What global warming?

[Cornish Steve]

I think this paragraph actually throws a lot of doubt of the claims you make about yourself.

Just so we know where each of us stands. While I don't remember the exact number, I've published between 12 and 15 papers in Journal of Physics, IEEE Transactions, Journal de Physique, and various others (some of which, to my surprise, are still being cited 25 years later); was invited to speak at two scientific conferences (in Britain and in Germany); presented a PhD thesis based largely on complex computer modeling; and consumed 18 months of mainframe CPU time modeling complex interacting systems (much to the chagrin of the university computing department ). That's when I learned about the work of climate and weather researchers, because they are the biggest hogs around of government computer time.

Clearly, our experience and qualifications are not everything, and I do recognize that things can change with new evidence and information. Indeed, I've changed my opinion on several things in the past, which I see as a strength and not a weakness. I hope this removes the doubt you mentioned, and I'd be glad to learn of your experience and qualifications on this topic.

 

[cjd]

I suspect you're a wonderful scientist until it clashes with a core belief, then the whole critical thinking caboodle goes right out of the window. Not to worry, Newton was exactly the same ;-)

 

[The Ville]

NRC report released this month:

http://www.agu.org/sci_pol/asla/alerts/2010-14.shtml

"A strong, credible body of scientific evidence shows that climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems, concludes this panel report from the America's Climate Choices suite of studies."

 

[The Ville]

Just so we know where each of us stands. While I don't remember the exact number, I've published between 12 and 15 papers in Journal of Physics, IEEE Transactions, Journal de Physique, and various others (some of which, to my surprise, are still being cited 25 years later); was invited to speak at two scientific conferences (in Britain and in Germany); presented a PhD thesis based largely on complex computer modeling; and consumed 18 months of mainframe CPU time modeling complex interacting systems (much to the chagrin of the university computing department ). That's when I learned about the work of climate and weather researchers, because they are the biggest hogs around of government computer time.

Clearly, our experience and qualifications are not everything, and I do recognize that things can change with new evidence and information. Indeed, I've changed my opinion on several things in the past, which I see as a strength and not a weakness. I hope this removes the doubt you mentioned, and I'd be glad to learn of your experience and qualifications on this topic.

And none of that (assuming it has any truth in it) has any relevance when you clearly fail to criticise skeptics and deniers that mislead the public with phony science.

I asked for your scientific opinion about Monckton.

You have refused to come forward with it. That is effectively scientific appeasement for political gain.

That implies, that you put politics first not science.

And frankly for someone that treasures their past involvement in science, I find it shocking that the only references you give are a load of dubious skeptics, one of which is a photographer.

 

[Cornish Steve]

I suspect you're a wonderful scientist until it clashes with a core belief, then the whole critical thinking caboodle goes right out of the window. Not to worry, Newton was exactly the same ;-)

To share the same sentence with Newton is just fine with me. We all have our faults, me more than most.

 

[Cornish Steve]

I asked for your scientific opinion about Monckton.

I'd be glad to look up Monckton and pass along an opinion, if you wish. If he's been deceiving people by improperly massaging data, as you suggest, then he's in the same league as Mann and cohorts. But this is a distraction from the obvious sins of the IPCC, which is the current topic of discussion.

I really don't take sides on this stuff. What matters is what the data points to, and the data is held captive by far too many people. As you point out, AGW has become a matter of politics, not good science.

 

[The Ville]

I'd be glad to look up Monckton and pass along an opinion, if you wish. If he's been deceiving people by improperly massaging data, as you suggest, then he's in the same league as Mann and cohorts. But this is a distraction from the obvious sins of the IPCC, which is the current topic of discussion.

The topic of discussion is global warming.

It is you that has focused on IPCC.

Discussing Monckton is just as valid and important.

I really don't take sides on this stuff.

That must be quote of the month, if not the year.

 

[Cornish Steve]

Hey - quoted alongside Newton in one breath and being nominated for quote of the year in the next. It's a gold-letter day!

 

[The Ville]

I'd be glad to look up Monckton and pass along an opinion, if you wish. If he's been deceiving people by improperly massaging data, as you suggest, then he's in the same league as Mann and cohorts. But this is a distraction from the obvious sins of the IPCC, which is the current topic of discussion.

Oh silly me. I scanned your comment so quickly I thought you actually admitted Monckton had deceived.

But no, you play politics instead of science.

Instead of actually looking at Moncktons efforts, you manipulate the subject back to your favourite. The IPCC.

And just when I thought you were actually going to apply some of your alleged scientific scrutiny!

If you had any interest in science and impartiality you would have checked out Monckton years ago.

 

[Cornish Steve]

Oh silly me. I scanned your comment so quickly I thought you actually admitted Monckton had deceived.

But no, you play politics instead of science.

Not at all. I'm just not falling for your debating tactic as you try to shift attention away from the IPCC, whose absolute statements have been shown time and again to be unfounded, and onto someone on the periphery. As I wrote before, bad science is bad science, no matter what the political leanings of the author. It's the bad science if the establishment that concerns me the most, because they try to use their conclusions to tell us, indeed impose on us, how they think we should live.

 

[cjd]

Not at all. I'm just not falling for your debating tactic as you try to shift attention away from the IPCC, whose absolute statements have been shown time and again to be unfounded, and onto someone on the periphery. As I wrote before, bad science is bad science, no matter what the political leanings of the author. It's the bad science if the establishment that concerns me the most, because they try to use their conclusions to tell us, indeed impose on us, how they think we should live.

You haven't shown us a single non-peer reviewed paper from the science parts of the IPCC reports Steve. It's still just the waffle from the politics, policy, travel, tourism etc sections.

I'm sure there's some in there, all you have to do is look. At least then you'd have a fact or two instead of having to peddle the simpleminded lies of a discredited photographer.

 

[MrTempleDene]

Did someone mention Monckton?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfA1LpiYk2o&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duxG4lyeSlc

 

[garethkane]

...how can the world be cooling if we're getting record temperatures?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/02/2010-could-be-warmest-year-ever

In an argument between economics, politics, the blogosphere and the environment, the laws of physics always win. Let Monckton and his pals witter on the background, while the rest of us tackle this real and pressing problem.

 

[Dawg]

...how can the world be cooling if we're getting record temperatures?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/02/2010-could-be-warmest-year-ever

In an argument between economics, politics, the blogosphere and the environment, the laws of physics always win. Let Monckton and his pals witter on the background, while the rest of us tackle this real and pressing problem.

Peculiar thing to say. Certainly the laws of physics will always win when measuring physical phenomena, but what you do then comes under the headings of politics and economics: if you politically commit all your resources to trying to change a physical fact you may well ruin the economy and end up in a worse situation than you started, being unable to afford to continue tackling the physical problem.

 

[cjd]

...how can the world be cooling if we're getting record temperatures?

Because weather is not the same as climate. If we can't say it's cooling because we had a cold winter, we also can't say it's warming because we had a hot summer.

 

[garethkane]

Re weather - very true - the peaks and troughs of the temperature record are weather, not climate. The denialosphere has been claiming that there has been a cooling trend for 10 years (see the original post on this thread, quoting that well known repository of objective scientific analysis, Fox News), but if the last 12 months are a record high, it is a bit difficult to argue that! The long term trend is up and will continue to go up.

Re the laws of physics - what I mean is that this is often argued at a political level (most sceptics/deniers tend to be of the rightwing-neoliberal-free-market-is-everything tendency, with a tiny number on the far left). They portray climate 'alarmists' as failed communists (the 'watermelon' analogy is never far away) and anti-capitalists. But at the end of the day, the laws of physics will beat those political arguments down. And physics tells us that man-made carbon emissions will cause warming, and guess what...

 

[cjd]

The 3rd and final investigation into 'Climategate' says that:

Climate scientists at a top UK research unit have emerged from an inquiry with their reputations for honesty intact but with a lack of openness criticised.

The Independent Climate Change Email Review was set up by the University of East Anglia (UEA) after more than 1,000 e-mails were hacked from its servers.

Climate "sceptics" claimed the e-mails showed that UEA scientists manipulated and suppressed key climate data.

But these accusations are largely dismissed by the report.

The review found nothing in the e-mails to undermine Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/science_and_environment/10538198.stm

A lot of damage has been done by the hackers and deniers, but maybe some good will come of it all - the scientists are going to have to try much harder to do their work more publicly.

 

[Cornish Steve]

From today's Telegraph:

"Move along now, please… Nothing to see here…" was the predictable burden of Sir Muir Russell's investigation into Climategate. Are we surprised? Any other conclusion would have made world headlines as a first for the climate change establishment. This is the third Climategate whitewash job and it would be tempting to see it as just as futile as its predecessors."

"The problem for the more sophisticated warmist propagandists is that, on this occasion, the attempt to construct a Cameron-style "modernised" climate scare party collided with the primeval instinct of the British academic and public-sector establishment to protect its own."

 

[cjd]

Yup, as predicted before the first enquiry, the only outcome acceptable to a denier is agreement that the UEA lot made it all up then tried to hide it. Regardless of the evidence otherwise.

Plus ca change.....

 

[AndreyW]

whatever we say...The nuclear energy is the future

 

How many artists at Live Earth walked there, and how many flew in private jets, drove around in limos etc.?

How about you offset the travel emissions of the artists against the millions upon millions of people who hear the message the organisers of live earth wanted?

Live Earth was about awareness and it was a blinding success.

 

[Dawg]

How about you offset the travel emissions of the artists against the millions upon millions of people who hear the message the organisers of live earth wanted?

Live Earth was about awareness and it was a blinding success.

This is as The Goreical states; obeying the message of the Princes of Climate Doom is for the little people.

Now, what was the role of crucifixion in 'raising awareness' of just how pissed of Jewish liberals were?

 

[Rickytaylor]

Overall I can say that Earth is suffering from global warming and we need to control on the carbon emission.So that global warming couldn't harm our world in the near future.

 

[StephenW]

Hello Steve

Wearing your statistician hat you may like to read the review of a new study on temperature proxy reconstructions.

Watts Up With that reporting "This paper is a direct and serious rebuttal to the proxy reconstructions of Mann":

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/...akes-a-hockey-sticky-wicket-of-mann-et-al-99/

 

[Cornish Steve]

No matter how sophisticated the model, the basic rule still applies: garbage in, garbage out.

Error ranges are crucially important in modeling, and so is model sensitivity to input data. I learned this to my cost during my physics research. At one point, it looked like I was predicting a phenomenon recently discovered in magnetic materials, and it generated considerable excitement at our university. How embarrassing for me that it turned out to be an anomaly of the model, which was very sensitive to rounding errors within a certain range. Thank goodness someone discovered this before we wrote a paper on it! Of course, we so wanted the model's prediction to be true because we would have become rather famous - but it wasn't to be.

 

[cjd]

I don't take too much comfort from the filtered graph - it's on the same upward trend as the original and the reversal happens precisely when you would expect it to, if CO2 was causal - during the 19th Century's industrial revolution.

 

[armstrong010]

well as we get all our energy from the sun therefore all our heat and the sun is 1 million times larger than the earth.

One has to wonder about our puny efforts in the scheme of things.

Earl

Were like ants.

 

[armstrong010]

well as we get all our energy from the sun therefore all our heat and the sun is 1 million times larger than the earth.

One has to wonder about our puny efforts in the scheme of things.

Earl

Were like ants if you think about it.

 

[StephenW]

Global Warming/Man Made Global Warming (AGW) became Climate Change. Its nice and vague but lacks power so now "Global climate disruption" is being proposed.

See James Delingpole: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/j...ive-er-global-climate-disruption/#dsq-content

 

[Kernowman]

Global warming my foot.

I bought a brand new barbecue three years ago. Year one it got used twice. Year two it got used once. This year, none at all.

Argue with THAT statistic!

 

[grantridley]

Anyone got any great business ideas around global warming?

 

[vvaannmmaann]

Do you want to increase it or decrease it? Your post is not very clear.

 

[Cathy Duncan]

grantridley: There are lots of ideas to bring considerable decline in global warming while pursuing businesses like establishing planting nurseries . This way, you can do business of selling green plants and can contribute towards decreasing global warming. Your customers in this business will also be coordinating with you!

 

[StephenW]

From the Watts up with that website:

Royal Society Bows To Climate Change Sceptics
Wednesday, 29 September 2010 22:09 Ben Webster, The Times


Britain’s leading scientific institution has been forced to rewrite its guide to climate change and admit that there is greater uncertainty about future temperature increases than it had previously suggested.

The Royal Society is publishing a new document today after a rebellion by more than 40 of its fellows who questioned mankind’s contribution to rising temperatures.

see: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/...embraces-sceptics-and-uncertainty/#more-25598

 

[Jahnavi]

Glaciers are melting, sea levels are rising, cloud forests are drying, and wildlife is struggling to keep pace. It becomes clear that humans have caused most of the warming of the last century, releasing heat-trapping gases that have the power of our modern life. emissions called greenhouse gases, their levels are higher than in the past 650,000 years. We call the result global warming, but is behind a series of changes in Earth's climate, weather patterns and long term, which varies from place to place. As the Earth spins each day, clouds of heat with it again, pick up moisture over the oceans, rising here, the solution exists. Change the pace of climate change that all living things have come to trust.

 

[cjd]

The Royal Society is publishing a new document today after a rebellion by more than 40 of its fellows who questioned mankind’s contribution to rising temperatures.

And it seems like a well balanced and readable paper to me.

Concluding remarks
57 There is strong evidence that changes in greenhouse gas concentrations due to human activity are the dominant cause of the global warming that has taken place over the last half century. This warming trend is expected to continue as are changes in precipitation over the long term in many regions. Further and more rapid increases in sea level are likely which will have profound implications for coastal communities and ecosystems.

58 It is not possible to determine exactly how much the Earth will warm or exactly how the climate will change in the future, but careful estimates of potential changes and associated uncertainties have been made. Scientists continue to work to narrow these areas of uncertainty. Uncertainty can work both ways, since the changes and their impacts may be either smaller or larger than those projected.

59 Like many important decisions, policy choices about climate change have to be made in the absence of perfect knowledge. Even if the remaining uncertainties were substantially resolved, the wide variety of interests, cultures and beliefs in society would make consensus about such choices difficult to achieve. However, the potential impacts of climate change are sufficiently serious that important decisions will need to be made. Climate science – including the substantial body of knowledge that is already well established, and the results of future research – is the essential basis for future climate projections and planning, and must be a vital component of public reasoning in this complex and challenging area.

http://royalsociety.org/climate-change-summary-of-science/

 

[iksol]

What people don't realise is that Global warming / Climate change is still only a hypothesis, it hasn't yet been proven. There may well be some evidence, but that doesn't constitute proof. The evidence is pretty weak to be honest, but people who question it are accused of being climate change deniers.

All we have had up until this year is 'scientific consensus'... what's that all about?? Call me a nit picker, but I thought science was based on empiricism, not opinion!!

It's not a bad theory, it may even be true, but it's just a such a big leap to assume it as fact. We have had lots of changes in climate patterns in the past, so surely we should show some scepticism?

I actually think it's a pretty good strategy to reduce our pollution, but I just get so cynical about those in authority using it as a convenient excuse to raise extra revenue.

 

[Energy Transfer Ltd]

Global Warming or not. It seems sensible, through technological development, to become more efficient in our energy usage. It means our personal costs will be lower in the long term and all fuel streams will last longer.

 

[jostar]

Obv. Fox news is Murdoch owned and very conservative, most conservatives are of the belief that there is no point trying to conserve engery and save the works as God will one destroy it anyway. Obviously this is a sweeping statement but Fox news is so biased and very partisan. Global warming (although I'm not a scientist by any means) is something we should worry about.

 

[StephenW]

Some angry headlines in the Telegraph:

"Met Office 'kept winter forecast secret from public'
The Met Office knew that Britain was facing an early and exceptionally cold winter but failed to warn the public, hampering preparations for some of the coldest weather on record."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/w...-kept-winter-forecast-secret-from-public.html

James Delingpole also takes up the story .....:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/j...-office-tried-to-spin-its-way-out-of-trouble/

and mentions a Website called Autonomous Mind which goes into yet more detail.:
BBC spins that Met Office got winter right, just kept it secret from public
http://autonomousmind.wordpress.com...winter-right-just-kept-it-secret-from-public/

Conclusion? The AGW bandwagon is to big to stop?