Tag: Climate Change Science

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Pete Ridley : Three Strikes

In a spirit of complete transparency, I share with you an e-mail from Peter Ridley CEng MIEE (see below), a moving, rambling feast of what some would call complete irrelevancies.

Pete, if you’ve got something to share that’s positive, productive and progressive, then please do so. However, this recent e-mail from you (see below) ticks none of those boxes and I shall not waste my time by replying to your e-mail or taking it seriously.

You have three more strikes and then you’re out, unless you stick to the subject of this web log in your communications to me.

This web log is about keeping the Climate stable – it’s about the problems already being caused by Global Warming and about efforts to address those.

Yes, it’s also about hearing different views, and about working out what to accept and ignore.

Most of the comments made here by Climate Change sceptic-deniers are pure entertainment for those who know what’s really going on.

It’s rare to read something that’s free from irrational argument from Climate Change sceptic-deniers.

I’m sure you wouldn’t want to have your efforts become ridiculed, so please start being serious about the science of Climate Change instead of complaining about perceived political bias.

Climate Change is not a polarised political argument as you seem to think judging by your web log. Policy thinkers and workaday politicians of all stripes and none are engaged on a common agenda to tackle the root causes of excess Carbon Dioxide emissions.

The reason that politicians and diplomatic missions take part in the United Nations process on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and the reviewing of the IPCC reports, is because the environmental and economic impacts of global warming are likely to have serious consequences.

It’s lazy to dismiss all politicians as selfish, money-grabbing and power-hungry without a moral duty to the truth. There are many politicians who are genuine, upright and want what’s best.

You must be able to work this out – it can’t be that every last Member of Parliament is on the take or working for backhanders, as some commentators continue to insist, can it ?

And what about Climate Change Science ? How could people survive unchallenged in academia if they cut-and-paste or fabricate ? Upholding the good reputation of the academic institutions is why I will not enter into general discussion about my course of study on this web log, so please don’t press me on that issue any further. Surely you could have worked this out ? You’re smart enough.

Please drop the conspiracy theories and start thinking logically about the Science of Climate Change and the implications it holds.

Slightly tangentially, I am currently reading a book by Gwynne Dyer called “Climate Wars”. Although I don’t like some of the attitudes and some of the views of some of the people he mentions in the field of national and international security, at least they take Climate Change scenarios seriously, and are willing to try to navigate the future in the best way.

You would earn my respect if you could do the same.

from Peter Ridley
to Jo Abbess
date Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 9:38 PM

Jo, please excuse me for contacting you by E-mail uininvited but I wanted to respond privately to one of the comments on your “The Messia: With us …” thread.

Ref. the comment bt “Stormboy” on October 18th at 03:13, the original comment was posted by the real Stormboy (AKA Phil – who runs the evangelical Bloodwoodtree blog at https://bloodwoodtree.org) on 14th February at 08:23:48AM following months of exchanges between us on Australian Senator Steve Fielding’s blog. Despite repeated requests Phil was unprepared to reveal any evidence of having demonstrated scientific expertise regarding global climate processes and drivers, e.g. through peer-reviewed papers. Phil had said that he used a false name because of previous threats against him and his family.

Towards the end of our public exchanges Phil persistently called me a con man, which I did not appreciate, coming as it did from someone who I considered was cowering behind a false name, so I decided to try to track him down. I was astounded that I was able to find out, in only four hours on the Internet using Google, who he was, where he worked, his E-Mil address and details of family and friends. This was from information that he had put into the public domain. One source of much of this information was Facebook, which brought home to me the importance of heeding repeated police warnings of the dangers of the Internet. I immediately warned members of my family about taking great care on Facebook. I also contacted Phil, through Facebook, by E-mail and on his own blog, about how easy it had been to track him down but in the process frightened his wife and of course gave Phil a scare too. He didn’t know what kind of a person I am and was understandably concerned. That was why he posted that comment on Steve Fielding’s blog.

I quickly apologised to Phil for frightening his family and since then we have resolved any differences that we had (other than about the causes of global climate change) and have exchanged numerous friendly E-mails. Phil confirmed to me a few days ago, after that comment of his appeared recently on the Greenfudge blog, that he has only posted the comment once, on Senator Fielding’s blog in February.

That comment of Phil’s has been posted repeatedly by another person who hides behind numerous false names. These include Cooloola, Guess Who, Lord Monkton, Phoenix and JA. She has also pretended to be me and fellow sceptics PeggyB and Colin. Now she has started posing as Stormby himself. She is a thoroughly nasty, dishonest, cowardly, bullying Australian from Queensland who has been hurling vile abuse at any sceptic who upset her on Senator Fielding’s blog. Now that it has closed (he’s no longer a Senator) she is looking for anywhere else to spit her invective. I’ve tried very hard to track her down and expose her but could only get as close as the Maroochidor/Noosa/Cooloola area of Queensland.

If you are interested you can pick up those repeats by Googling “he spent four hours on the net hunting down my last name”. The ones on Steve Fieldings blog are cached versions.

Best regards, Pete

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Climate Change Global Warming Science Rules

The Wegman Report Should Be Withdrawn

Image Credit : The Paintshop of Mr Rabett

Eli Rabett lays down a trail of droppings regarding the Climate Change sceptics’ favourite researcher, statistican Edward Wegman :-

https://rabett.blogspot.com/2010/10/dummys-guide-to-strange-scholarship-in_17.html
https://rabett.blogspot.com/2010/10/dummys-guide-to-strange-scholarship-in.html
https://rabett.blogspot.com/2010/10/gerald-north-dishes.html

But it is not only The Leporine One who dismembers :-

https://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/10/wegman_scandal_gmu_investigate.php

https://www.desmogblog.com/hockey-stick-basher-wegman-under-investigation

https://climateprogress.org/2010/09/29/wegman-gate-alert-congress-and-the-media/

https://deepclimate.org/2010/09/26/strange-scholarship-wegman-report/
https://deepclimate.org/2010/10/08/wegman-under-investigation-by-george-mason-university/

https://thingsbreak.wordpress.com/2010/10/08/wegman-plagiarism-scandal-heating-up/

https://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2010/10/13/skeptic-gate-wegman-gate-copy-gate-everything-gate-gate-gate/

https://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2010/10/gmuniversity_investigating_weg.php?utm_source=networkbanner&utm_medium=link

https://profmandia.wordpress.com/2010/09/28/wegman-gate-alert-congress-the-media/

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Chin Up, George Monbiot !

George Monbiot looks back in regret at Copenhagen :-

https://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/20/climate-change-negotiations-failure

“…The closer it comes, the worse it looks. The best outcome anyone now expects from December’s climate summit in Mexico is that some delegates might stay awake during the meetings. When talks fail once, as they did in Copenhagen, governments lose interest. They don’t want to be associated with failure, they don’t want to pour time and energy into a broken process. Nine years after the world trade negotiations moved to Mexico after failing in Qatar, they remain in diplomatic limbo. Nothing in the preparations for the climate talks suggests any other outcome…”

Copenhagen was never seriously going to deliver, and I don’t think most of the protesters on the streets in Copenhagen thought so. Activist demands, including from activist nations, were always going to be ignored, The solutions really didn’t come to the conference, and the problems really lay elsewhere.

But there’s no need to utterly despair, George !

Continue reading “Chin Up, George Monbiot !”
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Advancing Africa Climate Change Energy Revival Global Warming Media

Science Politics for Classics Students

Image Credit : Mil (Dan Woods)

Like my anti-hero, James Delingpole, I am going to make a capitalised comment : THIS IS SO ABOUT THE SCIENCE, JAMES DELINGPOLE :-

https://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100052655/im-funny-official/

“I’m funny: official…the same tired old smears and inaccuracies. Sceptics are funded by Big Oil; they’re a weird, swivel-eyed minority; Climategate was “a storm in a tea cup” which did nothing to shake the underlying science; etc. Am I bothered? More weary than anything, for we have all heard these canards many, many times before (and no doubt will do again in some of the comments below), and I’m not sure it’s a game I can be bothered to play any more…The debate on CAGW, I’ve come to realise, is as futile as the one about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Which isn’t to say I don’t hugely respect the work done by the likes of Watts Up With That and Climate Audit and Bishop Hill to expose the flaws in the Warmist scientists’ dodgy theories. We need such indefatigable seekers-after-truth in this war but what we also need to realise is that this is never an argument that is going to be won on the science alone. That’s because the CAGW craze is and never was about the science, any more than the Eighties “Acid Rain” craze was about the science, or the Nineties BSE craze was about the science. They’re all just branches of political activism…THIS IS NOT ABOUT THE SCIENCE.”

Oh yes it is, Jems dear. It is 100%-a-mento about the Science. And it’s also about the de-Scientising of the Science.

Continue reading “Science Politics for Classics Students”
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Climate Change Global Warming Media Science Rules

IPCC : Could Do Better ?

[ UPDATE FROM JOABBESS.COM : GOOD LINKS FOR MORE INFORMATION : https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/08/ipcc-report-card/ AND https://www.nature.com/news/2010/100831/full/467014a.html AND https://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/ipcc-review-by-interacademy-council-iac/ AND https://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2010/100830_IPCC.doc.htm AND THE SLIGHTLY NEGATIVE https://www.economist.com/node/16941153?story_id=16941153 ]

Entropy versus Order – the central battle of the Universe.

Also the struggle within the realm of Science, trying to make global sense out of a very disparate, creative spectrum of study on Climate Change.

Here, at the very hub, we find the bubble of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC – a wide variety of people with a wide variety of knowledge and viewpoints all trying to establish a common perspective.

The management of this enterprise has been under review, and thought to be found partially wanting :-

https://reviewipcc.interacademycouncil.net/ReportNewsRelease.html

“InterAcademy Council Report Recommends Fundamental Reform of IPCC Management Structure : UNITED NATIONS — The process used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to produce its periodic assessment reports has been successful overall, but IPCC needs to fundamentally reform its management structure and strengthen its procedures to handle ever larger and increasingly complex climate assessments as well as the more intense public scrutiny coming from a world grappling with how best to respond to climate change, says a new report from the InterAcademy Council (IAC), an Amsterdam-based organization of the world’s science academies. “Operating under the public microscope the way IPCC does requires strong leadership, the continued and enthusiastic participation of distinguished scientists, an ability to adapt, and a commitment to openness if the value of these assessments to society is to be maintained,” said Harold T. Shapiro, president emeritus and professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University in the United States and chair of the committee that wrote the report. Roseanne Diab, executive officer of the Academy of Science of South Africa and professor emeritus of environmental sciences and honorary senior research associate at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, served as vice chair of the committee, which included experts from several countries and a variety of disciplines…These assessment reports have gained IPCC much respect including a share of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. However, amid an increasingly intense public debate about the science of climate change and costs of curbing it, IPCC has come under closer scrutiny, and controversies have erupted over its perceived impartiality toward climate policy and the accuracy of its reports. This prompted U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and IPCC chair Rajendra K. Pachauri to issue a letter on March 10 this year requesting that the IAC review IPCC and recommend ways to strengthen the processes and procedures by which future assessments are prepared…”

https://reviewipcc.interacademycouncil.net/OpeningStatement.html

Continue reading “IPCC : Could Do Better ?”
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Climate Change Global Warming Science Rules

Let’s Read the IPCC (2)

“Climate Change 2007: Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis : Foreword” :-

https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/frontmattersforeword.html

“The report confirms that our scientific understanding of the climate system and its sensitivity to greenhouse gas emissions is now richer and deeper than ever before.”

Who is meant by the ownership word “our” ?

It cannot mean the whole of humanity, since there are still a large number of people who have no idea about the Science of Climate Change, or who deny it.

I suspect that most Climate Change deniers would stop reading this report right there – as they don’t want to be included in the group of people who accept that Climate Change is real, happening and serious, too.

Notice that there’s no question that the Climate is sensitive to Greenhouse Gas Emissions accumulating in the Atmosphere. There’s no “likelihood” associated with that statement.

Continue reading “Let’s Read the IPCC (2)”
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Big Picture Climate Change Global Warming Science Rules

On Consensus

The problem with several Climate Change denier arguments is that they are “meta” arguments – philosophical arguments about how people behave, what they intend and how things are done.

One such issue that they take is with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) “consensus” method of operation. They seem to view the IPCC consensus as “blurred lines” – their conclusion is that the IPCC’s unified interpretation of the evidence is suspect.

When the Police want to interview eye-witnesses, and when a judge wants to hear witness evidence, the standard practice is to keep the witnesses apart, so that the lines of evidence can be as independent as possible.

By contrast, in Climate Change Science, there is a certain amount of collaboration between researchers during the course of their work, so you could say that no observations are made independently. However, this should not be labelled as “malicious collusion”, although many Climate Change deniers do do that.

Continue reading “On Consensus”
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Big Picture Climate Change Disturbing Trends Global Warming Hide the Incline

The Sum of Complexity

As Dr Judith Curry has tried to communicate to me, the physical science of Climatology is full of deep complexity, with strong ranging on a number of processes.

Just to take a typical example – the Hurricane storm track in the Caribbean. Different years produce different levels of risk, and a constantly updated projection is needed as short-term relevant climatic factors shift.

But despite the likelihood of any particular Tropical Depression forming, the range of its strength and the eventual pathway, there is still a clearly identifiable track that storms take – that Stephen Schneider called “Hurricane Alley”.

This kind of “big picture” of regional and even global phenomena means that we can safely scale out from the inner workings of individual changes in air pressure, prevailing winds and humidity and take in the larger-scale, longer-term trends.

Continue reading “The Sum of Complexity”
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Climate Change Global Warming Science Rules

Judith Curry : Science Star

Despite her claims that she thinks there’s too much uncertainty in the Earth’s Climate system to be able to project significant Climate Change with confidence, Dr Judith Curry is still able to do Science, as I first read in Wired :-

https://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/08/antarctic-ice-future/

https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/08/09/1003336107.abstract

“Accelerated warming of the Southern Ocean and its impacts on the hydrological cycle and sea ice : Jiping Liu and Judith A. Curry : School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332 : Edited by Mark H. Thiemens, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA, and approved July 13, 2010 (received for review March 15, 2010) : Abstract : The observed sea surface temperature in the Southern Ocean shows a substantial warming trend for the second half of the 20th century. Associated with the warming, there has been an enhanced atmospheric hydrological cycle in the Southern Ocean that results in an increase of the Antarctic sea ice for the past three decades through the reduced upward ocean heat transport and increased snowfall. The simulated sea surface temperature variability from two global coupled climate models for the second half of the 20th century is dominated by natural internal variability associated with the Antarctic Oscillation, suggesting that the models’ internal variability is too strong, leading to a response to anthropogenic forcing that is too weak. With increased loading of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere through the 21st century, the models show an accelerated warming in the Southern Ocean, and indicate that anthropogenic forcing exceeds natural internal variability. The increased heating from below (ocean) and above (atmosphere) and increased liquid precipitation associated with the enhanced hydrological cycle results in a projected decline of the Antarctic sea ice.”

https://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2010/08/12/1003336107.DCSupplemental/pnas.1003336107_SI.pdf

https://news.discovery.com/earth/antarctic-sea-ice-growth.html

This leads to a rather deep question : we know the Arctic sea ice is probably doomed, and that Greenland’s ice cap is melting, so the whole Northern Pole could be relatively ice free within decades. And then the Antarctic will most likely degrade as the added snowfall caused by Global Warming turns to rain. Does Judith Curry know how unstable the Earth’s Climate was when last the Earth didn’t have either Arctic or Antarctic ice caps ?

Of course she does…

https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7267/full/nature08447.html

Judith Curry is probably also highly aware that melting both the Arctic and Antarctic ice caps away rolls back at least 3 million years of stabilisation at lower relative temperatures, in less than 400 years of Anthropogenic Global Warming !


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Climate Change Global Warming Science Rules

Judith Curry : Reaching Out

Somewhat distressed by the denial position that Dr Judith Curry has taken, I have written to her trying to find out if there is any scope for future dialogue between us :-

Dear Dr Curry,

You asked on Collide-a-scape.com “The Chasm” :-

https://www.collide-a-scape.com/2010/08/11/the-chasm/

“So exactly what is it that you are fighting for? A Waxman-Markey type bill that even Jim Hansen said wouldn’t do any good? Some sort of UNFCCC global treaty that has zero chance even if the U.S. were behind it? That wouldn’t have any impact on the climate until the latter half of the century? SOMETHING, but you don’t know what? In that case, exactly what is wrong with delay? Let us know what you are fighting for, something that MATTERS.”

I can only assume from your questions that you have not read any of my work, or you would know where I stand, and how I’ve moved.

Most of the things that you have written recently, on a variety of web logs, indicate to me that you are so firmly entrenched in your position that it would be of no use in attempting to respond to you, or engage with you in any way.

I could pull apart everything that you have written on Collide-a-scape, but that would serve no real purpose apart from indicating that, like many other Climate Change scientists and activists, I too feel that you have lost your way, both intellectually and philosophically.

Continue reading “Judith Curry : Reaching Out”
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Make Me a Model

Statistical analysis of the raw data on Global Warming suffers from two major pitfalls :-

1. You are looking at the combined effects from several causative sources. Unless you have the means to distinguish the various factors, you cannot apply statistical techniques to the data and expect to get anything truly meaningful out. All that can be said, at best, is, “The Globe. Still Warming.”, as the warming trend over a long enough period of time has managed to stand out over the short-term variations.

2. Looking at the data purely by eye, some of the warming or cooling effects are clearly short-term, others longer-term; so picking a range of years/months/seasons at random, or according to some bias, is likely to distort the analysis. This is known as “cherry-picking”. The results of cherry-picking include the fallacious and discredited claim that, “Global Warming stopped in 1998”, or the much more crafty and misleading, “There has been no statistically significant Global Warming since 1998”.

Some researchers are content just to point to the overall effect of the raw data – global temperatures on land and at sea are rising sharply and the charts should be sufficient to understand the basic problem.

However, some people still contest that Global Warming is taking place, or that if it is, it isn’t serious. This then, is the cue to do an in-depth analysis into the known factors in global temperatures, and to attempt to “deduct” obvious short-term warming and cooling features in order to eyeball the underlying trends :-

Continue reading “Make Me a Model”
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Acid Ocean Be Prepared Climate Change Global Warming Political Nightmare Public Relations Regulatory Ultimatum Science Rules Screaming Panic The Data

Keep Stating The Obvious

The straight-talking continues :-

https://www.jamespowell.org/Globalwarming/page0.html

https://climateprogress.org/2010/07/30/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-climate-science-in-under-10-minutes/#more-30726

We shouldn’t have to keep restating the very obvious, but it appears that public understanding is very poor in some cases.

We could simply say, “Ah well. The general public doesn’t need to be convinced of the truth of the matter. We can just present the data to the decision-making authorities and they will do the right thing, so it won’t matter what the people in general think.”

Trouble is, there appears to be continuing interference in the patterns of thought of the decision-makers, from a range of sources, notably the mainstream media.

Tune in to the facts. Banish the pacifying voices. We are at war with ourselves, and if we don’t stop burning fossil fuels, there will be an end to vast swathes of life on Earth.

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Climate Change Global Warming Media Science Rules Screaming Panic The Data Unqualified Opinion

Tom Chivers : Reasonable Rot

Yet another mainstream Media commentator thinks he can act as arbiter on exactly how seriously dangerous Climate Change isn’t.

Tom Chivers’ writing is nice and easygoing, and his reasoning sounds reasonable, but in my opinion, his conclusion that there’s nothing to worry about is utter rot :-

https://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tomchivers/100045477/the-met-offices-climate-change-report-between-denial-and-alarm-lies-reality/

“The Met Office’s climate change report: between denial and alarm lies reality” : By Tom Chivers, July 30th, 2010

What makes Tom Chivers believe that his opinion is valid ?

I expect he thinks he can do things like judge war crimes, build nuclear power steam turbines or invent a new diabetes vaccine, without any training, without any mastery, and without any knowledge of the history or research literature of the relevant Science.

No, Tom. The reality about Climate Change is that the data evidence is coming in at the high end of the projections of the last few decades, and there is no reason to accept that it’s going to calm down, ease off or go away or into reverse.

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Acid Ocean Climate Change Disturbing Trends Eating & Drinking Emissions Impossible Environmental Howzat Global Warming Realistic Models Science Rules Screaming Panic The Data

Little Green Critter News

It seems that anthropogenic interference with the atmosphere has undermined two important things :-

(a) The ability of phytoplankton to reproduce because of the heat and the acidity of the oceans – thereby compromising the base of the entire global food chain and, more seriously,

(b) By reducing the conditions for phytoplankton success, cutting off one of the “Carbon sinks” on the planet that we really need to soak up a proportion of the excess Carbon Dioxide that we are pumping into the air.

https://climateprogress.org/2010/07/29/nature-decline-ocean-phytoplankton-global-warming-boris-worm/

https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7306/full/nature09268.html

https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7306/edsumm/e100729-03.html

https://www.physorg.com/news199471106.html

https://scienceblips.dailyradar.com/story/global-phytoplankton-decline-over-the-past-century/

Currently, the world’s biomass processes somewhere between 40% and 50% of all humankind’s excess Carbon Dioxide emissions, the CO2 we have made by taking Fossil Fuels out of the ground and burning them.

If this Carbon sink becomes less effective, Global Warming will become much stronger, as there will be a faster build-up of Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere.

Continue reading “Little Green Critter News”
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Climate Change Global Warming Science Rules The Data

Something Big Is Wrong

Something really big is going on here.

I wonder what can be causing the mass psychosis of internationally renowned scientists ?

They claim that the Earth is warming up, but they seem to be offering a most bizarre reason.

Who would have thunk it ? Apparently a harmless, odourless gas is responsible for melting icecaps, rainfall changes, drought, floods and a whole host of other effects.

It’s a bit catch-all, isn’t it ? One little molecule can’t be responsible for all that, can it ? They must be lumping all sorts of unexplained events into the Global Warming basket.

I’ve never heard anything like this before. It must be a mistake.

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Bad Science Bait & Switch Climate Change Corporate Pressure Cost Effective Delay and Deny Divide & Rule Fair Balance Freak Science Global Warming Growth Paradigm Media Non-Science Political Nightmare Protest & Survive Public Relations Realistic Models Regulatory Ultimatum Science Rules Screaming Panic Social Change The Data Unqualified Opinion

Fiona Harvey : Whoops, Cat !

Now, I’ve met Fiona Harvey, and she gives the general impression of being a reasonable woman, with her own mind, smart, knowledgeable and pragmatic.

What she writes about is Environment in general, but she takes in Policy, Politics, Economics and Science, and her output is normally balanced, accurate, and free from interference from propaganda and propagandists. Well-rounded, I’d say. Informative and straight.

So how come she’s writing a Financial Times article with quotations from extreme Climate Change sceptics and deniers ?

I suspect a heavy editorial hand :-

https://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6d1fd25c-9a69-11df-87fd-00144feab49a,dwp_uuid=728a07a0-53bc-11db-8a2a-0000779e2340.html

“Research says climate change undeniable : By Fiona Harvey, Environment Correspondent, Published: July 28 2010”

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Bad Science Bait & Switch Climate Change Delay and Deny Divide & Rule Global Singeing Global Warming Hide the Incline Non-Science Public Relations The Data Unqualified Opinion Unsolicited Advice & Guidance

Note to Steve McIntyre

Dear Steve,

Following Dr Judith Curry’s appeal on ClimateProgress regarding the recent RealClimate post from Tamino, that Joe Romm, and all of us, should be reading your work, I decided to take a brief look at your output on ClimateAudit in order to see what all the fuss from Judith Curry was about :-

https://climateprogress.org/2010/07/25/hockey-stick-real-climate-montford-judith-curry-tamino-gavin-schmid/

“19. Judith Curry says: July 25, 2010 at 9:19 pm : …So if any of you have actually read as much as I have on this topic including Montford’s [Bishop Hill] book and the climateaudit threads particularly McIntyre’s most recent post, well then we might have something to talk about. Otherwise, we can just sit back and all be entertained by tribalistic wardances.”

https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/07/the-montford-delusion/

“107. Judith Curry says: 23 July 2010 at 12:44 PM : Once more people have read the [Montford, Bishop Hill] book, and if Montford and McIntyre were welcomed to participate in the discussion, then I would be interested in participating in a more detailed discussion on this.”

Continue reading “Note to Steve McIntyre”
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Acid Ocean Advancing Africa Big Picture Carbon Commodities Climate Change Contraction & Convergence Corporate Pressure Emissions Impossible Energy Revival Global Warming Growth Paradigm Political Nightmare Regulatory Ultimatum Renewable Resource Science Rules Solar Sunrise The Data Zero Net

The Major Hitters Forum

Much as, in principle, progress could be made in having an 80% majority push through commitments on Global Warming, as part of the United Nations Climate Change negotiations process, some commentators feel highly uneasy that important voices from the international community, based around the emerging Science, could be drowned out by these “big hitters” :-

https://cleanenergyministerial.org/

“July 19-20 2010 : The first-ever Clean Energy Ministerial will bring together ministers and stakeholders from more than 20 countries to collaborate on policies and programs that accelerate the world’s transition to clean energy technologies.”

https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/22/un-bid-international-deal-climate-change

“UN in fresh bid to salvage international deal on climate change : Campaigners welcome plans to amend the way Kyoto protocol resolutions are passed : The Guardian, Thursday 22 July 2010…If the UN’s [United Nations] suggestions are adopted, decisions will be forced through if four-fifths of the protocol vote in favour, after all efforts to reach agreement by consensus have been exhausted. The amendments would come into force after six months…”It is surprising and a big, big deal that the UN is suggesting such considerable reforms as a change in the consensus rules,” said [Mark] Lynas…In a further attempt to galvanise the climate change body into motion, the UN also suggested that countries could be forced to opt out of any amendments, as opposed to the current arrangement whereby they must explicitly agree to any decisions tabled…The amendment, which will be presented in Bonn in August, reads: “An amendment would enter into force after a certain period has elapsed following its adoption, except for those parties that have notified the depositary that they cannot accept the amendment.”…But Lynas warned that any changes to the current consensus situation would cause “fury, angst and consternation”. It could, he said, exacerbate the deep mistrust between rich and poor countries that has already bedevilled the global climate talks.”…

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Global Warming Science Rules The Data

Simple Integration

Image Credit : Tamino, Open Mind

If the world stopped all unnecessary manufacture, production, power generation, transportation and building immediately, we could probably hold the fraction of Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere pretty much constant.

Tom Wigley calculates that this “constant composition” or “CC” could lead to an eventual rise in temperatures, averaged, globally to over 1 degree Celsius.

Why is this so ? We have only seen a rise of 0.7 degrees C to date. Why should it climb from there ? Because there is a “time lag” in the Earth System in responding to the extra warming from the extra Carbon Dioxide up there :-

https://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/307/5716/1766

“The Climate Change Commitment : T. M. L. Wigley : …Even if atmospheric composition were fixed today, global-mean temperature and sea level rise would continue due to oceanic thermal inertia. These constant-composition (CC) commitments and their uncertainties are quantified… The CC warming commitment could exceed 1 degree C…”

In the diagram above, I draw some simple lines and make some simple approximations of the integration of the area under the curve which represents the “added Carbon Dioxide burden” in the Atmosphere, and I arrive at a figure of 1.19 degrees Celsius.

Why do I conclude that only emissions up until 1980 have contributed to the warming experienced up until 2010 ? James Hansen and his colleagues have calculated a likely time lag :-

https://meteora.ucsd.edu/cap/pdffiles/Hansen-04-29-05.pdf

“…Evidence from Earth’s history and climate models suggests that climate sensitivity is 3/4 +/- 1/4 degrees C per Watt per metre squared, implying that 25-50 years are needed for Earth’s surface temperature to reach 60 percent of its equilibrium response…”

Here’s what Tamino concludes :-

https://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/07/18/whats-up/

“Our planet has already felt about half the global warming due to the CO2 [Carbon Dioxide] we’ve already added to the atmosphere; the rest is “in the pipeline,” and the impact of that extra warming on the availability of food and water is likely to be unpleasant. We’ll be very lucky indeed if we don’t pay a heavy price for the changes we’ve already wrought…”

The question you should ask yourself is – what temperature rise are we going to see by 2070, given that Carbon Dioxide emissions are continuing at such a rate that Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide is still rising sharply ?

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Christopher Monckton : Limerick Competition

Here is my entry for the Christopher Monckton limerick competition, which was sadly received too late to enter, since voting is now open :-

“There once was a fella called Monckton,
Who claimed he’d been litigiously dumped on;
Twas patent absurd,
But steam could be heard
Escaping clenched teeth as Abr’am debunked him.”

If you want to show your support for John Abraham in his rebuttal of Christopher Monckton’s non-science, please comment here :-

https://hot-topic.co.nz/support-john-abraham/

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The New Media-Free Phil Jones

The scandal of the Media puff-and-guff affair known as Climategate looks set to have one lasting effect – extreme reticence to talk to the Press on the part of Climate Change Scientists.

Stolen and maliciously-interpreted electronic mail did not betray corruption at Ivory Climate Science Towers; nor provide evidence of professional misconduct; nor give wings to the narrative that the world’s scientific academies were all in cahoots to deceive, fabricate or create any kind of unwarranted slant on Climate Change.

I wrote to the University of East Anglia’s (UEA) Climatic Research Unit (CRU) to convey my felicitations that Professor Phil Jones has been fully reinstated with no dishonour after his token “stepping aside” as the Climategate invective heatwave started rolling off the (virtual) printing presses.

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Greenpeace Slams Climategate Media

The Guardian asks, “How has ‘Climategate’ affected the battle against climate change?” :-

https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/jul/08/hacked-climate-science-emails-climate-change

I think the appropriate question would be, “How has Climategate poisoned the minds of journalists and their editors ?”

Ben Stewart of Greenpeace gets it spot on :-

“Stewart says it is the media, not the CRU scientists, who are to blame for any extra confusion among the public…”The emails didn’t change the way that carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere, but the media created a situation that presented a false symmetry between the various sides of the debate.”

The newspapers and TV programmes are in danger of losing their customers if they continue selling such dodgy wares.

Climategate has been a pseudo-scandal, written in the language of acrimony and suspicion, personal and professional attacks making claims of bad behaviour amongst scientists, arguments with extremely poor foundations.

Yet the Science still stands. Climate Change is still happening and we are still responsible for it. “We” in the inclusive sense, that is. The majority of bad behaviour is to be found in the business plans of energy companies. They show little intention of de-carbonising the resources of energy they sell to the rest of us.

The Media is a circus on Climate Change, but not a very entertaining one.

It’s time for some proper science journalism in the daily press.

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The Guardian : Uninformed Arbiter ?

I don’t want to write these words, but I have to. The Guardian newspaper, for me, has ceased to be trustworthy on Climate Change Science and the culture of Climate Change Science :-

https://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/08/climate-change-climategate-emails-editorial

Here, the editorial seeks to establish a position as an arbiter over the Climategate pseudo-scandal, that was only ever a scandal because of Media overreaction to the theft and malicious interpretation of e-mails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU).

The Guardian takes the position of judge, jury and prison guard, without seeming to be adequately informed on the subject under discussion.

The editorial accuses the University of East Anglia (UEA) of “scientific stupidity” and “excessive secrecy”, which would be laughable if it were not so biased, in my view.

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James Delingpole Has Kittens

Poor, dear James Delingpole has been passing kitten-sized anxieties and angry thoughts again; fear and accusations all completely unfounded :-

https://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100046150/how-come-we-now-have-to-go-to-the-chinese-for-the-truth-about-global-warming/

A number of indignant inaccuracies and strident claims I will pass over, but here are a few I think I shall contest. Just to show that I do bother to read his work (even if I smirk about it most of the time).

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Scientists Advised To Avoid Media

Following the BBC Panorama “investigation” into Climategate, broadcast yesterday evening, scientists are being advised not to be interviewed alongside Climate Change sceptics and deniers.

“It was extremely ill-advised for Bob Watson to agree to appear in the same programme as Bjorn Lomborg” was one opinion voiced, “it creates the illusion that Bjorn Lomborg might be right. Whereas, of course, he is not.”

Bob Watson was effectively tricked. He was asked to give an authoritative opinion, which was then presented side by side with the views of the discredited Bjorn Lomborg and John Christy.

As for Bob Ward, he should never, ever have agreed to appear alongside Bjorn Lomborg. He should have realised he could not get his message across properly.

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