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. Note to Peter and TonyN

    Wow! Looks like my post to Peter on sea ice went through 3 times.

    Sorry for being impatient and loading up the system.

  2. Max,

    Keeping on repeating the same message may convince you but it doesn’t make it right. If I have been misleading then so have the NSIDC. Or maybe you think that Dr Hansen has infiltrated his agents into that organisation to!

    The Wilkins ice sheet can’t be compared to normal sea ice on an area by area basis. It’s about 200 metres thicker!

    You might want to read up on what the professional scientists are actually saying:

    http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/WilkinsIceSheet/

    You’ll probably scoff at this because it’s written by NASA but I don’t think you’ll find that there is any significant disgareement between them, NOAA and NSDIC.

    JZSmith,

    If you are looking for respected US institutions, you don’t need to look any further than NASA. Even those of us who had a bit of a problem with US foreign policy generally since WW2, always had and have a lot of respect for NASA.

  3. Further my 762 & 752, concerning variability in sea-ice cover in the arctic, including Peter Taylor’s discussion on the Beaufort gyre, and submarines visiting the North pole and making surprising observations, (not visible to satellites), etc:

    I’ve drawn-up a chart which aligns summaries of some significant events and observations against the Hadley global average annual temperatures of the time, as published in early 2008. There is quite a variety of non-correlation between some events, and the said published temperatures.

    Refer to the earlier posts for relevant photos and links etc

    http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3046/2706032714_6bffa3fb96_o.png

  4. 450,000 Unsold Earth Day Issues Of Time Trucked To Landfill

    http://www.theonion.com/content/news/450_000_unsold_earth_day_issues_of

  5. July 24, 2008
    Green Fad Finally Running Out of Gas
    Here’s some good news for anyone sick of being force-fed a relentless diet of pernicious environmentalist hogwash:
    Last week, The New York Times noted that the advertising industry is pulling back from green-themed marketing, having “grasped the public’s growing skepticism over ads with environmental messages.
    And advertisers’ concerns are buttressed by the recent sales figures for magazines that have published a “Green Issue” this year. Time’s Earth Day issue was the newsweekly’s third-lowest-selling issue of 2008 so far, according to ABC Rapid Report. A typical issue of Time sells 93,000 or so copies on the newsstand; the April 28 installment, which substituted green for red in the magazine’s trademarked cover design, sold only 72,000. (As usual, The Onion nailed it.)
    Elle’s May issue sold a mere 275,000 copies, versus the title’s year-to-date average of 328,500. The last issue of Elle to sell that badly was in May 2008 — another green issue, probably not coincidentally.
    Discover also published a green issue this year, and also took a hit for it, selling 86,000 newsstand copies, compared to an average of 117,000 in the first half of 2007.
    Look for politicians to figure out sometime around 2012 that everyone stopped listening to bogus global warming sermons in 2008.

    http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/2008/07/green_fad_final.html

  6. That Buzz in Your Ear May Be Green Noise

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/fashion/15green.html?fta=y

  7. Hi Peter,

    “The Wilkins ice sheet can’t be compared to normal sea ice on an area by area basis. It’s about 200 metres thicker!”

    Yeah. And it has not melted, either.

    Max

  8. Peter wrote: “Even those of us who had a bit of a problem with US foreign policy generally since WW2, always had and have a lot of respect for NASA.”

    True. Especially when you are talking about the guys who actually go up into space.

    But, of course, Europeans have their own space agency and there is a lot of cooperation between the two.

    The NASA reputation may be a bit more tarnished when you think of desk-bound scientists who misuse their official position to become political activists (i.e. James E. Hansen). But this is only a small minority.

    But I think a better example is CARE, that was set up in the aftermath of WWII, initially to bring food to war-devastated Europe and now operates in many parts of the world.

    Max

  9. Tony, have you seen this: E.ON’s 2005 wind power report? An extract:

    As wind power capacity rises, the lower availability of the wind farms determines the reliability of the system as a whole to an ever increasing extent. Consequently the greater reliability of traditional power stations becomes increasingly eclipsed.

    As a result, the relative contribution of wind power to the guaranteed capacity of our supply system up to the year 2020 will fall continuously to around 4% (FIGURE 7). In concrete terms, this means that in 2020, with a forecast wind power capacity of over 48,000MW (Source: dena grid study), 2,000MW of traditional power production can be replaced by these wind farms.

    And another:

    However, the grid stabilising effect of traditional power stations would be lost as they are shut down for a variety of reasons, such as age or an increase in other forms of generation. At the same time, in ten years time there will still be a large number of older wind farms in Germany feeding into the grid, which do not have the necessary grid supporting features. There is therefore a risk that even simple grid problems will lead to the sudden failure of over 3,000MW of wind power feed-in. In this case, the reserves maintained in the Integrated European Transmission System, in order to cope with problems, would no longer be adequate to safely tackle such failures.

  10. JZSmith, (& Robin, for your amusement ….and others)
    This is a tardy response to your question on “USA popularity”, because I found it a difficult topic with countless perspectives, and thus “so-what individual viewpoints“. I’m British, remember bits of WW2, have lived in Oz since 1969. I’ve worked in Germany (Cologne) some 18 months in the 1950/60 cusp; also in California Bay Area; Detroit, and Windsor-Canada on >20 trips totalling >three years in the 80’s, and done a few other work-thingies like….Zurich, Torino, many UK returns. (>2 years). I have enjoyed America and Americans, and only ever met one native that I have strongly disliked there. However, I have encountered others amongst a much smaller sample in Spain, UK, and Oz, that I found to be loud and rather objectionable^. If I see GW Bush on TV I squirm, and look away, and I wonder why he and his cronies are not indicted for various crimes…..including Halliburton etc.

    You ask the unanswerable, so let me make an analogy, and end on a lighter note of “what the heck“:

    I had to deal with a “classic Prussian”, in Cologne, who’s favourite depiction of a Bavarian was: When they attack the enemy, they hold their rifle by the end of the barrel, and use the butt as a skull-cruncher. Then; spraying spit, he would “do a Wagner” on how a good Prussian soldier would do it, with demonstrative lunging actions with zee bayonet. This lovely Prussian grudgingly, revealed his Christian name (per Anglo-culture insistence) as Helmut. From there-on, it was unavoidable but to smile when anglicising a greeting to him; “Hi Helmet; not only because of the old Prussian spiked-war-helmet image, but, as Robin would probably recollect, back in those days, helmet also meant “dick-head“, or even maybe wanka. (In my then Hampshire-Essex dialect-culture)

    So what do I think of Germans, (even “Swiss Germans“; Max)? I like them too…..especially those youngish golden-skinned women with their piercing-blue eyes! (not to exclude some other tolerable colour combinations BTW)

    Does that answer your question JZSmith?

    ^ Oddly enough, there was one very unloved LOUD American vice president of manufacturing (exiled to?) in Oz, that remarkably inserted at least one F-swear-word, and various expletives, into every sentence, (most noticeably and very unusually at Board Meetings), with whom I became genuinely friendly. It did help though when he trusted me when I asked him: YOU (manufacturing) fund ME, (in engineering; refused such funds), a computer code-writer for 6-9 months, and WE can solve a BIG problem of common interest. It worked, and we got chatty all over the place, to many raised eyebrows!

  11. In response to Bob__FJ on arctic dynamics – these are my own conclusions from studying the oceanography and atmospherics – but very basic ocean ecology. Polyakov at Fairbanks University is the lead expert on the cycles. I have referenced my analysis at http://www.ethos-uk.com/downloads/climate

    I have tracked north Pacific surface water temperatures over the last 10 years – an anomalous body of warm water built up off Alaska and I suspect this moved north from the equatorial Pacific after the 1998 El Nino. In 2006 this anomaly disappeared – marking the end of the positive Pacific Decadal Oscillation. I thus expected a knock-on effect: Alaska would cool down (not warmed by the westerlies as before) and the temperature difference between the Alaskan shelf and Beaufort Sea would return with cold winds re-activating the gyre (it reverses the cyclone) – this is bound to affect Arctic wind patterns generally, with NASA reporting ‘unusual’ winds (but unusual only in the context of the 30 year warm period). Alaska is already cooling down, as reported, but there will be a time lag – I would guess another year, and then North Atlantic water will blocked and ice will spread further in the Greenland area. If the North Atlantic Oscillation moves into a deep negative phase too, (ie when the current north atlantic warm water anomaly at depth is exhausted) then western Europe will get very cold.

    The current Arctic anomaly at 2005 is about 20% above the 1940 peaks – so that gives me an upper measure for any anthropogenic effect (and almost all the global surface anomaly is in the northern hemisphere, especially the far north).
    However, I think that the 1900-1995 increase in the solar wind at 230% (as reported by Lockwood) is likely to have influenced cloud cover – satellite data show 5% thinning from 1983-2001 – and I doubt this is a feedback from GHGs – and in any case it is not in the GCMs. NASA data support this showing increased SW flux to the surface – and this will have warmed the oceans. The latest albedo data by Palle at Big Bear Obs. shows a rise from 2001 – and the oceans are cooling.

    This doesn’t leave much over for CO2, so I guess we have to ask the modellers how they have handled the logarithmic curve – in my brief review of the lit and IPCC, I couldn’t find the orginal science – and the IPCC’s concept of Radiative Forcing looked decidedly dodgy to my non-expert eyes. I aim to talk to modellers about this over the summer and will report back!

  12. Bob_FJ: Thanks for the reply. While the group here is considerably smaller than a “statistically significant sample”, it is interesting that regardless of the side on which each of you stand regarding AGW, you all generally agree that the prevailing view of many on the Left here in the States that the USA’s reputation has been significantly sullied by the policies of the Bush administration is wrong.

    And I’ll add that my personal experiences in other countries have only confirmed what you all have said; I have always been greeted and treated warmly. Most everyone I met was always happy to meet an American.

    But the view that the USA’s reputation internationally pervades the American Left, despite the lack of supporting evidence.

  13. To add to the issue of ocean dynamics – I came across ONE scientist who has been joining up the dots – crossing the disciplines of oceanography, solar science, and meteorology: Charles Perry at the US Geological Service in Kansas – he has pointed out that the northward movement of warmer equatorial water (whether from GHG or solar causes) affects the jetstream and subsequent deposition of rainfall in the midWest USA – and he seems to have found a time-lag related to the 11 year solar cycle – I think this is the way the analysis is going: solar cycle/warmer oceans/jetstream disturbances – and now, as the cycle turns, we in the UK have a shifted jetstream dumping all Norway’s rain during our ‘summer’. And there is evidence that such a shift is characteristic of a ‘quiet sun’.

  14. JZ: I’m sorry I haven’t commented sooner on your question about America’s and Americans’ reputation overseas. Like Bob, my experience may not be typical: my daughter lives in LA and my son-in-law is American, as is my granddaughter. Also I have worked with Americans and travelled in America since the 60s and have a lot of close friends there. But my view is that the American Left is talking about (for example) the European/British Left – i.e. their counterparts. So yes, it’s true that the metropolitan “bien-pensant” liberal establishment (including many politicians and much of the media and, interestingly largely coinciding with the greens) has a poor view of the US and its place in the world and especially of George W – the Toxic Texan. But that view is very much that of a minority – albeit a very influential one. To the majority of Brits, the US is undoubtedly the foreign country to which they feel closest – indeed many don’t really think of it as foreign.

  15. Thanks Robin. It makes sense that the liberal “elites” of European society dislike the current administration; our own liberal elites here are the founding members of the “I Hate GWB” club, so the fact that their European brothers agree with them is no surprise!

  16. JZ,

    I’ve traveled extensively also. The world doesn’t hate Americans……that’s a myth/talking point created by American Leftist politicians to discredit the present administration….an attempt to convince Joe Lunch Bucket to vote for them so that we can be “popular” in the “world community” again. Beside that, this isn’t a Miss Congeniality contest…… its world politics; foreign policy and world trade policy…..rough business……

    I don’t want to get into trouble with Tony again, (politics), but I think it goes deeper than the “I hate George Bush” syndrome. Bush is symbolic of “the culture”………the majority of people espousing Leftist views are “counterculture”. It’s sort of the fraternity system (George Bush) vs. the hippie dope crowd (Slick Willie Clinton).

    That is, anything that is established, righteous or stable the Leftists (Democrats) are against. I would go so far to say that if these very same people were supplanted in the Soviet Union in the 1950’s they would be staunch Capitalists. They are (as a group) the epitome of malcontents; they must, by their nature, be “against” something…..whatever is “dominant”, they “crusade” against it.

    This philosophy grew out of the coffee houses and drug culture of the late 1950’s and the 1960’s and spread throughout college campuses, (which their parents paid for).

    The men and women who fought and won the Second World War also lived through the great depression. During the booming economic period after the Second World War the “baby boomers” (children born between 1945 and 1965) were lavished with stable, middle class incomes and peace time prosperity. The generation that saved the World from the likes of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan knew the horror of war and poverty and wanted no part of this for their children. They wanted better things for their families and offspring and indulged them. These “baby boomers” are now at the peak of their earning potential…..the pinnacle of their careers and there are a lot of them. They are the “ruling class” at the present time.

    So, all of the footage that we see of the dope smoking hippies burning flags and protesting from the mid/late 1960’s are the very same people who are influencing the culture and the political climate in America right now……

    Essentially, a bunch of overindulged, self absorbed, spoiled brats with delusional visions of the “Age of Aquarius” and an idealistic fantasy of “saving the world” from…….[fill in the blank]…….No grip at all on reality or sensibility. They don’t know what reality is because they have been sheltered from it for their entire lives.

    The difference between smoking dope/protesting on campus in 1968 and now is that they have the money, power and position to attempt to relive their misspent youth……to “change the world”. They simply never grew up and failed to learn the lessons of the societies who came before them.

    The greatest irony concerns their attitude toward radical Muslim fundamentalism. Their doctrine of appeasement will fail and the first group that will be targeted is the secular/progressive/liberals. Their ‘lifestyles” are completely antithetical to Wahhabism. They’ll walk all over the likes of John Kerry or Barry Obama (See: Neville Chamberlain or Jimmy Carter).

    The phrase “peace for our time” was spoken on 30 September 1938 by British prime minister Neville Chamberlain in his speech concerning the Munich Agreement often misquoted as “peace in our time”. It is primarily remembered for its ironic value. The Munich Agreement gave the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia to Hitler in an attempt to satisfy his desire for Lebensraum or “living space” for Germany. The German occupation of the Sudetenland began on the next day, 1 October.
    One year after the agreement, following continued aggression from Germany and its invasion of Poland, Europe was plunged into World War II.

    That’s my opinion……that and two bits will buy me a cup of coffee.

    “I’ll never be known as the Ugly American, I’m overqualified” – Groucho Marx

  17. Peter M 767, You wrote in part:

    There are still areas of the Antarctic that show the large scale effects of global warming though. Of current concern is the huge Wilkins Ice Shelf which is reported to be “hanging by its last thread” to Charcot Island.

    It may surprise you to learn that the calving of ice-shelves is not related to typical temperatures in the region, but to mechanical forces. Go and talk to another mechanical engineer or maybe a geologist if you know one. The principal forces involved in major detachments are associated with “hinging“, caused by tidal action, where the ice-sheet lifts up and down relative to some hinge point such as a shoreline or crevasse. This happens in winter OR summer, regardless. There are additional mechanical causes described below, and the consequences are only to be regularly expected, regardless of T.

    You are probably aware that ice-shelves are really primarily an extension of the ice-cap, pushed-out by glaciers, and consist of fresh water, with a freezing point about 2C higher than that of saline sea-ice. (apart from any sea-ice addition underneath). Also, they do not melt significantly until calving and drifting into warmer latitudes. This does not result in any increase in sea-level, because they have already displaced their mass of water, by floating on it; per Pythagoras.

    BTW, the Wilkins ice-shelf is tiny, compared with its prime source; the ice-cap which makes up ~90% of all the ice on Earth

    Here is an extract from a blast from the past, updated May 2007:
    Filchner Ice Shelf, Antarctica [is by volume the largest ice shelf on Earth]
    1973, 1986
    These images show the seaward edge of the Filchner Ice Shelf, on the coast of Antarctica, facing the Atlantic. In the austral winter of 1986, the front edge of the Filchner Ice Shelf broke off into the sea, forming three large icebergs. This was a major, long-awaited calving.
    The 1986 Filchner calving
    Crevasses often form in ice shelves, due to hinging, forward “creeping”, and other forces. The annotated 1973 image shows such a crevasse, called the Grand Chasms. In 1957 the Grand Chasms were 53 m deep, with water and ice at the bottom. They were 5 km wide in 1957, 11 km wide in 1973, and 19 km wide in 1985.10 (As a comparison, the Grand Canyon is up to 29 km wide.) As expected, it was at the Grand Chasms that the shelf finally broke off into icebergs, in 1986.
    It is not completely understood how and when icebergs calve from Antarctic ice shelves. Besides hinging and creeping, calving may also be caused by storms, ocean swells, and collisions with large icebergs. The Filchner Ice Shelf may calve only once or twice a century the way it did in 1986, with little loss in between these major calvings. It moves about 1.3 km/year– fast for an ice shelf– and in the 1986 calving it shed about 40 years worth of advancing ice.11
    http://earthshots.usgs.gov/Filchner/Filchner

  18. Peter M
    I made a post earlier to you that seems to have been spammed, so meanwhile as an introduction about ice-shelf calving, which is a MECHANICAL process, unrelated to temperature, here is an extract from an article discussing recent sightings of icebergs off New Zealand, which were declared as proof of AGW by some sections of the media

    Quote in part:
    Theories about where on the Antarctic coastline the icebergs originated have gripped the science community since they were first spotted.
    But scientists have been reluctant to blame global warming.
    “We’ve been monitoring these things for such a short time, it’s impossible to see. To say this is unusual and related to global warming is just not possible,” Paul Augustinus, an Auckland University glacier expert, told the New Zealand Herald earlier this month.
    “It’s a fairly frequent occurrence; it’s just unusual for such large bergs to get so far north,” he added.
    Which ice shelf?
    Mike Williams, an oceanographer at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, said a sample has been taken from one iceberg when a helicopter landed on it several days ago, and has been sent for analysis to Victoria University in Wellington.
    “I believe it came from the (Antarctic’s) Ronne ice shelf,” Williams said.
    “Some people have proposed it came from the Ross Sea (on Antarctic’s north coast) but I think that it is unlikely. The (ocean) current would have made that very difficult and they would have had to travel very fast,” he noted, adding that the sample should resolve the matter.
    Williams said the last time an iceberg was visible from the New Zealand shore was June 1931.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    I withhold the link to avoid the spam queue, but of course you can Google for it if you wish.

  19. Tony, have you seen a recent independent study of wind power in the UK by James Oswald et al funded by the Renewable Energy Foundation and indicating cost and reliability issues? See this reference and summary. Here’s an extract from the latter:

    The study casts doubt on the feasibility of such large wind fleets. Using wind data supplied by the Met Office, and corroborated with empirical data from the wind fleets of Ireland and Germany … the researchers calculated that in January, the coldest month of the year when energy demand is highest, the wind farms can produce very little energy, frequently as little as 4% of their rated output.

    Additionally, the authors argue that conventional fossil fuel plants would need to be switched on and off as many as 23 times a month to make up the shortfall in supplies. They conclude that this would impair efficiency, and reduce emissions savings.

  20. Brute 779, you wrote in part:
    450,000 Unsold Earth Day Issues Of Time Trucked To Landfill

    Gosh! Golly! That caught my eye!
    Is the numeral comma in the right place? (should it be; 45,000? 4,500?)
    I have not checked the link, or the said publication issue, because my ISP advised about a week ago that I’ve used up 80% of my broadband allowance this month, (much to my incredulity….. Another unbelievable number!)

    Did that famous magazine discuss issues like re-cycling? 450,000 went to landfill?

  21. Peter Taylor 788,

    Thanks for your advice, but I’m avoiding opening any links until the end of the month, based on advice from my ISP that I’m about to seriously lose broadband speed. (like once before it went down to about 5 [five] Kb/sec)

    There are certainly many signs that anywhere north of roughly 45 degrees latitude may not be very nice weather-wise over the next decade or so.
    I reckon this is bad news, even though AGW alarmists should/might argue that that it is good news, delaying the apocalypse.
    Like in contrast to such doom. I thought that a reliable opening of the NWP would be good news in itself. I can’t see any bad aspect of it!

    I admire your resolve to talk to modellers! Good luck! I don’t think they are famous for confiding their assumptions and codes etc, especially if you give them the thought that you might be checking their credibility.

  22. Peter Taylor 790 wrote in part:

    I came across ONE scientist who has been joining up the dots – crossing the disciplines of oceanography, solar science, and meteorology: Charles Perry at the US Geological Service in Kansas – he has pointed out that …
    …and there is evidence that such a shift is characteristic of a ‘quiet sun’.

    Yep, that is what is needed: scientists that work at the coalface of science, such as “genuine“: geologists, professional engineers, and meteorologists (with true scientific working experience), that are not labelled and funded as “Climate scientists”.
    The so-called climate scientists may be almost anything from theoretical physicists in various fields, glaciologists, dendro-chronologists, oceanographers, and so-on, in plethora, with their own very narrow expertise and even elitism. (I could name names!)

    Bring-back the long-lost cross-discipline approach to science! ! ! !

    BTW, if any of my stuff is helpful, in any way, please do not hesitate to copy or adapt it in any way you might like.

  23. Re: #786 and #796

    Both of these are interesting, but they deal with wind generation problems that were identified long ago by people like Dr John Etherington who are campaigning against this ludicrous type of ‘alternative energy’. These arguments are now beginning to spill over into mainstream thinking on energy strategy which is certainly a very healthy development, but also rather late in the day.

    I’ve been trying to find my heavily annotated copy of the UK wind resource report which Malcolm Wicks seems to have based his alternative energy policy on, and when I do so I will do a post on it.

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