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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Tamino recently wrote And by the way: Anthony Watts and his contributors are grotesquely incompetent at data analysis. Just in case any of his “fans” are reading this, I’ll repeat: as a data analyst, Anthony Watts and his collaborators are the most grossly incompetent data analysts I’ve ever seen anyone take seriously. It’s truly pathetic.
David,
I loved the very first comment in your rabett post.
“Well, maybe but the article title should spell Naomi correctly…”
David,
Regarding your Real Climate Link:
The observations did not correspond with the original models so they “adjusted” the observations? ENSO “corrected” data?
Are you kidding? I was born, but it wasn’t yesterday. You can’t “adjust” the score of a football game after it has finished; it tends to upset the Bookmakers….. they’ll break your legs.
Again, Real Climate is attempting to change the observational data to fit the model…… after the fact.
Hansen didn’t account for ENSO? Why is that? Too complicated? What else did he fail to account for? Wow, talk about incompetent!
By the way, who is Tamino?
Max,
Who is Tamino?
I know………..
Isn’t Tamino the guy who reported the Bigfoot sightings a few years ago?
Pete 333 wrote in part:
Or, you might have to ask how three submarines could park in open water at the North pole in MAY 1987 (Not yet summer, 21 years ago, Re my 325 for photo link etc)
Or you might have to ask why one NASA (not GISS of course, but JPL), study attributed Atlantic sea-ice loss in 2007, not to warming, but to unusual wind patterns blowing the ice into warmer melting waters down south.
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/quikscat-20071001.html
Or you might have to study the earlier history in the region, as discussed in part at WattsUp…. NAO, Chylek et al, and much other stuff.
Or you might have to ask why AGW is causing such high sea-ice coverage in the Antarctic recently.
Or you might have to ask why Hansen tried (Late 2007?) to scare the pants off everyone with tales of catastrophic melting in a TINY part of West Antarctica, which appears to be a continuation of Andean tectonic activity.
Still, no doubt Pete can explain it all with the utmost clarity.
Pete 333 wrote in part:
Or, you might have to ask how three submarines could park in open water at the North pole in MAY 1987 (Not yet summer, 21 years ago, Re my 325 for photo link etc)
Or you might have to ask why one NASA (not GISS of course, but JPL), study attributed Atlantic sea-ice loss in 2007, not to warming, but to unusual wind patterns blowing the ice into warmer melting waters down south.
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/quikscat-20071001.html
Or you might have to study the earlier history in the region, as discussed in part at WattsUp…. NAO, Chylek et al, and much other stuff.
Or you might have to ask why AGW is causing such high sea-ice coverage in the Antarctic recently.
Or you might have to ask why Hansen tried (Late 2007?) to scare the pants off everyone with tales of catastrophic melting in a TINY part of West Antarctica, which appears to be a continuation of Andean tectonic activity.
Still, no doubt Pete can explain it all with the utmost clarity.
Pete 333 wrote in part:
Or, you might have to ask how three submarines could park in open water at the North pole in MAY 1987 (Not yet summer, 21 years ago, Re my 325 for photo link etc)
Or you might have to ask why one NASA (not GISS of course, but JPL), study attributed Atlantic sea-ice loss in 2007, not to warming, but to unusual wind patterns blowing the ice into warmer melting waters down south.
Or you might have to study the earlier history in the region, as discussed in part at WattsUp…. NAO, Chylek et al, and much other stuff.
Or you might have to ask why AGW is causing such high sea-ice coverage in the Antarctic recently.
Or you might have to ask why Hansen tried (Late 2007?) to scare the pants off everyone with tales of catastrophic melting in a TINY part of West Antarctica, which appears to be a continuation of Andean tectonic activity.
Still, no doubt Pete can explain it all with the utmost clarity.
Tony,
My post above did not go through until I removed this NASA link!
Peter Martin Link for my post above:
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/quikscat-20071001.html
David B Benson 350 quoted in full without any qualifications or justifications whatsoever:
Now that is absolutely hilarious! That clown Tamino does ten-year block-averaging graphs on very noisy data in preference to say 21-point “bell-curve” moving average used by Hadley! (The implication being that he knows better than the UEA/Hadley)
And Hansen wants to put energy executives on trial for crimes against humanity and nature? This might also be acceptable to the simple minded computer scientist?
Brute wrote in part:
Well that may be so, and it seems plausible because the said fruitcake certainly has a vivid imagination and mystical insights. For those simple minded computer scientists around the place, that find the standard graphs issued from the original data sources for consumption by ORDINARY people, too complicated for themselves, then the “much easier” Tamino versions are a boon. No matter if they actually significantly corrupt the original data, as long as they are “easier to read”, and convey the desired message.
Re my penultimate post above, I wrote in part:
For clarification, UEA = University of East Anglia. (arguably an extension of Penn State U).
And, of course Phil Jones et al, (EG most notoriously Briffa and Osborn), and Mann et al of PSU of the same stable, all claim to be experts in statistical analysis of complex data!!!!!!
But Tamino knows better than all of them?
By the way, who is Brute ?
Who is Bob_FJ? Is he Black Wallaby too?
Good questions, Peter. Although I often agree with (and have learned from) their views, I’m a little worried about people who (unlike you and, I suppose, David B Benson) seem reluctant to put their real names to those views.
Nonetheless, I know from personal experience that it can be damaging to take a public and contrary stand on something that is opposed to the conventional and/or establishment position. But I would hardly put this blog into that category.
Re: #359, Bob_FJ
I have now installed Bad Behavior as the spam filtre instead of Akismet. Please let me have feedback if there are still problems, including any messages if a comment fails to appear.
I have posted a tiny Sunday afternoon quiz question here:
Who said that?
Brute: I think you posted this in the wrong place.
Yikes!
David B. Benson is not only quoting RealClimate (yawn!) and Tamino (huh?), but has now started enlightening us with pearls of wisdom from Eli Rabett (ouch!).
Looks like he is reaching to the bottom of the intellectual barrel.
Yet again, David, your post (343) doesn’t answer my question (329). (I’m beginning to understand why Max and Bob get so frustrated in their dealings with you!)
As must surely be clear from my post, I’m not asking for your views on the earlier post 1850 warmings but am focusing exclusively on the IPCC’s position. Your views, David, do not represent the IPCC – doubtless they are interesting and I’m content to let others debate them with you. The reason I’m focused exclusively on the IPCC is because it is the authority that has instigated the massive governmental, institutional and media pressure for urgent economic action to deal with climate change – action which threatens some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world, as well as endangering the economy of my country and thereby the well-being of my grandchildren (see my post 334). We are continually told that this action is justified by the scientific “consensus” (said to be the view of thousands of the world’s top climatologists) set out in the IPCC’s 2007 report. Therefore, I have no doubt that the report should be rigorously examined. The way to do that, in my view, is pay most attention to the Working Groups reports, and especially to WG1. And, when you do that, you find various matters that raise questions about whether it is truly as clear in its views as the Summary for Policymakers would have us believe.
One of those matters concerns the earlier post 1850 warmings. Here all it does is state that there is “uncertainty regarding the causes of early 20thcentury warming”. That is wholly inadequate and unsatisfactory: as I said, until the IPCC (A) can show that it fully understands the causes of the first two warming periods and (B) can unambiguously rule them out as causes of the third, it cannot logically be confident that mankind’s greenhouse gas emissions are the main driver of global warming. As it fails to do that, the authority for the urgent economic action I refer to above would appear to be flawed.
Hi Brute,
You posted your question on the other newbery site where you also posted this link:
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
You asked (of the NSIDC): “Max,
Is Hansen capable of “adjusting” this data?”
Don’t think he has his “fingers” in there directly, as he does in the GISS record.
What is going on with Arctic sea ice? It depends which month you look at. June 2008 shows a recovery back to June 2004 level while May 2008 showed a recovery back to May 1989 level.
The “April-August” curve you cited shows that this year we are somewhere between where we were last year (2007) and the “1979-2000? average for these months.
Looking at several months, it looks like the average rate of decrease (since records started in 1979) is around 3% per decade, which means (if it continues at this rate) the Arctic sea ice will all be gone in 330 years (just to put things into proper perspective).
If the rate from 2005 to 2008 continues, of course, it will mean that Arctic sea ice extent will grow rather than recede.
Who knows what will happen now that solar cycle 24 has started off with an extremely inactive sun? Hansen’s models? (Kinda doubt it, since they haven’t been able to predict temperatures at all, and that is supposed to be his “specialty”.)
It turns out that GCMs are no better than “crystal balls” or “ouija boards” (just more expensive).
Regards,
Max
Thanks Robin.
I was reading Tony’s question and your response……..the bottom of the pages look identical.
Hi Robin,
You wrote to David B. Benson: “One of those matters concerns the earlier post 1850 warmings. Here all it does is state that there is “uncertainty regarding the causes of early 20thcentury warming”. That is wholly inadequate and unsatisfactory: as I said, until the IPCC (A) can show that it fully understands the causes of the first two warming periods and (B) can unambiguously rule them out as causes of the third, it cannot logically be confident that mankind’s greenhouse gas emissions are the main driver of global warming. As it fails to do that, the authority for the urgent economic action I refer to above would appear to be flawed.”
This is a very logical and strong argument.
I therefore do not believe that DBB will fall into the trap of debating it directly (he is intelligent enough to know that this would be a losing proposition).
So he will continue to sidetrack, waffle and obfuscate (his “track record” so far).
But keep up the good work of applying sound logic and rational thinking to the debate. It is needed among all the hype and hysteria out there.
Regards,
Max
There are quite a few similar animations on Youtube, but this one also has a graph which shows how the ice minimum, a useful benchmark of the condition of the Arctic ice, of 2007 deviated from its previous more linear decline.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zW1JeFVCZ_Q
We need to wait until late August/early September to see what will happen this year. Maybe the 2007 result was freakish and did have something to do with ‘unusual’ wind patterns in the Arctic. My guess is that 2008 won’t be quite so bad but let’s just wait and see.
I agree with Pete.
Peter,
I know sometimes I come across as confrontational and antagonistic; I’m not really the type of guy to write “I told you so”. Of course trends over time matter in this case but it just irks the hell out of me when certain people, (Joe Romm), point to any and every change in weather as proof of their “cause”. Sometimes I can’t help myself with the “rub his nose in it” comment. On July 4th, (US Independence Day), Romm had the audacity to conclude that global warming would become a thing of the past……that global warming had caused the cancellation of Independence Day Fireworks celebrations due to dry conditions in one area of Southern California, (A Desert). He also concluded that recent heavy rains in the Midwest and resulting flooding were a result of global warming. Of course, news of record snowfall and below normal temperatures do not grace the pages of his site.
I do think that anything above (or below) average is an anomaly (noun) “something that deviates from the norm or from expectations”.
Patience is a virtue. Yes, we’ll see. This evidence regarding the Arctic ice is welcome/wonderful news.
Correction to earlier post:
Romm had the audacity to conclude that global warming would, (cause firework celebrations to), become a thing of the past……..