Roger Pielke Sr has highlighted three research findings that are in the peer reviewed literature, but have been completely ignored by the IPCC and CCSP climate assessment communities, nor have they been refuted in the literature. These are just three examples of the level to which the scientific method has sunk to in climate science.
Observations of the spatial distribution of aerosols in the atmosphere in the lower latitudes, shows that the aerosol effect on atmospheric circulations, as a result of their alteration in the heating of regions of the atmosphere, is 60 times greater than due to the heating effect of the human addition of well-mixed greenhouse gases [from Matsui and Pielke, 2006];
A conservative estimate of the warm bias in the construction of a global average surface temperature trend resulting from measuring the air temperature near the ground is around 0.21°C per decade (with the nighttime minimum temperature contributing a large part of this bias). Since land covers about 29% of the Earth’s surface, the warm bias due to this influence explains about 30% of the IPCC estimate of global warming. In other words, consideration of the bias in temperature would reduce the IPCC trend to about 0.14°C per decade; still a warming, but not as large as indicated [based on Lin et al 2007];
The radiative temperature of the Earth is used by the IPCC and CCSP to represent the portion of the radiation emitted at the top of the atmosphere which originates at the Earth’s surface. However, the outgoing long wave radiation is proportional to the fourth power of T [T4], from Stefan-Boltzman’s Law, not temperature by itself. A 1C increase in the polar latitudes in the winter, for example, would have much less of an effect on the change of long wave emission than a 1C increase in the tropics. The spatial distribution matters, but this important distinction has been ignored. A more appropriate measure of radiatively significant surface changes would be to evaluate the change of the global average of T4 with time. [Pielke et al 2007].
Until, and unless the climate science community returns to the proper scientific method of examining the climate system, policymakers will continue to be fed erroneous information. Only poor policy decisions can result due to this failure.
Recent Ignored Research Findings In Climate Science – An Illustration Of A Broken Scientific Method
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
I particularly like Roger’s documentation of the bias in the IPCC reports:
http://climatesci.org/2007/06/20/documentation-of-ipcc-wg1-bias-by-roger-a-pielke-sr-and-dallas-staley-part-i/
http://climatesci.org/2007/07/20/documentation-of-ipcc-wg1-bias-by-roger-a-pielke-sr-and-dallas-staley-part-ii/
Roger also argues that any temperature change has as much to do with third world countries as it does with first world. This can’t be popular!
An analysis for 10 years in Oklahoma generalised for to a century for the globe. Paul, this doesn’t pass the giggle test…
If you read the IPCC WG1 reports you will find that the surface and lower troposphere trends are statistically the same. Have you read them?
More in a similar vein:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/McLean_IPCC_bias.pdf
Looks like a fraud to me!
Yes indeed, as I posted (thanks for the heads-up Jennifer) in Michael Duffy’s blog in Sydney Morning Herald on 9 July:
In the name of political correctness we are now assailed daily from all sides by a multitude of organisations both Govt. and NGO populated by a cast of thousands of acolytes of the man-made global warming religion with massive vested interest in their continued employment.
Of course there is some truth to global warming but it is NOT a catastrophic truth. Where the problems arise is precisely where the truth transitions into outrageous hyperbole at the hands of those who have scant regard, or even the training, for the actual scientific facts of the matter.
The whole issue has become riddled with bias to the point where it now affects routinely the integrity of the scientific method, chances of employment in science, equitable or unbiased funding, fair publication rights etc., etc.
“The whole issue has become riddled with bias to the point where it now affects routinely the integrity of the scientific method, chances of employment in science, equitable or unbiased funding, fair publication rights etc., etc.”
Of course I’m sure you have extensive proof of these allegations including statements from those who have had their careers ruined solely on the basis of their disagreement with global warming orthodoxy.
What a load of conspiracy theory rubbish.
I’ve only had a preliminary look at the papers that were linked but I was struck by the irony of this blog in linking to papers that discuss in detail greenhouse gases and related cause/effect scenarios so recently after publishing the post “The Greenhouse Effect is a Myth: A Note from Jim Peden” which denied that the greenhouse effect exists at all.
It does lend the blog a certain lack of credibility overall.
I’m not alleging a conspiracy theory. Your fantasy not mine. I am not alleging ‘careers ruined’. Your fantasy, not mine. Don’t you straw man me, mate.
I am alleging a modern degradation of the standards of the scientific method. I have previously described, in detail, a concrete example relating to wild statements regarding ocean acidification, and dissolution of biogenic aragonite and calcite, which thoroughly repudiates the last 200 years of studies on chemothermodynamics and paleoclimatic studies (by literally 100s of scientists). Read the blog.
I am alleging that chances of continuing employment in science have been, for some individuals, prejudiced by a record of AGW scepticism, no matter how mild. There are concrete examples listed on the Net. Some are rather well known.
I am alleging that ongoing or renewed science funding can be difficult to obtain by those employed in science who have a record of AGW scepticism, no matter how mild. There are concrete examples listed on the Net and, as a working scientist, I am aware informally of local cases.
I am alleging that fair publication rights in e.g. IPCC reports and even ancillary position reports is denied. This thread started with specific examples! If you bother to explore the body of IPCC publications going back to 1997 you will easily find further examples.
Shorty: “The whole issue has become riddled with bias to the point where it now affects routinely the integrity of the scientific method”
I reckon you have spent too long working for industry and not the people. Climate science is a bit different to other fields of employment in that you can’t have a single focus. Change your reading specs and give up the “Australia”.
oops “Australian”
‘….the people’?
Now just who would they be?
Your people?
My people?
Some sort of old fashioned Marxist-Leninist “THE PEOPLE”?
Basically, mate, I’m working for my people i.e. my own kids and grand-kids, just trying to keep them safe from the depredations of seat-warming, birkenstock-wearing 1st world eco-nutters…..maybe your people???
Never read The Australian, don’t like it!
Steve Short – “Of course there is some truth to global warming but it is NOT a catastrophic truth”
How do you know that? Are you 100% certain that there is no chance of catastrophic climate change?
For the record I also agree that some less informed people on the AGW side do make statements that are not completely consistent with the science. However that does not make the science of AGW invalid.
However on a blog that posts one minute that the greenhouse effect does not exist and then this that acknowledges the enhanced greenhouse effect however disputes its effect is doublespeak of the highest order.
There is little doubt that greenhouse gases do alter the radiative balance of the Earth and affects the Earth’s temperature in concert with a host of positive and negative feedbacks from the incredible complex ocean/atmosphere system. We do not have a complete understanding of all these feedbacks and systems and possibly never will. However with the knowledge that we have we can confidently claim that there will be some degree of climate change resulting from human emitted greenhouse gases and land use changes.
What the climate change will be is anybody’s guess however prudent people, when faced with similar uncertainty, would plan for the worst and hope for the best. Lowering carbon emissions is part of planning for the worst.
Ha Ha; had to look up Birkenstock! Bet the “Australian” won’t feature them hey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkenstock
BTW I don’t keep up with IPCC reports either and I’m quite relaxed to let others dig dirt around them cause in the long term they will be just a passing phase in our understanding of things both natural and unnatural.
As far as “people” are involved there is much to be gained from moving beyond the industrial revolution and thus coming to terms with not depending on finite resources.
Ender: “There is little doubt that greenhouse gases do alter the radiative balance of the Earth”
Actually it can’t and there is little doubt about that the only thing it can possibly (and I mean only possibly) affect is the gradient from solid surface to vacuum of space, and that is what the greenhouse effect actually refers to.
“How do you know that? Are you 100% certain that there is no chance of catastrophic climate change?”
I am about 95% certain there is no chance of catastrophic climate change within the forseable future.
I have a number of technical reasons (based on a long careee in science), one of which is based on the paleoclimatic record.
The Late Carboniferous to Early Permian times 315 – 270 My is the only period in the last 600 million years when both atmospheric CO2 and temperatures were as low as they are today.
Please refer my post in another thread about temperature range (16 – 23 C, average 20 C), CO2 range (11 – 2500 ppmv – average 1800 ppmv) and maximal species origination rate in the Jurassic (144 – 213 My) for example – a period when mammals arose.
This was a period when global oceanic circulation (currents, trade winds) was generally far poorer than it is now due to the disposition of land.
Nevertheless, as soon as Pangaea began to break up in the mid-Jurassic and consequently global oceanic circulation improved (although still markedly poorer than now after the opening of the Drake Passage 41 My ago) then global temperatures fell precipitously from around 21 C to 16 C (only approx. 1.4 c higher than now) yet atmospheric CO2 held still at just over 2000 ppmv!
Riddle me that riddle!
I have an opinion but that is for another time.
“However on a blog that posts one minute that the greenhouse effect does not exist and then this that acknowledges the enhanced greenhouse effect however disputes its effect is doublespeak of the highest order.”
I agree entirely.
Ender: “However on a blog that posts one minute that the greenhouse effect does not exist and then this that acknowledges the enhanced greenhouse effect however disputes its effect is doublespeak of the highest order.”
Isn’t just putting up different POVs for discussion?
Ender says: “What the climate change will be is anybody’s guess however prudent people, when faced with similar uncertainty, would plan for the worst and hope for the best. Lowering carbon emissions is part of planning for the worst.”
Hope you got your tinfoil hat on, Ender.
In risk management you do NOT plan for the worst scenario, if you did, Qantas, for example, would issue passengers with parachutes and require them to file their dental records at the ticket counter. The UN would be spending trillions on an ADS (Asteroid Defense Shield.) Beach front property in Sydney would be worthless due to the likelihood of a 100-meter tall tsunami sweeping the coast clear any moment now in the next 50,000 years.
Prudent people are rational people. They have to get out of bed in the morning. They plan on the basis of probability. BTW, the worst scenario is that the Earth’s climate just tipped over recently into a rapid descent into the next Ice Age, rather than warming. But prudent people aren’t planning for that, I wonder why?
Furthermore IF, “What the climate change will be is anybody’s guess” as you say, then planning for it is a logical impossibility. No? Much less the worst possible scenario.
Wesley; never been a boy scout?
There is a lad at the markets who pesters me for pocket knives, you know those interesting ones that can skin a rabbit or fix a car. It’s quite prudent to think about what one may encounter in this lifetime including when to gather the odd stone.
The debate about the greenhouse concept is an essential one because IPCC and AGW supporters have commandeered the idea in a most egregious fashion, as witness Ender’s endless enjoinders, and little traps and snares that he lays out; thus, if the av temp is above what a BB would be without an atmosphere then it must be the case that extra CO2 will add to the greenhouse effect; well, no, it doesn’t follow at all; whether you note -ve feedbacks, which can only work if there is heating, or primary processes as per Stewart’s Law, which negates initial heating, or whether the atmosphere is subservient to the ocean as an insulator, which makes the relatively minute atmospheric alterations by humans irrelevant, the fact is AGW and ITS greenhouse concept has fallen on its face.
Speaking of which Glenn Albrecht had a piece in today’s NMH. Albrecht is an environmental philosopher who is on a stipend as associate professor for philosofunctionalism at Newcastle UNI; I can’t link his article, but here are some noteworthy extracts;
“Despite the Garnaut report, publicity is still being given to those like Des Moore who claim that the world cooled from 1940-1975. This is not correct because recent peer-reviewed and published research has shown that global temperature was not on a cooling trend during that period.
The global temperature rose during the 1940 and has continued to rise since.”
He can only be referring to the Thompson, Kennedy, Wallace and Jones ‘bucket’ paper. he continues;
“Twenty of the hottest years on record for the planet have all come in the past 26 years, with 2007 the second-warmest on record.
In 2008, the first 6 months of the year have all been above historic global temperature averages.”
Oceans get the usual kick along;
“The ocean is also warming at record rates with thermal expansion rates 50 percent larger than previous estimates.”
With the ‘science’ out of the way comes the ideology’
“The 300-year era of perpetual growth, aggressive wealth creation and excess consumption is over.”
“Earth leadership is now needed for a new era in which our demands on the planet fit within the limits of what the earth can sustain.” “Cheap oil and cheap power from coal have made for a great party, but the party is now over.” “However, rather than dismissing the recent climate camp in Newcastle and the anti-coal activism that went with it as minority group extremism, we should be supporting those who are brave enough to lead the charge.”
The good professor needs to bone up on expedient non-conformity. The young and brave I saw had all the mod-cons during their sleep-over, but that degree of hypocrisy is small potatoes; Albrecht lumps CO2 in with all the other real pollution issues, fresh water, some over-harvesting, to reach a conclusion about a “system in terminal decline.” This is catastrophism masking misanthropy and personal neurosis; it has no basis in science or any objective reality; the reality being offered here is an ideological one; all that can be done is to keep hammering it with its flaws and inconsistencies; compared to these, the ‘inconsistency’ of dealing with science which supposedly accepts a greenhouse effect and science which disputes this terminology as corrupted by AGW, is insignificant.
On a different note; Steve, what is your favourite dinosaur?
Steve – “The Late Carboniferous to Early Permian times 315 – 270 My is the only period in the last 600 million years when both atmospheric CO2 and temperatures were as low as they are today.
Please refer my post in another thread about temperature range (16 – 23 C, average 20 C), CO2 range (11 – 2500 ppmv – average 1800 ppmv) and maximal species origination rate in the Jurassic (144 – 213 My) for example – a period when mammals arose. ”
Thats great but what were the sea level like then? The hills behind where I grew up in Byron Bay have sea shells in them perhaps from this time. True high CO2 levels may not bring fire and brimstone destruction however sea levels rising to the level they were when CO2 was this high would be catastrophic. Also from the record these changes can happen quite quickly, over decades, once the get going.
Also those very high CO2 readings, as far as I know, are from one paper of stomatal numbers. This study seems to disagree at least for the period that it covers.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/292/5525/2310
“Paleobotanical Evidence for Near Present-Day Levels of Atmospheric CO2 During Part of the Tertiary
Dana L. Royer,1*dagger Scott L. Wing,2 David J. Beerling,3 David W. Jolley,4 Paul L. Koch,5 Leo J. Hickey,1 Robert A. Berner1
Understanding the link between the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) and Earth’s temperature underpins much of paleoclimatology and our predictions of future global warming. Here, we use the inverse relationship between leaf stomatal indices and the partial pressure of CO2 in modern Ginkgo biloba and Metasequoia glyptostroboides to develop a CO2 reconstruction based on fossil Ginkgo and Metasequoia cuticles for the middle Paleocene to early Eocene and middle Miocene. Our reconstruction indicates that CO2 remained between 300 and 450 parts per million by volume for these intervals with the exception of a single high estimate near the Paleocene/Eocene boundary. These results suggest that factors in addition to CO2 are required to explain these past intervals of global warmth.”
It has also been cited by many other authors.
Perhaps you can supply the source for 2000ppmv CO2.
As there is so much controvosy about tree ring proxies, confidently saying that CO2 levels were 2000ppmv 600 million years ago from stomatal proxies is committing the same error that some people accuse climate scientists of doing.
If I understand Grendel and Ender correctly, there are things they think are inappropriate for this blog to ponder.
That position says more about them than this blog. The subtle leitmotif running through all these threads seems to be that the science ain’t settled and the debate ain’t over. Given our hosts seem intent on inciting debate and questioning the science, it’s not surprising that they post a variety of ideas for discussion with little thought to consistency in content. Nevertheless, they remain consistent as a forum for free and open debate.
Paradoxically, the lack of scientific orthodoxy that Grendel and Ender alluded to is why they’re welcomed here. They themselves are beneficiaries of this blog’s tolerance of multiple POVs.
However, those on AGW side of the debate demand their followers subscribe to a very particular scientific orthodoxy, the big questions are all settled over at Realclimate and Rabbett…. It is understandable the believers should demand the same sense of certitude on the part of the sceptical.
wes – “In risk management you do NOT plan for the worst scenario, if you did, Qantas, for example, would issue passengers with parachutes and require them to file their dental records at the ticket counter.”
However they do supply them with lifejackets, emergency oxygen, seat belts and detail emergency procedures which they deem balance what they can do for the worst while planning for a safe and trouble free flight.
“Prudent people are rational people. They have to get out of bed in the morning. They plan on the basis of probability.”
Yes they do. You have a collection of bright people who have detailed in exhaustive detail that there is a significant risk of damaging climate change from human greenhouse emissions.
Your response to this is to deny the science and rubbish the scientists. This is the equivilent of flying an airline that denies that accidents ever happen, despite the statistics and observations, and not supplying any safety gear in your aircraft.
Gavin,
You mean those Swiss Navy pocket knives?
That would about sum up those AGW solutions.
Wes
Based on the Last Interglacial, for obvious reasons the best characterized of all Quaternary interglacials other than the present one, its peak phase (known as Oxygen Isotope Sub-stage 5e) which interestingly, was characterized by two maximal sea level pulsations about 12±2 ky apart (128±1 ky and 116± ky). The sea level was firstly ~3 m high than present and secondly about 5 m higher then present. It is claimed that CO2 was marginally lower than now but in reality the resolution of that estimate is probably only of the order of ± 100 ppmv.
This is mirrored perhaps in the current peak interglacial period as approx. 8 ky ago the early Holocene was warmer than now. By analogy we could well be rising towards a 2nd such peak right now.
However, based on the experience of the Last Interglacial (and the ones before it) there will only be a very long slow slide to the next glacial. It is only the Terminations (glacial -> interglacial) which are abrupt.
That’s interesting, Steve. Glad I didn’t change my plans for next weekend based on the worst possible scenario of abrupt glaciation. It seems less than probable.
Sounds like the seashell hills of Byron Bay have been uplifted.
You seem to be well versed on this topic. Do you know whether it can be shown that the CO2 ppm rises (and I suppose falls) occur at time intervals with the ice age cycle that would imply causality? I’ve read contradictory opinions on this.
How are you with tsunamis?
Here we go again:
“Perhaps you can supply the source for 2000ppmv CO2.”
Geology 101
Google 1) palaeocene & CO2; 2) cretaceous & CO2
Scores of papers from various Geological Societies with dating/CO2 estimates using drill core data ranging from foraminifera palaeoshells to C/O isotopes in basalts from ocean ridge flows.
Ender
The CO2 levels are from R. A. (Bob) Berner 2001 and are based on use of the GEOCARB III model calibrated with carbon and strontium isotope ratios in secondary minerals (paleosols, biogenic carbonates etc) formed at the time. It does not rely on stomatal index work at all.
The stuff by Royer et al. on stomatal indices has ALWAYS been dodgy as it ignores significant flaws often reported in the very same literature (yet another attempt to establish a false orthodoxy – more and more common in post-modernist science), of which a recent paper on nearly uniform leaf temperatures etc is but the latest! The reference you quote is doubly ironic because it means that Dana Royer is more than happy to, in effect, pour shit on his previous occasional co-author the venerable geochemist Bob Berner.
Again, ironically, I have discussed this very issue (stomatal indices) in this blog before – you must just have missed my posts! (;-)
There is absolutely no doubt that atmospheric CO2 got to levels slightly in excess of 2400 ppmv in the Late Jurassic – there are genuine, recognisable stratigraphic instances of ‘biocalcification crises’ to prove it.
Again, as I have also pointed out in this blog several times this is equivalent to driving the thermodynamic Saturation Index of aragonite down to 0.00. Note my use of the word ‘genuine, recognisable’ here – not to to be confused with the shonky modern day ‘ocean acidification’ AGW BS.
As for your shells in the hills behind you – well, have you never heard of geological uplift, sinking, dipping etc? Do you know what eustasy is???
“You have a collection of bright people who have detailed in exhaustive detail that there is a significant risk of damaging climate change from human greenhouse emissions.”
This is demonstrable nonsense. I earlier detailed the list of people on the front cover of AR4 (the “oxygen thieves”, as you may recall). Where are the “bright people”? I have been doing the due diligence, and so far a lot of them are political hacks, or other blends of scientists that are not climatologists. Lenny Bernstein is a chemical engineer as is Bert Metz. Peter Bosch is a Project Manager. Ogunlade Davidson is a Dean of the Faculty of Engineering. Osvaldo Canziani – ah-ha .. a Doctor of Meteorology, close, but no cigar… and so on it goes. Hopefully I will encounter a climatologist before I get to the end of the list.
How are these people qualified to screw over everyone’s future and impose their dogma on the world? You may be silly enough to unquestioningly accept this lot as “a collection of bright people”, but most of the rest of us have higher standards.
“Your response to this is to deny the science and rubbish the scientists.”
For very valid reasons – 1) it is not a science, and 2) most of them are neither scientists nor have qualifications in an appropriate discipline.
OOPS – I forgot to mention a one teensy weensy little thing.
Enders’ rebutting Royer et al. reference is to “…Atmospheric CO2 During Part of the Tertiary”
I was talking about the Jurassic – finishing only a mere 79 My before the Tertiary even began…… poor boy doesn’t even know his geologic periods.
Steve; I note your objections to the Berner stomatal paper, but you may be interested in this graph which was prepared on the basis of the other Berner paper to which ender refers to, that is, the non-stomatal one you note above; the link is too long so I won’t bother; but here is the graph;
http://www.junkscience.com/images/paleocarbon.gif
BTW, my favourite Jurassic dinosaur was the Liopleurodon, eater of Leedsichthys!
As you may know, the distant ancestor of mankind was a tiny little mouse back in the Jurassic. But we nearly didn’t make due to a very unwise War on Pterodactyls.
Bit like the ‘war on climate change’.
Actually Wes, were you to take a quick look through all the posts made on the topic of climate change, I think you’d find that a fairly large majority (if not all) could be placed under a ‘Sceptic’ heading. This blog, is in fact renowned for that.
On the plus side this blog is also known to be tolerant of debate – and as you suggest dissenting opinions are not prohibited.
My comment stands – this blog frequently posts contradictory posts (sourced from a variety of sources rather than authored by the blog owners). This lends it an air of disarrayed defence of scepticism rather than reasoned consideration of the science.
Grendel, we do agree on some things.
I think the problem lies in the concept of “denialism.” Although, I note gratefully that you have refrained from using that bigoted ad hominem and I thank you. Yet, the slur always lingers like the sword of Damocles over every debate.
The honourable Ross Garnaut used it recently to characterize an argument from the NSW state government.
The same is true with the less offensive, yet nonsensical “climate change sceptic,” that the media uses in an Orwellian fashion. As if there is a rational person upon this planet who would deny that the climate is changing.
The latest Orwellian newspeak in the media: “Carbon Pollution.” Not carbon emissions. CO2 is evil now. All those old bio-chem textbooks will have to be recalled and burnt in bonfires. “Carbon, the ring of life.” Hello? Minister for Climate Truth, Penny Wong, on the phone. Your Funding is Terminated.
I know someone beholden to politics who is a closet “climate change sceptic.” The oppression is so great, that this person cannot exchange personal emails from work on the topic for fear of being exposed. It’s like being a homosexual in the 1950’s. People live in total fear. I’m told the situation is the same in every relevant ministry in Canberra. Welcome to East Germany? Dissenters stay silent or they forfeit their careers.
With such pervasive negative stereotyping in mind, citizens might be excused for imagining that the sceptics were all of one mind, receiving marching orders from a small cabal of evil conspirators. But this is what bigotry is about, all homosexuals, Jews, blacks, wogs, whoever, are dehumanized as a stereotypical unities.
Naturally, the climate bigots want the skeptics to behave to conform with the prejudice.
Grendel, there is no sceptic orthodoxy as there is an AGW dogma. Sceptics are only united in their belief that the debate isn’t over and the science isn’t settled.
The disarrayed defence of scepticism is a sign of the reasoned consideration of the science! Once, such scepticism would have simply been seen as Enlightenment values at work.
The irony is that the champions of multiculturalism and civil rights are the ones imposing this new form of prejudice upon our polity.
Grendel ????
No disrespect, but I think you better stick to coffee!
Cheers
Ender asks for 100% assurances which is unrealistic – nothing in life is certain
Also ignored by the ‘consensus’:
Marine Ecosystem Response to “Ocean Acidification” Due to Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment
Vogt, M., Steinke, M., Turner, S., Paulino, A., Meyerhofer, M., Riebesell, U., LeQuere, C. and Liss, P. 2008. Dynamics of dimethylsulphoniopropionate and dimethylsulphide under different CO2 concentrations during a mesocosm experiment. Biogeosciences 5: 407-419.
Effects of atmospheric CO2 enrichment on various marine microorganisms and DMS production were studied in nine marine mesocosms maintained within 2-meter-diameter polyethylene bags submerged to a depth of ten meters in a fjord adjacent to the Large-Scale Facilities of the Biological Station of the University of Bergen in Espegrend, Norway. Three of the mesocosms were maintained at ambient levels of CO2 (~375 ppm), three were maintained at levels expected to prevail at the end of the current century (760 ppm or 2x CO2), and three were maintained at levels predicted for the middle of the next century (1150 ppm or 3x CO2), while measurements of numerous ecosystem parameters were made over a period of 24 days.
No significant phytoplankton species shifts were detected between treatments, and “the ecosystem composition, bacterial and phytoplankton abundances and productivity, grazing rates and total grazer abundance and reproduction were not significantly affected by CO2 induced effects,”. Cited in support of this statement is the work of Riebesell et al. (2007), Riebesell et al. (2008), Egge et al. (2007), Paulino et al. (2007), Larsen et al. (2007), Suffrian et al. (2008) and Carotenuto et al. (2007). In addition, while DMS stayed elevated in the treatments with elevated CO2, a steep decline was observed in DMS concentration in the treatment with low CO2,” i.e., the ambient CO2 treatment.
The eight researchers say their observations suggest that “the system under study was surprisingly resilient to abrupt and large pH changes,” i.e. just the opposite of what the world’s AGW alarmists (AND the Australian Greenhouse Office) characteristically predict about near term (!) CO2-induced “ocean acidification.”
Steve – “There is absolutely no doubt that atmospheric CO2 got to levels slightly in excess of 2400 ppmv in the Late Jurassic – there are genuine, recognisable stratigraphic instances of ‘biocalcification crises’ to prove it.”
Before you crow too loudly I did recognise that the paper I posted was from a different era and prefaced my remarks with “for the time period that this paper covered”. The problem the you have missed or glossed over is the sea level during this time. In this paper there is a nice graph that shows sea levels in the Late Jurassic/Cretaceous that shows that they were between 100m and 200m higher than today.
http://epic.awi.de/Publications/Lan2004a.pdf
As dinosaurs even your favourite ones, as far as we know, did not build real estate close to oceans and so sea level rises of this nature with the high CO2 levels of the time would not have affected the dinosaur economy of the time. Also none of the proxies we have available tell us of the nature of the weather of the time nor the rainfall patterns. Simply saying that CO2 in the past was really high and so it should be OK now is nonsensical. Today we have massive populations living within a sea level rise of 1 or 2 meters. Most of our major capital cities and financial centers are also close to the coast and vunerable.
While 2400ppmv CO2 will have very little effect on the Earth it could have a catastrophic effect on the 8 billion or so humans that inhabit it.
So you need to explain your position. Simply claiming that because CO2 was 2400ppmv in the Jurassic so everything will be OK today is not worthy of you.
It is quite clear you have real big conceptual difficulties with the basic physics of the earths crustal geosphere.
Sea levels in the geologic past mean little in an absolute sense, climate wise and thus are thus almost utterly irrelevant to the modern situation.
At any one point in geological time sea level is simply achieved by the eustatic balance between the mass/volume of uplifted continental mass (due to the numbers and disposition of the continental plates), the total volume/mass of water and, IF there is/are one or two frozen polar regions, the total volume of unsupported ice.
Sheesh! Here we are in 2008 and it’s like poor old Archimedes never ever ran down the street crying Eureka! You know who he was I presume – if not I’d be inclined to have you put down (;-)
There was very little polar ice during most of the Jurassic, or in most other periods. There was also, by way of counterbalance, generally less volume/area of uplifted continent above water (but greater area of shallow, thus more poorly circulated sea).
The important context is exactly as I described it – the estimated range of global surface temperatures (both in soils on the continents and in the surface layer of the ocean) and the estimated range of atmospheric CO2. Both the Jurassic and the Cretaceous Period which followed it etc etc show clearly that there are other comparable or even more powerful drivers of global mean temperature than CO2.
At the end of the day, the lesson of even just (say) the past 180 My since the breakup of the continents is that atmospheric CO2 levels have varied from ~250 ppmv to ~2500 ppmv i.e. 10 times while mean global temperatures have varied from ~12 C to ~23 C BUT with no exclusive or strongly evident correlation between the two.
Maps of early Jurassic and late show the gradual splitting up of Gondwana;
http://www.scotese.com/jurassic.htm
http://www.scotese.com/late1.htm
The ice over Antartica and Greenland did not form till much later; as of now, then the sea level had nothing to do with CO2.
“I’ve only had a preliminary look at the papers that were linked but I was struck by the irony of this blog in linking to papers that discuss in detail greenhouse gases and related cause/effect scenarios so recently after publishing the post “The Greenhouse Effect is a Myth: A Note from Jim Peden” which denied that the greenhouse effect exists at all.
It does lend the blog a certain lack of credibility overall.”
That’s the good thing about not having a consensus, it means you can believe two mutually contradictory things at the same time, and still be right.
Mark ” More in a similar vein:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/McLean_IPCC_bias.pdf
Looks like a fraud to me!”
I agree.
The extent to which the rug has been pulled over our eyes by incompetent or extremely naive elitist groups acting in concert, to advance their own self interests, at everyone elses expense, is highly disturbing.
Perhaps the worst breach is that by Karoly signing off as Review Editor, with a one liner being passed off as a Written Report required by the IPCC rules to elaborate on where significant differences of opinion in scientific issues remained..and for this to be included as an Annex.
Given what is known by a large number of others who hold a different view, by any professional standard this is just not good enough.
“That’s the good thing about not having a consensus, it means you can believe two mutually contradictory things at the same time, and still be right.”
Actually, I think it says something instructive about this blog’s critics. Different people having different opinions is not “mutually contradictory” nor does it vitiate this blogs credibility since different authors are under no obligation to have a single voice.
Steve Short – “Sea levels in the geologic past mean little in an absolute sense, climate wise and thus are thus almost utterly irrelevant to the modern situation. ”
I completely agree. Notwithstanding my complete lack of understanding of basic physics of the earths crustal geosphere then if sea levels in the geological past were utterly irrelevant to the modern situation then the CO2 levels of the geological past are also utterly irrelevant to the modern situation.
Which makes your statements, with your deep understanding of the basic physics of the Earth’s crutal geosphere, even more nonsensical. At least I have the excuse of ignorance.
If we cannot relate the effects of high CO2 in the Jurassic era to the modern era then perhaps we can consign this argument to the recycling bin where it belongs.
Duh.
The important context is exactly as I described it – the estimated range of global surface temperatures (both in soils on the continents and in the surface layer of the ocean) and the estimated range of atmospheric CO2. Both the Jurassic and the Cretaceous Period which followed it etc etc show clearly that there are other comparable or even more powerful drivers of global mean temperature than CO2.
At the end of the day, the lesson of even just (say) the past 180 My since the breakup of the continents is that atmospheric CO2 levels have varied from ~250 ppmv to ~2500 ppmv i.e. 10 times while mean global temperatures have varied from ~12 C to ~23 C BUT with no exclusive or strongly evident correlation between the two.
Wes,
I’ve no problem at all with people being sceptical about climate change but the range of posts here seems to go beyond that and has the appearence of grasping at any sceptical straw that appears to support the ‘sceptic’ side of the debate.
To be sure, this blog is entitled to choose its place in the debate but some of the posts have been unfortunate in their source in-so-much as the source has not been credible. The other side of the debate actually has the same problem, sometimes people either make things up, or choose information that does not have a good foundation in science to support their point.
I’d much rather have arguments on all points well supported by evidence than the mish-mash (or indeed a hodge-podge!) of information that seems to appear.
“quantity has a quality all of its own” may be an appropriate aphorism for tank battles but rarely in rational debate.
Martin – I’ll stick to coffee if you stick to pitchblende.
Yes Ender – it’s the old ruse argument #27 – back in the day (geological time wise)
Sun with what level of output, Earth in what Milankovitch cycle(s), volcanoes doing who knows what, continents in different configurations in different parts of the world, with a totally different fauna and flora – not to mention major extinction events and the whole she-bang spread over zillions of years. PETM not mentioned (sshhh).
So just ignore those few details and the past is a totally analogous situation with the present. Only a cold rock geologist could try this ruse on !
Nasty there Grendel, but what can one expect heh?
“Sun with what level of output, Earth in what Milankovitch cycle(s), volcanoes doing who knows what, continents in different configurations….”
Yeah, precisely, and despite all that ‘scary’ stuff do you know what the wonderful miracle of all that was?
Let me tell you (even though it is staring you right in your immature face).
CO2 only varied over a RANGE of about 2250 ppmv and average global temperature only RANGED over 11 degrees from a chilly 12 C to a sweaty 23 C, lying between about 21 C and 16 C about 95% of the time.
Other than the K-T asteroid event all of that time humans could have survived on this planet – indeed we evolved out of the last 10% with average global temperatures from about 17 C downwards.
Surprise, surprise, there are humans by their millions living happily (albeit poorly in many cases) all over this planet where the average daily temperature significantly exceeds 23 C or is below 12 C.
And you, you ignorant nong, raised in the comfort of a middle latitudes 1st world nation, driving your car, sitting in front of your TV, think the sky is going to fall in because you and your descendant’s average daily temperature might rise a few degrees before mankind moves out of the fossil fuel period of history!
I doubt whether you ever raised a sweat over anything (or anyone) other than your own optimal comfort level.
This is why the poor, huddled masses of this planet have nothing to expect from the likes of you but sanctimonious preaching.
Sickening.
Martin – why is that nasty?
I feel we both have the same opportunity to think, so why should I think only about coffee?
I’m not asking that you stick to your area of interest so long as you allow me the right to do the same.
Steve Short – “At the end of the day, the lesson of even just (say) the past 180 My since the breakup of the continents is that atmospheric CO2 levels have varied from ~250 ppmv to ~2500 ppmv i.e. 10 times while mean global temperatures have varied from ~12 C to ~23 C BUT with no exclusive or strongly evident correlation between the two.”
Well that is not really quite true. Would you not agree that when there was high CO2 levels the Earth was warmer? Certainly the evidence from the recent past with ice cores shows when CO2 is high the Earth is warm and when it is low the Earth is cool. That reference I posted shows the times of super greenhouse during the Cretaceous shows high CO2 and high SSTs.
Nobody is saying or even implying that CO2 is the only driver of climate. The jury is still out on the recent past ice core records as to whether CO2 lead temperatures or lagged them. Also with the amount of events, even in the past 600 000 years, we do not know that all the events had the same triggers. We can see the Malankovitch cycles and that when temperatures start to rise, CO2 rises at approx the same time and presumably sea levels rise.
Right now we are pumping carbon into the atmosphere independent of whatever the Malankovitch cycle is and basically recreating the conditions that would have been present at the start of an upward cycle. Since you agree that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that CO2 is produced from human activity and you have the benefit of knowledge or the paleoclimate I fail to see how you could conclude anything but that elevated CO2 levels produce or a associated with a warmer climate. A warmer climate will have less land locked ice (despite your slur I do know about Archimedes) and therefore higher sea levels.
In the modern era higher sea levels, particularly if they happen quickly, will have a catastrophic effect on human society.
Ender – “In the modern era higher sea levels, particularly if they happen quickly, will have a catastrophic effect on human society.”
Obviously you need to be reminded again . . .
“CO2 only varied over a RANGE of about 2250 ppmv and average global temperature only RANGED over 11 degrees from a chilly 12 C to a sweaty 23 C, lying between about 21 C and 16 C about 95% of the time.”
Are you actually mental? So we raise the planet’s current temperature by say 8 degrees on average and everything will go swimmingly with 6 billion humans going to 9 billion will it?
Bullcrap.
Geologists are pretty stoopid ! The argument goes well all this stuff happened before and we’re still here aren’t we. Well know – if you check out the mitochondrial DNA it’s a bit lucky we’re here at all.
And people were sitting in their first world lifestyle driving their cars and watching TV in New Orleans before Katrina too. Listening to you one would think these sort of events never happen. Droughts never occur either.
I noticed you jumped to philosophy and vanished when asked to make a contribution to an existing climate problem” Oh boy – is that the time – gotta go” Puff of smoke. Piece of paper wafts to the ground slowly. Just another rich denialist arsehole.
The point is that EVEN WITH all the other drivers which evidently must operated over the last 180 My, for temperature to then only range (maximum) over 11 C and to lie within a range of 5 C at about the 95% level is a remarkable testimony to the level of homeostasis progressively built into the plant’s biogeosphere.
It doesn’t take genius to figure out what the primary elements of that homeostasis must be and ocean circulation and downwelling/upwelling is clearly a major factor. This is why the little appreciated opening of the Drake Passage about 61 My ago can only, by definition, have strengthened that homeostasis even further. My studies on the improving primary productivity of the Great Southern Ocean in terms of CO2 uptake support that nicely.
As you well know there is lots of argument over CO2 sensitivity. There have been a large number of papers in the last 4 – 5 years, of which Roy Spencer’s is only the most recent arguing that CO2 sensitivity (delta T for doubling of CO2)is likely to be less than 2.5 C and may even be less than 1.25 C. Some of this has even been based on retrospective analyses of the effects of such events as Pinatubo etc. All anathema to the ‘consensus’ but there in the literature all the same.
Problem is IPCC (and the whole assocaited bandwagon of techno-hacks) have a group tendency to dismiss negative feedbacks they don’t understand or never even thought of. We now have several solid examples such as Ramanathan et al. and Spencer have shown.
I note your past posts have shown you wouldn’t have clue about the difference between absorptive and reflective aerosols and can’t even spell many technical abbreviations properly. What does that tell us?
As for suggesting contributory material for a departmental response to the EC paper I did indeed do so – clearly supporting such things as significant reforestation and a shift of cultivation to the north e.g the Gulf country, doing this because I actually believe in a more modest degree of AGW. These are both strategies which have been firmly listed by several Ministers in the last few days!
Yet, on the other hand YOU however NEVER SAID A SINGLE DAMN WORD in this blog about what YOU would put would put in a strategy paper for YOUR Minister in response to EC.
So is this how you twitter your way through whatever miserable paper shuffling activity you call a career?
Steve Short – “The point is that EVEN WITH all the other drivers which evidently must operated over the last 180 My, for temperature to then only range (maximum) over 11 C and to lie within a range of 5 C at about the 95% level is a remarkable testimony to the level of homeostasis progressively built into the plant’s biogeosphere.”
And with that temperature variation the Earth ranged from super greenhouse to snowball. The problem is that, evidenced from the paleoclimate record, small changes in the Earths average temperature can have profound effects on the climate and the carrying capacity of the Earth.
“Problem is IPCC (and the whole assocaited bandwagon of techno-hacks) have a group tendency to dismiss negative feedbacks they don’t understand or never even thought of. We now have several solid examples such as Ramanathan et al. and Spencer have shown.”
Not really IPCC range is 1.5 deg to 4.5 deg which Spencer’s work falls inside and his speculation is just outside. I really cannot understand your problem. You quote a scientist that projects climate sensitivity within the range quoted by the IPCC and then try to claim some conspiracy. And they are all guesses.
The point is that even your favourite scientists guess that warming could be 1.5 deg if we manage to hold the CO2 level to double which unless we take action to reduce CO2 emissions is not going to happen. Spencers guess, which could be just as wrong as all the others, still acknowledges some warming and some climate change.
Again all this argument is for climate sensitivity which is for a doubling of CO2. If we do not change how we do energy in this society, doubling of CO2 could be regarded as a distant memory as CO2 levels go much higher. No-one has yet had a guess at what triple CO2 level would be or more.
Steve, interesting comments about planetary homeostasis – almost sounds like the abysmal Gaia theory to me. However, taking that analogy one step further, is it possible (in your view) to push global temperatures to a point beyond the capacity of natural homeostasis to respond (at least within a timeframe meaningful to humans)?
Grendel
To treat your question with the dignity it deserves IMHO the answer is NO.
Atmospheric CO2 is currently rising at exactly 0.45%/year. This is a substantially slower rate that the CURRENT rate of increase of anthropogenic emissions (3%/year since 2000). STRANGELY THIS RATE OF INCREASE OF ATMOSPHERIC CO2 HAS BEEN ABSOLUTELY CONSTANT BETWEEN AT LEAST 1982 AND 2006 DESPITE a marked increase in the rate of increase of anthropogenic emissions!
This clearly proves that the world has in place a powerful homeostatic CO2 and temperature management system – as you would expect from the past requirement to handle the enormous variations in biomass (and hence aerobic decomposition rates generating CO2) which can occur as the land masses and oceans have shifted around and changed in area and climatic zones. Call it Gaia if you wish.
Atmospheric CO2 would increase at a great rate of course if the oceans were not taking up CO2 as a consequence of the solubility of CO2 in water, the fixation of dissolved CO2 and bicarbonate by cyanobacteria (phytoplankton)and the transfer of both dissolved CO2 and bicarbonate and organic matter (dead cyanobacteria) into the intermediate and deep ocean through down welling by colder, denser water and particle sinking. This is called the ‘oceanic CO2 conveyor’.
We don’t really now how this ‘oceanic CO2 conveyor’ is going to respond to future increased atmospheric CO2 but my studies indicate that at least for the Great Southern Ocean and the South East Pacific it is increasing its CO2 removal rate relative to the global rate of CO2 rise – hence by definition it is ‘gaining’.
This is possibly due to an inbuilt ‘self fertilization effect’ (CO2 is a fertilizer of all photosynthesizers), the increasing runoff of fertilizing nitrogeneous species from the continents and the increased runoff of clays and silts from agriculture providing adequate iron and silica (the other essential nutrients).
You can see here that the system (Gaia) is smart enough to use EVERYTHING that man emits in bulk. Understandable given that we are simply offspring of the very same system!
Note well that mankind is now simply currently conducting its own copycat version of numerous past NATURAL ‘experiments’ by ‘Gaia’ with her own homeostatic system where the amount of CO2 circulated in the atmosphere was far more massive that it is at this page of mankind’s history.
Current projected atmospheric CO2 levels are 429 ppmv at year 2050, 538 ppmv at year 2100, 842 at year 2200 and 1322 ppmv at year 2300. By then the world is bound to have run out of fossil fuels and CO2 levels would not not even have doubled twice!
At most we can therefore expect about a 2.15 – 4.30 C rise over the entire historical period of fossil fuel use based on CO2 sensitivity in the range 1.25 C (my more moderate position) to say 2.5 C (arguably the best ‘consensus’ position).
It is hardly likely that in the time between now and when mankind runs out of liquid and solid fossil fuels there is going to be enough CO2 in the atmosphere to cause either catastrophic climate change i.e. change we cannot adjust to, or even gross oceanic acidification.
What is more, we have it in our power to stimulate the oceanic CO2 conveyor by increasing global phytoplankton growth quite easily and relatively inexpensively using targeted nutrient augmentation over appropriate regions IF the rate of increase of CO2 in the atmospheric rose sufficiently for us to conclude the homeostatic system was not ‘keeping up’ fast enough. Some twelve oceanic enrichment experiments prove this to be a fact.
IMHO this is the ONLY approach that would be would be morally, ethically and environmentally justifiable and benign i.e. it doesn’t selfishly screw the billions of poor on this planet out of their birthright and it doesn’t produce a lasting adverse effect on the homeostatic system itself which in any way imperils its ability to relax after the CO2 peak is passed.
This explains why I believe this ‘war on climate change’ is essentially a transient historical phase of collective hysteria and monumentally arrogant foolishness. It does mankind no credit, daily repudiates the high ideals of the Enlightenment and worst of all immorally sets the rich portion of the human race against the poor portion FOR NO GOOD REASON.
Sorry, I can’t buy it.
Steve Short – “To treat your question with the dignity it deserves IMHO the answer is NO.”
The problem is that people disagree with you:
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/47/18866.abstract
“The growth rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), the largest human contributor to human-induced climate change, is increasing rapidly. Three processes contribute to this rapid increase. Two of these processes concern emissions. Recent growth of the world economy combined with an increase in its carbon intensity have led to rapid growth in fossil fuel CO2 emissions since 2000: comparing the 1990s with 2000–2006, the emissions growth rate increased from 1.3% to 3.3% y −1. The third process is indicated by increasing evidence (P = 0.89) for a long-term (50-year) increase in the airborne fraction (AF) of CO2 emissions, implying a decline in the efficiency of CO2 sinks on land and oceans in absorbing anthropogenic emissions.”
And
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/research/review/materials/Topic_Summaries/Carbon_dioxide_Methane_and_Climate.pdf
“Based on 50 years of direct observations of the atmosphere, it is clear that this trend continues and is accelerating. NOAA/ESRL is responsible for
acquiring and maintaining the global, regional, and local record of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. From observatories and cooperative sampling sites around the world, we measure greenhouse gases and
work with partners to improve the comparability of these measurements. They are used to quantify and improve our understanding of the sources, sinks, and trends of these gases.
This continuing record is critical to the diagnosis of current global climate trends and to help project the potential evolution of climate.”
Accelerating CO2 levels are at odds with your linear homeostasis model. Also it is at odds with your claim that “hence by definition it is ‘gaining’.”
Have you published this research?
“This explains why I believe this ‘war on climate change’ is essentially a transient historical phase of collective hysteria and monumentally arrogant foolishness. It does mankind no credit, daily repudiates the high ideals of the Enlightenment and worst of all immorally sets the rich portion of the human race against the poor portion FOR NO GOOD REASON.”
So now you are just carrying on. This is your opinion and nothing else. You cannot back this up with anything but a vague reference you your studies of the Southern Ocean. If this is going to change what we do in the future why are you not bringing this to the attention of the IPCC authors for the next report.
“As for suggesting contributory material for a departmental response to the EC paper I did indeed do so – clearly supporting such things as significant reforestation and a shift of cultivation to the north e.g the Gulf country, doing this because I actually believe in a more modest degree of AGW.” I just spat coffee all over my keyboard laughing. Maaatttee – you could be a genius. That will help. LMAO… ROTFL !
Ender – geologists are often arrogant about biology. Something about the coldness of rocks perhaps.
Climatically it’s lucky we made it through as a species at all – to be now at a point of being able to actually discuss the planet’s atmosphere. But some geologists don’t really care whether we’re homo sapiens or trilobites.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/04/24/close.call.ap/index.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080424-humans-extinct.html
http://download.ajhg.org/AJHG/pdf/PIIS0002929708002553.pdf
You’ll notice that our major problems with climate carried through right with droughts through the so-called Medieval Optimum period. And so here we are again.
It’s most strange that a suggestion of incremental technological adaptations to our energy systems are received with such hostility by the planet’s current set of hominids.
‘At most we can therefore expect about a 2.15 – 4.30 C rise over the entire historical period of fossil fuel use based on CO2 sensitivity in the range 1.25 C (my more moderate position) to say 2.5 C (arguably the best ‘consensus’ position).
It is hardly likely that in the time between now and when mankind runs out of liquid and solid fossil fuels there is going to be enough CO2 in the atmosphere to cause either catastrophic climate change i.e. change we cannot adjust to, or even gross oceanic acidification.’
You are talking as a non-biologist about human life adapting. What of other species for which your temperature change is not conducive to their survival? How many species would you be willing to let go?
All too often various people here draw on past climatic events as evidence that butterflies and seals can readily adapt to any changes that may occur. It astounds me that this simple answer is used so readily and that our own survival is viewed in isolation from other living organisms.
Oooh Shorty spent too much time in the heady heights of uni and not enough on sampling smooth dry reds.
Mate; we could just as easily create more of a global cesspit than what we have got by simply carrying on the way we do. Our “short” history of cesspit management is not so good that we should expect Gaia and the seas at large to do what we can’t do in the back yard.
We agree on one thing though, Gaia has a go.
Steve: There is the risk that acidification leads to massive slime and I know that from lab monitoring in the paper mills. We also know that global surface temperature rise raises sea level from observing inland coastlines along Bass Strait near Wynyard and there is no need to consult the ancient ice and rocks. Unless of course; you are an old geologist and get worried by tectonic movements.
As an old instrument guy I reckon we can still help Gaia by watching our smoke.
I am in possession of the NOAA station data for the global average CO2 to end March 2008 and for all Southern Ocean stations to end March.
The rate of increase in the global average CO2 remains at 0.45%/year, right up to 3 months ago.
The degree of lag of all Southern Ocean stations below this continues to increase, right up to 3 months ago. It now matches the long term degree of lag seen at the Easter Island station, in the middle of the southeast Pacific gyre, hitherto one of the most productive areas of ocean on the planet.
There are numerous peer reviewed, solid papers showing that the primary productivity of seawater does increases in response to increasing CO2, including in places like the Ross Sea. It also increases in response to episodic fertilization effects such as fallout from the St. Helens, El Chichon and Pinatubo eruptions BTW.
My associate and I (a recognised, well published university researcher of marine phytoplankton) are working on a paper on the improving productivity of the great southern ocean.
The problem with you guys is that you don’t actually work in science on a day by day basis, getting your hands dirty actually doing it so to speak. It is so easy to cherry pick your way around with Google from the warmth of a chair. I’ll bet not one of you has had a peer reviewed paper or book chapter published (I have a little over 60).
Luke in particular is clearly a nasty little wally occupying some drafty bureaucratic cubby hole. His biggest challenge each day is working his way through all those endless cups of coffee and mopping down his keyboard as he churns out the sneering by the drool load. His boss must be permanently on sick leave.
BTW, to add to all your current woes at seeing the emerging series of studies actually proving feedback effects never thought of by IPCC or the rest of the bandwagon check out:
Roberts et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA Vol 105, 7370-7325 (2008)
I hereby challenge each one of you to provide references to a couple of your own authored/co-authored, peer reviewed, published papers in a relevant field.
“The problem with you guys is that you don’t actually work in science on a day by day basis, getting your hands dirty actually doing it so to speak.”
Are you certain of this Steve?
“You’ll notice that our major problems with climate carried through right with droughts through the so-called Medieval Optimum period.”
More BS. Actually the major problem with life throughout the MWP was not drought. It was clearly a highly fertile period overall. All of Europe and Scandinavia was bountiful. The major problem was the plague. It removed 30 – 40% of the population several times over. There are numerous chronicles describing the frustrations expressed at magnificent crops and harvests rotting in the field and on the vines for no-one to harvest them.
“The problem with you guys is that you don’t actually work in science on a day by day basis, getting your hands dirty actually doing it so to speak. It is so easy to cherry pick your way around with Google from the warmth of a chair. I’ll bet not one of you has had a peer reviewed paper or book chapter published (I have a little over 60).” – Steve Short.
I’m afraid that sort of mock indignation and outrage doesn’t make much of an impact here. One hopes that in the interest of unbiased data you are judging the “skeptics” here using the same criteria.
“Luke in particular is clearly a nasty little wally occupying some drafty bureaucratic cubby hole.” – Steve Short.
This coming from the person who wrote “just trying to keep them safe from the depredations of seat-warming, birkenstock-wearing 1st world eco-nutters”; “You know who he was I presume – if not I’d be inclined to have you put down (;-)”;”Duh”; “Let me tell you (even though it is staring you right in your immature face)”;”And you, you ignorant nong”; “I doubt whether you ever raised a sweat over anything (or anyone) other than your own optimal comfort level. This is why the poor, huddled masses of this planet have nothing to expect from the likes of you but sanctimonious preaching.”; “So is this how you twitter your way through whatever miserable paper shuffling activity you call a career?”.
Don’t get vertigo up there in your ivory tower Steve.
Been around here long? Almost all of the above directed back at Luke – the guy who first brought foaming invective on a truly grand scale to Jennifer Marohasy’s blog. Don’t get hypocrisy up there in your pulpit Roger.
Hi Steve,
So is your comment about academia directed at Luke, AGW supporters, everyone??
My point is, you have made an assumption about people who contribute here based on your own opinions. There are people who contribute, and probably others who lurk, who have worthy academic qualifications and publications. There are also people here who do not have letters after their names but are very knowledgeable about topics posted. As Roger suggested, if you are going to be so judgmental about those whose opinions you do not share, please be consistent with those whose opinions you do. However, your comment attributing “foaming invective” solely to Luke would suggest you are not capable of this. BTW, didn’t your mother teach you to turn the other cheek?!
Steve Short – “The problem with you guys is that you don’t actually work in science on a day by day basis, getting your hands dirty actually doing it so to speak.”
You are absolutely correct here. So really you are talking to the wrong people. So how does your ideas as a geologist sit with the top climate scientists?
So far all you have done is accuse them of being in a vast conspiracy to delude the world and ignore important research.
So tell us Steve how do your ideas go down with the working scientists?
Ender
Not a conspiracy so much as a clique of aggressive egos which has got out of hand in the age of the Internet.
What a lot of people don’t realise is the alarmist AGW orthodoxy actually involves either a radical rewrite or even repudiation of literally thousands of papers and careers in science over the last 200 years without, in reality sound bases for that.
This is an extremely important point.
By way of just one of numerous examples known to me I have already carefully explained here the outrageous repudiation of fundamental solution thermodynamics which is required for the ocean acidification scare as an example I am very close to technically. I actually make a living primarily as a chemothermodynamicist, very, very frequently risking $5M of professional indemnity insurance on the outcomes of my calculations.
A lot of genuine scientists are thus literally stunned by the implications of a lot of this! However, scientists are by nature mentally adventurous but socially and politically reserved. They prefer to keep their heads down as long as possible (and study). Only very occasionally do they get such a guts full they must speak out:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24036736-7583,00.html
There are a real lot of working scientists, far, far more than you think, who are either out and out sceptics or like myself are ‘lukewarmers’ (no thanks to you know who for this term 😉 who see an enormous body of evidence even just in the paleoclimatic record that indicates sensitivity to CO2 must be relatively low. I’d say amongst geoscientist at least 50% range from mildly to strongly sceptical.
Travis/Gavin
I’d like to point out to you that the view that the assemblage of all the present day species in the biosphere is somehow a fixed ensemble, especially at the small to microbiological level is a naive illusion.
In reality, numerous species are disappearing or evolving or being created all the time. Even minor natural perturbations such as submarine vent openings or closings, changes in currents or the patterns of discharges from major rivers, exposure of beds of buried biogenic sulfides after storms, changes to prevailing winds etc etc can remove distinct species which have occupied niches for thousands of years. Changes in predation stresses, subtle environmental stressors etc are, and have been, occurring all the time.
It is truly is ‘a jungle down there’ (especially at the micro-organism level). This very often has widespread ramifications across whole ecosystems.
Yet this is the real miracle of the whole biogeospheric system. NATURALLY always in flux, NATURALLY alway carrying on, carrying on, driving back towards yes, you guessed it, homeostasis.
In this context we should avoid the trap of having only our own minds ‘fixed in stone’. Rolling stones may gather no moss but they never get back up to see the light on the hill!
Thanks Steve. That’s the sort of answer I expected. No naivety here. If it doesn’t come down to ‘they managed in the past and it was all ok’, it will be ‘there is always change and extinctions are a part of this wonderful life.’ Hence humans are part of nature and any extinctions we cause, directly or not, fit into the grand scheme of things? Ahh, I can sleep better at night now.
Don’t you ever pick up stones Steve?
An enormous collection. All with a story to tell…
Steve Short – “Not a conspiracy so much as a clique of aggressive egos which has got out of hand in the age of the Internet.”
OK what about the scientists that do not ‘publish’ on the Internet? Do you think that all the peer reviewed papers that support AGW are just wrong?
“What a lot of people don’t realise is the alarmist AGW orthodoxy actually involves either a radical rewrite or even repudiation of literally thousands of papers and careers in science over the last 200 years without, in reality sound bases for that.”
However this is the history if science. Many times in the past cherished theories have been overturned and the scientists involved have got over it. This is one of the classic denier arguments that you are guilty of. If your ideas of CO2 uptake are true then the Hansens etc of the world will have to get over it like the classical physicists at the turn of the century did.
The problem is that you nor anybody else has satisfied the scientific community with solid peer reviewed science that your ideas are true. Whining about cliques and established orthodoxies and careers is just a cop out and nothing more.
If your ideas are true then you should be able to demonstrate it on the GCMs that are running. Have you done this?
Ender
You seem to be blissfully unaware of the Scientific Mafia and how they control research funding, and hence publication. I am asked to publish papers which the mainstream won’t for political reasons, not academic.
IIn any case your exposition of intensive and extensive variables on your own web page is so woefully wrong, that you really don’t have a clue what science is.
Apologies Steve Short, you are not so high up in an ivory tower- just your own back passage. The hypocrisy is all yours fella.
Back passages being your field of specialisation.
To which we might comment that Roger Grace is most ungraceful in his manner to his betters (A sort of an Elzabethian turn of phrase, best acted by Geoffrey Rush’s character Francis Walsingham).
Louis – “In any case your exposition of intensive and extensive variables on your own web page is so woefully wrong, that you really don’t have a clue what science is.”
So you keep saying however I am yet to get an explanation from you where I went wrong.
Ender,
I will detail your errors in a separate post. Reading your post anew has caused me to ponder why the meaning of the term “ignorant masses”.
(just breaking in a new workstation – apologies – grammar is wong. non sequitur of course, but my previous post has errors, of the unexpected kind).
“Back passages being your field of specialisation.” – Steve Short.
No, I try and have as little as possible to do with arrogant @!!*holes like you, however academia certainly has its fair share of those who need to get out more and give their high horse a break.
Which rock did you creep out from under? You made absolutely no technical comment on this thread, yet you suddenly emerge from the darkness to do nothing but spew insults at just me like some silly old troll from the Usenet days.
You suddenly materialise and take objection to just me throwing some insults back at someone who routinely makes a habit of it, albeit mixed in with 90% technical comment/discussion.
This has always been a very vigorous blog but at least the give and take can be tinged with wry humour on both sides now and again.
You on the other hand seemed to have arrived just after a total hatred implant. I wouldn’t know you from a bar of soap – although come to think of it, a bar of soap would do your mouth a real lot of good.
Tell me, what is the meaning of your presence here? What, pray, do you actually have to contribute scientifically that relates to the subject matter of this thread? How about having the cojones to state something of real technical substance, so we may all see what you are made of (other than mouth). I dare you…..
Just in, friendly email from a kindly lurker in Enzed. Those country folk over there have an excellent nose for the hocum merchants. Identity of our new GreenSleaze duty troll is roger grace of greenpeace kiwiland. This explains the late entry – the diesel must have run out while on the ‘ban fossil fuel’ round-Oz voyage and the backup towers from the resident whale pod weren’t being garden hosed hard enough.
Calm yourself Steve. Ranting does you no service.
“You suddenly materialise and take objection to just me throwing some insults back at someone who routinely makes a habit of it, albeit mixed in with 90% technical comment/discussion.”- Steve Short.
You threw insults at everyone by writing that “The problem with you guys is that you don’t actually work in science on a day by day basis, getting your hands dirty actually doing it” and “I’ll bet not one of you has had a peer reviewed paper or book chapter published (I have a little over 60”. You did not direct this at Luke, but everyone. Your other ad homs were directed at both Luke and Ender, but you seem to arc up when anything is directed back at you. Ender is one poster here who receives a lot of abuse and yet for the most part remains civil.
“You on the other hand seemed to have arrived just after a total hatred implant. I wouldn’t know you from a bar of soap – although come to think of it, a bar of soap would do your mouth a real lot of good.”-Steve Short.
Your hypocrisy seems never ending. I have commented here in the past and read this blog since it started, so in answer to your original question, yes, I have been here long. I have seen how some regular posters start out polite and wanting to contribute, only to get venom and vitriole thrown at them from self-proclaimed experts. Whilst this happens on both sides, it is more rampant from the side referred to as “sceptics”. You have done worse than add to the argy bargy, you have placed yourself above and beyond and continued to throw stones from the lofty heights you have set yourself in.
“Tell me, what is the meaning of your presence here? What, pray, do you actually have to contribute scientifically that relates to the subject matter of this thread? How about having the cojones to state something of real technical substance, so we may all see what you are made of (other than mouth).”-Steve Short.
I don’t have to prove myself to you. I responded to a comment on this thread that you made regarding all contributors here, which was baseless and insulting. If you make such comments, take responsibility and wear the repercussions. I had been able to sift through most of the childish remarks you throw in your posts and enjoy the nuts and bolts of your arguments, but no amount of expertise and qualifications matches a sense of humility when delivering your knowledge. You earn respect-it can’t be demanded from those ‘uncouth plebs’ or “ignorant masses” you see on this blog.
LOL! I can only hope you don’t approach your science the same way you deduce information from this blog. Yes, I am from New Zealand, no I do not work for Greenpeace. Can’t rely on those lurkers for reliable information.
Again I will reiterate, you posted a comment directed at all here which was grossly unfair and plain ignorant. I have every right to respond, as does anyone else. Perhaps you should stick to what are known facts, and then your credibility will remain and you will get the respect you deserve. I look forward to when you do.
Global temperature has risen at a natural 0.5 C/century for 300 years since the Sun recovered from the Maunder Minimum, long before we could have had any influence (Akasofu, 2008).
Present global temperature is 7 C below most of the past 500 My; 5 C below all 4 recent interglacials; and up to 3 C below the Bronze Age, Roman & Mediaeval optima (Petit et al., 1999; IPCC, 1990).
No “runaway greenhouse” catastrophe occurred in the Cambrian era, when there was ~20 times today’s concentration in the atmosphere. Temperature was just 7 C warmer than today (IPCC, 2001).
There has been no statistically detectable warming since 1998. The Jan 2007 – Jan 2008 global temperature fall was the steepest on record since 1880 (GISS; Hadley; NCDC; RSS; UAH, 2008).
Even if the planet were not presently cooling, the rate of warming due to CO2 is far lower than the UN claims. There may well be no new warming until 2015, if then (Keenlyside et al., 2008).
Even if warming were harmful, humankind’s effect is minuscule. The observed changes are likely to be largely natural. (Chylek et al., 2008; Lindzen, 2007; Spencer, 2007; Wentz et al., 2007; Zichichi, 2007; etc.).
Even if our effect were significant, the UN’s projected human fingerprint – tropical mid-troposphere warming at 3x the surface rate – is undetectable (Douglass et al., 2004, 2007; Lindzen, 2001, 2007; Spencer, 2007).
Even if the human fingerprint were present, computer climate models cannot predict the future of a complex, chaotic climate unless we know its initial state to an unattainable precision (Lorenz, 1963; Giorgi, 2005; IPCC, 2001).
Even if the UN’s imagined high “climate sensitivity” to CO2 were right, disaster would not be likely to follow. The peer-reviewed literature is near-unanimous in not predicting climate catastrophe (reviewed by Schulte, 2008).
Even if Al Gore (or Greenpeace etc) were right that harm might occur, the Armageddon scenario he/they depict is not based on any scientific view. Sea level may rise 30 cm by 2100, not 6.1 m (Burton, 2007; IPCC, 2007; Moerner, 2004).
Scientifically-unsound trends are even now starving millions as biofuels production pre-empts agricultural land, destroys valuable forests and doubles staple cereal prices in one year alone. (UNFAO, 2008).
Even if massive CO2 emission reduction measures might work, the harm done to humanity by killing many of the world’s poor and destroying the economic prosperity of the West over the next century or so outweighs any climate benefit (Henderson, 2007; UNFAO, 2008).
Even if the climatic benefits of mitigation could outweigh the millions of deaths it is causing, and will cause, adaptation as and if necessary would be far more cost-effective and less harmful (all economic studies except Stern, 2006).
There is no man-made “climate crisis”. We must get the science right or we shall get the policy horribly wrong – more horribly wrong that anything humankind has ever done before, WWI and WWII included.
Who will be able or prepared to be held to account in 10, 20, 30 or more years for the hundreds of millions or more of the poor killed by draconian measures to reduce anthropogenic CO2 – an injury to humanity likely to make the Holocaust look like a pinprick?
You?
And will it then matter to the dead?
Roger – thanks for the appeal to civility but alas I think the format here is clearly cast.
Steve Short started out quite well here as a intelligent moderate voice but appears to afflicted with the deep hatred and loathing of environmental causes shared by most of the posters here. Obviously “phone a friend” from the NZ sceptic mates has helped him with quick check of who’s who and the “GreenSleaze duty troll” quip reveals where the sentiment is at. Doesn’t take much to scratch the surface and let the bile bubble up.
Steve isn’t going to back down into civility – he knows he’s right and is smarter than the rest of us. But quite interesting how the intense personalisation of the debate has flared after a few boozy posts. And once the inhibitory barriers are down out she comes.
Not much more to be said – it’s only going to get worse.
Killing millions of the world’s poor. How utterly pretentious and what utter utter bullshit. An totally dishonest attempt at debate polarisation. Fascinating that for one so smart you’re infected with the stupid nuttery of half the other morons here. On SI and fluvial morphology you had some attention. Now you have none. And such concern for the starving hordes of the 3rd world but when asked to engage on pressing problems of current climate locally (a) it’s not a problem really (b) hand wave on some diversionary waffle. Pathetic – really pathetic.
And all just mock outrage too.
All we have is another wealthy consultant making a nice mottsa protecting an industry well know for crap environmental practices. Yet another apologist defending for the greater good – but really read personal gain. Well I’m now really inspired – might sign up for WWF and Greenpeace today.
Have another shiraz and consider what ponies to buy the kids next. Drink up – you’ve earned it.
Imagine. Let’s say we have just another decade of no more global warming. The whole AGW catastrophe thing collapses. The geopolitical balance in the world shifts to China and Russia (I hope you caught the latest from the Russian Academy of Sciences on AGW BTW). The UN is discredited. Other than angry Americans gunning for Gore, Hansen et al., you can bet there will be plenty of people here in Oz keen to go through the public services with a fine tooth comb to root out the resident AGW fanatics. Make sure you have a Plan B, Luke.
I would imagine you will be at the front of the witch hunt Steve, pitch fork in one hand and burning torch in the other. Bugger the fine tooth comb, let’s just go for a number 1 buzz! Maybe Roger can be tested first in the flames – says he doesn’t work for Greenpeace, but who cares? So much innuendo, so much dodging and dealing, so much hatred and hypocrisy. Not so funny anymore.
Typical extremist now making threats. I see Cohenite is also up for it. That’s professional. Been attending Mott’s school of diplomacy have you. Let’s say the temperature goes up – perhaps we might round you up and send you to a gulag ?
Charming – so we have the millions will die bulldust – then let’s paint AGW as “catastrophic- world ending” – more utter bunk – and now we’re going to threaten you into submission. What an exemplary citizen you are mate.
Of course your AGW alarmist lobby has never done any threatening of anything or anyone at all from day one…..LOL
If it does all go belly-up for you guys I’m sure you will all figure out some way of weaseling out it smelling of roses – that type of skill rather goes with the job in the PS classes n’est pas?
Just love the way too y’all tend to come flocking in for the kill when there’s only lil ol’ me left – sorta reminds one of the Serengeti Plain etc., get it, nudge, nudge…
But what if it all goes belly up for you guys too ?
Mate we’ve been in the climate impacts trenches for years while you’ve been stuffing your pockets. Do you think people have no issues with climate already. That there might be a history of not coping with it.
No coz dark hearted sceptics love to think about extinctions and days of yore. We’ve seen it all before. Well you haven’t. You’ve only sensed it. Read the signs. Seen the footprints. And you’ve always had the option of flying or driving out. Never stuck around to deal with it personally.
And speaking of packs – I see phone a friend worked pretty well for you with Roger Grace.
Yep it is the Serengiti – the great herds are anxious and restless – and you lot are the hyenas. Cackling jackals that like sniffing around and seeing what they can get away with when nobody else is looking. There’s plenty of hyenas out there and you’ve just joined them.
>Just love the way too y’all tend to come flocking in for the kill when there’s only lil ol’ me left
Perhaps that says something about the company you keep?! Can’t count on ’em. They’ve moved on to the next fresh kill and left you here. Tsk.
Steve Short – “Scientifically-unsound trends are even now starving millions as biofuels production pre-empts agricultural land, destroys valuable forests and doubles staple cereal prices in one year alone. (UNFAO, 2008).”
Now you are really pulling out all the denier garbage. No-one in the climate change camp supports biofuels. This is a get rich scheme from unscrupulous idiots wanting farm subsidies. It does nothing for climate change or peak oil and no environmentalist, without shares in biofuel, supports it.
“Who will be able or prepared to be held to account in 10, 20, 30 or more years for the hundreds of millions or more of the poor killed by draconian measures to reduce anthropogenic CO2 – an injury to humanity likely to make the Holocaust look like a pinprick?”
What a crock!! We in the First world have happily ignored the starving millions in the Third world before climate change ever got around. The only reason we can have the lifestyle we do is if they starve and have no fossil fuels – there is not enough to go around so they miss out. In fact one of the reasons we are running short of oil is one or two of them are getting enough of our money to start demanding our lifestyle and guess what we do not have enough for 1 billion Chinese and 800 million Indians.
Even if AGW is a crock then we will go on happily ignoring them and using their share of the world’s resources. Just to add insult to injury we make their food dearer by attempting to run the status quo with biofuels and then use their oil as well. How much oil does the average Nigerian use compared to the average Australian even though Nigeria and the West of Africa is the brave new world of oil.
“Obviously “phone a friend” from the NZ sceptic mates has helped him with quick check of who’s who and the “GreenSleaze duty troll” quip reveals where the sentiment is at.” / “And speaking of packs – I see phone a friend worked pretty well for you with Roger Grace”- Luke.
No worries Luke. I think it is highly amusing that he had to resort to checking up on me, boasted his “find” with ample hatred towards Greenpeace (and I’m the one with a “total hatred implant”??), but was totally wrong, again! Stick with what you know, not who!
“We in the First world have happily ignored the starving millions in the Third world before climate change ever got around.”- Ender.
Spot on Ender. First mock outrage, now mock compassion.
Well, surprise, surprise. Look the other way for a moment and the Greensleaze rent-a-crowd (Libby, Travis, Grace, Luke and Ender) does a gang-up of ad-homs on the one person providing substantive and informative material to this thread.
Libby Travis and Grace must have found it a bit booring listening to themselves over at Anne’s new (supposedly non-greenpeace) blog so they are back here hunting for carion. Sorry folks, the scam, and your part in it, have been exposed as just another bit of sleazy GP white anting.
But the readers are not fooled. They recognise the tag-team MO to muddy the water in any thread that you are shown to be lacking in, ie, most.
Well hello Ian,
I didn’t think Steve required a minder, he appeared to be doing a pretty good job hurling insults around with little help from someone who can’t do anything but. It’s always interesting how you resort to double standards, and I have a warm fuzzy glow reading your silly remarks to me again.
Nowhere in my comments did I include ad-homs. I responded to something Steve had written regarding contributors in general here. I can’t be held responsible for your problems with comprehension. I think Steve is a big enough lad to respond if he so chooses, and as he didn’t, you are probably not doing his credibility any favours in doing it for him.
Regarding Ann’s blog, I have to trust you have visited it to know that Travis, Roger Grace and I have been contributors there. Given there have been ample unfounded assumptions made here already that have made people look pretty foolish and unflatteringly predatory, I remain unsurprised that you wish to continue the trend.