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.
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10,000 Responses to “Continuation of the New Statesman Whitehouse/Lynas blogs.”
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The hidden cost of wind turbines
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19125591.600
Thanks Manacker #8024 for your explanation. I mistakenly thought the radiation flux was an input fed into the models; I didn’t realise it was a result. I still don’t understand why you would use models to try and estimate a physical quantity that can be measured directly. I’ll try and work this out myself, since this thread is not the place for lessons in elementary physics
Brute, Reur 8016, opening with:
My word, that got you going eh?
And, TonyN did not snip you apparently by virtue of his acceptance of some parallels with AGW ideology/politicisation!
I enjoyed your comments, both!
I cum’ed some three years working in Michigan, Ontario (Canada) and the S.F. Bay Area for most of the 80’s, and the dumbing-down of Americans by the media at that time was palpable to me.
I tried to learn about American culture and for example attended an important “borl game” in Detroit, and wondered why I was being pressured to drink much ice-cold beer from large plastic containers whilst shivering with cold…. And thinking that I had become permanently cold.
Brute, this “borl game” thing (baseball): I never have understood, but could you explain to me, (and JamesP @ 8015), the American thinking for WHY it is called “World Series”?
Max, Reur 8024, and Geoff Chambers Reur 8009
Max commented: “I think Bob_FJ has posted a “picture” of how this works on this thread”
Well not quite, the picture that Max refers to was actually at #95 on Peter Taylor’s “CHILL” thread:
http://education.gsfc.nasa.gov/ess/Units/Unit2/u2L5aimage.jpg
I’m actually disappointed that there was no response to my comments on it that now I repeat here:
One issue that interests me is the portrayal of Evapo-Transpiration (E-T) or Latent Heat Flux, at around 50% of the heat loss from the surface. (NASA Earth Observatory give it as 52%).
You [Peter Taylor] mention above various matters relating to water vapour and cloud feedbacks, and I’ve seen plenty of mention of these elsewhere. However, I’ve seen nothing on potential change to E-T, whereas a simplistic hypothesis is that if there is increased water vapour, then surely one could at least opine that there must be increased E-T. Thus there would seem to be a negative offset to the popular water vapour positive feedback. Furthermore because the implied (so-called global average!) E-T is the greatest cooling effect, even a small change to it would surely be significant, and would appear to be part of an amazingly complex natural “thermostat”. I guess there is less known about it than there is about clouds!
I raised this topic over at RealClimate and there were some puerile responses including some from Gavin Schmidt, before I was excommunicated.
BTW, the Keil & Trenberth 1997 version as used by the IPCC has apparently added a great deal of confusion about the difference between HEAT and EMR (long wave radiation from the surface), but that is another story.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BTW, E-T heat loss from the surface is eventually converted to LW radiation as the convective effects reduce, together with the influence of lapse rates etc, with altitude. This could well be part of Max’s ERBE discussion.
Thanks to Alex at #8018 for pointing me to a Guardian Environment article, written for the Ecologist by one Graciela Chichilnisky.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/29/copenhagen-11th-hour
A professor at Columbia University, she is currently suing her employers for $11million (to pay for her collagen implants, remarks one blogger unkindly). Her article is the usual mix of “we must, you have to, they should” which you’d expect from a Professor of Mathematics, Economics, Statistics at a major university nowadays. She finishes with a plea to suck the carbon out of the air. Thanks to the collagen, she has the lips for it.
Sorry if that offends some. Sometimes only ad hominem (or ad feminam) will do.
this thread is not the place for lessons in elementary physics
Perhaps not, but I’d quite like to find somewhere to discuss (reasonably) some of the fundamentals that seem to be glossed over on the warmist sites. For instance, I’m still not entirely clear on the greenhouse effect as it applies to the atmosphere, noting that it doesn’t actually apply to greenhouses! Niels Bohr’s observations about IR absorption temporarily changing the energy state of molecules (or possibly atoms) only to re-radiate the same energy in all directions implies that there is no net effect, but I may well be missing something.
It seems to me that the fact that the planet’s climate has remained habitable and relatively stable for so long rather implies a significant self-regulation system, presumably manifesting itself as negative feedback whenever there are external influences. Indeed, I find it hard to see how it could be otherwise, but maybe I need some (meta)physics lessons?
I didn’t look at the blog at all yesterday and it looks as though I have a deal of catching up to do. I am about to cross-post the comments about Ed Miliband’s outburst to the latest thread dealing with the adverts, so any further discussion of this should be there.
Update: You’ll find them here.
According to this article a new survey has found that
Despite or because of the incessant propaganda to which we’re subjected?
to Robin at #8033
According to the survey you link to, the number of Brits worried by climate change is now at 15%, down 11% on last year. Using the same complex methodology as that used by peer-reviewed scientistst to predict the imminent disappearance of Arctic ice, I confidently predict that global warming hysteria will have completely disappeared in 18 months’ time.
This survey is a gem. “Almost half of people say they are taking some action to reduce their carbon footprint such as switching off lights, walking rather than driving or recycling”.
That leaves over half the population who are not switching off lights (or possibly switching them on again) are not walking (or possibly driving instead) and are putting things in the wrong bin.
No wonder Mr Miliband is worried.
Brute, #8016
You’re right, had I seen that comment yesterday I would have snipped most of it, but with a heavy heart. That isn’t because I agree with what you say – I disagree with a great deal of it – but because I really don’t like to snip, particularly when someone obviously care about what they are saying.
So it’s water under the bridge now and there doesn’t seem to be any point in doing anything about it. But I want to make this very clear; any follow-up on the more general political points will be shredded with glee!
JamesP and geoffchambers
JamesP wrote (8031):
This is the crux of the whole issue.
Dr. James E. Hansen (of coal “death train” fame) tells us (based on the virtual reality of climate model outputs) that our planet is being “whipsawed” between climate extremes due to “positive feedbacks” that make everything worse than it would otherwise be. From this he concludes that 450 ppmv is the CO2 concentration at which the level becomes “dangerous”, leading to irreversible “tipping points” from which our climate system cannot recover, 6-meter increase of sea level, inundation of most coastal areas and many islands, droughts, floods, mass extinction of species and other things too fierce to mention.
IPCC has basically the same message (also based on climate model simulations), but toned down a bit. But even the “toned down” version has temperatures shooting up by 2°C to 6°C by year 2100 (as a reality check for comparison, they rose by 0.7°C over the entire 20th century and have been cooling since the start of the 21st century).
In the other corner we have Dr. Richard C. Lindzen, who tells us that this is all “poppycock” (based on the empirical observations of the ERBE program, rather than the computer simulations), due to a strong “negative feedback” (which regulates the climate, as JamesP wrote). He shows us that a doubling of CO2 will theoretically increase our planet’s temperature by 0.5°C. This would be the theoretical increase from pre-industrial year 1750 (280 ppmv CO2 estimated from ice cores) until year 2100 (560 ppmv CO2 projected). Yawn!
To think that we can upset a climate system that “has remained habitable and relatively stable for so long” with our CO2 emissions is arrogant, anthropocentric and basically stupid. To believe that we can control the future climate by adjusting our CO2 emissions is pure lunacy.
Max
Brute
Here’s one for you to mull over:
With all the vagaries resulting from trickily worded questions, which skew the results to a pro-AGW result, the HSBC global survey (and other local polls) tell us:
· Support for the premise that AGW is a major problem that needs action is lowest (i.e. around 25%) in the developed world (North America, Australia, Europe)
· Support is a bit higher in the developing world (Brazil, Mexico, India) but still under 50%
· Support in China is hard to judge, as the government decides and the public follows, so the figures here should probably be ignored
· Support in the underdeveloped world is said to be “strong”, although the data are very sketchy or even non-existent
The “mitigation” proposals call for a direct (or indirect) tax on carbon emissions (in the amount of close to $1 trillion), to be levied on the nations of the developed world, with a portion of the proceeds to be redistributed to the poorest nations (ostensibly to develop a green energy infrastructure) and the developing nations being essentially excluded from the tax for now.
Hmmm…
Interesting how closely the survey results mirror the net loser / net winner principle.
Max
TonyN,
Chuckle…snip with glee?
Yes, water under the bridge. I’ll try to control myself in the future.
I will say that a glaring example of the dumbing down of society would be the gullibility of people concerning AGW hysteria.
How the hell did a bunch of politicians and self serving “scientists” convince a large segment of society that a naturally occurring atmospheric trace gas that amounts to .038% of air is responsible for a +/- 0.6 degree rise in temperature “averaged” over the entire globe, “averaged” over 150 years.
On top of that……these very same people have absolute faith that their respective governments and the “world” government will have the organization skills to actually do something about this societal “menace”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBO2IstMi2A
Max,
Are you trying to get me into trouble with TonyN?
Apologies for my verbose rant @ 8016……sometimes a safety valve lifts as I consider the lunacy of the entire argument of “Global Warming”.
I don’t suffer fools gladly…..I get frustrated………and I’m insulted when someone attempts to pull the wool over my eyes.
The “dumbing down” of society and the foolishness surrounding the premise of AGW………I suppose I reached my tipping point (pun intended).
Climate reparations indeed……sheez.
To Manacker #8036 and JamesP #8031
Thanks for your patience. I can handle most of the science. My problem is uniquely with the application of simple (!) physical laws to the question of long-term temperature change. My ears glaze over whenever I hear the words Stephan Boltzmann or Watts per square metre.
Put naively: given a planet with an interior glowing at x thousand °K, surrounded by a vacuum at 0°K, heated by a sun at y million °K; and given that the biosphere (which is the only bit we’re interested in) is
(1) as thick proportionately as the grease on a well-handled doorknob, and
(2) oscillating in temperature over a 50°C daily-annual range;
how can the application of simple physical laws of heat transfer provide sufficiently precise results to calculate an average temperature rises of 1°C every z decades? Underwater volcanoes, deflection of cosmic rays by the solar wind – what other unknown unknowns might there not be to falsify macro-scale physical calculations?
Does my question make sense?
Current Global Temperatures Impossible According to IPCC ‘Science’.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/16460
Apparently Al Gore will be interviewed, or possibly just worshipped, on Newsnight tomorrow.
geoffchambers (8040)
You asked:
Your question makes good sense to me. I do not believe that we are able to make any meaningful projections of future temperature.
First of all, the “globally and annually averaged land and sea surface temperature” used to measure global warming is a myth, (as TonyB has pointed out here).
The figures (GISS as well as Hadley) are massaged, adjusted for variances, “corrected” after the fact, etc. to the point that they are meaningless; these manipulations are not made transparent to the general public (who pay both GISS and Hadley through taxes).
The keepers of both main temperature records (James E. Hansen at GISS and Phil Jones at Hadley) are strong believers in the premise that AGW is a serious threat.
Studies have shown that a significant portion of the observed increase in the “global average temperature” over the twentieth century is caused by spurious warming due to the urban heat island effect, shutdown of two-thirds of the stations (particularly in the Siberian Arctic) around 1990, poor siting of stations (near AC exhausts, asphalted areas, etc.).
Another problem is that one can set up a computer model to calculate anything, depending on all the equations and constants one feeds in.
Earth’s climate system is complex (as you wrote), and much of what causes what is unknown, so that the computer model is good for short-term weather forecasting, but worthless for longer-term forecasting of climate trends.
Yet the computer nerds and “climatologists” working these climate models fool themselves into believing the forecasts for the future that come out of the computer are meaningful projections of future climate.
But their ability to forecast has been dismal, as the record shows.
The Met Office issues regular PR blurbs, which forecast “a record warm year next year”, “a barbecue summer this year”, etc., etc.; none of these short-term forecasts have come true.
In 2001 IPCC projected that the fictitious “global average temperature” would warm by 0.2°C per decade. The Met Office even projected warming at 0.3°C per decade (before backing down to 0.2°C per decade). In actual fact, it has cooled by 0.1°C over the first nine years of the 21st century.
With such an extremely poor short- and medium-term forecasting record, how can we believe that the 100-year projections are realistic? Answer: we can’t.
Now to the greenhouse theory: the theory that greenhouse gases (primarily water vapor and, to a much smaller extent, CO2 and other trace gases) cause warming of our planet is plausible (if untested by empirical data). It is generally accepted that the GH effect has warmed the surface of Earth by 33°C (on average), most of which is caused by water vapor.
The theory (all that Arrhenius and Stefan-Boltzmann stuff) says that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 should theoretically cause warming of around 0.1°C. The relation is logarithmic, so that a second doubling of CO2 would cause another warming of 0.1°C.
IPCC tells us that we were at 280 ppmv CO2 in pre-industrial 1750 (TonyB doubts this). Measurements taken at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, tell us that today’s CO2 level is around 386 ppmv (whether or not this reading is representative for our total atmosphere is uncertain). But assuming both are correct, IPCC projects that we will be at 560 ppmv (twice the pre-industrial level) by year 2100. This means we should see a total of 0.1°C theoretical warming from added CO2 from year 1750 to year 2100. 40% of this should already have occurred today at 386 ppmv, so that we should have added warming of 0.6°C over the next 91 years (compared to an observed 20th century warming of the mythical average temperature of around 0.6°C).
Even if we assume that all of the optimistically estimated reserves of fossil fuels on our planet were all burned, we would reach an atmospheric level of barely 1,000 ppmv, and a further theoretical temperature increase of around 0.9°C. That’s all there is.
So far the theory is plausible (but not very alarming).
But now the computer models are fed all sorts of assumptions on increased water vapor, increased high altitude (ice crystal) clouds, etc. with warming, resulting in a major net “positive feedback”, which multiplies the theoretical GH warming from CO2 by a factor of 2 to 4. Assumptions of various “storylines” and “scenarios” are fed in, which result in even higher atmospheric CO2 levels, some even exceeding all the carbon contained in all the fossil fuels on Earth!
With all this “garbage” fed into the computer models, they dutifully spit out the “garbage” that temperatures by year 2100 will increase by 2°C to 6°C above today.
And these guys making these predictions actually believe them!
They are then published by IPCC in reports with1,000+ pages of climate model outputs and pseudoscientific gobbledygook and used by politicians, etc. to further their own agendas (but that’s another story).
In summary, the “science” supporting the premise that AGW (caused principally by human CO2 emissions) is a serious threat is based solely on computer model outputs and is not supported by the empirical physical data.
And you are 100% right.
Max
Max,
I have a question, but anyone can answer.
Why does NASA and/or Hadley use only one CO2 measurement site (Hawaii) and numerous sites to measure temperature?
If possible, provide the answer that NASA uses and your own speculation as to why……..
geoffchambers
Correction
a doubling of CO2 should theoretically cause 1°C warming (not 0.1°C). Rest is OK.
Max
Brute
Regarding Mauna Loa as the one site being used to measure global CO2 concentrations, there have been questions raised whether or not this is realistic (TonyB has done some work on this).
I personally do not believe that it is realistic to measure CO2 at one point on Earth (next to a major volcano at that!) and get a representative value.
Maybe TonyB has some more info on this.
Max
Brute
To the “why” on Maunau Loa, I could offer two suggestions
1. it is under the control of NOAA
2. it is based on the IPCC assumption that CO2 is “a well mixed greenhouse gas” with a life in the atmosphere of “several hundred years” (so everywhere on Earth should theoretically have the same value)
[BTW there are studies showing that its life is under 10 years.]
Max
Hi Max/Brute
There are a small number of official co2 stations-mauna loa is the main one and supplies reference gases to the other sites.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/obop/mlo/
Scripps institute had already constructed an observatory at ML for other purposes and that is the only reason it was chosen as the official site for co2. It is a hopeless place for measuring and has to be closed down when local volcanoes get too active. Also the Pacific around it is always outgassing.
Co2 is fairly well mixed but with variations of around 20ppm
It is impossible to see how there could be such a small consistent rise in co2 as the total amount of free carbon in the carbon cycle is around 80GT and fluctuations should be much greater-as they were in the days pre 1957 when world famous scientists recorded tens of thousands of highly variable readings in records that go back to 1830.
Charles Keeling seemed a nice man but knew absolutely nothing of climate science when he arrived, so why everyone believes his figures are correct and that from thousands of more experienced chemists are wrong has always bemused me.
Tonyb
I could understand the remote location and under control of NOAA, but there are literally thousands of military bases, national parks, etc that would be potential candidates (further away from an active volcano).
I understand that theoretically CO2 “should” be equally dispersed…(although I find that hard to believe). Eventually, I suppose, concentrations would equalize if all activity ceased.
As a matter of fact, I know that CO2 concentrations are higher downtown than where I live………(I have a CO2 meter that doesn’t lie).
Gases move with air currents which are moved through temperature variations……constantly lower to higher pressures, (lower to higher temperatures)……distance from high concentration sources would cause lower concentrations over time……
I’d better wait for Tonyb to explain the reasoning………
TonyN, Reur 8035:
Sorry, in my 8028, the last part of Brute’s 8016 was all in bold, and I mistook it for a comment from you. Pretty obvious to me now that it was not; but maybe I had sipped too much cab-sav that time.