Sinking fast

Joshua

"Golly."

Careful! Remember what happened to Carol Thatcher when she used this word. You were already persona non grata at Little Green Footballs. This could really sink you. ;-)

Graeme

Melanie, I wondered when you were going to mention about the fact that there has been no global warming on earth since 1998. Apparently, the Met Office says the same thing.

Roger K

Truth has has nothing to do with Global Warming/Climate Change, it is a convenient vehicle which has been used to take the world in a certain direction. The totalitarian mind set behind it is the same as any extreme regime, 'as we take control we can beg, buy, threaten or extort the scientists, engineers or funding that we need.' When faced with this type of mind set which creates the agendas of various world leaders, which can be nothing more than a lust for power associated with another's socialist ideals but heading in the same direction, you don't need a conspiracy. Global Warming/Climate Change provides all this and more.
This is the present and very dangerous base that will destroy the engine of the world's industrial system. As important as the exposing of the moves of Obama or Islamist cause or the various wars and political expediencies around the world are, they become mere deck chair shuffling on the Titanic when compared with the goals of the climate alarmists. These will cripple the Western World bring in a world wide totalitarian government and in so doing cripple the freedoms we have taken so long to gain over the centuries world wide.

Occasional Ostrich

Yes, Graeme, but GW (or AGW) is going to get going again next year.

Oops, wee-ell - - - it didn't. Oh well, it'll get going in 2011.

Oops, wee-ell - - - I'm sure it'll get going some time, maybe.

Thumbnail

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2zaPCYgovg&feature=channel

this video is the first of five and shows AGW for what it is - a fraud. Gore won't publicly debate Lord Monckton, nor will Suzuki.

Noa Zrk

Melanie, if you're not careful you and Christopher Booker are going to be expelled for CC Denial to the North Pole to gain a permanent suntan and expire through dehydration and thirst.
Until then please carry on with the Samizdats. We can only hope and pray that one day, sanity will return to this much put upon land.

Tas

It's amazing to see a skeptical attitude slowly emerge. Is the media starting to lose faith in Darwin too? http://biblicalgeology.net/blog/archives/160

daniel maris

Who knows what the truth is but one thing is certain: the certitude of the global warming cult is completely unjustified.

But assuming carbon is the evil claimed, I really am an optimist. Electric cars are now completely feasible since the Japanese have developed automatic battery changing - which means their range is now limitless. And we now have the technology to generate electricity from non-carbon sources: wind, wave, solar, tidal, hydro, biomass and energy from waste. If necessary we can have clean coal. We also have improved technologies for energy storage. The future is definitely green.

Dixon

Mel:"What to do to save their reputations and glittering careers as Chief Scientists, Presidents of the Royal Society, Government Ministers for Climate Change, Failed US Presidential Candidates ..."

Uh oh! Does this mean Al Gore is about to no longer be a failed presidential candidate? Ie, suddenly president!

Dave,Edinburgh

Scare stories of melting ice etc. are bad enough, we've all heard it before and it's only to be expected in the run up to Copenhagen, but when Government funded outfits like "Act on CO2" begin to use Neuro-linguistic programming (BRAINWASHING) in UK adverts aimed at children, the time has come to call for the red card.

And why is it that this mental child abuse has not received even a mention in our own media, and it is left to another country to publish the shame of the UK's windmill obsessed politicians?

Shame, YES, for this is the headline the rest of the World sees:
"JUGEND DIENT DEM FUHRER !"

"Shameful Exploitation Of UK Children In Climate Propaganda"

Read the article translation in English, plus the comment by Hans Schreuder at:

http://klimabedrag.dk/indlen/82-shameful-exploit-of-uk-children-in-climate-propaganda

For those who have not seen this Climate Change nonsense go to:
YOU TUBE, ACT ON CO2 BEDTIME STORIES.

This form of mental brainwashing is a disgrace. That Government sponsors such Propaganda exposes the fact that there are no depths to which UK politicians and eco-mentalists will not sink to bend the public to their will.

I have already sent my complaint to the ASA.

These politicians, their lies and scaremongering must be stopped, if you care about your children being brainwashed by politicians,(and the whole damned bunch of them are all in the scam together), complain now to the ASA.

It is clear that Brown, Cameron, Clegg and their followers have ALL set their political agendas based on the expected revenues they will extort from the public through carbon trading, the fact that their collective agendas are based on a lie being irrelevant. As Stalin previously observed " A lie when told often enough, becomes the truth."

That politicians are set on a dangerous path is clearly obvious with plans already in review for the legalisation of euthanasia for a growing elderly (unproductive unit) population and the restoration of the Hitler Jugend as a method to control the rest of the public.

"Man-Made" Global Warming is not a threat, but the unfounded fear of it is, and if sanity is not restored, it could lead to the death of millions if not billions of people, mostly children, in underdeveloped countries.

The world is NOT about to run out of fossil fuels.

Adding CO2 to the atmosphere can NOT cause Global Warming, at it's current atmospheric concentration of 388 parts per million by volume or less than 4/100ths of 1%, the CO2 molecule has almost reached it's limit in it's ability to absorb radiation, so further increases of CO2 could at most cause a "theoretical" warming of at most a few 10ths of 1 degree C over the long term. This is why much higher known levels of CO2 eg. Ordovician Period, CO2 concentration 4,400ppmv, had temperatures about the same as today and caused no "runaway" warming, indeed the Ordovician period preceeded one of the World's major ice ages.

At concentrations over ~200ppmv CO2's ability to absorb radiation is almost exhausted so increasing the concentration further diminishes the heating effect, so that by the time we get to the last century’s increase from 280 to 388 ppmv, the effect is utterly trivial.

If politicians do not know this then they are at best incompetent, if however, they do know this then they are guilty of deception and should be held to account.

As Dr Richard S Courtney pointed out, the World population is expected to rise from the current ~6.5 billion to ~9 billion mid century, this extra 2+ billion souls will need additional food and power above the resources we already need, and where will it come from when the politicians and eco-mentalists close down power stations and convert much needed agricultural land for their bio-fuel and Carbon Trading nonsense instead of food production ?

The AGW hypothesis says that increased atmospheric CO2 concentration may increase global temperature but all - yes, ALL - empirical evidence concerning this denies the hypothesis.

Replacement of fossil fuels by wind and solar is not possible because the laws of physics do not allow it. (just try to plough a field using a Sinclair C5 as a tractor unit)

C. Gee

Tas:

If one applied the same standards of skepticism to AGW as to evolution, the former dies under the scrutiny, and the latter survives.

richard

Totally agree with the article but I have to say the idea of you calling someone else a "zealot" when they don't accept any evidence that contradicts their view is very funny.

David Elder, B.Sc.Hons

Graeme at 7:08 pm 15/10 refers to the year 1998. He says there has been no global warming since then. Indeed it is the warmest year on record globally (1934 is the US record). We do have to be a little careful in interpreting the 1998 result. There was a strong El Nino out in the Pacific that year, and that raises global temperatures. That is one reason why 1998 is the hottest year on record. It is a somewhat one-off thing. On the other hand, climate scientist Richard Lindzen says that there has been no significant global warming since the mid-1990s - about a decade and a half ago. This suggests that any global warming is hard to detect against natural variation. Such natural variation includes solar cycles and ocean cycles like the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. A natural cycle, the Arctic Oscillation, has a lot to do with the retreat of the Arctic ice: see ScienceDaily Dec 29, 2004. The ice is now growing back. As for Antarctica down to the south of me here in Australia: most of the Antarctic continent has not warmed since the 1970s. Only one small part has warmed, the Antarctic Peninsula; this sticks out towards South America and evidently encounters a warm current which explains its warming and melting. It is quite atypical of the continent. All this means of course that what we are hearing from Greens, media and even scientists - or IPCC envirocrats - is misleading and alarmist. Considering what we should do about any global warming should proceed rationally, not on the basis of panics induced by abuse of science. And don't believe that there is that greenhouse 'consensus'; most scientists agree that there will probably be some warming, but there is a lot of debate as to how serious this will be.

Frank P

Dave, Edinburgh.

"If politicians do not know this, then they are at best incompetent, if however, they do know this then they are guilty of deception and should be held to account."

By whom? We have just witnessed over the period of the last year or so the debacle of systematic, institutionalized fraud on the public exposed during the PoW expenses scandal and the attempt to cover it up by gagging the press. We are currently witnessing a carefully constructed whitewash of crimes that should have been prosecuted by police action using the instruments of statutory or common law. No such action has been taken because the police have now become a political arm of the government, having been denuded of their erstwhile discretion of the prosecutorial function - usurped by the CPS - a manifestly political entity.

The people who are perpetrating the 'deception' and fraud are the ones whose hands are on all the levers of power. The gross deceptions which you have so ably described are not only being cynically carried out by our politicians of all the main parties, but the conspiracy extends to most of the mainstream media, from where most people garner information on a haphazard basis and often subliminally through the carefully crafted propaganda of the Left of the political spectrum - present now in even those publications purporting to represent Conservative philosophy. Thus the majority of the electorate has been nobbled, so the deceptions will continue apace.

No political party has so far arisen (that cannot be attacked for either fascist or racist antecedents) to challenge the mainstream parties, all of which are involved in widespread multifaceted corruption. Any crooks exposed by the bloggers or the very small residual band of old style (mostly under-funded) investigative journalists, are elevated to the House of Lords to pick up their compensatory sinecure and piss-takers pension.

Melanie, who has been the most consistent journalists to draw attention to the infamy of the past four or five decades of the quickening pace of The Long March, has been vilified by most of her fellow journalists as ‘Mad Mel’ – accusations of the insanity of adversaries being the oldest ploy in the agitprop manual. As an ex-Guardian apostate she has been doubly reviled by the Sisterhood.

We are now a docile nation of credulous fools, fed on half a century of Gramsci-Frankfort School agitprop and ripe for plucking by the Comintern. And last January the USA electorate demonstrated that they have now evolved similarly.

The only outcome that could possibly save us now would involve a military coup; I doubt there is a pair of balls big enough in the UK military establishment to organize it. I have greater hope for the US where things are beginning to rumble as they realize that their new POTUS is the ‘Manchurian Candidate’ and they were had.

So what do you suggest Dave from Edinburgh? Your diagnosis is spot on – great post. Unfortunately your prescribed ‘medicine’ is not available on the National Health.

Mickey Bebe

The constant harping about the boost to CO2 density in the atmosphere from 280ppm to 380ppm in the last 200 years confuses people used to percentages. Why not say from 0.028% to 0.038%?

The case in its simplest boils down to this. The reflected radiation from the sun travels back at an infrared frequency - it gets absorbed by the greenhouse gasses - these pass it in a form of kinetic energy (molecule vibration) to other neighbouring molecules (mostly water vapours) – these in turn trap the heat and warm the earth.

Try and imagine how much more trapping there is now compared with 1800 if the density of CO2 increased by one hundredth of one percent, only 70% of the sun radiation reflects, and only 2% of the reflected radiation is absorbed by CO2, the key culprit.

Even one with the brain of a baboon should be able to figure that the infinitesimal increase in the trapped heat due to the current levels of CO2 just cannot kill life as we know it.

Girma

CO2 DRIVEN GLOBAL WARMING IS NOT SUPPORTED BY THE DATA

http://climaterealists.com/attachments/database/CO2DrivenGlobalWarmingClimateRealists.pdf

Gandolf I

I think the BBC should not get off so lightly. Given that we have funded the propagandist efforts of Messrs Roger Harrabin and David "Poshboy" Shukman as they scamper around the planet flying first class to whip up AGW hysteria, should they be forced to make a public apology... and then sacked? I think so.

badstephen

Just out of interest, exactly which kind of climate sceptic are you?

a. The climate isn't changing and man has nothing to do with it anyway
b. The climate is warming up but man has nothing to do with it (solar radiation, ocean currents etc)
c. The climate is warming up but this is a good thing
d. The climate was warming up but then it stopped in 1999
e. The climate is getting colder

There may be others I've missed - it's kind of like the People's Front of Judea/Judean People's Front out there. And where do you stand on the other sceptic factions? Are they as sadly deluded as the climate change advocates?

Dixon

Dave, Edinburgh rightly slams that ad. But its worse than he says. Firstly, AGW is itself pseudo-scientific. But if, as he says ( I didnt watch the ad but turned it off in disgust as soon as I clocked it ) the ad uses NLP, that means the ad is also endorsing one of the most ridiculous pseudo-scientific fads of the past fifty years. One so pseudo-scientific that its being so is of itself consensus.

Worse yet, when I saw the ad, I didnt note the time, but noticed that it seemed to be aimed at under-tens and was going out after eleven!

Or have I git that wrong. Is that how our environmentalist superiors think adults not of their ilk need to be addressed?

Bedstephen, on the other hand, has a point. The problem with being a non-conformist is the company we often end up keeping. Last night I saw a web-site which reported the decade of cooling and linked this to a claim that teaching evolution was part of a government plot.

A variety of views is a healthy sign, which is one reason a "consensus" in science is always an indication that institutional power or cultural fashion is drowning debate. But I dont want to get into any bed that has a "creationist" in it!

Frank P

If anyone is interested in further serious research and informed comment on the subject of AGW I recommend the following website:

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=7437#more-7437

Picked up from Mark Steyn's pages.

john east

I used to work in the R&D dept. of a multinational, and one of my duties was to liase with university professors who were seeking funding grants from my company. I quickly learned that a bigger bunch of cheesy fakes who would say anything to get their money would be difficult to find.

"Professor" once dignified an individual who had achieved excellence within their chosen field. Today this epithet more often signifies someone who has charmed their way up the greasy academic pole.

But let's not be too hard on them. Modern leading businessmen, and politicians are often no better.

Frank P

Good to see you back John East; thought you had popped your clogs. Nice to have another Daily Ablutionist back in circulation. Or maybe you are not he?

john east

Yes, Frank, it's good to be back, particularly as I'm more fired up than ever concerning global warming. I don't deny it may be happening, or even that it may be anthropomorphic, but I just cannot stand all those who are profitting from this new religion, and their flock who blindly follow the faith.

Robbins Mitchell

Some years ago I read that one of the best measures to determine if the Arctic was warming or cooling was to count the number of frost free days on Canada's northernmost Ellesmere Island...I have not seen any report of that during this decade...my hunch is that the 'warmistas' know full well that there have been on frost free days there for the last 10 years or so and that is one of the last things they want known or reported on...quite possibly that is the reason Ellesmere Island is no longer in the news as of late.

Hanson Felbo

Here in New England we woke up this morning to freezing temperatures, snow flurries and a dusting of snow on the ground...and it's only October 16th.

Augustus

The reason why the media has, in general, uncritically accepted the results of the bogus 'scientific consensus' of global warming, and over-hyped the human aspects of the threat is because this makes for better press than simply saying that what we experience is natural climate change. Ask ten people on the street anywhere if mankind's activities are causing global warming, and probably eight will say yes. This is because all those scientists, environmentalists, politicians, and media folk all want to profit in some way from the general public's lack of knowledge on the topic, so they have distorted the subject out of all sensible proportion.

It must be obvious to anyone giving the matter only a moment's clear thought that global temperatures have always fluctuated and will continue to do so regardless of how many human greenhouse gases are put into the atmosphere. It's about time that all those global climate models on which these warming scenarios were based are now shown to have many flaws, and that they have been guilty of unrealistic enhancement of the warming influence of CO2. These modelers, who have been living so long in a virtual world of their own, seem to have been actually isolated from the real world of weather and climate. And it seems quite likely that, in about a generation's time, the world will look back on these decades of global warming hysteria, as we now look back on the trendy scientific ideas that have not stood the test of time. Especially if the next 30 years mirrors the modest cooling period of the years between the mid-1940s to the mid-1970s. A cooling which was primarily the result of changes in the Earth's deep ocean circulation.

DocForesight

"Does man-made global warming only affect the top bit of the planet but not the bottom, perhaps?"

Yes, silly! Hot air rises, don't you know? Heck, even the vaunted scientist Al Gore knows that one!

badstephen

Dixon, thanks for getting it. I suspect, ultimately, we are on opposite sides of the argument. However, there are voices on my side which I find as shrill and ugly as you obviously do on yours. To shout down anyone who has doubts as a "denier" helps no-one at all. Likewise, it's equally unhelpful to present climate change as some kind of corrupt, monolithic hoax that brooks no dissent. What you actually have, on both sides, is a bunch of guys wrestling with mountains of data on a complex subject and doing their honest level best to work out what is (or is not)going on. It would be nice to let them get on with on it and put the shouters on both sides (and yes, I do mean you Melanie) on an island somewhere. My choice would be the Maldives for the next 60 years, but that's just the malicious warmista in me.

Steve Case

Global Warming could return tomorrow morning and you know what? All the arguments about it hasn't, isn't, won't and can't warm up because of blah blah blah become horribly and without question moot. What needs to be addressed is the "Big Lie"!

The "Big Lie" is the notion that "Global Warming" would be a catastrophe of unimaginable consequences!" That just simply is not true. A warmer world by nearly all measures would be a better world. Longer growing seasons, more rain, warmer weather, not to mention that CO2 enhancement of crop yields. Get together a focus group and objectively add up the pros and cons of a warmer world, and warmer wins by a landslide! That "Global Warming" has been sold as a catastrophe is in terms of propaganda a "Big Lie" an award winning accomplishment.

This "Big Lie" needs to be confronted head on. When people come to the realization that a warmer world is not to be feared, the entire issue of "Global warming" will simply blow away.

Squirrel

According to NASA Mars and Venus are also experiencing global warming. I suppose their GW Is man made too

Finzi Holst

badstepehn wrote: "What you actually have, on both sides, is a bunch of guys wrestling with mountains of data on a complex subject and doing their honest level best to work out what is (or is not)going on."

You ARE having a laugh, right? There is nothing "honest" about those who lead AGW crowd. They are in it for power and money, and they use scare tactics, effluvium, spume, vitriol as well as "scientific" whores on the make to put forth the corruptible as incorruptible.

The Great Global Warming Swindle, aside from being a great documentary, is a very appropriate name for the foul practice of AGWs and those who have hopped on the bandwagons to line their pockets or increase their power.

By the way, thank you Dave in Edinburgh and Frank P for your excellent posts.

Dave,Edinburgh

Frank P
October 16th, 2009 10:18am

I agree with every word in your post and must confess I do not have an answer. It does seem at present that the US population value freedom and their rights more than the majority of the UK population who just meekly accept every piece of nonsense touted by politicians and the media as if it had just come down from the mount on tablets of stone.

I had the illusion that when the public finally wake up to the fact that they have been conned, they will rise against the perpetrators and establish honest government "elected by the people, to serve the people" and all that, but now, after reading your post, I feel more like Winston Smith, expecting the midnight knock and a quick visit to room 101, (just show me the rats in the cage and I will believe enything.)

So what to do next? I don't want my kids to grow up in an Orwellian society, reporting me to the "Thought Police" every time I turn up the central heating or use a bulb strong enough to read with, No thanks, but for now I'll go overfill my kettle while they sleep as a mark of silent protest and wait in hope for sanity to return.

Larry in Tel Aviv

There's actually a connection between the AGW hysteria of the Left (originally a conservative Thatcherite agenda oh the irony) and other leftwing idiocies, like their dhimmitude and anti-Semitism. I know this sounds strange, and in order to explain I would need to write a whole article, at the least.

I can't explain this in a blog comment, but overly briefly, AGW hysteria is rooted in PC-blame the white man and the corporation and esp Amerikkka for ecological catastrophe so we can ignore the role of the whole world, esp the Third World in very real ecological disasters - the catasrophic deforestation in Africa, Asia, Latin America - the elephant in the room, the PPE spiral, loss of fresh water sources etc etc -the very real sixth extinction in other words. AGW hysteria allows us to be distracted from these very real ecological disasters and puts the focus on the evil corporation and the West ie fossil fuel emissions - it's all very PC.

What does this have to do with dhimmitude? Well the odious mentality of 'blame the West for Muslim extremist terror and the greedy Jews who control Amerikka and the evil corporations Halliburton, the banks etc' of the Guardian-reading public (rather than holding those responsible for jihad..responsible for jihad) - feeds off the same PC nonsense, blame the West and the corporations for everything that is wrong. Ignore the real big problems, in this case the sixth (man-made) extinction and the Jihad respectively since these are pervasive horrors in the Third World, and that doesn't fit into the evil white man and the corporation is responsible for all ill and the non-Western world is all innocent and brutalised by the West blabla.

This way the Left can in both cases respectively, ignore the very real catastrophes of overpopulation, deforestation, polluted slums of Africa, Asia and Latin America, the corruption of their govts etc AND the home-grown jihads around the world and its real roots. It doesn't fit into their world-view of blame ourselves for the ills of the world and the moral relativism that goes with it, so the facts be damned in both cases.

The connections in this regard are obviously more complicated, there are other cultural/sociological, political, economic factors at work that I have not even alluded to - in both cases; including the big money financial scams, lobbying and the like wrt NGOs and govts in both the AGW swindle and the pro-Palestinian NGO groups - this is complicated and I can't cover it here.

AGW hysteria feeds on itself, becoming more and more ridiculous and over-hyped with the passing of time and contrary to real science, just like the anti-Israelism ie anti-Semitism and pro-jihad mentality of the Left, over time it too has become more hysterical, fever-pitched and in-your-face. The truth outs, the mask of the anti-Zionism of the Left has started to slip in their increasingly undisguised Judenhass, more and more they speak openly and contemptuously of the Jews, often not bothering to hide behind the cover terms of anti-Israelism and anti-Zionism. Like AGW hysteria, their anti-Semitism and support for the jihad against the Jews feeds on itself, increasing in fever-pitch over time, becoming more nakedly ugly, alarming and delusional with every passing month.

It is no coincidence that the blood libel of the Golstone Report endorsed by the UNHRC is of course tied up intrinsically to the UN, an organisation dedicated to the destruction of Israel and Islamic hegamony and at the same time the UN is pushing AGW hysteria through the UNIPCC, there are multiple reasons for this; but the fact is the UN is leading the way in pushing for Israel's destruction and AGW policies that are predicated on pseudoscience and thus will be nothing but disastrous in their consequences.

As Al Gore is to AGW, so Goldstone is to anti-Israelism disguises as human rights. On blaming AGW for the Taliban, this proves the point I am making and is entirely appropriate. Namely the mentality that sees the Left blame Islamic terror and extremism on the West is inseperable from the mentality behind AGW, so naturally elements on the Left eventually - entirely unwittingly - link Islamic terror to AGW.

Human folly and deceit in all its myriad forms are not distinct follies and barbarities, they may appear so on the surface, but underneath, when you start digging, all human delusion is interrelated and associated. On the flip side, the beauty of nature in all its myriad forms and varieties is interrelated and interdependant. So too it goes with human ignorance.

Fergus Pickering

Re Professors. Many years ago, about forty actually, I got a job helping a friend with his Ph.d. It involved drawing maps showing the 14th century distribution of different pronounciations of certain words, taking them to the central computer asnd getting them back the next day. After about three weeks it became clear to me that our research was totally screwed (to use a technical word). I said this to mmt frienbd. He agreed. 'Don't worry though,' he said, 'You only got the job to use aup the money. If the prof didn't use it up he wouldn't get it next year.' So now you know why there are so many silly bits of research ongoing. It was good for me. I needed the money.

Neil Craig

No matter if the science is all phoney, there are collateral environmental benefits.... climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.”
Christine Stewart
Canadian Environment Minister

HJowever just because this scare story collapses doesn't mean truth wins. We had an ice age scare in the 1970s & when it warmed many of these people, with exactly the same solution, that technology is evil & must be destroyed, took up the new scare. Meanwhile, as with the anti-nuclear scare, regulations & regulatory bodies which were created at the height of the scare take on a life of their own.

The underlying problem is, as Mencken so profoundly said "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

murph

As Mark Steyn says, show me a single AGW model which predicted the global cooling which has occurred since 1998 and I'll give you a gold star. AGW is the greatest scientific fraud of modern times.

seanie

1998 may've been the hottest individual year on record (although possibly exceeded by 2005) but average global temperatures have still risen since then.

The last five years have been warmer than the five before, which in turn were warmer than the five before that.

When average temperatures go up, that's called warming.

Dave,Edinburgh

seanie
October 17th, 2009 5:43pm
"The last five years have been warmer than the five before, which in turn were warmer than the five before that."

Can you please give a link to the site that shows the warming you quote.

The only graph I have seen with an upward trend is the IPCC nonsense of what their Climate models predicted.

ALL empirical data shows a steady temperature reduction since 2002, the SPPO data shows the trend is Global COOLING at 4.3 F (2,4 C per century) page 9 of pdf (as at July 2009, more recent graphs show the downward trend continues.)

For Real data as opposed to IPCC fiction download and read the PDF from:

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/co2_report_july_09.pdf

Robert Lynn

This is great news for Canadians.

Robin

Seanie - and your hypothesis is supported by which figures?

An excellent read is the slim but revealing book "The Deniers" by Solomon. Stuffed full of science by scientists it is an extremely challenging book.

Roy Gould

Just a thought but do I detect a step change at BBC News with regard to Climate Change? Over the last week Auntie has twice mentioned that people are questioning the “consensus” that CO2 is the big bad wolf. First Paul Hudson on 9th Oct on the BBC website actually had the guts to say that Scientists think that the Sun may have a lot to do with Global Warming and then on Saturday’s PM on Radio Four there was a report that Farmers in Australia think that Man Made Global Warming was a load of old bunkum.

Could this be the beginning of the end of this nonsense – is it sinking in, at last, that paying out £61 Billion a year to pay for this myth is a step too far?? Let’s hope so!!

Patrick Neid

from the BBC article....

"So what can we expect in the next few years?
Both sides have very different forecasts. The Met Office says that warming is set to resume quickly and strongly.

It predicts that from 2010 to 2015 at least half the years will be hotter than the current hottest year on record (1998)."

Well this makes it easy. We shall see very soon.

Frank S

The scope for being selective (see 'seanie' here and repeated ad nauseam in comments at The Scotsman site) about temperature trends is illustrated here: http://masterresource.org/?p=5240

The AGW saga is a huge disgrace for all involved. The only possible benefit will be increased insight into human credulity.

seanie

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3gl.txt

The HADCRU anomalies averaged over five year periods.

1994-1998: + 0.296
1999-2003: + 0.382
2004-2008: + 0.416

So the most recent five year period is warmer than the previous five years, which itself is warmer than the period before that.

seanie

The scope for natural variability, year to year, is far greater than the underlying warming trend. Variability day to day and month to month is even greater than annual variability, making short term predictions HARDER than longer term ones. So deriving trends across short periods is essentially meaningless; even five year averages aren't necessarily going to show consistent warming. Natural events such as a La Nina or a major volcanic eruption could result in a significant temporary cooling that drives the average down. But even that would not be inconsistent with an underlying warming trend, because such effects are temporary.

The simplest way to filter out the 'noise' of natural variation and identify any trend is to average out temperatures in some way. There are various ways to do it, with varying degrees of complexity, but it's a perfectly straightforward and entirely valid way of interpreting the data that itself doesn't 'promote' any particular result. It just filters out the noise.

So, knowing that, look at the HADCRU and GISS graphs showing 'smoothed' or averaged temperatures.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/gtc2008.pdf

In both cases, is the average temperature (as represented by the smoothed average) higher now than ten years ago?

Yes it is.

c

Ignore seanie, it's a 'Guardian' sprite, one of George's bootlickers. It's always harping on & on & on about global warming. Don't believe a word of it's diatribe. It's an IPPC stooge, it probably works there.

seanie

I just pointed out that the last five years have been warmer than the five before, which in turn were warmer than the five before that.

You can check it out yourself. All that's required is the ability to add and divide.

The GISS anomalies;

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt

The HADCRO anomalies;

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3gl.txt

The first decade of the 21st century is easily going to be the hottest decade in the instrumental record.

That's a funny sort of cooling trend.

Dave,Edinburgh

IS THIS THE DIRTY SECRET BEHIND THE AGW SCAM?

It's a done deal that UK incompetents will sign at Copenhagen, So is our future to be as George Orwell Predicted in his novel 1984?

Listen to Lord Christopher Monkton's report and make up your own mind: go to you tube, search:

Is Obama Poised to Cede US Sovereignty?

Roy Gould

Monday 19th Oct - AM

Have just read that our beloved PM is to address some body or other today and say that if we don't mend our ways in the next couple of minutes we are all going to drown. I have a vision of Gordy standing on top of a mountain shouting "The end is nigh!!" He will have a very red face when Sarah calls him down for his tea!!

stepney

Do you know in the 9600 odd deviations from the current day climatic norm which have happened over the last 200 million years (and some of them were really severe - ice sheets as far south as central France, 12 degrees centigrade higher than now), not one of them has ever threatened the end of the planet. You see Milliband et al are not in the business of saving the planet - the planet generally takes care of itself thank you very much, they are in the business of feeling good about themselves.
Climate change? It happens.
You may as well try and stop the tide coming in.

michael

Crap science: Good scientists hate it.

They tend not to shut up either.

seanie

The GISS anomalies;

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt

The anomalies averaged over five year periods.

1994-1998: + 0.38
1999-2003: + 0.45
2004-2008: + 0.53

So the most recent five year period is warmer than the previous five years, which itself is warmer than the period before that.

Charlie

Dave, Edinburgh suggested looking at this PDF document.

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/co2_report_july_09.pdf

The graph on page 5of this document says that there is a global warming trend equivalent to 1.5 degrees C per year, although it undershoots the IPCC's current predictions.

The caption says:

"Global temperature for the past 29 full years has been undershooting the IPCC’s currently-predicted warming rates (pink region). The warming trend (thick red line) has been rising at well below half of the IPCC’s central estimate. Data source: SPPI index, compiled from HadCRUt3, RSS, and UAH."

This is still a warming trend, no? So Dave, Edinburgh's suggested data source would seem to support seanie's argument that there is a warming trend.

The argument then becomes whether or not such a trend is problematic; and if so, how is it problematic?

Dave,Edinburgh

Charlie
October 19th, 2009 6:36pm
"This is still a warming trend, no? So Dave, Edinburgh's suggested data source would seem to support seanie's argument that there is a warming trend".

This "warming trend" that is much touted by the AGW believers began when the World started to come out from the LIA, and continued (with "wiggles") till c 1998 when it leveled till 2002, since 2002 it has shown a temperature reduction "trend" that continues to the present. So in reality there has been NO measurable warming since 1988.

The problem here is that the warming "trend" may not indicate anything other than a natural cycle as it obviously began long before industrialisation and the heavy use of fossil fuels.
Also, to refer to a c30 year observation as a "trend" is itself misleading, as much longer time periods are required before a trend can be established, and it does not follow that this recent warming has anything to do with human use of fossil fuels.

The Earth is constrained within close limits of global temperature in each of two stable states; viz. glacial and interglacial. And its temperature has been the same within narrow bounds in each of those stable states throughout the ~2.5 billion years since the Earth gained an oxygen-rich atmosphere.

Importantly, the Earths surface has had liquid water throughout that time, but heating from the Sun has increased by about 30% over that time. If that additional radiative forcing from the Sun had a direct effect on temperature then the oceans would have boiled to steam long ago.

Clearly, the climate system contains very strong constraints that keep global temperature within close boundaries in each of the two stable states.

The climate system is seeking an equilibrium that it never achieves. The Earth obtains radiant energy from the Sun and radiates that energy back to space. The energy input to the system (from the Sun) may be constant (although some doubt that), but the rotation of the Earth and its orbit around the Sun ensure that the energy input/output is never in perfect equilbrium.

The climate system is an intermediary in the process of returning (most of) the energy to space (some energy is radiated from the Earths surface back to space). And the Northern and Southern hemispheres have different coverage by oceans. Therefore, as the year progresses the modulation of the energy input/output of the system varies. Hence, the system is always seeking equilibrium but never achieves it.

Such a varying system could be expected to exhibit oscillatory behaviour. And it does. Mean global temperature (n.b. global and not hemispheric temperature) rises by 3.8 degC from January to July and falls by 3.8 degC from July to January each year.

Please note that the highest global temperature is when the Earth is furthest from the Sun during each year and, therefore, it is an empirical fact that mechanisms within the climate system have much more effect on global temperature than change to incoming vs outgoing radiation.

And I wonder why some people think a rise of global temperature of 2 degC would pass a catastrophic tipping point when global temperature rises by nearly double that during each year and recovers within the same year, and it does this every year.

Annual oscillations could induce harmonic effects which have periodicity of several years. Indeed, it would be surprising if such harmonic effects did not occur. Of course, such harmonic oscillation would be a process that - at least in principle - is capable of evaluation. And assessment of that process may indicate frequencies of observed oscillations (i.e. NAO, PDO, etc.).

It is interesting to note that there is an apparent oscillation with a frequency of ~60 years because mean global temperature is estimated to have cooled from ~1880 to ~1910, then warmed to ~1940, then cooled to ~1970, then warmed to 1998, and has cooled since then. It is tempting to speculate that this ocillation is a harmonic effect.

However, there may be no process because the climate is a chaotic system. Therefore, the observed oscillations (i.e. NAO, PDO, etc. and the 60 year oscillation) could be observation of the system seeking its chaotic attractor(s) in response to its seeking equilibrium in a changing situation.

Very importantly, there is an apparent ~900 year oscillation that caused the Roman Warm Period (RWP), then the Dark Age Cool Period (DACP), then the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), then the Little Ice Age (LIA), and the present warm period (PWP).

All the observed rise of global temperature in the twentieth century could be recovery from the LIA that is similar to the recovery from the DACP to the MWP. And the ~900 year oscillation could be the chaotic climate system seeking its attractor(s). If so, then all global climate models and attribution studies utilized by IPCC and CCSP are based on the false premise that there is a force or process causing climate to change when no such force or process exists.

Furthermore, harmonic oscillation and chaotic attractor seeking may both occur.
(My thanks to Dr Richard S Courtney for giving me the above observations.)

The question that remains is does CO2 cause dangerous warming? and the answer is NO. At it's current concentration of 388ppmv, in geological terms the earth's atmosphere is CO2 impoverished. eg.Ordovican Period, CO2 concentration 4,400ppmv, temperatures about the same as today and caused no runaway warming. Why not? because it is an empirical fact that the narrow band of energy radiated by the Earth in the range of 14.77microns that can be affected by CO2 has already been over 90% affected at the current concentration of 388ppmv, so any further increases in concentration; even a quadrupling of CO2 does not have the energy available to it to cause warming of more than a few tenths of one degree C over the long term. Increasing the CO2 concentration further diminishes the heating effect, so for any increase from the current 388 ppmv level, the effect is utterly trivial.

Hope this helps, Dave.

seanie

Except of course that the last five years have been warmer than the five before, which in turn were warmer than the five before them.

seanie

The HADCRU data smoothed and unsmoothed;

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/gtc2008.csv

The smoothed average going back to 1988.

1988 - 0.122
1989 - 0.136
1990 - 0.149
1991 - 0.162
1992 - 0.177
1993 - 0.194
1994 - 0.215
1995 - 0.24
1996 - 0.267
1997 - 0.295
1998 - 0.323
1999 - 0.348
2000 - 0.37
2001 - 0.389
2002 - 0.403
2003 - 0.413
2004 - 0.419
2005 - 0.42
2006 - 0.419
2007 - 0.415
2008 - 0.411

You'll see it has dropped from the highpoint in 2005 but it's higher than the start of the century and the figures towards the end of the series are increasingly provisional. Given the temperature in 2008 was depressed by a strong La Nina, the smoothed anomaly will most likely be revised upwards over the next few years.

seanie

If you look at those unsmoothed figures again, and average them out over decades, you'll find that the last decade of the 20th century is the warmest complete decade in the instrumental record.

1991-2000 averaged 0.242°C above the 61-90 baseline.

So far this century, 2001-2008, is averaging at 0.428°C above the baseline.

It's a very, very safe bet that the first decade of the 21st century will end up the warmest since records began.

seanie

So no, there's no evidence yet of any change in the long-term warming trend identified.

The year-to-year scope of natural variability greatly exceeds that long-term trend, so average temperatures won't rise in a monotonic fasion, with each year warmer than the last. And that natural variability means that a cooling "trend" might appear over a number of years.

But trends in climate, because of the 'noise' of natural variability, only become apparent over longer periods.

As things stand the 'peak' in smoothed temperatures, filtering out the 'noise', occured in 2005.

But there's no reason at all to think that the trend of increasing average global temperature has let up.

Niall

The global warming scam will run and run because it is one of those matters that both left and right agree on albeit for different reasons.

The left want to propagate the scam as they dream of a return to an agrarian paradise year zero style where capitalism is banished and anarcho syndicalism is the only possible political system.

The right want to propagate the scam as it enables governments to tax us to the hilt and tell us it for our own good.

No way out really.

BrianSJ

The good news is that Jonah Gordon Brown has become an AGW enthusiast. That should sink the movement without trace.

The bad news is what will become of Western science. Will science survive?

Wolf

http://www.pnas.org/content/102/12/4397.full?sid=260dcd7c-1c18-4cd4-9593-7c670f369070
These data show that striking and often unprecedented ecological changes have occurred within the last ≈150 years, following several millennia of relatively stable communities.
I suggest you read this before joining the cooling zealots!
"Does man-made global warming only affect the top bit of the planet but not the bottom, perhaps?"is hardly a scientific question and once again confirms that you should stick to defending neocon ideas.

Charlie

"Hope this helps, Dave."

Not really. My point was that the source you recommended as "Real data" shows that there is a warming trend (for whatever reason) and my question was whether or not it matters.

If the world is getting warmer, do we assume that this will be problematic and that we therefore need somehow to adapt; or do we assume that it's not problematic, and that we don't need to worry?

I suppose another question would be: on what should we base our assumptions?

Neil Craig

The links for claimed warming are giss & cru. GISS the Goddard institute) run by warming alarmist, & previous ice age alarmist, James Hansen whose measurement have been proven counter factual. CRU (UK climate research unit) having refused to hand over the data on which their results were allegedly based on the grounds that somebody would want to disprove them (a reason which is anathema to all the principles of science) then said all their data had been mislaid. The very nicest thing that can be said about that is that their results are scientifically worthless.

The fact is that the globe is cooling & has been since 1998 & that by the best records we gave 1998 wasn't the warmest year anyway - 1933 was.

It is simply no longer possible for any remotely honest politician to calim the existence of catastrophic warming & no remotely honest one does.

Dave,Edinburgh

The Question surely is not about temperatures but rather "is human use of fossil fuels causing (or could cause) "unprecedented" warming."

That temperatures have been rising since the LIA is not in dispute and my own reading of satellite, ice sheet, glacial data etc. is overwhelmingly that "anomalous" warming is continuing. The fact that arctic sea ice has reached minima during a period of low solar output only reinforces this view.

Why "anomalous"? The arctic ice has come and gone over millenia. An ice-covered arctic sea is actually itself anomalous.

That current temperature levels are correctly observed to be falling, does not prove that the warming trend that ended the LIA has ended as a period of only 8 years is not long enough to make a valid assessment. Equally rising temperatures of a few 10ths of a degreeC over a 5, 10 or 15 year period do not indicate a new warming trend. One can only make an observation as to whether temperatures are "on track" (within expected oscillations) or show signs of unexpected deviation. If temperatures reach those of even the medieval warm period it will still be nothing new, nothing to be alarmed about and certainly not caused by CO2.

So what if Greenland becomes green again, the Vikings and polar bears handled it pretty well, as far as I am aware.

As temperature graphs show high and low temperatures with an average or trend line roughly in the middle, higher or lower spikes or dips can be called "outliers" and do not indicate a change of trend. Thus, although the present observed cooling makes a downward dip in a nice neat graph, it does not mean that a new trend is occurring as warming highs may soon cancell out your lows and the trend is still upwards.If however, over a period of at least 20 years, your lows and highs become lower than the previous trend, then one can say that a new trend may have been observed.

It is all too easy when trying to make a point, to ignore outliers when they are colder than the norm, and say that outliers that are warmer than the norm is evidence of Global Warming. Sorry but the Climate just does'nt work like that, except inside IPCC computers of course.

The significance here, however, is that combined with the lack of warming since 1998 we'll soon have 20 years without an increase in global temperatures. Not one of the IPCC's climate models predicts 20 years without an increase in global temperatures. This information should raise serious doubts about the reliability of the climate models that are used to predict the drastic warming scenarios.

One final observation. The current warming trend that ended the LIA began before mankind's industrial use of fossil fuels, so CO2 could not have been the trigger that started the warming, just as the ending of previous ice ages could not be down to Og the Clever in his 4x4, therefore CO2 has never at any time been a main driver of Global Warming.

The AGW hypothesis says that increased atmospheric CO2 concentration may increase global temperature but all - yes, ALL- empirical evidence concerning this denies the hypothesis.

Only the evidence counts in science. What anybody believes or thinks is trumped by the evidence.

What you, me or anybody else thinks "SHOULD" happen is of no importance. Reality is what it is, so the climate does what it does. And the climate system is not capable of responding to what anybody thinks it "SHOULD" do.

seanie

"The fact is that the globe is cooling & has been since 1998 & that by the best records we gave 1998 wasn't the warmest year anyway - 1933 was."

Nope.

Average temperatures have risen since 1998.

The last five years were warmer than the five before, which in turn were warmer than the five before that.

When average temperatures go up, that's called warming.

And if you insist on parroting standard denialist misinformation, at least stick to the approved script.

You're meant to insist 1934 was the hottest year, not 1933.

Although I suppose it doesn;t matter much since either claim would be equally false.

seanie

The warming trend continues.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas. It's physical properties and role as such have been accepted science for over a century; since about 1860.

CO2 levels have risen signifcantly since the onset of industrialisation; from around 280ppm to around 385ppm. There is no scientific dispute on this.

That increase is due to human activity. We know this from the entirely uncontroversial fact that burning fossil fuels creates CO2, and the equally obvious fact that we've been burning a lot of fossil fuels since the onset of industrialisation.

The isotopic signature of CO2 in the atmosphere also confirms this.

That an increase in C02 should generally lead to an increase in temperature is not some wild and extravagant speculation. It's exactly what accepted scientific understanding tells us to expect.

It might be possible that there is some completely unknown and as yet to be discovered mechanism that is responsible for the warming trend. But that seems unlikely since we'd also have discover some hitherto completely unknown reason why the increase in CO2 isn't causing it.

Because basic physics tells us it should be.

Dave,Edinburgh

seanie
October 20th, 2009 8:24pm

"That an increase in C02 should generally lead to an increase in temperature is not some wild and extravagant speculation. It's exactly what accepted scientific understanding tells us to expect."

RUBBISH,

It is an empirical fact that the narrow band of energy radiated by the Earth in the range of 14.77microns THAT CAN BE AFFECTED by CO2 has already been over 90% affected at the current
concentration of 388ppmv, so any further increases in concentration; even a quadrupling of CO2 does not have the energy available to it to cause warming of more than a few tenths of one degree C over the long term.

TEMPERATURE TRENDS JAN.1979 through JUNE 2009

A new paper from NCASI seems to cover the cooling vs warming nonsense, with nice new graphs, here is the abstract:

Global satellite data is analyzed for temperature trends for the period January 1979 through June 2009. Beginning and ending segments show a cooling trend, while the middle segment evinces a warming trend. The past 12 to 13 years show cooling using both satellite data sets, with lower confidence limits that do not exclude a negative trend until 16 to 22 years. It is shown that several published studies have predicted cooling in this time frame. One of these models is extrapolated from its 2000 calibration end date and shows a good match to the satellite data, with a projection of continued cooling for several more decades.
Analysis of the satellite data shows a statistically significant cooling trend for the past 12 to 13 years, with it not being possible to reject a flat trend (0 slope) for between 16 and 23 years. This is a length of time at which disagreement with climate models can no longer be attributed to simple LTP. (Long Term Persistence) On the other hand, studies cited herein have documented a 50-70 year cycle of climate oscillations overlaid on a simple linear warming trend since the mid-1800s and have used this model to forecast cooling beginning between 2001 and 2010, a prediction that seems to be upheld by the satellite and ocean heat content data. Other studies made this same prediction of transition to cooling based on solar activity indices or from ocean circulation regime changes. In contrast, the climate models predict the recent flat to cooling trend only as a rare stochastic event. The linear warming trend in these models that is obtained by subtracting the 60–70 yr cycle, while unexplained at present, is clearly inconsistent with climate model predictions because it begins too soon (before greenhouse gases were elevated) and does not accelerate as greenhouse gases continue to accumulate. This model and the empirical evidence for recent cooling thus provide a challenge to
climate model accuracy. Download the full NCASI PDF. at:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/20/study-model-in-good-agreement-with-satellite-temperature-data-suggest-cooling/#more-11900

seanie

The scientific consensus on climate sensitivity is that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 levels would result in a 3°C rise in temperature.

There are considerable uncertainties in that, particulalry in regard to both positive and negative feedbacks, but even the low estimates are an order of magnitude larger than what you're suggesting.

Elliott -Chicago

And you think you Brits have it bad…we (the US) are trying to corner the market on absolutely insane policies regarding carbon dioxide...you know, that poisonous gas we all exhale…that same awful stuff that’s necessary for life to exist on this planet (AKA plant food).

Our Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is now the Green arm of the Obama Administration. EPA scientists are being pressured not to pursue any “scientific” evidence that may complicate the Administrations pursuit of an “endangerment finding” from the EPA on CO2. Evidently, any UN IPCC report is considered the Bible for the EPA’s AGW religion. What does this mean? Well, an “endangerment finding” will trigger a tidal wave of regulations on all carbon dioxide production. Not sure if the Obama Administration will be able to take down Mother Nature, who is responsible for 97% of all carbon dioxide produced. But the results are as predictable as the sun rising in the East: massive amounts of cash will flow from the productive private sector to our corrupt, unproductive (and bankrupt) government. But if the idea of the US government using AGW as an excuse to destroy the economic future for you, your family, and the rest of the people you love rubs you the wrong way, particularly since the whole thing is a hoax, just remember it’s for your own good.

Dave,Edinburgh

seanie
October 20th, 2009 10:26pm

"The scientific consensus on climate sensitivity is that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 levels would result in a 3°C rise in temperature."

OK, let's examine your statement, first WHAT scientific "consensus", it does not exist. On top of the scientists who have signed the Oregon Petition (over 31,000) against the theory of AGW, a further 750+ scientists, expert in their respective fields of Climate science, Thermodynamics, geo. science Oceanography etc, AND MANY FROM THE IPCC have also signed the US Senate minority petition against the theory of AGW.

THERE IS DISSENT, THEREFORE THERE IS NO CONSENSUS.

Next look at your rediculous claim that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 levels would result in a 3°C rise in temperature, ABSOLUTE RUBBISH,
As I have already stated the CO2 molecule at it's current atmospheric concentration of 388ppmv has almost reached it's maximum level in it's ability to absorb radiation, any further increase could at best produce a "theoretical" warming of no more than a few 10ths of 1degreeC over the long term.

Next let's look at the "scientists" who promote this nonsense, and how it came about in the first place. First there is Michael Mann, responsible for the creation of MBH98 known as the "hockey stick" that became the "logo" of Global Warming" used by Gore in his Inconvenient cartoon, and all subsequent alarmist propaganda.Now, like the theory of AGW nonsense, the "hockey stick" lies in tatters as THE MOST DISCREDITED PIECE OF JUNK SCIENCE IN HISTORY.

Then we come to the UK's part in the debacle, Scientists connected to the UK Met Office, its Hadley Centre in Exeter and the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at University of East Anglia stand accused of manipulating data to fabricate evidence of "Global Warming" The CRU data formed the basis for the IPCC’s “we’re all doomed” reports; their scientists - among them Professor Phil Jones and tree ring expert Professor Keith Briffa - are supporters of Mann’s Hockey Stick theory and of the computer models showing inexorably rising temperatures.
A small group of scientists mostly associated with the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia consciously withheld data and methods to place global progress, development, economies and peoples lives in jeopardy.

The Met Office (UKMO) refused to release data and methodology for their HadCRUT global temperature dataset after being asked repeatedly. Without the data and procedures there is no possibility of replication, and without replication the Hadley climate data is not scientifically valid.

So the data and method for the two major pieces of evidence for human induced global warming and climate change were deliberately withheld. There is only one explanation – it wouldn’t bear peer review.

A Mann et al co-author and source of tree ring data Professor Keith Briffa of the UK Climate Research Unit used one of the tree ring data series (Yamal in Russia) in a paper published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 2008, which has a strict data archiving policy. Thanks to that policy, Steve McIntyre fought and won access to that data. what McIntyre discovered was that Professor Briffa had cherry picked his "tree data sets" in order to reach the conclusion he wanted to reach. When, however, McIntyre plotted in a much larger and more representative range of samples from exactly the same area, the results he got were startlingly different.

and they haven't got the decency to resign.

seanie

Consensus is not the same as unanimity.

There is a range of esitmates for climate sensitivity, mostly in the range of 2 to 4.5°C.

The scientific consensus on the best estimate, is that a doubling of CO2 is likely to result in a 3°C.

As I said, there are known uncertainties about that, but your assertion that a quadrupling of CO2 would produce no more than "a few tenths of one degree C" of warming, bears no relation at all to scientific understanding.

neil craig

Seanie you demonstrate the standard of honesty of the entire eco movement.

To claim that temperature is currently rising is simply totally & completely untrue. That is why the "barbecue summer" were were promised wasn't. Anybody can see that the summer was cooler, as was the previous winter. (& the figures bear it out) & anybody who sees it can tell that absolutely no statement from the eco-fascist movement can ever be automatically treated as being in any way more truthful.1

Bext you will be telling us that average life expectancy has also now dropped to 42 as promised by eco-fascists & that the large number of people older than that walking about are just an optical illusion.

seanie

Average temperatures have risen. The last five years have been warmer than the five before, which in turn were warmer then the five before them.

I've posted the links to the data; you can check it out yourself. All you need is the ability to add and divide.

Or does climate change denialsim now extend to disputing basic arithmetic?

Dave,Edinburgh

Time Out for some fun,

If you ever wondered what "ppmv" looks like, watch this vid. by Elisa Pardo, Bachelor's degree in BioChemistry:

Go to YouTube.com, (NOT .UK as it's not there) probably big Gordon doesn't want you to see it?

you tube.com type in search box: CO2 Contributed by Human Activity 12 to 15 ppm

Dave,Edinburgh

seanie
October 21st, 2009 9:51am

Obviously, we are not going to agree, and the notion of "circulus in probando" has lost it's entertainment value.

But before I go for a tablet to cure the headache I seem to have achieved, I would like you to ponder on this from geological history:

A) Ordovician Period, CO2 concentration 4,400ppmv, temperatures about the same as today. (late Cambrian)

B) Cambrian Period CO2 concentration 7,000ppmv, with no "runaway" warming.

Indeed both periods ended with mass extintion events, triggered by one of earth's major ice ages.

Quick ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordovician (see "end of the period")

OK, I might be going back a bit, but it's the same earth, the same molecule, so please don't say it was a different kind of CO2 that caused cooling instead.

seanie

Warming doesn't have to be "runaway" for it to be catastrophic.

A warming of just a few degrees, over such a short timescale, could be catastrophic. The impacts of such a change would be drastic.

And the scientific evidence is that's precisely where we're heading unless we rapidly reduce carbon emissions and limit, or even reduce, CO2 levels in the atmosphere.

Fossil fuesl are finite resources anyway. We'll have to find alternatives anyway. The threat of climate change just means we'd better do it as soon as possible.

Sergey

Arctic ice extent is not a valid measure of global climate for two reasons: first, it is regional, not global; second, it is a poor measure of even regional climate, being very volatile and dependent not so on temperature, but much more on winds, that vary wildly from year to year. Arctic can become warmer with concurent cooling of Antarctic, and usually does, because distribution of heat between Southern and Northern hemispheres is governed by ocean currents, mainly Golfstream, and its strength varies in accordance to Atlantic decadal oscilations. We certainly have a warming trend in Moscow region for last 20 years, and it can be seen without any statistics in changing of forests and parks; but I never was tempted to ascribe this to GW for the reasons mentioned above. Arctic ocean can become completely free of marine ice in 20 years, but it still would have no bearing to global trends without using adequate statistics all over the globe.

Trish

Well said, Melanie! But if you succeed in demolishing this bit of public mind manipulation with its special focus on our children, remember there is still swine flu waiting in the wings with its stock-piling vaccines to innoculate our school children and service men.