Hi Jennifer,
The draft ‘Summary for Policymakers’ of the Fourth Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been widely leaked to the Press.
Its crucial conclusion is as follows:
“It is very likely that anthropogenic greenhouse gas increases caused most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century.”
The widely available graph of the globally averaged annual temperature anomalies between 1857 and 2005 shows, for the period since the mid-20th century:
1. No warming between 1950 and 1978
2. No warming between 1998 and 2005
The only ”observed” warming over the period is from 1978 to 1998, 20 years only, out of the 55 years.
The actual warming involved over this short period of 1978 to 1998 was 0.53ºC.
The above statement considers that it is very likely that most of this 0.53ºC was caused by anthropogenic (human-induced) greenhouse gas increases. “Most” of this would be between 0.3ºC and 0.5ºC, the amount that the statement considers to be due to human influence.
This temperature rise is negligible.
None of us would notice if it happened instantly, let alone over 50 years.
It is below the amount considered in the weather forecasts. Yet this small temperature rise over 55 years is routinely blamed for all manner of climate disasters.
The IPCC pronouncement is not a certain one. The term “very likely” is defined as amounting to a probability above 90%. In other words, there is one chance in ten that they are wrong. Also, the probability is based on the opinion (or guess) of “experts” who are financially dependent on an expectation of positive results.
Finally, there has been no “warming” at all since 1998, now eight years. “Global Warming” seems to have come to an end.
This temperature record is quite incompatible with the computer climate models, so why should we believe their pessimistic forecasts for the future?
It should also be noted that there has been negligible warming in New Zealand since 1950. The mean temperature for 2006 was 0.7ºC below that for 2005. According to the temperature record for Christchurch, there was no warming since 1910, with a maximum temperature in 1917.
Cheers,
Vincent Gray
Wellington, New Zealand
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Is that really the best the NZ Climate Coalition can do on the days before the 4AR release. All this has been discussed ad nauseum. I notice as usual Gray is very grey on any details of how all this is incompatible with climate modelling.
Might we also not wait until the actual report has been released given already divergent press reports. Gray’s willingness to speculate on these matters before the release also shows his lack of courtesy for a process he has involvement in as a reviewer. Poor example.
I’m sure we all eagerly anticipate reading the full 1200 page report when it’s released next week, and then we can really get stuck into dissing its minutiae and particularities and confidently declare the whole thing a crock.
The above statement considers that it is very likely that most of this 0.53ºC was caused by anthropogenic (human-induced) greenhouse gas increases. “Most” of this would be between 0.3ºC and 0.5ºC, the amount that the statement considers to be due to human influence.
This temperature rise is negligible.
None of us would notice if it happened instantly, let alone over 50 years.
It is below the amount considered in the weather forecasts. Yet this small temperature rise over 55 years is routinely blamed for all manner of climate disasters.
This is a misapprehension of global warming. The temperature increase refers to the global average, not the day to day fluctuations of weather temperature. A global rise of 0.53 degrees doesn’t simply equate to the daily temperature being half a degree warmer and therefore we wouldn’t ever notice.
Under the climate change scenario, some places may get colder, others warmer, wetter, drier. Just because it’s a very cold day in southern Victoria today is not irrefutable evidence that there aren’t climate change implications arising from global warming.
A better analogy for global warming is to basal body temperature. A healthy human metabolism maintains a temperature around 37 degrees. A temperature rise of 0.53 degrees in an infant or frail person would be of sufficient concern for carefully monitoring the the vital signs of the patient. A basal temperature rise of say 2.5 degrees would be of grave concern, while 5 degrees would be fatal.
It’s a little more complicated than analysing the weather.
Doh! blockquote html code doesn’t work here. There is obviously a section of my previous comment that is a quote from the original post. Sorry about that.
Vincent Gray appears to be some sort of conspiracy theorist. Check this out:
“Water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas, a fact which is agreed by all climate scientists, but is concealed or covered up by politicians, environmentalists, journalists and scientists alike. ”
http://www.techcentralstation.com/040804E.html
So according to Gray a vast trans-global conspiracy exists. Only him, Jennifer and the Laviosier Society can save the world from this devilish plot.
All this sounds like one of those Crichton novels to me.
Oh, and one question. I understand Gray is one of the expert IPCC reviewers, however I would like to now how many peer-reviewed articles he has had published pertaining to climate science.
cheers
How long to do we have to endure these spotty disingenuous cherry-pick style attacks.
Gray may have alerted us to a very different conclusion from his nation’s climate research agency. (although like our Bureau they’re probably “on the take” in thsi global “conspiracy”.
Sigh.
Figure 6 is of some interest.
http://www.niwascience.co.nz/ncc/clivar/pastclimate
http://www.niwascience.co.nz/pubs/mr/archive/2006-08-03-1
From:
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CLIMATOLOGY
Int. J. Climatol. 21: 269–284 (2001)
DOI: 10.1002:joc.610
TRENDS IN EXTREME DAILY RAINFALL AND TEMPERATURE IN SOUTHEAST ASIA AND THE SOUTH PACIFIC: 1961–1998
M.J. MANTONa,*, P.M. DELLA-MARTAb, M.R. HAYLOCKa, K.J. HENNESSYc, N. NICHOLLSa, L.E. CHAMBERSa,
D.A. COLLINSb, G. DAWd, A. FINETe, D. GUNAWANf, K. INAPEg, H. ISOBEh, T.S. KESTINi, P. LEFALEj,
C.H. LEYUk, T. LWINl, L. MAITREPIERREm, N. OUPRASITWONGn, C.M. PAGEc, J. PAHALADo, N. PLUMMERb,
M.J. SALINGERd, R. SUPPIAHc, V.L. TRANp, B. TREWINb, I. TIBIGq and D. YEEr
Somewhat consistent with these circulation changes has been an increase in the North Island hot days
at Gisborne, a location sheltered from the west. The frequency of hot days has significantly increased, and
there has been a significant decrease in the frequency of cool days there. In contrast, there has been a
significant decrease in hot days at Hokitika in the west. No significant signal is observed for cold nights
there, however. Invercargill in the south shows no trends in extreme temperatures at all. However,
Ruakura in the north shows a significant decrease in the frequency of cold nights.
Eyeballing fig 6 from Luke’s link, it looks to me as if the trend in temperature from 1950 on is indeed negligible, the dramatic dotted trend line not withstanding.
Vincent Gray also said there was no warming in Christchurch since 1910. Posting an abstract that mentions increased frequency of hot days (but not increased average temperatures) in another part of the country doesn’t add any information to Gray’s statement. It certainly doesn’t refute it.
How about addressing what he has said, rather than slurs, irrelevant abstracts and dodgy analogies?
I notice that Slim earlier wrote the following:
“I’m sure we all eagerly anticipate reading the full 1200 page report when it’s released next week…”
I’ve got news for you (in case you have not been following the debate on ClimateAudit http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1103#comments ). It appears that we get the Summary for Policy Makers on Feb 2, but have to wait to get the science behind until May/June. So – no 1200 page papers to work though.
From http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/ “The full Working Group I report will be available online from May 2007. It will also be published by Cambridge University Press and is expected to be available in book form by late June 2007.”
I have to admit, it’s a sensational move on the part of the IPCC that gives a free ride to the AGW team. Any criticsm of any “iconic” statements can be patronisingly answered by “it’s all in the science!” and the skeptics will just have to shut up and wait a couple of months while the meeja storm plays out.
cheers
Arnost
Dodgy analogy indeed!
It’s a mighty fine and appropriate analogy for considering the complexity of the system scientists call the biosphere. Global warming is about heating the biosphere and it’s a brave or foolish person who claims with certainty that this will have no impact, when we know so little about it. The complexity of interaction in the biosphere may well approach that of a human body. Hence the relevance of my analogy.
Historically, mankind has been largely ignorant of medicine but applying scientific endeavour, eventually we figured out enough to really make a difference. And I guess there have always been denialists amongst the shamans, witchdoctors, and vested interests with every wave of scientific understanding.
Ecology is a relatively new science. If anything, there should be lot more of it so we can understand what’s happening and deal with it and stop arguing about it. Assuming we actually want to understand and want to deal with it, that is.
Paul – the implication of what Gray means in the context of the post is totally clear. My last post was in addition to my figure 6 comment above. If you are going to make a position of NZ temperature trends make a scholalry job of it – not cherry pick.
There appears to be a modest warming in NZ in line with the rest of the world but of a smaller magnitude and perhaps with some exceptions. It’s a complex climate environment. Perhaps you might inform us as to your reasoned calculation as to what the NZ temperature should be if you are unhappy with the trend as AGW evidence. Gray has failed to make any case except suggest it does not add up. Why? What factors? What would you expect?
So we’re now arguing from Christchurch to generalise for the rest of the planet ! Kerrchrist !
The 0.53C comment is stupid. And if you don’t know why be worried for your own understanding.
The NZ Climate Coolition position is shonky ! But what did you expect from a bunch of political activists.
I also came across this interesting piece that’s worth a read (for the skeptics at least).
http://biogenesislab.blogspot.com/2007/01/global-warming-official-pseudoscience.html
By the way “meeja” = mass media
cheers
Arnost
Arnost – do you give that link the slightest bit of credence as serious scepticism ?
BTW – I wonder how many actually read the TAR let alone the 4AR?
WRT “how many actually read…” – Not many. I will admit that I have not read “all” of the TAR (though there are pieces of it that I have read many times) and even this would put me into a very small minority.
But so what…?
To deal with information overload managers depend on “expert” assessments and summaries (which BTW is what IPPC was set up to do WRT to climate science). In the end it is our trust in and of the experts that drives what we end up believing and ultimately actioning and putting into practice.
So non-experts who require to act on the information have to answer the question, “do they believe the experts (how much credence they have”) and not “do they believe the information”.
Any manager in a position where they are betting their company/shareholders resources will do the following:
1. Identify experts and seek opinions from them,
2. Once the opinion has been received, look for dissenting opinions (not corroborating ones which is a waste of time if you have vetted your experts), and
3. Asses how much credence to put in these and then make a decision if your experts opinion is a safe bet.
As to questioning the credibility of the link – I don’t see why credibility of it should be an issue. It’s nice summary of contentious areas within the climate debate (that any non expert can then follow up, and in turn allow them to assess the climate experts’ credibility – which is the issue).
As such – the article I linked to above is a very worthwhile read.
cheers
Arnost
Well it’s interesting how many people will comment on what the science has said without reading the source document from the IPCC. Relying solely on blog opinions is not recommended. And there may be mock outrage at the “delay” in getting the final report out but I suspect few will read it anyway – so why complain if anyone happens to be one of the non-readers. If the Executive Summary is not well supported by the Final Report one has good reason to complain.
I found the biogenesis link to be utter rubbish (IMO) – but if you had not experienced a wide range of input on the issue you may be taken in be some of it.
At this stage “shareholders” haven’t been asked to change their habits at all. And inaction perhaps has consequences for shareholders as much as action.
Luke – thanks for the reply at this extremely late hour…
I agree mostly with what is in your first pph. above.
Second pph is your opinion – respected.
As to the first sentence in the last pph – I guess the euphemism for what you said is usually “That turns out not to be the case”. Just look at Channel 7 each morning blathering away and urging everyone to “save the planet” as you said earlier “Kerrchrist”! (And by the way – have you noticed your insurance bills climbing over the last couple of years…?)
As to the last sentence … it all hangs on the perhaps!
cheers
Arnost
Water vapor *is* the most important greenhouse gas. The trouble with water vapor is that it doesn’t provide a solid foundation for political movements that want to “green socialism” on global society. Ergo, it is widely ignored.
No it’s not ignored. Utter rot and twaddle.
Technically water vapor is addressed by the IPCC. They have redesignated water vapor as a feedback and not forcing component and thus may be only used as evidence of global warming and not a contributor.
“Whenever three or more contrarians are gathered together, one will inevitably claim that water vapour is being unjustly neglected by ‘IPCC’ scientists. “Why isn’t water vapour acknowledged as a greenhouse gas?”, “Why does anyone even care about the other greenhouse gases since water vapour is 98% of the effect?”, “Why isn’t water vapour included in climate models?”, “Why isn’t included on the forcings bar charts?” etc. Any mainstream scientist present will trot out the standard response that water vapour is indeed an important greenhouse gas, it is included in all climate models, but it is a feedback and not a forcing.” .. .. .. ..
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=142
Water vapour: feedback or forcing?
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/11/busy-week-for-water-vapor/
Mr Gray could have pointed out many other things to support his case, such as the fact that the satellite data shows no warming trend in the southern hemisphere over the last 28 years. The northern hemisphere has warmed slightly, with most of that concentrated on the north pole. And we now have had eight years of cooling from the 1998 high. This is the CRU average global temperature anomaly:
1998 0.526
1999 0.302
2000 0.277
2001 0.406
2002 0.455
2003 0.465
2004 0.444
2005 0.475
2006 0.422
The AGW proponents are asking for too much from their trace gas. At the atmospheric concentration of CO2 we have now, each extra one ppm is worth 0.001 degrees centigrade in terms of greenhouse heating. So at the annual increase of 1.3 ppm, temperature is going up at 0.0015 degrees per annum. The CO2 effect is logarithmic, with the first 20 ppm providing more heating than the next 400 ppm.
We have another year before solar minimum and thus 2007 will be cooler than 2006. Solar cycle 24 is shaping up as weak, and AGW will become a distant memory. AGW is a reversion to animism, in a cloak of faux science. To the AGW worshippers, find something else to worship and leave us normal people alone.
The contros are out in force with porkies galore. Who needs halloween when you have 4AR eve.
Contrarian trick or science treat?
The GCM models already know about logarithmic relationships with CO2 and factor another 4 Watts per square metre of radiative forcing for doubling of CO2. A duh !
If you believe the solar cycle stuff whip over to James Annan and put on a bet – you’ll clean up.
There are good reasons that the northern hemisphere has warmed more than the south. It’s the higher concentration of AGW believers in the north or there might be another reason if you thought about it for 2 minutes.
Gavin has reminded us here previously “The basic mistake is to assume that hemispheric temperatures follow hemispheric forcings proportionately. This is incorrect. The biggest factor is the amount of oceans and the effective mixing depths in the southern oceans. This gives a much larger effective heat capacity in the south and so in any transient case the warming is always delayed in the south. This is actually exactly what climate models show.
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/notyet/2005_submitted_Hansen_etal_1.pdf
(fig 18 for instance).”
Gray actually could have pointed out a satellite observed warming over southern Africa, Brazil and Australia in the MSU satellite data.
Enhanced Mid-Latitude Tropospheric
Warming in Satellite Measurements
Qiang Fu,1,2* Celeste M. Johanson,1 John M. Wallace,1 Thomas Reichler3
SCIENCE VOL 312 26 MAY 2006
Funny how contros bang on so much about worhsip and religion but the AGW crowd don’t. Perhaps the contros know a real lot about religion !
Sceptics don’t have to have an alternative theory, just point out inconsistencies in the “consensus”. The fact is the computer models have consistently overpredicted the amount of warming. There is no data to suggest that climate is outside normal variability.
No more than 3 posts in one 24 hour period please unless you have compelling new information. Luke, you have already posted about 8 comments and the piece hasn’t been up 24 hours.
Luke, my new friend, it is true that a doubling of CO2 will result an an extra 4 watts/sq metre. At 0.1 degrees per watt, that will amount to 0.4 degrees. At 1.3 ppm per annum of CO2 increment, when do we get to that doubling? It is in the year 2290, which is 284 years away. Or perhaps not, because by then the increased biomass will be taking carbon out of the atmosphere just as fast as we can add it. The calculated equilibrium is somewhat short of 500 ppm. You mention that you don’t believe in solar cycles. Well, aside from short term things like the Little Ice Age, the earth is cooling at 0.25 degrees per thousand years from the Holocence Climatic Optimum. So human kind might never get to get a warm feeling from increased CO2 in the atmosphere. The increased agricultural yields will be very beneficial though, and future generations will have much to thank us for. They will especially thank the Chinese, who are now making a proper effort and putting as much CO2 into the atmosphere as the US, and still growing at 9% per annum. Let’s do the math. If the Chinese hold at 9% per annum compound, by 2015 they will be putting twice as much CO2 into the atmosphere as the US currently does. That is eight years away, Luke. And the Chinese have got the coal to do it, bless them.
CO2 plant fertilisation only works if you have the water to go with it. It’s not Jack’s beanstalk. And in some situations like grassland it may favour C3 shrubs more than C4 grasses so you’ll lose pasture productivity.
If you like interactions of plants and the biosphere with CO2 concentrations you should ponder that there’s another 300ppm worth of CO2 tied up in the biosphere e.g. the tundra, permafrost and peat bogs etc – all waiting to be liberated as the planet warms.
I don’t know when we’ll get to double CO2 as it depends on what humanity does or does not do about atmospheric CO2 – so this is all up to us /or not if we choose to do nothing. The biospheric feedbacks are not well represented and are more of a hazard than a help.
What we do have are some “scenarios” – the SRES sceanarios which evaluate the modelled consequences of different pathways. We don’t have to wait till you get double CO2 to see “an effect”. Pick your pathway !
I didn’t say I didn’t believe in solar influences at all – it’s a number one forcing – I simply don’t think you have very good science to back up the solar cycle stuff you’re talking about. Most of the solar cycle stuff is a statistical crock. Put up the supporting papers !
Paul – “how” have the computer models overpredicted the amount of warming. I just live your unsubtantiated one liners. There is no alternative hypothesis to explain the current warming other than CO2 – there is no current solar driver. Give me any numbers?
Furthermore the greenhouse flux is directly measureable at the planet’s surface and is bang on line with the theory. Satellites observe changes in atmospheric spectra as the CO2 levels increase. (all long posted but ignored by you guys as you’d have to read something new).
Frankly we’re just about where we should be in terms of greenhouse !
Jen – you can decide if it’s new – or just let contrarian bilge be unchallenged.
The temperature cooling from the 1950’s was due to particulate pollution, especially sulphur compounds. It was relatively easy and cheap to remove these pollutants from the air, hence the rise that has been occurring since then.
The interesting point is that particle pollutants are relatively short lived, CO2 is long lived.
There’s a model prediction scorecard here, updated 4/2/2006.
http://www.warwickhughes.com/hoyt/scorecard.htm
And if you want to read something new Luke, here’s a link to some peer reviewed articles detailing to new consensus on global cooling.
http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/01/peer-reviewed-global-cooling.html
Luke, your love of the planet is matched by your thirst for knowledge. You asked for solar – climate papers. Look no further than my own effort:
http://www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/articles/Archibald.pdf
Actually there are plenty of other papers – try Usokin, also Clilverd’s September 2006 paper. I could help further, but this is a journey you must make yourself.
On CO2 fertilisation, you have the cart before the horse. The little stomata on leaves will take up more CO2 per unit of water they transpire.
How can the temperature decline from 1998 be explained? Is it the particulate pollution again? Eight long years of temperature decline, and more in prospect. Note that my paper is predicting a 2 degree decline to 2020, repeating the experience of the Dalton Minimum.
James Annan is NOT taking bets, at least he won’t bet with me.
My understanding is 99% of co2 is produced naturally, leaving 1% by human activity, co2 makes up approx .03/.04 % of the atmosphere…..so our 1% of this 0.04% is destroying the planet. Cant blame some people for being sceptical about co2 ‘s importance…or for being sceptical that water vapour is truly given enough importance.
Why are co2 emmisions measured on a per capita basis rather than on a per square kilometre of land? Surely what matters in terms of co2 production is the capacity to absorb our emmisions ( if you believe in the importance of co2)? And with a country the size of Australia surrounded by oceans despite our emmisions being high per capita they are tiny by land area. How convenient for the europeans and the northern hemisphere that it is measured per capita.
…..or solar activity, interesting posts David and Paul! I am sure Luke can explain why warwick hughes scorecard is entirely wrong and why solar activity is not a significant factor in GW…….
Luke said that “Most of the solar cycle stuff is a statistical crock”. I have two comments.
1. The “solar cycle stuff” statistically correlates very nicely with empirical evidence. The correlations of the various solar cycles with the Dalton, Maunder, Spörer & Wolf temperature minimums are high, and further it doesn’t have to get rid of the MWP like we see in climate science! Solar cycles also tie in with Holocene Climactic Optimum if less reliable proxies are used.
2. It is the climate scientists and not astrophysicists that think it’s a “statistical crock”. If you accept the findings of the Wegman report – it’s (some of) the climate scientists’ statistics that is a “crock”.
By the way, my link to the Wegman report which I just wanted to access does not work any more http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/home/07142006_Wegman_Report.pdf – the report has disappeared!
I wonder why…
Cheers
Arnost
Hi Arnost,
nothing sinister, just a new congress and the documentation for the 108th has been archived:
http://energycommerce.house.gov/reparchives/108/home/07142006_Wegman_Report.pdf
Very much appreciated Pulpie. Thank you.
Makes complete sense.
If I came across as looking to conspiracional (if that’s a word), I appologise to all… wasn’t really my intention – was just a bit baffled.
cheers
Arnost
Excellent comment Toby.And why are co2 emissions always reported as “pumping out tonnes of C02” without any reference to the size of the atmosphere it is being pumped into.( and always with a picture of a power station with water vapour “belching” out) After all that “pumping” Co2 it is still a trace element barely rising in concentration.
“Why are co2 emmisions measured on a per capita basis … How convenient for the europeans and the northern hemisphere that it is measured per capita.”
90 seconds of thought should answer that for you Toby.
One approach: think about the A in AGW. But the idea of individual responsibility is an anathema to the fundamental neo-lib me-1st crowd and their me-only screw-everyone-else friends.
If you think about the global nature of the phenomenom, this arrangement is to the benefit of populous 3rd world nations – gee new conspiracy, not the Europeans but those skinny dark buggers must be controlling the international GHG debate! It’s all that foreign currency they’ve been snapping up. (Perhaps socialists and communists are now dominating forex and global trade conditions)
Also think (in a grown-up fashion) about comparative living standards and energy consumption, globally. Ever heard of the concept of ‘fair go’? Higher living standards and higher rates of obesity etc come from higher GHG output while most people struggle to find clean water, food, learn to read or add up, etc. Oh but who gives a shi+ about them, they’re plainly not Australian so don’t qualify for a fair go.
The answer to the question you ask Toby might be a simple and mature one such as empathy, awareness and personal responsibility. Horrendous thoughts, eh.
The water vapour sceptics would look less stupid if they did a little research before boiling over.
See!? “AUSTRALIA has ranked second behind France in the 2007 quality of life survey conducted by the American travel magazine International Living.”
High std of living, high GHG output, especially with our technologically lagging industry structure. But behind France! How embarrassing. Outcome must have been swayed by socialist undercurrents.
Actually pinxi i do care about them……..so much so i d like to see the money that you want us to spend on gw ( that will in all likelihood have no effect)on fixing problems i know we can fix…like access to fresh drinking water and good food.
so if we invite 100 million of the poor into our country to live…or see some significant natural increase (hypothetical) ( we probably could feed and clothe them for a while before we destroyed our economy and environment)then our per capita emission outputs would have fallen and you would be happy? and the europeans?
We are a huge country with a tiny population and therefore very high infrastructure costs…of course we have high emissions. We also produce many of the worlds needs at a low cost…but in the process create co2. Things like aluminium are particurly high co2 output…..but we do it better than others….is it better that we produce it…or the chinese or indians….or heaven forbid lets get the germans and brits mining their coal again and making their own steel and aluminium.
I know you love the europeans, i also was confident you would respond to my comment above. Sorry i have zero time for the new european green and holier than thou philosophy ( love much of their culture and have many european friends…including having been born in switzerland).
Sorry pinxi but you do not have a monopoly on caring…infact from my seat quite the opposite.
If the climate change of the last 30 years is AGW i seriuosly doubt we can do anything about it at the moment if at all. Certainly if australia shuts down we will not have any impact on cc in a positive fashion and maybe you could build an argument that co2 levels would infact rise worldwide as people sourced their needs from elsewhere at much higher costs.
Pinxi i don t know what you do for a living but as somebody who gave up earning stupid amounts of money to get paid as a teacher because i DO care, i find it insulting that you so condescendlingly make statements like ‘The answer to the question you ask Toby might be a simple and mature one such as empathy, awareness and personal responsibility’….or even worse “Oh but who gives a shi+ about them, they’re plainly not Australian so don’t qualify for a fair go”….i m sure YOU think a lot of ozzies think like that…personally i don t.
I think its pretty easy to build a case that it is you who does not really care about the poor of the world, because lets face it the only way to stop co2 growth is to stop them from developing!I say spend the money the governments are wasting /will be wasting on doing something that we know will have a positive impact on lives
..so says travel magazine “International Living” …
“For the past 27 years, the editors of International Living magazine have operated on a simple premise: We believe you can live better…for less…travel farther…have a lot of fun…and maybe make a lot of money…when you expand your world beyond your own shores. International Living magazine provides a scope and depth of information about global travel, living, retiring, investing, and real estate that is not available anywhere else at any price. With International Living magazine, you will discover places that are undervalued…under-developed…under-appreciated, and learn how you can take advantage of the opportunities these places offer before the rest of the world catches on.”
Toby, last post. Generalisation ‘love the Europeans’ is completely wrong on many fronts. ‘Do care’, for what, spreading your worldview? What scientific source did you draw your atmospheric CO2 calc from?
Beyond the science, you assume high economic and social costs when instead, benefits result from innovation (a major factor driving economies despite whatever rog pukes to the contrary), you assume mutual exclusivity and a lack – a lack of being able to spend on improving 3rd world conditions, improving their opportunities and addressing climate change when in fact many of those activities can be mutually supportive (there are some citizen organisations fighting that battle against we’ll-be-rooned-if-we-do ignorance). You assume we want to ‘fix’ climate change and with that sweeping statement you ignore efforts to adapt which can be very important for less developed nations (including adapting to current conditions as well). You pessimistically assume that addressing AGW means ‘australia shuts down’. Conversely, the only way to stop co2 growth is to stop the 3rd world from developing – that’s your outlook, another one-eyed assumption. Read some Herman Daly to get another perspective on that. Other links on all of this have been posted but fearful denialists refuse to consider them.
I agree that most Australians are unlikely to think ‘who cares about individuals in the 3rd world’? because most don’t think about it at all while they’re swiping their plastic cards or buying their 2nd family supercar on credit. Who makes the connection? It’s natural to be self-interested and it’s encouraged in our consumer society. But, it’s more mature to have empathy, involved awareness and accept some personal responsibility.
If not selfish then unnecessarily afraid of change and adjustment. You argue based on narrow interpretations and you assume horrible trade offs between actions that could instead be complementary if they weren’t distorted and skewed. No wonder our education system cops so much flack about students not learning skills to think for themselves. You have a lot of objections with deeply embedded denialist fears and assumptions with poor foundations – you need a solid basis for all these fears and assumptions about mutually exclusive necessities.
The conservative denialists have a track record of exaggerating the costs and fear mongering doom and gloom over social and environmental provisions. If we listened we’d lack the basic social protections and anti-discrimination rights that we take for granted in Aust today.
The problem with Slim’s human analogy is that humans have not demonstrated a long term temperature variation of more than 11 degrees C, the Earth has, and repeatedly.
Thank you David Archibald for providing the actual assumed wattages used in the IPCC modelling. For this tells me that of the 1000 watts that hit each m2 of ocean each midday hour, and the 965 watts that are absorbed by that m2 of ocean, an extra 250ppm of CO2 will increase that absorption to 969 watts.
This means that a single m2 of tinfoil that will reflect just about all of those watts would negate 284 years of global warming over more than 250m2 of ocean. If anyone has better maths then please let me know, but that would mean 1m2 of foil would negate a years worth of warming of 71,000m2 of ocean.
And given my humble part in all this warming, I suspect my whole heat budget could be balanced with a new shiny roof on a house boat on the bay.
Sure beats giving 5% of my GDP to a shonk like Stern.
The problem with slims analogy is that humans successfully exist within a wider range of temperatures by regulating their environment.
If you look at the world and its basic constituents, rock, water etc +/-0.53degC dont amount to too much at all. Try making a cup of tea, bake a cake or make iron within that range.
*despite whatever rog pukes to the contrary*
well pinky pants if quoting your source is *puking*….
Anybody following the french elections can easily see that the french are
. tired of the growng divide between the rich, powerful ‘socialist’ elite and society
. tired of unemployment
. tired of riots and racial violence
. tired of an underperforming economy – esp one that lags behind a reformed Germany
This is the same belle France that refuses to budge on farm trade tariffs –
“DAVOS: France’s trade minister shrugged off calls from the country’s industry to be more flexible in talks to save a world trade deal, saying Paris saw agriculture as strategically important too. http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/3941171a6026.html ”
You just keep reading those travel mags pinky, the doctor wont be too long.
Here in the northern part of the US it is now very cold, which means you can visibly *see* the emissions from power plants. The emissions emerge as white plumes from tall towers.
Let us forget for a moment that water vapor is the main greenhouse gas but consider that it still renders the emission visible… against a huge backdrop, the sky. And one can travel hundreds of miles and not see one single power plant.
Of course, there’s a power plant under the hood of my car, which is boosting millions of parts per billion into the atmosphere all the way.
But then there’s this: a “novel way to measure carbon dioxide produced by burning coal, oil and natural gas” has been developed by scientists at UC Irvine (USA) and the results are:
1) ‘dirty air,’ i.e., containing CO2 from fuel combustion, was 4.3 parts per million.
2) “the Rocky Mountains appeared to provide a barrier for the movement of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels”
So, let us consider. 4.3 ppm is baking our planet? Toby already picked up on that oddity, but in a different way.
And of course the Rocky Mountains are a barrier for the movement of CO2–plants eat it. And they like it.
I would like to present a novel theory of AGW.
The theory is, the people who like AGW live in an apartment building with clumsy ventilation and suffer through heat and cold, and want to blame their discomfiture on anyone available–the landlord, the tenants, whomever.
And they don’t see the sun much, since they’re sitting in frozen or superheated tenements issuing apocalyptic screeds against the human race, of which their landlord is the prime example.
Since they don’t see the sun very often, they have no notion of how it heats the Earth. They think the environment comes from the landlord.
If these dwellers blame their misfortunes on the sun, they’re disempowered. Their point is to “stick it to the man.”
thanks rog for quoting stuff in support of me but the puking reference was to the last time you denied that innovation was a major driver of economic growth. Your french observation applies equally to many nations. Enuff said.
Giddy Schiller your car exhaust must be leaking power plant fumes into the driver’s compartment. enuff said.
Pantera,
Thanks for the ad hominem. It reassures me about your close attention to, as some call them, “the facts.” Now you have a conundrum to explain: I do not do emails in or near my car.
And for your further edification, I invite you to investigate this link, and to explain it in terms of inhaling fumes or taking money from Exxon:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-01/uoc–sma012207.php
P.S. “Puking” is not considered an especially lucid criticism in most venues.
Why is it that the EEC can spend 50 years corrupting international markets to protect and maintain an unequal and unjustified concentration of wealth, and then expect to be able to share the pollution that is a direct result of that concentration of wealth with all the nations that were disadvantaged by their policies.
They implemented the policies that concentrated wealth and CO2 in a place that lacked sufficient ecological capital to deal with it. So they now tell us that we all need to make sacrifices to reduce their own exposure to their own folly.
Nice scam if you can get away with it.
I know little about climate (apart from possible ocean warming due to volcanic activity on ocean floors!) so keep clear of these discussions. Yet a comment from chrisl (28 Jan 6.47 pm) caught my eye.
Why do TV news reports on climate change repeatedly show steam rising from cooling towers? Are we supposed to believe it is that deadly pollutant, CO2? Am I right in thinking those cylindrical structures are, in fact, simply water cooling towers? I am open to correction. If they are, should somebody tell the TV stations, in the interests of truthful reporting?
Davey CO2 is of course invisible but it is very very dangerous. Watch out you could be exhaling some right now!
Chrisl,
I know. I tried holding my breath, but just turned purple. Is there a sustainable solution? Some might suggest my immediate demise, but I suspect my corpse will still give off CO2, amongst other things. Cremation? Nah, smoking chimney … it’s a worry.
Davey, The other little “trick” they have is measuring co2 in ppm. It is gowing all the time… from pre industrial levels of 280 ppm to 380, 480, even doubling to 560 ppm. Last year it grew by 2ppm. But what is a ppm? Part per MILLION. If there were a million blades of grass in a paddock and I added two, would you notice?
One sustainable solution offered is the banning of all beer, coke and beef ie the BBQ. No doubt puritan killjoys will be rejoicing, I see it as yet another attack by the femi-nazis on a harmless and benign male ritual.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,,21122658-3102,00.html
An argument from incredulity is a common logical fallacy, chrisl. It carries absolutely no weight at all.
Davey, do you ever see scientists with those pictures of the cooling towers to make their point?
Rog,
Does the 55,000 litres of water to make a kilo of beef take into account the fact that cattle sweat and urinate, as do the humans that eat beef? And what about the evaporation during cooking? Doesn’t that contribute to atmospheric humidity, and perhaps cloud formation, so producing cooler days, warmer nights, sometimes rain, and even lightning to start bushfires? Tricky stuff, ecology, especially when we draw our base data from the news media. Everything is connected to everything else. The Precautionary Principle wisely says we should do nothing. So did Chief Seattle at a seance last night. I trust you agree.
P.S. Luke and Panthera won’t like this.
P.P.S. I still say El Nino is due to volcanic eruptions on the ocean floor. Can anyone produce scientific evidence to dismiss this hypothesis? There, see, no evidence, just rhetoric from the volcano skeptics.
SJT,
No, but it makes the task of any advocate easier if the public have already been saturation bombed by the media. I am not arguing against climate change per se – I just don’t know enough. I just object to false use of brief images by the media. It smacks of George Orwell.
What about all those melting icebergs we see at the drop of a hat? I suspect I could make a similar scene in my bath tub with a few blocks of ice from the fridge. They make me sceptical about the integrity of any news. Mike Moore’s Frontline made a serious point, in a funny way.
It would really impress me if serious climate scientists (such as yourself?) took public issue with the media if, and when they repeatedly present an obvious furphy.
Oh stop torturing that violin Davey. It’s been gone over before and some climate scientists that we know of doth protest at alarmist reporting in the news. But how are they supposed to tell the public that (to maintain their credibility) if they’re to be silenced from commenting publicly on topical matters as has been strongly argued on this blog!? Wedged firmly, they are.
The scientists have good reason to want quality reporting as they suffer when misused images and bad reporting backfires. You seem smart enough to be sceptical of the news reporting anyway. You’re familiar with the rules: if you don’t know for a fact that the majority of climate scientists welcome misleading images in reports then you must assume good faith or madame lash will chase you down the driveway.
Luke, your 24 hours are up. Have you somehting nice to say about my peer-reviewed paper, like Ian Mott did? You have much anger in you, and many exclamation marks. Let them tumble out. The world is cooling, and there is nothing you and your ilk, and that feeble gas that you have so much faith in, can do about it.
David – Luke is such a hot-head – you’ll have to excuse him – he’s got the poos with the thread rules and is sulking like a spoilt brat so won’t be back on this thread but given you have “demanded satisfaction” I pass on the following from Luke. I had to restrain him from posting himself. He had emailed to the address on your paper to avoid embarrassment but given your predilection for verbal pugilism oh well .. .. ..
{Starts:}
Jeez David – Luke S Walker has resolved his anger in the tunnel with David Vader – he has learned to be at one with the force . You see – so many contrarians – so little time.
So we have “ilk”, “faith”, “feeble” – not bad for a rhetorical setup. You could have said that it’s present in such teensy weensy quantities and that people breath it out. Also in beer (which I can’t drink because of my anger problem) and soft drink. Cola very good for maintaining concentration while pooning newby contrarians.
As to your paper.
I have perused your paper. Alas you’ve gone down similar routes to many others.
You would not the paper published in any serious climate journal. I can see why you published it where you did. Figure 4 for example is just noise. I cannot believe the paper has been seriously reviewed by anyone who knows anything about climate and stats – it simply a rambling anecdotal essay not a science paper.
I see no formal statistical analysis to test for spurious correlation e.g. generalised cross validation. Actually no stats at all.
The literature is full of cycles guys who have perished on the rock of spurious validation. But we still all keep looking !
Perhaps if you got some statistical help (a lot of it) you might be on the verge of a breakthrough.
Also arguing solar influences up does not make CO2 radiative physics disappear. They is good empirical evidence of the effect (enclosed).
As for 8 “long” years – well why not write 8 “short” years. I bet it was still just 8 years. 2005 almost equalled 1998 bare whisker. 2007 is shaping up to be very warm. What if it’s a record – what do you do then.
You don’t have a statistically significant trend to the negative. 2006 is still a very positive sign anomaly over the reference base. Using your logic you would have come a cropper many times in the past using short runs.
Your paper – well sorry – it’s pretty poor. I suggest you read what a serious paper on solar influences looks like:
Variations in solar luminosity and their
effect on the Earth’s climate
P. Foukal1, C. Fro¨hlich2, H. Spruit3 & T. M. L. Wigley4
REVIEWS
1Heliophysics, Inc., Nahant, Massachusetts 01908, USA. 2Physikalisch-Meteorologisches Observatorium Davos, World Radiation Center, CH-7260 Davos Dorf, Switzerland.
3Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, D-85741 Garching, Germany. 4National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado 80307-3000, USA.
Vol 443|14 September 2006|doi:10.1038/nature05072
I see Sierra and Lavoisier have picked up your paper (hehehehe ROTFL LMAO).
And I note you have also risen to fame on Realclimate with Gavin giving you an extensive review.
“[Response: Hmmm. I wonder why only five weather stations out of ~6000 were chosen… -gavin]”
I’m surprised you got that much given the quality.
The Nature paper is the standard David. Given you think your paper is pretty good it tells me a very lot. You wouldn’t be an engineer perchance?
Anyway – Thanks for playing.
{ENDS}
Phil wishes old blog friends good luck and good night.
When a big media event occurs, like “Day after tomorrow”, they put up a story on the CSIRO web site saying it was just a film, and not to worry about it. For day to day stories, these guys have other things to do. The CSIRO, for example, is now a business organisation, being funded to produce research products. They don’t have spare scientists sitting around to comment on every story that appears in the myriad of media people are exposed to these days. Maybe if they had funding to do that, they would.
Re: Davey Esq PPS (@ 4:46PM)
I just love heretical ideas (after all science is all about challenging and falsification…) and so the theory that the ENSO cycles are caused by undersea volcanic activity has also been a favourite of mine.
Some time ago Dr Dan Walker, from the University of Hawai’i correlated increases of seismic activity along the East Pacific Rise with El Nino events (I’m sorry but can’t get more details at the moment other than the following).
http://volcano.und.edu/vwdocs/frequent_questions/grp13/question1804.html
As Dr Scott Rowland, points out, the fact that at times the seismic activity precedes the El Nino is a flaw – however if one accepts that major seismic activity does not necessarily accompany magma flows (i.e. Kilauea can constantly eject magma without earthquakes), and that the deep sea thermal vent activity is also independent of seismic activity, then as he says, “the jury’s still out” on this.
(WRT the thermal vents have a look at pph’s 4-5 in the following http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/05galapagos/background/mid_ocean_ridge/mid_ocean_ridge.html )
One of the best known areas for deep sea thermal vents is the area around the Galapagos Islands (where the Nazca and the Cocos tectonic plates meet forming the east to west Galapagos Rift). The area along this rift to where it meets the East Pacific Rise (also a known area for concentrated undersea volcanos) is dead centre under where the heating of the water occurs that signals the start of an El Nino episode.
If you assume that there can be an increase in pahoehoe tow magma flows and / or an increase in the deep sea thermal vent activity without major seismic activity (which may then follow as per Dr Walker’ theory) then if you look at the tectonic plates in this area,
http://images.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://www.junglephotos.com/galapagos/gmaps/scimaps/gtectonics.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.junglephotos.com/galapagos/gmaps/scimaps/tectonics.shtml&h=524&w=600&sz=46&hl=en&start=7&tbnid=z5laG3sK7JMBGM:&tbnh=118&tbnw=135&prev=/images%3Fq%3D%2522tectonic%2Bplates%2522%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG
And then you look at changes in SST at the start of an El Nino (specifcally July – November in the following animation of last year’s Pacific SST anomalies)
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/map/clim/sst_olr/sst_anim.shtml
Then you can see why the theory just won’t go away…
cheers
Arnost
La Pantera Rosa, please keep the one pen name for the one thread. You comment as Deborah was deleted.
Jennifer, I think you would have every right to make public the contact details of anyone who hides behind a pseudonym while in serial breach of blog standards. The right to use a pseudonym should only be extended to those who respect the rules, don’t you think?
Mistaken identity, you’re full of it Motty. I think you should have to get a certificate of sanity before being allowed to post. Multiple personality disorders, memory blackouts and fits of rage like yours should see you disqualified. So should repeated sexually peverted messages as spatter your comments.
Motty keeps exceeding the daily post limit without adding anything more substantial than the mutterings of a crazed man, but hasn’t been deleted. Of course Jennifer treats you with bias becuase you support her campaign and her eyes have fisheye lenses. Hence she edits and deletes posts yet lied about doing it on the Bindi post. She edited to distort my remarks during that recent war-of-words (to whip up a frenzy) and then allowed you to have the last word even though you seemed to be suffering blackouts so couldn’t recall some of your past abusive comments, and Jennifer made sure I was misrepresented. Rotten to the core. Jennifer, delete Motty’s posts over 2 per day or admit your rotten bias.
The sun’s polar field is now at its weakest since measurements began in the early 1950s. A long range forecast for solar cycle 25 from NASA is here:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/10may_longrange.htm
Furthermore, according to an email from Dick Reynolds to Roger Pielke Sr last year, the trend in the global average sea surface temperature has been flat for the last few years.
Welcome back Phil! Nice to see you haven’t lost your rapier wit. Obviously it’s up to David to answer all the important substantive points you have raised, but could I ask what is the basis for suggesting 2007 “is shaping up to be very warm.”? It’s still January!
So much hangs in the balance here that someone ought to make a bet, such as Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich made over the proposed inability of the planet to sustain humans. For more information about the bet, see, http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=44
Here is my bet.
I bet that *nobody will make a bet.* Nobody will make a bet about the future climate because it is so fraught, wishy-washy and fudgy, that nobody will be able to conclusively declare who won the bet. Nothing is conclusive enough to declare a winner of *any bet whatsoever,* which means, it’s *all* booshwah. There’s no hard numbers, there’s nothing to bet on that would vindicate any version of “climate change.”
Or is there? Hmmm… there’s the challenge. I leave the rest up to the AGW “consensus” champions and the “deniers.”
What shall we bet on? Hurricanes next season? Total icebergs? Actual global temperature? Polar bear carcases?
Step right up, folks! Place your bets and take your chances! Put your money where your mouth is!
David, you sure your paper was peer reviewed? I didn’t think the social-science journal E&E had a peer review process. It’s not listed on ISI citations and can’t be found on the Web of Science database.
Why is that do you think?
Anyway, there are some pretty major flaws in your paper, such as the obvious cherry picking of a tiny number of sites just to fit your hypothesis.
I’m sure more amusement awaits upon close inspection.
Thanks for all that information, Arnost. It is far more than I knew before. Shall we form an International Panel on Submarine Volcanoes, and put out an annual report to the media? Might we get funding?
P.S. Sorry about the violin, Panthera, but, to mix metaphors atrociously, we all have our soap boxes and bees in our bonnets. Have you read ‘Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business’, by Neil Postman? Arnold Kling recommends it.
With a PhD in chemistry, Dr. Gray should know better than to make an argument using such weak supporting data. It makes one question whether his years of working in the international coal and petroleum fields compromised his scientific objectivity….
Numbers are symbols, and when used without context, the meaning of numbers can be manipulated. We use numbers to measure degrees in temperature. 2 degrees warmer, here and there, and other such numeric patterns are abstract concepts unless the real impacts of those temperature changes are examined. 2 degrees at the poles is very significant (a degree above freezing, and compensating for salt water conditions, turns solid to liquid). 2 degrees spread over the vast and moving oceans is a mighty shift. The new leaks from the IPCC report are making blatant statements about human responsibility in changing the global climate, but skeptics like Dr.Gray are using the numbers to appear as though they are making informed counter-arguments. In reality, there IS no counter-argument.
Phil again
Luke (still sulking and gone to his Mum’s) says that a possible proposed bet is that in 10 years time the global temperature trend defined by CRU is still upwards since 1980. The losing syndicate of the said bet will provide the winning syndicate of the said bet, a cheque for $500AUD from each losing member, a hand written list of 500 iterations “I am a climate ignoramus and fool” by each losing member, and a photograph of their buttocks from each losing member(Motty not allowed as he would enjoy this and has probably spammed all senior public service bureacrats involved in resource management with such already). No other party may join the bet once made without the consent of all syndicate parties.
You won’t get bets on individual years or events – that’s not how “it works”.
Phil, I got up at the crack of dawn to ask you a polite question and all you want to do is talk about buttocks!
Why do you say that 2007 is shaping up to be “very warm”? It’s still only January. If it’s based on model outputs, you should be aware they’re not very reliable.
Paul – Well we have had some considerable warming in Europe, it’s an El Nino still , and the projection is from Luke’s custom solar neutrino flux model (everyone else is into solar so why shouldn’t Luke – his model projects warmer but he’s having trouble getting it published as his stats are no good). But that hasn’t deterred his other blog friends here. E&E would probably take his paper but he has his standards.
I was waiting, breathless for Phil to deliver some detailed and specific points that we could either validate or discard but all we got was opinion and generalities. You’ll need to do a lot better than that before you get a hail mary out me, fella.
So what is the story, Phil, the DG got sick of seeing the boy Luke trying to do a man’s job? Is this the dawn of a cultural change at green central?
One little recognised feature of the reported warming is that the actual increase in warm maximum temperatures is negligible while the reduction in cold minimums is much more pronounced. Yet, most of the spin involves projections of more “extreme events” etc, with a clear implication of lots more heat waves.
DNRM’s own climate bumf, called “Climate Change, the challenge for NRM” has an interesting graph (p12) that shows the number of sub zero minimums and above 35 degree maximums at Rockhampton since 1940. The number of days with 35+ maximums has only increased from 15 to 19, in a range from zero to 45.
The number of days with sub zero minimums (frosts) has gone down from 16 to 6 in the same period, in a range from zero to 35. And this is lumped in with the highs as “Significant changes in extreme hot and cold days” for which the reader is left to assume that both are bad or threatening.
But the boy watching the climatic emperor parade by in his new thermal clothes may well be moved to ask, ‘so which of our numerous flora and fauna species will be placed under threat by a reduction in frosts’?
The short answer is Zippo.
We also know that the species in the Rockhampton region have survived years with 35 and 45 days with maximum temperatures more than 35 degrees. And we also know that the majority of years are in the 10 to 25 day range and that all of the trend increase has resulted from a single recent maximum record of 45 days. The sixty year period from 1940 to 2000 actually shows a modest decline and it would be interesting to see what the missing years from 1910 to 1940 can tell us.
But the real doppleganger in collective self delusion starts on page nine where the mean temperatures for various centres around Qld are displayed. We get the actual annual means since 1910 with the trend line to the present. Most show gentle temperature increases of 0.5 to 1 degree over the 90 years.
But it is the projections for the next 60 years where the voodoo really sets in. All the graphs take a sudden hike of 3 to 4 degrees which is a complete departure from the existing trend. This change in trend is even applied to situations where the graphs to date show clear evidence of a trend ceiling that has no critical break that would indicate the arrival of a new trend slope.
Not even the Brass Monkeys have anything to fear from this particular form of warming.
“the actual increase in warm maximum temperatures is negligible while the reduction in cold minimums is much more pronounced. Yet, most of the spin involves projections of more “extreme events” etc, with a clear implication of lots more heat waves.”
The other day you were complaining about the (mis)use of max & min temps but you’re trying to use them to support a point. Higher mins is a warming trend so good you acknowledge that. As for your species impact opinions, recall the blog declaration that we will ignore anything you have to say on species or biodiversity given your recent displays of unbelievable ignorance and unwillingness to learn what a species is. As for ‘spin’, just focus on the science and you might learn something more about warming patterns.
Well what a rude horrid person you are Mr Mott. So cruel and unkind. Do you realise that carrying on in this way may be hurtful to the sensitivities of others. If I were Luke I wouldn’t bother discussing the time of day with you. Luke might consider whether he wants to respond to you later. I do suggest you seek some advice though on your behaviour – it’s most disturbing.
Phil, that’s it? It’s warmer in Europe? So 2007 will be “very warm” globally because January in Europe was warm?
It was cold in California, wasn’t it? January here in Adelaide has been pretty mild. We had quite a lot of rain and cool weather. El Nino might be changing to La Nina.
So you must have a theory that January temperatures in Europe are predictive of global temperatures for that year. Why don’t you write it up for a peer-reviewed journal? It’d have to be in the running for a Nobel.
Phil, don’t bother responding. I just read your last post, you’re obviously on holiday and relaxing with some homebrew.
Alright boys, break it up! Time to lay down that bet that Schiller incited. Paul W v’s Phluke: 2007 will be a hot year (globally?). Define hot. Then define the stakes. I propose the loser writes a guest post (a genuine effort, with a few references even) to argue the other’s climate position for them.
Somehow pinksy being a “debbie” doesnt sit well, she’s obviously grappling with having to define a suitable identity, just what goes on in her tiny little mind?
(applauds Pantera)
Jennifer, will you hold the stake in the game?
As I thought, Luke has posted from another departmental PC as Phil. Pink pants posts as Deborah to convey the impression that more of the public might share her fringe views.
And not a single comment from the same department that pays Phluke’s salary. I actually have a correction, the minimum events were sub 5 degrees not subzero. An easy mistake as the report then goes on to project subzero events.
The key condemnation for departmental spin remains that they have implied that all large impacts on extremes are negative when in fact, the climate is actually getting MILDER.
Keep digging for cover, Phluke, your ass is still exposed. There is more to follow on this little gem of false reporting.
A mere member of public? Talk of identity confusion.
I can tell you’ve got it
Bottled up inside
I can tell ’cause
It shows in your eyes
You keep on keeping
Your secrets inside
And I I will tell you tell you no lies
Energy and Environment publishes refereed papers, plus viewpoints and technical communications:
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mscp/ene/2006/00000017/00000006;jsessionid=7c76bcaeieioe.victoria
Show me evidence that E&E papers are peer-reviewed. There is no mention on their site nor are they listed on ISI as a peer-reviewed journal.
Thanks Phil for holding the fort. Face it Ian’s just so angry now he’s having a go – shoving his little intellectual screwdriver and seeing what he can pry lose. Pathetic really. And of course he’d like to have us all waste a lot of time running around checking numbers and running littel analyses. So he gets 20 minutes but no more as good faith has not been fortcoming.
(1) frost frequency has been declining for a long time in Queensland. Living in Bryon probably has been too mild for Ian to notice. An example nearby:
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/environ/frosts.shtml
(2) I did take the effort to graph 1900 to 2006 Rockhampton extremes above 35 and can only smile. If Ian was nice one might supply him with the information but given he’s as rude as paddy’s pig he can do it himself. All I can say is – please do the analysis ! Pity the numbers in the report weren’t more up-to-date and for longer. Hehehehe. Ian you’ll learn in time not to ask questions taht you don’t know the answer for.
(3) Ian has discovered that mean mins have gone up more than mean maxes – gee I never knew that. is that so. Astounding.
(4) As for graphs taking a hike upwards – well yep ! That’s what the mid-range projections do. Ring up CSIRO and convince them they’re wrong. And the other various international modelling efforts. As for expecting all nice little linear trends – well it doesn’t work that way. You can work out as an exercise why not.
(5) As for all the rhetoric about “extremes being made sound alarmist, voodoo, things under threat etc” – well that’s all just of Ian’s making. But last time we had big heatwaves in Queensland it was a major public health issue. Given most American cities have heatwave strategies but we don’t, perhaps Australia might be suitably forewarned with this information for some useful adaptation measures of very modest cost.
All in all Ian how utterly boring, tedious and piffly your mindless little tirade is.
Ian as a contractor I don’t really care what the dept does – but if you’re going to have a go, try a little sophistication and not something so obviously stupid and simplistic.
BTW I notice your Snowy post is inundated with congratulatory responses. Perhaps not many willing to line up for a tongue lashing.
In a delusionary state luke thinks that phil is another person; he should be grateful that we are so tolerant and dont charge him x2 income tax (not that either of the bludgers ever do much work)
Pinky Pants still believes in the Countdown Revolution, poor thing http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0217192/ .
Rog – correct I hate Phil actually. He’s such a goodie goodie. He doesn’t speak for me.
Luke get off Phil’s back you mean lazy good for nothing SOB park scum
Nexus 6:
I’m not here to defend E&E, but:
What does refereed mean?
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mscp/ene/2006/00000017/00000006
Refereed Papers
Promotion of renewable electricity in the European Union
pp. 835-848(14)
Authors: Coenraads, Rogier J.A.C.; Voogt, Monique H.
On the success of policy strategies for the promotion of electricity from renewable energy sources in the Eu
pp. 849-868(20)
Authors: Held, Anne; Ragwitz, Mario; Haas, Reinhard
Coordinated renewable energy support schemes
pp. 869-884(16)
Authors: Morthorst, Poul Erik; Jensen, Stine Grenaa
Technical constraints on and efficient strategies for the integration of wind energy
pp. 885-906(22)
Authors: Klobasa, Marian; Obersteiner, Carlo
The relevance of unbundling for large-scale RES-E grid integration in Europe
pp. 907-928(22)
Author: Auer, Hans
Prospects of renewable energy development in the European electricity sector: Results of the simulation tool green-X
pp. 929-950(22)
Authors: Huber, Claus; Faber, Thomas; Resch, Gustav
Impact of strategies to increase RES in Europe on employment and competitiveness
pp. 951-975(25)
Author: Walz, Rainer
More on the IPCC report from selections of an article in Australia’s The Age newspaper:
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/01/30/070130081454.ieaxdzu8.html
“The report estimates that between 1.1 billion and 3.2 billion people will be suffering from water scarcity problems by 2080 and between 200 million and 600 million more people will be going hungry.
“Rising sea levels could flood seven million more homes, while Australia’s famed Great Barrier Reef, treasured as the world’s largest living organism, could be dead within decades, the scientists warn, the newspaper said.
“The World Heritage site, stretching over more than 345,000 square kilometers (133,000 sq miles) off Australia’s northeast coast, will become ‘functionally extinct’, the scientists are quoted as saying.
“At 2.0 to 3.0 degrees above 1900 levels, the report predicts the ‘complete loss’ of Australia’s alpine zones and the possible collapse of South America’s Amazon forest system, causing a ‘huge loss of biodiversity’.”
—
Billions suffering from water scarcity? Hundreds of millions hungry? Hey, my county puts us on odd-even days for watering our yards, and sometimes we’re low on milk and the grocery store is closed. Still, we’re okay, but I guarantee that ANY level of water scarcity and ANY indications of hunger ae lumped into this report. Why, with no global warming, they’re probably already more than half-way there!
From what I’m reading, these guys went out to make a case for AGW rather than being impartial in their analyses. Their organizations stand to gain power and money from this cause. Now, the hype and scare tactics start.
I can’t take seriously people who have a profit motive in their research and who over-hype the consequences of not believing them.
Paul, I’ve no idea what refereed means in the context that E&E use it (there is no mention of how the ‘refereeing’ process is carried out).
I know it isn’t a review by peers. Peer review involves anonymous review by at least three EXPERTS in the field of the paper’s topic.
Archibald’s paper wouldn’t even be acceptable as an undergrad assignment. There’s cherry picking of data, ignorance or purposeful exclusion of preexisting literature that doesn’t support their hypothesis, poor or non-existent statistical analysis (what’s with the lines on the graphs? What are they, where did they come from and what relation do they have to the data?), poor labelling of figures and not properly referencing where their data have come from.
That unambiguously indicates to me that the paper has NOT been reviewed by experts in the field, or any scientific field for that matter. At quick search on the web shows similar problems with many other E&E papers.
Quite simply, there is no peer-review process at E&E.
Maybe, they just have a denialist-review process. A paper is scanned to see whether it doesn’t agree with AGW. If so, it’s accepted.
Woody
can you provide any evidence or basis for making this claim?
“Still, we’re okay, but I guarantee that ANY level of water scarcity and ANY indications of hunger ae lumped into this report”.
Phil said
“But it is the projections for the next 60 years where the voodoo really sets in. All the graphs take a sudden hike of 3 to 4 degrees which is a complete departure from the existing trend. This change in trend is even applied to situations where the graphs to date show clear evidence of a trend ceiling that has no critical break that would indicate the arrival of a new trend slope.”
That’s the whole point of the concern about global warming. It’s going to take us out of that comfort zone. Already the fact that permafrost is melting, (it’s called permafrost for a good reason), glaciers are melting, arctic ice is melting, are all good indicators of something happening globally. The anarctic is a special case. The areas at the extreme south are subject to another phenomenon that is cooling the south, outside that influence, the ice is melting too.
Here we go again with the defamatory imputation that I was rude to Phil when the worst I can find is that I challenged him to put up some specifics and called him, wait for it, “fella”.
Luke could not possibly have done the calculations for Rockhampton Aero prior to 1939 because there is no data. Prior to 1939 the data was collected at Rockhampton Post Office from 1871. So he lied to the forum.
More importantly, the early PO data makes it very clear that Rockhampton has actually cooled by 0.45 Degrees over the past half century. For the record, the mean Maximum from 1871 to 1939 was 28.5 degrees and Minimum of 17.2 degrees. The Mean Maximum since 1939 to 2003 is 28.3 while the Minimum is only 16.6 degrees.
Rockhampton airport is very close (5km) from the PO. And as both points are well inland there would be no variance like the one found between Brisbane GPO and Ipswich.
So how could Luke Possibly detect results that are what he implied when the change over the past 63 years is a 0.2 degree drop in maxima and a 0.6 degree drop in minima.
And for the record, Pinkslime, my issues with maxima and minima were to add value to them with a broader data set.
NOT ONLY IS ROCKHAMPTON GETTING COOLER, THIS COOLING IS GETTING MILDER.
So what does that mean for the so-called threats to the Great Barrier Reef?
Quite simply, there IS a peer-review process at E&E, Nexus 6. In fact, I have been consulted on two occasions by experts who were refereeing papers on economic aspects of climate for this journal. I can assure Nexus 6 that the reviewers concerned were experts on the subject of the papers under review.
Nexus 6, what evidence do you have to support your speculation that E&E has a “denialist-review process” under which “a paper is scanned to see whether it doesn’t agree with AGW” and “If so, it’s accepted”? Are you claiming that if it DOES agree with AGW it won’t be accepted? In that case, perhaps you could comment on E&E’s recent publication of the following paper:
Observed climate change in Australia over the past century
Authors: Nicholls, Neville; Collins, Dean
Source: Energy & Environment, Volume 17, Number 1, January 2006, pp. 1-12(12)
Abstract:
Temperatures across nearly all of Australia increased through the 20th century, as did sea surface temperatures in the surrounding oceans. It seems likely that much of the warming is due to increased atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. Rainfall trends have been less spatially consistent than the temperature trends with areas of increase (especially in the northwest) and areas of decrease (especially in the southwest). There is some evidence suggesting that some of the rainfall trends are the result of human influences, but this evidence is less convincing than is the case with the increases in temperature.
The first-named author, Neville Nicholls, is now a Professorial Fellow in the Regional Climate Group at Monash University. He was a Lead Author of Chapter 9 (“Understanding and attributing climate change”) of the IPCC Working Group I Fourth Assessment and a Lead Author of the Draft Summary for Policymakers and Technical Summary of the WGI which is currently under consideration at the Panel’s meeting in Paris. At the time that the paper was submitted to E&E, Neville Nicholls and Dean Collins were researchers at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
Ian – yep and I knew you knew that. That’s why the graph was done from 1940 in the place. I said Rockhampton in my response (not exactly a specific location for Rocky) and it was done on a derived merge which is quite adequate for these purposes and extremes have been going up.
BoM’s temperature trend maps also show a warming increase. The climate booklet dudes should have picked somewhere more inland and been more alarmist. Much worse examples than Rocky.
Given the Burdekin is pulsing out 10x more sediment from all that typically reckless land clearing and overgrazing that you love to endorse, who knows what effect it may have long term on the reef. 🙂
Incidentally looks like you’re inundated with well wishers on the Snowy idea.
Anyway that’s enough for time wasters.
SJT, my conclusion is based upon observations and experience. I’ve always prided myself on being able to take any numbers and make them say what the client wants them to say. The global warming whores have me beat.
Ian, read Archibald’s paper and explain to me how it passed peer-review. Explain to me how anyone with even the most basic understanding of scientific conduct and statistics could allow it to be printed in the form it was.
Did I claim that if a paper does agree with AGW it is not accepted by E&E? No. Straw Man.
I am, however, prepared to admit that rather than no peer-review, E&E has an utterly flawed, worthless peer-review process that for all intents and purposes equates to no peer-review process at all.
Happy 🙂
Woody says “I can’t take seriously people who have a profit motive in their research and who over-hype the consequences of not believing them.”
Well research does cost money yes (funny that) but somehow I don’t think researchers pocket any (it’s not like stock options in private enterprise). Most research submissions are rejected by funding bodies – it’s pretty tough to get a proposal up even if it’s “good”. Grants are audited and funds have strict rules. We’re not talking private enterprise largesse here.
As for “over-hype” you mean “unpalatable to my world view” or “I hate it”. If you tell us what you’d like them to write we’ll do our best to make sure they get it.
As for your manipulation of numbers – well just because you’re an exponent of dodgy practices don’t look at us.
And global warming “whores” is charming. I guess we have to retort with “denialist f-wits”. Now isn’t that helpful to a debate.
Thanks for conceding that E&E does have a peer review process, Nexus 6. I take it that your answer to my question “Are you claiming that if [a paper] DOES agree with AGW it won’t be accepted?” is “No”.
E&E was of course the “leading international journal” (the description comes from Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the IPCC) that published successive responses by teams of IPCC authors to my criticisms (co-authored with Professor David Henderson) of the Panel’s “Special Report on Emissions Scenarios”. Here is the verdict of “The Economist” (London) on this episode:
“The exercise criticised by Mr Castles and Mr Henderson involved 53 authors, plus 89 expert reviewers and many others besides. Can so many experts get it wrong? The experts themselves may doubt it, but the answer is yes. The problem is that this horde of authorities is drawn from a narrow professional milieu. Economic and statistical expertise is not among their strengths. Making matters worse, the panel’s approach lays great emphasis on peer review of submissions. When the peers in question are drawn from a restricted professional domain—whereas the issues under consideration make demands upon a wide range of professional skills—peer review is not a way to assure the highest standards of work by exposing research to scepticism. It is just the opposite: a kind of intellectual restrictive practice, which allows flawed or downright shoddy work to acquire a standing it does not deserve.”
I see that Phil Done tbinks that “The Nature paper is the standard”. I don’t question that “Nature” publishes some fine papers, but let’s not forget that it was “Nature” that brought us Mann, M E, R S Bradley and M K Hughes (1998), ‘Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries’ ‘Nature’, 392, 779-787. And that it was E&E that published the first comprehensive critique of this now discredited paper (McIntyre, S and R McKitrick (2003), ‘Corrections to the Mann et al (1998) Proxy Data Base and Northern Hemisphere Average Temperature Series’, E&E, 14 (6) 751-71).
In “The Stern Review: A Dual Critique – Part I: The Science” (‘World Economics’, 2006, vol. 7, no. 4: 167-98), Robert M Carter, C R de Freitas, Indur M Goklany, David Holland and Richard S Lindzen offer some pertinent comments on this episode:
‘The dispute over the Mann et al paper is an object lesson both as to why those papers based on large data sets and advanced statistical techniques should be verified, and why peer review alone is inadequate. From what has now been disclosed, and thoroughly investigated, we know that the criticisms of the Mann et al paper that were rebuffed by many … by repeated references to peer review, were accurate… Based on this experience, the IPCC peer review process provides no safeguard against dubious assumptions, arguments and conclusions. This is particularly so as, over time, dissenting panellists have withdrawn from the IPCC process, thereby reducing it to a restricted professional milieu within which close colleagues frequently review their own work or that of close colleagues.”
In the second part of the “Dual Critique” a group of economists (Ian Byatt, Ian Castles, Indur Goklany, David Henderson, Nigel Lawson, Ross McKitrick, Julian Morris, Alan Peacock, Colin Robinson and Robert Skidelsky) supported the view of our scientific colleagues that there is ‘a serious problem’ with the IPCC:
“Although it provides for substantial, well organised and worldwide expert participation, the IPCC process is far from being a model of rigour, inclusiveness and impartiality: it is in fact deeply flawed. Its member governments either fail to notice the flaws or view them with a tolerant eye. There is an urgent need today to build up a sounder basis than now exists for reviewing and assessing issues relating to climate change.”
Ian,
I am currently dealing with a paper, published in a refereed journal, which is both statistically and logically flawed. This should have been obvious to the referees, especially if they had prodded around the raw data. One key graph is an artefact of data ‘massaging’. I believe the referees were not statisticians, but biologists who had done some statistics.
To improve refereeing standards, and so improve the reliability of science, I suggest that authors should be required to submit the raw data with the draft paper. The raw data should be independently analysed by a competent statistician. Journals following this procedure should be given a higher reliability rating than those that don’t. When an author gives a statistical package as a statistical reference, my antennae begin to twitch.
Ian – all a diversion.
All you have to do regardless of what goes on at what journal tell us would you consider the Archibald paper the sort of thing would would expect for a study on solar influences on climate. Does it have your endorsement. Pls don’t cop out and say it’s not my field.
You will notice a complete lack of stats in an area where false correlations abound and cherry-picked data. At that point one turns off.
Nexus and I are saying it’s a shoddy paper. If so the journal wants a kick in the bum. Same for Nature or Science in similar circumstances.
As for the Stern Review – pls don’t get me started on Part I – words fail me. Didn’t get to Part II as a result.
Hockey Stick – well we could rediscuss for hours could we not. Let’s not !
Luke, of course the Archibald paper isn’t my field, any more than the papers which have appeared in E&E by eminent economists such as Warwick McKibbin of ANU and Peter Dixon of Monash are in the field of Nexus 6. If he/she thinks that E&E follows an ‘utterly flawed, worthless peer-review process that for all intents and purposes equates to no peer-review process at all’, what view does he/she take of the kind of papers that routinely appear in IPCC house journals such as ‘Global Environmental Change’?
If you and Nexus think that the Archibald paper is shoddy, it’s open to you to say why, as Indur Goklany has done in his field in papers in E&E and other journals, submissions to the HoL Committee and the Stern Review and postings to a number of blogs (including, in recent days, to Roger Pielke Jr’s “Prometheus” site).
Your suggestion makes sense to me, Davey Gam. In a posting to “Climate Audit” nearly two years ago (available at http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=123), Steve McIntyre drew attention to the policy of the “American Economic Review”:
‘It is the policy of the American Economic Review to publish papers only if the data used in the analysis are clearly and precisely documented and are readily available to any researcher for purposes of replication. Authors of accepted papers that contain empirical work, simulations, or experimental work must provide to the Review, prior to publication, the data, programs, and other details of the computations sufficient to permit replication. These will be posted on the AER Web site.’
McIntyre also noted that the detailed policy of the AER went on to say:
‘For econometric and simulation papers, the minimum requirement should include the data set(s) and programs used to run the final models, plus a description of how previous intermediate data sets and programs were employed to create the final data set(s). Authors are invited to submit these intermediate data files and programs as an option; if they are not provided, authors must fully cooperate with investigators seeking to conduct a replication who request them. The data files and programs can be provided in any format using any statistical package or software, but a Readme PDF file documenting the purpose and format of each file provided, and instructing a user on how replication can be conducted, should also be provided.’
There is no obvious reason why science journals should not adopt similar policies, at least in relation to papers on policy-relevant subjects. Again I quote Carter et al:
‘The full disclosure of all data, statistical techniques and computer code should be a requirement for science used in climate policy formulation, and the [Stern] Review should have rejected any advice, or publications, for which such disclosure has not been made. The Review should also have advised the UK Government to require that full disclosure be made for any future climate science advice that it receives, in line with the recommendations of both the NRC and Wegman panels, and so that the scientific process can function unimpeded by secrecy. The presently permitted secrecy is not only inconsistent with the process of science, but also retards scientific understanding and slows the search for rational policies to address climate change.”
Oh Ian Castles!! Welcome back! Would you like to resume that discussion where you tried to discredit a certain environmental author based on a claim that Australia gives ODA less than the OECD average? You’ll recall that you tried to fool old Pinxi and friends by comparing apples and oranges. Well now we have updated data we can compare apples with apples and guess what?
You were wrong.
Aust is down the list. Even Rev. Costello has had pointed words to say about Australia’s poor ODA performance. Do you plan to apologise to that author for your unfounded attack? Or kick up clouds of dust and try to deny ever having said anything of the sort. Oh you can’t deny it though, it’s recorded in history! You lose last vestiges of credibility when you argue defensively something that’s clearly incorrect. Sheds doubt on everything else you say. If you admit you were wrong, I’ll admire you for it and won’t say another word to you about it.
LPR, Dr. Barrie Pittock stated in his book “Climate Change: Turning Up the Heat” (published in late 2005) that Australia “currently” gives “far less” than the industrialised world average of 0.22% of GDP in international aid (p. 146).
I did not make an “attack” on Dr. Pittock for saying this – I simply pointed out that his statement was wrong, and cited the Australian Year Book, the Budget Papers and a news release by Minister Downer in support.
So we now have updated data, have we? I don’t know of any data that suggests that Australia now spends, or in any recent year has spent, “far less” than 0.22% of its GDP on international aid. If you do know of any such data, please provide it and cite your source. If it is an authoritative source, I’ll gladly acknowledge that I was wrong (and that the ABS, the Budget Papers and Minister Downer were also wrong).
Ian you wrote a long piece nitpicking various details in an attempt to discredit Dr Pittock’s work on climate change. (You don’t want to revisit that). You claimed that Australia’s ODA is “above the donor average”. You insisted on comparing Australia’s target 2006 ODA with the 2004 international average, knowing there were widespread international efforts to significantly increase ODA/GNI %.
The latest figures (2007 report) show the average OECD country effort is 0.47%. Australia gives 0.25%, putting it 4th last of the OECD countries on ODA/GNI % (the figure debated). These OECD figures are for 2005. A release by Downer indicated we were aiming for 0.30 in 2006. That will be well behind the 2005 average whilst many countries are increasing their ODA % so we’ll still be lagging.
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/23/14/37955301.pdf
I hope you won’t again try to argue the meaning of ‘far’ in ‘far less’ as you did last time but I reckon that roughly half the average equals far less than the average.
You of all people know where to get accurate figures, you mentioned the OECD website yourself and there was plenty of information available there to support the essence of Pittock’s claim that Australian ODA is less than the average. Will you email him an apology or kick up more dust to cloud the issue? He even has Rev. Costello’s support!
You used forecast figures to argue that Australian ODA would be on average but we’re been falling further behind (from 13th to 19th):
“0.25% of its Gross National Income, putting its aid efforts in 13th place out of 22 DAC members in terms of ODA/GNI. Australia has enjoyed more than a decade of economic growth, above the OECD average. Yet its ODA/GNI ratio has stagnated. Meanwhile, the assistance needs of its partners have increased and Australia has an ambitious agenda for involvement in Indonesia, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and countries of the South Pacific region. The DAC recommends that Australia now increase the percentage of its GNI going to aid and announce medium and long-term targets for meeting its commitment to the 0.7% ODA/GNI international objective.
http://www.oecd.org/document/43/0,2340,en_2649_34603_34069675_1_1_1_1,00.html
Luke, the global warming peer reviews are like asking the Democratic Party in the U.S. to approve of what Congress is doing. There’s no chance for dissention.
Also, ask Dr. Wm. Gray, who disagrees with GW claims, about his grant funding being shut off. Research does cost money and it pays the salaries of the research scientists, who clearly have a financial conflict of interests in this battle. Why, they don’t even have the nerve to stand up to clearly deceptive claims from their side in this debate.
One other point that I wanted to clear up on the upcoming release of just the conclusions about AGW (without the supporting data–how convenient)…the initial releases provide extremely large variances of those affected by a 1:3 ratio–which to me is not very definitive. I can get my “Magic 8 Ball” and come up with that.
I suspect skewing of the results from them in such a way as a study did that was conducted last year on hunger. It asked young students if they have ever been hungry. Who hasn’t? If anyone answered that they had been hungry, then the liberal report said that American children were going hungry and so we needed their program to fight hunger.
I would be more impressed if any GW supporters were willing to admit that a minority view should be published along with theirs. If they don’t, then it’s politics and not science.
LPR, You’re right that “roughly half the average equals far less than the average”. You’re also right that the OECD figures, now available for 2005, put Australia’s ODA ratio (0.25%) at roughly half (and therefore far less than) the average OECD country effort of 0.47%.
But what Dr. Pittock said, in a book published in 2005, was that Australia’s ratio was currently “far less” than the industrialised world average of 0.22%. How can you argue that 0.25% is far less than 0.22%?
Dr. Pittock also said (in the Supplementary References to his book) that “There is a further attack on the temperature reconstructions in Figure 1 by McIntyre and McKitrick in the journal ‘Energy & Environment’, 14, 751-771 (2003)… Mann and co-authors are the recognised experts in this field, and thus best qualified to make the expert judgments on data quality and representativeness needed.” To the IPCC’s embarassment, the recognised experts got it wrong. Such errors would be less likely to occur if science journals such as ‘Nature’ set up dislosure procedures similar to those followed by the “American Economic Review”.
Woody – interesting points but you are actually asking the IPCC to produce a “scientific” view which is not supported so people “feel more comfortable”.
The Republicans have done their share of disinformation on GW. If that balance is now redressed by a new Democratic congress well I suggest you would expect that.
But is anyone silenced. Golly gee- we have megatons of anti-AGW stuff all over the media, newspapers, blogs. It’s about 50:50 whereas the science is about 99:1. So anti-AGW is already getting much more airtime than it really deserves.
In general (as I fear a Hockey Stick lecture or an SRES lecture coming on) the IPCC documents are not much fun to read – tediously boring ploughing through acres of references and analyses. It’s important that you read that document (including the new 4AR) at source not what commentators or bloggians say it says. Make your mind up on that.
The press runs hot and cold (pun intended) with climate change every day. No wonder the public are confused.
Do you want the IPCC to publish a minority view which they find no evidence for or evidence against – just to make it look like “everyone has been made happy”. Science doesn’t work that way. Should they say – oh the warming is due to the Sun when the Sun hasn’t changed its output to cause a warming (an example). Any reasonable party would suggest that is directly misleading. We’re talking 2500 science experts here from 130 countries. It’s far from perfect – but gee – it’s also far from trivial too.
Science is not science but politics if one publishes views that are not supported. The way this is sort of done is test evidence for various hypotheses in terms of attribution. If you don’t like their answers well you can only suggest they all be sacked I guess.
Woody – scientists are a scrappy bunch – everyone would love to “do a Galileo” and throw mud in the establishment’s eye. There’s plenty of evidence of dissent and people having a go. So democracy is working well. However thinking you are Galileo and being Galileo are two different things. Alas most of us don’t come up with anything scientifically earth shattering and lots of hunchs are simply “wrong”.
Ian you’re again comparing DIFFERENT years. Stop your apples to bananas comparison and consider the substance of the point:
* Dr Pittock said Austn ODA/GNI is far less than the average.
* You said that Australia’s ODA is “above the donor average”. You of all people know where to find the correct figures.
* The facts: Australia has consistently given less ODA/GNI than the average and has recently fallen further behind, now giving roughly half the OECD average.
On that basis there is no reason to criticise Dr Pittock’s claim. If you were unsure which year he was referencing and if it was such an important issue then the honorable thing would have to ask him directly rather than attempt to publicly discredit him.
Biggsy there’s a lot of noise about what constitutes peer review but what of your assessment, do you endorse this paper? Do you think it’s credible and valid?
LPR, Dr. Pittock did not say that “Austn ODA/GNI is far less than the average” – his exact words were:
“The industrialised world currently gives about 0.22% of GDP with the United States and Australia (who have not signed the Kyoto Protocol) giving far less [i.e., far less than 0.22% of GDP]…”
This statement can’t be correct, because there has been no year since the DAC statistics began in which Australia’s ODA ratio has been as low as 0.22% of GDP.
In the Supplementary Notes to the book, Dr. Pittock gave his source as follows:
“The aid figures come from Mick Kelty and Sarah Granich ‘The Point Seven Percent Solution’, at ‘Tiempo Climate Newswatch’ at http://www.timepocyberclimate.org/newswatch/comment040615.htm ‘
This article was published in 2002.
I did not attack Dr. Pittock, nor did I ‘attempt to publicly discredit him’. My point was that Australia was not giving ‘far less’ than ‘the industrialised world’ ratio of 0.22%.
You keep repeating that I said that Australia’s ODA is “above the donor average.” I am subject to correction, but I think that you’ll find that the statement that you attribute to me was in fact made in the Budget Papers and Minister Downer’s news release. These sources made it clear that different years were being compared. I agree that the official claim that Australia was above the donor average is questionable on that account.
But this doesn’t alter the fact that Dr. Pittock’s statement was factually incorrect (and was not made in the cited source).
It is not I who thinks that this is such an important issue – you keep raising it on threads dealing with unrelated issues.
I have just deleted several comments from this thread which were posted this morning as they were potentially defamatory or could be interpreted as unnecessarily nasty. Please be sure that new comments provide new information … and please be civil.
So if Luke did an analysis of pre-1939 rockhampton extremes then he should be able to give us the data, here.
But he should also be able to explain why a clear reduction in the number of cold minimums is being described by “respected departmental scientists” as increasing extremes?
Luke, perhaps you are a “denier” that global warming studies and conclusions have actual flaws. I wish this were fifty years later so that it could be proved that the socialists who are pushing Kyoto were just plain wrong and wasted a lot of money.
From a skeptic side:
Del. global warming skeptic stands pat
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070201/NEWS/702010363/1006/NEWS
“‘The science brought in by the one side had given a more extremist view of climate change,’ Legates said. ‘What we’re trying to say is, the science isn’t necessarily that well settled, and in many cases it isn’t that extreme. I’m not saying it isn’t a problem.’
“During that testimony Legates disputed findings of the international panel, saying researchers failed to prove recent warming trends or that human causes are ‘the only significant factor.'”
From the hysterical side:
Humans ‘Very Likely’ Making Earth Warmer
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/02/01/D8N10JFG0.html
“The most authoritative report on climate change is using the strongest wording ever on the source of global warming, saying it is ‘very likely’ caused by humans and already is leading to killer heat waves and stronger hurricanes, delegates who have seen the report said Thursday.”
“Three participants said the group approved the term ‘very likely’ in Thursday’s sessions. That means they agree that there is a 90 percent chance that global warming is caused by humans.”
Yeah, that’s proof enough for me to reallocate 20% of our GNP. I’m glad that those three people cleared everything up for the entire world. Oh, that alarmist wording was pushed through in only an hour and a half.
Then, get this:
“I hope that policymakers will be quite convinced by this message,” said Riibeta Abeta, a delegate from the island nation Kiribati, which is worried about overrun by rising seas. “The purpose is to get them moving.”
Wait, was their purpose to prove AGW or to get governments moving? Hmmmm. Judging from what I see, every one of those people on the committee knew from the beginning what conclusion they better reach.
Next…
“The report will also say that global warming has made stronger hurricanes, including those on the Atlantic Ocean such as 2005’s Katrina, according to Fields and other delegates.”
Which is a bald-faced lie. New Orleans flooded because much of it was built below sea level and the levees were faulty. Yet, this group made false conclusions and linked them to Katrina to mislead people. How can they explain this recently ended very mild hurricane season?
Don’t you think that accurate conclusions on the hurricane seasons should be presented, which a minority report would do? There’s plenty of science and facts that need to be mentioned from those who haven’t caved into the PC crowd.
I’m going to stop because I don’t have the time to waste. However, the more that I read from these AGW alarmists, the more flaws and out-and-out lies I see in their reports.
P.S. I had to laugh out loud when you said journalists cover this issue 50:50.
Yes I could post it but I don’t oblige anymore for those of bad faith. I’m afraid one abusive retort too many. So you can flip a coin as to whether I’m holding out or severely miffed.
Well Woody don’t vote for it when it comes up and choose your pollies carefully.
Socialists didn’t rig Kyoto – the right wing did – the riding instructions were for it not to work. AMke it too difficult and don’t get everyone involved. SO it’s worked well. It hasn’t happened in the USA and here. Your right wing pollies did you proud – so what’s the problemo?
So Legates is defending Competitive Enterprise Institute stuff – Woody come on these guys are total shonks and shills. Are you SERIOUS? ROTFL. LMAO. Legates is having a big sook but he’s got his name across the paper and is appearing before Inhofe’s committee – so what’s his problemo.
What twaddle and rambling story about nothing.
As for “very likely” – well I can see you need a lot of proof – so when your mechanic says your brakes are likely to fail with 90% chance ignore him. And when your doctor says unless you do this you’ll have a 90% high likley chance of death – just ignore him. When there’s tropical cyclone bearing down on you with a 90% chance of impact – just ignore the forecast. I think you’re making a good choice.
Would be good if you waited for the actual report before telling me what’s in it. See this – it appears they’re still editing. http://edition.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/02/01/climate.talks.ap/index.html
Is Riibeta Abeta the IPCC? What does she have to do with anything.
Where does it say in AGW docs that every new season will be a record hurricane season ? Put up or shut up?
As for 50:50 – well Jen’s in the Australian on reef denialism so there’s one just the last few days. Have you made a count Woody?
Woody – all newspaper whingy whingy and politics – good theatre – not science, not policy. Just like talk back radio – 90% is “highly likely” to be shit.
And I always love the “hpmh – I’m bloody busy and haven’t got time for this crap”. Oh yes you did – it was long post.
And who say you’re going to reallocate 20% of your GNP? I think you’re an anti-AGW alarmist Woody.
Luke, It didn’t take a lot of time to write that. Maybe I think or type faster than you.
Media reports that quote scientists are just as good as science journals quoting the very same scientists. Just like a good liberal, you try to throw out any evidence that opposes your side and to discredit the authorities who might know more than you.
Hey, if you want more from “your side:”
http://www.cbcfinc.org/pdf/AAClim_chg_final.pdf (Page 6 of 1442)
African Americans Are Less Responsible for Climate Change
“In contrast to the burden of climate change, responsibility for the problem does not lie
primarily with African Americans. African American households emit twenty percent less
carbon dioxide than white households.”
That’s even better than other articles for the Left, because it not only says that global warming is a problem, but it says that white people are responsible. That’s a Two-fer!
And, if “very likely” really means 90% to the entire committee, then they should write 90% in the report rather than let three people interpret it that way for distribution. If the report does not state 90%, then it’s not 90%.
I’ve read numerous financial studies on the global warming battle, and 20% of the GNP is realistic to fund proposals and cut production in an attempt to meet CO2 and temperature reduction goals. To you guys, global warming a hundred years from now is more important to finance than killing terrorists trying to blow up your cities today.
Luke, I really am too busy to keep up a back-and-forth with someone who would cut off his fingers before he would type a concession that he might be wrong. It’s tax filing season in the U.S., so it’s my busy time–meaning 12-14 hour days. My firm helps people to minimize their taxes–mainly so global warming scientists will have less to spend.
Yes I’ll consider I cold be wrong on AGW – but it’s a risk management issue. On the balance of evidence it’s a sizeable concern.
You might argue if we were not in Iraq, had sorted out Afghanistan, found the terrorists and had a more moderate attitude to the Middle East our terrorist problems might reduce.
When you say “your side” – pls don’t generalise too hard. May be mutiple sides.
As for GNP – there is also a tremendous opportunity for new technologies and efficiency which can be sold in a capitalist system.
I notice business at Davos this year – theme – business is looking how to get closer to NGOs in a business/enviro win-win. Does it have to be so combative?
Won’t buy into your blacks/whites/climate change impact debate – your own internal issue in the US.