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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Peter: you say “Climate deniers … don’t understand science”. Unlike those emailers at the CRU who seem keen to ignore the scientific method?
Peter: but, yes, I have to agree with Max that anyone who denies there is a climate or that climate changes doesn’t understand science. But there is no one commenting here who falls into either category.
PeterM
The source was the Daily Mail, not The Times.
The source of the report was a series of climate scientists, who have concluded that global warming has stopped for now, possibly for the next 20 or 30 years.
I have no idea of the political or religious affiliation of these scientists, nor do I care that much, because it is totally irrelevant to our discussion.
Do you want to debate what these scientists have concluded?
[I know we have a bet on the 1998 record being reached by 2011, so I am betting on these scientists being right, and the Met Office, who has been wrong in at least its last 5 predictions, continuing its losing streak.]
Max
PeterM
The “sceptics’ society” you cite sounds like an astute and politically correct group.
As a “rational skeptic” in the scientific sense (see Wiki) I’m not affiliated with a “group”, so I can avoid “group think”. I am also not very much interested in the concept of “political correctness”.
I think most of the posters here fall into a similar category.
As I pointed out to you, both sides of the AGW debate include “deniers” (of one or another aspect in the debate), so this is not a good descriptive for only one side.
I think the best would be:
“AGW believers” (for those, like you, who believe that AGW, caused principally by human CO2 emissions, is a serious threat), and
“AGW skeptics” (for those, like me, that are rationally skeptical of the AGW premise).
We should probably get someone to make the final judgment on this who is better versed in the fine points of the English language than you, as an Australian (pardon me, Bob_FJ) or me, as a Swiss with some USA input.
Maybe Robin or TonyN could help us out.
Does my suggestion make sense?
Max
PeterM
It does not require a major city for the urban heat island effect to distort temperature readings. (As TonyB pointed out, airport locations can be just as bad.) You mentioned Alaska (a poor choice to prove your point). Here are two examples of significant UHI effect:
Fairbanks (International Airport)
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1999ThApC..64…39M
The mean annual heat island observed at the Fairbanks International Airport grew by 0.4°C, with the winter months experiencing a more significant increase of 1.0°C.
Point Barrow
http://www.geography.uc.edu/~kenhinke/uhi/HinkelEA-IJOC-03.pdf
During winter (December 2001–March 2002), the urban area averaged 2.2 °C warmer than the hinterland. The strength of the UHI increased as the wind velocity decreased, reaching an average value of 3.2 °C under calm (<2 m s?1) conditions and maximum single-day magnitude of 6 °C.
Peter, are you a “UHI-denier”?
Max
Max:
You could teach most Brits a thing or two about the use of English.
Barelysane,
The Daily Mail is still owned by the same Rothermere family. There has never been any apology over the support they gave to the Nazis in the pre-war period. They supported Pinochet and the South African apartheid regime in the 70 and 80’s. They were pro-fascist 70 years ago, and not much has changed with them since.
The BNP are climate deniers too. OK Anthropogenically induced climate change deniers if you want the full title. All the extreme right wing groups are. Doesn’t it worry you to be in their company?
Max
We shall wait and see if Peter is a UHI denier (or will just go silent on the matter) Curious to think the Ancient Romans knew more about UHI than Peter Gavin and the IPCC appear to.
In the meantime I don’t know if you have seen this very recent presentation by someone we both like-miskolczi;
http://miskolczi.webs.com/ZM_v10_eng.pdf
He is the only person that actually calculates the possible temperature increase due to co2 in an open manner
tonyb
Peter: “Doesn’t it worry you to be in their company?”
No – the fact that disagreeable people hold a view doesn’t invalidate that view: there you go, promulgating yet another logical fallacy. Yawn.
Hitler disliked smoking. So do I. I’m quite happy with that.
Is there any correlation between areas where temperature has risen the most and urban areas?
No-one is denying that the UHI exists. You guys seem to be denying that its effects aren’t properly accounted for.
PeterM
You posted a world map showing regions with different degrees of warming and then asked (9010):
Yes. One example is Siberia (a large region with major observed warming, according to your map).
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:
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/nvst.html
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/intellicast.essay.pdf
You then continued with:
That is correct, Peter. The effect of shutting down all those remote rural stations has not been accounted for at all, for example.
Poor station siting is another cause of an upward UHI distortion, which is not accounted for.
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 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-conditioner exhausts – all artificial heat sources which cause spurious higher temperature readings..
http://www.surfacestations.org/downloads/USHCN_stationlist.xls
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 air conditioning units nearby. A comparison of the NASA GISS temperature records of the two stations over the 70-year period 1937-2006 shows that the improperly sited station shows a spurious increase in temperature of around 0.2 °C per decade (1.4°C total) higher than the well-positioned station, again resulting in a significant UHI distortion, which has not been accounted for.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3379/3445494806_d4152f9509_b.jpg
Another source of UHI distortion, which has not been accounted for, results from land use changes.
A 2006 study on land use/land cover change effects on temperature trends at rural U.S. weather stations showed that there was no significant temperature trend prior to the period of greatest land use changes; “in contrast, after the period of greatest LULC change was observed, 95% of the stations that exhibited significant trends (minimum, maximum, or mean temperature) displayed warming trends”.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006/2006GL026358.shtml
So you see, Peter, just from these examples, there are many examples of UHI distortions to the temperature record, which have not been “properly accounted for”.
In addition to the examples I cited above, there are many studies from all over the world, which point to a significant local UHI distortion of the temperature record.
Is the overall spurious warming effect over the 20th century one of 0.3°C or one of 0.5°C (estimates are in this range). One thing is certain: It is definitely not “insignificant” (i.e. “less than 0.006°C per decade”) as IPCC claims.
Max
Peter #9007:
The Daily Mail isn’t a paper I look at very often but it has recently published a couple of extremely well researched articles on the climate debate by a free-lancer called David Rose. You would probably agree with neither of them, but they demonstrate a level of understanding of the issues and careful reporting that is absent from most broadsheet output on the subject in this country.
Climate change emails row deepens as Russians admit they DID come from their Siberian server
Experts say the 20-year mini ice age starts here
Moreover, and at the risk of leading a thread on my own blog astray, their headline last night, over a picture of Alistair Campbell who had just spent five hours in front of the Chilcot inquiry, was:
SHAMELESS, UNREPENTENT AND STILL LYING
Now there’s a bit of courageous journalism that suggests that, whatever the their past sins may be, they are sometimes on the side of the angels now. I wonder where it will lead?
And why are you going on about something that happened three-qurters of a century ago?
TonyN,
Consider this statement from your so called “well researched article”:
“According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007 – and even the most committed global warming activists do not dispute this.”
You know, I know and everyone else who reads this blog knows that the ice minimum in 2007 was particularly low. Naturally it was to be expected that sunsequent years wouldn’t be quite so severe. But the average person who reads the Daily Mail probably doesn’t know that.
Can you honestly tell me that the intention of this statement wasn’t to mislead after looking at this graph?
The Daily Mail are just as crooked now as they were 70 years ago.
TonyN
Sorry I got the graph size wrong again! Any chance of a preview facility?
PeterM
The facts on Arctic sea ice.
Satellite measurements started in 1979.
The baseline was taken as the average extent from 1979-2000.
The end-summer (September) extent was 7.04 million square kilometers (msk)
By September 2007, this had shrunk to 4.28 msk, or 2.76 msk below the 1979-2000 baseline.
By September 2009, this had recovered to 5.36 msk, or 1.08 msk above the 2007 low.
This represents a recovery in 2 years equal to 39% of the total long-term loss measured in September 2007.
Those are the recorded facts, Peter.
Now you can spin them any way you want to.
Let’s see if I can do a better job than you did with the chart.
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4062/4273143060_c5fc7e3bcd_b.jpg
Max
Curious statement from you Peter. I would have thought that you too would be a supporter of National Socialism.
Would you have supported the “socialist” portion of the regime and overlooked the “inconvenient” truths?
Peter 9013
So you don’t think it at all deceitful when arctic ice is measured from our recent past in 1979 and no mention is given by the media to the fact that satellite records started from a high point for ice or that there has always been periodic melting?
Max and I dealt with this subject at great length just a few weeks ago.
Tonyb
Peter
This is an insane arguement as you well know peter, the only association is that we both question AGW. You (if you want an equally ridiculous example) might as well say vegetarians could be nazis as Adolf Hilter was a vegetarian, silly isn’t it.
Peter M #9013:
What Rose said about the Arctic sea ice recovery from the 2007 minimum is not misleading: it is perfectly accurate. By the appalling standards of press coverage of AGW that is quite an achievement.
#9014
Unfortunately the preview plugin I use does not cope well with graphics and I do not know of a better one. All you have to do is add this before the closing angle brackets in the HTML tag:
Width = "540"Don’t forget the inverted commas!
TonyN,
Thanks for fixing up my graph size. I’ll have to practice in the admin section.
But why pick on 2007? Why not 2006, or 2008 or any other year?
Sorry, I know that’s a stupid question. If David Rose had chosen 2006, or even shown a graph which at least some of the Daily Mail readers should be able to understand, he would have had to write that the sea ice in 2009 was still showing a long term decline and that wouldn’t do, would it?
I’m sure his editor would have told him to go and look for a job at the BBC or even the New Scientist if that was his attitude!
Peter M
You guys seem to be denying that its effects aren’t properly accounted for.
I think you mean ‘are properly accounted for’. We wouldn’t be denying it otherwise.. :-)
Brute,
I know that, in America, it is fashionable in certain circles to play up the “Socialism” of the NSDAP or
the National Socialist German Workers Party. The full title of their British equivalent was National Socialist British Union Of Fascists.
If you define Socialism by a certain level of state ownership then, yes, you could argue the NSDAP were to a degree socialist. But, you may remember that I enormously enjoyed teasing you in 2008 when President Bush nationalised large sections of the US financial sector. So, if the Nazis were socialist then so is George Bush. If its any consolation to you I don’t think either he, or the Nazis, are. The US government had to do what they did to protect capitalism – GB was being perfectly truthful about that. German capitalism was sick in the 30’s so the ruling class there collaborated with the Nazis to end democracy and restore German militarism and if it needed State intervention to do it then so be it. The motivation was largely the same.
The Nazis, like their modern day equivalents, are firmly a party of the Right. Of course they liked having working class support but you just need to look at what happened to the German Trade Unions under Nazism to know that it wasn’t reciprocated.
That’s all pretty well understood in Europe. Its odd that you Americans seem to think differently.
Peter #9021
I’m not about to get drawn into another interminable discussion of Arctic sea ice here. However this did catch my eye:
Given that we only have homogeneous records of the summer ice melt for three decades out of the ~1200 decades of the Holocene, let alone any knowledge of decadal scale variations during previous interglacials, your reference to ‘long term decline’ surprises me. But I’m sure that you had no intention of misleading any innocent reader who happens to stumble across your comment.
Pete,
Hee, Hee………I enjoy watching modern day Leftists try to squirm away from the inconvenient truth regarding the correlation between Stalin, Mao, National Socialism and the modern “Progressive” movement.
When you have a moment; check out what Woodrow Wilson and his gang of “Progressives” were really all about; much more in line with Stalin, Mao and the hero of the Left, “Uncle Adolf”.
You love the “Utopian Worker’s Paradise” concept……its the oppression, genocide and misery that always seems to spoil the vision that these pillars of “enlightenment” espoused.
Your Collectivist ideology (implemented as a key component to resolve the global warming “planetary crisis”) has failed miserably throughout the historical political record, but you seem hell bent on trying it again. As usual, the argument from the Left is that in the past, the “wrong men” implemented the policies.
Good luck this time.