Guest essay by Eric Worrall
One Nation Federal Senator and hardcore climate skeptic Malcolm Roberts, who recently skewered TV Physicist Brian Cox on national TV, has demanded the Australian Chief Scientist provide evidence that humans cause climate change. The response so far is less than confident.
One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts asks chief scientist for proof humans cause climate change
One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts is yet to be convinced that climate change is real and is caused by humans.
He has asked chief scientist Dr Alan Finkel to spell out his logic in asserting that human-induced carbon emissions have been rising since the start of the Industrial Age, that this causes global warming and that warming produces climate change.
Senator Roberts told a Senate committee on Thursday his requested summary of the logic and the empirical evidence behind climate change did not need to be long.
“Like me – short and simple,” he said.
…
It had also been established that atmospheric CO₂ levels had been rising measurably from human activity since the start of the Industrial Age and that global temperature was rising.
The effect of warming on climate wasn’t clear.
“We have models to try to predict what that will be and that’s difficult,” Dr Finkel said, adding that models did predict significant climate change.
…
I suspect this challenge is going to get very uncomfortable for Australia’s chief scientist.
Malcolm Roberts, a qualified and highly experienced mining engineer, is one of the few elected Australian politicians with the skill and meticulous attention to detail required to dissect anything the bureaucrats who run government science organisations can throw at him.
His demand for proof that humans cause warming has struck at the weak point of the entire AGW scare campaign – because there isn’t any proof available to provide. Just a load of conjecture, based on a weak set of models which don’t work very well.
Most people agree that adding CO2, considered in isolation, should produce a mild warming effect. But the entire climate scare campaign is based on models which assume that the initial warming effect from anthropogenic CO2 is dramatically amplified by feedback, by climatic responses to the initial warming.
The problem is there is no evidence this amplification is actually occurring – models which assume amplification perform woefully when compared to real world observations, far worse than models which assume no amplification, or very little amplification.
I think it is a fair bet that the Roberts challenge to the Australian scientific community is going to be very interesting to watch. They government scientists cannot simply ignore Roberts. The current Aussie government almost lost the last election, so they desperately need the continued support of Roberts and other small party and independent senators to maintain control.
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Why does brian Cox’s picture strike me as Austin Powers with Ortho-correction?
As I am sitting here in my living room just ouside Melbourne, in what is supposed to be late spring, maybe Australia’s chief scientist can explain why I am freezing?
I have just watched the second hail storm of this afternoon, and my deck looks like it has been hit by a blizzard.
My cats refuse to go outside, and refuse to get off the heating vents.
Could Australia’s chief scientist please, please, send me some global warming?
it is cold also in Sydney it looks to contue cold till oct
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/10/22/12/47/coldest-cox-plate-in-history-set-to-chill-racegoers
Adelaide is experiencing a balmy, globally-warmed 11C
Tango: funny (sad) quote in the article, under the picture…
‘The coldest day on record for the race was in 1970, when the barometer reached just 12.9 degrees.’
It’s not October in Australia??
Steve: I thought barometers measured air pressure?
The IPCC’s AGW theory provides an explanation of all of Australia’s current meteorological states:
If it’s unusually cold, it’s the weather, … silly.
If it’s unseasonably warm, it’s “see, told ya so – manmade global warming”.
Early start to the fire season, apparently!
You must search for samthing to heat youself!😇😇😇
ditto wimmera
fcast 1c overnight
grounds boggy
Others agree.
m4gw
Nice little olf Ferguson tractor. I remember them well.
It is also late spring here in Brisbane, and the nights have been around the 12 to 16 degrees at night. Love the cool nights. I wonder when it is going to warm up?
Regards
Climate Heretic
And I’m 1000km further up in north Queensland where the days are starting to warm, but the nights are delightful.
Of course it’s all down to global warming. Some parts of Australia are nearly as warm as Antarctica.
A weakly disguised ad hominem attack was run in the magazine section of Australia’s only national newspaper today. It went through Roberts’ resume in detail in a thinly veiled attempt to discredit him and link him with other kooky theories. It crescendoed with a not usual line of how could a mining engineer with a reputation for being sloppy on detail know more about climate science the world’s top Climate Scientists (oh please). Of course the real issues being debated like, whether there actually is empirical evidence or not, is not given one sentence! In other words, the usual tactics.
The article in the Australian (Murdoch) is here. And here is what Andrew Bolt had to say following Malcolm Roberts’ “CSIROh!” manifesto:
“Malcolm, Your conspiracy theory seemed utterly stupid even before I knew which families you meant. Now checking the list of banking families you’ve given me, your theory becomes terribly, shamefully familiar. Two of the three most prominent and current banking families you’ve mentioned are Jewish, and the third is sometimes falsely assumed to be. Yes, this smacks too much of the Jewish world conspiracy theorising I’ve always loathed. Again, I insist: remove me from the list of people you claim are prepared to advise you. I’ve never advised you, Malcolm, and would never want to. I am offended to be linked to you. Andrew Bolt”
That was some time ago Nick. Quite recently Roberts has been given quite respectful treatment on Bolt’s SkyNews program.
Nick,
Sept 15, 2016, Malcom Roberts appeared on the Bolt Report. It’s fair to say that Bolt has moved on enough to engage senator Roberts and discuss the facts. What say you Nick?
It seems Andrew Bolt is prepared to be more flexible with a Senator. But the crackpottery that disturbed him doesn’t seem to have gone away. News Ltd, reporting on his maiden speech:
“The Senator, who had not held paid employment for eight years prior to election, said the international banking sector was “one of the greatest threats to our way of life” and called for a new publicly owned bank.
“This people’s bank would increase productivity … shield the manipulation of our economy by the tight-knit international banking sector,” he said”
More Bolt bashing Nick?
“The Senator,… said the international banking sector was “one of the greatest threats to our way of life” and called for a new publicly owned bank.”
He’s right about that, of course.
The only thing worse than privately owned banks, are publicly owned ones.
“RoHa October 23, 2016 at 7:49 pm
“The Senator,… said the international banking sector was “one of the greatest threats to our way of life” and called for a new publicly owned bank.”
He’s right about that, of course.”
Helen Clark, former PM of New Zealand (NZ), went to the public in 1999-ish with that election policy, create a “publicly owned bank”, Kiwi Bank. NZ *HAD* a “publicly owned bank”, it was called Post Bank. Sad thing is the “civil servants” who sold Post Bank to Australia NZ Bank in the 1980’s-ish, were the same “civil servants” who set up Kiwi Bank in the 2000’s-ish, with branches in Post Offices, which, I think, now no longer exist.
If they say he has a reputation for being sloppy, then they don’t know his reputation.
A good engineer is always biased. He knows that he has to deal with reality and only reality.
Along that same reasoning, what can a railroad engineer know about climate? Only enough to run the IPCC for a decade or so.
No knowledge of climate was necessary.
As we all came to see.
Trevor,…A weakly disguised ad hominem attack was run in the magazine section of…our national newspaper…
We are all aware that our National broadcaster…The ABC… will be outraged by this …weakly disguised ad hominem… against Malcolm Roberts and will ensure that its future coverage of The Senator will be a …blatant, upfront ad hominem with mocking, sarcasm and, if possible, character and academic assasination to boot…Thats Our ABC.
And even sections of our private enterprise MSM…Fairfax and The Guardian (well sorta private enterprise) will consider this a competition and will gleefully join in the Insult and slur.
Thats sections of Our MSM
Thanks to Champion Racing Mare… Winx…for a super performance to again win our Premier Open Age, Weight For Age Cox Plate.The Melbourne Cup is our Greatest Handicap Race Event and Carnival.
The Cox Plate is our Best Race event to find the best Horse.
On a rainy day (and we getting umpteen of rainy days here in Victoria) that the wind howled and blew a bitter cold over the city and state her ability astounded and warmed up the Spectators,Viewers and The State.
Even Our ABC was impressed!
“He has asked chief scientist Dr Alan Finkel to spell out his logic …”
That is a good question, and this is a bad answer:
“We have models to try to predict what that will be ….”
Not even IPCC spell out their logic – IPCC rely on models and spell out their confidence.
The basic physics is not even mentioned, and models are heavily adjusted to match observations:
« When initialized with states close to the observations, models ‘drift’ towards their imperfect climatology (an estimate of the mean climate), leading to biases in the simulations that depend on the forecast time. The time scale of the drift in the atmosphere and upper ocean is, in most cases, a few years. Biases can be largely removed using empirical techniques a posteriori. The bias correction or adjustment linearly corrects for model drift. The approach assumes that the model bias is stable over the prediction period (from 1960 onward in the CMIP5 experiment). This might not be the case if, for instance, the predicted temperature trend differs from the observed trend. It is important to note that the systematic errors illustrated here are common to both decadal prediction systems and climate-change projections. The bias adjustment itself is another important source of uncertainty in climate predictions. There may be nonlinear relationships between the mean state and the anomalies, that are neglected in linear bias adjustment techniques.»
(Ref: Contribution from Working Group I to the fifth assessment report by IPCC; 11.2.3 Prediction Quality; 11.2.3.1 Decadal Prediction Experiments )
“and models are heavily adjusted to match observations:”
But they are NOT. They are adjusted to match “adjusted” observations.
That means that even if the model is correct, it will still produce a warming trend.
It really is catch 22 for them.
Either use unadjusted data, and possibly get closer to reality, but destroy all NOAA’s hard work doing the adjustments..
or
be forever predicting/projecting too high.
And now , of course, the observations look like they are being adjusted to suit the models. !
You are right off course.
All Temperature Adjustments Monotonically Increase
This is the best correlation ever seen within climate science:
http://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/2016-01-14-04-18-24.png
Unfortunately for mankind it demonstrates near perfect correlation between adjustments by scientists and CO2 level.
These so-called scientists failed rule number 1: Never mess with the data.
Arghh- should have been: of course, of course! 🙂
A horse.
I thought ‘off course’ was a subtle allusion to the Pirates v CO2 correlation.
I would like Brian Cox, as Australia’s Chief Scientist, to explain the reason for the correlation of the various graphs shown in the link “Science or Fiction” provided above. If he can not provide a coherent logical explanation for this obvious display that implies complete fraud he should resign.
http://realclimatescience.com/all-temperature-adjustments-monotonically-increase/
“I would like Brian Cox, as Australia’s Chief Scientist”
Brian Cox is not Australia’s Chief Scientist.
I would like ANYONE (mebbe even nick), as protector of the flame, to explain the reason for the correlation of the various graphs shown in the link “Science or Fiction” provided above. If he can not provide a coherent logical explanation for this obvious display that implies complete fraud he should stop picking and choosing when to be honest.
So Nick Stokes, just who IS “Australia’s Chief Scientist”? Please provide a name so Roberts can ask him the same question. (You’re not going to hide that information for fear of exposing this meme we know as CAGW, are you?)
I thought Dr. Alan Finkel was Australia’s chief scientist.
The word Goop springs to mind!
“Biases can be largely removed using empirical techniques a posteriori.”
Which means they pull all this out of their… ah… posteriors.
Oh my – you just gave me the greatest laugh ever! 🙂 🙂 🙂 D) D) D)
Which empirical techniques they used, to pull this out off their posteriors, I will not even think about!
😉
“models are heavily adjusted to match observations:” Should that not be “observations are heavily adjusted to match the models’ ? Certainly I have heard that story from New Zealand. Sounds like an adjustment to me. But the greatest farce is pretending that CO2 rise leads temperature rise.CO2-Temperature Correlation 15% of 165 Years http://notrickszone.com/2016/08/04/non-existent-relationship-co2-temperature-correlation-only-15-of-last-165-years Global Warming Debunked at Senate Hearing 3/26/13 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFyH-b3FRvE
Well said except that coming from the models are not predictions. To call them “projections” eliminates the logical glitch.
Malcolm Roberts has long run The Galileo Movement on Facebook. He is extremely well armed when it comes to repudiating rubbish by presenting facts to support his case. Well acquainted with trolls. He is lucky in that he hitched his wagon to a movement led by a woman who has campaigned on the hard right of politics, even to the point of being wrongly imprisoned , which in Australia is a first ever. He did this as the weak governing parties slumped to the left and a huge slab of the population voted extreme Right for the first time in their lives rather than vote Left. He is sitting pretty because had already had a large Facebook support group. Since election the population in Australia that support his group has quadrupled from 4% to 16%. We have had “Denier” scientists in government before, but 1) not with his conviction and 2) not with his powerful leverage as his group is the largest minority our upper house, without their consent its impossible to legislate anything. Australia may at last see some of the other side of the CAGW debate. And finally as a Senator what he says has to be reported, replied to, and the government can’t rubbish him. He is going to stir things up.
Ted,
Just a few ‘adjustments’ to your Senate data. Actual ones not Climate Science ones from NASA or NOAA.
Our Aussie Senate is The Lesser or The House of Review.
It has 76 Senators and the Current Government has 30 senators so it needs another 9 senators to fully pass its House of Reps (The Senior House) legislation.
Recent elections saw the Greens get 9 Senate Seats while Ms Hanson and One Nation got 4 reps. Labor has 26 while small parties make up the rest. 7 seats left made up of a varied and sometimes interesting bunch who sometimes vote with or against Govt Legislation or negotiate amendments.
So while One Nation is important to the government it still needs all of One Nation and then 5 more senate votes from the other parties, big or small, to get its legislation reviewed and then passed.
Ms Hanson does seem well placed to increase her representation level and the Engineering and Private Enterprise skills of Senator Roberts are welcome in our political arena that is so represented by professional pollies but, as is often stated here regarding the matter of prediction, the future does not always cooperate with our predictions…not that being falsified is of any concern to our Climate Doomster Scientists.
My apologies for “misspeaking”. As you clarify, One Nation being a block of 4 being the largest block in a gaggle which has another block of 3 then sundries. In the Lesser House which has the absolute right to block anything even supply.
“based on a weak set of models which don’t work very well.” That is the understatement of the year. The models are unvalidated and don’t work at all. Basing policy on unvalidated and worthless models is pure madness.
There is no evidence that rising CO2 levels result in global warming – on the contrary, CO2 assists in cooling the planet.
As the world’s top climatologists would say, “it’s just basic physics”.
Ah but you see, climate scientists don’t need no stinking understanding or qualification in fizzicks, like our Tim Flannery, he has English Lit as his first degree level qualification.
“English Lit ”
Just like Mosh does. 😉
Or an MA in History? Like me?
I enjoin you-all not to forget that science is not anything a scientist does. Science is science anyone does.
“Evan Jones October 22, 2016 at 4:56 am”
Yes, but you are not in a position of “authority” and in an “advisory” position to Govn’t and Govn’t policy that affects millions in taxes.
Actually, I am doing peer-review level work as part of Anthony’s team. So that means it will play a part in the policy arena. (Our hypothesis has, after all, already been presented to congress.)
My point being that it’s the quality and value of the actual work that counts, not the number of sheepskins hanging over the fireplace.
Mosh and I play not dissimilar roles in all this. My notion is that he is better than I am — but I have the decisive advantage of barking up the right tree.
Nothing wrong with English Lit qualifications and in defence of Our Tim, he does have a PhD in Palaeontology. But the English qualifications should have made him more aware of the subtleties of English.
He sometimes gets carried away. A quote from an Interview on ABC TV’s Landline in 2007..
“That’s because the soil is warmer because of global warming and the plants are under more stress and therefore using more moisture. So even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and our river systems, and that’s a real worry for the people in the bush”.
So did he say the dams won’t fill again or not?
“Greg K October 23, 2016 at 10:20 pm
Nothing wrong with English Lit qualifications and in defence of Our Tim, he does have a PhD in Palaeontology.”
Even so, and with abundant evidence that he has actually documented in TV shows that coral reefs existed millions of years ago are now ABOVE current sea levels. He still believes CO2 is the driver of doom.
Surely it’s time to say the models are INvalidated rather than UNvalidated? How many times do they have to fail before we can reject them?
“The models are unvalidated and don’t work at all. Basing policy on unvalidated and worthless models is pure madness.” Right on!
“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” — Yogi Berra
Which is why it’s necessary to control the future of course.
He who controls the past…
Those who control the present control the past.
Attribution is incorrect, it is a Danish proverb that was first published about a parliamentary speach around 1938.
Det er vanskeligt at spaa, især naar det gælder Fremtiden.
English: It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.
Link: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/10/20/no-predict/
Apply Stigler’s law to Yogi quotes.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigler%27s_law_of_eponymy
When the alarmists ask sceptics “But is he a Climate Scientist?”, it is meant as a put down. If we were to ask about Australia’s Chief Scientist on his qualifications, would that be seen as a fair question? Or one which we should not ask?
‘Dr Finkel was awarded his PhD in electrical engineering from Monash University and worked as a postdoctoral research fellow in neuroscience at the Australian National University.’
http://www.chiefscientist.gov.au/about/biography-2/
I find it funny the way “Climate Scientist” is being used in the media these days almost as if they were somehow special – the cream of the science community; not just a scientist but a CLIMATE scientist.
“If we were to ask about Australia’s Chief Scientist on his qualifications”
So what is the argument? That the Government should always choose a climate scientist as Chief Scientist? It was Sen Roberts who chose to direct his questions to Dr Finkel.
Ya know what, nicky? You are right. NO ONE should ever be asking climate questions of people such as bill nye, david suzuki, michael mann…
If the so-called Chief Scientist doesn’t know anything about climate science he shouldn’t make any statements about it.
Can’t have it both ways Nick, even if you are a far-left socialist operative.
Nick, I’m assuming lee’s remark was in response to Trevor’s comment upthread about that newspaper article. In that context his question made sense to me.
Nick,
Are you being deliberately obtuse? Lee’s point was clearly that the ubiquitous put-down of skeptics by the consensus is that the skeptics are not climate scientists and thus not worthy of notice. Lee is merely pointing out the irony of the situation. You are not a climate scientist either but personally I think your acquired knowledge of the subject entitles you respect, certainly more so than the Gores and Suzukis that the consensus appears to hold in esteem. Nevertheless, you clearly have an agenda that colors your arguments.
@Nick Stokes
“So what is the argument? That the Government should always choose a climate scientist as Chief Scientist?”
“If” a government were to select a Chief Scientist who was a sceptic, would your response be so cavalier?
“Lee is merely pointing out the irony of the situation.”
So what is the irony of the situation? Dr Alan Finkel, a neuroscientist, was appointed a year ago as Chief Scientist. Malcolm Roberts chose to direct questions about global warming to him. Dr Finkel made no claims of special competence. He was before the Senate Committee, and he did his best to answer. I think he did very well.
Nick,
Robert says “Lee is merely pointing out the irony of the situation”, and you fail to understand the irony.
Irony is not a tough concept, but maybe for you, a better understanding could be achieved if the term “irony” was replaced with “hypocracy”.
You know what Nick, i’ve made a decision that you’re not as clued up as you would like us to believe. The very admission that Dr Finkel cannot and will not answer the question because he knows that if he tries to explain away the empirical evidence, the game will be over. Right now and rightly so, Senator Roberts has him by the balls.
‘Or one which we should not ask?;
I guess that is Nick’s position. 😉
Not only is there no evidence of these positive feedbacks occurring now, there is absolutely no evidence thar they ever have, even when it has been warmer than today. If they existed, any warming would invoke them, and our climate would be a veritable rollercoaster. The fact that it is not is such an obvious proof of the falicy of the feedback argument that I’m amazed that any half-educated person could even entertain it, let alone believe it.
That is correct. Feedbacks operate all along. They do not leap fully grown and armed from the head of Zeus.
“Feedbacks operate all along.”
No-one said otherwise. What we have is new forcings for them to amplify.
“What we have is new forcings for them to amplify.”
Mr. Know-it-all: Who the hell is “We”?
Positive climate feedbacks(amplifications of slight perturbations) would define an unstable climate.
Observations all point to a stable climate. (Small perturbations in climate are negated by this stability.volcanic eruptions for instance.)
This is not science. This is common sense.
Willis E did a post on this atmospheric stability.
Did you not read that?
“What we have is new forcings for them to amplify.”
Rubbish,
Atmospheric CO2 levels have been an order of magnitude greater in the past, and the planet didn’t self-immolate.
In fact, it has never been so hospitable to life before or since.
Nick, did no-one ever tell you that in nature, systems that suffer from positive feedback from components that are naturally present don’t exist? Or not for long, at any rate!
Yes and no. That there are feedback loops is not in question. (Note, these are internal feed backs, not external). However, their relative magnitude, whether they reinforce or go against each other, and their linearity is in question. All real-world systems have multiple feedback elements, for instance, in electronics, through parasitic capacitance and inductive coupling. However, they can be ignored for most purposes because they’re so small.
Also, the Earth’s climate is a chaotic system, as covered in other WUWT articles, and those feedback loops form a large part of making it so. “Veritable roller coaster” – well, it actually is, when one bothers to look at a long enough stretch, say 100k years or so. The chaotic nature of the climate insures that it will always be so. At best and worse, some additional CO2 will push back or bring forward the next glaciation by a few thousand years.
For everyone’s entertainment, here’s a 13 min excerpt of Cox vs Roberts:
And here’s the annual climate statement for 2015 in Australia. Note the more extreme rainfall/rising temperatures from around 1970-ish onwards:
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/annual/aus/2015/
Wow absolute consensus! Where did the 3% get to? Gosh this guy spouts nonsence and the adjudicator is giving this guy the lions share of the time!
And where did he get his figures from? Sea level rise is how much? 70 mm higher than 1993? Hello 10 inches since 1880 in the US and 1.7mm per year since records began.
And those graphs with the long Y axis are simply designed to mislead!
Cheers
Roger
https://thedemiseofchristchurch.com/2016/05/06/six-reasons-why-you-should-worry-about-climate-change/
And here is the full BOM graph back to 1900, rather than a cherry picked 1970-ish, that shows extreme rainfall is declining
Assuming that data from 1940 onwards is relatively accurate, a possible 22 year (solar magnetic) cycle appears to be present.
I would appreciate if you could post the link to the data if available. Thanks.
I almost made it to the end but had to admit defeat with only 31 seconds to go!
As Paracelsus said, the dose makes the poison and when it comes to over-indulging in Brian Cox I clearly have a lower tolerance than the audience did.
There is no doubt in his mind that he is correct and, to me, this is not a commendable trait for any scientist when discussing any real-world complex system like our climate. I suspect that Richard Feynman would have agreed with me on this or, more likely, it would have been me that agreed with him!
Cox never supplied proof. Why? You can never supply proof about the future, and he knows it. Cox is a believer – not a scientist. How does he live with himself and with all of the obfuscation that goes with attempts to make sooth-saying seem like science?
J Bird, you could say the same about Nick Stokes how does he live with himself!!, well I do see a slight improvement in Nick over the years, I figure he knows the error of his past, but like many who got on the brief Scary Global Warming, climate changing and extremes that can be promoted as scares gravy train, they find it hard to get off. The insider believers like Cook get an armchair ride with help from their mates who also got on the same gravy train. They do know, that the wheels are falling off the Global Warming meme and the propaganda reasons for the spurious adjustments and magical assumptions. It would be funny, except for the number of good scientists and others they have set about to destroy in the promotion of their crazy elitist propaganda. I like Matt Ridley’s take down of the whole meme. The meme is destroying itself, and the rise of the One Nation party in Australia is a good example of the increasing anger that ordinary middle class but thinking people have about this issue. I hope to see Nick Stokes recant his beliefs and become a true scientist one day. Meanwhile Malcolm Roberts keep hammering away in support of real scientists and the scientific method.
I hope Malcolm Roberts has a strong backbone. The next 30 days the Ministry of Truth will subject him to the usual withering assault on him, his background, and anyone associated with him. Hang tough, Malcolm.
Yup hang tough Malcolm you are my hero!
You forgot the /sarc tag
Whoops, my bad!
I thought you were referring to Turnbull.
Too much Sarurday night indulgence.
So sorry.
William, sorry about that old son, but I have been studying this thing with every spare moment I have had for the last 10 years. Malcolm Roberts is absolutely correct and you better believe it.
He has a tough job but believe me he is on your side and mine!
Here is the Richard Feynman video he mentions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL6-x0modwY and here is an accompanying graph for your perusal. https://rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com/roy-spencers-graph/
Good luck
Cheers
Roger
https://thedemiseofchristchurch.com/2016/05/06/six-reasons-why-you-should-worry-about-climate-change/
‘Most people agree that adding CO2, considered in isolation, should produce a mild warming effect.’
Yes but that only works if the air is dry, damp air neutralizes the effect and modelling the biggest greenhouse gas (water vapor) is proving difficult.
Oh it’s not difficult, just take a bunch of erroneous models, run them and take an average. Then claim you have a projection of future in your hands.
Should anyone be suspicious, call them deniers.
In only 14 days of Senate sitting, Malcolm Roberts has shown himself to be THE standout performer. The left will, as all liars do, look for microscopic indiscretions and make mountains of these molehills, like it is some monster scandal. Any “scandal” they dig up or invent, as liars like doing, since people instinctively believe the first thing they are told, then work out it is BS later, will eventually be forgotten.
Hopefully, Malcolm will be able to make the CSIRO crack that the modelling of positive feedback does not work, invalidating ALL the insane measures proposed.
Sad to say Malcolm Roberts doesn’t float my boat.
This is a quote from his ‘maiden speech’ to the Australian Senate:
“Here are more undeniable facts proven by data: firstly, changes in the carbon dioxide level are a result of changes in temperature, not a cause …”.
There he seems to be, in fact is, repudiating the basic physics of the GH effect.
Of course CO2 can be both a cause and effect of rising temperatures; as others point out the contentious issues are how much warming, the balance of costs to benefits of so called mitigation policies etc.
Climate Change™ alarmism, is irrational and destructive, I think Senator Roberts’ apparent ill-founded denial of the basic physics of the GH effect is sadly counterproductive.
Actually he is right. If you look at the long term record you will see that CO2 rises about 800 years AFTER there has been a temperature rise. This is because a warming ocean releases CO2. It is nothing to do with the GH effect, it is simply the fact that he is talking about the planet, not the laboratory and the fact is that gases are less soluble in warmer liquids.
“If you look at the long term record you will see that CO2 rises about 800 years AFTER there has been a temperature rise …”.
======================================
Everyone who has looked at the topic knows that, by flatly denying that adding CO2 to the atmosphere has no effect on temperature makes him look ridiculous and simply supplies ammunition to the alarmists
“Chris Hanley October 22, 2016 at 12:45 am
Everyone who has looked at the topic knows that, by flatly denying that adding CO2 to the atmosphere has no effect on temperature makes him look ridiculous and simply supplies ammunition to the alarmists”
Where is your proof that the emissions of CO2 from human activities *IS* having an effect on temperature?
*crickets chirping*
Chris, nobody has made that claim. I am trying to explain to you what Malcolm Roberts said. Read my post again and try and understand the point.
Are you aware of the ocean outgassing phenomenon?
All I can suggest is that you people read this:
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/global-greening-versus-global-warming/
The video is here:
Here we go again, falling back on the old “basic physics” nonsense. There is no ” basic physics” behind the so-called greenhouse effect – except in a real greenhouse.
Thank you Phillip. The earth’s eco system is as far from basic physics as Einstein’s special relativity, string theory or quantum mechanics.
There’s almost no ‘greenhouse effect’ in a greenhouse either. How do polytunnels work? Polyethylene is transparent to IR (unless specially formulated to prevent crop scorching).
“Here we go again, falling back on the old “basic physics” nonsense. There is no ” basic physics” behind the so-called greenhouse effect – except in a real greenhouse.”
If you are saying there is no GHE acting in Earth’s climate system – then what is it that makes the Earth 33C warmer than what it’s temperature would be from TSi absorbed alone?
“If you are saying there is no GHE acting in Earth’s climate system – then what is it that makes the Earth 33C warmer than what it’s temperature would be from TSi absorbed alone?”
Add a radiative gas to a non-radiative atmosphere and the average temperature lifts-off from the surface. Gravity causes the radiative gas, even a well mixed one, to be in higher concentration at the base of the atmospheric column. A thermometer placed there will record a higher temperature than what would be found from TSI absorbed alone. The difference in temperature between Earth’s average radiation temperature to space (-18.5 degC) and average temperature at bottom of atmosphere (14.4 degC) defines the total lapse between the two and with the distance between them, the lapse rate. It is basic physics.
Once you accept that then it is easy to understand that the TSI is the one energy source and only a delay in it passing through the complexity of Earth’s system can cause an increase in energy within it. Climate science ignores that and has two other ideas: back radiation being one and the idea that increasing CO2 raises the height of average radiation to space “where that greater height is colder”. The problem is that the first invents an additional energy source and the second ignores the fact that only a change in albedo can affect the average radiating temperature as becomes apparent from the Stephan-Boltzman Law.
In fact, adding CO2 will raise temperature at the bottom of the atmosphere because it will lift the height of the average radiating temperature (at the expense of the temperature of the actual surface), assuming the lapse rate remains steady and water vapour, clouds and albedo play along. That would be a big assumption but on the evidence so far for temperature change – nothing to worry about.
“In fact, adding CO2 will raise temperature at the bottom of the atmosphere because it will lift the height of the average radiating temperature (at the expense of the temperature of the actual surface), assuming the lapse rate remains steady and water vapour, clouds and albedo play along. That would be a big assumption but on the evidence so far for temperature change – nothing to worry about.”
Correct.
So the GHE exists.
Well done. Go to the top of the class!
Caused by the ~1% of the non-condensing GH gases, chief among them CO2.
WV adding a feedback to that … as it cannot be present in a higher quantity that the air temp can support….
Except it is “something to worry about”.
ToneB above “Correct.
So the GHE exists.
Well done. Go to the top of the class!
… it is “something to worry about”.
Do you have anything to add other than condescension and conjecture?
“Do you have anything to add other than condescension and conjecture?”
Err …. Science.
Try reading it.
However you won’t find it here.
Toneb: “Err …. Science.”
Err …. No.
Unfortunately, Roberts is lacking in some very simple research. Namely that
(1) the greenhouse effect is logarithmic, meaning that although it’s a real phenomenon, some 90% of its total possible effect on temperature occurs for the first 100ppm of CO2 (someone will know the actual numbers). This is the GHG warming cause-effect bandied about by alarmists to “cover” everything, and the “proven science” they quote, almost always out of context.
(2) the CO2 follows the temperature over the glacial/interglacial (Milankovitch) cycles from absorption/degassing of the oceans. This was one of the graphs the gawky grinning Cox printed off Google just before the show. It was this that Roberts could have used to expose Cox for the second-rate scientist/ ignorant alarmist shill that he is. A missed opportunity.
My thought exactly. So much more effective would have been, “Well, we asked for proof, and you say ‘these two graphs’. But one graph shows CO2 up-down-up-down; the other, temp up up up, so not only no proof, not even correlation. Did the temp go up-down-up-down with CO2? But there’s a larger point, Prof Cox. If the graphs did correlate, would it prove cause? Prove CO2 drives temp, or temp drives CO2? You say your two graphs are proof, consensus too. So if I show your temp graph and another graph of Brian Cox income or Brian Cox time-on-telly going up up up, does that prove Brian Cox is causing temp to go up up up? Or is temp causing Brian Cox to be on tv more? Would the proof be in whether 97% of audience agrees? The audience can see that we didn’t get an answer, so can we please see proof that man burning stuff causes temp to go up?” When addressing adjustments, he should have taken Cox’s temp graph, and a sharpie, and explain to audience, “here is how this looked before 2007 (as he draws the ’40s spike=’98, then the real pause up to ’07) and get Cox to admit that’s what it showed before NASA’s adjustments. Cox would evade, but one can force the admission to what NASA graphs showed pre-adjustment. Missed opportunity indeed.
To Chris Hanley:
Thank you for your posts about the lecture by Matt Ridley.
I printed the lecture. Also, listening to the lecture added much to my understanding the numerous issues he presented.
“We have models to try to predict what that will be and that’s difficult,” Dr Finkel said, adding that models did predict significant climate change”
Did the models mention anything of ‘changes in the near future’ which would ’cause us to reevaluate a close relationship with a loved one’? Was there any mention of the colour green or a tall dark stranger? Has my aunt Mabel made contact from the other side??
At least Mystic Meg could answer those questions.
First it was an embarrassing fail, then a creditable job, now it’s Malcolm did the skewering.
Malcolm is looking through the wrong end of the telescope and so are you Eric.
Cranks who post their conspiracy theory nonsense on blogs are one thing but when they enter parliament their nuttiness must be very closely scrutinized.
Sure sounds like an ad hom.. I can’t make sense of your post.
“I suspect this challenge is going to get very uncomfortable for Australia’s chief scientist.”
Yes, Surely it is. The only empirical evidence presented to relate warming to emissions is a strong correlation between cumulative values. This correlation is spurious.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309192593_EFFECTIVE_SAMPLE_SIZE_OF_THE_CUMULATIVE_VALUES_OF_A_TIME_SERIES
It has been proposed that there should be a correlation at decadal or multi-decadal time scales but no such correlation can be found in the data
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308761991_GENERATIONAL_FOSSIL_FUEL_EMISSIONS_AND_GENERATIONAL_WARMING_A_NOTE
Buy William Brigg’s book on certainty. Not that you need it too much.
Are you Certain of that?
So is Steve McIntyre who, with Steve McKitrick, debunked Michael Mann’s hockey stick.
Geologists tend to be skeptical of global warming because they take a long view of the climate. Mining engineers tend to be a particularly skeptical bunch. They decide whether to invest tens of millions of dollars in mining ventures. They get used to being lied to by prospectors and promoters and they have the skills, knowledge, and motivation to unpack those lies.
“So is Steve McIntyre who, with Steve McKitrick, debunked Michael Mann’s hockey stick.”
Oh, OK – did he “debunk” the dozens that followed afterwords from different studies…..
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/shared/research/fig4b.jpg
Yeah he did — all those studies used the same cherry picked proxies, the same merry little band of liars doing the “peer review’, the same truncation of data after about 1960 because the tree rings were showing cooling when they wanted warming. The post 1960 data is the “adjusted” data spliced onto the proxy record – a BIG no-no. Read the Wegman report – he spells it out.
Also McIntyre’s web site, climateaudit.org.
Yeh. And Santer, and a myriad of other sh1t science. Read his site if your education is up to it.
Many of the newer studies at least show that there was a MWP, not the completely flat nonsense that Mann showed. And Steve McIntyre also shows (using statistical analysis) that they cherry pick which proxies to include or discard and that these choices often greatly affect the overall appearance and things such as how steep and warm the modern period appears and whether the MWP was more global than local (although I note that the modern warming is actually mostly NH just like older warming). And many of the ones that get the most attention splice the modern thermometer records on the end. Was it Marcott who admitted that the 20th century portion of his reconstruction “was not robust”?
I love all these graphs that splice unfiltered instrumental data onto heavily filtered paleo data and end right at the El Nino spike of 1998. If you show all the real error bars and the pause there is plenty of room for the Little Ice Age, Medieval Warming period and so on, they just want to filter those out to fool us.
I saw a talk by Michael Mann at a local university in the late 2000s. He was still showing graphs that end in 2000.
If the Hockey Stick is so validated and true why is it not in the latest IPCC reports? I see the later dotted lines that pretend to show warming starting in 1500 but show no data before then, Mann et al 2003 and so on. Why are they suddenly backing off from the concept that the human caused warming started in 1950? Is it because the pause shows that idea to be nonsense? The pause is now longer than the so called “human caused global warming signal” they were so proud of in 1998. The pause busters tidied up the graph some but it is still some 2x lower than the predictions.
Time to let it go, Toneb. Nobody looks sillier than the folks that fell for a hoax like the Piltdown Man.
Meanwhile Toneb,you leave out OTHER groups who have studied the past,such as HISTORIANS and GEOLOGISTS,who have deciphered the existence of the MWP and LIA very well.
The chart you posted is for the NORTHERN Hemisphere only,which makes his claim incomplete anyway.
“Time to let it go, Toneb. Nobody looks sillier than the folks that fell for a hoax like the Piltdown Man.”
Yep, that’s *sceptic* logic all right.
On the one hand we have the vast majority of climate scientists saying one thing, with a tiny minority of others (in this case NOT a climate scientist ) saying the opposite.
In the case of Piltdown man – we have a hoax perpetrated by one man on a whole community of archaeologists.
In other words it is vastly more likely that the one can fool the majority (ie seem to be correct) for a time (Piltdown was very early in on in the find of acient human ancestry attribution – 1912), but not the majority (be wrong) over the minority.
But the thing is – it’s the one man who has you (in this case) in his sway.
Why? Because you are invested in him being correct.
Science doesn’t care who’s correct – just that it is correct, and that’s the motivation of a scientist in any field. To be correct.
Ergo – it’s not wrong for long.
Hence the debunking of McIntrye’s debunking.
Especially since it’s 18 years since first published.
Toneb: It’s very early in the “science” of global warming—less than 40 years intense study. So fooling people, by your logic, should still be pretty easy. Plus, rather than an actual physical artifact, global warming is math, adjustments and pretty graphs (per Michael Man’s own admission—colored graphs were what convinced him AGW was serious). In time, the fact that the majority was fooled comes out—even with global warming.
“It’s not wrong for that long” is false as it comes. Science most certainly does care where its funding comes from, scientist suffer from not wanting to look foolish so pushing their theory becomes more important than the truth. What you are describing as a scientist is a robot, not human being.
It’s also not a tiny percentage. Well done research (not Cook and Lew) show about 40% of scientists disagree, depending on how the questions are asked and what is included in the “belief” criteria. All surveys and studies outcomes depend entirely on how questions are asked, assuming you ask any and don’t just assign belief to paper abstracts.
McIntyre is “debunked” the same way everything else is in global warming—swapping out data ranges, using different statistical methods, etc. When you play with data and statistics, you can prove anything. Literally anything. If you can adjust the data, it just makes it easier.
Toneb,
In a word, yes.
“Toneb: It’s very early in the “science” of global warming—less than 40 years intense study.”
No, Arrhenius came up with the basic idea ~150years ago and models only give an answer to the GHE of CO2 around that calculated by him.
It’s empirical science
“So fooling people, by your logic, should still be pretty easy. ”
Yes it is – if you buy into the confirmation bias, of those spinning the contrary.
Science doesn’t have any.
As it’s instant kudos to those that find out the *fooling* science.
So you therefore must involke conspiracy/incompetence …. beaten by the ability to Google stuff on the internet.
“Plus, rather than an actual physical artifact, global warming is math, adjustments and pretty graphs”
Only if you don’t understand the science my friend … or more likely here, don’t want to.
“In time, the fact that the majority was fooled comes out—even with global warming.”
No, in time those that wanted to be fooled by the minority of *invested* commentators ( McIntyre is NOT a scientist … and neither is Ridley … or Monckton).
Get my drift?
http://www.csicop.org/si/show/strange_problems_in_the_wegman_report
And then you have the Wegman Report debunked.
Where’s the truth? How do you find it in a sea of misinformation?
Toneb, I notice you don’t use Marcott. Is that because thry said 20th century warming was not robust? Or perhaps that the uptick was because of the methodology used?
Toneb: You aren’t seriously saying Arrhenius’s theory is all there is to climate science. Without feedbacks and forcings, CO2 is inadequate. And Arrhenius thought that CO2 warming was beneficial. Why would that have changed if Arrhenius’s theory was all-encompassing? Empirical science that uses one factor in hundreds is not empirical at all.
Confirmation bias works both ways. It amazes me that somehow believers in AGW or CAGW think they are free of the phenomena. Unless you’re a robot and not a person, your confirmation bias drives you to believe what you want to believe, just as anyone else’s, in the same amount you claim the skeptics are affected. You are just as blind as those who don’t believe, if you believe confirmation bias is the major factor in this debate. You are not pure as the new fallen snow and free of bias. You BELIEVE.
I never invoke conspiracy. AGW people invoke the conspiracy of Big Oil all the time, yet, again, you overlook your own side behaving as you chastise others for.
I understand the science just fine—I can actually do statistical calculations, test hypotheses, etc. Not a problem.
“Invested commentators” like Michael Mann, Gavin Schmidt, etc? Again, you show your own complete lack of understanding of confirmation bias. You believe only those who you agree with. Perhaps further study of the phenomena would help, though there are none so blind as the “true believer”.
SteveRoss McKitrickmea culpa
Interesting to note that YouTube’s snippet of the August Q & A session is trailed as ‘Cox …destroys Roberts’!
Fortunately, a good number of the BTL comments put the matter straight.
I’ve heard it said that the best way to predict the future is to study the past. Climate models have it backwards.
No, they study the past by back forecasting and then they can predict the future accurately. See how it works :)))
I see. Any time somebody makes a claim like that my first instinct is to hold onto my wallet. Then I ask to see where they have ‘forecast’ the past. Then the snickers and guffaws start to burst out.
“Climate Change” is such a capricious and duplicitous term used by Leftists to avoid clarity.
There is ZERO empirical evidence indicating any clear signal of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW). That’s why Leftists go apoplectic whenever the correct and definitive term CAGW is logically used.
There hasn’t been a discernible global warming trend in 20 years, despite 30% of all manmade CO2 emissions since 1750 being made over just the last 20 years.
The only “manmade” warming over the past 20 years has been the massive raw data manipulation conducted by pro-CAGW grant hounds, which proves corruption and malfeasance, not the efficacy of the CAGW hypothesis. Unmanipulated global temp data show CAGW to be a disconfirmed hypothesis under the criteria of the scientific method.
CAGW is dead, dead, dead… In 5~7 years, it will be laughed at.
Not dead, just suppressed. It will pop up in another “guise”…as the next “planetary emergency”…some day. I really hope there are intelligent beings out there that will stop by this rock and say hi!
Don’t hold up much hope if they can tune in to our radio.
Patrick-san:
I think the political blowback against Leftist ideology will be spectacular following the demise of the biggest and most expensive Leftist scam in human history.
Leftist ideology has utterly destroyed the world economy, ruined Western Civilization and cost 100 million lives at the hands of Leftist despots over the past 100 years.
The world is on the cusp of a huge economic collapses from 100 years of Leftists running up $100 trillion in sovereign debt, failed Keynesian economic policies, fiat currencies, insane monetary policies, excessive government control of science and the economy.
Like CAGW, Leftist ideology is destined to fail because it doesn’t work, it only destroys.
SAMURAI: I’d love to believe that. Unfortunately the socialists have conned most of the people into believing that all of the world’s problems result from the free market being insufficiently regulated.
It will get even more interesting after Malcolm Roberts has his meeting with Tony Heller.
Malcolm Roberts is having to ask questions as a result of the scientific method not being followed . True scientists purse the truth while lobbyist’s create their version of truth to suit their lobby interest .
The Creepy Climate Clowns pretend their propaganda is based on proven scientific theory in order to create a false aura of credibility because on their own they have zero credibility . Al Gore has virtually no
scientific credibility himself so like the little clique of AG’s witch hunting Exxon it is all about being seen to be aligning with people that should be credible . Same pattern exactly .
Malcolm Roberts is going to absolutely shred the exaggerated claims of the global warming complex and the closer he gets the more security he is going to need .
Isn’t it refreshing when a politician isn’t bullied or bought ? Mr . Roberts strikes me as being like one of those little white dogs that once they sink their teeth into you have to almost kill them to let go . (No disrespect intended )
Well done Mr. Roberts . There is hope when people like you don’t suffer fools .
The Creepy Climate Clowns days are numbered .
But we know as fact that when we burn fossil fuels which produce a variety of products, we are not adding CO2 in isolation For example, we are taking oxygen out of the system and replacing it with other gases including water vapour, and in so doing we are greening the planet and this is impacting upon both the water cycle and on the carbon cycle.
We may know the laboratory properties of CO2 under laboratory conditions, but planet Earth is not laboratory conditions.
It is patently absurd and disingenuous to talk about adding CO2 in isolation.
This why the question as to whether there is any Climate Sensitivity to CO2, and if so how much can only be answered by observation. Unfortunately our data is of poor quality, much of it is so bastardized as to be rendered useless, the data is extremely noisy due to the impact of natural variation and the error bounds of our data sets are large. It is for that reason that we have been unable to eek out the signal (if any) to CO2 in these data sets.
Given the poor state of our data sets, that are not fit for scientific purpose, there is no prospect in the immediate future of answering the question posed, namely the evidence of CO2 induced climate change.
I find it worrying that I keep hearing that we have to listen to the experts. I am not sure what that means as there is more than enough evidence of expert opinion being available for sale. The track record of ‘experts’ is so bad that I would want my money back if I paid out for it.
I still remember the rather sharp question that Queen Elizabeth II put to the experts at a dinner hosted by the Bank of England post the 2008 economic crisis. “Why is it “, she asked ” that none of you saw this coming?”. There was only an embarrassed silence to the quetion.
As for Brian Cox, he is a talented scientist with a gift for education. Even in his own field he will admit that the experts are frequently wrong and that questioning the data is fundamental. Yet he blindly accepts what the ‘ Climate Scientists’ are saying depite the fact that it has been shown repeatedly that the data they are using is at best faulty.
Every reasonable person understands that there are cycles in temperature and weather. It is still not understood why we had planetwide glaciation during periods when carbon dioxide levels were much higher than the current period. What I still remain to be convinced about is the position of IPCC that the warming is all anthropogenic. This is not science but religious belief.
” Even in his own field he will admit that the experts are frequently wrong and that questioning the data is fundamental. Yet he blindly accepts what the ‘ Climate Scientists’ are saying depite the fact that it has been shown repeatedly that the data they are using is at best faulty.”
That’s when I stopped watching the remake of Cosmos. Almost immediately after Tyson explains that consensus in science doesn’t make it correct, noting consensus shooting down theories that were actually correct, he then parrots AGW. Either he hasn’t actually looked into the actual science and is blindly accepting the experts opinion (ie the consensus) and is a bad scientist, or he’s a paid shill who doesn’t care, and he’s a bad scientist.
The science is bad. It may or not ultimately be correct, but the science doesn’t show it.