“This is a story of betrayal, a story of selfishness, greed, and irresponsibility on an epic scale.” That’s how James Hoggan opens his newly published book Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming. Hoggan initially thought there was a fierce scientific controversy about climate change. Sensibly he did a lot of reading, only to find to his surprise that there was no such controversy. How did the public confusion arise? There was nothing accidental about it. As a public relations specialist, Hoggan observed with gathering horror a campaign at work.
“To a trained eye the unsavoury public relations tactics and techniques and the strategic media manipulation became obvious. The more I thought about it, the more deeply offended I became.”
DeSmogBlog was born to research the misinformation campaigns and share the information widely. This book pulls together some of that research in an organised narrative. Richard Littlemore has assisted Hoggan in the writing.
Climate scientists are sometimes blamed for not communicating their message clearly enough to the public. If they tried to match the efforts of the denial campaigners as detailed by Hoggan they wouldn’t have any time to do their science. Those who vociferously claim that anthropogenic global warming is still uncertain and doubtful certainly don’t spend time and money on any science. That is not what they are interested in. As far back as 1991 a group of coal-related organisations set out, in their own words, “to reposition global warming as a theory (not fact)” and “supply alternative facts to support the suggestion that global warming will be good.” This was the pattern of the work done in succeeding years by a variety of corporations and industry associations who devoted considerable financial resources to influence the public conversation. They used slogans and messages they had tested for effectiveness but not accuracy. They hired scientists prepared to say in public things they could not get printed in the peer-reviewed scientific press. They took advantage of mainstream journalists’ interest in featuring contrarian and controversial science stories. They planned “grassroots” groups to give the impression that they were not an industry-driven lobby. New Zealand’s Climate “Science” Coalition and the International Coalition it helped to found fit this purpose nicely.
Hoggan describes the work of many individuals and organisations who are available for spreading the doctrine of doubt. Conservative think tanks such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) have played a major part in the task in the new millenium. Their donors are well disguised, but in the case of CEI have certainly in the past included ExxonMobil and probably GM and Ford. Their advocacy, such as the infamous TV commercials portraying the benefits of carbon dioxide, obviously involves heavy expenditure.
Lists of scientists reportedly expressing dissent over anthropogenic global warming have become a staple of the denial crusade. Hoggan discusses some of these lists and comments:
“The beauty of this tactic as a method of keeping the debate alive is that none of these ‘scientists’ ever have to conduct any actual research or put their views forward to be tested in the scientific peer-review process. They don’t even have to be experts in a related field. And they certainly don’t have to win the argument. As long as groups of scientists are seen to be disagreeing, the public continues to assume that the science is uncertain.”
Apparent throughout Hoggan’s book is the lack of substance to the denial campaign. According to them, the Mann hockey stick is a “notorious intellectual swindle”. The impression is sedulously fostered that statistical investigation has shown the graph to be false. But Hoggan points out that the ideologists are uncurious about whether Mann’s work has been tested by other scientists or confirmed or falsified by the use of other methods or other proxy data sources. He dryly comments that the reason is that the other climate-reconstruction graphs published since Mann produce enough hockey sticks to outfit a whole team and then some.
A significant movement in the campaign in more recent times has been a change of emphasis from denial that anthropogenic warming is occurring to claims that there is no need to rush into measures to mitigate it. Bjorn Lomborg argues with apparent passion that he also cares about climate change, but that careful economic analysis shows that more pressing problems like AIDS, malnutrition, and the provision of fresh water to people in the developing world are more important matters and unfortunately don’t at this stage leave enough money for climate change mitigation. Frank Maisano specialises in media communication. He supplies thousands of reporters and important people in industry and politics with useful material on energy issues. Underlying it though is a consistent argument that climate change, though real, is either impossible or too expensive to fix.
In his chapter on the manipulated media Hoggan acknowledges the complexity issue in relation to global warming. Indeed he extends a lot of understanding to reporters and editors. They are under pressure and the science takes some understanding. The temptation to fall back on balance has been strong. However he notices that increasingly the balance model is being abandoned, and is insistent that it’s past time for people in the media to check their facts and start sharing them ethically and responsibly with the public.
Hoggard’s book is a thoughtful and sustained exposure of a movement which has done great harm. I read it with close interest and shared his dismay. I recommend it to anyone who wants to understand how denial has had such a charmed run. His presentation is painstaking and reasonable. There’s nothing shrill about it, and his justifiable anger is relatively muted. He urges his readers not to take him at face value but to do some checking of his material and satisfy themselves that it is reliable. Nevertheless the activity he describes is rightly characterised as betrayal, selfishness, greed and irresponsibility. The people who have launched the highly successful campaign of denial and delay are not attending to the work of a body of outstanding scientists although that work is of utmost import for human life. They have turned what should have been a public policy dialogue driven by science into a theatre for a cynical public relations exercise of the most dishonest kind. Instead of looking at the seriousness of the warnings they have sensed a threat to their business profitability and made that their motivating factor. They have spread a false complacency and the result has been a twenty year delay in addressing an issue of high urgency.
Hoggard thought at first that David Suzuki was a bit over the top when he wondered out loud whether there was a legal way of throwing Canada’s so-called leaders into jail for criminal action (or inaction) in relation to climate change. But then he recognised Suzuki was right, in the sense that it will indeed be a crime if we do not demand of our leaders that they start fixing this problem, beginning today.
“And the punishment will be visited on our children and on their children through a world that is unrecognisable, perhaps uninhabitable.”
It is a fantasy to think of people who are sceptical about anthropogenic global warming as some kind of united band of disingenuous sell outs.
Do you really think that Vincent Gray is being paid to make the comments he does? Plimer, Carter and Wishart are secretly tapped into a global money train. Augie Auer and John Coleman are in bed with Exxon and Rio Tinto??
Please do not belittle the debate with this sort of small minded tripe. I am of the opinion that, although only one side of the debate can be right in the long run, at this stage both are genuine in their belief that they are right, and genuine in their concern of what will happen if the other side win the short-term debate on what policy measures should be.
They all do it for their own reasons. “Retired” scientist? Perhaps they’re trying to justify their life’s work. Wishart’s just in it for the controversy; it’s his thing. Plimer’s selling books on the topic, of course he has a financial stake in it.
What is fantasy is the idea that they have a scientifically supported case; I for one have investigated (I was skeptical for many years after all) and found argument by argument that it was based on lies, half-truths and misread facts.
I also think it’s fair to say that they are being deliberately dishonest; either that or disgracefully ignorant. For when they present their case, they never refer to the relevant papers which have been published. They present the case as if it were a new challenge that those “warmists” have yet to consider. Whereas sometimes their arguments are 19th century positions contradicted by science that was published decades ago. If they “believe” they are telling the truth, well they are simply deluded and it doesn’t change the ridicule they should face.
I’m inclined to the David Suzuki line of thought. These retards (politicians) have been presented with enough scientific evidence and observations, that even a primary school child could understand it. They deserve punishment as do the liars and cranks who initiate these campaigns of deceit.
Interesting role model……
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsLOcZQheoE
That clip sure made me laugh. Good one R2!.
R2D2
It is more complicated than a simple exchange of money. The seemingly independently-minded groups and individuals who rally behind the denial banner no doubt do so for a variety of reasons, and many have no doubt convinced themselves that the cause is right. But they are part of a movement that has its origins in the cynical determinations of the powerful and wealthy organisations who launched the denialist crusade as soon as it became apparent that addressing anthropogenic global warming would be a threat to their perceived interests. They receive far more attention as part of this movement than they would as contributors to the scientific discussion conducted through peer-reviewed papers. In the service of this movement they often go way outside the bounds of their expertise and display a level of conviction quite disproportionate to the knowledge they exhibit. They are not conducting a scientific debate. If they were they would be doing it with fellow scientists. They are joining an effort to tell the general public that the mainstream science on this issue is not to be trusted. They are aided by funding from a variety of sources and could not sustain the level of public exposure they achieve without it. That doesn’t mean they are necessarily lining their own pockets. But it does mean that they are part of an organised movement which I regard as inimical to human welfare. Ironically that includes their own welfare, for all our children and children’s children will suffer the consequences of delay on this matter.
Thanks for that thoughtful review Bryan, and for your rejoinder to R2D2. I agree entirely with your sentiments.
Dear R2D2.
Silly WALL-E! Of course we don’t think that you’re part of a "united band of disingenuous sell outs"
John Mashey has thoughtfully constructed what John Quiggin calls a Typology of Delusion. I’m sure you can find a niche in there somewhere that fits you like a lid.
R2D2 – so if your publicity efforts are funded by a organization that is in turn funded by carbon industry, then yes, I would say that you are on the denial gravy train. This does not apply to all (at least as far as I know).
However, I would most certainly not accuse many scientists of anti-AGW stance just to get the money. Rather it is vested interest who use such people who have an anti stance for a variety of reason. Sadly, I dont think their reasons for denial are based on an informed appreciation of the data. In their world view, the funding organisations are on the side of the angels so why not take the money? The same moral position however is not necessarily available to industry where the duty to shareholder value (which you seriously understand) is in opposition to science (which you seriously dont).
I submit that the position of those who “accept” the science of Global Warming needs to lift up from the arguement, the rights and wrongs of the arguers, their motivation(s) and even the presumed currently increasing dominance of their views.
It’s all a fiddle; and we need not play on.
“Its all a fiddle; and we need not play on.”
Yeah right. On the basis of which piece of published science? The arguers against AGW are playing to the crowd because they are saying what we would all like to hear (me included since my job is oil and coal). The arguments don’t bear informed scrutiny, so dont get published.
If the corporations think AGW is wrong, then why the large some of money on PR and support for dubious fronts, rather than investing in the science directly and producing a better model? ExxonMobile isnt short of modelling resources.
Scaddep I beleive you missed my point(s):
We give credence to the “anti” arguement by continuing with the discussion.
We also take our eye away from the questions we ought be asking, like how do we move forward.
Eureka! I’ve figured it out.
I was trying to work out how ostensibly-sensible people like your good selves could fall so completely for the ‘manmade-global-warming/climate-change’ scam/myth and then I experienced an epiphany. The problem is that you all seem capable of putting a sentence or two together and yet you hold to the afore-mentioned obvious myth like a religious conviction. Much like say, belief in the tooth fairy or the ‘moon-landings-were-faked’ myths, AGW similarly defies logic and basic scientific principles and yet you guys so completely believe it as though your soul depends on it. Why?
And then it hit me… you each went along to one of Al Gore’s ‘The-End-is-Always-Nigh’ hysteria-fests, where he waxes lyrical about the end of the world and other crap and you all cry about it before swallowing the Blue pill. Am I right or am I right? Ah HUH! I thought so.
But in all seriousness, this is a must see if you can bring yourselves to broaden your otherwise narrow horizons:
http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2008/11/your-onestop-climate-panic-resource.html
AGW-Denier, either your head is in the sand or so far up your arse, but it was the logic and basic scientific principles that convinced the people here and it was well before Gore put his movie out.
You’re a sad cliché. Move on.
“You’re a sad cliché. Move on.” Isn’t that interesting. That’s precisely what the sceptics are saying of the alarmists!
AGW-Denier. What the…! Do you think climate change was invented with the Gore film? Sorry mate, but we get to this position by reading science papers. You seem to get to yours by reading junk. Again, show me the papers.
Lets see, Gore would be 2006?? IPCC AR1 would be 1990? Arrhenius would be around 1901? I got me education in late 70s (a student of Bob Carter by the way who was an excellent teacher) when paleoclimate science were becoming more clear. The emerging picture has always been of interest.
Oh and as for your video link. Jeez. A single science paper there? We no. However, some are breathless reports of published science, and actually some of them may well be right. Still waiting for the real science though…
The ever-decreasing standard of commentary by anti-AGWers simply reflects the desperation of their position – intellectually vacuous.
Scaddenp is “still waiting for the real scienceâ€. Well you’re not paying attention because there has been plenty of “real science†disproving or undermining AGW by many qualified scientists, eg., Lindzen, Spencer, de Freitas, Singer, Carter et. al, plus thousands of other scientists of repute worldwide and from many different disciplines who are critical and completely skeptical of the manmade global warming hypothesis (which incidentally is all it is, an unproved hypothesis, a theory – it isn’t a “fact†no matter how much you want it to be and how many times it gets repeated by the media).
But of course, I await the inevitable outright dismissal of all of these scientists from the entrenched alarmists on this blog who will simply write them off as unworthy of their time. The skeptical scientists who disagree with the IPCC and the sacred AGW mantra are automatically dismissed as crackpots. That sounds to me like the Church and how any criticism of the Ptolemaic hypothesis was ruthlessly and indiscriminately put down. The unthinking alarmists similarly refuse to consider anything written by anyone, no matter how qualified and well put together their argument. This is why some ignorant half-wits have even suggested treating “deniers†as traitors against humanity or the planet. We are thus dealing with a religion, not a scientific debate (the “debate is over†apparently). Skepticism of the AGW hypothesis is considered an affront to a religiously held conviction which is why our alarmists here feel so offended and outraged, poor little mites.
As for Gore… the guy is nothing more than a smooth stage-performer and deserves nothing more than complete ridicule.
So how are we going to fix the challenges and issues AGW brings us?
Bandersdad. My apologies – I did misinterpret.
AGW-Denier. You are misinformed. (I wonder why). The “thousands of scientists” mean nothing if they are not publishing. There is no other way to assess the degree to which they understand science outside their discipline ( myself included). What Lindzen, Carter, and Christy publish is most certainly carefully considered – and rebutted IN THE LITERTURE not in the blogs. A recent paper by Carter, de Freitas et al would be interesting case. The paper showed much of the internal variability in the temperature record is due to ESNO. No surprises there. Other analyses said the same thing. The problem was that two of the authors then claimed in press releases something that their paper did not – that this means that there is no global warming
trend. Their analysis showed no such thing as the data was effectively detrended as was pointed out to them. Back-pedal time. Published papers have also discounted various Spencer, Lindzen papers, but it appears you only hear one side of the conversation?
Bandersdad asks “how are we going to fix the challenges and issues AGW brings us?â€
Answer: There is nothing to fix! The “problem†is completely imaginary.
But even if it could be proved that man-made warming is real, why is it necessarily a bad thing? Warming sounds good to me. Or do you think a cold earth is better for life and prosperity than a warm one?
So I go out of my way to INCREASE my “carbon footprint†by any and all means, just to undo the foolish efforts of those who are trying to reduce their carbon emissions. For example, during the so-called ‘Earth Hour’ insanity, I turn every light in the house ON, including all the exterior flood lights. I have lots of fun ridiculing all the sheeple who turn theirs off for the sake of some tiresome cliche.
The more CO2 in the atmosphere the better! There’s not enough of it. Plants love it!
He makes my point well I think.
The more CO2 in the atmosphere the better! There’s not enough of it. Plants love it!
I see you are all behind in your episodes.. since:—
Said Bill to Ben in the Plantpot Men: Darn diss drought! Aint all diss CO2 over-stressing us two..
To me, AGWD, it looks like the reverse… On the one hand we have the generally accepted corpus of scientific knowledge, from quantum physics through to earth systems science in all its forms, telling us that we have a problem, and on the other we have… people who insist, despite all that evidence, that in fact it’s all a scam. You have your pantheon of saints (you helpfully provided a list) who are being persecuted (though not yet executed), a catechism you recite (“thousands of scientists of worldwide repute”, Al Gore as the great demon), a holy book (in this case, holy web sites like microWattsUp) and an apparent need to visit those you define as wrong and attempt to proselytise your faith. Religion is ultimately an exercise of faith, and that’s what you exhibit: blind faith that we’re wrong and you’re right. You’re the one with the revealed truth that the rest of us can’t or won’t see.
So Gareth why then is it the alarmists who are trying to supress “dissent” and prevent publication of sceptical articles? Why is it so inordinately difficult to have “The Great Global Warming Swindle” documentary shown publicly, and in schools, alongside Gore’s AIT? If things were fair and scientific debate encouraged, there should be no difficulty having the sceptical arguments aired as much as the alarmist arguments. Why have people been threatened for voicing their scepticism publicly? You must have heard of these things happening many times by now. Why does Robert F. Kennedy think climate sceptics should be treated as “traitors”? These are the acts of tyrants. So yes, AGW is very definitely a religion because it exhibits all the hallmarks of one.
Scepticism is scepticism. I’m sceptical of a particular hypothesis. I’m not trying to push one (othere than the argument that your AGW hypothesis is flawed).
What suppression? Name one example. It seems to me that the media bend over backwards to give your views exposure (see Garth George, Carter et al). In the scientific literature, there’s a higher hurdle, but Roy Spencer gets published. Very few others even try, it seems, preferring to “publish” their “papers” without benefit of real peer review (unless the peer is Monckton.
TGGWS has been widely shown on TV and is available as a DVD. If schools choose not to show it, maybe that’s a reflection of the fact that it contains nonsense.
Who has been “threatened” for speaking publicly? See point one above.
You are making these claims of persecution, just like any minority religion. It gives you a sense of belonging to an exclusive group – the only people who know the real truth.
If you were truly sceptical, you would challenge all the evidence, even the stuff you claim supports your position. But there’s precious little sign of that from people who call themselves “climate sceptics”…
And by the way, referring to “sheeple” is a dead give away.
Gareth asks “What suppression? ”
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=04373015-802A-23AD-4BF9-C3F02278F4CF
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/25/science/earth/25epa.html?pagewanted=all
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124657655235589119.html
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=865DBE39-802A-23AD-4949-EE9098538277
(or http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1981617/posts)
http://www.nationalpost.com/m/story.html?id=1769456&s=Related+Topics&is=Bears&it=Topic
Want more?
Some examples of suppression would be good, yes.
You link to the Carlin case. Minor EPA employee writes up a climate sceptic report, quoting wholesale from sceptic screeds, despite having no role in in any climate-related research at the EPA and no report having been requested from him. Bosses ignore his effort. He squeals “suppression” and right-wing media immediately amplify his complaint out of all proportion.
No suppression there. Just a carefully orchestrated campaign by deniers to create that impression. More here.
But this is good too:
“Every age has its dominant caste. This is the age of the zealot. Twenty years ago they were dismissed as cranks and fanatics, but now they are licensed to interfere in the every day lives of ordinary people to an unprecedented degree. When Bernard Levin first identified the new phenomenon of the SIFs (Single Issue Fanatics) many of us thought it was a bit of a joke or at most an annoyance. Now the joke is on us. In that short time they have progressed from being an ignorable nuisance to what is effectively a branch of government. They initiate legislation and prescribe taxation. They form a large and amorphous collection of groups of overlapping membership, united and defined by the objects of their hatred (industry, tobacco, alcohol, adiposity, carbon, meat, salt, chemicals in general, radio waves, field sports etc.) Their success in such a short time has been one of the most remarkable phenomena in the whole of human history.”
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/zealots.htm
The march of the climate change zealots.
Le Chat Noir:
Thanks for the plug!
My catalog of Reasons has expanded to:
R Attributes, and then that is condensed to one line apiece, and combined with organizations and people’s backgrounds into:
OBR Map.
Finally, there is OBR Flow, that shows flows of memes and money.
As backup there is:
B Categories (Backgrounds),
O Categories (Organizations), and an overall Map of Backgrounds and Knowledge levels: BCK Map.
A tiny fraction of those who do climate anti-science actually get paid for doing it (Reasons FIN1-FIN3). PSY3 is a biggie, among the more vocal folks, but IDE2 seems the most common one amongst garden-variety trolls.
One could visualize an instantiation of the R.Attributes spreadsheet that lists specific organizations (with their 2-character short code), and then fills in the chart with plausible, likely and certain reasons.
John,
Always a pleasure to plug those who favour why over why not. I can see that you have been busy elaborating your model. (I had a few problems downloading the graphics which have a .jpg extension but are in .png format so I had to resort to a screen grabber).
I don’t know if you’re familiar with the work of the anthropologist Mary Douglas but you may be interested in this paper by Michael Thompson which explains how her Grid-group cultural theory applies to climate change. The basic idea is that we all view the world through a cultural lens based on our perceptions of the relationship between humanity and Nature. Cultural Theory describes four common lenses: individualism, egalitarianism, hierarchy and fatalism. It goes on to suggest that a person who has adopted one of these lenses in a particular debate will argue past another person who has adopted a different lens because they are each starting from different premises. You can see this happening on just about any blog that deals with climate change including this one. Here is another example that attempts to apply Grid-group cultural theory to the Plimer-Monbiot debate.
I love how no one has commented on the video of Suzuki that I posted!
I will… so what?
I would love to post the crap you talk about in 30 years, apart from the fact that you are a nobody and no one will care.
Climate science is sound, AGW is real.
Haha yeah good reply
AGWD, your ad homs and diversions provide scant cover for your scientific ignorance but, just to change the subject – do you smoke?
If not, why not?
AGW-denier. It doesnt matter whether the climate is warm or cold – what matters is how fast climate changes. Rapid change wrecks kills – thats the lesson from fossil record and change at the moment is way too fast. If sealevel rise hits 1cm/year then that is catastrophic.
People who claim “suppression” are being protected from having their idiocy made public. Spencer exempted but if you didnt publish his rubbish there would be claim of cover up. If something is claiming that their science paper is being “suppressed”, then how about they tell us the journal it was submitted to (so they can verify the facts) and put both the paper AND THE REVIEWERS comments on the internet. We can get the journal to verify that the article was as received and what the comments were.
Miskolczi would be case in point. Not keen to have those little pointers to textbook errors made public. And the people that like his paper havent read the textbooks.
TGGWS – dont make me laugh. After you remove the fraud, what’s left? A few seconds on the internet would give you some pointers to the reality there. Doesnt the lies that had to be removed give you a hints about its creators?
None of my colleagues are single issue fanatics. When science tells us we are in deep doodoo, what do you expect us to do? So far you are screaming politics and we are telling you facts.
Good for you for coming here. Try learning instead of preaching though. You have a lot to learn.
Le Chat Noir:
Thanks, I’ll look into the graphics, and hunt up your references after I finish my current project and get back to working on frameworks.
Scaddenp says “It doesnt matter whether the climate is warm or cold – what matters is how fast climate changesâ€. I find this amusing. You sound exactly like Stephen H. Schneider. Have you read his Bible of Hysterical Climate U-Turns? In the seventies Schneider was wringing his hands over an approaching ice age like it was the greatest danger facing mankind and that politicians had better wake up and do something to fight it blah blah blah, otherwise we’re all doomed… again. Now of course it’s globull warming except that temperatures are dropping. Woops! How do we deal with that inconvenient fact? “We shall henceforth re-label the imaginary ‘calamity’ to “climate changeâ€. You guys never seem to cotton on to the fact that climate always changes regardless, and without any help from us. It always has and always will. Get over it. But personally I prefer a warm planet to a cold one so I’m all for global warming if there’s any going, which there isn’t because it’s getting colder if you care to look out the window!
You keep on pointing me at rubbish and opinion. This is a science question – nature doesnt have opinions. Of course climate is always changing. The trick is how fast. Funnily enough we can get a handle on that from paleoclimate studies. Past biodiversity studies tell us about how well natural world responds to rapid change. Our data sends the bells ringing. I most certainly dont expect the calamity in my lifetime but I have children and hope to have grandchildren. Sending them into a disaster which is beyond what they can do anything about because of what we did is not the legacy I intend. A risk analysis tells me its better to slow the rate of change.
I cant believe anyway is still pushing “science told us in the 70s we were cooling”. How much FACT does it require you have? You can parrot what you think is true but how about looking at this?
http://ams.allenpress.com/archive/1520-0477/89/9/pdf/i1520-0477-89-9-1325.pdf
Its an article analysing both what the media was saying and what the science was publishing at time was. You know – facts. I was doing science in the 70s – I remember the nature of the questions.
And temperature dropping?? You need cherry picked dates and shonky stats. Climate is not about weather. There are decent published statistical analyses on this. Find me a published paper that shows climate is cooling.
Lets try another tack. AGW makes a number of key predictions. I am very clear on what my criteria for rejecting the hypothesis would be. What would convince you that YOU are wrong? What data do you want?
scaddenp, “Climate is not about weather” except when it suits the alarmists. And then every heatwave, bush fire, tsunami and tornado is caused by globull warming. When the temperature drops, as it has been doing for the past decade, the alarmists put it down to “natural variation”. But if it goes the other way, like a warm spell, it’s clearly because of global warming!
Oh and here’s a quote from Newsweek 1975 that was typical of the then current climate hysteria of an approaching ice age: “There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production– with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now…
“The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it… Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars’ worth of damage in 13 U.S. states.”
Sound familiar by any chance?
Global cooling was the fashion then, as global warming is now: See here for more: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/02/15/the-looming-horror-of-global-cooling/
“Oh and here’s a quote from Newsweek 1975”
This is the same worthless Newsweek article that denialists always hold up as proof of a scientifically sponsored global cooling scare.
The prevailing view of science is represented in the peer reviewed scientific press and I’m afraid Newsweek isn’t a peer reviewed journal of science.
There are tens of thousands of scientific papers appearing in peer reviewed journals that support the prevailing scientific view that the earth’s temperature is rising due to man’s CO2 emissions.
Surely then if your comparison is legitimate then there were a similar number of papers in the 70’s warning of imminent global cooling.
So how about providing just half a dozen references to peer reviewed science literature that in the 70’s warned of the imminent onset of global cooling.
Note that you are quoting a news source yet again rather than science source? If you bothered to read that research you would see that article and other news media beat ups covered, along with the science papers.
“Sound familiar” – no. Which research journal is it from? Please dont confuse scientists with media and environmental wackos. The media will beat up anything that will sell. That’s what creates the “disaster d’jour” mentality. What makes AGW different is that the warning are coming from the vast majority of climate scientists.
Still waiting for your criteria for changing your mind.
“It’s all a fiddle; and we need not play on.”
Because one more on or off “your side” won’t alter the results in any way shape or form. Fiddling whilst Rome burns may be fun, entertaining, intellectually stimulating or simply passing the time of day in a slow workplace. It is still a waste of your effort.
How do we fix the challenges and issues AGW brings us?
Bandersdad, the issue in a democracy is that it is hard to move faster than public opinion. When you have mischief-makers with a lot of shareholder value to protect, coupled with our natural inertia, its tough for politicians with the best of intentions and knowledge. So many problems – environmental groups that exaggerate can alienate more they help. Also, in most countries, green politics are associated with the left wing to such an extent, that an environmental issue like this gets a knee-jerk anti reaction from the right. I wish I knew the answer but I think that those who do follow the science have a duty to challenge the out-right lies and even the distortions that are published in the media. Go Bryan.
So Scaddenp your points appear to be:
1. We need to alter public opinion in an a-political manner.
2. Business needs to be brought to recognise the cost-benefit of modified (carbon use) behaviour (and success in 1. would go a long way with that).
3. Politicians need to have confidence in their cause (ditto the point about 1.)
4. Environmental groups need to calm down and understand the public doesn’t need to be scared into change (we all have kids; ditto the point 1.).
5. Let’s repeat point one one more time with respect to “the challengting the outight lies” etc. Not too many folks are standing up discussing the benefits of smoking these days after all.
So what are we doing to alter public opinion in an a-political manner?
“a-political” is tricky since politics can be all encompassing. From my point of view, the bottom line is get emissions down – I’ll vote for any realistic plan to do so. In doing so, I recognise that political philosophies vary and so I would expect left and right ( meaning expressions of economic and libertarian views) to have different plans for doing this, with different consequences for various sectors of society. Consider crime. Everyone, right and left, wants less. They just advocate different policies for bringing it down and argue about effectiveness. We need same basic stance on emissions.
Environmental groups have issues. You hear a group airing concerns about an issue. You investigate further because you think it fairly dubious. Which is most convincing to you?
a/ on investigation, you find the views aired are on the extremes of a range. The groups says 60% of x are going to DIE! The experts says
20-60% of x are going to be adversely affected.
b/ on investigation, you find the concerns on the low end of the range and experts are cautiously mentioning more extreme possibilities.
I find groups saying you have to push the pendulum out to the extreme so you get a solution somewhere in the middle. Or, if you dont frighten people then they will take no notice. etc. Frankly I am dubious. What you need is credibility to convince those who instincts are against your cause. Stick to the truth – I have no patience with anything else.
On top of that you have to give people hope. What does a solution look like etc.
scaddenp, a-political is not political avoidance. Life is political and altering public opinion is by definition a political act.
However, we are starting to deal in shades of grey. I have no goals to facilitate, plan, and manage sustainable environments.
I would though like to think we have the ability to conceptualize the shape of change and maybe as a result have some influence on it; in an a-political manner, as needs be.
I notice RealClimate has just posted a warm recommendation of Hoggan’s book.
Why would a peer-reviewed article about the link between hurricanes and global warming be described as “shameful” and excluded from the IPCC report? Because it found there is no link between hurricane activity and global warming:
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/10/shameful-article-review-and-update.html
Climate scientist resigns from the IPCC:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/science_policy_general/000318chris_landsea_leaves.html
Pielke Jr? Is this five year old paper supposed to prove that he was suppressed? RPJr seems to have no difficulty in getting his views on climate science into the public arena, even though he is himself a political scientist (which may be an oxymoron). Landsea suppressed? Rubbish.
You really are having to scrape the bottom of the barrel.
Pielke is not a good source for information. If Landsea’s work is being ignored by IPCC, then how do you account for this?
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg2/ar4-wg2-chapter1.pdf
That said, the science of predicting and attributing warming is a great deal more certain than that involved in predicting the effects of global warming. Hurricanes remain an area of very active research.
Gareth, you’re squirming. You guys always insist that sceptical arguments are “peer reviewed†and you asked for examples of suppression of sceptical arguments, but when I give you both, you come up with some pathetic ad hoc made up reason why they aren’t valid. Clear signs of desperation – coupled with ignorance of growing public skepticism of this mad scam.
So here’s even more reason to be worried: A new poll out today on Americans’ attitudes about climate change presents sobering findings for those that favor aggressive action to curb U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases. The survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press finds a sharp decline over the past year in the percentage of Americans who see solid evidence that global temperatures are rising. According to the survey, conducted between Sept. 30 and Oct. 4 among 1,500 adults reached on cell phones and landlines, fewer respondents also see global warming as a very serious problem; 35% say that today, down from 44% in April 2008. The survey also points to a decline in the proportion of Americans who say global temperatures are rising as a result of human activity. Just 36% say that currently, down from 47% last year: http://people-press.org/report/556/global-warming
Reality Check: Arctic sea Ice GROWS by ‘area one and a half times the size of Texas’: http://www.climatedepot.com/a/2988/Arctic-sea-Ice-GROWS-by-area-one-and-a-half-times-the-size-of-Texas
Reality Check: Antarctic Summer Ice Melt at ‘lowest ever recorded in the satellite history’: http://www.climatedepot.com/a/3217/Antarctic-Summer-Ice-Melt-at-lowest-ever-recorded-in-the-satellite-history
Reality Check: Peer-Reviewed Study: Ocean net heat flow is connected with climate shifts – CO2 not correlated – no ‘warming in the pipeline’: http://www.climatedepot.com/a/2478/Another-New-PeerReviewed-Study-Ocean-net-heat-flow-is-connected-with-climate-shifts-ndash-CO2-not-correlated-ndash-no-warming-in-the-pipeline
AP reporter Cappiello’s laughable claim: Public skepticism growing ‘during a time of mounting scientific evidence of climate change’ – Cites ‘melting ice caps’. At the same time, there has been mounting scientific evidence of climate change — from melting ice caps to the world’s oceans hitting the highest monthly recorded temperatures this summer: http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/poll-americans-belief-in-169483.html
Yet Another Poll: Politico Voters Poll: Global Warming ranked dead last again! ‘Just 4% ranked climate change as the top issue’: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28491.html
Me, squirming? Thanks for this morning’s laugh.
Facts are not decided by opinion poll.
“Reality Check: Peer-Reviewed Study: Ocean net heat flow is connected with climate shifts – CO2 not correlated – no ‘warming in the pipeline’:”
A Peer-Reviewed Study skeptical of warming? Your claim was that skeptical arguments were being suppressed. So that article must be a fake. Right? Lol.
AGW-Denier. Gee you cant get away from media can you? I ask you yet again. What is your standard for evidence that would change your mind?
Landsea paper was published not suppressed. He is not a skeptic – he is critical of whether hurricane intensity will increase in a warming world and IPCC covers his papers. You quote opinion not fact. Note that Landsea’s papers are not denial of the reality of global warming. He doesnt deny it.
Arctic weather is not about AGW – the PREDICTION from AGW is that it will fluctuate from year to year but the TREND will be downward.
Only arctic amplification is predicted by AGW. Antarctic is behaving as expected. Is there no end to your straw men? What would it take to get you to read what the models ACTUALLY predict instead of reading what you some skeptic site says for talking points?
Your polls are a source of worry – PR campaigns are working to make people put fingers in their ears in and go la la la.
I mean how did you come to skepticism on global warming in the first place? You dont appear to have read any of the science. What data convinced you? – and more importantly what data would convince you otherwise?
AGW-Denier. All that such poll results reveal is that the crusade to downplay the scientific evidence on climate change is still working and still doing great harm.
scaddenp, evidence that would change my mind? Some actual science would be nice. No, not computer models. That’s not evidence. Models are just wishful thinking. I’m talking actual empirical measurable repeatable evidence that conclusively links mankind’s CO2 emissions to “dangerous global warmingâ€, or climate change of any sort – “dangerous†or not. There’s lots of speculation of course. Lots of theories and fudge-factored models saying there’s a link. It’s just that no one has actually found one. So what have you got left as ‘evidence’ other than Mann’s pretend ‘hockey stick (debunked so thoroughly, even the IPCC are too embarrassed to use it)? Oh yes sorry, I forgot… you’ve also got an endless supply of leftist loonies who just needed something to do after the sad demise of socialism, plus a few washed-up celebrities and leftover pop-morons insisting with religious fervour there’s a link somewhere. Oh, and Keisha-Castle Hughes. You guys really struck gold there. What a coup getting her razor-sharp intellect on the case! Well done. But so far there’s no actual hard evidence. Yes yes I know about the IPCC’s much vaunted land-based thermometers that might at a stretch deal with 0.00000000000001% of the earth’s surface and most of which are warm-biased anyway because of urban heat-island effects due to their being cleverly placed near runways, airconditioning vents and Al Gore’s Texas-sized mansion with his nine million light bulbs.
Crap like that is not about to change my mind that man’s CO2 emissions drive climate and that temperatures are skyrocketing to life-threatening degrees as a result. I mean come on, the best you can do is come up with 0.6oC over an entire century! WOW! that’s a HUGE increase!! How did we survive it? But caused by what? Oh, and a few computer models saying EVERYTHING WILL GET WORSE!! the planet is doomed unless we cut our thousandths of a percent CO2 contribution by some arbitrary percentage by some random arbitrary date. Yeah right! I see a Tui billboard coming on.
I suppose it takes some sort of talent to be able to fit just about every crank argument into one short comment. But that’s what they are — crank arguments.
“evidence that would change my mind? Some actual science would be nice.”
No problem. I will explain the fundamental science involved and allow you to perform a simple experiment.
In Science terms, CO2 alters the colour of the atmosphere in the Infrared region of the Electromagnetic Spectrum (which by definition makes it a pigment). Because of that, CO2 absorbs Infrared Radiation and reflects some of it back to the earth’s surface. Hence the surface must warm. Increasing the amount of CO2 increases the amount reflected back and hence increases the observed warming.
So in laymans terms, CO2 stains the atmosphere dark, and hence the temperature rises due to the absorption of light and it’s subsequent conversion to heat. The more CO2 that is added the darker the atmosphere is stained and the more light that is absorbed and converted into heat.
Now as CO2 is a pigment (as it alters colour in the IR region of the EM spectra) and the dilution is roughly the same dilution as 18 drops of food colouring mixed into a 2 litre bottle filled with water, you can perform the following simple experiment.
Firstly add 18 drops of pigment to the bottle of water, does it change the colour of the water?
Secondly, if you leave that pigmented bottle of water out in the sun, does it warm more than another 2 litre bottle filled with clear water?
AGW-Denier – you would do yourself and everyone else a huge favour by actually reading the IPCC “the scientific basis”. Even summary for policy makers? You completely deny models – ALL SCIENCE IS MODELS! – we go to computers because its tiresome to do them by hand. The model is a set of physics equations which describe physical behaviour. You are welcome to calculate them by hand. These are completely different from statistical or forecast models. Every step of the physical equations are backed by experimental, published evidence. We like these models because they make predictions that we can verify about the measurable world. That alone is reason to take them seriously. Two predictions from models that are true for GHG and not true for other causes – arctic amplification of warming and stratospheric cooling.
Mann debunking? In McIntyres dreams and denialist blogspots. In the science – well not so much. Published papers please? You might also note that 2 other multiproxy studies with different proxies and different methods got the same result making Mann almost irrelevant. You can of course find these in the IPCC report – missing in action in the denialist PR campaign. Again, they just bet on people like you that wont know the science and certainly wont look it up.
Urban heat Islands? How come you get same result if you use rural stations only? Denialist sites not reporting that? Satellite measurements give you estimated temperature in lower troposphere – a lot cooler than surface – and are hampered by problems of correcting for cooling stratosphere, and yet they show same. eg
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1975/plot/uah/trend
Or have you only seen the fraudulent version of this that is still going around?
Comments on celebs etc. You still seem think you arguing with Greenpeace. Why is that difference so hard to understand?
You are being taken for a complete sucker. What was it that convinced you AGW was wrong. You seem to have made up your mind on basis of something and then only looked at things that supports this view.
How pathetic – falling back on the UHI stuff yet again. The comments about coverage of the earth’s area show that among other things, AGW-Denier hasn’t a clue about statistics.
One should really be pleased that such a parade of clueless individuals is all the “antis” can muster here. Better than having someone smart doing it! Here’s to a certain subset of human stupidity!
The smart people in all this have been the PR guys pulling the strings, as Climate Cover Up shows. I’ve just got my copy — looking forward to reading it.
Well now didn’t that stir up the hysterical alarmists!? I seem to have hit a few raw nerves. Too close to the truth perhaps??
No, predictably far away from it.
Gareth: “No, predictably far away from it”.
Right. Me thinks he doth protest too much.
Never have so few said so little about so much…
You post a lot of rubbish. We take time to point out why in ways you could verify for yourself, and crow that you struck a raw nerve? You obviously havent looked at any contrary argument and dont intend in. I’m outta here.
scaddenp, I’ve seen all the so-called ‘evidence’. None of it’s new to me. I just found it sadly wanting because it relies on modeling, speculation, assumption, deceit (ie., Mann, Steig et al), coercion etc., plus the media to package it and celebrities to sell it. Real verifiable science doesn’t need such crutches to give it a veneer of respectability.
But as I said before, you guys have obviously swallowed the Blue pill so there’s no hope for you.
“Hoggard’s book is a thoughtful and sustained exposure of a movement which has done great harm” pontificates Brian Walker. How can you say that of this polemic if Hoggard is just a professional public relations specialist doing a hatchet job on the opponents of global warming? There is no real science in this P.R. book which is written for true believers and this makes it just another harmless propaganda piece. But if your idea of science is that there is a “consensus” that “the science is settled” you are wrong two ways: first, there is no consensus for its opponents are numerous enough to justify this book; and second, science is not settled by any consensus but by actual observations. And observations are what I want to bring in here. But first, let’s start with Hansen’s testimony to Congress in 1988 that supposedly started the global warming scare that is still going on. Not many people know that this was not his first but his second time before Congress. His first time was in November 1987. It was cold, no one wanted to hear about warming, and the media gave it a yawn. This did not please Senator Wirth of Colorado, chairman of the committee that had called him to testify. Wirth had just introduced an 18-part climate bill that had everything in it they could think of about global warming and he needed a strong witness. He had just found this young scientist at NASA who believed in the human aspect of warming, and yet nobody listened. But if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again, and he sure did. He called up the Weather Bureau to find out the warmist day in Washington, D.C. It was June 23rd so he booked a new hearing for this day. And to make sure the air conditioning did not work he sent his staff out at night to open up all the windows in the hearing room. It worked: the audience, the star witness, and the television crews all sweated profusely and carbon dioxide was on every television set that night. Wirth was jubilant: “…there was not only bliss, which is television cameras in double figures, but it was really hot. …So it was sort of a perfect collection of events that day, with the wonderful Jim Hansen, who was wiping his brow at the witness table and giving this remarkable testimony. …” It was this publicity stunt that gave a boost to the global warming movement and led to the establishment of the IPCC. But what did Hansen actually say that scared people? We are in a warming trend, he said, and the cause of this warming is the greenhouse effect from carbon dioxide that is constantly increasing because of human activities. And he had a computer model with which you can calculate how much warming you get from a given amount of carbon dioxide. He had calculated it out to 2020 and showed unacceptale warming by then if nothing is done to curb carbon dioxide emissions. That is what scared people. But let’s now look at the premises on which this calculation rests. He claimed a warming trend and if you look at NOAA’s temperature graphs you find that there was one. But that same curve shows you that the warming had a definite beginning and that prior to that there was a twenty year stretch with no warming at all. I put the beginning of this warming at 1977 because in 1975 the New York Times could still write that “a major cooling of the climate” was “widely considered inevitable” because it was “well established” that the Northern Hemisphere climate “has been getting cooler since about 1950.” But here is the problem: carbon dioxide didn’t suddenly appear in 1977 to start warming the world but had been there all along, slowly increasing just as it does today. If that warming is truly caused by carbon dioxide then it had to wake up one morning in 1977 and decide that it was time to start warming up the world. The laws of physics do not permit such capricious behavior in nature but Hansen must have had some powerful voodoo to make it happen. But that is only one of his problems. His other problem is worse: satellites that have been continuously monitoring global temperatures for the last thirty years cannot even see this warming! What they do see is a multi-year temperature oscillation about a common point that does not change for twenty years. There were five such cycles between 1978 and 1997. This is the period of so-called “late twentieth century warming” that NOAA, NASA and Hadley temperature curves show and clearly they are wrong. From satellite observations we can tell that the only major warming within the last thirty years was from the super El Nino of 1998. It was followed by a cluster of warm years but no warming. Neither was caused by greenhouse warming, and all that came to an end with a La Nina cooling in 2007. If a scientific theory predicts warming and you get cooling that theory as a scientific theory is proven false and should be abandoned. The scientific theory that carbon dioxide greenhouse warming is warming the globe now is such false theory and should be abandoned. And with it all actions taken to control carbon dioxide emissions – Kyoto, cap-and-trade, Copenhagen that is planned – should also be abandoned. Because, you see, the science behind it has turned out to be a pseudo-science, if not voodoo science, and is entirely divorced from the real world we live in.
I’m sorry, Arno, but I prefer your paintings to your climate science. Let us know when your analysis is in a peer-reviewed journal rather than self-published at icecap.us.
Gareth: first of all, I am not the artist, that is my nephew. Secondly, let me tell you that the peer review system today is broken – no journal will publish anything against AGW. I know, because I offered it to Science, Nature, and PNAS. They are all in the hands of warmists and so are various scientific organizations and academies. I just got refused, no chance even to get peer reviewed! Lysenko did this in the former Soviet Union and he would understand. Thirdly, you are an ideologist who thinks that “the science is settled” and therefore you don’t need to learn anything else. Well, refusing to learnn is simply a sign of stupidity and you have chosen to remain stupid and ignorant by not availing yourself of real climate science that is offered to you. And one more thing: this global warming craze is a bubble and things won’t be nice when the bubble bursts.
Arno, I don’t wish to appear rude, but have you considered the possibility that your paper was not published because it is nonsense? Peer-review isn’t perfect, but it isn’t “broken”.
Of course “the science” isn’t settled, there’s plenty to learn about the hugely complex ocean/atmosphere/land/biosphere system, but the general direction of change, the risks we face, and the actions needed are established beyond reasonable doubt. All that’s left for sceptics is unreasonable doubt.
You can take my word for it. I know all about peer review and have been a reviewer myself. You would do well to give up religious belief in global warming and learn some climate science that is not contaminated with unsustainable dogma. Here is a hint: no one has yet directly measured the actual transmittance of the entire atmosphere for infrared radiation in the vertical direction despite more than a billion dollars spent each year on “climate science.” Are they afraid of what they might find? And Uncle Sam spends millions on supercomputer models that are totally worthless as tools for predicting future. Yet the predictions outputted by such models are used to justify idiocies like the Kyoto Protocol or the coming Copenhagen treaty. Don’t take my word on computer models – read a book called “Worthless Arithmetic” by Pilkey and Pilkey-Jarvis.
Umm. Harries et al 2001 in Nature?
Given that earths average temperature works exceedingly well from simple math blackbody radiation plus summation of greenhouse gas effect, the results were hardly a surprize to anyone.
And as for “Useless Arithmetic”, then the criticism applies to weather forecasting but misses the point completely on climate.
Let me just say a few a words on getting something published in Science, Nature. These journals consider themselve as premium science publications and the results of submitting would normally be a note saying nice but not significant, or not of general interest etc. without even a thought peer review. A former boss would shout a magnum of champagne for a paper in nature. Next, note length. Next note content – exceedingly dense science. You cant publish raves in science journals.
Looking at your opening, you begin with veiled slander, show an immediate lack of understanding of the datasets, and shortly after show that you did your analysis at junkscience. You cant get this published in a science journal.
As to getting contrary science published, perhaps you should compare with Lindzen and Choi, GRL (Wrong but worth publishing).
Not true that “Useless Arithmetic” does not apply to climate. Here is an example about IPCC and the sea level rise question. Two of their modelers were attempting to determine the effect of fresh water held in storage on sea level rise. One of the modelers, Gornitz, thought its effect was negative and lowered sea level between 0.2 and 0.5 millimeters per year. The other one, Sahagian, thought it raised sea level by 0.6 millimeters per year. Now tell me, does the sea level go up or down because of water held in storage? IPCC sure does not know. The answer came from three guys from Taiwan – Chao, Yu and Li – who took it upon themselves to actually measure it. They had data on 29,484 reservoirs constructed since 1900 and determined that the effect was negative and that it had reduced sea level by 30 millimeters over the last half century. And then they went on to correct the published sea level curves for their new data and discovered that the corrected sea level curve became linear for the last eighty years. And the corrected rate of sea level rise for the last eighty years was 2.46 millimeters a year. If something has been linear that long it is not about to change anytime soon, and you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that for a century this works out to a little under ten inches. This is the most probable sea level rise estimate that we have. Now compare this to twenty feet that Al Gore has been talking about and you start wondering whether his is a parallel universe or what.
Here’s an interesting news report of comments from Hoggan elaborating on his book and the revelations it contained.
Nice link. As it states at the end of the article, the sheer extent and resources put into deception and PR is mindboggling.
Nice sweetheart review by a believer, for the faithful. No science in it.
“If a scientific theory predicts warming and you get cooling that theory as a scientific theory is proven false and should be abandoned.”
How many times do you have to say this. Before you declare a scientific theory wrong, it predictions have to be falsified. Does the theory predict monotonic warning? Nothing of sort. All sources of natural variability are still operating. Is the current temperature record reproducible from a model run with all of the CO2 physics in it? yes, of course it is (eg Keenlyside – see link further up). Why is it so hard to just look at the science? Or are you like AGW-Denier – claims to have seen all the data and yet spouts a lot of stuff like UHI, cooling, hockey-sticks which plainly shows he hasnt. At least read the IPCC report if you wont read the science papers on which it based. And the science consensus is based on the published science not what atrologers and dentists think. The scientists that publish alternative views? Well. Lindzen acknowledges the CO2 effect but thinks there are negative feedbacks which reduce the sensitivities. Waiting for a publication that refutes studies showing his Iris effects doesnt exist. Christy I think is in similar boat. Carter thinks there are hitherto undiscovered natural cycles despite the lack of need for any such beasts to explain current and paleoclimate. It is possible he is right but its not way to bet. Got any others publications to buck the consensus?
Scaddenp – Yes, the thery does predict monotonic warming. It all started with Hansen’s 1987 graph which he brought out again in 1988. He has been adding data points to his global temperature curve and in 2006 he brought that very same curve out again to show that his scenario B – the one with moderate additions of carbon dioxide – was on target with temperature predictions through 2005. You haven’t heard of him since because his curve is now wildly off target – it predicted that “monotonic” increase that you don’t think is in the theory. Since then we have had cooling, the theory predicted warming, theory is wrong, case closed. And forget about “natural causes” as an excuse – if natural causes are controlling our weather and not carbon dioxide greenhouse effect then you should forget about that greenhouse effect entirely and begin a study of those natural causes that don’t seem to know or care about that AGW that you worship.
So Arno, are you prepared to tell us the editor’s comments? Spencer and others can get published with errors that shouldnt pass peer-review because journals are dead scared of just such accusations. Why dont you send to Gareth for some comment? If he think you have something to say then I am sure I can find scientists to look at it. But it had better contain science not raves.
In case you where wondering why it was rejected here it is in all it’s radiant beauty. A fair bit of Al Gore is fat and Mann’s infamous “hockey stick.â€
And this gem in the conclusions
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/ThereWasNoGlobalWarmingBefore1997(February15th2009).pdf
AMEN
Right Lawrence. I thought Arno might be a scientist. That’s unpublishable in any science journal let alone Science, PNAS, or Nature.
However, good to have it out their so well-meaning people dont think it was “suppressed” science.
Your sarcasm and personal attack are not justified. Global warming is just a bubble and when it breaks you will realize how badly you misunderstood the situation.
Arno, what the models predict is down in black and white, you only have to read the papers instead of the misinformation. Hansen’s 1980s model are only capable of predicting long term trends and when you compare what forcings actually happened to what the model predicted, it does surprizingly well for such a primitive model. You can see a big collection of individual runs from AR4 models at
http://www.realclimate.org/images/runs.jpg
Not a single run is monotonic. Now look at the run models in
Keenlyside et al which are trying to model decadal variations. There is not a single climate scientist predicting monotonic increase. You can have no crediability at all while you insist on such a patently false idea. The model runs are archived – you can be clearly seen to be spouting nonsense.
You can’t get out of this with sophistry. Hansen made a very definite prediction and was proud of its achievements in 2006 when he brought it out again. In science you cannot use the excuse that “my theory does not work because something else is controlling the weather.” If that something else is controlling the weawther then sure as heck your theory is not doing it. Guess what: something else then carbon dioxide greenhouse effect really is controlling the weather and carbon dioxide theory of global warming is dead. Keenlyside is doing damage control but his bottom line could be paraphrased as “weather may be cooling temporarily but even if it takes ten years, rest assured that warming will return.” That is complete bullshit and he knows it and everybody else knows it but they don’t want to give up their research grants. But back to Hansen, the climate guru of NASA. The fact that his predicted Scenario B did fit observations until 2005 was partly due to luck and partly due to foul play. His luck was that in 1998 a super El Nino appeared which raised global temperatures to unexpectedly high levels. He quickly incorporated it into his greenhouse warming curve when it had absolutely nothing to do with carbon dioxiude and was caused by Indian Ocean overflow. The super El Nino was followed by a warm period from 2001 to 2007 that likewise was not from carbon dioxide but he used that too to show that his curve fit observations. But these two he got just by luck, and after that his luck ran out. The rest of his “observations,” what he calls his Land-Ocean curve in the eighties and nineties are faked. During that period the global temperature oscillated about a mean value, with ups and downs repeating in a cycle of four to five years. The upper values belonged to El Ninos and intervening low values belonged to La Nina periods. The trend is horizontal for twenty years, meaning no warming. But how do you get a warming curve if satellites show no warming? Very simply – Hansen changed the La Nina temperatures in between the El Ninos into shallow dips instead of the deep valleys they are and thereby created a rising temperature curve out of a horizontal temperature curve. If you compare his curve to satellite values directly you notice that he picked every El Nino – those are the high points – correctly but then simply raised the intervening La Nina temperatures up to create the appearance of warming. That to me is scientific fraud. Don’t forget he testified under oath in 1988 that global warming had started when nothing of the sort is true. When Bjorn Lomborg published “Skeptical Environmentalist” he was quickly hauled in front of the Danish Committe on Scientific Deception. Later charges were dropped. We should have something like that to expose the deceptions we are subjected to by so-called “climate scientists.”.
Reading what is printed in papers is not sophistry. Did you actually look at what the models predicted? Spot any monotonic warming? Your dont find a cooling trend in mid tropospheric satellite data unless you look at very small intervals. 30 year trends remember?
“Scientific fraud?” – a failure to understand the science perhaps. You think temperatures now arent warmer than 1988?
You are also confounding ENSO with external forcing.
Consider this. Put a very large preserving pan of water on edge of a gas hob and put in a temperature network. In a very short time you will have a circulation system that simple as it is would take a great deal of effort to model the temperatures, with all of the mathematical modelling issues of non-linear systems. However, I could calculate with some confidence when it will boil.
Can I make a suggestion? If you think your ideas have merit and should be published, how about you send them to John Christy at UAH, (since you have such faith in satellite measurements) and he is sympathetic your position.
Arno, further to that, I would like to apologise for my tone. I got carried away. I obviously dont think your arguments have merit, but I also accept that you wont take my word for it. Why should you?
So I reinforce my suggestion – send your argument to a publishing scientist that you DO trust – my suggestion would be Christy.
I thought you apologized and then you insert that inane suggestion of what I should do. But let me explain to you two things you brought up. One is ENSO, the other scienrtific fraud. As far as ENSO is concerned everything written about it up to now is entirely off the mark. They simply don’t know what it is. From my paper you learn for the first time what it actually is – wave resonance in a very large bowl called the Pacific Ocean. Westward flow is via the two equatorial currents. They are blocked by the Philippines and New Guinea where the water piles up and that piled-up water is then forced to return via the equatorial countercurrent. That leads directly to South American shore at the equator. Tate ENSO wave then splashes against the shore, its warm water spreads out in both directions and we notice that an El Nino has started. But every wave that splashes ashore must also fall back. When it does so it joins the equatorial currents for a return flow, the sea level in its wake is lowered by as much as half a meter, and cold water from below wells up to fill the void. That is why the La Nina phase of ENSO is cool. I will try to explain the resonance part to you by an analogy with a glass tube. If you blow across the end of a glass tube you can elicit a tone. It is the resonant frequency of that tube and its frequency depends upon the dimensions of the tube. Trade winds are the equivalent of blowing across the end of the tube and the tube is the ocean basin. The tone you get from the ocean is the ENSO oscillation whose frequency is determined by the dimensions of the ocean itself. It is that simple. It is true that the frequency can vary when storms etc. interfere with the equatorial currents or equatorial countercurrent and strange things like a super El Nino can inject themselves into it. But the basic cycle is about four or five years and has been going on as long as temperatures have been measured. Why temperatures? Because an El Nino will raise global temperature by half a degree when it arrives and a La Nina will then lower it by the same amount. This is our normal weather and it persisted through the eighties and nineties as satellites tell us. During that twenty year period there were five such ENSO cycles where the temperature gently oscillated by approximately half a degree about a mean value that remained constant. We do know this quite well because the measurements are accurate to 0.03 degrees Celsius. This means that during that twenty year period there was no warming. It all came to an abrupt end with the super El Nino of 1998 so that if you wanted to draw an average temperature curve you would have a horizontal line for twenty years followed by an abrupt step up when the super El Nino arrives. But this is not what you see when you look at temperature curves for these twenty years from NASA, NOAA, and Hadley Centre from U.K. Every one of them shows a rising curve instead of the actual temperature that just oscillated about a mean value and went nowhere. When you put those rising temperature curves side by side with satellite curves, this is what you find: (1) NASA “Land-Ocean” curve that Hansen reproduced in his 2006 paper has been doctored by using all the El Nino peaks from satellite data but then raising up the intervening La Nina temperatures so as to give the impression that temperature is rising when it is not. (2) HadCRUT3 from Hadley Center shows the same manipulation and more. (3) NOAA “late twentieth century warming” – that nice red triangle on the right side of their graph – is a total fabrication. They did get the first four El Ninos right but that’s about it. Every La Nina that would lower the curve has been thrown out, the super El Nino does not exist and the twenty-first century high is lifted up above the real temperature curve. Now let me tell you why this is important: They all say this warming is greenhouse warming from carbon dioxide, that it continues today, and that is why we need Kyoto, Copenhagen, and all the rest of their idiot plans. Furthermore, in 1988, right smack in the middle of that period, Hansen testified that greenhouse effect from carbon dioxide was the cause of this warming when there was no warming at all. From what I said about these temperature curves, it is clear that the temperature curves are cooked, and the entire program to mitigate global warming by reduction of emissions has no scientific basis and is a fraud. I hope you understand the difference between me and other global warming critics: they don’t have he guts to say that there is no warming and criticise peripheral issues. The real issue is: do we have warming or do we not? We don’t, and we never did. Cancel Kyoto, Copenhagen, and all emission control laws. Start an investigation of scientific fraud into how these temperature curves got cooked.
Arno, I was definitely not trying to be inane. To me you have either not read or not understood key parts of the science. What it is clear to me though is that no explanation or criticism from me or any scientist that is in AGW camp is going to be satisfactory to you. That is why I suggested to send your suggestion (and your explanation above) to someone whose opinion you could respect but is also nonetheless able to offer you constructive comment.
Oh and just a further comment on actually measuring LW absorption on top of atmosphere. I notice in Ramanathan and Coakley (1978)
that was measured in 1956 (London reference) and again in 1971 as well as 2001, but perhaps I have misunderstood you.
Ramanathan and Coakley are just modelers and never measured anything. You are better off not bothering with such trivia. Modeling is worthless because they have so many adjustable parameters that they can produce any desired output they want which means that the output can be cooked without anyone knowing how it was done. If you have actual measurement results tell me what they are, don’t send me on a wild goose chase. You are obviously an activist who is impervious to science but willing to accept pseudo-science. Just wandering how you get to be that way. Doesn’t it bother you that the very basis of your faith – that there is anthropogenic global warming – has proven to be a fantasy? Is it because in your faith that is simply unthinkable? Science means that you make observations and draw conclusions. I have presented them to you but somehow you missed the boat. What you do is ignore observations, accept someone’s word who spouts scientific-sounding language that warming exists, and start to proselytize for a fantastic world view that has no relation to reality. Try to get this idea into your head: reality is observation, not belief in a dogma.
Arno – I consulted Ramanathan and Coakley as their paper has a nice summary of mathematics involved in line-by-line calculation absorbtion. Their paper compares their calculation from straight theory with direct measurements reported in other papers (which I reported to you). I never claimed R&C made direct measurement.
I find your rant that I am “an activist who is impervious to science” somewhat ironic. I do not see how we can make constructive exchange.
scaddenp
I appreciate your attempt to communciate the actual science in a sane, rationale, and clear manner. But it is wasted. He is absolutely certain he is right and the science community is wrong or lying.
Ignore him he will go away.
Doug
Can I ask you Doug to please explain what you think the “science community” is and about what do you think it is being accused of lying or being wrong?
Probably not, judging by your talk. I already explained to you that models can be fitted to anything. If they take someone else’s data and say they have fitted their model to it that proves only that they can fit that model to anything they like. Conclusions drawn from such curve fitting are no more believable than Mann’s hockey stick forgery.
models are just detailed hypotheses expressed precisely. Argue against models and you argue against science.
For SamV – I have to agree with you this much – that models are equivalent to detailed hypothesis. They are simply complex mathematical statements of a physical situation whose solutions are expressed as computer output. The problem is that the modelers then try to pass off these solutions as facts when in actuality there are numerous hidden problems that neither the modeler nor the user knows or understands. This is the point driven home by Pilkey and Pilkey-Jarvis, and they have surveyed many types of models. The economic downturn we are still in is just one example of how the best of models can go wrong. The people writing the code for these models were top math wizards and they had the latest and greatest supercomputers to use but here we are, not knowing what hit us.
I think we can cut to the chase here. Arrak thinks climate science can be invalidated by him/her screaming “fraud!”.
Doug is right. Best to ignore this latest graduate from the school of quasi-scientific fantasy. There will always be more of them turning up for a few years, but don’t feed their egos too much.
Dapplewater and RW: you don’t know anything about science but you do know how to be superior and insulting in your ignorance. In medieval time you and Doug too would be the first start a witch hunt for deniers and stoke the fire under them.
It's an outrage that political groups deride this as simply a "theory". Have they no thought of their children or children's children?
My recent post How To Resize Pictures
It is a Theory not fact. The Medieval Warm Period is fact, the effect the Sun has on the Earth’s climate is fact, the fact that Greenland was once ‘green’ and arable and inhabited is fact.
Anthropogenic (man caused) emissions of CO2 (and now of course the addition of Nitrous Oxide to the ‘blame bag’ as CO2 isn’t enough!) are tiny, less than 0.02% of the CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere. Do your research.
The main culprit for CO2 emissions is actually undersea volcanoes, followed by terrestial volcanoes and forest fires (which have naturally occured for millennia).
Control those, Governments and peoples of the world if you can. This Theory saying that it’s all my (and your fault) and that we can and shouild be taxed into poverty to pay to ‘fix’ it doesn’t sit well with me. Does it really with you? And yes, I am thinking of my children (I do have some) and future generations. And no, I’m NOT on the payroll of Exxon or Ford or any other evil multinational, I’m a thinking (and researching) person.
I challenge you too to read something from the other side of the debate. Try ‘Air Con’ by Ian Wishart. If you dare that is.
I call Poe. Do not feed the troll/satirist, just point readers to Somethin’ Stupid.
“The Medieval Warm Period is fact”
Yes it is a fact that it was a period of moderate regional warming of under 0.5′C.
“the effect the Sun has on the Earth’s climate is fact”
Yes it is a fact that solar variance accounts for no more than 20% of the observed warming.
” the fact that Greenland was once ‘green’ and arable and inhabited is fact.”
It is also fact that the inhabitance of Greenland did vanish after a scant change in temperature of around -0.3′C. Projected anthropogenic global warming is 10 to 20 times larger than the change that wiped out the Norsemen.
“Anthropogenic (man caused) emissions of CO2 […] are tiny, less than 0.02% of the CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere.”
False. The increase in CO2 levels due to man is not 0.02%. But close to 40% currently.
“The main culprit for CO2 emissions is actually undersea volcanoes, followed by terrestial volcanoes followed by terrestial volcanoes”
The USGS web site makes that accurate claim that in any given year, all of the worlds volcanoes produce less than 1% of the CO2 that man produces. Infact it is also a fact that man emits more CO2 than all of nature combined. Man fixes more nitrogen than all of nature combined. Man moves more soil than all of nature combined. Man has caused a decline by 90% of all large ocean fish stocks. Man has caused a dead zone that is collectively larger than the continental U.S. And on and on it goes.
“and forest fires ”
In relative terms, burning trees (containing recent carbon) does not compare with the release of Eon’s old CO2 into the atmosphere through burning fossil fuels.
“I’m a thinking (and researching) person.”
Well, good. RESEARCH and THINK about basic physics and you will quickly realise that putting a pigment like CO2 into the atmosphere must necessarily heat the surface of the earth, and that it is completely impossible for the earth’s surface not to warm once CO2 is added. You will soon wonder how on earth you were duped by the denialist lobby.
Good luck.
Jay, so many incorrect statements in one post but if you are Aircon as your source of information then that is understandable. There was a MWP but whether it was globally synchronous event is highly debatable as is whether its was warmer than today. However, the MWP is hardly “disproof” of AGW – the model based on known forcings produce it. Greenland was not “green” any time in human history – norse agriculture was confined to two small area at head of 2 sheltered fjords. We have excellent historical and archeological proof. Human emissions of GHG amount to a forcing of nearly 4x that of solar min to max. 0.02% is rhetoric – crush the numbers and see the effect. And CO2 emissions are not mostly from volcanoes – this is so wrong its hard to even find where this idea from. Volcanoes, undersea or otherwise, account for about 1% of human emissions. In other words, you have listened to people lying to you and formed incorrect conclusions. You say “do your research” and I can only commend that you do likewise but from reputable sources of information.
Sorry Gareth – I thought he was for real.
Dear Phil (& Gareth),
I guess the antient Scandanavians were into satire in a big way then?!
Deary me, I certainly appear to have set the cat amongst the pigeons judging by the interesting replies.
Dear Phil, you don’t mention the Sun. Humans are very arrogant in thinking that they can alter the climate on a global scale. Sorry we can’t. We can pollute (and we do) and we need to address all pollution/poisoning of our environments but CO2 is not a pollutant, it is a natural element of this carbon based world system in which we function.
If it were not for the ‘greenhouse effect’ this planet would be inhospitable to life.
“Humans are very arrogant in thinking that they can alter the climate on a global scale.”
Science tells us we have no reason to feel arrogant about it.
“CO2 is not a pollutant”
Of course it is a pollutant. CO2 is a metabolic waste product. That is why your body is constantly excreting it into the surrounding air. Just as urea is a metabolic waste product and is excreted for the same reasons.
“it is a natural element of this carbon based world system in which we function.”
So are phosphates and nitrates, which are all universally considered pollutants when deposited in unnatural amounts by man.
It follows that CO2 with out any question what so ever – is a pollutant.
Yes, apparently. There are numerous historical accounts of the extent of the greenland settlements. It is suspected the “greenland” was a marketing ploy by Erik. It is not like this information is hard to find. Why dont find it for yourself? Most of greenland is covered with an icesheet that is 400,000 to 800,000 years old.
As for Sun. Our current theory of climate accounts for climate in terms of solar, aerosols, GHGs and albedo. Our climate at any time is response to ALL of those. Changes in solar obviously affect climate but solar is declining if anything since measurement began. You assert without proof that neither our aerosols nor our GHG can change climate but calculations say otherwise and these calculation match observation. And sure, GHG make earth habitable. More CO2 might even be a good thing – provided we change climate very very slowly (ie over thousands of years) because rapid adaptation is hard. You think that the millions of people living in the delta areas threatened by salt invasion and coastal erosion are going to find a happy new home without disruption? Should we invite them all here? 3mm/yr of sealevel rise isnt hurting us yet, but how does 1cm/yr grab you?
yep, I realise this blog started out a while ago.. yet still the C.E.I mention appears most appropos
Don’t forget who Hoggan is: he is a public relations specialist. He is applying the skills of his professional field to badmouth opponents of global warming hype who are supposedly in the pay of ExxonMobil and other baddies. I don’t think ExxonMobil has spent more than ten million total to support opponents of global warming propaganda. I wish they had included me in on it. But the United States government, on the other hand, spends one thousand three hundred million dollars each year on “climate research,” all of which goes to individuals and organizations trying to prove that the world is warming and the sky is falling. Not to mention huge sums from the European Union, and monetary rewards to individuals like Hansen from foundations supporting global warming hype. For its money Uncle Sam gets thousands of so-called “peer-reviewed” papers each year, all worthless, all singing the carbon dioxide song. The “peer review” is a joke and journal editors who dare print opposing views get fired as Climategate has shown. Four hundred million dollars of this slush fund from Uncle Sam goes directly to James Hansen’s group at NASA. For this we get nothing but climate models running on latest and greatest supercomputers and spewing out GIGO. This junk is then fed to government agencies and lawmakers who obediently write it into laws like the Waxman-Markey bill that passed the House this year. Finally, I want to expose you to some real climate science that your propaganda machine denies. Ferenc Miskolczi has determined, using NOAA database of weather balloon observations, that global average annual infrared optical thickness of the atmosphere has been unchanged for 61 years, with a value of 1.67. The optical thickness he speaks of is a logarithmic measure of the transparency of the atmosphere to heat radiation from below. Constant addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere for 61 years straight has not changed the transparency of the atmosphere or its optical thickness would have increased, and this did not happen. What this means is that the greenhouse absorption signature from carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere through all these years simply isn’t there.
Great news, Arno – now all we need to do is airdrop enough copies of Miskolczi’s paper onto Greenland to stop the ice melting, plus translate a few million into Urdu to comfort Pakistani parents as they watch their children die of malnutrition and water-borne diseases.
Problem solved!
Rob Taylor: What makes you think you know anything about climate science? Do you have any reason to think that you understand what the greenhouse effect is? Do you know that greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide by itself does not give you the dangerous warming that your group is babbling about? Do you know that in order to get that four-five degree warming they have to juice up their models and build positive water vapor feedback into them? Do you have any reason to think that water vapor feedback is positive? For your information, you don’t. Miskolczi’s work proves that contrary to IPCC, water vapor feedback is strongly negative, not positive, and further reduces the meager warming you get from pure carbon dioxide instead of enhancing it. These are some basics of climate science you need to acquaint yourself with before you start making ignorant jokes about a work of science you are totally incapable of understanding.
“Do you have any reason to think that water vapor feedback is positive?
For your information, you don’t.”
Do you have any reason to believe that it isn’t? A warmer atmosphere supports more water vapour.
“Miskolczi’s work proves that contrary to IPCC…”
Amusingly Miskolczi’s work is so flawed that even skeptic Roy Spencer has recently debunked his theory. I invite you to check out his blog. To cite Miskolczi merely highlights your profound desperation.
No Arno, I did not “know” the things you mention, perhaps because they are unsupported by any evidence or coherent theory. I also do not know what “my group” is, unless you, perhaps, mean my blood type (A-).
I do, however, know that Miskolczi is a joke, and I suspect that I am somewhat more acquainted with the “basics of climate science” than your good, if credulous, self.
http://www.realclimate.org/wiki/index.php?title=Ferenc_Miskolczi
Good on you Arno. You’re certainly rattling these guys’ cages. They are just very sad people itching for anything to prove their ‘doomsday religion’ of anthropogenic climate change.
Climate and temperature is (and always has been cyclic). All the ‘best’ climate science in the early 1970s had all the proof you could shake a stick at that the world was entering a new ice age! Now we’re all going to fry! Oh, and drown too.
Things climatewise DO change, but it is not mankind who changes it. We should spend our mental energy and money on what’s important – adapting to what actual changes there are, area to area; country to country.
Hot Topic members – the science is far from settled. Not everyone is believing Chicken Little thank goodness.
Thank you Jay, for that message from your sponsors – normal transmission will now resume.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/04/060412204831.htm
“Earth’s plant life will not be able to “store” excess carbon from rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels as well as scientists once thought because plants likely cannot get enough nutrients, such as nitrogen, when there are higher levels of carbon dioxide, according to scientists publishing in this week’s issue of the journal Nature.”
Yes, not only that Rob, but water, strangely enough, affects plant growth too:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100820101504.htm
“Global plant productivity that once was on the rise with warming temperatures and a lengthened growing season is now on the decline because of regional drought, according to a new study of NASA satellite data.”
“Compared with a 6 percent increase in plant productivity during the 1980s and 1990s, the decline observed over the last decade is only 1 percent. The shift, however, could impact food security, biofuels and the global carbon cycle.”
“You’re certainly rattling these guys’ cages”
Yea he cited a paper that even skeptics are debunking.
How embarrassing.
“Climate and temperature is (and always has been cyclic).”
A correct but meaningless statement.
“All the ‘best’ climate science in the early 1970s had all the proof you could shake a stick at that the world was entering a new ice age!”
Jay, then it should be easy for you to cite JUST ONE peer reviewed scientific paper from the 70’s from a reputable science journal that warned of an impending ice age.
I expect to see a valid cite by the end of business today. Please don’t disappoint me.
You wouldn’t want me to think that you just make stuff up, do you?
Gareth, do Jay and Arno happen to be from the same city?.
Hmmm, interesting, I suspect Jay and David do.
Nope, but “Jay” seems to have come here after an email alert or request. Rather like the NZ “climate realist’ newsletter last week, which urged people to come here and vote for our dear crank commenters. Seems they’re in a substantial minority… 😉
That will explain the “flood” of high-level contributions in recent days then. They really have cranked it up.
Yeah, I know, appropriately weak pun…..
Jay, who were these “best” scientists predicting cooling in the 70s?
My recollection is that 6 times as many were predicting warming as were predicting cooling. But I don’t have a list of the names. Clearly you know which list included which names – and that the “cooling” scientists and their reports were better than the others. Could you enlighten me? And why are these people not now publishing the same kind of thing?
Same bin, huh..
Rob Taylor, Thermo: As they say, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. Neither one of you is either able or willing to understand the science on your own so I will walk you through Miskolczy’s work. What he has done is to use NOAA database of radiosonde observations that goes back to 1948 to empirically determine that the global average annual infrared optical thickness of the atmosphere has been unchanged for 61 years, with a value of 1.87. This is not a theoretical prediction like Svante Arrhenius did more than a century ago, but is based on actual instrumental observations. The optical thickness he speaks of is a logarithmic measure of the transparency of the atmosphere to heat radiation from below. Constant addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere for 61 years straight has not changed the transparency of the atmosphere in the infrared or the optical thickness would have increased, and this did not happen. What it means is that the greenhouse absorption signature from carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere through all these years simply isn’t there. No absorption, no greenhouse effect, case closed. That is exactly why the anthropogenic global warming, AGW, has never been detected as you will learn when you read my book. I highly recommend that you spring for it – you will learn real climate science from it. Roy Spencer has criticized Miskolczi’s work but comments have pointed out errors in his article. The worst he can say is that radiosonde data older than the mid-sixties can not be trusted which is just an attempt to muddy the waters. You take it from there.
Arno, this page sums up Miskolczi’s joke paper quite nicely.
http://bartonpaullevenson.com/Miskolczi.html
Perhaps flogging dead horses is a hobby of yours.
Arno, you may be fooling yourself – or just reading from a script prepared by others – but your statements are easily demonstrated to be incorrect.
Here is the actual research findings on the changing GHG signal in the IR satellite data:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html
and here, again, is a link to various critiques of Miskolczi’s work by real scientists in the field:
http://www.realclimate.org/wiki/index.php?title=Ferenc_Miskolczi
I suggest you try to understand these before you waste anyone else’s time.
I think this book is a good read for anyone interested in the role of public relations firms in redefining the debate on climate change. After reading this book I spotted some of the people mentioned in subsequent ‘news’ stories on tv.