Jo Nova writes:
Murry Salby was sacked from Macquarie University, and Macquarie struggled to explain why, among other things, it was necessary to abandon, and strand him in Paris and hold a “misconduct” meeting in his absence. Since then he has been subject to attacks related to his previous employment. I’ve asked him to respond, which he has at length in a PDF (see below). The figures listed below refer to that PDF, which encompasses 15 years of events.
I don’t have the resources (unlike the National Science Foundation, the NSF) to investigate it all, but wanted to give Murry the right of reply.
On closer inspection the NSF report used by people to attack Salby does not appear to be the balanced, impartial analysis I would have expected. Indeed the hyperbolic language based on insubstantial evidence is disturbing to say the least. Because of the long detailed nature of this I cannot draw conclusions, except to say that any scientist who responds to a question about Murry Salby’s work with a reference to his employment is no scientist.
Remember the NSF report was supposedly an inhouse private document. It was marked “Confidential”, subject to the Privacy Act, with disclosure outside the NSF prohibited except through FOI. Desmog vaguely suggest there “must have been an FOI”, but there are no links to support that. In the end, a confidential, low standard, internal document with legalistic sounding words, may have been “leaked” to those in search of a character attack.
My summary of his reply:
See: http://joannenova.com.au/2013/08/murry-salby-responds-to-the-attacks-on-his-record/
The PDF:
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Darn typo: Last post says ” best you’ve shown temperature causes some of the wobbles – the stuff OTHER than actual overall growth trend. Which effectively (not utterly or 100% completely but pretty much) rules out temperature as a driver of CO2 growth. ” is meant to say ” best you’ve shown temperature causes some of the wobbles – the stuff OTHER than actual overall growth trend. Which effectively (not utterly or 100% completely but pretty much) rules out temperature as a driver of the twentieth century CO2 growth. ” – otherwise it read as if I’m saying that temperature can cause a growth of CO2 in general and can’t cause it in general.
Ferdinand Engelbeen:
Your post at August 17, 2013 at 12:19 pm
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/11/murry-salby-responds-to-critics/#comment-1393333
is the second occasion in this thread where you have iterated a point and ignored what I said. The previous instance was with respect to the carbon isotope ratio change.
I do not know how to be more clear than I was when I wrote at August 17, 2013 at 10:08 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/11/murry-salby-responds-to-critics/#comment-1393219
Your answer to that which I am replying again lists things which do not sequester all the emissions.
Either
(a) you are failing to understand the question so you need to tell me what I am failing to explain
or
(b) you are avoiding the question.
Perhaps you cannot answer it? If so, then please say so.
Richard
“In this thread you have lied, misrepresented and insulted all in support of your ridiculous dogma. Take your childish beliefs back to your playpen.”
And once again a set of unfounded insults ad-hominems and no substance. If you are saying you won’t post any more of these pointless insults then I’m hardly going to be disappointed.
I’m posting science – you just keep engaging in name calling. The science don’t go away just because you call me bad things. Seriously.
richardscourtney says:
August 17, 2013 at 1:29 pm
I answered your question:
The dynamics of the sequestration processes show they can sequester all the CO2 emissions
with
Richard, they can’t, because they are limited in capacity.
I did explain in detail why the fast processes are limited in capacity, maybe I wasn’t clear enough. But if a process is saturated, no matter how fast it was reacting, no more CO2 can be sequestered.
A more complete answer might be: the dynamics of the sequestration processes over the seasons and over short term (1-3 years) show that they can sequester a lot of CO2 in short time, but also that they have a limited capacity which prevents sequestering more CO2 than these limits.
Nyq Only:
The science is not going to be supplanted by your dogma merely because you lie, misrepresent and insult.
I refer you to my above post at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/11/murry-salby-responds-to-critics/#comment-1393392
where I first objected to specific lies, misrepresentations and insults from you in this thread.
I want to discuss the science – not your dogma – so it is you I would like to “go away”.
Richard
Gail Combs says:
August 17, 2013 at 12:48 pm
Gail, we have been there before…
If your lab measures hundred of samples around a value of 200 for any variable and there is one sample that shows a measurement of 2000 in a clearly contaminated sample, you too probably will throw that result out as an “outlier”.
And measuring a variability of +/- 2% of full scale for CO2, where about 20% is removed and added over the seasons, I call that “very well mixed”. That variability has no measurable effect on any temperature effect. alleged or not…
Ferdinand Engelbeen:
Thankyou for your post at August 17, 2013 at 2:12 pm
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/11/murry-salby-responds-to-critics/#comment-1393417
OK, I now see the problem. Thankyou. You state it when you say this
No, that is not so.
Yes, they can “sequester a lot of CO2 in short time”.
But, no, they do not “have a limited capacity which prevents sequestering more CO2 than these limits”.
If the sequestration were saturating the sinks then the rate of sequestration would decline as saturation was neared. But that is not what happens.
The concentration plummets at near constant rate then rapidly reverses. The effect is least pronounced at Mauna Loa (because the seasonal variation is least there) but can be seen there
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/weekly.html
This behaviour is consistent with a switch between two conditions; in one condition sequestration dominates and in the other emission dominates. It is NOT consistent with the sinks reducing their sequestration as they saturate.
Simply, the indication is that the sinks do NOT saturate. And that is why the paradox exists.
Richard
richardscourtney says: August 17, 2013 at 2:19 pm
“The science is not going to be supplanted by your dogma merely because you lie, misrepresent and insult.”
Seriously? You are just repeating the same insults and once again you stuff up the link.
“I want to discuss the science”
So why do you keep posting these repetitive messages to me that contain nothing but insults? I don’t get it. If you don’t want to read my messages then don’t read them. I’m not forcing you.
If you want to ask me a serious question then ask it and I’ll give you a serious answer.
Weird stuff about ‘dogma’ and ‘lies’ – what’s the point? Do you think I’ll go away if you are mean to me or something?
[If there is a moderator around here: I think Richard has made his point that he doesn’t like me and he is entitled to do so – but now he is just repeating the same insults and I think these repetitive posts are heading away from fair (if juvenile) comment and into harassment]
[Reply: At what point would you invoke censorship? — mod.]
richardscourtney says: August 17, 2013 at 2:19 pm
“I refer you to my above post at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/11/murry-salby-responds-to-critics/#comment-1393392
where I first objected to specific lies, misrepresentations and insults from you in this thread. ”
Wait did you mean this post http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/11/murry-salby-responds-to-critics/#comment-1393368 ?
The one in which you said: “This will be my last post in reply to any more of your prattle.” ?
Nyq Only says:
“…what I am showing is a demonstration that the cause and effect you and Bart is claiming ISN’T THERE…”
Of course it is there. It is right in front of your nose, and you are the only one who can’t seem to see it. Yours is a typical alarmist response when you claim: “Do any of your graphs show that CO2 *CANNOT* cause a rise in temperature”. Real science doesn’t work that way. I’ll explain:
You are demanding that a skeptic must prove a negative: that a non-existent effect [or an effect that is simply too small to measure] “cannot” be shown in a chart. Well, no kidding. I am not arguing what *cannot* be shown, I am showing you a clear example of the cause and effect relationship between changes in T, and subsequent changes in CO2. How much empirical [real world] evidence do you need?? Even Ferdinand Engelbeen agrees [although his position is that there are different processes at work].
If you had looked at the graphs I posted, you would see that after T rose, CO2 followed. Time after time after time. Then when T declined, CO2 subsequently followed. Time after time after time. This has happened over and over, for hundreds of thousands of years.
That pattern is crystal clear, and it has been repeated on time scales from months, out to hundreds of millennia. Yet you typically refuse to accept that incontrovertible fact. The reason you refuse to accept reality is because if you did, your whole catastrophic AGW argument would come crashing down. But the fact is: T affects CO2 levels, and everyone can see it in the charts I posted.
And:
“Do any of your graphs show that the general staedy growth of CO2 over at least the last quarter of the 20th century and beyond was caused by temperature? No – your graphs do *NOT* show that.”
Well, as a matter of fact, they do show that. Explicitly: CO2 follows T. As I clearly stated, human CO2 emissions add to the total. But the percentage is debatable. Your outlandish position is that temperature has no effect.
Oceans outgas CO2 as they warm, just like a warming Coke outgases CO2. Oceans cover more than 70% of the planet. But your religious belief system will not permit you to admit that global warming is the source of more CO2 in the air. So you tangle yourself up like a pretzel trying to rationalize around what the rest of us see happens naturally.
Next, you say:
“I can *SEE* that you have definitely not shown any relation between temperature and the overall growth in CO2.” You can’t see that because you are blind to the relationship. I have posted plenty of charts showing exactly that: there is an empirical relationship between atmospheric CO2 and global temperature. But you can’t accept that fact, because if you do, there goes your argument.
You then ask: “Has the late twentieth century growth in CO2 been caused by temperature?”
Once again, at least part of it is caused by temperature. But you cannot admit that, because your argument crashes and burns if you do. So you say:
“The answer can be ‘no’ without anybody having to become a devotee of Al Gore or whatever.”
The answer is not “No.” Get a grip on reality.
Finally, I note that you avoid any mention of the testable, easily falsifiable scientific skeptics’ hypothesis:
At current and projected concentrations, CO2 is harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere.
I don’t think you are capable of falsifying that hypothesis. No one else has been able to, and based on your illogical comments, you can’t either.
dbstealey says:
August 17, 2013 at 2:58 pm
dbstealy, your graphs show that on short time (1-3) years temperature changes leads CO2 changes. Nobody disputes that. And few dispute that over the long term CO2 levels follow the temperature level (as seen in ice cores).
Where the dispute is, is that the total increase of 70 ppmv over the past 50 years is caused by the small increase in temperature. Your graph doesn’t show that, because the net increase of its integral is very small. That is what Nyq Only showed: there is no connection between the increase in temperature and the increase of CO2 over the past 50 years, no matter that the short term and long term graphs show such a connection. Thus the current increase is probably NOT caused by temperature.
If the CO2 increase causes an increase in temperature and will have catastrophic or not consequences is NOT relevant in this discussion. Like you, I think that more CO2 is far more beneficial for plant growth and humanity (including a small increase in temperature) than harmfull. But please, don’t mix that into the discussion…
Nyq Only says: August 17, 2013 at 2:52 pm
[Reply: At what point would you invoke censorship? — mod.]
Fair point – I don’t want to tell you your job. I think given he has now posted several messages to me that contain nothing but insults. There is no content other than he thinks I’m a liar of some kind. As his position regarding me has been published and can be read by all it would not be censorship to ask him not to clog up this discussion with what are basically clones of the same message. After a point is just harassment. He has said his piece and even said he wasn’t going to engage with my posts anymore and yet he is still carrying on.
I just want to have an intelligent chat about temperature and CO2. I’ll just ignore the trolling from now on.
Moderator:
I am placing on record that I object to the harassment of me on this thread by the serial liar posting as Nyq Only.
Richard
Nyq Only:
Your harassment of me on this thread is not only disruptive it is becoming tiresome.
Your most recent harassing post was addressed to the mod and claims of me
The fact is that you have repeatedly lied on this thread and I have posted rebuttals of specific lies; see e.g. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/11/murry-salby-responds-to-critics/#comment-1389494
Saying that is NOT an insult.
Richard
dbstealey says: August 17, 2013 at 2:58 pm
Thanks for your reply
“Of course it is there. It is right in front of your nose, and you are the only one who can’t seem to see it.”
As I’ve explained I can see the cause and effect you are showing on, for want of a better term, the relatively short term noise in CO2. As I have demonstrated that cause and effect (which for the sake of argument I’ll accept) does not translate to the long term growth trend in CO2. Indeed in different ways both you and Bart takes steps that essentially eliminate that long term growth from your analysis.
Consequently whatever cause and effect you have shown is not something you have shown for the late twentieth century growth in CO2.
“You are demanding that a skeptic must prove a negative:”
No, I think you may have misunderstood my point. A skeptic can reasonably say “CO2 has not been shown to have a causal influence on the temperature anomaly” without proving that CO2 cannot possibly do so. You are making in effect a more positive assertion that because you have found several causal relations between temperature and CO2 (i.e. a rise in temperature causing a rise in CO2) that therefore CO2 itself cannot cause a rise in temperature and that a rise in CO2 must come temperature. My skeptical response to that is that you simply haven’t shown that to be the case.
“If you had looked at the graphs I posted, you would see that after T rose, CO2 followed. ”
I not only looked at them I have replicated some of them and explained how they are constructed and what the relationship is that they have shown.
“Time after time after time. Then when T declined, CO2 subsequently followed. Time after time after time. This has happened over and over, for hundreds of thousands of years.”
Yup. No doubt about it temperature rises can cause an increase in CO2. Agree with you there 100%. Is there somebody who disagrees with that point? If so, point me at them and I’ll tell them they are wrong. A rise in temperature can cause a rise in CO2.
“That pattern is crystal clear, and it has been repeated on time scales from months, out to hundreds of millennia”
If you like…but that pattern doesn’t work in one case and this is what I’ve shown several times now. Your pattern which appears to hold in many cases doesn’t hold in the case of the late twentieth century temperature trend and the late twentieth century CO2 trend.
So we have all these cases of CO2 following temperature and a case of CO2 *NOT* following temperature. If you are right the usual, natural, typical, normal hing for CO2 to do is follow temperature. If you are right then THE TWENTIETH CENTURY IS EXCEPTIONAL.
Does that PROVE global warming? Goodness no.
Is it a giant massive hint from the data that something very different has been going on? Yup.
I wonder what it might have been?
“Well, as a matter of fact, they do show that. ”
Sorry but that graph does the same thing I’ve already pointed out. By finding the derivative you have effectively removed the long term trend (which is roughly linear) from consideration. Once again you’ve provided a graph that shows the noisy wobbles in the graph have a strong relationship with temperature. I’m not disputing that but I am saying it explains nothing about the long term trend – except maybe ruling out temperature as an explanation.
“Oceans outgas CO2 as they warm, just like a warming Coke outgases CO2. ”
Yeah I know. Not disputing it. Do you know of ANY mainstream climate scientist who thinks temperature can’t cause an increase in CO2?
“Finally, I note that you avoid any mention of the testable, easily falsifiable scientific skeptics’ hypothesis:”
Because I’ve got enough on my plate explaining the error of interpretation that you and Bart have made – plus at least one contributor posting nothing but ad-hominems at me :). Aside from that thank you for replying politely and with substance.
[noted -mod]
[noted -mod] Thanks 🙂
Ferdinand says:
“…your graphs show that on short time (1-3) years temperature changes leads CO2 changes. Nobody disputes that.”
Actually, ‘Nyq Only’ directly disputed that, saying:
“Do any of your graphs show that the general staedy growth of CO2 over at least the last quarter of the 20th century and beyond was caused by temperature? No – your graphs do *NOT* show that.”
As I’ve said many times, I agree with you that human emissions are part of the reason for the added atmospheric CO2. Even if human emissions are the reason for all of the additional CO2, that is not central to the debate.
What matters is whether the added CO2 is a problem. I keep asking ‘NyqOnly’ and others to produce verifiable evidence showing that CO2 causes global harm, or damage. Not one person has ever produced any such evidence. On the contrary, more CO2 is clearly beneficial.
The “carbon” scare is based entirely on the alarm that more CO2 is a bad thing. But those people cannot produce any verifiable, testable evidence to back up their contention. We are discussing science here, not their belief system. If the alarmist crowd cannot show global harm from the rise in CO2, then they have no credible argument. After a hundred and fifty years of rising CO2, there should be some evidence of harm or damage, no matter how small. But there is none. None at all.
dbstealey to Fredinand: “As I’ve said many times, I agree with you that human emissions are part of the reason for the added atmospheric CO2.”
And I agree that temperature can cause an increase in CO2. I guess we basically agree 🙂
“If the alarmist crowd cannot show global harm from the rise in CO2, then they have no credible argument.”
Well tell you what. Next open thread ask again and I’ll give an answer to that specific point. Deal?
Nyq Only,
Sure. Just make certain any claims show verifiable global deamage, due to human CO2 emissions. Make sure your evidence is testable per the Scientific Method, quantifiable, and attributable directly to human activity.
I don’t see how you can do that when no one else has been able to, but have at it if you think you can.
While I’m waiting, why don’t you try to falsify my skeptics’ hypothesis? It’s really the same thing.
dbstealey:
At August 17, 2013 at 4:37 pm
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/11/murry-salby-responds-to-critics/#comment-1393522
you say
I agree, and in terms of physical effect I do not think it can be. I explained my reason for this conclusion in my above post in reply to Allan MacRae at August 14, 2013 at 8:37 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/11/murry-salby-responds-to-critics/#comment-1389778
However, this thread is discussing the carbon cycle because that was the subject of Salby’s work (which is very similar to the earlier work of Rorsch, Courtney & Thoenes). And research concerning behaviour of the carbon cycle is not only important as the subject of interesting scientific investigation. It also has important practical implications for public policy.
I outlined these policy issues in my above post addressed to Nick Stokes at August 15, 2013 at 2:40 am.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/11/murry-salby-responds-to-critics/#comment-1390631
I commend you to read my post to Nick Stokes and I have provided a link which jumps to it.
Richard
Nyq Only has a valid point.
Suppose you write the CO2 concentration as a function of time as a linear term , plus a term representing the rest of the variation, i.e
CO2(t) = a.t + F(t)
You can always do this – it is not an approximation. Then the derivative is
dCO2/dt = a + dF/dt
But with all the scale and offsets, the ‘a’ in that equation gets lost. So you are actually comparing the temperature anomalies with dF/dt, whatever that is, rather than dCO2/dt. As a result the graphs cannot be used to claim that all the CO2 rise over the last 50 or 60 years is due to temperature, nor can they be use to state the opposite, because this whole term is missing.
Now if the linear term were chosen as a ‘best fit’ of some kind, then the remainder F(t) would be something like the variance. So what the graphs are showing is that the variability away from the long term increase is controlled by temperature. This seems reasonable, as a major component must be the growth and die back of vegetation, and Ferdinand has already said this, and given a few other short term effects, higher up the thread.
Richard Courtney,
I read your links, and this comment stood out for me:
“If this were merely an abstruse scientific issue then your mistake could be ignored: eventually data and understanding will be obtained to resolve the matter. However, others are now using the same mistake as an excuse to attempt imposition of harmful changes to energy and economic policies world-wide.”
I agree. That is exactly what is happening. True Believers like ‘Nyq Only’ and plenty of like-minded people are using their non-scientific beliefs to impose very harmful policies on the West [while conveniently ignoring the rest of the world’s CO2 emissions].
“Carbon” climate alarmism is political, and based on only a thin veneer of pseudo-science. If ‘Nyq Only’ really did have any solid evidence of global harm as requested, then so would everyone eles — and they would have been beating skeptics over the head 24/7/365 with verified examples of global harm resulting from CO2. But in fact, the geologic record tells us that when CO2 was high and rising, the biosphere teemed with life; low CO2 caused problems. [No doubt ‘Nyq Only’ has run back to SkS or wherever, looking for some talking points to support his beliefs.]
Those folks never seem able to produce any testable, verifiable evidence, per the Scientific Method. What they really want is for everyone to believe as they do. But unfortunately for the alarmist crowd, the general public is now beginning to understand that the “carbon” scare is just a giant grant-based scam.
jimmi says:
“…the graphs cannot be used to claim that all the CO2 rise over the last 50 or 60 years is due to temperature.”
“…all…”?
Who has ever made that claim in this discussion?
dbstealy: “Just make certain any claims show verifiable global deamage, due to human CO2 emissions.”
Noted but I think I can answer this point “If the alarmist crowd cannot show global harm from the rise in CO2, then they have no credible argument.” – even if additional CO2 or even additional warming was unequivocally beneficial. But I’ll save that argument for later 🙂