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.
(Click the ‘comments’ link below if the input box does not appear)
10,000 Responses to “Continuation of the New Statesman Whitehouse/Lynas blogs.”
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Nice line from Dr Allegre:
‘We are not in the Soviet Union, we can contest a scientific thesis’
Hope he gets the job!
Hey Max,
Last time I wrote anything about the French, TonyN washed my mouth out with soap.
I like Sar-cozy……..seems like the French finally got something right with him. He seems like a logical, thoughtful, realistic guy and a man of true principle. Not the dreaming, hang wringing, idealist, snob that they had in there before (the guy’s name escapes me, which is an example of how irrelevant he is/was).
If Allegre is appointed it’ll be fun to watch the fur fly.
Hi Max
I have your weekend sorted out for you if you haven’t read “science of alternative metrics” yet.
This document has just been released following a working party meeting of the IPCC in Norway at the end of March.
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/supporting-material/expert-meeting-metrics-oslo.pdf
It introduces a lot of new terminology and includes a variety of new papers. As well as being interesting for the number of times it uses the word ‘uncertainties’ it stresses the importance of creating new methods of measuring for tax related purposes.
This was interesting;
“The methodology for calculating the GTP has also been extended. In its original form it used a very simple climate model, which allowed it to be expressed in a straightforward analytical form, but this ignored the role of heat storage in the deep ocean. Methods for including the effect of deep ocean storage have been proposed.. GTPs have also now been calculated for a much wider range of emission types than had been present in the pre-AR4 literature.’
So presumably this must be the infamous ‘heating in the pipeline’ which they are having difficulty in quantifying (which you unkindly say is not there, lurking in the deep ocean)
Very technical, rather long, but well worth a read as it clearly sets out the current state of the science with particular reference to ensuring there are clear and consistent ways of measurement, which are lacking at present.
Tonyb
Tonyb,
Opened your link above………….Whew! That is a ponderous report………I wonder how many trees they had to kill to get that monstrosity printed.
I was thinking of watching paint dry this weekend, but instead I’ll read through this report.
(“Uncertainties”……I laughed out loud….you rascal).
Hi Brute
These documents from various committees are long and ponderous and boring and don’t tend to get scrutinised much in the wider world. They do however reveal a lot of things.
Do you remember the link I posted a few weeks ago from the met office looking for a polar ice modeller as there were considerable uncertainties in the science?
This theme is constantly repeated, Models are agreed to be unreliable, Peer reviewers are ignored, yet still the claim is made that the science is settled.
There is a more going on behind the scenes than there is in front of the curtain, but everyone is looking at the players strutting on the stage. Try and find the time to read the document Brute, you will find the metrics they are devising in order to tax you.
Tonyb
Jasper Gee
Thanks for the link to the article about the exaggerated IPCC claims on AGW.
Max
Yeah Robin, the outraged “majority consensus of 2,500 mainstream scientists”, and, even more, the howling politicians that see their carbon tax revenues disappearing, may be successful in blocking Allegre’s nomination.
But I am counting on the “orneriness” of the French, in general, and the political nose of “Czar-cosy” to prevail; he smells the political change that is gaining momentum out there, while Obama has not yet noticed it.
Let’s see what happens.
Max
Hi TonyB,
Thanks (ouch!) for link to new IPCC report.
Just glanced through it so far and was impressed with the number of times the words “uncertain” or “uncertainty” were mentioned.
Sounds like this was written by a less arrogant bunch than those who wrote SPM 2007, with “happy clauses” such as:
“the understanding has improved…”
“progress in understanding has been gained…”
“there is high confidence that…”
“likelihood of … is virtually certain…”
“most of the observed increase in … temperatures… is very likely due to observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations”
“it is more likely than not that anthropogenic forcing has increased the risk of heat waves”
“a major advance… of climate change projections… is the large number of simulations available from a broader range of models”
“advances in climate change modeling now enable…”
“there is an improved understanding of projected patterns of precipitation and temperature…”
Regards,
Max
Tonyb,
Don’t get me wrong; I intend to read it………I was (poorly) attempting to inject a small (very small) amount of levity.
What I have read is dripping with sanctimony and arrogance. These guys must have an extremely high opinion of themselves……….I suppose what turns me off about all of this is the smug, holier than thou attitude that permeates throughout the literature that the Alarmists put forth. The irony is that most Alarmists reject “religion” but follow this cult that has all of the trappings.
They profess to be wise yet they are fools (that’s in the Bible Pete!).
Do you think that these “intellectuals” could scrape together enough money between themselves to pay the rent that they owe the landlord of the UN building in New York or the millions of dollars in parking fines that they’ve racked up as “diplomats”? I suppose that they are far too important to be saddled with such trivial things as paying for the space, electricity and water that they use…………A “intellectual” and a deadbeat goldbrick look an awful lot alike to me.
Reminds me of a joke……………
What does a cue ball have in common with a diplomat?
The harder you hit em, the more English you get out of them…………………
Max,
You are having a problem with your graphs because you are pushing the logarithmic relationship between CO2 and temperature much too far. It should just be regarded as a rule of thumb at best.
This link gives more accurate expressions:
http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/222.htm
CO2 F = ln(C/C0) = 5.35
F= ln(C/C0) + ß (C – C0) = 4.841, ß = 0.0906
F= (g(C)-g(C0))
where g(C)= ln(1+1.2C+0.005C2 +1.4 x 10-6C3) = 3.35
which you might want to take a look at.
The idea of CO2 saturation is one that you’ll find on contrarian websites too. They use the same diminishing exponential equation that I suggested previously. If this sort of equation is correct there are three possibilities regarding current levels of CO2:
1) They are in its linear region. That would be pretty bad news.
2) They are in its saturated region. Naturally the contrarians like this possibility and argue for it. You might want to look at this argument. It would enable you to say that even a logarithmic increase is an exaggeration.
3) They are in an intermediate region where the logarithmic approximation is valid.
The attraction of this equation is that it doesn’t have the problem of giving obviously the wrong results at either end of the concentration range.
Tonyb,
I’m only on page 27 of the report and I lost track of the number of times the word “uncertainty” was used……….they should probably thrown in “unpredictable” a few times for good measure.
The number of contradictory/equivocating statements are too numerous to count. The arguments are circular and it says absolutly nothing (so far).
I wonder how much time and money was wasted (and CO2 expelled) in creating this report?
I’ll pick up on page 28 tomorrow morning.
Pete,
Have you read this thing? Seriously, take a few minutes and read it (objectively)…………let us know what you think……….
Hmmmmmmmmmm. I think I’ll also call my broker in the morning………
China, Japan on collision course over rare-earth metals
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25550073-5017996,00.html
TonyB,
I suppose you want to know why the words ‘uncertainty’, ‘probably’, ‘most likely’ etc appear in reports when the phrase ‘science is settled’ has also been used.
Not to put too fine a point on it all, the scientific message, the settled one, is that we are all in the shit over the question of CO2 emissions and the build up of CO2 concentrations. Just how deep and clinging is not yet known to the precision that we all might like.
Whatever that might turn out to be won’t change the argument that it’ll be a good thing to try to get out of it.
Not so long ago, someone called Peter Martin – despite repeated requests – failed to produce published research demonstrating unambiguously that the hypothesis he supported (that mankind’s continuing to add CO2 to the atmosphere will cause a dangerous increase in global temperature) had been subjected to rigorous testing against empirical evidence (publicly available and replicable) and had survived such testing intact. Now a new character, tempterrain, whom we believe to be the same person, has cropped up. But this new character asserts (#6463) “the scientific message, the settled one, is that we are all in the shit over the question of CO2 emissions and the build up of CO2 concentrations”. So perhaps this is, after all, a different (and seemingly cruder) individual and we have to start again; possibly he (I assume it’s a he) has some new information.
Please, tempterrain, refer us to the research (as defined above) that supports your assertion.
Hi All
I imagine you read WUWT, but in case any readers here don’t, another wheel has come off the AGW wagon (seems every time M. Mann gets involves with stats you know something is going to be wrong).
This article deals with the reported warming antartic as presented in Nature (and MSM).
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/29/steig-et-al-falsified/
the build up of CO2 concentrations
Er, might that not be the result of a few decades’ warming of the oceans?
Hi Peter,
You suggested (6460) that I look at other alternate formulas for the CO2 greenhouse effect:
Yeah. The link has 3 formulas: Myhre (straight logarithmic which I used), Shi (modified logarithmic) and Hansen (another modified logarithmic function). I did a comparison using the alternate formulas to the straight logarithmic relation.
There really is not much difference within the ranges we have been looking at:
Logarithmic (Myhre):
0.89C 70-140 ppmv
0.89C 140-280 ppmv
0.39C 280-379 ppmv
0.50C 379-560 ppmv
Modified (Shi)
0.88C 70-140 ppmv
0.92C 140-280 ppmv
0.41C 280-379 ppmv
0.55C 379-560 ppmv
Modified (Hansen)
0.74C 70-140 ppmv
0.83C 140-280 ppmv
0.40C 280-379 ppmv
0.56C 379-560 ppmv
Hansen’s formula skews the temperature impact at higher concentrations upward slightly (by a few hundredths of a degree); the other two approaches are essentially a wash.
You also proposed three situations regarding current levels of CO2:
The concept of (partial) CO2 saturation as explained by the Yale group (and Motl) shows why a linear relationship makes no sense and a logarithmic (or near-logarithmic) relation does. They have stated that even at very high (impossible) CO2 concentrations complete saturation would not be reached, so your “cases 1 and 2” can be discarded, and we are back to case 3 (where a logarithmic relation makes sense).
I think it is safe to say that the simple logarithmic calculation (Myhre et al.) is good enough for practical purposes and we can forget the more complicated formulas, which give almost the same results in any case.
So, contrary to your assertion, my graphs are OK (they would not look much different using the other formulas, as you can see).
We still have the double dilemma, which you have not addressed:
1) Why should “anthropogenic” CO2 greenhouse warming (above 280 ppmv) occur at a rate per CO2 concentration increase (2xCO2 = 3.2) that is several times higher than the “natural” CO2 greenhouse warming, which occurred up to 280 ppmv (2xCO2 = 0.87C)?
2) Why will 21st century “anthropogenic” CO2 greenhouse warming (above 369 ppmv in year 2000) occur at a rate per CO2 concentration increase (2xCO2 = 3.2) that is several times higher than the observed 20th century “anthropogenic” CO2 greenhouse warming from around 280 to 369 ppmv (2xCO2 = 0.8 to 0.9C)?
Looking forward to your explanation.
Regards,
Max
James P
You bring up another dilemma of the AGW believers (6466):
The dilemma:
More CO2 is being emitted by humans than is measured by increased atmospheric concentrations (about twice as much), so where is the rest disappearing to?
Some studies show that the half-life of CO2 in the atmosphere is only 5-10 years, but the AGW-believers don’t like these numbers, preferring to talk of a residence time of several hundred years.
So is the upper ocean absorbing some of the missing CO2 and “acidifying”? (pH measurements are so spotty they can be discarded, so we do not know if the alkaline ocean is getting slightly less alkaline or not in actual fact, despite a lot of bally-hoo around this subject.)
Or is the upper ocean warming up and thereby releasing CO2 to the atmosphere? (We know that the ocean absorbs and releases huge quantities of CO2 – many times the amount emitted by humans – as part of the natural cycle, so if it were really warming on average, the net balance of this cycle would be to release more CO2 than is absorbed).
Latest Argo measurements tell us that the surface ocean is not warming (in fact it has cooled since these started in 2003). Prior measurements were so spotty to be useless, so can be forgotten.
But a “warming ocean” is supposedly part of the “warming still in the pipeline” (i.e. not yet measurable with surface air thermometers).
So what is it:
(a) A warming ocean releasing net CO2 but storing heat that will eventually fry us?
(b) An ocean that is cooling or remaining at a constant temperature and absorbing net CO2 (getting less alkaline in the process)?
If it is (a), where is the missing CO2 disappearing to?
If it is (b), where is the “hidden heat still in the pipeline”?
Then we have the IPCC explanation, giving it the scientific sounding name “climate-carbon cycle coupling”, which it describes, as follows (SPM 2007, p.16):
“Climate-carbon cycle coupling is expected to add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere as the climate system warms, but the magnitude of this feedback is uncertain.”
Not much help there, I’m afraid.
Max
Robin Guenier Reur 6464, you wrote in part:
It seems to be a condition found in the alarmists, that when asked a simple question like; “where is the actual evidence that recent warming, according to the T data is caused by increasing anthro-CO2”, they launch into distracting waffle, and totally avoid the question.
For example, I take you in into such a sequence of three fruitcake waffles @
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/may/19/vaclav-klaus?commentid=75b41c71-ac72-4917-b59b-68dd536061d7
(I could not follow-up, because comments were inexplicably closed by the Guardian)
Bob_FJ
You lamented to Robin:
This is certainly the case, as observed on this and other sites.
But Bob, one should examine the psychology of alarmists (in general) and of the AGW-alarmists, whom one encounters on these sites.
If one looks at AGW alarmists as a members of a sort of pseudo-religious “doomsday cult” it makes this easier to understand.
Sure, one sees big differences in individuals:
There are those, whom I will call the “AGW-trolls” or “groupies”, that one often encounters on sites like RealClimate or the Guardian site, etc., who have nothing really to contribute to the discussion, but can only resort to ad hom attacks or some other ridiculous and generally obnoxious behavior. Getting into a discussion with these types is a complete waste of time.
Then there are the self-righteous “know-it-all” thread “managers”, who censor out anything they cannot counter (which challenges the AGW paradigm) and put in correcting comments (often including snide remarks) for those statements where they believe that they know more than the poster.
But there are also those, who are prepared to engage in a discussion of the open scientific, political or economic issues surrounding the ongoing AGW debate. Peter is one of these. Discussing with these types is more interesting. While they are fixated on the AGW doomsday postulation, they are still willing to talk around the subject. And they can be very knowledgeable, as Peter definitely is. But if they are true AGW doomsday believers they will only go so far, as they are unwilling (or even unable) to consider that their AGW doomsday belief could be fundamentally wrong.
Actual physical observations are only recognized by these individuals if they support the doomsday premise; if they disprove or refute some aspect of the doomsday premise, they are ignored or rejected. Alarming model predictions, no matter how absurd or how flawed the assumptions leading to these predictions, are taken as absolute scientific truth if they support the doomsday premise.
It is very much like with fundamentalist religious believers: “don’t confuse me (with the facts), because I know that I am right and that my doomsday premise is correct”.
So this is the challenge when debating with true doomsday believers: recognize that they will NEVER admit that their doomsday premise could in any way be wrong, but try to put them into the untenable position where they are unable to defend the premise against very specific questions and are forced to sidetrack. Once this has happened repeatedly on a specific topic, the debate on that topic has essentially been won by default, if not in the eyes of the doomsday believer himself/herself, but in the eyes of any casual observer.
Don’t get frustrated and remember, non illegitimi carborundum,
Max
EU reconsiders green laws to shore up industry
http://www.euractiv.com/en/sustainability/eu-reconsiders-green-laws-shore-industry/article-182683
Would you trust a long-range (say 60-year) forecast from these people?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/may/28/bournemouth-met-office
Hey James P,
I can understand the frustration of those who relied on a 2-day MetOffice forecast that went sour(your 6472).
But, to understand why the MetOffice can use the same computers that fail in getting tomorrow’s weather right to get the spot on prognosis for the climate of year 2100, you have to first understand the difference between weather and climate.
Weather is driven by uncontrollable and unforecastable “background noise”, while climate is driven by anthropogenic greenhouse warming (primarily from CO2).
Once the “background noise” is removed, it becomes crystal clear what the long range forecast will be. As a result, climate models can pinpoint long-range developments much more accurately than daily events. Believe me, it must be so.
And besides, no one will be around to check whether the long range forecast was right or not.
Regards,
Max
WHAT IF WE PROJECT CURRENT COOLING TREND INTO THE FUTURE?
An email from Norm Kalmanovitch [kalhnd@shaw.ca]:
The CO2 molecule is linear and symmetrical and therefore doesn’t have a permanent dipole moment, thus limiting its effect on the Earth’s thermal radiation to a single vibrational bend mode centred at 14.77microns. Spectral measurements of the Earth’s thermal radiation clearly show that this effect is near saturation within this band and further increases in atmospheric CO2 can only have an exponentially diminishing effect on the small amount of energy remaining in this band.
The greenhouse effect from the current atmospheric concentration of 386ppmv CO2 is less than 10% of the Earth’s total greenhouse effect of 34°C. Because this radiative band is near saturated, a doubling of CO2 could only add an additional 0.3°C to the 3.4°C greenhouse effect already caused by the current level of CO2. (This is a maximum value with a more likely computed value being less than 0.1°C.)
The IPCC 2007 Fourth Assessment Report states that models predict forcing of 3.71watts/m2 for a doubling of CO2 Using the stated conversion to temperature of 1watt/m2 giving rise to an increase in global temperature of 0.75°C, the IPCC predicts warming from a doubling of CO2 of 2.78°C.
Physics and observational measurement predict 0.3°C but models predict 2.78°C; a value over nine times greater than what would be deemed physically possible.
Atmospheric CO2 is increasing at a rate of 2ppmv/year. At this rate a doubling from the current level of 386ppmv will occur by the year 2202, and the IPCC predicts that the temperature will be 2.78°C warmer 193 from now.
The global temperature has been dropping at a rate of 0.025°C per year since 2002. If we project this 193 years into the future, the world will be 4.83°C cooler than today. If we remove the warming effect from CO2 increases as predicted by the IPCC models this will be reduced to just 2.05°C of cooling, instead of the 4.53°C of cooling that would be predicted using the actual physical values for the effect of CO2 instead of the contrived values from the models.
Either way, unless there is some way to predict that this current cooling trend will end before 2202, there is no possible global warming threat for at least the next 193 years regardless of how much CO2 gets pumped into the atmosphere.
It boggles the mind to know that the world leaders are ignoring all physical evidence and are willing to sacrifice the global economies based on nothing more than speculative rhetoric from mindless climate alarmists.
Robin,
Yes I think the penny might have finally fallen. You’ve correctly rearranged the letters and come up with the right identity. And there was I thinking that you weren’t very bright.
Max ( and all),
When you accuse me of not answering the question, what you really mean is that I don’t answer it the way you like. Either you don’t understand or , more likely, don’t want to understand.
Evidence that anthropogenic CO2 is likely to increase temperatures to an amount predicted by the IPCC?
The best evidence is to look at the natural GHE of 33 degs C. Now no one is saying that CO2 is responsible for all of that or even most of it. However it is responsible for a proportion of it. This is natural CO2, present at the pre-industrial level of 280ppmv, and I am not saying it behaves any differently to recent additions which have taken the figure up to 380ppmv.
I think Max himself has agreed that somewhere around 8 degrees is a reasonable estimate of this. If you look at Lindzen’s graph that’s not far away from his starting point either. However as we all know, those who understand logarithms that is, the oft quoted log relationship cannot be correct as CO2 concentrations approach zero. Initially the response will be linear and gradually the curve will morph into something more logarithmic. It will be something like this: