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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Hi Brute,
No wonder Serezze is being so quiet.
Am just waiting for the “Yeah, but…” article that informs us that this added ice up there is just “new ice” (rather than good ol’ “old ice”) and that it is much thinner than normal, (presenting a real drowning hazard for a 1,000 pound polar bear mother with her cuddly cubs).
Max
Hi Brute,
Reur 5825. You wrote:
.
Presidential history is always written many years after the president has left office, when the many changes from his vision and leadership during his time in office have really become evident.
While I am sure that he will some day be recognized as the US President that saved our entire planet from certain doom from global warming, this will probably only be fully recognized after his death (as so often happens).
But I am fully anticipating that our grandchildren will see his resolute face looking down from Mount Rushmore some day and remember him as the leader who stopped the global warming with his vision and resolute determination.
And I am sure Peter agrees 100% with this assessment.
Regards,
Max
CBS’ Charles Osgood on the Sun – and a surprising suggestion
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/21/cbs-charles-osgood-on-the-sun-and-a-surprising-suggestion/#more-7257
Hey Max,
Hah, Osgood must have seen my previous comment regarding Bush.
Excerpt:
IRKUTSK mean temperature (all)
http://climexp.knmi.nl/gettempall.cgi?someone@somewhere+30710+IRKUTSK+
Max,
You write “PHYSICAL EVIDENCE, Peter. That’s all. Very simple.”
It’s not like moon rock, I can’t give you a chunk of something which has AGW written on the box.
Over the last year I’ve given you lots of evidence that AGW is a serious problem. Graphs of rising temperatures and declining sea ice etc Does this fit your definition of “physical”?
Australian taxpayers fund the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation.
The more intelligent ones listen to what they have to say. On the question of AGW it is:
http://www.csiro.au/resources/pfbg.html
Is this physical enough for you?
Hi Peter,
To my request for physical evidence to support your “credo” on AGW you wrote:
No, Peter.
This is not physical evidence that AGW is a serious problem, as you suggest.
It is simply physical evidence that temperatures are rising and that sea ice is declining, but not that human GHGs are the reason for this. Temperatures have risen and sea ice has declined before significant human CO2.
Bring physical evidence to support your credo that AGW is a serious threat. If you keep trying, maybe you will find something.
BTW, your CSIRO blurb does not provide any physical evidence either, just opinion.
Regards,
Max
Hi Brute,
Like your Irkutzk temp chart. Looks like it varies from +20C in summer to -20C in winter, as it always has since the record started.
Now the folks who live there could really use some global warming, but where are James E. Hansen and Al Gore when they are most needed?
Max
Max,
This goes back to your single sentence statement of the denialist case in which you missed lots of things out. Generally speaking you guys start at level one and as you lose ground you work your way down the list.
Probably you won’t live long enough to get much beyond level 5. It’ll be your ( and my) descendants who will see the worst of it.
1) There is no global warming. (Max Anacker 2007)
2) If there is its all caused by the sun
3) If its not caused by the sun then its caused by Cosmic rays or something else that we don’t yet know about. (Max Anacker 2008)
4)Maybe there is a small element of anthropogenic warming. Very small. Nothing to worry about. (Max Anacker 2009)
5) Maybe it might not be as small as we first said. But it will bring lots of benefits too. (Max Anacker 2020)
6) Ok so the effects didn’t turn out to be that good after all. But what the heck, its too late to do much about it now. (Son of Max Anacker 2050)
7) Its all the fault of those warmists. If they had made a better job of explaining their case, 75 years ago, we wouldn’t be in this mess now. (Grandson of Max Anacker 2080)
Brute, I enjoyed your 5823 on the latest NSIDC Atlantic sea-ice graphic.
Just a few comments:
One of the tricks used in graphically exaggerating significance of change is to plot it on non-absolute axis, or if you like, not showing zero origin.
I’ve taken the liberty to reconstruct the NSIDC graph you posted, to show the zero or absolute origin.
Given the complexities of NAO etc oscillations, and the fact that one division of NASA strongly attributed unusual sea-ice melt in 2007 to unusual north winds blowing it into warmer waters, and also the difficulty in defining what IS sea-ice, and whatnot, I can’t see why there has been so much fuss about a smallish reported variation of something hard to define.
(ESA satellite Cryosat 2 scheduled this year may be better able to properly measure the ice, including thickness, and closer up to the poles at 88 degrees!…. Reducing the size of that current “black hole“)
Sea ice is defined by NSIDC as ice of undefined depth covering at least 15% of the ocean surface! Give me a break! Is there no difference between 15% and 100% coverage, or how it might be graded in-between, regardless of depth?????????????
Of course, there is no sensible data before recent satellite observation, but historic T records seem to show it was warmer in the Arctic in the early 1900’s
I was amused to learn that Pen Hadow experienced some difficulty early-on, heading towards the pole, for many days because the ice he was traversing was uncooperative by moving in the opposite direction. What a haddock! He is measuring what ice thickness relative to what, along a line that keeps shifting? (never to be repeated)
But on reflection, he,(Pen) et al end up doing what they want to do. The real haddocks are those that were sucked-in and provided the funding. How can such bureaucratic ignorance/idiocy occur? It’s a real worry!
Peter your 5821
I enjoyed the references to early springs from the gardeners but this is in the context of peoples imperfect memories over a very short period of time.
Historical perspective
The apparent changes in the characteristics of months are well documented in other climatic periods, for example references from Chaucer, Pepys, Venerable Bede, Anglo Saxon chronicles, Tacitus, and other contemporary reports that indicate very mild Novembers and winters, and exceptionally early springs. Ice fairs are also well documented throughout the period 1500 onwards demonstrating the huge variability in our climate throughout the ages.
Scientific confirmation
I made the observation previously that winters were becoming less cold overall but summers were not showing any great overall change. I am pleased to see that no less an illustrious team than Jones et al agree with my observations and I am expecting them to share their tens of millions of research funds with me immediately.
“Globally, minimum temperatures appear to be warming at a faster rate than
maximum temperatures (Karl et al., 1993), particularly since the 1950s (IPCC,
2001), possibly associated with a change in cloud cover. Jones et al. (1999)
found no significant increase in very warm days in the Central England
Temperature series in recent years, but there was a marked decrease in the
frequency of very cold days. A decrease in the diurnal temperature range has
also been found in Northern and Central Europe (Heino et al., 1999)”
Winter temperatures have constantly fluctuated throughout recorded history and our expectation of very cold snowy winters was popularised by Charles Dickens who drew on his experiences of the end of the little ice age, although ironically his life time also saw some of the warmest records in the entire CET series. Our top five warmest winters are; 1733 1868 1833 1988 1974
Going further back, the MWP also had some notably warm winters. This scientific study is entitled; “Winter air temperature variations in western Europe during the Early and High Middle Ages (AD 750–1300)” which demonstrates that MWP winters were similar to the 20th century
http://hol.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/8/5/535
We also have many references to the Roman warm period which demonstrate the alpine passes were considerably more ice free than the present
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2007/may16/hannibal-051607.html
and glaciers much higher in altitude
This is the original German version of the study –especially for max
http://alpen.sac-cas.ch/html_d/archiv/2004/200406/ad_2004_06_12.pdf
a much shorter English language version is here
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=772
The 1000 year long records of the Byzantine empire-363-1453 AD demonstrate warmth throughout the empire during these periods and other climatic changes. As the climate warmed and became drier we have their plans of the extensive irrigation systems they built.
There are numerous contemporary records of climate change, this from the weather records of Thomas Jefferson;
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/JEFFERSON/ch07.html
“A change in our climate however is taking place very sensibly. Both heats and colds are become much more moderate within the memory even of the middle-aged. Snows are less frequent and less deep. They do not often lie, below the mountains, more than one, two, or three days, and very rarely a week. They are remembered to have been formerly frequent, deep, and of long continuance. The elderly inform me the earth used to be covered with snow about three months in every year. The rivers, which then seldom failed to freeze over in the course of the winter, scarcely ever do so now. This change has produced an unfortunate fluctuation between heat and cold, in the spring of the year, which is very fatal to fruits. From the year 1741 to 1769, an interval of twenty-eight years, there was no instance of fruit killed by the frost in the neighbourhood of Monticello. An intense cold, produced by constant snows, kept the buds locked up till the sun could obtain, in the spring of the year, so fixed an ascendency as to dissolve those snows, and protect the buds, during their development, from every danger of returning cold. The accumulated snows of the winter remaining to be dissolved all together in the spring, produced those over flowings of our rivers, so frequent then, and so rare now. “
This condensed from the records of the Hudson Bay company demonstrating that climate change is not a new phenomena.
“Over the fifteen years between 1720 and 1735, the first snowfall of the year moved from the first week of September to the last. Also, the late 1700s were turbulent years. They were extremely cold but annual snow cover would vary from ‘extreme depth to no cover’. For instance, November 10th 1767 only one snowfall that quickly thawed had been recorded. June 6, 1791 many feet of snow in the post’s gardens. The entry for July 14, 1798 reads ‘…53 degrees colder today than it was yesterday.”
As well as actual instrumental records we have available to us thousands of such records as the one above with first hand accounts that show the lives of real people. In my own town the fortunes of those involved in fishing were made and lost over hundreds of years as climate altered and warm water Pilchards were replaced by cold water Herring and vice versa. The warmth in the latter part of the 18th century caused social dislocation as the cod moved north to cooler waters and men stayed away longer to reach Newfoundland. The reliability of fish as a temperature proxy is well known;
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=PaEPcGJOxOQC&pg=PA39&lpg=PA39&dq=pilchards+climate+change+devon&source=web&ots=S8Dq9v3O4f&sig=l4VMl6UBROkm4qAtPGWkGS2or5E&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA39,M1
The bronze age inhabitants of Dartmoor in the South west of England farmed on the tops of the modest peaks and retreated as temperatures cooled-their dwellings are still there and have been subject to numerous studies over 150 years. The MWP farmers also farmed the tops in the MWP- we know the crops they grew, and their slow descent down into the valley as climate cooled is recorded.
Tonyb
Max,
You’ve made a few of these sort of allusions recently:
“Religious belief against all odds….” You are trying to devalue mainstream science,of course, trying to make it out as just another strand of religious ‘faith’. You aren’t the only group trying it on in the same way. Consider this:
“Evolution is basically a religious philosophy. We in creation ministries are explaining to people that both creation and evolution are religious views of life upon which people build their particular models of philosophy, science or history. The issue, therefore, is not science versus religion, but religion versus religion”
http://www.creationists.org/evolutionism-is-a-religion.html
I reckon that the creationists might have been first with this line of argument. What do you think?
Have you just copied yours from them or did you think of it all by yourselves? Do you have to pay them some sort of royalty every time you use it? If you don’t, I would have thought the right and proper thing to do would be to make some acknowledgement of their intellectual property. Something like “We are using the belief in AGW as a just another religion argument by kind permission of the creationists.”
What do you think?
Brute, furthermore, Reur 5823, I’ve just noticed that in your second cited graph:
http://docs.google.com/File?id=ddw82wws_205chqcw5cn_b
That the so called record “summer melts” in 2007/2008, are a major departure from prior years, but ONLY during the “summer” melt season. For most of each year, all the plots follow much the same trend. That is to say that 2002 – 2009 are very similar for most of the year. The biggest deviation on the graph is for 2007 in October and November. This suggests that “winter” was late coming in that year ONLY, which seems very strange. Have you seen any comment on that anywhere?
Of course it might have been due to unusual wind patterns, whatever, but it seems to be strangely unique.
TonyB,
I do have some family connections to Cornwall. As I understand it, pilchards were very plentiful there in the 19th century, but when the climate was about a degree colder than currently.
They are still around aparently but in much smaller numbers. It is difficult to draw any real conclusion because of the effects of overfishing on pilchard populations.
However, there are many anecdotal stories of warm water fish species turning up in fishing nets in Cornish waters and some scientific studies to back up these claims.
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=1782296D4180BACDA809DE5E6C50E017.tomcat1?fromPage=online&aid=122227
So, yes you are probably right, fish species can be used as a temperature proxy.
Max: it’s a beautiful day today – the sun is shining, there’s a cuckoo calling outside my house, the wild cherries are in bloom, the local wood is carpeted with bluebells … So I’m in a good mood and happy to accept your wise advice at 5812. Thanks.
But I’ll start with a comment on your request to Peter for “physical evidence”. I suggest you need to be rather more specific. I’ve been banging on to him about my wish to see the dangerous AGW hypothesis validated by the “scientific method” and I think you might take note also. I’ll advise him shortly what I mean in relation to that hypothesis. But, first, this may help:
The scientific method was first documented by Ibn al-Haitham, an Iraqi scientist, about a thousand years ago. It was utilised, for example, by Galileo, became the basis of science during the Enlightenment (Newton and Darwin being prime examples of its use) and formally set out in a landmark paper by Karl Popper in 1934.
Here’s a summary:
A problem is identified, a testable (i.e. refutable) hypothesis explaining it is put forward and the hypothesis is thoroughly tested against empirical (physically observed, not theoretical) evidence. If the evidence supports the hypothesis, the hypothesis is initially validated. But even such validation fails if the hypothesis is subsequently proved to be false: as Karl Popper showed, a scientific theory can never be finally confirmed by experimental testing whereas a single counterexample (commonly a failure to make accurate prediction) is logically decisive, showing it to be false.
Two matters to note:
1. A theory that is not refutable is non-scientific.
2. Science is never “settled”.
Max: any comment on all this?
Onthefence:
If you are continuing to lurk here, following the close-down of the Guardian-Singh blog, I would like you to know that I went looking for you within the Google time-frame of 1 week and also 1 month ago, hoping for continued entertainment from you. However, it seems that you have a “nom de blog” which is far from unique.
For instance I found an ‘Onthefence’ associated with:
“hard itchy hives on back & swollen numb upper lip”
I doubt it, but is that you of Guardian infamy? If not it would nevertheless be nice if you could advise where/how intercourse could take place, particularly on your astonishing comments about energy. (in physics). Such fun is hard to find!
Brute, furthermore, and yet again, another furthermore Reur 5823 on NSIDC sea-ice graphs:
Re TonyB’s 5835, quoting in small part, and I hope Peter Martin read his 5835 in full; carefully, and without prejudice. (Ha! what wishful thinking!)
But NOT in the Arctic, according to NSIDC in 2007 & 2008, where most of the year was typical, but the “summer” was atypical, IF IT IS TO BE ASSUMED THAT ICE MELT IS RELATED TO GLOBAL T‘s.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hey: Welcome back Tony….. Your 5835 is great!
UK budget news, £1bn set aside to “combat climate change”.
Must find somewhere to emigrate to.
barelysane:
If you think that that is scary
So he seems to be planning on creating a market in expensive, untried and inefficient alternatives by forcing up the price of energy produced by the well tried and tested, cheap, reliable and efficient methods: in the middle of a recession! Interesting even if you do not consider what a stealth tax on a quite unimaginable scale will yield in revenue to the Treasury. I have seem an estimate of $650bn over ten years as the likely revenue from Obama’s proposed cap and trade scheme, but none for Darling’s proposal. Fortunately, if you read the Chancellor’s words carefully, it looks as though they may fall into the ‘pious hope’ category.
The full text is here:
http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/12032008/323/uk-budget-full-text-darling-s-speech.html
..and there is much, much more that is surprising.
TonyN
I’ve heard Canada is quite a pleasant place.
Was looking at the live text via the BBC, UK plc is about to become a 3rd world country by the looks of things.
Bob_FJ
Did a quick google for onthefence as well. Had a quick giggle at a recent post of his on the guardian. Now admittedly i was never very good at basic physics but i think his criticism of the data in the article is more than a little wrong (apparently we have trouble with logarithims, he has trouble reading sources). Of course i might be wrong, never was much good with this new fangled electric trickery.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/apr/21/energy-central-veterinary-laboratory?commentpage=1&commentposted=1
TonyN
On the topic of sources, your link was to last years budget :)
barelysane:
Oh! B … [snip] :(
But I wonder what has happened to that bright little idea of the Chancelor’s? Perhaps Robin knows.
Hi Robin,
Thanks for your input (5839).
It is very wise.
Yes, “physical evidence” is well defined in your post, and that is what Peter must bring to support his claim:
“Consensus of 2,500 highly trained scientists” won’t do.
“Agreement by most of the world’s scientific organizations” won’t do.
“Peer-reviewed studies say so” won’t do.
“Gordon Brown believes it” won’t do.
“IPCC said so” won’t do.
“RealClimate said so” won’t do.
“Climate Model Study outputs” won’t do.
“Beautiful Correlations” won’t do.
“Concisely Stated Hypotheses” won’t do.
The evidence has to show that warming is resulting as a direct result of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and that it is a threat, not that “sea ice is melting somewhere, temperatures are rising globally, sea levels are rising, storms, floods or droughts are increasing, etc.”.
These phenomena are all very interesting, but the causality of anthropogenic CO2 emissions for global warming needs to be proven by the scientific method and, further, the claim that this warming is a potential threat needs to be demonstrated by the same method.
That is Peter’s task.
Let’s see how he does.
Regards,
Max
Hi Peter,
Can’t say much to your 5836, where you write:
I personally believe that Darwin’s theory of evolution is valid, so cannot say much about some people who do not and the line of reasoning they use to support their belief.
Your claim that I am “trying to devalue mainstream science, of course, trying to make it out as just another strand of religious ‘faith’” is absurd.
If, however, you mean by “mainstream science” the “belief that AGW is a serious threat”, then I can agree that this is more a matter of belief (religious or otherwise) than it is of scientifically proven fact.
But this gets us away from the “slippery slope” of discussing “religion”, and back to your task of providing physical evidence to support your credo.
I am waiting. The ball is in your court.
Bring the physical evidence, Peter, not side tracks about Darwinism.
Regards,
Max
Max,
I might just leave you and Robin to carry on the discussion between you on scientific philosophy. Robin seems to be on the right track but he sounds like he’s unsure of himself and asking for you help with his “Max: any comment on all this?” in his posting 5839.
For a start science isn’t about “proven fact”. Mathematicians have proofs. Science works on the basis of the best explanation to fit the available evidence.
You might like to have a try at explaining how mainstream science has ‘settled’ on the position that AGW is real and a continuing problem. Note that ‘settled’ doesn’t mean that everyone just packs up their research and moves on to something else. There is still much research to do, and still many unanswered questions.
However, as you’ll well know, there will be many would be only too happy to mis-interpret this explanation of how science works, to justify doing nothing on CO2 emissions. They would say “Let’s give these scientists a bit more time. They are still working on the problem”.
Barelysane, Reur 5844.
Yes, Onthefence is a bit offthewall when it comes to the simplest of physics.
I posted a detailed explanation of the difference between power and energy consumption, but it is being held for mediation.
Did you experience that at all?