Matt Ridley has produced the shortest whole, killer summary of the sordid state of climate science, science journalism, and science associations for Quadrant magazine. This is the ideal single-chapter-length-work to bring in anyone who missed the last twenty years of clima-farce, scandal, hubris and hypocrisy.
Matt is not just summing up the way his career as a science writer has transformed, but also writing the best review of the IPA book “Climate Change: The Facts” that I have yet seen. He talks about the way science writers used to ignore the papers that didn’t impress them, and leave it up to the scientists to take them apart, but now the supposedly most esteemed scientists stay silent while abject failures not only get published in the scientific world, but get absurdly lauded in the media, and tweeted by “the President”. Formerly great scientific institutions have turned themselves inside out:
“The Royal Society once used to promise “never to give their opinion, as a body, upon any subject”. Its very motto is “nullius in verba”: take nobody’s word for it. Now it puts out catechisms of what you must believe in. “
Matt’s career, like mine, started with faith that science and the human industries of it, were self-correcting. “For much of my life I have been a science writer”, he explains, but now “…thanks largely to climate science, I have changed my mind. It turns out bad ideas can persist in science for decades, and surrounded by myrmidons of furious defenders they can turn into intolerant dogmas.” He feels betrayed by an industry he once championed. I too used to communicate the awe and value of research, but now end up mostly only awed at the mountain of money wasted on self-satirical works like Lewandowsky, and Cook et al. I mock my former alma maters, UWA and ANU. My role in science communication is to point out the grand failure of my profession, who are trained to sell science to the public, but should be serving the public by asking the hard questions instead. Science Communicators should be the guardians of the scientific method, but most science writers don’t seem to know what it is. They should be the backstop when the institutions of science fail, not the cheerleaders for wasted public funds.
If you enjoy Matt’s article, you’ll enjoy the whole book — available through the IPA in Australia and now at Amazon in paperback: Climate Change: The Facts
I wrote about monopolistic funding and the rise of the volunteer auditors back in 2009, and Matt is one of the few to carry and develop this theme, documenting the importance of political support and the rise of the science bloggers to fill the vacuum. Where, he asks, is the outrage from mainstream scientists? Where indeed?
The democratisation of science
Any one of these scandals in, say, medicine might result in suspensions, inquiries or retractions. Yet the climate scientific establishment repeatedly reacts as if nothing is wrong. It calls out any errors on the lukewarming end, but ignores those on the exaggeration end. That complacency has shocked me, and done more than anything else to weaken my long-standing support for science as an institution. I repeat that I am not a full sceptic of climate change, let alone a “denier”. I think carbon-dioxide-induced warming during this century is likely, though I think it is unlikely to prove rapid and dangerous. So I don’t agree with those who say the warming is all natural, or all driven by the sun, or only an artefact of bad measurement, but nor do I think anything excuses bad scientific practice in support of the carbon dioxide theory, and every time one of these scandals erupts and the scientific establishment asks us to ignore it, I wonder if the extreme sceptics are not on to something. I feel genuinely betrayed by the profession that I have spent so much of my career championing.
There is, however, one good thing that has happened to science as a result of the climate debate: the democratisation of science by sceptic bloggers. It is no accident that sceptic sites keep winning the “Bloggies” awards. There is nothing quite like them for massive traffic, rich debate and genuinely open peer review.
Well, internet trolls are roaming the woods in every subject, so what am I complaining about? The difference is that in the climate debate they have the tacit or explicit support of the scientific establishment. Venerable bodies like the Royal Society almost never criticise journalists for being excessively alarmist, only for being too lukewarm, and increasingly behave like pseudoscientists, explaining away inconvenient facts.
Matt writes with speed and wit, adroitly packing whole scandals into a mere paragraph.
Jim Hansen, recently retired as head of the Goddard Institute of Space Studies at NASA, won over a million dollars in lucrative green prizes, regularly joined protests against coal plants and got himself arrested while at the same time he was in charge of adjusting and homogenising one of the supposedly objective data sets on global surface temp. How would he be likely to react if told of evidence that climate change is not such a big problem?
He writes about the bizarre overt Psychology of Taboo that is used to crush the mildest debate and to polarize those who take a sensible, but invisible, middle road:
But the commentators ignore all these caveats and babble on about warming of “up to” four degrees (or even more), then castigate as a “denier” anybody who says, as I do, the lower end of the scale looks much more likely given the actual data. This is a deliberate tactic. Following what the psychologist Philip Tetlock called the “psychology of taboo”, there has been a systematic and thorough campaign to rule out the middle ground as heretical: not just wrong, but mistaken, immoral and beyond the pale. That’s what the word denier with its deliberate connotations of Holocaust denial is intended to do. For reasons I do not fully understand, journalists have been shamefully happy to go along with this fundamentally religious project.
So where’s the outrage from scientists at this presidential distortion? It’s worse than that, actually. The 97 per cent figure is derived from two pieces of pseudoscience that would have embarrassed a homeopath. The first was a poll that found that 97 per cent of just seventy-nine scientists thought climate change was man-made—not that it was dangerous. A more recent poll of 1854 members of the American Meteorological Society found the true number is 52 per cent.
The second source of the 97 per cent number was a survey of scientific papers, which has now been comprehensively demolished by Professor Richard Tol of Sussex University, who is probably the world’s leading climate economist. As the Australian blogger Joanne Nova summarised Tol’s findings, John Cook of the University of Queensland and his team used an unrepresentative sample, left out much useful data, used biased observers who disagreed with the authors of the papers they were classifying nearly two-thirds of the time, and collected and analysed the data in such a way as to allow the authors to adjust their preliminary conclusions as they went along, a scientific no-no if ever there was one. The data could not be replicated, and Cook himself threatened legal action to hide them. Yet neither the journal nor the university where Cook works has retracted the paper, and the scientific establishment refuses to stop citing it, let alone blow the whistle on it. Its conclusion is too useful.
This should be a huge scandal, not fodder for a tweet by the leader of the free world. Joanne Nova, incidentally, is an example of a new breed of science critic that the climate debate has spawned. With little backing, and facing ostracism for her heresy, this talented science journalist had abandoned any chance of a normal, lucrative career and systematically set out to expose the way the huge financial gravy train that is climate science has distorted the methods of science. In her chapter in The Facts, Nova points out that the entire trillion-dollar industry of climate change policy rests on a single hypothetical assumption, first advanced in 1896, for which to this day there is no evidence.
The assumption is that modest warming from carbon dioxide must be trebly amplified by extra water vapour—that as the air warms there will be an increase in absolute humidity providing “a positive feedback”. That assumption led to specific predictions that could be tested. And the tests come back negative again and again. The large positive feedback that can turn a mild warming into a dangerous one just is not there. There is no tropical troposphere hot-spot. Ice cores unambiguously show that temperature can fall while carbon dioxide stays high. Estimates of climate sensitivity, which should be high if positive feedbacks are strong, are instead getting lower and lower. Above all, the temperature has failed to rise as predicted by the models.
Matt Ridley was one of the writers, like Mark Steyn, I used to admire from a distance when I was an underling in the science communication world. It is one of the few but priceless rewards of taking the hard road — to know them both.
Mark Steyn has the full list of Amazon subsidiary pages to buy The Book.
This is just one sixth of the full excellent essay at Quadrant magazine.
Matt Ridley is an English science journalist whose books include The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves. A member of the House of Lords, he has a website at www.mattridley.co.uk. He declares an interest in coal through the leasing of land for mining.
I spent many years debating religion and that was a frequently used argument of mine – especially against Creationism. I have been robbed; I can no longer use the argument.
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Faith in science never comes to my mind. I am geoscientist, geologist and I know science is created by people. The level of science is proportionally related to people,s quality. Sadly over the years most people in science are mediocre. This is related to:
1. People,s quality minds first
2. Their level of knowledge
3. Drive, strength, courage and caring about science
4. Individuality
In my long career I met only a handful of people that would fulfill all of these criteria. I am striving to achieve them all them time and hence my journey in science is often alone as most of them do not stand up to me.
Dariusz Jablonski
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Dariusz, agreed but I would add there are far too many so-called universities and academics in all disciplines – including lots of pretend ones – but especially in all branches of “science”.
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Agree me@home. I recently read the results of a “study” by a psychologist that claimed dogs had no memory. They only followed a diurnal pattern of behavior. Incidentally, he got his information from a literature review, not by experiments.
I suppose he has never seen a video of a soldier returning home after years of absence to the demonstrated delight of his dog.
In any event the US government is wasting $billions funding such social science studies and the expense of funding such things as medical research, space research, etc.; is it any wonder that science today is suffering an infusion on non-scientists practicing their craft and calling it science?
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Non scientists practice Which Craft?
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Leonard
Obviously didn’t have a dog to educate him IMO.
One example – ours regularly show that they have the landscape pattern memorised and any change, like a fallen tree branch, is barked to your attention.
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It’s not only science that has allowed itself to be ruined by ideology.
I spent formative years at Fairfax and ABC under strict rules of probity and ethics, and look at them now. The rule that applied for young journalists-in-training was to question everything and take nothing at face value.
Now that warning is for the reader.
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An ex-journalist …?
We understand, and we support you in coming to terms with your previous problem. You are among friends here. 😉
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Congratulations to Matt on his wonderful Poe!
He sure knows how to stir the possum.
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Unlike you, I have no history within science, though I do like to think that I have a scientific mind. Whenever I read a report that began, “Scientists say…” I was fully prepare to believe what the article had to say, whatever the subject might be; I only balked when the article was about something that I knew something about, and what was being said was contrary to my own experience or ideas. Even then, I was prepared to accept the others tales as truth – this is what the writer, Michael Crichton, has described as Gell-Mann Amnesia:
Nowadays, however, whenever I see that phrase, “Scientists say…” my immediate response has become, “Oh, yeah. What baloney are they trying to feed us, now?”
Actually, in its own way, this is perhaps a good thing, as we start to become less likely to be suckered into something just because a “scientist” said.
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RR,
You may be in poor company there.
The Pope obviously has no faith in creationism either.
Unbelievable that the architect of the universe would build a piece so flawed that we could break it.
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RR,
That post came across all wrong, I should have included that the Pope has more faith in climate science than in creationism alluding to his complete off biblical meme, long awaited whatever-it-was.
Apologies for any unintended offense.
What the hell, early morning, long drive ahead to see some real science in action at Supanova 2015, I mean how will we know what to discover if we can’t imagine it first?
BTW – I’m pretty sure none of the world’s diverse religious texts warn about death-by-climate change.
Says a lot about faith in things that can’t be seen against faith in things that can’t be replicated.
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JB,
Yes, I was a bit puzzled by your first answer. Fortunately, I have the hide of a hippo (think Reggie Perrin), so you are unlikely to offend me – however, I might respond like-for-like (or unlike, if you prefer)!
I was also puzzled by the Pope’s reluctance to consider the possibility that the way mankind is going is not part of God’s grand plan; I am sure that His Holiness will be the first to admit that he does not have a direct two-way link with God – only one has had that, and He was God, Himself, anyway (which is a bit of a cheat, perhaps) – so how can His Holiness be so sure what God has planned?
How far can we “damage” the Earth? Should we be allowed to till the soil? Should we then limit to this tilling? How about ploughing? Or laying the foundations of a house? What about a condominium? Or, perhaps, a huge tidal barrage? Why is the destruction of vast acres of scenic beauty for “wind-farms” preferable to that of a few acres for conventional power-generation? Why is the extraction of rocks from deep underground in “manual fracking” preferable over leaving the rock in situ and just extracting the energy source by hydraulic fracking? What is the limit (if, indeed, there is one)?
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RR,
It’d be like burning at the stake the first human for chipping a piece of flint into a tool, but having to wait for lightning to strike the tinder.
One thing for sure, the Pope wont be the correct person to refer to for ministering on these questions of faith.
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Well of course the Pope is a South American and is sadly culturally out of touch with the Industrial Revolution which essentially was a British phenomenon.
However it seems that Catholics from a British cultural background are not taking the Pope too seriously on his grasp of climate science. Some time ago I came across a conservative American news site which gives a religious slant, across the religious spectrum from Catholics to Evangelicals, to news and social issues (www.stream.org). I checked to see how they enjoyed the Pope’s heretical views, to that site, on Climate Change.
Here are a couple of telling responses:
https://stream.org/laudato-si-science-global-warming-loud-clear-mistaken/
https://stream.org/pope-francis-goes-off-rails/
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Yep,
Loud, and clear, and mistaken.
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Many thanks L J. Both links are fascinating. Bet neither the ABC nor the SMH use them as references.
Cheers,
Dave B
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Its even more amusing that that James.
Gods CEO (The Pope) is supposed to know exactly when and how the “end of days” will come upon us.
Why does the church care of the four housemen arrive to a rainforest or a dessert?
Yesterdays news was filled with such a bizarre combination of superstition, criminal opportunism, pseudo science and cognitive dissonance, I could have been reading a stone tablet describing yesterdays witch burning ceremony at the temple, circa 1200AD
I despair for humanity, not because of climate change but because of the virulent virus of stupidity that seems to grow exponentially with each passing day.
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R R, that is also my experience. I have never read a newspaper article about something about which I had direct personal knowledge without finding factual errors, often gross ones. In one case, I was interviewed by ‘phone by a reporter from a major Australian newspaper for a story about a multi-million dollar confidential deal the organisation for which I worked in a management capacity was involved in only to find that the ensuing article quoted a “spokesperson”, i.e. me – the only person interviewed – as saying the direct opposite of what I had said. “No” became “Yes”. Were it not for a very understanding CEO this could have been very embarrassing. As my father used to warn me when I was young “There are only two things you should believe in a newspaper – the date and the price and don’t be too sure about those”.
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me@home, thanks. What you say goes, perhaps double, for broadcast journalism. I will relate an experience from my time in Australia.
I was on a scientific exchange from the US to OZ originally funded under SEATO but then continued by the US State Dept. and the Australian Foreign Ministry (I believe)about 25 years ago. I had occasion to be interviewed from a local TV reporter (a local for the ABC if my memory is correct) about my visit to Australia concerning soil and water conservation research. We chatted for a few minutes before the interview and seemed to be in general agreement vis a vis soil and water conservation research in the two countries. It was a pleasant and enjoyable somewhat technical discussion.
When time for the interview he showed me where to stand and said just relax and we will talk as before. The camera started running and he stuck the microphone in my face and said something like “So you are here to tell us how Australian farmers are destroying farmlands through accelerated erosion.” (this is as close to his exact words that I can remember.)
I was immediately shocked and felt betrayed by a new friend. So I proceeded to say something like. Not at all, I am here to share my research experience on soil erosion research in the United States with your scientists and engineers also working in soil and water conservation research. I think we have much to share and to learn from each other.
After my reply he went on to elaborate on my coming to Australia to show how farmers on Australia were damaging soil resources blah blah blah. then he waved his hand to stop the camera and that was the end of the interview.
The “so called” journalist turned and walked away.
I learned that day about attack journalism and vowed not to be caught like that again.
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I recently heard something similar on BBC radio, I think the show was called “Hard Talk” or something like that.
The female BBC interviewer was asking really tough questions in a very aggressive way.
However they made an editing error and you heard some of the REAL QUESTIONS that the interviewer asked.
This error revealed that the actual interview was just a casual conversation, but later they overdubbed the questions with a much harder more aggressive tone.
This trick completely changed the interview, it made the person being interviewed sound weak and [snip], and made the BBC interviewer appear strong and forceful.
It was journalistic [snip].
And we pay for this?
[If you avoid the words I snipped you won’t be stuck in moderation. Thanks.] AZ
40
The article attached,
Written about medical research,
Could have be written about climate,
A science the alarmists besmirch.
We all need to realise,
That it’s to a political agenda
The climate scientists and the media
Try to make us surrender.
The truth is out there,
It’s not difficult to find,
But if we don’t open our eyes
To the truth we’ll be blind.
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[Mr Pettersen, sorry, can we save these disussions for Unthreadeds? The topic here is science, science communications, science writing, etc, not the second law and not spectroscopy. Forgive me. We have debated small experiments to the end here. A bottle is not our atmosphere. There are too many confounders. But feel free to bring it up on an unthreaded. I don’t want us to go off topic so soon in a way that will fill the thread. – Jo]
The hard question would be:
Why haven’t anybody performed an experiment to check the AGW theory?
How hard can it be ?
The internet is full of videos claiming to show the effect of co2 but every singel video is [snip] wrong.
If co2 absorbs IR from the ground and emitts the same back all you need is a wessel to contain the gass and a device to read temperature.
[Please avoid such terms and you’ll not get trapped in moderation. I changed to acceptable wording. Highly charged words contribute nothing to the debate. Thanks.] AZ
30
That experiment has been done, many times, in the lab using long glass tubes. The science is called spectroscopy. Tyndall did the first experiments, and reported them to the RS in London in 1859.
What is not known well are the feedbacks. What is known is that the water vapor feedbacks in climate models are overstated (no tropical troposphere hot spot) and that observational energy budget studies show climate sensitivity is about half that of the models, with no possibility for a fat tail leadiing to precautionary principle arguments.
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All the experiments show only spectrum that gasses “may” absorb or radiate flux under certain circumstances. No atmospheric gas absorbs any surface radiative flux as each and every molecule is at or above the temperature required for radiative equilibrium via convective not radiative energy transfer. Exit flux accumulates all the way to 220 km.. Any claim of positive feedback is but a fantasy!
32
weekend Unthreaded coming up.
I look forward to debating this subject again!
21
after only following this subject for short while
everyday is a new surprise
yesterday’s post on BOM keeping their methods secret is a stunner
how does this go on?
I can barely believe it
nor can I understand how it does not get more international attention
here, here to the democratization of science through the blogosphere
I find myself compelled to comment
as to be in my small way on the right side of history
surely this end is near for what looks like to me one of the grandest charades (or mistake?) of all time
thanks Joanne
what your doing may more important than we can yet see
241
What’s there not to like?? An entity/substance that unless you give US all your money and make penance will destroy You sometimes in the Future! Give us the money and we will intercede/fix the problem! You are still going to die, but at least you will die knowing that you have helped save the innocent/world…. Even the Pope said that: give us your money and we will redistribute it for you…(After we take 70% off for our running expenses..)
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A basic tenent of science is the null hypothesis. In climate science the null bypothesis is, or should be, that increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide will not cause an increase in global temperatures, and, in fact, the evidence of unaltered satellite temperature measurements since their inception some 18 years ago validates this. However, in climate science this tenent is replaced by terms such as consensus, that 97% of scientists agree that global warming is caused by human activity, the precautionary principle, and supported by a totally biased media where one does not see nor hear of any news apart from stories of wicked global warming now climate change.
What is not explained is that this wicked gas, carbon dioxide, is the basis of life itself and is used by plants to produce carbohydrate upon which we all rely for sustenance. And that an increase in temperature would result in more carbohydrate since photosynthesis is a photo-chemical reaction. As well, the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, most of which is natural, are controlled by its partial pressure and its solubilty in water; it is absorbed by the oceans in the higher latitudes and released in tropical waters nearer the equator.
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Robert,
Small correction to what you wrote: “… 97% of scientists, that were surveyed, agree that … “.
That is the split-hair that protects the perpetrators from accusations of lying. They just had to choose their friends carefully. That little detail does, however, indicate that the malfeasance was premeditated.
261
Absolutely correct, BUT … you are both correct as that 97% figure is a distortion being used by promoters of this failed hypothesis to try and keep it alive.
101
Featured on the front page of NASA’s 2015 Climate Change: HOW DO WE KNOW? is the heading SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS followed by – Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that climate warming trends over the last century etc. References are made to “authorities” like J. Cook, N. Oreskes W. Anderigg and surprisingly Doran and Zimmerman who question the validity of 97% process.
This NASA document confidently preaches CAGW propaganda with sections on Sea level rise, Global temperature rise, Warming oceans, Shrinking ice sheets, Declining Arctic sea ice, Glacial retreat, Extreme events, Ocean acidification and Decreased snow cover.
It’s hard to argue with people I know who regard NASA as a reputable science organisation that would not provide scientific facts. I know that NASA is just one of O’Bama’s propaganda machine like NOAA, DOE, NSF, USDA, EPA and the DOI all toeing the Party line.
It’s hard to beat this glossy stuff but keep up the good work Jo, we really need you NOW probably more than ever.
100
It’s only the Doran & Zimmerman survey that can claim the 97% is of scientists, but not so much of those surveyed , the vast majority of who were eliminated, but only of those highly selected 70 or so out of thousands who make their living from publish ing in Climate Science.
The Cook survey of papers relied not so much on selection of those surveyed as on of those (chums) doing the surveying (in their ‘Academic’ tree house)
40
Yet another correction, Rereke, surely: “…97% of scientist, selected from those who
were surveyedresponded to a survey, agree that…”Also, Robert, if you look at those maps showing oceanic pH values, the higher latitudes, oddly, tend to be higher than the lower latitudes – in other words, if they are absorbing more CO2 (thus, according to theory, getting “more acidic”), then this does not seem to be affecting their pH or, if it does, it is affecting it negatively!
30
A proven null hypothesis is the end of the road for project funding. It requires a brave and carefree individual to present such findings. Maybe a touch of self confidence as well. These qualities are not the outstanding characteristics of the majority of people employed by large public and private institutions. People with those qualities tend to be more likely to be self-employed possibly running their own small business.
50
‘People with those qualities tend to be more likely to be self-employed possibly running their own small business.’
Hear Hear!
20
Climate science is damaging science. The climate wars are damaging society, damaging the public discourse; they are, in fact, a symptom, or consequence, of the fact that both the political and scientific systems are broken.
302
HDH – spot on comments. I don’t know how the majority of climate scientists can sleep straight in their beds at night selling their souls to the “AGW Religious Cult”. But it is their meal ticket but don’t they realise in due course how ridiculous their research publications/reports will look when it becomes abundantly clear to all Homo Sapiens that CO2 in the atmosphere does not, and I repeat does not impact on planet Earth’s temperature. The US$trillions already squandered on this ludicrous doctrine is waste of gross proportions. Those peddling this doctrine should be brought to account as planet Earth transitions from current Global Temp “flat-lining” to real GC brought on by the imminent next LIA/GM. There will be nowhere for the “Warmist Propagandists” to hide in the near future. Us skeptics can then have the pleasure of telling all of our doubters – “WE TOLD YOU SO”.
181
A clear and absolutely correct comment; but I doubt the rabid warmists give a fig for either science or civil discussion.
111
Science,being once thought supreme,
Is a faculty losing esteem,
Now degraded by shame,
But we know who to blame,
It’s the climate-change warmist regime.
311
The extreme sceptics are onto something? Sorry, it is not about CO2 made Global Warming but about man made Global Warming. There is all the difference in the world.
This very common perhaps conciliatory concession that CO2 is warming the planet is a red herring logically. The extreme Green communist argument supported by the self justifying IPCC is that Western industrial society is ruining the planet (China, India, Russia are exempt) because democratic Western humans are releasing unprecedented amounts of CO2 and so increasing the planet temperature.
So the first science question to be asked is not whether CO2 produces any significant warming. The first question is whether humans are increasing total CO2. The answer is no.
Possibly this concession is made even by professional scientists because chemical equilibrium is simply not obvious or intuitive even to them or restricted to the laboratory. Gravity was an invention, a realization, a view, but once explained, seemed obvious and accepted. So were all Newton’s laws of motion. So was the view that vertical distances are the same as horizontal ones, a fact not known to the pyramid builders who lived in a flat world and so incorporated pi exactly into their work. These science facts are taught. Equilibrium is not.
I will not again go over the absolute proof that the CO2 increase is not man made or the unnecessary but interesting explanation of why the CO2 is in equilibrium or how the CO2 level is actually set or the half life of CO2 in the air. This implicit and critical concession of a man made CO2 increase is wrong . This is not an ‘extreme’ view but very basic real science.
Again Man cannot increase atmospheric CO2 levels beyond about 2%. Discussion and argument about what happens next is interesting but irrelevant.
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I proudly put myself in the extreme sceptics camp TdeF. I found Matt’s article nothing more than an apology to compromise. In the end it had little to do with defending science and a lot to do with him justifying having two bob each way on himself.
100
Agreed. However my science is not just a view or skeptical or extreme. It can proven absolutely that there is no fossil CO2 in the air with simple physics. If man cannot actually change CO2 levels it is all nonsense. As for the next idea that CO2 is then correlated with temperature, that is busted. As Dr. Murry Selby lectured, his study proved they are not even connected, which is why he was summarily dismissed. Then scientist actually agree that the CO2 effect by itself is not enough and have to hypothesize that it is boosted by evaporation. That also is busted. Finally, the temperature has not risen. None of this makes me an extreme anything. Science like crime has to be proven, not just alleged.
181
An argument that I have to agree with, TdeF. I have pointed out many, many time that, while human consumption of “fossil” fuels has risen exponentially, the rise in CO2 has been more-or-less linear. I even had one buffoon of a self-proclaimed scientist declare that the rise is CO2 was exponential or even greater (!?), pointing me to a graph showing CO2 to be, well, a slightly wobbly straight line – i.e. more-or-less linear.
Surely, if the two graphs do not reflect each other in some way, other than both rising, then there really can be no connection between the two – correlation is NOT causation!
51
LOL If you want to test the validity of a mathematical or physics idea-graph it. This will bust dodgey ideas just about every time.
21
Correctly graphed that is. Of course dishonest graphs are used all the time.
31
I wish I could write that well!! The Bastardization of science started, in my opinion, with the great “Cholesterol” Con-Job. In the 80’s, you could get your blood blood pressure tested on the footpath in front of pharmacies and no matter how high or how low it was, the recommendation from the very Pretty… Nurse was to go inside and see the chemist that invariably had a new potion or six to lower/increase/stabilize/eliminate your “CHOLESTEROL”!!! 40 years on and the US health authority is recognising the big lie they have helped support. That’s were all the dodgy Climate scientist (for lack of better word) have learned to play the system. Cholesterol and CO2 scare are exactly the same: Both rely on very dodgy science as a starting point, both have relied heavily on complacent friendly media to “market” their point, both have been massively subsidised by Government, both have relied on so called scientific institutions to further the “cause” and attract even more money to spend on totally futile and self serving pseudo science, both rely on the “Future-is-Grim-we-are-all-going-to-die/fry” panic phrases!! Same Modus operandi! Same Con!!
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Snake oil salesmen comes to mind.
70
(Should have read the Quadrant article first…..)
20
Well if a very pretty nurse was taking your blood pressure….
The results could be anything.
81
I forgot one bit. It is a very strong belief of mine that whatever the issue, if Governments and the rent-a-crowd mob start agitating and if there is a chance of making money from it, its’ a
Con-Job!! Haven’t been wrong so far!!
130
It’s all about wealth creation and political agendas.
40
Not so much wealth creation as wealth sequestration. Wealth creation is a good thing, as everybody benefits from it in some way, even if you are only the shoe-shine boy or kitchen maid. Wealth sequestration (which is what these folk are indulging in) is burying the wealth away in their bank accounts, away from the clutches of the poor.
30
It’s all about wealth creation and political agendas.
30
You can say that again!…. oh, you did.
70
No!
It is about wealth redistribution and political agendas.
90
I keep finding scare stories about water running out ……
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-18/eamus-declining-groundwater-is-a-big-problem-for-australia/6556586
30
‘Short-term fluctuations in the Earth’s gravity field can occur in response to large-scale changes in sea-ice and sea-level rise. However, changes in the gravity field in terrestrial locations far away from oceans and ice have been detected.’
This is a very clever beat up, I congratulate the Klimatariat on their cunning. Cultivating gravity into their precautionary principle will not be easy to replicate, but aunty doesn’t care.
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Senator Larissa Waters has the solution to this problem. She advocates having a shower whenever one feels the urge to urinate. According to Ms. Waters, urinating in the shower is the very best way to save water. In representing Brisbane, she does not seem to have thought through the problem of where to save all of the water saved. The dams are full. But she maintains it is not only a solution to the huge water problem, but has the added advantage of keeping your feet clean. The uric acid destroys the athlete’s foot fungus.
Can you imagine where we would be without this kind of clear headed thinking in our parliament?
200
Sen Waters – appears to be well named to the portfolio.
50
Why stop at number 1’s?, let’s just include number 2’s and whatever else you can excrete, it’s possibly the first Greens idea that they’ve actually tried themselves, whether or not people will embrace the idea of crapping in your own nest is another thing….
20
abc…..AUSTRALIAN BRAINWASHING COMMISSION !
40
You know you have a problem when …
‘climate scientists’ claim physicist Freeman Dyson is “flailing outside his field of expertise“, whilst a man who “believes in guardian angels”, and “listens to their advice“, is the font of wisdom scientific.
A wry observation is that prophecy-minded, creationist, tea-partying, god-fearing, denialist, flat earth, knuckle dragging breeding Christians, who have frequently been attacked and mocked by liberal, progressive, de-population environmental groups, are now best best friends.
This unholy alliance is best summed up @theconversation:
“(T)he papal encyclical provides the climate movement with an “unlikely ally” with whom it can prosecute its own demands for climate justice and radical social change.
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The leftist current pope is an Abomination to all Catholics !
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Couldn’t quite make sense of your comment handjive. You seem to imply leftists and tea partyists are now best friends? ??
I myself believe in Christ – and consequently I believe truth is one of the most important ethical values.
This is why, when the leaked emails came out of Hadley Climate Centre, I read through them to see whether there was any merit in climate skepticism. It was Messrs Phil Jones et al that convinced me, in their own words, that global warming was a doubtful proposition at best. Particularly the bit where Phil Jones said, ‘Bottom line: the ‘no upward trend’ has to continue for a total of 15 years before we get worried.’
i.e. he wasn’t worried that there was global warming, he was actually worried that it wasn’t happening.
Then I started looking into the science behind it, and reading a few of the climate blogs, and came to the conclusion that it was a case of mass hysteria in science, unfortunately, with a self-justificatory fudging of figures, because ‘it’s the right thing to do’. I think it has gone beyond that now, though.
It saddens and worries me, though, that many Christians in Australia, a large proportion of whom (in my age group at least) are engineers, computer programmers, Doctors, professional people, with at least a high school background in science, have not looked at the evidence against global warming as an ideology of imminent disaster. There is a presumption that it must be true, and that NASA, NOAA, BOM, would not fudge the evidence or lie.
The Pope has done Catholicism and the truth a disservice by jumping on the bandwagon.
41
Jo
More background this time on “Reflections on Intelligence”
“Reginald Victor Jones, CH CB CBE FRS,[1] (29 September 1911 – 17 December 1997) was a British physicist and scientific military intelligence expert who played an important role in the defence of Britain in World War II.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reginald_Victor_Jones
In “Most Secret War” he makes mention of his perspective on military intelligence in Britain.
In his 1989 follow up “Reflections on Intelligence” he reviews events of the interim years. Which, to my view, shed light on the current problem.
(Some elaboration, as a previous reference to this seemed to be cut)
10
Well said, I agreed with every word.
30
The parting of the ways.
The Earth’s surface energy content steadily rises, climate science becomes ever more accurate and robust at analyzing the climate situation and utilizing that knowledge for predicting future change, but for those who want for there to be no change the bare facts now leave no credible scope for such argument.
So what is there left for skeptical “science communicators” to do? Become science fiction writers as Matt Ridley has realised and proclaimed as much in his Quadrant article first chapter of a fully fictional future. Any engaging fiction must establish an “event” or point of separation where the divergent future began. Ridley’s fantasy uses the idea that an entire science has fallen into disarray due to financial corruption. It is channeling Ian Fleming a little closely, but lets see if he can hold his plot together and keep an audience entertained.
Now that Matt Ridley has left factual credibilty behind, where do you see your future opportunities, Jo, as you face the same reality of the “credible skeptic” being a defunct career? Will you follow Ridley into science fiction, or will you go back to writing childrens stories?
426
Nice try with the poison pen Bill, but seriously, you believe the ARGO measurements are accurate enough to show “continued” warming when there is only one thermometer in ever 200000 cubic km, and you think it can measure a 0.005C change. That’s what you are basing your conviction on. All the raw data sets show the pause, and the models remember are supposed to be coupled ocean-atmosphere models. They didn’t predict the atmosphere, and who knows if they predict the ocean? The poles were both supposed to warm with “amplified” effect.
What would change your mind Bill?
272
No BilB – don’t you know that Jo and rocket scientist hubbie have a paper coming very soon that proves that the world will start cooling right about now – and dramatically. And Jo has said over and over that we would hear news very soon but, sadly, no news on the notch paper that was to show climate scientists how science is really done.
Where’s the paper, Jo?
Little bit concerned about the upcoming El Niño temperature, surge, eh?
All the datasets show the pause? Liar.
You are as quick to call someone a liar without evidence as you are to believe in man-made catastrophies. Keep the hate coming. Still too chicken to give us your name?. Jo
815
The “BilB”(y) are an endangered species in Australia………
81
It’s not a matter of being chicken so much as not trusting you with it – you have denigrated and besmirched many people on this site – evidence for which I provided previously and which you denied.
You know what you wrote is a lie.
But here – I even did the cherry picking for you.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1998/to:2015/plot/gistemp/from:1998/to:2015/trend
Liar.
[The Wood for Trees site has been quoted so many times I’ve lost count. And a trend from 1998 to 2015 is too short to prove anything. Have your fun!] AZ
217
Hahaha. You’re seriuosly using the dodgy data from the nutpots at Nasa?
Let’s try the rather more reliable satellites:
Liar.
(See, we can both sling nasty names around)
101
I’ll try again!
rss plot
Again, Liar.
91
That is hilarious! Jo, I think you better teach some denialist anti-science to your henchman – he just made the argument for the wrong side.
(You are here to say what… again?) CTS
CYS — it’s fun watching them flail… More baseless hate from the man who doesn’t believe his own words or he’d name himself. – Jo
110
If that was aimed at me, I’d love to know what is “denialist ant-science” by showing the rss data.
Please enlighten me!
30
The joker: Plotting a line through the data you present from Wood for Trees isn’t good enough.
The character of this graph clearly changes around 2002, and it’s this period of time which has caused so much discussion about the so-called pause. If you don’t look at changes in a graph by taking a broad, thoughtful overview and just plot lines willy-nilly through the points mathematically, you’re going to overlook important information and are likely to come to misleading conclusions.
Just look at the temperature changes: oscillations between between 0.3 to 0.9 degrees Celsius for all the years I refer to. This is supposed to be the dangerous man-made global warming we’ve all heard about (it looks better for propaganda purposes with a nice extended axis, doesn’t it?), and on which billions (name your currency) are being spent trying to prevent. I think ‘wasted’ rather than ‘spent’ is more accurate.
81
Ha ha moderator, ’98 to 2015 too sort a period to show warming? But not too short to show a “pause” eh? Ha!! Dont you just love nut bag logic!
Fair point. But nut bag logic looks more like someone clinging to cherrypicked trends in one highly “adjusted” dataset while other more reliable ones –like satellites– show pauses. -Jo
47
Try explaining this away for us FIN,
From the IPCC report is a specific temperature projection statement:
That would mean about a .35C warming after 14+ years,yet the official temperature data says it is about ZERO in the same time frame:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2001/to:2015.4/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2001/to:2015.4/trend/plot/rss/from:2001/to:2015.4/plot/rss/from:2001/to:2015.4/trend
60
So Jo, when you said the pause is in all the datasets, you meant all the satellite data sets? And even that’s not true.
You lied.
And yet, there you are in another comment claiming others shift goalposts.
Why don’t you explain how satellites measure temperature, Jo and then they can see that your claim that the satellite measurements are unadjusted and more reliable is utter rubbish.
You’re the one flailing, aren’t you Jo?
[If you could avoid attack mode and stick to providing support for your argument, you know… facts, figures, studies and so on then there might be a real debate. But as it is, all you do is provide an example of a very bad example.] AZ
18
Why cherry pick when you can see it in context.
Here are the warming trends from 1860, courtesy of Phil Jones:
1860-1880 0.163
1910-1940 0.15
1975-1998 0.166
1975-2009 0.161
It must be some sort of miracle we survived the ‘dangerous’ warming between 1860-1880 and 1910-1940!
On the other hand, maybe we have just been coming out of the Little Ice Age.
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Lord Jim: a few more frightening temperatures which we’ve survived:
‘Highest recorded’ looks like this using figures from the Central England Temperature record. The temperatures are in Celsius, and are averages for the years shown.
1659: first reading ever: 8.83⁰C
1660: highest ever recorded 9.08
1686: highest ever recorded 10.13
1733: highest ever recorded 10.47
1959: highest ever recorded 10.48
1989: highest ever recorded 10.50
1990: highest ever recorded 10.63
2006: highest ever recorded 10.82
2014: highest ever recorded 10.93
Isn’t amazing that our huge planet can regulate temperature this well? It’s interesting to think that after all these years of ‘highest ever recorded’ we’re all still here and not being fried.
And – I’ll say it again for the warmists – in 1750, we’re told that CO2 was 280ppm, now it’s 400. That’s a 43% rise of this trace gas, which is now 0.04% of the atmosphere.
CO2 is measured in dry samples, so the concentration in atmospheric water vapour is even less. Clear and present danger, anyone? I think not.
40
Joker,
I see that you think your cherry pick point is a good one, but you failed to realize that you actually smashed the warmist argument, because the IPCC and CMIP5 models say it should warm at least .20C PER DECADE. Your GISS chart shows only a feeble warming TOTAL of about .12C after SEVENTEEN years, waaay below the minimum of.20C per decade warming rate.
Maybe the Joke is on you?
70
Maybe it is, if we completely ignore the definition of “pause”, SunsetonmySanity.
26
No definition is needed since the IPCC based on the AGW hypothesis,made a specific PER DECADE temperature warming projection of .20C minimum and actually .30C when CO2 emissions at the year 2000 are thrown in.
We have currently about zero so far this century.
41
Thejoker,
In an attempt to prove that Jo was wrong about there being a pause in the rise in temperatures. . .
To which AZ replied:
First off, let me thank you for being honest enough to admit you cherry-picked the most heavily homogenized data set available on the WodForTrees web-site.
When we plot the least homogenized land/sea surface temperature data set, the Hadcrut3 unadjusted, and the RSS lower tropospheric data set together with the Gistemp land/sea surface temperature data set, what we get is this:
Gistemp, hadcrut3, RSS from 1998 to 2015.
But 2015 isn’t complete so what we really need is:
Gistemp, hadcrut3, RSS from 1998 to 2014.
The difference is minimal, but I like precision and accuracy, so only full complete years.
As you can see, Jo was right, the least adjusted data sets, hadcrut3 unadjusted, and the RSS both show a pause in the rise in temperatures compared to what the earth experienced from 1979 to 1998.
You called Jo a liar twice, both here and above. We now see that you were wrong both times and you owe her a personal apology. You also owe the rest of us an apology for using your cherry-picked statements to make yourself look good. The word shameless comes to mind.
But it gets even worse.
Both you and AZ are wrong when it comes to defining and presenting a valid temperature trend.
He’s wrong because any length of time is a valid length of time when describing a trend. This is true by definition.
In order to properly present ‘a trend’ the intended use of the trend has to be spelled out in order to determine if the from/to times are ‘fit for purpose’.
You’re wrong on the ‘fit for purpose’ part of the argument. What you and all the other CAGW adherents constantly present as a valid trend is one single cherry-picked trend of monthly averages over the course of how ever many years you wish.
In order to present a trend that shows what the temperatures are actually doing you need to show every trend possible within the given data set. To show you what I mean, here is a graph of Gistemp LOTI, your ‘data-set’ of choice, for the period between 1979 and 2014 that plots every ten year average and every fifteen year average, calculated monthly.
Gistemp LOTI from 1979 to 2014.
Once you stop the cherry-picking and look at what the average temp is doing over an extended period, more than thirty years, calculated every month, not just once like you and your comrades do, even your beloved, heavily homogenized, gistemp shows a definite and clearly discernible pause.
Abe
30
My uptick was a response to Jo’s comment; it should be a downtime to yours Joker.
101
Downtick…..wretched predictive text. 🙁
90
Annie,
Downtime is good too. 😉
Thejoker could use a little downtime to reassess his/her position.
Abe
00
Ooops, finger problems today. Meant to click on the thumbs down not up. Ranting by another joker with no grounding in reality
40
Thejoker,
Suposedly quoting Jo, while in reality:
All the RAW data sets show the pause.
Abe
20
Again, Jo, your one dimensional shallow analysis misses the real story. The real evidence from argo is the surface salinity change, and rate of change. What this demonstrates is there is an increased and dramatic movement of water from one area of the oceans to another, via the atmosphere. Heat trapped at the surface evaporates water into vapour which rises as it leaves behind a now more saline surface. Being lighter than air this vapour accelerates upwards releasing its energy to the greater atmosphere in a variety of ways creating weather and changed climate due to the rate of weather change. Eventually the moisture returns to the surface as rain hail and snow reducing salinity in that other area. That is the real argo story, and the real science, but I’m sure you are going to share your fictional interpretation on this.
Pause? there is no pause. There has been a reduction in the rate of global temperature change (this has happened several time previously), but as last year saw a .1 degree global average temperature increase in just one year I think the pace of temperature change has ramped up again.
Arctic ice continues to lose mass and extent. Greenland ice is melting at an increased rate as observed by many people, now. Antarctic ice is showing signs of mass loss in many areas. Mountain glaciers continue to recede in all areas.
It is curious though that you would want to champion Matt Ridley. The background theme to your climate change objection is that you repeatedly reject climate change action due to the imagined cost which you see as an unforgivable waste in the billions of dollars. Whereas the risky strategies of Matt Ridley as non executive chairman of Brittain’s Northern Rock Bank which backfired leading to a run on that banks funds, ultimately costing the Brittish public $41 billion in bailout assistance. Not an important waste of money to you?
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/jan/21/matt-ridley-wants-to-gamble-earths-future-because-wont-learn-from-past
[Bilb, you (and George Monbiot), are using a misleading analogy with regards to Ridley’s non-executive Chairmanship of Northern Rock. However, if you want to use that experience as your analogy then it works against you because what Northern Rock did at the time could be considered to be following the ‘financial consensus’. Northern Rock were just one of very many banks in the northern hemisphere which failed or were bailed out because they followed the same high risk strategy. If anything, Ridley has learnt from this experience and is rejecting the consensus position unless he is presented with adequate proof of its validity.
Monbiot and you twist what Ridley says. He says the temperatures and oceans haven’t risen at anywhere near the rates predicted by the IPCC. You and Monbiot simply say yes but they have risen. When the GCM’s relied upon by the IPCC assume a high CO2 sensitivity to base their alarmist predictions on, and that doesn’t happen, then the predictions have been invalidated. And temperature rises inside the error margin of the measurement tools are not statistical rises. – Mod]
112
Watch BilB change the goalposts in order to dodge admitting that I was right. Now it’s ARGO and salinity? We have ten years of data out of 4.5 billion and BilB “knows” in a way that only those connected to God could, that this is a Bad Thing. (You “think” based on one year that things are ramping up again? Good for you Bill, feeding your faith, clutching at the noise as your theory collapses.)
You have no evidence the world is still heating up in a scary way. The Arctic melt is confounded by shipping dust, the Antarctic ice mass loss is over volcanoes. Radar altimetry showed ice mass was increasing in Antarctica, UAH temps show there’s no warming. GRACE shows shrinking ice, but only after “adjustments”. The record sea ice shows the ocean around Antarctica is not warming (despite the volcanoes).
That you resort to sliming into financial personal attacks shows how intellectually vacant your arguments are. But keep em coming BilB. Keep em coming.
122
Jo,
Soot is only relevent for static bodies of ice such as Greenland and glaciers. The Arctic ice pack is renewed each year and the predominant Arctic air flow is from a high pressure system ie dry clean air falling from altitutude. The ice is created by surface freezing not snow fall and its surface is not carbon contaminated as ice masses else where are. So Arctic ice extent loss is not a property of “shipping soot”.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/06/140610-connecting-dots-dust-soot-snow-ice-climate-change-dimick/
Amanda Lough of Doug Wiens’ lab who discovered the Marie Byrd Land Volcano points out that the volcano has been present for millions of years contributing no change to Antarctic ice mass, unless it erupts. Apart from that I think your knowledge on the status on the Antarctic is mass is out of date.
Its about observation and science, Jo.
Anyway, have you had in new inspirations for children’s books, Jo?
19
FYI Greenland IS in the arctic. Plus the soot is in the “central Arctic”
The NSIDC “Soot: it’s bad for human health, and bad for the health of the Earth, too. According to new research, it’s speeding up the loss of sea ice in the Arctic—ice that is vital to keeping the Earth cool. ”
http://nsidc.org/icelights/2011/02/23/is-dirty-air-adding-to-climate-change-2/
Extensive dirty ice patches with up to 7 kg m−2 sediment concentrations in layers of up to 10 cm thickness were encountered in 2005 and 2007 in numerous areas across the central Arctic.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2010JC006675/abstract
It’s “nice” that the opinion of one researcher appeals to you — but since she has no data on the volcanic activity “over millions” of years, she’s guessing — it’s quite unscientific of her.
They only discovered some of the volcanoes in the last two years. You, poor gullible fan, “know” that these volcanoes are irrelevant. It’s not like you need data.
It’s just the real scientists out there, we want data. Right now, all the data we have places the warming sites right over the top of the pacific rim. Coincidence?
Your “up to date” GRACE papers are full of GIA adjustments. Not that you have looked…
90
Yes the ice is moving around the kilograms per square meter was in “anchor ice”, ie ice that has been grounded in earth and taken away clay and debri as it moves around. The article says that this is not seen in ice that has formed in open water. The icelights article simply asks the question and offers no quantitative study. I stand by my argument. The debri carried by ice in Greenland and other places remains in place as the ice melts, no so in the central Arctic.
The discovery of the presence of a volcano does not suddenly make that “active”, unless it was discovered because it was active. The point is that volcanoes that have been present for extended periods do not play into the changes in ice mass that we are seeing occuring now. The mechanism that has been identified and proven is the undermining of ice sheets by warm currents. And this is a new feature for the degree that it is occuring.
The clock is ticking on the sceptical scam, Jo. It has a confused by date, which is not very far off.
26
BilB: the picture you paint is remarkably static.
Water moves in unbelievably huge amounts as part of the rain cycle. According to my ‘Fundamentals of Physycal Science’ book by Konrad Krauskopf and Arthur Beiser (published in 1971) the daily rainfall over the world’s oceans is estimated to be 88 X 10^10 cubic metres every day, or if you prefer 880,000,000,000 or 880 billion metric tonnes.
I repeat, that’s every day.
Clearly there will be variations in salinity close to the surface as the rain hits the ocean for example – but for how long? Not long in a storm I imagine.
It’s a pity you don’t give any references for your comments. I’m curious to know more about how these reported changes in salinity were measured and where – and also what the weather conditions above the ocean in the area being measured were at the time.
40
Jo, just to clarrify, you DO mean Bilb not Bill-correct? I would hate to be splashed by his foolishness.
Keep up the good work, Jo. It’s long overdue that sanity prevails.
[For the removal of all doubt, Jo did intend to type BilB, and not Bill.] Fly
71
Hmmm…
Carefully severing the neural connections in his pre-frontal lobe?
51
Or a brain transplant from a rational human being.
20
Quote BilB: “utilizing that knowledge for predicting future change,”
How about the 38 people who died in 2011 Qld floods?
They could have used some of that “knowledge”, as permanent drought was the BoM prediction.
How about the drought breaking 2015 floods in Texas?
Permanent drought was same prediction.
What evidence does BilB have of a future prediction realised?
Future is years. 2 years? 5 years?
And a weather event with a short prediction time like a cyclone, hurricane, tornado etc is not climate.
More intense, more frequent would pass, but, we all know those metrics are in the negative.
162
BilB @ # 16
quoted;
“climate science becomes ever more accurate and robust at analyzing the climate situation and utilizing that knowledge for predicting future change”,
Hmm!
Lets take you at your words then and accept your premise that climate scientists are so unusual compared to the rest of us and are so blessed with the powers of prophecy that they can correctly predict the future;
Here we have a significant test of climate scientists powers of prophecy that we won’t even have to wait for more than a handful of years to see if this climate scientist’s prophecy is fullfilled.
Which if it is will leave you and one hell of a lot of other believers in the powers of climate scientist’s Delphic like prophetic abilities with a very red face indeed BillB.,
And for sweeteners, Germany is experiencing one of it’s coldest starts to summer ever recorded with snow in southern Germany forecast to come down to the 1500 metre level in the next day or so.
And it’s summer.
____________________
CURRENT LONG-TERM NEGATIVE AVERAGE ANNUAL ENERGY BALANCE OF THE EARTH LEADS TO THE NEW LITTLE ICE AGE
Habibullo ABDUSSAMATOV1
Pulkovo observatory of the RAS, Saint Petersburg, Russia
The average annual decreasing rate of the total solar irradiance (TSI) is increasing from the 22-nd to the 23-rd and 24-th cycles, because the Sun since the 1990 is in the phase decline of quasi-bicentennial variation.
The portion of the solar energy absorbed by the Earth is decreasing.
Decrease in the portion of TSI absorbed by the Earth since 1990 remains uncompensated by the Earth’s radiation into space at the previous high level over a time interval determined by the thermal inertia of the Ocean.
A long-term negative deviation of the Earth’s average annual energy balance from the equilibrium state is dictating corresponding variations in it’s the energy
state.
As a result, the Earth will have a negative average annual energy balance also in the future.
This will lead to the beginning of the decreasing in the Earth’s temperature and of the epoch of the Little Ice Age after the maximum phase of the 24-th solar cycle approximately since the end of 2014.
The influence of the consecutive chain of the secondary feedback effects (the increase in the Bond albedo and the decrease in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to cooling) will lead to an additional reduction of the absorbed solar energy and reduce the greenhouse effect.
The start of the TSI’s Grand Minimum is anticipated in the solar cycle 27±1 in 2043±11 and the beginning of the phase of deep cooling of the 19th Little Ice Age for the past 7,500 years around 2060±11.
___________________________
111
ROM,
You are a very long way down the rabbit hole, way too far to bring back to the light in one expedition. Snow falls in Summer are every bit a feature of climate variability. They can happen with or without global warming, but they are far more likely at a time of intensified atmospheric air movements from global warming induced atmospheric moisture increase. Simply put, as the polar high pressure system increases in size the air moving through it displaces cold surface air pushing it towards the equator over Europe and North America.
As for the solar minimum theory, I think the Solar Notch “theory” gave it a mortal credibility blow. Apart from that the observation you are failing to make is that the global average temperature has continued to increase irrespective of solar irradiance peaks or troughs. And the reason for this is that the effect of atmospheric CO2 is a stronger driver of global warming than is solar variance.
211
Yeah right, if there was no snow falling you’d be screaming, “look, it’s got too hot for snow!”.
Warm/cold, wet/dry, storm/calm – everything is a symptom of gorebull warming.
91
Yeah right, if there was no snow falling you’d be screaming, “look, it’s got too hot for snow!”.
Warm/cold, wet/dry, storm/calm – everything is a symptom of gorebull warming.
71
This makes for fun reading !
A Complete List Of Things Supposedly Caused By Global Warming :-
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/globalwarming2.html
71
Obviously BilB has little understanding of Solar Physics, the cyclic nature of solar energy output over a wide range of frequencies, and the effect that has on the Earth’s Ionosphere, in particular, and other layers in the atmosphere in general.
The climate models assume a steady state earth, and therefore only focus on the temperature variations thereto.
This is why his only retort is, “You are a very long way down the rabbit hole, way too far to bring back to the light in one expedition.” Decoded that translates to, “OMG, I have to query this with Alarmist-Central, to get a plausible response”. Total PR SNAFU, there BilB, but keep it up – we are having a lot of fun at your expense.
111
Well, Indeed I am no solar physicist, Rereke, but NZ’s Sir Ian Axford who was a physicist specialising in solar activity and its interaction with Earth’s atmosphere and magnetosphere, was extremely concerned about global warming, climate change, and particularly the methane releases from the Arctic permafrost and tundra. I’ve read his writings and seen his credentials, Rereke. I see though that where you have lots of interests and are possibly well read in geography, politics and trade, you also have no publications, so I see absolutely no basis for your claim to superior knowledge on the physics of the sun and its emissions. More telling, though is that your claims are a complete contradiction to the empirical evidence. Where we are past the weakest solar maximum in a long time including a sun with no sun spots 2015 is on track to be the hottest year on record
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/jun/15/the-latest-global-temperature-data-are-breaking-records
Somewhere along the way here you are going to have to face up to your being plain wrong about most of what you have written in this blog on climate change for years.
36
In the trail of failures department, Rereke, I thought you might be interested in this piece.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/01/06/3608217/ken-cuccinelli-irony-alert/
17
And yet no hotspot.
Perhaps you can contact the pope and ask him to make it an official miracle: co2 causes warming even though the predicted physical ‘fingerprint’ of such warming has never been found!
Our Gaia, Who art on Earth
Hallowed be Thy Warming;
Thy carbon trading come,
Thy UN governance be done,
in Australia as it is in the IPCC.
…
70
“BilB” and the words TRUTHFULNESS, ACCURACY & HONESTY do not belong in the same sentence…………
73
You must be a comedian if you think you can rely on climate science’s record of prediction as grounds for its utility.
All climate science does is *presume* that CO2 is a causal agent in catastrophic global warming.
This assumption has never been demonstrated because it relies on unobserved positive feedbacks.
So, in other words, according to you, we should trust the predictions of climate science even though its main prediction has never materialized.
No wonder the Pope has joined the CAGW-zealots: it is a religion in all but name.
51
I lament Matt Ridley did not use the word ‘theoretical‘ where he used the word ‘likely’ as much as I lament the distraction of the denier/warmist polarisation and his adoption of a scientifically meaningless ‘luke warmer’ position. Here we witness political contamination first hand.
Unfortunately, he also does not provide us with the definition of ‘climate change’ he is using. Further, empirical science informs us that there has been no statistically significant global warming so far this century, the well confirmed and recognised presence of a trendless interval of 19 years, in contradistinction to IPCC models or the adjustment nonsense of individuals like Karl et al., or indeed the recent utterances of The Papal Kollective at The Vatican. the Pause remains nonetheless an inconvenient truth of the empirical record, an unpredicted trendless interval of 19 years, throughout the duration of this 21st century.
The nebulous politics appears unavoidable because rationality has long ago been sacrificed at the UN by the Left, the likes of Christiana Figueres and Maurice Strong et al. who have ensured that the UN definition of climate change pre-defined the anthropogenic role, which seems centered largely on a change in atmospheric CO2 of 82.58 ppm (since 1959). The World it seems, has been intentionally and institutionally duped by an irrelevant and infinitesimal infinitesimal change in composition of a constantly changing atmospheric that is the established home of a pure, non-linear, chaotic system known as climate, deliberately confused as weather.
In the last 30 years there has been an exponential growth in scientific publications. This is obviously not the same as knowledge or evidence. However, it makes separating the wheat from the chaff considerably more difficult, something well acknowledged and one of the several reasons why ‘evidence-based practice‘ developed in rational medicine and healthcare. This practice tool it seems, has yet to penetrate the arcane rites of ‘climate science’ in general and science journalists / writers in particular.
Most science journalists and writers in my experience (explicitly excluding our esteemed host) appear not to adhere to ‘best practice’ by engagement with evidence-based best practice and the explicit requirement to critically evaluate the literature. Instead, they chose incarceration by confirmation bias. Maybe this is because, among other things, they are financially beholden to their employers and masters, much like their cousins over in academia at The Conversation, or maybe it is purely a matter of their Green politics.
So where is the grand societal platform that seeks the following:
• distinguish evidence from propaganda (advertisement)
• probability from certainty
• data from assertions
• rational belief from superstitions
• science from folklore
Political correctness dispatched these. It became unfashionable and then undesirable to simply disagree. Non-judgmental acceptance is preferred. This has the effect of according an faux-equal value to any expressed view, a faux-value based on the twisted idea of the right of an individual to express a view was the same as the right for that view to be taken with due seriousness and attention. It has since become an enshrined principle of the Progressive Left and their offendodron cohorts.
We’ll restore sanity when we once again learn to dismiss the the platitudinous mealy mouthed precautionism that is the science of today, a strange distorted hybridisation, seamless with politics.
The historical disengagement of State and Church that was so necessary for societal advancement, was born out of the development and maturation of the secular State, that grew to confront and separate. Today, a second great separation is fermenting, that of State and Science, one that is vital to our continued progress and prosperity.
Let us pray that this Second Reformation is much less bloody and far quicker.
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As for the idea that the Climate Change/Global Warming subject is damaging science, it isn’t. Science is alive and well and continues. Real scientists have been outraged, as evidenced by the ignored Oregon petition. Pseudo science opportunists with no hard science credentials at all have been quick to jump on this money go round, notably Al Gore and our own dead wombat specialist.
However there were incredible advances in science in this same time, notably unlocking the human genome and research into real science like the large hadron collider, the repair of the extraordinary Hubble telescope and the ongoing attempts to create viable fusion reactors. At every level, everything gets better from phones to cars to communications and pharmaceuticals. Keyhole surgery is performed by robots and the new heart valves are incredible. Many real scientists simply have no time for this pseudo science CO2 side show and as Big Wind and Big Carbon pass Big Tobacco as purely money making ventures, the only shame is the waste of so much money, money which could have been well spent in advancing science in an unprecedented time of peace since WW2.
Still each generation has its religions and the God of Climate Change refuses to go away, despite the total refusal of the planet to cooperate. It is now in the same category as the Rapture. Future generations will marvel at the hundreds thousands of windmills, the 21st century phenomenon which rival the great pyramids of Giza, Stonehenge and the Easter Island statues. Pointless monuments to a failed religion which nevertheless made some people rich and united societies to build something amazing but completely useless.
212
Can’t resist. Apologies to William Wordsworth
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of giant Chinese windmills;
Beside the lake, above the trees,
Slowly turning in the breeze.
161
And me to Keats’ – Ode to a Palaeontologist …
Thers’s a palaeontologist looking for fame
Some say he is fact in the brain
I don’t mean to confront
When I say he’s a cont
But contrarians can be such a pain
91
Likes to Alfred Lord Tennyson. The Modellers of Shalott:
And moving through the mirror clear
That hangs before them all the year,
Shadows of the world appear.
And on the web they still delight
To weave the mirrors magic sights,
Delighting in the shadows.
71
And to totally lower the calibre of this conversation:
There are holes in the sky,
Where the rain gets in.
But they’re ever-so-small,
That’s why rain is thin.
Spike Milligan
71
There’s an ugly wind farm idling, to the north of Junction Two;
There’s a ragged yellow flag below the town.
It commemorates the fate of one “Ed” Davey and his crew,
Who sent a nation’s prospects hurtling down.
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We can always hope. Hope springs eternal in the human breast…..Alexander Pope.
The religious warlords of eco-fascism are not any more likely to give up their quest than was Hitler, Stalin, or any other tyrant.
Consider the plausible future scenario of further advancement of Agenda 21 and the New World Order. In that scenario the youth, who in large numbers have learned not to think, live comfortably in tightly controlled ghettos, barred to travel beyond the city, and are completely brainwashed. Probably to the extent that if we do experience another LIA, they will believe it is because of COP 2015 and the demise of fossil fuel sustained Western civilisation. Who then will have the capacity to recognise the idiotic ban on fossil fuels? Brave New World and 1984 could be the outcome of a nuclear war in which six billion die. Who will then marvel at the hundreds of thousands of decrepit windmills?
90
Has anyone done a calculation on how much money has been spent on the global warming hypothesis which surely could have been used for things which actually benefit humanity? I think ex PM Rudd’s trip to Copenhagen with his 100+ hangers-on was about $13 million for starters.
70
About $1Bn per day. So about $2Tn.
70
I think that is an underestimate by a couple of orders of magnitude, if you take all of the peripheral costs and downstream impacts into account.
20
When I was on Easter Island, there was a bunch of Age Nouveau Grenouilles prancing and doing incantations around one of the moai. It put me in mind of “The Wicker Man”.
40
Sorry but I am not only unimpressed, I am finding myself increasingly cut adrift from this site Jo.
“There is a third possibility: that it’s real, partly man-made and not dangerous. This is the “lukewarmer” school, and I am happy to put myself in this category. Lukewarmers do not think dangerous climate change is impossible; but they think it is unlikely.”
Sure there is much truth in Matts words regarding the perversion of the scientific method and its consequent subservience to political ends via AGW. But this continuing trend I am seeing among former sceptics leaning toward some sort of capitulation to AGW basics is alienating me.
How do you resolve arguing on the one hand you are interested in evidence based positions, then ignore the graph in Porf. Salby’s presentation at 7:20 ??
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g9WGcW_Z58
That summation of our utter inability to effect global net CO2 emissions is the end of the debate about our effect on climate. The conclusion is there cannot possibly be any effect whatsoever…. And if there is, it is in Prof Salby’s own words, an “incoherent relationship”. Even if we are having an effect, we cannot separate it out from background noise at this time.
So how can you be a “lukewarmist” if you claim to have read the evidence?? It just means your spinelessly having two bob each way and that’s not impressive or noteworthy, that’s just stupid and populist.
So while I applaud the continuing work of this site to prosecute the case for logic, reason and the scientific method, I feel we are seeking support in less and less credible places, which ultimately, is support we can do without.
Yesterday Flannery’s mouthpiece came out in support of the Pope. We are pretty close to that with our support of this article. Matts position is faith based and that’s a compliment.
231
‘So how can you be a “lukewarmist” if you claim to have read the evidence??’
Good point, but we must be pragmatic and wait for signs of global cooling. Until then its just a theory, so I’m going easy on the lukewarmers.
73
I’m with you, Safety guy.
Bearing in mind that Murry Salby might be wrong or only partly correct, that presentation is based entirely on logic and reason.
The graph you point out at 7:02 is indisputable. The graph of atmospheric opacity at 1:02 is also indisputable.
Given this information, how could anyone possibly claim that “anthropogenic CO2 might just have some influence on temperature”? Even just a little bit?
There is no “global warming”, if that phrase is supposed to mean something distinct, different or unusual relative to the performance of temperature in times past.
“Climate change” is a nonsensical term that is completely and utterly meaningless, in the context in which it is used in IPCC speak.
“Climate science” is a silly term applied to UN and NWO propaganda and nothing else.
“Climate scientists” are no more reality than are “Rocket scientists”. (Yes there are atmospheric physicists, and there are aeronautical engineers and jet propulsion specialists) but they are not “climate” or “rocket” scientists.
The whole bloody thing is nothing more than fantasy. At least there is SOME evidence, albeit circumstantial, that there is a Sasquatch and alien abduction. There is NO evidence that CO2 has the slightest effect on temperature, and plenty of evidence to the contrary. Why pretend otherwise?
192
Murry Selby is a career well qualified climate scientist, not a paleoentologist (alleged) or industrial chemist or engineer or an essayist like Al Gore. He is absolutely clear about this, CO2 does not correlate at all with temperature. What more is there to say? Only that CO2 is not connected with human activity either and that also is provable.
What I loved about Murry’s lecture is that he did announce an amazing discovery which has been ignored, that CO2 did correlate precisely with the integral of temperature, but no one has drawn the obvious conclusions. in calculus the integral of temperature ‘impulses’ could in fact be a direct measure of total ocean warming and like all dissolved gases by Henry’s law CO2 is directly proportional to surface temperature. So Murray has effectively confirmed the origin of the 20th century increase in CO2 without a single buoy. 1C would be enough for the 50%. So not human activity but slight steady monotonic warming of the ocean surface by sunlight. That is a complete explanation of the CO2 increase, not human activity. Game over. Again.
171
1C would only be enough for 20ppmv according to Henry’s law and non-biogenic ocean CO2 has a dC13 per mil value of -7 to 1.5 which would increase dC13 rather than decreasing it as observations show.
00
Nuclear physicists are real though.
10
Our darn right there are. And we don’t refer to them as “atomic scientists”, either.
30
Safetyguy, you’ll note I did not quote those paragraphs, and for a reason. Give Ridley time. Obviously I’m a big supporter of Murry Salby, no one has done more to put his case forward.
” So I don’t agree with those who say the warming is all natural, or all driven by the sun, or only an artefact of bad measurement, but nor do I think anything excuses bad scientific practice in support of the carbon dioxide theory, and every time one of these scandals erupts and the scientific establishment asks us to ignore it, I wonder if the extreme sceptics are not on to something.“
Matt’s point is that this debate is polarized and there are no middle positions allowed, and that is a valid point. There is a spectrum of skeptics and plenty who are more extreme than me. Though I see nothing at all to suggest that climate sensitivity could possibly be above 1C.
I don’t want to take a position so far from the mainstream, but it does seem that the longer I am in this the more base assumptions prove to be bluster.
174
No worries Jo
I was more referring to the overall flavour of the article, particularly the references under “Finding the Middle Ground”.
Im just not convinced that finding middle ground is as important as finding the truth.
No offence meant to you or Matt.
100
Safetyguy66,
No offence to you, Jo, or Matt, but I feel this needs to be said.
There’s no middle ground between fact and fiction.
There’s no middle ground between data and drama.
There’s no middle ground between science and speculation.
There’s no middle ground between observation and obfuscation.
There’s no middle ground between valid proof and vacuous pontification.
There’s no middle ground between a rational argument and a repetitive ad-hom.
In every case, CAGW adherents use the latter rather than the former.
Not only has the green-house effect never been shown to exist empirically, the comparison of our atmosphere to a green-house is a false analogy.
A green-house traps heat by virtue of a physical barrier. The atmosphere does not have such a barrier. What the atmosphere does is slow the rate of radiative heat as defined by it’s temperature gradient.
Slow not trap.
Now, unless you want to throw out all of what we know to be true in physics, then there is no middle ground. All we have is the scientific method. All they have is scare mongering.
To conceed to CAGW even by the smallest of margins would be to give in to the whole ‘enchilada’.
Abe
20
Safety, what’s important about the middle ground is a social-science point, not a science-science point if you get what I mean. In any complex issue, the natural form of opinion would be a bell curve, not a U. Matt is pointing to the U — to the lack of anyone even being allowed to take the middle ground — and that is important. You don’t need to be a scientist to appreciate that this is a bizarre debate. And that observation of the “missing” middle ground will help people who assumed CAGW was right to notice the black hole.
Suddenly they may start to wonder what happened to all the middle voices. The bullying tells us nothing about the climate, but a lot about the climate debate.
20
On the nail SG66 (see #17).
The term ‘lukewarmist’ would seem a political survival tool. From this perspective it may conceivably enable political longevity in the toxic green soup. Ridley inhabits the House of Lords. He is politically able by necessity.
The ‘middle ground’ appears to lie in acknowledging the theoretical basis for infinitesimal, unquantified warming arising exclusively from a green house effect whilst ignoring other reasons for the physical warming effect of the atmosphere.
Is further work on quantifying the thermal gravitational forcing functions of the atmosphere and its contribution to the energy budget needed to better balance the GHE centric view?
10
Well, well! Over at the Balmain Basket Weaving Eco-Collective they are planning a drumming march with the appropriate banners to their local Catholic church in order to demonstrate their solidarity. People power united with religious faith will defeat untrammelled pursuit of profit and mindless consumerism. It will be great to record on their latest model smart iphones and, naturally, they will be attending the Paris Summit in December. To ensure their necessary comfort levels some will be flying business class of course. No hypocrisy here!
100
2 Timothy 4:3-5
Can I get this guy to meet me at the TAB?
10
Let’s see. One religion supporting another, both promising hell fire and damnation for heretics. Not surprising.
131
Given history there ought to be a war there soon
10
Too true, Ian!
00
It appears ‘Climate science’ is also damaging religion too, judging by the fiasco of the latest Papal Encyclical. The ‘Galileo Farce’ stood for a long while but it looks like we are about to get a new farce to join it. Two wrongs won’t make a right.
90
Seems Matt Ridley is not the only media person concerned about shutting down dissent:
https://stream.org/global-warming-inquisition-political-pressure-trumps-scientific-inquiry/
60
19 June: WSJ: The Pope’s Solution for Warming: Pray
Spiritual transformation is to be hoped for, but technology and the competitive search for efficiency might help too.
By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
(Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. is a columnist, editorial writer and member of the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board; he has also written for Policy Review and National Review)
With unintended sacrilege one news-service headline this week credited the pope with “finding religion on climate change.”
Maybe it would be truer to say Pope Francis has tried to annex one of the newer religions, that of global warming, to Catholic liturgy, though this would also paint a sorry picture of his political judgment. For if anything has been demonstrated over the past three decades, it’s that moral hectoring of voters does not produce notable progress on this vexing issue.
And voters are not stupid in this regard. As Georgia Tech climatologist Judith Curry has explained: “One argument that President Obama hasn’t tried to make explicitly is that the U.S. commitments to emissions reductions will actually slow down warming in a meaningful way. If you believe the climate models, the U.S. emissions reductions would reduce the warming by a fairly trivial amount, that would get lost among the natural variability of climate.”
That’s right, Mr. Obama, who has referred to the “urgent and growing threat of a changing climate,” has committed the U.S. to a program of costs without benefits…
In fact, he may be wrong about technology; it’s not inconceivable that nano batteries might emerge in the coming decades that will render the whole debate moot, and may even cause new worries about the consequences of a sudden drop in human carbon-dioxide output…
More intriguing was his swipe at the humanity haters, the gestalt of certain parts of the environmental movement and closely allied with its temptation toward totalitarianism, not to mention its habit of extreme self-righteousness, which seems to be the main compensation that draws many to the global-warming cause…
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-popes-solution-for-warming-pray-1434755696
18 June: New York Review of Books: Bill McKibben: Pope Francis: The Cry of the Earth
The old conceit that the president has a “bully pulpit” needs updating; it’s clear that the pulpit at St. Peter’s Basilica is now the bulliest of all. Pope Francis may lack legions, but he has 6.3 million followers on Twitter, and for a week now the world has been following leaks of his new encyclical on climate change and the environment…
First, simply by writing it, the pope—the single most prominent person on the planet, and of all celebrities and leaders the most skilled at using gesture to communicate—has managed to get across the crucial point: our environmental peril, and in particular, climate change, is the most pressing issue of our time. We face, he says, “desolation,” and we must turn as fast as we can away from coal, oil, and gas…
(President Obama, for instance, the earth’s most powerful politician, made it to the closing days of his 2012 reelection campaign without mentioning climate change—until Hurricane Sandy finally made it impossible not to.) It’s been a side issue, but no more: Francis has made it clear that nothing can be more important…
Less expected, perhaps—at least for those who haven’t understood why Francis chose his papal name—is how seriously he takes that cry of the earth…
My own sense, after spending the day reading this remarkable document, was of great relief. I’ve been working on climate change for a quarter century, and for much of that time it felt like enduring one of those nightmarish dreams where no one can hear your warnings. In recent years a broad-based movement has arisen to take up the challenge, but this marks the first time that a person of great authority in our global culture has fully recognized the scale and depth of our crisis, and the consequent necessary rethinking of what it means to be human.
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2015/jun/18/pope-francis-encyclical-cry-of-earth/
24
My prayer for the current pope……………
“Pray For You”
I haven’t been to church since I don’t remember when
Things were goin’ great ’til they fell apart again
So I listened to the preacher as he told me what to do
He said you can’t go hatin’ others who have done wrong to you
Sometimes we get angry, but we must not condemn
Let the good Lord do His job and you just pray for them
I pray your brakes go out runnin’ down a hill
I pray a flowerpot falls from a window sill and knocks you in the head like I’d like to
I pray your birthday comes and nobody calls
I pray you’re flyin’ high when your engine stalls
I pray all your dreams never come true
Just know wherever you are honey, I pray for you
I’m really glad I found my way to church
‘Cause I’m already feelin’ better and I thank God for the words
Yeah I’m goin’ take the high road
And do what the preacher told me to do
You keep messin’ up and I’ll keep prayin’ for you
I pray your tire blows out at 110
I pray you pass out drunk with your best friend and wake up with his and her tattoos
I pray your brakes go out runnin’ down a hill
I pray a flowerpot falls from a window sill and knocks you in the head like I’d like to
I pray your birthday comes and nobody calls
I pray you’re flyin’ high when your engine stalls
I pray all your dreams never come true
Just know wherever you are, near or far, in your house or in your car,
wherever you are honey, I pray for you.
I pray for you
43
Here’s a relevant attempted debate involving Roy Spencer and lots of speculative nonsense from Gavin Schmidt, who chickened out of the debate, plus a bit on beneficial CO2 caused greening of the Earth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V96k4BO2sBw
32
From the article
Not really. My favorite paper is one in which my idea was shown to be wrong despite the massive amounts of convincing evidence for it, because of a single extra experiment before writing up. It also went down well with the reviewers despite the conclusion that we still didn’t know why we had the strange results.
I must admit that I didn’t come up with the extra experiment because I thought that it would prove my idea wrong. Its something that you remember when designing experiments. You want to know whether you are wrong so you choose to do the ones that might reveal that you are wrong. You don’t do a million more that are similar to the experiments that provided the evidence for it. You want to do the one more completely different one that will show it is wrong if it is. Your arguments for your explanation are so much more convincing if you can demonstrate that you have done that, and your work is still publishable if that extra experiment proved you wrong.
40
“No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.” – Albert Einstein
That is the point of experiments. Anyone can have a theory. With AGW, not a single hypothesis has proven right and all have been proven wrong. Still they persist with their claims of 4C warming in 100 years despite not a sausage in 18 years. (which is why they dropped from 5C)
61
The AGW theory has failed the tests of science. However, it still is winning the political debate, essentially because its proponents will never admit they made a mistake. Ever heard a politician say sorry I got it wrong.
102
It’s proponents made no mistake! They did not believe it in the first place, unless someone believes billionaire essayist Al Gore is an altruist? Or Pachauri? Or even our own Tim Flannery? Or anthropologist Christiana Figueres, daughter of the President of Costa Rica? There people know nothing about meteorology or have qualifications in physical science. Unlike sceptics, they have all done very well financially from Climate Change. Gore even claims a Nobel Prize for peace. How does that work again?
83
The RSS and UAH match closely but something did change in 2001. Not likely to be due to Hansen but there is something fishy with the data that came from NASA.
52
also in Quadrant:
17 June: Quadrant: John McLean: The Pontiff Buys a Bridge
No doubt inspired by the loftiest motives, Pope Francis appears poised to emblazon a document of blithering climate-change nonsense with the authority and endorsement of the Vatican seal. If only he had taken a moment to remind himself of those warnings about false prophets.
Worse, it seems the only voices Rome has heeded are those of climate alarmists, led by Hans Joachim (John) Schellnhuber, Alarmist-in-Chief of the notoriously alarmist Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)…
Climate alarmists have made so many flawed predictions they seem almost over-qualified to be called false prophets…
Traditionally, bearing false witness involves making false statements about an individual, but the alarmists have extended that definition to include lies by omission. So very often we have seen alarmists declining to release the data on which their predictions rest. They have also misled by concealing how much they don’t know about the forces acting on climate, what assumptions underpin various claims, and how unreliable their climate models really are.
The Bible tells us that we shall know false prophets by their fruit, in other words by what they produce. And what climate alarmists have shown to date is an appalling lack of honesty and ethics…
Popularity and credence are the characteristic goals of false prophets, and it can’t be denied that climate alarmists are popular with the more gullible and ideological sections of the media…
Another characteristic of the false prophet is the focus on personal advancement, and here, once again, we see alarmist ranks are replete with those who have built very nice careers out of nothing but hot air…
Rather than lending his papal seal to the cause of charlatans, Francis would have better to take a deep breath and remind himself that honesty and integrity are the greatest virtues. He will find little evidence of those qualities among his new friends, the prelates in the Church of Climate Catastrophe.
http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2015/06/pontiff-buys-bridge/
(John McLean was co-author with Chris de Freitas and Bob Carter of a paper that became the centre of controversy when submitted to the Journal of Geophysical Research)
18 June: Pik-Potsdam: “Humanity at risk “: climate scientist Schellnhuber speaks at the Vatican
Schellnhuber is the only scientist who has been invited to speak, alongside Cardinal Peter Turkson.
In the run-up to the encyclical, Schellnhuber participated in a number of workshops organized by the highly renowned Pontifical Academy of Sciences, which made him its member on Wednesday…
“The atmosphere, heaven above us all, is a global common – yet it is used as a waste-dump for greenhouse gases by the few,” says Ottmar Edenhofer, chief economist of PIK and director of the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change. “The Pope is making history in highlighting this. If we want to avoid dangerous climate change, we have to restrict the use of the atmosphere by putting a price on CO2 emissions. This would generate revenues which could be used to improve access to clean water or education, especially for the poor.”
Along with other international experts, Edenhofer has been consulted by the Vatican in the run-up to the encyclical. He was joint leader of a recent project on climate justice and development, which resulted in a number of conferences at the Vatican. On the evening of 18 June, he will discuss the encyclical in Berlin at an event hosted by the Catholic Academy and the Deutsche Bischofs-Konferenz. On 1 July, he will debate the Pope’s messages with Cardinal Turkson and author Naomi Klein (“Capitalism versus Climate”) in Rome.
***Attachment: Paper by John Schellnhuber distributed at the Vatican event today
https://www.pik-potsdam.de/news/press-releases/201chumanity-at-risk-201c-climate-scientist-schellnhuber-speaks-at-the-vatican
***PDF: 10 Pages: Common Ground,The Papal Encyclical, Science and the Protection of Planet Earth
by Hans Joachim Schellnhuber
excerpts: “The scientific consensus as represented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been continuously reaffirmed by the most eminent scientific academies, including the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences which have congregated several times over the past years to address the topics of climate change and global sustainability”…
Already, we have not only violated the moral boundaries of our global civil society, but are also leaving the safe operating space of our planet by crossing planetary guardrails …
What we have learned …
For instance, after a “decade of weather extremes” it is now clear that local heat records happen about five times more often than they would in an unchanged climate – that is with an intact parachute. At the same time, although still too far away to be directly visible to most of us (but not to all!), major turbulence is approaching inexorably: almost 20 cm of global mean sea-level rise since 1880, for example, is starting to impact entire societies, washing away the ground they live on or degrading the soil on which they grow their food through salt-water intrusion…
What we need to do
International negotiations over national emission reduction goals, national carbon prices or even a global price, implicitly or explicitly allocate rights for use of carbon space in the atmosphere to nation states, firms and consumers…
*** The Encyclical argues for a global governance structure for the whole spectrum of the planetary commons. Putting a price on CO2 emissions – either in the form of emissions cap & trade systems like the one in Europe or the one that China plans to set up, or through national CO2 taxes – is an effective instrument to protect the common good…
*** Moreover, a variety of solutions have emerged from the scientific discourse, including, for example, international monitoring of national emissions reductions or the establishment of a ***global ‘climate bank’ to manage the emissions allowance…
31
***surely Hannam should name the “officials” plural who label Australia “black sheep”, if they exist?
can’t comprehend the whole Merkel/Schellnhuber exchange though the Germany good/Australia bad message comes thru clear!
20 June: SMH: Peter Hannam: ‘Green superpower’ Germany plots the way to a low-carbon world by closing Grafenrheinfeld nuclear power plant
***(Peter Hannam was a guest in Germany of the country’s foreign office)
And yet, German policymakers seem determined to stick to an ambitious – and unilateral – goal of slashing greenhouse gas emissions by 40 per cent on 1990 levels, even if that means shutting near zero-carbon nuclear plants along the way…
The country is also betting big that renewable energy mainly from wind, solar and hydro power will continue to surge beyond its current share of about 28 per cent of total supply.
That ambition contrasts with the Abbott government’s push this week to get its 20 per cent reduction of Australia’s 2020 Renewable Energy Target through the Senate…
***Little wonder, then that German officials label Australia as a “black sheep”…
Germans freely admit that overly generous feed-in tariffs paid to those supplying renewable energy to the grid meant the country paid billions of euros too much to install solar panels on the roofs of some 3.5 million homes and small businesses in a country not known for its bounteous sunshine…
***The levy now costs users 6.17 euro cents (9¢) per kilowatt-hour, boosting residents’ costs for power to about 26 euro cents/KW-hour. [By contrast, this correspondent pays about 31¢ in Sydney for 100 per cent renewable power.]…
Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, says Merkel – herself also a theoretical physicist by training – has understood the risks of climate change since she was a federal environment minister in 1994 hailing from the former communist East Germany.
Even in the wake of the failed Copenhagen climate summit in 2009, Merkel brushed aside Professor Schellnhuber’s readiness to counter sceptics’ claims that climate change wasn’t real.
“It was almost disappointing to me. I tried to explain to Merkel but she said, ‘I don’t want to hear it. This is crystal clear to me anyway,'” he said…
“‘This is a no-brainer to me, but tell me rather what we can do about it,” Professor Schellnhuber recalls her as telling him…
Seated in the same Potsdam room that Albert Einstein discussed his theory of relativity in 1916 with fellow pioneers like Karl Schwarzschild that helped lead to modern telecommunications, Professor Schellnhuber said the history of the Industrial Revolution offers pointers to what’s ahead for energy.
“Can anybody imagine that you can operate two completely different economies – one based on fossil fuels and nuclear, and the other based on efficiency and renewable – in parallel for the next five-six decades? It is ludicrous, it will never happen,” he said. “All the history of industry tells us that once the system gets tipped to a new mode, and you have some comparative advantage, it takes it all, of course.”
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/green-superpower-germany-plots-the-way-to-a-lowcarbon-world-by-closing-grafenrheinfeld-nuclear-power-plant-20150619-ghpbcf.html
another Fairfax reporter got a trip too. more insults for Australia, from the almost-divine, “leading” Schellnhuber of the “highly-regarded” Pik-Potsdam, no less!
17 June: Australian Financial Review: Tony Walker: Pope’s climate adviser lambasts Australia
(Tony Walker visited Germany as a guest of the German government)
A leading German climate change authority and adviser to the Pope on the effects of global warming has lambasted Australia over what he perceives as its failure to address an inevitable process of de-carbonisation.
Professor Hans Schellnhuber, head of the highly-regarded Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research outside Berlin, told reporters Australia’s reliance on coal exports to China was a “suicide strategy”…
An adviser to both the Pope and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Prof Schellnhuber is one of Europe’s leading climate change scientists…
He was interviewed in his study where Albert Einstein developed his Theory of Relativity…
***”Australia and Canada suffered from the curse of bounty,” he says. “We will be fine forever: why should we change?”…
On the wall of Prof Schellnhuber’s office he displayed Einstein’s words written in the 1940’s when he lived at Princeton University in New Jersey after fleeing the Nazis: “The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil but by those who watch them without doing anything”.
Professor Schellnhuber described Einstein as his “hero”.
http://www.afr.com/news/policy/climate/popes-climate-adviser-lambasts-abbott-on-climate-20150618-ghql4u
sweet.
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Jones at the CRU was also a very early Climate Change™ enthusiast.
The BOM record, the subject of the previous post, was first compiled and adjusted by a student of “climate change science” in 1996.
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This article reminds me of why my alarm bells first went off concerning the pro CAGW enthusiasts, a documentary called The Cloud Mystery was released in 2008, it was 10 years in the making by qualified scientists pioneering an new direction of an old idea, the responses to it at the time from other scientific institutions left me curious as to the lack of professional protocol exhibited.
Whether or not Matt Ridley is a lukewarmer isn’t the point, the real point is when he correctly exposes the establishment of a totalitarian scientific regime that will accept no challenge to their dogmas, this is the very real very frightening reality.
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Professional weather forecast should start with an analysis of temperature and pressure in the stratosphere. Jetstream in the tropopause strictly depends on the pressure in the stratosphere. You have to remember that any changes in the stratosphere are due to changes in solar activity and the Earth’s magnetic field.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/
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I want to write a motion to the government before they go to the Paris whatever. I would appreciate corrections if I have tripped up please because my only “education”on this is from reading a huge amount from Jo, Anthony, Lord Monckton and so many others.
That it behoves all nations to insist on the following before signing any Treaty.
That the real world empirical temperatures from 1900 shall be the only data used to project how much the temperature will rise by 2100 and whether it is in the range of variability.
That the computer models which the climate scientists use to ‘prove’ their theory of catastrophic global warming, be laid bare for public scrutiny by other world scientists, statisticians and computer modellers to identify any mathematical faults or scientific law contradictions.
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What is the human impact on changes in ozone in the stratosphere? Ozone depletion has an impact on the status of the polar vortex (braking).
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/gif_files/gfs_t50_sh_f00.gif
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Sorry, should be: distribution of ozone.
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Let’s see where the jet stream is blocked at an altitude of 5 km in the troposphere. The pressure distribution corresponds to the distribution of pressure in the lower stratosphere.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/blocking/real_time_sh/500gz_anomalies_sh.gif
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Slightly off topic:
Listening to ABC overnights on Friday Morning, just after the 3am news break The Host (Rod Quinn) spoke to one of his regular New York contacts. This particular one works for Mother Jones, nuff said I guess. Towards the end of the segment they spoke about the Pope’s encyclical on climate change and ridiculed the Republicans denial of the climate changing. One would think that after 20+ years of argument and counter argument, even the alarmist would know that no one on this side denies that the climate changes.
It’s so frustrating sometimes while working in the early hours of the morning and there is no worthwhile opposition to ABC radio.
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Bob,
We’re in the “Tyrany of Broadcast Power” – good ABC reception, marginal local radio.
So the choice between ABC and Allan Jones.
Sometimes “Off” is a welcome option IMO
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Another Ian:
When your driving around the suburbs of Newcastle, sweeping the roads and gutters at 10kms an hour it can be a long night if you don’t have some form of distraction. If it gets too bad I always have a couple of cd’s in my bag.
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“The Climate Wars”
Jo, and how did it start ?
why are the “general public” so interested in science anyway ?
and interested in the subject of “the weather” (of all things).
A war about Climate ?
and I never thought that I would see the word “sordid” used in the same sentence as Science.. 😮
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I believe the problem has a twofold starting point.
Firstly, when universities were no longer funded by the government and were to be part funded by the students or donation.
And secondly, the way universities make money is by pushing through students. The more students the more money.
The need to push through students, and to retain students leads to a reduced pass standard. This slow reduction in education standard leads to a reduced educator standard.
Eventually, the whole system is geared toward money and passing students. Science, or what is being taught, is incidental to the needs of the university. The universities first priority is money.
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The Campaign to Wipe Out the Common Eurasian Tree Sparrow
The war on Climate reminds me of the Chinese’s attempt at interfering with a large natural system ( their ecosystem ).
Back in the 1950s, Chinese scientists had calculated that each sparrow consumed 4.5kg of grain each year — and that for every million sparrows killed, there would be food for 60,000 people.
Armed with this information, Mao launched the Great Sparrow Campaign to address the problem.
As a result of these efforts, the sparrow became nearly extinct in China. And that’s when the problems started…..
By April of 1960, it started to become painfully obvious to the Chinese that the sparrows, in addition to eating grains, ate insects, lots of insects.
This ended up being the worst self-inflicted environmental disaster in recorded history in which an estimated 30 million people died of starvation.
There are politicians and scientists out there who would have us believe that CO2 is very bad…
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The latest trend on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/topic/Holocene-Extinction/102162109825692?source=whfrt&position=2&trqid=6162685670353269290
Apparently we are now the main cause of the latest (ongoing!!!) “mass extinction” where animals are dying out at “100 times the normal rate”
Won’t be long before Pope puts his two bits in on this topic too!!!!
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Satellite measurements show that 23 percent of land area in southern Norway is still covered in snow, nearly five times more than normal in June, says senior forecaster Eirik Malnes..
http://www.sott.net/article/297976-Record-snow-cover-for-June-in-Norway-5-times-more-than-normal
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Watch the following video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtYdjbpBk6A
The day a political leader can stand up in a similar manner, against the UN’s climate change flawed global warming dogma backed by the ideology of environmentalism, that will be the day we might see the crumbling of the corruption of climate science.
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Keep your eyes on Canada, the only country that has the spine (politically) to be consistently standing up against the climate bullies (and Putin)
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Fossil fuels – unsafe to leave them in the ground
Alarmists are frequently telling everyone to stop burning fossil fuels.
But in reality it is a good thing that we are mining these resources and inventing
better ways to consume them cleanly, and doing it now !
Centralia, Pennsylvania – a town made uninhabitable because the coal on which
it sat, ignited deep underground and 50 years later, it is still burning. 😮
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Thank you Jo, I have been subscribing to Quadrant for many years, which I find to be excellent value for money, as is your own wonderfully edifying blog.
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I must say that my respect for scientists has gone from utmost to nil over the past 10 years. People complain about politicians selling out for money. Who would have thought scientists would do the same? Certainly not me.
In regards to Matt Ridley, I was educated in finance. There is absolutely nothing in today’s borrow and print money financial world that resembles my formal education. Seems to me some long prison sentences need to be handed out before we get back to sanity.
As for all the time, effort and savings spent in obtaining my education? Throw my diploma out the window! None of it is of use in today’s world. I should have focused my studies on criminal activities that have no repercussions.
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Eric: the problem is that as with any profession there are the good ones, the brilliant ones – and at the other end the ones who really shouldn’t be involved in science at all. I’m being polite here!
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Ms. Nova, I too greatly enjoyed Matt Ridley’s article and I am enjoying “Climate Change – The Facts.” I have the Kindle version on my phone and read your chapter on the bus going home last night and struggled not to laugh and bother the other passengers! You have an exceptional grasp of the facts and great wit. Thank you.
[Thanks Andy! Glad you enjoyed it. 😀 — Jo]
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I would also reccomend the following good reads:
Alan Carlin – Environmentalism gone mad
James Delingpole – the Little Green Book of Eco-Facism
Tim Ball – the Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science
and for a fictional take on the greenies, written years ago, Larry Niven’s Fallen Angels. For fiction, it’s interesting how many of his predictions have come to pass….and how many more are still possible.
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