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.”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Speaking of tipping points……can anyone think or conceive of a “tipping point”……an event or piece of information/scientific study that is so convincing that it would hammer the last nail in the coffin of the Anthropomorphic Global Warming fraud once and for all? Or do you think there will simply be a gradual, incremental loss of interest and enthusiasm for the “cause”?
A similar comparison in rhetoric from today’s news:
Barry Obama states that the 789 BILLION dollar spending bill that he and his fellow Leftists passed yesterday will “save” 3 – 4 million jobs from being lost. Another statement that can never be verified or measured; the same rhetoric used by global warming alarmists……attempting to prove a negative I believe it’s called.
In some undetermined period of time, Barry will be able to state that he has “saved” the economy if anything less that 3 – 4 million jobs are not lost (despite spending 800 Billion Dollars).
Hi Peter,
Here’s a simple exercise in logic for you.
As you’ve pointed out repeatedly (both verbally and graphically), global temperature rose sharply over the last part of the 20th century.
This rise has been directly attributed to AGW.
The year 1998 was the all-time (modern) record year. At the time “climate experts” cited this “warmest year of the millennium” as prime evidence for rampant AGW.
Now that 1998 is gradually fading into history (and it hasn’t continued to warm since then), “climate experts”, such as Hadley’s Phil Jones, point out to us that 1998 was a strong El Niño year, and that this was part of the reason for such a high temperature. (In a less-publicized move, Hadley has also quietly “corrected” the 1998 temperature downward by .065C after the fact.)
NOAA tells us that the latter part of the 20th century had an unusually high incidence of El Niño events.
Since 2001 the temperature has been cooling (by all records).
Phil Jones explains to us that this is a result of cooling La Niña events, which mask the underlying AGW warming trend.
So here’s the question.
If (a) 1998 was a record year because of El Niño and (b) the latter 20th century experienced a high rate of warming and (c) this period also had an unusually high number of El Niño events and (d) the early 21st century is cooling as a result of an ENSO reversal to cooling La Niña events, isn’t it then logical to deduce that the ENSO oscillations play a significant role in our planet’s “global” temperature?
I assume that you will agree with the above premise (as Phil Jones has essentially confirmed it, himself).
So then we come to another set of questions:
Just how significant was the cooling role recently played by La Niña? (Apparently significant enough to be mentioned by Phil Jones.)
Just how significant was the warming role played by El Niño in the late 20th century? (Strangely only mentioned in passing for the year 1998 by Phil Jones.)
Could it be that short- or medium-term ENSO oscillations are the principle force that is driving our planet’s temperature, rather than just atmospheric CO2 concentrations?
I’d say this is a bit of a dilemma for Phil Jones.
If the current La Niña trend continues for several years (as some “ocean experts” predict), it will become a major dilemma for Phil Jones.
Of course, Hadley can keep it’s new “mitigation solutions marketing department” in business, just by switching them over to selling fur coats rather than solar panels and windmills.
Regards,
Max
Max
Have you come across this before?
http://downloads.climatescience.gov/sap/sap3-4/sap3-4-final-report-all.pdf
It conmes from NOAA and National science foundation. It is well worth a very thorough read. It is astonishing how much they admit they dont know, speculate, or confirm that the IPCC assessments are now dated.
Tonyb
Brute,
This is what I call a “gee whiz” statement. “The Sun releases more energy in one second than all of the fossil fuels contained on the Earth”. Maybe you’d like to calculate how much of it hits the earth? Hint: Work out the area of the the face of the earth as it would look from the sun. The cross sectional area. Compare that with the area of a sphere whose radius is the same as the distance between the sun and the earth.
It will still be a huge amount of energy. The Greens no doubt have already worked it out and have used it to promote the idea of solar power.
Max,
I don’t completely disagree with your so -called enhancement. It is possible that there is some sort of link between the solar cycle and the phase of ocean cycles. It is also possible that solar cycle 24 just won’t happen. Possible but unlikely. Why would they just stop abruptly? It is much more likely that it will turn out to be very similar to #23 and the previous recent ones. There doesn’t seem to be any trend of consistent change the strength of recent cycles. Just random variation.
The solar cycle does have an effect on global temperature but it isn’t huge. No more than about 0.2degC or maybe one decade of AGW. In the unlikely event that solar cycles do suddenly become very weak, it won’t be the cavalry coming over the hill to our rescue.
The data point for 2008 is obviously very dear to your heart! It will probably turn out to be a downward spike, the mirror image of the 1998 upward spike. But I agree that if what I have marked on the graph as the climate sceptics’ projection does start to be followed by the smoothed 5 and 10 year averages, that there will have to be some rethinking done.
On the other hand maybe you might agree that you’ll have to do some rethinking if we soon see the sort of rapid warming this decade as we have seen in the previous three decades.
Pete,
I’ll get to your Gee Whiz thing in a minute……
Seriously, can you appreciate why people consider the “green” religion as hypocritical and the people that espouse its tenets as fools? You have guys like Chuckie here (see link) and Al Gore and I never, ever, hear anyone from the Alarmist camp or compliant media sources condemn their lifestyles.
Why is that?
Are they such sycophants of guys such as Gore and the
I’ll get to your Gee Whiz thing in a minute……
Seriously, can you appreciate why people consider the “green” religion as hypocritical and the people that espouse its tenets as fools? You have guys like Chuckie here (see link) and Al Gore and I never, ever, hear anyone from the Alarmist camp or compliant media sources condemn their lifestyles.
Why is that?
Are they such sycophants of guys such as Gore and the “Prince” that they are willing to excuse his blatant hypocrisy? Are you (as the Official Harmless Sky Alarmist Spokesman) familiar with the term “two faced”? How about “double standard”?
How about Obama and his fellow Leftist draconian taxation and subjugation of “the little guy” while they cruise the planet in private jets and dine on $100.00 per pound beef steaks.
America is in a crisis: Obama eats steak at $100.00 per pound!
Obama celebrates spending binge with cocktails and wagyu steak
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/01/29/obama-celebrates-spending-binge-with-cocktails-and-wagyu-steak/comment-page-1/
Do you have anything to say about the most outspoken of the “green” religion being recklessly wasteful and hypocritical? Aren’t you one of those Earthdog, anti-establishment, hippie crusaders that continuously seeks to “right wrongs” and correct “injustices” and “inequality” in society?
What a bunch of phony’s……. and you’re falling for this line of bullshit…..
You’re willing to fall on your sword for these guys? You “sacrifice” for the planet and they get rich and eat Wagyu steak aboard their private jets en route to far off lands to advocate curtailing “unrestrained consumption and “wasteful excess”.
The Prince of hypocrites: Charles embarks on 16,000 mile ‘green’ crusade… aboard a private jet
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1145127/The-Prince-hypocrites-Charles-embarks-16-000-mile-green-crusade–aboard-private-jet.html
Brute,
You’ll have to be careful having a go their Monarchy on a Brit website. They don’t usually mind what you say about their politicians or football or cricket teams but they can get a bit sensistive on the issue of their Royal Family. I’m with you though. After all, we are both republicans!
So are you advocating a ban on private jets now? Yes I’m with you on that one too. I sold mine when the price of aviation fuel skyrocketed, so that won’t inconvenience me at all. And on Wagyu steak? I must admit that I don’t even know what that is, so if it was banned I surely won’t be in the slightest way affected. So, if you think that’s a good idea I’m with you on that too.
I’m just wondering about those bankers who have been salary capped to the same level as the President of the USA. Have they had to cut back to $100 steaks from $1000 steaks? Do you know what they are called?
Nope, people can eat as much Wagyu steak as they want to and fly around the planet continuously in their private jets as far as I’m concerned…… as long as they pay for it with their own money (not my taxes) and don’t have the audacity to lecture me about how much fuel I’m wasting driving a full size pick-up truck back and forth to my job while they figure out ways to confiscate more of my money to pay for their global warming scam and their goofy social engineering projects. And as long as they don’t restrict my ability to do the same thing as they do I’m fine with it.
As for Prince Charles, I’m not a British subject and can say or write what I want to…American soldiers, (as well as Australia and Great Britain) have fought several wars certifying my freedom to do so.
Now to the gee whiz thing…..
We’ve been discussing heat transfer and the atmospheric insulating properties of CO2 as well as other elements for over a year now.
Alarmist such as yourself completely dismiss the Sun’s effect on the Earth’s temperature because there is absolutely nothing they can do about it. You claim the Sun’s output as a constant or if it is variable it has nowhere near enough energy to account for a one half degree temperature rise on something that is 1/300,000ths of its mass. The Sun itself accounts for 98.6% of the total mass of the solar system……Try to image how immense that is……The Sun has a surface temperature of approximately 5,780 K (5,500 °C) The core of the Sun has a temperature of close to 13,600,000 Kelvins.
Volume: 1.412×1027 m³
1 300 000 Earths
Mass: 1.9891 ×1030 kg
332 946 Earths
The energy output of the Sun dwarfs in magnitude any source of energy or any activities or results of any activities ever embarked upon by mankind. You don’t like the statement because it makes sense and contradicts your political philosophy.
Al Gore and Prince Chuck can’t tax sunlight (yet) and can’t control it any more than the you Peter have the ability “manage” the weather as you claimed a few hundred posts back. You Pete, and the rest of these ideologues either have no concept of how massive these numbers are and the potential impact on this planet of a miniscule variation in the Suns output or you simply don’t want to know because it doesn’t support your political goals……That’s it.
They’ve pinned their argument of increased taxation and government intrusion into the lives of citizen and operations of private industry on CO2 because it relates directly to wealth and prosperity. They demonize “the rich” using this vague definition of someone other than themselves (who happen to be rich) to provide scapegoats for all of the ills of the world and to garner votes to support their cause and line their pockets.
The Alarmists assertions and prophecies have been proven to be incorrect; however, you still cling to them because it supports your ideology and political affiliation. Global Warming Alarmism and “Environmentalism” is the elitist, rich man’s cause celeb….. perfectly tailored for snobs and arrogant, pompous egotists with too much time on their hands….that’s the bottom line.
The “movement” has nothing to do with saving the planet and everything to do with ego. People such as yourself and Barack Obama lecture the rest of us on the “virtues” of conservation and “sacrifice” and no more believe in this nonsense than the man on the moon………and their actions and lifestyle choices reflect this in spades.
The environmental policies that you support/advocate….which have been foisted on the citizens of Australia is directly responsible for the deaths of over 100 of your fellow countrymen. REAL PEOPLE DIED, not computer generated, statistical, “virtual” people that may or may not be born in the year 2100 and may or may not be effected by Al Gore’s private jet exhaust. You continuously sing the song of the “victimized” of the world due to starvation but in the same breath advocate policies that would deny them the tools/energy resources that would lift them out of poverty and become independent productive member states of the world as opposed to parasites on the remainder.
I apologize if my candor offended you Pete, but I’ve become quite annoyed by this nonsensical claptrap of planetary apocalypse due to my porch light being left on overnight, taking hot showers and my vacation choices.
A lead BBC news headline this morning (TV, radio and web) is “Global warming ‘underestimated’“. It is a report of a speech by Professor Chris Field at the American Science conference in Chicago and contained some seriously scary predictions. For example, it reports Professor Field as saying that “the 2007 [IPCC] report, which predicted temperature rises between 1.1C and 6.4C over the next century, seriously underestimated the scale of the problem“.
Yet as recently as Wednesday, the normally alarmist Guardian had (as we’ve discussed) a headline, ‘Apocalyptic climate predictions’ mislead the public, say experts. It reported a Met Office statement criticising scientists (it spoke of a “blistering attack“) who “grab” headline attention with “apocalyptic prediction“.
I don’t think the BBC reported that at all – and it certainly wasn’t a lead news headline. So it seems the BBC favours an American biologist speaking at a US conference over the UK’s official climate authority. Nothing I suppose to do with the fact that the Professor Field story stokes up climate change fears whereas the Met Office story rather deflates them? Hmm.
Hi Peter,
You opined that “The solar cycle does have an effect on global temperature but it isn’t huge. No more than about 0.2degC or maybe one decade of AGW.”
You also stated that I will “have to do some rethinking if we soon see the sort of rapid warming this decade as we have seen in the previous three decades”. This is certainly correct if this warming is truly sustained over an extended period. If not you will “have to do some rethinking”. These are “IF” postulations.
But your “statement of faith” of “no more than about 0.2degC” from past solar warming is very nice (but unsubstantiated).
You are right that IPCC (who concede to having a “low level of scientific understanding” of solar forcing of our climate) estimate solar forcing to be low.
But studies by solar scientists (who have a higher “level of scientific understanding” of solar impact than the IPCC – or you or I) put the solar effect at about twice your number, which relates to a bit more than half of ALL THE WARMING we’ve seen from 1850 to 2008.
So it is a bit more “huge” than AGW. But I’ll agree with you that the COMBINED impact of CO2 and the sun (plus anything else) over the entire time period from 1850 through 2008 “isn’t huge”.
Total observed long term warming = 0.65C
Solar impact = 0.35C.
Impact of AGW (plus everything else) = 0.3C.
Neither is “huge”.
Nor is the total observed long term warming as recorded by Hadley, as I am sure you will also agree.
In fact, if the estimate of TonyB is correct, the ERROR from 1850 to 2008 may be larger than the apparent change.
Now, let’s go through the logic.
YES. The planet is warming (slightly) since 1850 (as we are fortunately continuing to slowly come out of the Little Ice Age, a period of harsher climate than today for a good part of the world, with resulting recorded crop failures, food shortages and higher levels of famines).
YES. This warming trend has not been at a constant rate since 1850; there have been several multi-decadal swings (from net warming to net cooling) over the entire period, however with an underlying slight overall warming trend from 1850 through 2008.
YES. The multi-decadal period from around 1976 to around 2000 has shown a higher rate of warming than the total period from 1850 to 2008; in fact, this short period showed warming at almost 3 times the average rate since 1850!
YES. A previous warming period from around 1910 to around 1944 showed a similar high rate of warming.
YES. This was followed by a period of slight cooling from 1944 to 1976.
YES. Atmospheric CO2 levels have increased since 1958 (when measurements at Mauna Loa started) to today.
YES. Ice core studies (from Antarctica) suggest that global atmospheric CO2 levels were fairly constant from “pre-industrial” times until around 1800; however this is in direct contrast to many thousands of actual 19th and early 20th century measurements that show large fluctuations.
YES. Human emissions of CO2 have increased as our planet has become more industrialized and more affluent over the period from 1850 to 2008; the “electrification” of most households in the developed world has been a major contributor to both the increased standard of living and the concurrent higher human CO2 emissions over this period.
NO, Peter. All of this does not “prove” that human CO2 has caused our planet to warm by the measured 0.65C from 1850 to 2008, since (believe it or not, Peter) there were other things going on out there over this period of time that may also have had an impact.
As mentioned above, solar experts tell us that the 20th century was a period of unusually high solar activity (highest in 11,000 years – wow!), and that this alone has caused a warming of around 0.35C.
Ocean experts tell us that there is a multi-decadal warming/cooling cycle from changes in the ENSO oscillation, and that this cycle was strongly in the warming (El Niño) mode during the late 20th century, when the warming rate was high.
The all-time (modern) record warm year, 1998, was (by everyone’s estimate) at least partly a result of an unusually strong El Niño event.
There have been record high human CO2 emissions since 2001.
Nevertheless, it has cooled since 2001, as confirmed by ALL “global” temperature records.
The ENSO cycle has switched from predominantly (warming) El Niño events in the late 20th century to predominantly (cooling) La Niña events in the 21st century, as acknowledged by all of the “climate scientists”, including those (e.g. the climate “experts” at Hadley) that believe AGW is driving our planet’s climate.
Solar scientists tell us that the unusually high level of 20th century solar activity has stopped, and that since 2007 it has reversed sharply; for the past 12 months we have observed a sun with essentially no sunspots.
Some studies out there suggest a link between the multi-decadal ENSO cycles and solar activity, although the mechanism for this link has not been established.
Other studies suggest a link between low solar activity and (cooling) low altitude water droplet cloud formation, although the suggested (cosmic ray) mechanism for this link has yet to be proven.
So, Peter, as a rational observer of all these facts, you have to agree that the correlation between “global” temperature and human CO2 emissions alone is oversimplified and therefore tenuous.
You also have to agree that the impact on our climate from natural impacts may be as high or higher than that from anthropogenic impacts.
Please advise if you do not agree with this analysis, giving specific reasons for your disagreement.
Otherwise I will take it that you do agree by default with the logic outlined above.
I am truly looking forward to your specific response, Peter (although I sort of doubt that it will actually come, based on your past track record). I hope you will prove my doubts to be unfounded.
Regards,
Max
Oh dear, further to my post 4209, the Met Office warning seems to have fallen on the deafest of deaf ears. For example, today’s Observer (sister paper of the Guardian that reported the Met Office statement) has an amazingly apocalyptic article by James Hansen – described as “one of the world’s foremost climate experts”. Here are a few extracts:
I particularly liked this:
How indeed! But there’s more:
And finally:
Shudder.
BTW the final Hansen comment I quoted (4211) is a beautiful example of Reductio ad Hitlerum
Brute,
You must be confusing me with someone else when you write “…but in the same breath {you}advocate policies that would deny them the tools/energy resources that would lift them out of poverty” And I don’t remember ever mentioning your porch light or your holidays either.
The sun is a fairly average sort of star as stars go. There are much bigger ones. I’m not sure what you are getting at. The solar energy flux is well measured and there is no evidence that it is changing. The size of the sun relative to the earth doesn’t negate the AGW effect.
You are entitled to your right wing political views. I’d just point out that Al Gore should have been elected as President on a majority count. President Obama was democratically elected and now you’ll just have to get over it!
You’ve made it quite clear that your opposition to the theory of AGW is political. But you might just ask yourself how you’d fit the theory of AGW into your political outlook when it is indeed proved to be correct. I’d go further. Any valid political position, whether of the left , centre or right, should be able to accommodate the science, whatever the degree of warming from CO2 emissions does turn out to be. You are saying that yours can’t, and so it must be deficient.
No evidence that the Sun changes?
Solar variations
How reliable is our sun? We know it makes an appearance every morning, but how constant is its heat? Variation in solar output has been proposed as an important natural factor in causing earth’s climate to vary over the life-time of the planet.
The sun can vary in its intensity or total irradiance, which would result in direct heating or cooling of the earth, but there are also other effects. Changes in the intensity of ultraviolet radiation may alter ozone production in the stratosphere, leading to STRATOSPHERIC heating and to poleward displacements in the stratospheric and TROPOSPHERIC wind systems. Changes in the solar wind and the sun’s magnetic flux are important, because a more active solar wind and a stronger magnetic field reduce the cosmic rays striking the earth’s atmosphere. The frequency of solar flares can also vary. The high-energy protons they produce can penetrate the upper atmosphere and cause increased levels of ionisation, which has been connected with the formation of clouds. Solar flaring also causes surges of energy in the radio wavelengths (radio flux), which can disrupt communication systems on earth.
All of these phenomena change in intensity over time and with differing periodicity. The most well-established cycle is the 11-year cycle of sunspot activity (see the figure below). The number of dark spots (known as sun spots) visible on the disc of the sun varies over roughly an 11-year period. When there are many spots, the sun’s magnetic activity increases and the sun radiates more heat. These changes in total irradiance are very slight, and represent only a tiny percentage of the sun’s total output, but even these small changes can produce a significant change in the earth’s heat balance.
Variations in solar irradiance since 1600
Wow.
Sorry Tony.
No variation in solar activity Pete?
11-year average values of the Northern Hemisphere Land temperature (T) and the length of the solar cycle (L).
11-year running average of Northern Hemisphere land temperature, (before 1860 estimated by means of tree-ring analyses, and long-term variation of solar activity expressed by means of auroral observations)
I apologize; the first graph didn’t make the trip. Here it is……
11-year average values of the Northern Hemisphere Land temperature (T) and the length of the solar cycle (L).
11-year average values of the Northern Hemisphere Land temperature (T) and the length of the solar cycle (L).
http://www-ssc.igpp.ucla.edu/IASTP/43/
Brute
I think Peter is seriously undestimating the power of the sun, which as far as I have always thought has by far the most overwhelming impact on our planet.
http://www.universetoday.com/guide-to-space/the-sun/energy-from-the-sun/
Confirms that 89000 terawatts actually pass through the atmosphere and reach the Earth’s surface. Just for comparison, the total energy use of all human beings is 15 terawatts. So there is 5900 times more energy hitting the Earth from the Sun than humans are currently using. We just need to harness it (and recognise that our impact is puny besides it) .
This is a somewhat more technical explanation
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy00/phy00644.htm
I posted this link yeserday on #4203 but it has evoked no comments. It is entitled ‘abrupt climate change’ and comes from noaa amongst others, and at 350 pages seeks to update the last ipcc asseessment. Amonmgst the uncertainties is that concerning methane where they say the amount could be underestimated OR overestimated by a factor of 10. Its good to see the science is settled.
http://downloads.climatescience.gov/sap/sap3-4/sap3-4-final-report-all.pdf
It appears to deal a mortal blow to Manns fantasy hockey stick, referring to abrupt climate change in a number of civilisations that myself, Dr Iain Stewart and Al Gore have also pointed out (obviously I am the most eminent :)
It confirms that past abrupt climate change (without any help from us) is a ‘fundamental characteristic of the climate system’ and that ‘high irradinace’ and ‘distribution of solar radiation’ is a major factor for climate change in the past. A factor that suddenly seems to to be unimportant from 1900 with the switch to co2 as the main culprit, based on circumstantial evidence resting on very shaky ‘facts’ that do not stand any close scrutiny.
I wonder if this AGW scare has its roots in our risk averse society? Past research clearly shows we have been this way before. Al Gores 1992 book ‘Earth in the balance’ was very good at highlighting the sudden changes that wiped out civilisations. What he and others are warning is that ‘these are the dire effects IF the climate should change’ then makes the guantum leap in logic that ‘IF it does change WE are the cause’.
There are a variety of risk assessment experts and such people as insurance assessors in Working group 3 of the IPCC. These things tend to gain their own momentum as everybody tries to prove their case, gain budgets and want to avoid being proven wrong.
TonyB
TonyB,
Because it removes their excuse for implementing collectivism, regressive taxation, asserting control over industry and shaping society to more closely reflect their world view.
I now understand that the United Nations and The World Bank are demanding a “world” economic bailout paid for by the U.S. taxpayers.
Another example, (as is Cap and Trade and Kyoto) of Global Welfare paid for by the West.
Brute
I don’t know if you have ever come across this deightful spoof site on ‘how to deal with a climate sceptic’ and ‘how to become a climate scientist?
tonyB
Sorry, it would help to post the link
http://anhonestclimatedebate.wordpress.com/2008/12/16/how-to-deal-with-a-global-warming-skeptic-in-a-cooling-world/
Tonyb
This morning’s scary BBC lead news story I mentioned at 4209 (Global warming ‘underestimated’) has not only disappeared from News but is very hard to find under “Science & Nature”. Odd that.