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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Alex
I’m currently expecting the surprise return of the wolly mammoth.
barelysane:
I knew Bob Watson reminded me of something.
Peter: I entirely agree with you that the science of AGW is not settled. And I doubt if any scientist said it was – unless he/she was very foolish. But other pundits give a pretty good impression of saying that it is. Here, for example, is our Climate Change Secretary (Ed Miliband) just before the Copenhagen conference:
LOL! As featured in the ‘Ice Age’ animations…
The BBC website has an item today entitled Science news highlights of 2009. I feared the worst. Unnecessarily. For January to October it has only two items about climate science – both innocuous. But, in November, following an item about “mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet” – followed by the admittedly gratuitous observation that “Melting of the entire sheet would raise sea levels globally by about 7m (20ft)” – it included this:
And then, for December, it included this:
Not much to complain about there – I would not have been surprised had “Climategate” been ignored or, at least minimised, and the Copenhagen summary doesn’t attempt to follow the Government line about the conference outcome being a valuable “first step”. Perhaps the BBC is going soft.
Robin,
Did you read the realclimate guys on the question of settled science? What we are saying is that the question of settled vs unsettled itself presents a false dichotomy.
In science, theories and established to various degrees of confidence. Its not a digital (yes/no) but rather old fashioned analogue continuous scale. So, we are saying that, yes, there is still a lot to learn. But just because we don’t know everything it doesn’t mean that we know nothing.
It may be helpful to just paraphrase Ed Milliband’s statement as:
The overwhelming consensus of scientists across the world is that AIDS is real, is happening due to HIV infection. The people who do somehow want to suggest that the science is in doubt are profoundly irresponsible.
Is the science on AIDS settled? Well no it isn’t, and please read the RC article if you still don’t know what I’m getting at. And please don’t try to prove me wrong by having unprotected sex with strangers over Christmas.
But have a good time anyway.
PM
Peter: I know exactly to what you (and RS) are referring. But the big difference between the Aids/HIV link and the GHG/dangerous climate change link is (as I’ve said many times before – only you don’t seem to listen) that the high degree of confidence re the former results from it’s being based on real-world empirical evidence and the low degree re the latter results from it’s not being based on any such evidence. Simple really.
Acooring to William Connolley, Bob Watson said that the science was settled, in 1997:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_M._Connolley/The_science_is_settled
He’s a scientist, isn’t he?
In an interview on PBS Newshour yesterday, commenting on Copenhagen, Obama said:
I liked the “kind of” and “wasn’t too much”. Hmm, sounds like he thinks it was a disaster.
Max:
Did you see this?
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/12/22/cyclical-not/
It would be interesting to know whether you have tried to comment.
Oh dear – the BBC + Sir David King does not make a happy combination:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/24/bbc-botches-grade-school-co2-science-experiment-on-live-tv-with-indepedent-lab-results-to-prove-it/#more-14456
File under ‘more heat than light’, perhaps…
Little more on the BBC
http://sppiblog.org/news/the-unspeakable-bbc-biased-even-when-trying-to-be-unbiased
Peter: I observed above (8728) that any scientist who claimed that the science of AGW was settled would be very foolish, adding however that “other pundits give a pretty good impression of saying that it is” and citing Ed Miliband. Here’s another: the British Council (previously responsible for promoting internationally art, cultural and educational links in the UK) now has “climate change” as one of its three core programme areas. It says on its website (here):
Little room for doubt there: seems it thinks the science is settled.
Robin,
It does require a certain intelligence to discuss the question of scientific certainty. Those who don’t possess it often misinterpret the precision of scientific syntax for doubt.
For instance in your previous posting the IPCC would probably replace the word undisputable as follows: “Our role in creating the problems is very likely . Unless we limit the emissions of greenhouse gases….”
Very likely has been quantified as 90%+. How much certainty do you require? I’ve asked that question before and you haven’t answered.
Generally speaking the public demand certainty from politicians. It would be interesting to change some of Churchill’s wartime speeches. How would “We’ll fight them on the beaches, ………….we hopefully won’t ever have to surrender: have sounded? Not good – but it would have been more honest.
Max
TonyN posted a link on #8735 regarding a comment made by you that was picked up by Tamino.
In case you feel like commenting there, I find it extraordinary that Mr Tamino should be so sceptical about the existence of cycles or oscillations.
On my site
http://climatereason.com/LittleIceAgeThermometers/
the various older records clearly show cycles and indeed if you go into ‘articles’ you will see that I have written several articles on the nature of some of these cycles.
Mr Tamino also believes himself to be something of an expert on CET and searches in vain through the heavily filtered data for signs of cycles. If he were to look at the RAW data this should be quite evident.
The problem occurs in the modern record when the Met office introduce a very tiny amount of UHI from 1975, but nowhere near enough to compensate for either the population growth or takes into account the change of locations of the stations being used in CET
This next link
http://www.climate-uk.com/page5.html
is compiled by Philip Eden, a well respected UK Meterologist who has recognised the tendancy of the CET in recent years to exaggerate warming because of the way the data is manipulated by the met office.
If you post on cycles -either at RC or Tamino- please provide a link as I would be interested in folloing the action.
By the way got back yesterday from Switzerland where there were record low temperatures.
Tonyb
Peter:
That IPCC “90%” is in the “Summary for Policymakers”. Precisely where, in the main report, does the IPCC cite to the empirical research that supports its assessment? I’ve asked that question many times before and you haven’t answered.
Very likely has been quantified as 90%+
Based on what? Before you equivocate, I’m sure 90% is ‘very likely’, semantically, but that doesn’t make it apply to AGW!
BTW, Peter, just because you seem to think the IPCC would replace the precise “indisputable” with its wooly “very likely”, doesn’t undo the British Council’s unequivocal statement. And that, as I said, gives a good impression of saying that it considers the science to be settled.
As for the IPCC, the full SPM quotation is “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations“. So we have “most” followed by “very likely”. Doubt upon doubt – not much confidence there, it seems.
Hello all, and a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Sorry I’ve been such a poor participant of late, but time has been very short for me.
I did see this shocking article in The Nation, a far-left publication here in The States. I almost had to check the calendar to see if it was April Fools Day.
(Real Clear Politics has the whole article here for those who are not subscribers to The Nation)
JZ: great to hear from you. That article is a most welcome surprise given its provenance. I suggest “far-left” may be a bit of an exaggeration (certainly by European standards) – but anyone unaware of its usual position on AGW may wish to see this. Here’s the opening paragraph:
But especially I agree – a very MERRY CHRISTMAS to all (not least PeterM).
Robin and JamesP,
You both ask about the figure of 90%.
I haven’t time to dig it out now but there is a graph showing a normal type distribution of the likely increase in temperature should CO2 levels double. The mean figure is about 3 degrees. So if the distribution is symmetrical there will be a 50% chance of the warming being more than 3 degrees. There will be about 90% chance of the warming being more than 1.5 degrees, but I suspect that the 90% figure may have been tacked on to the policy summary as a result of some political pressure and wasn’t worked out too precisely.
I know you guys are stickers for accuracy so maybe you like to have a go yourself and tell us all what you think the true figure should be.
Peter, re your 8746, I concede that The Three Degrees do indeed cut a mean figure (well, they certainly did in the 1970s, anyway) – as you can see in the photo, their distribution was definitely symmetrical and sure to induce quite a bit of warming.
To you and to everyone else here, I wish a very Merry Christmas!
Thanks to JZ Smith #8744 for the reference to the article from the Nation by Alexander Cockburn available on his site at
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn12182009.html
Alexander is the son of Claud Cockburn, communist journalist on the Morning Star and the Week in the thirties, and Private Eye in the sixties. Alexander had a memorable spat with Monbiot two years ago. I recommend his articles to anyone who finds the company of the Delingpoles, Moncktons, and Melanie Phillipses a trifle embarrassing.
Oh wakey, wakey, Peter. See my post 8743. First, we’ve got “most of the observed increase …” What might “most” mean – 51% or 99%? Shall we say 75%? Then, of that, 90% (perhaps 67%?) is asserted (without any supporting empirical evidence) to be “due to observed” AGW. Come on – it’s hopelessly vague.
Alexander Cockburn is one of those who thinks that the GHE violates the second law of thermodynamics.
“… that “greenhouse” theory violates the second law of thermodynamics, which says that a cooler body cannot warm a hotter body without compensation..”
This of course, if true, would apply to both the natural and enhanced GHE.
You might want to read Roy Spencer on the Physics of the natural GHE.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/04/in-defense-of-the-greenhouse-effect/
“Secondly, the idea that a cooler atmospheric layer can emit infrared energy toward a warmer atmospheric layer below it seems unphysical to many people. I suppose this is because we would not expect a cold piece of metal to transfer heat into a warm piece of metal. But the processes involved in conductive heat transfer are not the same as in radiative heat transfer. A hot star out in space will still receive, and absorb, radiant energy from a cooler nearby star…even though the NET flow of energy will be in the opposite direction.
In other words, a photon being emitted by the cooler star doesn’t stick its finger out to see how warm the surroundings are before it decides to leave.”