Copenhagen - striking accord?
Arguably, it's a deadline that isn't a deadline for an accord that isn't an accord.
"It" is - or was - the 31 January target date by which governments were supposed to tell the UN climate convention (UNFCCC) secretariat what pledges they are prepared to make on curbing greenhouse gas emissions.
The date stems from the Copenhagen Accord - the agreement cobbled together at the end of December's UN climate summit in the Danish capital.
It received less than universal support at the summit, and since then UNFCCC executive secretary Yvo de Boer has indicated that 31 January isn't a deadline anyway.
So does who sends in what really matter?
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown believes it does; and in an open letter, he's just set out some of the reasons why.
If countries that indicated support for the accord at the summit send their submissions in, he writes:
"For the first time, the world will see, collected together, strong mitigation commitments by countries representing more than 80% of global emissions.
"If those commitments are then implemented to their maximum potential, they could lead to emissions peaking by around 2020 or before, representing the crucial first step towards the level of reductions required to hold global temperature increases to under 2C."
The UNFCCC hasn't released details of who has sent in what - they're expected to do so during Monday or Tuesday - but a number of key players have said they would make submissions, including the US, the EU and the Basic group of Brazil, China, India and South Africa. (NB: SEE UPDATE BELOW)
An argument made in some quarters as to why it matters is that the number of countries sending in submissions will indicate the extent of support for the Copenhagen Accord.
Implicit in this argument is a belief that the accord might be instrumental in holding countries to their pledges. It also ties in with a belief that the accord can be the basis for the bigger, more legally framed treaty that the EU and a number of developing countries say they want to secure at this year's UN conference in Mexico.
Do these views hold water, though? One reason why they might not is that the accord didn't bring any commitments from any countries above and beyond what they had pledged in the run-up to Copenhagen.
Compare countries' statements of intent as of November, say, with what they have sent to the UNFCCC and my guess is that you will not see a jot of difference. Some were going to do what they pledged anyway, unilaterally, accord or no accord.
And some, such as the EU, have indicated they'll now adopt targets at the weak end of the ranges they'd proposed - an action confirming that the accord is regarded as lacking in ambition.
And as I've asked before on this blog: given the way Copenhagen turned out, what basis does anyone have for believing that there is appetite among all significant parties for a stronger agreement with at least a whiff of legal obligation?
The agenda in those final hours of the summit was set and driven by the Basic bloc, who are most insistent that their own pledges must be regarded as voluntary. This view has been given additional emphasis by a report in the Danish press that the Basic countries had agreed how far they would go a week before the Copenhagen summit convened, during a meeting on 28 November in Beijing.
The bloc now plans to hold quarterly ministerial meetings on climate change.
So here's a provocative question: given the outcome of Copenhagen, and given the strength of the sinews that these powerfully developing nations are beginning to flex on a more regular basis in all sorts of arenas - see our coverage of the Davos economic forum last week - are these regular four-nation meetings now the most important events for deciding where the world is going on climate change?
UPDATE: The UNFCCC has now released details of submissions so far received. Top stats are: 55 countries, accounting for 78% of global emissions from energy use.
According to Yvo de Boer:
"The commitment to confront climate change at the highest level is beyond doubt."
See our news story here.
I'm Richard Black, environment correspondent for the BBC News website. This is my take on what's happening to our shared environment as the human population grows and our use of nature's resources increases.
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~41~RS~)
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http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100024416/climategate-time-for-the-tumbrils/
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100024548/climategate-is-the-british-government-conspiring-not-to-prosecute/
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7113552/Climategate-confusion-over-the-law-in-email-case.html
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This comment has been referred for further consideration. Explain
LabMunkey - Amazing, you left out "have you stopped beating your wife yet?" Or are you saving that for yet another post?
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#3 LabMunkey - I don't recall saying any such thing ("hired/consulted scientific experts...") - source please?
RB
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@ 4- i apologise if my tone came across as anything other than curious. this was not ever intended to be an attack of any sort- if it came across that way richard then i apologise unresevedly. I'm fairly direct with my questions (side effect of my job), that is all.
I am just genuinely worried about the state of the reporting on this issue and the name science will be left with after it has all finished.
#5- richard. I'm sure you mentioned it in one of your articles pre-copenhagen. We were discussing your point that reporting on science is tricky and asking about qualifications involved/required. I think i, or someone else, then asked about the bbc policy on the issue and that was when it was raised.
Is it the case that the bbc sought independant scientific advice on agw and based it's reporting stance on that- or do i have the sticky end of the stick?
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Richard black.
"And as I've asked before on this blog: given the way Copenhagen turned out, what basis does anyone have for believing that there is appetite among all significant parties for a stronger agreement with at least a whiff of legal obligation?"
given that the US of A are not signed up to a number of important international agreements, I have no reason to believe that they would co-operate willingly -- and legally binding -- on this issue either.
the sub-text of your post is co-operation based on reason and mutual benefit, the post-WWII reality of US policies is self-interest at any cost.
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Canada has pledged a 17% reduction from 2005.
Translation: A 2.5% incease over 1990 levels, which is the standard baseline; approved one day after a similar US announcement; and it's non-binding.
Since Canada has already reneged on its 2006 'pledge', which entailed a 3% reduction from 1990 levels - WE ARE RETREATING!
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To simon-swede re Dr. Worm's '2048' paper re fish stocks:
I am aware there is new information, and that things look better now (that's my interpretation), and that the paper was controversial.
Unfortunately I have been traumatized, having been more or less been on the spot when the Atlantic East Coast Cod Fishery collapsed - which as I understand it has yet to recover.
I will try and de-traumatize, and would appreciate your take, and references, on any new information regarding Dr. Worm et al's research - or others?
- Manysummits -
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All of the discussion on who will do what and when is nothing more than a distraction.
Every single day, another piece of 'irrefutable scientific evidence' is show to be mis-interpretation, taken out of context or wrong.
I've said it before Richard, you and the team of Enviro-reporters at the BBC (how many are there?) ought to be looking at the foundations of AGW as a whole before you pick at cracks in the plaster like the Copenhagen 'agreement'.
Ah, as I type, an advert for 'Costing the earth' appears on my radio - what a job creation scheme this whole thing is.
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#6 LabMunkey - no problem - I simply don't recall ever having written anything to that effect.
What you may have in mind is the BBC Trust report on impartiality which you can find here
RB
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[via: andrew30, telegraph.co.uk]
This might help explain the AGW bias of the BBC, the Environment Agency, some Governments and some Universities.
http://www.iigcc.org/
“The Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) is a forum for collaboration on climate change for European investors. The group’s objective is to catalyse greater investment in a low carbon economy by bringing investors together to use their collective influence with companies, policymakers and investors. The group currently has over 50 members, including some of the largest pension funds and asset managers in Europe, and represents assets of around €4trillion. A full list of members is available on the membership page”.
Did you catch that: FOUR TRILLION EUROS!
These guys are in this thing deep, and many may stand to loose their pensions, and some churches other than the ‘Church of AGW’ may also loose their robes.
http://www.iigcc.org/membership.aspx
Members of the IIGCC include (I trimmed the list a bit):
Baptist Union of Great Britain
BBC Pension Trust
Bedfordshire Pension Fund
BT Pension Scheme
Central Finance Board of the Methodist Church
Corporation of London Pension Fund
Environment Agency Pension Fund
Greater Manchester Pension Fund
Kent County Council
London Borough of Hounslow Pension Fund
London Borough of Islington Pension Fund
London Borough of Newham Pension Fund
London Pensions Fund Authority
Merseyside Pension Fund
Roman Catholic Diocese of Plymouth
Roman Catholic Diocese of Salford
South Yorkshire Pensions Authority
The Church Commissioners for England
The Church in Wales
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Portsmouth
United Reform Church
Universities Superannuation Scheme
West Midlands Metropolitan Authorities Pension Fund
West Yorkshire Pension Fund
http://www.professionalpensions.com/professional-pensions/news/1440290/iigcc-calls-urgent-changes-encourage-institutional-investment
”Professional Pensions | 19 May 2009 | 01:00
Categories: Investment
Carbon markets need urgent changes in order to encourage institutional investment and the development of a low-carbon economy, the Institutional Investor Group on Climate Change says.
The group is calling for strong price signals and caps on carbon emissions that will encourage scarcity and demand.
IIGCC chairman and BBC head of pensions investment Peter Dunscombe said: “The credibility of emissions trading schemes would be greatly improved with a robust price signal as well as clear and frequent communication from the regulator on trading data and improved transparency over direct government participation in schemes.”
”
Catch that: “IIGCC chairman and BBC head of pensions investment Peter Dunscombe…”
The BBC is the Chair of this Carbon Trading driven investment scheme!
It looks like a clear conflict of interest between the BBC and the public that they are supposed to serve.
...."
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BBC senior staff in a conflict of interest ? Never! Shock! Horror! Oh, the infamy. They are incorruptable and always impartial.
Except when they aren't.
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I fear acting on climate change [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator] within the current economic and political system is simply impossible. The only way to prevent climate change is to redesign the way our economies work from the ground up, and the only agenda of modern politics seems to be maintaining this broken economic system at whatever the cost.
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The key hurdles in the Copenhagen agreement are China and the US. China will not sign on without the US. The US (via the President)can not sign treaties constitutionally without the consent of the Senate. With the increase awareness of the sham that the IPCC is, this consent is not going to be given. If there is a change in power in the House of Representatives and/or Senate in this year's US elections, watch for the house committees to recall withnesses including Lord Christoher Monckton to re-testify on the real science of climate science. We will be able to see who then stands behind the IPCC findings.
Even today it was reported in the Daily Telegraph that the ice mountain ice disappearing in the IPCC report was based on a Mountaneering article and a student dissertation.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7111525/UN-climate-change-panel-based-claims-on-student-dissertation-and-magazine-article.html
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Are you all dicussing the meaning of the article ?
I am in China ,i wonder if i had understood the comments ....
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I think the BBCs record regarding impartiality in these discussions is clear. Even as it dawns on people that the carbon paranoia of the 21st century has caused a food crisis, degradation of the enviroment and threatened biodiversity, the BBC and others support the 'consensus'
I hope the IIGCC's (#11 vidl)financial tentacles does not mean thousands of peole are going to lose huge amounts of money as the fallability of warmist science become ever more obvious
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11. At 1:45pm on 01 Feb 2010, vidl
Well that's a very good post.
And a very big conflict of interest.
Mr Black, I think vidl's post warrants at least some response from you?
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Does anyone not think Russia's absence from these discussions is a bit worrying?
Typically the strongest emerging economies included the BRIC nations - Brazil, Russia, India, China.
Now we have BASIC - where is Russia in all of this?
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Do things like "ClimateGate", spurious reports about melting glaciers and the recent Copenhagen farce all now mean that I can go back to just putting the bins out every week without futile "recycling"? And also not having to listen to the likes of Ed Miliband spouting undergraduate nonsense at national level while his counterpart local authority jobsworths make everyone's life a misery at street level with their puerile eco-fascism. Caledonian Comment
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Richard.
Here was the the post i mentioned, i'm afraid i misrepresented it slightly
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2009/10/climate_issue.html#P
your post #6
my question still stands though. Do you know who the experts were? if not, how would we find out.
Would also love you to adress my other points if poss!
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Mr Black wrote:
'are these regular four-nation meetings now the most important events for deciding where the world is going on climate change?'
I think perhaps it is where they're going regarding climategate is more likely to be the issue.
And this puzzles me:
Where do you Richard Black stand on climategate?
What is your position?
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To Gates #13:
I followed your link - very interesting.
We humans have a recorded history going back thousands of years, and the tools of modern science allow us to go back even further.
It is almost impossible for us to imagine that things will not just keep rolling along.
This is why especially imaginative people are prized as artists or scientists - true free spirits - as opposed to the 'dementor crowd,' who seek to promote disinformation and confusion, leading ultimately to paralysis and death.
Would you tell us more about yourself and your reasons for coming on this weblog?
This site is typically dominated volumetrically by an anti-science contrarian contingent of unknown affiliation, as you may have noticed.
It is refeshing to see a new face. ( I believe I have seen your call sign before this??)
- Manysummits -
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A puppet master cannot expect puppets to dance unless there are strings are attached.
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#18 Moscowjane asks Where is Russia in all of this?
They still haven't finished laughing yet!
Labmonkey that list was/is also subject to FOI request instigated by Andrew Montford aka BishopsHill. It's on his blogg somewhere.
Isn't about time the BBC started coming clean on all this, Vidl comment on pensions via Andrew 30 is now global across the web.
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@ 22. " as opposed to the 'dementor crowd,' who seek to promote disinformation and confusion, leading ultimately to paralysis and death.
Would you tell us more about yourself and your reasons for coming on this weblog?
This site is typically dominated volumetrically by an anti-science contrarian contingent of unknown affiliation, as you may have noticed.
"
it's lovely when you come on and show your ignorance of science. How is it anti science to question the established (lol) theories. especially in the light of damning fraud allegations??
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re #11 vidl
You can look at this another way. Some people who are responsible for investing large amounts of money for the long term are taking a serious interest in climate change and what can be done to reduce the threat it poses to the funds they look after, and therefore on the pensions of thousands of people in the future. Which is a refreshing change from the view of many investment bankers who have been taking only a 3-month or annual view of the world with an eye on vast bonuses and to hell with the long-term prospects. And look where that got us.
Meanwhile, the BBC still allows any old view to be expressed here, with little restriction, even the most ridiculous, and without a requirement for people to declare their own interests. It even seems to allow posts which are nothing more than a reference to an article on a rival media Website, virtually an advert.
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(OT, sorry mods)
Kamboshigh.
apparently, Kew is not the place, check out: www.plantlife.org.uk
they're a charity, you can contact them on [Personal details removed by Moderator], or [Personal details removed by Moderator].
HTH
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How about this from Justin Rowlett BBC's Ethical Man I haven't heard it yet but it seems the wheels come off.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/benedictbrogan/100024564/wow-bbc-man-lays-in-to-environmental-fascism/
Listen here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00q3cnl
You can even play spot the hypocrite and how their tune has changed
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I'm not normally one to go in for venting my frustrations on blog posts, but it seems to be the in thing around here...
I'd just like to say that I appreciate the original article, as an avid follower of the climate change debates.
Over the last few years, I've been very glad to see more and more consensus on the damaging and very real consequences of climate change caused by humans. I'm very worried that there has not been more action on a global scale on this issue, and any small step towards reducing our emissions is a positive one.
I'm sad to see unfounded conspiracy theories being employed here to attempt obscure a crucial issue about how we can stop living beyond our means, and irrevocably damaging our world.
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Copenhagen - striking accord? WHO NOW CARES?
Even BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin is expressing doubts.
"it is obvious that the next IPCC report will have to be much more meticulous about flagging up the provenance of its sources. There will need to be more clarification of what is known as "grey" literature (not peer-reviewed) and IPCC panel participation.
It all points to the need for much greater transparency, though that will throw up issues of its own for a body striving to offer a coherent view to policymakers of an issue dominated by risk, uncertainty and values, rather that unambiguous science.
Just this week, for instance, there were two pieces of published research in Science and Nature suggesting that the very worse effects of climate change may have been overestimated. The researchers of both papers say they are still concerned about man-made climate change, though.
The 'unfinished science' of climate change goes on."
The current science does not support the policy - ergo - pledges are meaningless because the policy is wrong.
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http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100023145/why-the-bbc-will-always-be-wrong-on-climate-change/
Anyone at the BBC care to comment?
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#26 MatthewChell wrote:
"Meanwhile, the BBC still allows any old view to be expressed here, with little restriction, even the most ridiculous"
Are you suggesting that the BBC ought to use the powers of a censor to steer the riff-raff along the paths of righteousness?
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#26 Matthew, Would that be the same investment bankers that were the largest NGO with the highest financial mussle to attend Copenhagen.
http://www.ieta.org/ieta/www/pages/index.php
go to members page
By the way that was a real flash website that seems to have been pulled people running scared all over the place tonight.
I am in an interest group of 1 by the way
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Cheers JR on the case plus a donation if they don't ram AGW down my throat. Thanks for the help much appreciated ;)
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
We have cause and we have effect. The governments have decided to deal with the effect. This is how power works. Oil and coal interests and the taxes they produce results in a joint interest of the producers and the governments. This explains the lack of commitment to the development of a replacement(s). Wind and solar have limitations and work on a relatively small scale. Those are promoted not because they represent a viable alternative but because they make people believe that something is being done. The targets and any deadlines are a hoax, developed to appear as progress. Things are changing because the consumer wants the change and the businesses want their business and the businesses themselves can forcaste costs. They can only make money when people buy. The ultimate power of the people is in how they spend. The development of a cleaner more efficient fuel source is the only real alternative and political represenatives of the fossil fuel interests will make that difficult. Market forces can drive the system when given choice.
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A 'Pledge' is an oath.
An 'Oath' is:
"a promise or a statement of fact calling upon something or someone that the oath maker considers sacred, usually God, as a witness to the binding nature of the promise or the truth of the statement of fact. To swear is to take an oath, to make a solemn vow." (Wikipedia - Oath)
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Governments break oaths as easily as our first world middle class break promises.
It is a representative democracy, after all.
- Manysummits -
PS: A Story on promises:
Bill Tilman, mountaineer and sailor, in his sailing career, once hired someone over the phone for an extended expedition to the Arctic or Antarctic, I can't remember which. The man was ill-suited to the job (cook - I believe), but was the best that could be gotten given's Bill's peculiar style.
Just a short time later a man presented himself desiring to go on the expedition, who was apparently in every way superior to the man Bill had hired over the phone.
Nevertheless, a man's word is worth something - a lot, as it turns out.
Guess who went on the expedition?
Of course, it was a 'man' who had made the promise.
- Manysummits -
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The answer to your provocative question is "yes" and appeared obvious to me from the point that the US President visited the Far East just before the Copenhagen Conference.
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# Sn0w which consensus would that be then? The one it is all fraud, hoax or scam?
Better late than never I suppose
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#26 MatthewChell
This is not CIF at the Guardian where censorship of the AGW faith is the norm.
C - Censorship
I - Is
F - Frequent
The BBC have a duty to present and protect all views.
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Here's another 8 trillion dollars.
The IIGCC are not alone. And UNEP have their fingers in that as well. http://www.unepfi.org.
The world’s largest investors released a statement calling on the U.S. and other governments to quickly adopt strong national climate policies that will establish a stable investment climate and thus spur low-carbon investments to reduce emissions causing climate change. At December’s Copenhagen Climate Change Summit it was estimated that private-sector investors will need to finance more than 85 percent of the global transition to a low-carbon economy.
The Investor Statement on Catalyzing Investment in a Low-Carbon Economy calls for rapid action on carbon emission limits, energy efficiency, renewable energy, financing mechanisms and other policies. The statement was endorsed by four groups representing more than 190 investors with more than US$ 13 trillion of assets – Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR), Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC), Investor Group on Climate Change (IGCC) and the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI).
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@vidl #11
You missed another company on the list http://www.iigcc.org/membership.aspx that stands to gain from AGW - Genernation Investment Management - our old friend Al Gore
http://www.generationim.com/
/Mango
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I find the use of the word "deadline" amusing, if not the fact that this one has been missed. We as the inhabitants of this fragile planet must soon come to realize that if we don't cure this warming of our world, NONE of our other "problems" will matter in the least. That will truly be a deadline.
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@Caledonian Comment #19
Do things like "ClimateGate", spurious reports about melting glaciers and the recent Copenhagen farce all now mean that I can go back to just putting the bins out every week without futile "recycling"?
No, it's still good to recycle - I started recycling my rubbish well before it became fashionable
@manysummits #22
This site is typically dominated volumetrically by an anti-science contrarian contingent of unknown affiliation, as you may have noticed.
Anti-science? Far from it, I am seriously concerned that when this farce is over, the public standing of scientists will have been knocked back a century or two. And for the record, manysunnits, I am an individual who has taken the time to read up on the case against CO2 and found it wanting. I receive no payment in goods or kind for posting here.
@Kamboshigh #28
WOW! The BBC's Ethical Man is having a go at the greenies! Who next?
The wheels have definitely come off the wagon, the train crash can't be far away.
/mango
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#44 MangoChutneyUKOK wrote:
"Anti-science? Far from it, I am seriously concerned that when this farce is over, the public standing of scientists will have been knocked back a century or two."
But they're not real scientists, and the general public is growing more and more aware that their methods are completely different from those of physicists, chemists, biologists or engineers. It isn't the public standiung of scientists that will be knocked back, but the public standing of people who call themselves scientists, but do nothing like science. The public standing of gullible people like Ed Miliband who simply take their word for it will be knocked back too -- and a good thing too!
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Richard is still suffering from cognitive dissonance. I have read "The hockey stick illusion" and it seems Richard was an insider to the hockey team.
I suggest reading http://web.me.com/sinfonia1/Clamour_Of_The_Times/Clamour_Of_The_Times/Entries/2010/1/30_Global_Warming%3A_the_Collapse_of_a_Grand_Narrative.html
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#32 bowmanthebard
#40 minuend
I am not suggesting censorship - quite the opposite. Freedom of speech is vital aspect of our democracy and way of life. I was pointing out that there is none here.
But the state of this Blog does remind me of the internet before Google - search engines which came up with all sorts of stuff, mostly irrelevant to what you were looking for. So the next killer app might be a blog filter - although in time I suppose interest groups might find ways to subvert that too.
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@Bowmanthebard #45
The fact that these people do not follow scientific conventions, doesn't make them non-scientists in the public eye
/Mango
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Indeed, does it really matter? Everyone is agreed Climate Change is a natural cycle - man-made Carbon Dioxide is fingered as the major culprit but is it really so? Alarmists have not proven this and "belief" is not proof. A healthy questioning skepticism will certainly introduce a welcome breath of fresh air.
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Am rather puzzled that Copenhagen was still only talking about half the problem. While we argue about emissions, the other side of the coin - the ability of the Earth to absorb carbon dioxide and remove carbon from the cycle is still seemingly forgotten.
As well as reducing emissions surely we need to protect carbon-sequestering habitats - like peatlands, marshes, temperate forests, and biggest of all, the sea bed, from the huge damage we are now doing to them.
And while you are thinking about that, I'm off to promote a bit of carbon sequestering for supper - half a dozen oyster shells should take a little carbon out of the cycle for quite some time.
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Nature just published this, and though I'm not a scientist, I see that even scientists don't yet understand the Earth's ability to "absorb carbon dioxide."
Ensemble reconstruction constraints on the global carbon cycle sensitivity to climate
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v463/n7280/full/nature08769.html
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Considering that the Chinese goverment have called this week for "minority" IPCC reprts following Climategate and their diplomatic spats with the UK and US recently. I think that you can say categorically, that Copenhagen is dead if it was ever alive. The firghtening thing about all this is the rise of a volatile China, very serious for world peace. Move on Richard the agenda changed at Copenhagen.
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Don't expect ta politcally weakened Obama administration to deliver much more in the way of climate change mitigation. There is a lot of sentiment here that the whole issue was invented as an excuse to expand government and siphon off wealth from the developed world to the developing world. The Senate is not going to ratify a treaty that lowers our lifestyle and irritates the voters. Even expanding the EPA's power to regulate, which does not require treaties or legislation, will have to be done with care to avoid a political backlash.
Look instead for the Obama adminstration to make "pledges" to reduce emmissions without binding treaty committments. Politically speaking, that's about all he dares do.
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Labmunkey at # 1, 2 and 3.
As usual he appears magically, gives us his two line sound bite and, like Mary Poppins, he ‘never explains anything’. He uses ‘doubt’ to establish a non-proposition.
Delingpole and Booker. Two of the most nonsensical and abusive journalists at work today. If that is the evidence that the ‘sceptics’ have then, seriously folks, they have run out of ideas.
http://climateprogress.org/2010/01/03/anti-science-deniers-james-delingpole-telegraph-intimidate-and-harass-climate-scientists-climategat/
Delingpole indulges in nothing more than smear, rumour and innuendo. He no more understands science than I understand ‘collateral debt obligations’.
Why the Telegraph pays him good money I shall never know. They might just as well direct people to the standard industry rebuttals of climate science put about by WUWT.
The number of times you see ‘sceptics’ simply cutting and pasting from that site. They are merely spreading the virus of disinformation. They can’t even be bothered to try to understand the science.
So lazy.
However, it would be negligent to let his nonsense go unchallenged, given its importance for Mankind and all the other species we share our one and only home with
To those who are actually interested in the close correlation between the rapid rise of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere and the observed rapid warming, the following is a basic summary:
• We have a suspect, CO2. Evidence?
‘….In 1900 Svante Arrhenius estimated that a doubling of CO2 would cause a temperature rise of 5 - 6 °C. In his 1906 publication, Arrhenius adjusted the value downwards to 1.6 °C (including water vapour feedback: 2.1 °C). Recent (2007) estimates from IPCC say this value is likely to be between 2 and 4.5 °C.
Arrhenius expected CO2 levels to rise at a rate given by emissions in his time. Since then, industrial carbon dioxide levels have risen at a much faster rate: Arrhenius expected CO2 doubling to take about 3000 years; it is now estimated in most scenarios to take about a century.’
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/co2_data_mlo.html
• We have a motive. Evidence?
Loadsamoney.
• We have both forensics and strong circumstantial evidence.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
http://bcc.cma.gov.cn/Website/index.php?ChannelID=36&NewsID=127
Scroll down to A2 scenario 2071 to 2100
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seasonal.extent.1900-2007.jpg
and
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/iphone/iphone.anom.series.html
and
http://glaciology.ethz.ch/messnetz/index.html
and
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6907919.ece
and
http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news-nz/20092411-20286-2.html
and
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2009-196
and
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps
Click on ‘near surface layer’ and ‘draw graph’
So since the time of Thomas Arrhenius, who predicted that the release of CO2 into the atmosphere would cause atmospheric warming, we have released 1.4 trillion tonnes of CO2 (way faster than he envisaged at the time), from the burning of fossilized carbon deposits, mined and drilled from underground.
And at the same time we observe all the effects of that warming in the links above.
At the same time, no alternative explanation for the rapid warming has been forthcoming.
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Where is the World going on Climate Change?
Ask mother nature, I doubt she really cares about the four nations meetings. Man is irrelevant as far as these things go. Man-made CO2 is not a significant contributor to climate change. You might as well form a governmental panel to try and stop the tides! I mean why not waste even more money - Western Governments seem to be so good at it. As energy prices sky rocket from bad policy decisions, we will soon all be burning books to stay warm in winter - just like the pensioners did back in January.
More proof that CO2 is not the warming monster that the IPCC claims....?
http://www.physorg.com/news184044612.html
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Manysummits at #8
The 'new' paper by Worm et al to which I was referring is “Rebuilding Global Fisheries”, Boris Worm et al, Science 31 July 2009, Vol. 325. no. 5940, pp. 578 – 585. This paper is the result of collaboration between Worm and his colleagues with a group of the strongest critics of the original 2006 paper.
The abstract can be found at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/325/5940/578. I believe that the article as a whole may be open access. Many of the major references given are also open access articles and well worth a look (see 6 of the first 8 in the list, especially).
In addition, at the end of the articles abstract page, a number of useful reading suggestions are also given.
All the best,
Simon
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Scott at #54 says:-
‘The Senate is not going to ratify a treaty that lowers our lifestyle and irritates the voters.’
This should probably read:-
‘The Senate is not going to ratify a treaty that lowers ‘their’ lifestyle (i.e. the 1% of the people who own 43% of the wealth in the US) and so they use ‘anti-science’ to fool the voters.’
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thinkforyourself:
It hasn't warmed in a decade. Your "rapid rise of anthropogenic CO2" is now correlated with nothing. The feedbacks that the IPCC relied on for their scary stories never appeared.
Dangerous Climate Change via CO2 = debunked.
I don't like being lied to. The vast majority of people are like me in this respect. I have no idea how someone who is happy to be lied to goes through life.
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thinkforyourself #58.
not disagreeing, only wondering: did you include the Saudis and Chinese among the "people who own ... the wealth in the US"? ;)
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Dempster at #21 asks:-
‘…And this puzzles me:
Where do you Richard Black stand on climategate?
What is your position?’
And what puzzles me, Dempster, is why you ask questions loaded with innuendo, backed by rumour and intended to smear the BBC in general and Richard Black in particular?
Have you no shame, hidden away in your anonymity?
What I would like you to answer is, if you have any idea about science whatsoever, what is your alternative explanation for the observed evidence of warming I have posted at #55.
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@Thinkforyourself #55
"He uses ‘doubt’ to establish a non-proposition."
So, you're feeling 'doubt' are you?
Not surprising really! Obviously, we'll welcome you over to the dark (sceptical) side when you're completely ready.
No pressure mate, you're amongst friends and there's plenty of time ;-)
It seems to be becoming more and more popular these days, even ethical men are starting to jump ship..........
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FergalR at #59 says:-
‘…I don't like being lied to. The vast majority of people are like me in this respect. I have no idea how someone who is happy to be lied to goes through life.’
The only person lying to you Fergal is yourself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial
Now, have the good grace to give us your alternative explanation for the observed evidence of warming I have posted at #55.
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MatthewChell at #26 says:-
‘…Meanwhile, the BBC still allows any old view to be expressed here, with little restriction, even the most ridiculous, and without a requirement for people to declare their own interests. It even seems to allow posts which are nothing more than a reference to an article on a rival media Website, virtually an advert.’
Yes. Have you noticed that Fox News owner, Rupert Murdoch, only allows himself to be ‘interviewed’ by Sky News which is owned by his company, News Corporation.
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Feng Liang:
Please join the group. Many are regulars who battle over the reality of reality with occasional regurgitations from conservative talk shows. It is like standing on the shores of Pompey listening to some say that the mountain does this all the time, nothing to worry about. Fresh views are needed. The Spring Festival nears and I hope you can join your family and wish you prosperity and health in the coming year.
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thinkforyourself:
It's a natural cycle with a tiny little bit of lovely extra warmth thanks to our comfy carbon dioxide blankie.
The extraordinary claims you make to explain the warming a predict outlandish disasters require extraordinary proof. You have no proof, only theories. The observed evidence says you're wrong. Quoting a scientist who's been dead for nearly a century and doesn't cut it. To be honest I'd rather the world burned than be ruled by the likes of someone who would abuse that word you linked on wikipedia.
The observed evidence says you're wrong. Science.
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more shoddy science downunder
the Kiwis have lost their data too
http://briefingroom.typepad.com/the_briefing_room/2010/02/breaking-news-niwa-reveals-nz-original-climate-data-missing.html
oops!
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Interesting Spanglerboy, does that mean that professor Phil Jones and his cronies did destroy irreplaceable scientific data after all?
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@61 and various others you have posted .
Notice , I do not , unlike some others I could mention ( you for example) hide behind a pseudonym.
So here goes (yet again) RB has been compromised by his mention in the LEAKED (Despite todays Indy front page) emails, RH , has a vested interest through his outside interests in the theory of AGW .
The above , are FACTS , the whole scare story of AGW is a hypothesis , not sustantiated by empirical evidence .
We are told by our so called leaders that "2500" of the worlds leading scientists believe that AGW is real. UNTRUE
FACT : 52 "People" produced the SPM or to give it it's full title Summary for Policy Makers.
FACT : Numerous "articles" from advocacy groups have been included in a so called "peer reviewed" authorative IPCC report on climate change.
FACT: The IPCC Chairman is a qualified Railway Engineer , who was aware of the unsatisfactory status of the claimed Himalayan glaciers dead by 2035 , he allowed it to be published.
Hypothesis/conjecture : CO2 is the main driver of climate change.
Question: Can you show me the empirical evidence of CO2 CAUSING climate change ?
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@Thinkforyourself.
The first problem you have with the warming and the case for unusual warming is that none of your temperature records is either unmolested or untainted. So, apart from a bit of melting ice, which is quite normal for any interglacial period you've really not got any evidence yourself.
People in glass houses shouldn't start throwing stones and if anyone needs to read a wiki entry for the word denial, I 'thinkformyself' that it might be you.
If you can demonstrate a clear link between man-made CO2 and any non-PDO/NAO/solar cycle warming that we might have experienced, then we might have something to talk about. But as the IPCC have been unable to provide one and they've most definitely been looking for it, I don't hold out much hope for you.
Still, as I said. We're ready and willing to welcome you over to the more sensible side, when you’re ready of course ;-)
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Ok Fergal, at #66, let’s be specific.
What is causing the summer sea ice in the Arctic to reduce from a steady 11 million square kilometres up until the 1950’s and then to decline rapidly to about 6.5 million square kilometres now.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seasonal.extent.1900-2007.jpg
At the same time the CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by nearly 40 %.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/co2_data_mlo.html
You say:-
‘….Quoting a scientist who's been dead for nearly a century and doesn't cut it’
Well that’s just plain mad. All scientists die, or hadn’t you heard.
Does death now invalidate science?
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\\\ To FergalR #59: ///
I have pasted your entire post below.
Below that, I have pasted information from James Hansen, who is responsible for compiling the global temperature record for planet Earth for the United States. He resides and is a citizen of the United States of America, and works at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, of which he is director.
Dr. Hansen is a distinguished planetary scientist in his own right, and a member of the US National Academy of Sciences.
He is thought by many to be the number one climatologist in the world.
The evidence I have presented to rebut your fallacious statement is effectively incontrovertible empirical evidence that you are not only wrong in every one of your assertions, but negligently disingenuous.
-----------
59. At 9:21pm on 01 Feb 2010, FergalR wrote:
thinkforyourself:
It hasn't warmed in a decade. Your "rapid rise of anthropogenic CO2" is now correlated with nothing. The feedbacks that the IPCC relied on for their scary stories never appeared.
Dangerous Climate Change via CO2 = debunked.
I don't like being lied to. The vast majority of people are like me in this respect. I have no idea how someone who is happy to be lied to goes through life.
--------------
From:
Jan. 26, 2010: If It's That Warm, How Come It's So Darned Cold?
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/
"Summary
The bottom line is this: the Earth has been in a period of rapid global warming for the past three decades. The assertion that the planet has entered a period of cooling in the past decade is without foundation. On the contrary, we find no significant deviation from the warming trend of the past three decades." [see page 13 of pdf document]
------------------------
Scroll down to page 4 after clicking on the link given above; - see Figure 3, whose description I will paste below. This graph is the visual analogue of the above statement, and goes back in time much further than the past three decades.
"Figure 3.
60‐month (5‐year) and 132 month (11‐year) running mean temperatures in the GISS analysis of (a) global and (b) hemispheric surface temperature change (°C). (Base period is 1951‐1980.)"
------------------------------------------
- Manysummits -
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Blunderbunny at #62 blunders, saying without Freudian irony:-
‘…Not surprising really! Obviously, we'll welcome you over to the dark (sceptical) side when you're completely ready’
So there it is.
An admission from deep within.
The ‘dark (sceptical) side’. Mmmm
Interesting.
Admitting you have a problem is a first step on the road to recovery, grasshopper.
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@FergalR
"You have no proof, only theories. The observed evidence says you're wrong. Quoting a scientist who's been dead for nearly a century and doesn't cut it. To be honest I'd rather the world burned than be ruled by the likes of someone who would abuse that word you linked on wikipedia.
The observed evidence says you're wrong. Science."
Science?? Well for the record the observed evidence does show a continued warming trend. If your argument of a lack of heating is based on the 1998 peak, well I am sorry that is called cherry-picking - it is one of the first things you should learn to avoid when you learn the scientific method. Natural variation happens and you need to take a broader average to see the trend. And it shows warming. That is science.
'You only have theories' - I mean, give me a break! What the heck do you think science is? Proof you'll get in mathematics, at least if you accept the axioms - reasoned theories is about as good as you can get elsewhere and the evidence is pretty darn good - foggy obscuration by the sceptics notwithstanding.
Sometimes as a scientist I get terribly annoyed at people misusing the word 'science' when they do nothing but spout rubbish and try to hide it under the name of science. There _are_ issues with the climate change theories - see last weeks Nature for a careful assessment of it, but they have little if anything to do with the sceptics' diatribes.
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thinkforyourself:
I'll have to quote myself from elsewhere here:
"According to NSIDC's own data for Arctic sea-ice the monthly September averages (the figure used for climate studies) for the last 3 years were:
2007 4.28 million km^2
2008 4.67 million km^2 (up 9% on 2007)
2009 5.36 million km^2 (up 14% on 2008)
Not only is Arctic ice recovering, the recovery is clearly accelerating."
I cba running the numbers but I'm pretty sure that at that rate of Summer ice extent growth, the whole globe will be covered in ice by the end of the century. During the Summer. The low extent in 2007 was caused by a weakened Beaufort gyre: you'd have to pull out something pretty special to prove that has anything to CO2. I'm sure NSIDC would love to see your data from the 1950's though, theirs only goes back to 1978. Unless you just made that up.
You should really stop mentioning how much CO2 has risen, it makes a mockery of your opinions since the world hasn't warmed in 10 years.
In the 1970's we were told an ice age was coming, why were they wrong and Arrhenius right? Why would anyone in their right mind believe a word that GISS, CRU or the IPCC say?
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Neil Hyde at #69 says:-
‘..Question: Can you show me the empirical evidence of CO2 CAUSING climate change?’
Yes. They’re posted at #55.
Do you have an alternative explanation for what is happening there?
PS How do we know that you’re Neil Hyde?
You told us.
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Dear Richard Black
What are your scientific qualifications? Are you a scientist or a journalist. The BBC should publish the credentials for all their science reporters. I am a qualified scientist and understand the issues of the data collection, analysis and physics concerned with meteorology.
Kind regards
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thinkforyourself # 71
I am somewhat embarrassed to post this once again and apologise to all those who can think for themselves but the rate of warming at the end of the 20th century was in no way unusual as the Hadley Centre confirmed to the House of Lords
'Observations collated at the Met Office Hadley Centre and the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit indicate that the rate of increase in global average surface temperature between 1975 and 1998 was similar to the rates of increase observed between 1860 and 1880 and between 1910 and 1940 (approximately 0.16 C° per decade).' per Lord Hunt of King's Heath
Personally I have no faith in their data so make of it what you will.
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Aldebaranian:
I said temperatures have been flat for 10 years, 1998 was 12 years ago. Sorry if that seems patronising. They've fallen substantially since 1998.
The global temperature record as composed by CRU and Michael Mann etc. is so suspect as to be useless. To suggest that today's temperature are unprecedented on the basis of their reconstructions is stupid.
I'm sorry you get terribly annoyed.
The IPCC got the temperature prediction wrong. They got the CO2 increase rate wrong. There are less storms now they said there'd be more. They said there'd be accelerated sea-level rise, it's flattened off - as has ocean heat content. The theory has been falsified by observation. Yet people still listen to what the IPCC says.
That gets me very annoyed.
The stratospheric water vapour paper has everything to do with sceptics' diatribes. You just haven't been listening.
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Oh, sorry, Aldebaranian, you meant the ocean CO2 outgassing debacle. You should really check out Solomon's paper too: 0.5 ppm H20 in the stratosphere forcing .1Wm^2? Guess they'll have to throw those climate models in the same skip they dumped the (possibly) irreplaceable data.
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Classic anti-science from Fergal at #75. He picks discrete years of weather and ignores the long term trend (climate).
Here’s what the NSIDC actually say about the summer sea ice extent:-
http://nsidc.org/news/press/20091005_minimumpr.html
Notice the pink line on the map.
Scroll down to Fig.3 for the trend since 1979. Arctic summer sea ice trending down at 11.2% per decade.
Now look at the longer term since 1900, here:-
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seasonal.extent.1900-2007.jpg
The green line is summer sea ice and has declined from a steady 11 million square kilometres up until the 1950’s rapidly to about 6.5 million square kilometres now.
The graph has short term variations due to weather, but only a non scientist or someone being deliberately obstructive would call the long term trend upward.
Also look at this from the University of Illinois:-
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/iphone/iphone.anom.series.html
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61. At 9:24pm on 01 Feb 2010, thinkforyourself wrote:
Dempster at #21 asks:-
‘…And this puzzles me:
Where do you Richard Black stand on climategate?
What is your position?’
And what puzzles me, Dempster, is why you ask questions loaded with innuendo, backed by rumour and intended to smear the BBC in general and Richard Black in particular?
Have you no shame, hidden away in your anonymity?
What I would like you to answer is, if you have any idea about science whatsoever, what is your alternative explanation for the observed evidence of warming I have posted at #55.
My goodness thinkforyourself, what an interesting post, I must respond:
I’m not a scientist, not a scientist at all, I’m just an average self employed working Joe, husband and father of three.
You see I don’t know whether there is global warming or not, I’ve taken no temperature measurements and collated no data.
It was simply a request to the author of the article.
You see when I think for myself, sometimes it prompts questions to which I do not have the answer.
You must have the advantage of me, as it would appear you already know the answers.
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It's chilly here in Sydney Australia - and its summer MUST MUST MUST be all the global warming. With recent record high temps in Melbourne breaking a number of records next month is forcast to have a much lower than average temps.
DAMN that global warming.
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@thinkforyourself #73
Happily dark, happily ironic and happily doubtful, they're my default states. Given the screen name you apparently don't need my help with irony, but I'm happy to help you with the rest of it.
Science is sceptical and doubtful, it would never discover anything if it wasn't, it's part of having an enquiring mind.
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thinkforyourself:
Are you for real? That graph you linked could only be accurate with the use of time travel. We have no reliable idea what the ice was like in 1950.
The long term trend is downwards. The last two years the trend is up like a rocket. It was the Beaufort gyre. The wind was blowing against it for a while due to natural ocean oscillations. Now it's back to the way it was in the 70's. Do you prefer it cold?
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Fergal says at #75:-
‘…..I'm sure NSIDC would love to see your data from the 1950's though, theirs only goes back to 1978. Unless you just made that up.’
No Fergal. It’s from the Polar Research Group, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It’s very widely known in scientific circles.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
Maybe stop reading WUWT. He doesn’t tell you the whole story you know.
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Blunderbunny at #84 says:-
‘..Science is sceptical and doubtful, it would never discover anything if it wasn't, it's part of having an enquiring mind.’
Excellent. Then maybe your enquiry will help us all to understand what’s going on with all the observations I posted at #55?
We look forward to your alternative explanation.
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Dr Pachauri appears to be doing a very good job of single-handedly destroying the credibility of the IPCC. Go to eureferendum.blogspot.com and watch the video interview with him.
He accuses Jonathan Leake - of all people - of being part of a sceptical conspiracy, intent on blocking action on climate change - amongst other 'gems'
Richard, beware - he's now taken to attacking his allies, and will possibly soon be gunning for you as well.
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Anybody: Between 1000 A.D. and about 1420 A.D. southern Greenland had a viking colony that was growing its own food. About 1420, a succession of colder summers and shorter growing seasons caused the colonists to abandon the colony, returning to Denmark & Norway. Who among the AGW enthusiasts has provided an explanation about the warmer centuries (11th to 14th), the colder centuries (15th to 17th) and the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere? My understanding is that SUNSPOTS as observed by Galileo disappeared for a couple of centuries, returning about 1770 A.D.
BTW, has southern Greenland warmed up enough NOW (in the 21st century) so that agriculture can get a fresh start?
TEaPot562
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Dempster #82.
"It was simply a request to the author of the article."
well, it wasn't. #21 starts by appearing to address a question posed by RB but manages to mention 'climategate' (-gate is SO de rigeur, don't you agree?), then uses that mention to ask where RB stands personally.
not a little disingenuous.
there was a recent debate on RB's blog where he stood accused of being biased, and now you have to ask because there isn't any (evident in the articles).
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thinkforyourself:
You should stop reading RealClimate, all they tell you are stories.
Since you brought up WUWT though here's a picture of the North Pole from 17th March 1959: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/uss-skate-open-water.jpg?w=510&h=306
According to the Polar Research Group's fanciful graph there was 2 million km^2 more ice then than in 2007. Still worried about that ice-free Arctic?
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Who said what says at #83:-
‘…It's chilly here in Sydney Australia - and its summer MUST MUST MUST be all the global warming. With recent record high temps in Melbourne breaking a number of records next month is forcast to have a much lower than average temps.’
Don’t know what this guy is implying. Looking at the weather in Sydney it looks about average during the day and quite warm overnight. Lots of rain, however, but then Sydney is subtropical and has lots of rain in heavy summer downpours.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/weather/forecast/93?count=10
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/world/city_guides/results.shtml?tt=TT003030
Average for Sydney during January:
Max 26 deg C
Min 18 deg C
Actual this week:-
Max 24 - 25 deg C
Min 23 deg C
Just weather.
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The IPCC and Climate Models have exaggerated (out of all proportion) the insignificant effects of CO2. The evidence keeps on mounting that the entire anthropogenic global warming crusade is "cry-wolf" science by "cry-wolf" political organizations (NGO's, Western Governments etc.) supported by cheerleading from our "cry-wolf" main stream media (thanks BBC).
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/01/evidence-for-natural-climate-cycles-in-the-ipcc-climate-models-20th-century-temperature-reconstructions/
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@thinkforyourself #71 who wrote...
"let’s be specific.
What is causing the summer sea ice in the Arctic to reduce from a steady 11 million square kilometres up until the 1950’s and then to decline rapidly to about 6.5 million square kilometres now."
I think a better question is...where did they get a coherent record from 1900 to present? And while you're at it, you might want to explain the reason summer sea ice remained nearly flat...even though global temperatures shot up by over .5C between 1910 and 1945. You might also want to explain the reason sea ice dropped again in the 50s even though the temperatures were lower again then.
I think you've lost all of your ability to look at anything rationally when it comes to anthropogenic global warming. Even you should be starting to notice the horrible flaws in the supposed "science" but you're just clinging to your beliefs as if a god had told you about AGW first hand.
You obviously didn't question this sea ice data at all...methods, error levels, etc...you just accepted it as a fact.
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90. At 11:13pm on 01 Feb 2010, jr4412 wrote:
Dempster #82. "It was simply a request to the author of the article."
'well, it wasn't. #21 starts by appearing to address a question posed by RB but manages to mention 'climategate' (-gate is SO de rigeur, don't you agree?), then uses that mention to ask where RB stands personally'
Interesting post jr4412
My response is:
From the average working Joe’s perspective, there are two conflicting camps. The AGW supporters and the Climategate supporters.
If I can't mention the Climategate side of things, it does prompt the question....why?
It wasn't moderated out, so presumably one can ask.
If however you think it wrong to ask, you must advise so, possibly even explain why.
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FergalR #91.
strange argument, does it qualify as logical?
"..a picture of the North Pole from 17th March 1959 ... there was 2 million km^2 more ice then than in 2007."
correct me if I'm wrong but if there was more ice in 1959 than in 2007, that means there's less ice today than 58 years ago.
"Still worried about that ice-free Arctic?"
why not?
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@ thinkforyourself
What this guy is implying is it's chilly here in Sydney for this time of the year!
They must be met office guides and they are Oh so reliable.
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Dempster at #82 says:-
‘I’m not a scientist, not a scientist at all, I’m just an average self employed working Joe, husband and father of three. You see I don’t know whether there is global warming or not, I’ve taken no temperature measurements and collated no data.
You must have the advantage of me, as it would appear you already know the answers.’
You were the one who knew that the planet was self regulating in an earlier post. Now you admit you are not a scientist, so how did you come to that earlier conclusion?
Unfortunately, mankind is not self-regulating as is clear from many of these posts.
The observations being made around the world, some of which are listed at my post #55 are direct evidence ‘in the field’ of the warming that has long been predicted by the science.
Hansen warned congress of the implications of increasing anthropogenic CO2 emissions back in 1988.
Here is a link you might decide to read:-
http://climateprogress.org/2009/12/10/climategate-1700-british-scientists-come-forward-to-defend-climate-science-met-office/
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FergalR at #91
Interesting photo. Knew you were an avid consumer of WUWT.
Could you get Anthony Watts to give us the exact Latitude and Longitude of this photograph, and the time of year? We don’t want him trying to confuse us.
Then we can put it in context
Thankyou.
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Dempster #95.
no problem, sure you can bring up the dreaded '-gate' -- again; it seems that nothing else has been discussed here for weeks.
these are my points: why bring it up again? and why ask the personal question when you're probably aware that the BBC and their staff have to at least try and remain neutral/unbiased.
what was your point?
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jr4412:
The entire sentence was "According to the Polar Research Group's fanciful graph there was 2 million km^2 more ice then than in 2007."
Sorry you're slow of comprehension. What I meant was that the Polar Research Group's graph is either the product of incompetence or fraudulent since there was a submarine surrounded by open water at the North Pole in March 1959 while there was loads of ice at the same location in 2007. If you need any further clarification don't hesitate to ask.
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OK who said what at #97
From Sydney Morning Herald:-
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/nsw/sydney
http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/aboutSydney/VisitorGuidesInformation/Weather.asp
January average 19 to 26 deg C
How is this chilly weather?
Looks pretty average to warm overnight.
Not the Met office btw.
So your point is what?
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@All
You might want to read this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/01/leaked-emails-climate-jones-chinese
Especially, those of us that like to think for ourselves.... Still time to jump ship if you want, go on you know you want to.... Bear in mind that's the guardian not the telegraph. I'd love to be a fly in the Monbiot household right now...........
Actually, barring the arrival of an ice age sometime tomorrow morning, I'm struggling to see how it could get any worse for the warmists.
If they don't all end up in jail it'll be a miracle. Happy's really not the word for it...........
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FergalR #101.
"Sorry you're slow of comprehension."
no problem, adequately compensated for by thoroughness.
"What I meant was that the Polar Research Group's graph is either the product of incompetence or fraudulent since there was a submarine surrounded by open water at the North Pole in March 1959 while there was loads of ice at the same location in 2007. If you need any further clarification don't hesitate to ask."
one question: is there any official verification of the subs actual position? (not present on site or in image properties) without that information, a key part of your 'entire sentence' (ie "at the same location") cannot be established.
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98. At 11:34pm on 01 Feb 2010, thinkforyourself wrote:
What I actually said was:
The planet is self regulating in a way. Over-crowding and disasters go hand in hand. An unannounced tsunami here, or an earth quake there, perhaps the sneeze of a volcano. Most things come with a price, and overcrowding’s price is impromptu death for many as opposed to a few.
100. At 11:44pm on 01 Feb 2010, jr4412 wrote:
My point jr4412, was that I was asking a question, looking for an answer.
What has surprised me is the ferocity of criticism for asking it.
I wonder,if I believe that boom and bust has been eradicated, and if I believe there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and that Dr David Kelly committed suicide, and if I believe in climate change caused by humans.
And finally if I agree to question nothing.
Will I sleep well tonight.
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blunderbunny:
Well, now that The Guardian has turned on them we can stop wasting our energy arguing and enjoy the finer things in life, like the new blockbuster novel by IPCC chairman Dr. Rajenda Pachauri's. Here it is, reviewed in all its glory by the Times of India:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/sunday-toi/book-mark/Return-to-Almora-A-spiritual-potboiler-/articleshow/5491811.cms
jr4412: You're right to be sceptical, I withdraw my claim that a submarine surfaced at the North Pole in 1959. My apologies.
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Dempster #105.
I feel empathy with all that follows "I wonder,if.." -- unfortunately.
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Also, I know it's only weather but it's nice to hear nonetheless.
"Scotland has suffered some of the coldest winter months in almost 100 years, the Met Office has confirmed.
By combining the temperatures of January and December it showed they were the coldest since 1914 - the year data started being logged"
Night All
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To simon-swede:
Thank you Simon for the reply and information re the global fishery and Dr. Worm et al...
I noticed that CuckooToo showed up on the last blog, and now we have a new crop of particularly virulent posts.
I may take a break from the blog for a bit - we'll see.
I imagine your life sometimes, as you have always been reluctant to get personal - understandable.
For myself - those years in the mountains took an already pretty free spirit and cut almost all ties to the world I knew before.
It's been five years since I returned to the 'normal' workforce. Let me paraphrase something a psychologist once passed on to me:
'Normal is nothing to be admired.'
- Manysummits -
- Manysummits -
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Here we go again, no sooner does RB mention CC than all,the usual faces jump out of the woodwork with all the same flippant phrases.
However, this time I got a few good laughs.
Here's one........FergalR at whenever. Not only does he state categorically that there was more ice at the North Pole in 1959 than in 2007,(meaning of course that there is significantly LESS ice in 2007) point noticed by JR, he also claims that a Submarine is seen to be surrounded by water there! A claim he hastily withdraws. At least he had the guts to do so.You are to be commended for that.
As to the "more ice in 1959" I acknowledge that may have been a typo and in direct opposition to what he meant, but it does pay to preview one's contributions.It just makes everything else you say less credible.
Then there's my "educated" friend Blunderbunny.....at #103 who refers me to an article in the Guardian with certain inferences about the reputation and future of certain scientists.
How much of that article did you actually read? Why do you continually choose to "cherrypick" sections of an article that "appear" to support your beliefs? (others will note I've answered my own question here and I doubt I'll get an honest answer from Blunderbunny)
Did you read this bit?
"The revelations on the inadequacies of the 1990 paper do not undermine the case that humans are causing climate change, and other studies have produced similar findings. But they do call into question the probity of some climate change science"
Seriously, Blunderbunny, if you demand "perfection" from everyone else, how about a bit yourself. In other words...read it all, not just the bits you like!
But the best laugh I got came from Mango who writes in #44
"Anti-science? Far from it, I am seriously concerned that when this farce is over, the public standing of scientists will have been knocked back a century or two. And for the record, manysunnits, I am an individual who has taken the time to read up on the case against CO2 and found it wanting. I receive no payment in goods or kind for posting here"
Read it again..particularly this bit....
" I am an individual who has taken the time to read up on the case against CO2 and found it wanting."
Now one can read that two ways and I'm sure he didn't mean it the way I am going to choose to read it, Here goes .....the case against CO2 BEING THE MAIN DRIVER FOR CC and found it wanting. If he did, I'm sure Manysummits and many others would totally agree! (and would probably add.......Welcome aboard, Mango)
Now I shall read it the way I believe he intended..........."that he found the case FOR CO2 being the primary driver, wanting."
So, this I find totally unbelievable. Mango......just how much of the case did you choose to "read up on"?
This link will take you to the list of references used by IPCC Working Group 1 for AR4. Please notice how extensive it is. (note other so-called "sceptics" might choose to go through this list with a fine toothcomb.....but then again I doubt they will)
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch4s4-references.html
So...back to Mango.............are you seriously trying to tell me (and Mannysummits) that you have perused every single one of these papers, that you have the scientific expertise to understand and evaluate them?
As I have stated before, despite having close to 60 years experience in "science" I know nothing about climate science and so refrain from commenting on the ins and outs of it. BUT..................I have learned how to recognise BS when I see it.
Just as well I can see the funny side or I might get even more "grumpy".
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Um, it was #91 xtragrumpy, I honestly can't see anything wrong with the post. Maybe those who believe in AGW are blind to sarcasm, which would explain a lot actually.
That The Guardian would do anything but supplicate itself before climate science is more significant than you realise.
I think you'll understand if sceptics don't read every climate science paper since they commonly believe many of them were written and peer-reviewed by politics rather than curiosity.
Really beautiful poster of the history of AGW from a sceptical point of view here:
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/01/finally-the-new-revised-and-edited-climategate-timeline/
Informative no matter side of the debate you're on.
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@xtragrumpymike2
Can't sleep for some reason, so I'm still here.
Sorry Mike what bit of information did you wish me to take from the Gaurdian article - if the data was/is all fine, why hide the changes and why not own up to it straight away?
I'm not demanding perfection of anyone, that's way too much to ask. Just a bit of honesty would do for a start. If as alleged, he was responsible for hiding data, data that would have harmed his case, what else has he been upto?
Up until tonight, you'd have been telling me this guy was wholly honest. Indeed, many people on this blog have been defending both the guys at UAE and their 'science'.
They wouldn't, couldn't and haven't lied to us, there is no conspiracy and yet it would seem that, that at least some of that's untrue. There appears to be evidence of collusion, deception and manipulation of data.
But it's okay, they've re-iterated that it's all unimportant, that it hasn't changed the science that's based on this research. Precisely, at what point does all of this become a problem for you?
It's as if no evidence is enough, you're taking this on faith and after that we're no longer talking science. I'd be quite happy if myself and others like me are wrong, I'm happy to learn, happy to be educated as far as I'm concerned its fun, if there's any real evidence out there then let's see it.
I can understand that this sort of thing can be difficult, but you seem like a rational chap and all I'd ask is that you just have another look at it all.
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Well, a month of (mostly) biodiversity was nice...@simon, thanks for the article on fisheries, very interesting.
I do find it a bit amusing - whe had Copenhage, then Hopenhagen, then Nopenhagen, now I think we need to start calling it Dopenhagen - as, in terms of stated objectives, it was a total failure - and yet we still have politicians declaring victory - sounds pretty Dopey to me...
How long must we beat the dead horse? How often will the same silly arguments on both sides be repeated? It was said that if you say something enough - people will believe it - but at this point, with both sides, people don't believe anything, and rightly so.
Lets face reality - I have read both cases (for and against CO2 being the main driver for climate change) and find them both lacking. We simply don't know enough about Earth's Climate System to make meaningful predictions. Thats not going to change this week, nor this year, more likely than not, not this decade that we just began.
While xtragrumpymike would apply the "Precautionary Principle" as his counter-argument (I hope I am not speaking out of turn here - you have on many discussions before...), I say simply, perhaps we can do anything - but we certainly can't do everything. While Mr. Obama may think he can just print more money (had anyone seen his budget proposal? LOL) - we can't. We simply can't do everything.
Cap and Trade or Carbon Taxes would make a lot of people very rich - and the overwhelming majority of us much poorer. Take that one to the bank. Ultimately, where does all the money come from? Do you think the restaurant you eat in will operate at a loss when their energy costs double? What about heating your home? If you take away the wealth of the middle classes in the West, you take away just about everything from charities and programs worldwide.
Wish we could focus our efforts on biodiversity this year...
Cheers.
Kealey
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Wow the Guardian has abandoned the stinking ship of alarmists.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/01/dispute-weather-fraud
They use the word "fraud".
They are right - that is exactly what is going on!
Some tough choices ahead for the BBC - do they stick with the mantra and remain part of the "cry-wolf" anthropogenic scaremongers OR do they come clean and admit they were duped.
The longer the BBC continues to ignore the skeptics the more and more it appears that the BBC are part of a very nasty manipulative agenda. This agenda will drive up energy costs in the West enormously. It will result in the wholesale destruction of our consequently uncompetitive manufacturing base, which is being uprooted and moving to China and India, as we speak.
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The Washington Times is jumping ship
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/02/osama-and-obama-on-global-warming/
Where oh where is Richard and the BBC?
Meanwhile, the IPCC which has not only recently managed to give us Amazongate, Glaciergate and Steamyhotnovelgate (Pachauri's racy romance novel filled with sex), have now really put their foot in their mouth.
http://climatequotes.com/2010/02/01/ipcc-cites-boot-cleaning-guide-for-antarctica-tour-operators/
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@Shardorne #114
Nope I couldn't believe the wording in the Gaurdian and from Fred too! Considering the paper's 'normal' heavily pro-AGW stance it's an absolutely amazing article.
Perhaps they've decide to sacrifice the poor chap, a sort of firebrake, an attempt to protect the body of their work?
If it's not a hatchet job, Goerge will be fuming in the morning ;-)
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LarryKealey wrote: I have read both cases (for and against CO2 being the main driver for climate change) and find them both lacking. We simply don't know enough about Earth's Climate System to make meaningful predictions.
Well said. We Do Not Know. The marvelous complexity of Earth's Climate System cannot be modelled by any computer in existence. And the data fed to the inadequate computers is not consistent.
Excuse those of us, Larry, who are alarmed at the idea of creating worldwide regulations regarding agriculture, health, science, industry, and birth rates on this "settled" science.
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The reason that thinkforyourself talked about Svante Arrhenius’ work was to show that the optical properties of CO2 have been known for over a century now. Specifically CO2 is largely transparent in the visible wave lengths, which means that solar energy reaches the surface of the earth at the speed of light. At the surface of the earth, it is absorbed and re-radiated back toward space in much longer wavelengths. The problem is that CO2 is largely opaque to the longer wavelengths re-radiated from the earth. This means the energy re-radiated from the surface of the earth is absorbed by CO2 and then re-radiated many times before the energy reaches the top of the atmosphere were it is dissipated out into space. Vertical air circulation also moves heat energy to the top of the atmosphere. Thus the rate of moving heat from the surface of the earth to the top of the atmosphere is much slower than the rate of energy coming in from the Sun. A physical model would be a tank of water with a inlet and an outlet. Having no atmosphere would be like having an inlet and outlet of equal sizes. The atmosphere makes the outlet smaller. A higher level of water in the physical model will result in an increase in outflow through the small outlet as the level increases. As long as the rate of inflow can be balanced by the rate of outflow by the increased pressure from a higher level in the tank an equilibrium level will be achieved. Decreasing the size of the outlet, i.e. increasing the level of CO2 raises the level in the tank until a new equilibrium is reached. Those who claim global warming is not happening need to identify other factors that would counteract the increase in CO2.
The changes in the extent of polar ice cover is well documented. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2006/seaice_meltdown.html
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/icecover.html
If you think you can do a better analysis, you can go to http://nsidc.org/daac/
and download the raw data and do your own analysis. It is relatively simple since a lot of data processing software is available for free at the same web site and other places.
After you download the data you need to overlap your images over a time interval such as a week or two to get values for those pixels covered by clouds. Interpolate the values still missing, then you need to project the data to an appropriate geodetic model for polar studies. After you have assembled a sequence of images over a period of many years you can map the change of ice boundaries and thus the area of ice cover. If you come out with different results, write it up and send it into a referred journal. Of course you will need to be able to explain the rational if you choose to use methods not already validated by other researchers. Note, 3 years of data does not a climate trend or non-trend make. It should also be noted that the error in the IPCC Himalayan glaciers was an error in estimating when they would be gone, not whether they were shrinking. Shrinking glaciers is also an issue in the Andes. Historic photographs document the shrinkage of mountain glaciers in most areas around the world.
The statement by one of the posters that global warming is “only a theory” demonstrates she/he has no understanding of how science works. Theories and models are how scientists understand their data. Is Newton’s Theory of Gravity only a theory? It is good enough to fire artillery or go to the moon. But it doesn’t provide a basis for understanding how one can see stars that are behind other stars. For that you need Einstein’s theory of relativity. Einstein’s theory says that planets move in straight lines but appear to move in elliptical paths because space is warped by gravity. The star in front of the further star bends the light by distorting the space the light passes through. Only Einstein’s theory predicts this. So is one theory false and the other true? Are both true?
The theory of global warming is based on the physics of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses such as CH4 (methane). It is refined by adding in component models of fluid dynamics that describe atmospheric circulation, models of cloud optics, cloud creation, dissipation and transport, etc. How do the climate warming deniers suggest trying to understand these phenomena? Do they decline to fly on airplanes designed with similar fluid dynamic models? If they have a better model let them present it. Just saying you don’t believe it, hardly makes for a persuasive argument. Neither does cherry picking a few weather data points.
It is curious that AGW deniers are concerned about scientists being corrupted by research grants but show no concern about corruption by money from fossil fuel industry contributed to anyone with a degree or without who will raise doubts about AGW. (I should note that you can find a person with a Ph.D. who will defend almost any assertion you like. For example the late Julian Simon asserted that we would never run out of copper because we would figure out how to make copper out of other metals. Now his Ph.D. was in business administration, not chemistry or physics, yet he gave counsel on resource management to the highest levels of the U.S. government during the Reagan and Bush one administrations.) Who do you trust to be the most disinterested medical researchers funded by grant money, or researches funded by the tobacco industry? Then of course there are people who engage in denial because they don’t want their life style or addictions to be compromised. I remember one professor of mine in the middle ‘60s who was addicted to tobacco who rationalized that a proclivity to tobacco addiction and susceptibility to cancer were correlated to some third factor beyond his control. I imagine that the poster who claimed to not be getting any money for his arguments against global warming likely falls into this latter camp.
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The Financial Times weighs in
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/76573ac6-0f69-11df-a450-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1
Is it really possible? The Main Stream Media are suddenly making a huge U-turn and starting to question this anthropogenic scam.
Will the BBC be the last of the Main Stream Media to abandon ship or will the stay on board with their Capt. Pachauri, who has steered the Titanic straight into a Himalayan glacier?
Richard, have you tied yourself to the mast? Are you going down with Capt. Pachauri?
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Fair comment(s), Larry, there is NOT enough known to be certain, and I have only ever taken the neutral ground in the scientific discussion for that reason.
And you are quite right....I have on many occasions referred to the PP mainly because it is the process that has been adopted and from a Risk Management perspective, I can't see an alternative at this moment.
However, I have also stated on many occasions, that there is ample room within PP for competent scientists to demonstrate a GREATER probability of the observed phenomena being due to other causes than GHG emissions but REGRETTABLY this has not happened. Consequently, I don't see that Policy Makers having any room to maneuver since it was they (not me) who chose to adopt the PP. You could say."caught by their own petard!"
As I have also stated, having spent the last 20 years working under PP (or to be more precise, some peoples interpretation) there have been many occasions when I have felt totally frustrated and despite the fact that I'm supposedly retired, I still communicate frequently with my former colleague am well aware of his continual frustration.
On the other hand I can see many advantages of other activities (many of which are actually AGW policy as well) such as the preservation of rain forests (personal preference here as well, I used to live in Malaya, not 500 yards from jungle and entered the jungle almost daily to check the water supply to our factory). I am also a strong proponent of Nuclear power./ I don't suffer from the paranoia that seems to exist in America and certainly exists here in NZ. I support other "alternative" power options WHERE APPROPRIATE. I also support CCS or to be more precise, the further evaluation of CCS as a viable technology. Yes.it will increase the cost of energy but times change. Many years ago, as a process engineer for a company producing a very well known product (the counterpart to a 3M range of products in America) I actually suppressed an emerging technology as it showed no economic advantages at that time.It was a difficult decision for me as the technology was actually developed (in that company) by a personal friend and colleague of mine. In later years, long after I left, the climate (pun intended!) changed and the new technology replaced the older process.As I said...times change...who knows where and how?
On the other hand, I too can see absolutely NO benefit in cap-and-trade! There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that there are many people out there........no names, no pack drill.........who are just waiting to climb on the band wagon and make a "killing".
If funds are going to be made available for alternative energy schemes, those funds should be used directly to promote or evaluate such schemes and not participate in a "futures" market called "carbon credits". There is a local car dealer who sells high power cars. He recently bought "carbon credits" off our local equivalent to E-bay. No doubt he feels his conscience is clear now. To me it's no different than going to confession and saying three hail Mary's (I hope I don't offend anyone for that comment)
So..once again....much we agree on....but not everything.
What a boring world it would be if all of us agreed on everything. Not to mention....no progress would ever be made
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I am less than optimistic that the commitments filed this past week will lead to much of anything.
The climate bill currently in the US legislature is dead leaving Obama only one tool to work toward his commitment, the Environmental Protection Agency. By the time its rule making jumps through all its hurdles and gets resolved in the courts at least ten years will have passed. During that time it is quite likely the White House and possibly Capital Hill will have new leadership resulting in a new direction for the EPA.
China will honor its commitments as long as it finds them in its own best interests. The likelihood of that holding consistent for 20+ years is rather remote.
India's "me too" commitment is if anything weaker than China's. The likelihood of India getting its population under control and effectively managing its diverse industrial base is quite small. It has far bigger and more immediate internal issues than climate change.
The third world is also starting to realize that the monetary commitments being made are not new money. Most of it is repackaged or redirected foreign aid that currently exists. How this will play out as it becomes even more transparent will be interesting to watch.
Baring a game changing event making climate change real to Joe the Plumber, we may look back at Copenhagen as the high water mark, not the beginning. When the costs start being far more apparent than the benefits in the developed countries there will be a strong backlash that most democratic countries will bend to.
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Re:-
Welcome to this site.
If anyone responds to your contribution, which I doubt, but then having said that someone will probably feel obliged to, be prepared for some rather pathetic comments. It's par for the course here.
Cheers
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The Independent has launched their lifeboat too...after discovering yet another key piece of boilerplate used in the construction of Capt Pachauri's IPCC AR4 Titanic is rotten and weak.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/climategate-scientist-hid-flaws-in-data-say-sceptics-1886487.html
Something most skeptics have known about for many years....but at least the press is now beginning to report these glaring issues instead of ignoring "skeptics" and labeling them as big oil funded deniers.
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Earth satellites were not available to take photographs of the polar icecaps until after 1957. How can anyone speak authoritatively about the extent of the area of the North polar ice at earlier dates? (1950, e.g.)
A similar problem exists for people who describe the most recent ten years as "the warmest decade ever". Did a representative set of temperature recording stations exist on Terra before roughly 1980? If not, then "the warmest decade ever" becomes "the warmest of the last THREE decades. This is hardly enough to support temperature graphs extending back for several centuries.
I'm still waiting for some AGW enthusiast to respond to my questions about the warmer summers in southern Greenland between 1000 A.D. and 1400 A.D. Ignoring these comments does not mean they are not worth considering.
TeaPot562
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And Old Man Winter seems just like...surprise, surprise... Old Man Winter.
http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/snow-cover-national-january-2010_2010-02-01?from=hp_news6
A lot of people shoveling their driveways are wishing CO2 had some kind of warming effect...too bad the effect of CO2 is insignificant. Perhaps Gore could blow some more hot air?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx7hdtzp-P8
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Re:-
118. At 04:09am on 02 Feb 2010, HungeryWalleye wrote:
Somehow my #122 missed out one important sentence.........the one above!
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@xtragrumpy2 #110
Wow, for somebody who claims to be neither anti or pro AGW, that was nasty Mike.
Clearly you have realised AGW is dead in the water and are now resorting to personal attacks
Yes, my English is poor - I accept that. I'm not blessed with much formal education due to things from my past that given my time again, I wouldn't have done.
To return to your post. I have read as much about the ability of CO2 to raise the temperature significantly as i possibly can. I am lucky, I do have access to most papers. I have spent the last 10 years reading these papers and find nothing to suggest CO2 is capable in the real world.
I have asked many times on these pages for real evidence that CO2 is capable of raising temperature significantly and, yes, in the lab it is possible, but the lab does not take in account climate sensitivity or anything else in the real world. Nobody has been able to point to any evidence to show i am wrong. Nobody has found the AGW signature, despite searching for over 20 years.
So don't try to extract the urine for my poor english and try to present proof and a decent argument to show CO2 is capable of what is claimed
warmist regards
/mango
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Time to rip up the IPCC's peer reviewed AR4?
Now we're told the IPCC reference the "peer reviewed" New York Times!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/02/gate-du-jour-ipcc-ar4-references-nyt-story/#more-15957
This farce gets worse by the day
/mango
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#118 HungeryWalleye wrote:
"AGW deniers are concerned about scientists being corrupted by research grants"
First, I should say that I regard people who use the word 'denier' in the present context as flibbertigibbets who makes light of the Holocaust and of Jewish suffering. I mention it to you because the rest of your post has a serious tone, and I presume your aim is to present yourself as something other than a bimbo.
I am a sceptic, and I am concerned about the way some people call themselves "scientists" are unquestioningly treated as scientists by people who don't know any better such as Ed Miliband... Yet their practices are laughably unscientific. This is exemplified by the following rhetorical question: Why should I make the data available to you when your aim is to try to find something wrong with it?
Please note that my concern here has absolutely nothing to do with research grants or big business, and I have repeatedly argued on this blog that they are irrelevant.
My concern is that the person who wrote that question -- and the people who seem to have met it with quiet acceptance instead of howls of derision -- are a long, long way away from doing genuine science. They haven't "got" the simple fact that science involves testing and the subjection of ideas to criticism and scrutiny. Instead, they seem to think it is a matter of consensus.
More important than that corruption (which is the right word, but I again remind you it has nothing to do with research grants) is the fact that climate "science" is basically a form of inductivism, in which pre-existent "data" are used as a "basis" for extrapolation, as is standard in the worst (albeit commonest) abuses of statistics. The fact that computer models are harnessed in that mindless extrapolation makes it worse, because they make it even less trustworthy at the same time as allowing it to be presented to the gullible as having a fabulous technical proficiency. No doubt technical skill is involved in cobbling together a computer model that "fits the record so far", but its product remains a mere divination, whose ineliminable "guesswork" aspects are disguised, as in a conjuring trick. Real science isn't a divination, but the testing of what we must honestly accept is guesswork.
Finally, if it were possible to draw a graph of global temperatures over the course of time, which it evidently isn't, it seems likely to bear only the loosest correlation with CO2 levels in the atmosphere. That means that the correlation itself is "loose". That means that climate "science"'s predictions about what will happen next are unreliable. That means that public policy decisions should not be guided by those predictions. The unreliability of the predictions is illustrated by the lack of warming over that last ten years or so, which seems to have been wholly unexpected, at least to climate "scientists".
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wow. lots of activity in one night.
@thinkforyourself.
I've posted links to back all those claims up before, but feel free to debate any of the specifics. Debate is healthy.
I'm sorry, but anyone citing a laboratory experiment as direct evidence of how co2 works in the 'real world' has no understanding of science and frankly, shouldn't coment further on it.
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HungeryWalleye at post 118,
Would mirrors (or scientific equivalent) reflect the wave lengths back into the atmosphere at the shorter wavelength required? Is there some way of harnessing the energy of this exchange?
I hope you will not consider me to be a 'pathetic' responder, I am only interested and want to learn more.
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#118
This is fair minded pro AGW stuff but it fails to even acknowledge the very real problems with the simplistic AGW theories( and they will indeed remain so until the predictions are demonstrated) sold to the public, you state for example
'The theory of global warming is based on the physics of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses such as CH4 (methane).'
This sounds like good physics/science but we are not dealing with a blinded controlled trial of multiple planet earths with different levels of CO2
The problem is for the observations and predictions we are relying on proxies to formulate a baseline of what a normal temperature might be.Then pretending that the CO2 effect might not be completely lost within the natural changes caused by a mix of gases water vapour solar effects etc etc Many of us also have serious and reasonable doubts about the modern temperature record both because of station placement and data manipulation
The money by the way is clearly with the warmists and has been for some time if you care to browse the CRU emails or consider the pro AGW funding from oil companies. The problem with the money is it goes with the politics and not to accept this subject is politicised when the government is spending millions on popaganda rather than good science would be a naive perspective
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#bowman
"But they're not real scientists, and the general public is growing more and more aware that their methods are completely different from those of physicists, chemists, biologists or engineers"
another nice little contrarian meme. utter nonsense of course (imho).
ask a physicist to explain mass. do we have 13 dimensions and an infinite number of universes or not? are quarks particles or waves or strings? what is dark matter.....or rather what evidence is there for it? if it doesn't exist what is the 99% of the universe we can't see? what is dark energy? what about the measurement problem, just what is 'collapse of the wave function'?....etc, etc
maybe i;ll stick to the relative certainties of climate science thank you very much.
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bowmanthebard #45: "But they're not real scientists, and the general public is growing more and more aware that their methods are completely different from those of physicists, chemists, biologists or engineers"
rossglory #133: "another nice little contrarian meme. utter nonsense of course (imho)."
The difference is that physicists, chemists, biologists and engineers guess things, then test their guesses by making predictions and seeing if if the predictions come true.
But climate "scientists" pretend not to guess. They look at "data" and extrapolate from them, as if no guesswork were involved. That's (a) intellectually dishonest, and (b) the abuse of statistics rather than science.
Obviously, one can never arrive at a hypothesis about things that cannot be seen directly by simply extrapolating from things that can be seen directly.
Science is extremely poorly taught in schools, and the general public allows charlatans such as psychologists to get away with labelling themselves "scientists", so there's a widespread misconception that science is abouit "finding laws" (i.e. generalizations).
Your dismissive attitude towards "contrarians" reminds me of the Pope's attitude to dissent:
"In a social milieu that encourages the expression of a variety of opinions on every question that arises, it is important to recognise dissent for what it is, and not to mistake it for a mature contribution to a balanced and wide-ranging debate."
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thinkforyourself
“ We have a suspect, CO2. Evidence?
‘….In 1900 Svante Arrhenius estimated that a doubling of CO2 would cause a temperature rise of 5 - 6 °C. “
So why didn't the temperature between 1998 and now rise when we are told we
are pumping in more carbon dioxide than ever before?
Correlations do not prove cause and effect but surely without a correlation a theory is incorrect.
TeaPot562
“I'm still waiting for some AGW enthusiast to respond to my questions about the warmer summers in southern Greenland between 1000 A.D. and 1400 A.D. Ignoring these comments does not mean they are not worth considering.”
You’ve got it all wrong, Professor Mann et al produced a paper this year showing the medieval warming period wasn’t that warm so it must be true.
Global Signatures and Dynamical Origins of the Little Ice Age and Medieval Climate Anomaly The authors are Michael E. Mann, Zhihua Zhang, Scott Rutherford, Raymond S. Bradley, Malcolm K. Hughes, Drew Shindell, Caspar Ammann, Greg Faluvegi, Fenbiao Ni.
No doubt you recognise those names from the Climategate stories.
I’m still waiting for some data from the Met Office so perhaps they haven’t learned their lesson yet about FOI.
PS I have an MSc and have had a peer review paper published, does that make me a scientist?
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@133.
there is a distinct difference between those examples and climate science. But let me ask you this- would you advocate *potentially* hamful measures be taken (to economy, to planet etc) on the basis of say the unproven multi-dimensional theory?
People keep glossing over the fact that every prediction, and i mean every single prediction that has been made by climate science has been wrong. So their understanding of the system is also, wrong. Hence any countermeasures they advocate are too, almost certainly, wrong.
And again- i feel the need to state- again, that i am all for reducing pollution/protecting habitat and generally cleaning this damn planet up.
Richard- i see my direct questions regarding the 'expert panel' the bbc consulted were blocked. I'll try again- do you know who they were and where they work/qualifications?
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Conflict of interest within the Biased Broadcasting Corporation pension fund! Whatever next!! Is there no end to the revelations of corruption?
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#136 LabMunkey wrote:
"would you advocate *potentially* hamful measures be taken (to economy, to planet etc) on the basis of say the unproven multi-dimensional theory?"
This is a good question, but I would re-phrase it to avoid the suggestion that some theories are conclusively "proven" and others are not: "Would you support risky policies on the basis of highly speculative, poorly corroborated theories?"
All empirical science ever deals with is conjecture, i.e. theories. The ones we can be more condifent about are those that explain a lot, predict a lot, or fit in smoothly with what we already accept.
As I have said before, science's great strength is its ability to draw back the curtain on a hidden reality. Its great weakness is that what is revealed is revealed with great uncertainty.
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Apart from all of the scientific theory, testing and confirmation of theory (albeit that the confirmation will sooner or later be disproved) what about good old fashioned common sense observation.
Our environment was never designed to cope with combustion on such a large scale. Ok, OK, perhaps it was, volcanoes do a pretty good job of polluting the atmosphere and they are a natural part of the planet. Our atmosphere appears to have a remarkable ability to sort itself out over time, it has coped with volcano emissions, poisonous sulphur, poisonous oxygen and poisonous carbon dioxide and life as we know it has adapted, shuffled around or died in the resultant mixtures. Our excessive carbon habit may be overcome in time but perhaps not to our liking. The planet will go chugging on as it always has. Something new may emerge from the primordial slime to thrive on our excessive habits. The only real issue is us. We want us to thrive.
Do we as humans really have the ability to change the environment for the good of the majority of existing species?
Has anyone done a count of all of the carbon combustion cars on the planet, at this precise moment in time?
What is the total output of carbon from all of these cars operating at the same time all over the planet?
What is the total output of carbon from all of the aircraft operating in the same time span?
What is the total output of carbon from all of the powerplants operating in this time span?
When cheap oil runs low, won't carbon output also reduce or will it increase as we move over to coal use, or the difficult process of oil shale extraction? Will oil shale extraction be achieved through old fashioned carbon technology or will sun energy or magma energy be used? When will fusion or fission energy finally work on a commercial scale?
How many of you, like me, think that energy is just waiting to be harvested from the sea?
from a puzzled grannie peeking above the smog of climategate, climatepanic, jolly hockey sticks and clever clogs.
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There is an alternative to the IPCC if one is trying to understand climate science.
1) Empirical evidence: Mark Bowen's book "Thin Ice" will bring you to the glaciers of the world, and you will accompany Dr. Lonnie Thompson and Mark Bowen on a journey of Discovery.
Richard Alley's book "The Two Mile Time Machines" will lead you by the hand through the coring of Greenland's Ice Sheet, and you will come to appreciate the depth of information which can be gleaned from ice-cores.
2) Climatology: Mark Bowen's second book, "Censoring Science", will introduce you to arguably the world's premier climate modeler, James Hansen, his background, NASA, and the science of climate modelling.
3) "Storms of my Grandchildren", James Hansen's first book, will step by step you through climatology. Having read "Censoring Science," you will know a lot about him already. Jim Hansen thinks ahead, and his past string of correct predictions suggests that this is the man to listen to, even if one later delves further into the peer-reviewed literatue - which is the next logical step.
Anyone who does not inform themselves as suggested above is welcome to provide an alternative way of doing so.
- Manysummits -
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@HungeryWalleye #118
CO2 / Arrhenius
We all agree that CO2 levels have increased. We all agree that CO2 has the ability to raise temperature and are thankful for this attribute or the earth would be far too cold for life to survive. We also know that the first few 10’s of molecules of CO2 are much more important in raising temperatures than following 10’s of molecules due to the absorption band of CO2. We also know that the absorption bands are, for all intents and purposes, saturated. For CO2 to be able to “break out” beyond its absorption band the sun would need to put out more light, which is clearly not happening.
We also know that water vapour is a much more important GHG than CO2.
For CO2 to be able to raise the temperature significantly (remember the absorption curve has a logarithmic valve and the warming effect diminishes with every additional molecule of CO2) climate sensitivity would have to be higher than 1. I know the IPCC estimates climate sensitivity to be much higher than 1, but as far as I know there is no evidence to suggest climate sensitivity is high and some empirical evidence to suggest climate sensitivity is low.
Do you have any real evidence to show climate sensitivity is high or CO2 is able to break out of its absorption band?
Do you have any evidence to show the Arrhenius experiment works in the real world and takes into account convection etc? Do you think putting air into a tube with CO2 levels at 280ppmv, measuring the temperature would show any measurable difference in temperature if the CO2 level was raised by 100ppmv?
Melting ice / NSIDC
All the melting ice in the world is a symptom of warming or a number of other possible explanations such as ocean currents, wind currents etc, but melting ice still doesn’t tell us what caused the warming.
Do you have any evidence that links CO2 directly to ice melting?
The theory of global warming…
Surely, global warming is still an hypothesis? I’m not aware of any experiments, leading to empirical evidence to promote anthropogenic global warming to a theory.
It is refined by adding in component models of fluid dynamics that describe atmospheric circulation, models of cloud optics, cloud creation, dissipation and transport, etc.
Even the IPCC admit the models don’t know enough about clouds to be able to model clouds realistically.
It is curious that AGW deniers are concerned about scientists being corrupted by research grants but show no concern about corruption by money from fossil fuel industry
There is far more money injected into research to prove AGW each year than in 20 years of corrupting fossil fuel money.
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/08/climate-money-big-government-outspends-big-oil/
You started off so well by trying to explain why CO2 is a possible culprit in global warming, but then descended into attacking sceptics. In my opinion the rest of your post is pure drivel and doesn’t deserve a response
/Mango
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Now that is shocking news how terrible, how could this happen and how do they get away with it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8490291.stm
Now I wonder were we have heard all this before? If the BBC didn't practise double standards it would have no standards at all.
Any chance of a comment Mr.Black on same situation around climate change scientists?
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Mango at 141,
Hi Mango, harsh words don't really help. 118 has a point at the beginning of his response. How about focussing on the good bits and ignoring or intelligently correcting the bad points, as I know you can. Mango, us non scientists rely on you saying the right thing as we have to extrapolate from what is being argued.
grannie ;-)
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114 Shadorne that Guardian story is even better. Anthony Watts is claiming that the Garudain actually emailed WUWT giving him a heads up to the story.
Just cann't wait for Georgie boys tantrum
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#141 MangoChutneyUKOK wrote:
"Surely, global warming is still an hypothesis? I’m not aware of any experiments, leading to empirical evidence to promote anthropogenic global warming to a theory."
I don't think a hypothesis gets "promoted" to a theory. Rather, a theory is a group of related hypotheses about some specific subject matter (such as mechanics, or heat, or a particular disease, or whatever).
To join a group of hypotheses, a particular hypothesis hardly gets "promoted" -- not in terms of the confidence with which we can believe it anyway.
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@manysummits #140
I'm not sure works of fiction constitute alternatives to the IPCC ;)
/Mango
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@bowman #145
point taken
/Mango
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I am trying to understand the "climategate" conspiracy theroist. What is the purpose of the conspiracy? Is it just scientist trying to get grants? Never known scientist to have that kind of power. What do you think is the end-game agenda....I am sure that you would not believe clean energy as the goal so it must be something more sinister. Also, why are so many governments supporting movement in that direction..however limited? I don't think the idea of a world-wide socialist agenda will be an accepted answer as socialism has been in retreat for some time now. Trying to get beyond the data arguments and on to what others may think about a future on the current path. My friends in Beijing say the air pollution remains high.
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@sensiblegrannie #143
Hi Grannie,
I thought I had responded to the points raised in #118 in a civilised manner, but the rest of his post was simply an attack, especially this:
I imagine that the poster who claimed to not be getting any money for his arguments against global warming likely falls into this latter camp.
Which is a direct reference to my post responding to Manysummits.
BTW - I'm not a scientist either
/Mango
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Richard Black, is it possible for comments to be disabled on your blog? I, for one, object to downloading megabytes of drivel just to read your stuff.
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@ 148
so, besides a massive and potentially unlimited taxable source, you require further reasons?
-personal/proffesional gain?
-realising a mistake too late? (i.e. they started something big moving, AGW, and were afraid to admit a mistake so instead compunded the error)
there are numerous reasons someone COULD do anything- none provable- so lets not go down that path and instead stick with the facts.
-The CRU has commited fraud.
-The IPCC has comitted fraud.
-there is significant evidence of peer review tampering(a;sp see latest version of this- stem cells)
-The data (most sources) are now in question
the last point is most interesting to me. I actually think, on the balance of information available, that the earth HAS warmed recently (though it is not clear whether it is still doing so). unfortunatley there is no raw data to check this and what data there is is now hugely suspect. So despite the fact i find it beleivable that the earth has warmed, i literally have no way to prove this- nor, does anyone else until the raw data is released.
But, the crux is this- there is no link between co2 and temp rises- sea level rises, temp rises (in isolation), ice melting are all lovely- but just noise to the real issue.
I think, if you actually looked into it, you'd be suprised at just how little data there is out there showing a causal link with c02 and temp rises. there's lots on other things, but these don't prove a link. that's the issue.
Oh, and i am a scientist. With over ten years experience of data evaluation.
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LabMunkey #136.
"there is a distinct difference between those examples and climate science. But let me ask you this- would you advocate *potentially* hamful measures be taken (to economy, to planet etc) on the basis of say the unproven multi-dimensional theory?"
scary! (I mean your argument)
to compare theories regarding the 'nature' of nature with theories on the impact human behaviour may have on our shared environment is comparing apples and oranges.
you ought to know better but I guess you were desparate.
sensiblegrannie #139.
"How many of you, like me, think that energy is just waiting to be harvested from the sea?"
I do, I also think that your point of view neglects one of the key reasons (IMO) why alternative technolgies are not coming online fast enough -- control.
conventional methods of energy production all share one feature, they're centralised and rely on distribution networks to reach the consumer.
micro-generation by various means would end the stranglehold government and industry currently have.
that is why (I think) the 'powers that be' would like to see hydrogen rather than, say, solar, they'd be able to continue controlling production and distribution.
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callen #150.
"..is it possible for comments to be disabled on your blog? I, for one, object to downloading megabytes of drivel just to read.."
simply use the basic URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/
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Richard - great to see you communicating with the bloggers, but you really should answer the points, such as posting no. 10.
The foundations of the Climate Change argument are cracking, and the BBC's credibility is seriously undermined.
You, the BBC, have been very strongly Warmist, and highly selective in your facts, for a long time now. In fact, it was the BBC coverage that made me start questioning Global Warming theory.
Even now, I don't know whether it exists or not, but being lectured at by a BBC which was prepared to pick and choose its 'facts' to fit the theory, and not to question those advocating it, did make me think that there was a hidden agenda.
Now, the things YOU presented as fact, denied by only the most swivel-eyed Denialists and the corrupt oil industry, seem a bit dubious.
As for the BBC's hidden agenda, it's been clear to me all along. Stay talking about Climate Change/Global Warming, because it takes the focus off a very real, perhaps THE main environment disaster, which is POPULATION GROWTH.
Obviously you don't want to discuss that one, as it raises questions about immigration, which again, the BBC has an agenda on.
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Having considered comments by various people on this post, I comment as follows:
There are clearly some who believe that AGW exists, and some that don’t.
Now based on the premise that none of those posting, or indeed Mr Black, have been actively involved in collecting climate change data, or indeed processing it for either of two opposing factions, the comments and lead article are presumably based on what others have said and/or recorded.
Now I, being an average Joe with only a limited background in science am left to decide for myself.
How do I decide?
The pro AGW group are fervent in their claims, likely to the point of data manipulation if the other group are to be believed.
But why, why would they bother, to what end. One can bring forward the issue of tax, but then a Government doesn’t need something as convoluted as AGW to extract tax.
Consider the introduction of some of our better known taxes; VAT, inheritance tax, insurance premium tax. Governments can, and do, introduce and increase tax, without the need for long scientific diagnosis.
But then from the other point of view there is now growing evidence that the AGW group have manipulated data. Presumably based on the ‘if the evidence doesn’t fit, then make fit’ principle.
But why do it. It is the motive part for manipulating data that seems to be missing.
No.1 Is it motivation because of a belief that a given set of circumstance exists but cannot be proved by the data collected. And the manipulation of data can be excused by ‘we’re doing right by mankind’ and the end justifies the means.
Or
No.2. Is it motivation for an ulterior reason, possibly a financial one.
If I had to pick, I think I’d have to say it’s more likely No.1 than No.2.
Still if anyone can point to No.2 being the more likely please do.
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LabMunkey #151.
another of those posts.
you say: "..there is no raw data to check this [warming] and what data there is is now hugely suspect.", and "..suprised at just how little data there is [linking CO2 + warming].."
yet, you also say: "..the crux is this- there is no link between co2 and temp rises.."
without sufficient 'data' to back up your assertion? (based on a hunch?)
not good enough, for a "..scientist. With over ten years experience of data evaluation."
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I second the poster who indicated the vast quantity of drivel posted on this thread. My point is two fold.
1) Richard, the UNFCCC Secretariat are being disingenuous when they say 55 countries have signed up to the Copenhagen Accord. Many developing countries particularly China, India, Brazil and South Africa have indeed submitted national mitigation targets, but they make clear that these are under articles of the UNFCCC treaty not the 'Copenhagen Accord'.
The difference although subtle in the text is a huge issue for developing countries. The US and EU are trying to create a new treaty to replace Kyoto. This is unacceptable to most developing countries as Kyoto clearly requires the developed countries to pay for their historical responsibility of filling the atmostphere with GHG's.
I ask you and any colleagues to carefully make this distinction as it is vital to the developing countries negotiating position.
2) For all you climate 'sceptics' out there. If 1300 of the worlds best Oncologists were to tell you, you had cancer, would you still not believe them?
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Conflict of interest at BBC?
http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/2010/02/fingers-in-pies.html
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@152.
desperate? i used that example because it reflects the scientific principle, rather than the emotive one (which you are obviously trying to use). The end-use, as it were, of a theory is irrelevant to science. Only it's corroborating evidence matters.
Hence they are both eminitley comparable- that is if you understand basic scientific principles.
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And well well well, more reports that other factors may be far more important than CO2 (something well known to skeptics for many many years):
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18457-water-vapour-worse-climate-change-villain-than-thought.html
"the team suggests that vapour was to blame for almost a third of the warming that happened in the 1990s."....so what happened to the scary CO2 monster?
When it rains it really pours...
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@LabMunkey 151: "there is no link between co2 and temp rises"
"Oh, and i am a scientist."
Are you saying there's no such thing as a greenhouse effect? That an atmosphere with CO2 does not absorb more radiation than one without?
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@ 156
i suggest you re-read that post.
I am reffering to the fact that there is data that attempts to provide a link- but none that manages it. Hence it not being paraded around everywhere by the IPCC/Governments. I am being very specific in what i say. scientists do that. try re-reading the post again without the 'angry fog'.
@157
to take that metaphor further. if 100 oncologists said, we THINK you have cancer, but can't prove it. However we'd like you to try this highly experimental drug that we don't know will work....
would you beleive them?
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#160
That'll be the dihydrogen oxide very dangerous stuff, if there was only away to regulate it.
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also, an observation re-drivel on this blog.
the 'sceptics' are only asking questions. only trying to get the AGW proponents to prove their theory- something which should be childlishly simple for such a well know, well supported, thoroughly infallable theory.
Yet no one can do it.
Yet you still ask why we persist in asking questions and examining every point of the theory?
interesting.
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#150 callen wrote:
"Richard Black, is it possible for comments to be disabled on your blog? I, for one, object to downloading megabytes of drivel just to read your stuff."
Nanananana -- not listening!
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Labmonkey: your rationale applies to governments but what would be the agenda of the scientist? Sticking to the facts as you say: The facts are what seems to be in question so I assume you mean your facts. So your position is that this is a global tax scam?
jr4412: I had thought the opposite was true of hydrogen as it can be made from a converter at a home from a small unit and supply both homes and vehicles. I don't think it would need a distribution system and that may be why the vested interests both private and governmental are not supportive. I have not seen a push for hydrogen although I see it as the most viable alternative presently available.
I wish people would stop stating they are scientist at the same time that they are challenging the data and integrity of other scientists and somehow dismissing anyone they feel is not a "scientist." Flat earth, sun revolves around the earth, bleeding is good medicine, smoking does no harm, all have been positions by science at their time.
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#151 LabMunkey wrote:
"you'd be suprised at just how little data there is out there showing a causal link with c02 and temp rises. there's lots on other things, but these don't prove a link. that's the issue.
"Oh, and i am a scientist. With over ten years experience of data evaluation."
In that case ywould you kindly explain what you mean by prove a link?
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@Dempster #155
you wrote:
"But why do it. It is the motive part for manipulating data that seems to be missing.
No.1 Is it motivation because of a belief that a given set of circumstance exists but cannot be proved by the data collected. And the manipulation of data can be excused by ‘we’re doing right by mankind’ and the end justifies the means.
Or
No.2. Is it motivation for an ulterior reason, possibly a financial one."
Hello all, haven't commented since ~day 3 of Copenhagen but have been following your debates and felt I should add to this interesting post by Dempster which (though I may be expanding on your use of the term 'manipulation' a little) misses a third motivation - to me, the most obvious one:
No. 3. The temperature data is known to contain inconsistencies from various sources including, but not limited to: change in location of measurement site, change of measurement method, changes in environment at the measurement site... and so on. The use of statistical techniques to attempt to remove these inconsistencies (the "data homogenisation" methods I discussed previously on this blog), which could be seen as manipulation, are in fact a genuine attempt to salvage some useful information from data which is otherwise meaningless.
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tobyrisk - If 1300 fortune tellers were to tell you you are never going to die, would you still not believe them?
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Is it true that "the man responsible for looking after the fat pensions of the boys and girls at the BBC is a climate change fanatic, and he is part of an international group of investment managers who bust a gut to invest in ‘climate change’ schemes. He’s called Peter Dunscombe, and he runs the 8.2bn corporation pension fund, advising trustees on a day-to-day basis about their investments. Mr Dunscombe, who addresses conferences about ‘ethical investments’, is also chairman of the Institutional Investment Group on Climate Change(IIGCC), which has 47 members and manages four trillion euros’ worth of investments; yes, four trillion. Their goal is to find as many ‘climate change’ investment opportunities as possible."
Is it true that "now we really know why BBC staffers are so fanatical about ‘climate change’. It’s naked self-interest. In 2008, there were 18,736 contributors to the BBC pension fund."
Is it true that "Helen Boaden, who is the overall boss of the BBC’s news and current affairs operation, was appointed to the trust in 2008. So the woman who tells environment reporters such as Roger Harrabin and Richard Black that the science is settled also works to maximise the returns of the pension fund with Peter Dunscombe."
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@Mango
It would appear that our friend Shanta has resurfaced once again...
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18457-water-vapour-worse-climate-change-villain-than-thought.html
A return from the dark side?
Cheers.
Kealey
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@161.
no i'm not saying that. perhaps i was not being specific enough- i apologise. I meant to say that there's no evidence that co2 drives climate change. not that there's no evidence that co2 CAN rasie temps (in a laboratory environment).
so much for being specific :-)
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@ 167.
sure. we need something that reproducably shows that co2 levels increasing drives the observed temperature rises. #
We need a testable method that shows HOW it drives it, the feedbacks, how it's regulated and how it interacts with everything else in the system (at least to a testable, i.e. verifiable via experimentation, level).
You get that, you prove the theory (tp within acceptable limits). This all needs to be backed up by auditable data.
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@166
"Labmonkey: your rationale applies to governments but what would be the agenda of the scientist? Sticking to the facts as you say: The facts are what seems to be in question so I assume you mean your facts. So your position is that this is a global tax scam"
nope not at all. i meerley offered a differing theory. i don't beleiv it personally for a second.
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LabMunkey #159.
"The end-use, as it were, of a theory is irrelevant to science."
correct (and my #152 should may not have picked up on 'theory' per se).
"Hence they are both eminitley comparable.."
no, you can theorise on underlying principles but still be unable to affect any change (where, say, dimensionality is concerned), you could however change human habits and behaviour if the AGW theory holds water.
no comparison.
ghostofsichuan #166.
you're correct, I suppose, when saying "..it can be made from a converter at a home from a small unit.." but I sure wouldn't want my neighbours to do so given the reactive nature of hydrogen ("highly combustible"); my reason for assuming that hydrogen use would only be feasible and safe when manufactured and packaged in dedicated facilities.
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@76
Both the mods and RB , can confirm who I say I am . I'm certainly not Mark !!
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@HungeryWalleye #118 who wrote...
"Vertical air circulation also moves heat energy to the top of the atmosphere. Thus the rate of moving heat from the surface of the earth to the top of the atmosphere is much slower than the rate of energy coming in from the Sun"
Ok, first off the rate averages out to identical except during warming/cooling. Ocean currents however have several orders of magnitude more capability to delay radiation of energy than the atmosphere does. The atmospheric emissions are sufficiently fast that the earth can cool substantially at night (as it does in very dry deserts).
Second, the "top of the atmosphere" isn't as important as the restriction blocking outgoing radiation...in this case that's the coldest part of the atmosphere, the tropopause. If the atmosphere were all the same temperature as the ground the radiation would be at equilibrium and there would essentailly be no greenhouse effect. The gradient of the atmosphere is what allows the greenhouse gas effect to work at all. That's why the "hot spot" from the AGW hypothesis is crucial. Quite literally, if the hot spot does not exist the hypothesis is falsified...at least with respect to significant warming.
A competing hypothesis puts most of the blame for the two decade long temperature rise on normal cycles...with only a small amount being anthropogenic. This hypothesis is actually a FAR better fit. In this hypothesis the persistent ocean/wind currents alternate between a pattern which confines the polar vortex and one which the polar vortex becomes unstable, whipping across the continents and bringing us the winters we're now experiencing.
Both of these have merrit and likely work to varying degrees...but it is becoming painfully obvious that this fear of CO2 levels was misplaced. The failure to warm, the now falling ocean heat content and the missing hot spot point away from CO2 while the sudden unleashing of the jet stream and polar vortex point squarely at the ocean/wind currents. Atmospheric moisture levels also make little sense from the standpoint of the AGW hypothesis although this deals more with feedbacks. No matter how one tries to shoehorn the hypothesis of powerful AGW it falls flat.
There MUST be some other, even more powerful force driving climate...and AT LEAST half of the warming since the 70s is a result of that forcing. CO2 forcing just doesn't fit as a potent climate driver. This "half of warming" figure doesn't mean the figures should be half that suggested by the IPCC...it means half the overall warming rate...which is only .5C/century. CO2 seems very weak indeed.
Side note, the glaciers are also a moisture balance issue. It is likely that with the unleashing of the polar vortex and the return to these sorts of winters...glaciers will level out or even grow again.
-----------------------
@sensiblegrannie #131 who wrote...
"Would mirrors (or scientific equivalent) reflect the wave lengths back into the atmosphere at the shorter wavelength required? Is there some way of harnessing the energy of this exchange?"
Yes, mirrors would cool the earth but why on that earth...would you want it colder? There are very few species that would do poorly because of warming...not the way the earth warms (almost no warming at the equator and increasing warming toward the poles). BTW, solar would technically cause warming overall but localized cooling (at the facility).
Everything you can do to "harness" the energy exchange actually enhances the greenhouse effect...at least, when you do it directly (wind, convection, etc). Indirect harnessing would be something like hydroelectric, I suppose.
-----------
and in #139 you wrote...
"Has anyone done a count of all of the carbon combustion..."
Known reserves of all fossil fuels and the ever increasing rate of CO2 absorption would give us the capability to reach...maybe...double pre-industrial levels. The moment we stopped the CO2 levels would plunge almost as fast as they rose, finally leveling off at higher than pre-industrial levels...probably at maximum not much higher than today's.
----------
"How many of you, like me, think that energy is just waiting to be harvested from the sea?"
You realize if we just wait about 20-40 years, free enterprise will push us into the "singularity" (which ironically will cause the collapse of free enterprise)...where cost and labor of of no real concern. Then we'll probably use fusion or orbital solar. We can also use ceramics to replace plastics and many metals...handy with the crust of the earth being full of such materials and many kilometers thick.
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Dempster reasons why;
Probably there are alot of reasons why AGW grew so out of control and how different groups jumped in and spun the message to fit their aims.
I cannot find the site that gave a very detailed account of how it all came about, but organisations like the "Club of Rome" Kenneth Ley of Enron George Soros and Al Gore feature very heavily. Think about it is almost a perfect money making scheme as it puts a price on the air around us. Hence the desperation to get a price fixed internationally for Carbon. If you buy carbon credits at low prices and hold them then put a legally binding value on them currently demanded as $200.00 per unit and you paid say $10.00, then as Del Boy says "nice little earner my son"
So why have it internationally agreed well that is so global companies such a TATA from Indian can close a steel plant in NE England and move it to India. They claim carbon credit for cutting emmisions from inside the EU and then claim offset allowance as they open the plant in India. They made $1.2 billion but nobody mentions the 1700 people who lost their jobs.
The green groups basically feel into this and had themselves hijacked by left wing groups (see BBC report of yesterday)again money was a major spring board, WWF received £9 million in grants from the EU in 2009, but it's a charity?
Politically, well that must be really obvious to you lot in the UK as you call it the "Nanny State" You have had a gov't which has ruled by scare and fear called New Labour. Don't jump down my throat on that my grandfather was an unsuccessful Labour candidate twice, he would turn in his grave. Again that new socialist movement spread across Europe, Australia and the US etc. Hence why science grants are politically awarded in order to meet a political message.
Then you get belief, as a society we are desperate to conform with the general run of opinion as we need to be part of the pack and not stand out which goes back to or basic beginnings. Two facts really put the pack on to AGW the fall of the Berlin Wall and the critical analysis of the Christian faith. With communism there was both a fear and admiration on some parts and Christianity got kicked in the teeth as it failed to adapt to a sceptical modern generation. AGW just happened to be around at the right point in time
Finally is us, humans actually existing on leaping from crisis to crisis, we have to be blunt a death wish and enjoy scaring or selves stupid, Astroid attack, volcanos, ice ages, global warming, nuclear winter the latest giant solar flares. Again in our natural instinct we just have this tendency to pack together around a theme basically looking for some one to come to our rescue or provide an answer.
What has gone wrong is that the main players got carried away and pushed it to hard and to fast as the pack is not always obeying the leader. As they say "you can fool all of the people some of the time but not all of the people all of the time"
God I need a beer!
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@172 LabMunkey
I'm still not sure what you mean. Are you saying that CO2 does raise temperatures by absorbing more radiation in a lab environment, but it doesn't when it's not in the lab?
How does it know it's not in the lab? Why doesn't it absorb radiation outside?
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Well after that mountain of drival at 178 pleased to report the following:
Well done UK, it is back to the dark ages for you, as you all go on about CO2 etc. your caring gov't has just stuck one biggy on you.
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/02/under-radar.html
and sneaked through on a Sunday night
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8489780.stm
Will the last person to leave the UK please turn off the last energy dim useless bulb. You've all lost the plot
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@Neil,
You certainly are NOT Mark, or Uwhatever...or Lorraine or whatever other aliases he has used.
Nice to see you.
Kindest.
Kealey
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@sensiblegrannie
Re: Long term power generation options
These are many and varied - the ocean’s a good source of power:
There’s simple kinetic extraction via turbines, ducks, snakes and worms etc, which are all good. There’s osmotic power using the difference in salinity between sea water and fresh water, as discussed in a previous blog and there’s also thermocline power generation which uses the difference in temperature between warm surface water and the deep ocean to generate power.
Then there’s geothermic essentially easy to extract and a favourite of some of posters on this blog:
Again this is good, but there have been some problems with small associated earthquakes. Providing you’re okay with that possibility and your geography is suitable it may be a good bet. Iceland is the poster boy for geothermic extraction and they seem to be okay with it.
There’s Hydro-Electric:
Again highly dependent on geography, with some knock on water availability issues for those down steam of the dam and flooding issues for the displaced people on the other side of it ;-) But there are quite a few successful micro-generation schemes scattered around the world, which don’t have the big knock on effects of the whole massive infrastructure dam kinda.... thing. These things are always touted as carbon free, but even if you exclude the whole dam building program, they are bound to liberate quite a bit of dissolved carbon dioxide from the water through simple agitation. In the same way that shaking a coke bottle would, only not so explosively of course.
I don’t suppose that anyone’s got any information on this, I’d be interested if you have?
After that you’ve got solar power:
The most abundant source of power that we’ve got, it literally powers everything after all. Current technologies suffer from some efficiency problems, cost of manufacture problems and some of the manufacturing techniques require the rare earth element indium to make transparent electrodes, which is in short supply - You can thank LCD panel TV’s for that.
New things are infrared solar cells (quite cool nantec stuff) mentioned previously on an earlier blog, which are very promising and would even work in the dark (woohoo) and then there's the cheap and cheerful dye sensitized ones.
There are also algal bio-reactors, which have had some problems in the past, but are supposedly getting much greener (forgive the pun) and more efficient now.
Other than that you’re looking at solar collectors/concentrators/solar furnace sort of things. Again, these are good and cheap, but they require quite a bit of sunny land somewhere, that said, there are a number of power plants around the world based on those principles. There’s been an operational one in France since 1970 and there’s one in Nevada somewhere. If you get yourself a good enough parabolic mirror you can build yourself a cooker, or you can use a smaller one to start fires if you’re out camping somewhere.
One of our bloggers (poitsplace) likes the idea of orbital solar collectors beaming the power back to earth, but given our current state of development it might be difficult to stick one of these in space at the moment and as one of our other contributors pointed out it’s a bit of a long way to go to change a fuse ;-).
Of course then there’s Nuclear:
Many varieties of this, lots of different fission reactor types and different fuels, but the main fuel choices are Uranium, Plutonium or Thorium. My favourite’s Thorium, just because there’s a lot more of it than Uranium. All sorts of plusses/minuses, mostly waste product related, for each and there's also various treaties and agreements tied up with these. One thing is for sure, the world hasn’t got vast amounts of Uranium left – especially, if in the short term it’s going to be our main source of power :-(
Fusion also has a number of varieties there’s the laser based fusion, tokamaks, spherical tokamaks and the z-pinch. Also depending on your personal definition of a proper fusion reaction there’s also the fusor, interesting to look up at least and even interesting to build one if you’re that way inclined. After that fusionwise, you’re into the slightly wackier realms of cold fusion and bubble fusion (sonoluminescence).
Of these, Laser based fusion has made some big steps forward recently.
Mostly, people will tell you practical power generation is around 20-30 years off, but they’ve been saying that for at least the last 10 years.
Oh, on top of all that you’ve DC supergrids that would help with power transmission losses and even room temperature or near room temperature super conductors to look into.
Anyways, hope that helps. I didn’t mention wind, but I don’t think it’s a practical way of generating power and I quite like birds..........
Looking further ahead, there might be zero-point energy, black holes, dark matter, dyson spheres, as I said before the Universe is your mollusc/bi-valve of choice.
I did suggest potatoes as a power supply, but people didn’t seem to see the funny side of that one. Best stick my potato clock on E-Bay then, ho hum....
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Kamboshigh #180:
As expected, Ed Milliband (King Knut) said "that recent rows over scientific data must not damage efforts to control climate change." CONTROL CLIMATE CHANGE!!!!!
ROTFL
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Thanks Larry #171
I've missed her
/Mango
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Good grief.
Richard Black is still in denial.
Everyone else is talking about climategate emails, breaking the FOI law, and the errors in the IPCC report.
But Richard Black is still prattling on about the irrelevant Copenhagen fiasco.
To answer the question, no it doesn't matter who sends in what. It is all meaningless political posturing. By another year or so the whole AGW myth will be well and truly dead anyway. Many journalists are now catching on - but one still has his head in the sand.
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The IR absorbing ability of co2 is well known from lab measurements and it's readily applicable to the current atmosphere, where we also have military and scientific measurements of it's various properties.
As a result radiative models are very accurate at modelling the IR reduction causes by doubling the number of molecules of co2 in the atmosphere. That reduction in outgoing radiation is about 3.7wm-2.
3.7wm-2 imbalance from a doubling of co2 is a massive imbalance. I challenge anyone to present a plausible change over the next 100 years that could create anything near that level of imbalance.
So we know doubling co2 has a significant effect on climate just from the forcing it provides.
But wait, we know more. All levels of complexity of model - from simple radiative-convective models (that yes, do include convection before someone claims they don't) all the way to AOGCM's (which again include convection and even vegetation changes, etc) exhibit net positive feedback in climate.
What we know about paleoclimate spanning hundreds of millions of years also provides evidence that climate sensitivity is high.
So we have a wealth of evidence that climate sensitivity is high and that co2 will cause a lot more than the no-feedback 1C warming case (note that even the no-feedback case of 1C would make co2 the most significant climate driver in the 21st century). So the theory that co2 is a strong climate driver today - and a significant climate feedback in the past due to high climate sensitivity being a general property of Earth's climate is strong.
It is very interesting that climategate and ipcc errors don't even touch on the basis of the science mentioned above.
As for low climate sensitivity, frankly the idea has got little to no evidence for it. Evidentally noone can explain, with reference to physics, how climate sensitivity could be low, or else someone would have demonstrated a climate model exhibiting that result and presumably performing better in it's representation of climate than existing models.
Furthermore low climate sensitivity does not make sense in light of paleoclimate which shows large climate swings that defy low sensitivity. I am unaware of anyone publishing any paper reconciling low climate sensitivity with the paleoclimate record.
And all this is why scientists in the field of climate today think climate sensitivity is probably high.
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jr4412 #175
Gasoline is pretty explosive and people drive around on top of these bombs every day. I think the new technology for containment would address this matter. That German airship that exploded in the US many years ago lingers in the minds of people I guess. I think the Japanese have some creative developments for hydrogen. The netural by-products are the attraction. Conversion appears to be simple. Supply is sustainable. Simple is sometimes better. It may shock the tax systems but that is not such a bad thing. Also, individual production units would not be as attractive to big investors and remove the capability to produce large revenues by providers with a single rate increase. Solutions should be expanded beyond the existing model and distribution systems, they seem locked into the status quo with looking for a replacement of the fuel source with everything else remaining the same. Seems short-sighted to me.
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in 186 infinity trots out that doubling CO2 levels leads to 3.7w/sq m (radiative forcing), which he then claims is a massive imbalance. Two points (a) the CO2 level has only increased by 30% so the forcing to date is only 1.6w/sq m. (b) 3.7w/sq m is NOT massive.
From (a) the basic physics gives a maximum temperature rise due to CO2 of 0.25 C while
(b) needs to be put in the context that the radiative forcing keeping the earth at its reasonable temperature is 324W so the CO2 doubling only changes the forcing by about 1% (so hardly massive)
So whatever is driving the warming (AGW or plain GW) it is NOT the increase in CO2.
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infinity #186.
nice.
ghostofsichuan #187.
I'm not opposed to hydrogen as a fuel, my argument is that, like the gasoline you mention, safe use (eg in fuel cells) requires facilities and distribution networks (== control) -- no different from current motors, except 'emission free'.
I would be opposed to producing "from a converter at a home" because of the risk.
however, I also think that there is an alternative: electric (DC) vehicles. again, the supply can come from a producer of electricity (solar, even nuclear), or, better still, generated directly (photovoltaics) to at least supplement what you'd have to buy.
what we'd all benefit from (IMO) would be a wide variety of different technologies to generate the power required, the more the merrier. ;)
blunderbunny #182.
"Looking further ahead ... dyson spheres.."
I hope there's something like re-birth/reincarnation, I'd love to visit one in person!
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@infinity #186
I wondered where you had gone ;)
Could you cite the evidence for high climate sensitivity please?
Thanks
/Mango
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@ghostofsichuan #187 who wrote
"Gasoline is pretty explosive and people drive around on top of these bombs every day. I think the new technology for containment would address this matter. That German airship that exploded in the US many years ago lingers in the minds of people I guess. I think the Japanese have some creative developments for hydrogen. The netural by-products are the attraction. Conversion appears to be simple. Supply is sustainable. Simple is sometimes better."
Spoken like a person that has only listened to "green" propaganda. Don't feel bad, I used to think it was a good fuel medium too.
From the making of hydrogen in the first place to the power actually hitting the wheels...its LESS efficient than the entire supply chain to power train conversion for gasoline. Fuel cell efficiency is only about 45% in practice, not too much better than a fuel efficient engine. Separating hydrogen in the first place hacks off another 20-30%. Storage is another problem...you either have to go for low density (pressurized tanks) or high density (liquification)...both of which hack off ANOTHER 20-30% efficiency. Liquified fuels have the disadvantage of needing to vent constantly or the tank ruptures.
A better solution is to use electric cars with batteries that are basically borrowed from the energy/battery company. By the way with extimated reserves of lithium at something like 3 pounds per person...lithium is out. We're stuck with zinc-air (possibly alluminum-air) for high capacity batteries with lower capacity secondaries OR just lower capacity primary batteries. The likely candidates are metals we have lots of...zinc, nickel, iron, etc. Carbon fiber flywheels also have some potential.
Back to hydrogen...in terms of safety the stuff is like having a pile of gunpowder just laying around. It passes through just any material we'd use as a hose (except metals) and it's also explosive in mixtures from 1% to 99%. I just do not see large-scale hudrogen use at the consumer level.
I only see ONE use for hydrogen. Hydrogen stored in large, well maintained and perferably underground tanks...is actually the most cost effective way to store power from wind turbines. Due to the huge losses from fuel cells and inverters...instead of any fancy-schmancy technology it would simply be injected as fuel into an existing, conventionally fueled power plant. Its been a while since I did the math but I believe it would take a 2 meter wide, 600 meter long string of high pressure tanks (just to make it easier to visualize) to hold enough hydrogen to fuel a 1gw conventional plant for one day. To increase efficiency the hydrogen is simply made within the system at the proper pressure (takes less extra power for electrolysis than for compressors)
Oh, keep in mind this system tosses out 60% of the input power...its just the only way to store that much power economically and without the horrible environmental impacts of 24GW hours worth of battery capacity.
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poitsplace #191.
re batteries.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8401566.stm
some way to go yet, still, v interesting.
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Forget about the current embarrasing revelations on the IPCC's analysis, this damning report from 2007 outlines inconsistencies and adjustments just from the successive reports.
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
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168. At 3:46pm on 02 Feb 2010, Dave_oxon wrote:
@Dempster #155
you wrote:
"But why do it. It is the motive part for manipulating data that seems to be missing.
--------his response - two other theories, here is no. 3------------
No. 3. The temperature data is known to contain inconsistencies from various sources including, but not limited to: change in location of measurement site, change of measurement method, changes in environment at the measurement site... and so on. The use of statistical techniques to attempt to remove these inconsistencies (the "data homogenisation" methods I discussed previously on this blog), which could be seen as manipulation, are in fact a genuine attempt to salvage some useful information from data which is otherwise meaningless.
-------------end of excerpt----------------------------------
You miss the point - the data is meaningless - period. You cannot correct it with any accuracy - you cannot re-do it - you cannot accurately reconstruct it - it is garbage - plain and simple.
That is the problem. While it may have some statistical value, taking our economies and everything else in the world, turning it upside down, based upon this data is quite foolish, in my opinion.
We simply don't know, our temperature records - even the ones we have - are "in your opinion" - pretty much worthless.
Then there are all the proxies - hello??? Can we ascribe any accuracy to them at all? really? How much accuracy? five degrees? ten? half a degree? please...spare me.
I have serious doubts about CO2 being the only 'first order driver' for climate change - if one wants to look at 'casual relationships' - one should also look at land use - as going back to 1850 - I believe a better correlation would be found between land use and climate change than CO2 and Climate Change.
There are many other theories - one need only read the literature to find them - it is disappointing that the "CO2 - AGW" casual link receives the most attention.
We do need to find alternative sources of energy - but we need to be smart about it. T. Boones Pickens wants to build 200,000 more windmills and spend trillions upgrading the electricity grid - to try and deal with an unreliable source - yes, he'll make a lot of money, the rest of us will pay for it and have rolling blackouts.
Lets continue with research and development - I am all for alternative energy sources - provided they are reliable. Windmills and solar are not it - at least not today, and both have been around a very long time - especially windmills. Hydro is no good - especially if you look at environmental consequences. The answer will come, but it will take time - until then, the world needs cheap energy and cheap food. Have a littel faith.
Cheers.
Kealey
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187. At 6:47pm on 02 Feb 2010, ghostofsichuan wrote:
jr4412 #175
Gasoline is pretty explosive and people drive around on top of these bombs every day. I think the new technology for containment would address this matter. That German airship that exploded in the US many years ago lingers in the minds of people I guess. I think the Japanese have some creative developments for hydrogen. The netural by-products are the attraction. Conversion appears to be simple. Supply is sustainable. Simple is sometimes better. It may shock the tax systems but that is not such a bad thing. Also, individual production units would not be as attractive to big investors and remove the capability to produce large revenues by providers with a single rate increase. Solutions should be expanded beyond the existing model and distribution systems, they seem locked into the status quo with looking for a replacement of the fuel source with everything else remaining the same. Seems short-sighted to me.
----------end of post--------------------------------------
Ah, hello - did you take basic chemistry? The energy companies would love this - do you think that you just have a little 'magic machine' which extracts hydrogen from water (or air) so that you can re-combine it with oxygen, producing energy and water as by-product - with little or no energy required? Think again. Not only is hydrogen very dangerous - but it requires energy to extract the hydrogen - in a perfect world - the same amount as you get from using hydrogen in the reaction - but the world is not perfect - so it takes more energy to extract the hydrogen for your fuel cell than you get from it - the reason hydrogen fuel cells are not the current 'rage' is because of safety issues and standardization. Energy companies would love this - are you kidding - you are going to pay them to burn coal, extract and store hydrogen - for you to use in your home. Where else do you think the extraction energy will come from for the next fifty years or so?
Come on - be realistic. The world runs on energy - without it, we would not survive. We are where we are because we were able to create fire on demand - energy for warmth and cooking, on demand. No other species has this ability. Cheap energy means cheap food and that is what enabled the development of the "West".
Yet today - we deny this to the third world - not only to the detriment of the people there - but also to the environments and habitats. Without modern farming techniques (and plentiful energy) farming requires over ten times as much land per person than in the west. So, not only do the people suffer, but precious habitats and environments - all because of the 'latest' rage: CO2.
When will we quit making excuses? When will the liberal elite quit denying those in developing nations the same things we had - and have today - to develop. What is better? a million African families burning wood or dung or whatever (like used tires?) to stay warm and cook - or one coal plant with today's technology? They till the land by hand - irrigate by carrying water by hand, ground their flour and grains by hand - and you blog about so much garbage on the BBC.
Please spare me your hypocritical...(I'll stop here - as I don't want to be moderated).
Kealey
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Sensiblegrannie asked:
Would mirrors (or scientific equivalent) reflect the wave lengths back into the atmosphere at the shorter wavelength required? Is there some way of harnessing the energy of this exchange?
I hope you will not consider me to be a 'pathetic' responder, I am only interested and want to learn more.
HungeryWalleye responds:
Yes, mirrors would work. That is basically what ice cover on the poles does. Which is why the loss of such ice cover in the summer would accelerate global warming. The problem with actually using mirrors is, the number required would be quite large. Even if it were feasible do you want to cover large areas of the temperate and tropical latitudes with mirrors to compensate for both the loss of polar ice cover and increased CO2.
No you couldn’t harness the energy if you wanted to send it back into space with mirrors. If you kept the energy here on the earth’s surface for use, than the energy would be eventually be dissipated as heat on the surface. For example if you converted it into electricity, it will eventually converted to heat in the process of doing work. The 1st and 2nd law of thermodynamics makes this inevitable.
Paul Kerr wrote:
The money by the way is clearly with the warmists and has been for some time if you care to browse the CRU emails or consider the pro AGW funding from oil companies. The problem with the money is it goes with the politics and not to accept this subject is politicised when the government is spending millions on popaganda rather than good science would be a naive perspective.
HungeryWalleye responds:
Just which oil companies are providing “pro AGW funding”. The ones I know about have been working feverishly to create fear, uncertainty and doubt about AGW. Have you ever heard of Exxon-Mobile, Peabody Coal etc? Everything I have heard says they are opposed to doing anything about AGW. Saying first it wasn’t happening, now saying it is too late to do anything. If you have contrary information what is your source? Which companies? How much?
Since when has maintaining large networks of ground measurement networks, satellite networks and the money to analyze the data returned been spending millions on propaganda? In fact during the Bush administration funding for NASA’s climate research decreased (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/15/AR2007011501049.html) and James Hanson was given a “minder” to prevent ‘unauthorized’ communication about AGW with the public. This minder had faked his resume (no college degree) and shown his qualifications for the job by working on Bush’s campaign. So much for “warmest government propaganda.” Then we have the august Senator from Oklahoma who likes to cite a 16-year-old high school student as an expert against the AGW theory. Get real. The only reason governments are dealing with the issue at all is because the evidence is overwhelming. In the U.S. governments of all levels have zero interest in appealing to scientists. Scientists don’t make major political contributions like fossil fuel companies do and they represent a trivial number of votes. AGW is the last thing politicians would want to deal with. Just how many politicians or political campaigns have you worked on? The politicians you describe are not anything like the ones I’ve dealt with.
Rossglory post 133: doesn’t seem to like modern physics. Doesn’t mean it hasn’t been very successful at explaining/modeling the nature of the universe we live in and make predictions about what other observations would produce.
Bowmanthebard post 134: Conflates two types of models, statistical models and process models. The global climate models are process models that use statistical methods to estimate the parameters. Process models use computer codes to model processes such as atmospheric convection, radiation transfer etc. The process models are calibrated by running historical conditions and comparing their results to data available, then using them to predict future scenarios.
To MangoChutneyUKOK post 141 -- The optical depth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_depth) in the CO2 spectra is not directly correlated with the warming potential of CO2. It just means the likelihood of a photon with an energy level in a CO2 absorption band being able to travel from the surface of the earth to space is very small. The optical depth is important in choosing the wavelengths at which you collect data with satellites. To go back to my water tank model, if you constrict the outlet by placing a series of screens at random orientations you will quickly reach the point where you can not see through the screens. However adding more screens will continue to decrease the flow rate, raising the water level in the tank.
There are three methods by which energy at the surface of the earth is transmitted to the edge of the atmosphere where it can radiate out into space: conduction, convection and radiation. CO2 influences the rate of radiation transfer. In the case of CO2 in the atmosphere, a photon with energy in a CO2 absorption band (http://www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?URI=ao-25-11-1795) will move on average a certain distance before it hits a CO2 molecule and gets absorbed. It then gets sent on its way when the CO2 molecule decays to a lower energy state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_dipole_moment). Of course the emitted photon could be heading back toward the surface of the earth. Increasing the concentration of CO2 means that the average distance a photon travels before getting absorbed by another CO2 molecule is less. Increasing the concentration of CO2 decreases the rate of radiation transfer in those absorbing wavelengths because there are more absorption/emission events before a unit of energy reaches the top of the atmosphere. Each emission event could be sending a photon in any of 360 degrees, including back toward the surface of the earth.
The CO2 can be determined to be from human activities by the ratio of the isotopes of carbon taken by the various measurement stations around the world.
The climate models are not perfect. However, lack of perfection doesn’t mean the results are not indicative of what to expect if current trends continue. To the extent that I follow the issue it seems that the models have underestimated the rate of ice loss from Greenland and Arctic Sea ice.
A large portion of the research money used in Climate Change research is used for keeping networks of terrestrial instruments and satellites going, processing the data and running models. Almost all of the money spent by fossil fuel companies goes directly or indirectly to public relations (Cato Foundation, Heritage Foundation and their corporate funded brethren).
It is difficult to be patient with climate deniers when their case is argued by attacking the integrity of the science community or the data. This is especially true when a lot of the data is available free on line. If they think they have a better way of analyzing it they are free to do it. If a scientist has a data set he/she has collected, don’t expect her/him to release it until he/she has published the results of their analysis. Funding is tight for research and the competition for funding is fierce. To get an idea of what the competition is like read the “Double Helix” by Watson and Crick. Compared to them climate researchers have been positively collegial. There is also the misrepresentation by AGW deniers of the errors in estimating the rate of decline of the Himalayan glaciers. The error was in the estimate of the date when they would be gone, not whether they are decreasing. Then you have some deniers who cherry pick a statement or two in an article or simply make false assertions about the data and then have the gall to impugn the integrity of the climate science community.
Global Warming is beyond being a hypothesis, it is a theory many of whose predictions are being confirmed by observations. Just go to your local university and start looking at the publications in climate science journals over the last 10 to 20 years if you doubt that. Of course if you subscribe to the idea that all climate science is some kind of fraud, than don’t bother.
Labmonkey post 148 claims to be a scientist “With over ten years experience of data evaluation.” So what is your field of study? What kinds of data have you analyzed? Your posts are by in large invective against the climate research community. What experience do you have collecting and analyzing field data or satellite image data? What do you know about experimental design or statistical sampling? What kind of statistical or computer simulation programs have you worked on? What are your mathematical skills? They haven’t been evident in your posts.
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HungeryWalleye:
You claim that the oil companies you "know about have been working feverishly to create fear, uncertainty and doubt about AGW".
Please take the time to examine the list of companies (at the end of the link below) which provided funding to the CRU and read the climategate emails which were "stolen" to see Phil Jones and his cronies scheming on how to milk oil companies for more money for their incompetent research.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history/
James Hansen is a grave threat to humanity. Please do read the powerpoint for his speech to the Club of Rome (under "Recent Presentations in the link below); his insistence for a moratorium on the burning of coal would kill hundreds of millions if it were implemented.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/
ExxonMobil, which vies with the Chnese state oil company for the most profitable in the world made $45 billion in 2008. They spent $14.9 million on lobbyists in the next six months compared to $12.1 million spent by "green" energy companies. Their miniscule investment managed to get the EPA to rule carbon dioxide as a toxic gas. How blind has the propaganda made you?
Modern physics has had some great successes in modelling the nature of the universe. It has failed miserably at modelling the Earth's climate though. You could argue that the flat temperatures in the last decade and the substantial cooling since 1998 are due to natural variations overwhelming your CO2 warming, but then you'd have to concede that the warming may well have been natural variation in the first place. Mann and his imaginative colleagues' pathetic excuses for research which nearly resulted in the Medieval Warming period disappearing down the memory hole are a disgrace:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2008/8/11/caspar-and-the-jesus-paper.html
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/9/29/the-yamal-implosion.html
The global climate models are cut from the cloth of ignorance of how the Earth's oceans and atmosphere works. Two papers in just the last week have made a mockery of them. The so-called calibration of them is something you really shouldn't bring up, since they can't even model things which have already happened. Which is pretty sad. If they are somehow calibrated to produce the nonsense hockey stick fabricated by Mann et al then they are completely worthless.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/01/evidence-for-natural-climate-cycles-in-the-ipcc-climate-models-20th-century-temperature-reconstructions/
Almost all of us understand the principles of GW via CO2 and that doubling its concentration will warm the Earth by a little more than 1C. Unfortunately nobody understands how the Earth's climate will respond to an increase in temperature. AGW alarmists require fanciful positive feedback to produce anything other than a more comfortable and bounteous planet. All evidence from the last half million years should make us fear cooling rather than warming since the globe seems to prefer being an icebox. And lots of people starve and freeze to death when it gets cold. Anyone predicting a runaway greenhouse effect has a mountain to climb. A slight and pleasant warming, coupled with greatly enhanced plant growth, is the most intuitive outcome.
They should spend more of their research money keeping those instruments going, since they made a total hames of the surface temperature monitoring network since the 80's.
http://chiefio.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/thermometer-records-by-year.gif
I don't need your patience. Thanks. I don't need or want anything from someone who would insult the victims of the Holocaust by linking the AGW scam to their suffering. I most especially don't need to be lectured by you as you pretend that anyone understands how the Earth's climate functions. You suggest that the behaviour of climate scientists has been "collegial" compared to other disicplins? I'll say: check the climategate emails to read how they contacted at least one journal editor to arrange "friendly" reviewers for their "peer-reviewed" papers. You should probably follow the issue more closely if you plan to keep writing diatribes on it. If the most recent trends continue I predict the IPCC will be disbanded very soon.
Oh, some of us have "the gall to impugn the integrity of the climate science community." Do we? That's rich. The Information Commissioner has publicly said that the University of East Anglia broke the law by refusing to comply with the Freedom of Information Act, their Climatic Research Unit's head, Phil Jones, conspired with others to destroy data subject to FOIA requests. Jones also seems to find people's deaths "oddly cheering". In addition, Jones still seems to believe that urban heat islands add a fraction of 1C to temperatures despite common sense and experience suggesting that it's several degrees. And when he thought he might be forced to release data upon which he based research that affect everyone on this planet he said he'd destroy it. It's possible that he did indeed destroy irreplaceable date. Climate scientists gamed the peer review system. They conspired to discredit their legitimate critics and publicly fantasied about assaulting them. They dressed up nonsense like the Yamal study as science in order to vandalise the global temperature record. The IPCC lied by including figures they knew to be fraudulent in their report even claiming there was a link between global warming and losses caused by AGW provoked climatic extremes when they knew there was none. And having been caught out in all of this they seem bemused that some people don't trust them. People like this don't need others to impugn their integrity. Their actions have brought themselves, the subject they study and science in general into total disrepute.
You say "Global Warming is beyond being a hypothesis, it is a theory many of whose predictions are being confirmed by observations." Which planet do you live on? Temperatures have been flat for a decade and have fallen substantially since 1998. Global tropical storm energy is near a 30-year low. Surface ocean heat content has levelled off and the rate of sea-level rise has slowed. Atmospheric CO2 concentration is much lower than that predicted by the IPCC. Did I mention that temperatures have been flat for a decade? If climatology didn't challenge Al Gore when he said the science was settled then I believe it is a fraud in light of all their failed predictions. I don't think they got a single thing right.
I believe that you and Richard Black are suffering from the same problem. You've spent so long in an echo chamber listening to optimistic mantras that they are concrete in your minds. The personal contact you've had with people who's inflated egos made them expert at pretending they had the first clue on what they were talking about has had a powerful effect. I think there might be some small hope for your liberation from this brainwashing though. Your deprogramming will likely take years unfortunately. Just my hypothesis you understand. I can accept criticism.
The theory of dangerous AGW has hit a serious snag. They deliberately lied to people. I've had the good fortune to suffer some betrayal in my life and thankfully have learned that if someone lies to you then you'd been an idiot to ever trust them again. Most people have had life experiences similar to mine. By all means keep using that word you like to abuse. It will continue to do damage to your pet cause. You've already lost. Get over it. Or go hug a polar bear.
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#164 LabMunkey
"the 'sceptics' are only asking questions. only trying to get the AGW proponents to prove their theory- something which should be childlishly simple for such a well know, well supported, thoroughly infallable theory."
just because you want the science to be at the janet and john level, doesn;t mean it is. and let's forget about the 'prove' nonsense before bowman goes off on one. the science in almost all respects is settled.
in fact, i am a hardened sceptic.
in particular, i'm very sceptical that the billions of tonnes of co2 we are pumping into the atmosphere are not going to create disastrous environmental damage.
ask a contrarian to provide 'proof' that it's ok to keep doing it and they come up with nothing apart from a few comprehensively trashed scientific papers and a lot of manufactured hype.
and all us warmists have is the ipcc, all major national scientific bodies, nasa, woods hole, royal society etc etc etc
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rossglory said: "and all us warmists have is the ipcc, all major national scientific bodies, nasa, woods hole, royal society etc etc etc"
I'm glad the IPCC aren't on my side, because right now that's a major reason why the majority of the public believe that you're full of it.
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194. At 11:51pm on 02 Feb 2010, LarryKealey wrote:
"You miss the point - the data is meaningless - period. You cannot correct it with any accuracy - you cannot re-do it - you cannot accurately reconstruct it - it is garbage - plain and simple."
The data can, and has, been subjected to rigourous statistical techniques which render it usable. These techniques additionally supply the degree of uncertainty and allow a final assessment of the statistical significance of any trends in the data.
To assert that the data is garbage, you need to provide (or cite) an analysis which clearly demonstrates that the techniques are not applicable and/or that the uncertainties in the final adjusted data are unacceptably large. I suggest you start from "Menne 2010" (linked to from many sources including Andrew Watts - whose refutation of this particular paper does not contain any of the numerical analyses I have just mentioned).
In this case, as in the CRU incidents which the researchers there are now coming to realise, merely saying something does not make it so - you are required to back up your claim with evidence (my claim is backed up by the paper referred to above and by my previous posts providing summaries of teh techniques involved).
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Dave_oxon,
Here's the adjustments USHCN have made to their raw data, *before* GISS, NOAA or CRU got their hands on it:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/ushcn/ts.ushcn_anom25_diffs_pg.gif
Seems to be mostly negative in the distant past and hugely positive in the near present. Funny that , eh?
Here's how the adjustments they made *just in the last 8 months* look for just one of the States:
http://www.rockyhigh66.org/stuff/USHCN_revisions_wisconsin.htm
Could it be that Americans don't seem as convinced by AGW as Europeans because 1935 *is still* the warmest year in the US temperature record and it hasn't warmed as much as GISS say with their massaged figures?
Watt is preparing his refutation of Menne's embarrassing paper.
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@ 179- phaemon.
I’ll try again. What I’m saying is that there are papers and well documentated evidence that in a controlled laboratory environment, co2 acts in the way the AGW theory requires. But, what I am also saying is that there is minimal evidence at all that can prove how it acts in the atmosphere. Remember that the models are not accurate and cannot predict both current and past events simultaneously.
Therefore, in the pure form we know how co2 works, in a complicated system. We do not- we can only hypothesise.
@198- Rossglory
You are being disingenuous again. Trying to suggest that just because I do not accept the AGW theory that I want to trash the planet and keep the’ status quo’. I do not, and have never said that. Try not to let your personal anger/feelings cloud your judgement.
Janet and john level? Loved that little segment, shame terry’s gone now. But no- I do not want the science to be dumbed down, far from it- I just want climate science to be held to the same standards as ‘hard’ science. Either that or stop calling itself a science. We are asking very simple questions- I.e. prove your theory. So far they have been unable. That’s not our (sceptics) fault.
@196 –walley
Right. I have direct experience of analysing clinical trial study data. I have also lead and reported on large scientific studies- though I of course don’t expect anyone on this forum to believe that.
When presented with a claim I look to the data. But not only the data, but how it was collected. Where it was collected, what was the status of the machine (if applicable) that collected it. How was this machine maintained. Where’s the paper trail. Has the data presented been pre-manipulated (as in the case of AGW temperature logs where NO raw data is available, only the ‘anomalous’ data).
When I’m shown data, that has been poorly correlated (using ground stations that are moved, incorrectly adjusted for HIE, presented against ‘tree ring’ data for short, but incomplete periods) I start to question the collection methods. When I cannot then get hold of the raw data as it is ‘lost’ or ‘missing’ or they are ‘unwilling to release it’. I then get suspicious.
The way the AGW theory has been rpesented, regardless of it’s ‘truth’ is atrocious. You have to accept that- regardless of your stance on the issue. The theory is ill defined, with little to no empirical evidence behind it, relying heavily on incomplete and inaccurate computational models and half-assed claims by political bodies.
If this is the kind of science you’re happy with, then god help us if you’re in any position of importance in the scientific world.
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@202 LabMunkey
I really don't get it. Is there perhaps some evidence that CO2 acts differently in the atmosphere than it does in the lab?
I'm sure you have a good reason for thinking it does, but I'm afraid you're not communicating it to me! (Or I'm missing it.) As you're a scientist, I'm asking what scientific evidence is there that it does?
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@phaemon #203
Climate sensitivity
/mango
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@ 203.
i may just not be explaining this well, sorry.
How about this.
You run a test on a vaccine in the lab. You find out it behaves one way in that system (in vitro). This is no gaurantee that it will behave the same way in the body (in vivo).
The reason for this is that there are so many uncharacterised pathways, enzymes, proteins (esp chapaeurone), antibodies etc that you cannot be 100% sure (you'll be lucky to be %50 sure) how it will react and behave in the body. I.E. lab test may say it will do one thing, but in a more complicated system it may do something completely different.
The same principle applies to the co2 tests. We do not, currently (even by the IPCC's own admission) have the faintest idea how our ecosystem works (with respect to feedbacks, interactions saturation levels etc), so we cannot know how the c02 will behave in this system. You cannot extrapolate one test (the lab) into another (the world) without fully understanding the methods involved.
There is however a way around this. You present experimental evidence that backs up how YOU think something will behave in system, after laboratory tests. You can the TRY to verify it's effect without fully understanding the system (as we do in vivo).
The AGW theory has failed every one of these tests.
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LarryKealey #195.
glad you 'stopped there' for while I agree with your arguments on the whole, I also agree with many of the political insights demonstrated by ghostofsichuan's posts.
regards
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FergalR #197.
"James Hansen is a grave threat to humanity."
nothing like the Tony Blair's of this world though!
"I don't need or want anything from someone who would insult the victims of the Holocaust by linking the AGW scam to their suffering."
can you actually produce any arguments without conflating an odious historical event and your problems with (what you see as) 'denial'?
tediuos AND disingenuous.
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Please stop using that word.
James Hansen ~= Tony Blair
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Wait, jr4412,
I made many points in #197, yet you didn't properly address any of them. Instead you accuse me of being "tediuos[sic] AND disingenuous" for not producing any arguments. Please read #197 again and try to say something intelligent.
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FergalR #197.
re my #207.
please disregard second half, got mixed up, no evidence of you're obsessing with holocaust, apologies.
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Sorry, jr, your comment is still waiting and I gotta go to work,
Apparently, one of the few animals that would be more dangerous to cuddle than a polar bear is under pressure from climate change *rolls eyes*
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8494000/8494397.stm
Good luck to Coca-Cola trying incorporating a vicious giant stoat into their advertisements.
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@205. LabMunkey
I'm not sure that it applies in the same way, since we're talking about trapping radiation and the heat has to go *somewhere*, but I think I understand what you mean now.
Not that I'm convinced that your analogy supports your point! If you had a vaccine and you didn't know how it would affect the human body, I don't think the correct response would be: "We might as well carry on injecting people with it, until there's some proof it's killing them!" :-)
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no- of course not, it was an overly simplistic representation that i used just to get my point across.
re- trapping radiation.
are we sure it's trapping excess radiation though? where's the proof? it could be natural. something else could be adding cooling- thats the point we don't know (though it almost certainly is trapping some radiation).
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The physics says that extra CO2 will directly warm the planet by only a relatively small amount. Climate models were built to test the theory that the small amount of CO2-based warming leads to positive feedbacks, most notably in increased water vapour, which would lead to much greater warming and harm to the people and the planet. The models can only be tested against observed real temperature data. The integrity and accuracy of the data and the processes are crucial. Trust in the custodians of the data and processes is therefore also crucial.
Richard Feynman was not only a great scientist but also a great leader in promulgating a philosophy of scientific work that required integrity and doubt. There are far more books about this aspect of his scientific life than there are about his Nobel Prize winning work on Quantum ElectroDynamics. For instance: “There is one feature I notice that is generally missing in Cargo Cult science. …. It is a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to an utter honesty – a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you are doing an experiment , you should report everything that you think that might make it invalid – not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results, and things you thought you had eliminated … to make sure the other fellow can tell that they have been eliminated.”
Well prior to any Freedom of Information Act requests for data, noted climate scientists were refusing access to their data by interested statisticians, in open emails, “... because you will only try to disprove my theories.” Feynmen would have said that that is exactly why the climate scientists should have handed over the data. That's what scientists do, they try to disprove theories so that progress can be made. What is the point of proceeding along a path that can be proven to be a dead end. The science is the important thing, not someone's fragile ego. Hiding data, manipulating data, hiding processess, manipulating processes, suppressing alternative opinions and relying on positions of authority is not the attitude that the public and other scientists will have any trust in.
On a more human topic, where is the debate about the number of people in the developing world who have insufficient food, medical care, education, jobs, hope and life expectancy because they do not have access to the energy required for economic development. Right now, and in the immediate future many people will suffer and die because we are spending huge amounts of money on trying to reduce carbon dioxide instead of on helping their development. Because of this, people are dying now, not in some projected scenario decades into the future that might never arise. In fifty years time do we want to be saying: “ Tens or hundreds of millions of people died because we were careless, self-serving and dishonest about the science.” With human lives in the balance, surely more weight should be given to what we know now, rather than what some people suspect might happen in the future.
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@214. excellent post. ESPECIALLY the last paragraph.
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Please watch my video images
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7I_eFoIk64
It's about climate change, earth catastrophe and our planet as we lives in.
Thank you.
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@HungeryWalleye #196
Just which oil companies are providing “pro AGW funding”.
There are several oil companies who fund CRU – check CRU website for details
Thanks for the explanation of CO2 spectra etc, the bottom line of which is CO2 is limited to a small part of the sun’s light, which, for all intents and purposes, is saturated. I’m sure you know each additional molecule from whatever its source adds very little warming and the effect diminishes with concentration, the first few tens of molecules being more important than subsequent tens of molecules.
I don’t think anything I have said so far is disputed between AGW believers and sceptics, so I am assuming you agree.
The reason AGW believers think CO2 levels are so important is due to the possible amplification effect and climate sensitivity. High sensitivity would cause the temperatures go up, low sensitivity would have little effect on temperatures.
As far as I am aware, and please correct me if I am wrong, there is no observational evidence to suggest climate sensitivity is high, although there is calculation evidence to indicate high sensitivity – Arrhenius etc. There is however evidence, both calculated and observational, to suggest sensitivity is low, including recent work by several prominent sceptics
Do you have any real evidence to show climate sensitivity is high?
It is difficult to be patient with climate deniers when their case is argued by attacking the integrity of the science community or the data.
The integrity of the climate science community is in doubt and to be frank, they only have themselves to blame.
If they think they have a better way of analyzing it they are free to do it. If a scientist has a data set he/she has collected, don’t expect her/him to release it until he/she has published the results of their analysis.
That’s exactly what McIntyre and McKitrick did and instead of them being welcomed into the bosom of the climate scientists they were treated quite badly.
Global Warming is beyond being a hypothesis, it is a theory many of whose predictions are being confirmed by observations.
From Wiki:
“Scientific researchers propose hypotheses as explanations of phenomena, and design experimental studies to test these hypotheses. These steps must be repeatable in order to dependably predict any future results.”
Could you point out how the repeatability step has been completed please?
Just go to your local university and start looking at the publications in climate science journals over the last 10 to 20 years if you doubt that.
I have access to many science journals and am an avid reader.
/mango
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188. At 7:04pm on 02 Feb 2010, oldterry2 wrote:
"needs to be put in the context that the radiative forcing keeping the earth at its reasonable temperature is 324W so the CO2 doubling only changes the forcing by about 1% (so hardly massive)"
It's massive in terms of other forcings. Nothing else over the next 100 years can plausibly cause a sustained 3.7wm-2 imbalance.
Also note that the Earth's temperature is 288K. 1% of that is about 3K.
"So whatever is driving the warming (AGW or plain GW) it is NOT the increase in CO2."
Yet the co2 forcing is the biggest known. Factor in other greenhouse gases and altogether the greenhouse gas forcing is by far the biggest elephant in the room.
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"As far as I am aware, and please correct me if I am wrong, there is no observational evidence to suggest climate sensitivity is high, although there is calculation evidence to indicate high sensitivity – Arrhenius etc."
There are also sensitivity estimates from paleoclimate records that find high climate sensitivity. Also the calculation evidence is vast - spanning both simple convective-radiative models to advanced AOGCMS. High climate sensitivity is a robust result of all granularities of model. It's important to note that low climate sensitivity has not been demonstrated by a model. Therefore what we can say today is that high climate sensitivity is a result of our understanding of climate physics, and low climate sensitivity is incompatible with that understanding.
There are papers that use the recent observational record to determine climate sensitivity. Some are low some are high. A third set of papers exist that find the length of the observational record is too short and the uncertainty in it too great to rule out low or high sensitivity.
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FergalR post 197 – I went to the Web sites you cited. I noticed only one Oil Company, BP, on the list of sponsors for CRU. It was one of the few that actually publicly admits there is a problem in public, but I met a person who had worked as an economist for them. That person said not to worry, they were still being obstructionist behind the scenes. So even if they throw a little money at CRU, they are still on your side. Be happy! Did you actually read the CRU history web page – they have been surviving on soft money for years. No wonder the CRU staff is cut throat. They need to be to survive. In the U.S. a large proportion of the academic researchers have teaching positions and the grants they get are extra funding that allows them to spend less time teaching and more time researching. It also brings in overhead funds that the Universities love.
Thanks for the link to James Hanson’s web page. Don’t you think you’re hyperventilating a little about the influence of James Hansen. After all he is a single scientist with only his research and willingness to speak out on it. He has no army, no police, no legal authority, little political clout, yet you claim “James Hansen is a grave threat to humanity.” To be honest the presentation you pointed me to makes a great deal of sense and is consistent with what I know about the AGW theory. You did misrepresent his position on coal use. You say “his insistence for a moratorium on the burning of coal would kill hundreds of millions if it were implemented.” When in fact he advocates “1. Phase Out Coal CO2 Emissions
- by 2025/2030 developed/developing countries” This is not a quit coal cold turkey moratorium that will leave people sitting in the cold as you assert! It is a gradual phase out that would take 15 to 20 years. It has only just become 2010.
James Hansen’s description of the political environment is more consistent with my observations of politician behavior – doesn’t exactly incline me to take what you say at face value.
Dr Roy Spencer is interesting – why couldn’t he get his paper published in a real scientific journal as opposed to self-publishing on the WEB. What peer review did it have? I googled him and discovered he believes in intelligent design – doesn’t exactly inspire faith in his rationality. His microwave work was peer reviewed and published, so he must know the process. Unfortunately like a number of scientists he applies the rational process to a narrow part of his life, studying microwave radiation, but apparently follows Karen Armstrong’s admonition to reduce the Logos in life and get balance by increasing the Mythos in the rest of it.
Actually in high concentrations CO2 is toxic see the following from the Wikipedia: “CO2 is toxic in higher concentrations: 1% (10,000 ppm) will make some people feel drowsy.[2] Concentrations of 7% to 10% cause dizziness, headache, visual and hearing dysfunction, and unconsciousness within a few minutes to an hour.[3]”; however, the real concern is the impact on climate which is why they ruled it a pollutant not a toxic gas as you assert.
FergalR – get a grip – have you ever heard about context? Nothing like throwing a red-herring into the discussion. There is nothing in my previous posts referring to WWII and the Holocaust; however, now that you mention it the methods and mentality of the Holocaust deniers and the AGW deniers seem to have a lot in common. They both maintain their position in-spite of massive evidence to the contrary and attack the credibility of anyone who presents evidence contrary to the firmly held opinions.
LabMunkey – I can tell you the methods you use in clinical trials are completely different than what is possible out in nature. Did you actually design the studies? Set up the sampling protocol? Determine the sampling sizes necessary? Or did you just push data through SAS or some other set of computer codes. What kind of large scientific studies have you lead? Were they epidemiological studies or large clinical trials? Epidemiological studies are more like climate and ecological studies in that there are many sources of variation you have to take account of. In particular if you are using ANOVA/MANOVA in your clinical data analysis, it is likely a fixed effects model, while in field studies it is typically a random effects model or at best a mixed model. With your data standards I would guess there would unlikely be any epidemiological study that would meet your standards.
I have to say you remind me of a lab tech I used to work with who also didn’t believe in AGW, claimed the moon landing had been faked and when I got my 2002 Prius asked how bad a mileage I could get (The answer without actually doing the experiment is zero. This could be done by turning the car on and leaving it parked. The gas engine needs to maintain a certain temperature and turns on when its temperature falls below that level, and over time the battery will self discharge and the computer turns the gas engine on for charging). Then there was the Geologist I know who kept insisting that Ecology wasn’t a science. Lots of bizarre ideas out there or is it just ignorance due to tunnel vision?
Trying to apply the standards of clinical trial data to anything beyond agricultural field trials is going to fail out in the field. In many situations experimental manipulation is either physically impossible or illegal so you use different methods. You either explicitly or implicitly use a Baysian approach. As an example one of the predictions of AGW theory is that storms will on average become more intense. The rain rate will become higher for example. This has been confirmed by studies done and published in the ‘90s. Another thing scientists do is look for unexpected “experiments” such as 9/11 when air traffic was banned in the U.S. for a period of days while the government sorted things out. This short term “experiment” caused changes in insolation due to lack of jet condensation trails and changes in temperatures predicted by components used in the Global Climate Models.
LabMunkey your analogy between in-vivo and in-vitro experiments and laboratory measurements of the physical properties of CO2 and the behavior of CO2 in the atmosphere is off the mark. You are conflating chemical reactions with the physics of electrons in the CO2 molecule either jumping to a higher energy state (absorbing a photon) or dropping to a lower energy state (releasing a photon). There is every reason to expect chemical reactions to be influenced by the change in the chemical environment caused by changing from the in-vitro environment to the in-vivo environment. The fact that the spectral bands adsorbed in the lab are also observed to be adsorbed in the atmosphere indicates that as expected the physics of CO2 in the atmosphere is the same as in the lab.
We have an imperfect understanding of how the ecosystem works, but there has been a great deal of work in ecosystem analysis. We do have a good enough understanding that even apart from AGW ecosystems are being stressed by the huge number of human beings and the demands they collectively place on the system. Read Diamond’s book Collapse if you want to understand what we are up against.
But don’t worry, you’re OK! Psychiatrists recommend denial to people as a means of coping with realities that would otherwise leave them unfunctional.
Ooops -- got to go to bed so I can get up in the morning and do some real work.
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@infinity
Again, could you cite please
Thanks
/Mango
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@Hungary-Walleye #220
You know, mate, when you first appeared here, I thought you may actually know something, but the more you post, the more I realise you are just copy / pasting from some website you have found.
Your attack on Spencer is childest - don't like his science? Fine, attack the science, but his beliefs, however absurd we may think they may be, are irrelevant to the discussion.
I'll respond more later
/Mango
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@ 213. LabMunkey
>are we sure it's trapping excess radiation though? where's the proof?
Well, yes, because that's why it's a greenhouse gas. If it didn't absorb radiation that otherwise escaped you wouldn't see that effect (in the lab, or anywhere).
>it could be natural.
Of course it's natural; it's not supernatural! :-) We're talking about how CO2 behaves here according to what we know of physics.
>something else could be adding cooling- thats the point we don't know
You can't "add" cooling. The only way for Earth to lose heat is to radiate it out into space.
It's possible that something is causing the Earth to start radiating more heat as CO2 levels increase, or somehow prevents CO2 from absorbing the radiation it should (is that even physically possible?) but that gives us the theory:
"CO2 levels are higher, which we'd expect from our lab results to cause warming, but some unknown thing is preventing CO2 from having this effect. Coincidently, some *other* unknown thing is warming the Earth (but it's not the CO2, because unknown thing number 1 is stopping that)."
I'm not sure that's a great theory.
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@HungeryWalleye #220
FergalR post 197 – I went to the Web sites you cited. I noticed only one Oil Company, BP, on the list of sponsors for CRU. It was one of the few that actually publicly admits there is a problem in public, but I met a person who had worked as an economist for them. That person said not to worry, they were still being obstructionist behind the scenes.
I was met a man in a pub who told me the earth was flat, I was sceptical about his claim, perhaps some bloke telling you they were still being obstructionist behind the scenes was being a little economical with the truth.
Dr Roy Spencer is interesting
I think it is more interesting that you attack the man for his beliefs than for his science. For the record Spencer was a Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, where he and Dr. John Christy received NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal for their global temperature monitoring work with satellites and he still works with NASA on a consultancy basis.With over 25 peer reviewed and published papers on his work, I think his religious views are irrelevant.
Actually in high concentrations CO2 is toxic see the following from the Wikipedia: “CO2 is toxic in higher concentrations: 1% (10,000 ppm) will make some people feel drowsy.[2] Concentrations of 7% to 10% cause dizziness, headache, visual and hearing dysfunction, and unconsciousness within a few minutes to an hour.[3]
And?
When do you think man’s emissions of CO2 will cause the 10000ppm? Not soon I hope, because I’m starting to panic now
I noticed you didn’t respond to my comments on your post
/mango
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Dr Roy Spencer himself stated his conclusion about intelligent design was derived scientifically, not religiously, so his statements on the matter are fair game.
He claimed "Twenty years ago, as a PhD scientist, I intensely studied the evolution versus intelligent design controversy for about two years. And finally, despite my previous acceptance of evolutionary theory as "fact," I came to the realization that intelligent design, as a theory of origins, is no more religious, and no less scientific, than evolutionism."
He said he studied the issue as a PhD scientist. So he's the one who has bought his credibility as a scientist into the matter.
And therefore you have to wonder what's going on, because anyone studying the subject as a scientist "intensively" for two years shouldn't reach the conclusions he does.
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HungeryWalleye:
I'm glad you undertook such an exhaustive evaluation of the links I posted. Perhaps next time you should take off your blinkers: other funders of CRU include Shell (who it may surprise you to learn is one of the largest oil companies in the world), The Sultan of Oman (who I'm guessing might not be overly enthusiastic about limiting CO2 emissions) as well as several electricity generating companies and the US Department of Energy.
I did read the CRU's history - all of their jobs were exceedingly tenuous until they created their imaginative reconstruction of the last 1,000 years of global temperature. Now they're flush with cash. I wonder what would happen to anyone working there who rocked the AGW boat?
If coal was no longer burned after 2030 as Hansen demands humanity would not even have enough energy to run our present agricultural production. Do you suggest we power farm machinery with windmills? Hansen's disaster fantasies were apparently based on his study of Venus. I still see ignoramuses holding that alien planet up as a possible future for Earth. These people are profoundly stupid. Venus could hardly be less like Earth in too many ways to list here. Hansen is a menace. That he cosies up to the Club of Rome should make you afraid.
It's amazing that you have such strong opinions on AGW yet have to google Dr. Spencer. He's the science team leader for the project that produces the UAH satellite global temperature measurements. An highly qualified scientist who has - unlike Hansen for example - actually produced valuable scientific advancements. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, even climate journals. Pretty amazing considering the lengths to which AGW fanatics have gamed - and thereby discredited - that system. I think you'll find that atheists are in a minority among scientists. As someone who doesn't believe in intelligent design perhaps you could tell me what happened before the Big Bang and why the universal constants are so finely tuned to allow matter to exist as it apparently does?
CO2's impact on climate is a concern only in people's imaginations.
I have heard about context. Wikipedia's article on denialism specifically links scepticism of AGW with Holocaust denial. You go on to spell it out yourself and then accuse those you label "deniers" of the exact same tactics you and your ilk engage in. You insult the victims of the Holocaust, demonstrate moral bankruptcy and show up just how little weight your arguments have by using that word.
There is no proof that CO2 is or could cause dangerous warming of the Earth. Not one single piece of evidence. In your earlier post you remarked that you thought climate models had underestimated warming in the Arctic - presumably because the sea-ice there melted sooner than expected. If you weren't wearing your AGW blinkers you would see that as proof the CO2 AGW theory is wrong and that the warmer temperatures and Arctic melt were caused by something else other that CO2 "pollution." It's yet another failed prediction of the AGW models. They are wrong about that as they've been wrong about everything else. The Arctic has recovered now, there was obviously no positive feedback from its melt. There's no danger. You're an alarmist.
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HungeryWalleye:
Also, I notice you had no arguments against the following paragraph I posted:
"Oh, some of us have "the gall to impugn the integrity of the climate science community." Do we? That's rich. The Information Commissioner has publicly said that the University of East Anglia broke the law by refusing to comply with the Freedom of Information Act, their Climatic Research Unit's head, Phil Jones, conspired with others to destroy data subject to FOIA requests. Jones also seems to find people's deaths "oddly cheering". In addition, Jones still seems to believe that urban heat islands add a fraction of 1C to temperatures despite common sense and experience suggesting that it's several degrees. And when he thought he might be forced to release data upon which he based research that affect everyone on this planet he said he'd destroy it. It's possible that he did indeed destroy irreplaceable date. Climate scientists gamed the peer review system. They conspired to discredit their legitimate critics and publicly fantasied about assaulting them. They dressed up nonsense like the Yamal study as science in order to vandalise the global temperature record. The IPCC lied by including figures they knew to be fraudulent in their report even claiming there was a link between global warming and losses caused by AGW provoked climatic extremes when they knew there was none. And having been caught out in all of this they seem bemused that some people don't trust them. People like this don't need others to impugn their integrity. Their actions have brought themselves, the subject they study and science in general into total disrepute."
I take it that you agree wholeheartedly with it.
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@infinity #225
Well you learn something new every day!
Although i still think comments should be made on the relevant science (climate) not his belief in intelligent design.
/mango
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HungeryWalleye at #220
Excellent post. Some really interesting information and so much more refreshing than the usual nonsense arguments and endlessly recycled clippings from dubious blogs and tabloids.
Thankyou.
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Poor old FergalR at #226 comes up with a meaningless diatribe as usual. Says:-
‘…Hansen's disaster fantasies were apparently based on his study of Venus. I still see ignoramuses holding that alien planet up as a possible future for Earth. These people are profoundly stupid. Venus could hardly be less like Earth in too many ways to list here. Hansen is a menace. That he cosies up to the Club of Rome should make you afraid.’
He doesn’t contribute anything on the science ‘cos he doesn’t know anything.
His ‘ignoramuses’ and ‘profoundly stupid’ critique is dripping in irony given that this is the guy who didn’t realise navigators have been accurately mapping the earth for over 500 years. Thought it could only be done with a satellite.
He posted a picture of a sub somewhere on the earth’s surface as his ‘coup de gras’ that disproved the theory of manmade global warming. Then he withdrew it ‘cos he didn’t know where the picture was taken. Pretty accurate stuff!
He also thought that once a scientist died it invalidated his life’s work.
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I'd assumed you'd given up on the patently false idea of dangerous Global Warming via CO2, but if you persist, how's about a colour photo from later?
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/NP%20ice%201987.jpg
Or perhaps a moving picture of a 1958 Winter surfacing?
http://www.icue.com/portal/site/iCue/flatview/?cuecard=41751
That ain't 25' thick ice they're breaking off the deck there is it? Do you persist in thinking there was regular cartography detailed enough to chart one of the most dangerous areas of sea in the world before the advent of satellites?
Why can't you just accept that most of the warming was a natural cycle and nothing bad is going to happen? Arrhenius' work was ignored until it was politically useful. When AGW is revealed as the farce it is you're in danger of ending up like those Japanese soldiers who were hiding out on Pacific islands in the 1970's convinced that WWII was still going on.
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Poor FergalR at #231.
Couldn’t get any vision on that but this cue card from your NBC post was very interesting:-
‘Study says Arctic warmest in 2000 years’
http://www.icue.com/portal/site/iCue/chapter/?cuecard=46537
I think it is you who is still ‘hiding out’ on a remote psychological island.
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Well, if you really want the world to be any colder for some masochistic reason then the Arctic is the best place for the heat to be. Up there the freezing arid air is distinctly lacking in the only greenhouse gas that makes any difference to anything - water vapour - so on cloudless days that heat has an unrestricted journey into deep space.
Personally I like it warm. Please, thinkforyourself, give me any empirical observation which lends credence to the idea that dangerous AGW is happening or is likely to happen.
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@thinkforyourself #229
You tihnk HungeryWalleyes cut and paste post is good?
lol
that explains a lot
warmist regards
/mango
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Oh, what can I say, so many mosquitoes, do I give each of them the attention they think they deserve and pinch them off one at a time or do I just swat the lot of them. A mixed strategy will likely be most efficient.
First of all mea culpa, Shell is a listed sponsor of CRU. All I can say is it was a really long web page of them patting themselves on the back and by the time I got to the long list of sponsors I was skimming quite superficially. Can you ever forgive me? To address the substance of the argument, my observation has been that Corporations make contributions to Universities for many reasons including the hope that they might influence the choice of professors and the results of their studies. While I know BP has a solar cell plant in Fredrick Maryland, having observed it, it is miniscule compared to their classical refining infrastructure, such as the plant that blew up in Texas. I think most economists would agree that it is in BP’s and Shell’s short-term economic interest to delay doing anything about global warming as long as they can. But it is good public relations to throw some money at CRU to make it look like you understand and want to do something about the problem. Even more helpful if the recipients are a bit avaricious and trip themselves up. In any case I believe, correct me if I am wrong, but there are many other institutions beyond CRU that are involved in AGW studies. Are they all in cahoots? In regards my friend who use to work for BP, if I had met them at a pub on an evening, I would have been as skeptical as anyone; however, that was not the case. I don’t frequent pubs anyway they are not my cup of tea.
It is very interesting that you (plural sense) accuse a whole community of scientists of fraud, using garbage for data, extortion, having a political agenda and putting out nothing but propaganda and then get all huffy and upright when I make a snide remark about one of your favored scientists. You claim the right to go barging around with innuendo, ad hominem attacks on a whole community yet you expect me to be a prim and proper miss manners, responding as if this blog were some kind of scientific journal. Not only that, you expect me to do a line by line scientific critique of Roy Spencer’s online paper as if it had appeared in a peer reviewed journal, when it is clear that you read my overlong post as carelessly as I read the CRU list of sponsors. It seems you are trying to send me off on a snipe hunt. If you had been paying attention, you would have noticed I had recognized Spencer’s contribution to passive microwave measurement in my own back handed way. If I were in the market for a microwave radiometer, I would definitely be studying his papers. From work I did years ago, a synthetic aperture antenna looks like it would work well. Are you familiar enough with his peer reviewed papers to know what he used? It is also curious that Spencer uses the same data you say is garbage, but because he asserts it shows there is no AGW, it is now golden. As Richard Dawkins likes to say, you can’t have it both ways.
I don’t suffer from the delusion I will be able to change many minds. There are clearly irreconcilable differences as one of your members cheers at the increased risk of extinction of each species announced in the press and another claims he/she would rather cook instead of allow the governmental controls needed to deal with the problem. But that person does have a point. The only societies that have been able to deal with the limits to population growth are societies that live on small islands were everyone is related (See Diamond’s book Collapse) and China. India was making progress on population until Indira Gandhi was murdered, now its population is expected to exceed China’s if current trends continue. The U.S. with the worlds third largest population is growing at about 1%/year which means doubling in about 70 years. You think we are bad now, just wait until there are twice as many of us. My premise is that AWG is just the most publicly discussed indication that the human population is well beyond the planet’s carrying capacity (for people) given the material life style it aspires to. To paraphrase the late Kenneth Boulding, if you believe in infinite growth on a finite planet you must either be a fool or an economist.
In regard to my clip from wikipedia on the toxicity of CO2, you don’t seem to be able to recognize levity.
We shouldn’t be too hard on FergalR, he appears to be an earnest humanist who just wants every one to live in peace an harmony. Reminds me of a graduate student in Sociology I once knew. After explaining the problem of a growing population versus food supplies, he replied, “What you say is true, but if I believed it I would be unhappy; therefore, I am not going to believe it”. This was an unusual level of self-knowledge and honesty on his part. (At the time I suffered from the delusion that cogent arguments would actually change peoples minds so it was very aggravating.) Unfortunately in regard to human starvation and food supplies FergalR fails to realize (to use a colloquialism) you either pay the devil now or later with interest. As others have pointed out, modern agriculture is the use of soil to convert petroleum into food (or as one perceptive friend pointed out, convert petroleum into people). The end of the petroleum is in sight regardless of whether or not anything is done about AGW!
Finally I want to make it clear I am crushed, absolutely crushed that MangoChutneyUKOK thinks I don’t know anything. Why I just think I will role up my tent and go to another blog. ----- just kidding ;-)
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HungeryWalleyed;
We accept all the modern temperatures since the advent of satellite measurement since the ground based ones only run a tad hotter than those space based. It's what has been done in reconstructions and to the antique thermometer records that is of huge concern.
The world's human population is expected to peak at less than 10 billion this century due to collapsing fertility rates. 1 hectare can feed 4 people, we currently have .5 ha of farmland each. Agricultural productivity will increase with all this lovely carbon dioxide. Even if we lose 20% of our arable land beneath the waves we'll still have loads of food. Unless we pursue the misanthropic policy of growing biofuels.
There's no need for concern. AGW was a scam. It got found out just in time. Smile ;)
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Um, about the oil for agriculture: coal can easily and cheaply be converted to oil and we have many hundreds of years worth of it.
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@HungaryWalleye
If you want to argue the science on CO2, I'd be more than happy to engage
/mango
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FergalR says at #233:-
‘..Personally I like it warm. Please, thinkforyourself, give me any empirical observation which lends credence to the idea that dangerous AGW is happening or is likely to happen.’
Here they are again Fergal, as you’ve forgotten from two days ago, for your perusal and comments:-
To those who are actually interested in the close correlation between the rapid rise of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere and the observed rapid warming, the following is a basic summary:
• We have a suspect, CO2. Evidence?
‘….In 1900 Svante Arrhenius estimated that a doubling of CO2 would cause a temperature rise of 5 - 6 °C. In his 1906 publication, Arrhenius adjusted the value downwards to 1.6 °C (including water vapour feedback: 2.1 °C). Recent (2007) estimates from IPCC say this value is likely to be between 2 and 4.5 °C.
Arrhenius expected CO2 levels to rise at a rate given by emissions in his time. Since then, industrial carbon dioxide levels have risen at a much faster rate: Arrhenius expected CO2 doubling to take about 3000 years; it is now estimated in most scenarios to take about a century.’
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/co2_data_mlo.html
• We have a motive. Evidence?
Loadsamoney.
• We have both forensics and strong circumstantial evidence.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
http://bcc.cma.gov.cn/Website/index.php?ChannelID=36&NewsID=127
Scroll down to A2 scenario 2071 to 2100
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seasonal.extent.1900-2007.jpg
and
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/iphone/iphone.anom.series.html
and
http://glaciology.ethz.ch/messnetz/index.html
and
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6907919.ece
and
http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news-nz/20092411-20286-2.html
and
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2009-196
and
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps
Click on ‘near surface layer’ and ‘draw graph’
Btw, Dr. Roy Spencer has just confirmed that January, 2010, is the warmest January in the 32-year satellite-based data record.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/02/january-2010-uah-global-temperature-update-0-72-deg-c/
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thinkforyourself,
I'm sorry. Even if none of the warming was from natural variation there's still no reason to worry since the rise in temperature has had more benefits than downsides, e.g. 1.7 million livestock died from cold in Mongolia in the last 2 months, I doubt 10% of that number have died from heat in the last 20 years.
Isn't Dr. Spencer the model for what a scientist should be?
There's really no point in arguing anymore because public support for AGW theory has collapsed. Rightly or wrongly. Only totalitarianism and tanks on the streets could impose large carbon emission cuts now.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8500443.stm
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MangoChutneyUKOK – you claim to be well read on the climate science literature, so I see little value in taking the time to point you to something you say you are already conversant in. Frankly I am not inclined to take the time to try and take you from first principals through the various sub models, model parameterization etc. Besides if you are as familiar with the literature as you claim, I would not be “adding any value” as they say. Life is short and I get limited enjoyment from baiting bears.
If you haven’t read them already, I recommend “The Red Queen” by Matt Ridley, “The Ostrich Factor” by Garrett Harden, “Natural Selection and Social Theory” by Robert Trivers, “The Greatest Show on Earth” by Richard Dawkins and “A Devil’s Chaplain” by Richard Dawkins. Some of these are in print, others you might be able to find in the library if the lefties and righties haven’t trashed them. Something to do when you get bored with blogging.
FergalR – In claiming that there are hundreds of years of coal, could you possibly be referring to a 1950’s document from the U.S. Government saying we (in the U.S.) had ~600 years of coal reserves at current rates of consumption? If you are, you are over looking a crucial part of the statement. Specifically, the phrase “current rates of consumption”. The problem is that rates of coal consumption have increased since the 1950’s. You are proposing increasing rates of consumption even further and faster. Unless you postulate some source of rapid coal generation, using basic mathematics and the assumption that coal reserves are not being replenished it follows that coal reserves will not last anywhere near 600 years with massively increasing rates of consumption. Albert Bartlett has a video, available from the University of Colorado, Boulder book store, also available on line, that goes into this in much greater detail.
In regard to the idea that world population will stabilize at 10 billion, have you noticed that in both Europe and North America, social and ethnic groups with low rates of reproduction are being replaced by social and ethnic groups with high rates of reproduction. Cultural and biological evolution in action! We have a religious group here in the U.S. that tries to squeeze 15 or more children out of their wives in a publicly announced effort to marginalize even further the already marginal number of atheists in the country. If successful, each male member of this sect will have 8649755859375 descendants after only 11 generations. If they start breeding on average at 20 years that means it will only take only ~220 years. Overkill if you ask me. For those who advocate “smart” people having more children, I can only add intelligence doesn’t guarantee freedom from delusion. True, the delusions of the intelligent are more creative and entertaining. Trying to out breed fools and delusionals is a fool’s errand. A German friend says their acronym for it is DFW. Can’t write it out or I might be tempting moderation. I advocate that all those who recognize the problem refrain from having children and leave the planet for the fools and delusionals to fight over the embers in the ashes of civilization. All the time saying to themselves its Gods will or if secular, saying there is nothing that could have been done about it.
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HungeryWalleyed,
The Earth's crust averages several tens of kilometers thick. There's loads of coal, trust me.
Don't be too quick to judge immigrants and those whose religion advocates large families: their children will be the only thing keeping you alive in your dotage.
Everyone's probably sick of me posting this, but the UN figures based on the esoteric science of counting people and how many children each woman bears are hard to find fault with.
http://esa.un.org/unpp/
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FergalR says at #240:-
‘…There's really no point in arguing anymore because public support for AGW theory has collapsed. Rightly or wrongly.’
You don’t sound so sure anymore.
BTW science isn’t based on democracy – it just is what it is.
Now the public have spoken and to quote ‘The Jam’, from their song ‘Going underground’:-
‘…the public gets what the public wants’
Let’s hope they enjoy it.
It won’t change the facts you understand.
Good luck!
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thinkforyourself wrote: "BTW science isn’t based on democracy – it just is what it is."
Will the majority who don't believe the science be put in camps if they refuse to go along with policies based on it?
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FergalR #209, #197, #233.
"James Hansen is a grave threat to humanity."
quote (from 'An Essay on Regional Cold Anomalies within Near‐Record Global Temperature'):
"Weather fluctuations exceed the magnitude of average global warming over the past half century. However, the perceptive person should be able to notice that climate is warming on decadal time scales. The global temperature trend over the past few decades has been strong enough that there is a noticeable “loading” of the climate dice that define the
probability of unusually warm or cool seasons."
I really have no problem with statements like these; cannot comment on the 'Club of Rome' thing, haven't had the time but I suspect that he'll be after funding.
while I can agree with some of your arguments, I really struggle when you write stuff like:
"The global climate models are cut from the cloth of ignorance of how the Earth's oceans and atmosphere works." and "It has failed miserably at modelling the Earth's climate though."
because I think (and know) that fluid dynamics are reasonably well understood, it would be better to say (IMO) that climate models need increased resolution and more actual data.
and, while like yourself, I think a (on average slightly) warmer planet is to be preferred to cooling out, I cannot see your obsession with email-'gate'. ok, so it raises doubts regarding integrity but (a) the sciences will not be damaged in the long run, only certain individuals/institutions and (b) it's politics/economics driving the events, so foul-play is to be expected.
nb. regarding politics (UK style), I recommend you check out these lyrics (if you don't already know them).
(#233)"..give me any empirical observation which lends credence to the idea that dangerous AGW is happening or is likely to happen."
the above mentioned essay (and the references contained within) may address that.
(#209)"..try to say something intelligent."
I've tried ;)
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jr4412,
Thanks for the lyrics, we can all take something from them. If I thought that James Hansen only wanted to save humanity by averting disaster I'd have no problem with him. But he knows better than anyone how fast his credibility is eroding.
Look at how his GISS team's forecast of ocean heat content is performing against reality.
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/
He must intellectually know that he's wrong now about runaway warming. The solutions he demands to avert this non disaster would do irreparable to human civilisation and surely lead to the deaths of massive numbers of people through starvation and hypothermia. I hope it's his ego which is preventing him from telling the truth; but the Club of Rome is a patently anti-democratic organisation and it is frightening that they get a private status update from this man.
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FergalR #246.
"If I thought that James Hansen only wanted to save humanity by averting disaster I'd have no problem with him."
noboby is that pure of heart, get real.
"..runaway warming." simply ignore 'runaway', and if you actually read the recommended essay, you'll find that his analysis and Bob Tisdale's do not contradict each other; the differences are small and the trends still show increases.
"..the Club of Rome is a patently anti-democratic organisation.."
what do you expect from an organisation with so many 'illustrious names' as its members? do you think, say, the UK House of Lords is 'democratic'?
"..it is frightening that they get a private status update from this man."
ask yourself, given that they could get anybody (because they've the power and the cash), is it really so unusual that they should want their information straight from the best source? I'd read this as an endorsement of Hansen, a validation of his opinions.
anyway, I find myself with thinkforyourself's #243 on this -- "science isn’t based on democracy – it just is what it is", or, to put it another way:
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
-- Philip K Dick
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@HungaryWalleye
discussing the science or not is entirely up to you, i wouldn't force you even if i could
speaks volumes about the average pro-AGW'er and their understanding of CO2 etc
if you want to read up on the subject and discuss, i'd be happy too
all the best
/mango
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The most important question that can be posed at the next climate summit is to the United States of America:
"Are you using HAARP to manipulate the weather, such as cause floods, draughts, earthquakes, tsunamis, and/or other weather-related changes for good or ill?"
Of course the US will answer NO, at which point some gutsy individual will have to pose the next question: "Would you be willing to have the HAARP site in Alaska inspected as a potential WMD?"
The American song and dance should be very entertaining.
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