Guest essay by Iain Aitken
Dear Colleagues – As President Trump hints at the withdrawal of our country from the Paris climate accord there has never been a greater threat to the Cause of saving our planet from catastrophic man-made global warming – so now, more than ever, we must be adroit in all dealings with the media. Whilst it is true that the climate models are obviously running hot and we appear to have assumed far too high a value for climate sensitivity and have obviously grossly underestimated natural climate variability we can rest assured that these highly damaging facts are far too arcane for the scientifically illiterate public, journalists and politicians; fortunately it is only the climate change sceptics who understand how all this undermines our great Cause – and happily we continue to be highly successful in discrediting and silencing them. But should the global warming Pause ever be publically acknowledged this could destroy us – it is our Sword of Damocles. Therefore I would urge you to study and memorise the imaginary interview below setting our clear steps that you should follow in any dealings with the media to help ensure that this potential disaster does not befall us.
Interviewer: Hello and welcome to the Science Spot! [applause] Tonight we have a treat for you as we welcome to the show none other than one of the top scientists saving the planet from catastrophic man-made climate change, Professor Pete Pecksniff, Head of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Ford, England, Europe! [wild applause] Great of you to take time off to talk to us, Professor.
Pecksniff: It’s my pleasure to be here, Bill. They do let us out of the lab for short periods! [laughter]
Interviewer: So, first up, Professor, I’ve heard that when you set aside last year’s extreme El Niño weather event there has been about twenty years without any statistically significant global warming, something they call the ‘Pause’. Given that about a third of all man-made greenhouse gases in history were emitted over that period can that really be true? I mean, if that’s true then doesn’t that blow out of the water any belief in dangerous man-made global warming?
Pecksniff: I’m so glad you’ve brought that up, Bill. These days we seem to be swimming in a sea of Fake News and I’m delighted that your show is bringing this disgraceful practice to the public attention.
Interviewer: Right. So what you’re saying is that the Pause is Fake News?
Pecksniff: What I’m saying, Bill, is that there are Facts and then there are Alternative Facts and I applaud you for helping educate the public to recognise one from the other.
Interviewer: OK. So what you are saying is that the Pause is actually a lie?
Pecksniff: Look, let’s be absolutely clear about this – any suggestion that we are experiencing global cooling is total nonsense and can be discounted out of hand.
Interviewer: Well, yes, Professor. But the thing is I didn’t actually ask you if we were experiencing global cooling – I asked you if there had been a Pause in global warming which, you know, isn’t really the same thing?
Pecksniff: Exactly. There is no reason whatsoever to think that global warming has stopped and I can assure you absolutely that no climate scientist in the world believes that it has.
Interviewer: Right. Yes, I’m sure that’s true. But, you see that doesn’t really answer my question?
Pecksniff: [sighs and puts head in hands] Look, I don’t know how to be any clearer about this. The fact is that we are experiencing global warming – the scientific evidence of that is unequivocal! Furthermore 2014, 2015 and 2016 have all, successively, been the warmest years since records began. And ten of the warmest years since records began have all fallen in this century! How much more evidence is needed, for goodness sake?
Interviewer: Yes, well, I kind of get all that. But, and I hate to press you here, Professor, but it sort of seems to me that everything you’ve said so far could all be true – and yet the twenty year Pause in global warming could also be true. Couldn’t it? I mean the trend from 1950, say, could be up but the trend since 1997 could be flat. And all those warm years this century could be warm and yet the trend could still be flat. Er, couldn’t it?
Pecksniff: Bill, I really hate to have to do this because I have no wish whatsoever to embarrass you in front of your audience but I have here a graph that should answer your question once and for all [takes paper from jacket pocket, unfolds it and shows it to the camera] Can your camera catch that? As should be abundantly obvious we see a dramatic global warming trend over the last twenty years.
Interviewer: [squirming] Well, you certainly can’t argue with that. My apologies for pressing you on all this, Professor. At last we have the absolute truth that the Pause is just a myth.
Pecksniff: [gracious patronising smile] You said it, Bill.
Should anyone be concerned that the Interviewer might realise that the graph is based on only the terrestrial temperature datasets and pull out his own graph based on the far more accurate RSS/UAH satellite datasets, so revealing the Pause, rest assured that this has never happened. Indeed the chance of the Interviewer getting beyond the second or third question before giving up is remote. Consequently, provided we are all careful to stick closely to this script, which, remember, sticks to the literal truth and does not require that any explicit lies be told, the Pause can be kept hidden. Whilst I appreciate that many of you may have qualms about employing such blatant obfuscation and dissimulation always remember that the end, in service of the Cause, justifies the means.
The “Pause” really threw the Climate Liars for a loop. They couldn’t decide whether to deny its existence, or to try to explain it away, so ended up doing both. The two claims (both lies, of course) being diametrically opposed to one another could only create further cognitive dissonance for True Believers, already heavily burdened with cognitive dissonance. It truly is amazing that the whole CAGW business hasn’t imploded by now, a testament to the size and scope of the Greatest Lie in History.
“It truly is amazing that the whole CAGW business hasn’t imploded by now”
With the billions (trillions?) poured into it, it has sadly fallen into the “too big to fail” category. 🙁
The CAGW narrative is a remarkable thing. It is an “innocent until proven guilty” entity when the scientific method requires it to treated the opposite. It even gets the double jeopardy treatment (the science is settled!!!) which is unheard of in science. Attacks against the narrative that are 100% true and contrary to the CAGW narrative can be repelled in a lawyerly fashion and the narrative can still remain intact. Even when a lie/problem with the narrative are exposed, like the 97% lie or lack of upper troposhere hotspot or the pause, it seems like it that evidence is dismissed by an invisible judge and ignored by the jury. But the important thing to remember is that a narrative, any narrative, is by definition, at some level a lie because it intentionally omits some things and embellishes others. The only way a narrative usually comes crashing down is when the lie is obvious to all. The Hiddenberg wasn’t safe because it used flammable hydrogen as a gas and thermite as its skin, but until it crashed in a flaming heap people rode the narrative that all was well. Hillary supporters were 98% certain of her being elected until 9:30 the night of the election when that belief crashed in a flaming heap. The moai on Easter Island didnt provide manna from the ancestors, and they came crashing down. I believe the CAGW narrative will endure and come crashing down only when it is obvious to all.
I think that the satellite data has to be adjusted if it is found that a satellite has gone wrong and the correct values estimated but that is not what is happening with surface global temperatures where what is being measured and how it is being measured are always changing it is possible to start a new surface global temperature from today if you are not happy with what was being measured before.
If we are to start a new surface temperature record, could we possibly emulate the US CRN and do it accurately? “Enquiring minds want to know.”
We can’t wait that long. We must act now. It will be too late if we wait for more data. The data is good enough to know we cannot wait. Act now.
(/sarc)
Hate to Say I Told You So, But I Told You So
Here on CO2isLife we’ve been making a couple of predictions. The first was that the record high temperatures that the climate alarmists were celebrating as proof of their theory, were, in fact, an anomaly caused by a natural phenomenon called an El Nino, and that once that natural event ended, temperatures would plummet. That is in fact what has been happening.
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/05/07/hate-to-say-i-told-you-so-but-i-told-you-so/
Another Climate Whistleblower is Ignored by the MainStream Media
Former Energy Department Undersecretary Steven Koonin told The Wall Street Journal Monday that bureaucrats within former President Barack Obama’s administration spun scientific data to manipulate public opinion.
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/05/07/another-climate-whistleblower-is-ignored-by-the-mainstream-media/
I am not a scientist. I am still,interested in humans ,- I am one- , and from my experience it always pays to tell the truth!
The climate is ” ever changing” and will continue on this Earth until our star ( sun) collapses.
Once we state and illustrate fundamental facts, those ignorant , no deprecation for being ignorant, so little of the fabrication of lies for financial gain and Governmental autocracy, would have gained ground.
In all humbleness, could I suggest that those who post such wonderful,articles could start with the answer:
” No, this not correct ……….” followed by the rationale and facts.
I would hope this would allow all of us to move in the difficult task of removing a political subterfuge in extracting money from the providers of warped/scaremongering information.k
I suggest we all take a short pause regarding this discussion and reflect on the fact that whether their was, is, or may be a continuance of, a “pause” in atmospheric temperature either increase or decrease, does not in any way directly imply or prove that human CO2 emissions had anything to do with it.
A major coup of Pecksniff, et al is that they have effectively paused the conversation regarding what effect and at what amount human CO2 emissions may have on the atmospheric temperature.
Even Nick Stokes can’t provide a graph that disproves this pause.
/grin
” … they have effectively paused the conversation regarding what effect and at what amount human CO2 emissions may have on the atmospheric temperature.”
Good observation.
Most of what “science” tells us about CO2 and its effects on temperature is just WAG (wild ass guess) or even propaganda. I am of the opinion that CO2’s impact on temperature is zero (or so close as to be immeasurable) until someone proves it otherwise. This is the conversation that has been tossed aside.
” I am of the opinion that CO2’s impact on temperature is zero (or so close as to be immeasurable) until someone proves it otherwise. This is the conversation that has been tossed aside.”
I have to agree. I want real-world facts, not theories. Everything that has happened with the Earth’s climate so far, can be explained away as natural climate variablility. No humans required. Until, as you said, someone proves otherwise.
And they haven’t been able to do that in all this time. They bastardized the surface temperature charts which kept them in the lying game for awhile but if the temperatures start cooling off, no amount of manipulation is going to cover that up. Their best hope to continue the CAGW argument is that the pause continues because it doesn’t look like an increase from 2016 is in the cards.
Discussing Climate Change Policy isn’t “Hate Speech.”
Ann Coulter offers some great ideas for the people engaging in the climate change debate. Frame it as a public policy discussion, not a scientific debate. It is the climate alarmist that has to defend killing coal jobs and not building roads, schools, and hospitals, not the climate skeptic. That is a discussion I would like to have and am sure I could win.
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/05/07/discussing-climate-change-policy-isnt-hate-speech/
“Frame it as a public policy discussion”
I agree. Tell the taxpayers just how much money the CAGW promoters want to waste in a futile effort that will ultimately not work.
Alright. Adjusted the thermostat 0.2 °C cooler than in the last decade. Although this is the first year the heating has to be switched on at all in May. WUWT?
Approaching mid May and it’s too cold to do yard work without a jacket in the PNW.
I’m not liking this.
We all know how a “pause” can be hidden.
Just change all the historic data and make 1998 colder and make 2016 warmer (as in throw out all the sea surface temperature measurements except those that from some obscure ship engine intakes).
Here is how the original Land temperatures in the original 1990 GHCN V1 dataset compares to just one adjusted Land temperature dataset (Crutemp4). This is from Clive Best here.
http://clivebest.com/blog/?p=6534
1878 for example is actually +0.5C in the original dataset – having come from the time of the biggest Super-El Nino in history. Now it is -0.1C.
http://clivebest.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Global-compare.png
Now this only gives you a good comparison up to 1990. Just think of how much was adjusted after 1990 (another 0.3C I think), and then how much in 2016 with the new ship engine intake SST (another 0.1C). So how much does that add up to? 0.8C of adjustments just for the Land.
We can exclude ALL of the data that is sourced from the NCDC, including GISS, Hadcrut, Berkeley, JMA etc. It is not the REAL temperatures. It is just people who believe so strongly in their theory and in keeping the grant money rolling in, that they have deliberately/accidentally on purpose, CHANGED your historical global temperature record. It should be yours. It should belong to all of us. Well you don’t own it because it is just a line going up now. It is not the real record.
It’s not just changing the number itself. It’s the psychological impact of the round number. Advertisers know about this and use the round number ($10 instead of $9.99) to get you to buy something. There’s a lot more than just the numbers to that, but the round number psychology is real.
So in these bogus temperature records, if the actual shift is 0.4589679, the number isn’t going to be rounded to 0.46. It will be boosted to 0.5, which is a simple number and much more impressive, and more easily remembered than 0.4589679. And if the actual number shift is 0.39897, that’s boosted up to the 0.5 level because 0.3 anything is insufficient to do the job.
The similarity of this entire business of promoting acceptance of bogus/altered results to advertising is behind it. It works on your emotions, your sense of wanting something, your need to belong to something, and definitely on your insecurities.
The people who do this depend on the gullibility of the uninformed, just as someone marketing a pet rock depends on the sheer stupidity of people to fall for a sales pitch for a rock that you can find on a beach. The same stuff is going into promoting acceptance of these altered results as the effort that goes into a sales campaign. As long as it works, it will continue. When the sales pitch starts to fail, it may be bumped up to get results, but eventually, the effect will come to an end.
I’ll let you know when I get to turn the furnace off.
“We can exclude ALL of the data that is sourced from the NCDC, including GISS, Hadcrut, Berkeley, JMA etc. It is not the REAL temperatures. It is just people who believe so strongly in their theory and in keeping the grant money rolling in, that they have deliberately/accidentally on purpose, CHANGED your historical global temperature record. It should be yours. It should belong to all of us. Well you don’t own it because it is just a line going up now. It is not the real record.”
That sums it up perfectly. We are watching a phenomenon where hundreds of millions of people have been fooled into believing in something that cannot be proven to be real. Yet they believe. We know why. Certain people have gone to a lot of trouble and spent a lot of money to perpetrate this line, and that effort is ongoing even now. Propaganda works.
I wonder how the alarmists are going to hide the pause from people who, just occasionally, go outside?
When you understand this:
1) Essentially all absorbed outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) energy is thermalized.
2) Thermalized energy carries no identity of the molecule that absorbed it.
3) Emission from a gas is quantized and depends on the energy of individual molecules.
4) This energy is determined probabilistically according to the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution.
5) The Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution favors lower energy (longer wavelength) photons.
6) Water vapor exhibits many (170+) of these longer wavelength bands.
7) The Maxwell-Boltzmann energy distribution in atmospheric gas molecules effectively shifts the OLR energy absorbed by CO2 molecules to the lower energy absorb/emit bands of water vapor.
8) As altitude increases (to about 10 km) the temperature declines, magnifying the effect.
You should realize why CO2 does not now, has never had and will never have a significant effect on climate.
Further discussion of this with graphs and links to source data are at http://globalclimatedrivers2.blogspot.com which also identifies the factors which do cause climate change (98% match 1895-2016).
The big question is , who is iain Aitken.” Is he the author of that obscure paperback with otherwise ni credentials to stack against the thousands of scientists who have “proved” Global Warming and its causes? Just another in the long line of fakers, Watts uses to tout his destructive messages.
[??? .mod]
JP,
Apparently you missed that the article is satire. It doesn’t matter if Iain Aitken is his real name or a nom de plume. The article stands on its own merit, not on the authority of someone you are willing to bow down to. I don’t think that you get the big picture.
Now scury back under your bridge. There’s a good troll.
http://bitsocialmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Internet-Troll.jpg
Yesterday the LA Times ran an article rest assuring everyone that Global Warming is still happening and man is the cause. They defended the “pause/hiatus” by saying the definition is wrong so therefore it never happened. “The hiatus was generally treated by climate scientists as a reflection of short-term variations that didn’t affect long-term trends.” blah – blah -blah and if you take all the factors that weren’t outliers the models were accurate. Lewandowsky and Mann were mentioned so you get the crux of the article. That’s what we’re fighting, not science.
……. justifies the means. And remember we have the President’s favorite daughter on our side.
Here is my favorite hard evidence that climate has indeed been changing for a long time:
http://www.livescience.com/23374-fossil-forest-redwood-diamond-mine.html
These 50 million year old redwook log chunks were found at the 300m level of the Ekati Diamond mine at the Arctic Circle in Northwest Territories of Canada. The diamond pipe is a volcanic body that erupted with great explosive force (material ejected at 1200km/hr) in the midst of a redwood forest, broken trees and kimberlite volcanic material fell back into the hole and the final gasps of the volcano sealed off the mass. This is real wood, still red and with seams of crystallized amber (sap) in seams in the wood. Simply, there was a California climate back then in an area of today’s Arctic tundra. The location of this area was not far from its present latitude geographically at time of the eruption.
“As President Trump hints at the withdrawal of our country from the Paris climate accord”
Whose country?
It may surprise you to discover, Mr. Aitken, that there are people who are not American, and some of them read this blog. If these instructions on how to hide the pause are for Americans only, it would be helpful to say so at the start.
Where is a safe space when you need one.
Seriously ??
What, is it too difficult for you to understand that the writer is American and is writing about his own country?
Thanks Uncle Screwtape. Well done.