RE: “Sceptic: one inclined to doubt accepted opinions” by Michael Bachelard, The Sunday Age
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For free, and just because I’m a nice person, I’m going to help Michael Bachelard with his science articles.
He’s a Walkley Award winner writing for the two largest “broadsheet” circulation papers in Australia. He knows indigenous issues, politics and industrial relations, so “climate science” was the … er, obvious next step, right?
The Age (and by default, it’s sister The Sydney Morning Herald) decided to pretend to investigate the most burning climate questions the public could offer. But their investigations apparently amounted to phoning up government agents and fans of the policy, and asking them what to write.
It’s titled: Sceptic: one inclined to doubt accepted opinions, but it could have been titled Journalist: one inclined to parrot groupthink
Poor Bachelard is out of his depth in the science trying to answer Stephen Harper and Harry Hostan’s questions. For an investigative journalist he had odd ideas about how to get answers, almost never contacting the people or groups he wrote about directly. Who knows, maybe the servers at Fairfax don’t allow emails out to non-lefties at the moment, because he doesn’t seem to have contacted anyone who could have helped him get the information right.
PR example number 1: Totally wrong, and with no research!
Forced by a skeptic to notice the massive Petition Project, Bachelard “debunks it” with something that isn’t true. He claims the “institute does not release the full list of names, so it can’t be verified”. But it takes two minutes of searching online to turn up the full list of 31,500 names listed alphabetically, and also arranged by State (it makes that verification easier). Could someone show Bachelard, Bing, Yahoo, or Google?
For further confirmation, I emailed Art Robinson, the man who knows more about the project than anyone, to make sure that all the names were listed and got a reply within hours. Yes, they certainly are.
Dismissing the 9,000 PhDs and 22,000 science graduates, Bachelard offers mindless handwaving: the Petition it seems “has been given credibility by conservative and sceptical commentators”, as if leftie commentators were correct somehow for actively ignoring it. (If only those could think of a good reason why they keep saying “there is a consensus” when clearly there isn’t.) Instead, the Petition got credibility the only way that counts, the hard way, by amassing an enormous list, which includes eminent, highly qualified award winning physicists, as well as professors, doctors, engineers and geologists. Rather than being a two minute web survey, the organizers also published a detailed paper reviewing its highly considered position. It’s been up for years now, if there were fake names, or non-scientists, they would have been exposed.
The list has so much credibility, and is so hard to attack, Bachelard has to resort to saying things are aren’t true and making petty ad hominem attacks on the size of the Institute. The fact that this extraordinary project grew out of one man’s passionate work, starting from his farm, only makes the Petition more authentic. (If it had come from a large institute, presumably Bachelard would have dismissed it because it was well funded, right?)
Make no mistake, scientifically, the petition proves nothing, but politically, it blows the consensus out of the water.
The sloppy journalist misses the real revolution
There has never been an uprising of scientist-whistleblowers like this one, and the petition is just the tip of the iceberg of the revolution online that is changing the way science is being done. Like much of the internet activity, the Petition was done by volunteers, paid for with individual private donations, and all the volunteers and many of the donors are PhD scientists. If Greenpeace could name 9,000 PhD’s on their team it’d be in headlines, across posters, and on bumper stickers too.
PR Example number 2: Invent wacko statements from skeptics
Because lazy journalists think they “know” what skeptics say by only talking to their alarmist buddies, they misrepresent the skeptics. (Note to Bachelard: seriously, if you value your reputation, you can email skeptics, we don’t bite, and we speak English too. We can save you from looking like a sock puppet of a self-interested government agency.)
The basics of greenhouse chemistry are agreed on by most skeptics and the IPCC, it’s a non-point. So it’s a tad embarrassing that Bachelard inadvertantly paints the Prize winning brilliant meteorologist, Richard Lindzen, as a “denier” of basic physics, when Lindzen is strictly in the same camp as the IPCC on this point. Bachelard implies Lindzen alone does not think water vapor “is the most effective agent of global warming”. Ha ha, what a joke. This is high school physics, and shows how far behind the main game Bachelard is. Every tri-atomic molecule like CO2 and H2O is a greenhouse gas (count the atoms: 1,2,3). H2O is 25 – 100 times as abundant as CO2. In his entire five decade career, Richard Lindzen would never have uttered such nonsense. Bachelard wants to paint Lindzen as a loner, extremist, dare I say it — denier?
Bachelard probably excuses himself by thinking he’s helping the planet (the rocks won’t thank you Michael), but these kind of poorly researched PR statements make him just another patsy tool of tricksters, sloppy thinkers, and religious zealots who come to take away honest citizens money for spurious causes.
PR Example number 3: Only show the public what they are “allowed to see” (hide those weather balloons!)
Michael, the sites or the people who told you the hot spot contained “discrepancies” that don’t matter didn’t show you just how obvious, unequivocal or blatant the “discrepancies” are. You linked to this graph of the hot spot, and called it “frightening”:
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).
But what’s frightening, is that the IPCC are not honest enough to show you what the 28 million weather balloons actually found. That graph shows you what the models expected to find (see especially c “well mixed greenhouse gases” and f “the sum of all forcings”). That’s the hot-spot they predict, which amplifies the warming from CO2 by a factor of three. Without the amplification from water vapor, the IPCC predictions collapse from 3 degrees to 1 degree or less.
Now cast your eyes on the graph of millions of weather balloons released since 1959 below. Repeat after me: “the models are accurate, I can see that the discrepancy between the weather balloons and the models predictions in (f) above is inconsequential, and yellow IS red!”
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Propaganda trick number 4: The Questions they won’t ask the other side
See Stephen Harpers comment at #4 on the interview, and the print copy complete with him labeled a “contrarian” because he dares to ask for evidence.
Related posts:
Posts on the missing Hot Spot | The Age | The Sydney Morning Herald
Bachelard’s M.O is being used across the West. It is having the same effect in the UK, ie, strengthening climate scepticism, as it obviously seems to be doing in Oz. Just keep pushing Joanne, the doors are opening.
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More of the same. Another journalist who is trying to justify his actions and personal alarm for the world over the last decade or two. Sounds like he is on the edge of being a skeptic but can’t quite bring himself to that point yet.
Love the bit about missing heat. My one big wish is that one day the missing heat will stop tryig to hide and settle in one location so that scientists can find it. According to this article, it keeps moving one step ahead of the instruments intended to find it.
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Hey fred,
Maybe that missing heat has developed some intelligence which allows itself to stay one step ahead.
Quick someone tell tim flannery – gaia has become self aware!
hahaha
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Become? I thought references to Gaia implied that self-awareness was a given. Otherwise, it’s just “the third rock from the sun”.
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Sadly Michael Bachelard demonstrates once again that ‘investigative journalist’ is an endangered species. 10 years ago with the creation of the Euro Zone and common currency, so many journalists were in love with the idea of a stronger, unified Europe that the arguments and warnings of sceptics were ignored. Now the chickens are coming home to roost and it will be the poor and middle classes who pay for the mistakes, not the rich.
Similarly, there will come a time when the arguments of the sceptics of dangerous human caused climate change will be recognised as correct, but it will be the poor and middle classes who will be hurt by the carbon tax, and carbon emission reduction schemes.
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I have overheard more than one senior politician use the term, “the little people”, when referring to the poor and middle classes of society.
And they were not referring to leprechauns either.
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Why not refer to us as “my people” or “our people”? Who the hell do they think they represent, and who the hell do they think voted for them?
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They represent their tribe. They’re often voted in by the people they think they’ve been clever enough to manipulate.
Often, they’re voted for by people who find they have to pick the least worst option.
We live in the age of the leaderless vacuum. After all, if you had real charisma and leadership skills combined with intelligence and relevance, would you be attracted to arguing with people like bob brown or his deputy JooLiar?
The words waste of time spring to mind.
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During the telephone interview I did with Michael Bachelard for the article, he gave the appearance of being fair-minded and prepared to give me a fair shake. I subsequently emailed him twice with more information and elaborations so that he could be in no doubt as to the nature and substance of my position. As it turned out this was ignored and a somewhat inaccurate version of what I actually said was printed. At first I took the article to be the words of Professor Roger Jones, the ‘climate scientist’ consulted by Michael Bachelard; but I see now that the voice is actually Michael Bachelard himself. He has swallowed the alarmist perspective holus bolus and distilled down certain of the central tenets and uncritically regurgitated them in his article.
On several occasions his article is quite disingenuous; and a less charitable view would be far more scathing. Take the answer to the first question which points out that the globe has not warmed since 1998. The response does not answer this question. That is because to do so would require an admission that it is true. Rather, we have a devious recital of cherry-picked aspects of the issue which give the impression of continued warming. Because Bachelard/Jones cannot refute what is demonstrably true he obfuscates, mentioning warming locations: the Arctic Ocean (whilst ignoring the Antarctic which is not warming); and mentioning certain peaks in temperature: the year 2005, a 12-month period of his own devising in 09/10 and in South-East Australia. None of this disproves the fact that warming has stalled since 1998.
Roger inadvertently gives the game away when he indirectly concedes that the globe is no longer warning when he laments that “heating can happen anywhere in the system, from the deep oceans to the atmosphere, and scientists still cannot really say where the extra energy being trapped in the atmosphere is being stored. It changes constantly, they say.” That is, the globe is not warming, but by golly that missing heat must be somewhere, I just know it!
Finally, Bachelard/Jones resorts to the fall-back position: “But whatever the fine measurements say, the effect of carbon dioxide as a trapper of electromagnetic radiation as heat (known since 1896) is well understood by science.” Well, that’s all right then. You can’t refute the fact that the globe is no longer warming, but let’s not pay attention to those dubious “fine measurements” because we just know that the globe must really be warming. Look!, the settled “1896” science says so! It’s pathetic.
The Sunday Age hardcopy newspaper article had a little more to it than the online article. The answer to question two showed a graph of James Hansen’s predictions. There were just two predictions/scenarios, and the graph stopped at 2006. it looked like Hansen’s lower-end prediction for global temperature rises matched reality. Of course, we know that in reality global temperatures are lower than even the lowest estimate (scenario four) in Hansen’s 1988 paper. In this instance, the picture in the Sunday Age told a thousand lies. The uninitiated and the true AGW believer alike, could easily be fooled into thinking that the models were up to scratch. And the description that Hansen’s predictions were “strikingly accurate” is just a sick joke. Yet more calculated deceit.
A careful reading of the response to question three will ferret out the weasel words used by Bachelard/Jones to try to worm their way out of a losing argument. The 2007 paper “put together the observations of 22 models”. Wow! How authoritative is that? 22 models. That’s a lot. They must be right then? Wrong. Notice the use of the word “observations”. There are no “observations” in the usual, accepted sense of “empirical measurements”. The “observations” are just outputs of models with no empirical data. This is a bald deception. What a farce!
There is mention of a “frightening graph” in an IPCC report. Yet more deceit. The use of the term “frightening graph” is designed to catch the attention of the ignorant and gullible. If after reading the article, you understand nothing, nor remember anything else, you’ll be sure to remember that something was “frightening”. The whole point is that the “frightening graph” is bogus. The hot-spot it shows, which must be there for the models to be accurate, is just NOT THERE. End of story. This would kill any mortal hypothesis stone dead in its tracks. But not this zombie hypothesis which, like some un-dead Egyptian mummy, cannot be stopped by any ordinary means. It rages upon the earth, wreaking havoc wherever it goes – and it just will not die gracefully.
Of course, at the end of the answer, notwithstanding all the verbal tap-dancing, we do discover that “The models….do not reflect the reality” and “there is some mystery here” , “most of the models don’t get the balance right” and “inaccuracies in measurements from weather balloons and satellites” may be the reason they can’t find the hot-spot. What? 28 million measurements and they are all wrong? Sounds like the carpenter blaming his tools to me.
Finally, the hardcopy article showed a picture of me with the caption “Contrarian”. Here is another slur; an epithetic subtly designed to deceive. Gone is the ‘sceptic’ moniker at the head of the article. If you really want to understand me then look at my picture with the word ‘contrarian’ next to it. That’s right, I’m a contrarian folks. I just disagree for the hell of it. I disagree because it’s in my nature to disagree. You might say that my disagreeing is vexatious. Suddenly my legitimacy has been whipped out from under me. Who would listen to a contrarian with all those connotations of a trouble-maker? Of course, no contrarian am I. I am a sceptic in the best sense of the word – and proud of it to boot.
If any fair-minded person cares to take the time to carefully analyse the subtle (and not so subtle) hatchet job done on me and my views in this article they would be well on the way to understanding just who are the good guys and who are the villains of the piece. The good guys don’t do dishonest hatchet jobs. It’s easy to figure out who is who.
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If i am going to be abused and have my intelligence insulted i at least reserve the right to choose my own pejorative. Personally i prefer the term “ACGW dissident”. Captures the essense of the diverse movement opposing anthropegenic global warming theory. Yes there is a movement in the classic sense of very large informal groupings of individuals and organizations focused on opposing the political/scientific theory of the anthropegenic global warming, its institutions and industry. Particularly so in Australia as we are now confronted with resisting and and dismantling a political/legal/institutional edifice of ACGW.
For those interested as to why in Europe many are moving against global warming politics, two sad stories of energy (and other) poverty.
Mark and Helen Mullins. Mark was an ex-soldier. He and his wife Helen were found dead lying together side by side. They had made a suicide pact. When Helen and Mark died they were living in appalling conditions.
One neighbour who knew Mark and Helen told the Daily Mail, “The authorities turned their back on them. They obviously couldn’t face another freezing winter and felt they had no other choice but to kill themselves.”
Helen and Mark were interviewed a few months ago for a Salvation Army documentary. The interview can be seen here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kW_CUfu0NJc
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Sounds like a case of “global fawning” to his warmist masters. Yet another alternative term to go alongside “global alarming”, “gullible warming” and “globull warming”. All in all, it’s becoming a case of “global yawning”!
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Great posting Stephen – especially love the reference to the zombie hypothesis! However, who are you? It is not clear from either Jo’s post or The Age article.
With reference to newspaper reporting I noted this [paraphrased] quote in the SMH today by the publisher and editor-in-chief of the Herald and Sun-Herald, Peter Fray: “Journalism is not about one thing: hard news in the name of the public good . . For example, other roles for journalists might include analysis of events and ideas, advocacy for particular causes or ideas and engendering social empathy.”
While worthy notions unless accuracy can be assured then this seems to me to be a slippery slope towards propaganda and the “ends justify the means” agendas.
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Good question John! Stephen did the beautiful survey that I wrote about here: http://joannenova.com.au/tag/harper-stephen/ He crafted the clever questions that show how pervasive the “pollution” meme is.
Forget plate tectonics and continental drift. A trace gas in the atmosphere can reshape the Earth, at least, that’s apparently how many people see it. A new survey shows that over a third of the population think that climate change induces not just tsunamis, but even volcanic eruptions. Worse, 37% of people are so convinced carbon is pollution that they think it would be a worthwhile aim to reduce the carbon content of their body. (The ultimate diet, you might say).
He is a voluntary active citizen with a BSc in wine science.
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Thanks Jo. After reading Stephen’s post I can only lament the decline in our school, academic, and journalistic standards. Thank goodness for blogs such as yours, Anthony Watts’, etc.
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Sue him.
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If it worked against Bolt…
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Well done Jo,
Laws of Journalism:
First law: Never let the truth interfere with a good story.
Second Law: Do not confuse your readers with facts.
Third Law: Always support editorial bias.
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Jo, you have effectively hoisted Michael Bachelard on his own pitards. The AGW crowd is turning more and more to politically immersed writers to parrot their faith tenets, especially writers whose lack of a scientific background negates any reasoned inquiry.
Thank you Stephen Harper for your fine response to, and information about, the hatchet job interview you had with Bachelard. It is obvious that Bachelard was going to write his article the way he was requested to from the start, and he contacted skeptics to give himself cover, but did not honestly present their answers to his questions.
Such is the desperate state of the AGW religion at this time.
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Sorry – my mistake, should be “on his own petard”.
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Stacking Clean Energy Subsidies – Interactive Feature – NYTimes.com
The “clean energy” SCAM – american style
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/12/business/energy-environment/a-cornucopia-of-help-for-renewable-energy.html?_r=4&pagewanted=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/11/11/business/energy-environment/Stacking-Clean-Energy-Subsidies.html?ref=energy-environment
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Jo is really on fire!
Hot on the heals of her post that dragged Naomi Klein slowly over some very sharp rocks, she has now given Michael Bachelard a serious ‘kicking’.
Never in the field of AGW alarmism were there two more thoroughly deserved beatings.
Keep up the good work.
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“Drubbings” sounds more fun. 🙂
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Its a long time since I went to a drub.
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You must own your own business……… 🙂
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Just read this headline on the Climate Depot Blog:
Just when you thought that it couldn’t get any worse – this is ‘Noddy in Toyland’ stuff!
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Jo, as usual, you’ve nailed it perfectly.
As I am deeply offended by Michael Bachelard’ arrant nonsense, which is rebutted by Stephen Harper’s eloquently and concisely worded post above, am I able to sue Bachelard for disrespecting my right to receive unadulterated, published facts so that I can make up my own mind as to the truth of the matter?
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yesterday i pasted a link about the electricity disconnections and how no mention was made to CAGW-linked price rises; also mentioned all the ABC radio programs on the rising number of australian poor the night before. not a mention of CAGW price rises having anything to do with that either. the MSM is already on board:
17 Nov: Daily Telegraph: Miranda Devine: The truth will out on Labor’s carbon scam
On cue comes the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which this week issued warnings to businesses that they will face whopping fines of up to $1.1m if they blame the carbon tax for price rises..
Businesses are not even allowed to throw special carbon tax sales promotions before the tax arrives on July 1.
“Beat the Carbon Tax – Buy Now” or “Buy now before the carbon tax bites” are sales pitches that are verboten. Or at least, as the ACCC puts it, “you should be very cautious about making these types of claims”.
There will be 23 carbon cops roaming the streets doing snap audits of businesses that “choose to link your price increases to a carbon price”.
Instead, the ACCC suggests you tell customers you’ve raised prices because “the overall cost of running (your) business has increased”.
It’s all very Orwellian: the tax whose name cannot be spoken. We are already paying for the climate-change hysteria that has gripped Australia for a decade. Replacing even a portion of our cheap, coal-fired power with renewable energy is hellishly expensive. It also requires costly adaptation of existing infrastructure.
That’s a big reason why electricity prices have hit the roof already. So when we accelerate the process with the carbon tax, the pain will escalate. That’s the whole point of carbon pricing. A record number of households have had their electricity disconnected because they can’t pay their power bills.
Household energy costs are estimated to have risen 17 per cent since July, with the result that the ranks of the energy poor are swelling…
Then there are all the little immeasurables. For instance, last winter the price of Lebanese cucumbers in NSW skyrocketed because soaring energy costs forced the biggest grower to shut off heat lamps in some of his growing sheds. Result: fewer cucumbers – so prices rose to meet demand…
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/the-truth-will-out-on-labors-carbon-scam/story-e6frezz0-1226197176697
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planning should be done for up to 7.2 percent global temp rise by the end of the Century!!! CAGW, not AFRICOM and its Allies, to challenge Nat Security in African countries!!!
14 Nov: USA Today: Defense science panel: climate a national security threat
The Defense Department’s highly-regarded science panel is calling for the U.S. military to improve intelligence-gathering related to climate change…
“Climate change has the potential for significant impacts on all three of the basic elements important to national and international security: defense, diplomacy and economics,” says the Defense Science Board report. Particularly in Africa, the report warns of increasing challenges to national security caused by global warming…
The report, “Trends and Implications of Climate Change for National and International Security,” was first noted by the Federation of American Scientists’ “Secrecy News” website. The DSB makes recommendations for the White House, Defense Department and other agencies including:
•Creating an intelligence group to address climate under the Director of National Intelligence
•Support civilian satellites to monitor climate change
•Decision making that assumes a 5.4 to 7.2-degree rise in global average temperatures by the end of the century…
The report concludes in an appendix by assessing various “tipping point” events, such as the melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet and the potential for other nations, mentioning China, to attempt unilateral geoengineering schemes for staving off climate effects. http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/11/defense-science-panel-climate-a-national-security-threat/1?csp=34news
btw NASA and the UK Met Office’s connections to Defense have, to my knowledge, not been scrutinised by sceptics sufficiently.
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Honestly Jo, after reading his article first and then your commentary, I think you have been far too kind to the man. Lazy journalism doesn’t even begin to describe it. The language and deception employed by Bachelard are downright Orwellian, let alone the obvious lies. It is also abundantly clear that Bachelard is completely out of his depth discussing these issues. He either does not grasp the subtle concepts being discussed or simply choses not to acknowledge them. Either way he appears incredibly ignorant about the issues.
Were I grading this as a term paper he might get 2 or 3 out of 10. Needs to show working. Can do much better.
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Sad thing is… this effort of Q&A makes John Cook’s site look good by comparison. It is that bad…
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Well..I am not surprised..
$CAGW$ Trolls are quite today..I expected them to come out fighting to support our desire for objective journalism in MSM .. 🙂
Oh the hypocrisy..
http://www.vexnews.com/2009/10/lest-we-forget-michael-bachelards-day-of-infamy-recalled-in-age-gossip-column/
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The PINNOCHIO noses are growing ever longer!
Soon, they will be soooooooooo.. long their owners will eventually trip over them and fall flat on their faces.
Watch for the latest IPCC Report due out Friday!
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re my Defense Science Panel comment, i should not have written:
“planning should be done for up to 7.2 percent global temp rise” but rather “7.2 DEGREE global temp rise”
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Who needs to watch the Ultimate Fighting Championships when one can log on to joannenovadotcom and see a real a$$ kicking.
I encourage Jo to submit this to The Age/SMH as a rebuttal. The Australian accepts articles from contra views, we’ll see if Fairfax does as well.
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When Muhammad Ali was in his pomp and regularly despatching pretenders to the canvas he had what he termed a “bum of the month club“. Jo has one running here. Ali also had a style of fighting he termed “rope a dope“. Ditto.
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Meanwhile the whole co2 tax imposition on OZ is a complete waste of time and money. As is the hoax of mitigating AGW.
Anyone who believes we are “tackling climate change” or “taking action on CC” must have rocks in their head.
China has been lauded as the great green saviour by members of our idiot govt, but just look at the facts.
http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/iedindex3.cfm?tid=90&pid=44&aid=8&cid=CH,&syid=1990&eyid=2009&unit=MMTCD
In 2000 China emitted 2.8 billion tonnes of co2 but this had blown out to 7.7 billion tonnes by 2009, an increase of 4.9 billion tonnes in just 10 years.
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Since when was investigative journalism not sceptical? I thought that’s what investigative journalism was!!
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Great post, Jo! Shame stupidity is incurable.
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Yes, but ignorance is not. You may have to use small words at times, but people do get it once you explain the issue carefully. The trick is to simplify the explanation without losing the subtle nuances.
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I wonder if the media inquiry will investigate this prime example of bias and misrepresentation? The wheels are coming off (even in the MSM although they will never admit it) as we blog.
Repeal the carbon tax. ELECTION NOW
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[…] The Age does award winning PR — oops was that meant to be science? […]
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Greenhouse gas theory is contradiction. From NASA, the home of James Hansen – the “head honcho” of global warming – sorry – climate change – sorry climate disruption.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/ma_01/
“Without naturally occurring greenhouse gases, Earth’s average temperature would be near 0°F (or -18°C) instead of the much warmer 59°F (15°C).”
Here is another quote from NASA but they have removed the link in the last three months.
“During the day the temperature on the Moon can reach 253 Fahrenheit (123 Celsius), while at night it can drop to -387 Fahrenheit (-233 Celsius). The Earth, which has an atmosphere, has a much more comfortable range of temperatures. ”
Now can some “scientist” please explain to me how the sun has the power to heat the surface of the moon to ~123 degrees celsius ( which agrees approximately with the temperatute calculated using the accepted solar constant and the Stefan-Boltzman equation for a “blackbody”)
BUT doesn’t have sufficient power to heat the Earth so that Earth’s average temperature would be near 0°F (or -18°C).
This is clearly the start of the misinformation (lie) being spread.
They use “average” to calculate the “effective” temperature of Earth and THEN they neglect to tell you they haven’t actually calculated the surface temperature but the calculated temperature is in an area of the atmosphere ~ 5km above the surface of the Earth.
If they cannot be trusted to tell the truth about basic fundamentals how can they be trusted at all ?
The “inconvenient truth” is the sun is capable of heating the Earth’s surface to a maximum of ~ 87 C at the equator with an albedo of ~ 0.3.
The reason it never gets to that level is due to properties ignored by climate scientists – convection removing heated surface air to be replaced by cooler air which convects in turn – enormous quantities of energy – one gram of water absorbs sufficient energy to heat a gram of CO2 to ~2400 degrees C during evaporation.
The other “inconvenient truth” they ignore is all of the gases in the atmosphere become heated and radiate – they may not absorb much infrared radiation but make no mistake they become warmed and radiate.
As CO2 is less than 0.04% it obviously contribute a tiny amount of the so called “back radiation” – it must be impossible to measure CO2’s contribution.
I have no respect for charlatans – and it interesting how they all have much larger “carbon footprints” than the rest of us.
Finally, can Bob Brown tell me unique contribution he made when he flew from Tasmania and used a helicopter to personally itness the oil spill in Moreton Bay ?
What a hypocrit – he could have watched it on TV like the rest of us!
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Well as I have said elsewhere I don’t buy the “greenhouse gas” line of crap, by putting the word “greenhouse” in the phrase one conjures up imagery of agricultural hothouses which I have no doubt is intentional.
Now if one were to use the phrase “atmospheric regulator” along with the other gases that make up the atmosphere I believe they would be that much closer to the truth.
Doesn’t conjure up that same imagery of warm, humid hothouses full of plants though.
Besides, I haven’t seen a greenhouse yet that could retain the heat if the glass on top was missing.
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Well explain this, why do deserts, like the Sahara have day time temps 50 C and at night plummet, in the winters to minus C. Because there are no clouds. Clouds (GHG) have the capacity to keep the earth warmer in colder weather and cooler in hot weather (summer). That’s why hoar frost doesn’t form when there is cloud cover.
Forget the moon, we don’t live there anyway. And it has no atmosphere to speak of.
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Jo,Stephen Harper,I agree with Baahumbug. See if any newspaper has the guts to reprint this post, much less se if this Bachelard has the balls to debate with you on the matter. As far as the petition project, he knows all about it but he went the way he did to not give any credence and hope his readers do not dig into it and find out the truth.
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On the plus side, they put links to WUWT and this site, Hopefully some intrepid readers will stumble in and notice there are some very rational folks out there, asking some very rational skeptical questions to which the CAGW supporters have no good answers.
I originally found WUWT when researching the climate issue some years ago. Back then the site was a lot less exciting and most of the discussions were strictly about the science. These days the site is a tad more political and the signal-to-noise ration has dropped a bit.
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Since AUS is going to let the NWO build a base in Darwin to
attackdefend agianst a Chinathreatpower grab..Also consider why the Chinese govt is skeptical about AGW
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V14/N45/EDIT.php
Do you think that the plantfood tax and base will help trade me thinks..
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It used to be sceptical….most journalists are in such a mad rush to push rubbish out(that fits in with their opinion)..that they have no time to research anything.
As a side note that is related.. a close friend is an ex journo..who is also on a journalist/writer chat group..
There was a discussion on CAGW by science journalists who made statements like “the science is settled..there is no room for scepticism regarding this since it is consensus..”
My friend pointed out that as journalists..not being sceptical is not being a journalist..and that a “consensus” argument is tripe.
They didnt get it. 🙂
So..why would anyone be surprised that they produce garbage..without researching it honestly.
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Hey Mike,
I was looking into this some years back (forget why, had nothing to do with the climate) and ran across some information dealing with Walter Cronkite here in the US.
In WWII and Korea he was a journalist reporting on the war, apparently understood that some things needed to be sat on rather than rushed to the press, and generally kept his opinion out of his reporting.
I think I read something indicating that his stance was that a journalist’s job was to report the news objectively and let the readers/viewers form their own opinions on it.
Somewhere around or during the Vietnam war he apparently changed his stance and began injecting his opinion into his reporting.
That seems to be the norm since then (possibly even prior). What older generations remember as editorials kept free of opinion have turned into OpEd pieces or flat out opinion pieces masquerading as editorials.
The “news” is no longer there to inform you what is happening leaving you to decide what to think about it, the news is there to inform you what they want you to think regarding the things they want you to think about.
I rarely watch mainstream media news broadcasts any longer, I can sort through the crap faster by reading headlines online and get an idea from there of what I may need to be looking into.
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Cronkite had connections to the CIA like allot of journos are implants by the CIA into the MS to push the agenda. There is evidence to this but I have read.
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In news of an ironic nature, it appears that the Dutch love affair with windmills is waning:
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/offbeat/11734849/dutch-fall-out-of-love-with-windmills/
Enjoy!
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Did Obama tell Julia that the wind turbines in Hawaii are being shut down. Check out Tory Aardvark site. And that UK is stopping solar subsidies and turbines are next, as it is proving too expensive for people.
Maybe the next budget will do the same, LOL. TV ads for investors in clean energy? Solar Farms and wind farms? They throw in the Ord River hydroelectric scheme, however, I hope it has been thought out properly.
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Searching for historical comparisons, lysenkoism stands out, but it was not on a world wide scale like CAGW. The y2k scam was more about exaggeration and extracting maximum dollars than promoting untruths.
I find it difficult to see how the MSM will retreat from their current position of CAGW promotion (any ideas anyone?).
Some historical quotes to help things along –
“populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur (people want to be decieved so let them be deceived)” – Roman saying
“The aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory, but progress.”
“Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love the truth.”
“It is better to debate a question without settling it than settle a question without debating it.”
Joseph Joubert (18th century philospher)
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Looking closely at the 4 points
1. Global temperatures have not risen since 1998 despite rising CO2 levels.
The author claims this is a cherry pick as 1998 was an abnormal year and if you just magic it away you can see the slow but methodical rise is still there, although i seem to recall much fanfare upon 1998’s completion as this was considered proof positive that AGW was real.
Later he describes 1998 as a step change so we are now expected to believe that a constant CO2 increase does not mean a constant increase in temp but a series of steps interleaved with periods of no change.
Finally is electromagnetic radiation the same as near and far infra red radiation?
2.Alarmism is based on flawed models that do not reflect empirical measurements.
He concedes that climate models not accurate and are just that models and may only be worthy to predict sea level rise, in an effort to pull the wool over the eyes of the believers and at the same time denigrate the sceptics he states Hansen and only Hansen has a model that is deemed accurate (therefore models are now accurate) and the sceptics only answer to this is to cry conspiracy (nut jobs).
3. Two key theories of climate science – that water vapour is a positive feedback (amplifying the effect of climate change) and that a hot-spot in the troposphere at the equator will appear – have failed to show up in reality.
This is classic believer stuff, he briefly mentions the IPCC state there is uncertainty about the effects of WV and clouds, he mentions Lindzen who has formed the sme opinion. As they do not give him the answer he wants he leaves them aside and tells the reader that “most” and “some” scientists have a differing view.
He then staggers onto the hot spot by claiming the models do not reflect reality but then infers that they do by stating there are inacuracies in the measurements.
4. Thousands of respected scientists signed a petition saying they don’t agree there is a problem.
And yet he considers the IPCC to be credible.
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Jo,
I have a question relating to the Petition Project.
As a Science graduate (from Adelaide University 1986) and a hand on heart skeptic, printed out and sent a copy of the petition off about three months ago, but my name (and I noticed yours) doesn’t appear on the list, which is a little upsetting.
I’m assuming that the Petition is being limited to US citizens/graduates, so therefore was wondering if a similar International or Australian based petition has been created.
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Steve,
Yes, the Petition Project is limited to US citizens. No I’m not aware of a scientific petition here. There are policy petitions, and petitions to change the constitution, but not a pure science petition. I think the work and cost of doing it — posting out thousands of letters is truly daunting. But if there was a team of volunteers willing to set one up, I would promote it. Someone needs to check the names to filter out the inevitable fakes posted there by trolls.
The simplest way to do it would be to copy the US petition, host it on an AU site, (or UK, or other location too). Then promote it on blogs and spread the word. Obviously we’d need to ask permission from Art Robinson, and he’d want to know we were verifying the names.
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Jo,
With a US Ph. D. might I qualify?
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I see Matthew Wright of BZE fame is having a rant about the Worley Parsons review of CSG (Coal Seam Gas) report at the ABC:
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3675526.html
Given the many, many ridiculous assumptions underpinning the BZE 100% renewables for Australia in 10 years reports, his rants against supposed lobbyists for Big Fossil Fuel seems beyond laughable. Go in and have a chuckle.
Obviously Matthew Wright doesn’t care too much about his personal credibility… he claims Worley was hiding the reports, whereas they say it was going through rigorous peer review prior to release. What a concept! I guess peer review only matters when it supports the extreme Green position, otherwise it is to be eschewed. And then they shall slam you for not peer reviewing…
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Thank you Jo, you are doing a great job for “Science “, not the Political Science we get from the warmists. This site is also doing my sense of well being, no end of good.
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The Greens now want uranium added to the MRRT legislation:
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/business/a/-/national/11757119/greens-want-mrrt-on-uranium/
It is now patently clear that the Greens see the MRRT as a punitive tax to wield against those industries they dislike. Why uranium and not all other mining you might ask?
The hypocrisy is laid bare once again, that the one proven, competitive technology which can seriously reduce CO2 emissions is something the Greens want stopped at all costs – quouth Bob Brown:
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This adds further weight to what i was saying re fuel, they tax petrol to drive change to LPG (with government inducements) then they slap an excise on LPG. If hydrogen became the next big thing they will wait until it becomes implemented and slap a tax on it.
Whats next a tax on electrickery generated from solar panels, use less pathetic government.
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So now that they passed this crap on all of you where is Dr. Smith with his “we need this to make nuclear viable” rhetoric?
We have a station up here MeTV (Memorable Entertainment Television) that shows the old Lost in Space series on Saturday nights, your “Dr. Smith” reminds me quite a bit of their Dr. Smith.
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According to the carbon tax website, my family is going to be thumped by over $1000 in the first year alone. This is based on the unpublished treasury model, so I can only assume the impact will be even worse.
The message is clear -either I hide my money through property speculation, raise my income, reduce my hours or simply F¤¤k off to some country that doesn’t believe in punishing someone who has a pollution output that is much lower than the average joe bloggs.
Thats right. I am middle class. No mercs or investment properties. A young family with a mortgage. Single Income. I commute via train.
To make things even worse, if I raise my rate to my customers withoutbeing 100% sure of the carbon taxes impact (in advance), I could get thumped by the ACCC as well!
So how can I be 100% sure when treasury haven’t relased heir models for public scrutiny and I don’t have access to my suppliers books?
Anyone who doesn’t see this as a punitive tax should get off the crack.
I really really hope the idiots that supported this fiasco get hit the hardest. One way or another, I refuse point blank for this tax to hit my familys’ future.
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With you ‘jak … my wife and I are middle class DINKs … we’ve been screwed by government since the day we started paying tax 34 years ago. There’s no return on investment in tax.
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It’s worse than “No return on investment” — they use our tax money against us. They fund the ABC, the grants, the subsidies to companies that would not otherwise exist, the committees, the treasury (who give them the numbers, but won’t give us the models). All of those produce or promote the litany of PR that works to suck more money…
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How does this sound for the department of immigration:
“Do you have skills we need?” a. Yes
“Do you want to be rewarded for those skills?” a. Yes
“Are you a lazy bastard?” a. No
“F_CK OFF Then”
“We need you, but we don’t want you, our current government will do it’s best to screw you over like you never have been before you rich polluting bastard”
Could be the best things since lara bingle.
Is anyone interested in funding a website to do this in the style of the carbon tax website. That would be utterly hilarious. Maybe http://www.w=WeNeedyYouInOz.com.au?
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Madjak,
If you find that success friendly place to flick off to, would you let the rest of us know where it is? California is going down that same suicide road as Australia and the rest of the country is surely going to follow, one way or another.
I sure would appreciate the heads-up.
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Amazing. 56 comments, and not a single thumbs down. Its a wonder there is any debate at all!
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31 000 thumbs up from me!
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It’s no wonder, John. There is a consensus view, the ‘science’ is in, and the debate is over. The IPCC is hurtling to oblivion and it will take crap science and MSM ‘journos’ with it.
Indeed, the BBC is fast sliding to a corruption enquiry and maybe our ABC will follow in due course.
There are interesting days ahead for the future of the ‘warmistas’.
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Might also add that following the football fallout, Penn State University and Michael Mann are coming under sustained attack over the lack of rigorous investigation into the ‘Climategate’ emails. The truth will be teased out and Mann and his cohorts in this scam will go to jail.
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Yes, this has a lot of embarrassing miles in it for the climwit cultist fraternity. Here’s Penn State University President Graham Spanier summing up the Mann
non-investigationwhitewashcover-up:And here’s Spanier summing up the pedophile
non-investigationwhitewashcover-up:It’s almost like he uses a “standard coverup template” and just changes the name(s) of the guilty party(s).
Can’t speak for anybody else but from now on I will be using the above quotes to play the “protector of pedophiles” card every time a climwit cultist tries to defend Mann, his fraudulent hockey-schtick graph, or promote the claim that “he was cleared in an investigation”.
After years of being labelled by innuendo as a Nazi murderer (denier), not mention the people who want to tattoo me, put me on “death trains”, lock me up as a psychotic, or have me tried for crimes against humanity, I feel it’s the least I can do in return.
Quotes from this article:
http://johnosullivan.livejournal.com/
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Hi Mv, ready to apologise yet? 🙂
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Notwithstanding that I don’t owe you one, and I never made one, nonetheless you have already accepted one – although I have no idea where you got it from – guilty conscience I guess.
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/11/big-oil-money-fund-warmists-confusing-attack-machine/#comment-688310
Now perhaps you’d like to get up to speed and on-topic – or maybe just give us your take on Spanier’s template “one size fits all” “investigation” statement – crooked “climate scientist”, crooked pedophile – apparently little difference.
Or maybe we can just cut to the chase and you can go back to defending John Cook and what passes for “moderated comment” over at Septic Science?
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You’re not big enough. I knew you weren’t.
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I see the trolls are foraging in pairs tonight.
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Wrong again John you have some already?
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Chinese scientists vs the IPCC alarmists: “restricted by its political tendencies”
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/chines_scientists_vs_the_ipcc_alarmists_restricted_by_its_political_tendenc/
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The list has so much credibility, and is so hard to attack
Well to start, it’s a bit of a misleading claim. The common perception of what it means to be a scientist is not merely someone with a degree possibly related to the hypothesis. After all, what does having a degree in engineering, computer science or medicine say about one’s knowledge of climatology?
Climate Change certainly covers a lot of areas but the mechanics involved relate specifically to the concentration of various gases in the atmosphere. What sort of degrees would be most likely to provide a qualified opinion about that? I’d suggest climatology or atmospheric science. How many signatories have a climatology or atmospheric science degree? 151.
Make no mistake, scientifically, the petition proves nothing, but politically, it blows the consensus out of the water.
A list of 31 000 people with degrees is not particularly interesting or meaningful. 151 people with relevant degrees is more interesting, but still requires further refinement. Really, it’s those who are actively publishing climatologists who are of greatest interest, but until someone takes that list of 151 and scrutinizes it, there’s not much more to say. Of course, not all climatologists or atmospheric scientists have the specifically associated degree, but until there is a petition project that requires signatories to have published in the field of climate change in the past 5 years it can’t say anything about the ‘scientific consensus’
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Tim Flannery is a palaentologist. (Expert in fossils).
Al Gore (?) Pacharie a degree in engineering. Well Anthony Watts is a meteorologist. Jo with a science degree. What have you got Tristan? A degree in hot air? Makes sense?
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You need a degree now to polish turds?
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snip. unnecessary [mod oggi]
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Tristan,
You DO realise, don’t you, that very few if any of the 75 out of 77 “scientists” used in the claim that “97% of scientists support man-made global warming” satisfy your stated criteria.
You also realise that probably less than a third of the authors and reviewers of the last and next IPCC Reports meet this criteria.
Here in OZ Garnaut definitely doesn’t meet your criteria and neither does Flim-Flammery. I strongly suspect (without checking), that Karoly, Steffen and Chubb would also be suspect.
So, if I can sum up your claim for you:
Any idiot with any kind of “qualification” issued by any tertiary institution is “qualified” to have an opinion on CAGW, IF their opinion coincides with the “consensus”.
Conversely any person, no matter how qualified, in whatever field, including those with PhD’s in the “hard” sciences and even Nobel Laureates, are NOT qualified to express an opinion on CAGW if that opinion differs from the “consensus”.
Is that about right?
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G’day Tristan,
The problem with the 151 argument is that the IPCC, the doyen of climatology, is a loose amalgam of scientists, both with and without climatology credentials, as well as activists, psychologists and sociologists,etc, all of whom share a common belief but could hardly be termed experts in physics, biochemistry, astrophysics or any of the important hard sciences composing components of the umbrella “discipline” of climatology.
The fact that 151 climate related scientists were prepared to piss their career up against a wall by standing up for a principle is a monumental number, certainly more impressive than the 70 odd relied upon in the 97% consensus propaganda point constantly trotted out by pro-AGW acolytes.
Certainly some of the credentials of some of the physicists, biologists, geologists, etc that have signed are impressive enough to negate the consensus meme, and while it does not refute AGW that some dissent from the establishment view, it is illuminating how desperate people like you are to wave this large list away, instead of just acknowledging that not everyone in related fields
of science agrees with man’s tiny CO2 output being a cause of significant global warming.
It seems to me that the majority of geologists don’t hold with the theory, many solar physicists are unimpressed with the underestimation of solar impacts as measured by TSI ignoring EUV and electromagnetic effects, statisticians like McIntyre are unimpressed with their use of statistics and sloppy methodology.
What I think I find most objectionable though about the whole CAGW/AGW paradigm is the idea being promulgated that having an inquiring mind questioning the validity of the current beliefs in this field is a moral equivalence to a crime against humanity. If this was so, how can humanity progress beyond the current state of knowledge as it currently stands, enchained as it is within the confines of the small fraction we know about the Earth, the human body, space and any number of other fields of endeavour? Progress for humanity can only occur by challenging the current “accepted” paradigm, which must continue to prove it’s validity in the face of new knowledge as it comes to the fore. Quite frankly I find this attitude offensive and not at all vindicated by imaginary save the world scenarios. As it happens, I am quite pessimistic for the future of my children and grandchildren as the Western civilization crumbles under the weight of its own stupidity and hubris, and we surrender much of the hard won gains we have made in alleviating human suffering and toil.
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That is what has always puzzled me about this.
We have seen numerous time the claim (by those engaged in climate science) that climate science is a multi-disciplinary field.
Yet those supposedly most qualified (i.e. those considered a “climate” scientist) continually produce work from fields in which they have minimal experience.
When that work (such as their statistics) is evaluated and found lacking by someone with far more standing in the field of statistics, their evaluation is waved away with the claim “oh but they aren’t a climate scientist.”
So are we then to believe that there is some magical difference between statistics as used by everyone else and those used by climate scientists? Does the same go for physics? Do climate scientists have a secret set of the laws of physics that only they can understand where someone working in the field of physics exclusively is unable to understand their special laws?
The entire argument that in order to understand the statistics, or the physics, or the mathematics, etc. used by climate scientists one has to be a climate scientist is absurd.
The only people it would make any sense to at all are the ones trying to make said claim.
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The question is perhaps better framed as, “who, apart from highly credentialed climatologists, is best equipped to evaluate climate research papers?”.
Certainly not those with degrees in the arts including journalism or economics but rather those with advanced training in physics, mathematics and statistics. Topping that list of qualifications are engineers and physicists, particularly those who hold graduate degrees. Now there are “mickey mouse” appendages to climatology like environmental “science” with such specifics as “climate change and birds” etc, etc that the artie farties could no doubt handle but the perceived flaws in alarmist climate science are in the area of its “theoretical” physics and mathematical modeling and the apparent lack of empirical evidence. In other words in the natural playground of most engineers and physicists.
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Tristan,
or should I say Greg Combet!
You say…
`A list of 31 000 people with degrees is not particularly interesting or meaningful. 151 people with relevant degrees is more interesting`
Hahahahahahahahahahahahha
After picking myself up of the floor…
If I had a degree in Bullshit, and you had a degree in Crap.
Which one would you think is more relevant to the science of faeces?
Go home Troll…
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To my lovely darlings:
Lets battle.
You guys can have your team of 31 000
denidipeopscientists (wink wink, nudge nudge), lead by the ghost of Fred [snip] {outright lies not allowed. mod oggi} Seitz.My team will consist of those on pages 955-979, lead by
John Christy(just kidding, you can have him) James ‘Climate Dragon’ Hansen.Hasta la vista x
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Ah yes the pathetic appeal to authority argument. The last refuge of someone unable to win an argument on the facts. How does it go? If the facts are on your side, pound the facts, if the law is on your side pound the law, if neither are on your side, pound the table. Hand a little sore Tristan?
Good thing we have people like you around or we might be forced to learn high level physics from a patent clerk or something equally ridiculous.
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The strength of the argument from authority depends upon two factors:
The authority (IPCC) being a legitimate expert on the subject. – Check
A consensus existing among legitimate experts on the matter under discussion. – Check*
*The petition project fails to convincingly demonstrate that it has sourced any legitimate experts.
Thankyou comeagain!
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The mod has an interesting definition of outright lies.
“‘They didn’t want us looking at the health effects of cigarette smoking,’ says Seitz, who is now 94— but it nevertheless served the tobacco industry’s purposes. Throughout those years, the industry frequently ran ads in newspapers and magazines citing its multi-million-dollar research program as proof of its commitment to science—and arguing that the evidence on the health effects of smoking was mixed.”
Did I touch a nerve?
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If you did it must have been your own and you really should stop doing that, rumor is it makes you go blind.
So I see you’re back to trying to associate scientists who disagree with your beliefs with the whole tobacco thing.
Even though the behavior of Mann, Pachuri, Hansen, et. al. is more reminiscent of the behavior you try to imply than anything from the skeptics.
Projection, the only real skill of the leftist. But that was what good old Saul taught you all to do isn’t it?
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“Climate Dragon Hansen” denizen in the land of hockey sticks, Lord Vader of Doomsday, still searching for The Force.
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On the contrary, engineers would be likely to be able to judge whether the Kyoto agreements would be effective or practical, computer scientists who have read the Harry READ ME emails could judge the quality of that work, doctors of medicine can examine claims of malaria spread, etc. The hypotheses, experiments and models made by climate science cover these areas and more, and need cross-disciplanary scientists to analyze and scrutineer the claims being made. It’s an impressive petition you must admit, for a single country even 151 using your method is quite large. I would imagine there would be easily triple the numbers if not more if an international version was created, including for your specific chosen fields. Not that you should need a petition to support those who are skeptical, just the way they are treated should be enough.
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Nano
What you said isn’t contrary at all to my statement. RTFP
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Tristan,
Must you always make an ass of yourself with such inane arguments?
Sorry, I shouldn’t ask. It seems that you must always make an…
You’re a new guy around here so I guess you don’t realize how many times this line of nonsense has been used. It was fatuous then and it’s fatuous now.
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Check out Tory Aardvark site, it has the latest on the Green scam, and news about the Green Energy plan that went no where so far. Cutting subsidies, as are other countries.
So don’t invest in clean energy. Geo thermal projects have floundered in Australia. Carbon trading will go next.
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Here its funny..
http://bearcanada.com/humor/humor.html
(note for China bashers may be worth reading to get some enlightenment on your ways!)
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I mean check the site http://bearcanada.com
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Jo,
Watch your back.
It is just a matter of time before the government decides to go after you or anyone that may cause trouble for the government.
I believe the word that was being used is “insurgent”.
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Well lets hope not Joe.
When I become PM, I can guarantee that no child will be in poverty in the year 2020.
errr.. I meant to say…
When I become PM, I can guarantee that no climate science skeptic will be in poverty in the year 2020.
Keep up the good fight Jo, long live the internet and free will.
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via la revolution!
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It surprises me that after 34 comments nobody has mentioned the hotspot evidence.
It is probably a sign of “global warming fatigue”. 🙂
Yellow is Red
Check the scales again. The IPCC scale is in degrees per century. The radiosonde scale is in degrees per decade. They are almost incomparable given the different time frames. But if you were to divide the model amounts by 10 to get per decade – a gross oversimplification to be sure – what do you get? The model red region is 1°C/century, divide by 10 decades/century = 0.1°C/decade which is…. yellow on the radiosonde scale.
So, sorry to burst the bubble, but I call it as I see it and unless I have totally misread the graphs, yellow actually is red here.
Comparing todays apples with today’s oranges instead of yesterday’s oranges.
Check the time frames. The model prediction above is net of the whole 20th century. The weather balloon period shown is only for data 1979 – 1999. A closer match between modelled and observed periods would have been obtained by using the PCM projection for 1958 – 1999 (see their Fig 1.3). Seems hubby picked up on this point already. 🙂
The good news is the two model runs look almost identical. Forget the century run, I refer to these 1958- PCM runs from now on.
Extract the numbers!
The all-forcings model hotspot covers +/-30 degrees latitude and is 1 to 1.2°C over 40 years or 0.25-0.3°C/decade at 10km AMSL with a 0.1°C/dec down at the surface.
The radiosonde measurements for +/-30 degrees range from 0.1 to 0.2°C/decade for most places under 12km, with a faster 0.25°C/dec in the north and a -0.1°C/dec cooling hole where the hotspot was expected.
So unless I’ve totally read the graph wrong, at the majority of these latitudes the observed warming was somewhere between 40% to 80% what was predicted by PCM, it’s hard to tell from graphs alone. However the sudden dropoff after 16km is present in that model and the balloon data.
So the altitude trend is almost the same as what was predicted, but the hotspot is either less than half as strong or is located in the north instead of the equator. Does that mean that when presented with the same evidence, the warmists can say the weather balloons support CAGW and the skeptics can say CAGW is disproved?
All I can say at this point is that any hypothesis which can be both supported and disproved by the same set of observations is so vaguely defined as to be unscientific.
Invalidating the models means you cannot use them to either prove or disprove CAGW. If you validate a model by showing it correctly hindcasts all known observations, then you are entitled to test CAGW theoretically by comparing that model’s output with the scenario of zero human emissions to see what difference it makes.
Disproving the models shows they are not a valid model of the climate, and it shows people’s claims of CAGW don’t have a scientific basis, but it doesn’t tell you anything about the reality of CAGW one way or another.
Enter The Dragon
The response at dear SkepticalScience is that the hotspot was never a fingerprint of human causation, so its absence doesn’t disprove anything about CAGW. Once again we find the warmist is technically correct and totally irrelevant. It’s correct, because the falloff above 16km is a greenhouse warming signature and so could be an anthropogenic fingerprint (if their CO2 sensitivity figure could be believed and if clouds were dark instead of white).
It’s irrelevant because this model predicted a hotspot, the hotspot is a phantom, the model is significantly wrong in an obvious way, and yet this model is the sole source of claims of imminent climate catastrophe. Like I said before, take the C out of CAGW and you have no problem at all.
Not all of the IPCC’s models in 2006 produced a hotspot like the one from PCM printed above. (Makes you wonder why they keep so many versions of the future on tap.) From the four I’ve seen, the model that produced the closest match to the position and size of stratospheric cooling was the GFDL CM2.1 model. But the irony is that was also the model that produced the strongest and sharpest hotspot – a whopping 0.40+°C/decade which is well over twice the rate observed out here in reality.
To claim any of their man-hating models are a good match to greenhouse observations they will have to call in the Ghostbusters; Santer will have to zap the Mr Staypuft of the troposphere. 😀
Bottom Line
It’s not like these scientists can’t see what is in front of them.
From Ch5 of a 2006 report by USA Climate Change Science Program, lead author one Ben Santer:
So the scientist who signed off the summary for the IPCC in 2007 for AR4 already knew in 2006 that most of their models don’t match most observations to even 50%.
Yep. Scam.
On this occasion I will close with the words of John Cook of Skeptical Science infamy, who really ought to follow his own advice:
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What is troublesome is that warming from any cause should give a tropospheric hotspot, and measurements don’t really show it. But there obviously has been warming. If you use the satellite temps and stop at 1998 – there was obvious warming, but no hotstpot.
Our understanding of this is still incomplete (or else those wicked scientists fudged everything else, but stuffed up and failed to fudge this bit..)
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Why would there be a hot spot John? Any firm ideas?
Let me guide us through a little mind excersise.
We hop in a time machine and warp back 50,000 years. We end up in the last Ice Age yes?
We send up an RSS satellite which averages global temperature to about 10DegC, that’s about 5Deg cooler than currently.
Now we come back to the present where the average global temperature is 15DegC. According to the greenhouse hypothesis, the tropospheric hot spot occurs under ANY warming (CO2 induced warming causes a hot spot accompanied by stratospheric cooling yes?)
The cause of the 5DegC warming is irrelevant yes? The troposphere should have warmed about twice as much yes? the troposphere should then be 10DegC warmer than in the ice age yes? That would totally stuff up the lapse rate yes?
The lapse rate is still there at the usual rate of 6.5DegC per kilometre. No tropospheric warming. Nothing to do with instrument biases or flaws. The lapse rate is the lapse rate, it hasn’t changed.
Greenhouse theory is falsified. Think about it.
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Hi Tristan,
My comment to you is that a “scientist” is one who is educated (insert your own definition of ‘education’) and follows, practices, uses, and otherwise engages in the methods of science, and adds to the body of accumulated knowledge.
We can look at any number of ‘self-educated’ scientists, engineers, etc. Thomas Edison was fairly prolific in science/engineering/development, yet had little schooling. Should we discount everything he did?
A good “scientist” is one who has a very broad education; cross-disciplinary, if you will. I think a good Meterologist should have a strong background in Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics (at least throuogh PDE’s and likely well beyond that), and a good foundation in the Earth Sciences, since “weather” is something which happened in the past, and (as far as we know) will continue to happen in the future. Geologists say that the “present is the key to the past”. The past is also the key to the future, because what has happened in the past, is likely to happen again.
Suppose I have credentialed training in Physics; does this disqualify me from reading, learning, and essentially teaching myself elements of paleoclimatology? Am I excluded because I did not earn thousands of hours of University credit in Climatology and related fields? Last time I checked, Man’s greatest invention was the printed word, which permitted generations unborn to have the wisdom of the past at their immediate disposal, rather than having to learn all the same lessons over again, and again … …
Isaac Newton said, ‘if I have seen farther than other men, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of GIANTS!’
You can exclude me from the list (yes, I am there) because I do not have a piece of paper, but you cannot take away what I have managed to stuff into my grey matter, on my own time, and at my own expense.
I will stack it up against Big Al any time, any day, any place.
Sincere regards to all, and a special Blessings on Jo for all her persistence and great work on this website,
Mark H.
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you cannot take away what I have managed to stuff into my grey matter, on my own time, and at my own expense.
No, nor can I determine from what you’ve posted whether you’re another example of Dunning-Kruger or if you can analyse both sides of an argument.
I will stack it up against Big Al any time, any day, any place.
I think Al would prove a tougher opponent than most here seem to think. That said, he isn’t a scientist, he’s a communicator, as is George Monbiot, John Cook, Joanne Nova and (for the most part) Anthony Watts.
I’m not sure who I’d enlist to deliver a scientific smackdown. Maybe Albatross at SkS, maybe Grandpa Jimbo himself.
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Hmmm, ‘Anthony Watts is a communicator’; so I guess that is why he has a degree in Meterology (you know, one of those pieces of paper handed out after you spend time hanging around a frat house for a couple of years), and certification from the American Meteorological Society. Yup, sounds like a ‘communicator’, and not a ‘scientist’ to me!
If Al (or Jimbo) would be so tough, why do they skirt every request for a debate? Science is many things, including a body of knowledge, a methodology, a process; progress is only made when opposing viewpoints are allowed to freely debate and discuss. Al and/or Jim should be fairly JUMPING at the opportunities to give “skeptics” a “smackdown”. Why aren’t they?
And, FYI, I managed to dissect both sides of the controversy some 40 years ago, give or take.
Mark H.
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And, FYI, I managed to dissect both sides of the controversy some 40 years ago, give or take.
Dunning-Kruger it is.
Hmmm, ‘Anthony Watts is a communicator’
Yes, for the most part, that is where his time goes. He’s published a paper relating to climate change, somewhat ironically it adds credibility to what he wanted to show to be faulty.
If Al (or Jimbo) would be so tough, why do they skirt every request for a debate? Science is many things, including a body of knowledge, a methodology, a process; progress is only made when opposing viewpoints are allowed to freely debate and discuss.
There are ‘debating contests’ which don’t conclude much of anything bar who is better at debating contests, and there is scientific debate, which progresses human knowledge. The so-called skeptics aren’t really part of the scientific debate, as they don’t practice science. Much like those in the anti-evolution camp, they are bound by an axiom, therefore must start with the conclusion.
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When I say published, I mean co-authored
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Tristan, invoking Dunning-Kruger here (as though it is a STD) is the classic sign of a troll. Little do you know (because you are a young twit) that DK is nearly universal- in other words you suffer from it as well as the rest of us. All I need to prove this fact is explore further what you know and what you pretend to know. Even one of your heroes John Cook agrees with this analysis.
Let me give you a fair warning that you seriously damage your own position when you post DK as any serious argument. Those of us that have been around the block recognize this for exactly what it is: Trollwork
Like several others here I disagree with the host. YOU are a TROLL.
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We will never know if Al could debate his way out of a paper bag, because he refuses to debate anyone and has his heavies take reporters out of “news conferences” if they ask questions he doesn’t like. He is as scripted as Borat.
A man never equal to the top job in the USA, and a one-trick-pony pushing climate change, and poorly at that. Sure he fooled a lot of fools with his emotional pap, but he is a scientific embarrassment.
You honestly think he would be hard to beat in a scientific debate by anyone with half a clue?
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Let me give you a fair warning that you seriously damage your own position when you post DK as any serious argument.
Sure thing sensei.
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Hi Tristan,
I would like to suggest that you investigate some information about Mr. Watts. The short version is that prior to 1990, he accepted the information about ‘carbon dioxide causing climate change [and dangerously so]’. It was when he began to investigate the science that he decided to change his mind.
You would then suggest, that before 1990, Mr. Watts did not suffer from “DK”, and now he does.
Jo herself is a former believer; it is interesting how some who investigate the ‘science’ of CAGW find that they are not looking at science at all, but a hoax. I suspect that Jo has forgotten more science than Al has ever, or will ever, know.
And, BTW, 40-odd years ago, I was simply an empty vessel, seeking to obtain knowledge and wisdom, which is what prompted my “dissection” of the debate. If you were to look up the word “dissect” in the Merriam, it says (in part), ” …to study in great detail; pay especially close attention to minutae … “, which is how I came to my conclusions.
As others have commented, be mindful of “projection”.
Be well, Blessings be upon you and your house,
Mark H.
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Bulldust, notice how he is silent on your question?
Does anyone know what school teaches the “be silent” form of debate? Is this a Saul Alinsky technique? How do so many leftists and trolls know about this?
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self-fulfilling prophesies:
17 Nov: Businessweek: Lars Paulsson: Ex-Bear Stearns Trader Starts Fund Betting on $300 Crude
With assistance from Lananh Nguyen and Jesse Westbrook in London. Editors: Bruce Stanley, Raj Rajendran
(Bloomberg) — Luca Baccarini, a former executive at Bear Stearns Cos., started an energy fund aiming to profit from oil prices that he says may reach $300 a barrel by 2025 as output from old fields is replaced by costlier production.
The LFP EFA Vision Petrole fund began this month allocating 15 million euros ($20 million) of seed money it received from French asset manager La Francaise Am. Baccarini’s Energy Funds Advisors SAS, the fund’s adviser, is in talks with other investors, he said in an interview.
Baccarini and Olivier Rech, a former International Energy Agency analyst and an EFA co-founder, are buying assets they believe will increase in value as oil prices rise. They expect the world’s biggest commodity to trade at $90 to $170 a barrel in the five years through 2017, and at $140 to $300 in the eight years through 2025 as output from aging fields is replaced by more expensive production methods, including biofuels, shale oil, gas-to-liquids and coal-to-liquids…
Baccarini left his job as a London-based managing director principal for power, gas and emissions in 2008 after the bank was bought by JPMorgan Chase & Co…
Ucits funds aren’t allowed to trade directly in energy and commodity markets, Baccarini said. Instead, Vision Petrole fund will invest in multiple assets linked to the oil price, such as exchange-traded funds, shares in oil producers and oil-service companies and currencies of oil producing countries, according to a fund presentation document dated November 2011.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-11-17/ex-bear-stearns-trader-starts-fund-betting-on-300-crude.html
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Warmists say 10 years of non-warming proves nothing. Give them another seven years….
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/warmists_say_10_years_of_non_warming_proves_nothing_give_them_another_seven/
The game is up for these traitors.
We all kn ow that global warming is a FRAUD and that carbon DIOXIDE is PLANT FOOD and not pollution!
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Traitors! Off with their heads! OOPS, forgot the caps…
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Alice couldn’t have said it better herself.
I don’t like this place, there’s far too much beheading going on.
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When the green groups decide you haven’t been doing your bit, they just push a button and blow up your kids. No Pressure of course.
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17 Nov: Real Science: Steven Goddard: Can Julia’s Tax Stop This?
Graph:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/
Temperatures in Darwin have dropped almost two degrees since 1880. Hopefully a carbon tax can end the out of control warming.
http://www.real-science.com/julias-tax-stop
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I can’t see what all the fuss is about. It may be called a tax but, in reality, it’s like a speeding fine.
You speed up your prosperity, increase employment, enhance your standard of living and ramp up your expectations of when you’ll reach your destination. You need punished!
If you all do this then what is the point of being a politician?
Votes would have to be earned, not bought. How on earth could any elected representative plan their future?
First the stick, then the carrot followed by the gag! You need punished!
Clearly, the scattergun doctrine of cheap and widely available energy has not worked. It’s giving too much freedom to the masses. Give ’em the dole and feed them with mindless public entertainment. Rome managed just fine until it all went oddly-shaped.Now it’s called rebate and the msm.
Suck up Australia. You broke the law and the law always wins, will it?
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full details in here:
17 Nov: BigGovernment: 80% of ‘green energy’ loans went to top Obama donors
With Energy Secretary Steven Chu set to testify Thursday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee about the government’s $573 million loan to failed solar panel maker Solyndra, an explosive new list of energy loan amounts to President Obama’s top fundraisers, bundlers, and supporters has been released by Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer, author of Throw Them All Out.
As the list reveals, 80 percent of all $20.5 billion in Department of Energy loans went to President Obama’s top donors. Furthermore, some of those dwarf in size those given to Obama bundler George Kaiser, owner of the now defunct Solyndra.
The list—which features the likes of Google owners Larry Page and Sergey Brinn, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Ted Turner, John Doerr, and Al Gore—raises new questions about the procedures used to administer the now-controversial DOE loans…
http://biggovernment.com/whall/2011/11/16/80-of-green-energy-loans-went-to-obamas-top-donors/
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It’s called psychological projection when one “projects” the character traits of one’s own defective cognitive processes upon one’s opposition.
Skeptics one ask hard questions of those who possess faith and only if those questions can be convincingly addressed will the skeptic change his mind. The important point here is that, by definition, a skeptical person has no preconceived faith he must adhere to and is primarily driven by curiosity and a desire to better understand nature. Skeptics CAN, indeed MUST, change their opinions when the evidence suggests as much.
Skeptics, by definition, MUST remain open-minded and willing to shift with new evidence. Likewise, skeptics come from many different starting points. The faithful, on the other hand live by a static dogma which is constant and homogenous.
Furthermore those who truly believe have no requirement to ask difficult questions of their faith or possess native curiosity or wonder. In fact, such character traits are anathema to the faithful. So is freedom of expression, honest debate and transparent rational inquiry, all are of no use to the faithful.
To be sure, the greatest sign of pious faith is to continue to believe even in the face of stunning evidence to the contrary! Thus, the Greens self-righteously wear their ignorance of the evidence as a badge of ideological purity. To be ignorant is to be morally certain. To be moral certain is to be superior. To be superior justifies eliminating those who would shine the light of evidence on to your faith.
= = +
btw, Al Gore stood against George Bush in a one-on-one presidential debate in 2000…. Bush won…. So much for Al’s rhetorical brilliance, eh?
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Wes,
It is almost time to put the faith to the test.
Ben Santer here states we need 17 years to determine a climatic trend
https://www.llnl.gov/news/newsreleases/2011/Nov/NR-11-11-03.html
According to CRU there have been 15 years without a statistically significant warming trend, for MSU it is 13.9 years and for RSS it is 15.9 years.
So if things remain the same for the next two years what happens then? Will the warmbots call it a day and crawl back under the rock from whence they came?
I suspect they will say “ah yes but the ozone ho………..no it was the Chinese sulp……..no give me a minute here………..it was an lack of cosmic rays that caused the cooling….yeah cosmic rays thats it. Never you mind about AGW it is real, real as can be and if you dont do something about it is gunna gitcha.
Not that it matters for us as the stupid one has produced a scorched earth policy that we cannot disentagle ourselves from.
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Crakar24, I’m sorry, WHICH “stupid one”? There are a few to chose from….
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Apologies Mark i should have been more concise with my comment, the “stupid one” represents a collective of mindless idiots that voted for the carbon tax in both houses of parliament.
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My quote for today on CAGW, Jefferson wins again –
“How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.”
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Actually, Crakar, as you know, science can not make any statements that are not immediately subject to a rational inquiry into available evidence.
So if someone makes a prediction about the future, then unable to offer any good evidence today claims that to test that prediction we will have to wait for the future to come to pass, that isn’t a scientific statement but something more akin to prophecy or a projection of one’s faith.
Science is not allowed to make statements which are based upon observations unavailable for review until some future date. If the validity of the CAGW hypothesis can not be tested today, then it isn’t a scientific theory.
Fortunately, for long time readers of Jo’s blog, we know that the CAGW hypothesis makes plenty of predictions which can be and have been tested and have failed to be confirmed by observational evidence.
Unfortunately, it seems that many people don’t understand that if a scientific hypothesis is found to be less than useful in predicting some aspects of nature it was designed to shed light upon, then the WHOLE artifice of the hypothesis has been falsified, even those few implications which might otherwise seem to conform to the evidence are condemned by observations which the rest of the hypothesis can not adequately explain or forecast. It’s time to go back to the lab and design a new hypothesis which better fits the data.
Ben Santer knows that a hypothesis is falsified by the merest of implications which fails to describe nature as observed. So with super-human blindness he ignores the dozens of major tests in which the CAGW hypothesis has been shown to be false hoping that if only more time, more data unavailable today were allowed to accumulate then the CAGW “hypothesis” could be magically resurrected…
Sadly, Ben and his faith have long ago left behind the guiding light of science for the darkness and wrath of moral superiority.
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I understand what you are saying Wes in 50, unfortunately the warmbots will respond with silence as their faith does not allow them to confront such issues and question, it only allows them to believe.
Like it or not in two years Ben will get his 17 years of data and if we still have no statistically significant warming his prophecy like all the others will be thrown into the dustbin and never spoke of again as if they never happened a bit like the children wont know snow garbage and this modern day version of a religion will roll on.
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The petition of 31,487 “scientists” is a project of Frederick Seitz, a free market, anti regulation ideologue who as the book Merchants of Doubt points out has been using precisely the same tactics when working for industry in the smoking, acid rain, and ozone depletion campaigns.
The petition has been collecting signatures since 1998. It was launched with a fraudulant paper which has been publicly disowned by the National Academy of Science.
Signatories are only required to have (or more correctly claim to have) a BSc degree or other scince based qualification. Possession of such degrees does not qualify someone for the description “scientist” unless they are engaged in research. The website does not explain how it verifies the claimed qualifications or identities of the signatories. Joke names such as Dr Geri Halliwell (aka Ginger Spice) have appeared on the list.
The largest field of signatories, over 10,000, are engineers and over 2000 are medical practitioners. Generally these people are not scientists. There is no provision for those who may have signed since 1998, but have changed there stance in the ensuing 13 years of accumulating evidence to have their names removed. I have changed my views since 1998.
Indeed the website says that it marks the names of those who have died (and therefore unable to review their position) with an asterisk.
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Frederick Seitz is a very eminent physicist and former President of the US National Academy of Sciences.
In that case over 90% of IPCC contributors are ineligible because they were undergraduates, lawyers. economists, psychologists, medical practitioners and engineers. One Lead Author was a student. Other named IPCC authors include a secretary and a web page designer.
If you go to the website and you will see that signatories must submit a written sworn statement.
“Dr Geri Halliwell” was submitted by the WWF to discredit the petition. The name has since been removed.
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So many reputable measurements of a future event. That’s bloodly brilliant!
Can they get me a reputable measurement of next week’s lottery numbers?
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The petition critics often claim that some of the names on the petition are duplicated. The reality is that it is very common for multiple scientists to share the same name. [Just do a google scholar search using your own name and you are very likely to get multiple matches.]
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