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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Here’s an interesting report: India is to set up “an Indian IPCC”. An extract:
And this, from another Indian newspaper (The Hindu) says “India, China won’t sign Copenhagen Accord“.
McKie is also trying to reverse the burden of proof!
Unless climate sceptics can demonstrate there is a negligible danger..
Sounds desperate to me. I think we can expect plenty more of this, as the planet fails to co-operate. How long before warmists start shooting polar bears to support their predictions? :-)
Robin
Let’s see. India + China (together 2.5 billion people) do not sign. USA (a bit more than 0.3 billion) are negative (despite a President that would like to sign but is powerless to do so against the will of the people and has enough other problems on his plate).
Then there is Brazil plus Russia (around 0.2 billion each) who are doubtful.
Who’s left? The old, original EU members (with the new ones dragging their feet), Japan and maybe an “Asian tiger” or two.
Sort of reminds me of the 1960s pacifist slogan: “they declared a war, but nobody showed up”.
Only this time it’s not “a war”, it’s “a global climate treaty”.
Max
Robin (9168)
And when it does, it will do so with a vengeance. Even writers as biased as Monbiot have shown how vicious they can get when they feel that they have been made a fool or lied to.
The moment the AGW-craze is no longer the “PC trend”, as a result of the exposed corrupt and sloppy science supporting it, I predict it will be dropped like a hot rock.
Max
Max (9179): it’s not a treaty, it’s merely an “accord”. Yet, although it would be not be legally binding and would thus be meaningless, China, India etc. are still declining to sign it. And the US probably won’t be able to. So we’re all doomed. Or we are if the likes of PeterM have got it right. Incidentally, its text was negotiated by Brazil, China, India, South Africa and the United States. The EU wasn’t even invited to the party.
Robin
Thanks for that. Yes, a “non-binding accord” (which has no teeth and hardly anyone has signed) is much less than a “treaty” (or the previous Kyoto agreement).
In fact in today’s politics it is worthless.
Brown told us in the fall he had 60 days to save the planet. Looks like he failed and we are doomed.
Great! Let’s all go back to normal living again and forget all this nonsense, since we are doomed in any case.
Max
Further to my 9181, there’s an interesting story in the Daily Telegraph this morning. Headed China has ‘open mind’ about cause of climate change, it reports a comment made by Mr Xie Zhenhua, China’s vice-chairman of national development and reforms commission, when speaking at a summit between the developing world’s most powerful countries, India, Brazil, South Africa and China. He said:
For the IPCC AR4, “weather events are climate” – looks like another retraction is needed
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/24/for-the-ipcc-ar4-weather-events-are-climate-looks-like-another-retraction-is-needed/
Brute,
The Wattsupwiththat report does complain that the difference between weather and climate is pointed out very quickly by the science community when examples of cold weather are being given by climate change contrarians, but much less quickly, or sometimes not at all, when hot weather events cause concern about AGW.
I guess it is human nature to accept an helpful situation. A heatwave naturally does raise concerns about AGW in the general population, whereas it is often difficult to attract a high level of interest when there is snow and ice on the ground. So scientists do seize their opportunity to get their message across when they can.
But strictly speaking, I do agree that if everyone was being totally rational about it, we should just put local weather events out of our minds and look solely at global data.
Further to my 9183, the BBC has the story here – it’s headed “China has ‘open mind’ on cause of climate change“. It seems Xie Zhenhua’s comment was prompted by a “glaciergate” question. He said, “We need to adopt an open attitude to the scientific research“.
Yes … that doesn’t sound particularly controversial: it’s how science is done. But it seems his “comments appeared to surprise the other environment ministers and envoys”. Well, well: perhaps they think we ought to adopt a closed mind on this issue?
JamesP,
You raise the question of the ‘burden of proof’on the AGW issue and whether it is being reversed in its usual sense.
Normally, if a warning is issued, it is good sense to pay some attention. If my doctor tells me that my cholesterol is too high, I’d have to be a prize idiot to start quoting some obscure research which would probably not be peer reviewed which might support a counter argument that it would be quite safe to eat as much fast food as I liked. I could also argue that Cholesterol isn’t a poison or a pollutant. Its a natural chemical and its probably just as harmful for it to be too low as too high. But why bother? Why not just do the sensible thing?
Whenever I use an analogy someone will say its inappropriate or absurd. Of course anyone can say that. I ask why and there is no explanation. So if you think this one is absurd or inappropriate please explain why.
Furthermore you might like to try and think of your own analogy. When is it the right to demand proof before taking heed of a warning?
There may be a lot more to the “China has open mind” story (9183 and 9186) than I had appreciated. This goes much further, reporting that Xie Zhenhua, with signs of support from his BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) colleagues, is calling for a new and more open approach by the IPCC in its next report. Here’s an extract:
For the IPCC’s 5th assessment report to “incorporate all views” (including “contrarian” views) would be a truly radical change. And the combined power of the BASIC nations in today’s world is considerable (as is China’s power within that group): the patronising, neo-colonial and Eurocentric attitudes that characterised global politics in the twentieth century are being discarded. The West has little choice but to come to terms with this development.
Peter; you said in #9185
“But strictly speaking, I do agree that if everyone was being totally rational about it, we should just put local weather events out of our minds and look solely at global data.”
Strictly speaking we should treat temperature data as what it is-a measurement of the immediate micro climate surrounding the thermometer i.e local. We do that very badly already, and simply aggregating all the variable data points then adding in all sorts of adjustments and calling it ‘global’ only makes it worse. Local, national and global events all affect the microclimate.
To believe we have any notion of an accurate global temperature back to 1880 is hubris. I also don’t think it is ok to grab info from up to 1200 kms from the original measuring point
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=248
“you can use numbers from the nearest available stations, as long as they are within 740 miles (1,200 kilometers). Overall, this gives the GISS product more complete coverage of the Earth’s polar regions.”
The so called Global record enables the IPCC to make another of their absurd statements- that the entire globe is warming except for South Greenland asnd a few small areas of the tropics.
I have previously linked to the locations of places all around the world that have been cooling for at least thirty years.
Tonyb
Peter M (9187)
I could also argue that Cholesterol isn’t a poison or a pollutant. It’s a natural chemical and it’s probably just as harmful for it to be too low as too high.
That’s exactly what I would argue! For once, I think you’ve hit on a good analogy – AGW and medical fads have plenty in common, IMO :-)
PeterM
You bring (9187) the “medical” analogy (which is, like all analogies, inaccurate).
Reacting in a precautionary way to warnings from your doctor, a trusted source of information concerning your personal medical health (or you would obviously change doctors) makes sense.
If he suggests you should undergo a very risky and painful operation which may or may not solve or delay a possible future problem, which has caused you no discomfort or medical disability to date, you would undoubtedly get a second (and maybe third) opinion before proceeding.
That is what we need here, Peter.
There has been no negative impact to date as a result of anthropogenic global warming.
The “operation” suggested by IPCC would be “painful and very risky”.
Whether or not it would “solve” or possibly just “delay” a potential future problem is anything but certain.
Caution, in this case, means exhausting “second opinions” before rushing off into the “painful and very risky” operation, which may or may not “solve” or “delay” the “potential future problem”, which is causing no “discomfort” or “medical disability” today.
I’d say your analogy (although inaccurate, like all analogies) makes basic sense.
What do you think?
Max
PeterM
Here is a basic flaw in the AGW logic, which you may wish to clear up.
· IPCC tells us that ALL natural forcing factors combined have had a negligible impact on global temperature from 1750 to 2005.
· Met Office tells us that “natural variability” (a.k.a. natural forcing factors) have more than offset record CO2 concentrations to cause the observed cooling trend after 2000.
How can it be that natural forcing had no impact on global temperature over 250 years and then suddenly had a dramatic impact over less than 10 years?
This defies all logic and raises serious doubts concerning the postulated anthropogenic cause for past global warming.
If you would like to explain this basic flaw in the IPCC (or Met Office) logic, please try.
Max
JamesP and PeterM
I just heard a lecture by a medical research doctor on cholesterol and risk of heart attack. High cholesterol is not the primary risk factor here. It is the HDL/LDL ratio.
If this ratio is high, even at elevated total cholesterol values, studies have shown that the cardiovascular risk is greatly reduced.
The studies show that moderate consumption of red wine increases this ratio and reduces the coronary risk (that’s the good news).
So if my doctor advised me to drink two to three glasses of red wine per day to reduce my risk of heart attack or stroke, I guess I would “bite the bullet” and start the precautionary action.
Would you?
Max
Max,
You are too much concerned with year to year variability which is natural. But not natural forcing! You are confusing the two. If you don’t know what I mean , let me know, and I’ll explain further.
You need to look back over at least a couple of decades. Not just the one you keep harping on about. A decade in climate science is not a long period of time.
The average temperature according to Hadcrut3 for the period of 2001 to 2009 ( the one you always like to mention) was:
(0.409 +0.464+ 0.473+ 0.447+ 0.482+ 0.422+0.405+ 0.327+ 0.440)/9 = 0.43 degC
For the preceding 10 years it was:
(0.212+0.061+0.105+0.171+0.275+0.137+0.351+0.54+0.296+0.27)/10 = 0.24 deg C
You are always asking for empirical evidence. Here it is. The “noughties” were, on average, 0.19 degC warmer than the nineties.
So why do you kid yourself that it is cooling? I wish you were right. But, you clearly aren’t.
PeterM
Your “noughties”/”ninetees” comparison does not show trends, it shows average absolute temperature anomalies instead.
You state that a decade in climate science “is not a long time”. Correct. Neither are three decades. A century is stretching the limit. Even the 159 years of HadCRUT record are a mere “blip” in our planet’s climate history (but they are all we really have, as poor as the data are, as TonyB has pointed out repeatedly).
IPCC (and many others) use the linear regression method in determining the rate of observed warming.
The period 1976-2005 “blip” was cited frequently as the “poster period” for the AGW premise.
We now have another slightly shorter “blip” after 2000 where this same linear trend approach shows a cooling trend, rather than the warming trend projected by IPCC (and the Met Office).
The Met Office has acknowledged this cooling trend and has attributed it to natural variability.
By definition, Peter, “natural variability” = “natural forcing”. It is all those many things that affect global average temperature (ocean current oscillations, changes in solar activity, etc.) that are not anthropogenic.
IPCC told us that these had an insignificant impact on global temperature over the period 1750-2005.
Met Office now tells us that they have a major impact after 2000, more than offsetting record levels of atmospheric CO2.
The two statements are obviously not compatible, and this is a real dilemma for the premise that the main changes in global temperature from 1750 to 2005 were anthropogenic, as IPCC claims.
It also raises serious doubts about the ability of climate models to give us any meaningful projections and, hence, on the validity of the premise that AGW is a potential serious threat.
It all hangs together, Peter, and it isn’t looking good for the AGW premise at this time despite your rationalizations.
Mac
PeterM
Your comparison of temperatures (1990s versus 2000s) does not show a trend.
But if you take the HadCRUT monthly record over the past 10 years (2000 through 2009) you will find.
The average temperature anomaly in 2000 through 2004 (the first five years) was 0.462degC.
The average temperature anomaly in 2005 through 2009 (the last five years) was 0.414degC.
Now I do not claim that this is a trend analysis anymore than your “ninetees”/”noughties” comparison), but it tells me that the period 2005-2009 was around 0.048degC cooler than the preceding period 2000-2004.
Let’s forget this kind of comparison and stick with linear trend lines instead, Peter.
Max
PeterM
You offered to explain the difference between “natural variability” and “natural forcing factors”.
Please do.
Thanks.
Max
PeterM
Sorry for “bombarding” you, but while I wait for your explanation of the difference between “natural variability” in climate and “natural forcing”, I did some checking.
We have seen (according to the Met Office) that “natural variability” is responsible for the cooling we have witnessed in the 21st century, despite record CO2 levels.
But what about the 20th century? And what about earlier periods?
IPCC has told us the impact from natural forcing has essentially been insignificant (0.12 W/m^2 as compared to 1.6 W/m^2 for all anthropogenic forcing components from 1750 to 2005). Is this reasonable? (It seems not, based on the current experience.)
Two good studies on “natural variability” and its short- or long-term impact on climate:
http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/340.pdf
http://www.atmos.ucla.edu/tcd/PREPRINTS/MGEGEC.pdf
So “natural variability” is significantly greater than the changes observed during the 20th century” and (according to the Met Office) is responsible for the cooling we have witnessed in the 21st century.
Looks like it is unreasonable to assume that its impact from 1750 to 2005 was insignificant, as IPCC claims.
(But I am still waiting for your explanation, Peter.)
Max
Max,
‘Variance’ is a statistical term used to describe random fluctuations and is a measure, like standard deviation, of how much change to expect in a particular variable. So, it quite natural to expect that when Tony plots out the number of his hits on his website the answer varies on a daily basis. Tony probably won’t be particularly interested in this short term variability, but he might be interested in looking for longer term trends. To do this he would need to smooth out his graph by plotting weekly, monthly, or longer, hit rates to separate long and short term effects.
Its the same with climate. The short term effects are mainly caused by a mixture of measurement error, the 11 year solar cycle, and changing ocean conditions such as the Elnino/LaLina cycle of about 5 years. All these are quite natural, and, unless we are trying to promote some kind of disinformation by cherry picking on particular data points, we shouldn’t be that interested in them. Therefore, it is generally a good idea to apply some averaging to remove them from the graph.
Oh dear. the BBC, temporarily unable to mention the IPCC and still be taken seriously, has hit on ‘ocean acidification’ as its latest manifestation of the effects of the evil CO2.
In a piece just now on the Today programme, Tom Fielden managed to compare it with dissolving eggshells in vinegar and never once mentioned pH, presumably as explaining that the oceans remain stubbornly alkaline (with a pH over 8) would have spoilt the effect!
We are beginning to refer to ‘BBC science’ in this household in much the same way as we refer to ‘Hollywood science’…