Continuation of the New Statesman Whitehouse/Lynas blogs.

10,000 Responses to “Continuation of the New Statesman Whitehouse/Lynas blogs.”

1. Robin Guenier says:

   07/04/2009 at 9:16 am

   Max: re my 5493, the Hoggle comment has been removed. Emboldened by this, I’ve complained about this morning’s onthefence outburst.
2. Peter Martin says:

   07/04/2009 at 9:20 am

   Bob_FJ,

   You ask “Do you fantasize that you know better than Phil Jones?” Well strike a light! What a question to come from someone like you.

   Any disagreements that the good professor and I might have are tiny.

   You guys are happy to rubbish his life’s work.
3. Bob_FJ says:

   07/04/2009 at 9:38 am

   Peter Martin, Reur 5458, you wrote in part to me, apparently PARTLY in response to my 5456

   You have to differentiate the SB equation to get dE/dT. The fourth power goes to the third power and a factor of 4 appears too!
   tempterrain may be a bit mixed up but I think he’s got his sums right. Sorry to disappoint you.

   This area and the other issues in my 5456 that you DID NOT RESPOND TO are much more complicated than those that you have repetitively refused to accept on PMA and CMA.
   If you cannot understand that simple stuff, and my much repeated advice such as in my 5498, then there seems little point in debating more difficult stuff with you!

   I noticed a while ago that there was an OZ TV programme entitled “The Unteachables”. I did not watch it because I can’t bear indolent/insolent teenagers.
   I’m beginning to think Peter, that you too are unteachable.
4. Bob_FJ says:

   07/04/2009 at 10:01 am

   Peter Martin Reur 5502, I guess that is in response to the latter PART of my 5498, with you writing in part:
   Any disagreements that the good professor [Jones] and I [PM] might have are tiny.

   It is perhaps appropriate to repeat what I wrote:

   Concerning your [PM] other comment on Phil Jones:

   …In fact I think that’s what Prof Jones has used, whereas I’ve used a five year average, just like NASA do. That’s why the two graphs look a bit different…

   I’m not confident in understanding your comment, but my point was that dear ol’ Phil clearly admits to a plateau in the last decade or so. However his “worm” shows absolutely NO HINT of the “very noisy” cooling periods (or volatile switching), which you identify as periods 1, 2, 3, & 4. See 5421>
   Do you fantasize that you know better than Phil Jones?

   I’ve added bold emphasis. Do you find that difficult to understand? I can see nothing ambiguous in it!
5. Bob_FJ says:

   07/04/2009 at 10:18 am

   BTW Peter Martin, further to my 5504 etc, you have written in part:
   …”whereas I’ve used a five year average, just like NASA do”…

   Well NO! If you actually study the NASA graphs, (and CSIRO etc), and do not have a spatial perception problem, then you should be able to see that they are different to your own unique insistence on the PMA method. (resulting I guess from deficiencies in your version of Excel?)
6. Robin Guenier says:

   07/04/2009 at 10:18 am

   Max: further to my 5501, onthefence’s post has also been removed. But now he’s moaning to the moderator.
7. Robin Guenier says:

   07/04/2009 at 10:26 am

   Bob_FJ:

   I also had difficulties registering with the Guardian. The reason (I now realise) was that I’d registered before but had forgotten. So, when I tried to register again – but used a different password (from the one I used a year ago) – it told me that my email address had already been used. The answer, I found, was to click on “log-in” and then on “forgotten password?”. They emailed me the old password & all was well.
8. Robin Guenier says:

   07/04/2009 at 11:01 am

   Max: another onthefence post removed. It might almost be worth getting involved again at this rate. Interesting. (He’s still moaning about it.)
9. Robin Guenier says:

   07/04/2009 at 11:47 am

   TonyN: re your 5499, I’ve looked at my recording (I skipped to the end) and, yes, the legible text screen is there. But I suspect few people would watch to the very end. And, in any case, surely a health warning should be at the beginning? That, I think, is the usual practice.
10. Bob_FJ says:

    07/04/2009 at 3:28 pm

    Peter Martin, I found the following partial quote under the name of tempterrain, over at the Guardian, rather amusing

    …but I’d say that what Mr Guenier really means is that he doesn’t know very much at all about physics and possesses no scientific credentials whatever.
    I just wondering how it is possible to be ‘rationally sceptical’ about a topic in which one has little or no understanding?

    I’m just wondering, Pete, how it is possible for you to be ‘rationally sceptical’ about a topic in which you have little or no understanding?
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    BTW, it is approaching 1:30 am on Wednesday morning, my local time. Please do not be distressed by this. I must have napped too long this afternoon, and do not yet feel like retiring
11. Brute says:

    07/04/2009 at 6:18 pm

    …but I’d say that what Mr Guenier really means is that he doesn’t know very much at all about physics and possesses no scientific credentials whatever.
    I just wondering how it is possible to be ‘rationally sceptical’ about a topic in which one has little or no understanding?

    Bob_FJ,

    This is about the stupidest argument that the Alarmist make and it drives me crazy.

    I’ll fall back on my theological example that Atheists should be practicing religion fervently unless they’ve been to seminary.

    I can’t have an opinion regarding taxation or economic policy because I don’t have a degree in economics?

    I can’t have an opinion regarding foreign policy because I don’t posses a degree in political science?

    I’m not an automotive Engineer so I have no business professing an opinion about an automobile? (Hell, the “community organizer” that was recently elected President of the United States now thinks he can run General Motors, so it stands to reason that I should be capable of surmising whether or not it’s cold outside).

    What nonsense.

    It isn’t that difficult…..the theory states that increasing CO2 levels will cause global temperatures to rise.

    Temperatures have been dropping or have remained static for at least the last ten years. Hurricane numbers have not increased, polar bear numbers have not decreased, plants and animals are not pushed to extinction (due to the weather), sea levels are not rising and the prophecies made by the high priests of the church of global warming have not come to pass.

    Now, I don’t know if the temperature is going to begin rising in the future or not, but the fact that CO2 numbers have continued to rise while temperatures have dropped tells me that CO2 isn’t the culprit.
12. manacker says:

    07/04/2009 at 8:15 pm

    Hi Robin,

    You wrote (5497): “According to the official sea level site (note especially the graph), the overall sea level rise over the past 3 years has come down from 3.3mm/year to 3.2mm/year – a tiny reduction in the rate but a reduction nonetheless. Yet, according to this article (headed Global Warming Accelerates – as sea levels rise faster than expected, political and social catastrophes loom)”.

    The story is actually even screwier than that. TonyB can give you a lot more insight on the problem, but here is the overall bizarre story.

    Your cited article states with pride, “Since August 1992 the satellite altimeters have been measuring sea level on a global basis with unprecedented accuracy.”

    But wait! The report also states, “by providing an estimate of global mean sea level every 10 days with an uncertainty of 3-4 mm”. So we are quibbling about 0.1 mm/year difference in the rate of sea level risefrom one year to the next based on measurements that have an “uncertainty of 3-4 mm”? Ouch!

    The readings of 3+ mm/year sea level rise today come from these satellites, not from the century-old tide gauge record, which actually shows a much lower rate of rise today (essentially the same as it has been over the past 100+ years).

    If you look at the UCol graph, you see that it only starts in 1994.

    The people involved with satellite altimetry for sea level have conceded in a published paper that it is highly inaccurate today, with errors and uncertainties that often exceed the absolute measurements themselves.
    http://www.cosis.net/abstracts/EGU04/05276/EGU04-J-05276.pdf

    So much for the claim of “unprecedented accuracy”.

    The best estimate of the most recent rate of sea level rise is 1.6 mm/year, or around one-half of the satellite-derived figure quoted by UCol.

    In other words, the whole thing is a sham.

    How could such a scam happen?

    IPCC (and hence everyone else) quietly changed the method of measurement in 1993, with a simple footnote on p.7 of the SPM 2007 report, “Data prior to 1993 are from satellite gauges and after 1993 are from satellite altimetry”.

    These two methods measure a totally different scope: tide gauges measure sea level at several selected coastal stations (where sea level impact on humans would occur), while the satellites measure the entire sea. As pointed out above the uncertainties of the measurements are far greater than the annual differences that are being reported (check with TonyB for more on that).

    To compare two different sets of measurements over two different time periods covering two different scopes of measurement using two basically different methods of measurement, and then claiming an acceleration over the two time periods while ignoring the results for the later time period made by the same method of measurement is BAD SCIENCE at best and downright SCULLDUGGERY at worst.

    The question is not, “is it 3.1 or 3.2 mm/year?” It is “is it 3+mm/year or half of this rate (as it has been over the past century)?”

    Here is a graph of the long-term tide gauge record. Do you see a recent acceleration?
    http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3206/3144596227_545227fbae_b.jpg

    I don’t. Even Peter doesn’t, because it is not there.

    Regards,

    Max

    
13. manacker says:

    07/04/2009 at 8:25 pm

    Correction for Robin

    The IPCC quote should read:
    ” “Data prior to 1993 are from tide gauges and after 1993 are from satellite altimetry”.

    Sorry for typo.

    Max
14. Robin Guenier says:

    07/04/2009 at 8:38 pm

    Here’s an interesting article (What else are we wrong about?) to be published in next week’s Newsweek. Noting that “A lot of premises have turned out to be wrong lately”, it cites the claimed stability of the USSR, the expected invulnerability of the USA to major terrorist attack, the expectation that Saddam had WMDs and (of course) economists’ certainty that the US financial system was sound. It asks, “what other big stuff we could be wrong about?” and looks for other issues that merit “a stronger dose of skepticism”. The candidates include, for example, the assumptions that nuclear proliferation is necessarily bad (perhaps they induce “restraint and caution”) and that China is stable (but “higher living standards tend to produce political discontent”). In particular, number 2 on the list is the assumption that “climate change will be catastrophic”. It says:

    We all know civilization is doomed if we don’t reduce carbon emissions, right? The physicist Freeman Dyson disagrees. Dyson doesn’t dispute that human activity is causing warming. But he challenges the consensus that warming will be catastrophic. In a New York Review of Books essay, Dyson wrote that warming “is mostly making cold places warmer rather than making hot places hotter.” Carbon emissions could make the earth more fertile and prevent harm from global cooling, which isn’t caused by humans.
15. manacker says:

    07/04/2009 at 8:57 pm

    Robin

    Thanks for “heads up” on Newsweek article. Will make sure to get a copy.

    Max
16. manacker says:

    07/04/2009 at 9:02 pm

    Robin and Barelysane

    Have invited three of the less obnoxious pro-AGW bloggers on the Guardian site to join our discussion here.

    Don’t know if they will take the bait, but it could liven up things if they do.

    (It might present a challenge for TonyN to keep them from drifting into emotional OT discussions. Sorry, TonyN.)

    Max
17. manacker says:

    07/04/2009 at 9:29 pm

    HiPeter,

    You asked me what I think of your irrelevant ramble 5494, wherin you again toss out theoretical calculations that are, frankly, meaningless.

    Several solar scientists have made their assessments and concluded that the unusually high level of solar activity contributed to 0.35C warming over the 20th century (out of a total observed warming of 0.65C).

    This is relatively straghtforward and easy to comprehend (no imaginary or conjured-up “feedbacks” needed), but I see you are still having problems with it.

    So be it.

    Regards,

    Max
18. Peter Martin says:

    07/04/2009 at 11:11 pm

    Bob_FJ,

    I’ve used the simple or prior moving average. Defined as the unweighted mean of the the previous N data points. For example

    a 10-day simple moving average of closing price is the mean of the previous 10 days’ closing prices. If those prices are P1,P2…P10

    then the formula is:

    SMA = ( P1 + P2 + …… +P10)/10

    I’m aware that there are other possibilities. If you’d like to present your graphs using a different smoothing method then that’s fine by me. The important thing is to just define what you are doing.

    If I do have a slight criticsm of the UEA/Hadley graphs it is that they are oversmoothed. The exact degree of smoothing which should be applied to any graph is always open to some debate. Too little smoothing and you don’t see important features because the graph is too noisy. Too much smoothing and possibly important features are smoothed away with the noise.

    I prefer NASA five year averaging method to the application of polynomials. Its simpler to understand.
19. Peter Martin says:

    07/04/2009 at 11:35 pm

    Brute,

    You chose to give a few examples of valid lay opinions in economics and cars etc but you know as well as I do that they aren’t accurate analogies.

    Sometimes you do have to be qualified to give a valid opinion. For instance, if Robin is indeed a qualified barrister, I would certainly accept that his opinion on the workings of English law would greatly outweigh any one else’s on this blog. I’m not sure how Robin would react if he were contradicted in his field by Prof Phil Jones. Yet Robin feels quite able to do it the other way around even though by his own admission he knows little or no Physics.

    It doesn’t make any sense to me.
20. Brute says:

    08/04/2009 at 12:31 am

    Well Pete, lets look at the “experts that comprise the IPCC……

    We focused on the contributors who operate in the UK. Of the 51 UK contributors to the report, there were 5 economists, 3 epidemiologists, 5 who were either zoologists, entomologists, or biologists. 5 worked in civil engineering or risk management / insurance. 7 had specialisms in physical geography (we gave the benefit of the doubt to some academics whose profiles weren’t clear about whether they are physical or human geographers). And just 10 have specialisms in geophysics, climate science or modelling, or hydrology. But there were 15 who could only be described as social scientists. If we take the view that economics is a social science, that makes 20 social scientists.

    There were a few professors, but few of them had the profile Dessler gives them. Many of them were in fact, hard to locate to establish just how much better than their counterparts they were. One professor (Abigail Bristow) wasn’t what you’d call a climate scientist, but a professor of Transport Studies at Newcastle University. How is she going to cure the sick child? Will she be driving the ambulance? Another Professor – Diana Liverman at Oxford University – specialises in “human dimensions of global environmental change” – Geography is a social science too. Another – John Morton of the University of Greenwich, specialises in “development Anthropology”. Professor of Geography, and Co-Chair of IPCC WGII, Martin Parry’s profile merely tells us that he is “a specialist on the effects of climate change”. But what does that actually mean?

    Among the remainder – most of whom are not professors, but research associates at best, are an assorted bunch, many of whom are better known for their alarmist statements in the mainstream press than they are for their contributions to scientific knowledge – activists in other words, with their own political motivation. And in spite of being reported as “climate scientists”, involved in scientific research, also seem to be working within the social sciences, albeit for “climate research” institutions, such as Tyndall. Johanna Wolf, for example, is an IPCC contributor from the University of East Anglia, who works in the department for “development studies”. Does that make her a climate scientist? Anna Taylor, of the Stockholm Environment Institute in Oxford has no PhD at all, her research focuses on “stakeholder engagement in adapting to multiple stresses, including climate variability and change, water scarcity, food insecurity and health concerns” – not climate science, and has simply not been alive long enough to join the ranks of the specialists of specialisms that Dessler demands of sceptics. Similarly, Susanne Rupp-Armstrong, listed as a member of Southampton University only appears to have ever contributed to one academic paper. Research Associate at the University of East Anglia, Maureen Agnew does not focus her research on climate science, but on such things as “Public perceptions of unusually warm weather in the UK: impacts, responses and adaptations”, and “Potential impacts of climate change on international tourism.” Katherine Vincent specialising in “Social Capital and Climate change” at the UEA, only began her PhD thesis in October 2003. How can she be cited as a specialist in climate science?

    Then there are the contributors whose involvement we cannot explain. Farhana Yamin is an international lawyer, based at the University of Sussex. Rachel Warren and Paul Watkiss are merely listed as “environmental consultants” at the latter’s consultancy firm, and clearly have a commercial interest in climate change policies being developed. Kate Studd is listed as a contributor, but she works for the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, and doesn’t appear to be an academic at all. What are these people doing on this list of the most expert climate specialists in the world?

    We were surprised by the results. Was the prevalence of social scientists from the UK representative of the whole group? We decided to repeat the test for the contributors based in the USA.
    Of the 70 US contributors, there were 7 economists, 13 social scientists, 3 epidemiologists, 10 biologists/ecologists, 5 engineers, 2 modellers/statisticians, 1 full-time activist (and 1 part time), 5 were in public health and policy, and 4 were unknowns. 17 worked in earth/atmospheric sciences. Again, we gave the benefit of the doubt to geographers where it wasn’t clear whether their specialism was physical, or human geography.
21. Brute says:

    08/04/2009 at 12:42 am

    Better post this link for context. You guys will like it…..(except Peter).

    Physician, Heal Thyself

    http://www.climate-resistance.org/2007/12/physician-heal-thyself.html
22. Brute says:

    08/04/2009 at 1:24 am

    Pete,

    Would you like to discuss Al Gore’s “expert”, Nobel Prize winning, weatherman credentials next?
23. Brute says:

    08/04/2009 at 2:59 am

    What a difference a year makes…..

    Pete,
    Do you feel it’s responsible behavior to make comments such as this? Where is the accountability?

    http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2008/050508.html

    May 5, 2008

    Arctic sea ice forecasts point to lower-than-average season ahead

    Spring has arrived in the Arctic. After peaking at 15.21 million square kilometers (5.87 million square miles) in the second week of March, Arctic sea ice extent has declined through the month of April. April extent has not fallen below the lowest April extent on record, but it is still below the long-term average.

    Taken together, an assessment of the available evidence, detailed below, points to another extreme September sea ice minimum. Could the North Pole be ice free this melt season? Given that this region is currently covered with first-year ice, that seems quite possible.
24. Peter Martin says:

    08/04/2009 at 7:04 am

    Brute,

    Which is your nearest university? Washington State Uni?

    Why don’t you keep an eye open for what’s going on there? Public lectures. That sort of thing. http://www.energy.wsu.edu/projects/climate/whatis.cfm

    Robin still hasn’t got back to me about why he feels qualified to have an opinion on climate science even though he doesn’t understand any Physics. This is just another angle on the consensus and what it is, of course. If anyone here thinks that the consensus is anything other than what is claimed, I would challenge them to visit their local university and find out what the scientists there are saying.

    That would include MIT. You might think of Richard Lindzen in connection with that establishment. You might think that he was a big-wig professor there with a team of disciples in the way that Milton Friedman had his economic disciples at the Uni of Chicago.

    If you do, you won’t want to read this:
    http://globalchange.mit.edu/

    or how a team of scientists there has just doubled its forecast for 21st century warming.
    http://globalchange.mit.edu/pubs/abstract.php?publication_id=990

    You wouldn’t have read anything favourable about Keynes coming out of any group that Friedman was associated with! Lindzen is just not in the same league and is only famous because of his contrarian opinions.

    Can any of you show show that the balance of opinion on AGW/climate change, in the science dept of your nearest university, and I don’t mean creationist religious type colleges, is anything other than the well known consensus? Anyone fancy a little bet on that?

    PS You might be wondering what I’ve got against religious based unis. This is Richard Dawkins answering questions at a real educational establishment. Randolph Macon College, Lynchburg, Virginia. There are lots of students from Liberty Uni in tha audience who fancy their chances of catching him out:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mmskXXetcg&feature=related

    I must say RD is pretty harsh with them. At one point he even suggests that they should find somewhere else to study. Not in the above clip but there are lots of others on youtube.

    And what do we find when we do a search on climate change at ‘Liberty’ University?

    http://www.liberty.edu/academics/communications/champion/index.cfm?PID=10609&CAID=175

    We find this helpful suggestion ‘Let’s make it mandatory for every citizen who owns a refrigerator to leave it open for one hour on a specified date. Then, perhaps, our global warming problem will be solved.’

    Aren’t there any laws in the US about what can and cannot be described as a university?
25. Bob_FJ says:

    08/04/2009 at 8:11 am

    Peter Martin, Reur 5518 to me, I was yet again astonished to see that you still do not understand that PMA averaging, or as you freshly now prefer to call it; SMA, (Simple Moving Average) is NOT an appropriate method for SMOOTHING Time-Series-Data.
    You wrote in part:

    I’ve used the simple or prior moving average. Defined as the unweighted mean of the the previous N data points. For example
    a 10-day simple moving average of closing price is the mean of the previous 10 days’ closing prices. If those prices are P1,P2…P10
    then the formula is:
    SMA = ( P1 + P2 + …… +P10)/10

    Yes, the example you give is correct for various running AVERAGE performance type activities by interval, (Weekly, monthly, yearly, whatever), generally in commerce. However, it is totally incorrect for SMOOTHING, (not interval averaging), of Time-Series-Data, which is evident in the way, as far as I’m aware that all scientific Time-Series-Graphics are smoothed. If you can show me any scientific document that uses your preferred PMA/SMA to smooth Time-Series-Data, then I would be incredibly fascinated to see it!
    You went on to write:

    I’m aware that there are other possibilities. If you’d like to present your graphs using a different smoothing method then that’s fine by me. The important thing is to just define what you are doing.

    That is really very silly. For a start, I’m not interested in applying formulaic smoothing that is of ARBITRARY choice in terms of interval and possible weighting techniques, depending on what it is desired to demonstrate. (and you can fiddle around to find what you prefer to show), For instance, WHY do YOU prefer the GISS unweighted (?) 5-year smoothing to Hadley’s 11-year weighted smoothing…. And Phil Jones your oracle does something else, yet again! I suspect that Phil Jones also does not like arbitrary formulaic methods, but uses the well tried “eyeball” technique where intelligent analysis of outliers etc can be judged. (but not in the “scientific” culture)
    You went on to write:

    If I do have a slight criticsm of the UEA/Hadley graphs it is that they are oversmoothed. The exact degree of smoothing which should be applied to any graph is always open to some debate. Too little smoothing and you don’t see important features because the graph is too noisy. Too much smoothing and possibly important features are smoothed away with the noise.
    I prefer NASA five year averaging method to the application of polynomials. Its simpler to understand.

    I’ve added bold emphasis in one place:
    As I’ve stated before, Phil Jones admits to a plateau in the last decade.
    Also, Max has indicated to you that your hallucinatory cooling periods (1,2,3&4), are simply noise, (volatility) and clearly unlike that which Phil Jones uniquely shows. That is to say that Phil Jones disagees with you: He cannot see your 1,2,3,& 4, but admits to the plateau of the last decade.

    Please better explain WHY you prefer NASA’s 5-year average, (which is DIFFERENT to yours), over the miscellaneous other methods:
    …I prefer NASA five year averaging method to the application of polynomials. Its simpler to understand.

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