.png)
“We’re heading into a new [little] ice age!”. This meme is a favourite of the denialosphere, I suppose because it is considered by them to be the ultimate counter to global warming. An inactive sun is fingered as the potential culprit in this alternative-universe prognostication hypothesis. But just how likely is such solar-driven cooling? What if the sun really did shut off its 11-year sunspot cycle for some reason, and move into a new extended (multi-decadal) period of low activity like was observed during the Maunder Minimum – would this be sufficient to offset the warming induced by an increased build-up of long-lived greenhouse gases from recent human industrial output and land use change?
The basic answer (“no, an inactive sun will not cause an ice age“) is actually remarkably easy to demonstrate. Jim Hansen did this recently in his occasional blog. This ‘trip report’ (printable PDF) covers a wide range of topics – why coal is the climate lynchpin, what industrial nations are (not) doing, what palaeoclimate tells us about climate sensitivity, and the prospects for fourth-generation nuclear power – and is worth reading for all of these gems. But given the prevalance with which the ice age meme appears in non-greenhouse theorist Op-Eds these days, I’ll reproduce his section on solar forcing here in full:
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Figure 4. Seasonal-mean global and low-latitude surface temperature, based on an update of the analysis of Hansen et al. (J. Geophys. Res. 106, 23947, 2001).
Temperature and Solar Data (extract from Hansen 2008: Trip Report, p11-14)
Figure 4 updates global and low latitude temperature at seasonal resolution. Red rectangles, blue semi-circles and green triangles at the bottom of the plot show the timing of El Ninos, La Ninas and large volcanic eruptions. Oscillation from El Ninos to La Ninas is the main cause of the big fluctuations of low latitude temperature. These fluctuations are also apparent, albeit muted, in the global mean temperature change.
The most recent few seasons (Figure 4) have been cool relative to the previous five years, on average ~0.25°C cooler. If one takes the recent peak (early 2007) and recent low point (early 2008), the change is about -0.5°C. This drop is the source of recent contrarian assertions that all global warming of the past century has been lost and the world is now headed into an ice age. Figure 4 reveals that it is silly to use a peak and valley as an indication of the trend. Peak to valley drops and rises of 0.3-0.5°C in seasonal mean temperature anomalies are common (Figure 4), usually associated with ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation) fluctuations.
The recent La Nina was strong, but tropical temperatures in mid-2008 have returned nearly to ENSO neutral conditions and global temperature is heading back to the high level of the past few years. The low temperatures in the first half of 2008 lead us to estimate that the mean 2008 global temperature will be perhaps in the range about 10th to 15th warmest year in our record.
A majority of the critical e-mails asserted emphatically that global temperature change is due mainly to solar changes, not human-made effects. They also state or imply that, because of ongoing solar changes, the Earth is entering a long-term cooling period (following the warming of the past 30 years, which they presume to be due to increases of solar energy). One e-mail virtually shouted: “THE SUN IS GOING OUT!”
Figure 5. Comparison of the sun at solar minimum (right side, July 2008) and at solar maximum (left, August 2002) as seen in extreme ultraviolet light from SOHO (Solar Heliospheric Observatory). Active regions during solar maximum are producing a number of solar storms. The sun in 2008 is quiet, with no active regions, part of the normal 11-year solar cycle.
Images from SOHO (Figure 5) might be the basis for that conclusion. The sun is inactive at the present, at a minimum of the normal ~11 year solar cycle. The solar cycle has a measureable effect on the amount of solar energy received by Earth (Figure 6). The amplitude of solar cycle variations is about 1 W/m2 at the Earth’s distance from the sun, a bit less than 0.1% of the ~1365 W/m2 of energy passing through an area oriented perpendicular to the Earth-sun direction.
The Earth absorbs ~235 W/m2, of solar energy, averaged over the Earth’s surface. So climate forcing due to change from solar minimum to solar maximum is about ¼ W/m2. If equilibrium climate sensitivity is 3°C for doubled CO2 (¾°C per W/m2), the expected equilibrium response to this solar forcing is ~0.2°C. However, because of the ocean’s thermal inertia less than half of the equilibrium response would be expected for a cyclic forcing with ~11 year period. Thus the expected global-mean transient response to the solar cycle is less than or approximately 0.1°C.
Is there some way that the small variations of energy coming from the sun could be amplified, so that the ‘solar exponents’ are actually correct and the sun is driving our climate changes? There are indirect effects of solar variability, e.g., solar radiation varies most at ultraviolet wavelengths that affect ozone. Indeed, empirical data on ozone change with the solar cycle and climate model studies indicate that induced ozone changes amplify the direct solar forcing (J. Geophys. Res. 102, 6831, 1997; ibid 106, 77193, 2001), but the amplification is by a factor of one-third or less.
Other mechanisms to amplify the solar forcing have been hypothesized, such as induced changes of atmospheric condensation nuclei and thus changes of cloud cover. However, if such mechanisms were effective, then an 11-year signal should appear in temperature observations (Figure 4). In fact a very weak solar signal in global temperature has been found by many investigators, but only of the magnitude (~0.1°C or less) expected due to the direct solar forcing. So the sun is only a minor contributor to the temperature fluctuations in Figure 4.
The possibility remains that the sun could be an important cause of climate change on longer time scales. (The source of nuclear energy at the sun’s core is essentially continuous, in fact increasing at a rate of about 1% in 100 million years, which is a negligible rate of change for our purposes. But the photosphere, the upper layers of the sun, can slightly impede or speed the emission of energy as the strength of magnetic fields fluctuates.) Perhaps the normal solar cycle evidenced in Figure 6 is about to be interrupted. Sunspots seemed to nearly disappear for a long period in the 17th century, which may have contributed (along with volcanic eruptions) to the “little ice age”. And the current solar minimum is already longer than the previous two (Figure 6). Perhaps the e-mailer who shouted “THE SUN IS GOING OUT!” is correct!
Figure 6. Solar irradiance from composite of several satellite-measured time series based on Frohlich & Lean (1998; http://www.pmodwrc.ch/pmod.php?topic=tsi/composite/SolarConstant)
Fortunately, we can compare quantitatively the climate forcing due to the sun (if its irradiance does not recover from its present minimum) and the forcing due to human-made greenhouse gases. Solar irradiance seems to be slightly less at its current minimum than in earlier minima (Figure 6), but, at most, the decrease from the mean irradiance of recent decades is ~0.1% yielding a climate forcing of about -0.2 W/m2. The current rate of atmospheric CO2 increase is ~2 ppm/year, yielding an annual increase of climate forcing of about +0.03 W/m2 per year.
Thus if the sun remains “out”, i.e., stuck for a long period in the current solar minimum, it can offset only about 7 years of CO2 increase. The human-made greenhouse gas climate forcing is now relentlessly, monotonically, increasing at a rate that overwhelms variability of natural climate forcings. Unforced variability of global temperature is great, as shown in Figure 4, but the global temperature trend on decadal and longer time scales is now determined by the larger human-made climate forcing. Speculation that we may have entered a solar-driven long-term cooling trend must be dismissed as a pipe-dream.
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Another good read which explains the solar cycle is this news feature from NASA, which shows that there is nothing particularly remarkable about the current solar cycle, and so there is no reasonable expectation that we are heading into a new Maunder Minimum anyway.
Filed under: Clim Ch Q&A
Barry one can only hope that science blogs like this will eventually be heard above the contrarian din. I coudn’t agree more with some of the comments in the previous posting in response to Carter. The mainstream scientific community does need an organized, co-ordinated, dare I say political response to snake oil merchants like Bob Carter. I do have two questions. In the above posting you give the atmospheric CO2 increase as 2ppm per year. I have seen figures anywhere between 2 and 3ppm. What is the accurate figure? Also the hottest year 1998, 2005 keeps cropping up. Which is it? Keep up the good work.
Richard: A useful way to plot the CO2 data from NOAA is here:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2
Or for a zoom of the last few years:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:2006
In short, CO2 accumulation varies from year to year, but the average over the last 10 years has been 2 to 3 ppm.
1998 is the hottest year according to the HadCRUT analysis, 2005 is the hottest according to GISTEMP. But when you scale them for the proper baselines, the differences are trivial:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/mean:12/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1979/offset:-0.15/mean:12/plot/gistemp/from:1979/offset:-0.24/mean:12/plot/uah/mean:12/plot/rss/mean:12
Prof. Brook,
There is about +0.1°C in GISS temperature for 2005 compared to HadCRUT : http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1979/offset:0.04/mean:12/plot/gistemp/from:1979/offset/mean:12
0.1°C difference is NOT trivial, it’s about 15% of the total warming for the 20th century ! Your opinion is that’s trivial but declaring 2005 has been the hottest year using such small and uncertain difference is far from trivial in the context of the heated AGW debate.
BTW, I find it rather strange that Dr Hansen continues to use the surface temperature while it has plenty of such problems (e.g. stations maintenance, adjustment algorithms, trends difference between 1200km and 250km interpolation…) instead of using satellite temperatures. A NASA agency which shuns satellite data which give temperatures of where the GHG effect is supposed to take place (ie the troposphere), how ironic!
Besides, it’s a known fact the Earth was cooling during 1940-1975 which led to the global cooling scare in the 70s. But Hansen’s Figure 4 temperature shows no cooling until 1980! Obviously another problem with the GISS dataset (the GISS is notorious for changing its PAST temperatures without notice, there is clear evidence of such data tampering in the web archive, for example http://pichuile.free.fr/images/gistemp_adjust2.png ).
Hansen bases his explanations on his OWN dataset and avoid other independent data. This is a clear case of conflict of interests and the risks of confirmation biais and circular reasonning are high, considering his AGW activism. Good science must avoid such situation.
Bingo! We have a loser!
Good material, thanks …
BUT
Following are some observations on why numerous people seem to get confused, and why some thought might be given to a slightly different way of presenting things, akin to my version of the bathtub analogy.
Observation: suppose we had accurate, trustworthy measurements of Ocean Heat Content over the last million years, or even last 15,000, or 2,000, or even last 100. Would it be easier to convince people AGW was real?
Sure: just graph that.
I think we would present this very differently.
Unlike *temperature* measurements, which have all sorts of noise, OHC is much more obviously related to Earth’s energy imbalance, in whichever direction. I.e., there is no such thing as conservation of temperature measurements, but there is conservation of energy.
The pedagological problem is that many presentations start with temperature time series, and then work back into what’s going on underneath.
Unfortunately (some of this comes from managing cognitive psychologists and later working at Silicon Graphics, where visual artifacts were of interest):
a) Human eyes are drawn to extremes, edges, noise.
b) Humans tend to think of trends as drawing a straight line from some point to the endpoint. We don’t automatically compute regressions.
c) Hence, people seeing a noisy time-series whose variance is higher than the trend tend to notice the *noise*, not the trend.
As a result, whereas people see the Keeling Curve of CO2, the trend is obvious, many people react to the temperature curve by thinking “wow, temperature really varies”.
d) Denialists often use this by juxtaposing a slice of a Keeling curve next to a jiggly temperature trend.
e) One can *say* that X-years is really needed for meaningful results for climate … but many people don’t internalize that very well, because it isn’t instantly obvious to people where X comes from.
IDEA:
I wonder how it would work to use a different order
OHC & energy imbalance
OHC & heat exchange with atmosphere, i.e., energy-conserving *oscillations* that however jiggle surface-temperature around
Long-term, medium-term, and short-term forcings
and THEN look at the resulting temperature records
I.e., FIRST explain the energy-conserving issues, i.e., things for which there are relatively low-noise long-term trends based on energy imbalance.
THEN, show the sources of noise
THEN show the resulting temperature curves
Barry: if that’s at all interesting, and you’re so inclined, send me a PPT of that one talk of yours, I think I could reorder some slides, add just a few, and send it back, and that would probably communicate better what I’m thinking about. I never really know on these things until I hack slides to see.
(Mashey#5) This sounds like a really good way to explain noise/signal
stuff to non-scientists, but I’m not sure the data is up to
the task. The world OHC graph in:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/287/5461/2225
isn’t as smooth as you (certainly me!) appear to expect.
The reasons look like being technical (ie. surveying OHC, even just
for the top 300m, is no easy task). See
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/308/5727/1431
for more detail. More recent data is better and looks like you it
would serve your purpose, but skeptics will happily pick on early sketchy data to muddy the waters.
Gjrussell:
Yes, good cites. I get Science.
“Observation: suppose we had accurate, trustworthy measurements of Ocean Heat Content over the last million years, or even last 15,000, or 2,000, or even last 100. Would it be easier to convince people AGW was real?
Sure: just graph that.”
My “suppose” was a counterfactual, but I guess I didn’t make that clear enough. and my wife came and said time for dinner, so I left off the piece that should have said, somewhere:
But, we don’t have such data, we don’t even have it for the last 5 years, although we’re getting better measurements, but even what we have is new and will take a while to really calibrate well. The oceans are big.
We know how OHC works (because the amount of change in a year seems fairly bounded), but many of the measurements we have are of noisy surface/atmospheric temperatures instead, in places where we can measure them, or have the records. That’s why we don’t get excited about short-term fluctuations.
I sometimes cite the old high school football advice to defensive players: “Ignore head fakes. Watch his belt buckle.”
Maybe, make an analogy with glaciers, which do the smoothing for us. Swiss glacier site shows this well. I’d bet that the air temperature measured anywhere near Grosser Aletsch jiggles all over the place, whereas it’s length changes relatively smoothly, and shorter ones tend to jiggle more than longer ones.
Demesure @3: You get the same answer re: solar forcing and temperature no matter which metric you use. Plus you scaled the temperature incorrectly – the one you link to does not have the same baseline so the comparison is not meaningful. There are month to month differences but taken over the 30 year period since the satellite records because, the average differences are indeed trivial (~0.01C). But this doesn’t suit your purpose so you ignore this.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/mean:12/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1979/offset:-0.15/mean:12/plot/gistemp/from:1979/offset:-0.24/mean:12/plot/uah/mean:12/plot/rss/mean:12
Mashey @5: I hold the same view of the cognitive psychology of graphs and statistical outliers – I generally use the ocean heat content graph in my talks directly after the air temp IPCC graph – emphasising that this where the real story lies. Anyway, send me your email address and I’ll send you my standard PPT to play around with. I like the glacier analogy.
If and when the Gulf Stream collapses and the North Atlantic, western Europe and NE America drop several degrees C (as occurred as a result of ice melt flow into the North Atlantic in the Youngest dryas – 12.9 – 11.7 kyr) – those who promote the use of the atmosphere as open sewrage for carbon gases are probably going to celebrate “global cooling”
This, in addition to arguments such as:
GW is due to warming of the Earth core and mantle …
GW is related to warming of Mars and Venus …
They will never run out of arguments, identifying small errors in calculations and projections.
And when advanced global warming becomes undeniable, they will accuse climate scientist and environmentalists for causing it!
Andrew (post 9) – you mention Mars and Venus… I have been asked by colleagues how can it be CO2 when the other planets are warming too?? I have no idea to be honest… but I do tell them that if they are going to use the fact that they don;t trust our understanding of our own climate to deny AGW then I’m damn well not going to let them pretend we know enough about some other planet’s climate to debunk AGW…
Or they will say that the climate scientists were at fault for not being better at arguing that CO2 causes the warming. This will be part of the blame-shifting process.
MattB @10:
Answers to “but the other planets are warming” furphy:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-on-mars.htm
http://cce.890m.com/?page_id=19
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-other-planets-solar-system.htm
dhogaza Says:
14 September 2008 at 8.10
…which led to the global cooling scare in the 70s
“Bingo! We have a loser!”
Yep – someone else who doesn’t get it.
We are all losers. Whether there be warming. Or not.
The rich get richer and the poor get to stay poor. Or the ecosystem crashes.
You are either rich, intend to become rich or a loser. Comments like yours are what helps drive people to the other side. Unhelpful and it adds nothing. Sneering is cheap.
As it was the seventies there are hardly any extant references to the massive push to scare the public with incoming, unstoppable cooling. I was there and remember it well. TV, radio, magazines and newspapers all jumped in. This was just after Paul Ehrlich was proclaimed the new messiah by the same scaremongers.
Speaking of cold…
http://news.yahoo.com/story//afp/20080905/lf_afp/switzerlandarchaeologyclimatewarming
I cannot help but wonder how 4 periods of human traversal of said pass could have occurred without 4 warmings at least equal to this that has uncovered it once more.
The folks that attempt corellation of minima with either warm or cold are missing the point. Solar insolation variations (or spots) are not the key to climate. Almost as many (recorded) minima express warmth as the others do cold. We live in an electro-magnetic system not a nuclear-gravitic one. Proving it is proving difficult 😉
Demesure, it’s been pointed out to you and I will point out to you again, that the calculated warming of the two major satellite analyses differ by 20-25%. The satellite analyses of the lower troposphere are entirely synthetic — there is no satellite “channel” that measures those altitudes — and they depend on all kinds of assumptions and adjustments. Yet you still maintain that they are somehow superior to the surface record. One only needs to look at the evolution of the UAH analysis, still the odd man out, to know that those assumptions are an order of magnitude greater than any adjustments done by Hansen or Jones.
Richard McGuire
(1) Look also at the website of the Global Carbon Project
http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/
http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/global/pdf/GCPFrameworkFinal.pdf
for up-to-date data re-CO2 rise.
I believe the rate has now exceeded 3 ppm/year
(2) peak monthly mean global temperature anomalies were reached in early 1998, early 2002, beginning of 2007 (look at the GISS/NASA portal)
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
As it’s apparently not obvious, Henry, FYI Demesure has a long, long history of making disingenuous denialist comments. Interestingly you found his nonsensical attack on GISS and Hansen to be unworthy of comment. One wonders why.
“As it was the seventies there are hardly any extant references to the massive push to scare the public with incoming, unstoppable cooling. I was there and remember it well.”
Well, that certainly answers the question I posed above. While it’s probably fair to say that it would be difficult to do a thorough search of the print media for evidence of such a scare, that is not at all the case as regards the scientific literature. In fact, it’s been done (and see here). I suppose it’s possible that that there was a mass media scare even though the science was headed in a different direction, but there’s no evidence for such a thing and Occam’s Razor would seem to suggest other explanations.
Oh, yes: I was around for the ’70s as well and remember no such “massive push” (or even a minor one). Memory is a funny thing, though.
Henry Galt, you are trying to mix up a single local (European) observation of an archaeological find, at around the time of the Holocene insolation maximum, with successive bouts of global warming exceeding the present? I don’t get your logic.
Dear Henry Galt, thank you for informing us that TV, radio, magazines and newspapers like to do sensational reporting. We are already aware of this. Could you please point us to scientific papers in this subject as this is our main interest.
The so-called “cooling scare” can be summed up in one graphic:
http://cce.890m.com/new-ice-age/images/cooling-vs-warming.jpg
Or, with more words:
http://cce.890m.com/?page_id=16
I came across your website while looking for information about global warming. I neither work for an oil company nor do I care whether global warming is taking place, or whether man is responsible. Information seems hard to come by in the climate world. I now know what a “meme” is and have learned the new word, “denialosphere”. I think I came across an attempt at wit – the substitution of “hypothesis” for “alternative universe prognostication”. Don’t you and your friends understand that acting like smug sixth-formers does your cause no good. Believe it or not, some of us are just intellectually curious, and not interested in the quasi-religious war which is now going on. What certainly doesn’t do your cause any good is the use of the words “denial” or “denier” in association with global warming. I don’t know if you are aware that, in the UK, calling someone a denier immediately brings to mind the phrase “holocaust denier”. You’ve probably seen programmes about the holocaust on the History Channel and so can imagine that equating a difference of opinion on computer modelling of the climate to the gassing of 6 million Jews might be offensive to some people. I am not Jewish and it doesn’t offend me. It only irritates me. You all irritate me so much.
Jonathan Bagley, I think you protest too much.
I usually prefer the term “non-greenhouse theorist” but do slip into the vernacular, I’ll admit. But when you flat out refuse to acknowledge scientific evidence in the form of the published scientific literature – or attempt to refute it on equal terms – you are denying the theoretical, empirical and experimental foundation of science. So the term fits.
For more discussion on this, I suggest you head over to here:
http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/
This site looks at the broader issue, beyond global warming.
But other regular commenters on this site have ridden rough shod over this rocky internet terrain for far longer than I, and can probably add an even more jaded perspective on your critique.
Barry, your shrill and insulting reply is an ample demonstration of why those of us who not on one side or the other, but just attempting to make some sense of all the information pro and con start to feel some sympathy for your fellow scientists on the other side of the arguement regardless of the strength of their arguments.
If Fred Singer, Richard Lindzen and Roy Spencer agree to debate, anyone here want to participate?
Mike Trumper, I’m confused – in what way could my reply @23 possibly be construed as ‘shrill’ or ‘insulting’?
Slamdunk – debate what – solar forcing in w/m2?
It irritates me, as someone who has lost family in the Holocaust, that the Freudian concept of denial should be deemed unmentionable because of the intellectual laziness of the J. Bagleys of this world
Jonathan @22… As a fellow non-core-scientist on the matter, but merely an interested bystander, I’d love you to share all of the websites that the “non-greenhouse theorists” use to spread their message that are more moderate and balanced than this site… as I must admit the bloggers on those sites are more like a pack of humgry wolves baying for the “alarmists” blood compared to the pleasant banter on this site.
Mike Trumper:
Dear Mike, please point out the exact parts of Barry’s reply that are shrill and that are insulting. I am having trouble identifying them.
Mike Trumper.
“Shrill”? “Insulting”?
I am also curious to know which other blogs you read, and I would certainly like to compare your list to that of Bobbos on this and subsequent posts at Deltoid.
Your accusation of nastiness on Barry’s part, one which I too look forward to being properly detailed by you, is a theme which seems to be doing the rounds this week, and I can’t help but wonder if it represents a concerted campaign rather than simple coincidence.
If I was a nastier person I might suspect that you are a troll…
Jonathan Bagley.
As MattB notes, the concept of denialism does not have a mandatory, but sometimes invisible, ‘holocaust’ attached to the front. It is mendacious of you to conflate the recognition of genuine denialist psychology regarding AGW, or indeed any other issue, with Nazi antisemitism.
I doubt that you have done so innocently, especially as I have not yet seen any Jewish lobby complain. However I have seen many climate denialists use the technique in an attempt to denigrate the science that they oppose, and especially to attempt to besmirch the reputations of those who call the denialists on their ideology.
What makes you different to these people?
Jonathon Bagley @22
Obviously I am a much more suspicious and nastier person than BernardJ. I am sure you are a troll. Unless of course you are a totally naive new blogger and have not yet visited the blogs in the “non-greenhouse theorist” camps. If you want vitriol, anger, spite, malice and ignorance (not just of the science)head over there – try Jennifer Mahorasy, Andrew Bolt ot Graeme Bird’s sites – if you are naive and innocent you will well and truly be converted to sites like this one – once you have “tasted”the other side of the debate.Just a thought – maybe you are Graeme Bird!!
@15 cce,
Please, show your numbers and your “order of magnitude”. Otherwise, you’re just handwaving with a cheap claim. You know that’s a cheap claim because Jones has NEVER published the raw data and the adjustment methods of his “global” temperature, so you CAN’T know the magnitude of adjustments for HadCRUT.
BTW, I find it strange that you imply satelitte temperatures might be much more “adjusted” than surface temperatures: both GISS and HadCRU temperatures for the seas – 2/3 of the planet’s surface! – are based on HadReyn sea surface temperature (SST).
But what is HadReyn made of ? Bingo, mostly of satellite temperatures after 1982 (see here : http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadisst/ ) because it’s far better than the previous methods like measuring ships’ water intake’s or even wood bucket’s temperature.
Hence, global surface temperatures are in fact dependent (2/3) of satellite temperatures. So you can’t dismiss on one hand satelittes then claim on the other hand surface temperatures are better. Suck or blow but you can’t do both.
@18
Yep Steve, there is a name for this selective memory: denialism. 😉
@8
Prof Brook,
I was scaling the Woodfortree graph to compare GISST to HadCRUT for the two years your were talking about in #2: 1998 to 2005. The question was why the record was in 2005 for GISS and in 1998 for HadCRUT. And the response is that there is a 0.1°C difference between the 2 sources for those 2 years, far from a “trivial” discrepancy.
Your “same” baseline shifting is irrelevant, since it’s NOT the same baseline (Woodfortrees’s values are anomalies, based on different ref. periods for GISS and HadCRU).
Only if it’s deliberately incorrect or ignores the facts, Demesure @33. What are your facts for this assertion?
I don’t know what your point is about satellites @32. You are correct that GISS and HadCRU use satellites for SST. So?
Yes, there are differences between GISS and HadCRU in various years, because they have different ‘global’ coverages. Look at the 1998 in the GISS temp fig given in this post – it is massive in the tropics and mild in the north. HadCRU and satellites don’t measure the far north, which was particularly warm that year (record Arctic sea ice melt prior to 2007).
But taken over the full 30 year period, these deviations smooth out and the differences are trivial.
A 5 year smooth of the previously cited plot shows this – indeed, it shows if anything that if there is one anomaly, it UAH.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/mean:60/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1979/offset:-0.15/mean:60/plot/gistemp/from:1979/offset:-0.24/mean:60/plot/uah/mean:60/plot/rss/mean:60
This article knocks down a strawman by ignoring the proposed amplifying mechanism for sunspot influence on climate.
The solar energy decrease for low sunspot periods is, indeed, insufficient. But, the lowered solar magnetic field permits more changed space particles to strike the atmosphere, stimulating cloud formation, raising the albedo of the earth-thereby reflecting more of the sun’s energy into space.
Barry, This solar minimum is the most watched in history and has solar physicists guessing. There is talk of previous theories being discarded as this minimum unfolds.
As you are well aware there is more to this than solar irradiance and there are many (peer reviewed, as this important to you ) papers out there showing a definite correlation between solar activity and cycle length with global temperature.
Maybe it would be wise to wait and see what unfolds as this minimum drags on. Hopefully we will be able to increase our understanding of how this effects our climate and correlates with the theory as regards CO2. Nothing is settled yet.
I’ve thought that borehole temperatures, like Ocean Heat Content, make a more comprehensible measure of longer term temperature change for the layperson than surface temperature series, but an admittedly quick websearch didn’t come up with much recent data in the kind of format that a layperson could make sense of. Borehole temperatures don’t seem to get much prominence in the debates on climate change – is there some reason why not?
Dear Dr. Brook. You begin with the favorite denialist meme “We’re heading into a new [little] ice age!”. Could you give us just a couple of references with this quote so that we might be able to identify the denialists? Thank you.
Yes, I was kidding. The exact quote is to be found only as a straw man quote on “alarmist” sites. Too bad you fell for it, too.
First sentence of Bob Carter Op-Ed, The Courier Mail newspaper, last week:
“NATURAL climate changes include warmings, coolings and more abrupt steps represented by the Great Pacific Climate Shift in 1977. Meanwhile, lurking in the background lies the threat of visitation of another Little Ice Age”
http://bravenewclimate.com/2008/09/12/spot-the-recycled-denial-v-–-prof-bob-carter/
Suggest you read the rest of the blog, Matti Virtanen.
There was also this, by Phil Chapman in the Australian newspaper a few months ago:
It is time to put aside the global warming dogma, at least to begin contingency planning about what to do if we are moving into another little ice age, similar to the one that lasted from 1100 to 1850….On the other hand, it must be noted that the cooling in 2007 was even faster than in typical glacial transitions. If it continued for 20 years, the temperature would be 14C cooler in 2027…We cannot really know, but my guess is that the odds are at least 50-50 that we will see significant cooling rather than warming in coming decades…All those urging action to curb global warming need to take off the blinkers and give some thought to what we should do if we are facing global cooling instead….
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23583376-7583,00.html
And so on.
Other non-greenhouse theorist websites absolutely lapped this one up. So don’t give me rot that this is a straw man. Or are to be understand that we should believe nothing that the non-greenhouse theorists claim – are all their theories straw men, designed to make fun of the science?
Ken Fabos @38:
Borehole temperatures require some calibration, like any proxy. But they were included in the most recent NH temperature reconstruction and give a good match to other proxies (two different bias corrections). The nature of the is that they tend to average out the kinks we know as short term weather and so operate more like a running average.
You can access the new paper here – it is open access:
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/36/13252
See figure 3.
Elwin9 @36:
If it is straw man, it is the non-greenhouse theorist’s pet one, as noted above.
Also, the theorised cloud based -ve feedbacks haven’t been observed – it was a data error:
http://cce.890m.com/?page_id=19 (see section starting: “Uncooperative Cloud Cover”)
The Cce link above also cover’s Mike’s query @37 – the correlation between the solar cycle/cosmic rays and temperature falls apart over various parts of the 400 year data set, including the last 30 years.
Incidentally, that NASA press release was written by solar physicists.
Barry Brook says,
Slamdunk – debate what – solar forcing in w/m2?
That and other issues dealing with the major cause of what little global warming there has been over the past 130 years. I think there should be far more public debate among the “experts.” Rarely does the MSM present the science of the “skeptics.”
The only publicized debate on GW was in NYC March 2007. Since then, many challenges have been issued by the skeptics to debate.
“The Cce link above also cover’s Mike’s query @37 – the correlation between the solar cycle/cosmic rays and temperature falls apart over various parts of the 400 year data set, including the last 30 years.”
That was no query but a statement. Cosmic rays are possibly a part of the puzzle but there is much that is not known including reliable data on cloud cover. Also see http://www.tmgnow.com/repository/solar/lassen1.html.
The relatively small increased temperatures of the last half century or so are really not remarkable in the historical context unless you view them via the (now discredited ) hockey stick graph. It is quite possible that this increase is due to natural forcing including solar. We shall find out the truth in due course but until then it may be wise not to burn your academic boat, so to speak.
“Incidentally, that NASA press release was written by solar physicists.”
Indeed and Hathaway wisely refrains from making any statement other than the current minimum is not unprecedented.
One thing that is known is that there is no trend in cosmic rays over the last 57 years. Zero trend in cause (even if it really is a cause) means it can’t cause a trend in anything.
Now confirmed hockey stick graph actually.
For both mike & slamdunk:
I’m interested in understanding how people form opinions about this. Since you have strong ones, maybe you’d consider answering my standard set of questions:
0) When you say “AGW theory”, what’s your definition? Do you mean what the IPCC AR4 says, or something else?
1) Can you perhaps list the top (5-10?) holes you find in the AR4? I.e., which section #s / page #s do you find wrong or unconvincing? Since this is about science and scientists, the “Chicken Little press” is irrelevant.
2) Just to understand the information base you’re using:
a) Do you attend lectures by real climate scientists? (I know this is not easy everywhere). Maybe we’ve heard some in common, so can have a rational discussion about what they say.
If none, have you found useful videos on the Web by scientists?
b) Do you have (or have had) personal contact & discussion of this topic with real scientists? (I.e., like Nobel physicists, in US, members of National Academy of Scientists, in UK, Royal Society; Presidents, Deans of Science, Department heads, professors in relevant areas in strong research universities? Senior researchers at national research labs (in US, like NCAR, NOAA, GISS, GFDL, in UK Hadley, in Oz CSIRO, etc. Editors of peer-reviewed scientific journals?)
c) Are you a member of any relevant scientific societies?
d) Do you subscribe to any scientific journals?
e) Do you read any primary research literature in the field?
f) Have you read any books on this besides the IPCC AR4? [Certainly if one only reads one, that’s the one.]
g) Do you (or have you) participated in peer-review as an author, reviewer, or editor?
h) Can you say anything about your background in physics and statistics?
3) Back to 1), is there some modest set of “worrisome issues about AGW”, which if laid to rest, would convince you that AGW (as defined by the IPCC) is real and a problem? Can you list them?
Demesure,
I ask you again to look at the differences between RSS and UAH. This will help you:
http://cce.890m.com/giss-vs-all.jpg
You consider a 0.1 degree difference to be “a lot” by singling out periods of time where HadCRUT and GISTEMP diverge, even though over the past 30 years, these differences cancel each other out. In contrast, UAH is systematically lower than the others, which has now accumulated to about 0.1 degree. The so-called GISTEMP “Y2K error” represented about a 0.003 degree upward bias from 2000 through mid 2007, or 1/30th the difference between RSS and UAH.
From January 1979 to December 2007, the difference in the trend between HadCRUT3v and GISTEMP is only 0.002 degrees per decade. This despite different homogenization methods, different SST data, and different interpolation methods. The difference between RSS and UAH is 0.04 degrees per decade, or 20 times larger.
The UAH analysis, of course, has been signifcantly revised upward. Correcting a sign error in the diurnal adjustment increased the trend to July 2005 by 40%. Subsequent revisions have increased the trend for the SAME months (i.e. to July 2005) another 10%.
The lower satellite measurements are synthetic. Each is “one big adjustment.” They are pulled out of measurements stitched together from multiple instruments. A comparison between 4 analyses of the “mid troposphere” (which are influenced by the stratosphere) is here.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/12/31/msu/
Or you can just look at the differences graphically:
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/smooth.jpg
The differences are large enough to drive a truck through.
One other point. HadCRUT does not use any satellite data. It uses ship and buoy data exclusively. GISTEMP uses the HadISST data since 1982 (calibrated with buoys), which has nothing to do with the MSU tropospheric data. It’s also worth noting that in the Thompson paper documenting the problem with mid century cooling, he also notes another discrepency in the last decade which appears to show a cooling bias introduced with the transition to more buoys. After this is corrected, I bet it will affect HadCRUT more than GISTEMP (assuming it affects GISTEMP at all).
Hello John,
In NYC, on Mar. 2007, three AGW scientists, by their own admission, lost a highly publicized debate with three “skeptics.” Since then, there have been none. Several challenges have gone out to Al Gore and other AGW supporters but none seem to want debate.
I think it’s curious that IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri won’t produce the evidence showing how human induced CO2 drives global temperature, as requested by several international scientists, on Apr. 14, 2008. I would think he would have responded by now since it is so obvious that human CO2 is raising temperatures to the point of environmental disaster. Surely such evidence must be at his fingertips.
Also, I wonder why IPCC Co-lead author Jonathan Overpeck told Prof. David Deming that the medieval warm period had to be “gotten rid of” from the temperature reconstructions other scientists were working on over a thousand year period. Why would they want to do that?
Thirdly, Chris Monckton, Richard Lindzen and Roy Spencer believe the IPCC has overstated the effect of CO2 on climate sensitivity. So far, the IPCC has not responded to these claims.
Because of these things, I think somewhere, somehow, there ought to be a series of publicized debates sponsored by the general media so people can hear both sides. As it is, you rarely hear anything from the “skeptic” side. What do you think?
I am not a scientist and know very little about the science of so called man made global warming. So I am not able to answer your questions. I’m more concerned why people in high places don’t answer questions, get rid of the MWP and overstate the effects of CO2.
John Mashey,
From what you have written you seem to have an obsession with anyone who takes a contrary position to the IPCC and what you call consensus. Consensus is not science, it is a position supported by a majority ( perhaps ) but does not mean that the said position is correct or valid. I will address your post tomorrow as it is late.
The implication being that the sun’s output is increasing and heating the planets in the solar system.
It appears that Uranus is (or had been) cooling, which would seem to upset that hypothesis.
http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~layoung/eprintur149Young2001Uranus.pdf
I’ve won debates before despite clearly being wrong… all it does is show that three blokes “won” a debate… I’d guess that nerdy scientists are the LAST people I’d expect to win a high profile public “debate”.
Look at post 49… “hockey stick” “MWP” and some suggested conspiracy… that is exactly what wins a debate! Versus the scientist (please let me just summarise these 25 or so peer reviewed journals, and oh yes I have this rather interesting graph if you have a few moments).
Why in gods name would the IPCC respond to non-peer reviewed science?? It is an endless loop of researching and discrediting rubbish that is simply not the IPCC’s job. They will do their next report whenever they are scheduled to I guess, and they will incorporate all valid developments in the science. They are unlikely to take notice of a few blokes who reckon stuff.
Mike: merely an interest, derived in part from managing cognitive psychologists for a few years, in understanding how people learn, and how people come to believe things strongly.
Slamdunk:
You say:
“I am not a scientist and know very little about the science of so called man made global warming. So I am not able to answer your questions.”
You surely *could* answer one question: where do you get your information? You don’t need to be a scientist to name your sources. You named a specific set of people, most of whom are not household names. How have you learned whatever you know about climate science?
Note: science isn’t done by debates, I’m afraid.
BOTH: you both have strong opinions, I’m just trying to understand where they come from.
Sometimes, by understanding where someone is, it is easier to recommend something to read that they might actually find useful. many people have helped me in this way, and although I rate my climate expertise at ~2 on a scale of 10, perhaps I can be helpful as well.
Incidentally, since debates are in the air, my employer’s environmental officer is a skeptic, and had invited David Evans to give a talk here as part of a “sustainability seminar”. I proposed we made it a debate with some mainstream greenhouse theorists, and I recruited some good local academics etc… but the debate was denied. I was stil armed with questions but in the end the whole thing got canned for reasons other than the debate. The debate would have been great.
Apparently Barry is having a debate with Ian Plimer at the Sceptics Society meeting in Adelaide in October. Barry – can you supply thr full details? Will a podcast be available?
Slamdunk.
This is the point.
Non-acquaintance with the intricacies of the science, and with the scientific process in general, render lay people vulnerable both to not understanding the points that climate scientists make, and to not understanding the non-validity of the arguements that the denialists make. This is not to say that lay people do not have a contribution to make – after all, John by his own admission ‘lay’ with respect to climate science – but to do so does requires a serious and concerted effort on the part of the lay person, to establish a solid and organised foundational understanding of the disciplines which are to be engaged.
Mike.
Actually, Mike, John is properly calling to account anyone who contradicts a solid scientific consensus, without properly laying the groundwork for any such contradiction. Your ‘consensus is not science’ phrase is a strawman: of course consensus alone is not science, but when a powerful consensus in science occurs after the vigorous process of review of the science and a challenge of it by peers, then such science is to be seriously considered. The science has come before the consensus, and your phraseology is a distortion of the process, and a distraction.
I look forward though to your more detailed response though, especially as your initial one simply reinforces the necessity of John’s questioning of your background and motivation.
One doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to sniff out questionable statements and behavior.
Why get rid of the WMP if it is so clear that CO2 drives temperatures?
Why hide secret computer equations (Mann, Wahl, Ammann et al) used to arrive at questionable data?
Why say the “science is settled” when the APS has opened up debate on the dynamics of CO2 on climate sensitivity?
Why refuse to respond to reputable scientists who ask for “clear and graphic” proof that CO2 drives temperature?
Why overstate the effects of CO2 on climate sensitivity?
Why scare people with a 20′ rise in ocean levels and polar bear extinction when they are doing just fine?
If it is so clear that CO2 drives temperature, why say, “We have got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.” (Timothy Wirth, Undersecretary of Global Issues)
or…
“No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits… Climate change provides the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.” (CHRISTINE STEWART – Former Canadian Minister of the Environment)
It doesn’t matter where I get my information from concerning the above. Answers to the questions are all that is needed.
Look at what people say and do as much as the science they present.
One doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to be sucked into believing that what someone is asserting is “information”.
Re: debating sceptics, as I noted here:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2008/09/01/spot-the-recycled-denial-iii-–-prof-ian-plimer/
“This is also timely because Ian and I will be having a back-and-forth debate (22 min each side, 2 turns each) on day two of the upcoming Skeptics National Convention 2008 on 12 October 2008, to be held at the Norwood Concert Hall, Adelaide. We’ll then be fielding audience questions for 45 min. It should be interesting!”
Link to the convention is here:
http://www.skepticssa.org.au/conf08.html
Slamdunk @57, regarding “Why refuse to respond to reputable scientists who ask for “clear and graphic” proof that CO2 drives temperature?” and other such statements, I strongly suggest you read this excellent new piece by Spencer Weart from APS, on exactly this issue:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/09/simple-question-simple-answer-no/
Slamdunk.
Your response, with its misleading and distorting questions supplied by the denialosphere, simply proves my points at #56 above.
Contrary to your claim, it matters very much where you get your questions from, and also how you frame them; especially so if they’re from unreliable sources. Even so, the answers to your duplicitous questions are freely available in the pubic domain, as long as you understand clearly the broader foundation of the science compared with the misrepresentation of the denialists.
The answers are not however the ones that you would have people believe with your attempts to lead them. You are trolling, and you are definitely not doing a good job of hiding your non-acquaintance with real science.
It is apparent that you did not reply to John Mashey simply because you cannot, as you yourself admitted. But if you cannot answer John’s basic questions, you do not have the minimum understanding required to ask, as you do, the questions challenging the integrity of the science. All the more so because such questions are, as I noted, calculated to mislead.
Of course, if you can come up with such a bevvy of questions you must have some impression of the answers (your obvious non-familiarity with the science notwithstanding) and you should be upfront in supplying them. Reference sources too, please.
And because you obviously anticipate certain answers, you will of course be ready to supply the refutation of the AGW proponents’ answers that you will no doubt disagree with. Also with referenced sources.
Come on, I’m calling you out. Explain yourself and your questions.
“One doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to be sucked into believing that what someone is asserting is “information”.”
Chris, Slamdunk is asking a series of mostly valid questions and you could do better than fob them off with contempt. If you cannot answer them perhaps it is better not to reply at all.
“Actually, Mike, John is properly calling to account anyone who contradicts a solid scientific consensus, without properly laying the groundwork for any such contradiction. Your ‘consensus is not science’ phrase is a strawman: ”
Is that so Bernard? What John is actually trying to do is intimidate his “perceived” opponents into believing that without his ” or the equivalent of” credentials that said opponents view does not carry weight. Saying that, he knows nothing about me and until I choose otherwise it will remain so but he holds no illusion about his own importance i notice.
I call into question your assertion of a “solid” scientific consensus. It is no such thing and this is clearly evident if you take the trouble to properly study IPCC AR4.
My motivation in initially responding to this posting was the fact that the author was, in my opinion, jumping the gun before all facts were known as is the habit of those afflicted with climate change hysteria. I pointed out, and I stand by my assertion, that the real effect (if any) of solar activity on our climate will become evident as we progress through what is an unusually deep minimum in modern times.
The principle motivation for my interest in climate change (aka global warming) is the future of my family and loved ones).
As such I have been actively looking at the evidence from both sides of the debate for the past 10 years and read/study as much as I can access. Yes I do understand the math. As such I have not always held a skeptical viewpoint but as new evidence comes to the fore and various manipulations of the facts have emerged one has to start questioning the status quo. If one does not question one is just a follower, contributes nothing and is in effect worthless. Convincing me is easy, show me real and honest evidence that is verifiable and not the virtual reality of computer models with incomplete data input. We do not have sufficient knowledge or accumulated data as yet of this very complex field of research to say without doubt that AGW is real.
Want to discuss and analyse the science on an intellectual and honest basis? Ready and waiting.
Sigh. Neither Mike nor slamdunk seem to actually want to answer a simple set of questions (#47) intended to be courteous.
I don’t know why Mike starts talking about “credentials” and intimidation.
I suppose someone who was credential-sensitive might interpret:
“h) Can you say anything about your background in physics and statistics?”
as a demand for credentials, but it’s not intended that way. “background” was as general as possible on purpose. I didn’t ask for degrees or formal courses.
These questions have no right answers, but it is interesting that some people simply won’t answer them, even as a self-assessment. Most of these things, with the possible exception of g) (peer review participation, which tends to be limited to some professions) are activities that can be done at some level or other by people with good high school educations. Some people study physics and statistics in high school, some don’t. World-class people do give lectures, and people can look for them, especially if they’ve been studying the topic for 10 years.
In any case, see the discussion at Deltoid, How to learn about science, which some have found useful on this overall topic, and which does have some useful sources for people who do want to learn.
Slamdunk, when will you quit beating your wife?
(I do hope you get the point)
John, with respect, I find your attitude “politely” arrogant and quite frankly insulting. Your self importance is manifest.
Now I am very aware that as new evidence and embarrassing manipulation comes to light that those who are closed to new ideas and theory tend to cling on for dear life to their beloved dogma. Are you one of those?
Bernard,
“Your response, with its misleading and distorting questions supplied by the denialosphere, simply proves my points at #56 above.”
What exactly is the (denialosphere)? In the classroom or during a lecture a valid question is deserving of an answer not an insult, if it is indeed your intention to educate that is.. There is no separate world of deniers and adherents but a group of folk seeking the truth — or is this the new inquisition? — blasphemy
Barry Brook Said:
18 September 2008 at 0.33
Slamdunk @57, regarding “Why refuse to respond to reputable scientists who ask for “clear and graphic” proof that CO2 drives temperature?” and other such statements, I strongly suggest you read this excellent new piece by Spencer Weart from APS, on exactly this issue:
I found nothing that would support the notion that those in possession of truth, like clear and graphic” evidence of CO2 driving temperatures, should not provide it when asked by contemporaries. Are the scientists making that request inferior to those of the IPCC?
For some peculiar reason, the perception is that only IPCC scientists wear halos. And there weren’t “thousands,” rather six or seven hundred.
My position is the fair and balanced treatment of evidence. From its inception, the IPCC determined it would only accept science that supports human induced global warming.
Bernard J. said
“Come on, I’m calling you out. Explain yourself and your questions.”
I don’t have to explain myself or the questions. They are really quite simple.
Quit stalling with meaningless rhetoric. Are you afraid to answer them?
dhogaza
18 September 2008 at 1.39
Why overstate the effects of CO2 on climate sensitivity?
Slamdunk, when will you quit beating your wife?
(I do hope you get the point)
Monckton, Spencer Lindzen and others claim the IPCC has overstated CO2 effects on climate. Let’s see how the debate proceeds on this.
Dr. Spencer works with some NASA scientists on the issue of climate sensitivity and feedback. He believes there is strong evidence that supports negative feedback. There are at least two IPCC scientists (Forester/Held) who think
he raises legitimate issues. His paper on it will be published in Journal of Climate this November. I’m sure it will stir up the bees. But that’s what science is all about. Be skeptical. Do research. Leave no stone unturned in the pursuit of truth.
Spencer says that if the feedback is proven to be negative, it pretty much delivers a KO for human induced global warming.
Once again, the Dunning-Kruger Effect appears to be relevant, as it does all too often in such discussions.
Slamdunk @67: You obviously didn’t read that piece. Or didn’t understand it, but I thought it was clear enough. Or you are simply trolling, which is what I now suspect. I trust others who link to it will “get it”.
In short, the simple “proof” you seek is utterly illusory, as it would be for 95% of scientific problems. Your misunderstanding of how science operates is clear enough, and I appreciate why it is so given what you say of your background. But you are grossly arrogant to think that just because YOU don’t understand some physics or geochemistry or modelling, or are not convinced by multiple lines of evidence, that it axiomatically must be false or at least dubious.
I guess we also throw relativity, quantum mechanics, electromagnetism etc. out of the door, or would you care to explain the simple proof for these that has you convinced that they are so?
The empirical skeptic seeks only answers to try and determine the most rational answer to a given problem. Insult does your stance no favour or engender confidence in your opinions.
Slamdunk, Barry is correct when he says that there is no simple proof for some of your questions inasmuch as this proof does not exist. The CO2 connection along with positive feedback that the present stance/issue hinges on is theory only.
Yes we know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, that levels have been rising along with global temperature (until recently anyhow) but that is it. Nothing else can be shown to be true even though it may be the case, at least in part. Reams of calculation, computer models and IPCC reports have provided only probabilities.
I do believe that we will however achieve a much better understanding and demonstration of the mechanisms involved although this process is being hampered by politicking, self interest and dogmatism to a level that surprises many.
Some of your other questions will not be answered here because they are frankly an embarrassment to any researcher with integrity.
Barry Brook Said:
18 September 2008 at 8.19
But you are grossly arrogant to think that just because YOU don’t understand some physics or geochemistry or modelling, or are not convinced by multiple lines of evidence, that it axiomatically must be false or at least dubious.
This isn’t about me understanding physics or geochemistry. Nowhere did that article explain why the IPCC Chairman should not respond to a legitimate question about CO2 driving temperature. Pachauri could have at least acknowledged the letter with some kind of courtousy or explanation.
The closest thing I read that addressed my point was this:
“But it would do little good to present a copy of the Manabe-Wetherald paper to a senior engineer who demands a proof that global warming is a problem.”
Did you take this as an example why Pachauri should not be required to respond to their letter?
If not, please direct my attention to the sentence(s) that deal specifically with my point.
Thank you.
If you want to comment on why an IPCC lead author would tell a professor that they had to get rid of the MWP, I’m all ears.
mike Says:
18 September 2008 at 9.28
Slamdunk, Barry is correct when he says that there is no simple proof for some of your questions in asmuch as this proof does not exist.
The CO2 connection along with positive feedback that the present stance/issue hinges on is theory only.
Yes we know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, that levels have been rising along with global temperature (until recently anyhow) but that is it.
Nothing else can be shown to be true even though it may be the case, at least in part. Reams of calculation, computer models and IPCC reports have provided only probabilities.
All the current evidence points away from
I do believe that we will however achieve a much better understanding and demonstration of the mechanisms involved although this process is being hampered by politicking, self interest and dogmatism to a level that surprises many.
Some of your other questions will not be answered here because they are frankly an embarrassment to any researcher with integrity.
SLAM: Right. This is the point I’m trying to make. Al Gore and the media bombard citizens with a global warming that has reached crisis proportions and we are the guilty ones. Now, pay up sucker! (carbon tax)
Gore pontificates 20′ rise in oceans and polar bear extinctions, Mann intentionally omits the MWP, IPCC Lead Author tells Deming they have to “get rid of” it, IPCC overstates climate sensitivity, IPCC Chief purposely ignores legitimate questions, IPCC determined it would reject any science not compatible with AGW even before it was founded, and the list goes on. John McClean has done an outstanding job of exposing the IPCC – http://mclean.ch/climate/IPCC.htm
These things in my view show a lack of ethics and integrity. When they are breached, it tells me something other than a small rise in global temperatures is brewing.
Slamdunk – layman to layman – this “get rid of the MWP” issue… well to me it is like people who panic and in doing so implicate themselves in a crime. THe old chestnut – boyfried finds girlfried dead, knife sticking out… he knows it was not him, but he knows he was seen arguing with her late the night before, and that he was drunk… so he runs away and tells people he was not there, but he gives her one last kiss… but the cops find a footprint, saliva trace, fingerprints… whoopsie…
The MWP does not change the science about what is happening today, but some scientist realises it could be used aginst the good science and thinks alound “if only that damn MWP wasn’t there.” The sniff of foul play and a cover up then ends up doing more damage than had they just said “one anomoly is that at present some data suggests it was warmer in the MWP, but there is a lot of uncertainty in that.”
Lastly – I can’t imagine any scientific field where someone hasn’t fudged something somewhere along the way thinking they may get away with it… when they don;t get away with it and get sprung does it necessarily mean that the whole field of science is fundamentally flawed.
But SD – there are far more holes in all those arguments you refer to in the last para of 75, and on balance a real sceptic would not refer to them because they are at least more flawed than the current AGW consensus. For example you references to “overstates sensitivity” well as far as I’m concerned that has been torn to shreds.
For those people, like myself, just looking for scientific answers and bemused by bloggers like Slamdunk and Mike, I suggest you apply my criteria. When they quote scientists who disgree with AGW e.g. John McLean, David Evans, Chris Moncton, Richard Lindzen, Roy Spencer etc check them out on Google or on sites like http://www.desmogblog.com (on their research database)or on this blog under the “Spot the recycled denial” series helpful links. Make up your own mind about their authority on the subject and their agendas, including who supports them.Often right wing think tanks, gas, oil and mining companies I have found. I think you will find it will help you to decide whose advice to rely upon.
Two other web sites to visit for background checks etc http://www.sourcewatch.org click on the Climate Change heading and http://www.logicalscience.com I forget to mention that along with rightwing agendas and corporate agendas you are likely to come across fringe religions – some people have all three agendas! Of course there will always be the exception – but hard to find:-)
No, they are presumptous questions that are based on contentious assumptions at best. They are not based on “information” at all. Anyone who thinks it is information is credulous by definition. I’m sorry if the truth hurts but it’s not my fault if someone is being credulous.
You don’t need to do much science to be called a “scientist” these days.
Slumdank.
Enough faffing round.
Answer your own questions for us (with references), and demolish the scientific consensus on AGW.
Mike.
As I have told other denialists, John Mashey once asked me several questions too. In my case it was about why I found it necessary to continually engage trolls, and although I was defensive for an instant, I understood his querie in the spirit that it was intended, and I gave my explanation. You need to get over yourself and understand the very same thing, and also to realise that perhaps you’ve been caught out by someone who has more than half a clue about the science and psychology behind both sides of the debate.
One thing you need to understand is that whilst you might fool uninformed third parties, and reinforce the ideological prejudices of your denialist compadres, you are exposing your obvious bias and/or ignorance to anyone who has a modicum of scientific understanding and objectivity.
Dodging John’s legitimate questions only reinforces this.
Of course, as an alternative you could always answer SD’s loaded questions yourself and prove to one and all your superior scientific understanding.
Once again – enough faffing around. The rest of us are waiting for you to make a substantive point.
MattB Says:
18 September 2008 at 12.07
MATT: The MWP does not change the science about what is happening today, but some scientist realises it could be used against the good science and thinks aloud “if only that damn MWP wasn’t there.”
SLAM: Hello Matt. Yes, it’s one thing to say you wished something wasn’t there, but had to acknowledge it was, than saying you have to get rid of it and go ahead and do it. With Mann et al it was intentional so their hockey stick could be used to show a false temperature construction where they could say the sharp rise in temperature at the end of it was caused by human induced CO2. To me, it suggests there was a concern of something other than a small rise in global temperatures. It was deceptive and showed a total lack of integrity. The goal is something else.
MATT: The sniff of foul play and a cover up then ends up doing more damage than had they just said “one anomoly is that at present some data suggests it was warmer in the MWP, but there is a lot of uncertainty in that.”
SLAM:Right. Honesty was far from their thinking.
MATT: Lastly – I can’t imagine any scientific field where someone hasn’t fudged something somewhere along the way thinking they may get away with it… when they don;t get away with it and get sprung does it necessarily mean that the whole field of science is fundamentally flawed.
SLAM: No, of course not. You don’t throw the baby out with the bath water, but when dirt is found it needs to be exposed and washed away.
perps Says:
18 September 2008 at 16.30
For those people, like myself, just looking for scientific answers and bemused by bloggers like Slamdunk and Mike,
SLAM: Hello Perps. You will notice that my questions mostly deal with ethics and integrity. Do you agree that Mann et al were unethical by purposely omitting the MWP?
PERPS: I suggest you apply my criteria. When they quote scientists who disgree with AGW e.g. John McLean, David Evans, Chris Monckton, Richard Lindzen, Roy Spencer etc check them out on Google or on sites like http://www.desmogblog.com (on their research database)or on this blog under the “Spot the recycled denial” series helpful links.
It’s always easy to find someone who agrees with our positions. This is why debating the science is often a fruitless affair. What can’t be disputed is the unethical behavior displayed by some. The intentional false construction of temperatures in the hockey stick tells me there is a concern much greater than the small rise in global temperatures.
Bernard J. Says:
18 September 2008 at 19.52
Slumdank.
Enough faffing round.
SLAM: Talk to Mann, Wahl, Ammann, Gore and Pachauri about “faffing.”
Benrad: Answer your own questions for us (with references), and demolish the scientific consensus on AGW.
SLAM: Before I show references, let me ask you this. Numerically, how many IPCC scientists do you think believe that human induced CO2 is the major cause of a 0.07C rise in global temperatures which have brought the planet to the threshold of climate crisis?
Slamdunk, get your facts right before continuing on with this pointless sniping. Where did you pull 0.07C from?
Also, show me the evidence for the Overpeck claim you espouse. And how did Mann et al get through the latest round of peer review in PNAS if they “fudged the data”?
Or is it all just one big conspiracy in your mind?
ARE YOU A HOT HEAD OR A COOLER HEAD?
[Slamdunk, please post as a link, not the whole article – that is not appropriate for a comments section of a blog]
Article from the other side of Debate Daily.
Bernard – There is a world of difference between a denialist and a skeptic, look it up. Neither am I a troll, trying to fool anyone, do have more than half a clue, am certainly not ignorant, do not lack objectivity, have not been caught out by anyone and am not ideologically biased, at least as far as this subject is concerned. But there you go – you can carry on slagging if that’s what floats you boat.
I will state my case once more. I an not a denialist but a skeptic. My stance and leaning is dependent on the evidence available and at this juncture I find that on balance the theory regarding CO2 and feedback does not adequately explain this centuries climate phenomena or the events in our historical climate . Until more convincing evidence comes to the fore I will carry on looking at and studying other ongoing research to see if more plausible (to me) alternatives present themselves.
Perps @ 77 Sad really to just dismiss other folks work because of perceived credentials and funding sources. Very scientific method really. Sort of reminds me of the Nazis trying to discredit Einstein’s work because he was Jewish – Judische physik. Not I am not trying to compare anyone with that amazing gentleman. Would it not make more sense to critique the work first?
No Mike… those people Perps listed have had their work dissected on numerous occasions… the links to the funding probably just explains why they keep on repeating the same old stuff as loud as they can hoping someone picks up on it.
Mike @87
So it is OK for you to dismiss and discredit the 90% of scientists whose work demonstrates that AGW is real but not OK for us to do the same to the 10% contrarian scientists – don’t think so! As Matt says @88 – their work has been critiqued and found wanting many times over.
Slamdunk @ 83
Agreed -it is much easier to find scientists and peer reviewed papers which agree with AGW, as they constitute the majority, than those who don’t. There is a distinct paucity of those who disagree. So if you can come up with one of the sceptical scientists who doesn’t have at least one of the agendas I listed I would love to know his/her name and the relevant papers they have published. As to ethics surely it is unethical of the non-greenhouse theorists not to clearly state their affiliations.
Regarding those old chestnuts, the MWP and the Hockey stick your statements and assertions on these matters have been rebutted many times on this blog and elsewhere (see Barry’s links). But perhaps these explanations will not convince you – or are you just saying “Nah, nah, can’t hear you” again and again. Asking the same questions many times and not taking notice of the answers is trolling. Guess you are both guilty despite your protestations to the contrary. There are none so blind as those who will not see.
Mike.
I know very well the difference between a sceptic and a denialist. I made a comment on this just several days ago.
Contrary to what you appear to apprehend, the very large majority of real scientists (including climatologists) are practising sceptics, and especially so when reviewing each other’s work. If you had any scientific experience to speak of you’d be familiar with the bear-pit that is the competitive aspect of science, and that leads to the friendly (and often not-so-friendly) rivalry where there is intense scrutiny to find the tiniest errors in colleagues’ work. Such sceptical scrutiny is patently apparent in instances such as Mann vs M&M, but more generally it is integral to all practise of science.
That you claim to have spent a decade reading the science, and then came to a different conclusion to the thousands of experts who have greater training and professional experience in climate science than you, does not automatically make you a sceptic in the scientific sense. In fact it would imply the opposite, and John Mashey’s observation at #70 is called to mind.
The scientific consensus, even after sceptical consideration, is at odds with your conclusions. Now why should we believe you over the expert consensus?
Why indeed should we believe what is a small group of scientists who dispute the consensus, when so much of their evidence has been tested and found wanting, and most especially when many of them have been shown to have conflicts of interest, or documentable and concerning errors of judgement on particular matters?
And finally why should we believe the much larger group of denialists (who are very much not sceptics in the analytical sense) who, for vested interest and embarrassingly ideological reasons, are subjectively predisposed to supporting the non-AGW model?
If you have</i arrived at a truly sceptical dismissal of the AGW case, you should be easily able to submit a precis outlining your points of refutation and the solid evidence that supports it. If you are unable to proffer a succint case for defence against those with whom you disagree, then perhaps your ‘scepticism’ is in fact something else…
So, “state your case”.
Matt – links and papers on those dissections please. Those accessible via. Cambridge or Oxford libraries are accessible to me.
Perps -”So it is OK for you to dismiss and discredit the 90% of scientists whose work demonstrates that AGW is real but not OK for us to do the same to the 10% contrarian scientists – don’t think so!”
At what point did I discredit and dismiss? I stated that I believed that the research, so far, in my opinion ,has not adequately explained the phenomena. Additional research and positive findings may well enforce existing theories, but until then I remain skeptical(not dismissive). I have all the time in the world for those who research and draw conclusions from that research, it does not follow that they are necessarily right or wrong however. We have much to learn and all efforts are contributory. True consensus will manifest itself when we can demonstrate and predict with a reasonable level of ( or even any) accuracy the ability for which is at present glaringly absent.
“So if you can come up with one of the sceptical scientists who doesn’t have at least one of the agendas I listed I would love to know his/her name and the relevant papers they have published. ”
Now I will give this much away, I have studied amongst other things Psychology at varsity level, and that was a cracker. Nicely done or pure ignorance. Lets dissect that little beauty. I give you names and therefore admit that some have an agenda or I retain my self respect and respect for fellow researchers and come under further flack from you because I supposedly cannot name any. Grow up.
bernard-”Contrary to what you appear to apprehend, the very large majority of real scientists (including climatologists) are practising sceptics, and especially so when reviewing each other’s work.”
Yes I am well aware of this and picking apart someones research is a part of the process, of course it is. But that does not necessarily make it gospel even if it stands up to scrutiny does it?. There is still much that is not known and much to be learned.
“That you claim to have spent a decade reading the science, and then came to a different conclusion to the thousands of experts who have greater training and professional experience in climate science than you”
Really? At what point did I say that I had come to a different conclusion? I have not come to a different conclusion, I am skeptical of the current ( apparently) consensual position. There is a huge difference.
“The scientific consensus, even after sceptical consideration, is at odds with your conclusions. Now why should we believe you over the expert consensus?”
I question the term scientific consensus and don’t know really what you are on about. What is this conclusion that I am supposed to have reached. I have done no such thing and neither did I imply that you should believe me.
“Why indeed should we believe what is a small group of scientists who dispute the consensus, when so much of their evidence has been tested and found wanting,”
Some certainly but not all and it cuts both ways. I choose to ignore the pathetic “agenda” comment. It does your argument no favours and again cuts both ways.
“And finally why should we believe the much larger group of denialists (who are very much not sceptics in the analytical sense) who, for vested interest and embarrassingly ideological reasons, are subjectively predisposed to supporting the non-AGW model?”
Who exactly is asking you to believe these folk? As an observation though, there are those with a vested interest on both sides of the debate are there not.
Barry Brook Says:
18 September 2008 at 22.30
Slamdunk, get your facts right before continuing on with this pointless sniping. Where did you pull 0.07C from?
SLAM: Hi Barry. Sorry, my error. Should be 0.7C plus or minus.
BAR: Also, show me the evidence for the Overpeck claim you espouse.
SLAM: http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1131 Also, Prof. David Deming testified to this before Congress:
http://epw.senate.gov/hearing_statements.cfm?id=266543
BAR: And how did Mann et al get through the latest round of peer review in PNAS if they “fudged the data”?
SLAM: Even though the hockey stick has been debunked, they continue to use it, peer review or no peer review. My only point is that Mann et al purposely omitted the MWP from their temperature reconstruction in 1995. Why would they omit something that important for temperature evidence over the past thousand years?
BAR: Or is it all just one big conspiracy in your mind?
What I think isn’t important. Why do you think Mann et al didn’t record the MWP?
Because the proxy data doesn’t support its being anything other than a *regional* phenomena. There’s no data supporting its being a *global* phenomena.
Slamdunk Says:
18 September 2008 at 22.38
ARE YOU A HOT HEAD OR A COOLER HEAD?
[Slamdunk, please post as a link, not the whole article – that is not appropriate for a comments section of a blog]
Thanks. Good advice:)
dhogaza Says:
19 September 2008 at 6.13
What I think isn’t important. Why do you think Mann et al didn’t record the MWP?
Because the proxy data doesn’t support its being anything other than a *regional* phenomena. There’s no data supporting its being a *global* phenomena.
SLAM: You’re right. The hockey stick applies to the northern hemisphere. But that doesn’t explain why they intentionally omitted the MWP.
Slamdunk @92: The Climate Audit link you provide is just heresay (McIntyre simply states it is Overpeck, without any justification). The Dunning senate testimony never mentions Overpeck. So I repeat, where is your evidence that Jonathan Overpeck ever said this?
Barry Brook Says:
19 September 2008 at 8.57
Slamdunk @92: The Climate Audit link you provide is just heresay (McIntyre simply states it is Overpeck, without any justification). The Deming senate testimony never mentions Overpeck. So I repeat, where is your evidence that Jonathan Overpeck ever said this?
Climate Audit is not a third rate operation and don’t operate on hearsay. During his testimony, Deming was not asked who it was that sent him the email about getting rid of the MWP. He only identified him as a major climate researcher. It would have been improper for him to volunteer it unsolicited.
Even if it wasn’t Overpeck, it was someone else. If Deming made up the story, he would have been guilty of giving false testimony before Congress.
Also, Overpeck knows that his name has been associated with getting rid of the WMP. All he has to do is deny it. Why hasn’t he? (I Bet Deming has that email tucked away)
If scepticism of the consensus amongst >90% of scientistsis not ‘a different conclusion’, it is at least sufficiently at variance that your quibble is a semantic antic. “[H]uge” is rather an exaggeration, at the least.
In fact, the whole statement smells a lot like distraction to me.
What’s the go with your spate of semantic hair-splitting? You claim ‘scepticicm’ of the scientific consensus, therefore you have implicitly established for yourself, whether consciously or unconsciously, a conclusion.
Deal with it.
having previously said:
See, to me this suggests that not only have you arrived at a conclusion that is at odds with the scientific concensus (which apparently you do not understand as a ‘term’), but that you expect ‘us’ to believe you. After all, if you think that our ‘consensus’ is in error, that it is dogma, and that it is is manipulation to be overturned by ‘new ideas and theory’, then any reasonable person would expect that a consequent implication of your argument is that ‘we’, who are apparently in error, should believe you.
Why bother saying anything at all if such is not the case?
Of course, as someone else who has completed a number of university courses in psychology (the advantage of doing a broad-based science degree as well as 4 post-graduate qualifications in education and science) I can see the irony of your comments to John at #65, and most especially in terms of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
As semantic pedantry seems to be the order of the day, I will note that I did not use the term ‘agenda’, that I did not specifically ascribe an ‘agenda’ or anything similar specifically to you, and that more generally the strong ‘agenda’-driven bias of much of the Denialist movement is undeniable and hence reference to such is hardly ‘pathetic’.
But as you are ignoring this I suppose that I am simply speaking to myself.
When all is said and done though, I am still wondering what this evidence is that has led you to diverge from the consensus that AGW is indeed a demonstrable phenomenon.
Mike @ 91
Sorry Mike – but being a 62 year old retired librarian I have already “grown up”. I have also had a lot of experience of research and people with “agendas” – and psychologically speaking you have now convinced me of yours.
“I give you names and admit that some have agendas”
Sorry Mike you can’t get away with that. I asked for just ONE with none of the agendas I listed – not that you list all of them – “SOME of whom may have agendas” – ergo SOME must not have agendas SO give me the name of ONE or SOME of those that don’t have any ulterior motive behind their denialist science. What is ignorant about that? Therefore it must be a case of “nicely done”!
Slamdunk @97: “Even if it wasn’t Overpeck, it was someone else. If Deming made up the story, he would have been guilty of giving false testimony before Congress.
Also, Overpeck knows that his name has been associated with getting rid of the WMP. All he has to do is deny it. Why hasn’t he? (I Bet Deming has that email tucked away)”
Oh, so suddenly you’re not so sure it was Overpeck. Right, got it. Instead your belief that it must have been Overpeck was based on the fact that he didn’t say anything. Powerful evidence indeed.
Barry Brook Says:
21 September 2008 at 1.37
Slamdunk @97: “Even if it wasn’t Overpeck, it was someone else. If Deming made up the story, he would have been guilty of giving false testimony before Congress.
Also, Overpeck knows that his name has been associated with getting rid of the WMP. All he has to do is deny it. Why hasn’t he? (I Bet Deming has that email tucked away)”
Oh, so suddenly you’re not so sure it was Overpeck. Right, got it. Instead your belief that it must have been Overpeck was based on the fact that he didn’t say anything. Powerful evidence indeed.
SLAM: Why not contact Prof. Deming at
[email protected]
or
Overpeck at
[email protected]
I found their emails on the web.
If you contact them, please let me know what you find out. If it wasn’t Overpeck, Climate Audit lied.
If it was Him, what are we to think? Why get rid of the WMP?
I have wondered at the logic of those who readily accept the solar activity hypothesis of recent climate change yet adamantly refuse to accept the results of climate modelling – the former is entirely based on apparent correlation (not that close but with some similarities when eyeball comparisons are made of selected graphs and parts of graphs) with only speculation as to possible causations where the latter is based on real processes, describing as closely as possible those real processes, refined by improving the understanding of those underlying processes and their mathematical descriptions.
It seems to me that the expressions of doubt for the validity of climate modelling come from people who think it’s like what the proponents of solar activity as primary driver of climate change do – take graphs and try and make them fit their pet hypothesis, all about what you see on those graphs and not the underlying processes. They don’t have clear evidence of actual processes and can’t show them to exist. Besides being hypocritical – their pet hypothesis utterly failing to hold up to their claimed high standards for required proof – it reveals that their criticisms of real climate science are based on what they imagine real climate science to be not what real climate actually is and does. The whole conspiracy/delusion meme relies on misrepresenting what what and how climate science gets the conclusions it does. “Proofs” that it’s all wrong are based on those misrepresentations. Of course they aren’t going to accept being corrected by actual climate scientists (immediately interpreted as dismissive and insulting) and definitely aren’t going to make the effort to push past their existing doubt and distrust to actually learn anything from them.
I will continue to take my climate science from the professionals and the organisations that have as their fundamental goal a true scientific understanding of our climate.
Ken @ 102
Well said Ken – I hope others who take the denialist approach to the AGW/CC science and visit this website are as impressed as I am with what you said. Unfortunately I doubt thay will be. Still we have to keep trying.
Oops -that last comment, badly phrased, sounded like I am a sceptic too. Definitely notso 🙂
Hello Perps and Ken. Why do you think the MWP was not included in the stick?
[deleted: pointless]
you could do worse than to read http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/myths-vs-fact-regarding-the-hockey-stick/ and http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/12/14/01828/236
My personal position is that it was not included because a particular researcher’s method and data resulted in a reconstruction that did not show it. I’d wager yours, SD, is that it was not included as a way to defraud the scientific community as the existence of the MWP would shatter the ground upon which global warming science is based…
MATT said,
My personal position is that it was not included because a particular researcher’s method and data resulted in a reconstruction that did not show it.
SD: Is it known if the researcher (supposedly Overpeck) even had his own method of temp. reconstruction? Assuming he did, he still acknowledged that the MWP existed and had to be gotten rid of.
I’d wager yours, SD, is that it was not included as a way to defraud the scientific community as the existence of the MWP would shatter the ground upon which global warming science is based…
IMO, the intent was not to disclose something that would have given the stick a different meaning and purpose. Obviously, industrial and vehicular CO2 emissions could not have been the driver of MWP temperatures.
If I’m wrong, so be it. Perhaps one day Overpeck will come forth and say why it had to be gotten rid of, assuming he is the one who said it. Climate Audit says it was he.
There is no peer reviewed science that shows the world has been in a gradual warming trend that began a hundred, a thousand, or tens of thousands of years ago.
From 200BC to 600AD there was the Roman warming, the cold Dark Ages between 600 and 900AD, the Medieval warming period from 900 to 1300AD, the Little Ice Age between 1300 to 1850 AD, a warm period from 1850 to 1940, a period of cooling from 1940 to 1975 and warming from 1975 to 1998. Many scientists believe that warming stopped in 1998 and that cooling has begun again. CO2 did not cause all those warming periods.
According to NASA (at the prodding of McIntyre), 1934 and 1921 are now recognized as two of the three hottest years since 1900. 1998 is #2.
Slamdunk.
Still waiting for the evidence supporting your perspective underlying the questions that you asked at #57.
So far you have offered nothing substantive to support your denialist position.
Slamdunk – ad nauseam!
The answers to your questions can be found at this and other reputable climate science sites – see listings at left “Blogroll” and “Climate Resources”. Either you refuse to read in full the information provided, or you are unable to comprehend the answers or you are disingenuous and deliberately mischievious.I strongly suspect the latter. There are none so blind as those who WILL NOT see!
Please don’t say my questions have been answered and not provide the specific sites, and where in them, the answers are provided.
Bernard J. Says:
22 September 2008 at 9.12
Slamdunk.
Still waiting for the evidence supporting your perspective underlying the questions that you asked at #57.
So far you have offered nothing substantive to support your denialist position.
SLAM: Twice I prepared a response to your request on all my questions and the site did not post it. Please take one or two points at a time and I will respond.
[Ed: They were probably chewed up in the SPAM filter due to too many embedded links]
Slamdunk doesn’t even understand that North America is not the world, how can we expect him to understand climate science, which is a bit more complex than simple geography?
Worse than that Dhogaza, it refers only to the lower 48 states! It also says there is nothing statistically to distinguish those years or regional warmth, before or after the Y2K data correction.
Sd:
That’s right. All the peer reviewed science shows the world has had a rapid warming trend in climate over the last hundred years.
[…] their effects? It would not outweigh the greenhouse warming. There’s a good article about it here. […]
Slam – why should it be necessary for anyone here to take and present a course on climate science on your behalf? Find the sites yourself if you have a real desire to learn. I’m doubtful you can approach the abundance of information on this issue with anything but doubt, disbelief and an overriding certainty that they must be wrong. This isn’t a problem with the quality of that information even though there is an abundance of sites that will tell you otherwise. Those will not be NCAR, GISS, Hadley, CSIRO, NOAA, NSIDC or even any of the appropriate faculties at any of the worlds top universities – none will be staffed by people who’s life’s work is better scientific understanding of climate. If you think the strength and extent of the MWP is a foundation upon which AGW is built, that sapping it will cause a shaky edifice to collapse then you are wrong – but I don’t think I’ll spend too much effort trying to persuade you. Sounds too much like wasted effort.
Dhogaza says: “Slamdunk doesn’t even understand that North America is not the world, how can we expect him to understand climate science, which is a bit more complex than simple geography?”
Tsk Tsk. I think you’re misrepresenting Slamdunk here, Dhogaza.
The temperature data he’s referring to cover only the contiguous states of the USA (ie excluding Alaska and Hawaii), not the whole of North America which is generally taken to include continental USA, Alaska, Canada, Greenland and the Central America countries including Panama.
I’m sure ol’ Slammie wouldn’t want anyone thinking he’d only been ignoring 95.2% of the world when he’d really been ignoring 98.4% of it. The other sceptics would just laugh and laugh.
Slamdunk.
If you’re being spam-filtered for having too many links, it would be a simple matter to provide your answers one question at a time, from #57. You don’t need me to ‘take’ them and present them to you – you posed them with your own preconceived truths, and it is incumbent upon you to provide the evidence for your contrarian thinking.
And it is the basis for your thinking that I am trying to acertain. If your conflation of mailand US temperature with global temperature is an indication of your more overall quality of evidence and thought, then it is apparent that the substance of your denialism is typically tenuous, flawed, and long discredited.
Yeah, yeah, you and Barry have properly tanned my ass for being loose with my tongue. The change referred to was just the lower 48. So I’m guilty of devaluating the US vs. the world (NH!) even more.
Given what we’ve just been discussing re: Slamdunk’s evidence, this new piece is worth a read:
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/09/23/the-patron-saint-of-charlatans/
Loved the Monbiot piece!
Pity he doesn’t know about our own dear Andrew and Jennifer – bet he could do a mean piece on them – and the “Australian”. There you are Slammie – answers provided!
Ken Fabos Says:
23 September 2008 at 9.30
Slam – why should it be necessary for anyone here to take and present a course on climate science on your behalf?
SLAM: Hi Ken. I’m not asking for a course on science. What little global warming there was before 1979 isn’t about science, rather natural cyclical climate change (NCCC). There has never been a man made environmental disaster.
I just want some answers to my questions. The science is already settled – There is no global warming crisis because of man made CO2. How can you believe such a fable? STart reading the works of Spencer,Michaels, Singer, Ball, Christy, Lindzen and the many thousands of PHDs (9,000+) at the Oregon Petition Project that the media is afraid to publish.
http://www.petitionproject.org/
Why did Gore exaggerate with his 20′ tidal surge? (Gore is a Gaiaist who thinks his mother (earth) is being harmed)
Why would Overpeck tell Deming they had to get rid of the WMP?
Why did the IPCC overstate the effects of CO2 on climate sensitivity.
(Spencer and Monckton have illustrated this)
Why did the IPCC framers determine the only science they would accept, even before if was formed, was that which supported AGW? (How’s that for open-mindedness?)
Why did Mann, Wahl and Ammann conceal their equations and algorithims?
Why won’t the IPCC release a list of the scientists who believe that there is a climate crisis based on human induced CO2? (I have written them twice).
Why won’t Pachauri respond to those scientists who asked him for “clear and graphic” evidence supporting man made CO2 as the driver of global temperatures?
These six things speak volumes about so-called man made global warming.
Open your eyes to see what’s really going on (although I can’t believe you really don’t know).
Check out the new Enviro-religion
http://green-agenda.com/gaia.html
FRENCH PRESIDENT JACQUES CHIRAC
Kyoto represents “the first component of an authentic global governance.”
MAURICE STRONG
One of the world’s leading environment-alists. Secretary General of both the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, which launched the world environment movement, and the 1992 Earth Summit and first Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Strong has played a critical role is globalizing the environmental movement.
“What if a small group of these world leaders were to conclude that the principle risk to the earth comes from the actions of the rich countries? And if the world is to survive, those rich countries would have to sign an agreement reducing their impact on the environment? Will they do it? Will the rich countries agree to reduce their impact on the environment? Will they agree to save the earth? The group’s conclusions is ‘no.’ The rich countries won’t do it. They won’t change. So, in order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilization collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”
TIMOTHY WIRTH – U.S. Undersecretary of State for Global Issues
“We have got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.”
There are many of us who know what’s going on behind the green movement and global warming scenery. Open you eyes. Jump the sinking AGW ship and board the NIPCCC (Non Inter Governmental Panel on Cyclical Climate Change)
Bernard J. Says:
23 September 2008 at 13.06
Slamdunk.
it is incumbent upon you to provide the evidence for your contrarian thinking.
SLAM: I disagree. I didn’t ask those questions to be asked why my thinking is contrary. You can see in the post before this that I asked them again. Feel free to comment on any of them, esp. Overpeck and Deming.
Slamdunk.
With respect to your posing of questions at #57 and #123:
Why are you an idiot?
Trouble with the natural climate change hypothesis applied to the last century is that it requires people to dismiss and ignore all that is known about climate science first. The absorption and emission characteristics of CO2 and other GHG’s are not going to diminish or disappear in favour of natural causes that can’t be shown to have the forcing necessary to account for recent climate change. You have revealled where your arguments originate and climate scientist have pretty thoroughly shown Spencer,Michaels, Singer, Ball, Christy and Lindzen’s criticisms to lack real substance. You are welcome to keep on believing them, but the fact that you will accept what they say over what comes from the world’s scientific mainstream…that you can really believe in an underlying motivation to bring about the collapse of civilisation in order to save the planet…
Absolute bottom of the barrel crap, Slam! How dare you smear the lifes work and real concerns of genuine honest people with it. Is there anyone here advocating the collapse of civilisation? No. A quote from someone I absolutely disagree with reveals nothing about my motivations, but I do wonder at yours in quoting it.
Slam, when almost all the experts in a field tell you how it is but you prefer to disbelieve them in favour of pretend science (mixed with smear) that looks a lot like cultish belief.
Slamdunk goodbye.
Ken Fabos Says:
24 September 2008 at 7.01
The absorption and emission characteristics of CO2 and other GHG’s are not going to diminish or disappear in favour of natural causes that can’t be shown to have the forcing necessary to account for recent climate change.
SLAM: Hi Ken. The “recent” climate change is that temps have not risen significanty since 1979 and there has been a sharp drop in them since 2007 as measured by GISS, RSS, UAH and HADCRU. All this in record levels of CO2. Many scientists believe the earth is headed for cooling, which always creates more hardship than warming.
KEN:You have revealled where your arguments originate and climate scientist have pretty thoroughly shown Spencer,Michaels, Singer, Ball, Christy and Lindzen’s criticisms to lack real substance.
SLAM: The only problem these scientists have is they can’t find anyone to debate them.
KEN: You are welcome to keep on believing them, but the fact that you will accept what they say over what comes from the world’s scientific mainstream…
SLAM: Do you know how many IPCC scientists believe that human induced CO2 has created a climate crisis?
KEN: that you can really believe in an underlying motivation to bring about the collapse of civilisation in order to save the planet…
SLAM: Where did I say anything about underlying motives to bring about collapse? I’m only quoting Gore, Strong, Hansen, Chirac, Stewart and others about their views. You can decide for yourself whay you think they are saying.
KEN: Absolute bottom of the barrel crap, Slam! How dare you smear the lifes work and real concerns of genuine honest people with it. Is there anyone here advocating the collapse of civilisation?
SLAM: No. But there are some who believe in the collapse of civilization if human CO2 is not greatly reduced.
KEN: No. A quote from someone I absolutely disagree with reveals nothing about my motivations, but I do wonder at yours in quoting it.
SLAM: I’m only showing you what some people are saying about global warming. You can interpret any way you like. I tend to think they mean what they say. Words are powerful.
KEN: Slam, when almost all the experts in a field tell you how it is but you prefer to disbelieve them in favour of pretend science (mixed with smear) that looks a lot like cultish belief.
SLAM: Let me ask again. How many IPCC scientists do you think believe that the earth is on the verge of environmental disaster unless human induced CO2 is cut way back?
[Ed: I’ll answer that – by far the vast majority of them]
KEN: Slamdunk goodbye.
You mean we’re through? 🙁
Bernard J. Says:
24 September 2008 at 1.29
Slamdunk.
With respect to your posing of questions at #57 and #123:
Why are you an idiot?
SLAM: Isn’t there something in the rules and regs about this kind of talk?
[Ed: True, there should be no personal insults. But there is also a reg about consistently posting false, misleading or repetitive comments, so I’ve decided to let both go through to the keeper at this stage.]
[Ed: I’ll answer that – by far the vast majority of them]
Could you give me some numbers please.
[Ed: Sure, go look at the IPCC website]
Slamdunk.
With respect to your sensitivity at #128 regarding my question at #125, I was trying to make a point.
You have attempted to ask a set of questions without justification for the content, and claimed that it was not your place to provide such justification. Your questions have been frequently rebutted over the years, and it seems to be with mendacious intent that you pose questions that you must know to be vexacious.
I am simply reflecting the nature of your questioning, and directing a similarly unjustified question at you. Dhogaza makes the same point at #64. I did wonder as I posted if you would understand the intent of such as rhetorical device, and it seems that I was too generous in estimating your capacity for comprehension of such.
If you truly took offence then you have a thin skin (I’ve been called much worse at Marohasy’s cesspit), and a loose grasp of balance in exchange. If you’re just playing games – well, I am still going to hold you to justifying the reason why you have asked questions that have been addresses previously, and also to explain what your take on the substance of the questions is.
You can’t reasonably expect an exchange with other people if you don’t make clear where you are coming from, although I understand that if you were to do so you would probably make your underlying position more insecure that what it already is.
Of course, if you can’t grasp any of this then perhaps you are providing me with the evidence that I would need to justify my question pertaining to your idiocy…
Sd:
You won’t be taken seriously if you rely on a proven liar.
Sd:
Not risen significanty since 1979? You won’t be taken seriouly while you get your facts about global temperature wrong.
Slammie @ 123
So, you finally showed us your conspiracy theory! World Domination by the greenies and lefties – what a laugh! I don’t think there is any point in engaging with you as that mad theory is behind your questions. As to the supporters you mention – Spencer, Michaels, Singer, Ball etc – really -we can’t believe you don’t know their backgrounds and therefore their raison d’etres. Well, unfortunately for you most rational people do- and most rational people don’t believe in your conspiracy theories either. So give up here and return to the denialist blogs you normally inhabit.
Further – for those people reading this blog, who want to check out the credentials of those dissenter scientists mentioned by our friend Slammie, go to http://www.desmogblog.com and click on the Research Database tag to get a list of them and their credentials. All of those mentioned by Slammie appear on the list. For more info on “The Oregon Petition” try http://www.mediamatters.org/items/200602140013 to find out the truth about that scam.
Even more important, there has been a sharp drop in temperature here in Portland, Oregon over the last 12 hours, with no corresponding drop in CO2. I’ll be predicting an Ice Age starting about 3PM …
(surely slamdunk should be mocked, rather than taken seriously?)
Slamdunk Says:
24 September 2008 at 12.12
[Ed: I’ll answer that – by far the vast majority of them]
Could you give me some numbers please.
[Ed: Sure, go look at the IPCC website]
Been there done that. It does not tell how many IPCC scientists who explicitly endorse the statement I posted. I have asked the IPCC how many. No response.
Bernard J. Says:
24 September 2008 at 12.56
Slamdunk.
With respect to your sensitivity at #128 regarding my question at #125, I was trying to make a point.
SLAM: When people resort to name calling it demeans their point of view.
BER: You have attempted to ask a set of questions without justification for the content,
SLAM: Since when is one supposed to justify asking a question. I think you should spend more time framing answers instead of dodging the questions. Is it because you know Mann, Wahl, Ammann, IPCC are not being ethical?
BER: and claimed that it was not your place to provide such justification. Your questions have been frequently rebutted over the years, and it seems to be with mendacious intent that you pose questions that you must know to be vexacious.
SLAM: Cut the rhetoric please and answer the questions.
BER: I am simply reflecting the nature of your questioning, and directing a similarly unjustified question at you. Dhogaza makes the same point at #64. I did wonder as I posted if you would understand the intent of such as rhetorical device, and it seems that I was too generous in estimating your capacity for comprehension of such.
SLAM: If you don’t want to answer the questions I can’t make you. I suspect that you don’t have a problem with the unethical, or at least questionable, behavior of Mann, Wahl, Ammann, IPCC, Gore et al.
BER: If you truly took offence then you have a thin skin (I’ve been called much worse at Marohasy’s cesspit), and a loose grasp of balance in exchange. If you’re just playing games – well, I am still going to hold you to justifying the reason why you have asked questions that have been addresses previously,
SLAM: Fine, if it you wan’t to call people idiots because they don’t perform up to your standards, be my guest. You still demean your position. Name calling is a poor tactic in debating. Where you get the notion that a person has to justify asking questions is off the chart.
BER: You can’t reasonably expect an exchange with other people if you don’t make clear where you are coming from,
SLAM: Answer the questions and we’ll talk more about where I’m coming from.
Chris O’Neill Says:
24 September 2008 at 14.48
Sd:
SLAM: Hi Ken. The “recent” climate change is that temps have not risen significanty since 1979
Not risen significanty since 1979? You won’t be taken seriouly while you get your facts about global temperature wrong.
SLAM: The conventional position is since 1998, but there are some scientists who take it back to 1979. Ok, let’s go with 1998. YOu will at least agree with that and also that there has been a sharp drop since 2007. Yes?
perps Says:
24 September 2008 at 16.43
Slammie @ 123
So, you finally showed us your conspiracy theory! World Domination by the greenies and lefties – what a laugh!
SLAM: Not my theory, friend. Talk to people like Chirac.
PERP: I don’t think there is any point in engaging with you as that mad theory is behind your questions.
SLAM: Is Chirac off his rocker?
How about David Rockefeller. “We are on the verge of a global transform-ation. All we need is the right major crisis…” David is the executive member of the Club of Rome.
How many more statements would you like to see from people who are using AGW for this “global transformation.” UN Secretary Ban Ki-Moon said just two days ago that “global leadership” is necessary to fight the so called GW crisis and financial crisis.
The first president of the United Nations General Assembly, Paul-Henri Spaak, who was also a prime minister of Belgium and one of the early planners of the European Common Market, as well as a secretary-general of NATO, affirmed, “We do not want another committee, we have too many already. What we want is a man of sufficient stature to hold the allegiance of all the people and to lift us up out of the economic morass into which we are sinking. Send us such a man, and whether he be God or devil, we will receive him.”
Hint: It won’t be God.
PERP: As to the supporters you mention – Spencer, Michaels, Singer, Ball etc – really -we can’t believe you don’t know their backgrounds and therefore their raison d’etres.
SLAM:: These men are as qualified as any scientist with the IPCC. Why shouldn’t their voices be heard? Spencer and NASA scientists are on the cutting edge of exploring the effects of CO2 on climate sensitivity. Their paper will be published in November.
PERPS: Well, unfortunately for you most rational people do- and most rational people don’t believe in your conspiracy theories either. So give up here and return to the denialist blogs you normally inhabit.
SLAM:The real deniers are those who ignore the fact that there has been no warming since 1998, even possibly 1979, and that temperatures have dropped since 2007. Are you a denier of these truths? Do I have to show you where IPCC’s Pachauri and WMO’s Michel Jarraud agree?
dhogaza Says:
24 September 2008 at 20.58
The “recent” climate change is that temps have not risen significanty since 1979 and there has been a sharp drop in them since 2007
Even more important, there has been a sharp drop in temperature here in Portland, Oregon over the last 12 hours, with no corresponding drop in CO2. I’ll be predicting an Ice Age starting about 3PM …
(surely slamdunk should be mocked, rather than taken seriously?)
SLAM: What they will say to that is any cooling periods are mere bumps in the road to the overall trend of globally rising temperatures. They still don’t get it. CO2 lags temperature.
[Ed: Slamdunk, stop posting nonsense, you know this to be utterly refuted. If you continue to consistently engage in the conversations on this site in an intellectually dishonest way, then your comments are not welcome. Last warning].
Well, in spite of the dancing around and sputtering like beer spilled on a hot barbeque plate, <iI don’t need any more evidence.
Just so that there is no doubt about implications though:
Just who, exactly, will ‘it’ be? Surely you don’t mean to imply the devil?
Bernard J. Says:
25 September 2008 at 0.11
Well, in spite of the dancing around and sputtering like beer spilled on a hot barbeque plate, <iI don’t need any more evidence.
Just so that there is no doubt about implications though:
“…Send us such a man, and whether he be God or devil, we will receive him.”
Hint: It won’t be God.
Just who, exactly, will ‘it’ be? Surely you don’t mean to imply the devil?
SLAM: I’m sure Spaak wasn’t thinking it would literally be God or the devil, rather someone who would be OF God or OF the devil. But I think his statement was prophetic. The Bible talks about a man taking over the reigns of global government and he definitely won’t be a man of God. You know who it will be. Movies have been made and books written about him. Here he is:
“One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was astonished and followed the beast. 4 Men worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, “Who is like the beast? Who can make war against him?”” (Rev. 13:3,4)
Some “scientists”. Who, pray tell, might these “scientists” be? Try not to use proven liars.
On to the next goal post location…
This year has been perhaps 0.2 C cooler than last year. Is there some significance in this variation in the weather?
Slamdunk.
The manner in which you interpret the Bible is very revealing. It puts a lot of your statements into context.
Did you know that the Bible actually predicts global warming? Google “bible predicts global warming” and see…
So it seems that to deny AGW is to deny God’s Word. Or is it that those who attempt to get around God’s Word by reducing the emissions that will lead to the End Times are in league with the devil? Or are they in league with the devil because they are attempting take over the government of the world?
I can see that clarity of thinking is very important when considering climate change…
Oh, and Slamdunk.
As much as I now suspect that you are taking the bases upon which you have posed your questions, at #57 and #123, purely on faith, I am still asking you for the references from which you have arrived at your adopted position.
I know that Graeme Bird would label me as remiss if I did not repeatedly insist on the evidence…
Sorry Slammie @ 142
Must have missed that you are also a religious fanatic but fortunately you have now made that clear. Add it to your conspiracy theory of World Domination and we finally get the full picture. Oh – BTW how come you didn’t make mention of my referencing http://www.desmogblog.com for full details of your supposedly genuinely impartial scientists – and the link to the discredited “Oregon Petition” http://www.mediamatters.org/items/200602140013
I guess you didn’t want to draw attention to them did you. You are a total fraud and have amply demonstated same.
Chris O’Neill Says:
25 September 2008 at 7.07
SLAM: The conventional position is since 1998, but there are some scientists who take it back to 1979.
CHRIS:Some “scientists”. Who, pray tell, might these “scientists” be? Try not to use proven liars.
SLAM: There are several cites addressing “no warming since 1979,” but here’s just one:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/satellite-measurements-warming-troposphere.htm
CHRIS: On to the next goal post location…
This year has been perhaps 0.2 C cooler than last year. Is there some significance in this variation in the weather?
SLAM: Perhaps. Many scientists think we’re headed for a global cooling period anywhere from 20 to 50 years. I think the only significance is that it’s natural and cyclical. IF the world goes into another little ice age,the last think people are going to worry about is the slight warming we have experienced over the past 50 or 60 years.
After a cooling, there will be another warming. But there is nothing that proves the temps will be any higher than they have been historically.
Bernard J. Says:
25 September 2008 at 13.33
Slamdunk.
The manner in which you interpret the Bible is very revealing. It puts a lot of your statements into context.
SLAM: How so? What statement have I ever made that reflects my views on so called global warming?
BER: Did you know that the Bible actually predicts global warming? Google “bible predicts global warming” and see…
SLAM: Yes, indeed it does. Where does it say it’s caused by human CO2 emissions? The future holds extreme warming if the Bible is right.
“The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was given power to scorch people with fire. 9They were seared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him.” (REv. 16:8,9)
It’s the sun, not human CO2. This will happen during the seven year period of tribulation the Bible warns about.
BER: So it seems that to deny AGW is to deny God’s Word. Or is it that those who attempt to get around God’s Word by reducing the emissions that will lead to the End Times are in league with the devil? Or are they in league with the devil because they are attempting take over the government of the world?
SLAM: First comes a ten nation (or region) confederacy that forms global government. Out of them comes one who will reign over them (REv. 17:12,13). You ask some interesting questions.
Some time in the latter half of his reign is when the sun will scorch men. This all presumes the Bible is making an accurate prophecy.
perps Says:
25 September 2008 at 17.22
Sorry Slammie @ 142
Must have missed that you are also a religious fanatic but fortunately you have now made that clear. Add it to your conspiracy theory of World Domination and we finally get the full picture.
SLAM: Let me say again, it’s not my theory. First the Bible predicts global government and second, Chirac supports it with his statement. He is in league with many others with the same view. Surely you don’t believe the world is NOT headed for global government. World Court, World Bank, World Trade, World warming, etc.
Oh – BTW how come you didn’t make mention of my referencing http://www.desmogblog.com for full details of your supposedly genuinely impartial scientists – and the link to the discredited “Oregon Petition” http://www.mediamatters.org/items/200602140013
I guess you didn’t want to draw attention to them did you. You are a total fraud and have amply demonstrated same.
IT’s a bunch of baloney. Those two cites are radical left wing deniers. (Isn’t that what you say about my cites:) You can always find someone who says what you want to hear.
Is that it… should we not try to stop the warming, because the warming brings the end of the world and the glory of god closer to fruition?
The great thing about the bible is it can suit whatever scenario the world is in at the present day. folks like me get called alarmist for thinking CO2 is warming the planet, when religion is always trying to tell me that Judgement day itself is about to happen according to some interpretation of some obscure passage of the bible.
I must add, I quite enjoy reading SDs work… not so much the poor science, but the conspiracy theory/religion behind it is something I personally find to be a very valuable part of the debate… in fact it causes the core beliefs of the “deniers”. Similar to the zionist issue of fundamental Christians believing that the state of Israel HAS to exist at judgement day for Christians to gain access to heaven… I know it is all mumbo jumbo conspiracy, or strange interpretation at best, but I just find it very interesting and far more constructive than argy bargy about science detail. THese things go to the core of what makes us humans.
Bernard J. Says:
25 September 2008 at 13.46
Oh, and Slamdunk.
As much as I now suspect that you are taking the bases upon which you have posed your questions, at #57 and #123, purely on faith, I am still asking you for the references from which you have arrived at your adopted position.
I know that Graeme Bird would label me as remiss if I did not repeatedly insist on the evidence…
SLAM: Ok, I’ll start with Overpeck/Deming and the MWP. I think I listed this before.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1131
IPCC Chairman Pachauri fails to respond to scientists asking for evidence that CO2 drives temperature
http://www.tech-know.eu/uploads/Letter_UN_Sec_Gen_Ban_Ki-moon.pdf
IPCC overstates effect CO2 has on climate sensitivity
http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=310&Itemid=1
No warming since 1998 according to IPCC and WMO
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april2008/040408_cools_off.htm
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2008/01/pachauri-to-look-into-apparent.html
I’ll do the others later. I don’t think this site will accept alot of websites.
MattB Says:
25 September 2008 at 22.38
Is that it… should we not try to stop the warming,
SLAM: Why not try to stop cooling? That has led to more problems than warming. Can you name one climate disaster due to CO2?
MATT: because the warming brings the end of the world and the glory of god closer to fruition?
SLAM: I don’t know where you get that idea.
MATT: The great thing about the bible is it can suit whatever scenario the world is in at the present day. folks like me get called alarmist for thinking CO2 is warming the planet,
SLAM: You’re a skeptic?
MATT: when religion is always trying to tell me that Judgement day itself is about to happen according to some
interpretation of some obscure passage of the bible.
Did you know the Bible says exactly when judgment will come?
MattB Says:
25 September 2008 at 22.46
I must add, I quite enjoy reading SDs work… not so much the poor science,
SLAM: The latest satellite science shows that what little warming there was has stopped and global temperatures have dropped since 2007. Is that poor science?
Matt: but the conspiracy theory/religion behind it is something I personally find to be a very valuable part of the debate… in fact it causes the core beliefs of the “deniers”.
Slam: Please explain what you mean.
Matt: Similar to the zionist issue of fundamental Christians believing that the state of Israel HAS to exist at judgement day for Christians to gain access to heaven…
Slam: Where do you get that?
Matt: I know it is all mumbo jumbo conspiracy, or strange interpretation at best,
Slam: What’s mumbo jumbo?
Slamdunk.
I simply do not have time at the moment to dissect the plethora of eyebrow-raisers that you present, but this does need a response:
The short answer – yes!
Do you really need it explained to you why this is so?
And frankly, if you do not understand why saying that “global temperatures have dropped since 2007″ is poor science, then it is clear why you are not able to properly assess the vast amount of more complex scientific information in the discipline of climate change.
Slam don’t get so coy – I’m on to you! Seriosuly have you never heard the one about fundamentalist christians who believe that their passage to heaven depends on a state of israel existing come judgement day? you surprise me.
It is clear what I mean – it often takes more than an understanding of the scientific debate to understand where different parties approach various issues from.
Lets face it slam – you want it to warm, you want us to burn, as it will fulfill prophecy! It lets you wear sandwichboards in the town centre.
Thanks Slammie @ 147 and 152 for more links to sites of your right wing denialist friends. I checked them all out and as I suspected they were all scientific duds.
Oh – and the Sceptical Science( very good blog explaining to genuine sceptics what the science is really saying) link you posted – well – the opening paragraph was quoting what the sceptics were saying – you obviously neglected to read the rest of the article which explained why they were wrong. At least do your research properly.
Bernard J. Says:
26 September 2008 at 12.43
Slamdunk.
I simply do not have time at the moment to dissect the plethora of eyebrow-raisers that you present, but this does need a response:
The latest satellite science shows that what little warming there was has stopped and global temperatures have dropped since 2007. Is that poor science?
The short answer – yes!
Do you really need it explained to you why this is so?
And frankly, if you do not understand why saying that “global temperatures have dropped since 2007″ is poor science, then it is clear why you are not able to properly assess the vast amount of more complex scientific information in the discipline of climate change.
Hi Bernard. First, NASA, RSS, UAH and HADCRU all show a drop in temperatures since 2007. http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/19/january-2008-4-sources-say-globally-cooler-in-the-past-12-months/
Second, even the IPCC and WMO say there has been no warming since 1998.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april2008/040408_cools_off.htm
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2008/01/pachauri-to-look-into-apparent.html
What science do you have that shows differently?
MattB Says:
26 September 2008 at 16.33
Slam don’t get so coy – I’m on to you! Seriosuly have you never heard the one about fundamentalist christians who believe that their passage to heaven depends on a state of israel existing come judgement day? you surprise me.
No, I have never heard the one about Christians thinking that Israel must exist before passage into heaven. What I think you mean is that Israel must exist before Christ returns at which time his millenial reign begins. This is what the Bible says.
It is clear what I mean – it often takes more than an understanding of the scientific debate to understand where different parties approach various issues from.
Lets face it slam – you want it to warm, you want us to burn, as it will fulfill prophecy! It lets you wear sandwichboards in the town centre.
I call this Limb Theology: So far out on a limb you’re about to drop off:) Seriously, There will be no significant warming until that time when the sun “scorches men.” (Rev. 16:8,9). That will happen during the great tribulation period that Jesus spoke of (Matt. 24:21). But before that happens, Christians will have been taken up to heaven and won’t be around for the barbecue. Why not think in terms of escaping it by not being around when it happens? Repent and trust in Christ. You’ll be glad you did:)
perps Says:
26 September 2008 at 19.01
Thanks Slammie @ 147 and 152 for more links to sites of your right wing denialist friends. I checked them all out and as I suspected they were all scientific duds.
Slam: Hey, hold on there Perps! Two of them had nothing to do with science, rather unethical or questionable behavior. All you needed to do was explain why Overpeck wanted the MWP excluded from the hockey stick. If you think there was a scientific reason, then say so. Otherwise, such exclusion can only be seen as an intentional move to misrepresent the record. That is dishonest and only showed what the AGW crowd was up to: Create a scenario ripe for environmental disaster due to human induced CO2. Are you not able to see through their dishonest scheme?
The same with Pachauri’s failure to respond to a legitimate question. This wasn’t about science, but the right thing to do. Clearly, Pachauri did not have the evidence requested so he just ignored the question. Can you not see this?
It was a matter of science that the IPCC and WMO acknowledged no warming since 1998. If you think warming hasn’t stopped then you need to ask them about that.
Perps: Oh – and the Sceptical Science( very good blog explaining to genuine sceptics what the science is really saying) link you posted
Slam: What site are you talking about?
Perps: – well – the opening paragraph was quoting what the sceptics were saying – you obviously neglected to read the rest of the article which explained why they were wrong. At least do your research properly.
Slam: It would be your opinion they were wrong.
You really should read pages before you link to them. It might stop you from looking quite so silly. That web page points out why the “no warming since 1979″ argument is garbage. BTW, the “no warming since 1979” argument was made by Bob Carter using the satellite graph of mid-troposphere temperature (average altitude 6,000 m), where it is expected to neither warm nor cool, unlike the surface. Carter is either clueless or dishonest. Next time you want to say “scientists” say something, try to find someone who has a clue and is not a fraud.
Chris O’neill said:
You really should read pages before you link to them. It might stop you from looking quite so silly. That web page points out why the “no warming since 1979″ argument is garbage. BTW, the “no warming since 1979” argument was made by Bob Carter using the satellite graph of mid-troposphere temperature (average altitude 6,000 m), where it is expected to neither warm nor cool, unlike the surface. Carter is either clueless or dishonest. Next time you want to say “scientists” say something, try to find someone who has a clue and is not a fraud.
What follows Carter is a different opinion, not settled science. Your characterization of someone you probably know nothing about as a fraud is a bit unfair, don’t you think? But if I were you, I would put more stock in the IPCC and WMO, both of which acknowledge no warming since 1998.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april2008/040408_cools_off.htm
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2008/01/pachauri-to-look-into-apparent.html
That there is no significant atmospheric global warming since 1979 can be seen in the graph at the end of the article at:
http://www.weatherquestions.com/Roy-Spencer-on-global-warming.htm
Spencer works with some NASA researchers and is on the cutting edge of satellite research and climate sensitivity. You may want to read his entire article and see what he says about climate sensitivity. But you will probably consider him a fraud too.
Sd:
No, Carter is not just presenting a different opinion. He is presenting a blatant misrepresentation of the facts of global warming. Global warming is warming of the surface, NOT 6000 m up. Carter is trying to suggest that there is no global warming at the surface where it really matters because there is no global warming 6000 m up. But lack of warming 6000 m up does not mean there is no warming at the surface unlike what Carter is trying to make us think.
I’m not characterizing someone, I’m describing his behaviour. If someone tries to perpetrate a fraud isn’t it fair to call them a fraud?
Spencer has fraudulently picked the same irrelevant graph as Carter. If he tries to perpetrate a fraud shouldn’t he be called a fraud too? Go and read the page you yourself linked to: http://www.skepticalscience.com/satellite-measurements-warming-troposphere.htm . Maybe if you understand this, you won’t be credulously taken in by a fraud.
Slamdunk at #158.
A warm year followed by a cooler year is not ‘cooling’ in the AGW context. It is noise. Once again, are you truly so scientifically illiterate that you do not understand this? Using your criterion, global cooling has occurred dozens of times in the last 50 years. Sheesh.
And as to 1998, it was an anomalously hot year, and even AGW proponents do not ascribe all of its record temperature value to AGW. Cherry picking it as a start date to make a claim of cooling is unscientific.
And even if one ignored your selective starting of cooling at 1998 (or 1979), one would need a far greater timescale than a decade to be confident that AGW was not occuring.
If you do not understand the relative impacts of noise on AGW signal, you should get a basic education at the ‘Start here’ option at RealClimate, or read Tamino’s thorough statistical explanations on these subjects.
Faith is not going to cut it in a scientific discussion SD. You need to get yourself an education.
And SD, do you seriously believe that you can employ quotes from the Bible to make scientific points?
SD: I was pretty close you have to admit. I’m personally banking on God giving credit for good behaviour (if it turns out you are right), and trading me a spot some “christian” thought he/she had booked by adopting some pseudo fundamental greed is good christianity. I’ll be thinking of you getting hot though…
MattB Says:
28 September 2008 at 1.17
SD: I was pretty close you have to admit. I’m personally banking on God giving credit for good behaviour (if it turns out you are right), and trading me a spot some “christian” thought he/she had booked by adopting some pseudo fundamental greed is good christianity. I’ll be thinking of you getting hot though…
Won’t happen, Matt. I’ve got fire protection – The blood of Jesus:)
Don’t trust your good works for Paradise. Like everyone, you’re a sinner and need His forgiveness.
NEWS FLASH #1
Recent studies by the Hadley Climate Research Center (UK), the Japan Meteorological Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the University of East Anglia (UK) and the University of Alabama Huntsville show clearly that the rising trend of global average temperature stopped in 2000-2001.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/09/27/former-director-of-international-arctic-research-center-says-global-warming-has-paused/
NEWS FLASH #2
NASA’s JPL says urban island heat the major cause of warming on the west coast. (no doubt other regions of the world)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/09/26/nasa-jpl-heatwaves-its-the-asphalt-not-the-atmosphere/
When you add solar activity, it’s a no brainer that they are the major cause of warming.
#
# Bernard J. Says:
27 September 2008 at 18.12
Slamdunk at #158.
A warm year followed by a cooler year is not ‘cooling’ in the AGW context. It is noise. Once again, are you truly so scientifically illiterate that you do not understand this? Using your criterion, global cooling has occurred dozens of times in the last 50 years. Sheesh.
Slam: Warming and cooling have occurred several times. It’s called natural cyclical climate change. Man made CO2 plays a very small role.
And as to 1998, it was an anomalously hot year, and even AGW proponents do not ascribe all of its record temperature value to AGW. Cherry picking it as a start date to make a claim of cooling is unscientific.
Slam: NASA, UAH, RSS and Hadley only say that temps have dropped since 2007. Will they continue? Many scientists believe so.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/02/19/january-2008-4-sources-say-globally-cooler-in-the-past-12-months/
And even if one ignored your selective starting of cooling at 1998 (or 1979), one would need a far greater timescale than a decade to be confident that AGW was not occuring.
Slam: No one denies slight and harmless global warming. What caused it is the issue. My money is on the natural – multi-decadal oscillations, solar activity, cloud activity and urban island heat. There are other theories. Least of all is the small contribution of man made CO2 (0.04%)
If you do not understand the relative impacts of noise on AGW signal, you should get a basic education at the ‘Start here’ option at RealClimate, or read Tamino’s thorough statistical explanations on these subjects.
Slam: The only “noise” is what comes out of Gore, Hansen, Schneider, Houghton and all the other economic, social and political reformers.
Faith is not going to cut it in a scientific discussion SD. You need to get yourself an education.
Slam: “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, COLD AND HEAT, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease.” (Gen. 8:22)
YOu can trust the Bible to tell it like it is.
And SD, do you seriously believe that you can employ quotes from the Bible to make scientific points?
Coolers – can you take the Year After 1998 Challenge?
If it’s been cooling since 1998, what’s it been doing since 1999? Do you think you know? Are you sure cooling is really clear and strong? Proven? Since 1998, right? But has it cooled since 1999?!
This shouldn’t be hard, since 1999 was quite hot – sixth hottest on record at the time but it’s down to thirteenth. Sixth in 1999. Thirteenth now. Go figure. It’s still in the top 20 so it’s not a deliberately low bar to get this clear cooling trend in under. Being less well known 1999 should be able to avoid most of the controversy and bickering we get with 1998 and be more able to demonstrate recent trends.
A clear cooling trend doesn’t need, shouldn’t need, a single unusually hot year and controversial yearto prove it’s a trend – a real trend will show itself clearly and reveal the truth about warming without it. So check it out. Let me know how much cooler it’s been since 1999.
Check out 1999, the year coolers don’t want to talk about.
For global temps see this graph at GISS (note that you are automatically counted as conspiracy theory nutter if you say that’s an unreliable source). Email complaints to them at GISS if you truly believe they are wrong and you aren’t worried that they’ll laugh.
Ken Fabos.
i.e. someone who is taken in by a fraudulent misrepresentation of the satellite temperature records.
Ken Fabos Says:
29 September 2008 at 6.37
Check out 1999, the year coolers don’t want to talk about.
For global temps see this graph at GISS (note that you are automatically counted as conspiracy theory nutter if you say that’s an unreliable source). Email complaints to them at GISS if you truly believe they are wrong and you aren’t worried that they’ll laugh.
Hi Ken. You didn’t include the site for the GISS graph. The only one I’m familiar with is found at:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/02/19/january-2008-4-sources-say-globally-cooler-in-the-past-12-months/
You’ll see that it also includes the other three temperature tracking systems and they all show a significant drop in temps since 2007. How can this be as man made CO2 is at record levels? Also, the IPCC and WMO acknowledge there has been no warming since late 1990s.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april2008/040408_cools_off.htm
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2008/01/pachauri-to-look-into-apparent.html
‘Significant’? Do you mean statistically significant? If so, how did you determine it to be so? If not, then why use the word ‘significant’?
As to the ‘how’, Slamdunk, one thing you and your Denialist friends really need to learn is that climate scientists recognise many factors that contribute to warming and/or cooling of the planet. This is exactly why the much-derided (by Denialists) computer modelling is so complex. Our climate warms and cools according to the relative impacts of these many factors, and yet the underlying warming forcing of CO2 exists, and it will continue to raise the average temperature of the planet over time regardless of short-term superimpositions of other climate-influencing factors.
Are you really so dense that you cannot understand this simple concept?
It’s not rocket science – in fact, it’s very basic science. To prove the point, I took the temperature anomalies for the period 1882-2007 and counted the number of times the planet cooled, stayed the same, or warmed, from one year to the next.
And guess what? The planet cooled 54 times in the 125 years in this period! Surely this is news, and a sure sign that we are headed to that terrible ice-age oft heralded by Denialists?
Well, no…
There were 66 times when the planet warmed, and 6 times where temperature didn’t change. Oopsadaisy – it seems warming is more frequent that cooling. 22% more frequent, in fact.
And the sum of the cumulative coolings vs warmings? 0.77C – fancy that!
It took two minutes with a few equations in Excel to figure this out. I think that you might benefit from some primary school level consideration of this data too, and I would strongly advise that you carefully look at the graph of this dataset.
In particular, consider the relative magnitude of fluctuation of temperature (your so-called ‘cooling’ vs the more common ‘warming’) in the context of the rate of the overall warming trend. The former varies from approximately 0.2C to 0.4C per decade, and the latter trend is 0.06C per decade.
Think carefully on this, and ask yourself how many decades might be required for the signal to rise above the noise. And then ask yourself once more why it is ‘poor science’ to say:
Unfortunately I don’t have the url to hand for the dataset that I used, but it was titled “Global Land+Ocean Surface Temperature Anomaly (C) (Base: 1951-1980)”. I’m sure Google, or a benevolent reader of this thread, can provide the appropriate address (I am not going to do all of your homework for you), and as I said, a couple of minutes playing in Excel will reveal some interesting numbers.
Time for you to stop relying on blind faith placed in others’ Denialist delusions and biases, and learn how to do science.
Try here for the giss graph.
Does anyone really think that you can take a warming trend, add an exceptionally hot year in the middle and it becomes a cooling trend? That is exactly what the “it’s been cooling since 1998″ claim is really saying. Hint – hot plus hot equals hotter. Not cooler! On that you can rely 100%. Anyone tells you different you can be sure that they’re wrong and you don’t need a weblink to prove it.
Take out 1998 and there’s a warming trend. Include it and it’s cooling. In case anyone hasn’t noticed, that is completely backwards. Something must be wrong if you can take away an exceptionally hot year and you get clear warming, but add it back in and you get clear cooling. Whilst it might be good for a laugh to create an argument that “proves” that more warming makes cooling, be assured that’s what it is; someone’s idea of a joke, not a sound argument.
So how does including an exceptionally hot year – clear evidence of warming – become the key element to “proof” that it’s getting cooler? I blame it on someone with a low sense of humour.
Without the hottest year on record (if you don’t count 2005) your cooling trend vanishes into the puff of pseudo-logic from which it came. I could explain, but no-one pays attention anyway. I’ll leave it to the reader to figure it out. Meanwhile, if in doubt, repeat after me… hot plus hot equals hotter not cooler.
So ditch 1998. Ditch that little cooling trend from 1998 to 1999. Ditch a year that is clear evidence for warming, not cooling, that no climate change denialist really wants to see in those graphs. Show me the trend from 1999 onwards. I can assure you you will get a better picture of the real trend in our climate than by starting at 1998.
PS I don’t think there are any years this century that can be called cooling. Every one of them is high and shows the world has warmed. And 2007 till now is as much a real trend as the brief cooling one from 1998 to 1999. Didn’t last long did it? And how much cooling since 1999?
Ken Fabos Says:
29 September 2008 at 6.37
‘Significant’? Do you mean statistically significant? If so, how did you determine it to be so? If not, then why use the word ’significant’?
Slam: If the earth only warmed 0.74C over a hundred years, then I guess a 0.65C average drop is significant. But the point is not “significance,” rather temps are going the other way, just what AGWers weren’t expecting, esp. in light of record levels of CO2.
As to the ‘how’, Slamdunk, one thing you and your Denialist friends really need to learn is that climate scientists recognise many factors that contribute to warming and/or cooling of the planet.
Slam: The IPCC Reports have always said they are 90% certain that global warming is man made. They didn’t even accept any science that offered strong evidence for factors other than CO2:
The charter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is
“… to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of RISK OF HUMAN-INDUCED CLIMATE CHANGE, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy.”
This is exactly why the much-derided (by Denialists) computer modelling is so complex. Our climate warms and cools according to the relative impacts of these many factors,
Slam: So human-induced CO2 is not the major cause?
and yet the underlying warming forcing of CO2 exists, and it will continue to raise the average temperature of the planet over time regardless of short-term superimpositions of other climate-influencing factors.
Slam: That is pure baloney. No one has ever proven that man made warming will continue to cause an upward trend in temperatures regardless how many cooling periods in between. I hope you don’t think computers have prophetic capability.
Are you really so dense that you cannot understand this simple concept?
It’s not rocket science – in fact, it’s very basic science. To prove the point, I took the temperature anomalies for the period 1882-2007 and counted the number of times the planet cooled, stayed the same, or warmed, from one year to the next.
And guess what? The planet cooled 54 times in the 125 years in this period! Surely this is news, and a sure sign that we are headed to that terrible ice-age oft heralded by Denialists?
Slam: And how much of a role did man made CO2 play in those warming periods? You will just have to live with the fact that temps are headed south. Does that mean an extended period of cooling, or another ice age? I guess we’ll find out. But please don’t say that man made CO2 is the major cause of global warming as his majesty Algore has been saying.
Well, no…
There were 66 times when the planet warmed, and 6 times where temperature didn’t change. Oopsadaisy – it seems warming is more frequent that cooling. 22% more frequent, in fact.
Slam: And of those 66 times, how many were caused by man made CO2? Think, man, think:)
And the sum of the cumulative coolings vs warmings? 0.77C – fancy that!
It took two minutes with a few equations in Excel to figure this out. I think that you might benefit from some primary school level consideration of this data too, and I would strongly advise that you carefully look at the graph of this dataset.
Slam: I commend you for your ingenuity. But all you’ve told me is that there’s more warm periods than cool! What caused the warming? Any info on that? Good job:)
In particular, consider the relative magnitude of fluctuation of temperature (your so-called ‘cooling’ vs the more common ‘warming’) in the context of the rate of the overall warming trend. The former varies from approximately 0.2C to 0.4C per decade, and the latter trend is 0.06C per decade.
Slam: I’ll really be impressed if you can tell me what caused temperatures to rise during those periods of warming.
Think carefully on this, and ask yourself how many decades might be required for the signal to rise above the noise. And then ask yourself once more why it is ‘poor science’ to say:
The latest satellite science shows that what little warming there was has stopped and global temperatures have dropped since 2007.
Slam: You’re trying rationalize yourself into believing something the facts don’t support. Why don’t you contact those tracking systems and tell them they’re wrong?
Unfortunately I don’t have the url to hand for the dataset that I used, but it was titled “Global Land+Ocean Surface Temperature Anomaly (C) (Base: 1951-1980)”. I’m sure Google, or a benevolent reader of this thread, can provide the appropriate address (I am not going to do all of your homework for you), and as I said, a couple of minutes playing in Excel will reveal some interesting numbers.
Time for you to stop relying on blind faith placed in others’ Denialist delusions and biases, and learn how to do science.
Slam: Time for you to tell me what caused those 66 periods to warm. Then show me where it has been proven that man made CO2 was the major cause of 0.74C rise in temp over the past century.
Ken Fabos Says:
29 September 2008 at 18.29
Try here for the giss graph.
Slam: Why not present this on Anthony Watts site and see what happens. His NASA graph is slightly different.
Does anyone really think that you can take a warming trend, add an exceptionally hot year in the middle and it becomes a cooling trend?
Slam: Who said there was a cooling trend. The only “trend” is from 2007 to the present time. Will it continue? I don’t know. Because of no solar wind, many scientists think this portends a cooling trend.
That is exactly what the “it’s been cooling since 1998″ claim is really saying.
Slam: Not exactly. The reports are that the warming stopped since 1998 and that the cooling began in 2007.
Hint – hot plus hot equals hotter. Not cooler!
Slam: I wouldn’t call a 0.74C rise in temperature over a century what you would characterize as things getting hotter. That is well within the range of natural variability.
Take out 1998 and there’s a warming trend. Include it and it’s cooling. In case anyone hasn’t noticed, that is completely backwards. Something must be wrong if you can take away an exceptionally hot year and you get clear warming, but add it back in and you get clear cooling. Whilst it might be good for a laugh to create an argument that “proves” that more warming makes cooling, be assured that’s what it is; someone’s idea of a joke, not a sound argument.
Slam: ????? Just show where it has been proven that man made CO2 is the major cause of global warming that has created a climate crisis and you will have something.
So how does including an exceptionally hot year – clear evidence of warming – become the key element to “proof” that it’s getting cooler?
Slam: You don’t have to believe those reports from UAH, RSS and Hadley. GISS is under the control of Hansen, who thinks skeptical scientists should be jailed. I don’t put anything past him. He also thinks it’s OK to damage property that emits smoke. What a nut case.
I blame it on someone with a low sense of humour. Without the hottest year on record (if you don’t count 2005) your cooling trend vanishes into the puff of pseudo-logic from which it came.
Slam: Your error is thinking I have said there is a cooling trend. Again, the only “trend” is from 2007 to the present as those graphs show.
I could explain, but no-one pays attention anyway. I’ll leave it to the reader to figure it out. Meanwhile, if in doubt, repeat after me… hot plus hot equals hotter not cooler.
Slam: I say, the slight warming (0.74C) stopped in 1998, according to IPCC and WMO, and cooling started in 2007 and is likely to continues.
So ditch 1998. Ditch that little cooling trend from 1998 to 1999. Ditch a year that is clear evidence for warming, not cooling, that no climate change denialist really wants to see in those graphs. Show me the trend from 1999 onwards. I can assure you you will get a better picture of the real trend in our climate than by starting at 1998.
Slam: You should be a prophet:) The ability to conclude an overall warming trend based on short fluctuations of two years is amazing.
PS I don’t think there are any years this century that can be called cooling.
Slam: OK, let’s call 2007-2008 a decrease in warming. Is that better?
Every one of them is high and shows the world has warmed.
Slam: Again, nobody denies the 0.74C warming. Show me proof that man made CO2 did it.
And 2007 till now is as much a real trend as the brief cooling one from 1998 to 1999. Didn’t last long did it? And how much cooling since 1999?
Slam: If you can predict what the next few years will bring, I’m all ears:) All I see right now is at least a half degree drop in temps, man made CO2 is at record levels, oceans are cooling, Arctic ice is increasing over last year’s rate, Antartica ice is increasing, the sun is in dormancy and polar bears are doing just fine.
and the ability to conclude an overall trend based on the fluctuation from one year to the next:
is even more amazing.
BTW, Sd, are you still getting sucked in by fraudulent misrepresentations of the satellite temperature record?
Chris O’Neill Says:
30 September 2008 at 14.04
BTW, Sd, are you still getting sucked in by fraudulent misrepresentations of the satellite temperature record?
Hello Chris. I am sucked in by people like Dr. Roy Spencer with a PHD in meterology and a principle research scientist at the Univ. of Alabama. He was formerly with NASA as senior scientist for climate studies and is currently the U.S. Science team leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite. He is co-developer of the original satellite method for precise monitoring of global temperatures from orbiting satellites. He has authored many weather and climate research articles in science journals and has testified before Congress of global warming.
Who are you sucked in by?
Question for skeptics of skeptics:
How many IPCC scientists agreed with the statement, “Greenhouse gas forcing has very likely caused most of the observed global warming over the last 50 years”.
Answer_______
Slamdunk.
It is apparent to me that you are merely a troll.
No adult who presumes to engage in a discussion of science can think to do so whilst so patently bereft of what is no more than a high school level understanding of signals vs noise in year-to-year data, nor of how small fluctuations in global temperature differ from instantaneous local extremes or even geological extremes. Your persistent incapacity to understand such points smells like troll-poop. Really. Your scientific illiteracy is either extraordinary in its depth, or it is feigned in order to mire constructive discussion.
No-one but a troll would confabulate the many scientifically-determined and acknowledged sources of planetary warming with a new and increasing forcing, even if the isolated magnitude of the new forcing is small in comparison to the other forcings. Well, almost no-one but a troll – it is possible that a very stupid or ignorant person might not understand basic concepts of equilibria and shifts in such due to new factors, whatever the magnitude of such factors…
Only a troll would say:
after having repeated several times that:
and
I wouldn’t presume to flatter you with the assumption that you were exercising irony… Oh, and just for the record, if you were responding to my postings about the 66 ‘warmings’ (not Ken Fabos’), you seem to have missed the fact that I used inverted commas to indicate that these are not in and of themselves warmings in the greater sense, and also the fact that I was specifically making the point that you had attempted to describe a ‘significant’ trend yourself in the context of ‘cooling’ since 2007.
Troll? Or idiot?
No-one but a troll would avoid addressing the many fundamental points made by various posters here, and instead respond with further discredited pseudo-scientific nonsense.
And no-one but a troll, or perhaps a faith-blinded fundamentalist, would even consider using religious mythology as a response to science.
I am calling you out as a troll, and I’ll leave it to others to take up further cudgels against you. Any unbiased third party reading this thread will have made up their minds about you by now; and from here-on, in my opinion, whatever passes for thought in that thing that you might identify as your own mind is of complete irrelevance to the world at large.
Time for you to crawl back under the bridge.
I’m glad you realize that Spencer put up the same fraudulent misrepresentations of the satellite temperature record as Bob Carter, as I pointed out above, and that you have been sucked in by this.
Just tell me the proven fraud that I have been sucked in by as I have pointed out the proven fraud that you have been sucked in by.
Bernard J. Says:
30 September 2008 at 23.41
Slamdunk.
It is apparent to me that you are merely a troll.
That you won’t answer a simple question shows you have no interest in truth. So let me share it with you. Based on comments in the IPCC report, there were only FIVE IPCC scientists who explicity endorsed man made CO2 as the driver of temperatures, not the “thousands” you constantly hear from the drive-by media. Only five scientists swallowed the IPCC/Hansen/Gore propaganda that your CO2 emissions are raising temperatures to the point of climate crisis. FIVE!
http://climaterealist.blogspot.com/2008/09/ipcc-2500-scientists-myth.html
One other thing. I guess you think the IPCC, WMO, NASA, UAH, RSS, Hadley are also trolls since they acknowledge no warming since 1998 and temperature drop since 2007.
I won’t respond to the rest of your remarks other than I never said the earth is in a warming trend since 2007. All I said was that the temperatures have dropped and could be leading towards a cooling trend. Got it? Good:)
Chris O’Neill Says:
1 October 2008 at 6.46
BTW, Sd, are you still getting sucked in by fraudulent misrepresentations of the satellite temperature record?
Hello Chris. I am sucked in by people like Dr. Roy Spencer.
I’m glad you realize that Spencer put up the same fraudulent misrepresentations of the satellite temperature record as Bob Carter, as I pointed out above, and that you have been sucked in by this.
Slam: I’m sure you have proof that the graphs cited are fraudulent. Why not present it instead of just saying so?
Who are you sucked in by?
Just tell me the proven fraud that I have been sucked in by as I have pointed out the proven fraud that you have been sucked in by.
That anyone believes the very small amount of human-induced CO2 is the major cause of what little warming there was over the past century, and that it has created a climate crisis, in my view, has bought into a fraud surpassed only by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Just to prove a point or several:
I have never said that you said “earth is in a warming trend since 2007″. You are either incapabale of parsing sentences, or you are a troll attempting to construct a strawman.
Or both.
Bullshit. Read your earlier posts. There was no ‘could’ about them. Remember ‘significant’?
Got that? No, I thought not…
OK troll, list those five scientists who “explicity endorsed man made CO2 as the driver of temperatures”. According to you everyone else in the world therefore does NOT explicity endorse the existence of AGW. Oh, and confabulating “the driver of temperatures” with “a driver of temperatures” is mendacious, and didn’t go unnoticed.
This should be interesting, because there are many other petitions, interviews, papers, books, blogs and sundry documentation on the record demonstrating that scientists support the existence of AGW.
There is no doubt that you are simply a troll, and not a very clever one at that.
Don’t you understand what the word “above” means? As in “the same fraudulent misrepresentations of the satellite temperature record as Bob Carter, as I pointed out ABOVE”.
ABOVE was in comments 161 and 163. Obviously you didn’t pay attention the first time.
No wonder you are incapable of following an argument if you exhume this dinosaur troll that died in 1931.
Bernard said,
OK troll, list those five scientists who “explicity endorsed man made CO2 as the driver of temperatures”.
Slam: Since the IPCC doesn’t give out names, you will just have to believe it based on the website I listed. Here it is again:
http://climaterealist.blogspot.com/2008/09/ipcc-2500-scientists-myth.html
Many of the scientists you call deniers served on the IPCC but resigned when they saw how political it was getting and the bad science that was being passed around.
According to you everyone else in the world therefore does NOT explicity endorse the existence of AGW.
Slam: There aren’t many. All I’m trying to get you to see is that there was nowhere near the “thousands” of IPCC scientists who believe man made CO2 is driving temperatures to a climate crisis. That is the typical hype you get from Gore et al. There is no crisis. (Say it with me…”There is no climate crisis…very good:) It’s all scare tactics to get there religion (Gaia/ environmentalism)under the force of law.
This should be interesting, because there are many other petitions, interviews, papers, books, blogs and sundry documentation on the record demonstrating that scientists support the existence of AGW.
Slam: I do too, to an insignificant degree. It just isn’t driving temperatures. The sun, oceanic osscilations, urban island heat, cloud activity, etc. are driving temperatures.
There is no doubt that you are simply a troll, and not a very clever one at that.
Bernard is on a roll,
All who don’t agree are a troll.
Could Bernard be on the federal dole,
trolling for funds to feed his global goal?
Don’t you understand what the word “above” means? As in “the same fraudulent misrepresentations of the satellite temperature record as Bob Carter, as I pointed out ABOVE”.
SLAM: UAH, RSS and Hadley are in basic agreement. NASA is off a little. I can’t help it if skeptical Science doesn’t get it right. I’ll trust the people who work with the satellites and know what they are doing.
Just tell me the proven fraud that I have been sucked in by as I have pointed out the proven fraud that you have been sucked in by.
That anyone believes the very small amount of human-induced CO2 is the major cause of what little warming there was over the past century AND WHICH HAS CAUSED A CLIMATE CRISIS (you left that out).
No wonder you are incapable of following an argument if you exhume this dinosaur troll that died in 1931.
Slam: What in the world are you talking about?
Wow!!!! Look at this! August 2007, a comprehensive survey of peer-reviewed scientific literature from 2004-2007 revealed “Less Than Half of all Published Scientists Endorse Global Warming Theory.”
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=595F6F41-802A-23AD-
4BC4-B364B623ADA3
Obviously your attention span is no more than one sentence. If you had paid attention you would have read the following sentence:
and you could have checked comments 161 and 163. Since you have such a short attention span, I’ll repeat those comments here:
#161:
“You really should read pages before you link to them. It might stop you from looking quite so silly. That web page points out why the “no warming since 1979″ argument is garbage. BTW, the “no warming since 1979” argument was made by Bob Carter using the satellite graph of mid-troposphere temperature (average altitude 6,000 m), where it is expected to neither warm nor cool, unlike the surface. Carter is either clueless or dishonest. Next time you want to say “scientists” say something, try to find someone who has a clue and is not a fraud.”
#163:
“No, Carter is not just presenting a different opinion. He is presenting a blatant misrepresentation of the facts of global warming. Global warming is warming of the surface, NOT 6000 m up. Carter is trying to suggest that there is no global warming at the surface where it really matters because there is no global warming 6000 m up. But lack of warming 6000 m up does not mean there is no warming at the surface unlike what Carter is trying to make us think.”
“Spencer has fraudulently picked the same irrelevant graph as Carter. If he tries to perpetrate a fraud shouldn’t he be called a fraud too? Go and read the page you yourself linked to: http://www.skepticalscience.com/satellite-measurements-warming-troposphere.htm . Maybe if you understand this, you won’t be credulously taken in by a fraud.”
Now, try very, very hard to have an attention span better than a moron and see if you can understand what I said.
Further to Chris@185 (in response to SD@186), I repeat what I said in post 35#:
A 5 year smooth of the post-1979 temperature data comparison for the 4 measures shows if anything that if there is one anomaly, it UAH. Not GISS as SD@186 claims.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/mean:60/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1979/offset:-0.15/mean:60/plot/gistemp/from:1979/offset:-0.24/mean:60/plot/uah/mean:60/plot/rss/mean:60
So Roy Spencer’s data is the oddball, not Jim Hansens. The RSS analysis of the satellite data confirm this.
So now Slamdunk is resorting to puerile, non-syntaxed, twisted-vocabulary doggerel. Oh, and to ad hominem imputations that are not even justifiable by being, in the slightest degree, tangentially related to the topic at hand.
Although it’s none of your bloody business, I currently have two jobs on top of postgradute study, and I have had to decline offers for more work. Both positions are ecological, and at the moment neither is academic – but so what if they were? Grants are awarded on merit, and your disparagement of grant applications shows a denigration of a part of the overall scientific process that has benefited you more than you will ever appreciate.
So not only are you a troll, but you seem to be determined to demonstrate (yet again) that you are an ignorant one.
But keep on with your blathering – it’s doing wonders for the credibility (or lack thereof) of Denialism in general.
Chris O’Neill Says:
2 October 2008
Don’t you understand what the word “above” means? As in “the same fraudulent misrepresentations of the satellite temperature record as Bob Carter, as I pointed out ABOVE”.
Slam: I’ll stick with the UAH, GISS, RSS and Hadley charts I posted. I can’t help it if Skeptical Science doesn’t get it right.
Now, try very, very hard to have an attention span better than a moron and see if you can understand what I said.
Slam: There now, don’t you feel a lot better?
In the meantime, more truth serum for deniers:
IPCC bureaucrats pull their own “hockey stick.”
http://www.sepp.org/Archive/controv/ipcccont/wirth.htm
If you want to see what the IPCC is really up to:
http://mclean.ch/climate/IPCC.htm
Good serum:)
Barry Brook Says:
2 October 2008 at 14.45
Further to Chris@185 (in response to SD@186), I repeat what I said in post 35#:
A 5 year smooth of the post-1979 temperature data comparison for the 4 measures shows if anything that if there is one anomaly, it’s UAH. Not GISS as SD@186 claims.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/mean:60/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1979/offset:-0.15/mean:60/plot/gistemp/from:1979/offset:-0.24/mean:60/plot/uah/mean:60/plot/rss/mean:60
So Roy Spencer’s data is the oddball, not Jim Hansens. The RSS analysis of the satellite data confirm this.
You can believe your data, I’ll stick with the charts I posted earlier and the views of the many other scientists who agree with them (31,000+). This is why I don’t like to argue science. It always ends up with this site vs. that site. Your scientists are better than mine; mine are better than yours.
This is why I prefer to examine ethics and integrity. If man made global warming is a fact, why has the IPCC behaved so unprofessionally, misrepresented data, refused to repsond to direct questions? Why did Mann not want to release his codes? Why did he omit the MWP? Why didn’t Wahl and Ammann want to release their algorithims? Why did McIntyre have to use the FOIA to get the information the IPCC was hiding? Why does Gore lie so much? Why won’t he debate? Why did IPCC bureaucrats delete damning statements from the final draft of WG 1 chapter 8? The heirarchal GW crowd give reason to at least be suspicious.
Visit this and you’ll see what I’m talking about.
http://mclean.ch/climate/IPCC.htm
Bernard J. Says:
2 October 2008 at 22.26
So now Slamdunk is resorting to puerile, non-syntaxed, twisted-vocabulary doggerel. Oh, and to ad hominem imputations that are not even justifiable by being, in the slightest degree, tangentially related to the topic at hand.
Although it’s none of your bloody business, I currently have two jobs on top of postgradute study, and I have had to decline offers for more work. Both positions are ecological, and at the moment neither is academic – but so what if they were? Grants are awarded on merit, and your disparagement of grant applications shows a denigration of a part of the overall scientific process that has benefited you more than you will ever appreciate.
So not only are you a troll, but you seem to be determined to demonstrate (yet again) that you are an ignorant one.
Nite, nite:)
The UAH, GISS, RSS and Hadley charts do not say there has been no warming at the surface since 1979. Can you do better than bring up a strawman? The fraud you fail to realize was perpetrated by Carter as I pointed out in #161 and #163.
To reiterate:
Slamdunk at comment 127:
.
Slamdunk was sucked in by a proven fraud by Bob Carter.
BTW, Sd:
except when, like Carter, someone says there is no warming since 1979. In that case they can defraud as much as they like and Slamdunk’s interest in ethics and integrity vanishes before our eyes.
Chris O’Neill Says:
3 October 2008 at 22.36
The UAH, GISS, RSS and Hadley charts do not say there has been no warming at the surface since 1979. Can you do better than bring up a strawman?
Slam: I never said those charts had anything to do with 1979. I cited them to show the temperature drop since 2007.
The fraud you fail to realize was perpetrated by Carter as I pointed out in #161 and #163.
Slam: The only fraud is what Pachauri, Hansen, Gore and their buddies are seeking to impose on uniformed people. Carter, even if he is a fraud, pales in comparison.
If Americans understood what is going on behind the not-so-hallowed walls of the IPCC, there would be a revolution. Sadly, too many people think they’re getting the truth when Al Gore and the mainstream media speak. If you want to see what the IPCC is all about, visit:
http://mclean.ch/climate/IPCC.htm
Chris O’Neill Says:
4 October 2008 at 0.22
To reiterate:
Slamdunk at comment 127:
The “recent” climate change is that temps have not risen significanty since 1979
Slamdunk was sucked in by a proven fraud by Bob Carter.
Slam: Add Richard Lindzen
“Satellite data showed no warming in the atmosphere since 1979.”
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008597
and Fred Singer:
“Satellite data show no appreciable warming of the global atmosphere since 1979.”
http://www.nationalcenter.org/KyotoSingerTestimony2000.html
and John Christy and Roy Spencer:
“In 1989, Dr. Roy Spencer and Dr. John Christy developed a global temperature data set from satellite microwave data beginning in 1979, which showed little or no warming above the surface.”
http://www.marshall.org/article.php?id=415
Would you like some more?
You used them in replying to me and that’s what I was talking about. Your attention span has been caught short again.
So Carter perpetrates a cold-blooded fraud and all you can do is be sucked in by it and be sucked in by the likes of John Mclean. We know all about John Mclean. He’s a careless fraud and a nutcase.
Lindzen (who is not serious when discussing global warming) was not talking about surface temperature. Looks like Slamdunk has been sucked in again.
and Fred Singer:
“Satellite data show no appreciable warming of the global atmosphere since 1979.”
http://www.nationalcenter.org/KyotoSingerTestimony2000.html
For a start, the satellite derivation in 2000 upon which that testimony was based was seriously flawed. Second, as with Lindzen, Singer was not talking about surface temperature. Looks like Slamdunk has been sucked in again.
Slamdunk.
You are nursing a pathological desire for reality to be other than what it is…
You dredged up three sources that claim:
“Satellite data showed no warming in the atmosphere since 1979″
“Satellite data show no appreciable warming of the global atmosphere since 1979″
“In 1989, Dr. Roy Spencer and Dr. John Christy developed a global temperature data set from satellite microwave data beginning in 1979, which showed little or no warming above the surface”
The trouble is:
1) satellite data, especially earlier sets, have been shown to be less reliable than datasets derived from other instrumentation
2) you are referring to the atmospheric temperatures as opposed to the surface temperatures
and
3) AGW models predict surface warming, and atmospheric cooling at higher altitudes. Both of which are demonstrable.
So, not only are you a troll who refers to discredited sources, but you appear ever more determined to demonstrate that you will use complete garbage with which to attempt to make your failed case.
Once more, do some basic high school homework. I’ll even make it easy for you and give you the 1979-2007 land and ocean anomaly values from the dataset I referred to a few days ago.
Please explain to us how these data show ‘no warming since 1979′.
Year Anomaly
1979 0.09
1980 0.18
1981 0.27
1982 0.05
1983 0.26
1984 0.09
1985 0.05
1986 0.13
1987 0.27
1988 0.31
1989 0.19
1990 0.38
1991 0.35
1992 0.12
1993 0.14
1994 0.24
1995 0.38
1996 0.3
1997 0.4
1998 0.57
1999 0.33
2000 0.33
2001 0.48
2002 0.56
2003 0.55
2004 0.49
2005 0.62
2006 0.54
2007 0.57
Lindzen (who is not serious when discussing global warming) was not talking about surface temperature. Looks like Slamdunk has been sucked in again.
and Fred Singer:
“Satellite data show no appreciable warming of the global atmosphere since 1979.”
For a start, the satellite derivation in 2000 upon which that testimony was based was seriously flawed. Second, as with Lindzen, Singer was not talking about surface temperature. Looks like Slamdunk has been sucked in again.
Slumdank.
1) What is your evidence for the former?
Do you understand that without solid evidence, and if you weren’t such an insignificant squib, your libel could be challenged in court?
2) How can Carter’s putative fraud possible be justified by anyone else’s (just as putative) fraud?
You really have no idea about science, do you?
Slumdank
What exactly is it that ‘is going on behind the not-so-hallowed walls of the IPCC’? Where is your evidence?
And why refer to ‘Americans’? The US is merely one country amongst hundreds around the world. Why do so many of its citizens, yourself included it seems, persist in the wrong-headed notion that they are special? Like it or not, you are a part of the global village and it is time that you learned not to put yourself above other countries.
And it is past time that you learned that the US doesn not equal the world.
Although having said that, I suppose that in some ways you are ‘special’… I don’t know too many other supposedly educated nations where around half the population subscribes to a creation myth that essentially says that the planet, and the life upon it, was created in seven days 6000 years ago by a guy with a long white beard.
My more enlightened US friends are perpetually chagrined by the intellectual dwarfism that seems to afflict so many of their countrymen (and women).
This thread has managed to tip 200 posts so far, without a shred of defensible evidence from you. What are you trying to achieve? Whatever it is, I doubt that it is working, because you flounder from presenting bad crap to presenting ever worse crap in your efforts to make your, um, ‘case’.
Please, if there is one person who has read this thread and has been in the least pursuaded by Slumdank’s bizarre claims, please decloak and explain to the rest of us why he is at all convincing. And sock-puppets beware – there are more than a few noses here…
Chris O’Neill Says:
4 October 2008 at 21.36
The UAH, GISS, RSS and Hadley charts do not say there has been no warming at the surface since 1979. Can you do better than bring up a strawman?
Slam: I never said those charts had anything to do with 1979.
You used them in replying to me and that’s what I was talking about.
Slam: Not what I was talking about. Develope a greater attention span.
The fraud you fail to realize was perpetrated by Carter as I pointed out in #161 and #163.
Slam: The only fraud is
So Carter perpetrates a cold-blooded fraud
Slam: you mean like Mann, Wahl, Ammann, Gore, IPCC, etc. Fraud should be redefined to include them.
and all you can do is be sucked in by it and be sucked in by the likes of John Mclean.
Slam: Is this how deniers respond when truth hits close to the bone?
We know all about John Mclean. He’s a careless fraud and a nutcase.
Slam: O the sting of Truth:)
Bernard J. Says:
4 October 2008 at 22.51
Slamdunk.
You are nursing a pathological desire for reality to be other than what it is…
nite, nite Bernie.
Chris O’Neill Says:
4 October 2008 at 22.49
Lindzen (who is not serious when discussing global warming) was not talking about surface temperature. Looks like Slamdunk has been sucked in again.
Slam: Lindzen is one of the world’s premier scientists in his field. If you really think he’s not serious, you need to understand that it is your denial of what GW is really all about that makes you say this about him and others.
and Fred Singer:
“Satellite data show no appreciable warming of the global atmosphere since 1979.”
http://www.nationalcenter.org/KyotoSingerTestimony2000.html
For a start, the satellite derivation in 2000 upon which that testimony was based was seriously flawed. Second, as with Lindzen, Singer was not talking about surface temperature. Looks like Slamdunk has been sucked in again.
Slam: You would have to talk to them about that. Regardless where it was, what little global warming there was over the past cnetury, it is no longer, cooling has begun and no one has ever presented any proof that man made CO2 drove the temperatures up 0.74C.
I don’t know what it will take to get you guys to see that GW is perhaps the greatest fraud ever since it involves the world, or as John Coleman said, “Scam.” That’s what you need to concentrate on. Start educating yourselves. It’s all out there.
“‘Global warming’ is sub-prime science, sub-prime economics, and sub-prime politics, and it could well go down with the sub-prime mortgage.” (Phillip Stott)
and John Christy and Roy Spencer:
“In 1989, Dr. Roy Spencer and Dr. John Christy developed a global temperature data set from satellite microwave data beginning in 1979, which showed little or no warming above the surface.”
http://www.marshall.org/article.php?id=415
“above” the surface meaning…where exactly? Certainly not the surface. Looks like Slamdunk has been sucked in again.
Slam: Deal with 0.74C temp rise over a hundred years with no proof that CO2 drove it up. Of course, most of us know that it was natural and cyclical. Why do you think a global carbon tax should be assessed on such a small natural rise in temperature and with no climate crisis to show for it?
Would you like to find out what else has sucked you in?
Slam: The Great Suck is about to be foisted on the world by a universal carbon tax to pay on something that doesn’t exist. Coleman is right: SCAM!!!!
Bernard J. Says:
4 October 2008 at 23.29
Please, if there is one person who has read this thread and has been in the least pursuaded by Slumdank’s bizarre claims, please decloak and explain to the rest of us why he is at all convincing.
Slam: Many of us are up to your schemes:) I’m not sure where you fall in among the following, but I suspect it’s socialism/global governance. (Solinsky, Hillary and all the other global villagers). And as Charles Chirac said, Kyoto is the path to it.
CHICKEN LITTLE – History’s first environmental alarmist:
“Oh my goodness!” The sky is falling!”
JOHN HOUGHTON- First co-chair of the IPCC and lead editor of the first three Reports.
“Unless we announce disasters, no one will listen. The impacts of global warming are like a weapon of mass destruction.”
AL GORE – Former Vice President
“Nuclear war is an apocalyptic subject, and so is global environmental destruction… We must sound the alarm loudly and clearly of imminent and grave danger.”
“The leading experts predict that we have less than 10 years to make dramatic changes in our global warming pollution lest we lose our ability to ever recover from this environmental crisis.” (7-17-08)
JUDI BARI – Earth First
“I think if we don’t overthrow capitalism, we don’t have a chance of saving the world ecologically. I think it is possible to have an ecological society under socialism. I don’t think it’s possible under capitalism.”
MAURICE STRONG – One of the world’s leading environmentalists. Secretary General of both the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, which launched the world environment movement, and the 1992 Earth Summit and first Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Strong has played a critical role is globalizing the environmental movement.
“What if a small group of these world leaders were to conclude that the principle risk to the earth comes from the actions of the rich countries? And if the world is to survive, those rich countries would have to sign an agreement reducing their impact on the environment? Will they do it? Will the rich countries agree to reduce their impact on the environment? Will they agree to save the earth? The group’s conclusions is ‘no.’ The rich countries won’t do it. They won’t change. So, in order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilization collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”
MARGARET WALLSTROM, EU Environment Commissioner,
Kyoto is “about leveling the playing field for big businesses worldwide.”
TIMOTHY WIRTH – U.S. Undersecretary of State for Global Issues
“We have got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.”
RICHARD BENEDICK – Deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. State Department who headed policy divisions of the Department.
“A global warming treaty must be implemented even if there is no scientific evidence to back the [enhanced] greenhouse effect.”
STEPHEN SCHNEIDER – AGW advocate, Discover Magazine Oct. 1989
“We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”
CHRISTINE STEWART – Former Canadian Minister of the Environment
“No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits… Climate change provides the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.”
In Their Own Words – Policy
In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill … All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself.
– Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution, consultants to the UN.
Confronted with the Apocalypse, humanity cannot self-destruct. It may be a difficult road, but we can be sure that the vast majority will not commit social and ecological suicide to enable the minority to preserve their privileges. However it is achieved, a thorough reorganisation of production, consumption and distribution will be the end result of humanity’s response to the climate emergency and the broader environmental crisis.
-Walden Bello, Bangkok Post, 29 March 2008
The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe.
– Emeritus Professor Daniel Botkin
We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis…
– David Rockefeller, Club of Rome executive member
We are close to a time when all of humankind will envision a global agenda that encompasses a kind of Global Marshall Plan to address the causes of poverty and suffering and environmental destruction all over the earth.
– Al Gore, from Earth in Balance
We need a new paradigm of development in which the environment will be a priority… World civilization as we know it will soon end… We have very little time and we must act… If we can address the environmental problem, it will have to be done within a new system, a new paradigm. We have to change our mindset, the way humankind views the world.
– Mikhail Gorbachev, State of the World Forum
The concept of national sovereignty has been immutable, indeed a sacred principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation.
– UN Commission for Global Governance report (1999)
Democracy is not a panacea. It cannot organize everything and it is unaware of its own limits. These facts must be faced squarely. Sacrilegious though this may sound, democracy is no longer well suited for the tasks ahead. The complexity and the technical nature of many of today’s problems do not always allow elected representatives to make competent decisions at the right time.
Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution
The emerging ‘environmentalization’ of our civilization and the need for vigorous action in the interest of the entire global community will inevitably have multiple political consequences. Perhaps the most important of them will be a gradual change in the status of the United Nations. Inevitably, it must assume some aspects of a world government.
– Mikhail Gorbachev, Club of Rome member, State of the World Forum, 1996
A New World Order is required to deal with the Climate Change crisis.
– Gordon Brown, British Prime Minister
In my view, after fifty years of service in the United Nations system, I perceive the utmost urgency and absolute necessity for proper Earth government. There is no shadow of a doubt that the present political and economic systems are no longer appropriate and will lead to the end of life evolution on this planet. We must therefore absolutely and urgently look for new ways.
– Dr Robert Muller, UN Assistant Secretary General
Regionalism must precede globalism. We foresee a seamless system of governance from local communities, individual states, regional unions and up through to the United Nations itself.
– UN Commission for Global Governance report (1999)
Effective execution of Agenda 21 will require a profound reorientation of all human society, unlike anything the world has ever experienced a major shift in the priorities of both governments and individuals and an unprecedented redeployment of human and financial resources. This shift will demand that a concern for the environmental consequences of every human action be integrated into individual and collective decision-making at every level.
– excerpt, UN Agenda 21
The current course of development is thus clearly unsustainable. Current problems cannot be solved by piecemeal measures. More of the same is not enough. Radical change from the current trajectory is not an option, but an absolute necessity. Fundamental economic, social and cultural changes that address the root causes of poverty and environmental degradation are required and they are required now.
– from the Earth Charter website
Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsiblity to bring that about?
– Maurice Strong, former Secretary General of UNEP
I envisage the prinicles of the Earth Charter to be a new form of the ten commandments. They lay the foundation for a sustainable global earth community.
– Mikhail Gorbachev, Club of Rome member
The big threat to the planet is people: there are too many, doing too well economically and burning too much oil.
– Sir James Lovelock, BBC Interview (2002)
…current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing – are not sustainable. A shift is necessary which will require a vast strengthening of the multilateral system, including the United Nations.
– Maurice Strong, founder of UNEP, opening speech of 1992 Rio Earth Summit
Humans on the Earth behave in some ways like a pathogenic micro-organism, or like the cells of a tumor.
– Sir James Lovelock, Healing Gaia: Practical Medicine for the Planet (1991)
If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.
– Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh, patron of the World Wildlife Fund
Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license. All potential parents should be required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing.
– David Brower, first Executive Director of the Sierra Club
…climate change is real. Not only is it real, it’s here, and its effects are giving rise to a frighteningly new global phenomenon: the man-made natural disaster.
– Barak Obama, US Presidential Candidate
The fate of mankind, as well as of religion, depends upon the emergence of a new faith in the future.’ Armed with such a faith, we might find it possible to resanctify the earth.
– Al Gore, Earth in Balance
What an incredible planet in the universe this will be when we will be one human family living in justice, peace, love and harmony with our divine Earth, with each other and with the heavens.
– Robert Muller, founder of UNESCO
The earth is literally our mother, not only because we depend on her for nurture and shelter but even more because the human species has been shaped by her in the womb of evolution…. Our salvation depends upon our ability to create a religion of nature.
– Rene Dubos, board member, Planetary Citizens
Maurice Strong, former Secretary General of UNEP, opening speech of 1992 Rio Earth Summit
The spirit of our planet is stirring! The Consciousness of Goddess Earth is now rising against all odds, in spite of millennia of suppression, repression and oppression inflicted on Her by a hubristic and misguided humanity.
The Earth is a living entity, a biological organism with psychic and spiritual dimensions. With the expansion of the patriarchal religions that focused on a male God majestically stationed in Heaven ruling over the Earth and the Universe, the memory of our planet’s innate Divinity was repressed and banished into the collective unconscious of humanity.
– Envision Earth
Little by little a planetary prayer book is thus being composed by an increasingly united humanity seeking its oneness. Once again, but this time on a universal scale, humankind is seeking no less than its reunion with ‘divine,’ its transcendence into higher forms of life. Hindus call our earth Brahma, or God, for they rightly see no difference between our earth and the divine. This ancient simple truth is slowly dawning again upon humanity, as we are about to enter our cosmic age and become what we were always meant to be: the planet of god.
– Robert Muller, former UN Assistant Secretary General, founder of UNESCO
What if Mary is another name for Gaia? Then her capacity for virgin birth is no miracle . . . it is a role of Gaia since life began . . . She is of this Universe and, conceivably, a part of God. On Earth, she is the source of life everlasting and is alive now; she gave birth to humankind and we are part of her.
– Sir James Lovelock, Ages of Gaia
Nature is my god. To me, nature is sacred; trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals.
– Mikhail Gorbachev, Green Cross International
The spiritual sense of our place in nature… can be traced to the origins of human civilization…. The last vestige of organized goddess worship was eliminated by Christianity.
– Al Gore, Earth in the Balance, page 260
I pledge allegiance to the Earth and all its sacred parts. Its water, land and living things and all its human hearts.
– Earth Pledge, Global Education Associates
By fostering a deep sense of connection to others and to the earth in all its dimensions, holistic education encourages a sense of responsibility to self to others and to the planet.
– Global Alliance for Transforming Education
The earth is not dead matter. She is alive. Now begin to speak to the earth as you walk. You can speak out loud, or just talk to her in your mind. Send your love into her with your exhalation. Feel your heart touching upon the heart of the planet. Say to her whatever words come to you: Mother Earth, I love you. Mother Earth, I bless you. May you be healed. May all your creatures be happy. Peace to you, Mother Earth. On behalf of the human race, I ask forgiveness for having injured you. Forgive us, Mother Earth.
Unfortunately, the world will end up as a socialist global government and Environmentalism will be its religion, just as the Bible said.
– Prayer to the Earth, US Student Textbook
http://green-agenda.com/gaia.html
I am remind of the words of Henri Spaak when UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon called for “global leadership.” “
Slamdunk,
It doesn’t matter that many think you are delusional.
There is help for people who clearly exhibit paranoia – seriously, may I humbly suggest you seek it.
DavidK Says:
5 October 2008 at 20.34
Slamdunk,
It doesn’t matter that many think you are delusional.
There is help for people who clearly exhibit paranoia – seriously, may I humbly suggest you seek it.
SLam: I guess all the above are paranoic. Why do you condemn your own kind? You greenies and global warmers are so transparent. Go back and read what your green-eyed pied pipers are saying.
Yes I know that’s not what you were talking about. What you talk about has nothing to do with the things you reply to.
Take your own advice before giving it to someone else.
I mean what I said. Deal with it.
Zero argument. Just a substance-free assertion.
Yes, that’s exactly how global warming deniers like Slamdunk respond when truth hits close to the bone.
Sd:
Can you hurry up Sd. Repeated “Nite, nite”s get tedious after a while.
I’m not interested in your strawman. The point was Lindzen was not talking about surface temperature. You have been sucked into believing he was.
Either Singer was talking about mid-troposphere temperature, in which case it is not relevant to the surface, or he was using UAH’s incorrect lower troposphere derivation that was available in 2000. Either way he was not referring to a correct surface temperature record and either way Sd has been sucked in.
You’ll never get us to believe any of your substance-free assertions while you fail to understand the difference between surface temperature and mid-troposphere temperature.
Start taking your own advice before you give it to anyone else.
BTW, Spencer and Christy’s 1989 flawed derivation of lower troposphere temperature did show very little warming but it was, as we now know, flawed. As anyone who cares about the facts now knows, Spencer and Christy’s extant derivation of lower troposphere temperature shows average warming of 0.13 deg C/decade since 1979.
Sd’s following non-sequiturs deleted.
Sd is obviously much more interested in making substance-free assertions than finding out what he has been sucked in by.
Question for today:
Can you name one climate period of warming or cooling that any computer ever predicted?
Holus-bolus cut-and-paste, eh?
The refuge of the credulous, the misguided, and the ideologue, and hardly a structured or evidenced argument.
Slamdunk – a word of advice: go home. Your incoherent thoughts have no place outside of your own head.
Can we put this thread out of our misery? There comes a point when deconstructing conspiracy theorists’ paranoias, ideologies and religious fundamentalism is futile. Slamdunk is taking up far too much bandwidth, and is not taking the thread anywhere except into his own bizarre mind.
There is sufficient record now to demonstrate his incapacity to grapple intelligently with science.
Chris O’Neill Says:
5 October 2008 at 23.12
Lindzen (who is not serious when discussing global warming) was not talking about surface temperature. Looks like Slamdunk has been sucked in again.
Slam: Lindzen is one of the world’s premier scientists in his field.
I’m not interested in your strawman. The point was Lindzen was not talking about surface temperature. You have been sucked into believing he was.
and Fred Singer:
“Satellite data show no appreciable warming of the global atmosphere since 1979.”
http://www.nationalcenter.org/KyotoSingerTestimony2000.html
For a start, the satellite derivation in 2000 upon which that testimony was based was seriously flawed. Second, as with Lindzen, Singer was not talking about surface temperature. Looks like Slamdunk has been sucked in again.
Slam: You would have to talk to them about that.
Either Singer was talking about mid-troposphere temperature, in which case it is not relevant to the surface, or he was using UAH’s incorrect lower troposphere derivation that was available in 2000. Either way he was not referring to a correct surface temperature record and either way Sd has been sucked in.
I don’t know what it will take to get you guys to see that GW is perhaps the greatest fraud ever since it involves the world
You’ll never get us to believe any of your substance-free assertions while you fail to understand the difference between surface temperature and mid-troposphere temperature.
Start educating yourselves.
Start taking your own advice before you give it to anyone else.
and John Christy and Roy Spencer:
“In 1989, Dr. Roy Spencer and Dr. John Christy developed a global temperature data set from satellite microwave data beginning in 1979, which showed little or no warming above the surface.”
http://www.marshall.org/article.php?id=415
“above” the surface meaning…where exactly? Certainly not the surface. Looks like Slamdunk has been sucked in again.
BTW, Spencer and Christy’s 1989 flawed derivation of lower troposphere temperature did show very little warming but it was, as we now know, flawed. As anyone who cares about the facts now knows, Spencer and Christy’s extant derivation of lower troposphere temperature shows average warming of 0.13 deg C/decade since 1979.
Slam: Whopee doo! That is well within normal climate change, esp. coming off the little ice age. Warming stopped in 1998 and now it could well be that temps are heading back down again. Climate does what it wants, when it wants. Man has no control over it.
Surface temperatures would apply to the troposphere which is the lower part of the atmosphere. Air one inch above the earth’s surface is in the troposphere.
Where temperatures are being recorded still misses the issue warmers don’t want to face. Of the slight warming over the past century, what is the EVIDENCE that man caused it? What is the EVIDENCE that such a small increase is leading to an environ-mental Armageddon? What computer predicted temperatures would stop rising in 1998? Which ones predicted cooling since 2007?
[…] Posts What if the sun got stuck?Climate ripe for transformative changeSo just who does climate science?Ongoing rise in global carbon […]
I am not interested in your new set of goal posts. You are now ignoring the fact that you were willing to go along with a fraud for as long as possible. I have no interest in discussing anything with someone so easily and wilfully sucked in by a fraud.
I am not interested in your new set of goal posts. You are now ignoring the fact that you were willing to go along with a fraud for as long as possible. I have no interest in discussing anything with someone so easily and wilfully sucked in by a fraud.
Carter, Lindzen, Singer, Spencer, Christy are not frauds. The real fraud is the IPCC which, with the backing of Hansen, Houghton, Gore et al, has manipulated science to arrive at their predetermined bias against any science that challenged the myth of man made global warming. Someone should bring suit against them so their fraud can be exposed. John Coleman contemplated suing Al Gore for that same reason.
Carter is a proven fraud as I have explained over and over again. Why don’t you take the opportunity to show that you understand by explaining the difference between lower troposphere and mid troposphere temperature? You could then show that you have more than substance-free assertions.
Lindzen was not talking about surface temperature.
Singer was not talking about a valid surface temperature record in your quote as I have already explained.
Spencer and Christy’s 1989 derivation of lower troposphere temperature was flawed as I have already explained, even though it wasn’t fraudulent.
Chris,
It is obvious the person going by the tag of “Slamdunk” does not understand the science. In fact, if you read carefully his comments, his arguments are very often predicated by association to political ideology – this is not science.
Fortunately, the vast majority of political leaders around the world (from whatever persuasion) know climate change is real and that humanity is complicit in its affect. They also believe we should be focusing on adaptation and mitigation (not arguing the nuances or fine details of the science that is better left to real scientists). Of course this won’t be easy and it won’t happen over night, but it is.
While your (and others) responses to this ‘slamdunk’ are illuminating, I don’t see any benefit in humiliating a person who clearly can not think rationally or with any scientific logic. I have a great deal of respect for Dick Lindzen and Roy Spencer (one can hope they are on to something) but they have not been able to provide robust or rigorous research to counter the prevalence of CO2-e as a major driver to this current episode of GW.
Carter et al is another story. He is not a sceptic (in the scientific sense), he is a ‘denier’ – he intentionally distorts and misrepresents the science for his own agenda. His action (and inaction) represent the antithesis of science – no wonder he does not publish his ‘smoke screens’.
[…] cool.) But is it ATM to make that statement also? Yes it is ATM. The mainstream view is that even if there were an extended minimum it would not outweigh the greenhouse warming. […]
[…] Originally Posted by William As the planet continues to cool (assuming a Maunder minimum rather than a cycle slow down), A new Maunder minimum would not cause cooling. […]
Chris O’Neill Says:
6 October 2008 at 14.48
Carter is a proven fraud as I have explained over and over again.
Why don’t you take the opportunity to show that you understand by explaining the difference between lower troposphere and mid troposphere temperature? You could then show that you have more than substance-free assertions.
Lindzen was not talking about surface temperature.
Singer was not talking about a valid surface temperature record in your quote as I have already explained.
You still don’t get it. What difference does it make what temperatures were or are in any part of the atmosphere?
1. No one has shown where man made CO2 drove global temperatures up less than a degree over the last century in any part of the atmosphere, over any part of the world.
2. Fraudulent scientists got rid of the WMP and LIA so they could blame humanity for the sharp rise in temperature at the end of the 19th century.
3. No computer prohesied a halt in warming between 1998-2007, or a drop in temperatures after 2007.
4. Many scientists believe the world could be headed for a cooling or cold period. There is no man made global warming any more than man made cooling. It’s all natural and cyclical through solar activity, ocean oscillation, urban island heat, precipitation and cloud distribution.
5. Global warming is a hoax to bring about global government, a new religion (Gaia), demise of western capitalism and the greatest tax of all time- a global emission tax. If you haven’t noticed, the recent Wall Street bailout bill contains 120 pages on energy and carbon emission issues.
What more substance do you want?
Before you say it’s all baloney, go back and read those statements I posted.
DavidK Says:
6 October 2008 at 18.50
Chris,
It is obvious the person going by the tag of “Slamdunk” does not understand the science.
Slam: You’re right about that, David. What I do understand is that man made global warming is a massive hoax, or as John Coleman calls it, “scam.”
In fact, if you read carefully his comments, his arguments are very often predicated by association to political ideology – this is not science.
Slam: It isn’t ment to be. Men with agendas are just using bad or manipulated science to promote them.
Classic example is the hockey stick. I urge you to visit http://mclean.ch/climate/IPCC.htm
Fortunately, the vast majority of political leaders around the world (from whatever persuasion) know climate change is real and that humanity is complicit in its affect.
Slam: You don’t have to be a head of state not to be deceived. If not deceived, then part of the problem because they know the GW issue is being used to promote interests that will is some way benefit them, or so they think.
They also believe we should be focusing on adaptation and mitigation (not arguing the nuances or fine details
Slam: No, let’s not argue why the IPCC overstated the effects of CO2 on climate sensitivity, or why the MWP and LIA were omitted from the hockey stick.
of the science that is better left to real scientists). Of course this won’t be easy and it won’t happen over night, but it is.
Slam: At least you have part of this right: Adaption. Man’s influence on nature is negligible at best.
While your (and others) responses to this ’slamdunk’ are illuminating, I don’t see any benefit in humiliating a person who clearly can not think rationally or with any scientific logic.
Here’s what I think you should think about.
1. No science has proven that man made CO2 drives up temperatures to the point of environmental harm or climate crisis.
2. Temperatures stopped rising in 1998 and began to cool after 2007. How can this be if CO2 drives temperature up?
3. Oceans are cooling.
4. Arctic ice rate of loss slowed from last year.
5. Antarctica ice is increasing.
6. Polar bears are doing fine.
7. The IPCC, Gore, GISS, Houghton et al are political and religious entities to help bring about social, economic and political change. The last thing on their mind is their phony concern about a small rise in global temperatures.
I have a great deal of respect for Dick Lindzen and Roy Spencer (one can hope they are on to something) but they have not been able to provide robust or rigorous research to counter the prevalence of CO2-e as a major driver to this current episode of GW.
Slam: That simply is not true. Spencer works with NASA researchers and has produced evidence that indicates there is no positive feedback. If they is right, man made global warming is a dead issue.
Carter et al is another story. He is not a sceptic (in the scientific sense), he is a ‘denier’ – he intentionally distorts and misrepresents the science for his own agenda. His action (and inaction) represent the antithesis of science – no wonder he does not publish his ’smoke screens’.
Slam: The real deniers are those who think the small contribution of human CO2 has a greater effect on climate than the sun, oceans, precipitation, clouds and urban island heat.
Slamdunk.
1. Please learn to use quotation conventions – your posts are nigh on indecipherable.
2. What is the credible evidence for each of your points in #223? All of the sources you have referenced to date are dubious at best; if you have suddenly better sources please provide them. In fact, whatever your sources are you should provide them, otherwise you are just another troll promulgating Chinese whispers and unsusbtantiated hearsay on the web.
Hmmm…
Slamdunk seems to have called time-out.
Bernard
My guess is he got confused with his own way of indecipherable posting he doesn’t know if he is the ‘commentor’ or ‘commentee’ – I can just picture him being curled up in a little corner somewhere blabbering to himself “Sam: my brain made me do it.”
[…] the Pacific Decadal Oscillation is in the cool El Nina phase (and here) and Solar activity has been at a minimum we should actually be in a cool period with very low temperatures globally, not near record hot. […]
[…] Originally Posted by pie33 If solar cycle 23 ends in the middle of 2009 with low solar activity, and cycle 24 ever lower solar activity, we maybe on the verge of a mini-ice age lasting as long as the Dalton Minimum for the next 40 years. Even if the sun did go into an extended minimum we would not have a mini ice age. […]
[…] to graspIntegral Fast Reactor (IFR) nuclear power – Q and ASave a bit here, ship a whole lot thereWhat if the sun got stuck?Spot the recycled denial III – Prof Ian PlimerSpot the Recycled Denial seriesHansen to Obama Pt II […]
The amount of climatic change that can occur over short periods of time is certainly nothing any climatologist or otherwise can accurately predict. Please remember folks, we aren’t quite as warm as the earth was during the warm middle ages period. Nor are we anywhere near as cold as it was during the peak of the little ice age only a couple hundred years ago(that little ice age only ended 150 years ago btw). Even during the little ice age temperatures fluctuated drastically, going from arctic cold to blazing heat over the span of decades during the general cooling trend.
For those unaware, the middle age warm period was on the order of 1°C warmer than we were at our recent warmest.
Perhaps looking at a graph that goes back more than 100 years is in order? In all sincerity, 100 years is barely a pixel on a movie screen when you’re trying to look at overall climatology of the Earth. For instance, what do we know temperatures to be like during the years before the little ice age? What do we know of the temperatures during the little ice age? The Younger Dryas? The general trend of the earth over the past 1 million years? It gets warmer and warmer, then hits a tipping point and cools back off fairly quickly, then slowly warms back up, with little hiccups in between. Rinse, repeat.
I myself am no expert, having done only moderate research and drawing my own conclusions from data presented by various sites, however, I would assume based on what little I’ve seen myself that the average person would understand the earth simply does not hover at a moderate temperature for a very long time, even on the scale of the human life. Honestly, to me, the idea that humans believe they’re affecting the climate directly just seems flat out arrogant.
tl;dr: Earth will do whatever it damn well pleases, and humans don’t understand how intricate climate change is well enough to predict it, let alone blame themselves for it. Any theory, warming or cooling, is all bollocks if you ask me. You’re all sheep for believing one way or the other. Just look at hard facts from the past and draw your own conclusions.
Sigh! Yet more recycled denialist point, all answered ad infunitum at this site and many others.
For those reading about the MWP and LIA this for the first time, go to:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/index/
There you will find, indexed for easy research, rebuttals of assertions in post 230 plus links to many other similar furphys.
If you haven’t time to go through the index:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/werent-temperatures-warmer-during-the-medieval-warm-period-than-they-are-today/langswitch_lang/in
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/07/medieval-warmth-and-english-wine/langswitch_lang/in
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/11/little-ice-age-lia/
[…] warming has occurred at night compared to the day time. Another nail in the solar warming idea (but that’s another story). Adelaide's record-smashing 15 day March 2008 […]
[…] seems this is rather unlikely to happen What if the sun got stuck? BraveNewClimate.com Seems like greenhouse gas forcing would still outdo even an extended solar minimum. Sorry guys […]
If the sun does get ‘stuck’ in minimum for a long time it demonstrate that the assumption that the previous 30 years of 0.1% flucuations were not normal and that solar forcing had a greater effect on global temperatures than previously thought.
You must also then assume that CO2 had a smaller effect, something that you seem to have left out. Comparing an assumed solar induced cooling rate to an unadjusted GW rate is invalid.
[…] topic was dealt with in some detail on BraveNewClimate last year, in the post ‘What if the sun got stuck?‘. There is also an excellent coverage of this issue here, here and here. As Graeme Pearman […]
[…] What if the sun got “stuck?” […]
What a great site. We should frame it as a fantastic example of junk science. The brown nosing and lack of critical thinking are wonderful. YouHelpFixIt is a notable exception.
Apart from that anybody who questions the science is either a denier or just doesn’t get it.
Well… it’s December 2009 and Climategate has hit and all your citations and appeals to peer reviewed science have been blown away.
You forgot to say John that the BOM have confirmed that this last decade was the warmest on record in Australia (and the BOM in NZ confirmed it was the hottest decade there too)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/01/05/2785653.htm