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.
Max,
TonyB wants me to stop flogging a dead Lamb but I’m not sure that Hubert has anything to be sorry about. He got some things right and some wrong. But, whether he was right or wrong about asymmetry in the climatic record, that is what he thought when he was alive. He wrote a book and used the word in the title of one of his chapters. Remember?
Just what he’s thinking now he’s dead is another matter entirely. If you ask me he’s thinking nothing at all but, if you are of a religious disposition, I guess its possible to think that he may have changed his mind. But he may well have changed his mind on AGW too. Maybe we’ll all find out one day!
Max,
“Read my reply again” That’s what Robin used to write when I had him cornered and he couldn’t think of anything sensible to say!
Maybe you’re in the same position!
Peter #1376
What?
Let’s try and steer this on to more sensible ground Peter.
You are very credulous of everything produced by the IPCC. Over the months Max and myself have posted information pointing out, for example, that Arctic ice melts periodically and the current episode is not unusual, let alone unprecedented.
We have posted information confirming the misinformation on sea level figures-confirmed in the IPCCS own chapter five.
I have posted information to combat your touching belief in historic global temperature accurate to incredible detail.
You refuse to acknowledge or contest them, but SST’s are so easy to have an opinion on that it really doesn’t require much effort on your part to respond Peter. With SST’s we have something that you can use logic on instead of blindly beleiving everything you read from the IPCC.
Max has posted lots of good links. I have posted the Hadcrut figures. I have also posted a good reply by Willis Essenbach which sums up the whole debate (1367)
The simple question is; Do you believe that we have sufficient knowledge of the Southern Ocean to be able to parse historic SST’s to .06C?
Do you believe we have sufficient knowledge of any meaningful stretch of ocean to be able to parse historic SSt’s to this level of accuracy and arrive at a global figure?
If you DO believe they are accurate perhaps you would kindly tell us why
If you don’t believe these figures can be accurate we can move on to surface temperatures.
tonyb
TonyB,
You ask what I think, and what “my touching” belief are. They aren’t that important. You aren’t arguing with me, you are arguing with world Science. I’ve mentioned the IPCC. It seems the main objection to them is that are part of the UN. I’ve also mentioned the top UK and USA authorities on science. You’re arguing with them too.
Maybe Max can tell us who the Swiss equivalent would be and what they have to say? The Swiss are big on neutrality and aren’t members of the UN. Maybe we should just let them decide?
Peter #1379
So can I take it that you agree with ‘world science’ that we have sufficient knowledge of Historic ocean temperatures to be able to parse them to .06C?
If so, what do you base this on?
I’m not sure the Swiss would be big experts on historic SST’s for obvious geographic reasons.
Tonyb
TonyB,
Something from Switzerland.
http://www.climatestudies.unibe.ch/
I’m not sure what sort of nonsense they are teaching those poor students, by maybe you and Max could offer your services and run a course on SSTs, the UHI effect, the inaccuracies of the Surface temperature record, how sea levels are falling and how we are all headed for the next ice age sooner than we think!
Peter #1381
So, a few buckets are thrown over the side of a ship to colect water and the results left to stand around until eventually meaasured by an (often) untrained observer using an (often) uncalibrated thermometer. (before the days of the engine intake scenario)
This is done in an ad hoc and sporadic fashion over a tiny amount of the earths ocean with no consistency to place or time scales.
The results are poured into such as the Hadley computer who through a process of ‘interpolation’ then tell us they have enough data points of sufficient quality to be able to produce a global record dating back to 1850 of such accuracy that it can be measured to tiny fraction of a degree.
Logic, common sense and science tells us this can’t be true Peter, and there is no point in appealing to world science.
If you are looking for scientific proof of warming, random and uncalibrated SST’s back to 1850 aren’t the place to find it.
Tonyb
Max
The Climate University is in Bern. Might you be interested in asking in German what their scientific opinion of SST’s are? The contact seems to be;
martin.grosjean@oeschger.unibe.ch
It would be interesting to hear how they scientifcally defend such an unscientific process, as Peter merely appeals to higher authority.
Tonyb
Peter #1381
You mention UHI-a subject of which I have written at length, so yes I would be pleased to put an alternative view to the eager climate students at Bern. Here is a page of links on the subject on my web site
http://climatereason.com/UHI/
Amongst the links on this page are one by Prof Humlum-but then what does he know?
Professor Humlum has been the Professor of Physical Geography at the Department of Geosciences in University of Oslo, as well as the Adjunct Professor of Physical Geography at the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS), since 2003
http://www.climate4you.com/UrbanHeatIsland.htm#General
You have a poor track record of reading links so I don’t have any great hope that you will challenge your ingrained belief system by looking at material that doesn’t come with the IPCC stamp of approval-but we live in hope, if not expectation :)
tonyb
PeterM
Re ur 1381.
Don’t believe that this is “nonsense” (as you put it), Peter.
Dr. Willy Tinner of Bern has done some work on climatic influences on various types of coniferous trees in marginal climates (Alaska, Kirghistan, high altitude Switzerland, etc.). Using paleoclimate methodologies he has determined the tree-line impact during past warmer and colder periods.
Kind of specialized stuff, but not “nonsense”.
Max
PeterM
No (1377).
It is YOU that are “cornered” (if anyone here is, but I prefer not to use this expression).
First with your silly statement that Mann et al. had not been scientifically refuted.
Then with the claim “well, it only happened once” (referring to the latst McShane & Wyner study).
I showed you that McIntyre & McKitrick had invalidated the hockey stick earlier (cherry-picked data and faulty statistics), that this was confirmed under oath by the Wegman committee (which concluded that Mann’s study could not demonstrate unusual 20th century warmth over 1,300 years as claimed) and that Wegman’s conclusions were agreed to (before the same congressional committee) by North (a climate specialist) and Bloomfield (a statistics specialist), both of NAS.
Then came the story about Lamb’s (fleeting) erroneous mention of “asymmetry” between the time period of the MWP in Europe and China (allegedly proving that the MWP was not “global”), along with Lamb’s hypothesis of why this was so.
I cited several studies (published after Lamb), which clearly show that the timing of the MWP in Asia (Siberia, China, Japan and the Indo-Pacific Ocean) was essentially the same as that in Europe, and that (like in Europe) the MWP temperatures were a bit warmer than today, thereby providing new scientific data to correct Lamb’s earlier postulation and extend the MWP to Asia
Other studies I cited show that the MWP can also be extended to the Southern Hemisphere, in other words, it was truly “global” and not simply “regional”.
You waffled and squirmed on this point repeatedly, apparently trying to get me to say that Lamb concluded that the MWP was “regional” and not “global”, and ignoring completely all the studies I had cited showing that it was, indeed, global.
Now that you have been proven wrong by the facts out there in your “belief” that the MWP could not have been a global event (or maybe didn’t even happen at all, as Mann had concluded, based on some North American bristlecone pines), TonyB has attempted to move the conversation to something rather more pertinent to today’s situation: the validity or accuracy of the “modern” temperature record, starting in 1850.
Tony’s first concern about this record is the pre-satellite SST record, so he asked both you and me for our thoughts on its validity. This is an important point, as you will undoubtedly agree, since 70% of the planet’s surface is covered by seas and oceans. If we have a skewed (or just flat out nonsensical) record for 70% of our planet, the whole record becomes highly suspect (or possibly even worthless).
The first info I could get on this is that the pre-satellite SST record appears to be extremely poor (and that the recent satellite record may be an improvement over the primitive methods used before, but also has some diurnal distortions).
Unfortunately we know that the pre-ARGO upper ocean water temperature record (from the XBTs and had a built-in instrumental warming bias, so this does not help us much. Besides, we read that this record did not show any real correlation with the SST record.
Then we read that Phil Jones had replaced early SST temperatures measured over water with nearby on-shore data, where these did not agree, thereby potentially introducing the UHI distortion to the SST record as well.
Finally we hear of a major “adjustment” made to the record at the end of WWII.
So, Peter, if you have any information out there that can show Tony that this information is all false, and that the historical SST record is a correct indicator of our planet’s temperature over the oceans, which can be validly used to arrive at a “globally and annually averaged land and sea surface temperature” construct, please bring it forth.
Don’t just tell me “IPCC said so, so it must be right”, or “the Royal Society believes IPCC is correct” so the SST record must be “just fine”.
Come with some specific data.
Again, the ball is in your court.
Thanks.
Max
For any fellow ’80s music fans out there, here’s a pop quiz – which 1984 hit is evoked by this inspirational poster for CO2 mitigation? (Answers on a postcard.) It’s from a web site called Walk to School; here‘s more. I saw the poster on a noticeboard outside my local Tesco a few days ago, and took a photo, but the PDF is a lot clearer. Note the seamless way that pollution and CO2 are equated…
PeterM
You opined that Switzerland is not a member of the U.N.
This is false.
Switzerland joined in 2002 (to the dismay of some voters, but the agreement of a majority), becoming the 190th member (alongside such sterling democracies as Zimbabwe, Mali, Burkino Fasso, etc.). A great club.
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2002/GA10041.doc.htm
Max
Alex Cull
All I can think of is Nena’s (German) song: “99 Luftballons”, which did first come out in the “Big Brother” year of 1984.
I think it got recorded in English translation as “99 Red Balloons”.
But they contained a gas lighter than air (unlike the ones in the silly “walk to school” ad, which are filled with that major heavier-than-air pollutant, CO2, but still float miraculously).
The guys that put this one together are apparently not too well versed on the facts of science. Problem is, they confuse impressionable school children with this garbage.
I prefer Nena (as cooky as she is).
Max
Re: 1387
Max, yes that’s the song I was thinking of. By coincidence, there’s more CO2 balloon fun over at WUWT here.
The Walk to School web site is part of Living Streets, an organisation which used to be called the Pedestrians Association and goes back to 1929. Somewhere along the line, climate change entered the picture…
(Your plant picture, by the way, has the makings of a good bumper sticker, IMO.)
Max,
Blimey, you were right and I was wrong – about Switzerland and the UN.
That must be a first for you. Well done!
TonyB,
“Merely appealing to higher authority”. Merely? If you don’t know what you are talking about then its a good idea to look it up. That may involve an an Encyclopaedia or similar. Is the combined opinion of World Science a higher authority than my own. Well yes it is.
The problem with debates about Evolution and Creation is that it they essentially turn on the question of who is a higher authority God or Man?
You are in the same position as the Evolutionists, except that you haven’t got a higher authority at all. Just a few maverick scientists and paid shills of the fossil fuel industry.
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Who are you and what have you done with Peter Martin?
Manacker,
I used the word “nonsense” in a sort of tongue in cheek way! I wasn’t implying that the University of Bern were in any way deficient. I’m sure they keep people like yourself and TonyB well away from their students and teach the correct scientific pro-consensus line!
Brute,
I’m not sure why you are surprised when I admitted I was wrong. When I am I’ll put up my hands and say so, but I’m never going to agree that 2+2=5 !
Alex (1387)
Is there someone we can complain to about that? The ASA comes to mind, but since our run-in with them last year over the drowning dog, I’ve lost what little faith I had in them…
James, Alex
What is there to complain about?
Leaving aside the arguments about CO2, it is much healthier to walk or cycle to school.
I can’t remember ever being driven to school. It never did me any harm :-)
James P, yes the ASA would have been my choice too, although they’d probably say something similar to what they said in their adjudication re the “Act on CO2” ads:
“DECC said there was an overwhelming consensus within the global community of climate scientists that rising CO2 levels, primarily caused by human activity, had been and would be responsible for changes in the global climate including more instances of extreme weather conditions.” So there. The only leeway we’d have, maybe, is if we put the case that CO2 doesn’t have a toxic red colour, and doesn’t behave like helium, but something tells me we wouldn’t get very far.
Peter M, yes I’m totally with you there re walking/cycling to school. I did it when I were a lad, when the “school run” didn’t exist – kids are indeed a bunch of softies, these days! (Or the parents are over-protective.) In that sense, I have no quarrel at all with Walk to School. It’s just… the CO2 = pollution bit…
Thinking about the people in charge of these agencies – the ASA’s Lord Smith (“I’d like cap and trade schemes adopted around the world.”), and Tony Armstrong, Chief Executive of Living Streets (“Climate change is happening and man’s CO2 emissions are to blame”), it’s a bit like being Donald Sutherland in the last half hour of Invasion of the Body Snatchers – they’re in positions of power everywhere. Can’t escape!
“It’s just… the CO2 = pollution bit…”
Anyone who knows that CO2 is heavier than air will regard the ad (and hence its message) as risible. The irony is that if they had resisted the temptation to label the balloons, and instead equated the volume of what is clearly Helium to that of the CO2 in question, they would at least have avoided a schoolboy error. The fact that they didn’t suggests that they know less science than most schoolboys.
James P, I know, but they’d probably just say that it has symbolic value, and the main thing is that it raises awareness…