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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Robin:
I remember looking at this when it appeared and thinking how contentious many of Schmidt’s responses were. Of course Singer didn’t have any chance to respond.
Would that be the same Fred Singer who, in the 1970’s and 80s, coined the term “junk science” to describe reports showing links between smoking and lung cancer?
It’s certainly the same Fred Singer who is sometimes referred to as the father of NASA’s satellite climate monitoring research. He wasn’t being asked for his opinions about smoking.
Its probably the same Fred Singer who has published some 45 peer reviewed papers.
tonyb
Max,
I’ve been giving this some thought……As far as an international agreement goes…Yes, a dying duck. Obama talks in lofty platitudes, but is an ineffective President…an empty suit.
As far as the global warming industry goes…..it will continue to sell products and schemes that reduce electrical and fuel consumption. It simply makes sense if it will impact the bottom line of a business positively.
As far a “green” power goes, some people will purchase it (paying higher costs) but I doubt that it will really take off unless the price per kilowatt is comparable to conventional sources. This doesn’t mean that it will die out completely, just that efficiency improvements will be made over a more reasonable period of time. People are always striving to build a better mousetrap and if someone comes along and can produce “green” power at a rate lower than conventional sources, investors will flock to it and it will flourish.
Cap & Tax here in the United States looks to be dead. Congress has their hands full with this socialized medicine thing right now which looks as if it will lapse over to next year, (and also looks dead). Next year being an election year, and with almost 20% of Americans out of work and trillions of dollars in budget deficits, no one is in the mood to spend the money. Also, the socialist policies of this administration and this Congress are beginning to come to light and the voters are pushing back fiercely.
On the skeptical front, Americans are also beginning to see that the “global warming” thing is a fraud (or in the least, overblown). More and more Americans are viewing this as a manufactured “crisis” in order to push an agenda, to garner votes, to fleece the taxpayers and empty the public treasury. Confidence and trust in politicians (of any stripe) is at an all time low. They can’t be trusted, and the public is letting them know. Obama and the Leftist Congress have lost most, if not all, credibility.
As with anything, Environmental extremists have overreached and the laws of unintended consequences are beginning to be seen (bio-fuels are an appropriate example). Compact fluorescent lighting is another………people didn’t consider the disposal problems.
Crunching the numbers on wind power, the CO2 released to build a turbine and the visual impact on the landscape has hindered widespread use. Another issue is the backup fossil fuel power required when the wind isn’t blowing. The return on investment sucks and the benefit is negligible.
Solar is fine; however, again, very expensive, horrible return on investment and the land use required to produce a kilowatt makes it unattractive on a large scale.
A middle ground (balance) will be achieved………But reasonably and responsibly as opposed to the reckless and foolhardy approach that the environmental zealots and global warming nuts have proposed.
So, barring some violent takeover, or a suspension or elimination of our Constitution, it looks like the environmentalists and the Leftist politicians are on the ropes.
Ironically, I’m attending another “green” industry seminar tomorrow, (which is really nothing more than a trade show……manufacturers selling their junk with “green” labels attached).
Two weeks ago I attended a LEEDS conference. The presenter was the Director of Engineering of an internationally know publication that prides itself on being “green”. He displayed a graph of electrical consumption from 2000 until today. The graph was U-shaped. While I applauded him for his consumption reduction consecutively until 2005, I asked why after 2005 the electrical consumption rose? (Back to above 2000 levels in 2009). His answer was quite telling (as he quickly changed the power point slide). While his department (Engineering/Operations) had made changes to equipment and operating strategies in an effort to successfully reduce consumption, management had decided to restructure their business model resulting in massive consumption increases, wiping out any gains he had made and exceeding the original rate. This “green” corporation was not so “green” after all. I’m dying to let the cat out of the bag and name the organization……but, I won’t.
Suffice it to say that everyone reading this site would know the name. Funny, isn’t it?
Brute (8238)
I’ll have to add one of these SUV’s to my Christmas list…
In which case, you’re going to be eating an awful lot of pasta from now on, methinks!
That SUV ad confirms (to me, at least) that you can tell what God thinks of money by the people he gives it to…
Well James, The Lord works in mysterious ways……
In my case, He blessed me with a superior intellect and good looks……..and humility.
“Its probably the same Fred Singer who has published some 45 peer reviewed papers.”
Any on climate change?
PS Or maybe about smoking?
Robin
Will check out Gavin’s arguments.
Based on the RealClimate experience, I have found that there are often lapses in logic in his argumentation. He also has a tendency to make unsubstantiated dogmatic claims, which turn out to be incorrect upon closer scrutiny.
There is no doubt that Gavin is as sharp as a tack (and slippery as an eel), but his arguments are based on a false hypothesis, oversimplified computer models, manipulated data and just plain “bad science”.
The key ingredient that is almost invariably missing is empirical data based on physical observations or experimentation.
Let’s see how these claims stack up.
Max
Max and Robin
These are three of my owm studies-Gavin is talking out of his hat about temperatures.
Article: reliability of temperature records (leads to my new web site)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/14/little-ice-age-thermometers-%e2%80%93-history-and-reliability/
Article: Historic instrument readings demonstrate climatic variability
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/invisible-elephants/
Article; An examination of the great Arctic melting of 1815-1860
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/20/historic-variation-in-arctic-ice/#more-8688
Tonyb
Robin
Further to TonyB’s critique of the Gavin Schmidt stuff quoted by BBC News, I’ve gone through the list. Here are my comments.
In countering the “skeptic” claim that the surface temperature is full of distortion due to urban heat islands and that proxy records are also subject to errors Gavin claims:
Warming is, indeed, unequivocal (as no one disputes).
Since 1850, this has occurred in three periods of about 30 years each (1855-1880, 1910-1944, 1976-2000) with 30-year cooling periods in between (1880-1910, 1945-1975). In addition, there has been the beginning of a new cooling cycle since 2001, which is now expected to continue for two more decades.
There is no apparent correlation between these warming/cooling cycles and atmospheric CO2 concentration.
Underlying these multi-decadal warming/cooling cycles has been a slow warming trend of around 0.4°C per century.
Balloon and satellite measurements (since 1979) also show warming, but these show it occurring at a slower rate than the surface measurement. This is a dilemma for AGW believers, such as Gavin Schmidt, since greenhouse warming should occur more rapidly in the troposphere than at the surface. So it is incorrect of Gavin to claim, “balloon measurements… and satellites all show results consistent with the surface record of warming”. The rates of warming are not consistent; surface warming is occurring more rapidly than the others, even though the GH theory says it should be warming more slowly at the surface.
Gavin’s “calm night / windy night” discussion is a reference to studies by Parker et al., which were cited by IPCC to disprove the urban heat island (UHI) effect, not by physically measuring and comparing temperatures at nearby urban and rural stations, but by measuring the difference between nighttime temperatures on windy and on calm nights. This study has since been shot down by Roger Pielke. It also ignores scores of studies from all over the world, which show a strong UHI distortion (which could account for most of the observed warming at the surface).
It is also not true that more than half of the warming has occurred since 1979. In actual fact, the 1910-1944 period showed linear warming of 0.5C while the period since 1979 showed 0.4C.
Skeptics 1: Gavin 0
To be continued.
Max
TonyB #8261
congratulations on the data you’re assembling at climatereason. While the rest of us are spouting off, you’ve been sweating away at the coalface digging out this stuff. Real temperatures in real places where people live, instead of imaginary averages cobbled together by mysterious means from dubious data fished out of faraway oceans in wooden (or were they leather?) buckets. The next time I’m allowed to comment at Guardian Environment I shall throw this stuff in their self-satisfied faces: “Did you know that you can experience twice the climate change considered as catastrophic (i.e. a 4°C rise) by simply moving from Durham to London? Many have done so and lived to tell the tale”.
There”s more to be learnt by leafing through these temperature records and reflecting on one’s (inevitably limited) knowledge of history than in following the tortuous warmist v. denier debates. Again, thanks.
Tonyb,
To help you fill in your temperature chart……… Do you need these in any specific type of format? Are you looking for just raw data?
Robin
Back to the BBC News “debate” between a “skeptic” (Fred Singer?) and Gavin Schmidt.
2. To the skeptic statement that there has been no warming since 1998, Gavin replies:
The records show no warming since 1998 (two show slight cooling; two show slight warming). This part is “unequivocal”. Yes, 1998, was a record warm year, touted at the time as proof of rampant global warming and now written down as a strong El Nino year. But more pertinent is the record since January 2001. This shows a linear cooling trend of 0.1°C per decade (average of the 4 main temperature records), where IPCC had predicted a warming of 0.2°C per decade. This discrepancy is now recognized by the UK Met Office, but rationalized as caused by “natural variability” (the same “natural forcing” that was stated by IPCC to be insignificant over the entire period 1750-2005).
Skeptic 2: Gavin 0
3. To the skeptic statement that the MWP was global and warmer than today and that there have been recent periods of warmer Arctic climate as well, Gavin opines:
Gavin ignores several studies from all over the world, which show that the MWP was warmer than today. In addition to a recent summary of many peer-reviewed studies by Craig Loehle, these studies cover the following locations (degrees C warmer than today):
China, Henan Province (0.9-1.0)
China, Eastern (0.4)
China, Pearl River Delta (1-2)
Japan (1.0)
Sargasso Sea (1.0)
Tropical Ocean, Indian Ocean, S. China Sea, Caribbean (0.4)
New Zealand (0.75)
Barrow Strait, Canada (no temp difference cited)
Gulf of Mexico (1.5)
Coastal Peru (1.2)
Venezuela Coast (0.95)
Lake Erie, Ohio, USA (0.2)
Chesapeake Bay, USA (0.15)
Greenland (1.0)
Sweden (1.5)
NW Spain (3-4)
Finnish Lapland (0.15)
Ural Mountains, Russia (0.5)
Altai Maountains, Siberia, Russia (0.5)
Antarctica (no temp difference cited)
A study by Chylek et al. shows that temperatures in Greenland were higher in the 1930’s than they are today, and that the rate of warming in 1920–1930 was about 50% higher than that in 1995–2005.
Skeptic 3: Gavin 0
More to follow.
Max
Could it be, Max, that Gavin might be justified in pointing out that some of your comments don’t take proper account of the fact that he was writing two years ago? And, just as you can make use of more recent information, so I daresay could he.
But perhaps it’s all academic: according to this BBC report, Earth ‘heading for 6C’ of warming, perhaps we’re all doomed anyway.
Robin
Back to the BBC “debate”
4. The skeptic states that climate models are unable to model the processes involved with clouds and water vapor, etc. and are therefore unable to project future climate trends (GIGO).
To this Gavin (who is a modeling expert) responds:
This is a lot of fancy talk but no clear rebuttal of the statement that models are unable to project future climate. The statement “All of the robust results from modelling have both theoretical and observational support” is either cleverly worded (how about all of the “non-robust results”?) or blatantly false. Most of the model results are based on questionable input assumptions. The GIGO claim is not disputed, nor is the claim that models are unable to simulate what really happens with clouds and water vapor (as borne out by the recent Lindzen and Choi study, which shows that all the models are basically wrong on water vapor + cloud feedbacks).
Skeptic 4:Gavin 0
5. The skeptic states that warming is occurring more rapidly at the surface than in the troposphere, despite the prediction by all models, so either the models are wrong, the temperature measurements are wrong or the warming is not being caused by the greenhouse effect.
To this Gavin replies:
This is a classical waffle. When the observed data do not confirm the theory, the data must be wrong. The satellite data (corrected for orbital drift) show slower warming than the surface record, regardless of what Gavin claims. The statement that “there is no discrepancy” is therefore false, regardless of the quoted IPCC statement.
Skeptic 5:Gavin 0
More to come.
Max
robin #8267
I note that the BBC report, like the similar report at Guardian environment, headlines with the predicted catastrophic rise in temperature, while the scientific study merely predicts likely rise in CO2 levels (from which the temperature rises are extrapolated).
Nothing in the report can be criticised as being false, but it’s fantasy science, which bears the same relationship to real science as fantasy football does to real matches. More fun to a certain kind of voting, barely sentient couch potato. (Gaia wept. They’re a million miles ahead of us in their presentational skills) but of no interest in the real world.
Oh, and the BBC, like the Guardian, Times and NYT, has learnt that if you photograph steam emitted by a power station against the rising sun, it looks horribly smelly. Eat your heart out Leni Riefenstahl.
Robin
Back to the BBC debate.
6. The skeptic states that the sun has been a principal driver of our planet’s climate in the past as well as now, with any warming attributed mainly to variations in the Sun’s magnetic field and solar wind.
To this statement Gavin responds:
Again, Gavin does not address the statement, but goes off on a tangent about the solar index. Gavin ignores the fact that several solar scientists have concluded that slightly more than half of the warming experienced over the 20th century (0.35°C out of 0.65°C) can be attributed to the unusually high level of solar activity (highest in several thousand years). These studies are based on empirical data relating solar activity with temperature gathered prior to the period of manmade global warming. Gavin also fails to address the statement on solar wind and the sun’s magnetic field
Skeptic 6:Gavin 0
7. The skeptic points out that ice core data show that temperature increased prior to increase in CO2 level, presumably as warmer temperatures have liberated the gas from oceans, so that CO2 cannot have been the cause of warming.
To this Gavin responds:
So Gavin has not addressed the skeptic’s statement on cause and effect (except to say that it is “largely irrelevant”). He then simply states how much CO2 humans have emitted and then makes the statement of faith that this has resulted in atmospheric CO2 levels that “are possibly higher than any time since three million years ago”. Gavin gives no basis for this (really “irrelevant”) side-track, however.
Skeptic 7:Gavin 0
More to come.
Max
Manacker #8268
at your point 4 you say: “This is a lot of fancy talk but no clear rebuttal of the statement that models are unable to project future climate.”
You are too kind to the models here, because what we want are not projections (wassat?) but predictions, and IPCC lead author Kevin Trenberth has clearly stated that there are NO predictions in the IPCC reports, only “projections”.
If there are no predictions, all talk of “x°C in 2100” (see Robin above) is fairytales, drowning puppies.
Don’t be too hard on Gavin. It’s thanks to him that I became a sceptic. Realclimate has a post “how to convince your grandmother..” or some such. Complicated? I turned with relief to ClimateAudit. I may only understand 5% of the statistics there, but I know I’m not being had. How? Don’t know. I just do.
Brute
Thanks very much for the data but I am looking to go further back than the 1890’s.
You can see the reason for this here
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/invisible-elephants/
Scroll down a little to the Giss version of a graph from 1880 for Hohenpeissenberg Germany
Then scroll down a little further to the chart that gives 100 years of additional data and you can clearly see Dr Hansen recorded from the bottom of a temperature cycle and the summit of the preceding one can be clearly seen.
There are two further examples of this effect a little further down for Uppsala and Stockholm.
This is the paper where Dr Hansen set out the numbers of stations and the dates they recorded from. If you or anyone can find records from any of the pre 1850 stations in their patch that would be very useful.
(Figure 2 sums the numbers up.)
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1987/1987_Hansen_Lebedeff.pdf
Geoff
Thanks for your kind comments but the temperature data is much much worse than you believe! The way that giss assembles its records-sometimes from stations that no longer exist, sometimes from another country, sometimes adding in virtually no uhi factor when a city has grown ten fold, sometimes the stations have been moved to airports.
Global temperatures are a complete nonsense with only 25% of the stations there were 10 years ago-most of which have moved and no longer record the micro climate they were originally set up to measure.
I dare say the Hadley figures are every bit as bad but as they are considered a state secret and the raw data has been lost anyway, I guess we will never know.
In my opinion there ought to be two main topics at the Copenhagen summit;
The first is to audit the temperature information, the second to investigate uhi, it is clearly a big factor in urban warming.
Urban areas constitutes much of the giss data base these days and nowhere near enough allowance is made for it.
Tonyb
Robin
Back to BBC.
8. The skeptic points out that the long-term data on hurricanes and arctic ice is too poor to assess trends and that there is nothing exceptional about the apparent shrinkage in Arctic ice.
To this Gavin replies:
The skeptic statement is a bit watered down, to start off with. The record shows that hurricane frequency and intensity have both decreased since the 1930s and 1940s, whereas IPCC has claimed that “intense tropical cyclone activity” has increased (contrary to what Gavin states they claim).
As to the Arctic sea ice, there have been studies showing that it had receded in the early 20th century to levels below the current level (with temperatures slightly higher than today), confirming the skeptic claim that there is nothing exceptional about the recent shrinkage. It shrank to a modern low (since 1979) in 2007 and has recovered significantly since then. Antarctic sea ice extent has grown since 1979.
Skeptic 8: Gavin 0
9. The skeptic makes the claim that water vapor is the major greenhouse gas, and that CO2 is relatively unimportant. Even if water content is rising, it depends on whether this is as vapor or in clouds whether or not warming will result.
(The skeptic claims 98% of warming due to water vapor, which I believe is exaggerated).
Gavin replies:
Gavin puts the theoretical GH effect of water at 75%, while the “skeptic” said 98%. This is a moot point, but Gavin is probably closer to correct. How long CO2 or water stays in the atmosphere is not that important. “Decades to centuries” for CO2 ignores the natural carbon cycle (studies put this at between 5 and 10 years). The claim that “water vapor is rising” thereby adding to warming is based on model simulations rather than physical observations. These show (NOAA) that water vapor content has actually decreased since 1948. Water as vapor (warming), liquid droplets in low-level clouds (cooling) or ice crystals in hi-level clouds (warming) acts as the natural thermostat of our climate, by providing a net negative feedback with warming (Lindzen + Choi), as opposed to the climate model assumptions of a strongly positive feedback from water vapor and clouds. As Gavin says “water vapor as a [positive] feedback is included in all climate models”. The statement is correct, but the assumption of positive feedback is false, based on empirical data from physical observations.
Skeptic 9: Gavin 0
One more to come (to cap this off).
Max
So Robin, does this mean that I can stop paying my mortgage and run up my credit cards without having to pay them off?
How much time are we talking about here?
Robin
Final chapter of the BBC “debate”.
10. The skeptic states that problems such as HIV/AIDS and poverty are more pressing than climate change, arguing that the Kyoto Protocol reductions in CO2 will have no effect on climate anyway.
This is largely outside the scientific discussion (and the Kyoto Protocol has died a quiet death since then), but Gavin replies:
Gavin does not address the topic of the relative importance of climate change versus other global problems, but states that the effects of climate change will, on balance, be negative, with the poorer nations suffering more than colder regions. He also states that new technologies will be beneficial, which has nothing to do with the topic being discussed.
There have been no human deaths directly attributed to anthropogenic greenhouse warming to date, whereas there have been many millions who die annually from HIV/AIDS and poverty.
A study has been made of human deaths caused by climate events (Goklany). This shows that these have decreased dramatically as our planet has warmed. Medical studies (Maccabee, Keatinge, Deschenes + Moretti) have shown that a far greater number of human deaths can be attributed to cold rather than warm weather.
There have also been studies, which show that the underdeveloped nations will be the ones who suffer most from a global ban on the construction of new coal fired power plants, in that they will be deprived of an energy infrastructure based on local coal resources to pull themselves out of poverty.
A study on relative economic importance of various global threats and challenges (Lomborg) shows that climate change is well down on the list.
Finally, the entire world now emits around 30 billion tons of CO2 annually, of which a portion (~50%) “stays” in the atmosphere. Christopher Monckton has calculated that it would take the cumulative reduction of 1 trillion tons of CO2 emissions to result in a net reduction of warming of 1°F (his figures are correct). This tells me that humans are not able to control our climate by setting CO2 targets or imposing (direct or indirect) carbon taxes. So the skeptic is right on this one, as well.
Skeptic 10:Gavin 0
Max