Cook “the books” is wrong to slam Roy Spencer
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Anyone who has met Roy Spencer knows him to be a careful, thoughtful, unpolemical scientist of formidable skill and knowledge. With John Christy he presents the monthly real-world data from the microwave sounding unit satellites that provide the least inaccurate global temperature record we have.
The satellites reveal the inconvenient truth that there has been no global warming for approaching two decades.
However, John Cook, the cartoonist turned warming fanatic who runs the misleadingly-named Skeptical Science website, has just posted a piece by his still more fanatical sidekick, Dana Nuccitelli, attacking Roy Spencer’s recent verbatim interview with the Catholic Online website.
Cook “the books” has a favorite small-boy yah-boo tactic. He condemns anyone who raises any question about “global warming”, however sensible, as perpetrating or perpetuating what he calls “climate myths”.
Sure enough, his latest characteristically malevolent hatchet-job is entitled “Roy Spencer’s Catholic Online Climate Myths”. It appears next to a sidebar headed “Most-Used Climate Myths”. You will also find plenty of other alleged “Myths” at Cook The Books’ website, including Monckton Myths.
Nuccitelli begins by condemning Roy Spencer for saying, “No one knows whether it is currently warming, because we only see warming in the rear-view mirror, after it has occurred.” This truism is characteristic of Roy, who gently nudges the language of climate science in the direction of greater rigor. One cannot measure that it is warming, only that it has warmed.
Yet Nuccitelli, in a fine illustration of that blind faith that TH Huxley denounced in 1860 as “the one unpardonable sin”, asserts that “We absolutely do know that the planet is currently warming”.
He references this assertion by a link to another page of Skeptical Science that provides multiple lines of evidence for the proposition, agreed – as St. Vincent of Lerins used to put it, fere omnibus (by very nearly everyone) that the planet has been warming. But not that it currently is warming.
Nuccitelli adds, “We know that the planet will continue to warm as long as we continue to increase the greenhouse effect.” Again, he would have benefited from a more careful use of language. We know that adding CO2 or other greenhouse gases to the air will cause warming, but that cannot prevent natural factors from causing a countervailing cooling from time to time, which is why we have had the 17-year “pause” in global warming that Railroad Engineer Pachauri has now admitted. Spencer 1, Nuccitelli 0.
Next, Nuccitelli attacks Roy Spencer for having said it was entirely possible that summer sea-ice melt was no worse now than it had been in the 1920s and 1930s, when explorers had reported unprecedented warming and loss of sea ice in the Arctic.
Yet he fails to admit that the reports – for instance, an often-quoted report from 1922 about the unprecedented Arctic warming and loss of sea ice observed by meteorologists – support what Roy Spencer says and are inconsistent with the largely speculative results in the various papers suggesting sea ice extent scarcely changed until it began to decline in the 1970s.
He also fails to explain how the global warming from 1860-1880 and again from 1910-1940, which occurred at exactly the same rate as the warming from 1976-2001, did not cause any loss of sea-ice extent. Spencer 2, Nuccitelli 0.
Nuccitelli then turns to the embarrassing increase in Antarctic sea-ice extent mentioned by Roy Spencer, and produces various papers saying more sea-ice in Antarctica is what we should expect from global warming.
However, he very carefully fails to mention that Antarctica has been cooling during the 33 years of satellite observation. Warming during the satellite era has not been global, suggesting, as recent papers have confirmed, that a naturally-occurring change in advection of warmth from the tropics to the Arctic – but not to the Antarctic – is the chief cause of melting Arctic sea ice. Spencer 3, Nuccitelli 0.
Onward to superstorms. Roy Spencer had said there has been no increase in superstorms, which happen every year. Sandy was unusual only in that it happened over a built-up area. Nuccitelli cites Kerry Emanuel’s paper of 2005 showing an increase in hurricane strength over previous decades.
He is culpably silent on Dr. Ryan Maue’s Accumulated Cyclone Energy index, which shows that since 2005 the combined frequency, intensity, and duration of all tropical cyclones, hurricanes, and typhoons worldwide, expressed as a 24-month running sum, shows the least activity in the entire satellite record. Spencer 4, Nuccitelli 0.
Nuccitelli moves on to condemn Roy Spencer for saying, “The consensus is only that humans are contributing to warming,” and to announce (blind faith again) that “Humans are Causing Global Warming”.
He cites various papers asserting that human greenhouse-gas emissions are the dominant cause of the global warming over the past 50-100 years. However, he fails to take account of the startling absence of correlation between the rate of increase in CO2 concentration and the rate of increase in temperature.
Like many true-believers, he is insufficiently trained in logic to know that absence of correlation between two datasets necessarily indicates absence of causation between them. The sharp fluctuations in global temperature in phase with the 60-year cycles of the ocean oscillations are not correlated with the monotonic changes in CO2 concentration.
Since the rate of warming from 1976-2001, to which we could in theory have contributed, is statistically indistinguishable in the rates from 1860-1880 and from 1910-1940, to which we could not, Roy Spencer was right to say we cannot easily disentangle the anthropogenic from the natural contributions to warming. Spencer 5, Nuccitelli 0.
On to the biggest scare of them all: sea-level rise. Here, Roy Spencer concedes that “Sea levels have indeed increased, which probably is a sign of warming.” However, he goes on to say, “It is difficult to attribute the current rate of rise to humans when we don’t know how much of the rise is natural.”
Nuccitelli’s answer to this unexceptionable and temperately-expressed statement is that sea level rises chiefly through thermal expansion and melting land ice, so it is all our fault. However, it ought to have been obvious even to Nuccitelli thermal expansion and land-ice melt happen whether Man or nature is the cause.
Also, as Peltier (2009) points out, the GRACE gravitational-anomaly record indicates that sea level has actually fallen in recent years. The raw data from the Envisat satellite from 2004-2012 show sea level rising at a rate equivalent to an unalarming 3.2 cm/century:
Professor Niklas Mörner, who was told in 2004 by a sea-level specialist at the University of Colorado that the data from the TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason satellites were tilted to create an artificial impression of a rate of sea-level rise that is not in fact occurring, says his central estimate is that sea level will rise this century by 5 ± 15cm, or 2 ± 6 inches. Spencer 6, Nuccitelli 0.
Next, Nuccitelli takes Roy Spencer to task for daring to suggest that there has been very little research into the natural causes of climate change. Anyone who has seen the video of the Fellows of the Royal Society baying and howling with rent-seeking fury when Dr. Henrik Svensmark gently explained his cosmic-ray displacement theory of cloud nucleation to them will swiftly realize that an overwhelming and undue emphasis in climate research and funding over recent decades has been on anthropogenic and not natural influences. Spencer 7, Nuccitelli 0.
Nuccitelli blows it altogether when he says Roy Spencer’s closing remark that “The warming has been only 50% of what the consensus of climate models says it should be” is “just flat-out ridiculously wrong.”
Well, here are the facts. The IPCC said in 1990, at page xii, “Under the IPCC business-as-usual (Scenario A) emissions of greenhouse gases, the average rate of increase of global mean temperature during the next century is estimated to be about 0.2-0.5 Cº/decade.” The observed warming rate from 1990-2013, according to HadCRUt, is about half that.
Nuccitelli may like to look at the second-order draft of the IPCC’s 2013 Fifth Assessment Report, to which I have added the trend-line through the real-world observed temperature change since 1990:
All four of the IPCC’s Assessment Reports have flagrantly 0ver-predicted the rate of global warming that should have occurred by now. On this central question, the “consensus” has been wrong not once, not twice, not thrice, but four times out of four, and is about to be wrong a fifth time. Nuccitelli’s blind faith in the IPCC’s capacity to predict temperature change seems misplaced. Spencer 8, Nuccitelli 0.
Nuccitelli ends by saying, “Overall, Spencer made very few factually correct statements in this interview.” On any other subject but this, where true-believers such as Nuccitelli now routinely get away with outrageous falsehoods that smear the reputations of any scientists bold enough to raise even the mildest questions about the New Religion, that remark would have led to a libel suit.
Here is why. Below I have enumerated the 60 factually correct statements in Roy Spencer’s interview. There are no factually incorrect statements.
1: Roy Spencer has a PhD in meteorology. 2: Roy Spencer has been doing climate research for over 20 years. 3: His research has been mostly under contract to NASA, NOAA, and DOE. 4: He has testified in Congress several times on the general subject of climate change. 5: He has published two popular books on the global warming issue.
6: He has have an amateur interest in basic economics. 7: He has self-published a small book which is now used in a college economics cours. 8: His research has always been supported 100% by the US Government. 9: No one knows whether it is currently warming. 10: Warming seems to have stopped about 15 years ago.
11: There is some evidence that the deep ocean has continued to warm by hundredths of a degree. 12: The world has warmed for 50-100 years. 13: We started satellite monitoring of sea ice in 1979 after an extended cold period in the Arctic. 14: It is possible that sea-ice melt now is no worse than in the 1920s-1930s. 15: Humans could not have been responsible for warming in the 1920s-1930s.
16: We cannot know the extent to which we are responsible for Arctic sea-ice melt. 17: Since 1979, Antarctic sea ice has increased. 18: There has been no increase in superstorms or tornadoes. 19: Sandy-class storms occur every year. 20: Sandy-class storms do not usually hit high-density urban areas. 20: Sea levels have increased.
21: The increase in sea level is probably an indication of warming. 22: Sea levels were rising well before 1900. 23: We could not have been to blame for sea level rise before 1900. 24: The rate of sea-level rise is slow. 25: It is difficult to attribute the current rate of rise to us.
26: We do not know how much of the sea-level rise is natural. 27: It is possible that the ocean is absorbing more heat than was expected. 28: The oceans are big enough to absorb all of the warming caused by increasing CO2 with a temperature rise of just 0.1 Cº. 29: We have no means of knowing whether the oceans are absorbing all of the warming caused by us. 30: We have no means of knowing whether the oceans will continue to absorb all of the warming caused by us.
31: The CO2-induced reduction in the Earth’s capacity to cool to space has fallen by only 1%. 32: The CO2-induced reduction in the Earth’s cooling capacity is a very weak forcing of the climate system. 33: The deep ocean has warmed by only 0.2% since the 1950s. 34: The warming of the deep ocean has been very small. 35: Current solar and wind technologies are expensive.
36: Wind and solar are unreliable. 37: They can only replace a small fraction of our energy need. 38: Today’s economy runs on inexpensive energy. 39: To grow the economy we will need to use fossil fuels to generate extra wealth. 40: We will need to burn more fossil fuels to find replacements for fossil fuels.
41: The consensus is only that humans are contributing to warming. 42: Roy Spencer agrees with that consensus. 43: Only a small number of scientists know enough about climate sensitivity to have an informed opinion. 44: Only a few of us work on the question how sensitive is the climate system. 45: Only a few of us know how much uncertainty there is.
46: Most climate researchers simply assume recent warming is manmade. 47: Human causation is only one possible explanation out of several. 48: It is theoretically possible that Al Gore is correct. 49: The subject of global warming has become politicized. 50: There are financial winners and losers from policy outcomes.
51: Climate science has become hopelessly corrupted. 52: Roy Spencer and others have told Congress we need a “red team”, where a small fraction of climate research funding is put towards studying natural causes of climate change. 53: There is very little research into natural causes of climate change.
54: Roy Spencer has been wrong many times. 55: In research, we are usually wrong with our initial opinions. 55: It is much easier to be wrong than right.
56: There are many potential explanations for what we see in nature. 57: Roy Spencer usually determines in a matter of days, weeks, or months that he was wrong. 58: He has seen nothing to change my view that we have no way of knowing how much of our current warmth is human-caused. 59: Even if it is 100% human-caused, the warming has been only 50% of what the consensus of climate models says it should be. 60: If the consensus changes to reflect real-world outcomes, we shall have twice as much time to solve the climate problem. Spencer 60, Nuccitelli 0
Above all, there is a striking contrast between the careful, measured, balanced tone of Roy Spencer’s facts, which I have summarized above, and the intemperate, hate-filled Gish gallop of cherry-picked citations, half-truths, and outright falsehoods of which Nuccitelli is – yet again – guilty.
GUARDIAN LIMITS or
SPONTANEOUS GENERATION OF AGW FEAR
I went recently, after a two year break, to see and comment in the climate section of The Guardian.
I took my PhD at Warwick U, UK and I used to read it.
The Guardian has a brand new section called 97% and lead by Dana Nucitelli from “skeptical science”.
I will let you guess whether the idea is whether climate science should be a matter of debate like modern science
Or whether, like in medieval times, people should accept the opinions of 97% of a group of 72 fellows, who answered yes when asked a vague question like “do you believe in global warming” a few years back.
The point of the blog is that the lack of warming is in fact an accelerated warming over the last 15 years
But that all the heat decided in 1998 to go in the deep ocean, where measurements are scarce
Nothing was observed between 0-700 m depth, making you wonder how and why that heat made it there, warming fish by 0.01C
*
There is some progress.
Two years ago, even linking to NOAA showing data put you on a probation list, virtually taking you out of the discussion.
Now any data and opinions related to climate are OK.
The thing which, as I found out, gets you eliminated for good is the slightest connection between AGW and the doubling of energy costs needed to fight it.
There is nothing to it!
As said the CEO of 2 renewables firms who lead the inquiry into the leaked emails,
When he decided for expediency not to look at those emails.
No Siree!
“We know that adding CO2 or other greenhouse gases to the air will cause warming, but that cannot prevent natural factors from causing a countervailing cooling from time to time”
Eh? So you agree with Nuccitelli?
“Next, Nuccitelli attacks Roy Spencer for having said it was entirely possible that summer sea-ice melt was no worse now than it had been in the 1920s and 1930s, when explorers had reported unprecedented warming and loss of sea ice in the Arctic.
Yet he fails to admit that the reports – for instance, an often-quoted report from 1922 about the unprecedented Arctic warming and loss of sea ice observed by meteorologists – support what Roy Spencer says and are inconsistent with the largely speculative results in the various papers suggesting sea ice extent scarcely changed until it began to decline in the 1970s.”
So how many of those explorers of the 20s and 30s made it through the east and west arctic routes to Asia that are now being explored regularly (and there is a growing shipping lane north of Russia)?
“Nuccitelli then turns to the embarrassing increase in Antarctic sea-ice extent mentioned by Roy Spencer, and produces various papers saying more sea-ice in Antarctica is what we should expect from global warming”
Yes, by referring to a paper from 1992! So much for climate science not being able to predict anything….
Btw, I am not going to discuss 60 points, I leave that to the sceptical audience here. They will see each point critically though fair, I am sure! Need some sleep now.
Glad to see you are back, R. Eschhaus. Sleep well.
You are playing hard to get Janice. I hope you are having as much fun with this online “romance” as I am. Just to tell you where I am coming from, I have made a point of showing my significant other the thread from a few days ago. She would like to meet you too. Good! Maybe she is worried. Worried women provide better sex.
If the above doesn’t get me snipped I’ll try again. The greens kill people. The ban of DDT has killed something like 20 to 200 million ( depends on which estimate you believe) African children. Helpless children. The carnage is so severe that a number of badly functioning African governments have reinstituted the use of DDT. No name I can call these so called people (the greenies) is vile enough
Illustrating how loudly fools spout nonsense if they feel the crowd is on their side. Gut-churning to observe, much less analyse. You have a strong stomach, Chris!
Thank you Christopher Monckton of Brenchley for a most enjoyable & informative post.
The comments, as usual, were equally good. My hat’s off to you all.
Stan Stendera hi.
I’ve been keeping that DDT hate in my back pocket, thanks for bringing it out, because at bottom this global warming/climate change scam is a ploy aimed at establishing one world govt & slashing world population numbers: Wildavsky, Aaron. But is it true? A Citizen’s Guide to Environmental Health and Safety Issues. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994 (or 1995). pages 55-80 deal with DDT. My calculations show ~51 million deaths since 1972. H/T Michael Crichton, his novel: State of Fear. p 579, a great start for a non scientist like myself to learn about global warming.
These “Green” eco-marxists are murderous people.
The CO2 producers they’re after is us.
Regarding The Guardian Newspaper, I can’t get a remark posted on there.
A severe aversion to reality?
Tonyb says:
May 2, 2013 at 1:57 pm
I kinda feel like a heel now for my wording “some guy named Tony Brown”. My intent was that it doesn’t matter who did the research, the work stands on it’s own.
Mr. Stendera,
Please tell your lovely lady that she has nothing to worry about.
The avoidable genocide of the DDT lie is a heinous tragedy. Millions of African babies dying needlessly does not move the politicians, most now members of the Cult of Climatology. Their consciences are seared and they have sold their souls for money and power. I don’t think there is an organized conspiracy. I think the perpetrators are a bunch of fools all infected with the same disease.
Janice
Good to see you again Janice!
Is Stan correct and you are playing hard to get?
Kisses 😉
Janice Moore hi.
I do see an organised conspiracy, & it’s called UN Agenda 21.
This was born out of 1970’s ‘we’re all doomed publications’ such as “A Blueprint for Survival”, which I read in 1972 as a 19 year old student. “….the industrial way of life….is unsustainable.” is part of it’s unforgettable opening first sentence. This booklet built upon the fraudulent work of Rachel Carson in her 1962 book “A Silent Spring”. That gave birth to the Malthusian Club of Rome, & it’s Eugenicist enthusiasts such as Sir Julian Huxley.
Not an unfortunate tragedy, a planned genocide.
Google agenda 21 for dummies, a good place to start.
60 to 0; really?
so Nutty was contrary to all 60.
I did enjoy the article, exaggeration aside.
[snip – off topic and irrelevant -mod]
Can I use this article as a written version of the Gish Gallop to show my critical thinking students how enough lies, exaggerations and falsehoods crammed into a small enough space is taken by some to be sufficient evidence of winning an argument?
REPLY: Sure, but be careful, some of your students might also learn something in the process (i.e. that their teacher is biased) – Anthony
Kajajuk:
Your post at May 4, 2013 at 2:28 pm says in total
“Exaggeration”? Really? What would that be then?
Unless of course you see ‘Nutty’ was demolished on all 60 points and the hint at some unspecified “exaggeration” was the best damage limitation you could imagine?
Richard
Seeing as that Dana and his friends censored (i.e. deleted) my comments on their Guarded website I just wanted to get a final word of warning in here.
I determined in three different ways that the beginning of (a part of ) warming (cycle) started around 1951 and the cooling part of that cycle started around 1995. This is looking at energy-in.
Average temp. on earth will lag a bit. But, clearly you can see that the trend is negative for the past 12 years, see here
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1987/to:2014/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to:2014/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1987/to:2014/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2002/to:2014/trend/plot/rss/from:1987/to:2013/plot/rss/from:2002/to:2013/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1987/to:2014/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002/to:2014/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1987/to:2002/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1987/to:2002/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1987/to:2002/trend/plot/rss/from:1987/to:2002/trend
From the above simple compilation of linear trends in these 4 major global data sets, you can also see that before 2000 we were still warming and that after 2000 we started cooling….
The results of my investigations
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2013/04/29/the-climate-is-changing/
suggest that this cooling will continue. Among a number of different of solar cycles, we are also in a 88 year solar / weather cycle, namely the Gleissberg cycle. To calculate where we are on that cycle is quite simple: 2013 – 88 = 1925.
Now I said, and I quote: “So, a natural consequence of global cooling is that at the higher latitudes it will become both cooler and drier.”
I remembered something of the 1930′s dust bowls and looked it up for you. We are not that many years away from this. Check this study:
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/drought/dust_storms.shtml
To quote from the above study:
“The Dust Bowl drought of the 1930s was one of the worst environmental disasters of the Twentieth Century anywhere in the world. Three million people left their farms on the Great Plains during the drought and half a million migrated to other states, almost all to the West”
end quote
That looks pretty serious to me. Now I never said things will become as catastrophic as that, but due to the droughts it could become a bit challenging in the years ahead. Better to know these things beforehand. However, do remember that this climate change that is coming will be due to natural global cooling, not global warming. Mark my words.
Antony, in reply to my earlier comment, my students might learn something but of course I don’t have to tell them what it is. They can make up their own minds. We all have biases after all. The true act of humility is to acknowledge one’s own.
By the way, my first, deleted (sorry, in words used here, censored) comment was, of course, relevant. Roy Spencer supports intelligent design and therefore gives an indication of his ability to handle and understand scientific information. I realise that wasn’t obvious so I have made it so.
Margaret Hardman:
In your post at May 5, 2013 at 2:28 pm you say
No, it is not obvious because it is not true.
His religious beliefs have no relevance of any kind to his ability to handle and understand scientific information.
Your statement only demonstrates your inability to understand that there is more than one way to process information: religion and science are not the same thing. That you may confuse them is not a justification for your asserting that he does (and he does not).
I suggest that you learn about logical fallacies taking especial note of ‘Straw Man’ and ‘Tu Quoque’.
Richard
I understood that those that believe in intelligent design claim that it is science. Therefore my point remains valid. If you wish to believe that it is a religious viewpoint, Richard, then you are totally in agreement with the scientific consensus. I know the logical fallacies you remind me of, however, having read of Spencer’s views on many things I feel my point remains valid. His judgement of scientific matters, especially when outside his own field, is flawed.
Margaret Hardman:
Thankyou for your reply to me at May 6, 2013 at 4:35 am.
Climate science IS Roy Spencer’s “own field”.
I strongly suggest to you that you would be wise to take note of the warning to you by Anthony Watts at May 5, 2013 at 1:09 am. Your students would not reveal to you if that were their immediate learning, and many will recognise the truth of it after having left education and joined the ‘real world’.
Your bias screams from your every post in this thread. I commend you to consider if it is showing in your other activities. Sadly, I suspect your bias is so great that it may prevent you making such a consideration.
Richard
Richard
I accept I am wrong in my comment about Dr Spencer being outside his field.
In answer to the accusations of bias, of course I am. Perhaps that is a failing but since one apparently only ever sees bias in others then my road to Damascus moment makes me weak, not strong. However, I have a lengthy personal history in scepticism, going back more than 20 years on a number of subjects. I am also pedagogically aware enough to know that I don’t tell my students what I believe because they have a right to make up their own minds. It is called critical thinking. I think my students will pick up that Monckton’s points 9 and 10 are mutually exclusive (unless “seems” means something different to the established consensus meaning of the word).
I don’t tell my students my political inclinations or religious affiliations. I don’t tell them my football team or favourite singer. I trust them to use the skills I aim to impart to them to make their own decisions. They don’t always agree with me but if they can show good and consistent use of the cognitive skills They have been taught then I have succeeded in my task.
Margaret Hardman:
Thankyou for your post addressed to me at May 6, 2013 at 11:08 am.
I was especially pleased to read your having written so all – not merely me – can see
Indeed, that is the essence of education.
My only knowledge of you is what you have revealed in your posts in this thread. And I remain with two concerns.
In your post I am answering you say
But your claim of “points 9 and 10 are mutually exclusive” refutes your claim “critical thinking” because they are consistent and NOT mutually exclusive.
Those points are
Point 10 is understated because there has been no global warming or global cooling discernible at 95% confidence for at least the last 16 years according to all the pertinent data sets. In plain language, that means global warming stopped at least 16 years ago.
And Monckton explains how and why that is completely consistent with his point 9 when he writes
So, (point 9) “no one knows whether it is currently warming” because it is not possible to know that.
however,
(point 10) “warming seems to have stopped about 15 years ago” is also true because there has been no discernible global warming (at 95% confidence) for the last 15 years but there was previously.
And this brings me to my other concern which is the subject of your first posts here. In them you smeared Roy Spencer. That touched a nerve because what you wrote echoed an email I had received from a character called John O’Sullivan. He, too, falsely accused Monckton of appealing to authority in the form of Spencer, and he also smeared Spencer, and he – like you – made no other refutation of Monckton’s arguments.
The coincidence in time and the similarity of your post and his email raised my hackles. I replied to his email and he gave a scurrilous reply which I have copied to Roy Spencer, Christopher Monckton and Anthony Watts together with my response to it.
In that response I pointed out to O’Sullivan that smears of me are unpleasant but smears of people I admire are intolerable. And I pointed out that I had deliberately ignored his cowardly demand that his email not be copied.
Perhaps your posts here were not developmental on the circular email from O’Sullivan, but I find them to be equally distasteful.
Richard
Richard
For the sake of clarity, I have no connection with John O’Sullivan. I have not heard of him or anything about an email. I thought I was raising a valid point about scientific credibility supported by the fact that Dr Spencer signed an evangelical declaration on climate change, thereby making his religious views part of his climate science.
As for points 9 and 10, I could use the analogy of a car accelerating to point out that your defence of point 9 is semantic. I expect we shall not agree on that point so I shall leave it there. You are free to have the last word if you wish.
steveta_uk says:
May 2, 2013 at 1:48 am
15: Humans could not have been responsible for warming in the 1920s-1930s.
This, and the ice-melt reports in the 1920′s, are areas where there is possible disagreement. The effects of black carbon (soot) on albedo are still being argued about, so if someone were to show that the pretty dirty industries of the northern hemisphere in the early 20th century did in fact have some effect on artic conditions, I wouldn’t be too surprised.
————————————-
Nor i, how long was coal a steaming, WW I a rockin’?
\————————————
20: Sea levels have increased.
=> thinks sea levels have decreased; no kidding
54: Roy Spencer has been wrong many times.
=> righty right be Roy many a time
29: We have no means of knowing whether the oceans are absorbing all of the warming caused by us. 30: We have no means of knowing whether the oceans will continue to absorb all of the warming caused by us.
=?^2
41: The consensus is only that humans are contributing to warming
=>Nutty is of the contrary, really…
Nah Nah a boo boo!