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. Robin (8267)

    Looks like Richard Black (BBC) and Christopher Monckton agree: nothing we can do will change our climate one iota.

    Now, as far as the 6 degC fairy tale is concerned, Black is quoting the IPCC maximum case “scenario” and “storyline” of the model “projection” (not “prediction” as geoffchambers has pointed out) for year 2100 (so Brute can relax, unless he is under 3 years old and anticipates living until he is 95).

    This entails putting more CO2 into the atmosphere than is contained in all the optimistically estimated fossil fuels on this planet.

    GIGO (I believe the Aussies say SISO).

    Max

  2. Robin (8267)

    If BBC is using 2-year old arguments by Gavin Schmidt, I can only say “shame on them!”

    Yes, we learn new things every day. And the scorecard does not look good for AGW-believers.

    The Lindzen + Choi plus Spencer et al. reports, have both come out since IPCC AR4 WG1 report and have, in effect made it redundant as regards net feedbacks from water vapor and clouds and resulting 2xCO2 climate sensitivity.

    It also makes all of the IPCC “projections” of year 2100 temperature (including the 6 degC myth of Richard Black) redundant.

    The new data would put this theoretical warming at around 0.5 degC (ho-hum).

    BBC needs to get up to date (as does Gavin).

    Max

  3. Brute

    There is a new book, “Global Warming False Alarm”, written by Ralph B. Alexander, which I am currently reading.

    It lists many of the same weak points in the IPCC supporting “science” as Taylor and Plimer’s books, but does so in a very straightforward and uncomplicated way, with many direct links to reference studies.

    It came out after the Spencer et al. study (which it mentions), but before the most recent Lindzen + Choi study.

    It is a good read, if you have time for that sort of thing.

    Max

  4. James P,

    Regarding the SUV with the “leather” seats…..

    I’ll bet there are a few upset (formerly) bull whales swimming around…..

    Rumor has it that Al Gore purchased three of these from the proceeds of his environmental defense fund to shuttle him back and forth to his private jet and to be used during his “Do As I Say, Not As I Do” Save the World tour…he parks them next to his 140’ yacht.

    Also, the author of the article has it wrong. These bull whales were actually “trans-gender” and had consented to this sex change procedure to be paid for retroactively under Obama’s (taxpayer funded)socialized medicine plan.

    In the ultimate act of devotion to recycling, they donated their “leather” to the automobile company.

    When interviewed, the whales all agreed that for the first time in their lives they finally feel “liberated”.

  5. Max/Tonyb,

    Poking around at weather sites for tonyb’s information and came across this. These stations are 50 miles apart. Can you guys explain what’s going on here?

    Fort Myers Florida

    Bartow Florida

    Acadia Florida

  6. Tony/Max,

    By the way, this phenomenon exist throughout the data set………(HSHCN).

  7. Greetings all:
    Have been lurking for a while, partly because an injury has stopped me from typing!

  8. There is an old English nursery rhyme that is highly relevant to topics discussed on this site, which starts thus:

    “Sing a song of sixpence,
    A pocket full of rye.
    Four and twenty blackbirds,
    Baked in a pie.
    When the pie was opened…”
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sing_a_Song_of_Sixpence

    I propose the following edited version to the first five lines, to modernise it more to the reality of recent observations:

    Sing a song climactic, a cauldron in the sky.
    Four and twenty PPM, might provoke a lie.
    When the sky is opened, alarmists might thus sing;
    Wasn’t that a dainty swish, to set before the king?
    Hadley in his palace counting out his money;
    his queen was in the parlour, eating bread and honey.
    The maid was in the garden, Hanging out the clothes;
    when down came a blackbird and snapped off her nose.[1]

    Quite apart from the fact that an English blackbird could not possibly peck the nose off the (living) maid, it is apparent that the king does not have much support on AGW from his wife or staff.

    Sounds familiar?

  9. Brute

    Your case of two nearby Florida stations with different temperature trends is quite similar to two nearby California stations north of Sacramento (Orland and Marysville) pointed out by Anthony Watts.

    Marysville is poorly sited, near an asphalt parking lot and AC exhausts and surrounded by urban sprawl, while Orland is near a grassy site with no urban sprawl or nearby buildings.

    Over a long-term period (70 years) Marysville shows a spurious warming trend of 0.2°C per decade higher than Orland (1.4°C more warming over the entire period).

    I’ve plotted the data for the two sites for comparison.
    http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3379/3445494806_d4152f9509_b.jpg

    Max
    http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3379/3445494806_d4152f9509_b.jpg

  10. Brute and Max

    Your various graphs. I am afraid this is going to get much more complicated before it gets easier :)

    Over the years around 90% of US Temp records became redundant-some stations physically closed, but many more just had their data no longer used (even though they might have been still recording).

    The information was ‘filled’ in from other data -which can be up to 1200km away using the cell system developed by Dr Hansen. In Uk terms that means if data is missing from a south coast station it can be filled in from data from a station in another country and then all sorts of adjustments made in order to try to reconcile it to the original record.

    The USHCN records that Brute used was closed down two years ago in order to better ‘homogenise’ data.

    So what is being recorded in the graphs is not neccesarily what was actually recorded at the individual station.

    A further complication arises in the use of ‘adjustments’ in as much many stations have been moved, and each time an adjustment is made to try to reconcile it with its previous location. There has been a considerable trend to move stations from inconvenient city centres to much easier to read airports (7 of the 12 UK official Giss stations now come from Airports)

    Now an airport will quite often be very much warmer than the field the station might have started off in, but virtually no correction for the urbanisation effect is made. See my article ‘invisible elephants’ which dealt with uhi.(cited above) Some might unkindly say that modern temperature records chart the International expansion of air travel.

    The Uk’s warmest temperature frequently comes from Heathrow airport from a sensor located just inside the perimeter fence at the end of a runway-when the station started before the war it was in fields and Heathrow didn’t really exist.

    So bear in mind that every station started off recording the micro climate immediately around the sensor (generally in a field). It now rarely records anything of the sort, so the record has fundamentally changed.

    Glue all these nonsensical records together into a ‘global’ one and you are piling inconsistency on inconsistency. Then extrapolate that back to 1850 or 1880 (I cited Hansens paper where he did this) and you end up with a global temperature that has no bearing to anything.

    Which is why I like to use original local data where possible (as with the Little ice age thermometers). This tends to show what has been really happening as I outlined in my post #8272

    Now looking at the individual records reveals an extraordinaryt thing. The IPCC say that only South Greenland and a few places in the tropics are cooling. Simply not so. I have located aroubd 200 stations worldwide which have been cooling for at least a statistically meaningful period of 30 years and some since the 1930’s.

    The US has over 20 of these-many of the rest are virtually static. Presumably the powers that be know this as well, which is why we have switched from global warming to climate change.

    Now I have provided links below to E M Smith who has done a lot of work on Giss temperatures-I do participate sometimes and have linked to my own thread there. It all gets very complex but basically temperature records are not what they seem!

    Link 1

    http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/updates/

    See Nov 13 regarding ushcn figures

    Link 2 (from Chiefio-EM SMith)

    “Giss has put up an announcement that they have now modified the GIStemp code to use the USHCN.v2 format file. This will “put back in” the 93% of USA thermometers that were dropped when NOAA changed from the USHCN original format to the USHCN.v2 file format, and GIStemp declined to follow.”

    http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/gistemp-ushcn-v2-and-the-filter-q-continuum/

    Link 3 I have several threads-this is most current

    http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/gistemp-for-tonyb-and-step2-selection-bias/

    Hope this all makes some sense. Temperature records are being adjusted so much they have lost any real meaning unless you can get back to raw data. Even then the UHI and land use factors need to be borne in mind. Using these records to proclaim a temperature change globally of 0.7C since 1880 is sheer hubris.

    Tonyb

  11. Max:

    Re the BBC’s 10 points, you have done a remarkable and comprehensive job – congratulations. Two observations:

    1. Re Arctic sea ice (post 8273), I see that Gavin quotes the ACIA (as does the IPCC). But see my post 8239: it refers to the ACIA itself confirming (in chapter 2.7 of its Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, 2005) that the Arctic has been warmer before than it is today. Also see a 2002 paper by Polyakov et al that, using data from stations along the coastline of the Arctic Ocean, showing that, as recently as 1940, Arctic sea ice extent was less than today’s

    2. Re poor people in the tropics (post 8275) – indeed anywhere – I suggest it’s important to note that more expensive energy (an inevitable consequence of CO2 restriction) would mean that already desperately poor people would be even less able to access clean water, fresh food, better health care, better education, etc. – almost everything they need would cost more. It’s wholly irresponsible to allow this (plus, for example, the introduction of economically damaging biofuels) for the sake of an unverified hypothesis.

  12. Tonyb/Max,

    In other words…..Hansen and his “global warming” theory are bovine dung.

    Global Warming is “occuring” in Fort Myers and not in Arcadia and Bartow, 50 miles away. Being somewhat familiar with Florida, I also happen to know that Fort Myers has seen significant urban expansion over the last 30-40 years while the other two towns remain rural.

  13. Brute

    As I say, the first thing on the Copenhagen agenda ought to be an independent audit of the temperature data. It is very messy.

    Secondly, an examination as to why a start date of 1880 was chosen, as this coincided with a substantial dip in temperatures. THe question ought to be asked as to why they were not taken from the top of the previous temperature summits. We have warmed around 0.4C since the 1730’s and cooled around 1.5C since the MWP.

    An independent audit of sea level data (worse than the hockey stick).

    An urgent examination of how to mitigate the effects of UHI-the biggest factor in many temperature records. Uhi is probably a benefit in some High latitude Northern Hemisphere stations, but a distinct problem elsewhere.

    Tonyb

  14. TonyB re your 8288:

    You say, “We have warmed around 0.4C since the 1730’s and cooled around 1.5C since the MWP”. I doubt if there would be many people at Copenhagen who would agree with either point. Note Max’s 8266 where he cites Gavin Schmidt’s quotation from the NOAA that “The idea of a global or hemispheric Mediaeval Warm Period that was warmer than today has turned out to be incorrect”. As Max says, that ignores several studies from around the world. But I doubt if anyone at Copenhagen would dare to disagree with the NOAA’s assertion.

  15. Those in Copenhagen would do well to remember that Hans Christian Andersens ‘The Emperor with no clothes’ was first published in that city and reflect that history might repeat itself if someone had courage enough to point a finger and start laughing at the sheer nakedness of the assembled delegates.

    Tonyb

  16. TonyB:

    Spot on – an excellent observation. Unfortunately, the chance of them remembering it or of someone pointing the finger (or being noticed if they did) are approximately nil.

  17. TonyB

    The surface temperature record (your 8285) really is a can of worms. I have read much of this in different reports, but never seen it put together so succinctly.

    Of course you are right when you say “the first thing on the Copenhagen agenda ought to be an independent audit of the temperature data”.

    But, of course, this will not happen, because it is not on the “agenda” to have accurate measurements, as these would raise basic questions about the whole AGW premise. This premise is being used to support the real Copenhagen “agenda” of imposing carbon controls and taxes, to give the politicians and bureaucrats hundreds of billions (if not trillions) of taxpayer (or consumer) dollars to shuffle around.

    No one is even going to take note of the fact that global warming stopped in 2000, because the whole exercise is not about warming or climate at all.

    The scientific facts have become irrelevant; it’s all about extremely large sums of money and the power that goes with all this money.

    But a well-timed blizzard in Copenhagen would be a nice gesture by Mother Nature.

    (BTW The Swiss delegate, environmental minister Leuenberger, has announced that he will travel to Copenhagen by train. Is this a PR move, a decision based on personal “carbon footprint” deliberations or is he afraid of bad flight weather?)

    Max

  18. The Science Museum is back in the news with this article:
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2009/nov/16/science-museum-climate-change
    The commenters clearly have no idea about the story of this exhibition and its ridiculous poll. I do recommend people to inform them. I’ve posted a comment, but since I’m under premoderation (the Guardian’s Kafka treatment) there’s no guarantee my comment will appear.

  19. TonyN,

    Considering the outstanding work that Stephen McIntyre has performed in the area of climate research, do you believe that he will be recognized by the Nobel Prize committee?

  20. Mancker

    “But a well-timed blizzard in Copenhagen would be a nice gesture by Mother Nature.”

    Have you tried asking the Chinese Weather Modification Bureau?

  21. Brute:

    It’s always good to see Steve McIntyre getting some credit, but I think that it is the tone of this article that is particularly interesting and points to the kind of journalism that may eventually bring about a rethink of the supposed evidence for AGW.

    It is actually a rather well balanced article, making no extravagant claims for one side of the debate or the other. What it is quite uncompromising about is that the science is not settled and that there are huge uncertainties deriving from a less than adequate understanding of the climate both past and present. It thereby invites the reader to consider the evidence sceptically themselves, rather than advancing any particular conclusion that they should adopt.

    I think that if the media begin to suggest that people should trust their own judgement on this subject, rather than adopt the views of whichever advocates appeal to them, there may be a real change in attitudes and a far healthier debate.

  22. Thought everyone would be interested in the presentation going on today at the EU parliament building

    http://www.rogerhelmer.com/conferenceprogramme.asp

    Sceptics storming one of the bastions of climate change!

    tonyb

  23. Brute,

    Going back a few posts you said “Global Warming is a hustle………you know it as well as we do.”

    Well I’m not sure that I do. Unlike you I tend to side with established science rather the paid lobbyists of the energy industry.

    It might be useful to ask yourself what the world would be like if AGW were not a real problem to be dealt with. You guys would still exist and you’d still be having a hard time coming to terms with concepts like Peak oil, damage to the ozone layer, government intervention in the failings, sorry workings, of the free market, nationalisation of the banks, provision of medical care for the poor etc etc. You’d still be critical of the so-called socialist policies of President Obama, you’d still be calling him a Moslem and non-American.

    But would mainstream science just make up a non existent problem to add to the many other real problems facing humanity? Only a conspiracy theorist would say ‘yes’.

  24. PS I might have added that you might want to consider, too, just what the world would be like if AGW is indeed the problem which the vast majority of scientists say it is.

    Of course, established science would be, as they are, pointing it out. And furthermore, people like you would have just another item to add to your list of gripes.

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