It’s official. ACT is the party of climate denial. Not only have they been endorsed by the NZ C”S”C for their rejection of the ETS, but Rodney Hide has confirmed his status as a full-blown crank in an astonishing speech to the ACT Upper South Regional Conference in Christchurch on Sunday. The errors he makes and the ignorance he displays are so egregious that the speech amounts to a public suicide note from a politician with aspirations to a role in governing this country.
Here’s the relevant passage from Hide’s speech, annotated by me to highlight his deliberate mistakes:
A warmer climate with more CO2 in the atmosphere is an unambiguous benefit to New Zealand and to the world[1]. I don’t know what we are scared of[2]. A New Zealand that was one or two degrees warmer would be a better place to live and better environment for agriculture[3]. The same is true for CO2. We pump the stuff into our greenhouses to stimulate plant growth. It’s the number one nutrient with carbon through photosynthesis being the source of all life[4].
[1] Unambiguous benefit? An astonishing assertion in the face of the evidence – the whole of the Working Group 2 report from the IPCC AR4 would suggest otherwise.
[2] Argument from ignorance. Hide hasn’t read AR4, so the evidence doesn’t exist.
[3] Wrong. While gentle warming will bring some benefits to agriculture in some areas (Southland, Westland), increasing drought on the East Coast of both islands will bring huge challenges to our agriculture. Hide clearly hasn’t read the latest MfE advice to local government, which includes details of what NZ can expect. He could perhaps look at my contribution to the current issue of NZ Geo – it’s easier to read.
[4] Carbon dioxide is not now, nor has it ever been, the “number one nutrient” for plant growth. An astonishing mistake for a self-proclaimed “environmental scientist” to make.
New Zealanders who can afford it go to the Gold Coast for their holidays, not Invercargill. We would like it to be warmer. It seems strange to me that we are rushing to try to stop something that I can’t see as bad[5].
[5] Again, the argument from ignorance. The fact that Hide can’t see it as bad is a result of his refusal to be informed, or his rejection of the evidence.
The changes we are talking about are small[6]. The IPCC’s best estimate through their computer generated scenarios has the world two to four degrees warmer[7] by century’s end and the sea level 20-60cms higher[8]. That’s hardly catastrophic[9]. Indeed, dragging New Zealand temperature-wise closer to the Australia would be a good thing.
[6] The changes are anything but small. The numbers may look small, but the impacts are huge. The difference in global average temperature between the depths of an ice age and a warm interglacial is only about 5ºC.
[7] Hide is happy to contemplate allowing the global average temperature to soar well above any period in the last 4 million years – perhaps for 40 million years.
[8] Hide uses the lowest of the IPCC’s figures, which specifically exclude increasing contributions from ice sheet melt – an increase that is being observed.
[9] Tell that to the hundreds of millions of people who live in the Asian megadeltas (think Bangladesh) who would find a 60cm rise flooding huge tracts of land.
The world was warmer than today during the Medieval Warm Period, a time when civilisations flourished, the Vikings settled Greenland, the Polynesians explored the Pacific, and Maori sailed to New Zealand[10].
[10] Flat out wrong. Sounds like Hide’s been getting his speeches written by the cranks at the NZ C”S”C, because this has been known to be untrue for at least ten years.
We should remind ourselves too that while these scenarios are generated by scientists they themselves are not science[11]. They are projections based on computer models. They are educated guesses, not science[12]. Science is about theories and the testing of theories against the facts[13]. It’s not lab coats, high speed computers and committees of wise people.
[11] The models used are certainly scientific, and the process of using the models is equally a matter of science. The projections they produce are the best that science can muster at the moment.
[12] The observations of warming are unequivocal, the rise in greenhouse gases undeniable, and their source uncontestable. For the planet not to warm in the future would require a complete re-write of the laws of physics.
[13] Which is of course what climate scientists have been doing all along.
I remain sceptical that we know what the weather will be in a hundred years[14]. I remain sceptical that greenhouse gases are the cause of a global warming. That’s because of the facts[15].
[14] Nobody claims to know about weather in a century’s time, but we have a reasonable idea what climate might be like if we fail to restrain greenhouse gas emissions.
[15] No, that’s because you choose to ignore the facts. See 12 above. The radiation physics is not in any doubt – except perhaps by the lunatic fringe.
During the past 100 years there were periods, such as 1940 – 1975, when temperatures fell, even though CO2 levels increased. All official measures of global temperature show that temperature peaked in 1998 and has been declining since at least 2002, and this is in the face of an almost five percent increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide since 1998[16].
[16] Standard crank talking point. Requires statistical naivety, and ignores the facts. Simple truth? The last ten years have been warmer than the preceding decade.
The facts don’t fit the theory[17].
[17] If you get both your facts and the theory wrong, that’s hardly surprising.
These are not easy mistakes to make. They are a catechism of sceptic talking points, packaged to justify the political point Hide and his party want to make. Hide can’t plead ignorance – he described himself as the “only environmental scientist” taking part in last week’s ETS debate. He has clearly calculated that he can get away with this in his target market during the run-up to the election. He must believe that there’s enough uncertainty around for him to be able to get away with this sceptic stance in the wider community.
Here’s the bad news, Rodney. There is no doubt that you are wrong. There can be little doubt that you know that you’re wrong. You are – in essence – knowingly telling lies in support of your political position, and that makes you unfit to play any role in the governance of this nation. I can only hope that the voters in your constituency judge you on your words and wisdom and not on your carefully concocted image, because if they do, you will be unelectable.
Hide has a degree in this stuff, what is your qualification?
From the ACT offices, James?
Hide’s degree is in Resource Management, but he’s spent most of his working career as economist. He must have done some science at some time to get his degree, but he shows no signs of remembering it.
I researched and wrote a book on the subject of global warming and its impacts on NZ. I have a science degree. I haven’t forgotten what I learned.
See the difference?
I don’t care if Hide has a PhD in atmospheric physics – when so much of what he says is blatantly wrong, that makes him a fool. If he did have a physics PhD, then the rest of the physics world would probably be suing him for making them look like idiots by association.
No it’s just good to know where people are coming from when you read what they say.
Thanks.
I would’ve gone to the ‘about’ section myself, although out of curiosity, what was the MA in Gareth?
Quote: Indeed, dragging New Zealand temperature-wise closer to the Australia would be a good thing.
And we’re having a wow of a time at the moment what with the Murray-Darling and all.
MA in Human Sciences. Oxford didn’t hand out BSc or MSc degrees at the time. You could be a hot shot physicist with an MA…
My degree involved everything involved in the scientific study of Homo sapiens – from genetics and evolution through to psychology and demography. More biological than physical sciences, which is perhaps why I accept what I’m told by atmospheric scientists, and worry most about ecosystem impacts…
“Hide has a degree in this stuff, what is your qualification?”
No he doesn’t… he does not have any degree in climate science. You are as wrong about Hida, as he is wrong about climate change.
Interesting how james w starts out with an appeal to authority and an ad hominem.
But of course that’s OK when he does it.
— bi, International Journal of Inactivism
I honestly thought Act had moved on from the days when Gerry Eckhoff described climatology as pseudoscience. It’s sad to see a party with some good principles drinking from the well of science denial.
I disagree that this amounts to a suicide note, though. There will always be an audience for this brand of nonsense, and it’s possible to be wrong about plenty of important things and keep winning votes. Bush Jr has demonstrated this by winning 2 US elections (sort of), and even though he’s chronically unpopular his party might still win the next one.
ACT are the anti-science party… what a joke
Barry:
If we judged our politicians on their fitness to serve in government, then it would – should – be a suicide note, but I agree that it’s unlikely that Hide will lose votes through his crank views. There are enough uninformed or misinformed or politically blinkered people who will not be frightened off. Sadly.
at sight of the news elsewhere I commented that the ‘good for you’ assertion is readily resolved by having this fellow put his head into a bag otherwise filled with carbon dioxide and sealing the same around his neck..
methinks the benefit arising from this ACTion would enhance the lives of folks both willing and able to be misled by loudmouths.
I have the same degree as Rodney Hide, a Masters of Science in Resource Management taught at the Centre for Resource Management at the University of Canterbury and Lincoln College (as it was then). I think Mr Hide did the course in 1982/83. The Centre selected graduates from a wide range of disciplines for this course (very few had science backgrounds). The focus was on a multidisciplinary approach to understanding issues and to problem solving. The Masters consisted of eight papers taken over two years. Core papers covered the biology of natural resources including ecosystems, energy, planning, resource management economics, a group case study and an individual mini-thesis. Students could also take Masters papers in any faculty of either university regardless of undergraduate qualifications. Mr Hide stayed at the Centre after graduation as a researcher and possibly a tutor – don’t know how long for. Depending on the subjects they took and their previous degree, it would be possible for a graduate of this course to come out with a very limited understanding of the scientific method and ecosystems and absolutely no understanding of climate science – it wasn’t covered. Its less easy to understand why Mr Hide thinks he knows more about climate change than all the many thousands of scientists in all in hundreds of science based disciplines whose work contributes to our improving knowledge of it. Also people think that we only need to be concerned about big changes (due to time lags they are coming) but given our economic dependence on agriculture, horticulture, forestry, fishing and tourism, New Zealand has reason to be concerned about even very small changes in climate and its impact on the ecology of these productive sectors.
From the observed facts (such as they appear to be) climate change appears to be real, that its cause is primarily anthropogenic is much less certain. Despite assertions by IPCC and adherents to its theory.
Endlessly repeating something doesn’t make it true. Models as you infer Gareth are indeed best guess and by definition can never be scientific fact as this of course is based on observation.
Whatever happened to scientific debate, liberalism and letting people hold and (gasp!) even voice a contrary view?
Oh i see, only those that agree with your world view are able to voice an opinion. Come back stalin we miss you – oops no we don’t ecofascists have filled that niche nicely!
(BTW background of 25 years working in the environment sector and counting)
wow dude, you been around wayyyyy to long:
“Models as you infer Gareth are indeed best guess and by definition can never be scientific fact as this of course is based on observation.”
models have nothing to do with guessing. they are about understanding physical processes and expressing them mathematically. sure, they have uncertainties associated with them like all scientific “facts”, but they are not “guessing”.
The anthropogenic impact can be separated from any climate change due to other factors and is well researched and documented.
In case you missed it there has been years and years and years and years of scientific debate on every conceivable aspect of climate change and its impacts which is why its taken until quite recently for scientists to come to a common view and for the IPPC to be confident of its findings and predictions in this area. Models are built on observed data and they are updated based on observed data. It does help of course that monitoring equipment is now much more sophisticated and accurate.
If you are comfortable that your view on climate change is correct, why do you call the people who disagree with you ecofascists? And if you work in the environment sector, (you don’t mention in what capacity) there’s a good chance you would be able to observe climate change first hand.
Iain,
It’s not a matter of “agreeing with my world view”, it’s about accepting the facts. Hide can believe what he likes, and advocate for inaction on climate change if he wants – but he shouldn’t feel free to lie about the underlying science. As a wise man said: everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts.
haha, funny over-educated ignoramus.
“models have nothing to do with guessingâ€
well, let me give you an example of a model
problem: salary projection for next year based on your current salary $20/hour.
parameter: salary inflation
your model can predict you whatever you want it to predict; if you want to get to $40 next year you build 100% growth, if you want to half it you have negative growth.
but as ‘bi’ pointed out: an appeal to authority followed by ad hominem. excellent scientific argument! people with tertiary degrees and absolutely no capacity for critical thinking!
🙂
Rata, maate! Models can only ever be best guess until proved otherwise through measurement. It may be a very informed and statistically significant but it still is a guess. What is it about us scientists and models – ever since we got good pcs we think we can predict anything!
You’re sooo right about way too long in this game – time for a change methinks not least because…..
Hilary have a quick squizz at the extreme reactions above – all in response to some politician’s attempt to garner support for a couple of seats in parliament with some people who yeah perhaps know little about the topic but are fed up with being told by government what to think and do. That is ACT’s point of difference – all political parties have one so what’s the big deal? What I found apalling (and the subject of my reference to ecofascist) is the string of personal invective not only in the article but the posts too. If it isn’t fascism then it must be some kind of world cult if people aren’t allowed to be different or hold different views. He wasn’t even posting on this site!
What’s wrong with holding a different opinion and who put you guys in charge of the world anyway? Sheesh!
Yes 25 years in environment (from practical conservation, EIA, regulatory management, policy, etc) has given me plenty of opportunity to observe many interesting things, not least the less than savoury behaviours of some stemming from the natural desire for self perpetuation. Much of the climate change debate has had and continues to have a similar aroma.
You are correct Hilary about my coming across climate change in the course of my career – my first exposure to and involvement in the climate change debate and its attendant science was in the UK in 1988 with the then head of the Norwegian Arctic Survey. However in terms of directly observing the effects of climate change (anthropogenic or otherwise) I have been unable to observe any consequent changes in ecosystems due to this. This does not mean that it hasn’t happened – just that I haven’t observed it.
However I have certainly observed anthropogenic habitat degradation such as in sub saharan africa and south east asia leading to alterations in local rainfall patterns. Such effects are frequently referred to as evidence of climate change in various debates and articles. Such references frequently get right up my nose.
Still, musn’t let facts get in the way of a good story – hold on isn’t that the issue with Rodney Hide? Alas I too must be “wrong about everything” as the article title suggests and so will remain an unconverted pagan. But please don’t round on me, Rodney or anyone else for thinking differently. Most of the earlier comments and the article itself says more about their authors than the accused!
Anyway time for bed. Thanks for the opportunity hope you can forgive me and Rodney for being different. Please pray for us that we too can come to realise the one true way.
Shorter iain h: GALILEO!!!!!!
Seriously, there’s nothing else to all his verbose ranting.
— bi, International Journal of Inactivism
joker:
How about discussing an actual climate model that’s actually been proposed in the scientific literature, instead of making up your own garbage models to ‘prove’ that models are useless?
— bi, International Journal of Inactivism
iain: “It may be a very informed and statistically significant but it still is a guess. ”
So, in considering policy, should we prefer the “very informed and statistically significant” guess, or the uninformed guess with no empirical support?
People who attack climate models seem unable to accept that ANY attempt to anticipate the future involves some sort of model–usually run on the hardware of a human brain, not taking into account many known parameters. The formal climate models currently in use are certainly imperfect, but they are almost *infinitely* superior to the informal climate models being used by people who consider themselves skeptics.
So you have a problem with our best guess, on the grounds that it’s still a guess? Well, guess what? IT’S STILL THE BEST WE’VE GOT.
The models may lack some precision in foretelling the future…but they’ll do (and have done) a hell of a better job than informal methods.
Anyone read “storm world” by Chris Mooney? He gives a very good explanation about why a lot of scientists challenge models. The questioning of the models is often raised by empirically-trained trained scientists – those trained to measure data, but not trained in the theory of physics, the area occupied by modellers. This explained quite a bit to me.
But regarding the climate models, no, they’re absolutely not perfect – I don’t think anyone thinks they area. But the modellers are now reporting (now that they have a lot of data) that the climate is largely behaving just as the models predicted. But where the models have often got it wrong is that they didn’t predict that climate change would happen as fast as it is.
The Arctic melt is just one example – predicted to be ice-free by 2050 but seems to be on track for that now by 2013.
So yes, it seems the models have gotten it wrong – but not in the way people keep talking about. They were too conservative. Much scarier.
And Iain, 25 years in environmental management and policy – well I guess I, too, could argue that I’ve had similar experience – ever since I started attending international climate negotiations – those which led up to agreement on the UNFCCC in the early 1990’s. I’ve been to countless more international negotiations since, including IPCC meetings.
But that doesn’t make me a climate scientist – nor does it give me the qualifications to argue against the experts. Just as it doesn’t make Rodney one. Or you.
Not sure if anyone’s reading this anymore but it occurred to me overnight that no-one seems to get quite so agitated when science and modelling bring us better health care, faster cars, telecommunications, live sports coverage, ipods, GPS (yes, I know these are debatable examples but don’t go there). No part of our modern lives are untouched by either science or computer models and we happily embrace science for all it can deliver in terms of technology. But when scientists who study this stuff say “Hey guys, it looks like our climate is changing, changing quickly and in a way that probably isn’t very good in the long term” we suddenly decide that science is rubbish and we all know better. Put another way, if you were offered an MRI to diagnose a potential life threatening illness would you respond with “No science is junk, doctors are fascists and so are people who think doctors know what they are talking about. MRIs don’t show anything that you can trust, I’ll just go on as I am thanks.” Well?
And to take it a bit further, if your doctor said “OK you can’t see that you have cancer but here’s the evidence” would you respond with “well I asked Rodney Hide and he said he thought I was perfectly fine”?
I.m reading it, good on you Hilary!
My husband has been going round with smoke coming out of his ears for the last two days (another source of global warming? : ) ). He’s absolutely disgusted that someone who is as well-educated and possibly intelligent as Hide can push such cynical garbage to pick up a couple of percent of votes from so-called mavericks.
For me, it just reinforces my perception that ACT is not evidence-based at all – not science, not economics, not social policy.
tortoise,
that’s what i was saying, just total ignoramus. do you know that the ‘formal’ models ipcc usually quotes do not use solar activity as a parameter at all! there is a good reason for this statistically speaking.
bi,
How about discussing an actual climate model that’s actually been proposed in the scientific literature, instead of making up your own garbage models to ‘prove’ that models are useless?
what’s the point discussing ‘actual scientific’ models with housewives here who have no idea about what a model is to start with. they just recite dominant propaganda they see on tv, they never opened a journal in their lives, let alone review at least one actual ‘scientific’ climate model.
John Mashey, an occasional commenter here, recently posted some very interesting thoughts (RealClimate here) on how people misunderstand/misinterpret what climate models are/do. Well worth a read.
Joker:
Where on earth do you get the idea that climate models don’t factor in solar activity? They most certainly do. But, because there has been no significant change in solar output since (at least) 1950, the sun can’t explain the current warming.
And try to keep it polite, please.
I think the name ‘joker’ says a lot of what the person really is. It’s sad that people get such a kick out of being a trolls.
gareth,
re: factoring in the sun
you must be familiar with page 16 of
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/docs/WG1AR4_SPM_PlenaryApproved.pdf
which is an official ipcc document listing radiative components. Well according to this document the sun activity factor is 13 time less important than anthropogenic emmissions factor. This is equivalent to discarding it in the temperature curve fitting models which are based on these ipcc ‘best guesses’.
Probably cos of stuff like that
gareth,
John Mashey recently posted some very interesting thoughts on how people misunderstand/misinterpret what climate models are/do.
Haha, well as I said, interpretations of interpretations is for clueless people who have no idea what Mashey et al are talking about. If they did they would not need his interpretations. I do modelling for living and if I have enough parameters to choose from I can pretty much model anything to anything.
That’s because it’s the variation in Total Solar Irradiance from peak to trough of the solar cycle.
If you think that climate models are exercises in curve-fitting, you are grievously ill-informed. I wonder how a professional modeller could get it so wrong?
Joker
You seem to be confused about what radiative forcing means. The IPCC definition is:
“to denote an externally imposed perturbation in the radiative energy budget of the Earth’s climate system. Such a perturbation can be brought about by secular changes in the concentrations of radiatively active species (e.g., CO2, aerosols), changes in the solar irradiance incident upon the planet, or other changes that affect the radiative energy absorbed by the surface (e.g., changes in surface reflection properties). This imbalance in the radiation budget has the potential to lead to changes in climate parameters and thus result in a new equilibrium state of the climate system.”
The low value for solar irradiance in AR4 reflects the fact that over the period of concern (the modern industrial age) solar irradiance has NOT changed significantly and is therefore has not contributed that much to the recent changes in the troposphere’s radiative balance.
Doug
Gareth
This seems to be a problem with many statistical/economic modellers who venture in the arena of GCM. They are familar only with modelling techniques that are usually based on various forms of probablilty analysis e.g. regression. They do not seem to understand how models that are based on fundamental physical relationships (e.g. the conservation of energy) are different.
Doug
Hi Hillary
CRM 1987-1988. When were you there?
Doug
Doug,
Check out that Mashey link I posted above.
Hi Doug, 81-84. Mr Hide was in my class 🙂 so that’s how I know about some of what he studied.
Iain, I think people do have problem with accepting that climate change is occurring because it is very hard to see. I mean who notices/cares if some little bug goes extinct because it operates on temperature and its only food source operates on daylength so they get out of kilter. If its a pollinator and a commercial crop, then we notice. But once you can see some of the impacts, things are way beyond redemption and expensive to fix. If you have ecological big picture in your head, you don’t need to see things to know what might be going on out there in the real world.
Hey Joker, don’t diss housewives! Look how much rubbish is said in this debate by men in the House!
doug,
solar irradiance has NOT changed significantly and is therefore has not contributed that much to the recent changes in the troposphere’s radiative balance
that’s so untrue. and you know that.
1. ignoring 11(ish) year cycles, solar activity is subject to dramatic changes. if using sunspots as an indicateve see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sunspot_Numbers.svg#cite_note-Hoyt-Schatten_a-0
2. the word insignificant is meaningless in the context and is used to justify the leap of faith of scrapping the sun as one major player
3. claiming that variations of one most important factor do not have contribution, is the same as to claim that when you are driving at 200mph steering and wind are irrelevant.
what you just gave is unsupported rationalisation for elevating variations in greenhouse gase emissions above other less ‘convinient-for-the-intended-conclusion’ factors.
you also forgot to mention that the estimates for radiative forcing is also based on yet another model. so your whole set of conclusions is based on a great number of assumptions (including those which are contrary to facts) which you can bend any way you wish.
it does not matter if you use classical statistics or some dynamic model. the key concept here is model and trying to refer to fundamental physical relationship is yet another appeal to authority.
Please state what REAL WORLD OBSERVATION would FALSIFY the theory of catastrophic human-induced global warming.
No GW believer has EVER offered such a basic test. GW is not science.
Good on Rodney for standing up for the rights of NZ’s Consumers and Taxpayers NOT to be ripped off thousands of dollars per year, in the preposterous belief that this will control earth’s climate.
If your into that sort of thing just sacrifice a goat, OK.
doug,
This seems to be a problem with many statistical/economic modellers who venture in the arena of GCM. They are familar only with modelling techniques that are usually based on various forms of probablilty analysis e.g. regression. They do not seem to understand how models that are based on fundamental physical relationships (e.g. the conservation of energy) are different.
well, i am intrigued. may be you can educate me.
the way i see this is that the whole purpose of this propaganda is to come up with a graph from, say, year 1500 to, say, year 2100 which would show that temperatures will be steadily rising. so in the production of this final product (temperature graph) you have elements of historical curve fitting with elements of extrapolation.
what am i missing?
doug,
They do not seem to understand how models that are based on fundamental physical relationships (e.g. the conservation of energy) are different.
haha, it just occured to me. you are not on the payroll of nz metservice by any chance? the above remark could have been a great sales pitch!
Well, there’s your problem, joker. You think it’s all propaganda. Trouble is, climate models are, as Doug says, physical models. You can read an outline at Physics Today.
Steve, there’s been plenty of discussion of what observations might force a revision of our understanding of the way the climate system works. A failure to warm as expected would be a good one. But before you go getting all excited about “cooling since 1998” or something similar, I should point out that it would take another ten years of data for the signal to emerge from the natural variation. Care to make a bet?
Mmmmm, goat curry!
Gareth said “it would take another ten years of data for the signal to emerge ”
How convenient.
Excuse me, but ever since the turn of the C, GW believers have been asserting not only that the human signal HAS BEEN DETECTED, but that over 1/2 of observed warming CAN be ascribed to human activity. “The science is settled”-RIGHT?
How embarassing that 11 years of cooling have dissipated this “proof”. So now Gareth tries to kick the proof another 10 years into the future. Sorry, not buying it. It has all the smell of religious end-dayers who continually postpone their predicted apocalypse when the rapture refuses to arrive.
As for making a bet- I already have. See
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt7FgKS0RRg
Well, Steve, there hasn’t been “11 years of cooling”, except in some fevered imaginations. The ten years since 1998 have been warmer than the ten years up to 1998. and you have to remember that climate is measured on decadal time scales (30 years is the World Meteorological Organisation standard).
Sorry if that’s inconvenient. And while I’m impressed with your YouTube skills, you really should try to base your rants on evidence instead of just making stuff up. Like Rodney.
gareth,
Trouble is, climate models are, as Doug says, physical models.
it is erroneious to believe that there’s anything special about dynamic models. they are not oracles and since they still need some set of assumption (like any other model) i can model absolutely any possible scenario i want it to model.
Which is the whole point. But the assumptions will be in the forcings you apply (greenhouse gas concentrations over time, for instance), rather than about the physics of the system.
gareth,
Which is the whole point. But the assumptions will be in the forcings you apply (greenhouse gas concentrations over time, for instance), rather than about the physics of the system.
haha, you have no idea have you? i guess that’s alright then… keep publishing. ignorance is bliss.
Gareth said”… The ten years since 1998 have been warmer than the ten years up to 1998. and you have to remember that climate is measured on decadal time scales (30 years is the World Meteorological Organisation standard).”
Do you realise how your 2nd sentence totally invalidates the point that you’re trying to make in your 1st? If the ’00s are marginally warmer than the ’90s, by your own definition-so what?
Taking 30-year averages since the 1970s/1940s/etc (take your pick for starting point) , nowhere do we see the 0.4 deg C temperature rise per decade that would be consistent with the 4 deg rise per century that the catastrophists use to railroad us into economic suicide like the ETS.
The world is “failing to warm as expected”. See
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Bbs7_qM_I4
You’re the one with the comprehension problem, I’m afraid. When Met Service says that today is warmer/colder “than average”, they’re referring to the most recent 30 year average. That’s standard. But you can also point to warming on decadal time scales – ten years would be about the minimum to see some sort of signal in all the noise. So if the period 2008-2018 was colder on average than the current decade, there would be something worth looking at. In practice, you could probably tell something was up (or down) before the next decade is up, but the bottom line is that it takes time.
Nobody promised 0.4ºC per decade. The current rate of warming is about 0.2ºC per decade, which is itself 20 times faster than the fastest recent global temperature change, the emergence from the last ice age (roughly 5ºC in 5,000 years). We’ll only get 4ºC this century if carbon emissions continue to grow without restraint, or if carbon cycle feedbacks kick in (which could be much worse).
But you give yourself away in your last line: “economic suicide”. The ETS is a major piece of legislation, but it’s far from economic suicide. It’s only the big emitters, who are lobbying like mad to get as much taxpayer funded subsidy as possible under the scheme, who are claiming it will cost a lot. Oh, and Rodney. And he’s wrong too.
Gareth
I would rather be a climate alarmist whose position at least is supported by science than an economic “alarmists’.
Their claims about economic suicide are not even supported by even half way decent economic analysis. And I do not include NZIER’s work in this category, as it was extremely shoddy.
Doug
I correct myself. I should have said ‘in my opinion I consider the NZIER’s work to be shoddy”. I am prepared to convinced otherwise.
In response to Joker’s instance that changing sunspots cycles are the main cause of recent warming. Could he please give me a figure (and sources) as to how much increased SR energy has arisen since the Maunder minimum?
The figures I have from the literature are in the order of 0.04% of TSI (an irradiance increase of roughly 0.5 W m–2 out of 1,365 W m–2), which corresponds to an RF of +0.1 W m–2. (This is from Chapter 2 of AR4 and is based on a number of recent studies).
In summary this change is not enough to account for observed modern warming.
Doug
Gareth said >>>Nobody promised 0.4ºC per decade.
We constantly hear breathless predictions of 4 deg this century. That’s 0.4 deg/ decade (simple maths). Check against real-world observations: FAILS
>>>The current rate of warming is about 0.2ºC per decade,
Try 0.1 deg. Or are you claiming that the world has warmed a whole degree since the ’50s. Check against real-world observations: FAILS
>>>which is itself 20 times faster than the fastest recent global temperature change, the emergence from the last ice age (roughly 5ºC in 5,000 years).
“…ice records show repeated patterns of sudden warming, called Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles, when temperatures in Greenland rose by five to 10 degrees Celsius over a few decades.”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061004180029.htm
>>>We’ll only get 4ºC this century if carbon emissions continue to grow without restraint, or if carbon cycle feedbacks kick in (which could be much worse).
4 billion years of life support on this planet shows that the climate (like 99% of natural systems) are dominated by negative feedback, not positive. The lack of post-1998 warming is evidence that extra CO2 is having a diminishing effect -consistent with the straight physics of CO2 absorbtion.
Peak fossil fuel says that unrestrained CO2 emission is geologically impossible anyway.
doug,
you ignored my remarks (1) about being able to create any conceivalbe scenario even with DYNAMIC modelling (2) about why the production of the temperature graph (the final step) is not basic regression.
instead you resort to mentioning components which are OUTPUTS of some models mentioned in the literature and just divert the attention from the posited questions.
You move around so much I cannot keep track. I am not sure what you are going on about but I will have a go.
I disagree that you can create any conceivable scenerio if it requires you to adjust any of the model’s parameters outside the range of observed values in physical world. So there are limits that the parameters within the model can be adjusted.
In terms of inputs yes I could input scenarios that involve the collapse of world economy with associated decline in CO2 emissions, or major sustained tropical volcanic eruptions, or the Vogons using a machine to reduce TSI. In these cases the model would show slowing or even declining global temperatures.
In my reading temperature output are a consequence of the various models estimatation of climate sensitivity. The uncertaintieis around this figure is a function of the uncertainties within the models of how they accomodate the internal feedback processes that amplify or dampen the influence of the various radiative forcings.
Why do GCMs need regression to determine temperature?
Lastly I would like to point out that it was you stated that sunspots cycles were impacting on global climate. You directed us to a reconstruction of historic sunspot cycles as supporting your position. How was this reconstruction derived if not by some model of the sun? Why is this model valid/useful and the GCMs are not?
PS Please try and moderate your tone, if you wish to engage in a civil conversation I will happily do so.
Doug Clover
Steve,
A veritable army of straw men.
On your only interesting points: the big swings in temperature during D-O events are in Greenland, not in the global average. But the fact that they happen that quickly is certainly a matter of concern because it suggests the climate system can reorganise itself over very short timescales.
You need to think a bit more about feedback. If the climate system was dominated by negative feedback, the planet could never warm out of an ice age. And we know it does that.
So Joker
You are a modeller (true – I’ll assume so)
You assert that you can model anything given enough parameters to work with (true – well known fact)
therefore GCM outputs are a fabrication (highly improbable).
This argument is logically flawed and is just a variant on the familiar “IPCC are all part of a vast communist/envirowhacko plot” (because there are many GCM’s which are all telling us more-or-less the same thing)
What do you do with the output of your models? Throw it away because they are all wrong? Have you built a career on this?
Andrew
Gareth,
Why is pointing out how the world is spectactularly failing to warm as expected a “straw man”?
In your 1st reply post you gave “A failure to warm as expected would be a good one. ” as one of the tests of falsifiability of catastrophic GW.
In 1988 James Hansen sto0d in front of the US congress and predicted 1 deg C warming by now under business-as-usual CO2 emissions. Well business has been usual, but warming has been only 0.2deg C. Yet we still see this shameless huckster every week in the popular press, making ever more apocalyptic predictions.
Because, Steve, no-one said it was going to warm at the rates you claim. And you are also wrong about Hansen’s testimony. His model predictions from 1988 have actually stood the test of time rather well (and, please note, being rude about people will get you edited in future).
This stuff isn’t hard to look up.
Gareth said “no-one said it was going to warm at the rates you claim. And you are also wrong about Hansen’s testimony”
Hansen’s original graphs here:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2602
clearly show a projected 1988-2008 rise of a degree C. Far from standing the test of time, real-world temperatures are tracking BELOW even his Scenario C- which assumed CO2 levelling off at 368 ppm in 2000 (already surpassed).
For you to claim these projections were never made is the sort of thing that would make Winston Peters blush.
Hansen “most likely” scenario is not doing too badly. That was done with a 20 year old model – very impressive.
And I didn’t say the projections hadn’t been made – just that you are badly misrepresenting them. As indeed you seem to do with all the facts of this matter.
So, Steve, is your opposition to climate action based on the cost and the threat to civil liberties?
doug,
I disagree that you can create any conceivable scenerio if it requires you to adjust any of the model’s parameters outside the range of observed values in physical world. So there are limits that the parameters within the model can be adjusted.
I was wondering if you are confusing ‘parameters’ with ‘constraints’? I was not talking about constraints on values of your input. I meant ‘parameters’, such as, to give a very simple example, given two points in time series what will be their best fit? So if we are using, say a polynomial of the 3rd degree, what will be its coefficients (PARAMETERS)? Those parameters have no direct intuitive interpretations as ‘observed values in physical world’, they are abstract constructs. Now given this situation, if you have a third point to predict and you know which value you want to get, what you do is to find the combination of the parameters which will give you that value at that point. It’s the way it is, which I’m sure you know, is simply because normal life problems are either imprecise or ill posited, i.e. there are infinitely many solution for any data as long as you have enough parameters. The same applies to non-parametric models, DEs etc etc.
In terms of inputs yes I could input scenarios that involve the collapse of world economy with associated decline in CO2 emissions, or major sustained tropical volcanic eruptions, or the Vogons using a machine to reduce TSI. In these cases the model would show slowing or even declining global temperatures.
Nobody would disagree with this. No dishonest researcher would dare to manipulate input data constraints to push them into illegal territory, it’s easily detectable by anyone who has even superficial understanding of what they are doing. What people do to craft the results the way they want, and I’m sure you know it too, is not this blatant manipulation of constraints but via those ‘parameters’ which (a) virtually impossible to detect as manipulation especially if a model is very complex, (b) cannot be shown to have been an illegal choice in any case since in climate modeling they simply do not have TEST CASES by very definition of the phenomenon they are modelling.
In my reading temperature output are a consequence of the various models estimatation of climate sensitivity. The uncertaintieis around this figure is a function of the uncertainties within the models of how they accomodate the internal feedback processes that amplify or dampen the influence of the various radiative forcings.
Well, I cannot disagree with this. What is left out of this account is exactly the thing I’m talking about, lets call it model manipulation, with which you can make the sun activity appear irrelevant and, say, the average size of shoes sold in supermarkets that day highly relevant.
The point I’m making is not to say that all climate modeling is imprecise.
The point I’m making is that it’s an arrogant/dishonest/intellectually debilitating fallacy for any reputable scientist to claim that someone’s model proves anything in this domain of unverifiable science.
I hope the difference is clear.
Why do GCMs need regression to determine temperature?
I do not know the details of how the graph is produced but I suspect that it’s a product of individual components each of which is the result of its corresponding model. If you look at it this way, the components need to be combined somehow before the temperature graph is created. I might be wrong, but the forcing coefficients look extremely indicative of this. If I’m right in this respect not only individual sub-models can be doctored, but also the final combination too which makes life much easier for the production of the desired temperature graph.
Lastly I would like to point out that it was you stated that sunspots cycles were impacting on global climate. You directed us to a reconstruction of historic sunspot cycles as supporting your position. How was this reconstruction derived if not by some model of the sun? Why is this model valid/useful and the GCMs are not?
Hey, it’s not me who is making any claims about positive validity. I’m trying to point out that under the assumptions you guys (in the government/global warming industry) operate you could sell absolutely anything you want to the public. You just need enough funding and political will for coercion of dissenters.
PS Please try and moderate your tone, if you wish to engage in a civil conversation I will happily do so.
Done. Hopefully successfully.
joker:
“…to give a very simple example, given two points in time series what will be their best fit? So if we are using, say a polynomial of the 3rd degree, what will be its coefficients (PARAMETERS)?”
wow, bro why would you try to fit two points with a cubic?
“Now given this situation…”
a pretty unfortunate one for a modeller, i must say
” if you have a third point to predict and you know which value you want to get, what you do is to find the combination of the parameters which will give you that value at that point.”
hmmm, bad choice of model, not using independent data to test your model. yeah, if climate models were made like that they’d be dodge for sure. if however, you pick an appropriate relationship (preferably based on the physics of the situation in question), and have enough observations, including an independent set for model validation, then you can understand the uncertainties and limitations in your model and use it appropriately.
“(a) virtually impossible to detect as manipulation especially if a model is very complex,”
well, not really because the parts that make up climate models are based on well understood physics, and the models have parameters that tend to fall inside certain ranges, even if the parameter values aren’t immediately meaningful in themselves. thats what peer review is for.
” (b) cannot be shown to have been an illegal choice in any case since in climate modeling they simply do not have TEST CASES by very definition of the phenomenon they are modelling.”
not sure what you mean by that, but if you are saying there are no independent tests of model assumptions and output, you’re wrong.
“The point I’m making is not to say that all climate modeling is imprecise. ”
its actually very precise, just not necessarily always accurate. any modelling has uncertainty associated with it, and good modelling studies use independent data sets and sensitivity analyses to understand those uncertainties.
Gareth said”Hansen “most likely†scenario is not doing too badly”
I have provided links to Hansen’s 1988 predictions of 1 deg C temperature rise by now. It’s only been 1/5 of that. For you to stare such black-and-white evidence against your beliefs in the face and declare it “not to bad”, is breathtaking cognitive dissonance.
Time to start chanting the mantra. Are you ready? (with feeling now)
“THERE IS A CONSENSUS
CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL
OMMMMMMMMMMMM…”
Answer the question Steve.
Steve, Hansen provided three projections, based on three emissions scenarios. The only one that gets anywhere near 1C over 20 years is the exponential growth in CO2, which nobody (least of all Hansen) expected to happen. The “most likely” projection was pretty close to reality. Read about it at RealClimate here, . Of course, some would like Hansen to be wrong, for their own reasons. But he wasn’t.
The cognitive dissonance on display is yours: in the face of compelling evidence, you prefer to pretend that nothing is happening.
So, (I repeat) Steve, is your opposition to climate action based on the cost and the threat to civil liberties?
Both Hansen’s A and B scenarios both show a degree C of warming 1988-2008. We’ve only seen 1/5 of that. Here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkCCcBxZuoI
Now you tell us that “nobody expected that to happen”. So, Hansen sits in front of the US congress and presented fantasy-why?
So I guess we can all come back in 20 years and look at the predictions that you make on this site. And when THEY fail to come true you’ll say what? Oh nobody expected THAT to happen.
As for your loaded question, I dispute the entire premise of it: namely that massive global restrictions of energy usage repesents “climate action” – try economic INaction. The Earth has manifestly failed to warm as predicted despite, therefore there is nothing to “act” against.
You didn’t read my reference, did you? You are simply inventing a 1ºC rise from 1988-2008. Hansen’s graph (here shows that 1988 is at (roughly) 0.4 on the scale, and 2008 at about 0.8. That’s 0.4ºC over 20 years – about 0.2ºC per decade, which is slap in the middle of the observed temp increase over the same period.
Nothing to act against? Only if you ignore all the evidence. But then I suppose you’ve already demonstrated that you’re prepared to make stuff up….
Hansen’s original 1988 paper (p 7)
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1988/1988_Hansen_etal.pdf
Shows real world temperatures trending in 1988 to 0.2 deg C above the 1951-80 average. From there, the median of his A and B scenarios crosses the 1 deg line about 2010. His solid Scenario A he extends right out to 2060, and it definately predicts +0.5 deg per 20 years.
Both his A and B scenarios predict above the 0.2 deg C/decade you claim.
Meanwhile the real world showed only 0.1 deg C per decade since 1988. Your graph stops at 2005-time for a chilly update.
You seem to be admitting that the catastrophist high-level temperature increases are non-starters. This changes the entire frame of reference within which Kyoto/ETS etc were concieved, and dramatically tips the favoured responce towards monitor and adapt rather than put your country on an energy diet.
OK, so do you now accept he nowhere predicted 1ºC over 20 years? Because he didn’t. The scenario he described as “most likely” gives an increase of 0.2ºC per decade – which is what was has been observed. The observations show more than “0.1ºC per decade”.
If you want to be taken seriously you have to stop making stuff up.
As far as adapt or mitigate is concerned, we have to do both. No choice, once you understand where current warming’s taking us. Read IPPC AR4, WG2 report? Come back when you have.
Gareth. Why does the graph that you link to (post 70) show no data for land-Ocean after 2005? How strange? Ah, I see now – silly me.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/HANSEN_AND_CONGRESS.jpg
Or smoothed – to show what happened after 2005 http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/HANSEN_AND_CONGRESS.jpg
Steve, your posts appear to be contradictory- perhaps you can explain.
You say that the world hasn’t got warmer in the last couple of hundred years and therefore it isn’t true that the world’s climate is currently changing. But then you say it IS changing but not at the predicted rates and that any discrepancy between predictive models and actual temperature changes prove that the climate isn’t changing.
Then you say that the response should be to monitor and adapt (to something that you say isn’t happening) rather than attempt to mitigate the problem.
Monitoring temperature change is well in hand – we know the history of temperature of the earth and have very sophisticated equipment for measuring the current temperature.
Could you please explain at what point do you think we should start adapting, given the already serious effects of whatever it is that isn’t climate change, but which looks awfully like it.
Could you also explain what form you think adapting to climate change should take if it doesn’t involve reducing carbon emissions or the rate of use of carbon-based energy forms.
Hilary said “You say that the world hasn’t got warmer in the last couple of hundred years…”
Nowhere have I said that. Warming since the 50s has been about 0.1 deg/decade. That is not catastrophic .
Gareth claims it is 0.2 deg/decade. In post 55 I pointed out that this would mean that the world should have warmed 1 deg since the 50s. It has not. Gareth keeps repeating that the world is warming 0.2 deg/decade. How? By cherry-picking the 80s and 90s warming and ignoring before and since?
Hilary:”Could you please explain at what point do you think we should start adapting…”
Humans never stop adapting. There will be dozens of changes that will be of greater significance (technological, political/ regulatory, social, etc) in the coming century than +0.1 deg C per decade and 3 mm/year sea level rise. Just like climate change has been an insignificant driver of events in the 20th cent, so it will be in the 21st.
“…given the already serious effects of whatever it is that isn’t climate change, but which looks awfully like it. ”
There is not one single effect you can name that is not within the range of natural variation.
Please state what REAL WORLD OBSERVATION would FALSIFY the theory of catastrophic human-induced global warming.
Gareth said
“The observations show more than “0.1ºC per decadeâ€.
…Read IPPC AR4, WG2 report…”
OK then… “The linear warming trend over the last 50 years from 1956 to 2005 (0.13 [0.10 to 0.16] deg C per decade)…”
0.13 deg C is a lot closer to my claim of 0.1 than your of 0.2. And the post-2005 cooling is dragging it down even further. This is YOUR scripture speaking.
Catastrophe Cancelled
Steve, are you saying that all the warming is due to natural causes and this is sufficient to explain things like the recent reduction in Arctic summer ice, rate of extinctions, desertification etc. (Or do you see these effects as due to other behaviour by humans such as habitat destruction or also due to natural variation?)
Or, are you saying that some of the warming IS due to human activity but the effect is much smaller than scientists are saying and that the rate of warming won’t change and that any warming that is occurring won’t have an impact for at least another hundred years.
Just think – a hundred years seems a long time, but in terms of human generations its not much. (One hundred years ago my dad was just a year younger than my daughter is now.) More than a few children being born now can expect to live to 2200.
Ooops, lets make that 2100!
Hilary, why cherry-pick the Arctic, and not the non-warming Antarctic?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gLNcxVLwlw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdt_0AyixJY
“Scientists” ie. the hallowed IPCC are saying that the warming is 0.13 deg C/decade. These are OBSERVATIONS. PREDICTIONS are NOT evidence.
People living to 192? Not without a truckload of very high-tech (ie. carbon intensive) medicine.
I picked the Arctic because change there is so obvious. And its interesting that such a small and insignificant change as 0.13 deg can melt a good proportion of a polar ice cap in just a few years.
Antarctica not melting? Thank god for that
Really reassuring
Steve, you just changed the time scale parameters in this argument – not sure what you’re quoting (IPCC?), but it deviates from the point that the projection for 1988 – 2008 was about +0.2C per decade. Why now introduce a trend from 1956?
You do this throughout the conversation. For example;
GARETH: The current rate of warming is about 0.2ºC per decade
STEVE: Try 0.1 deg. Or are you claiming that the world has warmed a whole degree since the ’50s
The rate of warming has increased over the last century, where now the current trend is 0.2C p/dec. In the 1950s, the trend was less. You can see the projected increase just by eyeballing Hansen’s graph, and it is verified by running linear trends in the instrumental record to present, where the rate of warming for the last 25 years is greater than the rate of warming for the last 50, which is greater than the rate for the last 100. In 1950, had we had the science of today, the then ‘current’ trend might have been 0.1C p/dec.
You need to be consistent with time frames or your points lose all validity.
“And the post-2005 cooling is dragging it down even further”
Actually, the linear trend from ’56 to ’07 is greater than that from ’56 – ’05, despite the last two years being cooler than 2005. Statistics often defy intuition.
The linear trend for the last decade (1998 – 2007) is 0.1C. This doesn’t mean that the long-term trend projection is wrong. You must be familiar with the old “warming stopped in 1998” furfy. 1998 was an anomalously high year. Picking an outlier like that for a start point to a regression analysis is dubious statistics. Better would be to increase the sample size – say add the previous 10 years as well, damping the ‘noise’ from the trend to reveal the signal.
I’ve just now run a linear regression on global temps from the HadCRU data set (which seems to be the set deemed least suspicious by skeptics). The linear trend is 0.185C per decade, close to the mean projection and well within the projection parameters.
If you have the tools (Excel will do), you can check my figures yourself with the HadCRU data.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3vgl.txt
Also, having checked (for the umpteenth time) Hansen’s paper, the ‘most likely’ scenario is nowhere near a 1C increase from 1988 to 2008. Neither is the unlikely worst case scenario (A). In order to get a 1C rise from Hansen’s paper, you have to select the unlikely worst case scenario (A) and start from the beginning of the entire run (1958) to 2010. I believe this is what you have done and then built your argument from. The observed rates and increase of change match Hansesn’s likely scenario quite well.
What Barry said ^^^
😉
“why cherry-pick the Arctic, and not the non-warming Antarctic?”
IPCC projects that the Antarctic will not change much for a few more decades. The observations are consistent with previous IPCC reports saying much the same. Whereas the IPCC projected a warming for the Arctic. Observations show that the IPCC underestimated the increase in temperature and loss of sea ice.
The combined temperature (Arctic+Antarctic) has increased and overall sea ice area (Arctic+Antarctic) has shrunk over the last 30 years, decreasing rapidly since the turn of the century.
“I’ve just now run a linear regression on global temps from the HadCRU data set (which seems to be the set deemed least suspicious by skeptics). The linear trend is 0.185C per decade”
If it wasn’t clear from my post, I ran the regression from 1988 – 2008.
’88 to ’07, I mean. Bad keystroke, and the edit function on this thread is not co-operating with my computer.
You can open the edit in a new window.
The Northern Hemisphere trend is 0.2 degrees C per decade, while the Southern Hemisphere trend is 0.06 (so virtually NO trend!). This then gives us the 0.13 degrees C per decade – although it will of course fall as more years come in cooler. The smoothed lower troposphere temp is back to where it began in 1980 – the warming that has occurred has been wiped out by the (unpredicted) plummet in global temperatures. http://icecap.us/images/uploads/uah7908.JPG Many of us sceptics fully expect this cooling to continue due to PDO and possibly a total lack of sunspots – and it beautyfully shows that…
a) The models are useless
b) CO2 and other GHGs have not warmed the planet as expected
c) Nature can overcome even the warming that man may of induced from land use change etc.
The bias in the global lower troposphere from warm Northern Hemisphere land (summer) is also ending right now, so the temperatures can only go one way ladies and gentlemen – and that’s down. Anthropogenic global warming is about to get a kick up the rear – and a shock to all those who have, like sheep, followed the nonsense (for which read ‘non-science’).
Barry. Hansen’s Scenario A gives a 1 degree rise from 1970 to 2005, while B gives a 1 degree rise from 1983 to 2010. But then, all of what Hansen says should be treated as a joke – especially as he saw fit to travel thousands of miles (by plane!) just to appear as a witness for the defense of six Greenpiss Nojobs who defaced a chimney at a coal-fired power station! Now there’s idiocy.
Incidentally, I see from your musings above that you believe sceptics will accept HadCRU. Not so. Since all sorts of double-dealings and plain bad record keeping is going on with Stevenson screens all over the world http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/09/15/how-not-to-measure-temperature-part-71-noaa-neglect-of-volunteer-observers/#more-3071 then surely only measurement of the lower troposphere can be un-manipulated? It’s also where the air is mixed by weather, and cannot be affected by UIHE.
Have fun. Cheers.
Stephen. Your point on Antarctica is almost three years out of date. The ‘ice loss’ reported by Rignot is due (if it’s happening that is) to faster moving glaciers. These glaciers will move faster from layers of fresh snow. This increased precipitation can come from more water vapour in the atmosphere – which also acts as an albedo to reflect the Sun’s rays – thus cooling the Earth. It’s one of nature’s balances.
Got a ref or something? Seems to be a question of volume…
Harry:
Care to make a bet? [Hint: there’s a difference between reality and sceptic talking points. Picking “facts” to suit only your point of view is not a good way to assess the balance of evidence – or the odds.]
Earth to Harry (et al). You call the scientific findings on climate change “non-science”, but then use that very same science to dispute them.
It is valid to debate the interpretation of observations and measurements gathered using the scientific method.
It is not valid to call something “science” when you agree with it and “non-science” when you don’t.
By dismissing the scientific findings on climate change as non-science, you realise that you are suggesting that the most prestigious universities and research centres in the world and the thousands of scientists that train and work there in the many fields associated with climate science are completely fraudulent, as is the process that scrutinises those findings. Well, THAT’S a big call!
If you would, however, like to leave science out of the debate on climate change, then we can talk about your “feelings” on the subject instead.
Dear Hilary. I’m absolutely sure that you do the very same. I’ll take a risk and suggest that you dismiss the scientists who in turn dismiss anthropogenic warming. My point is that I view Prof. Mann’s hockey stick as non-science. I do this, not from my own knowledge, but from the revelations on the data analysis from Steve McIntyre. So you see these are not ‘my feelings’ but merely me reflecting the considered and expert opinion from a very clever mathematician. How do you feel about nailing data from (themselves) questionable surface recordings onto questionable proxy data like bristlecone pine trees? Are you happy with that? I am not. Neither am I happy with rubbish like this http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/09/15/how-not-to-measure-temperature-part-71-noaa-neglect-of-volunteer-observers/#more-3071 Do you think this is ‘science’? By the way, there’s no need of being rude by saying things like ‘Earth calling Harry’. You may think you’re being funny, but it adds nothing to your argument, and can only detract from anything you state thereon.
Gareth. “Picking “facts” to suit only your point of view is not a good way to assess the balance of evidence – or the odds.” Agreed! What are you saying, that you don’t think 2008 will be cooler than 2007? Are you serious? Look at the data first before you put any money on it. When you have, I think we’ll here the sound of your loose change hitting the bottom of your pocket!
Data:
2007 average lower troposphere anomaly +0.28
2008 average lower troposphere anomaly -0.15 (up to Aug)
With the NH bias waning (and even given the turnaround in ocean temps) 2008 is going to be ‘minus’ something Gareth.
Stephen. The only other cause of faster moving glaciers is warmer upflowing waters. Since there doesn’t appear any evidence of this then only compression (from fresh falls) can cause it – unless you know otherwise.
increased glacier speed can be caused by a number of things, including increasing the surface slope, having more water at the bed of the glacier (to ‘lubricate’ sliding) and the ‘de-buttressing’ from the collapse of ice shelves. adding more snow to a glacier is a very slow way of increasing ice speed in antarctica because the accumulation rates are so low and the glaciers respond to these changes over thousands of years.
rata. Thanks for the information/correction.
“Barry. Hansen’s Scenario A gives a 1 degree rise from 1970 to 2005, while B gives a 1 degree rise from 1983 to 2010”
I guess I can agree with that. That would give scenario A, the unlikely scenario, a rate of 0.28 a decade – just by going off the graph.
But eyeballing the graph doesn’t tell you much about trend (I could run a regression if I had the yearly data). There is a one degree rise in scenario B ’83 – 2010, because it dips enormously in 1983. Positing a trend just by drawing a line from 1983 to 2010, two oppositely anomolous events, is statistically useless, overemphasising the noise over signal. Investment institutions use this sort of selective editing to woo customers with graphs showing strong profits – they pick a start year that performed poorly to draw a steeper profit line.
It’s worth quoting this from the study;
“Scenario B is perhaps the most plausible of the three cases”
Okay, don’t want to alarm everyone, but I think you should all be told. Gareth, you may remember that I told you a few weeks back that global cooling was likely coming. Above this post here I also just told you that anthropogenic global warming is about to get a kick up the rear – and a shock to all those who have, like sheep, followed the nonsense. Well then you should all know this http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/sep/HQ_M08176_Ulysses_teleconference.html I’m going out on a limb here and guessing that it’s not good news. Hope I’m wrong!
If it slows down warming, then great. But it’s pretty well established that the influence of solar variance is relatively small. All correlative studies on sun spot/solar cycles break down at some point.
http://cce.890m.com/?page_id=19
But we’ve strayed from the topic…
It’s also worth bearing in mind that Hansen’s projections were for land temperatures, not land and ocean combined. As we know, land temps have a higher signal than ocean – the land-only record has a sharper temperature climb. If you match the observed land temps with Hansen’s scenario B projections, the rate is almost identical. Not bad for models run on pre-90s mainframes.
Here is scenario b vs GISTEMP Land+Ocean and RSS through 2007.
http://cce.890m.com/scenariob-vs-giss-vs-rss.jpg
The “future” for the scenarios begins in 1984. Between 1984 and 2007, Scenario B shows 0.25 degrees per decade of warming, while RSS shows 0.23, HadCRUT3v shows 0.21, GISTEMP shows 0.21, and UAH shows 0.20.
Scenario B is “high” but we expect it to be high given the model’s sensitivity of 4.2 degress, vs the best estimate of ~3 degrees.
Barry. I realise that you want to stay on-topic, and that’s fine, but can I just pass a comment. I’m kind of unwilling to try and guess what NASA will say tomorrow, and also I’m not one of those sceptics who goes ’round shouting, ‘It’s the sun!’. However, if any such research is released (tomorrow or otherwise) indicating that the Sun is influential then you cannot say, “If it slows down warming, then great”. For the essence of that revelation will mean that GHGs have had partial or no effect at all! Let me turn your argument on its head. Suppose I state that there is global cooling going on right now (for the past 200 years), but it is being masked by a period of warming. Do you see? It’s equally groundless. The sun is the primary driver of our climate system. If we discover that it has had any extra warming effect at all over the past 30 years or 100 years then that will lessen or even nullify any impact from GHGs. Within those circumstances, it cannot be thought of (even though some warmists will try) as somehow outside of the warming issue, and certainly not as a ‘relief’ from global warming. It would be central to the issue.
Also, a human error is done to the overlapping graphs of sun activity and temperature. They follow very nicely indeed up until the early 1990s. They then seem to diverge. This is strange, and has some (like your good self) saying that the correlation breaks down – indicating that there was a correlation. I don’t understand why more is not made of this. Temp and sun activity link is obvious, and to then to have two graphs that match almost perfectly should be food for thought. As I say, I do recognise that something happens at 1990 though. http://www.global-warming-and-the-climate.com/images/sunspot-lenght-&-teperature.gif
cce, thanks for the graph. I believe I’ve seen you around the blogs.
If I understand Hansen’s paper right, it is a model of land temps rather than land+ocean. If I have that right, is there a graph that plots Hansen 88 B scenario against land only temps (GISS and HadCRU perhaps)? I believe there would be a better correlation.
Harry,
That sunspot graph comes from this blog:
http://www.global-warming-and-the-climate.com/index.htm
The author states:
“A stark correlation for the period 1861-1989 between the sunspot cycle length and the temperature anomaly of the Northern Hemisphere was presented by Friis-Christensen and Lassen in 1991”
Apparently the author didn’t read the study very well. The authors of the originating document (and graph) state, directly beneath that graph:
“In the absence of sufficiently sensitive measurements, people suspected that the Sun’s irradiance may be fluctuating over the solar cycle. However, from our knowledge of how the Sun produces energy, this would seem difficult. Radiation from the Sun was created in the core and, in a random walk with a mean free path of about 10 cm, has taken about fifty million years to reach the surface. This would smooth out any substantial fluctuations in radiated energy on a timescale significantly less than about a million years. Indeed
the steadiness of the Sun’s irradiance over a complete sunspot cycle has recently been confirmed by satellite measurements (Fig. 7 [7]). The solar flux is slightly higher at sunspot maximum; although sunspots are cooler and have reduced emission, this is more than compensated by an associated increase in bright areas known as plages and faculae. The mean irradiance changes by about 0.1 % from sunspot maximum to minimum which, if representative over a longer time interval, is too small (0.3 Wm−2, globally-averaged) to account for the observed changes in the Earth’s temperature.”
http://cloud.web.cern.ch/cloud/documents_cloud/cloud_concept.pdf
Instead, the authors of that paper were making a case for cosmic rays. According to the site I posted just upthread, the calcs on cosmic rays from that paper were off. Can’t figure that out for myself, just reporting.
“They follow very nicely indeed up until the early 1990s. They then seem to diverge. This is strange, and has some (like your good self) saying that the correlation breaks down – indicating that there was a correlation. I don’t understand why more is not made of this.”
What is made of it at this point is that GHG forcing overwhelmed the solar variation in the last 30 years. Not that the signal wasn’t already there, just that the gap widened. IPCC attributed some of the warming at the beginning of the century to solar variation for example. It’s been studied extensively and will continue to be.
Well, it’s late and half way through this post I started messaging a friend in Ohio. I think it made me truncate my sentences. Good night, and good luck.
The model represents both land and ocean (although the ocean was highly simplified). The original comparison was to the land data because the GISTEMP land+ocean index didn’t come about until 1996. The land only data shows 0.24 degrees per decade since 1984 (vs. 0.25 for scenario b). Hansen has said that he believes actual temperatures have fallen someplace between the land and land+ocean indexes, because surface air temperatures above the ocean warm slightly faster than sea surface temperature, so the ocean data introduces a slight downward bias.
Thanks for clearing that up, cce.
I have a list of 31,000 US scientists who disagree with the tenets of the IPCC and the implications of anthropogenic global warming. And that was the sign-up a month ago – there would be many more on the list now.
I would suggest you are the brainwashed one, because quite simply the study of climate is so complex, and there are so many variables that it is nonsense to introduce massive restrictions in industry and agriculture based largely on the results of computer models.
The reason people like Hide and me and hundreds of thousands of others dislike the denier tag is because we consider you are the deniers – you deny the possibility that it could be anything but a man-made problem.
Most of those you call deniers are not saying “We are correct”. We are saying, “slow down a minute. Let’s learn more before we start taxing the bejeezus out of everyone.” We admit the possibility that there is a substantial man-made influence, but we are not convinced by what we see.
Also, we have enough sense to recognise that climate does change, for whatever reason, and that we should be prepared for anything. Hell, shortly before the civilised age, New York was buried under 3 Kms of ice. Do you all forget that, and how narrow are the inter-glacial spikes on the ice-age graph? It’s almost as if you have a blinkered view of climate change, as if what has occured over the last 20,000 years up to the industrial revolution is irrelevant. That is denial, my friend.
We are AGW doubters, not deniers. Please stop trying to criminalise us.
Nick
random sign-ups to a website petition by any old tom, dick or harry with a science degree is not how science works. How many of them have produced peer-reviewed papers on climate science in the last 5 years?
Haha… that old “31 000 ‘scientists’ list”. Sorry science is not based on consensus, but on evidence. And I will trust actual climate scientist over Mr Hide, who is not a scientist.
Hello Cindy
Was there peer review of Al Gore’s production? How can anyone try to criminalise people who doubt some or all of the AGW tenets, when Gore can send out to the world such blatantly over-hyped showcasing of GW. I understand that a judge ruled that 9 points of misinformation be announced before the showing or Gore’s farce, yet no such warning preceded the showing of it in New Zealand.
I watched another farce last night – re: the proposal that WTC7 was brought down with controlled explosions. On the show, explosive experts and architects took extreme opposite views to each other. When the experts can’t agree, as is the case with AGW, then the only recourse is surely logic and common sense. Common sense tells anyone who sits down and thinks about it that you can argue to kingdom come about the melting point of steel and the temperature of burning fuel, but it mute argument in the face of the logistical impossibility of anyone being able to surreptitiously set up a controlled collapse of any of those buildings, against the reality of observation and the masses and masses of people you would have to silence.
And in the face of expert disagreement, that is the only way to approach GW. The reality is that there are substantial numbers of scientists who cannot go along with AGW unreigned. If there is this vast disagreement among the experts, then surely we need to be cautious in the responses to global warming.
And from a logical point of view, the past tells us of wayward swings in the climate, right up to the present time, and therefore caution needs to be taken in going to extremes to try to deal with what are, in terms of the past, minor fluctuations.
erm – nick
no there wasn’t a peer review of Al Gore’s film, but what has that got to do with the scientific rigour of 31,000 people signing a petition?
Both common sense – and logic – tell me that scientific research isn’t conducted through petitions. OR movies… you certainly won’t find me going round saying “Al Gore made a movie so climate science is real.”
The thing is, I’m not relying on either to formulate my opinion on climate change.
And in terms of “experts”, who are you quoting? Muriel Newman? Rodney Hide? Fred Singer? Brian Leyland? The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow? The Heartland Institute? Garth George? Vincent Gray? Chris de Freitas? Or perhaps it’s that eminent climate scientist Terry Dunleavy?
Or maybe it’s one of those cherry-picked, scientific papers published years ago that they quote to you. [papers which are usually past their sell-by date and have since been discounted by other research these guys have failed to mention].
Oh yeeeeah…theOregon Petition. Hmm.
With every new climate skeptic here, comes the same old skeptic bullshit.. same old crap… yawn. Nothing new to see here. Get a clue Nick, nothing you say is new or correct.
Nick, skepticism is a necessary condition towards better knowledge.
But bringing up Al Gore’s film is is not skeptical thinking. It is propagandistic. Wherever a climate debate is happening on the web Al Gore is usually mentioned, and it is always – 100% always – the ‘skeptics’ who introduce him into the conversation. Never ever do people who go along with the mainstream view cite Gore or his film (unless it’s already been brought up). Gore and his film are ubiquitous straw men in web debates on climate change blogs, whether the blurb is Gore’s electricity bill or the points in his movie.
Nick,
Both ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ and ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’ have been explored in the courts in the UK with respect to their fairness and accuracy.
In the UK, an application to the High Court to declare government distritbution of ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ to schools unlawful was refused, and Justice Burton found that: ‘the film is substantially founded upon scientific research and fact, albeit that the science is used in the hands of a talented politician and communicator, to make a political statement and support a political programme.” Both parties agreed to expand a companion guidance note. This is probably what you meant but you missed the more important point.
As for the Great Global Warming Swindle: complaints to OfCom (the equivalent of our BSA) were made about breaches in broadcasting standards on grounds of fairness and accuracy. The OFcom ruling upheld, partially or completely, all complaints on fairness (i.e. individuals were misrepresented). As for accuracy, as the GGWS was thought to be a ‘minority view’, no accuracy standards were applied.
Thanks to Prof Martin Manning for all this information.
It’s a worry, Al Gore! Yes, it is brought up by skeptics simply because it wasn’t something he dreamed up one night. There were climate scientists behind his script.
I suppose you will also call me names for the farce that is the hockey stick. I’ll say no more on that, except it was a prime example of taking a tiny morsel of science (tree ring measurement) and making global pronouncements from it.
And if you bothered to read what I said about the WTC7, you would understand what it means to “not see the wood for the treesâ€. And that is why I would not put my faith in the pronouncements from a single branch of science – this in response to the person above who said “I’d rather put my trust in climate scientistsâ€. That is really quite naïve, as even within the science of climatology, there are narrow branches in which a single scientist would be considered expert.
The point is that the subject of climate change is much too big to take a global view from one scientist or group of scientists whose project glaciers are melting fast, or whose particular models show 6 deg rise per century. For instance, is every climatologist an expert in Solar science? From my experience, scientists from different fields tend to avoid talking to each other, and the tree-ring derived hockey stick was a prime example of this, for other branches of science showed that the graph was anything but flat during the medieval period.
What I believe is happening is that people are looking at the trees (contemporary global warming), and ignoring the vast, and changing forest that looms behind (metaphor not drawn from dendrochronology).
And to try to avoid name calling (Jonno), let me reiterate that we skeptics in the main are not denying, but rather saying that this is too complex a scenario to threaten world economies without a vast amount of extra data. Even as I write the sun is at its lowest ebb for many decades, and global temps have fallen. Solar scientists themselves admit that they do not know the effect of the reduced Solar wind and consequent increased blast from the cosmic wind, simply because there is no data – this has not happened in modern times.
I remember my little girl when she was about 10 telling me something the teacher had said which was blatantly wrong. I tried to explain that I was absolutely sure that what she had said was wrong, but my daughter could not understand how I could know more than a teacher. I see this dilemma with your putting faith in a scientist or one small group. They know what they know within their discipline. To make pronouncements based on one facet of science on something as chaotic as climate, does not make good sense to me.
And maybe Rodney Hide has read thousands of articles and papers from all disciplines to state what he stated. I certainly have.
can you please name these articles! All of them.
So your argument is based on economics, not science?
And if you have read “thousands of articles and papers” that support Hide’s position, I would really like a few citations. Because they certainly don’t exist in the body of science reflected in the IPCC’s Fourth Report.
The only name I called you Nick was Nick.
“To make pronouncements based on one facet of science on something as chaotic as climate, does not make good sense to me.”
I agree. Since you’re so widely read on the subject, you clearly have encountered the ‘forest’ of events I’ve cited here:
http://hot-topic.co.nz/smokestack-lightning/#comment-2649
Would appreciate your learned insight into their meaning. A comment on the staggering impact to various economies would also be welcome.
Sonny
Hi Sonny
Did I say staggering? Don’t remember that.
Do you not think that there is a deleterious effect from over-taxation, increases in food prices, less margin on export products, etc etc. And for the sake of farting sheep and cattle. Do you not see how perfectly ridiculous that is for a country as small as NZ, when China builds a new coal-fired power station every week, and already in the past year has built more coal-fired power stations than the UK all time.
AGW is a theory gone mad and dictating NZ and world policy.
And AGW aside, I have a hard time getting convinced that anyone can in all honesty say that a 2 deg increase in gobal temps is going to be damaging to world economies. Certainly a minus 2 deg will, as demonstrated by Little Ice Age. But we have that precedent.
And the person who said that people in Bangladesh might be concerned about a 40 cm rise in sea level is again looking at the local trees and can’t see the woods. Over the course of decades, if there was that kind of sea level rise, it would be almost obliterated by ongoing tectonic movement. People have always had to uproot as conditions change, and those living on river deltas are there to take advantage of the fertility – they know they are dicing with death as every storm approaches. Maybe the answer there is that we should endeavour to take the third world up a level where people didn’t have to live in hovels on a delta. And that can’t be done by wrecking the economies of those countries that have the power to raise the global standard of living.
The point is, climate change is a given. Do you really think that if there were no emissions problems the climate would not change? That is so naïve, based on even the most recent history.
I will tell you this – there is nothing in this world preventing even the best of scientists from being naïve. They have their little corner of expertise and in all other facets of their lives they are like the great majority. I get sick of people thinking they are something special. The special people are the ones who can see the whole picture and make judgements without prejudice or some other agenda.
Climate change should be approached like asteroid impact – both present dangers that only in the last 50 years we have become fully aware of. The climate can change enough to devastate civilisation, the same as the impact of a 1 km wide bolide. We should be working a plan for both scenarios, not turning the world upside down on a computer modelling whim.
“That is so naïve”.. um, no it is you that are naive, from what you wrote, you have little understanding of the cause of the current climatic situation and the effects. A 2 degree change is not uniform around the planet, but a dramatic change at the poles and little temperature change at the equator.
“I get sick of people thinking they are something special.” … same here.
Nick,
As you are unable to support your argument with reference to hard science – indeed, your comments suggest that you are wilfully ignorant of the work that has been done – you will forgive me if I put your comments in the same basket as I put Rodney Hide’s.
Stuff and nonsense, in other words.
Nick, you argue from a position of ignorance. It seems to be a persistent myth among people sharing your views that AGW exists only in the fevered imaginations of computer modellers. This ignores the wealth of published and respectable work based on real world observations of recent warming. I’m happy to supply examples, as I’m sure most of the other contributors here are. And in my experience, only people who are ignorant of the IPCC process dismiss its findings so blithely.
“The special people are the ones who can see the whole picture and make judgements without prejudice or some other agenda.”
Nick, you claim to be well-read and imply you see the whole picture, yet your arguments are premised on a false and selectively myopic assertion that computer models alone dictate AGW theory, which has ‘gone mad and dictating NZ and world policy’.
The evidence I supplied is not based on computer modelling. It’s grounded in the real world, yet you refuse to acknowledge it and the economic impact of ignoring it, or lump it into the ‘on the world scale of events, what does it matter to New Zealand?’ file . Presumably you have knowledge and/or access to these papers because you are so well read?
Refusing to acknowledge or address these vital elements in the ‘whole picture’ undermines your credibility. As Gareth says, your opinions thus fall into the ‘stuff and utter nonsense’ bin where all flawed logic resides.
Sonny
Nick
“The climate can change enough to devastate civilisation, the same as the impact of a 1 km wide bolide. We should be working a plan for both scenarios, not turning the world upside down on a computer modelling whim.”
Well exactly! And the plan for climate change happening is underway, despite the best efforts of Mr Hide et al.
It seems, from looking through your posts here, that you’re arguing this from an economic and political perspective rather than the real science. I’m surprised, given that you call yourself a “science writer.”
I love that you brought up the Hockey stick . The only people to take apart Mann’s hockey stick were astrophysicists Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon, with a helpful donation from the American Petroleum Institute. Their work has been thoroughly trashed, despite them being lauded in the US Senate by oil-funded republicans like Inhofe.
Your arguments are not about science. Of course you’re entitled to have your political views, but please don’t dress them up as a scientific debate.
Our understanding of climate change both in the distant and recent pasts is not confined solely to observations of temperature change and its impact on ice and ocean levels. How ecosystems and biodiversity respond when the climate changes is a very big part of climate science. A 2 deg rise in average world temperature, however it is spread out over the globe, will have a profound effect on ecosystems and of course on both land and sea-based farming. Many crop species will be impacted long before 2 degs. I think some non-ecologists and deniers of the possibility of anthropogenic climate change think that agriculture will just move around as the climate moves, but even though they are hugely modified, even agricultural ecosystems aren’t that simple, let alone considering the human element of dealing with that change. But for anyone who is reading this and who isn’t sure about it – know that all human life on this planet is completely dependent on biological resources – we don’t eat economies.
The economic impact of switching from carbon-based energy sources to renewables will be mitigated by longer lead-in times, which means that its imperative to set up the economic conditions for that change to happen now. The sooner we start the better.
New Zealand could be a world leader in measures to both mitigate climate change and in the creation and use of new non-carbon technologies. We could maintain our international status as a first world country at the same time as easing our economy through the transition period. We won’t be doing that if we follow the advice of people like Mr Sault and Mr Hide.
Scientific papers! Mann et al’s ridiculous hockey stick graph is part of a published scientific paper. And the IPCC used it long after it was rubbished. Enough said there, I think.
As I suspected, nothing but (ill-informed, probably ideologically motivated) bluster.
New Zealand lead the way! By taxing the farmers for their animals gases? That iso ridiculous it almost smacks of the sort of gross over-zealousness that was practiced by witch hunters and is practiced by Islamic extremists. You take a theme and worry it to the nth degree.
The problem I see is that scientists have lost the art of common sense – getting buried in empirical-ness – just like the engineers who argue that steel should not melt with the heat from burning jet fuel. First principals, common sense and the occams razor have gone by the board, I fear.
Simply because I am not quoting science papers (and I can), you are rubbishing me. Wow! What a world.
Animals are analogous to factories in that animals are a business that produces GHGs, the same with factories. Problem?
Not rubbishing you, just your opinions. You claim to be able to cite papers, but don’t. Let’s see cites for some of the “thousands” of papers you’ve read which support Rodney’s position.
Nick, If you can (quote science papers) please do.
The word that is missing from your analysis is ‘evidence’.
Yes please, Nick. I’m still waiting for you to address the papers I cited which use accepted methodologies of applied logic. If you understood that, you would not refer to the ‘art of common sense’.
Sonny
“New Zealand lead the way! By taxing the farmers for their animals gases? That iso ridiculous it almost smacks of the sort of gross over-zealousness that was practiced by witch hunters and is practiced by Islamic extremists. You take a theme and worry it to the nth degree”
OMG… so you don’t/can’t cite any papers to back up your scientific argument… can you at least back this one up… what tax? What year are you living in? Are you just reading rubbish from 2004?
New Zealand has some of the fastest growing emissions in the world – largely due to the wholesale conversion of forests to dairy.
We COULD lead the world in deploying, like some of our better dairy farmers are doing, a way of farming dairy which reduces emissions considerably. Less inputs (nitrates) and a change of feed is working well for these farmers, who also report increase in production and cows that live longer.
Our Government is blocking international negotiations by putting forward a position in the climate talks which would protect our farmers [our “special case”] but which, if applied globally, would massively increase emissions across the globe.
not big, not clever. not leading.
What sort of feed??
Well, that made me laugh Nick; so suggesting that we New Zealander’s use our many skills to invent and implement alternatives to fossil fuels turns me into an Islamic extremist. Well that’s a personal first.
I’ll really spell it out. We’re not conducting this debate by chipping stone tablets, we’re using state of the art technology -which NZers lapped up ahead of many other countries. Make carbon expensive and cheaper, smarter, non-polluting home-made (in NZ) alternatives will soon materialise.
Instead of zipping round in electric cars, which we charge up from our NZ designed and made neighbourhood windturbine (for example) Mr Sault and Mr Hide want NZers to remain tied to expensive, unsustainable, polluting, imported fossil fuels- at least until the costs of change are much higher. Whose interests are they protecting – well at the moment, certainly not New Zealanders but those of international oil companies.
Oh, and they’ll also argue that designing and manufacturing new technologies here in NZ won’t provide jobs or create economic growth…
So we mustn’t be leaders – we’ll just wait for another country to do it first.
And do you think so very little of your fellow NZers that they don’t have the ability to invent and implement these kind of solutions.
Farmers, hmmm, what do we think of a group of producers who don’t even appear to know the difference between a ruminant’s mouth and its bum, whose farming practices pollute our land and waterways, who continue to send commodity products overseas instead of adding value here, and who think that they should be exempt from the cost of a problem to which they are significantly contributing.
To me, it seems that people like Mr Hide and Nick are anti-science. I wonder why this is?
Hi Hilary
I think if you read me correctly you will see that I propose that we should meet climate change the same way we should deal with asteroid impact. Both present cataclysmic scenarios; both have impacted in the Holocene, or near enough to be realistic threats to the way we live.
Climate change is a given – you are all ranting on as if it was simply a contemporay phenomenon.
Let’s get this straight – I definitely support the replacement of fossil fuels with renewable energy. But let’s get realistic – the very saviour for us all is clean nuclear power, but NZ has this ridiculous hang-up on it. If NZ produced the likes of Rutherford, why can’t its scientists come up with a solution to the nuclear waste problem. That’s where the research should be going, not farting around with animal gases for heaven’s sake, especially when those animals are our life-blood.
Emissions present a problem whether you believe in AGW or not, but the solution does not need knee-jerk reactions that will press our economies (you may have noticed that they are already under stress).
And the people who said I was talking from a political viewpoint rather than scientific are compartmentalising the issue; you people obviously can’t avoid that.
And yes, I do see this issue as witch hunt. You are crying wolf with catastrophe on the basis of little snippets of disjointed science, and not seeing the big picture of climate change.
We live in a dangerous universe. We rely 100% on a star which we really know little about – there’s even question now as to whether the long-held belief that it is a predominantly H/He ball of gas is correct.
Civilisation exists thanks to a climate break-away from ice-age conditions. A return would mean global temperature changes of the order 6-10 degrees, and you want to turn things upside down based on a pittance of temperature rise in the last 150 years.
And how naïve the guy who went on about a slight sea-level rise affecting those whose livlihoods are close to the ocean. This is what I mean about not seeing the big picture. Somehow you think the global temperature should (without our help) stay within a tight bound, which is naïve to say the least, based on the most recent history. A drop of 2 deg would cause increased glaciation, dropping the sea-level – where would the delta people go then, when their delta moves 500 km down river?
People have always moved with the changing climate – the problem now is that we have a massive population that is more or less tied to state boundaries. That is what we have to mitigate against in regard to the realism of climate change. That is what we should be seriously looking at.
Either way the global temperature goes will spell trouble. To get all bent out of shape over the current variations is as I said – not seeing the wood for the trees.
I think you don’t realise that past climate changes have been gradual processes, while anthropogenic climate change will have a sudden impact. This is an issue that most of the people on this website have taken the bigger picture into account, I think you’re barking up the wrong tree.
Of course the earth’s climate has changed massively before, we all know that.
As you correctly point out we now have a massive population tied to state boundaries. I’m interested in your solution to this situation given you say this is what we have to mitigate against in regard to the realism of climate change. If it isn’t going to be achieved through reducing anthropogenic emissions (the only ones we can control) how do you propose to do it?
By the way, my opinion is not based on little snippets of climate change science – I have two degrees (one in agriculture) and I have read both a large number and wide range of books and articles on this subject including ones written by people who approach at this problem from your viewpoint.
I haven’t ranted on in any of my posts. Just pointed out that responding to climate change doesn’t require NZ to suffer either an economic crisis or a downturn in our standard of living – as scaremongers in the deniers camp incorrectly state. Though we must be prepared to make some pretty quick changes to business as usual.
Nuclear power may be a solution for other countries, but NZ doesn’t need to go down that track, there are much safer alternatives for a country that has earthquakes nearly every day.
I rather suspect the converse is true.
Dismissing the entire body of knowledge assembled over the last 150 years as “little snippets of disjointed science” strikes me as the worst example of wilful ignorance I’ve encountered in a very long time. If you’d like to rectify that, you could start by reading Spencer Weart’s Discovery of Global Warming (linked in the blogroll). It’s a wonderful resource.
But I won’t hold my breath for enlightenment to dawn…
Nick
a nuclear power station in New Zealand (putting aside the waste, security issues) would FRY our grid. We would have to build a brand new grid – and if we’re gonna have to do that, I’d rather it became a decentralised grid connecting small, local renewable projects with local users than the monstrosity we have a the moment.
Besides frying the grid, we don’t have the expertise to:
* get it built in the first place
* ensure the right regulations are in place so that it is built safely
* monitor the safe running of it (there have been so many nuclear accidents in plants lately – esp in France) – we’d need a whole new govt department to take care of this!
* make sure it’s earthquake-proof.
And it would be unbelievably expensive – far much more than any other source of power we have available in NZ. With that and the expensive liability regime (usually taken on by Govts who have to shoulder the liability AND the decommissioning costs – no company yet has agreed to pay for decommissioning) I can’t see NZ taxpayers jumping to pay for it in a big hurry.
And regarding the waste thing: well, if we are already having nimby arguments around windpower – can you imagine the arguments about where our nuclear power station or waste dump would go? That would be a Resource Consent process from hell.
We’re just TOO SMALL for a nuclear power station – it’s simply not an option for us.
Agreed, Cindy. As a corollary, I think anti-wind farm sentiment is regrettable. While wind farms certainly have their costs, they seem to me to be the least of several evils (and yes I do live within sight of a wind turbine, albeit a singular and rather picturesque one).
I personally think they look great.. people are just anti progress… must be members of the ACT party
Still waiting for you to address the ‘disjointed’ evidence I supplied, Nick…actually, still waiting for you to cite a single scientific paper on anything. Meanwhile since you believe in the ultimate oxymoron – ‘clean nuclear power’ – I take this to mean we can dump all of our clean, used, nuclear fuel waste in your backyard. Thanks!
Sonny
Wind turbines don’t have to be sited on land; they work just as well planted in the sea. We’ve a large and kinky enough coastline to keep them out of both sight and out of noise range.
I think the windfarms at sea look FANTASTIC.
The most vociferous arguments against wind have come from the pro-nukes lobby in the UK – people like Bernard Ingham (former advisor to Thatcher)…
their arguments have helped seed the anti-wind movement there, which, in turn, has spread to places like NZ.
Well it is bloody crowded in the UK – chances are probably quite high that you’ll piss someone off with a windfarm on land there pro-nuke lobby or not.
Studies there have shown that peoples fears about wind farms appear to drop right off after they’ve been built.
See this IpsosMORI poll in Scotland.
For example, people concerned about the look of them beforehand was 27%, dropping to 12% once they were built. Noise concerns dropped from 12% to 2%…
Thanks cindy – was for people living ‘up to 20km away’ though, which I think is a bit broad, some segmentation would’ve been nice, ah well. Good sample size (1,547) though.
Gareth
I Hold to my “little snippets of disjointed science” . I am speaking relatively. If you take offence at my metaphor then you must surely be under the same illusion that some Victorian scientists were who considered “…there isn’t a lot else to learn.
I am not running down scientists, but the reality is that all climate proxies are just that. For instance, I have a respect for palaeontologists, but the fact is that fossil finds compared with the masses of creatures that didn’t leave fossils amounts to “snippets”. And ice cores and tree rings tell us but snippets of what the climate was like in the past. Solar science is as young as geology was 200 years ago, and in geology it took til 1970s before geologists cottoned on that lunar craters were the result of impacts, and only then because we actually sent men up there. Before that, the models, such as they were, told us they could not be impact craters because the should mostly be elliptical instead of circular. How wrong could they be?
So, I hold to what I said. The AGW theme is based on snippets of information, and there are whopping great holes in our knowledge of what causes climate change. Until we fill some of those holes it is really silly to knee-jerk.
Au contraire, Nick, it’s really silly to look at the weight of evidence and sit on our hands.What exactly is your objection to the IPCC process and its findings?
Thanks for clarifying that Nick, but I think you mean “snippets of data” as ice cores and tree rings aren’t, in themselves, science.
Fortunately observations of much, much more than ice cores and tree rings contribute to our understanding of climate science. Also fortunately, we have access to technology that wasn’t available to scientists even a few decades ago- remember when you had to do regression analysis manually!.
You say there are whopping great holes in our knowledge of what causes climate change. Not really, there’s a pretty good understanding of what causes climate change and has been for a long time. Jean Baptiste Fourier’s paper postulating that gases in the atmosphere might increase the surface temperature of the Earth (which we now know as the greenhouse effect) was published in 1824. So not such a young science after all.
You say that we shouldn’t knee-jerk until these whopping knowledge holes are filled. Serious question here – at what point would you be satisfied that we knew all there was to know about climate change? So that we could then, presumably, start to do something about it. And what exactly are these knowledge holes that need filling?
Cindy
“Nuclear power would fry our gridâ€. Are you so sure of that, or are you harking back to Chernobyl era power stations? They are building “Pocket sized†installations now.
Then you said “we haven’t got the expertiseâ€. That is very naïve. Who builds anything of size without a consortium. The French company AREVA is going to build a number of new stations in UK, so why not one here?
Can’t you see the irony of the energy crisis in NZ. Can’t burn logs, can’t use coal, but that’s alright, go spend your pension or low income on one of those heat pumps they are plugging like crazy. You know, the ones that work on a winter’s day and keep your home at a “comfortable†11 deg C, but cost the Earth to heat your place to 22 C, which is where most people are comfortable.
And Earthquake zone! I think you’ll find that Japan is more active than New Zealand.
Wake up NZ, before its too late and we get left behind when everybody else has cheap, infinite power.
Hilary
I say start concerning ourselves with climate change now. It will change, whatever the reason. We have billions of people at risk, whichever way it goes.
I say, we have not enough proof that there is any substantial AGW.
We DO have absolute proof that the climate has changed dramatically in the recent past, and with no human influence.
Nick, you still have not provided any science to back your claims up.
You are wrong when you claim “we have not enough proof that there is any substantial AGW.” Climate science is very clear on this.
Then you go on to say “We DO have absolute proof that the climate has changed dramatically in the recent past, and with no human influence.”
This ‘proof’ is also from climate science. You cannot have it both ways, deny the climate science that states anthropogenic GW, then say that climate science proves natural variations in the climate.
Both ‘proofs’ are from climate science.
Tushara – is there no place in your world for logic and common sense?
Yes, logic and common sense, it’s fundamental in my world. Is it in yours?
Can you please expand on your so-called logic and commonsense and provide some scientific evidence to back your claims.
I know that I can to back mine; there is over 150 years of science to back my stance. I am also trained in climate science as well and have an undertsanding that goes beyond the average person’s understanding.
Nick
this from Contact Energy’s website:
“Nuclear power is generally regarded most economic at larger sizes of 600MW to 1200MW (much larger than any single energy-generating unit operating in New Zealand today). Even if New Zealand purchased the “small” 600MW model, it would introduce operational difficulties, including management of despatch of electricity into the National Grid and spinning reserve.
“A single 600MW unit would be about 60% larger than the largest generation unit currently in production, which is Contact’s Otahuhu B gas-fired power station (380MW).”
On to your next question about Areva building nuclear power in the UK. Erm – you forget perhaps that the UK has had nuclear power for decades, and therefore has a large infrastructure in Govt Depts and safety authorities to deal with them (not that they deal with them very well… but that’s a different point).
So please, by all means, point me to the Govt Department or authority in New Zealand which houses our many nuclear safety experts who would oversee – and regulate – a nuclear power plant. I’ve looked online and in the phone book – but I just can’t find them – maybe it’s because I’m too naive.
Contact Energy seems to be exhibiting a little naivety too. It says:
“while not insurmountable, the development of nuclear power in New Zealand would also require the creation of a new government agency to regulate its activity.”
While of course we could import all those experts… but we’d have to get them in place first, in order to even decide if we should have one and where it should be.
And have you seen the costs of decommissioning a nuclear power plant lately? Literally, hundreds of millions. Usually paid for by the taxpayer because companies refuse to wear the cost.
Tushara
Not everything needs scientific evidence, does it? Science is a great tool, but has limitations, and sometimes those limitations are that it gets too buried in its complex self, obliterating the simple answer.
A good example is the fit of S America in the lap of Africa – it took science 50 years to accept what a child can see at a glance.
There was the bumble bee thing years ago. Mathematical models told us that bumble bees should not be able to fly. Although this was just an exercise, if bumble bees were extinct and scientists found a lucky fossil enabling them to measure body size and wing size, their models would have told them it could not fly. Again, in the real world, a child knows that it does.
Then you have the example I cited earlier. I read a dissertation by engineers convinced by their so-called science, that jet fuel could never burn hot enough to melt or even soften steel and bring down WTC 1 & 2. I think that issue has been put to rest, but now the demolition experts say they have science to show that WTC 7 must have been brought down with a controlled explosion.
You see, they get messed up and buried in their science and have not stopped to consider at a logical or logistical level how utterly impossible it would be to set this thing up and keep it quiet. The WTC7 thing is even worse than the original claim of controlled explosions in 1 & 2, because if now you admit that planes did the trick with the twin towers, you introduce a new level of surreptious planning and/or sheer coincidence.
And with climate change: I have a nice graphic showing the Manhatten skyline set against a wall of ice 3km tall, representing the depth of the Laurentide ice sheet just 18,000 years ago. The NY skyscrapers are barely discernible. OK science gave me the ice sheet facts, but I need little more than that to tell me that the climate changes much more drastically than the three-quarters of a degree over which everyone is getting their knickers twisted.
And I need little more knowledge to tell me that we are in a volatile climatic period called an inter-glacial, the last four of which have taken a bumpy ride for a geologically short flash of time, before plummeting back into potentially civilisation destroying ice ages.
One other thing I know is that in spite of 6.5 billion of us (anad against all demographic models of a few decades ago) we are able to feed the world and educate the world better than we have ever done, in spite of that being far from perfect. The only way to continue the upward trend is with production. Carbon tax and emission restictions will severly restrict our ability to continue this upward spiral of our civilisation. And if you ask for proof, you really need to read extracts from European newspapers.
I seriously think that many people commenting here are suffering from the old remote-NZ-itis. Especially the ridiculous notion that we can lead the way in fighting global warming – 99% of the world don’t even know where we are.
You do need scientific evidence if you are claiming that the best peer-reviewed climate science is wrong. I am unsure if you understand the scientific process.
It really doesn’t matter what you think, what matters is the evidence. It doesn’t matter what ‘some scientist’ say about 9/11 and the towers. What matters is the scientific evidence and the process that evidence has going through.
I ask you, why are you arguing ‘some scientist’ question 9/11, whereas the scientific evidence shows otherwise, and then cannot accept that this is the same logic that applies to some scientist questioning anthropogenic climate change, whereas the evidence clearly shows it is real.
If you can provide any evidence to counter the current science, please do so.
“And I need little more knowledge to tell me that we are in a volatile climatic period called an inter-glacial, the last four of which have taken a bumpy ride for a geologically short flash of time, before plummeting back into potentially civilisation destroying ice ages.”
How do you know this? Can it be from climate science? The SAME field of science that shows AGW being real.
“Not everything needs scientific evidence, does it? Science is a great tool, but has limitations, and sometimes those limitations are that it gets too buried in its complex self, obliterating the simple answer.”
What are you talking about, don’t you think it is one of the most important thing when it comes to climate change.
And the simple proof is there… as can be seen everywhere, the climate is changing and GHG trap heat.
Nick,
As this blog seems to have become largely a debate with you, I looked you up on the web, as Gareth noted in an earlier post that you were a science writer. I found a site http://www.e-writers.co.nz run by a company called E-Writers NZ Ltd and it has a profile for Nick Sault on there and examples of your work.
I see that you enjoy writing on a variety of topics and travelled extensively. You don’t mention your qualifications, and it seems that you are a technical writer rather than a formally trained working scientist.
I’m not pointing this out to discredit you in any way because you’re clearly knowledgable on many subjects, just that it makes it a little easier to understand where you might be coming from with your most interesting views of what is “science” and “not-science”.
Nick
Raising Japan and seismicity in your post is hardly going to convince us about the safety of nukes for NZ. After the shutdown at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa
And the
World Seismic Hazard Map has both NZ and Japan as hot spots and hard to differentiate between them.
thanks Andrew – forgot to address that point.
Hilary
Yes, I’m an open book. Since you found my website I invite you to go back and read what I say on my home page about the human need to complexify; like my example of the engineers arguing in a million blogs about whether the twin towers could be brought down by jet airliners, when it is a mute argument because any other scenario is plainly nonsense.
Also, you will note that I say that engineers cannot and should not write their own handbooks. As a technical writer I see (and have to rewrite) some of the most abysmall text produced by subject matter experts. My skill is to take complex scenarios and turn them into something easy to understand. Therefore, trying to see and understand the broad picture is what I do for a living.
I do write articles on Astronomy and Earth Sciences, the former being a passion since I was seven years old. I also run multi-media presentations on my theme “Scaling the Universe†– an attempt to get people to see the universe in 3-D. The subject is poorly taught in schools, such that at best all most kids can do is recite the sequence of the planets – they look at you in disbelief when you tell them that the sun is everything in the Solar System and that everything else – planets, moons, asteroids, comets, meteoroids – are simply debris. I have delivered the presentation to schools, and at Te Papa and the Carter Observatory.
You see, everything I do demands an ability to see the big picture. I am not sure there is a degree in that.
PS – I am flattered that you should take such an interest in me.
…which makes it all the more of a mystery that you get the balance of evidence in the climate issue so wrong.
What you do is very similar to my approach to in my writing: take something complex, and present it a way that’s understandable by the non-expert. In the case of my two previous books, it was easy enough – go to the people working with the subject (scientists and growers). I followed the same approach for Hot Topic. I think it’s fairly easy to work out where the balance of evidence lies, as a judge did recently.
Ignoring the balance of evidence requires a heroic ability to see only what you want to see. It might suit your political world view, but it’s not a good recipe for getting to the right answer.
PS: still waiting for some citations for those “thousands of papers” you’ve read that support Hide’s position…
Although you have remember that Al Gore is fat and Rodney Hide is now thin. What can you say?
Nick Sault:
Well, well. A quick Google, second entry down (after Hot Topic!) was a piece you wrote for that bastion of quality journalism .. ‘Investigate’ magazine.
Gareth, the mystery could be solved.
Well Nick, as someone pointed out earlier its good to know where someone is coming from when you read what they have to say.
People who think that the scientific evidence doesn’t support any human contribution to climate change invariably either (i) don’t understand the science or (ii) they have connections to oil companies. You appear not to understand the science and you have worked for the Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO) in Houston, Texas.
Your connection to an oil company is important in understanding where you are coming from in your statements about climate change.
To further their interests, oil companies have spent a lot of time and money casting doubt on the science of climate change. Its the same method used by tobacco companies to undermine the science that established a link between smoking and adverse health outcomes.
Your comments in this blog indicate that you know hardly anything about climate change and your connection to ARAMCO indicates that you are trying to undermine climate change science for the purposes of furthering oil sector interests.
I dunno – Gore has an investment company which deals in ‘sustainable solutions’ to climate change. By your logic, we can’t trust him either because of his massive financial interest in overstating the problem.
Hey Nick, I could take mild offence at someone who says engineers shouldn’t write stuff. But, as gross generalisations go it probably isn’t too far from reality. Still, when looking for help on that score myself, I’d think twice about someone who suggested an argument may be mute.
Hilary
My God, my God. So, I worked for ARAMCO. In Britain I worked for a tobacco company, and I think tobacco stinks. Hey, I was a simple computer analyst programmer in 1974, Britain was in economic chaos then. There was a wage freeze and my mortgage had just gone up by 3% to 11% making me domestically bankrupt. I went where the money was. At the time I also had an offer to work in S Africa, but I didn’t like Apartheid and so chose the desert.
I have no affiliation to oil or the oil companies. Wow you are fishing and bringing up crabs. At that time I would have gone anywhere where they were going to pay me a decent wage – I had a young family to feed, to school. I loved my time in Saudi for reasons totally unconnected with oil – oil never figured in my day to day work – I worked on payroll projects and material acquisition.
One thing the Middle east taught me was racial humility, something terribly lacking in UK and NZ, and many other places. And again that is all part of the universal view of things that I have acquired – seeing the big picture.
PS – You may not think it relevant, but it is. I can go on a white board and draw a reasonable map of the world from memory in 2 minutes flat. I could do that when I was 10.
Being a scientist does not guarantee an ability to see the big picture, and very often I get quite the opposite from scientists.
Still no cites, Nick…?
[4] Carbon dioxide is not now, nor has it ever been, the “number one
nutrient†for plant growth. An astonishing mistake for a self-proclaimed
“environmental scientist†to make.
The stupidity of your comment above sets the tone for all your scribbling.
Water aside, carbon is the principle component of all plants. All of it
comes from the atmosphere and none from the soil.
Ever charming, Roger…
The point is simple. Plants respire CO2. None are “starved” of the gas – some (but only some) respond to atmospheric enrichment. Other factors limit plant growth – and those are the nutrients farmers and gardeners try to control and enhance.
What Hide said is as meaningless as saying “oxygen is the number one nutrient for human growth”.
PS: Care to defend the rest of his statements?
No matter how many times you claim to see the ‘big picture’ does make it correct. I too see the big picture. When you combine climate change, with water depletion, with desertification, with a number of other environmental problems, then you see that the big picture is a real mess. If you understand that humans are responsible for this, then you will understand that behavior needs to change.
I still see no evidence to your statement about you seeing the big picture. It is not about scientists Nick, but about the science.
> Author: Gareth
> Comment:
> Ever charming, Roger…
>
> The point is simple.
Do you have any relevant qualifications whatever to spout your nonsense?
>Plants respire CO2.
At night yes. In daylight they absorb CO2 which is converted into carbohydrates of one sort of another and woody tissues. You may find the details in any reasonable textbook on plant physiology.
>None are “starved” of the gas – some (but only some) respond to atmospheric enrichment.
A reasonable presumption is that all or most macrophytes respond to an increased level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This is exploited in greenhouses or similar closed environments for commercial purposes.
>Other factors limit plant growth – and those are the nutrients farmers and gardeners try to control and enhance.
Of course there are other factors and one of which may be limiting in particular circumstances. Absence of atmospheric carbon dioxide is one of these. All carbon in the biosphere comes directly or indirectly from that small amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
>
> What Hide said is as meaningless as saying “oxygen is the number one nutrient for human growth”.
Rubbish. Go and learn some plant physiology.
Roger, (I presume the person at the link is you):
At “leaf level” it may be a reasonable presumption that plants will respond to increased CO2 by increasing production, but that is not the same as saying that the whole plant will. Other factors (nutrient or water availability) are more important (see here for more). You can’t extrapolate from a tomato grower’s greenhouse to the whole biosphere.
It is an equally reasonable presumption that all plants are not limited by a shortage of carbon dioxide as they are adapted to cope with atmospheric CO2 levels that vary significantly over ice age cycles – down to 180ppm during ice ages.
Hide’s point was poorly made, at the very least.
“I don’t know anything about climate change…..â€.
I do know that I saw a happy Icelander on the TV who can grow wheat for the first time. That indicates the following points – 1) Global warming needs not be detrimental, and that many could benefit. 2) That this matches the last time that grain could be grown in these latitudes; ie when the Vikings colonised southern Greenland a millennia ago. 3) That the hockey stick graph flattening out the medieval warm period is in direct contradiction to the reality. 4) That if this ability to grow wheat in Iceland has only just come about, the temperature in these latitudes has only recently approached the levels of the last warming period, and has not gone way beyond, as Hansen and co would have us believe.
I have “in the field†measurement over several decades that the Maldives are not suffering any appreciable sea level rise, over and above the background tectonic movement.
I have research over a similar period that Polar Bear numbers are healthy in the Canadian Arctic.
On last nights news there was big harangue about melting glaciers. Now you and I know only too well that GW was in effect until about 2001, and that glacier advance or retreat is not an indication of current conditions, but this goes on the air to the masses, and not a word about the very real measurements that show we are experiencing considerable global cooling.
Taking my global view, I see massive increases in emissions over the period, but considerable global cooling, and what am I supposed to think?
Am I stupid enough to think this is all part of global warming?
Here’s the relevant passage from Hide’s speech, annotated by me to highlight his deliberate mistakes:
>A warmer climate with more CO2 in the atmosphere is an unambiguous benefit to New Zealand and to the world[1].
To NZ, yes but not necessarily to all of the rest of the world.
> A New Zealand that was one or two degrees warmer would be a better place to live and better environment for agriculture[3].
True.
>The same is true for CO2. We pump the stuff into our greenhouses to stimulate plant growth. It’s the number one nutrient with carbon through photosynthesis being the source of all life[4].
True.
>[1] Unambiguous benefit? An astonishing assertion in the face of the evidence – the whole of the Working Group 2 report from the IPCC AR4 would suggest otherwise.
A report written by bureaucrats whose jobs and income depend on the IPCC.
>[2] Argument from ignorance. Hide hasn’t read AR4, so the evidence doesn’t exist.
How do you know what Hide has or has not read?
>[3] Wrong. While gentle warming will bring some benefits to agriculture in some areas (Southland, Westland), increasing drought on the East Coast of both islands will bring huge challenges to our agriculture.
Increase drought is purely speculative.
>Hide clearly hasn’t read the latest MfE advice to local government, which includes details of what NZ can expect.
Written by bureaucrats who know on which side their bread is buttered.
>He could perhaps look at my contribution to the current issue of NZ Geo – it’s easier to read.
He probably cannot be bothered with ignorant drivel.
>[4] Carbon dioxide is not now, nor has it ever been, the “number one nutrient†for plant growth. An astonishing mistake for a self-proclaimed “environmental scientist†to make.
It is as it always has been. Ask any botanist or plant physiologist.
>[5] Again, the argument from ignorance. The fact that Hide can’t see it as bad is a result of his refusal to be informed, or his rejection of the evidence.
You are the ignorant one!
>The changes we are talking about are small[6]. The IPCC’s best estimate through their computer generated scenarios has the world two to four degrees warmer[7] by century’s end and the sea level 20-60cms higher[8].
Scenarios!!!!!! Exactly. Computer games.
>[6] The changes are anything but small. The numbers may look small, but the impacts are huge. The difference in global average temperature between the depths of an ice age and a warm interglacial is only about 5ºC.
The downside of an ice age is orders of magnitude greater than any possible downside resulting from climatic warming.
[7] Hide is happy to contemplate allowing the global average temperature to soar well above any period in the last 4 million years – perhaps for 40 million years.
Utter rubbish. You have not got a clue!
>[8] Hide uses the lowest of the IPCC’s figures, which specifically exclude increasing contributions from ice sheet melt – an increase that is being observed.
They are only useful for rubbishing their own speculation.
>[9] Tell that to the hundreds of millions of people who live in the Asian megadeltas (think Bangladesh) who would find a 60cm rise flooding huge tracts of land.
The real problem is that this world is grossly overpopulated. Sooner of later a massive population reduction is inevitable.
>The world was warmer than today during the Medieval Warm Period, a time when civilisations flourished, the Vikings settled Greenland, the Polynesians explored the Pacific, and Maori sailed to New Zealand[10].
True.
[10] Flat out wrong. Sounds like Hide’s been getting his speeches written by the cranks at the NZ Câ€Sâ€C, because this has been known to be untrue for at least ten years.
It is not wrong. How the hell do you suppose that Eric the Red managed to farm in Greenland? How the hell do you suppose that the polynesians obtained the sweet potato (Ipomoea) from South America where it is indigenous?
>We should remind ourselves too that while these scenarios are generated by scientists they themselves are not science[11].
More we should remind ourselves not to listen to the pompous drivel of left wing propagandists such as yourself.
>They are projections based on computer models. They are educated guesses, not science[12]. Science is about theories and the testing of theories against the facts[13].
True.
>[11] The models used are certainly scientific, and the process of using the models is equally a matter of science.
Rubbish. These are mere computer games. Numerical models require input of ALL factors suitably described with algorithms. Many of the relevant factors and relationships are unknown and most cannot be converted into algorithms because the mathematical relationships are unknown.
> The projections they produce are the best that science can muster at the moment.
They are still nonsense which can be fiddled and manipulated to generate the answer that the programmer/manipulator wants.
>[12] The observations of warming are unequivocal,
Over a miniscule time period.
>the rise in greenhouse gases undeniable,
Over a miniscule time period.
>and their source uncontestable.
False.
>For the planet not to warm in the future would require a complete re-write of the laws of physics.
Balls.
>[13] Which is of course what climate scientists have been doing all along.
>[14] Nobody claims to know about weather in a century’s time, but we have a reasonable idea what climate might be like if we fail to restrain greenhouse gas emissions.
You do not.
>[15] No, that’s because you choose to ignore the facts. See 12 above. The radiation physics is not in any doubt – except perhaps by the lunatic fringe.
Get yourself uptodate.
>During the past 100 years there were periods, such as 1940 – 1975, when temperatures fell, even though CO2 levels increased. All official measures of global temperature show that temperature peaked in 1998 and has been declining since at least 2002, and this is in the face of an almost five percent increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide since 1998[16].
True.
>[16] Standard crank talking point. Requires statistical naivety, and ignores the facts. Simple truth? The last ten years have been warmer than the preceding decade.
Rubbish. Hide gave you the bald facts.
>The facts don’t fit the theory[17].
[17] If you get both your facts and the theory wrong, that’s hardly surprising.
True enough in your case.
Thank you, Roger, for a) giving me my morning laugh, b) demonstrating far better than I ever could your status as a fully-paid up climate crank.
I shall await your refutation of the physics of radiation (down to the quantum level) with great interest.
But I won’t be holding my breath.
Okay then, I challenge Hide to a debate on climate change. If he does not accepted to have on in the next day, then he is a complete ****pot.
Massive global cooling.
But…
Growing wheat in Iceland for the first time.
Please explain.
Nick
I have research over a similar period that Polar Bear numbers are healthy in the Canadian Arctic.
Cites please. And please don’t give me the Dyck/Soon Letter to the Editor sponsored by ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute, because that wasn’t a peer reviewed paper, despite Gov. Palin citing it widely in her opposition to protection of the bears (on behalf of Big Oil).
The US Geological Survey concluded that they would be two thirds gone by 2050. It said:
Projected changes in future sea ice conditions, if realized, will result in loss of approximately 2/3 of the world’s current polar bear population by the mid 21st century. Because the observed trajectory of Arctic sea ice decline appears to be underestimated by currently available models, this assessment of future polar bear status may be conservative.
The ice melt isn’t showing any signs of going away.
But because you’re a science writer and have been able, since the age of 10, to draw a reasonable map of the earth on a white board in two minutes, maybe you have more credibility on this subject than the scientific experts at the US Geological Survey?
>maybe you have more credibility on this subject than the scientific experts at the US Geological Survey?
Why should the USGS be considered an authority on polar bears in Canada?
Do you?
Jonno 10.07.08 at 12:47 pm
>Why would you?
Evolution of Polar Bears
The fossil transitions leading to our knowledge of development of the Polar Bear species are very well documented. Bear fossils change through time; i.e., as higher levels of sediments and sedimentary rocks are examined, more recent fossils are found. For most of the transitions from one species to another, there is a well characterized series of transitional specimens leading right across the species “boundaries” Kurten (1976).
Somewhere during the mid-Pleistocene period (roughly 100,000 to 250,000 years ago), a number of brown (same as grizzly) bears (Ursos arctos) probably became isolated by glaciers. many probably perished on the ice; however, they apparently did not all disappear. Some survived due to the fact that “organisms vary” (Steve Gould’s terminology and logic is used here), that is, every litter of grizzly’s has a variation in coat thickness, coat color etc. which imparted a slight evolutionary advantage to some indivials of each litter. These successful individuals underwent an apparent rapid (rapid, probably because of the small population, and extreme selection pressure) series of evolutionary changes in order to survive (note they were not necessarily “better” in any absolute sense, or on any absolute “bear” scale of perfection – they were simply more in keeping with their new environment than their siblings). Today, polar bears are adapted to their harsh northern environment.
Hecht (in Chaline, 1983) describes polar bear evolution: the first “polar bear”, Ursus maritimus tyrannus, was essentially a brown bear subspecies, with brown bear dimensions and brown bear teeth. Over the next 20,000 years, body size reduced and the skull elongated. As late as 10,000 years ago, polar bears still had a high frequency of brown-bear-type molars. Only recently have they developed polar-bear-type teeth.
Kurten (1976) describes bear transitions: “From the early Ursus minimus of 5 million years ago to the late Pleistocene cave bear, there is a perfectly complete evolutionary sequence without any real gaps. The transition is slow and gradual throughout, and it is quite difficult to say where one species ends and the next begins. Where should we draw the boundary between U. minimus and U. etruscus, or between U. savini and U. spelaeus? The history of the cave bear becomes a demonstration of evolution, not as a hypothesis or theory but as a simple fact of record.” He adds, “In this respect the cave bear’s history is far from unique.”
Ursus minimus (Pliocene) First little bear, with very bearlike molars, but still had the first premolars and slender canines. Shows gradual tooth changes and increase in body size as the ice age approached. Gave rise to the modern black bears (U. americanus & U. thibetanus), which haven’t changed much since the Pliocene, and also smoothly evolved to the next species, U. etruscus: Ursus etruscus (late Pliocene) A larger bear, similar to our brown bear but with more primitive dentition. Molars big & square. First premolars small, and got smaller over time. Canines stouter. In Europe, gradually evolved into:
Ursus savini (late Pleistocene, 1 Ma) Very similar to the brown bear. Some individuals didn’t have the first premolars at all, while others had little vestigial premolars. Tendency toward domed forehead. Slowly split into a European population and an Asian population.
U. spelaeus (late Pleistocene) The recently extinct giant cave bear, with a highly domed forehead. Clearly derived from the European population of U. savini, in a smooth transition. The species boundary is arbitrarily set at about 300,000 years ago.
U. arctos (late Pleistocene) The brown (“grizzly”) bear, clearly derived from the Asian population of U. savini about 800,000 years ago.. Spread into the Europe, & to the New World.
U. maritimus (late Pleistocene) The polar bear. Very similar to a local population of brown bear, U. arctos beringianus that lived in Kamchatka about 500,000 years ago (Kurten 1964).
# Chaline, J. 1983. Modalites, Rythmes, Mecanismes de L’Evolution Biologique: Gradualisme phyletique ou equilibres ponctues? Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris. [collection of symposium papers, most in French with English abstracts provided, some in English.]
# Kurten, B. 1964. The evolution of the polar bear, Ursus maritimus (Phipps). Acta Zoologica Fennica 108:1-26.
# Kurten, B. 1968. Pleistocene Mammals of Europe. Aldine, Chicago.
# Kurten, B. 1976. The Cave Bear Story. Columbia University Press, New York. adapted from a number of sources, including Transitional Fossils web site.
They have adapted in the past and doubtless will do so again when the need arises.
evolution, Roger, takes time.
this is happening a lot faster than evolution can cope with.
Re: USGS oh please.
for a full list of what they do:
http://www.usgs.gov/science/
Excerpts:
Atmosphere and Climate
acid rain, air-sea interaction, atmospheric circulation, atmospheric deposition, climate change, desertification, droughts, global change, global warming, greenhouse effect, precipitation, storms, wind, …
Earth Characteristics
bathymetry, biostratigraphy, bouguer anomaly, earth history, earth structure, Earth’s core, Earth’s crust, Earth’s mantle, fossils, free-air anomaly, geologic history, geologic structure, gravity, igneous rocks, isostatic anomaly, land surface, lithostratigraphy, magnetic field, metamorphic rocks, rocks and deposits, sedimentary rocks, snow and ice cover , stratigraphy, unconsolidated deposits
Ecology and Environment
aquatic ecosystems, benthic ecosystems, biodiversity, biogeography, deserts, ecological competition, ecological processes, ecosystem diversity, ecosystem functions, ecosystems, environmental assessment, estuarine ecosystems, forests, freshwater ecosystems, grasslands, habitat alteration, habitats, island ecosystems, shrublands, tundras, wetlands
They’ll have to speed it up from 10-20,000 years you point out that it takes in your post. Perhaps they’ll start eating all that wheat Icelanders are growing in the rapidly cooling temperatures.
Roger, your hubris at discounting expert assessments is astounding. The paper below is both recent and relevant – unlike those you cite above. As Cindy has pointed out, the fact that you dismiss the relevance of the USGS speaks volumes about your ignorance – and anyway one of the authors is from the Canadian Wildlife Service, who presumably know a thing or two about polar bears.
http://www.whoi.edu/cms/files/USGS_PolarBear_Regehr_SB-II_Estimation_31364.pdf
USGS Science Strategy to Support U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Polar Bear Listing Decision
Polar Bears in the Southern Beaufort Sea I: Survival and Breeding in Relation to Sea Ice Conditions, 2001-2006
By Eric V. Regehr1, Christine M. Hunter2, Hal Caswell3, Steven C. Amstrup1, and Ian Stirling4
Roger’s polar bear treatise was lifted without attribution from here.
Cut and paste wisdom at work.
Re polar bears, they cover a quarter of a million square miles of ice. How does anyone propose to count them? And how do you know you are not counting the same one twice?
Re academic degrees, remind us again what climate-science degree does Al Gore, leader of the GW army have? All a degree gives one is the confidence to spout about what one was trained in, it does not equip either with world knowledge not shared by the rest nor the license to tell everyone else what to believe. But it does in the eyes of the degree holder. Many of those who did good in the world and highly contributed to society and progress left school early. Staying in the education system for too long only demonstrates what a conformist you are, as you get your degree for overconforming.
Rather than skiting what letters come after names, how about some effort put into showing the real-world evidence for global warming? Nothing in NZ for ten years. Even the bitumen that used to melt in summer at the side of the road decades ago has stopped doing so. The only evidence so far for any warming longterm is the IPCC’s farcical 0.8degC rise in 128 years, from 1880. When you consider that 30 years ago there was no digital world, and everyone used old glass thermometers that had no tenths, it is clear they must be making things up. Besides, saying “point” something is what scientists are good at, to appear knowledgeable. Pity there is only debate in small pockets here and personality assassination rules.
Ken Ring
http://www.predictweather.com
Ah Ken, I wonder which planet you live on, maybe another dimension.
20,000 years ago polar bears must have been living at the edge of the ice sheet. That would have placed them south of the Great Lakes and about the same latitude as London now is. They evolved relatively recently from brown bears and are still capable of interbreeding with them. They already spend much of the time on land, which is why they are a threat to humans in the Hudson Bay area. If and when there is less ice they will spend more time on land.
There are large mammals which are far more threatened than polar bears, the tapir and the tiger for example. Most of you are using the polar bear to promote your global warming nonsense. None of you give a stuff for the animal itself. If you did you would be active in the organizations attempting to preserve rare animals.
What a fine pair Ken and Roger make. The wit! The elegant arguments! The appeals to reason! They make great company for Mr Hide.
Agreed, Gareth. One hardly knows where to start.
Failing all else, the following quote from Max Planck may apply:
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”
“Re polar bears, they cover a quarter of a million square miles of ice. How does anyone propose to count them? And how do you know you are not counting the same one twice?”
With this amazing logic, how do they count anything?
i.e
Re Humans, they cover the entire planet. How does anyone propose to count them? And how do you know you are not counting the same one twice?
And do the people counting remember to include themselves?
>Failing all else, the following quote from Max Planck may apply:
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.â€
Your supposed truth is promoted by politicians such as Al Gore and like all political “truths” will be abandoned as soon as it is expedient to do so. Indeed this is now happening as european politicians see financial collapse as an immediate danger to their grasp of political power. As the Europeans and Canadians wriggle out of the commitment to Kyoto, as the Chinese and Indians never accepted it, New Zealand is still suicidally committed to it while our fuhrer fishes for a UN tit on which to suck after her forthcoming eviction from office.
Lol does that count as a Godwin?
In this period of international economic difficulties it is absurd that
Europe alone should take on a heavy burden of costs to achieve very
modest environmental benefits. We are ready to accept sacrifices if they
bring real benefits, not virtual.
–Stefania Prestigiacomo, Italian Environment Minister, 7 October 2008
Influential EU lawmakers sought in a key vote on Tuesday to ease the
cost for factories of meeting greenhouse gas emissions limits from 2013
as much of Europe heads for recession. But the European Parliament’s
environment committee backed an EU executive Commission plan to wipe out
utility windfall profits from carbon trading and transfer up to 30
billion euros ($40.76 billion) to member state coffers.
–Pete Harrison, Reuters, 7 October 2008
A rare combination of Godwin and Gore Laws in one post. Marvellous.
Incidentally – just in the interests of accuracy, you understand – India and China are both signatories to the Kyoto Protocol. As developing countries in the terms of the KP, they have no targets.
But that’s just a boring fact. Don’t let it stop you Roger. It hasn’t in the past.
“As the Europeans and Canadians wriggle out of the commitment to Kyoto, as the Chinese and Indians never accepted it”
Sorry, China and India have accepted it. One hundred thirty-seven developing countries have ratified the protocol, including China and India, but have no obligation beyond monitoring and reporting emissions. These countries are Annex II and therefore don’t have to reduce their emissions during the first kyoto period.
Where do you get your information from?
You beat me to it Gareth :0 )
“Sorry, China and India have accepted it. One hundred thirty-seven developing countries have ratified the protocol, including China and India, but have no obligation beyond monitoring and reporting emissions. These countries are Annex II and therefore don’t have to reduce their emissions during the first kyoto period.”
So the rest of the world pays lip service to Kyoto while NZ pays a huge price for the UN tit on which our fuhrer can suck?
Reminds me a little of that judge’s ruling:
Has anyone ever seen Dewhurst and van der Lingen at the same time?
You need to give this up Roger; it seems that you can’t get it right. It is obvious that you don’t understand the process, let alone who is signatory to the Protocol.
All Annex I countries are obligated to recue emissions or pay the costs involved.
From the climate cranks’ catechism of cliché:
The costs of action to address climate change are always huge.
“The costs of action to address climate change are always huge.”
You will no more address climate change than King Canute could, successfully, address the sea.
Climate change is normal and has been since the formation of this earth. The rates of climate change since the end of the Little Ice Age are consistent with the rates of change that have occurred, from time to time, within the last 15,000 years.
To throw money at a reduction of the sole source of carbon in all macrophyta and the fauna that feed, directly and indirectly, upon them is shear lunacy. If you fools and cretins could actually succeed in removing all carbon dioxide from the atmosphere you would kill every living thing on the face of this earth, bar a few primitive organisms. You will not succeed of course as carbon is circulated continuously both through the lithosphere and the biosphere.
“All Annex I countries are obligated to recue emissions or pay the costs involved.”
And what will they pay with stupid? Who do you suppose will enforce payment? The USA? The UN? China? Our piddling little fuhrer? What democratic government will force its constituents to pay for this pie in the sky crap when burdened with the failure of banks, homes worth less than the outstanding mortgages, civil strike, terrorism etc etc? You are wet behind the ears girl. I assume that you are female.
Roger, I’m leaving your last two comments unedited so that readers can judge your tone for themselves, but in future I will edit your comments to remove similar rudeness.
Your estimation of the rates of climate change is plainly wrong. The planet warmed by (very roughly) 5C in 5,000 years as the last ice age drew to a close. That’s 1C in 1,000 years, or 0.01C per decade. The current rate of warming is about 0.2C per decade – 20 times faster than the fastest global change in the ice age cycle.
The rate of change is at least as worrying as the absolute amount of warming we expect.
“Reminds me a little of that judge’s ruling:
Firstly, I have to say, as a sitting judge I was always uncomfortable with experts who descended into rhetoric and emotion. Yet this is a continuing feature of Dr van der Lingen’s article… ”
Perhaps you should be reminded of the UK judge’s ruling on Gore’s lies.
“Has anyone ever seen Dewhurst and van der Lingen at the same time?”
Such a person would need a fertile imagination indeed.
“Your estimation of the rates of climate change is plainly wrong. The planet warmed by (very roughly) 5C in 5,000 years as the last ice age drew to a close. That’s 1C in 1,000 years, or 0.01C per decade. The current rate of warming is about 0.2C per decade – 20 times faster than the fastest global change in the ice age cycle.”
You are wrong. You rely on long term averages. In fact significant temperature changes have taken place over decades on occasions.
It’s true that there have been larger and faster regional changes in temperatures (Younger Dryas in Greenland, for instance), but I explicitly referred to global average change.
The fact that large changes can occur over short timescales is hardly reassuring…
“Roger, I’m leaving your last two comments unedited so that readers can judge your tone for themselves, but in future I will edit your comments to remove similar rudeness.”
Hide and the ‘deniers’ are fair game then but the skins of you and your followers are too thin then?
“Perhaps you should be reminded of the UK judge’s ruling on Gore’s lies.”
yet again, you get this wrong Roger. Lies? Really?
Um… .
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2007/2288.html
There were nine points where the judge decided that movie was different from the IPCC and that this should be addressed in the Guidance Notes for teachers to be sent out with the movie.
If you read the judgment, you will find that you are wrong for the third time today Roger.
When the ice sheets creep south to cover North America, Europe, Britain and northern Asia the need to survive will overrule all sense of humanity and the survivors will need to be fit indeed in the dog eat dog world of the next ice age. In the long run Darwin rules.
I don’t call Hide or sceptics “fools and cretins”. Robust debate is fine by me – gratuitous insults are not.
Alarmist!
Alarmist indeed! Are you not the alarmist promoting the view that climatic warming will be catastrophic?
Of course you cannot demonstrate a single case of catastrophic warming in the last few million years whereas the scenario I presented is inevitable given a climatic event which is the norm of the last two million years or so.
Gareth is severely misinformed. He should check his mates’ NIWA’s own website and their claims that we have warmed by 1C over the last 8,000 years, not just 1,000 years. That equates to 0.0000003C per day. Yikes!! Verily a wild catastrophic calamity that must surely end the planet in a fiery ball in our lifetime. We can of course reverse this calamity by changing a few lightbulbs and walking occasionally to the shops. Never mind that the Arctic has 10% more ice in 2008 than in 2007, and Antarctica ice is currently thickening. Just Google these to verify.
Let’s talk about methane – in one blurp one whale puts more methane into the air than 40 cows. So are whales now wrecking the planet? Why does Greenpeace want farmers penalised and whales protected? If they were really concerned about the planet shouldn’t they be out there hunting down every last whale?
There is clearly no end to the frightening silliness of some on this forum, but the Labour/Green politicians and media has probably dumbed them all down.
Ken Ring
http://www.predictweather.com
You haven’t read the book, have you? I would say that the climate change caused by our carbon emissions has the potential to be catastrophic, but that if we act decisively (and soon), we may be able to avoid the worst impacts.
The current level of atmospheric GHGs is way above anything seen over the last few million years. It would be a miracle if it didn’t cause significant effects.
” Hide and the ‘deniers’ are fair game then but the skins of you and your followers are too thin then?
I don’t call Hide or sceptics “fools and cretinsâ€. Robust debate is fine by me – gratuitous insults are not.”
‘Denier’ is intended to imply that those sceptical of AGW are on a par with deniers of the holocaust. This is just as much a gratuitous insult.
“cranks at the NZ Câ€Sâ€C” are your words?
As you demonstrate so well, Ken.
Roger
Polar bears were grizzlies 300,000 years ago. As you say, they eat anything, rats, birds, eggs, insects, tents and, when they can find some, seals, either cold and refreshing straight off the ice or, maybe not so thirst-quenching, at room temperature. They are not fussy. Neither are they concerned about temperatures in the Arctic. A polar bear is a superb insulator, which is why they are happy in subtropical zoos like San Diego, the south of France and until quite recently Auckland. Polar bears are not endangered – there is a glut due to a hunting moratorium, and when looking for food they now go into the towns they get shot.
cheers
Ken Ring
http://www.predictweather.com
Sceptics like to pretend that “denier ” is deliberately used for its Holocaust connotation. I don’t generally use the term, but it does have a simple and accurate meaning in its application to those who deny the reality or risks of man-made global warming.
Indeed they are. I announced very early on in the life of this blog that I would use “crank” to describe sceptics in general, but especially the NZ C”S”C.
I use the word in the sense of the OED definition: an eccentric person, esp. one obsessed by a particular theory. It is, in my view, both accurate and whimsical, and conveys nicely that the climate cranks are very far removed from mainstream thinking on this issue.
“The current level of atmospheric GHGs is way above anything seen over the last few million years. ”
Yeah, right! More silliness dressed up as science. Who was here to see this a few million years ago? My god, even a small child wouldn’t dare say anything so daft for fear of being laughed at by his mates. And the rest of this forum believes anything else this Gareth person says?
A Qantas plane fell 1000 feet in the air yesterday, in the hour that the moon was rising, between 12.30pm-1pm local time to Learmouth. This happens to be a time when many air accidents occur. The air speed can increase up to 4 times during moonrise, increasing atmospheric “potholes” similar to the whirls in streams at different times of the ocean/river tidal cycle. If anyone wants a link to this study I can supply. Moon and sun cycles determine weather and climate, in combination . It has nothing to do with man, Kyoto or paying emission taxes. Dream on.
Ken Ring
http://www.predictweather.com
Gareth, PLEASE don’t edit Roger’s posts – I’m enjoying the passion!!
Lets discuss the money.
Roger, you alluded to the issue of the cost of dealing with climate change, who bears it, and whether New Zealand is carrying an unfair load, but you didn’t come out directly with your thoughts. If climate change didn’t come with a price tag, would you be so vehemently opposed to dealing with it?
“You haven’t read the book, have you? I would say that the climate change caused by our carbon emissions has the potential to be catastrophic, but that if we act decisively (and soon), we may be able to avoid the worst impacts.”
I have not read any science fiction since reading a Jules Verne book in about 1948.
“The current level of atmospheric GHGs is way above anything seen over the last few million years. ”
Only if you take care not to look at analyses done by chemists, some of Nobel Prize standard, between about 1880 and 1920! The CO2 data that your mates choose to use is very very selective.
“It would be a miracle if it didn’t cause significant effects.”
In theory it will have some tiny effect. In reality that effect is not distinguishable from the background.
Hilary
I read somewhere that we are looking at $41 billion going into government coffers by 2012 from the ETS. How will that change the climate?
Don’t know Ken, why don’t you go ask Mr Moon.
Roger, you’re just sad.
“Gareth, PLEASE don’t edit Roger’s posts – I’m enjoying the passion!!
Lets discuss the money.
Roger, you alluded to the issue of the cost of dealing with climate change, who bears it, and whether New Zealand is carrying an unfair load, but you didn’t come out directly with your thoughts. If climate change didn’t come with a price tag, would you be so vehemently opposed to dealing with it?”
You are not dealing with it. What you think you are dealing with is a fiction, an imaginary problem which has taken on a life of its own and is now driven by thousands of academics, bureaucrats, lawyers, accountants, politicians, sundry consultants of every stripe and hue all feeding feeding off it like vultures off a corpse. I might add authors too!!!!!!
Also Ken, why don’t you ask Roger why they took your link of the NZCSC (sic) website? lol
If any of you had spent a day or two in Darwin during the wet and day or two in Alice Springs in the same season and then put your minds in gear you might just have come to the conclusion that water vapour has more to do with climate than carbon dioxide.
It never ceases to surprise me that supposedly educated people can compartmentalize their knowledge and opinions to such an extent that their beliefs can be in total conflict with their life experiences.
“It never ceases to surprise me that supposedly educated people can compartmentalize their knowledge and opinions to such an extent that their beliefs can be in total conflict with their life experiences.”
Is that when you look in the mirror Roger?
“Is that when you look in the mirror Roger?”
No. My beliefs are totally in accord with my life experiences. In recent years much of my experience has related to relatively recent geology. AGW simply does not fit in a geological timescale.
“AGW simply does not fit in a geological timescale.”
And that is where the problem lies Roger and why we should worry about the rapid nature of AGW.
Ah, dismissing an entire body of evidence and probably many branches of science, with nothing more substantial than a mocking tone.
So Ken how do you dismiss these geological records so easily?
Demonstration of any such interaction does not necessarily disprove the existence of other patterns or interactions within the system.
Ah, yes, Just Google Itâ„¢ – because who needs to read any scientific literature.
“Ah, dismissing an entire body of evidence and probably many branches of science, with nothing more substantial than a mocking tone.”
That is exactly what AGW believers have done. They have dismissed a mass of CO2 analyses carried out by top class chemists between about 1880 and 1920 because these analyses do not support the their proposition.
The have fudged data to make warm periods disappear and blandly asserted that the Little Ice Age was purely a local phenomenon when there is good evidence, from stalagmites or stalactites in Oman, that shows otherwise. Similarly ice cores show that atmospheric carbon dioxide followed climatic warming rather than accompanies it.
The abrupt termination of the Younger Dryas climate event
W. Dansgaard*, J. W. C. White†& S. J. Johnsen‡
* Geophysical Institute, University of Copenhagen, Haraldsgade 6, DK-2200 Copenhagen N, Denmark
†Center for Geochronological Research, INSTAAR, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0450, USA
‡ Science Institute, University of Iceland, Dunhaga 3, IS-107 Reykjavik, Iceland
PREVIOUS studies on two deep Greenland ice cores have shown that a long series of climate oscillations characterized the late Weichselian glaciation in the North Atlantic region1, and that the last glacial cold period, the Younger Dryas, ended abruptly 10,700 years ago2. Here we further focus on this epoch-defining event, and present detailed heavy-isotope and dust-concentration profiles which suggest that, in less than 20 years, the climate in the North Atlantic region turned into a milder and less stormy regime, as a consequence of a rapid retreat of the sea-ice cover. A warming of 7 °C in South Greenland was completed in about 50 years.
——————
References
1. Dansgaard, W. et al. M. Ewing Symp. 5, (eds Hansen, J. E. & Takahashi, T.) Am. geophys. Un. geophys. Monogr. 29, 288−298 (1984).
2. Hammer, C. U., Clausen, H. B. & Tauber, H. Radiocarbon 28, 284−291 (1986). | ChemPort |
3. Ruddiman, W. F. & Mclntyre, A. Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclimatol. Palaeoecol. 35, 145−214 (1981). | Article | ISI | ChemPort |
4. Johnsen, S. J., Dansgaard, W. & White, J. Tellus 41B(4) (in the press).
5. Herron, M. M. & Langway, C. C. in Greenland Ice Core (eds Langway, C. C, Oeschger. H. & Dansgaard, W.) Am. geophys. Un. geophys. Monogr. 33, 77−84 (1985).
6. Hammer, C. U. et al. in Greenland Ice Core (eds Langway, C. C., Oeschger, H. & Dansgaard, W.) Am. geophys. Un. geophys. Monogr. 33, 77−84 (1985).
7. Oeschger, H. et al. M. Ewing Symp. 5 (eds Hansen, J. E. & Takahashi, T.) Am. geophys. Un. geophys. Monogr. 29, 299−306 (1984).
8. Greenland Ice Core (eds Langway, C. C., Oeschger, H. & Dansgaard, W.) Am. geophys. Un. geophys. Monogr. 33 (1985).
9. Dansgaard, W. & Oeschger, H. in The Environmental Record in Glaciers and Ice Sheets (eds Oeschger, H. & Langway, C. C.) Dahlem Workshop 8, 287−317 (Wiley, New York, 1989).
10. Dahl-Jensen, D. & Johnsen, S. J. Nature 320, 250−252 (1986). | Article |
11. Jouzel, J. & Merlivat, L. J. geophys. Res. 89, 11749−11757 (1984). | ChemPort |
12. White, J. W. C., Johnsen, S. J. & Dansgaard, W. Ann. Glaciol. 10, 219−220 (1988).
13. CLIMAP Project Members Science 191, 1131−1137 (1976). | ISI |
14. Bard, E. et al. Nature 328, 791−794 (1987). | Article | ISI |
Carbon dioxide responsible for this rapid warming? Pull the other tit, it has bells on.
“Here we further focus on this epoch-defining event, and present detailed heavy-isotope and dust-concentration profiles which suggest that, in less than 20 years, the climate in the North Atlantic region turned into a milder and less stormy regime, as a consequence of a rapid retreat of the sea-ice cover. A warming of 7 °C in South Greenland was completed in about 50 years.”
It must be all that CO2 released by Cro-Magnon man cooking in his caves!
Depends on what you were cooking Roger.
Roger, if the climate system can make such rapid changes without human influence, what might it do when we are prodding it with a very big stick?
This paper is a bit more up-to-date than your Daansgard cite. There is good recent evidence that the shifts they report can happen in as little as a couple of years. But these remain regional changes…
“Depends on what you were cooking Roger.”
You may have got the bureaucrats, the UN, lawyers, accountants, politicians and sundry shysters all feeding off the AGW scam on your side, but despite the claims of Gareth and others you do not have the majority of neutral scientists on your side.
“Roger, if the climate system can make such rapid changes without human influence, what might it do when we are prodding it with a very big stick?”
Try considering what mechanism brought about rapid climate change in palaeolithic times and then explain why that mechanism should be excluded now. Occam’s razor.
Nobody is excluding anything: but we do have to include the significant amount of extra GHG’s we’ve put into the atmosphere.
(And before you refer again to the work of E G Beck, please be advised that his “work” on CO2 measurements has been extensively debunked – referring to it approvingly is – in scientific terms – extremely bad for your credibility).
“(And before you refer again to the work of E G Beck, please be advised that his “work†on CO2 measurements has been extensively debunked – referring to it approvingly is – in scientific terms – extremely bad for your credibility).”
Your problem is that the debunkers have nowhere near the credibility of the original authors. One of your debunkers even had to rely on “frock coated gentlemen”!!!!!!!!!
“Nobody is excluding anything: but we do have to include the significant amount of extra GHG’s we’ve put into the atmosphere.”
That is all you have got to blather about. No science, only selective measurements of CO2 and some computer games. Naturally you go for the ad-hominem attack on those who see things somewhat differently but, like all socialists, you look for the beam in your brother’s eye before casting out the mote in your own. Or have I got that the wrong way around. Biblical matters are not my forte.
“Biblical matters are not my forte.” Sorry, climate change matters are not your forte
“Biblical matters are not my forte.†Sorry, climate change matters are not your forte.
What are your qualifications and experience then? Piss or get off the pot.
Sorry Roger, you have no qualifications in climate science buddy, whereas I do.
That is obvious. You ‘piss off’ or get off the crack!
Roger
“Younger Dryas”
I am on your side for most of your comments here, but I am tending towards an extra-terrestrial event for causing the Younger Dryas climate event. I’ll have to dig out the article, but it suggests an asteroid or cometary impact on the N American ice sheet around the great lakes region.
Have a look at the “Carolina Bays†on Google Earth, keeping in mind a massive impact in more Northern regions would make these spatter and splash craters that litter more than the Carolinas. The “bays†tend to radiate from a point around the Great Lakes, and are elliptical, suggesting projectiles of much slower velocity than you would get from space.
The reason I bring this up is that if this was a cosmic event, then it invalidates using it as proof that climate can often change abruptly (other than by this kind of event ).
Other than that, well done on your persistence with these people. I will try to get the reference for that new Younger Dryas hypothesis.
” I will try to get the reference for that new Younger Dryas hypothesis.”
Yet you can not provide any of the 1000s of other references that you claim you have… lol what a muppet!
“Sorry Roger, you have no qualifications in climate science buddy, whereas I do”
What are they then windbag?
Jonno
I have that one on my home machine. I happen to have a day job.
“Sorry Roger, you have no qualifications in climate science buddy, whereas I doâ€
Until you have a name you are just a gutless and anonymous blatherskyte without anything at at all.
“Other than that, well done on your persistence with these people. I will try to get the reference for that new Younger Dryas hypothesis.”
Casting pearls before swine, I know, but I have a little time on my hands. Who knows there might be someone out there with a modicum of common sense.
…or an incredible ability to suspend common sense.
Re: the Younger Dryas: it started 12,679 years ago. RealClimate has an excellent discussion of the YD and the hypothesised comet impact here, complete with links to references, and recent work in NZ.
Also Jonno
You can go to Google Earth and see hundreds of these elliptical craters in the Carolinas region. And these are a good example of what I have been trying to put forward – seeing beyond the trees.
As far as I am concerned, once you see these things, their shape and alignment, their date, any other argument about what caused the Younger Dryas event becomes mute. But those scientists that proposed Younger Dryas climate changes for other reasons, or put the mass extinctions that happened at the time down to mass hunting by the Clovis people, will go on arguing their case for years after it becomes painfully obvious they are wrong.
And this is the case with the AGW proponents. Up until 21st century it was arguable whether or not the post-industrial temperature trend matched the CO2 emission rate. After 1998 we know that there is little consistent correlation and that the lull from 1945-80 was not an anomaly in the the supposed upward spiral, but you people will cling to your outmoded beliefs even if the northern ice sheets threaten to return.
“Re: the Younger Dryas: it started 12,679 years ago. RealClimate has an excellent discussion of the YD and the hypothesised comet impact here, complete with links to references, and recent work in NZ”
12,679!!!!!!!!!!!! Delusions of accuracy. Thus you do a good job of rubbishing yourself! Real climate is run by the hockey stick fraudster and his mates. No credibility whatever. Stoat Connolley is involved, is he not?
Go read the links, Roger, before you explode.
A predictable response to mention of RealClimate, too. Entirely wrongheaded, but that’s what I’ve grown to expect.
Roger, Nick, Ken (and any others not named)
I’m curious on your thoughts on environmental issues outside the climate change “debate” that we are having. A lot of damage is done to the environment (land, sea, waterways, wetlands) through land clearance, waste disposal, habitat modification/destruction, introduction of pest species, etc, etc.
Are you anti any attempts to preserve our natural environment and resources, or just the ones around mitigating and adapting to climate change?
Nick, you still haven’t explained your comment about the Arctic is warming as global temperatures are dropping. I thought that if the globe was getting cooler, the Arctic would be one of the first things to freeze. Actually in some of your posts you say the planet is getting warmer and in some of them you say its getting cooler.
Climate change skeptics appear to hold a very wide range of views on the planets temp -some of you say its cooling and some of you say its warming. Any concensus amongst you?
Oh and hasn’t scientific language moved on- I don’t think I’ve heard anything so colourful for years! Keep it up boys – its hilarious.
No, those were ignored because they were all over the show and the method for taking them was tricky, and flawed. You just can’t get the accuracy of an IR absorption test using wet chemical analysis.
Well, on the balance of things this is the case. Look at Soon (2003). The only way he could get the world’s proxy data to support the Global Little Ice Age hypothesis was to allow short, non-overlapping periods of warmth.
YAWN. Dual Dichotomy – there is a third option, which is that they are part of an equilibrium system.
All logical fallacies. Presence of previous warming NOT related to CO2 does not imply that CO2 cannot induce warming.
Don’t worry, there are people with credentials that have shot down Beck’s work. More than once.
Congratulations! You just said good-bye to science by calling the application of established physical laws by the use of a computer model “computer games”. If I put F=mv^2 into a computer, and got the result out, would that be a “computer game” too?
The irony of making an ad-hominem attack while lamenting doing that must obviously escape you.
Oh and while you’re explaining whether the planet is warming or cooling, can you also just quickly explain the link between climate change and socialism.
“I’m curious on your thoughts on environmental issues outside the climate change “debate†that we are having. A lot of damage is done to the environment (land, sea, waterways, wetlands) through land clearance, waste disposal, habitat modification/destruction, introduction of pest species, etc, etc.”
Yes indeed.
“Are you anti any attempts to preserve our natural environment and resources, or just the ones around mitigating and adapting to climate change?”
No. When there was a commission, or perhaps a royal commission , on dealing with Mighty River Power’s proposal to ramp up the level of the Waikato River. I was on the other side. Do you want to see my submission?
Roger, Hilary and other tunnel visioned people:
I GUESS THAT MR AKASOFU IS ON YOUR LIST OF SCIENTISTS TO IGNORE:
QUOTE:
Syun Akasofu
International Arctic Research Center
University of Alaska Fairbanks
A number of global temperature studies indicate that, contrary to all IPCC climate model predictions (2001, 2007), global warming has paused and actually shows a sign of cooling after 2001, even as the amount of CO2 is still rising.
This pause in temperature increase indicates that natural causes, which have not been carefully examined by the IPCC, can dominate greenhouse effects caused by CO2 even if the effects might be temporal. This finding has significant implications for climate change research and science as a whole:
1. The IPCC assumption that CO2 is mainly responsible for the temperature rise during the latter part of the last century needs serious reconsideration.
2. There are natural causes, which are not included in the GCMs.
3. It is urgent to identify natural causes and subtract their effects from the ongoing temperature changes.
4. In science, it is not customary to suppress opponents and label them “skeptics†or “deniers,†as if the CO2 theory were established and proven beyond doubt.
5. In science, it is not appropriate to involve politics on the basis of a premature hypothesis.
6. How can the hype generated by the mass media be calmed down? It is necessary to correct their information (such as calving of glaciers as an example of global warming).
7. How can scientists recover from the serious consequences of the public’s loss of confidence in climatology or science as a whole?
END OF QUOTE
PLEASE TAKE NOTE OF HIS POINT 4
AND I SUPPOSE THESE GUYS ARE ON YOUR LIST OF “BAD†SCIENTISTS.
QUOTE:
A role for atmospheric CO2 in preindustrial climate forcing
Thomas B. van Hoof*†‡, Friederike Wagner-Cremer†, Wolfram M. Ku¨ rschner†, and Henk Visscherâ€
PNAS September 30, 2008, 105 (39)
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2008/10/03/0807624105.full.pdf+html?sid=62ec340d-a22f-4a36-bf11-31c50a8a35d4
here’s the abstract:
Abstract
Complementary to measurements in Antarctic ice cores, stomatal frequency analysis of leaves of land plants preserved in peat and lake deposits can provide a proxy record of preindustrial atmospheric CO2 concentration. CO2 trends based on leaf remains of Quercus robur (English oak) from the Netherlands support the presence of significant CO2 variability during the first half of the last millennium. The amplitude of the reconstructed multidecadal fluctuations, up to 34 parts per million by volume, considerably exceeds maximum shifts measured in Antarctic ice. Inferred changes in CO2 radiative forcing are of a magnitude similar to variations ascribed to other mechanisms, particularly solar irradiance and volcanic activity, and may therefore call into question the concept of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which assumes an insignificant role of CO2 as a preindustrial climate-forcing factor. The stomata-based CO2 trends correlate with coeval sea-surface temperature trends in the North Atlantic Ocean, suggesting the possibility of an oceanic source/sink mechanism for the recorded CO2 changes.
Best regards
Ernst-Georg Beck
http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2_supp.htm
Merian-Schule Freiburg
Dep. Biotechnology and Nutrition Science
79104 Freiburg
Rheinstr. 3
Germany
END OF QUOTE
“No, those were ignored because they were all over the show and the method for taking them was tricky, and flawed. You just can’t get the accuracy of an IR absorption test using wet chemical analysis.”
Rubbish. Am experienced chemist will tell you otherwise.
“Congratulations! You just said good-bye to science by calling the application of established physical laws by the use of a computer model “computer gamesâ€. If I put F=mv^2 into a computer, and got the result out, would that be a “computer game†too?”
No boy. In that instance the equation is known. In the case of the relationship between carbon dioxide and the climate it is not known. Indeed it is unknowable now and for the forseeable future.
Hilary
How ignorant to assume we are anti-environmentalists. Cleaning up the environment, replacing fossil fuels (in good time, that does not unduly effect economies), and addressing the problems that will surely come with climate change (that has always taken place), are high on our list of global requirements.
You obviously read very little of what we say, except that which irks your narrow beliefs
Nick, I’m just curious about your thoughts on Ken Ring and his idea that it was the moon that caused the Qantas plane loss altitude?
No I didn’t assume that you were, just wanted you to clarify as some climate change skeptics are very anti any conservation of natural resources. I’m not narrow minded, just trying to understand what you’re saying.
I agree that we (the planet) need to phase out fossil fuels (for all sorts of reasons) and NZ is a country that is well placed to do so. The sooner we start the better because changing infrastructure can be expensive and can require long lead-in periods. Start now and the economic impact will be less (and could even be really positive).
Would you say that the Arctic is still melting because of the lag before coolng temperatures kick in?
Are the natural causes the sun and volcanoes?
Roger,
I am an experienced chemist.
I am keen to hear debate from other scientists so I tell you what, why don’t you ask NZC”S”C science advisor Chris de Freitas what he thinks of Beck and either get him to post here or post on his behalf.
May I point out that Beck accepts both the recent IR measurements and the older titrations.
However it is undeniable that IR is both more precise and more accurate than wet titrations.
Let me begin by asking: What do you make of the way Beck shows CO2 jumping all over the place?
Consider these numbers that Beck accepts (taken from his xl data sheet he used to produce his graphs. The gaps are missing data (i.e. Beck reports no numbers).
1843 = 308.6 ppm
1844 = 400.0 ppm
1847 = 359 ppm
1848 = 310 ppm
Now, the change from 1843 to 1844 represents a change in the atmosphere of ~2.0 x10^17 g carbon ( = 7.4 x10^17 g CO2). This calculation is not difficult but I can step you through it if you need. It is important to note for later that not all CO2 produced by fossil fuel burning goes into the atmosphere; roughly half ends up in the oceans.
To put this in context the International Energy Annual (produced by US DoE) calculates total global fossil fuel usage in 2004 as producing ~27 x10^15 g CO2.
So, if Beck is right then the change in CO2 he accepts as real in a one year period (or at most 23 months) would have required 27 times the 2004 level of fossil fuel burning. And, if we take into account that about half of all fossil fuel CO2 ends up in the ocean then to produce a change of 91 ppm would have required releases to be ~50x higher in 1843/4 than 2004. I hope we can agree that this just did not happen.
And then just as quickly all that CO2 vanished by 1848.
Beck has remained silent on what mechanism might have been operating. Do you have any ideas Roger?
Note that isotope mixing (see Suess effect. No not Seuess) rules out outgassing form the oceans while the breakdown of carbonate rocks would have required vast amounts of acid. So it certainly is a mystery but I am sure Chris de Freitas will be able to put us both straight and explain what he thinks of Beck.
Nick, with regards to the Akasofu paper (and please, posting the entire abstract in a blog comment is akin to spamming, a link will suffice), I once thought that the presence of many people who looked like scientists coming out against the AGW hypothesis as good evidence that it is not a solid case. But when you investigate further, you’ll find that the scientists involved are speaking outside of their field, the paper has been rebutted or has obvious flaws. It was commenting on this web site that taught me that! Akasofu for instance, according to one commentator: “appears to be primarily an aurora researcher, and then recently started writing embarrassingly-poor pieces (not per-reviewed) about climatology”. I haven’t verified that, but it would not be unlike ones I have investigated before. And, judging by the points you quote above, accurate.
You highlight this point:
Let’s take this seriously for a second. First, “skeptic” isn’t necessarily a bad label for a scientist. Second, “denier” is accurate, because there is a consensus position, and these people are not backing up their skepticism with a healthy respect for science. It’s “customary” to research a field in depth, and contributing to it with a peer reviewed paper before trying to represent the edge of the technology. When people don’t do that, descriptions such as “denier” are quite accurate – they’re denying without basis in fact.
Of course. That’s why the scientists built the computer models, to arrive at a sensitivity figure. The model is built up of key assumptions which are based on empirical observation – for example, absorption spectra of carbon dioxide, rates of radiative transfer through atmosphere, nature of trade wind exchange, etc. You stack them all up, get the computer to crunch the math (or do it yourself using pencil and paper if you’re Arrhenius), and arrive at a result. Assuming that your knowledge of the physical world is relatively complete, you can have assurance to a similar level about the accuracy of your result.
But before you go around in a circle and say “but you just assumed”, don’t. Empirical science is all about making assumptions (or, hypotheses if you prefer), and testing them.
So, you cannot simply cry foul at the method of combining formulae to obtain a result; you must identify which part of the model is flawed, and why you think it is flawed. Otherwise, you’re effectively rejecting this basic use of derived hypotheses.
You see, that’s a very big problem. If you define the conditions of accepting a theory such that it is effectively impossible to detect if there is a problem, then you become oblivious to it. It could sneak up on you, kill your descendents due to famine, and you’d never know.
That’s why we have to use the best available evidence to base our decisions on.
Doug Mackie,
It is great when people use logic and common sence, outstanding. I am sure Nick would agree.
Of course, back in the 19 C, people must have been driving more SUVs.
“Nick, with regards to the Akasofu paper (and please, posting the entire abstract in a blog comment is akin to spamming, a link will suffice), I once thought that the presence of many people who looked like scientists coming out against the AGW hypothesis as good evidence that it is not a solid case. But when you investigate further, you’ll find that the scientists involved are speaking outside of their field, the paper has been rebutted or has obvious flaws. It was commenting on this web site that taught me that! Akasofu for instance, according to one commentator: “appears to be primarily an aurora researcher, and then recently started writing embarrassingly-poor pieces (not per-reviewed) about climatologyâ€.”
Aurorae are caused by charged particles evading the van Allen belt and entering the atmosphere parallel to the earth’s magnetic field at the poles.
As Svensmark and others have shown charged particles entering the atmosphere result in cloud formation. Clouds affect the climate.
Thus an aurora researcher can well contribute to this debate.
“Of course. That’s why the scientists built the computer models, to arrive at a sensitivity figure. The model is built up of key assumptions which are based on empirical observation – for example, absorption spectra of carbon dioxide, rates of radiative transfer through atmosphere, nature of trade wind exchange, etc. You stack them all up, get the computer to crunch the math (or do it yourself using pencil and paper if you’re Arrhenius), and arrive at a result. Assuming that your knowledge of the physical world is relatively complete, you can have assurance to a similar level about the accuracy of your result.”
I am afraid that there is much more to it than that. There is the transfer through the biosphere and lithosphere which cannot be modelled. Every change in the environment modifies the transfer through the biosphere.
No, Svensmark and others have suggested that cosmic rays might create charged particles, and affect cloud formation. It has not been demonstrated – and there are good reasons for thinking that any effect (if there is one) will be minor.
Your view on modelling is – how shall I put this – counter-intuitive. You don’t want to believe their output, therefore they must be wrong. If you reject this sort of modelling completely, then I have to assume you never fly in a modern jet. They are designed using similar models…
Nick, Roger and Ken.
I bow to your robust arguments. You have put it far better than I ever could.
Some call it “cherrypicking” science – I call it a sound basis for knocking back what is truly a conspiracy. All these nutters on this blog have bought the line wholeheartedly. Why won’t they take note of the few papers you have produced? Why are they listening to the rest of scientific society instead? This baffles me.
These are so similar to the stories that I’ve heard through the generations about the Ice Wall. People still deny it’s there. NASA has spent all its time cooking up a huge pile of rubbish science to back their stupid theories that the earth is round – and really has convinced all Governments.
I reach out to you guys with a hand of friendship – we need to work together. In one way I am very excited about the global warming conspiracy, because it’s so similar to the flat earth conspiracy, and, for once, there are others who are sceptic of it – people I can finally work with to get the world to really understand the nature and the evil of global scientific conspiracies.
You are my heroes. Keep up the good work and please consider yourselves amongst my nearest and dearest.
Nathanial
Flat Earth Society NZ
“Your view on modelling is – how shall I put this – counter-intuitive. You don’t want to believe their output, therefore they must be wrong. If you reject this sort of modelling completely, then I have to assume you never fly in a modern jet. They are designed using similar models…”
I presume the numerical models used in the design of modern jets and based on the long proven equations of fluid dynamics etc. The climate models may be based on known equations describing certain physical phenomena. However the principle greenhouse gas, water vapour, is generally omitted from the models. To be valid the models should include the transfer of Co2 through the biosphere and lithosphere. They do not. Ipso facto they are deficient. Of course none of them have been the slightest use in predicting the climate. Your models predict warming when the climate ia actually cooling.
Anyway a tropical fauna thrived in Britain during past interglacials. The world did not come to an end then.
A short lesson in perspective:
The stud height in most NZ houses is 2400 millimetres. Assume that each millimetre represents 1000 years. The stud height then represents, more or less, the Pleistocene period of the post Tertiary glaciations.
The exact number is uncertain but allowing about 150,000 years for the glaciations and about 10,000 years for the interglacials there might have been fifteen or more glaciations in this period. Allow a hand spread or a bit less for each glacial/interglacial cycle.
Modern man appeared about 40,000 years ago. That is about the width of the little wooden strip below the ceiling.
If we include the Little Dryas the last glaciation ended about 10,000 years ago, a quarter of the height of that little wooden strip.
Man’s scientific endeavours commence, in the west at least, about 200 years ago. That is represented by one fifth of a millimetre.
We started to measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere little more than 100 years ago. Let us say that is represented by a line 100 microns wide.
Somebody mentioned hubris!!!!!!
I see hubris in abundance when some predict the climate on the basis of data represented by a line so thin that it is barely visible, if indeed visible at all.
This is Vincent Gray’s comment:
“I support Beck. All he shows is that the concentration of carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere is variable, and sometimes is higher than that measured over
the ocean. The very restricted conditions laid down by Keeling et al for the
people making measurements are aimed at concealing this fact which could
easily be confirmed by some actual measurements over land. I would challenge
Mackie to measure CO2 over Dunedin and tell us what he gets.
Why have the IPCC suppressed 90,000 measurements, published in peer-reviewed
journals, some by Nobel prizewinners? Why have they never answered Beck in
a proper scientific paper? Where is the evidence that current measurements
are better? I have asked these questions to a Lead Author of the Relevant
Chapter of Climate Change 2007, David Lowe, and I do not get an answer. Can
Mackie or Morgan answer it?
Keeling admits that it takes six months to a year for seasonal changes to
reach the Southern Hemisphere, thus admitting slow mixing.
Most human emissions take place over a narrow range of latitude, 30-60º
North. Tom Quirk has recently pointed out that the C13 isotope ratio does
not change in between El Niño events, even though total measured CO2
increases. El Niño provides better mixing, so the C13 then jumps to another
lower level and the total rate of change goes up at the same time while the
El Niño lasts. If the C13 and the seasonal changes take time to get to the
ocean measurement site, then the extra concentration must take time to
disperse and the data quoted by Beck are indisputable evidence that this is
so”
This is nonsense. Water vapour is not “generally omitted” from GCMs. If it were, they would not work (ie be able to represent the working of the climate system).
You’ve amply demonstrated over the last couple of days that you completely misunderstand the science of climate. Forgive me, then, for saying that the label “crank” is most apt….
“That’s why we have to use the best available evidence to base our decisions on.”
Thank god you are not a decisionmaker!
The only rational decision making method required selection of the lowest cost-risk multiplier. In this instance we do not know the costs and we do not know the probabilities. In the circumstances the rational choice is to do nothing. That is basic engineering economics.
“This is nonsense. Water vapour is not “generally omitted†from GCMs. If it were, they would not work (ie be able to represent the working of the climate system).”
They do not work! The predictions are all wrong.
“No, Svensmark and others have suggested that cosmic rays might create charged particles, and affect cloud formation. It has not been demonstrated – and there are good reasons for thinking that any effect (if there is one) will be minor.”
More rubbish from Gareth!
Cosmic rays are energetic particles originating from space that impinge on Earth’s atmosphere. Almost 90% of all the incoming cosmic ray particles are protons, about 9% are helium nuclei (alpha particles) and about 1% are electrons (beta minus particles). The term “ray” is a misnomer, as cosmic particles arrive individually, not in the form of a ray or beam of particles. Wikipedia.
“Thank god you are not a decisionmaker!”
Same goes Roge…
Since you don’t understand what they do and how they do it, you have no basis for this assertion.
You clearly don’t understand Svensmark’s hypothesis either.
This sort of stuff might earn you brownie points in climate crank circles, but it just makes you look foolish in the real world.
“More rubbish from Gareth!”
You still don’t understand Roge…
More rubbish from a geologist claiming to be a climate scientist.
Gareth did not say the cosmic rays are not particles, don’t get your knickers in a twist you sad old man, but they “might create charged particles”
That is, when cosmic ray particles enter the Earth’s atmosphere they collide with molecules, mainly oxygen and nitrogen, to produce a cascade of lighter particles (same wiki page you quoted).
It is not proven how this affects cloud formation.
Come on Roger,
Vince is hardly the person to comment on Beck.
I challenge you again to ask Chris de Freitas (who has published in the peer reviewed literature about atmospheric chemistry) and post his response here.
“Come on Roger,
Vince is hardly the person to comment on Beck.
Is he not? Why? He has more status than you it seems.
I challenge you again to ask Chris de Freitas (who has published in the peer reviewed literature about atmospheric chemistry) and post his response here.
I am sure that he will respond when he has time to respond to cretins.
“That is, when cosmic ray particles enter the Earth’s atmosphere they collide with molecules, mainly oxygen and nitrogen, to produce a cascade of lighter particles (same wiki page you quoted).”
Particles bozo !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“You clearly don’t understand Svensmark’s hypothesis either.
“This sort of stuff might earn you brownie points in climate crank circles, but it just makes you look foolish in the real world.”
No. Increasingly it is you that appears to be the uneducated and bigoted twerp.
“Particles bozo !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
It is obvious that you can not read or understand. No where in my post, you muppet, did I say that cosmic rays are not particles.
I said that these cosmic particles enter the earth’s atmosphere and ‘might create charged particles” with molecules in the atmosphere.
Please stop claiming that you possess any intelligence,because you don’t. As Max Plank said, it doesn’t really matter what you think…
Hey Roge, why do you even come here with your stupidity? Why don’t you go to kiwiblog, where the other stupid people hang out?
“No, Svensmark and others have suggested that cosmic rays might create charged particles,”
That comment, bozo, started it off. Svensmark did not suggest that cosmic rays might create charged particles because cosmic rays are charged particles.
“Hey Roge, why do you even come here with your stupidity? Why don’t you go to kiwiblog, where the other stupid people hang out?”
You are there I presume? If not you ought to be.
No Roge … you Muppet!!! You still cannot read properly… go to the back to the class. Neither Gareth, nor I, suggested that cosmic rays are not charged particles. If you read what he wrote…
“No, Svensmark and others have suggested that cosmic rays might create charged particles, and affect cloud formation. ”
Nothing about cosmic rays not being particles themselves.
Where did you get this from. Sorry… it is you the one that is deluded… yet again you have been proved to be an idiot.
I think we have a couple of Harry the hat’s here. It’s, stuff the science, just make as much noise as possible.
Day by day the evidence gets stronger and the facts on the ground get plainer to see. But still bozo’s like these keep nitpicking round the edges and tossing up any old bullshit that takes their fancy. Any wonder then that they are treated with contempt, and increasingly become an irrelevance to any sensible discussion on climate change.
If they where true skeptics (as they claim to be) they would be applying the blow torch with as much vigor to stuff they dig up as they do to the science they dispute. This sort of performance will see them left sitting in a corner, whining still, as the rest of the world leaves them behind.
Boys, boys, you need your heads banged together. Seriously, Roger, why the aggression and rudeness? You have called people here, both individually and collectively, cretins, morons, bozos, fools and socialists. [Actually I don’t regard ‘socialist’ as an insult, but you certainly intended it as one.] In general, readers here have been patient with you and have been prepared to discuss the issues. You haven’t been at all chastened when shown to be wrong, such as when you asserted that China and India hadn’t signed up to Kyoto.
If you want to persuade people to see your point of view, a little charm would go a long way.
Nick and Roger, I wonder if you would be so kind as to clarify what appear to be some discrepancies in your posts here.
1) You have both categorically stated that the data shows global cooling since 2001 (Nick, you described it as massive cooling). Is this conclusion drawn from the same data that climate scientists use, but interpreted differently or is it a different data set? Another set of temperature recordings?
2) Although you have both said that the planet is cooling you have both also stated in your posts that the planet is warming, but you have attributed it to different causes, i.e. not the impact of rising levels greenhouse gases, but of other causes which you call natural (as opposed to greenhouse gases which are unnatural?) and which appear to be the sun and volcanoes and particles coming from out space.
3) In other posts you agree that the planet is warming and that it is caused by changes in greenhouse gases, but not those added to the atmosphere by human activity.
4) But then you go on to say that climate scientists couldn’t possibly prove that greenhouse gases added to the atmosphere have raised global temperatures, but that, using the same scientifc premises, you can prove that they don’t.
I’m confused. Please provide a definitive position as, at present you seem to have not one position on climate change, but at least four, which all contradict each other.
“You haven’t been at all chastened when shown to be wrong, such as when you asserted that China and India hadn’t signed up to Kyoto.”
Why should I be? You are just splitting hairs. China and India may have scribbled signatures but neither are required to do anything or pay a cent. China is building coal fired power stations at a rate dwarfs our entire industrial effort. India appears to be doing much the same. Nothing we do is going to influence these people or anybody else. It is utterly absurd for NZ to spend a cent on Kyoto. Our carbon dioxide contribution is miniscule compared with those of India, Russia, China and the USA. Even if there was proof that CO2 caused global warming, which there is not, there is no advantage to NZ to contribute a cent towards Kyoto. You and like minded people are setting out to bankrupt this country. Quite possibly you do not realize this. It is not your money that is going to be frittered away is it? Are you sucking on the taxpayer’s tit like the vast majority promoting this AGW?
Blah, blah, blah….
I think Marcus Brigstocke explains people like Roge the Muppet and Martin Durkin reall well here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8v4mTDOd7c
I’m a taxpayer, so it is my money.
I’m a taxpayer too, so it is my money.
“Are you sucking on the taxpayer’s tit like the vast majority promoting this AGW?”
Seeing as you asked so nicely, Roger, no I’m not. I live in a hardworking high-earning household with a small family paying a great deal of tax and not currently claiming any benefits such as Working for Families or superannuation.
And you?
If you were speaking as a scientist you would say that there is evidence for AGW but I don’t think that the probability that it is correct is high enough for me to accept it.
If you were speaking as an idealogue you would say there is no evidence for AGW (which is wrong because there is) – so you are speaking as an idealogue, not a scientist.
You have every right not to agree with evidence because it offends your political views, but you could at least be honest about that.
Prithee Roger,
how does one measure status?
In this context one might have thought that peer reviewed publications in chemistry were relevant.
I rather suspect that de Freitas has in fact already told you that Beck is not even wrong but you can’t bring yourself to admit it.
>1) You have both categorically stated that the data shows global cooling since 2001 (Nick, you described it as massive cooling). Is this conclusion drawn from the same data that climate scientists use, but interpreted differently or is it a different data set? Another set of temperature recordings?
Interpretation mainly. The sceptics and the believers use much the same sets of data.
>2) Although you have both said that the planet is cooling you have both also stated in your posts that the planet is warming, but you have attributed it to different causes, i.e. not the impact of rising levels greenhouse gases, but of other causes which you call natural (as opposed to greenhouse gases which are unnatural?) and which appear to be the sun and volcanoes and particles coming from out space.
The climate has always changed and is changing now. That is natural. Do you wish to deny the glaciations and interglacials of the last two and a half million years? At times the rate of change has been far faster, at the end of the Little Dryas for example, than it has been at any time since the beginning of the industrial age.
I do not dispute that the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is rising at the moment and has been doing so for some years. However there is good evidence that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were higher in the 1940s and probably also in the late 1800s. It is a reasonable presumption that current industrial activity is adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. However we have very little understanding, at least not an understanding sufficient to construct numerical models, of the interaction of carbon dioxide with the biosphere, both marine and terrestrial. Certainly we may be able to model the theoretical interchange of carbon dioxide between the oceans and the atmosphere with changing temperature. But that is only a tiny part of the picture.
Surely it is self evident that the sun controls the climate. The output of the sun varies cyclically. I suggest you obtain for yourself the average temperature of the USA which are tabulated and available through the internet and then, using a simple spreadsheet, construct seven and nine year rolling means of the original data which appears to show no no trend whatever. From these rolling means a trend emerges. Think about it and consider what is implied.
The Little Ice Age, which some of you appear to wish to deny, was matched with a long period in which there was minimal sunspot activity. There is good reason to believe that sunspot activity has a significant effect on world climate. Recent studies by Svensmark and others indicate that charged particles (cosmic rays if you like) entering the earths atmosphere become nuclei for water droplet and cloud formation. Clouds of course influence climate. Both the magnetic field of the sun and the magnetic field of the earth influence the number of charged particles entering the earth’s atmosphere. The charged particles tend to enter the earth’s atmosphere parallel to the earth’s magnetic field at the poles. Aurorae are the visible result. The magnetic field of the earth fluctuates and from time to time collapses before regenerating with the same or opposite polarity. When the field collapses more charged particles can enter the atmosphere because they are no longer trapped in the Van Allen belts following the common laws governing the direction of flow of electric currents in magnetic fields. Think of dynamos and electric motors.
> 3) In other posts you agree that the planet is warming and that it is caused by changes in greenhouse gases, but not those added to the atmosphere by human activity.
I do not think I agreed to that. I have agreed that the climate has warmed generally, but not continuously, from the end of the Little Ice Age. I have certainly not ascribed this to greenhouse gases.
>4) But then you go on to say that climate scientists couldn’t possibly prove that greenhouse gases added to the atmosphere have raised global temperatures, but that, using the same scientifc premises, you can prove that they don’t.
I have said that a rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide will cause a small theoretical rise in temperature. I have not yet said, until now, that the rise is proportional to the logarithm of carbon dioxide concentration. Thus it is self limiting. I am more concerned though that our increasing industrial contribution cannot be separated from the natural changes in carbon dioxide concentration which we are not yet able to fully describe and quantify. There is plenty of evidence from ice cores and stomatal distribution in plants that the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide was highly variable before the rapid expansion of industrial activity following world war 2. Actually I have not claimed to have proved anything. Rather it is the absence of real proof that I have reflected on.
>I’m confused. Please provide a definitive position as, at present you seem to have not one position on climate change, but at least four, which all contradict each other.
No. My position is consistent. It may not be totally consistent with that of Nick for example but that is a matter for him to comment on.
In short I accept that there has been a general warming trend since the end of the Little Ice Age, but the rate has been well within the norm. I accept that there has been a steady increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide since about 1950. What I do not accept is any good correlation between the two. I do not accept either that global warming is largely due to greenhouse gases.
I am inclined to the view that we are approaching the end of the normal period of an interglacial, that is about 10,000 years, and that we would be better preparing ourselves for the normal, glacial, climatic state.
I am inclined to the view that it is sheer blithering stupidity to disrupt our economy, particularly in this lead up to a global recession, pandering to Kyoto on the basis of the unproven assertion that carbon dioxide is the cause of climatic warming. I hold the view that any warming commensurate with that which has occurred within the last 50 million years or so will be beneficial, particularly for NZ, whereas cooling, even commensurate with that of the Little Ice Age, will have severe repercussions worldwide. The advent of the full blown glaciation which, on past performance is just about due, will result in decimation of the population of this planet accompanied by bloodletting of an order we have not even dreamed of.
Doug Mackie 10.10.08 at 9:44 am
” Prithee Roger,
how does one measure status?
In this context one might have thought that peer reviewed publications in chemistry were relevant.
I rather suspect that de Freitas has in fact already told you that Beck is not even wrong but you can’t bring yourself to admit it.”
As far as I am concerned Beck did a thorough literature search and made available the results. Providing that he was thorough, as he appears to have been, questions of right or wrong do not arise. Quarrel with the original authors if you like but not with Beck or me.
I recall that you made some quite disgusting comments following the death of Augie Auer. I believe that you were also the author of some smart aleck comments about gentlemen in frock coats.
Thanks for that Roger, it’s all much easier to get a grip on when you spell it out like that.
Hasn’t there been an increase in CO2 from industrial activity since well before 1950
People, I think it is time to give up on Roger.
Go have a cup of tea and a lie down Roge
>>“Come on Roger,
Vince is hardly the person to comment on Beck.
>Is he not? Why? He has more status than you it seems.”
>†Prithee Roger,
how does one measure status?
I understand that he has done a bit more reviewing of the IPCC stuff than you have. That should count in these circles.
Prove me wrong Roger.
Go ahead and ask de Freitas or be honest and tell us what he has already said about Beck.
Nobody is denying global warming has taken place. You know what the hype has done to the world – climate change, global warming and man-made global warming have become synonymous. This AGW thing is so ingrained, even in you it seems, that one cannot talk about global warming without it being interpreted as AGW. Of course there has been global warming – we came out of a few centuries of global cooling.
If the LIA had been a few centuries earlier I betya we would not be having this discussion. The fact is that the warming since the end of the LIA has been so erratic that it cannot possibly be put down to one effect – ie CO2. And the fact is that no ONE science could account for the anomalies in the climate.
And all those who keep bandying about us not being climate scientists – tell me how any one climate scientist, who by necessity would have to be compartmentalised because of the complexity of a vastly chaotic system, can offer a broader opinion than somebody who has taken a view based on readings from a multitude of sciences, and more importantly from field studies?
Eg – I had an acquaintance whose doctorate in marine biology involved measuring gastropods. Is that woman any more qualified to comment on the effect of global warming on ocean species in general than me?
I certainly would not go head to head with her about gastropods
“reviewing of the IPCC “… Although he has not published anything on climate change.
> Thanks for that Roger, it’s all much easier to get a grip on when you spell it out like that.
>Hasn’t there been an increase in CO2 from industrial activity since well before 1950
Certainly industrial activity gradually increased from the start of the industrial revolution but it really took off after WW2. Measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide commenced in the late 1800s. Of course the procedures were not as sophisticated as those available today. However there hundreds, if not thousands of analyses done some of which showed values higher than those prevailing now. They also show a very wide spread in values. Some have chosen to discount all this work, much done by Nobel Prize chemists, dismissing them as ‘gentlemen in frock coats’. In passing I understand that there was some very well reviewed work done, about 1940, showing carbon dioxide values of about 400 ppm. I suggest that some of those promoting AGW have been overly dismissive of early work that conflicts with their pre-conceived view.
In regard to your notion that only empirical science has the answer:
Of course one can’t ignore the science. But sometimes the generally accepted paradigm is all wrong, but research still heads off down a direction to try to support the erroneous paradigm
The most famous example is plate tectonics. I wonder how many scientific papers were published beforeWegener and for decades after, that delved into thoroughly mistaken explanations for mountain building, volcanic activity and earthquakes. Hundreds of papers, yet a 6 year old could look in his school atlas see that S america had drifted away from Africa and Africa had parted company with Arabia
Then right up til men went to the moon, all those thousands of craters upon craters that anyone can see with the smallest telescope were deemed to be of volcanic origin. How many papers supported that notion? What made it infintely worse and embarrassing for science is that they said the craters must be volcanic because impacts should produce mainly elliptical shaped craters rather than the circular ones we see. These beliefs were obtained by experiment, firing ball bearings into mud. The point is that every astronomer was fully aware that objects from space move with velocities that put their impact energies into realms that require special consideration.
Both these scenarios do excuse the erroneous science to a small extend because of the complexity of the phenomena involved. But climate is another scale higher in the world of the chaotic.
Therefore, when the science is divided, it is good sense to be cautious in taking drastic steps based on one side of the argument.
It could be, as is the case with the examples I just mentioned, that a new paradigm will erupt and turn the whole thing upside down. Who knows, perhaps it could be Oliver Manuel’s iron sun.
Then again Nick, you could be wrong and most likely are.
Both Roge and Nick are clutching at falling knives. Be careful or you will get cut.
“Prove me wrong Roger.
Go ahead and ask de Freitas or be honest and tell us what he has already said about Beck.”
Ask de Freitas yourself. Considering your disgusting comments about Augie Auer following his death I would understand if he declines to answer.
> jonno 10.10.08 at 10:29 am
> Then again Nick, you could be wrong and most likely are.
> Both Roge and Nick are clutching at falling knives. Be careful or you will get cut.
If you think that you have got some logical basis for your belief, other than a blind acceptance of the propaganda fed to you by those feeding at the AGW trough, why not tell us what it is?
The evidence! Everything you have come up with here Roge, has shown to be wrong. So what do you really have? Um, nothing, that’s right, but keep making some noise, it is entertaining.
“Ask de Freitas yourself. Considering your disgusting comments about Augie Auer following his death I would understand if he declines to answer.:
Or else he knows that if he did, it would show you to be the fool that you really are.
Hilary 10.10.08 at 9:29 am
If you were speaking as a scientist you would say that there is evidence for AGW but I don’t think that the probability that it is correct is high enough for me to accept it.
>If you were speaking as an idealogue you would say there is no evidence for AGW (which is wrong because there is) – so you are speaking as an idealogue, not a scientist.
>You have every right not to agree with evidence because it offends your political views, but you could at least be honest about that.
I think that I have answered all that.
And you have proven that you have no clue about the science and have been shown to wrong on all accounts… so it is your political views.
Finally, you show some honesty. Well done Roge!
And you have proven that you have no clue about the science and have been shown to wrong on all accounts…. so it is your political views.
Finally, you show some honesty. Well done Roge!
Roger, I saw the comments you made on a blog about Helen Clark’s friend who died on a tramping trip with her. They were pretty nasty. If anyone wants to see what Roger wrote , just google his name, they come up on the first page.
Roger, you know what de Freitas will say so you are too scared to post his response here.
I pick de Freitas b/c despite failings in many respects I believe is too competent and honest as a scientist to honestly give support to Beck. He will either refuse to give an answer or, more likely, has already given it and Roger knows it.
re vincent gray
In my understanding vincent gray has never published a paper on climate change. He’s a coal researcher with the last article published some 17 years ago.
not sure how this makes him an expert worth quoting.
> Doug Mackie 10.10.08 at 11:21 am
>Roger, you know what de Freitas will say so you are too scared to post his response here.
I do not know what de Freitas’ opinion of Beck is. I have had no response from de Freitas. I have sent nothing to de Freitas concerning Beck to which he might respond. I have never discussed Beck with him. I do not recall seeing any comment that he has made about Beck. I have seen some brief criticism of a second paper written by Beck but I have not seen that paper. I think that criticism was not written by de Freitas. As far as I am concerned Beck summarised the results of a literature search. I have not seen any criticism of that search. Some, including you, have chosen to criticise the work of the original authors. Go and quarrel with them if you wish but do not attempt to drag de Freitas or me into some dispute you may wish to have with Beck or the results that he published.
You’ve already had some pointed out to you before. You’ve even had it spelled out to you, once by me and supported by a Chemist. I find this claim hard to believe.
This is an argument that permits you to disregard any and all of science, regardless of how “hard” or “soft” it might be. Far from “not ignoring” it, that’s exactly what you turn around and do. Feel free to turn your back on Science Nick, but in this modern society Science plays a pretty important part in decision making, so don’t be surprised if other positions aren’t taken as seriously.
Now, a reasoned disagreement with the findings of the field, that’s fair game. What are your reasons?
You don’t know much, do you Roge
“Feel free to turn your back on Science Nick, but in this modern society Science plays a pretty important part in decision making”
Altho, it is a shame that it doesn’t play a bigger part, eh. With economist and Muppets LIKE Roge playing a bigger part in the political system.
Ah but this is exactly the point Roger.
You are not a chemist
Vince is not a chemist so his opinion is irrelevant.
I am suggesting we seek a 3rd party for an opinion.
I would like to hear the view of de Freitas because he has enough training as a real scientist to assess Beck and he “is on your side†so if he came out and said Beck was rubbish you’d be more inclined to listen.
Or so it seems to me. Tell us then: If de Freitas did tell you he thought Beck was not even wrong would that change your opinion of Beck? Whom would you trust most: Vince or de Freitas?
So, humour us.
Ask de Freitas.
>You’ve already had some pointed out to you before. You’ve even had it spelled out to you, once by me and supported by a Chemist. I find this claim hard to believe.
It seems that there are two papers by Beck. In the first he simply summarise the results obtained in earlier work. If you want to criticise that just tell me why and how. Have a go at the original authors if you want to.
There appears to be a second paper by Beck which I have not seen. Thus I have no comment to make on it. It seems that some of you take exception with that paper. If so and quarrel with Beck, not with me. Even less am I am prepared to engage in a debate about what Professor de Freitas might or might not think about that paper.
Hey Roge would even listen to Ken, if it meant that Roge’s opinion was backed up with Ken’s rubbish.
“It seems that there are two papers by Beck. In the first he simply summarise the results obtained in earlier work. If you want to criticise that just tell me why and how. Have a go at the original authors if you want to.”
Then Muppet, why do you and the likes always criticise Gore, if you have problems with his film that simplifies complex published science. Why don’t you criticise the original scientists and not Gore?
Or can’t you take your own advice.
> Ah but this is exactly the point Roger.
You are not a chemist
Vince is not a chemist so his opinion is irrelevant.
> I am suggesting we seek a 3rd party for an opinion.
>I would like to hear the view of de Freitas because he has enough training as a real scientist to assess Beck and he “is on your side†so if he came out and said Beck was rubbish you’d be more inclined to listen.
>Or so it seems to me. Tell us then: If de Freitas did tell you he thought Beck was not even wrong would that change your opinion of Beck? Whom would you trust most: Vince or de Freitas?
>So, humour us.
Ask de Freitas.
Have you not got it into your thick head yet that I think the paper about which you wish to engage me in a three cornered dispute I have not even seen? I do not propose to ask Professor de Freitas what is his opinion of Beck or his paper. Ask him yourself and stop behaving like spoiled child.
Don’t throw rocks Roge, it is you behaving like a small child.
Jonno
“…Gore, if you have problems with his film that simplifies complex published science.”
Simplify?? Is that a simile for grossly exaggerate, hype and downright tell lies.
Jonno have you any idea how many young kids are terrified of the future that Gore proposes for them. Showing his film to schools was criminal.
The kids have enough to contend with all the other conspiracy crap they see on the internet.
At least we leave some area of belief for global warming, if indeed it does persist, to be beneficial overall.
The fact is you could scare the pants of people with a scenario either way, and bearing in mind that climate change is a norm, we should all be ducking for cover every time the graph moves either way.
Hey, why not show the kids my graphic of New York covered by 3000 meters of ice – a very real, very recent scenario. Makes the “Day After Tomorrow” scene look tame. Let’s scare them with real, known data.
Wise up guys and stop thinking with a decadel mind set.
> Nick Sault 10.10.08 at 1:16 pm
> Jonno
> “…Gore, if you have problems with his film that simplifies complex published science.â€
> Simplify?? Is that a simile for grossly exaggerate, hype and downright tell lies.
Nick, jonno is not worth bothering with. Just a schoolboy who has swallowed Gore hook, line and sinker.
Sorry Roge, you are an idiot who like to tell lies. In fact, both are you are pathetic, when don’t both just go away. It is real sad you get pleasure from trolling.
Roger, I’ve no idea which Beck paper you’re talking about. I just scanned through all of your posts and couldn’t find it, unless it was buried in the references of one of the paper abstracts you’ve placed wholesale in rather than using a hyperlink.
Could you please cite it correctly.
Perhaps it hasn’t been answered yet; as I understand it, it is common that if an author publishes works that get completely discredited, and doesn’t take the criticism on board, that people will generally ignore their work from then on. Jaworowski comes to mind here.
“Don’t throw rocks Roge, it is you behaving like a small child.”
This is an injustice to most small children of my acquaintance.
>Sam Vilain 10.10.08 at 1:55 pm
> Roger, I’ve no idea which Beck paper you’re talking about. I just scanned through all of your posts and couldn’t find it, unless it was buried in the references of one of the paper abstracts you’ve placed wholesale in rather than using a hyperlink.
Nor do I! I did not cite any Beck paper. Various people assumed that I did merely because I pointed out that there are many carbon dioxide analyses that pre-date the selected analyses that the warmers like to use. It so happens that Beck pointed out the original papers giving these early analyses.
>Could you please cite it correctly.
From all the shit that has been posted here I am led conclude that Beck wrote another paper to which some are taking great exception. I have not seen it, if indeed there is one. Does that clarify things for you?
> Perhaps it hasn’t been answered yet; as I understand it, it is common that if an author publishes works that get completely discredited, and doesn’t take the criticism on board, that people will generally ignore their work from then on.
So far so good.
>Jaworowski comes to mind here.
I suppose his views are unfashionable among the warmers but the the views of Lord Monckton, Professors Carter and de Freitas would be too.
> Perhaps it hasn’t been answered yet; as I understand it, it is common that if an author publishes works that get completely discredited, and doesn’t take the criticism on board, that people will generally ignore their work from then on.
Mann of hockey stick infamy perhaps?
Ok found it. What a laugh those presentations by Beck are. Let’s pick this one apart.
This slide, for instance, makes it look like there were only a couple of milestones in the development of the AGW theory. Compare with the AIP timeline.
Why are sun spots on this graph ?
Slides 2, 3, 4 – Keeling didn’t say that titrimetic gas analysis couldn’t be used to get an accurate reading at all. It’s just not as quick, and not as accurate. Using the IR absorption meter he was quickly able to see how varied it was, and how elevated it was especially in city areas such as Rostok (slide 4).
And, skip to the end, the conclusion. He still doesn’t seem to get that Keeling was interested in uncontaminated air. The average of contaminated readings is completely worthless.
ie, that literature review is actually flawed for the same reasons as his papers – he’s not listening to his critics.
The Growing Revolt against the Climate Alarmists
All over the world, the alarmists are alarmed. The growing scientific
dissent and the refusal of the weather to follow the IPCC computer model
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Coal-powered Poland is leading the revolt within the EU. They are supported
by the valiant and principled Czechs who, almost alone in the world,
recognize the real agenda of the Deep Greens. As the EU Climate Coalition
crumbles, the ring leaders, nuclear-powered France and the German Greens,
cannot stop the rot. Closer to home, one party in the New Zealand elections
and one minor party in Australia has declared against climate alarmism. I
have heard reports of other activist political meetings here.
It is time to magnify the tremors of dissent. It will not start in the green
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the productive and over-taxed provinces, where hands get dirty and real
things are produced.
The Carbon Sense Coalition has sent an open letter to the Premier of
Queensland which can be found below. She is desperate for the Green stamp of
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would also like New Zealanders and our overseas allies to see that someone
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If you wish to print and send by mail, it is easy to download the pdf file
in the link below and print it, preferably in colour. And we are happy for
you to put it or link it on your web sites.
The battle is just starting.
The worst outcome, and the most likely one, would be if they introduced all
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benefits anywhere, but the real agenda well progressed. Slowly the snake
would wake. Exemptions and free permits reduced, controls tightened, scope
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And if the current natural global cooling continues, that will be claimed as
a “benefit”.
We must kill this snake before it is set loose to multiply and spread its
venom.
Viv Forbes
—————————————————————————-
———————————————————————-
“Time to Erase the Emissions Trading Nightmare.”
A statement by Viv Forbes, Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition.
10 Sept 2008
For Immediate Release.
The Carbon Sense Coalition today called on the Premier of Queensland and all
elected members to bring pressure to bear on the Federal Government to
immediately abandon plans for Emissions Trading.
The Chairman of “Carbon Sense”, Mr Viv Forbes, said that at a time of world
economic crisis, the last thing productive Queensland industries need is the
threat of this destructive policy hanging over them.
“Emissions Trading and its carbon taxes must harm Australian industry, and
Queensland will suffer most.
We are assured there are real environmental or climate benefits from all
this sacrifice and warned of dire consequences if we do not act immediately.
Prophecies of climate doom issue weekly from the pulpit of CSIRO.
However, there is growing scientific evidence and opinion that carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere does not control the climate. Thus all the
resources spent on attempting to limit or remove it will be totally wasted.
Australia is totally dependent on carbon-based fuels and farm animals
dependent on the natural carbon cycle. To allow scare mongers from the
Canberra hot-house to demonise the use of these harmless natural products on
which we all depend is economic suicide.
Moreover, there is no proven technology and insufficient capital and time to
significantly replace carbon-based fuels without the nuclear option being
chosen by many countries. And the kangaroo grazing option is too silly for
words.
The targets demanded by Garnaut and the Greens can only be reached if we
engineer or have thrust upon us a major depression of economic activity.
It is time some grass roots politicians from the provinces demanded two
things:
Firstly, an independent scientific assessment of the role of carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere.
Secondly, an independent cost-benefit analysis of this attempt to control
the climate.
(280 words)
For more comment see: “Emissions Trading – Time to Call a Halt” an Open
Letter to the Premier of Queensland and all elected members of state and
federal Parliaments:
http://carbon-sense.com/2008/10/09/open-letter-qld/
Viv Forbes
Chairman
The Carbon Sense Coalition
MS 23 Rosewood Qld 4340
0754 640 533
info@carbon-sense.com
http://www.carbon-sense.com.
No, they are not “unfashionable” among “warmers”. They have been discredited by scientists.
With that change in terminology given – I’ll say that I don’t know about de Freitas, but essentially, yes. They keep writing papers of no relevance because they did not solve the problems identified with their previous papers. Monckton’s works for instance are completely laughable, he thinks he can arrive at a CO2 sensitivity figure with a page of algebra.
That Carbon Sense Coalition spam you just posted Roger doesn’t even deserve a rebuttal, it’s completely devoid of merit. Why don’t you stop trying to introduce more rubbish into this debate and admit defeat.
>That Carbon Sense Coalition spam you just posted Roger doesn’t even deserve a rebuttal, it’s completely devoid of merit. Why don’t you stop trying to introduce more rubbish into this debate and admit defeat.
That may be your view. However your views and those of others here are simply being overtaken by events. Belief in AGW is too closely tied to the economic penalties associated with Kyoto. When the average voter feels that Kyoto is responsible for the pain in his hip pocket he will not be so receptive to the AGW message particularly when he does not see or feel it around him. For the average punter the climate now is colder than last year and he sees pictures of icebergs floating around Dunedin. Rants about polar bears in Alaska etc etc will not cut much ice when his employer has buggered off to Australia. You are backing a loser sonny, and you are backing piss poor science too. Perhaps you might see that when you have worked in the real world for a while. One thing you will learn is that a university may give the bit of paper that enables you to get a job but you will still have to learn that job and you are no use to man or beast until you do.
>No, they are not “unfashionable†among “warmersâ€. They have been discredited by scientists.
A certain brand of scientist either academic or sucking of the taxpayer’s tit may think that these scientists are discredited. Dig around a bit and you will find that there are thousands of well qualified scientists, mainly not sucking off the taxpayer’s tit, who do not share your views.
Roger, you are well and truly deluded, and too tied to your opinions to listen to the thorough discrediting your ideas have received in this now very lengthy debate. I have “dug around a bit”, I even randomly sampled a Wikipedia list of “well qualified scientists” (nowhere near “thousands”, mind) and investigated them. The result? discredited scientists, scientists speaking outside of their field, shonky papers.
And as for the “average punter”, if initiatives such as the ETS have the intended effect people and businesses will just switch to available low-carbon alternatives, and they will have the same quality of life that they enjoy now. That tired old argument is based on A) nothing changing as a result of Kyoto and B) a complete ignorance of the fact that you can’t turn back the clock and go back to the world before global warming. ie, you’re implicitly comparing life with cheap oil and before global warming to life with global warming and no cheap oil. This comparison is completely flawed, like most of your vitriol-infused arguments.
It is you that is backing the loser, Roger.
>Roger, you are well and truly deluded, and too tied to your opinions to listen to the thorough discrediting your ideas have received in this now very lengthy debate. I have “dug around a bitâ€, I even randomly sampled a Wikipedia list of “well qualified scientists†(nowhere near “thousandsâ€, mind) and investigated them. The result? discredited scientists, scientists speaking outside of their field, shonky papers.
You silly little boy. The global warming stuff on Wikipedia was hijacked by ‘stoat’ Connolly years ago. In that field nothing gets past him. All you will find there is the pro Mann pro AGW stuff. Nothing else get a look in. You would be the original sucker, if not so juvenile.
I suspect this is the sort of wiki approach to knowledge that Roger would endorse.
(Warning: link leads to a parallel universe)
>And as for the “average punterâ€, if initiatives such as the ETS have the intended effect people and businesses will just switch to available low-carbon alternatives, and they will have the same quality of life that they enjoy now. That tired old argument is based on A) nothing changing as a result of Kyoto and B) a complete ignorance of the fact that you can’t turn back the clock and go back to the world before global warming. ie, you’re implicitly comparing life with cheap oil and before global warming to life with global warming and no cheap oil. This comparison is completely flawed, like most of your vitriol-infused arguments.
You are so wet-behind-the-ears sonny. The so-called low carbon alternatives simply do not exist in most cases. I do not propose to go into the arguments about wind power, tidal power etc. They do not work in a practical economic and engineering sense.
There are massive oil resources in the Athabaska and other tar sands in north America. They are marginally economic at the moment. If the oil prices stay high enough they will be economic to exploit. Anything is economic at the right price. Furthermore there is nuclear power. The world’s uranium resources have barely been touched. And I probably know more about uranium resources than any other person in NZ.
>I suspect this is the sort of wiki approach to knowledge that Roger would endorse.
Suspect what you like. If you toss a coin often enough the ratio between heads and tails will approach 50% each.
” That tired old argument is based on A) nothing changing as a result of Kyoto and B) a complete ignorance of the fact that you can’t turn back the clock and go back to the world before global warming. ie, you’re implicitly comparing life with cheap oil and before global warming to life with global warming and no cheap oil. This comparison is completely flawed, like most of your vitriol-infused arguments.”
Rubbish. Has whatever passes for your mind escaped into outer space?
Take a good hard look at your lecturers, or teachers if you are still at school, which you may well be, and figure out if any of them have any real world experience or are they just products of an incestuous academic system.
Roger, I am offended by your characterising of people who oppose you as dopey bludging socialists who can’t think for themselves. I am a well-read person with a strong scientific background who has taken the time to familiarise myself with climate science. I have plenty of real world experience , and I pay quite a lot of tax. So just lay off the character assassination.
Gareth, what more does Roger have to do to qualify for troll status?
Nick, you said “And all those who keep bandying about us not being climate scientists – tell me how any one climate scientist, who by necessity would have to be compartmentalised because of the complexity of a vastly chaotic system, can offer a broader opinion than somebody who has taken a view based on readings from a multitude of sciences, and more importantly from field studies?”
This is quite a telling comment – why should field studies be considered separately to science? What exactly do you mean by field studies, and what are you hinting at so darkly? And you seem to be missing the point that the IPCC report was a wide-ranging review and synthesis of a huge range of relevant scientific studies. The views of individual climate scientists are much less important than the overall weight of evidence. Have you even bothered to read it, or just assumed that your own ‘research’ based on your ‘common sense’ and ‘field studies’ is superior? You seem to have some quite fundamental misconceptions about the scientific process and and an evidence-based approach.
Carol
The IPCC are not scientists, they are politicians. It is well documented by petition that there are more scientists who are skeptical than those employed by the IPCC reviewers. If you are hinting back to the so-called “consensus”, this was only ever a fantasy on the part of the politicians. If you are really a scientist then explain how 0.8C over 127 years is somehow to be considered global warming beyond natural fluctuation. Also explain how the Adelie penguins are going to become extinct over a 2C temperature increase, when as a species they have survived through many ice ages. The same goes for all other species that the warmers say are threatened, most which have been around for millions of years and have well survived everything that the Earth’s wild geological variations have thrown at them. Man has also been around for that long, and living in civilisation for, according to Indian history at least 2 million years, and according to the latest English and Scandanavian archaeological evidence 1 million years. That’s at least ten ice ages. We are survivors. A few cars running around and wrong lightbulbs, and taking longer showers, is not going to snuff us out.
Ken Ring
http://www.predictweather.com
“Roger, I am offended by your characterising of people who oppose you as dopey bludging socialists who can’t think for themselves. I am a well-read person with a strong scientific background who has taken the time to familiarise myself with climate science. I have plenty of real world experience , and I pay quite a lot of tax. So just lay off the character assassination.”
Be offended then.
How many metres of technical book have you got on your bookshelf?
What subjects?
And what is your real world experience? Has anybody or anything other than a bureaucracy paid you for scientific expertise? Do not count the paper shuffling.
If you have a worthwhile c.v post it.
>Gareth, what more does Roger have to do to qualify for troll status?
So you want to censor opposing views? You would not be the first warmer to try than one.
“That’s at least ten ice ages. We are survivors. A few cars running around and wrong lightbulbs, and taking longer showers, is not going to snuff us out.”
I sympathise with the sentiment but the next ice age is surely going to clean out the PC dross that burden us now.
“This is quite a telling comment – why should field studies be considered separately to science? What exactly do you mean by field studies, and what are you hinting at so darkly? And you seem to be missing the point that the IPCC report was a wide-ranging review and synthesis of a huge range of relevant scientific studies. The views of individual climate scientists are much less important than the overall weight of evidence. Have you even bothered to read it, or just assumed that your own ‘research’ based on your ‘common sense’ and ‘field studies’ is superior? You seem to have some quite fundamental misconceptions about the scientific process and and an evidence-based approach.”
You have not got past academia have you? The field studies are real science. Sitting on your arse reading other peoples’ crap may get you a degree but little else.
Until you get out and do some real work you will remain unable to distinguish between crap and real science.
Sam,
Are you a student at that once worthwhile institution in Wellington which now employs a lecturer in feminist geography? It once had the best geology department in the country. Sic transit gloria. Have you heard of Harold Wellman. The fellow must be spinning in his grave seeing what is going on now.
Carol, Roger doesn’t yet qualify as a troll in that he seems to be defending, in his own rather rude manner, a view of the world at odds with the rest of us. He isn’t yet doing a Harry, popping up under very post trying to direct the conversation. Harry was funnier, too.
I’m happy to allow his posts to stand – to continue (if he must) – not because they add to our knowledge of climate, but because they are most illuminating about the mindset of NZ’s climate cranks.
I see Roger as the bloke taunting from the castle ramparts. He doesn’t need to look for the Holy Grail, he’s got one already.
I see Roger as a one-man nest of vipers .. defending one’s position is one thing, vicious personal attacks and character assassinations on anyone who challenges you is quite another.
Earlier today Mr Dewhurst, quite succinctly and politely I thought, outlined his position on the climate change debate. Its clearly his bottom line and I could see how he got to that point in his thinking. Its also quite clear that nothing anyone says on this site (or anywhere else) will EVER change his mind. No information, no new data, no person will ever (and I mean ever!) be able to persuade him from his position. (I think this is because he’s incensed at the idea that the government might take a few cents off his income to address climate change issues. ) Well, he’s entitled to his own opinion, however stupid it may seem to other people.
I would like to be able to use this blog to demonstrate to Mr Dewhurst and his chums that there is hope for our economy under the ETS, Kyoto, post Kyoto etc and not all the doom and gloom he predicts, but I don’t fancy my chances!!
Carol, I do enjoy your posts. Yes, the language he uses is quite extraordinary for someone who clearly considers himself an educated and intelligent man. And some of his posts are quite thoughtful, so there is no need for him to abuse people the way he does (Aspergers? Tourette’s?). I’ve found this discussion useful in terms of both what and how climate skeptics think, they are “fundamentalists”.
I did think it was funny that Roger put up the post about the Carbon Sense Coalition calling for an independent review of the role of CO2 in climate change – bring it on! Oh, you don’t need to – there’s already been one.
It appears to be very convenient to attack Roger as a smokescreen for not debating Roger’s points, nor mine for that matter. Is all the warmers can come up with some feigned indignance at Roger’s passion? The fact is, there is absolutely no evidence of global warming beyond the 0.8C since 1880(IPCC). There has been no change in sealevels at Tuvalu for 30 years. 10% more ice has gathered in the N Pole compared to 2007. There is icemass increase in the Arctic, which is now -3C in autumn and in Antarctic which is -60C and springtime. How on earth does anyone with even a smidgeon of scientific knowledge imagine that ice melts at that temperature?
Every scientific point I bring up is unchallenged, whilst I personally am. On an earlier website, run by the climatescience coalition, Gareth so repeatedly personality-attacked me that they closed the chat site down. Is this the state of the warmers’ position – to simply eliminate discussion with scorn, insults and threats to “troll” anyone who reacts in similar vein when attacked?
It seems Roger only lashes out verbally when in defense. First he puts forward cogent arguments but they are ignored. Either we are adults who can hold a reasonable discussion or we are sniping children. Global warmers have yet to produce irrefutable evidence. Which ocean is rising? Which country is warming? Provide links showing that there is fair warming-sampling across the globe, enough for at least a century(because we are discussing century-trends), and not just the 3000 stations based on metropolitan coastal land that are nearly all subject to urban island heating. Provide links showing that standardisation is present at thermal sensor gridboxes, so they are NOT in warm concreted city carparks, mounted on reflective iron roofs or at arports. Provide links showing that CO2 does NOT 100% saturate air at only 10C, above which no further CO2 can be physically added. Provide links showing that the sun does NOT control weather patterns, along with its sidekick, the moon. Then we might get a discussion going. Until then, anymore snapping at the heels of skeptics who attempt to put forward points of discussion must be viewed as complete paucity, both of evidence and consideration of the evidence of an opposing viewpoint.
Ken Ring
http://www.predictweather.com
>I see Roger as a one-man nest of vipers .. defending one’s position is one thing, vicious personal attacks and character assassinations on anyone who challenges you is quite another.
One precedent, among many, was set by the owner of this blog.
>Carol, I do enjoy your posts. Yes, the language he uses is quite extraordinary for someone who clearly considers himself an educated and intelligent man. And some of his posts are quite thoughtful, so there is no need for him to abuse people the way he does (Aspergers? Tourette’s?). I’ve found this discussion useful in terms of both what and how climate skeptics think, they are “fundamentalistsâ€.
Jonno’s posts are OK as far as you are concerned?
> Earlier today Mr Dewhurst, quite succinctly and politely I thought, outlined his position on the climate change debate. Its clearly his bottom line and I could see how he got to that point in his thinking. Its also quite clear that nothing anyone says on this site (or anywhere else) will EVER change his mind. No information, no new data, no person will ever (and I mean ever!) be able to persuade him from his position.
I want to see it before I believe it. And I look very carefully at any proposition put forward or supported by politicians, particularly the likes of Al Gore. From my perspective the whole rort took off after Mann published his fraudulent hockey stick. Bureaucrats climbed onto the bandwagon aided by pseudoscientists with eyes on the ever growing slush fund of grant money. Politicians saw it as another source of taxes and something to put a bit of fear into the population. There is nothing like a good distraction to divert the population away for the internal rorts. Going to war is one of the best ways to divert the population. Soekarno used that technique in Indonesia some years ago. Then the lawyers , accountants and sundry others saw the pickings to be made and climbed on the bandwagon as well.
> (I think this is because he’s incensed at the idea that the government might take a few cents off his income to address climate change issues.
That is incidental. It shear stupidity of it that annoyed me most.
) Well, he’s entitled to his own opinion, however stupid it may seem to other people.
Your views will very soon be irrelevant as we are all being overtaken by events in the financial sector worldwide. When you have $100,000 negative equity in your house and the bank is pressing you for money climate change will seem pretty trivial.
>I would like to be able to use this blog to demonstrate to Mr Dewhurst and his chums that there is hope for our economy under the ETS, Kyoto, post Kyoto etc and not all the doom and gloom he predicts, but I don’t fancy my chances!!
Help yourself; please do. I would love to see how you attempt to do it.
I rather think though the ‘post Kyoto’ will mean Kyoto truly dead and buried.
Do you seriously think that Kyoto will even get the time of day in the midst of the coming recession?
Another’s view:
“After 20 years of research and about $20 bn expenditure on climate science,
there is NO hard evidence that manmade CO2 causes dangerous warming. For
example: according to IPCC sources (NASA and Hadley crut3) the world has cooled
since 1998 and the cooling has been unequivocal since 2002. At the same time CO2
concentrations increased by 4.5%; if CO2 and other greenhouse gases caused
warming, it would be most pronounced in the upper atmosphere. Computers predict
this warming and radiosondes and satellite show that they are wrong. There have
been few sunspots over the last year or more and the next sunspot cycle has yet
to start. Both correlate strongly with global cooling. Climate models have never
been validated – in the sense that have proved to be accurate models of the
climate system and have proved to make accurate forecasts. (They all missed the
cooling since 1998.) Therefore they have NO credibility. NONE!
Manmade global warming will, I am sure, turn out to be the biggest fraud in the
history of the world. “Climate scientists” and carbon traders will as reviled as
bankers are now.”
Leaders of EU countries plan to use the global financial crisis as an excuse to renege on climate change commitments, according to sources close to energy negotiations in Brussels. Papers seen by the Guardian suggest the EU council, which meets next week, propose dropping the previous commitment to an automatic increase in emissions cuts if the world gets a major climate change agreement next year. It also intends to allow countries to avoid having to cut their own emissions by letting them purchase a large proportion of reductions from overseas.
–John Vidal and Juliette Jowit, The Guardian, 9 October 2008
Roger,
I think Jonno should desist from name calling too, but your posts are altogether much fouler. I can’t access this site from work any more, because of the language in your posts over and above anyone else’s. Plus I don’t really see why you use this level of invective. You don’t need to to make your points. so that’s why I think you’re not coming at this from the science angle at all, but from what seems to be a hatred of some groups in society.
Ken, you know all those points have been debated endlessly.
Please tell me what is this piece of evidence that would change your mind?
Is there really anything you would be prepared to accept?
Roger, you’re doing that thing again, where you say the planet is cooling, when in post 315 you stated that you accepted that the planet was generally warming as you would expect it to do in an interglacial period.
“I think Jonno should desist from name calling too, but your posts are altogether much fouler. I can’t access this site from work any more, because of the language in your posts over and above anyone else’s. Plus I don’t really see why you use this level of invective.”
I have looked through most of my posts here and the only expression that I can find which could conceivably have resulted in denial of access through your work (teaching perhaps?) site include the words “sucking off the taxpayer’s tit”. Some might describe that as robust, some might consider it widespread idiomatic Australia/New Zealand english, but few except the prudish in our society would call it foul or describe it as invective.
I suspect that what really upsets you is the inability to refute the logic of my case. You believe what you belief because it is fashionable, particularly in ‘education’ circles to do so rather than because you have gone out and observed the real world and drawn your conclusions from established fact, what you have seen and can deduce. Doubtless you think that you are drawing conclusions from established facts, but you are not.
>”Roger, you’re doing that thing again,
What “thing”?
>where you say the planet is cooling, when in post 315 you stated that you accepted that the planet was generally warming as you would expect it to do in an interglacial period.”
Is this what you mean?
> 3) In other posts you agree that the planet is warming and that it is caused by changes in greenhouse gases, but not those added to the atmosphere by human activity.
I do not think I agreed to that. I have agreed that the climate has warmed generally, but not continuously, from the end of the Little Ice Age. I have certainly not ascribed this to greenhouse gases.
Or this:
In short I accept that there has been a general warming trend since the end of the Little Ice Age, but the rate has been well within the norm. I accept that there has been a steady increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide since about 1950. What I do not accept is any good correlation between the two. I do not accept either that global warming is largely due to greenhouse gases.
The climate warmed after the Little Ice Age.
It warmed intermittently until about eight years ago.
For the last eight years or so it has been cooling slightly.
However there are minor peaks and troughs superimposed on this pattern.
You seem to be having a little trouble with the language.
Roger, Calling Helen Clark ‘the Fuhrer’ is offensive. Being offensive and belligerent is hardly conducive to civilised discussion. But good on you for taking the time to set out your views in a clear manner, as you did previously.
Ken, I’m still waiting for you to supply evidence that Sherwood Rowland retracted his Nobel Prize-winning work on the link between CFCs and stratospheric ozone depletion. This is rather a stumbling block for your credibility.
Hilary, good on you for continuing to engage with these challenging persons when everyone else seems to have given up.
I was waiting for some sort of feedback, however prissy.
[Edited: Roger, robust debate is fine, as I’ve said before, but gratuitous offensiveness (of all sorts) is not. Moderate your language please.]
Roger, you never fail to deliver! A tour de force of offensiveness.
>Hilary, good on you for continuing to engage with these challenging persons when everyone else seems to have given up.
Have they run away with their tails between their legs or perhaps the public tit does not feed them with computer time on Saturdays?
>Roger, you never fail to deliver! A tour de force of offensiveness.
Never indeed. Thank you.
“Have they run away with their tails between their legs or perhaps the public tit does not feed them with computer time on Saturdays?”
Enjoying your superannuation, Roger?
>Enjoying your superannuation, Roger?
I have paid enough tax in return for the pittance I get from the state.
I am not a teacher and I don’t mind how much you cuss and carry on, quite amusing in some ways, but “sucking off the taxpayer’s tit†are hardly the words of a gentleman.
The taxes you paid while you were working paid for the things you used at the time you paid them. Current taxpayers are paying the superannuation you are now receiving.
>I am not a teacher and I don’t mind how much you cuss and carry on, quite amusing in some ways, but “sucking off the taxpayer’s tit†are hardly the words of a gentleman.
If women wanted gentlemen they would behave like ladies. They stopped doing that long ago. You are reaping the harvest from the seeds you planted.
“Ken, I’m still waiting for you to supply evidence that Sherwood Rowland retracted his Nobel Prize-winning work on the link between CFCs and stratospheric ozone depletion. This is rather a stumbling block for your credibility.”
Carol, I find my posts here are not getting through
Ken, so far as I can determine, your posts are not hitting any spam filter issues: they seem to “get through” just fine. If you are having problems posting, let me know and I’ll try to sort them out.
Of course, if you mean that your posts are not persuading anyone to change their minds, that’s because the positions you adopt are nonsensical. The arguments you make have been rebutted so many times that a reasonable person might expect you to acknowledge the fact. But you (and Roger, and Nick, etc) never do. It amounts to arguing with children: “yes it is”, “no it isn’t”.
Boring, in other words.
Gareth, I post, press Submit, but posts do not appear (screen goes blank)
Ken
In the first place Rowland did not prove anything so there is little need to prove he withdrew anything. Who would withdraw a cash cow?
These points have NOT been thoroughly debated, here or anywhere else. They have been scorned on this forum by non-science-minded braggards seemingly too lazy to do any real research into cycles. In the US the debate is at last getting a foothold, as the western world is slowly becoming aware that the Green movement’s stated aim is to undermine wealth, and by preaching gloom, doom and planet wrecking they have contributed to the ongoing collapse of world financial systems, which rely on optimism and confidence for speculative investment, only which in turn can stimulate growth.
It is a matter of rather suppressed world history that the Kyoto Protocol was drummed up by Al Gore and Enron who saw a way of taxing every industry in the world that ran an engine.
http://www.predictweather.co.nz/assets/articles/article_resources.php?id=43
Gore was operating on the apron strings of Maggie Thatcher, who, through her purpose-established Hadley Centre for Climate Change set aside state funds to “find” evidence that coal emissions were warming(and so harming) the air, so she could smash unionism, starting with the coal miners. It was a right wing move, financially encouraged by Dupont and Shell, to bring in nuclear power for electricity generation. When the coal miners subsequently went on strike Thatcher was able to get the public mandate she needed to finish militant unionism off, channeling public energy into military conservationism. It was a case of taking the same people and spearheading them in a different direction. They were already marching – they didn’t really care where. Thatcher and Gore really kicked off the global warming scare. It was a money trail all the way. The scientific world laughed until generous research funding became widespread. At the time they particularly found Rowland’s claims very amusing. Job protection has altered science. Western governments now need the Green vote to retain power, and so appease them with ecolegislation. Climate or scientific truth has nothing to do with it.
I seem to be Australia and NZ’s only longrange forecaster, as far as websites and/or publications are concerned. Metservice and NIWA personnel describe themselves as “extended range”, or presumably they too would be putting out almanacs a year ahead the same as me. I expect that in 50 years time, i.e.2058, weather/climate patterns will be, in terms of warming or cooling patterns, like the years 1890, 1909, 1928, 1946, 1965, 1983, and 2002. There is no mystery and no need for panic, unless readers found those particular years unbearably horrifying.
We can look forward to a hot dry summer in 2008/9, the dryness ending in the first week of February, and a longer and colder winter next year, so cold that the Shotover River may freeze over. If that sounds like global warming to anyone then so be it. But it sounds to me like a cycle. If anyone has a different prediction regarding the Shotover, let’s hear it now. But if no one else does, then obviously, in this forum at least, no one else feels qualified to discuss future weather patterns even a year ahead.
Ken Ring
http://www.predictweather.com
Blah, Blah, Blah, more crazy shit!
“I seem to be Australia and NZ’s only long range forecaster”
Well done Ken, looks like you cornered the market there. I would assume that as you are so dead set against people getting paid for their work in the climate field, you are doing all this because you love us.
Ken, it is a blatant lie to state that Sherwood Rowland did not prove anything. He convinced the world’s scientific community of the link between anthropogenic CFCs and stratospheric ozone depletion to the extent that he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1995. You can read about it here if you can prise your mind far enough open.
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1995/presentation-speech.html
You specifically stated in a previous exchange that Rowland had ‘retracted’ this work. I challenged you to produce evidence of this; you have been unable to do so. You have been caught out in a blatant fabrication, and your grasp of the scientific process can only be described as mediaeval.
Ken, my new man, you’re much more fun than Roger or Nick! I’m more than happy to make predictions about the weather in ten years time (does mean Gareth will have to keep this blog open til then though).
I have no idea how often the Shotover river freezes or whether it does or doesn’t at all. (Someone who knows will have to tell me, please.) But I take it from your post that it hasn’t for a while.
If it DOESN’T freeze over next winter, will that mean that global warming is true?
A hot/dry summer with rain (or something else that ends dryness) occurring in the first week of Feb. I could predict that. Could you be more specific. Location of hot and dry, temperature range.
The Mauna Loa CO2 record shows a very tidy near sinusoidal fluctuation in temperature with an annual periodicity. This is superimposed on a straight line with a slight upward trend.
The temperature records which are accepted by the IPCC show neither the annual fluctuation or the longer term trend. In short there is no correlation between CO2 and temperature.
Jonno
Sorry, you are too irrational and rude. I can no longer reply to any of your posts.
Laurence
I am not against anyone earning a living doing what they think is correct. Climatologists and meteorologists – I know many personally, all nice people and they do a brilliant job in what they do. But even they admit they have no long range system. What is the problem?
Carol
Getting a Nobel Prize is political. Look at Al Gore, not a scientist but a politician. Rowland at a 1993 NATO Advanced Workshop on ozone depletion, got into difficulty answering a question on why there are no measured increases in UV if there is ozone depletion. Rowland put the blame on the measuring devices, but Dan Berger, inventor of the devices, said that was not the case. I shall continue looking for his retraction. See:
http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/Ingles/OzoneTheory.html
Hilary
The Shotover freezes as to moon cycles. If it doesn’t freeze next winter it just means it wasn’t cold enough. Global warming is happening, no one denies that, but 0.8C over 127 years is insignificant and not caused by man.
“A hot/dry summer with rain (or something else that ends dryness) occurring in the first week of Feb. I could predict that.”
But you didn’t. I did.
“Could you be more specific.”
As specific as the Metservice? In longrange they declare for the North Island and the South island. Do you want a particular street? Are you prepared to pay for my time or are you just a freebie seeker? I have already told you of matching past years.
http://www.idahostatesman.com/102/story/530075.html
Across the Treasure Valley, tree branches heavy with wet, snow-covered leaves fell on power lines, causing scattered power outages. This is the earliest measurable snowfall in Boise since recordkeeping began in 1898, according to the National Weather Service.
Ken, it’s your only response to any scientific finding you don’t like, isn’t it? Just dismiss it as a politically motivated conspiracy and a cash cow into the bargain. Convenient and intellectually feeble.
And Roger, please tell me you don’t spend your days trawling the internet for articles about cold weather!
> Ken, it’s your only response to any scientific finding you don’t like, isn’t it? Just dismiss it as a politically motivated conspiracy and a cash cow into the bargain. Convenient and intellectually feeble.
The IPCC did get scientific papers but the ones they used are general edited by the bureaucrats to convey the message that they want. Some scientists have been so angered by the misinterpretation of their work that they have threatened to sue the IPCC. The stuff emanating from the IPCC is not science but propaganda laced with sufficient science to make it appear plausible to the gullible. As for the cash cow just look for the lawyers and accountants for have started climate change departments in order to share in the rort.
>And Roger, please tell me you don’t spend your days trawling the internet for articles about cold weather!
I do not. Like minded people just send them to me.
Ken and Roger… my loss, really… my life wont be fulfilled without you two crazies.
“And Roger, please tell me you don’t spend your days trawling the internet for articles about cold weather!”
Carol, you do mean newspaper articles eh? Cos it would be hard to find any legitimate peer reviewed sources.
Roger, Ken and I were not talking about the IPCC. We were talking about the 1995 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, which Ken thinks is a politically motivated conspiracy.
This is about as wrong as it’s possible to be. The IPCC process is a careful review of the literature (all of it), conducted by respected senior scientists. It is – explicitly – a conservative process.
The crank underground is very well organised – newsletters, mailing lists, etc, usw and so on. That’s how Roger gets his talking points – and that’s why his comments bear so little relation to reality.
Ken, however, is much more creative. His alternate history of the late 20th century (see earlier posts) is a majestic work of fiction.
But Roger, you can’t back that up with a credible example, can you?
Mr Ring, this statement is false on many accounts, but the principle non-sequitur is that you imply that because of the level of warning that it must not be caused by man.
Secondly, I think you do not have sufficient justification to label comment 402 as “irrational”. Rude, yes. But entirely rational to follow a cynical, rambling post with a curt post challenging readers to find any merit in it at all.
I apologies to everyone else (par the crazies) for my rudeness, however, I am sick of this stuff.
There is no point even discuss climate change with them, because they are so conceited. How bizarre, they seem to all agree on anthropogenic climate change and back each other up, but come on, does Roge really think that Ken is correct with his forecasts, and if he does, what would Augie say? Does Nick think that Ken is not crazy with his forecasts, but then go on about the crazies and 9/11 and their lack of science?
Well said, Gareth.
The link Ken provided in post 407 is an orchestrated litany of lunacy. It is devoted to undermining scientific orthodoxy in many forms – bring back CFCs DDT and leaded petrol!
For Ken to accuse people who don’t agree with him of being non-science-minded is just .. well, words fail me.
Still, I quite like the idea of him devoting his life to hunting for a retraction from Sherwood Rowland – keeps him off the street.
Carol
“Ken, it’s your only response to any scientific finding you don’t like, isn’t it? Just dismiss it as a politically motivated conspiracy and a cash cow into the bargain”.
You’re confusing me with the warmers’ stance regarding skeptics, all of whom are supposed to be in the pocket of the oil barons. I wish! The IPCC are NOT scientists anymore than Al Polar Bear Gore is. And I never said the Nobel Prize process was a ” politically motivated conspiracy”. However it is political, which is why Yasser Arafat, the world’s worst terrorist in history, won it one year.
Sam
There is no way man caused the last Ice Age, nor the warming since, nor the PREVIOUS interglacial. As regards “irrational” I will not be drawn into conversation with bullies, insulters and shin-kickers. I get more respect from dogs.
I’m still waiting to be challenged on the current forecasts I am putting out. Here’s some more, to keep it simple, based around today’s date: rain in Christchurch on 13 November, also 13/14 December and again 12/13 Jan next year. Give or take a day. By no means the only rain dates, but you can ring your calendar. This is Neptune/moon’s month cycle, and it works in threes. I further predict this will produce another behaviour pattern of scoffs, retorts and sniggers from Carol No Name, Hilary No Name, Gareth, Laurence No Name and co, that here passes for scientific discussion.
Ken Ring
http://www.predictweather.com
Ken, it’s not too surprising that the Nobel Peace Prize has a political context – how could it not?
But it’s drawing a long and desperate bow to suggest that the scientific prizes are political.
Do you really believe all the crazy stuff on that site you linked to, for instance about leaded petrol being harmless?
That site is his own…
“But it’s drawing a long and desperate bow to suggest that the scientific prizes are political.”
Oh? What has climate got to do with peace? Gore’s “prize” was organised by Norway, hotbed of Green activism. In 1995 Rowlands was breaking new ground, but 13 years later his work has not been accepted. Science must change and update or it is not science.
Of course leaded petrol is harmful. But emissions, being mostly water vapour are not, unless one puts one’s nose into a tailpipe or sits halfway up a chimney on a cold fire-burning night. Remember gases dissipate, not accumulate.
Listen to the people who know, not the poltical ones tied into governments, like Jim Salinger at NIWA
“The latest data shows that both the northern and southern ice caps are actually growing. The recent studies of the ice core show that rises in temperature are followed by a release of carbon dioxide, not the other way around. I’ll be in New Zealand soon, and two of the major glaciers there are growing like the clappers. And from 1998 there has been no rise at all in the temperature of the earth. Indeed, all the sunspot data tells us we’re headed for 15 very cold years”.
David Bellamy
>There is no point even discuss climate change with them, because they are so conceited. How bizarre, they seem to all agree on anthropogenic climate change and back each other up, but come on, does Roge really think that Ken is correct with his forecasts, and if is does, what would Augie say? Does Nick think that Ken is not crazy with his forecasts, but then go on about the crazies and 9/11 and their lack of science?
I have never made any comment here or anywhere else on what Ken Ring has written. His forecasts aside, on which I do not propose to offer any comment whatever, much of what he is written here is factual
Ken, who – apart from you – does not accept Rowland’s work? Provide some evidence of the non-crazy variety or please just shut up and graciously accept defeat on this point.
Ken, quoting Bellamy approvingly isn’t helping your argument because (to coin a phrase), he’s wrong about everything.
“http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/the-climate-change-
unbelievers-958237.html”http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-cha
nge/the-climate-change-unbelievers-958237.html
Featuring David Bellamy, Ruth Lea, Piers Corbyn, Lord Nigel Lawson, Martin
Durkin and Hans Schreuder ALL WITH PICS! Interesting how our – ‘Climate
Sceptics’ – robust resistance to being denounced as Climate Change ‘Deniers’
has now got us called the less perjorative ‘Unbelievers’ .
We now have to change that into us being The Believers (in evidence-based
science) and the GWers labelled the fraudsters that they are.
“Of course leaded petrol is harmful. But emissions, being mostly water vapour are not, unless one puts one’s nose into a tailpipe or sits halfway up a chimney on a cold fire-burning night. Remember gases dissipate, not accumulate.”
Sorry Ken, once again WRONG. Lead petrol accumulates as lead dust on the side of the road. I remember doing an experiment for analytical chemistry back in the 1990s. The lecturer got the class to test road dust for lead content and had done so for years. The experiment showed that road dust had high levels of lead content. This lead level reduced once lead was removed from petrol.
You aren’t very smart, are you Ken!
Roger, you’ll find that Independent story is top post on Hot Topic at the moment. Click on “home” up above the banner, or go here.
Sam Vilain 10.13.08 at 10:42 am
>>Some scientists have been so angered by the misinterpretation of their work that they have threatened to sue the IPCC.
>But Roger, you can’t back that up with a credible example, can you?
Yes!
Paul Reichter? did threaten to sue the IPCC – if they did not take his name off the list of authors on their projected malaria scare with GW. He stated it in the GGWS . He was their malaria expert – but when he sw the draft of their summary – as prepared by the bureaucrats, he wanted nothing to do with it. But they wanted his name on it , as the leading malaria expert.
I will try and track down the reference.
Gareth 10.13.08 at 1:45 pm
> Ken, quoting Bellamy approvingly isn’t helping your argument because (to coin a phrase), he’s wrong about everything.
Put your qualifications and reputation up against Professor Bellamy’s and you are not even in the picture!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bellamy’s qualifications are irrelevant. He’s making statements that are simply wrong. It’s embarrassing to see a bloke who has done a lot of good over his career go so far of the rails. He is now (more than ever) a laughing stock.
Bellamy can’t even press the shift key correctly and ends up getting a 5 instead of a % … what a laughing stock
Gareth 10.13.08 at 2:15 pm
> Bellamy’s qualifications are irrelevant. He’s making statements that are simply wrong. It’s embarrassing to see a bloke who has done a lot of good over his career go so far of the rails. He is now (more than ever) a laughing stock.
Has it occurred to you that he might be right and you wrong?
Paul Reiter not Paul Reichter.
Here is just one of the several URLs available by googling “malaria +
ipcc + paul reiter”.
http://www.ofcomswindlecomplaint.net/Misreprestn_Views/IPCC/MalariaAndProcesses.htm
Just like he was right about the glaciers eh Roge?
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2005/05/10/junk-science/
Thanks for linking to the swindle complaint, does that mean you agree with it… must be!
hahahhahahahahhahahahhahhahahhahahhahhahhahahaha
“Of course leaded petrol is harmful. But emissions, being mostly water vapour are not, unless one puts one’s nose into a tailpipe or sits halfway up a chimney on a cold fire-burning night. Remember gases dissipate, not accumulate.”
Sigh.
Ken, what do you think happened to the lead additives in petrol after the petrol was used up? Did they disappear? Please, I am fascinated by your views on the biogeochemical cycling of lead.
jonno 10.13.08 at 2:28 pm
Just like he was right about the glaciers eh Roge?
http://www.monbiot.com/archive…..k-science/
You are really scraping the bottom of the barrel if you need Monbiot to support your case.
At least my barrel is correct, unlike your barrel of complete rubbish… Bellamy was wrong, just like you.
Did you even read the link you posted roge… the link just proves how wrong you are!
Hey Roge, your silence is deafening…
Has it occurred to you that we might be right and you wrong? Hahahhahahha
Jonno, I think he and Ken are out prowling the fringes of science, looking out for stray facts they might be able to pounce on ..
>Ken, what do you think happened to the lead additives in petrol after the petrol was used up? Did they disappear? Please, I am fascinated by your views on the biogeochemical cycling of lead.
I would be very surprised if there was not an anomalous level of lead in the soils surrounding main roads. This lead will become adsorbed onto clay and silt particles. Lead is not particularly mobile in this environment and thus it is not likely to move very far. The natural tenor of lead in soils in areas of lead mineralization (along with copper and zinc generally) is often 100 parts per million or more. It is not absorbed by plants though several absorb zinc and copper and thus is unlikely to present any particular threat to humans. There is, after, no threat to humans, sheep or grouse (except of course when hit by the pellets) in the grouse shooting moors in Scotland where tens or hundreds of thousands of cartridges each containing an ounce of more of lead have been discharged from the butts. The areas surrounding some of these butts must constitute veritable lead mines!
Where do you all find your correlation between carbon dioxide and temperature?
Hey roge, thanks for the link. From it I found
http://www.ofcomswindlecomplaint.net/emails/MartinParryEmailRePaulReiter.pdf
This link tells us that Reiter resigning is a load of bull… nice one!
And from the ofcom complaint about that film full of rubbish
http://www.ofcomswindlecomplaint.net/FullComplaint/p96.htm#C115
Re Comment 440
You can listen to Roge or else you can listen to real science
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=2263033&blobtype=pdf
Yes. So I checked (had to go through this particular canard with a previous sceptic commenter calling himself Harry the Hat). Arctic sea ice is at record low volume, Greenland’s losing ice mass (upcoming post on that, soon), Antarctica’s losing ice mass, and as anyone keeping up would know, NZ’s losing ice mass (here).
He’s wrong.
Basic physics. Understood for more than 150 years. If changes in atmospheric CO2 didn’t affect global temp, we’d be living on an ice ball. Try reading Weart (Discovery of Global Warming – link’s in blogroll).
Roger, we are straying well away from climate science here, but seeing you are interested, there has been a substantial body of research carried out here in NZ on the link between lead in petrol and human health. You are right that lead is not particularly mobile, but lead aerosol was found to enrich roadside dust with lead, and this dust was found to be quite widespread through houses near busy roads. Children are particularly vulnerable to lead-contaminated dust.
Some further reading:
DM Fergusson et al. (1988) A longitudinal study of dentine lead levels, intelligence, school performance and behaviour: Part I dentine lead levels and exposure to environmental risk factors. The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry volume 29, 781-792. [these are New Zealand authors, and the longitudinal study was based in Christchurch].
So actually you and Ken are categorially wrong when you state that lead in petrol caused no threats to human health. There is quite an extensive literature on the subject, which I am happy to point you towards. I’m sure you’ll be happy to become better informed.
For an international perspective, check out the following:
V.M. Thomas et al. (1999) Effects of reducing lead in gasoline: an analysis of the international experience. Environmental Science and Technology 33, pages 3942-3948.
And I didn’t have to search for these papers – they are in my files and on my bookshelf. I only mention this as you cast aspersions on my grasp of matters technical.
>Basic physics. Understood for more than 150 years. If changes in atmospheric CO2 didn’t affect global temp, we’d be living on an ice ball. Try reading Weart (Discovery of Global Warming – link’s in blogroll).
I do not think that anyone is denying that that effect exists. It is the magnitude of the effect relative to the factors that is in dispute. If CO2 is the major influence on climate there would be a good correlation between CO2 and temperature. There is not.
>Roger, we are straying well away from climate science here, but seeing you are interested, there has been a substantial body of research carried out here in NZ on the link between lead in petrol and human health. You are right that lead is not particularly mobile, but lead aerosol was found to enrich roadside dust with lead, and this dust was found to be quite widespread through houses near busy roads. Children are particularly vulnerable to lead-contaminated dust.
I am well aware of the dangers of lead in paint but I was writing about the dangers of lead in soil where most of the lead from petrol finishes up.
Gareth, Is this thread some kind of record for length and obtuseness?
Re comment 446:
This guy does:
http://www.ilovemycarbondioxide.com/about.html
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v3.pdf
Do you agree Roge? He too is a climate change liar!
Roger, sorry but you are plain wrong here. Go and read those references, there’s a good chap.
Carol 10.13.08 at 4:55 pm
>Roger, sorry but you are plain wrong here. Go and read those references, there’s a good chap.
What are you referring to?
Every reference that has been posted to show you how wrong you are
By a considerable margin on both counts… 😉
It’s made me think we need a Hot Topic forum so that the “debate” can happen on a more organised basis. Easily organised…
>It’s made me think we need a Hot Topic forum so that the “debate†can happen on a more organised basis. Easily organised…
Of course. Just filter out any opposing points of view. Your lot are good at that.
jonno 10.13.08 at 5:49 pm
> Every reference that has been posted to show you how wrong you are
References merely reflect the view of the writer and the view of the person selecting the reference.
Deal with the lack of correlation between atmospheric CO2, as measured at you favourite site, Mauna Loa, and world temperatures as shown by your favourites in that field. Piss or get off the pot sonny.
Roger, please read post 445 again. You appear to have no knowledge of the very considerable body of knowledge that exists on the relationship between lead in petrol and public health concerns. Did you ever wonder why lead was removed from petrol?
I have kindly provided you with a starting point for becoming better informed on this topic.
You mean the way that I filter your views here?
A Hot Topic forum, if it happens (and I’m not convinced it’ll get enough traffic to be worthwhile), will have the same posting standards as the comments on here. All opinions tolerated, provided they break no laws and are expressed politely.
Re: CO2 correlation with global temp. Why so fixated on that, Roger? You admit the physics, so an increase in temperature is to be expected alongside the 35% increase in atmospheric CO2 over the last 150 years. The reason that the temp curve wiggles is because there’s more to it than just CO2 – other factors in play. It’s a complex system, not given to simple correlations.
“Piss or get off the pot sonny.”
Mate,no need to be like that, just cause you keep losing the battle and I keep pointing out how pathetic you are. So how is that Paul Reiter reference going.
Sorry Roge, you just crack me up, you can’t even keep up with me. You’re a sad old man who has nothing to do but cry in your sour milk!
Jonno, Carol, Science is completely irrelevant to Roger and Ken (and previously Nick who put himself out of contention by pointing out that he thought that science couldn’t be relied on to prove anything and therefore anything he said in defence of anything was unprovable and irrelevant).
Roger and Ken are fixated on the idea that other people are somehow making money out of climate change and they are not (and they think that the more people take climate change seriously the more money they will somehow miss out on. All their posts come back to this point. The people they are worried will make money out of climate change appear to include all women and some men.
If you said that you were a climate change skeptic, Roger and Ken would agree with anything you said and would think that you were completely consistent and logical, even if you said that it was going to be so cold next winter that the Shotover River was going to freeze and then straight away you said that if it didn’t freeze that was because it wasn’t cold enough. But because you point out that the Arctic isn’t freezing over any more in summer BECAUSE IT ISN’T COLD ENOUGH, well you’re just trying to get money off taxpayers.
Anyway, I predict that all future summers will be warm or hot. Bye for now.
This is an argument which contains a logical fallacy, known as the false dichotomy. Two options are presented, as if they are the only two options, and then one is demonstrated to be false, with the implication being that by elimination of possibilities, the remaining option is therefore true.
It is quite easy to expose the delusion present in arguments like this – you just have to demonstrate the existence of a third option. For instance, that there exists a type of correlation that hasn’t been considered – perhaps the system has internal feedbacks which dampen immediate response to the external forcing condition.
It’s important to note that to undermine a false dichotomy you don’t have to prove that the alternative is true, you just need to point out that the third option exists, and the dilemma presented falls flat on its face.
“References merely reflect the view of the writer and the view of the person selecting the reference.”
It is ironic that you posted that. So what does it say about you? A lot!
Roger
It is a waste of time here. They misquote you then spit and squeal over what they misheard. For instance I have never said lead in petrol is good for you, never said the globe is not warming, and did say I expect the next winter to be so cold Shotover may freeze and if it doesn’t then it does not mean AGW is any more a fact.
Have you noticed that what I and you do say, the actual facts, are never discussed. So what does that tell you?
This seems to be only a forum for Gareth groupies. When confronted with evidential science they behave like banshees, the reason being that the concept of AGW is so ludicrous it just defies discussion. When top scientists speak, with no axe to grind, like Bellamy, Augie Auer, Bob Carter, Tim Ball etc, folk hiding furtively behind phony names like “Carol”, “Hilary” etc, imagine they know better. What publications have they written?
Gareth thinks changes in atmospheric CO2 affect global temp, but fails to realise that CO2 100% saturates air at only 10C . The air simply holds no more CO2 after that relative coolness and so the excess CO2 just drops back into the ocean, yes, drops, because CO2 is nearly twice as heavy as air(CO2 MW= 44, air MW=29). 10C is very cool. Between most seasons in most locations, air temperature fluctuation exceeds that. Therefore, Gareth groupies, CO2 CANNOT cause changes in air temperature.
Ken Ring
http://www.predictweather.com
Interesting concept you have there Ken, any danger of you explaining how that works.
Weasel words, Ken. I have tried hard to debate factual issues with you and Roger. Where did I misquote you on ozone depletion? The fact is, I challenged you to find evidence that Sherwood Rowland has retracted his work and you have been unable to do so.
Hilary
When did I say science cannot prove anything? I think I made it clear that there are massively chaotic systems, like climate, that are too complex to come up with “proofs” from narrow corridors of science.
God, you are a fisher. remember you are the one who looked me up and judged me because I worked for the Arabian American Oil company, like thousands of other Brits at the time. hey, we had an influx of 250000 Filipinos construction workers at the time. I suppose they are all now die-hard oil men. I was a f….ing computer programmer, hardly an oil executive.
You are a very sad person, Hilary.
You asked for papers and I thought it best to produce them as I get them rather than try and dig out old ones.
So, here’s one regarding Atlantic Hurricanes, and how they are NOT becoming more frequent or more severe, in direct contradiction to the predictions about global warming.
In fact none of the model predictions are happening, are they? Funny that.
http://www.agu.org/contents/journals/ViewPapersInPress.do?journalCode=JD#id2008JD010036
Multi-decadal variability of Atlantic hurricane activity: 1851-2007
Petr Chylek1 and Glen Lesins2
ABSTRACT
An analysis of Atlantic hurricane data (HURDAT), using a hurricane activity index that integrates over hurricane numbers, durations and strengths during the years 1851-2007, suggests a quasi-periodic behavior with a period around 60 years superimposed upon a linearly increasing background. The linearly increasing background is significantly reduced or removed when various corrections were applied for hurricane under-counting in the early portion of the record. The periodic-like behavior is persistent in uncorrected HURDAT data as well as in data corrected for possible missing storms. The record contains two complete cycles: 1860-1920 and 1920-1980. The 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons were unusual in that two intense hurricane seasons occurred in consecutive years. The probability for this happening in any given year is estimated to be less then 1%. Comparing the last 28 years (1980-2007) with the preceding 28 years (1953-1980) we find a modest increase in the number of minor hurricanes (category 1 and 2), however, we find no increase in the number of major hurricanes (category 3-5). The hurricane activity index is found to be highly correlated with the Atlantic Multi-decadal Mode (AMM). If there is an increase in hurricane activity connected to a greenhouse gas induced global warming, it is currently obscured by the 60 year quasi-periodic cycle.
1 Space and Remote Sensing, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87544
2 Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada
Laurence
May I suggest you Google it yourself. CO2 does not fill the air linearly, but logarithmically. After a certain temperature, CO2 can be doubled, tripled etc in output but in the air, but no more can be held than about 3 parts on 10,000 . The level is 300-400 ppm and has been so for millions of years. If you want evidence and are serious about this, email me at enquiries@predictweather.com. I’ll be happy to supply.
Carol
Get past it. I have better things to do than appease someone hiding behind a pseudonym.
Ken Ring
http://www.predictweather.com
I rather like the concept of “Gareth groupies”, but I guess they won’t look like Penny Lane.
Ken, your ingenuity never ceases to amaze me. Once again, normal physics is left gasping in your slipstream. You are wrong, of course, because the moon’s tidal effects on the atmosphere are strong enough to keep the CO2 mixed… 😉
>Re: CO2 correlation with global temp. Why so fixated on that, Roger? You admit the physics, so an increase in temperature is to be expected alongside the 35% increase in atmospheric CO2 over the last 150 years. The reason that the temp curve wiggles is because there’s more to it than just CO2 – other factors in play. It’s a complex system, not given to simple correlations.
“other factors in play. It’s a complex system, not given to simple correlations.” EXACTLTY and the other factors are more important. Other factors being sufficiently significant to cause the ice ages, the warming in Minoan times, Roman times, mediaeval times, the Little Ice Age and the post Little Ice Age warming.
If CO2 is sufficient to cause the warming since the end of the Little Ice Age there would be some observable correlation between CO2 and temperature. But there is not. That is it sonny boy.
>I rather like the concept of “Gareth groupiesâ€
Neat. It sums you up well enough. It would have been nice if he could have dragged Genetic Fitz into the definition.
Roger, Ken, Nick, it is you that have the problems and cannot admit when you are wrong.
Roger, if I were you, I would stay quite for a while, how embarrassing it is posting a link trying to prove a point, when the link contradicts your point.
Hahahhahahaha
Ken, no one understands what you try to say, because it makes no sense.
Now answer me, Ken. You’ll find the issues haven’t changed.
I think I am outta here, the crazies are too crazie for me.
Good luck Ken, Roge and Nick, have happy deluded lives. How sad it is to be you guys.
Gareth, good work mate! I don’t think I am a groupie of yours, but have the most respect.
Everyone else, good luck wiht the taking the piss out of the crazies.
As CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere, its warming effect increases. 150 years ago, the few extra ppm made little difference – the 35% extra today makes a big difference. Have a look at this figure (SPM-4) from the AR4 Summary for Policymakers. The GHG signal only really takes off in the second half of the last century.
The existence of a statistical correlation (or its absence) doesn’t help much (correlation does not prove causation): we know the physics, we know the CO2 history (not Beck’s, obviously), and we observe that global temperatures are currently increasing at somewhere between 0.15C and 0.2C per decade. There’s still enough natural variability in the climate system to cause the temp graph to wiggle despite the GHG forcing, but the trend is clear.
Good suggestion there Ken, but it seems that I’m not very good at Google, and as you are so keen on discussing these problems with us I naturally thought you would want to share this wisdom. As for emailing you for a private consultation, I think that would be a bit unfair on the others and I really wouldn’t want them to miss out on the enlightenment.
Now, down to the nitty gritty. I presume that not all of this heavy CO2 makes it to the ocean, I mean, a fair chunk of it must fall on the land, right. Now if that’s the case how come we are not knee deep in this stuff. After all they have been making it for a long time so there must be a fair bit of it about.
OK, on to this 300-400 ppm bit. How is it that the air knows when it has reached that limit and it’s time to dump some of this heavy CO2.Bugger! Silly me I missed the bit about temp. Right got that now, CO2 is only heavy when it’s cold, or is that hot. Man, this science stuff is so confusing, we all should be so thankful we have you around to explain it to us.
>The existence of a statistical correlation (or its absence) doesn’t help much (correlation does not prove causation): we know the physics,
This effect is trivial.
>we know the CO2 history (not Beck’s, obviously),
No, you do not. You have tossed out everything inconvenient.
>and we observe that global temperatures are currently increasing at somewhere between 0.15C and 0.2C per decade.
It is not. Just look at the graphs provided by your gurus!
>There’s still enough natural variability in the climate system to cause the temp graph to wiggle despite the GHG forcing, but the trend is clear.
The trend is not clear. Are you blind? Just examine the temperature graphs, not mine but yours.
What do you suppose causes the annual cycle seen in the Mauna Loa (your guru’s) data?
If the AGW fearmongers, mammary gland suckers and feeders out of the trough are truly interested in finding the truth they would measure atmospheric CO2 and temperature in many other places, high latitudes north and south over the sea, over the Brazilian rainforest, over over middle and low latitude deserts using the same measurement technology. It would only need to do this for a few years to show whether you have a case or not. Until that sort of work is done you just have a hypothesis which suits those feeding at the trough.
jonno 10.14.08 at 9:17 am
> I think I am outta here, the crazies are too crazie for me.
Good riddance. Learn to spell before you come back and when you do have the guts to use a real name.
While I’m here Ken, something else that you may be able to help me with. All this CO2 that’s falling into the ocean would turn it acidic, right, so by now the oceans must be almost pure carbonic acid. Now if that’s the case how come the elastic in my underpants doesn’t melt when I go swimming.
“Gareth thinks changes in atmospheric CO2 affect global temp, but fails to realise that CO2 100% saturates air at only 10C . The air simply holds no more CO2 after that relative coolness and so the excess CO2 just drops back into the ocean, yes, drops, because CO2 is nearly twice as heavy as air(CO2 MW= 44, air MW=29). 10C is very cool. Between most seasons in most locations, air temperature fluctuation exceeds that. Therefore, Gareth groupies, CO2 CANNOT cause changes in air temperature.”
Huh?
I can’t make head or tail of this, Ken. Are you sure you’re not getting confused with water vapour, of which the level in the atmosphere has a strong temperature dependence? Carbon dioxide is a completely different beast – the sublimation point (change from solid to gas phase) at 1 atmosphere is around -78C, so it exists in the gas phase under normal environmental conditions. In what sense can the atmosphere be ‘saturated’ with carbon dioxide? If you could explain this in terms of the gas laws (the ideal gas law and Henrys Law) it would be very helpful.
Roger,
The “trivial” effect of CO2 is now running at a forcing of 1.66W/m2 over pre-industrial. Over a year, that’s a lot of extra energy.
Beck uncritically accepts all the readings for CO2 he can find, ignoring site and sampling problems. These were well known as far back as the 1930s, when Guy Callendar was doing his early work on CO2 and climate. The ice core record is the best we have.
Nobody relies simply on Mauna Loa: it’s one part of a global monitoring system. More details here. You clearly don’t know much about the data. There are even satellite measurements coming on stream, with global maps: see this recent NASA release.
Sceptics usually claim to “prefer” UAH temp figures derived from satellites. It has the lowest rate of increase, but it shows about +0.13C/decade (from memory). If you’re on about “cooling since 1998” or something, then I refer you to the UK Met Office’s statement linked at the bottom of the Daydream post…
I have to wonder, Roger, why you seem to relish parading your ignorance?
I can help you here, Laurence. Ocean acidification is a major concern associated with the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. CO2 is taken up by the oceans, not because it ‘falls’ in there, as Ken says, but because of its solubility dictated by Henrys Law, and then the dissociation of carbonic acid into protons and bicarbonate ions. NIWA organised a workshop on this topic in May 2007.
http://www.niwa.cri.nz/pubs/wa/ma/15-3/news4
You are not swimming in a sea of carbonic acid because of the existence of alkalinity in seawater in the form of carbonate ions.
Thanks for that Carol, I did take Kens advice and tried a bit of googleing myself. I came up with this http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/news/audio/twt/200810/20081013twt11-antarctic-co2.mp3 now I’m really starting to freak out about my fish and chip supply.
The underpants thing is not too much of an issue because there is not too much ocean where I live anyway, come to that there is not much water of any kind. I’ve got this sneaking suspicion that it’s got something to do with Climate change. http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/statements/scs16.pdf
I was sort of hoping that we could get the master of met to magic up a bit of rain for us so our sheep don’t die of thirst. I am going to need a few around so I can knit some woolly long johns for my visit to the frozen Shotover river next year.
>Beck uncritically accepts all the readings for CO2 he can find, ignoring site and sampling problems. These were well known as far back as the 1930s, when Guy Callendar was doing his early work on CO2 and climate. The ice core record is the best we have.
Callendar was a steam engineer (mechanic?) by training and was an amateur meteorologist.
He was also right.
>The “trivial†effect of CO2 is now running at a forcing of 1.66W/m2 over pre-industrial. Over a year, that’s a lot of extra energy.
If that is so it is having no noticeable effect.
Why do you insist that this miniscule slice of the history of this earth is so much more relevant than the millions of years that preceded it?
This is just outright denial, Roger. We have a huge quantity of evidence, handily summed up in the IPCC’s AR4 WG 1 and WG2 reports.
Perhaps because it’s the slice of time we live in?
Climate change isn’t the end of the earth, but it is likely to be a huge challenge for humanity.
Gareth 10.14.08 at 2:17 pm
>He was also right.
There are hundred or thousands of scientists who have some real qualifications and experience in this in field who do not share your views, whereas you have none.
There is marine deposit at least as far up the Thames Valley as Te Aroha, about 100 metres above current sea level, which could only have been deposited in one of the more recent interglacials. I have seen the deposit. In a recent glacial period, probably the last one rivers carrying magnetic andesite gravel and boulders spread over much of the seabed between Hawera and the South Island. These stick out like the proverbial canine testicles in aeromag maps prepared in the search for oil. There are boulder beds which extend well above sea level which are currently being quarried north of Kaiaua. These deposits date either from this interglacial or the previous one. There are raised beach terraces south of Kaiaua, near the seabird sanctuary, which were dated by Scholefield (1950s) at about 6000 year BP. The changes that you and others are ranting about are simply trivial and irrelevant in the larger scheme of things. What I see with my own eyes is rather more credible than the views of steam mechanics in 1938.
>This is just outright denial, Roger. We have a huge quantity of evidence, handily summed up in the IPCC’s AR4 WG 1 and WG2 reports.
That is not evidence it is mere manipulation and very selective use, for political purposes, of scientific reports.
The evidence simply does not support your claims. The very intermittent warming since the end of the LIA does not correlate with the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide, the early records of which has been very selectively massaged by Callendar and others.
>Climate change isn’t the end of the earth, but it is likely to be a huge challenge for humanity.
Our ancestors survived massive climate change. Humanity is capable of surviving climate change but not in the numbers now living. Climate change will decimate the population of this planet if we do not do it first. However it will be cooling and not warming that will wreak the decimation.
This is a method known as ‘proof by assertion’.
As opposed to ‘proof by evidence’.
Carol Stewart 10.14.08 at 2:55 pm
>This is a method known as ‘proof by assertion’.
As opposed to ‘proof by evidence’.
I suppose that the statement that the sun will rise next Thursday is also a proof by assertion.
Gareth and his groupies are the ones making assertions indeed assertions of events which are quite clearly contrary to what is actually happening!
Don’t be a hater Roge!! Can’t you just die with dignity?
Ken,
You are so wrong on many counts about the nature of your opponents. Firstly, I read with interest a great many of your (and CSC) essays on global warming. I’ve enjoyed a lot of it. I found myself alarmed by the alarmism as well. I investigated many of the points, occasionally finding I had to scratch off an argument because it was already covered. I debated it with those around me and in fact put up with many people not liking me because of my views. Such was, I decided, the price of sticking to principles of knowledge.
I felt betrayed when I came across the Weart climate science history, as reading through it I realised that almost every single challenge you and the CSC have presented as if the climate scientists haven’t thought of, was old hat. Some of it by many decades.
As a benefit, I think I’ve managed to figure out the story behind just about every denialist argument I’ve come across.
I do not post behind a psuedonym. This is my real name, and you can visit your local library and get my address from the electoral role. While I occasionally write quite cynical remarks I try not to be rude.
I’ve changed my mind on this whole topic many a time before and I’d certainly change back the other way if I found sufficiently convincing evidence.
A lot of CO2 goes into the ocean, yes, and the size of this carbon store is given in the section on the CO2 ecology in the IPCC report. It slowly acidifies it, which could spell the end of coral reefs which need a pH > 7.8 to maintain their calcium levels. In general the higher the pH the better marine life grows, as any owner of a marine fish tank could tell you. So it is not clear whether or not this can be considered a completely zero impact place for it to go.
But I’m going to disregard that as it’s not directly to do with AGW, and to investigate your claim about the saturation of CO2 in air, all I am interested in knowing is the claim A) correct, and B) not already covered by the atmospheric physics in the established atmospheric models.
Are you interested in this claim being investigated in this manner, or do you have a better one?
You’re a patient fellow, Sam.
I too am keenly awaiting Ken’s explanation of how the atmosphere can be saturated with CO2. I rather suspect he is getting CO2 confused with water vapour in the atmosphere, which has a strong temperature dependence. But let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.
Sam
I have not mentioned you in my calling for people to hide behind synonyms. Again, a misquote. Please desist.
As to CO2 and saturations, you can start here:
http://nov55.com/ntyg.html
Extract
“There is no Valid Mechanism for CO2 Creating Global Warming. Proof one: Laboratory measurements show that carbon dioxide absorbs to extinction at its main peak in 10 meters under atmospheric conditions.* This means there is no radiation left at those frequencies after 10 meters. If then humans double their 3% input of CO2 into the atmosphere, the distance of absorption reduces to 9.7m. A reduction in distance is not an increase in temperature. Convectional currents stir the heat around removing any relevance for distance. carbon dioxide in the air absorbs to extinction at its 15µM peak in about ten meters. This means that CO2 does whatever it’s going to do in that amount of space. Twice as much CO2 would do the same thing in about 5m. There’s no significant difference between 5m and 10m for global warming, because convectional currents mix the air in such short distances. Humans could not double the CO2, because they only put 3% of the CO2 in the air. If they put twice as much in, it would do whatever it does in 9.7m instead of 10m. If humans stopped putting any CO2 in the air, it would do whatever it does in 10.3m instead of 10m. In other words, nothing humans do with CO2 could be of the slightest relevance to global warming, even if oceans were not regulating it. Climate scientists know that more CO2 does not result in more heat under usual conditions. The quantities involved are so miniscule as to be totally incapable of causing global warming. Nature puts 33 times as much CO2 into the air through decay as humans produce, and the oceans exchange CO2 with the atmosphere 19 times as fast as humans produce it. So humans produce a miniscule effect on CO2 which has a miniscule effect on climate. It’s statistically, scientifically, logically a non-effect. Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It is necessary for biology, and there is a shortage of it. Humans add 3% of the CO2 to the atmosphere, while nature adds 97%. To claim the human addition accumulates to 30%, while the nature addition does not is absurd. Species dying and disease? The temperature gets 0.6°C colder about every 50 miles further north. If it wasn’t a catastrophe 50 miles south, then it is not a catastrophe now. On a long term scale, CO2 in the atmosphere is at the lowest level it has ever been, because oceans suck CO2 out of the air and trap in in calcium carbonate. The amount in the air is so low that plants can barely grow. Greenhouses routinely double the amount of CO2 in the air to improve growth. Regardless of the energy shortage, emitting CO2 into the air is the only good things humans have ever done for the environment. And coal plants (non foreign) are being shut down creating an energy shortage, because coal emits more CO2 than natural gas. The know-it-all, non conspiracy theorists who deal in nothing but substantiated fact tell us that cutting back on CO2 emissions is the only chance of human survival. Our lives are being run by frauds, folks.”
then, another site..
http://brneurosci.org/co2.html
Extract:
“There is already sufficient CO2 in the atmosphere to absorb almost all of the radiation from the sun or from the surface of the earth in the principal CO2 absorption bands. Doubling carbon dioxide would not double the amount of global warming. In fact, the effect of carbon dioxide is roughly logarithmic. Each time carbon dioxide (or some other greenhouse gas) is doubled, the increase in temperature is the same as the previous increase. The reason for this is that, eventually, all the longwave radiation that can be absorbed has already been absorbed. It would be analogous to closing more and more shades over the windows of your house on a sunny day — it soon reaches the point where doubling the number of shades can’t make it any darker. Some people think that CO2 is rising dramatically. CO2 levels have only increased by 23.7% since 1900. Many people have used tricks like these to exaggerate the amount of global warming, and this has made it into a political issue. Most people would have great difficulty feeling an increase of 0.6 degrees Celsius. Any effects of such a small change would be slow and subtle. In general, if you are able to see or feel some change, that means it is almost certainly not caused by CO2-induced global warming. “
Ah, so Callendar was deliberately massaging data in the 1930s…. why? A prescient view that the future needed CO2 levels to be manipulated, obviously. The great global warming swindle has also mastered time travel…
Sorry, Roger, but that comment puts you in Ringworld – a strange place where the normal rules don’t apply. I won’t bother to respond to your posts in future…
Sam
“..put up with many people not liking me because of my views. Such was, I decided, the price of sticking to principles of knowledge”.
Goodness, if one only believed what made people like us the world would indeed be in a sorry state. It takes a brave man to think for himself, especially in this current PC environment. Good on you. Thinking independently and standing up for one’s views will save the world, not shorter showers. It is also the best legacy to leave our children, rather than a silly bunch of un-needed extra trees. Speaking of trees, I notice the member with the preoccupation with pissing has left the building.
cheers
Ken Ring
http://www.predictweather.com
Carol
“I too am keenly awaiting Ken’s explanation of how the atmosphere can be saturated with CO2.”
I have now supplied it, at length, with links, as requested. So why the silence?
Ken Ring
On 14 Oct 2008, at 3:59 pm, Roger Dewhurst wrote:
>> How about adding this to your blog?
>I’m surprised you want to reference a mere historian…
>I have no intention of engaging you in an email exchange. Please >post at Hot Topic, and if you want to refer to these graphs and >”papers”, provide links.
Just so that everyone knows what I asked you to post:
1. A plot of CO2 against time from 1800 to the mid 1900s. The data that Callendar chose to use are ringed. I will try and find the origin of this plot. The figure shows just how selective Calendar was in his choice of data to use.
2. A reconstruction of CO2 concentrations for the period 8700 to 6800 BP compared with concentrations derived from stomatal indices using B pubescens and B pendula. The sources are clearly indicated. I cannot post the figure or convert the panel of text accompanying the figure into text. To provide some balance Gareth should post it.
3. This is aitken.pdf Here is the first paragraph.
A Cool Look at Global Warming
By Don Aitkin
Planning Institute of Australia, Canberra,
19 March 2008
I thank the Institute for giving space and time to an Honorary Fellow who is venturing into dangerous space, at least for him. The title of this paper gives a taste of its content, and I had better start with a summary. Australia is faced,
over the next generation at least and almost certainly much longer, with two environmental problems of great significance. They are, first, how to manage water in a dry continent that may be moving into a long dry period, within a society that is used to having lots of good water very cheaply; and second, how to find acceptable alternatives to oil-based energy (which looks like getting much more expensive quite quickly) within a society that is used to cheap oil and lots of it. Global Warming, you will have realised, is not one of those two issues, atleast for me, and I see it as a distraction from the two I have highlighted. This paper is about why it may not be such an important issue, and why we should get on with the others, which are unquestionably important, and closer to hand.
I shall say something about the application to this issue of the precautionary principle at the end.
I can email the whole article as a .pdf file to anyone who is open minded enough to consider an alternative view.
I, for one, am interested , please (enquiries@predictweather.com)
“how to manage water in a dry continent that may be moving into a long dry period..”
Actually Australia is more likely to be moving into a wet period over the next two years as solar Cycle 24 picks up speeed. Cycle 24 should peak in 2011. 1999/2000 were rather wetter years and in most cases the cycle is roughly the lunar 9 years , for both droughts and floods.
Ken Ring
http://www.predictweather.com
Ken,
Is that really the best you can do for ‘evidence’? If you thought it was going to induce a sudden epiphany in me .. “Oh! Ken was right all along!” – you are sadly mistaken.
I would have been much more impressed if your explanation had been drawn from standard physics or chemistry. Instead we get ideologically-motivated pseudoscience.
Ken, you don’t seem to feel any obligation to acquaint yourself with the standard body of knowledge on climate science – such as the IPCC report – so why do you expect me to feel any obligation to comb through this stuff?
I did read it quickly, and I found it to be full of tired, discredited and outdated myths. Some of it is laughable. The first extract is too pathetic to be worth commenting on. As for the second one, TJ Nelson refers disparagingly to ‘hard science journals’ – well, sorry, TJ Nelson, but they’re the sort I put my trust in. He/she also contends that the half-life of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is 5 to 10 years, and quotes a study from 1979 in support! This is almost 30 years old! Sorry, Ken, but I went to a talk by Martin Manning recently, and the science has moved on. Don’t you think you should upskill and update yourself a bit?
But the main problem is that you contended that the atmosphere could become saturated with carbon dioxide. Well, sorry, but I couldn’t find anything in these references that support this statement. And before you throw a tantrum about being misquoted, you said in post 462
“that CO2 100% saturates air at only 10C . The air simply holds no more CO2 after that relative coolness and so the excess CO2 just drops back into the ocean, yes, drops, because CO2 is nearly twice as heavy as air”.
I was – naturally – curious about how this could be true. And I still am.
Now, I do have work to do, so goodbye for a while.
>Ken, you don’t seem to feel any obligation to acquaint yourself with the standard body of knowledge on climate science – such as the IPCC report – so why do you expect me to feel any obligation to comb through this stuff?
The IPCC reports are not any standard body of knowledge on climate science. They are simply selected bits of scientific, and some pseudo-scientific, reports carefully massaged by bureaucrats to convey an approved message.
When are you going to tell us how you manage to find some correlation between CO2 and temperature as shown in the graphs provided by your AGW gurus?
As for Manning, what is he paid for?
Roger, can we agree on what consitutes reliable knowledge?
For me it is peer-reviewed science. This process is robust and self-correcting, and leads to an agreed-upon body of knowledge that is a foundation to be built on. What is it for you? (and please, I am looking for a thoughtful reply, not a cheap shot).
Can you help shed any light on Ken’s assertion that the atmosphere can become saturated with CO2, such that the excess just ‘drops out’?
The density of carbon dioxide is about 1.5 times that of air. I am unsure how you can claim that it is twice as heavy as air.
Carol predictably offers no counter evidence, just desperate alarmist bluster and a reverting back to the IPCC politicians, as if they ever knew anything about science in the first place. The IPCC has been so discredited by its former science reviewers, two of which reside in NZ and are now ardent skeptics, as to be laughable if not so sad. These politicians have hijacked what was once called science and almost sunk it without trace.
Tushara
It is possible to talk about the molecular weight of air (29) at the same time as talk about the milecular weight of CO2(44) or even the MW of carbon on its own. Chemists do it all the time. Look it up. You can get a cup of CO2 and also get a cup of air and you can weigh both comparatively, no problem.
Ken, my main point was that you didn’t produce any evidence in support of your assertion that the atmosphere could be saturated with CO2. I’m still waiting. Just like I’m still waiting for you to produce that retraction from Rowland.
Further to Tushara’s query
The cup of air will have only an infinitesmal trace of CO2, 3 parts per 10,000. It will be 99% CO2-free. Statistically rounded off, in this case you will be comparing weights of CO2 to CO2-free air, arguably a valid comparison.
I am a chemist, (BSc) . I also know that 29 * 2 = 58 and 44 / 2 = 22.
This is not twice as much, but 1.5 as much. I think your maths is a bit off here.
Carol
Obviously nothing will convince you. I have supplied two science linksand their extracts, setting out in plain English the saturation figures. You chose by your own admission not to read them thoroughly, claiming that because they countered the IPCC claims they must therefore be wrong. Very scientific of you.
The one piece of hopeful news was “I have work to do, so goodbye for a while.” Seems this was shortlived – I observed 19 minutes between your posts of 502 and 504.
Ken Ring
http://www.predictweather.com
Tushara
Ah, if you were a mathematician you would know that 1.5 rounds off to 2. So, red herrings aside, you don’t now deny that CO2 is heavier than air? Or you do – which is it?
Ken
“The cup of air will have only an infinitesmal trace of CO2, 3 parts per 10,000. It will be 99% CO2-free. Statistically rounded off, in this case you will be comparing weights of CO2 to CO2-free air, arguably a valid comparison.” (
Of course you can compare CO2 to dry air. You cannot exclude CO2 from air, no matter if it is infinitesimal. Its molecular weight is around 0.016 (out of the 29 molecular mass of air).
What is your point here?
My point is that you are incorrect to say the CO2 is twice as heavier of air.
Carol Stewart 10.15.08 at 10:44 am
>Roger, can we agree on what consitutes reliable knowledge?
For me it is peer-reviewed science. This process is robust and self-correcting, and leads to an agreed-upon body of knowledge that is a foundation to be built on.
In principle, yes. However it is necessary that the peer review is real peer review and not just Mann style peer review in which a handful of individuals have a cosy agreement to rubber stamp each others’ papers. A similar process occurs with Wikipedia in which one ‘Stoat’ Connolley, who is one of the Mann clique, has control of all the Wikipedia articles on climate. The way in which he has done this has been described to me by a Wikipedia fisheries editor who has taken no side whatever on AGW. The publish or perish culture has been around in academic circles for as long as I can remember and doubtless long before that. That puts much pressure on researchers to conform. Then we have the pressure applied through grants. Are you naive enough to believe that a junior academic in VUW, for example, is going to get a grant for a line of research which might throw doubt on the position taken by Manning and Barratt?
>Can you help shed any light on Ken’s assertion that the atmosphere can become saturated with CO2, such that the excess just ‘drops out’?
My enquiries lead me to suspect that Ken Ring is barking up the wrong tree in THIS instance. I am however generally aware that there is persuasive argument supporting a logarithmic relationship between the carbon dioxide tenor in the atmosphere and the heating resulting from it. The effect of this is an approximation to Ken Ring’s assertion that there is a saturation level. However there are other areas where my interests and experience are better applied. For example I have devoted quite a lot of time to groundwater models and geophysical models. There keep me mindful of what is known in geoelectrical sounding as ‘the principle of equivalence’. Firstly more mathematical modelling there MUST be equations which FULLY describe that which is being modelled. This applies in the case of groundwater, geoelectric sounding and seismic refraction, all of which I am sufficiently familiar with. The more layers in the ground or the more anisotropic the permeability is the more solutions will fit the available data. In comparison with climate models the ones I have described have relatively few variables and the mathematics is fully understood.
In the case of climate models many of the variables and feedbacks are unknown and most cannot be reduced to equations which can be inserted in the algorithm which forms the core of the numerical model. I concede that there are physical climatic processes which can be described mathematically and which can be used in algorithms. However since climate is not driven solely by these describable physical processes the climatic models constructed on them are and must be inherently faulty.
When I observe that the climate does not correlate with CO2 and the models fail to predict the climate my belief in the inherent faults in climatic models is re-inforced.
Of course the whole AGW thing conflicts totally with my long term geological perspective of climate change.
But Ken, seriously, and just leaving out the gratuitous abuse for a minute, you specifically said that the atmosphere could be saturated with CO2, such that the excess would drop out, and so therefore you can only reach a maximum level in the atmosphere (I think you said in the range of 300-400 ppm).
I did actually read the links you provided, and I still can’t find anywhere where this is mentioned. I did note the material on absorption, but this is a different matter to asserting that the levels of CO2 can be capped in the atmosphere.
I am genuinely curious how you think the atmosphere can be saturated with carbon dioxide, and I would appreciate it if you could find the specific place where this is mentioned.
Does anyone else have an opinion on this?
Thank you, Roger. I appreciate your response.
Rounding off? If you were a chemist, you would not round off; you would know that rounding off always leads to the loss of numeric information.
If you go down this path, you end up getting things wrong. You should do a basic analytical chemistry course, then you can improve your understanding of chemistry.
CO2 is denser than dry air, this is established. However, in air, its molecular weight is 0.016. Do you disagree with this?
As promised in my most recent post, I have started up a forum for this (and other) discussions on climate issues. Please take this debate over to the forum here.
I’m now closing comments on this post – it’s getting way too long and unwieldy. But don’t let that stop you talking… 😎