FORMER Labor leader, Mark Latham, is clearly not an empiricist, though he claims to be and he claims that another leading Australian advocate for anthropogenic global warming, Robert Manne, is also an empiricist and always quick to change his mind should the facts change.
Indeed the opening comments in his long opinion piece, published in today’s Financial Review, suggests that it’s all about evidence and that the evidence is on their side. But as the piece progresses Mr Latham shows that he has no concept of evidence, but that the average Australian just might. The piece is essentially an appeal by Mr Latham to a belief in experts while lamenting that ordinary Australians no longer seem to believe in global warming. Mr Latham writes:
“At face value, society’s small-talk about the weather is frivolous. But in the debate about global warming, it is a highly significant habit. Everyone is an expert on the weather, so why shouldn’t they have a strong opinion on climate, regardless of what the professional researchers say? This is a recurring problem for climate-change believers and lobbyists: how to separate, in the public’s mind, short-term events from long-term trends. Most people are inherently empirical, relying on the things they see around them was a way of gauging the future; the practicality of Aspirational Australia.
“Weather events are commonly extrapolated into discussions about climate change, even though this is akin to using daily sharemarket bulletins as a way of comprehending Kondratiev economics (50-year patterns in the business cycle). Five years ago, at the beginning of the debate, Australia’s drought conditions were seen as synonymous with global warming. It was a simple equation: dryness equals heat. Now, with record rainfall and flooding along the east coast, this notion has lost credibility. Wetness equals coolness.”
Yep. We have climate cycles in Australia and when it’s wetter, it’s cooler.
Conditions have changed, many so-called experts proven wrong, but many of the arrogant and ignorant appear incapable of an honest reassessment of the evidence.
More here: http://afr.com/p/lifestyle/review/climate_change_denial_not_just_for_sFAw16a7QU34KIj2tmN4eJ
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
So Jen – haven’t you just done the same thing – no assessment of the evidence and lobbed an opinion. (which might be a bit more than posting a time series graph from BoM’s web site which is about the level of science of the chooks here)
Do we even have climate cycles? Episodic behaviour yes – cycles nah ? hmmmmm
PDO/IPO stuff is wider than a large barn
And it’s not like sceptics have any science at all except to take an Abbottsian reject everything approach.
It depends on what you call ‘science’ Luke.
I disagree with your assumption here as you are attempting to lump all sceptics into one basket.
That is incorrect.
Many so called sceptics are actually well recognised and employed as scientists (Jen being one of them).
Many so called sceptics are not Abbottsian or political in any way…..they are actually highlighting the fact that genuine science is being badly mauled because of the politics….left/right/up/down/green/brown or whatever!!!!
Many so called sceptics do not in fact reject everything.
The barn analogy you used for PDO/IPO also applies to the so called sceptics!
And what Jen posts here:
Conditions have changed, many so-called experts proven wrong, but many of the arrogant and ignorant appear incapable of an honest reassessment of the evidence.
Is what really lies at the base of the so called sceptics case.
Evidence…..which involves real time data….is the final judge of the projective modeling….not the politics and not the PR spin.
Hey Luke
I first began looking at the hard data on this issue some years ago… beginning with rainfall data. As per my blogging at the time we had drought, while there was obviously drought it wasn’t exceptional and I had every confidence that the drought would end with flooding rains. And that is what happened. And the recent very wet summers hitting Queensland now blamed by some on climate change… it has been much wetter with higher yearly rainfall totals etcetera back in the late 1800s. And of course recent summers have been reminiscent of 1974 and 1956.
As regards the big cycles, I’ve just done my own review of PDO and IPO for the paper about to be published by Abbot and I on the application of artificial intelligence to rainfall forecasting in Queensland.
And even more recently I’ve reviewed the technical literature on sea level rise as part of a diatom review.
So, yes, Luke, I do keep up with the evidence, and I’m constantly reviewing it.
1956 was a La Nina year as was 1955 – so it’s 2 La Ninas in a row just like 2011/2012. Also 1971, 73, 75 were all La Nina years.
Well you haven’t reviewed any published rainfall research here? You could have done a run through the literature but you haven’t.
It’s all just hand waving about Flannery’s unfortunate meanderings in front of microphones (which may or not be the science).
I guess worst on record drought isn’t exceptional. Ho hum.
Which record would that be Luke?
Since when and which particular range or timeframe?
And what conclusion are you attempting from that observation?
And very unfortunately it most definitely isn’t just hand waving about Flannery’s unfortunate meanderings in front of microphones.
I sincerely wish it was.
We have bi polar, naive and entirely unproductive policy being implemented from the highly unscientific meanderings of the likes of Flannery.
Did you see the article in the Fin Review about the desalination plant in Sydney?
Warragamba Dam is spilling again.
The poorly implemented policy means that Sydney siders are still paying for the desalination plant and it is still being used….even though at this time it is clearly an unnecessary expense.
Guess where they’re storing the desalinated water?
It’s difficult to have discourse with someone who sees complex things in terms of simplistic mechanisms and big levers. When the Educated Left embraced “The Market” they could only embrace it as another set of buttons to play with. (Gillard sets a fixed price on a small fraction of thin air, makes purchase non-compulsory but unavoidable, then says “The Market” will resolve all.) The notion of climatic cycles will be lost on such people, because they will look for predictability and, ultimately, controllability, when these things aren’t implied by the term “cycles”.
To see that it’s not a lack of intelligence, but the dominance of emotion, you only have to look at proposed remedies to CAGW. They are quite intricate, involving fantastic degrees of computation. However, proceeding largely from hysteria, free-floating indignation and herd-instinct, they are as useful as tits on a bull. Imagine trying to reduce our “carbon footprint” by using money derived (ultimately) from the export – 70% of production! – of Australian coal, in order to buy imported materials for the establishment of hopelessly ineffective alternative energy sources…and then to go on burning coal in aging and inefficient facilities! Imagine Malcolm Turnbull talking about China’s coal facility closures – then failing to mention their new and vastly more efficient replacement COAL facilities! Finish the sentence, Malcolm.
We’ve come to the dangerous pass of regarding education as dispensation from having to think.
If Latham says Manne is Australia’s leading public intellectual how could you take anything he says seriously.
I mean, luke is Australia’s leading Emo intellectual and even he is better than Manne.
Robert the mitigation of AGW is a complete con and fraud whether the weather or climate is unusual or not. Of course it isn’t unusual or unprecedented at all.
At the moment we are experiencing exactly the type of weather we would expect from a change to a cool PDO and higher number of la ninas because of this change.
You’re right about the absurdity of Gillard and fools trying to “take action on CC” or “tackling CC” or whatever term they dream up, but simple maths proves the idiocy of their actions.
Trouble is we have leftwing dolts who knowingly couldn’t care less about the total fraudulent waste of billions $ now and into the future.
The must know that weather and climate or temp won’t change a jot as a result of this incredible waste but these liars and decievers ( perhaps cowards) are happy for this to continue for decades into the future.
Luke, Jen has put up lots of rainfall charts and temperatures graphs that has given us a good review of what is happening. She usually puts up that monthly temperature update from the fellow in Denmark, every month. And she gives us the BOM annual review on temperature and rainfall. And she provides lots of BOM rainfall charts through the year. If you want empirical on rainfall monitor Jen’s blog.
The usual high brow responses.
The public have two choices, 1/ Be an idiot like Luke, Latham and Manne.
2/ Be sceptical.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/the_only_proper_response_to_a_green_is_scepticism/
But better luck next time. There’s always tomorrow’s catastrophe we can blame on AGW.
@Luke
I still say the original Luke is OK but I see a disturbed impostor here lately.
Surely it can’t be the Luke of intelligence and some wit (and a lot of abuse as well) we know and love to disagree with?
“The usual high brow responses.”
relating to your low brow responses
luke, cast your Emo intellect over this; the point of which is that there has been NO CO2 caused warming in the modern era:
http://www.rossmckitrick.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/2011-09.pdf
Bear in mind that poor old David Stockwell could not get a look in when he said the same thing back in 2009:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0907.1650v3.pdf
I had a look at the diatribe by Latham and quikly lost track at the number of times the denier label was thrown about. The likelyhood that Latham has personally analysed in detail the “science” of the so called greenhouse effect is rather slim. This could be said of most centre-left to hard-left politicians including Gillard. Latham laments that the public out in the burbs just does not seem to be able to accept the true message. The possibility that the public may have taken the time to investigate the matter and might have determined the truth to be somewhat different to that of his own perception seems to have entirely eluded him. He clearly has a rather poor opinion of the public that he is attempting to represent.
The tone of his opinion piece appears to be that the public needs to be saved from itself no matter what the cost. My impression is that the public may be getting tired of this rather holier than thou atitude. This is the unenviable mire in which the Australian Federal Labour Party has become stuck.
Gillard will find it hard to pull herself and her Party out of this sticky situation without a complete loss of face. In order to have any chance of avoiding total destruction at the next election she needs to backtrack now. I can’t see how she can hope to pin all her current blues on the Greens. They simply gave her the leverage to enact policy that she was personally committed to anyway. Her best hope is to limit the carnage while she has the chance to do so. If that is not possible a leadership change may be the only chance for Labour. But the failure of the Rudd challenge will make any further challenge appear to be a sign of short-term capitulation by the Party. At this stage Abbot just has to hold the line, not make too many major gaffs and the top job is assured. This really must make Lathams blood boil. One can sense his frustration.
It’s pointless arguing with Luke; when he’s asked to explain a comment or substantiate a claim or statement he retires from the fray, as with his “The usual high brow responses.”. That fits my understanding of a “troll”.
Cohenite – only a lawyer would bring an economist doing regression to a systems gunfight.
Oh boring Tony Price – apart from a worthy adversary like Cohers – I have explained plenty previously – some factoids
– the behind the scenes scientists that you distrust have actually done the heavy lifting on ENSO, anti-ENSO, IOD, SAM, STR, STRi, PDO and IPO, and tropical cyclone behaviour. Strange that given you all think they’re on the take that you’d accept any of their work?
– at least two MAJOR investigations into recent droughts/drying trends – one in SW WA which presents a picture of changes in natural variability and evidence for AGW change which looking at correlations with Antarctica Law Dome records seems exceptional – the second an investigation of the rainfall decline in SE Australia and the Millennium eastern Australia drought – which again trawled through a multiplicity of mechanisms but identifying a long term decline in autumn rainfall from changes in the intensity of the sub-tropical ridge. This is against a backdrop of El Nino and La Ninas coming and going. The rainfall deficiencies in southern SE Australian were record lowest in places and also for reconstructed Murray inflows. (and that’s not the whole MDB, NSW or southern Australia per BoM maps but it is bang on a very important region)
Additional factoids of clumped ENSO behaviour and a tendency for ENSO to be the Modoki variety in recent times – which has been interesting but that’s it for now. An investigation by CSIRO in the worst on record drought in the SE Queensland Wivenhoe catchment said no evidence over bad luck natural variability. Analysis of SSTs around Australia by serious people (not Cohers mates) would show an increasing trend. Analysis of coral cores and proxy extrapolation would point to 20th century wetter wets and drier drys with no trend (also continued by 21st century data).
How do you pull these things apart – well unless you’re a regression wielding economist – you have pull the data apart with some multi-variate methods, postulate some actual atmospheric mechanisms, and see if you can model the response and isolate factors.
My interpretation of the research is that there is a reasonable case for some AGW involvement in moving atmospheric circulation. Does this mean it’s the end of the world or a carbon tax al la Gillard is a good idea – well no (for now).
So what Manne is lamenting is how drongoism has triumphed (but it is Australia let’s not forget) and seemingly intelligent people (I’d say on both sides) have rendered the populace numb in attempting to put together an intelligent sentence together on this issue.
So Tones – when you want to bring something to the table we’re here. Until then on your bike sport.
And again Tones – why you might want to be a systems type guy or gal in this game is where you have competing forcing which will change the outcome as time progresses – http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/publications/arblaster_future_sam_2011.pdf As ozone related forcings recover by the mid-21st century – greenhouse forcings in the opposite will take over. Might mean some interesting switching of outcomes for Australia?
And for lovers of the Great Pacific Shift – well perhaps AGW bumped the occurrence of the IPO change ! http://www.image.ucar.edu/idag/Papers/Meehlmid70s.JClim.pdf
And for proliferators of the meme that scientists have no interest in natural variability interactions in such matters http://www.decvar.org/presentations/8th_DECVAR_Workshop/Session_04/04-15_Decadal.Pacific.MD.2009.pdf?PHPSESSID=686f3980f0d41971da9d4b818ef3f3cc
all over your head though …
Jen
Totally agree with you re cycles – as they say, the longer the drought, the bigger the flood.
The huge rainfall from 1890-1893 was followed by the Federation drought (1895 – 1905). The 1953-56 floods were followed by the 1958-1967 drought. The 1970s rain was followed by the 1982/83 drought. The high rainfall in the late 1980s was followed by the 1992-96 drought. And the floods of 1999-2001 were followed by the 2002-2009 intermittent drought.
John
Here is a history of the SOI from 1950. The link between La Ninas/El Ninos and weather is remarkably consistent. Do you/anyone have a history prior to 1950?
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2012/04/21/mother-mexico-the-jackals/
None of that changes the fact that the GW alarmists have had, and are using millions in research and campaign funds, to press their shameful manipulation of people, and countries. The mis use of scarce public funds is a disgrace.
Gillard may have made the decisions, but pressure from NGOs like the WFF, Climate Institutes and sundry academic institutions would have been immense.
The science most certainly isnt in, and worse than that, it is fraudulently conceived,organised and underpinned
So who cares about Manne, Latham, the academics, and their stray toady mouth pieces. They can all can say what they like, at the end of the day its still a scam through and through…and it will die on the twisted poisonous vine of its own creation.Science and public respect will be the loser.
Even the Institutions such as the RI and AAS are now no longer to be trusted and the ARC needs a broom through it.
BTW: Do a Goggle for “Planet under Pressure” and read the “State of Planet Declaration”
Then go and see who was the representative from Australia..none other than Flim Flam himself
You’re nearly getting it Luke,
I don’t think anyone is just dismissing the work because scientists en mass are ‘on the take’.
It is the so called ‘consensus position’ that is attempting to enact social policy ( very poorly) on something as you explain is as ‘variate’ and still largely inexplicable.
Unfortunately because of said ‘consensus’ position, the funding has been inappropriately allocated.
Do you have personal experience in applying for funding?
Even many health studies are forced to somehow factor in AGW to get access to the biggest pool.
I feel genuinely sorry for good scientists in places like CSIRO who are repeatedly commissioned to produce reports based on pre determined and inexact assumptions with incredibly narrow parameters and paradigms.
Their latest for the MDBA is classic example (don’t know how to link from this gadget).
It ‘assumes’ that low flows are the problem and therefore ‘flushing’ from an indeterminate source will therefore magically solve it and also somehow magically return a cost benefit to an indeterminate place.
That is based solely on hydrology, even though these people are very aware that hydrology is not necessarily the most appropriate or even ‘the best available’ science discipline to use.
They however just have to do their jobs.
I hold the people who commission these type of reports responsible.
I do also wish that the ‘scientists’ had the capacity to speak up more about the very narrow focus.
Ian – here’s a chart from 1876
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/soihtm1.shtml
luke, you are the Steptoe and son of the blogs; fancy, recyling the Meehle and Santer paper which alleges that the Great Pacific Climate change was ‘delayed’ for nearly 20 years because of AGW!
Meehle has assumed AGW is happening, as far back as the 1940’s, and that the extra energy would have tainted the ENSO cycle so that the PDO caused break was delayed until 1976.
Others such as Vecchi also argue that AGW is altering natural cycles such as the Walker [it isn’t].
ENSO is the method/result of heat transfer in the global climate system. It cannot have an AGW imput because ENSO is caused by deepwater vertical ocean movement which determines the SOI index. AGW heating cannot penetrate the oceans [Trenberth’s missing heat is not at the ocean bottom] therefore ENSO will not be affected by any AGW warming, assuming there is any to begin with.
The only problem with cycles is that there aren’t any ! Observing pseudo-cycles plus or minus 10-20 years aren’t cycles. Otherwise put up your prediction.
Cohenite – well some of us deal with published materials from climate scientists not black magic junk economic stuff off the back of sceptic trucks. And of course the Walker circulation has been impacted. But you missed it stuffing around with SOI.
“So while the SOI is an excellent indicator of interannual variability in both the equatorial MSLP gradient and the WC, it is a highly misleading indicator of long-term equatorial changes linked to global warming.”
http://www.cawcr.gov.au/staff/sbp/journal_articles/GW_the_SOI_Power_Kocuiba_CD_2010.pdf
Anyway SOI doesn’t even have good historical correlation with rainfall – see pre-1950.
So pity the ocean has heated over 150 years by the pixies eh? As for thinking that ENSO is directly affected by AG warming – well that’s why you’re a lawyer not a physicist. Try thinking systems for a change.
But more importantly Cohers – I loved Saint Saviour in this – she’s fabulous. Sigh.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDT5zoH1VpQ You see I’ve gone full circle and out of that retro shit now. Gets going at 1:28 – wait for it ! And if you look carefully I’m in the front row. Play it loud OK !
“Don’t wanna take a chance on your econometric romance” ROFL !
“…put up your prediction.”
Hopeless. Irredeemable.
Thanks, John.
Shock horror, the facts have changed. For the last 15 years, the SOI keeps trending up and up. And (for Cohers), the trend of about one unit per year is highly significant! Maybe a Mackellar view is not enough. I wonder if the facts have really changed about the global temperature trend? (Thanks to JSayers putting up the SOI link and kindly not advising IGeorge his link was not to the SOI. Yanks dont care much for the SOI – maybe it is too old ,too simple, something in the word southern, not an ocean index, they did not discover it, more kudos if you invent a new one etc etc)
Luke??
http://users.tpg.com.au/johnsay1/Stuff/luke.jpg
Luke,
It seems therefore that the only thing we can STILL safely say with any degree of confidence is………. variability rules?
There is a possibility that there is some sort of cyclic nature to that…..it very obviously doesn’t want to conform to any currently modeled pattern however… but that doesn’t completely dismiss the notion that a cyclic nature is a possibility….not a certainty….at this stage the only certainty is in fact variability…especially local variabilities.
The problem is that some of ‘the science’ has gone out on a limb and claimed that it can model a definite pattern…..and that it has dismissed all possibility of cycles.
Even your earlier assertion about the declining Autumn rainfall patterns in OZ has now fallen outside the parameters…and yes I know that is a wiggle/wobble….but we don’t know what it really means as far as our ability to predict climate patterns goes. Autumn rainfall in Southern OZ has recorded the 2 highest in a row…and I have already linked that report on a previous post…..2012 has DEFINITELY added a 3rd even though the figs aren’t official yet as we’re still in Autumn.
Will it go back inside the modelled trend again?
I don’t really think anyone can claim that either way in absolute terms either.
So your challenge here:
Otherwise put up your prediction.
Is really just you being adversarial with a lawyer don’t you think?
I don’t think Cohenite, Jen or many of us think we’re in the business of ‘predicting’ climate. We are rather questioning those who claim they are.
Debs – do try to keep up
“I don’t think Cohenite, Jen or many of us think we’re in the business of ‘predicting’ climate. We are rather questioning those who claim they are.”
Then what’s this Abbot J., and J. Marohasy, 2011: Application of artificial neural networks to rainfall forecasting in Queensland, Australia. Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, In Press. doi: 10.1007/s00376-012-1259-9 .
Sound of Deb’s brain imploding ….
Now Debs – of course variability rules – but what about the drift – think before answering Debs
Next right John – did you like the song?
Bazza,
Shock Horror?
Global temperature trend?
Why are you assuming that would be the relevant and the deciding point in a discussion about OZ climate patterns/projections?
Yes Luke,
Jen does research on climate….
But Luke,
Does Jen claim she is in the business of climate prediction or has she (with Abbot) actually questioned the current methods of climate projection/forecasting?
Good effort trying to avoid the actual point.
And Luke,
I thought I pointed out a very definite 3 year drift in Southern OZ…it has clearly drifted in the opposite and unpredicted direction and completely outside the parameters has it not?….wiggle/wobble argument aside.
Debs – try to protect what little respect you have left in this debate.
Application of artificial neural networks to rainfall forecasting in Queensland, Australia (hmmmmm)
And now you’ve read the paper already have you?
It also may surprise you that other researchers have also used neural nets in aspects of rainfall and runoff prediction. (jeez is that right sez Debs)
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rranom&area=vic&season=0305&ave_yr=0
Fail with Bazza too … sigh
Deb; try hunting after Luke.
I found these – Australian climate extremes – Time series graphs
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/extremes/timeseries.cgi
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/extremes/timeseries.cgi?graph=CN00&ave_yr=0
It’s my prediction you guys won’t relate SOI with a lack of warming, SL rise etc cause it’s the wrong tool. Even a casual glance at the long term record shows that there are no obvious conclusions about cycles or any other aspect related to massaging the data. The Pacific does what it does.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Soi.svg
Another argument runs here,
http://www.skepticalscience.com/el-nino-southern-oscillation.htm
on the other hand, we can go down this path with SOI and SST for the short term predictions re rainfall and a few other products using artificial intelligence and a bit of experience
http://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/seasonalclimateoutlook/seasurfacetemperature/index.php
Gavin
It’s interesting that the graph you link to re ‘very hot days’ only starts from 1960.
I checked days over 35C for Sydney (Observatory Hill) and found that from 1921-1950 there were 125 days over 35C but only 102 days over 35C from 1981-2010. The highest temp is still 45.3C on Jan 14, 1939.
1921-1930 had the highest number of days over 35C with 49 (5 over 40C).
However, the overall average max temp for these periods have increased – 1921-1950 was 21.7C and has risen to 22.5C for the past 30 years. Could this mean temperatures were a little more volatile during those years?
So far this year in Sydney there have been no days over 35C and only 1 day in the since April last year.
I know that I have only checked one station but this is one where temps have increased over the years (UH effect?). It would be interesting to see what the results would be if we took into account data prior to 1960.
“Extreme” is the big new scam. All pretense of science is abandoned for this slop. It’s all spin and wordplay now.
What about “frosty”? In these parts, we got ferocious winter-spring frost during the nineties, some of them were twelve hour affairs, several nights in a row, when the westerlies blew by day and the skies were clear at night.
The frosts are less frequent and severe now because we’ve been getting moist southerlies in winter since 2007. You don’t get frost with night cloud! Thunderstorms in winter were unheard of here in the nineties, now we get them every winter.
In the eighties and nineties, I remember shaking my head at the thought of those wet Grand Finals in the 1950s. But it all comes around again, in its poorly understood and non-predictable way.
There is A: available data, and there is B: needed data. The one is not the other.
There is A: current knowledge, and there is B:needed knowledge. The one is not the other.
Narrowing the gulf between A and B is the first concern of a true scientist.
Those who proceed with A, hoping without justification that it will serve as B, are not even capable of clear thought, let alone science.
It’s usually not a good idea to judge a book by its cover Luke.
You seem to be highly enamoured with the title of the paper?
Is that because it has the word ‘forecasting’ in it?
Are you claiming therefore Jen’s business is ‘predicting’ climate?
Seriously?
You seem to have muddled up the difference between research and the actual topic under discussion at this post?
The original point remains valid….along with the supplementary question…. you have adroitly avoided both.
Your assumptions about my ability to read, the workings of my brain, your belief that you can give out pass/fail marks are merely assumptions….nothing more, nothing less.
Cohenite,
Piers Corbyn seems to be onto something with his analytical technique involving solar CME’s, lunar cycles and polar jet stream behaviour. His predictions are basically spot on though there is some way to go before earthquakes can be tied into his methodology but he’s on the right track.
As for the continual argumentation here, recall the late Fred Hoyle’s observation – that when vast amounts of money and expertise are thrown at a problem, and the problem remains disputatious, then it’s likely that the proponents are arguing with the wrong ideas.
Corbyn’s work is based, as far as I can tell, on plasma physics (CME’s are simply ejections of solar plasma) but how such ejections cause a subsequent occurrence of weather and earthquakes on earth when such CME’s are on a collision course with the earth, remains unclear, but that’s the direction that research should be taking because, quite frankly, the other directions involving the greenhouse effect have stalled in a shouting match.
Let’s remember that to reject the greenhouse gas effect is to effectively reject Sagan’s argument against Velikovsky, and mainstream science can’t abide that, hence the support for a “minor” GHE BY Spencer et al, and a “major” GHE by Luke and his mates. That’s what the argument has ended in.
My contention is that both parties may be wrong, and if the facts change will they change their minds? Time can only tell.
Interesting info using ALL the models on SLR out to 2300 or the next 300 years.
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/364/1844/1709/F4.expansion.html
Greenland ( 10% of the planet’s ice) shows a positive trend while Antarctica ( 89% of the planet’s ice) shows a negative trend.
So the 10% source may melt some over the next 300 years but the 89% source will be gaining ice over the next three centuries.
I ask again where is this dangerous SLR going to come from then?
And now this has changed with SLs falling, what are we going to DOOOOO?
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/view.php?id=25538
So Debs – you reckon you could forecast rainfall without knowing about the climate eh? Keep digging your hole.
Which hole would that be Luke?
I am trying to find where I would have said something that would cause you to interpret my comments in that fashion.
I have come to the conclusion that it is rather your uncanny ability to obfuscate and draw outrageous conclusions and pretend people said something they didn’t….all to avoid the actual point and the actual question.
Because of course I have never implied such a thing and have instead stated on several occaisions that rather a lot of the work done by climate science and climate research is useful in my world.
Unfortunately that is not the case for all of it because the science has been hijacked and used inappropriately.
Jen also highlights that at this particular post.
I’ll make a deal with you….when you’re ready to actually answer my rather straight forward questions…..maybe I’ll think about answering your diversionary and rather obtuse questions.
Debbie – I too have come to the conclusion that it is rather your uncanny ability to obfuscate and draw outrageous conclusions and then write a large amount denying the obvious contradiction
So Luke?
Where did I write that I could forecast rainfall without knowing about climate?
For that matter, when did I write that I can forecat anything to do with weather?
Short enough for you?
Jennifer is spot on (as always) about ML and RM. They belong to the ego-driven and non-scientific rat-pack.
One further point; as the world warms modestly and beneficially due to extra CO2 (about +1.3 C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 from 0.04% now to 0.08% by 2100 or so) oceanic evaporation will rise by about 17%. This week’s evaporation is, in round terms, next week’s precipitation so average rainfall must rise by the same amount. A great good in a world where competition for water will be fierce! As a bonus, this extra precipitation it will slowly increase the volume of Antarctic ice. This will more than offset glacier melting.
More CO2 will help water supply in another way also. As numerous studies show (e.g. long-term, FACE, field scale trials by the USDA Research Division) more CO2 enables more plant growth with LESS water. As irrigation is the major use of water, that will alleviate water demand and permit the world to feed 10 billion or so people from existing resources.
If ever our planet had the opportunity of a massive win-win, having more CO2 in the air must be it!
Mark Latham is one of the more perceptive of our politicians, what does that say for the rest of them?
Neville,
Here’s a good indication of how much real SLR there has been in the last 100 years:
http://www.investigatemagazine.co.nz/Investigate/?p=2725
SFA!
Thanks very much for that SD . Of course SL was 1.5 M higher off Australia’s east coast 4,000 years ago and much higher during the warmer Eemian Interglacial 130,000 years BP.
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2278381.htm
Hey Debs – those who claim they know about climate….BoM… can’t predict rain. – Just follow them on the web as I’m sure you do.
Neville, you know it was higher 4,000 yago, I know it was higher 4,000 yago, The graph says it was higher 4,000 yago but the bloody experts say: “notice that nearly all the SLR was completed 4,000 yago and only about 1 mm per year since”. Waffle!
Dr Walter Munk is highly regarded by the convinced but I suspect he is another brainwashed true believer. Especially the way he talks about Mann’s hockey stick.
Check 11mins 10secs. The graph shows the highest point 4,000 yago:
Another look at polar bears. They have been through more warming than we have:
http://junkscience.com/2012/04/20/polar-bears-may-have-survived-multiple-warm-and-ice-free-episodes-so-the-independent-assumes-they-are-at-even-greater-risk/
Ian G “It’s interesting that the graph you link to re ‘very hot days’ only starts from 1960”
My response begins with Google; “International Geo Physical Year + 1960” cause that’s when our met people got a bit of a lift along with their instruments and methods. Any one else wishing to follow my drift needs to see this Google Books page “Meteorological Observations ans Measurements” from “Physics of the Marine Atmosphere” then read backwards for a perspective on prior methods and records such as they were.
Fixed weather station data back then came from crude max min recorders in the form of a U tube thermometer and floats that were most likely manually reset once a day by some duty officer who had the task of phoning their state forecaster with results after entering something on the local log. What we have now in mega data is a refined version of that earlier story.
I have this type of thermometer once used in science hanging on an outside fly screen door. My mate, even with her considerable lab experience still can’t read it. I think it’s quite good, but I have an original psychrometer with it’s matched Hg in glass pair to compare U tube v dry bulb readings.
Having done many ambient temp readings from the 60’s both in and around major industry while tuning their environment control gear, I still don’t find a case for UHI distortion of the BoM data sets. Given many post war stations were either in small towns or based at airports, there is nothing to compare with the work I did near furnaces, boilers and factories. Their secondary heat zone is very small for a very good reason, efficiency! Their impact across a street is not measurable despite the ongoing WUWT debate.
Say whatever you want on the climate vs. weather issue, the fact is, weather is the only thing that’s relevant to people. If ‘global warming’ or ‘climate change’ has nothing to do with weather, people just aren’t going to be enthusiastic about climatology. Even climatologists agree that they don’t forecast weather, which means, they’re not even trying to forecast what’s relevant to people.
You’re correct John,
Of course I do as do most farmers.
We also use other world sites such as this one:
http://www.yr.no/place/Australia/
We find them useful, especially their cloud chards, synoptic charts and radar.
As far as their ability to predict?
They’re usually pretty good about one or two days ahead…..beyond that they are not overly reliable and can only be used as a guide.
I know I’m going to set Luke off but as far as long term predictions go, they really don’t have much more success than just going through a coin tossing exercise as far as their usefulness is concerned.
Schiller has sort of nailed that rather well in his post 🙂
I don’t think they should stop trying BTW…there will be no one happier than farmers when the climate/weather puzzle can be cracked and the projections do develop a better degree of accuracy.
The issue is that we do use these sites and this information all the time, we are very familiar with them and we are very well aware of their projective limitations and therefore their relevance in our decision making processes.
Debbie – precise prediction of weather and seasonal climate is difficult. However don’t be too silly with your science nihilism. We do understand major influences such as El Nino and La Nina and interactions with IPO/PDO. We do know about modifiers like IOD, SAM, STR and STRi. So it’s not like nothing has been discovered.
And there are intra-seasonal factors especially in northern Australia like the Madden-Julian oscillation – or 40 day wave.
It’s a mathematical facts that weather forecasts have skill over throwing dice or persistence.
Seasonal forecasts have variable skill depending on location and time of year. It’s not one size fits all – but it’s not precise – it’s one fuzzy cloud which is sufficiently different from another. But it’s still a cloud of possibilities.
However we well understand why we have had big wets in the last two years
Are seasonal and intra-seasonal forecasts climate or weather or neither? It’s just a continuum really.
Jennifer,
You are putting up some good posts. The AGW believers are losing,because nature has not agreed with them. Keep up the good work you do in pointing this out.
And there in lies the problem Luke,
What a pity the political agenda that has hijacked this work and used it inappropriately is not able to be at least as honest about the very real limitationas as you are.
Your mathematical facts I’m sorry to observe are not measurably more useful than coin tossing in my world.
Sorry, that’s just the cold hard fact.
I have no problem with attempts to improve but please cease telling me it’s ‘settled’ or that it is usefully reliable. It isn’t.
Would you base your financial future on those mathematics?
Even Lovelock has decided he exagerates and so do his “peers”…even better he goes on to explain exactly why they cant recant their “dire” predictions….
how do you feel luke gav baz et al……..if you aint sceptical of most of the predictions you aint thinking. http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/23/11144098-gaia-scientist-james-lovelock-i-was-alarmist-about-climate-change
“Lovelock, 92, is writing a new book in which he will say climate change is still happening, but not as quickly as he once feared…. (The) professor admitted in a telephone interview with msnbc.com that he now thinks he had been “extrapolating too far”…
“The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened,” Lovelock said…
”The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time… it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising — carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that.”
He pointed to Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and Tim Flannery’s “The Weather Makers” as other examples of “alarmist” forecasts of the future.
Time to ackowledge you have been done by your teams outrageous statements of certainty and horror…and maybe a sorry to Deb, who at least tries to keep you thinking. Personally ive given up.
‘Extrapolating too far’
Now that is priceless!!!! 🙂
ROFL.
Thanks for that link Toby.
Louis, the sun will have its day and given the potency of those studying it, Scafetta, Shaviv, Courtillot, Svensmark etc the truth will out. David Stockwell did a great paper on TSI and temperature correlation, short version:
http://vixra.org/abs/1108.0020
Long version:
http://vixra.org/pdf/1108.0004v1.pdf
But can’t get it up; luke’s peer review is a joke.
Speaking of peer review and luke; luke, what do you think of ACORN? Great peer review, NIWA was involved. Fair dinkum, why don’t you guys call yourselves the Painters and Dockers union and be done with it.
Or Stockers stuff is bunk more likely. Publish the reviewers comments. LOL !
ABC now wetting the bed over the “coming” big dry. Do they ever let up?
But credit to the BoM they didn’t claim global warming in spite of ABC urging but claimed it was going to be warmer than normal in the SEQ.
Yeah, like today’s max in SEQ: Applethorpe 16.6, Dalby 20.8, Inglewood 18.8, Toowoomba 18.9, Warwick 18.7.
Hate to see the temps if it wasn’t warm but I love watching them regularly get their predictions wrong.
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2012/s3487806.htm
ACORN luke?
Luke really thinks that old 19th C records like that 57c at Cloncurry should have been allowed.
That right Luke?
You there Luke?
NOAA, NIWA and Environment Canada actually.
What do I think about ACORN – well you lot will be banging away for years now. I’m amazed BoM got this done – after answering all the time wasting bullshit Ministerial correspondence how do they get time to scratch.
“after answering all the time wasting bullshit Ministerial correspondence how do they get time to scratch.”
Oh yes, poor dears; I especially like the bit where a bias of 0.1C due to rounding is conceded but not taken into account for some reason.
And after all this the previous HQ temperature trend of 0.8C, well ahead of the rest of the world, is bumped up to 1C in ACORN. Hot stuff.
In fact the technical report at http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/acorn-sat/#tabs=2
says
“In summary, the analyses undertaken here show that observed warming over Australia is robust
to the choice of observing network, homogenisation technique and choice of statistical model
used to describe multi-decadal changes in temperature. The warming in the ACORN-SAT data
is best described by a quadratic trend model (or the very similar lowess model) and certainly not
by a simple linear fit applied over the last 100 years. Australian temperatures showed little or no
change during the first three decades of record, followed by accelerated warming over the last
50 years. Just over eighty percent of the total (100-year) change in Australian-averaged
temperature occurred in the last five decades. The ACORN-SAT data are similar to all other
datasets, including sea-surface temperatures in the Australian region, during the period of most
significant warming. This underlines the likely physical reality of the changes diagnosed in
Australia’s recent climate.”
Plenty of denier fodder eh?
Poor Luke – he is getting lonely in his defence of AGW – one of a dwindling few. I wish they would dwindle faster.
BOM says the rounding problem is not a problem because there would have been an equivalent rounding up and down to the nearest odd number. This may not be correct because actually we have no way of knowing which way the rounding occurred at individual stations. And since ACORN has 30.1% rounding before 1972, the date of metrification, compared with 31.04% rounding in the HQ it sure doesn’t seem as though much has changed. Post 1972, ACORN has 17.7% rounding, a bare improvement on the old HQ at 19.47% .
“Robust warming” my back-side.
‘Australian temperatures showed little or no change during the first three decades of record, followed by accelerated warming over the last 50 years. Just over eighty percent of the total (100-year) change in Australian-averaged temperature occurred in the last five decades.’
Maybe this is because higher annual temps were adjusted downward prior to 1950, sometimes by up to 0.7C.
For instance, Lismore raw data shows 27.4C for 1915’s annual max temp. The high-quality climate site has adjusted it down to 26.7C.
When checking 30 year averages from the BOM raw data site, Lismore’s average max temp from 1921-1950 was 25.6C. From 1971-2000 this average had dropped to 25.3C. Yet the HQ site graph shows a rise in temps. Go figure.
sp – why not call yourself s or p ? surely sp is indulgent. How about “.” Science sin’t a popularity contest sour ponce.
Cohenite you would have to be one of the nation’s great deniers. Any serious person would have a look at other data like SSTs, frost frequency, species behaviour. Mate it’s writ large – all one way – and I can tell you they really think you lot are just a joke now. A dad’s army of codgers. Unpublished whingers.
Go down to BoM and give them an erudite seminar on their failings. But unlike with bluff-able pensioners you won’t get away with shonky graphs and shell games.
And Lismore isn’t in ACORN-SAT. Sigh.
I still fail to understand why they’re all still insisting that their projective modeling is a precriptive base to enact major social policy.
Real time data does not match the projections. It’s even gone outside of the inexact ranges. In the wrong direction.
It may or may not fall back inside, who knows?
The ‘insurance’ argument is flawed. Policy and projects are not delivering us insurance or more correctly ‘assurance’ that we are ready for anything that is a measureably beneficial outcome. It certainly has no hope of mitigating the so called ‘carbon pollution’ problem.
This insane obsession with climate/weather as ‘the greatest moral challenge of our time’ is proving to be a highly unproductive and expensive waste of time and money.
I have no problem with continuing work based on solid evidence that helps us gain a better understanding.
That’s not what’s happening is it?
Straight from Heartland Cohenite?
Google; “robust warming backside 2012” finds this-
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/02/18/cyberbulling-scientists-using-threats-in-an-effort-to-silence-the-discussion-on-climate-change/
Add “AU” and we find this, imo at the last place for a genuine scientific debate however the right spot in gathering opinion
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/04/satellites-show-a-warmer-earth-is-releasing-extra-energy-to-space/
Luke, as long as BOM honour this undertaking I won’t mind being one of Australia’s greatest deniers:
“C2. The computer codes underpinning the ACORN-SAT data-set, including the algorithms and protocols used by the Bureau for data quality control, homogeneity testing and calculating adjustments to homogenise the ACORN-SAT data, should be made publicly available.”
“As the Earth warms, more radiation escapes to space” is simply classic
“As the Earth warms, more radiation escapes to space” is simply classic”
Absolutely gav; good to see you saying something sensible for a change. And what about this graph; it alone disproves AGW.
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/lindzen/wielicki-2002-a.gif
“and I can tell you they really think you lot are just a joke now”…i think that is the sentiment of many australians about the csiro and bom and the federal government, the department of climate change and anybody else pushing the agenda to pushus into a “carbon constrained economy”.
It is shear madness and in a decade or two we will look back on it like we do all the other scare stories thrown at us over the last centuryand laugh at how gullible and foolish we humans are. If it wasnt so seriously wasting money and lowering living standards it would be funny, but its not!!
“As the Earth warms, more radiation escapes to space” is simply classic
Care to enlarge on that, gav?
For high frost frequency where I live, you need clear skies + dominant westerlies + winter/spring. In the nineties, lots of frost. Lately, less frost. Unless you automatically relate such factors as wind and moisture to such data as temp and frost frequency, then you are hooked on factoids. In other words, you can’t think.
“Species behaviour” is an absolute mine of factoids. Yet, as you live around species and observe them, you will be bewildered by their comings and goings and by their adapations. Anyone building a case on short-term observations or “sightings” of species is just a bloody know-all. Such a person is hooked on factoids, cannot be a scientist and cannot think.
“Anyone building a case on short-term observations or “sightings” of species is just a bloody know-all.” bleats our uninformed Getup obsessed Robert
Ah well they’re not are they – don’t be so bloody vacuous Robert ! They’re long term studies – You yourself need to think and stop gibbering uninformed random thoughts.
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2008/2008_Rosenzweig_etal_1.pdf
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(11)01030-X
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2010GL046474.shtml
On frost
http://www.bom.gov.au/lam/climate/levelthree/c20thc/flip1.htm
What do you mean lowering living standards Toby? Stop whinging you’ve never had it so good. Sceptic alarmism….
Luke
Firstly, I don’t really care if Lismore is in ACORN-SAT or not – it is the raw data compared with the H-Q site adjustments that I find concerning. This constant readjusting of temps without any real explanation is worrying.
And as to your reference to the barrier reef and it quotes:
‘Rising temperatures caused by climatic warming may cause poleward range shifts and/or expansions in species distribution.’ Note ‘may cause’ – more weasel words.
The reef has been there for millions of years and survived greater temp changes than today as noted below in Wiki.
‘The reef’s substrate may have needed to build up from the sediment until its edge was too far away for suspended sediments to inhibit coral growth. In addition, approximately 400,000 years ago there was a particularly warm interglacial period with higher sea levels and a 4 °C (7 °F) water temperature change.’
Sorry, Luke, but I’ve stopped doing the homework you set me. Your linking in the past has been regrettable, and a mere substitute for thought.
By all means, state your case, but no more of your links, thank you. This may help you to think. Baby steps.
And thank you for mentioning the unspeakable GetUp. No group better typifies the Age of Spin better than that conspiracy of weasels. Let’s mention them and out them as much as possible.
I’m told GetUp have a particularly strong appeal to aging hipsters. How low can one go, eh?
I
Well Robert I see you’ve dipped into pure stupidity and pig ignorance which isn’t surprising. So we have Robert pers. comm. with vacuous comments pulled out his butt versus the world’s science literature. So when Robert is exposed talking total bullshit and comprehensively refuted his answer is to clasp his hands tightly over ears and eyes lest his 10 neurone on-board processor implode into a back hole of nihilism.
And I can’t be bothered doing lengthy explanations for time wasters when you can simply skim a link or two and get my import in about 10 seconds. Well perhaps for you 10 years given your IQ.
Anyway afternoon tea at the nursing home will be around soon. Don’t worry now.
Luke, though you’re obviously very angry right now, I thought your last post was an improvement, thanks to the fact that you wrote a few paras without linking. I think you are indeed very intelligent – certainly far more intelligent than me – and you only need to start using that intelligence. Expressing yourself without the frenetic linking could be a first, admittedly challenging, step.
I’ll even go so far with my compliments as to say that, one day, you may well be a conservative. In that happy event, I hope you don’t toss out the Conservation with the sinister rubbish of Environmentalism. Conservation needs good brains like yours.
luke, I’ll always look at your links; they contain treasure.
Karoly and biology; after the butterflies who can believe anything this guy says:
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/butterfly_broken/
The seaweed and frost papers I’ll look at further but the coral reef one; fair dinkum; I thought AGW was killing them off and now they are going to be at the North pole!
Okay, I have a tendency to be sharp with words and I’ll moderate, or try to. I can see I upset someone, and that’s not productive.
But I have seen the BOM on frost, and what it reports and speculates is so far from lived reality here that it leaves me amazed. In this supposedly mild region, frost in the nineties and beyond was savage, not just in ’94, and I hope to have so much bamboo cover in future that I never have to live through it again.
Re the BOM on cloud. Nobody could argue with that cloud decrease after the 70s, but how does the BOM miss the increase after 2007 and that fundamental shift in dominant winds? How does it miss the nature of the ’09 El Nino, which, in spite of the Big Dust, was very different to previous El Ninos and more in line with this post ’07 regime, though it certainly had characteristics of an El Nino.
The trend seems to be to publish and make claims based on any knowledge that comes to hand which suits the politics. Sorry, but that’s how it looks.
If the BOM wants to make a case about “extremes” it really has to spend a lot more effort on clarifying terms, to begin with. But as long as it asks us to stop believing our experience and senses, clear definitions won’t help.
And just look at what passes for a “specific” with the BOM. Just look at how it uses Roma as its one specific example on frost, then all but debunks its own case by admitting to fundamental changes in the Coral Sea since the mid 1950s as a probable cause. Then comes this obfuscation:
“So the regional temperature rise could be due to local factors. But similar upward trends in minimum temperature are also evident in many other parts of the world – giving rise to the suspicion among some that the “enhanced Greenhouse effect” is responsible.”
Now that is obfuscation, and nothing else. How on earth does such trite and manipulative rubbish make its way on to an official tax-funded site? And should I be obliged to hit that site’s link ever again?
I know that Piedmont wine-growers were overjoyed by the regime that meant drought and fire for Oz around the turn of this century. I’m aware of global changes in climate, including warming. But to “build” our agriculture around recent conditions and the hurried and sloppy speculations such as we see quoted above, is to extinguish the spirit of Goyder.
That’s the problem I have with so many links to “authoritative science”. Too often, they’re an insult.
Are they talking about coral or Polar Bears?
http://junkscience.com/2012/04/20/polar-bears-may-have-survived-multiple-warm-and-ice-free-episodes-so-the-independent-assumes-they-are-at-even-greater-risk/
And how’s that solar system workin’ out for ya, Lukie?
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/high-price-paid-for-low-solar-return-20120422-1xfca.html
Sigh – BoM didn’t do the frost work …. was done by aggies doing work on need for frost resistant varieties.
P.S. Wasn’t angry at all – moreover pulling your leg with a bit of rhetorical bluster. My point was simply a large number of studies – 24,000 from memory in the Nature paper that – that using simple poikilotherm development – insects go through life cycles more quickly when it warms for one example – that it seems flowering times, mating times, species range, development times have changes in many regions over a long period. So you would put that with ACORN, CRUTEM, GISS, SST data, boreholes, UAH, RSU etc etc and ask whether the story is broadly consistent – I think it is. It’s called multiple lines of evidence.
In fact Robert – this is the seminal frost paper – cawcr.gov.au/bmrc/clfor/cfstaff/nnn/pubs/stone.pdf in researching whether SOI (El Nino stuff) can help you find a better wheat variety they find a climate change trend in frost numbers through the summer cropping zone of eastern Australia and the all important date of last frost.
Roma was only “an illustrative” example.
Indeed those playing with seasonal forecasts were also thwarted by climate change trends in their indices e.g. Indian Ocean warming.
So many agricultural scientists have come to AGW through noticing trends in their data not a as priori assumptions a la Getup-sian greenies. Strange as sceptics never find such things.
Luke, BOM’s website. You linked, I discussed. I could hardly discuss anything else.
PDO effect was developed as a result of salmon fishery research, as far as I know. That hasn’t stopped people on both the warming and skeptic side from using it and abusing it.
That Coral Sea mid-fifties warming and its effect on Qld has been well known for a long time. Should never have been used in that manipulative way. (At the same time, there was cooling sea to the north of New Guinea.)
By the way, if there has been more warming than cooling globally within any defined recent period, I would be neither surprised nor worried. It is only a significant anthropogenic causation that could possibly concern me.
Luke, I have no problem with species research, nor am I scandalised by variations due to changing climate. (Changing climate is, in fact, the only climate I know.) I have huge problems with conclusions unjustified by the research. That applies to “It’s the Sun” and “Coming Ice Age” as much as to CAGW and Arctic Death Spiral. These people research and calculate, but do they think?
What we DON’T know about submarine and subterranean factors, let alone orbits, space, polarities etc etc, should be making us very cautious – unless the body of knowledge was increased by a factor of one thousand last night as I slept. I hope this dispels any “anti-science” suspicions.
Well you see at that BoM Roma site there was this thing called a reference which you simply insert into Google or Google Scholar and add pdf to find (hopefully) a full version
in this case
Frost in NE Australia: trends and influences of phases of the Southern Oscillation pdf ….. and voila !
Luke I did not state by how much living standards would be lowered…had i said dramtically lowering living standards you might have a point….but as usual you create a straw man to knock down to prove (?) ….i also did not say or mean my own living standards, i meant the real poor struggling to live on a few dollars a day who are seeing their food prices sky rocket and their energy prices rise. But i suspect the europeans would be in much better shape if they werent wasting so much money as well……
as would we……..
any time money is spent in a less than optimal manner reduces our potential living standards. Only an idiot or a zealot could support the solar and wind schemes as an effective way to reduce emissions, the same goes for chopping down rainforest etc to create biofuels, forcing up the cost of food, the carbon tax, creating a 10b “renewables fund” likewise is wasting money that could be spent in any number of ways that have a real pay off…ie more hospitals, schools, aid etc.
probably all a bit hard for you to understand ….its much easier to live in a world of platitudes…..and bugger the human consequences……sigh……
And if its insurance you want i will happily insure your house for 100% of its value if you pay me a premium of 120% pa. Not interested? Now i wonder why……….
Something Robert just wrote caught my eye:
“What we DON’T know about submarine and subterranean factors, let alone orbits, space, polarities etc etc, should be making us very cautious – unless the body of knowledge was increased by a factor of one thousand last night as I slept. I hope this dispels any “anti-science” suspicions.”
That sums up at least part of my take on the “Great Debate”, in one word uncertainty. On the other side of the coin is, of course, Luke:
“We do understand major influences such as El Nino and La Nina and interactions with IPO/PDO. We do know about modifiers like IOD, SAM, STR and STRi. So it’s not like nothing has been discovered.”
That’s not just certainty, it’s hubris. It’s akin to saying “We do understand the structure of sub-atomic particles”. We don’t know that with any degree of certainty, and we certainly don’t know anything other than the general influences of climate oscillations and modifiers. If we did, there’d be little ongoing research.
The slowing of “global warming” to a crawl, or stasis, depending on where you start your graph, had the “settled science” merchants scurrying to find explanations. “Natural variation” – nice try, but no marks for suggesting reasons or mechanisms – I thought “natural variation” was the norm. “Aerosols” – clutching at straws, and support for this requires either total ignorance, or a belief that NH aerosols managed to penetrate to 80°S in a relatively few years. Full marks for getting a paper published in weeks rather than months though, while others waited. The “climate fire-brigade” comes to the rescue of beleaguered modellers and their apologists.
We don’t know much about the climate. It’s such a vast subject spanning all scientific disciplines, except perhaps the overriding discipline of scepticism (that which is seriously lacking in the “consensus”), that scientists have to specialise to a degree which would have been considered far too narrow a few decades ago. The consequence of that narrow focus is that polymaths are thin on the ground. It leads to real schoolboy howlers like calculating significant sea-level rise from floating sea-ice, or the recent “discovery” that it’s warmer water which melts sea-ice, not warmer air – no marks for not understanding specific heat and density. Every day, it seems to me, “discoveries” are made which should be simple to deduce without a research grant and a team of “experts”, or which are already known from the past. “Experts” discover that over hours or a few days, coral polyps don’t respond well to sudden changes in temperature, or dilute hydrochloric acid (quelle surprise!), and extrapolate that to a great ocean “die-off”. Others without (or maybe less of) an agenda and a need to attract funding, discover that in the ocean rather than a lab. tank, polyps recover after weeks or months, and that their offspring have built-in adaptation., and can live happily in low pH, low aragonite water. The happy triumph of good science over rushed science and advocacy.
For every paper which one side can cite to “prove” something, the other side can also produce one. Claiming as Luke and his ilk seem to do that there are more papers on his side of the argument proves nothing. Science isn’t done by numbers, but by quality and rigour.
A return visitor from Mars would conclude that little has changed here on Earth in the last 80 years, except that there’s many more of us, and we’re worrying more about things we can’t control, and which don’t matter much anyway, in the grand scheme of things.
“Science isn’t done by numbers, but by quality and rigour.” oh well – bye bye sceptics – hahahahahahaha
Maybe it’s bye bye AGW Luke?
After all, real time data is not matching the projective modeling and attendant hypothesis.
Things are changing, but unfortunately, after all that work, it appears that man made CO2 may not a key driver?
Drivel on Debbie. How about another 20 paras.
Comment from: Luke April 26th, 2012 at 6:59 pm
“Science isn’t done by numbers, but by quality and rigour.” oh well – bye bye sceptics – hahahahahahaha
Others might label you a smart-arse. I couldn’t possibly comment.
Nah Luke,
You definitely keep insisting you want brevity accompanied by copious links.
I was just reiterating the main point of this post, which is just a humble copy/paste, not a link.
“Conditions have changed, many so-called experts proven wrong, but many of the arrogant and ignorant appear incapable of an honest reassessment of the evidence.”
Tony calls that attitude another name 🙂