Today in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, for the first time, David Evans has been published in the Op-Ed section. Something is going on in those newsrooms…? This article, below, simply makes the point that the models amplify the direct effect of CO2 by a factor of three and that is where the most important uncertainties lie. This key factor in the debate — which we cover repeatedly on this blog– has virtually never been made before in these newspapers which are the major dailies for Australia’s two largest cities. Any debate about the effects of CO2 needs to start with the fact that most of the warming in the models comes from amplification of humidity and clouds. If the models were right about water vapor, we would have found that missing hot spot. — Jo PS: The SMH and The AGE have both closed comments already! Have they run out of electrons? Oh my? Or were they afraid the comments looked like a debate?
UPDATE: I’ve just posted that these major dailies have “disappeared” the Muller conversion article too!
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Dr David M.W. Evans
31 Jul 2012
Climate scientists’ theories, flawed as they are, ignore some fundamental data.
Sydney Morning Herald The Age WA Today
The theory assumes that humidity and clouds amplify the warming directly due to CO2 by a factor of three: extra CO2 warms the ocean surface, causing more evaporation and extra humidity. Water vapor, or humidity, is the main greenhouse gas, so this causes even more surface warming.
Not many people know that. It is the most important feature of the debate, and goes a long way to explaining why warmists and skeptics both insist they are right.
The warmists are correct that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and it causes warming, that CO2 levels have been rising, and that it has been warming.
Serious skeptics agree with all that, but point out that it does not prove that something else isn’t causing most of the warming. As a thought experiment, suppose that the main cause of warming was actually Venusians with ray guns. Then all those things would still be true!
The skeptic’s main suspect is the sun. While the sun’s radiation is roughly constant, its magnetic field varies considerably. This field shields the earth from cosmic rays that, according to recent experiments at the world’s premier atom smasher CERN, might seed clouds. Clouds cool the planet, so if the sun’s magnetic field wanes then it might get cooler here on earth.
We scientists can calculate how much warming results directly from an increase in CO2 levels. We know how much CO2 levels and temperature have risen since pre-industrial times, but the warming directly due to CO2 is only a third of the observed warming. The theory assumes no other major influence on temperature changed, so the effect of the CO2 must have been amplified threefold, presumably by changes in the atmosphere due to humidity and clouds.
There is no observational evidence for this amplification, but it is nonetheless built into all the models. Skeptics point out that if the extra humidity simply forms extra clouds then there would be no amplification.
If the CO2 theory of global warming is right, the climate models should predict the climate fairly well. If the CO2 theory is wrong, because there is another, larger driver of the temperature, then the climate models will perform indifferently.
According to the latest data from mankind’s best and latest instruments, from impeccable sources, the climate models are doing poorly.
The first IPCC report in 1990 predicted air temperatures would increase by 0.30°C per decade, and by 0.20°C to 0.50°C per decade at the outside. But according to NASA satellites that measure almost the entire planet 24/7, the trend since then has been 0.17°C per decade at most. The climate scientists ignore these awkward results and instead only quote temperatures from land thermometers, half of which are at airports where they are artificially warmed by jet engines and hot tarmac, and most of the rest are in warming micro-climates like near air conditioner outlets, at sewage plants, or in car parks. Obviously the data from these corrupted thermometers should not be used.
Ocean temperatures have only been measured properly since 2003 when the Argo program became operational. 3,000 Argo buoys roam the oceans, precisely measuring temperatures on each 10-day dive into the depths. Before Argo we used sporadic sampling with buckets and diving darts along a few commercial shipping lanes, but these measurements have such massively high uncertainties as to be useless – given that the expected ocean warming is measured in hundredths of a degree. Since Argo started the ocean temperatures have been flat, no warming at all.
The assumed temperature amplification due to changes in humidity and clouds exhibits itself in all the models as prominent warming about 10km up over the tropics. We have been measuring the atmospheric warming pattern since the 1960s using weather balloons, released twice a day from 900 locations around the planet, many millions of them in total, and no such “hotspot” has been detected. This is direct observational proof that the amplification is missing.
The climate models predict that the outgoing radiation from the earth decreases in the weeks following a rise in the surface temperature, due to aggressive heat-trapping by extra humidity. But analysis of the outgoing radiation measured by NASA satellites for the last two decades shows the opposite occurs: the earth gives off more heat after the surface temperature rises. Again, this suggests that the amplification assumed in the models simply does not occur in reality.
Government climate scientists tend to excuse away these failings, often blaming unmeasured aerosols whose effects are only dimly understood. These excuses wear ever thinner as the CO2 level continues to rise but the temperature plateau of the last 12 years persists.
There are huge vested interests in the theory of manmade climate change. They will soon have to face up to the fact that they have been unwittingly relying on assumed amplification by humidity for most of the predicted temperature increases, and that the amplification is not there in reality.
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About the Author
Dr David M. W. Evans is a mathematician and engineer who consulted full-time for the Australian Greenhouse Office (now the Department of Climate Change) from 1999 to 2005. He says he changed from being a warmist to a sceptic after ”evidence supporting the idea that CO2 emissions were the main cause of global warming reversed itself from 1998 to 2006”.
Hey,what do you know,this article is in the NZ Stuff news,good to see them print something from the other side for a change.Maybe we are slowly winning.
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Billy NZ — the Stuff website , The Christchurch Press , Dominion Post etc are all owned by Fairfax , the same as the two major Aussie papers this appeared in.
( Maybe desperate moves by the Faifax Chairman to try to meet Gina’s targets!! /sarc )
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Looks like the wheels are starting to fall off the wagon!
At this rate it’ll all be over by Christmas (wishin & hopin).
Can’t wait for Jo’s expose re her comment on previous blog. (My bold)
“Something is going on at the SMH. This week for the first time they rang me to ask my opinion. And there are two other events… I’ll mention soon. Something is going on…”
I wonder what it could be (or is it this piece by David Evans)??
Cheers,
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Yes this article AND the one I just posted. The SMH and The AGe have disappeared the Muller conversion article that they made a big fuss over.
That’s three wins for us. We scored three this week! The interviewed me (a first), ran Davids article (another first), AND they’ve disappeared Muller!
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“At this rate it’ll all be over by Christmas (wishin & hopin).”
As we’ve been saying that since 2009 (Climategate), care venture – which one ?
🙂
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To make this stop you have to stop supporting UNFCCC and UNEP. Get rid of parties and politicians that support these politically and with funds. In other words don’t vote for or support policy based science.
Give your vote to parties and politicians that support science based policy.
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Lucky Jo and Lucky David.
Wonderful article.
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Ah here we go again.
1. David and the hot spot: the signature of global warming is tropheric warming and stratospheric cooling, both of which have been observed and measured by satellites.
2. David and ARGO: providing out of date statistics that do not account for the malfunctioning of the early ARGO deployment. Cortesy Josh Willis of NASA.
3. Cosmic rays: From Kirky of CERN, CLOUD’s results “say nothing about cosmic-ray effects on clouds” because the aerosols produced in the experiment are far too small to seed clouds.
4. Models: what the IPCC says in AR4, how correct the predictions actually are.
So easy to find the monstrous holes in this psuedo-scientific op-ed piece. Perhaps David can offer justification for the magnitude of his errors?
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1. David and the hot spot: the signature of global warming is tropheric warming and stratospheric cooling, both of which have been observed and measured by satellites.
And the evidence for is published where ?
You silly, silly filly.
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Louis,
In defence of the stupid horse, Santer did discredit millions of radio sonde readings by using the GPS data from the very same radio sonde to calculate the wind shear. From these wind shear calculations he concluded that there was indeed a hot spot, he even provided a graph with the inventive color code showing zero trend in fire engine red.
The information Santer did not share was that the GPS is basically a piece of crap, not accurate in the least unlike the thermometer but rest assured his laptop calculations are the new reality.
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Some more info re: the wind shear attempt, refer to pg 11 para 2 of: Examining the Process concerning Climate Change Assessments
31 March 2011
John R Christy
(a wealth of information in there!)
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Crakar,
I wouldn’t trash GPS quite so casually unless you know something the rest of us don’t know. GPS can literally give your position within a few feet both horizontally and vertically. It’s used for final approach guidance in instrument conditions at many airports, including LAX. Lives are riding on how accurate it is. Even in its early days it would have been good enough for balloon tracking.
I believe Jo disposed of the wind shear theory previously and without needing to mention GPS.
Santer’s theory itself is crap, not the GPS. 🙂
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Sorry that should be “troposphere”
Evidence: try AMSU temperatures Coutesy Roy Spencer!
And point 5: If you still believe that the impact of a doubling of CO2 is 1.1 DC, your bonkers and have nothing to back it up.(PS please don’t quote Lindzen’s climate comedy paper on tropical temps)
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sillyfilly quotes ar4.
“They laughed when I said I was gonna be a comedian, but they’re not laughing now!” – Monkhouse, B.
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Silly filly,
Whether we double triple or simply increase the atmospheric CO2 content, according to the AGW hypothesis the global temperature MUST rise in concert with increasing CO2.
It hasn’t.
Hence hypothesis falsified.
And your argument is ?
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What are you trying to say, that there are no influences apart from C02: surely you jest or are just ignorant.
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Silly – you can’t expect satellites to find the hot spot – they look at 5km bands of atmosphere as a single signal. They simply can’t resolve the action at the part of the troposphere that matters 9 – 11km up. The radiosondes transmit data with much higher resolution as they rise right through the layer that counts. you just don’t like their results…
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Both the Radiosondes and Satellites show a decrease in absolute humidity rather than the increase shown in models. Temp is less relevant as other factors such as increased convection can also increase temp in upper troposphere.
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Lets take a closer look at the accuracy of the onboard GPS with which Santer (or was that Sherwood cant remember) claimed the thermometers are wrong.
From the best radio sonde manufacturer in the world we find:
Code correlating GPS receiver (SA Off, PDOP<4)
Number of channels 12
Positioning uncertainty, horizontal 10 m
Positioning uncertainty, vertical 20 m
Velocity measurement uncertainty***
Directional measurement uncertainty****
0.15 m/s
2 degrees
Quite accurate isnt it…………….Oh how silly of me this is the technical specifications of military grade sondes, you know the ones that have the P codes in them to get rid of the inserted errors.
Here are the specs for the general public
P(Y)-codeless GPS RECEIVER (PDOP<4)
Navigation accuracy
Velocity measurement uncertainty*** 0.5 m/s
Directional measurement uncertainty**** 4 degrees
Wow arent they accurate, accurate enough to better a thermometer designed to actually measure temperature surely stupid horse you cannot accept this anti science crap.
Oh and dont forget the data has an update rate of 1 second so every second the GPS data is updated i wonder how many changes in wind shear there are in 1 second?
So stupid horse i suggest you bite your lip on this thread
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Au contraire!
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Jo, something you may wish to peruse
Article
Nature Geoscience 1, 399 – 403 (2008)
Published online: 25 May 2008 | doi:10.1038/ngeo208
Subject Category: Climate science
Warming maximum in the tropical upper troposphere deduced from thermal winds
Robert J. Allen & Steven C. Sherwood
Abstract
Climate models and theoretical expectations have predicted that the upper troposphere should be warming faster than the surface. Surprisingly, direct temperature observations from radiosonde and satellite data have often not shown this expected trend. However, non-climatic biases have been found in such measurements.
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Crakar,
Funny thing about GPS — my wife’s can pinpoint the exact parking lot driveway she needs to use to get to a given store in a large mall complex (shortest distance). And it will complain instantly if she passes it instead of turning.
One dark night on a crooked rural road I watched it track us on a map showing us exactly at the spot where we were, mile after mile. It followed us around every twist and turn, keeping track of position and direction right down to the turn from the road into our motel parking lot — accuracy well within 10 feet easily.
But from this
I wonder if you understand wind shear. Are you talking about turbulence instead?
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This might be the Lindzen paper that SillyFilly doesn’t want us to quote: On the Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity and Its Implications
To read about the despicable way he was treated for the review process, please refer to the WUWT article here: Lindzen on getting the “special treatment” for publishing papers
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Here’s a fairly recent paper from Professor Christy with evidence that there is no “hot spot”: “What Do Observational Datasets Say about Modeled Tropospheric Temperature Trends since 1979?”
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Stupid Horse,
Point number 2,
Your link states the problem was resolved in 2006, it is now 2012 and still the data shows no warming but you said
You are the one using out of date statistics.
Time to call in the dogger and send you to the glue factory
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Well done Cracker, well done! 😉
I go to sleep and when I wake up I realize that I missed all the fun!
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Cracker,
Ask David whether he used the original data or not? I think you find the answer unpleasant!
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Thats a good idea donkey lets ask David.
To David Evans,
Hello David, my friend here has doubts about the ARGO data you have used in your latest article published in the SMH titled “Climate change science is a load of hat air and warmists are wrong”.
My friend here beleives you have used the original ARGO data, the original ARGO data as opposed to what i do not know but i was hoping you could shed some light on this issue.
Yours sincerely
Crakar24
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Ahh the dopey donkey stumbles.. yet again, and again , and again………………………. ad infinitum..
WHY does any one hire it ??
It has NO purpose !
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Stoopid Hoss, regarding your snort #3 above, which has gone unchallenged so far.
You have galloped into the party late with your saddle bags empty of clues.
The Stoopid Hoss whinnied:
Ah yes, I do recall. Mr Jasper Kirkby from CERN is a rather sad case of “once bitten, twice shy.” Tuck into some grass while I explain.
In 2009 he presented a 1 hour lecture on the role of cosmic rays in altering the climate. For the first 52 minutes he barely mentioned the CERN CLOUD experiment that he was running, instead showing slide after slide of empirical evidence establishing a long term multi million year history of correlations between rainfall, temperature, and cosmic ray flux.
At the 27 minute mark he points out that in the very long term there is virtually no correlation at all between CO2 and average temperature, but a very close correlation between cosmic ray flux and the occurrence of ice ages.
At the 35 minute mark he displays another scientist’s work showing the monotonous 1.7mm per year rise in sea level, and then shows the amazing correlation between yearly rate of sea level rise and the annual sunspot count. It is obviously suggestive of a causal connection. Kirkby then remarks “It’s very interesting, in this paper [about sea level], there isn’t anywhere a single mention of the sun, and to me it’s absolutely incredible that he can publish this data, and for there to be no comment – even to rule it out should be mentioned.” Is that so, Mr Kirkby? Don’t you remember what happened the last time you spoke your mind about this?
The result was instant castigation and sent to the funding freezer for 8 years.
Fast forward to 2011 and the CERN CLOUD experiment has produced its first results showing unambiguously that cosmic rays do indeed ramp up creation of ionic cloud seed particles by a factor of “more than 10″, consistent with all previous paleoclimatology and other short term lab tests. Separate atmospheric observations from the Czech Republic and around the world show big cosmic ray decreases have warmed temperatures locally wherever they occur, fully supporting the Svensmark hypothesis that cosmic rays influence the climate on every scale. It seems like a shoo-in.
So of course, the authority leans on Kirkby:
Then Kirkby is interviewed for an article in no less than Nature, the warminista’s Bible:
Not only did Kirkby remember what happened to him last time he spoke the facts about global warming, he’d also been officially warned off making the appropriate skeptical conclusions less than a week before the Nature interview.
The data tells you what is really happening. The scientists’ descriptions tell you only what is fashionable at their employer.
Another very early objection (which you didn’t mention) was “the CLOUD team implies a put-down for the Danes with this result, repeatedly declaring that without ammonia there’d be little cluster production at low altitudes.” BUT as Nigel Calder explains… “In any case, whether the basic chemistry is (H2SO4 + H2O) or (H2SO4 + H2O + NH3) is an academic rather than a practical point. There are always traces of ammonia in the real air, and according to the CLOUD report you need only one molecule in 30 billion.”
Now let’s hear no more whinnying about CERN CLOUD providing no evidence of cosmically induced cloud modulation. Not only is that allegation false, even it it were true it would be irrelevant in the face of cosmic-temperature effects measured by two other completely different experiments.
• Independent Confirmation #1: Graph of relationship between cosmic ray flux and the HadAT2 radiosonde troposphere temperature. Even your Saint Al of Gore would be able to see that the two curves “kinda fit together“. Read all about it.
• Independent Confirmation #2: Graph of particle growth rate versus diameter for the conventional theory (red) and the real observations from SKY2 (blue). The fact is that even small particles continue to grow to sizes large enough to seed clouds, there is no minimum threshold. The statement that “the aerosols produced in the [CERN] experiment are far too small to seed clouds” is nullified by this SKY2 experiment. In Svensmark’s words:
Read all about it.
The first experiment shows cosmic rays influence temperature, the second experiment shows the intermediate step is sulphuric acid nucleation, which is increased by cosmic rays and which in turn increases cloud formation and thus reflects more insolation.
Well your saddlebags must be nearly full of clues now.
Now giddyup stoopid hoss.
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Andrew, you’d better be careful with such a complete smackdown on that filly! The SPCA will be on you for cruelty to the poor beast.
I say she should be off to make glue. Way past her prime. Just taking up space and making methane.
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SillyFilly wrote:
Here’s a link to the Nature article that you seem to be quoting from:
Here are the actual words: (emphasis mine)
My understanding is that the next step is to add the kinds of impurities that typically occur in the atmosphere, to see whether they will cause the particles to grow to sufficient size to act as seeds for clouds.
So, no, they haven’t yet shown there is a link, but they have at least shown that the theory is worth investigating further.
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(sorry – here’s the link: Nature: Cloud formation may be linked to cosmic rays )
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congrats david (and jo) and thank you for your persistence.
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Great to hear from David again – I’ve been wondering what he was up to. Fantastic to see him published in those mainstream papers!
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Congratulations David and Jo. Many of us have been submitting comments to the Age in the past, and they are not printed. You don’t even receive a courteous reply of why not.
On my iPad, I did not get the amplification boxes, which would have been helpful.
I guess this post was aimed at the scientific warmists, and maybe if you have the opportunity in future, just do two simple graphs for the every day punter.
I suggest the UAH temps with a trend line to 1998, & a trend line from 1998 to 2012, and the Hansen graphs with the present temperatures showing that the models are not working.
Well done,
Regards,
Ian
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It’s my understanding that during the 1979 to 1999 warming period that atmospheric water vapour levels actually fell. I’m happy to be corrected here.
By the way sillyfilly, your screen name says it all.
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I don’t see why increased average surface air temperature should necessarily increase atmospheric water vapour levels. A 1% increase in surface temperature should only increase evaporation rates directly by about 0.03% (other factors such as radiation balance being unchanged). The saturation vapour pressure may increase by around 6% per degree Celsius of temperature rise, but that doesn’t directly increase evaporation- but it does involve reducing the residence time of water in air, thereby offsetting the effect of any small increase in evaporation.
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I’ve always wondered if the reintroduction of the planets groundwater through agricultural extraction to the water cycle has a positive or negative effect on the climate.
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Positive. Introducing water is always a positive.
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You pump it out of the ground
it evaporates
it rains
it goes back underground
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Scaper, It does have an effect on sea level.
Crackar:
Well not exactly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ogallala_changes_1980-1995.svg from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer
More here: http://co.water.usgs.gov/nawqa/hpgw/HPGW_home.html
The science here is pretty safe as it boils down to measured underground water levels not models or theory.
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Sillyfilly is the one this time:
Any solidly held or explained position by a warmist can be refuted as solidly by a skeptic, and vice versa. In Congress a warmist scientist can say the IPCC say X, Y and Z, and Pielke can point to the pages of IPCC that explicitly do not say X, Y and Z.
I have seen this sort of madness in businesses, where those on the shop floor say a product doesn’t work, doesn’t make money, and the president and COO say yes it does, and pour millions of dollars down the drain, lose the company and then say, the marketplace was against us.
When your ego has a vested interest in an outcome, all manner of foolishness can be carried out without inner turmoil. Your ego says that if X is not true, you have no value, but since you (the ego) say you do have value, then X must be true. This will continue right to the last step off the gangplank.
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Comment number one to this story at SMH was
As a nation i beleive we are doomed, the free thinkers have been overrun by the stupid.
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I saw those comments, God Help Us if such empty minds ever win the day on this.
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The other comment that really made me “serious” was the one that picked up the Venusians with Ray Guns comment as a serious alternative hypothesis, that was being proposed, instead of being just an extreme counterpoint. If that is the best they can do, then we are definitely winning the battle. These idiots are dead men walking.
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I have still got a problem with the notion that CO2 does cause warming, as that implies that CO2 can absorb a certain amount of heat/radiation, increase it’s energy and expel more then it received. This would fly in the face of physics and planet earth is not a black body, not the last time I looked anyway.
The notion that a doubling of CO2 will lead to a temp increase of 1.1C is so far something that can only have been measured in a closed environment lab test, if done at all. Let’s say that that is theory like the rest of the warming claims.
Can CO2 aid in slowing down the planet’s heat loss much like water vapor does? Possible, if the concentration is high enough.
Can an extra 50 ppm, since the late 70’s, be solely responsible for the “measured” increase, assuming that the measurements are not affected by bias and UHI, even with the help of methane and other gases measured in ppb? You have more chance to be struck by lightning.
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Hi Ross,yeah,looks like they will need Gina ae.At least it’s a start to see Fairfax print something from the other side for a change.It’s been a bloody long time coming.Who is the nag #4?
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Best ignored.
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The article was posted today in SMH and comments are already closed (after only 60 comments)?
WUWT?
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Well done David and Jo……keep up the excellent work
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hi Jo Nova. No i didn’t know you and David Evans are an item. i have been inolved in climate debate for a number of years. Gave a talk to two probus clubs. The IPCC as far as I know had water vapour, despite saying it had positive contribution, as an unknown factor along with solar radiation. These facts have been constantly ignored by the modellers and the sellers of warmist theory. More honesty would have helped the debate instead of accepting the Gore, grossly exaggerated, scenario by the media.
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Jake: “I have still got a problem with the notion that CO2 does cause warming, as that implies that CO2 can absorb a certain amount of heat/radiation, increase it’s energy and expel more then it received.”
I have to agree with you at least in part. It isn’t that the CO2 molecules expel more energy than they receive but that OLR enrgy that would escape to space can be absorbed by CO2 molecules and then re-radiated omnidirectionally (in all directions) so that 50% of it ie. 3.7w/sqm is returned to the earths surface. Of course for this to be correct the earths surface would have to be either slightly concave (which it isn’t), or flat and of an infinite area, which it isn’t either. So in fact a bit less than 50% is re-radiated towards the earths surface, some of which will be intercepted by greenhouse gas molecules and re-radiated omnidirectionally again, so the whole hypothesis is already in trouble.
The real clincher here is data from the ERBE sattelite that demonstrates that a 1C degree increase in temperature in the northern hemisphere results in 2.2W/sqm at the TOA (top of atmosphere) is radiated to space.
IPCC models show doubling of CO2 levels result in a 3C temperature increase. This would result in 6.6w/sqm at TOA being radiated to space. Can anyone demonstrate how the law of conservation of energy explains 3.7w/sqm in and 6.6w/sqm ou,t without a net loss of energy; ie. cooling.
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sillyfilly is your real name Schmidt, Trenberth or Mann.
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Actually, maybe the dopey donkey a tiny amount more intelligent.. nah..
but not much in it !
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So the David Evans article was closed after 60 comments?
I doubt it. My guess is, they got quite a few in his favor, deleted them, and left all the negatives.
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No by 9.45am the comments were closed. Note that the comments are the same on all four major newspapers. All 60 are identical! Their websites are so weak that they have to pool comments from readers in Brisbane, Sydney Melbourne and Canberra. Who knew if you post in Canberra, it shows up on The Age, The SMH and the Brisbane Times too?.
I’ve had a report from a Canberra reader that the article did not appear in the print copy of the SMH copy he bought there. Can anyone else confirm? Was this article in the print edition?
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Yes – I agree that they pool comments. – You can’t blame them, they have to make something out of it.
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Two thumbs down for asking a question? Boy you have a hostile audience tonight.
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Jo,
As to the question about David’s article in print editions of SMH: NO! — not in ours received at Narooma yesterday nor to-day. Our editions are printed before mid-night.
Further comments:
1. Any physicist worth his/her salt should be able to see the flaws in the models without having to be a ‘climate scientist.’
2. Anyone familiar with a Wilson Cloud Chamber will understand that small charged particles grow rapidly into water droplets, as described in Nigel Calder’s book. So why is the Svensmark hypothesis doubted?
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It was good to see support for David’s article in the SMH. Disappointing to see so many ignorant ad hominem comments as well. I often wonder how cold it has to become for people like silly filly to realise they have been had by the alarmists. I reckon the record setting lows this week across the country might be a start. Can’t wait to see the record cold snaps this coming winter in the Northern Hemisphere. do you reckon a few inches of snow in Darwin would change their outlook?
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Rod,
It is a sad fact that, for people who have been indoctrinated with propaganda prior to the age of thirty, 40-45% will continue to believe the central tenant of what they have been told, even when it is obvious to the non indoctrinated that the whole thing is a sham and a scam.
This is why I have fought on this battle field (for that is what it is) for most of my working life. Messing with somebody’s mind is worse than rape, in my book.
It is interesting that there is no antonym (opposite word) for indoctrinate. Undoctrinate is not a word, niether is nondoctrinate.
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“de” could be used so, de-indoctrinate.
I have a feeling we might be seeing more of this concept in the coming years, whatever it gets called..
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That is true, But the phase is usually de-programmed. It seem more appropriate
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Ah yes, reprogramming. The techniques used to recover folk who’d succumbed to the Moonies. I wonder could they work on something so pervasive as we have today though, or are they more suited to dealing with fundamentalism.
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After discussing this with my 20 something (year old) sons, (that I’ve thoroughly counter indoctrinated :)) I’d say you are right Rereke.
About half of their friends, generally good bright young adults, aren’t remotely interested in knowing or discussing this subject (AGW) or political topics. Worse, I don’t think they’ll even vote.
We need to do a better job focusing our efforts countering the indoctrinators.
PS do you think that students now believe “indoctrination” is the path to obtain a PhD?
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If Adam Smith was any guide, yes.
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recommonsensenate?
Whilst on the subject, as i work for defence it would come as no surprise to most of you that common sense is a rare commodity, in fact i have a sign above me that shows a super hero stating that his “common sense” is tingling and the caption reads “common sense so dam rare its a super power”.
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The antonym of indoctrination is education.
Eduction empowers and liberates – but you have to really know what it is to be empowered and liberated to understand what Education is and to be able to distinguish it from Indoctrination.
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That is why I don’t have a go at Sillyfilly. She/he/it is, and always will be, a mental basket case.
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Yeah but its fun
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I’d enjoy meeting you some day Rereke. We are much alike.
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More TOTAL crap!
More CO2 = more amplification. NO Virginia theres is NO analogy for amplification.
In an electrical system amplification applies when there is an energy input input is made bigger at the output due to ADDED energy, that is external energy, added to the input. There is no added energy to feedback in fact there is NO feedback analogy in this gaseous system. The idea of self amplification from back radiation is wrong. The law of thermodynamics applies cannot get energy from an internal source other than nuclear processes which does not apply. The ONLY possible external source is either 1. Solar 2. Earths own internal heat (small). The amplification analogy is false. The feedback theory is false.
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My surprise is that this interview with David Evans has happened as soon as it has.
A comment I saw soon after Climate Gate pointed out that a study paper on the media showed that it took about 7 years for the media to swing from one advocacy position to the opposite position despite the overwhelming evidence that might rule in favour of the new and changed position.
That placed the swing in media attitudes to climate warming to about 2015 but here we are already tip toeing to the belief that the great media swing against it’s advocacy of CAGW has already started,
And it is only three years since Climate Gate and Copenhagen, the probable peak of the CAGW belief system and it’s now accompanying ideology.
David Evans, the skeptic, has now been invited to and has contributed an opinion piece to a major Global Warming advocating media outlet.
And there is no doubt now. that the anti skeptic, advocacy dam in some media outlets having apparently been breached, other skeptical contributors will find their services increasingly called upon in the years or hopefully, the months ahead.
Looking back, the high point for the Great Catastrophic Global Warming ideology was in the September 2009 period just before Climate Gate and Copenhagen.
World leaders were coming together at Copenhagen to sign a global agreement that meant the control of the world’s national industrial enterprises would pass in effect from national hands to the UN’s control.
The greens, enviros and watermelons and biggest and most corrupt financiers were nearly wetting themselves with excitement and salivating at the pickings both political and financial that were about to be offered up.
Nobody, as in Nobody foresaw the Black Swan, that improbable and impossible event that alters history, the release of the Climate Gate e-mails.
Suddenly there was reason to doubt much of what was being claimed about the science supposedly backing the theory of extremely rapid, catastrophic CO2 induced global warming.
This was bad enough for the media to be utterly shocked.
But then came the next blow
Few foresaw the level of nationalistic pride and some would call national selfishness in that the politicians refused point blank to hand over control of their only means to create their own national wealth, control of their own national industrial enterprises and businesses to what was universally acknowledged as a totally corrupted global institution, the UN.
The great majority of western media had already deeply committed itself to supporting the global control of CO2 having been convinced of this by the cabal of high ranking scientists in the CRU, and the american based GISS.
Both of these organisations were acclaimed as global climate over-seers and keepers of global temperatures along with the UN’s IPCC which was set up specifically to find the answers to questions on the global climate and the dangers that mankind was creating for that climate.
The IPCC was supposedly the central fount of all science and knowledge on the rise of dangerous green house gases emitted by mankind’s global industrial enterprises.
So who in the media had the science and / or the cojones to challenge this unholy alliance of the world’s premier climate science body, the IPCC and the cabal of climate scientists, the keepers of the global temperatures, CRU and GISS?.
A few did and tried and kept their self respect and their conscience clean in that they resisted to their utmost some of the most powerful and corrupt political and societal pressures that could be brought to bear against them.
But most in the media were already committed and convinced both personally and through media news and opinion room culture and pressures that the science was unchallengable and irrevocable, a very clever word brought to the forefront by the believers.
The most powerful and influential reporters and opinion writers in the media are usually in the political and business reporting and opinion writing.
Science was a low level reporters beat and even that was downgraded in favour of Environmental reporters who were basically greens followers with a non judgemental outlook on everything proposed by the green ideology.
Science reporting was nowhere .
So the media challenge to the IPCC and the cabal of climate scientists was nearly non existent.
The media had no background, no knowledge, no culture and no real interest in challenging the very powerful science bodies and the powerful and not particularly savoury, as Climate Gate revealed, cabal of CRU and GISS climate scientists.
But there is another factor in our societies reaction to the whole CAGW meme.
Science and scientists have been held in the highest esteem and placed on a high public pedestal for some 70 year now.
Scientists on both sides in World War 2 received enormous kudos following the end of WW2 for the advances they made during the war in the arming and protecting the nations at war, both axis and allies.
Then the public were led to believe that it was through scientists and science that Man for the first time in all of his history, in 1968 set foot on another world, the moon;.
The reality of course is that it was the engineers of NASA and America that created the machinery that enabled this never to be repeated event, man’s very first and successful venture into the realms outside of his womb, the Earth to another world, the Moon.
Science and those who populate science have never ridden higher in the public’s estimation.
An unwritten contract was forged between science, the scientists and our society.
You, the scientists are to create a better world, a better, safer, easier and richer world for all of mankind.
We, society, in turn will provide you the means to do this and we will reward you for your efforts. We will allow you freedom to roam the furtherest realms of your minds and do and create what you wish, a freedom granted to few others that are supported by our society.
And for some 6 decades both sides of the contract fulfilled their obligations.
We can see that in the enormous strides that have made in every part of our global culture and society. And science and those who populated it, the scientists were held in the highest esteem.
And then came the global warming ideology and all changed, a very subtle change, un-noted and unnoticed by all of society.
A change. a very subtle and insidious change between science and the society that supported it.
Across science everywhere scientists turned from their role of “creators” of a better society ” to “accusers”!
Scientists across professions everywhere stood on their high public pedestals and accused the ordinary folk, the workers and tax payers who for three generations had supported, paid for and held in the highest esteem those same scientists, of being the wreckers and destroyers of the planet with their desires for a better life, for more comfort and for the simple pleasures of life.
And that, said the “accusers” those same scientists who had enjoyed all the public esteem lavished on them, had only be done by the demands of those ordinary folk for a better life, a life that required increased energy use and the use of fossil fuels to generate that energy.
And with that better life and the consequent release of the supposed, according to those same scientists , the dangerous and deadly CO2 that was going to destroy the Earth as we knew it.
We, the ordinary people were guilty of creating a great danger to world with our desires for a better life said those same scientists and it has to stop for the good of the planet.
We, the [ climate ] scientists have decreed so.
But, we, the ordinary people do not take kindly to being accused by those who believe that they in their pompous arrogance, are vastly superior in both intellect and standing and who have fattened on the public trough using our taxes, our money, for all of their elevated pompous self important lives.
We get sick of constantly being told we are sinful because we desire a better life and after a while we just shrug our shoulders and get on with life, the kids, the traumas big and little that make up our lives.
And the media see this and hear this and soon they start to also have their doubts for they also are just a part of all of us, a part of all the parts that make up a functioning and relevant society
They also, for all their notorious cynicsm, are human and they also get sick of the constant and accusatory role so many advocacy scientists are taking and they also start to wonder if there isn’t perhaps another point of view that should be examined in their role as media.
And so we perhaps soon we will start to see the David Evans of this world make many more appearances on our media and the climate warming advocacy scientists brought down to earth and down to heel forever from their lofty, self grandiosing places of science pomp and circumstance.
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I like reading your comments ROM.
Just a small correction – man did indeed venture outside “Earth’s womb” in 1968 and those men on Apollo 8 (Borman, Lovell and Anders) who went to the moon but didn’t land on it I regard as the bravest of all. Apollo 11’s Armstrong didn’t set foot on the moon until July 21 1969, Australian time.
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David thanks for your piece and ROM thank you for your historical precis’.
We the freedom loving part of society, from a time a time when science was admired for noble ambitions to improve a sorry mankind’slot, thank many men and women for their stirling efforts in pushing back a dark age once more a threat more insidious as the the first one in it’s cloak and mask of precautionary principle to cover an unjustified means to an end.
We thank most of all a ghost, who unleashed in a torrent an FOI storm that defeated the greatest enemy to free men and women everywhere, censorship.
Well said ROM, consider it seconded.
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Re the windshear measurements:
GPS velocities would only have been used in the last 20 years. The radiosondes go back much further than that. Before GPS the sondes were tracked by radar and I have no idea what the likely errors were. GPS velocities are VERY good. They are not done by differentiating the position but straight from the Doppler shifts. I’ve spent a fair bit of time looking at GPS velocities for use in sailplane instruments and certainly sitting on my deck the velocities have low errors and noise at less than 1 cm/sec and mostly only a few mm/sec.
I really ought to read the Santer paper but it is time I’ll never get back if, as I suspect, it is garbage. as I understand it he got a “consistent with” result by assuming very large error bands on the winds which isn’t at all convincing when you can’t find the signal with the temperature sensor.
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Interesting that the satellite observed global temperature increase is 0.17C per decade since 1990. Watts et al calculate that the observable temperature increase in the US since 1979 from well sited land based temperature stations is 0.155C per decade. Both figures close to natural warming since the last ice age since before industrialisation.
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J. Cao explains quite clearly how CO2 cools the atmosphere, not warm it.
http://jinancaoblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/blog-post.html
Also read what he has to say in the comments.
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Great – now we will have man made global cooling, and another “reason” for totalitarian control of the serfs…
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My bad, Ian.
After all i should have got those dates right. i did make my two 6 year and 4 year old kids sit there and watch that Moon landing.
Not sure they have forgiven me even now but as the men and the machines fade into the great legends of history, those who were there and saw those moon landings and were of the generation that created those immense machines will be regarded with awe by future generations.
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Thank you for, as always, a succinct explanation. The views that feedbacks are large are due to a highly selective reading of the data in a number of different ways.
Now we need to pull the recent strands together.
On actual temperature history we are getting evermore examples of data manipulation, whether on US temperatures (A Watts), Australian Temperatures (See Jo Nova), or the GISSTEMP global surface temperatures (Steven Goddard).
On past temperature history, we have the famous hockey stick graphs, starting with Mann et al in 1998 and culminating in the recent Gergis et al Australasian temperature reconstruction. All need a combination of one, or a few, very poor data sets that are promoted to prominence by statistical techniques unique to climatologists, and ignoring better quality data sets.
Something else needs to be added to the mix to get the high role for feedbacks – climate modelling. If recent temperature trends are exaggerated AND past temperature fluctuations smoothed out, then running a model that tries to look at relative influence of natural and anthropogenic factors on temperature will massively over-estimate the anthropogenic over the natural influences.
But go the other way. Look at the more accurate satellite data for recent temperatures and the temperature rises do not track the CO2 rises nearly so well. Go back to the raw data from the thermometers (adjusting properly for UHI), along with homogenization techniques developed by professional statisticans and the C20th warming deflates.
Then take the widest range of proxy records over a long period (even leave in the lowest quality ones) and suddenly the picture looks very different.
Then look at the role of feedbacks from a number of different perspectives, like Sherwood Idso, and the real picture becomes clearer. Global average temperatures have increased in the last 200 years. Furthermore, there is circumstantial evidence that a part of this (even up to 0.4 Celsius if non-C02 GHGs are included) has been due to human-originated greenhouse gas emissions. But this is a curiosity for a few academics to ponder, whilst the thrust of the research effort is put into improving the accuracy and integrity of the data.
[MBC, with this many links the spam filter WILL catch you. Best to limit the number. I set you free.] ED
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[…] Evans has provided a succinct explanation of why climate scientists’ theories, ignore some fundamental data. The views that feedbacks amplify the effects of CO2 (see Evans’s diagram below) is due to a […]
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I would have liked to have seen David Evans’ article about the effects of CO2 on global warming make some reference to its upper limitations re: being tuckered out above ~250ppm.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/08/the-logarithmic-effect-of-carbon-dioxide
That’s just as important as any feedback factors IMO.
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Not being a ‘serious sceptic’ just a ‘sceptic’ one feels comfortable to disagree with a basic tenet of this article. Climate sensitivity is a creature that only behaves itself in models. Empirically it’s a slippery eel and hard to get any handle on. The 1.1 degree C for doubling CO2 is a fiction. I say there is no such change in temperature on physical theory grounds alone. 1million ppm of CO2 produces no additional temperature rise above that of air being insolated by the sun. Tyndal talked about water vapor in the first 10 feet above the ground holding the heat in to the earth. That’s where the thermometers are set. If CO2 has any heating effect it is because it is most concentrated around one’s ankles or in a room of hot debaters about climate (maybe 3000 ppm CO2). The talk of ‘layers of CO2’ or other ‘greenhouse gases’ is unphysical fiction – maybe ozone is in a layer of sorts. Blankets, clothes, greenhouses, gases never generate any heat de novo – they are not heat pumps. At best they contain heat and slow its radiative transfer. They can never back radiate and add additional heat to the source from which the radiation came. This is not meant to be ‘serious’ – it is simply true.
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Love the quote!
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You can easily get radiosonde (weather balloon) results for many locations (twice daily, with a very good archive) from http://weather.uwyo.edu/upperair/sounding.html
I first started looking at radiosonde data because I was interested in how an upper atmosphere imbalance makes it down to the Surface, something which is usually hand-waved away by yattering on about a constant lapse rate. The IPCC AR4, WG1, Chap2, Fig 2.2 purports to explain this phenomenon.
But the Radiosonde measurements show neither evidence of a hump (warm spot) in the troposphere, nor any evidence of a downward translation of an upper atmosphere temperature increase.
What they do show is an unstable Tropopause, and a very unstable (unbalanced) Stratosphere. Nothing is very constant, the temperatuires bounce around. It is easy to find instances of a 3km change in height and a 20DegC change in temperature of the Tropopause in 12 hours in some locations. Even in the relaticely stable tropics, changes of 1km and 5DegC in 12 hours are not uncommon.
So talking of “Radiative Forcing”, a quantity defined by the IPCC as being as an imbalance at the Tropopause, is just nonsense. And this imbalance at a very unstable location is then translated to the Surface by a handwaved method, and the alleged mechanism is not supported by a shred of observation.
But what is obsevable is the rate of change of temperature for unit change in Surface Forcing. Where I live, in Canberra, the difference in mean insolation Summer to Winter is about 150W/m^2. And the mean temperature difference is 15DegC, giving a sensitivity of 0.1DegC/W/m^2. And surprise, surprise, that’s what Idso gets, and also what you get if you calculate Surface sensitivity.
That’s right folks, around 0.5DegC for a doubling of CO2. Same ball park as Lindzen et al, same ball park as Spencer et al, and about half the conservative no-feedback estimate by David. The difference is the cooling effect of evaporation.
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If people wanted to consult a trainee acupuncturist for their brain surgery they wouldn’t because the prefer to consult experts on these important matters…. Same principle applies to David Evans why would people consult a mathematician about climate change when we have over 19+ top scientific bodies who saying otherwise ….
We have the like of NASA , NOAA , BEST , HADCrut , NCDC , MET , BOM , CSIRO being all wrong according to you but you expect Australia or the world to believe one person a mathematician who worked for Dept Climate Change is right .. If he even knew the Basic of science trying to prove something wrong he would be at least published in science journals not newspapers , peer reviewed by NASA or any other major scientific body .. But nope nothing to suggest that…
Newspapers especially Aust ones are not accurate or even legitimate articles to be peer reviewed .. they all print rubbish on a daily basis
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Acupuncture has nothing to do with brain surgery. However mathematics is ESSENTIAL in climate science. Bunkum analogy.
Errrr news flash moron, NASA doesn’t do peer review.
It’s patently obvious you haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.
Now stop wasting our time and PISS OFF
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Argumentum ad verecundiam, an appeal to authority. Let’s get beyond your fallacious reasoning. The IPCC ‘s vaunted 2000 plus list includes climate scientists, members of NGOs (Sierra Club, WWF, etc.) lawyers, economists, biologists and even mathematicians, to name a few. Using your “logic” we would need to dismiss everything the IPCC disseminates because the vast majority of contributors are not climate scientists. Then again, neither is Al Gore or James Hansen!
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As to identifying what has caused the 20th century warming, the acupuncturist can stick a pin as well as the rest of them.
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The third view is that there is no Greenhouse Effect because the above scenarios don’t include the Water Cycle, which cools the Earth by 52°C from the 67°C it would be without it. Think deserts.
The “33°C greenhouse gas warming” is a sleight of hand.
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David, what you have not picked up (or if you have you haven’t communicated it) is the transition of climate science from classical feedback system to “contemporary”.
You say:-
Actually “serious sceptics” go a step further. Not only is there no water vapour amplification but “contemporary” climate science reverses the sign of the classical negative water vapour feedback to make water vapour a positive feedback.
Of the classical => contemporary feedback transition Carl Brehmer says:-
Carl proves a classical negative water vapour feedback by experiment in:-
The Greenhouse Effect . . . Explored
Is “Water Vapor Feedback” Positive or Negative?
Carl Brehmer
© February 21, 2012
http://myweb.cableone.net/carlallen/Greenhouse_Effect_Research/Water%20Feedback_files/Is%20Water%20Vapor%20Feedback%20Positive%20or%20Negative.pdf
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Dang, forgot to tick “Notify me of followup comments via e-mail”
Now I have.
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A new paper by Anthony Watts and others shows that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) – the US government body in charge of America’s temperature record, has systematically exaggerated the extent of late 20th century global warming, by using data from inappropriately sited weather stations and by making temperature adjustments.
Watts has conclusively demonstrated that most of the weather stations in the US are so poorly sited that their temperature readings are unreliable.
This has led to official ‘global warming’ figures claimed by government and others being much bigger than those which have actually occurred.
Nevertheless the official figures have been used by policy formers to devise extremely expensive ‘low carbon’ strategies which make no economic sense.
One blogger put it succinctly:
“The adjustments they are making are greater than the claimed trend. US warming is occurring solely inside ORNL and GISS computers.”
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