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. Hi Peter,

    I must admit that you have tenacity when you keep coming back to the same silly question, ‘You wote in 1176: “James Hansen is one of these fraudulent charlatans, as is Al Gore.’ Are these your views? Yes or No?”

    Let’s put it this way, Peter.

    Although this is an opinion expressed by Lord Monckton (and therefore not my original thought), I will admit that I agree much more closely with Monckton’s assessment of Hansen/Gore than I do with Hansen’s assessment that AGW skeptics are “criminals against humanity”, an assessment to which you wrote “I can well understand”.

    Does that clear it up for you?

    Regards,

    Ma

  2. Hi Peter,

    We debated briefly on the veracity of both Al Gore and James E. Hansen, both avid and prolific vocal proponents of disastrous AGW.

    Here’s a blog that gives an opinion of both from the standpoint of honesty and objectivity. I can agree with most of the writer’s conclusions on these two individuals (as well as on the computer “guru” and minor player also mentioned, Gavin Schmidt, who also runs the pro-AGW RealClimate site).
    http://errortheory.blogspot.com/2008/02/global-warming-alarmists-knew-cooling.html

    A few selected quotes:

    “A later but more central figure is NASA climatologist James Hansen, who took the global warming scare public by testifying to congress in 1988 that:

    ‘global warming is now sufficiently large that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship to the greenhouse effect.’

    Hansen just assumed that whatever warming was taking place was due to human release of CO2. That was bad enough in 1988, before the effects of solar weather on global temperature had been much studied, but Hansen was still pulling the same scam in 2005, when competing theories of natural warming were well established.

    When ocean temperature data amassed in 2005 showed a warming trend, Hansen declared the data to be a “smoking gun” that proved human production of CO2 was heating the earth. In fact, the data did absolutely nothing to distinguish between natural and anthropogenic warming. Hansen deliberately misrepresented the implications of the data in order to advocate for his actual objective:

    ‘[Hansen] calculated the energy retention could be eliminated only by halting all human-caused emissions of methane or by somehow removing half of all the carbon dioxide now in the atmosphere.’

    Of course this prescription would require drastic curtailment of human economic activity, which in Hansen’s mind is what justifies all the disinformation. Hansen couldn’t care less about the minuscule temperature effects of CO2. His goal is to stop economic advance from gobbling up the earth.

    As Ronald Baily put it in his 1993 book Eco-Scam:

    ‘Freeze or fry, the problem is always industrial capitalism, and the solution is always international socialism. (p. 80)’”

    To Al Gore the author writes:

    “How did the field of climatology come to be dominated by environmental religionists, glad to promote what has at this point become a full fledged hoax? There have always been plenty of environmental religionists in academia, but Al Gore is the one who gave them billions of dollars to play with, while excluding all ‘contrarians’ from his largesse. As vice president over the eight years when global warming hysteria first made climate science a funding priority, Al Gore allocated every dime. This was his portfolio as President Clinton’s climate science czar. With over ten billion dollars to spend (a huge amount for academia), Al Gore created the current climate science industry almost from scratch, transforming what had been a small backwater discipline into a juggernaut of his own framing.

    The funding amounts have since multiplied several times, all of it channeled through the religious ideologues that Al Gore originally empowered, men like NASA scientists James Hansen and Gavin Schmidt, two of the most self-conscious frauds in the history of science, all for what they truly believe to be the best of all possible reasons: saving the environment from human economic activity.

    Of course they are wrong about that too. These men are not economists, and their neo-Malthusian presumptions are childishly ignorant. The absolute best thing for the health of our natural environment is economic growth. As we advance economically, we learn to do more with less, and the quickest way to get that advance is to have more babies, because it is people who create advance.

    In addition to being neo-Malthusians, “green” ideologues are also against economic liberty. They see capitalism as placing private gain ahead of public interest. But what is really gobbling up the environment, where it is being gobbled up, is lack of capitalism. Despoilation occurs in those places where property rights are not existent or not enforced, creating what has long been known as “the tragedy of the commons.” No one has an economic incentive to preserve commonly held resources like the oceans because, without ownership, no one can capture the value of the preserved resource. Their only incentive is to grab what they can today, leaving none for tomorrow.

    You can’t find an economist in the America who supports the socialist stupidity of the environmental religionists, but because they pretend they are doing climate science instead of economics they are able to get away with it.”

    ”This is exactly what is happening with claims of human caused global warming. The alarmists simply leave the dominant natural effect out of their models. The UN’s IPCC model, constructed by NASA climatologists James Hansen, Gavin Schmidt, and their cronies, includes direct solar effects (changes in luminosity) but explicitly excludes indirect solar effects (the solar wind) on the grounds that the impacts of this solar weather are too speculative to warrant inclusion.

    The exact mechanism may be speculative, but the existence of some such mechanism is not speculative at all. Far more speculative is the theory that climate is driven by CO2, for which there is absolutely no evidence. Variations in GCR [the solar wind] “explain” statistically 90% of all global temperature variation, and it is omitted as speculative. CO2 “explains” 0% of temperature variation statistically, yet it is included.

    Hansen and Schmidt know full well the statistical consequences of this bias. Solar activity and CO2 have both reached historic highs in recent decades. When indirect solar effects are omitted, the warming due to these effects gets misattributed to the concurrent increase in CO2, which Hansen and Schmidt then project forward to create their false alarm. Pure statistical fraud.

    They pretend to be using super-sophisticated climate models to determine which explanation is supported by the evidence–man made warming or natural warming–when in fact they are rigging their models in the most obvious way to fraudulently attribute natural warming effects to CO2.”

    Just some other thoughts on the matter. Monckton is apparently not alone in classifying Hansen/Gore as fraudulent charlatans.

    Regards,

    Max

  3. Hey Max.

    Global Warming Science Moves On

    On global warming, public policy is where the science was in 1998. Due to new evidence, science has since moved off in a different direction.
    The UN science body on this matter, the IPCC, is a political body composed mainly of bureaucrats. So far it has resisted acknowledging the new evidence. But as Lord Keynes famously asked, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”
    Four things have changed since 1998.
    First, the new ice cores shows that in the six global warmings over the past half a million years, temperature rises and falls occurred on average 800 years before the accompanying rises and falls in atmospheric carbon. The carbon rises could not have either started or ended the temperature rises. So there must be natural influences on global temperatures that are more powerful than atmospheric carbon levels.
    This 800 year lag became known and past dispute by 2003, which is significant. The old ice core data, collected from 1985 to 1998, was low resolution: the data points were more than a thousand years apart. It showed carbon and temperature moving in lockstep, and it was the only supporting evidence we ever had for the notion that carbon caused temperature. It seemed too good to be true—it appeared we could control the temperature of the planet just by adjusting the levels of a minor gas!
    Watch Al Gore’s movie carefully. The old ice core data is the only evidence he presents for believing that carbon emissions cause global warming. But by 2003 we had found the 800 year lag, so then we knew that temperature caused carbon, not the other way around as previously assumed. Al Gore’s movie was made in 2005 so it was misleading of him not to mention the new ice core data. Would anyone have believed his pitch if he had mentioned that the alleged cause (rising and falling carbon levels) happened 800 years after the effect (rising and falling temperatures)?
    Secondly, with the reversal of the ice core evidence, there is now no evidence that carbon emissions cause significant global warming. None.
    Evidence is a set of observations by people of events. The scientific method demands evidence—theory, politics, and vested interests are all trumped by evidence. The scientific method evolved as our best method for obtaining reliable information, precisely because it was immune from forces such as power and superstition.
    It is important to realize what is not evidence that carbon emissions cause global warming. There is ample evidence that global warming has occurred, but it says nothing about the causes of that warming. Serious theoretical calculations for the amount of warming by 2100 range from an inconsequential 0.24°C to a catastrophic 6.2°C, but theory (including computer models) is not evidence. Comparison of model outputs to observed results is not evidence, because it cannot prove that the model is always right, only that it was right in that instance. Existing computer models treat clouds simplistically and unrealistically, and omit the effects of cosmic rays on clouds, so we cannot begin to be confident that they might approximate reality.
    Western governments have spent $50b on global warming since 1990, yet have found no evidence. We are constantly bombarded with evidence that the world has warmed. Don’t you think we would have heard all about any evidence that carbon emissions cause global warming, if there was any?
    Thirdly, the warming trend that started in 1975 ended in 2001. The global temperature has been flat since 2001, and has dipped sharply in the last few months. The warmest recent year was 1998. This is a very different picture from that presented by the IPCC in 2001, of overpowering warming due to carbon emissions for the foreseeable future. Obviously there is some other influence on global temperatures at work, more powerful than our carbon emissions. The IPCC are silent on what those causes might be (hint: probably something to do with clouds).
    So why do some people say temperatures are still rising, apart form being out of date? Satellite data is the only temperature data we can trust, but it only goes back to 1979. The satellites go around 24/7, measuring the temperature across broad swathes of the world, everywhere except the poles. Three of the four world temperature records use satellite data partly or exclusively, and they all say that the world stopped warming in 2001 and that temperatures have recently dipped.
    NASA GISS, the home of the global warming scare, only uses land based thermometers (and a few ocean thermometers)—despite being a space agency. Land thermometers are housed in little boxes a few feet off the ground. They were mainly put in place decades ago, on the outskirts of towns or cities so it was convenient to go and read the temperature each day. But urban growth has changed the microclimate around many of these thermometers, due to concrete, asphalt, vegetation changes, houses, air conditioners, and so on. In contrast to the satellite data, NASA GISS reports a continued warming trend since 2001. But their data is likely just measuring urban growth around some of their thermometers.
    Fourthly, we looked for the greenhouse signature and could not find it. Each possible cause of global warming heats the atmosphere in a different pattern. Increased greenhouse warming causes a hotspot 10 km up over the tropics. The hotspot is central to our understanding: if there is no hotspot then either there is no significant increased greenhouse warming, or we don’t understand greenhouse and all our climate models are rubbish anyway.
    Decades of measurements with thermometers in weather balloons have been unable to find even a small hotspot. So we now know for sure that carbon emissions are not a significant cause of the recent global warming. I would switch back to being an alarmist if we had found a strong greenhouse signature. (By the way, our carbon emissions have no doubt caused some underlying warming, but not enough to create a hotspot that we have been able to detect so far.)
    These four changes have rendered our current debate over carbon emissions obsolete. The changes occurred slowly as the science on each item became more settled, so there was no sudden news flash to make us sit up and take notice.
    But now that we are finally coming to terms with how expensive it will be to cut back our carbon emissions, the causes of global warming have suddenly become a topic of major economic importance.
    Policy makers must grapple with the possibility that global temperatures don’t rise over the next decade, and that the recent rises were predominately not due to our carbon emissions. Deliberately wrecking the economy for reasons that later turn out to be bogus hardly seems like a recipe for electoral success.
    Obviously the onus is on the Government to clearly set out the evidence for believing carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming before embarking on an ETS.

  4. Hi Brute,

    Enjoyed article on Russia scuttling Kyoto II, much to the dismay of the EU members.

    Your article states, “Brussels’ Kyoto agenda demands that Poland, the Czechs, and everyone else with very good reasons to distrust the Russians leave their coal in the ground and rely instead on gas . . . which in practice would be mostly Russian gas. As I have detailed in this space before, the EU was already having a hard time wrestling those pesky new member states to the ground on this dangerous proposal. Now, they can forget about it.”

    Looks like the Germans are going even a step further and building a large coal-fired power plant in Poland.
    http://en.in-en.com/article/News/Electricity/html/200806137237.html

    “The 800-megawatt plant will be built in Wola, Lower Silesia, and is aimed at helping satisfy Poland’s energy demand, which has increased between 3 percent and 5 percent per year in recent years. The plant is a twin of the RWE power plant currently under construction in Hamm, Germany, the companies said.”

    According to the press release the new plant is not being built in order to shut down older less efficient plants, but to help satisfy Poland’s growing energy needs.

    “The new power plant, comparable to our innovative units currently being built in Germany and planned in the Netherlands, will have an efficiency rate of 46 percent,” said Johannes Lambertz, the chief executive of RWE Power.

    “This will make it the most modern power plant in Poland and one of the most advanced power plants worldwide. The new unit will emit significantly less CO2 than older systems in Poland where the current efficiency rate is only 33 percent to 35 percent,” Lambertz said, noting that meant the plant could use 30 percent less coal per kilowatt hour, which could reduce CO2 emissions by 1.3 million tons a year.”

    The article goes on to say, “Grzegorz Pawlaszek, the president of Kompania Weglowa said in the statement the plant gives his company the security of a long-term contract for delivery of 2.5 million tons of coal per annum.”

    Now that’s a real twist. Germany helps Poland build a large coal-fired power plant. This is justified as a reduction of “CO2 emissions by 1.3 million tons a year” (because the plant runs more efficiently than current older plants in Poland), at the same time signing up for “2.5 million tons of coal per annum”.

    Last time I figured it 2.5 million tons of coal produce over 9 million tons of CO2 per year.

    Now, don’t get me wrong.

    Unlike Al Gore or James E. Hansen, who want a moratorium on new coal plants in USA and even a phasing out of the existing ones, I am all in favor of the construction of new efficient coal-fired power plants anywhere in the world. China and India agree.

    But I find it hypocritical to justify a new coal-fired plant (that will crank out 9 million tons of CO2 per year) as a reducer of CO2 emissions by 1.3 million tons per year (because it is more efficient than some older plants, which are not being shut down in any case).

    Regards,

    Max

  5. Hi Brute,

    Another good one you might enjoy.

    US presidential hopeful, Sen. Barack Obama, has issued a statement that he is opposed to a new coal mine in British Columbia.
    http://en.in-en.com/article/News/Coal/html/200806047181.html
    Last I heard, Obama is the (junior) senator from Illinois, so he should restrict his statements to events in that state.

    If (shudder!) he gets elected to be U.S. President, he might be authorized to opine about U.S. coalmines.

    But Canada?

    Throw the bum out!

    Regards,

    Max

  6. Hi Brute,

    Good summary (1229)

    Regards,

    Max

  7. Max,
    “Does that clear it up for you?”

    No.

  8. Max,

    #1229 was an article printed in the New Zealand press. The word is spreading…….

    BO and his massive ego are failing in the most recent polls, (Thank God).

    Keep it up. People need to know what these Loons are up to. The tide is turning; people are begiing to wake up and catch on to the hoax of global warming.

  9. Max,

    Throw the bum [Obama] out!

    What has it got to do with you? You’re a Swiss national who just happens to be spending a few weeks in the USA right? Being so opinionated about the democratic workings of another country is not the way a visitor should behave.

    But didn’t you also say that you were just visiting he USA when we set up our bet in April? I’m sure you’d be happier coming clean and admitting that you are at least as emi -permanent resident in the USA.

    But if you aren’t, you don’t have a say on electing anyone else other than the Swiss government! Of course the Swiss government keeps such a low international profile that no-one has heard of any Swiss politicians. In fact the only Swiss people who are, or were, famous would be a couple of tennis players and William Tell.

  10. Hi Peter,

    Re ur 1236, you can be sure that if Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel, John Howard or any non-Swiss politician started opining on what Switzerland should do regarding a purely Swiss internal issue, that the Swiss would not be pleased (any more than Canadians are pleased when BO expresses his opinion on an internal Canadian issue).

    Obama should know better. (You can be sure that Sarkozy, Merkel and Howard do.)

    Now to your misguided statement, “the only Swiss people who are, or were, famous would be a couple of tennis players and William Tell”: Have you heard of Henri Dunant (founder of the Red Cross)? How about Philippus Paracelsus, Alfred Werner, Johann Bernoulli, Leonard Euler, Emil Kocher or Louis Agassiz? Do these names ring a bell? Do the names John Calvin or Jean-Jacques Rousseau mean anything to you, Peter? German-born Albert Einstein was a naturalized Swiss citizen, as I’m sure you know. There are other Swiss who are well known (at least among people who have an IQ over about 90), and it is doubtful if William Tell even really existed.

    Peter, you amaze me with your capability to make one ridiculous statement after another, without addressing any of the specific topics being discussed.

    Try to focus on the issues and stay away from silly statements.

    Regards,

    Max

  11. Max

    Thanks for mentioning Louis Agassiz, a rough diamond but one of my favorite scientists.

    He was also a man who knew how difficult it is to challenge scientific orthodoxy. His career tells us that however complex our hypotheses about the functions of the natural world may be, we should be prepared for even greater complexities to be revealed that will make those hypotheses redundant.

  12. Its interesting that Rousseau was born in Switzerland. Ok I must admit I had always considered that he was French. I would also suggest he wouldn’t have been included in your list if hadn’t moved there when he was fourteen.

    But, if you don’t believe me about famous Europeans, just ask a few of your co-workers to name three from each country. They’ll have the most difficulty with Belgium and Switzerland. Let me know if I’m wrong about that.

  13. Pete,

    I have a bet for you; I’ll bet that you will not specifically address a single point without attempting to change the subject and ramble onward about where on the face of the planet Max can trace his lineage to.

    Max,

    As usual, it seems that politicians (in the US and Europe) are pontificating about the “evils” of coal, oil and natural gas on the one hand and handing out permits to build new plants with the other. Of course, they will state publicly that they “voted for it, before they voted against it” or something just as silly……pandering to both sides. Here’s the thing; electricity has been the greatest, most important development to improve the human condition in the history of the world, however it is generated.

    Point in fact: when offered the nuclear power generation option, which would address their concerns regarding emissions and generate electricity to improve the human condition, members of the Watermelon Party, (I love that descriptor), oppose it. Their loathing of mankind and indifference to the human condition is readily apparent….. all in an effort to increase their political representation. The political parties that purport to represent “the little guy” are the same elitists that are campaigning the most stridently to enact legislation to harm them and keep them in perpetual servitude to the state.

    Tracking New Coal Fired Plants
    http://www.netl.doe.gov/coal/refshelf/ncp.pdf

    Coal power: Still going strong
    http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10145492
    From the article:

    In America, more coal-fired generation is being built than at any time in the past seven years, despite the threat of emissions caps, according to the Department of Energy. In Europe, several power companies are building new coal-fired plants, even though every tonne of carbon dioxide that they emit will require an expensive permit. For example, RWE, a German utility, plans to spend €6.2 billion ($9.1 billion) on three new coal-fired plants by 2012. One of them is already under construction.

    Coal-mining firms in Indonesia and Australia, the biggest exporters, are digging as fast as they can but are still struggling to cope with the surge in orders.

    In fact, governments are sending out conflicting signals. Germany, for example, is making it easier to build new coal plants by granting them free emissions permits, even though it aims to reduce emissions to 40% below the 1990 level by 2020.

  14. BREAKING: Zawahiri Dead, Global Warming Suspected
    by Scott Ott
    (2008-08-21) — CBS News foreign affairs correspondent Lara Logan, in an exclusive, Friday reported that al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri may be dead, and a local Taliban leader blames global warming.
    According to a letter from the Taliban official, “Dr. Zawahiri was enjoying a meal when the earth suddenly heated up by several thousand degrees,” said Ms. Logan. “The way it happened makes Al Gore look like a prophet.”
    Mr. Zawahiri’s alleged death coincidentally follows a U.S. air strike August 20th during which weapons expert Abu Khabab al-Masri, who went by the nom-de-guerre ‘Shish’, also succumbed to the ravages of climate change.
    Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden, allegedly dead himself, could have a tough time finding a replacement for the telegenic, charismatic Mr. Zawahiri, because previous global warming outbreaks that have claimed the lives of many of his mid-level managers.

  15. The BBC has just put this on their website: World heading towards cooler 2008

    It’s quite interesting to look at paragraph 1 in conjunction with Brohan 2006 and consider the possibility that this trend could be reflected in the end of year temperature. If 2008 is 0.1 ° C cooler than 2000, then there might be a few modellers trying to avoid the kind of people who ask awkward questions. It would also have been nice if Richard Black had given an actual anomaly for the long-term average rather than a comparative figure. I wonder why he did that?

    In view of the amount of discussion that Arctic Sea ice has received on this thread I would be interested in views on the accuracy and impartiality of the reporting in the last six paragraphs.

  16. Hi Peter,

    We have rambled a bit off topic here, but just one more interesting tidbit of info.

    Napoleon III (nephew of Napoleon I) was forced into exile at age 7 (after N.I was defeated at Waterloo), moved to Switzerland, where he became a citizen (Canton of Thurgau).

    But I wouldn’t call him a “famous Swiss”, even though he retained his Swiss citizenship all his life (along with French, of course) and (according to legend) was clutching his Thurgau passport in his hand on his deathbed.

    As far as the Belgians are concerned, I would include all the Flemish masters (Jan van Eyck, Pieter Bruegel, Peter Rubens, etc.) plus the geographer, Gerardus Mercator. Problem with Belgium is that it only exists as an independent country since 1831, so anyone living before then would be classified as something other than Belgian. Switzerland has been around since 1291, so doesn’t have that problem.

    But let’s get back on topic, before TonyN throws us out.

    Regards,

    Max

  17. Hi Tony,

    Yeah, Agassiz was quite a guy (1238). He received his MD at age 23 and studied anatomy for two years following this. He took an interest in glaciers as a sideline at age 29 and by age 33 had proposed the ice age theory, causing a “paradigm shift” to the then-prevailing thought.

    Over his career he made many contributions to science in the field of zoology, but he is best known for his theory on glaciers and the ice age.

    It’s good example of someone from the outside of a specific scientific discipline challenging scientific orthodoxy, as you say. This guy was definitely not part of the “consensus” view at the time, yet he caused a significant “paradigm shift” that eventually replaced the “consensus” view.

    Another good example is Alfred Wegener, the father of the geological theory of “continental drift” and plate tectonics.

    Wegener had a PhD in astronomy, and developed an interest in meteorology.

    When Wegener proposed his “continental drift” theory, it was violently opposed by the geologists of the time, who even organized symposia to specifically discredit Wegener’s theory and defend the prevailing “paradigm” of the day.

    It wasn’t until many years after Wegener’s accidental death in Greenland that the “paradigm shift” he had initiated from the outside took place and the theory of “continental drift” and plate tectonics became the new “paradigm”.

    Will Svensmark be the new “outsider” (with his cosmic ray / cloud hypothesis) that causes a “paradigm shift” in climate science away from the current AGW “consensus” view?

    Guess we’ll have to wait to see what the CERN studies show.

    Regards,

    Max

  18. The BBC is giving surprising prominence on its website’s “science and nature” section to a report headed “World heading towards cooler 2008“, going on to say:

    This year appears set to be the coolest globally this century. Data from the UK Met Office shows that temperatures in the first half of the year have been more than 0.1 Celsius cooler than any year since 2000.

    Needless to say, it cannot leave it at that and reassures its audience that

    Even so, 2008 is set to be about the 10th warmest year since 1850, and Met Office scientists say temperatures will rise again as La Nina conditions ease.

    But I found this particularly interesting:

    La Nina cools waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean, but its effects are felt around the globe. It is one of a number of natural climatic cycles that can re-enforce or counteract the warming trend stemming from increased levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Earlier this year, one group of researchers suggested that another natural cycle, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, was likely to hold temperatures steady for about the next decade, before reversing direction and allowing a renewed warming.

    So “natural climatic cycles” can re-enforce as well as counteract a warming trend? Sounds close to heresy to me – next they’ll be saying that man’s GHG emissions may not, after all, have caused most of the late 20th Century warming. But again the BBC has to add:

    “The principal thing is to look at the long-term trend [said Dr Kennedy (Hadley Centre)] … 2008 will still be significantly above the long-term average. There’s been a strong upward trend in the last few decades, and that’s the thing to focus on.”

    Quite so.

    Regarding the Arctic, it comments (again rather surprisingly):

    Currently, the ice appears to be holding together better than a year ago, although scientists are wary as much of it is relatively fragile ice that formed in a single winter.

  19. Max

    As I remember it, Agassiz (like Wegner) was considered by his colleagues to be insane when he first started talking about glaciation, ans it was recognition in America that finally restored his credibility.

    By the way, do you know whether Svensmark’s CERN experiments have taken place yet? I saw something a while back about there being a major problem with the equipment there.

  20. Robin,

    All I know is that it must be much cooler than normal for these organizations to even bring this up even with all of the caveats and qualifiers….I smell a rat.

    This year so far coolest for at least 5 years: WMO

    http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/08/21/rueters-world-meteorological-organization-says-this-year-so-far-coolest-for-at-least-5-years/

  21. Message to TonyN

    Have not seen any recent releases from CERN regarding the Svensmark CLOUD experiment. Last I read they would have data by 2010.

    I’ll see if I can find out more.

    Regards,

    Max

  22. The BBC has just put this on their website: World heading towards cooler 2008

    It’s quite interesting to look at paragraph 1 in conjunction with Brohan 2006 and consider the possibility that this trend could be reflected in the end of year temperature. If 2008 is 0.1 ° C cooler than 2000, then there might be a few modellers trying to avoid the kind of people who ask awkward questions.

    It would also have been nice if Richard Black had given an actual anomaly for the long-term average rather than a comparative figure. I wonder why he did that?

    In view of the amount of discussion that Arctic Sea ice has received on this thread I would be interested in views on the accuracy and impartiality of the reporting in the last six paragraphs.

    [I drafted this earlier today, and then managed to loose it on my own blog. Sorry if it cuts across some of what Robin has already said]

  23. There’s a new post about a rather strange press release from the Met Office here.
    They really do seem to have some difficulty distinguishing between predictions and reality.

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