Fossils show those dang mammals lived in all the spots they weren’t supposed to live in. Climate models don’t predict the climate, and animal distribution models don’t predict (or in this case hindcast) animal distribution either. How little we know, and how adaptable is biology?
This calls into question all the headline prophecies about the extinction of cute furry critters due to climate change.
The modelers were sure that animals would be unable to cope with temperature changes and would not have lived in the same places as they do now during a climate so different. By crikey, it was an ice age! Yet those small mammals, whose defining biology is that regulate their own temperature, flummoxed the models by living nearer the glacier sheets where the models predicted they would not live.
All the alarming forecasts of local extinctions of mammals come from assumptions built into modern models that fail in multiple ways. The temperature changes from the last 20,000 years show that these mammals have already survived massive shifts, both colder and warmer, and that anything we face in the next century is but a flea on a hippo.
In the graph, the dots are the fossils, the blue marks the hypothesis — the zone where they were supposed to be confined. The stripes mark the ominous ice-cap-from-hell. (Where will those Canadians go?)
Figure 1. Paleodistribution maps for the five mammal species under consideration. Points highlight fossil occurrences, blue-shaded areas indicate ENM hindcasts, hashed area indicates extent of glacial ice. Red points are from the high confidence window (both maximum and minimum ages within 40–17 ka) and yellow points are added in the inclusive window (only maximum age estimate within 40–17 ka).
Panel (A) shows the distribution of all LGM fossil sites in the conterminous USA from the FAUNMAP II database.
How devastating are these results?
RESULTS
In general, the LGM models predict refugia to the south of observed fossil occurrences (Fig. 1). Additionally, none of these hindcasts is significantly better than randomly assigning presence, with four of the five actually making fewer correct predictions than the null model (Table 1). Strikingly, none of the hindcasts makes more correct predictions than simply assuming absence at all sites (Table 2). The hindcasts show no clear relationship between positive predictive power (PPP) and diet or habitat (Table 3).
Why is it so?
The authors suggest four possible reasons the models fail:
1. Mammals may be able to live in a wider range of temperatures than modern conditions suggest. 2. Mammals can evolve fast enough to cope with natural climate change. 3. The climate models might get past temperatures wrong. (They say this needs to be addressed first). 4. Temperatures might not be that important to animals and models overemphasize the correlation between temperature and animals.
In the end, we propose four possible causes for these patterns of biased prediction: 1) modern distributions may not reflect the full range of environmental conditions in which a species can survive and, taken alone, serve as poor predictors of their potential distributions under other climate regimes. 2) The environmental tolerances of mammalian species can evolve fast enough to have changed since the LGM, so modern distributions are poor predictors of deeper time distributions, but may still be good predictors of shallow time responses to climate change. The overlap in LGM ranges between two congeners whose ranges do not currently overlap – G. sabrinus and G. volans – suggests that this may be the case; the cooler climate of the LGM may have decreased the importance of competitive exclusion within Glaucomys. 3) The problem lies with the general circulation models (GCMs) used to reconstruct LGM climate, so the reconstructed ranges are biased southwards because of incorrect temperature and/or precipitation values near the continental glaciers. Other workers have suggested problems with GCM reconstruction of climate regimes near glaciers (Hyde and Peltier 1993, Jackson et al. 2000, McGuire and Davis 2013), so this problem must be addressed before the others can be considered. 4) The models used to hindcast ranges are based on correlations between climatic variables and occurrence data in modern ecosystems. Both GARP and MaxENT overparamaterize these correlations, making them powerful tools for estimating ranges of modern taxa. However, the changing distribution and relationships between climatic variables mean that modern ecosystems may not be appropriate analogs for alternative climatic regimes, such as those that existed during the LGM and that may result from future warming.
ABSTRACT
Ecological niche models (ENMs) are crucial tools for anticipating range shifts driven by climate change. As hypotheses of future biotic change, they can be difficult to test using independent data. The fossil record is the best way to assess the ability of ENMs to correctly predict range shifts because it provides empirical ranges under novel climate conditions. We tested the performance of ENMs using fossil distributions from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, ∼21 000 yr ago). We compared hindcast ENM LGM distribution hypotheses for five species of small mammals, drawn from the published literature, to the known LGM fossil record for those species and found a consistent southern prediction bias in the ENMs. This bias urges caution in interpreting future range predictions, and we suggest that the Pleistocene and Holocene fossil record should be used as an additional resource for calibrating niche modelling for conservation planning.
REFERENCES
Davis, E. B., McGuire, J. L. and Orcutt, J. D. (2014), Ecological niche models of mammalian glacial refugia show consistent bias. Ecography, 37: 1133–1138. doi: 10.1111/ecog.01294 [abstract]
Jo
The so called experts can’t even get right the fauna and flora that are threatened or endangered today. What possible hope do models have predicting future threats or endangerment?
161
The performance of any model depends on the competence of the modeller.
20
.
Maybe these models, should also be put through a ‘survival of the fittest’ test, with only those showing credible outcomes allowed to continue to be used.
An audited review of these models is surely required as they are used to justify major impacts on everyone’s lives.
30
Hey look ( off topic I know…)
Abbott does a 180 and proves he is a globalist messenger boy once again – it matters not who we have in power, we get the same agenda. W ehave no parties, just wrappers around the one mindset so people have the illusion of choice…….
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/abbott-finds-his-french-connection-on-emission-controls-20141119-11pq9s.html
“Tony Abbott has called on countries to set strong binding emissions reductions targets at next year’s major climate conference in Paris, warning the world cannot afford another disappointment like the Copenhagen summit in 2009.
And after years of arguing that Australia should only move faster once major polluters also moved, he has now described climate change as “an important subject” and one “the world needs to tackle as a whole”.
The declaration followed one-on-one talks with his French counterpart, President Francois Hollande, in Canberra ranging across trade, security and the need for binding emissions targets.”
Need I say any more.
31
Are you surprised? After all, Abbott did graduate from the Monckton School of Congenital Mendacity with a high distinction.
010
A great to make sure the Liberals get thrashed in the next election. !!
Liberal voters WILL NOT vote for a PM that does this.
Stupid, stupid. !!!
10
Mind you.. this is the Canberra Times,
……..so chance of it being totally the opposite of what was actually said, is pretty darn high !!
30
Canberra Times?
aka – “the reliable unbias scource that even Wikipedia scoffs at” ?
10
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/abbott-finds-his-french-connection-on-emission-controls-20141119-11pq9s.html#ixzz3Jatr2KGC
Looks like Abbott is going to do a reverse Rudd. Wonder how long he will last after the ‘much ado about nothing’ conference in Paris.
10
Gees, the left field is really starting to get crowded. !!!
00
Problem is that the far left will always vote Labor or ridiculously-far-left Greens.
Abbott is leaving NO-ONE for conservatives to vote for!
Its come down to …… if it makes no difference …… why bother !!!!!
00
Exactly, why is Abbott pandering to groups whose votes he will never win.
10
This really has gone TOO FAR !!
Mr Abbott pandering to the climate change meme.. has he lot his backbone
or has he been bought off.?
PATHETIC !!
Liberal voters will be turning away in droves, and the Liberals, with their namby-pamby approach, will be responsible for Shorten being the next prime minister.
and may someone HELP Australia !
10
I repeat that, for any Liberal identity that might be reading this forum..
YOU will be responsible for SHORTEN being the next PM.
Think on that………..
and weep !!!
20
The fossil data need adjusting to bring them in line with the models. Simples.
311
Absolutely – the fossil records need to be homogenized.
60
At our university(Northern NSW) an academic suggested that the common meat ant(iridomyrmex purpureus) would become extinct due to climate change.I privately called him a rent seeking academic-a bit up yours and in your face I know, but when such creatures endure extremes and construct nests that are a meter deep- you have to wonder about some peoples honesty.Their nests used to make good clay courts for tennis- as older rural Australians would agree!
231
Glen Michael,
“but when such creatures endure extremes and construct nests that are a meter deep- you have to wonder about some peoples honesty”
Just to clarify, the subject of the descriptor is the ants or the academic?
101
Note Bene, Gee Aye,
Meaty enough?
11
thanks it made sense to me but did you change anything? Is that a meat belt?
20
Gee Aye,
No.
It’s a bandolier, carrying 7.62 x 39mm rounds for the AK47, if you look closely you can tell it has the ejection port modification as denoted by the angle of the scuff marks made by the spent cartridges ejected from the breach.
But thanks for asking.
20
That response makes no sense, and is somewhat ironical.
I once had a semi-inappropriate series of exchanges with Gee Aye, since removed by the Mod, in which I compared Gee Aye’s literal composure with Dr Sheldon Cooper.
Now I see Sheldon Cooper from the paintball episode.
20
Take a good look at me, Bradley.
That’s not irony.
This is irony.
A leaf dressed in cammo’s!
30
“A leaf dressed in cammo’s!”
Gees, Its darn good cammo.. 🙂
40
Who you talking to Griss? I can’t see anyone, just leaves…
30
Sweeeeeeeet….
10
BTW,
The response doesn’t need to make sense to you.
It refers to the meat ants you referenced and makes sense as a response to a request made of me by Original Gee Aye.
10
You’re a d#ck with an attitude.
10
No.
I’m a leaf with a gun.
10
Leaves need to be swept up and burned to create more carbon dioxide.
We and all living things need it to thrive!
KK
00
I just read the rest of these posts.
You replied to the wrong post, didn’t you?
10
I can neither confirm nor deny that, Bradley.
Oh look, what’s that behind you…
10
In the high country near Benambra I have noticed that their has been an increase in the range and number of meat ant nests in the past 20 years.
61
I think “rent seeking” was a very restrained criticism. I was recently obliged to change a tyre on ground swarming with meat ants. The surface was so hot I had to kneel on a sheet of plywood, put on welding gloves. Meat ants weren’t bothered at all.
121
With their highly organised nests and climate control by the use of small heated stones, the meat ant is here to stay.
Like the underground dwelling rabbit they only need to go deeper to survive the heat of the day, heat helps them, the morning cold has them sluggish and unable to forage.When it heats up they collect ‘honey dew’ from the aphids and attack and eat the plentiful meat around them.If you watch their trails they collect insects in abundance which have survived tens of millions of years of climate change, as has the meat ant herself.
She is very adaptable moving into new niches as they develop.
The classical case is that of the introduced toxic cane toad. The meat ant makes short work of them.
cribol.com/environment/meat-ants-devour-venezuelan-cane-toad
From the evolutionary point of view, if evolution has one, the meat ant,like the dinosaur, has long been here, longer than man himself.She is a survivor.
Predictions of her demise are premature.
My first Ant book was by Derek Wragge-Morley
The foreward contained a quote from Proverbs 6.6
‘Go to the ant you sluggard, consider her ways and be wise.’
Perhaps the author was thinking about the busy activity and careful organisation of the built ant colony.
I doubt these ants ever built a climate model.
If they had done so and relied on it, they would be truly extinct by now.
120
I found common meat ants had survived after being accidentally microwaved in my oven.
How would your academic explain that?
70
They never survived a small boy with a magnifying glass!
I have it on good authority that meat-ants will devour a cockatoo overnight,one that’s been shot with an air rifle(I would never do anything like that I was a good boy).
00
Yes, Glen,
Ask your pet academic to put his talents to better use.
It’s nearly Christmas. Grow them meat ants as big as chickens.
That way everyone gets a leg.
41
If meat-ants grew as big as chooks we would be part of their food chain!
20
panzerJ,
Not if we get them first.
00
Can ants save Earth from global warming?
“NEW YORK: Ants may be cooling the Earth by helping trap carbon dioxide from the environment, a new study has claimed.
A long-term experiment tracking the ants’ effects on soil suggests they cooled Earth’s climate as their numbers grew.
“Ants are changing the environment,” said lead study author Ronald Dorn, from the Arizona State University in Tempe.”
. . .
I, for one, welcome our new ant overlords.
40
You caught them. The IAHPCC* has brokered a treaty between the various ant and termite nations and are now requiring all anthills to offset their methane production by sequestering carbon dioxide. Chinese ants don’t have to start until 2030 while US and European ants must cut methane emissions by at least 30% in the next 6 years thereby destroying their little ant economies.
*InterAntHill Panel on Climate Change
70
They will if the climate scientists say they will!
Denier!
00
There is one mammal that can’t cope with cold.
Academic waffling.
Needs constant attention, lots of support and warm, weather tight accommodation insulating it from reality.
221
It’s plain to see why the majority of geologists don’t accept the cagw meme.
They prefer the evidence provided by fossils to the pseudo-evidence provided by models.
191
Being a selfish person, I don’t care what may/may not happen in some distant future.
The fact is climate does not change substantially in the short time frame that is a lifetime or two. My generation adapted well to whatever small changes might have happened, my kids generation is adapting better than mine because they’re better off technologically and their kids will adapt better still because they will have better technology.
Further generations can look after themselves.
191
I forget who said, “why should I do anything for the future, what has it ever done for me?” – a counter to the Green’s future guilt ploy, the Zukunftschuld-Trick
40
“and their kids will adapt better still because they will have better technology.”
Not if the Greens and the CAGNW alarmists get their way !!
40
If the Greens get their way there won’t be any kids!
30
How inconsiderate of those damn fossils.
141
“Fossils show models can’t predict how climate affects animals” has a similar ring as The Map that Changed the World by Simon Winchester. As the book records, the fossil record once embodied the essence of empiricism versus blind religious adherence. Eyeball mark 1 v biblical interpretation contributed to a ‘dawning realisation of the true age of the earth’. Unsurprisingly, the fossil record not only provided a temporal indicator, but a geographic one as well. Who’d have thought? /sarc.
81
A plaintive plea.!
Yeh! I know.
After all these years as a skeptic I should really know the answer to this one but I’m starting to have doubts over what the MSM, politicals, greens, watermelons, advocacy scientists and CAGW cult believers [ Cult believers; maybe that covers all of them ] all actually mean when they constantly and completely indiscriminately use the term “Climate Change”. in just about any and every circumstance that appears.
Could somebody, somewhere please concisely and accurately define a universally accepted definition of “Climate Change” as it is used today in every possible, impossible and totally improbable circumstance and situation?
172
The cult believers just use the word ‘Climate’ now ROM, as if ‘climate change’ wasn’t obscure enough. 🙂
91
On second thoughts ‘Climate’ is a ‘Newspeak’ word from the left elites to create a Doublespeak idea in the hearts and minds of sheeple much like the idea of Doublethink, it’s all very insulting really.
10
Essentially ROM,
And in the last analysis.
Climate change means that burning fossil fuels for energy will bring about environmental disaster. Humans are doing it and that means they (we) are to blame.
This the common thread that unites all Climate Change enthusiasts. The exact details don’t really matter.
I may be able to give an update after I have done the Uni. of Queensland Course on Climate Change Denialism 101.
100
[Anthropogenic] Climate Change.
20
Ah ROM,
If they defined it then they would have to make predictions which could be falsified. Can’t have that can we!
Talking about “Climate Change” allows them to conflate “Anthropogenic” and “Natural”. That way they don’t need to bother with scientific trivia such as cause and effect.
Cheers.
80
But that is the point ROM. There are several definitions, the urban meaning, the UNFCCC meaning, which I suspect is different from the WMO meaning, and every shade in between.
Being vague is an advantage. As is redefining words and phrases beyond their obvious dictionary definition. It leaves a lot of room for the public hearing them to misinterpret something and then for those who speak the vagaries to claim plausible deniability if anyone notices.
160
The oldest trick in the rogue’s book is to change the language to create confusion.
40
‘Climate change’, irrespective of any ‘official’ or ‘formalised’ definition, remains a non-specific, two word term that replaced a regrettably inconvenient and earlier term, ‘global warming’. The term is designed to reflect the truism of its two words, namely that climate continually changes. while implying a multi-generational anthropogenic influence up to and including causation upon all observable and imaginary phenomena and processes in all the environments of Gaia. The ensuing results are considered to range from deleterious to utterly catastrophic and the final solution(s) is (are) obvious.
50
The concept of “climate change” appears closely related to the Babylonian Syndrome, not to be confused with the The dangerous Jeremiah syndrome ie:
The Babylonian syndrome, stems from the idea that by building a tower high enough one can reach the celestial biblical heavens, and on a good day, maybe even God itself. As we all know, the current obsession with weather and climate hinges around the notion that not only KAN we can do something, we should. We can KONTROL it through taxes and de-progress through the organisational brilliance of the UN and World Bank. Much of the continental USA currently demonstrates what a wonderful job we’re all doing at peak CO2 enabled by the scintillating progress of the billion-dollar models of the IPCC and their acolyte Haruspices climate ‘scientists’ in foretelling our fate and preparing us for another hideously freezing winter.
00
I’m not quite sure, however I do know that it’s something that skeptics do
not believe indeny…. apparently?I was having a discourse yesterday over at The Conversation and an alarmist troll started accusing me of believing in “a conspiracy”. Strangely enough, I had made no mention of anything remotely close to anything which could be iterpreted as “a conspiracy”.
20
The answer to the conspiracy charge (which in itself is actually a straw man) is that feelings of vain-glory as the well-spring of noble cause corruption are not a conspiracy but rather a mind-set
Saving the planet has quite a siren call to it for some
30
“Saving the planet has quite a siren call to it for some”
Even if their actions have the opposite effect.
THE PLANET NEEDS MORE ATMOSPHERIC CO2
20
The word Climate is abstract,it can mean anything,that’s why they use it instead of the term <strong>weather.
20
‘Climate’ refers to the idea of ‘average’ weather variables over a minimum period of 30 years out to hundreds, thousands & millions of years.
Weather though, appears to be increasingly used interchangeably with climate by the MSM, particularly when an “extreme” variable occurs. Then we enter the hyperbolic world of ‘highest’, ‘wettest’, ‘strongest’…evvvaaahhhhh, often at about the same time as I reach for the ‘off’ switch.
20
I would say it’s purely a marketing/PR ‘invented’ term. I’ve been involved with this in my marketing days. We uploaded all relevant words into a computer. The computer adjoined all possible combinations and the best were selected for consumer research, (focus groups and consumer surveys, etc.)
10
That’s a question with newly introduced importance now that the oceans are supposedly swallowing all the heat. If the climate isn’t changing or disrupting for now, they need to go back to “global warming” as the catastrophe-du-jour, but doing that might make them look silly (or even sillier) again.
00
This is one of the funniest things that Trenberth has ever come out with.
This “missing heat” has not been detected by 3000 Argo buoys and the latest research from NASA tells us that it is definitely not below 2000 meters.
So where is it?
10
It probably has not occurred to these so called academics that mammals are already genetically adapted for rapid climate change be it warming or cooling.
111
It is the whole point of being “warm blooded”.
30
Gee I would like to see what John Cook would have made of the accuracy of the models. I bet they would be at least 97% accurate after he was fisnished with the matter. Heck he would be running a Model-Reality Correlation Course on line with Michael Mann, Stephan Lewandowsky et al being part of the ‘course staff’ and a swag of the usual suspects to pad out the CV.
101
Ursus Augustus @ # 11
I think you might be closer to the truth in your comment than you realise
I would not be surprised at all to discover that Lewendowsky’s lap dog, John Cook was put up to the idea to run this “course” [ ? ] by Lewendowsky who intends to use it for another round of lurid and puerile contortions of his own invented data that he tries to pass off as some sort of scientific psychological quackery.
60
Animals may well adapt; however, how well would humanity adapt? Just consider if the world were to cool, rather than warm, as the climate worriers are predicting. What would be the effect on the world’s population, if the climate worriers got their way, managed to close/significantly reduce coal, nuclear etc power sources and we were forced to rely on all of this ‘renewable’ energy as the world cooled. How would the world cope in a non-coal/non-nuclear winter?
60
That is a very good question. If you look at the very long-term solar cycles, we appear to be moving into a cooling phase.
But I don’t want anybody to panic over this, it will take several generations of mankind, and lots of generations of other mammals.
Other mammals will adapt faster than humans because of their shorter life spans, but mankind will also adapt to the change, probably by getting hairier, and squatter.
Something for our great, great, grandkids to look forward to …
70
I am from Finland, which is an extremely cold place. While many Finns could be described as “squatter”, they most certainly are not hairier. Quite the opposite in fact. Makes you wonder…..
40
Off topic but what the heck as it touches on where and how humanity has adapted to some very harsh climates indeed.
I have always admired the Finns as a nation and peoples, particularly their women but thats another subject. And those Finnish girls are anything and everything but squat and hairy.
The Finns live in one of the toughest neighbourhoods around.
Environmentally it is a very harsh climate.
Economically they are a small nation population wise which has done remarkable things with the very limited resources they have.
Their Natural Resources other than water, lakes and snow, ice and reindeer are very limited in exploitable resources.
Politically and this is where they get my deepest respect, the Finns have had an extraordinarily hard and difficult row to hoe in trying to survive as a nation with the next door giant predatory Russian bear constantly exerting pressures, overt and covert on this small nation of some five and a quarter million people.
The Finns have had to fight three wars for their survival as a nation with Stalin’s Soviet Russians. Wars that if they had been comprehensively defeated had every chance of eliminating Finland as a nation and it’s people wiped out in Stalin’s Siberian Gulags.
The Winter War of 1939 – 40
The Continuation War of 1941-44.
The Lapland War of 1944-45.
The Finns were forced to pay the Russians reparations of $226,500,000 [ 1938 dollars] over a period of only 8 years and this from a small nation that had no heavy industry or much industry at all as the Russians invaders had overrun and annexed their main industrial centre of Vipura in 1940.
They made it somehow after further enormous sacrifice including the building of a heavy industry base in only a couple of years and that in a war ravaged economy and a large percentage of their most productive young men killed in battle with the Russians.
It took about 340,000 rail road cars to deliver all the reparations,
However the Finns did get quite a lot back from the Russians.
A lot of the equipment the Finns were forced to deliver to the Russians, the Russians subsequently found to their disgust was not Russian standard sized components such as undersize and oversize bearings, railroad car door hinges of odd sizes and locations as just two very small examples amongst hundreds of similar non Russian or non anybody else’s standard components .
The only place where the very expensive replacement components for all that immense amount of equipment supplied by the Finns under the reparations regime could be sourced was Finland !
All proudly told to myself late in the warm evenings by the leader of the Swedish world gliding championship team in 1974 at Waikerie,
A proud Finn by birth whose parents handed him over to their Swedish cousins to bring up at the start of the Winter War in 1938 as it seemed impossible for Finland to withstand the might of the Soviet Armies and survive as a nation.
Pentii was also CEO of Volvo’s European truck operations and a Colonel in the Swedish Army Reserve.
Apparently according to sources from long ago, the Russians did learn something from this as when Mao Zedong after the communist take over of China in 1948 asked the Russians for some hundreds of thousands of trucks to try and overcome some of China’s terrible communication problems.
The Chinese had to pay a high price for those trucks and when they got them, the Chinese discovered that every thread on those trucks was a left hand thread.
And the only place to get those very expensive left hand threaded spare parts was of course Russia.
20
My grandfather.
20
Always an interesting task every time a new Country gets mentioned is to check out their power generation totals.
Here we have Finland with a population of only 5.5 million people.
They have a total power generation of 68TWH, so they consume more power than we do here in Oz with respect to population, (Finland 68 for 5.5 and Australia 210 for 23) but that’s pretty understandable really as their heating would be horrendous, across all sectors of consumption.
However, look here at the breakdown for all that generation.
Nuclear – 22TWH (32.8%)
Hydro – 17TWH (25%)
Fossil Fuels – 18TWH (26.5%)
Wind – 0.5TWH (0.8%)
Biomass and Waste – 10TWH (14.7%) This is interesting really. It seems that they recycle their waste and biomass to extract the natural gas (methane) and then burn that in a similar manner as for natural gas turbine generation.
Tony.
40
Also a very efficient use of energy as “waste” heat from power generation is often used as piped hot water to heat buildings and dwellings around the towns and cities.
20
Wow!
Get in early enough (late 70’s) and build those Nukes, and then get the benefit of them for decades to come.
Two plants with two reactors at each plant. One plant has 2 X PWR X 496MW each, Russian design, but with American controlling and containment structures. Second plant, Swedish, 2 X BWR X 860MW.
All up, 2710MW, generating power at a Capacity Factor of, wait for it, 95%.
They are currently in the process of constructing a third reactor at the second (BWR) Plant, an Areva European Pressurised Reactor and this ONE reactor will be driving a 1600MW generator.
The cost will be $4.1 Billion.
For that same money, you would get two large scale Wind plants, 400 towers in all, and a Nameplate of 1000MW.
This ONE nuke will deliver FIVE times as much power each year, and over the life of the Nuclear power plant, well more than ten times the power.
I guess the Finns know, pretty much instinctively, where their money is best spent.
Tony.
80
Finland has a very strong timber industry. Much of this biomass/waste would be from that.
10
The Finns are a very pragmatic race. They are not the type to cut off their nose to spite their face and certainly not the type to run around crying the sky is falling.
10
The cold makes a harsh and unforgiving mistress.
00
The Soviets also did very well after the Vietnam war ended.
During it they shipped huge trainloads of equipment and munitions through China to Hanoi.
After it all ended in 1975 Vietnam became another Soviet of the great Russia and began making reparations.
Many tens of thousands of Vietnamese workers were sent across to help pay back the gift made earlier, with free labour and like the rest of Vietnam began to learn to speak Russian.
Never let it be said that Communists don’t keep accounts just like Capitalists.
KK
10
Have no fear at all. Most of the poor of the world live in warm climates.
The developed world functions on supply and demand. As heating energy requirements trend upward, supply will adjust at the most competitive price.
There’s no shortage of fossil fuels, so relax, be aware that mankind has a very solid history of adapting to climate.
Where in the world we live is solid proof of that.
60
What I meant was with the vast population that we now have, even current severe winters have a dramatic affect on the death toll in countries that suffer cold winters. What would be the result if severe winters became the norm and those winters say reached further down to normally warmer climates (not necessarily the tropics)? If sufficient heating is not available, then far more will die during the cold winters, now, not the far future.
30
Bemused:
It would cope with great difficulty in this technological age.
10
How would they cope – they would become Vikings and raid the warm areas.
00
Stand By,
Course starts Mar 2015 at the University of Queensland.
Sign up here:
https://www.edx.org/course/uqx/uqx-denial101x-making-sense-climate-4371#.VGsOitkgGc1
10
Not devastating but fascinating
So many questions to answer. Were near glacier climates actually quite warm and if so why. Is there something about the biology of the creatures we have yet to discover. Did the animals living in this region actually have adaptations not present in the extant populations?
Was there an aspect to the ecosystem in the region that allowed the survival of such animals that we don’t know about.
Let’s fund the research to find out.
14
You find it fascinating, I find it frivolous.
Just because there is a glacier nearby doesn’t mean it’s too cold.
The availability of fresh water from melting glaciers can be a boon for many animals.
Digging up a few bones at a site near an extinct glacier, obtaining coarse data, consulting a computer model then supposing some conclusions is at best a curio for interested followers.
Modern day scientists (so called) are so quick to draw conclusions I’m hard pressed not to think the purpose of modern research is to justify the grant obtained rather than improve knowledge.
90
I notice you’re not asking “if the models are crap”.
20
(5). Smart mammals (e.g. cats) can con humans into changing the environment for them.
80
Global warming is raging on. Canada has been experiencing a big freeze, but it’s moved south. Today’s lunchtime news: every state in the U.S.A. is below freezing. New York has a metre of snow.
100
Indeed, we’re getting the fringe of it here in MN. I lived up here in the 70’s and I’m seeing weather that reminds me of what I would see back then. In other words, nothing unusual just not what people had gotten used to over the last decade or so.
There is the problem. Us “old timers” see what is happening with the weather over the past few years and go “eh, seen it before” where the younger crowd who has been getting climate change and global warming shoved down their throats have only experienced the recent “mild” weather so any real changes from what they think is normal sends them into severe panic mode.
Combine that with the fact that it has really only been in the last 20-30 years that instant transmission of world events has been able to achieve the coverage it does via the internet. So all the “oh but we’re having more severe weather events now” crap is just that. We’ve had greater extremes in the past, we’ve had more “events” in the same relative time frame in the past, the major difference is there weren’t as many records of those events able to be transmitted to the rest of the world as they happened the way we can do today.
Scaring the gullible with tales of monsters under the bed when all there really are is dust bunnies under there.
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Way back in the early 1980’s, my sister got herself a puppy dog. Fresh out of the litter.
You should have seen the pup go crazy when it saw rain the first time in its life; aged about 8 months.
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I lived in the Australian outback for many years, Lightning Ridge. At the end of the last drought we had there we saw children doing the same when they saw rain for the first time in their lives 😛
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I love the warmists’ explanation for this, that it is the warm dark area of the ocean with no ice cleared by the Global Warming which is disturbing the arctic air flow, allowing it to bulge south. Voila. Plausibility becomes instant truth. So warming in the arctic is the problem causing the cooling in some lower latitudes. Not only is this obviously contrived and arbitrary, even if true, such variations used to be called weather.
The pervading story that any change from an average, even variation around an average is an effect of pollution and mankind and industry is to blame, especially with Carbon Dioxide. Strange though that the major chemical involved in every aspect the weather is the other pollutant produced in equal quantity in combustion, H2O. We should ban H2O, Oxygen Dihyride. Evil stuff. Or at least tax the production and give the cash to the UN.
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Where will all the Canadians go? Australia!
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Plus half of North America. Like Canada, 200 million people live in the area around New York from Chicago on the Great Lakes. Most of Europe too. It would get a bit crowded.
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Now who would have imagined that – to paraphrase the words of another blog – that mammals can adapt to just about every type of climate on this planet including underwater? I would never have thought that humans can live in a country like Canada as well as in Panama as well as in the Sahara. Do I need a sarc here?
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I met a man living in Tully who is half eskimo and now grows tropical fruits for a living. It seemed like a very sensible move to me. (Another, living very nearby, half Comanche Amerindian, and that was even before the night got started at the Feluga pub).
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Life in the Western world has improved so greatly in the last 100 years that it is unrecognizable, especially with the unexpected growth of consumerism, from microwaves to television, telephones, iPhones, personal cars, jet travel, holidays, wages, washing machines, convenience food, medicine, plastics, fabrics, metals, mass production of everything.
Now the big fear is that we might have to change, even a little, to accommodate a very slightly changing climate, even a shift in an average temperature which is only experienced twice a day at best. If we have to adapt even a tiny bit, it is someone’s fault and they should pay.
So this fear of climate change which has been whipped up by a compliant media is nothing more than an indulgence as the media hunts for news . Yes, things change and some climates are precarious, like the effects of the Gulf Stream or people living a fringe existence on low lying areas like Bangladesh, but generally mankind, the species which really matters, has no requirement to do anything unless there is an ice age. Our coal power allows us to live anywhere. We do miss those woolly mammoths and giant kangaroos though. They were delicious.
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So too were the moa’s and dodo birds.
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So too were the moa’s and dodo birds. (delicious)
But not the only reason !!
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“Fossils show those dang mammals lived in all the spots they weren’t supposed to live in.”
~ ~ ~
Remarkable new details about giant moose released as archaeologists confirm stone structure is world’s oldest.
It predates Peru’s famous Nazca Lines by thousands of years, archaeologists have announced.
But they are no nearer answering why ancient man made it, nor can they yet fathom which group built the geoglyph; archeological traces found so far in the area do not show a culture with sufficient refinement.
Located near Lake Zyuratkul in the Ural Mountains, it stretches for about 275 metres and depicts an animal with four legs, antlers and a long muzzle.
Now new details about the geoglyph have been released as archaeologists revealed it was most likely created between 3,000 and 4,000BC.
> Children were involved in the construction of a geoglyph in the Urals which was only discovered thanks to images taken from space. (discovered in 2011)
http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/features/f0005-children-from-lost-civilisation-helped-build-geoglyph-some-6000-years-ago/
~ ~ ~
Complete 9,000-year-old frozen bison mummy found in Siberia
Berlin, Germany (November, 2014) – Many large charismatic mammals went extinct at the end of the Ice Age (approx 11,000 years ago), including the Steppe bison, Bison priscus. A recent find in Eastern Siberia has uncovered one of these bison, literally, frozen in time.
The Yukagir bison mummy, as it is named, has a complete brain, heart, blood vessels and digestive system, although some organs have shrunk significantly over time. The necropsy of this unique mummy showed a relatively normal anatomy with no obvious cause of death. However, the lack of fat around abdomen of the animal makes researchers think that the animal may have died from starvation.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-11/sovp-c9y102714.php
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I’m guessing those cats didn’t get the memo…
10
Humans are mammals, and I’m pretty sure we live in every climate on the planet. From the highest peaks to the driest deserts. I’m sure the models didn’t predict the Eskimo population either.
A computer model is just a set of assumptions as a mathematical formula. Unless you test those assumptions against reality, the model is just a pretend thing.
I do stormwater modelling. And I know just how many assumptions are inside that field. It’s only because they are representative of how water flows downhill, that it is useful at all. Output may be to three decimal places, but it’s only pretend accuracy.
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Good to find someone who does useful modeling.
Mr Reynolds would be pleased.
In our Local Government area the city storm water drains are rarely cleaned or given any maintenance.
Reynolds numbers would be irrelevant in this situation.
I guess you maybe more into house and building water removal?
KK
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Hello KinkyKeith.
Local Council, somewhere near the Sunshine Coast. Stormwater for roads, town centres, urban, rural, as well as some flood mitigation.
I have been involved in major and minor river flooding too, but we have a dedicated department for that now.
House slab on ground was the worst idea to ever become popular.
10
heard this one on bbc yesterday:
18 Nov: UK Independent: Lewis Smith:Years of marine research sunk – because seals ate the evidence
In fact, the quick-learning seals have become so adept at picking up the signals, and realising they meant food was around, that academics fear their attempts to study the movement and behaviour of the tagged fish could have been skewed to a “profound” extent, ruining their findings…
Acoustic tags are increasingly being used by researchers to monitor shark populations. But there is a risk, at least for the smaller species and the young fish, of the subjects becoming “more detectable by prey species such as seals”, said Amanda Stansbury, of the University of St Andrews. She added that experiments in conjunction with the University of Cumbria had provided “concrete evidence” of the so-called dinner-bell effect…
“Research agencies worldwide invest significant resources in acoustic tagging studies to assess fish stocks and determine survival rates.
“As acoustic tags could make a fish more vulnerable to predation, tagging can lead to erroneous conclusions in such studies.”..
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/years-of-marine-research-sunk–because-seals-ate-the-evidence-9868995.html
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a week ago:
BBC: Lightning strikes ‘more as world warms’- 13 NOVEMBER
Lightning Will Increase With Global Warming, Study Says
The Weather Channel-14 Nov 2014
still being reported today:
Lightning strikes will surge with climate change
Science News for Students-10 hours ago
and now for something completely different!
19 Nov: BBC: Matt McGrath: Sun’s magnetic field boosts lightning strikes across the UK
The number of lightning strikes across the UK has been significantly affected by solar activity, according to new research.
Scientists say the Sun’s magnetic field is bending the Earth’s own field, increasing our exposure to cosmic rays…
Over five years, the UK experienced 50% more strikes when the Earth’s magnetic field was affected by the Sun…
The researchers believe the field is like a bar magnet, so as our star spins around sometimes the field points towards the Earth and sometimes away.
“What we found was there is significantly more lightning in the UK when the field is pointing towards the Sun than when its pointing away which was surprising,” said Dr Matt Owens from the University of Reading, the lead author on the study…
Recent research has also focussed on how climate change is likely to increase the amount of lightning strikes around the world. Dr Owens believes that the mechanism that his study identifies still holds, regardless of the temperature.
“If you heat up the atmosphere you’ve got more convection, more water vapour, you get more thunderclouds,” he said…READ ON
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30103561
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O/T
Scientists at the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture have found that they can harness photosynthesis – the process that plants use to convert light energy to chemical energy – to increase rice yields by up to 30 percent.
http://phys.org/news/2014-11-rice-yield-percent-enabled-photosynthesis.html
All that deadly carbon(sic) being converted to energy, only to emit oxygen as a waste product.
Mammals, in turn, consume the rice, furthering the carbon cycle.
We’re doomed I tell ya!
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another day, another cagw report:
19 Nov: AFP: Current pledges not enough to stop global warming: UN report
The report by the UN Environment Program and the World Resources Institute said the planet must aim for global carbon neutrality by mid-to-late century to head off the worst effects of climate change.
“There is still a significant gap between where emissions are going and where they need to be by 2030 if we’re going to limit warming to less than 2 degrees (Celsius),” said Taryn Fransen, project director of the Open Climate Network at the World Resources Institute.
“This report is telling us that we are pointing in the wrong direction — and time is running out for us to get back on track.”…
Then, global greenhouse gas emissions should be at least 50 per cent lower by 2050, said the report.
After that, total global greenhouse gas emissions — not just carbon — need to shrink to net zero sometime between 2080 and 2100…
About $310-360 billion dollars in public and private investment were spent on energy efficiency in 2012, and $244 billion spent on renewable energy, the report said, describing this funding as “significant.”
Further actions could include ending fossil fuel subsidies and raising fuel prices “so that they incorporate the costs of climate change and other environmental damages.”
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/current-pledges-not-enough-stop-global-warming-un-223145927.html#NDSl4zC
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survey by Yale/George Mason centers for “climate change communication” attempts to manufacture CONSENT! naturally, fairfax has already picked this up, abc/guardian sure to follow:
19 Nov: Bloomberg: Jim Polson: Most Back Limits on Coal Emissions Even If Prices Rise
The survey of 1,275 adults backs President Barack Obama’s efforts to bypass Congress and enact climate regulations by executive authority. Two thirds of those polled by researchers at Yale and George Mason universities support limits on carbon dioxide emissions even after being told such measures would raise power prices, they said today.
The survey also reveals a “misunderstanding” of climate change as only one in 10 of those polled said they know that more than 90 percent of climate scientists say humans are contributing to global warming. Just half blame human activity while even fewer are “very worried” about climate change.
“Very few Americans are aware that 97 percent of climate scientists agree that global warming is human caused,” the authors said. “This public misunderstanding of the scientific consensus — which has been found in each of our surveys since 2008 — has significant consequences.” …
About 23 percent of respondents “strongly support” curbs on coal plant emissions to “reduce global warming and improve public health,” while 44 percent “somewhat support” such measures…
Lead researchers included Anthony Leiserowitz at the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and Edward Maibach of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-19/most-back-limits-on-coal-emissions-even-if-prices-rise.html
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one week ago:
14 Nov: Bloomberg: Matthew Carr: American Carbon Market Seen as Winner With China Accord
“It is a big symbolic breakthrough, and to that extent will definitely help give renewed momentum to the global negotiations and hence to the idea of linked markets,” Lewis (Mark Lewis, analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux SA in Paris) said in an e-mailed response to questions…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-12/u-s-china-carbon-deal-to-boost-chance-of-global-market.html
today:
20 Nov: Bloomberg: Lynn Doan: First California-Quebec Joint Carbon Sale Canceled
California and the Canadian province of Quebec, which run North America’s biggest carbon market, cut short their first joint sale of greenhouse-gas allowances, citing “technical difficulties.”
Some companies weren’t able to submit bids for allowances during today’s auction, David Clegern, a spokesman for theCalifornia Air Resources Board, said in an e-mailed statement from Sacramento today. The agency said on its website that qualified bidders would receive an e-mail about rescheduling the sale…
“Until now, you could have called the rollout smooth,”said Jon Costantino, executive director of the Association of Carbon Market Participants and a senior adviser at the law firmManatt, Phelps & Phillips LLP in Sacramento. “It’ll be interesting to see what happened, how they’re going to reschedule and if the regulation even allows for that.”
The vendor that’s contracted to provide support services for the joint auction system is “evaluating the source of the problem,” Quebec’s environment ministry said in an e-mailed statement today…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-19/first-california-quebec-joint-carbon-sale-canceled.html
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why this video (with a GE ad to wade through first) is inserted at the top of this story is beyond me:
20 Nov: Australian: Sid Maher: Chinese emissions growth will swamp cuts by Australia and US
Additional reporting: Sarah Martin
VIDEO: John Hewson slams Abbott on climate
Official figures obtained by The Australian predict China’s carbon dioxide emissions growth will be more than double the reductions by Australia and the US over the next five years.
They will also outstrip the deep reductions pledged by the US to the end of the next decade…
As China has industrialised, its emissions have risen from 2.7 tonnes per person in 2000 to 6.2 tonnes per person in 2010…
China’s emissions, even on a low-growth scenario, will increase by 2631 million tonnes a year over the next five years and will still be 1831 million tonnes above its 2010 level by 2030, official figures show. This compares with a 35 million-tonne fall in Australian emissions between 2010 and 2020 and a projected 779 million-tonne fall in annual emissions from the US over the decade to 2020, if they meet their target…
Environment Minister Greg Hunt, writing in today’s Australian, notes that in 20 years, from 1990 to 2010, US emissions grew 53 times more than Australian emissions grew. While praising China’s economic achievements, Mr Hunt notes that from “1990 to 2010 China’s emissions increased from 3.4 billion tonnes to 9.8 billion tonnes — the fastest growth in emissions in human history and 640 times, or 64,000 per cent, greater than any change in Australia”…
The government figures released today are sourced from the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change biennial report 2014, the International Energy Agency Energy Projections Data Visualisation Tool and 2012 US Environmental Protection Agency non-CO2 anthropogenic modelling…READ ON
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/chinese-emissions-growth-will-swamp-cutsnbspby-australia-and-us/story-e6frg6xf-1227128895122
20 Nov: Australian: Greg Hunt: Unlike US and China, we meet our targets
A flaw in the climate debate is that, largely for domestic political reasons, real numbers around emissions have been ignored by many on the Left because of the inconvenient truth that Australia has been a star performer in curbing emissions growth, without a carbon tax, as shown in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change data and other figures released by the Australian government today…
This brings us to last week’s agreement between the US and China…
***First, it is non-binding.
***Second, contrary to what Shorten and others suggest, the agreement emphasises nuclear power, cleaning up coal-fired power stations, and shale gas, as well as encouraging renewables.
***Third, there is no mention of carbon taxes or equivalent schemes…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/unlike-us-and-china-we-meet-our-targets/story-e6frg6zo-1227128827521
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The video is where it is because Abbott has supported Aus coal exports to China
Therefore Abbott is directly responsible for Chinese emissions
LEFTOID “thinking” – pure hypocritical propaganda
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Ianl, Did they happen to offer an idea on how to replace the $6 billion p.a. we earn from coal to China?
00
.
Oh how life thrived during the Eocene warm period when CO2 was at a resonable level.
http://paleobiology.si.edu/geotime/main/eocene1.html
and
http://www.xylenepower.com/PETM.htm
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More models. 🙁
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I’ve been thinking.
Not always a good sign of anything rational emerging but Jo’s headline post here sort of got me thinking on another aspect of the controlling factors that influence animal and human behavior.
Now a full definition of our human species would include our totally unique ability over and above every other species in existence, to both use but most importantly, control energy in it’s various forms such as fire or water.
Using and controlling energy is the defining characteristic of Homo sapiens, of “humanity” and is found in no other animal species.
We as a species turn those latent energy sources into a useable, controllable resource that has proven to be both the definitive characteristic of our human species as well as driving our species through energy intensive technology to being the dominant species, other than bacteria, on the planet.
_______
My thinking for what it is worth goes thus;
I read a good deal of “SciFi “up to a few years ago but the “Sci” has caught up in many fields to the original “Fi”.
One of the occasional Sci Fi stories sometimes dealt with Hives as in Bees Hives and etc and this has got me thinking.
Today we have some 7.3 billion people on this planet, going onto a calculated [ modelled ??? ] maximum of from a little less than 9 billion to perhaps a bit over 10 billions by sometime mid 21 st century before starting a long slow global population decline.
A fraction of a percent difference in birth rates is the difference between these two minimum and maximum population numbers.
And the faster we lift the living standards of the global population, which can and will be done through the use of cheap, readily available, always on energy, the sooner our numbers will peak in time and the lower will be the maximum numbers before the decline begins.
But the real interesting item is that by 2007 just on one half of the entire global population was estimated to live in cities of over 100,000 people. Obviously that percentage is rapidly going up as everywhere urbanisation, the living in vast teeming hives of humanity becomes the norm for our species.
In Australia for example less than 5% of the population are now classified as Rural dwellers.
In just on two or three generations mankind has shifted from a open space dwelling species to what is looking like becoming more and more a Hive dwelling species.
Even the stratification of society into the elite, the bureaucratic, political and academic elite, each a separate substrata of the hive elite structure are being perpetuated as those in those sub strata send their kids to similar institutions and find them jobs in a similar social strata occupation.
Just like in insect Hives.
The workers with a whole vast array of sub strata in skills and status who keep things running in humanity’s vast hives of tens of millions of individuals plus our quota of drones are taking on all the aspects of an organised hive structure.
And then there are the interactions with other Hives, some friendly, some with complete enmity.
There is competition for limited resources. Witness the constant competition between the large Sydney Hive and the Melbourne Hive with the Brisbane Hive fast catching up.
Meanwhile the most isolated large Hive in the world, Perth goes from strength to strength as it has very little or no competition for resources.
Increasingly most Hive dwellers never leave the Hive, the big city. The Hive has created everything they need for personal survival, social interactions, resources and entertainment.
It becomes their entire life and they have no vision of what might exist outside of the Hive and their place and status within the Hive strata they occupy.
With Hive organization, the structure using Nature’s template is for a dominant elite strata using nepotism as a entry for those of the same genetic and family inheritance into become the rulers of all of the entire hive dwellers.
They through a evolution type learning process over aeons of time,[ perhaps only another century or so in humanity’s case,] have evolved this particular universal social structure for all of the occupant interdependent Hive / Nest type social structures.
Will a social compact, a hive structure emerge which recognises , like the Middle Ages, the social strata one occupies through multiple family generations?
As humanity’s numbers increase and as the concentrations of humanity evolves into ever more of our species becoming part of the urbanisation process with less and less of our numbers continuing to live outside of these vast urban, Hive type structures we call Cities, is humanity or will humanity over the next century or so evolve into a Hive dwelling species with all the characteristics of the insect Hives we all know?
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Nope
Cities can neither feed nor energise themselves
And most “hive dwellers” are completely unaware of how these quite complex things are actually achieved – I believe that is one of the reasons that CAGW propaganda has been effective within urban populations
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All insect hives and nests have “scouts” out looking for new sources of food and energy. They are actually called “scouts” in Entomological studies and might even be another specialized sub group within the colony.
Then there are the field collectors, the ones we see scooting along on their well marked tracks or flight paths from food source or a neighbouring nest or hive or a sub branch of their own hive or nest.
Amazingly or perhaps not considering our evolutionary background, those insects act just like we see humans acting on the very busy highways connecting major human Hives,
All this rushing traffic first finds and then brings back the raw materials to the Hive / nest to be processed into a useable form by the colony insects.
Some species of leaf cutter ants have actual farms / processing plants deep underground in constant temperatures where the highly specialized fungus, [ an ant / fungus symbiotic arrangement. One can’t exist without the other ] is farmed to act as the food input for the colony.
Human hives have scouts, the grain and stock animal buyers out all over the globe, all sourcing the raw food products to be taken back to the City / Hive to be processed for consumption by the Hive dweller millions.
Likewise with energy sources where resources are sought out by a tiny segment of the population to be used as energy sources to run the City / Hive.
Mankind did exactly the same as the insects in providing for his small numbers until the advent of the Industrial Revolution in the 1700’s and the introduction of coal as an energy source which also enabled the population explosion of our species over the last 300 years.
In 1500 AD the world population was around 500 million.
It reached a Billion in about 1800.
And that population growth then and since was arguably due entirely to the advent of cheap, fossil fueled energy from coal at first and then by the start of the 20th century oil was making it’s mark on the global energy scene.
Wit those numbers there appears to be a evolutionary traits developing in the human species at a very rapid rate as we shift from small semi independent family and tribal groups of a couple of thousand years ago to a hive structure comprising millions of individuals in one co-operative intertwined mass grouping of Homo sapiens, a Human Hive.
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All of that is reasonable, but somewhat tangential to my point
In human terms, the “scouts” as you call them, are actually harassed – farmers have been subject to ongoing and increasing legal interference from environmental groups while energy suppliers are subjected to all of that plus direct physical interference
Transport of various food and energy produce is likewise subjected to harassment
Your analogy is interesting but imperfect
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By some serendipity or alchemy, there is now a post on one example of such harassment
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It is interesting how the dominance of funding has created new descriptions. Ambulance chasing paleontologists are now paleoclimatologists, as if they are physical scientists instead of just zoologists specializing in extinct animals. (cue our Tim).
Geologists like Prof Ian Plimmer however are considered not climate scientists, even though they have much reason to claim expertise as both physical and observational scientists concerned with climate and earth conditions even hundreds of millions of years ago and what happened since.
So what about Prof Ian Plimer being a Geoclimatologist? Or for those concerned with climate’s effect on life and happiness, consider a Psychoclimatologist? After all the ARC handed out $24million for research into the causes of depression from 600 to 1400 in Southern Europe, presumably from the coffee cup fossil record. Someone who studied the development of bicycles as influenced by climate would be a Cycloclimatologist? Then someone who studied the fossil record of bacteria would be a Bioclimatologist or even a microbioclimatologist?
There. It has been done. All those new Green jobs to go with the windmills.
At what point has this all become nonsense when even the President of the US claims that 97% of (all) scientists agree with man made climate science. Doesn’t he read?
Basically Climate Change has lost control of any connection to science and yes, Climate can mean anything and people who push climate change are past caring whether it makes sense.
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I would venture a guess that any self respecting scientist who is staying true to the scientific method doesn’t want to be called a climatologist, have climatologist appended to the name of their profession, or be in any way associated with that bunch.
From what I have seen “climatologists” or anyone with “climatesomething” tacked onto the name of their profession are mediocre scientists who think they should be celebrities and have latched onto this entire mess as a means of getting attention.
After all, who would know about Mann, Trenberth, Cook, etc. outside of academia if it were not for their climate fear mongering? They would be just more career academics looking for that one paper to bring them fame. So they cooked up some papers to get their fame and will be kicking and screaming like a spoiled child at anyone who tries and take it away from them.
These people are nobodies that managed to get themselves into the spotlight and are milking it for all it is worth.
Me, I’m a nobody too, but I’m okay with that. Never have cared for too much attention as it usually prevents me from doing what I want to be doing.
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Barack Obama takes part in an “ears” competition during the G20 Summit. I think he won.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B2hTSxkCcAAYXww.jpg
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The Backslider –
given u have inserted a G20 laugh into the thread, here’s another for those who can recall German and UK Daily Mail headlines about Putin dining alone, which used a pic with a waiter obscuring Brazilian President Rousseff sitting opposite him. of course, Putin & Rousseff were simply the first to sit down at the table, but the fossilised MSM got their story.
ignore the continuing ABC Obamania:
20 Nov: ABC: Jessica Hinchliffe: Brisbane chef Ben O’Donoghue chuffed: Obama returned for seconds
“Vladimir Putin was pretty cool; in the news afterwards everyone said he was given the cold shoulder, but his table was the most social out of all three of the tables.”…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-20/brisbane-chef-chuffed-when-obama-came-back-for-seconds/5905544
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OT. Stephen Goddard emulates SkS. !
I wonder how much of his work are equally as UN-scientific. ???
I will no longer treat his site as “trustworthy”, nor post links to it. 🙁
Such a pity !!
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Hard to imagine why he would get so uppity about The Greenhouse Effect.
I posted a reply to him (in moderation).
10
Not really. It is a hypothesis, not a theory, that has been treated like a theory to the point that many don’t question it at all. Some are afraid to question it as they are then immediately attacked with the “well EVERYONE knows it” line of argument.
Is there an atmospheric effect, using the phrasing many others prefer, myself included? Certainly there is.
Is whatever results from that effect, among the many things that transpire within the atmosphere, anywhere near as strong an effect on our climate and weather as alarmists claim? I don’t think so, empirical evidence thus far does not support them.
The name “greenhouse” generates imagery which, though desired for obvious reasons by alarmists, is not in any way accurate for an atmospheric system.
Many, myself included, have a problem with it because of the word “greenhouse” and what that implies. That there is some atmospheric effect that all of the gases contribute to is not, at least for me, where the problem lies. Rather it is equating the effect of an trace gas in the atmosphere that is such a miniscule part of the atmospheric composition with such a dramatic role towards temperatures when, the last time I looked into this, everyone seems to have it backwards in that the CO2 wasn’t the cause of but rather is an effect of warming.
If CO2 indeed lags temperatures rather than leads it, then it isn’t the cause. If it is an effect and part of that effect is to mitigate increases then labeling it a “greenhouse” gas is entirely improper.
Does it have some effect? I’m sure it does, but I don’t think anyone really knows yet what that effect is.
A lot of assumptions have been made based on some very bad science by Tyndall and Arrhenius which, it seems to me, some people get overly defensive over as they are afraid that if they question it as well then no one will listen to them on other matters.
So after that long diatribe on this matter we can sum it up as: It’s an ego thing.
At least that’s the way it looks to me.
00
I think the poor naming of “the greenhouse effect” is a lot of the problem. It means two different things.
And so when someone says the greenhouse effect isn’t real, they are right in a way.
And when Steven says “The absorption and emission of LW radiation by greenhouse gases has been observed for over a century.” he’s also right.
00
I disagree. Were you to remove the word greenhouse from that sentence so it read simply “gases” then I would agree. But as long as the word is in there I will disagree.
If all gases absorb and emit LW radiation, some more than others, some less, then why do we need the word greenhouse in there to specify those considered to be more reactive? The only purpose of the word that I can see is far from scientific and that is, much like using the word carbon when one really means carbon dioxide, to generate the desired imagery in the minds of the public.
Someone engaged in seeking a scientific understanding of these gases wouldn’t need the word. All they would need is the molecular makeup of the gas and their education should be sufficient for them to determine if they are dealing with a more or less reactive gas.
00
“If CO2 indeed lags temperatures rather than leads it”
CO2 has never caused higher temperature, and elevated CO2 has never been able to MAINTAIN high temperatures.
The old AlGore graph with the peaks of CO2 being close to the peak in temp show this to be a FACT.
Those peaks in CO2 were NOT able to maintain the peaks in temperature.
THERE IS NO TIPPING POINT !!!
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Exactly why I say it appears to be more of a mitigator or regulator of temperature than a “cause” of temperature increase. Nothing I have seen so far outside of lab experiments which in no way correlate with or represent the behavior in a mixed gas atmosphere indicate it causes temperature increase.
I’m studying engineering, electrical to be specific. Granted there is a lot of fluff on campus I need to wade through but in general, from people I work with who have been in engineering for years, online contact with engineers as through this blog, and other “conversations” it would appear that engineers don’t think much of Tyndall, or Arrhenius.
The more I look into their work myself, the less I think of them as well. I’m not even going to get started on Fourier.
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Hey, a lot of Fourier’s mathematics was pretty darn clever.
His methods and analysis have lead to many great engineering achievements in many branches of engineering.
But no-one is always right all the time.
Same with Tyndall and Arrhenius. Some great contributions toward understanding, but people accepting every little detail of their work.. seriously ??
That sort of acceptance leads to stagnation and regression, not progress.
Which is, of course, where so-called climate science is currently going…. stagnation and regression.
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“stagnation and regression.”..
and this point fully explains why the Greens and Labor and the far-left trolls are so sucked in, and attracted by it.
It is who they are.
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Oh yes, Fourier’s mathematical work is fundamental to a great deal of engineering, but once he stepped outside of mathematics the man had issues.
One could argue he was “step one” of the whole “CO2 causes global warming” belief. Yet if one looks at his thought process behind that it is completely wrong and filled with misconceptions that were, relatively speaking, common to his era.
The other two built upon that. Yet they didn’t really correct it. So now we get people using spectrum analyses in a laboratory environment saying “oh see it’s true” when all they are doing is making mathematical guesses at what this or that gas would do in the atmosphere based on what they were able to do to it in a laboratory. When it gets right down to it we don’t really know, but observations of what is taking place now that people are scrutinizing the concepts more closely, or at least while some are, don’t appear to match the claims and expectations.
So while they had some definite contributions not all of them were good ones.
Mostly I think engineers, from ones I have spoken with about the matter, can’t stand them is the amount of time that was spent dealing with their mathematics when people in other majors were out partying. That and the fact that some of their ideas have caused more issues than they solved.
But again, that’s how I see it, your mileage may vary.
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What we actually have is a fictitious “scare” perpetrated by a small group of socialists totalitarian control freaks and left wing government paid academics, then promulgated/propagandised by the far-left wing media organisations.
Alternative energy in the form of wind and solar are NON-SOLUTIONS for a NON-PROBLEM.
It only way either can exist is by stupid governments wasting tax-payers money on massive subsidies.
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Just came across this video. Looks like those sorry penguins and sea lions are in for it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuKVk1gMJDg
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