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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Pete,
I was being sardonic……I think Max realizes that.
Well Pete, as they say, “misery loves company”.
I just find it rather selfish to foist your Socialist world view on non-socialists in an attempt to make everyone equally unhappy.
Envy is an evil emotion……..
You should endeavor to elevate within the confines of your own country as opposed to advocating government oppression elsewhere in an attempt to force everyone into the same mindless drudgery that you’re experiencing.
Robin (7922)
in the middle of the night it seems that over 3,000 people decided suddenly decided that they the supported the Government’s programme
When I had a look yesterday, it was less than 600 for and over 3500 against. Did they really think no-one would notice such blatant fixing (especially since the Telegraph already published the ratio)? Perhaps we should ask Mr Rapley?
I have sent a complaint to the Science Museum’s feedback address. Does anyone have Professor Rapley’s?
Robin (7925)
Great piece by Bob Carter. One for Peter M, I think!
Brute (7921)
You are right. Have been in sunny California for two days now (SF Bay area). The snow line had moved dangerously close in Switzerland (global warming, no doubt), and I don’t do shovel work any more.
Max
Robin (7925)
Yes, Bob Carter has hit the nail on the head concerning the basic weakness of the science supporting the AGW premise.
He provides a link to a recent article by Ross McKitrick on the “copy-hockey stick process”.
This is also worth reading just to see how rotten the whole IPCC process has become.
Max
TonyB (7923)
Peter may have some other info on this, but here are some thoughts on the UHI distortion to the Hadley (HadCRUT) and GISS (NCDC) surface temperature records (links to references posted separately).
The “Ill considered – How to talk to a climate skeptic” catechism puts it this way:
The site refers to a NCDC paper by Thomas Peterson covering the USA.
[See reference 1]
This study, made by NCDC to show that “there is no significant distortion to the NCDC surface record resulting from the UHI effect” showed (surprise!) that “there is no significant distortion to the NCDC surface record resulting from the UHI effect”.
This brings to mind the famous quotation from Mandy Rice-Davies, “they WOULD say that, wouldn’t they?”
There have been many studies from all over the world that show that the UHI effect is real, it is significant and it is global. These are ignored by IPCC (SPM 2007, p.5):
A set of “calm night/windy night studies” by Parker et al. are cited by IPCC (AR4 WG1, Ch. 3, p.244) to demonstrate that there is no significant UHI effect. These have since been debunked (Pielke).
A major problem with the surface temperature record is that surface weather stations have historically been placed where people live (and, hence, want to know what the temperature is). These locations have grown exponentially with increased world population and urban plus economic development, with buildings, concrete and asphalt surfaces, automotive traffic, air conditioners in summer and building heating in winter, etc. All of these factors are listed by NOAA in its U.S. Climate Reference Network classification as contributors to readings that are between 1 and 5°C higher than the actual temperature away from these sources. They have contributed to the UHI distortion, which is not noted in the satellite record, since it covers the troposphere all over the globe, but away from these sources of error. For a good summary on how the UHI effect works, which points to errors in the Peterson assumptions (see above) see:
[See reference 2]
There is another major factor contributing to a significant UHI distortion. Around two-thirds of the weather stations, mostly in remote and rural locations in northern latitudes and many in the former Soviet Union, were shut down between 1975 and 1995, with over 60% of these shut down in the 4-year period 1990-1993. This coincides exactly with a sharp increase in the calculated global mean temperature (particularly in the Northern Hemisphere), giving additional credence for a significant UHI distortion of the surface temperature record. There is good reason to believe that, prior to the breakup of the Soviet Union, these remote Siberian locations systematically reported lower than actual temperatures, in order to qualify for added subsidies from the central government, which were tied to low temperatures, so as this distorted record was removed, it resulted in a spurious warming trend. For a graph showing this correlation see:
[See references 3 and 4]
Finally, meteorologist Anthony Watts has examined two-thirds of the 1,221 weather stations making up the U.S. Historical Climatology Network and published the results. Of those examined, more than half fall of those examined short of federal guidelines for optimum placement. Some examples include weather stations placed near sewage treatment plants, parking lots, and near cars, buildings and air-conditioners – all artificial heat sources which cause spurious higher temperature readings, providing physical confirmation of a root cause for a significant UHI effect on the record.
Watts gives the example with photographs of two fairly closely located weather stations, both located north of Sacramento. CA: one (Orland, CA) is properly positioned in a grassy area with trees around, while the other (nearby Marysville, CA) is located near an asphalt parking lot with buildings and airconditioning units nearby. A comparison of the official NASA GISS temperature records of the two stations over the period 1981-2005 shows that the improperly sited station shows a spurious increase in temperature of around 0.2 deg C per decade higher than the well-positioned station, again confirming a significant UHI distortion.
[See references 5, 6 and 7]
The data are out there on UHI, showing that it has indeed caused a significant upward distortion of the surface temperature record, particularly in the latter part of the 20th century.
Unfortunately, these data are ignored or rejected by IPCC, NCDC (GISS) and Hadley.
Max
Reference 1
Peterson (NCDC) paper
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/population/article2abstract.pdf
Reference 2
How UHI works (IceCap)
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/URBAN_HEAT_ISLAND.pdf
References 3 and 4
USSR stations removed (McKitrick)
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/nvst.html
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/intellicast.essay.pdf
References 5 and 6
Siting distortion, two nearby cities (Watts)
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425725910040&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425745000030&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
Reference 7
Siting distortion, two nearby cities (graph)
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3290/2790438226_7cedf5f551_b.jpg
TonyB and PeterM
From its beginning in 1979 the satellite tropospheric temperature record (UAH) shows a linear warming trend of 0.126°C per decade.
Over the same period the surface temperature record (HadCRUT) shows a linear warming trend of 0.150°C per decade.
Yet IPCC informs us that the theory tells us that greenhouse warming should be at a higher rate in the troposphere than at the surface.
IPCC also tells us that the discrepancy between surface and lower- and mid-tropospheric records have largely been reconciled.
IPCC also tells us that the UHI distortion to the surface record is “real but local” and only accounts for less than 0.006°C per decade over land and zero over the oceans.
This tells me that we either
a) have a UHI distortion of the surface record of more than 0.024°C per decade, or
b) are not seeing greenhouse warming, but something else
The other conclusion would be that the satellite record has a major distortion, but there have been no studies showing this, since the initial orbital drift corrections were made to the record several years ago.
What could be the cause for this unreconciled discrepancy?
Do either of you have an idea?
Max
I’ll have to track these guys down and buy some stock……
Japanese firms to develop small nuclear reactors
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.314f8f63df41800c448cd89e0a88dd31.331&show_article=1
Robin,
I previously pointed out the link between people like Ian Plimer and the IPA (Institute of Public (sic) Affairs).
Bob Carter is just another of their hirelings:
Scientific sceptics are turning up the heat | Institute of Public …
4 Jul 2009 … hydrologist-climatologist Stewart Franks and meteorologist-climatologist Bill Kininmonth all came out … Become a member of IPA today …
http://www.ipa.org.au/…/scientific-sceptics-are-turning-up-the-heat – Cached – Similar –
There are lots more like them in Australia.
And who are the IPA?
They are a right wing think tank funded, amongst others by, BHP-Billiton, Western Mining Corporation, Rio Tinto Zinc, Monsanto, Philip Morris, British American Tobacco, Caltex, Esso Australia (a subsidiary of Exxon), Shell, Woodside Petroleum, Gunns Timber
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?
title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs
My first link doesn’t work in previous post. Try this:
http://www.ipa.org.au/people/bob-carter
Oh no, Peter, after all this time, you still haven’t learned. Re Bob Carter, deal with what he says – show where he’s wrong (if you can) – but please don’t moan about who he is and who you say his associates may be. We’ve told you over and over again: ad hominem attack is a pathetic argument that has nothing to do with science.
Max
Thanks for your input on UHI
Several things are happening. You rightly identfy both Real Climate and IPCC who say there is virtually no UHI effect.
Then we have the Met office saying;
“Before the twentieth century, when man-made greenhouse gas emissions really took off, there was an underlying stability to global climate. The temperature varied from year to year, or decade to decade, but stayed within a certain range and averaged out to an approximately steady level.”
The IPCC saying:
“Cooling is occuring only in South Greenland.’
Let’s backtrack to UHI. Here we can record climate change and UHI for the first time.
Pliny the elder 23-79AD noted ‘that Beech trees formerly grew within the precincts of Rome but it was now too hot for them’.
This was with reference to a comment by Theophrastus-371-287BC who reported the presence of Beech trees in Rome.
The comment by Pliny ties in very closely to that made by citizens commenting on his contemporary Nero. This from Matthias Ruth who commented;
‘The relationship between the built environment and urban climate has been observed for centuries. Dating back to ancient Rome it was widely noted that ‘parts of the city became hotter (than others) during the summer…after the streets had been widened during the reign of Emperor Nero.’ To address this problem it was recommended that streets be ‘made narrow with houses high for shade.’
This article describes the astonishing size of Rome at about 1.5 million people. The circus maximus alone had space for 160000 spectators.
Population clearly impacted on the beech trees whilst the climate in Roman times (the Roman optimum) is well known to have been warmer than today. This, combined with uhi, meant Rome must have been unbearable in summer.
Sure enough the Romans used many devices to keep cool;
“Even normal Greeks and Roman bought snow and ice imported on donkey trains. Few could afford private ice houses. Most urban residents bought it at snow shops. In Rome deep pits were filled with snow and covered with straw. Water melted and ran through forming a bottom layer of ice that sold at a premium. Snow could be more expensive than wine.”
“For some, like the Roman Horace, who in Epistles I.7 1-7, pleads health reasons for his prolonged vacation, an extended heat-avoiding trip to the country was an option”
“In Rome the idea of providing shade became democratized. Many urban women soon sported parasols or what they called umbracula — light cloth stretched over a wooden frame.”
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/pliny-natihist-rome.html
The significance is that Rome was the first ancient city to be of a size to rival modern ones, and we can learn from them as there are no other urban influences elsewhere to complicate the warming signal.
With over half of the worlds population now living in Urban areas the thermometer record has followed them. Many of these records are now housed at airports. It could be said that the growth of world temperatures mirrors the development of international air travel.
Clearly UHI is real and clearly it has a very significant impact on an urban area and its fingerprint can be clearly seen overlaid over the climate cycles. If we throw in the modern reality that a significant number of places have been cooling for at least thirty years (not just South Greenland) and that variability in past times was greater- not less than today- (MWP to LIA) we start to arrve at a curious conclusion.
We are being told things about UHI, and variability, and growing warmth in every regioin- except one- that is demonstrably untrue.
Starting a temperature dsataset from 1850 or 1880 is merely going to record the upswing from the little ice age. Start it from the high point of a cycle and todays climate is seen in its proper perspective as being entirely unremarkable.
Unfortunately the IPCC and their friends appear to know as little about history as they do about tidal gauges. It is UHI they need to turn their attention to-not Co2
Tonyb
Robin,
I thought that, even though you admitted you were weak on science, you claimed some level of expertise with the English , and maybe the Latin?, languages. An example of an ad-hominem attack on Bob Carter would be to say that he has sweaty armpits and therefore he is wrong about climate change. It’s a logical fallacy of course. It is not a logical fallacy, nor is an an ad-hominem attack, to say that because he is in the pay of mining interests who are much more concerned about their profitability than the environment, that what he says is scientifically unreliable.
I must say that I’m never sure if scientists of his ilk know they are talking nonsense or if somehow they have managed to convince themselves otherwise. They are not unintelligent people. In Ian Plimers case, his book ‘Heaven and Earth’ may turn out to be a parody, a complete piss-take to use a cruder term, of the all the denialist arguments that we’ve come to know and love in recent years. It even caused some mutterings from contributors to this blog about corrections being needed. We may have to wait for his death bed confession to know the real truth.
Bob Carter does, I have to admit, sound more genuine. I’m not sure that this shows anything though. I’m told by those who are more informed than I on these matters, that if you pay a few hundred dollars, much less that Bob Carter would receive from the IPA, to certain quite attractive young ladies around town, that they shortly afterwards produce moans of pleasure which sound very genuine too!
PeterM
You just wrote:
For shame, Peter, this all smacks and smells of an ad hominem attack on Carter.
This type of put-down is silly. Professor Carter, an adjunct research professor in the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University in Queensland, is a geologist specializing in palaeoclimatology, stratigraphy, marine geology, and environmental science, so is obviously qualified to have a valid opinion on AGW. To put him down as irrelevant because he is also on the research committee of the IPA is silly.
It is equally as stupid as if I were to write of Dr. Phil Jones
Now, Peter, before you start howling “foul!” because of the above words, I have simply written them to show how utterly silly your statement on Bob Carter was.
Here are the actual facts, Peter.
Stick with the facts, Peter, rather than throwing in meaningless ad homs to try to discredit Professor Carter.
Max
PeterM
Just saw that your 7944 and my 7945 on the same topic crossed.
You wrote:
Yes, Peter, it is both a logical fallacy and an ad hominem attack.
First of all, you do not have any facts concerning the “pay” Carter receives from “mining interests”, so you are really just talking through your hat (to put it politely). You also have brought no facts about the environmental concerns of the mining group(s), which he represents, but just made another unsubstantiated blanket statement (talking through your hat, again),
But aside from your unsubstantiated allegations, your logical fallacy lies in the fact that Carter can have a scientifically reliable opinion on AGW, even if he is an advisor to a mining group, just as Phil Jones can have a scientifically reliable opinion on AGW, even if he is in the pay of a group that benefits directly from the AGW movement.
Are you able to see this or is it too complex for you?
Max
Max and Robin,
Those who are quick to squeal “ad hominem” are often guilty of several other logical fallacies, including one of the worst of all: the fallacious belief that introducing an impressive-sounding Latin term somehow gives one the decisive edge in an argument.
For instance, I could say that any statements made by any lawyer, in a court of law, or any PR firm, are highly influenced by the interests of their clients. Is it an ad hominem attack to point this out? If we see a well known actress appear on TV telling us most sincerely that her good looks are entirely due to ‘brandX’ moisturising cream, is it an ad-hominem attack on her to suggest that her statement is probably more motivated by the size of her pay check than the quality of the product she is endorsing?
People like Ian Plimer and Bob Carter are recruited by the large mining interests of Australia to fool the gullible in exactly the same way as the celebrity actress.
All you have to do, Peter, is read Carter’s short article and tell us why you consider it to be wrong. All your wriggling about his being “recruited by the large mining interests of Australia to fool the gullible”, whether true or not, has no bearing on that and suggests that you are trying to avoid a simple request.
Peter M:
If we are to ignore someone’s views on AGW because they are supposed to have had some association with the oil industry, should we also ignore Monbiot because he is in the pay of the Guardian, Porritt because (until very recently) he was in the pay of the government, Sir David King and Lord May for the same reason, and of course absolutely everyone from the Met Office. The list of advocates of AGW would be almost endless as one considers the sources of research funding, wouldn’t it?
Re: 7949
Another example is Al Gore who has managed to amass 100 million dollars in net wealth since leaving his government post through his involvement in promoting global warming and financial interests in Generation Investment Management which brokers climate indulgences…………and his traveling climate change show which nets him “obscene” profits from huckstering his global warming doomsday myths.
I suppose the views of the IPCC should be invalidated as their paychecks are a direct result of promoting the global warming scenarios………conflict of interest you know. If they didn’t continue “research”, their funding would dry up.
Joe Romm is in the employ of George Soros who benefits financially from propagating global warming hysteria.
Shall we list all of the universities that benefit financially from global warming “research”?
How about all of the special interests environmental organizations, (Greenpeace/WWF) that collect billions of dollars each year from rubes that believe in the nonsense that they peddle……How about environmental lobbying firms that get rich from the continuing global warming hysteria? Do they have a financial dog in the fight?
By the way Pete, I thought the science was “settled”?
Why continue funding for further “research” if the conclusion has already been reached?
Global Warming is a hustle………you know it as well as we do.
Sanctimony is another unattractive character trait Pete.