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
[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.
@ur momisugly 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.