Joint Post: Geoff Sherrington and JoNova
The IPCC Synthesis Report first order draft has been leaked (h/t Tallbloke) . It is part of the big Fifth Assessment report see the parts already released here. The Synthesis Report supposedly summarizes the science. In the real world the topic du jour is the plateau, pause, or hiatus in warming which the IPCC can no longer ignore. Instead the masters of keyword phrases test new bounds in saying things that are technically correct, while not stating the bleeding obvious. Luckily we are here to help them. : -)
Translating IPCC-spin:
“The rate of warming of the observed global-mean surface temperature has been smaller over the past 15 years (1998-2012) than over the past 30 to 60 years (Figure SYR.1a; Box SYR.1) and is estimated to be around one-third to one-half of the trend over the period 1951–2012. Nevertheless, the decade of the 2000s has been the warmest in the instrumental record (Figure SYR.1a).”
Translated: Yes temperatures are not rising faster as we predicted, even though more CO2 was pumped out faster than ever. Let’s ignore that this shows the models were wrong, the important thing is to use the words “warmest” and “record” as often as possible.
“The radiative forcing of the climate system has continued to increase during the 2000s, as has its largest contributor, the atmospheric concentration of CO2. Consistent with this radiative forcing, the climate system has very likely continued to accumulate heat since 1998, and sea level has continued to rise. The radiative forcing of the climate system has been increasing to a lesser rate over the period 1998-2011 compared to 1984 to 1998 or 1951-2011, due to a negative forcing trend from volcanic eruptions and the downward phase of the solar cycle over 2000-2009. However, there is low confidence in quantifying the role of forcing trend in causing the surface-warming hiatus, because of uncertainty in the magnitude of the volcanic forcing trend and low confidence in the forcing trend due to tropospheric aerosol. {WG1 8.5; WG1 Box 9.2}”
Translated: Despite the fact that the rate of warming is slower than it was before, theoretically CO2 is warming us faster. This is a fatal contradiction, but we hope you won’t notice. We will distract you by mentioning that the rate of increase in theoretical forcing has slowed in our estimates of volcanoes and solar stuff and hope this sounds like it sort of matches, and we know what we are talking about. But we do admit we really have no idea why the warming didn’t occur. Read between the lines — we know CO2 is important because our models don’t work without it — but our models don’t work anyway, we don’t understand the other forcings. The science is settled, except for the inconvenient, unpredictable bits that are not settled. Give us your money.
“For the period 1998–2012, 111 of the 114 climate-model simulations show a surface-warming trend larger than the observations (Box SYR.1, Figure 1a). There is medium confidence that this difference between models and observations is to a substantial degree caused by unpredictable internal climate variability. Variability sometimes enhances and sometimes counteracts the long-term externally forced warming trend (Figure Box SYR.1). Internal variability thus diminishes the relevance of short trends for long-term climate change. There are also possible contributions from inadequacies in the solar, volcanic, and aerosol forcings used by the models and, in some models, from too strong a response to increasing greenhouse gases and other anthropogenic factors. {WG1 2.4, 9.3, 9.4; 10.3, 11.2, 11.3, WG1 Box 9.2}
Translated: This is what 95% certainty looks like: 97% of our models are wrong. (See also here). We blame that on unpredictable stuff that goes on inside the climate. Maybe we are also incorrect on solar, volcanic and dust too.
“In summary, the observed recent surface-warming hiatus is attributable in roughly equal measure to a cooling contribution from internal variability and a reduced trend in external forcing (expert judgment, medium confidence). {WG1 8.5, Box 9.2}
Translated: This sentence looks quite confident because we are attributing the pause to something. Don’t look closely, it’s cooling from something we didn’t predict beforehand, still can’t predict now, and can’t measure, even if we could predict it. “Internal variability” is the new catch all term that covers all the things we don’t know. It’s is the multi-purpose-fudge for all occasions. We hope no one asks us if internal variability could have caused the warming before it caused the cooling.
Bonus: We like the words “expert judgment”. This makes us feel important.
“Footnote: The connection of the heat budget to equilibrium climate sensitivity, which is the long-term surface warming under an assumed doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration, arises because a warmer surface causes enhanced radiation to space, which counteracts the increase in Earth’s heat content. How much the radiation to space increases for a given increase in surface temperature, depends on the same feedback processes that determine equilibrium climate sensitivity.
Translated: Feedback processes are the downfall of the whole scare, so we use the phrase only once and in a footnote on page 21 of a 92 page document (that right now has “Do Not Cite, Quote or Distribute” written on every page). We don’t expect any journalists to understand what this paragraph means, nor to ask about it, but if skeptics claim we deny that the feedbacks determine the end result we can point to this to show we are completely transparent.
A focus on classic IPCC catch-phrases:
“….. the decade of the 2000s has been the warmest in the instrumental record….. “
Translated: We can’t talk about the trend in the last 17 years, so this is a good scary phrase to use instead. We won’t mention that the warming started 300 years ago, long before our emissions started rising. We also won’t mention that our instrumental records are pathetically short, and the world was hotter than now for most of the thousands of years since the Agricultural revolution. Who needs to know? We also won’t mention that many of the records depend entirely on our adjustments. All those old thermometers kept reading too high. We had to fix that. Strange how it took 70 years to “correct” those readings. (Measuring temperatures wasn’t too rigorous back in the days of the Atomic Bomb and Moon Landing, scientists couldn’t be expected to do something as complex as measuring air temperature accurately without a computer model.)
“….. its largest contributor, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 ….”.
Translated: Co2 is the largest contributor because our broken models say so. Shame there is no accepted, replicated paper that gives a quantitative link between CO2 and atmospheric temperature. This is where we would mention that paper if we could find it. Instead we give a broad range of possibilities, and actually CO2 might have no effect, it has not been disproven. But we don’t need to spell that out.
“….. the climate system has very likely continued to accumulate heat since 1998…..”
Translated: Actually we are not absolutely certain the climate system has continued to warm. This is our way of saying that it’s possible we’ve had no net warming at all since 1998.
“….. sea level has continued to rise …..”
Translated: Lots of things cause sea-level to rise, many of which have nothing to do with either global warming or CO2, but we won’t mention that. Nor will we mention that a lot of sea-level rise may be due to man-made adjustments of the satellite data. As long as we can smooth noisy data we can talk of how it is continuing to rise. Ten year smoothing can become twenty year smoothing can become 20,000 year smoothing if need be.
” ….. causes enhanced radiation to space, which counteracts the increase in Earth’s heat content ..…”
Translated: See Stefan, Boltzmann 1879.
…………………………………………………………………………..
Models meet reality
The reality is that near-surface temperatures as commonly shown on global temperature maps, have not changed significantly from 1997 to 2013. This pause was not predicted by existing climate models. Fail. Adjusted climate models are still running too hot compared to actual. Fail.
Thanks to skeptics, the IPCC is finally being forced to admit (in convoluted language) that their models don’t work because they don’t understand the climate.
Scores of models, millions of data-points, more CO2 emitted than ever before, and the models crash and burn. | Graph: John Christy. Data: KMNI.
See this post for more information on the failure of models.
The spin and PR will still fool any gullible journalist who wants to believe and the IPCC have left plenty of safe quotable quotes. Let’s try to help those journalists…
The AGW fraudsters will not give up even in the face of the large discrepancies between actual and modeled temperatures. They are now officially the deniers. All we need now is the temperature to trend down for a few years and they will have run and hide from the sheer embarrassment of ever promoting such AGW nonsense.
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As I keep saying the high profile “AGW Alarmists” will in due course suffer from the debilitating condition “SLOFS” [Severe Loss of Face Syndrome]. There will no doubt be very long waiting lists for many of these “AGW Alarmists” who currently have their noses in the “AGW Alarmist Gravy Train Trough” but later this decade they be lining up in their droves seeking professional therapy treatment for “SLOFS”, especially once the imminent LIA is in full swing. It will be a good example of Newtons 3rd Law – to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
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They don’t know how to be embarrassed. They have no shame, no scruples and no humanity.
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I think Judith Curry found a far more accurate description for IPCC here:- where they say
Sound familiar??
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Grant says …
Yes, I agree – it can be safely assumed that “AGW Alarmists” are indeed lizards dressed up as humans.
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Do they know how to live on the Poge? Can they learn?
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It’s all about being first. The pronouncements which are first are reported. All the corrections and proofs of incorrectness are ignored. The MSM are not interested.
When temperature’s drop, they will merely claim
and we’ll be subjected to more blatant … myth manufacturing.
And who will be believed? Those who were first.
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Unfortunately they won’t suffer any adverse consequences. At worst they will be portrayed as unfortunate victims who happened to inadvertently get the science muddled.
We’ve just had most of the the world’s leaders travel to South Africa to pay grovelling homage to the recently deceased Marxist revolutionary, kleptocrat and self-confessed bomb maker Nelson Mandela. [Even Amnesty accepted that he was a terrorist.] Hypocrisy of the has no bounds.
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Edit: last sentence;
Hypocrisy has no bounds.
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That is a very nice translation that most of the Public can understand. Let’s hope it gets some press somewhere.
PeterS, I don’t think they will run & hide, they are too brazen for that and will ensure that the “reported” temperatures do not trend down. If you look at the Raw data you will find that in most places it already is.
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excellent work Jo and Geoff
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If the global temperature stayed level for the next fifty years, they would still be claiming that those temps were at record levels.
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Things rarely stay static. For the sake of humanity, I hope it warms. For the sake of sanity, I hope it cools.
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Another translation:
We are 95% certain – 1425 of 1500 climate scientists wanted more funding.
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If rising CO2 levels are causing warming why was the temperature average for the world in 1983 exactly the same as in Nov 2013.This is shown by the UAH Satellite- Based Temperature of the Global Lower Atmosphere (version 5.6).This can not be distorted by putting temperature gauges on tarmacs behind jet engines, or getting record in the central desert where no records were recorded in the past as practised by the BOM .Cut the Climate hysteria.
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I wasn’t sleepy so I thought I’d have a quick look at this IPCC “gold standard” document.
A clue as to the robustness of this ‘science’ document can be seen right at the very beginning, the very first paragraph of the first chapter..
Where the hell else would one look for evidence of climate change, in the pantry? the garage?
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Climate models?
What’s interesting is that this is all about the attribution of ‘global warming’.
As this has not been the political term du jour precisely because it is too specific, too explicit and falsifiable, they’re stuck with ‘climate change’ a most implicit, inconvenient, non-specific, unfalsifiable, and unscientific term.
As a politician or perhaps a policy making bureaucrat, the non-specificity of the term ‘climate change’ is the preferred gift from the heavens. The choice exists to use it anyhow, anywhere, in any way as a justification for anything.
As a scientist, this presents substantially more of a challenge…
…and don’t they damn well know it.
So they’re compelled to use terms like ‘compelling’ in close proximity to ‘evidence’ with the suggestion of empirical observation, which is clearly very much not the case.
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Its little things like this that expand my mind, and make me look and think more precisely. “compelling evidence”.
Your right; is it evidence, or is it something else that is convincing. It cannot be both.
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Maybe in my garage, where there’s a V-twin, a V6 and a V8.
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This quote also shows that the IPCC lie through their teeth. They say that the evidence is in observations, and then proceed to ignore observations and use models to make thier predictions and recommendations.
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Unfortunately, most of the observers suffer from severe proctocraniosis.
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Jo and Geoff thank god you translated the IPCC claims for us as I find their writing style to be very Asemic.
Also considering this is supposed to be a scientific report are the terms “low confidence” and “medium confidence” usually used in such papers?, I mean it sounds very obscure even for the IPCC.
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In my career, I have exposed numerous mining scams.
One thing I noticed is that when the English used in a document to promote a project is: i) convoluted, ii) pedantic and iii) uses very long sentences, then the likelihood of it being a scam increases enormously.
This IPCC document is a classic case of the reader not being wanted to understand the content, but only to accepts the conclusions. It is just a more sophisticated variation of the Nigerian legacy scam requiring you to deposit funds somewhere in order to access the legacy. In this case, the ‘funds’ are our taxes and the ‘legacy’ is the myth you are going to get something tangible in return.
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Those terms referring to ‘confidence’ is the stuff ‘guidelines’ are made of. That is, a guideline being a synthesis of two components:
1. Best evidence.
2. Opinion and judgement of the relevant experts and wise heads – the ‘confidence bit’.
In order for these to be expressed in practice they should also take account of a third component, the recipients (patient) personal preference (including cultural context) based on their informed decision.
In the case of this IPCC synthesis, it is possibly better termed a confidence trick.
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Move over Nuspeak, make way for Klimaspeak.
Pointman
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Nuspeak translations could not obscure Aston’s 1922 Nobel Lecture on a “power greater than scientific fiction” in nuclear packing fractions, but . . .
von Weizsacker’s nuclear binding energy successfully obscured the “power greater than scientific fiction” after WWII.
The critical issue under discussion: Can nuclear reactors be designed and safely operated by engineers and technicians who mistakenly believe von Weizsacker’s nuclear binding energy indicates nuclear stability?
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Today’s Nobel Prize winner, Dr. Schekman, challenged scientists to also speak out about mainstream science and the “tyranny” of prestigious journals like Nature, Cell and Science
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/09/nobel-winner-boycott-science-journals
The Guardian allowed me to post the following comment on the real danger of “tyrannical science” to societhy:
“I personally requested the resignation of Nature’s editor for the same reason. Distortions of science threaten the very survival of humans. E.g.,
Aston reported a source of “power beyond the dreams of scientific fiction” in his 1922 Nobel Lecture on “nuclear packing fractions”.
Aston’s packing fractions correctly predict nuclear stability, but they were replaced in science textbooks after WWII with von Weizsacker’s “nuclear binding energies” that do NOT correctly predict nuclear stability.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10640850/Chapter_2.pdf
Can nuclear reactors be designed and safely operated by engineers and technicians taught that von Weizsacker’s “nuclear binding energies” predict nuclear stability?
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Former NASA Principal
Investigator for Apollo
PhD Nuclear Chemistry
Postdoc Space Physics”
The candid – but frightening – answer to the above question:
Post-WWII nuclear reactors were designed and operated by engineers and technicians who did not notice serious flaws in von Weizsacker’s “nuclear binding energies.” The lives of thousands of citizens were put at risk by “tyrannical science.”
Those flaws are identified in Chapter 2 of my autobiography.
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Pointman
I think the Monty Python gang would be appreciate Jo and Geoff’s work, in this instance.
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At my age (which is’nt too old yet) my interal variability gives me daily ipcc reports of varying consistency and I am 95% certain it wont change any time soon.Hopefully the UN crap will
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“….climate system has very likely continued to accumulate heat since 1998, and sea level has continued to rise.”
As I understand it, “very likely”, has the same standing as an odds-on bet in a 2-horse race. The hypotheses for continued heat accumulation are speculative at best, the most touted being, ” the sea ate my warming”, which requires a major rewrite of several physical laws. furthermore, the fact that sea-level rise has tailed off sharply in the last few years seems to have completely escaped the consensus – doubtless an oversight brought about by too many Cooks spoiling the broth. In the attempt to sustain the AGW myth, the IPCC appears to be resorting to fixing the facts and misleading the public at large.
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No need to be mournful, this is great news.
IPCC: The radiative forcing of the climate system has been increasing to a lesser rate over the period 1998-2011 compared to 1984 to 1998 or 1951-2011, due to a negative forcing trend from volcanic eruptions and the downward phase of the solar cycle over 2000-2009.
They said it! They actually said it. They have attributed some climate change to solar cycles!
This is the thin end of the wedge. They are cooked now.
Any curious onlooker may now wonder… if the solar cycle was decreasing after 2000, wouldn’t that mean… it was… increasing before 2000?
Oh no, more natural climate change. Once they have let the solar cycles cat out of the natural variability bag they will not be able to put the Svensmark genie back into the mixed metaphor!
(You know what I mean.)
A toast to yet another skeptic success. Skål!
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Exactly. That’s where the whole scam falls over. What they told us was a “hockey stick / tipping point / exponential warming premature extrapolation was actually a tiny, insignificant trend warming of 0.8C / C, plus a solar peak making it look steep for a few years (esp in an el Nino year).
If an apparent “trend” is N for 13 years, and then 0 for 13 years, doesn’t it follow that the actual trend is N/2? I ask my warmie friends that all the time but they don’t answer or they just say “It’s worse than we thought.”
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Yes, I point this out often, as does prof Carter. Based on attributing all warming since the LIA to CO2 (which of course we can’t – but let’s pretend)
if C x ln (400/270) = 0.7 then what is C
Substitute that value of C into
C x ln (2) to arive at the maximum possible apparent climate sensitivity to CO2 based on the measurements. Answer, around 1.4 degrees per doubling.
Now the pause tells us that internal variability could account for an amount equivalent to the direct effect of CO2, since at the moment NV is completely offsetting it, or about 1.1 degrees per doubling leaving a C02 climate sensitivity of around 0.3 degrees per doubling.
This of course shows that feedbacks are Negative.
This I think is the real message that is missed, the climate is cooling, it is cooling by at least the amount that CO2 would have contributed (about 0.2 degrees over the period of the pause) if it wasnt for the direct effects of CO2 we’d be a 1/4 of the way back to the LIA now.
Those Alarmists need to understand this issue we are a mere, and I mean MERE 0.7-0.8 degrees away from a climate that killed 1/2 of europe a couple of hundred years ago, and they want to take away the only thing that keeps us safe from the ravages of it, high CO2 and cheap energy! There are no words that describe how monumentally how stupid that is. Right now, in the UK I doubt their power systems would survive a new LIA.
Those who fail to take note of history are doomed to repeat it.
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Cheap energy, yes. CO2, not so much. It won’t warm anything. It will help offset agricultural damage from cooling, perhaps.
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Andrew, Yes it does look promising. But they also say this:
“Changes in solar irradiance and volcanoes can cause natural forcings. The forcing from stratospheric volcanic aerosols can have a large impact on the climate system for some years after volcanic eruptions. Several small eruptions have caused an additional RF of -0.11 [–0.15 to –0.08] W m2 for the years 2008-2011. Changes in total solar irradiance contribute only a small fraction, 0.05 [0.00 to 0.10] W m2, of the total radiative forcing during the industrial era. There was a strong solar minimum in 2008/2009, which contributed a small cooling effect over the last 15 years. The effect of cosmic rays on the concentration of cloud condensation nuclei is too weak to have any detectable climatic influence during a solar cycle or over the last century (medium evidence, high agreement). [WG-I 7.4 8.4]” page 10
They are IMO only mentioning solar in order to blame some cooling on the sun
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Ron, your cautionary note was received too late to prevent me from swilling a celebratory glass of Baileys and retiring for the evening.
I had no patience to read their whole document (which admittedly has been the cause of much of society’s legislative ills in recent decades). Now that you’ve highlighted their excuses I can see your point. But as much as they wish people would only invoke solar variability to explain cooling, the awkward questions will be asked about the preceding warming. As always, they have brushed off TSI without admitting that TSI is not the only type of solar variability. But they have now admitted that cosmic rays are part of the picture so they can’t pretend they didn’t know about this effect.
More astounding is where they say…
“The effect of cosmic rays on the concentration of cloud condensation nuclei is too weak to have any detectable climatic influence during a solar cycle or over the last century (medium evidence, high agreement).”
They’re true to form! The consensus “agreement” is much stronger than the proxy evidence on that opinion. The evidence I’ve seen so far all points the other way. When the evidence for the climatic strength of cosmic rays becomes too widely known, the total absence of cosmic rays in the aerosol component of all prior IPCC climate models will become a thorny issue.
Latitudinal dependence of low cloud amount on cosmic ray induced ionization.
I.G. Usoskin, N.Marsh, G.A. Kovaltsov, K.Mursula, O.G. Gladysheva
http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0407066
==> Cosmic ray flux changes caused a detectable change in low cloud cover over the last two solar cycles.
Reply to Lockwood and Fröhlich – The persistent role of the Sun in climate Forcing.
Svensmark, H. and Friis-Christensen, E.
Danish National Space Center, Scientific Report 3/2007 [PDF]
==> High energy cosmic rays caused a detectable change in tropospheric temperatures over the last four solar cycles.
It’s not much of a stretch to conclude that the detectable low cloud cover change is what caused the detectable temperature changes via a cosmically-induced albedo change. That’s the exact opposite of what the IPCC has “high agreement” about. tsk! tsk! tsk! All of their Natural Climate Change Denial is going to cook the IPCC’s global warming goose.
_ _ _ _ _
For those keeping score at home, the solar cycle cat has escaped from the natural variability bag and has released the Svensmark genie which is about to cook the global warming goose. Sorry to be so formal.
I expect the Unprecedented Dish to run away with the Hockey Spoon very shortly.
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Andrew,
You have no idea how much I wish, I had said that!
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I concur, I wish I had said that.
Solar and natural climate cycles (sometimes the same thing) are the two great heresies of the Global Warming cult. For the climate establishment to even hint at admitting to their existence drives a huge nail into the CAGW concept’s coffin.
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Gosh, I’d like to thank the Academy… 😉
My scatter-gun approach occasionally hits the mark. Belated thanks for a comment instead of just a green thumb.
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You’re welcome – It was very funny.
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That quiet state of solar activity remains unexpectedly so.
Current observations from Mars Curiosity:
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I have been searching in vain for some sort of mathematically significant relationship between CO2 levels and global temperature, but have not seen it so far. So CO2 levels go up and so does temperature, but CO2 levels have gone up to around 400ppm. and temperature remains flat. Thus is there any scientific validity for a carbon tax? No.
Since greenhouse gases are only 1 or 2 % of the atmosphere and water vapour makes up ,say, 95% of these, why would you believe that CO2 is so important when it is pretty insignificant in the scheme of things. I think that the cosmic ray theory and the formation of cloud nuclei far more plausible, but that would have to involve a solar tax, wouldn’t it!
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Damn those polluting solar rays! They must be stopped … quick call Deutschebank, I am sure they can work out an ‘efficient’ market solution.
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Don’t give them ideas, make them come up with their own.:)
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Here’s a good talkl by Mark Morano in Pol;and on the religion called global warming.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54ShNrTNzfQ
He’s very funny but he shows just how many loonies there are all over the world pushing this absurd nonsense.
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One of Morano’s points is that everything is now attributed to global warming. I wonder if he would include, to borrow Speedy’s term, dangerously normal weather. How many days actually have normal weather? Not many, but here’s one, 21 May 2012, where the Tmax mean absolute deviation of all 700+ stations in Australia was within 0.91 deg C of the monthly mean. The average daily deviation for 2012 was 2.56C.
The BOM’s daily map
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/temp/archive.jsp?colour=colour&map=maxave&year=2012&month=5&day=21&period=daily&area=nat
is very similar to its monthly May 2012 map, which can be found by selecting the month.
It was a great talk by Morano. I liked the satellite image of North Korea at night, doing their bit for the environment!
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The inability of alarmist to understand simple English (or even Physics concepts) is manifest in their refusal to understand that “warming” is not the same word as “warmest”. I have tried to explain to them that once you reach the top of Mt. Everest, you are indeed at the “highest” point on the planet, but you are not longer “going higher”. That concept is beyond their ability to comprehend.
So why should the IPCC, a failed group of scientist that have yet to show any competence, be any different?
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Ah, an epiphany. We can understand and translate the words used, though thy mix and randomise the usage as they see fit. But the placard carrying green supporters could never translate confusion of the words into a simple English translation.
The document is proof for the fools only, but is nakedness for Engineers and Mathematicians everywhere.
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Darn spell check couldn’t recognise my attemt to spell “obfuscation”.
could never translated the obfuscation of the words…
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Brilliant translation – thank you..!
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Excellent.
IPCC: (warming)…has been increasing to a lesser rate.
Translation: We simply cannot bear to use the word “decreasing” so in a pathetic attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of the worlds more gonzoid journalists thought we’d use the phrase “increasing to a lesser rate” instead.
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Ah yes, you may claim a negative trend on the last 12 years sea surface temperatures, but the warmists will just switch to a longer period to make it a warming trend, or they will switch to UAH satellite measurements which are still positive… by only +0.0105°C per decade, but still positive dammit! If that doesn’t work they will switch to Ocean Heat Content which is allegedly still rising, but that is after “systemic cool bias adjustments” so who really knows.
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PeterS said…
My guess is not even the return of the Arctic ice cap, nor dropping temperatures would stop AGW. I think only one thing can truly stop it: if CO2 was to fall, which is more likely now that the oceans are cooling, with the downturn of sunspots.
I can’t see any evidence yet for falling CO2 at the various stations, but it’s interesting to note that Keeling’s son at the Mauna Loa observatory is talking of shutting it down. Maybe they’re not getting the readings they want?!
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I say “..stop AGW” as in stop the AGW movement.
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“In summary, the observed recent surface-warming hiatus is attributable in roughly equal measure to a cooling contribution from internal variability and a reduced trend in external forcing (expert judgment, medium confidence). {WG1 8.5, Box 9.2}
In summary the change in the rising temperature trend is caused by variables (things that cause change) within the climate mechanism and forcing (things that cause change) outside the climate mechanism ….so changes are caused by things that change ….thanks IPCC ….as a non-scientist I appreciate the bleeding obvious being pointed out to me by people paid squillions more than me because they are supposed to know squillions more than me
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Off topic? :
Associated Press
theguardian.com, Monday 9 December 2013 20.17 EST
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/10/coldest-temperature-recorded-earth-antarctica-guinness-book
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Coincidentally (!?) just 2 days after the Russians announced on the 7th that they’d detected the coldest temperature of -91.2⁰C near Fuji Dome station. (Article at NoTricksZone.)
Have they started a new “cold war”?
Note that the “record” was found by NASA during re-processing of data. Their records are inadmissable to even the Guiness Book of Records because the temperatures are inferred from remote non-sensing.
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Cold War!
Funny that.
Also funny why you get 4 thumbs up and I get none even though I started the topic (off or not) ……..
Tough anti Yank crowd I guess.
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“cold war” – Possibly.
I got your first meaning, but the question is timely.
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Don’t forget that it is approaching SUMMER down there!
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” -94.7C (-135.8F).”
Typo ? should be -138.5F
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I was working on a thing to look at what happens if you alter the data so it looks more like reality but for now it wont work because of the messing around whit the data. I can’t simply believe that the average global temperature is 14 degrees. Only chancing the data up cane make it that warm.
14 degrees Celsius is only 2 degrees from the climate optimum. And yes I cant see how this what where in now is so close to the climate optimum.
Now i know what it is they put at average 0.6 degrees Celsius a month on top of the average temperature. They need to do this to get global warming. From the year 2000 on they put 7.8 degrees Celsius on top of the temperature. In the end it’s smooted out whit the long year average but even then this is absurd.
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The best reality check against the spin is what was said last time.
I have already compared the radiative forcing components between AR5 and AR4. The change of story in just 7 years is remarkable. Per unit in the atmosphere, CO2 has gone down 10% and methane has doubled. That means we should be doubly scared about methane release from melting permafrost.
Despite radically changing their story AND the range of uncertainty in the estimates having doubled in many cases, the scientists have greater confidence in their results.
http://manicbeancounter.com/2013/09/28/radiative-forcing-unipcc-ar5-undermines-ar4-but-scientists-have-unshaken-confidence-in-their-work/
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“Variability sometimes enhances and sometimes counteracts the long-term externally forced warming trend …”
Has anyone ever encountered natural variability enhancing the warming trend. In other words, scientists would have to say “It has warmed a lot faster than we predicted” and then show some period of warming greater than the models?
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And I just noticed another consensus. Around 97% of climate models were wrong for 1998-2012.
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For me the change neither the levels of greenhouse gases, nor the rise in temperatures are important. What is key is the predicted consequential adverse impacts. The importance of the UNIPCC must be in correctly predicting that these adverse consquences. Judge the quality on the continued presence in AR5 of the the following from 2007:-
– Loss of Himalayan Glaciers
– Possible large-scale Species Extinction with 2-3 degrees of warming
– Many areas at risk of severe depletion in water resources
– Crop yields declining by up to 50% by 2020 in some African Countries
– Possible loss of 40% of the Amazon rainforest
– Increasing intensity of the tropical cyclones
– Up to 30% of coastal wetlands lost due to rising sea levels
I noticed yesterday there were no graphics. In 2011 there was leaked a new graphic of the impacts of global temperature change, which I compared with the 2007 version and that in the 2006 Stern Review. Many of the scariest scenarios had been dropped.
http://manicbeancounter.com/2011/10/03/climate-change-impacts-in-ar5-%e2%80%93-it-is-better-than-we-thought/
80
Following on Manic
IPCC Science Fiction from AR5
2.5 Projected changes in the climate system pages 30ff
Headlines (expect to see these in the media soon):
CO2 will drive warming for centuries to come
Surface air temperature will be up to 4.8C higher by 2100
More hot extremes and heat waves
Less rain in dry areas and more rain in wet regions
Stronger and wetter cyclones
Nearly ice-free Arctic by mid century
NH spring snow cover reduced up to 25%
Near surface permafrost reduced up to 81%
Global glacier volume by 2100 reduced up to 85%
Global mean sea level rises up to 1 m by 2100
Ocean surface ph 0.3 more acid by 2100
Should we be concerned?
30
Ron
Well spotted. Now note the two major difference with what I stated at #24 and what you post at #25.
1. They are completely different.
2. Now they are circumspect. In 2007, they were definite predictions about actual harmful consequences of warming. Page 30 of the leaked report is about extreme weather and the direct consequences.
A couple of observations.
Permafrost melt. This estimate I believe is new. The consequence of this melting will be the release of vast quantities of methane, which will accelerate the warming. And the warming effect of methane has been doubled since 2007. But without the release of methane, there is no accelerated warming, and with no accelerated warming there is no vast release of methane. Oh, and the evidence for the most extreme warming is based on very few thermometers. That is because hardly anyone lives in the Arctic tundra.
Sea-level rise. The highest level is the most extreme estimate, and most of that rise is in the last couple of decades of the century from the more extreme of the climate models. This is pretty dodgy evidence, given that even the most moderate of the models have proven to be a tad extreme.
70
The IPCC shows no sign at all of modifying its obsession with CO2 in light of the halt in warming and the cooling trend since 2003 (see
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com for an estimate of the timing and amount of the coming cooling) The Synthesis report says
” It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. [WG1 SPM, 10.9, Table 10.1]
It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together. The best estimate of the human induced
contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period. Greenhouse gases contributed a global mean surface warming likely to be in the range of 0.5°C to 1.3°C over the period 1951−2010, with the contributions from other anthropogenic forcings, including the cooling effect of aerosols, likely to be in the range of −0.6°C to 0.1°C. The contribution from natural forcings is likely to be in the range of −0.1°C to 0.1°C, and from internal variability is likely to be in the range of −0.1°C to 23 0.1°C. Together these assessed contributions are consistent with the observed warming of approximately 0.6°C to 0.7°C over this period. [WGI 10.3]”
These clowns and charlatans will still proclaim their faith even when hell freezes over.
90
Please watch this. This has simply got to stop.
Here’s Greenpeace after scaring the Kids at christmas time – Santa is cancelling Christmas this year due to global warming, apparently.
I really cannot express my complete and utter disgust at anyone who even remotely supports or condones an organisation that targets kids like this. I really wonder how many kids have stumbled across this youtube video and ended up being completely devastated by it.
70
Fitting that an imaginary character is invoked to support the scare.
30
I hope this twat from Downton Abbey gets kicked in the chestnuts by a Reindeer!
10
Great fun. And, great post. Had to translate it into Spanish. Sorry.
http://www.desdeelexilio.com/2013/12/10/el-ipcc-traducido-ahora-lo-entiendes/
—-
REPLY: Thanks! – Jo
10
“the sea level has continued to rise”
We wont mention that in many regions gauges are also measuring land isostatic adjustment (the land is sinking very slowly) that causes the apparent “rise” in sea level. This confuses the CSIRO dingbats when they pronounce that the rising sea levels in Northern Australia are entirely consistent with IPECAC estimates.
70
Apparently the United Kingdom is tilting, as it falls off the Continental Shelf. I have not observed this for myself, you understand, but I am informed of such by my Geologist friends, who strongly deny that is has anything to do with oil and gas extraction, or fracking.
00
Jo,
The 3% model they have right is the Antarctic has cold temperatures.
20
Unfortunately,as well, there appears to be a loss in the ability to use the English language correctly. One supposes that half of the authors are not native English speakers for a start and most of the others are American. Make a comparison between Viscount Monckton’s essays- succinct, clear and concise,sprinkled with a little Latin- with the efforts of the IPCC. As well we now have terms such as scientific consensus and the precautionary principle, both of which seem to have been connotated to disguise scientific failure.
70
Indeed Robert. And of course the Precautionary Principle is not a scientific principle because it is based on possibility rather than probability. Or as Matt Ridley once noted “Lets not try out things for the first time”!
40
I confess to having a morbid fascination for the CAGW supporting comments and will generally scan down Jo’s articles and use the thumbs up/down scores to find them. I get the impression that these days they are getting thin. Unfortunately with the archived articles I checked, the thumb scores all seem to be zeroed. That’s a pity because I think they would otherwise show a declining trend.
[Sean, Sigh, yes, if the big-oil cheque arrived I could pay someone to reinstate the old thumbs up numbers. They were lost when the system crashed, and I thought that was a shame. As for trolls and fans of CAGW — they come and go in cycles, but the nature of some of their comments was different in the first year.] -Fly
40
Sean,
Cognitive dissonance is hard to sustain long term.
I think we are entering the Warmist Maunder Minimum, given that there are very few signs of life among the troll commentariat, and when they do comment it seems all rather forlorn and half-hearted. Poor pets.
40
“I get the impression that these days they are getting thin.”
Well, the ones I have seen in the last month or so were pretty darn THICK,
Maybe they finally realised this fact, (they were told often enough), and decided to become thin.
30
Our conclusions are estimated to be around a medium confidence level but it is very likely because of uncertainty in the magnitude that there are also possible contributions of low confidence in the forcing trend which sometimes enhances and sometimes counteracts the assumed doubling of hyperbole.
60
Are the writers of this post familiar with the scientific method at all?
Case in point: you fault the IPCC report for saying “very likely,” claiming it is evidence of a lack of evidence. You might wish to crack open a high school science textbook. In fact, science operates on probabilities, not on certainties. A theory is only valid inasmuch as it has not been falsified yet. In other words, it is proper scientific method to use the language of probability here.
Perhaps you ought to consider getting some training in these matters before presuming competence in referring to difficult reports.
319
Well I think we can presume they are. Certainly several commentators here have doctorates in the sciences, and some of us have graduate degrees in science, or engineering, and in some cases both.
I can’t think why we would wish to do that. They are so dumbed down as to be meaningless. Their sole function is to prepare students to “correctly” answer the questions in any end of year assessments. They usually have little to do with science.
The only definitive term I can think of in response to that, is “bollocks”. Science does not work on probababilities. Wasn’t it Einstein who said, “God does not play dice with the universe”? Or was it somebody else? I forget, because it is really not relevant. It is either known, or it is not known; and it is known only until some evidence – any evidence – is found that falsifies it. There is lots of evidence that falsifies Climate Science, but we only need one example to do it, in using the real scientific method. You see, science cannot be right for a proportion of the time, which is what your “probabilities” implies.
That is true, and we have found some ground on which we can agree, but we are not working with theories, are we? We are working with hypotheses that are presented as preprocessed reports, without any supporting data, nor any means for reproducability. They even lack any mention of the criteria that, if present, would falsify the hypothesis. Ergo, it is not science.
It is post-modern science, to rely solely on probabilities generated by anthropogenicly programmed climate models, using algorithims that have not been published, on data that has been adjusted, in ways that have also not been published, and are therefore non-reproducable by independent reviewers. To somebody who learnt the scientific method some forty years ago, they are calculating the probability that a guestimate will fall within a predetermined range of outcomes. That is not real science.
Climate “Science” (TM) as a manifestation of the post-normal scientific process, is almost indistinguisable from roulette, played on a rigged table.
273
When has the IPCC ever allowed it’s theories to be falsified? When has it ever allowed independent testing of the data or models? When does it even allow an alternative argument in it’s ‘reports’? Let me answer for you: never. Instead they call people who don’t agree with them blindly names, discredit their credentials, and have their funding yanked. That’s not the scientific method.
101
Good to see a product of post-modern education to the fore. It is little wonder that such dogma has become so entrenched with such uncritical, not to mention utterly erroneous (e.g. regarding scientific method, falsifiability, the onus of proof, the difference between a theory and a hypothesis, I could go on) appraisals such as this.
It is clearly the “fault” of critics such as Jo that the IPCC’s case is so weak, that their transparent back-pedalling and obfuscation is so readily identifiable, and that the mutually contradictory statements they have made (regarding the importance of observations, which then they proceed to ignore in favour of modelling) are so identifiable.
Shame on you, Jo. Don’t you realise that science can only be completely pure in the rarefied atmosphere of unquestioning sycophancy?
80
Are the “Skepticks Skepticks” familiar with the IPCC method?
Otherwise I suggest they seek out a textbook on the collapse of the Roman Empire…..
41
Now that was a very humorous post, SS.
Do you work at SkS ?
From what you have said it is very obvious you have those junior high school science books, and are gradually making your way through them.
41
Hi SkS,
Thank you, but I had very successful scientific career, done with honest science according to the scientific method. Would you like me to lecture you about how it works?
It does not work, as the IPCC want it to, by taking a number of generalisations and vague hypotheses, then using them to scare the pants off governments that know no better.
If you read this IPCC report more deeply, you will find recommendations for vast future expenditure to avoid horrible threats of a type we have not seen yet.
The problem is that we have not seen the causes of the threats yet.
That is not science, that is propaganda.
……………..
What does this IPCC passage, just one among many, have to do with science?
“All judgements of value rest ultimately on ethical principles that specify what values there are and their relative importance. Many of these principles are subject to controversy and disagreement within and between communities. There may be serious ethical disagreements about the values that are implicit in different approaches to decision making. (3: 3.5)
Climate change affects many values. Among them are natural values such as the existence of species and ecosystems, and the beauty of nature. Also among them are human values, which include cultural and social values such as cultural artefacts, ways of life, and equity within and between societies. A major human value is the wellbeing of individual people. It is sometimes argued that all values derive ultimately from the wellbeing of individual people. A consequence of this controversial view would be that nature has no value in its own right. It is also controversial what the wellbeing of individual people consists in: is it the satisfaction of their preferences, their functionings and capabilities, or something else? (3: 3.4)
Setting a value on an event or a policy requires first measuring each of the values that is affected and then aggregating those values together. Both create difficulties. Many particular values are not easily measured because they are too imprecise or too debatable; many natural and cultural values are examples. And different value often cannot be precisely weighed against each other; it seems impossible to weigh the way of life of Arctic peoples against the material costs of carbon dioxide reduction, for example. Since climate change affects both the very rich and the very poor, it is essential in aggregating values to take account.”
72
Geoff, whilst I’d still like to see SkS reply to your very pointed question, I’d clarify my own criticism of the aforementioned passage. The IPCC is right about what they’ve said here, both descriptively correct and prescriptively desirable, insofar as the general process of collaborative action goes on any issue. There do have to be “values” at the basis of reasoning about action. Some people that are initially resistant may be recruited by 1) convincing them of the value, 2) convincing them the costs are tolerable, 3) convincing them they’ll be unaffected in practice either way, or 4) compromising the plan to make allowances for conscientious objectors. That’s in general, in abstract, nothing to do with global warming.
My present opinion is that although there’s nothing wrong in abstract with what the IPCC said here, it is wrong and improper for the IPCC to be the group saying it. You are right these statements have nothing to do with understanding nature, performing empirical observations, making a prediction, or applying any part of the scientific method. It’s nothing to do with science. It’s a blatant flashing neon sign that screams Politics from an organisation that we are told is a scientific body. One need only recall the originally stated purpose of the IPCC (being essentially to blame humans for global warming and prognosticate the impacts) to see they were political from Day 1, and here it is confirmed again in a different way.
It’s like they are so sure of their Scientific Basis that they are arguing the only possible motivation for delaying action is if you hate the environment and don’t care about animals. That’s not just unscientific of them, it’s not even logical. The infringement of many cultural values by their plan is certain, as they admit, but the sustainment of the environmental values is not yet a certain benefit of their plan. The environmental values are irrelevant until the evidence supports the hypothesis that human activity could really alter the temperature in a way important species really cannot adapt to sufficiently. Skeptics and Warmists could share all environmental values in common and it would still make no difference to the skeptical position because both retrospective blame and projected harm have yet to be empirically established.
Besides, wouldn’t they be delaying “action on climate change” if they indulged 7 billion people in a debate about values? Is debate about values even possible? That paragraph is just bizarre no matter which way you look at it. It’s a 79 billion dollar exercise in confused ethical hand-wringing from a supposedly “scientific” body.
20
Andrew,
In the first draft of the essay above, I had done a purely scientific comment, to which Jo added journalistic flair after deleting some of my boring science commentary.
Not stated, then, was a line which I find myself having to repeat in many forums:
There is as yet no single, quantitative, replicated paper that usefully links greenhouse gas concentrations to temperature changes in the atmosphere. Not even the sign is known (what causes what?)
After years of reviewing attempts to derive such a link, I am now leaning towards the impossibility of doing so, because the link does not exist or is trivially small. It’s coincidental, but Nic Lewis has an excellent guest essay on TCR and ECS at Climate Audit right now. It’s about the best attempt I’ve seen to ascribe a value to the link, but the whole concept needs more development, especially in the proper estimation of uncertainty.
Until that fundamental link is established, I am most concerned that the world is being bum-rushed to very expensive projects – before the link is finally apparent. That truth might be that GHG have next to no effect on temperatures.
What fools we shall look if that is the case.
20
The probability that fossil fuel burning by humans has caused the rise in global temperature in the second half of the 20th Century (AGW) is low (i.e. its improbable).
AGW is not a scientific hypothesis but a pseudo-scientific fantasy with no clear evidence. The hypothesis has been falsified by too many inconsistencies and is the biggest (and much much bigger) fraud and hoax since the Piltdown Man controversy.
40
As is usual with all my predictions I haven’t got a IPCC type model of any sort to back this prediction up so it’s just chicken entrails based modelling predictions to follow.
The whole climate catastrophe cult will just collapse and disappear up it’s own rather smelly corrupted orifice when the OPM runs out.
My chicken entrails based model suggests that will happen within about three years as the global financial malaise continues to spread and become ever deeper leaving governments with no options but to either bankrupt their national wealth creators or to drastically rein in their expenditures and start slashing at all those innumerable and totally illogical, superfluous, feel good , do nothing spending programs that large sections of their populace have come to believe, entirely falsely, is their inalienable right to demand and receive from the government.
I suspect that as the CAGW meme slowly dies over the next couple of years particularly if global temperatures continue to decline, the eco-loons of the environmental movements will be seen to be sitting even further out on an increasingly rotten credibility deficient branch of the global warming cult.
The immense government funded financial largesse that has flowed to the more rabid sections of the alarmist climate cult, a flow of funds for which no viable or valid reasons will no longer exist in financially straightened times and will just be summarily cut off probably with very little warning.
And that will leave a very large bunch of third rate psuedo climate scientists and all their lap dogs with no visible means of support and no where to go as climate scientists and their running dogs will effectively become unemployable.
There will be a very significant cut back in governmental funding of every sort, particularly to superfluous and seen to be totally and systematically failed research as seen by both governments and the public. There will be no other employment opportunities in science particularly for those third rate scientists who staked all on big noting themselves with their [ failed and continuing ] predictions of climate catastrophes from global warming in the immediate future, predictions which have failed every single test that could be applied to them and for which no later weaseling of words can hide the failures of those predictions.
Look also at the political repercussions as financial catastrophes loom for many western economies.
The Great Depression led to many or most former political operators to be thrown out and new and often radical political opportunist and parties came into power usually with devastating outcomes for the peoples of many nations.
Any new opportunistic political party and it’s politicians will be very keen to disassociate themselves entirely from previous failed political policies.
What better place to start than on the massive expenditures that have been allocated to what will be seen as a totally failed science, that of climate science with it’s devastating to the poor and elderly and to national economies set of past government supported policies, all of which were based solely and entirely on the predictions and the exhortations of radical climate scientists and their running dogs in the environmental and do-gooder NGO’s of every type.
If a major melt down in global financial systems does occur and I expect that there will be at the very least a major upset of the global financial system within about three years, the new governments in those circumstances will conduct a radical broom sweeping exercise and will no doubt also follow through after cleaning out the dross and corrupted elements in climate alarmist science with the elimination of all tax payer funding to the vast proliferation of aggressive, non productive, leech like, government funded, entitlement demanding, catastrophe promoting NGO’s and their innumerable hanger ons.
If were a second drawer climate scientist or even less than that status let alone just another of a university degreed mass produced environmental manager classes, I would be getting some broom sweeping practice in so I would be qualified for future employment opportunities when the time comes.
Just follow the money and all will fall into place and if my chicken entrails powered computer predictions are as good as the IPCC’s climate models they will disappear into that deep dark hole of history where all radical and failed political and social movements are consigned to only to be remembered as a soul and society and human destroying legacy of unparalleled destruction, hopefully never to be repeated.
Unfortunately and sadly they or their close parallels will be repeated all over again sometime in the future ahead.
Thus are the predictions for the future of climate alarmist science from my chicken entrails powered climate alarmist science predicting super computer.
51
Chicken entrails are good … unless you happen to be the chicken.
31
Sadly some of the same people involved in the 1970 coming ice age predictions are also heavily involved in the Global Warming fiasco, one prominent one is an advisor to President Obama.
I predict that many of those riding the warming gravy train will (if the latest papers are correct) switch over to the new little ice age meme for their funding as quietly as possible. Our media is not interesed in publishing the facts so why should they point it out when the Warmists turn into Coolists.
Those that should be punished for causing the huge waste of global funds, and as a by-product damaging real ecological efforts, are unlikely to be punished for it and will simply profit from the flip side.
Note that all spelling mistakes are copywrite.
30
Bernie agrees
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/bernie-fraser-criticises-axing-of-climate-change-authority-20131208-2yzey.html
Time to find another trough pal.
20
And an off topic comment; From the Financial Post
Why China’s renewables industry is headed for collapse
If China goes down the drain re renewable energy such as solar panel and turbine production then it’s all over for the renewable energy industry. When the turbines and solar panels fail en masse in a another decade or less, they will not be replaced but just left to rot for the tax payers to fund the clean up of a grandiose and near criminal failure by our elected political appointees.
As I have posted previously, if you have investments in renewable energy it might be time to get well and truly out
.
An attitude reinforced by the financial malaise now starting to grip the world economy with the likes of Spain, the Poles, Czechs and etc all drastically winding back the excessive subsidy regimes that have propped up the renewable energy industry at immense costs to the citizens of those countries whose politicians and catastrophe advocating scientists were stupid enough to swallow the climate alarmist creed and dogma without a smidgin of research or skeptiscm.
50
ROM your comments are so absolutely correct. The “AGW Myth” has resulted in “RE Fast-tracking” which in turn has rendered once “Prosperous Economies” (mainly EU member nations) to “Third World Economy Status” and the question is – how long will it take for this situation to be reversed? Will tax payers from these Economies in the future sue those promoting the failed “AGW Myth”? When will the IPCC be disbanded? Can the IPCC be sued for releasing “duplicitous advice”? The IPCC’s Alarmist Reports about AGW are proving to be 100% wrong – where was the “due diligence” wrt “their computer modelling” predicting dire AGW on planet Earth?
10
Jo & Geoff
A damning critique. Many thanks.
Exposes for all to see the corrupt logic at heart of DACC/DAGW con.
Semantic trickery the last refuge of the scoundrel – and IPCC.
This is farcical speculation, not science.
Alice
20
I can now happily say I have been blocked from.posting on the Climate Council’s FB page. As a newly converted skeptic of only one month, I will wear it as a badge of honour.
130
Blimey that was quick!. The Climate Council blocking commenters already.
What did you do to get that honorable distinction, Anthony?
Perhaps Tim Flimflam and Co should take US president Harry Truman’s advice;
If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Harry S. Truman
50
I suspect Anthony’s reputation may have preceded him.
31
I don’t know if I can put it down to any one particular point, but I could probably name about 20 or 30 of them.
A few regular heretics and their posts have disappeared over the last week or so, so I am guessing they are culling the thread of any dissidents in an attempt to keep the heard safe from second guessing
donationsAGW.In this case, if you can’t handle the heat, delete!
Thou as an observation, the number of post questioning AGW seems to be increasing. Every time they block, another pops up.
20
Hi Jo, BEST> WEBSITE> EVER. Wondering if you could point me in the right direction, I’ve been noticing that many AGW zealots lately are arguing that the Medieval Warm Period was limited to a certain geographic area, and was not a planet-wide phenomenon (therefore arguing that now is the warmest time in human evolution and conveniently discounting the Medieval warm period from the data, as they do). Got any rebuttals/blogs for that?
thank you, and keep up the awesome work!
40
Vanessa, thanks, there are many individual studies suggesting it was warmer in Medieval times (eg Indonesia eg China, eg Antarctica). But there is no actual combined proxy study that can definitively demonstrate whether it was warmer than today (best multiproxy here) — partly because few proxies continue to modern times (suspicious in itself — it’s not like we’ve run out of trees — it appears few want to update their proxy studies after 1980. Could it be that the answer is not the “right” one?) Ideally I would compare a proxy today with the same proxy 1000 years ago, but it’s virtually impossible to do that. Instead we end up comparing old proxies with modern adjusted temps and getting muddy answers. Likewise boreholes definitively showed it existed and was world wide, but then the borehole studies were redone, contradicting previous results, and the curve was adjusted until it became meaningless — disagreeing with previous boreholes and other proxies. see The message from boreholes. The boreholes definitively show that there were global swings in temperature, but they can’t tell us the amplitude or the timing without us making assumptions.
See Unscientific hockey sticks and hidden data.
All my posts on the Medieval Warm Period.
Pay close attention to dates. There appear to be two warm peaks, one around 950, and then a later, not quite as high one in 1200.
As far as skepticism goes, it matters not whether the MWP was as warm as today or was even warmer. None of the models know what drove those rises and falls. They all break.
70
There are some research studies taken from Bolivian glaciers on the MWP which shows that the MWP in the Andes at least and perhaps in the whole of the Southern Hemisphere was actually warmer than the MWP in the Northern hemisphere.
There are also indications of quite large time lags running into decades between the onset of the various paleo climate temperature regimes in the northern and southern hemispheres.
From the CO 2 Science site
If I knew how to put graphs and etc or was allowed to on Jo’s site [ have tried using Tiny Pic for graphs and pics but couldn’t get it to work. Tiny Pic worked a treat on the WZ site ] I would post the Southern Hemisphere MWP temp graph graph that is found here.
Sajama Glacier, Bolivia
40
Darn, fat finger syndrome ; Hit the wrong panel before I got this in as well;
Medieval Warm Period (South America) — Summary
40
To add a further quote from the same CO2 Science article;
[quoted]
In describing their findings, Neukom et al. wrote that their summer temperature reconstruction suggests that “a warm period extended in SSA from 900 (or even earlier) to the mid-fourteenth century,” which they described as being temporally located “towards the end of the Medieval Climate Anomaly as concluded from Northern Hemisphere temperature reconstructions.” And as can be seen from the figure below, the warmest decade of this Medieval Warm Period was calculated by them to be AD 1079-1088, which would appear from their graph to be about 0.17°C warmer than the peak warmth of the Current Warm Period.
This finding of Neukom et al. goes a long ways towards demonstrating that: (1) the Medieval Warm Period was a global phenomenon that was comprised of even warmer intervals than the warmest portion of the Current Warm Period, and that (2) the greater warmth of the Medieval Warm Period occurred when there was far less CO2 in the air than there is nowadays, which facts clearly demonstrate that the planet’s current – but not unprecedented – degree of warmth need not have been CO2-induced.
[ end of quote]
I would question the claims that atmospheric CO2 was at a lot lower concentrations during recent past historical times such as over the last 10 to 12,000 years of steadily advancing civilisation starting when the great ice sheets finally retreated back at the end of the last Ice Age some 12,000 years ago.
If it is eventually found that oceanic biological processes plus large amounts of deep cold oceanic CO2 rich waters coming to the surface and the biosphere all interacting to quite rapidly increase atmospheric CO2 in time and amount, an almost impossibility to prove due to the smearing of the proxies for CO2, plus the quite small and immeasurable range of perhaps only a few hundred parts per million of atmospheric CO2 gases involved then all bets are off regarding the various levels of atmospheric CO2 at any one point in past time.
At the claimed 280 ppm of CO2, the planet’s biological processes which are based entirely on the plant world would be running far to close to most plant’s minimum biological requirements of about 180 ppm to 200 ppm , a point at which most plants die due to lack of CO2, to account for the growth of the prehistory plant populations. I am sure that such minimal levels of CO2 from a plants perspective would have by now shown up in the various and very numerous biological studies of plant life in the very recent past.
I am coming to the belief and that is all it is, that global atmospheric CO2 can and has varied considerably in past paleo history quite rapidly over periods of some decades exemplified by the equally unpredictable and rapid changes in the global biosphere such as the current greening of the Sahara Desert as an example.
And if thats the case then global warming from increasing CO2 is a pure red herring of the climate alarmists and has no substance at all.
20
95% confidence reduced to 94%:
U.N. climate panel corrects carbon numbers in influential report
“Errors in the summary for policymakers were discovered by the authors of the report after its approval and acceptance by the IPCC,” it said in a statement.
It did not say how the errors had been made.”
.
UN-IPCC says not to panic, as predictions for the end of the world are
95%94% on track as predicted.Send money or your children’s children die.
30
Jo,
Can the IPCC account for this???
http://news.yahoo.com/cold-dis-comfort-antarctica-set-record-135-8-231816344–politics.html
Perhaps this is why the planet feels cooler…
40
just for the record, as people are commenting about this:
10 Dec: Russia Today: Minus credibility? Antarctic record low temperature disputed
One Russian scientist calls this into question, pointing out the new record was made using remote measurements…
Yet it would be too early and inaccurate to recognize the temperature record now, Vyacheslav Martyanov, the head of the Russian Antarctic Expedition’s logistics center, told RIA Novosti.
“It is incorrect to declare a temperature record based on satellite data,” Martyanov said, explaining that AVHRR and MODIS are measuring the so-called ‘luminance temperature’, which does not fully correlate with true meteorological conditions and must be confirmed by observations on the ground.
“Air temperature is measured according to standards, at the height of 2 meters above the ground, like they do at meteorological observing stations, therefore recognizing a temperature measured by remote sensing is unrealistic,” Martyanov said…
Still, there is a solid chance to beat the 30-year-old record, believes Russian scientist, and it could be done by Chinese scientists at Kunlun stationed opened in 2009.
“It is uninhabited in winter time, but if they put a [automatic] meteorological station there – they can register a temperatures lower than at Vostok station,” Vyacheslav Martyanovtold RIA Novosti.
Kunlun station is situated in Antarctica’s highest region known as Dome A (Dome Argus)…
Dome A is located some 600 meters higher than Vostok station and scientists believe that temperature here might fall as low as -102°C (-152F)…
http://rt.com/news/antarctica-temperature-record-questioned-922/
10
***market manipulation…to be continued!
10 Dec: Reuters: Ben Garside: UPDATE 2-European Parliament votes to cut carbon permit supply
(Additional reporting by Michael Szabo; Editing by Dale Hudson and Jason Neely)
The full assembly voted in Strasbourg, France, to approve without further changes a step known as backloading, which will allow regulators to make a one-off delay to scheduled sales of 900 million carbon permits.
The bill is set to be formally signed off by the European Council of member states at a meeting on Dec. 16 and will require no further discussion by ministers following an informal agreement last month, an EU diplomat close to the process said on Tuesday.
The benchmark December 2013 EU Allowance futures fell to an intraday low of 4.73 euros following Tuesday’s ballot, before climbing back to Monday’s settlement level of 4.90 euros.
Analysts had expected a dip following the ballot as prices had risen in the past week in anticipation the plan would be adopted.
The European Commission wants to intervene in the market to lift carbon prices to a level that prompts companies to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, for example by investing in energy efficiency or switching to renewable energy sources…
Analysts predict prices could at least double due to backloading, but expect it will be years before they rise above the 20-euro level needed to prompt industry and utilities to invest in greener energy.
***Some lawmakers believe the bloc’s carbon market will be irrelevant without further reform.
“It’s clear that backloading is not enough. The market is still oversupplied by 2 billion permits, but this buys us time to have a discussion on how to reform it,” said Matthias Groote, the German Socialist lawmaker who steered the legislation through parliament.
Still, the proposal caused fierce divisions within member states, national governments and the European Parliament over fears it will push up energy prices and dent economic growth…
Officials are due to discuss options on Wednesday, but are not likely to vote on them until January or February.
“We expect some upside to EU Allowance prices in the coming months as the implementation of the measure becomes more concrete,” said Marcus Ferdinand, an analyst at Thomson Reuters Point Carbon….
***In January, the Commission will publish a legislative proposal on deeper ETS reforms, a well-placed EU source told Reuters last month.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/12/10/eu-parliament-carbon-idUKL6N0JP2AT20131210
Industry group urges smooth withdrawal of CO2 permits
STRASBOURG, France, Dec 10 (Reuters) – Regulators must intervene gradually to withdraw carbon permits from the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) to prevent wild price swings that could dent investor confidence, an industry group said on Tuesday…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.3328756
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10 Dec: Bloomberg: Alex Morales/Marc Roca: EBRD Scraps Most Financing for Coal Power Plants
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development will scrap most assistance for coal-fired power plants, joining the World Bank and the U.S. in a retreat from supporting the most polluting fossil fuel.
The lender’s board voted today on a new investment strategy that includes the policy on coal financing, the London-based EBRD said. Funding of power plants that burn the fuel will now go ahead only in “rare and exceptional circumstances,” said Head of Energy and Natural Resources Riccardo Puliti.
“We cannot use carbon without having a thought about what the impact of climate change is going to be,” Puliti said in an interview in London. “There is a climate-change problem, and there are actions to be undertaken in order to solve it.”
The movement to end financing for coal plants is snowballing as national governments and international development banks intensify efforts to fight climate change by targeting a fuel that produces about double the amount of carbon dioxide than natural gas. The World Bank and European Investment Bank already have announced plans to shun most coal investments. Last month, Britain joined a U.S. initiative to do so.
CEE Bankwatch Network, a Prague-based non-governmental organization that monitors international finance institutions, welcomed the EBRD’s move away from coal…
The movement by development banks to end coal funding also reduces access to private financing for the fuel and gives the banks more money and time to spend on renewables projects, said Jake Schmidt, the Washington-based director of climate policy at the Natural Resources Defense Council…
*** The EBRD’s funding for coal only represents a fraction of its investments. Since 2006, the bank made 521 million euros of investment in coal generation out of the 6.3 billion spent on power and utilities. Puliti said that proportion will be even lower in the future…
‘Rare’ Exceptions
“We really mean it when we say, ‘rare and exceptional,’” he said. “It will be less than that going forward for the very simple reason that the new strategy is more restrictive.”
Puliti said that none of his bankers are currently working on coal, and the only country where the bank operates that he envisages may need coal funding is Mongolia…
Any coal plant getting financing would need to prove that no other fuel would be viable, said Puliti. It should be built with the “best available technique” to minimize emissions, and be ready to take carbon capture and storage equipment if commercially viable technology is developed, he said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-10/ebrd-scraps-most-financing-for-coal-power-plants.html
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why would Bloomberg’s EBRD/coal story get first quote from CEE Bankwatch Networks in Prague?
Bloomberg’s EBRD/Coal piece describes CEE Bankwatch Networks as NGO “that monitors international finance institutions”.
Nov 2012: Friends of the Earth Europe: Green spending must stay there, say environment groups
The latest EU budget 2014-20 negotiating text, published today by President of the European Council, Herman van Rompuy, contains the first sign of hope for a future EU budget that tackles climate change and helps support a sustainable future for Europe’s 500 million people, according to CEE Bankwatch Network and Friends of the Earth Europe…
Markus Trilling, EU funds coordinator for Bankwatch and Friends of the Earth Europe, said: “Not before time, and with just over a week to go until the crunch EU budget summit, 20 percent green spending is now firmly on the EU budget radar. Even in the darkest hours of the upcoming negotiations member states should keep sight of the importance of green spending and push for an increase to 25 percent.”…
http://www.foeeurope.org/green-spending-appears-on-eu-budget-radar-141112
European Commission: Markus Trilling
EU Funds Coordinator, Friends of the Earth Europe – CEE Bankwatch Network
Markus Trilling joined the Central and Eastern Europe Bankwatch Network (CEE Bankwatch Network) in 2008 and became EU Funds Campaign Coordinator for CEE Bankwatch Network and Friends of the Earth Europe in 2010. He coordinates the project ‘Billions for Sustainability? Monitoring EU funds for the new Member States’…
Mr Trilling joined his first environmental campaign in 1981, banning turtle soup from the local supermarket…
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/archives/greenweek2011/content/markus-trilling.html
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geoff & jo write –
92 page document (that right now has “Do Not Cite, Quote or Distribute” written on every page).
in truth, they have no fear the CAGW-cheer-leading-hacks in the MSM will cite/quote/distribute, or even understand, any of telling details.
when the general public are not “Stakeholders”, MSM is silent. they don’t even report on the UNEP FI seminars where they plan our “ecological civilization” of the future! LOL.
(22 pages) pdf: UNEP Financial Initiative: Global Roundtable Programme, Beijing 12-13 Nov 2013
Financing the future we want
Vide Message: His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales
Lunch: Sustainable Finance Food for Thought Buffet
China’s Solution: Ecological Civilization and the Green Economy
During the 18th Chinese Communist Party National Congress, China’s leaders emphasized the need to build an ecological civilization. This session will bring together different stakeholders who “Change Finance” and “Finance Change” in China to discuss various key issues including how to implement ecological civilization policies through the finance sector, how finance creating enabling conditions for green economy, as well as how investment in nature can foster sustainable development. Apart from the financial institutions and their regulators, the session will also include the voices from the value chain of the financial sector, as well as the recommendations from policy makers and academics, to reveal the shape of China’s development of sustainable finance. The session will try to identity the “urgent needs” in China on this issue and the actions to be taken.
Moderator
Dr. Jun Wang, Lead Financial Sector Specialist, World Bank
http://www.unepfi.org/grt/2013/global_roundtable_programme.pdf
UNEP Financal Initiative
UNEP FI is a global partnership between UNEP and the financial sector. Over 200 institutions, including banks, insurers and fund managers, work with UNEP to understand the impacts of environmental and social considerations on financial performance
http://www.unepfi.org/
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Just over a week ago I suggested a Troll Handicap. It appears they are already handicapped.
John Brookes, Vince Whirlwind, Blackadder the fourth and Michael the Realist have not commented at all. Is this pause in commenting due to global cooling?
Margot has only appeared on 2 articles, with 5 comments overall. A very consistent performer with all comments attracting 4-6 thumbs down, and surprisingly 1 collecting 3 thumbs up. 3/26 overall, 6 max.
Gee Aye has appeared 6 times (in 2 articles). The first contained 4 comments, 3 of which were ignored and 1 attracted a mere 2 thumbs down. After a rest he returned and showed a turn of form with 2 comments getting 14 and 20 thumbs down. 0/36/20 max. overall.
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Maybe they are all waiting for a sign.
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I have to wonder, Graeme, why you have time to compile this data.
Wouldn’t your time be far better spent cutting your toenails, shaving your underarms……. or something / anything else ?
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Please, … No more imagery.
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I was going to go further.. but there may be children reading ! 😉
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this is all fine I suppose so long as I don’t actually receive used kitty litter (or whatever it was). My only plea is that you actually only count the thumbs against my posts where I either support AGW (and support it more than Jo does) or where I oppose a skeptical view.
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for your database I also posted one here that was ignored http://joannenova.com.au/2013/12/weekend-unthreaded-24/#comments
and also in this post (duh) and the one about open access journals
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Thanks Jo great article.
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Hi, I reblogged the article in swedish. Se link below:
http://larsil2009.wordpress.com/2013/12/11/hur-skall-ipccs-politiska-sprak-tolkas/
REPLY: Thanks Lars! – Jo
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Doesn’t that just mean typing it backwards? 🙂
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All the Trolls are back on the Guardian/Independent and other pro warming blogs where they can all reinforce each others belief that it is worse than they thought and the end of the world is even closer than they thought.
You should visit those sites when anything controversial is printed, they go in to great detail about how humans are evil and everyone is going to die soon as it is already to late to stop the runaway Globull Warming.
Talk about paranoia.
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Also, “the climate system has very likely continued to accumulate heat since 1998” is weak considering that the statement contains no quantitative estimate. It could be very small. So in practice, there is little difference between this and “the climate system has very likely not lost any heat since 1998”.
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Translated: This is what 95% certainty looks like: 97% of our models are wrong. (See also here). We blame that on unpredictable stuff that goes on inside the climate. Maybe we are also incorrect on solar, volcanic and dust too.
So a concensus of models were wrong
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IPCC theme song: “Yes, we have no bananas”.
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According to AR5, even if we cut down on fossil fuels, future changes are irreversible.
How screwed are we? Let us count the ways–
From 2.7 Long-term, effectively irreversible and abrupt changes pages 34ff
Headlines:
Global temperature stays above 20th century average for centuries
Ocean acidification will affect marine ecosystems for centuries
Arctic Ocean will be seasonally ice-free
Near-complete loss of the Greenland ice sheet over a millennium or more, causing a sea level rise of up to 7 m
Abrupt and irreversible regional-scale change in the Amazonian and boreal forests
Thawing permafrost releases carbon stored up for centuries
Increased methane emissions from oceanic clathrates.
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Interesting that pre-Columbian land sculptures have been found under the Amazon jungle, indicating a thriving agricultural society. Wiped out by the Hibernians, and the jungle took over again.
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Mr. Sherrington and Joanne,
Isn’t this doublespeak meaning we don’t know what the Hell is going on? Or it’s even worse than they don’t know what’s going on — they’re inventing what’s going on.
Never mind, I know what it is. But I finally had to let off some steam at these jerks.
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According to climategate email 0967041809.txt, “Medium Confidence” is newspeak for “inconclusive”.
http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=0967041809.txt
IMO the alarmists decided to start using “Medium Confidence”, because having the word “inconclusive” scattered throughout their reports didn’t fit well with their settled science narrative.
As anything below “Medium Confidence” has a correlation lower than 0.36, a better description for “Low Confidence” would be “unsupported by the evidence”.
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That’s been the case since the beginning, Al Gore notwithstanding.
What we really have now is a bunch of people depending on a failed fraud for their living and they are desperate. We need a way to push this thing on over the edge of the cliff. And I mean something that will be a scandal so big no one not associated with the fraud will pay a bit of attention to it again.
At the present rate they’ll soon hand it to us. I hope we recognize it when it comes along. 🙂
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If someone wants to understand why IPCC’s climatic claims are not scientifficaly supported, please read my document:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4r_7eooq1u2VHpYemRBV3FQRjA
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It is critical to note that even given 3% of model runs that did not fall “out of bounds”, those were not known or predicted in advance. Next year it may be another 3%, who knows which? If it’s the same ones, focus on them and discard the rest. And I betcha they have very low ECS parameters/plugs, relatively, although still far too high.
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