The public might not understand the science, but they do understand cheating
Dr. David Evans
19 October 2010
[A series of articles reviewing the western climate establishment and the media. The first and second discussed air temperatures, the third was on ocean temperatures, and fourth discussed past temperatures, the fifth compared the alleged cause (human CO2 emissions) with the alleged effect (temperatures), the sixth canvassed the infamous attempt to “fix” that disconnect, the hockey stick, and the seventh pointed out that the Chinese, Russian, and Indian climate establishments (which are financially independent of the western climate establishment) disagree with the western climate establishment about the cause of recent global warming.]
Click to download a pdf file containing the whole series
Yes, But It’s Murky
Photo adapted from Youxue Hong Wikimedia
The vast majority of scientists in the western climate establishment believe in the theory of man-made global warming (but not Chinese, Russian, or Indian climate scientists, as noted). But here’s where it gets murky.
The believers basically took over western climate science in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and since then have:
- Fired anyone who expresses disagreement with their theory, or hindered their career (publishing, promotions, funding). Al Gore sacked a few skeptics in his time as Vice-President of the USA.
- Hired into climate science positions only people who agreed with their theory.
Government-funded institutions are the only employers of “climate scientists”, so once the believers were in control of the few bodies that determine funding of government science, it was game over. Believers got all the funding and positions; skeptics were forced out. There are no checks and balances in government funded science, no competition from privately-funded science in the climate area, no auditing as there is in financial matters, no regulation as with food and drugs, and no organized and funded opposition to test the theories and champion alternatives.
Within organizations that receive money for working on global warming, anyone who speaks out against the theory of man-made global warming gets peer pressure to shut up, because it threatens the funding and career prospects of colleagues. Scientists have mortgages and children too, and who else would employ a sacked or shunned climate scientist?
So the takeover is complete, and it’s never going to change. The good ‘ol boys are in charge for the foreseeable future.
The only current “climate scientists” who don’t pay lip service to the theory that global warming is predominately man-made are a few blokes who were appointed before 1990 and refuse to budge (for example Richard Lindzen at MIT, now approaching 70, who wrote a paper on corruption in climate science that names names).
Ever notice that nearly all the climate scientists who speak out against the man-made theory are retired—no longer dependent on government climate money? For example, Joanne Simpson, the first woman to receive a PhD in meteorology and “among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years”, worked for NASA but in retirement said:
Figure 24: Joanne Simpson, the first woman to receive a PhD in meteorology, only expressed her skepticism from retirement. She explicitly pointed out that could speak frankly because she was no longer funded by anyone.
“ Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receive any funding, I can speak quite frankly. … virtually all of the claims are derived from either flawed data sets or imperfect models or both … But as a scientist I remain skeptical.”
I have received communications indicating that the level of support for the theory in some leading western climate institutions is much lower than the public believes, but they cannot say anything publicly, and urged me to continue criticizing the theory.
A huge number of scientists from other areas have seriously looked into climate science issues, and many (most?) have concluded that something is amiss or seriously amiss. It is obvious to many outsiders that the scientific method is not being observed in the climate sciences (for example, the missing hotspot). Which is why so many prominent skeptics are scientist from other areas.
How Did This Develop?
Climate science is totally funded by government. The system rewards the views it wants with grant money, publications in peer reviewed journals, promotions, even fame—the climate scientists with the right views are the rock stars of science, appearing in the press and in demand as speakers. Other scientists see what gets the desired outcomes, and imitate. Soon all the scientists involved have the same opinions—those rewarded by the system—and it’s mutually reinforcing. Mere evidence is ignored or explained away. Viola—a consensus!
In climate science this process started in the mid to late 1980s. It’s not a conspiracy, just a toxic interaction of science, government funding, and media reporting. Given the system, the result was inevitable.
It has also spawned a huge and diverse gravy train of vested financial interests, from renewables manufacturers to lawyers in carbon trading. Many in the political system are heavily invested in it. It is too big to die. It’s the irresistible force of human affairs. But what happens when it collides with the immovable object of scientific evidence and the inevitable eventual cooling? So far the crucial evidence (next article in the series) has been ignored and fudged, and sufficient cheating and mis-reporting of global temperatures might even keep this new religion alive for centuries. Or will word of the cheating leak out to a public no longer willing to fund the gravy train?
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Summary | PART I | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5 | PART 6 | PART 7 | PART 8 | PART 9 | PART 10 | PART 11
Full PDF versions for printing and emailing are available from the summary page.
Image Credit: Original Photo Youxue Hong
Ms Nova:
I completely agree with your assessment of how we got into this mess, but I do not agree with your conclusion that says:
The cult of AGW is dead. Nobody has declared it dead, and nobody will declare it dead. But it is dead.
It is still running around which gives it the impression of still being alive, but its movement is transitory like a headless chicken continues to run around a farmyard.
The scare died in Copenhagen last year when developing countries refused to join in. So, the economic reason politicians had for supporting AGW has gone. The ‘chicken’ will contine to run about at Cancun in November, but soon after that it will slowly fall over and be still.
The flow of money governments provide to power the ‘gravy train’ will slowly reduce to a trickle and then cease.
I predict that by the end of this decade the AGW-scare will have been forgotten, just as the ‘acid rain’ scare of the 1980s is now forgotten (few remember that scare unless reminded of it).
But the stench of the corpse of the AGW-scare will remain for a long time. Part of that stench is loss of public confidence in science, and I regret that.
Richard
10
Hi Jo,
You make this statement “Fired anyone who expresses disagreement with their theory, or hindered their career (publishing, promotions, funding). Al Gore sacked a few skeptics in his time as Vice-President of the USA.” Can you or someone else who frequents this board please give some examples of Al Gore having a few skeptics sacked?
This would be good ammunition for me 🙂
10
Well, Dr. Will Happer (Physicist, Princeton U.) says he was fired by Gore from his post as Director of Energy Research at the Department of Energy back in 1993 because he wouldn’t go along with Gore’s views on ozone and climate issues. I haven’t run across anyone else in a quick search, but that could be because Happer is the most prominent (most of the first 100 hits of my Google search are about him).
Among those fired by someone other than Gore are Mark Albright (former associate state climatologist in Washington) and Patrick Michaels (former state climatologist in Virginia). I don’t count George Taylor, since his title of state climatologist in Oregon appears to have been technically informal and he was just told he couldn’t use it anymore due to his views. I’m a little short of time today, hopefully others can recall more names.
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Jo,
You are doing great work, keep it up!
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Colin’s request for examples of people who have been fired for contrarian views is very important – and should be wider than just those sacked by Gore. There are lots of statements made about how academic climate science is biased, but seldom any evidence of contrarial academics being dismissed, or not having contracts renewed. We are always accusing the warmists of making statements that can’t be backed up, so we should either be able to substantiate the claim or withdraw it. A series of documented examples would make a great post for this blog.
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Regarding the role of the global warming scare in the Western political agenda, the dissolution of nationhood and sovereignty.
Has there has ever been a Big Lie as extensive as this one? Wjhat about the man behind the curtain of the AGW pretext?
Dissolution of nations is a long term agenda.
It is a very basic fact of human wiring that most are easily hypnotized.
Approximately two thirds of the human species only has to hear something fairly preposterous three to five times before they will believe it.
Of course how much the lie “takes” will always depend on how much anyone person then chooses to invest in this Big Lie which in turn determines what degree of convincing it will take to reverse a given scam in the minds of converts and ‘believers”.
I have nothing but the greatest admiration for those like Jo Nova, who keep their heads when others are losing theirs, and who have carried this expose torch so valiantly and who have held up to the bright light of reason the lies with which this particular version of an “end-of-the-world” scam is laced.
In truth, what this western and even global hoax has illustrated is that reason and rationality seem to factor in far less for the average person than one might hope.
Most are still hard wired to look to and trust authority to tell them what to do.
My question is this: All massive efforts to expose this particular lie aside, what does it matter if one AGW thread in the bought and paid for science of lies quilt has been snipped?
If the purpose is to create large scale loathing of the human species destroying its own paradise, if the earth has been reframed as paradise and if humans have been demonized the satan in this fable, how does one reverse this scale of such a perception?
My point is that the pathology itself which runs this train has gone mainstream.
If the agenda of those who created this hoax was to buy science and use this to dissolve nations and to depopulate, how does undermining one (albeit giant) pathological hoax undo the big picture of multiple simultaneous interactive hoaxes? Does all of the patience and admirable reasonableness and dedication to exposing the lies erode or short circuit the global goals of the unelected wealthy elite?
Does ex[posing the AGW lie alter the agenda of multi national pharmaceuticals who create the cancers they pretend to treat? Does an expose have the power to undermine corporatism itself, the GMO schemers who take over entire regions through seed drift, the international cartel of bankers who shrug and switch from selling carbon credits to luring the dupable into buying sub prime something else? While it is, yes, vitally necessary, does exposing the AGW version of catastrophe wipe out the virulent anti democratic agenda of those who implement a cascade of catastrophic scnearios? Has a mortal blow been struck at global warming’s underpinnings?
What about the foundation stones of this scam, CCC. No not Catastrophic Climate Change. I refer to Corporatism Communitarianism, Common Purpose, which continues unabated, even if AGW has a stake through the heart?
My concern is that this is a multi-pronged scheme.
AGW was meant to be just one prong, one overheated iron in the global fire.
Why has this level of conning worked as well as it has, for decades?
What rebranded version of AGW will the masses fall for next?
As long as people can have their own biological herd instinct used against them, as long as the majority continue to be so readily convinced by any fear based con, can be so easily lured in by anything that smacks of the apocalyptic, there will continue to be one apocalypse fearing cult after another predicted by white coat or political “authorities”.
The same mechanism of fear mongering which made this particularly preposterous version of the same reworked basic cult premise so effective is unaltered. It lies within, not without. If the simple ploy that the world is about to end by fire instead of ice dies, how won’t AGW or CCC be seamlessly supplanted by the next cult lie which the many of same players have lined up?
Look to the newest star, the loss of biodiversity scare, not to mention the population scare, the ocean acidity scare, the pandemic scare, the food safety scare, etc., each one constructed with exactly the same architecture.
Global hoaxing comes courtesy of the global version of the Madison Avenue of human manipulation, and there is no doubt it is one slick advertising crew.
Most political rulers have become indistinguishable from cult leaders because people remain indistinguishable from cult followers.
AGW is a symptom of a much deeper disease. In North America, this machinery continues undeterred. The cognitive dissonance is almost intolerable for anyone who does recognize the eugenics underpinning that runs this gang of ‘depopulationists’.
What concerns me is how easy it was to use AGW to program such extremes of self loathing into so much of our human species throughout the western world. The average person has taken up the gospel and thinks casually about the necessity to get rid of most of us.
Yes,psychopaths always go to far. Yes they eventually overplay their hand. Yes, one must allow for grace and luck and fear fatigue to play a role. And yes, it was fortunate that the eugenics agenda was inadvertently exposed by the inculcated and bloodthirsty lot over at 10:10:10. And for fence sitters this may have temporarily awakened them.
However, even those repelled by the Global Warming Inquisition images, the sick humour of showing the bloody culling of any who fail to comply, even these people still largely “believe” that average people – (as distinct from weather geo-engineering scientists) – are somehow at one and the same time insignificant and collectively powerful enough to alter the entire planet’s climate.
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O/T but some very interesting developments at the Air Vent re GCM programming.
David Evans has produced an excellent series of articles.
I agree with Richard C.above AGW is dead and I hope the main architects will be brought to book.
10
Is the Western Climate Establishment corrupt? Yes and I believe a small number of protagonists at the forefront of the AGW scam have knowingly corrupted data and purposely misled and misinformed our scientifically ignorant politicians and MSM. In any other field eg medicine criminal charges would be brought for such shameless behaviour.
Chris Monkton makes a good attempt at explaining the supranational political motivations for promoting this scam.
But where oh where have the investigative reporters of the MSM been for 15 years, or are they constrained by the ‘owners’ ?
10
“There are no checks and balances in government funded science, no competition from privately-funded science in the climate area, no auditing as there is in financial matters, no regulation as with food and drugs, and no organized and funded opposition to test the theories and champion alternatives.”
I think that is the kicker, and it should be the message driven home to our politicians. “Climate Science” as we know it will remain corrupt until that is rectified.
10
Unfortunately, it appears the instigators of the AGW scam may escape prosecution, as they have already escaped useful investigation. We may bemoan all this in blogs, but I take my laments to the street, providing evidence from charts and documents, photocopying and distributing. It’s so far been very successful. I hope others do the same and take physical action.
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Mia Nony: #6
You are right, as usual, even if you express your ideas in a very depressing way. 🙂
There are always big lies, there always has been, and their always will be.
As Jo points out, they are not conspiracies. Nobody sets out to build a big lie from whole cloth.
These things start spontaneously, often as a single fact or idea. Somebody sees a opportunity to use that fact or idea to their own advantage, and then others take notice, take the original fact or idea, expand on it, and so it takes off. On the internet, they are called “Memes”, which is itself an idea that has taken off, therefore becoming a definition of itself.
No conspiracy – just people acting in their own self-interest.
And a universal segment of society who are in the best position to notice these facts or ideas are the bureaucrats. And it just so happens that they also control the detailed allocation of funding from the public purse. It is not the politicians – they just decide (actually choose) the “policies” (what the word politician means) from a list of policy options prepared by – you guessed it – the bureaucrats.
The “big lies” will continue until somebody somewhere figures out how to separate out the three functions of state: a) the determination of policy; b) the funding of policy; and c) the execution of policy. And do it in a way that is acceptable to all concerned.
In Medieval England, these three levels were performed by the King, who decided the policy (usually who to go to war with this month), the Nobles who provided the funding (to pay for the war), and the illiterate populace who actually did most of the fighting (using bows and arrows, axes, scythes, clubs, and sharp wooden poles).
I don’t think anybody wants to go back to that model, least of all the quiet bureaucrats, but having one group do all three is a recipe for an even worse disaster.
10
“Out of context” Flannery explains his dud predictions
Watch Alarmist of the Year Tim Flannery squirm!!
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/out_of_context_flannery_explains_his_dud_predictions/
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Richard Courtney @1,
I hope I’m wrong and you’re right. But wherever I look the gospel of global warming is on full display. It’s accepted even by some very conservative politicians here who should know better than to drink that Kool-Aid.
The amount of money invested one way or another in green technology, not to mention the monumental investment in “face” that will need to be saved just about guarantees that it will hound us for a long time.
One aspect alone is a killer to get reversed — our schools and universities are teaching it. They will not go quietly believe me.
Our elections this year and 2012 wil be only the beginning. The vested interests will fight back with every dirty trick they can come up with.
It has reached almost the selffulfilling prophesy level.
10
Roy Houge @13
You say,
I have just posted this on another thread, I’m afraid it supports you about educational institutions.
10
Joanne Simpson was indeed skeptical of global warming. But she would not have countenanced the views Dr Evans series. Here is what she said (in part):
Why stop there John? Continuing the quote, she continues to express my views fairly well:
And continuing further, putting on her political hat she recommends taking action to reduce emissions because we “must” do as Gore and the IPCC say (with which I disagree), but then immediately puts on her science hat and expresses skepticism with that recommendation (hurray!):
]
10
“Climate change is no threat-Czech president”
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE69I2EC.htm
10
Dr William Happer, Professor of Physics at Princeton, served as Director of Basic Energy Sciences of the US DOE, 1993-1994, when he was dismissed by Gore through an underling (it is clear to me),
Dr Happer expressed serious doubt about “man made climate change” when DOE National Labs tried to force DOE to invest in “climate change” modelling etc etc. People with more influence in the Climton/Gore government than Dr Happer did not care greatly for Dr Happer’s scepticism.
I have been openly critical of “climate change” “science” in my job at the DOE since 1987.
But I’m a lowly civil servant who cannot be forced out, thanks to the protection (of sceptics) by persons such as Senator James Inhofe. (Happer held of course a political appointment.)
If it weren’t for the integrity of this Senator from the US State of Oklahoma, I would probably be out in the street
10
By the way I was present at some of the meetings between the DOE labs and Will Happer. Here’s a typical discussion:
Lab Representative: “Tell us what it is you want to see.”
Happer: “What it is I want to see? Or what you want to see? This doesn’t look good to me, there’s nothing empirical about this, you have already decided what it is you want to see.”
10
david,
the “official” narrative keeps rolling on as if the “science is settled”. in fact, the science is ignored and it is all about “carbon”.
the good news? that message is becoming increasingly incoherent!
20 Oct: Australian: James Massola: Tony Windsor carbon fix to aid farmers
The comments were made at an Outcomes Australia carbon management forum, which was hosted by the organisation’s chairman and former governor-general Michael Jeffery, and which brought together farmers, business groups and sustainability experts…
(Tony Windsor) “So the carbon committee, the carbon price committee, people are misconstruing that as being about a tax or an emissions trading scheme — it doesn’t necessarily have to be. It could be a price on incentives, it could be a whole range of things,” Mr Windsor said.
“It could be that a whole range of strategies are put in that take up bits of the pie and negate the need for a price — I don’t know the answer to that.”
(Rob Oakeshott) “The moral challenge of our time is not so much climate change as a general concept, it’s to get this working on the ground on farms in the space of a price on carbon offsets and biodiversity offsets [to give] better returns to the community..”..
“Now is the moment . . . this is a great opportunity to break the frustration of those involved in land, water and biodiversity, to break the frustrations of not getting the answers and solutions from government and start to be the answer rather than offer the answer.”…
(Michael Jeffery) “What I would see is the big emitters doing a direct deal with the farmers, no trading scheme, no middle man, a big emitter doing a deal based on the price, with a farmer who, if the price is $25, can say to the emitter ‘well, I can do a deal for $20’ while he is carrying out efficiencies to improve his land,” he said.
“The beauty of it is that it’s not inflationary, it’s not a tax, it gives options to the emitters, they don’t have to do anything — and it’s good for Ken Henry as well.”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/tony-windsor-carbon-fix-to-aid-farmers/story-fn59niix-1225940907121
what are they talking about?
10
Stacking the deck is the only way science can get the massive funding that they are tied with governments. What products do they make for industry? None. So there is no funding available without this type of fraud.
It has made science too powerful to critize for the mistakes made.
Look at the CERN collider using an inappropriate proxy to understand the Universe when the rotations are not the same as solar systems, planets and suns. One rotates 2 dimensionally and the other rotates 3 dimensionally.
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Rereke Whaakaro: Number 11
I find reality as a touchstone empowering, not depressing. I do agree that when it comes to Big Lies,be they about climate or otherwise, t’was ever thus. The thing is, even if AG/CCC.Climate Disruption was dead in the water, its taxation schemes and its ruthless policies have solidified.
To me, as the offspring of those who fled dictatorship, any true democracy is NOT taken as a given. It is beyond precious, and its continuance requires eternal vigilance.
At first blush, the Medieval feudal model bears little resemblance to the powerful and complex pyramid (scheme?) under which western nations operate today. However, it is significant that escalating carbon taxation, etc., is already up and running.
Ask yourself this: If our taxes, including countless climate policy driven taxes and restrictions on the air we breathe, the water we drink and use, the income we earn, the land which property “owners” actually technically lease from the Queen, plus a whole raft of escalating eco taxes, etc., … if all of these taxes combined exceed 25% of income ask, why is it that people do not revolt?
Medieval serfs revolted if landowners to whom they owed crops took more than 25%. Sure, they rarely succeeded, but at least they revolted.
Do the working/middle classes hand over more than 25% of our own labour? Absolutely.
In Canada “tax free day” begins sometime in July. That’s over 50% of our earnings taken.
Do we get something real back in return? Or is our money redirected toward pork barrel politics, and government and NGO theft.
Here is the post Medieval model:
Banks selling carbon credits are really at the top of the pyramid.
“I care not who makes the country’s laws as long as I control the money supply”.
Canada’s leaders are in the process of rendering my country a non sovereign nation, answerable to foreign authorities, to a Supranational usurper of powers, the United Nations.
Our Prime Minister is the political head (of a party, which operates more like a private club) designed to facilitate just this. Despite globalism’s link to economic chaos, pretty much all seemingly different parties in Canada are on the same page, globalism, so it matters little which one is in power.
Canada’s Governor General is a titular head answerable to the Queen/King of England.
Those who sit on the boards of lobbyist corporations are perhaps similar to the Nobles who fund and benefit from wars.
Think tanks (the Club Of Rome comes to mind since they originated the climate hoax and policies from the get go) are funded tax free by private Foundations whose boards are comprised of unimaginably wealthy people from every country. Those think tanks are comprised of willing bureaucrats whose jobs is to create and shape climate policy.
NGOs are supported by these Foundations. In turn they dictate policy indirectly. David Suzuki’s is one of far too many bottom feeders.
Climate scientists, the inner circle which is paid to shape policy, lend the issue an air of authority. They have exceedingly large rice bowls. As I seem to recall Jo pointing out, $79 billion buys a lot of science.
What differs here from the Medieval era is that the populace is far less illiterate than they once were and have become much more comfortable – and complacent. While most may pride themselves on their green choices and recycle boxes, this demographic does not see itself as tax serfs. Life in the west is mostly not cheap, harsh and brutishly short. Not many would willing lay down their lives for or against climate issues. Too comfortable.
I did actually post a series of humorous jibes on the last thread but no one responded, let alone laughed!
In that instance I temporarily forgot my own rule of thumb: Don’t Feed The Trolls.
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Once Governments worldwide implement a carbon tax there’s no going back.
And when that day comes, blogs like this one, and the crusted on skeptics that inhabit it, will only become more irrelevant, much like the flat earthers are today.
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Well it’s not going to happen in your country Spatch is it. By the time they try again the La Nina will have swung in and we’ll be cooling again and you’ll all be the laughing stock.
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Sure, and tell global warmers who think “carbon taxes” are a good idea,
“go spatch your rear end.”
10
@Brian G Valentine
…hence the “bug-out” eyes…
_________
Christopher Monckton has Graves Disease, a form of hyperthyroidism that causes his eye condition. Your comment and use of his photograph for ridicule are out of order. — Editor
10
Where do these people come from? Does anyone have a clue?
Is there a recommendation somewhere for anonymous nitwit bloggers with nothing to say to come to this web site and prove exactly that?
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@ Spatch
Just in case you missed this. From: Is The Western Climate Establishment Corrupt: Part 7
Roy Hogue:
October 20th, 2010 at 7:13 am
Spatch:
October 20th, 2010 at 9:44 am
Well, Spatch, the gauntlet Roy has slapped you in the face with is mailed steel. Are you going to pick it up or just lay there and bleed? Maybe you should change your screen name to dispatched because you have been by Roy! 🙂
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The conclusion of the blog post @ http://greenhouse.geologist-1011.net/ is totally laughable.
By Timothy Casey – who works for the Petroleum Industry!!
…snakeoil…or just plain oil…whatever.
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Spatch:
October 20th, 2010 at 11:51 am
The only place a carbon tax will take the civilized world is the economic dark ages.
Fortunately for the taxpayer, politicians will “bow to the will of the people” (i.e. do what ever it takes to save their political hides and win reelection). The only thing “crusted on” is the pathetic line of fallacious reasoning you demonstrate with every feeble post of yours that appears on this site. “Flat earthers” are people who cling to falsified hypotheses such as CAGW.
Whats the matter, DiSpatched? Were you abused as a child? No father figure around? Maybe Mommy didn’t give you enough love? What is the basis for your neurosis?
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Spatch, many people have concluded that the “greenhouse” effect is impossible, based on the argument that “greenhouse” gases supposedly “trap” heat in the troposphere, so that the troposphere warms, whilst the stratosphere cools. Since the atmosphere certainly conducts heat through the tropopause, this implies that heat transferred by the “greenhouse” effect from the cooler stratosphere to the warmer troposphere – without expending work.
This is absolute violation of the second law of thermodynamics, and anyone who claims otherwise has no clue about what the second law says.
Why then has the “greenhouse” idea persisted for so long? I suppose it is just a refusal of the mind to step back and look at the larger picture. There is no serious counter argument to this.
The “greenhouse” effect of a warming Earth from water vapour is simply a misunderstanding of a decrease in average diurnal temperatures as a result of water in the atmosphere from evaporation, distributed by convection. There is no mystery to this at all, but fairy tales persist because people somehow need them to be true
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Spatch:
October 20th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
A “cut and paste” followed by an ad hominem attack. Is that the best you can do? You never answered Roy’s question. Can you answer the question?
In case you have forgotten:
Well, Spatch, do you have it in you or are you about to become a statistic?
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@Brian G Valentine
Chew on this.
http://climatephysicsforums.com/topic/3292392/1/
Choke on this
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@ Spatch
One more time!
No cut and paste, no references to other sites and no ad hominems. Whats the matter? Can you do it or not?
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@Eddy Aruda
I choose to play by my own rules thank you very much.
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Spatch:
October 20th, 2010 at 2:35 pm
So did Charles Manson and Ted Bundy. Are you going to answer Roy’s question or are you going to continue to evade and weasel? Certainly an erudite and intelligent poster can easily do so? What are you afraid of? Maybe you just can’t and you don’t have the humility to admit it? More than likely, you know that people like Brian, Richard and Cohenite will expose you for the wannabe that you are!
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uh hunh
Eli Rabbit doesn’t think Gerlich and Tscheuschner have “understood modern climate science” but if you read this “rebuttal”, Rabbit never actually refutes Gerlich and Tscheuschner.
Joel Shore comments that radiation from the Earth’s surface has decreased, we have
q=(sigma)[(eps1)T1^4 – (eps2)(T2)^4]
as the radiant exchange between the Earth’s surface and the stratosphere, if T1 increases and T2 decreases is is a mystery why he thinks q has decreased
10
In summary, it is safer to assume everything is bullshit until proven otherwise. Re “information” from BBC, pollies, scientists, environmentalists, CEOs, trade union officials, church leaders etc
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He Spatch, are you going to continue to lead with your chin?
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@ Brian G. Valentine
Do you think Spatch is on a search engine or reviewing his bookmarks for his next half witty reply? His next cut and paste should be entertaining. Then again, people who play by their own rules usually are entertaining!
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Hypothetical history question: Would we be better off today if Al Gore won the presidency in year 2000?
Some people think we would be much worse off, because he would have forced his way out ideas on the republic.
I disagree.
It was in his LOSING that generated sympathy for him, had he won, he would have been generally dismissed as a crank and few would pay much attention to him.
Liberal sentiment for Gore as well as antipathy toward Buch inspired sympathy for crank enviro-mentalism and suddenly made “global warming” a problem.
And Monckton is four times the man you’ll ever be Spatch, and I doubt very much he ever commented using another’s photo as well as an asinine pseudonym
10
Spatch put a sign on his back end that says “kick me”
Nobody put it here but him
10
until we force the MSM to stop using the words “climate change” to mean anthropogenic or man-made global warming, we have a problem. surely, in australia, it should be easy to get the MSM to realise how ridiculous it is to suggest sceptics of AGW or CAGW don’t believe in “climate change”. i can hardly believe my ears when i hear it/read it, as it is such an insane thing to say. as for Nature mag –
19 Oct: Nature: Nature Climate Change
A call to contribute
Next spring will bring a much-awaited and exciting new addition to the family of Nature journals. The newest of Nature’s research journals, Nature Climate Change will dedicate its coverage to one of the greatest challenges for science and society.
By and large, society now accepts that climate change is happening. But the science of global climate change is far from settled — large uncertainties remain regarding the rate of change and the scale and distribution of impacts…
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/2010/101019/full/nclimate1000.html
how idiotic is this headline?
12 Oct: NYT: Ross Douthat: Why Don’t Republicans Believe in Climate Change?
http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/12/why-dont-republicans-believe-in-climate-change/
Democrat-leaning Salon.com takes it a step further in response to the above NYT piece and ends up looking even more ridiculous:
13 Oct: Salon: Andrew Leonard: Why do Republican politicians hate science?
http://www.salon.com/news/global_warming/?story=/tech/htww/2010/10/13/republicans_and_climate_change
NYT editorial,
embarrassing or what?
17 Oct: NYT Editorial: In Climate Denial, Again
They are re-running the strategy of denial perfected by Mr. Cheney a decade ago, repudiating years of peer-reviewed findings about global warming and creating an alternative reality in which climate change is a hoax or conspiracy. ..
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/18/opinion/18mon1.html?_r=1&hp
picking up from the NYT again:
18 Oct: Atlantic Wire: Max Fisher: Why Republicans Deny Climate Change
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/view/opinion/Why-Republicans-Deny-Climate-Change-5422
and now Washington Post makes a fool of itself!
19 Oct: Washington Post: Joe Frontiera/Dan Leidl: Don’t get fooled again: The Baby Boomers’ leadership failure
Let’s take a look at how Boomer leaders have butchered trust in four key areas…
1. Environment
Despite the overwhelming scientific evidence supporting the pending fall-out of climate change, influential baby boomers like the billionaire Koch brothers have stated that man-made climate change is a farce. Also part of this anti-science crusade, the Republican Party is the only major political party in the developed world that is dismissive of climate science. In fact, of the 20 GOP Senate challengers that have taken a position on climate change, 19 believe that the climate science is inconclusive or just plain wrong. Their stance is reminiscent of when the Church found Galileo “suspect of heresy” after he asserted, and proved, that our planet was round and orbited the sun.
Can young people afford to trust that these politicians are right and the science is simply wrong? While aggressive lobbying against cap and trade legislation might afford short-term benefits for the oil and gas industry in the US, it is also promoting finite resources while decreasing funding to long-term clean energy research. As this funding becomes harder to secure, China forges ahead with aggressive government’s subsidies that have created a 1 million -employee workforce that is already far ahead in the clean energy market. We can’t simply turn our backs on the long-term economic ramifications and trust that the unknown environmental consequences will be minor
http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/leadership_playlist/2010/10/dont-get-fooled-again-the-baby-boomers-leadership-failure.html
as i have voted for Labor or the Greens all my life, i find all the above particularly insulting.
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those wicked oil companies who deny “climate change”! shell nervous that a deal won’t be made before time runs out!!! hilarious.
19 Oct: Bloomberg: Mathew Carr and Ewa Krukowska: Shell Climate Adviser Says EU Should Consider Carbon Rules Through 2030
A Royal Dutch Shell Plc climate adviser said European Union lawmakers should move now to extend carbon-market rules through 2030 rather than tighten emission targets for 2020.
“A high price today doesn’t necessarily help” investors make long-term decisions, David Hone, climate-change adviser for Shell, Europe’s biggest oil company, said today in an interview at a Platts emissions conference in Brussels…
******“Fiddling with phase three is going to take more time than we have got,” Hone said. Instead of tightening the 2020 target, lawmakers could set a reserve price for allowances in the fourth phase, below which the bloc would not sell. That reserve price would “cascade back into phase three,” keeping the market working well, he said. …
Scientists link man-made emissions to climate change, which may cause stronger storms, drought and food shortages…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-19/shell-climate-adviser-says-eu-should-consider-carbon-rules-through-2030.html
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Spastic, @28
Oh I see, so drawing wages (who one works for) gives a motive for lies and fraud?
And AGW research grant funding is not a motive for the same thing?
Be careful or you will be called a skeptic……or a denier.
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I suspect that the things Spatch doesn’t know could fill a library. Perhaps he’s never been in one..?
In the Neoproterozoic era, 750 million years ago, atmospheric CO2 concentration was 30% of the atmosphere, or 773 times today’s, and yet that glaciers a mile high came and went twice at sea level and at the Equator. All that DANGEROUS CO2 and never a runaway greenhouse – ever, which is why we’re all alive and well debating this now moot point of Gorebul Warbling.
Explain that one Spatch.. 😉
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It’s always “big oil” isn’t it? Debating the Apollo 11 sceptics, the 9-11 conspiracy activists, and now AGW – a pretty simple pattern emerges. I wonder how much money “big oil” has left after funding some 6 billion “big oil” shills compared to the half billion missing out on this windfall. It must be a million bucks a barrel. I’m so rich I go swimming in my Money Bank. Just call me Scrooge McDuck.. 🙂
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Dispatch, thats a good one, what about spatchcock chicken or something like that.
In regards to the “greenhouse” and how the heat gets “trapped” i thought CO2 was a well mixed gas if so how could it trap heat in the “atmosphere”, if it is well mixed then should it trap heat at all levels from 1 foot to 80000 feet or so?
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Allan Taylor@37
Mate, I think you just made the most intelligent comment on this thread. I really wish the comrades would stop feeding the troll, waste of time/energy.
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Spatch, you need to pick a different image.
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@Eddy Aruda et al
The cyber bully shtick is very funny, thanks for the laugh guys.
@Jo, no probs..
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It’s an appropriate image Jo because it attacks the man not the science. That’s what people like Spatch do.
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Thanks Mike S. I’m particularly interested in cases of leaders (like Al Gore when Vice President) abusing their power when it comes to enforcing propaganda. As such please keep them rolling.
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The troll “Spatch”, now looking for some credibility by using the image of an adult.
Honestly HOW OLD ARE YOU????
Not very, given the PUERILE GAMES that you seem to enjoy!
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So you don’t consider Monkton as being an adult…interesting…
You’re still hung up on my avatar I see. It’s becoming creepy.
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I think Dr Evans is being a bit pessimistic in his summary of the formidable coalition of taxation-funded scientists, business ‘main chancers’, power-greedy bureaucracy and pathetically timorous politicians behind the ‘global warming’ hysteria.
There are also “… the numerous well meaning individuals who have allowed propagandists to convince them that in accepting the alarmist view of anthropogenic climate change, they are displaying intelligence and virtue…for them, their psychic welfare is at stake….” Professor Richard Lindzen.
There is ample evidence of that group here on this blog.
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I couldn’t care a damn about your avatar (Please note the correct use of couldn’t care a damn yank!!)
as I said before, you attack the man not the science.
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Spatch:
Your comment at #54 suggests that you are in some discomfort.
Perhaps you should go away until your Mummy has changed your nappy (i.e. diaper).
In fact, it would be to the benefit of everybody if you did not return at least until you get old enough to start attending school.
Richard
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LevelGaze: #48
Take one barrel. Fill it with water. Put some fish in the barrel – but not too many. Take rifle and try to shoot fish.
Pointless exercise? Possibly. Waste of time and energy? Probably. Fun? Maybe. You find a fish that can genuinely shoot back? Priceless. 🙂
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Spatch: #54
I agree, your avatar is very creepy.
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Jo,
The media and science has NEVER followed the disappearing water trail. Trillions of gallons per day tied up out of the eco-system with billions of gallons per day keeping the pressure up in oil wells. After all water is just compressed gases.
Oils big secret is they use far more water than what the public hears about. The natural state of oil is a peanut butter consistancy.
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Spatch @ 28 & 32 Oh and “I choose to play by my own rules thank you very much.”
The solar system will play by its rules and not yours.
So if the Artic sea extent ice continues to grow instead of shrinking, how many more years will it take of this growth for you to wake up to the cyclic nature of it all, 1?, 3?, 5?
How many more years of no upper troposphere hotspot?
How many more years of increasing Antarctic sea ice extent?
How many more snowmaggedons?
How long will sea surface temperatures need to keep falling?
How many more failed predictions of “permanent drought”?
How many more ways to name “GLOBAL WARMING” anything else?
How many more years of 1998 holding the record?
How many more “Gates”?
How many more ships stuck in ice?
How many more massive Mongolian cold snaps?
How many more South American rivers flowing with cold dead fish?
How many more growing glaciers calving off huge chunks?
How many more spotless days on the sun?
How many more global MWP studies?
How many more scientists resigning in disgust?
How many more birds killed by wind turbines?
How many more farms under Greenland ice?
How much more lost data?
How many more 612 degree satellite measurements?
How many more past cooling adjustments?
How many under sea volcano discoveries?
How many high cosmic ray counts?
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Mia Nony: #21
Again, I totally agree with you. But Democracy grew out of the Medieval feudal system by a series of revolutions, and the consequent fear of the monarch for their position. We owe a great deal to the French Revolution, not because of the way it was exercised – it was barbaric – but because it sent a very clear message to the other monarchs in Europe that there was a line that they could not step over.
The monarchs were not quite sure where the line was, so the bureaucrats (parliaments) could gain small concessions, one after another, until the monarch’s real power was all gone.
For example, the American War of Independence was really just a small revolt against inequity in taxes. As it turned out, it was handled incompetently by the British. So, the defining act of the United States was not a conspiracy, in the sense that the outcome was planned, it was an opportunity that presented itself that was seized with both hands.
And most of the world is grateful that it was, since it introduced a democracy defined by a Constitution that underpins everything else in American law. Not many countries have that, which is why organisations like the EU and the UN can act as if they are above the laws of individual countries by issuing directives or establishing binding protocols.
It is because of the “middle class”.
Medieval Europe had two classes – the very rich, and the extremely poor. When the extremely poor got taxed more, making them poorer, they would arise in revolt because they had nothing left to loose. The very rich lost whatever happened, because if they decimated the poor there would be nobody left to grow the crops and tend the animals, and if they capitulated on greater taxation, they would loose some of their perceived power. So they lived in a state of balance that was, as you say, around the 25% taxation rate.
But with the reduction of the power of the king and the nobles, a new class of traders, artisans, clerks, and other “free men”, appeared. These people provided the commercial and administrative backbone for the country, so could attract more in the way of wages. To this new class, 25% of what they could demand as payment for their services was considerably less in real terms than the 25% of the pittance of the lower class. So they were prepared to live with higher taxation rather than rock the boat, which would be bad for business. Of course, the poor continued to get poorer, with the result that many countries now have a welfare system that effectively pays people not to revolt against the government.
Of course, over time, the demarcation between the nobility and this new middle class has become blurred, so the old noble “upper class” has all but disappeared (punitive taxation by socialist governments also helped).
So the middle class is now within reach of being the upper class, and we will soon see a return to a two class system as there was in the middle ages. But of course, the danger that the lower class will revolt will return, and place a limitation on the power of the upper class.
And so the cycle will repeat.
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After all that has been said, people should take a moment to read the following link of President Václav Klaus’ delivery of the inaugural lecture of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, and how the Climate Change Doctrine has become all about environmentalism and little to do with the science
http://www.thegwpf.org/news/1726-president-vaclav-klaus-inaugural-annual-gwpf-lecture.html
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Sigilly @ 61.
Great list.
A couple of years ago I bought a book by Peter Murray called “Our Earth, Global Warming, The Evidence” (2007), which is mainly a picture book. At the time I had no opinion at all on the subject and bought the book because it was on sale and looked interesting.
Knowing what I do now, the book is a complete joke! A woman in a swimsuit sitting inside a store refrigerator in Kansas on a hot day (p128) was setting a great example for children. However, what takes the cake is on page 93, a photo of a town in Indonesia after the 2004 tsunami. Murray says the tsunami (and the prospect of more) is evidence of global warming.
How many other “experts” have done the same thing?
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Sorry Siliggy. Touch of dyslexia there! 🙂
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I think you have missed some crucial elements of the American Revolution, that help explain the US’s current and future status as a defender of liberty:
The Founders simply assumed that any government would try to become a tyranny — perhaps by incremental means, rather than a sudden takeover — and they built into the US governing documents (the Constitution) safeguards against that. They had no illusions that a democracy would be immune from this tendency (they all knew the history of ancient Greek democracies) so they created a constitutional republic instead, with power divided between competing entities. The first 10 amendments to the Constitution (ratified at the same time as the Constitution), plus their own writings, give a pretty clear picture of what they thought was necessary to defend against a tyrannical takeover (gradual or otherwise).
(BTY: Members of the US military, when they are inducted, swear to “Defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” It is also legal to disobey an illegal order.)
The attacks on these safeguards is continuous and varied, and comes primarily from the Left. The attack on the 2nd amendment (the right to bear arms), for example, is largely based on derision and ridicule. “Whatever do you need a gun for? Do you think you’re going to fight the government?” It is a fact, however, that all the world’s tyrants and would-be tyrants take pains to disarm the public. It they think it’s so important, why should I dismiss it? Thomas Jefferson certainly thought it was important, as evidenced by many of his writings.
The 10th amendment (all powers not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution as a federal power, belong to the several states) has been largely ignored for over 150 years, but is enjoying a resurgence now, mainly because of the Left’s overreach in taking over various parts of the economy and trying to enforce unauthorized mandates on the public. Currently, there are over 20 states suing the US government to nullify various federal laws. Many of them have simply passed laws contradicting the challenged US ones. Who could have predicted that the Left’s electoral victory would lead to this?
(Reminds me of a poster seen in many gun shops: Obama’s official portrait with the label “Firearms Salesman of the year”.)
The world’s collectivists have latched onto the AGW meme, thinking they could scare the populace into surrendering their liberty — but the freedom of information flow in the internet (and blogs like Joanne’s) are bringing that tactic low. This is why various attacks on the internet and “unauthorized” information channels are gaining steam. Lately, the talking point among the left in the US is that so much information is just “too confusing” to people, and it needs to be vetted by the elites. Good luck with that.
Your prediction, Rereke, will not come to pass in the US, because the “upper class” is a destination here, not a walled city. The rich may want to gain total control (and prevent newcomers) but they can’t manage it here, as there is only so much power they can wield. This explains the hysteria among the Left about the current “Tea Party” movement in the US. Many of the elites in government are about to be turned out on the street by the hoi polloi, and there is nothing they can (or dare) do to stop it.
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Joanne, how many more parts do you expect to make on “Is the Western Climate Establishment Corrupt?”
Here’s an interesting article by one L. Solomon on the origins of Emissions Trading (or Cap and Tax oops I mean Crap and Trash, sorry I can’t get it right these days).
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/05/29/lawrence-solomon-enron-s-other-secret.aspx
Did you know the Joyce Foundation created the Chicago Climate Exchange directed (or formally) by Barack Obama and Maurice Strong, two powerful men promoting emissions trading in the name of the environment?
http://www.prisonplanet.com/research-reports-obama-intimately-tied-to-phony-environmental-movement.html
http://www.chicagoclimateexchange.com/news/pdf/CCXDirectors.pdf
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John Smith, I also found it interesting that on the members list for CCX I see:
Michigan State University
University of California, San Diego
University of Idaho
University of Iowa
University of Minnesota
University of Oklahoma
Tufts University*
http://www.chicagoclimateexchange.com/content.jsf?id=64
You wouldn’t imagine that this relationship would have a biasing effect on teachers and research would you?
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Bob C. Excellent review @ 66.
The States are indeed becoming more likely to challenge and undo the usurping of their rights under the Constitution by the Federal Government. Of course this is difficult because there are usually Federal funds paid to states, tied to these usurped rights in favor of Federal “benefits”.
I don’t know if you have read or followed any of Louis Hissink’s comments about Fabian influence in politics here in the USA but it is an interesting point and I have to agree with his assessment of the impact particularly on our Left.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/26582443/Fabian-Influence-on-World-Affairs-2
http://www.abeldanger.net/2010/02/history-of-city-of-london-fabian.html
Another point to add emphasis to what you posted; the US Constitution is arranged in a certain order which was well thought out by the authors. This order is, I think, particularly important to be taught understood well. The First Amendment assures the RIGHT to free speech and I firmly believe the internet is included. The First is also first because it is most important of all. The Second Amendment Assures the ABILITY (as a right) to defend the First and all subsequent parts of the Constitution, at the hands and control of the citizen (not any government). The Second Amendment was so important to the success of the whole, as to be upheld even at risk of the small danger to the population of being armed. Additionally, the founders purposely made NO restriction on what weapons (arms) could be privately owned and in fact private ownership of state-of-the-art weapons was permitted, encouraged and supported. We have already given up some of that right ostensibly “to be more safe”.
Now quoting: Benjamin Franklin “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. And I prefer the slight paraphrase “Those that give up freedoms for security deserves and gets neither.
Of course this is off topic but I had a soap box handy. 🙂
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Privately-owned cannon figured importantly in the Revolutionary War. There is one on display in the monument at Bunker Hill outside Boston.
When I was a kid, you could buy 20mm anti-tank cannons and ammunition mail order (from Popular Mechanics!). As far as I know, no one was ever killed with one, but some Cuban exiles used them to arm speedboats used to help people escape from Cuba — it strongly discouraged the Cuban coast guard from getting too close. Also, one was used to rob a bank in Kansas — the robbers set up in the center of the street at 3 am and sequentially shot out the front door, teller’s cage, and then the vault door. They grabbed the loot and left. When the police got there 5 min later, the only thing they found was the cannon in the intersection.
This is a pretty trivial amount of “collateral damage” from something that was freely available for over 20 years — and there are probably hundreds of them still out there.
The US military has in the past (and I think, probably now) had private agreements among themselves about whether to obey “strange” orders from the CIC. The only time I have any direct knowledge about is in the weeks before Nixon resigned. Many take their oath seriously: “…defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign or domestic.“
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Spatch (Post # 28) offers nothing called a counterpoint to a link,Roy H. originally posted.Just the usual stupid ad homonyms:
Since you have a bad habit of posting drivel,and making a fool of yourself in the process.It begs the question,WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?
After all the idea of discussing the information is a foreign concept to you.
Why are you still here?
10
I agree with Mr Courtney that the political movement seems to have lost most of its momentum. However, the interesting question is what is gonna happen with the science. Will it continue like before or will the paradigm change? Because of all this, many people have started to think about atmospheric physics in a way they would never have done otherwise, and what has surprised me is the level of ignorance in this field. For example, it should be noted that the “greenhouse effect” is never mentioned in the physics literature (for good reasons). After the political collapse it would be very healthy with a thorough scientific investigation, and I hope that will not be forgotten. After all, the most serious damage that has been done so far is to the reputation of science.
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Spatch; I ask a question of you on the part 6 thread sevaral times and the only anwser from you was you would respond if i ask politely, Well i have and you still will not anwser even though you trade barbs with every one esle. The questions still stand on comment #117. By your silence on the matter i will take it to mean you can not, With that you have know evidence!!!! So the only thing you are here for is to be a pest and just plain ugly about the whole issuse at hand. So i bid you good day…
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Spatch, I liked the einstien picture you used before, Just one question is this new picture you or some one esle.
10
My mistake the questions were on part 7
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Brian @40,
Can you imagine what would have happened if Gore had been president on 9/11? He would not have had the slightest idea about how to proceed.
And people think Bush was bad for hesitating?
10
Spatch has already failed my challenge. There’s no use in saying anything more about it. He flunked.
No one else has taken it up either. The substance behind trolls is as we suspect — zero. Physics escapes them and they simply parrot what someone else says.
All down. End of story.
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@ Roy Hogue 77
I tried putting Spatch’s feet to the fire but he would never answer your question. Instead he whined.
Spatch:
October 20th, 2010 at 5:06 pm
Wow! Spatch (alias DiSpatched) can dish it out but he can’t take it. There is nothing more disappointing than a troll filled with self pity! He never answered your question. All he did was resort to ad hominem, cite links and cut and paste. If he was a wrestler his name would be the greased weasel.
Good job, Roy!
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ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
VOLUME 21 · NUMBER 4 · 2010
SPECIAL ISSUE: PARADIGMS IN CLIMATE RESEARCH
CONTENTS Page
Guest editorial
Arthur Rörsch (The Netherlands) ……………………………………………………………………….i
Introductory paper on paradigm shift
Should we change emphasis in greenhouse-effect research?
Arthur Rörsch (The Netherlands) ………………………………………………………………….165
A null hypothesis for CO2
Roy Clark (USA) …………………………………………………………………………………………171
The thunderstorm thermostat hypothesis
Willis Eschenbach (Hawaii)…………………………………………………………………………..201
Tropical rainstorm feedback
Noor van Andel (The Netherlands) ………………………………………………………………..217
A natural constraint to anthropogenic global warming
William Kininmonth (Australia)……………………………………………………………………..225
The stabilising effect of the oceans on climate
Dick Thoenes (The Netherlands) ……………………………………………………………………237
What goes up must come down (a commentary)
Peter Siegmund (The Netherlands) ………………………………………………………………..241
The stable stationary value of the earth’s global average
atmospheric Planck-weighted greenhouse-gas
optical thickness
Ferenc Miskolczi (USA) ………………………………………………………………………………..243
The thermodynamic relationship between surface
temperature and water vapour concentration in the troposphere
William C. Gilbert (USA)………………………………………………………………………………263
Note on the Miskolczi theory
Noor van Andel (The Netherlands) ………………………………………………………………..277
Fuel for Thought
Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen (UK) ………………………………………………………………..293
Also retrievable here at Climate Conversations
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BobC
I pray that it is more than “many”. It helps me sleep at night. People forget how easily some countries have fallen almost overnight.
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Roy
It has been said before.
In spite of any other controversy or decision, possibly one of G W Bush’s greatest legacies was stopping Al Gore from becoming President.
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pattoh @ 81
Without a doubt!
10
Ian Hill:
October 20th, 2010 at 11:17 pm
“However, what takes the cake is on page 93, a photo of a town in Indonesia after the 2004 tsunami. Murray says the tsunami (and the prospect of more) is evidence of global warming.”
Evidence of the Allias effect from the transit of Venus causing a stress build up which was then later released suddenly by a trigger impulse from a star quake seems more likely.
“In a marathon experiment, Maurice Allais released a Foucault pendulum every 14 minutes – for 30 days and nights without missing a data point. He recorded the direction of rotation (in degrees) at his Paris laboratory. This energetic show of human endurance happened to overlap with the 1954 solar eclipse. During the eclipse, the pendulum took an unexpected turn, changing its angle of rotation by 13.5 degrees.”
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/1999/ast06aug99_1/
“In the course of their flight through space, gamma rays would be deflected by gravitational fields and would be scattered by dust and cosmic ray particles they encountered, so they would be expected to travel slightly slower than their associated gravity wave burst which would pass through space unimpeded.”
“Gamma ray burst arrival:
December 27, 2004 at 21 hours 36 minutes (Universal Time) This gamma ray blast was 100 times more intense than any burst that had been previously recorded,…”
http://www.etheric.com/GalacticCenter/GRB.html
Major volcanic/tsunami type things do happen more than normal in the months just after transits of Venus. Eg krakatoa May 1883 – Transit of Venus December 1882. I sent an email too Ian Plimer showing this correlation BEFORE the 2004 transit and tsunami. Also sent it a to a magazine editor and discussed it with two Canberra scientists. No one showed more than a casual interest but the emails were acknowledged. There is another transit in June 2012.
So how much climate change does the consensus of settled science attribute to the atmospheric effects of interstellar gravity waves?
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/7/7603/2007/acpd-7-7603-2007.pdf
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The cornerstone to democracy is free blogs. The younger ones won’t
remember this, but it used to be ‘press’.
Keep up the invaluable work.
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pattoh @81,
Yup! Had Gore been president on that fateful day in 2001 the first thing the Secret Service would have had to do is get him clean underwear. I’m convinced of it.
10
If Al Gore was asked, how he would have proceeded after 9/11, I expect Gore would give the stock job interview answer to the question posed to candidates applying for a job as restaurant manager:
Question: “What would you do if you had a restaurant full of people and all the staff suddenly demanded more pay and threatened to walk out?”
Stock answer: “That would never happen so long as I’m in charge.”
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Pat @42,
As a Republican I can say unequivocally that Republicans do believe in climate change. Climate does change. We just don’t believe that humans cause it.
10
Unfortunately all too many Republicans do believe humans cause it. Pity.
10
Jo
It’s not so much that Western Climate Scientists necessarily believe in dangerous human-induced global warming.
It’s more that they believe in a regular pay cheque…
Cheers,
Speedy
10
A HotLinked, HotList of HotPapers.
Generally model-centric
How to Lie with Bad Data, Richard D. De Veaux and David J. Hand, 2005
Wyant, M.C., Khairoutdinov, M. & Bretherton, C.S., 2006. Climate sensitivity and cloud response of a GCM with a superparameterization.
Bretherton, C.S., 2006. Low-Latitude Cloud Feedbacks on Climate Sensitivity.
[Steve McIntyre at CA noted that Bretherton (2006) that shows negative cloud feedbacks contrary to the positive feedback orthodoxy, was NOT cited in AR4 even though the paper must have been known to the authors.]
David H. Douglass, John R. Christy, Benjamin D. Pearson and S. Fred Singer, A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions
P. W. Thorne, D. E. Parker, B. D. Santer, M. P. McCarthy, D. M. H. Sexton, M. J. Webb, J. M. Murphy, M. Collins, H. A. Titchner, G. S. Jones, 2007, Tropical vertical temperature trends: A real discrepancy? – Abstract only, behind paywall.
Pincus, R., C. P. Batstone, R. J. P. Hofmann, K. E. Taylor, and P. J. Glecker (2008),
Evaluating the present-day simulation of clouds, precipitation, and radiation in climate models
Limits on CO2 Climate Forcing from Recent Temperature Data of Earth, David H. Douglass and John R. Christy, 2008 – [PDF] from arxiv.org
On the Effective Number of Climate Models, Pennell, C.; Reichler, T., 2009 – Fulltext Article not available
What Do Observational Datasets Say about Modeled Tropospheric Temperature Trends since 1979?, John R. Christy, Benjamin Herman, Roger Pielke, Sr., Philip Klotzbach, Richard T. McNider, Justin J. Hnilo, Roy W. Spencer, Thomas Chase and David Douglass, 2010
Spencer, R. W., and W. D. Braswell (2010), On the diagnosis of radiative feedback in the presence of unknown radiative forcing
A STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF MULTIPLE TEMPERATURE PROXIES: ARE RECONSTRUCTIONS OF SURFACE TEMPERATURES OVER THE LAST 1000 YEARS RELIABLE? BY BLAKELEY B. MCSHANE AND ABRAHAM J. WYNER, 2010
Panel and Multivariate Methods for Tests of Trend Equivalence in Climate Data Series, Ross McKitrick, Stephen McIntyre, and Chad Herman, 2010, [MMH10]
Evaluation of tropical cloud and precipitation statistics of Community Atmosphere Model version 3 using CloudSat and CALIPSO data, Y. Zhang, S. A. Klein, J. Boyle, G. G. Mace, 2010 – Abstract only, behind paywall
The two following links are from The 2009 report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), Climate Change Reconsidered
Global Climate Models and Their Limitations
Feedback Factors and Radiative Forcing
Brought to you courtesy of Climate Conversations Group (CCG NZ).
The above list may also be retrieved here, except for “How to Lie with Bad Data”, which is here.
[Please leave suggestions for additional papers that can be compiled in a similar fashion on a subsequent list – cheers]
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Unfortunately for you, Spatch, these do not address the Casey paper. You can throw a bunch of stuff against the wall and see what sticks but that just leaves you as disrespectful as ever.
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Speech by President of Czech Republic : Climate Control or Freedom?
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Lots of good fun Spatch bashing going on here.
I don’t think anyone seriously believes the “there is no greenhouse effect because it violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics” argument. Its the sort of thing you would give to an undergraduate physics student, and then say, “Now explain why this is wrong”.
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Spatch may have lost electrical power. He may have to wait for
an increase in wind speed so his windmill can re-fire his
eco Tee-Pee
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The question might well be posed:
Do most men believe that global warming is caused by western climate scientists?
A number that is climbing daily and one that means that we are winning.
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Roy, Eddy, others, Have you noticed that the trolls won’t take any bait? They just dish it out but they can’t (won’t) take it!
It is time to ignore them with prejudice!
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John Brookes at 91:
Well then it should be very easy for you to find ample (say 100) peer reviewed reasons for what you said.
Do it now
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Don’t be silly, Mark D@95 – its like trying to find 100 peer reviewed papers that say the moon isn’t made of cheese – you won’t find any. It seriously is too stupid to be worth rebutting.
That’s the problem with skeptics, you’ve got some perfectly reasonable doubts to hang your hat on, like arguments over feedbacks and climate sensitivity, but then you latch onto lamentable ideas like the greenhouse effect not being real. An argument is not automatically good because it supports your position, you actually need to sift the useful from the rubbish.
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No John, Your comment is fallacious hyperbole. Link
The referenced link Roy has posted is not discussing cheese or the moon. Try a little harder. Trolling is more work than you have been up to. Time to get busy and stop slacking,,,,Thats the problem with you silly trolls.
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is the western climate establishment corrupt?
18 Oct: Herald Sun Australia: Ben Packham: VIPs’ global swarming for climate change meetings
Department of Climate Change staff flew first class to 64 global climate change meetings in just 12 months at a cost of more than $4 million.
A Senate committee heard that 93 staff went to destinations including Greenland, the Maldives, Japan, the US and Bolivia.
The trips cost taxpayers more than $2.74 million in airfares and $1.6 million for accommodation and meals.
The Government’s special envoy on climate change, Howard Bamsey, was the biggest spender, racking up $229,000 in travel costs during 2009-10.
He was followed by climate change ambassador Louise Hand, who spent $192,000 on travel over the same period…
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/vips-global-swarming-for-climate-change-meetings/story-e6frf7l6-1225940376755
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Pat
It’s OK – all of those flights would have been covered with climate
indulgenceserr…. offsets.All paid for by the taxpayer, of course. Sort of makes you feel all warm inside, doesn’t it?
Cheers,
Speedy
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Following on to what I was saying before, “global warming” caught on as a fad in Western developed countries (particularly amongst the liberal elite) because Al Gore LOST the election.
Global Warming angst became chi-chi in Western Europe and elsewhere in part, as a result of pinkish politicians needing to express their distaste for George Bush (widely regarded with utter contempt as a “bumbling, war-mongering, swaggering cowboy”).
Thatcher, widely regarded as aligned with Reagan, toyed with the idea of promoting “global warming from CO2 in the air” as a way to break the government coal miner unions (that angle never found leverage in the Thatcher government).
West Europeans would never align themselves with “Thatcher” initiatives anyway, so the idea never caught on at the time. It was only to give Al Gore some sympathy (and in doing so swat at George Bush) that Eurocrats picked up on the dispelled many-times-over AGW idea.
And Greenpiece and other lunatic fringe were trying to eliminate the element chlorine from the periodic table at the time!
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But what happens when it collides with the immovable object of scientific evidence and the inevitable eventual cooling?
The above is why there is desperation to enact CO2 taxation, cap & trade etc … if the Earth cools significantly and they haven’t implemented emissions reduction then where does that leave them? Look for a push to get all this stitched up so when the cooling really happens they can claim credit.
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John@96;
A good point but on that seems to be lost on many who support the AGW hypothesis. One could look at many issues over the past decade or so such as ice cores, the combined arctic/antarctic ice extent,the ‘hot spot’, paleo evidence or lack thereof, the failure of model forecasts where reason suggests that the hypothesis has failed. But this has not happened, the general fallback position is not evidence based but relies heavily on the manipulation and distortion of existing data coupled with the latest, and generally more alarming, model senarios.
Coupled with this is the extension of the doomsday time frame, for example, Keelyside 2008 suggests AGW will be back with a vengeance in 2015 while Tsonis 2009 opts for 2020. The discourse from the AGW camp has changed as well and a good example of this is Michael Tobis who has gone from act now or your children suffer to act within the next coupled of decades or your grandchildren will suffer. The cynic in me suggests that the main players are providing enough wiggle room to remain relevant, and employed, until retirement.
What I find interesting is that the evidence that casts serious doubt and I would say refutes the AGW hypothesis is found within the IPCC reports.
There are many examples but for brevity I will choose only one, aerosols. The most difficult problem for the hypothesis is the cooling from the 1940s to the 1970s and the solution for the GCMs is the cooling properties of aerosols, the weighting given to aerosols is also a major factor in the differences between models. In the wonderful world of GCMs without the infinite elasticity of aerosols the model output would not hind-cast as well as they do. When we go to the font of all knowledge, the IPCC, we find that the understanding of aerosols is classified as poor. How can one have a <90% confidence in the evils of C02 when a key factor that could lead to this conclusion is poorly understood.To my mind it suggests the modelers are basically guessing and it becomes worse when you look at clouds, the failure of the models to incorporate natural cycles such as PDO/AMO. Even for cycles that are better understood such as El Nino/La Nina events the models are split roughly 50/50 on which will dominate this century. The increased frequency and intensity of El Nino events are a feature of the more apocalyptic model scenarios but the few models that approximate the timing of El Nino events reasonably well overestimate the intensity and duration substantially.
Should you wish to investigate or dispute any of these claims I can provide you with a list of peer reviewed articles by scientists and in journals that the most ardent AGW supporter would find acceptable.
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Mervyn Sullivan @ 63:
I just came across Valcla Klaus’ presentation at WUWT and read it. It is the same one you linked. Absolutely brilliant – being an economist myself, wyho has quite a bit of exposure to exotic modelling techniques, I can see exactly where he is coming from. I am sorry I have not read his presentations before… I am tempted to run out and buy his book or Nigel Lawson’s… shame I spend most of my time on the net these days and don’t leave any for reading.
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Brian @30.
The “greenhouse effect” does exist…try reading post at Roy Spencer PHD 23rd July 2010.
So in one respect, Spatch is correct.
There you’ll find colder items can even make a warmer object hotter – than it would otherwise be without the colder object being present. Re: no termo law violations, etc. because its simply a difference between “rates” of change and ability for radiation to flow BOTH ways (hot-cold-hot), whilst convection only going one way (hot-cold).
cheers!!
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@68
The cosy relationship between universities (unis) and the Chicago Climate Exchange could explain at least partially why the unis tend to be staffed with professors who side with the AGW theory.
Its all about money and they would have done well to remember this quote by Thomas Huxley.
“The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to recognise authority, as such.
For him scepticism is the highest of duties, blind faith the one unpardonable sin.”
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Brian G Valentine:
At #101 you assert:
Sorry, but that is not true.
Thatcher started the AGW-scare. She did it as a method to generate personal credibility and not as an attack on the miners. But her political party went along with it because they would support anything that harmed the National Union of Mineworkers.
Please see
http://www.john-daly.com/history.htm
for my account of this.
Richard
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Further to the above.
I well recall reading of those tumultuous times in the UK even from the antipodes. Politically, it was a clever move by Thatcher, a winner all ways.
In retrospect? Hmmm…
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Funny thing that! I gave out exactly that challenge and neither Spatch nor any other contrarian here could hack it.
All the while I’ve been sitting back and enjoying the repartee about it. Please note that nowhere did I say I agree or disagree with Casey. In fact I don’t know if he’s right or wrong. But this is not the first time I’ve seen similar arguments and as we all know, Lionell Griffith makes the same argument — there is no greenhouse effect.
Now, would you not think that such a point of view deserves honest discussion and examination to see whether it stands up or not? I put the whole bunch of you trolls to shame. You attacked me or the author or both. You presented absolutely no arguments disputing points Casey makes. You have been so shallow that you disappear when viewed in profile. You’re like two dimensional parodies of real people, thin as a sheet of paper. What else can I say about you?
For myself I find the no greenhouse position compelling, if for no other reason than that it’s well documented and everything the authors rely on is out in the open for all to see. I cannot say the same for global warming — manipulated data, then original data lost, lies, distortions, conflicts of interest, satellite sensors on the fritz with no one monitoring the situation, refusal to release data and computer models (until shamed into it) and more. Do you want me to go on, John?
Again, I do not know if Casey is right or wrong. But he stands head and shoulders above you.
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Thanks Macha@105! You’ve summarised it nicely. Mind you, that won’t convince Mark D.
Here is an example of something which would violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
Actually, I should give a brief explanation of the 2nd law first. It can be stated in many different ways. It always refers to an isolated system. Basically it says that you can’t use a cold thing to heat up a hot thing. Or, that you can’t take something (like say a glass of water), and have it spontaneously separate into cold and hot parts. If you want to take heat from something and give it to something else at the same or higher temperature, you have to do work – e.g. like a fridge or refrigerated air conditioner. If the 2nd law didn’t hold, you could take sea water, and with no work get one bit hot and another bit cold, and then use the temperature difference to drive a heat engine – so you would get useful work for nothing.
So here’s the example. Take some gas and insulate it very very well. Choose a gas that can’t emit radiation at low temperatures (not CO2!). Put this thoroughly insulated gas in deep space. Now there is cosmic background radiation at a temperature of 3K everywhere. Our isolated system is the whole universe! So your gas absorbs radiation energy, but because it can’t emit energy at low temperatures, it just gets hotter and hotter, until finally it reaches a temperature where it can emit radiation. When its hot enough, use the gas to do useful work. There, we’ve violated the 2nd law.
You’ve probably spotted the error here. A gas which can’t emit radiation at low temperatures cannot absorb energy at those temperatures either. If it could, it would absorb and re-emit and stay in equilibrium with the 3k background radiation.
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Oops. Didn’t finish. The point is that Roy Spencer does simple experiments which show that there is a greenhouse effect. Theory is always trumped by experiment – so Casey is wrong, and Spencer is right.
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Spencer cannot invent something break the Second Law of Thermodynamics although he might do something to convince himself that he can.
Look – heat cannot flow from a cool reservoir to a warm reservoir without expending work. It really is, that simple. From the “greenhouse” idea, the troposphere warms, the stratosphere cools, that cannot be related as CAUSE AND EFFECT
It doesn’t say the troposphere can’t warm, it doesn’t say the stratosphere can’t cool, it doesn’t mean those effects can’t go on concurrently, it just means they can’t be related BY CAUSE AND EFFECT to the “greenhouse” idea
This seems as simple as ABC to me but people who can’t live with the idea will do ANYTHING to circumvent the truth that is staring them in the face
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@ John Brooks
John, I am not a physicist so maybe you can help me out. I was taught that cold is merely the absence of heat. The coolant in a refrigerator does not make the air temperature in the refrigerator cold but instead removes the heat. When I add cold milk to my coffee in the morning the coffee cools. The more milk I add the more the coffee cools. In fact, I cannot think of an instance where mixing or adding something cooler to something warmer results in anything but a cooling of the mixed substance(s).
Can you cite an example where you have added something cooler to something warmer and the result was a warmer overall temperature? I have added different chemicals which caused a reaction that created heat due to the release of energy. Barring that, I can’t think of any instance where adding something cold to something warm resulted in a net heat gain.
Thanks John, I eagerly await your cogent response. Please, no cut and paste, citing links or ad hominems. Based upon your proclaimed comprehension of Physics, it shouldn’t be a problem for you to do so. Again, many thanks.
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As far as I could find, Dr Spencer has yet to actually publish any results from his experiment. His first effort failed to isolate a small cavity from the effects of conduction and convection so any infra-red measurements were swamped. His second effort has attempted to improve the isolation but no link to any actual measurements.
Experiment only trumps theory when you actually finish the experiment and get a result.
Probably we can all agree that the surface of the earth cools overnight. It would be very difficult to find a place on Earth where the temperature is higher at sunrise than it was at sunset.
Given that the surface temperature is always cooling overnight, there are plenty of observations that it cools more gradually with heavy cloud cover than it does with clear sky. In Sydney we have a mostly warm climate with occasional morning frost. The morning frost never happens after a cloudy night.
The crux of the matter is that for the purpose of calculating global temperature, only one single measurement is taken — that is the coldest temperature, which is generally at sunrise. Thus the backwelling infra-red can have a substantial warming effect on the global temperature measurements, regardless of the fact that it never actually causes the earth to warm.
By the way, I note that Dr Spencer is hopeful that he will be able to measure the effect of IR from clouds (i.e. water) but since the effect of CO2 is an order of magnitude smaller, Dr Spencer doesn’t even hope to be able to measure this effect.
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I agree that there is an element of hand-waving from some sceptics of the greenhouse effect concerning the 2nd law and the question weather a cold object can make a hot object even hotter. Some examples
1. The existence of an outer window pane makes your house hotter despite the fact that the outer pane is colder than the inside of your house (in winter).
2. A popular conjecture opposing the standard greenhouse theory says that the total atmospheric pressure is one of the fundamental parameters determining the average ground temperature. If we were to remove the cold upper atmosphere the total atmospheric pressure would decrease and so would the ground temperature according to that theory. Hence, the cold stratosphere heats the hotter surface.
I will let the competent reader draw their own conclusions from here. Maybe one of the keys to understand the issue is to realize that the primary action of light that is absorbed or reflected is to exert a pressure in the direction of its propagation.
In other words: Pressure as pressure…
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BobC: #66 & #70 also Bob Mark D: #69
Although not a native American, nor an American citizen, I have also sworn to defend the Constitution – it is a long and convoluted story.
In my comment at #62, I was lax in allowing myself to wander off into a two paragraph example using specific references to the Boston Tea party and the US Constitution to illustrate what was generally a philosophical point. My bad.
I also failed to mention the Declaration of Independence as the initial defining document of the United States. Fortunately nobody noticed that particular faux pas.
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Misunderstanding. The Greenhouse issue is not “cold object making something hotter” the question is the COLD part (stratosphere) becoming COLDER AND causing the warmer troposphere to become warmer.
There’s no “hand-waving” or anything else that can conceivably justify it.
Spencer, Joel Shore, Arthur Smith, and others have convinced themselves that the “presence of a colder object making something warmer” thereby justifies the “greenhouse” effect.
It DOES NOT. The “cold” object in their considerations does NOT become “colder” than it was in the first place. It CAN’T.
Without work expended somehow, that would violate the second law
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The mind just resists this one.
It has something to do with hearing about the “greenhouse effect” for 10 to the some odd times that puts a barrier in the mind that won’t budge
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Brian V at 118:
Short, simple and easy to understand (believe).
Thank you.
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Rereke @ 117:
Well then a sincere thank you for that and one day perhaps I’ll hear the long story.
I found nothing offensive, disrespectful or ignorant in your post @ 62. In fact, I fully appreciate the simple truth in:
Further:
Of course you and I have talked at length about the “C” word, I’ll say if there were any conspiracies, they would have been on BOTH sides.
Lastly:
I agree fully and am fully in support of any country adopting a similar guiding writ.
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Tel @ 115:
Everyone should have jumped on that- Thank you.
Indeed, the drop in temperature overnight is why I don’t believe in any of the “delayed heat” precepts of AGW. Again; short, simple and easy to understand
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Just one more example (if we ever needed one) why these characters are beneath contempt.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/21/blackmail-or-lets-make-a-deal/#more-26803
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And as for me, I prefer insanity
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Eddy:
and Mr Valentine:
Firstly, its not about making the warm thing warmer, its about keeping it warmer by allowing less heat to escape. So here’s an example of that. Put a tea cosy on a hot teapot. The teapot will cool more slowly than it otherwise would. The outside of the tea cosy will be considerably cooler than the teapot, yet even this cool part of the tea cosy is helping keep the teapot hot. How do we know this? Because a thick tea cosy works better than a thin one. Not only does the tea cosy keep the teapot hotter than it would otherwise be, if you have (say) an ice cold beer (lets call it “Stratosphere Ale”) right next to the tea pot, then the tea cosy keeps the beer cooler than it would otherwise be.
So there is an example where a cool thing keeps a warm thing warmer, and a cold thing colder. There is no violation of the 2nd law at all. Left for long enough, equilibrium will be reached, with the beer, tea cosy and teapot all ending up at room temperature. But the presence of the tea cosy simply slows the move to equilibrium. And the greenhouse effect is that simple. Really!
If someone says that the greenhouse effect means that a cold part of the atmosphere spontaneously loses heat in in the process makes a warm part of the atmosphere warmer – then you can tell them that the 2nd law has been violated, and it won’t happen.
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Mr Brookes:
The cozy insulates; the atmosphere (the tropopause in particular) conducts heat.
Kt x p +
your move
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I’ll extend the analogy a little further, to cover the day as well as the night. In the day, energy is being added to the atmosphere. This is like putting a heater inside the teapot. Why inside? Well the ghgs which are our tea cosy are largely transparent to the incoming sunlight – so we can simulate heat passing straight through the tea cosy by imagining a little heater inside the teapot.
The result is simple, the teapot with the tea cosy on will reach a higher temperature than the one without the tea cosy on.
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BGV@126: You are right, a better analogy would be the silver on the inside of a thermos, which helps stop radiation escaping. This is still an imperfect analogy. But there is no really accurate analogy which I can think of in everyday life.
None the less, the tea cosy analogy is basically sound.
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The cozy is (at least partly) diathermanous.
Kt x r *
you’re running out of room
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BGV@129:
Don’t use big words!
Anyway, apparently diathermanous means it is a transmitter of radiant heat. Sigh. I said I couldn’t find a good enough analogy. But I think my point has been made, and there is no point battling on. You can believe what you like – its a free world!
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John I think you are still “basically” wrong. The cozy is not an active element therefore cannot “keep” (in this use a verb ).
WRONG! NO it cannot “reach a higher temperature” YOU KNOW BETTER!
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Believe what I like?
Or believe WHAT IS
Here’s a comment from Mike Mann: “It’s real. Deal with it.”
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OOPs Strike the last half of comment 131. I was still working from the “non inside heater” model.
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By the way John, what is the feedback of the cosy?
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A free world today but you’ll keep working on that….
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I don’t know about the cozy, but I do know that the feedback I get is negative with a large magnitude.
Fun, huh? I try to protect the public from fraud and the thanks I get, are invitations for me to kill myself
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Don’t kill yourself Brian@136 – you are far too entertaining!
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Thank you, Mr Brookes.
Your entertainment has been free, may I remind you, and consider this: you wouldn’t have had it on Deltoid, RC, Think Progress, etc etc.
My participation therein is strictly prohibited. So if you have been entertained, you owe Ms Nova at least some thanks for that.
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So John Brookes, a hot teapot under a tea cozy will keep the nearby can of beer cooler than it would otherwise be. You’ve done this experiment no doubt and written up the result along with all the experiment’s details so we can duplicate it.
Probably not!
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Jo you make note of this hotspot so many times I wonder if people really get what you’re saying.
The hotspot is an expected result in the atmosphere from ANY surface warming, not just CO2.
We know the surface temp is rising, that’s undeniable with supporting evidence from so many different fields. Sure there is always some uncertainty in science, but when you have so many different lines of supporting evidence it makes for a very convincing argument. Here’s some I am aware of without having to google.
Surface temps measured by land thermometers.
Satellite temperature measurements.
Satellite measurements finding a decrease in outgoing radiation at GHG wavelengths.
Oceans have increased in temp.
Increase in corals suffering bleaching from warmer water.
Sea level rise from thermal expansion.
Glaciers that are melting at an accelerating rate.
Arctic Sea Ice melting at an accelerated rate.
Flowers blooming earlier.
Animal behaviour responding to a warmer climate.
Oh, and please don’t pick any short term timeframe in an attempt to prove any of these stats wrong, we know natural variability exists. That the evidence comes from so many different fields suggests that there is no global conspiracy, as some of your readers think.
Back to the hotspot. It should exist (according to theory/models), regardless of what is causing the surface warming. If it is never found that would at best, destroy the theory of adiabatic lapse rate, not that of AGW.
There are two further problems with your claim that the hotspot doesn’t exist, your expectation and the accuracy of the data.
Your expectation that it must exist now, in the data, exactly as predicted by the models is misguided. The models work by running the simulation multiple times with randomness in some of the variables to simulate the chaotic nature of our planet. This results in many different outcomes for tropospheric temps. The hotspot images in the IPCC report are the “averaged” amount expected at equilibrium. Just as models produce uncertainty when projecting future temperature, so too they have uncertainty when projecting future tropospheric temperature. The data for hotspot can well fit within one of these model’s runs, without it reaching the “average” at-equilibrium amount.
The data is also problematic with known biases and scare balloon data. The satellite data finds the hotspot in short term data, but for the long term there are more issues because the short term fluctuations are greater than the expected long term effect.
For more detail I suggest you read:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/tropical-troposphere-trends
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/tropical-tropopshere-ii/
http://www.skepticalscience.com/What-causes-the-tropospheric-hot-spot.html
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Guys,
Brookes is trying to explain it and is doing better so far.
Its about RATE of change – not absolutely hotter. Its less cool.
ie cold things can make hotter things less cool ( or lose heat more slowly)
does this sound like a GH effect?
Another example of slower heat loss is the difference between the equatorial land masses and those closer to the poles ( or any coastal versus inland measurement).
Check the max / min data.
I bet there is a trend where one is less extreme…any guesses?
( umm, a water blanket is a clue)
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When “cold fusion” was first “reported” there were physicists who developed “theories” to “explain” this wonderful phenomenon, truly.
Then some sceptic pointed out that if it was authentic, the seas would have boiled away less than a hundred thousand years after they were formed.
We have an entirely similar situation today, although it is taking a bit longer for reality to permeate cognizance.
MarkD Roy
g’nite mates
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From an article in the danish newspaper JyllandsPosten in my own bad translation.
[Typographical corrections made, the translation is fine.] ED
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Roy #139
Yeah, Roy; he measured the temperatures with a bristlecone calibrated by you-know-who! Readings were independently confirmed by “wind shear”.
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Roy@139:
Quite correct. I have not done this experiment, because the can of beer would end up open, and the contents gone!
I’ve got holidays coming up soon, and may try this experiment.
Reminds me of a joke:
Bill (looking at Jim’s thermos) says, “What’s that?”. “Its a thermos”, says Jim. “What does it do?”, asks Bill. “Well”, says Jim, “It keeps hot things hot, and cold things cold”. “Amazing”, says Bill, and rushes off to buy one. The next day at work, Jim is admiring Bill’s new top-of-the-line thermos, “Looks pretty impressive Bill. What have you got in it?”. “Yeah, I’m really glad I got a really good one. I can’t wait for morning tea. Today its got hot coffee and strawberry ice cream in it”.
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shelly: #140
Excuse me?
Randomness is not the same as chaos.
Anybody who attempts to generate random numbers by deterministic means (ie a “rand” function) is, by definition, living in a state of perpetual sin. This is now axiomatic in Computer Science.
Anybody who then attempts to use those numbers as a variable in a calculation, is doing no more than compounding any errors introduced by the random number generator.
To then run multiple versions of the above, to take an average, merely regresses the errors towards the mode of the distribution of the random number generator.
No wonder the models are so woefully inaccurate.
And excluding the models, where is the real scientific evidence? Where is the empirical proof?
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Shelly re 140:
Surface temps measured by land thermometers. You are certain these are without fault?
Satellite temperature measurements. and there have been no problems with the satellite instrumentation?
Satellite measurements finding a decrease in outgoing radiation at GHG wavelengths. but what about all outgoing radiation?
Oceans have increased in temp. Really? with how many distinct sensors and for how long a time?
Increase in corals suffering bleaching from warmer water. NO! http://www.co2science.org/education/reports/corals/p1ch3.php
Sea level rise from thermal expansion. You can’t possibly prove it is only temperature expansion. Could it be polar ice melt? could it even be that sea levels have been rising for thousands of years?
Glaciers that are melting at an accelerating rate. YAWN! some are some are NOT.
Arctic Sea Ice melting at an accelerated rate. Bull Shi*! http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/
Flowers blooming earlier. I like flowers
Animal behaviour responding to a warmer climate. You mean like warmist behavior?
Seriously, don’t you ever get tired of posting this crap?
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oh forgot a link: sea surface temp (really scary) http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/monitoring/nino3_4.png
Shelly, with this new information, perhaps you can sleep tonight.
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Mark D: #148
Or perhaps she won’t sleep, spending all night poring through unrealclimate.org trying to find some further gems of “wisdom” to confound us with?
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Shelley:
At #140 you wrongly assert:
No!
According to theory/models the ‘hot spot’ is a specific prediction of enhanced radiative forcing from increase to greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.
This is spelled out in Chapter 9 of IPCC AR4 titled “Understanding and Attributing
Climate Change” and it can be read at
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter9.pdf
The IPCC makes it most clear in its Figure 9.1 that is on page 675.
The Figure title is
Figure 9.1.
Zonal mean atmospheric temperature change from 1890 to 1999 (°C per century) as simulated by the PCM model from
(a) solar forcing,
(b) volcanoes,
(c) wellmixed
greenhouse gases,
(d) tropospheric and stratospheric ozone changes,
(e) direct sulphate aerosol forcing and
(f) the sum of all forcings.
Plot is from 1,000 hPa to 10 hPa shown on left scale) and from 0 km to 30 km (shown on right). See Appendix 9.C for additional information. Based on Santer et al. (2003a).
Only Figures 9.1(c) and 9.1(f) show the ‘hot spot’.
So, according to the PCM model and the theory of radiative forcing agreed by the IPCC,
1.
the ‘hot spot’ is a unique effect of increased radiative forcing from increased “wellmixed greenhouse gases”,
2.
other forcings do NOT induce the ‘hot spot’, and
3.
the effect of “wellmixed greenhouse gases” is so great that it overwhelms the effects of all the other forcings.
But the ‘hot spot’ is missing. Measurements using radiosondes mounted on weather balloons (since 1958) and meaurements using microwave sounding units (MSU) mounted on satelites (since 1979) each show it has not happened.
This failure of the ‘hot spot’ to occur is a direct disproof of the anthropogenic (i.e. man-made) global warming (AGW) hypothesis espoused by the IPCC.
And the disproof has induced some propogandists for AGW (e.g. owners of the propoganda blog called RealClimate) to make excuses for the failure of the ‘hor spot’ to occur.
The silliest of these excuses is a common claim that the ‘hot spot’ is not a unique effect of “wellmixed greenhouse gases” but would be induced by any global warming induced by any cause.
You present this silly excuse when you assert:
But this silly excuse defeats itself because if any global warming induced by any cause did induced the ‘hot spot’ then the absence of the ‘hot spot’ indicates there has been no global warming from any cause (including AGW).
So, which do you want to assert?
(i)
As the IPCC says, the absence of the ‘hot spot’ indicates there has been no global warming induced by “wellmixed greenhouse gases”?
or (ii)
As AGW-proponents assert, the absence of the ‘hot spot’ indicates there has been no global warming induced by any cause (including “wellmixed greenhouse gases”)?
This fault in the silly excuse was soon pointed out, and AGW-proponents responded with an amended version of it that you present when you assert:
I have demonstrated that the IPCC AR4 states that you are plain wrong when you assert the ‘hot spot “should exist (according to theory/models), regardless of what is causing the surface warming.”
And you attempt to morph the absence of the ‘hot spot’ into a discussion about the lapse rate. However, that attempt is another fail.
Radiative theory indicates that increased atmospheric greenhouse gases would increase the heat energy within the atmosphere. However, a major amplification is needed for the small amount of warming from increased atmospheric greenhouse gases to be discernible.
Radiative theory does not indicate the many modes of the atmosphere where that additional heat will be. Sensible heat is NOT an indicator of temperature. And the AGW-hypothesis requires that a water-vapour-feedback (WVF) amplifies the warming effect from increased atmospheric greenhouse gases.
It is that WVF which generates the ‘hot spot’.
There is little water vapour at altitude because the air is too cold to hold it. Slight warming from the greenhouse gases at altitude enables more water vapour at altitude. And water vapour is a much, much more powerful greenhouse gas than any other gas in the atmosphere. So, the ‘hot spot’ is an effect of the WVF.
The WVF is a necessary effect if warming from enhanced greenhouse gas concentrations is to be sufficiently large for it to be discernible.
The ‘hot spot’ is an inevitable effect of the WVF.
So, no ‘hot spot’ means no WVF. And no WVF means no discernible AGW is possible.
The lapse rate is the change to mean global temperature with altitude. So, the AGW-hypothesis predicts that the lapse rate will change because it predicts more warming at altitude (i.e. the ‘hot spot’) than at the surface. This is a direct prediction of the AGW-hypothesis, and is independent of any theory of the adiabatic lapse rate.
But you assert;
That assertion merely displays ignorance of what the lapse rate is.
In summation, the absence of the ‘hot spot’ is a direct disproof of the AGW hypothesis. AGW-proponents have attempted to excuse-away the disproof, but none of the excuses withstands even cursory examination.
Richard
10
i love it when “skeptics” fight.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9Sh1B-rV60
@50:25 Lindzen says you are wrong.
i see you don’t dispute the problems in the data.
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(SNIPPED) CTS
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Well:
Your comments at #151 and #152 are devoid of any content.
I would appreciate your not making pointless posts that waste space.
If you wish to dispute any fact, reference and/or argument in my post at #150 then I would be pleased to engage in a discussion of the dispute.
Richard
10
i won’t dispute the facts but I did dispute your words.
let me make it clear for you.
Lindzen, your champion for low sensitivity says @50:25 in the recent debate http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9Sh1B-rV60
do you disagree with him? [snip]
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Rereke @ 149;
true, very true…..
I seem to recall “shelly” posting before and they never debate. They just drop a propaganda “bomb” and leave.
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Well:
Your post at #154 is yet another contribution that is devoid of content.
You have not stated Lindzen’s estimate of climate sensitivity and neither have I. Indeed, I have made no mention of it, So, your saying to me
is a falsehood.
Importantly, Lindzen’s estimate of climate sensitivity is a red-herring because it has no bearing of any kind on what I wrote at #150.
Then you link to an item by Lindzen.
What parts of Lindzen’s argument do you agree and/or disagree?
I would discuss them if you were to say?
And what is your dispute with what I wrote?
You do not say, so I can only assume that you entirely agree with what I wrote.
Then you make a silly sugestion when you write
Of course not. He has never made any defamatory and false assertions about anybody to my knowledge, so there is no reason and/or justification of any kind for anybody to sue him.
I repeat, if you have any dispute with any fact, reference and/or argument in my post at #150 then I would be pleased to address it. But your posts in response to #150 have had no content, so have contained nothing to dispute, and are a waste of space.
Richard
10
i put it in quotes for you, surely you could not have missed that?
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Mark D. @ 147
I think you’re missing the point Mark. There might be problems with some of the data in places, but for so much data to be all wrong would be incredibly unlikely.
You think they are all with fault?
http://www.skepticalscience.com/surface-temperature-measurements-advanced.htm
Pretty safe to say that whatever faults there might be, it’s not having a major impact on the results when multiple sets point to the same trend.
What about it? Anything relevant to say regarding the increased absorption of energy at the wavelength absorbed by GHG?
The data shows OHC rising for many years.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v465/n7296/pdf/nature09043.pdf
co2science citing of a few papers is a very limited view of things.
Scholarly papers on “coral bleaching climate change” paints a different picture.
I don’t, nor is it. The experts can make good estimates of what is currently attributed to the different reasons.
Partly it is, but hey are you now admitting the glaciers ice are melting? Nice one Mark.
Yes they have but not at today’s rate.
Most are, some are not. On the balance they are shrinking faster than before.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/himalayan-glaciers-growing-intermediate.htm
Mind your temper. I’m not sure exactly what you meant to achieve with the WUWT page, but a view of sea ice extent shows that it is.
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20101004_Figure3.png
So you can’t find a reason for why they are blooming earlier now that the climate is warming up.
No I mean like this http://eebweb.arizona.edu/courses/Ecol206/Walther%20et%20al%20Nature%202002.pdf
I do it for my children. Do you have children?
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Marvin the robot is depressed.
As one who understands the paper money scandal.
I SAY this.
A new movement towards a humane planet will come. It will be without BANKS for sure.
Environmental ,engineers are stuffed.
Soon no-one will employ me.
Co2 emissions will be a crime.
Theirs no future.
]
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Mark D. @ 148
Perhaps you should look at the Global Sea Surface Temperature rather than the Nino 3.4 index. Perhaps you should also look at the long term trend instead of picking out just a few years wortth of data.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/plot/hadsst2gl/trend
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Marvin awaits guidence.
Meaning-
buy paisel mugs, tshirts and magnets A very broadly used word. Can be used as a verb, adverb, adjective, or noun. It is used to lighten the mood in a situation that has too much tension, or can be used casually among friends. ‘Paisel’
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Well:
Your post at #157 says in its entirety:
My post at #156 gave a complete answer to each clause in your post at #154.
The statement in quotes in your post at #154 says:
OK. That his a statement of the conclusion of Lindzen’s assessment.
As I explained in my post at #150, my assessment reaches a different conclusion.
I addressed both of those assessments in my post at #156 where I wrote:
To use your words, surely you could not have missed that?
Richard
10
yup, and I would likefor them to have a better life than I did, which seems further remote by the day, thanks to the anguish that enviro-mentalists feel and attempt to impose on everything they see around them
I would welcome the opportunity for children to live in a world not driven by the sickening blithering misguided foolishness impelled by the emotions of the very weak minded who cannot control their insatiable desires to make the lives of others as miserable as they possibly can
Moreover I teach them to FIGHT BACK at the nonsense
Now what Shelly
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Alright Shelly, I’d be happy to share.
First lets get some things out in the open:
A. I believe that “climate science” is in it’s infancy.
To be clear, you can safely add this at the beginning of EVERY climate observation “At our present level of ignorance…..” (attribution to John Christy and he in turn attributes it to one of his teachers). You will have a difficult time convincing me otherwise with any appeal from Authority.
B. Akin to A above, the atmosphere is a very large and very complex system. This reality allows me to have a great deal of skepticism when anyone says “well understood etc.”
C. The oceans are even less understood than the atmosphere so what I said in B. is likewise true with even more emphasis.
D. The data for global land temperature is nearly worthless for making bold statements about trends. It may be good enough for a casual view but not much more
Reason 1. sparseness of sites which gets much worse before say 1900.
Reason 2. As I said above the atmosphere is large so who decided that surface temperatures are the correct way to take the “earths temperature”?
Reason 3. The Data itself has been manipulated. Anyone that knows scientific methods should be suspicious.
Reason 4. How do you define the correct temperature for the Earth? There is no stable average global temperature in the geological record. Your assumption that a rise today HAS to be caused by Co2 is flawed.
E. The global Sea Surface temperature record is even more sparse than land. Further, the oceans have far more thermal mass and therefore an “average” sea temperature is impossible to quantify. Detecting a rise in sea temps and attributing that to ANY specific cause, is at best a GUESS.
F. I made reference to geologic time scales above. We know (at our present level of ignorance) that the Earth has recently been colder (10,000 years) yet we have absolutely little understanding of what caused that colder temperature. We SHOULD expect to see surface temperatures rising they have been for a long time relative to the invention of thermometers. I do not fear any temperature observation, they are ALL novelties.
G. The theory of Co2 as a GHG is not I repeat NOT universally accepted as valid.
H. There is observed “slop” in the calculations of feed-backs AND forcings. In other words, the Proponents of AGW (or CAGW) have bent and fiddled with nearly every equation and observation to come to the desired final picture of Man Caused Devastation and the end of the world if we don’t act immediately. Guess how many of those kinds of predictions have ever come true?
I. Look at this temperature record: http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/histo3.png
Is that long enough for you?
Tell me what the temperature “anomaly” would be for today based upon that record?
Tell me why I should worry given the temperature we think we have today compared to this rather astounding variability in the last 8000 (or so) years?
Yes I have children and I appreciate the sentiment you express about their future. Very seriously though, how do you justify causing them to live in fear? I’ve seen young children so freaked out that polar bears were going extinct that they were in tears! I think it is child abuse to indoctrinate them in this way.
I have taught my children that among the most dangerous things in life are people that lie, cheat, swindle, politicians, bankers, thieves, charlatans, and communists. (there are more but we don’t need to go there today) They are as skeptical as they can be and I am proud of it.
10
Perhaps you should look a bit larger than global.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/trend/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:1000
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“Misunderstanding. The Greenhouse issue is not “cold object making something hotter” the question is the COLD part (stratosphere) becoming COLDER AND causing the warmer troposphere to become warmer.”
I’m delighted to see that you have spotted the weak point in the theory, namely the cooling of the stratosphere. And I agree with you. Increased heat insulation doesn’t make any part of the system colder. However, many sceptics have not yet realized this and it is important that they do. Roy Spencer for example likes to confuse people in just this manner.
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Australian TV Exposes ‘Stranded Polar Bear’ Global Warming Hoax!!!
http://newsbusters.org/node/11879
10
The following story is very enlightening regarding so called man made climate change.
“http://www.worldclimatereport.com /index.php/2009/10/06/antarctic-ice-melt-at-lowest-levels-in-satellite-era/ “
Where are the headlines?
Where are the press releases?
Where is all the attention?
The ice melt across during the Antarctic summer (October-January) of 2008-2009 was the LOWEST ever recorded in the satellite history.
So much for global warming!!
Seems like very selective reporting by the media in the global brain washing campaign.
Only ONE SIDE is ever presented and NO TRUE DEBATE has ever been entered into.
Any dissenting view is ridiculed – this attitude is insulting to people’s intelligence to say the least.
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L.P. @ 165
Thanks
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John Brookes @145,
Your joke is OK but you really need to do the experiment before you sound off about what the result will be.
Be sure to document everything like a good scientist:
1. size and capacity of the teapot
2. initial temperature of the tea
3. material and thickness of the cozy
4. exact brand of beer with photo of the label so we can see how it might reflect or absorb radiation along with dimensions of the can
5. start temp of the beer
6. distance from cozy to the beer
7. ambient temp in the room
8. identify all sources of radiated energy in the room and measure each
9. identify all equipment, thermometers, etc. used
10. record temperatures of tea and beer at, say 30 second intervals until it’s clear that the beer has reached room temperature, accurately timestamp each measurement
—————————
Run a control experiment with only the beer can in the same place at same starting temperature but no teapot and record all circumstances as above. Record beer temperature at the same interval until reaching room temperature.
Write it all up and put it on the Internet and show us the link.
In other words, do this like your life depends on it. That’s how science is conducted.
Don’t complain that it will take too long because that’s what it will require to be convincing.
One of us will be surprised by the results. I predict it will be you but I’m willing to be shown otherwise like an honest skeptic (don’t mean to be rubbing it in but that’s what it’s all about).
PS:
The joke really was pretty good.
10
Sounds reasonable!
Or maybe not! As you now see, I outlined what I think would be a proper experiment. Let’s see if he tackles it.
I’ve probably left out something that would make it an even more rigorous test, like do it in a temperature controlled room. And of course, just John’s presence is going to put an extra heat load on the experiment, so maybe remote measurements from outside the room would be better.
10
I noticed that the original posting of Joanne Simpson’s letter is no longer available at climatesci.org so I feel I had better dig it out and repost it in full, just in the hope that it doesn’t get lost forever:
10
Well, I would agree with Dr Simpson on most, excepting that GCM modelling of the Walker circulation and associated rainfall has already been demonstrated to be incorrect or at least inadequate, a property that I trace to the “hot spot” (or the lack thereof) in the Tropical regions.
Her reminder of “regional” climate change as a result of “land use” is meaningful, if not altogether new, as such effects have been known and noticed ever since agriculture became systematic.
10
I wouldn’t conclude that Dr Spence “likes” to confuse anyone with this, but I think he may not have fully grasped the implications of what it is he purports to refute.
He is quite sensitive to the suggestion that he may not be correct about this issue, however, and I have left all communication with him about it alone.
On his web log he purposefully closed further discussion about the matter with a tone of finality and so be it. He knows a lot more about a lot of things than I do and we can celebrate our differences, too.
10
You have committed the fallacy of the complex question. You have taken a lot of events and put them together as if they are all related. They are not. We have warmed 0.7 degrees since we came out of the little ice age which is the coldest it has been during the current interglacial with the exception of the Younger Dryas. As the planet warmed from the little ice age it is perfectly natural for flowers to bloom earlier and sea levels to rise from thermal expansion. Animals respond to a warming climate as well as a cooling one, so what? During the little ice age glaciers were growing at an accelerated rate just as they are melting as the world recovers from the little ice age in a response to temperature changes that is part of an ongoing cycle since the current ice age began less than three million years ago; approximately 100,000 years of frigid cold followed by a 10 to 15 thousand year period of relative warmth. There is no proof that CO2 levels have any effect on temperatures in the geological record for the last 600,000,000 years.
Responded to by other posters. The readings show that we have recovered from the little ice age but are still cooler than the previous warm periods when CO2 levels were lower. There is nothing remarkable about that.
Ditto.
As CO2 levels increase the CO2 will absorb and reflect more infrared radiation coming from the earth, so what? How does that prove that a minute increase in CO2 will cause warming? The IPCC preaches that feedbacks, in particular increased levels of water vapor in the atmosphere, will be necessary for a significant increase in temperatures. This feedback has not been demonstrated by empirical evidence to exist.
Embarrassingly for the IPCC, although CO2 levels have risen in the past decade water vapor levels have declined by 10%; another falsification of the AGW hypothesis. See Contributions of Stratospheric Water Vapor to Decadal Changes in the Rate of Global Warming Susan Solomon, et al. Science 327, 1219 (2010);
DOI: 10.1126/science.1182488 http://www.climate.unibe.ch/~plattner/papers/solomon10sci.pdf.
Yes, sea surface temperatures have increased slightly since the planet recovered from the little ice age, this is to be expected.
CO2levels have been much higher for the last 600,000,000 years than they are now. In fact, with the exception of the Late Carboniferous CO2 levels are as low as they have ever been. Corals evolved when CO2 levels were much higher. The oceans did not become “acidic” and they are doing just fine. For example, see “Spectacular Recovery From Coral Bleaching At Great Barrier Reef Marine Park In Australia.” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090423100817.htm
From Dr. Nils-Axel Morner http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles%202007/MornerInterview.pdf Sea levels are not rising. Don’t cancel that vacation to Tahiti!
I’ve already addressed these above.
There is no empirical proof to substantiate the AGW hypothesis. Take the Roy Hogue challenge. You know, the one that made Spatch disappear! See #27 above!
Be of good cheer and enjoy what is left of the Holocene!
10
This could raise some eyebrows:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=climate-heretic
Wouldn’t normally go to SciAm, owned as it is by the Nature group. Link was from Tom Nelson.
Thoughts, anyone?
10
Mark D.:
October 23rd, 2010 at 12:06 pm
The great sea surface temperature dive of 2010 continues:
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
Back in March the sea surface temps were by far the warmest out of the displayed years:
2003/4/5/6/7/8/9/10 The last measurement ( 21st Oct 2010) has the sea surface as the coldest of all those years for that day.
This should not be a surprise given the older data:
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:500/offset:-75/plot/hadsst2gl/mean:500/scale:100
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Mark D: #164
Well put Mark!
10
Mark: #176
Thank you for the Scientific American reference – like you, it is a publication that I do not often refer to.
What I found interesting is the implication that Climate Scientists are uncomfortable discussing whether or not Anthropogenic Climate Chance is real or not, and whether investments should be made now in either case, under the precautionary principle.
It seems to me that the majority of researchers have lost sight of the fact that although their funding comes from the government, the government, in turn takes if from the man and woman in the street, by way of taxes.
It is therefore our money, and surely we have the right to question how our money is being invested in the future of our planet. If the science is correct, then it is money well spent. But if it is wrong, then we are wasting vast amount of resources that could be better invested elsewhere. This is simple economics.
If I choose to invest money in a corporation, as a shareholder I have every right to question how that money is being utilised. I expect no less from the scientific community in which the government has invested on my behalf.
10
Thanks for reference from SciAm, which I certainly wouldn’t know about other wise.
I don’t think I would identify Judy Curry with “scepticism” very much and I am not sure how “heretical” others view her although this “news” is about the closest thing to “scepticism” that Scient Am is going to mention.
10
utter rubbish. Carbon Dioxide Higher Today Than Last 2.1 Million Years
you should read your articles a little more closely.
10
so you say we have warmer whilst others here say we haven’t. can you guys make up your mind!
10
Well, well, well, if it isn’t another anonymous blogging nitwit promoting bogus “information” from very apocryphal sources and implying emergence from the LIA must be a process that occurs in a fortnight.
I’ve said it before, I’ve said it again, at least you have the opportunity to come to this website and be your anonymous blogging nitwit self!
10
Siliggy @ 177
Thanks for re-posting that link, I lost it.
Rereke @ 178
Thank you!
Eddy @ 175
Nice!
10
Well,
We have made up our mind. I’ll make it easy for you:
WE DON’T BELIEVE Co2 IS A PROBLEM!
All the rest is discussion.
Can you grasp the concept that there may be problems with temperature readings AND the idea that one could be comfortable with a T rise AT THE SAME TIME?
Read at 164 where I said:
Do you get it? You seem to be quite hung up on the idea that being skeptical must include that skeptics all agree lockstep. YOU ARE WRONG ABOUT THAT! Further, that would stifle scientific advance. (the old fashioned kind)
Why don’t you offer something other than sarcastic snipes or go away?
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Not So Well:
October 24th, 2010 at 12:22 am
Another end point fallacy. I am discussing CO2 levels on a scale of 600,000,000 years and you cite an article about the last 2.1 million years?
As the researchers in the article stated:
Even though the article admits that the Great Barrier Reef is recovering nicely you mention an opinion rather than a fact? Wow, I am not at all surprised!
From http://www.barrierreefaustralia.com/the-great-barrier-reef/coralfacts.htm
Look at the following link and you will notice that CO2 levels were over 4,000 ppm when corals first formed. http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html Perhaps you can enlighten us all as to why we should be worried about CO2 levels affecting coral and ocean ph balance when the CO2 level was more than an order of magnitude greater when corals developed? They survived for hundreds of millions of years and for most of that time CO2 levels were much higher.
At 182 you blather:
Is that the best you can do? How lame! I hate to burst your bubble but science is not done by consensus. Quote me the skeptical scientist who denies the existence of the little ice age. While you are at it, show me empirical evidence to support your falsified hypothesis or put an egg in your shoe and beat it!
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@ Mark D. 184
Thank you for your kind words. It amazes me at how ill prepared these trolls are to deal with reality. Considering how intelligent, articulate and educated the vast majority of the regular posters to this site are it amazes me that so many of these trolls have adopted a kamikaze approach to debate.
Well, got to take the dog out for his morning walk. The nice thing about the internet is that its global dimension allows our Australian brothers and sisters to sleep while (whilst?) we keep a watchful eye out for rogue trolls and the like.
10
Yes well put. Perhaps the sea surface temperatures would track the solar activity more exactly if the “adjustments” had not been made. We may also expect it to be even more obvious that CO2 follows temperature.
10
Well’s scribblings from post # 181:
From the link you so generously supplied,but you never read:
Just another confirmation that CO2 is not a driver of climate changes,but a follower of it.
Thank you for helping us maintain our skepticism of the AGW hypothesis.
By the way 600,000,000 is a lot bigger number than 2,100,000.
ROFLMAO!
10
Well tries to sow confusion at post # 182:
In his reply to this sentence:
He comes up with this:
Most skeptics knows there has been a warming trend since at least the 1850’s,simply because the LIA ended by that time.That is about 150 years.
Most skeptics knows that since 1998,there has been no warming to a small cooling trend.That is about 12 years.
Long term (1850-2000) there has been some warming.
Short term (1998-2010) there has been no warming to a small cooling trend.
There you have it.
10
Please excuse my partial quoting of your words, but I hope I have conveyed their original intended meaning correctly.
I do agree in some very real senses (ie, the science) the cult of AGW is dead, or at least dying, but in other also very real senses (politics, general belief, and education) it is most definitely still very much alive, and though it pains me to say it, well.
The loss of public confidence in science is, overall a small matter compared to the other problems that the AGW scare leaves us with.
There is a generation gap that must be bridged. The old school, pre AGW folks must get across to the post AGW generations what has happened.
I am somewhere inbetween, so maybe that is why I “see” this (knowledge / belief / view) generation gap.
If the stench of this AGW scam is not to linger on for many years, if not decades, causing untold miseries to millions, mostly the poor and the young, then “skeptics” need a champion presenter to get the real state of climate science and knowledge across.
But this is the rub, “we” can not agree, because there is no replacement school of thought “we” can all agree to,
because we simply do not know sufficient at present, and it appears “we” will not for some time yet.
AGW is far too big though (and has far too much potential to cause economic and social damage) to just let die, it must be stopped,
so “we” need to all act now, and together.
I would suggest here what I have heard proposed elsewhere, by far, far better than me,
that the best step forward is to take a huge leap backwards, to before AGW.
A counter revolution, of approximately 20 to 30 years. The last time climate science made any sense..
And then move forwards.
AGW must be removed from politics, education, and the general understanding / belief of many, that is the real problem
the now dead “science” of AGW leaves us with.
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Derek:
Re your post at #191.
Yes, you have understood my point exactly. And I agree very word of what you say.
There is precedent for what you say. For example, the ‘acid rain’ scare of the 1980s is dead but its corpse exists in the form of the EU’s Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD) and the ‘stench’ from that is closing UK power stations.
Richard
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You all really seem to get each other worked up.
Very early in this thread the concensus conclusion seemed to be that the science of AGW is dead.
Since that isn’t true – it must be a blog-belief. Or wishful thinking, perhaps.
The funding for climate research has increased over the years. I think you “skeptics” are to blame for that.
Science in the boring areas are scraping by. By drawing so much attention to the claims climate scientists are making, being fearful of the consequences, by throwing hard working scientists into your suspected conspiracy clans, the powers that be are asking for more proof, more science, more data.
If you weren’t so desperate to undermine the work being done, people would have accepted the results and moved on – making decisions accordingly.
Since you have declared war on this one part of all the scientific inquiry that is going on in the world today, and eroded some politians confidence in the science (without sufficient grounds), extra money has been funneled in to help settle the debate – a debate far removed from the actual scientific open-questions in climate change.
So keep at it! My friends in atmospheric physics thank you.
My friends in sea urchin genetic research aren’t so lucky to be doing science on a topic that scares tax payers.
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.
You misunderstand the methods of science, my friend.
The sceptics are merely putting questions to the hypothesis of AGW and waiting for a rational reply backed up by real data. There is no such thing as “the science of AGW” per se, just a hypothesis that draws on many different disciplines… There is climatology, meteorology, oceanography, geology, chemistry, physics, speleothems, dendrological studies, limnology, glaciology, etc, etc. Sceptics love the science. We’re especially keen on following the established methods of science, proper hypothesis formulation and transparent testing. Nothing is more alive or vital than the rational inquiry into the nature of our world. That’s why we ask hard questions to the AGW hypothesis. We’re very curious.
I hope you are curious too. Don’t accept my word for anything. Make me prove my hypothesis. Ask why? How do we know that? What is the evidence for that? Where is the data set for that hypothesis? How did you arrive at that conclusion? Never ask anyone to accept any claim without the supporting transparent evidence. Never accept results without asking the hard questions. That’s the way of true hard science. It’s not being rude or declaring war, it’s called the scientific method of inquiry and it’s why instead of chipping flint into a spear point you have a computer in front of you that represents the culmination of 400 years of constant scientific inquiry, checking and re-checking evidence, questioning the hypotheses on the nature of energy and matter, refining the mathmatics and ultimately replacing obsolete models with newer more accurate ones. The process never ends. There is no final truth. No right or wrong, just that which better represents the data and makes more useful predictions leading to the next level of understanding and so on endlessly.
Increased funding for climate research is a good thing, IMO. It’s the Greens who have said the debate is over, the science is settle… the time to act is now. But we understand so little–how do clouds work? Do they cool or warm the climate overall? Is water vapor forcing a positive or neg feedback on warming? Where’s the missing heat in the oceans and the atmosphere? What is the real paleoclimate t-reconstruction? We don’t even know how much forcing CO2 is responsible for or how the solar cycle works. There is so much science to do we don’t even know where to start. There are even brand new emerging branches of sciences, like geophysiology, the study of planet’s biosphere from the Earth’s core to Van Allen radiation belt as a single complex system. The limits to advancing scientific knowledge is beyond our ability to grasp.
Climatology is where medicine was in 1845. For God’s sake we can’t even model the climate accurately enough to predict the weather a few weeks from now, much less decades hence. The time to act, if necessary, will be after another generation or more of climate science is performed and today’s work is reproduced by third parties. Increase the funding –and the oversight of the research–that and total transparency of method is all the sceptics have ever wanted. Honest scientific progress. Free the data. To act today is paramount to consulting a witch doctor for medical advice.
The fact that seems to be often lost in the heated rhetoric is that the truly sceptical empiricist has no real “belief” about the science that can not be changed over night by new evidence supporting a working, useful hypothesis about how the climate is evolving.
The sceptical position is opposite that of a true believer. The true sceptic is uncommitted in the sense he or she is open to new evidence. As a sceptic I am quite willing to adopt the AGW hypothesis as the best explanation for what is occurring in the climate the moment the hypothesis can show it usefully explains the activities of our climate. It just so happens that the AGW hypothesis has thus far failed to explain many critical details, while its proposers have been caught out cheating.
The sceptic is defending nothing. He or she is only asking to be presented with a reasonably convincing scientific case for whatever the hypothesis of the moment may be. Likewise the sceptic has nothing to prove. The burden of proof lies with the proposer of said hypothesis. The sceptic’s responsibility is only to ask question of the hypothesis to test the strength and usefulness of the hypothesis’ answers. Sceptics want to accelerate the advance of science. Dispatching unhelpful hypotheses quickly is as much a service to science as creating and defending hypotheses in the first place…
It’s usually a hard and short life for most hypotheses. Such is the way of scientific progress.
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Hello Wes George,
You wrote many keen, insightful, things in your latest post. I imagine that you would make for a very good conversation over a beer. Comments on blogs often come across harsher sounding than they would live – in person.
Some points of disagreement between us I can identify:
I don’t agree with that. I believe I’m very qualified to understand the methods of science. I’m not sure what in my post would lead you to make your conclusion.
I totally agree that now is the best time to act, based on what we have learned. I don’t agree with the argument that the science is settled – there is much to learn, but to ignore what we have already learned is stupid. Don’t confuse “we don’t know everything” with “we don’t know anything”. As you know, we will never know everything, however to disregard what we have learned in the last thirty years of research in all the disciplines you mentioned in your post is folly.
I think we do. What is more of a question is how the climate will respond to that known forcing.
That may be your wish, but it unlikely since every new model that has replaced the old ones still comes to the same basic conclusion: the recent warming can only be explained by anthropogenic means in addition to the natural means. I would describe this as a converging trend that is a very likely outcome – unless some unexpected instability rears its head. That is a very different situation to the one you have characterised.
Overstated.
Overstated again.
Definately more of an opinion than a fact, I’d say. We are already studying the climate of extra-solar planets. You don’t seem to be as curious or questioning about that scientific field.
There is nothing more transparent than scientific endeavors, by design.
Well said. But until such evidence is available the best course of action is to stick with the model that has gotten us this far. All of our scientific beliefs are open to re-invention. This is one of the great strengths of the scientific approach. Old models of physics are eventually shed as new understandings are brought to light. However facts don’t change, such as, CO2 absorbs certain IR energy – what does sometimes change is the understanding of the how and why or the explanation.
If “skeptics”, wish to overturn some conclusions of the IPCC, you most certainly have something to prove.
True, we often learn more from failed hypotheses than supported ones.
But we have run out of adequate explanations for the warming other than anthropogenic greenhouse gases. No other explanation seems to have much traction or sufficient explanatory mustard.
The bit about being caught cheating is an area where you and I will have no common ground, I suspect. You should be more skeptical about these cheating claims. Sticking to this belief exposes your lack of understanding of the scientific process as it works.
For one thing, you could imagine a universe where every disreputable scientist/politician/entrepreneur in the climate arena (in your opinion) had never been born. Remove all their work, hypothses, conclusions etc. and nothing significant would be different in climate science today. (Except maybe that the climate scientists in Japan and elsewhere would have a higher profile than they currently do.)
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Manwichstick @195,
You misunderstand one thing. Skeptics need not prove anything. You say something is true and mankind needs to take rather drastic action to avoid serious future trouble. We simply ask for empirical evidence before taking such drastic action. You have no such evidence and never have had it. You admit this yourself.
This is just a statement that you can’t think of anything else to explain what you say you see, therefore CO2 is the only guess available. This is not evidence. It’s wishful thinking.
Therefore we reject your position until such time as you come up with some credible evidence that CO2 is causing anything that happened in the past or is happening now. And you don’t have it. You don’t even have credible evidence for all the warming you claim.
So the burden of proof is indeed yours, not ours.
Where is the evidence?
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Hey, Roy, I was gonna to have to give him the where-the-burden-of-proof-lies lecture. Thanks for that.
Not so. CAGW theorists have yet to show that modern warming is outside the envelope of historic warming during the last several thousand years. In fact, they have worked very hard to tweak the paleoclimate t-record to eliminate variation in t-amplitude to hide of the full extent of Medieval Warming and the depths of the Little Ice Age, thus creating a perfect little garden of Eden climate stasis from which to launch modern warming. Perhaps you have heard of it? The now infamous and discredited “Piltdown” Mann Hockey Stick Graph.
Before it became politically necessary to defend the CAGW theory, even at the cost of a few professional reputations, it was widely understood that the climate had been warmer than today in the Middle Ages and before that in Roman times and before that about 4,000 ybp at CO2 levels almost half that of today.
http://pages.science-skeptical.de/MWP/MedievalWarmPeriod.html
And now many recent studies show warming and cooling events in the past several thousand years have occurred at rates much, much, much faster than the 0.7c change of the last century. So the big lie that “climate change” is happening at “unprecedented speed” has been exposed as well.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427344.800-mini-ice-age-took-hold-of-europe-in-months.html
Sceptics do NOT believe that the climate is not changing or that human activities, including CO2 emissions due to fossil fuel have not warmed the atmosphere somewhat. What we DON’T believe is that human activities are the primary forcing agent upon climate or that our contribution is catastrophic or that the rate and amplitude of change today is indeed anywhere near unprecedented.
It should be remembered that for the AGW hypothesis to be anything like correct and useful for predicting future climate, it is of utmost importance for its implications for past climate to be verified. The last few decades must be the warmest moment in the last 10,000 years due to the high atmospheric CO2 levels. They are not. It’s probably not even the warmest it’s been in the last 1,000 years. The amplitude and speed of change must be unprecedent. Not even close.
Today’s climate change appears to be utterly natural, slightly amplified on the upside by human activity, of which land use is probably as important as CO2 emissions. There is little chance the warming will accelerate because almost all the CO2 warming effect is already in the system! Unless, of course, you accept that water vapour feedback is wildly positive, which it probably isn’t or the paleoclimate t-record would show anomalous warming after mega-volcanic events.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/08/the-logarithmic-effect-of-carbon-dioxide/
As Roy says, we are sceptics with nothing to prove, ears and minds wide open. Please, Manwhichstick, simply explain to us what evidence you have that AGW is the best explanation for the observed modern climate? How does AGW explain that it was as warm in the past at much lower CO2 levels?
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Hello Wes and Roy,
I didn’t enjoy reading your last posts. You are mistaken about many things and you don’t seem to think the way I do. I encourage you to be more skeptical and ask yourselves questions like:
If there was a time in the last 1000 years that temps were warmer than today, but the CO2 lower, wouldn’t that have alerted the scientists collecting this data that something was wrong with their AGW theory? Wouldn’t something so crystal clear to me, have occured to these people whose job it is to sort this stuff out?
Well, of course it occured to them.
If you want to know why they didn’t find that particular argument compelling, and on what grounds they dismissed it – you could look it up. Or better yet, you could actually talk to one of them. Right now your local university is probably running colloquia or lectures where you could stay until the end you ask that very question and hear the answer from the horses’ mouth… so-to-speak.
Well, I don’t accept your burden of proof argument.
If you want to attack the premise that humans CO2 by-products are are heating up the planet you need to:
Explain the warming by some other forcing.
Effectively disprove some of what has been done in the last 30 years on this topic.
That is a burden.
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Manwichstick, why do you stop at 1000 years ago? (well I know why but go ahead and confirm it for me) Go back just a few more years: http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/histo4.png
Faster rise in temp. Warmer than present, and Co2 wasn’t the cause. You have not proven your point simply applied polite Argument from (your) Authority.
The AGW theory relies entirely on the assumption that the climate system cannot compensate for temperature rise. This is not proven by your authorities. Nor do they explain the wild climate fluctuations in the earth’s long history. If it were just a friendly discussion around the water cooler this would all just be fun and games.
We both know that AGW is not just a friendly discussion is it?
See: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/09/hockey-stick-observed-in-noaa-ice-core-data/
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Hi Mark, re:199
I did pick one thousand years at random, you may pick any number of years since the formation of the earth – that we have data for of course.
If you think this bloody obvious observation somehow bolsters the argument against AGW you are simply wrong.
AGW does not rely on any one thing.
With most climate fluctuations in the past the reasons for the changes are pretty well understood. I’m not sure how you are relating this to AGW.
I’m trying to be friendly. I believe you are a good person. I think I’m friendly and a good person.
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Well, yes it did, Manwichstick. You’re very clever!
Actually, I did look it up and I have already been to university, three different ones!
So Let me tell you the story of what the climate scientists did…it’s very exciting. 😉
One day the climate scientists who had invented the AGW theory were very, very worried about past temperatures.
So they went back to the old temperature proxy data and created their own special version of past climate using magic trees which were careful to eliminate all the data that showed it was very warm during the Middle Ages. It became known as the “hockey stick” graph, because it showed past climate was this lovely cool paradise that hardly ever changed, until bad men came along and invented machines, built cities and dug bad coal mines making the sky dirty. This ruined the climate paradise and temperatures shot straight up and up and up. The graph looked just like a hockey stick! It proved bad people were ruining the climate and that good, smart people had to stop them.
This new hockey stick graph made the climate scientists and their ecologist friends very happy, So they told everyone that now is the hottest it has ever been in thousands and thousands of years. All the good and smart people high fived and made plans stop the bad people who drive cars, have jobs and own factories and stores from making more bad CO2.
Along came some other skeptical scientists who wanted to check the hockey stick to see if it was all true. But the climate scientists refused to tell the other scientists the secret formula for the hockey stick. Anyway, the skeptical scientists worked out in the end that the Hockey Stick graph had left out data showing it was very, very warm in the Medieval Period and not so hot today. It could have been even warmer in the past than today! Even with much less CO2! The climate scientists said the skeptical scientists were bad, bad people, but could not prove the skeptical scientists were wrong. All the good clever people now were very very mad at the skeptical scientists for not believing in the AGW theory.
Then some bad person stole all the emails that the climate scientists had been secretly sending each other all along and put them on the Internet. Anyone could read the climate scientist’s secret emails! It was shocking. The emails showed that the climate scientists had tried to hide data and that they cheated whenever they could. It was shameful and the climate scientists and their friends became very sad. The chief climate scientist even admitted that it wasn’t as hot as they said it was and that they were very worried about their AGW theory because warming has stopped recently.
But don’t be sad! 😉 This is such good news for the rest of us, really. Because now we know that the bad people aren’t really so bad and the smart good people aren’t THAT smart or even very good at all. So we can say sorry, make up and be friends now and play nice together, sharing our data and research methodology. The planet is safe and we can all grow up and live on Earth as adults happily ever after! 🙂
The End.
P.S. Whew! I was worried there for awhile that my house might be underwater and all the birdies would die!
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You’re welcome. It was just sitting there begging me to give my fingers a little exercise on the keyboard.
I see that he rejects that argument as I figured he would. I notice also that he doesn’t try to present any evidence to support his position; rather he makes it our responsibility to find some lecture that will prove him right. And this has been his approach all along.
If I call him the man in the empty suit, would you disagree?
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Now, now, Roy. I’ll bet you were a tabula rasa once too, old man!
😉
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Wes @201,
Well done!
Roy
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When I was a child I thought like a child and acted like a child. But when I became an adult I put away childish ways and started to acquire some wisdom. There is no better teacher than getting screwed a few times because you do foolish things.
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Hi Roy,
You say:
I thought we were discussing the science. Your position seems to be repeating “I’m not convinced. Convince me.”
There are currently hundred of articles in dozens of journals over decades supporting the science behind AGW. You are permitted to say you are not convinced, of course but that will not disprove AGW unless AGW gets attacked in the scientific arena. You know this to be true. So don’t say the burden is with AGW advocates when they have alread dropped the gauntlet, giving you a mechanism and consistent narative that takes you from causes to effects.
You need actual real scientific challenges or better yet – an alternate mechanism to explain the data.
Your arguments/concerns about AGW are mostly blog arguments.
For example, the “temperature stations are crap” argument is concerning but it doesn’t hold up against scrutinty. It is a not a serious threat to the land temp data. But here lies the difference…. my science friends listened to the temp stations concern (actually to be fair they knew about the urban heat effect and other potential issues long before the “skeptics” did) but that concern was none-the-less carefully considered.
So science considers all the information available.
Where as you bloglobytes don’t seem to consider the other side of the story. You filter.
That is why I side with the more open, logical, and fair side of this argument.
As for Wes’ great post #201 – I really enjoyed that, but I’m just going to pick on one thing:
When it comes to scientific understanding their is never a “chief”. Science is an autonomous competitive collective there are no leaders in that sense. There are some that are more vocal in books and media but there isn’t a ring leader.
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Heck, let’s not limit it to 1000 years: Here is a NOAA Greenland ice core for the last 10,000 years. Note the “hockey stick” at the end? Pretty “unprecedented”, isn’t it? (NOT) Remember, now, this is the time when CO2 was supposed (according to the ice cores) to be low and nearly constant.
Your mistake is in thinking that climate scientists’ “job” is to “sort this stuff out”. Actually, their “job” is to keep on the billion $ AGW funding gravy train. Those who fall off (by noting that “maybe there isn’t such a big problem, after all”, for example) are out of a job and no longer considered “climate scientists”.
As Upton Sinclair said: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”
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Manwichstick @206,
Again you argue as always — generalities and a finger pointing at skeptics demanding that they prove their position. Well, in words easy to understand, it is impossible to prove a negative.
You say,
This is nothing but appeal to authority — anonymous authority at that.
I think you know that appeal to authority is a fallacious argument. So under the circumstances I can’t see any use in discussion with you because in the end it’s just a disapproving finger pointing at those who don’t agree with you. There’s nothing else there.
I appreciate that you have maintained a polite demeanor. I truly do. But this site is all about cold hard facts and you present none.
As for discussing science — yes we are. As for attacking AGW in the science arena — it has been done over and over. How many times must someone expose the flaws in the global warming scare before you realize that the dance is over and the piper is now demanding payment?
Carefully considered? Yes, by modifying the data to make it show what they wanted it to show. Then they conveniently lost the original data so no one can reconstruct what they did. If you disagree with that tell me how they considered it and why what they did as a result is the right thing to do.
Climategate exposed what was really going on and no amount of whitewash thrown over it by spineless investigators can change the truth.
It’s over my friend. The funeral has begun.
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Manwhich, the “chief scientist” I referred to is none other than Phil Jones former head of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia who – after his team of climate scientists were caught being naughty – admitted to the whole world on the BBC that there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995. Ex-chief scientist Phil Jones now says there has even been a cooling trend for the past 8 years of -0.12c per decade. It continues to cool as I type these words…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm
Do you know what a hypothesis is called when it offers an explanation and makes predictions for nature which then prove less than useful when compared to direct observations of said nature?
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As for the burden of proof, let’s play make believe…Imagine science as a courtroom
Manwhich has been nicked by the coppers “allegedly” for stealing a few pints of beer from the local. (Note the key word, allegedly.)
When Manwhich comes up before the Magistrate he is asked: How do you plea? He enters a plea of “Not Guilty Your Honour!”
The Magistrate doesn’t reply, “Fine, whanker, prove you’re innocent!”
No, quite the opposite, he requires that the prosecution, whose HYPOTHESIS is that Manwhich nicked the pints PROVE beyond REASONABLE DOUBT that the allegation is the ONLY POSSIBLE explanation for the observed events.
All that Manwhich’s solicitor need do is put questions to the prosecution to TEST whether the allegation (hypothesis) answer to ALL the observed facts of the case. If the prosecution fails to be able to explain ANY SINGLE pertinent fact of the case, then the accused is found innocence, ie. hypothesis falsified. Manwhich is never required to prove anything at all…
Likewise, the CAGW prosecution alleges that the modern level of atmospheric CO2 is forcing the climate to “unprecedented” temperatures. Yet when asked to show that the modern CO2 level was present at other past warming events that the defence can show were just as warm or warmer than today, the prosecution can not answer. In fact, there is irrefutable evidence that the CO2 levels of today were NOT PRESENT at the time of the Medieval Warm Period. Therefore, the climate scientists must explain why one, (actually many others too) warm period can occur without modern levels of atmospheric CO2 levels, yet only the most recent warm period, quite identical to those of the past, requires a special one-off explanation!
I rest my case, your honour!
http://pages.science-skeptical.de/MWP/MedievalWarmPeriod.html
* * *
(It’s really much worse than that, because the CAGW prosecution has been caught out planting evidence.)
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To BobC, Roy, and Wes,
I can only make a reply to one issue from each of you.
First of all, a tip of the hat to to Wes for another story, this time involving beer, trying to teach me something. I must seem like a child to you. Anyway I appreciate the effort you put into this – I don’t know how you find the time. Wes, and all of you, really must care about this stuff a lot. Maybe Al Gore, or Phil Jones, [snip]
(temps from land stations)
Any “whammies” “gizmos” “tricks” are all documented in the various articles. Transparent – you understand. Some of this transparency has come back to bite them a little bit when blogbarians misunderstand them, but every bonafide challenge to the data that has come up in retrospect has been taken into account. And you can guess what difference this has made to the overall trend… You might want to begin by asking yourself what you would do to mitigate urban heat island effects and other things you may have heard about if you were the one responsible for collecting the data and trying to document any changing temp trends over time. You might focus on night temps, or the stations away from urban areas, or what have you.
Or ignore all the land temp data and use only satellite however this is not a very scientific way to go about things because excluding data is dumb when you are trying to get a handle of what’s going on over 30 year timescales.
Yes this misunderstanding of how science works is all over this comment thread. I haven’t brought it up until now. You clearly haven’t met any decent scientists. Fortunately for them, science is competitive. Nothing would make them more famous or ensure their tenureship more than if they could invalidate AGW. $$ is funneled to specific areas of research, to find out more about X. If you, as a scientist seem to be onto something, your grant proposals are more likely to go through – but in the end, the more elucidating your results are to the secrets of nature the more famous you become. Doomed are the scientists who publish based more on politics than facts. They are almost always found out. You only need to share a beer with an actual climate scientist to learn that your gravy train argument holds no gravy. The odd exception are the few science dudes who try to get books for the public published. Any Phil Jones book, for example, is likely to be a best seller because of the “skeptics” making him famous. Before climategate, he was just a geek at a university. No more important to climate change than another bigwig at any other university.
Not sure what you mean by unprecedented temperatures. If you are asking if more CO2 will raise temperatures – all things being equal – the answer is an unequivocal yes. However there are many factors at play.
That’s not true at all, if you look through the record you will find times with this level of CO2 and temps being warmer, and you will find times with this level of CO2 and temps being cooler.
You are correct.
They can explain why temps can be both hotter or colder with the current CO2 levels, and they have.
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Manwichstick @211,
OK, fair question. I can tell you exactly what I would do. Or more accurately, what I would not do. I would not use data from thermometers situated near sources of unpredictable heat such as near air conditioners, on concrete exposed to the sun all day and many other such places that violate NOAA’s own guidelines for positioning such thermometers. That would eliminate two problems right away: 1) there would be no distorted temperature readings that my critics could call into question; 2) I would not have to try to get away with the whopper of a lie that some generic adjustment has corrected for each different location problem.
Since they act that way, yes, we are entitled to believe that’s what they are doing. Actions always speak louder than words.
Look at this way. If it’s as competitive as you say then there’s a big struggle for the available grant money. You can’t interest anyone in giving you money if you tell them they have no problem. QED, you must tell them that they have some terrible problem and only your research can save them.
But it’s worse than that. The scientists themselves are the stooges of their governments and the UN. Sound like a conspiracy theory? If so then you need to do some research, not me. You can start here with the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change. That sounds like the UN wants to be in the driver’s seat to me.
You may be willing to give up your freedom to a bunch of dictators who want control over your every move but I am not. And valuing my freedom, yes I have spent a lot of time on the matter, literally years in fact.
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Manwichstick @211,
One more thing,
You are the guest here of a blog owner who’s great strength is that she isn’t afraid to let dissenting opinions be posted as long a some simple rules are followed. And you have followed them. But don’t ever post another insult like this because if you do I’ll tell you off and it won’t be flattering. Say what you will about the people who post here but leave their families, friends and anyone else strictly out of it!
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Gosh, Manwich, you’re an Adult??? I thought you were a kid on mum’s ‘puter. Whoops. Sorry.
He’s right about one thing, Roy and Bob. We got better things to do than waste time on this lummox, unless he’ll come out and post comments on the front page. Then we’ll have to humiliatingly deconstruct his blather point by point before thousands of eyes. Could be very instructive, Manswich. Think about it.
See ya’ll back at the ranch, amigos!
😉
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Manwichstick: You should restrict your comments to things you actually know about — the risk of sounding like a fool is not as great.
You obviously don’t have a clue about any of this. Let me guess how many grant proposals you have written — zero. How much experience do you have working with scientists on “soft money”? — again, obviously, zero. (Do you even know what the term “soft money” refers to?)
Where did you get this description of how science works? An old copy of “Boy’s Life”? (You sure didn’t get it by being a working scientist.)
Do you consider Freeman Dyson a “decent scientist”? Perhaps you should read what he has to say about the current state of climate science (link). Dyson has no skin in the game, and his reputation needs no defense.
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Roy,
There appears to be a double standard for what counts as an insult on this blog. But, to be fair, people often experience this sort of opinion when posting in an “foreign” blog to their own particular ideology.
Regardless, if I have offended you by inquiring as to what your motivations are for being such a keen poster on Jo Nova I am sorry – I was just curious. (I don’t think it is because you are paid by “big oil”)
I also don’t honestly believe it is because a famous CAGW proponent has had an inappropriate relationship with a someone near and dear to you.
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Ah, I see, you’re posting on a foreign blog. English is your second language? Makes sense. You speak the english very very good.
Nevertheless, All your bases are belong to us!!!
Happy, good day to you, sir.
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Manwichstick @216,
Let’s cut the nonsense. No one was insulted by anything you said up to the point where you had the nerve to write the comment that the moderators have cut out. We pointed out the fallacy and mistakes in your position. I pointed out that in all the time since you appeared you have failed to be able to debate the science. Someone gives you hard evidence against your position and you come back with laughable garbage about how someone else has done it and we better go look for it and then agree with you.
It ain’t gonna happen!
And you know perfectly well what offended me. You did it on purpose. You can say anything you want to me and I’ll ignore it. I’ve been trashed on other sites and I just plain don’t care. But when you bring my wife into the matter as you did, I will never tolerate that. Never!
You have shown yourself to be a lowlife of the worst sort as well as incapable of maintaining a two way conversation. You’ve made a joke of your position and I suspect that your fellow AGW believers have cringed with every word you posted.
Enough is enough. Do yourself, not to mention the rest of us a favor and disappear.
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To Bobc
I didn’t expect you to be a prof. based on my first impression of you. I based my early prejudice on how you seem to speak in such absolute terms and don’t have a more careful word choice. You have not been cautious to not overstate things.
Perhaps there is another thread on this website more suited to discuss your “gravy train” assertion.
Or perhaps you could name an AGW proponent at your university whom you know to have feathered his own nest, using a soft fund inappropriately.
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To Roy,
You have not pointed out any flaws or fallacies to my satisfaction. You seem to misunderstand some things – like the argument from authority. You accused me of making that sort of argument.
The only way to attack arguments from authority is through unbiased scientific inquiry. You seem to think that >30 years of climate research, done in different continents, constitutes an argument from authority?
I disagree.
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@220,
Did I mention that you’re a self-righteous fool?
It’s hard to believe that someone like you is a scientist when you go around disgracing the very word science with everything you post.
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Manwichstick, now who is in denial? Do you think that the amount of funding spent on climate research has NO bearing on or connection with the politics of AGW?
Now for some old business:@ 199 I said:
You said @ 200
It clearly bolsters the argument about any EFFECTS of AGW (which after all is what you want to mitigate right?) It also bolsters the case for AGW proponents use of propaganda recall “unprecedented warming”.
@ 199 I said:
@ 200 you said:
I am tempted to ask you to expand on this profound revelation of yours, but nope I’ll call it what it is: A poor and weasely response (one of many you have made). If the climate system is able to compensate for temperature rise then there can be no problematic AGW.
There is a wealth of information out there that should cause an inquiring mind like yours to be skeptical of AGW certainly of CAGW. You have chosen to be closed minded. Ask your “climate scientist friends” to come here and discuss the science. You apparently are not able.
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Hi Mark,
Everything I’m commenting on here refers to your post 222 (which have some call backs to previous posts)
You say:
No I do not think that; I believe the politics has a lot to do with it. But if you think the opposite: namely the crudely worded “gravy train” is a more apt depiction….you don’t know any in-the-business climate scientists.
You say:
Agreed, past temperature fluctuations hint at what may be the effects of AGW. This is why I feel the most compelling evidence for climate sensitivity comes from past temp. reconstructions. But comments of “temps rose faster without CO2” are meaningless without analyzing the climate and forcings of the day for that particular rise in temp. Very generally speaking, quick rises in temperature in the past are a bad omen for how the earth responds to warming.
You say:
I tentatively agree with you if we can agree on the meanings of “compensate” and the relative time scales we are talking about.
If instead of blogging, more scientific research can be done to creep the climate sensitivity down lower (as some are busy doing), then I think you can say AGW will be less problematic and 50 years from now I may have to admit I was a bit overzealous.
BTW do you think it is a fair comment for Roy to call me a self-righteous fool? This is after I lamented that his wife might have had an ardent relationship with Al Gore end poorly. I felt my comment was seriously not serious. His comment, however, seems very “attacky”.
Also to Roy, if you are reading, you say I am disgracing science.
The best response I can think of is to quote “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” when Mr. Weasley says,
You and I have a very different idea of what disgraces the word Wizard, Lucius.
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Sure. And you don’t use your real name. Pathetic.
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Anyway, that’s not what “soft money” is (at least, not in the scientific research context). I’ll try to explain it to you:
1) “Soft money” means you are responsible for bringing in your own salary through grants — no grants, no job. (My current situation, in fact, although thankfully I am not in climate modeling. I actually propose and build things that have to work — stressful in its own way, but if they work, by god, it doesn’t matter what anyone’s opinion is.)
2) Many climate researchers, even at major labs like NOAA and NCAR are on soft money.
3) Since 1989, the US government has spent ~$80 billion (link) on climate research, specifically on research finding that AGW is a big problem. In the same time frame, there has been ~$30 million in funding available for studying alternative theories of the climate (the infamous “Oil Money”). (Which do you think gets studied the most?)
4) Despite all the money thrown at it, the AGW hypothesis is still not supported by data — hence all the “model” papers that people have been accepting as a substitute. The predictive skill of the AGW hypothesis (and all the models, as well) is currently not distinguishable from chance (see here for example. (Have you read Dyson’s opinion I linked?)
Not only has the AGW hypothesis failed to show any demonstrable predictive skill; it is completely impotent at explaining past climate (like this Greenland ice core from NOAA, for example).
So you have the situation where the scientists whose jobs depend on continued funding from this multi-billion dollar stream are reviewing each other’s papers and grant proposals (that’s how “science” actually works — kind of like a High School clique — you should read Thomas Kuhn sometime). They’re getting nervous, since the results produced are so pathetic in terms of actual predictive content and it is the prediction of future disaster that they are using to justify more research.
The results are easily predictable by anyone with a passing acquaintance with Human Nature: They are circling the wagons, defending their livelihood by blocking all criticism that they can — blackballing scientists who threaten to derail the “Consensus”, getting uncooperative journal editors fired, etc. (All available to see in the “Climagegate” emails. Don’t forget to look at the code released also — it clearly fakes “data”.)
Are there ethical scientists, like your fantasy? Of course, but they can’t participate in climate research unless they keep a low profile — otherwise, they are selected out rather rapidly. Many of the more eminent skeptics are such people. They may have participated in the first IPCC report, then voiced their objections too loudly — now they get their funding elsewhere and are denigrated as “not climate scientists”.
In the meantime, the most outrageous crap gets “peer-reviewed” and published by this crowd.
To give one small example: There are literally hundreds of papers on CO2 cycle models that “prove” CO2 stays in the atmosphere for 100s (if not 1000’s) of years. There are also 36 (peer-reviewed, BTY) papers on empirical measurements of CO2 atmospheric lifetime — they all agree within a factor of 2 or 3 that the half-life of CO2 in the atmosphere is ~5 years. The model papers either ignore the measurements, as if they didn’t exist, or they postulate speculative mechanisms (never looked for, of course) that would allow the model to be right in spite of the measurements. Many model papers (like Susan Soloman’s of NCAR this year) simply reference only other model papers. I don’t think this kind of echo-chamber is what you were describing by your description of science — but that is how it is done.
BTY: You keep using the “argument” that anyone who disagrees with you “doesn’t know any climate scientists”. Are you implying that you do? I find that hard to believe.
[Sorry, no idea why this went to spam. Chock it up to computers or WordPress] ED
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Manwhichstick, I don’t have time right now to respond to the first part of your post (223) but your question regarding Roy I’ll answer as follows: I don’t know where you live but where I live, any respectable decent man wouldn’t think of saying what you said about another mans spouse. In fact, I believe such a comment admitted as evidence in court, might reduce the charge from second degree murder to manslaughter.
Roy is a regular contributor here and you are a newcomer. I think you could show better judgment and good faith by offering a sincere apology.
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Come on Guys, Manwich is an adolescent troll, probably hasn’t finished secondary school. The kid quotes Harry Potter movies in reference to science.
He’s got teenage arrogance combined with total ignorance of not just the facts but the socio-political context of the whole debate. He was born yesterday and he’s got a case of potty mouth and zits. Unless he comes out to the front page-where we will happily deconstruct his every thought and motive in public- there is nothing to see here at comment 225 of a post from October.
Manwhich, I suggest you turn off your computer and go outside into the sunshine before you get rickets. You know, live a little. Make some real friends. Come back and see us, say, in 2020.
(Please cool down the rhetorical thoughts over him.He does not appear to be a troll since he has been avoiding the usual barrage of trolling behavior) CTS
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Wes @226:
Gotta agree with you, Wes — the boywich’s arguments are about as weighty as aerogel. He seems to be unaware of self-contradiction, and unable to maintain a dialog.
Signing off.
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Can I help out here for a moment and say that Manwichstick does appear to be a genuine commenter. I know that’s unusual.
Manwichstick: We welcome genuine skepticism — even about us. Real questions make for the most interesting conversations.
Bear in mind this blog is often hit by active no-namers who post comments with no intention of responding in an honest way. Please steer clear of insults, especially while you choose to remain anonymous. Anonymity is fine, but the price for you is that it requires a higher standard of manners to earn respect.
BY The way – when it comes to the gravy train, you could start with the Climate Money.
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Manwichstick,
You didn’t think about it enough to ask whether it might be offensive or not! I’ll agree with that — in spades. Now no matter what anyone else is willing to let slide, I am not willing to let that slide. Words have consequences — always!
Now try posting something specific that supports you. Your arguments have all been in vague generalities. Commit yourself to a position and back it up with some facts, figures, papers that you think support you. Everyone here has been waiting for that. No more of this,
As who is busy doing? You never can be pinned down to a solid position. Not even as a starting point. Anyone here can tell you easily why they don’t buy the AGW scare and give you lots of documentation that supports them.
For comparison — when I asked you for some specifics about one of the points you originally disagreed with you made the excuse that you didn’t explain it well and still gave nothing anyone could talk about. It finally came down to the point where I asked you who you thought would be a good authority in support of your position. You didn’t answer me.
I rest my case.
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Hello Roy,BobC,Wes,Mark, and Jo,
It is surprising that I’m being asked to stay clear of insults when all I have done is make one obviously ridiculous joke. On the other hand I have weathered a bunch of crap from everyone who has bothered to reply (except from Mark,I think, and Jo).
I didn’t realize that the culture of this blog is to be uneasy with anyone who remains anonymous. I have used “Manwichstick” for all my recent comments on blogs and you tube videos. You have not given me any reason to regret that decision based on your collective attitude. I would describe some of you as curmugdenly. You can’t have met very many nice anonymous commenters.
You all do seem to be less than welcoming of dissenting opinion but, to be honest, I am very appreciative of a few things that I would like to make special mention of:
1) First of all, I am very appreciative of Jo not finding me too boring. Perhaps the Harry Potter reference helped.
2) Second, I really appreciate the enormous amount of time several of you have spent replying to my comments – especially Wes and Bob. If you want to have convertees you must start by educating, and I am amazed how you would follow up some of my comments with such copious amounts of information.
I would like to add that I can not possibly reply to all the things all of you have thrown at me the last few days. If I don’t reply to a particular thing it is not because I am being evasive. I just have to pick and choose. Don’t take it personally Roy.
I would like to begin to follow this blog and comment on more up-to-date issues on the home page from time to time.
The two most interesting things to me at this time, based on what you have mentioned, is (a) discussing Freeman Dyson’s comments and (b) what was for me a startling relevation that there are several papers suggesting a CO2 halflife in the atmosphere of the order of a few years – I did not know this. That made me give my head a shake. BobC please point me to the journals in question, if you don’t mind – that seriously caught my attention.
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No.
For obvious reasons, people who use real names usually write more careful comments.
I would be delighted if we could get more polite discussion about the science and evidence — it’s invaluable and rare to see an exchange that manages to stick to the science without resorting to fallacies of reasoning or baseless insults.
You can imagine how easy it would be for enemies to simply throw baseless insults from anonymous addresses and destroy lines of discussion, and you can be sure they try on a regular basis.
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Manwichstick, I typed a nice long reply to 223 yesterday-then I had a computer lockup before I submitted 🙁
Working back from your most recent post; I am not always proud of how “trolls” are handled. On the other hand some trolls come here to disrupt and cause other problems. When you showed up we were at the tail end of a wave of not very friendly intruding trolls. We have come to recognize that there seems to be some organization and planning to their trolling almost as though they are paid to disrupt. Your arrival was timed such that I think we all believed you were part of that volley.
With that framework and history you might better understand why some comments are not that friendly. A couple of observations for you, a very typical troll behavior is to not answer. They will throw around the talking points they want but ignore the hard questions. Another typical response is to toss “bombs” (talking points) and leave. See 140, 147-148 and to 164 here in this thread. “Shelly” has done that a few times in other threads rarely engaging in any discussion.
Enough history of trolling. I don’t think any of the curmudgeons here are afraid or unwilling to discuss and have real dialogue. I’d suggest that keeping the posts short and on one or two subjects at a time is much easier to work with. There have been some problem posters that type endlessly and counters end up even longer. Counter counters even longer yet. It becomes a game of who will tire out first!
Another general concept for you to keep in mind; there is more than one skeptical position. There is no such thing as a skeptical AGW theory. Instead you have people that find possible fault in different specific areas and even disagreement amongst the skeptics. There are a great number of posters here that were, at one time, supporters of AGW and have become skeptical by observing a surprising amount of missing pieces, counter theories, evidence of manipulation, etc.
A favorite question to ask (and I know it borders on argument from authority): The list of prominent skeptics is fairly long. Amongst the names in that list are some very bright and talented scientists. John Christy, Lindzen, Spencer to name a few. These people see holes in the AGW theory. Why? I have had some interesting replies to that one most memorable Aussie troll said “so there’s a few rat bags amongst them” (rat bag being AU slang). Of course there is the overwhelming belief that all skeptics are unemployed tobacco lobbyists or employed by big oil.
I am rambling. Consider your first few exchanges here as part of a hazing. You have passed the first part. Keep asking questions, keep answering questions. We won’t insist that you become skeptical (but that is a risk you take). There are good people here, there are passionate people, intense people and some very bright people too. Some think outside the box. Some think outside the box next to the box. There is little respect for closed mindedness.
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News flash and addendum: Once and a while someone posts very interesting stuff like this http://joannenova.com.au/2010/11/how-the-bbc-became-a-propaganda-arm-of-the-uk-government-and-wwf/comment-page-1/#comment-127606
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Manwichstick:
I do not object to anonymous commentators — obviously I am one myself (although it isn’t hard to find my identity, if you really want to).
I do object to anonymous commentators casually requesting me to accuse named people of criminal activity, apparently for their own amusement. (Probably a good thing you couldn’t make that request in person.) Either you see the ethical problem with that, or you don’t. (i.e., Are you a knave or a fool? Or, maybe you think I’m a fool?)
However, that can be overlooked as a mistake in judgement (like your ‘joke’), especially since Jo says you are for real. We get many trolls here whose only goal is to disrupt the blog and try to convince the lurkers (of which there are many) that we have no real evidence. Occasionally, these trolls post on old threads where they think they are more likely to have the last word. My long replies are actually written for those lurkers, but I’m pleasantly surprised that I actually got your interest. (Another indication that Jo may be right.)
Assuming your interest is real, one of the best ways to educate yourself is to read some of the background material linked on the home page of this blog.
First, however, I would like to make a couple of comments on “peer review”: Unlike many posters (and virtually all trolls), I have actually participated in the peer review process, from both sides. Journal editors used to do their own review, but because of time constraints and specialization, that became impractical nearly 50 years ago. Now they look for volunteers from the same field to do it. It often happens that groups of scientists in the same field review each others papers. This is obviously at risk of corruption, but it wasn’t important when science didn’t matter much. (Engineering has always mattered, but things either work or they don’t — you rarely need expert opinion to decide; and if you do, the engineers themselves are not part of the evaluation.)
Now however, when hugely disruptive public policy decisions are being proposed on the basis of climate science, this “old boy network” method is no more acceptable than allowing groups of open-pit mine owners to grant environmental permits to themselves; or the FDA foregoing its own tests and just asking the drug company’s scientists if the new drug works.
Second, peer review, when it is done right, can determine things like: Is prior research properly referenced? Are there any mathematical or logical mistakes?
It cannot determine if the authors are right — that has to wait for further research.
Anyway, here are some of the links you requested:
Tom Segalstad’s review of CO2 lifetime papers — on page 13 is a list of 36 published papers on CO2 lifetime measurements over the past 50 years, and the lifteimes found. The journals can be found by looking up the authors in Segalstad’s references on pages 20-25.
Here is a graph of carbon-14 containing CO2 from Wikipedia’s “Carbon-14” page. C14 was produced by atmospheric nuclear bomb tests, which ended abruptly in 1963. The graph shows, not only a ~8 year decay constant, but also a ~2-3 year mixing delay between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. (BTY, C14 has a radioactive half life of 5000 years, so that is not what you are seeing here — what you are seeing is the rate that CO2 is scrubbed from the atmosphere.)
Short CO2 lifetimes are particularly bad for AGW alarmists, because it is easy to show that, given the measured lifetimes, Humans can at most be responsible for ~4% of the atmospheric CO2. That’s why these measurements are either ignored, or silly arguments made against them by people who don’t understand equilibrium reactions or the meaning of impulse response functions for linear systems.
The short explanation:
The oceans hold 50 times as much CO2 as the atmosphere. They are in near equilibrium. When CO2 is injected into the atmosphere, the equilibrium is restored, with a time constant of ~5-10 years, resulting in 98% of the injected CO2 residing in the oceans and 2% remaining in the atmosphere. This can actually be inferred from the fluxes between atmosphere and ocean that the IPCC reports — the C14 measurements simply confirm it. (And the CAGW crowd ignores it.)
Here’s an interesting paper on determining the Earth’s climate sensitivity by actual measurements, instead of models, by eminent scientist Sherwood Idso. (You can tell he’s eminent by the amount and nature of the attacks on him on sites like RealClimate.) Needless to say, he doesn’t get the high values necessary for climate alarmism.
I could go on, but you get the idea. There is literally nothing about the CAGW (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming) hypothesis that holds up to closer inspection.
Thankfully, we may soon be able to put this to bed based on the actual climate response. Contrary to the CAGW predictions, there are many indications that the world may be in for 10-15 years of much colder weather. (See here for example.)
Climate scientists should be trying to figure out what precipitates ice ages: We are currently just coming out of one of the coldest periods in the last interglacial (10,000 yr), (see here: Greenland ice core from NOAA). Unlike a few degrees of warming, which would most probably be beneficial, descending into an ice age would be a real catastrophe. The Earth has spent > 90% of the last half-million years much colder than today — and the warm periods have never lasted more than 8,000 years: We’re 10,000 and counting …
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To MarkD,
Thank you so much for the additional clarifications. I will attempt to take all the advice you offer when I post here in the future.
I agree with you that there is much passion here. I’m still not sure what the underlying motivators are for you all. I would probably get many different answers.
I need to take some time to focus on BobC’s claims of research demonstrating very short CO2 halflifes in the atmosphere. This would be a HUGE “torpedo” (to quote a Bob Carter-ism).
If I don’t comment here for a while, it is because I need to look into this.
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Hi BobC re:#234
Yes, that request of mine was me at my worst, so far. It was a little for my amusement but I didn’t expect you to answer that question. But there actually was a point hidden behind it.
In my experience it is easy for “skeptics” to demonize science folk, a bit like politians. People complain about corrupt government but tend to often think their local representation are OK. In other words, the folks at my university are fine – its those crazies at NOAA. But the scientific body are all local people fundamentally and it is only the abstraction of the cheating scientists that usually gets hit with the blame.
Re: sensitivity, I am aware of the papers you mention with the low sensitivities.
I mostly agree with most of your comments re: peer review but I gotta pick one topic to discuss at a time.
But, now I’m off to investigate the 36 papers you mention.
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Manwichstick,
I think you would get possibly two basic answers:
1) Good honest science has shot down the global warming scare, it isn’t happening or the warming is too little to worry about so all the proposed draconian measures against it will simply throw the human race back several centuries for nothing.
2) OK, I agree that it’s possible but the cure is far worse than the ailment, even if we implement all the draconian restrictions to save the planet they won’t be enough to stop it so adaptation is a far better strategy.
These are the only two arguments I’ve ever seen. I fall in the first group.
Now think about it — the future of my children, my nieces, their children, not to mention your children and grandchildren if you have any, is at stake here. This would seem to demand some passion in standing up against global warming.
I’m going to call it global warming, which is what it started out to be. All the other terms have been thrown in to make it seem more sinister. Global warming became anthropogenic global warming to make sure the world understood that humans were at fault. That became climate change when the warming scare began to be untenable. Now we get climate disruption when the argument that climate always is changing made climate change harder for the world to swallow. The terms always make it sound worse and worse and worse. And all this name changing is prima face evidence of dishonest intent.
Then there’s the political aspect. I have said for a long time that global warming is a political disease. Its origin is within groups of fanatics, including the UN, whose agenda is to dominate the whole human race. Do some research if you don’t believe that.
If you think I would sit idly by and watch that happen you’re crazy.
I could say much more but I’ll let this stand as my statement of position on the matter.
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