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.
Hi BobFj
“One of the things that really shook me was the political impasse concerning future energy supplies in the UK, that would appear to progress to the very critically fairly soon, unless there is an awakening. (that I’ve not heard about)”
Several of us-myself included- have posted on various threads here and elsewhere on the looming energy crisis here in the uk.
We have to decommission a number of conventional power plants in the next thre years(EU directives and politics)but to date our Govt can only suggest the installation of far inferior generating capacity from renewables as a ‘replacement’.
Chris Hunhe our Climate change minister is deeply ANTI nuclear and deeply PRO renewables. It is complete madness to pursue this non energy policy which is a continuation of the total lack of action for 13 years on this front by the previous Labour administration.
This energy crisis is all slightly disguised by the recession and our exporting of energy intensive jobs overseas.
The Grren party want to ensure our economy permanently operates at a much lower level and ALL the parties refuse to do anything about bolstering our conventional energy supplies in any meaningful way.
Carbon related Madness at its worst.
Tonyb
Brute,
I was just wondering why we haven’t had any of your usual “its been much colder here than usual this week, therefore AGW is bunk” type posts recently?
Is this the answer?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10548690.stm
I know you’re scrupulously fair in your assessment of the available evidence. So, shouldn’t you balance them up with : “Phew! it’s hot here today. I think the IPCC might be right after all!”
PeterM
Last week (beginning July) it was hot in Switzerland (got up to 31C!).
Three weeks ago (mid-June) it was cold (down to 6C!).
Climate change in action (happens all the time).
Nobody dead yet.
Max
I guess you heard Anthony Watts has done a talk-tour of Oz. I decided not to go to the Melbourne sessions but take a trip in the camper-van to Ballarat where I thought it would be less crowded and would have more opportunity to get to talk to him. Big mistake! It was later forecast to be cold and wet. I was intending to take the two dogs, which meant that between us we had 18 tits, and I didn’t want any of them to drop off. Ok I thought, there’s also Canberra and Wagga. Same story….. Brhh…. So I missed out.
Then there was this ABC report of July 6 on Alice Springs which is at about the centroid of Oz:
Desperate times as Alice shivers on coldest day [6.3C]
EXTRACT: “…The council is asking that blankets be dropped off at the council, the Salvation Army or St Vincent de Paul offices…”
No Pete,I’m vacationing in Australia this week and have missed summer temperatures in the US……..Brrrrr……..
Australia – Global warming my backside with the coldest day in 100 years
http://www.meattradenewsdaily.co.uk/news/140710/australia___global_warming_my_backside_with_the_coldest_day_in__years.aspx
Pete,
Antarctic Sea Ice is shattering all records! I thought you wrote that global warming meant that the entire planet would heat up with catastrophic consequences…….but yet, the Antarctic ice grows!
How could this be???????????
Antarctic Sea Ice
Pete,
Is this the group of “mainstream scientists” that you have pinned your hopes on? These are the scientific experts that you claim know all?
Amazongate Proven: IPCC’s attempts to hide truth about its exaggerated claims on deforestation of Amazon have ended in defeat’
Last week, after six months of evasions, obfuscation, denials and retractions, a story which has preoccupied this column on and off since January came to a startling conclusion.
It turns out that one of the most widely publicised statements in the 2007 report of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – a claim on which tens of billions of dollars could hang – was not based on peer-reviewed science, as repeatedly claimed, but originated solely from anonymous propaganda published on the website of a small Brazilian environmental advocacy group.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7883372/Amazongate-At-last-we-reach-the-source.html
Brute,
If you really want to know “how could this be?” , but which I do have some slight doubts about:-), in connection with Antarctic sea ice, Can I suggest that you don’t bother too much with the opinions of the Australian Meat Industry or whoever writes the lead articles in their trade journal!
If I wanted to seek some expert advice on how to slaughter a cow, they would definitely be high on my list of people to ask, but I would say that there may be a slight deficiency in their knowledge of the workings of Global climate!
Christopher Booker who gets paid to write nonsense in the UK’s Daily Telegraph is just as bad, if not worse. I really don’t know such a half-wit is tolerated in what used to be a reasonably good newspaper.
You’ve paid your taxes to support NASA’s research. Why don’t you get your money’s worth and read what they have to say?
NASA’s answer to your question!
I’ve found this link from the BOM website which shows how Australian temperatures have risen in the past 40 years. The interior has warmed by about 2 degC.
http://www.bom.gov.au/inside/eiab/State-of-climate-2010-updated.pdf
Bu what do they know? If these people had any intelligence at all surely they would have found jobs in the Australian Beef industry by now!
Peter #884
Very appropriately when I clicked on your
link the computer froze and Microsoft said it had encountered a problem and shut my system down.
Why are you taking 40 years to be any sort of meaningful time scale to watch the evolution of the climate? The average rise was 0.7C.
By far the biggest temperature change occurred in the decade commencing 1700 until 1730 registering an overall nearly two degres C temperature rise.
tonyb
Pete,
So, are you writing that Queensland has not experienced it’s coldest day in 100 years and that the Antarctic Sea Ice has not reached a record high level?
Pete,
Haven’t you heard? NASA’s primary focus is not atmospheric science……their new mission, declared by Barrack Obama, is to “reach out” to the Muslim world to “make them feel good” about themselves……
NASA’s Muslim Outreach
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/07/nasas_muslim_outreach_106214.html
Brute,
You ask:
1) about recent Qld weather:
Yes, it was quite a bit cooler than usual in Brisbane last week. But the BOM report for June was nothing unremarkable.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/month/qld/summary.shtml
“The statewide-averaged mean monthly temperature was 0.44 °C above the long-term (1961-90) average of 16.68 °C.”
It seems warmer this week and I guess we’ll see how the month turned out in a few weeks time. But if you have some other reliable source of information, and I don’t mean from the meat industry :-) , let’s see what it is.
2) Is Antarctic Ice increasing?
Well if you’d read the NASA link I sent you you’d realise that it isn’t. The correct method of measuring ice amounts is by volume rather than area. It’s sometimes much more difficult to do that, of course, but it is possible using satellite carrying sensitive gravitational sensors.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL040222.shtml
Of course no one is saying they have all the answers but it is likely that one contributory factor to increased sea ice levels is a reducing salinity level. You’ll know that the freezing point of fresh water is higher than salt water. The ice on the Antarctic continent is composed of fresh water. If that melts and flows into the sea it can then refreeze.
Incidentally the “international AGW conspiracy” were split on whether the results about increased Antarctic sea ice should be released. There was a strong suggestion that we should just fake the results! But in the end we decided to do the right thing :-)
PeterM
You wrote to Brute
To clear things up for you, Peter:
The Arctic SEA ICE extent (floating ice) has been increasing steadily since the record started in 1979. The latest reading (June 2010) was 8.6% above the 1979-2000 mean.
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/Jun/S_06_area.txt
As far as the Antarctic ICE SHEET (grounded ice) is concerned there have been several recent short-term studies using different methods. Some of these indicate recent net mass loss, although there is significant year-to-year variability, resulting from changes in glacial outflows and snowfall. The longest-term study was made using continuous satellite altimetry readings over a 10+ year period from mid-April 1992 to mid-April 2003. This mass balance study showed a slight net increase in mass of the entire AIS of 27 ± 29Gt/year over that long-term period.
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/364/1844/1627
Temperatures in the Antarctic appear to have cooled slightly on average over the long term rather than warmed over the late 20th century:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-02/osu-atd021207.php
So, you see, Peter, that the Antarctic ice is generally growing on a long-term basis, while the temperature is sinking on average.
Just to straighten you out on that.
Max
PeterM and Brute
Here is a link to the complete Wingham et al. study on the Antarctic Ice Sheet mass balance 1992-2003. (Earlier link in 889 was just to abstract of study.)
http://www.cpom.org/research/djw-ptrsa364.pdf
The more recent studies using the GRACE method (which you cited, Peter) indicate mass loss (on a shorter term basis), but since there are still questions regarding the accuracy of this method (as compared to satellite altimetry) and there are large year-to-year variations both in glacial outflow and snowfall in the interior, we probably need to wait a few more years to see if the observed 1992-2003 growth in ice mass has really reversed itself on a long term basis as the GRACE report indicates.
Max
Max
Max,
There seems to be a discontinuity with a shift from one measurement method to another in the Arctic data you cited. Do you have any backround articles to back up your claim? Your main link is Colorado Uni, (with mention of NOAA) and another link inside to NSDIC.
When I last checked the NSDIC were saying that summer sea -ice had fallen by about 40% since records began. Can you now show that any of these organisations now have a revised position? If they have, I’m sure that the blogosphere would be full of it. Much as climate deniers depreciate the work of mainstream science, what they, and you, really do crave is their acceptance.
You now claiming to be a “Climatologist” {corrected spelling-PM}! Was that meant to be a joke?
tonyb Reur 876 (Looming UK energy shortfall)
Thanks for your response to mine (874), although I’m not sure if ‘thanks’ is the right word.
As you say, carbon related Madness at its worst.
I think I’ll put the thought of returning to the UK on hold for a while, but intend to visit this autumn for about 4 weeks, and then on to Italy.
Obviously, I need to contact the Met Office for a reliable weather forecast for September and October.
PeterM
You wrote (891):
The data I cited (as well as the topic of Brute’s post and your 888) were ANTARCTIC data (not Arctic data).
The ANTARCTIC sea ice extent has grown steadily since the NSIDC satellite record started in 1979.
The ANTARCTIC ice sheet mass grew slightly over the 10+ year period 1992-2003, based on continuous ESA satellite altimetry readings and appears to have shrunk most recently, based on GRACE measurements.
The ARCTIC is a different story.
ARCTIC sea ice extent has receded since the NSIDC satellite record started in 1979. This reached a low (since 1979) in September 2007 and has recovered somewhat since then.
A similar long-term study of the GREENLAND ice sheet based on continuous ESA satellite altimetry readings from 1992 to 2003 showed a slight net increase in ice mass over this period, primarily as a result of mass growth in the vast high altitude interior.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-11/esa-eas110405.php
Later shorter-term studies, based on GRACE measurements and other spot methods, have shown a net loss of GREENLAND ice sheet mass more recently.
Max
Max#893
We have had this discussion with Peter before.
I seem to recall we posted lots of links trying to put the modern melting into context with previous episiodes of melting and at that point Peter went walkabout for several weeks and never replied -he also did the same on sea levels.
I posted up a long series of links about arctic ice at 2.30pm 11 July
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/11/sea-ice-news-13/
I will attempt to repost it but you know how more than five links seems to just disappear here.
Tonyb
PeterM
You asked:
No, Peter. No claim. No joke. You must have misunderstood or misread something.
As fas as NSIDC is concerned, their site is readily accessible with data by month for both the ARCTIC and the ANTARCTIC back to 1979 when satellite readings started.
It shows steady growth of ANTARCTIC sea ice and steady shrinking of ARCTIC sea ice (links cited previously).
I have also cited links to satellite altimetry studies showing net mass growth of both ANTARCTIC and GREENLAND ice sheets over the long-term study period 1992-2003.
Later studies using the GRACE method show that both ice sheets are receding more recently. Whether this reversal after 2003 is partially attributable to the change in measurement method or not is an open point.
Max
Max
My #894
Just tried to repost the links but I think its disappeared. Hope you will find time to go over and read the links as its all very relevant to the discussion here.
Tonyb
PeterM
You wrote (891):
You must have “last checked” in summer 2007, rather than today.
The “end-summer” (= September) NSIDC (million square km) extent reading is:
7.04 1979-2000 average (baseline)
4.28 2007 (39% below baseline = lowest year since record started in 1979))
5.36 2009 (24% below baseline)
So in 2 years the end-summer sea ice recovered by 15% of the baseline value. Based on July reading, it looks like it is still recovering this year and will have recovered a bit more by September 2010.
Just a bit of an update for you, Peter; it’s a dynamic situation, which appears to be recovering from a September 2007 low, when you “last checked”.
Max
Max,
You’re not being very clear at all.
in #889 you said “To clear things up for you, Peter, The Arctic SEA ICE extent (floating ice) has been increasing…..”
So that was a typo?
You really meant decreasing? Yes/No
PeterM
Typo (sorry). The discussion was about ANTARCTIC sea ice, which has been INCREASING steadily since the record started in 1979.
Max
Max,
OK. A Typo.
But what about the total amount of ice in the Antarctic? Is that increasing or decreasing?