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.”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Hi Peter,
You wrote:
NO, Peter. You are the one who is obviously confused. The logarithmic equations, which I cited, derive the climate forcings in W/m^2 (based on the change in CO2 content), which are then converted to degrees K (or C) temperature increase following Stefan-Boltzmann. I will walk you through the steps of this simple calculation, since you apparently still have questions. The non-logarithmic equations calculate temperature directly based on change in CO2 concentration.
The previous correspondence we had on solar forcing has nothing to do with this. The solar studies showed that the unusually high level of 20th century solar activity was responsible for between 30 and 50% of the total 20th century warming (average of the studies was 50%).
These estimates were based on empirical calculations comparing actual physical observation of solar activity and temperature over previous pre-industrial periods of very low solar activity and very low temperatures. The exact mechanism for the total solar impact on temperature is as yet unknown, although there are many theories out there (including that of Svensmark et al. on cosmic rays and clouds). The physically observed fact is that the total solar forcing is an order of magnitude greater than the direct forcing from solar irradiance alone.
Then you come with a very strange calculation, to quote:
Peter, your calculation is totally wrong.
Let me show you how this is really calculated.
The Arrhenius Law defines the effect of CO2 on temperature
dT = dE / (4 [sigma]+T^3), where T is in °K
dE = change in forcing
dE= [alpha] * ln [CO2]/[CO2orig]
where alpha = 5.35 [Myhre et al.]
and sigma = 5.6705*10^-8 watt/ (m^2 * K^4) [Stefan-Boltzmann]
CO2 final = C2 = 560 ppmv
CO2 orig. = C1 = 280 ppmv
C2 / C1 = 2
ln (C2 / C1) = 0.6931
5.35 * ln (C2 / C1) = 3.708 = dE (change in forcing)
4 * 5.6705 E-08 * (255.16^3) = 3.769
dT = 3.708 / 3.769 = 0.98°C
So the correct answer is slightly below 1°C and NOT 3°C, as you erroneously calculated.
I am truly surprised that you do not understand the very basics of how the greenhouse effect is calculated.
Your silly rationalization that if the natural GHE contributed 7°C, then a further doubling from 280 to 560 oomv should contribute 3°C is pure fantasy and not supported by any of the many equations proposed for the CO2 / Temperature greenhouse relation.
Go back to the basics, Peter. Once you understand them, it will make it easier for you to understand the entire picture.
Regards,
Max
TonyB
[I sent this message yesterday, but it got stuck because of the many links. Will send these separately.]
You asked whether IPCC had considered any of the work done on Arctic sea ice in the 19th century or the early 20th century.
I did a quick check.
IPCC AR4 Ch.4 covers “Changes in Snow, Ice and Frozen Ground”
[Link 1: IPCC AR4 Ch.4]
There is no mention in the reference list to either Scoresby or Bartlett.
A chart on p.352 shows northern hemisphere sea ice extent back to 1860 (data from the Hadley Centre Sea Ice and Sea Surface Temperature Data Set). This shows strong annual fluctuations from 9 to 15 million square kilometers and a general downward trend since 1860, with no visible acceleration in the late 20th century.
IPCC does not mention the 2006 Chylek study, “Greenland warming of 1920-1930 and 1995-2005”
[Link 2: Chylek study]:
This study concluded:
We find that the current Greenland warming is not unprecedented in recent Greenland history. Temperature increases in the two warming periods are of a similar magnitude, however, the rate of warming in 1920-1930 was about 50% higher than that in 1995 – 2005.
It also does not mention the 2006 ice core study on Arctic sea ice extent in the period 1130-1300 by Grinsted et al, which concluded:
[Link 3: Grinsted study]
The degree of summer melt was significantly larger during the period 1130–1300 than in the 1990s.
It looks like there is a lot of information on earlier periods of Arctic ice melting, which IPCC has either overlooked or considered unimportant.
Lots of luck on your study.
Regards,
Max
Link 2: Chylek study:
http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/Chylek/greenland_warming.html
Link 3 Grinsted study
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006/2005JD006494.shtml
Hi Peter,
Here’s a model study entitled: “Evaluation of surface air temperature change due to the greenhouse gases increase with a statistical-dynamical model.”
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2005/2004JD005679.shtml
[Caveat: This is a model study, to be compared with actual physical observations, where possible, and to be taken with a grain of salt.]
The study investigates:
The study concludes:
So we will have a total greenhouse temperature increase by year 2100 of 0.59°C (of which 0.49°C is from CO2), at “the highest greenhouse level scenario”.
Ho-hum! Let’s shut down IPCC and forget about “mitigation” steps.
Regards,
Max
Max
The question now is: will IPCC modify their model assumptions on clouds to include this new, improved modeling method (and thereby put themselves out of business)?
That is a rhetorical question, I take it.. :-)
JamesP
Yes.
Max
Max
Thanks for this. Ok, I have the studies made at the time-including an 1817 book-and further reports throughout the period to 1905, including numerous actual studies and physical taking of temperatures, wind speeds etc made by dozens of expeditions .
They had identified by 1817 the fact that the gulf stream fundamentally affects ice levels. Something a new book out this year by a former director of a major ice institute has put forward as a new theory. What have we been doing for the last 200 years? Where are all these hundreds of records within the assessment, surely they must be there? I will have a read through the summary.
So we have positively identified from contemporary evidence the period of arctic warming from 1815 to 1860
a similar period of warming from 1920 to 1940. On an oscillation of 60 years. We need to start looking for another period of warming around now
If you hear of anything happening up there you’ll let me know won’t you, as you know how quiet they keep these things :)
Tonyb
Max,
You really don’t know what you are talking about. You have previously used values of around 0.8K/W/m^2 for the conversion between climate forcing, when it suited you for solar effects, but now, with CO2, you’ve divided that by a factor of four for the conversion between climate forcing and temperature.
You obviously have a bit of a problem with this conversion factor which is why you are now trying to cloud the issue with excessively complicated calculations, and why previously you missed out this step altogether, hoping that no-one would notice.
Some simple unloaded questions for you:
Do you think that solar forcings produce the same warming as CO2 forcings? Both, say, of 1W/m^2. What would you say that was in degK/W/m^2?
Or is it more? If so, please give reasons for your answer?
Hi Max
I thought you would be interested in this.
I referred in #6733 to an new book which states that the gulf stream may be responsible for melting of ice (together with other factors) something already known in 1817. That link is here with an abstract
http://www.arctic-heats-up.com/chapter_7.html
“Although Polyakov et al. meanwhile published their recent findings:
We document through the analysis of 2002-2005 observational data the recent Atlantic Water (AW) warming along the Siberian continental margin due to several AW warm impulses that penetrated into the Arctic Ocean through Fram Strait in 1999-2000. The AW temperature record from our long-term monitoring site in the northern Laptev Sea shows several events of rapid AW temperature increase totalling 0.8oC in February-August 2004. We hypothesize the along-margin spreading of this warmer anomaly has disrupted the downstream thermal equilibrium of the late 1990s to earlier 2000s. (Polyakov, 2008);”
Comment by author:
“It is astonishing a bit that the early Arctic warming has never seriously been evaluated in conjunction with the warm Atlantic Water branch before or at the time it enters the Polar Sea.”
So IPCC do not mention the gulf stream and the study above was too late to get into the latest assessment even though the information has been around for nearly 200 years.
I read again the full IPCC section on arctic ice in Assessment 4.
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter4.pdf
Go to p352 picture 4.10 which shows a steady decline in ice since since 1860. It picks up the considerable decline I cite from 1920 to 1940, but you will note the graph (from Hadley!)starts at the exact time I said the ice was increasing again-1860!
So if you were to put that sharp dip from 1815 to 1860 into the graph it would put the 60 year oscillations into a better context and the entire series would not be seen as a steady decline at all, but a series of peaks and troughs.
Even the observed figures back to 1860 are not given much weight as the trends are modelled (surprise surprise)
Would be interested in your comments.
Tonyb
Max,
Sorry, the way I phrased my 6735 makes it sound as If I did not read your earlier post! I read P352 and the chart 4.10 due to your comment.
The chart fails to show the lessening of ice prior to 1860. This distorts the context in the same way that land based temperatures are distorted by starting at a cold period and not extrapolating to the warm period preceding it.
tonyb
Max, Reur 6726 to Peter Martin, you wrote amongst other things:
Max, I congratulate you on your continued tolerance of Pete, but are you really surprised by this newest packet of his dumb alarmist statements? As far as I can see it is just typical of him making a wide range of scientific/mathematical type assertions on things, where clearly he lacks any expertise to make such assertions.
WHY he exerts his arrogant attitudes in this way, is what continues to surprises me, and I’m ever more suspecting that he is simply a troll. I have even speculated if he might be preparing to write a book, and he might be playing the diabolos, in order to be fed material for his book. (I have even wondered if he might be a frustrated librarian!) Another possibility might be that many of the things that he asserts are based ONLY on his intuition….. Which of course is a very dangerous thing to do in science, especially if you have poor scientific training, as seems to apply to him. However, maybe it just boils down to him being a disciple of RealClimate and the IPPC, wherein even when things are clearly shown to be false therein, they are nevertheless embraced as truths by disciples such as he.
Or maybe it is just that he is a morphed Queenslander?
(and not the sharpest knife in the draw, as he himself has put it)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Quite apart from the recent denials of fact by disciple Pete, here are just a trio of topics that spring immediately to my mind and make me smile:
1) He made some assertions about molecular diffusion WRT to ice core stuff that were perhaps intuitively what he thought to be true, but which were WRONG!
2) He did not understand the difference between PMA and CMA moving average smoothing, and consequently repeatedly published a series of graphs that were WRONG, despite the nature of his wrongness being repeatedly explained to him.
3) Not long ago he was very strong on asserting that emotional reports on summer melting sea-ice in the Arctic was the veritable canary of catastrophic AGW. Erh; he seems to have gone rather quiet on this lately!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Oh, and of course, when he has been variously shown to be WRONG on his assertions, he waffles and/or moves to a new topic, without him ever agreeing or apologising for being WRONG!
Hi Peter,
You obviously remain as confused as ever when you write:
The greenhouse calculoation using the Stefan Boltzmann constant for converting dE (change in climate forcing in W/m^2) to dT (corresponding change in temperature) is quite clear. There is no “magic” here Peter. To arbitrarily substitute a multiplier of 0.8 instead of the accepted formula is nothing less than absurd.
I have simply accepted the work of several solar scientists, who have all agreed that around 50% of the warming observed over the 20th century can be attributed to the unusually high level of solar activity (highest is several thousand years). These calculations were all made on the empirical relationship observed between solar activity and temperature, starting with pre-industrial periods of very much lower solar activity and temperature.
We know that the direct solar irradiance is only a small portion of the actually observed solar effect on climate; the actual mechanisms for the other factors are as yet not well defined, although there are several theories, including that of Svensmark, with his cosmic ray / cloud hypothesis, now being tested on a large scale at CERN.
Peter, you are confusing two totally separate things. Let us not confuse the poorly understood total solar impact on climate (IPCC admits that its “level of scientific understanding” of solar influence on climate is “low”) with the greenhouse calculation, which is quite specific.
All estimates of the 2xCO2 greenhouse effect (the seven equations, which I cited) agree that this is around 1°C, as I have shown you earlier. To come up with a “home-made” Peter formula with a “plug number” to make this come out 3°C is silly.
Don’t try “funny number” calculations to prove a point, Peter. It will always backfire on you.
Regards,
Max
Hi Peter,
I have noticed that when you are losing a debate, you tend to change the subject and, even better, pose irrelevant questions, in an attempt to sidetrack the discussion away from the topic of discussion, where you are losing.
I covered the pertinent portion of your #6734 in my earlier post, but will humor you along on your attempted sidetrack.
We were talking about the 2xCO2 greenhouse impact, which you erroneous put at three times the value calculated using seven (slightly different) theoretical equations, which agree, on average, that it is 1°C, based on a change in forcing of about 3.7 W/m^2.
You put in a conjured up “plug number” equation to make this come out 3°C, which I shot down as absurd.
So then you reverted to your “waffle” technique by asking me:
My response:
Several solar scientists have, indeed, estimated that 50% of the observed 20th century warming (0.65°C according to Hadley and IPCC) can be attributed to the unusually high level of solar activity, which they define as the highest in several thousand years.
So yes, based on these several studies I would agree that (over the 20th century) “solar forcings [have] produce[d] the same warming as CO2 forcings”.
From around 290 ppmv CO2 in 1901 to 369 ppmv in 2000, the theoretical greenhouse CO2 radiative forcing was 1.29 W/m^2, for a temperature increase of 0.34°C, or roughly half of the total observed 20th century warming.
The total observed 20th century solar forcing and warming appears to have been in the same order of magnitude.
Regards,
Max
Hi Bob_FJ
You question what motivates Peter to continue to defend his belief that AGW is a serious threat.
Is he simply a troll?
Or is he a truly convinced believer?
Based on his behavior on this site, I think he is a true believer (a) in the premise that AGW is a serious threat and (b) that the world’s governments must join in serious action as soon as possible in order to mitigate against the otherwise disastrous consequences.
Now to the second part:
(a) Is Peter physically able to see or recognize facts, which tend to disprove some part of his belief?
(b) Does he simply ignore these facts by sticking his head in the sand and denying their existence?
(c) Does he write them off as irrelevant or (better yet) as not “really” saying what they say?
(d) Does he twist them to fit his belief systems?
(e) Does he, in the worst case, simply walk away from the discussion by introducing totally irrelevant new topics of discussion to divert from the unpleasant facts?
Or is it a combination of all of the above reactions?
I have observed ALL of these reactions in Peter’s behavior on this site.
The many solar studies, which showed that half of the 20th century warming could be attributed to the unusually high level of solar activity were very difficult for Peter to recognize (or even see).
Here he also tried the tactic of twisting what the studies said to fit his personal belief on what they should have said.
The logarithmic (or near-logarithmic) relation between CO2 and temperature was clearly demonstrated by seven different theoretical equations, which agreed, on average, that a 2xCO2 temperature impact (from 280 to 560 ppmv) would be around 1°C. Here, Peter’s reaction was simply to sticking his head in the sand (and coming up with his very own equation, which resulted in a 2xCO2 impact of 3°C).
He showed the same reaction to the many reports, cited by several posters here, that the NW passage has been open to ships many times in the past (prior to major greenhouse warming from CO2).
Peter probably still believes that the oceans must be warming, simply ignoring the results of the Argo measurements, which show a net cooling since they started in 2003, as he probably still also believes the myth that it is easier to predict 100 years in advance than 10 or even 1, again ignoring all the evidence to the contrary.
Peter has simply ignored the Norris study, which showed an overall negative net cloud feedback of –0.8 W/m^2°K.
Yet with the Spencer study, he has not ignored it but just said that it “really” does not say what it says (namely that the net feedback from clouds is strongly negative).
On one occasion I have seen him actually accept an alternate explanation for something (beside the greenhouse effect), and that was the fact that the lapse rate is driven by adiabatic processes well described by the Ideal Gas Law rather than by greenhouse effects from CO2, etc. (But, even here, he still believes that the GHE plays a role, but maybe not the most important one.)
And, of course, his waffles, diversions and sidetracks have become a famous “trade mark” on this site.
So I believe the approach used varies from case to case, but the net result is the same.
A firmly held belief can easily become an ingrained fixation.
As with religious beliefs, it no longer requires logical justification based on rational analysis.
It is so simply because it is so.
This can be rationalized with statements such as “it’s written in the Bible”, “it’s written in the IPCC report”, “the prophets (or computer models) have said so” or “a majority consensus of mainstream scientific opinion supports it”.
To a rational skeptic these statements are incongruous and meaningless.
But anything that could logically question the ingrained belief must be rejected as a basic threat.
Do not look for any admissions of (or apologies for) being “wrong” or on agreement that any part of the mantra may be based on erroneous data. It will not come from Peter. He knows what is right and he will not change this firmly held belief one iota, no matter what facts are brought before him.
But it is fun (and challenging) debating the whole issued with him anyway.
Regards,
Max
Max,
No you still haven’t grasped the point I’m making. You still don’t know what you are talking about.
You’ve just converted 3.7W/m^2 of CO2 forcing to be a warming of 0.9 degC.
You probably won’t get the right answer on your calculator but that works out at:
0.24 degC rise for every W/m^2 of climate forcing as applied to CO2.
However you have previously quoted a figure of over 0.8 degC of warming for every W/m^2 of climate forcing as applied solar effects. That is over three times as high.
So why the difference?
Is it that you so stupid that you can’t see that this is just not the correct way of interpreting the relative effects of GHGs and solar changes? Or, is it that you just don’t care what is, or is not, correct in your campaign of disinformation ?
BTW, Bob, there is another set of long-term physical observations that Peter has been unable to see (or recognize): the NOAA record on atmospheric specific humidity (= water vapor content) trend from 1948 to 2008, which clearly shows a decreasing trend over the entire time period with an apparent slight acceleration in the downward trend from around 1980 to today, exactly the period during which IPCC states (IPCC SPM 2007 p.5) “The average atmospheric water vapour content has increased since at least the 1980s over land and ocean as well as in the upper troposphere”.
For if Peter were to see (or recognize) this observed data, he would have to question seriously the IPCC claim (and climate model assumption) that (in the future) relative humidity will remain constant with warming (= water vapor content will rise significantly) thereby resulting in a strongly positive water vapor feedback.
But I do not expect him to recognize or physically see this data for exactly that reason.
Max
Hi Peter,
This sidetrack is becoming a bit tedious, as I have already explained this to you twice, but still you go on with a hypothetical question (that has nothing to do with our discussion of the CO2 greenhouse effect):
Calm down with the rhetoric, Peter. Calling someone “stupid” truly does not make you sound more intelligent. Nor does the silly accusation of a “campaign of disinformation”.
But here goes (for the third time) anyway:
Several studies by solar scientists attribute half of the 20th century warming (or on average, 0.35°C) to the unusually high level of solar activity.
Hadley tells us the entire 20th century warming was 0.65°C.
This leaves around half or 0.33°C for all other forcing factors; let us assume this warming is all attributable to increased CO2.
Using the greenhouse equations and a 2xCO2 impact of 1°C we calculate a theoretical 20th century warming from CO2 of 0.34°C.
This is a very close check.
How did the various solar experts figure out the 0.35°C average 20th century warming? Ask them, Peter. Not me.
From reading the studies I conclude they did this based on the empirical warming ratios seen from pre-industrial periods of very low solar activity and very low temperatures as compared to later pre-industrial periods during which both solar activity and temperatures were much higher.
I can accept the premise that directly measurable solar irradiation is only a small part of the total solar forcing impact. Can you?
At any rate, this all has very little to do with our discussion on the 2xCO2 climate sensitivity of around 1°C, which appears to have been confirmed by the actual 20th century trends on both temperature and atmospheric CO2 content.
And this was where our whole longwinded discussion on all this started:
I asked you simply why the projected future warming from added CO2 should occur at a rate per CO2 increase, which is three times as high as what we have actually observed to date?
A simple question to which I have yet to receive a simple answer from you.
Regards,
Max
Hi Max, this crossed your related 6742 & 6740, which I doubt if I will be able to read until tomorrow local time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Max, perhaps I should expand on my 6367, where I wrote in part of Peter Martin:
Deep disciples of “The Book” of the “Chosen Peoples“, include many that are unwavering in their belief, that the Grand Canyon, (for example), was formed about 4,000 years ago by some 40 days of rain, known as the Great Flood. (just like what the Sumerians described a good bit earlier)
However, here is a pictorial of the sedimentary layers, exposed by immense erosion (courtesy of the Colorado River etc), in the Grand Canyon:
http://www.bobspixels.com/kaibab.org/geology/gc_geol.jpg
And here is a word description (from another site) of those sedimentary layers each of which have absolutely proven different paleo-geological-biological (fossil) origins, over aeons of time, :
Kaibab Limestone: 300 feet thick, formed in a marine environment. Fossils include molluscs, crinoids, and brachiopods.
Toroweap formation: 200 feet thick, varying from predominantly sandstone to limestone.
Coconino Sandstone, 50-300 feet thick. Sandstone formed from desert sand dunes. Numerous reptile tracks preserved in the sandstone.
Hermit Shale: 300 feet thick. Siltstones formed from deposits in swamps and lagoons.
Supai group: 600-700 feet thick; plant fossils indicate a depositional environment that was low and swampy. Abundant evidence of cross bedding.
Redwall Limestone: 400-650 feet thick. Abundant fossil evidence of crinoids, brachiopods, bryozoans typical of a warm, shallow clear ocean.
Temple Butte Limestone: 100-1000 feet thick. Limestone converted to dolomite.
Mauv Limestone: 150-800 feet thick. Limestone with green micaceous siltstones.
Bright Angel shale: 250-450 feet thick. Shaly green mudstones, with some fine grained sandstones. Many fossils of trilobites, brachiopods, and worms. Gradual transition to overlying Mauv Limestone.
Tapeats Sandstone: 100-300 feet thick. Formed from coastal sand dunes.
Grand Canyon Supergroup: 15,000 feet thick. Angled layers (10 to 15 degrees) of sedimentary rock and interbedded lavas eroded to a horizontal surface prior the deposition of the Tapeats Sandstone.
The immensity of all this becomes more evident in the following image which shows that the Brice Canyon, with its many younger sedimentary layers lies ABOVE the Grand Canyon!
http://www.bobspixels.com/kaibab.org/geology/tcolplat.gif
Yet, the creationists et al, insist that the erosion all happened a mere ~4,000 years ago, in a few days, and that is ignoring how the sedimentary layers got there beforehand!
I feel that Peter Martin’s worship of RealClimate, and the IPCC, has a similar (totally baffling) religious quality! Bugger the facts!
the erosion all happened a mere ~4,000 years ago
No, no – it was all put there, just for our benefit! The fossils were put there, too, to test the faith of the believers and to keep the rest of us occupied (and no doubt to annoy a few bloggers).
Bob_FJ and JamesP
You have both written about fundamentalist believers in ridiculous theories about a 6,000 year old planet Earth.
These true “believers” obviously have faith in their belief.
Doomsday cultists of many kinds fit into this category as well.
They will accept any bit of real or imagined evidence that their belief is correct and will ignore any evidence that it is false.
The ideal “belief” is a premise that can neither be proven or disproven by scientific experiments or actual physical observations, such as the premise that AGW is a real and serious threat.
Usually the doomsday cultist leaves a glimmer of hope: if we all repent now we may be able to stop the disaster that will otherwise destroy us all.
Many of the fundamentalist doomsday cultists preach that only those who believe in their own peculiar belief will be saved.
This could be the wrath of the almighty power because of our sinfulness and the punishment of a great flood that kills almost all of mankind (except for a few who repented in time), with the stern warning to the survivors that “it won’t be water but fire next time”.
The scare could well be used by those in power (the Church, the rulers) to frighten the populace to toe the party line.
Or it could be today’s AGW doomsday cult, where Mother Nature herself will destroy us all with oppressive heat and climate disasters too fierce to mention to punish us for our sin of industrialization and wanton consumption of fossil fuels, unless we all repent now and “mitigate”.
This could be used by those in power to convince everyone that paying an oppressive carbon tax is better than facing a certain disaster, much as the ones in power have used scare mongering before.
The specter of a mushroom cloud “smoking gun” to convince Americans that a war in Iraq was necessary to avert this disaster (from a US President) is not much different from the specter of six-meter waves swallowing New York City to convince the world that a draconian carbon tax must be implemented to save us all from ourselves (from the politician that ran against this US President and narrowly lost).
It is the old gambit of those in power using fear mongering to convince the populace to agree to an unpleasant policy in order to be saved from an impending menace (as Mencken has described so succinctly).
Some of the “climate scientists” that are supporting this circus are in it “for the ride” (and tax-payer funded grants) but the individuals who inadvertently support the ones in power by blindly believing the doomsday story are the real suckers here.
Their fear supports the political agenda of the powerful, as it has done throughout the past.
These are just my thoughts on all this, as a rational skeptic of this whole circus.
Max
I quite agree, Max. The parallels are quite striking, although I’ve only lately come to appreciate them. One only has to spend a short time on a warmist blog (reading, let alone contributing!) to get a flavour of the fundamentalism. This is amusing if you can be detached about it, but scary if you can’t.
I’m pinning some hope on the likely crop shortage/failure to bring the cooling trend to public attention and get a more sceptical view into the MSM. We shall all be told that it’s weather-not-climate, of course, but I’m not sure the public will buy that in the long term.
Max,
This is not a sidetrack. For several posts previously you had been pestering me to answer a series of loaded questions. OK. If we are goung to do it, lets do it properly. If you remember, you made a claim about a series of equations.
Never mind about the IPCC. Never mind about the vaious “solar experts”. It sounds very lame to say “ask them not me”. I am asking what you understand about the relationship between solar and GHG forcing. Do you, or do you not, comprehend that the same forcing produces the same warming in both cases?
I’m doing my best to answer your questions but if you won’t tell me what you can and cannot understand, it makes it quite difficult. So please, just tick one the statements below:
a) Yes I do understand that solar and GHG forcing, in terms of watts per square metre, produce the same warming.
b) No I do not understand this
c) Solar forcing, as I have previously indicated, causes over three times as much warming as GHG forcing. This is not generally accepted by the scientific consensus but is true for the following reasons……………
Lets be charitable, maybe you do know something that the rest of the scientifc world doesn’t, maybe you do know what you are talking about and you aren’t just an ignorant buffoon.
Now is the time to prove it.
As I’ve said many times before, in the unlikely event that the dangerous AGW proponents are right, international politics make a “solution” impossible. This article from the Guardian explains why. Here are a few extracts:
We all know – it ain’t gonna happen.
Hi Peter
Yes, Peter, your approach is a sidetrack.
I have shown you several independent sources of data that all show that the model-assumed 2xCO2 climate sensitivity is not supported by the physically observed facts. I have asked you to comment on this dilemmaa.
You have denied the observed facts, waffled, weaseled and danced around these straightforward questions for several weeks now without answering the questions themselves or resolving the basic dilemma.
Now you have sidetracked away from CO2 greenhouse effect to the solar impact.
I will answer your trick question (which has nothing to do directly with our topic of exaggerated CO2 forcing as projected by IPCC).
But I do this with the one condition that you then answer my three questions below to your sidetrack topic and then that you:
ANSWER MY PREVIOUS QUESTIONS.
a) Yes I do understand that solar and GHG forcing, in terms of watts per square metre, produce the same warming.
Questions b) and c) have become redundant with my answer to question a).
In fact, that is exactly what the studies by several solar scientists showed for the 20th century. These studies were based on empirical comparisons of pre-industrial periods of very low solar activity and temperature with pre-industrial periods of higher solar activity and pressure.
What I also understand is that there are solar effects other that the direct solar irradiation, which cannot be measured today.
I also understand that there are several different hypotheses for how these other solar mechanisms work.
One of these is the cosmic ray / cloud link proposed by Svensmark and others, which has been validated on a small laboratory scale but will still be tested at a larger scale as the CLOUD experiment at CERN. This work may explain a mechanism for some of the observed solar warming that cannot be attributed directly to direct solar irradiation, thereby explaining how the sun has a much higher observed impact than that which can be measured by direct solar irradiance alone.
Now some questions to you:
(a) Yes, I understand that several solar studies have attributed (on average) 50% of the total warming experienced over the 20th century to the unusually high level of solar activity.
Note: Answering question a) by simply denying the existence of theses studies or their conclusions is not an acceptable answer.
(b) No, I do not understand these studies. I conclude that they must be incorrect.
(c) My reason for stating that these solar scientists have all gotten it wrong is: (give actual scientific reasoning and logic, and not simply a statement that “the consensus (or IPCC) agrees that the conclusion of these reports are invalid”.
(d) My reason for categorically declining the hypothesis of Svensmark et al. is: (give actual scientific reasoning and logic, and not simply a statement that “the consensus (or IPCC) agrees that this hypothesis in invalid”.
Ball back to you, Peter.
Regards,
Max