Introducing The New WUWT "Extreme Weather" Reference Page

So let’s consider this 99% thing and run some back of the envelope numbers.
Here’s a recent letter from 125 people to Ban Ki Moon. Note that almost ALL the signatories are not only climate scientists, but world leaders in their various specialties:
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/11/29/open-climate-letter-to-un-secretary-general-current-scientific-knowledge-does-not-substantiate-ban-ki-moon-assertions-on-weather-and-climate-say-125-scientists/
Now they are by no means an exhaustive list of all the climate scientists who are skeptical of CAGW, I know a half dozen personally who didn’t sign that letter, but let’s for a moment assume this is the list. That would mean there are over 10,000 climate scientists who are part of the consensus. There are only a few hundred climate scientists involved in the IPCC WG1 reports! A concerted effort to come up with a letter to the opposite effect by (I think? don’t recall for certain) SkS only came up with a couple of hundred signatories.
Well, let’s focus on the scientists who contributed to the last major IPCC report, AR4 WG1, because they, arguably, represent the consensus. OK, what do they say about our understanding of the science?
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch2s2-9-1.html
Ooops…. turns out that the scientists who form the consensus are stating that of 14 categories of science related to radiative forcing, our understanding of 9 of them is either “low” or “very low”. So, the consensus is actually that we don’t know nearly enough to make any determinations. In fact, they go out of their way to say that the calculated values for radiative forcing from CO2 cannot (repeat CANNOT) be directly translated into surface temperatures, and propose no less than FOUR different physical models that may be correct:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch2s2-2.html
So, if 99% of scientists agree, what the heck do they agree upon? That they don’t know much about radiative forcing at all! That’s what they agree upon! And there certainly aren’t 10,000 of them in any event. Now these same scientists did put out a “consensus projection” that said we’d see 0.2 to 0.4 degrees of warming between their last report and now, and that if we didn’t see any significant warming for 15 years, well, then their models were wrong. Hey, that’s their consensus, not mine! So what have we seen? Well here’s the last 15 years as measured by satellite:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1997/to:2012
Oooops…. the trend is actually not only not statistically significant, it is slightly negative!
But hey, maybe she meant 99% of scientists in general? Couldn’t be the 99% of climate scientists since they agreed that they don’t have a very good understanding of radiative energy balance could it? The ones that said 15 years with no warming mean their models were wrong? Yes, she must have meant scientists in general, who, not being as familiar with the details, and not having actually looked at the satellite data, might not be aware that the published science and the actual data don’t agree with the “consensus”. So it must be all scientists that she meant.
Well, here’s the Oregon Petition, signed by over 30,000 scientists:
http://www.petitionproject.org/
If that represents only 1% of the scientists out there, then there must be 3 MILLION scientists in the 99%, right? Well wait. That petition is for citizens of the United States only! Are 1 in 300 people in the United States scientists? LOL. Not even close, certainly not in the hard sciences. But of course, that’s only the United States. Now true, the USA is education heavy compared to a lot of the world, but they’re still just 5% of the world population. So, let’s figure 10X for the world as a whole. That would be 30,000,000 scientists in the world who agree that CAGW is upon us.
30 MILLION. And all SkS could muster up for their petition was a few hundred?
What’s with these 30 million scientists? Are they cowards? Afraid to sign up? Maybe they just don’t care?
Yes, that’s the most likely explanation. There are 30 million scientists in the world who believe firmly that the earth is in mortal danger from CO2, but only a teeny weeny fraction of them bothered to step up and say so, and of the ones that did….they said if there’s no warming for 15 years, we should consider them to be wrong.
Done!

8.20am in the morning here – just spent a few mins glancing the recent posts!
PR is deluded and also deliberate in her intent to disrupt skeptics – so be it – it is quite satisfying to know that her fanatical actions will be seen by so many! She also reminds me of exactly why I would never give a single penny to any eco/enviro type organisation.
Zealots and Idiots – always a terrible mixture IMHO!

Guys, let’s look at this from another direction. Consider the scenario where the main stream media has been very “humans are causing catastrophic change” for years, and through in environmental propaganda programs such as those seen on BBC, Discovery and Nat Geo. What sort of person would result from that bombardment of a single message.
Yep, Pat is the sort of person that would result from that sort of propaganda machine.
So what can we do to help these types of people gain access to the truth? Well, for starters we could address the most common claims in the main stream media with the true science. Let’s start with some basics. If Pat is serious about wanting to learn about climate change, then I hope she reads this and follows it through.
Pat, I hope you’re reading this. Let’s firstly look at land surface temperatures. Here’s a link to the Berkeley land surface temperature since ~1750. http://berkeleyearth.org/images/annual-comparison-small.png
As you can see, the world has warmed up in the last 250 years. What you should also notice, is that at least half that warming occurred before 1940, well before human emissions are supposed to have made an impact. So what drove pre-1940 temperature rise? Well for one thing, Earth had the Little Ice Age to get out of. You can see the last 100 years of the LIA in the BEST graph, up to 1850. From 1850 to 1940 the Earth returned from the cold temps of the LIA.
Next we look at the warming that occurred post-1960 to present. This is where humans are supposed to have driven the heat according to what you hear on the TV, read in the newspapers, and get in those environmental group pamphlets in your letterbox. But let’s look at the alternatives. Is there anything else that COULD have driven this warming up? Let’s look at our primary heat source, the Sun. Here’s solar output for the last few hundred years. Take note of the high solar cycles in recent times, commonly called the Modern Grand Maximum. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/28/Sunspot_Numbers.png/400px-Sunspot_Numbers.png
Looking at these numbers, it’s obvious to anyone that since 1950 solar output has been high. Now some people will tell you that “only increasing solar output can cause increasing temps”. Here’s a simple experiment for you. Put a pot of cold water on the stove. Put the gas on LOW. Wait for it to warm up, and you’ll get a very slow simmer. Then crank the gas to HIGH and leave it there. Observe what happens. Even though the gas is on a constant amount, the pot of water continues to heat up, getting hotter and hotter. So a simple scientific experiment has proven that if a heat source is a constant high, the temperature will continue to rise (as opposed to what some people will tell you). Thus it’s possible the Modern Solar Grand Maximum caused the warming since 1950 (or at least some).
There’s also another major warming influence on the Earth. The Pacific Ocean. The Pacific acts like a heat regulator for Earth. I highly recommend reading Bob Tisdale’s blog and learning what you can about this fascinating region of our planet. Note that the Pacific Ocean is actually larger in size than all the world’s land area combined. Anyways, one of the Pacific’s cycles is called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO for short). Fancy name, but what’s it do? Well in a way, it’s one of the main temperature control knobs of the planet. Take a look at the following graph of the PDO since 1900. http://www.drroyspencer.com/library/pics/PDO-index-since-1900.jpg Notice how when temperatures rise, the PDO is in a positive cycle. And when temps fall (ie: 1940-1970) the PDO is in a negative phase.
So let’s recap:
– Temps were cold using the BEST graph from 1750-1850. This is the Little Ice Age.
– Temps rose from 1850-1940 as Earth warmed after the Little Ice Age.
– Temps fell from 1940-1970 during a solar lull (weak sun) and cold phased PDO.
– Temps rose from 1970 to 2000 during the Modern Solar Grand Maximum and warm phased PDO.
So how much (if any) did human emissions rise temps during the focus period of 1980 to now? Can you guess? According to the main stream media, humans were responsible for all of it. Please note, that I’ve only highlighted two natural cycles. There are so many natural cycles, and scientists are only scratching the surface of their effects on climate. Another Pacific cycle is ENSO, which also has a major influence on the global climate.
But that’s enough for lesson 1. Please respond when you’ve read this, done whatever followup research you want to, and are ready for the next lesson. I think we’ll cover what the climate has done since 2000 in the next lesson. 🙂

Dale,
great rebuffal, I am not a scientist – just an interested reader.
I believe the comment about the boiling pot is wrong . Once water starts to boils, whether it simmers or boils vigoriously the temp never goes above 100 deg C. All that happens is that the extra heat is released as steam quicker to maintain a constant temperature.
I have also read that the temps of the oceans will never go above 30 deg C for the same reason. All that happens is that storms, cyclones etc become more vigorous to spread the heat around.
The opposite may also be true – ie as world temps drop , tropical storms decrease. This sounds a bit like now.
I also believe that it is time to close this post and stop wasting time with Pat. If she got hit by a truck she would say she tripped over the curb. Never admit she might be wrong.

Pat:
I know what you’ve done here… you’ve come across what you think is a bunch of ignorant people, and you’re trying to educate them.
The truth is somewhat the opposite.
Probably EVERYONE here used to believe as you did at one point (regular posters, feel free to correct me if this is wrong).
Then we started asking questions, and seeing things that didn’t make sense. Like “climate scientists” adjusting temperature records DOWN in the past to make today seem warmer. Like wealthy, conspicuously consumptive people telling us to stop consuming. Like dire predictions that simply refuse to materialize. So we started investigating on our own.
It’s extremely unlikely that ANYONE here is “spreading doubt” for pay. What we’re doing is countering an extremely well financed misinformation campaign with legitimate information. All you need to do is look at the evidence with the “open mind” you think you have, and it will become obvious.
All of the answers have been pointed out to you, and links to credible resources, often from the same sources that are raising the alarm. The difference is in the analysis of the facts.
ANY information you encounter, whether it’s from a trusted teacher or professor, a scientific source, a TV channel, a friend, or your own research is subject to your own internal “filtering”. The human brain does tend to filter out things that are contrary to previously held belief. And, unfortunately, we tend to believe things we hear from people we believe.
Eventually you’ll realize that your position is untenable, that there is no danger or catastrophe, and that the world doesn’t need saving. It’ll still be here, with a healthy biosphere, long after our civilization is gone.

Since this has evolved into a more general discussion I thought I’d add my two cents…or two pence as I’m English. Pat seems to think that everyone posting comments on here is a scientist. Well, I can’t speak for anyone else, but I know I’m not! I studied Marine Biology at the University of Wales, Bangor, about ten years ago now, and have always had an interest in science, but never pursued it as a career.
Some time after that I watched an Inconvenient Truth, at the recommendation of some friends who were concerned about it all. It seemed weird to me that a politician had made this film, but I thought what the hey, I won’t judge it just from that, what has he got to say? I came away from it pretty horrified, but not by the dire predictions. About 95% of the information presented in the film is all about the observed global warming, and then there’s about five minutes of the film (pretty much literally as far as I can remember) dealing with the actual connection between “mankind” and the observed warming. This section of the film showed a graph linking CO2 concentrations to temperature, to which he made some sarcastic crack about “do you think there’s a connection!?” since there was an obvious correlation – to which everyone in the audience laughed. With what I’d learned about science and logic, I was pretty disgusted by the ignorance displayed – correlation does not equal causation. Could be that CO2 was effecting temperature, could be that temperature was effecting CO2, could be that additional variables not plotted on the graph were influencing both factors.
Anyway, after being entirely unconvinced by a film that somehow managed to sway the opinion of my friends and millions of others, and which remains a highly rated film on IMDB even to this day, I started looking into it more and more. That’s my reason for being here, and writing this post. Nothing to do with my being (or rather not being) a scientist, and certainly nothing to do with funding from Big Oil. Just a subject that interests me.
I initially read a lot on Skeptical Science. They seemed to have a lot of information there, as far as I knew at the time, and it seemed like a good place to start…since I appeared to have a bit of a “skeptical bias” already (not skeptical in the sense Skeptical Science means it, which I still can’t work out, but skeptical in the actual sense of the word), I thought it might “balance” my thinking a bit to read a pro-AGW blog. The trouble was that a lot of the arguments presented weren’t very logical. The one presented as their rebuttal to the claim that there is no empirical evidence linking manmade CO2 to climate change is particularly impressive…in its failure to convince an open, rational mind. I thoroughly encourage Pat to read that, if she or he hasn’t already, actually think through what’s being said (including all the comments), and draw your own conclusion. I still can’t get over their statement that there’s “a line of” empirical evidence linking CO2 to temperature. A LINE OF…nope, not going to do it. There’s either empirical evidence or there isn’t.
Anyway I could ramble on all day but I’ll leave it there for now.

Pat Ravasio, we have cleaned things up. How old are you????
LONDON SMOG

E.M.Smith,
Thank you and bravo. Now I await Pat to reply.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/08/introducing-the-new-wuwt-extreme-weather-reference-page/#comment-1168486

“Paulc says:
December 10, 2012 at 2:22 am
Dale,
great rebuffal, I am not a scientist – just an interested reader.
I believe the comment about the boiling pot is wrong . Once water starts to boils, whether it simmers or boils vigoriously the temp never goes above 100 deg C. All that happens is that the extra heat is released as steam quicker to maintain a constant temperature.
I have also read that the temps of the oceans will never go above 30 deg C for the same reason.”
————————————
You are right of course. But the water does rise to that temp. Mental note: don’t use the pot on the gas analogy for temp simulating under constant high forcing in the future. 🙂
Though thinking about it, the pot on the gas is a good analogue for what happens on Earth. As it warms up the hydro cycle becomes more vigorous. This results in more heat being moved from the surface to the atmosphere and the temps stabilizing on the surface.

Pat Ravasio says:
December 8, 2012 at 5:41 pm
My question remains: What is motivating this intensive, daily effort by you and your supporters to deny that there is environmental damage done to our ecosystem by our use of fossil fuels? …
___________________________________
I am old, semi-retired with no children and only one brother, who is in the 1% and completely amoral. In short I have no Dog in this Fight.
My only reason for being here is a sense of obligation toward the exploited and a fear that civilization will be so weakened by this maddness that when, not if the climate goes very cold we will be in no shape to survive.
I started out in the ‘Farm Wars’ and migrated to here. I suggest you read Mother Jones and the background link 1 and link 2
And then think about Henry Kissinger’s quote:
“Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls energy can control whole continents; who controls money controls the world.”
For money see:
link 1
link 2
Primer on Money: COMMITTEE ON BANKING AND CURRENCY. WRIGHT PATMAN, Texas, Chairman
Given the moves to control money and food why ever would anyone think there is not a move to control energy especially since the World Bank has been prominent in the scam from the beginning?
Maurice Strong – Oil Mogul and Senior Advisor to the World Bank was chair of the 1972 First Earth Summit AND Kyoto.
Robert Watson was Chief Scientist and Director for Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development (ESSD) at the World Bank when he was IPPC chair
The Copenhagen talks broke down the after ‘Danish text’ leak… The draft hands effective control of climate change finance to the World Bank. Third world countries have absolutely no love for the World Bank for a very good reason, previous experience.
This year the IPCC wasn’t even present instead a report from the World Bank was used.
CAGW is dirty politics and has been from the start.
So what is actually happening in climate?

In discussing the Late Eemian Aridity Pulse (LEAP) at the end-Eemian, Sirocko et al (A late Eemian aridity pulse in central Europe during the last glacial inception, nature, vol. 436, 11 August 2005, doi:10.1038/nature03905, pp 833-836) opine:

“Investigating the processes that led to the end of the last interglacial period is relevant for understanding how our ongoing interglacial will end, which has been a matter of much debate…..”
“The onset of the LEAP occurred within less than two decades, demonstrating the existence of a sharp threshold, which must be near 416 Wm2, which is the 65oN July insolation for 118 kyr BP (ref. 9). This value is only slightly below today’s value of 428 Wm2. Insolation will remain at this level slightly above the inception for the next 4,000 years before it then increases again.”

source

The Abstract for the quoted paper (It is even worse than we thought!)

A late Eemian aridity pulse in central Europe during the last glacial inception
Abstract
Investigating the processes that led to the end of the last interglacial period is relevant for understanding how our ongoing interglacial will end, which has been a matter of much debate (see, for example, refs 1, 2). A recent ice core from Greenland demonstrates climate cooling from 122,000 years ago driven by orbitally controlled insolation, with glacial inception at 118,000 years ago. Here we present an annually resolved, layer-counted record of varve thickness, quartz grain size and pollen assemblages from a maar lake in the Eifel (Germany), which documents a late Eemian aridity pulse lasting 468 years with dust storms, aridity, bushfire and a decline of thermophilous trees at the time of glacial inception. We interpret the decrease in both precipitation and temperature as an indication of a close link of this extreme climate event to a sudden southward shift of the position of the North Atlantic drift, the ocean current that brings warm surface waters to the northern European region. The late Eemian aridity pulse occurred at a 65 degrees N July insolation of 416 W m(-2), close to today’s value of 428 W m(-2) (ref. 9), and may therefore be relevant for the interpretation of present-day climate variability.

This paper agrees that we are at the point in the earth’s Milankovitch cycle that could usher in an ice age.

Lesson from the past: present insolation minimum holds potential for glacial inception (2007)
“Because the intensities of the 397 ka BP and present insolation minima are very similar, we conclude that under natural boundary conditions the present insolation minimum holds the potential to terminate the Holocene interglacial. Our findings support the Ruddiman hypothesis [Ruddiman, W., 2003. The Anthropogenic Greenhouse Era began thousands of years ago. Climate Change 61, 261–293], which proposes that early anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission prevented the inception of a glacial that would otherwise already have started….”

Do I think we are headed into glaciation soon? No. But the data shows that the tail end of an interglacial is a bumpy ride and that plays havoc on growing crops.