Mar 172008

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.”

  1. TonyB,
    I sense in your 3200 and elsewhere that you are a tad irritated by some of the crap floating around on sea-level rise. And Max too, of course, and I feel his comments about shoreline land level versus sea level is what should be of real-world import. Do the Dutch take much notice of the Satellite data? (And they are active overseas trying to help in areas where the land is sinking)

    I always remain impressed at reading not long ago, that there is still a significant rate of land level rise of the shore-side areas of Greenland from recovery of burden of the ice-age. More impressively: Although the central peak ice is over 3 Km above sea level, the bedrock below that massif is over 3 Km below sea level. We tend to think that the Earth’s crust is rigid, but even concrete bends, and the “hard” crust is floating on magma, a fluid! And there are tectonics and stuff galore!

    But that’s just for starters!

    I have recommended previously here, (I think before you TonyB joined us), that “The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition”
    http://www.climatescience.org.nz/ is an extremely good source of information, and they have a surprising number of exceptionally good scientists on-call

    They are probably the hottest group around with reality knowledge of the alleged drama of the “drowning” Pacific Islands.

    Here are just three NZCSC articles, which even if you have already seen them, you might enjoy reading them again!

    Tuvalu floods, but it’s not sinking…. Chris de Freitas:

    1) THE TRUTH ABOUT TUVALU…. 2) GLOBAL WARMING NOT SINKING TUVALU — BUT MAYBE ITS OWN PEOPLE ARE…. Vincent Gray/Michael Field

  2. Bob

    I am iritated when vague supposition is presented as facts, and facts are blatantly misused.
    Global temperatures back to 1850 are barely rooted in reality but are trotted out even here as being worth parsing to the nth degrees.

    Sea level data is plain wrong because the measurements method has changed and is so inaccurate.

    Some imagined Equilibrium being destroyed because man is emitting a tiny fraction of the amount nature is emitting still remains completely unproven but is a prime pillar of the IPCC case

    Ice cores are extremly complex and I find it strange that real time records of the actual atmosphere made by famous scientists were set aside in favour of what is still an extremely young science. I suspect it will prove to have as many problems with obtaining meaningful data as with tree rings.

    I came across the NZ site around a month ago and was very impressed so I actually contacted them regarding my graphs in order to ask for some clarfication on what they seemed to show. However I have heard nothing from them.

    I hadn’t seen the articles you linked-thanks they are very interesting

    TonyB

  3. interesting discuission here about sea ice trends.

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/14/global-sea-ice-trend-since-1979-surprising/

    I did a similar calculation of world ice myself two years ago and threw it away as I thought it must be wrong as everyone was saying the opposite to what my figures showed!

    Also interested in someones comment in that thread that as the South pole is so cold and dry it has a greater proportion of co2 in the mix of greenhouse gases. Surely this would mean a much higher than average concentration than the 280ppm ‘constant’ figure so what is the explanation?

    TonyB

  4. Max and TonyB,
    I wonder what you might think of the following rather speculative graph that I thought I might post to Romm at Gristmill. However, I chickened-out because I might have been cut-to-shreds over there by church members because it is so speculative.
    So, instead, I put it to you for consideration, because I respect your scientific opinions:

    IF we can believe the published satellite data on sea-level, what can be said of it is that it appears to have taken a minor downwards wobble in recent years. At the same time, IF we can believe the various published global T data, that too seems to have had a similar wobble, but starting earlier, I would say in 1998 + its 1999/2000 “correction”.
    Here come some of my ponderings that I would like your help on:

    If global T’s rise, perhaps registered first as Air T’s, as a consequence of GHG, what is the feedback time into the oceans a) at the surface, and b) in real mixing terms in the bulk of the oceans? (Re: thermal expansion)
    But then, IF er uhm, it is more or less a matter of direct absorption of SUNLIGHT, into the vaster ocean surface, is that the consequence of constant/inconstant solar radiation or varying cloud-cover, or whatnot? And: again: what is the response-time from the surface absorption to the global average bulk of the oceans, whatever that is?

    OK, we have no idea of the response times of whatever surface T interchange to oceanic total mass thermal expansion, but is the following graph worthy of discussion?

  5. Bob

    I think you may find your answers here which I posted several months ago on CA to a resounding lack of interest.

    There are various graphs fairly early on showing sea temperatures in various European oceans-it is only this year the Barents has followed all the other sea temperatures down so this may illustrate the time lag.
    http://www.sesame-ip.eu/doc/MB_Climate_Change_VLIZ_05031.pdf

    Temperature response at the surface-defined here as the top 2 or 3 feet you swim in, is fairly quick-for example in a reasonable year our sea warms up from around 9c in february to around 17c in october-the warmest reading. However, I have seen the sea frozen off the Welsh coast in very cold years.

    If it has been a warm but cloudy year you can take 2 degrees off the maximum summer temperature. This year its been cool and cloudy on the whole and I dont think its risen much above 14/15C-I haven’t troubled the waters at all this year!

    Around 2003 we had a really warm and sunny year and the local sea temperature was as high as 21C. The solar gain effect is absolutely key-as are warm nights so the warmth doesn’t dissipate.

    However, even the surface is not that well mixed and there are notable cool and warm spots. Go down to six feet or lower and the time lag for warming or cooling is going to be vastly different and currents- local and international- are going to have a huge effect.

    We have the gulf stream ‘warming’ us (hah!) so to gauge the effect of this current it might be worth looking at data as it streams upwards from South to North and goes past a variety of countries.

    I’d say your graphs are pretty good but land temperatures and sunshine levels and strength ought to be added in and ideally-but unrealistically- the temperatures during the day and at night need to be separated out!

    Hope this helps

    TonyB

  6. Hi TonyB,

    Thanks for your informative post (3200) on the reasons why sea level records from tide gauges are being replaced by those from satellite altimetry.

    Using a 5 cm accuracy satellite technology to measure something in mm is laughable, as you say (and even the NOAA people doing the measuring admit that the errors are greater than the measurement itself), but it sounds more “scientific” than boring, old-fashioned tide gauges.

    A question: is a tide gauge record still being kept and regularly updated (to “keep them honest”)?

    Regards,

    Max

  7. Hi Peter,

    You have been quiet for some time.

    I am assuming that you have taken the time to study the many solar studies I cited in order to convince yourself that around 0.35C of the total 0.65C long-term warming from 1850 to today has been caused by unusually high 20th century solar activity, as these studies show.

    So now that we can agree that “anthropogenic” factors might have caused the remaining warming of around 0.3C over this period, we can confirm the IPCC assumptions on CO2 radiative forcing (Myhre et al.), which also tell us the warming from the increase in CO2 levels (1850 to 2008) should theoretically have been around 0.3C, based on the greenhouse theory.

    So the theory and the observations agree.

    Before we move on to future prognoses, I’d like to get your confirmation of the above.

    Thanks and regards,

    Max

  8. I think this Scientific Alliance newsletter (Reality bites in Poznan and Brussels) last week was perceptive. It comments on the likely outcome of the recent Brussels and Poznan conferences, noting how the are unlikely to even begin to satisfy the alarmists: a prediction that was proved accurate – see this article (Let’s get real on the environmentAfter the failure in Poznan, it’s time to be honest: the world is not going to be cutting greenhouse gases anytime soon) in, of all papers, the lefty Guardian. No surprise there – did anyone really think these conferences would achieve anything of substance? But the important sting is in the tail. After noting how the alarmists’ message “has singularly failed to capture the hearts and minds of the general public” (and see my #3192) engendering “even shriller cries for action”, it concludes with the following:

    … if, as it seems, this is not having the desired effect and if, as is very likely, the hell and damnation messages of climate change – the “slow cooking” of the Earth, the swamping of Pacific island states by rapidly rising sea level, the “runaway” and “irreversible” warming as tipping points are passed – are found to be gross and irresponsible exaggeration, then public opinion will rapidly turn against the messengers.

    Not only would this mean a reaction against the influence of the European green movement and a further deepening of the distrust of politicians, but science will also suffer. Science is built on a foundation of careful experiment and observation, coupled with rational and open-minded interpretation. The hijacking of climate science by a clique of activists could reflect badly on the whole scientific community.

    If science was discredited, that really would be a black day for mankind.

  9. Bob

    This graph of Southern Ocean temperatures can be added to the collection in the link I sent you

    http://i35.tinypic.com/s3djds.jpg

    tonyB

  10. Global warming attributed to liberal imagination

    http://www.teaspoontimes.com/story/global_warming

  11. Oh dear – having noted (#3208) that the outcomes of the Brussels and Poznan conferences were “unlikely to even begin to satisfy the alarmists”, I now see from this that they are no happier about the plans announced by Australia’s “green” Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd. Some quotations:

    “You could say that the decision came down to a choice between the environment and the economy,” Gary Cox, head of environmental derivatives at global brokers Newedge, told Reuters news agency. “And at this stage it looks like the economy has won.”

    Australian Greens’ spokeswoman Christine Milne said the government’s policy was a “complete failure”, and called the 5% minimum target a “global embarrassment”.

    “It’s a total and utter failure. It’s madness,” said John Hepburn of Greenpeace. “There were expectations it would be low but nobody thought it would be this low. Five percent, which is what we are looking at, is an outrage.”

    We’re all doomed, I tell you – we’re all doomed.

  12. Max #3206

    For most purposes sea level data is mostly bought in from the people selling the satellite data. Consequently old fashioned tide gauges tend to be used these days for very specific purposes. For example our village and the one over the estuary were due to get flood defences, but it was discovered the Newlyn datum point was really too far away to be reliable enough for the specific local conditions, and the satellite data available was therefore too general to be useful.

    Many local observers pointed out that the historic tide levels could be seen on dock walls and cliffs, and a local 90 year old and his father before him had been keeping records for over a century. However these weren’t good enough as ‘evidence’ so consequently to prove the need for the defences a tide gauge had to be installed (go to the web site below and click on the photo ‘Teignmouth harbour from new quay’ and the gauge has been installed just where the people on the far jetty are standing).
    http://www.any-village.com/UK/England/Devon/Teignmouth/home.aspx

    Some other great pictures here demonstrating sea levels in the 1800’s and also showing the area before Brunels railway and after. It also shows the sea wall and the edge of the harbour he built, that I was referring to in my last post (picture-the parson and clerk from Teignmouth.) You can also see rock piled up next to a tunnel to break the waves. The wave problem was first identified in 1855-five years after the railway opened and was caused by the railway line not being angled correctly.

    So tide gauges are fairly rare these days and instead it has become common to commission specific studies from the oceanographic depts of the local universities. Ironically Plymouth University has as one of its main people Dr Iain Stewart-he is an ardent warmist who fronted the BBC’s ‘Climate wars’. The other uni that gets all the work is Exeter, who receives large amounts of funding from…yes you’ve guessed it the Met office/Hadley centre!

    So there are politics involved in as much that both these organisations will be working to an overall agenda set initially by the IPCC and carried through by the respective organisation receiving govt funding. Those carrying out the survey may or may not have a point of view they want to express in their work. There is no national coordinated network of tide gauges used to back up satellite data.

    As regards tides I don’t know if you are aware of British tide tables-presumably available in local form for every country with a coastline. Tides of course vary every day according to the lunar cycle with twice monthly peaks and troughs. We have a particularly high tidal range here; with a low tide as little as .6 metres and a high of around 5.3m. As already intimated, amongst the various key factors in determining sea levels is barometric pressure, which can vary considerably from one part of a ‘cell’ to another. My 2009 tide tables state;

    “Tide levels are particularly affected by the barometric pressure- high pressure causing the tide to be lower than predicted and low pressure higher than predicted. Approx adjustments to the published predictions may be made using this table.

    Barometer 30.89 pressure 1046 subtract.3 m
    30.00 pressure 1016 nil
    28.33 pressure 956 add .6
    so pressure alone in a relatively small area can make a difference of .9 of a metre

    The trouble is this doesn’t pick up storm surges- fairly common in relatively shallow water if the conditions are right- which can add up to another metre but more normally up to 25cm.

    The tide tables are pretty good and accurate in ‘normal’ conditions (never experienced in the UK) to around plus or minus 5cm –however add in all the other factors and the margin of error can be huge-exactly where the ocean surface is can be very difficult to judge let alone measure…

    So to determine the real ocean level-set at the Newlyn datum point- pressure is yet another of the calculations that need to be taken into account within a small area that might be part of a larger cell being measured by a satellite. And we are considering a change in our life styles and economy based on this nonsense!

    Your new found interest in tides and the ocean can be fully satisfied here by ref to this key UK marine agency.

    http://www.ukho.gov.uk/

    TonyB

    Ps. The Harmless sky ski party is now up to 46 people-we arrive at your house on Friday

  13. Hi TonyB,

    Thanks for info on tide gauges.

    Looks like the “club” is funding (and running) the show and that the new “standard” is satellite altimetry. These measurements have been “adjusted” and “manipulated” to the point of meaninglessness, and the data appear to be totally non-transparent.

    This tells me that one can pretty much ignore any proclamations of accelerated sea level rise in the late 20th / early 21st centuries as unfounded propaganda.

    Regards,

    Max

  14. TonyB

    The Harmless Sky ski group now appears large enough to justify renting a tour bus at the airport.

    Be sure to bring warm clothes.

    Max

  15. Hmm – it seems the world’s media may be losing interest in global warming / climate change stories. See this.

  16. Hmm – it seems the world’s media may be losing interest in global warming / climate change stories.

    Robin,

    Hah! Rubbish! The world absolutely is not losing interest I’ll have you know! Your graph displays only a five year time period when everyone know that 5 years does not make a trend! Thirty years is the only timeframe of any importance! Obviously your graph is bought and paid for by the global cabal to discredit the global warming alarmist movement/UFO research groups.

    Either that or these are simply regional anomalies that prove nothing. People’s interest in global warming, climate change or climate/weather/anomalies is peaking with the end result being a total meltdown of all mankind due to excessive climate/weather worry by March 23rd 2096!

  17. Hi Robin,

    From your curve it does, indeed, look like everyone in this world has gotten supersaturated with AGW media hype, except (believe it or not!) “Oceania”.

    My dictionary tells me this includes a whole bunch of water plus Micronesia, Melanesia, Polynesia (including the local giant, New Zealand), where there were all told apparently a record 1,200 AGW-related articles this summer!

    I was unaware that there were that many newspapers (or newspaper readers) in this region.

    But then I started reflecting.

    Are all these many articles linked to stirring up interest for a possible “handout” from the industrial miscreants to compensate these unfortunate folks for the “imminent inundation” from AGW as predicted by the climate models (and confirmed by Joe Romm) or is there some other underlying boondoggle?

    What do you think?

    Regards,

    Max

  18. I don’t know, Max. But I’ll say this: it’s easy to make fun of the politicians posturing around the world and displaying their “climate change” concerns and credentials while agreeing yet another meaningless compromise – see my posts 3208 and 3211. But the reality is that’s it’s a monstrous scandal.

    Consider the UN Poznan conference last week: over 10,000 delegates (that’s right – 10,000) and nearly 150 government ministers met for two weeks and achieved virtually nothing; and that’s about twenty years since Brute’s “total meltdown” was first publicised. All this was happening while the real world sank yet deeper into the financial mire and the costs imposed on ordinary people – in increased energy bills etc. – to support unachievable and pointless “targets” grew even greater. Far worse: a fraction of the time, energy and costs of all this posturing could make an real difference for the millions of desperately poor and hopeless people of the world; people in need of basic hygiene, medical care and education. Yet the crazy circus is now planning its move to Copenhagen next year – where doubtless even more people and more fine rhetoric will achieve no more than did Poznan. It’s utterly disgraceful.

  19. Note to TonyB

    Re my 3214: Have just heard that due to the recent record snowfall here (caused by AGW, of course, and predicted by IPCC under SRES emission scenarios and storylines A1, A2, B1 and B2) many communities in Switzerland are snowed in and cut off from the outside world.

    As a result, I would recommend you rent a multipassenger helicopter at the Zurich airport for the Harmless Sky ski group, rather than a tour bus.

    But be sure to bring warm clothes in any case. IPCC predicts a severe winter due to global warming.

    Regards,

    Max

  20. Hi Robin,

    Reur 3218: Yes, the Poznan circus was “utterly disgraceful”, as you wrote.

    But, at present, the AGW movement remains well funded, primarily by politicians who still see a chance for developing an even greater source of taxpayer based public funding from “ordinary people”, as you put it.

    However, as the economy spirals downward due to other problems, these politicians will soon see that their survival (in the democratic societies) will depend on addressing the real needs of their constituents, rather than the wishes of a few environmental activists.

    A continued period of cooling (as we are now experiencing) will accelerate this process.

    Then the (normally fickle) politicians will drop AGW like a hot potato, despite the cries of outrage from the environmental lobbyists (as we have already witnessed in Australia).

    One does not need a multi-million dollar computer model to see this coming.

    Regards,

    Max

  21. Just to change the subject slightly, I was wondering if anyone had given any thought to how previous ice ages might have come and gone.

    They do seem to be relatively predictable which would suggest that perturbations of Earth’s orbit are the likely cause. The period of these cycles is 41,000 years for changes in the tilt of Earth’s rotational axis, 23,000 years for changes in the orientation of Earth’s elliptical orbit around the sun, called the precession of the equinoxes, and 100,000 years for changes in the shape, more round or less round, of the elliptical orbit. The theory that orbital shifts caused the waxing and waning of ice ages was first pointed out by James Croll in the 19th Century and developed more fully by Milutin Milankovitch in 1938.

    There are a lot of unknowns about causes of previous ice ages, but we can calculate that the changes in the solar flux reaching Earth are, in the last two cases very small. In first case it is actually zero. A change in the earth’s tilt just doesn’t make any net difference. The reduced flux in the colder winters is exactly equal to the increased flux in the warmer summers.

    This does suggest that the Earth’s climate is not at all stable and that a small push can produce a big change as the climate cycles in and out of glaciation. In other words the climate does contain inherently large positive feedbacks.

    The pieces of the theory don’t fit together as neatly as they might and there are still many uncertainties. But, if you are genuinely interested in the Earth’s climate, you might want to give the subject some thought.

  22. Peter Martin,
    Please don’t ask to change the current subject!

  23. Hi Peter,

    As thought-provoking as your last “side-step” (3221) regarding reflections concerning the causes for previous ice ages may be, I would think it would make more sense (as Bob_FJ suggests) to conclude our discussion on topic “A”, before switching to topic “B”.

    A brief summary of our topic “A” discussion:

    Using the same linear trend analysis favored by IPCC in discussing long-term global temperature trends, we have physical observations (Hadley) that confirm an overall linear warming of 0.65C over the period 1850 to 2008. [If you have an issue with this statement, please specify what and why.]

    We have several studies by solar scientists that confirm an unusually high level of solar activity in the 20th century, resulting in a natural global warming of approximately 0.35C. [If you have an issue with this statement, please specify what and why.]

    From this we can deduce a theoretical anthropogenic warming of around 0.3C. [Believe the arithmetic here is straightforward.]

    This has occurred over the same long-term time period during which atmospheric CO2 has increased from around 285 ppmv (as postulated by IPCC based on ice core data) to 386 ppmv (as measured at Mauna Loa) over this period. [Believe you have shown that you agree with this statement.]

    Based on these CO2 concentrations, a check of the physical equations governing the greenhouse theory as well as the radiative forcing factors as stated in SPM 2007 (p.4) by IPCC (Myhre et al.) results in the same theoretical greenhouse warming of 0.3C over the total period. [If you have an issue with this statement, please specify what and why.]

    So we have the scientist’s “dream come true”: a hypothesis that is confirmed by physical observations!

    If you do not have any specific issues with the statements above, please confirm that you understand this reasoning, so we can move on to your topic “B”.

    Regards,

    Max

  24. Re: #3221, Peter

    As long ago as the early 1990s, Lindzen warned that a preoccupation with Co2 forcing would starve fundamental climate research of funding. How much research effort do you think is being directed at the origin of ice ages, or any other aspect of the climate system that does not relate to supposed human influence?

  25. Here’s an interesting piece from Richard Black of the BBC: This year is coolest since 2000. (Rather a surprising headline.) I loved this:

    Computer models suggest that natural cycles may cool the Earth’s surface in the next few years, masking the warming impact of rising greenhouse gas levels.

    As is well known – ahm – cooling results from natural cycles and warming from GHGs. It’s unsurprising therefore that the concluding paragraph reads:

    The question for the next decade or so will be whether natural cycles such as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation continue to moderate the warming effect of rising greenhouse gas concentrations.

    Yep – that’s the question. No need to question the GHG hypothesis of course.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.

© 2011 Harmless Sky Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha