Good news, a spot of media coverage.
Perth Edition, The Sunday Times
Miranda Devine: Perth electrical engineer’s discovery will change climate change debate
Photo: AustralianClimateMadness
A MATHEMATICAL discovery by Perth-based electrical engineer Dr David Evans may change everything about the climate debate, on the eve of the UN climate change conference in Paris next month.
A former climate modeller for the Government’s Australian Greenhouse Office, with six degrees in applied mathematics, Dr Evans has unpacked the architecture of the basic climate model which underpins all climate science.
He has found that, while the underlying physics of the model is correct, it had been applied incorrectly.
He has fixed two errors and the new corrected model finds the climate’s sensitivity to carbon dioxide (CO2) is much lower than was thought.
It turns out the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has over-estimated future global warming by as much as 10 times, he says…
The series of posts flows under the tag: “Climate Research 2015″
Congratulations to Dr. Evans. Now, will he be challenged on the scientific accuracy on his work by his peers, subjected to a veritable barrage of ad hom, smear and innuendo by the warmist MSM or ignored because there’s no point in debate, the science is settled? One thing he won’t have to do is wait by the phone for a call from Mr. Turnbull.
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Maybe everyone who would like to Congratulate David Evans on this work could add a tick to Kevin’s post. That would give an idea of the numbers.
Of course feel free to add your own comment to the thread as well.
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ditto
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This is clearly one confrontation in which it when it is better to be outnumbered 326 to 4 than 3 to 97.
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Hmm, I wonder why was the first thing I thought of here was ….. Barry Marshall!
Tony.
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Barry Marshall, a great Australian physician who was laughed at for suggesting a link between the bacterial cause of peptic ulcers and gastric cancer, actually used himself as a test subject to help prove it and ended up with a Nobel Prize in Physiology.
Let’s hope David doesn’t have to ingest large quantities of deadly CO2 to prove a hypothesis, maybe a high altitude balloon flight would be a more Noble venture. 🙂
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CO2 is quite palatable in a gin and tonic on a warm afternoon.
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Or a cold beer! 😉
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jo, just copied excerpts from the article to post here.
wondered how come I hadn’t see u post it.
could barely believe I was reading it.
wonderful pic.
and now?
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Well done David and Jo. Good one. I might have to grab a copy of the Sundy Times for a change.
There was a mention on Bolta the other day.
When is Delingpole going to write something?
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Yes, Bolta is following it!
But by himself he can’t do much, it needs a mention in parliament. Who could we ask to do that ?
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The Climate Change Commission might take it up and revise all their advise to the Government!
In my Dreams.
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Maybe, Dr. Dennis Jensen, although an ex CSIRO scientist and a well known AGW sceptic, he supported Turnbull over Tony Abbott. But, I doubt if he has much pull in his climate views against merchant banker Turnbull. Follow the money!
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Bobl…..trending at no.2 on facebok at the moment….lets see how long it stays on trend.
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Jo, he is your husband I gather from the Perth now website. I don’t say that to criticise at all. I say it to simply warn
that the attacks will come from the ‘non sceptic’ professional climateers that this is the case and ‘what else would you expect!’
In fact, I read a very good booklet by another Perth mathematician that was passed around at a meeting around ~ 2006. It gave the
story even then, that CO2 was a weak warming agent, it’s concentration followed, not preceded Temperature rises, that effect maximised
at concentrations of CO2 barely beyond the concentration essential for respiring animals to survive. That booklet should really hit the
shelves again, updated. It backed the solar scientist’s belief that the global temperature was very much controlled (?) at the whim of,
the solar cycles. It appears your husband has validated the belief of a decade ago.
The question really has to be asked however. If the facts were known that long ago, what has driven the sociopolitical brigade to persist
with the international story. Hunt shows the knowledge was there. He simply chose to ignore it for the greater story. The answers are for him
to give, now. This has been made into such an item of religious rather than scientific belief that I hope your husband is prepared for
the diatribes of hate that he will be subjected to. Will the national press, even the Australian, follow this up. Their editors have professed
total belief in the Global Warming – CO2 story. To call it a scientific hypothesis would be a cheap shot at science. The question to be asked
of all these CEO’s and Government bureaucrats is: Why have you knowingly lied to the public? Why have you sacrificed the professional lives
and persons of so many of your own countrymen to this fraud? Why do you persist in supporting lies? What is wrong with you ar what is your payoff?
Or is it your opinion that it is better to support a fraud than it is to declare the facts and the lies as lies and refuse to face the music?
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Nigel Calder in his book The Manic Sun traces the political acceptance of the CO2 is causing climate change myth and the drive to demonise CO2. It’s a worthy read.
The UK Met Office Hadley Centre was one of the primae donnae pushing the Enhanced Faraday-Tyndall-Arrhenius hypothesis. Their long range forecasts are risible. Nature has served up almost the exact opposite of their CO2-based computer-modelled predictions time after time. Those satellite photos of almost totally snow-covered British Islea were after predictions of “mild and dry” winters.
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DOC: I am not sure if you like to write in free verse or is you feel the need to hit the return button each time you get to the end of the line on your screen as you prepare your post. Whichever it is, your point – good that it is – would be easier read if you could avoid either of those two.
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They make a rather effective team, do they not? And the criticism will come, one way or another. So I don’t think Mr. and Mrs. David Evans are going to worry about it.
And there it is in black and white for all to see — not that it was ever hidden — it wasn’t.
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Good News, though Miranda is a conservative columnist. The real test is will it see the light of day in The oz, or the age or even the West Australian or shh.. their ABC
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Unlikely.
It needs to be a topic of gloom and doom – cause by seeOtwo.
Today was warm in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney regions. Press again hints at global warming. A few weeks ago, when it was cold with late snow, it was a function of climate.
There is just no sensation in establishing that the laws of physics have been incorrectly applied.
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Well deserved recognition, now let’s see how much further this goes.
A long long way I hope.
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Once published inn a scientific journal the Evans findings/ expose will be hard to suppress… Evans is one of the very few people who can really take a deep dive into the bowels of climate models and reverse engineer the array of feedback/ partial Diff eqs that are rigged (or at best fatally flawed) to impose an exaggerated CO2- climate link.
In a lot of ways Evans work will probably demolish the credibility of climate models the way McIntryre-McKitrick demolished the Mann Hockey Stick… You’ll notice Hockey Stick was quietly banished from Ar4 and especially AR5.
One can expect a similar fate to fall on the already discredited climate models. These models have already failed catastrophically to capture current global temperatures.
David Evans has identified precisely the bad math-bad science reasons why these models have failed so spectacularly.
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Well, if this is the case all David Evans needs to is publish, get it peer reviewed and pick up his Nobel Prize. By the way what is a Mathematical discovery, somthing like E=MC2
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Please remember, peer review has nothing to do with the practice of science. It is part of academic bureaucracy not part of the scientific method, nor is journal publication part of the scientific method.
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Ummm, hate to tell you this, but it already is published.
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Where is it published?
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Please, please, post this to SkS. I’d pay quids to watch Tom Curtis (the self-appointed world expert on climate science) froth at the mouth.
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Let’s hope this is widely reported. Your hard work may be starting to pay off David. Thanks for the site and the posts Jo.
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And congratulations from me too. Her article was also published here (NSW) in the Sunday Telegraph. I read it in the hard copy version this morning.
Cheers,
Dave B
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It would be interesting to hear if you observe an uptick in website hits as a result of the article.
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I trust that an official copy has been emailed to Messrs Turnbull, Hunt and Bishop.
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It’s great to hear formal recognition, but sadly, I’m sceptical that it’ll be taken up where it counts. I also expect significant pushback from those that will be most seriously affected by the truth.
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You mean a significant pushback from the left, can’t be that bad, this covers MSM, most political parties, trade unions, left funded activist groups, NGO’s, city and rural councils, renewables investors, wannabe UN troughers and then outside Australia there’s……..ok fair point mate.
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And I wish it wasn’t.
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Let’s see if they can push back with substance rather than vitriol.
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Hunt, Turnbull and Bishop will ignore it. They’re already packing for Paris.
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I’ve posted the article in the comments of the top WUWT thread at present – “Climate activist: Flying to conferences lacks integrity” by Eric Worrall.
bemused wrote –
“I’m sceptical that it’ll be taken up where it counts”
speaking of “counts”, INNUMERACY is a major problem worldwide. example:
Max Keiser loathes BofE Governor, Mark Carney so, when Carney shot his mouth off about CAGW during the week, I joked to friends that this might be a turning point for Keiser. finally, he might get that it’s a scam.
just watched his latest episode:
Keiser Report – Episode 818
http://www.rt.com/shows/keiser-report/317500-episode-max-keiser-818/
in the first half, he mentions:
1 min: referring to debt (paraphrasing): you see it played out in a somewhat cosmic way in the ecology itself. Californian droughts, storms ravaging planet earth. planet is degrading.
in second half interview, he says –
25 mins: (paraphrasing) Max’s new concept – collateral deflation: we see this most spectacularly on planet earth itself – ecological catastrophe. just this past week Mark Carney said climate change is a $300 trilion or more problem. he studies the collateral value all day long.
so suddenly Carney is an oracle of truth!
btw here is the actual report, all 87 pages, which the BofE did for the Insurance Industry. the highest figure mentioned in the entire report is in a footnote, namely US$143 trillion. nothing online about any $300 trillion/CAGW estimate by Carney or anyone else at any time. where on earth did Keiser get the figure from? who knows. will viewers question the figure? no:
87 pages: Sept 2015: Bank of England Prudential Regulation Authority: The impact of climate change on the UK insurance sector
A Climate Change Adaptation Report by the Prudential Regulation Authority
Footnote 57: The report estimates the world’s current stock of manageable assets to be US$143 trillion, defined as the total stock of assets held by non-bank financial institutions (based on Financial Stability Board estimates). This figure excludes bank assets (largely managed by banks themselves).
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/pra/Documents/supervision/activities/pradefra0915.pdf
the CAGW scam, which aims to fleece the public worldwide, expoits public INNUMERACY, not only in the financial sense, but in understanding the real cost of renewables, and certainly as regards the science.
nonetheless, good luck to David in getting some acknowledgement of his work and may there be more to come.
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someone has posted the article at WUWT Tips&Notes & I’ve posted this thread there as well. will try to get it out as much as possible.
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Good work Jo and David.
What needs to be made clear to the public is that this work is simply a “checking” of basically the Mathematics of the widely used Model much quoted by Climate Change practitioners.
Subject to further analysis there may be errors and falsifications even in some of the “accepted” science on which the model is supposedly based.
Many of those errors have been mentioned here over the last few posts and are the reason that I feel very uncomfortable every time I hear of a concession being made to the CAGW brigade that “yes, CO2 causes heating but not as much as first thought”.
This type of statement is confusing because many of use here believe that it is intuitively obvious that CO2 and especially Man Made CO2 does not in any way “control” the atmosphere.
KK
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Well put KK. No concessions should be made, particularly in the throes of what appears likely to be a deepening global cold spell. For sure, no concessions are being made in (UN) The Agenda or in shackling up the World’s economies in unadulterated, production destroying, spurious eco-totalitarianism that is proposed to cost many $trillions….from where does this money come when economies are withering…..from slave labour?
The terminally stupid and nauseating conflation of social ‘issues’, pseudo-science and eco-bureaucratic totalitarianism is manifest in the ‘climate’ lingua-franca over at Radio NZ chaired by Kim Hill, a commentator who appears profoundly in love with her own voice and who seems to display a turgid self-absorption accompanied by the critical acumen of a Folivora. It’s all about the big push to COP21.
As you can see rationality and science left the room a long time ago.
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I think that we have seen several FATAL errors to the Greenhouse Gas Effect Theory presented already KK.
It is still supposed that CO2 causes warming, just not as much as previously thought. I do not go along with that (at least not yet)
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From the Miranda Devine Article;
Well yes!
Grennhouse gases do absorb infra red radiation. And they also emit Infrared Radiation
Correct Physics!
But if you apply it incorrectly you will get the wrong result! Segway the Greenhouse Gas Effect Theory.
Wrong Thinking and Wrong Result.
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Well specifically the small GHG effect from CO2 is AMPLIFIED in the feedback equations by a factor of 10.
This was well known for some time but very few people are as qualified as David Evans to show PRECISELY which feedback loops and which PDE embodied bogus science embodied in these loop gains.
And even then it took a top-rank expert like Evans years to tease out the exact scientific and mathematical/ systems flaws.
A virtuoso performance by Evans and a warm thanks from all of humanity to him and Jo Nova.
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Well done, David. Do hope you can “change everything about the climate debate”.
But with the ‘climatisation’ of society, I fear it is no longer about facts. DAGW/DACC paradigm now too entrenched.
Desire for the Fig-leaf now ten times greater than desire for Truth.
That the models don’t work has never worried the modellers, governments and whole alarmist movement.
They just ask for more $$$ to ‘refine’ them, improve their ‘forecasting’, etc.
Even when climate scientists – like Zurich-based Knutti (2012) below – publicly admit model flaws (aka ‘challenges’) makes no difference to disciples of the paradigm:
ow should we interpret the lack of model convergence? Can
we be more confident in a projection even if the uncertainty is
unchanged? We believe this can be the case if more model data,
observations and process understanding are available. It is common
that more research uncovers a picture that is more complicated;
thus, uncertainty can grow with time.
Judging the potential success of such a project is speculative, and
it may simply take a long time to succeed. However, if the past
is a guide to the future then uncertainties in climate change are
unlikely to decrease quickly, and may even grow temporarily. We
have illustrated this for seasonal temperature and precipitation,
and it is likely that impact-relevant predictions, for example of
extreme weather events, may be even harder to improve.
http://www.iac.ethz.ch/people/knuttir/papers/knutti12natcc.pdf
Just as discoveries by Copernicus etc made no difference to belief structure of the other Church.
Even if icebergs/flows appear in English Channel/Seine in late November it would be spun as ‘consistent with a warming world.’
Alice
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I see what you mean Alice. Brialliant!
Now where is our Fig Leaf Friend?
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+1 what great line, I shall steal this and use it in a figurative manner during debate.
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Excellent!
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Well done! I see you are getting quite a bit of press.
But let me guess, not one single “public service” broadcaster has mentioned it yet.
Or shall I rephrase:
Not one single “industry hating” broadcaster who jumped on the CO2 bandwagon as a convenient way of expressing their hatred of private industry … wants the CO2 scam to end.
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Congratulations David and Jo. I hope your outstanding and dedicated work reverberates widely,loudly and for a very long time. May it provoke ever greater questioning and uncertainty.
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[…] Jo Nova’s where the series of articles are being published […]
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Congratulation to you both, all that dedication is finally paying off.
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That is a nice Photo of you both Jo!
Life looks good in Perth. Congratulations on your articles so far David and for Jo’s editing. I hope it makes a difference.
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Jo
Made it to comments at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/10/03/climate-activist-flying-to-conferences-lacks-integrity/
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Jo
David is safe here but you’ll have to change your hair style.
So I can say that three of the smartest people I’ve known are blondes.
But if you don’t I’ll keep acting as an information node for the “43 Bean Coffee Set” which Talcum Powder seems to ignore.
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I am sure it means something Ian. Can you explain? Or is it best not to?
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Let me guess…rhyming slang…Talcum Powder…is our new PM? The 43 Beans Coffee Set? Okay. The 44 who voted for Abbott, maybe? You are in communication with the good guys, it seems. So, Another Ian, how did this plinking macrame-lover do?
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Pretty bloody well.
IMO the “43 beans Coffee set” is representative of those of us in umbrage that weren’t consulted but will make opinions known on this (imo – double just in case!) “s23t for brains” job
But to add
Having just changed a grader tyre (14.00 x 24) talcum powder in that use is a lubricant between a tube and a hard place.
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I keep hearing new stories about the sensitivity being less. I hope one of these days we can hear it’s “irrelevant” and throw the whole idea that CO2 warms the planet in the trash. (I never did understand how that back radiation from the CO2 carried by convection currents high above the earth could provide enough heat to cause warming. It’s just too cold up there!)
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Well done to David and Jo. I hope you at least get the benefit of a sensible debate on your work. Although I suspect will we hear you have been arrested and sent to a re-education camp.
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We cannot allow that to happen.
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3 Oct: UK Telegraph: Christopher Booker: Why that climate deal is already a dead duck
The binding global treaty Mark Carney, the Pope and others all want simply isn’t going to happen
Last week a steady drone rising all year finally swelled to a crescendo. Talking up what Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, described to the City’s leading insurers as the “catastrophic impacts of climate change”, the world’s great and good were piling in on all sides. The Pope was supposed to be at it in his addresses to the UN and the US Congress. Presidents Obama and Hollande were at it, as was David Cameron with his offer of £5.8 million of UK aid money to support the cause. And the Prince of Wales wrote a letter to Britain’s top judges pleading with them to do all they can to bring about what he called “a Magna Carta for the Earth”…READ ON
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11910136/Why-that-climate-deal-is-already-a-dead-duck.html
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Pat
Interesting poll at the bottom of that piece. 88% think Carney has overstepped the mark.
BTW. What are these lawyers up ? Why would the UK Supreme Court help sponsor a conference like this ?
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2015/10/03/climate-secrets-at-the-uk-supreme-court/
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Many congratulations. Now watch the MSM trying to suppress your work or even censor it.
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Miranda Devine IS the bloody MSM…
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just checked. got a comment on Bolt Report thread, as did two others, so three mentions there. hopefully, it will get its own thread tomorrow.
hope someone can get this thread and the one to come to Christopher booker at Tele and David Rose at DM.
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The Climate Model ‘unpacked’. I like that. Like an overloaded suitcase and just in time before all those unnecessary flights to Paris.
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Media exposure is good.
But I urge proponents to exercise the restraint and humility demanded by real science. One can be relatively confident in pointing out where something is wrong; but one can only really hope that one’s own theories are less likely to be wrong.
Science advances most rapidly by identifying and understanding what is wrong, after Popper’s philosophy of “falsifiability”. Science advances when one stops doing things the wrong way.
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It’s often more effective to find the faults in new & existing products & to correct them than to produce something new yourself because each new product is a collection of new errors, waiting to be found.
Hence the Swiss cheese model of software.
All we can guarantee about this new software is that it’s full of errors.
But don’t worry. Users can sign up for support to have the errors that matter fixed as they are found.
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Especially true since we have not yet seen or had the opportunity to compare the new replumbed model compares to observation. Observational effective sensitivity is on the order of 1.7 using the same AR5 inputs as this series does. lewis ans Curry 2014. It is about 1.5 Or a bit less if Bjorn Stevens new lower aerosol estimate range is substituted. Lewis 2015 at CE. It is NOT 0.28-0.32 as the newpaper report on Dr. Evans work (which we have not yet seen ) seems to imply. So far, all we have are the conventional mathematic core and three logical flaws that follow. We do not yet have the proposed corrections, their parameterization, and the results.
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Great news, congratulations Dr Evans!
Maybe it is just me, but I am still re-reading each post to satisfy myself that I properly understand what’s going on – whenever I have an opportunity to put some real brainpower (well, what little I have, anyway) into it.
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A short summary that captures the essence is always appreciated though for the attentionally & temporally challenged .
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Never fear. Jo Nova is here. That is JoNova’s forte. Getting to the nub of the matter. Identifying the Hotspot for example as key to validity (or not) of the models. Outing graft & opportunism on the climate bandwagon. I have no doubt the kiddy steps have been all about getting to the point for everyone with the patience to follow them.
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Srart with Dr Karl. Convince him first, then half the population will fall in line through blind trust, and the ABC might timidly ask itself a few questions.
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Dr Karl is convinced that his own opinion is right.
IMHO he might be the most clueless individual to ever graduate with a medical degree. Happily I don’t think he has ever practiced Medicine.
However If he could be convinced he might do some good.
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I agree that someone like Dr Karl could be useful but suspect he made need some hand-holding on the mathematics. So, my suggestion would be to first get Adam Spencer on side regarding the math then use Adam to help convince Dr Karl. Then, roadshow the work.
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5.0 “The question really has to be asked however. If the facts were known that long ago, what has driven the sociopolitical brigade to persist.”
It’s really simple how many experts can get it all so wrong. The primary reason is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an unelected body set up by environmental bureaucrats within the United Nations for one purpose only, to investigate man made climate change. Evaluation of natural climate change was not included in the directive. Therefore funding has only gone to research man made climate change.
When a company is considering the purchase of another, it undertakes due diligence. Due diligence evaluates both the assets and liabilities of a target company to establish an independent basis for informed decision making, separate from the target companies own glowing literature. Climate change due diligence has never been done, there has been no independent evaluation of the pros and cons, the man made verses natural climate change. Alarmists say “the debate is over”. Skeptics say “what debate, there has been none”. Like a court trial where only the prosecution case is heard and defence is forbidden, the accused will always be found guilty.
Politicians have to take advice from qualified experts. But, if they only fund alarmist experts, they only get alarmist answers. Like any government/bureaucratic investigation set up for a purpose, if the government (the UN’s IPCC) asks the right people the right questions, it gets the right answers (the answers it wants)!
Now for a completely different angle, a quote from Dr Ottar Endenhofer, IPCC co-chair of Working Group 3, 13/11/2010. “We, the UN-IPCC, redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy any more …”
So there you have it, Dr Endenhofer says climate alarm is not about changes in prevailing weather, its really about socialist verses conservative politics. Unelected socialist idealists are using central planning as a means to redistribute wealth, whilst conservatives live in the real world, constrained by factual and practical reality!
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To David and Jo a salute,
And hope all their work will bear fruit,
That the physics outlined,
Will make warmists find,
They agree and if not they’ll refute.
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Excellent Ruairi!
I saw this news first on WUWT. I am delighted and hope all the work by David and Jo truly bears fruit.
BTW, I also think that is a delightful photo of David and Jo.
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dream, dream, the impossible dreammmm
The Warmist only weapon: Stefan Boltzmann’s crappy experiment 160y ago: heating CO2 in a tube is not same as warmed CO2 in the atmosphere- which goes instantly up, when warmed, to cool down! Even the cavemen knew that; reason they invented the chimney!!! In the tube/ sealed chamber, warmed CO2 cannot expend, but keeps warming up when heated, AND CREATING IT’S OWN PRESSURE – on the other hand: in the air, as soon as CO2 warms up-> INSTANTLY goes UP, where is thinner air and much colder, to release the heat!!! Comparing CO2 warming in the sealed tube AND: free CO2 in the air, is same as comparing a bird on the branch of the tree, with a bird in the pressure cooker. That’s what the 30000 criminally oriented ‘’questionable scientist in what fields’’ are trying to con the public, for fleecing the Urban Sheep! And for Marxist /Bolsheviks model oppression!
#2: Methane & carbon dioxide (CO2&CH4) are the new western Marxist Hammer and Sickle. P.s. the 160y old Stefan Boltzmann’s law / experiment was not mentioned ones, in the 60’s-70’s! Because same shonks at that time were promoting; because of CO2 dimming effect, will be Ice Age by year 2000. Why are they constantly lying, you ask – A: -if they say the truth, that: ”it will be exactly same temperature in 100y” the suffering taxpayers get stingy with their money = the Shonks are not stupid! Using CO2 for fleecing the Urban Sheep is fun and lucrative – to make the politicians; to rob the people and reward the green coated Reds…
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But at last look there were no comments on the Devine piece, not even warmists!
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I’ve just added one!
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In all of our discussion, do not forget that the IPCC was set up by the UN Canadian representative Maurice Strong to cripple the economies of the first world nations. This has been done by demonising fossil fuels, the major source of the wealth and prosperity of the first world nations, through the lie that CO2 causes global warming.
In an April 6, 1990, statement to Associated Press, Maurice Strong said:
“Actually, the problem in the world is there are too many rich people”
and another statement elsewhere:
“We’ve already had too much economic growth in the United States. Economic growth in rich countries like ours is the disease not the cure.”
As a senior member of the Club of Rome, Maurice Strong speculated in 1990 that:
“What if a small group of these world leaders were to conclude the principle risk to the earth comes from the actions of the rich countries?…In order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”
At his opening address to the Rio Earth Summit, 1992, he stated again:
“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized nations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”
A look at the chaos on the World’s stock markets today suggests that he has been remarkably successful
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Amazing.
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I am so happy! Go David and Jo!
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As is often implied on this blog it is time for Australia and Minister Greg Hunt to revisit the ongoing debate on man induced atmospheric CO2 and the extent of its alleged impact in promoting global warming. David’s dissembling and reconstruction of present GCMs is pointing the way in this regard. Meanwhile, as most acknowledge, the strong disparity between climate model projections and measured (from satellite borne sensors) troposphere temperatures – the “pause” in rising temperatures – has now been in place for c. 2 decades. It seems that when modeled data do not match the empirical evidence the ‘new’ (?) climate science paradigm is to ignore the observations in favour of the modeled outputs. Who is kidding who?
Nevertheless, there is clearly enormous world-wide pressure for nations to reduce emissions of CO2, derived principally from the use of fossil fuels. Where this cannot be done for practical and political reasons (politicians love their jobs?) our government has endorsed the use of offsets (CO2 sinks) to minimise the net impacts of emissions generated elsewhere in the economy. Managed regrowth in native vegetation is one example from the land use sector deemed acceptable for generating Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCU’s) under both Labor’s Carbon Farming Initiative and the Coalition’s Direct Action Plan. Such ACCU’s have been successfully auctioned off under government supervision (either through a Carbon Abatement Contract or on the secondary market), with hundreds of millions of dollars allocated for this purpose. The next auction is in November.
There are 2 basic problems with the accuracy of the number of ACCU’s offered for auction under this scheme – both relate to the absence of validation of woody plant ground cover (foliage projective cover or FPC) and its’ derived woody stem basal area. ACCU’s are auctioned on a per hectare basis, requiring derivation of the area contributing to the sink (the Carbon Estimation Area in hectares – CEA) multiplied by the sink credited to each hectare.
The CEA is delimited by remote sensing/aerial photo interpretation, but then for any particular CEA a single central ‘point’ is targeted from which the remote sensing interpreter presumably derives individual tree/shrub stem or stand basal areas. These are then applied to known allometric relationships (biomass regressions) to estimate the above and below ground biomass of the woody vegetation and hence C content (assuming biomass = 50% C). It is not clear to me how the government’s Full Carbon Accounting Model (FullCAM) chooses which allometric relationship and which species it is applied to. However, given the size of the continent and the variability in potential regrowth composition in CEAs possible, one can be certain that ‘best fit’ could be subject to major error. The C content is converted to CO2 equivalents (tCO2-e) per hectare for setting baseline values for the CEA, or determining its flux over 2 or more successive estimation periods.
Consider likely additional problems. First a single ‘point’ sample is identified to be representative of the whole CEA. This defies logic for native woody regrowth which almost certainly will be sourced from both vegetative material and new germinating seedlings. Further, native regrowth will neither be uniformly nor randomly distributed over the CEA, leading to any single ‘point’ estimation of its’ FPC also fraught with error. The April auction of ACCU’s included CEA’s from rural properties around Bourke in north-western NSW. Such semi-arid areas are subjected to massive rainfall variability, leading to concomitant variability in FPC for the same tree or shrub stem basal area.
Since woody stem basal area is derived from FPC, estimates of the former will vary significantly depending on seasonal conditions existing at the time the remotely sensed image of the CEA was captured. Scammers take note: to maximise the quantum of your ACCU’s, estimate your baseline tree/shrub basal area from images obtained when drought conditions were being experienced and estimate the CEA’s C flux after a period of above average rainfall. If the CEA is monitored over a sufficiently long period (25 – 100 years?) these errors should even out somewhat. [Anyone want to bet on how long landholders will retain ownership of land from which ACCU’s have been successfully auctioned off? You better be quick!]. But the biggest error is still the fact that each CEA is represented by only one remotely assessed ‘sample point’. There is no requirement for ground-truthing (independent audit) of how representative this point sample is and the accuracy of the biomass regression predictions applied (via FullCAM) to estimate above and below ground biomass on it is also not validated.
As I understand it FullCAM (largely built by this blog’s David Evans) has served a very useful purpose in providing broad based estimates of net CO2 emissions resulting from land use change, providing suitable input for compiling Australia’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory (e.g. for reporting under the Kyoto Protocol). But when $$ are exchanged for ACCU’s produced on a particular block of land on a particular landholding “back o’Bourke” surely taxpayers are entitled to know the estimated ACCU’s auctioned off have been verified/validated by ground based measurements. [Note: FullCAM is a closed cycle mass balance model which includes all litter and soil pools. However while litter is estimated for the CEA, I presume no one has the effrontery to claim that the soil C pool is measured and accounted for over potentially thousands of hectares. This means that ‘leakage’ in and out of this pool introduces another source of major error in estimating ACCUs. Not to worry, it’s just your tax dollars going into the auction – out of sight, out of mind is an essential philosophy to hold if you try to untangle this boondoggle.]
So it seems we can ignore empirical measurements in favour of climate model outputs when the measured data (temperature response) doesn’t endorse the model and/or if we are smart or cunning enough we ignore that problem (actual measurement) altogether by simply not validating model output when auctioning off ACCU’s. Have we all gone mad, or is this country being ruled by a lot of ignorant fools, or simply crooks – to employ the Australian vernacular?
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Bill
These carbon auctions are ridiculous.
I have a mate who owns property up in Nuku in PNG just out of Wewak and Aitape.
He would love to rent a few acres to the system.
How much could he get for say 200 m2.
KK
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KK – Tropical rain forest has a net primary production of c.2kg biomass/m2/yr. Of course all plant systems follow a sigmoid growth curve so the stage of maturity of any targeted RF system is also relevant. Assuming 50% C then this equates to 10tC/ha/yr or c. 36t CO2-e (= 36ACCUs)/ha/yr. Based on the Australian auction prices of c.$14/t we get $504/ha/yr. The suggested area nominated for your mate is 1/50 ha so his return is theoretically only $10/yr. Not worth the effort? And of course he would have to demonstrate that he had intentions (and permission?) to clear the area which he has now held back on – qualifying the area to be classified as “avoided deforestation”. Finally he would have to enter some sort of compact saying he would not clear the area for the next 100 years as well – so guaranteeing “permanence” of his actions. Not sure how this latter requirement will be satisfied in Australia or PNG. But it is all just a boondoggle anyway.
Incidentally, this scenario of “avoided deforestation” was touted in PNG several years ago. The natives in the home of the cargo cult could not believe that silly europeans were prepared to pay them for “air”!. I couldn’t agree more.
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Twas a joke Bill.
He now lives on the coast and I don’t know how often he visits his home base now.
The whole thing is nuts but you make it sound Soooo well controlled.
I’m sure in places like Nigeria and such that they are totally scrupulous about the accounting.
KK
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KK – Yep you are correct. In our case it is a terrible joke being played on the Australian taxpayer. I rationalize it somewhat by convincing myself that provided the $$ spent in acquiring ACCUs, via Carbon Abatement Contracts, are given to Aussie landholders this money should remain within the Australian economy, and be not much different to countless other subsidies the government forks out. But you have highlighted the scary part in identifying Nigeria and other such places overseas as being potential sources of carbon abatement purchases, when the government can’t find enough C offsets in this country to meet its’ commitments (already made, or that will be made in Paris), to reduce CO2 emissions. That money ($100s of millions) will go direct to scammers and laughing dictators. My main post (#42) above just set out to highlight that we had no real plan to ground truth or independently audit, with actual field measurements, the accuracy (and measurement error) of the claimed ACCUs that are derived from growth in native vegetation within Australia itself. [This critique is founded on 40+ years of research into growth and C flux in native woodlands/shrublands in the paddock].
When the bureaucrats talk about “auditing” they are really saying that their methodology has been reviewed (approved?) – this is not the same as ground truthing the actual quantum of CO2 that has been fixed in the carbon estimation area. So if we wont validate the accuracy of the quantum of ACCUs being sold from native vegetation in Australia, what hope have we of validating the accuracy (reality)of any Carbon Abatement Contract bought from overseas?
Indeed as the PNG people quickly deduced with my “avoided deforestation” example – when you get down to the nitty gritty, Governments paying for growth in vegetation,in situ, are effectively paying someone in real $$ for part of the air we all breathe. It is indeed a huge joke, but who’s laughing?
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Curiosity Bill
“This critique is founded on 40+ years of research into growth and C flux in native woodlands/shrublands in the paddock”
Have you been involved in this yourself?
KK
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KK – Yep you’ve found me out. I have been cutting down trees and shrubs and partitioning them into all their component parts since the 1960’s. [And of course with a great team of helpers throughout]. This has also included the organic matter in underlying roots and soil. I have probably been responsible for developing most of the biomass regressions applied to native woodland communities in the semiarid areas of Qld and large areas of NSW also.
I worked on some sites in great detail – including mulga woodlands and shrub-lands in SW Qld, mallee (mature and regrowth) near Rankins Springs in NSW and eucalypt woodlands in Central Qld. I developed many specific biomass regressions for the Australian Greenhouse Office via contract to the CRC for Greenhouse Accounting (coincident with the time when David Evans was employed by the AGO to develop the FullCAM model).
But most usefully (I think) I instigated the establishment of c. 130 permanent woodland monitoring sites throughout Qld’s grazed woodlands. (What we called the TRAPS system, which records the growth and population dynamics of all woody plants in the woodland areas sampled). The first of these transect lines was positioned in SW Qld in 1965. The majority of the sites still exist, although I’m not sure how frequently they are re-recorded these days (I ceased active work in 2004).
Anyways you may deduce that I have a reasonable handle on sampling and measuring biomass and its’ nutrient content in native woodland systems. Hence my current concerns about the integrity of the ACCUs (based on output of models and point sampling) credited to selected sites within them, along with the huge barrel of $$ set aside for their purchase by the Australian government – to help cover its’ CO2 abatement commitments.
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You seem to have been fortunate in finding a job that must have been so absorbing.
Few people would be that lucky.
My own interest in “the bush” has been based on watching a local area for over sixty years now and seeing it transform.
Here in Newcastle we have an amazing coastline with great beaches for surfing and The Bush.
In particular there is a strip of bush running from Merewether beach to Redhead beach.
Its focus is Glenrock Lagoon which has been a scout camp for a long time.
The lagoon area was the location of mining activity which ended maybe 75 to 80 years ago.
Timber was stripped out to feed the ventilation furnaces that drew air our of the mines and also to provide pit props.
The resulting area I knew as a kid was full of great open bush with 20 year old saplings and open trails.
In the last few decades NPWS or whoever, has neglected the site and it is overgrown with rubbish and trails are now impenetrable.
Every few years there is a bushfire that rips out of control through the area.
A real mess.
STILL.
I get great enjoyment walking through the area and watching things happen. A few years ago after all these decades I finally saw a Coachwhip digging through the litter under a bush. We also have a few bush turkeys there now.
But I ramble.
If only our efforts could be like yours, documenting what is actually going on we would be a lot better off.
The current Global Warming type science is an appalling waste of money and human resources and driven, not by inquisitiveness but by greed and politics and the need to control..
KK
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William the Stoat is setting up a strawman. (The GCMs) Dr Evans specifically referenced the simple models displaying the basic physics.
Simple Models of Climate Change has the key phrase: “…it was only around this time that satellite instruments began to measure with any precision the greenhouse effect feedback between surface temperature and water vapor…”
And the other key point used to make CO2 the ‘Control Knob’
“…By contrast CO2 lingers in the atmosphere for centuries. So the gas acts as a “control knob…” For Centuries? Several scientists (with peer-reviewed papers) show it is more like FIVE to SIXTEEN YEARS. OOPS!
So even this warmist article distinguishes between the two and has separate articles on each.
To continue.
………..
The article gives the history of the models. This is where I found the two key points:
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Thankyou Jo and David,
Tho” you may hold much of the truth in this endeavour to counter the nonsense of climate science, history tells us that truth in science is oft suppressed for long periods.
One can only hope with todays instant world wide information sharing science can change more rapidly toward truth, religion and politics are always a stumbling block to change. Todays world seems driven not by old religion but a politically motivated false agenda that fools many into a Gaia based religion and so many believe that I fear for the future of humanity, i.e. How can so many be so stupid.
Myself and others are about to commence an experiment that may shatter the beliefs of physics and the standard models of all theoretical science, I am hoping we are successful as science has been at a standstill adding imaginary friends to all science to make it work. Tell you more if it happens.
Good Luck. Wayne
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Dr Evans,
Don’t expect a Nobel Prize anytime soon. Not much room left on the wall, but would you really want to be in the same pantheon as Al Gore?
Other than that, thanks for your efforts in actually doing some real science.
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There is criticism by William Connelly of “Stoat”. Is there a response to that?
00
mmm interesting, so this bloke is right and the other mathematicians wrong hey? the “ten times” figure appears quite a round figure for such an intricate mathematical formula. maybe this guy has applied the model incorrectly?
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Brad Hein.
It is well known that the other models went badly wrong. They have all over estimated by shamefully different amounts. So how do you suggest David should go about a better error figure for other peoples multiple different blunders in a few short sentences other than saying “as much as ten times”? Bold mine.
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Unfortunately, I can’t help think that this is good news for the climateers (mouseketeers of climate change with the same inference about being “mickey mouse”).
Apparently we are to expend effort (in small amounts) and money (in disproportionately large amounts) to prevent the global temperature increasing by 2 degrees. Only thing is that it seems that a 2 degree increase is not inevitable even without intervention, and what ever we do or don’t do the climateers are going to claim “success – send more money”.
00
What are the two mistakes?
00
For those who still do not understand why keeping this Global Warming Hoax alive: http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/shorebank.php
It’s MONEY.
00
It’s odd that the news story calls him “electrical engineer”. He’s that, but a lot more – mostly mathematician.
10
Dr. Evans’ work received a large mention with quotes from this article on Rush Limbaugh’s hugely popular radio show today, October 9. Unfortunately, JoNova got no mention so the full series was not referenced.
00
If there really is a “consensus,” there would be only one climate model and it would actually work. Perhaps Dr. Evans’ model will be the real consensus.
00