Mar 172008

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.”

  1. Max (6898)

    I’ve worked in greenhouses growing tomatoes where the CO2 level has been raised to well over 1000ppm. You wouldn’t know if you didn’t measure it.

    The tomatoes love it, of course.

  2. After Sunstein last week (see this) the Spectator this week has, as its main item, an interview with Professor Ian Plimer. Worth reading – as are the comments. One, in particular, struck me: from “John of Canberra”, it said

    Here in Australia there has been a repellent effort to censor him by the AGW fashionistas in the moralising latte set and “our ABC” has been openly hostile. This even extended to some book chains not stocking his book

    Surely that isn’t true?

  3. My apologies for monopolising this thread in recent days. (Where is everyone else? Hello.)

    Hey guys.

    Back from vacation……Spent a little over two weeks in the great Pacific Northwest, (Idaho/Montana/Washington State).

    BEAUTIFUL country there………

    Speaking with the locals they’ve had two record breaking (cold/snowy) winters in a row due to the fearsome rise in CO2 and the insidious effects of global warming that will, without doubt, cook our planet to a cinder unless we absolutely raise taxes to the 95% range. Our host on this trip reports 5 feet of snow (on the flat areas) last winter. Wow….

    It’ll take a while to catch up as Mrs. Brute forbade me from touching a computer terminal or even watching any news on television.

  4. Welcome back, Brute.

    You are right. The Northwest USA is beautiful country. Many years ago I was lucky enough to live in Spokane, WA for a year, and I visited Idaho and Montana.

    A few years ago I went back with Mrs. Max, and she loved the region, as well. That was in late June (2001) and the road through Glacier Park was still closed at the top due to snow.

    Understand that the last two years have been even snowier (due to the disastrous effects of AGW), so I suppose that the road across Glacier Park may still be closed due to snow.

    Regards,

    Max

  5. ALL, esp. Max:
    Now here is a mysterious thing over at RC!
    The latest post on “Groundhog Day”, as seen on my computer is this, dated 7 July. It has not been possible for me to post there since then, because the comments box has been absent. (with three in my queue)
    At the top of Gavin’s lead article is this note:
    Technical Note: We have just upgraded the blog software. It looks ok, but please let us know (contrib -at- realclimate.org) if there are any problems. Update: we are having some performance issues and some functionality may be disabled.
    However, other threads at RC have been proceeding apparently without any interruption, e.g. see a post here from Brute’s buddy Benson, dated 10 July. (on that thread, the comments box appears, including my remembered ID and Email.
    I get the same result with my laptop, which of course has a different IP, although its IP also should typically identify the same geographical location. As far as I can remember, I’ve never logged-in any kind of personal ID with that computer, at RC, but I could be wrong.

    Max, anyone, could you please click the Groundhog link, and let me know if you see anything different, like any post higher than # 1071, or the presence of a comments box.

  6. Just going on holiday (to Switzerland) for a couple of weeks so won’t be touching a computer. Or probably won’t…

    Tonyb

  7. ALL; I recently saw someone somewhere getting very excited about a dramatic return of sunspots and solar flairs, although I don’t see anything dramatic in the current real-time SOHO images. In trying to go back and rediscover that article for comment, I came across this lovely post within a quite interesting blog, which I think is worth exploring if you have some spare time:

    by blueg3… … on Tuesday July 07
    My density is fairly close to that of water, just like everyone else. I do have a degree in physics, though, if that helps.

  8. Bob:

    Robin has an interesting comment here. Have you seen anything about Australian bookshop chains not stocking the Plimer book? If true, it would be very interesting.

  9. TonyN Reur 6908:

    Yes, I agree that Robin’s comment 6902 is very interesting, as all of his comments are.

    However, I’m disappointed that APPARENTLY you do not find my earlier 6905, of interest.
    Was it too much effort to click that link and check it out for me as asked?
    Sorry, maybe I’m feeling over niggly that I’m blocked from placing the following three posts, and a planned fourth that developmentally might have been VERY inconvenient for the RC fan club.
    ~~~1~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    James 1052:
    You quoted just one point from my 1046: “d) Do you believe that it is a common perception of people at large that the sun does NOT have uniform brightness across what appears to be a flat disc?”
    And, you responded with:
    Do you know many people who look directly at the sun? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limb_darkening for an overview, or if you care to see for yourself, pick a somewhat hazy/smoky day when the sun is just setting, so you can look at it, and you should be able to see the limb darkening for yourself.

    The Wiki’ article is interesting, but please find that the image portraying darkening is of low definition at only 9.65 KB
    If you are interested in a better quality image, go to the SOHO MDI Continuum giving more visual detail at 151 KB, or, if you like, click for the 657 KB alternative, but be prepared to be surprised:
    http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_igr/512/
    May I suggest that this SOHO image is for real,** but far superior in detail than any human eyeball job, and that limb darkening is not a big deal in that context. (of human perception on the ground, simply using eye protection.)
    Incidentally, I find it difficult to avoid a suspicion that the much broader “porcelain” grading of alleged darkening in the Wiki’ image, compared to SOHO, is probably artwork employed to exaggerate the account.

    As for looking at the setting sun on a hazy/smoky day, I would suggest that if you think that you can see peripheral darkening, that you then need to consider what is it that you are actually seeing. Maybe there is some other stuff going on such as halo effects? I’m not sure, and cannot recall such an impression that you describe. Certainly, you would be looking through a complex diffuser, rather than a non-distorting optical screen, which is a tad dodgy.

    **, info pasted from the SOHO website:
    The MDI (Michelson Doppler Imager) images shown here are taken in the continuum near the Ni I 6768 Angstrom line. The most prominent features are the sunspots. This is very much how the Sun looks like in the visible range of the spectrum (for example, looking at it using special ‘eclipse’ glasses: Remember, do not ever look directly at the Sun!).

    BTW; you may find some of the other images in non-visible light etc, to be interesting.
    ~~~2~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Patrick 027, further to limb darkening XXXX;
    Looking at the SOHO MDI image, I notice that the area of limb darkening is maybe arguably similar in darkness, to the “small” darkest areas in the granulation. (but more concentrated). It makes sense to me, that the cells are probably three dimensional, and that the outer or upper parts should be colder than in the depths. Thus, it might be that towards the limb, it may not be possible to see down into the depths of the cells, meaning that there should be a greater concentration of the visible darker parts remaining in view. (This consideration being fundamentally depth dependent…. putting aside opacity and whatnot).

    I’m just curious; do you have any thoughts or handy references to clarify it?

    PS, zooming out 400% on my large TV monitor on the larger of the two SOHO options leaves me with an impression that there is a lessening of the bright parts in the granulation, (cells), rather than a darkening of the dark parts, approaching the limb. (although this starts somewhat closer to it than I anticipated, unless optically the cells are “shallower“ than I would think?)
    ~~~3~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Patrick 027, Reur 1071:
    There are a lot of things to discuss in your 1071 , but let’s just take in paraphrase your statement “Thermal EMR is considered to be HEAT”:

    1) Here is a simple analogy, comparing ELECTRICITY to EMR:
    Hold an electrical resistor in your hand, and pass a suitable significant current through it. Can you “feel the electricity”? No, I jest; it is heat, of course. What you sense is electrical energy that has been converted to heat, via its “absorption” of electrons in the resistor. (and then fundamentally via contact conduction into your hand, and maybe a tad of radiation etc if some non-contact airspace is involved).
    2) Now, expose some of your skin to adequate sunlight, and you should experience a similar sensation. The sunlight, (EMR) will be converted to heat by a somewhat similar process. (in this case via dermal molecular absorption of photons)
    In climatology, as far as I’m aware, this ~6,000K* EMR is not generally “considered as heat”, and indeed is described as reflected, scattered, or absorbed etc in Earth’s energy budget diagrams. (and therefore it cannot be HEAT, which for instance cannot be reflected)
    3) Next in what you wrote is where as an engineer (retired), I start to get goose pimples: Thermal radiation! This I understand to be a colloquial description for EMR from matter energised at just a few hundred degrees K, or in the infrared, and which as you say, is “considered to be HEAT”, by some practitioners in climatology.
    I’m sorry, but no, it is not heat; full stop, period, wrong.
    4) What is more, the only fundamental difference between the EMR processes in 2) and 3) is the hotness of the matter from which the EMR is emitted. Yet, oddly, the colder of the two is called ‘thermal’, whereas that of the very much hotter (star) is not thermal! I submit that this colloquial (?) treatment is capable of, and does; cause misunderstandings.
    5) BTW, in the analogy 1), if an appropriate voltage for the experiment is say 200 volts across the resistor, then the identical result would be obtained, if there were two opposing EMF’s of 400 volts and 600 volts across that same resistor, AOTBE. (including phasing if AC)….

    But; more on energy PD’s later…. End of part 1.

  10. Bob:
    Bob:

    You are quite correct, I am not interested in your compliaints about Gavin Schmidt’s modereation policy. You are not the first to have such problems and there is no reason to think that you will be the last. Nor do I particularly want quantities of comments that have been rejected by RC recycled here.

    When you are feeling more cheerful, a civil answer to my question would be welcome.

  11. TonyN, Re Ian Plimer,
    I’ve not heard of the problem that concerns you, but that may simply be that I have not been listening.

    That may seem paradoxical, so let me explain;
    I’ve been an admirer of Plimer for many years, and I’ve recommended his book “Telling Lies for God”, and have long followed his forays on AGW.
    However, I do not feel the need to buy his book, or to be further convinced that AGW is hype.
    Neither have I been interested (or listened to) in any hostilities surrounding it.
    I suspect that I could go through his book and pull-out a few lines here and there, misrepresent the context, and tear it to shreds.
    Thus, neither am I interested in any “expert” criticism of it.
    In other words I’ve been switched-off, and may be unaware of some of the hostilities.

    It should ensure increased sales though?

  12. TonyN, Re RC,
    BTW, I was not complaining about Gavin’s moderation policy. In fact I’ve expressed surprise that it is fairer than I expected. Neither have my three posts been rejected by RC and recycled here.
    I was merely seeking assistance in trying to understand why I was unable to post them there; that being strangely different. (probably/possibly?)
    Meanwhile, I thought that those posts might be interesting to some here, e.g. Max

  13. Bob:

    Re: Plimer

    It should ensure increased sales though?

    Good point!

  14. Hello all,

    Sorry I’ve been conspicuous in my absence from these pages. I’ve been involved in a significant project, and haven’t had the time to reply, and only sparsely skim the posts.

    Robin, I saw your post wondering what has happened over here with our lovely climate bill, known affectionately as Cap and Trade. Since I have no ‘numbers to crunch’ and only general observations to offer right now (no clever links or charts either), may I comment on some of the things I’ve observed?

    Cap and trade: It looks like SOMETHING will pass here, though support for it is low at best among the people. With unemployment over 10% here in California, and the state broke and issuing IOU’s, most people just want to get life and the economy back to something normal. The idea that more taxes, more regulation, and less options for economic recovery by way of ‘green’ taxes is not a popular one with average people.

    Here in California, we had a special election in May or June, wherein the Governator and our state legislature wanted us to approve more taxes to get us out of the (now) $26 billion hole in the state budget. All the propositions were defeated soundly; the message to government was clear: cut spending, DON’T raise taxes.

    I am confident that the same feeling pervades the electorate across the USA, and the Democrats will pass Cap and Trade to their political peril. What little chance we have to recover from the financial crisis will evaporate like a cup of water thrown on a fully-involved house fire.

    More importantly, the Chinese and Indians will NEVER agree to cap their own emissions, and yet, my government tells me I must accept a lower standard of living to save the planet.

    My prediction: Cap and Trade will pass here in the USA. The economy, just showing signs of life, will quickly drop again. Unemployment will rise further, the people will grow even more angry, and the Democrats lose control of the senate in 2010, and their majority in the US House shrinks considerably.

  15. Bob_FJ

    Re ur query RC Groundhog blog.

    Underneath the lead Groundhog article click on “comments (pop-up) (1,071).

    You will see all the comments listed.

    Scroll to the bottom (last comment by Patrick 027 0n 7 July) and you will see the sentence by the site moderator:

    Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.

    Max

  16. Max, Reur 6915

    Thanks; Yes, I have seen the footnote on the “pop-ups” listing:
    Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
    However, this is a conditional statement quite unlike the usual:
    Comments are now closed
    And, in the context of the header note of:
    We have just upgraded the blog software… …we are having some performance issues and some functionality may be disabled.
    And, absence of such closure comment on the blog itself, I did not read this as meaning that the thread was permanently closed.

    But thanks, you have answered no to the question; does anyone see anything different to what I see on my computer? (Therefore it has not been targeted to stop me from posting)

  17. I came across this yesterday. On 16 May 2007, the New Scientist published a rebuttal of 26 “discredited arguments or wild theories” made by “climate change deniers”. One of them was “We can’t trust computer models.” Here’s part of the New Scientist‘s rebuttal:

    A lot of trading in the financial markets is already carried out by computers. Many base their decisions on fairly simple algorithms designed to exploit tiny profit margins, but others rely on more sophisticated long-term models.

    Major financial institutions are investing huge amounts in automated trading systems, the proportion of trading carried out by computers is growing rapidly and a few individuals have made a fortune from them. The smart money is being bet on computer models.

    So that’s OK then.

  18. In the UK, we are facing a most extraordinary situation. On Wednesday, Ed Miliband (our – hmm – “Energy and Climate Change Secretary”) will introduce a White Paper requiring us to build 7,000 gigantic offshore wind turbines by 2020. That is, two per day – a practical impossibility. The cost of this vast enterprise will be recovered by a huge levy on our already dreadful energy bills. Yet this absurd scheme is based on no more than an unverified hypothesis.

  19. Robin:

    Even the BBC has had to change its tune on this one. Contrast this story put up on 1st July:

    Wind ‘can revloutionise UK power’

    With this today:

    Energy policy ‘too wind focused’

    The Poyry report was only open to one interpretation, but it seems to have taken the BBC a fortnight to catch on to this.

  20. JZSmith

    You seem to be rather pessimistic on “cap and trade” in the U.S. Senate (i.e. you feel it will probably pass there, despite the fact that the majority of Americans are apparently against it).

    A SoCal paper reports that the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the annual cost of the cap and trade bill will exceed $100 billion by 2020. The article goes on to state that an average family’s utility bill would increase by $700 to $1,000 per year and that 2.3 to 2.7 million U.S. jobs will be lost if the bill were passed and the provisions implemented.
    http://www.dailybulletin.com/ci_12821572

    Another report by U.S. News and World Report states that “Numbers Adding Up Against Obama’s ‘Cap and Trade’ Bill in the Senate”:
    http://www.usnews.com/blogs/peter-roff/2009/07/07/numbers-adding-up-against-obamas-cap-and-trade-bill-in-the-senate.html

    Yet another report by USN&WR states that even the Democrats admit that the bill will be a net “job killer”:
    http://www.usnews.com/blogs/peter-roff/2009/07/06/democrats-admit-that-their-cap-and-trade-bill-is-a-job-killer.html

    I’m a long way from the USA, but it looks like “cap and tax” is losing steam and may just get turned down by the Senate. Apparently the House version was already watered down and loaded up with so much pork that even Hansen has said:
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-james-hansen/g-8-failure-reflects-us-f_b_228597.html

    “The fact is that the climate course set by Waxman-Markey is a disaster course. Their bill is an astoundingly inefficient way to get a tiny reduction of emissions. It’s less than worthless”

    Let’s hope the Senate does not fall into the trap of passing a bad bill that ends up costing the US consumer and taxpayer an arm and a leg, by first loading it up with so much junk that it is no longer recognizable as a tax scam but looks good to everyone.

    But there’s more at stake here than just U.S. politics. If the US Senate kills this bill, Copenhagen will be a funeral ceremony, with both China and India helping to dig the grave of “global climate governance” (as Al Gore has put it).

    But if the U.S. Senate passes “cap and trade” (no matter how watered down and loaded up) it will be the signal that the U.S. “is on board”, and the heat will be put on China and India to join, as well.

    Just my thoughts on this, from far-away Switzerland.

    Max

  21. Robin

    The 2 BBC News reports on UK wind power prospects are interesting.

    However, if you read between the lines of even the first, more optimistic, report, it confirms that the consulting firm, Poyry has said:

    There is no such thing as cheap green power – that is a myth.

    The biggest disadvantage of wind power is that it is as unreliable as the wind, which means that back-up facilities will be needed when there is no wind (or it blows too hard for safe turbine operation).

    Dr Phil Hare from Poyry said these back-up generators might stand idle for years without making a profit – so the government might need to find a new way of ensuring they were funded.

    “Find a new way of ensuring they were funded”. And who will pay for this?

    And even the supporters of wind power are skeptical:

    Dr John Constable, from the Renewable Energy Foundation, said: “The study confirms that while very high levels of uncontrollable renewable generation are theoretically manageable, the practical difficulties are significant, and the cost will be high.

    “Less ambitious levels of wind would almost certainly result in a system which is not only just as clean but is also more robust and affordable.”

    The last sentence was the best. Referring to the fact that wind power will be very expensive, the report states:

    The authors of a report from the Royal Society this week made the same point. But politicians are still reluctant to pass on this message to the public.

    Sounds sort of like, “let’s hide the truth from the poor fools that our not only paying our salaries but will end up paying for this whole charade in the end.” Hmmm…

    Sounds like it’s time for a change of politicians.

    Max

  22. Sorry TonyN

    Those BBC reports were posted by you and not Robin.

  23. Max:

    The white paper will be published on Wednesday and I think that news coverage of this will be quite interesting. Ed Milliband has already been put under pressure in a BBC interview to quantify the cost to consumers and has just dodged the question in a most unconvincing way.

    This could be the time, at last, when the general public begin to realise that a low carbon generating system will not only be very expensive, but very risky.

  24. AGW sceptical stories are not unusual in the Wall Street Journal, but this is quite a blast from the Washington Times.

  25. Note to Brute (and JZSmith)

    Here is a strange story of censorship and apparent duplicity by your EPA.

    Alan Carlin, an EPA scientist, who works in the National Center for Environmental Economics of the EPA, issued a report commenting on the EPA “Technical Support Document”, being used to give scientific credence to AGW as a potential threat in order to support the current administration’s policy agenda on climate change. Carlin’s report was critical of the “science” cited in the TSD, most of which came directly from IPCC reports.

    Carlin’s first draft (issued as an NCEE* report, March 16, 2009)
    “Proposed NCEE Comments on Draft Technical Support Document for Endangerment Analysis for Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Clean Air Act”
    (March 16, 2009)
    *National Center for Environmental Economics
    Office of Policy, Economics and Innovation
    Environmental Protection Agency
    http://cei.org/cei_files/fm/active/0/DOC062509-004.pdf

    This report was squelched by his superior, EPA official Al McGartland, who was apparently told to do so from “higher up”. According to a CBS report (below)

    “Carlin was ordered not to ‘have any direct communication’ with anyone outside his small group at EPA on the topic of climate change, and was informed that his report would not be shared with the agency group working on the topic”

    The e-mail which McGartland sent to Carlin was leaked to the press. It read:

    The time for such discussion of fundamental issues has passed for this round. The administrator and the administration have decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision. I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office.

    A second draft was issued by Carlin as his personal comments.
    “Comments on Draft Technical Support Document for Endangerment Analysis for Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Clean Air Act” by Alan Carlin, NCEE/OPEI
    (March 16, 2009; up-dated June 27, 2009)
    http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/endangermentcommentsv7b1.pdf

    Below is the link to the EPA TSD (Technical Support Document) which Carlin critiques.
    “Technical Support Document for Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act (April 17, 2009)”
    http://epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment/downloads/TSD_Endangerment.pdf

    I’ve gone through the TSD in some detail, and it is essentially a re-hash of IPCC’s AR4 and TAR reports.

    The story:

    “’Suppressed’ Climate Change Report Author Speaks Out on Fox News”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLYTYnO9KZ4

    “An Inconvenient Voice: Dr. Alan Carlin”
    http://blog.heritage.org/2009/06/29/an-inconvenient-voice-dr-alan-carlin/

    “EPA May Have Suppressed Report Skeptical Of Global Warming”
    http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/06/26/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5117890.shtml

    This is a potential “Watergate”.

    You are closer to the scene than I am. Is anything happening to expose this or is it being covered up?

    Max

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