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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Monthly CO2 Report for March 2009 demonstrates that all global-temperature datasets show rapid global cooling for seven full years, at a rate equivalent to 2 C (3.6 F) per century.
Hey Brute,
Interesting chart you posted on actual versus predicted atmospheric CO2 rise.
Back in 2000, Dr. Jarl Ahlbeck made a chemical engineering mass transfer analysis of the CO2 rise from 1970 to 2000, with a projection from 2000 to 2100. He compared his findings with the forecasts made by IPCC (at that time from an earlier IPCC report) and found that the IPCC projections were exaggerated.
http://www.john-daly.com/ahlbeck/ahlbeck.htm
From his abstract:
Since then, the IPCC forecasts appear to have been increased, according to your chart. Using the IPCC assumed climate sensitivity (= warming from 2xCO2) of 3.2°C these are the 2100 CO2 levels with projected global warming of:
· 370 + 362 = 732 ppmv with warming of 3.1°C
· 370 + 468 = 838 ppmv with warming of 3.8°C
· 370 + 652 = 1022 ppmv with warming of 4.7°C
Ahlbeck’ s study estimated that the change over the 20th century would be 188 ppm, and the current actual trend appears to be around 200 ppm, giving a fairly good check.
Using Ahlbeck’s number the 2100 CO2 level and resulting warming (using 2xCO2 = 3.2°C):
· 370 + 188 = 558 ppmv with warming of 1.9°C
But wait!
Spencer et al have demonstrated based on actual physical observations, rather than just model assumptions that the cloud feedback is strongly negative (instead of strongly positive, as assumed by all the IPCC models with an admitted “large source of uncertainty”), and therefore, that overall feedbacks are likely to cancel each other out. As a result, the 3.2°C climate sensitivity for 2xCO2 is probably closer to 0.6 to 0.8°C (Peter does not like this fact too much, although it should really make him very happy).
BTW this estimate also checks very closely with the actual 20th century temperature record after adjusting for warming due to unusually high level of solar activity, so we have an independent good fit (Peter doesn’t like this fact very well, either).
In this case, the theoretical warming to year 2100 due to an increase of CO2 as projected by Ahlbeck and roughly confirmed by the first few years of the 21st century, would be closer to 0.4 to 0.5°C.
Ho hum!
Should we really turn the already damaged world economy upside down to “mitigate” against this impending disaster, by imposing a draconian carbon tax on every man, woman and child on this planet (that will not change our climate one iota)?
Looks like the IPCC model gurus should have listened to Ahlbeck.
Goes to show how great IPCC model projections are.
Regards,
Max
This is essential reading for anyone who lives in the UK. And an object lesson for anyone who lives elsewhere. While our Government is fiddling around with electric cars and pointless windmills, Dieter Helm, Professor of Energy Policy at Oxford University, is saying that
Sadly nothing tells me that reform has the slightest chance of being “quick”.
Robin and Brute,
What would you consider to be an acceptable level of proof?
It seems that the evil trace gas, CO2, isn’t working it’s magic.
To answer my own question above: I’d say there would never be such a level. Even if you saw pictures on your TV screens of Manhatten under 6 feet of water, you’d still argue that it was part of a natural long term change. The sea level was much higher several million years ago etc. Or, you could say it was all a hoax and that the TV pictures weren’t real. After all its well known that the TV industry is run by those Eastern ‘liberal’ types.
Naomi Oreskes has an interesting series of videos on youtube which cast light onto the right wing American ‘psyche’. Such as this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T4UF_Rmlio
There’s lots more good stuff on there too. Just type “Naomi Oreskes” into the youtube search box.
Peter
I’m begining to think you are the cat or possibly the photographer in the picture you posted a while back.
Naomi Oreskes is straight out of the extreme alarmist camp, i imagine everyone here knows about her infamous (and inaccurate/poor) study saying there were no scientific papers questioning global climate change.
And to head off the inevitable link to wiki.
http://wikipediabias.com/naomi-oreskes
Peter: I intend to answer your question at 5705. But, before I do, please clarify one thing for me: what has “the right wing American ‘psyche’” got to do with it? Thanks.
Robin, re your 5704, yes that is a rather sobering article by Dieter Helm – it looks like we’ll be having some “interesting times” in the next decade. In the UK I think it’s possible (worst case scenario, maybe?) that we’ll have a killer combination of a) a stagnant economy, b) swingeing carbon taxes to make sure the economy remains stagnant, c) colder winters, if the cooling trend continues, d) blackouts, brownouts and energy rationing when existing coal and nuclear power stations start to drop off the grid, and e) roving bands of fanatics doing their damnedest to make sure no new power stations are built to replace them. Maybe it won’t turn out to be quite that bleak, but on the other hand…
Alex:
You’ve missed out 400,000 new ‘green’ jobs, paid for by the taxpayer but not contributing to the wealth of the nation and thereby driving the economy ever deeper into recession. Quite like the old days in the 70’s when we had completely un-competative coal, shipbuilding and steel industries which also created employment in a politically convenient way but relied on government subsidy for their existence.
Hello Peter, are you there?
TonyN
I’m guessing he’s sulking, i’ve just been on the guardian thread (yes, it’s still going), and he’s just been “ripped a new one” by IanFremantle. Having read a few of his posts, I’ve no idea who he is but i already like him :)
‘Green Jobs’ Likely To Destroy More Jobs Than Are Created
A study just completed in Spain finds that the creation of so-called “green jobs” doesn’t at all seem to be the employment panacea promised by their advocates. As you recall, President Obama pointed to Spain as the reference point for the establishment of government aid to renewable energy. As the study points out, “No other country has given such broad support to the construction and production of electricity through renewable sources.” But the results are not at all what you might expect given the hype. In fact, they’ve been quite the opposite:
Optimistically treating European Commission partially funded data, we find that for every renewable energy job that the State manages to finance, Spain’s experience cited by President Obama as a model reveals with high confidence, by two different methods, that the U.S. should expect a loss of at least 2.2 jobs on average, or about 9 jobs lost for every 4 created, to which we have to add those jobs that non-subsidized investments with the same resources would have created.
Be sure you read that last part of the sentence carefully as well – those jobs would have been created by “non-subsidizsed investments” with the “same resources” – or said another way, they’d have been created in the private sector without government picking winners and losers and spending billions in taxpayer money.
Between 2000 and 2008, Spain was very aggressive in pursuing alternative energy and green jobs. But its results were less than stellar:
Despite its hyper-aggressive (expensive and extensive) “green jobs” policies it appears that Spain likely has created a surprisingly low number of jobs, two-thirds of which came in construction, fabrication and installation, one quarter in administrative positions, marketing and projects engineering, and just one out of ten jobs has been created at the more permanent level of actual operation and maintenance of the renewable sources of electricity.
So 9 out of 10 were temporary jobs, while only 1 in 10 became permanent. And the cost?
The cost to create a “green job”:
The study calculates that since 2000 Spain spent €571,138 to create each “green job”, including subsidies of more than €1 million per wind industry job.
The cost in jobs lost:
Each “green” megawatt installed destroys 5.28 jobs on average elsewhere in the economy: 8.99 by photovoltaics, 4.27 by wind energy, 5.05 by mini-hydro.
And the eventual cost to consumers:
The price of a comprehensive energy rate (paid by the end consumer) in Spain would have to be increased 31% to being to repay the historic debt generated by this rate deficit mainly produced by the subsidies to renewables, according to Spain’s energy regulator.
Spanish citizens must therefore cope with either an increase of electricity rates or increased taxes (and public deficit), as will the U.S. if it follows Spain’s model
Previous studies have concluded that such increases would impact the poorest quintile the most:
• Reducing emissions, a major rationale for “green jobs” or renewables regimes, hits the poorest hardest. According to the recent report by the Congressional Budget Office, a cap-and-trade system aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions by just 15% will cost the poorest quintile 3% of their annual household income, while benefiting the richest quintile (“Trade-Offs in Allocating Allowances for CO2 Emissions”, U.S. Congressional Budget Office, Economic and Budget Issue Brief, April 25, 2007).
• Raising energy costs loses jobs. According to a Penn State University study, replacing two-thirds of U.S. coal-based energy with higher-priced energy such as renewables, if possible, would cost almost 3 million jobs, and perhaps more than 4 million (Rose, A.Z., and Wei, D., “The Economic Impact of Coal Utilization and Displacement in the Continental United States, 2015,” Pennsylvania State University, July 2006)
So to recap, we have a scheme which would see a net reduction in jobs by its implementation, create jobs of which only 10% were permanent, Cost anywhere from a half a million to a million dollars per job, increase energy costs tremendously and hit the poor the hardest.
Sounds like a winner, doesn’t it?
Will anyone pay attention to the actual experiment conducted by Spain and its results? Or are the blinders firmly in place?
While this scheme would be important to contest at any time, it is critically important to do so now, given the economic situation. One thing that must be avoided is government killing jobs as fast as the private sector creates them. This is truly a time when government should do all it can to enable the private sector to create jobs (tax cuts, etc.) and step back and allow that process to work. What it shouldn’t be doing is picking winners and losers and enacting a scheme which, in Spain at least, has proven to do all the things necessary to kill or at least cripple any economic recovery.
Probably all seen this before, but it’s Friday, so lets all watch again :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmPSUMBrJoI
I’m not sure. Let me think about it awhile; however, I can write that as each day passes following this topic I’m becoming less inclined to believe that the AGW theory holds any shred of merit………………I do owe you an answer.
Sincerely; that seems to be the problem with “your” crusade Peter…….being that the more people that actually look into the issue, the less likely they are to believe the Alarmist delusional theory and as time passes it becomes more and more apparent that the entire impetus is a concocted notion to provide an excuse to implement a myriad of self serving agendas beneficial to politicians, novelists, think tanks, newspaper columnists, television talking heads, lecturers, “advisors” and business.
Look Peter, I admire your (what I believe is heartfelt) concern………but you’re being duped……open your mind and try to be objective.
I believe Stalin referred to drone like “followers” (such as Climate Alarmists) as useful idiots.
You’d better get back to Fremantle…………as I see it, he’s scored a couple of unanswered goals against your team.
Alex: I fear your ghastly scenario could happen. And, sadly, the prospect of a Tory government coming into power next year (or earlier) does nothing to dispel the gloom: they are just as much in thrall to the AGW dogma as the present lot.
Principia Mannomatica
For readers unfamiliar with this work, this illustrates one of the mathematics techniques (tree ring proxy data inversion) Dr. Michael Mann uses to divine the famous “Hockey Stick” cited by Gore and others.
More Upside-Down Mann
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=5766
Reposted from Climate Audit, by Steve McIntyre on April 15th, 2009
Previously, we discussed the upside-down Tiljander proxies in Mann et al 2008. Ross and I pointed this out in our PNAS comment, with Mann denying in his answer that they were upside down. This reply is untrue (as Jean S and UC also confirmed.)
Andy Baker’s SU967 proxy is used in Mann 2008 and is one of a rather small number of long proxies. With Andy’s assistance, we’ve got a better handle on this proxy; Andy reported that narrow widths are associated with warm, wet climate.
I checked the usage of this proxy in Mann 2008. Mann reported positive correlations in early and late calibration (early – 0.3058; late 0.3533). Thus, the Mannomatic (in both EIV and CPS) used this series in the opposite orientation to the orientation of the original studies (Proctor et al 2000,2002), joining the 4 Tiljander series in upside-down world.
The difference is shown below:
Gee Pete, Ice extent today is the highest since 2002. Isn’t that wonderful news?
See the red line? That’s 2009 ice extent………
Don’t get so excited, Brute. Look at the orange line (last year) – same position at this time but then plunged to the second least sea ice since (at least) 2002. It’s interesting but unimportant – sea ice extent says nothing at all about the cause of GW. You’re playing into the alarmists’ hands, me ‘ol mate.
Yes Robin, as usual you’re right, but the key word in that sentence is “second”. I simply enjoy pointing out extreme cold temperatures as much as they enjoy trumpeting every warm record.
But you know what, at this point it really doesn’t matter any more. Dealing with guys like Peter and Onthefence……….we could have ice fields stacked up over London and they’d say that it was due to global warming or “just wait till next year”.
It’s like arguing with a five year old……………
Hey nefastus,
The Hadley press release, which you cited states that the warming from 1998 to 2007 was 0.1°C per decade.
Let’s see if this checks with the data, which they publish.
Actually, the warming over this period was 0.08°C (but we’ll excuse that bit of a round-up).
What is more difficult to excuse is that the year 2008 was not included.
Did the Hadley PR guys purposely leave out 2008 or did you, nefastus, cite an old outdated Hadley press release?
When you include 2008 the curve is almost flat (starting in 1998), and shows a net COOLING of 0.111°C per decade over the 21st century (starting in 2001), as I pointed out earlier.
Sorry, nefastus. Those are the facts, according to the Hadley record, with all its warts, adjustment, variance corrections and ex post facto manipulations.
It is interesting to note that prior to a recent ex post facto slight downward adjustment for years 1998 to 2004, the original Hadley figures would have shown a slight cooling from 1998 through 2008.
But that is all beside the point.
We are talking about forecasts for the early 21st century versus actual results, and it is clear that the forecasts were way off, which you, nefastus, have not been able to refute.
Max
.
Hi nefastus,
Glad you have given the answers to your oft-repeated killer questions, so you won’t have to waste blog space by re-repeating them again.
The one you sort of waffled on was the one I answered already:
and it’s paraphrased equivalent
As Shakespeare put it so eloquently:
One does not have to be a model programmer to see when the virtual world of model forecasts has not been validated by the real world of physical observations
I have provided two examples of this, but here is another.
All the computer models cited by IPCC assume that the net assumed to be so strong, on average, that it results in an increase pf the 2xCO2 climate sensitivity of 1.3C (from 1.9 to 3.2C). (IPCC AR4 Ch.8, p.633)
There have been many studies on cloud feedbacks prior to the publishing of IPCC AR4, but very little actual physical observations. Some of these have concluded that both the magnitude and the sign of the net cloud feedback is uncertain.
One example is the study by Ramanathan et al., which stated (p.147)
http://www-ramanathan.ucsd.edu/FCMTheRadiativeForcingDuetoCloudsandWaterVapor.pdf
IPCC SPM 2007, which was published several months before AR4 Chapter 8, has conceded (p.12):
Fortunately, there has been a study since SPM 2007 was published that has cleared up this largest source of IPCC uncertainty with observational data.
Spencer et al. have shown, based on actual physical observations rather than computer model assumptions, that the net feedback from clouds with warming is strongly negative rather than strongly positive, as previously assumed by all the IPCC models.
http://blog.acton.org/uploads/Spencer_07GRL.pdf
As a result, it is now likely that the 2xCO2 climate sensitivity is less than 1C, rather than over 3C, as assumed by the IPCC climate models.
Another case where the models got it wrong, nefastus.
Max
Hi Peter,
Following the discussion you are having with Brute and Robin, I would appreciate if you could
(a) Provide physical evidence that AGW is a serious threat
(b) Tell me how levying a carbon tax on every man, woman and child on this planet will impact our climate in any way
Once you have done this, we can discuss how the trillions of dollar of taxes collected will go to finance wonderful new big-government schemes, or (in the case of the USA) be used to reduce the budget deficit despite all-time record spending and the promised “middle class” tax cuts (i.e. “give” the “middle class” $1,000 per year into one pocket and then take several times this amount out of the other pocket in a classical “bait and switch” scam).
Giving politicians and bureaucrats more of our hard-earned money (no matter where on the globe we live) so they can spend it at their whim is inherently a bad idea.
We see it here in little Switzerland, where the Federal government keeps wanting to get bigger and more influential at the expense of Cantonal and local governments. Fortunately, we have a referendum system, where these moves can be voted on by the people. Many other countries are not so lucky, and the people have to go along with what the politicians and bureaucrats decide, until the people get fed up and go to the streets, as often happens in France and appears to be happening in the USA today.
Bring evidence for (a) and (b) and you may win over an AGW supporter.
Until you do, I will continue to be rationally skeptical that AGW is a serious
Regards,
Max
Rest of massage (lost in copying)
problem or that a carbon tax will change our climate one iota.
Robin,
“sea ice extent says nothing at all about the cause of GW. You’re playing into the alarmists’ hands, me ‘ol mate.”
I shouldn’t worry too much about that. Brute will just shift to another line of argument when this one starts to look less promising.
I’ve had a try at expressing the denialist case in as few words as possible.
Maybe this might help you guys when posting on to ne wblogs.
Global warming isn’t happening its all a UHI effect. Use your commonsense, puny man is incapable of affecting the earth’s climate. Its all a natural effect down to the sun and volacanoes but if it isn’t natural its not caused by CO2 emissions which are not a pollutant. The human proportion is only tiny but if it isn’t it will cost too much to fix it, it’s too late, and we’d all like warmer weather anyway. Its all Al gore’s fault.
What do you think? Have I missed anything out?
Whoa, wait a minute Pete.
When sea ice levels low you holler “WERE ALL GONNA DIE BECAUSE OF BRUTE’S CAR AND THE EVIL AMERICANS!”
Now you write that it’s unimportant?
I was somewhat bored this afternoon and halfway kidding around but the fact remains that global sea ice is far above “normal” despite increasing CO2. Now, I get the seasonal melting, the long term trend, the extent will change depending on numerous factors and the extent on this date doesn’t amount to a hill of beans but you can’t have it both ways here.
Pick one.
Revealed: Antarctic ice growing, not shrinking
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25349683-11949,00.html
New Milepost for Arctic Sea Ice Extent
Here are some nice graphs Pete. CO2 is rising and Arctic ice is growing year by year on this particular date. I thought Al Gore said that the Arctic Ice Cap was going to melt away by now?
Temperatures dropping…….