THIS PAGE HAS BEEN ACTIVATED AS THE NEW STATESMAN BLOG IS NOW CLOSED FOR COMMENTS
At 10am this morning, the New Statesman finally closed the Mark Lynas thread on their website after 1715 comments had been added over a period of five months. I don’t know whether this constitutes any kind of a record, but gratitude is certainly due to the editor of of the New Statesman for hosting the discussion so patiently and also for publishing articles from Dr David Whitehouse and Mark Lynas that have created so much interest.
This page is now live, and anyone who would like to continue the discussion here is welcome to do so. I have copied the most recent contributions at the New Statesman as the first comment for the sake of convenience. If you want to refer back to either of the original threads, then you can find them here:
Dr David Whitehouse’s article can be found here with all 1289 comments.
Mark Lynas’ attempted refutation can be found here with 1715 comments.
Welcome to Harmless Sky, and happy blogging.
(Click the ‘comments’ link below if the input box does not appear)
10,000 Responses to “Continuation of the New Statesman Whitehouse/Lynas blogs.”
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Just to say I emailed Beck with a number of questions about the accuracy of some of the old measurements he used that I had concerns about.
I also queried as to why Callandar had apparently failed to make reference in 1938 and 1940 to existing work that showed his own interpretation of past measurements to be incorrect. There is no doubt Callandar tried to ignore the work of several people far more experinced than he was-such as Slocum- as it didnt fit his own theories.
TonyB
Re:#2848, Max
Thanks Max, but please could you give it another try.
It looks as though the paste into the ‘Img’ button input boxes didn’t work. You should see the full URL of the image appear in the box before you press OK, not just the default http://
Could be my fault as I used the term ‘copy’ instead of ‘paste’ in the instructions. If so, apologies.
Re: #2850, Robin
Peter Lilley really does sound as though he has done his homework, in sharp contrast to the other contributors to the debate as reported in your link.
Do you think he might be interested in putting down a written question in the House to the Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport about the BBC’s refusal to reveal who attended ‘their’ climate change seminar?
Hi Peter,
Reur 2849, you can twist it and turn it any way you want, but the latest 8-year cooling cycle is unusual, compared to the 1990s, when there was general warming with a few short “blips” in the curve.
Only since 2001 has there been a prolonged period of global cooling according to ALL records, averaging a significant cooling rate of around –0.09C per decade for the four principal records.
I would not, on the basis of one or two cooler years in 1995-1996 have said “warming has stopped”.
I do, however, say “warming has stopped since 2001”, since all records clearly show that it has, despite any PR releases that may be out there trying to deny or rationalize the facts.
Let’s see if the year 2009 will make it a 9-year cooling streak or not.
Hadley doesn’t seem to be too bullish on year 2009 warming or “record year” forecasts. Have they slowed down on the “Hadley hysterical hype” since Katie left them?
Somebody needs to take that open PR (or “strategic marketing”) position they are advertising.
Global warming needs to be “marketed strategically” (even if it is not really happening), right?
Regards,
Max
Hi Peter,
Back to warming/cooling trends.
Every schoolchild knows that we have been in a natural warming trend since the early 19th century as our planet is recovering naturally from a prolonged, well-documented period of harsher cold weather, called the Little Ice Age.
But this warming has not proceeded smoothly. Most of the 20th century warming occurred over the period 1910-1944 (before there was any significant human CO2); this was followed by a period of cooling until 1976 (with accelerated human CO2 during the post WWII boom years), which was then again followed by warming until around 1998.
But, despite all the multi-decadal oscillations, the underlying trend (with or without added CO2) has been gradual warming over the past 150 years.
Now to the shorter term look. The world has seen that the 1990s experienced a significant acceleration of the increase in global temperature (average all records) of around 0.2C per decade, while the first 8 years of the 21st century have shown a somewhat smaller decrease in global temperature (average all records) of –0.09C per decade, despite all-time record human emissions of CO2.
We have heard a lot about the “unprecedented” 1990s acceleration in the rate of warming and about how this proves that this warming is anthropogenic, with dire warnings that it will get much worse, if we do not “act now”.
But not much is being said about the current cooling trend, with AGW proponents either denying its existence or simply ignoring it. Even you, Peter, normally a rational person, are having a real hard time accepting the facts.
Some “climatologists” are rationalizing that global warming has not really stopped (just because all the thermometers tell us it has), but that “natural factors” (ENSO, etc.) are simply “masking” the underlying warming trend from AGW.
Others proclaim that the most recent 8-year period is much too short to define a trend, yet the accelerating trend of the 10-year 1990s, or the 23-year total period of late-20th century warming starting in 1976, are being used as “evidence” of man-made global warming.
Now let us imagine that things had evolved in just the opposite sequence:
10 years of cooling in the 1990s, followed by a sharp upswing and 8 years of rapid warming since the beginning of the millennium.
What would the “climate headlines” be telling us in that case?
There would be numerous articles showing a truly recorded (rather than just conjured) “hockeystick”, with parallel curves of accelerating human CO2 emissions over these years, somber explanations of the robust correlation between accelerated CO2 emissions and accelerated warming and dire warnings of what this means for the future of humanity if we do not “act now”.
It’s really too bad for the AGW crowd that the 1990s happened before the 2000s rather than the other way around.
But like with many things, it’s really all about timing. This one just didn’t seem to work in the favor of the AGW crowd.
But who knows what the next few years may bring?
Max
Let’s see if it worked this time, TonyN.
Max
TonyN and Brute
Does the quotation below, from Eric Sevareid, the late journalist and CBS newsman, apply to BBC (or CNN) today?
“The bigger the information media, the less courage and freedom they allow. Bigness means weakness.”
Max
Re: #2845, TonyB
Are you using Windows XP? If not then this could be the problem. In any case, clicking on the image and then using CTRL+C should do the trick.
Re: #2856, Max
Bingo!
Does it matter that the image is so large? What does anyone else think?
I’ve asked JohnA whether there is any way that images can be scaled automatically within WordPress so that they fit inside the comment column and am waiting for a reply.
Hi TonyN,
Tried it again with a “smaller picture size”. Let’s see if it works better this time.
Regards,
Max
TonyN
Looks like the “smaller picture size” makes it fit inside the box (but it becomes more difficult to read).
What do you think?
Max
Max,
Pretty neat this time, but access to links and small print could obviously be a problem in some cases
So far as the Sevareid quote is concerned, I’ve never thought about it in this way. But given that as organisatons become larger they tend to become more bureaucratic and less flexible, it would seem very likely that he is right.
If you haven’t read it, I strongly recommend Nick Davies ‘Flat Earth News’, which is a devastating indictment of the way in which modern journalistic practices allow pressure groups to hijack the media agenda. The fact that he is a Guardian man to the tips of his fingers makes his case even more compelling. And it goes a long way towards explaining why we see some very strange things about climate change, and the environment in general, in the news.
Hi TonyB,
Don’t know if you have seen this “oldie” pertinent to your study.
In a 1998 paper on carbon cycle modeling and the residence time of natural and anthropogenic atmospheric CO2, Tom Segalstad points out why anthropogenic CO2 cannot be a major cause for warming.
http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/ESEF3VO2.htm
An interesting part of the Segalstad paper is the section where he lists studies on the CO2 lifetime in the atmosphere. Citing 36 separate studies using 6 different methods, he shows an arithmetical average lifetime of all the studies of 6 to 8 years [which he calls “around 5 years”].
“The short atmospheric CO2 lifetime of 5 years means that CO2 quickly is being taken out of the atmospheric reservoir, and that approximately 135 giga-tonnes (about 18%) of the atmospheric CO2 pool is exchanged each year. This large and fast natural CO2 cycling flux is far more than the approximately 6 giga-tonnes of carbon in the anthropogenic fossil fuel CO2 now contributed annually to the atmosphere, creating so much political turmoil.” [Note that current human emissions are around 7.5 GtC, rather than 6 GtC when Segalstad published his study ten years ago, but this does not change his conclusion.]
In his conclusion Segalstad writes: “Chemical and isotope equilibrium considerations and the short CO2 residence time (lifetime) can fully explain the carbon cycle of the Earth. The conclusion of such reasoning is that any atmospheric CO2 level rise beyond 4% cannot be explained by accumulation of CO2 from Man’s burning of fossil fuel. An apparent CO2 rise can only come from a much larger, but natural, carbon reservoir with much higher delta-13-C than the fossil fuel pool, namely from the ocean, and/or the lithosphere, and/or the Earth’s interior. CO2 degassing from the oceans instead of IPCC’s anthropogenic accumulation is indeed made probable by the measurements of a larger CO2 increase in Atlantic surface waters than in the contemporaneous atmosphere (Takahashi, 1961; 1979). Kondratyev (1988) argues that: “The fact is that the atmospheric CO2 content may be controlled by the climate” and not the opposite.”
Regards,
Max
TonyN re #2853: I don’t know Peter Lilley so cannot advise. But my instinct is that such a question would seem too obscure to be worthwhile. But I suppose you might contact his office and suggest it.
Max
This graphic won’t translate to the Harmless sky big screen I’m afraid. It is the latest mencken graph with two new features.
http://cadenzapress.co.uk/download/beck_mencken_with_decomposition.xls
The first new element is that the bottom (green)line represents the actual amount of co2 in the atmosphere at the time, after allowing for decomposition over 50 years. (I need to continue the lower line to connect up with 1750.)
As can be seen the link between emissions and co2 concentration and temperatures looks ever more remote.
The dots represent averaged measurements from one of Becks graphs. This looks astonishingly close to me, but would appreciate any comments from others.
TonyB
Re TonyB 2865. Looks good to me. Temperture / CO2 correlation looks pretty remote. Let’s see what others say.
Max
The killer frost for global warming
By Wesley Pruden
Turn up the heat, somebody. The globe is freezing. Even Al Gore is looking for an extra blanket. Winter has barely come to the northern latitudes and already we’ve got bigger goosebumps than usual. So far the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports 63 record snowfalls in the United States, 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month. Only 44 Octobers over the past 114 years have been cooler than this last one.
The polar ice is accumulating faster than usual, and some of the experts now concede that the globe hasn’t warmed since 1995. You may have noticed, in fact, that Al and his pals, having given up on the sun, no longer even warn of global warming. Now it’s “climate change.” The marketing men enlisted by Al and the doom criers to come up with a flexible “brand” took a cue from the country philosopher who observed, correctly, that “if you’ve got one foot in the fire and the other in a bucket of ice, on average you’re warm.” On average, “climate change” covers every possibility.
This is similar to the science practiced by Dr. James Hansen at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the source of much of the voodoo that Al Gore has been peddling since the doctor showed up at a Senate hearing in 1988 and told ghost stories that Al swallowed whole. Only last month Dr. Hansen’s institute announced that October was the hottest on record, and then said “uh, never mind.” The London Daily Telegraph calls this “a surreal blunder [that] raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming.”
In this account, the institute had to make the humiliating climb-down after two leading skeptics of the global-warming scam, Anthony Watts, an American meteorologist, and Steve McIntyre, a Canadian computer analyst, discovered that temperature readings from September had been carried over and repeated for October.
We should sigh, shrug and give the scientists at NASA the benefit of the doubt that this was a mistake and not a deliberate howl at the moon. A spokesman for the institute explains that readings borrowed from Russia, which had been described as 10 degrees higher than normal for October, distorted the figures but, after all, the data had been obtained from others. So we should blame someone else.
This is the science we’re expected to take on faith. The false figures – we must be generous and not say “faked” – were supplied by the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change. These are the most widely quoted readings, and consistently show higher temperatures than other “data sets.” Would the United Nations lie? (No giggling, please.)
This sets a new standard for hubris, arrogance and haughty self-importance. Skeptics of the global-warming scam, even those with unquestioned academic and real-world credentials, are treated as ignorant pariahs by pundits, presidential candidates and other politicians who know better, or ought to.
This is not the first time, writes Christopher Booker in the Daily Telegraph, that Dr. Hansen’s methodology has been sharply questioned. Two years ago, Messrs. Watts and McIntyre, the bloggers who caught the October fiasco, forced him to withdraw his published findings on surface temperatures in the United States, to correct his claim that the hottest decade of the 20th century was the 1990s. It was the 1930s, when the much-maligned sport utility vehicle was still a truck and Detroit made economical cars everybody wanted.
Man’s notion that his science can realign the stars, adjust the orbit of planets and reorganize the universe leads him to say silly things and assert goofy claims. Saying silly things and asserting goofy claims is usually harmless as entertainment, so long as the claims are subjected to rigorous analysis and debate. But contrarian arguments about global warming, climate change and freezing heat are not tolerated by the scientists with an uneasy grip on the research money.
It’s clear now that the earth has been cooling for the past decade, to the sorrow of the special pleaders and despite everything Al can do about it. The solar cycle peaked, the sun is quieter, the sunspots have faded and everybody but Al is cooling off.
Even the United Nations says so. The director of the U.N.’s panel on climate change concedes that nature has overwhelmed everything man can do and it might even be another decade before man can rally and the warming resumes. Until then, like it or not, nature rules the cosmos.
Max and TonyB,
I would suggest that the only reason that you can’t see a correlation between CO2 levels and temperature is becuase you don’t want to.
Max,
You wouldn’t have said that AGW had stopped in 1996 looking back on the previous few years temperature figures? OK If you say so. That’s fair enough, of course.
Take a look at this graph:
Are you seriously trying to tell me that the current cooling is more pronounced than in the early 90’s?
It clearly is not, so why the change of tune?
Temperature trends:
In my 2783 0n page 19, I wrote:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Max in his 2764, wrote in part to Pete:![]()
” title=”anomaly comp by fj_bob, on Flickr”>
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3212/2500690620_0b6bf111f5_o.jpg
As Bob_FJ has shown us with his projection, it looks like we are headed for a period of cooling similar to the one we had from 1944-1956.
Perhaps I should expand on what Max said:
What I did (back in May) was to highlight a 2003 paper by some Russians, that had sensibly identified what seems to be an underlying sinusoidal cycle in the then published increasing Hadley T trends. From this, THEY made some projections that we will be experiencing cooling for a few years yet beyond now.
All I did was compare their 5YO projection with the LATER Hadley data back in May 2008, and I showed that the Russian’s projection had VERY GOOD FIT to that Hadley data, with a continuing downward trend being a strong indication, by virtue of repetition of past cycles that they had identified.
Whilst it becomes more tortuous what with Hadley continuously moving the T goal-posts, it remains a remarkable coincidence that the projections by those Russians, seem to be rather close to actual observations, SO FAR.
Here follows the latest version of my graphical comparison, following a lively debate at the ClimateAudit Bulletin Board. (an academic site)
<a
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
However, I’ve since remembered that there was an earlier graph of mine, which may have been what Max was referring to, and which is another way of looking at it:
<a href=”
” title=”Hadley Global BobFJ UT by fj_bob, on Flickr”>
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3223/3049043899_af72413e2f_o.jpg
TonyN,
I couldn’t get your directions to work to post images coming from Flickr, but found another way. However, gotta go shortly so will advise what I did later tonight or domani.
TEMPERATURE TRENDS:
Notice that the “Eyeball underlying trend” in Fig 2 in 2781, in pale blue that I suggest above is not far from being a straight line, whereas the cumulative increase in CO2 beyonnd ~1940 greatley accelerates according to the pundits.
There is no correlation between Hadley Global T and published CO2
Hi Peter
I think TonyN is going to regret telling everyone how to use graphics!!
Thank you for your interesting use of statistics as exemplified in your version of the graph.
You might like to look at these excellent sites about the enterprising use of statistics on climate change;
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/
(Go to left hand bar for climate change)
and in a similar vein one from Edward Wegman (yes, that one) who gives a talk entitled “20 Questions Statisticians Should Ask About Climate Change”, presumably a new career following his encounter with Dr Mann whose team you obviously hope to join. Hope you are good at sweeping up splinters from the broken hockey sticks lying all over the floor. http://www.galaxy.gmu.edu/stats/colloqu … lkNov5.pdf.
Now step back from the cold period- where your own line starts- and look at the graph in its full context back to 1660 and also at the new green line which represents the actual amount of human co2 left in the atmosphere at any point.
Even without removing the known UHI of around 0.5C over the last fifty years it can be readily seen that it can be just as warm as presently at 280ppm as it can at 380ppm
http://cadenzapress.co.uk/download/beck_mencken_with_decomposition.xls
To arrive at the additional co2 points (the yellow dots) I took the following jpeg from Becks paper http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2/Bad_Honnef/bhonnef1e.htm
and put it over my graph. I think I have a much better accuracy of temperature than he does, as the fit is rather close.
Especially notice the rise in co2 at a very similar rate to the current episode during the period 1920 to 1950. Max and myself both commented on the apparently accurate much higher readings taken in the 1930’s and 40’s. Presumably these are the ones that Beck has cited.
Also note we do not have a measurement for each year so will be missing some peaks and troughs of co2 readings. We are also missing the low co2 readings which I intend to insert shortly
Now it may be Beck cherry picked measurements himself BECAUSE he knew they correlated with various high temperatures. However I am not sure this is so, as his jpeg with his additional measurements would have reflected this temperature/co2 relationship more closely than it does.
Without showing him my graph I have asked him to suggest 10/15 measurements he thinks are accurate and I then intend to research each one thoroughly (circumstances, equipment etc) to see if they stand independent scrutiny.
At this stage I think there might be something in his work as without doubt the scientists of the day were perfectly capoable of taking accurate measurements. However I distrust people with theories so would want to work it through before coming to any definitive conclusion.
TonyB
Everyone
Please note my graph covers the period 1660 onwards. Most of it is in the little ice age.
Until I started thoroughly looking at it I would not have dreamt that contained within this time scale were various periods very similar to ours. Having reliable temperature records for these unexcpectedly warm episodes is a bonus and one that doesnt seem to have been explored very well as it puts things in a much better context.
The MWP (and Roman warm period etc) would illustrate even better the apparent lack of relationship between those rather higher temperatures than today and the co2 levels of 280ppm that would be crawling along the bottom of the graph
TonyB
Hi Peter,
You opined to TonyB and me: “I would suggest that the only reason that you can’t see a correlation between CO2 levels and temperature is becuase you don’t want to.”
Maybe that’s what you “would suggest”, but I would suggest (based on the physically observed facts) that the correlation is:
· Obvious for the period 1976- 2001 (rapid warming, rapid increase in CO2)
· Not so obvious for the period 1910-1944 (rapid warming, minor increase in CO2)
· Even less obvious for the period 1858-1879 (rapid warming, essentially no increase in CO2)
· Totally absent for the period 1944-1976 (cooling with accelerated increase in CO2)
· Totally absent for the period 2001-2008 (cooling with all-time record increase in CO2)
So, yes, I DO see a correlation (as opposed to a cause and effect relationship) for the IPCC “poster period” of the late 20th century (starting in 1976), but otherwise the physically observed data show that there just is no such correlation.
But hey, Peter, if you really WANT to see a correlation, I’m sure you can. After all, you can see all kinds of images if you look at clouds in the sky long enough.
See simplified graph below. [Note to TonyB: The graph is based on the IPCC-accepted Keeling curve assumption of a smooth, gradual increase of atmospheric CO2 (Vostok data) from pre-industrial times to around 1958, when Mauna Loa measurements started.]
Regards,
Max