By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Shock news from the Heartland Institute’s Ninth International Climate Change Conference: among the 600 delegates, the consensus that Man contributes to global warming was not 97%. It was 100%.
During my valedictorian keynote at the conference, I appointed the lovely Diane Bast as my independent adjudicatrix. She read out six successive questions to the audience, one by one. I invited anyone who would answer “No” to that question to raise a hand. According to the adjudicatrix, not a single hand was raised in response to any of the questions.
These were the six questions.
1. Does climate change?
2. Has the atmospheric concentration of CO2 increased since the late 1950s?
3. Is Man likely to have contributed to the measured increase in CO2 concentration since the late 1950s?
4. Other things being equal, is it likely that adding CO2 to the atmosphere will cause some global warming?
5. Is it likely that there has been some global warming since the late 1950s?
6. Is it likely that Man’s emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases have contributed to the measured global warming since 1950?
At a conference of 600 “climate change deniers”, then, not one delegate denied that climate changes. Likewise, not one denied that we have contributed to global warming since 1950.
One of the many fundamental dishonesties in the climate debate is the false impression created by the Thermageddonites and their hosts of allies in the Main Stream Media (MSM) that climate skeptics would answer “No” to most – if not all – of the six questions.
That fundamental dishonesty was at the core of the Cook et al. “consensus” paper published last year. The authors listed three “levels of endorsement” supporting some sort of climate consensus.
Level 1 reflected the IPCC’s definition of consensus: that most of the global warming since 1950 was man-made. Levels 2 and 3 reflected explicit or implicit acceptance that Man causes some warming. The Heartland delegates’ unanimous opinion fell within Level 2.
Cook et al., having specified these three “levels of endorsement”, and having gone to the trouble of reading and marking 11,944 abstracts, did not publish their assessment of the number of abstracts they had marked as falling into each of the three endorsement levels. Instead, they published a single aggregate total combining all three categories.
Their failure to report the results fully was what raised my suspicions that their article fell short of the standards of integrity that the reasonable man on the Clapham omnibus would have expected of a paper purporting to be scientific.
The text file recording the results of Cook’s survey was carefully released only after several weeks following publication, during which the article claiming 97% consensus had received wall-to-wall international publicity from the MSM. Even Mr Obama’s Twitteratus had cited it with approval as indicating that “global warming is real, man-made and dangerous”.
The algorithm counted the number of abstracts Cook had allocated to each level of endorsement. When the computer displayed the results, I thought there must have been some mistake. The algorithm had found only 64 out of the 11,944 papers, or 0.5%, marked as falling within Level 1, reflecting the IPCC consensus that recent warming was mostly man-made.
I carried out a manual check using the search function in Microsoft Notepad. Sure enough, there were only 64 data entries ending in “,1”.
Next, I read all 64 abstracts and discovered – not greatly to my surprise – that only 41 had explicitly said Man had caused most of the global warming over the past half century or so.
In the peer-reviewed learned journals, therefore, only 41 of 11,944 papers, or 0.3% – and not 97.1% – had endorsed the definition of the consensus proposition to which the IPCC, in its 2013 Fifth Assessment Report, had assigned 95-99% confidence.
Now that we have the results of the Heartland Conference survey, the full extent of the usual suspects’ evasiveness about climate “consensus” can be revealed.
Cook et al. had lumped together the 96.8% who, like all 100% of us at ICCC9, had endorsed the proposition that we cause some warming with the 0.3% who had endorsed the IPCC’s proposition that we caused most of the warming since 1950.
In defiance of the evidence recorded in their own data file, they had then explicitly stated, both in their article and in a subsequent article, that 97.1% had endorsed the IPCC’s proposition.
Amusingly, 96.8% is 97% of 97.1%. In other words, 97% of the abstracts that formed the basis of the “97% consensus” claim in Cook et al. (2013) did not endorse the IPCC’s definition of the consensus, as the article had falsely claimed they did. However, those abstracts did endorse the more scientifically credible Heartland definition.
Among the unspeakable representatives of the MSM who came to the Heartland conference to conduct sneering interviews with climate “deniers” was a smarmy individual from CNN.
He asked me, in that supercilious tone with which we are all too familiar, how it was that I, a mere layman, dared to claim that I knew better than 97% of published climate scientists. I referred him to Legates et al. (2013), the peer-reviewed refutation of the notion that 97% of scientists endorse the IPCC’s assertion that most of the warming since 1950 was man-made.
The CNN reporter said that the result in Legates et al. was merely my “interpretation”. So I pointed to a row of internet booths nearby and said, “If I count these booths and find that there are, say, 12 of them, and if you count them and find there are indeed 12 of them, then our finding is not a matter of interpretation. It is a matter of fact, that any third party can independently verify.”
I challenged him to go away, before he broadcast anything, and count how many of the 11,944 abstracts listed in the Cook et al. data file were marked by the authors themselves as falling within Level 1. If he counted only 64, I said, then his count would accord with mine. And our counts would not be an “interpretation” but a fact, whose truth or falsity might readily and definitively be established by any third party performing exactly the same count as ours.
He said he would check, but with that look in his eye that seemed to speak otherwise.
The results of my survey of the 600 Heartland delegates reveal that the difference between the Thermageddonites and us is far less than they would like the world to think. Like most of them, we fall within Cook’s endorsement levels 2-3. Unlike them, we do not claim to know whether most of the global warming since 1950 was man-made: for that is beyond what the current state of science can tell us.
Above all, unlike them we do not misreport a 0.3% consensus as a 97.1% consensus.
You may like to verify the results recorded in Cook’s data file for yourself. I have asked Anthony to archive the file (it resides here: cook.pdf ).
[UPDATE: David Burton writes: I’ve put the Cook 2013 data into an Excel spreadsheet, which makes it a lot easier to analyze than from that cook.pdf file. There’s a link to it on my site, here: http://sealevel.info/97pct/#cook ]
If the reporter from CNN who interviewed me reads this, I hope he will perform the count himself and then come back to me as he had undertaken to do. But I shall not be holding my breath.
At a conference of 600 “climate change deniers”, then, not one delegate denied that climate changes. Likewise, not one denied that we have contributed to global warming since 1950.
henry says
they would all be wrong
there is no man made global warming
whatsoever
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2013/02/21/henrys-pool-tables-on-global-warmingcooling/
but the climate IS changing
Precision is impossible, but how about stipulating that global average temperature has increased by about one degree C, +/- some unknown but possibly large fraction thereof, since the depths of the LIA c. AD 1690? What portion of that warming might have been caused by human activity?
I’d say 25%, tops.
Assume further that human activity might contribute another fraction of a degree to warming over the next century. IMO, that’s a good thing, in addition to the benefit from increased CO2 for plant food.
No catastrophes are likely to result from such minor changes, such as runaway sea level rise from melting ice or thermal expansion of the oceans. Any warming might help counteract the global cooling the planet is liable to experience over the next three decades or so.
In short, regarding presumed CAGW (CACA or GWAC): Global Warming, yes, primarily naturally for over 300 years within an at least 3000 year long cooling trend, since the Minoan Warm Period, if not indeed the Holocene Climatic Optimum, which ended c. 5000 years ago. Anthropogenic, negligible. Catastrophic, no. Indeed, so far Beneficial (BAGW).
Those findings clash a bit with the often made claims here at WUWT that there is no warming at all, that CO2 cannot cause any warming, etc. Perhaps we should have a poll to see how many here answers NO to all six questions…
I expect this result will get all the attention in the MSM that the studies reporting 97% should have garnered – no coverage.
I guess your position, Lord Monckton, comes with some perks. I would have loved to see that exchange with the CNN bot.
So the real consensus is 99.7% who disagree with the hysteria derived from the Cook paper. That is going to hurt a lot of warmists.
lsvalgaard says:
July 11, 2014 at 11:14 am
IMO a net warming from human activities (population growth, effect on other living things, structures, forestry, agriculture, industry, aerosols, GHGs, etc) remains a theoretical possibility, but feel our effect on climate is negligible, whatever the sign, ie cooling or warming, & probably within margin of error of detectability.
Besides which, the atmosphere, ocean & land surface shouldn’t be expected to behave in the wild in the same way as measuring CO2 absorption bands in the lab under fixed, controlled conditions.
Anyone who reads the scientific literature will agree with Legates that 99% of the papers do not say global warming is man made. To get past the “gate-keepers” authors must acknowledge the prevailing bias of anthropogenic warming but their studies results suggest aletrnative views.
For example the introduction by several of NOAA’s top climate scientists in Hoerling et al (2012) Transition to Semipermanent Drought Conditions Imminent in the U.S. Great Plains? wrote
“While some have raised the specter of a shift to semipermanent 1930s type drought conditions on the Great Plains due to human-induced global warming, the special report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change regarding extreme events (Field et al. 2012) expresses only low confidence in a projected change in drought over the U.S. Great Plains as a whole and medium confidence for some increased dryness across the southern portion of the domain.”
Yet their conclusion was “Several lines of evidence and physical considerations indicate that simplifying assumptions regarding temperature effects on water balances, especially concerning evapotranspiration in Palmer’s formulation, compromise its suitability as drought indicator in a warming climate. The authors conclude that projections of acute and chronic PDSI decline in the
twenty-first century are likely an exaggerated indicator for future Great Plains drought severity.”
The bottom line is very simply, as most sceptics will agree, that AGW obviously has to exist, as is demonstrated by UHI, which is paradoxically downplayed by alarmists.
The question is does CAGW or a future Thermageddon exist, to which every sceptic will say “No” for the very simple reason there isn’t a single shred of evidence anywhere to suggest it does, except in the machinations of dodgy, biased, computer models. The geological record also demonstrates that CAGW is a myth and that the impact of natural climate cycles is a large multiple of whatever man’s puny efforts can achieve.
Consensus is not a good way to do science. I like what Margaret Thatcher said, that consensus is “The process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values, and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects; the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner: ‘I stand for consensus?”
Christopher, thanks for doing the right thing and speaking coherently, pedantically, to an obviously hostile inquisitor. I pity the reporters from CNN for they are not allowed to investigate reality. They have to conform to the party line, whether it be based on shibboleths or profundities.
I expect to see no coverage at all of the conference on CNN. They have other agendas.
For ¾ of the year I have central heating on at least for part of a day, eventually all of it ends radiated into atmosphere. No doubt, my CH does contribute to the man-made temperature change. Since it is gas-fired, it also contributes to the man-made CO2 increase.
Without question 7 asking “is mankinds contribution and expected contributions to the co2 level likely to create catastrophic or dangerous warming”.
Then you have given ammunition to the alarmists. I can see the Guardian glitterati happily proclaiming that even Lord Monkton and the Heartland conference delegates agree that co2 is a problem (after all spin is a newspapers stock in trade) and that therefore the decsion makers need delay no further and introduce urgent measures to combat co2 emissions.
Of those 600 delegates, how many would be bona fide climate scientists? I am just curious because the warmist alarmists I argue with always strongly contend that only the opinions of climate scientists really matter.
1. Does climate change?
Yes
2. Has the atmospheric concentration of CO2 increased since the late 1950s?
Yes
3. Is Man likely to have contributed to the measured increase in CO2 concentration since the late 1950s?
Yes, probably (but CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales)
4. Other things being equal, is it likely that adding CO2 to the atmosphere will cause some global warming?
Yes, but not much (Note: …other things are NOT “being equal””)
5. Is it likely that there has been some global warming since the late 1950s?
Maybe (There was global warming from ~1975 to ~2000, but cooling before that from ~1945 to ~1975)
6. Is it likely that Man’s emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases have contributed to the measured global warming since 1950?
Maybe, but not much – probably mostly natural variation.
Well-done.
It has been a minor source of irritation at the many who have challenged the Cook numbers,. While that study was quite flawed, it seems like many trying to challenge it that they were saying that a better number for the proportion of scientists who think there is some human component to global warming is much lower, when I think the right answer is higher as your poll indicates.
I look forward, pessimistically to any accurate reporting of the conclusion (for that matter I wonder if there will be any reporting.)
lsvalgaard says:
July 11, 2014 at 11:14 am
“Those findings clash a bit with the often made claims here at WUWT that there is no warming at all, that CO2 cannot cause any warming, etc. Perhaps we should have a poll to see how many here answers NO to all six questions…”
Sorry Dr Svalgaard, this is beneath you. Claims about a lack of warming are aired here, but by no means often and the only group who claim CO2 cannot cause warming are the so-called “:Sky Dragons” who are the only group Anthony has banned from posting. There are many people posting here and most disagree with each other one one or more issues so this is a very broad “church’ of skepticism, but in my experience reading posts here, there are very, very few who would answer no to any of the six questions, let alone all.
Lief, there was observable warming from 1986 to 1990, then the temperature flattened and since 2006 has been cooling. I doubt that very many, if any, in WUWT would disagree with that. The question of did we experience a spate of warming has never been the question. The question is, “Was carbon dioxide the root cause of the observed warming”. The answer to that question is no.
Emissions of men do NOT cause global warming, not one tiny fraction. The prove is meticulously
made with understandable calculations and graphs. Whoever reckons that AGW exists, should
deal with: “”Joachim Seifert: Das Ende der globalen Erwärmung, Berechnung des Klimawandels”” (2010), available on the German Amazon.de, ISBN 978-3-86805-604-4, and refute it or shut up, once and for all. The autor will pay 20 times the bookprice to whom, who is able to refute the book.
JS
You’re killing me with this Visual Basic:
awk -F, ‘{ x[$6]+=1 } END { for(n=0; n<=10; n+=1) print n ": " x[n] }' < cook.txt
lsvalgaard says:
July 11, 2014 at 11:14 am
Those findings clash a bit with the often made claims here at WUWT that there is no warming at all, that CO2 cannot cause any warming, etc. Perhaps we should have a poll to see how many here answers NO to all six questions…
===
Leif, I have a better idea….
….why don’t you come up with a temperature history that’s even half way accurate
then we can discuss if there has even been any global warming in the first place
JFD says:
July 11, 2014 at 11:49 am
if any, in WUWT would disagree with that.
The issue was: would 100% here answer an unqualified NO to all six questions. Would you?
Of course, the way the poll was conducted was poor [as all such PR-stunts are], as people should have been given a third choice [maybe, don’t know’, perhaps, can’t tell, etc]
Latitude says:
July 11, 2014 at 11:59 am
Leif, I have a better idea….….why don’t you come up with a temperature history
Not a ‘better’ idea, but a half-assed way of avoiding the issue.
Not an comprehensive check, but I found 64 “1”s in the pdf file. So assuming this file is authentic, there does appear to be 64 records with a level “1”
4. Other things being equal, is it likely that adding CO2 to the atmosphere will cause some global warming?
You can all go along with Lord Monckton if you want, but not me.
Based on this from Wiki which no one seems to disagree with too much
” there is evidence for very high CO2 volume concentrations between 200 and 150 million years ago of over 3,000 ppm, and between 600 and 400 million years ago of over 6,000 ppm.”
If this is true and CO2 is really such a potent Greehouse Gas how could we possibly have had Ice Ages with levels that high?
As temperatures were also high at those times, how could they have become low enough for Ice Ages?
“I’d say 25%, tops.”
I’m with you. I placed it at 15-25% years ago. Of the ~1C the planet warmed in the 20th century, we made at BEST .2-.3C of it.
lsvalgaard says:
July 11, 2014 at 12:01 pm
Not a ‘better’ idea, but a half-assed way of avoiding the issue.
====
I agree 100%…..
Working with a wonked out temp history and then trying to claim any science based on that….
….is a classic example of avoiding the issue
It’s the qualifier here: “4. Other things being equal…” that gives me problems, There’s a whole argument just in those four words. Otherwise, well done m’lord.
Very nice analysis!
For anyone who wants to examine Mr. Cook’s data file in a friendlier format, I’ve loaded it into a spreadsheet, which you can find in the “Cook, 2013” section, here:
http://sealevel.info/97pct
The descriptions of the “Category” and “Level” columns are in Mr. Cook’s paper:
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article
Harry Passfield says:
July 11, 2014 at 12:07 pm
It’s the qualifier here: “4. Other things being equal…” that gives me problems,
The qualifier is unnecessary [and unscientific]. Either CO2 causes warming [over what all the other things do] or it does not.
lsvalgaard says:
July 11, 2014 at 11:14 am
Those findings clash a bit with the often made claims here at WUWT that there is no warming at all, that CO2 cannot cause any warming, etc. Perhaps we should have a poll to see how many here answers NO to all six questions…
An interesting proposition….
I could answer ‘Yes’ to the first 5 questions posed by Christopher Monckton.
I have a problem with #6 though.
6. Is it likely that Man’s emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases have contributed to the measured global warming since 1950?
The question asks “ Is it likely….” which to me implies a probability or “How likely is it?”
I could answer ‘Yes’ but would assign a low probability to man’s emissions having a significant contribution to the measured global warming since 1950. The measured data sets since 1950 have so many sources of potential errors (siting, measurement, sensor/housing changes, location moves, UHI encroachment, etc.) combined with man made ‘adjustments’ embedded in them that I doubt man’s small contributions to global warming is separable or meaningful from the ‘noise’ level in the measured data available since 1950.
If ‘likely’ means ‘greater than a 15% contribution to the measured global warming since 1950’, I have to answer ‘No’.
Well done. The questions were put in a way that skeptics could answer yes – without deviating from the manner of the typical consensus survey. The goal was to make a point – and I think it was.
The word “likely” is a loaded term. It’s certainly possible that we’ve added some small, as-yet unmeausured and probably unmeasurable amount of warming.
It’s also possible there are ufos.
Bruce Cobb says:
July 11, 2014 at 12:30 pm
The word “likely” is a loaded term. It’s certainly possible that we’ve added some small, as-yet unmeausured and probably unmeasurable amount of warming.
It’s also possible there are ufos.
So it was a lousy poll, a pure PR-stunt, no science.
Okay, Lief, I won’t duck. Here are the questions and my answers in CAPS.
1. Does climate change?
A – YES
2. Has the atmospheric concentration of CO2 increased since the late 1950s?
A- YES
3. Is Man likely to have contributed to the measured increase in CO2 concentration since the late 1950s?
A- YES
4. Other things being equal, is it likely that adding CO2 to the atmosphere will cause some global warming?
A- NO, if any it is very small.
5. Is it likely that there has been some global warming since the late 1950s?
A- YES
6. Is it likely that Man’s emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases have contributed to the measured global warming since 1950?
A- MAYBE, production of ground water from no or slow to recharge aquifers account for 2.6 mm per year of the increase in ocean level. The produced water is used for agriculture (food and fodder), watering yards and makeup water to evaporative cooling towers at process plants and power plants. The water vapor from the evapotranspiration of these human uses of ground water takes place at constant temperature due to changing the potential energy of the liquid water to kinetic energy of the vapor. The vapor rises until it reaches an elevation where condensation occurs. The condensation changes the kinetic energy back to potential energy. Thus, heat has been transferred from the ground into the troposphere. My understanding is that that this process increases the temperature of the troposphere. After one cycle the additional water joins the hydrological cycle. However, the production of ground water is a continuous process rather than a one time release.
The evaporative cooling towers release water vapor from the tops of the towers about 20F above the surrounding air. In addition to the water vapor there is considerable drift (carry over) plus aerosols.
The amount of no or slow to recharge groundwater production is about 900 km3 per year.
————
So, is that 5 unqualified yeses? No, but it is at least 4.75.
Brilliant. Now get off of skeptical blogs, people, singing to the choir, lamenting the hysteria of the masses, and go present these graphics to the masses, online. It’s free! No, they don’t read skeptical blogs much. Too many squiggly line plots and thousand word essays here.
Once again, an erudite presentation. I am, however, disappointed that you would use such limited and arcane a tool set as VB for Applications and Notepad.
JimS says:
July 11, 2014 at 11:38 am
Of those 600 delegates, how many would be bona fide climate scientists?
define ‘bona fide climate scientist’. The term itself is a strawman.
Once again the royal “We” applies and is earned
And once again the media and the world doesn’t care because money and power are more important then truth or individual liberty and pursuit of science for its own sake
Leif,
We sometimes hear from people who say there is no greenhouse effect. Mostly these people seem to mean the “greenhouse effect” is a misnomer, as greenhouses trap heat via convection wheres GHGs work differently. Mostly.
Personally, I’d like to be asked if there’s been warming since the MWP. Using warmer logic, I would answer that since it was warmer during the MWP, the climate is in a cooling trend.
more soylent green! says:
July 11, 2014 at 1:04 pm
We sometimes hear from people who say there is no greenhouse effect.
Just stay on topic: the six answers, please, e.g. in the format y,y,y,n,n,n or whatever you think it should be.
Those findings clash a bit with the often made claims here at WUWT that there is no warming at all, that CO2 cannot cause any warming, etc. Perhaps we should have a poll to see how many here answers NO to all six questions…
I answer YES to all 6, and not only go that far, but even further still. I am, after all, a lukewarmer. But even if the surface record is correct (it isn’t) and 100% of warming since 1950 is anthropogenic (highly unlikely), and is 100% attributable to CO2 increase (it ain’t), there still isn’t any real danger. All it is is +1.1C per century, and not accelerating, so far as I can determine.
PDO phases cancel and aerosols tip the scale against warming trend, if anything (going by CMIP5), being more prevalent at the earlier end of the scale.
So you can say YES six times and go further than that and still wind up on the skeptical side of the aisle (for example, I think AGW is statistically significant.)
@kenw:
“define ‘bona fide climate scientist’. The term itself is a strawman.”
My answer: Someone with a Ph.D. in a physical science, including one or more of the following disciplines:
climate science, atmospheric science, meteorology, physics, geology or oceanography.
The term “climate scientist” is not a strawman at all, in my opinion.
Leif:
6 times yes.
Christopher:
What possessed you to believe that a CNN reporter was even capable of counting to 64? After all, there’s not one repeated number in the sequence, and their only skill set appears to be repeating things….
Anthony I’ll repeat the request I made in email.
It would be cool to have a badge made for all the sites whose owners agree with the 100% consensus.
What would also be cool is a survey posted at each site showing what % of readers agreed with the 100%.
I would have answered NO to question 4 but since I am not an accredited scientist no one will listen to me, but I’m happy to talk science about that.
“lsvalgaard says:
July 11, 2014 at 11:14 am
Those findings clash a bit with the often made claims here at WUWT that there is no warming at all, that CO2 cannot cause any warming, etc. Perhaps we should have a poll to see how many here answers NO to all six questions…
###############
I think what you will find is that many people will try to weasel out of answering the questions simply
yyyyyy
Ahem. 99.7%+0.5%=100.2% Hope this helps.
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article;jsessionid=7BF9E32CE357E2E9709C7A97F0AFB536.c3
Table 2. Definitions of each level of endorsement of AGW.
Level of endorsement Description Example
(1) Explicit endorsement with quantification Explicitly states that humans are the primary cause of recent global warming ‘The global warming during the 20th century is caused mainly by increasing greenhouse gas concentration especially since the late 1980s’
(2) Explicit endorsement without quantification Explicitly states humans are causing global warming or refers to anthropogenic global warming/climate change as a known fact ‘Emissions of a broad range of greenhouse gases of varying lifetimes contribute to global climate change’
(3) Implicit endorsement Implies humans are causing global warming. E.g., research assumes greenhouse gas emissions cause warming without explicitly stating humans are the cause ‘…carbon sequestration in soil is important for mitigating global climate change’
(4a) No position Does not address or mention the cause of global warming
(4b) Uncertain Expresses position that human’s role on recent global warming is uncertain/undefined ‘While the extent of human-induced global warming is inconclusive…’
(5) Implicit rejection Implies humans have had a minimal impact on global warming without saying so explicitly E.g., proposing a natural mechanism is the main cause of global warming ‘…anywhere from a major portion to all of the warming of the 20th century could plausibly result from natural causes according to these results’
(6) Explicit rejection without quantification Explicitly minimizes or rejects that humans are causing global warming ‘…the global temperature record provides little support for the catastrophic view of the greenhouse effect’
(7) Explicit rejection with quantification Explicitly states that humans are causing less than half of global warming ‘The human contribution to the CO2 content in the atmosphere and the increase in temperature is negligible in comparison with other sources of carbon dioxide emission’
I downloaded supporting file from position paper site above:
Category
2,Impacts
3,Mitigation
4,Methods
5,Paleoclimate
8,Not climate related
9,Not Peer-Reviewed
10,No Abstract
Endorsement
1,Explicitly endorses and quantifies AGW as 50+%
2,Explicitly endorses but does not quantify or minimise
3,Implicitly endorses AGW without minimising it
4,No Position
5,Implicitly minimizes/rejects AGW
6,Explicitly minimizes/rejects AGW but does not quantify
7,Explicitly minimizes/rejects AGW as less than 50%
Year,Title,Journal,Authors,Category,Endorsement (file layout definition imbedded in file)
Now to tally them up:
Endorsement counts: (total number of records 11,944)
1 64
2 922
3 2910
4 7970
5 54
6 15
7 9
8 0
9 0
0 0
11944
So according to Cook’s own file 7,970 took NO POSITION
lsvalgaard says:
July 11, 2014 at 11:14 am
Those findings clash a bit with the often made claims here at WUWT that there is no warming at all, that CO2 cannot cause any warming, etc., etc.”
Perhaps more common here than “CO2 cannot cause any warming” is another suggestion. An interesting 7th question might have been:
Is it possible [not likely] that atmospheric CO2 concentration naturally lags surface temperature?
Im just a layman, but I have poured over all the available works I could access. Im not convinced # 6 is a yes at all. Ultimately Id have to give it a very light mild yes, but Im not even convinced of that entirely.
My interpretation of co2s ability is that it is likely minute in practice. The ice core data does imply that co2s effect isn’t very strong. Youll see temps fall while co2 is still peaking over levels some claim it should over power all other factors, only to track temps down later. The best case for co2 having an effect at all to me was always that temps DO seem to fall slower then they rose. Which implies some level of buffering effect to this laymen, but not much.
In lab conditions colloidal silver is unstoppable it kills 650 plus diseases. In practice though, in an actual human body the results are hardly stellar.
this is how I relate to the claims of co2. In a lab, we all know how much energy increased co2 is said to retain. In practice though? I do not see that the data backs it up.
When you look at somewhat inflated temp trendline, the ocean cycles, the potential the sun played a role, and the NOAA paper on water vapor that showed a massive increase over the same period we had warming, and a drop since (the period we have not been warming) , plus wrap this up with how I interpret the ice core data, Im left thinking there is little room for co2 to be playing a role. I expect its very small or non existent.
JimS says: July 11, 2014 at 1:09 pm
Don’t you think, considering the absolute cobblers Mann made of his stick, that just a tad’s-worth of statistics knowledge is required? Or do you think a man like McIntyre (there are many others) is not worthy?
BTW: I think our host might claim something to do with ‘meteorology’ (you specified a minimum of ‘one’ skill). Does that count?
Over longer and shorter periods in the past, climate has changed. The idea that governmental effort can stop the climate change is as dim witted as totalitarian governments could make the world better.
The idea that some warming is manmade is spurious and should get the burial it deserves.
I think the variation in water vapor (by far the most potent greenhouse gas) and the variation in solar insolation at the surface is noisy, oscillatorally tied to oceanic/atmospheric processes, and buries the amount of CO2 (from whatever source) warming such that CO2’s signature cannot be observed in the global temperature data.
DavidG says
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/07/11/the-climate-consensus-is-not-97-its-100/#comment-1683697
Henry says
you are so right
but few here seem to realize at
Note the graph just below the last table, for minima
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/07/11/the-climate-consensus-is-not-97-its-100/#comment-1683526
I carried out a manual check using the search function in Microsoft Notepad. Sure enough, there were only 64 data entries ending in “,1”.
Yikes!
Using such unique sophisticated software makes it virtually impossible to replicate your results.
/Extreme Sarcasm
So Leif–you want us to stay on topic concerning WARMING?
Now THAT’s a real “scientific term”, no?
LOL!
And to JimS–you realize practically ALL universities that now offer a degree in “climate science” have placed the discipline in their GEOGRAPHY departments?
Now THAT’S a real confidence builder, no?
(I’m not aware of any university giving an honorary degree in “Climate Science” to anyone…)
In response to lsvalgaard, I give a Yes to all 6. However, I would also add that the warming so far does not indicate anything catastrophic. In fact, so far the increase in CO2 and temperature has so far been net beneficial as the planet has become 11% greener and crop yields have increased substantially. There is at this point, ZERO data which points to catastrophe, and MODELS do NOT count as data.
As I read the evidence, the anthropogenic CO2 component of warming is too small to reliably measure. So forced into a boolean value I would have to respond false to #6.
Steven Mosher says:
July 11, 2014 at 1:22 pm
I think what you will find is that many people will try to weasel out of answering the questions
There is also the strong effect of peer pressure. It takes more than usual courage in such a audience to not go along with the prevailing view. A much better poll would have first stated the six questions and then asked: who would answer ‘maybe’ or ‘not sure’ to at least one of these six.
This whole thing was clearly a PR-stunt and carries no significance.
Re; lsvalgaard July 11, 2014 at 11:14 am
“Those findings clash a bit with the often made claims here at WUWT that there is no warming at all, that CO2 cannot cause any warming, etc. Perhaps we should have a poll to see how many here answers NO to all six questions…”
So the fact that there are people who frequent this board who have odd and unacceptable points of view discredits the entire site and all skeptics? Is that your thought process?
Go look at some of the alarmist websites. They practice outright censorship. They wish to pretend as though any dissent is ill informed.
Now you, when faced with informed dissent have to defer to the notion that some dissent is illogical, uneducated or deliberately obtuse in order to maintain your illusion that CAGW is not only correct, but irrefutable. Go find a mirror and take a good hard look. You are the people who put Galileo under house arrest. You are the people who attempted to destroy Wegener and his work, before finding out he was right.
But no, Anthony has chosen not to enforce censorship on his site. Shame the pro-CAGW police allow no such discourse on theirs.
Bob Kutz says:
July 11, 2014 at 2:04 pm
So the fact that there are people who frequent this board who have odd and unacceptable points of view discredits the entire site and all skeptics?
To some degree it does, yes. But censorship is not the answer. Stricter moderation as S. McIntyre does to keep people on topic and not go way out on their own tangent would be a step in the right direction.
97 percent of climate scientist would says whatever it takes to get more money and 100 percent of the tools that want to control our lives would be more then willing to give them the money as long as they say the world is coming to end unless we give up our freedom.
Steven Mosher says:
July 11, 2014 at 1:22 pm
I think what you will find is that many people will try to weasel out of answering the questions simply
===
I think what you will find is that the stupid questions are impossible to answer..
No one friggin knows…….
What I REALLY would love to see, is a poll of all the scientists that believe co2 has the potential to cause catastrophic issues that touches on which of the dozen or so published explanations for the current lack of warming they believe holds the most weight. Id love to see such results in such a manner that no one knows what the others in the field are saying until we have the final results.
This would be particularly interesting because if you have read many of these explanations for the lack of warming, for the most part they each have wildly different implications for the rest of our understanding of climate science as it currently seems to stand to this layman.
You can read several sites that cover these issues that will grab onto one of these various explanations or hilariously even just randomly force aspects of each together in some haphazard way. Most Ive debated this recently will even dismiss the freaking IPCC in favor of how some blog represents the field, while they mock the “science deniers”.
Id really love to see just how divergent the views are of those that tell us we are in deep peril. I think a massive poll of everyone at the IPCC or that they cite would have amazing ramifications for the field and our cultures understanding of climate.
Whatever is the full truth of the matter I think the fact these issues are reported in a very biased manner to control the dialog is rather obvious to any honest unbiased person that actually keeps up to
date on the issues.
Pamela Gray says: July 11, 2014 at 1:40 pm: … such that CO2′s signature cannot be observed in the global temperature data
Agree (probably). But remarkably, the reverse IS .TRUE. …such that the global temperature signature can clearly be observed in the CO2 data.
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/carbon_dioxide_in_not_the_primary_cause_of_global_warming_the_future_can_no/
Not only is this relationship true, it is also a tons of fun, because it puzzles the heck out of everyone so almost nobody wants to talk about it.
When they do, the warmists call it a “feedback effect”, which is an explanation worthy only of a Cargo Cult.
“BTW, when is GI Joe coming back to our island with all those Camel cigarettes and Baby Ruth candy bars?”
Best to all, Allan 🙂
tset
The climate consensus is no such thing Lord Monckton! The Japanese IBUKU climate satellite data confirms that the CO2 in the northern hemisphere is a net zero while the CO2 in the southern hemisphere is coming from temperature induced and moisture induced releases from high vegetation regions in equatorial regions. Add to that the oceanic releases as a result of ocean warming and it is clear that the CO2 in the atmosphere is NOT^ coming from humans. I am afraid Lord Monckton is very seriously wrong!
I would like to add to my previous comment. Not only is there not data pointing to catastrophe ahead, there actually is data which points to NO catastrophe ahead.
1) No temperature rise for past 15+yrs while CO2 has increased markedly
2) Sea level rise rate slowing 30% in the 2000s vs the 1990s.
3) No increase in number or frequency of violent hurricanes/tornadoes since CO2 has gone from 300ppm to 400ppm
4) No increase in frequency/severity of droughts or floods since CO2 has gone from 300ppm to 400ppm.
The only real data the warmist THOUGHT they had that supported catastrophe ahead was the infamous Mann’s Hockey stick. But we all know how that eventually turned out.
OK, its working now.
Anthony, Monckton etal. take a look at our local weather for next week here in North East Texas.
The TV weather talkers say a Cold Front aka a low will bring temps with only a high of 80 F. Monday or Tuesday may be even Wednesday. Very very unusual for here mid July.
Watts’up with that?
Do not know of it ever getting that cold here mid July. Just weather but of interest do us.
So many climate sceptics are also arrogant like the warmists pretending to know how climate works….
Folks, the questions are designed to be answered either “Yes” or “No” for a reason. And that is to show that most all who are asked, 100% in this case, understand that the world has warmed and that greenhouse gases have played a part and that humans are responsible for an increase in greenhouse gases. That is all. No body asked anyone to go into more detailed discussion or explain the answers or give anything other than “Yes” or “No”. A clever trick to make a point and I believe the point needs to be made. Now, understand that when an entity is confronted with facts or logic they know can hurt their cause, they simply ignore them rather than give them any life at all by rebutting them. An often used lawyer/politician trick. So for what it is worth the point is made but the talking point that opponents of AGW are deniers of warming will continue.
lsvalgaard says:
July 11, 2014 at 11:14 am
============
Definitely a case of selection bias in action.
Let us remember, and we’ve said it many times here:
The concept is that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are causing the climate to warm to a level that will cause catastrophic climate related activities.
As the Oregon Petition says, “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.”
That is the ball upon which we must keep an eye.
Questions 1 – 6 being answered “Yes” does not constitute any form of agreement with the CAGW by CO2 warmist’s alarmism and is very much consistent with the Oregon Petition statement.
Terri Jackson said
“The climate consensus is no such thing Lord Monckton! The Japanese IBUKU climate satellite data confirms that the CO2 in the northern hemisphere is a net zero while the CO2 in the southern hemisphere is coming from temperature induced and moisture induced releases from high vegetation regions in equatorial regions. Add to that the oceanic releases as a result of ocean warming and it is clear that the CO2 in the atmosphere is NOT^ coming from humans. I am afraid Lord Monckton is very seriously wrong!”
Err – are you seriously saying that – or is it a spoof ?
If serious (!!), can you explain why CO2 has now risen to levels not seen for several millions years ? Why in the warm interglacials during the last several hundred thousand years did CO2 not go to current levels ? Levels did not exceed 300ppm, yet its currently 400ppm. The human source is the only credible conclusion – which of course can be calculated.
I’d answer yes to all 6.
1. Yes
2. Yes, the data seems clear, but …
3. Unknown, the scientific research is completely untrustworthy. Not worth a bucket of spit. All of it. I don’t care how eminent a scientist you are, your funding comes from agencies that are bureaucratically and politically corrupted by CAGW fever, and scientific research that doesn’t support the political orthodoxy is not funded, and if inadvertently discovered it is suppressed.
4. Same as 3.
5. Same as 3.
6. Same as 3.
Using the phrase I picked up from the resident eminent scientist, the science is worse than useless. It’s time to disallow all cites prior to 2014, burn all the data, and start again with fresh new data sets.
Steven Mosher says:
July 11, 2014 at 1:22 pm
=====
About a dozen posters had made a liar out of you even before you posted this.
Smelling a rat in 2007, I began my own internet research into the veracity of AGW doom-sayers.
I found WUWT and since have been a near daily visitor.
If someone were to ask me if I’ve learned the effects of CO2 on our atmosphere, Here’s my answer.
1) CO2 absorbs IR radiation.
2) At 380 PPM, CO2 IR absorption is almost at saturation and as CO2 increases there will be less and less added IR absorption.
3) Since CO2 can be proved to absorb IR, thereby warming, and the RSS satellite data shows no increase in the rate of temperature rise since 1979 and no temperature rise at all since 1998, While all along there’s a steady rise in atmospheric CO2. There must be a mechanism, a negative feedback that cancels this warming.
Clouds, clouds cause cooling. They are a result of warming yet cause cooling, a negative feedback, a stabilizer.
Given our atmosphere’s “recovery” from jolts like El Nino, and volcanic eruptions, our atmosphere displays the characteristics of a stable system. One not prone to “run-away” temperature.
I learned all this here at WUWT.
It’s as clear as the nose on my face.
But that face is not one of a “Climate Scientist”
so don’t pay any heed to this screed.
There is nothing to fear from the climate.
But, there is plenty to fear from “Climate Charlatans”
Cook’s paper served its media purpose. Absent media worthy retraction (now unlikely, as predicted when given a last shot months ago), best to move on. It was a battle lost in a war to be won. Skeptics appear to be starting to win, since Mother Nature herself (pause, Antarctic ice, Arctic ice recovery, stadium wave, weak 2014 El Niño) is on our side.
The increasing vitriol and attempts to silence (BBC re Lord Lawson), growing public rejection of those tactics (Rasmussen poll), and growing resort to extra legal means (EPA) are increasing evidence this is likely so. Focus on the future.
James Abbott says:
July 11, 2014 at 2:43 pm
============
http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/graphs.htm
http://drtimball.com/2012/pre-industrial-and-current-co2-levels-deliberately-corrupted/
MarkW says:
July 11, 2014 at 2:48 pm
Steven Mosher says:
July 11, 2014 at 1:22 pm
=====
About a dozen posters had made a liar out of you even before you posted this.
“I think what you will find is that many people will try to weasel out of answering the questions simply”
do a count. “many” did weasel out of answering “simply.”
counting those who didnt weasel doesnt answer the question.
when monkton asked the question nobody weaseled.
now did they?
leif also posed a question simply.
count the answers that contain caveats, weaseling,
count the answers like those given to monkton. simple Y/N
give your own answers like you were in the room
yyyyyy
@Steven Mosher – actually “many” did not “weasel” out of answering. The question was not asked of us. So “many” commented on the over all content of the post.
Should WUWT put up an actual poll, I am sure most would take it.
Please allow me to correct you, Monckton. The consensus is off 300% since it includes three decades of future generations of scientists.
yes leif. a nice stunt.
lsvalgaard says:
July 11, 2014 at 11:14 am
Those findings clash a bit with the often made claims here at WUWT that there is no warming at all, that CO2 cannot cause any warming, etc. Perhaps we should have a poll to see how many here answers NO to all six questions…
==================
Write a post, ask some questions.
Should get a pretty good turnout 🙂
1. Does climate change? YES. The climate has changed drastically over time and did so long, long before mankind appeared on this planet.
2. Has the atmospheric concentration of CO2 increased since the late 1950s? Unknown. The data is very unreliable, but it seems to indicate that CO2 has risen.
3. Is Man likely to have contributed to the measured increase in CO2 concentration since the late 1950s? Unknown. We don’t know what NET effect mankind has had on CO2 since 1950, but it is likely that human activities has had a slight upward effect on CO2 levels.
4. Other things being equal, is it likely that adding CO2 to the atmosphere will cause some global warming? Unknown. CO2 both cools and warms depending on location and other factors; and we don’t know what its net effect is but data would indicate the additional CO2 has had precious little effect.
5. Is it likely that there has been some global warming since the late 1950s? Unknown. The data sets are not reliable due to “adjustments”, incompetence and bias. The non-adjusted temps seem to indicated no warming at all since 1900.
6. Is it likely that Man’s emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases have contributed to the measured global warming since 1950? Unknown. See other answers.
“But no, [Mr. Watts] has chosen not to enforce censorship on his site. Shame the pro-CAGW police allow no such discourse on theirs.”
I think that the site is pretty open to different views, but there are some people not allowed to post here, some topics not allowed to be discussed, and sites that one is not supposed to link to. These things relate to the poll above. So, this site is much better than the pro-CAGW sites as you say, but perfection is still aways off.
[The topics you refer to are not related to the poll above. .mod]
I’d answer “Yes” to all six questions. As to CO2, I like to give my “pie” analogy. Eating an extra 150 calorie piece of pie for desert every night, a person will gain weight, but their weight won’t increase indefinitely at 1 pound every 20 days- 3000 calories. A person quickly reaches a new weight balance somewhat higher than their pre pie weight. Likewise,, fossil fuel energy use has been increasing worldwide, so .naturally CO2,( weight) continues to rise, but once fossil fuel use levels out, the world will quickly reach a new, somewhat higher, CO2 balance.
As to increased heat, nobody mentioned another factor involved- energy use. We’ve been drastically increasing energy use over the last 200 + years, most of that energy is released in urban areas, and ultimately winds up as heat. Most of our temperature measurements are in urban areas. The temperatures of URBAN areas will continue to rise as long as we continue to use more energy, regardless of whether that energy is fossil fuel, hydropower, wind, or solar.
– that energy is finally going to wind up as heat regardless of the source.
lsvalgaard says:
July 11, 2014 at 11:14 am
“Those findings clash a bit with the often made claims here at WUWT that there is no warming at all, that CO2 cannot cause any warming, etc.”
Yes Leif, but you know that the bin of so-called deniers also include a nut fringe and an ignorant anti-just-about-anything type (no one is excluded here who follows the common sense rules of WUWT), just like one finds ideologue malthusians and legions of know-nothing useful idiots along with honorable and corrupt scientists on the other side. A sceptics’ scientific conference is a natural filter for thoughtful sceptics. People haters and end-of-the-world types that side with CAGW scientific proponents on the other hand are all invited to join in in the love-in. I’m not surprised that 100% of skeptics at such a conference would accept that man is having some effect on climate. Exactly what it is, how much and how caused, in light of natural variability, is the issue with such sceptics.
Did Leif and Mosh answer the questions?….
BTW….my answers are exactly the same as Mark
Latitude says:
July 11, 2014 at 4:12 pm
Did Leif and Mosh answer the questions?….
My answers to this cleverly designed PR-stunt would, of course, be yyyyyy. What is wrong with the poll is that there are no numbers, no error bars, no confidence intervals, no ‘how much’. Totally useless and without any scientific value. Pure PR bullshit, by that well-known master of BS.
[Unless all who answered the poll also answered yyyyyy. .mod]
lsvalgaard says:
July 11, 2014 at 4:17 pm
I am pretty sure you missed the whole point.
Latitude – I checked those references. There are references to the Keeling data having been manipulated, the pre-industrial levels being wrong, etc. All tosh. The Mauna Loa smoothed curve is exactly that – smoothed on a running mean (standard method) but they still show the seasonal “breathing” of the biosphere. Location differences ? Nope – the global trend, based on a network of sites shows a very similar record to the Mauna Loa data taken at altitude.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/global.html#global
The pre-industrial level of 280ppm is confirmed from ice cores:
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/bas_research/science_briefings/icecorebriefing.php
There is no real evidence that this data has been “deliberately corrupted”. Its just more wishful thinking from those that delude themselves that the entire scientific community is working to a conspiracy plan.
Randy says:
July 11, 2014 at 4:20 pm
I am pretty sure you missed the whole point.
If I did, it just shows how lousy the stunt was. The purpose of a PR-stunt is to make the point come across, and so they failed in my case.
It’s 100% Mann made
I would still like to have an overall understanding of the 600 delegates and their credentials as being climate scientists. Were half of them climate scientists? One quarter? One hundred per cent? Those are the issues I have to contend with when discussing AGW with various people. Therefore, no matter what consensus the 600 came up with, unless others regard them as qualified, it was a useless exercise. Telling me that a climate scientist can not be defined, or, that there is no such thing, doesn’t cut it.
I used to read posts from Leif Svalgaard and Steven Mosher with great interest, always intelligent, sharp and to the point.
Now they both come across as mildly bitter, sarcastic and condescending…., I wonder what happened…..!
We get it. Svalgaard has a beef with Monckton, who called him out recently. I hope mods will not allow Svalgaard to continue flaming this thread with his serially inane comments.
Gee, Jim, I’m a bit confused.
Is a climate scientist the one who gets paid hundreds of thousands of dollars each year using billions of taxpayer monies to make bad decisions about the climate and publicize only what the government wants to publicize about climate “science” ?
Or is a climate scientists one uses “science” and “research” and “technology” to study the climate and report to others what the climate is actually doing? +
Do you have to get a PhD before or after you are wrong about the world’s climate in order to be a climate scientist?
Do you have to both have a PhD AND be wrong about the world’s climate in order to be a climate scientist, or can you be right about the world’s climate and NOT be a climate scientist?
What is more important in being called a climate scientist: Being right about the climate or being paid to get a PhD by the government?
If science can be bought by $24,000/00 from an oil company, how much science is being bought for 200 billion from the government?
(If a climate scientist lies in the woods but no one smells his polluted paper, does he still get his research grant renewed next year?)
Leif,
Yes to all six. It was just as much as PR stunt as the Cook paper that he is comparing it to.
He does have a point that rather than engage in open debate, some would rather resort to name calling and arguments based on “consensus” and authority. The climate issue has been deeply politicized and many without any ability to read the science and with very limited math ability, whether in the media or on the street, can simply dismiss anything they don’t agree with by saying “97%”. And they don’t take the time to even try to ask questions or learn anything at all about climate. That is the frustrating part and it is important to put a stake through this 97% meme as it is inaccurate. And one way to do that might be through a PR stunt that gets people to realize that skeptics agree 100% on what their “enemies” say they deny. It actually is the truth, even if it is also a PR stunt.
Richard D says:
July 11, 2014 at 5:36 pm
Svalgaard has a beef with Monckton
I think you have this backwards. Monckton has done his best to defame me [not that I really care].
Bill_W says:
July 11, 2014 at 5:44 pm
many without any ability to read the science and with very limited math ability, whether in the media or on the street, can simply dismiss anything they don’t agree with by saying “97%”
So now they will just say “100%”.
Some here might want to re-read this:
“The results of my survey of the 600 Heartland delegates reveal that the difference between the Thermageddonites and us is far less than they would like the world to think. Like most of them, we fall within Cook’s endorsement levels 2-3. Unlike them, we do not claim to know whether most of the global warming since 1950 was man-made: for that is beyond what the current state of science can tell us.”
Bold mine.
Many above comments seem to reflect the bolded phrase.
I don’t see where Monckton has posted this as if it were some sort of serious scientific survey either. Just a simple raise, or in this case non-raise, of hands that was easily counted, or, again, in this case non-counted.
Regarding the credentials of the attendees, I think the more important point would be that they were a reasonable microcosm of the climate science skeptical viewpoint. Not all proponents of the skeptical view would be considered “climate scientists” just as not all of the alarmists are “climate scientists”. (“climate scientists” in quotes because it is evident there are differing views on what the qualifications are.) Arguing over whether one is a “climate scientist” while at the same time praising Al Gore’s movie, seems a little absurd to me.
Most importantly, we should not let the MSM or the Alarmists define what we believe. Monckton’s informal survey at least allows us to portray ourselves more correctly than, say, a CNN reporter might.
A C Osborn says, July 11, 2014 at 12:04 pm:
“4. Other things being equal, is it likely that adding CO2 to the atmosphere will cause some global warming?
You can all go along with Lord Monckton if you want, but not me.
Based on this from Wiki which no one seems to disagree with too much
” there is evidence for very high CO2 volume concentrations between 200 and 150 million years ago of over 3,000 ppm, and between 600 and 400 million years ago of over 6,000 ppm.”
If this is true and CO2 is really such a potent Greehouse Gas how could we possibly have had Ice Ages with levels that high?
As temperatures were also high at those times, how could they have become low enough for Ice Ages?”
Note how the operative term here is “other things being equal”. Other things being equal, there are reasons to believe that adding CO2 to the atmosphere would cause some ‘global warming’. This is what they do in the lab. They measure the temperature effect inside an closed glass box. In such a situation ‘the top of the atmosphere’ can’t lift and convection and evaporation cannot increase in efficiency. All that can happen is a reduction of the temperature gradient away from the externally heated bottom surface, because the top lid warms.
So I would answer YES to all the first 5 questions, but a resounding NO!!!!!!!!!!! to the last.
The surface/atmosphere system isn’t even remotely resembling a closed glass box in a lab.
By virtue of being alive and having a body temp of 98.6 (or thereabouts) we contribute to global warming “some” but it matters very little in the natural course of things. I doubt even the UHI has much effect on “global warming” – this is particularly *not* noticeable in the winter months that are bitterly cold even with the sun shining all day. The heat just isn’t permanent enough to achieve any warming – much less hold onto it. So while man contributes “some” – it is precious little, and certainly not enough to cause the climate to change.
@JimS says:
July 11, 2014 at 1:09 pm
@kenw:
“define ‘bona fide climate scientist’. The term itself is a strawman.”
My answer: Someone with a Ph.D. in a physical science, including one or more of the following disciplines:
climate science, atmospheric science, meteorology, physics, geology or oceanography.
Ooooh – I am a Climate Scientist and I didn’t know – where’s my grant?
(Bsc hons physics specializing in Atmospheric circulation, pollution and meteorology!!!!)
PS Never used it in anger but must still be a “Climate Scientist”
PPS – Leif you are being a bit hard on Christopher – he was using the exercise merely to demonstrate a point – something that is done quite a lot a conferences all over the world.
okulaer says, July 11, 2014 at 5:53 pm:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
Sorry, meant to post as ‘Kristian’ as usual …
HaryG says:
July 11, 2014 at 6:13 pm
PPS – Leif you are being a bit hard on Christopher – he was using the exercise merely to demonstrate a point – something that is done quite a lot a conferences all over the world.
That is like saying that smoking is healthy, because so many do it.
But, I realize that my bar for what is reasonable is set a bit higher than his. Just sad to see all the oohs and aahs that applaud sinking so deep.
y.y.y.y. y-but I’d rather say “not unlikely” because of crummy data. y–same caveat as the previous, which it takes as one of its premises.
LOL…..he didn’t write it up as a peer reviewed paper!
Speaking of PR stunts Leif, Chris Turney* has been quiet since January of this year.
*Expedition costs – AUS$1.5 million. Does NOT include rescue and recovery costs.
Lord M had a classical education, which accounts for the latin and the VB…LOL
lsvalgaard says:
This whole thing was clearly a PR-stunt and carries no significance.
Of course it can be labeled a “stunt”. It was aimed at debunking the “stunt” that promotes the 97% consensus. What interests me most about your reply is did you likewise post about the 97% consensus as also being “a stunt that carried no significance”?
Climate change is very real. For example, the average climate of the northern hemisphere is so cold as to cause the ground to be buried under a thousand feet of ice. The cycle of glacier on/glacier off takes place every several hundred thousand years and can be clearly seen in many ways. Even as the science is settled that glaciation has taken place, the causes are still undergoing vigorous debate.
With respect to the idea that humans are causing harmful changes to the climate at this very moment, I am waiting for some peer-reviewed papers that proposes what the optimum climate is for our biosphere. The first question that would naturally flow would be where is our current climate and trend in relation to this finding.
That nobody seems interested in this vital comparison indicates that there climate is being studied for other purposes. Since all the urgent demands that flow from today’s climate science all converge on policy solutions that involve statism, bigger government, higher taxes, less personal liberty, the bigger picture tells me all that I need to know about “climate science”.
There’s a scene in the movie World War Z in which the hero learns how one group of people managed to defend itself against the zombie infection:
“When nine people agree on something, it’s the tenth man’s responsibility to disagree no matter how improbable the idea.”
Peer review, party opposition and, sadly, watchdog journalism seem to have driven us to a point where evidence no longer matters except to the extent it can be twisted by PR and marketing firms.
Thankfully for climate science, the tenth man role is being played by the publishers of this blog and its contributors.
Here’s to hoping we all keep seeking evidence and, should a time arise when evidence conflicts with our beliefs, notions and interests, maintain the ability to wriggle ourselves from entrenched positions.
Which is exactly the reason far too many “scientists” claim a belief in CAGW.
Also, I’m amused by your frustration that commenters aren’t complying with your strict instructions in this thread. How dare they, eh?
jim Steele says:
July 11, 2014 at 6:42 pm
did you likewise post about the 97% consensus as also being “a stunt that carried no significance”?
No need to, as we all know it is garbage. But why must we stoop to their level? Because we think the general public is too stupid to understand anything else?
wobble says:
July 11, 2014 at 7:10 pm
Also, I’m amused by your frustration that commenters aren’t complying with your strict instructions in this thread.
People show their understanding and astuteness by their actions and their comments. Some don’t come across very positively, but I guess it takes all kinds…
These aren’t the only things people show. It seems as if you’re missing obvious elements.
Dear Anthony Watts,
Please consider adding to the Blogroll under “Political Climate” a new entry, “WND – Lord Monckton” using the link below, so others may more easily enjoy his written wit that might not be climate related but is still informative and entertaining, currently arriving as weekly missives.
http://www.wnd.com/author/cmonckton/
The most-current posting is July 9, “Climate of Freedom in Las Vegas”, and well worth reading.
Thank you for reading this suggestion.
lsvalgaard says:
July 11, 2014 at 11:14 am
Those findings clash a bit with the often made claims here at WUWT that there is no warming at all
For the record, I would have said “yes” to all six questions.
As for the claims of no warming, I write a post every month in which I give the time for which six different data sets show no warming. However that does not mean that I believe there is no warming at all. There is some warming, but it is just over a longer period of time than the time at which the slope is zero for that particular data set.
I could make the following three statements, all of which are true:
1. There has been no warming on RSS for 17 years and 10 months.
2. There has been no statistically significant warming at the 95% significance level on RSS for 21 years and 8 months.
3. The warming on RSS since 1979 is much less than the average model projection.
If you got into a conversation with someone over a coffee and you mentioned points 2 or 3, chances are their eyes would glaze over and you may as well stop talking. But #1 is very straight forward and easily gets the point across that nothing catastrophic is happening. And until the next super El Nino makes that claim not true, we may as well use argument #1. At some point, we may have to go to argument #2.
wobble says:
July 11, 2014 at 7:32 pm
These aren’t the only things people show. It seems as if you’re missing obvious elements.
Such as? Educate me!
1. Does climate change?
So I’m told. I haven’t noticed any real change in my lifetime.
2. Has the atmospheric concentration of CO2 increased since the late 1950s?
They tell me it has. I haven’t tried measuring it myself.
3. Is Man likely to have contributed to the measured increase in CO2 concentration since the late 1950s?
If you already know there has been a measured increase, why did you ask question 2?
And I suppose it seems likely, since we burn stuff and make beer and breathe.
4. Other things being equal, is it likely that adding CO2 to the atmosphere will cause some global warming?
I don’t know what has to be equal.
5. Is it likely that there has been some global warming since the late 1950s?
That’s what the official figures show. Can I trust them?
6. Is it likely that Man’s emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases have contributed to the measured global warming since 1950?
Look, if it has been honestly measured, what is the point of asking question 5? And I’m not even a mala fide climate scientist, so I don’t know what effect CO2 has on the climate system. Does anyone?
One way of looking at the Cook et al paper, is confusion between ‘ought’ and ‘is’.
They live in a dreamworld where the two words are interchangeable. In other words, what they are essentially trying to say is ‘97% of climate scientists ought to believe in the consensus’, but they get semantically confused and say ‘97% of climate scientists believe in the consensus’. The deep seated confusion between ought with is, is the main problem.
Add to that, why they WANT people to believe in the consensus in the first place, and you have the answer, social control. The moral imperative. Its surprising how strong it is in some people, when they can no longer even tell the difference between moral causes and reality. Moral causes trump reality. Trouble is, that isn’t science.
People, RSS has a calibration fix tacked onto the raw data due to changes in the satilite’s orbit affecting its accuracy. Stop using RSS. The other satilite data sets won’t come back to bite your comments in the arse.
Not sure why everyone is busting Leif’s chops since he is correct. I wasn’t going to make a big deal about it, but the very first thing that went through my mind as I was reading the article was…OMG, a show of hands? Worse, a show of hands for a dissenting vote? The result is meaningless!
I understand the goal, it was well intention-ed, but given the circumstances, it was unlikely to have had any other result, so fair to call it a well intention-ed PR stunt. That said, I think it fair to say that most skeptics accept that the GHE exists, and it drives me nuts when people in this forum claim “experimental” or other evidence to show that it doesn’t. They should be taken to account in exactly the same manner as those who claim catastrophe is on the horizon, for both are disseminating false information and calling it science.
From lsvalgaard on July 11, 2014 at 7:47 pm:
Well I was doing catch-up yesterday and saw this innocent-looking recent posting:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/07/07/nasa-satellites-see-neoguri-grow-into-a-super-typhoon/
That descended into dreck like:
And you had no replies there to any of it!
Thus clearly there you had missed the obvious solar enthusiast lunatic fringe element.
lsvalgaard says:
in response to Jjim Steele “did you likewise post about the 97% consensus as also being “a stunt that carried no significance”?
“No need to, as we all know it is garbage.”
Leif,it was (is) absolutely imperative that honest scientists stand up and refute the 97% lie consensus (as well as the deceptive Hockey Stick) The whole Progressive takeover of the United States and destruction of the free-market system and American way of life is based on a lie that you, as you have now admitted, is an outright GARBAGE lie.
You credentials as a top notch solar scientist may be undisputed, but Instead of attacking the people seeking to do us harm based on a lie, you attack the people who expose the lie for what it is. I have to ask myself… Why?
lsvalgaard says to Jim Steele:
“No need to, as we all know it [97% consensus] is garbage. But why must we stoop to their level? Because we think the general public is too stupid to understand anything else?”
How do you confront the 97% consensus myth when confronted with it, Leif? It was presented to me a few days ago to justify ignoring the wishes of the people with regards to the “carbon tax.”
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
July 11, 2014 at 8:35 pm
Thus clearly there you had missed the obvious solar enthusiast lunatic fringe element.
I must not have paid attention. That particular dreck was buried among too much other dreck.
Alcheson says:
July 11, 2014 at 8:48 pm
You credentials as a top notch solar scientist may be undisputed, but Instead of attacking the people seeking to do us harm based on a lie, you attack the people who expose the lie for what it is. I have to ask myself… Why?
We can do expose the lie without stooping to the same lows as they. Resorting to meaningless polls makes us look bad and harms the good fight.
Khwarizmi says:
July 11, 2014 at 8:54 pm
It was presented to me a few days ago to justify ignoring the wishes of the people with regards to the “carbon tax.”
So you retort that they are wrong on the 97%, the correct number is 100%. But that also that the issue is not whether, but how much, or better ‘how little’.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
July 11, 2014 at 8:35 pm
Thanks for mentioning my comment. It’s patently obvious you’re not one of the people who learns from reality. Perhaps you would go down the list of my comments and refute them with evidence to the contrary. I have evidence for everything I say. What do have but snark?
Where is the evidence that CO2 caused warming? Why would skeptics vote for that without evidence? I think a great number of the 600 want to go along to get along with the warmists, to find a middle ground, etc. You will be rolled by this administration for taking that posture. They will spin it as you agreeing with them.
Many of you are in a a state of cognitive dissonance here – you aren’t focusing on reality everyday, watching what happens with the Sun, the moon, and the Earth. You dismiss what you miss, and you miss a lot from the looks of things!
kadaka clearly you have no idea what causes evaporation in the oceans or warming anywhere.
The SUN caused the global warming period just as it caused the LIA.
Leif replies:
So you retort that they are wrong on the 97%, the correct number is 100%. But that also that the issue is not whether, but how much, or better ‘how little’.
= = =
So you agree with Monckton on the 100% figure that was secured without mentioning quantification issues, but you would insist on mentioning those issues? Fair enough.
I tend to agree with Randy (July 11, 2014 at 1:26 pm) with regard to question 6.
There is often a tremendous difference between in vitro (glass) and in vivo (live) outcomes. I thought was an excellent analogy.
Khwarizmi says:
July 11, 2014 at 9:23 pm
So you agree with Monckton on the 100% figure that was secured without mentioning quantification issues, but you would insist on mentioning those issues?
The percentage is meaningless. What matters is only quantification: how much, or how little. Numbers, my friend. Numbers, otherwise we have nothing at all.
I agree with davidmhoffer. It was a stunt to prove just how ridiculous the claim of 97% consensus claim is.
TeeJaw quotes Margaret Thatcher on consensus. Great quote. The full speech is here:
http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104712
Here is another quote from that speech: When I asked one of my Commonwealth colleagues at this Conference why he kept saying that there was a “consensus” on a certain matter, another replied in a flash “consensus is the word you use when you can’t get agreement”.
Hate you looking for a clearer sign to short the ever loving f out of this pig?
Leif: “Numbers, otherwise we have nothing at all.”
Agreed. Since no numbers for a temperature fingerprint can be seriously attributed to our CO2 fingerprint in vivo, we have “nothing at all.” Therefore it would be irrational to vote “yes” on question 6. The 100% figure representing those who did vote yes, is like any consensus figure, a meaningless one. All that should matters is how well the map meshes with reality. And it doesn’t do a very good job.
Even when accepting the 4degC temperature rise by 2100 claimed by IPCC politicians, in comparison to solar input to global warming it is seen completely irrelevant to Climate. A simple order-of-magnitude calculation using elementary three-Rs maths is all that’s needed, viz http://cleanenergypundit.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/eating-sun-fourth-estatelondon-2009.html
From Bob Weber on July 11, 2014 at 9:01 pm;
I have learned from you. For example, you previously said:
Yet Bob Tisdale, resident ENSO expert, has professionally explained on July 8 how the 2014/2015 El Nino, which we are in, will be dying out soon unless atmospheric feedbacks kick in. Etc.
If you follow Tisdale even peripherally, you would know El Nino is a long-building event, dependent on many things. Including the long building up of warmth in the Pacific Warm Pool, waiting for the weakening of the trade winds to allow the full release of the El Nino.
You are predicting higher sea surface temperatures when Tisdale has already warned SST’s are high so expect “hottest ever” record proclamations, with higher land temps which is part of Tisdale’s warning, more evaporation which is expected with the higher SST’s anyway. And you predicted a possible El Nino happening which is already basically happening except weakly and the indicators are showing it will likely die.
You also predict the heightened solar activity will power more hurricanes and typhoons which derive energy from differences in potential thus with SST’s already elevated there’s a shortage of cooler waters to drive formation of hurricanes and typhoons and by the Eschenbach Thunderstorm Thermostat hypothesis the most likely result in these conditions is more frequent tropical thunderstorms happening earlier in the day transporting more heat away from the surface, not more hurricanes and typhoons.
Thus as I am one who does learn by studying reality, I have learned from you to take what you give as cause and effect and relationship between, and know I will be better served by looking elsewhere.
Imminent Solar Physicist Denounces Appeal to Consensus in Climate Wars
New York Times, Monday July 13
Gretel Gaia, Climate Correspondent
Yesterday, writing on the most popular climate blog on the planet, Leif Svalgaard, an emminent solar physicist who once quipped, “I know the sun”, lashed out at climatologists and environmental journalists for their repeated appeals to authority when trying to convince the general public about the legitimacy of “global warming.”
“They are wrong on the 97%: the correct number is 100%,” complained Svalgaard bitterly. “But the issue is not whether, but how much, [it has warmed due to our emissions] or better ‘how little’”, he said.
http://www.newyorktimes.com/environmental/0307014un_real.htm
Whoops – “emminent” – stupid me.
Too much is invested in the climate change industry for really meaningful numbers to come out. The big investors have mega bucks invested in it. While on the other side the entrenched industry using outdated technology is not willing to simply turn over and die. The result is what being fed is what they want us to hear not the reality or the truth. Sigh. Sick of the greedy humans!
I’m pleased to say I haven’t seen a single bit of press either on the tv or newspaper about your little coal industry sponsored conference. It seems the media is finally tired of nutters.
MyS = f(6Y, z|X|, Pr(C))
Where my level of scepticism is a function of my unequivocal six yes’s, the likelihood of the existence of an unknown array of variables impacting upon the climate system state (z) and my assessment of the probability of a catastrophic state change lying in the 400-600ppm range of free atmospheric CO2. There, that was easy.
“Is it likely that Man’s emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases have contributed to the measured global warming since 1950?”
If it likely, what is the evidence ?
I am just a geologist but I truly believe that there was a major glacial period about 400 million years ago when the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were about 10 times greater than they are today.
From Siberian_husky who pissed on blog owner’s leg when they said on July 11, 2014 at 11:02 pm:
It is easy to grow tired of nuts when you work in the nut packaging industry.
PS: Mr. Watts is a meteorologist. He knows when it is raining. He also knows that’s not rain.
Denial connects to a srawman argument, which changes the sceptics’ position to make it indefensible. Quite often we end up in discussing whether CO2 is a greenhouse gas or not when we should be discussing whether it is significant or not.
Qantitive arguments are mostly ignored in this debate. How much? should be the first question followed by when, how and why. In a spoken language insignificant is often translated to does not exist. We say that there is no AGW when me mean that it is insignificant.
Radiation is a cause of a cancer but we have not outlawed walking outdoors. Sense of proportion works here, at least yet, but green thinking is very much based on lack of it.
kadaka,
Higher solar activity in the short run will drive up SSTs more, and could cause all the things I mentioned. It doesn’t mean they WILL happen. That we had a solar spike starting from last October through early this year caused the conditions people have discussed earlier in the year that would lead to an El Nino. What I meant if I wasn’t clear enough, was that MORE solar activity at higher levels increases those events chances of occuring. Perhaps you haven’t studied the relationship between ACE (accumulated cyclone energy) and solar activity.
Last summer the Weather Channel experts were carrying on about how the hurricane season was going to be a strong one. It wasn’t. The sun’s activity waned until later in the season, and shortly after a solar surge in October, we had Typhoon Haiyan. We also have to remind ourselves that the ocean was warming all summer last year, accumulating heat, before the late season solar surge.
That was one example of evidence for a relatively short-term solar influence on extreme weather events via enhanced solar warming. There are plenty more examples, including all hurricane & typhoon activity this year to date. Has anyone noticed hurricane and cyclone activity this year is also behind the curve, as is tornado production, as it has been for years? Along with the “pause” in “warming” too. These things are all related to solar activity.
You disparage a supposed lack of response to my comments. First I should mention you pulled quotes from several of my comments and made them look like I said them in the order you listed – out of context with eachother. Secondly, some people did exchange comments on some of my comments. Third, with the new way of looking at the solar-earth connection I am showing, the information I provided was new to many people and I’m sure many will be paying attention to see if what I said transpires before casting dispersions or commenting, as you are doing.
If the sun is more active now and in the next several months, after NOAA/NASA have declared the solar max was reached in May/June, then yes, we COULD have all those conditions. If it drops like a rock, El Nino fizzles, and hurricanes/typhoon activity will be low, ACE will be low, and temps will eventually drop. I tried to provide evidence that the sun in this rotation is more active than was expected, that it could continue to be higher than expected, that there could be more solar peaking before the big slide downhill to solar minimum, and that history as a guide means all those weather phenomenon could happen as a result of potential solar warming during this year.
Consider that a more qualified restatement. About the moon, I have all the weather maps and temps necessary to show the lunar-driven atmospheric influence over a long period of study. It’s not a big secret that the moon creates atmospheric tides that follow the lunar declination cycle.
And the snippet on the solar plasma stands on its own. How are you going to argue with that?
So good luck with your continued learning from reality. I am in no way backing down just because your view of reality doesn’t include mine. None of these issues are going away, I’m not going away, the sun’s activity and it’s affect on the earth isn’t going away. The only thing that I think will go away in the long run are any doubts that the Sun is the big cheese when it comes to weather and climate influences. I hope in the future you will stop quoting me out of context, please.
Odd, isn’t it?
The one individual on this thread castigating others with the ad hom attack of a ‘weasel’ response is the resident master of weasel trolling…..
On second consideration, I retract that statement. It is an undesired slur on my part of the genus Mustela of the family Mustelidae. My mistake was correlating the malodorous scent of the particular individuals flatulent responses with a family most well known for truly offensive emissions. Correlation is not necessarily cause and effect.
Just because the offensive emissions reek to high heaven, doesn’t mean it’s a skunk. Skunks are quite engaging and sociable critters….. unlike our resident malodorous troll.
‘Amusingly, 96.8% is 97% of 97.1%.’
It most certainly is not. 0.97*0.971 = 0.94187.
US TV Station says that coming US cold blast is a solar effect:
http://www.abc2news.com/weather/weather-blogs/polar-vortex-to-take-a-vacation-south-next-week
1. yes, definitely
2. yes, defnitely This is Keating’s Mauna Loa data–careful and about as good as it gets in real science, where anything can turn out to be wrong after all.
3. yes, definitely.The graph correlates with technology. Nature could do something like that, but it would be a remarkable coincidence if this were the sun or something.
4. Uncertain. The greenhouse effect can be demonstrated in vitro even by schoolchildren. But ancient graphs and the stability of life on Earth makes it seem that the feedbacks are so strongly negative that no net effect exists
5. UHI–yes. No previous poster in this thread has really pointed out that “the pause” correlates with RSS and satellites. All prior records were urban–and we know that human activities warm urban areas. RSS and satellites measure the surfaces as a whole.These may be flawed measurements, or maybe that is just an excuse for that flat record. So overall–NO.
6. yes, in that the “measured” warming was A) falsified by humans and b )UHI–heat release by humans in urban areas.
davidmhoffer says:
July 11, 2014 at 8:11 pm
———————————–
“That said, I think it fair to say that most skeptics accept that the GHE exists, and it drives me nuts when people in this forum claim “experimental” or other evidence to show that it doesn’t. They should be taken to account in exactly the same manner as those who claim catastrophe is on the horizon, for both are disseminating false information and calling it science.”
David, it may be worth re-reading this –
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Matt L. says:
July 11, 2014 at 7:05 pm
There’s a scene in the movie World War Z in which the hero learns how one group of people managed to defend itself against the zombie infection:
“When nine people agree on something, it’s the tenth man’s responsibility to disagree no matter how improbable the idea.”
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
The correct answer to questions 4 and 6 is “NO”
Now if there is just one “tenth man”, it doesn’t matter if most sceptics got it wrong and believed that adding radiative gases to the atmosphere actually did reduce the atmosphere’s radiative cooling ability. Because in the end all sceptics are politically saved if alternate views (and their supporting repeatable empirical experiments that so distress you) continued to be aired on sceptic forums.
You have put in a lot of effort, but by now you should be aware that herding sceptics is like trying to herd cats. The remaining sleepers cannot hope to steer all sceptics to the lukewarmer path. And to win, AGW believers need all voices on sceptic forums to be lukewarmer. This cannot be achieved. Therefore sceptics will win.
@Lord Dorchouse
Someone rigged yet another meaningless poll for political purposes. I keep telling you that this British politics won’t work in the US. Nobody knows anything with great certainty regarding CO2, warming, etc. Trying to “accept partial blame” is not going to pacify the nuts on the left. Yet, it will confuse people who aren’t yet climate zombies.
I demand that you confess, at once, sir, to you your mendacious etc. & etc. or I shall file a complaint with the proper authorities. That, after all, is how we Americans talk to each other when you Brits aren’t listening, like now when you, an ex-Thatcherite, aren’t listening to what I’ve told you a few times about the US not liking this kind of BS in general. How are all the lawsuits going? Going well? Haven’t heard much about the people you’re “protecting” with your complaints and lawsuits. Do show us the results sometime.
Because warming produces methane and CO2 so is CO2 causing some minor warming or is warming causing CO2 rise. In a nett sense there can be only one! So looking at nett processes since natural emission dominates man-made warming 97:3 ( funny how that 97 keeps coming up) it’s clear that in fact warming causes CO2 rise. Now Leif, in the light of the fact please reconsider your opinion on #4, does temperature related emission of CO2 or temperature rise due to CO2 emission dominate the CO2 rise characteristic? Does anyone really know?
The Japanese CO2 balance seems to indicate that most populated areas are in fact CO2 sinks, so in fact other than some tiny areas marking a few of the biggest cities in the world mankind actually sinks CO2 rather than emits it, whicn makes sense given the amount of agriculture that is done to feed us all. From my reading of the Japanese data pretty much all CO2 emission is natural, look at the northern territory in Australia, with less than a million people across the whole state, yet huge emissions.
It’s clear the answers to questions 3-6 are probably insufficient knowledge to answer, not for the sky dragons reasons but rather doubt about whether mankind is in fact a nett cause, or a nett mitigation. That’s what the data says!
From Bob Weber on July 11, 2014 at 11:42 pm:
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1979/to:2014/normalise/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1979/to:2014/mean:13/normalise/plot/hadsst3gl/from:1979/to:2014/normalise/plot/hadsst3gl/from:1979/to:2014/mean:13/normalise
Where in that do you see how higher solar activity WILL drive up SST’s?
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1850/to:2014/mean:13/normalise/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1850/to:2014/mean:61/normalise/plot/hadsst3gl/from:1850/to:2014/mean:13/normalise/plot/hadsst3gl/from:1850/to:2014/mean:61/normalise
In the short run, the wiggle-matching shows you have as good or better chance arguing the SST’s lead solar activity.
In the longer run, the solar activity seems to match SST’s, up to about the satellite age circa 1979, at which point they diverge. Note that with the proposed 20% increase to pre-1947 International (SIDC) SSN that wipes out what was the current solar Grand Maximum, the graph will be somewhat different. So let’s just look at 1947 up to 2014:
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1947/to:2014/normalise/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1947/to:2014/mean:13/normalise/plot/hadsst3gl/from:1947/to:2014/normalise/plot/hadsst3gl/from:1947/to:2014/mean:13/normalise
It becomes even more obvious from around 1970 onward that SST’s clearly lead solar activity. How can it be that short-term higher solar activity WILL drive up SST’s when the SST’s spike first?
If what you say WILL happen clearly does not happen, then why should I believe what you say COULD happen could happen at all?
lsvalgaard says:
July 11, 2014 at 11:14 am
Those findings clash a bit with the often made claims here at WUWT that there is no warming at all, that CO2 cannot cause any warming, etc. Perhaps we should have a poll to see how many here answers NO to all six questions…
These are not questions suitable for making decisions. The word likely is too vague.
So Leif, I wouldn’t be answering yes or no and even if the questions were more direct I still couldn’t answer in the affirmative. Why, because no-one know whether man is making a difference or not. There has been no definitive work done on the subject of man’s influence on the climate.
Likely et al are suppositive not definitive.
Stephen Richards says:
July 12, 2014 at 1:25 am
These are not questions suitable for making decisions. The word likely is too vague.
Indeed, as I said it is a lousy poll, a meaningless PR-Stunt.
I thought the type of science represented in the 64 type 1 results was the most interesting point.
I found a paper by a biologist about jellyfish and there reaction to ocean acidification and another 2 papers by (the same) paediatricians in group 1.
Should one really claim that a scientific concensus is a concensus by naming non-related sciences. I mean, a paediatrician might be a scientist, but his opinion on Global Warming cannot be more relvant than any ordinary person.
Warm water takes longer to release C02 but with more fish,weeds and decaying matter, it is obvious.
The really relevant questions should be:
A) Are we actually able to measure the planets average temperature. (Max and Min should
at least be discussed much more than today). For example; all the measured temp. rise in the arctic takes place in winter and involve anomolies of up to +10 degrees. But -20 degrees instead of -30 degrees, is that really relevant to ice-melt.
B) How much and why was CO2-levels rising in 1860 ? Could humans have been responsible then ?
Strange that none of the 600 answered “NO” to Q 6?
Maybe they thought Lord Monckton was asking rethorically not really expecting anyone to raise their hands?
6. Is it likely that Man’s emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases have contributed to the measured global warming since 1950?
–
I will refrase the question as it automatically rearranged it self in my mind:
Do you believe that there is more than 1/2 probabillity that we are able to measure the, if any, (positive) warming ” that Man’s emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases have contributed to the measured global warming since 1950?
–
Given that at least some of those 600 people believe in a negative feedback from CO2, precipitation, clouds, and maybe more complex mechanisms – one would expect a percentage of sceptics answering NO. What if all we accomplish by adding CO2 to the climate is making the climate wetter, not warmer? Someone must believe that, I almost do. Maybe a tiny fraction warmer, but so small a fraction it is unmeasureable, that belief would also constitute a NO.
–
No, I am not a climate scientist.
Denying deniers?
The real question that is being denied is the political established UNFCCC with its claim of CAGW, as basis for radical changes nationally and globally.
The interesting question is: With anthropogenic CO2 and other greenhouse gases since the war. Do you believe we have CAGW today?
For those sceptics who believe that human CO2 emissions have caused some amount of global warming, please tell me what the evidence for this is. All the evidence I’m aware of (e.g. ice cores show zero warming effect of CO2 and that temperatures rise before the CO2 rises) suggests that CO2 has no effect on the climate. Certainly, CO2 has a warming effect in the laboratory, but that doesn’t mean it has any effect in the climate system. In this century CO2 has increased by around 10 per cent. And the amount of warming? Zero, or even a slight cooling.
So, for anyone who believes that CO2 has warmed the climate, please show me the data and the proof. I don’t think that’s unreasonable.
Chris
Much has been bandied about in the article by Lord Monckton, and in these comments below his article, about this or that amount of CO2, and whether this is significant or not. However, do we really know how much CO2 is actually in the atmosphere, and by how much this varies now and how much has it done in the past, or how much is sequestered by wet, or on the other hand dry deposition, for instance,? Without such accurate measurement, we are in no position to even start to attempt to predict what the levels will be in the future.
I say, that we do not know the answers to these questions which I have posed.
So then if we do not know how much wet or dry deposition there is or has been,
then how can we know how much CO2 has been sequestered in the past
and at what rates, and by what method? Then how can we reasonably expect
to be able to know what these levels will be in the future, and therefore what
proportion of this process was, is, and in the future might be attributed to
the activities of Mankind, as opposed to natural processes?
This dilemma was explained, in the paper …
JOURNAL OF CLIMATE AND APPLIED METEOROLOGY – VOLUME 25
” Evaluation of the Accuracy with Which Dry Deposition Can
Be Measured with Current Micrometeorological Techniques* ”
J. A. BUSINGER
National Center for Atmospheric Research,** Boulder, C0 80307
(Manuscript received 19 October 1985, in final form 24 December 1985)
—–
The Abstract reveals the salient questions which are posed, and which
impact upon past measurements of CO2, current techniques and for
predictions of future trends, and their possible consequences, as are
discussed in Lord Monckton’s article.
—–
ABSTRACT
By reviewing the physics of the processes leading to dry deposition in the
atmospheric surface layer, a number of corrections and possible errors in the
determination of the dry deposition fluxes are identified. ……
Although of recent vintage, the importance of dry
deposition is well established by now. Especially in the
neighborhood of sources of pollution, dry deposition
is often more important than wet deposition, even in
areas with substantial precipitation such as the north-
eastern United States and much of Westem Europe.
Therefore, there is a great need to measure dry depo-
sition and to know how accurately it can be done. This
has been recognized by the Environmental Protection
Agency …….
…… It may be useful at this point to indicate what
specific areas have been omitted. These include
1) an analysis of the chemical and optical techniques
with which the trace constituents have been measured;
2) chemical and photochemical reactions during the
process of turbulent transport in the surface layer;
3) although quite important, the processes that de-
termine the surface resistance, other than molecular
diffusion,
4) the biological reactions to certain species of dry
deposition within the canopy;
5) effects of resuspension.
Although the issue of inhomogeneous terrain and
its effect on dry deposition clearly falls under the pur-
view of this study, it has not been included because the
existing literature does not provide clear guidelines on
how to do this. It is a very important problem that
needs a great deal of careful research.
The technique of surface sampling has not been dis-
cussed in this paper because the physics is not clear
and it is not considered a micrometeorological tech-
nique.
———
* This paper has been reviewed in accordance with U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency policy and approved for
publication.
** The National Center for Atmospheric Research
is sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
© 1986 American Meteorological Society
=======
To get a full copy of this important paper now
(PDF IMAGE FILE 2MB) – Click My Name Above
– Wun Hung Lo
@ Bjorn from Sweden
Yes the Q6.
There are a number of definitions in the English language for the word “Likely”
and the use of the word “Likely” is again a subjective term, for which there is
no exact quantification. I surmise that the definition which applies here is …
… “Within the realm of credibility”
Therefore I should rephrase the question thus :
” 6. Is it within the realm of credibility that Man’s emissions of CO2 and other
greenhouse gases have contributed to the measured global warming since 1950? ”
This is much less obscure than the original question put to the audience,
but it is what I believe that the audience understood. The nuances of the
English language are capable of expressing an idea, or a hypothesis in a
very accurate fashion, but only if the writer takes care, especially in the case
of important analytical questions such as were posed by Diane Bast, acting
as his barker in the vox pop survey, during Lord Monckton’s valediction.
The correct answer to questions 3 – 6 is “I don’t know” or “Maybe” but apparently those were not among the choices.
@ Chris Wright
” anyone who believes that CO2 has warmed the climate ”
This is a fair point, which has been asked many times,
and the answers always involved some subjective extrapolations
from past data, or reference to computer modelling, and theoretical
mathematical constructs, based on experiments in some laboratory
usually long ago. Monckton, Lindzen and others have often said in their
explanations that CO2 has increased, and that CO2 should cause some
warming, but again Lindzen, Soon, and others have said, that we just
don’t see it in the empirical measurements.
In the paper which I linked to in my Name,
the difficulties in making such measurements
are outlined, and though the paper is almost
30 years old, I do not believe that the problems
outlined have been resolved.
We simply don’t know what the numbers are, because we
have no way of accurately measuring them, even with modern
satellites and so on, because we simply do not understand how
the minutia of the processes which are responsible fluctuate
over the time periods in question, or how to measure them.
In many so called proofs of the theory, many such factors
are simply ignored, estimated, or fudged in computer analysis.
This is NOT Science, as I understand it.
@ The Engineer
Yes these are the relevant questions
This is the dilemma that Businger points out in his paper to which I link at my name.
In his case he complains that they simply do not know how much
wet or dry deposition of CO2 has occurred, is occurring, or will occur
in the future, because the processes involved are not fully understood,
and indeed in the paper it is noted that many such processes are simply
then ignored, because there is no method of measuring them.
Franky there is too much fretting about the minutia,
and Monckton’s original suggestions made years ago
to the US Senate, and Governments across the Globe,
still holds true. That is to say that …..
“The correct response to the non-problem of CO2 is to do nothing”
Since then of course Billions of Dollars have been spent in trying to
measure the minutia of the processes in which CO2 is involved,
and all to no avail. Scientific research to further the endeavours
and increase the sum total of the knowledge of Mankind is laudible,
but embarking upon boondoggles and hokum experimentation,
to merely earn wages and further one’s personal agenda is not.
The latter is the reality of what is really going on, I fear.
I’m put in mind of an earlier thread where the issue of geoReactors came up, and Willis posited that one such is possible, but the evidence provided show that it produces approx. 0.1w/m^2 at the surface, compared to the 240w/m^2 which results from the sun—easily swamped.
In the years I’ve been visiting, the real question, the WUWT mean meme, if you will (there have been spikes of this and that, but they were never the primary focus of discussion for a majority of time), has never been “is there” or “is there not” a man-made contribution to atmospheric CO2, or a question of “does” or “does not” an increase of atmospheric CO2 add to the “greenhouse” effect of the atmosphere—-
The real direction that I have observed, here and at other “skeptic” sites worth the time to visit, has been to show, through linking to scientific papers and other verifiable sources of information, that there is no proof that mankind’s contribution to atmospheric CO2 is driving the warming; that the proposed “protocols” to reduce mankind’s CO2 output are more harmful to humanity than any foreseeable warming; that the proposed “protocols” to reduce mankind’s CO2 emissions are futile because they will have no measurable impact on the climate over any timescale you wish, because mankind’s contribution to the amount of atmospheric CO2 is swamped by the natural variability of climate itself.
Some people, notably Donna Laframboise at nofrakkingconsensus.com, focus a lot of reporting on the academic and political fraud committed by institutions, like the IPCC. Some of that takes place here at WUWT as well, but the focus here is primarily on the science, not the policies.
I believe that one BIG reason the polls show that “Climate Change” is always at the bottom of any list of concerns for the man-in-the-street is because the Alarmists have been proven very much to be The Boy Who Cried Wolf: their warnings get more shrill, their predictions more dire, and continue to fail to materialize. I’m pretty sure that it’s not because the skeptic argument is carrying the day, for the simple reason that most people I know, most people I’ve met, have no idea about the science behind any of it, no expertise to judge the relative merits of the various scientific arguments, and are pretty much aware of that lack. And they either won’t or can’t take the time to remedy that lack. So for them, on the one hand there are the Alarmists crying “Repent! The End is near!” and on the other, a calmer group saying, “Well, yes, in billions of years, perhaps…” and providing a lot of math to show the probabilities and statistics—and my own observation is that the typical man-in-the-street doesn’t want to know the technical details: he just wants a nice yes or no. And the Alarmists have simple, non-technical, warm & fuzzy, nicey-nice sounding, feel-good answer: Tim Wirth’s, even-if-it’s-wrong, it’ll-be-the-right-thing-to-do argument. And they dress it up with pictures like the hockeystick and cute polar bears and sciFi movies like the Algore opus, and lay out the breadcrumbs for the marks to follow—like the witch in Hansel and Gretel. Whereas the skeptical community presents thousands of papers and says, “Start reading, and you’ll understand why I say, ‘Bullsh!t.'” Accepting the skeptical argument means work. Accepting the Warmist argument means you only have to decide butter or no butter with the popcorn.
But eventually, even the most obtuse among us will notice that the claims of the sky falling haven’t ever come true. Which seems to be happening.
Now, it occurs to me that proving a guy like Cook and his fraudulent claims might be just an interesting distraction, but still just a distraction. Anyone can point out that there was once a consensus that the earth was flat—and look how that turned out. Whether there is or is not a consensus is immaterial, and we know it, so why dwell upon it?
Perhaps because blandishments from the likes of Cook are used by politicians to justify harmful policies. So perhaps the effort described above is not a distraction, is not a waste of time, as some appear to suggest.
That said, I think the focus of WUWT is where it should be (in no particular order):
IMHO.
Because consensus is important: it gets politicians who set policies elected, after all.
The Nielsen Media Research data for 2013 shows a 13% decline in prime time for CNN. In total, the combined viewership of all three major cable news channels, Fox News, CNN and MSNBC, dropped 11% to its smallest audience since 2007.
The reporter is possibly too busy on his resume to get back.
OT to begin with, but I’ll get there:
Last night I dropped over to see some friends. One of them had a son with advanced cancer, and months earlier I had introduced him to another friend who is a leading cancer doctor in my city, and they commenced an advisory role in his son’s treatment and at last report it was going well…
When I arrived, the first thing I asked my friend was “How’s your boy doing?”, and he replied “He died.” I was shocked, and expressed my condolences. My friend apologized for not telling me, and all I could say was “Please don’t apologize”. His son was 22 years of age.
Which gets me to my point. Some of the comments on this thread and elsewhere are unnecessarily combative, even among those who reject the warmist mantra. Of course we don’t agree on everything – that is normal – that is science. But it is a waste of life to devote our energies to anger and hostility.
Count your blessings, gentlemen (and ladies). Most of us here are fortunate that the Sun still rises over our families every morning and we live in safe countries that nurture our well-being. We are a blessed generation that has suffered none of the global conflicts or plagues that savaged previous generations – humanity has experienced two World Wars and one deadly global influenza epidemic in just the past 100 years. We live in a blessed time when, thanks to modern medicine, the premature death of our children is an anomaly, not a routine occurrence like it was just a century ago.
So count your blessings, ladies and gentlemen, and strive to extend some kindness and courtesy to one another…
Best wishes, Allan
“Yes the Q6.
There are a number of definitions in the English language for the word “Likely”
and the use of the word “Likely” is again a subjective term, for which there is
no exact quantification. I surmise that the definition which applies here is …
… “Within the realm of credibility”
Therefore I should rephrase the question thus :
” 6. Is it within the realm of credibility that Man’s emissions of CO2 and other
greenhouse gases have contributed to the measured global warming since 1950? ”
Thank you Wun Hung Lo. I was suspicious about the nuances of “likely”, so I opted to put a number on it, 1/2. I derived it from dividing likely in two, more likely and less likely.
That may have been an error on my part.
If “likely” is more close to possible than probable, the question changes values.
BUT still, are there really no climate sceptics out there who belive in a negative CO2 feedback?
Maybe that is why we are not Venus, heat releases CO2, CO2 makes climate wetter and clouds eventually cool the climate. Is it too far fetched? CO2 historically is lagging behind temperature you all know. Not one out of 600 is convinced human conribution to warming is too small to measure?
Maybe I am missing the point and Moncktons Q:s were just rethorically ment, and I took them to litterally. Or maybe the survey was a satirical comment on how easy it is to come up with a consensus figure when your subjects playing along?
The climate around Phoenix and Tucson remains warm while climate in rural Arizona has been cooling since around 2000.
Warming of Phoenix and Tucson has contributed to global average temperature rise.
I conclude from this that humans are, to some degree, responsible for warming, whether or not CO2 plays a role.
Konrad;
And to win, AGW believers need all voices on sceptic forums to be lukewarmer. This cannot be achieved. Therefore sceptics will win.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Your analysis of public discourse and political process appears to be at the same level as your physics. You clearly understand neither, and no amount of observational data will dissuade you from your opinion. Your are precisely the type of person that Leif was referring to upthread, and you do more harm to this debate than you can possibly understand
@Björn from Sweden
I was quite surprised at the use of the word “Likely” by Monckton, in this context,
because he had just given an extended critique on the use of such terms, by the
IPCC in its analyses of scientific papers, in its latest Assessment Report.
As a matter of interest, different English Lexicons have a variety of
different ways of describing the meaning of the word “Likely”, and
these also differ, as to whether the word is used as an Adjective,
or as an Adverb, since both are valid usage.
In the case of Monckton’s original question Q6, it is used
as an adjective, which is qualifying the proposition put.
In American (US) English usage, the meanings of words can
have subtle, and sometimes not so subtle differences, and
for instance “Fanny” has radically different meanings in British
English, and in US English, whereas in Scotland and Australia,
that word might usually be used in a derisory sense, rather
than in a descriptive factuality.
We Assume that Monckton used the word “Likely” as defined
in British English, but was that what was understood, by his
(mostly) US English speaking audience?
—
British English :
Cambridge –
describes something that will probably happen or is expected
Oxford –
1. Such as well might happen or be true; probable
2. Apparently suitable; promising
—
American (US) English :
Princeton University –
1. Has a good chance of being the case or of coming about
2. Having a high chance to be (or become) true or real
3. Expected to become or be; in prospect
4. Within the realm of credibility *
—
Webster’s dictionary describes the etymology of this word thus :
Middle English, from Old English “gelīclic” fitting (from gelīc like)
and Old Norse “glīkligr”, līkligr, from glīkr like; akin to Old English gelīc
First Known Use: 14th century
Related Words as an adjective :
conceivable, earthly, imaginable, possible, potential,
supposable; apt, bound, certain, doubtless, imminent,
inescapable, inevitable, liable, necessary, sure, unavoidable
Related Words as an adverb :
maybe, mayhap, perchance, perhaps, possibly; conceivably,
imaginably, plausibly, practically, reasonably; potentially;
assuredly, certainly, clearly, conclusively, decisively, definitely,
definitively, indisputably, indubitably, positively, really, surely,
truly, undeniably, undoubtedly, unquestionably; presumedly,
supposably, supposedly
—————-
So then “likely” is such a flexible word with so many nuances
of meaning depending on the context in which it is used, and
is so widely open to misinterpretation, that it ought not to be used
in any such scientific discourse, or in a vox pop, or other poll, where
the exact meaning construed is critical to the understanding of the
question, and indeed the answers which are being solicited.
Indeed, your thoughts on whether a thing might be “more likely”
or on the other hand “less likely”, are part of the schema which
the IPCC has used, and tried to define with actual percentages.
Such definitions are in mine opinion, fatuous. Why not substitute
the actual percentages which they have calculated, rather than
defining a particular percentage as being in the grouping of
“More Likely” or “Extremely Likely” or similar hokum?
—-
Many of You, Dear Readers, may think of my writings on this matter
as a petty argument about semantics of the English Language, which
has seemingly little relevance to the important questions in this debate.
However I see this as absolutely vital. How can scientists, politicians,
and indeed the public be expected to understand, and form a view on
the substantive issue, if confusing and ambiguous words such as “likely”
are used in crucial dissertations, summaries, and polling?
Might I suggest a helpful exercise for prospective authors,
and that would be to use an English thesaurus, to find a
more precise word, when the initial word thought of, by
the author, might have an ambiguous meaning.
Words with ambiguous meanings are often used to deliberately
confuse or distract the reader, and by lawyers in performance
of their duties for clients, but such tactics have no place in the
field of scientific research, reporting, or in soliciting opinions
about such scientific endeavour.
I would say: #1 – #5, Yes.
#6: Show me. Provide measurable, testable scientific evidence quantifying the fraction of a degree warming due to human emitted CO2. If given that testable data, I agree with #6.
But so far, there is no such data. Therefore, it is a conjecture. An assertion. I’m willing to accept it with no problem if there is supporting evidence posted, because the goal is knowledge, not being right.
But I can’t accept #6 as being currently verified; it isn’t. Give me testable, measurable evidence, please.
kadaka those graphs are very messy. This one is much clearer http://climate4you.com/images/SunspotsMonthlySIDC%20and%20HadSST3%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1960%20WithSunspotPeriodNumber.gif.
What is the point to your missive? Everyone does contigency planning/forecasting to some extent. My discussions involve contingencies in the solar activity and weather/climate response, based on historical data/learning. Today Joe D released this http://icecap.us/index.php/go/in-the-news/welcome_back_to_the_1950s_and_soon_the_1960s_70s_and_then_18001/
His view on imminent cooling is about the same as mine, and mine is borne out of an analysis of the SIDC-SST graph linked above, which has much hidden information in it. Please keep on eye on solar activity and temperatures for the rest of the year. You’ll definitely learn something.
I will note that Don Easterbrook, David Evans, David Archibald, Piers Corbyn, Henry P, (there are many more) are among those who for years have been calling for colder temps based on a solar activity dropoff. I learned what to look for by paying close attention, and I can only hope my fellow skeptics will pick up on the habit of paying attention to daily activity over at least six months to get a handle on the temp response to solar ups and downs. That was the point of those explanations.
James Abbott says:
July 11, 2014 at 4:20 pm
Latitude – I checked those references. There are references to the Keeling data having been manipulated, the pre-industrial levels being wrong, etc. All tosh. The Mauna Loa smoothed curve is exactly that – smoothed on a running mean (standard method) but they still show the seasonal “breathing” of the biosphere. Location differences ? Nope – the global trend, based on a network of sites shows a very similar record to the Mauna Loa data taken at altitude.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/global.html#global
The pre-industrial level of 280ppm is confirmed from ice cores:
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/bas_research/science_briefings/icecorebriefing.php
There is no real evidence that this data has been “deliberately corrupted”. Its just more wishful thinking from those that delude themselves that the entire scientific community is working to a conspiracy plan.
The ice core data as published takes no account of diffusion of CO2 from the bubbles through the ice. See:
“CO2 diffusion in polar ice: observations from naturally formed CO2 spikes in the Siple Dome (Antarctica) ice core”, Jinho AHN, Melissa HEADLY, Martin WAHLEN, Edward J. BROOK,
Paul A. MAYEWSKI, Kendrick C. TAYLOR; Journal of Glaciology, Vol. 54, No. 187, 2008
“ABSTRACT. One common assumption in interpreting ice-core CO2 records is that diffusion in the ice does not affect the concentration profile. However, this assumption remains untested because the extremely small CO2 diffusion coefficient in ice has not been accurately determined in the laboratory. In this study we take advantage of high levels of CO2 associated with refrozen layers in an ice core from Siple Dome, Antarctica, to study CO2 diffusion rates. We use noble gases (Xe/Ar and Kr/Ar), electrical conductivity and Ca2+ ion concentrations to show that substantial CO2 diffusion may occur in ice on timescales of thousands of years. We estimate the permeation coefficient for CO2 in ice is 4 10^–21 molm^–1 s^–1 Pa^–1 at –238C in the top 287m (corresponding to 2.74 kyr). Smoothing of the CO2 record by diffusion at this depth/age is one or two orders of magnitude smaller than the smoothing in the firn. However, simulations for depths of 930–950m (60–70 kyr) indicate that smoothing of the CO2 record by diffusion in deep ice is comparable to smoothing in the firn. Other types of diffusion (e.g. via liquid in ice grain boundaries or veins) may also be important but their influence has not been quantified”
The raw ice core data also does not agree with stomata data nor does it agree with the chemical measurements made in the 19th and early 20th centuries. For example see:
“50 YEARS OF CONTINUOUS MEASUREMENT OF CO2 ON MAUNA LOA”, Ernst-Georg Beck, Energy and Environment Vol 19 No.7 2008. Section 3 CO2 Measurements of the Background before 1958. in particular the collated references to other research.
The ice cores seem to be a cherry pie that has been concocted by ‘the team’.
dbstealey says:
July 12, 2014 at 8:38 am
Ditto that.
Wun Hung Lo, this semantics discussion is very important.
I am from Sweden, and english is a foreign language to me.
Further, the nuances of this languge are lost to me.
I have learned english not from direct two way communication with native english speakers but from reading. Therefore guidance in interpreting subtle menings are missing from my english education, eg facial expressions, follow up questions, confirmation etc.
And I know that my english is better than many swedish scientists.
Therefore it is important to keep in mind, when adressing a global audience, that language can be deceptive and it is easy for a foreigner to believe he has understood something when in fact he has not. Especially surveys which surpsisingly often, almost as a rule, are vague and difficult to interpret.
It is not a trivial discussion, it may be a little OT though.
Leif,
Yes, it was a PR stunt, a good and useful one, and nothing more.
Answering unqualified “yes” to all six questions is as stupid as answering unqualified “no” to any of these questions.
Stop behaving like a foolish teenager, and, please, use parentheses as required, not meaningless brackets.
Alexander Feht says:
July 12, 2014 at 10:24 am
Answering unqualified “yes” to all six questions is as stupid as answering unqualified “no” to any of these questions.
Since nobody answered “no” [implying that they did not disagree] everybody was stupid. I can accept that.
If 99.7% of scientific papers did not say that recent global warming was mostly man-made, but 0.5% did, please point me to one of the 0.2% that both did and didn’t.
Again folks
there is no man made warming
whatsoever
There simply is no room for it in my last [established] equation
(at the end of the minima table)
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2013/02/21/henrys-pool-tables-on-global-warmingcooling/
lsvalgaard: “…everybody was stupid.”
Or uncertain.
I consider it very likely Monckton expected the lack of response to his subjective questions, which made the audience appear as consensus-oriented as those he mocks.
nutso fasst says:
July 12, 2014 at 1:01 pm
Or uncertain. I consider it very likely Monckton expected the lack of response to his subjective questions, which made the audience appear as consensus-oriented as those he mocks.
Let me mock you a bit on the ‘very likely” 🙂
But, of course, the PR-stunt was carefully rigged to give the required response. Just goes to show the fraudulent behavior of activists on both side of the question.
The stupid ones are the people who hail this stunt as significant, e.g. “Alexander Feht says:
July 12, 2014 at 10:24 am Yes, it was a PR stunt, a good and useful one” and many others. How low can the skeptics stoop? Disgusting to witness.
Lief, global warming is real and man’s co2 has caused some of it. I too am with the consensus. The question is how much of the warming is down to man? The Sky Dragons do peep in once in a while and give a false impression. I have warned them before that this is not the way to win the debate, EVEN IF THEY ARE CONVINCED OF THEIR CASE. They simply get brushed aside by Warmists who tar everyone with the ‘D’ label.
Jimbo says:
July 12, 2014 at 2:44 pm
Lief, global warming is real and man’s co2 has caused some of it. I too am with the consensus. The question is how much of the warming is down to man?
As I also said: it is a question about ‘how much’ [or ‘how little’ if you are on the other side of the fence]. The Poll was a useless PR-stunt.
Monckton’s PR stunt does show one very significant attribute of the 600 or so audience members. When not a single one is able to say “NO” to a question, you have something much worse than “consensus.” You have blind adherence to the ideology. Effectively Monckton has shown that in a gathering of “skeptics” not a single one was a skeptic
“very likely”
ha ha ha !
I wondered whether there was some irony being used here.
That is to say, language used to convey scorn, by saying
one thing but implying the opposite.
Still you make a fair point. With Monckton’s method of conducting
the poll by a show of hands in the audience, and asking the group
to signify whether they disagreed with his proposition, there is an
almost overwhelming peer pressure, to not be “the one” who is first
to go against the group and break the “consensus” of the meeting,
and to disagree with the principal speaker of the meeting.
I suspect that if the same poll were to be conducted by “secret ballot”,
then the results would not have been unanimous, and that even among
such an audience of sceptics, there would have been some deviation.
The poll, as conducted, although achieving the desired (and expected)
result, so far as Monckton was concerned, is not therefore a fair one.
Apparently all the preceding questions were leading up to that crucial
final Q6, by which time the bandwagon effect had made it virtually certain
that the audience would not disagree, no matter what Monckton had asked.
A different result might have occurred, had Monckton asked solely the Q6.
Naturally the danger in making such a feast of this manoeuvre, is that it
will be seen as a ruse, and demolished by the opposition, thus having
the contrary effect in the final analysis, to that which was intended by
Monckton. I suspect that this impromptu poll may cause even more
controversy and will be seized upon by the CO2 alarmists, as yet more
“evidence” of disingenuous doings by the “Heartland bête noires”.
Well, while not objecting to the six questions as asked, I’m not able to give an unqualified yes to all six.
On number 4, I would have to voice a basic objection to the notion, that one can (or is permitted in science modeling to) alter ANY one single parameter of the system, and insist that ALL other parameters undergo NO change whatsoever. That simply cannot happen in the physically real universe.
Take Ohm’s Law for example.
“”” For a certain class of materials (mostly metallic conductors) in an electric circuit; when all other physical variables are held constant, the current flowing is linearly proportional to the applied EMF. “””
That says literally:- I = a x EMF where (a) is a constant (when ALL other physical quantities are held constant). Well it would normally be written as ; I = G.V where G is defined as the conductance in siemens units. Alternatively we could define 1 / G = R and call that “resistance” in units of ohm.
So Ohm’s law simply says; R is constant, where R can be defined as V / I.
But the required conditions are not realizable. Changing the applied Voltage and Current, will result in an energy dissipation in the conductor material, and for all materials will change the Temperature, and this invariably results in a change of R.
Does an incandescent light bulb obey Ohm’s Law. Well of course it does, when you satisfy the conditions.
So only very small Voltages can be applied, without significant power dissipation and Temperature rise. You certainly can’t get any visible radiation out of it, while it follows Ohm’s law.
Well that in itself (emission of visible EM radiation) would be a violation of the conditions of Ohm’s law, that nothing else changes (besides Voltage and current)
Most conductive materials do not obey Ohm’s law. (semiconductors for example.)
So I object to question #4.
For question #5 I would plead total ignorance.
I have zero confidence in any purported global Temperature estimates or data, prior to about 1979/80 the arrival of the satellite data era, and also the oceanic buoy water / air Temperature measurements.
So I don’t know for sure that earth has warmed appreciably, since about 1850, let alone since 1950.
But I get Monckton of Brenchley’s point in asking those questions at the conference; to get on record, that not all climate skeptics can be branded as fossil fuel shills, living off grant money from industrial interests; comparable to a good number of warmist disciples, who live off their post doc fellowship grant,s from other vested interests, including the public (tax payers) dole.
g
There is experimental evidence that the Hypotheses of greenhouse gas effect does not exist.
There is experimental data that proves that increased CO2 causes the atmosphere to cool. Lord M. you better brush up on the real scene.Here are just a few references tat back up this position.
List of references:
The paper “Falsification of the Atmospheric CO2 greenhouse effect within the frame of physics” by Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner is an in-depth examination of the subject. Version 4 2009
Electronic version of an article published as International Journal of Modern Physics
B, Vol. 23, No. 3 (2009) 275{364 , DOI No: 10.1142/S021797920904984X, c World
Scientific Publishing Company, http://www.worldscinet.com/ijmpb.
Report of Alan Carlin of US-EPA March, 2009 that shows that CO2 does not cause global warming.
Greenhouse Gas Hypothesis Violates Fundamentals of Physics” by Dipl-Ing Heinz Thieme This work has about 10 or 12 link
that support the truth that the greenhouse gas effect is a hoax.
R.W.Wood
from the London, Edinborough and Dublin Philosophical Magazine , 1909, vol 17, p319-320. Cambridge UL shelf mark p340.1.c.95, i
The Hidden Flaw in Greenhouse Theory
By Alan Siddons
from:http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/the_hidden_flaw_in_greenhouse.html at March 01, 2010 – 09:10:34 AM CST
The below information was a foot note in the IPCC 4 edition. It is obvious that there was no evidence to prove that the ghg effect exists.
“In the 1860s, physicist John Tyndall recognized the Earth’s natural greenhouse effect and suggested that slight changes in the atmospheric composition could bring about climatic variations. In 1896, a seminal paper by Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius first speculated that changes in the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could substantially alter the surface temperature through the greenhouse effect.”
After 1909 when R.W.Wood proved that the understanding of the greenhouse effect was in error and the ghg effect does not exist. After Niels Bohr published his work and receive a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. The fantasy of the greenhouse gas effect should have died in 1909 and 1922. Since then it has been shown by several physicists that the concept is a Violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Obviously the politicians don’t give a dam that they are lying. It fits in with what they do every hour of every day .Especially the current pretend president.
Paraphrasing Albert Einstein after the Publishing of “The Theory of Relativity” –one fact out does 1 million “scientist consenus, 10 billion politicians and 20 billion environmental whachos-that don’t know what” The Second Law of thermodynamics” is.
University of Pennsylvania Law School
ILE
INSTITUTE FOR LAW AND ECONOMICS
A Joint Research Center of the Law School, the Wharton School,
and the Department of Economics in the School of Arts and Sciences
at the University of Pennsylvania
RESEARCH PAPER NO. 10-08
Global Warming Advocacy Science: a Cross Examination
Jason Scott Johnston
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
May 2010
This paper can be downloaded without charge from the
Social Science Research Network Electronic Paper Collection:
http://ssrn.
Israeli Astrophysicist Nir Shaviv: ‘There is no direct evidence showing that CO2 caused 20th century warming, or as a matter of fact, any warming’ link to this paper on climate depot.
Slaying the Sky Dragon – Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory [Kindle Edition]
Tim Ball (Author), Claes Johnson (Author), Martin Hertzberg (Author), Joseph A. Olson (Author), Alan Siddons (Author), Charles Anderson (Author), Hans Schreuder (Author), John O’Sullivan (Author) http://www.principia-scientific.org
Web- site references:
http://www.americanthinker.com Ponder the Maunder
wwwclimatedepot.com
icecap.us
http://www.stratus-sphere.com
SPPI
many others are available.
The bottom line is that the facts show that the greenhouse gas effect is a fairy-tale and that Man-made global warming is the World larges Scam!!!The IPCC and Al Gore should be charged under the US Anti-racketeering act and when convicted – they should spend the rest of their lives in jail for the Crimes they have committed against Humanity.
The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance.”
—Albert Einstein
“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what to have for dinner. Liberty is a well-armed lamb.”
Benjamin Franklin
.
From Bob Weber on July 12, 2014 at 9:53 am:
You were wise to conceal the true source of that graph, but not smart as the URL lead to the source:
http://climate4you.com/Sun.htm
They have graphs there: Solar irradiance since 1610 as reconstructed by Lean et al (1995) and Lean (2000), until 2000. From 2001 data from PMOD/WRC are used.
They used the discredited Lean reconstructions that Judith Lean no longer recommends, and the VIRGO data from PMOD which has a degradation issue. I would say I wouldn’t have revealed the source page either except I would have sourced from a site using better more-traceable data.
Here’s a normalized replication:
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1960/to:2014.18/normalise/offset:-0.5/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1960/to:2014.18/mean:37/normalise/offset:-0.5/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1960/to:2014.18/normalise/offset:0.5/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1960/to:2014.18/mean:37/normalise/offset:0.5
Now I can click on “Raw Data” and have actual numbers to look at. Your previous use of “short term” has the connotation of within a year or so. Since you were happy with the 37-month running mean of the climate4you graph, I’ll look at the minimums of that, looking for similarly large drops within a few years of each other.
Note there’s a difference, for temps January is xxxx.00, for SSN it’s xxxx.05. For this quick look it doesn’t matter much.
Minimums:HadCRUT4_SIDC-SSN
1965.58__1964.47
1975.33__1976.38
1985.42__1986.05
1993.17__1996.13
2000.17__?
2008.58__2008.55
Yup, in 1964-65 SSN did start going up about a year before global temperatures.
Then temps lead SSN 1976-75, 1985-86, lead in a longer stretch 1993-1996. There’s a 2000 temp drop not matched to SSN.
And then, in 2008 were they really almost simultaneous, and SSN lead by a month? No. Look at the actual curve shape, the more representative temperature minimum was on 2007.67.
So out of the five pairs, coming out of minimums, global temperatures have led SSN for the last 4 times.
Global temperatures rose about a year or more before solar activity rose 80% of the time, during the time period shown on your proffered graph.
So why should I believe your earlier claim that increased solar activity will lead to increased sea surface temperatures, when the global temperatures were increasing a year or more before solar activity increased 80% of the time?
I’ve already learned you predict the obvious and what is already occurring, when you’re not predicting what is a coin toss, thus guaranteeing yourself a better than 50% success rate before your words slip sideways out of your mouth.
Otherwise, I’ve learned your ability to do simple research and grasp basic fundamentals is so slim I can hardly get by the first paragraph of your replies without devoting an entire comment to correct just those first few lines of nonsense. Stop writing so much, you just embarrass yourself more.
I cannot believe that I am literally watching lsvalgaard have a public hissy fit over something he repeatedly states was such an obviously stupid publicity stunt! (He doth protest much) Maybe he’s never been to a normal convention of anything. You know, where absolutely no one expects the large gathering speeches to be of the quality of peer reviewed research…Maybe he’s unaware that Lord Monkton has a fabulous sense of humor. I mean, he seems convinced that Lord Monkton phrased the questions in a manner such that they get the answers he wanted, yet it’s obvious to ME that he phrased them in the exact same terms the IPCC uses. I don’t know..perhaps because his sole intent was to compare the results WITH the infamous Cook et al survey that purported to show a consensus with the IPCC statements?
Or perhaps Lord Monkton doesn’t give a rat’s rear view what you or I or anyone else thinks and takes full advantage of his right to speak freely for his own personal delight and entertainment. And good for him! But Leif lost any sympathy I might have had for his “point of view” when he was asked this question:
“So the fact that there are people who frequent this board who have odd and unacceptable points of view discredits the entire site and all skeptics?”
And Leif responded-“To some degree it does, yes.”
Wow. Really Leif? What metric have you used to calculate that? What “numbers” do you have that prove actual discrediting has taken place? I mean…”if we don’t have numbers, we don’t have anything right?” Of all the odd and unacceptable points of view I’ve seen on this site, that has to be one of the most disturbing ones so far. But good for you!
Aphan says:
July 12, 2014 at 5:25 pm
when he was asked this question:
“So the fact that there are people who frequent this board who have odd and unacceptable points of view discredits the entire site and all skeptics?”
Perhaps the asker was thinking of people like you…
In response to Lief’s Poll, I will stick my neck out.
1. Yes. Ever since planet earth first aquired an atmosphere, climate has changed. Climate change has driven evolution and it would be a cause for concern, if climate were not to change.
2. Yes. (But C02 levels are low for life on earth, particularly plants).
3. Whilst it is clear that manmade emissions of CO2 has increased over the year, it is not possible to determine the cause of this since, it is clear that there has been a change both in the total amount of CO2 emissions, and in the total capacity of CO2 sinks. Since we do not know the full extent of each, what they comprise of, how they operate and their inter-relationship, all one can say is that it is possible that manmade emissions have contributed towards the increase in CO2 levels since 1959.
4. As Lief has pointed out, this is a silly question, since we are only interested in whether rising CO2 levels will drive up temperature irrespective as to whether all other things are equal or not. As to the question, all one can say is that there is no observational data that passes scientific scrutiny that rising levels of C02, at 20th century levels, leads to an increase in temperature; there is no first order correlation in any of the land based, or satellite, temperature data sets between CO2 and temperature, and there are instances of anti-correlation (such as the post 1940s cooling, and the fact that the rate of warming in the latter part of the 20th century was no greater than in the early part of the 20th century). But really, the data sets are so flawed and have substantial error bandwidths such that one cannot extract a CO2 driven temperature response over the noise of natural variability.
5. The temperature data sets are so flawed that that question cannot be reasonably answered. It appears that in the States, there was some cooling post 1950s, followed by some warming in the 1970s, but given that the satellite data suggests that (globally) there was no warming post 1979, save for the ENSO event at the end of the 1990s,, I consider it likely that there has been some net warming since 1950 and the likely cause of the warming, or bulk of it, was the 1998 El Nino. UHI may have led to a perceived warming in the land based data set for the 1970s. Inciidentally, Michael mann’s trees suggested that there was no warming in the 1970s and 1980s and this is consistent with the satellite data which also shows flat temperatures (albiet in the case of the satellite data as from 1979).
6. See 3 and 4 above..
In my above post, I mention the deivergence problem that Michael Mann found. Most readers will be familiar with the divergence issue, but for those who are not, I briefly comment.
Michael Mann in his tree ring study found that his trees were, as from around 1970 to early/mid 1990s, suggesting that global temperatures were not rising. This finding diverged from the land based thermometer record which suggested that there was warming from about mid 1970s onwards.
Michael Mann decided that his trees must be wrong, and that the land based temperature record was correct. He decided to cut and splice the record by using tree data up to the end of the 1960s and the land based thermometer record post then.
However, it is quite possible that Michael Mann had made a significant finding, namely that the land based thermometer record had become corrupted possibly due to station drop outs, poor station siting, pollution by UHI etc so that the land based thermometer record was showing a false warming.
The satellite data post 1979 suggests that teh land based thermometer record had become corrupted and that there was no warming between 1979 and mid 1990s, ie., both the trees and the satellite were saying something similar.
Michael Mann could have written an interesting paper on the divergence issue and could, if he had been constructive, discussed the implication of the diveregence problem on the accuracy of the land based thermometer record.
Looks like the “knicker twister-in-chief” really has a few of you going.
8–)
@Berthold Klein
Certainly, Heinz Thieme has given us an alternative view on the matter of the so called “greenhouse effect” due to CO2 induced back radiation from the atmosphere, and whether you agree or not with his hypotheses, this is proof that there is no 100% consensus view on the matter by climate change / global warming sceptics.
Why it is the case that sceptics like Monckton, Lindzen, Soon, and others should adhere rigidly to the certainty that there is in fact a “greenhouse effect” caused by CO2, when they see no empirical evidence for this direct causal relationship is perhaps baffling. Yet because demonstrations and experiments in laboratories appear to show the CO2 greenhouse warming effect, at least so far as the majority of scientists, politicians, and the public are concerned,
and because revered past scientific gurus have said so, then even prominent sceptics are reluctant to state openly such opinions, for fear of reprisals, and ostracisation, as is perhaps exemplified by the treatment of Tim Ball, since he voiced such opinions, and became a so called “Dragonslayer”.
Leaving aside all of the other references which you gave on the subject, it is worthy of note that Heinz Thieme. does have his own website, realplanet dot eu, where he has expounded all of his dissertations.
Particularly interesting are these three :
To understand basic thermal conditions within an atmosphere:
The Thermodynamic Atmosphere Effect – explained stepwise
http://realplanet.eu/atmoseffect.htm
Contribution to the discussion about Anthropogenic Climate Change:
On the Phenomenon of Atmospheric Backradiation
http://realplanet.eu/backrad.htm
Contribution to the discussion about Climate Change:
Greenhouse Gas Hypothesis Violates Fundamentals of Physics
http://realplanet.eu/error.htm
Other pages at his site are mostly in German Language,
but naturally a user can use the built-in translator with the
Google Chrome web browser, or indeed use the Google
web translation facility, or some other similar online service.
For readers convenience I have linked to such URL at my name.
Those hypotheses seem convincing, and if other readers disagree, then I would like to hear why they disagree, and their explanations as to where they think Heinz Thieme has gone wrong, and why he might be mistaken. Naturally we shall require to see empirical evidence from critics of Heinz Thieme, and it will not be good enough to merely state that “Arrhenius said ….. ” or similar.
Jimbo says:
July 12, 2014 at 2:44 pm
———————————-
“Lief, global warming is real and man’s co2 has caused some of it. I too am with the consensus. The question is how much of the warming is down to man? The Sky Dragons do peep in once in a while and give a false impression. I have warned them before that this is not the way to win the debate, EVEN IF THEY ARE CONVINCED OF THEIR CASE. They simply get brushed aside by Warmists who tar everyone with the ‘D’ label.”
In diversity, strength.
The lukwarmer “warming but too small to be a problem” approach has initial appeal as a “Realpolitik” solution. You end the scare with minimum embarrassment for activists, journalists, politicians and some sceptics. But you end up leaving those who did most to promote the hoax secure in their positions of influence. You will just have a UN manufactured “bio-crisis” with “bio-debt” to be collected and redistributed under a framework of UN global governance before you can say “Thank heavens that’s over”.
There are indeed many who push the lukewarmer line, warning sceptics they risk looking foolish if they dare entertain the idea that there may be no net radiative GHE at all. But how foolish will sceptics look if their was a simple empirical disproof to both the radiative GHE hypothesis and AGW and it was not considered on sceptic forums because of enforced “consensus”? Very foolish.
Think about this. The very foundation of the radiative GHE hypothesis depends on the surface being warmed by the atmosphere. If the atmosphere is instead cooling the surface, the entire AGW edifice crumbles. No radiative GHE, no AGW. Climastrologists claim that the oceans are a “near blackbody” that can only heat to -18C in the absence of atmospheric cooling and DWLWIR, therefore the atmosphere must be warming the surface.
Do you believe that -18C figure? If so, why? Did you check it empirically for yourself, or did you think you didn’t have to because a lot of people said so and there was a “consensus”?
I recommend you and other readers empirically checking that -18C figure for yourself. Not point and click, cut and paste and type, type, type. Actually do the empirical experiments for yourself. I have. The oceans are a selective surface not a near blackbody. They would heat dramatically without atmospheric cooling, regardless of no DWLWIR. Just like an evaporation constrained solar pond. Don’t take my word for it, do the experiment.
F. Ross: “Looks like the ‘knicker twister-in-chief’ really has a few of you going.”
There is robust evidence he alters the climate of discourse.
Leif, you did not answer Aphans questions.
And please, his name is Leif… not Lief.
[+emphasis]
Aah! I see. Peer reviewed evidence I presume
😉
Henrik Øelund says:
July 12, 2014 at 9:12 pm
Leif, you did not answer Aphans questions.
They have to be relevant to deserve an answer. All I saw was general whining, but I can for your benefit make a stab at this one:
“What “numbers” do you have that prove actual discrediting has taken place?”
I have several colleagues who sometimes ask me why I bother to be on WUWT considering all the nonsense that they see [from some people], and I can also ask myself, so I have anecdotal evidence that this discredits WUWT, and this is apart from the abuse WUWT takes from warmists sites [Tamino, RealClimate, etc]. My estimate would be that about a third of all comments are nonsense [most from the same small group of halfwits]. Here is a typical quote “The suns magnetic field and the electric universe interaction keeps the sun rotating”. You may disagree that this discredits WUWT; if so, I’ll include you among the third I mention above.
F. Ross: “Peer reviewed evidence I presume”
Of course. I peered at it and it looks good to me.
Leif, you stated, “The Poll was a useless PR-stunt.” You could not be more wrong if you are referring to Monckton’s six questions.
Did you fail to deduce that they were in response to peer reviewed reports claiming a 97% consensus of CAGW?
Did you fail to note that their scientific uselessness was a planned mockery of these scientific reports?
You should be cheering Monckton’s political skill in debunking the abuse of science by the warmist brigade, not ridiculing it.
Also, as you yourself point out, and was Monckton’s point, the questions mean little without elaboration and precise definition. Therefore your up thread sneer of folk who did precisely that, calling their reasonable words , “weasel words” was not justified.
lsvalgaard;
My estimate would be that about a third of all comments are nonsense [most from the same small group of halfwits].
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well I for one hope you continue to participate. I expect that for every half wit there are many, many more who though silent have long since figured out which ones are the half wits and which scientists they can rely on for the facts.
David A says:
July 12, 2014 at 9:55 pm
Did you fail to note that their scientific uselessness was a planned mockery of these scientific reports?
If so, I would have expected him to have stated right up front in this company that his stunt was a planned mockery. I did not see any such admission.
You should be cheering Monckton’s political skill in debunking the abuse of science by the warmist brigade, not ridiculing it.
Monckton is, indeed, a slick operator and practised manipulator, but this particular attempt to debunk something is beyond the pale, beyond decency, stooping to the same low [or lower] as his antagonists.
Therefore your up thread sneer of folk who did precisely that, calling their reasonable words , “weasel words” was not justified.
If you have paid attention, I have not used the words ‘weasel words’, so your particular sneer falls flat.
Well I for one hope you continue to participate.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Hmmm. I just assumed I am not one of the half wits, but just realized I have no evidence to support that assumption 😉
davidmhoffer says:
July 12, 2014 at 10:20 pm
Hmmm. I just assumed I am not one of the half wits, but just realized I have no evidence to support that assumption 😉
But, at least statically, you have a 67% chance of not being one. 🙂 those are good odds.
JimS says:
Of those 600 delegates, how many would be bona fide climate scientists? I am just curious because the warmist alarmists I argue with always strongly contend that only the opinions of climate scientists really matter.
This qualifier tends not to apply to alarmist supporters.
Would a climate scientist who disagreed be subject to the “no true scotsman fallacy” too?
Strange, the data shows no warming for 17+ years despite CO2 increases, especially man’s, yet you get a 100% vote that CO2 causes warming!! I don’t think so. Time to drop this “CO2 must cause some warming” belief don’t you think, as the data does not support it.
From Ilma on July 12, 2014 at 10:52 pm:
Time to admit you are as shortsighted as the (C)AGW-pushers. We have a very complex climate system with many systems so interconnected we cannot claim to understand what is cause, effect, or feedback, as there are elements that can be all three at once!
They have pointed to one thing, (fossil!) CO2, and said “Ah-ha! That is it!” You note there hasn’t been warming for awhile, point to that one thing and say “Ah-ha! That cannot be it!”
Don’t you realize how stupid you sound? With a system this complex, with inherent feedback lags and over/under compensations, you cannot point to a pause and cite it as evidence one piece of the complexity has no effect. There are mechanisms yet to be hypothesized that are at work, for we do know we do not know all of them that are there. Until you know enough to show this is not a temporary masking of the CO2 signal, you cannot say it does not have an effect.
This is the age of being sustainable, and your position is not.
Several of us raised our hands in disagreement at some of the propositions put by Monckton, but he choose to look the other way. I was sitting at the back of the room and I could see there was not 100% agreement… perhaps 95%. I am again proud to be in the thinking minority. That Monckton wants to turn us into sheep, herding us in the direction of support for what he considers a more respectable position is upsetting. Then again Monckton is about as intellectual as Al Gore. Both good showmen keen to corral a support base. But count me out.
Ilma says:
July 12, 2014 at 10:52 pm
———————————-
“Time to drop this “CO2 must cause some warming” belief don’t you think, as the data does not support it.”
Far better to drop it because empirical experiment disproves it.
Jennifer Marohasy says:
July 13, 2014 at 12:11 am
———————————-
“I am again proud to be in the thinking minority.”
Sadly it’s always a minority. But that’s life on Planet Ocean.
Thank you for resisting the call of the herd.
Lord M,
Great that you have set the scene for this what appears to me, somewhat shoddy piece of academia.
I have a certain expertise with databases and I have come up with these figures.
“Endorsement” No of Papers Percentage
Explicitly endorses and quantifies AGW as 50+% 64 0.54
Explicitly endorses but does not quantify or minimise 922 7.72
Implicitly endorses AGW without minimising it 2910 24.36
No Position 7970 66.73
Implicitly minimizes/rejects AGW 54 0.45
Explicitly minimizes/rejects AGW but does not quantify 15 0.13
Explicitly minimizes/rejects AGW as less than 50% 9 0.08
I note that in the abstract it says “We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.
To claim that 97% of Scientists endorse the Anthropogenic Global Warming theory is a long shot indeed!
For you and any of those who are interested, my database (which connects directly to Cook’s text file copied from http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article, can identify the papers that appear under each “Endorsement”, category, year, author and publisher.
If anyone would like a search done under any of those categories I am happy to oblige. Just leave a message on my website http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com.
Cheers
Roger
ps. I have had my heated discussions with people at the Skepitical Science web site and could get no answers out of them, just many attermpts to side track and barn storm. I don’t think they would know facts and truths if one hit them between the eyes. Anything associated with them I personally dismiss – Cook et al with them.
“Jennifer Marohasy says:
July 13, 2014 at 12:11 am
Several of us raised our hands in disagreement at some of the propositions put by Monckton, but he choose to look the other way. I was sitting at the back of the room and I could see there was not 100% agreement… perhaps 95%. I am again proud to be in the thinking minority.”
This was good news indeed. Thank you Jennifer.
werner brozek says
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/07/11/the-climate-consensus-is-not-97-its-100/#comment-1683925
@werner
1) my data set
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/files/2013/02/henryspooltableNEWa.pdf
says it is cooling since 2000; most others say it is cooling from 2002.
2) there is no man made global warming
(look at the graph below the minima table: there is no room for any man made warming [that would affect minima] in the equation)
The Chicken Little political climatologists are a sad lot. Careers and funding depend upon demonizing a mostly innocuous gas and turning any normal weather or climate variation into a catastrophe. As we have seen, even volcanos and earthquakes become extensions of climate! They must huddle together to maintain any semblance of scientific dignity and fall behind a suspect and marginally irrational figure like Mr Gore to lead them. Only the media and like-minded political figures can maintain their moralistic righteousness in the face of a mountain of contrary data.
… and the strawman, (lsvalgaard), continues to distract the crows, (truth seekers) from the grain (the truth).
How has it become so easy ?
My 30 year old Bachelors in Philosophy from a state school in Pennsylvania (NO, not that one), has given me just enough common sense to avoid being sucked into such nonsense, even in spite of the Assbergers and the ADD.
What the hell is wrong with the rest of you ?
Jennifer Marohasy’s reply (July 13, 2014 at 12:11 am) is noteworthy. Her comments on MoB’s approach as a “showman keen to corral a support base” is consistent with everything I’ve seen. In this case you, in a post about abuse of stats by Cook et al, MoB’s headline “agree that we cause some global warming” staggeringly can’t even be justified from his 6 questions! you could at best only claim there is 100% agreement that it is LIKELY that we cause some global warming.
Jennifer then provides 1st hand eyewitness testimony that there were opposing views to the questions asked, conveniently ignored by MoB for the sake of a headline 100%… that is how prepared he is to bastardise observational evidence for the sake of a headline. At least with Cook you had to scrape away a bit to find some faults.
Lastly though Marohasy’s own ego is also noteworthy. She thinks the fact she disagreed with some of MoB’s questions makes her part of a thinking minority, when in fact it could just mean she is wrong. The ultimate in confirmation bias!
Mattb says:
July 13, 2014 at 6:02 am
ignored by MoB for the sake of a headline 100%… that is how prepared he is to bastardise observational evidence for the sake of a headline.
In my book that is called fraud.
Björn from Sweden: “[that Monckton appears to have fabricated rather than contrived his results] was good news indeed.”
Strongly disagree. A stunt may be defensible, outright fraud is not.
On half-wits:
“You know how stupid the average person is, right?
Well, half of them are stupider than that!”
– George Carlin
“Lastly though Marohasy’s own ego is also noteworthy. She thinks the fact she disagreed with some of MoB’s questions makes her part of a thinking minority, when in fact it could just mean she is wrong. The ultimate in confirmation bias!”
Well, to be fair she did not say she was right, only that she was thinking for her self.
In the long run it is better to think for your self and sometimes be wrong than to blindly obey.
Maybe the others were a thinking majority, let us hope so.
A couple thoughts on this post. First, it says:
Cook et al actually rated 12,465 abstracts. They simply didn’t include 521 in their data files. Oddly, they did include 336 of those 521 in their searchable database. You can read the details of what was and was not released here.
Second, this post offers two links to data files. The original one was to a PDF file. The original file released by Skeptical Science was more conveniently formatted, though the spreadsheet now included in the post may win out for some.
Third, while it’s true:
The issue of endorsement levels was known well before then. I discovered it within two days of the paper being published (see here). The discussion on my post led Marcel Crok to write an article within one day. There was never any excuse for people not to know about this problem. Anyone could have checked the Cook et al results the day the paper was released.
There was a politician a few years ago who declared that if we didn’t do something quickly, Antarctica would soon be the only habitable continent.
If we followed Leif and Moshe’s methodology, we would immediately assign this position to all warmistas.
lsvalgaard says:
July 11, 2014 at 5:49 pm
===============
For someone who doesn’t care, you spend a lot of time whining about it.
MarkW says:
July 13, 2014 at 6:57 am
For someone who doesn’t care, you spend a lot of time whining about it.
You must make a distinction between whining and calling out. And what is my opinion to you that you comment on it? I call that ‘whining’
Anyone else notice how Leif has managed to get us all talking about whether Mockton’s little “poll” was valid, instead of Mockton’s data regarding the real results of Cook’s survery.
Intentional? You decide.
lsvalgaard says:
July 13, 2014 at 6:59 am
==========
One post vs dozens? You decide.
lsvalgaard says:
July 12, 2014 at 5:31 pm
=============
More whining.
MarkW says:
July 13, 2014 at 7:18 am
Anyone else notice how Leif has managed to get us all talking about whether Mockton’s little “poll” was valid, instead of Mockton’s data regarding the real results of Cook’s survery.
Intentional? You decide.
Monckton has made that decision by the title of his posting: “The climate consensus is not 97% – it’s 100%.”
MarkW says:
July 13, 2014 at 7:19 am
One post vs dozens? You decide.
Decision made already.
MarkW says:
July 13, 2014 at 7:22 am
More whining.
I agree that you are still whining. Bring something to the table instead.
By Jennifer’s testimony it wasn’t merely a PR stunt – a cleverly designed set of questions to give a predetermined answer – it didn’t give the answer intended anyway. Good Lord, whats up with that!
HenryP says:
July 13, 2014 at 2:28 am
Thank you! But watch Hadsst3 over the next few months.
Response to lsvalgaard says:
July 12, 2014 at 10:11 pm
David A says:
July 12, 2014 at 9:55 pm
Did you fail to note that their scientific uselessness was a planned mockery of these scientific 97% reports?
=======================================
If so, I would have expected him to have stated right up front in this company that his stunt was a planned mockery. I did not see any such admission.
================
DA, Really? Did you see the title of the post?
Did you read this early in the post?… “That fundamental dishonesty was at the core of the Cook et al. “consensus” paper published last year. The authors listed three “levels of endorsement” supporting some sort of climate consensus.” Not having been at the conference I do not know the details of what was said. (either do you) However logically every attendant familiar with the CAGW issue understood his point. How you missed it is a mystery.
DA said…You should be cheering Monckton’s political skill in debunking the abuse of science by the warmist brigade, not ridiculing it.
=======================
Leif says… Monckton is, indeed, a slick operator and practised manipulator, but this particular attempt to debunk something is beyond the pale, beyond decency, stooping to the same low [or lower] as his antagonists.
————————————————————————————–
Response…That is silly. He is not passing it off as peer reviewed science. He is simply using an example of vague general questions to show the pitiful nature of the warmist brigade, cloaked in scientific robes of peer review and MSM parrots. There is nothing indecent about a skillful mockery of something that is in fact indecent. His actions are logical, and moral.
DA said…Therefore your up thread sneer of folk who did precisely that, calling their reasonable words , “weasel words” was not justified.
Leif says… If you have paid attention, I have not used the words ‘weasel words’, so your particular sneer falls flat.
==========================================
Response. True that, but a distinction without a difference, as here, lsvalgaard says:
July 11, 2014 at 2:01 pm, you support Mosher’s use of that term. Nothing in my post was a “sneer” as it was direct honest criticism. I consider the broad scale swipes at WUWT posters in general, which you and Mosher engage in, to be sneers.
David A says:
July 13, 2014 at 8:07 am
DA, Really? Did you see the title of the post?
I see that I can count you as one of Monckton’s sheep that Jennifer was talking about.