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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Robin,
Something to think about.
NSIDC satellites are unable to measure accurately the thickness of sea ice, which varies in centimeters or even meters.
Yet another set of satellites are being used to measure sea level, which varies in millimeters per decade.
What’s wrong with this picture?
Regards,
Max
Max – re your 5626.
You said: “Hope this clears it up.” Er … no. I’m even more confused now. The two columns appear to be headed “extent” and “concentration” – no mention of “area”, that I can see. Any way, if – as you say – something is “assumed”, how reliable is that? It all seems highly unsatisfactory.
Robin,
Sorry, I can’t help you with the term “concentration”. The data that I download from NSIDC only lists “extent” and “area”, and they explain the difference.
NSIDC uses “extent” in all it monthly reports showing variance from the 1979-2000 mean.
Regards,
Max
Daily Sea Ice Images
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/
Max,
I am supposed to be on holiday but the weather isn’t too good. Its hard to get away from the interenet anywhere these days so I may as well just fix up this piece of disinformation:
“… since the whole AGW craze was started by a UN political group, the IPCC.”
You could go back to Arrenhius in the 19th century for the first scientific prediction of AGW. This would be about 50 years before anyone had ever heard the term ‘United Nations’.
http://www.lenntech.com/greenhouse-effect/global-warming-history.htm
In the late 20th century the problem of CO2 emissions was increasingly recognised as a serious problem. Lyndon Johnson seems to be the first American president who showed an awareness of this.
Most of the work on the AGW problem originated in the USA.
This quote is from 1979
“A plethora of studies from diverse sources indicates a consensus that climate changes will result from man’s combustion of fossil fuels and changes in land use”
Evidence for CO2-Induced Climate Change, Assembly of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Climate Research Board, Study Group on Carbon Dioxide, 1979. Again from the USA.
This quote is from the NY Times in 1988 . Just before the IPCC was founded.
“In testimony before a Senate subcommittee in June, Dr. Hansen, an atmospheric physicist and director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, sounded the alarm with such authority and force that the issue of an overheating world has suddenly moved to the forefront of public concern.”
Let’s have some credit where credit is due. Much of the early work on the AGW problem was done in America.
And who pushed for the establishment of the IPCC? I must say I’ve not been a big fan of President Reagan over the years but again, I have to say the same thing, and give credit where it is due to Ronald Reagan for doing that.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Pratt-TheProfessionalEdge119.pdf
Apr 11, 2009
Global Warming: An Alternative View
By Brian R. Pratt, P.Geo., Ph.D.
FACT AND FICTION
Even though I consider myself a dedicated environmentalist I cannot accept the claims of anthropogenic – human caused – global warming. My research involves deducing climate back in what we call ‘Deep Time’ – geological eras of millions and billions of years ago – so I think I have enough background to
understand the evidence. I know that the factors controlling climate work as an extremely complex, integrated system that cannot be resolved by debate and exchange of opinion.
Therefore the suspicions of any scientist should be aroused by glib assertions like “the science is settled” or “there is a consensus,” because this is not how
scientists and engineers operate. Al Gore’s movie and books are so appallingly riddled with mistakes and outlandish exaggerations that they would be laughable if they weren’t taken so seriously by so many. Legislators have even passed laws declaring CO2 to be a pollutant, seemingly unaware of photosynthesis, respiration and biodegradation. Should I feel guilty that my beer gave off CO2 during fermentation and when I opened it? I need something to cry into when I hear of the measures planned to reduce “carbon emissions”, because of the threat these pose to our already economically fragile society.
Here are the facts, as I understand them: solar heat varies cyclically at different frequencies, from the decades to the hundreds of thousands of years. Atmospheric CO2 concentration and temperature are linked, but rather than the former driving the latter, it is the other way around and there is a nearly thousand-year lag in the response. The oceans are the great sink for CO2.
Atmospheric CO2 concentration is not uniform around the globe and regional variations are tied to sea-surface temperature because CO2 dissolves in colder sea water while it degasses from warmer sea water. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, yes, but it absorbs only a very small portion of the infrared spectrum and its capacity to do so declines exponentially with concentration. It’s a fact of physics that the CO2 molecule radiates almost none of the heat it can absorb. Moreover, it is such a trace gas that this effect is negligible, and even less so at the low pressures and cold temperatures high in the atmosphere.
All of this explains why, when CO2 concentration is thought to have been much higher in Deep Time such as during the Paleozoic, the surface of the globe did not overheat and the polar regions were still cold.Water vapour is what insulates the Earth and CO2 concentration has nothing to do with cloud generation. Why, then, have anthropogenic global warming promoters seized upon CO2 as the culprit?
BEYOND THE SCIENCE
Climate change has now become so highly politicized that one wonders whom or what to trust. It turns out that the legitimate science in the successive UN
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment reports was laundered to such a degree by a very small and select group of experts and bureaucrats charged with preparing the “summaries for policymakers” that they are often contradictory – indeed, some of the scientific contributors have since distanced themselves from these reports.
There has grown a whole industry of taxpayer-funded climate modellers whose equations can?t reproduce last week’s weather let alone past climate change at all, but whose crystal balls universally forecast impending disaster (and of course the urgent need for more research money).Why haven’t physicists pointed out the basic mistakes in the science? Read more here.
Max,
I’m not sure that you can bury the Ozone hole problem, just yet.
Just read up the latest on Wiki and decide for yourself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion
I could say the same about acid rain, DDT, dying forests, the population question. I’ll let you find the links on those yourself. If you are really interested, which I doubt. I’m not sure about EM radiation or nuclear issues. Are they any different now to 20 years ago? I don’t think so.
Nuclear winter? Happily we didn’t have a nuclear war to test out that one, but it came close. A Soviet officer at radar station in the Ukraine three times overrode automatic alarms that NATO had launched a missile attack in the early eighties when the tension between East and West was at its height. Correctly, he had assessed it was a false alarm. You might think he would have been made a Hero of Soviet Union but instead he was court martialled! I’d certainly like to buy him a drink.
The dates on the AGW coffin should start about 1900. I’m not sure when the end date might be. 2050? We should all hope that we’ll have a grip on CO2 emissions by then.
Brute,
I’m surprised at you for associating Easter purely with the unfortunate execution of an Iron age messianic preacher.
Easter is the Northern Hemisphere spring festival. It celebrates new life and the anticipation of an approaching summer. That’s where the eggs and rabbits etc come in. Aren’t they mentioned in the Bible? Maybe they left that out for some reason.
Easter is named after the Germanic goddess Eostre or Ostra.
http://englishheathenism.homestead.com/eostre.html
I’m an enthusiastic follower! But if you Christians would like to do whatever it is you do at this time of year, besides eating Easter eggs, then you’re very welcome of course.
Didn’t they teach you about this in school? I’m beginnining to think that you might all be brainwashed over there. You can check it all out for yourself on the internet if you like. Is that why some schools in the USA don’t allow their students to use the net and especially sites Wikipedia, do you think?
Gee Peter (Temp Tarrien),
(By the way, the novelty has worn off, it isn’t cute anymore).
Dying forests, Acid Rain, Ozone Holes, Global Warming, Plastic Bags, Nuclear Winter, Paraquat, DDT,………..Is there anything that’s good in your life? Is there anything that you aren’t worried about or must crusade against/for?
You must be loads of fun at parties……Is everything in your world so awful? Is there anything good that you can see? Any hope at all? Such a pessimistic personality type……..Try to write one positive comment……just to see if you are able.
Been looking at the Joe Romm site recently. The nut jobs over there are ready to end it all. It seems that the Prophet Hansen told them that we’ve already well past the “tipping point” with CO2 and they’ve given up…..they now feel that the world is doomed to eternal damnation due to fossil fuel consumption and General Foods® (which they feel is all George Bush’s fault). Not even Obama their Messiah can save them from the evil Bush and his minions.
Hell of a way to go through life….afraid of your own shadow or whatever boogerman a politician tells you that you must be afraid of.
Funny how your “spring festival” coincides with the Christian observation of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection.
No matter, if you want to tag your “spring celebration” during the weekend of Good Friday and the Ascension that’s alright with me.
Brute,
No, its not a coincidence that you guys have your Good Friday/Resurrection Day at this time of the year. But we were first! If I were unkind I could ask “Why don’t you bugger off and make up your name for your Christian festivals and leave our Goddess Eostre out of it?” But I’m not. Us heathens are quite nice people really when you get to know us. Even at parties.
I guess that, at least, you’ve done the decent thing as far Christmas is concerned. You’ve managed to think up your own name for that. Although you have usurped our mid -winter Yuletide festival in the process. If you’d been a bit smarter you could have decided that your guy was born sometime around the 18th Dec. Then we could have celebrated midwinters day a week later, and New Year’s day the week after that and we’d all have had an extra weeks holiday as a result.
It’s probably too late now. Is it worth re-checking the dead sea scrolls for Roman birth certificates?
It’s lucky for you that its raining here. Otherwise you wouldn’t be getting these words of wisdom.
Happy Easter!
Brute,
I’ve taken on board your suggestion that we should all have a bit more fun.
These guys sound to be full of the joys of life:
http://www.summerland.org/
Maybe they’ll have a group a bit nearer and you might want to give them a try next year. Do you think they’ll have naked virgins dancing around campfires? It sounds a bit more enticing than thinking about some poor guy’s last hours being nailed up on a large piece of timber.
Happy Eostre this time!
Brute et al,
I noticed that a certain TempTerrain wrote in part in the Guardian Singh blog to Max; on 12, April:
However, it sounded familiar, so I digitally searched some key words, and found that a certain Peter Martin on this ‘ere blog wrote in part in his somewhat earlier 4530:
A touch edited maybe, but QED ?
Yet I think he also strongly gave himself away on about his first post under the name TerrainTemp.
Also, I think Brute and Barelysane, concluded much the same.
Hi Peter
Welcome back from your holiday, happy Easter and thanks for the historical update on the greenhouse hypothesis.
It is a wonderful and very logical hypothesis, but the basic problem with it is that it has never been actually substantiated with actual physical observations.
But leaving that aside, the hypothesis tells us that 2xCO2 should result in a global warming of somewhere under 1C.
This is the CO2 increase we may see from 1750 to around 2100. Personally, I do not believe that this is a big deal (but others disagree).
Solar scientists have told us that the sun was in a period of unusually high activity in the 20th century, resulting in a bit more than half of the warming we have actually seen, which has been a fraction of 1C so far.
At the same time, there are many other factors at work. These seem to work in multi-decadal cycles.
The last warming cycle was from around 1976 to around 1998 or 2000. This was preceded by a cooling cycle (1944-1976) and an earlier warming cycle (1910-1944). It appears that we have now entered another cooling cycle, but maybe it is too early to tell whether the cooling will continue and for how long.
Overall, we have seen an underlying warming trend of 0.04C per decade since coming out of the Little Ice Age, and it appears that this trend will continue. We do not know for sure what has caused the gradual recovery from the LIA, but solar scientists believe that one factor was due to changes in solar activity. This certaainly makes sense, especially for the warming that occurred before the end of WWII.
Our level of scientific understanding is still low about solar forcing of our climate. We can see that direct solar irradiance is only a relatively small portion of the total, but we do not yet know the mechanism for the remainder of the observed solar forcing.
We also know that ocean circulation changes play a major role in our climate (ENSO, PDO, NAO), and we see that these are historically cyclical, but we do not yet know what causes these changes.
So, yes, we have a tiny bit of knowledge about the most recent changes in our climate, we portion of these changes, but that is about it.
The stuff that comes out of the climate models is so oversimplified and myopically skewed to anthropogenic factors alone (primarily CO2), that it is essentially worthless, in my opinion.
But one can only hope that we will gain more knowledge on our planet’s climate in the future, although at present the AGW craze and notion that “the science is settled” seems to have blocked off significant research in any other direction.
But it is a fascinating topic.
Regards,
Max
Peter Martin, Reur flurry of recent posts:
It is interesting to note that a rainy day seems to improve your mood, and I actually found some of your satire (?) quite amusing. (not to imply my broad approval).
Just a brief and casual observance from me:
You ought be aware that the general understanding of ‘Messiah’ is confused, depending on perspective.
The original people of “The Book” have one understanding, and Christians have another. Also, my perception, from my regrettable contact experience with some of them in Adelaide, is that Christadelphians have a sort-of mid-way understanding, maybe biased towards the Jewish, depending on schism.
It seems to me that you sometimes discuss things that are out of your depth, but anyhow, how about returning to relevant topics?
Peter Martin, Reur 5636 to Brute, you wrote in part:
Well yes, I can see the ideality of your argument, but most Christian scholars are in firm agreement that Jesus was actually born on 4th December. (last I heard)
BUT HOW ABOUT WE RETURN TO TOPIC?
All:
Further my 5638, writing in part;
“I noticed that a certain TempTerrain wrote in part in the Guardian Singh blog to Max; on 12, April:”
It occurs to me that perhaps Tempterrain and/or Terraintemp may have stolen Peter Martin’s ID.
Poor Peter, if this is the case!
I suggest Pete that you find a really good lawyer!
BoB_FJ,
I’m nearly sure that everyone has figured it out by now, but just in case you haven’t, tempterrain is an anagram of my own name. Yes just exactly the same letters jumbled up. I could also be matter ripen, or tame reprint.
How about some of you guys have a try. You might come up with some amusing ones such as:
Tony Blair”= “Tory in Lab.”
Margaret Hilda Thatcher”= “High-tech Armada rattler”
Sarah Palin = ” A Sharp Nail”
Global Warming Denier = “Lamebrain Wriggled On”
Capital idea Bob.
I’ve digressed recently; I’ll behave.
Hi Peter,
Dang me, dang me! You had me fooled. I even posted a blog to your alter ego on the Guardian site, that is essentially a duplicate of a message I posted you here.
You fooled me!
(But I always thought that “tempterrain” was classier and a bit too intelligent to be mixed up with some of the other purile yahoos on that site.)
Max
Hey Brute,
It’s getting curiouser and curiouser…
And it looks like you hit the nail on the head with your earlier comment, “Still, purposely polluting the upper atmosphere sounds much cheaper than the cap and trade boondoggle. I wonder if the Greenies will go for it?”
The question may also be, “will the politicians go for it?”
A recent AP release entitled, “Science Adviser’s Vote Is Crucial on Climate” says:
Looks like Obama’s problem is that he needs Holdren (and others like him) to keep the AGW scare alive, but he does not want Holdren to come up with any mitigation proposals that might derail his trillion dollar carbon cap and tax power grab (the real end in sight rather than anything to actually do with climate).
A real dilemma.
Regards,
Max
Peter:
I’d be interested in your view of an article by Paul Sheenan of the Sydney Morning Herald in which he reviews Professor Ian Plimer’s new book Heaven And Earth – described as “an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy including my own”. Having described Plimer as “Australia’s most eminent geologist”, he says that the book is “a reminder to respect informed dissent and beware of ideology subverting evidence”. He starts by saying that “What I am about to write questions much of what I have [said] … over the past five years”. He questions whether those who, like him, have accepted the AGW hypothesis are “capable of questioning our own orthodoxies and intellectual habits.” Sheenan reports that Plimer says that
It’s interesting to compare Plimer’s view on climate models with Freeman Dyson’s:
And this from Antonio Zichichi (President of the World Federation of Scientists):
Peter: do you reject the views of these eminent scientists? Or are you “capable of questioning [your] own orthodoxies and intellectual habits”? Or perhaps you prefer to fall back on the pathetic ad hominems and insults of Michael Duffy’s article about Seenan’s review (here).
Robin,
Its funny that you raise the question of Ian Plimer. We’ve just been talking about him on
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/apr/01/climate-change-sceptics?commentpage=10&commentposted=1
(I’ve just noticed that I’ve misspelled his name.)
I was quite amused he’s such an anti-creationist that he’s actually taken some guy to court for daring to suggest that there is scientific evidence for the site of a Noah’s Ark landing in Turkey.
From what I’ve read, I don’t think it wouldn’t be too hard to find a string of expert witnesses who should be able to testify that he has seriously misrepresented the scientific case on AGW. It would be quite nice to turn the tables on him.
Do you have any legal opinion to offer on that? :-)
Peter:
Yes, I’ve no doubt you could “find a string of expert witnesses who should be able to testify that he has seriously misrepresented the scientific case on AGW” Equally I’ve no doubt you could find another string of experts able to testify that he hadn’t. (Max has named a few hundred of the latter variety.) Opposing experts? Hmm … seems strange if, as you keep telling us, “the science is settled”.
But tell me: do you reject the views on climate modelling expressed by Plimer, Dyson and Zichichi?
Robin,
From what I’ve read, its pretty much a doubt creating exercise on Plimer’s part. Its easy to write :
“A new ignorance fills the yawning spiritual gap in Western society. Climate change politics is religious fundamentalism masquerading as science. Its triumph is computer models unrelated to observations in nature. There has been no critical due diligence of the science of climate change, dogma dominates, sceptics are pilloried and 17th Century thinking promotes prophets of doom, guilt and penance.”
You don’t have to ask what my opinion is.
My theory on Prof Ian Plimer is that he’s got himself into financial problems by going after the creationists in the Aussie courts and losing heavily.
See: http://www.abc.net.au/abccontentsales/s1179683.htm
To get himself out of the financial s**t he’s sold his soul to the Devil in the shape of the Aussie mining lobby and their front organisation the so-called Institute of Public Affairs.
I can’t prove that though!