Continuation of the New Statesman Whitehouse/Lynas blogs: Number 2

4,522 Responses to “Continuation of the New Statesman Whitehouse/Lynas blogs: Number 2”

1. manacker says:

   05/11/2010 at 6:52 pm

   TonyN

   Thanks for link on clouds (2450). The first video hardly mentions the impact of clouds on global warming, but the second link to “will clouds accelerate warming or help slow rising temperatures?” is still telling us that “cloud feedbacks are the largest source of uncertainty” (IPCC’s words, back in 2007, prior to Spencer et al.).

   Funny that NSF did not make mention of Spencer et al., which showed a clear strongly negative feedback of clouds with surface warming, but I suspect that the video clip was made before Spencer et al. was published.

   Max

   PS There is also no mention made of the recent model simulations using superparameterization to determine the cloud feedback; these also show a strongly negative feedback from clouds (and are confirmed by Spencer’s physical observations). Again, this info probably also came out after NSF made the videos.
2. Axel Morris says:

   05/11/2010 at 7:15 pm

   @tonyb & manacker

   See these videos at the Fraudulent Climate Website …

   on video wall # 5
   Kampen om Klimaet – Svensmark (Danske & English with Norsk Commentary & Subtitles)
   The Cloud Mystery – Henrik Svensmark (English with Danske Subtitles 2007)

   on video wall #3
   Cosmic Rays and Climate – by Jasper Kirkby (CERN Colloquium 2009)

   These are long, feature-length videos.
3. manacker says:

   05/11/2010 at 8:26 pm

   TonyB

   Sorry. My 2451 should have been addressed to you, rather than TonyN.

   Max
4. Bob_FJ says:

   05/11/2010 at 11:08 pm

   Max, Reur 2439.… Re Nelson’s study.
   Yes, there are some interesting hypotheses in there.
   Coming back to the saturation absorption thingy, I think that he said that this takes place at less than a kilometre, and elsewhere at hundreds of metres from the surface. However, the fact remains that the GHG’s will continue to radiate in the infrared as a consequence of their T’s, regardless of this event. This includes molecules that are closer to the surface than the “extinction height”. Another way of looking at it is that Kirchhoff’s law of radiation states that for any body, its emissivity equals its absorptivity. Whilst it is rather more complicated at the quantum level, the net molecular effect in an homogenous gas parcel can be compared. (apparently, most molecular emissions in GHG’s are the consequence of shedding KE from collisions with non GHG molecules which have previously been thermalised by the GHG‘s)
   Bearing in mind that the absorptive depth of the atmosphere is much greater than a kilometre, it follows that the so-called saturation is bound to occur even with much lower levels of CO2, according to Nelson. Notice that in the absorption spectra he cited, they confidently show full absorption for the main bands without indicating any altitude information either incoming or outgoing. (quite a big ?)

   There is a model, employing Beer’s law that gives most absorption as occurring below 25 metres from the surface. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ed074p316
   Serious money is required to read beyond the abstract, so I’ve not read it, but I imagine it uses first principles somewhat like below. Just consider the top hemisphere to represent the initial surface emission.

   

   Interestingly, for those emissions close to the horizontal, it does not really matter what the photon free path length is, so this compounds the effect of Beer‘s law.
   Yes, radiation is equal in all free directions…. A simple example is to look at the sun which appears to be a flat disc of uniform brightness. Yet, towards the outside (the limb) the surface is pointing away from us. (there is a different phenomena known as limb darkening because of the plasma opacity effect at the limb, but it is not noticeable to the SHIELDED eye or cameras)
5. Brute says:

   06/11/2010 at 1:06 pm

   I’m not certain how the United Nations figures it has the authority to confiscate my personal property. Last Tuesday when I voted, there were no candidates from the UN listed on the ballot.

   Also, it’s quite curious that the UN feels that stealing money from people will solve a “scientific” problem………

   UN calls for higher taxes to combat climate warning

   http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.65d35f849629004f3f01ff977b2a3e33.741&show_article=1
6. manacker says:

   06/11/2010 at 3:22 pm

   Brute

   Yeah. The UN wants more of our dough to shuffle around. This proposal apparently came from the delegates of Norway and Ethiopia.

   As one blogger commented:

   I think that the tax should be immediately imposed in Norway and in Ethiopia, if anything can be found there to tax. Sounds like a fine idea to me.

   I agree fully.

   In addition, they should make it possible for anyone (like PeterM) who fears global warming to make a voluntary tax contribution (above the normal taxes, of course).

   But to ask that majority of the world’s population (in the developed world at least) who have concluded that there is no sound scientific support for the premise of dangerous global warming to pay a tax to support UN money-shuffling in the vain attempt to change our planet’s climate would be undemocratic and arrogant. I would certainly vote against it.

   Max
7. manacker says:

   06/11/2010 at 9:54 pm

   On her blog site, Dr. Judith Curry recently discussed the positive feedback loop between climate science and policy and politics, including some thoughts on the impact of “Climategate”, errors in the IPCC reports, the protection of what she refers to as the “IPCC dogma”, the impact of the “blogosphere” and the role that climate scientists should play in the future to regain the credibility of climate science.

   http://judithcurry.com/2010/11/03/reversing-the-direction-of-the-positive-feedback-loop/

   I’m at Purdue University, preparing for a panel discussion with Andy Revkin and Roger Pielke Jr. on “Beyond Climategate.” The following three questions have been posed:
   – Have scientists become ‘too political’ in their advocacy of particular climate change mitigation and adaptation policies? Do the benefits of engaging in political advocacy outweigh the risks of losing their credibility as scientists?
   – What role has the media, including the blogosphere and the Internet, played in this growing contradiction? How has the media shaped the way that climate science is debated, disputed, and created? Is there a ‘better’ way for climate scientists to work with the media?
   – Moving forward, is there a better role for climate scientists in political and policy debates, and if so, what would it look like?

   Well, in the wake of Climategate, I have been trying to understand the crazy dynamics of climate science and policy and politics, and how things went so terribly wrong. I don’t think this is easily explained by any of the following explanations that are commonly put forth:
   – either too little or too much PR and activism/advocacy by climate scientists
   – the merchants of doubt and deniers won because of better PR and activism
   – the scientists are corrupt and politically (or financially) motivated

   The positive feedback loop
   I think the dynamics are much more complicated, and can only be understood by considering the ever vexatious feedback loop. There has been a particularly toxic positive feedback loop between climate science and policy and politics, whose direction has arguably been reversed as result of Climategate.

   The scientists provided the initial impulse for this feedback loop back in the 1970’s and 1980’s. The enviro advocacy groups quickly saw the possibilities and ran with it, with the scientists’ blessing. The enviro advocacy groups saw the climate change issue as an opportunity to enlist scientific support for their preferred energy policy solution.

   Libertarian think tanks, the traditional foes of the enviro advocacy groups, began countering with doubts about the science. International efforts to deal with the climate change problem were launched in 1992 with the UNFCCC treaty.

   Wait a minute, what climate change problem? In 1992, we had just completed the first IPCC assessment report, here was their conclusion: “The size of this warming is broadly consistent with predictions of climate models, but it is also of the same magnitude as natural climate variability. . . The unequivocal detection of the enhanced greenhouse effect from observations is not likely for a decade or more.”

   Nevertheless, the policy cart was put before the scientific horse, justified by the precautionary principle. Once the UNFCCC treaty was a done deal, the IPCC and its scientific conclusions were set on a track to become a self fulfilling prophecy. The entire framing of the IPCC was designed around identifying sufficient evidence so that the human-induced greenhouse warming could be declared unequivocal, and so providing the rationale for developing the political will to implement and enforce carbon stabilization targets. National and international science programs were funded to support the IPCC objectives. What should have been a political debate about energy policy, environmental quality, and reducing vulnerability to weather and climate disasters, became a debate about the nuances of climate science, with climate scientists as the pawns and whipping boys.

   So were the scientists innocent victims and pawns in all this? Were they just hardworking scientists doing their best to address the impossible expectations of the policy makers? Well, many of them were. However, at the heart of the IPCC is a cadre of scientists whose careers have been made by the IPCC. These scientists have used the IPCC to jump the normal meritocracy process by which scientists achieve influence over the politics of science and policy. Not only has this brought some relatively unknown, inexperienced and possibly dubious people into positions of influence, but these people become vested in protecting the IPCC, which has become central to their own career and legitimizes playing power politics with their expertise.

   The advantages of dogma
   When I refer to the IPCC dogma, it is the religious importance that the IPCC holds for this cadre of scientists; they will tolerate no dissent, and seek to trample and discredit anyone who challenges the IPCC. Who are these priests of the IPCC? Some are mid to late career middle ranking scientists who have done ok in terms of the academic meritocracy. Others were still graduate students when they were appointed as lead authors for the IPCC. These scientists have used to IPCC to gain a seat at the “big tables” where they can play power politics with the collective expertise of the IPCC, to obtain personal publicity, and to advance their careers. This advancement of their careers is done with the complicity of the professional societies and the institutions that fund science. Eager for the publicity, high impact journals such as Nature, Science, and PNAS frequently publish sensational but dubious papers that support the climate alarm narrative.

   Especially in the renascent subfields such as econology and public health, these publications and the media attention help steer money in the direction of these scientists, which buys them loyalty from their institutions, who appreciate the publicity and the dollars.

   Further, the institutions that support science use the publicity to argue for more funding to support climate research and its impacts. And the broader scientific community inadvertently becomes complicit in all this. While the IPCC priests loudly cry out against the heretical skeptical scientists and the dark influences of big oil and right wing ideology that are anti-science, we all join in bemoaning these dark forces that are fighting a war against science, and support the IPCC against its critics. The media also bought into this, by eliminating balance in favor of the IPCC dogma.

   So do I think these priests of the IPCC are policy advocates? They are mainly concerned with preserving the importance of the IPCC, which has become central to their professional success, funding, and influence. Supporting the emissions and stabilization policies that they think logically follows from the science is part and parcel of this. Most don’t understand the policy process or the policy specifics; they view the policy as part and parcel of the IPCC dogma that must be protected and preserved at all cost, else their success, funding and influence will be in jeopardy.

   Reversing the direction of the feedback
   So this positive feedback continued to reinforce itself, entraining more and more of the broader scientific community who deplored the political war on science. Now the interesting thing about a positive feedback is that this doesn’t say anything about the trajectory of the actual chain of events. A year ago, on November 19, this seemingly unstoppable juggernaut received a major impulse in the opposite direction with the unauthorized release of the emails from the University of East Anglia. A year later, there has been some rather spectacular unraveling of the climate change juggernaut, although the high priests of the IPCC don’t quite realize it yet: the positive feedback at work, but in the opposite direction.

   I along with much of the rest of the world viewed the IPCC as a group of highly meritorious scientists, working hard and digging deep to assess the science, all the while fighting against the dark forces of politics and big oil. The biggest shock from reading the emails was that the IPCC assessment process had a substantial element of schoolyard bullies, trying to insulate their shoddy science from outside scrutiny and attacks by skeptics, over concern with their press and media attention, discrediting skeptics, etc. Now the argument is rightly made that behavior of scientists is not relevant to the truth of science. However, when the assessment of the science rests largely on expert judgment, the behavior and credibility of the experts becomes a very important issue.

   At this point, the whole thing would have been salvageable if scientists and the institutions that support science would have spoken up for the integrity of climate science, demanding greater transparency, etc. Instead, silence. A few statements were made by individuals and professional societies saying that the science remained sound, the emails don’t change the science.

   I started speaking up about integrity and transparency, and I was told that this wasn’t helping, and was advised to stay off the blogs. And why was this? Central to protecting the IPCC dogma is the UNFCCC process, and we mustn’t allow this illegal hack to derail the policy activity in Copenhagen. Well, its hard to tell to what extent Climategate contributed to the failure of Copenhagen; it seems that raw politics was much more in play than the politics of science.

   Then we saw errors in the IPCC reports, with the nature of the response by the IPCC further damaging their credibility. Investigations of scientists at East Anglia and Penn State were widely regarded to be whitewashes; in the U.K. the investigations themselves are now being investigated. Then we saw the collapse of 7 years of work in the U.S. senate for a carbon cap and trade bill. And allegations of conflicts of interest for the IPCC’s leader, Rachendra Pachauri.

   The structure that has provided the basis for the IPCC priesthood to play power politics with their expertise in the arena of energy policy has all but collapsed. If this was just about science, this shouldn’t matter to the scientists. That the power is now in the hands of economists was bemoaned by Kevin Trenberth last week.

   The blogosphere
   The other hit to IPCC’s influence in power politics has come from the “radical implications of the blogosphere” in changing the dynamics of expertise. The blogosphere has provided a technological base for people such as Steve McIntyre, who is either the villain or hero of Climategate, depending on your perspective.

   I’ve had my pulse on the blogosphere since 2005, and have experimented with it as a way of communicating climate science and engaging with skeptics. When I first saw the emails on the internet, I knew immediately that this was going to go viral at least in the blogosphere, and I saw the IPCC as being in major jeopardy because of this. To try to calm things down, I posted two essays in the blogosphere on issues related to the integrity of climate science. I was hoping to keep a dialogue open with the skeptics so this whole thing didn’t explode.

   Well, I was pretty much the only voice out there amongst the scientists that were supporters of the IPCC. I became deafened by the silence of my colleagues, and more important from the institutions that support science. Pachauri’s defense of the IPCC, and his apparent conflicts of interest, added fuel to the fire. I began asking whether the IPCC could survive this, and even whether it should survive this. I began trying to provide some constructive suggestions for the community to rebuild trust through greater transparency and greater attention to uncertainties. Not only did I receive virtually no support from my colleagues, but they started to view me as part of the problem.

   At some point, I decided that I could no longer in good faith support the IPCC and its assessments. At the moment, it seems that many regard me as the main problem.

   Many of my colleagues wonder why I am being so “mavericky.” Here are some of the explanations that have been put forward over the last two weeks to explain my apparently inexplicable behavior:
   – I been duped by big oil and/or right wing think tanks
   – I have opened my mind so wide to skeptics that my brains have fallen out
   – I’m in the pay of big oil or right wing think tanks
   – I’m being blackmailed
   – I have become either physically or mentally disabled

   So what am I doing and why? I’m trying to get the public perception of climate science back on track so that our field can regain some respect. That respect will not be regained by better PR; rather it is essential to increase transparency, engage with skeptics, and pay more attention to uncertainty. I’m trying to put the blogosphere to work to reduce the polarization on this topic. My new blog is Climate Etc. at judithcurry.com.

   On the role of scientists in public debates
   So in closing, I would like to address the last question, regarding the role of scientists in public and policy debates. Well, first we have to remind ourselves that we are scientists, and that integrity is of particular importance in public and policy debates. Feynman describes scientific integrity in his Cargo Cult Sciencetalk:

   “[A]lthough you may gain some temporary fame and excitement, you will not gain a good reputation as a scientist if you haven’t tried to be very careful in this kind of work. . . The first principle is that you must not fool yourself–and you are the easiest person to fool. After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that. I’m talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you are maybe wrong, that you ought to have when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen.”

   Much of what I have been saying over the past year is about uncertainty, and what I view is an inadequate job of characterizing uncertainty by the IPCC. When I start using the words uncertainty and doubt, people immediately assume that I am a merchant of doubt in the pay of big oil, since doubt is used to diminish the political will to act. Well, get over it, “everything is uncertain except death and taxes,” as the saying goes.

   Robust decision making incorporates information about uncertainty into the decision making process. And characterizing uncertainty for policy makers is what we should be doing as scientists. Exploring the uncertainty, help understand the risks, and help assess the impacts and efficacy of various policy options. The role of scientists should not be to develop political will to act by hiding or simplifying the uncertainties.

   I have not yet seen a transcript of the panel discussion itself, which took place two days ago, but I am sure that it will be worthwhile to read (or watch, if it gets on youtube).

   Max
8. manacker says:

   06/11/2010 at 11:00 pm

   Over at Bishop Hill there is another Mann interview: “Mann goes atomic”
   Here’s the link to the interview:
   http://bos.sagepub.com/content/66/6/1.full

   I particularly liked this excerpt:

   The Penn State climate scientist who helped author the “hockey stick” global warming temperature graph describes the campaign to discredit him following the theft of emails, including some he wrote, from servers at England’s University of East Anglia.

   “Campaign to discredit” Mann?

   Hey, he did this all by himself a few years ago, with his phony “hockey stick”.

   All the whining and moaning about campaigns to discredit him won’t change the facts: the “hockey stick” was comprehensively discredited and falsified by McIntyre and McKitrick and the M+M findings were confirmed under oath by the Wegman committee as well as the NAS panel.

   Why do guys that get caught cheating keep trying to change history to make themselves look innocent? Is it foolish pride, hurt feelings, self-pity or just unmitigated arrogance?

   Max
9. tempterrain says:

   07/11/2010 at 9:39 pm

   Max,

   You might think Man has been discredited. However, it’s just a delusion.
   
   A delusion being: a fixed belief that is either false, fanciful, or derived from deception. In psychiatry, it is defined to be a belief that is pathological (the result of an illness or illness process) and is held despite evidence to the contrary.

   Regardless of the merits of his paper, or the merits of many other papers which have described similar hockey sticks, none of them have been “discredited”. Except in the minds of AICC deniers of course!

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy
10. manacker says:

    07/11/2010 at 10:04 pm

    PeterM

    I suggest you forget about Wiki (i.e. Connolley-censored) comments on Mann’s “hockey stick” (2459) and read Montford’s “The Hockey Stick Illusion”, which covers the whole story of the scientific discrediting of Mann’s study in excruciating detail.

    It’s all recorded history, Peter, so don’t be delusional and stick your head in the sand – this would just make you look like a “denier”.

    Max
11. tempterrain says:

    07/11/2010 at 10:12 pm

    Max,

    I guess Evolution, HIV/AIDs, Spherical Earth etc must all be wrong too. Wiki say thay aren’t but that’s all down to William Connolley. Right?

    Has William Connolley had a hand in this too do you think?

    http://www.skepticalscience.com/broken-hockey-stick.htm
12. manacker says:

    07/11/2010 at 10:44 pm

    PeterM

    I cannot help you much if you believe, as you write:

    I guess Evolution, HIV/AIDs, Spherical Earth etc must all be wrong too

    As to Connolley censoring inputs on topics other than “climate science”, I have not read that this was the case. Have you?

    I just think it’s good that Wiki got rid of this hack – even if it may not have been for the “right reason”.

    But all this does not change the historically well-documented fact that Mann’s hockey stick was comprehensively discredited by M+M, and that this was later confirmed under oath by the Wegman committee and, after that, by the NAS panel.

    For the gory details, read Montford’s book.

    Then there are all the historical records plus the 20+ independent studies by different scientists using different paleo-climate methodologies covering locations all over the world (which I cited earlier), which all show that there was a MWP that was slightly warmer than today, thereby scientifically refuting Mann’s conclusion of a “hockey stick”. (But we have covered all that before, Peter.)

    Max
13. tempterrain says:

    08/11/2010 at 1:04 am

    Max,

    I think you are probably right when you say you can’t help me much. In fact, you probably can’t help at all. Not just me, but you can’t help anyone. You are good at confusing them though, if that is any consolation.

    The truth of the situation is that conventional science does get things wrong from time to time. For instance the melting of the Himalayan glaciers was incorrectly reported. It’s not that they aren’t melting but rather, the rate of melting is less than reported. When that happens the mistake is acknowledged and claims are withdrawn.

    However, despite your delusions to the contrary no such acknowledgement has ever been issued. You may think it should have been but that’s not quite the same thing.

    You quote the National Academy of Sciences. This is what they say in their book Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years written in response to a direct request from Congress.

    http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11676#toc

    If you pay US taxes you might want to get your money’s worth and read it for free on the above link.
14. Bob_FJ says:

    08/11/2010 at 7:09 am

    Brute,
    We have Hillary Clinton (Mrs. Bill) over here in Oz, and I’ve gone all prickly.
    We’ve done all we* can in Oz to support the U.S. military-industrial complex, for instance by buying those bizarrely unsuitable grossly oversized Abrams tanks, (laughing stock of Europe), and the, gawd, strike me pink, that joint strike fighter farcical saga thingy, and what does Hillary do for thanks? She flung dung at us; just yesterday:

    I don’t understand why you [Australians] spoil a perfectly good piece of bread, by spreading vegemite on it!!!

    Talk about inflammatory!!!!!!!!!!!!…… she has to go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    How many millions or billions of democracy campaign dollars could it take to dispense with her?
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    BTW, talking of the Abrams tank; some time back, you were bragging about some modified dinosaur marshmallow yank-tank car that had been modified in some way, you alleged, to “kick-ass” (English translation = kick-arse), on “the Nurburg Ring“. (BTW; what part of it ?)

    Oh really? How did it go? I hope the sponsors were not too embarrassed if it came up against one of these adequately designed British production (modestly high performance) cars that have much less threat to “peak oil”, and that go around road-bends rather well. (including the current FULL N-Ring)

    
    (That is for a modest start, putting aside other much more expensive Euro-stuff)

    *Meaning by commitment an earlier Oz dickhead defence minister. ( Dr. Nelson – medical; arguably better suited to his earlier portfolios?)
15. Alex Cull says:

    08/11/2010 at 7:34 am

    There’s a good blog here by Matt Ridley (author of The Rational Optimist) that you all might find interesting; it follows some correspondence between Ridley and DECC’s chief scientific advisor David MacKay.

    The remarkable thing about this exchange is that far from weakening my doubts about the IPCC case, it has strengthened them. The letter explains why. Essentially, I have realised that almost the only weapons left in the alarm locker are the retreat of the Arctic sea ice and an event that happened 55m years ago and was probably not caused by CO2 at all. Everything else — the CO2-temperature correlation in the Antarctic ice core, the hockey stick, storm frequency, phenology, etc etc — no longer supports the argument that something unprecedented in magnitude or rate is happening. Remarkable.
16. manacker says:

    08/11/2010 at 7:24 pm

    PeterM

    Thanks for again posting (2463) the link to the book: “Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years”.

    For my comments on using this book as a supplemental text for older science pupils, please see my 234 on the “what the hell are we doing to our children?” thread, where you also asked me to comment on the same book.

    The book is fine. It repeats the IPCC AR4 view on climate change fairly faithfully. Along with AR4, it does, however, miss any new stuff (2006 and beyond), which is a problem in this fast-moving and fast-changing field. Read my comments to find out why.

    Max
17. TonyB says:

    08/11/2010 at 8:36 pm

    Peter 2461

    If you are quoting John Cook at skeptical science as the font of all knowledge you are getting a bit desperate-perhaps you wanted to support a fellow Aussie?

    http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/reprint/John_Cook_Skeptical_Science.pdf

    Having said that the series of graphs on your link are interesting as they confirm what I have been saying to you-the warming started pre 1700, way before man had any possible impact.This is also shown in all the instrumental records-why they should need to use treenometers when you have the real thing is a bit baffling.

    Giss did not capture the start of the warming in 1880, they merely plugged into it some way down the line

    tonyb
18. tempterrain says:

    08/11/2010 at 10:07 pm

    Max,

    You seem to be under the impression that a couple of, not even papers, but letters from a small number of climate scientists who might go some way to giving you the sort of results you may just consider acceptable, have radically changed the picture since the publication of the last IPCC assessment report.

    They haven’t.

    If you look at the bigger picture, you can consider scientific papers and letters, on any subject, to be themselves like data points. You’re bound to get a few outliers here and there in either direction. You can either ignore them, or bundle them all together and then take the average. They don’t make much difference to the overall result or the overall conclusions reached by the last IPCC assessment report.

    TonyB,

    The “font of all knowledge”? Is that the thinking behind baptisms? Or maybe Arial is better than Times New Roman?
19. manacker says:

    09/11/2010 at 7:22 pm

    PeterM

    To your 2468, the latest studies (Spencer et al., Lindzen + Choi), based on actual physical real-life observations from satellites on cloud feedbacks and net overall feedbacks with warming, as well as the surface and tropospheric temperature records (HadCRUT, UAH) and the Argo upper ocean measurements (Loehle) represent fundamental breakthroughs, which all were published after AR4.

    These empirical data raise serious doubts regarding the model-based assumptions on 2xCO2 climate sensitivity as reported back in AR4, prior to these new revelations, and hence to the forecasts for the future, which were based on this assumed climate sensitivity.

    Writing these off as “outliers” would be the classical “head in the sand” approach of being stuck in a paradigm and ignoring data, which challenge or even falsify this paradigm.

    You are dead wrong when you write:

    They don’t make much difference to the overall result or the overall conclusions reached by the last IPCC assessment report.

    New conflicting empirical data can make all the difference in the world to an old paradigm, as any scientist will tell you, and that is what has happened here even (if you are personally unable or unwilling to see it).

    [I can hear the sound of a “paradigm shift”, which is now slowly (and painfully) taking place.]

    Don’t be a “denier”, Peter.

    Max
20. Brute says:

    10/11/2010 at 2:23 am

    Yes Bob, these little matchbox imports are very popular here in the states……..little girls like to drive them…..

    
21. Brute says:

    10/11/2010 at 2:35 am

    Oh, and about the M1 Abrams ………my advice to you and your fellow countrymen would be……IF YOU DON’T LIKE THEM, DON’T BUY THEM.

    Maybe you guys could field some of the excellent military equipment that Australia has developed.

    Does Australia produce a main battle tank?

    Maybe the Brits will allow you to up armor a few Coopers since you can’t seem to produce cars either……….
22. tempterrain says:

    10/11/2010 at 3:45 am

    I’m not sure that I should get involved in this discussion but Brute does offer some good advice about not buying stuff that we don’t like.

    I recently was engaged in conversation at a party by a guy from the RAAF who was very critical of the decision to buy US Super Hornet fighters which he claimed, I’m not sure with how much justification, were overpriced and just nowhere near good enough to cope with some Russian jet that the Indonesians had bought at a much lower cost.

    I did ask why Australia hadn’t bought the Russian jet as well but he just looked at me rather oddly and sidled off to talk to someone else!
23. manacker says:

    10/11/2010 at 7:27 am

    PeterM

    Re your 2472, have you ever heard of the concept of “supply chain reliability”?

    Probably before your birth, Peter, the “Yanks” (as I believe you call them) saved your bacon from a Japanese invasion.

    We in Switzerland have also not forgotten that these same “Yanks” (along with their allies) saved our bacon from Nazi Germany and later kept us from getting overrun by the USSR.

    Important historical points to remember, Peter.

    Max
24. tempterrain says:

    10/11/2010 at 8:58 am

    Max,

    Despite what you might feel I’m not anti-American. They can be quite nice people, too nice sometimes, and we get along just fine. Well most of the time anyway :-)

    Its interesting that Brute feels that a small car is only socially acceptable for young women. If he’s built like some Americans, and Australians too for that matter, he may well be too fat to get into one. If that’s the case then he should give up cars completely and either walk or use a bike.

    I’m not too socially liberal about the grossly obese I’m afraid.
25. tempterrain says:

    10/11/2010 at 9:22 am

    Max,

    When’s the next IPCC report due? 2013?

    Well we shouldn’t pre-judge what it might say, but it’s going to take a bit more than a couple of letters from the usual suspects to change the overall picture significantly

    “paradigm shift”?? I don’t think so. I don’t think you’re going to a happy bunny when it is finally published.