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.
149 cont
As it relates to increasing C02 causing dangerous warming is lazy at best. It completely ignores various feedbacks not least of which clouds which by the latest research are net negative.
Why are you so unable to admit that the research that would demonstrate your contention that human derived CO2 emissions will cause danagerous warming simply does not currently exist. It may do in the future (it’s looking progressively less likely in my opinion), but right now all you have is a belief based on personal choice.
Barelysane,
Climate science is in many ways quite straightforward. If you accept the three points in 148 then it is hard to argue that GHGs weren’t the principle cause of of AGW in the 20th century especially as the solar flux, the only other known possible cause, was level during the same period.
Allowing a human influence is the only way that the empirical evidence can be explained. And that’s just as valid a scientific a technique as being able to do an experiment in the laboratory.
However, Quantum Mechanics is a bit like you say. That does require a leap of what might be called ‘scientific faith’. Its not really understandable by the human mind, the effects on the atomic scale are just too weird. However, the theory does a pretty good job in explaining phenomena that just cannot be explained any other way. Despite much controversy the theory stands.
This links shows that it isn’t just me that has these crazy ideas on the role of GHG’s in the atmosphere!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
Peter
Peter, that is a blatant lie as you well know (by flux i assume you mean TSI, and even if you don’t it’s still utterly untrue). Just to refresh your memory, a far from exhaustive list of possible other causes.
Measurement inaccurancies (UHI, tidal vs satellite altimetry, siting issues)
Solar magnetics
Orbital variences
Cosmic radiation
PDO
and of course fudged data
The absence of evidence for something is not evidence for something else, unless you have elimated all other variables and by their own admission the various modellers, climate scientists, and IPCC haven’t. Sorry Peter, argument from ignorance isn’t going to win you any debates.
There is no such thing, science is evidence based. It is demostratable and reproduceable, anything else is faith or sociology. The rest of that paragraph is just meaningless waffle.
Wiki is NOT a authoritative source for anything ever. Fine as a starting position, but don’t expect me or anyone else to take seriously anyone using that as a primary source of information (besides the alledged biases of wiki on this area are well documented).
Either as everyone else has asked, provide direct empiracle evidence, demostrate that all other variable have been accounted for, or admit that the hypothesis of AGW is unverified.
Peter
Incidentally, i’m also quite interested in how you reconcile your 9935 from the previous thread:
With your 152 above:
You seem to be adopting different positions on both.
Biblical plagues result of global warming say scientists
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/7530678/Biblical-plagues-really-happened-say-scientists.html
Brute
Great read, now who would be the modern day Moses for the 10 plagues of AGW?
PeterM
Your logic (148) appears sound on the surface, ignoring all other factors and without going into any real detail, but let’s look at it more closely, and see if we can confirm it with actually observed empirical data:
The Earth has, indeed warmed since the modern record started in 1850. There were three observed multi-decadal cycles of warming (late 19th century, early 20th century and late 20th century, which are statistically indistinguishable. The first two could not have been caused principally by human CO2, because there was hardly any.
The GH theory tells us this is true, and it is generally accepted that the natural greenhouse effect was caused principally by water in our atmosphere, and to a much smaller extent by CO2. Scientists tell us that the relation between GHGs and temperature is roughly logarithmic, and estimate (IPCC, Myhre et al.) that a doubling of CO2 would cause a temperature increase of around 1C.
CH4 levels have increased both naturally and from human emissions (roughly half for each), and their impact has been relatively minor, so the human impact is quite small and can be ignored (in any case, IPCC tells us that all anthropogenic forcings beside CO2 cancel one another out).
CO2 has increased by around 38%, which should have resulted in a theoretical GH temperature increase of 0.46C. The record shows warming of 0.65C since it started, and solar scientists tell us that roughly half of this warming can be attributed to the unusually high level of 20th century solar activity (highest in several thousand years). If we assume (a) that the estimate by the solar scientist is too high by a factor of two, and (b) that there were no other natural forcing factors (ENSO, etc.) or distortions to the record (UHI), we can confirm the theoretical 2xCO2 GHE of 1C. If, however, either of these assumptions is incorrect, the 2xCO2 GHE would be lower than 1C.
So, yes, we have compelling empirical evidence that the 2xCO2 GHE is no more that 1C, and possibly less than 1C.
If atmospheric CO2 continues to increase at the same compounded annual growth rate as it has over the past 20 years, we should reach a level of around 560 ppmv (or twice the estimated pre-industrial value of 280 ppmv) by year 2100. This would mean that we should see added warming beyond today of no more that 0.54C.
So you see that your “broad brush” statements confirm that AGW is not a serious potential threat, once they are examined more closely.
Can we now agree?
If not, please get specific as to why not (with logic and figures, rather than “because 2,500 scientists said so”).
Max
barelysane and Brute
The sequel to the “ancient plagues” story: On the way out of plague-ravaged Egypt, Moses spotted the burning bush and the two stone tablets with the 10 commandments:
Thou shalt not have a large carbon footprint
Thou shalt not drive a big, powerful SUV…
Etc.
PeterM (#152):
You say that, other than AGW, solar flux is “the only other known possible cause” of recent warming, that “human influence is the only way that the empirical evidence [for such warming] can be explained” and that it “just cannot be explained any other way”. In so doing, you display your ignorance – as Barelysane has observed. As I noted this morning, many factors (some known, some probably unknown) can cause atmospheric warming – and have done since the Earth’s beginning 4.5 billion years ago. (They may even have caused the biblical plagues – see Brute’s #155.) But then, as is now obvious, constrained by your own quasi religious beliefs, you don’t pay attention to anything others say here.
So I will quote in its entirety my #114, dated only the day before yesterday:
Does this support the hypothesis that mankind’s emissions of GHGs are the only possible cause of recent warming and, if they continue, will cause dangerous climate change?
No, it does not.
Barelysane/Max,
You know, I was going to respond with something cute/sarcastic……but the entire debate is simply ridiculous.
Last week there was a report that some scientist attributed global warming to causing his divorce or something equally ludicrous…Why anyone takes what these carnival barkers have to say seriously is beyond me.
At first I thought that the global warming “believers” were just easily led, gullible people……but after all of the recent events (proof of data manipulation/fraud, collusion, distortions and outright lies); I’m convinced that they want to believe so strongly that no matter what the evidence is, they dismiss it……
PeterM
I have shown you (157) that the empirical observations point to a 2xCO2 GH impact of no more than 1C.
Robin has pointed out that there are many other factors, which could influence our climate.
We all know that the year 1998 showed an unusually high temperature anomaly, largely as the result of a very strong El Niño event, but this ENSO warming impact was not just confined to the year 1998.
NOAA has made an estimate of the ENSO impact on late 20th century temperature.
http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/1998/enso/10elnino.html
From these data we see that the ENSO impact alone on the 1976-2000 warming trend was around one-third of the observed linear trend of around 0.15C per decade.
The most recent cooling despite record increase in CO2 is also being attributed by Met Office to “natural variability”, including an ENSO impact, this time a cooling La Niña effect. Of course, solar activity has also dropped to a very low level, as Solar Cycle 24 is having a hard time getting started, and this follows a 20th century period of very high solar activity, so this is likely also a part of the “natural variability” cited by Met Office.
So Robin’s point is well taken: we know from recent as well as longer-term history that natural factors have played and are playing a major role in our planet’s climate, but we do not really understand how to quantify the impact of these natural forcing factors. This makes it virtually impossible to quantify the impact of anthropogenic factors.
One can probably estimate an “upper limit” of the anthropogenic forcing based on the observed data (as I have done), but getting much closer than that would be very difficult.
Max
PeterM
There you go again, blathering the tired old “can’t explain it any other way” saw again (152), this time to barelysane:
This is not true, Peter. The empirical evidence shows that there were three statistically equivalent warming periods, the first two of which cannot be explained by GH theory.
The third (the late 20th century warming) is the period for which IPCC makes this claim.
So the logic goes:
1. our computers cannot explain the late 19th century or early 20th century warming periods
2. our computers know that the late 20th century warming was caused principally by human GHG emissions, primarily CO2
3. how do our computers know that this is the case?
4. because our computers cannot explin it any other way.
Peter, forget that one. It does not pass the credibility test.
Max
Max,
I know you like to delude yourself with the idea that AGW is just a computer glitch but the following is a more sensible way of describing the process.
a) The observed change is not consistent with natural variability.
b) Known natural forcings would, if anything, be negative over this period.
c) Known anthropogenic forcings are consistent with the observed response.
d) The pattern of the observed change is consistent with the anthropogenic forcing.
According to the IPCC global temperatures increased by 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F) between the start and the end of the 20th century.
Yes you are also correct when you say , so far, the non CO2 influences have cancelled each other out. If we take the figure of 44% which you now begrudgingly accept to be correct, then this would mean CO2 sensitivity (CO2 doubling) to be:
0.74/0.44 = 1.7 deg C.
Now this is on the lower end of the IPCC estimates, and you’ll understand why this simple calculation (requiring no computers) gives too low a figure, but at least you are now in the range!
Must be a sensor malfunction……..
PeterM
You state (163) that I “like to delude myself with the idea that AGW is just a computer glitch”.
I have no notion where you got this absurd idea. Can you explain how you came to this erroneous conclusion? If you check the record, you’ll see that I have always conceded that there may well be a bit of warming caused by anthropogenic factors.
But you, Peter, have “deluded yourself with the idea that AGW” is the only factor that has caused 20th century warming, an assumption that has been invalidated most recently by the 21st century cooling, despite record CO2 increase, which was attributed by Met Office to natural variability (a.k.a. natural forcing).
As I pointed out to you earlier, several solar scientists have estimated that around half of the 20th century warming, or 0.35C (average of the estimates) can be attributed to the unusually high level of solar activity (highest in several thousand years). Note: The average of the peak Wolf Numbers of Solar Cycles 19-23 (1955-2008) was 68% higher than that of Solar Cycles 10-14 (1858-1902).
NOAA tells us that late 20th century ENSO patterns also contributed to the warming of the 1990s, including, of course, the modern record year of 1998, as we all know. The NOAA estimates point to around 0.1 to 0.2C of the 20th century warming caused by the strong late 20th century El Niños.
In addition, a major part of the warming we have seen since the modern record started in 1850 occurred prior to the end of WWII, before CO2 could have played much of a role.
So, armed with these facts, let’s take a look at your arithmetic.
You write:
20th century warming (1901-2000) was 0.65C, according to HadCRUT. IPCC “modified” the conventional definition of the 20th century to avoid a early cooling cycle, changing it to 1906-2005. The HadCRUT record shows 0.74C total observed warming over this newly defined 20th century (as you state).
If we take the solar scientists’ estimates of 0.35C and the mid-range of the NOAA estimate for ENSO impact of 0.15C, we are left with:
0.74 – 0.35 – 0.15 = 0.24C attributed to AGW (= CO2 impact, 1906-2005)
By end 2005 atmospheric CO2 was at 379 ppmv, so your 44% is correct, based on the logarithmic relation.
So the 2xCO2 impact can be calculated as: 0.24 / 0.44 = 0.55C
If we assume that the solar scientists exaggerated the solar impact by a factor of two, and if we take the low end of the NOAA estimate for ENSO impact we have a new calculation:
0.74 – 0.18 – 0.1 = 0.55C attributed to AGW (= CO2 impact, 1906-2005)
and the 2xCO2 impact would be: 0.55 / 0.44 = 1.25C
So, a reasonable estimate of the 2xCO2 climate sensitivity based on observed 20th century temperatures, CO2 concentrations, ENSO oscillations and solar activity is 0.55 – 1.25C, or expressed scientifically 0.9±0.35K.
Now we have a figure that makes sense, Peter, but let’s check it against IPCC claims.
Not even IPCC is so silly to assume that all 20th century warming was caused by AGW. In their 2007 AR4 WG1 report (Ch.9) they clearly state:
HadCRUT tells us that 1956-2005 warming was 0.58C. Let’s say that “most of the observed global warming over the past 50 years” would be 70% or 0.41C, and that AGW was responsible for 30% of the balance of 20th century warming: 0.3 * (0.74 – 0.58) = 0.05C, for a total 20th century GH warming of 0.46C.
We can then calculate the 2xCO2 impact:
0.46 / 0.44 = 1.04C (pretty much in the middle of the range calculated previously).
Looks like 1C is a pretty good number for the observed 2xCO2 GH impact, when all other factors are taken into account.
This also happens to be the same 2xCO2 impact cited by IPCC (Myhre et al.), excluding any assumed feedbacks, so it tells me that the feedback assumptions (which are based on model simulations rather than physical observations) are invalidated by the observed data.
Hope this helps clear this up for you, Peter.
Max
Max
How objective is Roger Harrabin?
Here’s a most interesting (especially I suggest to TonyN) find related by Robin Horby on BiasedBBC. He’s found that Roger Harrabin is registered with the Gordon Poole Agency (his entry here) to “chair sessions at plush conferences on climate change themes”. His fee is £5k to £10K. And the many conferences with which he has been involved would seem all to be designed to further the alarmist agenda.
Far be it from me to criticise anyone for being registered with that Agency (the reason will be apparent from this) but I think it deplorable that Harrabin, who should be obliged by his employment not to be influenced by bias or personal interest re AGW, should be exploiting his licence fee funded role at the BBC and to make “bucketloads of cash” in a way that seems likely to jeopardise his objectivity and arguably his integrity.
Der Speigel has published a major criticism of AGW scaremongering. The article is long, detailed and full of quotable extracts. For example, it describes PeterM’s erstwhile hero, Phil Jones, as someone who “does not come across as an objective scientist, but rather as an activist or missionary who views ‘his’ data as his personal shrine and is intent on protecting it from the critical eyes of his detractors”. But I liked this in particular. It quotes Reinhard Hüttl, head of the German Research Center for Geosciences in Potsdam and president of the German Academy of Science and Engineering, as saying that basic values are now under threat:
Exactly.
Robin
The “Der Spiegel” article is very revealing. Recent polls tell us that public opinion in Germany has apparently shifted from a large majority (over two-thirds) believing the dangerous AGW hypothesis a few years ago to a small majority (52%) no longer supporting this premise today.
This shift is obviously not a result of people becoming less informed on this issue (as Peter would have us believe), but on precisely the opposite.
To the magical “two degree limit”, which EU politicians have been throwing around as an “upper acceptable limit”, the article states:
And Hans von Storch has criticized the concept:
[Recent scientific studies have shown that a two-degree warming above today’s level is highly unlikely to occur as a result of AGW even if no mitigating actions are taken, so the political discussion around this upper limit is really a hollow one.]
It is very refreshing that “Der Spiegel” has the courage to publish such an open and unbiased critique of the AGW scare.
Swiss journals have begun to follow (rather timidly, so far), with the weekly “Die Weltwoche” (a right-of-center publication) taking the lead.. The Guardian (and BBC) still lag a bit behind “Der Spiegel”, and the US MSM (other than Fox and WSJ) are still treading the “PC” path, but change is definitely in the air, as public opinion has shifted due, in part, to the Climategate revelations, and the general public has become more informed on the issues.
Max
Max,
What do you think is going on here? My thoughts are there must be some type of instrument malfunction. I can’t see any naturally occurring scenario that would cause this great of a deviation………
I applaud the result………I’m encouraged that the ice cap is growing……I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop. (I’m even skeptical of positive news).
Brute
We’ll have to wait and see how NSIDC handle this surprising bit of bad news.
– write it off to equipment malfunction (standard practice when observed results do not match theory or prediction)
– rationalization that the ice is thinner than before (and will most likely no longer support the weight of a mother polar bear with cuddly cubs), so that we really have a net melting
– rationalization that this is “new ice”, which is more vulnerable than “old ice”, and will, therefore, probably disappear more rapidly when it warms again
– reset past measurements, to make “trend line” of net loss look steeper again
– stop regular reporting of data and switch to something else that “proves” man-made global warming.
“Science” is innovative; “climatology” knows no bounds.
Max
Brute/Max:
I don’t think anyone should get too excited about these Arctic ice data. After all, unlike last year, Antarctic sea ice extent is now (slightly) below the average. In any case, Arctic ice extents seem to bunch up in June (the so-called “straights of June”) whatever they were doing in March. Of course, the headlines are always about September – or, more accurately, they are if September levels appear abnormally low. I suspect these ice extent data really tell us little about global temperatures. These graphs may be helpful – I’m unsure.
http://images.intellicast.com/App_Images/Article/128_7.jpg
Click URL if no image:
http://images.intellicast.com/App_Images/Article/128_7.jpg
From:
Multidecadal Ocean Cycles and Greenland and the Arctic
By Joe D’Aleo
May 12, 2008
Haven’t looked here for a while, but from a quick skim it seems that VS’s explosive arrival on the climate scene may have escaped your notice. See http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/global-average-temperature-increase-giss-hadcru-and-ncdc-compared/
Over 1000 comments in an altogether riveting narrative. Could even turn out to be a sort of Russell/Frege watershed for climate science: a must read.
Robin/Max,
No, I’m not putting too much stock in the high sea ice number; I just find it rather curious.
I fully expect the numbers to be “adjusted” sometime next week/month with the obligatory announcement that some technological “glitch” caused the high figure.
Sea ice extent has been the poster child of the Anti-Human Agenda Warmists. Growing ice (meeting the “average extent of the last 30 years) is contrary to their doomsday assertions.
As previously stated by global warming hysterians, the polar ice cap is expected to steadily decrease as soda-pop gas causes runaway warming melting the ice and turning Santa Claus’s compound into a red/white/green puddle of goo. The data would seem to run contrary to their previous assertions.
Nothing to see here really as the Arctic ice waxes and wanes as it always has throughout time eternal (with a gradual trend toward melt for the last +/- 13,000 years).
That being written, I find it hard to justify the statements, (by Eco-chondriacs), that miniscule amounts of plant food (CO2) is causing the entire planet to warm uniformly, melting the ice cap, when the extent of sea ice has been growing.
Now, Peter Martin will pontificate that this is an “anomaly”, (attributing it to winds/El-Nino/Global “Dimming”/cow farts), but will not concede that the 2007 September minimum was also an “anomaly”……That as with the record blizzards just over a month ago, and the brutally harsh winter, this latest record extent ice pack will be attributed to “global warming as all along predicted by the climate model crystal balls”.
Also, if the temperatures/sea ice extent actually supported the theory, why the need to make constant “adjustments”? (We Realists/Skeptics are simply too obtuse to understand the “complexities” of weather…..excuse me, “climate”).
If the theory were to be supported by observation, the maximum extent would decrease year after year.
As I wrote a while back, the Warmists constantly change the theory to fit the facts………after the fact.
Jasper Gee:
No, I hadn’t noted VS’s arrival on the scene. So thanks. But I’ve also been enjoying Willis Eschenbach’s contribition both as a commentator on the thread you referenced and in an opinion piece here.
Brute:
You’re dead right about Arctic ice extent being arguably the poster child for the warmists (although, for some unfathomable reason, they failed to mention the Antarctic’s record levels of sea ice). So this development is quite amusing. BTW I understand that the extract from Al Gore’s speech a year or two ago where he spoke about the entire Arctic ice cap disappearing in 5 years has mysteriously disappeared. Odd that.