few months – or less.
It is absolutely untrue that “ONLY peer reviewed can help one understand…”. That is simply an appeal to a corrupt authority. Mann is guilty of every accusation made against Lord Monckton here, doubled and squared. And you will learn more honest science here than you will find in the pal reviewed literature. You will learn that Mann’s infamous MBH99 “Hockey Stick” graph has been completely debunked by multiple scientists and scientific organizations, so that the IPCC can no longer publish it [and the IPCC loved that scary chart]. You will learn that Mann knowingly used a corrupted proxy [Tiljander] because it gave him the hockey stick shape he wanted – even though he was informed before he published that the proxy was no good and should not be used. Mann has done this repeatedly. And his climate charlatan pals use outlandish “treemometer” proxies like thousand year old trees to preposterously claim to know millennium old temperatures within a tiny fraction of a degree. You will learn that the claim common to the climate charlatan crowd is that a rise in CO2 will cause runaway global warming. And you will also learn that the only real Authority, planet earth, is solidly debunking that belief.
For plenty more on the reprehensible Michael Mann and his cronies, I recomment A.W. Montford’s The Hockey Stick Illusion, available on the right sidebar. It is thoroughly referenced, unimpeachable, and you will never again view climate peer review as being anything other than a self-serving vehicle to promote the interests of Mann’s clique. For a taste of Montford’s writing, see here.
Daniel says:
February 9, 2012 at 3:51 am
What?! 😀
You even don’t understand, or care, about stablished rules of qouting others, now wonder you don’t know what peer review means.
=============================================================
Yes, because punctuation and appeals to authority are so important to climatology. Oddly, spelling isn’t.
[snip]
“And of course there are scientists who say CO2 is “largely responsible” for the warming: that is the principal conclusion of the IPCC’s 2007 report, reached on the basis of a fraudulent statistical abuse: comparison of the slopes of multiple arbitrarily-chosen trend-lines on the global-temperature dataset falsely to suggest that “global warming” is accelerating and that it is our fault. Not that one has ever heard the caveman utter a word of condemnation of the IPCC’s too-often fictional “science””
Why don’t you write a scientific paper in a peer reviewed journal detailing this alleged “fraudulent statistical abuse”?
David Hitchen says:
“Why don’t you write a scientific paper in a peer reviewed journal detailing this alleged “fraudulent statistical abuse”?”
Why doesn’t pothole write one? Answer: Because no journal would publish it.
“You will learn that Mann’s infamous MBH99 “Hockey Stick” graph has been completely debunked by multiple scientists and scientific organizations, so that the IPCC can no longer publish it [and the IPCC loved that scary chart].”
Is this a joke? What you’re saying is the exact opposite of reality… The hockey stick has been confirmed over and over again… where were you?
Phil Joseph Juliansen says:
“What you’re saying is the exact opposite of reality…”
We’ll see who is grounded in reality. As I made clear, the chart I referred to was the MBH99 chart. Specifically, this chart.
If you can produce the current IPCC Assessment Report showing that chart, I will concede. Don’t try bait and switch by showing some silly spaghetti chart, or other imitation of Mann’s debunked hokey stick chart. Show the original, which the IPCC used over and over – until McIntyre & McKitrick proved it was complete junk science.
And if you can’t show Mann’s original chart in a current IPCC AR publication, then answer a question for me: what color is the sky in your reality?☺
Phil Joseph Juliansen says:
February 9, 2012 at 11:06 am
“You will learn that Mann’s infamous MBH99 “Hockey Stick” graph has been completely debunked by multiple scientists and scientific organizations, so that the IPCC can no longer publish it [and the IPCC loved that scary chart].”
Is this a joke? What you’re saying is the exact opposite of reality… The hockey stick has been confirmed over and over again… where were you?
=============================================
Sigh……… are you kidding me? Tell me Phil, what temperature is indicative of no ring growth? That is to say, when the tree rings are not growing, what is the temperature? What’s the average temperature? What is the low and what is the high? Confirmed? Confirmed by what? More dendrophrenology? And before you start blathering about anything, you should read Mann’s acknowledgment of missing cool summers from the chronology record…… then I’d ask you to do a bit of critical thinking on your own and try to understand the implications of such an acknowledgment. Turns out, becoming a brain surgeon never really was an option for many of these people.
http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-02-tree-underestimate-climate-response-volcanic.html
REPLY: Actually, its a play on his nom de plume, potholer… most people miss that as you have. -A
=================================================
You do realize you’re taking away a point of which I could have ridiculed these people about……. 🙁
[snip – calling other posters brain damaged and then diagnosing specific brain ailments isn’t gonna fly here. Take a 48 hour timeout Mr. Greer – Anthony]
[snip]
You don’t even allow an open forum.. I knew it.. Why not? Tell me?
REPLY: Read the policy page – your comment violated policy, this one does not. If you really want “open” then I suggest you put your name to your denigrations. -A
@Johannes
Johannes your “And to me, this is serious stuff”, “I strongly disagree”, ” so many errors”, “this is indeed a serious issue” and ” this is serious” are totally out of proportion. The “Caveman” thing is a bit of harmless fun. I *Strongly* suggest you either,
A. Locate a sense of humour.
B. Get a Life, or
C. Drop the “Concern Troll” personna and return to whichever “Believer Cesspit” you originate from. Haven’t you got any any “precautionary principle” stairs that need hiding under?
Cheers!
😉
It is hard to read through all the nonsense posted here.
All I can say is look at Hadfield’s YouTube channel. Besides the Monckton videos he has a whole series on Climate change found here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/potholer54#g/c/A4F0994AFB057BB8
Watch them. I’m not sure what the obsession is with Al Gore but let it go people. As Hadfield says in his video series he is not for or against he is about the science and how accurately it is portrayed. He then corrects and goes through the entire major for and against and in the end it’s simple:
Man greatly contributes to Climate Change
There will be drastic results of CC if it’s not corrected.
Some results are happening now while most will be in the future and the longer we take to start the correction the longer the fix will take.
An argument online is kind of like competing in the “Special Olympics”.
Even if you win;
Your Still riding the “Short Bus”…
@GSW
What started as a tongue-in-cheek response to my initial comment has now turned into ad hominem and uncivility. It took just one post.
I don’t originate from any believer cesspit. If you call someone a caveman (and then referred to as “a caveman” over and over again), no matter how “witty” the namecalling might be, you’re losing the argument and you’re behaving like an adolescent. That is my opinion.
Laugh at me all you want and call me humorless. I don’t think that is a good tool when people are trying to have a serious scientific discourse while others (or rather, most participants) are engaged in namecalling. That’s tragedy rather than comedy. And I don’t see how my phrasing can be “out of proportion” when we’re discussing climate change/fraud. Do you really think it is not a serious issue?
I don’t know what gives you the right to presume I have no sense of humor, I have no life and I’m a “concern troll”. Neither is the case. But I don’t let that enter into an scientific internet debate. There’s enough personal stuff on here already, don’t you think?
Smokey, a cooler object can warm a hotter object via radiation. Lasers are used all the time to melt materials with very high melting points. Temperature is an average. We can concentrate radiation enough to have a very high temp in a small area. The second law of thermo is about entropy. We can achieve very high temps essentially if we spend enough energy to do so. Lasers can even be used to cool an object via radiation down to near 0K. The latter is a case of a warm object cooling a colder object.
The atmosphere concentrates energy given by the sun over time to raise temperature much as an oven concentrates over time to raise its temperature when the oven door is closed. At equilibrium, the same energy comes in as goes out but the cavity stays at a high temperature.
Doug Cotton, I agree we should consider many alternatives that show promise.
You have a link to your website, but I see no opportunity to comment on that page. I would like to read the material and have you give me a decent opportunity to reply to the material you posted there (I haven’t read it yet).
I don’t agree with the criticism of Monckton here. Every human being makes mistakes, but the incessant nitpicking amounts to pointing out the mote in Monckton’s eye, while ignoring the beam in Michael Mann’s eye. Mann is a real charlatan, still trying and failing to resurrect his thoroughly debunked hokey stick.
But there is a bigger issue: there is not one alarmist climatologist who is not deathly afraid to go toe-to-toe with those on the other side, like Lord Monckton routinely does. Taking potholeshots from the sidelines in the manner of the craven coward Abraham [who scurried back to the safety of his ivory tower, and who remains in hiding there] is the preferred method of taking the spotlight off of the fact that CO2 is harmless and beneficial. None of the endlessly predicted CO2=CAGW disasters have happened. And the ultimate Authority, the planet itself, is falsifying the belief system promoted by the Mann/Jones clique: the trend from the LIA is the same, no more and no less, over the past several centuries. The rise in CO2 has made zero measurable difference in the natural global warming since the 1600’s. The CO2 scare has been shown by planet Earth to be a false alarm.
So let’s all attack Monckton instead, eh? Maybe people will forget that CO2 is beneficial, not harmful. More is better. And maybe the claque attacking Monckton can make everyone forget that their clique of charlatans studiously ignores the scientific method, and forget that the climate null hypothesis has never been falsified. The CO2 conjecture has been falsified, so it’s full steam ahead with the ad hominem attack. Because that’s all the alarmist crowd has got now; the planet proves they’re wrong.
The alarmist cultists would much prefer to pick nits and try to demonize someone that their HE-ROES don’t have the balls to debate. Get your boy Mann, or Jones, or Schmidt, or Trenberth, or Gore, or Hansen, or all of them together for moral support, and do a repeat of the Oxford debate. But they will chicken out. They will contrive plenty of lame excuses why they can’t, or won’t, then they’ll run yelping out the back door with their tails between their quaking hind legs. You know it’s true. They don’t have the stones to face Lord Monckton in a real, honest debate. They hide out, and let their eco-contingent take potshots from the safety of blog commentary. But they will never go face to face, preferably on television in a neutral debate setting, with a randomly selected audience. They know when they do that they always lose the debate. The public goes in believing in the likelihood of CAGW, but it exits as skeptics.
Can anyone here imagine having Michael Mann or Gavin Schmidt appear at RealClimate, and defend his position like Monckton does here and everywhere else? With scientific skeptics allowed to ask pointed questions, and with no arbitrary, echo-chamber censorship? Don’t be silly, Mann would lose the battle and the entire war if he allowed that, because Mann’s pseudo-science is fakery. Mann is a coward who hides out from any setting that isn’t closely scripted 100% in his favor, just like Algore.
I double-dog dare anyone riding the climate grant gravy train to do what Lord Monckton is doing here, under the same terms and conditions. But you know they won’t. They’re cowards.
Smokey, I don’t see how those graphs you just linked to falsify global warming. The temp is going up, but, more importantly, we would have to look at more data points than just a few major cities.
There are some good reasons why many scientists might not care to do a live debate. Science is not done on the hot seat. It’s easy to lie on the hot seat and sound convincing. To show something accurately requires careful thought and analysis and potentially a very long explanation to an audience that frankly doesn’t care about details. A bunch of blogs have sprung up to try and explain some of the many formal papers that keep getting written. Scientists do science, not perform public debates. It can be hard enough to teach undergraduate students who are not interested in a subject. Now imagine trying to teach a general audience of laypeople who gathers to see fireworks and get a simple to digest answer in a few minutes. Can I ask you why do you have a problem with a debate taking place in non-real time? Science just has never been done in real time. The whole point of science is that lot’s of people have lots of time to digest the material and try to verify it for themselves.
Also, if you want to understand the anger at Monckton, look at how many people appear rather angry and Mann. I’m sure neither of them is getting a fair shake by their greatest critics. People do make mistakes and sometimes even take a few chances in stretching their predictions or not crossing all t’s thinking they are probably correct anyway.
Jose-X says:
“… I don’t see how those graphs you just linked to falsify global warming.”
They do not falsify global warming! Natural global warming has been a fact since the end of the Little Ice Age. What the charts do is falsify the falsified conjecture that the warming is due to an increase in CO2.
The whole issue of AGW/CAGW is a fight over the public’s perception of whether or not they should be alarmed. Public debates resolve this perception. Since CO2 is harmless and beneficial, debates are a good thing. Only cowards and those who don’t have the science backing their alarmism are afraid of debating. Let the public decide after they have heard both sides in a fair and unbiased public debate. Anything else is just an excuse to allow propaganda to dominate. The alarmist crowd wants propaganda; the scientific skeptics want open debate. Which side shall it be? It is an either/or question.
Smokey says:
February 9, 2012 at 8:00 pm
I don’t agree with the criticism of Monckton here. Every human being makes mistakes, but the incessant nitpicking amounts to pointing out the mote in Monckton’s eye, while ignoring the beam in Michael Mann’s eye…………
==========================================
Smoke, it isn’t just confined to Mann. Sure, he’s fun to make fun of, but there’s much more to this than that.
Christopher, failed on his usage of quote marks……… Yes, that’s horrible! Quoting and paraphrasing is important in climatology!!!!
Christopher had the audacity to state what we all already knew about the Himalayan range. Today, it is confirmed. Many people owe him an apology. Including Hadfield.
Chris had the audacity to interpret data from studies on his own…..
Chris had the audacity to point out that the earth hasn’t warmed for quite some time. In fact, I have 5 grandchildren who have never seen the global anomaly rise over a 3 year period of time. Yet, they are indoctrinated that the earth is warming…… yet, in their lifetimes, it hasn’t, it has cooled.
I could and should go on, but I’m a bit tired. At every point of contention Hadfield has mentioned was either wrong or, we worried about something as trivial as quote marks. Christopher loses a point for being grammatically incorrect. I would encourage him to consult prior to writing……. I’m free of charge. 🙂
To me, this was funny….. Hadfield took the time to make a series of videos. 5 of them, Monckton responded, and he has 10 points of contention……. from the 5 videos. But, it’s worse than that…… Chris paraphrased!!!!! Hadfield doesn’t understand the present participle! Nor does he understand subjective vs. objective! And, neither do the people who followed him here.
Which is fine….. in this thread I’ve had people reference works of art and attempted to pass them off as works of physics. These are the types of people we’re dealing with. Rationale and context are beyond them. They are entrenched in the belief that anything which benefits mankind is an aberration and harmful to nature. They are misanthropists and they will live and die being misanthropists.
@Smokey “I don’t agree with the criticism of Monckton here. Every human being makes mistakes.”
Well while that may be true in this case it is not. In talk after talk; presentation after presentation he continues to misstate the facts and the truth. That’s not making a mistake that’s spreading propaganda.
[snip. ~dbs, mod.]
Smokey says:
February 9, 2012 at 8:00 pm
……Maybe people will forget that CO2 is beneficial, not harmful. More is better……….
========================================================================
Yeah, the locals at Lake Nyos reckon its great stuff.
@Smokey and @James Sexton: You two’s, Monckton and many more here are trying desperately to take the focus off the subject at hand. The focus and contention is about Moncton’s inability to stick to the truth. Whether it’s because of sloppyness, fabrication or something else is debateable -but that is at least on topic.
Monckton keep saying “I’m going to give it to you straight”, “we report, you decide”, “what I am striving for here is to reach the truth”, “independently verifiable”… yet he keeps feeding his audience the most bizarre maladjusted quotes. If he has an agenda, it seems to be pretty far off the mark of “truth” which he purports.
As Potholer points out -It’s not an isolated incident, Moncton has a slew of quotes, of some which he even uses a ridiculing voice to say the quote… which wasn’t so!
So, he isn’t giving it “straight”, he isn’t just “reporting” and letting you decide, if he is striving for the truth, and his sources are “independently verifiable” -why doesn’t he source check himself?
All babble about Al Gore and Mann, both which also have clear flaws in their work, are not the contention in this thread, there are multiple other threads here which are suited for those characters.
Let’s not forget that all other points raised by Potholer that Moncton calls “half baked”, will actually remain very baked, served and called delicious until he explain why he obvious blundered big time.
Don’t you guys (Smokey and James Sexton) think it’s pretty silly to call the years 2001-2009 a period of “global cooling” when the trend was just barely deviating from a stand still?
You are going to cling to the “cooling trend” like a kid to his comfort blanket.
If we “global warmers” take it away from you, you will shout and cry “it hasn’t been any global warming for a decade! so! there!” as if that would change the past 100 years of net warming.
Now, in all honesty, what do you guys think of the up and coming solar maximum and coming El Nino cycle? you think you can keep reaching for that blanket? you think it will comfort you in 2012 and 2013?
SPM,
You are a complete dope. Lake Nyos suffocated people with 100% CO2. The atmosphere has 0.00039 CO2. Now run along back to RealClimatePropaganda where they swallow your crap, alarmist fanboi.
And paxmax, I stand by everything I wrote. Your heroes are abject cowards. Prove me wrong: get them to debate, for real. Good luck with that.
LeMorteDeArthur,
Make some sense, dude. Please.
Smokey says:
February 10, 2012 at 1:52 am
But you said CO2 is not harmful and more is better. Make up your mind please.
And I don’t read Real Climate.
And the dope comment, did you learn that from Monckton???
Cheers
SPM says:
February 10, 2012 at 12:21 am
[snip. ~dbs, mod.]
=====================================================================
Nice one dbs!!!!!!
Good to see you’re looking after the boss!!!!!
Cheers
I’d really like to have the opportunity to read the “site policy” that the use of the word “denialist” violates but not “alarmist”, “alarmist fanboi”(sic) or the wild conspiracy theories that the U.N. funds this or that, displaces people and kills them.
It seems the only really aggressive people here are “Smokey” and “James Sexton” who still defend Monckton while never addressing the actual criticism brought forth by Hadfield.
Skepticism is about questioning not affirming, doubting not claiming. People who are happy with conspiracy theories because they read a blog article or a book but never bothered to check the facts are not skeptics. They are (a d-word that violates the site policy).
@ Smokey
As suspected, you are now chasing other people with your whole ‘more CO2 is better’ line, even though I repeatedly falsified this point further up in the comments. The fact that, in spite of overwhelming evidence, you still hold this view, you must surely now be regarded as a ‘believer’ rather than a rational commentator on this subject.
Your inability to state a testable hypothesis combined with your garbled understanding of the scientific method brings to mind the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect]Dunning-Kruger Effect[/url].
[snip . . what is the point of that?]
I’ve had two comments moderated out of existence. Both were polite and pertinent, although they did criticize Monckton – what is going on?
James Sexton says:
February 9, 2012 at 10:13 pm
“Christopher, failed on his usage of quote marks……… Yes, that’s horrible! Quoting and paraphrasing is important in climatology!!!!”
-Where did Christopher do this? And where did Hadfield make a point about it?-
“Christopher had the audacity to state what we all already knew about the Himalayan range. Today, it is confirmed. Many people owe him an apology. Including Hadfield.”
-So we now know that there has been no change in the Himalayan glaciers for the last 200 years?-
“Chris had the audacity to interpret data from studies on his own…..”
-Are you saying that a peer reviewed paper that is well understood and excepted by the scientific community can be interpreted by Monckton, given a completely different conclusion to what the paper states and its ok? Or are you saying Monckton did his own studies that are not peer reviewed and came to a conclusion that is different to actual peer reviewed work?-
“Chris had the audacity to point out that the earth hasn’t warmed for quite some time. In fact, I have 5 grandchildren who have never seen the global anomaly rise over a 3 year period of time. Yet, they are indoctrinated that the earth is warming…… yet, in their lifetimes, it hasn’t, it has cooled.”
-Monckton clearly cherry picks a seven year cooling section and states its statistically significant. Climate looks at 30 year trends and if you look at the temperature records over the last 70 years, there have been many instances where it has had a cooling period (http://tinyurl.com/5sbf3kd). At present is not even a cooling period. A 3 year climate change?-
“I could and should go on, but I’m a bit tired. At every point of contention Hadfield has mentioned was either wrong or, we worried about something as trivial as quote marks. Christopher loses a point for being grammatically incorrect. I would encourage him to consult prior to writing……. I’m free of charge. :-)”
-I would assume you have had a good sleep by the time you have read this comment, will you be pointing out how Hadfield’s every point other then quotes are wrong?-
“To me, this was funny….. Hadfield took the time to make a series of videos. 5 of them, Monckton responded, and he has 10 points of contention……. from the 5 videos. But, it’s worse than that…… Chris paraphrased!!!!! Hadfield doesn’t understand the present participle! Nor does he understand subjective vs. objective! And, neither do the people who followed him here.”
-Hadfield had to systematically go through and debunk 21 mistakes made by Monckton.-
“Which is fine….. in this thread I’ve had people reference works of art and attempted to pass them off as works of physics. These are the types of people we’re dealing with. Rationale and context are beyond them. They are entrenched in the belief that anything which benefits mankind is an aberration and harmful to nature. They are misanthropists and they will live and die being misanthropists”
“So you think that increasing CO2 concentrations in the ocean is a good thing? And the debate is not over regarding positive/negative feedback systems. “Benefits Mankind” is a far stretch of the imagination.”
DaNims says:
February 10, 2012 at 3:10 am
I’d really like to have the opportunity to read the “site policy” that the use of the word “denialist” violates but not “alarmist”,
==================================================
Interesting….. what do you prefer? Warmist? I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but, I use the term alarmist, because many seem alarmed at the near 1 degree rise in temps.. I’d use warmist, but, I think warming in beneficial, as history clearly shows. So descriptively, I’d be a warmist.
The term denialist is objected to because it conjures images of Holocaust deniers, and is an intentional pejorative.
“DaNims says:
February 10, 2012 at 3:10 am
I’d really like to have the opportunity to read the “site policy” that the use of the word “denialist” violates but not “alarmist”, “alarmist fanboi”(sic) or the wild conspiracy theories that the U.N. funds this or that, displaces people and kills them.”
DaNimas: The policy can be read from the main menu above at About->Policy.
And yes, it really does specifically disallow “denialist” and “denier”, but mentions no other specific pejoratives. It does generally disallow personal attacks in the same section, but between the fact that the only “personal attacks” specifically mentioned are “denialist” and “denier”, and the completely unequal application of said rule allowing several posters and Monckton himself free reign to use “personal attacks” like “alarmist” and “caveman” wantonly, I believe the bias of this website and it’s moderators are on full display for all to see.
And they want us to call them “skeptics”.
Smokey says:
February 9, 2012 at 9:36 pm
“What the charts do is falsify the falsified conjecture that the warming is due to an increase in CO2.”
-Even if you consider the skeptical climate sensitive value of 1°C for a doubling of CO2 “0.27°C/(W/m2)”, the increase in atmospheric CO2 over the past 150 years would still account for over half of the observed 0.8°C increase in surface temperature. You need to back up your claims with science http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/publications/meehl_additivity.pdf –
@James Sexton
Surely you’ll agree that being alarmed is quite different to being an alarmist and I’ve read very little alarmist stuff in the comments if any and certainly none in Hadfield’s reply to Monckton.
While I appreciate the pejorative aspect of linking denial to the denying of the Holocaust, someone who doesn’t want to accept a theory that has been documented and observed following the scientific method, and goes as far as twisting facts and misquoting articles to fit his idea is still a denier, be it of the Holocaust, evolution or the effect of burning huge amount of fossil fuel on global climate.
If you can come up with a better term, I’d be happy to use it, but “skeptic” sure isn’t it.
Smokey, a real-time debate would have the contestants speaking past each other as each would come armed with a list of papers to quote that the other contestant likely wouldn’t recognize and surely not have memorized. Plus, science evolves as a group project. The person who is in a position to redo an experiment and rebuttal any given paper likely won’t be whoever is chosen as the contestant. Of course, if people want to debate in real-time that is fine with me, but that is not science. Scientists and anyone taking the time to study an issue aren’t convinced because of a 30 minute performance.
Imagine a spelling bee contest where other contestants make up spellings on the spot by invoking different dialects of English spoken in different cities or by different families. That would be a mess, even though the spelling of a word is much much MUCH easier to verify than to read a full paper and verify its results.
Smokey, what evidence do you present that CO2 in increasing amounts in the atmosphere is good for people? [Don’t mean to invoke a long discussion, but can you give me an idea?]
Paxmax says:
February 10, 2012 at 1:06 am
……
Let’s not forget that all other points raised by Potholer that Moncton calls “half baked”, will actually remain very baked, served and called delicious until he explain why he obvious blundered big time.
Don’t you guys (Smokey and James Sexton) think it’s pretty silly to call the years 2001-2009 a period of “global cooling” when the trend was just barely deviating from a stand still?
You are going to cling to the “cooling trend” like a kid to his comfort blanket.
If we “global warmers” take it away from you, you will shout and cry “it hasn’t been any global warming for a decade! so! there!” as if that would change the past 100 years of net warming.
Now, in all honesty, what do you guys think of the up and coming solar maximum and coming El Nino cycle? you think you can keep reaching for that blanket? you think it will comfort you in 2012 and 2013?
=======================================================
Read up….. … instead of listening to what someone says about what someone says…. go to the source. Look at things in their entirety and not some video clip taken out of context.
A stand still? I’ve produced that several times already… this will be the last time. This confirms what I thought was occurring. Alarmists aren’t reading the responses. Tell me this is barely deviating from a stand still…… http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/to:2009/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/to:2009/trend No, tell me, what is the century trend we keep hearing about?
lol, the next El Nino? You haven’t been at this, long have you? Extending the 2001-2009 graph to include the 2010 El Nino…. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/to:2010.75/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/to:2010.75/trend
Of course all of this misses the point. What was true when Monckton stated in 2009 is still true today. The earth isn’t responding to increased CO2 as was posited. The theory is falsified. But, if you want to see a flat line, just go back to 1997. During this time period the atmospheric CO2 has increased by 35 ppm ….. and nothing….. zippo…. nade…. You’re asking me what I think is silly? What I think is silly is worrying about a warmer world. History clearly shows warmer is more beneficial to humanity. So, to the next El Nino, I say “please come”! The sooner the better!
.
DaNims says:
February 10, 2012 at 6:00 am
@James Sexton
Surely you’ll agree that being alarmed is quite different to being an alarmist and I’ve read very little alarmist stuff in the comments if any and certainly none in Hadfield’s reply to Monckton.
While I appreciate the pejorative aspect of linking denial to the denying of the Holocaust, someone who doesn’t want to accept a theory that has been documented and observed following the scientific method, and goes as far as twisting facts and misquoting articles to fit his idea is still a denier, be it of the Holocaust, evolution or the effect of burning huge amount of fossil fuel on global climate.
If you can come up with a better term, I’d be happy to use it, but “skeptic” sure isn’t it.
===========================================================
“documented and observed following the scientific method”
spilt coffee all over my keyboard on that one….. there isn’t any scientific methodology being used to support the claim that we are catastrophically warming because we invented SUVs.
In fact, as Christopher pointed out, we’re not warming at all. And we haven’t been, in spite of your angst about “fossil” fuels. But, this isn’t unprecedented……. and there is no twisting of the facts. CO2 isn’t driving our climate. It never has and it never will. CO2 correlates with an unprecedented era of prosperity for humanity. Nothing more, nothing less.
major9985>> the increase in atmospheric CO2 over the past 150 years would still account for over half of the observed 0.8°C increase in surface temperature.
Yes. Specifically, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere in the last half of the latter century got to the top of historical levels, at least of when solar irradiance was not too different than today (of the past few millions of years and clearly higher than the last few hundred thousand as seen here http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1c/Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr.png/380px-Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr.png ). And most of this extra CO2 came from man as shown in the second graph here http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hall_03/ . The fossil fuel burning data comes from various paths I think (including carbon isotope analysis and US economics data of oil and related markets).
And imagine 100 years from now if CO2 releases keep growing at this rate. [I have hope we will find economic ways to sequester some of that released CO2, but we need research and time.]
That accumulation of CO2 is shown alongside temp and solar irradiance here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Temp-sunspot-co2.svg , where we can see that temp deviates uncharacteristically from solar irradiance.
A lot of this data came first and from distinct paths before climate scientists at large really latched on to CO2 as the culprit (some history here http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm ).
The scientific debate is never fully settled (and certainly not in the minds of the general population), but enough people who look towards most probable cause and effect relationships and understand or trust the math and physics built into various models have agreed CO2 should be taken seriously (and there are many distinct models of varying sophistication which generally support the greenhouse effect, which is very consistent with lots of data accumulated through spectroscopy and used in a lot of other fields of science and engineering and fundamentally supported by established quantum mechanics). There is a die we cast each day about risks/costs that will affect our descendants. If we don’t want to trust fully a large body of experts studying this issue, we should at least meet them part way even if we aren’t personally convinced.
major9985 says:
February 10, 2012 at 5:18 am
James Sexton says:
February 9, 2012 at 10:13 pm
Sigh,…. so lengthy and senseless…… point by point….
1…. read up
2….. “-So we now know that there has been no change in the Himalayan glaciers for the last 200 years?-“ Now, see, this is beautiful…. warmists come here accusing Monckton of twist facts… blah blah….. and we get this madness….. Who said anything about 200 years? And who is it that has determined the earth shouldn’t be altered by coming out of the LIA? That’s a vapid point. The area of Chicago used to be under a mountain of ice….. are we concerned that it isn’t there any longer?
3. Yes, people can look at other people’s data and interpret it differently. In real science, that happens all the time. You guys and gals need to get over the use of the term “peer reviewed” Your using it as a euphemism of truth. It isn’t. In fact, it has been demonstrated that the peer review process was manipulated and hijacked. But, even if it hadn’t been, it still isn’t anything but a fallacious argument tactic called “an appeal to authority”. Look it up.
4. “Climate looks at 30 year trends…” Really? Who says? But, if that is accepted, then I’ve falsified the thought that CO2 drives our temps…… http://suyts.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/30-years-is-needed-to-confirm-the-null-hypothesis/ Really, the CO2 conjecture is a vacant posit.
5. “I would assume you have had a good sleep by the time you have read this comment, will you be pointing out how Hadfield’s every point other then quotes are wrong?” Again, read up…… this is very tedious to repeat myself over, and over and over again.
6. “-Hadfield had to systematically go through and debunk 21 mistakes made by Monckton.” No, he did not. Above, you’ll see only 10 points he attempted to make. I have addressed nearly all of them at one time or another in this thread. Hadfield started with the temps, and he was clearly wrong, and he just got worse thereafter. If you can find fault with my previously mentioned points, feel free to expose them or bring them to my attention, I’d be more than happy to address them. If you think any of the 10 point Peter brought up hasn’t been adequately addressed, again feel free to bring them up…. we address them. but they been asked and answered.
7.“So you think that increasing CO2 concentrations in the ocean is a good thing? And the debate is not over regarding positive/negative feedback systems. “Benefits Mankind” is a far stretch of the imagination.” …… sigh…. where did you pull that out from? Go here, you may pick up something about CO2 concentrations http://suyts.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/new-information-demonstrates-why-alarmist-scientists-can-not-be-trusted/ The ocean’s mechanisms to deal with CO2 is more than adequate.
James Sexton, I looked at the graph from 2001 to 2009 that you linked.
Two points. First, one source of argument is that different people rely on different data sets, and these show slightly different things. Is there a reason why you aren’t using the BEST http://berkeleyearth.org/analysis/ dataset?
Second, even using your dataset, the trend is not spectacular and is also not statistically significant (too short in time), especially in the context of this http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=47 which shows that there are many cycles and many downward trends in temp despite the overriding upward trend, but I agree that we always have to pause and take note.
Anyway, as concerns this topic, your graph helps point out perhaps why Monckton made that comment. Other graphs help explain the Hadfield rebuttal.
>> The earth isn’t responding to increased CO2 as was posited. The theory is falsified.
[In summary form..] what evidence are you putting forward to go against what most scientists believe and teach all over the world?
>> During this time period the atmospheric CO2 has increased by 35 ppm ….. and nothing….. zippo…. nade…
This would only make sense if the only control of temperature were CO2, and clearly that is false.
Let me ask you this, have you ever played around in a river or in a beach with a net current “sideways” where after playing or just swimming in any old direction after a while, you would notice a net drift in that sideways direction? In the short term, when you decided to move north, you could, and likewise you could move to the east, west, and south. Despite this, there was a net drift. Now, I am sure you can come up with many more examples that show that a net force can result in a net movement in one direction, even if in addition there are many cycling forces (eg, that add up to zero over the long term).
We have the sun primarily setting the temperature, but CO2 gives a net “drift” that is noticed in addition to the sun and over the long term despite all the weather oscillation patterns (eg, with heat interchanged between atmosphere and oceans).
Also, if this net drift were very small (think of CO2 emissions decades back.. and you can peak at some of the links/charts I gave), that signal might not really be discerned among the much stronger solar signal, but it’s possible that eventually the CO2 signal would be clearer. This is possible, right?
How can you have so much confidence that CO2 is bogus? [Maybe you are a contrarian and really like to go against what all the top universities are teaching students.]
@James Sexton
“there isn’t any scientific methodology being used to support the claim that we are catastrophically warming because we invented SUVs.”
No, there’s not. Its not what I’m talking about.
I’m talking about people who say things like “CO2 isn’t driving our climate. It never has and it never will” completely ignoring the many science articles that show otherwise and effectively dismissing any further research on the subject.
(http://www.scirus.com/srsapp/search?q=Co2+climate+correlation&t=all&sort=0&g=s)
Anyhow, still off-topic from the Monckton-Hadfield discussion and still missing a term to replace the d-bomb.
Smoky wrote: Ridiculous. You can learn more here, and you will read both sides of the debate, not just the sanitized views coming out of the journal industry. Modern peer review is a big money construct. If Albert Einstein had to deal with today’s journals he would have a difficult time getting published, because he was well outside the “consensus”.
Prove to me that the peer review is all that you say it is. Because, you’ve been told not to trust meteorologists, astrophysicists, geologists, all of them (thousands of them around the world in cooperation to falsify data) because of your reasoning taught to you by others instead of proof that the data they present is wrong? No, Smokey. Peer review is the only way to understand the data.
I question your understanding of the value of the peer review in todays journals when Mockton was clearly repeating false data (caught with his pants down) over and over again. If you are interested in honesty. Watch potholers series, don’t just speed through them, and listen to it. Then, come back and tell me you understand why people are fed up with Mockton’s constant misrepresentation of the data.
FYI: I watched Mockton’s lectures in their entirety and I looked up the charts and data he presented myself Did you watch Potholer’s vids on the data Mockton presented without zipping through it to hear what you wanted? If you want truth, you have to take the time out of your busy schedule to listen to both sides in its entirety. Admitting that you don’t do that is a huge step in first learning that you have bias. I follow no one. I only go by the scientific data, because it has to be falsified as scientists cannot use bias or science doesn’t work. The peer review is the ONLY way to find out the truth.
@SPM says: February 10, 2012 at 3:00 am
100% O2 is also fatal. Are we now to classify O2 as a toxic gas?
Debating Monckton
See the first minute or so of minutes of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTY3FnsFZ7Q .
DirkH says:
“It’s a propaganda war, probably financed by Big Green.”
Who has a hand in Big Green? Who’s making money off of it? I can tell you, not much compared to oil companies profits. “Oil companies are spending hundreds of millions to convince the public they are investing in renewable energy and cleaner fuels, but also simultaneously trying to weaken and slow down clean fuel standards.” See analysis showing that Oil Companies’ Investments in Dirty Fuels Outpacing Clean Fuels by Fifty Times here: http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/smui/oil_companies_investments_in_d.html
DirkH, I own land in which I earn residuals off of oil. I am no dummy when it comes to making money. But, the reality of these articles are clear when you read them and follow the evidence.
James Sexton>> “an appeal to authority”
A bit of humility would lead one to think that perhaps “me” and the people who have looked at this problem for a short period of time might just be missing something. For many years, scientists at large ignored this problem or found it difficult to make headway. Then simple models started popping up. Understandably, the people starting out on the journey a short time ago will trod through some of the path already inspected by those who focus on this issue.
Really, while I would like to avoid pointing out who else agrees with X side or other, to some extent you should pause and wonder if perhaps you haven’t yet analyzed as much of the picture as has the typical professional in this field. Could all of those universities be wrong in so many ways or so focused on fooling the rest of the world and their students? Maybe .. but the burden should be placed on “my” shoulders to go and seek out clarity in their position.
Let me ask, have you taken several advanced courses in physics and climate science? If you haven’t, you should stop and reconsider. If you have, then feel free to provide your pov. I’m that much more interested.
>> Who said anything about 200 years?
Monckton.
It’s true I did not hear the whole speech so don’t know the context. Do you have more tape that might demonstrate Monckton was talking about something else?
>> Yes, people can look at other people’s data and interpret it differently.
True, although some of Hadfield’s videos do show Monckton apparently confused about terminology and what the papers actually say (even making claims that the author meant x when the author denies such).
This contrasts with someone who understands a paper and then points out why the paper’s conclusions likely doesn’t follow. This last part is not what the videos show Monckton doing.
>> 4.
I addressed the point very recently (in one of my very last comments) that a short term temperature series doesn’t prove CO2 does not warm — CO2 is not the only driver!
And one challenging accepted theory also has to explain how spectroscopic results and quantum theory would be wrong or not produce greenhouse effect as concerns our atmosphere. Note that you can disagree over the equations that control our atmosphere’s temperature without denying the entirety of accepted greenhouse effect, but IMO to just say CO2 doesn’t warm is not going to fly among the many scientists and engineers that understand quantum mechanics and have been coming up with lots of discoveries in the lab.
>> The ocean’s mechanisms to deal with CO2 is more than adequate.
I’ll repeat a link from a little earlier http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hall_03/ . It is titled, “Can Ocean Carbon Uptake Keep Pace with Industrial Emissions?”
..on my last comment > Monckton. .. video..
I didn’t realize the blog would embed the link to youtube I provided. In the url, I placed the time location. Start watching from minute 10 second 15.
Jose_X says:
February 10, 2012 at 7:50 am
James Sexton, I looked at the graph from 2001 to 2009 that you linked.
Two points. First, one source of argument is that different people rely on different data sets, and these show slightly different things. Is there a reason why you aren’t using the BEST http://berkeleyearth.org/analysis/ dataset?
==================================================
Yes, there is a reason. Berkeley’s analysis is not yet complete. Further, their data hasn’t updated since about Feb 2010. Additionally, Berkeley is a land only analysis. Which, I thought was cute of SkS to forget to highlight this to their readers. Anyone using that data set is either ignorant of these facts or are intentionally misleading their readers. Continuing on with the SkS graphic, notice the length in years they’ve pointed out. 10 years is the longest length of time of flat temp periods. Notice, I’ve pointed out 15 years. But, we don’t have to just look at the most recent example…. we’ve got a duration of 70years in the past with inclining atmospheric CO2 levels and temps that didn’t increase. There’s a word for what is occurring, coincident comes to mind.
You then ask,
The answer, of course, is in their own silly discourse. The effects of atmospheric CO2 is suppose to be logarithmic. So, your posit about when we had less emissions isn’t correct. Because it is closer to the previous doubling rather than the next…… so the increases in the past, while less in volume, were suppose to carry more potency.
I don’t dwell in academia, but, I’m not sure what is stated by some of the more excitable scientists is really being taught in our universities. My stepson is taking a physics course at the moment. Nowhere in his text do I find these outrageous posits though the text does delve into spectrometry and radiative forcing. Please note, I don’t challenge the idea that CO2 absorbs and then re-emits energy. I’m simply stating its isn’t significant enough to matter. As you’ve stated, there are many mechanisms which go towards the makeup of our climate.
I hope I was clear enough to answer your questions.
James Sexton says:
February 10, 2012 at 7:25 am
“read up”
-I have read ever comment and debunk done by Hadfield and at no time is the use of “quote marks” referenced as a mistake that Monckton made.-
“Who said anything about 200 years?”
-To blindly take the stance that everything Monckton has said was true without even looking at the facts, show a lot about someone.-
“Yes, people can look at other people’s data and interpret it differently.”
-No they cant, they have to prove it. In relation to Moncktons claim from Ola Johannessen paper, it was not even an interpretation it was a complete fabrication of the results.
“Really? Who says?”
-No one says it. It’s a guideline as a minimum, something I see you don’t understand. And just like everyone points out on your page, there could be a 60 year cooling period, but if it is due to large volcano eruptions then it has to be taken into account. Your childish claims that you have falsified CO2 as a driver of temps is ridicules.-
“ Again, read up…… this is very tedious to repeat myself over, and over and over again.”
-Point out one then, you clearly claim you have debunked every point Hadfield has made “except the quotes”. Should not be hard for you.-
“No, he did not. Above, you’ll see only 10 points he attempted to make.”
-Are you serious? Have not watched any of Hadfields videos? You only have to watch the last one that summarises all the 21 mistakes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRCyctTvuCo . Like I said before, you are blinded with blind faith. The insane thing is Monckton even goes on to make up more outrageous claims to try and manoeuvre around all his mistakes. This literally nearly doubles the amount of mistakes Hadfield debunks. And if you ACTUALLY watched the videos you would know-this.
“…… sigh…. where did you pull that out from?”
-I explain that the debate over climate sensitivity is not over and your claim that CO2 benefits mankind is a figment of your imagination, and your reply is “sigh”?-
“ The ocean’s mechanisms to deal with CO2 is more than adequate.”
-And what do you base that claim on? Because some corals are growing faster. It is the food chain which is of concern “Nature, Reduced Calcification of Marine Phytoplankton in Response to Increased Atmospheric CO2, Issue 407 p.364 -367” –
lljames says:
“Peer review is the only way to understand the data… The peer review is the ONLY way to find out the truth.”
You didn’t understand a word I wrote. Did you? You didn’t read my links, or Montford’s devastating exposé of Mann and his clique. Did you? Climate peer review has been thoroughly corrupted. But your mind is made up and closed tight. You believe the false propaganda that the media and the climate alarmist charlatans spoon-feed you. Don’t you?
. . .
DaNims,
“…a real-time debate would have the contestants speaking past each other.” Just as I predicted: Excuses. A debate isn’t about the debaters, it is about convincing the public. The alarmist contingent lacks verifiable facts, thus they cannot convince the public of their impending doom scenarios.
. . .
@Tom (@renegade4dio),
WUWT is the most un-censored climate site on the internet. You’re nitpicking because you don’t agree with the site’s Policy page. Fine. Start your own blog. Good luck with that.
. . .
LeMorteDeArthur,
Thanx for you un-cited opinion. Read the post right before yours to see how little your nitpicking matters.
. . .
Jose_X says:
“Smokey, what evidence do you present that CO2 in increasing amounts in the atmosphere is good for people?”
Happy to help educate you. And to the alarmist contingent, pay attention here:
click1
click2
click3
click4
click5
click6
click7
[More on request.] Increased CO2 is absolutely a net benefit to the biosphere. More is better. There is no downside at current and projected concentrations. You have been fed a pack of lies by people demonizing “carbon” for their own self-serving interests. If you can prove global harm per the scientific method, due specifically to CO2, I’ll sit up straight and pay attention. Because you will be the first to be able to show any such proof. CO2 is harmless and beneficial to the biosphere [which includes humans]. No global harm = harmless, see? And beneficial, because in a world where one-third of the population subsists on less than $2 a day, more food is beneficial because it helps avert death by starvation. See? Or are you a media lemming, immune to these verifiable facts?
And you ask: “Is there a reason why you aren’t using the BEST dataset?” The BEST data set has been artificially “adjusted” to give a scary hockey stick shape. But that false adjustment has been debunked.
. . .
major9985 says:
“Even if you consider the skeptical climate sensitive value of 1°C for a doubling of CO2 “0.27°C/(W/m2)”, the increase in atmospheric CO2 over the past 150 years would still account for over half of the observed 0.8°C increase in surface temperature.”
So what?? Just as an increase in CO2 is beneficial, an increase in global warmth is beneficial. More warming would open up millions of arable acres in places like Siberia, Canada, Mongolia, Alaska, etc., to farming. In a world where one third of the population barely gets enough to eat, warming would be entirely beneficial. The planet has been much warmer in the past, when the biosphere thrived. Really, people have been so spoon-fed with wild-eyed alarmist propaganda that they can’t think straight.
major9985 says to James Sexton:
“I explain that… your claim that CO2 benefits mankind is a figment of your imagination, and your reply is “sigh”?”
That would be my response, too. See the 7 links in my post above. CO2 absolutely benefits mankind and the rest of the biosphere, which would not exist without it. The biosphere is currently starved of CO2, and even if CO2 levels doubled, they would be at historically low levels. But the public has been fed such a bunch of lies demonizing “carbon” that they eventually just become unthinking head-nodders motivated by blind faith in scientific charlatans.
You also question the verifiable statement: “The ocean’s mechanisms to deal with CO2 is more than adequate.” by asking:
“And what do you base that claim on?”
It is tedious educating one scientific illiterate at a time, over and over again. But I’m here to help: The ocean has an essentially infinite buffering capacity. It can take all the CO2 in the atmosphere, doubled and squared, and the pH needle would not even move. This has been shown repeatedly. Do a search of the WUWT archives, keywords Middleton and Eschenbach, for several articles that destroy the whole notion of the “ocean acidification” scare. I’d do the search for you, but you will learn better if you put some effort into it yourself.
Now you may return to your life’s passin in your mom’s basement: ad hom attacks against Monckton. And as you can see, that’s safer than pretending you’re up to speed on the science.
. . .
FaceFirst challenged me to produce a testable hypothesis. I’ve been posting the following hypothesis for months without any refutation, credible or otherwise:
At current and projected concentrations, CO2 is harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere.
OK FaceFirst, using the scientific method and emprical, testable facts, try to falsify that hypothesis. If you can. You will be the first to even try.
Finally, I note that Phil Joseph Juliansen has disappeared without providing the Mann chart in AR-4 that he claimed he could produce. Bye, Phil.☺
[SNIP: Over the Top rant. Tone it down. -REP]
@Smokey, you wrote :
<>
I’m afraid your response to me was in fact to someone else…
I know you feel that global warming opens up the world to more farming. But, you are leaving out the oceanic conveyor. Once that stops flowing from the Arctic, the places where we do enjoy temperate climate and farming will be gone. So, there will be an exchange. Not more of it.
You can’t criticize any of Monckton’s claims!!
How dare you people!
He’s a self-proclaimed Lord that has created a cure for AIDs and nearly everything else.
Everything he says should be treated as holy scripture!
Shame on you “alarmists”(Curious here.. Saw a mod “snip” and chastise a person for using the pejorative “denialist” but seems to be permitted to say “alarmist”.. why is that?), you just need FAITH! The Lord[Monckton] works in mysterious ways…
DaNims,
My apologies. That was Jose_X’s comment.
moffie,
The only way the ocean currents will stop is due to an obstruction. They are a response to the 2nd Law, and move to even out temperature differences, the same reason the jet streams exist. But hey, it’s a pretty good scare story!
I call out Monckton, who [SNIP: That is a rant, too. Drop the pejoratives or continue to get snipped. -REP]
James Sexton >> Berkeley is a land only analysis … Anyone using that data set is either ignorant of these facts or …
Call me ignorant of that fact, but satellite doesn’t imply better. Each method has pros and minuses. Looking at as many trees as possible up close vs looking broadly at the forest. The forest view has positives but is more challenging to discern the detail at the highest level. More specifically, I think I recently read that satellite coverage of the pole(s) is weak.
Anyway, my main point was to point out that each side in this debate, on this question of trending of temperatures in the last decade, has backing. I’d call it a draw on that point.
Monckton was not doing 15 years, and 15 is surely better than say 10 or 8; however, neither is as good as 30. But why not 50 or 100, right? I don’t know the full answer, but too few years is statistically meaningless. Too many and we have a scenario far removed from current driving conditions. Anyway, I’ll skip this question for now, as I don’t really have a good answer.
>> we’ve got a duration of 70years in the past with inclining atmospheric CO2 levels and temps that didn’t increase … The effects of atmospheric CO2 is suppose to be logarithmic.
Let’s eyeball this graph (repeat link) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Temp-sunspot-co2.svg
From 1850 to 1900 it appears CO2 grew by about 295/285 or 3.5%. From 1900 to 1950, we get 310/295 or 5%. From 1950 to 2000, we get 370/310 19.5%. So far from 2000 to 2012 we have 393/370 or 6%. That 6% in 2 years represents 30% (if we keep this rate) or 50%+ (if we keep accelerating similarly to the past) for the 2000 to 2050 period.
Summarized:
1850 – 1900: 295/285 = 3.5%
1900 – 1950: 310/295 = 5%
1950 – 2000: 370/310 = 19.5%
2000 – 2050: 480/370 – 555+/370 = 30% – 50%+ ?
>> so the increases in the past, while less in volume, were suppose to carry more potency.
As you can probably see above, this wouldn’t be true. The more recent the increases, the greater is the geometric (not just arithmetic) rate. In other words, our instantaneous doubling life (in the sense of “half life”) is getting shorter.
Notice I calculated rates relative to the prior step and not to the original base period. So, FWIW, if I had used the common base period, I’d get these values.
1850 – 1900: 295/285 = 3.5%
1850 – 1950: 310/285 = 9%
1850 – 2000: 370/285 = 30%
1850 – 2050: 480/285 – 555+/285 = 68.5% – 94.5%+ ?
>> Please note, I don’t challenge the idea that CO2 absorbs and then re-emits energy. I’m simply stating its isn’t significant enough to matter.
I want to point something out.
Our intuition can be wrong. When we do the correct math, we can end up surprising ourselves. The prior example of CO2 growth calculations was an example of thinking past rates were more potent but then realizing otherwise [I’ll assume for the moment that you will agree with this last example.] It seems the gut was wrong.
I do wonder if we did the correct math for the greenhouse effect if in fact we would get something negligible like .0001 K or something like 1000K or something in between like say 3K … for a doubling of CO2 at current rates.
OK, let me put it in a different way. On many occasions, Monckton has been found to be factually inaccurate regarding the presentation of scientific data and personal information, such as his claim of being a Nobel Laureate, which unambiguously appeared on his personal website while being provably nonfactual. It would be advisable to take his presentations with regard to climate change, a field in which he has no formal qualifications, with extreme caution.
[REPLY: Thank you. -REP]
Jose_X says:
February 10, 2012 at 10:48 am
James Sexton >> Berkeley is a land only analysis … Anyone using that data set is either ignorant of these facts or …
Call me ignorant of that fact, but satellite doesn’t imply better.
==================================================
Jose, I’m sorry, I wasn’t clear. I wasn’t calling you ignorant, but, rather the people who used the data set in an attempt to show something. And I really wasn’t calling SkS ignorant, either. I wish I had more time at the moment, but sadly I’m busy at work. I just wanted to be sure and clear that up.
“I do wonder if we did the correct math for the greenhouse effect if in fact we would get something negligible like .0001 K or something like 1000K or something in between like say 3K … for a doubling of CO2 at current rates.”
We have to first determine how much additional IR would be absorbed by additional CO2 which would not already be absorbed by other gases like… say H2O…… for the bands that also get absorbed by H2O, they’ve already hit their saturation point.
I realized after posting the last comment that you may (or may not) gain from a more detailed analysis.
Version 1:
The question is whether the rate is exponential, faster or slower.
Let’s look at the 3 values 3.5%, 5%, and 19.5%.
The generic exponential is y=k^x. This curve has just one variable.
Using 3.5%, we get that y_2/y_1 = (k^x_2)/(k^x_1) = 1.035. Since I eyeballed using unit steps of 50 years, that will be the x_delta.
1.035 = (k^x_2)/(k^x_1) = k^(x_2-x_1) = k^x_delta.
Using the next value, we have
1.05 = (k^x_3)/(k^x_2) = k^(x_3-x_2) = k^x_delta.
Similarly, the third step will give
1.195 = (k^x_4)/(k^x_3) = k^(x_4-x_3) = k^x_delta.
Now, we can formally solve for the k in each of the 3 cases, but we don’t have to bother to plug in the 50 year value to know that the k in step 3 is greater than in step 2 which is greater than in step 1.
So, if the rate of growth had been exponential (k^x), we would have found the same k value in each case. We see that the rate is greater than exponential.
And let’s just make sure that a logarithm is the inverse function of an exponential.
log base b of (k^x) = x times log base b of k.
If b and k are the same, then we get just x [Ie, log(b,k) = 1 if b and k are the same). x is exactly what we are supposed to get if we calculate the inverse of a function of x. In other words, g(f(x)) = x, whenever g is the inverse of f.
This is not a clean proof, of course, so ..
Version 2:
.. let’s consider another view while we leverage the above calculations.
1850 – 1900: log (C_2/C_1) = x_delta log k_1 = log 1.035
1900 – 1900: log (C_3/C_2) = x_delta log k_2 = log 1.05
1950 – 2000: log (C_4/C_3) = x_delta log k_3 = log 1.195
This shows that log k_1 < log k_2 < log k_3, no matter what the base is of the logarithmic function [by convention, the base is likely either 10 or e or 2].
In other words, each succeeding step had a logarithmic value of the ratio of growth that was greater than the prior. And this logarithm of the ratio of growth of CO2 is the Arrhenius relationship I think you are talking about. We see that this logarithmic value was greater in each succeeding 50 year period. And we anticipate we'll get again a larger value for the 2000 – 2050 period.
James Sexton, I should have been more clear myself that I understood you weren’t attacking me. It is true, I am ignorant of many points. Googling, it seems HadCRU is a mix of land and satellite, so after they get updated, I’ll consider using those values when referencing.. at least if I have a handy link and the exact values are important to the conversation.
Smokey says:
February 10, 2012 at 9:59 am
“So what??”
-The debate is if climate sensitivity is positive or negative. Everything else you say is pointless nonsense smokey. And of cause you continue this pointless garbage whenever you can as you try and back up others claims of it being beneficial to mankind. I have already explained to you before I would not get into this crazy debate with you, CO2 is plant food, BUT its also a greenhouse gas that is warming the planet. Skeptics say by 1C, many say more, this is what is being debated. Go back to your garden and leave this debate to the adults.
And I can explain why you cant reference anything regarding ocean acidification, is because your wrong. Between 1751 and 1994 surface ocean pH is estimated to have decreased from approximately 8.25 to 8.14, representing an increase of almost 30% in “acidity” http://www.agu.org/journals/ABS/2005/2004JD005220.shtml –
I’ll also postpone a conversation on CO2 saturation. The accepted view is that this is not a major issue. We get a hint of this by doing a simple shell model of the atmosphere and adding more and more shells (think of each shell as a sweater). The result is that, with each additional shell, if all else remains equal (and in our atmosphere all else will not be equal.. but that is another point), the temperature of the surface would be greater.
The intuition is that if a given amount of absorption happens lower in the atmosphere because the concentration is greater (Beer Lambert law suggests doubling the concentration would lead to the same absorption at half the distance), then we can model the whole atmosphere as having extra shells. Overall, there is more energy absorbed that otherwise would radiate into space right away. An oven analogy would be like adding more layers to the oven.. meaning less heat escapes for a given input power. We can even use a mirrors analogy (eg, a 50% reflection 50% transmission mirror at IR range) to see that we are bouncing more photons back at the planet if we add more layers of mirrors, with the next layer out sending back a fraction of transmitted photons that otherwise would leave to space earlier.
If the energy is not in space, it is concentrated here in the atmosphere. The temp rises until the outgoing rate (after surface temp increase by “back radiation” and subsequent reductions via the extra shells/sweaters/insulations/mirrors) matches the relatively constant and ongoing input rate provided by the sun.
If the sun were to stop shining, then ghg would merely slow down dissipation towards 0K, but the slow down effect leads to higher temperatures because the sun keeps adding the same dose over and over and over at the same steady rate.. again, an oven analogy helps.. where equilibrium is reached only after the inside cavity has gotten so hot that the amount escaping matches the input power (by electricity).
And “back radiation” is real (measurements exist all over the world and are consistent, at near ground level, with the Trenberth diagrams). It can be measured leveraging the effect of thermocouplers. See for example the exercise at the bottom of this page http://mit.edu/16.unified/www/FALL/thermodynamics/notes/node136.html , where we see that blocking the line of radiation path does lead to a lower temperature than if we don’t block the line of sight (and yes, convection is what regulates temp efficiently despite different bodies receiving different net doses of IR radiation).
Also, it is possible that a box with glass or instead with Seran wrap will have very similar temperatures inside when exposed to the sun (and assuming well conduction and convection insulation)… as in the Woods experiment or as done by N Nahle. Which of the two boxes gets hotter depends on the exact properties and setup, but while the glass absorbs IR from the inside out, it also absorbs IR from the outside in (back radiation.. assuming you are exposed at an angle to get lots of it comparable to what the box releases upwards). Then the glass radiates this total amount isotropically. The result may or may not be a wash in comparison to the Seran wrap case (where Seran wrap is basically transparent to IR in either direction). So the result of that experiment doesn’t prove too much wrt ghg effect in the atmosphere.. especially since our atmosphere, at the highest altitudes, doesn’t receive any IR back radiation as does the box on the ground.
Anyway, “see” you in a while.. maybe.
Some error fixes:
From the first “math” comment:
>> So far from 2000 to 2012 we have 393/370 or 6%. That 6% in 2 years represents 30% (if we keep this rate) or 50%+ (if we keep accelerating similarly to the past) for the 2000 to 2050 period.
Oops.
(a) That 6% is in 12 years (not “2”), and
(b) the rate towards 2050 would put it in the 24% to 40%+ range (give or take some percentage points).
For the sake of keeping the math less than totally incomprehensible, let me fix two other parts based on this above fix.
>> 2000 – 2050: 480/370 – 555+/370 = 30% – 50%+ ?
2000 – 2050: 460/370 – 520+/370 = 24% – 40%+ ?
>> 1850 – 2050: 480/285 – 555+/285 = 68.5% – 94.5%+ ?
1850 – 2050: 460/285 – 520+/285 = 61.5% – 82.5%+ ?
And this next date period in the “Version 2” section of the second “math” comment should be till 1950, not till 1900:
>> 1900 – 1900: log (C_3/C_2) = x_delta log k_2 = log 1.05
1900 – 1950: log (C_3/C_2) = x_delta log k_2 = log 1.05
BTW, the whole point of all of that math was to “clarify” (eg, to myself) that the logarithm value as per Arrhenius relation on CO2 concentration has been going up in successive 50 year periods.
Also, from that second “math” comment,
>> [Ie, log(b,k) = 1 if b and k are the same)
Ie, log(b,k) = 1 if b and k are the same
..ie, just get rid of the mismatching [)
And finally, let me add that a “shell model”, as I mentioned in the last comment, ignores convection (diffusion equations), evapo-transpiration, and 3D modeling. All it does is to assume each “1D” atmosphere shell has the same flux coming in as going out. In reality, the troposphere has a linear temp profile not predicted by the shell model or (I think) by a purely radiative transfer model. Convection redistributes heat acquired via IR absorption in high amounts near the ground which then will be released a bit more evenly throughout the atmosphere based approximately on the Stefan Boltzmann relationship.
Also, if anyone is still trying to follow, by “shell model” I mean the model used here http://rabett.blogspot.com/2009/03/second-law-and-its-criminal-misuse-as.html and in the paper linked to from here http://climateguy.blogspot.com/2011/06/radiation-physics-constraints-on-global.html .
major9985 says:
“The debate is if climate sensitivity is positive or negative.”
No, actually, this article is about Lord Monckton’s response, and you don’t get to frame the terms of the debate. We could discuss your weak spelling and punctuation abilities, or we could compare the alarmist contingent’s whiny complaints about Monckton’s pejoratives with your juvenile comments. Instead, I prefer to point out where the alarmist crowd is wrong in their assumptions. I’ll use your last post for starters.
First, climate sensitivity is based on 2xCO2, which is not evident from your comment. There is so much debate regarding the sensitivity question because it is not measurable, it is only inferred; a conjecture. Internationally esteemed climatologists place the 2xCO2 temperature response at anywhere from ≈1.5°C down to Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi’s 0.0°C. [I doubt you can match his C.V.] Dr Spencer puts the sensitivity number at under 0.5°C, and the three Drs Idso estimate well under 0.5°C. Prof Richard Lindzen’s estimate is a little over 1°C. [The UN/IPCC guesses the number is a preposterous 3°C or more, but they have a vested interest in fanning climate alarmism.] So really, the debate is not about whether sensitivity is positive or negative. Maybe you read that in a comment somewhere.
Next, CO2 has not been “warming the climate” for the past decade and a half, even though it keeps rising. Like the rise in beneficial CO2, global warming is on balance a good thing, despite your alarmist blog indoctrination.
Finally, your claim that “between 1751 and 1994 surface ocean pH is estimated to have decreased from approximately 8.25 to 8.14 representing an increase of almost 30% in “acidity” is model-based nonsense. From your link: “A noniterative, implicit, mass-conserving, unconditionally stable, positive-definite numerical scheme that solves nonequilibrium air-ocean transfer equations for any atmospheric constituent and time step is derived.” Grant-sniffing baloney. The oceans are big, and they don’t know the pH in 1751. It’s just a grant-driven WAG.
I don’t like to spoon feed you the correct information, because it means more if you find it on your own. And if you want to bask in ignorance by not reading the following articles and comments, it is of no concern to me. But I don’t want a casual reader to be misled by the gross misinformation in your posts. So for their sake I’m happy to provide some links that decisively deconstruct the “ocean acidification” nonsense:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/28/the-fishes-and-the-coral-live-happily-in-the-co2-bubble-plume
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/27/the-ocean-is-not-getting-acidified
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/19/the-electric-oceanic-acid-test
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/25/the-reef-abides
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/24/chicken-little-of-the-sea-visits-station-aloha
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/10/ocean-acidification-chicken-of-the-sea-little-strikes-again
Now I’ll go out and work on my garden, which is going gangbusters because of the added CO2.
James Sexton said: “Read up…. Look at things in their entirety and not some video clip taken out of context”
Me: “read up”? your favorite remedy? oh I’ll read up and nail you while doing it.
James Sexton said: “Look at things in their entirety” and “see that Christopher Monckton was accurate and truthful”
Me: oh yeah? says the dude swooning for Monckton, cherrypicking a short time trend while totally ignoring the full picture of ongoing global warming.
Moncton said [about global temperatures circa 2001-2009] in Melbourne 2009: “hefty” and “statistically significant cooling” and it wasn’t so, he was called upon his tripe, Monckton himself finally acknowledged it (Moncton refutes Abrahams 2010), after being schooled.
Drop it James, Monckton admits it’s wrong to say so, time you grow a pair and admit it to.
You can keep up your “had-crutch” temperature series 2001-2009 all you want, doesn’t change the fact that Monckton was in error and finally admitted it. Drop the comfort blanket, the short series means nothing, remember who said “Look at things in their entirety”? More info: http://sks.to/escalator
NEXT
Monckton said “we are not looking at a long term systematic loss of ice in the arctic”
James Sexton chimed in regarding potholers debunking of Moncktons unsubstanciated claim: “…you attempt to refute his claim by going back beyond his point of reference and declare him omitting facts, but you are doing exactly the same! What was the arctic ice area prior to the 70s?
Allow me to google that for you! and I did and it came back with:
http://nsidc.org/icelights/files/2010/11/mean_anomaly_1953-2010.png
Which shows your(James Sexton) precious “cia generated comfort blanket 10-15% ice hump” that came during the 60’s and went *poof, gone* even faster and several orders of magnitude more ice has melted since then. “a systematic, long term loss of ice” is what it is -Monckton claimed otherwize and got called, and failed to produce.
So, what now James? Move the goal post? You know we can do this all the way back to the cambrian? the snow ball earth? you know? If you want to wriggle from that we end up with a freshly baked solar system, with a giant ball of molten minerals, hardly worth quibbling about snow coverage, am I right?
Monckton himself had a lame comeback with another unsubstanciated claim about low ice in the 1920’s. Keyword: Unsubstanciated! and remember Monckton claims at his talks “All I say is sourced and can be verified”. This new unsubstanciated claim can therefore be dismissed.
*poof* Gone!
I’m going to keep going, on topic, possibly in vane hope you’ll learn. Expect more.
[SNIP: The videos have been posted here numerous times in the past and your language violates site policy. -REP]
Jose_X says:
February 10, 2012 at 11:39 am
James Sexton, I should have been more clear myself that I understood you weren’t attacking me. It is true, I am ignorant of many points. Googling, it seems HadCRU is a mix of land and satellite, so after they get updated, I’ll consider using those values when referencing.. at least if I have a handy link and the exact values are important to the conversation.
=====================================================
Jose, thanks for adding some sensible points into the conversation. While I enjoy a rancorous dialogue at times, there is a point when it becomes too tedious to maintain. I’m still stamping out fires at the office. But, I thought I could help you in your quest for a good link to data.
Most of the graphs I’ve offered are of not my making… sort of, but the come from this site. http://www.woodfortrees.org It is a “non-partisan” site, if you will. It’s ran by an altruistic fellow, Paul Clark. There isn’t any comments there. Just a very nice application. Go there, and click on the “interactive” It will take you to the application. You’ll be met with a graph and a drop down box. with other input options. He has a plethora of data bases he’s directly linked to including Hadley’s. There’s also GISS’, and the two satellite temp data bases (BEST is also there.). And a bunch of other delicious data bases as well. He even provides a link to the “raw” data if you want subject the data to more rigorous inspection.
For anyone involved in the greater climate discussion, I highly recommend going to that site. The data is updated as soon as the various organizations update their data. The best part, is that its free. There’s no opinion stated, there’s no slant and no “interpretation” Just data and some nice tools to use.
There is a donate button in which a person can donate to a favorite charity of Paul’s a woodland preservation and planting charity as I recall.
“In other words, each succeeding step had a logarithmic value of the ratio of growth that was greater than the prior.” —- agreed.
And, I agree with most of all the other you’ve stated. But, we’re still not seeing a rise in the temps. When I was speaking of the logarithmic effect of CO2, I was discussing the decline of its effect. Where the thought is each doubling would be equal to the effect of the prior doubling of CO2. Diminishing returns, if you will. And, I agree with it, but typically we only regard the individual gases, one at a time, and this isn’t proper. Again, I would point you to the spectrometry.
Most IR is completely “invisible” to CO2. It passes straight through. Of the IR which CO2 responds to, H2O also responds to for the most part. In this regard, we’ve moved the discussion well beyond doubling any ppm. H2O is ~3-4% in our atmosphere or, 30,000 – 40,000 ppm. So, discussing only the IR bands where H2O and CO2 overlap, when we discuss going from 350ppm to 560ppm or what ever….. we see that it doesn’t effect much of anything. We are then left with some very narrow bands of absorption. Does atmospheric CO2 warm things? Sure in theory. It’s just like me raising the sea level when I spit in the ocean.
Lord Bourgeoisie of Frackinghampshire says:
“On many occasions, Monckton has been found to be factually inaccurate regarding the presentation of scientific data and personal information, such as his claim of being a Nobel Laureate, which unambiguously appeared on his personal website while being provably nonfactual.”
Lord Bourgeoisie’s has created a textbook example of the straw man fallacy vis-à-vis the assertion that Lord Monckton claimed that he was a Nobel Laureate. Let’s review what actually happened – just like Mr. Hadfield does but through the video media.
Here’s is the text of the Nobel Laureate claim, as it was presented on the “Science & Public Policy Institute” (SPPI) web site for a number of months in 2011:
“[Lord Monckton’s] …contribution to the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report in 2007 – the correction of a table inserted by IPCC bureaucrats that had overstated tenfold the observed contribution of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets to sea-level rise – earned him the status of Nobel Peace Laureate. His Nobel prize pin, made of gold recovered from a physics experiment, was presented to him by the Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Rochester, New York, USA.”
Now, if one wishes to accept this assertion at face-value as being the truth (i.e., not a play on words and their meaning), then I suspect they’ll likely accept the Holy Bible or Quran as historically accurate documents, which must be accept at face value as the truth. People with a working knowledge of the AGW debate are readily aware that the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Vice President Al Gore and the UN IPCC for their work on advancing the knowledge of global warming to the peoples of the world – http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/ .
These same people know that Lord Monckton has been an outspoken critic of AGW and the UN IPCC and would laugh heartily if someone believed that the IPCC would acknowledge him as a worthwhile lead, co-lead, author, or contributor of any chapter within any of the IPCC four, assessment reports.
Therefore, the immediate conclusion (again, from those familiar with the AGW debate) is that Lord Monckton is once again poking fun at the IPCC – and possibly the Nobel Committee for their poor peace laureates that year. Of course, one could extrapolate that anyone associated with the IPCC is deserving of the title; the prize was awarded to the organization, but what is that without the people? So, what a wonderful opportunity it was to juxtapose an AGW… denier – Lord Monckton – with the world’s AGW… champion – the IPCC.
Regardless, the Nobel Prize “pin” and it being made from recovered gold are pointed clues to the joke – the Nobel Committee only awards a medal, diploma, and cash prize to the chosen laureate. Again, if one wishes to accept a pin as truth to the Nobel Laureate claim, then I suspect they’ll likely accept a 10-year old wearing a plastic sheriff badge as a legally appointed law enforcement officer.
And lastly, the Nobel prizes are only awarded by the Nobel Committee (based in Norway) and not by an Emeritus Professor in America. This is common knowledge. Thus, the Nobel Laureate claim can only be regarded by someone with a working knowledge of the AGW debate as… a joke. To do otherwise is to question one’s own intelligence.
So, where’s the straw man fallacy in Lord Bourgeoisie’s assertion? Well, the above written claim never appeared on Lord Monckton’s personal web site (whatever that is – a Facebook page?) Rather, it was posted at SPPI’s web site under Lord Monckton’s biography as Chief Policy Advisor. Contrary to popular myth, Lord Monckton does not own SPPI – http://whois.domaintools.com/scienceandpublicpolicy.org . He is the policy advisor to it and posts presentations and articles there, but so do a number of other people, as well.
Thus, it was SPPI (with Lord Monckton’s consent) who was “asserting” the Nobel Laureate status. What is more interesting here is why was such a straw man fallacy advanced against Lord Monckton? Truthfully, Lord Bourgeoisie can only be blamed for parroting the false argument and not creating it. This was one of several fallacies attributed to Lord Monckton during the summer 2012 lead up to the historic climate change vote in Australia. Peter Sinclair at “ClimateCrocks” appears to have been the source behind pushing this fallacious reasoning – http://climatecrocks.com/2011/07/18/monckton-im-a-member-of-parliament-ive-cured-hiv-there-is-no-climate-change/ , which was then embrace by the pro-AGW apologists and spread throughout the blogosphere.
Lord Bourgeoisie rightly urges the reader that, “It would be advisable to take [Lord Monckton’s] presentations with regard to climate change, a field in which he has no formal qualifications, with extreme caution.” I agree, but we must also apply the same level of caution to Mr. Hadfield’s presentations, as well – he also has no formal qualifications. And just because Mr. Hadfield may entreat his readers of having candor on climate change, that does not mean he actually exhibits it. And yet, Lord Bourgeoisie does not advise the reader on adopting such caution with Mr. Hadfield. Why?
“How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg,” – Abraham Lincoln.
Paxmax shows himself to be just another misinformed climate alarmist:
“Don’t you guys (Smokey and James Sexton) think it’s pretty silly to call the years 2001-2009 a period of “global cooling” when the trend was just barely deviating from a stand still?”
Cut and paste where I wrote what you put in quotation marks, and where I discussed 2001 – 2009. That sounds like Phil’s false claim that Mann’s original hokey stick chart is still being published by the IPCC.
It is true that the planet’s temperature has been relatively flat for about the past fifteen years while CO2 continues to rise, and that drives the alarmist lemmings into conniption fits. But as I’ve written before, I think natural global warming is still in an uptrend, and until the trend is decisively broken, it will contunue. I also wrote that the warming is entirely beneficial, as is the rise in CO2. There is no verifiable, testable evidence to the contrary.
Before the current warming pause there was natural long term global warming, going back to the LIA. Those attributing that warming to CO2 are engaging in the argumentum ad ignorantium fallacy: “Since I can’t think of any other cause, it must be due to CO2.”
Well, maybe, and maybe not. The fact is that the warming follows the same trend line, both before and after CO2 began to rise. The null hypothesis is the statistical hypothesis that states that if there are no differences between observed and expected data, the alternative hypothesis is falsified. CO2=CAGW is the alternative hypothesis, and the climate null hypothesis has never been falsified because there are no observed differences in trend from the pre-industrial era, which is to be expected if CO2 has little or no effect. As Dr Roy Spencer puts it: “No one has falsified the hypothesis that the observed temperature changes are a consequence of natural variability.” The rising long term trend line is well within the parameters of natural variability, therefore the presumption must be that CO2 is inconsequential. William of Ockham would agree.
[Climate charlatan Kevin Trenberth is well aware that the null hypothesis is central to the global warming question, and he also knows that it falsifies his catastrophic AGW. So Trenberth demands: “The null hypothesis should now be reversed, thereby placing the burden of proof on showing that there is no human influence.” Of course, that would put the onus on skeptics to prove a negative, which would completely overturn the scientific method. Too bad for Trenberth, it ain’t gonna happen. The null hypothesis falsifies CAGW, and that, among other uncomfortable facts, will help to derail Trenberth’s grant gravy train – which is why that scientific charlatan is trying to destroy the scientific method.]
The effect of CO2, if any, is too insignificant to measure and thus can be disregarded for all practical purposes. It is a bit player that might cause global T to rise a little. But where’s that missing heat?? And if CO2 doubles, it will still be just a tiny trace gas. Doubling might be important, if we could see any effect from the modern CO2 rise [other than the beneficial increase in agricultural production]. But there is NO “fingerprint of global warming” from CO2 that passes the scientific method. If ΔCO2 caused a measurable, testable T rise, then the question of the climate sensitivity number would be testable. It isn’t.
Paxmax says:
February 10, 2012 at 1:32 pm
Holy mother of….. are some of you entirely incapable of context? You guys blather about a 30 year period and think a decade is an insignificant part of it? It is a 1/3 of your arbitrary 30 year period…… the decadal decline at that time was 0.1° C….. or it reversed 1/5th of the warming seen in the 30 year period. That’s insignificant? Not in my book. But, that’s not the dumbest part of your statement….. you snidely quote me and state, “Drop the comfort blanket, the short series means nothing, remember who said “Look at things in their entirety”? More info: http://sks.to/escalator .”
Pax, did you bother to look at the graph you showed me? Your asking me to grow a pair? Grow a brain and understand the word context. Then move on to trickier ones, like hypocrisy and duplicity. WTF? Do you think time started in 1973? While you’re learning some stuff, you should read my response to Jose about why BEST shouldn’t be used. Then go verify what I stated. Now, I understand you don’t vet stuff before you blather here, so I’ll let you know that SkS’ graph was derived from the BEST data. Further, lol, I don’t have to hold onto the 2001-2009 graph. I’ve shown where we’ve had over 50 and over 70 years of declining or flat temps during increasing CO2. And, I’ve also shown how the temps haven’t raised in the last 15 years. Go back to your escalator and see if you can discern a period of time that showed flat temps for that length of time. You can’t because it isn’t in there. They left that part out. Here’s 50 consecutive years temps didn’t respond to increasing CO2…. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/best/from:1865/to:1914/trend/plot/best/from:1865/to:1914 That’s using the same data set SkS did to make their misleading graph.
That’s great Pax, can I take it that you will now quite being a hypocrite when people reference time? Or is this going to be just a one time thing? Does this mean we can now have a discussion about arctic ice caps like time didn’t start in 1979? Oh, wait, given what you blathered just prior, you it seems you wont. BTW, you need to vet that data. It isn’t congruent to the aforementioned 10-15%….. you might end up looking as silly with that graph as you have with your others.
.
“So, what now James? Move the goal post?” Again, you’ve lost all context. Monckton showed a recent graph showing the icecap bottomed out in 2007. Hadfield even mentions the graph’s time period, then he shows his own graph with his own cherry picked time frame to refute Monckton….. And that’s what I was objecting to. I wasn’t making a statement as to whether or not we’re gaining or losing ice, I was simply pointing out the hypocrisy and duplicity. And, it continues with you and many more people. Pax, because you seem to be a little slow on the uptake, I’ll spell it out for you. All of the graphs and data presented on one side or the other is cherry picked. Every damned bit of it. I’d explain why but you seem to be incapable of understanding other more simple concepts, so I won’t bother to try.
“I’m going to keep going, on topic, possibly in vane hope you’ll learn. Expect more.”
The only thing I’ve learned from you is that you refuse to understand simple language. And, I’ve learned that you’ve wasted a huge amount of my time. I can write volumes about time frames and context until my fingers fall off and you will still not understand.
If you’re going to continue, you may as well just from time to time continue to link to the SkS cherry picked graph used to illustrate how its wrong to cherry pick. Base on an incomplete, land-only, unupdated data base. That will tell me all I need to know from you. You don’t know WTF you’re talking about and you simply parrot without thinking. And apparently reading is a difficulty for you, seeing how, when asked why I don’t use BEST data, I explained almost word for word what I’m telling you. If you would have bothered to attempt to learn something yourself you may have saved yourself from this embarrassment.
[SNIP. -REP]
Tom Murphy,
Thanx for your clarification of the Nobel laureate attacks. Unlike Lord Monckton, I actually do claim Nobel Laureate status, albeit somewhat sheepishly, based upon my participation in the AR4 WG1 draft review and citation as a contributer. I have people question it and ask where my check was if I got the prize. In one case, the person had actually observed my fellow Nobel laureates receiving their checks. The IPCC actually used the money for third world scholarships. I showed him documentation of that and pointed out that many labs give ceremonies and monetary rewards for to their employees that win recognition and bring distinction to the organization.
Lord Monckton’s talks would be much less informative and entertaining if he focused strictly on the chief area of scientific dispute, whether the net feedbacks to CO2 forcing are negative or significantly positive. He could point out that we don’t know, but that there is some evidence and argument that it might be negative. I am thankful for the contribution he makes pointing out the misuse of statistics, the incredible fear mongering and the underlying agenda of those that feel unconstrained by evidence and proper use of statistics. For someone who is allegedly a non-expert (it ain’t rocket science, BTW), Lord Monckton does a good job retreating to defensible ground when he has made a mistake. I’ve noticed several improvements and increases in rigorous content over the years. Lord Monckton is no Al Gore.
Tom Murphy says:
February 10, 2012 at 3:21 pm
[blah blah blah]…”Lord Bourgeoisie rightly urges the reader that, “It would be advisable to take [Lord Monckton’s] presentations with regard to climate change, a field in which he has no formal qualifications, with extreme caution.” I agree, but we must also apply the same level of caution to Mr. Hadfield’s presentations, as well – he also has no formal qualifications. And just because Mr. Hadfield may entreat his readers of having candor on climate change, that does not mean he actually exhibits it. And yet, Lord Bourgeoisie does not advise the reader on adopting such caution with Mr. Hadfield. Why? ”
——
Because such a warning is unnecessary.. Have you not SEEN Hadfield’s videos? I’ll assume you haven’t. Hadfield actually substantiates EVERYTHING he says.. Not some. Not most. EVERYTHING. Hadfield isn’t promoting any ideas of his own. Instead, he very simply puts dishonest or idiotic people on the spot and shows the errors in their assertions.
Martin Lewitt says:
[blah blah blah]
Are you being facetious?
James Sexton says:
February 10, 2012 at 6:15 pm
“…you entirely incapable of context? You guys blather about a 30 year period and think a decade is an insignificant part of it?”
Pax says: The context is Moncktons usage of words. His words are what we are measuring and compare it to available, preferable peer-reviewed, data. You keep trying to derail the focus, I know it’s embarrassing to admit one is wrong but it has to be done so one doesn’t do it again.
I’m not here in this thread to debate the entire issue of AGW or CAGW, so I’ll remind you here and now again, this thread is about Moncktons useage of words and statistical/scientific data, they do not add up.
The figure of 30 years is about as low as you can go with when making a trend analysis of the temperature data since the SPREAD of the data is large. M’kay?
Your attention span seems very low, so I’ll restart again: Monckton said “statistical significant cooling” about a trend line that was rather flat with temperature data all over the place -that’s plain wrong to say. That’s ONE of many points to come -regarding Moncktons speeches and writings.
Again, I’m not attacking your(James Sexton) general (or special) knowledge or stance of/on GW AGW or CAGW LIA CIA ICE ghosts, chriatianity, whatever. However I will call you on evading the subject of Monckton and you defending Moncktons careless usage of words. Because when Monckton uses words alot of things get hell bent. For him huffing and puffing about his Viscount status and at the same time being so careless with words it boggles the mind. When he try to inflate his status to include him in the house of lords or as a representative of the parliament it becomes outright dishonest.
James said: “Do you think time started in 1973?…about why BEST shouldn’t be used… I’ll let you know that SkS’ graph was derived from the BEST data”
Yes, the escalator graph is made from BEST data, but the exact same case and point can be made with HadCrut datasets or traffic accidents -you can cherrypick and compile timespans with small cooling trends -but the issue is still Moncktons poor usage of words with regards to the scientific data.
James Sexton said: “Here’s 50 consecutive years temps didn’t respond to increasing CO2 [graph link removed -Pax]”
Pax says: During the Cambrian there was several hundreds of million years where the temps didn’t respond to CO2, Woho! I win! =o)
No, not really, for many reasons but (IMHO) primarily because you and I are straying offtopic regarding Monckton in 2009 and “Statistically significant cooling”.
NEXT
Subject: Monckton extrapolates and conveys the sentiment “no long term loss of actic sea ice” by showing a minute part of our understanding of arctic sea ice.
James Sexton first defence was basically crying FOUL!: “What was the arctic ice area prior to the 70s?”
Pax showed grah ice being better off even extending to 1953
James Sexton basically cried “FOUL!” again…
Pax *sighes* but says: Look, Monckton said “we are not looking at a long term systematic loss of ice in the arctic” but all scientific verifieable data indicates just the opposite. Potholer didn’t pick exactly 1979-2009 it was ALL data from the satellite readings.
James Sexton said: “Monckton showed a recent graph showing the icecap bottomed out in 2007”
Pax says: …and we unfortunately nearly reached the record low in 2011, with the solar maximum approaching I fully expect a new low within 2-3 years, but I digress.
James Sexton said: “I wasn’t making a statement as to whether or not we’re gaining or losing ice”
Pax says: That may be, but you rush to defend Monckton against people attacking his illfounded use of words with a barrage of strawmen that instantly catches fire in these times of obvious global warming… but Monckton claimed we had no long term loss of arctic ice, but he was call upon that, and Monckton himself actually agreed that indeed we’ve actually had a loss of ice, so hopefully he will not continue to make shit up about that. So you can drop your tirade about “you think time started in xxxx?” and cries about hypocrisy, we have data, I advise we use it all.
James Sexton “graphs and data presented on one side or the other is cherry picked”
Pax says: Totally incredible, after all I’ve tried. I try to present and view the whole graph but it just will not cut it for you James, you keep doing the same thing over and over again, picking your special 8-15-50-70 year trends depending on situation. Just fricken look at the entire HadCrut dataset, period. Monckton cherrypicked a part of the satellite records, potholer showed the entire dataset. Simple, if there is data, the data is good, use all, no cherry picking!
(Please *ugh* don’t drag Mann et. al into this, switching data source midways without telling or giving reasons for upfront is wrong, I fricken agree, m’kay?)
James Sexton said: “…you refuse to understand simple language… you’ve wasted a huge amount of my time… you will still not understand…the SkS cherry picked graph…Base on an incomplete, land-only, unupdated data base….You don’t know WTF you’re talking about…apparently reading is a difficulty for you… if you would have bothered to attempt to learn something…saved yourself from this embarrassment”
Pax says: blah blah blah, for the most part DITTO. I explained this earlier though, but, I could have used economic growth rates to demonstrate the principle -using the BEST animated escalator felt easy, it was made specifically to make the point about the problems with cherrypicking principle, I understand you confused it with me using the BEST dataset to validate some temperatures -to which I didn’t. Please understand that you make me laugh when you keep linking them 2001-2009 series over and over and also over again while saying “Look at things in their entirety”.
To be able to get anywhere we can’t crack open every can of worms there is and say “would you just look at that!” and point an accusing finger.
Please stick to the main topic of Moncktons poor usage of words which he is not trying to defend but rather deflect. I think you are guilty of the exact same tactic, deflection, try to stay on topic, atleast with me. You can cry “just semantics” but (I hope) you know and I know it goes a bit deeper than that when it happens over and over again and far over the line of decency.
@James Sexton: Sorry for a horrible typo, in my text body there says “chriatianity” it was suppose to say “christianity”. So sorry if it made you very very puzzled and confused -my bad.
Gary Bennett,
“Hadfield actually substantiates EVERYTHING he says.”
No, he cites things and makes an argument, but that is substantiation in science only if it is relevant and reflects the latest understanding. The peer review literature is not something you proof text like some biblical inerrantist. Hadfield was out of date and missing points all over the place. Hadfield hasn’t demonstrated understanding of the science or how to address the points Monckton is actually making. Apparently Hadfield impressed you however.
This proposed law should apply directly to pothole, scaremongering pretend climatologists, and the IPCC. It might help their cause.
[snip too much uppercase ranting ~ policy]
Gary Bennett says:
“Because such a warning is unnecessary.. Have you not SEEN Hadfield’s videos? I’ll assume you haven’t. Hadfield actually substantiates EVERYTHING he says.. Not some. Not most. EVERYTHING. Hadfield isn’t promoting any ideas of his own. Instead, he very simply puts dishonest or idiotic people on the spot and shows the errors in their assertions.“
Note: please ease down on the caps and absolutes – your passion is noted.
I have watched every one of Mr. Hadfield’s videos, and I read his response above. I’ve also read other articles and comments he’s mad elsewhere as available on the Internet – http://climatechange.carboncapturereport.org/cgi-bin//profiler?key=peter_hadfield&pt=2 . And like most people with “no formal qualifications” (I put that non-sequitor in because critics of Lord Monckton think it important) who follow the AGW debate, Mr. Hadfield is presenting the viewer his opinion on the matter – his bias, which is the same thing Lord Monckton does but far more openly about his biases.
I think it grossly naïve of the viewer to accept that Mr. Hadfield is focused on objectivity in this debate and only reports the “science.” He isn’t focused on the objectivity, and usually, that’s okay because everyone is entitled to their opinion. Where Mr. Hadfield errs is when he professors a candor in the debate yet feigns he has no bias – he’s only reporting the facts and displaying the evidence.
Don’t believe me? I’ll let Mr. Hadfield’s comments below illustrate, which are referenced from an online article by him at the “Guardian” and entitled, “How my YouTube channel is converting climate change sceptics” – http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/mar/29/youtube-climate-change-scepticism :
“[I] …rebut urban myths that spin round the internet and end up on the opinion pages of the Daily Express and the Wall Street Journal.” This has a Don Quixote like feel to it with Mr. Hadfield compelled to fight the dragon (urban myth) that is really a windmill (legitimate evidence). Labeling evidence used to counter a pro-AGW hypothesis an “urban myth” displays a bias, and the bias has an almost ideological component to it. Evidence by itself is neutral. That’s a red flag for an objective discussion.
“[My] …videos have been mirrored by others all over the internet, and several university lecturers have asked if they can use it in their environmental science classes.” This is argumentum ad populum – one of the many forms of fallacious reasoning employed by Mr. Hadfield. Given the videos’ appeal, Mr. Hadfield can claim success on their distribution but it doesn’t makes the assertions contained in them any more real or truthful. Again, this is a red flag for an objective discussion.
“Of course, the evidence clearly shows that the climate is changing, largely because of man-made gases. And the consequences are likely to be dire.” This is an appeal to belief – yet one more form of fallacious reasoning. This is a hypothesis (it’s not even a working, scientific theory at this point) put forth by pro-AGW researchers, which have advantageously received significant funding and ample media exposure over the years. Other researchers , though, have been unable to duplicate some of the claims of the some pro-AGW researchers, using the same “evidence.” The researchers then present a different set of consequences (which Mr. Hadfield calls “urban myths” – by the way). Once more, this is a red flag for an objective discussion.
“The result of [my] candour is that a lot of sceptics trust [my] channel, and appreciate that they are not being talked down to, or badgered or lectured. I do not call them climate ‘deniers’, which presupposes there is some irrefutable truth they are denying. But neither are they truly sceptics. They learn climate science the same way many schoolchildren learn about sex – from other kids.” Extending his analogy, I wouldn’t want to now relearn climate science from another kid, right? An from this comment I could presume that Mr. Hadfield is a career climatologist or something similar, right? Unfortunately, Mr. Hadfield is just another kid talking about sex. He is a journalist by trade – a person who writes with an audience in mind. Mr. Hadfield’s disingenuous approach here is (for me anyway) a red flag for an objective discussion – I’m certain others will overlook it.
“Spend just a few days in this bizarre world [watching FoxNews, reading the Daily Mail, visiting ‘amateur’ blogs] of disinformation and it is hard to understand how the audience could not come to the conclusion that anthropogenic climate change is a hoax.” This is a bit of poisoning the well coupled with the classic straw man argument – both are forms of fallacious reasoning, which are effective at swaying opinions. Regardless of your impression on the reporting conducted by these outlets, Mr. Hadfield’s videos (and writings) represent yet one more outlet which are equally prone to “disinformation.” In fact, I highlighted three points in this thread where Mr. Hadfield’s response is essentially offering disinformation regarding Lord Monckton’s assertion. And other posters have offered up legitimate highlights, as well.
Again, this is a red flag for an objective discussion – which Mr. Hadfield asserts he offers by displaying the appropriate candor to opponents of AGW. The difference between Mr. Hadfield and Lord Monckton is that Lord Monckton readily admits his bias and then defends it. Mr. Hadfield’s candor purportedly grants him a higher moral ground from which to inform, but it certainly fails to remove the bias (and dare I say = disinformation) inherent in his videos.
All things being equal, I tend to prefer a forthright “disinformer” over a sneaky disinformer.
Mod: [snip. Different mod here. Post your comments without excessive all caps, and your post will pass moderation. As you can see in your comment here. ~dbs, mod.]
Martin Lewitt says:
February 11, 2012 at 4:20 am
[etc and so forth]
So no. You haven’t seen his videos, or you’d realize how absurd everything you just said is.
Frankly, I don’t need to watch a one of Hadfield’s videos or know the first thing about anything to come to the same conclusions about Monckton. All I’d need to do is read his statement above. When he doesn’t outright contradict something he has just said, he obfuscates something else. Unfortunately(for my sense of “faith” in humanity) and fortunately(for humor sake), I have also seen some partials and some entire “speeches” from Monckton. I’ve seen him say the complete opposite of what he claims in his response here and responses elsewhere. There is no misconstruing context, he’s clearly dishonest and on an agenda.
Hadfield brings to light things that NEED to be brought to light.. Obviously Monckton has a lot of mindless sycophants eagerly drinking his swill and using propaganda to position himself in roles(on occasion) that speak on behalf of a community(science) that in the LEAST doesn’t agree with anything he says and much more commonly KNOWS quite the opposite. Why would you listen to someone that openly campaigned to have everyone with HIV quarantined away from general pop? Even that I can kind of see a cold logic behind(although defying the US constitution), but how about when he openly claims that an Earth with NO(that would be Zero) atmosphere would only have a temp difference of 18-20 C? A person that claims to be a “Lord” and is not? A person that usurps Scientists’ conclusions and completely changes them when representing them? Even after being flat out called a liar by the scientist they are claiming to quote? . . A person that claims to have found a cure for HIV along with everything else… etc n so forth.. LOL
Sigh.. talk about emulating a biblical … inerrantist? haha.
[snip. You are a guest here. Please act like it. ~dbs, mod.]
Gary Bennett,
Of course I’ve watched Hadfield’s videos. I’ve seen him misrepresent Knutti and Hegerl. I’ve seen him present a biased list of positive and negative feedbacks and give the impression that the science has come down on the side of having clouds on the positive feedback side of the ledger. I’ve seen him misrepresent Pinker’s disagreement with Monckton’s portrayal of her results, and I’ve seen him misunderstand its implications. I’ve seen him dismiss Lindzen’s work as only covering the tropics when that is the very area where the models are correlated in having net positive feedback from the clouds. I’ve not seen him be similarly careful in assessing the sources he uses, such as Lacis and Schmidt.
Mod: by all means, show me how I acted .like.. I wasn’t a guest?
Tom Murphy says:
February 11, 2012 at 6:07 am
“Note: please ease down on the caps and absolutes – your passion is noted.”
etc
o.O Ok, let me make sure I understand you.
Let’s say I have a one of a kind, 3 ft, blue, 2″ diamater stick. Only one in the world. Someone is going around saying it is 2’11”, aqua, 4″ diameter rod. I pull up his videos making such declarations showing exactly what he says and holding it in comparison to the actual measurements… I am being “biased”? LOL I think you need to better acquaint yourself with the term. Of course, considering you refer to the other as “Lord” Monckton, I’m sure you’ve no inhibitions for the misapplication of terms.
Forget AGW for a moment. What you are doing is the same strawman fallacy as a christian in response to an atheist trying to promote the education of evolution. Just because the atheist knows your god doesn’t exist doesn’t have anything to do with correcting the fallacious arguments of creationism. Heck, I wouldn’t care if Hadfield thought the temp was going to quadruple every day for the next year and that the earth was simply going to burst into a new sun by next christmas… It wouldn’t change the fact that Monckton has evidentially DISinformed(forget misinformed when he says the complete opposite one moment to the next) his audience.
So, now that we’ve established how irrelevant “bias”(which is an inhibition to impartiality and as such doesn’t pertain to the videos portrayed since the information purveyed is not of a subjective nature) is, let’s get on to the actual substantiation of credibility you’ve offered in regards to Monckton’s assertions… Oh right.. you didn’t provide any.
Pax—–“However I will call you on evading the subject of Monckton and you defending Moncktons careless usage of words. …..-but the issue is still Moncktons poor usage of words ……… Moncktons poor usage of words.”
Yes, and one of my criticisms is that this is largely a discussion on semantics.
Pax say, “I understand you confused it with me using the BEST dataset to validate some temperatures ….”
This is exactly the language barrier we see so prevalent in this discusssion. I stated, “If you’re going to continue, you may as well just from time to time continue to link to the SkS cherry picked graph used to illustrate how its wrong to cherry pick.”
Clearly, I wasn’t talking about validating some temps….. What should have been obvious is that I was directly referring to the hypocrisy I had mentioned earlier.
Pax say, “Please understand that you make me laugh when you keep linking them 2001-2009 series over and over and also over again while saying “Look at things in their entirety”.”
I said, “Look at things in their entirety and not some video clip taken out of context.“
So, you see, we all see, you took me out of context. Now, I know this is a very hard concept, but when I stated, “Look at things in their entirety and not some video clip taken out of context” I was referring to Monckton’s presentation, not the global temp data set. I used the short temp series because that was the time frame that was referenced in both Monckton’s and Hadfield’s presentations. But, you’ve conflated that over and over again. In other words, you are attempting to do to me, exactly what many do to Monckton.
This inevitably leads me to an infernal question, are most alarmist this challenged in terms of language usage, or are they being intentionally evil and misleading?
You worry about Monckton’s word usage, but you entirely scramble mine, and then attempt to call me on your scrambled interpretations of my words. Do we all say things and then think “I could have expressed that better”? Yes, we do. Especially those of us who use the English language, because it’s common usage is limited in its expressiveness. So, when listening to a presentation or watching a video clip, its imperative that the audience not extract a snippet here or there and think that’s representative of the whole presentation. Rather, it is better to listen and try to understand the thoughts that the presenter is trying to convey.
Pax, given your garbling of what I say, be it intentional on your part or reflective of my inability to communicate to you, I’m really not interested in carrying this conversation any further. You continue to misrepresent what I say. And you’ve given no compelling reason to believe you and Hadfield and many others haven’t done exactly the same to Monckton or anyone else who may disagree with a particular perspective you hold.
Pax, if you don’t understand all or part of what I’ve just stated, please copy and paste this and email it to someone who has a better command of the requisite communication skills so that they may interpret it for you. I am of no help to you in that regard.
Gary Bennett says:
“I am being ‘biased’? LOL I think you need to better acquaint yourself with the term.”
Yes, biased as in “to show prejudice for or against (someone or something) unfairly.” As in Mr. Hadfield shoes prejudice against Lord Monckton unfairly. How? Mr. Hadfield presents the viewer with examples in which Lord Monckton is “wrong” without noting those examples in which Lord Monckton is “right” (select whatever criteria you determine there). Mr. Hadfield is violating his self-professed commitment to candor (i.e., being open and honest in expression) as it relates to debate in that he is only showing you the side he wants you to see.
But even if I’m willing to overlook this as just his opinion (which he’s fully entitled to), Mr. Hadfield examples employ logical fallacies to support a number of his assertions that Lord Monckton is lying. I pointed out several examples of this fallacious reasoning within this thread – specifically with regard to Mr. Hadfield’s responses on Lord Monckton’s assertions on the Himalayan glaciers melting, Sir John Houghton’s quote, and Dr. Murari Lal’s knowingly including bogus “data” in FAR with regard to the Himalayan glaciers disappearing by 2035. In each instance, Mr. Hadfield relied on false logic to demonstrate to the reader that Lord Monckton was lying.
Remember, Mr. Hadfield’ believes that environmental activists exaggerate the truth, while climate skeptics lie, “[My success at changing skeptics’ minds] …means acknowledging that while sceptics like Christopher Monckton and Martin Durkin fabricate a lot of their facts, many environmental activists tend to exaggerate theirs ,” – http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/mar/29/youtube-climate-change-scepticism . With this thinking (and obvious bias – by the way), Mr. Hadfield arrives at his conclusion first and then looks for the data to support it. And he finds the data to support his conclusion – just watch his videos. Unfortunately, his conclusion lacks the candor he claims it possesses because he neglects (I believe intentionally) to inform the viewer of his agenda, and that’s just sneaky and disingenuous.
“Of course, considering you refer to the other as ‘Lord’ Monckton, I’m sure you’ve no inhibitions for the misapplication of terms.”
I refer to him as “Lord” because that is what he is. A peerage attorney in the UK issued an 11-page Opinion on the matter last fall, which details the legal rights possessed by Lord Monckton as a peer – http://joannenova.com.au/2011/07/lord-christopher-monckton-and-that-waste-of-time-lord-debate/ . Although it was submitted for consideration, I believe Lord Monckton has yet to receive a response on the Opinion from the Lord Speaker and chairman of the Privileges Committee.
Regardless of his titles, your highlighting the matter (along with Mr. Hadfield’s dismissal of Lord Monckton’s peerage) is yet another example of fallacious reasoning via argumentum ad hominem – discredit the messenger and you discredit the message. This being the case, I’m content to let you accept what you chose to believe, and I will do the same.
Tom Murphy says:
“With this thinking (and obvious bias – by the way), Mr. Hadfield arrives at his conclusion first and then looks for the data to support it.”
Isn’t that the absolute truth. The planet is not doing anything like what the alarmist contingent incessantly predicted for many years, so now their climbdown position is character assassination. And being possessed by psychological projection, they lie to support their character assassination. Bearing false witness used to be considered reprehensible. Now it’s just a common alarmist tactic.
And they are totally silent regarding the deceptive and mendacious Michael Mann, who makes Lord Monckton appear as honest as Mother Theresa by comparison. Hypocrites.
Smokey says:
February 11, 2012 at 11:25 am
Bearing false witness used to be considered reprehensible. Now it’s just a common alarmist tactic.
======================================================================
Yeh, but they don’t stop there. They engage in gobsmacking hypocrisy and duplicity. And when that runs afoul for them they simply remove context and conflate issues. I couldn’t help but notice that while there were several separate discussions going on all of these tactics were employed by the alarmists.
Is there some book out that instructs them in this sort of behavior?
Excellent work, potholer54. A rational and well-researched response, indeed.
Smokey and James Sexton are exactly what I was talking about earlier, in a nutshell. They will argue until they’re blue in the face that they are right and everyone else is wrong, when all they’ve offered is bloviating clap-trap, which contradicts the scientific consensus at large, with nothing but their own unsupported hypotheses to back it up. They are essentially just academic nobodies SPECULATING about a topic they’ve seemingly picked up a little information about here and there (in their free time) as thought that somehow trumps decades of research by people who’ve actually devoted their lives to it.
Of course, weighing up the likelihood of this notion and coming to the conclusion that it’s patently absurd just means you’re appealing to authority and can’t think for yourself…because apparently they, in all their glory, being the prodigious armchair scholars that they are, somehow are capable of comprehending the studies better than the people actually doing the studies. I realize now that it takes an internet expert to point out and understand things that the peer-reviewed scientists maybe just skimmed over and didn’t think of.
“humility”
Look it up.
@Smokey
click1: What does this have to do with CO2 warming in the atmosphere? Is there a published paper that follows the scientific method that goes along with those pictures or is that person just holding up a sign? What was the point of the paper? AND, to give you the benefit of the doubt that someone actually performed a legitimate experiment on plants (and I am sure many have), it’s one thing to say that we can use CO2 in a little house to grow more fruitful beneficial plants. It’s another thing to say that our entire planet and each and every important species within should have to deal with all the consequences of widespread inescapable global warming. Have you done a study on the consequences of global warming?
One question is the AGW theory, and I assume you accepted that for the sake of argument. The next question, of whether accelerated and unchecked global warming is good or not for people is something to which I have given less thought. Of course, it would be nice if we (meaning, people at large) could at least first agree that AGW is real (or not).
Click2: I don’t know what that picture is supposed to prove. For starters, what temperature measurements are those? They don’t seem like any of the standard global averages I have seen. Is there a related source study?
Click3: This is more interesting but doesn’t come close to proving global warming is beneficial. If we add more CO2 to the atmosphere, everyone has to deal with all the consequences.
**Let me (Jose_X) make clear that I am not convinced that global warming is damaging if we plan for it carefully and if it stays within certain bounds.**
However, don’t interpret this comment I just made to mean that I think you are coming close to proving (even using a weak meaning of “proving”) that CO2 overload in the atmosphere is beneficial. Note for example that the authors of the study mentioned in that news article stated as much:
> What’s more, according to the study’s authors, the accelerated growth rates of aspen could have widespread unknown ecological consequences… “We can’t forecast ecological change. It’s a complicated business,” explains Waller, a UW-Madison professor of botany. “For all we know, this could have very serious effects on slower growing plants and their ability to persist.”
Click4,5: OK. I am getting the picture you really don’t know what global warming and high CO2 in the atmosphere will bring. But thanks for letting me know that with enough money I can grow bigger vegetables in a greenhouse. Hopefully the potentially bigger and more widespread bugs, weeds, and germs will not pose a problem.
Click6: Another chart without a study! What about all the locations in this country or world not mentioned there? What were the costs? What were the reasons for the growth cited in the study? Was it greater food demand, greater government subsidies for certain crops, …. oops, there is no study attached to the picture.
Click7: Yawn. Another indecipherable piece of evidence that at most just agrees with Clicks 1, 3, 4, and 5.
Thanks for the intro to winning at the county vegetable fair, but please no more such links.
If you have proof, please provide links so we can end this debate quickly. If you simply have a good gut feeling or want to share your garden growth secrets, please classify those links as such.
>> Increased CO2 is absolutely a net benefit to the biosphere. More is better. There is no downside at current and projected concentrations.
No studies provided, just lots of faith. Good for you. I was not planning on spending much time trying to get you to switch religions, but I think you should try to see that your religion doesn’t constitute facts.
Science is not about unquestionable proofs, because no such thing exists; however, if you want to invoke “science”, at least try to formally acknowledge the scientific method in studies that address the actual question of whether widespread increases in CO2 at very fast rates by evolutionary standards is good for humans or not. Outright statements of faith are not science.
>> The BEST data set has been artificially “adjusted” to give a scary hockey stick shape. But that false adjustment has been debunked [link given].
Again, I saw no scientific study. For all I know you made up those numbers. At least if you had used a Wikipedia graph, we know it is a graph that was out in the public and where many people have had a chance to comment on it. Wikipedia also usually provides references to formal studies.
Having a gut feeling doesn’t lead to convincing arguments because usually the gut has not considered a great bunch of details.
Consider turning that picture into a formal paper and letting the public criticize it.
I will tell you that a lot of people who have studied mathematics and measurement a lot more than you likely have (rebuttal here if you think this statement is wrong) came to different conclusions than I think you are making with that picture. The BEST study was financed by a wide range of people, including some (like the “Kock Brothers” and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) with significant interests in industries that stand to see their profits harmed should more politicians take AGW seriously.
Anyway, feel free to write up a paper where you mathematically analyze the data. This way, if you do a good job, it won’t just be you and other faithful who might come to accept your conclusions.
BTW, I have noted that your tone seems to be on the argumentative side. For this reason, I figure you appreciate me also getting a little bit more so. A little spice in the right amount can work, and I know it can be very hard to keep the adrenaline in check.
@Smokey
>> “…a real-time debate would have the contestants speaking past each other.” Just as I predicted: Excuses. A debate isn’t about the debaters, it is about convincing the public. The alarmist contingent lacks verifiable facts, thus they cannot convince the public of their impending doom scenarios.
You should know that science is not a sermon. Good science takes time (not emotion) because people have to fact check.
Yes, I am giving excuses. I want good science not good sparks that prove little about the science and more about the skill of the combatants. I really don’t care about the skill of the combatants. I try not to follow skillful combatants over the cliff.
Anyway, I thought it was clear that we were talking about debating good science. For this to be done properly we need time to fact check. I don’t think any human has memorized all the papers and words that have been written on the subject, especially since either debater can just make stuff up on the spot.
Once again, I was not asking for a debate producing good sparks and bad science. I am interested in debates that help advance understanding of good science.
675 posts and counting and there’s still a forthcoming reply from Monckton.
This WordPress format makes following a long thread very difficult.
Any plans to switch to a nested or collapsible layout?
TGB says:
“…the scientific consensus at large…”
Thanx for that silliness. If Albert Einstein was starting out today he couldn’t get published in the peer reviewed litrutchur, because the “scientific consensus at large” were almost completely against his ideas. Now, onto a more rational post from Jose_X:
First off, Jose, AGW is not a “theory”. It is not even a hypothesis, because it is not testable or falsifiable. It is a conjecture [one I agree with to some degree].
Next, you ask: click1: “What does this have to do with CO2 warming in the atmosphere?”
May I remind you that it was you who asked: “Smokey, what evidence do you present that CO2 in increasing amounts in the atmosphere is good for people?” You were not asking about warming the atmosphere, or I would have provided a different response. The links I provided show conclusively that the increase in CO2 has increased agricultural productivity, so I can understand why you now want to change the question.
Next, you say: “If we add more CO2 to the atmosphere, everyone has to deal with all the consequences.” What consequences, exactly? You cannot show verifiable, falsifiable proof, per the scientific method, of global harm as a direct result of increased CO2. Therefore, more CO2 is ipso facto “harmless”.
Next, you comment that I am not “proving” something. One common thread that runs through all believers in CAGW is their dismissal of the scientific method. Scientific skeptics have nothing to prove : Ei incumbit probatio, qui dicit, non qui negat; cum per rerum naturam factum negantis probatio nulla sit. – The proof lies upon him who affirms, not upon him who denies; since, by the nature of things, he who denies a fact cannot produce any proof. As to the conjecture that CO2 produced by human combustion of fossil fuels is causing “unprecedented” global warming: the onus lies on those who say so. As to the proposition that there has been an alarming late 20th century spike in global temperatures due directly to human carbon dioxide emissions: the onus lies on those who make that claim. They have failed to make a credible case.
It is the purveyors of the AGW conjecture who have made assertions and predictions. Their predictions have failed, and AGW is not testable or falsifiable, so it is a conjecture; an opinion; an assertion. It is the job of skeptics [and honest scientists who accept the AGW conjecture] to try to shoot holes in it. That is the scientific method in action. But as we repeatedly see, the beleivers in CAGW and AGW universally ignore the scientific method. That’s not science, that is anti-science.
You keep saying things like “If you have proof, please provide links so we can end this debate quickly.” The onus, my friend, is entirely on you to provide proof.
I’m skipping the rest of your post because you are a true believer. There is nothing I could cite that would convince you that CO2 is harmless and beneficial – as is a warmer planet. Your mind is made up and closed tight. Sorry for that. I used to be a CAGW believer too. But there is no verifiable evidence of any global harm being caused by CO2, but there is plenty of evidence showing major benefits. So I gradually changed my mind.
But I will answer your last comment regarding debates: “You should know that science is not a sermon.” I never claimed it was. But you should ask yourself why all the debates are won by the skeptic side. And they are; that’s why climate alarmists will no longer agree to a fair debate, with rules and a moderator chosen by mutual agreement, held in a neutral venue in front of a randomly selected audience. Debates in that setting expose charlatans, and separate verifiable facts from opinion. After losing his debate, Gavin Schmidt blamed his loss on the fact that he was shorter than his opponent! As if. He lost because he couldn’t produce verifiable facts. And that is why the public is starting to question the incessant doomsday predictions by the self-serving climate alarmist crowd.
[James Sexton] >> While I enjoy a rancorous dialogue at times, there is a point when it becomes too tedious to maintain.
Tell me about it. This is why I decided to take a break and will continue to take breaks.
There is frustration by lots of people on all sides of this global discussion.
>> But, I thought I could help you in your quest for a good link to data.
>> Most of the graphs I’ve offered are of not my making… sort of, but the come from this site. http://www.woodfortrees.org …. There is a donate button ….
I thought about asking since I did play with it a tiny bit before. Thanks for pointing out the features and the background story.
>> When I was speaking of the logarithmic effect of CO2, I was discussing the decline of its effect.
The math I showed (if I understand what I did) does show that the logarithmic effect of CO2 is increasing over time. If you want to glance back, look for the “Version 2” section. The equations at the beginning of that short section mostly just come from the Version 1 section.
>> Where the thought is each doubling would be equal to the effect of the prior doubling of CO2. Diminishing returns, if you will
There is diminishing returns effect, yes, but the amount of extra CO2 increasing in the atmosphere makes up for it.
I’ll try to explain the math..
Version 3:
An analogy would be the Stefan Boltzmann formula. There is diminishing returns on adding new power flux from the point of view of the increases in temperature; however, if we were to add enough power at each step, that would make up for the diminishing returns effect.
To quantify this a bit, let’s consider a simpler polynomial formula, y=x^2.
When y=16 and x=4, we need to add 9 more units to y for x to go up by 1.
When y=25 and x=5, we need to add 11 more units to y for x to go up by 1.
When y=36 and x=6, we need to add 13 more units to y for x to go up by 1.
…
When y=400 and x=20, we need to add 41 more units to y for x to go up by 1.
This is a diminishing returns effect because to get x to go up by 1 we have to keep adding a little bit more each time (9, 11, 13, …).
Now, let’s look at a function that is exponential, like y=2^x.
When y=16 and x=4, we need to add 16 more units to y for x to go up by 1.
When y=32 and x=5, we need to add 32 more units to y for x to go up by 1.
When y=64 and x=6, we need to add 64 more units to y for x to go up by 1.
…
When y=1048576 and x=20, we need to add 1048576 more units to y for x to go up by 1.
We see two cases of diminishing returns but where one clearly is much more diminishing in return than is the other.
Now, I expressed the second case as an exponential, but by simply reversing the perspective we have a logarithm.
For example:
x=log(base2)y
When y=16, to see x go up by 1, we need to increase y by 16. etc.
It’s the same thing as above because I was always focused on seeing the “x” go up by 1. Simple algebra converts between the exponential form and the logarithmic form.
OK, now how do we get from this “doubling” consideration to something like 3.5%, 5%, 19.5%, etc?
The first part of the answer is that x goes up by the same amount every time y increases by 3.5%. I’ll use “lg” to designate log(base2) and use the logarithm form.
Ex. 1:
x=10=lg(1024)
Adding 3.5% to y gives:
x=10.05=lg(1060)
so we see that x went up by .05
Let’s repeat, adding 3.5% more to y:
x=10.10=lg(1097)
we see that x went up by another .05.
The next part of the answer is what we just saw. Every time we multiply y by a given fraction (eg, 1.035, aka, 3.5% gain), x goes up by the same amount (eg, 0.05).
The final part of the answer is that the larger the fraction that y goes up, the larger the amount x goes up. We can verify that each 5% gain by y adds .07 to x and every 19.5% gain by y adds .257 to x.
From this mathematical result we see that over the years the increasing rate of growth of CO2 in the atmosphere (eg, 3.5%, 5%, 19.5%) has been adding an increasing amount to the temperature. [at least according to Arrhenius log relationship]
FWIW, I’ll quote wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius
> if the quantity of carbonic acid increases in geometric progression, the augmentation of the temperature will increase nearly in arithmetic progression.
And we observe in nature today that the quantity of “carbonic acid” has been increasing faster than in geometric progression, allegedly then leading to temperature increases faster than in arithmetic progression.
More clearly, the above predicts that the warming effect by CO2 would have been more pronounced in more recent years not in earlier years. This predicted relationship is consistent with the link I provided showing temperatures more noticeably deviating upwards relative to the solar irradiance in the second half of the 20th century.
In other words, this logarithmic claim, which clearly is an important part of the climate physics models used widely, is consistent with the temperature effects we have witnessed… at least to the extent that solar radiation is the most important “forcing” and so should largely dominate the movement of temperatures.
Smokey, I just started reading your response.
If we accept AGW for argument’s sake, then increasing CO2 will be followed with increases in temperature. So to address one is to address both and every other possible result that comes from that.
My point is that extra CO2 may help a plant grow, but CO2 everywhere will have many effects, and I was asking if the net effect would be beneficial or not.
It should be clear that this question won’t be answered definitively and the answer won’t be the same for all humans, so really I was interested in having you agree that such a claim that more CO2 in the atmosphere is beneficial is a rather ambitious and ambiguous statement.
True, I agree that many AGW supporters will say things like the opposite (predicting that CO2 will necessarily hurt), so I guess I was just asking for us here to focus on various evidences (and relax) instead of sticking to the respective war cry. 🙂
>> But you should ask yourself why all the debates are won by the skeptic side.
As per what I said, and assuming you are correct, I would say that the skeptic side then has the better debaters. If the forum doesn’t test the quality of the science (as I tried to explain.. and contrasted with a forum such as non-real time online debate), then the results of the debate won’t really demonstrate which science is better.. it will demonstrate who can get more votes from that particular audience voting at that point in time.
>> He lost because he couldn’t produce verifiable facts.
You mean he couldn’t produce them on the spot? Bud did Monckton? How do we know then and there that whatever Monckton said is legit? How do we know that the papers he cites are reasonable and not loaded with mathematical or other errors or draw unsupported conclusions?
Most people can’t determine that on the spot.. which is why climate scientists much prefer non-realtime debates. Claimed facts need to be researched (and possibly experiments conducted) in order to form a good opinion. At least that is how science works.
>> But there is no verifiable evidence of any global harm being caused by CO2, but there is plenty of evidence showing major benefits.
Statistics cited by some AGW proponents do show that the weather has seen more out of normal patterns recently. Some would call this evidence.
What would you consider to be the “major benefits” from widespread CO2 increases and what evidence are you putting forth? .. Wait, don’t answer if you are going to present another garden. I am talking about global CO2 increases, not increases in a greenhouse or lab.
>> The onus, my friend, is entirely on you to provide proof.
A debate can end quickly if *either* side can provide decent evidence.
>> It is the purveyors of the AGW conjecture who have made assertions and predictions.
When you say more CO2 is necessarily beneficial (within certain bounds you didn’t exactly quantify), then you too are making an assertion that requires evidence.
As for predictions, if this article http://www.skepticalscience.com/lessons-from-past-climate-predictions-ipcc-far.html is correct, the model used in 1990 was a rather decent one across a span of 100 years, once we fill in the correct values for events that were not claimed to be forseeable (eg, the rate at which fossil fuel is burned in the future). Specifically, see this graphics http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/IPCC_FAR_Since_1880.png from that page. [I don’t know the confidence level of the area within the light blue boundary lines.]
Now, as a model shows itself to be decent (and the more current models should be more accurate), that is a trail of evidence it is leaving behind and that is the sort of evidence that tends to convince people that the issue is likely real and the further out predictions might actually be realized.
I agree that we really can’t tell in the near term. It’s a judgement call to be made by people who write laws and by private citizens who take individual actions and who vote.
What model do you have that concludes that the future is rosy? Is your model simply qualitative? What does it offer that I can test?
>> Their predictions have failed
See prior point, and, if you disagree, please show me the details of how that model, when we add the correct values for unpredictable variables (like rise in CO2), fails. [Don’t ask me for too much help here because I have not verified what that article claims since I don’t really know what the 1990 model was.]
>> AGW is not testable or falsifiable
No comment on this technical question since I don’t know exactly what “AGW” comprises formally.
>> The proof lies upon him who affirms, not upon him who denies
The temperature predictions are a claim, and they can be verified to a fair degree of confidence. How much CO2 man releases is something that can be quantified to a decent approximation. Ditto for how much CO2 is in the atmosphere, etc. [What evidence is believable is in the eye of the beholder.. although I am assuming you or at least many who read this are here in good faith.]
As for benefits or not is a more complex question and is one I know less about. I am not interested in debating that question here. I already stated I think it is a tough question and want to focus first on what the temp and some other climate measurements might be like in the future.
Anyway, when you say CO2 is good, that is a claim, and all claims require some amount of evidence in order to be convincing to a large number of people.
>> As to the conjecture that CO2 produced by human combustion of fossil fuels is causing “unprecedented” global warming…
I agree that the “unprecedented” part requires extra evidence.
I am not convinced Mann’s approach is sound. I think, mathematically, his approach works if the proxy series that pass the statistically significant test he used have errors in them in a relatively homongenous fashion.
McIntyre I think pointed out that red noise causes false positives and, not having tested that out with computer program or full mathematical development, I am still inclined to agree with him. But I don’t think anyone has considered just how reasonable were the proxy series that passed Mann’s test. They certainly weren’t red noise.
Conclusion (in my mind from what little I have read), Mann did not make his case, but his results likely aren’t too far off. In my mind, this means the question of MWP being warmer or not (“unprecedented” question) was not answered.
>> As to the proposition that there has been an alarming late 20th century spike in global temperatures due directly to human carbon dioxide emissions …
Much of the physics surrounding the CO2 greenhouse effect contribution is likely sound (my opinion, of course.. and we can dive into that bit by bit if you want).
The “alarming” part is a subjective call and is affected by context (eg, if the rise in temp would be hazardous.. aka, the difficult question from above).
>> What consequences, exactly? You cannot show verifiable, falsifiable proof, per the scientific method, of global harm as a direct result of increased CO2. Therefore, more CO2 is ipso facto “harmless”.
I disagree that not proving harm implies harm doesn’t exist. Quoting dead folks from antiquity doesn’t convince me. I am surprised you would believe this.
BTW, science and policies move without anything near 100% agreement being in place. Businesses and households make decisions without 100% understanding of risks and benefits. People enter relationships and walk out into the street without knowing all the risks and benefits. That is how reality works. No human can quantify those values.. at least I don’t expect to be convinced ever that anyone ever can know that much.
Jose_X says:
“If we accept AGW for argument’s sake, then increasing CO2 will be followed with increases in temperature.” Really? The planet does not agree.
There is no discernable temperature trend difference between pre-industrial CO2 levels and current levels. Therefore, the null hypothesis supports the idea that CO2 is an insignificant bit player in global warming.
The current naturally rising temperature trend from the LIA [one of the coldest episodes in the entire 10,700 year Holocene] has happened repeatedly, as even Phil Jones admits. It is becoming increasingly clear that the current rise in temperature over the past few decades and the rise in CO2 is mostly, if not completely, coincidental.
And when the raw BEST data is used, there is no evidence of accelerating warming, despite a ≈40% rise in CO2.
You have a belief system, Jose. I used to believe the same things. But when verifiable facts contradicted my beliefs, I changed my mind. What do you do?
TGB says:
February 11, 2012 at 3:21 pm
Smokey and James Sexton are exactly what I was talking about earlier, ………..
================================================
I’m glad then that I didn’t bother much with what you were blathering. Sometimes I feel like I missed out on some pertinent information or another when I get focused on another part of the thread. I see in your case, I did not. Nearly 700 comments here and you took the time to say you don’t like the way Smokey or I discuss things here. Okay. Noted and I’ll give that all the consideration it deserves.
“humility”
Look it up.”
Indeed. I don’t know if you’ve ever really considered this hero worship you’re engaged in, or if you understand the vast fields of science “climatology” entails. But, even with decades of dedication, you seriously believe climate scientists are the creme de la creme of atmospheric physics, solar physics, chemistry, atmospheric chemistry, hydrology, statistics, ecology, geology, botany, biology, oceanology, paleontology, history, mathematics, programing, database management, meteorology, vulcanology, and a plethora of fields of science I haven’t mention? You honestly believe no one else could possibly have insights that these few scientists may not already posses?
Sis, you don’t know any of us. You don’t know our backgrounds. You don’t know how many years of what field we’ve been engaged in. You called me an academic nobody. And for that, I thank you. You’re right! I left the coddling arms of academia years ago. So, I’m short on humility? Perhaps. In the real world, we don’t get the luxury of being wrong, self-contradictory and duplicitous.
We don’t get to say absurd things like “heat defies physical laws and hides at the bottom of the ocean”. We don’t get to say after 14 years, “Oh crap! Those studies we did didn’t pick up the cold signal!!” Or, “Well, I would have been right about the coal hotting us up if they didn’t start burning coal in China.” or, “the oceans uptake CO2 as their hotting up!”
Everyone of those statements are a paraphrase from one of your heroes who’ve “devoted their lives to it.” ———————– Yeh, I know, I put the paraphrases in quote marks. I’ll respond when the video comes out.
Humbly yours,
James
Jose, it’s getting tedious correcting your statements. I am not going to convince you that CO2 is harmless and beneficial, because you have a belief system that appears to be immune to reason. None of your examples would pass the rigors of the scientific method, therefore they are just opinions. You say:
“Statistics cited by some AGW proponents do show that the weather has seen more out of normal patterns recently. Some would call this evidence.” That is provably wrong. And your discussion of computer models ignores the fact that models are not evidence. They are created by people paid to produce a result, and they are unreliable. [Note in the WUWT sidebar that of all the blogs listed, only one is in the “Unreliable” category.]
To clarify matters, I’ll give you a testable, falsifiable hypothesis to try out. It’s a simple one. Try to falsify it. By “falsify”, I mean according to the scientific method, using testable, empirical, verifiable facts and data. No chains of inferences, models, conjectures or opinions. Facts based on verifiable, un-“adjusted” data only, please:
At current and projected concentrations CO2 is harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere.
If you can falsify that clear and straightforward hypothesis, you will be the first to be able to do so. But if, like the others you cannot, then Occam’s Razor says to leave out extraneous variables [such as CO2]; the simplest explanation is almost always the correct explanation: natural climate variability is sufficient to explain all observations, and the null hypothesis remains unfalsified.
Jose_X says:
February 11, 2012 at 5:23 pm
[James Sexton] >>
There is diminishing returns effect, yes, but the amount of extra CO2 increasing in the atmosphere
An analogy would be the Stefan Boltzmann formula. There is diminishing returns on adding new power flux from the point of view of the increases in temperature; however, if we were to add enough power at each step, that would make up for the diminishing returns effect.
=========================================================
Sorry I didn’t get back to you in time. But, yes……. to save on confusion, I say “logarithmic” for the “diminishing returns” and “exponential” for the increase in the rate of increase.
I’d like to thank you for reasoned responses. It’s difficult to have a rational discussion when others continue with the personal assails. It puts one in a “mood”. At any rate, continuing, I think this is a common trap many fall into. As I alluded earlier, this only considers CO2 alone. And, I don’t believe it proper to do so. It doesn’t address many other facets of the CO2 relationships in the atmosphere. Nor its limited relationship to the energy exiting the earth.
First, while most people understand CO2 absorbs IR, they don’t come to acknowledge that CO2 only absorbs a very limited amount of the IR the earth emits. There are 3 bands of the IR spectrum CO2 emits: low intense 2.6, 4.4 and then from about at higher intensity about 14-16 um. The rest passes right through it. 2.6 is meaningless for this consideration. As I stated earlier, H2O also absorbs IR 2.5- 3.5um and then from about 6 um on up….., but, while it does absorb from about 7-13 um, it doesn’t do a very good job of it. Most of the IR in that range goes on out. Again, the 2.5-3.5 is meaningless. It is at a very low intensity and we actually get that same low intensity from the sun as well. http://faculty.icc.edu/easc111lab/labs/labi/waveradi.jpg
So, when we consider these things with the CO2, we see the constraints of the theory. The atmospheric H2o is about 3%-4% …. depending. So, when considering CO2 and its increases, we see that for the most part, increasing a GHG from 350ppm to 400ppm or 560ppm does mean much against 30 parts per thousand. Then we are left with a very low intensity, very narrow band of IR which CO2 will uniquely absorb at about the 4.4um range. So, when we consider the spectrum of the IR being emitted from the earth, CO2 can only capture an almost infinitesimal amount of the total energy being emitted. We could increase atmospheric CO2 by 1000 ppm and it would still be constrained by this IR range.
But, that’s not even the best part of all of this. Remember I stated that H2O doesn’t do a very good job of absorbing the 7-13 um range? Well, nothing else does either. And this is a much more intense range than 4.4. There’s nothing that closes that window. This is where the energy escapes. This is where it always has. CO2 does nothing to it. It’s still letting the energy out just like it did a million years ago, just like its doing today, and just like it will a million years from now.
So, a very small band of low intensity energy gets trapped by CO2 and less than 1/2 of it comes back to earth, so what? There are very great odds it gets bounced back out at a higher frequency, and out it goes at the speed of light. We could have 4000ppm CO2 and it wouldn’t change any of this.
Any reasoned critiques of this would be welcomed.
James
>> “If we accept AGW for argument’s sake, then increasing CO2 will be followed with increases in temperature.” Really?[link] The planet does not agree.[link]
So are you saying AGW doesn’t associate increasing CO2 with a positive “forcing” on temperature? Do you want to look AGW up?
If I didn’t say it before (and I thought I did), let me say that AGW absolutely does not claim that temperatures will rise continually day to day because there are many factors that contribute to the actual temperature (the sun and weather cycles being two major categories). CO2 promotes increases in temp, and this is important because the cycles average out to zero over time.
Of course, we aren’t just talking about surface air temperatures. Oceans acquire heat and the net amount split between the ocean and the air varies (with the oceans pulling in over 95% of total gains).
The cycling of heat between oceans and the atmosphere exists because of “inertia” (think of a spring set into motion even as you move the spring around.. it usually would swing to the opposite end even if you are moving the spring in a way that would neutralize some of that movement).
Cycles are a well studied part of any real system (eg, feedback control engineering). I am sure you have seen the elevator animation/graphic from skepticalscience that shows many cycles within the larger trends.
Picking the latest 2 year period is not going to disprove AGW, as I think you were intending to show.
>> There is no discernable temperature trend difference between pre-industrial CO2 levels and current levels. Therefore, the null hypothesis supports the idea that CO2 is an insignificant bit player in global warming.
No study. No paper. All you show are a few graphs of a few cities .. and I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that the values they show are accurate. That picture is ripe for heavy duty cherry-picking.
Why don’t you go back to your favorite graphs of average global temps and show the trends there for that time period? I don’t care about a few cities. We need to see global average temps.
I’ll assume you are arguing in good faith, so please go and replace that link to a few cities with a graph that covers average global temperatures. I’ll come back.
>> The current naturally rising temperature trend from the LIA [one of the coldest episodes in the entire 10,700 year Holocene] has happened repeatedly, as even Phil Jones admits.[link]
I did not see a link to Phil Jones discussion.
What I saw was a graph that shows (your point that there have been similar looking trends and) that this latest upward trend we are on was higher than the two that preceded it in earlier centuries.
I have provided other links (eg, from Wikipedia) that show that temps deviated upwards from solar irradiation levels particularly strongly in the last half century, coinciding with elevated rates of CO2 release.
I did math to show that the CO2 geometric growth in the atmosphere was significantly stronger in the last 50 years of the just finished century than it had been in prior 50 year periods.
>> It is becoming increasingly clear that the current rise in temperature over the past few decades and the rise in CO2 is mostly, if not completely, coincidental.
No study. No paper. No math or physics. You say this just by looking at graphs and extrapolating in your mind into the future.
I can agree with you that there might be cycles working soon to push temps down some before perhaps another strong rise in future years; however, I would think the climate models probably covered the main “forcings”, which would include the sun, so trust that temps won’t pull back down too much based on their projections. Major volcanic activity or changed human behavior might also play a role and deviate from projections. In any case, I think CO2 increases means such cycles will tend to take place at an increasingly upwards offset relative to wherever the trends otherwise would be located. And I do agree that there might be more major physics and effects that climate scientists have yet to account for properly, but that possibility doesn’t make the CO2 effect disappear (unless it was a CO2 neutralizing effect, and it would be interesting to see where that would come from).
>> And when the raw BEST data is used, there is no evidence of accelerating warming, despite a ≈40% rise in CO2.
That bottom graph has a stray point downwards a little past 2010. That value doesn’t appear in any of the other graphs you have shown recently. What gives?
If we remove that point, then the top and bottom graphs appear rather consistent (keep in mind that the scales are different in each graph).
>> You have a belief system, Jose. I used to believe the same things. But when verifiable facts contradicted my beliefs, I changed my mind. What do you do?
In many cases (eg, wrt CO2 and temps), I am not seeing how your evidence supports your claims. I have been indicating this in my replies. I’ll come back tomorrow maybe and see if you address some of the points I brought up.
Jose_X,
Your interminable nitpicking is evidence of your incurable cognitive dissonance. Orwell correctly labeled it “doublethink”. No facts will change your belief system, and I note that you carefully avoid trying to falsify my hypothesis – which, of course, falsifies your alternative hypothesis [I really question whether you even understand the null hypothesis].
Thanx for contributing innumerable inane comments to WUWT’s huge traffic numbers. But really, you’re making no sense. You are just commenting using free association, based on your True Belief in your preposterous and repeatedly debunked CO2=CAGW alarmist conjecture. Sorry you aren’t credible. But not everyone is.
>> “Statistics cited by some AGW proponents do show that the weather has seen more out of normal patterns recently. Some would call this evidence.” That is provably wrong[link]
Since when do deaths vary linearly with strength of weather events? If all else remains equal, then I would expect a strong correlation, but..
Today we have much better (a) medicine, (b) alert and forecasting mechanisms along with transportation and other infrastructure, (c) housing structures, etc.
As an example, look at the Haiti earthquake of not long ago. It was devastating in part because they lacked our modern technology and infrastructure (and more would have died if we hadn’t rushed as much aid as we did). A similar strength earthquake near some major US city would have been much less damaging.. and more so if the city was one that anticipates earthquakes. In 2012, we have a lot more experiences knowing when and where to expect earthquakes, so we have raised our standards where the locality demands it.
Here is a googled example of what I had in mind as concerns more extreme variations: http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
>> And your discussion of computer models ignores the fact that models are not evidence.
Models provide testable points. If the data points are realized (ie, if the test passes once we enter the future), that serves as a body of evidence. We have some amount of this evidence for past years since we first developed some of these climate models.
Our ability to test and prod the planet’s atmosphere is limited for obvious reasons, but the models are based on a lot of accepted physics. There is a core that was adopted from weather forecasting models, and other parts have been added to model CO2 and other parts using accepted physical theories based on observations.
>> I’ll give you a testable, falsifiable hypothesis to try out… At current and projected concentrations CO2 is harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere… then Occam’s Razor says to leave out extraneous variables [such as CO2]; the simplest explanation is almost always the correct explanation: natural climate variability is sufficient to explain all observations, and the null hypothesis remains unfalsified.
That is not a null hypothesis at least for the reason that we can’t observe it. There is no data to consider. It lies in the future and you are asking the question today. When the future does arrive, we might find Armageddon, for example.
I would like to be able to say more concerning the null hypothesis and Occam’s Razor (eg, to give an analogy), but I am tired and also would probably want to first carefully read the Wikipedia pages on those. I do think I am correct in saying what I just stated in the paragraph above.
Now for a few zzzz.
.. wait, let me say that many climate models/formulas skeptics have derived to predict future temperatures would probably pass a few test points in the upcoming years (unless the model was very aggressive, eg, http://www.skepticalscience.com/year-after-mclean-review-of-2011-global-temperatures.html ). The temperature likely won’t change too too much in the upcoming 10 years, but where the projections differ significantly is as we move out a few decades into the future.
zzzzz….
Yes, TGB, you’re seeing exactly what I also suspected when I said this: “I’m more interested in observing how Mr. Monckton attempts to defend the indefensible, and exactly how tightly Mr. Monckton’s acolytes can affix their blinders before the blood actually stops.” (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/11/monckton-responds-to-potholer54/#comment-887580). While Mr. Monckton has offered no real attempt at a rebuttal so far, I’d judge James Sexton and Smokey neck-and-neck for the lead in exhibiting the most dangerously tightly affixed blinders, while Tom Murphy remains about two lengths behind. If I were forced to choose the “leader”, tho’, I’d give the nod to James Sexton based on the content of his posts. For Example, re: Mr. Monckton’s comments on correlation of CO2 levels and global temperature:
1) The beginning of this clip ==> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpF48b6Lsbo shows Mr. Monckton speaking to a graphic that supposedly provides concrete evidence that there’s been no correlation between CO2 levels and temperature over the past 500+ million years. That’s followed by Mr. Hadfield thoroughly debunking that deception referencing the research of one of the scientists Mr. Monckton’s own graphic, Dr. R.A. Berner, as well as research from another scientist, Dr. Dana Royer. … The hybrid graphic that Mr. Monckton presented didn’t take into account the change in TSI over time.
2) After being called out by Mr Hadfield in his videos, Mr Monckton replied in the WUWT thread entitled “Monckton answers a troll” (here ==> http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/18/monckton-answers-a-troll/) where he does a monumental position shift (“Monckton Maneuver”, in Mr Hadfield’s terms) by stating the following:
“There has indeed been a remarkable correlation between CO2 and temperatures over the past 500 million years – but repeated reanalyses of the data have shown that it was temperatures that changed first and CO2 concentration change that followed. Though it is possible that the additional CO2 concentration reinforced the original warming in each of the past four interglacial warm periods (all of which were warmer than the present), it plainly did not trigger the warming, because the warming occurred first.”
3) In this thread Mr. Monckton curiously re-addresses this very same issue by backing off of his previous “Monckton Maneuver” (I think he may have forgotten about his previous maneuver) with this comment, as seen above:
“Well, there has in the past few thousand years, but the correlation since the Cambrian era has been spectacularly poor, as the slide (from a peer-reviewed paper) that the caveman fleetingly shows me using at that point demonstrates very clearly. For most of that long period, global temperatures were about 7 Celsius degrees warmer than the present: yet CO2 concentration has inexorably declined throughout the period.”
4) And then we have James Sexton using the same debunked graphic to disprove CO2/Temp correlation … here, and elsewhere ==> http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/11/monckton-responds-to-potholer54/#comment-888142 … this, as if he never knew the graphic and point were debunked, even though he claimed to have viewed Mr. Hadfield’s videos.
This all falls under the category of “If it weren’t so sad it’d be funny”.
Jose_X,
“A debate can end quickly if *either* side can provide decent evidence.”
And the reason there is still a lot of scientific controversy is that neither side has. If we are agreed on that, then, watch out, you are skeptic. But the issue won’t be settled by debate. The true consensus is that CO2 increases make the climate warmer, and there is also a consensus that we don’t know by how much. There is also a consensus that the direct effects of CO2 doubling will amount to only about 1 to 1.2 degrees C, and that sensitivity in that range is less than natural variation and will not be enough of a concern to justify considerable concern or sacrifice. So the central issue in the science is what the net feedback to CO2 forcing is, the concern about possibly dire consequences requires sensitivities in the 2 to 6 degrees C range during the fossil fuel era, which won’t go on for very many more centuries, because after that the forcing naturally reduces on its own. There is not good model independent evidence that net feedback is positive in the current climate regime. There is not a consensus on whether models are good evidence yet.
Most of the other issues that have been discussed here are side shows to the actual scientific issues. The flattening of the warming curve, the opportunity to study solar activity in an extreme activity range, and political propaganda conspiracies keep things interesting. Nature herself may resolve the issue, the longer the warming can stay in a relative pause despite continuing CO2 forcing increases, the more suggestive it is of lower climate sensitivity and a dominance of natural variation. If the sun goes into a Dalton or Maunder minimum and we don’t actually get some decent cooling within a decade or two, would be a feather in the cap of higher sensitivity. to CO2. Models that provide insight into multi-decadal and other climate modes and start fitting the observations to within 0.1W/m^2 or better necessary to attribute a 0.58 W/m^2 energy imbalance with any credibility could also end up being decisive.
Some people have requested proof about CO2 being bad. Ocean acidification was cited as a possible “bad’ consequence with the reply to this being that we haven’t the tools necessary to measure pH accurately.
From http://funwithkrill.blogspot.com.au/2011/08/how-do-we-measure-ocean-acidification.html “Thanks to the analytical improvement in the 1990’s, we are able to measure seawater pH precisely to the 3rd – 4th decimal place (±0.0004 pH units) based on the colorimetric principle.”
This blog appears to state that ocean acidification IS in fact happening: “Our measurements have to be good and long enough for us to say for sure that ocean acidification is happening.”
This is direct, verifiable, measurable science, not unsubstantiated claims.
There are consequences of this acidification and, considering the world’s population relies on the oceans for a good part of its food supply, perhaps we should take heed of this negative consequence more. Check out http://www.oceanacidification.net/ for more.
JohnK,
Yes ocean acidification is a potential negative, there is some natural variation in pH from place to place. The fears that organisms won’t be able to form calcium based shells and structures don’t seem to be born out yet, with some evidence that some organisms might actually do better Most attempts to attribute coral issues to acidification and warming alternately get shown to be temporary and due to other causes. I don’t think there is any reason yet, to assume that ocean life forms are not robust to this kind of change. Their metabolisms are active and don’t seem to leave concentrating of calcium and magnesium to chance.
JohnK says:
February 11, 2012 at 10:50 pm
Some people have requested proof about CO2 being bad. Ocean acidification was cited as a possible “bad’ consequence with the reply to this being that we haven’t the tools necessary to measure pH accurately.
From http://funwithkrill.blogspot.com.au/2011/08/how-do-we-measure-ocean-acidification.html “Thanks to the analytical improvement in the 1990’s, we are able to measure seawater pH precisely to the 3rd – 4th decimal place (±0.0004 pH units) based on the colorimetric principle.”
==========================================================
Hi John, I think that was covered here a while back, or something similar. I think the biggest problem people have, is 1), no one has shown how a slight drop in Ocean pH is harmful. And 2) the confinement of the measurements.
As you know, the oceans’ currents move water around quite a bit. These measurements are from just a small part of the ocean. The ocean’s pH isn’t uniform. So, if you were to take a measurement one day and then come back and see that the pH has dropped a couple of thousandths or so, it’s difficult to derive any meaning from it. Where did that particular part of water come from? If the currents had carried it from a river flowing into the ocean then we would expect it to be slightly lower. I believe there may also be a relationship between pH and temps. And in many areas there would likely be seasonal differences as well.
But, here’s the crux of the difficulty I have with all of this. We’re told oceans absorbing CO2 will become less alkaline. Ok, maybe, the ocean has some wonderful mechanisms to deal with CO2. But, I can see the logic in this. We are also told the very same CO2 is warming the world, including ocean temps. But, then it has also been stated that warm oceans outgas CO2. The very same CO2 that was absorbed and making the oceans less alkaline, gets outgassed . You see the problem with this?
Mr Hadfield has a new video up which covers the recent headlines about Himalayan glaciers. He does something remarkable and reads the original paper: – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJSA0iZ_xeA
Jim Cornelius,
FYI, The 1000 cubic miles of ice melted over the eight years, amounts to about 15cm of sea level rise by the year 2112 (100 years). Of course, this would be an addition to sea level rise from thermal expansion.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%281000+cubic+miles+%2F+area+of+the+oceans+%29+*+100+%2F+8
James Sexton says:
February 11, 2012 at 8:48 am
Pax: I have probably interpreted your post wrong here and there, for that I am sorry, but you are doing the darndest to evade the topic =o)
On topic though: potholer and Monckton are having a discussion on the sematics used -you(James Sexton) disliking arguments over semantics is irrelevant, it’s the scope of the topic!
John, let’s try to stick to simple questions, on topic.
James Sexton said:
Pax says: No, we can’t discuss an 1/2-1 hour presentation as a whole. First off, It’s impossible in this format, second it’s off topic. the best strategy is to break it down to sizeable bits that still conveys the message within.
I’ll do my best to pose simple questions, I do not care for others misrepresentation, we are discussing Christopher Monckton’s.
@John Sexton: Question 1. Is stuffing a presentation with gross misrepresentations OK as long as one understand his general opinion about the GW?
Monckton is precisely on the skewer for his inability in understanding or representing the message of others! Goodness me, it will be long winded but let’s get your CONTEXT.
Here, Monckton has just changed the subject, so this is a new chapter at page 21, from one of Monckton’s pdf presentations:
(Page 21)Moncktons slide headline announced: If the threat is real, why need They lie?
(some of) Moncktons slide text body:
Moncktons next slide(p.22) headline announced:We’re all gonna lie!
To me that implies to me that persons mentioned or depicted are liars. That was enough context, now the problem:
Moncktons slide text body [Talking about Sir John Houghton]:
@Paxmax: You totally screwed up the formatting you clutz.
Martin Lewitt,
Thanks for debunking the pothole propaganda. He is a clever conniver, and an asset to the unthinking alarmist lemmings. But is it science according to the scientific method? Obviously not. It is cherry-picked character assassination that avoids the scientific questions, which are the central issues in the debate over CAGW. Pothole cannot refute the science, so he attacks the messenger.
Jose_X: You are overwhelming me. I’m here to educate, and happy to do so. But please take one point at a time. I’ll not respond to numerous nitpicking comments, when the answers are found in the WUWT archives, where there are dozens of articles and thousands of comments answering your questions. I stand by what I post. Read the comments that explain the science by using the WUWT keyword function. If you don’t know how to do that, let me know, and I’ll walk you through the process.
You appear to have a basic ability to understand the issues, and if you are not playing games here, I think you can eventually learn what is true and what is not. That ability will make you a scientific skeptic in short order, because the runaway global warming scare is based entirely on fact-free conjecture. It is a story, nothing more.
But by arguing every point I raise and agreeing with none, maybe you’re just trolling. Time will tell. So take it one point at a time. I’m happy to educate, if you’re sincere. And really, if you can, try to falsify my hypothesis that CO2 is harmless and beneficial, using the criteria I set out. I’ve tried myself, and I can find no credible evidence that it isn’t a valid hypothesis.
Jim Cornelius says:
“Mr Hadfield has a new video up which covers the recent headlines about Himalayan glaciers. He does something remarkable and reads the original paper.”
And that is precisely what he should do, if he wishes to be informed – unlike his usual suspects he flashed across the screen (Fox News and the Daily Mail for starters). Once again, though, he dismisses the relevance of a 63 billion tonne difference (-10.5%) from where the ice loss should be at this time. This also translates into a melt rate 30% less than the previous ice melt studies spanning the same time period. Given their statistical significance, these data should be incorporated into the total population of data available to climate models because, clearly, they have failed to align with actual observations (temperature wise anyway but that variable does directly impacts ice melt).
However, Mr. Hadfield diligently posits, “Now, it’s okay to run with this headline because it is a significant piece of news. For scientists, the fact that the fact that the world is warming and ice is rapidly melting is old news, and indeed, the study wasn’t supposed to be evidence of global warming. Its purpose was to look at how much sea level rise could be expected from this ice melt.”
This is another example of his employing fallacious logic – the straw man argument in this case. The critics Mr. Hadfield cited did not use the “Nature” article as evidence of global warming. Rather, they referenced it appropriately as evidence that the ice melt rate (and indirectly sea level rise) was less than previously estimated. Recall that this is the very ‘thing” that Mr. Hadfield dismisses by omission to focus on the skeptics’ silliness of highlighting the Himalayan surprise.
I encourage the reader to view how Fox News reported the article and determine if Mr. Hadfield’s concern is correct in that the reporting is slanted vis-à-vis the Himalayan glacier ice melt data. But with the inclusion of text such as, “[Jonathan] Bamber was quick to caution that the new study doesn’t alter his view that the climate is changing, and rapidly. ‘This new study doesn’t change our view of the risks and threats from climate change,’ he said in an online chat at the Guardian. ‘What it does do is improve our knowledge of the recent behavior of one part of the climate system,’” I’m hard-pressed to understand his concern (i.e., much ado about nothing) – http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/02/09/himalayan-glaciers-have-lost-no-ice-in-past-10-years-new-study-reveals/#ixzz1mAo0ZWVi .
In the end, though, Mr. Hadfield leaves the skeptical viewer with the “puzzling” question of, “What on earth could be causing [1,000 cubic miles of ice to melt between 2003 and 2010]?” He’s disingenuous in posing this question because Mr. Hadfield knows their response; it’s climate change – a process readily accepted by skeptics; it’s the primary driver of that change that results in differences. A more accurate and helpful question (to the debate) could have been, “Given that the rate of ice melt isn’t as large as previously thought, where can the models be improved to better reflect the observational data?” But alas, he did not ask this – because as a good journalist (with a melodious speaking voice, too) Mr. Hadfield has an agenda and we are his audience to sway.
The original conveyed message and quote was entirely different.
Sir John Houghtons original:
“If we want a good environmental policy in the future, we’ll have to have a disaster. It’s like safety on public transport. The only way humans will act is if there’s been an accident.”
===================================================================
Ok, if English is your second language then some of this makes sense. In the states, we have a similar quote we can compare this to…….
You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste; it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid. — Rahm Emanuel
Both of them mean essentially the same thing. Paraphrasing with quotes, — “We’re going to scare the crap out of you in order to manipulate you into accepting rules and laws you would otherwise not tolerate.” If you don’t see how this is dishonest, then I’m not the one that needs felt sorry for.
Answer me this, what does the qualifier “so in short” mean to you? Did you read Monckton’s explanation? But, again, all of this is a trivial semantic discussion which does everything it can to avoid the most obvious of recent historical facts! This is exactly what the alarmists have done!
Heat waves….. global warming….. unbearable killing cold fronts—- climate change, floods, droughts, snow, tornadoes….. all disasters. All blamed on CAGW/CC/Climate weirding…. what ever. The best part is they pretend this stuff never happened before. And there is no real attribution that can be tied to CAGW and the natural disasters.
So, maybe, because I don’t have the video clips of Houghton which caused him to back off of his law suit threats….. maybe Monckton used the quote marks wrong… maybe. But, he was/is exactly right in the meaning and execution of the thought Houghton expressed.
But, here’s some comedic relief for you. While we’re concentrating on the minutia, and expecting perfect attribution, punctuation,……….ad nauseum…. @John Sexton <———— who's he?
You see, now I could jump up and down and froth at the mouth and whatever, but I know what you meant, or more specifically to who you were writing.
But, Pax, we've done this over and over and over, again. I have stated, in essence, that Monckton probably wasn't technically and precisely correct in some of these matters. But, he was and has been correct in the meaning conveyed. Which is fine if you want to jump up and down about it, but when I and several others point out the blatant hypocrisy, it's met with chirping cricketts.
Pax, again, I'm not interested in pursuing this line any further. You're not ever going to see the dichotomy you hold. And, I've got my own blog to run. You should pop by.
Best wishes,
James
Jack Greer says:
February 11, 2012 at 10:19 pm
4) And then we have James Sexton using the same debunked graphic to disprove CO2/Temp correlation … here, and elsewhere ==> http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/11/monckton-responds-to-potholer54/#comment-888142 … this, as if he never knew the graphic and point were debunked, even though he claimed to have viewed Mr. Hadfield’s videos.
========================================================
Lmao, thanks Jack! You caused me to go back and look. As you can imagine, anyone engaged in this discussion has read innumerable papers, watched countless videos, and worked out many people’s opines. When I was younger, I had quite a memory, but as I age, I learn to remember the mildly important stuff and mentally flush tripe. If you don’t find Hadfield’s analogy of CO2 to a home furnace laughably vapid and incorrect, I’d suggest you go find a different favorite topic to worry about. Perhaps, there’s a blog which discusses something more your speed, like a celebrity gossip blog or something.
So, CO2 is a heat source? That’s prolly why I bothered to commit that to memory…. I was too busy laughing. Thanks Jack…… I’ll probably remember from now on!
@James Sexton said February 12, 2012 at 8:22 am
I accept your non-response to the issue as admission that the graphic you presented, multiple times, doesn’t mean what you confidently thought it did … just like Mr. Monckton. Thanks for owning up.
When Jose_X posted Mr. Hadfield’s video #3 for you to reply to re: the glacier issue, I thought you’d eventually watch it as that video starts immediately by displaying your formerly favorite graphic. Great, now watch the rest.
Evidence of whether what Lord Monckton attributed to Sir John Houghton is a misrepresentation of his motives, rather than just a misquote, would be whether Sir Houghton does seem to exagerate or hype beyond the evidence. There is something that indicates that he does, his “weapon of mass destruction” essay. He showed little restraint in associating all kinds of extreme events with global warming.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/jul/28/environment.greenpolitics
Jack Greer says:
February 12, 2012 at 9:00 am
@James Sexton said February 12, 2012 at 8:22 am
I accept your non-response ……..
=================================
Lol, that wasn’t a non-response….. you guys really do have a comprehension difficulty…… CO2 is nothing like a furnace in your house. It’s a vapid analogy and the only response is to laugh and move on. Defend it if you want Jack, but there’s really nothing to address. Well, sure, there is the cherry picking of time intervals, but we’ve covered the hypocrisy and duplicity ground already. Go try that insipid sophistry on a 12 y/o. It doesn’t work with grown-ups.
Yes, one must have the ability to think conceptually to understand Mr. Hadfield’s point. Others prefer to cling to the tactic of deflecting diversion. Just as with all of your graphics presented to supposedly disprove the correlation between CO2 and temperature, the response revolves around the requirement to consider all factors at play.
Keep working at it, James. Even tho’ it’s “all sciencey and that”, the concept of statistical significance isn’t really that difficult to grasp.
It seemed to have worked just fine on you. I don’t know what that means about your age, chronologically or mentally. Are you still defending the overlayed Scotese/Berner graphic as clear evidence of the lack of correlation between CO2 & temp?
@ James Sexton: To be totally different from you I actually answer resonable questions: -Yes, I read Moncktons response and as usual he doesn’t explain anything. The libel thingy -a simple distraction. The Sunday Telegraph 1995 article has the correct quote, the false quote appeared appeared online and Monckton probably just ate it all up and then added some more.
Sir John Houghton: “If we want a good environmental policy in the future, we’ll have to have a disaster. It’s like safety on public transport. The only way humans will act is if there’s been an accident.”
A more correct “in short” version of Sir John Houghton’s quote would be:
“Only after a disaster will humans make a good policy, because we are hard to convince”
Sir John Houghton commented the actual state of the human condition, not his intent, but you can’t see it, can you?
Monckton’s bastardisation of the actual quote has added malicious intent which never was there to begin with. Rahm Emanuel’s quote -offtopic.
James Sexton says: “…maybe Monckton used the quote marks wrong… maybe”
Pax says: No! not “maybe” He definitely got it wrong. Monckton has a degree and background in journalism -he should know how important it is fact checking is! The quotes don’t line up and Monckton didn’t make references to him paraphrasing Sir Houghton, he kept using rhetoric as “Houghton said”.
James Sexton says: But, he [Monckton] was/is exactly right in the meaning and execution of the thought Houghton expressed. [and] ..he was and has been correct in the meaning conveyed.
Pax says: So you think Monckton is a mind reader too? Otherwise how would he get it exact? Oh, that speaks volumes about you, those comments right there is RICH in information.
I’ll write that down as “Yes, James Sexton thinks it’s OK to grossly misrepresent or fabricate quotes to prove an overall point”
James Sexton said: “here’s some comedic relief for you”
Thx! You where actually on the right track there! =o)
James added: “And, I’ve got my own blog to run. You should pop by Best wishes, James”
Thx, but no thx, the way you interpret the information conveyed to you is very repugnant.
Tata… /Paxmax
Keep working at it, James. Even tho’ it’s “all sciencey and that”, the concept of statistical significance isn’t really that difficult to grasp.
================================================
This is just too much. I try to avoid this sort of dialogue, but your stalking leaves me little recourse.
Dictionaries, thesaurus’, even specialized dictionaries are freely available on the nets. There’s no reason for you to dwell in this ignorant state.
No, statistical significance isn’t a hard concept to grasp, even though you obviously don’t understand it. Statistical significance isn’t the same as significance. They are two entirely different concepts and you need to familiarize yourself with both if you wish to be taken seriously.
Significance, when used in statistics does not mean important or meaningful, as is the connotation in everyday use. They are talking about probabilities. Conversely, when someone says statistically insignificant, it doesn’t mean that the observation wasn’t important or that one can’t take meaning away from the observation!
Do you have that, Jack? You’re conflating the two meanings, as have many others. Typically, but not always, I speak in terms of what has occurred, and what is occurring. in other words, posteriori. I’m not referencing theoretical probabilities, which often, statisticians argue and debate about what best methodology to use to come to the statistical significance threshold, or even what that threshold is.
So Jack, when you and anyone else blathers about statistical significance, tell me what methodology was used? Monte carlo? Lasso? What? Are you talking from the Bayesian school or Neyman–Pearson? Did you use a priori? What was the objective criteria used to get it? How many steps did it take? How is it that you guys and gals attach meaning to the term but incorrectly use the term in our common discourse? Oh, I know…… you don’t know WTF it means.
Again, like another, if you don’t understand what I’ve just stated, please copy and paste it and email it to someone who can explain it to you. Obviously, with the language barrier we have, I can be of no help to you in this regard. If and when you ever come to an understanding about the differences between statistical significance and significance (and the inverse), you then need to look into the differences between subjective and objective. After you’ve mastered those concepts, then try and understand why the appeal to authority is often rendered meaningless because of the various subjective interpretations of objective information. Finally, when you’ve come to grips with all of that, then, by all means, get in touch and we’ll have some wonderful and meaningful conversations.
Martin Lewitt says:
February 12, 2012 at 9:23 am
Evidence of whether what Lord Monckton attributed to Sir John Houghton is a misrepresentation of his motives, rather than just a misquote, would be whether Sir Houghton does seem to exagerate or hype beyond the evidence. There is something that indicates that he does, his “weapon of mass destruction” essay. He showed little restraint in associating all kinds of extreme events with global warming.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/jul/28/environment.greenpolitics
=======================================================
Hey!!! No counts, showing that he’s doing exactly what Monckton said he was doing!!! He used quote marks!!! So, because he used quote marks, we will ignore the message and attack the messenger. I think Christopher was absolutely correct when he applied the word mendacious.
>> Are you still defending the overlayed Scotese/Berner graphic as clear evidence of the lack of correlation between CO2 & temp?
This caught my attention (and sorry if I am repeating information others may have said). I figured someone would find a problem with those graphs.
Those graphs do show a lack of correlation between co2 and temp in the same way that I can create a graph of water added to plants over time and create another graph of plant growth over time and find these two graphs to be uncorrelated because dependencies on other variables (like sunlight and fertilizer) are skewing the results. We have to remember that CO2 in the atmosphere does not define surface temperature. There are a number of factors that work together to define surface temperature. We need not just water, but water, fertilized soil, sunlight, CO2, and stable temperatures related to what the plant tolerates (to pick major contributors) in order to see a plant grow.
Let’s look at a simple analogy. Planet CO2 will relate to plant CO2 and planet solar irradiance will relate to plant watering. The planet’s temperature will be the height of the plant.
Let’s say I plant a 1 meter high plant in a controlled greenhouse with acceptable temperature, in soil with necessary nutrients, where the plant gets necessary sunlight. Thus, I factored out these 3 variables.
I set the initial CO2 levels in the greenhouse to a very high value.. eg, to match the CO2 levels in old earth. Over a year I will reduce the CO2 levels from the very high initial value until finally they are at ordinary levels found in the atmosphere today. I will reduce the CO2 over the year to match the CO2 graph used by Monckton in the presentation.
As for the water, I will start by giving the plant virtually no water, just enough to keep the plant from dying and from shrinking but little enough that the plant won’t grow. After 2 months, I notice that just like the temp graph in the presentation, the plant has not grown. Then I remove the water and the plant starts to wither and shrink. After 2 weeks, I notice that the plant has shrunk to match the dip in temperature in the graph. For the next month, I add water to get the plant back up to earlier size and then cut back on water to just keep it there. ….Well, I’ll skip the tedious narration since we can see the pattern in how I can control water to get the height of the plant to follow that temp graph despite the initial very high level of CO2 and its decreasing status over time.
Does this experiment mean that CO2 doesn’t matter? No, CO2 does matter as Smokey has pointed out many times with his tips on better gardening. What it means is that when CO2 is very high we can get the same growth effect using less water. As CO2 drops, we need more water to get the same effect.
OK, now this was only an analogy to demonstrate the issue of dependencies and how variables can be adjusted to lead to certain graphs that hide the full information needed to understand the “if all else remains equal” relationships among the depicted variables. Fact is that those graphs ignore that the sun (and irradiance falling on planet after albedo affect) was increasing in intensity over that time, much as water was increased in order to make up for reduced CO2. Yes CO2 matters. Yes, more CO2 does promote higher temperatures, but we have to look at all the variables in order to see that correlation. Those two graphs by themselves won’t show it because they are not “if all else remains equal” scenarios.
This said, the graphs suggest to me that CO2 at very high levels shown there under the somewhat weaker sun is not enough to cause our average temperatures to go too high (if other variables remain similar). There is the fourth power relationship between power flux “forcings” and temp which means it gets more and more difficult to raise the temp further. It also appears that there is a trigger that causes temps to rise to the higher level from the lower level. This might be ice keeping our albedo high enough or otherwise melting to lead to a much lower albedo. A different mechanism might be keeping the temps from going too high. What is that mechanism and how sturdy is it? The ceiling protection might be a limited amount of potential ghg, nice distance from the sun, bounded albedo based on ice formations and large body of water, and the cooling effect itself of evaporation. [Note I am just speculating, and have not studied this.]
Of course, there is a lot we don’t know about early earth. There can be tipping points reached in today’s hotter sun that would not have been possible before. If we get too hot, enough water might evaporate so that the greenhouse warming from that water could tip things. This might be a stable condition (ie, it might take more water and other ghg in the atmosphere than we have disposable.. since water condenses out). But remember that we might get a forward feedback mechanism that goes slowly until eventually it speeds up very fast as the polar ice finishes melting. This very fast change, in the last days, will likely lead to significant water events (flooding and hurricanes devastating populations of many species), making what we get today appear like getting splashed by a passerby just before the tsunami enters the city. How far inland should we be and will key species die?
The speed of temperature rise may be detrimental to key species we may depend on (that is a complex topic to understand all the relationships among organisms). Personally, I really value nature. I like life and wonder at all the amazing things that have developed. Once we lose certain ecosystems, it might be nearly impossible to turn the clock back. Costs could be huge, say, if bees disappeared because of some disease that in the past was kept in check by more stable or cooler weather and or other organisms that thrived under those conditions we might be removing (or because other microorganisms grew better in current warmer temps to displace the ones that played a key role protecting bees from the more dangerous pathogens). Life is complex, and we should be a little humble to our ignorance. Too much change too fast hurts organisms. The simplest of organisms are the most robust generally. .. Anyway, I don’t want to go into this topic much more.
@James Sexton said February 12, 2012 at 11:57 am
I’ll be happy to address your diversion re: statistical significance, James.
But first, we have an issue of you desperately clinging to the tactic of diversion/deflection to avoid defending your misinformation and misunderstandings. This stream of interaction is based on my reply to TGB, here => http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/11/monckton-responds-to-potholer54/#comments , where I included an example of you as a blinder-wearing defender of Mr. Monckton. More specifically, my example focused on CO2/Temp correlation about which both you and Mr. Monckton advanced the Scotese/Berner graphic to discredit any claimed correlation between CO2 & temp over the past 500+ million years. After finally viewing Mr. Hadfield’s debunking of that graphic it seems that you’ve now backed off on the validity of using that graphic to discredit the correlation. I’ll repeat the question I posed in my last post.
Are you still defending the overlayed Scotese/Berner graphic as clear evidence of the lack of correlation between CO2 & temp? If you are, what is the basis of defense?
Answer that, then we can move of to statistical significance.
James Sexton, when the temp ticks up for 2 months in a row, say, ticking up a fairly large amount and not just a tiny bit, will you ignore everything that passed before and claim we are on an amazing rise in temperatures because a straight line (or parabolic, exponential, etc) extrapolation means we will reach 100 degrees C in a few years?
Of course not.
In the context of the natural climate cycles (which we will only ever understand up to a point and many will argue over the details), some changes are not significant. You understand this intuitively. I think most other people understand this intuitively despite what you just claimed about Jack (and I haven’t read much above or know J Greer (although name sounds a little familiar)). We understand, yet each continue to pick our own time periods without invoking any math.
Anyway, different statistical reasoning I imagine can lead to different values of significance. This is another case of people on opposite sides of the debate speaking past each other, where we each follow the lead of others but at no point actually describe our reasoning mathematically.
The computer models model a number of natural cycles, and I think pick their statistical significance boundary based on that. [I don’t know.] I have seen 30 years being tossed around as a significant measuring period for trends of some sort. I don’t know.
Martin Lewitt >> There is also this comment from I’ve seen him dismiss Lindzen’s work as only covering the tropics when that is the very area where the models are correlated in having net positive feedback from the clouds.
Someone, maybe Smokey (haven’t read that comment well yet, but I caught note of the link and surrounding context), provided a link to a recent Lindzen paper on WUWT http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/16/new-paper-from-lindzen-and-choi-implies-that-the-models-are-exaggerating-climate-sensitivity/ . Unfortunately, the comments closed there.
I started reading the paper, and it will probably take me a while to digest it. I did notice this theme that his analysis is based on the tropics.
I think he basically follows an acceptable (which is not to say we can’t criticize elements of it) high level feedback system analysis on the full planet+atmosphere system in reaching equation 5 right on page 2. To then produce equation 6, he invokes an earlier paper he co-wrote to claim that you can move from that step to an analysis of only the tropics by simply adding in a parameterized value “c” which he chooses to be some value picked from somewhere and acknowledges is a knob of sorts to be tweaked.
He also claims elsewhere that G_0 (the open loop system response) is a value we can measure today.
I tried to quickly find what he does to justify that he is indeed measuring 2xCO2 and not something else. After all, we want to estimate temperatures at 2xCO2 before 2xCO2 actually arrives. Our model has to have some way to anticipate that 2xCO2 point on the curve of the temperature values the model will produce.
I did not quickly find any further clues on 2xCO2. Assuming there isn’t another major clue, I suspect that paper might have the same sort of mistake I have seen in various other papers that claim a low climate sensitivity for one reason or other. These papers claim to analyze the 2xCO2 condition which will exist in the future but do so by filling in variables as they are supposed to exist then instead using values that are measured today. This sort of mistake conveniently can sweep-under-the-rug the greenhouse effect and any other physics-supported time evolution that it failed to model.
[BTW, you can’t conduct science without modeling. Newton certainly modeled, as did those before and after him. We have no choice but to model and simplify to various degrees based on our best understanding of system behavior.. for whatever system we want to analyze and try to understand at any point in the future. People who criticize climate models tend not to use math themselves to form their views and so perhaps don’t really realize how we have no choice but to use model. The question is which model do you use, not whether or not you use one.]
…So I suspect that Lindzen is assuming the G_0 and the c values (and indirectly maybe other values as well) he measured today would remain that way in the future. I don’t know all the details of his model, but if he doesn’t use reasonable physics with time varying dependencies in his model and leverage this properly, his measurements of values today — a point many heavy-duty skeptics consider to be a selling point of such studies — means he almost certainly is going to get the wrong answer.
He states that eqn 6 and/or further derived eqns (aka, his “tropics” version of the main system feedback formula he derived as equation 5.. and I’ll have to read the referenced paper to see what derivation/argument he uses to justify the tropics subcomponent) is an open system. Well, that is true and certainly opens this form of analysis to many classes of mistakes since he will likely not properly balance energy values. You can’t ignore the huge reservoir effect provided to today’s environment near the tropics by the poles/ice. Without that reservoir (especially the melting ice absorbing heat without a corresponding change in temperature), the tropics will suffer a greater blunt of the greenhouse warming.
To conclude, I suspect Lindzen is underestimating climate sensitivity in part because of his failure to account for the poles/ice, and a clue of this might show up in the mathematics if we could fast forward to the future to note the G_0 and perhaps over values he claims are constants would be found instead not to be constants at all. If he switches to open loop analysis, he has to make sure he is quantifying the entire coupling of the tropics with the poles in a way that accurately describes this coupling at least at 2xCO2. I have not read his earlier work he invokes (nor this paper very much), but treating G_0 and c as constants likely is a mistake. Certainly, you can’t just assume these values are constant, as that assumes CO2 greenhouse has no effect (which is what he is effectively assuming). Also, he does define the open loop G_0 response to include 2xCO2. You can’t measure such a G_0 today because 2xCO2 does not exist today. [He can try to fix some of these problems by first making 2xCO2 be part of the feedback response (and 1xCO2 be part of G_0), but then he likely can’t come to his tidy conclusions as he did without first finding a way to model the CO2 varying effect over time.]
Jack Greer says:
February 12, 2012 at 1:10 pm
@James Sexton said February 12, 2012 at 11:57 am
I’ll be happy to address your diversion re: statistical significance, James.
==========================================
Jack, that wasn’t a diversion, you’re the twit who demonstrated you didn’t understand what you were babbling about while attempting to project it on to me. If it was a diversion, then you were the idiot that brought it up.
And if you read my response to you, you would know that I did, indeed, address your idiotic obsession. No, wait, you’ve a comprehension problem. Go here…. http://suyts.wordpress.com/2012/02/12/objective-and-subjective-observations/ Dear God! will there ever be a point in time when people such as yourself ever come to the understanding that a conclusion in a paper is a subjective analysis and not, and I’ll repeat for emphasis, not a euphemism for truth.
No, of course not. Sorry Jack, I don’t acquiesce my ability to think for myself, as opposed to people such as you. I’ve a choice, I can choose to believe what the lady had to say in her paper and Hadfield’s idiotic analogy, or, I can believe my own lying eyes. WTF? That’s her interpretation of observations. Schneider wrote a few peer reviewed papers on the prospects of an impending ice age. As did others. Peer reviewed, and accepted in the journals. Schneider S. & Rasool S., “Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols – Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate”, Science, vol.173, 9 July 1971, p.138-141
Tell me Jack….. does this mean you’re wrong if you worry about the CO2 hotting us up? You really can’t have it both ways. Which is it? Is peer review a euphamism for truth or not? Can someone look at the same data and reasonabley come to a different conclusion?
“After finally viewing Mr. Hadfield’s debunking of that graphic it seems that you’ve now backed off on the validity of using that graphic to discredit the correlation. Are you still defending the overlayed Scotese/Berner graphic as clear evidence of the lack of correlation between CO2 & temp? If you are, what is the basis of defense?”
He didn’t debunk it, he offered other people’s opinions on it. But, not before he offered his own erroneous analogy. And quite frankly, its a silly argument. They’ve done exactly what Monckton was accused of doing, cherry picking a point in the graph and saying “aha! There is a correlation!!!” And, that’s true, just like my broken clock correlates with the time twice a day. But, when it doesn’t correlate, well, then there’s a rationalization which must be put forward because of the engrained belief that CO2 correlates with temps. There are plenty of other parts of the graph which call into question the correlation. I’m dying here hear the rest of the rationalizations. No, wait, I’ve got it!!! You can posit that the sun was cool, then warmed up and then got cold again!!! But, then we get back to the hypocrisy and duplicity that you seem so adamate to defend.
But, I’m not defending nor rejecting the graph. Its is simply a graphical compilation of observations. You can take whatever meaning you wish from it. As can Monckton. As can I. No, wait, I forgot, you can’t. You have to wait until you’re told what to think about it……
Jack, I’m really no longer interested in having you embarrass yourself with me any further. Truly, move on, I’m becoming embarassed for you.
Jose_X says:
February 11, 2012 at 8:47 pm
I would like to comment on a few things from this entry. Your comments are in ital.
If I didn’t say it before (and I thought I did), let me say that AGW absolutely does not claim that temperatures will rise continually day to day
This is very true, however in 1990 the IPCC figured there would be a rise of between 0.2°C and 0.5°C per decade. However since the rise has been only 0.16°C/decade since 1990, at some point it has to rise faster to even reach the lowest IPCC projection/prediction of 0.2°C/decade. As Phil Jones said in the BBC interview about two years ago, the fastest rise for any longer period at any time in the previous century was only 0.166°C/decade.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm
Since the IPCC agrees that the increase in temperature due to CO2 is logarithmic, I see no reason to assume that the increase in temperature this century would exceed this value at any time. Would it therefore seem reasonable to NOT spend any extra money on carbon capture, etc until such a time as the temperature increase actually reaches 0.2°C/decade starting with 1990?
I did not see a link to Phil Jones discussion.
See the link above, question A.
That bottom graph has a stray point downwards a little past 2010. That value doesn’t appear in any of the other graphs you have shown recently. What gives? If we remove that point…
It appears as if BEST rather rushed this release and the down spike is a result of just having a few Antarctic values. Removing that point would give a slightly higher slope for the last 10 years. However I would like to point out that the BEST data only goes to May, 2010 and is not up to date. Considering that 2011 was either the 9th or 12th warmest, depending in which data set you use, IF BEST were up to date, then the two items could be close to cancelling each other’s effects and the BEST data would also show a relatively flat recent decade, temperature wise.
Jose_X says:
February 12, 2012 at 12:55 pm
>> Are you still defending the overlayed Scotese/Berner graphic as clear evidence of the lack of correlation between CO2 & temp?
See the following which shows carbon dioxide and methane and temperature on the same graph.
http://motls.blogspot.com/2006/07/carbon-dioxide-and-temperatures-ice.html
Note the spikes every 100,000 years or so. A perfectly natural explanation is Milankovitch cycles which causes warming and as a result of warming, the warmer oceans release all gases such as CO2 and CH4. Then when the cycle is in a cool phase, the oceans absorb these gases again to a greater degree.
OK, I am going to retract a large chunk (…ok, all of it) of the Lindzen pre-critique I made a little earlier. His model includes an increase in temp (about 1 C) for the base CO2 ghg effect. This value is assumed correct by Lindzen (and many people..including Wikipedia). I haven’t seen the analysis, but supposedly this is standard (ghg effect) stuff derived in text books (Lindzen mentions one by Hartmann in 94).
I don’t right now know the details of what that 2xCO2 derived baseline value represents to know if I should be challenging the assumed constancy of G_0 and/or of any other values.
Jose_X says:
February 12, 2012 at 1:32 pm
That is something I entirely agree with. Nor am I sure it is a worthwhile pursuit because of the overreaction to perceived understanding. It once held that the more you know, the more you know you don’t know. But today, we think we’ve gained enough understanding as to believe we can control the climate. And the effects of this have been devastating.
This is true, I don’t invoke any mathematical reasoning for the time periods I present. The reason why I don’t is because I’m not under the delusion, I or anyone else knows about what time frame is significant or not, statistically or conventionally. The 30 years is an arbitrary time frame which I’ve never seen a good argument for it. But, it is only put forward when people reference a shorter time period. It is entirely abandoned when people point out longer time periods. To assume one knows what is a relevant time frame is assumes knowledge of things we don’t yet know.
What I try to show, is how much we don’t know and how circular the discussions are. I offer no insights to what drives the climate, because in spite of the ego some have stated I have, my ego isn’t that massive as to believe I know what causes our climate to behave in the manner it does.
Specifically speaking to some of the more recent history, throughout this discussion, I’ve shown time frame well beyond the 30 year time frame. In response, what wasn’t outwardly stated, but implicitly stated, was that regardless of how many years our current dearth of warming continues, many will not accept that CO2 isn’t driving our climate. I show them 10, they laugh, I show them 15, I’m cherry picking, I show them 50 and 70 consecutive years of increasing CO2 and no temp change and I get nothing. To my knowledge, you have been the only exception. But, this is a very lengthy thread so I may have missed a response or two. I’m still mulling it over, but I think we can, without trying to add the logarithmic to the exponential, simply proceed with the view of a “doubling” atmospheric CO2 or a percentage of the doubling with out the constraints of time. But, even considering the “doubling” is a bit vexing. Is our start point truly 280ppm?
So much we don’t know, so certain some are in imagining we do know. ……..
Jose_X,
Here is Prof Lindzen’s CV, with his peer reviewed papers. There are more than two hundred. You can find them with a web search.
Werner Brozek, the Milankovitch cycle is not expressed in that other time chart (from the presentation) whose resolution probably is above 1 million years.
The hotter part of the M cycles can lead to CO2 releases from the ocean. That is like the historical lag people talk about. That explanation doesn’t pre-empt that adding CO2 first won’t enhance greenhouse warming.
I can have a crash on the road as a result of talking on the cell phone (and closing my eyes, etc), but I can also talk on the phone (and close my eyes) as a result of having had a crash. That one of these cause-effect relationships is true doesn’t imply the other can’t be true as well.
>> then the two items could be close to cancelling each others’ effects and the BEST data would also show a relatively flat recent decade, temperature wise.
I think we would probably have to extend the “decade” by at least a little and assuming the new data does show enough cooling (which it might). I am not sure if that decade would be redone by BEST though since those points are after Jan 2010.
I do think what you surmised about the stray point and incomplete data is reasonable. I don’t think the BEST analysts were trying to con anyone.
>> See the link above, question A.
Concerning those 3 trends Smokey linked to http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/hadley/Hadley-global-temps-1850-2010-web.jpg , we can compare to http://berkeleyearth.org/analysis/ . The older trends have a greater error bar. We simply are not as sure about those values. The BEST graph makes that uncertainty clearer. Additionally, the 3rd trend (the one we are currently living) still appears to have grown in length and taken place at a higher displacement.
Jones didn’t look at the BEST graph, where the differences are a little more pronounced. Regardless, the question he answered was about the rate (statistical significance of a difference between trend slopes). We can see there is some imposed temperature rise (a positive bias to the signal) on the 3rd trend which is consistent with CO2 warming added on top of what can potentially be a cyclical effect we see in the graphs.
>> however in 1990 the IPCC figured there would be a rise of between 0.2°C and 0.5°C per decade. However since the rise has been only 0.16°C/decade since 1990
The projections are here http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-projections-of.html
>> Since the IPCC agrees that the increase in temperature due to CO2 is logarithmic, I see no reason to assume that the increase in temperature this century would exceed this value at any time.
CO2 levels have been increasing faster than exponential. The rate of growth from 1850-1900 was around 3.5% (I eyeballed this earlier from some graph). The next 50 years were at 5%. Then we had 19.5% growth leading to 2000. The next 50 years appear to be on a pace over 30%
>> Would it therefore seem reasonable to NOT spend any extra money on carbon capture, etc until such a time as the temperature increase actually reaches 0.2°C/decade starting with 1990?
Ignoring what I just mentioned about the faster than exponential growth.. in general, I don’t see why we would ignore the global warming threat or avoid doing anything if somehow we stayed say at .15/decade for a couple decades. I don’t think we should ignore it now.
I do agree that significant commitment in the near future should probably not occur if we appear to be on the low end of the projections.
I do think there is time to keep improving our forecasting and see what sort of things shake out. I would like to see a greater number of scientists from outside disciplines support the climate scientists “consensus” opinions.
Anyway, I do think we should invest in things like improving CO2 sequestering research. If we can manage to efficiently remove CO2 not too much slower than the rate at which we put in out (and somewhat cost effectively), then we would solve many problems. I have read about a number of interesting work in this area. They are using the sun, semiconductor chips, even bacteria or other microbes to absorb CO2. Why not use the sun to put the gas back in the bottle for later reuse? Renewable fossil fuels sounds pretty good.
And keep in mind that if there is a serious problem, the costs go up the longer we wait. It will also take longer to develop accurate models and good understanding if we punt. It is our kids unto which we are passing on the risks. “Sorry, grandchild of mine. I had not yet gotten up to speed on the research and wasn’t convinced.”
FWIW, I don’t think .2/decade is a magic number, but if we look at the trend line values for the trends from 1990 to 2000, we do get at least .2 from each of these three datasets:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1990/to:2000/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1990/to:2000
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/best/from:1990/to:2000/trend/plot/best/from:1990/to:2000
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1990/to:2000/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1990/to:2000
The lowest is GISTEMP at a dash under .2/dec.
If we look at trends from 1990 to 2010, then HADCRUT3 drops down a lot to around .16/dec while the other two each remain about the same as they were before (with BEST much higher than GISTEMP).
Jose_X says:
“We can see there is some imposed temperature rise (a positive bias to the signal) on the 3rd trend which is consistent with CO2 warming added on top of what can potentially be a cyclical effect we see in the graphs.”
What you are seeing is an artefact of a zero baseline chart. When commenting about a trend [which you were], you need to show a trend line chart. When you show a trend line chart, the acceleration disappears. You can see what happens here.
When plotting anomalies, a zero baseline chart is fine. But using an arbitrary zero baseline chart to show a trend is deceptive [and that is exactly why they are used]. The trend has not changed during the time when CO2 levels rose ≈40%. Doesn’t that tell you something? It tells me that CO2 does not have the claimed effect. Isn’t that perfectly obvious? The reason is because the first 20 ppmv of CO2 does most of the warming. Adding more has an increasingly minuscule effect.
There is no acceleration in global temperatures. In fact, there hasn’t been much change for the past 15 years. And the mild rising trend has been unchanged [within relatively small error bars] for close to four hundred years. The planet is simply emerging from one of the coldest periods of the Holocene, the Little Ice Age.
Next, you say that “CO2 levels have been increasing faster than exponential.” How can a rise be faster than exponential? That makes no sense.
Finally, you say: “… I don’t see why we would ignore the global warming threat or avoid doing anything if somehow we stayed say at .15/decade for a couple decades. I don’t think we should ignore it now.”
What “threat”?? There is no evidence supporting any supposed threat. It’s all handwaving and circular arguments. Furthermore, the planet has been much warmer in the geologic past, with no harm to the biosphere. The current *mild* temperatures are unusually fine [although a couple of degrees warmer would be even better, for the reasons explained here repeatedly].
Instead of buying into the hokum being peddled by self-interested parties in government, in universities, and in the media, you would do much better listening closely to what more than thirty thousand scientists and engineers – all in the hard sciences, and including over 9,000 PhD’s – have personally co-signed:
Those 31,000+ co-signers knew exactly what they were signing. The identity of every signatory was verified. They could not sign by email; they had to either mail in an original signature, or sign in person.
Those are the people you should be listening to, not the self-serving, self aggrandizing connivers and charlatans who have hijacked the climate peer review process, and climate journals, and professional societies. Between $6 – $7 Billion is handed out every year to ‘study climate change’. That is a huge motivation to make exaggerated, wild-eyed, alarming claims. And that is exactly what they are doing. That grant money would soon disappear if they told the truth and said, “We should keep an eye on the situation, but so far, there is really nothing to be concerned about.”
The science does not support the scare, Jose. Not at all. But after being bombarded by “global warming”, “carbon”, “sustainability”, and similar terms 24/7/366, it’s hard to not begin to nod your head in agreement. It takes moral courage, character, a willingness to really look at the situation, and the ability to go against the herd instinct. If you do, you will be surprised to discover that CO2 and global warming are both beneficial, not harmful. But there is no grant money for those who tell the truth. That’s why it takes character.
James Sexton>> But, when it doesn’t correlate, well, then there’s a rationalization which must be put forward because of the engrained belief that CO2 correlates with temps. There are plenty of other parts of the graph which call into question the correlation.
Lindzen appears to agree there is a correlation. Are you saying that your opinion is that this correlation and a lot of Lindzen’s work are invalid?
The analogy I gave was not to rationalize a correlation. I am suggesting that the graphs are consistent with many possible theories that could exist that correlate temp and CO2. I am saying it does not follow that CO2 and temp are independent from each other (uncorrelated).
Wait. I’m being possessed.
Can someone point to me how that graph was generated? If I am not going to trust the author’s own conclusions, why should I trust their the interpretation they are giving to their measurements? How do I know the measurements are real and valid?
Who says brain cancer is real. I think there are only spirits. I have never seen any so called cancer. I interpret those colors on those petri dishes and behind that microscope lens differently. blah blah blah.
Jose_X says:
February 12, 2012 at 6:02 pm
I agree with most of what you say. Just some comments:
When Jones made those comments about two years ago, he was strictly going by HadCrut3 and BEST was not even in existence then. Regardless what the error bars may be, the slopes were basically the same for those three periods.
As for the “between 0.2°C and 0.5°C per decade”, that was taken from page 5 of this for one of the scenarios:
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/far/wg_I/ipcc_far_wg_I_spm.pdf
CO2 levels have been increasing faster than exponential.
I know what you mean. So if y = x^2 is exponential, then y = x^3 is faster than exponential. That may well be true, but as Smokey showed in the above entry, it does not look like it makes any real difference.
Anyway, I do think we should invest in things like improving CO2 sequestering research.
I do not agree. There is no proof a bit of extra CO2 is bad and we are extremely far from any economical sense on this matter. It would take a major breakthrough. I did some number crunching on this issue since in Alberta, Canada, they still want to spend about a billion dollars on one carbon capture project. At the present time, humans emit about 90 million tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every DAY. I DO NOT believe this to be the case, however let us assume there will be the IPCC average number of 3.000 degrees C increase in temperature due to our emissions if we do nothing. So if a billion dollars is spent to capture 1 million tons a YEAR, this amounts to a fraction of 1 in 32,850. So if nothing is done, let us assume the temperature will presumably go up 3.0000 degrees C, but if a billion dollars is spent, the temperature would go up by 2.9999 degrees. Or to put in another way, if we take the temperature of 10,000 cities now and then again in 100 years from now, 9,999 cities will have the same temperature and one city will be 1 degree C colder if a billion dollars is spent.
if we look at the trend line values for the trends from 1990 to 2000, we do get at least .2 from each of these three datasets:
That may be true over only 10 years, but climate seems to go in 60 year cycles and the present flatness over the last 10 to 15 years, depending on which data set you use, just confirms this. For the 60 year cycle, see:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/akasofu_ipcc.jpg
>> What you are seeing is an artefact of a zero baseline chart. When commenting about a trend [which you were], you need to show a trend line chart. When you show a trend line chart, the acceleration disappears. You can see what happens here.
Can you rephrase this? For example, what important information do you want to show via a non-horizontal baseline (trend lines)?
The zero baseline is arbitrary. Regardless of where you place that horizontal line the rightmost trend is at elevated temperatures relative to the prior two trends (that is the “bias” I was talking about).
>> The trend has not changed during the time when CO2 levels rose ≈40%
I disagree. The start is at a higher temp (which itself doesn’t prove anything by itself without first looking at important variables such as solar irradiance), and the trend lasts longer. Additionally, it is not clear that such a trend has even ended.
The trend is clearly stretched out more (and higher up) in the BEST graphs.
But I’ll spot something else in the graph you presented. From 1880 to 1910 we go downward a little. Then from 1910 to 1945 we go up at a steeper angle. Then from 1945 to 1975 we go almost exactly sideways (or down very little). Then from 1975 to 2005 we go up at the fastest rate yet. Then from 2005 to say 2030 (use your imagination) we’ll go up slightly. Then from 2030 to 2060 we go up very fast. ETC. In other words, we have upish and downish cycles except the the upish parts keep getting steeper and the downish parts also are rotating from negative to zero to positive and more positive slopes. The increased warming effect couldn’t be more noticeable, wouldn’t you agree?
>> Isn’t that perfectly obvious?
Well, isn’t it?
I think so.
CO2 is kicking into gear (look at the CO2 charts), and it has been leaving a clear trail of this evidence of associated warming for at least 150 years now… or at least such evidence is consistent. The CO2 increasing rate of growth seems to match up with the temp increasing growth.. once we factor out the cycles.. and even accounting for the logarithmic penalty.
And I used your own graph (BEST graph shows this as well, except it’s a little “ahead of the curve”).
>> Next, you say that “CO2 levels have been increasing faster than exponential.” How can a rise be faster than exponential?
Imagine a starting point in a coordinate plane (the horizontal axis is time and the vertical axis is temperature). Imagine a new point further to the “right” (ie, a point further along in time). These two points define a line. For example, we can draw a line from the point at 1880 to the rightward point at 1885.
What would faster than linear mean?
Let’s see. Let’s create some more points further to the right (eg, at 1890, 1895, 1900, and 1905). First let’s note that we can always create a new line through our new point and our starting point. Ex, we can draw a line between 1880 and 1890 or between 1880 and 1895 or between 1880 and 1900 or between 1880 and 1905, etc. However, “faster than linear” means that each new point we add lies above the line that extends from the line connecting our last two points. Eg, if the next point is at 1905, then if that point is above the line connecting the point at 1895 and 1900, then just we went faster than linear when we created the point at 1905.
At least this is what I mean now (for this discussion) when I say “faster than linear”.
In the same way, if we create an exponential curve to take us from a to b, then if the next point to the right, c, lies above that curve, we just went faster than exponential. Sure, we can always find a new exponential curve that goes through the starting point and our new point, just as we did above with the lines, but to say “faster than exponential” means that once you are going at a given exponential (aka, geometric) rate of growth, the next point you look at will be above that curve. This is the same analogy as for faster than linear.
A line is defined by an arithmetic sequence. By this I mean that at each new step to the right the next number in that sequence gives the temperature value of this next point. Eg, 2,5,8,11,14… is an arithmetic sequence and could define the line that goes through the points; (0,2), (1,5), (2,8), (3,11), (4,14), ….
An exponential curve can be defined by a geometric sequence. Eg, the sequence 2,6,18,54,162,… can define an exponential curve that would have the points (0,2), (1,6), (2,18), (3,54), (4,162), ….
Note that each new value in the arithmetic sequence was 3 larger than the prior. Note that each new value in the geometric sequence was 3 times as large as the prior.
If we start plotting new points and find ourselves increasing the value that must be added to each new term, then we are going faster than linear. If we start plotting new points and find ourselves increasing the multiplier that takes us from the last point to the next one, then we are going faster than exponential. Of course, if we go faster than exponential, we also necessarily go faster than linear.
Note: This is not a rigorous mathematical explanation. To be mathematically precise, we’d have to define what we mean by “exponential” in precise mathematical terms.
Note2: Polynomial growth would be somewhere in between linear and exponential. [Again, I am speaking informally.]
>> What “threat”?? There is no evidence supporting any supposed threat. It’s all handwaving and circular arguments.
I’ll answer the first part by clarifying what I intended to say, “the global warming risk”.
However, “handwaving” is your opinion. It is not the opinion of a great number of scientists.
Feel free to more clearly define “handwaving” and to cite a specific work that you believe is handwaving. Then cite a work that you think is not handwaving (but first define “hand waving”). And please explain how the former hand waves while the latter avoids it.
If you can’t define these well, then I fear we’ll just argue like madmen in our own handwaving style if we keep on this subject.
>> the planet has been much warmer in the geologic past, with no harm to the biosphere
I presume you were just about to direct me to your opus detailing just how hot it was and quantifying just how little “harm” was done to which “biosphere”.
Like I have hinted already, I am not interested in finding out that after losing some important-to-humans species A, that the more fit species B (“fit” in the Jurassic context) that drove A into extinction cannot fill the role for humans that A was filling.
>> you would do much better listening closely to what more than thirty thousand scientists and engineers – all in the hard sciences, and including over 9,000 PhD’s – have personally co-signed
And your evidence that these people are who they claimed they were is what?
And your evidence that these people have a clue about the mathematics and physics supporting climate science is what?
I get the feeling you picked your side and have little idea about the science that supports each side’s argument.
Oh, wait. You appear to follow what others with pedigree or degree say you should do. In that case, I have a long list of expert PHDs and other lords who opine the opposite. I am sure you will change your mind now, right?
>> Between $6 – $7 Billion is handed out every year to ‘study climate change’. That is a huge motivation to make exaggerated, wild-eyed, alarming claims.
The profits of just one company in just one quarter (exxon mobile) beats that. Keep lining up the interests and what they earn and you will see how much money likely is flowing towards the anti-AGW side. And they have no reason to pay people who even make an effort to be honest or have anything on the line.
I don’t think you will win the money-bribe-FUD angle.
Jose_X says:
February 12, 2012 at 7:30 pm
James Sexton>> But, when it doesn’t correlate, well, then there’s a rationalization which must be put forward because of the engrained belief that CO2 correlates with temps. There are plenty of other parts of the graph which call into question the correlation.
Lindzen appears to agree there is a correlation. Are you saying that your opinion is that this correlation and a lot of Lindzen’s work are invalid?
The analogy I gave was not to rationalize a correlation. I am suggesting that the graphs are consistent with many possible theories that could exist that correlate temp and CO2. I am saying it does not follow that CO2 and temp are independent from each other (uncorrelated).
……noted sarcasm………
==============================================
Jose, I wasn’t referring to your rationalization.. ….. And, I’m not going to opine on Lindzen’s work except to say the hydrology of the atmosphere would seem to me to be a place to start when concerning ourselves with our climate and radiative budgets. But, I appreciate the tactic. Yes, we got it backwards. We’re going to obsess over a molecule that’s nearly infinitesimal, which doesn’t have near the IR absorption properties of H2O and doesn’t have the magnitude nor the characteristics of H2O, including cloud formation and albedo. Yeh! Why start there when we can spend trillions obsessing and flagellating ourselves over some trace molecule which by all reckonings was a greatly beneficial gas until the Luddites took hold of climate sciences. But, what I will say is that as time goes by, humanity will look at this period and laugh, much in the same way people laugh about the vigor and rigor people argued about the earth being the center of the universe.
Directly referring to that highly controversial graph; apparently, the posit is that CO2 pulled the temps down towards the right end of the graph. I’ll ask what was asked of me the other day…… When did the Drake Passage open?
>> So if y = x^2 is exponential, then y = x^3 is faster than exponential.
No, exponential is y=k^x. Polynomial is y=x^k. Here I use “k” to designate a number that doesn’t vary (aka, a constant).
Eg, if moving unit steps to the right leads to these temp values: 1, 8, 27, 64, 125, 216, … then we are on the polynomial y=x^3.
Eg, if moving unit steps to the right leads to these temp values: 1, 3, 9, 27, 81, 243, 729, … then we are on the exponential y=3^x.
Exponential is faster than polynomial.. in the limiting case. A slow exponential (eg, y=.000000001^x) eventually overtakes a fast polynomial (eg, y=x^10000000000). For practical purposes we usually don’t consider such crazy cases since they are meaningless in the context of measurement precision and a human’s lifespan.
An exponential follows a geometric sequence. Each term is some constant multiple of the prior term. Note how 9 is 3 times 3. 27 is 3 times 9. 81 is 3 times 27. 243 is 3 times 81… Each new term is 300% of the prior term. That is an exponential.
So,
linear: 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11…
square polynomial: 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36…
cube polynomial: 1, 8, 27, 64, 125, 216…
…
exponential (base 2): 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64…
exponential (base 3): 3, 9, 27, 81, 243, 729…
The starting points were arbitrary. Also, exponential power of 2 does overtake cube poly and any other poly.. although it might take a while before it does if the poly is very large.
Now, “faster than exponential” means that we eventually overtake even the highest of exponential bases. One example of a faster than exponential function is y=x^x. Another example is y=x! (factorial).
Anyway, if the rate of growth of CO2 as a fraction of the prior year (or decade, etc) keeps going up, then we are at faster than exponential. And this means that when we take the logarithm, we will still be getting a larger and larger number as well… although the logarithm won’t grow too fast.. and CO2 growth will eventually slow down because there isn’t an infinite amount of CO2 available or land on which to burn it.
I wasn’t planning on commenting on this, though I have been following the comments with interest, but I feel obliged to point out something that Smokey said about a survey of 30 000 scientists, who all signed a statement that “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.”
In 1998, a letter, signed by Dr Fred Seitz, the former President of the National Academy of Sciences, who had been paid off for fraudulent research by the Tobacco Companies in the 70s, to scientists around America. Attached was a paper, Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide, claiming that C02 was a harmless trace gas. This forced the National Academy of Sciences to release this statement, “The council of the NAS is concerned about the confusion caused by a petition being circulated via a letter from a former president of this Academy… and a manuscript in a format that is nearly identical to that of scientific articles published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The NAS Council would like to make it clear that this petition has nothing to do with the National Academy of Sciences and that the manuscript was not published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences or in any other Peer reviewed journal. The petition does not reflect the conclusions of the expert reports at the Academy.”
Joke names such as Posh Spice and Michael J Fox were also found on the list. When questioned on this, Art Robinson, the man who had organised the petition, admitted, as reported by the Seattle Times, that “little attempt was done to verify the credentials of those who responded,” and in his own words, stated “When we’re getting thousands of signatures there’s no way of filtering out a fake.” So, Smokey, the statement of yours that “Those 31,000+ co-signers knew exactly what they were signing. The identity of every signatory was verified,” is demonstrably false. And yes, there may be thousands of supposed PHDs signing this. However, only 39 of those supposed signatories, ONLY 39 of 31 000 are climatologists. While I freely admit that other scientists may well be informed on the subject, I would not go to 12,000 students with a bachelor of science, or the 3000 people with a medical degree who signed this petition, or even Posh Spice, on a specialised topic such as this, any more than I would go to a neural surgeon to treat skin cancer.
On a final note, I think it would lend a lot more credibility to Lord Monckton, who this is supposed to be about anyway, if he could at least admit that he was wrong on a point and bring in other evidence instead of denying any misunderstanding of the Peer Reviewed literature (which somehow manages not to be corrupt whenever it points against a long term warming trend caused by man-made gases.)
I am willing to take on board new evidence, Smokey, but I will not let it stand when people reading these comments will possibly believe that 30 000 leading scientists honestly think Global Warming is no threat when that is simply not the case.
Any response to this would be welcome.
Cheers.
(I also applaude Anthony on allowing Peter Hadfield to reply here.)
lol, I think y= ax suffices for now……. where a is any number and x is any number so a could = x ….. , but typically, when considering exponential, this suffices. x could also equal ax
re post by: Joel says: February 12, 2012 at 11:27 pm
Old and outdated news Joel, which is no longer correct. After a few bogus names were put on the list either by jokers or saboteurs, the list was revised, and as Smokey already noted, hard copy snail mailed signatures were obtained for all signatories. Your dismissal of the list no longer holds water in this regard.
Next you castigate the list because of the paucity of ‘true’ climatologists on the list. If you use that standard, I suspect you’d have to similarly eliminatethe majority of the IPCC authors – few of which actually have climatology degrees either. I do believe that includes your presecious Michael Mann. Add in Railroad Engineer Pachuri who heads the whole IPCC up – he’s not a climatologist, and therefore by your logic has zero business being in that position. Similarly say bu-bye to Michael Mann of the dismally prepared Hockey Stick fame. His undergrad is physics and applied math, where grad school was physics and geology/geophysics.
No climatology degree there, guess we’d better get ALL of his climate related papers retracted, along with any other paper that used one of his as an important foundation for their papers. Even Phil Jones of the CRU only has a BA in environmental sciences, with an MSc & PhD unspecified at the notoriously inaccurate Wikipedia. What it boils down to is that until very very recently, universities didn’t offer a degree in climatology, so the vast majority of “climate scientists” have all sorts of different degrees, typically in some type of earth science, or geology, physics, math, biology, meteorology, chemistry, etc., etc. So you’re hitting on the composition of the petition project for the very same thing you would have to hit IPCC members with. If they’re not good enough for the petition project in your mind, then neither are the majority of those working on the IPCC reports or submitting papers for it. You’d have to toss them too, including some of your most highly respected guys.
Furthermore, any competent scientist is able to evaluate a majority of papers with regard to proper application of the scientific method, pretty much regardless of the subject matter. That doesn’t make them an expert in the field nor necessarily able to evaluate the robustness of results and conclusions – but far too often in ‘climate science’ one doesn’t need to get even that far and papers can be rejected or at the least taken with a large grain of salt because of improper experimental design, or clear problems in terms of methods and materials, and so on. One glaring problem in this regard with many ‘climate science’ papers is the issue of uncertainty. If you are unable to specify a meaningful level of uncertainty to your data and follow thru to your results, clearly the scientific method hasn’t been properly applied. If you hypothesis doesn’t have a rational null hypothesis, there’s a problem. If your experimental design is such that your hypothesis either cannot be falsified during the experiment, it’s yet another case where the scientific method isn’t being followed. If your conclusions go WAY beyond what is reasonably supported by your data, it’s a major problem. These are the sorts Issues that often don’t require specialty in the field to be able to pick up on – just a good solid basis in the scientific method.
Next, however, is a huge issue. The ‘climate scientists’ won’t release their data along with sufficient data regarding methodologies, or, for example, even the specific stations which were used to construct the global temperature charts – they’ve admitted they can no long associated the data used with the proper station. If the work cannot be identically recreated and verified and validated, then the results are almost meaningless. This is a huge problem with much of the basis for the AGW ‘climate science.’
I’ll break into a second section to make commenting easier.
I should have added, for clarity, that the claim that most of the petitionproject scientists can’t be considered because they aren’t climatologists is bogus, as a result of points I made above.
Well crap….. that html doesn’t play here…… trying again….. y=a^x suffices but a could = x and x could equal n^x Which is enough to describe the double exponential and whatnot, save for the factorials….. but then x could = n! ….. so then what? 🙂
more re: Joel says: February 12, 2012 at 11:27 pm
In addition to the previously mentioned 31,000+ climate or related fields scientists, consider the following:
The AGW hypothesis doesn’t even rise to the level of a theory yet, let alone something that is unanimously believed by scientists. Any claim to ‘unanimous’ agreement or even a large consensus of scientists is bogus on the face of it, especially with something as complex as our climate system. Science isn’t run by consensus, but by empirical data (not climate model projections) that is falsifiable (look up the father of modern science, Karl Popper’s ideas on falsifiability), verifiable, and repeatable. Currently the AGW hypothesis fails on all three counts.
As to scientists who do NOT concur with AGW, Freeman Dyson’s stance is a good example. Add eminent professor Harold Lewis (physics) http://tinyurl.com/2ab7uto or the 7 eminent physicists skeptical of AGW alarm, including a great video of Dyson himself on the issue: http://tinyurl.com/4zcrb5f Be sure to listen to his complete video there – it’s short, only 6 or 7 min if I recall correctly, and well worth watching.
Try: **900+ peer reviewed research papers supporting skeptical arguments http://tinyurl.com/y9jrjaf Be sure you READ the explanation up front too, or you’ll be spouting the nonsense that’s out there as talking points against this set of papers too.
**100 prominent scientists including Nobel winners and IPCC lead authors who wrote the U.N. warning against ‘Futile’ climate control efforts http://tinyurl.com/yo7fcz
**31,000+ scientists disavowing AGW http://www.petitionproject.org
**Over 700 scientists worldwide disavowing AGW signed onto USA Senate report http://tinyurl.com/yaqd3fn
The list goes on and on. Try quibbling with the credentials of many of those eminent scientists, particularly the 700+ and the 100+. The list includes Nobel Laureats – the REAL kind, for hard sciences, not the politicized denigrated ‘peace price.’ Also includes former and current IPCC authors.
Add to it the two Germans who just published “The Cold Sun.” and had articles in mainstream german media in the past week and a post here on WUWT about it.
re post by: James Sexton says: February 13, 2012 at 5:49 am
All fun and games, except as far as I understand it, thus far an exponential curve fits the data just fine without any problems. In other words, CO2 increase has been and appears likely to stay exponential. This “faster than exponential” comes out of the blue and has no basis in the CO2 increase reality. Frankly it sounds as if it was tossed in just to be a bit of a scaremonger.
Rational Db8 (used to post as Rational Debate) says:
February 13, 2012 at 6:05 am
re post by: James Sexton says: February 13, 2012 at 5:49 am
Well crap….. that html doesn’t play here…… trying again….. y=a^x suffices but a could = x and x could equal n^x Which is enough to describe the double exponential and whatnot, save for the factorials….. but then x could = n! ….. so then what? 🙂
All fun and games, except as far as I understand it, thus far an exponential curve fits the data just fine without any problems. In other words, CO2 increase has been and appears likely to stay exponential. This “faster than exponential” comes out of the blue and has no basis in the CO2 increase reality. Frankly it sounds as if it was tossed in just to be a bit of a scaremonger.
========================================================
Agreed…… was having a bit of fun with our new friend Jose. I’m waiting for the ultra-super-duper exponential.
Rational Db8 (used to post as Rational Debate) says:
February 13, 2012 at 5:46 am
Where does it state that “hard copy snail mailed signatures were obtained for all signatories”.
and in relation to your point regarding “true” climatologist, the expectation is that they have published a peer reviewed paper on climate change. There really is no exception to this.
Jose_X,
LIndzen is assessing the transient climate sensitivity, the 2xCO2 figure is just a standard way in the field of scaling a watt-temperature relation. I haven’t revisited the paper, but I doubt he did projections other than to use the generally accepted implications for different sensitivities at the expected CO2 doubling about the year 2100. The actual sensitivity to CO2’s watts may be quite different from radiation with different spatial and chemical coupling to the climate. In fact, in a nonlinear system, such a coincidence would be a surprise.
Lindzen’s reference to his earlier work, was because that work was an earlier treatment of the same analysis that received some criticism in part, and there is no need to repeat the parts he is citing in the new paper.
Yes, nearly all science is model based, but mathematical and statistical models are often more transparently reviewable in the literature (with cooperation from the authors), than are the type of numerical discretizations and parameterizations of physics, computational models that take CPU-years to run that barely avoid being as complex as the climate itself. When “model” is used unqualified in the climate sensitivity literature, it usually refers to these kind of models, and model-independent usually refers to analyses not using such models.
regards
Is there a reason why barely any of my comments get posted?
[every comment has been posted . . kbmod]
Werner Brozek, I do think sequestering research is a great idea, but obviously it would not be used if it didn’t reach an economical level that scaled well and could dent the release rate. Trying to break from the climate wars, the whole idea of having new sources of energy is something few people could dislike.
Rational Db8, I don’t know the latest on the 2^15 sigs. Mostly, I agree with you and others who want to focus on the science and not the letters after people’s names. Yes, lot’s of research is done by grad students. Einstein (man, we love to milk this guy’s name) had published 3 of his 4 papers of 1905 before he was even awarded his PHD (at least if I got the dates down right from Wikipedia last time I checked). Part of the problem is that despite this point, most people who care about this topic aren’t comfortable with more advanced physics/math (many who contribute to climatology also aren’t since they work in less mathematical areas), so we can’t debate to deeply on forums.
On “faster than exponential”: Well, the letters/variables you use are arbitrary. When I state y=k^x, for example, I was trying to communicate things I didn’t say, such that k is a constant, x is the time domain (in this case), and y is temperature. Faster than exponential just means that if we try to model the growth, “each” following unit step in time implies a higher rate than the “instantaneous” rate up to that point. In other words, if we appeared to be growing at a rate of 5% per 50 years, now we are going faster.. so no single exponential function (constant base value and variation in a linear function of x) would match that approximately and then keep up. Again, I am being loose and not mathematically or scientifically precise (which, for measurement data would require error analysis, etc). The point was just to show that the logarithmic value is going up some, and I think “faster than exponential” can convey that point (if we understand what I mean with those words). That’s all here.
Rational Db8>> thus far an exponential curve fits the data just fine without any problems.
You would really help me understand what you mean if you could provide a rough exponential function that matches data.
I don’t expect the increasing rate to continue forever, but at least try to answer this. What exponential function roughly explains the rates we had from 1850-1900, as well as for each following 50 year period and then for the last 12 years? The only way you can get an answer is to pick something in between and stretch out some error bars.
I am not routing against you here. I am curious to see your answer. We can keep it in mind (yeah, right) over the upcoming 2 or 3 decades.
My best guess if I wanted to come up with one rate of growth would be to pick something close to where we are now, add in enough error bars to cover the slow periods of the past century, and hope that the future rate would soon slow down to get back to this rate I picked.
Rational Db8>> The AGW hypothesis doesn’t even rise to the level of a theory yet .. Popper…falsifiability.. verifiable, and repeatable
AGW may never meet that standard by the nature of the beast. That doesn’t invalidate the value in such an observation. And many sciences work towards “answering” questions in a way that would fall into this realm. You can’t go back in time to see things as they were then. You may not call them “hard” sciences or “Popperful” sciences, but they share much with sciences you would call hard sciences. I am not attracted to these sciences by nature, but I do recognize that real analysis goes on to gain insight into important questions.
>> the 7 eminent physicists skeptical of AGW alarm, including a great video of Dyson himself
I read Dyson’s remark and heard his interview at the bottom of that page, and those views strike me as a fair assessment of someone from his position. He took a moderate skeptical tone. That is more than fair.
For the record, he stated: “But I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in.”
The video then goes on about how we appear to be focused too much on modelling compared to data gathering of ecosystems, etc.
I think a lot of work is being done to gather data on biological systems. You do realize that he almost seems to be supporting the idea that more money should be invested to help improve our understanding. I have come across this before. A normal skeptic reaction is to say that we don’t know enough, and the only real solution to that, if we think the question is an important one to understand better, is to invest more time and energy on research to try to answer those sorts of questions.
I don’t know what is a fair level of federal research dollars. I hardly think about that issue. I am sure a lot of research is done by private firms, whether or not they publish those results. I do think it is interesting that the “skeptic side” can’t possibly be a homogenous group because the questions posed and possible reasonable solutions vary wildly across the board (eg, from increasing funding because we know so little to the fact many appear to want much less funding to go here possibly saying that no amount could ever be enough).
>> 100 prominent scientists including Nobel winners and IPCC lead authors who wrote the U.N. warning against ‘Futile’ climate control efforts
If you wanted to play the numbers game, we just have to look at the several thousands (I think this estimate is accurate, but I haven’t personally checked) of scientists who signed on to the IPCC report and didn’t complain.
I would even suggest that someone like Dyson would support we take action on this issue.. just listen to the video and read his comment. .. so that is at least one Nobel Prize winner in support … wait wait, it seems Dyson has never been awarded a Nobel Prize..
Wikipedia > Although Dyson has won numerous scientific awards, he has never won a Nobel Prize, which has led Nobel physics laureate Steven Weinberg to state that the Nobel committee has “fleeced” Dyson. Dyson has said that “I think it’s almost true without exception if you want to win a Nobel Prize, you should have a long attention span, get hold of some deep and important problem and stay with it for 10 years. That wasn’t my style.”
Rats, but there probably are others. Without a Nobel Prize, the argument has NOTHINGK! HAAAAA.
>> Add eminent professor Harold Lewis
Yes, he wrote a scathing letter indeed, and I don’t want to downplay his complaints too much.
For what it’s worth (and it has got to be worth something), the other side of the coin is that there is a very large number of eminent scientists who didn’t write any such letter and don’t share those views.
>> 900+ peer reviewed research papers supporting skeptical arguments
I suspect a fair number of those offer good skepticism. If “the AGW side” wanted to put up a list, they probably could come up with a much larger number.
Anyway, I looked at the first paper on the list. It is a compilation of 18 proxies. The point was to show how hot it was during MWP. Of course, why were those 18 picked of the hundreds of proxy reconstructions that exist? Most people would say that Mann took a more reasonable (if “at least somewhat flawed”) approach by looking at a very much larger selection and using well defined objective criteria for selection and reconstruction.
In fact, Mann released the source code and certainly opened the research up to scrutiny. I do hear an awful lot about how closed off these climate science guys are. [Has Spencer’s team released the source code to their satellite data analysis computer programs?]
If I wanted to judge those 18 by the cover of the book, I would say that besides being a small number very likely cherry-picked, it can easily include research difficult to reproduce and funded by sources hostile to AGW. If you pick data points that lie 3 sigma away from the mean, you can misrepresent the curve very well indeed. Hockey Stick meet The Quasimodo.
[I left the above at “at least somewhat flawed” for a lack of having had time to study the issue better. I respect the observations McIntyre made, but I think he focused on creating doubt and not on giving an estimate of likelihood of error. I think, once again, the answer lies somewhere in between.]
>> 31,000+ scientists disavowing AGW
>> Over 700 scientists worldwide disavowing AGW signed onto USA Senate report
I would like to see more than just the equivalent of 2% of those 31,000 put their name where it really counts.
I should add that “exponential” means something like constant rate of growth.
It’s cheating to make x a function of say x^2, x!, etc., and still call it exponential. For I can then just call everything “linear” since whatever I pick can just be multiplied by a constant (even by just 1) with some random added component (eg, .0001 or even 0). The definitions of these names tie the behavior of the function to the independent variable (the x-axis variable) in order to prevent this sort of ambiguity.
Here, just use this definition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_growth , except that within the context of CO2 I am only assuming positive growth rates (no exponential decays, in other words.. at least not today).
I have had numerous comments not posted, at least five on this article and many more on others. Why did you not post my comment regrinding Moncktons Al Gore referral?
Often Joel Shore puts a spin on his comments that is easily deconstructed. So for those wondering who is being factual here, this page will provide the answer.
Isn’t Joel’s comment just like the typical alarmist response? More than thirty one thousand professionals with degrees in the hard sciences, over 9,000 of them with PhD’s, signed a clear statement that CO2 is harmless and beneficial to the biosphere. But instead of trying to falsify that statement [which neither Joel Shore nor anyone else has ever been able to credibly accomplish], Joel gives his uncited opinion that a couple of names out of 31,000+ were faked – not realizing that it is his cohorts who were being dishonest. And those names were promptly culled from the list, still leaving over 31,000 scientists and engineers stating unequivocally that CO2 is harmless and beneficial.
More information on the Petition is available here. Anyone with a degree in the hard sciences can download the petition, sign it, and mail it in. [I understand that this disqualifies “major 9985”, but the petition is limited to professional scientists and engineers.]
“the insubstantiality of Hadfields allegations” Have you not watched the videos Monckton? The proof is in the podding with over 20 identified mistakes made by you, which have all been documented and debunked by Hadfield.
Al Gore clearly gives examples of how the ocean is warming underneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (which is only a fraction of the whole Antarctica) and that this could increase melting. He also points out the increasing numbers of moulins in Greenland which posses a real risk of large sections of ice receding into the ocean. He gives no time frames for when this melting could happen but his explanations for the melting are both based on rapid time frames. This is a far cry from Monckton’s continuous mistakes.
This does appear to be a mistake made by Al Gore, he says all the people of some nations in the pacific, but it is not that bad, only small numbers of people are moving from these islands at present. So mistakes made by Al Gore 1 vs Monckton over 2o. And let’s not forget all the Monckton manoeuvres that Hadfield pointed out.
Al Gore does not give a reference to the scientific paper that explains after the last ice age the conveyor stopped, but he does explain that it could not happen today but points to Greenland as a possible source of water to stop it again. But that is it.
Al Gore never says “an exact fit” in the documentary, unless someone can show me that it was said, I put this down to another one of Moncktons mistakes. But CO2 and temperatures do correlate, CO2 is the driver of ice ages when instigated by Milankovitch cycles which Al Gore somewhat explains by says the relation is very complicated.
Due to the uncertainties of why Kilimanjaro is declining it cannot be seen as wrong to attribute it to global warming when so many other areas similar are melting due to it. I do think Al Gore could have pointed out that the science is not settled on that mountain yet, but at the end of the day, the extra warming must be playing a part in the melting. Again these points made by Monckton do not come close to his mistakes proven by Hadfield.
Al Gore is talking about precipitation trends and has moved on from talking about catastrophic result of global warming. He shows that parts of Africa are in draught, but clearly states there are many reasons for the problems in these areas. He then talks about Lake Chad which has dried up but he states that this is only making the other problems worse. He never says it is due to global warming. If only it was this easy for Monckton supports to back up all of his mistakes.
Al Gore explains that warming oceans will drive stronger Hurricanes and uses Katrina as an example of a Hurricane that moved over a warm ocean and became more powerful. He never states it was due to global warming. Just because the documentary is about global warming does not mean everything explained in it is solely caused by global warming, Katrina was an example of the sorts of dangers we can experience. These are nitpicks of Al Gore’s documentary not to be mistaken for the mistakes made by Monckton.
Again Gore does not claim that the polar bears deaths are due to global warming, but he says it is the first recording of it happening, and that we should be concerned due to the reducing of sea ice in the Arctic. The truth is if there was more sea ice in the arctic these bears may have not drowned.
At Least Monckton used the words “other factors” because that explains itself, global warming is expected to put pressure on coral reefs, Gore is meant to explain that to people.
Hadfield explains in many videos that Al Gores cleaver play on words distorts the truth in his documentary, but for Hadfield to make a video about it would not prove Al Gore wrong but mealy be pointing out his cleaver play on words. It would be a waste of time pointing out what I have just explained. They are not mistakes at all and to even compare them to Monckton is outrageous.
Smokey says:
February 10, 2012 at 1:27 pm
“The debate is if climate sensitivity is positive or negative.”
I was not talking about this Monckton article, I was referring to your constant points about CO2 being plant food. I am lost to understand why you keep on with that statement when you know this is about greenhouses gases. But when you refer to Spencers papers as fine and dandy I can see why you think the science is settled and move on to the debate that CO2 is a plant food. I also clearly state the values I referenced are from a doubling of CO2 and when I refer to positive or negative I mean more or less positive. But I see how you tackle this debate, “it is unmeasurable”, we should all stick our heads in the sand then shouldn’t we. Then you list all the skeptical papers that show the lowest possible sensitivity and claim the IPCC is lying to us. But don’t they know CO2 is a planet food!! And that all their findings which point to a warmer planet being bad is wrong!! And your other point regarding increased CO2 in the oceans, you claim to have read the links you referenced but you seem to have missed the key point “The increase in CO2 is making the ocean, not more corrosive, but more neutral.” Of cause the oceans are becoming more acidic, it is a term used to explain that the pH is moving towards the acidic side. But this is the type of pointless misleading information we have to expect from you.
Just one thing about Smokey’s list (the Petition Project) which of course should be considered anecdotal…
I just googled one of the signatories, namely Harendra Sakarlal Gandhi (thought it would yield unambiguous results) to quickly found that he worked for Ford, has a Ph. D. in chemical engineering and invented a system “called Premair, [which] cleans the air by a chemical reaction that destroys ozone (the main component of smog) and carbon monoxide. As air is drawn through a car radiator coated with the company’s platinum-based catalyst, ozone molecules are broken down into oxygen and lethal carbon monoxide is converted into carbon dioxide.
The system would complement catalytic converters in automobiles, which destroy pollutants before they are released, and could add $500 to $1,000 to the price of a car, according to Engelhard.”
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/05/28/nyregion/an-inventor-in-a-business-suit-with-none-of-the-usual-angst.html
He also died 2 years ago, but despite the stated policy “When we do learn of a death, an “*” is placed beside the name of the signatory” by the petition site, it’s not noted yet.
Smokey says:
February 13, 2012 at 10:19 am
With my terrible spelling I could see why you would not think I had a degree, but with the power of spell check I have acquired an Environmental Science degree and a postgrad in Climate Adaption. But because I have not published a peer reviewed paper on Climate Change I really don’t have the credentials to to be part of a consensus. Not that it would matter, its all in the peer reviewed literature. I have to admit I am finding this link a very interesting read http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html#Climategate
I said >> I respect the observations McIntyre made, but I think he focused on creating doubt and not on giving an estimate of likelihood of error.
What I meant to say is that I *worry* he focused on creating ….
I read some of his blog articles but have not read the papers (although at least one, 05, I think, was rather short).
DaNims,
Thank you for your anecdote. But if that’s the best criticism you can come up with, it shows how very weak your complaint is. It still leaves over 31,000 scientists and engineers who state unequivocally that CO2 is harmless and beneficial.
So in the interest of accuracy, why don’t you inform Dr Robinson that one of the co-signers has died? Robinson will place the appropriate asterisks upon being notified. However, that will not change the original signature.
Art Robinson, the man who had organised the petition, admitted, as reported by the Seattle Times, that “little attempt was done to verify the credentials of those who responded,” and in his own words, stated “When we’re getting thousands of signatures there’s no way of filtering out a fake.”
The petition project is a joke, but I guess they admit many of the signatures and undergrads so at least they are honest about it.
major9985>> “The increase in CO2 is making the ocean, not more corrosive, but more neutral.” Of cause the oceans are becoming more acidic, it is a term used to explain that the pH is moving towards the acidic side.
I don’t know the consequences of this stuff in the ocean or how strong is the effect, but I can point to an analogy.
If your blood was becoming more neutral…. [yippy, hurray, woohoo]
.. it would be becoming more acidic. [boooo]
… and that likely wouldn’t be a good thing if it was happening in a “strong” way, for Wikipedia says, “blood pH is regulated to stay within the narrow range of 7.35 to 7.45, making it slightly alkaline.”
I liked the anecdote by DaNims because it suggests that there might be a lot of scientists or engineers out there who have not studied climate science but for one reason or other don’t think CO2 is a problem and might be willing to sign the petition. That is how I interpret that petition.. for many, a vote of healthy skepticism based on some scientific/engineering background but not much studying of the particular subject at hand.
As concerns the numbers, we could cut it in half and it would still be a significant number. [not to imply it represents a large fraction of the total of such professionals.. who probably number above 1 million just in the US.]
Smokey,
Yes, it’s weak and random. But I’m not gonna google all of them. I did another one though (Arlen Severson) who’s a professor of medicine. Nothing wrong there except of course that anatomy is really far from climate.
I think it’s fair to say that everyone is entitled to their opinion and when you meet the requirements (science degree), you’re entitled to sign this petition. But it still states opinions and without actual thourough understanding of the climate system as we know it, it’s nothing more than that.
The most ‘active’ field in the petition is engineering (9,933 sigs). Atmosphere, Earth, & Environment (3,805) is much less represented.
major9985 says:
“…you would not think I had a degree, but with the power of spell check I have acquired an Environmental Science degree and a postgrad in Climate Adaption. But because I have not published a peer reviewed paper on Climate Change I really don’t have the credentials to to be part of a consensus.”
You have no idea how funny that sounds.
Climate “adaption”? You can’t even spell your degree?? And “consensus”? That’s your goal?? You’re right, I would not think you had a degree. An amusing post none the less.
. . .
DaNims,
M.D.’s can be listed as OISM co-signers, but their underlying degree must be in the hard sciences. No sociologists, English Lit majors, or “_______ Studies” degrees.
I understand that you are trying to denigrate the co-signers as lacking understanding [and which presumes you possess understanding that they do not]. But the OISM co-signers include climatologists, physicists, chemists, geologists, etc., including many internationally esteemed professionals like Dr Edward Teller and Prof Freeman Dyson.
Furthermore, there have been several attempts by the alarmist contingent to organize similar but counter OISM petitions. In total, those counter petitions contain fewer than one-tenth the number co-signing the OISM Petition [and many of the same names appear on the different counter petitions]. So it turns out that the true “consensus” [for whatever that is worth], is heavily on the side of scientific skeptics. In fact, it is a comparatively small clique that is pushing climate alarmism.
Those tens of thousands of co-signers are not stupid. They are highly educated, knowledgeable professionals who understood and agreed with what they were co-signing. Instead of looking for ways to belittle them, maybe you should listen to what they are telling you: CO2 is harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere.
. . .
Jose_X,
You need to learn something about the truly immense buffering capacity of the oceans. Atmospheric CO2 cannot cause a measurable change in ocean pH. The oceans contain about 450,000 times more CO2 than the atmosphere does. Do you honestly believe that the 0.00039 fraction of the air that is CO2 can possibly cause “ocean acidification”?
I have seen all related videos, read everything and made myself popcorn! Now, bring me Moncktons reply on Potholers Greenland question and let the game begin!
Smokey,
What was interesting with the Ghandi anecdote was that he had a strong financial interest in whether or not Co2 is seen as harmless or not.
You might have missed the post were I stress that many more have got engineering degrees than atmospheric, climate or earth related science degrees.
In other words, as I stated, it’s fine for them to have opinions and express them when given the chance, but it doesn’t mean much else.
I would suggest creating a new thread where only Monckton and Hadfield can respond that way we can get statements in print from Monckton and then the counter or corredtion from Hadfield.
Please make LeMorteDeArthur’s wish come true!
major9985 says:
February 13, 2012 at 11:02 am
Smokey says:
February 13, 2012 at 10:19 am
With my terrible spelling I could see why you would not think I had a degree, but with the power of spell check I have acquired an Environmental Science degree and a postgrad in Climate Adaption. But because I have not published a peer reviewed paper on Climate Change I really don’t have the credentials to to be part of a consensus. Not that it would matter, its all in the peer reviewed literature. ……
==========================================
Major, I don’t know what web browser you’re using, but there’s no reason to do that to yourself. There is a spell-check add on with MS’ Internet explorer, or just download Firefox if you’re using a PC. I believe Mac also has a spellchecker available with their browser. ……..
As to the rest of your post, I share Smokey’s view. But, be of good hope! Some of the tripe we’ve seen discussed here and other places lead me to believe a box turtle and a hammer can get published, you just need someone who can replicate the form of a paper. Then just make crap up as you go…… In the end, put the requisite homage to CAGW and odds are you’ll be able to shop off somewhere.
Here, I’ll get you started…… Let’s say the parasitic wasp known as Dicopomorpha echmepterygis does something we can remotely consider as useful/harmful, then posit that with the soot coal puts out the weight of the particles will weigh the wasps down and they won’t be able to do x,y, or z like they used to or conversely we could say the CO2 benefits it by XXX thereby creating a problem of epic proportions……either would cause a chain reaction by either increasing or decreasing the population of x,y, or z and then we’re all gonna die because of it…. simples…..
On a related note…..
@ Smokey….. no doubt, but boy did they have me worried!!! You see I thought all the coccolithophores of the oceans were going to die because of the hotting and extra CO2! Those are the little critters that take carbon and make Calcium Carbonate for scales. But, just when I thought the end was nigh, a group of scientists did a study and found, “Neither the rate of calcification (production of particulate inorganic carbon, PIC) nor the PIC:POC ratio were significantly affected by elevated pCO2, temperature or their interaction.”
Whew! That was a close one! Fiorini, S., Middelburg, J.J. and Gattuso, J.-P. 2011. Effects of elevated CO2 partial pressure and temperature on the coccolithophore Syracosphaera pulchra. Aquatic Microbial Ecology 64: 221-232.
Now, I haven’t vetted them and I think Middelbugy may have a cousin that once filled up their car with gasoline, so there is that……
re post by: DaNims says: February 13, 2012 at 2:14 pm
WHOA!!! Hold the presses!!! It’s been discovered that Engineers have no understanding of systems, system feed back and forcing, hydrological systems, fluid flow, physics, radiative physics, complex systems analysis, computer modelling of systems, the basic scientific method, dynamic systems, high level mathematics, geophysics, geology, thermodynamics, etc., etc…. that computer engineers have no actual understanding of computer modelling, and the entire field of ecological engineering turns out has nothing to do with understanding ecological issues. Agricultural engineers have no meaningful understanding of agricultural systems, That energy engineering, including solar engineers and wind engineers, have no understanding of those systems.
What a sad, sad day to discover this tragedy and conspiracy that has pretended competence in these various disciplinary areas – that has gone so far as to require professional licensing even!!!
DaNims, it’s heartbreaking, but thank you so much for bringing this travesty to the world’s attention – and I suggest that you immediately notify the head of the IPCC, railroad engineer Pachuri, that he is out of a job because he’s clearly not qualified to evaluate anything related to ‘climate science.’
Smokey says:
February 13, 2012 at 1:39 pm
is heavily on the side of scientific skeptics
Interesting choice of words
re post by: major9985 says: February 13, 2012 at 11:12 am
major9985m, what is it that you don’t understand about ‘outdated and no longer applicable?’ That quote, if it is even accurate, was from over 14 years ago, and the process has long ago been revised and hard copy signatures obtained for each signatory with their credentials verified.
Why don’t you stop spreading what amounts to deceptive false propaganda at this point?
p.s., to those of you who continue attacking the petition project signatories, I sure don’t see you touching the qualifications of those who signed the letter to the USA Senate or the United Nations.
Smokey >> Atmospheric CO2 cannot cause a measurable change in ocean pH.
I haven’t had to deal with acid pH calculations in a long time and never did it very much. I do remember that pH of 7 represents a concentration of 1 part in 10^7; hence, I know that several orders of magnitude difference of solute might be fair game and register something on the pH scale.
OK, to avoid messing up the calculations, I’ll just quote Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonic_acid . And note that 1 part in 450000 is more than 10^-6.
> The extra dissolved carbon dioxide has caused the ocean’s average surface pH to shift by about 0.1 unit from pre-industrial levels.
Wikipedia references this: http://ioc3.unesco.org/oanet/FAQacidity.html
The webpage gives the relevant equations and constants in case you want to play with the numbers.
Can you tell me why Wikipedia is wrong and you are right? If there is a mistake, we might want to fix it.
[BTW, I am not saying I blindly believe what they are saying. I specifically avoided trying out a calculation because I don’t have enough confidence.]
As to just how many IPCC scientists were actually ‘signed off on’ or endorse the IPCC reports, or the supposed ‘consensus of thousands of IPCC scientists’, just take the word of Mike Hulme; IPCC insider, climate alarmist and strongly pro “post normal science” (which is an anathema to the very definition of science), excerpts copied below. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/14/the-ipcc-consensus-on-climate-change-was-phoney-says-ipcc-insider/
Or try the following, explaining how there is no ‘2,500 [or so] IPCC scientists who comprise a pro-AGW consensus,’ from: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/04/lawrence-solomon-on-consensus-statistics/
DaNims says:
“What was interesting with the
Ghandi anecdoteMann payola was that he had a strong financial interest in whether or not Co2 is seen as harmless or not.”There. Fixed that one for you.
The alarmist crowd has a big problem pointing to a perceived mote in someone else’s eye, while ignoring the giant beam in their own eye. In any set of 30,000+ individuals you will inevitably find a few instances where you can claim a conflict of interest. But the main actors in the Climategate emails are all seen to be unethically enriching themselves. They are seen committing fraud, and taking payola, and evading taxes, and taking endless, expensive jaunts to holiday venues at the taxpayers’ expense, and conspiring to divert money and publication opportunities away from anyone who doesn’t toe their CAGW line, and scheming to evade FOI requests, and collecting multi-millions in grant money. And on and on. The whole CAGW scam is built on payola and influence peddling.
So far Ghandi is your best argument, therefore your argument fails. One out of 31,400+. Wake me if you can find any ethical problems with even five percent of the co-signers [note that every actor in the Climategate saga has serious ethical problems; some are just more egregious than others].
For every Ghandi you can find, I can find a dozen unethical Climategate scoundrels. But I would prefer to discuss why the alarmist crowd completely ignores the scientific method, why they ignore Occam’s Razor, and why they are as far from scientific skeptics as they can be, and why they ignore the climate null hypothesis, and why they hate transparency, and why they are so defensive when it is pointed out that even though CO2 is steadily rising, the global temperature is not. Pick any or all of those subjects and we can discuss them. Maybe you’ll change my mind.
Alarmists should be rejoicing because their conjecture is being falsified; humanity is not facing a crisis after all. Instead, they double down with their repeatedly debunked scare stories. It is clear that they want runaway global warming to occur. They crave a climate disaster. They would rather see hundreds of millions of people die and be right, than see humanity prosper – even though they would have to admit they were wrong in their predictions. I would call that mindset evil incarnate. It’s not much different from Eugenicists, whose platform Germany adopted in the 1930’s. Fortunately for humanity, so far the planet is siding with the good guys.
. . .
Jose_X says:
“I liked the anecdote by DaNims because it suggests that there might be a lot of scientists or engineers out there who have not studied climate science but for one reason or other don’t think CO2 is a problem and might be willing to sign the petition.”
That makes no sense at all. The “anecdote” was about someone named Ghandi [who hasn’t had a chance to weigh in with his side, has he?]. And it would probably surprise both of you, but doctors know quite a lot about CO2.
And by Jose’s specious reasoning, it would be just as easy to get the same number of co-signers to say that CO2 is a real problem. But that petition didn’t get any traction. For the most part, intelligent, educated people understand that CO2 is harmless and beneficial, while the credulous ones buy the scare stories.
Smokey says:
February 13, 2012 at 1:39 pm
I clearly state that I have not published any peer reviewed work on climate change so do not have the credentials to way in on the debate. This is why the petition project is a joke and only people like yourself would even bring it up. I also make it clear that consensus means nothing, something skeptics seem to cry about but yet jump on the idiocy of the petition project. The insane thing I am learning from people like you smokey, is the Arctic could be free of ice all summer, temperatures going through the roof, but you will claim it is all due to natural processes. Even how you look at a cooling period and think it means something, over the last forty years there has been six and this one is not even cooling http://tinyurl.com/5sbf3kd Then you have the lack of knowledge to understand that there are many factors driving climate, causing temperature records to fluctuate http://tinyurl.com/c5a2dyt but science has brains to consider this. Then comes the old man suggestion that humans cant control climate end of story statement which I have heard from you before, yet geoengineering has shown that a controlled release sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere will cool the Earth. Basically everything you say is wrong and its a shame, because its clear you have so much to rant on about.
re post by: Jose_X says: February 13, 2012 at 11:21 am
Let me just copy a previous post of mine from another thread, with a few minor edits in [brackets]. From: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/26/sea-cucumbers-dissolving-coral-reefs/
Rational Debate says: December 27, 2011 at 3:01 pm
Science is about precision – and that includes terminology. Obviously on comment posting folks often don’t take the time to ensure that they’re using exactly the right phrase or wording – but it does get important when we start talking about the basics (no pun intended!).
You’re never acidifying a solution, [nor are you making it more acidic], until or unless you are adding sufficient acid to bring that solution to an acidic state – e.g., under pH 7.0. You may very well be adding an acid to the solution, but so long as the solution is basic, by the proper terminology you quite simply aren’t acidifying in any sense of the word. If you are adding enough acid or diluting enough to go to a pH 7.0, then you are neutralizing the solution. If you are lowering pH, but are still above 7.0, then you aren’t acidifying, you are reducing alkalinity or moving towards a neutral solution [or becoming less basic].
Corrosion, on the other hand, is relative and not specific to pH, even though we typically think of a corrosive solution as one that is most likely acidic. Alkaline substances can be just as highly corrosive, however. Whether something is corrosive or not all depends on the system it is in, and the various physical and chemical reactivities of the substances present. For example, water, through the process of erosion, corrodes rock. You can conceivably have an alkaline substance that is corroded by another alkaline substance, all based on the particular structure and reactivity of each, and just how much difference there is in the level of alkalinity of each substance.
But you’re never acidifying a solution so long as it will remain [at, or] above, a pH of 7.0.
Point out one email that shows anything, I have read every email you people have found at its all a joke the way you make up this fantasy of evil you think you are reading. But I seriously doubt we will get a email reference from you.
There is no climate null hypothesis, there is facts such as man increasing CO2, increased downward infrared radiation, global warming seen in the Shrinking Cooling and Rising Atmosphere, the continuing warming trend, the loss of temperature correlation with solar forcing, the fact that all temperature record that don’t show a warming during the MWP do show one for the global warming we are seeing from CO2.
Like I have stated to you before, the trend is up, this is not even a cooling period, it is so hot they are the warmest on record, with five actual cooling periods over the last 40 years they have gradually leveled out to not even show a cooling during this decade. Everyone talks about a cooling trend in the near future but none of you reference a peer reviewed paper that suggests it.
This is why I despise people like you, you are lost in a sea of hate. The IPCC has reduced its expected warming from a doubling of CO2 as new evidence has come available, just because you want to deny all the facts and only focus on a couple of skeptical papers that shows the lowest possible warming does not come near to what your evil mind suggests.
@Jose_X
You seem to have this very strange penchant of acknowledging that you haven’t read the research paper or studied relevant aspects of it, or don’t understand xyz, or haven’t dealt with the math or science involved… then you plow right on to make various definitive statements about how those papers are in error or the facts or science or what-have-you are thus and such contrary to whatever the skeptic’s view might be.
While I commend you for your honesty in these regards, I have to say it’s bizarre that you then profess opinions on said issues so strongly, and often as if they were facts.
I also must note that you seem to use wikipedia as a reference almost exclusively, when it’s well known that the bulk of any climate related article on wikipedia has been corrupted. Just search WUWT on “William Connolley.” Here, I’ll even start you out: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/19/wikibullies-at-work-the-national-post-exposes-broad-trust-issues-over-wikipedia-climate-information/
p.s., while wiki can be a useful starting place for your OWN internet research, it is a notoriously inaccurate and often seriously flawed source.
Rational Db8 (used to post as Rational Debate) says:
February 13, 2012 at 3:15 pm
Nothing has changed, link me to where it explains that they redid all the signatures and verified all 30000+. I am sure there are lots of actual true climate scientists that saw that the fake peer reviewed paper sent with the petition was a joke but signed the paper because they really do think CO2 will not warm the planet by much. But the deceit that went into the petition has been shown http://tinyurl.com/7gcvrcj also the fact that they just let anyone sign it is wrong.
The Seattle Times also investigated the Orgeon Petition, and found that some questionable people had signed.
“Several environmental groups questioned dozens of the names: “Perry S. Mason” (the fictitious lawyer?), “Michael J. Fox” (the actor?), “Robert C. Byrd” (the senator?), “John C. Grisham” (the lawyer-author?). And then there’s the Spice Girl, a k a. Geraldine Halliwell: The petition listed “Dr. Geri Halliwell” and “Dr. Halliwell.”
Asked about the pop singer, Robinson said he was duped. The returned petition, one of thousands of mailings he sent out, identified her as having a degree in microbiology and living in Boston. “It’s fake,” he said.
“When we’re getting thousands of signatures there’s no way of filtering out a fake,” Robinson, 56, said in a telephone interview from Oregon.”
major9985 won’t listen, but for those interested, there are lots of dissenting scientists who don’t think CO2 is a problem. See here, and here, and here.
And major9985 believes there was no MWP warming. Wrong.
major9985 also says: Point out one email that shows anything, I have read every email you people have found at its all a joke the way you make up this fantasy of evil you think you are reading. But I seriously doubt we will get a email reference from you. Wrong as usual. See references here, and here, and here. Also see Steven Mosher’s excellent book on Climategate.
major9985 has a broken moral compass. He blames Dr Robinson for some dishonest people sending in fake names, instead of blaming the perps. I would try to find Robinson’s letter explaining the thorough vetting process since that happened, but major9985 wouldn’t listen anyway.
major9985 says: There is no climate null hypothesis… all temperature record that don’t show a warming during the MWP do show one for the global warming we are seeing from CO2.
Arch CAGW alarmist Kevin Trenberth knows there is a climate null hypothesis. He wants to get it changed, so skeptics are forced to try and prove a negative. Trenberth wrote that “…the null hypothesis should now be reversed, thereby placing the burden of proof on showing that there is no human influence.” I would explain the null hypothesis to major9985, but he probably wouldn’t listen. major9985 believes there is no null hypothesis. Little does he know.
re post by: Jose_X says: February 13, 2012 at 9:58 am (your comments in blockquotes)
I’m sorry, Jose, you cannot just loosely redefine the meaning of terms that are being used scientifically or mathematically. I believe it is easy enough for you to find plenty of exponential curve fits to the CO2 changes over time, including in the IPCC. You, on the other hand, made the most extraordinary claim that the CO2 increase we’ve seen over time is “faster than exponential.” It is therefore up to you to show that an exponential curve cannot be fit to the existing data. There is no need for your ‘error bars’ or anything else – it’s simply been an exponential increase over time.
If the various experiements aren’t falsifiable, they are essentially meaningless and that very much does invalidate observations because there is no way to tell if those observations are meaningful vs. either confirmation bias, experimental bias, systemic bias, correlation not causation, misattribution, etc., or some combination of the above. There is a reason Popper is often called the Father of Modern Science. This is how humans have achieved our most rapid advances by far, and why the ‘soft science’ have made a snail’s pace of advancements if that.
Now you are delving into sheer speculation, and I heartily disagree with your interpretation. It seems pretty clear to me that Dyson is pointing out the misallocation or poor allocation of funds, and the gross problems with using climate models.
You might try a little prioritization – when present conditions such as cancer, malaria, starvation, etc., are killing millions each year, and ‘anthropogenic global warming,’ after 30 some odd decades of heavily funded research cannot even get past the null hypothesis of natural variability, it certainly seems that much of the resources could be utilized to far greater benefit to all.
I’ve got to say that’s a bizzare statement, since there is no greater ‘homogenity” among the AGW side either.
Science isn’t advanced by concensus – I merely posted the counter to claims by others here of a ‘consensus’ or overwhelming majority, etc. Claims which are without merit in many different ways.
Waaaa? Pointing out poor prioritization, poor research/experiemental designs, fundamental flaws with currently utilized research approaches, or advocating other or shifted areas of research doesn’t begin to equate with advocating taking action on the issue. And who ever claimed that there weren’t any Nobel Prize winners who support AGW? Heck, Obama and Gore both immediately come to mind on that count. So what is the possible point in this entire digression of yours?
Other than this joke, which did get a grin out of me. (Col. Klink strikes again!!)
Who knows what the proportions are. The alternative hypothesis is that apparently there have been far more efforts to obtain similar pro-AGW-is-seriously-bad signatures, and that there are plenty of reasons to believe that such efforts would have as much and probably more chance of success as the AGW-isn’t-serious signatories – and yet thus far they’ve been unable to gain anywhere near the number of comparable pro-AGW signatories.
Maybe, maybe not. Speculation on your part. More importantly, the point and issue isn’t ‘who has more on their side.’ Science isn’t run by concensus. What lists and numbers like these show, however, is that there is still raging debate on virtually every aspect and within every disiciple associated with ‘climate science.’ That the issue is far from settled, and nowhere near a level that justifies social upheaval caused by attempts to ‘mitigate’ or avoid something so grossly uncertain and currently unsupported by the body of existing science.
I suggest you read up a bit more on who’s doing the cherry picking. Here’s a small start: http://climateaudit.org/2005/06/02/mbh98-proxies/
Are you kidding me?? Please, educate yourself at least a tiny bit on the issue before making such proclamations. For a start, see: http://tinyurl.com/7qj3luz Mann has been anything but transparent on this issue. As to Spencer’s source code, you’ll have to check that yourself.
Are you a fantasy book writer? Because you are making up supposed problems here as if they had any basis in reality, all without providing the slightest indication that you have even a smidgen of fact for such speculation.
Please, reread the part of my reply and the associated link above which begins “are you kidding me??”
I’m sorry, I haven’t got a clue what you mean by this, nor where you think is ‘where it really counts,’ if open letters directly to the United Nations and the USA Senate aren’t ‘where it counts.’
Jose_X is either trolling or insane. My view is that he is insane. He opines:
“wait wait, it seems Dyson has never been awarded a Nobel Prize.”
Prof Richard Feynman [winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics] stated that Freeman Dyson should have received the Nobel Prize. But in the hard sciences only three recipients are allowed. Dyson was the fourth and most junior member of the Feynman team. Dyson himself synthesized and reduced to practice the Feynman/Schwinger/Tomonaga solutions to the renormalization problems of quantum electrodynamics. By Jose_X trying to denigrate Dyson, Jose shows his ignorance. Freeman Dyson signed the OISM Petition. Does anyone but a lunatic believe that Dyson doesn’t understand as much about climate science as anyone?
Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180): “The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” Take heed, Jose_X.
The number of scientists signing the petitions or participating in the IPCC process dwarf the number of scientists actually doing research in the relevant area of scientific dispute, net feedback to climate forcings and climate sensitivity. The largest number are the modelers because of the scale of these projects, but only the subset of these working on the global application of the models and on key model diagnostics are at spearhead of the science. The remaining relevant researchers are a subset of theoreticians, physicists, paleo-climatatologists, and solar scientists that are attempting to make model independent assessments of net feedbacks and climate sensitivity. It is just dozens of scientists, probably less than 200 in total. Necessarily, the relevant literature is also small, so it should be no surprise that scientifically literate people from other disciplines, who have made the effort to become familiar with the literature, can have more informed opinions than researchers in the multidisciplinary field of “climate science” that have not made that effort, and most of the thousands who participate in the IPCC and sign these petitions have not made the effort.
It is amazing how “climatologists” who publish, essentially using the models as paper mills, can think they have an informed opinion based upon model “evidence”, yet they have not done a basic review of the model diagnostic literature.
Smokey says:
February 13, 2012 at 6:54 pm
I know there are lots of people that for one reason or the another think the Earth is not going to warm that much from increased CO2 but like you have said before its computer models “speculation” that determines climate sensitivity. The facts are increased CO2, increased downward infrared radiation, atmosphere global warming. The funny thing is all these people know that man is increasing the temperature of the earth but they think it wont be that bad, well thats not good enough, if most peer reviewed science explained that it was not going to be that bad that would be great, but it doesn’t. You lose smokey, deal with it. We are the ones with all the facts you are not. I am open to everything you say, I don’t stick my head in the sand regarding the IPCC expected warming of 2-4.5 degrees Celsius
Hold your horses there smokey, let’s not start making stuff up like Monckton. Of cause there was a MWP but many temperature readings around the world do not show a warming from it, but they all show a warming from the resent warming from CO2 due to it being a global gas http://tinyurl.com/8yp3hmg . The simple fact is the MWP was not a total global warming, it was more localised, it has even been explained as a La Nina event http://tinyurl.com/y8l78s9
Nothing new smokey, the “trick” and “hide the decline” have all been explained. I do agree the hiding of data was not the best, but these guys were under enormous pressure with people left right and centre attacking them. The blocking of skeptical papers was their job, if a paper they rejected was actually good, it would have simply been published in anther peer reviewed journal. Nothing has happened due to these emails, and every time you spit evil nonsense about it, you are just repeating debunked claims.
That is a good way to put it, but it is more than just the fact they don’t really check all the applicants, its the fact they sent a non peer reviewed paper with the petition that is designed to trick people, and that they want people with a degree or equivalent to sign it. Then you have the balls to claim 32000 scientists don’t believe in global warming. I feel sorry for you people.
Nothing has changed, they got 32000 people to sign and now simply they claim that volunteers are checking every new applicant. Robinson clearly stated that they could not check them all at the beginning, but really who cares, with only 39 climatologist, they only need to verify them and that’s it. And these 39 better have published something.
This is what we have to deal with, people like you thinking that one test can wish away man made CO2 rise, increased infrared, Shrinking Cooling and Rising Atmosphere, increasing temperatures, arctic disappearance, increased Greenland and Antarctica melting. This stuff is facts and it is not going to stop, and your little world where you think some guy in a backyard can prove a null and that is the end of it is a joke at best. Stick to gardening smokey.
James Sexton says:
February 13, 2012 at 2:49 pm
More pointless dribble by the looks of it James, is your name on the petition? It is a degree or equivalent!
And by the looks of it I have to explain myself, I could have a PhD but unless I am active in the peer review process I would not participate in a study that was designed to prove or debunk climate change. I hope you can realise the stupidity of it. But we have to all remember you cherry picking 30 year cooling periods and claiming to have nullified CO2 warming..Classic.. A statement that clearly shows you have no understanding of the climate system. You even show a graph that illiterates no correlation between CO2 and temperatures over 500 million years ago, but dont even read the paper that it is from which clearly states the sun was 30% dimmer back then and that there was a correlation! You think a 7 year cooling trend is statistically significant because Monckton claims it is, but because you have not got a clue what is shown in Hadfields video you don’t know that Monckton in later speeches says it is not significant. I can see why you are not a part of the petition, but its people like you that are a part of it.
re post by: major9985 says: February 13, 2012 at 11:14 pm
Hello??? Orwell, Orwell anybody?
and:
Now that would be a neat trick
Finally:
The ignorance of the most basic aspects of the scientific method, not to mention ethics, contrasted with the certainty of belief displayed is truly amazing, and pathetic.
I should amend “The ignorance of the most basic aspects of the scientific method, not to mention ethics, contrasted with the certainty of belief displayed is truly amazing, and pathetic.” by adding: Or just indicative of someone who is very young, likes to bluster a lot, and pretend to be an adult while online.
Rational Db8 (used to post as Rational Debate) says:
February 14, 2012 at 12:55 am
You are the one that is pathetic. There is no evidence to suggest the Earth is going to go into a cooling trend. There are countless studies on CO2 which you seem to know nothing about, you cant just increase downward infrared radiation and expect nothing to happen. But it does not matter, you have no proof, no scientific method to explain anything. You just think no one knows anything about the climate. Well wake up and read a book. The warming trend is up, this decade was not even a cooling it was a faltline and the hottest one ever, Arctic will be gone by 2030-2040 the way it is going. You calling me pathetic because I am taking the side of almost every scientific peer reviewed paper that says there will be a warming from CO2. And why don’t you explain the scientific method that could disprove that increased CO2 is not going to have an effect on temperatures? You seem to think you know the “Scientific Method” so well. Explain your technique. Because many other people have gone down that path.
With over half a billion years worth of climate data, comprehensive conclusions have shown over the long term there is indeed a correlation between CO2 and temperature, as manifested by the atmospheric greenhouse effect.” p.201. (http://earth.geology.yale.edu/~ajs/2001/Feb/qn020100182.pdf). This was the same conclusion for all the other studies:
CO2 as a primary driver of Phanerozoic climate — D. Royer et al, GSA Today, March 2004 (http://droyer.web.wesleyan.edu/GSA_Today.pdf)
CO2 forced climate thresholds during the phanerozoic, Dana L. Royer 2005 (http://droyer.web.wesleyan.edu/PhanCO2(GCA).pdf)
Atmospheric CO2: Principal Control Knob Governing Earth’s Temperature, Andrew A. Lacis, Gavin A. Schmidt, David Rind and Reto A. Ruedy, 2010 (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/330/6002/356.abstract)
“Absorption of Solar Radiation by Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide” T.G. Kyle et al, Jurnal of the Optica; Society of America. Vol. 55.
“Direct Absorption of Solar Radiation by Atmospheric Water Vapor, Carbon Dioxide and Molecular Oxygen” Giich Yamamoto, Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences Dec 1961, pp. 182-188.
“Solar Radiation Absorption by CO2, Overlap With H2O, and a Parametenzation for General Circulation Models” S. M. Freidenreich, V. Ramaswamy, Geophysical Research, Dec 1992.
“Parameterization for the absorption of solar radiation by O2 and CO2 with application to climate studies” Ming-Dad Chou, Journal of Climate, 1990 Vol 3 pp. 209-217
A fine riposte, with lotsa good points.
Rational Db8 (used to post as Rational Debate) says:
February 14, 2012 at 12:55 am
My bad I forgot to add this:
words that I can debunk would be good.
Do you not understand the basic concept of increased greenhouse effect?
As the lower atmosphere warms due to an enhanced greenhouse effect, the Stratospheric is expected to cool as a consequence. It is Jones et al. (2003). The tropopause is the atmospheric boundary between the troposphere and the stratosphere and is expected to rise. Observations indicate that the tropopause height has increased several hundred meters over the past 3 decades. Santer et al. (2003). The layers above the stratosphere are expected to cool and contract as a result of global warming, it is Laštovička et al. (2006).
Rational Db8 says of major9985:
“The ignorance of the most basic aspects of the scientific method, not to mention ethics, contrasted with the certainty of belief displayed is truly amazing, and pathetic.”
True. major 9985 is a nutcase, indoctrinated by alarmist blogs like Pseudo-Skeptical Pseudoo-Science. As if.
So is Industrial engineering – just as Pachauri has. The head climate scientists is not a a climate scientist?
What are the degrees of Mann, Jones, Trenberth, Amman, Wahl, etc.?
How many have degrees in “Climate Science”?
major9985 says:
February 13, 2012 at 11:53 pm
James Sexton says:
February 13, 2012 at 2:49 pm
More pointless dribble by the looks of it James, is your name on the petition? It is a degree or equivalent!
And by the looks of it I have to explain myself, I could have a PhD but unless I am active in the peer review process I would not participate in a study that was designed to prove or debunk climate change. I hope you can realise the stupidity of it. But we have to all remember you cherry picking 30 year cooling periods and claiming to have nullified CO2 warming..Classic.. …….
You think a 7 year cooling trend is statistically significant because Monckton claims it is, but because ……..
===============================================
Wow, and not even a thank-you for pointing you towards a proper spell check…….. Yes, that was an attempt at a thing I like to call “humor”. I do appreciate the fact, though, that not all share in my sense of it.
But, it’s difficult not to laugh at these responses.
You should read up and see how I’ve explained the difference between “significant” and “statistically significant”, you seem to be suffering from the same problem many others have. But, I understand the challenges of common English language. The 30 year graph was shown to show how laughable the concept is to only attach meaning to events of 30 years or longer. But, you’re selling me short! I didn’t stop at 30 years. I showed 50 years and I showed 70 consecutive years of increasing atmospheric CO2 and no increase in temps!
Now, when I did such things I knew I’d get some very vitriolic responses, and I wasn’t disappointed. Any reasonable person would say, “Hey, wait a minute! This isn’t congruent with what we’ve been told! We should look into the reasons for this!” If I had put 150 year graph up, it would not have caused people like you to pause and think. And the reason it didn’t is because the greater climate conversation isn’t about CO2 or temps.
It is about the deep seeded belief that man is an aberration of nature and not a part of nature; that man is destructive towards nature. Therefore, anything that works towards the benefit of humanity must be destructive towards nature. Man caused CO2 production is a proxy for human advancement and prosperity. And, that my friend, it what this is about. There’s a word for this, it is commonly known as misanthropy.
This will probably be my last time checking back here. I’ve had my say and I’ve seen all of the irrational and hypocritical responses to my comments. This was an exciting thread!
Rational Db8:
>> I’m sorry, Jose, you cannot just loosely redefine the meaning of terms that are being used scientifically or mathematically.
What is the definition? You haven’t given a definition. I pointed you to a wikipedia page so that we have at least something. I am and have been all ears. Ball in your court.
>> I believe it is easy enough for you to find plenty of exponential curve fits to the CO2 changes over time
So you think it is easy for me to do it, but you won’t do it yourself after I ask you. I’ll ask again. Why don’t you show me how to do it?
>> It is therefore up to you to show that an exponential curve cannot be fit to the existing data.
Up to me? You can’t do it apparently. I said I can’t. You really have a weird idea about burden of proof and logic. You don’t just snap your fingers and claim something can be done. I am asking for one exponential curve that fits the CO2 rise data. I would like to see (a) a reasoned mathematical proof that shows it can’t be or that it can be OR (b) else a sample point to prove it can be. The burden of proof is with the person who says something can be done when we currently have 0 samples of it having been done.
>> There is no need for your ‘error bars’ or anything else
Good. Don’t use any error bars. I hope you realize you have made your task impossible now, but I am interested in seeing what you come up with because it’s becoming clearer that we are not communicating clearly. Once I know what your idea is of an exponential curve that fits the data, I have a better idea of why we are disagreeing.
I’ll repeat. I really want you to teach me. Don’t turn me down again, please.
Also, please link or quote a definition of exponential, so we can finally get onto the same page.
>> You’re never acidifying a solution, [nor are you making it more acidic], until or unless you are adding sufficient acid .. But you’re never acidifying a solution so long as it will remain [at, or] above, a pH of 7.0.
Thanks for the discussion. I wholeheartedly agree that precise definitions can become important depending on the discourse. My goal is to improve my level of communication without first going out and memorizing the dictionary and reading 1000s of books, so I am more than willing to be given a preferred definition and then work off that.
I was addressing the idea that making something less basic (less alkaline) towards neutral 7 pH does not imply a good thing is happening, even though the term “neutralizing” is used. We don’t want blood level at 7.0 pH.
I did look up “acidifying”. It appears this word and variations of it can be used within context to signifying something moving downwards in the pH scale (or upward in the pOH scale).
Eg1, http://members.iimetro.com.au/~hubbca/acidity.htm . “Acidity is a somewhat loose term indicating that the blood, or one or more of the secretions, is less alkaline than it should be.”
Eg2, as this page makes clear http://www.womentowomen.com/digestionandgihealth/acidalkalinefoodchart.aspx , the term acidifying and alkalizing is being used to describe a property of what amounts to an acid or base being delivered rather than necessarily to describe a property of the final solution state.
So, adding an acid to the ocean is the reasoning behind using the term acidification. This usage wasn’t invented today on this forum and appears to be widely used within context (eg, “ocean acidification”)
To get back, if you really don’t like the use of that word this way, then let me know so and what you propose as an alternative. I know that it can be very annoying to have people misuse words that form a part of your regular vocabulary or is a word you have known for a long time and hate its awkward usage. ..annoying at least until you get used to it. [For the time being, I’ll continue to use the word under similar contexts.]
Rational Db8:
It still seems you are hung up on the “faster than exponential” phrase. Look up that phrase in quotes and you will see many entries.
OK, I’ll help, using http://www.biology.arizona.edu/biomath/tutorials/Log/Logscale.html
> However, if you plot the data on the log-linear scale, your eye can detect if the data falls in a straight line. A visual inspection of the graph will tell you the following
> If the population is growing exponentially, you will see a straight line.
> If the growth is slower than exponential, the curve will be concave down.
> if the growth is faster than exponential, the curve will be concave up.
I hope this makes it clearer what I mean by “faster than exponential”.
If you want to ignore error bars and find a curve to fit the CO2 data, be my guest, but I’ll warn you again that without error bars I think you are more likely to climb Mt Everest and send us a postcard than you are to find a description of a continuous curve to fit the path CO2 has taken (at least to the degree that all known measured points would pass through your curve).
Again good luck.
Smoky writes:
>> Jose_X is either trolling or insane. My view is that he is insane. He opines:
>> “wait wait, it seems Dyson has never been awarded a Nobel Prize.” ….
Rational Db8 writes:
>> And who ever claimed that there weren’t any Nobel Prize winners who support AGW? Heck, Obama and Gore both immediately come to mind on that count. So what is the possible point in this entire digression of yours?
>> > Rats, but there probably are others. Without a Nobel Prize, the argument has NOTHINGK! HAAAAA.
>> Other than this joke, which did get a grin out of me. (Col. Klink strikes again!!)
Ah, my sarcasm skills have failed me again!! The whole diversion into Nobel Prize territory in that comment I wrote was a diversion.
I should have thought of this earlier http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/book98/fig.ch3/p060.html
Never send a man to do a computer’s job.
Ok, Smokey, Rational Db8 and others.
If you’re happy with that petition and it’s inherent flaws, it’s fine by me. Just as I don’t mind you backing Monckton in each and every of his claims.
But I’d rather you wouldn’t call yourselves rational or skeptics because while you are prone to repeating old and often outdated if not factually wrong anti-ACC memes (Hockeystick, climategate, etc…) you apparently can’t adress reasonable criticism of what you deem acceptable (Monckton, the Oregon Petition, …)
If you want to discuss the petition, please adress my points:
– A petition is only a matter of opinion
– Only 3,805 of the responders hold “earth science” degrees
– I couldn’t find the number of person who didn’t repsond to it, but about 10.6 million people would qualify to sign this petition in the U.S…
Not to mention that actual studies have been conducted showing some sort of consensus on climate change:
http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
Is suyts the same as James Sexton?
>> I showed 50 years and I showed 70 consecutive years of increasing atmospheric CO2 and no increase in temps!
Would you care to repeat which graph that was you were looking at for 50 and for 70 years?
You do realize (please say yes) that there are multiple factors that go into determining temperature, and at any given point in time a further increase in CO2 can get negated several times over. In signals analysis, you see this all the time.
Of course, I think you go against most accepted science including Lindzen and what most people believe. …wait, I am getting ahead of myself making too many assumptions in this reply. I don’t even know if suyts has posted here before, so I’ll wait for a graph first.
>> It is about the deep seeded belief that man is an aberration of nature and not a part of nature; that man is destructive towards nature. Therefore, anything that works towards the benefit of humanity must be destructive towards nature. Man caused CO2 production is a proxy for human advancement and prosperity. And, that my friend, it what this is about. There’s a word for this, it is commonly known as misanthropy.
You have heard of the word “moderation” before and how lack of it can hurt, kill (you name it), so why are you making these categorical claims?
>> This will probably be my last time checking back here.
Just my luck.
OK. Till next time.
Rational Db8>> try a little prioritization – when present conditions such as cancer, malaria, starvation, etc., are killing millions each year, and ‘anthropogenic global warming,’ after 30 some odd decades of heavily funded research cannot even get past the null hypothesis of natural variability
As I already mentioned, there are many cases where you can’t repeat an experiment, just look at any trial in court.. we have to weigh evidence and make decisions best we can off things that may or may not have happened. People do this all the time in their daily home and work lives. This is the nature of the beast when we want to consider certain questions. There is science being done to help us better tackle these questions.
And if you can’t repeat the experiment and falsifying data is not forthcoming, then falsifiability might also have a hard time being met.
What do you propose for falsifiability? Without even knowing the exact hypothesis in play (can you point to the papers that include this AGW hypothesis?), I imagine we would have to shut down all human CO2 production to perhaps maybe get an idea about falsifiability. Are you proposing we do that? Are you proposing we shut down all CO2 for 30 years to measure results and then… of course not. And that experiment would have too many variables anyway.
In any case, the best we can do is build models that hopefully can predict.. and then see what the models say (if the models appear to do a reasonable job). That is the game the scientists (regardless of their position on this topic) are playing. People arguing we should not be performing any experiments anyway are not going to be very convincing. Most people, I think, want to let this battle keep playing itself out among the scientists doing science.
>> ..or advocating other or shifted areas of research doesn’t begin to equate with advocating taking action on the issue
You misunderstood me. I didn’t mean (or say) he appears to want us to assume “AGW” and “take action”. What I said is that he appears to want us to do more and “proper” research that is focused differently. I think we agree on that point; however, just in case, let me quote how he ended the interview clip:
“What should happen is.. in the next few years.. is we should have similar measurements in 100 different places. Then we should begin to note what is going on on the global scale. But until now, we don’t have it. Until we have that sort of information, it makes very little sense to believe the output of the climate models.”
So he appears to be for further research, stating his view that we don’t know enough.
As further comment on his interview:
I would view the approach he wants us to take (measuring CO2 above vegetation) as offering an independent estimate of CO2 origin levels. We already have other means to estimate sources of CO2. If people want to spend the money there, more types of experiments would help strengthen our estimates.
Also, he said that the plants control the atmosphere and not vice-versa. I think each plays off each other. It is not nearly as one-sided as he claimed there. I think Smokey the gardener would agree with me on this :-).
And of course, the plants are not burning fossil fuels. We have estimates for how much fossil fuel we are burning. We have estimates for what is going into the oceans. In the end, the “land” gets attributed everything we can’t otherwise quantify. http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hall_03/
>> and yet thus far they’ve been unable to gain anywhere near the number of comparable pro-AGW signatories.
I don’t think they are spending their time or money to the same degree trying to spread the word and get signatures. I really think they could muster a very large number of supporters if they had a weak hand scientifically speaking and needed to pad the climate science resume. There are mistakes, but they have the abundance of research on their side. [Which “side” is this again? OK, let me read the petition text.]
The petition is just an opinion piece. It makes some statements of facts that I think zero of the signatories could prove if asked.
One such statement reads: “The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.”
A null hypothesis for the above (hypothesis) might be: the proposed limits have no bearing whatsoever on either the environment, the advance of science and technology, or the health and welfare of mankind.
Yes, I think currently the evidence most strongly supports current climate models over competing physical models. I don’t think there is a set of equations (a model) from a skeptic group that does as good of a job at hindcasting past temperatures as the climate models do. [BTW, once you have your equations, feel free to use a computer to save you some pencil led and finger punching on a common calculator.]
I am not swearing by these climate models, generally. In fact, I am skeptical (and largely ignorant of the details) of the precision in the methods (tree ring or any other) used to estimate past temperatures. This is one reason why I don’t worry too much about MWP estimates of temps.
Yes, I am not convinced we are very near or above human record temp highs, but I do worry about ghg effect potential.
>> Are you a fantasy book writer? Because you are making up supposed problems here as if they had any basis in reality
18 proxies does not appear to me to be a large number of proxies. That is what I meant. What steps were taken to show that these 18 are representative?
>> I’m sorry, I haven’t got a clue what you mean by this, nor where you think is ‘where it really counts,’ if open letters directly to the United Nations and the USA Senate aren’t ‘where it counts.’
OK, I wasn’t clear. 700 is about 2% of 2^15 letters. The point being that it is much easier to submit a letter to a no one saying whatever you want it to say, than it is to put your signature on something being given to Congress to also be put in the public record.
Rational Db8 >>I suggest you read up a bit more on who’s doing the cherry picking. Here’s a small start: http://climateaudit.org/2005/06/02/mbh98-proxies/
In case anyone cares, I just posted two comments to that link. See for example, http://climateaudit.org/2005/06/02/mbh98-proxies/#comment-324437.
This second comment reads in part:
*****
A) I agree there can be serious problems,
B) but I think the “general” methodology is workable. I disagree with this blog posting (if it says) that it is generally a bad idea to use a criteria to filter proxy data and to give some sort of weight to proxies for use in reconstruction.
C) I have no comment on the precise details of what Mann did because I have not read or studied the relevant papers and source code.
*****
>> You seem to have this very strange penchant of acknowledging that you haven’t read the research paper or studied relevant aspects of it, or don’t understand xyz, or haven’t dealt with the math or science involved… then you plow right on to make various definitive statements about how those papers are in error or the facts or science or what-have-you are thus and such contrary to whatever the skeptic’s view might be.
I have opinions because I have read some of whatever it is I am talking about (or have other experiences that can help me).
If you have a specific problem with what I write, please comment specifically on the particular point I tried to make. I can’t reply very meaningfully to generalities such as this comment above.
As you can see in the second comment (see quote above) I just wrote at the climateaudit page you referenced earlier, I can certainly give an opinion because I have an idea of the topic. But it is also true I have not read the details. I like disclosing that I am working off a fair amount of ignorance of the details of a paper I am “critiquing” when that is the case, as it gives a better idea of where my response is coming from. If you know your audience (ie, if you know me), then you are more likely to understand and reply to the audience meaningfully.
Is it completely useless to give an opinion on something whose details you haven’t digested yet?
Please allow me to vent on proxies for a moment.
I asked if the 18 proxy samples might not be representative because I know it is very possible they wouldn’t be.
First example: I read the joannenova/wuwt link provided about the WMP and the magic tree that completely skewed the results and was not a representative sample (this is of a pro-AGW paper) http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/studies/l1_portoportugal.php .
Second example: Going to the co2science.org site, I looked at summaries of different papers. In there you find some examples such as these:
http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/studies/l1_portoportugal.php Here we see that the 1940s are marked much higher than current decades. We find the 19th century reaching much higher average temps than the 20th century. These results are very inconsistent with our best estimates of temperatures over the past 150 years. There is a problem with this proxy. The proxy appears to be biased upwards the further back in time one goes. I would not consider this to be representative. I don’t trust proxies over thermometers and satellites even though these have their imperfections. I trust the BEST analysis much more than any given proxy, eg, such as this one. Did any of the 18 look like this?
http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/studies/l3_azorespico.php If this proxy is used, then we have the same problems as the first. The middle of the 19th century has a value much higher than anything in the 20th century. Was something like this used for the 18 proxies?
http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/studies/l2_capblanc.php This proxy is missing the 20th century information. If we add this piece based on the .8 C value rise experienced to today, then we find that we are currently near the peak of any temperature of the past 3 thousand years, except a little less than the WMP peak in this proxy. If this proxy were used, would the last point have been added in by hand?
http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/studies/l1_lagunaaculeo.php This one is also missing lots of the rise from the last 50 years. If this missing info were added by hand, it would put current temps on par with (and likely above) any high temp we have experienced so far in over 1000 years. If this proxy was used, was the last 50 year period added by hand? It makes a big difference if not.
http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/studies/l1_bermudarise.php Contrast this with those above. The 19th, 18th, and 17th centuries are clearly below the 20th century or today. Clearly something is wrong if this serves as a proxy as well as one of the first two. Was this used in the 18?
http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/studies/l1_fenidrift.php This one has the general LIA time period above the temp in “1900”. And the coldest point in the past 1000 years was only slightly colder than 1900. Was this used as a proxy?
http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/studies/l1_pigmybasin.php Going backwards, this one has a jump from less than 22.5C to almost 27C in what appears to be 10 to 20 year time period about 1000 years ago. I truly get the feeling there is an artificial “discontinuity” there of some sort. Was this used for a proxy?
http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/studies/l1_pigmybasintex.php This states the WMP peak was almost 1 C less than our current temps. What a contrast to most of the above! What kind of significance should we give to this? How can both this and most of the above each be accurate proxies?
How about absolutely fresh study that also says WMP was cooler than today http://www.skepticalscience.com/Climate_And_Pollen.html ? How can this be accurate as well as those above?
Do people understand why I do not give too much worth to temp proxies prior to the 1850 date? I use them as a guide, but it seems nonsense to worry about absolute maximums amid this chaos.
Whether we are at a max of the last few thousand years or not is almost irrelevant to the fact CO2 poses a reasonable question about future temperatures. If we have drivers/forcings that cycle naturally, we will eventually return to the WMP or any other high temp period. Once that happens ghg effect will be there (assuming WMP was otherwise similar to today in most respects).
So I care about the details of ghg warming effect. The proxies of the past.. not so much.
And I can understand why someone (eg, Mann) would want to first test the likely validity of any candidate proxy by comparing with the current and last century. Just look at the mess above! You have to have some criteria for finding something reasonable among all the weeds. [I understand Mann’s methodology is likely flawed to some degree and renders his graphs (and I am not even looking at the EKG flatline from 1998) untrustworthy and very likely biased to some degree towards hockeystickness.]
There was a remark about how Wikipedia is not trustworthy when it comes to Climate Science.
Well, when push comes to shove and people fight in the talk sections or re-edit pages ad nauseum, there are a number of rules that will determine the “winner”. One of these rules is that Wikipedia does not create original content. Another is that Wikipedia does not judge primary sources either. Why is this important in the context of Climate Science?
Because the vast majority of “important” bodies, scientific or political, around the world recognize AGW to various extents. It is not Wikipedia’s fault that this is the case, for better or worse. If Wikipedia sticks to their rules, they will not give undo emphasis to any anti-AGW views, except in some cases, depending on context.
The discussion that was linked above talking about this issue and condemning largely two individuals did not list specific cases (or I missed it as I skimmed the story). Without specific cases, it’s hard for me to assume Wikipedia was doing anything but sticking to their rules.
Lord Monckton claims of being a former science advisor to Margaret Thatcher are at odds with John Gummer’s recollections as reported in an interview on Radio National in Australila on Monday 8.10 am 21 March 2011.
Fran Kelly: “John Gummer has been a Conservative Party MP in Britain for 35 years, serving as Cabinet Minister for Agriculture and Environment under Margaret Thatcher and John Major.”
John Gummer: “Well, Lord Monkton isn’t taken seriously by anybody. I mean he was a bag carrier in Mrs Thatcher’s office. And the idea that he advised her on climate change is laughable. The fact of the matter is, he’s not a figure of importance and has made no difference to the debate. We always find it rather surprising that he should come here. Mrs Thatcher used to have the best scientists in the world in and she would nail them to the wall as she argued with them, because she was a scientist. And, like me, she didn’t want to believe in climate change, it’s the science makes it absolutely impossible not to believe that this is the most likely interpretation of what facts, which are becoming more and more clear.”
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/british-mp-calls-for-a-carbon-tax/3014168
suyts says:
February 14, 2012 at 7:57 am
It is a seven year cooling which has happened 6 times over the last 40 years, it is not significant. I went through every one of your comments and feel sorry for, trying to debate something you know nothing about, not even watching the videos on Monckton.
You must not be a normal person then, ever heard of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or the fact solar forcing has been the main driver of climate for the last 11000 years up until 1970. These and many other factors have to be considered when determining how much CO2 is increasing temperatures. Like I said, you are laughable and we can all see why you are not on the petition, but you should be, they won’t check your education, you think they are going to ask for an academic transcript.
You are the one that hates yourself, you haven’t got enough education to debate and you hate it, making crap up left right and centre and when it comes down to it you claim the debate is about misanthropy.
You say you had so much spam on your website you had to delete everyone’s comments LOL yeah right, you just got your uneducated joke conclusions ridiculed and could not handle it.
Smokey says:
February 14, 2012 at 4:44 am
George Montgomery,
Care to explain how that Gummer jamoke was privy to every conversation between Lord Monckton and Mrs Thatcher? Or maybe he had ESP; a mind reader. Or, maybe he’s trying, like you are, to demonize an effective voice that debunks the CAGW nonsense.
Gummer claims that he knows everybody, since he states that Lord Monkton isn’t taken seriously by “anybody”. Quite the contrary, there are endless comments in this thread alone, many by CAGW believers who take Lord Monckton so seriously that they do their best to demonize him by character assassination and Alinsky tactics. If Lord Monckton didn’t matter, they would simply ignore him, no? But he knows his science, and he routinely mops the floor with them in debates, and he is widely quoted in the media. So they certainly do take him seriously; he is a direct threat to their scare story, to their gravy train, and to their belief system. But Mr Gummer? How can anyone take that clown seriously?
Finally, I note that your link was about some petty jackass pushing for a “carbon” tax. Incredible. With every last alarmist prediction an abject failure, they still want to tax ordinary citizens over a fake, contrived scare. Shameless.
. . .
Jose_X says:
“The whole diversion into Nobel Prize territory in that comment I wrote was a diversion”. Actually, everything you write appears to be a diversion. And what is this “WMP” you keep wasting pixels on? You should pray to dog for a cure for dyslexia.
On the plus side, thanx for working so diligently to increase the traffic on WUWT. Almost 800 comments on this thread alone, and plenty of them are yours. You will probably singlehandedly prompt Big Oil to send Anthony a bonus check this quarter.
. . .
minor9985 says:
“…the fact solar forcing has been the main driver of climate for the last 11000 years up until 1970.” Did that happen in March or April of 1970? I forget which month it was. But I remember that it was the first of the month.
And you say to a very reasonable commentator:
“You must not be a normal person then…” “…you are laughable…” “…trying to debate something you know nothing about…” “You are the one that hates yourself, you haven’t got enough education to debate…” “LOL yeah right, you just got your uneducated joke conclusions ridiculed and could not handle it.” And so on.
For some reason, I think major9985 doesn’t have many friends. And what he writes is either psychological projection, or pure anti-science [eg, see his 1970 comment above]. But who am I to argue with a “postgrad in Climate Adaption”? ☺
minor9985,
There is zero credible, verifiable significance to the year 1970. Where do you get that nonsense? You claim that for 11,000 years everything was natural variability, and then in 1970 everything switched to unnatural variability??
And how many times do I have to repeat my own view regarding the effect of beneficial CO2? For the umpteenth time: I think that essential CO2 will cause ≈1°C warming per doubling, ± ≈0.5°C. But I could be erring on the high side, since the planet has not warmed for many years, while beneficial CO2 – an airborne plant food essential to all life on earth – keeps rising. Good. The biosphere needs more CO2. It is greening the planet.
Smokey,
You’ve missed my point. I didn’t say Lord Monckton wasn’t Margaret Thatcher’s science advisor, John Gummer did.
But, I’ve looked farther, and it would appear that a number of others in Margaret’s policy unit have churlishly not recognised Lord Monckton’s contribution. An article in The Guardian Tuesday 22 March 2010 11.42 BST by Bob Ward deals with the same issue as he writes:
“On page 640 of her 1993 autobiography Margaret Thatcher: The Downing Street Years, the former prime minister describes how she grappled with the issue of climate change, referring only to “George Guise, who advised me on science in the policy unit”. Indeed, given Monckton’s crucial role, it seems to be heartless ingratitude from the Iron Lady that she does not find room to mention him anywhere in the 914-page volume on crucial role, on her years as prime minister.”
Ward writes more in his article:
“It is perhaps surprising that this novel and important innovation by Viscount Monckton was not recognised by the current minister for science and universities, David Willets, who was also a member of the prime minister’s policy unit between 1984 and 1986. In 1986, “Two Brains” wrote a prize-winning essay on the role of the unit, but mysteriously omitted to mention Lord Monckton’s historic contribution.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/22/thatcher-climate-sceptic-monckton
So I checked farther and on the Oxford International Biomedical Centre, George Guise is listed as a trustee and has the temerity to describe himself as “formerly science advisor to prime minister Margaret Thatcher”.
http://www.oibc.org.uk/trustees.html
I’m hoping that the truth will come out in Margaret Thatcher’s Prime Ministerial Files as they are released and posted on the Margaret Thatcher Foundation Website. Currently the files are up to the year 1981 but alas my search for Lord Monckton, Christopher Walter, etc. comes up a blank. The files for 1982 comes out this year and hopefully we can clear up the scientific advisor issue once and for all. http://www.margaretthatcher.org/ and http://www.margaretthatcher.org/search/search.asp .
A fine riposte, with lotsa good points.
But a single glaring repeated error:
It’s “consensus”, not “concensus”. Honest.
😉
;p
4 some reason another version of the above second para got snipped above, with the difference being that I had jocularly substituted a “k” for the second “c” to emphasize the pronunciation. Let’s see if removing that egregious offense (?) passes muster.
😀
Smokey
Unlike Lord Monckton, John Gummer, now Lord Deben is an actual member of the House of Lord. Unlike Monckton who inherited his title Gummer earned his for his work in the government’s of Margaret Thatcher and John Major. Unlike Lord Monckton Gummer was a member of the privy council and sat in cabinet. He held the position s of Secretary of State for the Environment and Minister of State for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. He was also Chaiman of the Conservative Party for two years. By contrast Monckton held no political office and was a mere gofer. If Gummer says “… the idea that he advised her on climate change is laughable” you should take it seriously.
I am endlessly amused at how you and others on here cling on to your die-hard loyalty to a man who is, not to put too fine a point on it a fantastist and in the UK treated as a complete joke by just about everybody but a few loonies on the fringes. He claims to be a member of the House of Lords. He isn’t. He claims to have invented a medicine that cures multiple diseases including cancer and AIDS. He hasn’t. He claims he was a science advisor to Margaret Thatcher he wasn’t. He claims to have written peer-reviewed scientific papers. He hasn’t. And he claims to know what he’s talking about regarding climate Science. He doesn’t. Whether or not AGW is real or not Monckton is the least person you should be calling upon from your side of the argument. The sooner you, Antony and other “skeptics” disowned him the better, not for the “warmists” but for you.
Smokey says:
February 14, 2012 at 8:37 pm
E. Friis-Christensen and K.Lassen work showed that Sun activity correlates to temperature up until the late 70s http://tinyurl.com/858hos2 after this time CO2 became one of the major drivers of temperature increase. I say one of the major drivers, because science is not as gullible as some smokey… They wanted to find what other factors could be driving this increase in temperature and saw that the urban heat island effect was also a factor http://tinyurl.com/7fxtevs This temperature correlation with Sun activity has been shown over the last 11000 years http://tinyurl.com/7cke25x and can explain the resent lull in temperatures due to the Solar Cyclie being at its minimum, but it is moving into its maximum soon http://tinyurl.com/7fly5zp You can see in the graph around 1998 was during its maximum which corresponds to the huge El Nino warming, this is the same deal now with the minimum causing La Nina cooling http://tinyurl.com/6mlhbon There is also things that have a cooling effect which have to be consider like volcanic eruptions http://tinyurl.com/886ptzu All of this has to be taken into consideration when you look at a temperature graph. I hope the next time you plaster the comment section with your graphs you will have a bit more respect for what they actually mean.
George Montgomery,
My apologies. I didn’t realize you were also a mind reader. Perhaps Mrs Thatcher can recall [if Mr Alzheimer hasn’t taken her over yet]. I am endlessly amused at how you and others here cling to your die-hard loyalty to your belief system that “carbon” is a problem of any kind. It’s cute, but misinformed. CO2 is entirely beneficial, my friend. You should learn some biology.
Cornelius:
So Gummerboi ‘sat in rhe cabinet’. Egads, man, that makes him a part of the problem, no? Since the UK is doing so very fine a job in its international finances [/sarc], combating an imaginary threat should raise its credibility in the global markets! Why hasn’t that happened, and how is that working out for you? UK taxpayers should worship the ground upon which your lawmaker betters walk… is that your belief? Right, let’s put a tax on every non-problem.
And minor9985, thanx for going to the trouble of posting your silly links. But sorry, I didn’t bother to open them. The planet itself is debunking your CAGW nonsense, so why bother? If you mistakenly believe that your links supersede the plantet’s Authority, then by all means, post your silly links. Maybe someone will read them, before their eyes glaze over.☺
Smokey says:
February 15, 2012 at 6:53 am
[snip . . adds nothing . .kbmod]
Every time I see one of Moncktons responses I feel disappointed, no real debate is necessary, he avoids questions or statements he knows he cant answer or respond to with his arguments and won’t admit his clearly pointed out mistakes. Enough time has been spent on this fool.
>> I’m hoping that the truth will come out in Margaret Thatcher’s Prime Ministerial Files as they are released and posted on the Margaret Thatcher Foundation Website. Currently the files are up to the year 1981 but alas my search for Lord Monckton, Christopher Walter, etc. comes up a blank. The files for 1982 comes out this year and hopefully we can clear up the scientific advisor issue once and for all. .. http://www.margaretthatcher.org/search/search.asp
I was curious so went there, typed in “monckton”, checked off “Person’s name”, “1-Key”, “2-Major”, “3-Minor”, and “4-Trivial”, and left the rest with default values.
Two entries came up:
84 Nov 6 Tu (Key) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105784
89 Dec 9 Sa (Major) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107841
The first has a reference to Walter Monckton: “[Sir P. Bryan] was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Sir Walter Monckton in about 1956, and he became Minister of State….”
The second had a reference to Monckton (working for the Evening Standard newspaper) where he had the opportunity to ask Thatcher a few quick questions at a press conference she held in 1989.
If he did play a nontrivial role with Thatcher, at least it is understandable that third parties would have doubts. Monckton’s reply only said he had given her advice. That is a rather open-ended remark that can mean almost anything. He certainly could have bumped into her and offered her almost any advice.. even on climate science, even if Thatcher wouldn’t remember. But the evidence does appear to weigh heavily against Monckton having played any noteworthy role as a science adviser to her.
Smokey says:
February 15, 2012 at 6:53 am
Fair enough mod’s
Ok smokey I can understand you not wanting to open my links, but they are only simple graphs, not words or fancy scientific papers, just graphs. But in all honesty, you dont have to open the links, I have explained everything to you. You specifically asked me to explain it to you, what part dont you understand?
>> Whether or not AGW is real or not Monckton is the least person you should be calling upon from your side of the argument.
Honestly, if Mickey Mouse was able to do a good job delivering my side of the argument, I would accept it. I think the argument should be won on merits, and it might take some time. Monckton has a character he plays well. That is part of his appeal and (I’ll assume) how he earns his money and whatever interesting privileges come his way. There is a lot of demand for someone to present a skeptical position. In a lot of ways he is like a politician “at worst”. I hope his success is at most only moderate to whatever degree it disrupts science; however, currently climate science is getting a lot of attention and scrutiny that we might as well give it.
“science writer” – his silly allegations – I am disinclined to waste much time on him – he has ineptly and confusedly recycled from a serially mendacious video by some no-account non-climatologist at a fourth-rank bible college in Nowheresville, Minnesota, – the caveman – the caveman – The caveman – The caveman, if he were capable of checking these or any data – the caveman – The caveman – The caveman – the caveman – I am told he has revealed his identity I have no time to keep track of the pseudonyms of people who lack the courage and decency to publish under their own names – the caveman is a zealot and we need not ask who paid him to watch “hours and hours” of my YouTube videos – My objective is to reach the truth, not to distort it or misrepresent it as the caveman has done – the caveman’s – the caveman – the caveman – the caveman.
now lets have a look at how hadfield addressed monkton.
Christopher Monckton – Mr. Monckton
it’s clear in his response to hadfield that monkton hasn’t watched even a small part of any of the videos, instead relying on other people telling him what someone said in a video. in other words. he didn’t fact check, he didn’t go to the source, he relied on other people to tell him what the source said, and blindly believed them.
10 minutes on youtube would have given him hadfields name, something he knew he could have done, but chose not to, choosing instead to rely on petty insults in an attempt to belittle and berate any opposing view into submission. not the way anyone who claims to have advised anyone else on matters of science should go about conducting himself. it seems his diploma in journalism has gone to waste.
Here is take 2 on the Monckton comment of a moment ago. I found that one lacking in various ways.
If we assume most people who study something well can come to OK conclusions. If we assume most people mostly are not out to hoodwink others. Then it is reasonable to believe that (a) most climate scientists would, as a group, be in the best position to speak for the science of the climate and any potential predictions and that also (b) we would find that most people just would not be confident of the claims made by climate or generally by any other type of scientist or specialist. Add that the IPCC went too far 10 years back. Add that this topic has become politicized even beyond what is traditional for certain environment issues. It makes sense that Monckton (a) would largely believe his position and (b) be in good company. Most of us just have to be skeptic.. if we dig down inside. Monckton does a decent job conveying a point. Yes, it is possible he could be a bit dishonest — we can’t rule that out. Mostly, he presents a position that resonates with a lot of people. Climate scientists themselves believe to differing degrees the points the IPCC has presented over the years. In the end, a war will be waged and science and nature will be backing those who win. Nature is the ultimate arbiter (I completely agree.. and we are a part of it), but I do hope that we recognize any serious threats that could be looming while there is time to avoid a very costly situation for future generations.
should also add that 20 seconds on google would have given him hadfields name.
While Ben and Jose_X are playing: “Look! A kitten!”, I’m still waiting for them to attempt to falsify my hypothesis per the scientific method:
At current and projected levels, CO2 is harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere.
Plants take in CO2, strip out the carbon to make sugars and cellulose, and emit the oxygen for animals to breathe. The added CO2 is measurably greening the planet. But climate alarmists want a less green planet. That’s why they demonize carbon. Obviously, they want to harm the biosphere by starving it of life-giving, harmless CO2.
Conclusion: warmists hate Gaia! And Mother Earth is getting even.
After reading post after post it should be obvious that Smokey is just a good old fashioned Troll and should be ignored.
@Smokey
>> I’m still waiting for [Ben and Jose_X] to attempt to falsify my hypothesis per the scientific method:
>> At current and projected levels, CO2 is harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere.
Let me take this opportunity to read Ben’s mind. A little bit more mind-reading on this thread will not much alter the CO2 balance.
OK. I have contacted Ben’s force from a distance. Ben was indeed thinking the same thing I was. With 100% confidence, let me share Ben’s and my thoughts. ..Ben, with your permission…
[I just got his permission.. and he says that he might not offer up an alternative response. … Oh, wait, it seems Ben may have already submitted a comment. Moderators, can you please hold Ben’s comment if it arrives before mine?]
One spouse goes to the other spouse,
“I understand you are considering possibly upgrading the portion of the budget that we spend on security for this household. I object to another penny further — and object to current budget — until you can falsify my hypothesis per the scientific method:
“At current and projected crime rates in our neighborhood, current and projected risks for loss of jobs, etc, etc, etc, human engagements are harmless and are actually beneficial to our family.”
No, that conversation has not (not) taken place.
Smokey, you aren’t going to get very far with your line of reasoning, pressing everyone else to prove something, the opposite of which you expect we will all simply assume to be correct no matter the results of research and study. People aren’t going to buy it in large numbers. Society doesn’t work that way. You even stand the risk of finding someone that will engage you in a wasteful back-and-forth exchange, them saying, “no, you prove your hypothesis true, first”, against your, “no, you prove my hypothesis false, first”.
Policy decisions, whether related to the climate or not, are subjective decisions. Those making them will consider the advice of the economists, scientists, and other people in respective fields who have studied the pertinent issues the most and present their reams of evidence suggesting we should take out one or another type of insurance policy. No reasonable person in a position of power is going to fail to consider the evidence and instead insist that a scientist first prove their hypothesis “Popperfully”. We have a single complex planet that naturally resists attempts to be turned into a Poppernian laboratory or to be cloned multiple times a la Poppe(accent accute).
I have not claimed to be able to prove “AGW”, and, to show you how much I want to help you find your inner garden of peace, if you give me a list of the serious scientists who have published papers claiming to have proved AGW, I will give serious thought to contacting them asking for some serious enlightenment (which I would share with you diligently) or demand they cease and desits and then apologize to the world for their unPopperly conduct.
Smokey, I am ready for the name of the first 3 heathens.
>> Obviously, they want to harm the biosphere by starving it of life-giving, harmless CO2.
OK. Enough is enough. I demand the @-dot-com emails of 5 scientists who want to harm the biosphere by starving it of life-giving, harmless CO2!
@LeMorteDeArthur, Smokey is a darn good gardener. His points on the value of CO2 to plants are well received by almost every reader.
[REPLY: Jose, WordPress remembers the order stuff came in. If I hold Ben’s comment, when it is released it will still appear above yours. But so far, he’s not here. And a word of advice: Smokey’s bite is FAR worse than his bark. -REP]
@LeMorteDeArthur
On the other hand, you were correct in thinking that since trolls favor flesh and the hunt 3 to 1 over consuming sessile lifeforms that the Bayesian probability Smokey was indeed a troll out-weighted the odds that he (or it) was a mild-mannered forest ranger.
@LeMorteDeArthur
(continuing with my unusually diversionary projection)
You are almost as well aware as I am that you no longer trust your ability to scientifically disprove the 3rd Smokey supposition: Smokey is a mild-mannered forest ranger.
For that reason and for some others which have not yet fully hardened in your mind, you are going to conditionally put aside the question of Smokey’s true nature to question if the count dracula of Monckton could have actually evolved from cavemen during a period of time of no less than 30 years during a WMP 87% of scientists believe one could not tell wet wood from the trees.
[@Moderator from my next to last comment before this one: So are you saying you suspect Smokey may in fact not be a mild-mannered forest ranger. But do you have hard evidence?]
[REPLY: Smokey has good reason to adopt a pseudonym on this blog, but he is in fact known to Anthony and myself. He is not a forest ranger, has a scientific background that has in fact saved many lives, and is not to be trifled with. He CAN be wrong, I think, but have your ducks really lined up. -REP]
[@MyModerator (I know your shift is almost up, so I’ll be quick). We both know the answer to that question… and it’s a resounding NO!]
In fact, Smokey *is* a mild-mannered forest ranger. (and as late as it currently is, one could almost say, a sleeping bear — am I right or am I right? I think we’ll just let WordPress’s un-CUT time stamps (not Greenwich) and his absence from this feast answer that one).
Thank you moderator #1. [No, *you* are the BEST.]
In one of the comments above, it was stated that Monckton attributed not 33C but something like 18C to the ghg effect.
Assuming this comment was made, I want to clarify that the 33 C value comes from calculating Stefan Boltzmann and geometrical considerations of the sun/earth system on top of an albedo of .3. That is, the calculation uses the current .3 albedo value that is a consequence of our current atmosphere and land.
Some people (perhaps like Monckton?) have taken exception to this apparently and decided to calculate the reference temperature as if there were no atmosphere but only hard rock, water, ice, etc, albedo (no atmosphere contribution).
Each approach provides a correct answer to the respective question.
For the question of what is the ghg effect, then that would be 33 C (accepting Stefan Boltzmann, the Solar System conjecture, etc, etc), because the ghg effect we want to measure happens only after the sun’s radiation has interacted with the atmosphere and been reduced by 0.3X.
Hose_B says:
“Smokey, you aren’t going to get very far with your line of reasoning, pressing everyone else to prove something, the opposite of which you expect we will all simply assume to be correct no matter the results of research and study. People aren’t going to buy it in large numbers. Society doesn’t work that way. You even stand the risk of finding someone that will engage you in a wasteful back-and-forth exchange, them saying, “no, you prove your hypothesis true, first”, against your, “no, you prove my hypothesis false, first”.”
There is so much pseudo science and anti-science in that one paragraph I feel liike a kid in a candy store.
First, nobody is forcing you to try and falsify my hypothesis. We all know you woulld if you could. And I’m not asking you to prove anything. Rather, I am challenging you to disprove it. But your series of rambling posts all carefully evade the attempt. [BTW, thanks for doing more than your part to increase WUWT’s traffic numbers!]
Next, there is no credible “research and study” that shows CO2 is harming the planet. And it doesn’t matter how “society works”; this is science, not sociology.
The central conjecture in this whole debate is the increasingly preposterous claim that rising CO2 will cause runaway global warming and climate disruption. Anyone with any intelligence can see that is not happening. Not even a little. If you understood the null hypothesis you would see that there is no problem. To demonstrate that observation I proposed a testable, falsifiable hypothesis. But so far, no one has been able to falsify it. Instead, whenever I post it you folks get together and yell, “Look over there! A kitten!” And ignore that uncomfortable hypothesis.
As I’ve pointed out, that simple hypothesis is both falsifiable and testable. But so far, no one has been able to show global harm from CO2, and I’ve provided plenty of testable evidence showing that CO2 is beneficial to the biosphere. Satellite measurements show that the extra CO2 is greening the planet – something the alarmists hate, because it shows that fossil fuel-using scientific skeptics are the true Greens.
. . .
LeMorteDeArthur says:
“After reading post after post it should be obvious that Smokey is just a good old fashioned Troll and should be ignored.”
By all means, ignore me if you can. But obviously you cannot, as your post shows.
I’ve been commenting here for five years, and been called quite a few names, although “troll” is rare. Why is that, you ask? Glad you asked! The reason is because I try to provide thoughtful, logical comments. For example, in my post directly above yours where you called me a troll and told others to ignore me, I commented:
“I’m still waiting for [Ben & Jose] to attempt to falsify my hypothesis per the scientific method:
At current and projected levels, CO2 is harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere.
“Plants take in CO2, strip out the carbon to make sugars and cellulose, and emit the oxygen for animals to breathe. The added CO2 is measurably greening the planet. But climate alarmists want a less green planet. That’s why they demonize carbon. Obviously, they want to harm the biosphere by starving it of life-giving, harmless CO2.”
.
Rather than attempt a reasonable response, or admit that you are unable to falsify my hypothesis, you called me a troll. As I’ve often commented, if it were not for psychological projection, the alarmist crowd wouldn’t have much to say.☺
James Sexton>> absurd things like “heat defies physical laws and hides at the bottom of the ocean”
This does sound absurd, but I think whoever said that may have been referring to a movement of heat into or out of the measurement space at the bottom of the ocean.
This next article and my response to it in the comments section may help explain more carefully.
[I don’t have first hand experience with how/where/when/etc these ocean measurements are taken, so I am taking an educated guess.]
http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2011/10/12/ocean-heat-content-transfer-of-heat-through-the-top-700-metres-gavin-schmidt-vs-roger-pielke-sr/#comment-15963
Smokey says:
February 16, 2012 at 12:19 pm
It is clear from your name smokey that you are relying on research down on crops in a controlled environment like your garage, but real scientific experiments show that “Across all multifactor manipulations, elevated carbon dioxide suppressed root allocation, decreasing the positive effects of increased temperature, precipitation and nitrogen deposition on productivity.” http://www.sciencemag.org/content/298/5600/1987.abstract. Christopher Field who has done countless studies in this field says elevated CO2 does not always increased plant growth and when it is combined with other environmental factors, it can actually decrease planet growth.
University of illinois is doing studies on increased CO2 and found that it produced more bugs attacking the crops and even increased the life expectance of the bugs so that they could eat and reproduce more. Even a forest study in Europe found that during a heat way the forest CO2 up take reduced by 50%. As temperatures increase, bugs like pine beetles are surviving longer and being more destructive. This is a huge problem in Canada with enormous areas of forest already dead. Then there is the fact glaciers are disappearing and are the main source of irrigation for crop lands, this is a serious problem that is expected to drastically reduce the amount of water available.
Your frivolous idea that you have somehow actually done a scientific experiment to deduce if your null is right or wrong is laughable. Actual experiments that show the potential impacts of increased CO2 in nature have yielded many different findings. But the argument still comes down to your lack of acceptance of science. You know CO2 is a greenhouse gas that will warm the planet but you make your conclusions based on the most outrageous skeptical papers, and completely disregard the fact that there are hundreds of papers on climate sensitivity. These papers you claim are the only ones to get it right (because they are all low) are miniscule compared to the sea of papers that get a much higher value, they have even all been found wrong. Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi’s 0.0°C has been shown wrong http://tinyurl.com/7evhvtr Dr Spencer under 0.5°C has been found wrong http://tinyurl.com/28e5a7l Prof Richard Lindzen’s little over 1°C also found wrong http://tinyurl.com/28e5a7l
The IPCC look at all the climate sensitivity findings and determine the best value. You cannot expect normal people to believe only a couple of skeptical scientists when there are hundreds of other papers to also consider. The IPCC look at all of them and when put together on a graph its is extremely easy to see why they come to the conclusion of 3 Degrees Celsius warming http://tinypic.com/r/vd0nki/5 This is why your absurd idea that we should accept that CO2 will cause ≈1°C warming per doubling, ± ≈0.5°C is a joke.
>> As I’ve pointed out, that simple hypothesis is both falsifiable and testable. But so far, no one has been able to show global harm from CO2
So suggest a test for us that you think if passed would prove “global harm from CO2”.
We are playing a game of evidence weighing no matter the test, and Smokey has his own standard just like everyone else has their own unique standard.
Whenever a person says, “prove it”, they are really saying, “prove it to my standard”. Science doesn’t advance because of consensus !!! As concerns policies, enough individuals will probably tolerate/accept sufficiently whatever gets enacted… or else there will be a bloody revolution and gnashing of teeth.
We can probably agree to a very high degree (and use computers as objective third parties) that something has been proven when we are merely dealing with logic and symbols. The minute we carry out science — model real life — we lose the very high degree of confidence that can come with depending solely on a fixed set of abstract rules.
minor9985,
You are all over the map in your desperate attempt to try and show that internationally respected climatologists like Prof Richard Lindzen and others are wrong. But Lindzen has forgotten more than you could ever possibly learn about the subject, and your links to Pseudo-Skeptical Pseudo-Science ignore the embarassing fact that PSPS is the only blog listed on the WUWT sidebar as being “Unreliable”. Linking to unreliable sources doesn’t do anything for your credibility.
Since your questionable “authority” is not reliable, it must be ignored. It is only propaganda by a censoring cartoonist. If that is the best you can do, you fail.
If the planet’s sensitivity to 2xCO2 was any higher than Prof Lindzen posits, then any rise in beneficial, harmless CO2 would cause a rise in temperature. But there is no evidence of that occurring. Rises in CO2 follow rises in temperature, on all time scales.
You live in a bubble of ignorance, actually believing that CO2 will cause runaway global warming when the planet itself is falsifying your nonsense. So who should we believe? Planet Earth? Or you? I think most reasonable folks would prefer to believe what the planet is telling us, over a know-nothing water carrier for the alarmist cult.
Hose_B,
As usual you are just rambling. Psychologists call it free association, and it is meaningless. Your comment: “So suggest a test…” shows that you still don’t understand. All you need to do is provide verifiable evidence showing that the added CO2 has caused global damage or harm, per the scientific method. It is not my job to hold your hand and lead you to non-existent evidence.
If you cannot produce proof that directly links the rise in CO2 to global harm, then the obvious conclusion is that CO2 does not cause any harm. And I have provided ample evidence that the rise in CO2 is beneficial. But of course it is, as numerous experiments have proven beyond any doubt.
It is, in fact, you who will not accept the reality that more CO2 is harmless and beneficial. And as usual, you hide behind you endless meaningless quibbles rather than accept my straightforward challenge. An honest person would either try their best to falsify my hypothesis, or admit that there is no evidence showing that CO2 is not harmless and beneficial. But that person is not you.
>> Rather, I am challenging you to disprove it.
I am challenging you to falsify that 8X CO2 will result in greater cumulative harm than 1X CO2.
We all know that more CO2 in the atmosphere means higher temps than we would otherwise have, and this creates greater need for fresh water and energy.
Fresh water is already a threatened resource.
We also know that fossil fuels are getting more scarce by the minute (the rate of fossil fuel creation is many times lower than the rate of their exploitation). This promotes higher costs and rationing over time. This lowers the quality of living and promotes war, violence, and death. The effects of this can already be seen in modern times, inspiring classics such as “The Road Warrior”, starting Mel Gibson, where a gasoline rich desert community must defend themselves against violent criminals.
We know rising seas promotes displacement of people and loss of valuable infrastructure. It promotes reduced living spaces and hence also promotes conflict and violence. Inspired classics include Waterworld, starting Kevin Costner.
We know that nuclear fuels present a number of difficult compromises. [I won’t go into details unless you ask, but rest assured classics like C.H.U.D. would likely not be here but for these nuclear dilemmas.]
Honestly, life is about compromises and opportunity costs. You don’t get a free ride on the null hypothesis.
>> And it doesn’t matter how “society works”; this is science, not sociology.
Popper did not have vague words like “harmful” in mind. “Harmful” is a social-sciency word which leads to policy decisions. It is not a word used in hypothesis of hard sciences.
>> If you cannot produce proof that directly links the rise in CO2 to global harm, then the obvious conclusion is that CO2 does not cause any harm.
CO2’s rise is already well correlated with a strain on natural resources.
If you can’t prove that further rises will actually defy our expectations and unexpectedly be more beneficial, “then the obvious conclusion is that CO2 rises do cause further harm.”
[“Yeh, I know, I put the paraphrases in quote marks. I’ll respond when the video comes out.”]
>> As usual you are just rambling.
As usual your mind reading pierced my rambling in time to push this thread to loftier heights.
>> All you need to do is provide verifiable evidence showing that the added CO2 has caused global damage or harm, per the scientific method. It is not my job to hold your hand and lead you to non-existent evidence.
“All you need to do is provide verifiable evidence showing that the added CO2 has *not* caused global damage or harm, per the scientific method. It is not my job to hold your hand and lead you to non-existent evidence.”
And further:
“It is, in fact, you who will not accept the reality that more CO2 is *not necessarily* harmless and beneficial. And as usual, you hide behind you [sic] endless meaningless quibbles rather than accept my straightforward challenge. An honest person would either try their best to falsify my hypothesis, or admit that there is no evidence showing that CO2 is *necessarily* harmless and beneficial. But that person is not you.”
Smokey says:
February 17, 2012 at 4:46 am
Science is more than WUWT!! I come to WUWT so I can see both sides of the debate, but because you lack the ability to think for yourself you did not notice that I liked you a summary of a peer reviewed paper that rebutted Lindzens work http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2009GL042314.shtml
Using 1°C for a doubling of CO2 “0.27°C/(W/m2)” would have had to contribute 0.5°C to global warming up until now. As CO2 has increase so has temperatures and as pointed out Lindzen was wrong http://tinyurl.com/858hos2 .
Over the last 500 million years CO2 has reached over 5000 ppm compared to 390ppm now, yet temperatures did not have to go through the roof to reach 5000ppm. To think that CO2 can only increase/decrease due to temperatures is wrong. To claim that the recent rise in CO2 is due to increased temperatures is also wrong, CO2 has a fingerprint and the build up of it in the atmosphere at present is linked to burning of fossil fuels. Also as I pointed out before, the ocean is increasing its concentration of CO2, not decreasing it.
How would you know what the earth is telling you, you have no idea how the climate system works. You think CO2 is rising naturally, you don’t understand ENSO or solar forcing, you see a drop in temperatures and think it somehow proves CO2 is not contributing to global warming, but we all know that when there is volcanic eruptions or a La Nina events there is a cooling. [SNIP: A little less of the insult, please. -REP]
Hose_B and minor9985,
Both of you have the Scientific Method exactly backward and upside-down: the onus is entirely upon those claiming that CO2 will cause runaway global warming and climate disruption to defend your repeatedly falsified conjecture. You have both obviously failed: the climate is well within its historical parameters. Nothing unusual is occurring. Therefore, the null hypothesis remains un-falsified, which absolutely debunks your falsified alternate CO2=CAGW conjecture. [I don’t expect either of you to understand this, since you cannot even explain the null hypothesis. And as usual, you don’t understand the rigors of the Scientific Method.]
When/if it dawns on either of you what is required by the Scientific Method and the null hypothesis, wake me. Until then ignorance is bliss, so both of you kids should be very happy.
Yep; it’s called The Trenberth Twist, and should be labelled as such wherever it occurs. It comes in all sorts of guises, but needs to be nailed every time.
Smokey says:
February 17, 2012 at 8:46 pm
As more research has been done on climate sensitivity the idea of a runaway global warming has reduced. But so you and others can understand it better, it relates to CO2 driving up temperatures and forcing the oceans to release more CO2, causing more warming. Another one stems from the Siberian Tundra and the fact more Methane is being be released as the earth warms up. But because you have very little understanding of what you are talking about, you go on to say that “Nothing unusual is occurring” which you have continued to state from the very beginning. Yet I show you that temperatures have followed solar forcing for the last 11000 years up until the late 70s when manmade CO2 (a greenhouse gas) force temperatures up even though solar forcing went down. You accept this by stating that CO2 has a forcing value of ≈1°C warming per doubling, ± ≈0.5°C. I link a temperature graph that clearly shows the earth should be cooling but is warming in line with CO2 http://tinyurl.com/858hos2 and I show you that countless climate sensitivity studies when averaged out come to a value of 3°C http://oi43.tinypic.com/vd0nki.jpg .
But I think you just need to learn what is expected to happen with one degree warming, I will let National Geographic explain it for you:
1 Degree Warming http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_ZQRIsn2pA
2 Degrees Warming http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-0_gDXqYeQ
3 Degrees Warming http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rdLu7wiZOE
4 Degrees Warming http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skFrR3g4BRQ
5 Degrees Warming http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nRf2RTqANg
6 Degrees Warming http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8qmaAMK4cM (Mass Extinction)
The scientific studies are numerous and all point to man increasing CO2 and that it will warm the planet. Do you think there is one null that can make it all disappear??
Humans are currently emitting around 30 billion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every year, with 80% of atmospheric CO2 rising occurring after 1940 (http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/overview_2006.html). About 40% of human CO2 emissions are being absorbed, mostly by vegetation and the oceans. The rest remains in the atmosphere. As a consequence, atmospheric CO2 is at its highest level in 15 to 20 million years from 270ppm post-industrial to 389ppm today (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/326/5958/1394.abstract).
A natural change of 100ppm normally takes 5,000 to 20.000 years. The recent increase of 100ppm has taken little over 50 years. We know for a fact the recent rise in CO2 is manmade because when we measure the type of carbon accumulating in the atmosphere, we observe more of the type of carbon that comes from fossil fuels (http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/icdc7/proceedings/abstracts/keeling.rFF328Oral.pdf).
If all this CO2 is increasing the greenhouse effect we should be able to see it, so with the use of satellites we can measure less heat escaping out to space, at the particular wavelengths that CO2 absorbs heat, thus finding direct experimental evidence for a significant increase in the Earth’s greenhouse effect. (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html).
If less heat is escaping to space, it has to radiate back down to the Earth’s surface. Surface measurements confirm this, observing more downward infrared radiation (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009JD011800.shtml). Even when they look at the downward radiation, they find more heat returning at CO2 wavelengths (http://ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2006/techprogram/paper_100737.htm).
Science then looks at how CO2 participates in the climate system. Will the same null disprove all this science or will you need another null??
With over half a billion years worth of climate data, comprehensive conclusions have shown over the long term there is indeed a correlation between CO2 and temperature, as manifested by the atmospheric greenhouse effect.” p.201. (http://earth.geology.yale.edu/~ajs/2001/Feb/qn020100182.pdf). This was the same conclusion for all the other studies:
CO2 as a primary driver of Phanerozoic climate — D. Royer et al, GSA Today, March 2004 (http://droyer.web.wesleyan.edu/GSA_Today.pdf)
CO2 forced climate thresholds during the phanerozoic, Dana L. Royer 2005 (http://droyer.web.wesleyan.edu/PhanCO2(GCA).pdf)
Atmospheric CO2: Principal Control Knob Governing Earth’s Temperature, Andrew A. Lacis, Gavin A. Schmidt, David Rind and Reto A. Ruedy, 2010 (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/330/6002/356.abstract)
Science has studied the Greenhouse Effect for many years, and knows very well that CO2 contributes 26% to the warming of the planet:
“Absorption of Solar Radiation by Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide” T.G. Kyle et al, Jurnal of the Optica; Society of America. Vol. 55.
“Direct Absorption of Solar Radiation by Atmospheric Water Vapor, Carbon Dioxide and Molecular Oxygen” Giich Yamamoto, Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences Dec 1961, pp. 182-188.
“Solar Radiation Absorption by CO2, Overlap With H2O, and a Parametenzation for General Circulation Models” S. M. Freidenreich, V. Ramaswamy, Geophysical Research, Dec 1992.
“Parameterization for the absorption of solar radiation by O2 and CO2 with application to climate studies” Ming-Dad Chou, Journal of Climate, 1990 Vol 3 pp. 209-217
I’ll restate my previous point: If some of you “skeptics” don’t believe in or trust the peer-review process governing mainstream science, then by what standard do you substantiate credible science from junk science? What makes Richard Lindzen’s work, for instance, legitimate in your eyes, when it has been largely panned by the scientific community simply on the merit of its flaws?
Do you feel that scientific consensus should extend to simply being left open to the interpretation/opinion of any arm-chair expert with an internet connection? Why should these views be taken seriously by anyone in charge of anything?
For instance…should NASA, the U.S military or Nuclear Energy Institute etc. listen to people like Smokey and James Sexton in the event that they should hypothetically express “skepticism” towards the science that goes into building spacecraft, weaponry or nuclear reactors?
Before you go crying apples and oranges about the differences in the fields and how you feel that one deserves to be taken more seriously than the other, consider the central purpose of the analogy, which is the matter of deciding who is most likely to be in the better position of knowing what they’re talking about, by virtue of sheer time spent devoted to studying the topic.
Brian H,
minor9985 doesn’t understand that rises in CO2 always follow rises in temperature, on all time scales from months to hundreds of millennia. Typically the rise is ≈800 years, ±200 years. At least part of the current rise is due to the global and very warm MWP, which ended around 1200 A.D. The rest is probably due to human emissions. But as usual, 9985 fails to falsify the hypothesis that states:
At current and projected levels, CO2 is harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere.
CO2 causes no global harm. Therefore it is ipso facto “harmless”. And it is causing a measurable greening of the planet. Therefore it is beneficial. It turns out that the CO2=CAGW scare is exactly contrary to reality.
But when a belief takes hold, some folks become hooked on it, and they spend countless hours in their mom’s basement furiously trying to convince anyone who will listen that Down is Up, Ignorance is Strength, and CO2=CAGW. Sucks to be them, doesn’t it? They are clearly losing the argument, because what they sincerely believe just isn’t so… as the planet is clearly demonstrating.
TGB,
By putting quotation marks around “skeptic”, you demonstrate that you are not a scientific skeptic. Skeptics are the only honest kind of scientists, so I’ll leave it at that.
And by trying to denigrate the world’s premier climatologist, you demonstrate impotend rage at the fact that MIT’s Prof Lindzen has forgotten more about the subject than you could ever possibly know. So intelligent folks will listen to Dr Lindzen on the subject, rather than know-nothing ankle biters. Thus, your impotent rage.
Actually, the quotation marks were to signify the hijacking of the term by the scientifically obtuse in a way that arrogantly assumes some heroic level of critical thinking not applied by the majority of scientists. It’s stupid, and I much prefer another word which starts with a D and isn’t permitted by site policy. In other words, I’m skeptical of the skeptics.
Again, what makes Richard Lindzen the world’s “premier climatologist” by any measurable, objective standard? I certainly don’t doubt for one second that he knows more than -I- do, as I’m not a climatologist. But that’s really not the point, is it? You are raising a silly strawman argument. The issue is whether he knows more than his contemporaries and peers in the scientific community, and whether his work holds up to scrutiny in the world of academic publishing.
Why is he the best? Just because you say he is? Your own delusional confirmation bias really doesn’t carry enough weight when proving these things.
TGB says:
“…what makes Richard Lindzen the world’s “premier climatologist” by any measurable, objective standard?”
Answer: read his complete CV, and maybe you will begin to understand. He heads MIT’s atmospheric sciences department, and MIT is arguably the best engineering school in the country.
And it is you who denigrates Prof Lindzen, demonstrating your insecurity. Therefore, the “delusional confirmation bias” is yours alone. That’s why I regularly point out that if it were not for psychological projection, the alarmist contingent wouldn’t have much to say.
If you want to see incompetence and climate charlatans in action, click on The Hockey Stick Illusion on the right sidebar. Buy the book. You will find extensively documented fraud, gaming of the system, pal review, incompetent, scandalous, self-serving climate scientists, tax suckers, and mendacious fools galore – all the antithesis of the internationally esteemed, completely scandal-free Dr Lindzen, whom you clearly hate and fear because he is honest, competent, educated, extremely well respected among his scientific colleagues, and in a supremely eminent position. You? You’re just an impotent ankle biter of no account, who gets his misinformation from a cartoonist: John Cook. You can’t get much more pathetic than that.
Smokey says:
February 18, 2012 at 9:35 am
No it doesn’t, where do you come up with this stuff smokey, do you make it up as you go along like Monckton does?? CO2 primarily comes from volcanos and is the bases for snowball earth. You even link the graphs which disprove your clownish statement http://tinyurl.com/6mbxcho How could CO2 reach 8000ppm if the earth temperature has not gone higher then 25°C as you point out in your other link http://tinyurl.com/7zo7vfm ?? And how could CO2 be lowering if the temperature is staying at 25°C?? You link all this stuff and don’t have a clue what it means do you smokey?? CO2 increases in the atmosphere from volcanos and is weathered out by rivers. The only time CO2 decreases or increases due to a temperature change is during Milankovitch cycles, where the orbit or tilit of the earth causes a temperature change and the ocean increase or decrease the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
I have already explained to you that the CO2 acuminating in the atmosphere is not coming from the ocean and has a fossil fuel fingerprint. Repeating the wrong answer when you have been given the facts is what you people do so well.
You clearly state that the earth will rise by ≈1°C ± ≈0.5°C I don’t know what world you live on but a 1°C warming is going to wipe out the Arctic during summer and cause droughts around the world. Sea rise along would be a serious problem let along reduced glaciers.
Tell me about it, your claims are becoming more ridiculous by the hour, I take it you are just going to ignoring all the facts and keep on repeating your deluded self. Like I said this is what you people do so well, I have explained everything to you. Everyone can see what you are doing Smokey and it’s sad, at least you’re not as bad as Monckton.
I find it curiously ironic that you should bring psychology-related terms such as projection, as well as emotionally-charged words such as “hate” and “fear” into this parlance of ours.
My posts have been nothing but calm, rational and measured thus far. You, on the other hand, have been quite noticeably growing increasingly heated/unbalanced, and now appear to be taking this somewhat personally.
I will nonetheless address your points.
Whilst professor Lindzen’s legacy and stature are indeed eminent, invoking a title alone is merely an empty appeal to authority without sound, conclusively corroborated research to back up controversial statements. This brings us back to the unavoidable issue of peer-review and knowing exactly who to trust without it, which I would still like you to address.
I would also like to take issue with your mention of Prof. Lindzen’s “squeaky-clean” background. A brief scan of SourceWatch reveals a long history of ties to the tobacco industry, the fossil fuel industry as well as notorious right-wing think thanks such as the Heartland Institute. His published work challenging the orthodoxy of climate science is NOT widely accepted in an academic light, and has in fact been scathingly criticized for errors and selective observations.
It mostly comes down to a matter of plausibility when considering the odds of one person in a specialized field of science being right versus the majority. We see the very same confirmation bias, suspension of reality and straw grasping in the whole evolution/creationism debate. When dealing with these “controversies” one must consider the arrogance of a contrarian in the minority (especially one with little or no qualifications to back them up) not being able to simply stand back and consider that perhaps they are the ones who are getting it wrong.
Scientific consensus isn’t the same as mob rule. It’s about multiple experts being more reliable than one, and being able to paint a more complete and comprehensive picture that is less less prone to human error.
As for the book you mentioned, why should I treat it as anything more than just another nutty piece of propaganda? Anyone can claim anything they like in a book, which is not subject to the same stringent guidlines as a peer-reviewed paper. So far, most of the criticism surrounding the overblown Hockey Stick controversy I have seen has been regurgitated nonsense, just like the Climategate hysteria. I will take what the National Academy of Sciences has to say over some random sensationalist writer, thank you very much.
Lastly, when did I ever mention John Cook or claim him as a source of information? Not that I’m opposed to the man or his website, but the problem is you are jumping way ahead of yourself and pulling assumptions out of your rear left and right.
.
Smokey>> doesn’t understand that rises in CO2 always follow rises in temperature, on all time scales
Yeah, and the sun goes round the moon.
The reason the average Internet (or more formal publishing) skeptic who goes into “side show” territory as mentioned here http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/11/monckton-responds-to-potholer54/#comment-890631 is not going to get far with serious policy makers and major groups of scientists is that it is easy to just say, “no, you are wrong, I am right,” but that carries no strength in scientific circles. Policy makers are not about to dump scientists to listen to Internet talk of people who have little beyond talk and belief. You (the sideshow theorists) have to move beyond talk and belief to have a strong impact where it counts.
You are losing the scientific debate because you do not provide mathematics and a model that can be tested against the future. When you do provide a model, it is full of flaws. Yes, it is easy to criticize but not easy to propose something that does an OK job (eg, see http://www.skepticalscience.com/lessons-from-past-climate-predictions-ipcc-far.html ). Most of you are not putting your money where your mouth is.
You have no quantified theory that will attempt to predict when temp will rise and when CO2 will rise and by how much.
You have no theory that people can prod to see if it holds against reality already explained by mainstream physics.
What the climate scientists have is much more than what I have seen Smokey or any other Internet skeptic provide.
I am skeptical, but I don’t assume that what climate scientists provide is worse than zero. If they are so far off, by all means come up with something better. I don’t think they are so far off. So far, my doubts are kept in check because those who argue for low sensitivity are proposing more flawed analysis, so at best they are simply helping to keep climate scientists more honest and working harder. This is good, but strength is still with the climate scientists.
Although I haven’t found his latest paper (and the only one I have looked at a little) too attractive, Lindzen is much more likely to have success at some point (maybe by raising his sensitivity predictions .. or not) than most every other skeptic I see. This will likely be more true of any given skeptic the more that skeptic rejects mainstream science. It’s no wonder those skeptics are not providing much math and physics.
Skeptical (sideshow) science is mostly just qualitative belief science. You won’t let go of your belief you own the null hypothesis because you don’t have an alternative. As long as this is the case, the skeptical argument is not *that* strong at all in the scientific realm.
As a bit of an aside, I hope more than just a few readers here read the following from skepticalscience http://www.skepticalscience.com/Breaking_News_earth_still_warming.html . Plugging your ears is not going to make you more believable. You don’t have to believe even 50% of what skepticalscience says in order to recognize that they do have points in their favor.
“Natural variability” is not hard science terminology. It is a vague concept that would even be used to “explain” the earth exploding tomorrow because we pumped it with nukes. It truly means nothing when you can’t clearly identify cause and effect at some confidence level with some success in mathematically quantified predictions. Policy makers want cause and effect that can be tested and has some degree of success, not invocations of “natural variability” or “null hypothesis” because humans (and death and suffering and chaos…) are merely a part of nature.
I would like to engage people in interesting and useful conversation on climate science, and this is why I try to read papers I come across by skeptics. [Amateur papers tend to be easier for me to digest (since they tend to appeal to easier concepts and use more primitive models).] I don’t see that kind of dialog much on this thread. Does someone want to point me to a WUWT article where math and physics are a part of the discussion and the comments are kept open long enough that people have time to digest and comment? Here is one http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/09/scaffeta-on-his-latest-paper-harmonic-climate-model-versus-the-ipcc-general-circulation-climate-models/ . Hopefully, the crowd will be patient explaining the math, etc.
Good luck here Smokey the Gardener, the mild-mannered forest ranger, the bandit, and the various other null hypothesis that continue to hold.
Major9985,
National Geographic and models are not evidence for what happens with 1 degree C of warming. Droughts in the American SW are associated with la Nina type cooling in the Eastern pacific, not the more frequent el Nino type conditions associated with warming. The models have severe problems reproducing precipitation, increasing precipitation less than half the amount of the precipitation increase seen in the observations in association with the recent warming (Wentz 2007 in the journal Science).
You seem to fail to understand how slightly lower solar forcing can still be attributed some of the warming, try starting a pot of water other stove at 9 and then lowering the temperature to 8, and seeing if it still warms. Or for the science, read the climate commitment studies of Wigley, et al, and Meehl, et al. The only reason CO2 explains the recent warming better in the models is because it was paired with other anthropogenic forcing, mainly anthopogenic aerosols, which not only explain most of the warming but also explain most of the difference between models that “match” the climate while having sensitivities differing by up to a factor of three. Pair the huge unknowns in aerosols with solar and tweak for effect, and voila, the warming gets attributed to solar. Pair volcanoes with CO2, and it has problems. Anthropogenic vs natural forcings was not the way to test the relative attribution of CO2 vis’a’vis solar.
Stratospheric cooling is expected with more CO2 because it is an efficient radiator of infrared radiation, and it is not diagnostic of the relative attribution, since it would occur even if CO2 was only responsible for its direct effects (about 30% of the recent warming) rather than also for net positive feedback as required to support the IPCC’s projections.
>> You seem to fail to understand how slightly lower solar forcing can still be attributed some of the warming, try starting a pot of water other stove at 9 and then lowering the temperature to 8, and seeing if it still warms.
It would be great if you could provide the math you think explains the sun’s relationship to temperature so we could test it.
This example you gave is a little ambiguous to me. My first reaction was, “not the pots I have in my kitchen!”
My second reaction was, “if you mean how there is a delay in reaction time for the burner to cool fully towards 8, then it still is true the temp should turn around almost immediately (and hence not “warm” further) because electricity (even with capacitance and inductance of a typical kitchen) through a burner and the ensuing radiation still should start its effect almost instantaneously after the downshifting at the controls. [Like my many educated guesses, feel free to provide contradictory evidence or suggestions.]
Another reaction I had was, “we aren’t just talking about a large lag because that atmosphere temp was fairly closely tracking solar in the past (both up and down), quite contrary to the new pattern where many believe CO2 has been making a noticeable and increasing contribution to helping establish a new equilibrium position wrt solar forcing before it again starts tracking closely (assuming CO2 concentration levels out).”
But my main reaction continues to be, “we need some quantifiable math/physics and cohesiveness to help separate wishful thinking from actual reality; you have to pick a relationship among the factors and stick with it.”
>> The models have severe problems reproducing precipitation
When you come up with something better, we can talk…
>> increasing precipitation less than half the amount of the precipitation increase seen in the observations in association with the recent warming
…since it appears the models are barking up a tree in the right neighborhood.
Remember, if weather models try to predict 20 days out and get it horribly wrong, no one says they are worthless junk. It’s more than a little likely that climate models can be right in many ways and within parameters while missing elsewhere.
A lack of a competing and superior model is the main reason I can’t take your criticisms too seriously or harshly, and it almost seems you are not too far from being a skeptic hoping to see improvements rather than condemning the whole show.
>> The only reason CO2 explains the recent warming better in the models is because it was paired with other anthropogenic forcing, mainly anthopogenic aerosols, which not only explain most of the warming but also explain most of the difference between models that “match” the climate while having sensitivities differing by up to a factor of three. Pair the huge unknowns in aerosols with solar and tweak for effect, and voila, the warming gets attributed to solar. Pair volcanoes with CO2, and it has problems. Anthropogenic vs natural forcings was not the way to test the relative attribution of CO2 vis’a’vis solar
This sounds to me like another case of wishful thinking. You possibly really want this to be the case, but you are going to have to provide a sound competing physics model that is also quantified with math. Without a model we can prod, you can wishful think quite a lot. .. Maybe it was our unprecedented trips to the moon and into outer space in the 1960+ time period that has thrown the earth’s climate a bit out of whack! Maybe the Climate is only now getting accustomed to seeing earthlings and their crafts orbiting and bypassing all its force and furor!
We need math/physics models to test your theory and keep you honest. You need this to play the game.
Wishful thinking and stabs at contradictory hypotheses are fine when you are trying to get started along a new path, but you should recognize that until you do come up with something that withstands scrutiny, what you have is a little hard to discern from a hope and a prayer.
>> Stratospheric cooling is expected with more CO2 because it is an efficient radiator of infrared radiation… [regardless of the sign of the feedback]….
So come up with a cohesive model we can analyze and try to verify has negative feedback. [Actually, CO2 is not treated as a “feedback”, and, even if one does, accepting the +1C contribution from it rejects the idea it would be *negative* feedback.. so I am not sure I understood that part.]
CO2 is also an efficient absorber of radiation that would otherwise escape into space leaving a cooler planetary system behind.
CO2 is also an efficient radiator back down towards the earth.
When we have a model we can prod, these are the sorts of things we will consider. And ultimately, mother nature will provide numbers as well.
>> National Geographic and models are not evidence for what happens with 1 degree C of warming.
Newton’s models aren’t evidence either, but they have been providing the best core model we have had for understanding and anticipating most reality for centuries now. I can sit here and talk about all the experiments I have seen where Newton’s laws apparently failed, but do I have a competing model that is superior? Nope. Are there ways to add complexity and reinterpret, still using Newton’s models, to get fairly accurate agreement with those experiments? I think so.
Newton has been a failure. We know. But he is among the least problematic failures we have had. Because we don’t have a superior alternative for most uses, Newton wins.
TGB says:
“A brief scan of SourceWatch reveals a long history of ties to the tobacco industry, the fossil fuel industry as well as notorious right-wing think thanks such as the Heartland Institute.”
You get your misinformation from George Soros-funded propaganda outlets like SourceWatch?? No wonder you’re wrong. The “tobacco industry” canard was the factual debunking of the “second-hand smoke” scare. And mis-labeling an ethical, law-abiding organization like Heartland as “notorious” shows what a credulous dupe you are. You’re spoon-fed dishonest propaganda, and you like it.
Heartland is a privately supported think tank, unlike your government-funded propaganda megaphones, which only credulous fools accept at face value. Now run along back to Pseudo-Skeptical Pseudo-Science, or RealClimatePropaganda for some new talking points, and take the über-clown [and laughably self-described “skeptic”] Hose_B with you.
Hose_B, minor 9985 and you are following in these footsteps. So wake me when any of you numpties ever start to follow the scientific method, or even begin to understand the null hypothesis, or Occam’s Razor – all of which solidly debunk your ridiculous CO2=CAGW beliefs. And the ultimate Authority above all else is planet earth, which is decisively falsifying all of your beliefs. Now, who should we believe? Planet earth? Or the Three Stooges of Climate Alarmism?
And just to show how completely clueless Hose_B is, when I patiently explained to him several times [with links] that rises in CO2 always follow rises in temperature, on all time scales from months to hundreds of millennia, Hose_B’s ignorant response was: “Yeah, and the sun goes round the moon.” How about that for a stupid non-sequitur? I provided citations, but Hose_B provided… his nonsensical opinion. Based on his free-association ramblings, and his constant avoiding of the central issue, it is clear that Hose_B knows as much about science as a typical Scientologist.
Finally, once again I note that no one has been able to falsify my hypothesis that CO2 is beneficial and harmless. They do not even attempt to falsify it. That is because there is no verifiable evidence that stands up to the scientific method, showing any global damage or harm due to the rise in CO2 — but there is verifiable satellite evidence showing that the planet is greening as a direct result of increased CO2. The only rational conclusion is that the “carbon” scare is a false alarm; honest folks admit it. Dishonest folks continue arguing their lost cause.
Jose_X,
You still haven’t read the climate commitment studies, it takes centuries for the oceans to reach equilibrium with a new level of forcing. So obviously the climate had not been at the plateau of solar forcing it reached earlier in the century long enough to complete the climate response to late century solar forcing that was still above what it had been for most of the 20th century.
No matter how much we apportion to solar vs CO2, the question really is what caused the mid-century cooling that was inconsistent with the levels of either forcing. The temperature recovery from that was more dramatic than can be explained by the variation in either forcing.
>> the factual debunking of the “second-hand smoke” scare
I am curious about what that scare was. http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/CancerCauses/TobaccoCancer/secondhand-smoke summarizes risks of second hand smoke, but I don’t know if that is the “scare” you are talking about.
>> when I patiently explained
Smokey, you “patiently” preach. I would like to introduce you to mathematics one day if you feel differently about it.
>> rises in CO2 always follow rises in temperature
You have no clue about the scientific method, do you? When you learn a little math and physics, I think you will start to understand.
CO2 always follows rises in temperature just like little children always cries after Smokey talks. Always.
>> Finally, once again I note that no one has been able to falsify my hypothesis that CO2 is beneficial and harmless.
CO2 has killed people. Are you calling that beneficial and harmless? [The little children’s screams just got more intense.]
I’ll give you a better null hypothesis. CO2 can be beneficial and harmless and it can be damaging and harmful. I know you won’t falsify that.
>> it takes centuries for the oceans to reach equilibrium with a new level of forcing
Try providing a mathematically based physical model to show what you mean.
You need to add numbers to your vague statements. Not being at equilibrium can mean it was .001% off equilibrium or it can mean being 10000% off. So how far off equilibrium was it? I have been 100% in agreement that equilibrium has not and will almost surely never be reached. Did something I said make you think otherwise?
Complaining is rather easy to do when one avoids putting up a competing quantifying model. Really skeptical individuals should challenge climate scientists a little bit more instead of making it so easy for them by almost exclusively painting with such broad strokes what everyone knows is there.
Should I ask if next month the focus will shift to pointing out how Newton’s laws are a complete failure in predicting anything?
Complaining that doesn’t produce an alternative testable model is not too interesting. For example, Smokey’s illogical claim to essentially “own” the CO2-is-always-beneficial “null hypothesis” is neither science nor convinces very many scientists.
>> No matter how much we apportion to solar vs CO2, the question really is what caused the mid-century cooling that was inconsistent with the levels of either forcing.
Being so vague makes it hard to judge how accurate or inaccurate your hunch is.
Can you point to a webpage or paper that clearly explains this issue?
>> The temperature recovery from that was more dramatic than can be explained by the variation in either forcing.
Paper or webpage? [I likely can’t access non-free papers.]
Martin Lewitt, my last comment was addressed at what you wrote earlier, but it’s tinged too much with what I might have said to Smokey. Smokey, would I be accurate in saying that anything that doesn’t spit upon the IPCC you view as very likely evil, very flawed, or at least almost surely unscientific.. no matter the details of the argument?
Martin Lewitt,
Debating these three clowns is pointless. They never pay attention to the points you’re making, and they just go off on another tangent when they are unable to refute your facts. The mid-century cooling you referred to debunks the idea that CO2 drives temperature to any measurable degree. It is a bit player, if that. And I’ve posted countless charts showing that ΔCO2 follows ΔT on all time scales out to hundreds of thousands of years. Their response to that fact is always the same.
Next, Jose once again shows his total ignorance of the climate null hypothesis. It is clear that he has no understanding of what it is based on, or what it even means. He just doesn’t know. By definition, there can be only one null hypothesis. Everything else is referred to as an alternative hypothesis, which is tested against the null hypothesis. So far, every alternative hypothesis has been falsified. No exceptions. That’s why Kevin Trenberth wants to change the definition of the null hypothesis: he knows it falsifies CAGW.
Jose preposterously claims he is a skeptic, even though his mind is closed tight. And he believes he understands the scientific method. Here, I’ll help him with an off-the-cuff definition: The scientific method: one posits assumptions [conjecture; hypothesis], then uses mathematics, logic and experiment to arrive at predictive/descriptive conclusions, and checks the empirical, testable evidence and replicable experiments against reality. If the evidence and experiments do not agree with the conjecture or hypothesis, then the assumptions are changed, and the process is repeated. If the conjecture or hypothesis does not ever predict accurately, as with AGW; and if it disaagrees with observation, and if it disagrees with experiment, then the hypothesis is falsified; it is wrong. That’s all there is to it. Prof Richard Feynman explains. But I doubt Jose will listen, because he is a true believer and his mind is closed.
The problem with the CO2=CAGW promoters is that they ignore the scientific method. Reality always invalidates their assumptions, but they do not change them, thus turning them into beliefs. Not one prediction based on CO2=CAGW has come to pass. They have all failed. In any other branch of the hard sciences that would be the end of the debate, and funding would cease. The conjecture would be falsified for failure to predict, and scientists would agree that we learned something new: CO2 does not cause the effects claimed. But the demonizers of CO2 have become true believers, and thus they ignore the inconvenient scientific method. The only kind of logic they use is inductive logic; from the particular to the general. Every wind storm or drought is caused by CO2. But honest scientists use deductive logic; from the general to the particular. Deductive logic is the essence of the scientific method, which attempts to create a testable hypothesis from which one can accurately deduce individual events, such as accelerating global warming. It is clear from his comments that Jose doesn’t understand the scientific method at all.
Every other projection-based comment made by Jose can be just as easily debunked. Jose believes skeptics should put up their own models, when skeptics know that climate models don’t work. Jose erects one of his army of strawmen by irrelevantly saying that CO2 can kill people, when I specifically qualified my [still unfalsified] hypothesis with: “current and projected” atmospheric CO2 levels. And so on. Jose is wrong about every assertion he makes, because he is a true believer. The climate witch doctors have convinced Jose, and no amount of logic or deductive reasoning can change his mind now. Jose has become a lunatic on the subject. Therefore, I will take the advice of someone with much common sense, and move on to a current thread, because this one has devolved into fact-based arguments by rational skeptics, versus belief-based arguments by the lunatic fringe:
For all the lemmings out there who thing the science is on their side, and are /certain/ they have the right of it… take up potholer’s challenge, and find ONE thing that Monckton gets right, that has serious implications to the scientific consensus on climate change. To complete that challenge, you must verify the sources for yourself. So no copy-paste from someone’s blog. You actually gotta do something which you’ve never done (be honest with yourself) and check that the original sources support the claim that Monckton is making.
Martin Lewitt says:
February 19, 2012 at 9:37 am
Because you’re a skeptic, this information means we should disregard the models, when in reality it means the complete opposite.
“We used satellite observations and model simulations to examine the response of tropical precipitation events to naturally driven changes in surface temperature and atmospheric moisture content. These observations reveal a distinct link between rainfall extremes and temperature, with heavy rain events increasing during warm periods and decreasing during cold periods. Furthermore, the observed amplification of rainfall extremes is found to be larger than that predicted by models, implying that projections of future changes in rainfall extremes in response to anthropogenic global warming may be underestimated.” (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/321/5895/1481.abstract)
No, it would seem you have failed to understand, I clearly state that there are many factors to consider when calculating natural and Anthropogenic forcing. The graph I used was to focus on CO2 as the primary driver, but my point still stands (http://tinyurl.com/77w296t).
Smokey says:
February 19, 2012 at 12:48 pm
You accept that CO2 is a greenhouse gas which you associate a climate sensitivity value of ≈1°C warming per doubling [CO2], ± ≈0.5°C. You get this value from the most skeptical scientific papers which I have shown are wrong, and you disregard real climate sensitivity studies that when all averaged out come to a value of 3°C. Because of your inability to learn from your mistakes, let’s just debunk your claim of 1°C sensitivity. You want this in the form of a scientific experiment following the scientific method and so forth. So we have the Null Hypothesis: At current and projected levels, CO2 is harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere. Alternative Hypothesis: At current and projected levels, CO2 “Isn’t” harmless, and “Isn’t” beneficial to the biosphere. With your current projected levels of 1°C warming we are expected to see the Arctic free of ice for summer (not good) rising sea levels (not good) disappearing glaciers suppling water to billions of people (not good) increased migration of malaria (not good) more devastation from pine beetles (not good) increased heatwaves (not good) etc etc etc etc… Lets not forget CO2 is plant food “Across all multifactor manipulations, elevated carbon dioxide suppressed root allocation, decreasing the positive effects of increased temperature, precipitation and nitrogen deposition on productivity.” (not good). I think the Alternative has it smokey, the ball is in your court now.
It is a shame you don’t understand climate change, you make it very easy to debunk your claims. Your other problem is an inability to acquire new information and learn from it. But I will try again to explain it to you. The moment CO2 increasing in the atmosphere will not raise the temperature of the planet straight away because it takes time to heat up the oceans. At present we have only seen 0.8°C temperatures rise from CO2 with an expected 0.6°C more to come at current CO2 concentration. That might be a bit hard for you to understand so let’s just focus on the resent flat line in temperatures. There is this thing called the El-Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) which produces large cooling and warming of the planet. At present there is a lot of cooling happening which you show in your graph and is explained in this graph (http://tinyurl.com/6mlhbon). There is also cooling periods on earth associated with volcanos which is shown in this graph (http://tinyurl.com/886ptzu). Skeptics like to cherry pick these events, but we can see what they are doing (http://tinyurl.com/5sbf3kd).
Your first graph shows that more CO2 is being released into the atmosphere when temperatures rise, but it does not show the increasing accumulation of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels, which you clearly show in your previous link (http://tinyurl.com/75pfwmz). Your second link shows how the Earth goes through Milankovitch cycles which change the temperature of the Earth. This positive or negative change in temperature will increase or decrease CO2, causing the planet to warm or cool even more. This explains how CO2 is a greenhouse gas which drives temperature change. CO2 does follow temperatures but it can also accumulate from volcanic eruptions or in our case the burning of fossil fuels. As your Milankovitch cycles graph shows, CO2 has a great inference on the temperature of the Earth.
Smokey >> The mid-century cooling you referred to debunks the idea that CO2 drives temperature to any measurable degree.
After all of this time, you still make statements like this?
I’ll give you another analogy because I have so much sympathy for you.
Have you ever played tug of war as part of a large team? OK, you basically have several people tugging together on a rope in one direction going against another team tugging in the opposite direction. During this tugging, each person rests and pulls with varying force. Even if you were consistent and pulled with the same steady force the entire time, you would find that the rope would not move steadily. Why? Duh, because you are not the only force pulling. Now, let’s say that you start to pull harder and harder over time. Would it be so strange to find out that in the early part your team was losing but over time you started to win more and more, even though we still saw oscillations (back and forth) on the rope?
Here is another analogy. You are on a sailing ship in the open ocean amid lots of high waves. You start to climb a long mast of the ship upwards. As you climb up, there will be times when your eyesight level and view is very good and other times where it is not so good because the ship is moving down into a trough during those times. All the time, you are moving upwards yet your eyeline will not move upwards consistently but will instead bob up and down, if with a steadily increasing upward drift.
Here is an exercise. Get a graphing calculator or equivalent and graph the function y=.1x^2+.3x+sin2x+.7sin3x+2sin10x. You will note as you follow this curve to the right that it will go up and down a lot. This is true despite the fact that one part of this function, the .1^2+.3x part, is a monotonically increasing function http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotonic_function (simulating CO2 warming, let’s say). If you were to graph just this one part, you would find that the curve simply goes higher and higher as you move to the right, but when you add in the sinusoid components, you will find it going up and down quite a lot.. at least until you get very far to the right and the cycles end up almost having negligible contributions in relative terms.
I gave three examples that demonstrate again that your simplified view of “CO2 warming is disproved because of mid century cooling” is an incorrect view. If you don’t understand these examples, I can try to explain more clearly if you decide you want to embrace mathematics and science. Let me know, and I’ll check back tomorrow.
Smokey >> And I’ve posted countless charts showing that ΔCO2 follows ΔT on all time scales out to hundreds of thousands of years.
Will you show me a chart that shows this relationship for the 20th century? I want to take a closer look at it.
>> Jose erects one of his army of strawmen by irrelevantly saying that CO2 can kill people, when I specifically qualified my [still unfalsified] hypothesis with: “current and projected” CO2 levels.
Heat can kill people with them overheating. A lack of water because of greater evaporation from greater heat can also kill people. We have these deaths at today’s CO2 levels. If CO2 were at much lower levels, we likely would have fewer such deaths. Today’s level of CO2 has a relationship to these types of deaths.
You don’t get to own “the null hypothesis”, Smokey. You have not proved that CO2 at today’s levels is safe or safer than at lower levels.
And you surely haven’t proved that the Earth’s temperatures after it loses it’s .3 albedo due to widespread ice melts would be liveable anywhere near the equator at today’s health rates.
It’s funny, but if we were speeding out in the countryside headed for a cliff, you would invoke a “null hypothesis” as proof that we should continue along the same path. Lol.
>> Next, Jose shows his total ignorance of the climate null hypothesis. ..there can be only one null hypothesis.
The null hypothesis depends on the hypothesis. I have asked you already (to the silence of crickets) to give me a list of papers by climate scientists who have specified a hypothesis to which you think your null hypothesis applies.
I have really tried to explain to you that climate science cannot have experiments repeated. We have only one planet. Scafetta says this much right at the beginning of his latest paper, but you don’t see to understand that and keep talking of imaginary AGW null hypothesis.
[Scafetta] > One of the greatest difficulties in climate science, as I see it, is in the fact that we cannot test the reliability of a climate theory or computer model by controlled lab experiments, nor can we study other planets’ climate for comparison. How easy it would be to quantify the anthropogenic effect on climate if we could simply observe the climate on another planet identical to the Earth in everything but humans! But we do not have this luxury. Unfortunately, we can only test a climate theory or computer model against the available data, and when these data refer to a complex system, it is well known that an even apparently minor discrepancy between a model outcome and the data may reveal major physical problems.
Once again, can you please show me a paper which hypothesizes AGW so I can take a look at it?
AGW is a question science helps us understand. It is like most issues humans deal with. You rely on science to give you insight into a particular problem and then you do risk management.
Jose_X,
Still trying to assign me homework? You need to understand that you’re debating yourself [and still losing the debate]. Assigning homework isn’t going to change that. And you either didn’t read, or you couldn’t comprehend, what I told Martin above:
“I will take the advice of someone with much common sense, and move on to a current thread, because this one has devolved into fact-based arguments by rational skeptics, versus belief-based nonsense analogies by the lunatic fringe: ‘The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane’.”
Your endless threadbombing appears to be intended to convince yourself. It certainly isn’t convincing others. So feel free to continue on with your pointless, logic-free ramblings. For me, I’m very interested in the Gleick scandal, not in your repeatedly deconstructed globaloney. It is obvious that you still cannot understand the concept of the climate null hypothesis, which debunks all of your long-winded commentary. If and when the current global temperature exceeds the parameters of the Holocene, wake me. At that point you will have a valid argument, but not before. The null destroys all your wild-eyed alarmist beliefs. Nothing out of the ordinary is happening, much as you wish it would. And after a 40% increase in harmless, beneficial CO2, exactly none of the alarmist predictions have occurred. That is a monumental FAIL.
But even as I move on to take part in the destruction of the amazingly stupid and dishonest Forbes blogger Peter Gleick, you can continue to post your CAGW nonsense here, where probably not even a half dozen readers still check in. Not very cost effective, but have at it if you need to convince yourself that runaway global warming is gonna getcha. At least you’re harmless, and you are adding to WUWT’s fantastic traffic numbers. A time-waster for you is good for WUWT.
So try to understand: having repeatedly refuted your failed claims, I’m moving on now to the current topic of interest, the Gleick exposé. I am not going to continue with an endless back-and-forth with a numpty who doesn’t understand that the planet is falsifying your beliefs. I like the Gleick articles because they show the rampant dishonesty endemic to those pushing the CAGW scare. So it’s no wonder you would rather hide out here, in this six week old thread.
I hope the moderators let this comment pass this time since it’s at least the 3rd time I post it by itself.
>> Jose believes skeptics should put up their own models, when skeptics know that climate models don’t work.
Lindzen, Scafetta, and Spencer (to name 3 whose names I know) appear to disagree with you.
It seems Smokey you are throwing in the towel on science. There is no science without modeling.
REPLY: automatic SPAM Filter looks at keywords – don’t blame moderators, and we are overwhelmed at the moment – Anthony
Smokey, you show little understanding of the null hypothesis. I hope one day you will actually read up on it so you can competently address all the questions I have posed but which you ignore. There are many null hypothesis, and the one you picked can only be a null hypothesis to someone else’s hypothesis. You haven’t shown me a single person who has made the “AGW” hypothesis. You can’t assume your “null hypothesis” is true point blank. Clearly CO2’s rise has overlapped with harm to humans and the environment by way of increased heat. You have not proved CO2’s rise over the last 2 centuries is not linked to the harm humans have suffered and will suffer in larger amounts if the Earth is unable to reflect as much heat radiation from the sun as it current does thanks to lots of polar ice.
Let’s assume God knows X-rays harm people but being late 19th century, humans haven’t really realized it yet.
We can’t just assume X rays are beneficial and harmless even if almost everyone appears to think that is the case.
“Tomorrow”, we might be thinking of installing X ray machines outside all public buildings to run nonstop and show people’s skeletons as they walk by. Just because X rays have not been proven to be harmful by some point in time doesn’t mean they are beneficial and harmless. You have to first prove it.
Of course, most scientists in the “hard sciences” don’t use vague words like “beneficial and harmless” as you are doing Smokey. Everything requires context and most science deal with more objective information like measurable amounts in some precise unit or other.
And “X rays are beneficial and harmless” could conceivably be a null hypothesis to a hypothesis claiming to link X ray radiation above a certain dosage over the course of a year to malignant cancer of some form in 50% of human test subjects. In this case, we have to make sure the cancer cases aren’t statistically expected were X rays beneficial and harmless.
Smokey says:
February 21, 2012 at 5:48 am
You continue to claim there is a null hypothesis that can disprove Anthropogenic Global Warming, yet you fully understand that CO2 is a greenhouse gas that has a forcing which will raise the temperature of the planet. You repeatedly explain that the projected temperature raise is going to be beneficial. I have clearly shown you that it won’t be good for the inhabitants of this planet, yet you brazenly disregard the facts and continue to make your self look a fool.
This has absolutely no bases what so ever, for you to even make this claim shows you have no understanding of anthropogenic climate change. All the warming over the last half billion years has all been accounted for, from the warming power of CO2 (http://tinyurl.com/6u65g8l) to solar forcing when CO2 levels are steady http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/image17.png. All these forcing are understood and graphed to show how temperatures should be without added manmade CO2 (http://tinyurl.com/77w296t).
This is your time to stand up like a man and show how these predictions have not occurred, but it is clear you are just rambling garbage which fits so well with this Monckton beat down thread. To try and explain who
[Note: nothing was snipped from this comment. Sadly, it appears that the commenter has run out of steam… -mod]
Checking back I see that…
minor says:
“This is your time to stand up like a man and show how these predictions have not occurred…”
Ah. I see. So we are supposed to prove a negative now? BZ-Z-Z-Z-ZT! Wrong. The onus is entirely on minor to show that the endless failed predictions of climate disruption are taking place. That’s how the scientific method works: someone makes a prediction based on a conjecture or a hypothesis, and everyone stands back to see if it happens or not. So far, none of the alarmist predictions are occurring. But thanx for playing, and Vanna has some lovely parting gifts for you on your way out.☺
And el Stupido still does not understand the null hypothesis! Amazing. Here, I’ll give him the definition once more to help him out: The null hypothesis is the statistical hypothesis that states that there are no differences between observed and expected data.
But he still won’t understand, because understanding that definition takes some thought. Kevin Trenberth understands, though. That’s why he insists like a spoiled child that the null hypothesis must now be changed to help him out – thus transferring the onus onto skeptics to prove a negative. Trenberth understands very well that the null hypothesis deconstructs all the doomsday predictions of the CAGW cult, so naturally he wants to game the system. That’s what the alarmist crowd does.
It is truly amazing that Jose still cannot understand what the null hypothesis means or how it works, but it is clear that he doesn’t. The definition is there; he just cannot put it together. It’s simple, really: if the parameters of the Holocene are exceeded [global temperature, hurricanes, floods, natural disaster deaths, droughts, typhoons, etc., then the null hypothesis is falsified. But as climatologist Roy Spencer points out: “No one has falsified the hypothesis that the observed temperature changes are a consequence of natural variability.” In other words, no one has falsified the null hypothesis. Which means that nothing out of the ordinary is happening, as much as the wild-eyed alarmist crowd craves a disaster they can pin on CO2. But it just ain’t happenin’. The planet is absolutely falsifying the alarmists’ nonsense.
Anyway, the three stooges now seem to be reduced to only two. They can continue to argue here with each other that Down is Up, Ignorance is Strength, and CO2 Causes Climate Disruption. Deluded, yes. Evidence-free, yes. But they are arguing based on religious True Belief, so their cognitive dissonance will not allow them to see reason. But for me, I’ll be at the current Gleick threads. I notice that very few alarmist apologists are there defending Gleick’s admitted egregious wrongdoing. But you folks are hiding out here. With this thread almost seven weeks old and only two stooges left still impotently trying to overcome the refutations of their easily debunked beliefs, if they’re not too frightened I invite them to drop by the Gleick threads and try their hand at carrying Gleick’s water. I predict they will crash and burn there just like they have here.
So there’s your challenge, kids. Let’s see you try to defend Gleick. Because you’ve clearly lost the debate here, based on facts, the scientific method, and the null hypothesis.
Smokey>> “The null hypothesis is the statistical hypothesis that states that there are no differences between observed and expected data.”
Supposedly, you were talking about AGW, right?
We cannot refute the null hypothesis for AGW. I’ll repeat the reasons.
We have no idea what expected data is because we cannot run another experiment where the A in AGW doesn’t burn fossil fuels so we could then measure temperatures.
We can’t rely on history for 2 reasons. One, the variables are not matching up with historical accounts. In particular, CO2 has likely not been this high in at least many hundred thousands of years. Two, we don’t really know how the Earth has been in the past. We surmise, but there is significant doubt on many details we think we know and there are obviously many details we don’t even claim to know.
In other words, we don’t have a control for our experiment, essentially because there is only one Earth to test upon and because we can’t turn time backwards to undo the past or even to measure it carefully, so it is not possible to refute the null hypothesis for AGW.
Conversely, we also can’t prove the opposite, that AGW is false. The reasons are essentially the same, we can’t conduct the proper experiment with control in order to see if a difference exists.
In short, we can’t repeat the experiment or confirm that a similar experiment was carried out, so we can’t compare measured data with expected data. We can’t prove AGW. We can’t disprove AGW. The best we can do is to lay on the evidence that would support it and that would contradict it in order to help people identify risks and manage them.
>> Trenberth understands very well that the null hypothesis
Since I joined the conversation, I have not seen a link to Trenberth discussing the null hypothesis in the context of AGW. I am curious as to what he has said on this topic.
>> if the parameters of the Holocene are exceeded…
As pointed out a second minute ago, this is not the null hypothesis to (what I imagine you mean by) “AGW”. For the null hypothesis, as you correctly defined/quoted, we need both expected results and measured results. We need a control or the equivalent, and we don’t have one.
The hypothesis isn’t that it’s never been this hot in the past. AGW is about how that temperature is achieved. Looking towards the past guesstimates of values, as you propose, doesn’t test the crucial cause-effect claims of AGW.
>> I notice that very few alarmist apologists are there defending Gleick’s admitted egregious wrongdoing.
Why do you want people discussing science to go and argue that a lapse in judgement admitted by an individual actually wasn’t a lapse?
BTW, I think this “egregious wrongdoing” may have been much less severe than the much larger scale “theft” of emails dubbed “climategate” and its cost to innocent parties.
Yes, I assume you likewise won’t defend the revelation of those private “climategate” emails to the degree you think they were a similar or worse threat to individuals’ safety, a violation of their privacy, and exposed no significant wrongdoing.
>> Because you’ve clearly lost the debate here, based on facts, the scientific method, and the null hypothesis.
I think this is one of those moments where hopefully we’ll agree to disagree.
>> In particular, CO2 has likely not been this high in at least many hundred thousands of years.
Before you decide to jump on this, let me point out some things.
The effects of CO2 on temperature, as theorized, are neither instantaneous nor entirely define temperatures. There are many other variables that would have to coincide in order to have a “control”. A very important variable is the sun.
Of course, and let me repeat, we have basically guesses as to what earth global average temperatures were in the time before 1850. For 1850, there is a large error margin. The further back we go from that, the more the uncertainty. Mann doesn’t know. McIntyre doesn’t know. No one knows, and the best guesses have significant error bars.
>> BTW, I think this “egregious wrongdoing” may have been much less severe than the much larger scale “theft” of emails dubbed “climategate” and its cost to innocent parties.
Truth be told, I would not be a good judge on which was worse because I have followed neither of these two “peek-a-boos” very much. I think “climategate” brought out much more laundry than this last one, but I don’t know most of the details of what were revealed in either.
There’s a tongue-in-cheek petition I would like you to sign, Smokey.
***
Petition to Commit to Putting Our Money Alongside Our Mouths by Ignoring Alarmist Weather Forecasts:
We, the undersigned weather forecast skeptics, acknowledge that hurricane, tornado, earthquake, blizzard, drought, temperature swing, and other alarmist weather forecasts are based on failed, incorrect weather models so do hereby pledge to utterly ignore each and every such future alarmist weather forecast.
***
If you want to ignore error bars in climate models, you probably also want to ignore them in weather models. If we ignore the “cones” around hurricane predicted paths and other error bars, we would realize the truth that all weather models and alarmist weather predictions fail..
.. so ignore them.
You probably have seen this.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0vj-0imOLw
Jose-X.. Do you ever read your own posts before you press the button? I just have and that is five minutes of my life wasted on reading gibberish that I will never get back again. Thanks a lot.
Disko Troop,
I’m truly convinced that Jose_X is mentally disturbed. Really. I’m not name calling; he posts all the time, three or four separate responses to a comment of mine, he doesn’t seem to be employed [or he’s posting on the sly from work], he’s apparently fixated on every fact I present, arguing and nitpicking about them over and over, as if that will change the facts… and he STILL doesn’t understand the null hypothesis! Amazing.
[snip. Calling others “deniers” is a pejorative that violates site Policy. ~dbs, mod.]
Like all warmists, Smokey, it’s important to have the last word. In their way of thinking, that means that they’ve won.
I’m inclined to think that commenters like Jose_X are in fact “tag” committees intent on thread bombing and blog disruption.
Smokey, it seems the underpinning of your Theory of the Null Hypothesis that Disko and Mark were helping you finalize is about to collapse.
“Was Einstein wrong – or was the cable loose?” http://news.yahoo.com/einstein-wrong-cable-loose-020614484.html .
This means you will not be returning to the 1930s. You will not be switching Popper’s manuscript. You will not be tricking your mom to marry the rich, smart guy with the good build. … In short, you will not be rewriting history.
Sorry.
[OK, we aren’t going to agree too much on climate science or the null hypothesis, so I thought I’d divert the subject a little.]
Odd how a simple post asking Smokey to shortly and concisely list 5 or less 3 would be better examples or evidence against GW and that should all the examples be refuted or shown not to be valid to ask him to no longer post was not posted, Odd, odd indeed. I mean anyone who knows how to cut and paste can post paragraph after paragraph of junk and link after link of nonsensical garbage. Either this site cares about the truth or doesn’t.
Most everyone wants to claim that they care about truth, because that lends them more credibility. Saying that you’re scientific is even better — because that’s the best type of understanding. We rarely, if ever, say that we are deceiving ourselves, yet self-deception seems to be at the heart of the human condition.
Most people hate uncertainty, and want to believe in the veracity of their world. Ironically, those who climate to be all about truth are likely to believe things are true because that is how they ought to be. It is far too confronting to question your own beliefs. So the mind proactively filters disconfirming information, and negative emotions ensure that we never really contemplate it. Instead, we just beat down the negative feelings, and this results in the ego defence mechanisms. It is much more comfortable to project back the incoming message then let someone dismantle your world view. This happens almost instantly in the brain, and the pleasure-reward system reinforces the neural pathways: righteous indignation feels like power, and self-questioning is miserable defeat. And so research shows that the stronger and more credible the counter-evidence shown, the more strongly people report certainty in their beliefs.
Much of the brouhaha you see on this website is about fear of a a very real particular type of control-freak-environmentalism. The science must surely be wrong, since admitting AGW is too dangerous. Obviously the scientific facts no longer matter. Not by a long shot.
I encourage you to argue with skeptics. Hope you have fun doing it. However I have one recommendation. You have said “Either this site cares about the truth or doesn’t”, and I agree with the sentiment; however, don’t fall for black-and-white thinking. It is a cognitive obstacle. It stops you from seeing that skeptics really believe that they are all about truth, and that cognitive mechanisms really prevent them from seeing any self-deception. Basically, they /feel/ right, so they must be about truth.
I would recommend a book (not on AGW) called “Vital Lies, Simple Truths” that it a gentle introduction into the underlying hidden mechanisms that we all deal with. Nobody is immune, including you and me, so look into your own part in this morass. And /everytime/ you make a black-and-white statement, it is worth asking yourself “is the opposite true?” and then looking for counter-evidence, and then watching your mind. And then count yourself one of the lucky ones.
Smokey says:
February 22, 2012 at 10:38 am
You made the claim that “after a 40% increase in harmless, beneficial CO2, exactly none of the alarmist predictions have occurred. That is a monumental FAIL” which means you should know what the predictions are and have facts to show they did not occur? But really you don’t know anything about anthropogenic global warming, my comment asking you to prove “something” was a mocking statement from which you so gracefully proved true. We all know what you think smokey, cherry picking La Nina cooling events and claiming it nullifies global warming, truly pathetic. The most outrageous part of this whole one sided clown show is you are fully aware CO2 will raise the temperature of the planet, but throw in a La Nina and the obvious fact the oceans don’t heat up over night and hey presto CO2 is not a greenhouse gas. I can see it now, you putting a bottle of water in the fridge and taking it out a minute later wondering why it is not cold??. “Hey Vanna this parting gift doesn’t work”…. The only prediction is warming. It is a guaranty and has not stopped!! (http://tinyurl.com/c5a2dyt)
The old cloud argument, Roy as do others think that due to a reduction in cloud cover over the last couple of decades the planet has warmed. They repeatedly say “we just don’t know” when stating this. This argument has not been disproved as of yet, but lacks any real viability due to the observation supporting increased greenhouse effect. Increasing CO2 and in turn more downward infrared radiation is the bases for anthropogenic warming. The observations that prove increased warming are occurring due to the greenhouse effect is the stratospheric is expected to cool and it is Jones et al. (2003). The tropopause is expected to rise which it has Santer et al. (2003). The layers above the stratosphere are expected to cool and contract and they are Laštovička et al. (2006). More warming during the night, Alexander 2006. None of this would be happening if the warming was being causing by cloud cover reduction. The last point is the simple fact that climate scientists know that the clouds are reducing and letting in more solar radiation (http://tinyurl.com/6m9a9nd), they just account for it as a natural forcing.
Again with the Holocene?? Anthropogenic warming does not have to exceed anything, if it is warming the planet then we have to look at the consequences and act. As I stated before, all past climate change has been accounted for as shown in countless studies:
CO2 as a primary driver of Phanerozoic climate — D. Royer et al, GSA Today, March 2004 (http://droyer.web.wesleyan.edu/GSA_Today.pdf)
CO2 forced climate thresholds during the phanerozoic, Dana L. Royer 2005 (http://droyer.web.wesleyan.edu/PhanCO2(GCA).pdf)
Atmospheric CO2: Principal Control Knob Governing Earth’s Temperature, Andrew A. Lacis, Gavin A. Schmidt, David Rind and Reto A. Ruedy, 2010 (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/330/6002/356.abstract
Science has finetuned its understanding of natural and anthropogenic forcing (http://tinyurl.com/8abdqk4) and has determined that man is increasing the temperature of the planet (http://tinyurl.com/77w296t). This was the same conclusion for all the studies (http://tinyurl.com/6r8fdbc). This is why Spencer and Lindzen keep on publishing papers with low climate sensitivity values, they want to try and prove that CO2 is not increasing temperatures. But you only have to look at their work to see they are always wrong (which I have shown) and are just publishing these papers to give skeptics the ability to debate. Even though we all know they got it wrong. I would like to say they got it wrong on purpose but in reality they just used very simple studies which never capture the total value of climate sensitively. On purpose or not they know the science community is going to reject their findings and prove them wrong. The science is overwhelming regarding climate sensitivity (http://oi43.tinypic.com/vd0nki.jpg)
Firstly who cares?? Heartland Institute is just a company that gets the job done for whoever is paying them. It is all about accepted science in the peer reviewed literature. If what Gleick did is found to be wrong then he will have to deal with that, but that does not change his scientific work or his future work or any other scientific work. On a personal note I think what he did was pointless, we all know what the Heartland Institute does and what he found we already knew. I am lost to understand what he was hoping to find.
I was under the impression that this posting thread was re-purposed specifically to facilitate direct point-level interaction between Christopher Monckton and Peter Hadfield regarding Monckton’s alleged roadshow of disinformation. I notice that Monckton has resumed contributing primary postings and commentary on WUWT. Is there an estimate as to when Christopher Monckton might begin the defense of his integrity? It is my opinion that there is plenty of incontrovertible evidence that Monckton may be accurately describes as, in American parlance, a man of “all hat, no cattle”. Scanning through this thread, and through Christopher Monckton’s newest contribution, it seems a very large percentage of WUWT posters just love hats and are likely vegetarians.
I look forward to Christopher Monckton’s issue-focused reply and interaction with Mr. Hadfield. I just hope it happens this year.
Jose_X still doesn’t understand the null hypothesis. It doesn’t say what he says it says.
Next, minor 9985 has not refuted any of my facts, or my hypothesis. Therefore his comment is simply his opinion; a conjecture. All those un-clicked links, eyes glazed over, that I felt like Sisyphus, having repeatedly disposed of evrything claimed. If Mr Minor would like to select any specific issue, he may begin. Take your best shot.
Finally, LeMorteDeArthur is certainly a humorist. He thinks skeptics must in effect, prove a negative. That is not the scientific method. Skeptics have nothing to prove. The alarmist crowd has staked out its position: rising CO2 will cause a tipping point ending in runaway catastrophic global warming. As if. A warm planet is a fortunate and beneficial event for the biosphere. Civilization flourished during warm periods: the Medieval, the Roman, the Minoan Optimum, and other Warm periods, which happen far apart. We’re very lucky to be in one now.
I’m amazed at the number of comments attacking Peter (Potholer54) for his rebuttal of Mr Munckton. As far as I can see he has provided a clearly reasoned argument with cited references. The truth of the claims made by both sides can be established simply by checking these references. This isn’t an argument based on opinion, this is a black and white issue, has mr Monkton or Potholer misrepersented the research.. With the evidence having been provided it seems clear to me that it falls in Peter’s favour and that there are so many people unwilling to accept that is a great concern.
Good work Peter, keep at it.
dbstealey says:
February 24, 2012 at 9:17 pm
Have you changed your name? Because I cant find a post by you in this thread.
Is it one comment as you say, or is it more than one comment? Are you also saying that you don’t check facts when they are given to you? How could you know I have not “refuted any of [your] facts” if you have not check any of my sources??
But you have not posted anything??
I have a good number of comments in this thread. You are welcome to point out anything that I have said which might be wrong. Unlike Monckton am willing to accept if I have got something wrong. To give you a head start I stated that the urban heat island effect had contributed a little to global warming, but it would seem that this not true. It has most likely contributed nothing.
But if you want a specific issue, how about Monckton and all his outrageous mistakes which have been documented by Hadfield. This is what the thread is about.
Major9985,
“Because you’re a skeptic, this information means we should disregard the models, when in reality it means the complete opposite.”
You still fail to understand, you seemed to think that if models predict precipitation extremes, but had less precipitation than the observations, that it means the models deserve some credit. While under representing precipitation increases does not just make the models suspect when projecting droughts or desertification, it doesn’t stop there. They are under representing the water cycle, a key negative feedback in the climate system, and thus their temperature projections are also suspect.
“You are welcome to point out anything that I have said which might be wrong. Unlike Monckton am willing to accept if I have got something wrong.”
Hmmm, it is worth a try. Are you willing to accept that the Nat Geo 1 year video you posted and I responded to earlier might be wrong?
Whoops, that should be the Nat Geo 1 degree C video. Apologies.
Martin Lewitt says:
February 25, 2012 at 1:37 am
My main points regarding your comment was that the models are getting most of it right, the only flaw that you are pointing out is a half of observed precipitation increase. But the scientific study that I referenced shows that there is more extreme rain fall in the summer but less in the winter per the observations. What this suggests is if there was a La Nina causing drought that was to occur during the winter which has been shown to have less rainfall, the drought could be worse. You should also back up your claim that the models have not predicted the droughts in the United States accurately. Because you simply saying they are caused by La Nina not El Nino really does not make sense. Just because the droughts are caused by a cooling La Nina does not mean there will be fewer droughts in a warmer world.
Some key facts regarding the models is they have accurately predicted the last hundred years (http://tinyurl.com/8xds9wq) and even though your reference “Wentz et al. (2007)” showed that precipitation had increased more than predicted it also found that water vapor had increased as expected. As water evaporates it rises into the atmosphere, and eventually returns to Earth in the form of precipitation. This is what is increasing and as the paper states it is unclear what this will do to global warming or climate sensitivity. So to state the models are wrong is premature. More studies are going to have to be done on the effects of increased precipitation. Also most of what I said is based on hard facts such as rising oceans, retreating glaciers, migration due to warming. All of this is on track.
Due to the effects of precipitation on global warming not understood as yet, we can’t say the earth will cool or warm due to the models underestimating it. The models are predicting water vapor at the right amounts and this type of water has a positive feedback, not a negative.
In all fairness you brought up a good point that needs to be looked at more, but I cant disregard the models due to this observation. They only have a 90% accuracy claim associated to them and are really just a guide to what to expect.
Major9985,
First of all, models, are you going to admit you are wrong about “accurately predicted the last hundred years” like you promised? Even when fitting the the last 100 years (not predicting), they are not accurate about the precipitation.
“The models are predicting water vapor at the right amounts and this type of water has a positive feedback, not a negative. ”
It is the “net” feedback that is important to sensitivity. Water vapor does have a positive feedback, but getting a positive feedback from increased water vapor right, while getting the negative feedback from more turns of the water cycle wrong, is a “bias”, not “accurately”. Even if the models were accurately representing the climate to the better than 0.1 W/m^2 to attribute the 0.58 W/m^2 (per Hansen) energy imbalance (which they aren’t), matching the past “accurately” but with incorrect sensitivity does not give valid projections.
You can’t have an informed opinion on this without familiarity with the model diagnostic literature, and enough knowledge of nonlinear dynamics to understand its implications, which you obviously don’t have. You should admit you are wrong as you boasted you would, contrasting yourself with Lord Monckton, instead of trying to spin things.
Martin Lewitt says:
February 25, 2012 at 5:37 am
You asked if I think the Nat Geo 1ᵒC video had not accurately predicted the future due to less precipitation being modelled compared to observations!! And I have explained myself.
If you want to link a paper that explains the modelling of temperatures over the last hundred years is wrong, by all means do. And I would also like to see this paper or another that shows the precipitation for the last hundred years was also modelled wrong.
I have explained the science to you from what I have been able to research regarding it, even Spencer explains little is known about precipitation http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/14/spencer-on-water-vapor-feedback/
You should admit you are wrong, this is all still up in debate and more research has to be done on the implications of more precipitation then modelled. And for you to compare my referencing of IPCC models and explaining the paper which you link as saying they had no idea what this meant to global warming as to what Monckton has done, is disgusting. I think it is ridicules to think Wentz et al. (2007) paper means we should bin all the models. Grow up.
Major9985,
“You asked if I think the Nat Geo 1ᵒC video had not accurately predicted the future due to less precipitation being modelled compared to observations!! And I have explained myself. ”
The Wentz paper is just one of numerous model diagnostic results, I cite it because it easily shows the models and fearmongering about droughts are not credible. I don’t see how “Spencer explains little is known about precipitation”, justifies your spamming the forum with Nat Geo videos, presumably for their fearmongering content. On the contrary, your spinning with “little is known” doesn’t support Nat Geo’s drought content at all.
Your “explaining” of the paper, doesn’t explain how correlated bias in all the models under representing the increase in precipitation by more than factor of two, makes the drought and other fearmongering credible.
All the AR4 have correlated surface albedo bias reported by Roesch that amounts to more than 3 W/m^2 globally and annually average, more than 5 times the energy imbalance. Camp and Tung found that none of the models represent more than half the amplitude of the signature of the solar cycle detected in the observations. Lean also found poor representation of the signature of the solar cycle, although of lesser amplitude than Camp and Tung. The models disagree with each other by nearly a factor of 3 in climate sensitivity, that they all “match” the 20th century global temperature statistic has been diagnosed as main due to differences in poorly understood levels of aerosol forcings.
Of course models are poor regionally and in the troposphere temperature profile. You just don’t have a leg or explanation to stand on. Still awaiting your vaunted acceptance that you were wrong.
Martin Lewitt says:
February 25, 2012 at 9:57 am
These climate models are predictions, and every day they get better (http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/mo01100t.html). After reading how all the models failed to predict precipitation over the last hundred years (http://www.climatewiki.org/wiki/Precipitation_and_Global_Climate_Models), I have to say they really are failing in this regard. But as Spencer said in the link I gave “we don’t know very much about how the efficiency of precipitation systems changes with temperature.” this is where the debate is at present. My referencing IPCC models is not “wrong”.. If you have a problem with it, take it up with the IPCC. I try my best to not talk about models, I find it bizarre how they think equations can replicate nature. Wentz even points out a simple decrease in wind speeds predicted by the models could be the reason for lower precipitation levels. One thing I am going to say I was wrong about, I was wrong about how accurate I thought climate models were. After looking into it in more detail they have a long way to go.
major9985,
“These climate models are predictions, and every day they get better (http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/mo01100t.html).”
No they don’t. Their development cycles average 3 to 5 years, and diagnostic studies to figure out if they really are better, take another year. We haven’t seen much published since the Fourth Assessment Report that was using new models than those in that report. Schmidt, et al’s method can correct for the type of correlated error we have been discussing.
“If you have a problem with it, take it up with the IPCC.”
I have. I participated in the AR4 Working Group I draft review, and just completed the first phase of the next draft review, but nothing I’ve discussed relies upon information from this last review.
“One thing I am going to say I was wrong about, I was wrong about how accurate I thought climate models were. After looking into it in more detail they have a long way to go.”
We done, you have stood up.
One thing to watch out for, when reading the IPCC and other reports of model results, is not just whether they review the diagnostic literature, and discuss its implications for their results, but whether they actually estimate the error range of their results. The IPCC does not. People commonly assume that the range of projections reported by the IPCC is an error range. It is only a range of the unadjusted results of all the models, for a range of future forcing scenerios. There is no adjustment for or assessment of the implications of the documented correlated error when they report the projections.
I am a supporter of the model science. I hold out hope that the impact of perturbations in the various climate forcings can be projected. But I think it is probably two model generations away.
Best wishes,