A few weeks ago, self-proclaimed “rocket scientist”, Dr David Evans, wrote an Opinion Editorial in The Australian, which was widely circulated across various email distribution lists (I got send the link a couple of times, asking whether what he was saying was valid. I passed them on to these two pieces from Deltoid). But it spawned a life of its own in the non-greenhouse theorist blogosphere, and also drummed up strong support among other Op Ed writers, which have also been thoroughly dissected.
In particular, Dr Evans made some very strong statements about the robustness of climate science, including the claim that there was a missing hotspot in the tropical atmosphere, which therefore invalidated the greenhouse theory (and therefore presumably required the development of a new branch of physics). For instance, Dr Evans said:
If there is no hot spot then an increased greenhouse effect is not the cause of global warming. So we know for sure that carbon emissions are not a significant cause of the global warming. If we had found the greenhouse signature then I would be an alarmist again.
However, Dr Evans must have been unaware that: (1) the hotspot was not a signature of the greenhouse effect – it is a signature of warming from any source, and (2) that the hotspot is not actually missing…
Despite this revelation and other careful countering of his claims, Dr Evans chose to simply ignore these corrections and repeat himself on ABC 891 radio in Adelaide. This led me to a point-by-point explanation, on the same radio show, the next week, describing where Dr Evans was in error. Both interviews are podcast here for audio download.
Surely then, Dr Evans must now, in his words, once again “be an alarmist again instead of a skeptic” (apparently there is no middle ground). No? Unsurprisingly, he deploys the standard non-greenhouse theorist approach of yet again blithely ignoring any refutation and simply repeating the exactly the same arguments again in a third forum. So, yet again, a climate scientist had to patiently refute this.
Perhaps Dr Evans doesn’t understand that whilst everyone is entitled to their own opinion, they are not entitled to their own facts.
Brave New Climate 
114 replies on “Dr David Evans: born-again ‘alarmist’?”
It happens over in the ID forums and things too. People who are manifestly wrong simply repeat they’re point of view over and over.
Even more worryingly a recent study (can’t remember the paper, I read it on one of the Scienceblogs) showed that people were more likely to believe something if it was repeated more often, even if the repetition was to tell them it was wrong. A sort of ‘If it wasnt true then why would they be denying it’ response.
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Barry, you said: “Perhaps Dr Evans doesn’t understand that whilst everyone is entitled to their own opinion, they are not entitled to their own facts.”
Too true. But can you comment on whether you agree with the following facts?
1. On average since 1958 57 percent of total CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning and land use change has been taken up by the biospheric sinks (Canadell et al., 2007, PNAS, Table 1).
2. Solar incoming radiation is 342 W per sq.metre p.a. (according to Kiehl and Trenberth Bulletin of American Meteorological Society 1997, Fig.7)).
3. Hofmann et al 2006 (Tellus, 56B, 614-619) estimate global radiative forcing from CO2 in 2004 at 1.6 W per sq.m. p.a., i.e. less than 0.5% of the solar. Why is the latter considered more important than the former?
4. Perhaps you could explain as K&T do not, and clearly cannot, why the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics does not work in the upper troposphere (their Fig.7 shows 324 W per sq. m. p.a. of “back radiation” from CO2 in the troposphere to earth despite the former being cooler than the latter). Recall that Trenberth is lead author of AR4 WGI, Chapter 3.
5. Could you also kindly explain how K&T (Fig.7 again) are able to show that while only 168 W per sq.m p.a. of the solar radiation reaches the earth’s surface, that surface manages to radiate 390 W/sq.m/p.a.
6. Would you agree that this last point implies more violation of Newton’s First Law, not to mention Einstein, but that they of course were never climate scientists.
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Tim Curtin:
1. Correct
2. Correct.
3. Because, following the Stefan-Boltzmann equation, temperature must rise to re-establish an energy balance given that less energy is now being radiated back to space per unit time.
4. It is a recursive transfer of energy, SW (short wave radiation) –> Earth surface –> LW –> GHG (greenhouse gases) –> LW (long wave) scatter (out to space and back to Earth surface) –> re-radiated LW –> GHG –> LW scatter, etc.
5. See 4.
6. No. You are simply confused about how the layer model of the atmosphere explains this.
In sum, more GHG means a net influx of energy and a rise in temperature to equilibriate. The planet is simply shedding less energy per unit time than it used to.
I suggest you read chapter 3 of Archer (2007) Global Warming – Understanding the Forecast to refresh yourself on these basic physics principles.
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1) I posted some comments about “Rocket Scientist” in the first URL mentioned. I.e., Stanford PhD EEs do not normally call themselves rocket scientists or put that on their bios! (I live a few miles away, have given occasional guest lectures for EE, worked for 2 Stanford spinoffs, have been to dissertation reviews, etc.)
While Evans’ bio says he’s “An exceptional problem solver” and “Exceptionally productive programmer” (and he may be), his overall career doesn’t seem like an exceptional one for a Stanford EE PhD. It’s nice that he’s been writing a book since 1990, and maybe it will be good when it appears. There’s nothing wrong with being a software engineer & consultant, although of course, it confers no apriori credibility regarding climate expertise.
2) SO, WHY IS HE DOING THIS?
I have no data, but Bill Ruddiman, in “Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum” offers some useful general insights, and it sounds like [B] and [C] below: Evans looks like a guy whose success has not been what he wanted, he certainly has ego, and now he is getting press coverage! He may actually have more cliamte expertise than Viscount Monckton’s endocrinologist KM Schulte, although that is as yet unclear.
In chapter 18 of PPP, in 10 pages Ruddiman offers one of the best essays anywhere I’ve seen on climate-change science and politics, calm, balanced, and well-reasoned.
Here are a few relevant snippets, but really, people should read the real thing.
===============(Ruddiman)
“The public hears mainly from people toward the extremes of the global-warming issue…”
“Until the last year or two, I kept a wary eye on both sides of the global-warming debate. I discredited the disinformation coming from both extremes and tried to weigh the solid evidence and from my own opinions. Very recently, however, I have become aware that this dispassionate detachment may be too idealistic. The debate has taken a surprisingly ugly turn…
Because of wide coverage of my hypothesis, my name had somehow been added as a recipient of several newsletters that take skeptical or contrarian (in effect, proindustry) positions on global change. These letters opened a window on a different side of science, a parallel universe of which I had only been partly aware. The content of these newsletters purports to be scientific but actually has more in common with hardball politics.
One technique is instant commentaries against any new scientific results that appear to bolster the case for global warming….
The authors of these opinion pieces are often well-known climate-science contrarians or others in related fields such as economics….
In politics, this kind of research is called “oppo research….
This alternative universe is quite amazing. In it, you can “learn” that CO2 does not cause any climatic warming at all. You can find that the world has not become warmer in the last century, or that any warming that has occurred results from the Sun getting stronger, and not from rising levels of greenhouse gases. One way or another, most of the basic findings of mainstream science are rejected or ignored….
But this alternative universe is new and worrisome; in the name of uncovering the truth, it delivers an endless stream of one-sided propaganda.”
“Why would scientists devote time and energy to doing this kind of thing?
One obvious possibility is money…. [A]
Another potential motivation is thwarted ego. Some spokespersons are scientists whose reputations in the scientific mainstream never amounted to much, or whose early career successes have faded away…. [B]
Still another motivation may the “white knight” or “hero” syndrome-the conviction that only heroic action in uncovering the “real truth” will save humanity from oncoming disaster or folly. Many contrarians appear to see mainstream scientists as dull-witted sheep … And of course only the lone visionary can save the day. [C]
This picture is a gross misrepresentation of science and scientists….
Still, I know of no precedent in science for the kind of day-to-day onslaughts and perversions of basic science now occurring in newsletters and websites from interest groups. These attacks have more in common with the seamier aspects of politics than with the normal methods of science.”
===============(end Ruddiman)
Here, I disagree with “new” & “lack of precedent”: the same tactics were created decades ago by tobacco companies. See for example, Allan M. Brandt’s “the Cigarette Century”. Things do move faster now than they did in the 1960s – some of us have studied the speed an dispersion patterns of disinformation in the blogosphere.
The same techniques have been used for years to fight regulation of acid rain, CFCs, mercury, etc.
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Ruddiman has some interesting ideas to be sure – for instance, his view is that pre-industrial emissions from agriculture and land clearance raised GHG by about 20-30 ppm CO2-e, which was sufficient to halt any descent into the next glacial. Not sure Milankovitch forcing agrees that this is the case, but I certainly subscribe to the view that global change due to humans has been going on for much longer than most people realise – it’s a topic that’s close to my research heart (Quaternary climate, humans and extinctions) – I’ll blog on it some day soon.
John you’ve also prompted me with the above to write another post on contrarians and ‘good science’ – something about which I stirred the media earlier this year. I’ll do this once the rest of the podcasts of my first seminar are uploaded.
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Now, that’s what I’m talking about!
1) Prof. Brook posts a concise summary, rich with links, of the Evans position (if that’s the word), and responses to it.
2) Tim Curtin posts a comment with delusions of seriousness, shamelessly begging the question in parts #3, 4 and 6, and generally firing at random.
3) Brook comes back with a reply so elegant and spare that is should have been written in perl. Could a word have been dropped, and retain the meaning?
4) John Mashey (as always!) adds a ton of value with an apposite passage from a book I now need to read.
This is a post worth reading! I can only contrast it with a recent post and thread from Jennifer Marohasy, which made the baby Feynman cry.
Keep up the good work, sir! And do what’s needful to control the pests when they arrive (as they will).
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In a letter to <a href=”http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/letters/index.php/theaustralian/comments/the_bottom_line_is_that_we_humans_cant_prevent_it/” the Australian today the same points are repeated by Professor W.J. Collins of the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at James Cook Uni.
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Bravenewclimate: Glad you agree with my first two statements!
But on my third you said : “Because, following the Stefan-Boltzmann equation, temperature must rise to re-establish an energy balance given that less energy is now being radiated back to space per unit time.” What is your source and evidence for “less energy now (sic) being radiated”…? I cited Kiehl and Trenberth who show more energy (390 M/sq.m/p.a.) being radiated than comes in (342 M/sq.m/p.a. of which only 168 reaches the surface). Where do you have data for less?
Re my 4 you then said “ It is a recursive transfer of energy, SW (short wave radiation) –> Earth surface –> LW –> GHG (greenhouse gases) –> LW (long wave) scatter (out to space and back to Earth surface) –> re-radiated LW –> GHG –> LW scatter, etc.” So what happened to the global mean energy budget whereby what comes in must equal what goes out? Your recursive system seems to indicate a lot of double counting. Please indicate the actual numbers for your flows.
Re my 6. you add “No. You are simply confused about how the layer model of the atmosphere explains this.” Then I am in good company. John Houghton (chief author of all of the first three AR of the IPCC) shows (2004: 21, Fig.2.6) a radiation budget for the atmosphere, which unlike Kiehl & Trenberth’s effort, does balance, with thermal radiation out equal to net (after reflection from clouds etc) solar radiation in (240 W/sq.m/p.a.).
You are also I think wrong with your final comment where you said “In sum, more GHG means a net influx of energy and a rise in temperature to equilibrate. The planet is simply shedding less energy per unit time than it used to”. Please note that GHG do NOT constitute energy, they are the effluent from the production of energy, and you offer no evidence to support your final claim. Moreover, as Houghton notes (ibid.) “without the structure of decreasing temperature with height, there would no greenhouse effect on earth”. That means that if the IPCC is right there is a “hot spot” of rising temperature in the troposphere from 5-15km up (IPCC, AR4, WG1, p.675, Fig.9.1 f, available from David Evans’ Technical Note, at http://www.lavoisier.com), this will itself terminate the greenhouse effect sooner or later. Luckily for you and Barry Brook, there is no evidence in the satellite record to support that IPCC claim of rising temperature in the upper troposphere, but then your bad luck kicks in, as without the troposphere being hotter than the surface, back radiation cannot occur (Newton, cet.par.), and there can be no AGW. It follows that David Evans is right.QED.
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Tim Curtin: “Luckily for you and Barry Brook” – we are one and the same.
You queries on the energy imbalance are succinctly answered in the following paper, and the Archer book I already referred you to:
Hansen, J. et al. (2008) Earth’s Energy Imbalance: Confirmation and Implications. Science 308: 1431 – 1435.
I suggest you take the time to read them both.
GHG re-radiate LW (infra-red) radiation – the energy is derived from the sun. I cannot see the greenhouse effect terminating whilst the Earth retains an atmosphere or why you support such a view.
The satellite record does indeed show warming – the spurious biases in the UAH analysis caused by orbital drift were corrected.
If the above if not sufficient for you, then I’m happy to pass the baton of further responses to other commenters.
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re: #6 jre
Thanks for the kind words. Indeed, read Ruddiman, not just for the interesting technical hypotheses, but for:
– the clear, excellent writing
– the nice discussions of the ways in which hypotheses get generated, tested, modified, confirmed, disconfirmed, on the way to being junked or turning into solid theories. It’s nice to watch science in progress, with real arguments among real scientists who actually change their minds as new data arrives.
It’s actually one of my favorite books to give to people who are just getting into this, and it’s become some of my friends’ favorite for the same purpose.
There’s an interview with Robyn Williams.
For more detail, besides the articles that preceded the book:
There was a guest post & discussion in RealClimate in 2005.
This 2007 article is a 37-pager that consolidates all the-back-and-forth arguments of the last few years.
There’s also a recent paper on the big increase in Chinese rice farming between 6000 and 4000 years ago.
Note that his hypotheses are of two kinds:
a) The long, slow agriculture type.
b) The latter short, relatively fast CO2 effects from pandemics causing growback of forests and CO2 dips, i.e., potential partial causation for some of the puzzling CO2 jiggles over the last 2 millenia.
Bill is definitely a scholar and a gentleman…
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Dear Barry.
Thanks for the patronising but useful ref. to yet another Hansen et al paper (Science 2005). As usual it begins with political statements foreshadowing Hansen’s demand a few months ago that the Rudd Government close all this country’s coalfired power stations forthwith. The paper then combines model assertions that the earth is in energy imbalance, allegedly supported by observations of ocean warming “in the past decade” (1995 to 2004). Unfortunately, this Hansen paper has been largely superseded by AchutaRao et al (PNAS 104 June 2007) who show that Hansen’s “observations of ocean warming in the past decade” were an artifact of outdated measuring systems that produced “a warm bias”. In adition Hansen et al admit (2005:1432) that their ocean model can’t cope with the PDO or ENSO processes, which means they throw those babies out with their bath water, critical though they are to understanding real climate. Also by using observations of only “the past decade” to 2004, Hansen included the warm phase of the PDO, and excluded its cooler phase from 1959 to 1979 (annual averages, see Ian Wilson at http://www.lavoisier.com, citing Vernon & Franks, Geo.Res.Letters 2006).
Meantime one awaits with impatience the Bush and Rudd governments’ response to Hansen’s demand (National Press Club, Washington, June 2008) that they should arrest the CEOs of Exxon, BHP, Woodside, Santos et al. for crimes against nature and humanity by continuing to produce oil.
Regards
Tim
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Tim – what can I say, you are simply wrong. The oceans continue to gain heat in line with model predictions. You’ve missed the key reference, Domingues et al. (2008) Improved estimates of upper-ocean warming and multi-decadal sea-level rise. Nature 453, 1090-1093. See my slide 86 of the first presentation, and/or listen to the audio.
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Those sane folk who are tempted to follow the link given by Jre (6) to Marohasy’s blog…
DON’T.
NO, REALLY, DON’T
You will regret the wasted 30 minutes of your life.
(Not having a go at you, Jre, just reporting back from my forward scouting and trying to save others the wasted effort.)
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Dear Barry
Many thanks again for an interesting reference, 19 June 2008, now we are all really up to date!
Sadly, it (Domingues et al, Nature, 2008) is riddled with statistical gaffes.
It is simply unacceptable to state that the contribution of the Antarctic icesheet to global sea-level rise (1993-2003) is “0.21 +/- 0.35 mm p.a.” (p. 1092). Whenever the error band is larger than the “observation”, you know the latter is garbage. The authors’ “thoughts” about the contribution of Greenland and the Antarctic are equally vacuous (ibid.). Surely they can do better than have “thoughts”?
Moreover, these authors admit to using the dubious data invention methods of Mann, Bradley & Hughes, by saying they use “statistical techniques that allow for sparse data coverage” (1090). Finally, these authors conclude that they find “the sum of contributions [to sea-level rise] from 1961 to 2003 is about 1.5 +/-0.4 mm p.a.” If this result is significant, why are property prices in Sydney’s Rose, Neutral etc Bays still more resilient than anywhere else in Australia?
More generally, these authors like Hansen et al. (2005) Hofmann et al 2006) and any number of other et al’s only ever come up with forcings that are at best 0.5 percent of the incoming solar radiation, yet they all (like Hansen) ask us to believe that such trifling increases are enough to create tipping points that if not addressed by Christmas 2016 will end civilisation as we know it (The Guardian, 1st August).
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Tim, fortunately for you, the Domingues paper is current enough that you are still within the standard window of opportunity (they give ~6 months) to send a formal rebuttal to Nature, and have it considered via the proper peer-reviewed channels. That way the veracity of your methodological critiques can be assessed in the standard way, and the rigour of your arguments can be properly lauded – should they prove to stand up to the scrutiny all published scientists must abide by, that is.
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Rignot et al (2008) finds negative Antarctic ice balance of 196 (+/- 92) Gt in 2006, worth roughly 0.5 mm of sea level rise per year. That’s up from 112 (+/- 91) Gt in 1996.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080123181952.htm
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v1/n2/abs/ngeo102.html
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“Sadly, it (Domingues et al, Nature, 2008) is riddled with statistical gaffes.
It is simply unacceptable to state that the contribution of the Antarctic icesheet to global sea-level rise (1993-2003) is “0.21 +/- 0.35 mm p.a.” (p. 1092). Whenever the error band is larger than the “observation”, you know the latter is garbage.”
That is not a statistical gaffe. It is merely reflecting the fact that the contribution of the antarctic ice sheet to sea level rise can be
from -0.14 to +0.56 mm per year. If I were to do statistics on flipping coins, and tallying the results (heads is +1, tails is -1) applying statistics could easily give 0 +/- some number infinitely larger than zero (as a ratio).
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On the hardball political tactics, this and the papers it cites are useful history many climate scientists should study:
Constructing “Sound Science” and “Good Epidemiology”: Tobacco …
American Journal of Public Health … the efforts of the tobacco industry to attack the evidence that secondhand smoke causes disease.
http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/91/11/1749
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Hah, Barry, Tim Curtin’s got you there! You might as well give up right now.
From post 14: “If this result is significant, why are property prices in Sydney’s Rose, Neutral etc Bays still more resilient than anywhere else in Australia?”
Here that sound? It’s the sound of a century and a half of scientific knowledge crashing down around yor ears!
Just kidding.
Yes, Tim has pointed out, quite rightly, that the alarming prospect of a three inch rise in the sea level in the next 50 years has not caused the burghers of Sydney’s harbourside suburbs to pack up and make a dash for the safety of the Blue Mountains.
What a surprise.
(Actually the assertion that prices in the harbourside suburbs have been more resilient than anywhere else in Australia is not supported by the data. However that’s irrelevant except as another example of bad logic being supported by non-facts, an unfortunately common thing these days.)
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[…] particularly enjoyed this post which picked up on a theme I’ve written about in the past, namely the tendency for the […]
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No prob, WotWot; your warning is taken in the spirit in which it was offered. Even seen against the bleak landscape of Marohasy’s blog, that particular thread was particularly sad, and evil, and ugly. It actively sucked information out of my head as I read it, and left me with a sense of existential despair that several pints were only able partially to mitigate. I realize in retrospect that it was negligent of me to leave a link to it lying around, where an innocent civilian might click on it.
In other news, I see that the good Prof. Brook has hit upon exactly the proper response to Tim Curtin. Curtin states that he has found a number of fatal flaws in Domingues et al. (“riddled with statistical gaffes”, “unacceptable to state … “, “garbage”, ” … equally vacuous …”, “dubious data invention methods …”If this result is significant …”, “ask us to believe …”).
And, as our esteemed host has pointed out, Curtin now has the opportunity to put this devastating criticism to work, by submitting it to Nature! If Tim Curtin can force a major revision of Domingues, the entire world of climate science will be the beneficiary. By gum,, this could be Galileic in its impact!
Accordingly, I propose the following: given the importance of Tim Curtin’s criticisms of Domingues getting a fair hearing, I do not want to hear another word from him on the subject of climate until that letter has been submitted. Any commentary on other subjects will be met with “Never mind that, Tim — how’s the letter to Nature coming?” I further propose that everyone else do the same.
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Tim Curtin: “Surely they can do better than have “thoughts”?”
This single quote seems to capture the “skeptical” method in a nutshell.
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Jre – You’ll probably know this already if you’re an afficionado of Dr Marohasy’s particular line in obfuscation and outright bullshit, but she regularly tries on that twee, disingenuous approach. Since she still claims the River Murray isn’t in trouble, it’s impossible to take her seriously on any topic.
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Thanks all for the suggestion. I shall be glad to comply as soon as I have it in writing from Nature that they will NOT refer my letter for peer review to any of Domingues and his et als nor to the peer reviewers of their article. Nature has bad form in such matters.
Meantime I still await a detailed explanation with observed numerical flows of how it is possible for the 168 units of incoming solar radiation that is absorbed by the earth’s surface to give rise to back radiation of 390 units from the surface to the upper troposphere, and for 342 units to be radiated down to earth surface again, when the troposphere at say 10 km altitude is manifestly much colder than the surface. Bill Kininmonth (at Jennifer Marohasy’s today and in his book Climate Change. A Natural Hazard) comes closest to a reasonable if non-IPCC explanation.
BTW, Barry’s opening pretty pics are misleading, it is not enough to show as they do some warming trend at such altitudes, it must be actually hotter up there than at the surface unless Michael Flanders and Newton got it all wrong.
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Tim
I sit on the editorial boards of several journals. We would always let the original authors see and if necessary reply to a discussion of a paper that they have written. To fail to do so would be frankly unethical. Therefore, your stance is utterly unreasonable.
Stop wriggling and write the rebuttal – or are you actually not up to it?
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Dr Dave
That is not the issue I raised; I have had experience of submitting papers that were critical of certain persons’ work only to find that they were the decisive or only referee (usually obvious from internal evidence of their comments). Frankly a waste of time in the case of Nature. As to being up to it I have had and have pending peer reviewed articles that have been or are about to be published.
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Tim,
Stop finding excuses and write the reply. If Nature reject a scientifically valid piece of work you’ll well and truly have the moral high ground. Why won’t you?
Please can we have a list of the peer reviewed in press papers to which you refer? Please can you highlight the ones that are on the science of climate?
Dr Dave
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In what sense is a question a fact?
It’s hard to agree or disagree with facts like “what time is it?”
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Bad form to reply to your own posts I know, but Tim I have just done a Web of Science search on Curtin t*. I think that you need to drop Thompson Scientific a line as the most recent paper for you that I could find up was from 1999, and that was on economic and health efficiency of education funding policy. Surely such a distinguished scientist as yourself has many entries, so clearly they are missing a few.
Particularly bizarre is the fact that “Curtin t* AND climate*” yields a just single paper, written by a different T. Curtin in 1995.
Very odd…Please explain
Oh, don’t forget to provide those lists now – and the reply for Nature of course.
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David, just stick to your landslides, no doubt all due to AGW, and I will likewise do my own thing (see my website, which shows I have never claimed to be a climate scientist, are you?) pending that letter from Nature.
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Tim Curtin,
I’m just a layman lurker here and while I can only admire your tenacity and guts in putting your opinions ‘out there’ your responses above were, predictably, as weak as piss. Yet again the glass jaw that is so typical of denialist physiology was well to the fore … one light tap in the form of “submit your findings/rebuttal to a peer reviewed journal” and you go down like a bag of the proverbial. Staggering and barely conscious you then mumble something about not being a climate scientist, etc.
Deep down you must in your heart of hearts know that blithering on a blog don’t mean jack … there is only one proper and respectful way to respond to the Domingues paper and that is to get your formal rebuttal off to Nature. I’d urge you to please get on with it before you run out of time !!
Chris
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After Dr David’s diversionary tactics, I would still like answers to the following questions, a minimum before I can aspire to be a climate scientist.
1. How about a detailed explanation with observed numerical flows of how it is possible for the 168 units of incoming solar radiation that is absorbed by the earth’s surface to give rise to back radiation of 390 units from the surface to the upper troposphere, and for 342 units of that to be radiated down to earth surface again, when the troposphere at say 10 km altitude is manifestly much colder than the surface.
2. Why do Barry’s opening pretty pics allegedly reveal an Evans “hotspot” when manifestly all they show is some warming trend at such altitudes, while it must be actually hotter up there than at the surface for there to be any back radiation.
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Tim Curtin.
I add my voice to the chorus.
Submit your rebuttal of the Domingues et al. paper to Nature. Put your paranoid fantasies aside – if your science is sound, you will be listened to and published. If (heaven forefend) your science is not sound, you might even have it explained to you, on an official institutional letterhead, where your errors occur. It seems that you cannot learn any other way…
And there is nothing stopping you from preparing a rebuttal paper to submit to another journal of high repute. If persecution is your only concern, it shouldn’t take too many such submissions to crack the ice. Note: E&E does not constitute a reputable journal, although I’d be curious to see if you could even manage publication there should the rest of the scientific world refuse to acknowledge your genius.
Tim Curtin, you have bounced around the internet for years with your preposterous ‘science’, and you have been roundly rebuffed at every turn. Simply repeating your nonsense ad nauseum on different forums does not make the validity of your ideas any stronger, and it is well past time that you put your propositions to the test in the scientific arena.
If you are going to critique the science, you must engage the scientific process. At this point anything else is just waving your tallywhacker in the wind.
Are you concerned that you might suffer the same scientific ignominy as that of Christopher Walter with his embarrassing muddle of an effort, that was unfortunately printed by the P&S forum of the APS? If so, then you are at least one step up from said pretender, because he still does not seem to be phased by the idea that the material he attempts to publish is tripe.
Or do you know deep down that your ship has already sunk and is lying on its side in the lowest reaches of the Mariana Trench?
You have been called to account (again) by a number of people now, Tim Curtin. It is time for you to put up or to shut up. By all means document your efforts to refute the Domingues et al. paper. In fact we would insist upon it lest your valient efforts are thwarted without record, but please desist from random spraying of tested science until you can demonstrate the peer-reviewed capacity to credibly do so.
Please.
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The best part, in my view, isn’t the fact that denialists will never write letters – we know that – it’s the display of tap-dancing that occurs when one asks the intrepid Galileo to share their blockbuster insights with the world.
Why, I can’t write that letter! I have to wash my hair! I can’t write the letter because the editorial board has bad breath! I’ll get to it next week, as my dog is inconsolable after losing his squeaky toy and needs me! My girlfriend wants to go…wait…check that: these people don’t have dates.
Best,
D
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[…] Dr David Evans: born-again ‘alarmist’? […]
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Tim,
You have claimed that “it (Domingues et al, Nature, 2008) is riddled with statistical gaffes”. As a result you have been challenged to write a rebuttal to Nature. Please stop changi the subject and write the paper – or are you indeed not up to it?
Second, you claimed that “As to being up to it I have had and have pending peer reviewed articles that have been or are about to be published.”. I have challenged you to provide a list to demonstrate that your claim is true. Why will you not do so? Until you do there must be serious doubts about your credibility.
You ask if I am a climate scientist – no, I am not and nor would I ever claim to be. That is why I would not claim that a paper on climate cscience is full of statistical gaffes, unless I knew that I could write a paper to show that this was the case. For the record, the landslides on which I work are not mainly caused by climate change (as you snearingly imply) – indeed in many areas the occurrence of weather driven landslides is likely to reduce as rainfall totals decline.
Finally, just a reminder Tim of what I am asking you to produce:
1. The rebuttal for Nature
2. The list of peer reviewed papers that you claim that you have in press or recently submitted, including a short commentary that highlights which ones are related to climate science.
We are all waiting…
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Dr David
Go to http://www.timcurtin.com as you seem incapable of following links.
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Or cut to the chase and check out his impressive publication record in major climate science journals. A quick check should make clear why Tim Curtin knows so much more about the subject than any pro-warmer AGW-fraud purveyer gaia-worshipping climatologist.
(snicker)
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I doubt that anyone really needs to point out to Tim Curtin that Nature’s editors are not in the business of taking down the net for one player’s volleys, then putting it back up for his opponent’s. You have to submit to the same review process as everyone else; that’s how it works.
I assume, therefore, that the above was just a throat-clearing gesture on Tim Curtin’s part, and he will be getting that letter out any moment now. So, Tim — how’s it coming, and may we see a draft?
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Tim,
I have followed the link, but still can’t find a list of “pending peer reviewed articles that have been or are about to be published” (your words by the way). Clearly I am missing something, so apologies for that. As I am so incapable of finding this list on your website (sorry, on your “cyberhome”), would you be so kind as to post it here for me? Also, please could you highlight the peer reviewed papers on the science of climate, as I requested.
This should only take 30 secs to do, surely? I am getting a sense of suspicion that you are trying avoid doing this – surely not?
I still don’t see the rebuttal letter either?
Yours in anticipation,
Dave
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Tim, post #32: I’ve answered your question already. But perhaps, given that you’re already busy on that Nature rebuttal, you could also knock up a submission to Bulletin of American Meteorological Society, and show why Kiehl and Trenberth are wrong. It’s certainly surprising that no one else has done this over the 10 years since they published it, since according to you the flaw in their mathematics is so obvious. But since you believe you’ve uncovered such a gaping hole in their logic, I’m sure you’ll once again be lauded for pointing out, in the relevant scientific forum (they journal they published in), something all other atmospheric physicists amazingly missed. Time to really make your name in the field and get the recognition you feel you are due.
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Barry:
I thought this thread was about David Evans. However flattering that it turns out to be about me, why not start one. Until then… And do put in a spam filter to exclude JRE, Dano and Dhogastly, products only of Lambert’s fertile imagination (absent any other identification). Why do you allow personal attacks on the non-anonymous like me while protecting such non-entities?
Cheers
Tim
As to K&T, try the link to Lindzen at Marohasy. I think MIT carries more clout than “Dr” (sure sign of an insecure individual to brag) David’s Durham or your own home.
Tim
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So that means you’ve decided not to submit that rebuttal to Nature or Bulletin of American Meteorological Society then. Great, we can stop talking about this non-issue that you raised, after repeating it in a slew of other forums in posts unrelated to this one.
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Barry
Non sequitur.
Again: Why do you allow personal attacks on the non-anonymous like me while protecting such non-entities as Dano & co? As to K&T, try the link to Lindzen at Marohasy.
I’m still waiting for my own Thread (try starting with my responses to Garnaut), nobody else arouses such passions on your Blog as I do!
Tim
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Tim
Your personal insults are really impressive! I hope that you feel very proud of yourself.
The challenges still remain – where is your rebuttal and where is your list of papers in press or recently published? Still waiting.
Dave
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PS Tim, clearly your comment “I think MIT carries more clout than “Dr” (sure sign of an insecure individual to brag) David’s Durham or your own home” implies that you think that there is a value in academic hierarchy. On that basis, please can you remind me of the university to which you are formally affiliated? Your email address is “**@bigblue.net.au” – for some reason I can’t find the big blue university on the web, so can’t use your own criteria to judge your quality. Please advise (but don’t let that distract you from the list or the rebuttal by the way).
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Dr Dave
You really are pathetic. A cursory glance at my website shows that I was lecturing at the University of York before you were born. Why when I am aged 70+ would you expect me to be holding down a salaried lectureship or whatever? I notice you are quite coy about your own publication record as a full time academic for longer than I ever was.
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Tim,
Ah, I see that you are choosing not to answer another question, but again are relying on personal insults. You credibility continues to soar.
I’ll answer your challenge in order to not be so coy. Here is a list of peer reviewed journal papers since 2006 in which I am an author:
Lim, M., Rosser, N.J., Allison, R.J. and Petley, D.N. in press 2008. Coastal rock cliff geomorphology: spatial patterns and erosional processes. Geomorphology.
Rosser, N.J., Lim, M., Petley, D.N. and Dunning, S.A. in press 2008. Patterns of precursory rockfall prior to slope failure. Journal of Geophysical Research (Earth Surface).
Petley, D.N., Hearn, G.J., Hart, A., Rosser, N.J., Dunning, S.A., Oven, K., and Mitchell, W.A. 2007. Trends in landslide occurrence in Nepal. Natural Hazards 43:23–44.
Dunning, S.A., Mitchell, W.A., Rosser, N.J., Petley, D.N. 2007. The Hattian Bala rock avalanche and associated landslides triggered by the Kashmir Earthquake of 8 October 2005. Engineering Geology, 93 (3-4), 30-44
Ramli, M.F. and Petley, D.N. 2006. Best band combination for landslide studies in temperate environments. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 27, (6), 1219-1231
Dunning, S.A., Rosser, N.J., Petley, D.N. and Massey, C.R. 2006. Formation and failure of the Tsatichhu landslide dam, Bhutan. Landslides, 3 (2), 107 – 113. DOI: 10.1007/s10346-005-0032-x
Lin, J-C, Petley, D.N., Jen, C-H., Hsu, M-L. 2006. Slope movements in a dynamic environment – A case study of Tachia river, Central Taiwan. Quaternary International, 147 (1), 103-112.
Chia-Hung, J., Lin, J-C., Hsu, M-L and Petley, D.N. 2006. Fluvial transportation and sedimentation of the Fu-Shan small experimental catchments. Quaternary International, 147 (1), 34-43.
Bulmer, M.H., Petley, D.N., Murphy, W. and Mantovani, F. 2006. Detecting landslide deformation using two pass differential interferometry: implications for planetary studies. Journal of Geophysical Research, 111, E06S16 (10 pp), doi:10.1029/2005JE002593.
I have a further 18 publications in the same period that are peer reviewed book chapters and conference papers – happy to list them if you wish.
Enough diversionary of your tactics – your go:
1. Please provide the rebuttal for the paper in Nature
2. Please provide your list of recent or in press peer reviwed publications that you claim to ave. If that is too difficult because the list is too long (what other excuse do you have?) then please stick just to journal ones. Putting together the above list took about 5 minutes.
Yours in anticipation,
Dave
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Gee, those crickets are getting loud.
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So Tim knows enough to comment on various papers, but not enough to know TSI/4 is not a forcing?
I call that deeply suspicious.
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Posting a direct link to your impressive list of publications in order to establish your credibility as a climate scientist is a personal attack?
(snicker)
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Dear Dr David
Splendid, but how many landslides have you stopped?
I have not been an academic since 1970, so my publications do not compete with yours. Such as they are they are listed on my website.
Regards
Tim
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Dear Tim,
Thanks. Is that is an admission that in fact you don’t have any peer reviewed publications in press or recently published, as you previously claimed? Please clarify as there are none listed on your web site that I can see.
Presumably you are putting this right with your discussion to the Nature paper. How’s that coming along by the way? When can we expect to see a draft?
Regards
Dave
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Dr D’s inability to navigate around a website or detect a peer-reviewed journal is a little odd. Here’s a short list of the journals that published some of my stuff:
African Affairs: Journal of the Royal Africa Society (5)
Journal of Commonwealth Political Studies (1)
Review of Social Economy (2)
Rhodesian Journal of Economics (1)
Moorgate and Wall Street Review (1)
Times Higher Education Supplement (2)
Project Appraisal (2)
Social Science and Medicine (1)
Round Table (1)
Papua New Guinea Journal of Education (2)
Labour and Management in Development (1)
South Pacific Journal of Philosophy & Culture (2)
Pacific Economic Bulletin (5)
I make that 26, it does not include peer reviewed book chapters, and I have not been a paid academic since 1970.
But what is the point of all this, other than point scoring? I may well respond to Domingues, but in my own time, and subject to the conditions I have mentioned. Meantime I suggest you read Richard Lindzen’s paper in Energy and Environment (2007) very carefully – he makes inter alia the same point about error bars bigger than the estimate that I made above before I had read Lindzen.
This peer review fetish is anyway overdone: it is known that Mann Bradley and Hughes’ Nature “peers” are mostly their own coterie. Are you prepared to swear you know none of the “peers” who reviewed your own papers? It seems unlikely in such a narrowly specialised field.
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The point is obvious, none of them have anything to do with climate science.
Thanks for making your lack of credentials clear, though.
Like, if you start pontificating about quantum mechanics I’m not likely to consider you an expert, either, see?
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Tim
The point is that you said “As to being up to it I have had and have pending peer reviewed articles that have been or are about to be published.”
I asked you to prove that you “have pending peer reviewed articles that have been or are about to be published” because if you haven’t then it gives the rest of us information about your credibility.
Now I have asked you repeatedly to provide the list to show that you are telling the truth. I am not denying that you have publications – that is not the point. The issue is whether you were telling the truth when you said “As to being up to it I have had and have pending peer reviewed articles that have been or are about to be published.”
You still haven’t provided that list. If you don’t, what are we supposed to assume about your credibility? This is not about points scoring – it is about you demonstrating that we should take you seriously. You asked me to provide the same list – and I did so. Why won’t you? What are we supposed to assume when you won’t.
We haven’t forgotten about the the rebuttal to Nature either by the way.
Dave
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Dr David: Not again! Have you nothing better to do? your own credentials outside that very narrow area do not seem particularly compelling.
I said: “As to being up to it I have had and have pending peer reviewed articles that have been or are about to be published.”
I have listed some 26 papers that are in peer-reviewed journals. The second item on the listing of the more recent papers on my homepage has been accepted, as noted in the first item, another is still under peer review, and a second hopefully soon. Then there’s Nature which is in hand or will be when I have less time wasted by your impertinent personal comments and unpleasant hectoring.
You are as well or ill qualified as I to comment on the statistics and methodology of climate change analysis, unless we have to rely on arguments from authority when discussing rather momentous policy issues. My publication record and yours are both immaterial.
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Tim,
I am sorry that you think that I have been unpleasant – that was not my intention. I apologise unreservedly if I have caused offence. On the other hand, your own comments (“I think MIT carries more clout than “Dr” (sure sign of an insecure individual to brag) David’s Durham or your own home”; “You really are pathetic”; “your own credentials outside that very narrow area do not seem particularly compelling”; and “your impertinent personal comments”) hardly give you grounds to criticise, as far as I can see?
So to summarise, you are referring to this article: “Contribution of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide to Increased Global Food Production Since 1980”. In item 1 on your website you list this as “forthcoming” not under review, in press or accepted, so you can understand my confusion. You are however saying that has actually been formally accepted for the journal Energy and Environment. Is that right?
Incidentally, does the journal editor know that you have the pdf of an in-press article on your web site, and that you have not even referenced them? I am not being funny – actually being sincere here – but in many journals this is forbidden and would cause the paper to be withdrawn by the publisher. You wouldn’t want that to happen, I am sure. Just a thought.
Looking forward to the Nature paper in due course.
Dave
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Dave
Glad to bury hatchet!
regards
Tim
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Tim,
You still haven’t confirmed that your paper in Energy and Environment has been formally accepted by the editor. An oversight I am sure. Please confirm.
Dave
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Gresham’s Law of Planetary Atmospheres (bad molecules drive out good molecules) was first stated by Tim Curtin, credit where due, lest we ever forget:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/06/the_gods_are_laughing_at_tom_h.php#comment-114141
(The same thread also illustrates Gresham’s Law of Internet Discourse, of course.)
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Oh, yeah, Tim Curtin’s responsible for that one, I’d forgotten. A nice, succinct, money quote from Tim:
Because, you know, the laws of physics don’t let you put something into the atmosphere unless something else comes out.
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I don’t get objection (1): if things are warming up due to the greenhouse effect, then one would expect to see a hotspot that is a signature of warming.
As for objection (2), the hotspot is most definitely still missing. I took the trouble of actually following the references at the realclimate article Barry Brooks linked to, and found they do not support his or realclimate’s claims (in fact, you have to be very careful with realclimate rebuttals of so-called sceptical talking-points because very often they amount to nothing more than “the climate models uncertainties are so great they are consistent with almost any set of observations” – exactly the case here.)
So, please check out Sherwood et. al., one of the latest pieces of research on the subject of the “hotspot”. I quote:
Remember, upper tropospheric warming from increased greenhouse effect should be around 2.5 times surface warming.
So what’s the conclusion? If there is relatively weak observed upper tropospheric tropical warming, then whatever is causing the surface warming it is not all due to human GHGs (in fact, not more than 1/3 of the observed warming can be attributed to human GHGs).
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I actually read the primary literature Mugwump. Sherwood et al. derived wind measurements from the sondes (weather balloons), and showed a pattern of warming very close to that predicted by the GHG theory, with the greatest warming in the upper troposphere. The quote you use above is taken out of context because it is not their main result, re: wind.
But of course if you’d actually, really read Sherwood et al. 2008 then you’d know that. You say you have, so I can only assume you must be deliberately trolling.
Further, as various people have already stated until they are blue in the face, the tropical hotspot is not the signture of GHG, it is the signature of warming from any source, so you are denying warming, fullstop. Which is patently false. The fingerprint of GHG is the cooling stratosphere, which is observed as per the figure I’ve shown.
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Adjusted data from 5S – 20N continue to show relatively weak [upper tropospheric] warming
mugwump is indeed quoting selectively and out of context, as has been explained in detail to him/her on a thread over at Deltoid.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/08/open_thread_12.php
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[…] on climate change actionDenial vs Good Science Part IITwo urgent climate statements – but no impact?Dr David Evans: born-again ‘alarmist’?Australia can be a clean energy superpowerCCQA1 Presentations AvailableSpot the recycled denial I – […]
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The Hypothesis of AGW is wrong fella’s….. No warming in the last ten years, despite increased CO2. No Tropical troposphere hot spot as was modeled. Antarctic ice at record levels. Arctic ice doing what it did back in the 1930’s. Temperature no hotter than what it was a thousand years ago or at other times during the Holocene optimum….Etc.
All you mob can do is blather on about big oil, tobacco, conspiracy’s, deniers, contrarians…. The usual pap.
Pretty standard fare for you [pointless insult deleted]
The truth is, that with the rise of Western civilization and the use of fossil fuels, we have seen the greatest rise in living standards and parity between human beings, than any other time in human history and that we have be freed from the tyranny of our environment and our biology….The Achievement of human endeavour shines. But somehow that offends you people…. That’s what I find interesting.
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Also I noted WotWot’s comment to Mugwump above…. And I was struck by this thought…. Why is it that every time these Computer models that the AGW mob swear by, are found wanting because of a difference in the empirical data….. The data gets “adjusted”….
Just an observation mind…. ;)
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Not so fast Barry me boyo…… You said this about the TT hotspot Mr Brooks.
“Further, as various people have already stated until they are blue in the face, the tropical hotspot is not the signture of GHG, it is the signature of warming from any source, so you are denying warming, fullstop. Which is patently false. The fingerprint of GHG is the cooling stratosphere, which is observed as per the figure I’ve shown.”
Ahhh but you have misrepresented, Barry. It was HOW it was modeled…. The RATE was to be 2.5 times the surface temp for a 100ppb increase in anthropogenic CO2 in a 50 year period…… The AGW modelers were the ones that expected to see that as a sign of AGW.
However that is not what was OBSERVED…. So let me repeat.
The model stated that AGW would show as a hotspot in the TT 2.5 times the rate of the surface temp. for a rise in anthropogenic CO2 of 100ppb in a 50 year period.
That is not OBSERVED. The rate via satellite is 0.2 degrees Celsius, but only for a 30 year database… The rate for radiosondes is 0.0 degrees Celsius for a 50 year period.
Doesn’t look very good for the Hypothesis of AGW does it?…. Looks like youse mob will have to “adjust” the data again,’eh.
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J Hansford – you didn’t read any of the explanatory material cited above, did you? You didn’t look at the Sherwood et al. 2008 paper and understand that they showed, via their wind analysis, the greatest warming in the upper troposphere. You don’t understand that the hotspot, which isn’t missing, isn’t a fingerprint of the GH effect anyway. You don’t understand that the radiosonde data are what are used to create the figure given in the post above, which show the hotspot, the warming atmosphere, and the cooling stratosphere.
Or if you did understand all this, you chose to ignore it and repeat misinformation. That’s your choice, but I really don’t think you’re not convincing anyone by repeating misinformation, except those folks who refuse to want to be persuaded no matter what the published science shows.
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Well, if you had actually read Sherwood et. al. you would know their main result on tropical tropospheric warming is: “Our 1979 – 2005 trends for 850 – 300hPa in the Tropics are 0.15±0.07 C / decade.”
You’d also know that Lindzen anticipated their result to some extent in his analysis of the missing hotspot and concluded that it would still be too cool to account for all surface warming via GHG forcing alone, to wit:
[0.068 C/decade is the surface warming you’d expect at the tropics for an upper tropospheric trend of 0.17C/decade, based on GHG forcing alone, which is about half the observed 0.12-0.14C/decade warming trend. Read Lindzen for the details.]
May I quote you? “But of course if you’d actually, really read the primary literature, you’d already know that. You say you have, so I can only assume you must be deliberately trolling.”
Well, you and the “various people” you cite have misinterpreted what the analysis means. Lindzen’s analysis implies an upper bound on the climate sensitivity from the ratio between the tropical upper tropospheric warming rate and the surface warming rate. It doesn’t rule out surface warming from other processes, eg natural variation.
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Not quite sure what you are trying to achieve here Mugwump, other than to follow the same path of Tim Curtin. You posed your critiques over at Tim Lambert’s blog and have had it answered, repeatedly, in multiple ways.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/08/open_thread_12.php
So, just like Tim Curtain, you dislike their responses and so come over here and state your arguments again as if they were suddenly new. Rather pointless.
I would particularly like to hear your response to Barton Paul Levenson:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/08/more_lazy_and_gullible_reporti.php
“mugwump writes:
It is pretty clear climate sensitivity has been exaggerated. That paper does not seem to have received much attention from either the alarmist or sceptic camp, but the analysis is pretty definitive: the climate sensitivity is probably about 1/3 of what the IPCC is claiming.
BPL: Can you explain why this one paper is right and these 61 papers are wrong?
http://members.aol.com/bpl1960/ClimateSensitivity.html
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The “answers” missed the point – I rebutted here.
Those 61 papers claim a climate sensitivity from 0.1C to 9.6C. With all due respect, they can’t all be correct. Lindzen’s estimates typically fall around 1C, which puts it squarely in the middle of that pack (on a logarithmic scale).
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Mugwump, I’m over here, too, there’s no escape, no place for your sweet little lies to hide …
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Lol I just had to post this – I’m having a quiet arvo at work…
But believe it or not David Evans is being quoted by candidates in the US Congress elections 08… ok only a minor candidate in the middle of nowhere but still it is quite unbelievable:
especially this quote: “David Evans, Australia’s official scientist overseeing climate and global warming studies from 1999 to 2005, says the Earth’s temperature has actually been flat or cooling since 2001.”
lol that is quite a promotion for Dr Evans!!!
http://vote.kansas.com/candidate-detail.do;jsessionid=600CA1A032501C454F4FFB84C9B74D9E?id=159725125
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FYI Joanne Nova, David’s partner, has put together a “skeptics handbook” http://joannenova.com.au/globalwarming/scepticshandbook1-1.pdf
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[…] which therefore invalidated the greenhouse theory and therefore presumably required the dehttps://bravenewclimate.com/2008/08/10/dr-david-evans-born-again-alarmist/Science Experiments by Branches of ScienceScience experiments by branches of science. … science […]
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MattB, the link to the skeptiks handbook doesn’t work,
Christoph
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I really wish global warming would hurry up, I have paddocks with no feed from lack of warmth, grass wont grow without warming and co2…
No growth, no feed.. no feed, no food and then lots of starvation…
All this arguing about who is to blame and who is right or wrong is just childish politics…
Instead of all the scientists having to argue about who is right or wrong and how only the ones that are on the bandwagon will get financial support for there research is doing nothing for the problems of this earth, even politicians dont care about people, just care about taxing people and stopping people from living…
Where i live its on average 10 degrees celsius, cooler than where friends of mine live…I have to heat my home just to stop from freezing at night, they whinge about the weeds growing so fast that its a full time job keeping up, I have problems growing food because of cold, they have problems with too much growth…
Lets face it, if the planet is getting warmer by 5 degrees celsius, then its an advantage, warmth will increase plant growth, look at a simple thing like a greenhouse, increased co2 and temperature make the plants grow better…
But the thing is, its not getting hotter no more, its getting colder and the colder it gets, the less rain that falls…( to get rain you need evaporation, or am I wrong, rain is from cold)
About time everyone stepped back, looked at things properly and stopped using computer models that only look at x amount of data, stop putting x in the application to come up with y, start using x, y and z, they should give completely different models, if they dont, then you must be onto a winner…
All this alarmist, denialist stuff is just playground garbage that i teach my children not to do…
And another thing, you cant compare “Tobacco” with weather, the only time you can is if your growing it as a crop…
I am not any sort of educated person, in fact I dont even have a high school education, but I tell you lot what, if the theories you throw around is what the rest of us have to live with, then I may suggest my kids dont bother with an education, they would learn more, living on the land than going to school…
Slow down a little, check things out without this preconceived idea that you already know and start looking for solutions to how we are going to survive any climate change…
I agree with climate change, but I dont agree with it being manmade, and climate change is out of our control, lets face it, if you burp in India, it wont cause a Hurricane in America…
Ask any grazier in the North West of Western Australia, knows that cyclones bring rain, if GW is going to cause more cyclones, then we want them…
I have said my piece…
Start by standing back and having a think!
Kath…
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Oh dear Kath! where do we start? What you experience locally is weather not climate – it is called natural variability and occurs worldwide. Of course in a La Nina cycle the temp is going to be colder than in an El Nino cycle.If you would only look at some more sites like this (e.g http://www.realclimate.com )you would understand that the vast majority of the scientific community is as one with this issue.Sceptical arguments are dealt with in an easy to follow format. Follow the scientific explanations and you might have a better understanding of the issue. Why not download the podcasts and Power Point presentations and listen to how the scientists are able to explain what is happening and why.Also really have a THINK yourself about what might happen if the global climate keeps on rising. If the globe goes into runaway warming a number of feedbacks will occur including melting Greenland and that will add 7 metres to the sea level and will be unstoppable! Sure this has happened before, but for reasons other than the current one and do not forget that previously the world was not inhabited by millions of people when these past changes in climate occured.Planned evacuation and adaptation to the new circumstances will be nigh impossible. I really do urge you to check out more of the entries here(which deal with some of the issues you have raised) if you want to understand. Perhaps then, like me you will realise that unless we act we are condemning our children and grandchildren – yes I am a grandmother – (and it’s beginning to look more and more like ourselves too) to a hostile world .
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(Kath#79) A warmer world is a wetter world, but the issue is not
just how much rain, but where. The Murray Darling Basin is in dire
straights at present, but Australia’s average rainfall hasn’t changed
much at all, it has moved. Some of the worst consequences of
a changing climate aren’t strictly heat related at all. e.g, how does
a 30 year El Nino sound? Not good for Australia and think about
a monsoon stop-work meeting in Asia. Can you imagine a few hundred
million hungry people? There is evidence right down the west
coast of South America that these things have
happened before, and when they have, flourishing civilisations
have perished.
How to convince you that climate scientists really know that
we are causing the present episode … that’s tough without
about 3 years of solid training. Who has that kind of time …?
But if I told you that I could control
the flow of little things a billion billion times smaller than you
can see and make them flow in precise patterns a billion times faster
than you could click your fingers, would you believe me? Well I can.
I’m talking about a computer. The computer program controlling the
computer I’m using is bigger than 30 copies of “War and Peace” and
a bunch of people wrote it and it works. There are
groups of people who really
can understand such complexity – no one person understands it all, but
collectively they do. Just like collectively they understand the
climate systems … not perfectly … but pretty well. They’d
all love to be wrong about climate change. They endlessly repeat
calculations, modelling, data collection, but they keep coming up
with the same answer and it just won’t go away.
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Yes I am or have read quite a bit of the data involved with this subject…
At present I am a fair way thru the IPCC ar4 wg1 report, yes thats right the data, not the conclusions first, because before i can come to a conclusion i need the facts…
So far I have read more disclaimers about the data than data itself…They even state along the lines that certain rf’s are dropping and they dont know why but they still come to the conclusion that its rising, umm call me an idiot but thats about as sensible as saying the crops are growing because we say so, yet the paddocks dead and dry..
As for reading more data and links, yep dozens daily…I have read a lot about atmospheric temperatures, about the backgrounds of the scientists doing the research, the computer models being used for thus research, the backgrounds of people that have signed off on research papers, the members of the IPCC reports, the skeptics, the alarmists, the denialists, the bloke at the corner shop…and so far it seems, a lot of the original authors of a lot of papers are saying they had it wrong and that the jury is still out…
Maybe a few need to read the IPCC ar4 wg1 report and actually consider the way its written, any country that adopts it and discovers it was incorrect will soon find that they have no come back against the authors or signatories to the document…
As for the local weather, yes I do know the local forces in play there, but have a look at the world weather, have a look at the NASA satellite temperatures, have a look at world temperature’s in general and consider this, if a “Principal research scientist” from the CSIRO showed you that the world sea levels have risen over 120 metres in the last 18,000 years and the worlds temperatures have risen upto 11 degrees celsius in that same time period, and are now only 8 degrees celsius above the 18,000 year ago measure, would you believe them, even if they are retired…
Find this document and have a read…
Dispelling Delusions: Human-caused climate change and carbon “pollution” mythology.
© Dr G LeBlanc Smith, PhD, AIG, AAPG 16th August 2008
It makes more sense than the people that seem to just abuse people that disagree with them. We need facts and evidence, not abuse and anger. If the data doesnt fit, dont change it, find out why it dont fit, and if it means that you may be incorrect then follow the data, dont make the data follow you.
Computer programmers use a term, its “Garbage in – garbage out” and at the end of the day, if the data isnt entered correctly, then the garbage you put in, ends up being the garbage you get out…
Kath…
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Kathy Webber asked:
Well, yes. What is your point?
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gjrussell,
A computer, hmm, let me see..
Intel cpu, 1.73ghz dual core with instructions from basic mms thru to pni(sse3) using 32bit instructions and hyperthreading…
OS linux, distribution Fedora 9
kernel 2.6.25.14-108.fc9.i686
Thats my laptop, simple basic machine, abilities are limited to just 2 process but it is configurable to run 4 …
Your point about the ability of computers, what 3 million instructions per second, 6 billion, etc etc…
Largest processing ability world wide would be held by BOINC(Berkley Open Infrastructure to Network Computing)
Currently being utilised by groups processing research data for all sorts of things from cancer research to climate predictions…Any pc not using its full processing potential could be utilised for boinc, ie use boinc for a screensaver in windows, or set it as a daemon in linux and it runs before you even log into your desktop…
Next, Chris O’neill…
Read Dr G LeBlanc Smith’s paper…
If you need the link, I will gladly provide it…
The data there shows increased temperature and co2 increasing as well as ocean levels rising, funny tho, humans have only become industrialised in recent times… How long has humans been industrialised?
Kath..
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# gjrussell Says:
Can you imagine a few hundred
million hungry people? There is evidence right down the west
coast of South America that these things have
happened before, and when they have, flourishing civilisations
have perished.
How to convince you that climate scientists really know that
we are causing the present episode … that’s tough without
about 3 years of solid training. Who has that kind of time …?
yep totally agree, climate scientists do, thats why so many are wanting to explain to the general public where the errors are..But alas the pollies have already taken it on and making decisions about our future while the scientists are still dabating the data…
As for computer models, they are predictions, how can they say one prediction is one hundred percent accurate, well they cant…climatologists and meteorologists cant predict exactly anything…if they could, it wouldnt be a prediction, but a fact…
If they are going to state that they know exactly what will happen next year, why did they get the last twelve months wrong, they are predicting they know what will happen in 100 years, but they are dismissing the past…they claim they used all the available data yet they had to leave some data out of the equations due to the in-ability to process that data…
Meteorologists are using boinc to process data about climate prediction, they have completed 2 stages of a 5 stage process…
next it will be adding another stage…
How long will it take to complete all 5 stages, well that depends on the availability of nodes to process there data…
Its been going since 2002, thats 6 years ago…
yeh they are learning and so are we, the data can be used usefully, but its not finish and not even close to finishing…
Great project, if people got involved and started to understand it a little more, instead of watching the media or following another…
You all think i am stupid, uneducated idiot..great, think what you like…
But remember this, education doesnt make you know all!
Kath…
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PS
gjrussell,
A cpu is a transistor or should i say a group of, getting up into the millions now..
Whats a transistor in laymans terms, just like a two way gate valve, can go 0 or 1…
simple, and the best way to describe them in laymans terms, is patterns , patterns of instructions…
Shall we go deeper into the architecture of a cpu?
Like hyperthreading, hypertransport, dual core, triple core, quad core, or differences between 32 a
Kath…
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I hate hitting the wrong key…oops…
To finish what i was saying,,
32 bit or 64 bit instructions, or duel cpu, quad cpu, clusters etc etc…
Yes I may be uneducated and not schooled at some high school or uni, but that doesnt make one know less…
The subject of computers, mmm, dont go there
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Kathy, stop putting words in people’s mouths. I cannot see where anyone above disparaged you. They were polite and trying to be helpful and explain your misconceptions about models and predictions. But since you have chosen to totally ignore them and repeat in various convoluted ways what you said in your first email, I can only conclude that you don’t want to listen.
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(Kathy#87..etc) If you sell yourself in your first post as a bumpkin, then don’t be surprised by a little condescension. Keep reading
AR4 and have a dig around the NASA website where there is plenty
of the data which is behind AR4.
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Kathy Webber:
We’re all familiar with temperature and CO2 increasing and ocean levels rising as the last ice-age ended. What does this have to do with humans directly causing a rise in CO2 now and the direct consequences of that?
BTW, I notice G LeBlanc Smith has published in a Coal Geology journal and other mining related journals. There are so many papers to read and so little time, is there any chance he has published in a climate science journal so that I know that at least a couple of climate scientists think that I wouldn’t be wasting my time reading him?
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Gjrussell,
I didnt sell myself as a bumpkin, I stated i dont have a highschool education..
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Kathy – methinks you are a troll or a sock puppet. Which is it?
Whichever – I don’t think this is the site for you try Marohasy or Bolt’s blog instead – you would be right at home there.
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[…] Posts Thinking big and fast on renewable energyThe global food system and climate change – Part IDr David Evans: born-again ‘alarmist’?What if the sun got stuck?How much warming in the pipeline? Part 1 – CO2-eTop 10 ways to reduce […]
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He’s got no excuse not to be a born-again alarmist now.
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There is no way an upper troposphere at -80 deg C can warm the lower troposphere at 15 deg C.
The second law of thermodynamics holds and well hold.
Radiant energy can be absorbed and reradiated ad nauseum, but that does not constitute heating. The fact that the IR is absorbed and reradiated indicates that this is a cold gas. Only, if, while the IR energy is absorbed for a slight instant, there is a rare collision with another molecule, can this energy become heat. Temperature is the average kinetic energy of the particles in the gas. Radiant energy is not temperature.
Statistically, collisions are rare and doubling of CO2 might, just might at most produce 0.01 deg C of warming. This is it. Go panic all you want.
This is not orthodoxy, this is science, this is real science. We are not warming, it is stopped, so why are you guys panicking?
Capt. Higley
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Charles Higley @ 95
Go to the latest post on this blog to get the facts re tropospheric heating.
BTW – in which peer reviewed journals do your scientific articles, on this matter, appear? Please give references so we may follow them up.
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Charles,
“Radiant energy can be absorbed and reradiated ad nauseum, but that does not
constitute heating.”
I’m dying to know how you think adding something to the atmosphere that absorbs heat will have no effect on the atmosphere’s temperature.
Charles, why is the air hotter during the day than the night? Does this puzzle you at all?
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I just noticed Evans had a piece on ABC “unleased” in mid December:
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2451051.htm
“The signature of an increased greenhouse effect consists of two features: a hotspot about 10 km up in the atmosphere over the tropics”
“no tropical hotspot. Not even a small one. [2] ”
“Empirically, we therefore know that an increased greenhouse effect was not a significant cause of the recent global warming. (Either that or the signatures from the IPCC are wrong, so its climate models and predictions are rubbish anyway.) ”
“the occasional claims that appear on the Internet that the hotspot has been found are simply wrong.”
“Politics says AGW is correct; science says it is wrong. ”
Anyway personally I think it is a much better written article than the August one, but created much less of a splash.
Anyway just thought I’d post the link to track the esteemed career of the rocket scientist…
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Just following that train of thought led me to what I found to be a most entertaining and informative read:
There is some really interesting discussion between Evans and the fellow from Deltoid whose name escapes me, and Chris O’Neill who I’ve seen posting here I think (he gets moderated a bit at CLub Troppo).
For mine Evans is shown the error of his ways, but I’m sure sceptics think he comes out looking like AGW is a hoax of course, with Jo Nova proving a sidekick of sale of the century proportions…
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Just to keep this thread alive… months and months ago I posted about a mate of mine who was all about AGW being a global conspiracy to introduce carbon as a new FIAT currency with the demise of the rest of the currency and the Great Financial Crisis (which gore et al knew about in advance of course). (I can;t find the post BTW but some comments said it sounded a bit CEC – Larouchian).
Anyway – lo and behold today poster gal of the sceptical set, partner of the Rocket Scientist, and soon to be Heartland conference presenter, Jo Nova, delivers this :”Carbon Credits: Another Corrupt Currency?” http://joannenova.com.au/2009/02/04/carbon-credits-another-corrupt-currency/
I should have guessed that their side line in gold trading (goldnerds.com) was anchored in financial conspiracy.
Anyway I think it is a good read if you are interested in this angle of sceptical basis.
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