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.
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10,000 Responses to “Continuation of the New Statesman Whitehouse/Lynas blogs.”
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The IPCC Can’t Count – Author and Reviewer Numbers Wrong
http://mclean.ch/climate/docs/IPCC_numbers.pdf
Hi Brute,
Your charts (3492) showing solar activity and atmospheric CO2 versus Hadley’s “globally averaged annual land and sea surface temperature” (whatever that is) are impressive.
But I have one question:
Is it possible that the “solar activity” (which appears, unlike CO2, to be closely correlated to temperature) is, in fact a “positive feedback” directly related to the increased CO2 levels, i.e. do higher atmospheric CO2 levels on our planet result in an increased solar activity feedback?
Has James E. Hansen made a computer simulated study on this as yet (like his famous “disaster in the pipeline” warning)?
Maybe Peter knows…
Regards,
Max
We had a small (Richter 4.8) earthquake here in Switzerland yesterday as temperatures plummeted to -20C in the mountains.
These events are clearly related to increased anthropogenic CO2 levels, again providing direct evidence of the impending AGW disaster.
Have we already reached the irreversible “tipping point” as predicted by Hansen’s models?
Max
The Cooling World
By Peter Gwynne
28 April 1975
There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production — with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas — parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia — where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.
The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually.
During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree — a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars’ worth of damage in 13 U.S. states.
To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world’s weather. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic.
“A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,” warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, “because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century.”
A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972.
To the layman, the relatively small changes in temperature and sunshine can be highly misleading. Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin points out that the Earth’s average temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about seven degrees lower than during its warmest eras — and that the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average.
Others regard the cooling as a reversion to the “little ice age” conditions that brought bitter winters to much of Europe and northern America between 1600 and 1900 — years when the Thames used to freeze so solidly that Londoners roasted oxen on the ice and when iceboats sailed the Hudson River almost as far south as New York City.
Just what causes the onset of major and minor ice ages remains a mystery. “Our knowledge of the mechanisms of climatic change is at least as fragmentary as our data,” concedes the National Academy of Sciences report. “Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions.”
Meteorologists think that they can forecast the short-term results of the return to the norm of the last century. They begin by noting the slight drop in overall temperature that produces large numbers of pressure centers in the upper atmosphere. These break up the smooth flow of westerly winds over temperate areas. The stagnant air produced in this way causes an increase in extremes of local weather such as droughts, floods, extended dry spells, long freezes, delayed monsoons and even local temperature increases — all of which have a direct impact on food supplies.
“The world’s food-producing system,” warns Dr. James D. McQuigg of NOAA’s Center for Climatic and Environmental Assessment, “is much more sensitive to the weather variable than it was even five years ago.”
Furthermore, the growth of world population and creation of new national boundaries make it impossible for starving peoples to migrate from their devastated fields, as they did during past famines.
Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects.
They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.
Lest we forget just how wrong the climate experts can be.
It’s funny isn’t it?
Everyone complains about the weather, but only liberals try to legislate it.
TonyB, Reur 3399/23, Concerning Keeling’s struggle for funding CO2 research
Here are a couple of extracts that caught my eye concerning his personality lying behind his motivation. This is according to Spencer Weart; historian; author of: “The Discovery of Global Warming”; available on-line per Wiki
This reminds me of the way, during the 80‘s, that I manipulated my career/assignments to ensure frequent “Around the World” flights, to take-in both the USA/Canada and England. (At a time when airline agreements strangely made it cheaper to fly around the world than to either USA or England alone.). Some of these trips required a great deal of political work on my part for approval and were expensive; flying 1st class etc and were of “borderline necessity”, given the alternatives. My motivations were in accord with Keeling’s desires above, (e.g. I like the Sierra Nevada), a special interest in Canada, and because most of my family/friends-of-youth lived in England.
And also:
As you say it is a very interesting read. BTW, did you check-out the parallel article on Revelle, and his discovery on CO2 absorption in the oceans?
Max,
Are you referring to this? Increased variations?
http://motls.blogspot.com/search/label/climate
Schmidt and the cool year 2008
Does global warming increase variations?
Hi Brute,
Funny that the prophet (Gavin Schmidt) and the oracle (James E. Hansen) don’t quite agree on the suggestion that increased human CO2 emissions cause increased climate “variations” – hot, cold, wet or dry (you name it).
Hansen has gone so far off into never-never land with his “tipping point” predictions and convoluted “feedback” hypotheses that he has to be careful not to throw in too many other absurd postulations (such as the “variations” myth) or it will become clear to the whole world that he is a bona fide crackpot.
As a contributing editor to the RealClimate website and one of the few living climatologists that still stubbornly “believe” in the discredited Mann hockey-stick, Gavin Schmidt, on the other hand, is already known to one and all as a certified lunatic, so he has nothing more to lose by adding one more to his list of ridiculous disaster claims.
Reading his NASA GISS bio, I see: “My main research interest lies in understanding the variability of the climate, both its internal variability and the response to external forcing. In particular, how changes related to varying forcings relate to variations due to intrinsic (unforced) climate variability such as oscillations in the ocean’s deep thermohaline circulation that affect ocean heat transports or atmospheric modes of variability like the North Atlantic Oscillation. I mainly use large-scale general circulation models for the atmosphere and ocean to investigate these questions,”
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/~gavin/
So virtual computer-generated climate “variability” appears to be his “gig” and the “variations” myth is right down his alley. As for his alleged statement that “extremes have nothing to do with variations”: did he really say that? Unbelievable!
Regards,
Max
Oh no – it seems that the sainted Al Gore is being criticised for being too close to big oil. See this.
Bob 3505
Yes its an interesting read of someone who was wanting to be an outdoors person, saw the means to achieve it and was overly keen on ‘proving’ a co2 problem that didn’t exist.
In this respect he had a lot in common with G S Callendar who passed on his own obsession with this subject to Keeling. Keelings great interest in Callendars work-acknowledged in 1957at the time of his first co2 readings- is further revealed in Callendars biography when it is reported that years after his death Keeling visited an associate in Kent and borrowed Callendars 1939/40 notebook on co2 which Keeling then used in a 1986 publication of his own. Keeling reported ‘I recall a pleasure of a visit to Schove (a friend of Callendar) who found a notebook for me in a cardboard box of items in London.’
The link Callendar imagined between co2 increase and temperature rise came through his copious examinations of ‘global temperatures since 1850’ when he saw a slight rise in temperature. In the last years of his life he admitted to serious doubts of his theory as the low temperatures of the 50’s and 60’s confounded his projections of inevitable temperature rises. (Interestingly Roger Revelle had the same doubts over AGW and came to legal blows with Al Gore over it)
There were a cluster of three severe winters in the last three years of Callendars life making this period the coldest since 1740. This fact was provided to him by Lamb who had researched historic temperatures better than Callendar, who mostly used the figures from 1850. At that time Manley had not gone through the Hadley CET figures-which were in a poor state at the time- so Callendar was unaware of the UK’s longer term temperature history back to 1660.
Callendar did express concerns about using so few weather stations to support his rising co2/temperature increase theory (but did it anyway) He relied on 100 stations from 1850 and some 200 in 1938 when he wrote his seminal document on co2. Both times he expressed his serious concerns about the tiny number and poor quality of the readings from Southern hemisphere places such as Port Elizabeth and Adelaide. So a tiny amount of stations- very few representative of the Southern Hemisphere- many of dubious quality and virtually no readings over that 70% of the earth that is liquid. And an industry has been founded on this nonsense. Hmmm
Interestingly CRU has a huge number of Callendars notebooks of world and regional temperatures and these are also on the dvd which I bought (he was a avid inventor and greatly helped our war effort)
There are some interesting titbits from the studies made at the time that Callendar recorded as follows;
“From 1890 to 1940 the mean thickness of arctic ice had decreased 30% and area extent 15% “(reversed in the 50’s and 60’)
“The intensity of the global circulation increased markedly and it became 10degree warmer in the Norwegian sea”
In 1939 he wrote of the remarkable warming in the period from 1934-39
“In North Atlantic countries the mean temperature for 1938 (in particular) was remarkably high and at several stations in North America, Scotland and the Baltic countries it equalled or exceeded previous record values.”
Interestingly, in recent times 1934 was found to be Americas warmest year-as discussed many times on this blog- and Hansen was forced to concede he had miscalculated an algorithm-to this day he insists it applied to mainland US only, but this seems to demonstrate that this episode of warming was much more widespread than that. As far as I am aware Hansen has not looked again at the algorithm for ‘global temperatures’ for 1934 nor for 1938.
TonyB
Hells Bells Robin, That’s nothing…..
The Goracle bought a 100′ houseboat that he keeps on a lake near his mansion. He boasts that the the twin 1200 horspower engines burn “Flexfuel”….although there isn’t a single gas dock on the entire lake that sells Flexfuel.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Al Gore’s 100ft Houseboat, Global Warming can Wait.
His large Nashville home, utility bills and jet travels have drawn
flamethrowers over the last year and a half. Now, it’s a houseboat he bought this summer.
The latest angry anti-Gore round boiled up when radio talk show host
Steve Gill, a regular Gore basher, fired up listeners over the family’s
new 100-foot houseboat that’s docked on Center Hill Lake.
100ft houseboat on lake.
Sorry but the boat in the picture is not Al Gore’s house boat, it is only 55 foot long. Mr Gore’s boat is twice that size, about 100 feet long. To get an idea about how large this boat is, let’s compare it to your house. An average three bedroom two bath home is about 1500 square feet. This boat on the main deck is about 2000 square feet. If you would count the lower deck and the top deck, it’s over 4000 square feet.
Now I am happy for the Gore’s new house boat. I believe that if you are successful in life at what you do, it’s your money and you should be able to buy what you want. I don’t believe the Government should tell you, what you can do with your money or take what they want. I believe in the Fair Tax plan. And I don’t believe people should scare you into living one way while they live another.
Now how does Mr Gore justify this large houseboat? Well the fact that the houseboat, called Bio-Solar One, has a roof blanketed with solar panels and runs on biodiesel. Bio-Solar One uses about 4 gallons of bio-diesel on a typical weekend, depending on use. This is about 20-25% more fuel efficient than other boats this size and has about a 500 gallon tank. First the Hurricane Marina dock doesn’t sell bio-diesel. Plus bio-diesel only has a shelf life of no more than six months.
When the boat is not in use, the solar panels will feed renewable energy back into the grid at the marina. Doesn’t this sound great with no facts to back them up? Well here are some facts.
Financial Information
Remaining Balance $1,203 $4,408 $4,900
Annual Savings $242 $540 $670
Payback Period 5 Years 9 Years 8 Years
25 Year ROI $4,840 $8,639 $11,396
For a 3.6kw size system your going to pay $22,300. The federal government will give you $3000 of our money. Rebate $14,400. It will take 8 years to pay for itself. If you have to finance it, maybe 12 years. So the cost may not cover the lifespan savings.
We have learned about carbon foot prints from an Inconvenient Truth but I think Al Gore is telling us a convenient lie.
http://www.billaustinaircraft-yacht.com/2007fantasy/index.shtml
http://waggdogg.blogspot.com/2008/09/al-gore-100ft-houseboat-global-warming.html
TonyN
Knowing your interest in wind powerr I thought you might be interested in a reply to one of my questions regarding renewable energy over at CA.
“Also, wind power is not scaleable over about 5% of total electricity generated, because it will destabilize current grid by fast swings of power going back and forth. Denmark, for example, is generating about 20% of its electricity by wind, but is able to use no more than half of it at any moment. The rest is dumped with low prices to huge Germany grid, and to highly maneuverable Norwegian (close to 100% hydropower) grid:
http://www.countryguardian.net/2008.%20 … efs%5D.pdf
Interesting, about 9% of Danish electricity consumption is satisfied by importing nuclear power.Andrey Levin”
TonyB
It’s official! Now 1998 has dropped out of the picture the ten year trend is pointing sharply down and our temperatures are now ‘average’
http://wattsupwiththat.com/
TonyB
Max, et. al.,
Another “anomaly”, different region……………
Not familiar with Paris “climate” but I would think that Germany would be well adept at dealing with Anthropogenic frozen water molecules…………I’m surprised to read that they’ve been struggling.
Is it an enormous amount of snow?
Eiffel Tower closed, flights hit by snow
http://www.smh.com.au/travel/eiffel-tower-closed-flights-hit-by-snow-20090106-7asq.html
It’s official! Now 1998 has dropped out of the picture the ten year trend is pointing sharply down and our temperatures are now ‘average’
I was wondering if anyone else, besides Max, would like to take advantage of someone who is clearly suffering from ‘religious delusions’ and deprive me of US$100 by betting that the 1998 temperature record won’t be broken in the next four years.
You’ve got the clear and unbiased evidence of the ‘wattsupwiththat’ website to assure you that temperatures are falling. The earth will be entering a new ice age in decades! Clearly you are on to a racing certainty:-)
I’ve got my 100% ebay record to vouch for my honesty! You must feel like you are taking candy from the proverbial baby!
Still, I’m happy to back my judgement. Are you?
Hi Peter,
You wrote, “The earth will be entering a new ice age in decades!”
Hardly an ice age, but probably back to the temperatures we had in the 1970s or 1980s, if the period of low solar activity continues for a few years. After all, Peter, it’s the sun that drives our climate, as every schoolchild (that hasn’t been brainwashed by Al Gore’s Oscar winning sci-fi flick) knows.
Contrary to James E. Hansen and Al Gore, I do not think that there is any logical basis for expecting any cataclysmic climate changes in the near future, since I have not witnessed any in my lifetime, and have not read of any over the past several thousand years.
Sure, there have been some up and down “blips” (Roman Optimum, Dark Age Minimum, Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age, Modern Warm Period, etc.), but these have all been within one or two degrees C, so nothing to get too excited about. It is clear from our history that the colder periods have generally been more problematic for mankind than the warmer ones. We are actually lucky to be living in a relatively mild period today. It would be nice if this warm period would continue for a few more decades, but it looks like it may not.
It’s all up to the sun.
Regards,
Max
Hey Pete.
Where ya been? I missed you.
Affectionately,
Brute
Hi Peter,
I believe from your earlier posts that you do not feel that current and recent record cold temperatures in many parts of the world represent a “climate trend”. I also believe that you doubt that the current cooling in the Hadley as well as other “global temperature” records represents the beginning of a long-term cooling cycle.
But you will recall that over the past several years we have been inundated by headline after headline of “record hot temperatures” and “melting Arctic sea ice”, all supposedly proving that our climate was indeed warming (due to AGW, of course).
If you do not believe that the current cooling really represents the beginning of a long-term trend then you must agree that the earlier warming “blips” and sea ice melting also did not represent a real long-term trend.
Right?
Regards,
Max
Hey Pete,
I’ll bet that the residents of this town are burning their autographed copies of Al Gore’s books to keep warm right now.
Cold streak sets new record
http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/story.html?id=e25537cf-e677-4c20-a61c-8584a406604d
Brute,
I’m sure you haven’t missed me really. I’ve been meaning to nag you about providing proper references for your graphs.
There are those more cynical than I who might be thinking that you’d either made them up or taken them from the ‘www.americans_against_the communist_inspired_wordwide_globalwarming _consiracy.com’ website.
There are more questions than answers!
Q. Is global warming really such a problem? The weather now does not seem much different to what I remember 30 years ago.
A. Since then the temperature worldwide has risen by about 0.5 deg C on average. Many people wouldn’t notice any difference. However the rate of increase of 0.2 degrees C per decade will produce another two degrees of warming by the end of the century.
Q. That still does not seem like much. Would two degrees C ( or nearly 4 deg F) of warming really be that bad?
A. This is a very rapid rise on a geological timescale. The length of time the temperature rise lasts matters too of course.
The temperature change from ice age glaciation periods to inter glaciation periods is thought be be around 5 deg C with an accompanying change in sea level of 120 metres or 400 feet. Two degrees of warming is on the lower side of current projections. It could be more like three degrees by the end of the century.
Q. So, are you saying that if we have, say, 2.5 deg C temperature rise by the end of the century that we’ll see a sea level rise of 60 metres?
A. No. That may take another few thousand years to occur if the warming is maintained. It may not be a linear change either. Melting Greenland and Antarctic ice may suddenly become unstable after sufficient melting has occurred.
Q. Does the current loss of summer Arctic ice contribute to sea level change?
A. Very little. There is some loss of land based ice but most Arctic ice floats. That causes no sea level change. It is significant in that it tells us that something is happening to the climate and that the Greenland ice sheets may be the next to go.
Q. But what about the Arctic winter sea ice. Isn’t that back to normal?
A The Arctic is in permanent darkness during winter. You can’t get global warming in areas without any sun! The ice may have the same or a similar area but it is much thinner and will melt more easily than it should in summer.
Q. Here in America we are experiencing a very cold winter. Are people justified in saying that this proves that global warming is all a big hoax?
A. It could be that where temperatures are being measured as -10 deg C now, they would be -10.7 deg C without global warming. There would be just as much snow and ice at either temperature. Also it is noticeable from the NASA maps that global warming is not necessarily uniform around the world. Temperatures in Russia are noticeably warmer in recent years and even the swans have noticed.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/swans-stay-in-warm-siberia-975515.html
In a few years time that situation may be reversed with America experiencing more warming than in Russia.
Q. People have always proclaimed that the ‘end of the world is nigh’ for a variety of reasons. Isn’t the AGW scare just the latest fad?
A. AGW doesn’t mean the end of the world. However a sea level rise of even a metre would have severe economic costs. A rise of 6 metres would be a catastrophe. The world and even maybe human civilisation would continue but it is better to not let that happen.
Q. Where does Al Gore fit into all this?
A. The western world is more used to listening to what celebrities think than more serious minded scientists and others. More people have been influenced by “An inconvenient truth” that the IPCC reports. The movie does have its flaws but that’s what gets the attention in today’s world.
Q. What about the idea that AGW is something cooked up by the IPCC to justify their own existence?
A The IPCC were set up largely at the request of the Reagan administration to internationalise the research and reporting of the science of global warming and its economic consequences and which of course came first.
Q. What about the many scientists who are against the so-called consensus?
A There are a few. Listen to everybody who is qualified to express an opinion. Rather than particular individuals look at the position of organisations such as NASA, the Royal Society, NOAAA, American Geophysical Union , American Institute of Physics, American Physical Society, National Research Council (US), European Science Foundation, American Association for the Advancement of Science and any others that you can think of. There isn’t a world scientific body that rejects the idea that Global warming is not an issue to be taken seriously.
Q. Why haven’t we had any global warming since 1998? Hasn’t the danger passed?
A. 1998 was an unusually warm year. It is better to look at five year averages. Even they can show periods of cooling when world temperatures are rising on a decadal basis. If previous patterns are anything to go by we should see rapid warming again in the next few years.
Pete, Reur 3451, in part, you made some statements, concerning liquid hydrogen as a potential fuel for air transport, maybe as from your straightforward acceptance of Wikipedia as the fountain of all knowledge. (and/or maybe Real Climate ?).
I responded with some “inconvenient” stuff in my 3466, 3478, and 3486, but you have strangely fallen totally silent on this to date.
I hope that you can still find time to make a relevant (on topic) response!
BTW, you should perhaps think about whether you can retain any credibility with your readers here!?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pete, Reur 3514, you broadcasted a challenge for a $100 gambling for a prediction on future “global average temperature” sometime soon:
So you are making it a matter of your OWN judgement? Does your JUDGEMENT replace any scientific basis for what you would WANT to happen?
OR, can you provide a SCIENTIFIC outline for your judgement?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pete, Reur 3519, you wrote in part to Brute:
OK, let’s look at Brute’s VERY ENLIGHTENING 3492.
From past comments you have made here, you are obviously fairly computer literate, and thus you should know that by ‘right click’ on image, then click PROPERTIES, you can find its URL. How about you stop playing the raw-prawn, and make a sensible response to Brute’s 3492, particularly the second graph ex “Icecap”
Furthermore, would you please validate the web address that you supplied, because it does not work for me!!!
Re: #3520, Peter
You say:
How about changing the word I have emphasised in the quote above to ‘may’ and then reviewing the rest of your arguments? And perhaps you could answer the question that I posed here too as it refers to the same problem.
#3514
Peter my #3512 your 3514
I dont know how to do a smiley emoticon or it would have acompanied my original post.
I dont do predictions based on fantasy future data but I do like looking at historic data to see what lessons that might have for us.
Those lessons are that nothing much is happening, we’ve all been this way many times before without man made co2 and an explanation as to why its so different this time still needs to be made, taking our history into account. In this respect you said;
“Q. Why haven’t we had any global warming since 1998? Hasn’t the danger passed?
A. 1998 was an unusually warm year. It is better to look at five year averages. Even they can show periods of cooling when world temperatures are rising on a decadal basis. If previous patterns are anything to go by we should see rapid warming again in the next few years.”
Can you please clarify what previous patterns you are referring to? Thanks.
TonyB
Hi Peter,
You wrote (3520): “Since then (30 years ago) the temperature worldwide has risen by about 0.5 deg C on average. Many people wouldn’t notice any difference.”
The second part of your statement is undoubtedly true, but the first part is not quite correct.
According to Hadley the warming from 1979 to 2008 has been 0.44 C with large CO2 emissions over the period. The satellite record (UAH) has it a bit lower at 0.38C. So let’s say “on average” the increase was 0.4C.
This compares with a warming of 0.53C over the 35-year period 1910-1944, prior to any large human CO2 emissions.
In between 1945 and 1979 it cooled off a bit, despite accelerating human CO2 emissions.
Then you opined, “However the rate of increase of 0.2 degrees C per decade will produce another two degrees of warming by the end of the century.”
Since 2001 the average of all four records (GISS, Hadley, RSS and UAH) shows a cooling of 0.09C per decade, rather than a warming of 0.2C per decade, as predicted by IPCC for the early decades of the 21st century.
There is no reason (except IPCC model predictions, which have been miserably poor in the past) to believe in a 0.2 degreeC per decade increase. What’s more, the thermometers out there confirm that it isn’t happening, Peter.
So, as TonyN has suggested you should probably revise your sentence to:
“If it were to actually occur, which at present seems questionable in view of the actual 21st century cooling observed so far, a 0.2 degrees C per decade temperature rise as predicted by IPCC could theoretically produce another two degrees of warming by the end of the century”.
That, Peter, would actually be a TRUE statement as opposed to your “here’s what’s gonna happen (because IPCC said so)” statement of prophesy.
Get the difference?
It’s subtle, I’ll admit. But it’s pretty obvious if you think about it a bit.
Now to the rest of your post (I’ll not go into every detail here).
Q. That still does not seem like much. Would two degrees C ( or nearly 4 deg F) of warming really be that bad?
A. This is a very rapid rise on a geological timescale. The length of time the temperature rise lasts matters too of course.
What matters even more, Peter, is that the “2 degrees rise” between now and year 2100 is a figment of your imagination. It has not happened in the past, and at present it does not look very likely that it will happen at all. It’s just a “projection” from the virtual reality of GIGO computer models cited by IPCC as part of its AGW sales pitch.
The rest of your blurb is standard AGW “what if” hogwash and “consensus” gobbledygook, so I will ignore it.
The statement that Reagan is responsible for IPCC is downright silly and totally irrelevant (as I’m sure you know), Peter. IPCC is what it is, and that is a UN lobby group whose only reason for existence is to promote the hypothesis that man is destroying the planet by emitting CO2, while governments are spending obscene amounts of taxpayer money to promote this with “agenda driven” pseudoscience, in order to get the political support for enacting carbon taxes involving even more obscene amounts of taxpayer money for the politicians and bureaucrats to shuffle around.
Peter, you have a habit of avoiding specific discussions (for example defending the 3.2 degree 2xCO2 climate sensitivity assumed by the IPCC models against the physically observed facts). Instead you appear to prefer to spout generalities and silly prophesies.
I have observed this behavior in many ardent AGW believers (as I have in religious fundamentalists who know for sure that “the end is near”). It’s the approach of “don’t confuse me with the facts; here’s what is going to happen because it’s written in the Holy Bible (or the IPCC report)”.
Regards,
Max
Hi Peter,
Just for fun, I’m switching to your approach of being a “prophet of the future”.
You prophesied:
“However the rate of increase of 0.2 degrees C per decade will produce another two degrees of warming by the end of the century.”
Now I’m going to take the average of all four major temperature records since 2001 and make my own prophesy:
“However a continuation of the current rate of cooling of 0.09 degrees C per decade will produce almost one degree of cooling by the end of this century, more than canceling out all the warming our planet has seen since 1850, when the modern temperature record started.”
Sound like a bunch of “hogwash”?
Thought so.
Regards,
Max