CRU email files were revealed:
Blog storm erupted.
As many readers are aware, last November, while Jeff Id was hunting in the U.P., Anthony was flying back from Europe, and Steve Mc. was playing squash (I think), Steve Mosher sent us all emails. I was at home, downloaded files, read a few, and then posted a blog with the title:
Real files or fake?
19 November, 2009 (14:09) | politics | [e] Written by: lucia
The final paragraph in that post read
I’m currently clicking and reading. It’s all rather amazing. I’m tempted to load it up and let google crawl it. Or paste into the blog software. That would make it all searchable.
But first, I’d like to know if this stuff is real or just utterly fake junk.
Turns out the stuff was real. The rest is history.
Open thread. I encourage everyone to discuss the impact of climategate on science culture, practices, climate science politics, and climate blogging. 🙂
FYI: Most my posts on climategate are tagged Climategate.
Update
During the day, I want to post links to climategate anniversary articles at other three of the four blogs SteveMosher emailed:
- TAV: Climategate Anniversary
- WUWT:One Year Ago Today – Breaking News Story: CRU has apparently been hacked – hundreds of files released
- CA?: I’ll be in Highland Park, so if someone sees an anniversary post, post the link in comments.
Maybe a bit too OT, but as you kicked off with a Haiku:
http://mrsean2k.wordpress.com/2010/08/01/larkin-about-with-the-climate/
One thing I remember was that for about 2 weeks after the email release, Gavin actually showed some humility. RealClimate finally posted a lot of skeptic comments, and he responded to them without any snark at all. It was rather amazing. The arrogance returned, of course, but it was nice while it lasted.
Les feuilles mortes
Under my bare feet
And again they sing
The revelations caused me to spend more time reading on the internet for two weeks than I probably had cumulatively before then. I expected more scepticism about AGW from the press and public than happened.
I did buy The Crutape Letters and Hockey Stick Illusion, thus stimulating the economy, or at least, increasing the velocity of money.
The dominant view of the Pro-AGW Consensus is that Climategate was the immoral theft of private emails. For the “skeptics,” it’s usually been seen as a hack in the public interest that exposed some seamy practices by high-profile climatologists.
Competing memes. If this really is a moral issue (“Privacy!” / “Free the information!”; either way), how do the opinionators view other incidents with similar outlines? Have any of them taken consistent (or otherwise) positions in other cases of leaked/stolen/hacked communications with public-policy implications?
Recently, there’s been WikiLeaks for Iraq and Afghanistan.
IIRC, during the Smoking Wars, there were a number of instances where documents were produced in discovery by Big Tobacco, and kept under seal. Only they weren’t.
And wasn’t a separate set of disclosures the basis for “Thank You For Smoking” (which I didn’t see)?
I think there have also been leaks/hacks/thefts in some pharma cases, e.g. tricks (sic) that were done in clinical trials for agents like that cox-2 inhibitor pain-relieving medication that starts with a “V”.
But I haven’t looked any of these up to check. And to my knowledge, none of the principals on either side of Climategate have extended the rationale of their stances to see how comfortably they fit to other incidents.
[Edited in a perhaps-futile effort to escape spam purgatory.]
{Heh, it worked!}
In emails pilfered,
Contrarians saw their faith scorned.
Holy wrath ensued!
Workplace files released
Review procedures skirted
Debate enlivened!
AMac @ Post #61109:
Of course, a number of those from all sides who posit opinions on these matters are inconsistent in their application of moral and practical principles. That is damn near a given in these emotionally packed and partisan issues. And we could discuss that angle for a very long time, but to what end? In my judgment we get leaked information all the time that we find was not important or critical to keep from the public and in fact would have been better received if it had been made public by those attempting to keep in under wraps. The NYT has an uncanny capability to obtain leaked information that helps make their political cases and administrations that they oppose have an uncanny tendency to attempt to keep information from the public that they must know has a good chance of eventually being leaked and making them look bad. In these cases, I would only oppose the preferential publicizing of leaked information.
What did the climategate emails reveal to me? Primarily what I already knew about most of the involved climate scientists and that being that their advocacies in policy matters was affecting their handling of the science and further that the epitome of that advocacy led directly to the IPCC and its involvement in presenting the evidence on only one side of the issue. It was not so much that what was revealed is a new problem with a science that leads more directly to policy, but rather that it makes it a bit more difficult to play the role of the disinterested and totally unbiased scientist.
Further, the defense of the emails is perhaps even more revealing and again is epitomized by the hide the decline handling and the ready acceptance of it as an innocent “trick” with some scientific standing. The consensus holders on AGW and the need for immediate mitigation and its defenders would appear by their actions to have more than the science steering their view.
Whispered deceits
Exploded into naked lies
Hide the Decline
AMac — The e-mails should have been released per the FOIA. Their release simply ended the effort to evade the law. Tough to get worked up morally when someone’s efforts to break the law are thwarted.
My ranking of what will turn out to be important in the year which followed:
1. Sloppy work — the revelations in the files and e-mails which show that the quality of the work was even sloppier than most skeptics suspected. In the end, more significant than the revelations of improper behavior by the scientists.
2. Corrupt establishment — the investigations in the UK and at Penn State. The gross inadequacy of their methodology was a complete shock. The failure to even bother to make a show of investigating spoke volumes about the extent of the corruption in academia and government. This aspect hasn’t been the subject of extensive comment to date, but I predict that this blatant corruption will prove to be a major stumbling block for honest people who try to evaluate the claims of climate alarmism in the future. It shows that the establishment was so far in the tank for the cause that it didn’t even bother to provide a fig leaf of plausibility with its whitewashes. Speaks volumes about the mindset and the depths of the rot.
3. The imprimatur of respectability to Steve McIntyre and blogs such as this one. A lot of scientists and journalists who once dismissed critics out of hand have come to realize over the last year that a lot of the criticisms were valid. Much to the chagrin of Mann, Jones et al and accompanied by much gnashing of teeth, that genie is not going back into the bottle. That’s going to make a huge difference in the future.
The theft revealed, in case anyone was still asleep, that the climate debate was not a debate about science, but had been turned into a political war by the deniers. The scientsts at the CRU already knew this, but, being scientsts and not politicians, had no idea how to fight it. Just one more victory for the “Merchants of Doubt”, and obtained using their usual methods.
Following Climategate, the AGW alarmists have been dead men walking.
Credibility shot in the eyes of anyone with any common sense [like most people on the street; what a concept, that…] and their we-will-tell-you-how-to-live view of society politcally stone dead.
Having seemingly won many political batlles over the past 20 years, the CRU emails in one fell swoop lost them the war.
Bugs, oh Bugs.. [61165]
You need to stay with the facts [I know that hard for you to do, but still, just try..]
“Climate science” was never realy about the “science”, but has always been about politics. Not because of nasty skeptics like me, but because that was in fact the IPCC’s intent all along.
Now I know the following will cause you and others your side of the fence a severe case of cognitive dissonance, but what do you do with the following statement? “Climate Policy is about Redistributing the World’s Wealth”. Who said so? IPCC’s Ottmar Edenhofer, Co-Chair of the IPCC’s Working Group III. Just last week, as a matter of fact.
Now, is that about science? Or just maybe about taking science hostage to achieve political ends?
Again, don’t take my skeptic word for anything. Just read, and read again, and again, the IPCC’s stated objective. Which is political and political only.
Something which I started to understand some 10 years ago and which is why I am a dyed-in-the-wool skeptic. But then again, better a skeptic than a water mellon.
Bugsy “the theft revealed”. What theft was that? Whistle-blowing is encouraged in the UK.
See http://johnosullivan.livejournal.com/27059.html to read all about the “theft”.
bugs,
If you need to lie to yourself so much, does it really help you?
Climategate was a fake scandal, an ad hominem attack on climate science. It’s not so much the email hacking/leaking that bothers me as the smear campaign against climate scientists, and the media’s double standard in giving a lot more coverage to the attacks on climate scientists then the inquiries which exonerated them.
Several independent inquiries have cleared the CRU scientists of hiding or manipulating data, downplaying uncertainty, or corrupting the peer review and IPCC processes. Yes, CRU did the wrong thing in blocking the FoIs, though it is clear that they perceived the requests as vexatious. The Muir Russell review found that some of the requests were part of an orchestrated campaign, but never really investigated the motivations behind that campaign – another double standard.
In defending the CRU scientists, I don’t want to come across as someone who thinks people with respectable jobs can’t do anything wrong. That’s not it at all. Scientists are human like everybody else, they make mistakes all the time, and sometimes they may behave badly. My complaint is that the media seem to expect scientists to be perfect. This is yet another double standard: climate scientists have to be right 100% of the time, but their critics are hardly ever held to account when they misunderstand and misrepresent science.
The entire work of CRU comprises only a small part of the evidence for AGW. Global warming has been observed not just on land but also over the oceans and in the troposphere, as well as being confirmed by other indicators such as ocean heat content, humidity, sea level, glaciers, and Arctic sea ice. And we don’t need the hockey stick to know that humans are causing global warming; the pattern of warming we observe is the same as that long predicted for greenhouse warming: the stratosphere is cooling, nights have warmed faster than days, and winters faster than summers.
So Climategate had no impact on climate science, yet politically it has been very damaging. Climate scientists are being targeted by unbelievably vitriolic and paranoid hate mail, and Phil Jones considered suicide. Climate scientist bashing has become a popular sport among talk radio hosts. And the Attorney General of Virginia, Ken Cuccinelli, has launched a witch-hunt against Michael Mann.
Some other anniversary posts which tell the true story of Climategate:
Skeptical Science: The question that skeptics don’t want to ask about Climategate
ClimateSight: The Real Story of Climategate
Our Changing Climate: Climategate: The scandal that wasn’t and the scandal that was
Irregular Climate podcast: Hindsight on Climategate
James Wight. I see you have many years of experience of science (not). So you think the Climategate emails are a fake scandal? You’ve practised scientific methodology for years have you? You believe the inquiries were independent do you?
I suggest you grow up, go out into the real world and earn a living and then come back and tell us all about your profound knowledge.
Consequences?
It is now possible to discuss some of the issues surrounding policy.
I can’t imagine this businessman telling the politicians straight in Scotland (and UK), about Energy policy a year ago..
http://www.aggreko.com/media-centre/press-releases/speech-to-scottish-parliament.aspx
Expect, lots more of:
“I believe in man made climate change, I’m not a deniar, BUT..”
I aslo jumped into blogland on the annivesary….
I could not resist…. the domain name.. (very early days)
http://www.realclimategate.org
Maybe Eric should not have deleted my replies on this one.
Jeff mentioned it, can’t find the link at the blackboard
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/07/01/extreme-climate/
“or c) that we consider it dishonest or disingenuous with respect to the science. Pielke Jr, Blackboard, and ClimateAudit all fall squarely into the latter category.–eric]”
I missed this at the time, Ray Ladbury’s response… which is worst, dishonest, disingenuous? or comparing climate adudit, the blackboard and pielke jnr to astrologists!
101Ray Ladbury says:
25 June 2010 at 11:44 AM
Barry Woods,
Perhaps they should link to Astrology blogs and Velikovsky advocates and conspiracy theorists, too. After all, we want to be inclusive and make sure we don’t hurt anyone’s feelings.
Get real. If you challenge the peer-reviewed science in a non-peer-reviewed venue, you are doing anti-science, not science. Your inability to tell the difference tells us all we need to know.
James Wight (Comment#61226) November 19th, 2010 at 9:33 pm
“?The entire work of CRU comprises only a small part of the evidence for AGW. Global warming has been observed not just on land but also over the oceans and in the troposphere, as well as being confirmed by other indicators such as ocean heat content, humidity, sea level, glaciers, and Arctic sea ice. And we don’t need the hockey stick to know that humans are causing global warming; the pattern of warming we observe is the same as that long predicted for greenhouse warming: the stratosphere is cooling, nights have warmed faster than days, and winters faster than summers.?”
I think the “science” of AGW has no scientific standards whatsoever and those emails just validated it. Anything and everything can be manipulated to prove it is real. The whole geologic record is discarded and climate history on this planet begins only when you knuckleheads say so and people, places and animals freezing or living NORMALLY and fine are forgotten (and so are FOI requests!) if they don’t fit the belief.
I remember every single day, you are only arguing about a fraction of one degree of “average temperature” (which tells you NOTHING much of anything at all really scientifically but it sure sounds important to you! LOL); constructed from questionable statistical methods ; obtained from all manner of thermometer readings that are not calibrated to each other -is the reality of it all and all it is.
You actually believe in this made up constructed number down to tenths of a degree representing the “entire planet”; manipulated by “hide the decline” and other government/welfare “scientists” at the CRU manages changes every single condition on Earth only for the worse? And this knowledge lets you dictate, insult and control me? I don’t think so! Political, loony and religious is all this junk is. I am ready to fight people like you James; by my vote; face to face; or tooth and nail if I have to.
What does “the whole geological record” have to do with an now? They can analyse what is happening now to our climate. When they do that, it’s CO2 that’s causing the majority of the warming. The geological record does not matter.
Everything cannot be manipulated. The IPCC reports are based on publicly published research. The ‘auditors’ were hard at work. People like Vincent Grey found nothing but some phrasing they didn’t like. The temperature record shows it is warming, the sun is not causing the warming. Milankovich cycles are not causing the warming. What else do you think it could be.
All you do is come up with a lot of empty phrases that tell us nothing.
If there was whistle blowing who was the whistle blower? Why did they hack into Realclimate to release the files and not take the usual whistle blower route of going to the press?
bugs (Comment#61298)
Ok bugs. for the tenth time of asking PROVE IT DEFINITELY that AGW is real.
You can’t and probably never will. And don’t quote models. No clouds, no oceans no good.
bugs (Comment#61298) November 20th, 2010 at 7:35 am
And you are just believing in climate models. Models are not alive. They aren’t making the decisions; they are being programmed. Once that programmer gives a condition or “force” a parameter and percentage of power in that model; and takes that power away from something else at work on Earth, or in the solar system; and is mistaken or a little wrong the model is wrong; and as it is run through time it gets even more wrong.
You keep saying that the Milankovitch cycles are not working. Are you daft? They do not stop! And NO ONE KNOWS, did you read that?>>> NO ONE KNOWS<<<< how long it takes from peak to trough…from peak warm like NOW to LOW TROUGH COLD. Nobody knows how long or how fast that happens. DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT??
I don't even believe there is a "warming" of an unprecedented or of an un-natural kind; THAT is a BELIEF and also why the geologic record matters and why you need to get rid of it. You also BELIEVE without proof that the temperatures could never rise and fall during short teeny tiny periods of time like the last 100 yrs; 1 degree; 2 degree or more ALL THE TIME naturally in the geologic record. You fail to understand whatever processes that were at work in the past are at work right now; and NO WHERE in the geologic record does C02 rise come before temperature rise and even when the concentrations were many orders of magnitude higher; thousands upon thousands ppm higher there was still ice for millions of years on earth and visa versa; much lower concentrations and it still got warm like after the LIA or last ice age!
Bugs
I know I’m probably only wasting Lucia’s bandwidth here, but still maintaining some shread of optimism, let me help you exercise what little threads of common sense muscles you might have…
goolge the two words…whistleblower anonymity…and report back to us.
Yeah, I know, just a bunch of oil-shilling-right-wing-organizations.
Bugs @ 7:35 AM
I think it is the same thing that warmed us into the Minoan Optimum, the Roman Optimum, and the Medieval Warm Period. And I note that ‘it’ quit after peaking during those times.
Show me where ‘it’ is in its pseudocycles and I’ll tell you future temps. Maybe. But CO2 ain’t even in ‘it’, so far as has been shown so far.
================
Lil’ “jewel”
My sister did bring
Andrew is Uncle again 🙂 🙂 🙂
gnostic facade cracks,
displays science with clay feet-
uncertainty comes.
“We know the future —
Disaster and tragedy.
Repent! Lest you burn.
Believe us!” they say;
Unreliability
Of forecasts be damned.
The shrouded emails
Exposed to the skeptical
More reasons to doubt.
In private they speak
the off-message truths not meant
for unfriendly ears.
Hell no! We won’t show
Data which may contradict;
Let’s hide the decline.
A lack of warming —
the data are surely wrong,
it’s a travesty.
Inconveniently
We celebrate the release
anniversary.
Bugs,
I trust you understand the definition of a “watermellon”. Green on the outside and red inside. Not red as in the US [i.e. Republican] but red as understood everywhere else in the world: the socialist vanguard [ made up of the workers and peasants and supported by the “useful idiot” intellectuals [ref: Lenin]] who will take the lead in destroying capitalism [by any and all means available]. That is where the IPCC comes in: any and all means available.
Ergo: “Climate Policy is about redistributing the World’s Wealth”. Straight from the [IPCC] horse’s mouth.
Where does that leave you and your comrades? “Useful idiot” watermellons? Better to be a skeptic, I would say.
Bugsy aka the Black Knight LOL
“You bleed on me?”
He/she did, but the BBC did nothing with it. Surprise, what? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1231763/BBC-weatherman-ignored-leaked-climate-row-emails.html
.
I guess the leaker choose the sceptic blogs because he/she was afraid, after the BBC failure, that the MSM would do nothing with it.
Re: James Wight (Nov 19 21:33),
Re: Steeptown (Nov 20 02:09),
James,
You self-describe on your blog as a “teenage science enthusiast.” That makes it all the much better to read your well-reasoned essay about the Climategate anniversary (Comment#61226).
I disagree with many of your conclusions, but then, reasonable people are going to disagree. The passions that swirl around AGW make the “reasonable” part quite challenging at times.
So, I hope you keep posting.
All this fuss – the hype, the slander, the dogma, the appeals to authority, the hubris, the ad hominem attacks and the lack of basic human respect – is all about the origins of an observed warming of, on average, 0.0000137 deg C per day since 1850.
Fascinating 🙂
Andrew_KY (Comment#61324) November 20th, 2010 at 10:39 am
Congrats Andrew_KY. 🙂
Thank you, Liza. 🙂
And I’m Proud And Pleased As Punch. 😉
Andrew
Steven Richards and Liza,
You ask for proof but your minds are completely made up and locked in some type of ideological rigor mortis, not a terribly good match for your hostile personalities (especially Liza). The overwhelming preponderance of evidence indicates that planet Earth is accumulating heat: irrespective of cause the temperatures of the surface and the troposphere are showing a clear century-long ascent, ice is melting world-wide, both land ice and sea ice. The preponderance of evidence also is most consistent with the warming being caused by an enhanced green house effect due to increasing concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere. You can rage and sputter all you want, but those are the simple facts.
Arfur Bryant (Comment#61352) November 20th, 2010 at 3:53 pm
When you put it that way, it demonstrates you don’t know what you are talking about.
tetris (Comment#61336) November 20th, 2010 at 1:29 pm
Please, become a skeptic. Don’t let me stop you.
Douggerell ( #61104) re Gavin’s courtesy
Also noted together with interesting comments by Mosher/Fuller in their book, Climategate: The CRUtape Letters.
See penultimate paragraph on page 177
Owen (Comment#61394) November 20th, 2010 at 10:08 pm
Darn right I am hostile. Those aren’t simple facts. you are either lying like a climate scientist, believing without real training and or just making stuff up.
Want to talk to a real earth scientist? I am married to one. He had to take years and years of school to get the title of senior environmental scientist, state geologist; and to pass a 9 hour long state test to be certified to sign official state documents and he’s been published twice. You are just a blog reader and YOU don’t know what you are talking about.
BTW, “the Earth is accumulating heat” That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever read on a climate blog.
Real climate forecast for today? Snow down to 4,000 ft- Southern California.
Arfur Bryant (Comment#61352) November 20th, 2010 at 3:53 pm
Exactly. And when they try to scare my kids and give them incomplete information and or put their hands on my wallet I do tend to get “hostile”. 😉
There’s not much difference between James up there being home schooled in Global Warming sans knowledge of the Geologic Record and other info or another kid being home schooled about Creation sans Evolution information and other info. I didn’t realize James was just a kid but I’m not apologizing for anything I said; that was for everyone who is arguing about A FRACTION of one degree. Besides; if I were “hostile” (reality: typing words and my opinion on blog and saying I would do it face to face and “fighting tooth and nail” if it comes to it; and or “Voting!”) toward the Creationists these knuckle heads probably wouldn’t stop me!
AndrewKY:
that’s so nice. Is her name Jewel? 🙂
spamming for the record:
Los Angeles County Mountains excluding the Santa Monica Range (California)
URGENT – WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LOS ANGELES/OXNARD CA
402 AM PST SUN NOV 21 2010
…WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT UNTIL 10 PM SUNDAY NIGHT FOR
THE MOUNTAINS OF VENTURA AND LOS ANGELES COUNTIES…
…WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 AM MONDAY FOR THE
SANTA BARBARA COUNTY MOUNTAINS…
.A COLD FRONT MOVING OVER THE AREA EARLY THIS MORNING WILL
CONTINUE TO PRODUCE ACCUMULATING SNOWFALL AND GUSTY WINDS THROUGH
TONIGHT.
CAZ053-054-211900-
/O.CON.KLOX.WS.W.0008.000000T0000Z-101122T0600Z/
VENTURA COUNTY MOUNTAINS-
LOS ANGELES COUNTY MOUNTAINS EXCLUDING THE SANTA MONICA RANGE-
INCLUDING THE CITIES OF…LOCKWOOD VALLEY…MOUNT PINOS…ACTON…MOUNT WILSON…SANDBERG
402 AM PST SUN NOV 21 2010
…WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 10 PM PST THIS EVENING…
A WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 10 PM PST THIS EVENING.
* TIMING: STEADY SNOWFALL WILL DEVELOP LATER THIS MORNING.
* SNOW ACCUMULATIONS: TOTAL SNOW ACCUMULATIONS ARE EXPECTED TO
AVERAGE BETWEEN 10 T0 18 INCHES ABOVE 7000 FEET BY TONIGHT WITH
5 TO 10 INCHES OCCURRING BETWEEN 5000 FEET AND 7000 FEET. LOCAL SNOW ACCUMULATIONS BETWEEN 2 AND 4 INCHES ARE POSSIBLE BETWEEN 4000 AND 5000 FEET ON SUNDAY.
The problem is not the FRACTION of one degree to date, it is the coming further rises in temperature. The change to date indicates that the science is correct. The total change will likely be between 3 and 4.5 degrees. In geological terms, that is a rapid and significant jump.
Liza–
Is that early or late for snow out there? We haven’t had any yet, so our first snow is late.
Lucia, it’s early and a bit different then usual; we had snow on our mountains last year by Christmas though not used to seeing that around here every single year although the largest mountain is named Mt. Baldy for that very reason. Some ski resorts were open until July of this year. I have some pictures I’ll try and share. I don’t know what the temps down below the mountains where I’m going to be for Thanksgiving are going to be; and I mean right below them literally; but we usually play some outdoor sports on that day with my family. Usually it is warm and sunny for basketball or football; etc. on Thanksgiving.
bugs (Comment#61449) November 21st, 2010 at 7:18 am
All depends on your idea of TIME and good, or bad. Again; the understanding of geology and the geologic record .
Are you thinking about the temperatures rising up since the Little Ice Age being wrong, too fast; unusual, or bad, bad bad ? An age that lasted some 500 plus years where thousands and thousands of people died and probably suffered from cold conditions and they prayed for those glaciers to stop advancing?
I would guess not.
bugs,
Is it reasonable to suppose that recognition of the medieval warm period only disposes of the word “unprecedented” with regard to warming, but otherwise might be meaningless since we don’t know the forcings associated with the mwp which maybe were different from today’s?
Or do we know the mwp forcings?
Lucia it’s pretty unusual for the Santa Barbara mountains to get snow at all, I do believe. That’s wine country up there.
Liza,
My New Little Twinkling Star’s name is Gemma 🙂
http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/0/Gemma
She is named after St. Gemma Galgani.
http://www.stgemma.com
And evidently, Owen doesn’t know what a ‘fact’ is… 😉
Andrew
Liza,
“Lying like a climate scientist?” Shame on you.
Please ask your climate scientist husband what then is causing the current rise in temperature and melting of ice. Please ask him to be more specific than just “natural variation,” so that we have measurable parameters or theoretical models to assess and critique.
By the way, you seem to feel that a prolonged increase in atmospheric and oceanic temperatures and concomitant melting of ice is not indicative of a planet accumulating heat. Interesting, especially when top-of-atmosphere satellites show a clear energy imbalance between incoming solar irradiation and outgoing infrared radiation. This is well-documented evidence.
I can’t find the one picture I want to share of all the snow but here is Mt. Baldy a little later on Jan.2 2010.
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=30clw0w&s=7
This is a view heading toward the Pasadena Ca area, kind of where Santa Anita race track which lies a bit to the east of this photo for reference. Mt Baldy’s peak is at 8,600 feet so you can imagine what it looks like with snow accumulating lower then that. If you google Santa Anita race track you will find the classic photos of it with this mountain range in the back ground. here’s one from wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SantaAnitaTrackMtns_wb.jpg
Owen, “Please ask your climate scientist husband what then is causing the current rise in temperature and melting of ice.”
If ice shows up on another part of the planet, like Southern California; is it really gone? LOL
The ice has been melting consistently since the ending of the last ice age; a mere 12,000 yrs or so ago. Ice THREE MILES HIGH covering half of the United States for example. C02 concentrations LOWER then now; and it still melted. You tell me why ice is NOT supposed to melt at the end of a glacial period.
“Interesting, especially when top-of-atmosphere satellites show a clear energy imbalance between incoming solar irradiation and outgoing infrared radiation. This is well-documented evidence.”
Oh really, what is that “balance” supposed to be exactly and are you telling me the sun, the orbit, the wobbles of this planet all are supposed to stay the same for ever? Sheesh.
Owen, do you understand that space technology is barely several decades old? Basically that matters; and you are claiming these readings of “energy balance”; a nano second in time; means something and everything when it pretty much adds up to “0” data when talking about a planet this old.
Bugs,
[bugs #61425:
When you put it that way, it demonstrates you don’t know what you are talking about.]
And
[bugs #61449
The problem is not the FRACTION of one degree to date, it is the coming further rises in temperature. The change to date indicates that the science is correct. The total change will likely be between 3 and 4.5 degrees. In geological terms, that is a rapid and significant jump.]
So I AM the one who doesn’t know what they’re talking about? Wow. I think I’ll put your comments in the ‘hubris’ category. Or maybe the ‘lack of basic human respect’ category…
I post something factual which is based on evidence and given a slightly different perspective, and you post stuff which is entirely based on prediction. Somehow, you interpret this as me not understanding the subject. Again, fascinating!
Re: Owen (Nov 21 08:45),
When you say well-documented, you need to cite at least one document.
My reading is that the satellite measurements are nowhere near precise and accurate enough to close the energy balance at a precision of less than 1 W/m2. It’s more like 5 W/m2. To show that there is an imbalance of 0.85 W/m2 as Hansen claims, you would need a precision of measurement of incoming and outgoing on the order of 0.1 W/m2. The best current measure of imbalance is ocean heat content. Recent ARGO data shows that the imbalance is very small. But ARGO hasn’t been around long enough to be considered reliable and have a sufficiently long baseline. It took a long time to work out all the problems with satellite temperature measurement. It will likely take about as long for ARGO. Data before ARGO from XBT measurements appear to show an imbalance on the order of 0.4 W/m2.
I thought so Owen. Silence.
bugs says:
[In geological terms, that is a rapid and significant jump.]
NO IT IS NOT. You are obviously not a geologist. lol
Quote: “I contend that none of these rates are `fast’. Contrast them with the rate of change now known from 12,000 years ago, characterized by `local, regional, and more-widespread climate conditions [which] demonstrate that much of the Earth experienced abrupt climate changes synchronous with Greenland within thirty years or less’ (Alley 2000. Quaternary Science Reviews 213-226), including `a warming of 7 °C in South Greenland [that] was completed in about 50 years’ (Dansgaard, White and Johnsen 1989, Nature 339: 532). That is a change roughly nine times as fast as has happened since 1980 – in Greenland or anywhere else. Another study gives even bigger numbers, saying that the `abrupt warming (10 ± 4 °C)’ at the end of the Younger Dryas and the warming at the end of a short lived cooler interval known as the Preboreal Oscillation `may have occurred within a few years’ (Kobashi et al 2008 Earth and Planetary Sciences 268:397). Nor was this rate of change confined to Greenland. As one article summarises, `temperatures from the end of the Younger Dryas Period to the beginning of the Holocene some 12,500 years ago rose about 20 degrees Fahrenheit in a 50-year period in Antarctica, much of it in several major leaps lasting less than a decade.’ (Science Daily, Oct 2 1998)”
From this post here:
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/best-shot
And there are graphs.
Why not tell us what the rate works out to per hour instead of per day, or per minute, or per second. Per micro second sounds even better. All of these rates are ‘facts’ too, but equally as meaningless, or more accurately, misleading.
Owen,
Earth has been around for some 4.5 billion years. As liza said above the levels of CO2 have been much much higher than they are now during that time and sometimes the Earth was ‘hot’ (tropical conditions in the Arctic) and other times the Earth was very cold (ice ages), and these fluctuations bore little relation to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
More recently we have had ad hoc human observations of temperature for around 400 years and more regular, but of varying reliability, observations for the last 150 years. Satellite observations began merely 30 years ago, have their problems and as DeWitt says are not precise enough. Climate models began in the early 1990’s, have become more sophisticated but still depend on the input parameters and are far from approaching anything that could be called reliable in forecasting future temperatures, especially on a regional basis.
Thus the WEIGHT of the Earth’s history is against you. All generations believe that their knowledge is the most up-to-date and ‘true’ . Only later is it discovered that this is not necessarily the case
Re: liza (Nov 21 14:07),
Bugs is right, it is a rapid and significant jump. So was the warming at the end of the Younger Dryas. And here is what sea levels were doing at that time.
I can’t get solace from these arguments that we don’t have to worry – it has all happened before. Large changes have happened, but not with 7 billion humans trying to maintain a civilisation. Here is a description of the last stages of sea level rise some time after the Younger Dryas.
More CAPS PEOPLE. I DON’T KNOW WHY YOU FEEL THE NEED TO USE THEM?
If the earth had been around 100billion years, it would not make any difference to where we are now. The scientists are not idiots, but your misunderstanding of what they think is supposed to make them out to be idiots. You need to understand better what they are saying before criticising them.
The references to CO2 and our need to stop putting so much into the atmosphere is to do with conditions today. We cannot ‘control’ the climate, but the current warming is an unintended consequence of our burning fossil fuels. We can reduce the extent of that warming be reducing the rate at which we burn fossil fuels.
Yes there are other forcings, but analysis of the climate reveals that the most significant forcing at present is the rise in CO2 levels. The climate is complex, and there are other forcings that have dominated at other times, and will dominate in the future when there is climate change. That is not the case now, which is what we are concerned about.
The current rise in temperature is rapid in geological terms, it is not the most rapid, it is not the record holder, but, in geological terms, it is rapid.
In the past when there has been similar rates of warming or cooling, it has resulted in mass extinctions.
The past 10,000 years has seen an unusually stable climate, and in that time, civilisation has flourished. Take away that stability, and we risk our civilisation. The earth will still be here, it’s just a large rock. The human race probably won’t die out, but it has been shown that past events have human race on the verge of extinction.
The best science is the best knowledge we have to work with. Deal with it. Giving in to bliss of ignorance is not what made us what we are today.
“I can’t get solace from these arguments that we don’t have to worry – it has all happened before.”
And I can’t find “rapid and significant jump” to be anything more than Chicken Littleism.
Nick, can I ask you what you plan to do peronsally, if a political solution to Global Warming fails to be implemented? Because there’s a chance there won’t be one implemented. Have you thought this through?
Andrew
Lisa and Dave Andrews,
I understand your point about the prior climate history of the earth, a history that has been painstakingly elucidated by paleo-climate scientists (of all things). Do you really think climate science today discounts all that has happened before, or fails to put it into proper context? Do you think that climate science today sees CO2 as the sole forcing agent in the history of the planet? It is most certain from the paleoscience that climate changes, both large and rapidly occurring, have happened in the past (the speed of which indicates how important feedbacks may be).
Apart from CO2, what is driving the current changes? That is a key question for skeptics. TSI is at a 100 year low, is there anything occurring with respect to the Earth’s orbital ellipticity or precessional angle?
The changes we are seeing today are worrisome and rapid changes in climate could have a major impact on world food production. This recent warming is something well worth studying and understanding. It is important the we build better data collection systems and better quantitative models, both needed to forecast possible near- and long-term issues.
Over the past millions of years, the earth has sequestered enormous amounts of reduced carbon underground lowering atmospheric levels. The rate of conversion of sequestered reduced carbon to gaseous oxidized carbon in the past 200 years has been startling. China has now surpassed the USA in CO2 production, with India soon to follow. In another 100 years we will have seriously amended the atmosphere of this planet.
Saying that these changes are unimportant could ultimately prove to be correct, but evidence continues to accumulate that says that big changes are afoot and happening rapidly. Please don’t subvert the further study of this phenomenon or try to undermine the need for such studies.
Nick Stokes,
So you agree there is a social as well as a scientific dimension to the ‘climate problem’. That is it is not ‘just’ about the science (as you see it).
This is progress! Now you can start thinking about alternative responses that actually do something to dramatically improve the social dimension so that future generations can be better equipped to deal with any putative problems associated with AGW
Owen:
You mean these changes?
“Please don’t subvert the further study of this phenomenon or try to undermine the need for such studies.”
Owen,
None one is against further study, as far as I can tell.
What we don’t like is when people (like you) claim there is a problem when there isn’t one.
Andrew
DeWitt Payne (Comment#61486)
November 21st, 2010 at 1:57 pm
Re: Owen (Nov 21 08:45),
“When you say well-documented, you need to cite at least one document.”
Please see below for TOA energy imbalance: http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2008BAMS2634.1
Re: Andrew_KY (Nov 21 15:19),
“Nick, can I ask you what you plan to do peronsally, if a political solution to Global Warming fails to be implemented?”
Book myself into an old folks home at higher altitude.
Andrew_KY (Comment#61499)
November 21st, 2010 at 3:26 pm
“Please don’t subvert the further study of this phenomenon or try to undermine the need for such studies.â€
‘Owen,
None one is against further study, as far as I can tell.
What we don’t like is when people (like you) claim there is a problem WHEN THERE ISN’T ONE (my emphasis).’
So Andrew, I assume that you are convinced that the science is settled.
Nick Stokes (Comment#61502)
November 21st, 2010 at 3:37 pm
Re: Andrew_KY (Nov 21 15:19),
“Nick, can I ask you what you plan to do peronsally, if a political solution to Global Warming fails to be implemented?â€
Book myself into an old folks home at higher altitude.
See… I knew you weren’t serious about all this. 😉
Andrew
Carrick (Comment#61498)
November 21st, 2010 at 3:26 pm
Carrick,
No, I mean these changes (ca. 1 degree change):
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1900
or these (ca. 0.5 degree change)
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from/plot/wti/trend
Since when did HadCRUT become your new best friend?
“So Andrew, I assume that you are convinced that the science is settled.”
Owen,
No, any person with an inquiring mind can see that the science is unsettled. That’s why my position is that no problem can be conclusively identified.
It’s like when a user calls and says his computer doesn’t work, expecting it should be fixed. It could be that the user just doesn’t know what they are doing, and the computer is fine. You have to glean sufficient information to even start heading toward what will satisfy the user. If you don’t have enough information, you are just guessing. This is where climate science is. Not enough information.
Andrew
Andrew,
“This is where climate science is. Not enough information.”
So where do you stand on the following questions:
1) should climate research be continued even though expensive?
2) are climate scientists competent to carry out such research?
3) what would it take to convince you that we are facing a real problem?
Owen,
1) That is a judgement call. We shouldn’t spend public money where it isn’t necessary. Private money can be spent as desired.
2) Depends on the climate scientist(s). Another judgement call. Incompetents/criminals should be passed over in favor of honest scientists.
3) For years I’ve been asking where I can go/what I should do to view/experience the most convincing evidence for AGW. To this day, no one has directed me to any and in addition, the people who push AGW haven’t seen the evidence themselves either, further confirming my denialism.
Andrew
Owen,
what problem do you exactly have in mind?
AFAIK the humankind faced always more troubles when the temperatures went down. Not up.
Andrew,
I teach analytical chemistry at a private liberal arts college and I was asked to give a talk on the science of global warming last spring. I knew little, but did as much reading as I could fit in, collecting where possible measured data related to global energy balance/accounting, surface atmospheric temperatures, tropospheric temperatures, arctic ice extent and estimated volume, GRACE and crustal uplift measurements of Greenland ice pack, and Jason I and II measurements of sea level. I was impressed by the influx of new, satellite-based technology that is being brought to bear on the whole issue and by the rigor of the science. I did no reading on ice cores, proxy data, the thermodynamics of heat transfer in the atmosphere, and climate modeling and must admit real deficiencies in those areas.
My general take was this: there seems to be data from a widely diverse set of measurements that all point in the same direction and which are generally self-reinforcing. I do not assume by any means that the whole story has been told, but the force of evidence, in my mind, points to a persistent warming of the earth which is due in part to increasing levels of CO2. I expect that warming to continue. I could well be wrong, but this is how it looks to me at this point.
Owen – I dropped by to look for a past post on another topic but your comment above caught my eye. As an analytical chemist I guess you must have pretty strong scientific background. Please could you explain what has convinced you that the changes we are now able to monitor through satellite and other technologies are of a different order of magnitude (in both size and rate) to past environmental changes and what has convinced you that this is in part due to CO2, what the other players are along with some numbers about how big a part you think CO2 plays. I’ve had a quick skim upthread but did not see anything along those lines, apologies if I’ve missed it. Thanks
curious (Comment#61522)
November 21st, 2010 at 5:51 pm
Owen – I dropped by to look for a past post on another topic but your comment above caught my eye. As an analytical chemist I guess you must have pretty strong scientific background. Please could you explain what has convinced you that the changes we are now able to monitor through satellite and other technologies are of a different order of magnitude (in both size and rate) to past environmental changes and what has convinced you that this is in part due to CO2, what the other players are along with some numbers about how big a part you think CO2 plays. I’ve had a quick skim upthread but did not see anything along those lines, apologies if I’ve missed it. Thanks
Curious,
I don’t think that current changes are unique because of their magnitude or rate of occurrence. A ca. one degree in the past 110 years is obviously small in comparison to changes seen going into and out of ice ages. In most cases, pre-historic massive changes were associated with known causes – regular changes in orbital elipticity or precessional angle, or unpredictable changes in solar activity (Maunder Minimum). There appears to be nothing in the picture right now that can account for such a rapid change in temperature and the onset of melting ice, save the lock-step parallel increase in atmospheric CO2. I have seen spectra of outgoing infrared radiation taken by TOA satellites and the depression in the emission spectrum at the 15 micron absorption band is clearly evident. CO2 is absorbing a chunk of outgoing thermal radiation and that absorption should reduce the rate of heat loss from the planet.
Thanks Owen – this bit is generally accepted:
“CO2 is absorbing a chunk of outgoing thermal radiation and that absorption should reduce the rate of heat loss from the planet.”
But what you haven’t given is numbers which show the basis on which you hold this view:
“I do not assume by any means that the whole story has been told, but the force of evidence, in my mind, points to a persistent warming of the earth which is due in part to increasing levels of CO2. I expect that warming to continue.”
However I realise you acknowledge you could be wrong and that the picture is incomplete.
Re: Owen (Nov 21 15:35),
Did you actually read that reference? I’m quite familiar with TFK09.
[my emphasis]
That is not a measurement of the actual imbalance, that is numbers adjusted to reflect the theoretical imbalance. Try again.
save me a spot Nick.
Owen
“There appears to be nothing in the picture right now that can account for such a rapid change in temperature and the onset of melting ice, save the lock-step parallel increase in atmospheric CO2.”
How can someone who claims to be a scientist write something so blatantly false?
It’s blatently true. If you want a more detailed explanation, it’s in the IPCC report. There are more indicators that it’s CO2. There is the cooling stratosphere, the rising sea levels due to ocean warming.
Bugs
Get with it. Even Phil ‘destroy the emails” Jones has publicly acknowledged [on the BBC no less] that there has been no statistically significant warming since at least 1998. Likewise the Royal Society, the French Academy of Sciences and a few other organizations who have finally taken the time to sift through the tea leaves.
It is borderline delusional to continue to argue that [only man-made, of course] CO2 is the sole and main cause of a purported warming when that warming has simply not been happening over the last 1/3 of the 30 year 1979-2009 period. The 20th century saw three warming and cooling cycles and the temperature stagnation and downward trend since 1998 fits that pattern just fine.
Maybe you should read up on Occham’s Razor: “when hearing the sound of thundering hooves, think horses not zebras”..
tetris (Comment#61584) November 22nd, 2010 at 5:02 am
It’s when you need to cherry pick quotes out of context that I know you are a d******r.
steven mosher
I’m sort of figuring lots in the U.P. would be nice.
@ Bugs
Let med first probe an assumed implicit simplifying assumption.
Do I understand you correctly if a cooling stratosphere is considered to be a consequence of CO2 driven AGW?
If we then in the forthcoming years observe a continued CO2 increase, but a stratospheric warming (relative to a given time-periodic baseline), would you consider this a falsification of a simplified (CO2driven) AGW hypothesis?
Cassanders
In Cod we trust
Bugs,
I suggest you dial up the BBC interview. The Jones quote is entirely within context.
Oh, and where is the [man-made] CO2-driven warming since 1998? Care to provide some data? And you might also want to answer Cassanders’ question, so we can all share in your understanding of the issue.
“How can someone who claims to be a scientist write something so blatantly false?”
Should be: How can someone who claims to be a scientist write and lecture students something so blatantly false?
I am sitting here just imagining what bits he didn’t say in that “talk on the science of global warming” too.
Owen:
” prior climate history of the earth, a history that has been painstakingly elucidated by paleo-climate scientists (of all things).”
UM NO! BS! This work was done by geologists and you wouldn’t know the climate could change at all without them. And the one here in my house who went through years of school to EARN his title who does not spout what he thinks “about the science” from skimming through propaganda like “rapid changes in climate could have a major impact on world food production.” Where’s your references? Plants happen to like C02; and plants and animals like warm weather too Mr. Liberal Arts Scientist. And you didn’t look at any data I provided in my link did you? Just like bugs didn’t. DISGUSTING.
Bugs: “The past 10,000 years has seen an unusually stable climate”
spouting your religious BS as usual. Just like “in geological terms this warming is rapid” BS.
Lucia and Steven Mosher,
So you guys haven’t made any plans to escape Global Warming until just now. You are just now getting around to thinking about it, after a decade or so.
Would you please keep us updated on the progress of your Escape From Global Warming? Those would make for some real interesting posts, I reckon. Or maybe a book? 😉
Andrew
Andrew_KY–
I live near Chicago where we have Siberian winter. Retirees with money all dream of moving to Florida. Why would I make immediate plans to move to escape?
Those retirees in Florida had frozen lizards falling on their heads.
“lucia (Comment#61606)
November 22nd, 2010 at 7:36 am
Andrew_KY–
I live near Chicago where we have Siberian winter. Retirees with money all dream of moving to Florida. Why would I make immediate plans to move to escape?”
You are the brainiac who believes in Global Warming. You tell me. 😉
Andrew
Andrew_KY (Comment#61495) says, “Nick, can I ask you what you plan to do peronsally, if a political solution to Global Warming fails to be implemented?”
————
Andrew_KY,
The more relevant question for me is, perhaps, where will I move if there is a political solution to Global Warming. If by some very small chance it were to come to pass then I hope space exploration accelerates exponentially so I can be off-earth. It would be voting with my feet time. I now have visions of the near future based on Robert A. Heinlein’s SciFi book ‘The Moon is a Harsh Mistress’.
Stay on earth and fight the political destruction caused by a political solution to GW? I am not a coward, but high orbit (moon orbit) military aid for any resistance on earth certainly will become useful for the resistance, n’est-ce pas?
John
bugs:
bugs is one of those people who can’t admit truth when he sees it.
Using HADCRUT3V (which I think he was using), the OLS temperature trend has been flat. Obviously that’s not consistent with statistically significant warming. Since 2002, according to HADCRUT3V, the trend has actually been a cooling one.
Cooling is not warming, and Jones AFAIK was not taken out of context. I think you need to apologize.
John,
I hear you. I’m looking to Lucia, Steven Mosher and Nick Stokes for guidance myself. You know, because they know all about Global Warming, and how to make our futures secure. If anything goes sideways, those guys will surely have thought ahead (as they must surely be doing at this very moment) and they are ready to tell all of us what we should do.
Andrew
Liza
When? Weather underground reports 71F in Orlando today. That’s well above freezing. I haven’t read any reports of Florida lizard extinctions due to cold.
Does it sometimes freeze in Florida? Sure. When it happens this can be a problem for orange growers. But it’s the year round temperatures are warmer than Chicago where no one would even consider trying to grow oranges and lizards don’t make it through any winters.
Even the most alarmist global warming predictions don’t anticipate Chicago’s climate being as warm as Florida’s any time soon.
Bugs, some of things you said actually made a little sense for once. However, you did say that there is an expected 3.5-4 degress of warming. This is BASED on FEEDBACKS AMPLIFYING THE WARMING. I think you well know that Dr. Lindzen believes that this notion is incorrect. Also, you should know that there is a discrepancy between the predicted feebacks and the actual satellite data, as Lindzen has stated many times.
Furthermore, because the temperature has fluctuated in the past, as you mentioned, there is really no way to be sure if co2 is the main contributor to the current warming. Anyway, let’s pretend for a minute it is. What if this rise in temperature has triggered a response from the clouds and as a result, more clouds are forming? Who knows?
lucia (Comment#61615) November 22nd, 2010 at 8:40 am
dis·in·gen·u·ous/ˌdisinˈjenyo͞oəs/
Adjective: Not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does.
It’s comments like yours only adds to the suspicion that this GW stuff is not science at all; did I even mention extinction? NO.
Lizards were falling out of trees FROZEN lucia and you know it. Pelicans huddled together frozen on the beach. Both in Florida 2008. Do I have to search this site to show you you know about it? Because I told you. Freezing cattle and people in South America too and United States experienced its coldest winter in 25 years- all last year. Tons more C02 pumped into the air all that time; not less.
Global warming; anything and everything is made to claim of its existence except anything that does not; even freezing people and animals. NO STANDARDS at all.
“Even the most alarmist global warming predictions don’t anticipate Chicago’s climate being as warm as Florida’s any time soon.”
You don’t get out enough!
Over simplified, as usual.
http://www.abc.net.au/ra/innovations/stories/s2967862.htm
YEAH, BIG CAPS.
Jones is saying look at the time span. You can disagree with Jones, but you can’t misrepresent him.
Over simplified, as usual. Yes you are.
Warmer temps are better for the Economy and Health for millions of people in the USA: http://www.stanford.edu/~moore/health.html
Fully navigable, the Northwest Passage will make the trip 4,000 miles shorter for ships traveling between Europe and Asia.
Shorter and more mild winters will mean less time spent indoors with the heater on getting cold, not exercising and feeling depressed. There will be a reduction in warm weather clothing and goods. Warmer weather is safer. Animals and plants thrive in warm climates.
Improved Beer Quality:
On July 31 a team of canny entrepreneurs unveiled Greenland Beer, an ale brewed with water melted from Greenland’s ice cap, at a public tasting in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Staffed by indigenous Greenlanders and located some 390 miles (625 kilometers) south of the Arctic Circle, Greenland Brewhouse is the world’s first Inuit microbrewery.
And if reaction from tipplers at the tasting was any indication, the brewers may be on to something. Electrician Flemming Larsen described the ale to the Associated Press as “smooth, soft, but not bitter … different from most other beer.
LOL! There’s more; but I got a life (and it is 40 degrees here in So. Cal. right now Global warming my ass!)
Andrew_KY (Comment#61614)
November 22nd, 2010 at 8:39 am
Andrew_KY (Comment#61614) said. “John, I hear you. I’m looking to Lucia, Steven Mosher and Nick Stokes for guidance myself. You know, because they know all about Global Warming, and how to make our futures secure. If anything goes sideways, those guys will surely have thought ahead (as they must surely be doing at this very moment) and they are ready to tell all of us what we should do. Andrew”
—————-
Andrew,
With all due respect to Lucia (our generous host and thank you Lucia for that), Nick Stokes and Steve Mosher the game is on a lower level tragetory than they appear to have anticipated. Strongly independent thought exists at the lower trajectory. It is only the middle and higher trajectories that intellectuals seem to have less independence.
bugs quote:
Which is the problem with the entire methodology in the OMGCAGW group:
There is no “bottom” to worse case scenarios. And it makes people who think you should start with the “worst case” look like an uneducated idiot, or a charlatan, or both.
It’s just not how science should be practiced. You should state the most likely outcome and bracket it with your best estimate of the 95% CI.
Most likely outcome is increased cultivatable lands due to net increase in global precipitation and longer growing season. For CO2 increases from 400 to 600 ppm, the effects on nutrition are modest, and easily offset by improved agricultural practices.
Just junk science and bugs is pushing it.
“Yes but only just” is still “yes”. Jones also calculates his error bars wrong, a separate issue.
Liza
I know this? How?
Sorry, but you may very well know it, but I don’t keep track of everything that happens during the unusual cold snaps in FL. Florida does sometimes have cold spells– and did even when I was a kid.
Yes. You have to search the site and show whatever it is you have said. Because
a) I don’t read your every comment,
b) I don’t remember every comment or even every conversation and
c) Yes. I hold you to the same standards as scientists: If you will sometimes have to repeat yourself.
Liza,
I live in Florida, about 30 miles north of Palm Beach. I have plenty of lizards around my house… my cat kills them daily for entertainment… so I suspect they are not that tasty. Last winter was much colder than average (setting a January-February record for average temperatures), but it never actually reached freezing in the air (a few mornings, frost formed on exposed surfaces, but the air remained above 0C). Sorry, no falling frozen lizards… I would have taken note.
We did have a big fish die-off when the shallow estuary water temperatures reached ~50F. The more tropical species, including invasive species from South America, were the hardest hit. The more tolerant northern species were most pleased about the free meals.
Here the search comes up with these first:
The Blackboard » Early Spring Haiku
Mar 21, 2010 … Frozen Floridian lizards falling from trees like rain. Nothing to see here, move along. ;).
rankexploits.com/musings/2010/early-spring-haiku/
The Blackboard » GMU investigating Wegman
Oct 8, 2010 … And the frozen lizards and pelicans in Florida either. So you can’t even imagine weather in the past too! lol. It doesn’t matter if the past …
rankexploits.com/musings/2010/gmu-investigating-wegman/
Sep 20, 2010… lizards have fallen out of trees because they’ve been too cold.) …… Your mentioning of frozen turbulence hypothesis confirms my …
rankexploits.com/habari/physicists
And Steve F:
Cold Snap Causes Frozen Iguana Shower
http://www.wesh.com/weather/14973518/detail.html
Fruits freeze, iguanas drop from trees in Florida
Tourist beachgoers wrap up as Arctic blast hits so-called Sunshine State
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34746400/ns/weather
Are you paying attention now? LMAO
Liza–Your leaving a haiku in 2010 that refers to lizards freezing, providing no link is hardly going to cause me to “know” that lizards might have frozen at some point. Your referring to them again without providing a link is hardly going to cause me to “know” lizards froze.
But thanks for the link which tells us
and also
Yes. During florida cold snaps, pets imported from central america will have troubles. So will orange trees.
This is still nothing like Chicago winters.
Living approximately 30 miles south of SteveF ( 😉 ) I can also say I didn’t see lizards dropping from trees in hibernation induced by unseasonable weather. But I think that we may be too far south for that sort of thing, anyway. I gets too cold for me sometimes, but this part of Florida is, but most people’s standards, warm all year round.
SteveF (Comment#61636)-Also, what I thought about the fish was… Viva la Natural Selection!
Bugs,
You keep on repeating yourself. We are talking flea farts in terms of real world temp fluctuations.
Meanwhile, data are coming in that the world is actually in the process of discovering that hydrocarbon energy sources are not near their end [e.g. “peak oil”]. On the contrary, we are finding more and more, every day, through new technologies. And, hate to break it to you, we are finding ever more efficient ways of extracting this energy and using it, and the market is buying. On the other hand the markets have understood that in the absence of massive government hand outs, “alternative sources of energy” simply are not an alternative.
Remember through all of this, that it has have never, repeat never, repeat never, been demonstrated in any repeatable and verifiable scientific model that increased levels of CO2 cause changes in global temps. Interesting hypothesis, but not supported by the data.
Therefore falsified.
Liza,
“Cold Snap Causes Frozen Iguana Shower”
They were not frozen… and not even dead, just very lethargic from exposure to colder than normal temperatures. Iguanas (natives of the true tropics) have not evolved behaviors to protect themselves from cold. Iguanas in the wild are almost unknown in Florida except in the extreme south, because they can’t deal very well with even the normal cool temperatures we have in winter. Pet iguanas that escape are sometimes seen, but they don’t last long once they have no protection from cold temperatures. Most of them probably get eaten when they are too lethargic to flee a predator.
The smaller native lizards (of which there are several species, mostly under 3 – 4 inches long) find protected hiding places when it turns cold. So you don’t see them at all when it is unusually cold, even though they are constantly running about at normal temperatures. They also bite your fingers if you pick them up (you have to be quick to catch them!), but they are too small to hurt much. They have evolved to escape predators by dropping off most of their tail, which then squirms violently on the ground for 30 seconds or so, often distracting the predator, as they run to safety.
Truly freezing weather mostly happens from ~60 miles south of Orlando to further north. In 15 years, I have not seen a single instance of the air temperature reaching 0C.
“Are you paying attention now? LMAO”
I think we may be witnessing something called “The Monckton Effect”…
That’s when something Monckton said or did gets on the radar, and it gets an inordinate amount of attention, and then other potentially interesting stuff gets overlooked. 😉
Andrew
Andrew_KY,
You don’t find falling lizards interesting? 😉
SteveF,
I do find them interesting. Lizards seem very laid-back to me. I appreciate that.
They are way ahead of spiders on my list. Sometimes spiders just sit there too, but for some reason the spiders seem to have an ugly attitude about it, like they are waiting to do something even creepier. 😉
Andrew
Andrew_KY,
“Lizards seem very laid-back to me.”
You haven’t had one bite you. They are not that laid back. Aside from being cannibals, they are pretty aggressive with each other.
“You haven’t had one bite you. They are not that laid back. Aside from being cannibals, they are pretty aggressive with each other.”
SteveF,
Thanks for the Lizard-Lore. 😉
Andrew
Bugs: #61490
“Why not tell us what the rate works out to per hour instead of per day, or per minute, or per second. Per micro second sounds even better. All of these rates are ‘facts’ too, but equally as meaningless, or more accurately, misleading.”
Facts are meaningless? Not in this debate they’re not. If you feel happy quoting IPCC predictions, then go for it. Facts are never meaningless. Now model predictions like the figures you gave – that’s a different story.
Misleading? Only if you have an agenda that doesn’t suit the facts. But, however you interpret the facts, they still tell us that the overall warming from any and all forcings and feedbacks since 1850 is about 0.8 deg C. No-one can say how much of that is due to CO2 and other ghgs. No-one can even say how much of the Greenhouse Effect is due to CO2 and other ghgs. They – and you – can guess, but that’s all it would be. If the CAGW theory was correct (as lauded by you and the IPCC), the temperature rise would be accelerating. It is not. That is a fact.
Bugs,
Surely worse case scenarios, as talked about by Dr Gleadow, are generally produced by the military (especially since the dawn of the nuclear era)? They don’t represent an analysis that could be called scientific in any meaningful way and often are produced to ensure continued funding of the pet projects etc.
Perhaps Dr Gleadow has forgotten what it is to be a scientist or maybe he has just been seduced by buzz phrases like ‘war on ‘ this, that and the other.
Dave Andrews (Comment#61668) November 22nd, 2010 at 2:50 pm
The ‘worst case scenario’ he is referring to is not the toxic effects on what the plants produce, it is the levels of CO2. They are on track to worst case scenario. We will every bit of fossil fuel we can find. The production of cyanide and other toxic substances by plants to enhance their self defence mechanism is dependent on the amount of CO2 present. That is, the plant, now that it has a surplus of CO2, can now either just grow bigger, or, it can do something else with this extra resource it has. For some plants, and some of these plants are important food sources, they become more toxic.
This is going to be a huge problem for koalas. They are already adapted to a food source that is toxic and indedible to pretty well everything else, but they are living on the edge. Make the eucalypts more toxic, and they may well not be able to survive.
liza (Comment#61623) November 22nd, 2010 at 9:54 am
Simplified. You seem to ignore the already warm areas that will now become hotter. Fires, drought and extreme heat are associated with higher temperatures in areas that already have a warm climate.
Now, if we can just figure out how to freeze that GEICO gecko then we wouldn’t need to listen to that tired old commercial anymore.
: )
John
Its all here
http://www.nctimes.com/app/blogs/wp/?p=5813
these people should be given absolutely no further attention and be prosecuted for fraud. They should not be let close to any tertiary institution anywhere.
bugs:
“Simplified. You seem to ignore the already warm areas that will now become hotter.”
You mean like the warm state of Florida did? With freezing lizards?
LOL!!!!
If lizards were fluffy and cute somebody would be worried.
😉 (I like lizards; we have alligator lizards in our yard; aka “wall lizards”)
bugs:
It’s both and you know it.
He’s worse case scenario’ing everything under the sun and inside it. He’s assuming the worst case scenario for CO2 production and for what effects the CO2 will have on the plants and on the animals that eat them.
That part is completely obvious.
Unfortunately bugs, plants having less nutrients makes absolutely no sense. Plants were much larger and nutrient rich during the time of the dinsoaurs, part of the reason they grew so large. Additionally, additional co2 allows plants to use water more efficiently.
Liza has now proven definitively that global warming does not exist – its cold in Florida. Good solid use of anecdotal evidence (and of lizards). Well done.
Soon, when hot temps return to that state of electoral dissonance, I’ll be back to proclaim the reemergence of climate change.
Then Liza will proclaim unseasonably cold temps in California………..und so weiter.
This is actually fun, and so enlightening.
Methane alarmism?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101122/ap_on_re_eu/eu_climate_siberian_meltdown
He’s not. They have looked at the response of various plants to higher CO2 levels. The extra CO2 is not necessarily used just for growth, just as not all the CO2 at the levels we have now is used just for growth. Various plants use the existing CO2 levels to create toxins for defense against predators, which is hardly surprising. Extra CO2 allows them to create more toxins. It’s hardly surprising. What would be unusual would be if those plants that do create toxins used the extra CO2 only for growth.
Creatures like the Koala do live in a very special niche. Similar to the panda, they eat a lot of low nutrition vegetation. The eucalypts also produce a toxic oil, which the koala can tolerate to an extent. Bump up the toxin levels, can they still cope? Evolution will respond, but that could take longer than the time this change is occuring in.
The quote is quite clear to me.
The worst case scenario in regards to the accumulation of CO2 is happening, as he says. They are investigating what the response of the biological world to that level of CO2 will be.
Owen:
More junk science. IMO.
bugs, I agree there are issues for creatures in specialized niches, when you have rapid climate change. (Of course that has always been true.)
“Worst case scenario” is just another way of saying “I bullshit a lot.”
Owen (Comment#61708) November 22nd, 2010 at 7:25 pm
Oh shush Mr. Junk Scientist. I gave you real research and data in at least one of my replies to you, with a link; and you ignored it. The point is that every heat wave is now blamed on global warming but a cold snap is brushed aside as if it didn’t happen or mean anything; even if animals and people perished in it. You just confirmed that.
And as a matter of fact, Mr. Junk Science, Southern California had temperatures 8-10-20° BELOW normal almost all summer. We basically didn’t have one. And you are still arguing about .5 degrees “for the whole world” from “wildly diverse” sources. Gee all those thermometers not calibrated to each other…know the temperature for the whole world down to tenths of a degree! Wow.
Steve F:
“SteveF (Comment#61649) November 22nd, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Liza,
“Cold Snap Causes Frozen Iguana Showerâ€
They were not frozen… and not even dead, just very lethargic from exposure to colder than normal temperatures”
Um, never said anything about lizards being dead. I said they were frozen and so did the headline. “just very lethargic from exposure to colder than normal temperatures” THAT means frozen. The dead animals were the pelicans I saw in the news; dead and huddled on the beach together because of hypothermia; and the other dead were the cattle in South America! Animals becoming lethargic from colder then normal temperatures and animals dying from colder then normal temperature is NOT in the Global Warming Bible is it?
Could you get this simple idea understood. It doesn’t matter if they aren’t calibrated to each other. The temperature is measured as anomolies for each thermometer with respect to itself. In this case, ‘Anomolies’ means deviation from some arbitrary temperature baseline. So all they are looking at is differences, not absolute temperature.
Climategate: Scientists Behaving Badly and their Science accredited followers like Owen should either be fired and have their degrees revoked. If my husband, a California state certified scientist, ever spoke to people like that, hid or treated data like that, ignored other data (including the geologic record) and tried to skirt FOI like they did; and operated and formed opinions consistently from some political ideology he would be sued and fired.
Bugs –arbitrary?
— adj
1. founded on or subject to personal whims, prejudices, etc; capricious
2. having only relative application or relevance; not absolute
3. (of a government, ruler, etc) despotic or dictatorial
4. maths not representing any specific value: an arbitrary constant
5. law (esp of a penalty or punishment) not laid down by statute; within the court’s discretion
” from some arbitrary temperature baseline.”
Boy is that an understatement.
I understand all that bugs. I am talking about “average global temperature” and how it was derived from proxy temperature sources. The IPCC even says “tree rings and other thermometers” like ship logs. See now you are going to tell me that past temperatures beyond some date; don’t matter now.
A real scientist running an experiment to support a hypothesis states BEFORE they begin what data will convince them the hypothesis is correct. Not Global Warming hypothesis. Everything and anything can be claimed as evidence and made to fit. You won’t even listen to what Phil Jones said. No warming.
Lucia, I posted a link to that news article about lizards when it happened. The search couldn’t find the original mention -it was over a year ago or more. I kept mentioning it because I wanted to and it is amusing how it was ignored. I suspect you ignore my posts most of the time anyway. I never said lizards died. What the heck does it matter if they were stunned or dead from cold when the globe is supposed to be warming?
I swear you guys are relentless. If the Earth is warming; and all manner of catastrophes are blamed on .5 degree rise every single day/ why or why can’t the “learned” people here and the “scientists” at a least say “oh that’s weird” when there is news like lizards stunned by cold in a warm place? Thousands of cattle dying in South America? I’ve been sharing that I am cold; colder then usual; summer and winter where I live in Southern California for the past couple of years on this blog. And I’ve now have been called hostile. I am apparently supposed to bow down or give up and let this crap become the law of the land. I don’t think so!
John (Comment#61774) November 23rd, 2010 at 6:45 am
Thank you! that’s what I meant by understatement. 🙂
Here’s Michael Mann; King of the Climate, brushing aside “an unusually cold winter across the USA and Europe” and at the same time blaming a summer heat wave on the East Coast on Global Warming.
http://www.cleanskies.com/videos/exonerated-climategate-professor-speaks-out
“http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/nov/23/forecasters-warn-of-blizzard-in-washington-state/
“Rare blizzard” hits Washington state. Warnings for Utah and Oregon.
People died last night and today because of the dangerous cold conditions… in the era of Global Warming.
bugs:
You and I have our disagreements (mostly centered on what I see as irrational conclusions drawn from otherwise reasonable science), but this isn’t one of them. The biggest issue that is left out in this discussion is difference in scale. If you have an increased rate of warming in different regions, then first differencing (“amomalization”) by itself doesn’t fix that.
I’m pretty confident that Liza is never going to be able to follow this, even from a lack of the right background, being too stuborn and obtuse, or both. Based on her continuing citing of extreme winter weather events, she doesn’t understand the distinction between climate and weather either. Nor does she know the difference between observational and experimental science, since she continually discusses philosophical artifices of the latter that can’t be applied to to the former.
(I think people like you or Tamino who resist admitting that the Earth could actually cool over a period of eight years even in the presence of long-term increase in CO2 forcings, don’t understand the distinction between weather/short-term climate and long term climate at some fundamental level either.)
lucia (Comment#61615)
November 22nd, 2010 at 8:40 am
How about like Texas?
http://www.las.illinois.edu/alumni/magazine/articles/2010/climate/
Of course, one could argue about the meaning of “anytime soon”, but “by the end of the century” was soon enough for the headline writer. And the article then goes on to mention southern IL being like New Orleans eventually.
Actually, speaking of New Orleans, poor ole Chi-Town has been baked and broiled in unrealistic warming projections before. In the July 1, 1988 issue of <Science, this remarkable sentence appeared:
Fortunately, someone did point out in a Letter a couple of months later that the math didn’t support the statement, but it is interesting nontheless how eager a Science journalist, even back then, was to paint an alarming picture.
Of course, that was the “Summer of Jim”, after all.
BTW, great editor!
And I still have typos in my comment, even after editing twice.
So how many times can sloppy writers like me edit a comment without raising the suspicions of your spam filter?
Carrick:
Hysteria blinds anyone to reasoned analysis.
Bugs,
Ever considered taking up figure skating for real? Because I have to say you do skate beautifully. The pirouettes, the backward double axels, splits and all the other nice moves.
The only thing you really do need to work on is staying in the same spot when spinning because you are severrly penelized for moving all over the ice the way you’re doing right now.
“…actually cool over a period of eight years even in the presence of long-term increase in CO2 forcings”
Carrick,
I asked Steven Mosher this question awhile ago at WUWT and he has not answered:
If there are factors that cool the planet short-term despite the increase in C02, why couldn’t these factors be similarly effective long-term if they are still there?
Andrew
John (Comment#61774) November 23rd, 2010 at 6:45 am
That is right, it doesn’t matter what the baseline is. It’s more convenient if it’s something that has you close to zero, but since it’s just measuring the deviation, it really doesn’t matter. The deviations are what matter.
Bugs [re:61846]
True to form. Nice double axel periouette combination. Have to say, the lace fluttered really nicely both on the way up and down.
A word of friendly advice: don’t ever try ice hockey. You would get boarded so fast and so hard you would leave a facial imprint on the plexiglass.
Lucia’s blog is a way nicer and safer place for you to do your skating.
Carrick, I try not to get into it with you anymore because I think you are pretty fair. But my knowledge comes from a FIELD scientist out in the real world not a computer model maker. Although he does use models sometimes as a tool; but even the simplest processes in nature CAN NOT be modeled without problems and errors-completely different out comes happen in nature and MORE then not when modeling SIMPLE processes in Nature. To believe you’ve got the climate of the earth modeled perfectly is crazy. We just watched a show about the ocean last night. Those scientists claim they’ve only got 1% of it figured out. They stuck a thermometer in a black smoker miles beneath the surface and the temperature of the water streaming out was over 400 degrees C. It was the hottest place on earth. And the shrimp swimming around it were not cooked.
“Based on her continuing citing of extreme winter weather events, she doesn’t understand the distinction between climate and weather either”
I cite them NOT because I don’t understand the difference I cite them because EVERY SINGLE Summer extreme weather event is blamed on GLOBAL WARMING. Just like the video I provided. Tell me how Dr. Mann in the video gets away with waving away an ENTIRE season of unusual cold temperatures across two continents and then claims a few weeks of high temperatures on the East coast in the summer is caused by C02/Global Warming? Weather and climate is caused by IMBALANCES of multiple factors and conditions “fighting” each other. If I were to listen to bugs and Owen up there I would believe in a balanced planet- which is a complete and utter fantasy. That does not exist and it never ever has. That’s a religious idea of Eden!
And all that gobbly gook about how you get your temperature numbers for “global warming” is still just statistical manipulation of questionable data coming from an incomplete climate grid “for the whole world”.
AndrewKY:
“If there are factors that cool the planet short-term despite the increase in C02, why couldn’t these factors be similarly effective long-term if they are still there?”
Yeah. The C02 concentrations were thousands of times higher and there was ice everywhere in the earth’s history.
They believe only C02 causes warmer climate because they think the earth acts just like a green house. They believe they’ve got the orbit and all the wobbles of the planet, the sun, clouds, the ocean figured out so they can say “Nothing else explains the warm errr fraction of one degree “rise” but the rise in c02 concentrations. Not true. Real earth scientists know this.
“The deviations are what matter”
Not according to Prof. Lindzen:
http://democrats.science.house.gov/Media/file/Commdocs/hearings/2010/Energy/17nov/Lindzen_Testimony.pdf
Curious@ Post# 61856:
My views on the AGW debate are very much in line with those expressed by Lindzen in the link you provided and therefore I can only comment that he has nailed it.
The points that he makes that are not made often enough for me, elsewhere, are that when people talk of global warming they seldom quantify what they mean by warming or its potential consequences and further the argument fails to acknowledge that most so-called skeptics recognize and accept the CO2 physics that predicts, with everything else being equal, an approximate 1 degree C rise in global temperature for a doubling of GHGs – with the quantitative feedback effects being much more uncertain.
When one concentrates on what many climate scientists claim they know about AGW and the uncertainties involved, one is tempted to ask: And what is it again I should be so worried about?
I truly believe that scientists/advocates think that the old ploy of a number of environmentalists holds for AGW in that once an event in nature can be ascribed to a man made phenomenon it becomes unnatural and something that therefore is bad. On the other hand, and possibly not so evident is that some skeptics, and unfortunately in my view, accept the old environmentalist line and thus tend to want to deny AGW altogether in order to avoid the unnatural is bad argument.
“with everything else being equal”
Kenneth Fritsch,
At what point(s) in time and space is “everything else equal”?
Andrew
Kenneth – FWIW I liked Lindzen’s submission for a lot of reasons including his point over the value of the chosen metric of global annual temperature annomaly as the key indicator of “climate change”. IMO this is a convenient but very low bandwidth metric and there is likely a whole lot more understanding to be gained if the science was approached with an open mind of discovery rather than having a predetermined point/theory to prove.
Bugs
I personally would prefer to return to simpler times, when we only had to worry about ordinary warming and mutually assured destruction. It beggars belief that people are so worried about a couple of degrees warming in the next hundred years after the last hundred years.
If I were cynical I might think that the end of the cold-war has resulted in a huge gap in manufacturing pointless things that will not be used although its unclear that manufacturing windmills will prove as lucrative in the long run as planes,tanks and ballistic missiles.
Andrew_KY:
They could.
That’s why it is dangerous skating for OMGCAGW (my guffaw saying for the week) types to admit that it could be cooling for an eight-year period, even with anthropogenic forcing of CO2.
“At what point(s) in time and space is “everything else equalâ€?”
When you use a hypothetical, Andrew.
My haiku:
November 20
emails pointed a finger
circle the wagons
Facts: Nitrogen constitutes 78% of the atmosphere, oxygen 21% and trace gases just 1%. Water vapor is the most significant trace gas and the most significant green house gas (GHG). According to IPCC technical reports carbon dioxide is the least significant trace gas both by volume and by Global Warming Potential (GWP).
Question: What are the chances an infinitesimal (.04%) trace gas (CO2), essential to photosynthesis and therefore life on this planet, is responsible for runaway Global Warming?
Answer: Infinitesimal
Discussion: The IPCC now agrees. See the IPCC Technical Report section entitled Global Warming Potential (GWP). And the GWP for CO2? Just 1, (one), unity, the lowest of all green house gases (GHG). What’s more, trace gases which include GHG constitute less than 1% of the atmosphere. Of that 1%, water vapor, the most powerful GHG, makes ups 40% of the total. Carbon dioxide is 1/10th of that amount, an insignificant .04%. If carbon dioxide levels were cut in half to 200PPM, all plant growth would stop according to agricultural scientists. It’s no accident that commercial green house owner/operators invest heavily in CO2 generators to increase production, revenues and profits. Prof. Michael Mann’s Bristle cone tree proxy data (Hockey stick) proves nothing has done more to GREEN (verb) the planet over the past few decades than moderate sun-driven warming (see solar inertial motion) together with elevated levels of CO2, regardless of the source. None of these facts have been reported in the national media. Why?
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/meltdown_of_the_climate_consensus_G0kWdclUvwhVr6DYH6A4uJ
On the other hand, and possibly not so evident is that some skeptics, and unfortunately in my view, accept the old environmentalist line and thus tend to want to deny AGW altogether in order to avoid the unnatural is bad argument.
You can’t say that here….
“Based on her continuing citing of extreme winter weather events, she doesn’t understand the distinction between climate and weather eitherâ€
I cite them NOT because I don’t understand the difference I cite them because EVERY SINGLE Summer extreme weather event is blamed on GLOBAL WARMING. Just like the video I provided. Tell me how Dr. Mann in the video gets away with waving away an ENTIRE season of unusual cold temperatures across two continents and then claims a few weeks of high temperatures on the East coast in the summer is caused by C02/Global Warming? Weather and climate is caused by IMBALANCES of multiple factors and conditions “fighting†each other. If I were to listen to bugs and Owen up there I would believe in a balanced planet- which is a complete and utter fantasy. That does not exist and it never ever has. That’s a religious idea of Eden!
I have never said it, so I wouldn’t expect you to believe it. We have been fortunate to have had a reasonably stable climate for about the past 10,000 years. In that time, civilization has flourished. It would be a shame to see it go down the drain because of something we did. If it was something nature did that was out of our control, you just have to be fatalistic about those things. Eventually the sun will go red giant and engulf the earth. That’s a while away, so lets concentrate on what is happening and on why it is happening.
As for scientists in the field.
http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?ID=7841&Method=Full
Perhaps he needs to look at more fields.
DES MOINES, Iowa — Warmer and wetter weather in large swaths of the country have helped farmers grow corn, soybeans and other crops in some regions that only a few decades ago were too dry or cold, experts who are studying the change said.
In fact, Lindzen is agreeing with me that we can measure the temperature and that you can measure it using anomolies. He has no argument with that. He is only arguing about the significance of the warming. You need to read what he said again.
I cite them NOT because I don’t understand the difference I cite them because EVERY SINGLE Summer extreme weather event is blamed on GLOBAL WARMING. Just like the video I provided. Tell me how Dr. Mann in the video gets away with waving away an ENTIRE season of unusual cold temperatures across two continents and then claims a few weeks of high temperatures on the East coast in the summer is caused by C02/Global Warming?
http://www2.ucar.edu/news/1036/record-high-temperatures-far-outpace-record-lows-across-us
“In fact, Lindzen is agreeing with me…”
Yes, of course he is bugs. In fact I was surprised he didn’t cite you.
He is agreeing that using temperature anomolies is a recognised way of measuring climate temperature changes. RTFP. Another non reponsive answer would indicate you don’t actually have a rebuttal.
bugs (Comment#61846)
“The deviations are what matter.”
Read Lindzen’s intro, p10-13 and p30-33 and tell me where he “agrees” with you. On second thoughts don’t worry – just email Prof Lindzen, highlighting where he says the deviations are what matter, and request he acknowledges you correctly.
John (Comment#61887) November 23rd, 2010 at 4:46 pm
Bugs
I personally would prefer to return to simpler times, when we only had to worry about ordinary warming and mutually assured destruction. It beggars belief that people are so worried about a couple of degrees warming in the next hundred years after the last hundred years.
The small increase we have already is showing a significant effect on the Arctic ice cap.
“The small increase we have already is showing a significant effect on the Arctic ice cap.”
PS – whilst you are writing to him I suggest you pick him up on slides 27,28 and 29 too.
bugs,
You state some record: “The 1960s and 1970s saw slightly more record daily lows than highs, but in the last 30 years record highs have increasingly predominated, with the ratio now about two-to-one for the 48 states as a whole”…. that doesn’t mean anything at all except that people like you think that we should be SCARED because you point them out… and you also give an example where farmers are HELPED by a change in weather/climate to back up the doom and gloom. lol
You also say “We have been fortunate to have had a reasonably stable climate for about the past 10,000 years.” (and your own example shows that temps may go up and down all the time; and gee the LIA lasted for centuries and people suffered is that what you mean really?? LOL) but forget to mention 2,000 yrs give or take a few before that on this Earth; those farm fields where buried under 3 miles high thick layers of snow and ice.
You are just cherry picking bits for your belief system/religious campaign; every single part of it is fear based too.
Yes you are; but pay attention! Rev. Al Gore was pushing those farmers to grow corn for biofuel to help stop that impending doom; which he now stated in the press was all bull crap… so you need some adjusting!
It’s Thanksgiving morning here in America. We are going to burn some carbon; drink and make merry to give thanks we are not freezing to death yet. 😉 Happy Day Americans!
I don’t know what Al Gore has to do with this. I have never seen his film or used him as a reference.
How convenient.
Can you stick to a point for a moment at least? You made the claim that people use record highs as evidence of AGW but ignore record lows. (Not that you have even presented evidence that the lows in Florida are record, or have been recorded before in the temperature record). I just pointed out that record highs are now occuring more often than record lows.
The holocene.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png
Looks relatively stable to me. Which is just what I was claiming.
http://democrats.science.house.gov/Media/file/Commdocs/hearings/2010/Energy/17nov/Lindzen_Testimony.pdf
Summer sea ice. It comes back in the winter, but if you look at Lindzens slide, there trend for the summer sea ice disappearing is quite clear. He leaves out the trend.
I assume you will accept that Lindzen uses temperature anomolies to indicate the global temperature? Note the reference to anomolies in slide 26.
bugs; that graph is titled “Holocene Temperature Variations” and the climate now does not look abnormal at all on that graph. lol It is also plotted in tenths of a degree; and from 8-4 thousand BP the temperatures were THE SAME as now-they went down for thousands of years after that and then there is a slight uptick for “now” which matches that natural pattern and doesn’t one bit look “unstable”. Wake up! You have NO PROOF the last 30 yrs of climate is abnormal.
Bugs.
1910-1940 ish saw an “unprecedented” rise in temp, at a similar rate as now do you think that caused similar “record” highs?
Also could you point me to some definitve information that accounts for that rise in temp.
The claim is that it is warming. If you look at that scale, (which uses anomalies), a 3.5 degrees rise would be off the scale. I said before, it’s the warming that is coming that is the real problem. What we have now is just the beginning.
Bugs
I don’t know how old you are? But let me assure you all this worrying about things you can do nothing about is really not healthy. However if you insist on doing it, might I suggest something real for you to turn your attention too.
Which way will China jump when North Korea starts to chuck Nukes about. Actually thinking about it you are ideally suited to worry about this as there is a climate related component to it, albeit a slight change in direction.
bugs, read the summary on that chart and answer John’s question.
John (Comment#62230) November 25th, 2010 at 7:35 am
Good advice. My step daughter, whom I have helped to raise full time since she was 8 (now attending college to be a marine biologist) is half Korean and has her grandmother and grandfather in harms way over there in So.Korea. (Not to mention the fact that half her family, who she will never know; was killed or lost somewhere forever because of the war.) She is not worried about “global warming” at all and does not buy the “science”(but does care about other real environmental issues) and bugs should gain some perspective about REAL life. ((My father earned a purple heart in Korea at 19; and my husband now the scientist; lived and served on the DMZ with Col David Hunt (now of Fox news 😉 )) Both Col Hunt and my husband were interviewed once by scientists gathering data because they saw a Korean tiger together-thought to be extinct because of the war.
By the way, 6 am here in sunny Surf City, So.California and my thermometer outside says 38°f.
Want to trade, Liza? Sunny and 1°F here in Farmington, MN this morning… Maybe I should drive 20 miles north to Minneapolis, where it’s a balmy 7°.
bugs – whatever. I’ll stick with my understanding of Prof. Lindzen’s points and you stick with yours. Report back if he updates his slides following your correspondence with him.
curious (Comment#62240) November 25th, 2010 at 9:02 am
Non responding. You don’t get the point. I said it is normal practice to use temperature anomolies with respect to an arbitrary temperature as a means of describing climate and temperature change. Lindzen is not discussing that point, but he uses it without question. He accepts the temperature record without question. I don’t have to correspond with him to point it out. I do disagree with Lindzen’s conclusions, and he with mine. But there is no disagreement with respect to the use of anomalies. That is the point we were discussing. if you would like to discuss something else, that is ok, but we should clear up this point first.
bugs:
Something bugs and I agree with.
The past isn’t much help for the future, unless you are repeating the same forcing conditions. Most of the warming to date is unrelated to AGW, I suspect bugs doesn’t with that, but this is pretty much accepted lore.
(They cheat and say “in the last 50 years” knowing full well that for the first 20 years of the last 50 years, it wasn’t actually warming, in fact it was undergoing a poorly explained cooling phase)
Anyway if we accept that much of the 20th century warming was natural, that suggests that 3.5°/century or even 2.5°C/century is well outside the range of what is “typical” or “natural”.
Oh and I also agree with bugs about global temperature anomalies and their utility. Apparently Lindzen agrees with that too.