This is a continuation of a remarkable thread that has now received 10,000 comments running to well over a million words. Unfortunately its size has become a problem and this is the reason for the move.
The history of the New Statesman thread goes back to December 2007 when Dr David Whitehouse wrote a very influential article for that publication posing the question Has Global Warming Stopped? Later, Mark Lynas, the magazine’s environment correspondent, wrote a furious reply, Has Global Warming Really Stopped?
By the time the New Statesman closed the blogs associated with these articles they had received just over 3000 comments, many from people who had become regular contributors to a wide-ranging discussion of the evidence for anthropogenic climate change, its implications for public policy and the economy. At that stage I provided a new home for the discussion at Harmless Sky.
Comments are now closed on the old thread. If you want to refer to comments there then it is easy to do so by left-clicking on the comment number, selecting ‘Copy Link Location’ and then setting up a link in the normal way.
Here’s to the next 10,000 comments.
Useful links:
Dr David Whitehouse’s article can be found here with 1289 comments.
Mark Lynas’ attempted refutation can be found here with 1715 comments.
The original Continuation of the New Statesman Whitehouse/Lynas blogs thread is here with 10,000 comments.
Brute
One quotation in the NASA blurb about the failed satellites, which you posted caught my eye:
“Managing our planet”?
How were we going to do that?
If that’s what your taxpayer money was going to fund, then it’s probably a good thing it got cut out.
I don’t know about you, Brute, but the thought of James E. Hansen “managing our planet” with hundreds of millions of your taxpayer dollars blows my mind and scares me much more than his “coal death train” and “tipping point” rhetoric.
Max
Max,
You say “Looks like we are in agreement, Peter!”
Well, if that were true, then we’d both be wrong!
PeterM
OK.
So maybe we are NOT in agreement and only you are wrong.
Max
Brute and PeterM
George Carlin – Saving the Planet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScDfYzMEEw&feature=player_embedded
Worth a watch.
Max
George Carlin – Saving the Planet
Max,
As I’ve said……..EVERYTHING is biodegradable.
Max and Brute,
George Carlin does make a valid point about “Saving the Planet” and the planet surviving after humanity. It probably will, unless AGW does create a Venus effect. That’s unlikely, and in any case no-ones saying that Venus isn’t a planet! Maybe he can use that gag himself.
I notice that he also makes use of the Gaia concept of the Earth “inventing” HIV/AIDs to control our numbers! But then he does say that he does believe that we are part of a “Greater Wisdom” or “Higher Authority” . “Call it what you will” he says, and we all know just what his redneck audience will call it. And if they are right they’ll all be saved – just in the nick of time. Hallelujah!
Not people like me of course. We’ll have to put up with a much warmer climate than even the IPCC are predicting. I wonder if that 3 degrees will get added on down there too?
PeterM
From your last rant (3756) I can see you enjoyed the George Carlin youtube on “saving the planet”.
As you heard, Carlin points out how “arrogant” this anthropocentric notion is that we can destroy our planet (or, for that matter, turn it into a “Venus”).
I hope Hansen and Gore have seen this – maybe they could even learn something from it (provided they opened up their minds).
What do you think?
Max
Ummmm, Pete, George Carlin is dead.
As for your second comment, that I’ve quoted……how do you know that his audience was “redneck”?
You are a perfect example of the “conceited”, “arrogant”, “self righteous” busybody that he and the rest of the world laugh at………
One other thing…….Carlin was a COMEDIAN……it’s an ACT Pete………however; your defensivenes to his musing seems to have struck a nerve with you…….upon self examination perhaps you realize how ridiculous your position is?
Way off topic but I’m curious………
What’s the average cost for a gallon of gas in Switzerland/England/Australia today?
Brute,
Well I’m not sure that George Carlin is that well known over here. I had heard of him but I didn’t know he’d died. Ceased to be. Is no more etc.
I wouldn’t just dismiss political comedy as just an act. It can be a potent political weapon. Every political joke is a tiny revolution as the saying goes. They can get you imprisoned or even killed.
George Carlin was obviously good at what he did, but I’m not sure that the tone of his routine entirely matched up with his own opinions. For instance he seemed to be suggesting that it was Ok to let animals become extinct, and I doubt if that sentiment would get any resonance at all, if the audience weren’t a bunch of rednecks!
I doubt if this quote of his would receive too many laughs from an Aussie audience either :“For centuries now, man has done everything he can to destroy, defile, and interfere with nature: clear-cutting forests, strip-mining mountains, poisoning the atmosphere, over-fishing the oceans, polluting the rivers and lakes, destroying wetlands and aquifers… so when nature strikes back, and smacks him on the head and kicks him in the nuts, I enjoy that. I have absolutely no sympathy for human beings whatsoever. None. And no matter what kind of problem humans are facing, whether it’s natural or man-made, I always hope it gets worse.”
So where I disagree with the late George, is that I do have sympathy for us humans, and I do hope our problems are soluable and don’t get any worse.
PS Petrol is about $1.40 (Aus $ and US $ are approx the same) per litre here in Brisbane.
Sheez, $5.50 per gallon!
We’re paying $3.50 gal ($.87 per litre).
You Australians should be rioting in the streets considering those prices…….
Brute #3761
Unfortunately Britain decided to become the leader in the fight against ‘dangerous climate change’. As a result we are a lot further along the ‘green’ road than most other countries.
We pay a variety of green and other taxes in order to mke energy costs high so as to enable renewables to compete on an (expensive) level playing field.
Our petrol costs atround 10.50$US per gallon. My gas/electric for the home has increased by 40% in 3 years, which includes a subsidy for hugely inefficient wind farms.
Our temperatures in the UK have been plummeting for 5 years (2010 was the same as 1659) so our heating season is much longer. These high energy costs means the average British consumer has very little money left with which to buy goods to boost the economy and inflation is gathering pace as, of course, all goods need petrol to be transported.
All this is coming to a country near you soon Brute if you follow the insane path to lower carbon emissions. Incidentally our Chief scientist admitted that our sacrifices won’t have the slightst impact on reducing temperatures.
As you may know temperatures in the US have also been dropping, as they also are in a nunber of other countries. ‘Global’ warming is a myth. Peter refuses to engage on the manner in which global temperatures are concocted. He also refuses to engage on the completely nonsensical Sea surface temperatures. Are you aware how they were calculated until the 1970’s?
Tonyb
Either by dropping a bucket over the side of a ship or measuring intake water temperature at the ship’s condensers………..
Brute and TonyB
Or by the ship’s engineering officer sticking his thumb in a bucket of water hauled up earlier that day and stored in the engine room.
Max
Tonyb,
You should seriously look at alternatives…….I don’t know your setup but you have to stay one step ahead of the Statists………
I recently converted a back-up/supplemental system to coal. I don’t live very far from Pennsylvania coal country and traveled there………
I purchased a truckload of coal to help heat the Brute estate. I burn wood also for domestic hot water and heating.
Another consideration is on site electrical generation. 20% of our electric bill is taxes and surcharges to fund welfare programs/windmills/solar panels. My gas bill doesn’t contain these charges (yet). I’m looking at micro-turbines as a substitute for conventionally electricity.
http://www.capstoneturbine.com/prodsol/products/
Hi Brute 3763
I have provded a short extract from my article on Historic reliability of global temperatures. The idea that we have any idea whatsoever of the historic temperature of the oceans is of course completely nonsensical but Peter-amongst others-want to believe in it.
“Any measurement of the ocean’s surface, or deeper sub surface, prior to the middle of
the 19th century was generally of relatively limited scientific value as there was little
consistency or specific intent.
In 1853 Lieutenant MF Maury organised an international Maritime conference,
whereby all participating countries agreed to adopt common methods to monitor
meteorological and marine information-of which SST’s were a small part of the total.
His 1855 book ‘The Physical Geography of the Sea’ was considered required reading.
However it was after World War two that the science of SST’s gained momentum as
new and more reliable methods of measuring them came about, given a further boost
during the International Geophysical year in 1957/8.
However, even in more recent
years the ocean has continued to yield surprises, for example in the mid 1990’s it was
discovered that deep ocean currents were both much stronger and much more variable
than previously realised. In this context the development of increasingly accurate
SST’s (when gathered from scientific source), albeit still spatially incomplete, can be
said to have arisen only over the last half century. Data collected prior to that has a
big question mark over it as we shall discover.
The original 1855 book by Maury is
referenced at the end of this article and provides a fascinating wealth of information
concerning our knowledge of the sea at the time.
Chapter 5 of this book ‘Descriptive Physical Oceanography’ by M P M Reddy
describes some of the methodology used, but is perhaps even more interesting for the
general history preceding it.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2NC3JmKI7mYC&pg=PA60&lpg=PA60&dq=b
uckets+measuring+sea+surface+temperatures&source=bl&ots=X7k6uaWqZ7&sig=F
UpTI_naWyMCE6L8aczjoOzjfY0&hl=en&ei=oJRGTYWHM4bI4Aag2LQh&sa=X
&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CFcQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q&f=fal
se
A proper scientific expedition, such as the one mounted by the Royal Society in the
1820’s, were probably able to retrieve broadly accurate (to a few degrees) sea
temperatures (subject to all relevant caveats already mentioned above for land
temperatures) for a tiny stretch of ocean during a brief window of time before the
current swept past the ship. Then the observer would be sampling a piece of ocean
that might display completely different temperature characteristics (Any swimmer
will know that water does not always mix very well and that depth plays a key part in
temperature)
However, the majority of earlier records were not taken under strict scientific
conditions, but on a much more casual ad hoc basis by members of the world’s
navies, together with fishermen. The method of sampling was quite simple, whereby a
wooden or canvas bucket was attached to a length of rope marked off in fathoms, the
ensemble thrown overboard, the bucket subsequently raised and then a thermometer
stuck in it to record the temperature of that small portion of the ocean. A method that,
with small variations, persisted for 140 years.
http://adamant.typepad.com/seitz/climate_wars_/
#
“…A new paper by David Thompson and other NOAA atmospheric scientists
in Nature reports a different explanation. Most of the wartime measurements of sea
temperatures factored into the global average came from US warships, which unlike
the British navy tended to log engine room water intake thermometer readings as
representing the temperature of the sea.
The hardy jack tars who returned to meteorological duty as the war wound down
instead relied as always on the time honored method of throwing a bucket over the
side, hauling it in, and putting it on deck for a thermometer wielding chief or officer
to measure. The late Victorian change from oaken buckets to galvanized
steel was compounded before World War II, when not just British, but Dutch and
Japanese hydrographers were issued porous and hence cooling-prone canvas seawater
scoops, a bad idea since the wind is generally brisk on a moving vessel.
Inevitably, the seawater sampled tended to cool – evidently measurably, in the time it
took to present it on deck for measurement.”
The difficulty of keeping such a fragile instrument as a thermometer in one piece, let
alone calibrated, can be imagined.
http://www.barometerworld.co.uk/products/1609.htm
The link above shows a ships barometer and thermometer from around 1855. The
thermometer used in the bucket would have been a robust standalone version of the
instrument on the left of the main picture.
http://www.barometerworld.co.uk/products/2200.htm
This is a pocket version, a precursor to modern watches offering similar facilities, no
doubt used on expeditions, circa 1924.
To put the problems inherent in recording ‘bucket’ temperatures in this fashion into
their proper context, I can do no better than record the conversation I had some 10
years ago with someone who had served in the British Navy in the 1940’s and 50’s
when the bucket readings were still common (they finally finished in the early 60’s)
He matter of factly pointed out that the water was taken from all sorts of depths
(greatly dependent on the strength and disposition of the person involved) and the
water left in the container (not always an approved bucket) for indefinite periods of
time, which included during hot sunshine and the cool of the night. Similarly the
quality of thermometer was not always of the highest, calibration infrequent,
thermometers left in the ambient temperature on deck before often cursory readings
were taken of the water sample, thereby compounding uncertainty.
His incredulous laughter as I recounted the great importance scientists attached to
readings such as his is with me still. This is not to say of course that every SST was
collected in this manner, but far too many for the general record to be considered to
be scientifically robust and meaningful.
This from a 1947 paper “A new bucket for measurement of sea surface temperatures”
“It has been known for many years that the standard method of measuring sea surface
temperatures by taking a sample with a canvas bucket is liable to serious errors.”
Precisely.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/qj.49707431916/abstract?systemMessage=
Due+to+essential+maintenance%2C+access+to+Wiley+Online+Library+will+be+dis
rupted+on+Sunday%2C+19th+Dec+between+10%3A00-12%3A00+GMT
In this`1963 book H F Herdman commented that ‘too often the sample is taken in a
canvas bucket and the temperature read after an appreciable time.’
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LeMvduUHtxQC&pg=PA127&lpg=PA127&dq=re
versing+thermometer+oceanography&source=bl&ots=O23bMlGG8H&sig=TX3NiT1u
p1rznBq_k0YfmlQWDH4&hl=en&ei=DsBGTebHB4b14Aas9-
HFCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CFoQ6AEwCQ#v=onepag
e&q=reversing%20thermometer%20oceanography&f=false
This 1985 paper by a highly respected author entitled “A comparison of bucket and
non-bucket measurements of sea surface temperatures” concerns the differences
of temperatures between water collected in insulated or non- insulated buckets. The
author seems to fondly believe that, despite all the evidence to the contrary, water
taken from buckets can be parsed to tenths of a degree. It also usefully shows the grid
system used to measure data over the 70% of the globe that is ocean, and illustrates
the precision which Hadley believes they have.
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/reports/parker85.pdf
Tonyb
ALL,
Here is an EXTRACT from an opinion piece by Andrew Bolt relating to Tim Flannery’s new part-time job, announced in February, :
It pays to check out Tim Flannery’s
predictions about climate change
Tim Flannery has had years of practice trying to terrify us into thinking human-made climate change will destroy Earth, says Andrew Bolt. Source: Herald Sun
TIM Flannery has just been hired by the Gillard Government to scare us stupid, and I can’t think of a better man for the job.
This Alarmist of the Year is worth every bit of the $180,000 salary he’ll get as part-time chairman of the Government’s new Climate Commission.
His job is simple: to advise us that we really, truly have to accept, say, the new tax on carbon dioxide emissions that this Government threatens to impose…
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/it-pays-to-check-out-flannerys-predictions-about-climate-change-says-andrew-bolt/story-e6frfhqf-1226004644818
Flannery, a mammalian fossil expert, was “Australian of the year, 2007”. His awesome scientific skills and competence for his new part-time job are demonstrated here, as in the ABC’s so-called “Science Show” interview with him on his new book:
http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/tag/robyn-williams/
It is a “must read”, but I recommend that you have a vomit bag ready
TonyB
Your post on early SST measurements is very entertaining and informative.
It just goes to show you that when you give someone a “side task” to perform (in addition to his main duties), it is not taken very seriously.
The SST record of today suffers from another problem, which you have not mentioned: the skin effect. Apparently the top surface of the sea heats up during daytime and this skin effect distorts the temperature reading.
The expendable XBT devices measured the upper sea temperature until 2002 and were used as a check for the satellite readings: Josh Willis (the leader of the NASA team doing these measurements) conceded that the XBT readings introduced a “warming bias”.
As you know, they have been replaced by very costly ARGO devices, which measure the upper ocean temperature more accurately and comprehensively, and have shown a cooling trend in the upper ocean since they were installed in 2003. Josh Willis has acknowledged this cooling trend, but has written it off in importance as a “speed bump”.
Willis was one of the co-authors of the Hansen et al. study that postulated the “hidden in the pipeline” hypothesis, with the “upper ocean” identified as the place where the “missing energy” was “hiding”.
It now appears that the past cooling of our planet (including the upper ocean) has falsified the “hidden in the pipeline” hypothesis of Hansen et al.
Strangely, upper ocean water temperatures are apparently no longer being used as a check for the sea surface temperatures.
So it’s clear that the SST record (comprising over 2/3 of the “globally and annually averaged land and sea surface temperature anomaly”) is still a “can of worms”, as it was back in the canvas bucket days you have described.
But Peter prefers not to be distracted from his (politically motivated?) doomsday view by these facts.
Max
Bob_FJ
Not to offend your home country, but doomsayer Tim Flannery has been a bit of a global laughing stock, despite having been dubbed “Australian of the year, 2007”.
As far as credibility goes, he is a step below James E. Hansen, who is at least a “climatologist” (in addition to being a doomsayer and AGW activist).
It’s just as bad when Paul Nurse, a Nobel Prize winning geneticist, or Brian Cox, an apparently brilliant young particle physicist, start spouting off on climate change.
Cox was astute enough to stay out of the subject matter but made the blooper about peer review and consensus being a key part of the scientific method.
Nurse shot himself in the foot with the groaner about human versus natural CO2 emissions.
As top scientists in their fields, these guys should be intelligent enough to realize that they are only damaging their own reputations when they pontificate about a scientific subject they know absolutely nothing about, and Flannery has fallen into the same trap.
Max
Tonyb,
The slipshod methods previously used to measure sea water temperatures equate well with the methods used today to measure land temperatures. When these current measurement belie global warming doctrine, the powers that be simply “adjust” the data to provide the desired result of the Warmists currently promoting the global warming fraud.
I’m not certain that there is much we can do about that other than to keep abreast of the latest acts of fraud being perpetrated by global warming “scientists”/politicians and publicize it. Sunshine is the greatest disinfectant.
What we are able to control is participation/non-participation in their scheme………that is, mindlessly paying surcharges and taxes tacked on to current energy prices to fund their pet projects (most of which have nothing to do with energy or “global warming”). I’ve chosen the independence route…………
There are those weak minded, easily manipulated fools that will continue to follow this fad because they feel that they are being “socially conscientious” and only desire to “change behavior” (I’m certain that you’re both familiar with this character type). These brainwashed sheep are too far gone to convince…..they’ll continue to the end to chant their global warming religious beliefs to anyone who will listen. Pitiful…..
Then there are BIG moneyed interests (politicians/corporatists) that see the big dollars in perpetuating the fraud.
This too shall pass……………keep up the good work.
Remember…………what the Statists/Socialists fear most is INDEPENDENCE………
Refusing to play their game is the greatest weapon that we possess.
Brute
This may come as a small consolation, but a group has been put together (the “Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study”), which is supposed to audit all the temperature records, make the data completely transparent to the public, and come up with a new record. You can read about this here
http://judithcurry.com/2011/02/12/forthcoming-new-surface-temperature-record/#more-2322
The rationale for this project is stated as follows:
Here the group describes how it will do this audit:
http://www.berkeleyearth.org/methodology
The membership of the “group” includes many “warmers” some “lukewarmers” and some uncommitted “outsiders”:
So much for the “good news”.
Now the “bad news”:
The study will not look at the impact of urbanization or land use changes (the UHI effect) on the temperature record at this time, but Dr. Curry has said this will likely be added at a later date.
I don’t think that this is being set up as a “white-wash”, but being rationally skeptical by nature, I think we’ll have to wait and see.
Max
Max,
Berkeley California?
Are you kidding?
You expect unbiased data from this radical left wing nuthouse?
God’s just waiting for the remaining lunatics to get out to California before he sinks the whole thing in the Pacific Ocean.
Who’s funding the “study”?
Tonyb/Max,
Here’s what’s happening locally………..the city of Washington DC offered “rebates” for residents who were interested in installing solar power at their homes. These rebates would “offset” on average 1/3 of the cost of the installation making the return on investment more attractive. Many stooges fell for this scheme and signed up for the program………installing the systems in their houses only to have the city council renege on the deal leaving the poor suckers to pay for the entire tab.
The interesting thing about this flim-flam is that these residents have already partially paid for their systems.
A few years ago, the DC city council passed a law, under extreme pressure from the city’s equivalent of the Environmental Protection Agency, requiring 20% of all of the electricity sold by the local utility must come from “sustainable” sources……with the utility facing strict fines if they did not meet the requirement.
The local utility, flabbergasted, began imposing “capacity and transmission” surcharges and collecting fees under the guise of funding a “sustainable energy trust fund” in order to gather monies to pay the rebates (with the approval of the city council).
By “happenstance”, every solar panel installed will be included into the local utility’s 20% generation requirement.
So, the saps that installed the panels now have to pay the entire tab for installing the panels that benefit the local power company.
Pretty smooth scam, don’t you think?
By the way…………if the local utility fails to meet the 20% requirement, the fines can be passed through to the consumers……
DC Cuts Solar Rebate Program, Stranding Recipients
http://www.wusa9.com/news/article/138649/77/DC-Cuts-Solar-Rebate-Program-Stranding-Recipients
Oh, I left out that the city keeps all of the money that was collected to fund these “green” programs (to pay off union bribes and pay for “fact finding” missions to Hawaii and the other exotic locales……ain’t government great!
By the way, isn’t a “Trust Fund” a financial account set up where the money is supossed to fund the original project exclusively and nothing else?
Brute
Yeah. The Berkeley connection caught my eye, too. Let’s see what these guys come up with.
At least they’ve got a lady from Georgia Tech on the team, who might keep them honest if they start getting political rather than doing an honest audit.
The solar scam sounds like a real government boondoggle. We don’t have quite that bad a scheme over here, but the power companies are also making extra Swiss Francs by “selling” their (more gullible) customers “green power” (i.e. supposedly from renewables) at a premium price (for those who want to be “green”).
Now this is totally idiotic, because Switzerland gets essentially all its power either from hydroelectric or from nuclear, with only a few peak load plants on gas.
So essentially ALL of Switzerland’s electrical power is “carbon free”. And besides, how are you going to separate the “green” from the “non-green” power?
But, believe it or not, there are still gullible greenies who think they’re doing something good for the world by buying “green power” at a premium price.
Was it P.T. Barnum (or Al Gore) that said, “There’s a sucker born every day”?
Max