Prof Andy Pitman
Prof Andy Pitman, lead author for the IPCC and Co-Director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, claims skeptics are winning because they are so well funded and tell lies. (And don’t we Australian taxpayers feel good about funding his career so he can throw baseless insults at polite volunteers?*) The ABC Interview is here. Case Smit took issue and wrote to Pitman in reply:
” I am one of the two retirees organising the Australian Tour of Lord Monckton. We receive not one dollar of funding from corporations or government! Nor have any other sceptics (true scientists) that I know.
We have underwritten the tour with our own money and are in the process of recouping the costs with donations which, so far have come from individuals who, like us, look into the science of global warming nd have come to the conclusion that humankind’s carbon dioxide contribution has nothing to do with it. Donations are coming in from as little as $10 from supporters of the Tour.
I could write a lot more, but I’m busy organising Monckton functions which are selling out fast all over Australia.”
Pitman wrote back that he was sympathetic, and sorry to hear Case had been hoodwinked by the liars, and that global warming was real. Though the only evidence Pitman even attempted to give was a long list of all the subjects of science that would be “wrong” if global warming was not real AND dangerous. Somehow all of biology will be debunked if man-made global warming turns out to be only minor and inconsequential. Really. I didn’t realize the theory of evolution now depends on carbon emissions. Crickey.
Christopher Monckton
Monckton shot back some thoughts tonight:
Dear Professor Pitman,
It would help me to understand your position if you were able to assist me in understanding this issue by answering some specific scientific questions.
- Looking at the Hadley Centre’s global annual mean surface temperature anomalies since 1850, I notice that the data are stochastic, and yet with tantalizing indications of periodicity. Yet NOAA’s annual CO2 concentration anomalies appear to increase monotonically. Since absence of correlation is evident, and necessarily implies absence of causation, am I right in understanding that the monotonic increases in CO2 concentration over the period in question are not responsible for the considerable fluctuations in the surface temperature record over the period?
- Looking at the same temperature record, I observe three supradecadal periods of marked warming, at a rate of approximately 0.16 Celsius degrees per decade: 1860-1880, 1910-1940, and 1975-1998. If I understand the IPCC’s rather diffuse documents correctly, it seems to be settled among all parties that humankind cannot have had any appreciable influence on temperature in the two earlier periods of rapid warming. The IPCC, however, states as its principal conclusion that, with 90% confidence, more than half of the warming since 1950 was anthropogenic. Nearly all of the warming since 1950 occurred in the 24 years 1975-1998: yet the rate of warming, at 0.16 C/decade, is not a whit greater than the rate of warming in the previous two periods. Have I understood this correctly?
- The A2 scenario is the more conservative of the two IPCC scenarios that come closest to reflecting today’s actual global emissions of around 30 gigatons CO2. On that scenario, as best I can understand it, warming over the decades 2000-2020 is projected to be at a rate of 0.2 C/decade – appreciably higher than the highest supradecadal rate observed since 1850, which is 0.16 C/decade. Yet the real-world outturn since the year 2000 has been a warming rate vanishingly different from zero. Have I understood the facts correctly here?
- If I were the IPCC, and I were trying to derive a reasonable central estimate of climate sensitivity to atmospheric greenhouse-gas enrichment, or to any other radiative perturbation of a presumed pre-existing equilibrium, I should wish to examine a sustained, supradecadal, generally-unidirectional period of statistically-significant warming or cooling, to identify the principal radiative forcings – if any – that can be detected by direct measurement. The only such period for which we have adequate satellite as well as terrestrial observations is 1983-2001, a period of warming substantial enough to give us some hope of overcoming mere statistical noise in our observations. Pinker et al. (2005), considering the ISCCP cloud records and the ERBE long-wave vs. short-wave outgoing-radiation datasets, concluded after a most meticulous intercalibration exercise between geostationary and polar-orbiting satellites that there was a sustained reduction in cloud cover over the period, which least-squares linear regression analysis shows to have represented a radiative forcing of 0.16 W/m2 for 19 years, or some 3.04 W/m2 in total. The radiative forcing from CO2 over the same period, using the function given in Myrhe (1998) and cited with approval by IPCC (2001, 2007), was 0.45 W/m2, and other anthropogenic forcings were 0.35 W/m2. Warming over the period was 0.45 K at most. From this, am I right to infer that the equilibrium temperature change to be expected from a doubling of CO2 concentration is represented approximately by the calculation below (subject, of course, to verification of Pinker’s results, and to identification of any significant negative forcings that he or I may have missed, and to action of very long-term feedbacks not reflected in the period)?
Delta-T = (5.35 ln 2)[0.45 / (3.04+0.45+0.35)] = 0.44 K- Am I right in recollecting that the IPCC, on the A2 scenario, predicts equilibrium warming of 3.26 K at CO2 doubling. It seems to me that, on the face of things, the IPCC’s central estimate of climate sensitivity is some 7.5 times larger than the result we have just reached above. In that event, Lord Monckton’s own theoretical determination of climate sensitivity 0.6 K at CO2 doubling (Monckton, 2008) may even be on the high side, when compared with the generally robust empirical result I have derived. Certainly, the IPCC’s central estimate of climate sensitivity seems insupportably excessive.
Would you care to comment?
* Yes, much of what I do is volunteer work, like most other skeptics. Like Case’s work with Monckton’s tour, this blog is also funded solely by donations. The most important question though is not the funding. Why is a professor reduced to ad hominem attacks?
Rehendra Pachauri from The IPCC is about as well funded as it gets. Typical UN fraud.
Is it Pitman that is lying?
10
Slowly but surely, these fraudsters are starting to realise that the ‘jig’ is up. Can you blame this man and his cohorts for their shrill outbursts. Where will they get another ‘gravy train’ job like representing the IPCC and propagating its’ propaganda? That is if, they will ever be taken seriously as ‘scientists’ again. Only a fool would put their career and credibility in the UN camp.
10
Oh MY, alarmist frauds like Professor Andy Pitman, will have to be dragged out of their offices in straightjackets as their little scam completely collapses. Pitman is especially vulnerable because he is the Lead Author Chapter 8, (IPCC4) Climate Models and their EVALUATION!
This is his 2007 quote: “Climate models have improved considerably over the last decade and in particular the last five years. They can reproduce the observed climate very well. While our knowledge of global warming does not rely on models, projecting how the climate will change in the future does and these models are now clearly skillful enough to firmly underpin the warming scenarios used by the IPCC. There are remaining uncertainties of course, but these are likely to mean we are underestimating the amount of warming. More concerning is the projected rate of future warming and the likelihood of abrupt changes which may be UNDERESTIMATED by the current models we use.”
10
And all the Kings hourses and all the Kings men couldn’t put AGW back together again.
The “Church of Climatoloy” parishners are eggs sitting on a wall. All losing their balance.
10
In the USA, this annoying strawman is the default defense of AGW’s faililngs.
It is as counterfactual as nearly every other claim of the AGW community: completely.
A good journalist would consider thaat reporting on the diverse, world wide grass roots movement of skeptics of AGW theory is worth reporting.
10
Monckton has a delightful turn pf phrase sometimes, doesn’t he? I particularly like “atmospheric greenhouse-gas enrichment”. 🙂
10
Andy Pitman tends to run away from legitimate questioning…take this exchange as an example:
http://littleskepticpress.blogspot.com/2009/03/geologists-were-right-conversations.html
10
Perhaps we need a simpler explanation of the end point bias (temps from the end of the Little Ice Age) From Bob Dylan “been down so long it looks like up to me”
10
Just wait. It will not be long before Pitman follows Godwins law. He speaks like someone who cannot face admitting he might be wrong. There are now so many politically driven alarmists who are desperately trying to find a scientific casus belli but just can’t locate one.
10
There should be only one answer to Prof. Pitman:
Either you proove your allegations …..or you revoke the allegations at the same place at your cost … or we bring a charge against you.
There is no way of having a local argument with AGW-sectarians.
10
No wonder no-one is willing to debate the good Viscount!
He would make Gore look like an imbecile. Oh but a five year old could do that.
10
OT but I have started reading the Bishop’s book. It is a must read. Can you get it over there yet?
10
Jo,
I think it is important that the so-called large scale funding of climate change sceptics be discussed, it’s a claim often used by those support AGW. From the ABC interview, Andy Pitman was able to make this claim with no challenge from the interviewer. ABC science presenter Robin Williams has used this ad-hom recently as well. As a result it’s a standard response from the convinced public when scepticism is discussed.
Peter
10
“
It may be fun to note, that The University of New South Wales funds 2 Co -Directors for their Climate Change Research Centre
(which surely has nothing to do with ‘ CO2 ‘ ).
These are 2 very emminent Professors, both with long & very distinguished careers in Climate Science, Atmospheric, Oceanic & Climate Modelling between them:-
Andy Pitdown
&
Matt England
They would appear to be leading lights in Climate Research Down Under and I’m sure there is an enormous amount to be learned from their work & engaging with them seriously.
10
Accusing Sceptics of being part of a well-funded conspiracy is so silly it would be funny if no-one believed it, but it is said so often by the MSM and the AGW parishioners desperate to bolster their faith by any irrational means that any casual observers are given the impression the myth is reality.
Internationally, sceptics all make similar statements and have come to the same conclusions because they are united in seeking the truth of the matter of supposed CAGW; in the process more and more dodgy ‘science’ and outright lies are uncovered. There is no conspiracy of Sceptics, but truth is usually inexorable in the way it eventually emerges. And the truth is almost rocketing out now!
10
Oops .
Apologies for my earlier mis-labelled reference to Andy Pitman
Andy Pitman
(I must have been thinking of Pitldown man or something)
10
I thought Pitman said that the sceptics could fight back because they didn’t have day jobs!
good article in the Age today
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/be-alert-but-wary-on-climate-claims-20100126-mw7z.html
10
Surely the reply question to Prof Pitman is this:
As a lead author of the IPCC AR4 report were you aware of the multitude of WWF references in the report, and if not why not? If you were aware of them why did you allow them to be used?
http://www.heartland.org/full/26856/More_Dodgy_Citations_in_the_NobelWinning_IPCC_Report.html
10
janama:
Said:-
January 27th, 2010 at 7:00 am
To be fair, it must be hard finding time to defend IPCC stuff when you’ve got serious work to be getting on with and you have to wonder, is it worth defending.
10
Pitman should lose his job. Simple. He is peddling scientific lies and using his position to keep this scam going. SACK HIM!
10
Steve Schapel:
Wrote:-
January 27th, 2010 at 5:07 am
To be sure. It’s the double meaning, in this expression ‘though, which can only mean one thing, that I find so enlightening. 😉
10
Why should people be inclined to believe such an important report, when it is constructed by a bunch of volunteers in their spare time? It comes as no surprise then, that it has been found to be full of cracks.
This is something on which the world’s policy makers are supposed to be basing decisions about the future of the planet? What a complete and utter farce.
10
Remember folks we are fighting government, not climate science. As Voltaire (I think) once said “It is very dangerous being right about matters on which government is wrong”.
Killing AGW means killing a billion dollar industry and wrecking all the state climate departments as well as the federal one.
Add the demonstrable fact that they actually “believe” in the AGW Hypothesis, and we are confronted with a well financed, world-wide political movement not dissimilar to the ones of last century.
Do not for one moment believe that they will go away – the classic liberals have lost the political debate to the social democrats and socialists because of their support of government, and if you propose that any form of government is necessary to protect private property rights, then you are mistaken – all that happens will be a slow slide to a single administrative world body to get rid of the present inconsistency of having state protection within a nation state but still having nation states at odds with each other. The social democratic position is to eliminate the nation states, which is part of the agenda.
The environmental movement is old and goes back to the previous century – it has never disappeared and today, for the first time, has political power, mainly from the diversion of funds from the UN to the NGO’s who are political proxies.
If you want to understand what is going on, give Maurice Strong’s ideas very close scrutiny – he lived through the depression of the 1930’s, is a committed socialist but who is not averse to using capitalist methods to achieve his goals.
the AGW debate is only part of it and the basis of the fear factor to gull us into supporting dictatorial solutions to solve a perceived crisis. The perception that we might be headed for hell is real, however, while showing that the science is incomplete, ignores the rest of the threat facing us. Look closely has OSH laws, and all the other restrictions put before us to regulate our behaviour.
Enough – I have a day job 🙂
10
I wonder why Pitman would be concerned after all he has his day job!
http://www.science.unsw.edu.au/apitman-funding
Must be public interest out of the good of his heart! Repent sinners and pay your indulgences err research grant money.
10
Look here Monckton just becos I is dumb dont get smart wif me it aint gentlemanly !
I know you writing in chinese to avoid me trip you up.
See I not that dim. But the eloquence of your caustic prose is electrifying.
That pitman he really in tricky time now. I know he got papers …HpD from liverpool asylum UNI. But still mustnt
tell porkies not ever .(cockney slang porky pies =lies)
10
I think Monckton is very astute and intuitive.
Responding to ad hominems with science is akin to brushing aside an intellectual lightweight with simple facts.
Straight out of the Skaeptics handbook actually.
So will this intellectual lightweight respond or will he pretend he is not aware of the questions and stay silent?
10
Everything you need to know about the farce and scam in one easy presentation.
See: http://www.nothingtodowithco2.com/pdf/AGW_presentation_ILMCD.pdf
10
No one has asked if Pitman has replied yet. ?
Do we not expect one. ?
Can one be demanded, isn’t it Pitman’s duty to respond, and promptly. ?
10
See: http://www.nothingtodowithco2.com/pdf/AGW_presentation_ILMCD.pdf
For everything you need to know about the scam.
10
Prof Andy Pitman in his interview with the ABC News
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/01/25/2800992.htm?site=news
“The sceptics are so well funded, so well organised. They have nothing else to do. They don’t have day jobs so they can put all their efforts into misinforming and miscommunicating climate science to the general public, whereas the climate scientists have day jobs….
All of the efforts you do in an IPCC report is done out of hours, voluntarily, for no funding and no pay, whereas sceptics are being funded to put out full scale misinformation campaigns and are doing a damn good job, I think.”
Does this mean that Jones, Briffa, Mann et al produce all their reports for the IPCC out of hours for NO FUNDING AND NO PAY? And they have day jobs. Where? At the local fudge factory or learning sleight of hand and magic tricks from David Copperfield?
And of course Rajendra Pachauri, Murari Lal and Syed Hasnain receive no funding (apart from the $4-5 million in grants) and work for no pay whilst they scour WWF publications for outlandish claims to back up their scare-mongering on AGW.
Prof Pitman also states that the sceptics are being well funded to put out full scale misinformation campaigns.
Perhaps he is confused here, surely he is referring to the IPCC.
10
It would be interesting to see the long list of “all the subjects of science” that would be wrong if global warming was incorrect. The thing that allows this argument on go on apparently ad nauseam is that “global warming” in the absolute sense is correct but that does not mean that the hypothesis of dangerous increase in global temperature from mans burning of fossil fuels (AGW) is correct.
Carbon dioxide is a green house gas and increasing the atmospheric concentration will increase energy retention according to the well accepted logarithmic relationship. True. It is not absolutely proven that increasing temperature will lead to rising absolute humidity although it does seem entirely plausible. If so, water vapour is also a green house gas and rising humidity will also lead to more energy retention according to the same logarithmic law. (ie: the direct role of water vapour is probably to give posiitve feedback).
HOWEVER; what goes up must come down (to quote the old proverb) and if there is more water evaporation there must be also more rain (else the seas will end up in the sky). Now rain only comes from low cloud so more rain means more low cloud mass and low clouds are known and admitted by both sides to cause cooling through increased albedo. This is a very strong effect, cloud albedo reflects about 85 watts/sqM of incoming sunlight away from the earth. Compare that with the total greenhouse energy retention of CO2 of about 24 watts/sqM. Thus higher absolute humidity means more evaporation, means more rain, means more low cloud mass, means greater albedo, means more incoming sunlight reflected back out to space, means lower temperatures, and thus negative feedback. Simple mass balance suggests this effect must have a close to linear relationship.
As temperature rises, rising water vapour exerts a logarithmic positive feedback effect and a linear negative feedback effect. This is a classic way of establishing a stable operating point. At very low concentration the logarithmic effect dominates giving warming and as concentration rises the warming effect tails off and the linear cooling starts to dominate. The stable operating point is set where the two effects balance and it is maintained by negative feedback. The current level of water vapour in the atmosphere is far above the level where the logarthmic warming effect could dominate incrementally. We are a long way up the logartihmic curve.
In this scenario the net role of water vapour is to provide negative feedback not positive feedback. It is generally agreed that the direct impact of doubling CO2 is to generate about 0.8C of warming. IPCC get to their alarmist figure by assuming massive positive feeedback in the climate system from water vapour (they assume cloud feedback is also positive because they assume more water vapour causes more high cloud and less low cloud (and they claim high cloud causes net warming) – they don’t seem to address the question of where the extra rain comes from!!!!). A net negative feeedback effect from water vapour means the actual temperature rise from doubling CO2 is less than 0.8C and Lord Monktons figure of 0.44C seems very reasonable.
It would appear that Dr Pitman is claiming that the greenhouse effect is real (else many other areas of science would be called into question)and therefore the theory of AGW is proven. This is disingenuous at best. One might as well claim that since it is proven that burning wax releases heat therefore it must follow that one can cook a family roast over a candle flame (who needs ovens). The green house effect is real but that most certainly does not prove the AGW theory.
10
I contacted Pitman via his email with the following…
Mr Pitman
Lord Monckton of Brenchley has responded to you with 5 questions of his own at Joanne Novas web site here
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/01/monckton-replies-to-prof-andy-pitman/
There are thousands of people from around the world waiting for your response to Lord Monckton.
I will post at both Jo Novas and Andrew Bolts site that you have been made aware of these questions.
Regards
Baa Humbug
Brisbane
10
michael hammer:
One other very important point
Rainwater washes CO2 out of the atmosphere, hence partly why rainwater is acidic.
Funnily enough, the level of CO2 in rainwater is 355ppm, a figure very close to it’s concentration in the atmosphere.
See here
I’m not aware of any IPCC report on the amounts of CO2 being washed out of the atmosphere by (rising levels of) rain. If I’m wrong maybe someone can point me to it.
10
DO NOT WRITE TO PROFESSOR ANDY PITMAN AT andy@andypitman.com. THIS IS NOT HIS EMAIL ADDRESS. I LIVE IN THE UNITED STATES AND HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU OR YOUR CAUSE. IF I CONTINUE TO RECEIVE EMAILS, I WILL PURSUE LEGAL ACTION. GET YOUR INFORMATION CORRECT AND CEASE IMMEDIATELY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
10
Prof Andy Pitman in his interview with the ABC News
Poor Chap. Another unpaid volunteer building the tracks ….
Volunters do make for far more committed footsoldiers ‘though.
10
Andy #34
I have sent you an apology and again apologise here.
The originator of the wrong email has been alerted.
I hope you haven’t been inconvenienced too much.
10
Baa Humbug;
Your raise an interesting point. This would be one of the mechanisms by which the equilibrium between atmosphericc CO2 and oceanic CO2 is established and I have no argument with what you say. However a problem with viewing the issue in such a detailed fashion is that it rapidly degenerates into a mass of complexity which becomes incredibly hard to untangle. I have learnt over 35 years of research that there is a easy way to view an issue and many difficult ones. The easy way is far more likely to lead to a clear conclusion.
In this case the Mauna Loa data indicates rising CO2. At this stage I have no basis on which to question the Mauna Loa data so I provisionally accept it. Well poven laws of spectroscopy allow one to estimate the incremental energy retention from the rising CO2. I have done the calculations and about 3-4 watts/sqM per doubling seems about right. This is in line with what IPCC have claimed. We can debate whether it is 3 or 4 but in essence such differences have little impact on the outcome. AGW stands or falls on the overall climate system feeedback. For it to be correct there would need to be not just positive feedback but massive postive feedback bordering perpetually on thermal runaway.
In fact virtually all natural stable systems exhibit net negative feedback (and climate despite its continuously changing nature is stable else life would not have survived for milllions of years). That alone should make one very sceptical of claims of massive positive feedback. When I look at the rationale claimed for such massive positive feedback, it seems to lack consistency. More high cloud and less low cloud is not consistent with more rainfall.
As an interesting aside, the human body incorporates hundreds of feedback loops. Of these, my understanding is that all but 2 exhibit negative feedback – 2 are positive feedback loops. These two are firstly sexual intercouse leading to orgasm and secondly the human birth process. Both of these are extremely clearly not stable, they both exemplify rapid runaway to an end state which is exactly the characteristic of positive feedback. It is abundantly clear that the climate system does not exhibit such behaviour nor does it exhibit conditionally stable behaviour (stable within a region but going unstable outside that region). Remember when the Earth first formed all the CO2 in the oceans, the CO2 now tied up in carbonate rocks, the CO2 tied up in coal and oil and living plant matter was all in the atmosphere as was all the water currently on Earth. Despite this initial state the climate coooled until rain fell, the oceans formed, carbonate rocks formed and it became cool enough for life to start and further sequester CO2 in living and dead plant and animal tissue. If it was possible for the climate to runaway to an end point incompatible with life, it would have happened then and we would not be hear now to debate the issue.
10
Professor Pitmans CORRECT email is:
a.pitman@unsw.edu.au
I can verify this as I have had some dreadful email responses from him this morning, grammatically incorrect, spelling errors, and very difficult to understand and not because of “Scientific” terminology.. Because there is none of that!!
Difficult to understand because his logic is all over the place.
But that’s ok isn’t it?? that’s what our tax payer dollars are for, both in funding his university position but also to fund his “Lead Author” position of the IPCC reports!!
FRIGHTENING!! But now I can fully understand the errors in IPCC both fraudulent and lack of checking of facts after various emails recieved.
P.s he actually spelt Science “Sceince” in one of them.. bit of irony there I think!!
10
I keep hearing the AGW skeptics are being funded by big oil and are being paid for each post. Two comments. One, if such is the case my payment is long overdue.
Second, and more seriously, I’ve wondered for some time why the AGW believers cling to the idea we must be getting paid. The only answer I can come up with is they don’t want to accept that ordinary citizens would have the knowledge or the desire to confront these bought climate scientists. The air of superiority emanating from these celebrity scientists is irksome. I read their comments, many of them sloppy and inaccurate, and their arrogance oozes from the page. No, they cannot believe that ordinary people would dare challenge their pronouncements. Thus we are not acting of our own volition but, like them, are paid for our point of view.
Hubris then nemesis.
10
post 31
Very good summary Michael Hammer…wish I could remember all those good points, although I think most of this reasoning is in Jo’s booklet… “The Skeptics Handbook” . All that new rain may fill our dams and make those desal plants not quite so necessary.
Having now followed this debate on the blogs for the past 9 months, I can see that the tide of opinion is turning regarding the doomsday predictions of AGW. However, it will not go away and many alarmists are looking for a way out. I am sure we all still agree that we should look out for our planet…but with sensible and achievable actions. So I would now like to see, a whole new movement that encouraged the average household and/or community to do something that was “envioromentally” responsible ( I use that term with some caution ) There was once a magazine called the Popular Mechanics …it was full of great DIY ideas and projects. I am sure there are lots of “Green” activities that the average household can do with his own home, or the community and take on…all of which would go a long way towards helping the planet….whatever that means.
This site is well suited to such postings especially if Jo could support some of them with those illustrations she come up with.
Over the past 9 months that I have been reading a wide selection of the blogs there has been very few practical suggestions/ideas ever put forward, yet is this what we need now? I think this is what Tony Abbott, our political opposition in Australia, and other oppositions around the world, should now be suggesting. We don’t need to be more entrepreneural ( Pachauri does enough of that ) but mankind is innovative and I am sure we can solve this without closing down our power stations or only having two children per couple.
I have often wondered why learned people like Roger Pielke, with a job description as Community Policy on Science, and who lives in Boulder Colardo where the council has such schemes, never mentions or supports community or individual green projects.
I now find myself talking about such projects with friends and family, who are more receptive to constructive sugestions, than to my rantings about the evils of AGW.
10
Seriously are those 5 questions from Monckton genuine???
#1 – well surely Monckton is well aware that there are a wide range of factors that influence climate over various time scales – CO2 is NOT the only one. I’d have thought he would be well aware that no monotic increase in T is suggested by anyone. The following link from debate opponent Prof Brook should help out: http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/02/08/how-hot-should-it-have-really-been-over-the-last-5-years/
#2 – seems to be a nothing statement.
#3 – again this is quite well covered in the BraveNewClimate post linked to above.
#4 – why would you choose 1983 – 2001? maybe because 1983 was quite warm and 2001 not so warm? Convenient no? this question appears to be a manipulation of the data to try and fit his propaganda.
#5 – Why is Lord Monckton referring to himself as “Lord Monckton”? Suggests not actually written by Lord Monckton.
10
Dear Mr. Pitman,
I am still waiting for a cheque from whom ever you think is paying me. I quite literally put my life on hold for almost 9 weeks to create the “ClimateGate: 30 Years in the Making” timeline to help ordinary people can understand and see for themselves what the CRU e-mails revealed about your “science” and it’s practitioners: 1) intrigue and corruption of the peer review process, 2) deception and doctored data, and 3) secrecy by preventing methods and data from being reviewed for errors, which even as a lay person I understand is the very foundation of valid science.
Another volunteer worked long hours with me daily for the past 4 weeks to review and proof the timeline. Like me, I’m sure he is rolling over in laughter with your wild speculations. But on a serious note, I would have thought a scientist like yourself would have cultivated a more cautious nature by habit. So I wonder, if you’re willing stake your reputation and integrity by making such wild speculations and hurl such offensive insults at good people, how many more wild speculations are buried in your science where there’s no one to offend but the truth? Truth, by the way, has a way of bashing back harder than we ever can in these simple letters we write to defend our reputations. Since you don’t seem to give a second thought at offending volunteers; have you ever given up 2 months of your life to volunteer for a cause?
And about the “lies” you claim that skeptics are telling, please do read the timeline — all of it, and see who is really in denial and who’s really been feeding the world an aircraft carrier load of rubbish.
Best regards
Mohib Ebrahim
On a more pleasant note to the rest of the visitors here on this great site, the revised and updated timeline is ready and just awaiting Joanne to find a moment in her impossibly busy schedule (especially at this time with the Monckton tour) to post it all up.
10
Give Pitman two weeks to come up with evidence to substantiate his claims. If he can’t he resigns his positions.
10
Mental Health and Delusional Disorder
Delusional disorder, previously called paranoid disorder, is a type of serious mental illness called a “psychosis” in which a person cannot tell what is real from what is imagined. The main feature of this disorder is the presence of delusions, which are unshakable beliefs in something untrue.
The good news, it is treatable!
10
MattB:
January 27th, 2010 at 1:04 pm
1- You need to look up what stochastic means to understand the question.
2- I’ll translate for you Matt. It means that 2 earlier periods (1860-1880, 1910-1940), show the SAME RATE of warming as the contemporary period. i.e. there is NOTHING UNUSUAL about the current period of warming.
3- 2000-2020 is supposed to show the fastest rate of warming. But WHERES THE WARMING from 2000-2010?
4- What Matt? You look at the pictures but not read the article? You’re wasting your money on those Penthouse mags. READ my boy READ. Here let me point out why 1983-2001
“I should wish to examine a sustained, supradecadal, generally-unidirectional period of statistically-significant warming or cooling, to identify the principal radiative forcings – if any – that can be detected by direct measurement”.
Monckton (who is a mathematician) is explaining the correct procedure to determine climate sensitivity to atmospheric GHG enhancement.
5- Have you not read any published papers Matt? He is referring to a paper he authored. Some examples…
Trenberth refers to Trenberth et al, Jones refers to Jones et al, Mann refers to Mann et al, Briffa refers to Briffa et al ad nauseum in the IPCC documents, have you NEVER seen any of those?
Look here Matt, it’s often entertaining reading and responding to your comments, but your pig-headed assinine attitude reflects badly on you, especially since you’ve gained some respect from skeptics for your “fence sitting doggedness”.
You would do well to give credit where it’s due. And credit is well due to Monckton regardless of ones AGW opinion.
🙂
10
michael hammer:
Hi Michael. I read a very good paper recently explaining why Mauna Loa is not sited well. Apparently it sits “downwind” from an area in the pacific which “releases” CO2 into the atmosphere. I can’t give you a link at mo, I’m at work and didn’t bring my usb key with me. I’ll post a link when I get home. (about 5hrs)
10
Sorry – since when is Monckton a mathematician? Unless you believe the ABC article from last week that was hastily corrected one assumes when they were shown the error of their ways.
Also – FYI mr smarty pants, I DID look up stochastic:)
Furthermore – I’d like to see a source for none of the earlier periods of warming being human induced… remembering that it used to take less CO2 to warm a certain amount (log relationship), and also there are other land use changes due to industrialisation and agriculture that were taking place at those times. Coal was in use in significant amounts since about 1850 for example.
You sir I am afraid are falling for the allure of longwinded sentences and pompous english.
And who says I don’t give him credit? He has done very well for himself and is playing his cards well – bully for him.
10
What makes you so sure the average household actually makes a difference?
Consider how much sweat and heartache went into trying to ban plastic bags, which weigh 0 kg, take up 0 cubic meters of space and consume 0% of our oil resources and they get buried where they have zero effect on anything. The ultimate effect of this effort is zero.
I think there’s a very deep change required in the Green movement to engage a lot more braincells and maybe this goes for most of Western society. We seem to have lost touch with the basics of science: taking measurements, publishing results, understanding logical interconnections, testing theories with experiment, achieving repeatability. The best thing the average household can do is get the kids learning to think like scientists because it seems that most of the current crop of scientists think like activists or politicians.
The next thing is Economics — it gets into everything, you can’t hide from it. Our current efforts into producing ever more subtle Ponzi schemes and playing tricky shuffle with derivative paperwork have been unproductive. Sadly the Green activist fairyland economics that has brought California to it’s knees is also unproductive (probably worse than unproductive, it is outright destructive). Teach your kids basic economics. Teach them to think about economic problems and relate that to practical things that happen. Teach them never to trust Economists because the most basic economic theorem is that someone paid to tell you what to think will tell you what they want you to know and what they think you want to hear.
With enough people considering these problems, someone might get it right.
Another thing is that Greenies and farmers can’t usefully sit there battling each other forever. A Green movement that destroys farms is a dead end. It can’t work, so if you want to be Green and do something useful then start talking to farmers and start thinking about their issues.
Finally, the most massive damage has been done by non-transparency in government and simply not having access to information. As a political cause you would think that pushing for standard data formats and standard release procedures would be something all political groups can get behind. The only people who have something to lose are the cheats and the liars and we have to clear them out so transparency might be something to do with that.
For example, let’s look at Peter Spencer’s farm; where is the basic data on how many other farms have been effected? Was there a survey on the area of land covered by these bush regeneration laws?
How about the bushfire issue? Surveys on fuel buildups around Australia and a public database of backburning and fuel reduction would be useful.
The trouble is that stuff just happens and the public get told a little tiny bit as an afterthought, long after the decision has been made. Vested interests find it very easy to make secret deals. How much genuine public discussion was there over the desalination plants for example? How much discussion over the various road projects that have secret contracts with secret clauses the no one ever gets to ask questions about?
10
Went to the lecture today and got turned back because they were over capacity… Sigh!
10
MattB
“Furthermore – I’d like to see a source for none of the earlier periods of warming being human induced…”
Your source is the IPCC. They say AGW was negligable pre 1940’s and ‘discernable” post 1980’s
Monckton himself said he was a mathematician on the “sunrise” breakfast show. You may like to prove him a liar.
You did not respond to points 3 and 5
10
I hope somebody who has the time and opportunity could please tell Mr Pitman that outside of the IPCC, scientific authority cannot be manufactured with money anyway, and that it would not benefit the sceptics one bit if they were in fact travelling first class.
10
STUNNED!!:
January 27th, 2010 at 11:39 am
I just got a reply from pitman as well.
“hello,
This is standardized reply.
I am receiving a great deal of anonymous e-mail from an apparently organized skeptics community who appear to be attempting to bombard climate scientists with repetitive questions that are already answered by Federal Government FAQs, the Academy of Sceince Web Site, New scientist, the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO web sites.
I will try to reply to those who provide a name and contact phone number – otherwise I do not know to whom I am replying and that is not appropriate.
Pklease re-send your e-mail with appropriate contact details.
Sincerely,
Andy Pitman
I played along, see what response I get. ps I took the liberty of listing LM’s questions. Somehow I doubt he will get on this site to reply.
10
Baa Humbug – he also said he had a Nobel Prize on Alan Jones:) I hardly think the SPPI would have left being a mathematician off his c.v…. although they do mention he is a Nobel Laureate… Monckton himself says that is a bit of a joke.
Look the guy has a classics degree, a grad dip in journalism, but no quals in maths that I can find anywhere. Can you? He clearly can do a bit of maths mind you, although he needs to work on his logs.
10
Also – I did address three, and for #5 – well his own derived relationship is codswallop… but the IPCC could be wrong too that is for sure.
10
Re:-
Leave him alone…
You’re behaving like a bunch of… well …. Skeptics
and it ‘aint a pretty sight.
Now you have the best Advocate imaginable putting your case,
please don’t drown him out with all this Noise. 😉
10
Quick dash in and out. For those interested, here is an interview of Monckton by Fairfax Media journalist Ben Cubby Careful, 20mins long
ps Matt No I didn’t search for his math qualifications, I didn’t feel the need to and still don’t. The blokes been a thorn in the side of the IPCC for years and still none of the “thousands upon thousands” of ’em been able to shut him up or debunk him. I respect him and what he does until such time as he does something to lose that respect. Gotto run, back in an hour or so 🙂
10
According to Andrew Bolt he received the following grants.
1999-01
Australian Greenhouse Office (for costs incurred as lead author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change $15,000
2004-7
Australian Greenhouse Office (for costs incurred as lead author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change $48,400
Baa Humbug – if you think you are smart emailing Pitman you are an idiot!
10
janama:
Baa Humbug – if you think you are smart emailing Pitman you are an idiot!
What do you mean?? Expand
10
If your gunna do it, do it properly……….
List of grants
Funding
Internal funding
1991
MURG Simulation of droughts in GCMs $1,800
1992
MURG Seasonality parameterisation in GCMs $3,600
1993
MURG Role of the land surface in the development of East Coast Lows $6,000
1994
MURG Validation of a land surface scheme against Australian stream flow data and a catchment hydrological model $2,800
1995
MURG The role of El Nino in controlling flood and drought dominated regimes in NSW: (with Dr. G. Brierley) $3,000
1995
MURG Generalisation of a new land surface scheme via off-line validation $7,000
1996
MURG The impact of climate change on air pollution potential in the Sydney Basin (with Dr. P.K. Love) $5,000
1997
MURG Investigating dynamic vegetation in a land surface scheme $4,000
1998
MURG Testing a land surface scheme within the global soil wetness project $5,200
1999
MURG The impact of frozen soil moisture on continental scale runoff $3,613
2000
MURG Evaluation of a land surface scheme using a data set including carbon $6,500
2000
MURG Regional climate modelling over Australia: sensitivity to changes in land cover $6,400
2001
MURG The significance of land cover change on the Australian regional climate $8,000
2001
MURG Incorporation of physiological and structural feedbacks in the simulation of the impacts of land cover change $3,840
2002
MURG The simulation of storms over the Sydney Basin using RAMS $12,066
2002
MURG The sensitivity of Australian climate change to the parameterization of the surface energy balance $8,048
1993-5
Small ARC: Scaleless land surface schemes for atmospheric models $30,390
1992-4
Small ARC: Incorporating continental carbon exchange into a global climate model (with Prof. Henderson-Sellers) $53,670
1995
Small ARC: The Project for the Intercomparison of Land Surface Parameterisation Schemes (with Prof. Henderson-Sellers) $21,000
1996-7
Small ARC: Assessing the parameterisation of heterogeneity in land surface schemes $28,782
1998
Small ARC: Assessing uncertainty in the simulation of anthropogenically induced Climate change resulting from the parameterisation of land surface processes $13,000
1999
Small ARC: Land-use change and its impact on the global climate $10,247
2000
Small ARC: The role of land-use change at increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide $13,004
2001
Small ARC: Testing the robustness of the multi-criteria method in the calibration of a land surface model $10,499
2003
MURDG The impact of land cover change on extremes of weather and climate over Australia $15,960
2005
MURGD The impact of global warming on climate extremes over Australia $10,000
External grants
1996-8
Large ARC:The Project for the Intercomparison of Land Surface Parameterisation Schemes (with Prof. Henderson-Sellers) $280,000
1998
Bilateral Analysis of European land surface scheme results in comparison with results from the Bureau of Meterology Climate models under 1 and 2 x CO2 conditions $5,050
1998-9
ASAC (Antarctic Science Advisory Committee, project ASAC 1071), Palaeoenvironments of the Antarctic coast, from 50E to 120E. CI: D.Gore, Other investigators: A.McMinn, D. Zwartz, H. Kirkup, M.Melles, E.Rhodes, D. Roberts, C. Lehmann, A. J. Pitman. Grant awarded 1998: $7,500 plus 4 berths worth equivalent of $65,000 $80,500
1999-01
Large ARC: The Project for the Intercomparison of Land Surface Parameterisation Schemes (with Prof. Henderson-Sellers) $190,000
1999-01
Australian Greenhouse Office (for costs incurred as lead author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change $15,000
2003
Seed-funding: ARC Network An Australian Climate System Network $20,000
2003
Seed-funding: ARC Network Australia-New Zealand Research Network for Vegetation Function Investigators (with many others)$20,000
2005-9
ARC Network: An Australian Earth System Science Network (RN0460181) $1.95 m
2005-9
ARC Network -New Zealand Research Network for Vegetation Function Prof. Mark Westoby and others including A.J. Pitman (RN0459908) $2.0 m
2004-7
Australian Greenhouse Office (for costs incurred as lead author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change $48,400
2006-8
Do terrestrial processes intensify Australian droughts $240,000
2005
Asia-Pacific Network: The degraded ecosystem restoration in the arid and semi-arid Northern China-Mongolia Region US$20,000
2006-9
ARC Linkage: Re-engineering dynamic vegetation models for Australia
Infrastructure grants
1993
Mech. A Atmospheric Science Computing. Pitman, Cleugh, Geerts, Hyde and de Dear (written & administered by Pitman) $18,000
1996
RIBG Atmospheric Science Computing. Pitman, Love, de Dear, Beggs and Holbrook (written & coordinated by Pitman) $42,000
1998
ARC Inf. High performance computing in NSW (large number of participants) $700,000
1999
RIBG Atmospheric Science Computing. Pitman, de Dear, Beggs and Holbrook (written & coordinated by Pitman) $63,997
2003
LIEF Development of a High Performance Computing Cluster for ac3 Research (Prof LC Botten Prof RC McPhedran Prof BA Pailthorpe Dr RK Standish Prof MN Paddon-Row Prof AJ Pitman Prof AC Tsoi $375,000
2006
LIEF A large memory, high performance computing system for the ac3 Research Consortium (LE0668467). Prof LC Botten; Prof RC McPhedran; Prof L Radom; Prof CM Stampfl; Dr RJ Bursill; Prof E Leonardi; A/Prof RS Womersley; Prof AJ Pitman; A/Prof TR Marchant; A/Prof MJ Ford $620,000
10
Given the often repeated claim about sceptics funding, isn’t it time Pitman was asked to justify his repeating of such a claim.
Especially given Baa Humbug’s list above of Pitman’s own fundings for the consensus view.
I’m sure there is quite a list of known or active climate sceptics with no funding whatsoever or ever,
for the “well funded cause” that is climate scepticism…………………
Much applause to Baa Humbug BTW.
10
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Pamela Pope, Tom L Lewis, Justin Lee, Garth Godsman, spot_the_dog and others. spot_the_dog said: Monckton replies to IPCC's Andy Pitman's attack on skeptics http://j.mp/d9O0Z3 #agw #tcot #p2 #australia […]
10
Here in the USA Mann just got a million plus grant from the US government economic stimulus fund. Talk about ironic. A grant from an economic stimulus fund to a guy who is trying to kill not only the US but the world economy!
Meanwhile sceptics get tossed out of their jobs, passed over … so where are my big bucks?
10
Mike (Item #31).
Being a layman on feedback systems, I thoroughly enjoyed your commentary, as well as the continuation of it in a later post.
But, why do you assume we’re in a state of global warming (apart of course from the fact that we’re almost always either warming or cooling)? The land-based record temperatures, courtesy of the Anglia and Hadley folks aren’t credible, and satellite temp readings say (at least since about 2002) cooling. ??
10
Is there no depth to which Pitman will stoop ?
This is appalling, Pitman puts out this warning in the media ? I thought the usual thing was to report threats to police, but in Pitman’s world this passes as reasoned and insightful. What’s next – linking scientific scepticism to racism ?
Interesting Pitman puts this out on the same day that the Andrew Bolt attack dogs gave him a good mauling. I note someone there linked to Andy’s UNSW email address. Perhaps someone overstepped the mark. If so it is to be deplored.
A debate must be called very soon. The air must be cleared, otherwise this is going to devolve into something nasty. There are too many trogs appearing on both sides of the argument. A responsible government would be at the forefront of ensuring a proper debate where both sides are adequately represented.
Pitman must put up or shut up. Where is the UNSW’s ethics panel ? Shouldn’t they have something to say about staff making wild allegations ?
10
I tried to do the right thing by Pitman.
Below is our email exchange since he asked people to identify themselves (rightly so).
Mr Pitman
You are quite right, I should have included my details.
I guess you have been inundated since you commented on the Andrew Bolt blog.
My name is xxxxxxx xxxxxxx
of xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxx
Brisbane Qld
I noticed that Lord Monckton of Brenchley has asked 5 questions of you at the web site of Joanne Nova. joannenova.com.au
The questions are… (cut and pasted
hi,
I have replied to others on this. I am waiting to see his replies to questions posted for him.
Andy Pitman
He replied to others on this? Then why not cut n paste those replies to me?
The point of the whole excercise, for me, was to get a good debate going between Pitman and Monckton or at the very least show that people like Pitman are happy to crap on to the MSM but they avoid debate with knowledgable skeptics.
You decide how this came out.
By the way janama:
January 27th, 2010 at 10:24 pm
I’m still waiting for you to explain your comment about me????
10
You know I’m as hardcore as anybody, but I have never once considered email bombing a warmist, like say Eli (Josh Halpern) Rabett or Gavin Schmidt.
There’s no need to get huffy at someone in a personal email. In fact I’ve had curteous exchanges with Dr Dessler of Texas A&M. And Dr Ng. You’d be surprised how personable our antagonists can be.
A good rule of thumb is to save the vitriol for out in the public square, where it can do the most good (or damage), and you’ll be less likely to step over the line with all your friends looking.
10
OT
Todays Australian (our national newspaper) is running a poll
“How much do you trust scientific projections concerning global warming?”
So far
Completely 8.98%
Somewhat 11.44%
A little 15.02%
None at all 64.56%
Total 7797 votes
Vote here
Halfway down the page to the right
10
A Facebook site (Neville Numbat, someone from the Conservation Council)I have been debating on about Lord Monckton are discussing disrupting his Perth appearance, so please take care. If you want more info, send me an e-mail.
Congratulations on your site, I am a regular reader
10
Denis Ables (item#63). I agree that the land based temperature record is corrupted and whether or not there is any warming is most uncertain. In fact I have written articles (at jennifer marohasy’s website) also pointing out that the raw temperature record shows little if any warming. What I was commenting on was that a theoretical analysis would suggest that even with negative feedback some warming should be occuring. In fact since we have had about 0.45 doublings of CO2 since 1900 (388 vs 280 ppm) at 0.44C per doubling that would amount to about 0.2C. This is of course totally non dangerous and does not support AGW at a significant level. From an AGW point of view one would have to also assume man is responsible for the rising CO2 levels which may or may not be true. After all, the older chemical analysis records show CO2 was higher than currently in the 19th century although all the high readings are discounted by the warmists as contaminated (strange that the low readngs are all accepted as accurate).
I have spent some time and effort in the course of my paid work looking at means of measuring temperature accurately and it is far more difficult than you might expect. For example, one can measure body temperature with a thermometer in the mouth or in the armpit. In fact the armpit site reads about 0.5C lower than the mouth (try it). When trying to measure temperature in a controlled well defined system, 1C is easy, 0.1C is already very challenging and better than that becomes extremely difficult. Have a look at the price of a thermometer with a certified accuracy of 0.1C. To determine temperature accurate to 0.2C in an uncontrolled distributed environment over a period of decades is far far more difficult than most people probably realise, it takes extreme care to not introduce bias even if one is trying to be objective and have no axe to grind either way. Add to that the natural fluctuations overlaid on such a possible monotonic trend and I suspect it becomes almost impossible to determine whether or not such a trend is occuring.
Here is an experiment to try. You know ice melts at 0C. Take a glass of water, add some ice blocks and stir. Now put in a thermometer and read the temperature. How close do you get to zero? Do the same with boiling water, how close to 100C do you get? Try it, you will be surprised at the result. Now imagine doing it over 100’s of sites and decades of time to come up with measurement sites moving around and different people reading the thermometers at different times plus contaminating factors such as UHI to come up with an answer reliable to 0.1C!! Its an eye opening experiment to do.
10
Greeting Mike,
It’s good to see the Marohasy diaspora finding a new home.
They told me that if we didn’t make a concerted multi-national effort to solve global warming there would be climate change refugees all over the world, and they were right!
10
Thanks Michael. I noticed somewhere a comment from Fred Singer that, except for balloons, satellites were probably the only reasonable way to track earth’s temperature.
I found the climate theory (solar activity, cosmic rays, location within the galaxy) advanced by Henrik Svensmark (and associates) to be really interesting. Recently Lu (I think that was the Canadian scientist) came up with something that seems to somehow be related, but I’m not sure I even understand what Lu is claiming. Any comments on that?
10
Hi Michael #69
Well said. May I add the following.
Assume you got the thermometre problem totally fixed. Now go out to the front of your house and take a reading. Then walk to the letter box next to the driveway and road read again. Now go on to your lawn in the back-yard read again.
You will find substantial variations. I live on a 20acre property. Temp readings can vary by as much as 3degC from one spot to the next, that’s natural.
Now lets see what James Hansen has done. He has divided the globe into 5deg by 5deg sectors. That’s about 550km by 550km Some sectors have many stations (all averaged out) some have none (especially over oceans and deserts and poles).
From the above, we are led to believe that tweaking by computers can produce results accurate to the tenth of a degree???
No one knows what the average temp of this planet is, and no one will know into the foreseeable future. (satellites have their own unique probs)
10
Michael and BaaHumbug: I have noticed, while driving, that the temperature reading in either of our car(s) can change by several degrees within just a few miles.
It seems quite clear from your discussions that those poor souls who have been coming up with stupendous conclusions about global warming based in large part on surface temperature data (as currently collected and “machinated”) could have just as easily reached the same conclusions by reading tea leaves.
10
BaaHumbug & Michael Hammer:
On a related note, when you have a minute (and any other interested reader also take note) please see the attached website and view the brief video. This study uses only those sites where temp readings have evidently been available since 1900. The research was not done by a climate scientist, although he certainly appears to have credible credentials.
http://objectivistindividualist.blogspot.com/2009/12/rural-us-sites-show-no-temperature.html
While it may be true that surface temperatures are questionable, here is a study – using the NASA’s GISS data that shows no increase in temperature for over 100 years, based on temperatures from a number of rural sites. The same study shows an increasing temperature in nearby urban areas over the same 100+ years. Based on no increase in even nearby rural areas that would seem to indicate that urban increases must have been strictly related to the growth of their heat island.
I mentioned this to at least one skeptic (I think it was McIntyre, and it was some time ago), but the response was (unless I misunderstood it) that the data was questionable. (No argument there, but what better refutation of global warming claims than with some of the warmists own data?) Certainly it would be impossible to unravel what was warming and what was UHI if urban/rural data had been merged together.
The rural sites were selected because they were near a selected urban area. Unless that selection results in bias, or the analysis is bad, why hasn’t this been brought up before?
10
Baa Humbug and Denis Ales;
What you descibe is exactly the problem of measuring temperature accurately. Even for an object as small and uniform as the human body it is hard to measure temperature accurate to better than about 0.3C. For the environment which is extremely variable it is of course much harder and when one wants to do it over time periods of deades as well the uncertanties are far higher.
I also have written about estiamtion of warming trends versus urban heat island effects see: http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/06/hot-city-or-global-warming/
One interesting point, many people try to estimate temperature rises via the proxy of plant responses. For example, the date at which trees come back into leaf, flowering dates, fruit set and maturation dates and so on. They claim these are getting earlier which is an indication of rising average temperatures. There is no doubt that there is a correlation between the date of these events and average temperatures but consider the following. I live on the outskirts of the Melbourne suburban belt 40 km from Melbourne GPO (Australia) but at an elevation of 500 metres. Becuase of the elevation the average temperature here is reliably 5C colder than “down on the plains”. Does this mean that the events mentioned above are later than for the rest of Melbourne? Well yes it does, we are reliably around 3 weeks later than the rest of Melbourne. Thats 21 days. Now assuming roughly linear response a temperature rise of 0.5C over the last 40-50 years would mean (based on 3 weeks for 5C) that these events would have moved forward about 2 days. How could you possibly determine such a small change with any reliability given that say trees come back into leaf gradually over a period of weeks? Do we have records of when trees came back into leaf from 50 years ago accurate to the day? Or is it all based on human memeory?
10
Baa Humbug #72
Your comments on temperature variations on your property are spot on. Apparently though, many of the highly touted “climate scientists” haven’t any real experience beyond lecture halls. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if most of them couldn’t even read coded weather reports.
10
Post Pitman, I have come to the conclusion that climate scientists are more in the dark than mushroom technologists.
10
From MattB’s unpopular comment #41:
No. Nothing special about this date range.
There’s a reasonably easy way to settle the endless argument regarding start-end years which is to roll off the weighting of the regression using a Gaussian curve (or similar) and slide the window over the years. In addition you can repeat for a bunch of window sizes, see:
http://lnx-bsp.net/GISS_regression.png
This is based on the GISS data but I haven’t added the 2009 figure yet, it will change the curves somewhat. Note that GISS data almost certainly contains weirdness inserted by the homogenization process but it’s a data set that is easy to get hold of. In relation to Monockten’s 0.16 degrees C per decade, I can say that using a window size of at least 20 years you might get 0.17 degrees C per decade if you hunt around for the biggest peak. Using longer window sizes gives smaller peak values, shorter windows give bigger peak values (as is the well established tradition with numerical derivative estimation).
The warming hump that peaks a bit after 2000 is bigger than the warming hump that peaks around 1930 and the meaning of this is whatever you think is the level of accuracy in the GISS dataset.
You can run the code yourself for other data sets:
http://lnx-bsp.net/GISS_regression.R
Full details, source code, documentation, and pre-compiled binaries for the R interpreter and regression calculating engine is also available:
http://cran.r-project.org/
10
michael hammer:
January 29th, 2010 at 8:27 am
Interesting about the response of plants to climate. I remember as a kid in Melbourne a lot of the trees along the pathways coming into bloom in early August in some years, generally after a few days of steady sunshine. So I doubt that could be used as an accurate enough proxy.
Then again, the proxies and temp measurements of the IPCC mob is such a dogs breakfast that talking to some old timer farmers can be just as useful, theirs is the real direct observation isn’t it?
To date I’ve kept the belief that nobody knows what the average temperature of this planet is and nobody ever will. It also bugs me that we are told weather is not climate but they use weather data to determine climate.
cheers
10
but climate surely is just a collection of the weather. How would you suggest measuring climate if not with measurements of the weather over time?
10
Denis Ables:
January 29th, 2010 at 5:50 am
Hi denis
I agree with you regards using their own data to prove them wrong, though I think S McIntyre is more concerned with producing accurate results with accurate data.
I’ve had this notion for a while that if we were to find some accurate long term data from desert like locations, where Water Vapour is at a minimal, we can better deduce the effect of CO2 without the influence of WV. (Antarctica is dry, funny it hasn’t warmed at all)
If the data shows that night time temps have increased, then we can deduce the strength of CO2 forcing.
p.s. Funny how the tropics have not warmed. That’s where the majority of WV resides. If CO2 forces a feedback from WV. shouldn’t that manifest itself clearly at the tropics?
An article here by Slade Baker. Research on temps in New Mexico. Nice dry place
10
Hi Matt
I suggest abandon most resources thrown at weather and redirect them to understanding the sun and the oceans. The ONLY two things that matter IMHO.
Weather is far too chaotic. Any weather data can be “corrupted” by a myriad of micro climactic effects. I say start by learning about the large forces then work your way down to the smaller forces. But hey, I’m no big time scientist grant sinkhole. What do I know.
10
Baa Humbug:
If you’re into solar, and haven’t seen Henrik Svensmark’s video, here it is.
Here’s a couple of fascinating presentations, the 1st by a Danish group of scientists, the 2nd by physicists at a CERN Colloquiium:
Except for the first minute or two of the first video, the entire film is in English. The subtitles are in English during those first couple of minutes.
The website referenced above contains a 6-part (you-tube) video, about ½ hour total viewing time. The video demonstrates that our climate is controlled by solar activity and its interaction with cosmic rays. This interaction results in more or less (low) cloud cover, which in turn affects climate. The particulars of this interaction vary over long periods of time based on where we are within our milky way galaxy. (One rotation of the solar system around the galaxy takes about 250 million years.)
This discovery involved a multidisciplinary investigation which included astronomers, physicists, geologists, oceanographers and climatologists. The story is fascinating and the science is easy to follow. It is a MUST view for those interested in (what was until now) a confusing climate debate wrapped in an agenda.
The second website (below) is a video of a CERN Colloquium where various data related to solar and cosmic ray activity and climate is being reviewed before an audience of physicists. This video goes into more technical detail, but the data leads to the same general conclusions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKoUwttE0BA&feature=related
http://seekingalpha.com/article/175641-climategate-revolt-of-the-physicists
10
Some comments on recent posts: Climate is simply the long term average of weather. What is really meant is that the large short term variations one sees in day to day weather are not representative of climate but when these are removed by averaging over a long time what remain is climate. How long? Everyone has a different number, the one I have seen most often bandied about is 30 years.
Baa Humbug comments on Antarctica not having warmed at all. This is more interesting than you probably realise because when one analyses the situation from a spectroscopic point of view, the direct imapct of rising CO2 should COOL the antarctic not warm it. What! not possible! how come I hear you cry. Its true. Consider what is happening. The warm surface of the earth emits energy at 14 microns. Instead of radiating away to space this energy is absorbed by atmospheric CO2. The only emission at 14 microns to space comes from CO2 at the top of the atmosphere and the temperature at the top of the atmosphere is much colder than the surface hence there is less 14 micron emission to space. Thus the impact of CO2 is to result in less energy emission to space at 14 microns so overall energy loss is reduced and the earth is thus warmed.
Yes but what is the situation in the antarctic? Well firstly the surface of the antarctic is cold, very cold, in fact not all that much warmer than the temperature at the top of the atmosphere (which I am taking to be the tropopause – the coldest point in the atmosphere – for reasons too invoved to go ito here). Thus one might predict that the difference in emission from the surface and from the tropopause is relatively small. Secondly one must consider the emissivity. For CO2 at the top of the atmosphere the emissivity will always be 1 (ie: it look like a balck body at this wavelength: the reasons are rock solid spectroscopy known for 100+ years but a bit too involved to go into here). However the surface is snow which has a very high reflectivity and thus a very low emissivity. As a result it emits far less energy than would a black body at the same temperature(a black body is defined as one with an emissivity of 1). Thus the CO2 at the tropopause emits MORE 14 micron energy to space than does the surface. The experimental data from the Nimbus satellite confirms it. The surface emission either side of the 14 micron CO2 line shows an equivalent surface temperature of 180K (ie: the temperature a black body would have to have to emit the amount of energy that the surface does) but the equivalent temperature at the CO2 line is 230K. So the prsence of CO2 in the atmopshere increases the emission to space at 14 microns over the poles and thus COOLS the polar regions. The theory predicts it beyond doubt and the direct experimental evidence confirms the theoretical prediction. I find it extremely interesting that this has not, to my knowledge, been talked about. It really is very basic spectroscopy and it makes we wonder just how good a handle we really have on the science.
Now with regard to the tropics. Evaporating water takes a great deal of energy, over 2200 joules per gram, and the partial pressure of water vapour increases exponentially with temperature. In the tropics, the water vapour level rises so rapidly with temperature that effectively all the energy is absorbed by evaoprating water with miniscule rise in temperature. This latent heat is then transported upwards and outwards (towards higher latitudes) and released again when the water vapour condenses as clouds. Part of the energy transport system around the globe.
10
Denis Ables:
January 30th, 2010 at 2:13 am
Hi denis, thnks for the links. I’m familiar (somewhat) with Svensmarks works. There is a very interesting “Open Reviewed” paper here which also includes reviewers comments. Cheers
michael hammer:
January 31st, 2010 at 9:32 am
Thanks for the detailed post. May I suggest you “tweek” your diplomacy meter a little. Your post reads like you are talking to a complete novice.
10
Pittman should study the actual ie empirical science, not carry on with this propaganda nonsense, including ad hominem rants.
His first course of compulsory study of an actual scientific (ie actual measurements and statistical analysis in the world’s leading peer reviewed scientific journals by one of the world’s leading hydrologist-statisticians) appraisal and falsification of the IPCC et al’s models is the relevant publications on the university webpage of Professsor Demetris Koutsoyiannis.
It is available here: http://www.itia.ntua.gr/dk
With careful and concientious study and no distractions like conducting propaganda campaigns for corrupt science, Pittman should be able to understand and accept Demetris’ conclusions after about one month of full time study.
Demetris Koutsoyiannis is professor of the National Technical University of Athens in Hydrology and Analysis of Hydrosystems; also professor of Hydraulics in the Hellenic Army’s Postgraduate School of Technical Education of Officers Engineers; Editor of Hydrological Sciences Journal; and member of the editorial boards of Hydrology and Earth System Sciences and Water Resources Research.
He has been awarded the Henry Darcy Medal 2009 by the European Geosciences Union for his outstanding contributions to the study of hydrometeorological variability and to water resources management.
10
Hi Baa Humbug;
Your point noted and my apologies
10
michael:
February 1st, 2010 at 12:44 pm
Hi Mick
No need mate. I’m in a hurry to rush off to work. have a good day, chat later
10
Baa Humbug & Michael Hammer:
I probably left Michael with that impression, and his perception was correct — I am just a (interested) novice. Thank goodness for websites like this one, and the folks who participate (like you guys). The internet is the only possible way for a puzzled outsider to get real information. (Of course, one must be a bit perceptive – there’s the RealClimate website too.)
There are other heros out there, – the whistle blower(s) who brought on climategate. And Costella’s work with those liberated emails. His Climategate document should certainly help put the final nail into the IPCC coffin.
10
In chapter 8 of IPPC IV Prof Pitman is quoted in one of the earlier responses here as writing:
“projecting how the climate will change in the future does [rely on models] and these models are now clearly skillful enough to firmly underpin the warming scenarios used by the IPCC.”
But is’nt it true that such scenarios are based on these computer models? Good on you! – underpinning or lifting yourself on your own bootstraps!
10
Today’s Washington Times leading editorial (title and subtitle appear below 🙂
Osama and Obama on global warming
Discredited climate theories make strange bedfellows
10
Do you recall the youtube delivery of anurban / rural study of several US sites with data from 1900 forward, by “a sixth grader and his dad”?
It showed no temperature increase in rural areas for 100+ years.
Here comes another one from New Zealand, where the CRU report showed increasing temperatures, but when the raw data is used, basically a flat line from about 1853 forward ! Not to mention the other goodies.
Have a look: http://euro-med.dk/?p=11956
10
@MattB Jan 27
Matt, you discuss Monckton’s qualifications to discuss the matter (he has been trained in classics etc). This is not relevant. FOR EXAMPLE Rupert Posner, who was chosen to oppose Monckton on John Faine’s ABC Local Radio show has no scientific qualifications either (see http://www.climatechangesummit.com.au/speakers.html).
I strongly disagree with your approach. Anyone who has something to say should be given courteous attention, including Posner. However, Posner’s flat out refusal to accept that Monckton has a fistful of refereed anti-AGW papers does not help his cause. And that is the sort of judgement that people do not have to have science degrees can make.
The public must not NEVER accept the view that they cannot comment because they are unqualified. They must never be gulled into thinking that they cannot think.
10
Actually Shipwrecked if you read my posts on 27th Jan you will find that I was questioning recent newspaper reports that say Monckton is a mathematician. I only listed his quals to show that none of them appear to be in mathematics. I don’t care what his quals are but he is not a mathematician. I don’t know if newspapers just have it wrong, or of someone is making them think he is a mathematician, but they have it wrong for sure.
When you say that Monckton has a fistful of refereed anti-AGW papers what do you mean? As in he has written, or he has as ammo ones written by others? You’re not clear.
I’m quite comfortable with my right to comment so clearly I don’t think it should be restricted to people with high level climate science quals.
10
If you want the culprits in this conspiracy,
look here, http://euro-med.dk/?p=11956
and, http://euro-med.dk/?p=56
10
Results of the NASA CEI request:
Climategate 2.0 — The NASA Files: U.S. Climate Science as Corrupt as CRU (PJM Exclusive — Part One)
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/climategate-2-0-%E2%80%94-the-nasa-files-u-s-climate-science-as-corrupt-as-cru-pjm-exclusive-%E2%80%94-part-one/?singlepage=true
10
At a quick glance I can help with questions 4 & 5.
Pinker recently pointed out how Monckton was misunderstanding her work, and specifically how he’d got the climate sensitivity wrong.
Tim Lambert used her comments in a recent debate against Monckton.
10
My understanding is where Pinker explains:
“The question raised by you is related to this interpretation.
I will try my best to understand the comments of all sides and clarify the concept of
“cloud forcing” used by Christopher Monckton.
Here is the accepted definition of this concept:
The effect of clouds F, on the Earth’s radiation balance is measured as the difference
between clear-sky and all-sky radiation results both in shortwave (SW) and longwave
(LW)
FSW (cloud) = FSW (clear) – FSW (all-sky)
FLW (cloud) = FLW (clear) – FLW (all-sky
Fnet (cloud) = FSW (cloud) + FLW (cloud)”
Pnkers 3.04 is the term FSW, wheras Monckton uses it in his equation in Q4 to Pittman to mean Fnet, which is where Pinker says “The CO2 “radiative forcing” value that Mr. Christopher Monckton is quoting
refers to the impact on the Earth’s Radiative balance as described above. The numbers that we quote in our paper represent the change in surface SW due to changes in the atmosphere (clouds, water vapor, aerosols). These two numbers cannot be compared at their face value.”
10
As anyone who is associated with research in Australia knows, about 90% of academic departments budgets are spent on salaries. A Professor would spend 90% of his/her time on research rather than on teaching. An Australian Professor costs about $200,000 to $250,000 per annum. So over the past 10 years, the distinguished professor who claims that the skeptics are well funded, had cost the Australian tax payer about $2,000,000. Add to this all the research grants, and the funding by the ARC (aka the Australian tax payer) of his PhD students (each costing $100,000 or so in scholarships and other direct and indirect costs), and you probably have $3M to $4M spent on the Professor’s research. That is just one professor, but apparently we have two professor working on this at the University of NSW. So exactly who is well funded?
10
Climate Department grants are far better funded and much less based on scientific merit than ARC grants (you have to believe in AGW)- if only all the money had to put through ARC grants then we’d have confidence in the process. ARC and real research grants are extremely tough to get.
10