The New Zealand government announced this afternoon that NZ would table a conditional emissions target of between 10% and 20% cuts on 1990 levels by 2020 [Scoop, Herald]. The range is supposed to allow for a response to the progress of international negotiations, and the conditions are that there should be a comprehensive international agreement that (according to the MoE Q+A):
…sets the world on a pathway to limit temperature rise to not more than 2°C; developed countries make comparable efforts to those of New Zealand; advanced and major emitting developing countries take action fully commensurate with their respective capabilities; there is an effective set of rules for land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF); and there is full recourse to a broad and efficient international carbon market.
Climate minister Nick Smith says that the target will be achieved by a mixture of domestic emission reductions, the storage of carbon in forests, and the purchase of emission reductions from other countries. The MoE Q+A page lists the measures in place to help NZ reduce emissions (#25): it amounts to a watered down emissions trading scheme, a $323 million home insulation and clean heating fund, a new Centre for Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research, incentives for new energy technologies like sustainable biofuels, electric cars and solar water systems, Resource Management Act reforms and a National Policy Statement to support renewable electricity generation. No mention of forestry. Are the trees expected to plant themselves?
The target range comes as no surprise, given the signals emerging from the government over recent weeks, but the modest nature of the target and the fact that it is all conditional puts NZ in a weak position internationally. Smith & Co continue to insist that their targets, based on “50 by 50″, are in line with what the science is telling us, but that is only true if they cherry pick the most optimistic IPCC scenario, and ignore the evidence that’s been emerging over the last two years. This is not mysterious stuff, not news. The science and policy community has told the government the facts — it looks like they have chosen to ignore them and pander to those who would rather do nothing.
It is now transparently obvious that this National-led government simply does not understand the real challenges presented by climate change. They do not appreciate the full seriousness of the situation that confronts the planet, they underestimate the need to act, and they have completely failed to make any coherent assessment of what could be done. That amounts to gross incompetence, and they should be held to account for it, both at the ballot box and in the court of public opinion.
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CTG, the standard Mann Hockey Stick graph is on Wikipedia (as easy reference).
It begins in year 1000 and runs through to the year 2000.
Later in Wikipedia we read:
The BBC described the “hockey stick” as a term coined for the chart of temperature variation over the last 1,000 years.[3] The chart is relatively flat from the period A.D. 1000 to 1900, indicating that temperatures were relatively stable for this period of time. The flat part forms the stick’s “shaft.” After 1900, however, temperatures appear to shoot up, forming the hockey stick’s “blade.” The combination of the two in the chart suggests a recent sharp rise in temperature caused by human activities. The BBC further stated that “The high-profile publication of the data led to the “hockey stick” being used as a key piece of supporting evidence in the Third Assessment Report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2001.”
As far as I know you are the only person who claims the hockey stick only goes back 600 years.
Anyhow the little ice age falls within the last 600 years anyhow.
Maybe someone has “reconstructured Mann” to remove the MWM from the graph.
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LOL – Wikipedia as an authoratative source!
How about the actual paper?
The paper commonly referred to as Mann et al 1998 or MBH98 is “Mann, Michael E., Bradley, Raymond S. & Hughes, Malcolm K. (1998), “Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries”, Nature 392: 779–787″
The graph in Wikipedia is from Mann et al 1999 (Geophysical Research Letters, 26(6): 759-762). The original objection by M&M was to the 1998 paper, which does only go back to 1400.
Get your facts straight.
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Sorry, the graph commonly known as the Hockey Stick and which was the NIWA logo and was promoted widely by the IPCC was the 1999 paper.
The image on Wikipedia is from the 1999 paper and that is why all commentary (except maybe yours) refers to the 1,000 year time frame of the hockey stick.
I suggest you do an image google search of “hockey stick Mann”and see how many times the 1998 image turns up and the 1999 image turns up.
On the first search page I found the 1998 image only once. And did not see it again for the next three pages and as there are 103,000 hits I decided there was little point on this futile exercise. You may choose to focus on the first paper but you have little company. So yes, the first Mann et al paper goes back 600 years but the image which became known around the world as “Mann’s hockey stick” goes back to the year 1,000. It superseded the earlier one in the public mind because that was the one that was heavily promoted. When NIWA presented the Mann Hockey Stick in its power point presentations it was this 1000 year image they used.
That is a fact.
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Owen, I was referring to R2D2′s comment: “As first released in that 1998 paper it shows stable temperatures for 1000 years”
which is incorrect. I’m not disputing that the 1999 version is more commonly used, I’m disputing the claim that MBH98 looked at 1000 years.
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And I have still not seen either you or Roger produce any peer-reviewed science that contradicts any of Mann’s hockey stick figures.
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Well, perhaps not – but it was done by von Storch et al (2004), though the flaws in this paper were revealed later (Wahl et al (2006)). (h/t: RC)
Of course if you’ve got denialist vision all you see is the first paper, which is why you’ll hear lots of people talking about the original Hockey stick graph being “debunked” or “discredited”.
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Well, that’s my point. The peer review process does not stop at the moment of publication. As we have seen with the McLean et al fiasco, getting a paper published does not mean that what is in the paper automatically becomes part of the scientific canon.
None of the critiques of MBH98 have themselves stood up to peer review, whereas there have been several papers since MBH98 that confirm and extend the original results.
The notion that the whole AGW theory rests on that one paper, and that MBH98 has been proven to be wrong is ridiculous, however many gullible US congressmen might have been fooled by M&M.
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Nice photo, I knew actors were in the climate change debate, I guess ‘aspiring’ male models are now too lol
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What on earth does that mean?
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The US National Academy of Sciences also affirmed the findings of Mann’s study back in 2006. – Dappled Water
It was subsequently rubbished by proper statisticians. – Roger Dewhurst.
Please cite your sources for that. – CTG
Source = Roger’s ring piece. Roger seems to obtain a lot of information from this source. That’s why he never provides references for his ridiculous assertions and lies.
No Roger, even a “dummies guide” wouldn’t cure your wilful ignorance and bullshit.
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“And I have still not seen either you or Roger produce any peer-reviewed science that contradicts any of Mann’s hockey stick figures.”
Haven’t we been through this extensively before with D’Arrigo et el 2006?
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~rjsw/all%20pdfs/DArrigoetal2006a.pdf
Of the individual proxy records in this study, only ‘POL’ shows late 20th century warming. All the others show early 20th century warming followed by flat temperatures in the later half of the 20th century.
And this is a paper that is used in the ‘spaghetti graph’ chapter 6 of the WG1 AR4, “Paleoclimate”.
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter6.pdf
(However the spaghetti graph shows the black instrumental record over the proxy records to give the impression of warming in the proxies)
When combining the proxies the authors conclude that, “The NH RCS reconstruction displays pronounced variability, including significant ‘‘MWP’’ and ‘‘LIA’’ departures”.
When analysing the instrumental record the authors conclude that, “After this period [mid nineteen 80's], however, the divergence between the tree-ring and instrumental data results in weakening of calibration results and failed verification statistics.”
And that, “These results suggest how extreme recent warming has been relative to the natural fluctuations of the past millennium.”
And most damming to the IPCC, “It is also possible that the models are themselves biased in some way (e.g., although they incorporate external (solar, volcanic, anthropogenic) forcings, they do not take
into account internal atmosphere-ocean dynamics”
So what does the IPCC say about this study?
“D’Arrigo et al. (2006) used only tree ring data, but these include a substantial number not used in other reconstructions, particularly in northern North America. Their reconstruction, similar to that of Esper et al. (2002), displays a large amplitude of change during the past 1 kyr, associated with notably cool excursions during most of the 9th, 13th and 14th centuries, clearly below those of most other reconstructions. Hegerl et al. (2006) used a mixture of 14 regional series, of which only 3 were not made up from tree ring data (a Greenland ice O isotope
record and two composite series, from China and Europe, including a mixture of instrumental, documentary and other data). Many of these are common to the earlier reconstructions. However, these series were combined and scaled using a regression approach (total least squares) intended to prevent the loss of low-frequency variance inherent in some other regression approaches. The reconstruction produced lies close to the centre of the range defi ned by the other reconstructions.”
So the result depends on the statistical method you use to smooth the data? Which is where I need to rely on someone who has a statistics background, and where the argument of “only trust a climate scientist” falls over.
D’Andrea et el, (who I’m not claiming were statisticians) conclude that:
“On the basis of the above comparisons and analyses, we conclude that the RCS reconstruction is superior to the more traditional STD method with regards to the ability to retain low-frequency (centennial to multicentennial) trends.”
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“Haven’t we been through this extensively before with D’Arrigo et el 2006? ”
Yes, and you were wrong that time as well. As I noted before, you omitted the fact that later papers have corrected for the divergence problem.
What the tree ring proxies quite clearly show, and which you also gloss over, is that the MWP was not a coordinated, global event – there were significant regional variations in temperature (some regions show no warming at all during the MWP), and the start and end dates for MWP vary widely.
All of which still makes the late C20 warming exceptional.
But of course, you will only look for the science that fits your preconceived notion that AGW does not exist, so it’s pretty pointless having this same debate with you over and over again, when you refuse to learn.
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I have no doubt the effects of the MWP period varied depending on location, I never claimed they didn’t.
What you are implicitly claiming is that the effects of modern warming do not vary dependent on location when they quite obviously do also.
You are very critical of sceptics who do not cite sources, yet you cite none when you claim later papers have ‘corrected’ for the divergence ‘problem’.
You accuse me of only looking for the science that fits my bias, and then you refer to observed divergence as a ‘problem’. Why is it a problem? Why do researchers need to ‘correct’ for it? Why is it the proxies that need correcting and not the instrumental records?
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Trouble is CTG they can’t see the truth for the trees!
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Looking at only the proxy reconstruction (and not the instrumental record spliced on the end) in figure 3 a in the paper:
http://wdc.obs-mip.fr/pubs/millennium-camera.pdf
The main difference between MBH99 and other proxies is not the late 20th century warming (none show that), but the lack of variance during the 2nd millennium.
The authors then go on to conclude; “While warmth early in the millennium approaches mean 20th century levels, the late 20th century still appears anomalous: the 1990s are likely the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, in at least a millennium.”
However, they base this conclusion on comparing the proxy to the instrumental record, and recent authors (D’Andrea et el) have shown that the two do not agree now. So this can not be concluded using instrumental data – because if the instrumental record does not match proxy data for the late 80’s, how can we conclude that the same weather stations would not have measured equal warming during the MWP. There for, peer reviewed studies have shown Mann et el 1998’s conclusions to be wrong.
(note: as many proxy records show similar results, and they do not match instrumental records, either or HAS to be wrong. My hypothesis would be that the instrumental records would be wrong)
(Also: many here defend the Mann et el 1999 splice. Do any seriously think it accurately portrays modern warming compared to historical variance? I refer to figure 3a in the link posted)
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It would help if you actually read the references you give. In D’Arrigo et al, the “splice” as you call it shows remarkable agreement between the proxies and the instrumental record for 100 years. It is only post-1980 (when warming was already higher than ever previously recorded) that there is divergence.
As I said, this has already been explained. Part of the reason is that local temperature effects were not accounted for. Part of the reason is that there has been so much warming that many of the boreal trees are facing heat-stress, causing tree-ring growth to be reduced.
The divergence problem is in fact more evidence that today’s warming is exceptional, otherwise these trees would be adapted to warmer temperatures!
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You will obviously read from it what you will. You are really sounding foolish though.
The really steep warming in the instrumental record has been since the mid-1980′s, it makes sense this is when the divergence has happened since. My comments were from the paper and not my own opinions. I never saw your opinions in the conclusions of the paper.
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“The really steep warming in the instrumental record has been since the mid-1980’s”
Rubbish. Look at figure 6 – the rate of increase in the early 1900s is just as steep as the later warming. The flat period from 1940-1970 is, as you well know, attributed to the massive increase in sulphates from WW2 and the post-war industrial expansion, ended by the clean air acts of the 70s and 80s. The proxy record is well in accord from the 1880s all the way to the 1980s, so it is completely wrong for you to characterise it otherwise.
“I never saw your opinions in the conclusions of the paper.”
Conclusions like this:
“Taken at face value, our reconstruction indicates that MWP conditions were nearly 0.7°C cooler than those of the late twentieth century.”
Yup, I agree with that. Do you?
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CTG, I think you just lost all credability with that out of context quote from the article R2D2 referenced.
The full quote has a different meaning to what you are trying to argue it says. The article DOES NOT conclude that the MWP was 0.7C cooler than present. The article does say that tree rings may not be a good proxie when temperatures are very warm, as you say earlier, but goes onto say that it therefore can not be concluded the MWP was not similarly warm, or warmer, than today.
The full quote from the article is:
“Taken at face value, our reconstruction indicates that MWP conditions were nearly 0.7C cooler than those of the late twentieth century. These results suggest how extreme recent warming has been relative to the natural
fluctuations of the past millennium. This conclusion, however, must be taken cautiously. First, there is significant divergence between reconstructed and actual temperatures since the mid-1980s, which, until valid reasons for this
phenomenon have been found, can only question the ability of tree-ring data to robustly model earlier periods that could have been similarly warm (or warmer) than the present. Second, there are presently only very few millennial length records available for direct comparison between the recent
period and the MWP, and these records show trends which are not necessarily coherent over the latter interval, resulting in a ‘‘flattening’’ of MWP conditions compared to recent warming in our reconstruction. Ultimately, many long records from new NH locations and updating of existing records (mainly in Eurasia) to the present are required. Successful
modeling of paleoclimate data with the high temperatures of the late 1990s is essential if we are to make robust, definitive conclusions about past temperature amplitudes and variability.”
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Oh my, an insult-slinging sockpuppet! I’m honoured.
“CTG, I think you just lost all credability”
Odd, I don’t remember claiming I had any credibility. I’m not a climate scientist, and I’ve made it very clear that I think we should all be listening to the actual climate scientists.
Now, R2 thinks that we should not listen to Mann in particular, and has twice now presented the D’Arrigo et al 2006 paper as “evidence” that Mann deliberately falsified his MWP reconstruction, and that the MWP was as warm as today.
I have pointed out that D’Arrigo et al 2006 does not in fact support that conclusion. It says “These results suggest how extreme recent warming has been relative to the natural
fluctuations of the past millennium.”
There are two caveats to that conclusion: 1) the divergence problem and 2) the paucity of long-term proxy records. These factors are further discussed here by Wilson et al (including D’Arrigo).
One source of the divergence problem is that some proxy records show divergence from local temperatures. As discussed here and here, it could very well be that the recent extreme warming is causing physiological stress for some alpine and boreal tree species, which means that the link between temperature and tree ring growth breaks down once temperatures rise above some threshold – which we have already passed.
To account for this, Wilson et al removed the proxies which show this local temperature divergence, and found that the divergence problem was greatly reduced – without affecting the overall reconstruction. All these things combined suggest that the divergence problem does not in fact contradict the MBH98 hockey stick, and even provides further evidence for recent warming being unusual.
As to the second problem, one of the impacts of having few proxies for the mediaeval period is that this leads to “flattening” of the temperatures in the MWP. But the reason that the temperatures get flattened is because the MWP was not a coordinated, global event like the C20 warming. D’Arrigo et al are quite clear about this: “we can confidently state that the global warming ‘fingerprint’ is globally more homogenous than warming during the MWP”. It is therefore perfectly justified to say that C20 warming is exceptional compared to the last 1000 years.
Of course, it is always better to have more data, and this has been done. As you can see here, there is still a lot of variability in the various proxies over exactly how warm the MWP was, and how long it lasted, but there is no doubt that the recent warming is anomalous in comparison to the MWP, nor is there credence in the notion that we are just “rebounding from the LIA”.
So if both of those caveats are removed, then D’Arrigo et al’s original conclusion stands: “MWP conditions were nearly 0.7°C cooler than those of the late twentieth century.”
But like I said, don’t take my word for it. If you really want to be a skeptic, keep an open mind and ask for more data. Above all, don’t draw conclusions from one paper, and then steadfastly ignore any new evidence that comes along.
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In 2007 – 2008 Mann and his team revisited the whole thing OMITTING all tree ring data, and incorporated even more data from other sources. The results were pretty much the same as before. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7592575.stm
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See, here is the problem with you denialists. You pick and pick at individual parts of the AGW theory, as if all you have to do is prove one thing wrong and it will bring the whole thing crashing down.
But you have no consistent physical model of the earth that explains what is going on if CO2 is not the cause of the recent warming. Look at all of the evidence:
* Most of the glaciers world-wide are retreating. Why?
* Arctic summer minimum ice extent and volume has been diminishing steadily since satellite records began in 1979. Why?
* Methane hydrates have started being released from ocean floor sediments at depths never previously recorded. Why?
* Hurricane activity in the Atlantic has increased substantially in the last few decades. Why?
* Phenological changes have been observed in several continents and at several latitudes (earlier spring, growing regions moving north etc, pollination/insect emergence getting out of synch). Why?
I can explain all of these things with one other observation: atmospheric CO2 concentration has been rising for the last 150 years.
What single model of the earth’s system can the denialists produce that explains all of these observations without CO2-induced warming?
Answers on a postcard, please.
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You are too much seriously. The problem with alarmists is that whenever you prove one piece of there world view wrong they move onto another, and then when you prove that wrong they dance back to the original (ie the full circle back to D’Andrea)
All the ‘evidence’ you provide is based on correlation, not a ‘model’.
Here is a ‘model’ for you – when the price of gold goes up, world temperatures rise. All the records since 1890 prove this, there for the price of gold MUST be driving temperature. Can you prove me wrong? I’m putting the onus of proof on you.
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No, all the things I said there are observations of the real world. Not models, not correlations. Observations of things that are going on outside your window, if you would only unblinker your eyes and see.
How can you explain all of those things if CO2 is not causing warming? Forget computer models, forget proxy records, tell me a physical theory that explains these observations.
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Perhaps whatever caused the LIA stopped causing the LIA?
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Given that we are already 0.7ºC warmer than the MWP (according to the paper that R2D2 thinks is so reliable), it can’t just be that. Otherwise we would have returned to the same temperature profile as the MWP, and seen no further warming.
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* Most of the glaciers world-wide are retreating. Why?
There are no records of most of the world’s glaciers.
* Arctic summer minimum ice extent and volume has been diminishing steadily since satellite records began in 1979. Why?
Arctic ice has been fluctuating for as long as records have been kept (not just satellite records).
* Methane hydrates have started being released from ocean floor sediments at depths never previously recorded. Why?
Perhaps nobody was recording this?
* Hurricane activity in the Atlantic has increased substantially in the last few decades. Why?
It has not.
* Phenological changes have been observed in several continents and at several latitudes (earlier spring, growing regions moving north etc, pollination/insect emergence getting out of synch). Why?
Most plants are triggered by light, or dark, and not temperature.
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Denial, denial, denial.
Glacier retreat
Arctic sea ice decline
Methane hydrate release
Hurricane activity
Phenological changes
You’re going to have to do better than that, Roger.
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CTG, that is evidence for recent warming, but either since 1850 or since 1978. You are saying current warming is caused by CO2 because of correlation and ‘a model’. We are saying the warming is not shown to be unusual by historical proxies.
links:
Glacier retreat: Wikipedia article, “Glacier Retreat Since 1850″
- We have repeatedly acknowledged that the world has warmed since the LIA. Furthermore it is likely large glaciers have been retreating since the end of the last glacial period 11,400 years ago. Sea level records show this.
Arctic sea ice decline: Link is to wikipedia, since 1978. This is the same trick as when sceptics say, “The world has cooled since 1998″. By picking the date the graph starts a negative trend can be established. We do not know what the ice cover was like 1000 years ago. Records from the early 20th century record passages were open that are again opening now.
Methane hydrate release: Again, warming in the Arctic with no available historical reference.
Hurricane activity: Mann hockey stick for hurricanes! Classic! The proxy shows no increase, the instrumental record does. Is it remarkable that more hurricanes are named now than 100 years ago?
Still there is this quote, “Of particular interest is the medieval peak in activity, which matches or even exceeds current levels of activity within uncertainties for the statistical model.”
Phenological changes: Records taken from 2 different people, 1936-1947, and 1976-1998, in the US. Records show warming over later 1900′s. However again there is no historical reference and there is start date bias in the second sample.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.lrg.gif
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.txt
What longer term proxies can you give us that don’t rely on an instrumental record splice?
(And BTW, bad play on the out of context quote)
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What out of context quote was that?
You tried to show that D’Arrigo et al was proof that Mann was making up data. I showed that it was no such thing. Who exactly was taking things out of context?
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The Arctic sea ice graph is from NSIDC, not Wikipedia, and a statistically significant trend over 30 years is very different to a non-significant trend of 10 years. But don’t let the facts get in the way of a good rant, R2.
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The full quote on the mediaeval peak in hurricane activity is:
“Of particular interest is the medieval peak in activity, which matches or even exceeds current levels of activity within uncertainties for the statistical model. The peak arises in the statistical model from a combination of (see Fig. 2) La-Nina-like conditions during the medieval era which have been discussed elsewhere and relatively warm SSTs in the tropical North Atlantic at that time.”
In other words, there was a persistent La Nina state during the MWP, which is unlike what we see today with frequent fluctuations from EN to LN. This is further evidence that the MWP was a regional event, not a global event such as today’s.
But go on digging that hole, R2. Can you still see the light?
(BTW, should I now create a sockpuppet to squeal in horror that you took a quote out of context?)
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On phenological changes, go to Google Scholar and type in “phenological change climate”. There have been dozens of studies showing shifts in seasons, mis-timings between plant flowering and insect emergence, bird migration patterns changing etc etc.
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“Most plants are triggered by light, or dark, and not temperature.”
Ask any farmer what is the main thing that affects grass growth. (Hint, it’s not daylight length).
But yes, there are many plants that trigger flowering based on daylight length. However, there are many insect species that trigger emergence on temperature. There have been several recorded instances in recent years of insects emerging before the flowers they depend on have bloomed. Bad news for both plants and insects.
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“You are saying current warming is caused by CO2 because of correlation and ‘a model’. – CTG
Actually because the basic Science behind CO2 is clear and well understood. CO2 absorbs infrared and hence it warms the surface of the earth. So we have a method of causation, measurement of the increase in causitive factors, and the correlation between the rise in those factors and the result predicted by theory.
“We are saying the warming is not shown to be unusual by historical proxies.” – CTG
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/8/8f/Ice_Age_Temperature_Rev.png
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/b/bb/Holocene_Temperature_Variations_Rev.png
It most certainly is unusual relative to our position in the current interglacial which starts with a rapid temprature increase followed by a slow noisey decline in temperature .
And as you can see from the following chart
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Five_Myr_Climate_Change.png
It should be noted on this graph the highest temperature shown is 2′C above the pre-industrial average. And these temperatures existed more than 5 million years ago. The projected temperature rise is anticipated to be between 3′C and 5′C over the next 90 years which is well off the chart and clearly unprecedented in the last 5 million years.
“We have repeatedly acknowledged that the world has warmed since the LIA” – CTG
The observed temperature rise since that period has already been three times that decline, which appears mostly to be regional.
In short, the LIA is completely irrelevant.
“Furthermore it is likely large glaciers have been retreating since the end of the last glacial period 11,400 years ago. Sea level records show this.” – CTG
Nope, temperatures have been in decline for thousands years until the recent upward spike due to human CO2 emission since the Industrial revoultion.
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Er, that woz R2D2 doing the denying, not me.
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On the second link you post, showing me unusual temperatures, what is the proxy used to determine 2005 temperatures?
(This link:
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/b/bb/Holocene_Temperature_Variations_Rev.png
)
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I presume that, as you are posting these details, you will receive some sort of commission for advertising their services?
[Please, Roger, just post links.]
There was no link.
I posted this to demonstrate the forces that are now driving the AGW agenda. You carry on about ‘big oil’ funding the ‘denialists’ as you call them but neglect the every increasing number whose income steam is derived from AGW.
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“the forces that are now driving the AGW agenda”
You mean the scientific evidence or the blatant empirical evidence?
[Edit: Jonno, please moderate your tone.]
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Do you have something against green jobs and a generally nicer environment to live in Roger? Or would you prefer we keep on despoiling this planet and to hell with the very eco-systems that support us?
I will look into that post in detail should I remember to later on [only so much lunch time].
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I am all for a nicer environment. It would be very much nicer if there were very much fewer people on this earth. New Zealand was very much nicer when the population was little more than half what it now is. I suspect that is true of almost every country on this earth. I am all for saving eco systems. I am all for feeding the plants with their most essential food. I would rather feed the plants than feed you. I would rather see trees, animals, birds and fish than humans. Green! I am a damn sight ‘greener’ than you and your ilk. You are not green. You just use a green skin to hide the red inside. Watermelons, the lot of you.
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Green?
You are no more green that Sue Bradford.
Just a bunch of ineffectual urban terrorists.
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Are you volunteering to be one of the people we get rid of to make the world a better place?
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No. I am not leaving any spawn behind me.
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(Links only, please, Roger.)
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Hmm, that was surprisingly easy. You’re into de-population too I see, curious.
I am looking through those various companies listed. I presume that post was copied from a print magazine as I can’t seem to locate any of that blurb online. I was surprised to see you list the UNFCCC, I wasn’t aware that they were a corporation. Can you post actual links concerning scientists, that are involved in the research into this issue, that have financial ties to corporations which might have an interest in the promotion of AGW?
Indeed, are you saying you have no trouble with fossil-fuel companies [who do not care about ethics, look into Nigeria] funding contrarian arguers yet you might have a problem with companies that want to introduce more efficient energy supply among other things and seemingly fomenting a panic? I hope this is not the case.
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Your bias is in the tone of your response. If you had been fed different propaganda as a child you would say, “You have no problem with green regulation turning corn into petrol and starving vulnerable people in least developed nations, but you don’t trust companies who would provide cheap non food based petrol to help nations develop?”
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No. The list came to me in an email from the UK. I accept no responsibility for any errors in it.
Companies that have a vested interest in AGW include several of our large legal and accounting firms. Just Google for legal or accounting advice on AGW.
I never mentioned the fossil fuel companies. I favour nuclear power.
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CTG: Still yet to see a proxy showing limited temperature increase in MWP and dramatic temperature increase in the late 20th century (that is a temperature graph that does not rely on an instrumental splice to show warming).
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Well, it’s not my problem if you are not prepared to read the science. If you are going to insist that the science stopped in 2006 just because you have one paper that you think supports your moronic point of view, that is your problem.
Meanwhile, those of us who have actually read the science understand what is going on. Mann et al 2008 does show more variation in the MWP, for the reasons discussed above. You reject that purely because of your personal bias against one of the authors. Again, that is your prerogative, but it is not a position that is based on science.
When you understand the science, come back and we’ll talk about what to do about it, but until then you are just making yourself look a bit foolish.
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No I reject that for different reasons. It is interesting that you can only find studies by one author – hardly a representation of ‘the science’ – (when did people start putting a ‘the’ in front of science?).
First of all it has two temperature splices hiding the results:
http://www.realclimate.org/images/m08.jpg
Second, it only shows 20th century warming, and does not show how this compares to previous warming (The; “NH CPS without Tree Rings vs CRU series”, doesn’t actually show late 20th century warming).
http://holocene.meteo.psu.edu/shared/articles/MannetalPNAS08.pdf
Then the study proceeds to display the standard ‘spaghetti graph’, where it takes 10 min just to work out what lines go all the way back and what ones stop half way.
When I do look closely,
- Modberg et el 2005 shows comparable warming
– Others do show warming above the MWP, but most of these don’t go back themselves. It is simply very hard to interpret these graphs. Lines over lines – spaghetti.
Show me one proxy. Or a series on different graphs that can be compared the was D’Andrea did. That is why I like it – it is easy to interpret. This is a reconstruction, I have no idea about the statistical method they used, and I’m not afraid to admit that.
But anyway, before you got off onto all sorts of topics, we were talking about the conclusions of Mann in 1999.
Maybe read this:
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~wsoon/1000yrclimatehistory-d/Jan30-ClimateResearchpaper.pdf
Covers ‘the science’. And gives plenty of references for you to look into.
Shows that:
a) LIA was worldwide
b) MWP was worldwide
c) Today is about the same as MWP
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Soons and Baliunas MUST be working for an oil or tobacco company. It is the only possible explanation.
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Well, that happens to be true about that one. I have looked into it before.
The fact of its funding aside, here’s the clincher:
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Greenpeace porkies:
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/amcelhinney/2009/08/19/exclusive-lies-revealed-greenpeace-leader-admits-arctic-ice-exaggeration/
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No, a complete beat-up by the forces of denial.
“Greenpeace porkies”
What excitement Roger. But it’s all codswallop. I watched the Hard Talk programme and reported on it here. Sackur was playing silly games at that stage of the interview, mixing sea ice melt with Greenland ice melt – as if Greenpeace didn’t know the difference. If you want Greenpeace’s response to the denialist blog fever you can see it here:
http://weblog.greenpeace.org/makingwaves/archives/2009/08/greenpeace_admits_bbc_got_it_w.html
And on the point of Greenpeace’s willingness to emotionalise issues, I say so they should. Mark Lynas in his book Six Degrees makes the case for emotional depth: “If I’ve read a paper about coral bleaching or precipitation trends in the Sahel, I need to be able to describe what this means in the real world – grey weed creeping over once-vibrant coral reefs, and Sudanese herders struggling to feed their children as their livestock starves around them and a dust-storm looms on the horizon.”
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Soons and Baliunas MUST be working for an oil or tobacco company – Roger Dewhurst.
Congratulations, you got something right. Church bells are ringing all over town. Geriatrics everywhere are punching their fists in the air. Baliunas is a classic example of a fossil fuel stooge.
- Between December 1998[1] and September 2001[2] she was listed as a “Scientific Adviser” to the Greening Earth Society, a group that was funded and controlled by the Western Fuels Association (WFA), an association of coal-burning utility companies – (Sourcewatch)
- She serves as Senior Scientist at the George C. Marshall Institute in Washington, DC, and chairs the Institute’s Science Advisory Board – (Wikipedia/Marshall Institute). She is a former board member of the institute. And it just so happens that this is one of those “think tanks” sponsored by Exxon Mobil (amongst others).
Baliunas has written climate denial articles for, and was co-host of TCS daily an online magazine owned at the time by a republican lobby firm DCI group. Once again, one of the sponsors was Exxon Mobil. (sourcewatch/neoconeurope/wikipedia ).
Willie Soon is out of the same denialist mold. Green earthing Society, Western Fuels, Exxon Mobil, yada, yada, yada.
It is the only possible explanation. – Roger Dewhurst.
Bingo!!!!!
Man, some of the comments by Baliunas in particular regarding climate are just comical.
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Covers ‘the science’. And gives plenty of references for you to look into.
Shows that:
a) LIA was worldwide
b) MWP was worldwide
c) Today is about the same as MWP – r2d2.
You mean the Baliunas & Soon 2003 paper?. You’re relying on that?. Oh, dear. The one processed by Chris De Freitas??. Oh, dear, dear, dear. In fact the “paper” is a good example of the peer-review process working properly, it was soundly debunked by the climate science community because it was a load of old cobblers. Some reading from one of the former editorial staff of the journal Climate Research:
http://www.sgr.org.uk/climate/StormyTimes_NL28.htm
Note the following Wikipedia entry on the fallout from that “study”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallie_Baliunas#cite_note-12
I highlight the following:
“With Soon, Baliunas investigated the correlation between solar variation and temperatures of the earth’s atmosphere. When there are more sunspots, the total solar output increases, and when there are fewer sunspots, it decreases. Soon and Baliunas attribute the Medieval warm period to such an increase in solar output, and believe that decreases in solar output led to the Little Ice Age, a period of cooling from which the earth has been recovering since 1890.[11]
Shortly thereafter, 13 of the authors of papers cited by Baliunas and Soon refuted her interpretation of their work.[12] There were three main objections: Soon and Baliunas used data reflective of changes in moisture, rather than temperature; they failed to distinguish between regional and hemispheric temperature anomalies; and they reconstructed past temperatures from proxy evidence not capable of resolving decadal trends. More recently, Osborn and Briffa repeated the Baliunas and Soon study but restricted themselves to records that were validated as temperature proxies, and came to a different result.[13]”
Whoops, sounds like r2d2 has latched on to a couple of idiots. Dude note who one of the sponsors of that study were – The American Petroleum Institute. Doh!.
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Dappled Water:
When you say authors of papers cited of course one of those is Michael Manne, whose paper they cited in order to disprove it.
Does it surprise me that Michael Manne disagrees with the paper? Well not really considering it disagrees with everything he has released. But then Michael Manne is a high priest of AGW, he runs a website specifically for the purpose of hyping up global warming fears and producing scathing reviews of any non-alarmist work, he is clearly not neutral.
The reaction also does not surprise me, global warming alarmists are aware that the argument is weak and they are very harsh on anyone who disagrees with them. ie:
http://hot-topic.co.nz/time-to-worry-nbr-editor-lacks-insight-on-climate-change/
http://hot-topic.co.nz/hows-about-telling-a-story/
As for working for big oil, give me a break. Do you think they would be funded by Greanpeace? They need to get money for there research from somewhere, and due to all the fearmongering going-on on websites like this one most organisations wouldn’t go near anything unorthodox. Sorry the study disagrees with your point of view.
Any way I’ll let you get the last word, I’m done with this thread, going no where.
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I am harsh on people who should know (or perhaps do know) the facts misrepresenting them for political purposes. Facts is facts, what you do with them is where the politics is.
Your self richeousness is truly wondrous.
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As is your spelling.
Yeah, like we should trust big oil and coal, not to lie about climate change. The same climate change that threatens their whole business model. No thanks, their flim- flammery is for the gullible.
The Baliunas and Soon paper has been thoroughly discredited. Get over it. My point of view on it is irrelevant, it didn’t stand up to scientific scrutiny. See Osborn and Briffa (2006) for instance :
“The most significant and longest duration feature during the last 1200 years is the geographical extent of warmth in the middle to late 20th century. Positive anomalies during 890 to 1170 and negative anomalies during 1580 to 1850 are consistent with the concepts of a Medieval Warm Period and a Little Ice Age, but comparison with instrumental temperatures shows the spatial extent of recent warmth to be of greater significance than that during the medieval period.”
This thread is going nowhere because, we already know that current warming caused by humans is anomalous in the recent historical record. That’s what the overwhelming majority of peer-reviewed climate research tells us. You just happen to be in denial.
Meanwhile out in the real world the big melt continues………..
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