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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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 Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 7:48 pm Post subject: Anti-warming conspiracy is exposed |
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Haha, my apologies, just couldn't resist the title.
Anyway, this thread is intended as a place where posters might expose the shennanigans, and dubious claims, of the climate change deniers.
For example, this guy Ian Plimer has been one of those at the forefront of the denial, and yet his argument appears to offer little substance, and scientist claim much of it is based on faulty data:
How climate change sceptic Ian Plimer dodges valid criticism
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A few days ago I interviewed the prominent climate change sceptic Professor Ian Plimer for a piece ahead of the UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen. Very little of our half-hour conversation made it into the final story but it was a revealing interview. This blog is an attempt to put some of what we talked about on the record.
It is important to do so, because the Australian mining geologist's book Heaven and Earth � on what he calls the "missing science" of global warming � has proved extremely popular. It has been reprinted six times in the UK since its publication in March and has sold more than 30,000 copies in Australia. In July, the Spectator ran a fawning cover feature about the book under the headline "Relax: global warming is all a myth".
The new Australian opposition leader, Tony Abbott, was converted to the sceptic cause by reading the book, or so Plimer says. And the backbench Tory MP Douglas Carswell said it overturned his belief that climate change is a human-caused phenomenon.
But it has also come in for stinging criticism from scientists and others. Bob Ward, director of public relations and policy at Lord Nicholas Stern's Grantham Institute at the London School of Economics said the book is "full of inaccurate statements and misrepresentations of global temperature data".
Plimer has refused to answer a series of questions put by George Monbiot about specific claims he makes in the book, but our interview gave me the opportunity to put some of those - and others' questions - to him.
I found him to be one of the most difficult and evasive interviewees I have spoken to in my career, frequently veering off on tangents rather than answering the question I had put. |
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The first figure in Heaven and Earth makes a bold claim:
This diagram shows that the hypothesis that human emissions of CO2 create global warming is invalid.
It is a graph running from 1990 to 2025 and shows five different plots of global temperature. One of these plots is the so-called HadCRUT temperature series produced by the Met Office's Hadley Centre and Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.
Plimer's first mistake is to refer to this plot as a "computer prediction" of temperature when this is in fact the measured global average temperature. But more significantly, the final point on his graph is a long way from where it should be. The figure for 2008 is placed much lower than the correct figure (at 0.1C above the 1961-1990 average instead of 0.437). That might not sound like much, but it wrongly gives the impression there has been a massive recent cooling � something Plimer says the climate modellers have not predicted.
His broader point appears to be that if climate models cannot predict warming over the course of a decade, what hope do they have of getting the forecast right for 2050 and beyond? Leaving aside the misplaced data point, Plimer appears to have misunderstood what climate models can and can't do. It may seem paradoxical, but predicting the year-by-year fluctuations in global temperature is actually a lot harder than predicting the general trend. No one who understands climate modelling would expect a perfect fit on such a short timescale. |
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| Elsewhere in the book, Plimer appears to have conflated a US temperature record and the global average temperature. On page 99 he writes "Nasa now states that [�] the warmest year was 1934." The Nasa dataset he is referring to covers the US only but he seems to be referring to the world average. |
etc. Click on the link to read the whole article.
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| He likes to argue that his position on global warming is dismissed by mainstream scientists because they are part of a "fundamentalist religion" and a "mafia". In fact, his arguments are rejected because they are just plain wrong. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2009 6:26 pm Post subject: |
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Here is a review of the book from May this year:
No science in Plimer's primer
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Plimer probably didn't expect an astronomer to review his book. I couldn't help noticing on page120 an almost word-for-word reproduction of the abstract from a well-known loony paper entitled "The Sun is a plasma diffuser that sorts atoms by mass". This paper argues that the sun isn't composed of 98 per cent hydrogen and helium, as astronomers have confirmed through a century of observation and theory, but is instead similar in composition to a meteorite.
It is hard to understate the depth of scientific ignorance that the inclusion of this information demonstrates. It is comparable to a biologist claiming that plants obtain energy from magnetism rather than photosynthesis.
Plimer has done an enormous disservice to science, and the dedicated scientists who are trying to understand climate and the influence of humans, by publishing this book. It is not "merely" atmospheric scientists that would have to be wrong for Plimer to be right. It would require a rewriting of biology, geology, physics, oceanography, astronomy and statistics. Plimer's book deserves to languish on the shelves along with similar pseudo-science such as the writings of Immanuel Velikovsky and Erich von Daniken.
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Perhaps we will find a stitch-by-stitch demolition of climate science in his book, as promised? No such luck. The arguments that Plimer advances in the 503 pages and 2311 footnotes in Heaven and Earth are nonsense. The book is largely a collection of contrarian ideas and conspiracy theories that are rife in the blogosphere. The writing is rambling and repetitive; the arguments flawed and illogical.
He recycles a graph, without attribution, from Martin Durkin's Great Global Warming Swindle documentary, neglecting even to make the changes that Durkin made following an outcry over the fact that the past two decades of temperature measurements had been mysteriously deleted.
Plimer claims that scientists such as himself, who do not agree with the consensus, are labelled deniers, "yet their scientific doubts are not addressed". Nothing could be further from the truth. All of Plimer's arguments have been addressed ad nauseam by patient climate scientists on websites or in the literature.
To appreciate the errors in Plimer's book you don't have to be a climate scientist. For example, take the measurement of the global average CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. This is obviously important, so scientists measure it with great care at many locations across the world.
Precision measurements have been made daily since 1958 at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, a mountain-top site with a clear airflow unaffected by local pollution. The data is in excellent agreement with ice cores from several sites in Antarctica and Greenland. Thousands of scientific papers have been written on the topic, hundreds of scientists are involved from many independent research groups.
Plimer, however, writes that a simple home experiment indoors can show that in a week, CO2 can vary by 75 parts per million by volume, equal to about 40 years' worth of change at the present rate. He thinks this "rings alarm bells" on the veracity of the Mauna Loa data, which shows a smoothly rising concentration.
While it is undoubtedly true that if you measure CO2 in your home it could vary by large amounts from day to day -- depending, for example, on whether you have the windows open or closed, or how many people are in the house at the time -- this is not the right way to measure a global average. That's why scientists go to mountain-tops or Antarctica or to the isolated Cape Grimm on the Tasmanian coast rather than measuring CO2 in their living rooms. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2009 1:03 am Post subject: |
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Here's a great little website to explore:
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Scientific skepticism is healthy. Scientists should always challenge themselves to expand their knowledge and improve their understanding. Yet this isn't what happens in global warming skepticism. Skeptics vigorously criticise any evidence that supports man-made global warming and yet eagerly, even blindly embrace any argument, op-ed piece, blog or study that refutes global warming.
So this website gets skeptical about global warming skepticism. Do their arguments have any scientific basis? What does the peer reviewed scientific literature say? |
http://www.skepticalscience.com/
It addresses major points of contention. A nice starting point - and those who (rightfully) are wary of accepting information from a sole source, can then do their own research to see how well they can verify the facts/information given. |
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thecount
Joined: 10 Nov 2009
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| Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2009 6:18 pm Post subject: |
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I, too, would like to help expose the massive anti-warming conspiracy.
The New York Times has been suppressing the undeniable truth of global warming for some time now. They have been ignorant and complicit in their rejection of science.
This is not an isolated mistake, but rather an anti-science position the Times has been taking for the past 150 years! They publish articles on global warming science, but then veer off publishing so-called "scientists" who did so-called "studies" with so-called "equipment" to "measure" our so-called "temperatures" that came up with different numbers! Their hubris is monumental.
And then, in the 70s, where they published massive amounts of global cooling papers? Irresponsible!
Look at the hodge-podge of ideas they dare present. They should have the willpower to pick one side of an issue and stay with it no matter where the science brings them, like we do!
CLIMATOLOGY
January 5, 1855, Wednesday
Page 4, 863 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - As the climate of every country has an inseparable relation with the physical character of its inhabitants, the attention of the Government was directed, some few years since, to the collection of correct meteorological statistics throughout the whole of the United States.
THIS CLIMATE OF OURS; WHY THESE OPEN WINTERS AND TEMPERATE SUMMERS? THE GEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF THE ALTERNATE PREVALENCE OF A SEMITROPICAL ATMOSPHERE.
Climate Perculiarities of New-York.
January 2, 1870, Wednesday
Page 4, 500 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - The climate of New-York and the contigu ons Atlantic seaboard has long been a study of great interest. We have just experienced a remarkable instance of its peculiarity The Hudson River, by a singular freak of temperature, has thrown off its icy mantle and opened its waters to navigation.
IS CLIMATE CHANGING?--
March 25, 1888, Wednesday
Page 13, 440 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - Formerly wine was made in England, the change of climate might be the principal reason that this manufacture does not now flourish. There are, however, many reasons why British wine ...
IS OUR CLIMATE CHANGING?
February 3, 1889, Wednesday
Page 4, 778 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - An article in the Forum for February is upon the subject of the much-talked-of change in our climate. The writer, Prof. CLEVELAND ABBE, says that the notion that it is possible for a climate to change to a modern one. Our ancestors lived in a region ...
THIS CLIMATE OF OURS; WHY THESE OPEN WINTERS AND TEMPERATE SUMMERS? THE GEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF THE ALTERNATE PREVALENCE OF A SEMITROPICAL ATMOSPHERE.
June 23, 1890, Wednesday
Page 5, 1905 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - Is our climate changing? The succession of temperate Summers and open Winters through several years, culminating last Winter in the almost total failure of the ice crop throughout the valley of the Hudson, makes the question pertinent. The older inhabitants tell us that the Winters are not as cold now as when they were young, and we have all observed a marked diminution of the average cold even in this last decade.
FACT AND FANCY ABOUT CLIMATE; Prof. Ward in His New Book Discusses Various Popular Notions Regarding the Weather.
May 30, 1908, Saturday
Section: SATURDAY REVIEW OF BOOKS, Page 18, 1432 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - AS popular misconceptions of variations in the weather are frequent and shiding, Prof. Ward has rendered the public a service in producing a book on climate which "can be read by an intelligent person who has not had special or extended training in the technicalities of the science."
Nation Is Held on Verge of Climate Shift; Experts See Old-Fashioned Winters Back
December 16, 1934, Sunday
By The Associated Press.
Section: SECOND NEWS SECTION, Page N8, 361 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - WASHINGTON, Dec. 15. -- America is believed by Weather Bureau scientists to be on the verge of a change of climate, with a return to increasing rains and deeper snows and the colder Winters of grandfather's day.
Warming Arctic Climate Melting Glaciers Faster, Raising Ocean Level, Scientist Says
May 30, 1947, Friday
By GLADWIN HILLSpecial to THE NEW YORK TIMES.
Page 23, 366 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - LOS ANGELES, May 29 -- A mysterious warming of the climate is slowly manifesting itself in the Arctic, engendering a "serious international problem," Dr. Hans Ahlmann, noted Swedish geophysicist, said today.
Is Climate Changing?; Habits of Mammals and Birds Suggest World Is Warmer
October 15, 1950, Sunday
Section: The Week In Review, Page E9, 461 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - Is the world warming up? Dr. Joseph J. Hickey, Professor of Wildlife Management at the University of Wisconsin, holds that it is. He has drawn his evidence from the changing habits of some half-dozen species of mammals ...
How Industry May Change Climate
May 24, 1953, Sunday
W. K.
Section: REVIEW OF THE WEEK EDITORIALS, Page E11, 470 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - The amount of carbon dioxide in the air will double by the year 2080 and raise the temperature an average of at least 4 per cent. The burning of about two billion tons of coal and oil a year keeps the average ground temperature somewhat higher than it would otherwise be.
Greenland's Moderating Climate Turns Hunters Into Fishermen; Economy Once Based on Sea Mammals Now Depends On Cod Sold for Cash
August 29, 1954, Sunday
By KATHLEEN McLAUGHLIN
Page 2, 696 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - UNITED NATIONS, N. Y., Aug. 28 -- Greenland's polar climate has moderated so consistntly that communities of hunters have evolved into fishing villages. Sea mammals, vanishing from the west coast, have been replaced by codfish and other fish species in the area's southern waters.
CLIMATE WARMING IN THE ANTARCTIC; 5-Degree Rise Over the Last Half Century Is Recorded at Little America ICE IS FOUND THICKER Director of U. S. Program Says Sheet Drops 10,000 Feet in Many Areas
May 31, 1958, Saturday
By WALTER SULLIVAN
Page 17, 778 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - An analysis of weather records from Little America shows a steady warming of climate over the last half century. The rise in average temperature at the Antarctic outpost has been about five degrees Fahrenheit.
SCIENCE IN REVIEW; Warmer Climate on the Earth May Be Due To More Carbon Dioxide in the Air
October 28, 1956, Sunday
By WALDEMAR KAEMPFFERT
Section: The Week In Review, Page 191, 904 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - The general warming of the climate that has occurred in the last sixty years has been variously explained. Among the explanations are fluctuations in the amount of energy received from the sun, changes in the amount of volcanic ...
CLUE TO WEATHER FOUND IN GLACIER;
December 25, 1956, Tuesday
North American Newspaper Alliance.
Page 27, 420 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - WASHINGTON, Dec. 24-- Seven years of observation of the Great Grinnell Glacier in Glacier National Park has given rise to some comment on weather trends.
Frozen Key To Our Climate; The world's ice masses may be ushering in a fifth Ice Age. Frozen Key To Our Climate
December 7, 1958, Sunday
By LEONARD ENGEL
Section: Magazine, Page SM72, 2601 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - SEVERAL thousand scientists of many nations have recently been climbing mountains, digging tunnels in glaciers, journeying to the Antarctic, camping on floating Arctic ice. Their object has been to solve a fascinating riddle: what is happening to the world's ice?
A WARMER EARTH EVIDENT AT POLES; Arctic Findings in Particular Support Theory of Rising Global Temperatures
February 15, 1959, Sunday
Special to The New York Times.
Page 112, 305 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 -- The theory that the world is growing slightly warmer is receiving added confirmation from temperature data
SCIENTISTS AGREE WORLD IS COLDER; But Climate Experts Meeting Here Fail to Agree on Reasons for Change
January 30, 1961, Monday
By WALTER SULLIVAN
Section: BUSINESS FINANCIAL, Page 46, 1326 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - After a week of discussions on the causes of climate change, an assembly of specialists from several continents seems to have reached unanimous agreement on only one point: it is getting colder.
EARTH'S WEATHER GROWING COLDER; U.S. Among the Exceptions, Rome Symposium Hears
October 8, 1961, Sunday
Special to The New York Times.
Page 66, 386 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - ROME, Oct. 7 -- The earth, with few regional exceptions, is undergoing "a persistent cold wave" that began in the Nineteen Forties, a United States weather man told a symposium on climate this week.
Weathermen Try to Explain the Why of Spring That Never Was in 1967
May 31, 1967, Wednesday
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Page 29, 975 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - In the year 1816 the year without summer, they called it snow fell in New England and parts of New York in June, July and August. Crops failed. People were impoverished and mystified.
Scientist Hints Earthquake Link To Wobbles in Spinning of Earth; Heirtzler of
November 29, 1968, Friday
By WALTER SULLIVAN
Page 92, 1169 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - The head of Columbia University's Hudson Laboratories, at Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., has suggested that wobbles in the earth's spin may be responsible for such diverse phenomena as earthquakes, periods of mountain -building and climate
Expert Says Arctic Ocean Will Soon Be an Open Sea; Catastrophic Shifts in Climate Feared if Change Occurs Other Specialists See No Thinning of Polar Ice Cap
February 20, 1969, Thursday
By WALTER SULLIVAN
Page 20, 1691 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - Col. Bernt Balchen, polar explorer and flier, is circulating a paper among polar specialists proposing that the Arctic pack ice is thinning and that the ocean at the North Pole may become an open sea within a decade or two.
U.S. and Soviet Press Studies of a Colder Arctic; U.S. and Soviet Press Arctic Studies
July 18, 1970, Saturday
By WALTER SULLIVAN
Page 1, 1398 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - The United States and the Soviet Union are mounting large-scale investigations to determine why the Arctic climate is becoming more frigid, why parts of the Arctic sea ice have recently become ominously thicker and whether the extent of that ice cover contributes to the onset of ice ages.
Climate Experts Assay Ice Age Clues
January 27, 1972, Thursday
Special to The New York Times
Section: BUSINESS/FINANCE, Page 74, 731 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - PROVIDENCE, R. I., Jan. 26 -- After invading Nebraska and Colorado, the armadillos, faced with increasingly frigid weather, are in retreat from those states toward their ancestral home south of the Mexican border. The winter snow accumulation on Baffin Island has increased 35 per cent in the last decade.
Record of a Little Ice Age Is Discovered
February 5, 1972, Saturday
By WALTER SULLIVAN
Page 14, 706 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - From a study of ice extracted from deep within the Greenland ice sheet it appears that 89,500 years ago something catastrophic changed the climate from being warmer than today's to that of a full-fledged ice age.
Scientist Fears Equable Climate Around World Could Be Ending
October 31, 1972, Tuesday
By BOYCE RENSBERGER
Page 25, 645 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - The current 12,000-year-old era of comfortable climates around the world may be coming to an end, closing another chapter in what a University of Miami scientist believes has been a history of frequent and relatively short-lived ice ages and warm ages.
FORECAST FOR; FORECASTING: CLOUDY In the long term, climate is cooling off-or is it warming up? As for tomorrow's weather, even the world's biggest computer can't sayfor sure what it will be. Forecasting ' A really accurate three-day weather forecast would result in savings of $86-million a year just for growersof wheat in the state of Wisconsin.'
December 29, 1974, Sunday
By Alan Anderson Jr.
Section: SM, Page 156, 4834 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - A number of climatologists, whose job it is to keep an eye on long-term weather changes, have lately been predicting deterioration of the benignclimate to which we have grown accustomed.
CLIMATE CHANGES CALLED OMINOUS; Scientists Warn Predictions Must Be Made Precise to Avoid Catastrophe
January 19, 1975, Sunday
By HAROLD M. SCHMECK Jr. Special to The New York Times
Page 31, 1089 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - WASHINGTON, Jan. 18 Changes in the earth's climate are inevitable and mankind must learn to predict these variations to avoid potential catastrophe, a group of prominent scientists has concluded after a two-year study.
Scientists Ask Why World Climate Is Changing; Major Cooling May Be Ahead; Scientists Ponder Why World's Climate Is Changing; a Major Cooling Widely Considered to Be Inevitable
May 21, 1975, Wednesday
By WALTER SULLIVAN
Page 45, 2828 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - The world's climate is changing. Of that scientists are firmly convinced. But in what direction and why are subjects of deepening debate.
WARMING TREND SEEN IN CLIMATE; Two Articles Counter View That Cold Period Is Due
August 14, 1975, Thursday
By WALTER SULLIVAN
Section: Sports, Page 24, 759 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - Articles in two scientific journals have questioned widely publicized predictions that, in coming decades, the world climate will deteriorate severely affecting food production and, perhaps, initiating a new ice age.
Experts Fear Great Peril If SST Fumes Cool Earth
December 21, 1975, Sunday
By WALTER SULLIVAN
Page 32, 1057 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - A federally sponsored inquiry into the effects of possible climate changes caused by heavy supersonic traffic in the stratosphere has concluded that even a slight cooling could cost the world from $200 billion to 500 times that much in damage done to agriculture, public health and other effects.
2 Climate Experts Decry Predictions of Disasters; Drought in
February 22, 1976, Sunday
By WALTER SULLIVAN Special to The New York Times
Page 48, 823 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - BOSTON, Feb. 21--Two authorities on climate change have termed irresponsible recent predictions of an impending ice age or other climatic disaster. The also said that any global effects of man-made air pollution on the climate to date remained obscure.
International Team of Specialists Finds No End in Sight to 30-Year Cooling Trend in Northern Hemisphere
January 5, 1978, Thursday
By WALTER SULLIVAN
Section: Sports, Page D17, 817 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - An international team of specialists has concluded from eight indexes of climate that there is no end in sight to the cooling trend of the last 30 years, at least in the Northern Hemisphere.
Climate Specialists, in Poll, Foresee No Catastrophic Weather Changes in Rest of Century; Warning About Carbon Dioxide
February 18, 1978, Saturday
By WALTER SULLIVAN Special to The New York Times
Page 9, 967 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - WASHINGTON, Feb. 17--A poll of climate specialists in seven countries has found a consensus that there will be no catastrophic changes in the climate by the end of the century. But the specialists were almost equally divided on whether there would be a warming, a cooling or no change at all.
Scientists at World Parley Doubt Climate Variations Are Ominous; Forgetting the Past Major Shifts in Past
February 16, 1979, Friday
By WALTER SULLIVAN Special to The New York Times
Section: Business & Finance, Page D13, 688 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - GENEVA, Feb. 15 This winter Chicago was paralyzed by snow. Last winter it was Boston. European Russia has just suffered its coldest December in a century. In Britain and Western Europe, the summer of 1976 was the hottest in 250 years.
A Vast 'Interdisciplinary Effort' To Predict Climate Trend Urged; Neutralization Needed
February 24, 1979, Saturday
By WALTER SULLIVAN Special to The New York Times
Page 44, 913 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - GENEVA, Feb. 23--After exchanging views here for two weeks, the people who know more about climate than anyone else in the world have concluded that climate's future trends can be predicted in a meaningful way only after "an interdisciplinary effort of unprecedented scope."
Scientists Reviving Speculation on Climate and Slipping Antarctic Ice; Theory of Linked Events Evidence in Bones Volcanic Dust Theory In Less Than a Century
March 9, 1980, Sunday
By WALTER SULLIVAN
Page 43, 1161 words
DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - Scientists are reviving the controversial notion that millions of cubic miles of Antarctic ice can sometimes abruptly slip off the continent into the sea, resulting in extreme increases in global ocean levels and precipitating a dramatic chilling of the world's climate.
AfricaColumbia Also Suggests a Relationship to Climate Changes Great Ice River in Rockies Shows Long-Range Change Indicating Cold Period Thermometer of the Ages Favorable Trend in Climate
(Sourced from NB).
HOWEVER, there is hope! The NYT have finally seen the light and, in their new timeline on Climate Change understanding (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/12/07/science/20091207_CLIMATE_TIMELINE.html) they have bravely removed any and all indication of anything they actually reported in the 70's. Courageous acts of conformity such as these are not for their sake, but for the sake of climate science everywhere, and we thank them for it.
EXPOSE THE NONBELIEVERS! |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2009 8:52 pm Post subject: |
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| Count, I can't be bothered to read more than a couple of paragraphs of that, and I doubt that many others would either. It's one hand clapping. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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thecount
Joined: 10 Nov 2009
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| Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2009 9:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
| Count, I can't be bothered to read more than a couple of paragraphs of that, and I doubt that many others would either. It's one hand clapping. |
I agree. We need to get back to the important argument, which is that the other side completely ignores everything we say.
It's like one hand clapping. |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2009 9:42 pm Post subject: |
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| thecount wrote: |
| Big_Bird wrote: |
| Count, I can't be bothered to read more than a couple of paragraphs of that, and I doubt that many others would either. It's one hand clapping. |
I agree. We need to get back to the important argument, which is that the other side completely ignores everything we say.
It's like one hand clapping. |
More like p_ssing in the wind... |
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thecount
Joined: 10 Nov 2009
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| Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2009 10:09 pm Post subject: |
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More like p_ssing in the wind... |
Tugging on superman's cape? |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2009 2:11 am Post subject: |
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David Evans - famous climate skeptic - full of hot air:
http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2008/08/13/the-weekly-carboholic-david-evans-climate-facts-hardly-factual/
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I�ve started to read a number of commentators around editorial pages, blogs, and letters to the editor that are quoting an Australian by the name of David Evans. In case you�re unfamiliar, Evans wrote an op-ed in The Australian titled �No smoking hot spot� where he raises a number of issues with the science of global heating. Evans used to work toward mitigating global heating but has since become a skeptic based on perceived weaknesses in the data and modeling of the effects of global heating. Because of his background as a former global heating analyst for the Australian government, he�s become something of a rock star in the denier movement, and his quoting of Lord Keynes (�When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?�) in his op-ed has become almost a mantra for the global heating deniers and skeptics.
Unfortunately for Evans� global heating skepticism, but fortunately for the advancement of understanding of the Earth�s climate and anthropogenic global heating, it appears that the facts have changed on him yet again.
Evans� first �fact� is that scientists have been looking for tropical warming in the troposphere for decades and have never detected it. Since weather balloons (radiosondes) haven�t detected the hot spot, it must not be there. As reported previously in the Carboholic, a new method of measuring temperature by proxy from the velocity of radiosondes in the atmosphere has been developed. And the new proxy data is not only much less error prone (the original temperature data that supposedly failed to find heating in the troposphere actually found no such thing � it had so many errors and systemic biases that the temperature measurements were all meaningless, something that Evans fails to mention � see the introduction to this paper for some examples of the errors), but the proxy data reveals that the troposphere a) has warmed and b) has warmed as the climate models have predicted. Unfortunately, Evans engages in ad hominim against the scientists who have proposed this proxy measurement. He should have read the actual papers (the top three papers available here) instead of blithely rejecting them with a suggestion that they�re contaminated simply because the research was done by so-called �alarmists�.
Evans� second �fact� is that we have no evidence that carbon emissions are responsible for global heating. There are a great many papers that contradict this assertion, starting with John Tyndall in 1861 and proceeding through Svante Arrhenius, G. S. Callendar, and others. Most of the original science on the greenhouse effect and the impact of carbon dioxide (CO2) was done before the 1950s. However, the actual facts of the matter are these � the greenhouse effect exists (there is no debate about this whatsoever), CO2 is responsible for between 9 and 26% of the observed greenhouse effect, so a 30% increase in CO2 concentrations will increase the greenhouse effect by 3-8%. This simple estimate is made more accurate by using ice core data, from which climatologists have estimated the sensitivity of the climate to changes in CO2 (sensitivity is calculated using stable temperature periods, so which came first, the interglacial transition or the rise in CO2, doesn�t matter) at varying levels, but observations of how CO2 absorbs radiation have given estimates that range from as low as 1 to as high as 14 degrees C per doubling of CO2 concentration. Most experts agree that the most likely range is from 2 to 4.5 degrees C per doubling of CO2 concentration, with a mean value of about 3 degrees C per doubling. Regardless, however, the actual fact remains that a massive body of evidence that CO2 is having an impact on global climate exists, not �none� as Evans claims.
Evans� third �fact� is that we can only trust satellite temperature data, but since it only goes back to 1979, we don�t have a long enough span of data to make good conclusions. What�s remarkable is that Evans� claims that nearly 30 years of satellite data isn�t enough to estimate climate trends, yet he points out that the planet has supposedly cooled since 2001. If 30 years of data isn�t enough to make good trend estimates, a mere 7 years certainly isn�t long enough. Not only that, but Evans also claims that the GISS uses only land data and that the other major global temperature sets (MET and RSS/University of Alabama are two of them, perhaps all three) use satellite only or satellite and lands measurements. This is false � GISS uses land and ocean measurements, MET uses land and radiosonde and satellite, while RSS and UoA use the RSS-operated satellites exclusively. That said, however, Evans� concern over the impact of urban heat island effects on land-based is valid. But that�s the only part of this section that is.
Evans� final �fact� is that ice cores show an 800 year difference between the start of a deglaciation (transition from an ice age to an interglacial period) and the rise in CO2. While this is certainly true, Evans� statement that this �says something important about which was cause and which was effect� is fundamentally in error. A 2003 paper by Caillon et al in the journal Science pointed out that the 800 year lag appeared to be step two in a three-step process: southern hemisphere heats up, southern oceans release a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere, global heating driven by CO2 melts the northern hemisphere. I go into gory detail on this paper here.
Evans� facts are hardly factual, yet he has the audacity to claim that he changed his mind because the facts changed. I can�t help but wonder if he�ll change his mind again now that the false nature of his claims is so readily apparent.
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2009 2:18 am Post subject: |
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More on David Evans:
http://www.desmogblog.com/who-is-rocket-scientist-david-evans
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Here's the research database entry on David Evans:
No peer-reviewed articles on climate change
According to his own resume, Evans has not published a single peer-reviewed research paper on the subject of climate change. Evans published only a single paper in 1987 in his career and it is unrelated to climate change.
Evans has published an article for the Alabama-based Ludwig von Mises Instutute, a right-wing free-market think tank.
Evans also published a "background briefing" (pdf) document for the Australian chapter of the Lavoisier Group, a global warming "skeptic" organization with close ties to the mining industry.
"I am not a climate modeler"
From 1999 to 2006 Evans worked for the Australian Greenhouse Office designing a carbon accounting system that is used by the Australian Government to calculate its land-use carbon accounts for the Kyoto Protocol. While Evans says (pdf) that "[he] know[s] a heck of a lot about modeling and computers," he states clearly that he is "not a climate modeler."
Background
David Evans lives in Australia and gained media attention after an article he wrote titled, No Smoking Hot Spot was published in The Australian in June, 200.The article claims that climate change is not caused by C02 emissions because there is no evidence of "a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics." Evan's claim has been thoroughly debunked by Tim Lambert, a computer scientist at the University of New South Wales.
According to his bio, Evans claims to be a 'Rocket Scientist' and one article claims that he is a 'Top Rocket Scientist.' While Evans background does show that he has a PhD in electrical engineering, there is no evidence that he was ever employed as a rocket scientist.
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| Evans also claims to be "building a word processor for Windows." DeSmogBlog contacted Microsoft Corp. and they have confirmed that he does not work for Microsoft Corporation. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 8:29 pm Post subject: |
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I mean to amend the OP title (which was tongue in cheek) to something more suitable. Too busy this minute.
This article highlights three points that so many climate deniers seem to miss.
Britain's cold snap does not prove climate science wrong
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| Climate sceptics are failing to understand the most basic meteorology - that weather is not the same as climate, and single events are not the same as trends |
Firstly, you can not look at one area on this planet and extrapolate what's happening there to the entire world. I've read/heard a few sneering about the recent cold snap - thinking this is clear evidence that global warming is not happening - that the fact that the UK is experiencing one of the coldest spells in living memory surely proves that global warming can't be taking place. "How come we're having such a cold winter then if the world is getting warmer then, eh?"
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Here's what Martyn Brown says in today's Express:
"As one of the worst winters in 100 years grips the country, climate experts are still trying to claim the world is growing warmer."
There's a clue as to where he might have gone wrong in that sentence: "country" has a slightly different meaning to "world". Buried at the bottom of the same article is the admission that " ... other areas including Alaska, Canada and the Mediterranean were warmer than usual." |
Global warming refers to heating of the globe as whole. 'Climate skeptics' seem to conveniently forget that the world always has different temperatures in its different parts at any one time. Just because it's sunny in the Sahara this morning, doesn't mean it's not snowing in Siberia! When one area is particularly cold - this says nothing about global warming.
Secondly global warming is not some beautiful line with a point A and a point B - it is a slow and jagged move in a mostly upward direction.
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| The ability to distinguish trends from complex random events is one of the traits that separates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom. It is also the basis of all science; detecting patterns, distinguishing between signal and noise, and the means by which the laws of physics, chemistry and biology are determined. Now we are being asked to commit ourselves to the wilful stupidity of extrapolating a long-term trend from a single event. |
Climatologists are looking at trends, not making predictions on the data gathered on a few winter days.
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| Yes, it is colder than usual in some parts of the northern hemisphere, and warmer than usual in others. Alaska and northern Canada are 5-10C warmer than the average for this time of year, so are North Africa and the Mediterranean. The cold and the warmth could be related: the contrasting temperatures appear to be connected to blocks of high pressure preventing air flow between the land and the sea. |
Thirdly, so many seem unable to make the distinction between climate and weather.
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John Redwood, the Tory MP for Wokingham, was at it in the Commons yesterday, too, when putting a question to Ed Miliband, after the secretary of state for climate change and energy had made a statement about the Copenhagen climate change conference.
Redwood: Why are we in the northern hemisphere having such a very cold winter this year? Which climate model predicted that?
Miliband: I can hardly believe that question, Mr Deputy Speaker. The weather fluctuates, as anyone knows, and the notion that a cold spell in Britain disproves the science of climate change is something that I believe not even the Right Hon. Gentleman believes.
Redwood was evidently not happy with the "weather fluctuates" response and returned to the issue this morning on his blog:
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| I was expecting some answer that told me you can have severe winters within a pattern of global warming, with reference to some climate change model analysis which allowed for adverse variations within the assumed pattern of warming. How wrong I was. Instead Mr M threw his toys out of the pram, declined to offer a civil answer to a civil question, and told me the science of global warming was settled! Some other MP from a sedentary position offered the profound advice that I needed to understand climate was different from weather. |
It's a pity really that he didn't listen to the profoundly obvious advice being offered by the MP in the sedentary position, but that would have undermined his climate scepticism that oh-so-conveniently chimes with his free-market, anti-EU, rightwing views. But isn't that the story with so much of the climate scepticism on offer these days? It seems to be far less about genuine scientific scepticism and more about confirmation bias of a politicised world view. |
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| This is called weather, and, believe it or not, it is not always predictable and it changes quite often. It is not the same as climate, and single events are not the same as trends. Is this really so hard to understand? |
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