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.
Peter
My link was to the sefton coast partnership from which I took one small extract by John Houston (a highly respected author) taken from a bibliography by Dr Jennifer Lewis who referenced over 100 studies to underpin the work of the Govt funded project.
These 100 studies from a wide variety of contributors give a detailed picture concerning what has been happening on that particular stretch of coast over the years.
You now seem to be ignoring even the Dr Masters study you reference which surely is a first! This confirms what I have been saying and illustrates it with a nice graph.
Hopefully others reading this blog will bother to read the numerous links I have tried to give to you and judge for themselves the worth of the studies which come from a wide variety of sources. They could usefully start off with the one that Peter himself referenced.
Al Gore, Dr Ian Stewart Brian Fagan and Dr Masters will no doubt be disappointed that Peter disagrees with them
tonyb
PeterM
I do not want to enter your exchange with TonyB too deeply, but I would be interested in what you mean by your statement to him:
Wiki tells us
This definition is obviously too restricted.
You need to get a bit more specific here, Peter. In order to help Tony out in responding to your specific request, it would help if you answered the questions below.
1. Can you provide your personal definition of a “credible scientific link”?
2. Is this limited to certain journals or sites of your personal choice, such as “Nature”, “RealClimate”, etc.?
3. If so, what are the accepted journals and sites? (List all those you personally deem “credible”.)
4. Is it necessary that these journals agree with your personal beliefs and conclusions regarding the validity of the “dangerous AGW” premise to be “credible” to you?
5. Is it necessary that these journals agree with the IPCC (i.e. “mainstream”) party line regarding the validity of the “dangerous AGW” premise to be “credible” to you?
6. Are any journals or sites specifically excluded, in your personal opinion?
7. If so, what are the unaccepted journals or sites? (List at least five.)
8. Is “peer review” of the specific study required for you to personally accept the “scientific link” as “credible”?
9. If so, should this “peer review” be performed by independent outside auditors or by like-mined scientists, or does this not matter, in your personal opinion?
10. Are documented historical data, such as old crop records, sea charts, records of mine shutdowns and human migrations, etc. included?
11. If not, which documented historical data are specifically excluded, in your personal opinion?
12. Are “gray literature” reports (as used by IPCC) specifically included or excluded, in your personal opinion?
13. Does a “credible scientific link” require that the “scientific process” based on observation has been followed rigorously in testing the proposed hypothesis, or are untested hypotheses also accepted, provided the study has been published in one of the “scientific links”, which you have personally accepted as “credible” (see above)?
TonyB may have more questions for you on this, but I believe if you answer the above, we will have a good idea of your personal thoughts and opinions on what constitutes a “credible scientific link” in your mind.
Thanks for clearing this up.
Max
PeterM
Just a sideline, but you asked TonyB:
You must realize that you are digging yourself into a deep hole with that logic.
For months several posters here have been asking you to provide “scientific evidence” (i.e. “empirical data based on physical observations”, according to the “scientific method”) to support your personal belief regarding the postulation that AGW has been the primary cause of 20th century warming and that it represents a serious potential threat, all to no avail. You have been unable to provide this “scientific evidence”.
Now you demand the same “scientific evidence” from TonyB regarding historical sea level fluctuations, and throw out all the “empirical data based on physical observations” which he provides.
Keep digging, Peter.
Max
PeterM
In 1738 I have pointed out to you in detail, why your fear of a 1 meter sea level rise by year 2100 is totally unrealistic, and that this is more likely to be in the range of 0.1 to 0.2 meters (as it has been over the past century).
Any specific comments to my analysis (or do you accept it, as is?
Max
TonyB
The study you cited in Ecology Today (1746) indicates that model studies show a relatively short-term response (i.e. measured in centuries) of sea levels to atmospheric temperatures. I have seen other studies, which indicate that this response takes much longer (i.e. measured in millennia).
This more rapid response would explain why the cited study by Grinsted concludes, based on various direct as well as proxy measurements:
The study goes on by relating these observations to future climate change:
The key word here is obviously “assuming”.
However, it is not reasonable to “assume” that the temperature will be 3C warmer than today in 100 years, for the many reasons outlined in my 1738.
a) Assumed CAGR of atmospheric CO2 is several times that actually observed over the past 50 (or most recent 5) years of 0.4% per year, despite the fact that anticipated population growth to year 2100 will be at one-third to one-sixth the CAGR experienced from 1960 to today.
b) Assumed 2xCO2 climate sensitivity of 3.2C assumes a strongly positive feedback from clouds, representing 1.3C of the 2xCO2 CS, whereas recent physical observations show that net cloud feedback is strongly negative instead, thereby reducing 2xCO2 CS from 3.2C to below 1C.
Correcting for these factors, a more reasonable atmospheric temperature estimate would be in the range of 0.3 to 0.6C higher than today. This would correlate with a rise of 0.1 to 0.2 meters by year 2100 (1.1 to 2.2 mm/year increase over the period).
Max
TonyB
Further to my earlier post, the Caesaria study you cited by Sivan et al. in Earth and Planetary Science Letters gives a good long-term record of sea levels dating back to Roman times.
These records show that sea level has been both higher and lower than today over the long-term period. Whether or not this is a direct reflection of warmer and colder periods or is totally independent is another point, which is not covered.
I have seen two other studies covering Mediterranean sea levels. These seem to conclude that there has been a gradual increase over the long-term, with some possible shorter-term fluctuations in between.
The first is by Lambeck et al. in the same scientific journal (Earth and Planetary Science Letters) entitled “Sea level change from Roman times in Mediterranean”
http://clima.casaccia.enea.it/staff/antonioli/Articoli/29.pdf
This study shows that sea level was slightly higher during Roman times than today, with a corrected eustatic sea level change of -0.13 m since then.
The second is a study in Journal of Climate Research, Vol. 12, pp.841-849 (1996), by C. Morhange et al. on the “Ancient Harbor of Marseilles”
http://www.jstor.org/pss/4298534
Contrary to studies cited earlier, this study shows a gradual increase, with no past levels higher than today.
So there are a lot of “scientific data” out there for historical sea levels (even if they do not all agree).
Max
Max,
Its possible that sea level has fluctuated slightly in the last thousand years years. I don’t really know. I’m willing to be convinced according to the scientific evidence.
What is not in dispute is that the Earth’s temperature is approximately 5-7 degrees warmer now than it was during the last glacial minimum. This warmth caused ice caps to melt and sea water to expand leading to a sea level rise of approximately 120 metres.
So how much will another 2 or 3 degrees of warming affect sea levels? I’m not sure. But a rise only 59 cm just doesn’t sound right at all by comparison!
Max
Your #1753 hit the nail on the head. We seem to have to meet a much higher level of proof than Peter does.
As you also said
“Further to my earlier post, the Caesaria study you cited by Sivan et al. in Earth and Planetary Science Letters gives a good long-term record of sea levels dating back to Roman times.”
The trouble is that organisations- such as the IPCC- exclude natural cycles and draw straight lines from a recent start point. The level of knowledge of past sea levels by those in the industry-let alone the general public- is very poor. Generally speaking those involved are merely looking at satellite records and don’t delve any further back. The general public just believe what the IPCC and MSM tell them
The reconstruction by IPCC using 23 tide gauges from 1900 -only 2 from the SH- and which include only seven that haven’t moved -but ALL of those subject to considerable development around them-is a very poor piece of work. The latest existed only from 1933. A couple predate 1900. To then stick inaccurate (in their own words) satellite altimetry on top and try to pass it off as a highly accurate measure of the recent past is nonsensical.
Ironically even Wiki are equivocal on the subject of its accuracy!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Recent_Sea_Level_Rise.png
Tide gauges (like thermometers) were never intended to be highly accurate and varied enormously until very recent years with no standardisation. Here is one example
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fuga_Island_Tide_Gauge_1927.jpg
Accurate to a fraction of an inch? I dont think so
tonyb
PeterM
You apparently fear a 1-meter sea level rise, resulting from a 2 to 3C temperature rise by 2100.
Let’s do a quick “sanity check” on your fear. Is it based on realistic concern or is it simply a phobia?
Over the 20th century, sea level rose by 0.17 meters while temperature rose by 0.74C (according to IPCC).
But let’s look at the temperature and sea level predictions of IPCC (AR4 WG1 SPM, p.13).
The various “scenarios” cranked into the models cited by IPCC project temperature to increase by 1.1 to 6.4C by the end of the century (as a result of AGW), while sea level rises from 0.18 to 0.59 meters over the same period.
We have just demonstrated why the IPCC temperature forecasts exceeding 2C are absurd, and that, based only on theoretical AGW considerations, this is likely to be between 0.6 and 0.7C (similar to the past century), with an upper value of 1C. What happens as a result of natural forcing factors (natural variability) is another question.
So the sea level rise from today to year 2100 is likely to be between 0.1 to 0.2 meters (as sea level expert, Nils Axel Mörner has estimated).
Your prediction of a 1-meter sea level rise based on a temperature increase of 3C simply does not pass the “sanity test”, Peter.
So don’t be afraid.
Max
PS For a chart to make this all easier to comprehend see below:
Max 1760
Unless you have joined the ranks of the alarmists in forecasting a half metre rise in 10 years, presumably the graph should be labelled 2000 to 2099?
tonyb
TonyB
I haven’t joined the alarmists yet (although Peter is trying his best to frighten me). So far I am remaining rationally resistant to scaremongering.
The graph is OK. It is simply the strange and somewhat convoluted terminology used by IPCC.
They are estimating the change in sea level and the change in temperature comparing the average values recorded over the period 1980-1999 to the model simulation derived averages over the period 2090-2099 based on the various “scenarios” and climate sensitivity assumptions cranked in. As I pointed out to Peter, there are so many levels of exaggeration in these model inputs that you can’t expect to get anything resembling a reasonable output.
IPCC predicts upper limit temperature increase of 6.4C by the last decade of the 21st century with corresponding sea level increase of 0.59 meters. But this is based on a 2xCO2 climate sensitivity, which is exaggerated by a factor of 3-4:1, a compounded annual rate of increase in atmospheric CO2, which is exaggerated by a factor of almost 4:1 (with more carbon being emitted than all of the world’s fossil fuels contain!).
But Peter seems to think they are too low by a factor of 2!
Ouch!
Max
Hi Max
Further to my last post on tidal gauges.
This is the Newlyn tide gauge details from which all sea levels are referenced Readings were taken over a 5 year period from measurements on a staff.l
http://www.pol.ac.uk/ntslf/tgi/ntobs.html
This technical presentation is interesting but in particular Slide 11-highest sea level
Slide 37-shows real absolute level compared to IPCC estrimate
Slide 40 and Slide 41 note caveats on measurements
http://www.psmsl.org/train_and_info/training/…/chile/pw_chile_extreme.ppt
tonyb
Max,
The IPCC has produced estimates which you are happy to accept based on computer models. I’m not dismissing them and I do hope they are right.
However, as we all know, they aren’t infallible and they do need to recheck and revise as new data becomes available.
You’re into linear relationships and empirical evidence. Try to answer this one:
It is observed that a six degree temperature rise produces a 120 metre rise in sea level. Assuming that Prof Lindzen is correct and doubling of CO2 levels will cause a further 1 degree temperature rise, what additional sea level rise cane we expect?
A) 59cm B) 1 metres C) 20 metres D) I don’t know but let’s not do the experiment to find out!
Well, all I can say is that grinding up a few hundred thousand birds in a giant blender or displacing a few Punjab farmers is a small price to pay to help prove the IPCC’s theory.
Carbon offsets: Green project offends Indian farmers who lose land to windmills
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2010/0420/Carbon-offsets-Green-project-offends-Indian-farmers-who-lose-land-to-windmills
Peter and Max
I think we are agreed that whatever our differences on the merits of the science used by the IPCC, we urgently need additional sources of power and that nuclear is probably the way to go bearing in mind the reality of our using coal and that renewables are inadequate.
However, as Peter Taylor pointed out nuclear has its own problems which has held back its wider adaptation in many western societies (the UK being a case in point)
I was sent this recently-would be interested in your views, as a safe, carbonless, form of energy would meet the aspirations of those on all sides of the debate.
“A couple of years ago, a small research firm in NJ finally got enough funding to proceed with some definitive experimentation with its design for a tiny ‘DPF’ (Dense Plasma Focus) fusion reactor, with a couple of significant refinements having to do with manipulating the spinning mag field that produces pulsed micro-“pinches” (collapses which briefly produce little proton-Boron11 fusion events) so that ‘X-ray cooling’ doesn’t squelch the process, and a photo-electric shell design to capture the remainder of the X-Ray energy directly as power. Between that and the alpha beam (Helium ions) shooting from the reactor anode core, a surplus of energy should be collectable. The initial (historic, unprecedented) “scientific breakeven” stage (total energy produced equals or exceeds input energy) should be reached late THIS YEAR or thereabouts. If that happens, the world changes.
The intent is to then engineer and refine a mass-producable prototype, which would be licensed for manufacture by all comers, world-wide. Each generator would like be in the 5MW range, and cost about 1/20 (5%) of current capital and operating costs in conventional plants in North America. The price advantage in the rest of the world would vary, but generally be even higher, especially in the UK and EU.
So power plants and transportation would be rapidly driven by “comparative price advantage” to go electric, and the CO2 issue goes away.
More info here: focusfusion.org . Technical reports page here: http://focusfusion.org/index.php/site/category/C30/
tonyb
PeterM
Answer to your question (1764)
E. None of the above.
The IPCC models correlating sea level rise to temperature rise are probably OK (I cannot find any valid reason to conclude that they are basically flawed, as I can with the other IPCC assumptions on CO2 increase and CO2 climate sensitivity, as I explained in earlier posts).
This correlation tells us that a 1.1C temperature rise by the end of this century (lower end of range of “scenario B1”) will result in a sea level rise of 0.18 meters, so I would conclude that the answer to your question (sea level rise to be expected from a 1C temperature increase) is around 0.17 meters.
Hope this helps.
Max
TonyB
The information you posted on a small scale nuclear fusion reactor sounds very promising.
As I read the Guardian article, which Peter posted recently, this is exactly the kind of research into new technology that Bjorn Lomborg is talking about as worthwhile (rather than carbon taxes or mandatory carbon caps, which he and the team of economists he cites conclude will bring nothing).
But someone will need to put the nuclear “hobgoblin” back in the bottle (even if it’s fusion instead of waste-producing current technology fission).
Max
This is interesting…………
TonyN,
Are there any studies related to the effects of “climate change” on “renewable” energy sources? If a particular hilltop in Germany is deemed optimum for a windmill, could anthropogenic climate change decrease the average wind speed at the site making the site less than optimum?
Hmmmm…………
Renewable energy: Not all it’s cracked up to be?
http://www.greenbang.com/renewable-energy-not-all-its-cracked-up-to-be_14776.html
PeterM
You wrote (1764):
Let’s analyse this and see if we can state it more precisely and comprehensively.
“Observed” is a big word here, Peter. I hardly believe that anyone actually “observed” this.
So let’s revise that to:
Let’s add (for completeness sake).
And then (to add a bit of “future prediction”):
Now you’ve got a more meaningful set of statements with which we could both agree.
Right?
Max
Max,
You seem to have a bit of a problem with the relationship between the warming as the Earth came out of an ice age and the rise in sea level. You say they “occurred concurrently”. You don’t accept it was causal?
PeterM
No problem at all, Peter (1771).
Paleoclimate studies seem to indicate that sea level increased by 120 meters over a period of 20,000 years as we came out of the last Ice Age, while atmospheric temperature rose (on average) by 6 to 7C over this same period.
Were the two related? Virtually certain (as IPCC would put it), Peter.
For sure, the melting of the massive ice sheet that covered a good part of North America and Europe plus parts of Asia, was the principal source of the contribution to the sea level rise, along with a much smaller contribution from the thermal expansion resulting from the gradual warming of the oceans.
The two main ice sheets (Antarctica and Greenland) plus the many (comparatively tiny) non-polar glaciers scattered around the world are all that is left today of the massive grounded ice sheet, and these are, on average, still melting, albeit at a greatly reduced rate. According to IPCC, these have contributed around 0.7 mm per year to sea level over the period 1961-2003.
So there is no problem in the understanding here, Peter.
How about you?
Max
Hi Max
You’ll enjoy this-Andrew Montfords enquiry into the charade of the climategate investigations. Some of the details are carried on the Oxburgh thread here at HS.
http://www.thegwpf.org/images/stories/gwpf-reports/Climategate-Inquiries.pdf
Hopefully Peter wil read it and recognise that it is a damning indictment, the truth of which he can trace independently through a variety of sources (a good place to start Peter would be the Oxburgh thread here)
I’m not holding my breath he will read it though-he seems to have a blind spot as far as the IPCC and their contributors are concerned.
tonyb
Democrat Leader Harry Reid arrives at clean energy summit. . . in a fleet of giant SUVs
Clean, Green Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid rolled up to the Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, Nevada last week. . . in a fleet of giant SUVs.
The Heartland Institute reports that while the Senate Majority Hypocrite “and other high-profile environmental activists blasted carbon-based fuels at the Reid-sponsored summit, Reid and other bigwigs were caught on film driving to and from the summit in several SUVs.”
“I was absolutely astonished, not to mention appalled, that Harry Reid would retain a fleet of gas-guzzling SUVs so that he and a few aides would not have to walk the mere 100 yards to address environmental activists,” said Heartland Institute Senior Fellow James M. Taylor, who took the attached photo. “If greenhouse gas emissions are such a problem, you would think Reid might have actually made the short stroll through the parking lot, or at least retain Priuses rather than large SUVs for the summit,” said Taylor.
Reid’s arrogance is routine in Washington where pols ride in Secret Service-provided GMC Yukons and Chevy Suburbans while denouncing SUVs as wasteful transportation to the peasants.
http://apps.detnews.com/apps/blogs/watercooler/index.php?blogid=667
TonyB
Thanks for link to Montford summary on the Climategate inquiries.
I seriously doubt that Peter will even be interested in this, because it does not lend support to his belief in “mainstream climate science”.
Just looking at the main comments on the first inquiry (the Parliamentary Inquiry) I read:
It doesn’t get any better for the other inquiries.
Sounds like a classical “whitewash” to me!
Richard Nixon would have been proud (unfortunately he was not allowed the luxury of having “friendly” investigators, who were trying to prove his innocence during Watergate).
Max