WHEN news headlines simultaneously suggested that both warm weather and cold weather might adversely affect frog populations, there was some mocking from climate change sceptics. [1, 2]
But given the extraordinary impact of the pathogenic fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, on frog populations worldwide, and the pathogen’s apparently relatively narrow temperature optima, a small change in temperature may have a significant impact on local frog populations. [3]
************
1. Climate threat to Nordic amphibians, January 23, 2009, http://www.norden.org/webb/news/news.asp?id=8358&lang=6
2. Cold weather hits The Lizard wildlife, January 10, 2009,
http://www.thisisthewestcountry.co.uk/news/cornwall_news/4036969.Cold_weather_hits_The_Lizard_wildlife/
3. Threat Abatement Plan, Infection of Amphibians with Chytrid fungus resulting in Chytridiomycosis, Australian Department of Environment and Heritage, 2006, http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/threatened/publications/tap/chytrid.html
“In culture B. dendrobatidis grows slowly at 6°C, develops most rapidly at 23°C but dies if kept at temperatures above 29°C.”
Picture of the Giant White-lipped Tree Frog via Neil Hewett. http://www.ccwild.com/index.html
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Finally something I can agree with. In south Florida, the iguanas were stone cold during the last couple of hard freezes. It’s really amazing to see them fall out of trees, and off seawalls into the water and float out to sea. Stiff as a board when the temperature gets below about 40 F. The good news is they are much easier to catch and cart off when stiff.
So I would imagine the poor frogs with no thermostat must really be sensitive to global cooling, err, ahh, umm climate change. Iced over water holes, yeah, that could be really bad on the frogs.
So when it gets colder the frogs will all die? Or if we were able to slow the temperature from getting colder would the frogs all die?
If the CO2 has some previously undetected warming then human action is reducing climate change, given we are headed for a cold snap. Ought we be thinking ourselves the frog saviours? The cane toad promoters?
I have a brown frog (similar size to to a green tree frog) in my roof gutter that croaks for a mate when it is rains – if we are about to experience a dry period he hides in my toilet which he accesses from the sewer line as there is no other way for him to get into my bathroom.
🙂
I’ve heard stories of snakes chasing after the frogs via sewer lines as well so check before you squat.
Also in France there’s been reports of frogs in large numbers exiting the surface for deeper water as it freezes but being caught in the process and freezing with their legs sticking out.
Those heartless French then sieze the opportunity and mow ’em for the mass market.
seriously though, my frog population [I hope] is sufficiently isolated to survive for a while.
so far so good. [Where’s that wood?]
Graeme,
In Australia, the biggest impact from the fungus has been in higher altitude pristine environments in Queensland. My guess, is that the disease is more virulent in cooler conditions from a Queensland perspective. For example:
Northern Gastric-brooding Frog
Now Extinct. Was found exclusively in undisturbed rainforest in the Clarke Range, central eastern Queensland (including Eungella National Park) at altitudes of 400-1000 m (Covacevich & McDonald 1993).
Sharp-snouted Day Frog
Now Extinct. Was endemic to the Wet Tropics Bioregion (Williams & Hero 1998, 2001) occuring along small creeks in rainforest and wet sclerophyll forest above 300 m (to 1,300m) (Liem & Hosmer 1973).
Southern Day Frog
Now Extinct. Occurred over a relatively narrow altitudinal range of 350-800 m with most records falling between 500 and 800 m (Czechura & Ingram 1990).
Well those frogs aren’t going to make it then. And they head off to frog heaven without the well wishing of the idiots-campaign which seems to think that the worst moral disaster facing us is slightly warmer winter mornings for Laplanders, Siberians, and high-altitude frogs.
What fools they are to besmirch industrial-civilisation for the crime of bringing a little more warmth into our lives, though this proposition is not true and they made it up. But if it were true, still consider the repulsiveness of their motivation.
On a recent hot day, I filled a child’s wading pool – an oyster – with water for my dogs.
The next morning, a frog was happily swimming around the oyster. With the nearest water – Ourimbah Creek – about a kilometre away, I am not sure where the frog came from. My wife maintains that it was hibernating in the earth, but at that temperature?
All I can say is that the changing temperature caused me to fill the oyster and therefore “Changing Temperatures Likely to Impact Frogs” is proven – at least in Ourimbah.
Graeme,
I would actually suggest that if Queensland was warming, that could be good for higher altitude Queensland frogs because it may take them out of the optimal temperature range for the fungus. However, if Norway is warming, well that could be bad for the frogs there because that could bring them into the optimal temperature range for the fungus.
Once, just once could I please see a story about how the climate change was helping some nice creature to exist and propagate. All the stories from biology are about how some beneficial amphibian, plant, reptile, bird, fish, bug, or mammal is being hurt and driven toward extinction.
The only things that seem to thrive are thorny, poisonous, pestilence bearing, invasive species. Makes one think that there just might be an itsy bitsy teeny weeny bit of bias to the total of all the stories.
“Once, just once could I please see a story about how the climate change was helping some nice creature to exist and propagate. All the stories from biology are about how some beneficial amphibian, plant, reptile, bird, fish, bug, or mammal is being hurt and driven toward extinction.
The only things that seem to thrive are thorny, poisonous, pestilence bearing, invasive species. Makes one think that there just might be an itsy bitsy teeny weeny bit of bias to the total of all the stories.”
Weed species and in general “pests” are well adapted to survive in a variety of conditions. They are opportunistic. They share this with lots of beneficial (to humans) species, which have by dint of it become our agricultural crops and domesticated animals.
The species occupying smaller ecological niches are vulnerable to climate change (warming or cooling) to a much greater degree. With our recently increased appreciation of the importance of biodiverse ecosystems, has come a concern about what the effects of climate change will be in this area. Good for some species, bad for some species – but bad for most ecosystems, because these are complex webs of self-checking systems which have “evolved” as a function of the interaction of the evolution of their many many parts.
Dude. The good news is that higher CO2 levels are making the biosphere generally more robust. So its not just one species or another. Warming on the other hand tends to help landed life more generally and sea life it hurts. Simply because then there is less CO2 absorbed into the water when the water is warmer.
Higher CO2 levels from industrial production, to the extent that it can be maintained at all, is therefore always a good thing.
No FDB you just have no idea mate. And the fact is if you were right and CO2 warmed a little bit we would be slowing and not speeding up climate change. If you are going to be illogical just kill yourself now mate.
I got a few of these cute little guys out on the back landing. The low wattage light of the bathroom is always on, so some hide behind the tool locker during the day and sit on the window sill eatin’ bugs all night…..
I hope the fungus leaves em alone. With all the rain we have been having, they seem to have wandered off for the moment.
Sorry… if QLD is warming then it is almost certainly bad for the frogs at higher altitude… you simply cannot treat a single species and look for a single possible benefit ignoring the likely changes to the entire fragile ecosystem that the species lives in. If it is good for the frogs it is most likely bad for all the other species that were knocking around. Jen you can spin debate about whether AGW is happening or not, but lets not pretend that if it was happening enough to shift the 4-5 degrees needed to get out of the range of the fungus that little froggy in the picture will be croaking for joy… although it will croak it.
Why not make traps for the little buggers where they have to smear themselves with “resolve tinea”. Always works for me where fungus is concerned. Or just leave opened tubes of daktarin around the place up in the mountains and let evolution decide. If they are not smart enough to apply to ointment when its available maybe they don’t deserve to live.
“Sorry… if QLD is warming then it is almost certainly bad for the frogs at higher altitude… you simply cannot treat a single species and look for a single possible benefit ignoring the likely changes to the entire fragile ecosystem that the species lives in. ”
What a load of crap you talk. We are talking about a PLAGUE here fella. You do know what a Plague is don’t you? There is no fragile equilibrium in nature except one that we ourselves set up by cutting off critter migration with land use.
You don’t realize how much you have been propagandized to and how this is just your potty training coming through. But my long-term memory is pretty good. The short term stuff is questionable. But I remember being nine years old and taken out to the Mangroves and wading waste deep in shit and being told that this was this utterly vital area and oh so fragile and pretty much all the jive you are claiming.
1. The climate always changes.
2. Its cooling now.
3. If CO2 warms a little bit, which is questionable, but if it does, it will therefore REDUCE AND NOT INCREASE the pace of change.
4. If extensive and most importantly LINKED territories are given over to nature the ecosystems are not the least bit fragile, except and if only, you expect everything to remain static. Which it never does.
Graeme, could your long term memory pass on to your short term memory some sort of explanation of hopw the mangrove anecdote is relevent?
Now you’ll get no argument from me that fragmentation of ecosystems reduces the ability of species to cope with climate change by shifting a bit here and there… however the trouble with species at high altitudes like these frogs is that they can’t get anty higher due to lack of mountain above the peak.
1) no **** sherlock
2) As laughable as you think the concept that the earth is warming is, “Its cooling now” trumps it in spades in terms of being a scientifically and statistically unbackable statement.
3) Only if it were cooling… which it isn’t – lets face it if it were cooling now it would more or less mean those global cooling loons from the 1970s were in fact spot on… which runs contrary to the traditional sceptic angle of attack.
4) Just who is it that expects things to remain static? However your call for linked ecosystems risks being linked to Nazi party philosophy on forests… again this is normally used to attack “greens” like me for pursuing Nazi philosophy…
But you are right – ecosystems are not particularly fragile… only in terms of the freak conditions that allow us as humans to thrive. Lets not beat about the bush here GLobal warming, or cooling, is not a threat in the slightest to the planet…. just to us.
Its relevant to your potty training. I remember it. You do to. But I remember it consciously. Whereas you don’t seem to and merely regurgitate by rote.
It is species that are fragile. Not ecosystems. Eco-systems, unless they are cut off and crushed, burned or dried out, are highly resilient. But individual species within, particularly a restricted eco-system, may be very vulnerable. Hence PLAGUE is no small matter as you seem to think. Nor is the fact of higher CO2 levels strengthening ALL ecosystems.
This species ecosystem fragility rubbish is like Keynesian Economics… which is set up such that when anyone does anything everything falls to peices.
The human race fished shipload after shipload of Cod for hundreds of years. They finally broke the back of the species in the twentieth century. And we are finally trashing fishing more generally now. This hardly speaks to any story of weak ecosystems. Ecosystems are strong.
WE ARE COOLING. You are just going to have to get used to it mate. You are lying about the statistics. And obviously so. You didn’t think to give a start and finish year for your wrong and idiotic claim.
You were wrong, dead wrong. and I think you ought to stop lying and admit it.
Didn’t I just say that “ecosystems are not particularly fragile”? I mean some are many are not. what’s your point caller?
I’m filing your cod story with the mangrove one under “I” for “Irrelevent”. Maybe that Blue Day Book guy could do a collection of your irrelevent anecdotes, each accompanied by a cute animal looking bewildered, angry and confused…
As for my lying about the statistics… pull the other one Graeme. Simply delusional.
You are confused mate. You just keep changing your mind. First you say they are fragile then you say that are not. Go away and have a think about it and make up your mind before you say stupid things like slowing down the cooling is worse than the frog plague for a frog.
YOU ARE A LIAR. You say we are warming but we are not. And your lying is completely confirmed because a trend cannot be made without a start and finish time in mind and you haven’t even got them in mind. Nor would you be willing to cough up the two dates if it was put to you to do so.
The fact is we are cooling. And if we were warming you could prove it easy enough. See you are a liar mate. A dummy. The ecosystems fragile? Or tough now? They’ve gotten tough just recently have they?
Oh Graeme….
Here is a link from a quick google on the subject to a Macquarie Uni site on ecosystems: http://www.es.mq.edu.au/hsc/fra_eco1/lecoh.htm listing a wide range of potentialy “fragile” ecosystem types, but discussing the various scenarious in which an ecosystem may be viewd as fragile or robust. http://www.es.mq.edu.au/hsc/fra_eco1/lecoh.htm
It does not look too complicated so you should cope;) Be warned however… it deals with the concept that fragility and robustness can both apply so you may get caught up in an email to the university criticising their site as those kind of things seem to push your buttons.
However, in general, many of the ecosystems that many frogs live in… would be considered fragile.
“slowing down the cooling” lol….
Lol – I’m a LIAR? At the very worst I think a court of law may find me guilty of backing the temperature reconstructions of the world’s top climate scientists, as opposed to those that choose peak 1998 temps thorugh to mid-lateish 2008 temps, selectively choosing particular months despite more recent months being warmer again.
Mate here is a start and end point for you – 9am this morning to 11:56am (now) – it is bloody warmer Perth is definately in a warming trend;)
But generally lets say 1900 to today… I’m pretty comfortable of a warming trend there… ie ther period over which human activity has introduced increased CO2 levels to the atmosphere. If post 1998 temps were to show cooling over say 15-20 years for sure I’d start to question if we were in fact cooling…
Seriously Graeme calling me a LIAR repeatedly when you are well aware that the bulk of science backs me up is not one of your best character traits. You could opine that I am misguided, seduced by false science and manipulated temperatures because they fit my luddite green view of the world and may assist bring on the great revolution… but I’m not lying.
How come you saying “we are cooling” without a start and end date, or any references, is a valid comment but my opposition is fundamentally flawed on the same basis.
So you are back to saying that ecosystems are fragile again? Have you made up your mind this time?
And are you still lying that we are getting warmer rather than cooler? I note that you never once had any evidence for this proposition nor a start and finish date to justify it.
Graeme – Just because I think people are both short and tall does not mean I can’t make up my mind;)
You can look up the IPCC for your evidence, mate. Pretty mainstream stuff that anyone can find… where is your evidence.
Lol if I was a demialist nutter I’d probably take you to court for libel the number of times you call me a liar for stating commonly accepted science:)
Now you are back to lying again. There is no evidence for industrial-CO2-warming in any of the IPCC reports. Clearly you are just a moron mate. Get your act together.
We really must go further than that. I demand that you retract that lie about the IPCC having evidence in favour of this fraud.
Retract your lie.
Retract that lie idiot. There is no doubt you claimed there was evidence in favour of this science fraud in the IPCC literature. Specifically we wanted evidence for the following three propositions:
1. Evidence for the likelihood of catastrophic warming.
2. Evidence that a little bit of human-induced warming during a brutal and pulversing ice age is a BAD as opposed to a GOOD thing (in contradiction to all reason and logic.)
3. Evidence for more-than-negligible warming due to industrial-CO2-release.
If you are claiming that there is any such evidence in any of the IPCC literature then you are a pathetic liar so lets have that retraction.
What would you accept as evidence? As clearly you don’t accept what I offer, and I assume when you tell me what you would accept as evidence I indeed will be able to offer nothing that satisfies you.
Similarly, do you sir have any evidence that we are heading in to a “brutal and pulverising ice age.”?
You really do have trouble with intelligent discussion though don’t you? Do you shout at everyone who does not agree with your perverse slant on reason and logic.
Graeme you may (but I doubt it) be interested in http://bravenewclimate.com/2008/09/14/what-if-the-sun-got-stuck/
And this pieve at gristmill – as part of the excellent how to talk to a skeptic guide:
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/12/22/224450/84
I quote:
“Objection: Correlation is not proof of causation. There is no proof that CO2 is the cause of current warming.
Answer: There is no “proof” in science — that is a property of mathematics. In science, what matters is the balance of evidence, and theories that can explain that evidence. Where possible, scientists make predictions and design experiments to confirm, modify, or contradict their theories, and must modify these theories as new information comes in.
In the case of anthropogenic global warming, there is a theory (first conceived over 100 years ago) based on well-established laws of physics. It is consistent with mountains of observation and data, both contemporary and historical. It is supported by sophisticated, refined global climate models that can successfully reproduce the climate’s behavior over the last century.
Given the lack of any extra planet Earths and a few really large time machines, it is simply impossible to do any better than this.
Aside: It is usually interesting to ask just what observations or evidence your skeptic would consider “proof” that global warming is caused by rising CO2 levels. Don’t be surprised if you get no answer!
**********************************************************
Now I fully understand that this starts to stray in to the area of AGW science being unfalsifiable…. see Jo Nova’s site for some good rational thought along the lines of Karl popper…. although she is a scpetic I quite like that site.
Lastly I offer these two sites of particular interest to yourself Graeme.
http://www.angermanagement.com.au/
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080912075818AAxhcJ3
http://angermanagementhome.com/
😉
Graeme, reading http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/02/03/is-there-a-link-between-adelaides-heatwave-and-global-warming/#comments
could you do sime back of he envelope maths to tell us just how unlikely it is for Adelaide to have experienced two of the most severe heatwaves on record, with a combine probability of happening in the same 12 months of 1 in 1.2 million years…. all while we are plummeting in to a new ice age? It would be impresive enough if we were warming, but as we are catastopphically cooling it is quite amazing don;t you think?
I’ll accept any evidence just so long as its evidence for those three hypotheses. So fare you refuse to come up with the goods. You do know what evidence IS don’t you? Its not science-worker sentiment. Its not wild goose chases. Its not assertions on the behalf of organisations. We are talking the using of scientific methods to show, prove or lend weight to the hypotheses in question. There is more than one way to skin a cat. And very many weighs to bring information to bear which would lend credence to these hypotheses. But if there is no evidence there than none will be found.
No information can be considered evidence if it is not related to a specific proposition. You would be expected to explain HOW the information you are providing helps lend credence to one of the three SPECIFIC propositions.
You remember the three propositions or do I need to repeat them?
Lets have that evidence. Or lets have that retraction.
“1. Evidence for the likelihood of catastrophic warming.
2. Evidence that a little bit of human-induced warming during a brutal and pulversing ice age is a BAD as opposed to a GOOD thing (in contradiction to all reason and logic.)
3. Evidence for more-than-negligible warming due to industrial-CO2-release.”
EVIDENCE FOR WHAT?
Admit you are stupid or a liar or come up with specific evidence for one of these three propositions.
Face it you are a stooge. You are not going to do it because you cannot. Hit and run links are not evidence. You yourself have to relate the information directly to one of the hypotheses. Explain why you think it is evidence for the proposition in your own words. Otherwise you are just mucking about allowing yourself to be taken in by the church of science fraud.
Linking to Coby Becks pathetic excuses for the lack of evidence won’t cut it. And lying that I was asking for PROOF rather than evidence won’t cut it either.
Hurry up stooge. Or admit that you’ve been pimped and violated. Notice how you are always hiding behind these dummies. Hurry up idiot.
Oh Graeme I’m afraid I’m too stupid to comply with your wishes. Can you please tolerate a fool and show me how to improve my scientific understanding by providing your evidence that: “we are heading in to a “brutal and pulverising ice age.””?
Now Graeme, an esteemed intellectual giant such as yourself is surely fully across the field of AGW and are well aware of all the flawed arguments used by the leading proponents of the AGW theory. As you are aware I would merely be parroting those confused or mischevious individuals, and most likely not even very well thereby exposing the significant voids in my simpleton understanding of the issue.
My only evidence is that statistically the earth is warming, inaccordance with the predictions made by those scientists. You think we are cooling and I’d like to know why. I can’t introduce you to AGW science you have not already dissected and rejected, but in fact you CAN introduce me to the science that has convinced you we are cooling.
We are already in a pulverising and brutal ice age dummy. Ice ages break into glacial and interglacial periods. We are at the late stage of an inter-glacial unless we are able to do something about it and extend this interglacial. I think we can extend it SORT OF. I know that we cannot avoid these little-ice-ages like the last one. But in any case dealing with too much warming is cheap and easy. Whereas dealing with too much cooling is a tough gig. Expensive and perhaps impossible. It remains to be seen.
Glacial periods come on slowly and end quickly. But there is no real reason to believe this isn’t in the context of a heat budget that oscillates up and down in a pretty standard sort of way. That is to say when a lot of the sea ice suddenly melts it is likely that its really just the heat budget oscillating up and not some sort of mysterious cataclysm coming out of a clear blue sky.
Glacial periods come on slowly and in a series of so-called little ice ages. Each one with a probability of more than 50% of being worse than the last. The next little-ice-age is more than likely to be worse than the last one was. It may be not as bad. But its more likely to be somewhat worse. It will pass then another one will descend. The overall cooling trend has been with us for 5000 years.
So we are in a brutal and pulverising ice age already. And there really is no doubt about that. We live on a planet with a one-way catastrophic cooling bias. Currently there is no prospect of catastrophic warming, but if anything too much goes wrong we can fall into highly problematic cooling.
So the question stands and is a good one. We are in a particularly bad phase of this brutal ice age and have been in this more nasty phase since North And South America fused and formed the Isthmus Of Panama. This used to be all prosaic knowledge in the old days and has now been mired in relentless lying and disputation for no reason at all. It would be acceptable to doubt these things on the basis of specialist geological argument. So I don’t know if Louis has anything to contest about what I’m saying.
But the mathematicians and celebrity nutballs that push the global warming fraud do not tend to be geologists. So you ought not go down that path. Tim Flannery for example would not dispute what I’m saying about glacial periods. He claims that 18000 years ago Australia had a more or less permanent anti-cyclonic system on the go.
So lets have that evidence and stop the filibuster. We are after evidence for three (3) specific propositions.
“Now Graeme, an esteemed intellectual giant such as yourself is surely fully across the field of AGW……”
RIGHT
“……. and are well aware of all the flawed arguments used by the leading proponents of the AGW theory…….”
Right again. The paradigm they use is ABSURD. Quite literally flat earth science. The logical inferences inherent in the model are feeble and cannot pass any sort of sensitivity test since they sit directly on top of eachother. The sort of linear reasoning that means that if even one building block is a small bit out the whole edifice crumbles.
“…. As you are aware I would merely be parroting those confused or mischevious individuals, and most likely not even very well thereby exposing the significant voids in my simpleton understanding of the issue……..”
AND HOW.
“My only evidence is that statistically the earth is warming……..”
Wrong the planet is cooling. Yes the cooling is only recent. But nonetheless you ought to keep up.
“in accordance with the predictions made by those scientists. ”
Wrong again. All the predictions these jerkoffs make are wrong. They are so pathetic these people that their models don’t even backtest. They are an embarrassment. A disgrace. And the faster we can sack them all the better.
Cheers Graeme… honestly.
I was just wandering around this lovely university campus and was hoping to return from lunch to find your entertaining views, and you’ve not dissapointed. Not being a smartass but I KNOW that YOU KNOW that I can’t provide the kind of evidence that would satisfy you, because you’ve seen all the evidence that the advocates have as it is all published in climate related journals of repute, and you don’t accept it or think it is absurd so honestly there really is no point me listing it here. I’m not filibustering I’m quite staisfied that whatever I post with neither be new to you or convincing to you.
I’m glad my last post triggered a useful response not just more angry dismissal, I knew if I persisted I’d prise the good stuff out of you. I do this blog thing to learn from sceptics, and try and get to the core of their arguments… life is too short for me to peddle pseudo science for little financial reward in the false hope of countering AGW. If it is rubbish I’d rather use my limited intellect for more profitable means to be quite honest.
So I’m not after all going to give you evidence for your 3 propositions because it is not worth my time showing you things you know already to be false.
I do however thank you for the last two posts – is there any chance you could provide some links to the science you are backing (again not being a smartass I’ll genuinely read them)… specifically the recent cooling of which you speak I assume is post 1998 cooling (and hopefully not that dreafful polynomial fit recently doing the rounds)… now my position here is that I think that cooling is statistically irrelevent, but I think it is perfectly valid for the longer the apparent cooling continues for more and more people to point to it… I’m quite prepared (in fact hopeful) that AGW is proven wrong to be honest.
So yeah I liked those last two posts so thanks for taking the time, and can you give me a reading list?
Cheers
Matt
You are a fuckwit mate. I’m not after particularly convincing evidence. I’m just after evidence you drongo. Your allegations that you have a university job do not impress me. You are a moron.
Now come up with some evidence. I didn’t say I was after ASTOUNDING evidence. Just some evidence. You are a twit. A dim wit. A zombie. You need to be taken and beaten up with the clue stick. How could you have fallen for the greatest case of wrong-way-Corriganism the world has yet seen. Trying to bluff your way out with this pretense that you have a university job isn’t going to substitute for evidence. If you have one you must be sacked.
You are an ignorant bugger. You didn’t even seem to know that we were in an ice age. Your starting point for this debate is that we are in a brutal and punishing ice age. Your claim is that we face castastrophe from NOT COOLING but rather (you moron) WARMING.
You are a dummy mate.
But lets have that evidence.
You are right that it is pointless to LIST things. The task requires you to relate something in a link, in your own words CONCEPTUALLY to the various specific hypothesis. It doesn’t have to be brilliant and convincing in one hit evidence. It just has to be plausible and related by reasonable inference to a specific hypothesis.
Oh Graeme, for a moment there I was fooled in to thinking we’d managed some adult discussion:) Ha the uni reference was not some sort of attempt to sound like a credible scientist or anything don’t worry – just just genuinely had been for a wander at lunch. I note you’ve been having a very similar conversation with someone else – so exciting you chose to post it on your own website. Maybe one day I will be so honoured lol.
You think it is cooling. It is not and you know it. THe accepted science is warming – the trend is warming unless you choose to start at the hottest peak in 1998 and end at the coolest month in 2007… with 1998 being so hot it makes it appear there may have been cooling since then… whereas it was just a very hot outlier. You know all this you just don;t think it is correct – in fact you think without showing any evidence that it is in fact cooling dangerously so. The science for my opinion, discredited as you think it is, is freely available on the webs… but your evidence is not so well known so I can only ask you again to show me the way.
“brutal and punishing ice age” Lol… in denialist fashion I’ll look outside and tell you there ain’t much ice here I’m afraid Graeme… no one is going to buy that one:) unless you come up with some evidence.
Charming language by the way Graeme… in fact if you read today’s west Paul Murray would suggest you need a hefty fine or prison term for using such language in a public place;)
Stop lying about it warming. Its not warming. Its cooling. And for your lies to be even put under plausible-deniability, obviously you would need a start and end date, given that the temperature oscillates up and down on most time scales. So you are a proven liar.
How did I know that all your posts would be stalling? Your very next post will be another stalling post. And the one after that also. And the subsequent one. How do I know this?
This is a science fraud. And for you to show otherwise you would have to stop lying about me being picky about evidence and just come good with some. Remember the specific hypotheses you need an argument and/or evidence for, and try and prove to the rest of us, that we ought not be saving money in a recession by firing your ass on grounds of you being a self-selected failed-analyst:
1. Evidence for the likelihood of catastrophic warming.
2. Evidence that a little bit of human-induced warming during a brutal and pulversing ice age is a BAD, as opposed to a GOOD thing (in contradiction to all reason and logic.)
3. Evidence for more-than-negligible warming due to industrial-CO2-release.
We weren’t after FANTASTIC evidence and argument. Just valid argument and reasonable inferences, relating strictly to the three hypotheses.
Graeme it would be much quicker for all of us if you just showed your evidence that we are in a brutal and pulverising ice age – it would save me posting item after item of science that you can clearly debunk with your vast knowledge of climate science. I don’t for one second care that you are picky about evidence… but me regurgitating science that is comprehensively available on the web is quite frankly a completely pointless exercise.
Not once have you shown anything to support that statement, however you want me to regurgitate commonly known mainstream climate science… when in fact readers would be better heading to any number of websites run by those actual scientists themselves like RealClimate and BraveNewClimate for the best that AGW scientists have to offer… not some pawn like myself.
I’ve given you start and end dates… are you thick? need new glasses?
I’m going to give trivial stallling answers to your questions just to annoy you though.
1) The evidence is the models, which you reject, which match CO2 levels with temperature changes. Other than that I can;t think of any “evidence” for the liklihood of catastropic warming.
2) Well I don’t agree we are in or heading it to a brutal and pulverising ice age. The onus is on you to show me some evidence there. I saw that movie with the mammoth, baby, sabre tooth tiger et al and it don’t look like that anywhere I can see. Heck there are not even any mammoths.
3) All I can show are the well circulated temperature reconstructions which show an increase, and a corresponding CO2 increase which science theorises are linked.
But you know all that – I’m really interested in the ice age though – cough it up Graeme come on.
Well how did I know he’d stall again? I knew it because this is science fraud. I said your next post w:ould be a stalling post and the one after. This is what I said:
“How did I know that all your posts would be stalling? Your very next post will be another stalling post. And the one after that also. And the subsequent one. How do I know this?”
How did I know that? Would I have known this were it not science fraud? No of course not.
Lets have that evidence:
“1. Evidence for the likelihood of catastrophic warming.
2. Evidence that a little bit of human-induced warming during a brutal and pulversing ice age is a BAD, as opposed to a GOOD thing (in contradiction to all reason and logic.)
3. Evidence for more-than-negligible warming due to industrial-CO2-release.”
Are you actually clinically insane Graeme? You must have been most annoying as a teenager.
“Graeme it would be much quicker for all of us if you just showed your evidence that we are in a brutal and pulverising ice age…..”
Well how about that. This fool hasn’t come up with an alternative view of geology that would bring our current ice-house-world into dispute. In fact he’s not going to dispute this theory outright, set himself up against contemporary geology and paleo-climatology. So what is this chucklehead up to? I’d be most interested in his alternative view of geology if he had one, and give it a fair hearing. So is he really this ignorant? Or what is he really up to?
We call this in philosophy PULLING THE HUME-NUKE. Did anyone see him pull the Hume-nuke? I’m sure you saw it. Its what every third-rate philosopher would do. Any doofus associated with the philosophy department, who is worth his salt, will PULL THE HUME-NUKE when he is utterly thrashed and groping about for time or to desensitize or lose any possible audience.
MattB, though he be at university, and could call on all his colleagues just for a snippet of evidence, knows he cannot do it so he PULLED THE HUME-NUKE. And now the dumb bastard knows nothing anymore. Put your hand over a flame a thousand times and it hurts. Doesn’t prove it will hurt the 1001st time. Induction is no good. Radical skepticism everywhere. The moron has pulled the Hume-nuke. But we won’t wait for this jerks contrary hypothesis to do with the history of the onset and worsening of our ice-house conditions going back 39 million years. Because we wanted him to focus on three (3) hypotheses and not get distracted on a fourth.
How do you know what day it is Matt? How do you know who your wife is with Matt? How do you know how old you are Matt? How do you know what you had for breakfast today Matt. How do you know what your REAL Mothers maiden name was Matt?
Once you pull the Hume nuke you know nothing anymore. If you are going to be a radical skeptic you might as well be consistent about it…………. (stupid anti-philosophical jerk.)
We only know things through evidence and reason. You are delusional Matt. If you weren’t an academic on the public tit we would have to consider you borderline insane. Since you come here, defaming honest scientists and clear thinkers, and then we find out you delusionally believe things that you have no evidence for, cannot find evidence for, do not know anyone who can find the evidence, and you don’t give a toss about correcting the situation.
So what we are seeing here is the weakest, most lame sort of conformity. He says that the emperor has fine clothes and defames all those who disagree. But there is no emperor and there is only an old nudist. This jerk has been maligning people on the basis of a fist-full of nothing.
Go away. Get back in line and keep goose-stepping with the others. Your chance to show that there was a four letter word and that you weren’t full of it has passed.
Lol I”ll give you this much Graeme – you do make for an entertaining coupe of days’ worth of distraction.
re: ice age… the key words are “Brutal and pulversising”… whatever you want to take from historic temperatures clealy in terms of suitability for human habitation the planet’s temperatures are not “Brutal and pulverising” to humans.
The logical inference from your “brutal and pulverizing” description of the current ice age is that you must think that a return to ice-free planetary conditions would be preferable for humankind? Is that so?
And just to summarise. You want evidence for points 1, 2 and 3. But I trust you are well read in the subject and therefore know all of the science that is out there (or the dimwitted trickery of the IPCC and Goreical and Hansen et al if you like), and clearly from your statements you do not give it credence. I KNOW I can bring nothing more to the table on that front – it is an honest position I have no rabbits in my hat.
I’m not satisfied because the emporer says so, however I do agree with the emporer’s conclusions on this issue. FYI the emporer comes out trumps in the classic fable, not vice versa… his citizens cheer his bravery and celebrate his humility… how is that for some spin.
p.s. I’m not an academic – nor have I usggested that I am?
p.p.s. who have I defamed? maligned? I’ve just asked for you to point me towards the science you prefer out of genuine interest for the truth.
Go away. Or come up with the evidence. Take your Hume-nuke with you you lunatic. You are insane mate. What a dim bulb you are. What do you think the last glacial period was like just for example? Geneticists tell us that 70 000 years ago the human race had been whittled down to the low tens of thousands if not the low thousands and by the glacial maximum 18000 years ago Europe was fundamentally uninhabitable by todays standards. Some estimates have less than 40 000 people in the entire continent. What do you THINK glacial ice sheets do to the environment? Not only are you ignorant, you have no imagination. They are a Northern front of death. They pulverize all things, turning Saskatchewan into flatlands. Pushing topsoil all the way down the North American continent. Making life on terra firma almost unliveable, not just for man but for virtually all species.
The gulf-stream is reduced drastically and obstructed. Hence the glacial period is locked in. The equator is still the same temperature so the heat differentials are emphasized. Since the heat cannot travel more easily in the water then the heat differential is greater and the weather is vicious. Contrary to the global warming liars it is THE COLD TIMES that produce drought and appalling extreme weather events.
The white witch of Narnia is a piker compared to mother nature. 100 years of winter and no Christmas. Try multiplying that by 1000 times. The white wall of death. The ultimate destructive force and pulsing whittler of hominid populations. Like an endless Western Front of death. About that bad. About that destructive.
Now we wanted evidence for those three hypotheses and stop screwing around you idiot. And I must urge people to understand that its not just Matt, but this is where socialist education and research have taken us. Made the very stupid like Matt upwardly-mobile. Matt not only doesn’t HAVE any evidence. He is in contempt of the need for evidence….. or reason……. or even a little bit of bloody-imagination.
Hmm my last post didn;t make it – maybe too many links.
Anyway I like the way that Jo Nova discusses “evidence”. Now she is a skeptic so maybe you will like her thinking: http://joannenova.com.au/2008/10/30/what-is-evidence/
“Evidence of carbons impact:
If temperatures followed CO2 levels in the past. (They didn’t)
If the atmosphere showed the characteristic heating pattern of increased greenhouse warming. (It doesn’t). ”
SO it comes down to these two points. Her 1st “they didn;t” about CO2 and temperature has been covered by the fact that no one ever said CO2 had to start the warming, but when CO2 increases it warms (it does). THe Vostok core 800 odd year lag in CO2 is a red herring.
Second point boils down to her “hotspot”… and I’m happy to admit that is a work in progress however I’m very very skeptical of the conclusions and am happy with the scientists answers.
So basically there they are listed, the two things that would be evidence… and I think they are suitably addressed.
ACtually to be honest with you I wouldn’t accept #1 if I were you… as even if temperatures DID follow CO2 it would only be very circumstantial evidence and not causation IMO.
Lol when I say “suitably addressed” …. well you know what I mean Graeme “not addressed at all” but you can find the science it is out there easy enough if you google:)
See you are getting off track here. You will be just beating around the bush unless you relate your reasoning/evidence/epistemological thoughts/ search for context…… to the three hypotheses. If you fail to do that you will fall into the trap of not looking at the thing fresh and merely putting up the science fraudsters on handicapped status. Like its true they need a handicap because they have squat. But we don’t seek to see things through the eyes of fraudsters but rather review the evidence straight. And the only way to do that is to relate the evidence always to hypotheses that maintain the context.
You’ve finally got something to work with. Its like pulling teeth and you’ve wasted a lot of my time. Now reformulate whatever you have to try and lend credence to one or two or all three of the hypotheses. Since it is these hypotheses that relate to rational policy. Supposing you don’t enjoy ruining peoples lives for no reason with spending programs.
I’ve wasted YOUR time??? This is what you do day in day out you’ve got plenty of form.
Three hypotheses…… Evidence, context, epistemology, reasoning, anything at all. Just relate it to the three hypotheses. And don’t bullshit me that you’re not an academic. You’ve just gone into deep cover. Make up your mind. You wanted to bluff me with this story that you were walking around the University. You know. Living the life of the mind, of philosophy, the pursuit of enlightenment. And now you want to say its not you. Just a humble toilet-cleaner on campus trying to make conversation with about 7000 young chicks.
Now stay focused. Whatever you say, say it with these three hypotheses in mind:
1. Evidence for the likelihood of catastrophic warming.
2. Evidence that a little bit of human-induced warming during a brutal and pulversing ice age is a BAD, as opposed to a GOOD thing (in contradiction to all reason and logic.)
3. Evidence for more-than-negligible warming due to industrial-CO2-release.
This is a narrow enquiry to do with a specific matter of public policy in the context of a medium-term crisis to do with energy-production. We have the ability to produce (for practical purposes) infinite energy. But we have been placed in a medium-term bind that risks the collapse into a energy-capital-deprivation vortex. A disaster that would kill more humans than the last time when the leftist-environmentalists bureaucratised and centralised access to DDT.
I’m glad you think I may still be an academic. it would not be a compliment from you but it is nice to know I have what it takes to be a considered a socailist elitist philisoper of little repute:)
1) its all in the models dude
2) its all in the models dude
3) its the temperature record and the hockey stick dude.
You wanker. Go again. Stick with the three hypotheses. You cannot plug the computer in and get it to find evidence for you.
What would you accept as evidence? (given you disregard all current climate science).
Or, hang on the penny just dropped sorry, you are asking for the evidence that convinced ME, not evidence to convince YOU… I’ve not been putting any as I know you know it all and are not convinced… but what you actually want is the evidence that convinces me so you can cut it to shreds. So I should not worry whether you accept it – just put it out there and be prepared to back myself in against whatever you can hurl at it…
At the very least if you expose me as a fraud who is unable to defend and/or simply does not understand you will make me see the error of my ways in not understanding science I hold as true – given that defeating me would not actually question the science… just my inability to defend it.
Actually I quite like that Graeme… too right I should be comfortable saying what I think and WHY I think it… if I can;t defent the why’s then I need to figure out how to or give up and realise it is all a scam.
Don;t abuse me again Graeme, I’m quite prepared to have a go… but as a non-climate-scientist it will not happen in a very short time frame like yuor run of the mill blog post… I’ll need a tad of time to sort the wheat fromt he chaff and lay out for you exactly why I, MattB, think what I think.
I actually only got on to the AGW blogs mid last year as I became aware I was not up to speed on current developments… so this is a great opportunity to test how far I have gotten I guess.
Have you seen The Princess Bride… I have the feeling I’m the Spaniard:)
We’ve gone over this before you moron. I’ll accept any evidence you have if its framed in direct support of the three hypothesis. It appears to me, you dim bulb, that I’ve listed these 3 hypotheses already.
If there is no evidence then admit you are wrong and start hanging it on the evildoers, frauds, dwarfs and misfits.
I’ll do this for you Graeme by next week – stare deep in to my soul and face my AGW beliefs and doubts. But you are a seriously annoying twat.
Good.
Now go forth and never call an honest scientist a “denialist” ever again.
I never have.
You just don’t know when to quit fella. Since at first blush your claim lacks credibility, with regards to your own snide behaviour, I had to look to the deeper meaning of those three words. You are adding insult to injury by asserting that climate rationalists are not honest scientists.
I might have to come around and trash your car if you keep this up. We believe in redemption. But its gotsta be genuine. Some people take a lot more flack then they ought to have to, for the crime of being committed scientists. Attempt not to be a snotty little prat.
on the contrary Graeme all I meant is that I don;t tend to use the term denialist when having genuine discussions on the issue. In this thread I have said “in true denialist fashion”… but that is not to say that all skeptics/rationalists are “denialists”… but you’d be foolish to think that all those who do not agree with AGW do so because of a throughough impartial investigation of the science… just as I would be foolish to believe that all on my side of opinion do so because they are similarly across the science or don’t have other anti-capitalist motives.
Not everything I say is a taunt Graeme.
As I often say at least 4-5 of my closest trusted friends on this planet are well educated climate sceptics. I have no problem with sceptical rationalists. I’m a rationalist myself (that will get your heckles up again). Of course I think they are wrong (just as they think I’m wrong). Mind you some of them are christian when in fact God does not exist… go figure.
You don’t think they are wrong. You just don’t think at all. As we have seen you don’t have any evidence for this racket. The fact is that every anti-Warmer is impartial. We all stopped believing it when we found out they were liars who had no evidence.
So you used to be on the AGW bandwagon Graeme?
Hey Graeme – did you see that new book by Lavoiser’s Evans… “Thank God for Carbon”.
Do you think that is a bit of a joke in the title… I mean if you were an ardent climate evidence based rationalist then what in the heck would you be doing believing in god?
The Senator’s launch speech is humerous too as he makes quite a few Christian references while at the same time referencing science and evidence.
I guess at least they are not saying the believe in god because of scientific evidence I guess.
I thought that extra CO2 likely warmed things up a bit. Which I realised would be a good thing if true. But I didn’t realise they had no evidence for this contention. I thought they were looking a gift-horse in the mouth. I didn’t realize how ridiculous their assumptions were and that the whole fraud was an evidence free zone. While investigating this matter for about an entire year I kept expecting people to come up with the one factoid that turned the whole thing around. I kept thinking that they must be with-holding some vital information. But all along they had nothing. So its just a leftist-taxeater crusade. Not actually having any evidence is an advantage to the fraud, since evidence can be refuted. In fact the entire movement shows no interest at all in reconstructing CO2 levels on smaller time scales then the ice cores, so they can make a causal connection between CO2 and warming.
“Thank God…..” is a figure of speech dopey. Whats the matter with you? Aspergers?
I get the feeling that a great many sceptics still think there is something in it. Even Dr Marohasy seemed to be giving the other side way too much credit as if their point of view was a valid one. I really think it wasn’t until she had those four threads last year calling for evidence, that the enormity of this racket was completely sheeted home. She kept on calling for scientific studies that made the case. But after four threads the fraud side of the argument hadn’t came up with even one. And they didn’t seem to even so much as know what evidence was.
What was needed was data and attribution. Find out the CO2 levels as accurately as possible, and try and find a causal connection. In fact the last person who tried to find out the history of CO2 levels was soundly rubbished and for no reason at all. That was someone called Beck. His findings were very important. Because if CO2 levels can drop as fast as he suggests then this could lead to terrible yields. But the nihilistic opposition just shouted the whole thing down. Food is a problem for other people in the thinking of the fraud side of this argument.
I must have missed those threads… new to the site. I’ll have to dig them out to make sure I’m not using anything that has been shown to be bulldust. Save me some time rather than review the scientific literature;)
Harsh and cold winter weather is no problem for the frogs. They are hibernating at the bottom of lakes and ponds ( half in the mud) , and the water hardly ever freezes down at the bottom.