Document Title - Sanjeev Sabhlok
The net benefit of CO2 and the extremely minor global warming attributable to man-made emissions
Sanjeev Sabhlok
Preliminary Draft 29 October 2013
Happy to receive input at sabhlok@
At the request of someone who wanted me to provide proof that many scientists disagree with the climate change hoopla, I’ve compiled many of my blog posts on this topic.
There remain many formatting issues in this booklet. As a result, my comments and those of others have got mixed up in the booklet and I don’t have time to fix this problem. I’d encourage anyone who wants to isolate my comments, to read the relevant original blog post/s by searching relevant terms in google, and restricting the search to site:.
Note that my blog posts perhaps cover less than 2 per cent of my readings on this subject, and therefore I have not commented on a HUGE amount of relevant material. I’ve also not commented on many professional economic issues such as precautionary principle on which I have done a fair amount of work offline (not in the public domain).
DO READ BOTH SIDES OF THE STORY. And never believe me. Or anyone else. Never believe ANYONE BUT YOURSELF.
Good luck in your search for the truth!
Satyameva Jayate. May the truth triumph.
Contents
1. Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts 1
1.1 Popper’s IRON LAW OF SCIENCE 1
1.2 Why having long term data is crucial before arriving at ANY conclusion about climate change 1
1.3 So what do long term (2000 year) climate data STILL say? 4
1.4 The fool Kevin Rudd and his opposition to science 7
2. Overall 11
2.1 For LAZY readers of this blog: Please spare a moment to watch these short videos 11
2.2 Must watch: “The Boy Who Cried Warming” 12
2.3 Political science, the “science” behind IPCC 12
2.4 The pitfalls of forecasting 15
2.5 Is Ian Plimer on the right track? 18
2.6 The Great Global Warming Swindle – revisited after three years 23
2.7 The medieval Carbonists who BELIEVE in carbon but NEVER ask ANY question 24
3. FALSEHOOD: that IPCC models and predictions work 26
3.1 Yet another example of “reason” without empiricism: climate “science” 26
3.2 IPCC’s high confidence in VAGUE statements with LITTLE evidence: a clear indication of intent to MISLEAD the world 28
3.3 The rise in sea levels is SLOWING – making a total mockery of the IPCC models 29
3.4 The most damning thing about IPCC is that ASSUMES that mankind is guilty, BEFORE starting its analysis 33
3.5 Tim Flannery’s Biblical predictions of drought, and the OPPOSITE reality – of floods 34
3.6 IPCC is desperately trying to recover its shattered reputation, but in vain 36
3.7 The total mess that is IPCC. This is very serious stuff. Please do read. 37
3.8 The pitiable joke that is the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia 38
3.9 Could any half-wit have done FAR better than IPCC? 39
4. FALSEHOOD: that IPCC uses peer reviewed literature 41
4.1 Thirty per cent of IPCC citations are NOT peer-reviewed 41
4.2 John Quiggin, IPCC’s peer review process is riddled with holes. I now expect a detailed correction on your blog. 41
4.3 If you care about your future, please buy and read The Delinquent Teenager by Donna Laframboise 43
4.4 Donna Laframbroise puts the final nail in IPCC’s coffin 45
4.5 John, thanks for withdrawing your allegation against Donna’s integrity. Here’s other stuff you and I should know. 46
4.6 The pathetic case of John Quiggin 48
4.7 IPCC reports = toilet paper? 50
4.8 It is not Donna Laframboise but Rajendra Pachauri who is a HUGE liar 51
5. FALEHOOD: IPCC data is publicly available 53
5.1 Are scientists entitled to secrecy? 53
6. FALSEHOOD: That IPCC doesn’t tamper with data 58
6.1 This is what IPCC said in its FIRST report in 1990 before it was overtaken by FRAUD 58
6.2 ‘[R]eported 1979-2008 U.S. temperature trends are spuriously doubled” 59
6.3 The Himalayan blunder of the world’s top Government “scientists” (IPCC) – in gory detail 64
6.4 Signs are not looking good. Richard Muller is likely trying to hoodwink the ENTIRE world. 66
7. FALSEHOOD: There are no scientists who rebut/refute IPCC 77
7.1 A physics Nobel laureate now says that climate change is pseudoscience 77
7.2 Two more studies that demolish the “science” of climate change 78
7.3 Very important new study that rebuts IPCC generated panic 80
7.4 Science trumps mythological models. Watch Monckton easily win the debate against panic-mongering AGW believers 80
7.5 James Lovelock is an HONEST man. I tip my hat to him. 82
8. FALSEHOOD: Bushfires 84
8.1 ‘People, not climate' blamed for natural disasters 84
9. FALSEHOOD: Rising sea levels 85
9.1 Constantly changing sea levels – and Dwarka 85
9.2 No trend of accelerating rise in sea levels 91
9.3 Sea levels have been constant for the past eight years but CSIRO is creating panic in Australia 93
10. FALSEHOOD: Climate refugees 95
10.1 One more climate change fool hits the dust (millions still remain – in top policy positions) 95
11. FALSEHOOD: Global cooling 96
11.1 Newsweek report on the cooling world (1975) 96
12. The actual science: CO2 99
12.1 CO2 – at its current concentrations – is INCAPABLE in warming the globe significantly 99
12.2 The great boon of CO2 101
12.3 The great boon of CO2 — #2 110
12.4 Data must always trump theory. CO2 induced panic is not justified by DATA. 111
13. The actual science: the Sun 113
13.1 The role of the sun in climate 113
13.2 The sun’s primacy in climate change – a simple and logical proof – the LAG EFFECT 118
13.3 The UK Met office spits the dummy. The sun does CAUSE climate. 120
14. The true climate change model 122
14.1 The TRUE climate change model at a glance: Natural increase since little ice age 122
14.2 Tony Burke admits human fallibility. Now will “climate change” policies be reviewed, please? 123
14.3 Two more studies that demolish the “science” of climate change 124
14.4 Get used to it: The climate always changes 126
15. The economic effects of climate change 134
15.1 The Productivity Commission’s view 134
15.2 Solid facts and cost-benefit analysis would be more helpful 134
15.3 Milton Friedman’s son, David, points out key fallacies in the climate change alarm 135
15.4 CO2 could make our super-rich future generations slightly worse off! 137
15.5 The common sense CO2 decision tree 138
15.6 What “scientists” and “engineers” simply don’t understand 140
15.7 Matt Ridley in The Spectator 142
15.8 India will emit at least 20 times more CO2 in the coming decades 145
16. The brave warriors of science 148
16.1 David vs Goliath: Climate change ‘sceptics’ vs IPCC and world governments 148
16.2 A man who liberated 10 million people from communism and poverty warns against climate change panic 148
16.3 Strip Al Gore and IPCC of their Nobel Prize and give it to these people 149
Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts
1 Popper’s IRON LAW OF SCIENCE
The key to all science is falsification. Science MUST predict perfectly and accurately, else it is not science but hogwash. If a theory can’t make predictions, it is NOT scientific, per se. If its predictions are FALSIFIED, the theory itself is falsified.
|These factors combined to make Popper take falsifiability as his criterion for demarcating science from non-science: if a |
|theory is incompatible with possible empirical observations it is scientific; conversely, a theory which is compatible with |
|all such observations, either because, as in the case of Marxism, it has been modified solely to accommodate such |
|observations, or because, as in the case of psychoanalytic theories, it is consistent with all possible observations, is |
|unscientific. [Source] |
2 Why having long term data is crucial before arriving at ANY conclusion about climate change
I'm interested in the truth about the climate and couldn't care less about government reports or "scientist" qualifications or credentials. Instead of believing what IPCC says, or others who BLINDLY parrot IPCC's "findings", since late 2008 I've been scanning the literature myself, time permitting.
ALWAYS FIND OUT THE TRUTH FOR YOURSELF. That's the ONLY way to understand this universe. Have no intermediary between you and the truth.
One of the biggest issues I had in this area of "science" is a statistical one.
I NEVER look at short term 'trends' before arriving at conclusions. I ALWAYS seek as long a data series as is humanly feasible to have, before I start looking for theoretical explanations.
In my view DATA TRUMPS THEORY ALWAYS. ALL THE TIME. NO EXCEPTION.
You can only explain REALITY. You can't impose theory on reality. That's not how science works. (Of course, religion does work that way, whereby you take theory and impose it on reality. Such approaches are guaranteed to lead us astray.) So we must focus on finding out what is real, before we make up theories to explain it.
The first thing I therefore looked for was for a LONG TERM chart that depicts both CO2 levels and temperatures. This one, below, is the only really long term graph I've found so far. Finding this single graph made me SERIOUSLY question the claims of IPCC.
I hope you will too, if you can read graphs! Go on. Read it! Don't be scared! The truth won't bite you.
[pic]
Given that some people question Ian Plimer's accuracy, I'm happy to be shown a more accurate but equally LONG TERM graph. Also, there is another variable I'd like to see: the magnitude of solar radiation. So if you can get me a graph that goes across 600 MILLION years, and plots these three variables, let me have it. And if you can add any other thing that might affect the onset of ice ages, do add it. Much appreciated.
But there is nothing like doing first hand research.
So here's a graph I created MYSELF TODAY from original data found on the website of the US Government. This is the longest annual series I could extract from this data.
Note that this relates ONLY to USA, but that should, in my view, reflect REAL climate change, given that US was the GREATEST emitter of CO2 till this year (having now been overtaken by China).
I've also "plotted" a blue line on this graph to reflect the HUGE increase in CO2 emitted from USA (my blue line is not to scale, and is probably inaccurate, but it is broadly reflective of increased CO emissions since the 1950s).
You SHOULD recreate this OFFICIAL chart yourself. Do it! Don't be afraid.
Make sure you take the maximum values of data available, and pick "annual" under "period".
[pic]
From these two LONG TERM trends, I can CLEARLY SEE that there is NO CORRELATION between CO2 in the atmosphere and temperature. Yes, I notice a slight increase in temperatures over the past 117 years in USA (0.067 degrees C per decade, or 0.67 degree centigrade per century) but I'm not convinced that there is ANY genuine trend. The data could well be cyclical. I need LONGER TERM data.
In any event there is NO relationship between CO2 and temperature increase in USA. That must is BLATANTLY OBVIOUS. Temperature increases occurred well before CO2 emissions increased, and reduced sharply after CO2 increased. Then rose again.
These two charts, together, SINK claims that CO2 causes global warming.
Now, surely that can't be true!
The data must be LYING!
Theory says that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. I agree. Of course there must be some effect. But there are likely to be negative feedbacks that dampen this effect. I'm aware of the debates in this regard but won't go into them here.
In any case, THEORY MUST EXPLAIN REALITY, not FORCE its way on reality.
Suffice it for now to note that:
a) We MUST get LONG TERM data to determine whether increasing CO2 is going to be a problem.
b) From whatever long data that is available there is clearly NO obvious problem with increasing CO2 in the atmosphere. Indeed, CO2, being plant food, can only be good, for it increases plant productivity.
3 So what do long term (2000 year) climate data STILL say?
On 18 April 2012, very recently, a major study was published:
The extra-tropical Northern Hemisphere temperature in the last two millennia: reconstructions of low-frequency variability, by B. Christiansen and F. C. Ljungqvist, Climate of the Past, 8, 765–786, 2012
Download it and check it out for yourself!
Don't be afraid. The truth won't bite you!
This is what the study concluded:
|We have compiled a set of 91 temperature sensitive proxies located in the extra-tropical NH that reach back to at least 1500 |
|AD. All the proxies have been published in the peer reviewed literature. Of these proxies, 32 extend as far back as to the |
|beginning of the first millennium. From these comprehensive proxy compilations we performed new reconstructions of the |
|extra-tropical Northern Hemisphere mean temperature. |
|Note, however, that only little more than half of the proxies (the exact fraction depends on the calibration interval, etc.) |
|correlate well enough with the local annual mean temperature to be included in the actual reconstructions. |
|The reconstructions are carried out with the LOCal (LOC) method (Christiansen, 2011), which was designed to preserve |
|low-frequency variability at the price of exaggerating the high-frequency variability. The LOC method accomplishes this by |
|obtaining local temperature reconstructions using linear regression, with temperature as the independent variable. This |
|corresponds to a forward model which is the physical sound choice. The local reconstructions are then combined to a |
|reconstruction of the extra-tropical NH mean temperature by simple averaging, thereby avoiding the complications of more |
|complex spatial covariance models. |
|Confidence intervals have been calculated with an ensemble pseudo-proxy approach which mimics the conditions of our real-world|
|reconstructions, including the spatial and temporal averaging. These calculations indicate that the extra-tropical NH mean |
|reconstructions have only a small bias. |
|The corresponding 95 % confidence intervals have widths of 0.6 (two-millennia long reconstruction) and 0.4'C (500-yr long |
|reconstruction) for 50-yr smoothed values, thereby showing that the residual noise-variance is relatively small compared to |
|the reconstructed low-frequency signal. |
|Our main conclusions are as follows. |
|– Our reconstructions indicate – in agreement with the results of Moberg et al. (2005); Ljungqvist (2010), and Loehle and |
|McCulloch (2008) – that the first millennium AD was generally significantly warmer than the second millennium AD. The 17th |
|century was the coldest century during the last two millennia and most of the Little Ice Age (LIA) seems to have been colder |
|than during the Dark Age Cold Period ca. 300–800 AD. In general, our LOC reconstructions show larger low-frequency variability|
|than previous reconstructions. |
|– Our two-millennia long reconstruction has a well-defined peak in the period 950–1050 AD with a maximum temperature anomaly |
|of 0.6°C. The timing of the peak of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) in our reconstruction is in agreement with the |
|reconstructions of Esper et al. (2002a) and Ljungqvist (2010). The reconstructions of Mann et al. (2008, 2009) show a longer |
|peak warming covering the whole period 950–1100 AD, and the re-construction of Moberg et al. (2005) shows a somewhat later as |
|well as longer peak MWP warming than in the present paper. The level of warmth during the peak of the MWP in the second half |
|of the 10th century, equalling or slightly exceeding the mid-20th century warming, is in agreement with the results from other|
|more recent large-scale multi-proxy temperature reconstructions by Moberg et al. (2005), Mann et al. (2008, 2009), Ljungqvist |
|(2010), and Ljungqvist et al. (2012). |
|– Temperatures in the 17th century reach values as cold as -1.0°C below the 1880–1960AD level, in agreement with a previous |
|LOC reconstruction by Christiansen and Ljungqvist (2011) based on fewer proxies. We find that this result is very robust |
|relative to the calibration period and the number of proxies included. This level of cooling is considerably colder than |
|obtained with other reconstruction methods (see also Christiansen and Ljungqvist (2011) for additional comparison). In the |
|19th century temperature anomalies reach values of ca. —0.9 degree C, but this value is some-what more sensitive to the |
|calibration period. The two temperature minima are separated by a local maximum in the 18th century. This temporal variation |
|of the temperature throughout the LIA is in line with most previous work. Most regional to global multi-proxy temperature |
|reconstructions studies agree that the 17th century was the coldest century during the LIA (Ljungqvist, 2010; Ljungqvist et |
|al., 2012; Hegerl et al., 2007; Mann et al., 2008, 2009; Moberg et al., 2005; National Research Council, 2006), although |
|high-latitude summer temperatures seem to have reached a minimum in the 19th century (Grudd, 2008; Kaufman et al., 2009; Ran |
|et al., 2011; Vinther et al., 2010; Sicre et al., 2011). The maximum cooling in the 17th century is also supported by General |
|Circulation Models and Energy Balance Models (Ammann et al., 2007; Friend, 2011; Gonz´alez-Rouco et al., 2006; Jungclaus et |
|al., 2010; Servonnat et al., 2010; Hofer et al., 2011; Swingedouw et al., 2011) using state-of-the-art estimates of past |
|radiative forcing. The 18th century is generally found to be warmer than both the 17th and the 19th centuries with, |
|regionally, temperatures as high as in the mid-20th century. |
|– We find that the LIA is spatially homogeneous with cold anomalies everywhere and almost the same patterns in the 17th and |
|the 19th centuries. The homogeneity of the LIA is in agreement with previous work (Juckes et al., 2007; Matthews and Briffa, |
|2005; National Research Council, 2006; Wanner et al., 2008, 2011; Ljungqvist et al., 2012). The MWP seems more inhomogeneous, |
|as has also been suggested in several previous studies, including Bradley et al. (2003), Hughes and Diaz (1994), Diaz et al. |
|(2011) and Mann et al. (2009). However, we find that the statistical significance is low due to the limited number of proxies,|
|in agreement with Esper and Frank (2009) who suggested that the use of relatively few noisy and poorly replicated proxies can |
|give a false impression of heterogeneity. Ljungqvist et al. (2012) show that, on centennial time-scales, the MWP is no less |
|homogeneous than the LIA if all available proxy evidence, including low-resolution records, are taken into consideration in |
|order to give a better spatial data coverage. |
|– The large number of proxies allow us to compare LOC reconstruction based on different number of proxies and thereby test the|
|influence of the spatial averaging. Re-constructions based on 16 to 55 proxies (after screening) show only small differences |
|in 50-yr smoothed temperatures that generally fall inside the 95 % confidence interval calculated by the ensemble pseudo-proxy|
|method. This suggests that low-frequency noise is a minor problem and that LOC reconstructs 50-yr smoothed extra-tropical NH |
|mean temperatures well. |
|And here's the key chart (click for larger image): |
|[pic] |
What does this mean?
1. It means that there has been A PERIOD EXACTLY AS WARM AS TODAY, ABOUT ONE THOUSAND YEARS AGO.
2. It means that there WAS a Little Ice Age from which the world is currently recovering. The recovery started WELL BEFORE man made CO2 emissions became significant (which happened only after 1950, and that too, only a little bit: most "man-made" CO2 has been emitted only after 1990).
3. There is no correlation between CO2 and temperature. We have seen this clearly earlier today.
It means that there is NO WAY THAT ANY SENSIBLE STATISTICIAN can conclude that there is evidence of MAN MADE warming. Fools are of course welcome to their delusional conclusions. (Some of these fools are PROFESSORS! Student beware for you can be easily taken for a ride by fool professors. Remove your blinkers. Ask HARD questions.)
Note I'm NOT saying that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas. It can and DOES warm. But then it is offset by negative feedbacks. That's the key point that "scientists" have not even remotely understood. They are crying wolf not on the basis of DATA but on the basis of a theory.
They might as well say that Santa is angry with mankind. Same thing. Pure theory. No data.
NONSENSE.
To conclude: there is SIGNIFICANT EVIDENCE that climate changes by itself due to natural causes.
There is NO evidence that CO2 is bad.
There is ONLY evidence that CO2 is good (for plants).
So don't worry. Be happy.
Q.E.D.
4 The fool Kevin Rudd and his opposition to science
If Kevin Rudd continues to abuse those who ask questions, then Australia should bid goodbye to science
While reading Donna’s book (which is undoubtedly the BEST piece of investigative journalism I've come across in my life), I discovered that the (then) Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, gave a pretty vicious kind of speech at the Lowy Institute on 7 November 2009. (Full speech here) in which he abused those who question climate "science".
Attempts … to present what is an overwhelming global scientific consensus as little more than an unfolding debate, with two sides evenly represented in a legitimate scientific argument, are nothing short of intellectually dishonest. They are a political attempt to subvert what is now a longstanding scientific consensus, an attempt to twist the agreed science.
I couldn’t believe that an Australia's prime minister could mouth such foul GARBAGE.
First, let me note that I had praised Kevin Rudd in my book, Breaking Free of Nehru, and so I clearly bear no ill will towards him (or anyone).
But look how arrogant this man had become after he held the position of PM for a while.
He not only purported to have discovered something known as “overwhelming global scientific consensus“ but he viciously attacked those who ask questions. People who ask questions are presumably "intellectually dishonest", "subversive", or mischievous: trying to "twist" SCIENCE! (It would be nice if Kevin Rudd understood the meaning of science, but that's perhaps expecting too much.)
I checked Kevin's training from Wikipedia. He has ZERO understanding of maths, physics, chemistry or biology. He couldn't possibly read, leave alone understand, a scientific paper.
And yet like a TOTALLY empty drum (which makes great noise), he had the temerity and impudence to abuse those who have the calibre to understand – and therefore to ASK QUESTIONS.
I would have had nothing to say on this subject, had Rudd said something on these lines:
"Look, I don't have the intellectual calibre to understand maths, physics, biology, or chemistry, and so I don't understand whether CO2 is a problem or not, but I have a role to act on advice I receive from the government's scientists. These folk are telling me that I must act, and so I will. I do not deny the privilege of understanding the science to those Australians who wish to understand this subject throughly. In fact, I encourage them to question the government's scientists so that they are completely satisfied that official scientists genuinely understand the subject. Truth can only emerge through ongoing debate. There is never a final truth in science."
But such a humble and decent comment is perhaps beyond Kevin. (Would he ever admit his mental incapacity to grasp science? Never!) His view MUST be obeyed else you are dishonest!
I have training in science. I was a National Science Talent Scholar (in biology) – a highly competitive award. I topped my university in the bachelor's degree in science. I took maths for the IAS exam, and did a doctorate with mathematical subjects, securing many global competitive scholarships on the way. That doesn't mean I know everything, but I have the confidence of being able to understand ANYTHING if I put my mind to it.
I have been STEEPED in science from my childhood and continue to read extensively about science, and ask questions. I consider myself a SCIENTIST: one of the many MILLIONS of trained scientists in this world.
I am also an independent thinker, and refuse to accept ANYTHING till I've understood it.
I represent (in this regard) perhaps the ACME of what the education system should aspire to achieve: an active and socially engaged human being and citizen who can think for himself.
And I pay my taxes.
And yet, this ARROGANT FOOL, who can't think for himself but must depend on others' advice, has the temerity to ABUSE those who think for themselves.
Kevin did NOT care to personally understand climate science, or ask hard questions about the science, or question how IPCC works (he should read Donna's book). Nor does he have the slightest clue about the scientific method.
And yet he has the gall to question the INTEGRITY of those who ask questions!
As if asking questions were a crime.
If Rudd has any genuine knowledge of climate science then let him answer my questions. Or ask his government scientist/s to address them. (His government's Climate Change Taskforce member John Quiggin has no clue about the science, though.)
To date, all I know is that there is NOT THE SLIGHTEST shred of evidence that CO2 is causing any problem to this planet. Indeed, I firmly believe (based on the science and data) that CO2 is GOOD for the planet.
Kevin Rudd must not arrogate to himself the mantle of the "saviour" this Earth for our children. Others like me, the citizens, are equally interested. We will act once we are convinced there is a problem.
The difference is that unlike Rudd, who is a mere follower, some of us are SCIENTISTS. We demand PROOF. ALL aspects to be clearly proven.
I trust he understands the concept evidence-based policy. Well, there's NO EVIDENCE of any problem – but only evidence that CO2 is good.
Science is all about questioning. It does NOT rely on authority.
If I (as a common scientist and proud citizen) can’t demand PROOF without the (now ex-) Prime Minister questioning the integrity of people like me, then there is something seriously wrong with the society.
Readers will recall that the moment I asked John Quiggin for proof (about reasons why he thinks he can multiply an annual estimate of temperature reduction by 100) he fled. He knows NOTHING about climate science but “believes” something blindly. Doesn't know what. But he believes. He is a follower. I have no use for followers and blind believers.
Finally, Mr Rudd, whatever else you do, please note that abusing people like me, who ask questions, will only frighten Australian students away from science. It should be obvious even to you (although you perhaps might need an IPCC to pompously announce that to you) that abusing SCIENTISTS (i.e. those who ask questions) is NOT the best way to promote the scientific attitude in Australia.
Remember what Richard Feynman said:
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts".
Challenge your experts to EXPLAIN climate science to the people and to answer ALL questions. Or expect these "experts" to be shunted aside.
We don't need "experts" whose only "expertise" is to quote the "IPCC" – but have no knowledge of the scientific issues and can't explain the science themselves. Sorry. You or your "experts" might believe in gods like IPCC. I don't.
Overall
1 For LAZY readers of this blog: Please spare a moment to watch these short videos
I know it is hard for people to spend the hundreds of hours that I've spent researching this issue of climate change. It is so much easier to BELIEVE.
So much easier to believe the stuff that Uncle Sam or Big Brother tells us. Or the Big Media. Or Big TV.
Cognitive effort is hard work. Reading dense material is hard work. Thinking is EVEN harder. Asking questions is almost impossible for "normal" humans (particularly "university" educated ones who've crammed so much "knowledge" they have forgotten to think).
We all like short-cuts: Just tell us what to believe. We like jumping to conclusions (btw, if you've read Kahneman's book Thinking Fast and Slow you'll know why).
But the good thing is that some of us who don't like to read or to think are willing to watch a few videos.
For the LAZY READERS of my blog (I know a few!) who don't like thinking but are willing to watch – mindlessly – some videos, here are three excellent short videos by the super-highly qualified Dr. David Evans who was the leading terrestrial carbon modeler for the Australian Greenhouse Office for a decade. He was also a climate alarmist at one time but like Lovelock, has admitted to the truth.
Dr. Evans now seems to spend his time DEMOLISHING the carbon scare.
In the end he doesn't yet go as far as I do (I claim that more CO2 is GOOD for life on earth), but he does explain VERY COGENTLY the key arguments to bin carbon alarmism.
If you are particularly lazy and have never asked any questions regarding this topic before, be prepared to have serious tremors (earthquakes!) in your brain after watching these videos.
Please take the time, though, to read for yourself and find your own answers. Please don't "believe" me. Don't believe Evans. Don't believe Lovelock.
USE YOUR HEAD. What else is it meant for?
The Science – Part I [THIS SHOULD BE ENOUGH FOR THE MORE LAZY AMONG YOU]
The Science – Part II (you don't need to watch this unless you are particularly curious)
And if you are curious about the attempt by carbon alarmists to establish a World Government (don't forget Bob Browns' Earthians!), here's a short video. This is serious stuff. Not for the lazy minded. If you do watch this and don't end up seriously alarmed, you've simply not paid attention.
Also see this:
2 Must watch: “The Boy Who Cried Warming”
I came across the release of this movie a few weeks ago but got to see it only now.
It is very good. Its treatment of the science of climate change is excellent.
Its treatment of the economics of cap and trade is not as great, though. [Indeed, its Australia section is actually incorrect.] It might have been best if the film was shortened by half to focus only on the science.
The science discussed in the movie sets in perspective the facts about the climate which have been evident to me for some time now, but are not seen in the same perspective by the vast majority of Western "policy makers".
I believe this is a typical Western trait, of total obedience to the "official" position. That's what explains Hitler. Or even the Soviet Union of Stalin. Hitler could never have succeeded in India. Someone would have pulled him down. Or shot him.
Not so in the West. Like disciplined "soldiers", Western policy makers have put on blinkers (like horses) and refuse to ask questions since their "orders" have been received.
I wait to see how long the West will be held to ransom by the IPCC.
Anyway, here's the link to the HD movie (you can switch off HD if you don't have broadband). Watching this is particularly important if you have so far refused to ask questions and have taken the "official" position as gospel.
I would encourage you to read up a lot after watching this movie. Be sure that you have the facts right. Then make up your own mind. Don't take my word on anything.
3 Political science, the “science” behind IPCC
IPCC has "assigned high confidence to statements for which there is very little evidence, has failed to enforce its own guidelines, has been guilty of too little transparency, has ignored critical review comments and has had no policies on conflict of interest". (See this report).
This is not news to me. It confirms the low esteem in which I hold IPCC. I believe it is engaged in political science, or voodoo science (as Rajendra Pachauri labelled those who questioned him), not science as we know it. This is science from a political perspective, science with a vested interest, science with a view to one's personal bank balance. It is dangerous for its potential to harm the world's economies and in particular, the poor.
IPCC falsehoods and exaggerations have been, unfortunately, accepted at face value by many economists like Stern who ought to have known better. But unfortunately, 95% of economists are not trained as critical thinkers. They follow anyone in authority. They serve their leaders, they do not think independently. (Of course there are a few economists like Steven Landsburg and Steven Levitt who do know how to think!). That means you need to be a critical thinker to investigate all authorities. NEVER accept authority figure claims at face value. Investigate. Question. If you accept anyone's statements without question you are finished.
I'd be very concerned if I could clearly see that increased CO2 is likely to be dangerous for mankind. I'd be the first to jump out of my seat and claim that we ought to do something about. But I'm very relaxed about it. My views on climate change are clear, being informed by science, not voodoo science:
a) The greenhouse gas effect is real. But it is very small (being logarithmic), and it can't ever become life-threatening.
b) Increased CO2 is good for the world. It will increase crop (and animal) yields and increase the human population (The IPCC severely plays down the positive impacts of CO2)
c) The harm caused by increased CO2 is small or non-existent.
BENEFITS EXCEED COSTS. Q.E.D.
What's wrong with IPCC's 'science'?
There's so much material out there that shows what is wrong with IPCC science that I can't possibly do it justice. In brief:
• IPCC relies heavily on non-peer reviewed material. “Dr Rajendra Pachauri, was to claim that everything in its report was “peer-reviewed”, having been confirmed by independent experts. But a new study put this claim to the test. A team of 40 researchers from 12 countries, led by a Canadian analyst Donna Laframboise, checked out every one of the 18,531 scientific sources cited in the mammoth 2007 report. Astonishingly, they found that nearly a third of them – 5,587 – were not peer-reviewed at all, but came from newspaper articles, student theses, even propaganda leaflets and press releases put out by green activists and lobby groups.”
• It is prone to massively exaggerating the current changes in climate, as something exceptional. It is not. They are pretty much consistent with what has happened in the past. The medieval and Roman warming events are conclusively proven. By real scientists. Not voodoo scientists. The first IPCC report (1990) had a clear mention of medieval warming:
• The IPCC is prone to grossly exaggerate sea level projections (see ). Don't forget that sea levels have been going up and going down for millions of years and will continue doing so. IPCC has spread the myth has been spread that malaria would increase with increases in global warming. This is highly exaggerated (see ). IPCC has spread the myth that corals would be dramatically impacted by acidification. This is false. Corals love heat. They are flourishing. And the oceans are not going to become acidic.
• Amazongate:
• This article shows how many of IPCC's panicky predictions have been proved wrong (June 2011)
Some articles to read if you are interested
(I'll keep adding to this list as time permits. There is TONS of material out there to educate yourself should you want to think on your own)
The United Nations' IPCC reports have been regularly discredited over various exaggerations and unproven claims, most recently that Himalayan glaciers were melting, a claim that even the UN had to admit was false. (From The Detroit News: )
CSIRO predictions that don't come true:
Lamb's graph:
Important :
4 The pitfalls of forecasting
Unless one takes a truly long-term view, and thoroughly understands the entire range of impacts, including stabilisers, adjustments, substitutions, interactions, and the lot, it is best to avoid forecasts on complex matters. We can talk about trends, and tendencies, but not precise estimates of what is going to happen.
The number of constantly changing forecasts by the IMF during the past three years should have led it to shut down its delusional macro-economic forecasting branch, but forecasters always manage to avoid taking responsibility (much like climate change "scientists" who manage to receive public funding even after making the most absurd forecasts!).
Here's Julian Simon on the pitfalls of forecasting
This is what Julian Simon had to say about forecasting (source).
Despite those reservations about technical forecasting, I shall briefly survey the results of some of the forecasters, mostly in their own words. My aim is to show that even with relatively “conservative” guesses about future extraction developments, many of the best-qualified forecasters report enormous resource availabilities – in contrast to the scare stories that dominate the daily newspapers. The central difficulty again is: Which expert will you choose to believe? If you wish, you can certainly find someone with all the proper academic qualifications who will give you as good a scare for your money as a horror movie. For example, geologist Preston Cloud has written that “food and raw materials place ultimate limits on the size of populations … such limits will be reached within the next thirty to one hundred years”, and, of course, not too many years ago the best-selling book by Paul and William Paddock, Famine–1975!, told it all in the title.
We begin with the assessment of the raw-materials situation by Herman Kahn and associates. Examining the evidence on the twelve principal metals that account for 99.9 percent of world and U.S. metal consumption, they classify them into only two categories, “clearly inexhaustible” and “probably inexhaustible,” finding none that are likely to be exhausted in any foreseeable future that is relevant to contemporary decisions. They conclude that “95 percent of the world demand is for five metals which are not considered exhaustible.”
Many decades ago, the great geologist Kirtley Mather made a similar prescient forecast:
Summing it all up, for nearly all of the important nonrenewable resources, the known or confidently expected world stores are thousands of times as great as the annual world consumption. For the few which like petroleum are available in relatively small quantities, substitutes are known or potential sources of alternative supply are at hand in quantities adequate to meet our current needs for many thousands of years. There is no prospect of the imminent exhaustion of any of the truly essential raw materials, as far as the world as a whole is concerned. Mother Earth’s storehouse is far more richly stocked with goods than is ordinarily inferred.
In a comprehensive 1963 survey of natural and technological resources for the next 100 years, Harrison Brown – a well-known geochemist who would not be described as a congenital optimist by anyone who knows Brown’s work – nevertheless looked forward to a time when natural resources will become so plentiful that “mineral resources will cease to play a main role in world economy and politics.” (I think that that time has already arrived.) In an article sufficiently well-regarded that it was the first article from the physical sciences ever republished in the American Economic Review, H. E. Goeller and A. M. Weinberg explored the implications of possible substitution in the use of raw materials that are essential to our civilization, with this result:
We now state the principle of ‘infinite’ substitutability: With three notable exceptions – phosphorus, a few trace elements for agriculture, and energy-producing fossil fuels (CH2) – society can subsist on inexhaustible or near-inexhaustible minerals with relatively little loss of living standard. Society would then be based largely on glass, plastic, wood, cement, iron, aluminum, and magnesium.
As a result of that analysis of “infinite” substitutability, they arrive at an optimistic conclusion.
Our technical message is clear: dwindling mineral resources in the aggregate, with the exception of reduced carbon and hydrogen, are per se unlikely to cause Malthusian catastrophe….In the Age of Substitutability energy is the ultimate raw material. The living standard will almost surely depend primarily on the cost of prime energy.
Are those quotations from far-out voices? Hardly. Vincent McKelvey, then-director of the U.S. Geological Survey, said in an official Summary of United States Mineral Resources: “Personally, I am confident that for millennia to come we can continue to develop the mineral supplies needed to maintain a high level of living for those who now enjoy it and raise it for the impoverished people of our own country and the world.”
You may be startled by the discrepancies between these assessments and those that you read in the daily newspapers. The best-known doomsday forecast in the last few decades was The Limits to Growth. It sold an astounding 9 million copies in 29 languages. But that book has been so thoroughly and universally criticized as neither valid nor scientific that it is not worthwhile to devote time or space to refuting its every detail. Even more damning, just four years after publication it was disavowed by its sponsors, the Club of Rome.The Club said that the conclusions of that first report are not correct and that they pu rposely misled the public in order to “awaken” public concern.
With respect to minerals, Dennis Meadows (of Limits to Growth) predictably went wrong by using the known-reserves concept. For example, he estimated the world supply of aluminum to be exhausted in a maximum of 49 years. But aluminum is the most abundant metal in the earth’s crust, and the chance of its supply becoming an economic problem is nil. (Meadows also made the error of counting only high-grade bauxite, while lower grades are found in much greater abundance). The price history of aluminum in Figure 2-2 shows how aluminum has become vastly more available rather than more scarce since its early development in the 19th century. And in the two decades since Meadows wrote, the price has continued to fall, a sure sign that the trend is toward lesser rather than greater scarcity. Figure 2-3 [Prices of aluminum, and early ones from Madigan booklet]
The complete failure of the prophecies of Limits to Growth, and even the repudiation by its sponsor, have had little visible effect on the thinking of those who made the false prophecies. In 1990 Meadows was still saying, “We showed that physical growth will stop within the lifetime of those being born today…The underlying problem has not changed one iota: It is the impossibility of sustaining physical growth in a finite world.” (The next chapter discusses why finiteness is a destructive bogeyman, without scientific foundation.) And in 1992 they published Beyond the Limits which says the same old things while attempting to wiggle out of the failures of past predictions by saying that they just had the dates of the forecasts wrong.
Forecasts made by government agencies attract much attention, and many naive persons put special credence in them. But the inability of government agencies to predict resource trends, and the ill effects of such “official” but badly made forecasts, would be amusing if not so sad. Consider this episode:
After a sharp price rise in the late 1970s, timber prices in 1983 fell about three- quarters, causing agony for lumber companies that had contracted to cut government timber at the high prices. Industry trade groups then argued that the government owed the industry help because its forecasts had led to the bidding disaster. In the late 1970s [an industry spokesman] says, government economists predicted timber shortages and helped to fan the bidding.
Even economists can be influenced by physical considerations into focusing on too-short-run price series, and making wrong forecasts thereby. For example, in 1982 Margaret Slade published an influential analysis of trends in commodity prices based on a theoretical model including grades of ores. Her series ran from 1870 or later through 1978. She fitted quadratic concave-upwards curves to the data and concluded that “if scarcity is measured by relative prices, the evidence indicates that nonrenewable natural-resource commodities are becoming scarce.” If she were to conduct the same analysis with data running to 1993, and using data before 1870 where available, she would arrive at quite the opposite conclusion.
ADDENDUM
It’s Hard to Make Predictions, Especially About the Future, by Ronald Bailey
5 Is Ian Plimer on the right track?
My review of Ian Plimer's book, 'Heaven + Earth: Global Warming: the Missing Science'.
The areas of knowledge covered by climate science are enormous, with an almost endless number of questions to be asked. Addressing these questions then requires an excellent understanding of many disciplines of science as well as of statistics, since extremely complex multivariate analyses and models are necessary to identify various marginal effects. Therefore it is very hard for a lay person with limited time to form an informed opinion on this subject. Most of us tend to, therefore, become 'believers' in this area, not thinkers. We either accept man-made climate change or we don't. Neutral, inquiring positions are becoming harder to find.
But truth has never given up its secrets to groups. No major advance in history ever emerged from group think. Individual analysis and independent opinion is mandatory for science to advance. Most advances in science take years if not centuries to be fully understood and internalised. For instance, the theory of evolution was proposed by a single individual, not by a committee, and has taken 150 years to be confirmed as a plausible representation of reality. Doing so has been relatively easy since of the millions of observations made, not one contradicted the theory. But one cannot say the same of climate science which is not only tens of times more difficult than evolution but has been marked by contradictory observations and data (or claims of such contradictions). The fact that no major Australian publisher was willing to publish Plimer’s book indicates the increasing dominance of group think in this area, and is surely a matter of concern.
Excellent compendium of issues
The book brings together a vast number of seemingly unrelated streams of science and shows that there are literally hundreds of diverse factors at work on the earth's climate, not simply greenhouse gases. It thus provides a wide range of information and educates the layman in the many complexities of climate science. Irrespective of how valid Plimer's conclusions are, his wide coverage of issues is good enough reason to have this book as part of one's personal library.
Polemical style
The book is somewhat repetitive and could have done with a couple of more revisions. However, having myself published a book (), with another on the way, I am sympathetic towards people who write books over and above their day time job. But the polemical style followed by Plimer almost becomes aggressive in places. Plimer could have achieved a more persuasive result through understatement (advice easier given than followed: I must make a note to follow this in my own writings as well!). But if you can ignore his rhetorical approach, you'll find considerable value in this book.
Does his story come together?
My preliminary research through the internet has convinced me that CO2 is a potential threat to mankind, but probably not as much as is hyped to be. However, I'm not an expert in this area and have no time to explore this issue further. Plimer's book assists by rapidly increasing one's knowledge of the vast number of issues involved in this area. Consider this: “The measurement of CO2 in the atmosphere is fraught with difficulty… [F]or much of the 19th century … the atmosphere CO2 was higher than at present and varied considerably” (p.416). That’s surely a shock ‘discovery’. The greater shock is the fact that current CO2 levels are close to the lowest ever in the Earth’s history. How true is this? Well, read for yourself.
While CO2 and its effects are an areas on which the jury is still out, I do know a fair bit about mathematical modeling. I therefore have strong reservations against mathematical models of 'everything', which is what climate models essentially are. Only God can know the precise model that runs the world. Therefore even imagining that we will be able to predict climate 200 years hence through computer modeling is a delusion. There are almost no linearities found in this world, and with hundreds of variables involved with complex non-linearities, uncertainties, feedback loops, interactions, automatic stabilisers and adjustments, the very idea that we can predict climate 200 years out is fantasy. Plimer raises similar concerns in his book, which lends it considerable credibility, at least from my perspective. Today, climate science can barely predict the weather three days out, so perhaps we shouldn’t get bowled over by computer models.
Plimer has thus offered a very strong and well-researched book that will take quite some serious refutation. If nothing else, this book demonstrates that climate science is far from settled.
Having said that, while Plimer makes a strong case against man-made global warming, I'm not ready to 'believe' one way or the other since I believe that the truth often takes its own sweet time to emerge – over the course of centuries. There is therefore perhaps no need to rush to judgement. Of course, if CO2 is (ever) unequivocally proven to be a major pollutant (which is perhaps not the case today), then various economic models could be used to enforce accountability and internalise the externalities involved.
In the end, strongly recommended weekend reading.
===
ARTICLE BY IAN PLIMER
Here's an article published in The Australian today by Ian Plimer which summarises his arguments very well. I'm copying the entire article here for my reference in case the URL of the above link changes in the future.
Vitriolic climate in academic hothouse
Ian Plimer | May 29, 2009
Article from: The Australian
IT is well known that many university staff list to port and try to engineer a brave new world. The cash cow climate institutes now seem to be drowning in their own self-importance.
In a wonderful gesture of public spiritedness, seven academics who include three lead authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and a former director of the World Climate Research Program wrote to Australian power generating companies on April 29 instructing them to cease and desist creating electricity from coal.
In their final paragraph, they state with breathtaking arrogance: "The unfortunate reality is that genuine action on climate change will require the existing coal-fired power stations to cease operating in the near future.
"We feel it is vital that you understand this and we are happy to work with you and with governments to begin planning for this transition immediately.
"The warming of the atmosphere, driven by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases, is already causing unacceptable damage and suffering around the world."
No evidence is provided for this statement and no signatory to this letter has published anything to support this claim.
These university staff are unctuously understanding about the plight of those who face employment extinction in the smokestack towns of Australia.
They write: "We understand that this will require significant social and economic transition that will need to be managed carefully
to care for coal sector workers and coal-dependent communities.". This love for fellow workers brings tears to the eyes.
The electricity generating companies should reply by cutting off the power to academics' homes and host institutions, forcing our ideologues to lead by example.
Some 80 per cent of Australia's electricity derives from coal, large volumes of cheap electricity underpin employment and our self-appointed concerned citizens offer no suggestion for alternative unsubsidised base-load power sources to employ Australians.
The Emissions Trading Scheme legislation poises Australia to make the biggest economic decision in its history, yet there has been no scientific due diligence.
There has never been a climate change debate in Australia. Only dogma. To demonise element number six in the periodic table is amusing. Why not promethium? Carbon dioxide is an odourless, colourless, harmless natural gas. It is plant food. Without carbon, there would be no life on Earth.
The original source of atmospheric CO2 is volcanoes. The Earth's early atmosphere had a thousand times the CO2 of today's atmosphere. This CO2 was recycled through rocks, life and the oceans.
Through time, this CO2 has been sequestered into plants, coal, petroleum, minerals and carbonate rocks, resulting in a decrease in atmosphericCO2.
The atmosphere now contains 800billion tonnes of carbon as CO2. Soils and plants contain 2000 billion tonnes, oceans 39,000 billion tonnes and limestone 65,000,000 billion tonnes. The atmosphere contains only 0.001 per cent of the total carbon in the top few kilometres of the Earth.
Deeper in Earth, there are huge volumes of CO2 yet to be leaked into the atmosphere. So depleted is the atmosphere in CO2, that horticulturalists pump warm CO2 into glasshouses to accelerate plant growth.
The first 50 parts per million of CO2 operates as a powerful greenhouse gas. After that, CO2 has done its job, which is why there has been no runaway greenhouse in the past when CO2 was far higher.
During previous times of high CO2, there were climate cycles driven by galactic forces, the sun, Earth's orbit, tides and random events such as volcanoes. These forces still operate. Why should such forces disappear just because we humans live on Earth?
The fundamental questions remain unanswered. A change of 1 per cent in cloudiness can account for all changes measured during the past 150 years, yet cloud measurements are highly inaccurate. Why is the role of clouds ignored? Why is the main greenhouse gas (water vapour) ignored? The limitation of temperature in hot climates is evaporation yet this ignored in catastrophist models.
Why are balloon and satellite measurements showing cooling ignored yet unreliable thermometer measurements used? Is the increase in atmospheric CO2 really due to human activities?
Ice cores show CO2 increases some 800 years after temperature increase so why can't an increase in CO2 today be due to the medieval warming (900-1300)?
If increased concentrations of CO2 increase temperature, why have there been coolings during the past 150 years?
Some 85 per cent of volcanoes are unseen and unmeasured yet these heat the oceans and add monstrous amounts of CO2 to the oceans. Why have these been ignored? Why have there been five significant ice ages when CO2 was higher than now? Why were warmings in Minoan, Roman and medieval times natural, yet a smaller warming at the end of the 20th century was due to human activities? If climate changed at the end of the Little Ice Age (c.1850), is it unusual for warming to follow?
Computer models using the past 150 years of measurements have been used to predict climate for the next few centuries. Why have these models not been run backwards to validate known climate changes?
I would bet the farm that by running these models backwards, El Nino events and volcanoes such as Krakatoa (1883, 535), Rabaul (536) and Tambora (1815) could not be validated.
In my book, I correctly predicted the response. The science would not be discussed, there would be academic nit-picking and there would be vitriolic ad hominem attacks by pompous academics out of contact with the community.
Comments by critics suggest that few have actually read the book and every time there was a savage public personal attack, book sales rose. A political blog site could not believe that such a book was selling so well and suggested that my publisher, Connor Court, was a front for the mining or pastoral industry.
This book has struck a nerve. Although accidentally timely, there are a large number of punters who object to being treated dismissively as stupid, who do not like being told what to think, who value independence, who resile from personal attacks and have life experiences very different from the urban environmental atheists attempting to impose a new fundamentalist religion.
Green politics have taken the place of failed socialism and Western Christianity and impose fear, guilt, penance and indulgences on to a society with little scientific literacy. We are now reaping the rewards of politicising science and dumbing down the education system. If book sales, public meetings, book launches, email and phone messages are any indication, there is a large body of disenfranchised folk out there who feel helpless. I have shown that the emperor has no clothes. This is why the attacks are so vitriolic.
Ian Plimer is emeritus professor of earth sciences at the University of Melbourne. His book Heaven and Earth is published by Connor Court.
===
ADDITIONAL NOTES. I'm going to add a few links that are useful in this area:
A paper that summarises key data:
Fielding-Wong debate
Review of Plimer's work in The Spectator 8 July 2009.
A summary of 9 peer reviewed papers disproving anthropogenic global warming (AGW)
Australian Govt. issues paper (by Allen Consulting Group)
Scientists opposing AGW arguments.
A speech by Aynsley Kellow
Need to read: Climate of Extremes: Global
Warming Science They Don't Want You to Know by Patrick Michaels
Interview with Pat Michaels
Addendum, 25 October 2009. The book is a best seller!
Addendum Seeing through hoax of the century, by Janet Albrechtsen. The Australian.
Addendum 7 November 2009: Science is in on climate change sea-level rise: 1.7mm, The Australian. [evidence that sea levels have been rising VERY SLOWLY near South Australia]
Addendum 7 November 2009. Freaking Out over Global Warming. Mises Daily.
Addendum 9 December 2009: Climate claims fail science test by Michael Asten. The Australian.
Addendum 8 January 2009. Mr Rudd, your misguided warming policies are killing millions. Full open letter at here (PDF).
Here's something hilarious: Kenneth Davidson in his 8 February 2010 article in The Age (here) said, "Britain's Met Office says the world is on a path towards a potential increase in global temperatures of 4 degrees as early as 2060. If this occurs, only about half a billion people out of about 9 billion will survive, according to Professor Kevin Anderson, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate change and adviser to the British government". I explored this further and came across this article. I'm amused beyond belief at such atrocious 'science'.
Addendum 12 Feb 2010: Came across this useful summary.
6 The Great Global Warming Swindle – revisited after three years
Through Facebook, I found a link that, upon further research, took me to the online version (here) of The Great Global Warming Swindle which I had watched on TV many years ago.
This documentary ran into considerable controversy (somewhat on the lines of Al Gore's The Inconvenient Truth which I've not yet found time to watch). Despite that, I do recommend that you watch it (here's the link, once again) but make sure you read its Wikipedia entry. Always good to hear two sides in a debate. Then make up your own mind.
(By the way, the website I've linked to to provides 3200 FREE documentaries! – I've just discovered it so I'll browse through it over the coming weeks – and indeed, it contains the Medici documentary that I'd written about a few days ago)
Let me add that I have not been influenced by this documentary (which I've not watched this time around, given shortage of time) but by a lot of reading over the years. I continue to hold an open mind to the facts. In the meanwhile, I've periodically published my views on this subject – based on my own readings and examination of the facts. In brief, to me the facts of the case seem to be this:
a) CO2 is a greenhouse gas but with significantly diminishing impacts (logarithmic impacts – so after a concentration that is much lower than what it is today the impacts barely matter);
b) Natural factors (led by the sun) have caused the climate to change hundreds of times in the past. The sun is a pulsing star which has become stronger over time (on average), with many periods of reduced activity. Its effects are lagged by up to a few years due to the way water absorbs heat (in the oceans), but once its output changes (even slightly), its impacts are observable.
c) The more one reads the more one finds that the idea that CO2 is the MAIN climate variable does not fit the facts. For any theory to be validated, it must fit ALL facts. No exception is permissible. This confirms to me that CO2 is a MINOR variable in the Earth's climate, which is what its greenhouse effect should amount to.
d) The overall benefits of slight warming of the earth (from CO2) are likely to be far greater than the costs of such warming.
There is, therefore, no cause to panic! and no need to switch from coal to other technologies – although nuclear is safer (if not cheaper) and so its use should be increased.
Also, far greater research is needed into fusion energy. That is something we need to master very quickly now – for purely economic reasons. We should find a way to harness the infinite energy that constitutes this universe.
Addendum
Here's a comprehensive report published in the New American today. Worth a read.
7 The medieval Carbonists who BELIEVE in carbon but NEVER ask ANY question
Environmentalism is now the new religion of atheists (after Marxism died out). I notice a particularly strong proclivity among atheists to be carbon fanatics, carbon believers, or what I call Carbonists.
Remember that the defining feature of a religion is BLIND BELIEF. Religion involves the dropping of all questioning, and acceptance of what SOMEONE ELSE says.
Carbon religion meets this criteria perfectly. There is no analysis of facts in this religion. There is no insistence on waiting for action till climate models are proven to work.
In the meanwhile, ALL climate models have made wildly incorrect predictions. They've ALL wildly over-estimated temperature increases and been ENTIRELY falsified.
This falsification of "climate (psuedo-)science" has had NO effect on Carbonists, whatsoever, who BLINDLY refuse to ask inconvenient questions (their fragile belief might get shattered!) or look at any real data about what the climate is doing. Scientific inquiry and critical thinking doesn't matter to them, anyway. Nor does the desire for wisdom come in the way of their "URGENT, PRE-EMPTIVE ACTIONS" against something that would happen 100 years from now (IF their models were right, which is untrue).
CO2 is GOOD for the planet. All data that I'm aware of are clear about this. But that doesn't seem to matter. A belief has been formed that CO2 is bad. That's all that matters.
On top of this religious belief, there is the REALLY BAD policy of picking winners and handing over HUGE amounts of taxpayer funds to fat cats to grow fatter. I gather with great regret that these bumbling Carbonists have just squandered $2.5 BILLION of taxpayer money in infructuous and unnecessary attempts to sequester carbon.
Fat "scientists" are getting fatter at public (my!) expense. The taxpayer is being taken for a sucker by every "confident" (FOOLISH) FANATIC on this planet.
The medieval era of superstition is back with us. Ask any question about climate "science" and you'll be asked to shut up and OBEY.
[pic]
If these fools were only to waste a few percentage points of our income that would be somewhat tolerable, but they have aspirations to set up a world government (cf. Bob Brown)! Hopefully common sense will overcome the grave follies of this religion, as it has all others.
I defer to the common man – the only sensible being in this world. Overconfident (pseudo) Intellectuals are very, very dangerous.
Addendum
FALSEHOOD: that IPCC models and predictions work
1 False models
The MEGA FAILURE OF IPCC. Science must predict perfectly. Else it is quackery. Climate science and astrology seem to be first cousins. See:
[pic]
2 Yet another example of “reason” without empiricism: climate “science”
People say that climate science is a SCIENCE. It is not. It is rational speculation, WITHOUT CHECKING ANYTHING AGAINST REALITY. Just like Keynesian macro-economics. There is simply no difference in these two approaches which display one common theme: TOTAL disregard for data.
The world has been in a fairly steady warming trend of 0.5°C per century since 1680 (with alternating ~30 year periods of warming and mild cooling) where as the vast bulk of all human CO2 emissions have been after 1945.
I won't say more. Just three diagrams to get the point across. You can get the full story here.
[pic]
Figure above: Hansen’s predictions[6] to the US Congress in 1988, compared to the subsequent temperatures as measured by NASA satellites[7].
[pic]
[pic]
Figure above: Climate model predictions[11] of ocean temperature, versus the measurements by Argo[12]. The unit of the vertical axis is 1022 Joules (about 0.01°C).
3 IPCC’s high confidence in VAGUE statements with LITTLE evidence: a clear indication of intent to MISLEAD the world
I'm now going to publish a few blog posts that cover other key failures of IPCC's process, according to the world's top science academies.
I'm not citing page numbers – you can check the IAC report directly if you wish. These are EXACT STATEMENTS:
=== EXTRACTS===
The complexity of the climate system and its impacts has become increasingly apparent.
The available information on climate change is extensive, multidisciplinary, and multinational in nature; extends across multiple spatial and temporal scales; is subject to different interpretations; and has a wide range of uncertainties.
The evolving nature of climate science, the long time scales involved, and the difficulties of predicting human impacts on and responses to climate change mean that many of the results presented in IPCC assessment reports have inherently uncertain components. To inform policy decisions properly, it is important for uncertainties to be characterized and communicated clearly and coherently.
Projecting climate trends and impacts is conditional on climate change and adaptation, both of which are inherently uncertain, and this uncertainty is likely to increase the farther in the future the projection is made.
All of the factors that affect CO2 emissions and mitigation costs in top-down models are uncertain, and uncertainty about them increases with the length of the projection.
Many of the conclusions in the ‘Current Knowledge About Future Impacts’ section of the Working Group II Summary for Policymakers are based on unpublished or non-peerreviewed literature.
Authors reported high confidence in some statements for which there is little evidence. Furthermore, by making vague statements that were difficult to refute, authors were able to attach ‘high confidence’ to the statements. The Working Group II Summary for Policymakers contains many such statements that are not supported sufficiently in the literature,
Many of the 71 conclusions in the ‘Current Knowledge About Future Impacts’ section of the Working Group II Summary for Policy-makers are imprecise statements made without reference to the time period under consideration or to a climate scenario under which the conclusions would be true.
[For instance]
Nearly all European regions are anticipated to be negatively affected by some future impacts of climate change, and these will pose challenges to many economic sectors. (Very high confidence; IPCC, 2007b, p. 14)
[Sanjeev: What in heaven's name does the above statement mean?]
The IPCC uncertainty guidance provides a good starting point for charac-terizing uncertainty in the assessment reports. However, the guidance was not consistently followed in the fourth assessment, leading to unnecessary errors.
For example, authors reported high confidence in statements for which there is little evidence, such as the widely quoted statement that agricultural yields in Africa might decline by up to 50 percent by 2020. Moreover, the guidance was often applied to statements that are so vague they cannot be disputed. In these cases the impression was often left, incorrectly, that a substantive finding was being presented.
The Working Group II Summary for Policymakers in the Fourth Assessment Report contains many vague statements of ‘high confidence’ that are not supported sufficiently in the literature, not put into perspective, or are difficult to refute. The Committee believes that it is not appropriate to assign probabilities to such statements. There is, moreover, a danger that the confidence scale may be misinterpreted as indicating a statistical level of confidence in an outcome.
4 The rise in sea levels is SLOWING – making a total mockery of the IPCC models
In March 2010 I noted that sea levels have constantly changed through the history of the Earth, and indeed, we have direct evidence from cities like Dwarka which went below the sea (true, that could have been a local phenomenon due to local sinking of land – so that's a mere hypothesis at the moment).
Then, in January 2011 I highlighted evidence that shows that there has been no accelerating trend in the rise of sea levels – something that is critically necessary in order to confirm the models that IPCC uses.
Both these blog posts cited plenty of scientific studies. I did not make these up.
And now the FINAL NAIL IN THE COFFIN OF IPCC (actually it is already dead as a dodo): Sea-level rises are slowing. (I'm reproducing the entire post from The Australian, below).
Note that I don't ever bother about people's opinions and don't report on, or discuss opinions – which unfortunately flood the comments sections of most newspapers. Because of my extensive science background and study of the scientific method I look PURELY for evidence. Hard evidence is the bedrock of the scientific approach, not models! (I know that also very well, since I know a lot about the most sophisticated economic models in use today – which are essentially PURE garbage).
Models are just one's best guess, based on a mathematical representation of one's theories. But a) it is very hard to find the actual underlying mathematical equations to represent a theory – even if that theory is right, and b) it is very hard to find a correct theory in relation to complex matters like society and climate in the first place.
Just having a mathematical model that runs on a supercomputer doesn't make that model right. The results of the model MUST match data, else that model – and its underpinning theory – is immediately FALSIFIED. So far I don't know of ANY complex model that accurately mimics reality. All complex models in the world are therefore PURE garbage – works of fiction. We have a long way to go to get ANY prediction about the future right.
In brief, there is at present no combined, complex, theory of climate that has not been falsified. All these are hypotheses, discarded by the wayside.
Hence climate scientists are groping in the dark and are best advised not to impose their totally half-baked and fictional views on people.
IT IS A MINIMUM EXPECTATION OF MODELS THAT THEY MUST "PREDICT" ALL OBSERVATIONS OF THE PAST, AS WELL AS THE FOLLOWING YEARS' OBSERVATIONS. If a model can't predict the next year's data (ALL data including temperature, sea level, etc. etc.) then that model is FALSE.
That is the basic premise of science.
An brief, all models used by IPCC to base its predictions on are FALSE AND UNSCIENTIFIC.
That is now proven beyond the slightest iota of doubt.
Sea-level rises are slowing, tidal gauge records show
The Australian July 22, 2011
ONE of Australia's foremost experts on the relationship between climate change and sea levels has written a peer-reviewed paper concluding that rises in sea levels are "decelerating".
The analysis, by NSW principal coastal specialist Phil Watson, calls into question one of the key criteria for large-scale inundation around the Australian coast by 2100 — the assumption of an accelerating rise in sea levels because of climate change.
Based on century-long tide gauge records at Fremantle, Western Australia (from 1897 to present), Auckland Harbour in New Zealand (1903 to present), Fort Denison in Sydney Harbour (1914 to present) and Pilot Station at Newcastle (1925 to present), the analysis finds there was a "consistent trend of weak deceleration" from 1940 to 2000.
Mr Watson's findings, published in the Journal of Coastal Research this year and now attracting broader attention, supports a similar analysis of long-term tide gauges in the US earlier this year. Both raise questions about the CSIRO's sea-level predictions.
Climate change researcher Howard Brady, at Macquarie University, said yesterday the recent research meant sea levels rises accepted by the CSIRO were "already dead in the water as having no sound basis in probability".
"In all cases, it is clear that sea-level rise, although occurring, has been decelerating for at least the last half of the 20th century, and so the present trend would only produce sea level rise of around 15cm for the 21st century."
Dr Brady said the divergence between the sea-level trends from models and sea-level trends from the tide gauge records was now so great "it is clear there is a serious problem with the models".
"In a nutshell, this factual information means the high sea-level rises used as precautionary guidelines by the CSIRO in recent years are in essence ridiculous," he said. During the 20th century, there was a measurable global average rise in mean sea level of about 17cm (plus or minus 5cm).
But scientific projections, led by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, have suggested climate change will deliver a much greater global tide rise in mean sea level this century of 80-100cm.
The federal government has published a series of inundation maps based on the panel's predictions showing that large areas of Australia's capital cities, southeast Queensland and the NSW central coast will be under water by 2100.
Without acceleration in sea-level rises, the 20th-century trend of 1.7mm a year would produce a rise of about 0.15m by 2100.
Mr Watson's analysis of the four longest continuous Australian and New Zealand records is consistent with the findings of US researchers Robert Dean and James Houston, who analysed monthly averaged records for 57 tide gauges, covering periods of 60 to 156 years.
The US research concluded there was "no evidence to support positive acceleration over the 20th century as suggested by the IPCC, global climate change models and some researchers".
Mr Watson cautioned in his research and again yesterday that studies of a small number of northern hemisphere records spanning two or three centuries had found a small acceleration in sea-level rises. He said it was possible the rises could be subject to "climate-induced impacts projected to occur over this century".
Mr Watson's research finds that in the 1990s, when sea levels were attracting international attention, although the decadal rates of ocean rise were high, "they are not remarkable or unusual in the context of the historical record at each site over the 20th century".
"What we are seeing in all of the records is there are relatively high rates of sea-level rise evident post-1990, but those sorts of rates of rise have been witnessed at other times in the historical record," he said.
"What remains unknown is whether or not these rates are going to persist into the future and indeed increase."
He said further research was required, "to rationalise the difference between the acceleration trend evident in the global sea level time-series reconstructions (models) and the relatively consistent deceleration trend evident in the long-term Australasian tide gauge records".
With an estimated 710,000 Australian homes within 3km and below 6m elevation of the coast, accurate sea-level predictions are vital for planning in coastal areas anticipating predicted sea-level rises of almost a metre by 2100.
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Addendum
IPCC continues to drum up panic
Andrew Bolt says pretty much what I've said above.
[Data from India show similar results]
5 The most damning thing about IPCC is that ASSUMES that mankind is guilty, BEFORE starting its analysis
The IAC report did not pick up what, to me, is the GREATEST PROOF that IPCC is a con game.
Instead of first determining WHETHER there is genuine warming ARISING FROM causes about which man has some control, it PREDETERMINES its structures and conclusions, thus (from p.6 of IAC's report):
• Working Group I assesses the physical scientific aspects of the climate system and climate change, including attribution of past change and projections of future change.
• Working Group II assesses the vulnerability of socioeconomic and natural systems to climate change [NOTE that man made climate change is first ASSUMED] negative and positive consequences of climate change, and options for adapting to it [The words are LOADED!!! SATURATED WITH ASSUMPTION].
• Working Group III assesses policy and technology options for mitigating climate change [NOTE that man made climate change is first ASSUMED] through, for example, limiting or preventing greenhouse gas emissions and enhancing activities that remove them from the atmosphere.
IPCC has, in this manner, PREDETERMINED IN ADVANCE that there IS a MAN-MADE problem worth studying.
In my view, Working Groups II and III should be DISBANDED IMMEDIATELY and NEVER be established unless the work of Working Group I has CONCLUSIVELY shown that there is a possible issue.
In my view this the biggest issue with IPCC – its presumption of mankind's GUILT.
The IAC did not pick this up. It should have.
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6 Tim Flannery’s Biblical predictions of drought, and the OPPOSITE reality – of floods
"these weather shifts and … rainfall declines … do seem to be of a permanent nature" (2005)
"even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and river systems" (2007)
For those who haven't heard about him, Tim Flannery is a "government expert", the official Climate Commissioner of Australia.
Reality: Australia is drowning in water. And almost all dams are full. Inland Lake Eyre, which is a non-existent dry 'lake', has been flooded for the past four years.
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More details about the massive fraud perpetrated on the public mind by Mr Flannery, here. Indeed, these are just two of his many predictions. I gather that on the sea level, as well, he has been proven entirely wrong.
Typical of these half-baked "scientists" who don't understand the BASICS of statistics, Flannery is (or was) prominent because of his penchant for making wild predictions, such as that the heavens are about to fall on our heads. That kind of over-the-top exaggeration gets him plenty of attention. And money.
But sadly for Flannery, this basic truth can't be violated, that: "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time".
Like the many IPCC "scientists" he has misled the entire world long enough. No one listens to him any longer.
In the meanwhile let us all be VERY WARY of "experts" and always ask them hard questions. Let the data speak. Fancy titles or roles (e.g. professor/ commissioner/ Nobel laureate/ billionaire/ prime minister) mean NOTHING. Only the truth matters.
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7 IPCC is desperately trying to recover its shattered reputation, but in vain
IPCC has now done a TOTAL BACKFLIP:
“Uncertainty in the sign of projected changes in climate extremes over the coming two to three decades is relatively large because [FOR THE NEXT THIRTY YEARS!] climate change signals are expected to be relatively small compared to natural climate variability”. [Source]
IPCC seems to be forgetting a BASIC fact that CO2's effects are logrithmic, which means MOST EFFECTS occur at lower concentrations – which is NOW!!
TODAY! We must see MASSIVE INCREASES in temperature today if the AGW hypothesis is true.
We don't need to wait 30 years to determine CO2's effects. These should have been evident by now.
But sadly (for IPCC) NONE of the models it bases its reports upon have tracked reality. EACH of these models has OVER-ESTIMATED temperature rise and so-called "extreme" events.
By saying that we can't distinguish CO2 effects from normal variability NOW, and have to wait for another 30 years to do so, IPCC is admitting that CO2 increases have had NO NOTICEABLE EFFECTS now.
Once again, I'm not saying that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas. All I'm saying is that its properties as a greenhousegas REQUIRE all major effects to occur sooner than later. That has not happened.
IPCC can't save its skin by pushing its accountability into the distant future.
Its models are WRONG. Pure and simple. That's the only truth about the situation.
The ONLY major effects of CO2 at this stage (of concentration) are positive (through increased plant productivity).
NO adverse temperature effects have been observed by now, and therefore none are likely to emerge in the future. It is too late for CO2 to be a dangerous gas. It is now just a benign gas, excellent food for plants.
8 The total mess that is IPCC. This is very serious stuff. Please do read.
I'm citing verbatim from here.
On June 27 [2012], the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a statement saying it had “complete[d] the process of implementation of a set of recommendations issued in August 2010 by the InterAcademy Council (IAC), the group created by the world’s science academies to provide advice to international bodies.”
And what kind of recommendations were these?
Read this carefully.
This is BIG stuff. Very serious. Shows us clearly the hanky panky that IPCC has been doing to date.
The “recommendations” issued by the IAC were not minor adjustments to a fundamentally sound scientific procedure. Here are some of the findings of the IAC’s 2010 report.
The IAC reported that
• IPCC lead authors fail to give “due consideration … to properly documented alternative views” (p. 20)
• fail to “provide detailed written responses to the most significant review issues identified by the Review Editors” (p. 21)
• are not “consider[ing] review comments carefully and document[ing] their responses” (p. 22)
• "the IPCC has no formal process or criteria for selecting authors", and
• “the selection criteria seemed arbitrary to many respondents” (p. 18).
• Also: Government officials appoint scientists from their countries and “do not always nominate the best scientists from among those who volunteer, either because they do not know who these scientists are or because political considerations are given more weight than scientific qualifications” (p. 18).
To me everything else is nothing compared to the first point above:
IPCC lead authors fail to give “due consideration … to properly documented alternative views”.
This is supposed to be a body representing the BEST of human knowledge on climate science. Instead, it is a SEVERELY BIASED ORGANISATION, that discounts well documented (by which I assume peer reviewed) ALTERNATIVE views!!!! (Somewhat like what John Quiggin does, may I add? – But wait, let me not rush to conclusion. Let me wait for John Quiggin to redeem his reputation with me. John, I'm still giving you the benefit of doubt. You and IPCC are distinct. I await your proof that Donna is a liar.)
And about "Government officials appoint scientists from their countries", perhaps the less said the better. Recently, I gather, IPCC is appointing scientists based on geographical quota, even from Somalia. Presumably, science is done by voting now a days.
9 The pitiable joke that is the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia
On 20 March 2000 The Independent reported that:
According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become "a very rare and exciting event".
"Children just aren't going to know what snow is," he said.
And here (below) is a satellite image of England yesterday – entirely covered in snow.
I feel sorry for these "scientists" and the politicians (and "economists") who have been swept away with the over-blown hype of "climate change". An example of group think at its worst.
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10 Could any half-wit have done FAR better than IPCC?
"any halfwit could have drawn a straight line on a graph with a ruler through the last 100 years and come up with a prediction the Earth would warm by “about 0.15c per decade” [Source]
The point is simple. In 1990, had IPCC (by hiring a half-wit) simply drawn a straight line they would have done FAR better in their predictions two decades away than with their "sophisticated" models.
The IPCC have got it wrong by a HUGE margin.
The actual temperature for the first two decades has tracked at 0.18c per decade, instead of IPCC's predicted 0.3c per decade. Note that CO2 effects are logrithmic, with most effects the lower concentrations. Therefore, the first two decades should have seen increases greater than even 0.3c per decade.
But IPCC doesn't consider (know?) the history of the earth, the history of CO2 levels in the air (which have been over 20 times current concentrations in the past without the earth going over any "tipping point"), and complexities involved in the global climate system, it has done FAR WORSE than even a first year university student of geology.
This, by the way, is quite typical of complex sciences. They tend to get hijacked by the most alarmist "scientist" who becomes a hero and gets the greatest fundings (key IPCC members/scientists are by now multi-millionaires and will retire with mega-mansions by the sea, somewhat like Al Gore with his 200 (?!) room house). This alarmist scientist then creates a total nuisance of himself for two to three decades, after which this "science" is debunked and the scientist binned into the trash can of history, following which the global fever subsides.
This happened with the Club of Rome and the population "bomb" theories which have fortunately been upturned and the developed countries are now DESPERATE for increases in population.
By 2020, IPCC WILL be history. It would then have been TOTALLY debunked, by even the most fervent "educated" "believer" (a contradiction in terms, but it is true that most "educated" people are equally or more gullible than the illiterate).
Unfortunately today IPCC continues to be a global nuisance.
But surely even a half-wit can understand basic data better than IPCC can?
Are you better than a half-wit? Are you capable of reading the facts up yourself? Please check out the truth for yourself. Don't "believe" me!
FALSEHOOD: that IPCC uses peer reviewed literature
1 Thirty per cent of IPCC citations are NOT peer-reviewed
Leaving aside the question of biased referencing of the "science" by IPCC (its main writers have been citing each other, like a small club), it turns out that 30.15 per cent of IPCC references were to 'grey literature' (things like this blog). [Source]
I know there are still a few die-hards who refuse to admit that:
(a) IPCC is a close-knit POLITICAL coterie that cherry picks papers, lies and fudges at every step;
(b) there is NO CONSENSUS among "97 per cent" of "climate scientists" about IPCC results (most oppose its wild conclusions);
(c) many IPCC authors have no academic qualifications;
(d) most IPCC authors do not understand the basics of statistics;
(e) NONE of IPCC's underlying models have tracked reality – thus disproving the hyped-up claims of the IPCC; and
(f) 30 per cent of IPCC citations were from non-peer reviewed publications.
I did call IPCC reports toilet paper in the past. Now I'm going to have to call this entire organisation a fraud – a MEGA FRAUD on mankind.
Let IPCC be dissolved IMMEDIATELY.
2 John Quiggin, IPCC’s peer review process is riddled with holes. I now expect a detailed correction on your blog.
John, the last time we discussed the issue of the use of peer review in IPCC's report, you conducted a five minute analysis of 30 citations and concluded that IPCC's rate of use of peer reviewed references is 90 per cent. I cited Donna Laframboise's study which showed that the figure stands at 70 per cent.
You then questioned the quality of work by Donna's 40 "amateur" volunteers who had analysed the data.
I then suggested that (since I have no time to do a detailed analysis myself) we can agree to a figure that is somewhere between 70 and 90 per cent.
But now I have access to TRULY SOLID data that confirms that Donna's analysis was almost certainly accurate.
I'm currently reading the IAC's 2010 report (by the world's top science academies – not government appointed bureaucrats and "scientists"), and while I will have much to say on IAC's report in the coming days, I'll presently focus only on IPCC's peer review process.
Here are the precise words used by the IAC:
Sources of data and literature
IPCC assessments are intended to rely mainly on peer-reviewed literature. … An analysis of the 14,000 references cited in the Third Assessment Report found that peer-reviewed journal articles comprised 84 percent of references in Working Group I, but comprised only 59 percent of references in Working Group II and 36 percent of references in Working Group III (Bjurström and Polk, 2010).
The current IPCC procedure requires authors to critically assess unpublished or non-peer-reviewed sources, reviewing their quality and validity before incorporating them (Appendix D).Non-peer-reviewed sources are to be listed in the reference sections of IPCC reports, followed by a statement that they are not peer-reviewed. T
it is clear that these procedures are not always followed. A search through the Working Group reports of the fourth assessment found few instances of information flagged as unpublished or non-peer-reviewed. Blogs, newspaper articles, press releases, advocacy group reports, and proprietary data were thought by many to be inappropriate.
John, although Donna's analysis refers to the 4th IPCC report, and IAC's refers to the 3rd IPCC report, it is clear that IPCC processes had not changed between the third and fourth reports. The performance of IPCC (in terms of use of peer reviewed literature) in the 3rd report was even worse than what Donna came up with for the 4th report. I'd be surprised if more than 65 per cent of IPPC's work is based on peer reviewed work.
Donna has been very charitable, giving IPCC the benefit of doubt.
But regardless of whether the figure is 65 per cent of 70 per cent, it is NOT 90 per cent, which is your assertion.
That concludes the proof that you were wrong on BOTH your claims.
If you think there is still some scope for debate, let me know.
NEXT STEPS
You have not yet apologised to Donna for calling her a liar. That is a shame. But I do expect you, now, to publish a blog post (on your blog) that corrects both your errors – of multiplication by 100, and gross exaggeration of IPCC's peer review process. I trust you are a seeker of the truth, and will not hesitate to correct your mistakes. Much appreciated!
I look forward to a public demonstration of a genuine spirit of academic excellence and respect for the scientific method.
Addendum
Donna's recent talk in Melbourne (which I did not attend) is now online, I note.
3 If you care about your future, please buy and read The Delinquent Teenager by Donna Laframboise
(See original blog post)
Is it fair to say your future and the future of your children worth more than $5?
So buy Donna's book. I finally managed to find time to flick through the book today, and yes, it is a definite MUST BUY.
Only $5. That should be affordable by everyone.
On a matter as important as the TRUTH of climate change it is CRUCIAL that all of us apply our minds diligently to ensure that EVERYTHING is being done correctly, that all genuine science is being considered, and fake science rejected.
We need to double check and triple check that there are HIGH QUALITY people on IPCC, and that there are checks and balances that ensure we get a genuine, not biased output. We need a process of examination of scientific literature that is more sturdy than anything that has ever been designed before.
We can't afford to make mistakes.
What Donna Laframboise has done is to point out crucial procedural and SUBSTANTIVE errors in IPCC systems and review processes.
I'm not saying Donna's work is to be taken as a bible, or to be treated without questioning. Do question it. I always aim to question. I'm merely saying it contains VITAL information that each of us must know about, and then think about, before we are taken for a ride by the many self-interested, mischievous bureacrats who tend to operate the unaccountable body that is the United Nations.
A few extracts will suffice:
IPCC is still FLOODED WITH GREENPEACE, WWF AND OTHER SUCH FANATICS
The IPCC is currently working on its fifth edition of the Climate Bible. Commonly referred to as AR5 (which stands for Assessment Report #5), it is not being written by a fresh set of faces. Quite the opposite.
Pachauri, who authors forewords for Greenpeace publications, is still in charge. This fact, in itself, delivers a fatal blow to AR5's credibility.
Ove Hoegh-Guldberg – whose ties to Greenpeace extend back 17 years – is now leading a chapter. So is Michael Oppenheimer, who worked for the Environmental Defense Fund for more than two decades.
Greenpeace 'legend' Bill Hare is serving as a lead author. Richard Moss, the former World Wildlife Fund vice-president, and Jennifer Morgan, the former WWF chief spokesperson, are both involved.
Andreas Fischlin and Guy Midgley, the two WWF-linked individuals who led the species extinction chapter are participating. So are Rik Leemans and Lesley Hughes, two more WWF -linked individuals from that chapter.
Sari Kovats, who only earned her PhD last year, is leading a chapter. As is Jens Hesselbjerg Christensen - who cited 10 research papers that hadn't even been accepted by a journal when he led an IPCC chapter the last time.
Gabriele Hegerl, who refused outright to allow Steve McIntyre to check her data, is involved. So is Kevin Trenberth – whose hurricane pronouncements sparked Chris Landsea's resignation. Alistair Woodward is now in charge of the health chapter, despite the overtly political treatises he has authored.
And let us not forget Thomas Stocker, the climate modeler who heads AR5's 'hard science' working group. Since he thinks gasoline prices should triple and that everyone should participate in the grand goal of de-carbonizing society it's clear his mind is already made up. Do we really suppose that a working group led by him is going to acquit the accused? [FOOTNOTE 36-1]
IPCC has NOT ensured absence of conflict of interest
In May 2011 the IPCC adopted a conflict-of-interest policy, but parts of it remain murky and it's far from clear how the IPCC intends to enforce it. [FOOTNOTE 34-3] In June 2011, Pachauri confirmed that this policy doesn't apply to the authors currently working on the upcoming Climate Bible. His reasoning, as he explained it to a newsmagazine, has to be heard to be believed:
Of course if you look at conflict of interest with respect to authors who are there in the 5th Assessment Report we've already selected them and therefore it wouldn't be fair to impose anything that sort of applies retrospectively. [bold added]
IPCC has NOT appointed independent members to a crucial committee
Observing that the IPCC structure didn't lend itself to responding in a timely fashion when concerns are raised by the media, the committee suggested a new body be established to deal with IPCC business between the scheduled meetings of that organization. It therefore included the following as one of its recommendations:
The IPCC should establish an Executive Committee to act on its behalf between Plenary sessions. The membership of the Committee should include the IPCC Chair, the Working Group Co-chairs, the senior member of the Secretariat, and three independent members who include individuals from outside of the climate community. [bold added] [FOOTNOTE 34-4]
In June 2011 Steve McIntyre reported on his blog that the IPCC has, indeed, established this new committee. There's just one problem. While the IAC report said it should contain three independent voices, including people from outside the climate community, the IPCC thumbed its nose at that advice. In lieu of independent individuals the IPCC instead gave four of its fulltime staff members seats at the table. [FOOTNOTE 34-5]
4 Donna Laframbroise puts the final nail in IPCC’s coffin
The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World's Top Climate Expert is a Kindle book by Donna Laframboise which is getting rave reviews for ENTIRELY DEMOLISHING the already demolished IPCC.
I have already noted that IPCC reports are merely toilet paper. Here's more:
The book catalogues the various dirty tricks that insiders use to ensure the Politically Correct line of the IPCC reports, shows how many of the lead authors are not experts in the field for the chapters they control, demonstrates that 30% of the references are from the “Grey” literature, mainly from activist organisations like WWF, Greenpeace, EDF. It further shows that a great many of the references are from journals controlled by Phil Jones, Mann and others. [Source]
A review entitled, Great Investigative Journalism!! on Amazon says:
Donna Laframboise blows the lid off the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Instead of being a neutral body evaluating whether there has, in fact, been unprecedented global warming, the IPCC started with the premise that global warming was increasing at an alarming rate.
Instead of investigating whether this warming was due to natural temperature cycles related to natural phenomena, human induced production of a trace atmospheric gas, carbon dioxide, was the cause celebre from the beginning. Instead of convening the world's experts, Laframboise exposes many of the IPCC "scientists" as being young, un-degreed, sometimes unpublished fledglings! She shows abundant examples of true world experts, purposely avoided by the UN IPCC, because they disagreed with the anthropogenic global warming party line.
Surprisingly, instead of gathering scientists with no preconceived notions of climate change, Donna Laframbroise lays bare the high percentage of IPCC scientist who had been closely associated with and many times employed by the powerful and monied environmental activist groups, such as the World Wildlife Fund, The Environmental Defense Fund, and others.
Thus, these IPCC staff were following an agenda. They were "more activist than scientist!"
She exposes The IPCC as a shoddy organization who didn't even follow what few rules it had, but portrayed itself as the indisputable oracle of impending climate disaster backed by the consensus of "thousands" of the world's most best scientists!
The Delinquent Teenager… is a fascinating unraveling of the world's most powerful voice for redistributing trillions of dollars in the name of the unproven theory of anthropogenic global warming, a theory rapidly losing many of its early proponents.
If Donna Laframbroise hasn't put the final nail in the coffin of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, I'll be surprised!
5 John, thanks for withdrawing your allegation against Donna’s integrity. Here’s other stuff you and I should know.
Folks, I'm pleased that John Quiggin has withdrawn his allegation that Donna Laframboise is a liar. Discussing people's integrity with some disrespect without evidence does make conversations a bit unpleasant, and I'm glad we now move on, and stick to the science.
A proper apology to Donna on your blog, John, would be appropriate, wouldn't it? That will enhance your stature, in my mind. But I leave that to you. You choose your reputation and stature in society through your actions.
The main thing I wanted to bring to my readers' notice is something quite important – that Alan Moran has just pointed out on this blog, as well – namely the issue I raised yesterday about the mess IPCC is in.
This relates to my fundamental question about the TRUTH. Peer review is NOT in itself a guarantee of truth. Take peer review with a pinch of salt, is my recommendation.
Much depends on the quality of peers who conduct a review, the entire peer review process, and the INTENTION and integrity of the person using the peer reviewed publication as secondary literature; in particular, whether all possible critiques have been examined while forming a JUDICIOUS opinion. IPCC's intentions have, however, been likely dishonorable – or so it would appear from the very damning report by IAC.
Time uncovers the truth, though, as scientific findings MUST be replicated, and replication takes time. Bad peer reviewed publications then get weeded out. Also, everyone with a scientific inclination (like me) MUST be persuaded. So we must be prepared to let time take its course, and for there to be many false starts to climate science.
Here's an extract from Jennifer Marohasy's blog re the IAC report:
==QUOTE==
THE Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) commissioned a review of its processes and procedures with a report handed down in October 2010, but only just now made publically available at its website.[1]
I’ve only just started to examine the 100 plus page document, but my first impressions are that finally we have an official report that may impose a level of accountability on the IPCC.
Well at least the report highlights past errors and acknowledges that they have been significant.
The section on “Evaluation of evidence and treatment of uncertainty” includes comment that:
Authors reported high confidence in statements for which there is little evidence, such as the widely quoted statement that agricultural yields in Africa might decline by up to 50 percent by 2020.
Moreover, the guidance was often applied to statements that are so vague they cannot be disputed. In these cases the impression was often left, incorrectly, that a substantive finding was being presented…
Assigning probabilities to an outcome makes little sense unless researchers are confident in the underlying evidence…
The Working Group II Summary for Policy makers in the Fourth Assessment Report contains many vague statements of ‘high confidence’ that are not supported sufficiently in the literature, not put in perspective, or are difficult to refute. The Committee believes it is not appropriate to assign probabilities to such statements.
The section on “Governance and management” includes comment that:
The IPCC does not have a conflict-of-interest or disclosure policy for its senior leadership (i.e. IPCC Chair and Vice Chairs), Working Group Co-chairs and authors, or the staff of the Technical Support Units…
The lack of a conflict –of-interest and disclosure policy for IPCC leaders and Lead Authors was a concern raised by a number of individuals…
Questions about potential conflict of interest, for example, have been raised about the IPCC Chair’s services as an advisor to, and the board member of, for-profit energy companies, and about the practice of scientists responsible for writing IPCC assessments reviewing their own work.
The report includes a case study on “Himalaya glaciers” and “the performance of the IPCC’s report review process” (page 22). The assessment refers to this “error” in the fourth assessment report by Working Group II and how the IPCC review process “failed”.
The IPCC should have released this report when it was first handed down in October 2010. Now, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation must report on it! But I’m not holding my breath.
****
1. Climate Change assessments: Review of the processes and procedures of the IPCC, October 2010 by InterAcademy Council.
===END OF QUOTE==
Btw, John, you and I should read this report and discuss. My view is that you and I and all of us, as HUMANITY, should aim for the TRUTH and nothing but the truth. Personalities and people are immaterial, just instruments to help us reach the truth. You and I (and all of us) MUST fully understand the SCIENCE and only then can we agree that the costs of man-made climate change (which is TRUE and not fiction), are greater than its benefits.
I believe the ONLY condition when (a physical) science has fully understood something is this: that it is possible to make a PRECISE prediction, and to check whether it has occurred. Higgs boson's discovery is a case in point.
The day climate science will predict an average annual temperature to the third decimal place, and CONFIRM that it has occurred, will mark the first day of climate science. Till then it is only an essay, an attempt.
And then would begin the task of replication of the predictions. Science takes time.
The evidence to date is ambiguous, and not sufficient to provoke defensive action.
6 The pathetic case of John Quiggin
I’m sorry Australia has such a disappointing person on its Climate Change Authority
Folks, I'll no longer be engaging with one "Professor" John Quiggin, member of Australia's Climate Change Authority. I'm posting my last correspondence with him. No more trying to show John the truth.
It has been a great disappointment to interact with John whose specialisation seems to be to INSULT everyone who points out his errors. He ALWAYS plays the person, NEVER the ball.
I fear for the future of mankind with with such people being appointed to senior roles by governments.
I truly fear for mankind's future. Not because of CO2 (which is a boon) but because of those who REFUSE to investigate the truth and yet hold high positions of influence.
EMAILS EARLIER TODAY
|[My last email to John] |
|John, I was trying to help. But if you feel that everyone who points out the truth (and I really don't care about who Evans |
|is) is some kind of a fraud or liar, then I'm done. |
|I clearly proved to you that Donna's observations are perfectly in line with a peer reviewed publication that assesses the use|
|of peer reviewed journals by the 3rd Assessment. That was never my key issue anyway. Why do you think that's an issue? I don't|
|care for [the] peer reviewed/ non-peer reviewed [criterion]. Only for the truth. |
|I have also read Donna's book now and it appears EVERYTHING in it is correct. I've verfied a few of her references. I strongly|
|encourage you to verify for yourself how IPCC has been taking the world for a big ride. |
|I have repeatedly shown you that your multiplication by 100 is wrong. You haven't yet fixed it that fundamental error. |
|But given the nature of responses I keep getting from you, I'm no longer going to engage. I thought I was discussing with |
|someone interested in the truth. I'm clearly mistaken. |
|I won't insult you, though, as you keep insulting others (and me). I wish you the best in your life and career. |
|Sanjeev |
|On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 8:39 PM, John Quiggin [Sanjeev: email ID removed] wrote: |
|Evans is a fraud – he's taken a stint doing some carbon accounting software and used it to present himself as an expert on |
|climate science. You failed to respond to my observation that Laframboise claims about IPCC references were false, and as far |
|as I can tell you still haven't read the reports you're denouncing. [Sanjeev: This is FALSE. I responded to John repeatedly!] |
|You also ignored it when I pointed out that the article you cited, obviously sourced from the denialist blogosphere though you|
|danced around the question, was a load of rubbish. [Sanjeev: This is FALSE. I fully accepted that ONE of the two articles I |
|pointed out was later superseded by another article, but that didn't even remotely disprove the key point that his |
|multiplication by 100 was WRONG.] |
|If you want to believe silly conspiracy theories, go ahead. You're only confirming the observation that belief in the free |
|market is highly correlated with conspiracist, anti-science views on everything from AIDS to the moon landing |
| |
|Please don't waste my time any further. [Sanjeev: As if I have time enough to waste so that I can waste others' time! John has|
|no idea of the hours I put in each day!] |
| JQ |
|On 03/08/2012, at 8:27 PM, Sanjeev Sabhlok wrote: |
|John |
|John, don't know if you are still interested in the science, but one Dr David M. W. Evans shows clearly that IPCC models have |
|all grossly over-predicted temperatures, and predicted other effects which have not actualised. I suggest you re-consider your|
|ill-placed faith in IPCC's reports. Pl. see: |
| |
|I would appreciate being notified when you review the facts and change your mind. |
|S |
The complete discussion
• I'm sorry Australia has such a disappointing person on its Climate Change Authority
• Strip Al Gore and IPCC of their Nobel Prize and give it to these people
• If Kevin Rudd continues to abuse those who ask questions, then Australia should bid goodbye to science
• It is not Donna Laframboise but Rajendra Pachauri who is a HUGE liar
• Now John Quiggin says that the world's top scientists are stupid! This is getting absurd.
• John Quiggin, IPCC's peer review process is riddled with holes. I now expect a detailed correction on your blog.
• John, thanks for withdrawing your allegation against Donna's integrity. Here's other stuff you and I should know.
• The total mess that is IPCC. This is very serious stuff. Please do read.
• John (Quiggin), Donna's methodology is totally transparent. Please PROVE she is a liar.
• Now John Quiggin says that Donna Laframboise is lying. I'll ask her about it.
• Second point for John Quiggin: to what extent does IPCC use peer reviewed literature?
• Response to John Quiggin re: longevity of "man-made" CO2 in the atmosphere
• Very important new study that rebuts IPCC generated panic
• Inviting input from readers re: climate change facts, to conduct a debate with John Quiggin
• John Quiggin, I suggest you review your estimate of the impact of Australian CO2 reductions
7 IPCC reports = toilet paper?
The IPCC has done enough by now to make its writings increasingly closer in value to toilet paper, but this information (below), if true, surely takes the cake as far as I'm concerned.
If true (which it appears to be) then the value of IPCC's reports is now dangerously close to the value of toilet paper. An arithmetical equality might ultimately prevail in the market place. But, of course, toilet paper, being processed and usable, might be found to be more valuable.
IPCC's lead author FINALLY finishes her PhD after writing IPCC reports since 1994!
In The Strange Case of Sari Kovats, Donna Laframboise notes that:
IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri [WHO HAS NOT A SHRED OF CLIMATE SCIENCE QUALIFICATIONS] says this about how IPCC authors are selected:
There is a very careful process of selection…These are people who have been chosen on the basis of their track record, on their record of publications, on the research that they have done…They are people who are at the top of their profession as far as research is concerned in a particular aspect of climate change…you can’t think of a better set of qualified people than what we have in the IPCC. [bold added]
However, Sari Kovats, a lead author for IPCC chapters on health, has been writing chapters since 1994, aged 25(!!) WITHOUT HAVING EVEN A SHRED OF ANY RESEARCH QUALIFICATIONS. "Top of her profession"! What a joke!!!
She finally received her PhD in 2010:
Kovats RS (2010) Temperature-related mortality in Delhi and Cape Town. Doctoral Thesis. University of London.
But Laframboise has NOT BEEN ABLE TO TRACE HER DISSERTATION in all relevant databases.
Sari has been FOOLING the world, the entire so-called "educated" community by exploiting the image of IPCC which works under the garb of the "United Nations" – an organisation that made Gaddafi a member of its Human Rights Council!
Donna sums it up:
We’re told the IPCC is comprised of top scientists. In the case of Kovats, it appears that it was actually her IPCC participation that convinced the wider community that she’s an expert. This is totally improper. It represents a complete inversion of how things are supposed to work.
There is STILL a possibility that IPCC may be right. After all the answer to the CO2 question is very simple: Yes or No. Only one of these is true, the other being wrong.
Even wrong methods can sometimes lead to the right answer. And one need not be a PhD to understand the truth (although the possibility that anyone without at least a PhD – with super-high quality skills in statistics – can independently produce top quality research, or even distinguish good from bad research, in such a complex matter as the climate, is practically zero).
But regardless of the truth is about the impacts of CO2 (which so far to me clearly appears to have net beneficial effects), and regardless of how brilliant or competent Sara is, the last shred of credibility that IPCC might have retained (at least with me) has now been lost. Fudging, falsification and amateur research skills have marked its chairperson/writers and 'scientists'. A typical bureaucratic organisation. Let no more be said.
Addendum
A climate of conflict (Economist)
Why the IPCC Has Lost Trust
The IPCC’s alteration of Forster & Gregory’s model-independent climate sensitivity results
Slowly warming the frogs. Paltridge on the history of the IPCC -shows how the growth industry of climate studies came up, and how they justify their existence through garbled models that produce a wide and meaningless range of estimates.
The Delinquent Teenager The book catalogues the various dirty tricks that insiders use to ensure the Politically Correct line of the IPCC reports, shows how many of the lead authors are not experts in the field for the chapters they control, demonstrates that 30% of the references are from the “Grey” literature, mainly from activist organisations like WWF, Greenpeace, EDF. It further shows that a great many of the references are from journals controlled by Phil Jones, Mann and others. he book catalogues the various dirty tricks that insiders use to ensure the Politically Correct line of the IPCC reports, shows how many of the lead authors are not experts in the field for the chapters they control, demonstrates that 30% of the references are from the “Grey” literature, mainly from activist organisations like WWF, Greenpeace, EDF. It further shows that a great many of the references are from journals controlled by Phil Jones, Mann and others.
8 It is not Donna Laframboise but Rajendra Pachauri who is a HUGE liar
On February 11, 2008, one Mr. Rajendra Pachauri, a "scientist" who heads IPCC, said to ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES of North Carolina:
I want to emphasize that the IPCC by itself doesn’t do any research, it mobilizes the best experts and scientists from all over the world and we carry our an assessment of climate change based on peer-reviewed literature, so everything that we look at and take into account in our assessments has to carry credibility of peer-reviewed publications, we don’t settle for anything less than that. [Source]
Turns out that ALL of Pachauri's claims are FALSE (including that IPCC mobilises "best" experts, – which is actually a total joke).
But it will suffice to note (for the purpose of my affirmation that Pachauri is a HUGE LIAR) the most obvious falsehood – that IPCC's ACTUAL record of using peer reviewed literature is in the range of 65 per cent, not 100 per cent that Mr. Pachauri keeps babbling about. This ACTUAL record has been documented by IAC, comprising the world's REAL scientists:
An analysis of the 14,000 references cited in the Third Assessment Report found that peer-reviewed journal articles comprised 84 percent of references in Working Group I, but comprised only 59 percent of references in Working Group II and 36 percent of references in Working Group III (Bjurström and Polk, 2010).
Q.E.D.
In brief, Pachauri is a MASSIVE LIAR who is trying to fool EVERYONE, including elected representatives across the world.
The other issue he raised (re: "experts") is something that Donna Laframboise's book has demolished at great length. I encourage you to read it, if you've not already done so. Donna's work is the BEST piece of investigative journalism I've read in my life. I agree entirely with The Quadrant that "Laframboise represents a long and noble tradition of investigative journalism".
As I read more of it, I'm getting angrier and angrier. Particularly after having read IAC's report. Words fail me as I gasp at the scandal that is IPCC.
Till now I was willing to give it at least some benefit of doubt. No more. NEVER will I be deceived again by IPPC's "reports". I will first examine the credentials of its "experts", their integrity, their transparency, and whether they use real, peer-reviewed literature.
I'm afraid, John Quiggin's wild claims about Donna Laframboise being a liar merely made me buy and read her work, to check her credibility for myself. And in doing so, I've found that not only was Quiggin very wrong, but that Pachauri and IPCC "lead" writers are seriously contaminated. IPCC is close to a con game.
Even people like Quiggin, who are terribly wrong in their understandings, play a useful role in life by making claims that force us to check the truth – and in the process of doing so we often end up learning many crucially important things.
Donna's work can immunise mankind from what may well be the greatest "scientific" fraud of all times: the IPCC. Read her work!
FALEHOOD: IPCC data is publicly available
We know how IPCC scientists have constantly hidden their data.
1 Are scientists entitled to secrecy?
I came across this outstanding talk by Terence Kealey (whose book, Sex Science and Profits I reviewed here) and decided to reproduce it on my blog. The talk was presented at the Mont Pelerin society meeting in Sydney recently (about which I wrote here). The talk is a very provocative look at the scientific method including data management.
I admire Kealey's independent thinking, but in this particular case I'd argue that since public money was used to fund the research, the data (climate science data) belongs to the people. The scientists concerned are – in this case – mere menials of the people with no claims on their work or the data. Either we should not fund scientific research (which is what Kealey's book argues, and I agree with him on that) – in which case data can be kept private, or, if it is funded by the people, then secrecy has no basis.
What Does Climategate Say About Science?
by Dr Terence Kealey, Vice-Chancellor, University of Buckingham, Member of the Academic Advisory Council for the Global Warming Policy Foundation,
The Mont Pelerin Society Meeting Seminar on Science, Scepticism and the Future, Sydney, Australia, October 2010
The emails sent by members of the climatic research centre at the University of East Anglia have provoked international outrage, as have the many flawed global warming papers that have appeared in recent years such as those describing the hockey stick graph(1), to say nothing of the flawed predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) over such issues as the rate of disappearance of the glaciers in the Himalayas. But such outrage has been naive because it has been premised on the assumption that scientists are – and should be – dispassionate seekers after truth. Yet in fact scientists are and should be advocates. Science has always been rooted in advocacy, as was illustrated by an episode from its very beginnings during the 5th century BC.
Pythagoras (of the Theorum) was a good scientist but he was of a mystical bent and he revered 'rational' numbers (whole numbers or whole fractions). He believed they explained the Harmony of the Spheres. Pythagoras, indeed, believed that whole numbers underpinned the universe from music to the movement of the planets. But Pythagoras had a student called Hippasus, and Hippasus discovered that the square root of 2, ?√2 is not a rational number. It is in fact an 'irrational' number, and its exact quantity will never be precisely calculated because, as Hippasus showed two and a half thousand years ago, irrational numbers can never be definitively calculated. This proof upset Pythagoras and he asked Hippasus to retract it. But Hippasus refused, so Pythagoras had him drowned.
That's what scientists are like in their natural state. Now – call me soft – but I think Pythagoras went too far; I think that scientists should desist from killing each other or even from telling outright falsehoods. But, like advocates in court, scientists can nonetheless be expected to put forward only one very partial case – and that as strongly as possible – and no one should expect a scientist to be anything other than a biased advocate.
Consider the early controversy over the age of the earth. The 19th century geologist Sir Charles Lyell had, by his study of the rate of erosion of cliffs, proposed the earth not to have been created at 9.00 am on the 23rd of October 4004 BC but, rather, some hundreds of millions of years earlier. But, as we know from volcanoes, the core of the earth is red hot. And when contemporary geologists measured the temperature of the molten core, and when they calculated its rate of heat loss, theyconcluded that the earth could be only a few millions of years old. Had it been any older its core would have completely cooled. Lyell had apparently been falsified.
In the face of this apparent falsification, did Lyell's followers ditch their ideas? No. Like advocates presented with contradictory data that cannot be challenged, they simply ignored it. They knew how old the sedimentary rocks had to be, and they didn?'t believe the falsifiers. So, not knowing how to falsify the falsifiers, they simply pressed on with their own pre-existing programme of research, assuming that something helpful would turn up eventually. Which it did. Somebody in some other discipline discovered radioactivity, somebody discovered the core of the earth to be radioactive, somebody discovered that radioactive reactions emitted heat and hey presto the problem was resolved: the core of the earth generates heat, which is why it is still hot; and the earth is indeed very old.
In his 1605 book The Advancement of Knowledge, which helped launch the modern discipline we call the philosophy of science, Francis Bacon proposed a fourstep process by which science advanced, namely by (i) observation, (ii) induction, (iii) deduction and (iv) experimentation. Bacon saw this as an almost mechanical or determinist activity based on logic, which he supposed precluded individualistic human whims. But because the number of potential observations is so large (does the colour of an astronomer?fs socks correlate with his or her recordings of the movement of a planet?) scientists must inevitably select the observations they believe to be relevant, from which they then deduce and induce the theories they seek to test.
Scientists therefore select particular theories out of a range of possibilities. And they then (being human) design experiments to prove their own theories right. Consequently, contrary to what many people believe that Karl Popper wrote, science is in practice not about falsification.(2) In practice great scientists ignore embarrassing data, and they refuse to feel falsified when they don?'t want to be.
Scientists know they are working at the limits of knowledge, which means that that knowledge must necessarily be imperfect, so (like Charles Lyell) scientists will refuse to draw definitive negative conclusions from unhelpful new findings because they know that those new findings might themselves need re-evaluation in the light of further subsequent data (such as radioactivity) that has yet to be revealed.
Indeed, as Thomas Kuhn explained in his classic 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, scientists?' personal attachment to their own theories in the face of conflicting data means that the research community?'s dispassionate collective verdict over what is ?"truth" can be delivered only after all the competing data has come in and only after all the arguments have been made (or, as was said humorously by Max Planck:- ?"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it?"). These arguments have been summarised by Alan Chalmers of Finders University in his excellent introduction to the philosophy of science What Is This Thing Called Science? (3rd ed 1999, Open University).
Consequently, we can see how the climate change scientists of the IPCC and of the conventional global warming paradigm saw no conflict between their partiality in the arguments they put forward and their responsibilities to ?'truth', just as advocates in court under the common law see no conflict between their partiality in the arguments they put forward and their responsibilities to ?'justice'. In both cases, the scientists and advocates see their prime responsibility as being the putting forward of the best arguments to support their case/client, and they delegate the adjudication over impartial ?"truth" to the jury of peers.
Such partiality cannot excuse misrepresentation, of course, nor the persistent non-disclosure of inconvenient facts, and those will always be ethical crimes, but it would be naive of the general public to expect scientists always to present their work and theories dispassionately. It would also be naive of the general public to expect scientists to disclose all their data promptly. In his otherwise excellent 2010 book The Hockey Stick Illusion (Independent Minds) where he dismissed the claims of many climate change scientists, AW Montford nonetheless professed astonishment that researchers might feel that they can legitimately withhold original data. But as Tim Birkhead recently reported in the Times Higher Education, such withholding is a conventional aspect of many disciplines in science. Indeed, it is endorsed by the British Government?'s research councils. Thus the Natural Environment Research Council states that ?"individual scientists, principal-investigator teams and programmes will be permitted a reasonable period of exclusive access to data sets they have collected?" while the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council states that ?'researchers have a legitimate interest in benefiting from their own time and effort in producing the data, but not in prolonged exclusive use.?'(3)
But why should scientists publish anything at all? In his 1942 essay The Normative Structure of Science Robert Merton, the great sociologist of science, described science with the acronym CUDOS (note how it is pronounced). The letters stand for Communism, Universalism, Disinterestedness and Organised Scepticism, by which Merton meant that scientists share knowledge (communism), that knowledge is judged objectively (universalism), that scientists act in ways that appear selfless, and that ideas are tested collectively.
But actually Merton was being ahistorical. Pace his acronym, scientists indeed seek either kudos or money or both (ie, they are not communistic, they are selfseeking, which is legitimate but not particularly noble) but their publishing has always been dictated by self-interest. Indeed, in its natural state science was originally characterised by the paradox of secret publishing: researchers did not want others to benefit from their advances. So some scientists, having dated the report of a discovery, would seal and deposit it with a college or lawyer, to open it only to dispute priority with a later competitive publication. Others would publish in code or in anagrams: Galileo published his discovery of the rings of Saturn in 1610 assmaismrmilmepoetaleumibunenugttauiras for Altissimum planetam tergeminum observavi (I have observed the most distant planet to have a triple form) while Robert Hooke published his law of elasticity in 1660 as ceiiinosssttuu for ut tensio sic vis (stress is proportional to strain.)
Secrecy was originally normal: when around 1600 a young London obstetrician called Peter Chamberlen invented the obstetric forceps, for over a century he, his younger brother, his younger brother's son and that son?'s son (all obstetricians) kept the invention a secret. Rich women, knowing that the Chamberlens were the best obstetricians in Europe, engaged them to deliver their babies, but the price those women paid (apart from handsome fees) was to be blindfolded and trapped alone with the Chamberlens in a locked room during labour so that no one could discover the secret of the forceps. That emerged only during the 1720s when the last Chamberlen, having retired rich but childless, finally divulged it.
It was Robert Boyle who, by his leadership of the Royal Society of London, which was created exactly 350 years ago this year, negotiated (i) the convention whereby priority – and therefore esteem – goes to the scientist who publishes first, not to the scientist who might have made the discovery earlier but who has kept the findings secret, and (ii) the convention that papers are accepted for publication only if they contain a methods section as well as a results section, to allow reproducibility.
We see here, therefore, that science is not innately a public good: it is innately a discreet one where, in a state of nature, scientists would publish not their methods but only their findings – and where they would sometimes delay or obscure the publication even of those. But it was Boyle who realised, in classic game theory mode, that if the Fellows (aka members) of the infant Royal Society collaborated with each other in publishing their findings (i) openly, and (ii) including their methods sections, then the scientists within the Society would do better, by virtue of their access to the whole of the Society?fs membership?'s collective discoveries, than would those isolated researchers who worked outside the circle of mutual disclosure. And it was because the Royal Society?'s original experiments were conducted collectively but in the presence only of its Fellows, and because its publications were preferentially circulated to its Fellows, that the Fellows enjoyed an advantage over non-Fellows.
Science, therefore, only appears to be public because, over the centuries, most scientists globally have gradually modelled themselves on the Royal Society?'s ?'new?' conventions, the better to take advantage of the mutuality of knowledge. But not all scientists have done so completely, and as Birkhead showed in his THE article (3) many disciplines have elaborated the convention of publishing their findings a year or two before they publish their data, thus keeping a lead on the further study of their data.
Everyone in those disciplines agrees that, since the exploitation of other people's data is so much easier than discovering it for oneself, a discoverer?'s year or more of monopoly is only fair.
To conclude, therefore, scientists are not disinterested, they are interested, and as a consequence science is not dispassionate or fully transparent, rather it is human and partially arcane. As I argue elsewhere, science is not the public good of modern myth, it is a collegiate and quasi-private or invisible college good.(4) That means, by the way, that it requires no public subsidies. More relevantly, it means that individual scientist'?s pronouncements should be seen more as advertisements than as definitive.
Peer review, too, is merely a mechanism by which scientists keep a collective control over access to their quasi-private enterprise. One the e-mails leaked from the University of East Anglia included this from Professor Phil Jones, referring to two papers that apparently falsified his work:- ?"I can?'t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!?"
So what? Climategate tells us no more than the philosophers of science have long told us about research, and the public should be less naive.
Notes and References
1. Mann ME, Bradley RS, Hughes MK, 1999, Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium Geophysical Research Letters 26: 759.762
2. It should be noted that falsification and falsifiability are different. As Popper proposed, a statement cannot be seen as scientific unless it is falsifiable and can thus be tested by the scientific method. So the statement that the moon is made of green cheese is a scientific one, because it can be tested and falsified. But the fact that none of the moon missions to date has found green cheese does not falsify the hypothesis because not every part of the moon has yet been explored.
3. Birkhead T, 2009, Whose Data is it Anyway? Times Higher Education 1,901, 27.
4. Kealey T, 2008, Sex, Science and Profits William Heinemann
ADDENDUM
When "scientists" go wrong they REALLY go wrong! This one is really funny!
FALSEHOOD: That IPCC doesn’t tamper with data
1 This is what IPCC said in its FIRST report in 1990 before it was overtaken by FRAUD
I'm reproducing below the ACTUAL text from IPCC's first assessment that can be downloaded from here.
Go on! Download and SEE FOR YOURSELF. Don't be scared. The truth won't bite you!
John Quiggin, if you are listening, please do so as well. All other Australian Climate Change Taskforce members are also invited to the TRUTH.
Even BLATANT LIARS like Rajendra Pachauri might benefit from some exposure to the truth, although that is perhaps asking for too much from the POWER HUNGRY.
There is growing evidence that worldwide temperatures were higher than at present during the mid-Holocene (especially 5 000-6 000 BP), at least in summer, though carbon dioxide levels appear to have been quite similar to those of the pre-Industrial era at this time (Section 1). Thus parts of western Europe China, Japan, the eastern USA were a few degrees warmer in July during the mid-Holocene than in recent decades (Yoshino and Urushibara, 1978, Webb et al 1987, Huntley and Prentice, 1988, Zhang and Wang 1990). Parts of Australasia and Chile were also warmer
The late tenth to early thirteenth centuries (about AD 950-1250) appear to have been exceptionally warm in western Europe, Iceland and Greenland (Alexandre 1987, Lamb, 1988) This period is known as the Medieval Climatic Optimum. China was, however, cold at this time (mainly in winter) but South Japan was warm (Yoshino, 1978) This period of widespread warmth is notable in that there is no evidence that it was accompanied by an increase of greenhouse gases. [p.202]
This explanation is accompanied by the following LONG TERM graphs. The data speaks for itself (click for larger image):
[pic]
2 ‘[R]eported 1979-2008 U.S. temperature trends are spuriously doubled”
by Anthony WattsJuly 29, 2012
If this draft paper is true (see press release below) it throws a REALLY big question on the BASICS of climate science: its data.
I encourage EVERYONE in the world to RIP APART this draft paper and pick AS MANY holes in it AS POSSIBLE before it is published.
We want the truth, nothing but the truth.
If Antony Watts is lying (to channel John Quiggin's famous footsteps, given his exemplary scepticism (despite his very bad manners in not apologising when he has no basis for his claims)) I want to know.
Else, if this paper is true, it makes the position of climate "alarmists" TOTALLY untenable.
SOURCE.
PRESS RELEASE
PRESS RELEASE – U.S. Temperature trends show a spurious doubling due to NOAA station siting problems and post measurement adjustments.
Chico, CA July 29th, 2012 – 12 PM PDT – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
A reanalysis of U.S. surface station temperatures has been performed using the recently WMO-approved Siting Classification System devised by METEO-France’s Michel Leroy. The new siting classification more accurately characterizes the quality of the location in terms of monitoring long-term spatially representative surface temperature trends. The new analysis demonstrates that reported 1979-2008 U.S. temperature trends are spuriously doubled, with 92% of that over-estimation resulting from erroneous NOAA adjustments of well-sited stations upward. The paper is the first to use the updated siting system which addresses USHCN siting issues and data adjustments.
The new improved assessment, for the years 1979 to 2008, yields a trend of +0.155C per decade from the high quality sites, a +0.248 C per decade trend for poorly sited locations, and a trend of +0.309 C per decade after NOAA adjusts the data. This issue of station siting quality is expected to be an issue with respect to the monitoring of land surface temperature throughout the Global Historical Climate Network and in the BEST network.
Today, a new paper has been released that is the culmination of knowledge gleaned from five years of work by Anthony Watts and the many volunteers and contributors to the SurfaceStations project started in 2007.
This pre-publication draft paper, titled An area and distance weighted analysis of the impacts of station exposure on the U.S. Historical Climatology Network temperatures and temperature trends, is co-authored by Anthony Watts of California, Evan Jones of New York, Stephen McIntyre of Toronto, Canada, and Dr. John R. Christy from the Department of Atmospheric Science, University of Alabama, Huntsville, is to be submitted for publication.
The pre-release of this paper follows the practice embraced by Dr. Richard Muller, of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project in a June 2011 interview with Scientific American’s Michael Lemonick in “Science Talk”, said:
I know that is prior to acceptance, but in the tradition that I grew up in (under Nobel Laureate Luis Alvarez) we always widely distributed “preprints” of papers prior to their publication or even submission. That guaranteed a much wider peer review than we obtained from mere referees.
The USHCN is one of the main metrics used to gauge the temperature changes in the United States. The first wide scale effort to address siting issues, Watts, (2009), a collated photographic survey, showed that approximately 90% of USHCN stations were compromised by encroachment of urbanity in the form of heat sinks and sources, such as concrete, asphalt, air conditioning system heat exchangers, roadways, airport tarmac, and other issues. This finding was backed up by an August 2011 U.S. General Accounting Office investigation and report titled: Climate Monitoring: NOAA Can Improve Management of the U.S. Historical Climatology Network
All three papers examining the station siting issue, using early data gathered by the SurfaceStations project, Menne et al (2010), authored by Dr. Matt Menne of NCDC, Fall et al, 2011, authored by Dr. Souleymane Fall of Tuskeegee University and co-authored by Anthony Watts, and Muller et al 2012, authored by Dr. Richard Muller of the University of California, Berkeley and founder of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project (BEST) were inconclusive in finding effects on temperature trends used to gauge the temperature change in the United States over the last century.
Lead author of the paper, Anthony Watts, commented:
“I fully accept the previous findings of these papers, including that of the Muller et al 2012 paper. These investigators found exactly what would be expected given the siting metadata they had. However, the Leroy 1999 site rating method employed to create the early metadata, and employed in the Fall et al 2011 paper I co-authored was incomplete, and didn’t properly quantify the effects.
The new rating method employed finds that station siting does indeed have a significant effect on temperature trends.”
Watts et al 2012 has employed a new methodology for station siting, pioneered by Michel Leroy of METEOFrance in 2010, in the paper Leroy 2010, and endorsed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Commission for Instruments and Methods of Observation (CIMO-XV, 2010) Fifteenth session, in September 2010 as a WMO-ISO standard, making it suitable for reevaluating previous studies on the issue of station siting.
Previous papers all used a distance only rating system from Leroy 1999, to gauge the impact of heat sinks and sources near thermometers. Leroy 2010 shows that method to be effective for siting new stations, such as was done by NCDC adopting Leroy 1999 methods with their Climate Reference Network (CRN) in 2002 but ineffective at retroactive siting evaluation.
Leroy 2010 adds one simple but effective physical metric; surface area of the heat sinks/sources within the thermometer viewshed to quantify the total heat dissipation effect.
Using the new Leroy 2010 classification system on the older siting metadata used by Fall et al. (2011), Menne et al. (2010), and Muller et al. (2012), yields dramatically different results.
Using Leroy 2010 methods, the Watts et al 2012 paper, which studies several aspects of USHCN siting issues and data adjustments, concludes that:
These factors, combined with station siting issues, have led to a spurious doubling of U.S. mean temperature trends in the 30 year data period covered by the study from 1979 – 2008.
Other findings include, but are not limited to:
• Statistically significant differences between compliant and non-compliant stations exist, as well as urban and rural stations.
• Poorly sited station trends are adjusted sharply upward, and well sited stations are adjusted upward to match the already-adjusted poor stations.
• Well sited rural stations show a warming nearly three times greater after NOAA adjustment is applied.
• Urban sites warm more rapidly than semi-urban sites, which in turn warm more rapidly than rural sites.
• The raw data Tmean trend for well sited stations is 0.15°C per decade lower than adjusted Tmean trend for poorly sited stations.
• Airport USHCN stations show a significant differences in trends than other USHCN stations, and due to equipment issues and other problems, may not be representative stations for monitoring climate.
A comparison and summary of trends is shown in Figure 20 from the paper:
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###
We will continue to investigate other issues related to bias and adjustments such as TOBs in future studies.
FILES:
This press release in PDF form: Watts_et_al 2012_PRESS RELEASE (PDF)
The paper in draft form: Watts-et-al_2012_discussion_paper_webrelease (PDF)
The Figures for the paper: Watts et al 2012 Figures and Tables (PDF)
A PowerPoint presentation of findings with many additional figures is available online:
Overview of the paper (PPT)
Methodology – Graphs Presentation (.PPT)
Some additional files may be added as needed.
Contact:
Anthony Watts at:
References:
GAO-11-800 August 31, 2011, Climate Monitoring: NOAA Can Improve Management of the U.S. Historical Climatology Network Highlights Page (PDF) Full Report (PDF, 47 pages) Accessible Text Recommendations (HTML)
Fall, S., Watts, A., Nielsen‐Gammon, J. Jones, E. Niyogi, D. Christy, J. and Pielke, R.A. Sr., 2011, Analysis of the impacts of station exposure on the U.S. Historical Climatology Network temperatures and temperature trends, Journal of Geophysical Research, 116, D14120, doi:10.1029/2010JD015146, 2011
Leroy, M., 1999: Classification d’un site. Note Technique no. 35. Direction des Systèmes d’Observation, Météo-France, 12 pp.
Leroy, M., 2010: Siting Classification for Surface Observing Stations on Land, Climate, and Upper-air Observations JMA/WMO Workshop on Quality Management in Surface, Tokyo, Japan 27-30 July 2010
Menne, M. J., C. N. Williams Jr., and M. A. Palecki, 2010: On the reliability of the U.S. surface temperature record, J. Geophys. Res., 115, D11108, doi:10.1029/2009JD013094
Muller, R.A., Curry, J., Groom, D. Jacobsen, R.,Perlmutter, S. Rohde, R. Rosenfeld, A., Wickham, C., Wurtele, J., 2012: Earth Atmospheric Land Surface Temperature and Station Quality in the United States.
Watts, A., 2009: Is the U.S. surface temperature record reliable? Published online at:
World Meteorological Organization Commission for Instruments and Methods of Observation, Fifteenth session, (CIMO-XV, 2010) WMO publication Number 1064, available online at:
Notes:
1. The SurfaceStations project was a crowd sourcing project started in June 2007, done entirely with citizen volunteers (over 650), created in response to the realization that very little physical site survey metadata exists for the entire United States Historical Climatological Network (USHCN) and Global Historical Climatological Network (GHCN) surface station records worldwide. This realization came about from a discussion of a paper and some new information that occurred on Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. Research Group Weblog. In particular, a thread regarding the paper: Pielke Sr., R.A., C. Davey, D. Niyogi, S. Fall, J. Steinweg-Woods, K. Hubbard, X. Lin, M. Cai, Y.-K. Lim, H. Li, J. Nielsen-Gammon, K. Gallo, R. Hale, R. Mahmood, R.T. McNider, and P. Blanken, 2007: Unresolved issues with the assessment of multi-decadal global land surface temperature trends. J. Geophys. Res.
2. Some files in the initial press release had some small typographical errors. These have been corrected. Please click on links above for new press release and figures files.
Addendum
My response to NCDC’s op-ed in the New York Times
Watts and his fellow researchers claim that while the well-sited stations show an overall trend of +0.155 C per decade and the trend at poorly sited stations is +0.248 C per decade, NOAA adjusts the data so the reported trend is +0.309 per decade. Watts reckons that the problem is that NOAA researchers use temperature data from poorly sited stations to adjust upward the data from the well-sited stations. “This disparity suggests that a combination of siting issues and adjustments are creating a spurious doubling of the U.S. surface temperature record for the 30 year period of this study,” concludes the Watts paper. [Source]
3 The Himalayan blunder of the world’s top Government “scientists” (IPCC) – in gory detail
The InterAcademy Council, the world's academy of ACTUAL scientists (as distinguished from GOVERNMENT scientists who sit on IPCC, chaired by (Indian government nominated scientist?) Rajendra Pachauri who has ZERO background in any subject related to climate science), in its review of IPCC's processes, was very understated in criticism.
Despite that, its findings are absolutely damning.
IPCC's reviewers, being heavily biased, either DID NOT bother to question WILD AND RIDICULOUS claims by the World Wildlife Fund, or deliberately IGNORED comments that questioned sections of the report.
There is no doubt in my mind that the IPCC will do that once again, for its fifth assessment. I wouldn't hold my breath for any improvement in quality, for IPCC has already rejected the conflict of interest recommendations of IAC.
I suggest that NO ONE accept IPCC's work without thorough personal investigation. Like India's 5 year plans designed to "PROVE" that central planning is good for India, IPCC's report is designed to "prove" that YOUR hard earned money should be handed over to these bureaucrats and politicians, for them to spend on their whimsical projects. Their gravy train. Our impoverishment.
I'm going to extract relevant sections, time permitting, for my record.
I begin with the Himalayan blunder. The actual report is available here. Note (at the very end of this blog post, that the Indian Government had also objected to this IPCC comment, but their "scientists" were not persuaded.
Delinquent Teenagers?
===EXTRACT===
(p.1-2) the IPCC has come under heightened scrutiny about its neutrality toward specific climate policies (e.g., Pielke, 2007) and the accuracy and balance of its reports (e.g., PBL, 2010). The scrutiny reached a pinnacle in early 2010 when errors, including a highly publicized mistake in the melting rate of Himalayan glaciers, were discovered in the Fourth Assessment Report.
(p.20-21) In the case of the incorrect projection of the disappearance of the Himalayan glaciers, for example, some of the review comments were not adequately considered and the justifications were not completely explained (see Box 2.1).
BOX 2.1 (p.22)
Perhaps the most talked-about error in the fourth assessment was this statement in the Working Group II report:
'Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world (see Table 10.9) and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate. Its total area will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 1 00,000 km2 by the year 2035 (WWF, 2005).'
[NOTE: WORLD WILDLIFE FUND REPORT CITED - SO MUCH FOR JOHN QUIGGIN'S REPEATED CLAIMS THAT 90 PER CENT OF IPCC CITATIONS ARE PEER REVIEWED]
To determine the extent to which the error might reflect weaknesses in the IPCC review processes, the Committee examined the draft text and relevant reviewer comments. The detailed record of all the review comments and author responses maintained by the IPCC made such an analysis possible.'
The Committee’s analysis showed that six experts reviewed this section in the first draft and that none of their comments were critical. [CLEARLY IPCC IS FLOODED WITH HEAVILY BIASED "EXPERTS" - BASICALLY JUNK SCIENTISTS]
However, of the 12 expert reviewers’ comments on the second draft (see Table 2.2), two were related to the erroneous statement. Comment E10-466 pointed to a contradiction in the text: one sentence read ‘if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them [Himalayan glaciers] disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps getting warmer at the present rate,’ and the next read ‘Its total area will shrink from the present 500,000 km2 to 100,000 km2 by the year 2035.’ However, the authors did not change the text.
The other reviewer (comment E10-468) questioned the statement, providing references with different conclusions.
Had the authors and/or Review Editors consulted the references, they would have found two peer-reviewed articles, which, at the very least, were more cautious about the disappearance of the Himalayan glaciers.
Hewitt (2005) states:
'In the late 1990s widespread evidence of glacier expansion was found in the central Karakoram, in contrast to a worldwide decline of mountain glaciers. The expansions were almost exclusively in glacier basins from the highest parts of the range and developed quickly after decades of decline. Exceptional numbers of glacier surges were also reported.'
The article by Fowler and Archer (2006) was in press at the time. The abstract states:
'The observed downward trend in summer temperature and runoff is consistent with the observed thickening and expansion of Karakoram glaciers, in contrast to widespread decay and retreat in the eastern Himalayas. This suggests that the western Himalayas are showing a different response to global warming than other parts of the globe.'
In this example, IPCC’s review process failed in two ways:
1. Failure of the authors to carefully consider thoughtful review comments (E10-466 and E10-468), which would have improved the quality of the report
2. Failure of the Review Editors to ensure that reviewer comments were adequately addressed and that controversies are reflected adequately in the text of the report (E10-468)
This example also points to insufficient evaluation of non-peer-reviewed literature by the Lead Authors.
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4 Signs are not looking good. Richard Muller is likely trying to hoodwink the ENTIRE world.
It is amazing that a seriously defective draft paper (NOT YET PEER-REVIEWED) by Richard Muller is getting MASSIVE coverage in the press!
Benjamin D. Santer, a climate researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory says he found it troubling that Muller claimed such definitive results without his work undergoing peer-review. Two peer review reports on this paper raise serious questions about its methodology.
And yet, it is being reported in newspapers across the world as if it is the spoken word of God.
If the referee reports below are a sign of the quality of the paper, I have no doubt Richard Muller ("Professor!") is intent on hoodwinking the world.
In any event I have two BASIC problems (apart from methodological) with Richard's widely publicised paper:
a) I need his studies to start from 0 AD, and show how temperatures have fared across 2000 years.
b) I need him to PROVE that there is a significant correlation between CO2 and temperatures observed over the past 2000 years.
By cherry picking the lowest point of the Little Ice Age, and then FAILING entirely to prove correlation (there is NONE, if one eyeballs the data, particularly over the past 2000 years), he presents himself as a POLITICIAN not scientist.
Referee Report #1 (September 2011)
SOURCE
Influence of Urban Heating on the Global Temperature Land Average Using Rural Sites Identified from MODIS Classifications by Wickham et al.
Overall Comment
This paper tries to do 2 things in a single, short paper; namely introduce a new global temperature data product with a much larger number of stations than are available in GHCN and related products, and provide a quantification of non-climatic biases in surface temperature records. While the authors have developed an impressive new data base, the paper fails unfortunately to do a satisfactory job of either task. First, it omits many of the technical details readers need to assess the new data base construction methodology. Second, the analysis of the urban-rural split is simplistic in light of where the current literature stands, and is not able to support the conclusions drawn. Specifically, the authors’ empirical results are consistent either with the stated conclusion or its opposite, and therefore they are in no position to say anything decisive.
I will recommend that the paper be rejected in its current form. I have no doubt that presentation of an important new surface data base is a publishable contribution, as long as some major improvements to the manuscript are made, as detailed below. But with regard to the analysis of surface disruptions and the spatial distribution of temperature trends, the analysis presented herein has serious inadequacies that make it unpublishable in its current form.
Introduction of new data base
The paper referred to as Rhode et al. (2010) on page 6, lines 106-107, and elsewhere, does not appear to be a publication. It should not be listed in the references. Yet almost all the necessary technical details that should be in this manuscript are apparently in it instead. This is a disservice to the reader. The material relegated to an unpublished source would appear to include just about everything that readers need to know about the new data set to decide on its validity.
A partial listing of technical material that needs to be incorporated into the present paper includes the following.
• List the source data sets and metadata.
• Explain the averaging methodology in detail, using sufficient math to permit independent replication.
• p. 7 lines 124-131: show the effect of varying the definition of “very rural” to something other than the assumed tenth of a degree separation. How important is this parameter?
• p. 10 lines 174-183: Explain how many missing months are permitted in a continuous series before the series is split, or discarded.
• p. 12 lines 210-212: Explain the rationale behind this apparently ad hoc statistical procedure for determining standard errors. Is this some sort of block bootstrap method? There needs to be reference to standard, mainstream statistical literature explaining why this resampling procedure is used and why the authors believe it yields asymptotically valid standard errors. If no theoretical guidance is available the authors could perhaps use Chebychev’s inequality to provide an upper bound on the variance.
• p. 14 lines 252-266: Provide a discussion of how the tradeoff between continuity and fragmentation affects the data quality. That is, the rule for terminating a series will determine whether there are a few long but intermittent series, or many short but continuous series. Under what circumstances is the latter a better measurement, and how is the choice optimized?
• p. 14 lines 252-266: The authors claim to have “taken into account spatial correlation” yet there isn’t a word anywhere in the paper about how this is done. Since the authors cite McKitrick 2010 and McKitrick and Nierenberg 2010 they presumably have read both papers, which contain (especially the latter) detailed explanations about how spatial autocorrelation is tested for and corrected in models of surface temperature trends. The elements of the discussion required for a proper treatment of this topic include reporting a robust LM statistic, a parametric model of the spatial weights, a description of the estimation method for computing the SAC terms and the optimal distance weighting parameter, and test results on the residuals to indicate whether the SAC model was adequate.
• p. 14 lines 252-266: Again in this section there is reference to a resampling method to compute standard deviations, but no explanation is given, nor is there any reference to statistical literature. Is this some sort of bootstrap method? An explanation is needed.
• p. 14 lines 268-272: With respect to the iterative weighting procedure, how do you know that this converges to a unique solution? It is possible the weights are path-dependent. We need to be shown some details about the convergence rule and the way the results are tested by trying different starting values.
In the absence of so much elementary material it is difficult even to review this paper. I understand that a great deal of work has gone into the project, and the release of a new data set with improved sampling characteristics is a valuable contribution. In rejecting the present manuscript I hope the authors will revisit the task of explaining their work with some alacrity and will resubmit a much expanded paper so that the new data base can be published.
Quantifying the effect of nonclimatic contamination of the data
Judging by the paper’s title this appears to be the topic the authors want to focus on. It is clear that, if published, this will be a very prominent paper and its findings will be wielded to considerable polemical effect: indeed one of the authors has already taken the liberty of announcing partial findings in Congressional testimony. Great care must be taken to ensure that findings are accurate and are fully supported by the empirical analysis. In this regard I note two problems: the paper reads as if the authors have been careless in reviewing the existing debate, and the empirical work does not imply the conclusions.
The authors cite, in passing, papers by de Laat and Maurellis and McKitrick and coauthors (pp. 5-6) that present evidence of significant surface data contamination. They also cite papers that argue for the absence of such contamination. Despite the fact that Wickham et al. purport to adjudicate between these different literatures they do not summarise or explain the very different methodologies involved nor how their analysis relates to them, if at all.
On page 13 lines 234-235 the authors conclude that their result “agrees with the conclusions in the literature that we cited previously” which is a baffling statement given that they cite papers that directly contradict one another. My overall impression is that the authors have not actually read all the papers they cite, and have not come to terms with the technical issues involved in the current debate. If it is their purpose to draw conclusions about the surface data contamination question they need to position their own analysis properly in the existing literature, which will require a detailed explanation of what has been done hitherto, and the use of an empirical framework capable of encompassing existing methodologies.
With regard to their own empirical work, a basic problem is that they are relating a change term (temperature trend) to a level variable (in this case MODIS classification) rather than to a corresponding change variable (such as the change in surface conditions).
I will give a simple example of why this is a flawed method, then I will demonstrate it empirically.
Suppose there are only two weather stations in the world, one rural and one urban. Suppose also that there is zero climatic warming over some interval, but there is a false warming due to local population growth, the effect of which is logarithmic, as is commonly assumed. Then the measured trends would be proportional to the respective tangent lines:
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A sample split according to the rural/urban distinction would apparently show that the rural station has a higher trend than the urban one. Far from proving that there is no urban bias in the overall average, it is precisely the result we expect if there is such a bias! And the contrast would be larger, the wider the difference between “urban” and “very rural”. Consequently the authors’ univariate analysis cannot, in principle, be the basis of their assertion that there is little or no urbanization bias, since the results are consistent with such a bias being present.
To provide an empirical demonstration, I obtained the GEcon data base from Yale University () which provides gridded population, GDP, climatic and other indicators over the 1990-2005 interval for 27,500 terrestrial grid cells at 1 degree resolution. I then interpolated CRU grid cell trends over 1990-2010 for the same grid cells. After removing cells with missing socioeconomic data, or in which more than 25% of the years are missing 4 or months of temperature data, I was left with just under 18,000 grid cells with observations on the linear temperature trend, latitude, minimum temperature, standard deviation of precipitation, distance to coast, number of missing months in temperature record, 2005 population per square km, change in population (1990 to 2005), 2005 GDP (U$, PPP-based) per square km, change in GDP per sq km 1990 to 2005, 2005 GDP per capita and change in GDP per capita over 1990 to 2005.
To replicate the results in Wickham et al, I regressed the vector of trends on a static measure of surface disruption, namely 2005 grid cell population/km2, using White’s corrected residuals.
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The results mirror those of Wickham et al. The coefficient on POP2005 is negative and significant, apparently indicating that regions with higher population per square km have slightly (but significantly) lower trends. I then re-did the same analysis using 2005 GDP/km2 as the measure of surface temperature disruption.
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Again the results mirror those of Wickham et al. The coefficient on GDP2005 is negative and significant, thus “confirming” that relatively undisturbed regions apparently have higher warming trends, a result they deem anomalous in light of prior expectations.
But it is not anomalous at all, it just reflects the fact that this class of empirical model cannot measure what the authors have tried to measure. The problem can be remedied by adding in fixed climatic covariates and socioeconomic change terms. Ideally I would also put in the lower tropospheric trend terms on the right hand side, but I don’t have them handy and they are not needed for the illustration. Here are the results of the multivariate model:
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Latitude, MinTemp and SD of precipitation are all significant. “Miss_months” indicates the number of missing months in the data series after 1990. It is significant, and indicates that the more missing months in a series, the higher the estimated trend.
Look carefully at GDP2005 and POP2005: they are still negative but they have become small and insignificant. 2005 per capita income (INC2005) is also insignificant.
Meanwhile the change term CHG_POP (population growth) is positive and significant, as is CHG_INC (income growth). In other words it is the change in socioeconomic measures that correlates to the change in temperature over an interval of time, and once these effects are controlled the apparent contrast in trends based on a static measure of surface disruption such as GDP or Population (or, likely, MODIS land classification) becomes insignificant and irrelevant.
The joint test on the socioeconomic variables has an F statistic of 132.47, which is extremely significant, indicating that we would reject the hypothesis that surface trends are unaffected by socioeconomic factors at the surface. Using the method outlined in McKitrick and Michaels 2007 to filter the trend vector, the mean trend falls from about 0.33 to 0.26, indicating the socioeconomic effects add up to a net warm bias of about 0.07 C/decade, which is comparable to the results in Table 6 of McKitrick and Nierenberg 2010, even though this is a different data set using different covariates on a different time period; but this part of the analysis is difficult to do without the full set of covariates including the satellite-based trends.
To emphasize the contrast: on a large global data set, if I use a naïve analysis comparable to Wickham et al., namely relying on 2005 population as the only regression covariate, I get the same, “anomalous” result that they do, namely that higher-population regions apparently have slightly lower trends than low-population regions. But when I remedy the conceptual weakness in their model by introducing change terms on the right hand side, the population level turns out to be insignificant, and instead the population change term has a positive and significant effect on the trend, implying that population growth biases the surface trends upwards. Likewise per capita income growth, but not the level, is positively correlated with the size of the trend.
Conclusion
The simple univariate analysis in Wickham et al. does not establish a sound basis for their assertion that surface temperature data are unaffected by urbanization and related socioeconomic disruption of the surface. To draw such a conclusion would require setting up a model capable of measuring these effects. At least three improvements to the modeling framework are needed to bring the analysis up to the level of the current debate.
• Use of a suite of covariates that can identify the contrasting effects of different sources of bias such as anthropogenic surface processes, data inhomogeneities and regional atmospheric pollution;
• Comparison of the observed spatial trend pattern to those predicted in climate models so that a null hypothesis is clearly identified and spurious results can be ruled out;
• Examination of spatial autocorrelation of the model residuals to permit identification of the explanatory variables needed to yield iid residuals, in support of making asymptotically accurate inferences.
A very simple way to proceed would be to compute post-1979 gridded trends in the BEST archive and merge them with the McKitrick and Nierenberg data set, then run the code available online. I conjecture that the results will look a lot like those reported in McKitrick and Nierenberg (2010), but whatever is the case I encourage the authors to use their new data set for such an analysis and see what emerges. Meanwhile I cannot recommend this draft for publication.
- Minor point: M&N should be cited
McKitrick, Ross R. and Nicolas Nierenberg (2010) Socioeconomic Patterns in Climate Data. Journal of Economic and Social Measurement, 35(3,4) pp. 149-175. DOI 10.3233/JEM-2010- 0336.
Signed review: Ross McKitrick.
Referee Report #2 March 2012
SOURCE
Second referee report: Influence of Urban Heating on the Global Temperature Land Average Using Rural Sites Identified from MODIS Classifications
by Wickham et al.
I now realize that the aim of this paper is much more narrow than I had originally thought it to be. The Rhode et al. paper at is the “flagship” in which the BE data construction and methodological details are presented, and this paper is only focused on the urban heating issue. Consequently I can see that some of the technical details I asked for are written up elsewhere, and in their response, the authors rely heavily on the existence of the Rhode et al. paper to justify leaving so much out of their own. That being the case, however, all the credit attached to the new data set construction and methodology belong to the Rhode et al. paper, so the only grounds for deciding on the publishability of this particular paper is whether it is a good analysis of the topic of urban contamination of the surface record.
A weak analysis on an old data set would certainly not be publishable; a good analysis on a new one probably would. This paper presents a weak analysis on a new data set, and the novelty of the data set cannot be weighed in its favour.
I had given some suggestions about how to fix the problems in the methodology in my earlier review, including one idea that would have been relatively straightforward to implement using easily-available data. Unfortunately the authors have made no methodological improvements, and the arguments they offered for keeping their technique unchanged are, as I will explain, unpersuasive. So it will come as no surprise that my view of this draft remains unchanged from before.
On page 7, the sentences on lines 114 to 121 represent an improvement in the discussion of the range of findings in the published literature. But having drawn attention to the contradictory results in previous published analyses, the authors offer a weak explanation as to why some teams find an effect while others do not. They first suggest the issue comes down to a lack of adjustments in CRUTEM products. This is inconsistent with what CRU says about its own data. The CRU web page () presents two products: TS and CRUTEM. The TS series are not subject to adjustments for non-climatic influences, and for that reason users are cautioned not to use them for climate analysis, and instead users are directed to the CRUTEM data based on its supposed additional processing:
Question One
Q1. Is it legitimate to use CRU TS 2.0 to 'detect anthropogenic climate change' (IPCC language)?
A1. No. CRU TS 2.0 is specifically not designed for climate change detection or attribution in the classic IPCC sense. The classic IPCC detection issue deals with the distinctly anthropogenic climate changes we are already experiencing. Therefore it is necessary, for IPCC detection to work, to remove all influences of urban development or land use change on the station data….If you want to examine the detection of anthropogenic climate change, we recommend that you use the Jones temperature data-set. This is on a coarser (5 degree) grid, but it is optimised for the reliable detection of anthropogenic trends. ()
Brohan et al. (2006, p. 6) don’t claim that their data are unadjusted, they say that the raw data may have been adjusted but they do not have original records so they can’t say what was done. Jones and Moberg (2003) say of the CRUTEM2 data set (emph added):
“All 2000+ station time series used have been assessed for homogeneity by subjective interstation comparisons performed on a local basis. Many stations were adjusted and some omitted because of anomalous warming trends and/or numerous nonclimatic jumps (complete details are given by Jones et al. [1985, 1986c]).”
So the CRUTEM products are not as raw as the authors imply, even if it is difficult for users to understand what the particular adjustments were. Even if CRUTEM3 is unadjusted, McKitrick and Nierenberg (2010) used both versions 2 and 3 in their analysis, with clear similarity in results between them, so the issue is moot.
The authors then try (lines 117-121) to draw a distinction between analysis of local trends and the global average. I don’t follow the logic here, since it is a global sample of local trends. Widespread problems in the local records will carry over to the global average. Had this been properly noted the sentence in question would read (emph added): “McKitrick and Michaels (2004, 2007) and McKitrick and Nierenberg (2010) also focus on finding the heating signal in a global sample of local trends rather than evaluating the effect on a global average.” Stated in this way, it would be clear that the authors are saying that the discovery of a global pattern of problems in local trends does not imply a problem exists in the global trend, which is a pretty weak position to take.
The more obvious, and plausible, explanation for the difference in results across the different studies is the difference in testing methodologies. I demonstrated this in my previous report, showing that one set of results can be shown to emerge as restricted estimates from a model whose general form indicates the opposite conclusions, and the restrictions can be rejected.
The authors dismissed this demonstration by saying something that I confess I can’t make much sense of:
The empirical demonstration is interesting, but we view it as a way to do the “trend analysis” part of our paper “correctly”. That isn’t our goal. Our conclusions are based on the Berkeley Average on the very-rural stations compared to all stations.
Are they really saying it is not their goal to do the trend analysis “correctly”? I don’t think I have ever encountered a situation where authors have said of their own work that it was not their goal to do it correctly. I am sure they did not mean this, but I draw a blank at trying to figure out what they did mean. Later they say:
We are not asserting that surface temperature data are unaffected by urbanization, but that a global average based on data that includes stations that may have warmed due to urbanization is not significantly different to one based only on stations that are assumed not to contain urban effects.
I suspect that any reasonable reader, upon completing the paper, would be startled to learn that the authors did not intend to assert that surface temperature data are unaffected by urbanization. I think the above sentence was meant to say something like: “We are not claiming there are no contaminating influences in individual locations, only that they are too small and isolated to affect the global average.” Unfortunately the whole issue is whether their methodology reliably supports this conclusion, and in this draft they have done nothing to deal with the evidence that it does not, instead they simply assumed the problems away.
The authors dismissed the conceptual example with an argument that is both incorrect and beside the point. Ignoring their observation that the convex function could be a square root (which would look pretty much the same), they say that the argument relies on each tangent line being defined over an infinitesimal domain of the same length, and that the population change in the urban region would likely be larger in magnitude than in the rural region.
If the diagram were redrawn to reflect this case, the underlying point would emerge even more strongly, since for any convex function, an arc connecting two points has a flatter slope than does a tangent at the first point, and the farther apart the points, the flatter is the arc line. Hence a steeper slope in the rural sample is what we would expect if urbanization were a large effect in the data and the urban population increased more than did the rural population.
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The point of this argument, to which the authors did not respond, was that their method is, in principle, unable to support the conclusions they draw, since their findings are consistent both with the absence or the presence of a significant urban warming bias. Nothing in their response or their revised paper addresses this problem. Instead they seem to rule out one interpretation by assumption and then claim to have proven the other interpretation.
Moreover their empirical results are becoming harder and harder to reconcile with their own preferred interpretation. Between the last draft and this one, the negative rural/all trend divergences got even larger. Over the full sample the trend difference was -0.10C/100yr before, and is now -0.14 C/100yr. On the subset of records ≥30 yrs, the trend difference was -0.12 C/100yr before, and is now -0.15 C/100yr. The authors downplay the negative divergence in their conclusions, and try to portray it as essentially a zero difference, but the number reported in the Conclusion, -0.10 ±0.24 C/100yr, seems to have been derived in a very different way than by differencing the trends in Table 1, not least since the standard error is on a far larger scale. (Unfortunately the reader is not informed how this was computed. Was it a time series regression on the post-1950 in Figure 5B?)
The larger the size and sign of such divergences, the less consistent their data get with their preferred story, namely that there is no difference between samples; but they more consistent they get with the existence of a global-scale urbanization contamination problem as conjectured in the above figure.
Or maybe there are other explanations. For instance, the very rural data set is heavily dominated by stations in North America and northern Europe (Fig 2). If recent regional warming in northern mid latitudes is stronger than in the SH, the very rural sample is more heavily drawn from faster-warming regions. Then the Kriging method has to do more work to compensate for this. So one interpretation of the stronger relative warming in the very rural sample is that the Kriging method is not providing an adequate offset for the sample change through the spatial weighting system. In other words, we have to assume the validity of their method to accept the interpretation of their results, since otherwise the results could just as well be interpreted as evidence against the validity of the methods. The authors do not present any evidence to suggest they considered how to rule this possibility out.
I had hoped that in response to my previous review the authors would have made some attempt to strengthen their methodology and rule out rival interpretations, and I even suggested a relatively straightforward test they could have done using data readily available online. The authors chose not to do any of these things. As before, I would be willing to re-read a major revision that deals with the methodological problems, but at this point the authors appear determined to leave their methodology unchanged, so not surprisingly my original recommendation against publication is also unchanged.
Signed review: Ross McKitrick
FALSEHOOD: There are no scientists who rebut/refute IPCC
1 A physics Nobel laureate now says that climate change is pseudoscience
I don't really care whether a Nobel laureate or a fresh student speaks the truth (- with evidence, of course!). The truth doesn't need any embellishment by a Nobel committee to stand tall.
But for those (mental slaves?) who are impressed by authority and man-made (hence fallible) "prizes", not by evidence, this blog post might help.
It turns out there are THOUSANDS of senior scientists who are convinced (on the basis of data) that the whole rigmarole about global warming (which is of course true, and has been occurring in a mild form from WELL BEFORE mankind started emitted tons of CO2) is grossly overblown.
The Scientific American reports:
[Ivar Gieavaer, who shared the 1973 prize for work on tunneling in superconductors] derided the Nobel committees for awarding Al Gore and R.K. Pachauri a peace prize, and called agreement with the evidence of climate change a “religion.”
Gieavar found the measurement of the global average temperature rise of 0.8 degrees over 150 years remarkably unlikely to be accurate, because of the difficulties with precision for such measurements—and small enough not to matter in any case: “What does it mean that the temperature has gone up 0.8 degrees? Probably nothing.”
He disagreed that carbon dioxide was involved and showed several charts that asserted, among other things, that climate had even cooled. “I pick and choose when I give this talk just the way the previous speaker picked and chose when he gave his talk,” he added.
He finished with a pronouncement: “Is climate change pseudoscience? If I’m going to answer the question, the answer is: absolutely.”
Here we go – the greatly hyped consensus falls on its head.
The basic problem in this case is, of course, is that there are just too many sheep in the world. Very few (a few thousand?) who understand the concept of science and are willing to think for themselves and DEMAND proof.
2 Two more studies that demolish the “science” of climate change
Before I say anything further on this controversial topic let me make a few things very clear at the outset:
a) I care about the environment and about good policy to genuinely protect the environment. Indeed, I would argue that I'm more concerned about the environment (particularly about wildlife) than most "environmentalists";
b) I do care for humanity (not just India) and would not like humanity to be roasted alive due to man-made actions (where such actions have been demonstrated to adversely effect mankind); and
c) I've not shut my mind to science and continue to remain open to evidence that addresses all the objections to the current theories and data regarding AGW (man-made climate change).
I am essentially a critical thinker and a scientist (even though I've forgotten the details of what I learnt during my BSc studies decades ago). I look for robust theories and robust data to substantiate such theories. And in most cases I don't "trust" anyone. I form my own opinions after reading, thinking, and assimilating the issues.
So far I've found that the "science" behind AGW (or man-made climate change) is a bucket full of holes. Not one piece of data exists today in relation to the climate that is not amenable to alternative, natural explanations. The null hypothesis, that man has created the current global warming, has been disproved at EVERY step. That doesn't mean it has been disproved forever, but so far the data are clear: that natural explanations exist for our observations.
So now to these two articles published recently in scientific journals, that further demolish the currently received theory. I'm comfortable if you can rebut these studies but please don't write to me claiming that X number of scientists "believe" in AGW. Dispute only the theory and the facts.
Climate models predict NOTHING
The paper: Anagnostopoulos, G. G., Koutsoyiannis, D., Christofides, A., Efstratiadis, A. & Mamassis, N. (2010) A comparison of local and aggregated climate model outputs with observed data. Hydrol. Sci. J. 55(7), 1094-1110
This study (click here for the full study – PDF) states: "It is claimed that GCMs provide credible quantitative estimates of future climate change, particularly at continental scales and above. Examining the local performance of the models at 55 points, we found that local projections do not correlate well with observed measurements. Furthermore, we found that the correlation at a large spatial scale, i.e. the contiguous USA, is worse than at the local scale."
It is a general rule about complex models (such as computable general equilibrium models in economics – about which I know a fair bit) that they are highly imperfect and need to be calibrated each year with parameters being updated to match the true values. The true model DOES NOT EXIST.
If complex models do not calibrate every year, they end up as delusions. Climate models are delusional – that is what this paper is effectively saying.
The predicted heating of the poles has not occurred
The paper: White, J.W.C.; Alley, R.B.; Brigham-Grette, J.; Fitzpatrick, J.J.; Jennings, A.E.; Johnsen, S.J.; Miller, G.H.; Steven Nerem, R.; Polyak, L. Past rates of climate change in the Arctic, Quaternary Science Reviews, Volume 29, Issue 15-16, July 2010, Pages 1716-1727
[Source] "A long succession of climate models has consistently suggested that anthropogenic-induced global warming should be significantly amplified in earth's polar regions and, therefore, that the first signs of man's expected impact on the world's weather should be manifest in that part of the planet."
White et al. study this issue in great depth and conclude that "thus far, human influence does not stand out relative to other, natural causes of climate change." They do add, out of courtesy: "Human-forced climate changes appear similar in size and duration to the fastest natural changes of the past, but future changes may have no natural analog."
In other words, they have not found any truly exceptional change SO FAR – with the current change corresponding to the fastest rate of changes in the past, but they can't rule out exceptional change in the future, which is what any good scientist must always say (But that really means little – like saying that in we so far haven't disproved the theory of evolution but it could be disproved in the future).
[An interesting curiosity that no one can explain: The extent of ice in the Arctic is falling but it is almost entirely compensated by the increased ice in the Antarctic. Why?]
Conclusion
I believe that some warming is inevitable given the increased levels of CO2. The Greenhouse gas effect is real (despite a spate of recent articles and books purporting to disprove this effect – I haven't read them yet, though), but what has been seen in terms of temperatures so far is not particularly exceptional. To me it appears so far that the best explanation for what we see is this: a move out of the Little Ice Age due to greater solar activity which has lagged effects.
The DIRECT FOOTPRINT of CO2 is NOT visible in virtually any study. I believe such evidence will surely emerge in the coming years, and earth temperatures are likely to increase slightly (up to 2 degrees C over the next century) but this won't cause noticeable harm. Instead, the benefits from warming will be very positive. The world will be a much better place if it gets somewhat warmer.
3 Very important new study that rebuts IPCC generated panic
This peer reviewed study in Nature - one of the most important science journals is very significant, for it studies the same tree ring data which IPCC, in its biased examination of facts, has been distorting (hockey stick) – and comes to an entirely different conclusion:
A new study measuring temperatures over the past two millennia has concluded that in fact the temperatures seen in the last decade are far from being the hottest in history.
A large team of scientists making a comprehensive study of data from tree rings say that in fact global temperatures have been on a falling trend for the past 2,000 years and they have often been noticeably higher than they are today – despite the absence of any significant amounts of human-released carbon dioxide in the atmosphere back then.
"We found that previous estimates of historical temperatures during the Roman era and the Middle Ages were too low," says Professor-Doktor Jan Esper of the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, one of the scientists leading the study. "Such findings are also significant with regard to climate policy." [Source]
Link to the study.
4 Science trumps mythological models. Watch Monckton easily win the debate against panic-mongering AGW believers
Finally got around to watching this debate on climate change organised on 19 July 2011 by the Australian National Press Club in Canberra (see the video linked below). It is long (50+ minutes) but eminently worth watching.
In the debate, this sharp and intelligent man, Christopher Monckton, demolishes the lazy claims of Richard Dennis who is director of the Australia Institute. While AGW "believers" (for that is now a religion with IPCC as its Prophet) are ONLY able to cite the trumped-up "consensus" (that there is no such "consensus" is obvious even from the most cursory examination of the literature, and there are over 30,000 scientists who OFFICIALLY disagree with IPCC findings), Monckton, on the other hand, cites DATA and SERIOUS ARGUMENT. Dennis simply has NO CLUE about ANY underlying scientific issues.
On top of that Monckton discusses the economic cost-benefit analysis. Dennis, a New Keynesian economist was caught off-guard on such a basic issue and was totally unable to refer to ANY cogent cost-benefit analysis on the subject. Indeed, the only serious public attempt so far in this regard was by Nicholas Stern which was firmly rebutted in serious economic journals years ago – and Monckton cites that in his debate.
As a scientist, Monckton is FAR SUPERIOR to Dennis. As an economist, as well, Monckton has raised more fundamental issues that Dennis has. Which says a lot about the state of economic science in Australia.
In the end Monckton concludes that CO2 is BENEFICIAL FOR LIFE ON EARTH. That is precisely the conclusion I've arrived at here, based on the relatively limited time and energy I've devoted to exploring the SCIENCE behind this issue. The data are now overwhelming, in my view (e.g. see this) to show that IPCC models are not better than any work of fiction. They definitely do not qualify as science.
Monckton won the debate hands down.
In a poll conducted across Australia after the debate, there was a 20 per cent INCREASE in those who thought that climate concerns are exaggerated – from 43% to 52% of those polled. There was, similarly, a 15 per cent fall in those who thought that "if we don't act now it will be too late", from 44% before the debate to 38%. The 38% are likely to be those who do not know how to use their faculty for reason, and to explore issues for themselves, preferring to let Gods decide (e.g. IPCC) their views.
If nothing else, Monckton has opened the eyes of thousands of Australians (and presumably of thousands of people across the world). He should have added that all IPCC models are now entirely falsified, and IPCC needs to go back to the drawing board. That would have ended the debate on a clear scientific footing – i.e. go find data to match your theories, then come back. Do your homework, AGW "believers". Prove that the climate actually behaves the way your models do.
Climate science is today in the same shape that "population science" was in the 1970s before Gary Becker and Richard Easterlin. Only after the work of Becker and Easterlin (and Nugent – the chair of my dissertation committee) did population studies get back on track. [Note: both Easterlin and Nugent were on my dissertation committee, so I speak with some depth of knowledge about complex systems].
It is amusing to see AGW fanatics compare the position of "sceptics" (as if ANYONE can be a scientist without being a sceptic) with those who deny the value of immunisation.
In general, those who DENY the need for panic are:
a) MORE QUALIFIED than those who "believe" (and more intelligent)
b) HAVE A FIRM BASIS IN SCIENCE – and can distinguish good science from bad science.
c) HAVE A DEEP AND ABIDING INTEREST IN THE ENVIRONMENT AND IN HUMAN WELFARE.
I "believe" in evolution, the value of immunisation, and so on. And I believe that we must use the best knowledge available today to protect animals (e.g. the tiger). But I don't, any longer, based on personal study of the subject, "believe" that there is any need to panic re: CO2.
Instead, many of the "believers" in AGW are anti-science. They are also socialists and environmental "fanatics" – who have NO understanding of how we can best enhance the environment. And most of them are enemies of humanity, constantly demanding a smaller human population.
5 James Lovelock is an HONEST man. I tip my hat to him.
In this world there is virtually none who will admit his mistake.
Fortunately, we now have one man who actually admits his mistake. Therefore James Lovelock has gone up highly in my esteem.
In 2006 Dr Lovelock predicted the Earth “would catch a morbid fever” that would destroy six billion people – "the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable,” he predicted. In 2009, he was telling the Guardian that "we may face planet-wide devastation worse even than unrestricted nuclear war between superpowers". [Source]
In 2010 this is what he said:
Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change from radically impacting on our lives over the coming decades. This is the stark conclusion of James Lovelock, the globally respected environmental thinker and independent scientist who developed the Gaia theory. [Source]
Today he says:
"I made a mistake," the 92-year-old scientist now says.
“We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now,” Dr Lovelock reflects. “The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time. It [the temperature] has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising – carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that.
“The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened."
A couple of years ago, when I decided to find out the answer for myself, I spent tens (nearly a few hundred) hours studying this issue before concluding that the data simply don't add up. I've consistently stated, ever since, that greater CO2 (of course up to a point!) in the atmosphere provides a NET BENEFIT to life on earth. In any event, its harm is small or non-existent.
Few on this planet have dared articulate this – that CO2 is actually GOOD for us. But the opposing force, which claims that CO2 is bad for us, has been entirely vanquished.
Now I invite those with an OPEN MIND to study further. They will inevitably come to the conclusion I've come to – that CO2 is not mankind's enemy. It leads to greater food, greater economic growth. And no negative consequences.
I might be wrong on this completely opposing view to what is held by a good number of people, and remain open to further data to refute this opinion, but to date, nothing has yet persuaded me against this optimistic view. Only data will persuade me that I'm wrong, but such data doesn't yet exist.
So go forth and multiply. And worry about bad toxic chemicals, but not about CO2 or water vapour.
FALSEHOOD: Bushfires
1 ‘People, not climate' blamed for natural disasters
Extracts from an article in The Australian by Jamie Walker and Pia Akerman on October 26, 2013
|The Australian scientist who had a lead role in writing a UN report on managing extreme events associated with climate change |
|says human settlement patterns are more important than global warming in driving losses from natural disasters. |
|John Handmer, director of the Centre for Risk and Community Safety at Melbourne's RMIT University, spoke out as Tony Abbott |
|blasted attempts to link the deadly NSW bushfires with climate change as "complete hogwash". |
|Professor Handmer said the main driver worldwide of losses from natural disasters was the increased exposure of people to |
|them, including to bushfires in Australia. |
|"That's more people, more economic activity and more settlement in hazardous areas and Australia is just as much a leader in |
|that trend as anywhere else," he told The Weekend Australian. |
|A lead author of last year's special report on extremes by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Professor Handmer|
|said from "an impact point of view", increased population in places vulnerable to floods, cyclones and other disasters |
|outweighed climate change as a risk factor. "Climate change is important but not as important as these other factors," he |
|said. |
|The royal commission into Victoria's 2009 Black Saturday bushfires found a "minimalist approach" to prescribed burning was key|
|in allowing excessive fuel loads to accumulate, increasing bushfire intensity and putting lives at greater risk, and |
|recommended a stronger prescribed burning program. |
|Former West Australian Land Management Department boss Roger Underwood said prescribed burning was a critical measure for |
|effective bushfire protection. |
|"For Adam Bandt or anyone else to argue that it's useless just ignores history and ignores science," he said. |
FALSEHOOD: Rising sea levels
1 Constantly changing sea levels – and Dwarka
I'm bewildered by the claims made in the climate change debate that currently rising (or otherwise changing) sea levels are some kind of an exception to historical trends and that we should be particularly bothered about them. The following facts seem to be crucial in understanding these claims:
a) The temperature of water changes quite dramatically everyday, but that doesn't mean that sea levels change with water temperature every day. Tides affect them far more than air (and hence water) temperature does.
b) Sea levels constantly change over the long run. They have been changing throughout history. Thus, sea levels have risen by 140 metres over the past 14,000 years.
"Over the duration of the current interglacial, the average sea level rise over the last 14,000 years has been 1.0 meter per century" (Plimer 316). However, "The sea level rise of 1.0 meter per century over the last 14,000 years must be placed in context. Most of this sea level rise was from 14,000 to 8000 years ago. By 8000 years ago, sea level was 3 meters lower than at present and sea level attained its current position 7700 years ago. This means that sea level rose by 2 meters a century during that period" (Plimer 316). Note that Plimer adds that "Over the last 6000 years, sea level rises and falls of 2 to 4 meters over periods of several decades are common" (Plimer 317).
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Source: Plimer, p.317 [Click for bigger and clearer image]
Note: A PRECISE understanding of sea level changes over the past 6000 years will help us line up the vast amount of emerging literature on submerged cities with other archeological (above surface) evidence, and mythology. Watch this space over the next century. A phenomenal amount of data is needed to resolve the puzzles about sea level change.
DWARKA
"Dwarka submerged due to rise in sea level 3500 years BP. " (See Times of India, 3 March 2005). This article also states: "Studies show that sea level was 100 meters below the present sea level 15,000 years BP, rose steadily and was 60-70 metres below present sea level 10,000 years BP. In the next 1500 years it reached to 40 metres below present sea level, came at par with the present sea level around 7000 years BP, then rose by five metres in the next 1000 years. Thereafter, there was a gradual fall and sea level came down to 20-30 metres below present sea level about 3500 years BP when Dwarka is presumed to have been constructed."
Interesting fact: "The account of Dvaraka's sinking into the ocean is found in book 16 of the Mahabharata (Mausala-parvan)." (Wikipedia).
"A few years back discovered the remains of a vast 9,500 year old city. This submerged ruin has intact architecture and human remains. More significantly, this find predates all finds in the area by over 5,000 years, forcing historians to reevaluate their understanding of the history of civilazation in the region. The find has been termed Dwarka, or the ‘Golden City,’ after an ancient city-in-the sea said to belong to the Hindu god Krishna." ()
MORE on Dwarka
"found in waters 120 feet deep in the Gulf of Cabay, located off the western coast of India. It is estimated that the vast city, discovered by chance during an investigation on pollution, could date back some 9,000 years. Using a sonar tracker, investigators managed to identify defined geometric structures at a depth of about 120 feet. From the site, they recovered construction material, pottery, sections of walls, basins, sculptures, bones, and human teeth. The carbon tests indicate that these pieces were 9,500 years old." ()
"It's believed that the area was submerged when ice caps melted at the end of the last ice age, 9-10,000 years ago." ()
OTHER CITIES THAT HAVE BEEN SUBMERGED IN AROUND THE SAME PERIOD
Dwarka was not the only city submerged. "According to marine archeologist Dr. Nick Flemming, at least 500 submerged sites containing the remains of some form of man-made structure or artifacts have been found around the globe. Some calculations figure that nearly a fifth of these sites are more than 3,000 years old." ()
A nice summary article:
1) India: A major extension of Mahabalipuram, likely to be 6000 years old, has been found ().
Also Poompuhar (TN) ()
2) Japan: Undersea relics have been found near Okinawa (). Yonaguni-Jima: "Discovered by a dive tour guide some twenty years ago, controversies have arisen around a mysterious pyramids found off the coast of Japan. These structures seem to have been carved right out of bedrock in a teraforming process using tools previously thought unavailable to ancient cultures of the region". ()
"the precise angles of the rocks and their arrangement in relation to one another suggest that this site might hold remnants of a submerged city… The entire submerged city of Yonaguni is estimated by some to be at least 10,000 years old." ()
3) Greece: Pavlopetri . A Youtube video of a 5,000 year old early-bronze age urban settlement. "we are looking at a port city which may be 5000-6000 years old, with trade goods and wrecks nearby showing some of the very earliest days of seafaring trade in the Mediterranean" (). See also
"The ruins of Pavlopetri, which lie in three to four metres of water just off the coast of Laconia in the Peloponnese, date from at least 2 800 BC." ()
"Off Greece are a multitude of submerged ruins, off Astakos, Platygiali, Abdera, Samos, and Elafonisos, to name a few" ().
4) Egypt: "Two 2,500-year-old cities, poss
ibly Menouthis and Herakleion, which served as trading hubs in the Late Dynastic Period" ( ). See also
5) Cuba: Havana: "A team of scientists continues to explore megalithic ruins found in the Yucatan Channel near Cuba. They have found evidence of an extensive urban environment stretching for miles along the ocean shore. Some believe that the civilization that inhabited these predates all known ancient American cultures. So far, only computer models of this mysterious underwater city exist." ()
6) USA: Florida: "In 1967 … the Aluminaut—an exploration submarine capable of submerging deeper than any craft of its day—casually discovered a “road” off the coastal zone of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina. Found at a depth of nearly 3,000 feet, this road traced a straight line for more than 15 miles. Even more surprising, this road had been paved with sophisticated cement composed of aluminum, silicon, calcium, iron, and magnesium. Despite its age, the road was found to be free of debris due to an underwater current that kept it clear.
This forgotten road still proved a worthy thoroughfare as the special wheels of the Aluminaut allowed the sub to actually travel along the enigmatic highway. Later, scientists exploring the area found a series of monolithic constructions at one end of the road. What technology could construct a long paved road that would remain in good condition for 10,000 years?" ()
7) Germany: "ancient Basiliea, now submerged in the North Sea, fifty miles out, five miles east of the island of Helgoland, off the northern coast of Germany" ()
8. UK: Damsay. "the structures may be several thousands of years old, and that they may represent a line of defense that the people of the time constructed in the face of the same threat we have today – rising sea levels" ()
9) Persian Gulf: Dalamatia. "This discovery is most likely the location of 1st Susa, the lower and first city of Susa in ancient times before it was inundated by floods in around 8000 years ago, Susa was part of the latter Andite/Sumerian settlements along the mouth of the rivers in earlier times when the water levels was 15 meters lower. " ()
RELATED POST ON MY BLOG
Ian Plimer's book:
Additional graphs
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Source:
Also from the above wiki entry:
[pic]
[pic]
[pic]
This one sourced:
Addendum
(ice sheets are affected by factors other than temperature)
- shows IPCC perpetrating a fraudulent claim regarding the melting of ice sheets and increasing sea levels.
2 No trend of accelerating rise in sea levels
The Earth is being naughty. It is not showing any sense of urgency to respond the way IPCC models want it to react. It continues to plod on at its own pace, based on factors that climatologists don't fully understand.
The following graph that shows no noticeable acceleration in sea level rise over the past 20 years, despite claims often made in the media and (of course) IPCC. Instead, it continues to rise at a 'standard' 30 mm per decade. It has been doing so since 1870 after the Earth came out of a little Ice Age. All the increase in CO2 in the world has made no dent on the sea level. Clearly the primitive IPCC models need to be revisited. One more prediction that has not come true.
[pic]
More details:
Addendum
Leading German Meteorologist: Michael Mann’s Sea Level Story Is “A Quack”
A foolish forecast busted:
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Addendum
3 Sea levels have been constant for the past eight years but CSIRO is creating panic in Australia
CSIRO is creating panic. Making IPCC look like a docile and even sensible body.
Its 2009 report, The Effect of Climate Change on Extreme Sea Levels in Port Phillip Bay, implied an unbelievable CO2 concentration levels in 2100 of about 1550 parts per million. But "Using all known fossil fuel reserves would achieve only half this and continuing the current rate of increase in concentration levels would result in only 550ppm by 2100." [Source]
Guess what? By making the MOST ABSURD ASSUMPTIONS possible, and extrapolating from the most EXTREME model possible, CSIRO came to the view that Port Phillip Bay would experience a rise by 2100 of 82cm.
Yet, European satellite says that sea levels have been constant for the past eight years [Source].
Clearly, data doesn't matter to climate astrologers.
Truth is IRRELEVANT, it appears, to CSIRO.
(Cliff Ollier, a geologist, geomorphologist, and emeritus professor at the University of Western Australia, has written this SUPER-CRITICAL article about CSIRO. Unless his credentials are questioned by CSIRO, it must explain what's going on. Why this panic mongering across Australia?
Group-think seems to have set in, at the CSIRO. The organisation is doing great disservice to Australia and the world.
FALSEHOOD: Climate refugees
1 One more climate change fool hits the dust (millions still remain – in top policy positions)
Someone needs to tell the emperor that he is not wearing clothes.
Who in heaven's name will trust these AGW types any longer? AGW scamsters like Bogardi aren't even smart enough to fool us properly. Had they been intelligent, they would only have been making predictions 100 years into the future – by which time they could have easily milked our panic for all it is worth, fleeced innocent taxpayers of millions of dollars, bought their yachts and enjoyed a good life, and died, laughing their way to "the bank".
If these "experts" keep making such foolish 5-year predictions that can be easily falsified, they'll lose even their existing jobs! I do request these "brilliant" fools – who (currently) make a roaring living off the AGW scam (well, it is almost a scam, given the 1000s of failed explanations and hypotheses that sorely stretch our credulity) – that they should at least learn to fudge properly!
Refugee crisis! David Adam, The Guardian, 12 October, 2005:
Rising sea levels, desertification and shrinking freshwater supplies will create up to 50 million environmental refugees by 2010, experts warn today. "There are well-founded fears that the number of people fleeing untenable environmental conditions may grow exponentially as the world experiences the effects of climate change," Dr Bogardi [UNESCO water services division chief] said. "This new category of refugee needs to find a place in international agreements. We need to better anticipate support requirements, similar to those of people fleeing other unviable situations." [See this]
Or maybe not. Gavin Atkins, Asian Correspondent, April 11, 2011
In 2005, the United Nations Environment Program predicted that climate change would create 50 million climate refugees by 2010. These people, it was said, would flee a range of disasters, including sea-level rise, increases in the numbers and severity of hurricanes, and disruption to food production. A very cursory look at the first available evidence seems to show that the places identified by the UNEP as most at risk of having climate refugees are not only not losing people, they are actually among the fastest-growing regions in the world.
[Source: The Australian, 15 April 2011]
Addendum:
FALSEHOOD: Global cooling
1 Newsweek report on the cooling world (1975)
Recognise this panic? Familiar to us today, isn't it?
Throughout history there have been hundreds, if not thousands, of incidents where "scientists" have cried wolf. So which sane man can "believe" them? Indeed, no true scientist will ever ask us to believe in what he says, but, instead, encourage us to verify the facts for ourselves. The scientist who "believes" is probably not a scientist.
===Article published in the Newsweek of April 28, 1975 ===
There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas – parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia – where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.
The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree – a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars’ worth of damage in 13 U.S. states.
To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world’s weather. The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth’s climate seems to be cooling down. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. “A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,” warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, “because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century.” [Anyone willing to believe the NAS now?]
A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972.
[pic]
To the layman, the relatively small changes in temperature and sunshine can be highly misleading. Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin points out that the Earth’s average temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about seven degrees lower than during its warmest eras – and that the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average. Others regard the cooling as a reversion to the “little ice age” conditions that brought bitter winters to much of Europe and northern America between 1600 and 1900 – years when the Thames used to freeze so solidly that Londoners roasted oxen on the ice and when iceboats sailed the Hudson River almost as far south as New York City.
Just what causes the onset of major and minor ice ages remains a mystery. “Our knowledge of the mechanisms of climatic change is at least as fragmentary as our data,” concedes the National Academy of Sciences report. “Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions.” [At least in 1975 the scientists were humble enough to admit their ignorance]
[pic]
Meteorologists think that they can forecast the short-term results of the return to the norm of the last century. They begin by noting the slight drop in overall temperature that produces large numbers of pressure centers in the upper atmosphere. These break up the smooth flow of westerly winds over temperate areas. The stagnant air produced in this way causes an increase in extremes of local weather such as droughts, floods, extended dry spells, long freezes, delayed monsoons and even local temperature increases – all of which have a direct impact on food supplies.[Funny, the same thing is predicted by global warming. Cooling and warming cause the same result! Astonishing!]
“The world’s food-producing system,” warns Dr. James D. McQuigg of NOAA’s Center for Climatic and Environmental Assessment, “is much more sensitive to the weather variable than it was even five years ago.” Furthermore, the growth of world population and creation of new national boundaries make it impossible for starving peoples to migrate from their devastated fields, as they did during past famines.
Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality. [Yes, go on, squander good public money! Feed the scientists. Make them rich!]
—PETER GWYNNE with bureau reports
The actual science: CO2
1 CO2 – at its current concentrations – is INCAPABLE in warming the globe significantly
I have observed on a number of occasions (here, or here) that the basic science about CO2 is that its warming effect rapidly dissipates after a point. This is well know to everyone. And second, that the sun affects the climate FAR more than CO2, particularly at these high levels of CO2 concentration (had the levels of CO2 concentration been much lower, then CO2 increase of the sort we have seen in recent years would have definitely created very significant warming).
The results are CLEAR beyond doubt even for the most committed fanatics of man-made global warming hypothesis. Two studies I cite below as illustration (although there are HUNDREDS of them that basically shred the AGW hypothesis).
Let me note that I'm not flippant about such blog posts and that I do not rush to conclusions simply because of one or two studies I might have come across. I would be the first to be concerned about anything that can harm our future generations. Indeed, in BFN I have proposed a carbon tax system should it be proven that CO2 is actually dangerous to mankind. But no matter how hard I look I can't find ANY evidence to be concerned about, leave alone alarmed.
a) The sun explains EVERYTHING:
A peer-reviewed paper published in the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics finds global warming over the 20th century "not significantly different" from warming episodes that occurred in earlier centuries. The paper finds that the increase in solar activity over the past 400 years explains the warming, without any need to search for a unique cause of late 20th century warming, such as greenhouse gas concentrations. [Source]
See also this and this.
b) CO2 explains NOTHING:
Global greenhouse gas emissions have risen even faster during the past decade than predicted by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other international agencies. But … global temperatures have not increased at all during the past decade.
The evidence is powerful, straightforward, and damning. NASA satellite instruments precisely measuring global temperatures show absolutely no warming during the past the past 10 years. This is the case for the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes, including the United States. This is the case for the Arctic, where the signs of human-caused global warming are supposed to be first and most powerfully felt. This is the case for global sea surface temperatures, which alarmists claim should be sucking up much of the predicted human-induced warming. This is the case for the planet as a whole. [Source]
[pic]
The IPCC MODELS ARE A TOTAL FRAUD ON MANKIND
[pic]
[Source] (These models remind me of the idiotic Malthusian population models of the 1970s which had NO understanding of the dyamic adjustments that naturally occur in human population. These climate models DON'T reflect an iota of understanding of the natural adjustment processes at work, primarily driven by living creatures.)
Addendum
The fudging of data by those who support AGW.
US temperature trend over the past 15 Years is clear: The USA is OFFICIALLY cooling:
The IPCC exaggerate: Monckton calculates how much
2 The great boon of CO2
[pic]
CO2, being 0.03 per cent of the atmosphere, is represented by a line 1/2 as thick as that shown
[Note: This post forms part of my personal explorations regarding various aspects of climate change. I hope to bring the key facts together in due course. For my blog post on changing sea levels please see this. ]
The miracle of carbon
Carbon is the key building block of life. It constitutes 18 per cent of our bodies. Carbon is the most amazing atom in the universe because of its ability to bond with key elements like hydrogen and oxygen and create proteins ("its ability to create four covalent bonds [allows] … it to … create carbon chains of various lengths and configurations, or to connect to non-carbon atoms in order to form compounds with unique and specialized chemical properties" – see here; in general open any book on organic chemistry).
Carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere is the only known way for us to get carbon into our bodies. We don't eat coal or (if we are rich enough!) diamonds. The only way to shove it into our carbon-starved bodies is to eat plants, or to eat animals that have eaten plants. If CO2 disappears, plants disappear, we disappear. Period.
After reading up widely, and thinking a fair bit on this issue, I've arrived at a view about CO2 in the air – that CO2 was, is, and will remain a GOOD thing. We can never have 'too much' CO2 in the air (e.g. indoors, the level of CO2 commonly exceeds 10 times the level found in the atmosphere without any harm whatsoever to the human body). CO2 is NOT a pollutant. It doesn't harm us in any way. It only benefits us. It is a great boon.
Why do we need to such understand things for ourselves?
Why do I need to understand the science behind CO2 personally? Why can't I take someone else's word (e.g. IPCC's word) and 'live with it'. Because I don't trust 'experts' or ANYONE but myself. I have seen enough rubbish being touted by 'economists', medical doctors, and other highly paid 'experts' to know that there is nothing in this world that one can't better understand with one's own analysis (scientific, reasoned). As the Buddha said: "Do not believe something just because it has been passed along and retold for many generations. Do not believe something merely because it has become a traditional practice. Do not believe something simply because it is well-known everywhere. … Do not believe something because the speaker seems trustworthy." I insist on critical thinking and will NOT accept any opinion until I fully understand and therefore internalise its entire logic.
Note that citing Ian Plimer extensively in this blog post does not mean I 'believe' in what he says because he is an eminent Professor. Not in the least. I am citing him for convenience, having arrived at my views based on information received from a wide range of sources, including his book. It is through my own understanding of the facts that I know what I know, not because I've read it here or there. We must always assess logic and evidence independently, using our minds, and never rely blindly on anyone's word.
So, like all scientific views, these (my) views should be treated as tentative excursions towards the truth. All science is a tentative excursion towards the truth. If ANY of the facts I cite below are found to be wrong, I'm happy to revise my understanding about CO2. But I'd like to be PROVEN to be wrong, first. With solid facts.
SUMMARY OF MY FINDINGS
1) The claims by IPCC CO2 regarding the harm likely to be caused by CO2 are not only grossly over-inflated, they are plain WRONG. CO2 IS NOT A POLLUTANT. CO2 is the reason we are alive. CO2 is the only manna that ever 'fell' from heaven (to be precise, all new CO2, that is not part of the carbon cycle, is spewed out by volcanoes from the bowels of the earth: without new CO2, all carbon would soon get sequestered into the bottom of the oceans).
2) There will be NO major warming of the Earth as a result of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere from its current level (that is well above 100 parts per million, hence ineffective in increasing the greenhouse effect). NOTE: Warming and cooling will take place, but for causes other than CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
3) Whether CO2 has significantly increased over the past two hundred years is questionable both on methodological grounds (measurement disputes) and because CO2 is quickly sucked out of the atmosphere by life forms, particularly bacteria (which as we all know multiply like mad in the presence of food – CO2 is bacteria food!). Significant increases in CO2 simply can' be retained in the atmosphere for long. CO2 has seen a long-term secular decline since the formation of the earth's atmosphere.
See:
COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS
ALLEGED 'COSTS' OF CO2 INCREASE TO LIFE ON EARTH
Fact 1: The IPCC estimate re: pre-industrial CO2 is wrong. CO2 levels in the air constantly change, regardless of the activity of man. The pre-industrial data is based on the LOWEST reading using the pre-1955 Pettenkofer method – and that is a matter of great concern. The reality appears to be that CO2 levels bounce about quite a bit in the atmosphere (box below).
Post 1955 data is based on the infra-red spectroscopy method, which has significant flaws because most observations are deleted. Using ice-cores is the third method, but it has limitations as well. The fact remains that CO2 levels have been HIGHER than current levels even in 1820.
Note that it is VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE to detect whether the CO2 increase in the atmosphere is from man-made or natural causes. |
|BOX: Chemical method of measuring CO2 |
|"A pre-IPCC paper used carefully selected Pettenkofer method data [of which 90,000 readings are available since 1812]. Any values |
|more than 10% above or below a baseline of 270 ppmv were selected. The rejected data included a large number of high values… The |
|lowest figure measured since 1812, the 270 ppmv figure, is taken as a pre-industrialisation yardstick. The IPCC want it both ways. |
|They are prepared to use the lowest determination by the Pettenkofer method as a yardstick yet do not acknolwedge Pettenfoker |
|method measurements showing CO2 concentrations far higher than now many times since 1812." (Plimer 419). Also see this paper. |
|See the figure below |
[pic]
Fact 2: One can dump as much CO2 into the air after about 100 ppmv without experiencing any run-away global warming. CO2 molecule has extremely limited capacity to absorb infra-red radiation beyond a small concentration in the atmosphere. 'Because the radiation properties of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are already saturated, increasing atmospheric concentrations beyond current levels will have no discernible effect on global temperatures' (Source: from ). There appears to be NO POSSIBILITY of significant heating of Earth with increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere. "there is a maximum threshold for CO2, after which an increase in CO2 has very little effect on atmosphere warming" (Plimer 425). That threshold is around 100 ppmv. In 2006, Willis Eschenbach posted this graph on Climate Audit showing the logarithmic heating effect of carbon dioxide relative to atmospheric concentration:
[pic]
A new study argues convincingly that CO2 actually cools the atmosphere, because it doesn't create more energy, simply diverts it from the sun, and radiates it much of it back into space.
|BOX |
|See: |
|The range of infrared radiation from Earth is 6 to 22 microns. Each greenhouse gas and water vapor absorbs radiation from different|
|areas of the electromagnetic spectrum. Carbon dioxide and water absorb long wave radiation from 12 to 19 microns. Methane absorbs |
|wavelengths 6 to 8 microns. Water blocks radiation below 7 microns from being reflected out to space. What is the window of |
|possible infrared radiation back out to space and how do these gases contribute to closing the window? |
|(see: ). |
|Also see this & this &this |
Fact 2A: As evidence: CO2 levels have been higher by hundreds of times in the past (Plimer, p.411), even though temperature has hardly been higher (Figure below shows that temperatures on Earth never exceeded an average of around 22 degrees even 600 million years ago compared with about 15 degrees today. Plimer notes: "Ice ages occurred when atmospheric CO2 was higher than at present." He also notes that 'The CO2 content of air has hardly ever been as low as today' (ibid). "The current CO2 content of the atmosphere is the lowest it has been for thousands of millions of years, and life (including human life) has thrived at times when CO2 has been significantly higher" (Plimer 425).
"In the past when the atmospheric CO2 concentration has been more than 25 times the present value, there has been no runaway greenhouse or 'tipping points'" (Plimer 371) – this is because CO2 loses the capacity to heat the atmosphere after around 100 ppmv.
[pic]
Source: Plimer, p.242.
Indeed, "during the biggest glaciation of all time the atmospheric CO2 was far higher than today" (Plimer 242).
Fact 3: LIFE SUCKS CARBON out of the atmosphere almost as quickly as it is put into the atmosphere (we are very fortunate that tectonic and volcanic activity keeps supplying at fresh CO2 molecules into the atmosphere, else at the rate at which life sucks out CO2 from the atmosphere, all life on earth would soon end once its food supply (CO2) was consumed by life and sequestered into the bottom of the oceans. Each time a volcano erupts, we can breathe in peace for some more time.) See this.
• Fact 3A. Bacteria have a relentless capacity to absorb CO2: Not only do land based plants flourish with increased CO2, but bacteria all over the world multiply dramatically when they find more food – particularly in the case of ocean bacteria and single-celled plants (which are part of the food chain in the seas). The availability of more CO2 in the oceans leads to dramatically increased populations of bacteria and ultimately fish and other creatures of the sea, leaching out all 'excessive' CO2 from the surface of the planet, as the 'excess' CO2 (there is no such thing in nature) is converted into sediments at the bottom of the sea. The existence of MASSIVE quantities of CO2 in polar sea water also explains the mind-boggling abundance of sea food there, such as krill, which attracts whales all the way to the poles to feed. Increasing CO2 in the water would mean MORE krill, and more whales. "Bacteria rule the world and, together with water, are a key driver of the carbon cycle" (Plimer, 148).
• Some more evidence has recently emerged. (“Cooling, Dilution and Mixing of Ocean Water by Free-drifting Icebergs in the Weddell Sea,” Deep-Sea Research Part II).
• "while CO2 emissions had quadrupled, natural carbon “sinks” that sequester the greenhouse gas doubled their uptake in the past 50 years" [Source]
• Plants flourish with greater CO2.| Plants gobbling up CO2 – 45% more than thought September 29, 2011 by Anthony Watts | Plants may store much more carbon September 29, 2011 by Steve Milloy
|BOX: Marine microbes and bacteria |
|Microbes constitute 90 per cent of marine biomass: 'microbes comprised half to 90 per cent of all marine biomass, but were |
|essential to the Earth's biological function by processing different gases in the Earth's atmosphere.' (See 'Oceans census uncovers|
|a billion microbes' in The Australian, 19 April 2010). |
|Ocean bacteria absorb carbon dioxide: See here. |
|How Ocean Bacterium Turns Carbon Into Fuel: See here. "One of the biggest movers and shakers is the lowly cyanobacteria, an |
|ocean-dwelling, one-celled organism. .. Forty percent of the carbon in the carbon cycle is reused and recycled through these tiny |
|creatures." |
|[Don't forget that the "carbon cycle" leaks: a good amount of carbon is permanently lost through calcium carbonate and bones that |
|are lost into the bottom of the sea permanently. That is why we need new carbon from volcanoes.] |
• Fact 3B: Multicellular organisms have expedited the absorption of CO2. "Since multicellular life appeared on Earth, there has been a constant draw-down of CO2 from the atmosphere that once had more than 100 times the current CO2 content" (Plimer 148).
The concept of Q10 in biology (and elementary understanding of the behaviour of single-celled plants) puts paid to any delusion that CO2 (which is food for plants) will hang in the atmosphere sitting "un-eaten" by life. In addition, new evidence suggests alkaline desert soils may be responsible for uptake of carbon (Xie, J., E Yan Li, E.Cuixia Zhai, E. Chenhua Li, and E. Zhongdong Lan. 2009. “CO2 Absorption by Alkaline Soils and its Implication to the Global Carbon Cycle”. Environmental Geology, Vol.56, 953–961.)
• Fact 3C: Because it is food, CO2 has a very quick turnaround in the atmosphere: "the residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere is less than 4 years" (Plimer 413). "There is very little disagreement. The lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere is about 5 years" (Plimer 422). On the other hand, "The IPCC suggests that the lifetime is 50-200 years. The IPCC lifetime has been criticised because lifetime is not defined and because the IPCC has not factored in numerous known sinks of CO2" (Plimer 421). "If the CO2 atmospheric lifetime were 5 years, then the amount of the total atmospheric CO2 derived from fossil fuel burning would be 1.2%, not the 21% assumed by the IPCC" (Plimer 422). "If humans burnt all the available fossil fuels over the next 300 years, there would be up to 15 turnovers of CO2 between the oceans and the atmosphere and all the additional CO2 would be consumed by ocean life and precipitated as calcium carbonate in sea floor sediments" (Plimer 325)
Update: "Furthermore, there are several peer-reviewed papers reporting the half life of CO2 in the atmosphere to be between 5 and 10 years. A half life of 5 years means that more than 98% of a substance will disappear in a time span of 30 years" (see here)
Fact 4: CO2 is particularly ADSORBED at the Poles: Cold sea water (at 10 degrees C) absorbs 19% more than its own volume of CO2. Polar areas absorbs more CO2 than elsewhere (Plimer 324). During the Ice Ages, the oceans cool down and adsorb most atmospheric CO2, reducing CO2 levels in the air. As the Ice Age ends (due to factors that are totally unrelated to CO2 in the air, because there is VERY LITTLE CO2 in the air during the ice age anyway!), the oceans warm up and release the CO2 mostly near the equator. We should expect to find CO2 levels in the air decreasing AS A RESULT OF the Ice Age and increasing as the Ice Age ends, and the Earth warms. That is precisely what the ice core data confirm. CO2 levels LAG, not lead. If it were to go the other way, all our knowledge of physics would be violated.
• Question: Why do bacteria not entirely suck out CO2 from the seas during the Ice Age. Because of Q10. Life activities multiply with temperature. Too cold a temperature reduces life activity.
Fact 5: Increases in CO2 levels in the atmosphere DO NOT increase acidity in the sea. "The oceans have been salty and alkaline since the beginning of time, even whe
n temperature was higher and atmospheric CO2 was at least 25 times the current value. This is because rocks on the land chemically react with air, water and micro-organisms to form soil and because submarine volcanic rocks and sediments chemically react with sea water. When we run out of rocks, the oceans will become acid" (Plimer 293).
Conclusion: CO2 DOES NOT HEAT THE PLANET AFTER 100 PPMV. THE CURRENT LEVELS OF CO2 ARE LOW. THE PLANET HAS SELF-REGULATING PROCESSES TO DEAL WITH MUCH GREATER USE OF FOSSIL FUELS. THERE ARE ZERO ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS OF INCREASED CO2. HENCE CO2 IS NOT A POLLUTANT AND THE QUESTION OF NEEDING TO CONTAIN CO2 THROUGH ECONOMIC OR OTHER POLICY DOES NOT ARISE.
BENEFITS OF CO2 INCREASE TO LIFE ON EARTH
Instead of being a pollutant, CO2 is a great boon to mankind. While increased CO2 levels CANNOT increase the temperatures of the world noticeably, the increased CO2 DEFINITELY helps increase plant productivity, since CO2 is plant food. [Apparently Stern assumed that CO2 has NO fertilisation effect on plants! (Plimer 197) A more ridiculous assumption can't be imagined.]
RESULTS OF THE COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS
BENEFITS OF CO2 > COSTS OF CO2 (which are zero).
HENCE MANKIND CAN INCREASE CO2 IN THE ATMOSPHERE WITHOUT ANY FEAR. IT MERELY AMOUNTS TO ADDING TO THE WORLD FOOD SUPPLY, SOMETHING THAT IS POSITIVE FOR LIFE ON THIS PLANET. CO2 IS GOOD.
Life on earth will end once volcanic activity slows down.
Despite its best efforts to pump CO2 into the air, mankind can't change the secular long-term decline in CO2 in the earth's atmosphere, as volcanic activity is constantly reducing over time, with the cooling of the earth.
As CO2 levels drop below 100 ppmv, the Earth will cool very rapidly, entering into a permanent Ice Age. Even the natural slowing down of the rotation of the earth in the next few billion years (which will bring the Earth closer to the sun and heat up the earth slightly) wont' help us. Well before that, at 150 ppmv, plants will die off, killing off all life on earth (unless we breed plants that can live on less than 150 ppmv). By about 4-5 billion years from now, we had better figure out a way to leave the Earth. Let's enjoy CO2 till we can! Take it easy!
Recommended reading:
Ian Plimer (link to my blog post on his book) + Any number of referenced articles in Plimer's books + some of my previous readings (here).
Further links:
How the hockey stick graph was based on the study of ONE TREE!
For more nonsensical predictions about CO2 that never turned out to be true see this.
- seems to show that the greenhouse gas effect is exaggerated.
No Smoking Hot Spot (The Australian)
The missing hotspot (JoNova)
The Hidden Flaw in Greenhouse Theory
Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics
Harvard astrophysicist dismisses AGW theory, challenges peers to 'take back climate science'
It Is Impossible For A 100 ppm Increase In Atmospheric CO2 Concentration To Cause Global Warming
Simple Chemistry and the Real Greenhouse Effect.
Claim That Sea Level Is Rising Is a Total Fraud
[a clear argument to show that CO2 is beneficial]
[CO2 is good: Breaking news from the NIPCC]
3 The great boon of CO2 — #2
I agree, broadly, to the following short summary of the benefits of CO2. For more details see my main blog post on this topic, here.
David Archibald:
The oceans started cooling in 2003, and the atmosphere is following. There has been no warming since 1998. In fact, the temperature of planet today is almost the same as it was when satellites first started measuring it in 1979. Solar activity is weakening, and will remain weak for another 22 years.
Carbon dioxide’s heating effect is real, but minuscule. The one hundred parts per million that we have added to the atmosphere in the last one hundred years has heated the planet by one tenth of a degree. We will add another hundred parts per million over the next fifty years. The total of two tenths of a degree will be very welcome by mid-century. [I'm not sure about the calculations underpinning this. But the magnitude is in the broad ballpark - i.e. very small warming. Sanjeev]
In fact, the more carbon dioxide we add to the atmosphere, the better. During the ice ages of the last three million years, the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere got as low as one hundred and seventy-two parts per million. Plant growth shuts down at one hundred and fifty parts per million. Life above sea level was almost snuffed out due to a lack of carbon dioxide. We were only twenty-two parts per million from extinction. We came so close to dying out due to a lack of carbon dioxide. And, for those amongst us who like plants and animals, they would have died out too.
The more we can increase the carbon dioxide level of the atmosphere, the safer life on this planet will be. For those amongst us who feel for the Third World, increasing the carbon dioxide level of the atmosphere is like giving them free fertiliser. Their crops will grow faster. Who amongst us would be so heartless as to deny the Third World that benefit at no cost to themselves? [Source]
Addendum
The “consensus” (if we wish to use such terminology) of economic studies shows net benefits from anthropogenic climate change for decades [Source]
55 ways in which increasing atmospheric CO2 produces direct benefit
4 Data must always trump theory. CO2 induced panic is not justified by DATA.
I've written to John Quiggin about this article published yesterday. I do hope he reads it, and also Donna's book. I expect him (if he is interested in the truth) to change his mind pretty soon now.
There's nothing new (for me) in this new article published yesterday, but for the sake of the "blind believers" and CO2-panicked people who may be reading this blog, let me publish highlights. Trust your panic will now ease. Basically, DATA trumps THEORY. That's the first rule of science. And data are clear: There is NO proof of run-away global warming induced by CO2.
|Climate change science is a load of hot air and warmists are wrong |
|August 2, 2012, David Evans |
|1) SUN The sceptic's main suspect is the sun. [Sanjeev: In my view, this is a very important variable, particularly after |
|lagged effects are considered. See my blog posts here and here] |
|2) IPCC MODELS: If the CO2 theory of global warming is right, the climate models should predict the climate fairly well. If |
|the CO2 theory is wrong, because there is another, larger driver of the temperature, then the climate models will perform |
|indifferently. |
|According to the latest data from mankind's best and latest instruments, from impeccable sources, the climate models are doing|
|poorly. |
|The first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in 1990 predicted air temperatures would increase by 0.30 degrees |
|per decade, and by 0.20 degrees to 0.50 degrees per decade at the outside. But according to NASA satellites that measure |
|almost the entire planet constantly, the trend since then has been 0.17 degrees per decade at most. The climate scientists |
|ignore these awkward results and instead only quote temperatures from land thermometers, half of which are at airports where |
|they are artificially warmed by jet engines and hot tarmac, while most of the rest are in warming micro-climates such as near |
|air conditioner outlets, at sewage plants or in car parks. Obviously the data from these corrupted thermometers should not be |
|used. [Sanjeev: btw, in my view Anthony Watts who first brought this to the world's notice, with THOUSANDS of photos, and has|
|now provided detailed proof of the bias, should be given the Nobel Prize] |
|Ocean temperatures have only been measured properly since 2003 when the Argo program became operational. Some 3000 Argo buoys |
|roam the oceans, measuring temperatures on each 10-day dive into the depths. Before Argo, we used sporadic sampling with |
|buckets and diving darts along a few commercial shipping lanes. But these measurements have such massively high uncertainties |
|as to be useless. Since Argo started, the ocean temperatures have been flat, no warming at all. |
|3) HOTSPOT: The assumed temperature amplification due to changes in humidity and clouds exhibits itself in all the models as |
|prominent warming about 10 kilometres up over the tropics. We have been measuring the atmospheric warming pattern since the |
|1960s using weather balloons, released twice a day from 900 locations around the planet, many millions of them in total, and |
|no such ''hot spot'' has been detected. This is direct observational proof that the amplification is missing. |
|4) OUTGOING RADIATION: The climate models predict that the outgoing radiation from the earth decreases in the weeks following |
|a rise in the surface temperature, due to aggressive heat-trapping by extra humidity. But analysis of the outgoing radiation |
|measured by NASA satellites for the last two decades shows the opposite occurs: the earth gives off more heat after the |
|surface temperature rises. Again, this suggests that the amplification assumed in the models simply does not occur in reality.|
|5) GLOBAL PLATEAU IN TEMPERATURES (albeit at a high level): CO2 level continues to rise but the temperature plateau of the |
|last 12 years persists. |
The actual science: the Sun
1 The role of the sun in climate
In this blog post I continue my summary of findings from various readings in relation to climate change. This post deals with the role of the sun. (My other blog posts on the subject are here)
Where the sun fits into the scheme of things
To set the context we must look more broadly at the universe, from the more distant things to the more proximal things. The order in which we must look is:
a) Big Bang: The Big Bang energy currently pervades the Universe as microwaves. This ensures a background temperature of 2.73 degrees Kelvin (i.e. -270.42 degrees centigrade). Does this radiation vary? No. So clearly this can't be responsible for climate change. [NOT IMPORTANT]
b) Galaxies: The Milky way and other galaxies spew out energy at higher wavelengths such as cosmic rays which hit the Earth and heat it up. This perhaps adds some degrees C to the Earth. Does this radiation vary? Yes, depending on the Sun's and Earth's magnetic fields. It also varies depending on the relative position of the sun in the spiral arms of the Milky Way. This effect is very slow, however, and unlikely to influence climate within the lifetime of an average human being. [NOT IMPORTANT] ()
c) Sun: The biggest variable source of energy that hits the Earth is the Sun. It is a pulsing star, and its energy outputs goes through various cycles. It really PULSES! It started life as a rather dim star and has significantly increased in intensity over billions of years. The sun is the ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM that must be studied carefully if we are to find the causes of climate change. [IMPORTANT].
d) Earth's rotation around the sun: This significant shifts the amount of energy flowing into the Earth (seasons). Its tilt matters as well, although these are pretty much long term effects and can be mostly discounted. [NOT IMPORTANT]
e) Moon: Some energy is perhaps reflected back to the Earth by the moon. If tides are a result of the moon's gravitational force, then definitely some of solar energy reflected back to the earth should matter – but it is a regular phenomenon and can be excluded. [NOT IMPORTANT]
f) Earth's core: The Earth is molten inside. But that doesn't explain its inner heat, which is largely attributable to radioactivity. That is why as you go deeper into the earth (e.g. as in a deep mine) it heats up dramatically. (I've been inside the Kolar Gold fields, and sure, it gets really hot below these deepest gold mines in the world) . Does the radioactivity at the centre of the earth vary a lot? Possibly only minimally. But it is still a crucially important unknown. [IMPORTANT].
g) Crust of the earth: The crust of the Earth is brittle and mobile. Tectonics releases a lot of energy into the Earth's surface, and includes volcanic activity. This is highly variable, hence likely to be quite important. [IMPORTANT].
g) Water: 2/3rd of the surface of the earth is water, and quite deep. Water absorbs heat slowly and releases it slowly. It leads a convection currents across the earth and has a dramatic influence on the Earth's climate. Snow and ice have properties that affect the Earth's climate significantly, as well.While the total amount of water doesn't change, its distribution and influence is constantly in flux. This must be important. [IMPORTANT].
h) Gases: Water vapour and methane are critical here, being powerful greenhouse gases, but CO2 also matters. [IMPORTANT].
g) Plant and animal life. This is absolutely crucial. [IMPORTANT].
h) Humans: This is another important variable given our significant re-design of the surface of the earth. [IMPORTANT].
I've noted some findings on other causal factors elsewhere so won't go into these things here. Just the sun.
The effect of the sun
Sunspots and other measures of solar activity
Have the changes in solar activity (sunspots) made an impact?
The key issue here is whether the above figure shows a relationship with the Little Ice Age that ended in about 1850. If solar activity has delayed impacts on the earth's climate (possibly through absorption of heat by sea water and slow changes on ocean currents), then a broad relationship exists between the little Ice Age that lasted till 1850, and the subsequent increase in temperature that we have seen in the last four decades.
If the sun's impact is immediate, then of course the relationship is much weaker. However, there is no reason why the entire heat from the sun should instantly impact climate. If that were the case then we would see sea levels rise everyday in the afternoon and subside at night. Sea temperatures change very slowly, because of their depth. It seems plausible therefore that at least some portion of the effect is relatively longer term. In which case, the increased solar activity over mid-20th century could be leading to warming today, as the energy is released from within the deep oceans.
Further, there seems to be clear evidence that there has been extra solar activity during the 20th century, particularly in the 1950s and 1990s (). This comes out clearly in the figure below:
[pic]
[pic]
Source: ()
Claims that there are inaccuracies in the IPCC report on solar activity:
This article seems to be particularly important and argues that "the original satellite data showed, that TSI (measured in Watts) increased from 1986 to 1996 by cca one third… But then Judith and Clause "laundered" the graphs and voila… solar output increase was gone. The people, who were in charge of the satellites and who created the original graphs (the best world astro-physicists: Doug Hoyt, Richard C.Willson) protested against this manipulation. In vain." (see here).
My view on this is that this is all too much for me to examine in detail given limitations of time. However, I've been compiling a few articles on the subject which might help me find the accurate position on this subject in the coming year/s. I'll keep adding information here.
My tentative conclusion
I've already come to the view that CO2 is a boon and that sea levels (and climate) always change. So regardless of whether the sun is a significant explanatory variable in the current increasing temperatures of the earth (which are relatively minor, though), climate change is not a threat. That much is clear.
I am unable to figure, though, out why so much self-contradictory evidence is published regarding the influence of the sun, and look forward to the day when I'll be able to form a much clearer understanding on its role on the climate. It is highly implausible that the sun has a negligible influence on the earth's climate, as the IPCC has claimed. So if there was genuine fraud (see the article here, again), that's a serious matter for scientists to resolve. But even without the claims of fraud, there doesn't seem to me to have been sufficient evidence provided that the sun is not the MAJOR factor driving climate change. It is highly implausible that CO2 is the key factor in such change (that doesn't fit historical records).
I haven't had the time to fully read this particular academic paper here (this paper is rather significant!), but over the next year I hope to read a lot more in my spare time and publish my findings as I arrive at various conclusions.
One thing is clear to me – that IPCC has NOT done the due diligence it needed to have done, before it arrived at its conclusions. If so much information is available in books, articles, and on the internet to contradict key claims of IPCC, then surely there is a real problem. I hope to write a blog post compiling key IPCC failures, in the coming weeks/months.
Prediction of likely cooling due to reduction in sun spots
Cosmic ray effects
Some articles claim that cosmic rays reflect the changes in solar activity.
[pic]Articles of interest (too little time to summarise)
I hope to find time to summarise and classify these better in the coming weeks/months/years.
'variable-sun'-mission/
Things that aren't conclusive
Warming of Mars
This story came out some time ago but a number of people disputed it. So let it rest!
Reduced cloud cover
ADDENDUM
General opposition to arguments of man-made climate change
Ocean current effects:
’s-climate/
PEER REVIEWED STUDY THAT CONFIRMS 100% THE ROLE OF THE SUN IN CLIMATE.
Cooling actually represents significant danger for humanity – but the media obviously don’t want to alarm you
Sun down (Economist, 18 june 2011)
Sun affects cosmic rays which affect clouds
2 The sun’s primacy in climate change – a simple and logical proof – the LAG EFFECT
The sun takes time to heat up the earth. I've mentioned similar things in my previous post re: the sun, but it is worthwhile clarifying this issue further, particularly as I believe that this basic phenomenon is not sufficiently well understood.
[pic]
Daily heat lag
It is common knowledge that it takes time for the sun to heat up the earth on an average day. The rays hit the ground, then infra-red radiation is released from the earth. Thus, while the sun is most intense at the zenith, the average day is MUCH hotter AFTER NOON than pre-noon.
Seasonal heat lag
Not only does the earth (and water) heat up slowly on a given day, there is residual heat stored in the surface of the earth (in earth and water). This means that even though the shortest day (in the northern hemisphere) occurs on December 21 and the longest on June 20/21, the seasonal response is not a precise reflection of the total quantum of the sun's rays that fall on earth. The autumn takes longer to 'die out' into winter and the spring takes longer to 'kick in' after winter.
Decadal heat lag
EXACTLY the same principle applies to the effects of the impact of changes in the sun's intensity over time. There is a HUGE multi-decadal effect at work. When the sun warms up, heat enters the deepest waters of the sea. Over time, some of this is radiated back, but this takes time.
This lag can be seen clearly from data on sun-spots below.
[pic]
The sun started revving up after a very stagnant performance between 1600 and 1725 AD. The little ice age kicked in after a lag of around 50 years. Once the sun started warming up (and became MUCH more active in the earlier part of the 20th century), it took time to warm up the earth with a much longer lag – between 50-100 years.
Studies that look at precise annual correlations between sunspot activity and global temperatures will fail. There is only a weak correlation between these two at the annual level. Instead, we need NONLINEAR MOVING AVERAGE of some sort that controls for baseline conditions of temperature on earth. For instance, the initial heating up will take longer to impact, and the later increase in intensity should impact quicker. Only such a study – that mimics the ACTUAL process of heating of the earth, will produce worthwhile results. I suspect, from the data that I've seen, that such a study will almost entirely wipe out the share attributed to CO2 in climate change. (CO2 affects are logarithmic, and steeply peter out after a much lower concentration level than what is found in the atmosphere today).
Other factors
In addition, of course, as I've already pointed out, there are many other factors that drive climate. So no single variable is going to fully explain changes in climate. But nothing alarming is going on at the moment. Alarmists, though, tend to get all the press. That's just the nature of the human mind. Let us spend the next 100 years understanding it better, instead of running about like headless chooks, claiming that the sky is falling down.
Addendum
Paper demonstrates solar activity was at a grand maximum in the late 20th century
3 The UK Met office spits the dummy. The sun does CAUSE climate.
Finally, a few weeks ago, even the Meterological Office in UK has spit the dummy and spoken the truth (something smothered by the CO2 fanatics). The SUN makes a big difference to global temperatures.
Scientists at the Met Office and elsewhere are beginning [!!!!] to understand the effect of the 11-year solar cycle on climate. When sunspots and other solar activity are at a minimum, the effect is similar to that of El Niño: more easterly winds and cold winter weather for Britain.
“We now believe that [the solar cycle] accounts for 50 per cent of the variability from year to year,” says Scaife. With solar physicists predicting a long-term reduction in the intensity of the solar cycle – and possibly its complete disappearance for a few decades, as happened during the so-called Maunder Minimum from 1645 to 1715 – this could be an ominous signal for icy winters ahead, despite global warming. [Source]
I have written quite a bit on this simple truth about the role of the sun – see this for instance. I can't fathom why more focus is not being given to study the effects of the sun on climate. Why this blind focus on CO2 (which has SIGNIFICANT beneficial effects on crop production, and has very limited capacity to heat the climate given it is FOOD for plants, animals, and bacteria, and is at a concentration where further greenhouse effects are MINIMAL)?
I trust given this WIDELY AVAILABLE information – that even the Met Office in UK admits that the sun matters, would it be too much to expect those who are fanatically working to impose all kinds of taxes on the community to "solve" a NON-PROBLEM, to pause and think again?
The true climate change model
1 The TRUE climate change model at a glance: Natural increase since little ice age
This is it. A diagram so clear and obvious as to be a no-brainer even for those who don't usually understand simple charts.
I hope people will start reading LONG TERM trends in climate from now on, and try to identify true causes. Not jump like headless chooks at the slightest upswing and extrapolate to infinity.
The same mindless extrapolation was done by "population experts" with population, as well. They were all wrong. There are self-correcting forces at work in the real world. A number of variables are fighting each other. A battle between different forces, different incentives.
[pic]
Click for larger image.
Source: Syun-Ichi Akasofu, On the Present Halting of Global Warming, Climate 2013, 1, 4-11.
His conclusion with which I agree 100 per cent: "It is likely that both the near linear increase and multi-decadal oscillation are primarily natural changes. Thus, in order to estimate the effects caused by CO2 over the last two centuries, it is important to isolate these natural components of climate change from real temperature data".
I gather Akasofu is no ordinary scientist. He is "one of the "World's Most Cited Authors in Space Physics" and highly decorated (unlike the frauds who populate IPCC reports). More about him here: .
ADDENDUM
[pic]
This is the mean of ALL FIVE principal global-temperature datasets (GISS, HadCRUt4, NCDC, RSS, and UAH), since the new millennium began on 1 January 2001. 12 years 8 months of global temperature data confirm a very significant pause. [Source of data]
2 Tony Burke admits human fallibility. Now will “climate change” policies be reviewed, please?
I came across this interesting short paragraph in today's Australian.
Mr Burke said Treasury's report had not been a helpful contribution. "There is very limited utility in 40-year projections," he said. "Let's face it, if you went back five years people didn't know the global financial crisis was coming. They didn't know about the mining boom mark II. Once you're offering projections . . . of more than five years they're not offering a whole lot of assistance in what you should be doing right now in public policy."
It is extremely rare (and therefore refreshing) to hear a politician express common sense. (Note that this doesn't mean one can't predict long-term trends - but a trend is not the same as a precise projection. I might add that population being my area of 'expertise', I have not yet seen one population forecast that has held up to the test of time. That is why I don't care much about the debates occurring on Becker-Posner blog about the population projection of 10 billion issued recently by idle UN bureaucrats.)
But Tony Burke's statement has implications. The fact that projections of more than five years don't offer "a whole lot of assistance in what you should be doing right now in public policy" is true for many more things.
In particular, Burke's Government can now review its "climate change" policies which are based on projections 100 years into the future. If forecasts for 2050 are questionable (and they are), then what kind of credibility do forecasts for 2100 have?
As expected, most, if not all, of IPCC's short term (10-15 year) forecasts have been PROVEN false. In addition, a good number of studies have questioned IPCC's long-term projections. Consider this study on the sea level:
[T]he estimate of over 1m and higher rise in sea level by 2100 (in next 90 years) seems unrealistic, when analyzed in the context of present sea level rise which is just about 1.5mm to 2.0 mm per year with almost NO component of acceleration. For the global sea level to rise by over 1m in the next 90 years would require acceleration (in sea level rise) of up to 0.28mm/yr2, which is almost two orders of magnitude larger than present. This seems highly unlikely at present given the fact that the earth’s climate has not warmed in the last ten years and further that the earth’s mean temperature seems to be declining at present.
If nothing else, this kind of study shows that there are at least two well-informed views on the future of the sea level. With "climate science" not yet out of its infancy, why not let more research be conducted before slugging the Australian economy – which is already suffering from many Keynesian follies – with another huge hit?
Let the link between CO2 and acceleration in temperature be established conclusively before considering interventionist policies.
[See also my comment on Garnaut, and my posts on the sea level here and here]
3 Two more studies that demolish the “science” of climate change
Before I say anything further on this controversial topic let me make a few things very clear at the outset:
a) I care about the environment and about good policy to genuinely protect the environment. Indeed, I would argue that I'm more concerned about the environment (particularly about wildlife) than most "environmentalists";
b) I do care for humanity (not just India) and would not like humanity to be roasted alive due to man-made actions (where such actions have been demonstrated to adversely effect mankind); and
c) I've not shut my mind to science and continue to remain open to evidence that addresses all the objections to the current theories and data regarding AGW (man-made climate change).
I am essentially a critical thinker and a scientist (even though I've forgotten the details of what I learnt during my BSc studies decades ago). I look for robust theories and robust data to substantiate such theories. And in most cases I don't "trust" anyone. I form my own opinions after reading, thinking, and assimilating the issues.
So far I've found that the "science" behind AGW (or man-made climate change) is a bucket full of holes. Not one piece of data exists today in relation to the climate that is not amenable to alternative, natural explanations. The null hypothesis, that man has created the current global warming, has been disproved at EVERY step. That doesn't mean it has been disproved forever, but so far the data are clear: that natural explanations exist for our observations.
So now to these two articles published recently in scientific journals, that further demolish the currently received theory. I'm comfortable if you can rebut these studies but please don't write to me claiming that X number of scientists "believe" in AGW. Dispute only the theory and the facts.
Climate models predict NOTHING
The paper: Anagnostopoulos, G. G., Koutsoyiannis, D., Christofides, A., Efstratiadis, A. & Mamassis, N. (2010) A comparison of local and aggregated climate model outputs with observed data. Hydrol. Sci. J. 55(7), 1094-1110
This study (click here for the full study – PDF) states: "It is claimed that GCMs provide credible quantitative estimates of future climate change, particularly at continental scales and above. Examining the local performance of the models at 55 points, we found that local projections do not correlate well with observed measurements. Furthermore, we found that the correlation at a large spatial scale, i.e. the contiguous USA, is worse than at the local scale."
It is a general rule about complex models (such as computable general equilibrium models in economics – about which I know a fair bit) that they are highly imperfect and need to be calibrated each year with parameters being updated to match the true values. The true model DOES NOT EXIST.
If complex models do not calibrate every year, they end up as delusions. Climate models are delusional – that is what this paper is effectively saying.
The predicted heating of the poles has not occurred
The paper: White, J.W.C.; Alley, R.B.; Brigham-Grette, J.; Fitzpatrick, J.J.; Jennings, A.E.; Johnsen, S.J.; Miller, G.H.; Steven Nerem, R.; Polyak, L. Past rates of climate change in the Arctic, Quaternary Science Reviews, Volume 29, Issue 15-16, July 2010, Pages 1716-1727
[Source] "A long succession of climate models has consistently suggested that anthropogenic-induced global warming should be significantly amplified in earth's polar regions and, therefore, that the first signs of man's expected impact on the world's weather should be manifest in that part of the planet."
White et al. study this issue in great depth and conclude that "thus far, human influence does not stand out relative to other, natural causes of climate change." They do add, out of courtesy: "Human-forced climate changes appear similar in size and duration to the fastest natural changes of the past, but future changes may have no natural analog."
In other words, they have not found any truly exceptional change SO FAR – with the current change corresponding to thefastest rate of changes in the past, but they can't rule out exceptional change in the future, which is what any good scientist must always say (But that really means little – like saying that in we so far haven't disproved the theory of evolution but it could be disproved in the future).
[An interesting curiosity that no one can explain: The extent of ice in the Arctic is falling but it is almost entirely compensated by the increased ice in the Antarctic. Why?]
Conclusion
I believe that some warming is inevitable given the increased levels of CO2. The Greenhouse gas effect is real (despite a spate of recent articles and books purporting to disprove this effect – I haven't read them yet, though), but what has been seen in terms of temperatures so far is not particularly exceptional. To me it appears so far that the best explanation for what we see is this: a move out of the Little Ice Age due to greater solar activity which has lagged effects.
The DIRECT FOOTPRINT of CO2 is NOT visible in virtually any study. I believe such evidence will surely emerge in the coming years, and earth temperatures are likely to increase slightly (up to 2 degrees C over the next century) but this won't cause noticeable harm. Instead, the benefits from warming will be very positive. The world will be amuch better place if it gets somewhat warmer.
4 Get used to it: The climate always changes
The climate is always changing
The Earth can either become warmer or cooler. That is what it has done for hundreds of millions of years. Sometimes an ice age, sometimes an interglacial.
[pic]
Figure: Annual Mean Temperatures in UK Since 1659, the longest thermometer series of temperature (here). (Click the above figure to make it larger).What do you notice in this figure? That the temperature constantly changes from year to year? If so, you're right!
Surface impacts
1. Ice: The amount of ice on Earth goes up, goes down
2. Sea levels: The sea levels go up, and they go down
3. Temperature: The temperature of the Earth's surface goes up and it goes down.
The current change in climate is not particularly special or unique, as even a cursory examination of the facts of the case clearly demonstrates. It is definitely not a matter of concern. Instead, we are LUCKY that the average temperature is slightly warmer, and there is more CO2 in the air. That is how we have been able to produce more food and sustain a much higher human population than ever before in history.
If we don't understand statistics we are destined to stew in our own sweat!
The 'common' man (including the common policy maker) is generally deeply ignorant about basic statistical facts:
a) Correlation doesn't imply causation. Two totally unrelated random variables can be perfectly correlated, quite accidentally, for some time. Always look for a clear theory to underpin a causal analysis.
b) Causality can only be confirmed through a theory. So the theory should be explicit, and the theory should be testable/ empirically verifiable. In general, even ONE fact that doesn't fit a theory's predictions will nullify the entire theory.
c) Causality in real life is usually very 'deep', meaning complex, inter-related, and multivariate. Conditional probabilities and feedback loops contaminate the analysis. That is why most 'real life' theories remain untestable or simply fail upon being put to the test.
d) Understand that even the best 'real life' theories tend to have a 'delta' or white noise variable that represents our ignorance as well as the innate randomness of phenomena.
e) Be very careful when you are presented with a graph! Watch out for its axes, and ensure you understand what is being shown. When looking at a graph that purports to talk about a long term trend, do look at long term charts. The overall picture can only be seen by looking back at long-term trends.
f) Be very wary of computer models particularly those that purport to predict the future. They are TOTALLY dangerous in the hands of the uninitiated, like the models that underpinned the USSR economy: recipes for disaster! To model the trends likely to be seen in the future, rely on an explanation that demonstrates a deep understanding of multivariate and complex factors at work, and not on computer models. That way you'll understand what is in the modeler's mind, and will soon realise where the modeler is wrong.
What has been happening on the climate change front?
Two UNRELATED facts have been the cause of much grief:
a) YES, the average temperature of the 20th century was definitely higher than the average temperature of the 19th century.
b) YES, the level of CO2 in the air was almost certainly higher (on average) in the 20th century than in the 19th century.
BUT (a) that doesn't mean that the rise in temperature in the 20th century was CAUSED by the rise in CO2. Correlation DOES NOT IMPLY causation. To understand why this correlation is UNRELATED is not a trivial matter, however. It requires significant understanding of the theory of the Earth's temperature, including how CO2 behaves.
AND (b) this correlation disappears the moment the 'graph' is extended beyond the past 150 years. The temperature on earth has only a very indirect relationship with CO2.
Therefore this is a spurious correlation.
A SIMPLIFIED THEORY OF GLOBAL TEMPERATURE
The equation for the Earth's surface temperature goes something like this (this is HIGHLY simplified):
Earth Temperature = f(HO, HR, S, G, W, ….) + Delta
where
HO = Heat output of the sun. This is HIGHLY VARIABLE, since the sun is a pulsing star. The sun, for reasons not yet understood, also seems to have cycles of activity – most likely related to the changing gravitational (and many other) impacts of stars in the Milky Way and even other galaxies;
HR = Heat received by the Earth from the sun = f(cloudiness, reflection from light surfaces like ice, and absorption by dark surfaces like green leaves, particulate matter in the air such as dust and soot, D). D is the distance of Earth from the sun which is a function of (orbital changes of the Earth, wobble of the Earth);
S = Ancient stored heat from 4.5 billion years ago, inside the Earth's bowel (heat that is emitted through volcanic and tectonic activity). Volcanoes supply this 'inner heat' in a fairly random and unpredictable manner;
G = Greenhouse effect (or atmospheric gas effect) = f (lograthmic function of CO2, appropriate other functions of other greenhouse gases, level of consumption and sequestration of greenhouse gases by plankton, bacteria, and other microbes which in turn is a highly 'responsive' to feedback loops since these tiny single-celled creatures multiply instantly and hence "eat" more CO2 the more of it is produced); and
W = Heat cycled through water = (deep sea currents, clouds and their formation, including significant self-adjusting cooling effect through evaporation from the sea)
Note that each variable has a varying marginal effect: the equation is therefore strongly non-linear, its form and shape not known or understood, as a whole. Note also the self-adjusting or feedback effects that nullify many changes.
I hazard that the COMBINED explanatory power of these variables (the marginal effects of which are not yet fully understood) is around 30 per cent – at best, with at least 70% of the causes of the Earth's temperature not yet known. In other words, if you were to plug in all relevant variables into the above "equation" you COULD NOT MIMIC the precise climate of the Earth over the past 4.5 billion years. Therefore, the possibility of mankind predicting the future climate is close to ZERO. When we will be able to replicate the entire past history of the earth's climate, we can then consider predicting the future.
Under these circumstances of highly limited knowledge, ONLY FOOLS confidently "predict" the direction of climate change from the knowledge of one TINY tiny sub-variable (e.g. CO2)! Such great folly is typical of mankind, though, and does not surprise me at all (ref. the folly of 'economists' who predict the path of interest rates, and therefore 'manage' interest rates, distorting the world's economy badly).
[pic]
NOTHING KNOWN TO MAN SO FAR IS SUFFICIENT TO RECONSTRUCT THE WORLD'S CLIMATE HISTORY. HENCE PREDICTING THE FUTURE OF THE CLIMATE IS AN OCCUPATION THAT ONLY FOOLS UNDERTAKE.
Even in the past three thousand years, there have been, arguably (there is virtually conclusive evidence on this), at least two major periods (Roman and Medieval warming) with temperatures FAR HIGHER than the warmest temperatures experienced in the 20th century. .
NO ONE HAS YET explained why temperatures were so high then – well before the industrial revolution. Remember – one fact, just one fact, that can't be explained generally flunks a theory. But this is just ONE of the hundreds of facts that the theory of anthropomorphic climate change can't explain.
And yet there are people (allegedly 'scientists', but for whom the word 'quack' would perhaps be far more appropriate!) who purport to predict the future of the world's temperature! Take a coin and toss it. That would give an equally good prediction (given mankind's current hopelessly poor state of understanding of climate change).
The effects of CO2
CO2 effects (as a greenhouse gas) are dramatically limited after a particular level (100 ppmv). In addition, the carbon cycle is based on highly responsive self-adjusting feedback mechanisms. Virtually all the carbon generated by burning coal is immediately absorbed by plants on earth and microbes in the oceans. The microbes then feed other forms of life in the oceans, which finally gets sequestered into the bottom of the ocean. Carbon is removed from the atmosphere at almost as fast a rate as it is produced. Read my detailed blog post on CO2 to better understand the way CO2 works. Remember CO2 is FOOD: it is sucked/swallowed out of the atmosphere virtually as soon as it is put into it.
CONCLUSION:
Yes, there is a slight global warming. Climate change is TRUE. It is a fact of life. And will always remain a fact of life.
Yes, CO2 has increased SLIGHTLY in the atmosphere in the 20th century than in the 19th century (please note that levels SIGNIFICANTLY higher than current CO2 levels were measured even in the 1820s, for CO2 is placed in the atmosphere primarily from natural causes: man's did not create CO2 in the first instance, and its level varies naturally).
BUT that doesn't mean increased CO2 is causing the currently experienced global warming. Proving that CO2 is the cause needs replicating the ENTIRE history of climate change first. Only then can it be conclusively proven that CO2 is the ONLY cause of change this time around.
HENCE "controlling" CO2 and expecting to 'regulate' the world's climate is a like trying to create gold inside a chemistry lab. Alchemy. Witchcraft. But luckily this fad too shall pass, albeit having drained a lot of our taxes in witch-hunts against CO2 "polluters" in the process! The truth always wins in the end. Satyameva Jayate.
Man survives. Will survive. We are a (relatively) sturdy species, resistant to the repeated harm caused us by fools.
SEA!
And yes, the sea levels TOO change! – if you didn't know that. Check out my blog post on sea levels. If you are scared about sea level change, please don't buy property near the beach. Or you may find the sea disappear for miles from the beach, or frozen over. Be prepared!
Addenda (things that I find in support or even against, my view expressed above, noting that I do not endorse any of the links below but am compiling them as part of data that may be relevant)
•
•
•
•
• {evidence re: Roman Warming Period}
• {evidence re: Medieval warming}
• CSIRO should establish if there was medieval warming Down-Under, Michael Aston, The Australian, 13 May 2010 {evidence re: Medieval warming}
• Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. {Data does not even show warming for the 20th century – definitely not significant warming}
• {Study of medieval warming}
• {TV interview with Bob Carter on his new book}
• "reconstructed water temperatures for the Roman Warm Period in Iceland are higher than any temperatures recorded in modern timesreconstructed water temperatures for the Roman Warm Period in Iceland are higher than any temperatures recorded in modern times" (from "Two millennia of North Atlantic seasonality and implications for Norse colonies", by William P. Pattersona, Kristin A. Dietricha, Chris Holmdena, and John T. Andrews, Saskatchewan Isotope Laboratory, Department of Geological Sciences, University of Saskatchewan, 114 Science Place, Saskatoon, SK S7N 5E2 Canada; and University of Colorado, Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research and Department of Geological Sciences, Box 450, Boulder, CO 80309 (full article from PNAS, here)
• Cosmic ray impacts here (video).
• Mindless panic being created re: ocean acidity, here.
•
• {American Physical Society pulls back from alarmist projections}
•
• Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering issues draft release stating that the academy "does not accept that the science is settled" and notes many scientists believe "climate changes are nothing unusual, based on past geological records." (here)
• {recent evidence to prove Medieval and Roman warming}
•
• How an ice age ends. The sun.
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• comment/columnists/ christopherbooker/7601929/ Climategate-a-scandal-that- wont-go-away.html
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•
• (showing that Six of the top 10 hottest years occurred before 90 percent of the growth in greenhouse gas emissions during the last century occurred.)
• Medieval warming evidence in China:
• A paper that apparently highlights the gross exaggerations of the so-called AGW thesis.
• - shows that it was 4 degrees warmer in in Antarctica 130,000 years ago.
• - a clarification of erroneous reports about IPCC floating around.
•
•
•
•
• The issue of measurement.
•
•
• Climate Change Reconsidered: 2011 Interim Report S. Fred Singer, Craig Idso, Robert M. Carter – August 29, 2011 Heartland Institute
DUST as a factor in climate
The economic effects of climate change
1 The Productivity Commission’s view
End of official confusion in Australia? The Productivity Commission dumps climate alarmism.
PC's report on Climate Change Adaptation has come out. For the first time, perhaps, an official (and highly respected) agency in Australia has questioned climate alarmism.
climate change is expected to continue to occur gradually, unfolding over decades and centuries. The timing and magnitude of future changes to the climate are uncertain. Scientific understanding of the climate system is incomplete, and the future trajectory of global greenhouse gas emissions is unclear [Page 3].
Now will people please put on their THINKING HATS and start reading about serious science and data regarding the climate?
Searching for CO2 on my blog would be a good start. Here's the link.
2 Solid facts and cost-benefit analysis would be more helpful
Today in The Age, Mr Ross Garnout has been cited as saying:
"It is an awful reality that no major developments in the science hold out realistic hope that the judgments of the 2008 review erred in the direction of overestimating the risks," Professor Garnaut said.
He said he feared scientific projections to date might have been overly conservative.
I'm afraid, this contradicts what I have been reading and learning about the underlying science over these years.
I've formed a view, supported by sufficiently persuasive evidence, that man-made global warming exists, but its ability to cause serious harm is merely a hypothesis, not scientifically proven truth. The following, in brief, is what I understand:
a) the current episode of MILD warming is PRIMARILY natural;
b) the impact of manmade CO2 is real but minimal, and unlikely to accelerate with increased CO2;
c) the benefits of increased CO2 appear to be significantly greater than costs;
d) the Earth held far greater levels of CO2 in its atmosphere in the past and did not experience runaway global warming. A large number of natural processes (plants, primarily) exist on Earth that check runaway effects;
e) projections of warming and sea-level rise by climate models have, so far, been grossly exaggerated; and
f) IPCC and many senior scientists from reputed institutions have published numerous false reports and ACTIVELY prevented healthy scientific debate .
Government funded institutions on this subject have lost credibility, particularly given the large number of independent scientific views that contradict government-supported findings. Group think is a common flaw in all governments, given strong incentives to shut out internal debate.
On a matter as important as this, everyone needs to know the details and fully understand what is going on.
May I therefore request Mr Garnout to point out the precise data that contradicts my findings (a) to (f) above?
In particular I'd need to see clear graphical evidence of correlations between CO2 and global warming over the past 100 million years. A good multivariate model with PROVEN predictive power (to predict ALL previous episodes of climate change) would help.
I'd also like to see a RIGOROUS and well-supported (with 100% proven facts) cost-benefit analysis.
Based on all the evidence to date, I have formed the view that benefits of CO2 EXCEED costs.
Let's all keep our critical thinking hats on. As always, I remain open to changing my mind should theoretical and empirical evidence motivate such change. Listening to exhortations from anyone, now matter how respectable, is NOT the way I reach the truth.
Addendum:
Garnaut turns out to be a highly questionable economist – details here.
3 Milton Friedman’s son, David, points out key fallacies in the climate change alarm
I agree a lot with Milton Friedman, but disagree quite a bit with his son David (although I agree with the general direction of his political philosophy). David is an anarcho-capitalist, extremely averse to the idea of government. I don't think David understands human nature. He needs to read Hobbes.
David is a teacher, like Milton was. And David is as outspoken like his father was. I got a chance to hear a section of his extensive talk on the subject of climate change, and it was refreshing to find common sense being brought into this arena of mindless frenzy and "expert"-driven confusion.
I have argued that increasing CO2 creates NET BENEFITS for LIFE ON EARTH (not just mankind). That's what my quick "back of the envelope" calculations lead me to conclude. Summarised below:
- very little real increase in global temperatures from CO2 due to the biological sink on this earth (and other negative feedback loops)
- increase in CO2 is great for plants, and the more the plants the more the fish and animals. The more the plants and fish and animals, the more the humans (actually this is more complex: with freedom there will be FEWER but richer humans who value and take more care of wildlife and nature).
- no possibility of elimination of key ecologies like the icy north pole, thus no risk to polar bears and the like.
- no possibility of harm to key natural formations like ocean reefs which enjoy slightly warmer water to cold.
- mankind will generally be about SIX times wealthier in 2100 than it was in 2000, therefore able to cope far better with minor changes in sea level (if any), while taking better care of the environment.
- in other words, NO harm. ONLY good.
David Friedman points out, though, that we can't be confident about any of this (whether there are net benefits or net costs). I disagree (I'm clear that CO2 is GOOD, based on the kinds of self-evident arguments outlined above), but agree with many of the holes he picks in the arguments of panicky alarmists.
For those among you who are still panicky, and in need to jump off a building due to "global warming", please watch this video. It might calm your nerves.
I've provided extracts from his blog post on this subject below the video, for those in a hurry.
The key points, in David's own words.
An increase in global temperature would also have good effects. The question is not whether there are any bad effects but whether there are net bad effects.
Nobody knows if the net effects would be good or bad, and probably nobody can know.
We are talking, after all, about effects across the world over a century. How accurately could somebody in 1900 have predicted what would matter to human life in 2000? What reason do we have to think we can do better?
Should we, for instance, assume that Bangladesh will still be a poor country a century hence, or that it will by then have followed the path blazed by South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong—and so be in a position to dike its coast, as Holland did several centuries ago, or move housing some miles further inland, at a cost that can be paid out of petty change?
Should we assume that population increase makes agricultural land more valuable and the expansion of the area over which crops can be grown more important, or that improvements in crop yield make it less? The numbers required to justify such belief are at best educated guesses, in most cases closer to pure invention.
Someone who wants to prove that global warming is bad can make high estimates for the costs, low estimates for the benefits, and so prove his case to his own satisfaction. Someone with the opposite agenda can reverse the process and prove his case equally well.
An alternative is to ask whether we have any reason to expect, a priori, that costs will be larger than benefits. There are, I think, two answers.
The global warming controversy involves changes over not a year or a decade but a century. It is hard to see any reason to expect gobal warming to make us, on net, worse off.
For the past many thousands of years, humans have lived and prospered over a range of climates much larger than the range that we expect the climate at any particular location to change by. If we have no good reason to believe that humans will be substantially worse off after global warming than before, we have no good reason to believe that it is worth bearing sizable costs to prevent global warming.
4 CO2 could make our super-rich future generations slightly worse off!
In the great debate about "climate science", here's an economist's view that goes against the need for any "urgent" action. (Not all economists think like this.)
Yale University economist Robert Mendelsohn has long been skeptical [PDF] of the more alarming projections of future damage caused by climate change.
So how much damage does he think that the climate change will cause? In a recent study for the World Bank on the annual costs of increased extreme weather events, Mendelsohn concludes that by 2100 “climate change may increase the overall damage from extreme events by $84 billion or 0.015 percent of world GDP.”
“Evidence to support aggressive greenhouse gas emissions targets does not yet exist,” said Mendelsohn. [Source]
Note that the harm projected (0.015 percent of world GDP) is a reduction from a world GDP that will be at least six times greater than what it is today.
Simplistically speaking, if K is the today's GDP then we are talking about reducing future GDP by 0.015 per cent of 6K. How bad can that be?! If you are six times richer, how does a tiny bite into your pocket matter?
But Mandelsohn has not not accounted for the entire set of costs and benefits. Overall, I have no doubt that the benefits of increased CO2 significantly outweigh its costs.
In any event, ALL IPCC projections have been thoroughly rebutted. The IPCC is a total joke. There simply isn't a problem!
So why panic? Why snuff out today's economic development for the sake of preventing the people born 100 years later – who will be SIX times richer than us – from becoming slightly worse off (just 5.9 times richer than us)?
See also:
• The great boon of CO2
• CO2 – at its current concentrations – is INCAPABLE in warming the globe significantly
• The common sense CO2 decision tree
and many other blog posts I've written under the tag, "climate change".
5 The common sense CO2 decision tree
For too long have we been getting mindless panic in the public space driven by shonky "climate" research. The flimsiest piece of evidence is offered as proof that the sky is falling down but all evidence relating to the benefits of CO2 is ignored.
That is unacceptable. Apart from the group think involved here, we need to ask: is anything in the world only one sided? In particular, how can a thing like CO2 on which the ENTIRE PLANT KINGDOM survives – and which is key fertiliser for our food (without CO2 we'd instantly die), ONLY impose costs?
So if it does have benefits (and this entire book is devoted to a discussion of such benefits. 55 benefits have been identified), then we need a more fine tuned, common sense discussion – see the following decision tree:
[pic]
(click for a larger image. The PPT here)
It is becoming more and more clear to me that the mania about CO2 as a "pollutant" has gone on for too long. The reality is this:
a) The world is coming out of a little ice age [see this] which means it has been continuously warming for about 150 years. That warming can reduce in the future as sunspot activity reduces (the sun is showing signs of a slight downturn: the effects of that will be evident over the next decade given the lagged effects involved).
b) CO2 is a greenhouse gas with logarithmic effects. In other words, after a very small level, its impact decreases dramatically. The doubling of CO2 from, say 1960 levels, will only very marginally increase global temperature, and further doubling will increase it by an even smaller amount.
c) And so, MOST of the increase in temperature in the last 50 years has NOT been because of CO2 but because of natural factors that are driving the Earth's recovery from the mini Ice Age.
d) CO2 is plant food, and its greater presence in the atmosphere (still a tiny part of the total atmosphere) has helped plants which were famished because by 1960 the world had reached the LOWEST level of CO2 in the atmosphere, ever. CO2 levels have been declining for millions of years, and we now had reached the lowest levels, ever. Most CO2 is converted into fish bones and sinks to the bottom of the sea.
So far as we can tell, CO2 benefits FAR EXCEED costs. There is not the slightest reason to panic.
Also, "For most of the past 17 years, global warming has been occurring at a rate that is below the average climate model expected warming" (source). Clearly the underlying science is weak. Moreover the benefits of modest warming (and increased CO2) have been completely ignored. Such shoddy thinking is not good enough! I look forward to a truly sensible report on this issue from serious researchers, not those with an axe to grind.
6 What “scientists” and “engineers” simply don’t understand
The worldview of economics is DRAMATICALLY different to the worldview of typical "scientists" and "engineers".
The average scientists and engineers simply don't understand incentives. They basically don't understand human beings and human behaviour. They don't understand their OWN behaviour.
To them the earth looks like a FIXED pile of mud. It appears to them that if we keep digging that pile of mud, then it must necessarily get smaller.
Similarly, to them it appears that the more you cut trees today, the less the trees you get tomorrow.
Economists (the good ones, not quacks like the Keynesians and Marxists), on the other hand, may not understand how photosynthesis works or the chemistry of iron ore, but they do understand DEEPLY how human beings react to the supply and demand for trees and iron ore.
Fortunately, I'm both a (physical) scientist and economist, so I have the advantage of seeing through the many follies of "scientists".
One of the typical examples of this folly is the way "scientists" and "engineers" think about TREES.
There is a great fear among such "educated" people that if you cut trees to make paper, the trees will disappear.
But this is SHEER NONSENSE.
Why?
Because
IF
you
(a) ensure private property rights in ALL trees,
(b) ensure regulation that prevents people from changing the natural mix of trees that grows in nature, and
(c) let people trade freely,
THEN
people will
(a) prevent unauthorised logging of trees (currently it is government officials and tree pirates/ poachers who illegally destroy natural forests – I speak from personal experience in North East India: where the illegal booty goes straight into the hands of CONGRESS ministers – and funds the corrupt organisation headed by MMS),
(b) preserve the natural habitat, and
(c) produce ADDITIONAL trees to supply the demand for more paper.
There is plenty of CO2 in the air for more trees to grow. And if there is sufficient demand, people will divert extra water to grow MORE trees than are currently found on this earth. New trees will come up to replace (and increase) existing tree supplies.
Therefore:
the MORE paper you consume, the MORE the trees (but only in a free, well regulated market with property rights).
But what about copper? What about oil?
Steve Horwitz explains (in the video below) why it is a myth that even these "fixed" resources can ever become "scarce". One small addition to his talk: I think he misses out an important point in relation to oil. Today, you can already produce PLENTY of oil using plants and algae. It is simply not economically viable to do so. Therefore, as soon as oil below the ground runs out, but demand still remains, expect LIMITLESS SUPPLIES OF OIL to be produced from plants and other sources. The world will NEVER run out of oil.
And of course, even wild animals can be easily protected AND increased. As I wrote earlier, if you privatise tigers and allow tigers to be eaten, then there will be MANY MORE tigers.
The way to preserve tigers is NOT to have governments manage them but to PRIVATISE them and allow ALL POSSIBLE uses of tiger.
HUMAN BEINGS CAN CREATE EVER-INCREASING PLENTY IF ONLY PEOPLE START UNDERSTANDING BASIC ECONOMICS. So long as people block private property (over EVERYTHING) and (well-regulated) free markets, catastrophic destruction of wild life and loss of natural habitat will continue.
It is not people in thier "greed" but FOOLISH GOVERNMENTS that are destroying this Earth.
7 Matt Ridley in The Spectator
This is from here.
|My Spectator cover story on the net benefits of climate change sparked a lot of interest. There was an explosion of fury from |
|all the predictable places. Yet not one of my critics managed to disprove my central assertion, that climate change is |
|probably causing net benefits now and is likely to continue doing so for some decades yet. |
|I’ve written responses to some of the critical articles and reproduce them here. |
|1. Duncan Geere in the New Statesman. |
|Four paragraphs in his piece in turn begin with ‘He’s right…’ so I am glad that Geere confirms that I am right about all my |
|main points. If you read my article you will find that each of Geere’s assertions about the eventual harm of climate change |
|are also in my piece. For example, I say: |
|‘Even if climate change does produce slightly more welfare for the next 70 years, why take the risk that it will do great harm|
|thereafter?’ |
|I do not ignore sea level rise: and anyway it is taken into account in all of the studies collated by Prof Tol, on whose |
|research my piece was based. |
|Geere’s main point, that the graph of benefits starts declining at 1C above (today’s) is very misleading. What this means is |
|that the benefit during one year is slightly smaller than the benefit during the year before, not that there has been net harm|
|during that year. Geere seems to have misunderstood Tol’s graph. |
|My points about probably fewer droughts and probably richer biodiversity are grounded in the peer reviewed literature. Many |
|models and data sets agree that rainfall is likely to increase as temperature rises, while the evidence for global greening as|
|a result of carbon dioxide emissions (and rainfall increases) is now strong. Greater yields means more land sparing as well. |
|The main point I was trying to make is that very few people know that climate change has benefits at all, let alone net |
|benefits today; even fewer know that it is likely to have net benefits in the future for about 70 years. This fact, which Mr |
|Geere confirms, is worth discussing. Judging by the incredulous reaction to my article in some quarters, this was indeed news |
|to many people. |
|I note Mr Geere has nothing to say about the harm being done by climate policies to the very poorest people in the world. A |
|peer-reviewed estimate is that 200,000 people are dying every year because of the effect of biofuels on food prices. Western |
|elites may feel comfortable about this, but I do not, and I think a serious debate about whether some current policies (as |
|opposed to others) do more harm than good even in the long run is worth having. |
|2. Barry Brill |
|I was intrigued by Barry Brill’s comment on my article, posted at Bishop Hill website, which argued that I had probably been |
|conservative in my assessment of net benefits: |
|‘The 1°C rise mentioned by Mr Geere has its base in 2009. As the IPCC says that global surface temperatures have increased by |
|0.85°C since the pre-industrial era, this point of maximum benefit is about equal to the 2°C target set by all UNFCCC |
|conferences since Copenhagen. |
|‘At the rate of warming recorded in the recent AR5WG1 SPM (0.12°C/decade since 1951) it will be well after 2100 before even |
|this level of diminishing benefit is reached. The IPCC says that the historic rate won’t increase unless the TCR is above |
|about 1.5°C – which seems unlikely in view of recent studies. |
|‘The series of published economic studies relied upon by Professor Tol are based on the IPCC’s earlier assessment reports, |
|which were blithely unaware of the “hiatus”. Allowance needs to be made for at least three new factors: |
|‘(1) The hiatus has already set the timetable back by about 17 years;
(2) The models assumed a Best Estimate for ECS of 3.0°C.|
|The consensus behind that figure has now evaporated;
(3) We now know that natural variation (or the Davy Jones hypothesis) |
|regularly offsets the effects of AGW. |
|‘All these factors suggest that Matt Ridley’s timing is extremely conservative. Any warming occurring in the 21st century is |
|likely to be a great boon to planet Earth and its inhabitants.’ |
|3. Bob Ward |
|My response to Bob Ward’s article on the LSE website and his splenetic tweets was as follows: |
|This week Bob Ward twice repeated in published form a claim that he surely knows to be misleading. It concerns the number of |
|people who die in winter versus summer. Both Bjorn Lomborg in the Times and I in the Spectator have cited studies showing that|
|there are more excess deaths in winter than summer in most countries. Mr Ward does not dispute this. But he cites a Health |
|Protection Agency report which argues that by 2050 winter deaths in the UK will probably fall less than summer deaths will |
|rise, and argues that this means that climate change will then be doing more harm than good in this one respect at least. |
|Yet the very source he uses states that the increase in summer deaths reflects “the increasing size of the population in most |
|UK regions during the 21st century.” (p41) It goes on to show that if you hold population constant, projected climate change |
|will increase heat deaths by 3,336, but reduce cold deaths by 10,766. |
|Anybody can make a mistake. But surely it was impossible to miss the HPA’s explanation? Yet in the last ten days Mr Ward |
|simply repeated the error twice, in an article on the Grantham Institute’s website attacking me and in a letter to the Times |
|this week attacking Lomborg. |
|Lomborg has now written to the Times pointing out that all three of Ward’s points in his letter are wrong: |
|‘First, he claims 21 world-leading economists and I neglect the health impact of tobacco. Wrong. On page 18, page 228 and 17 |
|other places we write how tobacco is a huge problem, almost verbatim what Ward claims we’re ignoring. |
|Second, he insists climate change cannot be a present net benefit. Wrong. This is corroborated by the most comprehensive, |
|peer-reviewed article, collecting all published estimates showing an overwhelming likelihood that global warming below 2oC is |
|beneficial.[ii] |
|Third, he claims that the Health Protection Agency shows warming will lead to 4,000 more deaths in the 2050s. Wrong again. The|
|HPA is clear that more deaths are a consequence of many more people in the UK by the 2050s. With a constant population HPA |
|shows warming will lead to 7,000 fewer deaths.’ |
|Mr Ward’s latest attack on my Spectator article, in which I argued that the evidence suggests probable net benefits from |
|warming till about 2080, is an egregious example of his aggressive style. He called my article ‘ludicrous’ and attacked the |
|Spectator for the “howler” of publishing it. Yet his own riposte is highly misleading. |
|He says the average temperature increase expected is ‘much lower than the top of the range of projections’ from the IPCC. |
|Well, indeed – that’s the very meaning of the word average, that it’s less than the extreme. And he says that the IPCC’s |
|‘high’ emissions scenario suggests sea level ‘could’ be higher than the average projection. Indeed. I was careful to say in my|
|article that I was talking about central estimates, not high-end projections. Either Mr Ward is simply unable to grasp this |
|point or he was being deliberately mendacious in implying that the extreme scenarios are likely to happen. |
|On the effect of carbon dioxide on global vegetation indices, one of the main ways in which carbon dioxide emissions are |
|benefiting the planet, Mr Ward is entirely silent. He simply ignores the data I cite showing a net global greening in all |
|types of ecosystem over the past 30 years as measured by satellites. Yet he implies that carbon dioxide fertilisation is a |
|myth. Has he not read the Donohue paper or examined the Myneni data? It’s easily viewed on the internet. |
|I am happy to debate the benefits of climate change with anybody, and I stressed in my original article that there is no |
|certainty about the future. I have never said we need to do nothing to head off the damaging effects of climate change towards|
|the end of the 21st century. But I do think the fact, an under-reported one, that climate change has had net benefits so far |
|should be discussed alongside the fact that many climate policies are doing real harm to people and ecosystems. Terms of abuse|
|are not helpful. |
|4. Greg Barker, Climate Change Minister |
|Perhaps the most embarrassingly weak critique of my article came from a government minister, Greg Barker, who has developed a |
|strange habit of stalking me on twitter with childish taunts and plain fibs. All very undignified. |
|In his letter to the Spectator he makes some bizarre claims about my argument. For a start, he has trouble with subtraction. |
|2080 minus 2013 is 67 years, not 57, Greg. |
|More substantively, he thinks that I want to do all sorts of things like stop preserving historic monuments and hack down |
|forests. This comes from a man the direct effect of whose policy is to hack down forests in the United States so that wood |
|chips can be burned in power stations, and to hack downrain forests in Indonesia so that land can be cleared to grow biofuels |
|for cars thus driving up the price of food and killing approximately 200,000 people a year through malnutrition. It was the |
|widespread use of fossil fuels that enabled the world to slow and in many cases reverse deforestation. One of the most |
|deforestedcountries on earth, Haiti, relies on renewable fuel – what Greg Barker likes to call ‘clean’ energy – for almost all|
|its energy. |
|It is precisely because I don’t want forests hacked down that I am sceptical about much renewable energy. |
|As for how Mr Barker concluded from my article that I want to stop preserving historic monuments, the mind boggles. I might |
|much more justifiably conclude from Mr Barker’s support for wind power and bioenergy that he actually wants to starve people |
|and cause them to die of hypothermia. The connection is far less fanciful than the one he makes. But I’d never stoop to making|
|such an argument. It’s too silly. |
|Next week I will be voting in the House of Lords and will probably support Mr Barker’s government in relation to energy |
|targets. He has a funny way of going about trying to get my support. |
|Mr Barker quotes Margaret Thatcher. So here are some of her words for him to ponder: |
|‘The doomsters’ favourite subject today is climate change. This has a number of attractions for them. First, the science is |
|extremely obscure so they cannot easily be proved wrong. Second, we all have ideas about the weather: traditionally, the |
|English on first acquaintance talk of little else. Third, since clearly no plan to alter climate could be considered on |
|anything but a global scale, it provides a marvellous excuse for worldwide, supra-national socialism. All this suggests a |
|degree of calculation. Yet perhaps that is to miss half the point. Rather, as it was said of Hamlet that there was method in |
|his madness, so one feels that in the case of some of the gloomier alarmists there is a large amount of madness in their |
|method.’ |
8 India will emit at least 20 times more CO2 in the coming decades
From The Australian today – 19 September 2011 (couldn't find it online so I've scanned and OCRd it)
THE Indian daily says the country's government has rightly recast India's position on climate change, emphasising equity as the key principle for future climate negotiations. "Given that we cannot get to zero emissions right away with present-day technologies, the individual Indian should have as much right to carbon space as the individual American or European. At this point, the average American emits 19 times as much carbon dioxide as the average Indian. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had offered that India's per-capita emissions rate will at no point exceed that of developed countries." This, the paper says, is a fair offer.
"Emissions have got to do with energy use, and energy use has to do with prosperity and quality of life . . . Those who have polluted more in the past and continue to pollute more now surely have the responsibility to make deeper cuts than developing countries. Anything else would amount to a form of environmental apartheid, with developed countries given a greater share of the environment's resources."
(click for bigger image)
[pic]
My comment
I don't support the idea of linking this issue with racism or calling it "apartheid". It is NOT. That is also hitting below the belt, and we should rise above such language. The issue is purely about science and basic rights to economic development.
Overall, therefore I support this position on two fundamental grounds:
a) CO2 has not been proven unambiguously to impose net costs; instead from what I can see, it almost certainly has net benefits.
b) It is ridiculous for "environmentalists" to pretend to care for "future generations" when India won't even have future generations – because its current generations will die from lack of amenities available through development today.
Let India become FULLY DEVELOPED first. Only then can (or should) anyone (including the Indian government) try to reduce India's carbon emissions.
Accordingly, the position at Marginal Revolution today is even more valid.
The brave warriors of science
1 David vs Goliath: Climate change ‘sceptics’ vs IPCC and world governments
This article is a must read: The Not-So-Vast Conspiracy (Stolen documents show the tiny budget of global warming skeptics)
The seekers for the truth in the the area of climate science are either ordinary honest professors like Ian Plimer (not funded by the billions or dollars of severely biased ‘climate science’ 'research' projects) or amateur scientists and economists who are running on a shoe-string budget, challenging the VAST discrepancy between theory and evidence.
Heartland Institute is budgeting $200,000 this year for "educational material suitable for K-12 students on global warming that isn't alarmist or overtly political". This pales in insignificance compared to the tens of millions of dollars spent by government, and by the $68.5 million spent by the World Wildlife Fund on "public education" alone.
In brief, it is a TOTAL myth that large businesses are funding the seekers of truth in the field of climate science. As always, big businesses are HANDS IN GLOVE with governments, for that's how they dip their snout into the billions of dollars worth of subsidies that are being funded in the name of climate change.
2 A man who liberated 10 million people from communism and poverty warns against climate change panic
Czech Republic, with a population of 10 million people, emerged from the erstwhile Czechoslovakia in 1993. Vaclav Klaus, known as the Thatcher of Central Europe, became its first Prime Minister (1992-1997). In 2003 he became its President, a position he currently holds.
"One of the most stable and prosperous of the post-Communist states, the Czech Republic has seen a growth of over 6% annually in the three years before outbreak of the recent global economic crisis." [Source]. Its per capita income is now 82 per cent of the European average. Not bad for a former communist economy.
This man's opinions therefore mean something.
He is currently on a holiday to Australia and spoke at the Australian National Press Club yesterday. A brilliant talk (see video below). His key points:
a) He convincingly refuted the need to panic about so-called "climate change". In particular, he destroyed the misguided application of close-to-zero discount rates, something also discussed extensively in an AER journal that examined the Stern Report – about two years ago.
[In passing, Janet Albrechtsen pointed out today how key Australian leaders are misquoting Thatcher's opinions to justify their fervour for climate change mitigation. Thatcher, after reviewing the facts, had changed her earlier opinion and by 2002 Thatcher wrote that she was “sceptical about the arguments about global warming”]
b) He showed why monetary unions are unstable (or can take 150 years to be integrated). This has significant implications for two-speed economies where broad-brush monetary policies end up harming non-resource rich states. In my view, a free banking system would eliminate such damage. At the minimum his arguments show why the Euro could well collapse in the coming years.
c) He showed that the leftists who promoted the panic-stricken ideas of the Club of Rome (with its false predictions regarding human population and starvation) are driving the climate change "ideology" (religion). To them humans are a problem.
d) He warned against the increasing centralisation of power by extra-national bodies (both in EU and UN), and how democratic rights of citizens are under threat.
Do listen to him. One hour only. Very enjoyable. A witty man, in an understated way.
Addendum
3 Strip Al Gore and IPCC of their Nobel Prize and give it to these people
The Norwegian Nobel Committee (elected by the Norwegian Parliament) made a HUGE mistake by awarding the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 to Al Gore and IPCC. It made its mistake because it had no Donna Laframboise to have independently scrutinised the entire literature and IPCC process.
But now we have Donna's book to educate us in great detail about the racket that is IPCC. And the sad fool that is Al Gore.
Strangely, we all (including me) have a natural tendency to give a wide berth to those who suggest they have something unique to tell us. Just because Donna is not a famous person I basically noted her work but then ignored it.
Only because of John Quiggin's capers and follies did I bother to download and read Donna's book. And now my eyes are wide open.
I now see the truth about "climate science" and IPCC in such clarity I can NEVER be deceived again by those who refer me to a so-called "consensus".
So it is clear that the Nobel Committee made a MAJOR mistake. They can make amends. It would be good if they can make amends and withdraw the prize from Al Gore and IPCC on grounds of FRAUD, but at least they should award a new Nobel prize to the following people/societies:
Donna Laframboise
Steve McIntyre
Ross R McKitrick
Roger Pielke Jr.
Paul Reiter
InterAcademy Council
Jason Johnstone
Garth Paltridge
Chris Landsea
Daniel B Botkin
Anthony Watts
John Christy
David Holland
There are probably many more whom I've missed. I'll add further names as and when I come across them.
You are welcome to send in your nominations!
It is a great pity that the media has failed to investigate the truth behind the RACKET that is IPCC. But now we all know.
IPCC, your game is over.
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