# There IS a problem with global warming... it stopped in 1998



## bigfish (Apr 11, 2006)

> For many years now, human-caused climate change has been viewed as a large and urgent problem. In truth, however, the biggest part of the problem is neither environmental nor scientific, but a self-created political fiasco. Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).
> 
> Yes, you did read that right. And also, yes, this eight-year period of temperature stasis did coincide with society's continued power station and SUV-inspired pumping of yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
> 
> ...



More 

Bob Carter seems to check out, too. According to Sourcewatch he's merely a  "climate skeptic".


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## citydreams (Apr 11, 2006)

Does it matter?  We're still choking to death on CO2s, PM10s, PM2.5, NOX; destroying ancient forrestry; eradicating culture, living on future productivity gains and losing the war on poverty.


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## guinnessdrinker (Apr 11, 2006)

of course, CO2 isn't the only factor in global temperatures. sulphur emissions by aeroplanes can make the weather colder. so if you carry on flying to the canaries every weekend, it might get colder....

no seriously, we're talking anthropogenic influences on the weather and they're not getting any weaker...


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## rogue yam (Apr 11, 2006)

citydreams said:
			
		

> Does it matter?  We're still choking to death on CO2s, PM10s, PM2.5, NOX; destroying ancient forrestry; eradicating culture, living on future productivity gains and losing the war on poverty.


Nonsense.  Aside from its potential effect as a greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide is harmless at present and any conceivable future atmospheric levels.  Atmospheric concentrations of particulate and oxides of nitrogen are decreasing throughout the advanced industrialized world.  Capitalism and liberal democracy will bring these gains to the rest of the world if they are allowed to.  The rest is bollocks as well.  Modern environmentalism is largely socialism disguised.  Yet socialism is proven to be harmful to the environment, thus making most modern eco-wankers frauds and hypocrites of the first order.  I want a clean environment _and_ a free and prosperous society.  Therefore all of you whiny watermelons (that's green on the outside, red on the inside, mate) can sod the fuck off!


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## citydreams (Apr 11, 2006)

rogue yam said:
			
		

> Capitalism and liberal democracy will bring these gains to the rest of the world if they are allowed to



I might bother answering your inept political mumblings once I've stopped laughing


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## friedaweed (Apr 11, 2006)

rogue yam said:
			
		

> Nonsense.  Aside from its potential effect as a greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide is harmless at present and any conceivable future atmospheric levels.  Atmospheric concentrations of particulate and oxides of nitrogen are decreasing throughout the advanced industrialized world.  Capitalism and liberal democracy will bring these gains to the rest of the world if they are allowed to.  The rest is bollocks as well.  Modern environmentalism is largely socialism disguised.  Yet socialism is proven to be harmful to the environment, thus making most modern eco-wankers frauds and hypocrites of the first order.  I want a clean environment _and_ a free and prosperous society.  *Therefore all of you whiny watermelons (that's green on the outside, red on the inside, mate) can sod the fuck off*!



So mature  
Is this why freeper gave you the shoulder spam


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## rogue yam (Apr 11, 2006)

citydreams said:
			
		

> I might bother answering your inept political mumblings once I've stopped laughing


If you want to establish any credibility, you'll have to explain the concept of "choking to death on CO2".


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## Backatcha Bandit (Apr 11, 2006)

Can someone please tell me if these graphs are just 'made up' - and if they are, where I can find a better one?  Cheers.










Both from: http://www.koshland-science-museum.org/exhibitgcc/historical01.jsp


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## citydreams (Apr 11, 2006)

rogue yam said:
			
		

> If you want to establish any credibility, you'll have to explain the concept of "choking to death on CO2".



Of course i meant carbon monoxide..  Was just getting het up that anyone could be so dismissive of the effects of human industrialisation.


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## citydreams (Apr 11, 2006)

Backatcha Bandit said:
			
		

> Can someone please tell me if these graphs are just 'made up' - and if they are, where I can find a better one?  Cheers.



Aren't they the figures that Chief Scientist Prof King uses in his "we've got 30 years left" speech?


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## rogue yam (Apr 11, 2006)

Backatcha Bandit said:
			
		

> Can someone please tell me if these graphs are just 'made up' - and if they are, where I can find a better one?  Cheers.


Correlation is not causation.  Science 101.


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## bluestreak (Apr 11, 2006)

rogue yam said:
			
		

> Correlation is not causation.  Science 101.



is the traditional argument of capitalists everywhere.  "until it can be proved beyond all reasonable doubt then you have no right to argue or to expect us to restrict our practices and profits".

of course, "indications are" is not considered good enough, nor can "the balance of probablity".

hey, global warming is possibly caused by the space pixies.


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## free spirit (Apr 11, 2006)

interesting stats... off the top of my head I'd be thinking this is likely to be due to the vast forest fires across half the world over the last decade, keeping temps down temporarily as the soot in the upper atmosphere blocks out sunlight and leads to greater high level cloud formation.

same as after a big volcanic eruption.

that's just a hunch though, I might go find some evidence either way.


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## friedaweed (Apr 11, 2006)

bluestreak said:
			
		

> is the traditional argument of capitalists everywhere.  "until it can be proved beyond all reasonable doubt then you have no right to argue or to expect us to restrict our practices and profits".
> 
> of course, "indications are" is not considered good enough, nor can "the balance of probablity".
> 
> *hey, global warming is possibly caused by the space pixies*.



Driving these


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## free spirit (Apr 11, 2006)

rogue yam said:
			
		

> Correlation is not causation.  Science 101.



so then rogue yam, can you explain the mechanism whereby changing temperatures lead to corresponding changes in co2 emmissions? because I can explain it the other way round... or are you seriously arguing it's a coincidence?


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## TAE (Apr 11, 2006)

rogue yam said:
			
		

> Atmospheric concentrations of particulate and oxides of nitrogen are decreasing throughout the advanced industrialized world.


Is that because corporations were allowed to do whatever they wanted or because pressure groups convinced governments to put legislation into place?


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## rogue yam (Apr 11, 2006)

bluestreak said:
			
		

> hey, global warming is possibly caused by the space pixies.


I know nothing of these space pixies.  Ask friedaweed.  He's the go-to guy on all spaced-out matters.


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## rogue yam (Apr 11, 2006)

TAE said:
			
		

> Is that because corporations were allowed to do whatever they wanted or because pressure groups convinced governments to put legislation into place?


Both.


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## bluestreak (Apr 11, 2006)

rogue yam said:
			
		

> I know nothing of these space pixies.  Ask friedaweed.  He's the go-to guy on all spaced-out matters.




what do you think causes global warming?  how do you think we should protect ourselves?


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## rogue yam (Apr 11, 2006)

bluestreak said:
			
		

> what do you think causes global warming?


Predominantly the same things that have caused it sporadically since long before the Industrial Age.





> ...how do you think we should protect ourselves?


By spreading capitalism and liberal democracy, and promoting education and honesty, fair-dealing and good government, thereby utilizing our consequent wealth and technological prowess.  You know, the "American Way".


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## citydreams (Apr 11, 2006)

rogue yam said:
			
		

> You know, the "American Way".


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## friedaweed (Apr 11, 2006)

rogue yam said:
			
		

> I know nothing of these space pixies.  Ask friedaweed.  He's the go-to guy on all spaced-out matters.


You should try it maybe it would help you with your uptight little dream world.
Mind you looking at some of your posts I've been wondering when you might put the crack-pipe down  

Are you an eco-'warrior' yammy


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## TAE (Apr 11, 2006)

rogue yam said:
			
		

> ... promoting education and honesty, fair-dealing and good government ...


If only it were so.


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## kage (Apr 11, 2006)

Crack's not nearly mind bending enough, he must be on a LSD/PCP combo drip.


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## Backatcha Bandit (Apr 11, 2006)

rogue yam said:
			
		

> Correlation is not causation.  Science 101.


Yip yip yip you said that last time.  We know.

What I was specifically asking was is there any other available data that contradicts that shown in the graphs: 




Your response sort of says: 'No there isn't, Mr. Bandit, the data in the graphs is totally correct' -but I'd like to make sure. 

I'm not particularly interested in what you might think causes the data in the graphs to appear as it does, assuming you do.


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## friedaweed (Apr 11, 2006)

kage said:
			
		

> Crack's not nearly mind bending enough, he must be on a LSD/PCP combo drip.


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## free spirit (Apr 11, 2006)

having looked at the data taken from the same source as the article, I have to conclude that if this guy isn't on the pay of the oil companies then he's definately making a firm bid to get on the payroll.

what he neglects to mention in his article is that 1998 is the hottest year on record, so while all the years since then are in the 10 hottest years on record, they have just not managed to actually eclipse the hottest year yet.

Had he taken his dataset as starting in 1997 his conclusion would have been totally different as 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005 are all hotter.

basically 1998 was an annomally being 0.17 degree's higher than the year before and 0.24 degree's higher than the year after, his arguements bollocks and he knows it.


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## Jazzz (Apr 11, 2006)

Backatcha Bandit said:
			
		

> I'm not particularly interested in what you might think causes the data in the graphs to appear as it does, assuming you do.


Ouch!


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## bigfish (Apr 12, 2006)

Backatcha Bandit said:
			
		

> Can someone please tell me if these graphs are just 'made up' - and if they are, where I can find a better one?  Cheers.



McIntyre's and McKitrick's March 2 2006 Presentation to the National Academy of Sciences Expert Panel, “Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Past 1,000-2,000 Years” appears to raise serious doubts about the underlying statistical reliability of Mann's IPCC "hockey stick" graph. 

(PDF) Presentation with illustrations



> (b) With respect to Mann et al. [1998, 1999] (MBH98-99), our most important objections [see McIntyre and McKitrick, 2003, 2005a, 2005b, 2005c, 2005d and www.climateaudit.org] are:
> 
> • The study used “new” statistical methods that turned out to “mine” for hockey stick shaped series. These methods were misrepresented and/or inaccurately described in important particulars and their statistical properties were either unknown to the authors or unreported by them.
> • The reconstruction failed an important verification test said to have used in the study. This failure was not reported and the statistical skill was misrepresented both in the original article and by the IPCC.
> ...



More here


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## laptop (Apr 12, 2006)

bigfish said:
			
		

> McIntyre's and McKitrick's March 2 2006 Presentation to the National Academy of Sciences Expert Panel, “Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Past 1,000-2,000 Years” appears to raise serious doubts about the underlying statistical reliability of Mann's IPCC "hockey stick" graph.



But McIntyre and McKitrick are obsessive, compromised, unqualified, and behave like loonies. 




			
				Fred Pearce said:
			
		

> A more serious accusation has come from two non-climate scientists from Canada, who claim to have found a flaw in Mann's statistical methodology. Stephen McIntyre, a mathematician and oil industry consultant, and Ross McKitrick, an economist at the University of Guelph, Ontario, base their criticism on the way Mann used a well-established technique called principal component analysis. This involves dividing "noisy" data into different sets and giving each set an appropriate weighting. McIntyre and McKitrick claim that the way Mann applied this method had the effect of damping down natural variability, straightening the shaft of the hockey stick and accentuating 20th century warming.
> 
> There is one sense in which Mann accepts that this is unarguably true. The point of his original work was to compare past and present temperatures, so he analysed temperatures in terms of their divergence from the 20th-century mean. This approach highlights differences from that period and will thus accentuate any hockey stick shape if - but only if, he insists - it is present in the data.
> 
> ...



What McIntyre and McKitrick have latched onto is the fact that politicians *want not to think* - so they don't need to attack the science of climate change, they attack *a striking picture*. And this isn't just my opinion; it's a summary of my detailed discussions with senior people in NOAA. 

And as far as I can tell your obsession with this subject is a misplaced personal grudge -  Bernie Gunther shot down some other quite separate conspiranoid fantasy of yours so you decided you'd claim that his well-researched posts on climate change were somehow "a conspiracy".


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## bigfish (Apr 12, 2006)

laptop said:
			
		

> But McIntyre and McKitrick are obsessive, compromised, unqualified, and behave like loonies....



Name calling doesn't count as science. It's not unreasonable to bear in mind that the work of both camps may contain errors; the point of peer review is to root them out in order to arrive at a more accurate description of natural phenomena.


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## free spirit (Apr 12, 2006)

ok, but before this thread moves onto a different arguement, can you give your thoughts on my posts above Bigfish - as the thread starter do you agree the articles bollocks?


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## Genghis Cohen (Apr 12, 2006)

bigfish said:
			
		

> Name calling doesn't count as science. It's not unreasonable to bear in mind that the work of both camps may contain errors; the point of peer review is to root them out in order to arrive at a more accurate description of natural phenomena.



It just doesnt seem to matter what evidence is unearthed or how many climate related disasters there are, we could all be living in northampton on sea and this lot would still be going; "global warming, load of old twat."


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## bluestreak (Apr 12, 2006)

rogue yam said:
			
		

> Predominantly the same things that have caused it sporadically since long before the Industrial Age.



which are?




			
				rogue yam said:
			
		

> By spreading capitalism and liberal democracy, and promoting education and honesty, fair-dealing and good government, thereby utilizing our consequent wealth and technological prowess.  You know, the "American Way".



which will decrease temperature how?  because none of those things seem to be much in evidence in the world at the moment.


actually, you know what.  don't answer.  i can't be bothered.  you don't believe in global warming, and you don't believe that capitalism could possibly be anything other than 100% beneficient.  it's not possible to have a reasoned debate with someone with no critical analysis skills.


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## rogue yam (Apr 13, 2006)

bluestreak said:
			
		

> actually, you know what.  don't answer.  i can't be bothered.  you don't believe in global warming, and you don't believe that capitalism could possibly be anything other than 100% beneficient.  it's not possible to have a reasoned debate with someone with no critical analysis skills.


Capitalism does not need to be 100% beneficient in order to be the best possible system.  Or at least that is the way it appears to those of us who have no critical analysis skills.


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## rogue yam (Apr 13, 2006)

rogue yam said:
			
		

> (Global warming is caused by) predominantly the same things that have caused it sporadically since long before the Industrial Age.






			
				bluestreak said:
			
		

> which are?


Dude!  You tell me.  I'm the one with no critical analysis skills, remember?

Seriously. The climate has been getting alternately warmer and cooler for eons.  Any model that purports to predict anthropogenic climate forcing must also accurately incorporate all of the non-human drivers.  The people to explain what these are and to estimate their respective magnitudes are the ones who claim that their models "prove" that human activities are having a significant effect.


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## laptop (Apr 13, 2006)

rogue yam said:
			
		

> Any model that purports to predict anthropogenic climate forcing must also accurately incorporate all of the non-human drivers.  The people to explain what these are and to estimate their respective magnitudes are the ones who claim that their models "prove" that human activities are having a significant effect.



And you have applied your analytical skills to the modellers' handling of the entire gamut of climate forcing exactly *how*?


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## Azrael23 (Apr 13, 2006)

Rogue Spam eh?

 You really need to see past the whole capitalism thing, its a system designed by the elite to rob the people, much like communism and socialism. I like to call them all "fancy feudalism".

 The "American Way" you cretin, is not to get involved in imperialism, to have trade barriers, not to have debt based money creation and not to have a corporate (privately) owned system of power.

 You wouldn`t know the "American Way" if it slapped you in the face. If you were so bothered about patriotism how can you support a president who has struggled so feverishly to destroy the constitution and bill of rights. Its idiots like you who are the reason the US has been hijacked in the first place.

 Don`t preach to me about democracy you hack, what about the republic?!


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## rogue yam (Apr 13, 2006)

laptop said:
			
		

> And you have applied your analytical skills to the modellers' handling of the entire gamut of climate forcing exactly *how*?


Respond logically to what I wrote or else fuck off.


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## rogue yam (Apr 13, 2006)

Azrael23 said:
			
		

> Rogue Spam eh?
> 
> You really need to see past the whole capitalism thing, its a system designed by the elite to rob the people, much like communism and socialism. I like to call them all "fancy feudalism".
> 
> ...


OK, so you don't like capitalism, communism, socialism, free trade, private banks, private property, and George Bush.  What _do_ you like, and what does it have to do with global warming?


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## laptop (Apr 13, 2006)

rogue yam said:
			
		

> Respond logically to what I wrote.



But I did.

Tell us, wise one, what you know of modelling. Of your conversations with modellers. Of your understanding of the phrase "gamut of climate forcing".


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## rogue yam (Apr 13, 2006)

laptop said:
			
		

> Tell us, wise one, what you know of modelling. Of your conversations with modellers. Of your understanding of the phrase "gamut of climate forcing".


Why?


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## laptop (Apr 13, 2006)

rogue yam said:
			
		

> Why?



Because you were shooting your mouth off about climate models. 

So we need to know what you know about them and how they work.

Your refusal to answer indicates that the answer is "nothing" and you are merely regurgitating something that the Marshall Institute fed to Fux News.


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## rogue yam (Apr 13, 2006)

laptop said:
			
		

> Your refusal to answer indicates...


My refusal to answer you means your question is not interesting enough to me to be worth my time in answering it.  My time belongs to me, buttwipe, not you.

"One fool can ask more questions than a thousand wise men can answer."


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## laptop (Apr 13, 2006)

So you confess your bletherings about climate models were content-free.

Troll.


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## rogue yam (Apr 13, 2006)

laptop said:
			
		

> So you confess your bletherings about climate models were content-free.


Grow up.


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## rogue yam (Apr 13, 2006)

Those interested in the climate change debate might appreciate this article, which addresses some of the ways in which global warming alarmists seek to silence scientists who are skeptical of the alarmists' claims.  The author is a professor of atmospheric science at M.I.T.


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## guinnessdrinker (Apr 13, 2006)

rogue yam said:
			
		

> Dude!  You tell me.  I'm the one with no critical analysis skills, remember?
> 
> Seriously. The climate has been getting alternately warmer and cooler for eons.  Any model that purports to predict anthropogenic climate forcing must also accurately incorporate all of the non-human drivers.  The people to explain what these are and to estimate their respective magnitudes are the ones who claim that their models "prove" that human activities are having a significant effect.



can you disprove that there is no anthropogenic climate forcing?


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## nino_savatte (Apr 13, 2006)

rogue yam said:
			
		

> My refusal to answer you means your question is not interesting enough to me to be worth my time in answering it.  My time belongs to me, buttwipe, not you.
> 
> "One fool can ask more questions than a thousand wise men can answer."



I see you've added a new insult to your repertoire. 

Well done.


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## rogue yam (Apr 13, 2006)

guinnessdrinker said:
			
		

> can you disprove that there is no anthropogenic climate forcing?


This is the stupidest post thus far on this thread.  First of all, you meant "prove there is no" (or "disprove there is any").  In fact, I never said there was _no_ anthropogenic climate forcing.  It is impossible to prove a negative, anyway.  And the number zero can never be measured (scientists are limited to "non-detected" at some level of precision).  Stick to getting drunk and fighting you stupid mug.  This whole ideas thing is completely out of reach for you.  Retard!


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## Backatcha Bandit (Apr 13, 2006)

Ah!  Some 'content'! 



			
				rogue yam said:
			
		

> Those interested in the climate change debate might appreciate this article, which addresses some of the ways in which global warming alarmists seek to silence scientists who are skeptical of the alarmists' claims.  The author is a professor of atmospheric science at M.I.T.


Dr. Richard S. Lindzen?  Meh.



> Lindzen, for his part, charges oil and coal interests $2,500 a day for his consulting services; his 1991 trip to testify before a Senate committee was paid for by Western Fuels, and a speech he wrote, entitled "Global Warming: the Origin and Nature of Alleged Scientific Consensus," was underwritten by OPEC.


http://dieoff.org/page82.htm - http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1:17788710/



> Dr Annan first challenged Richard Lindzen, a meteorologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is dubious about the extent of human activity influencing the climate. Professor Lindzen had been willing to bet that global temperatures would drop over the next 20 years.
> 
> No bet was agreed on that; Dr Annan said Prof Lindzen wanted odds of 50-1 against falling temperatures, so would win $10,000 if the Earth cooled but pay out only £200 if it warmed. Seven other prominent climate change sceptics also failed to agree betting terms.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1552092,00.html

Shame yer boy doesn't want to put his (dutty) money where his mouth is, eh? 

Are you waving or drowning?

-

Thanks Bigfish & Laptop. 

I've read a couple of articles by Ross McKitrick before.

As pointed out in Laptop's c+p, McKitrick is an economist.  He thinks in economic terms.

He says things like '_the scale of policy intervention required to stabilize carbon concentrations would have far worse effects on human welfare than any known impact of climate change_' - which to my mind renders his opinion instantly dismissable.

So that's it, then?

Reality looks like this:





Arse.


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## rogue yam (Apr 13, 2006)

Backatcha Bandit said:
			
		

> Arse.


To really get the benefit of the article you have to, you know, _read_ it.


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## Backatcha Bandit (Apr 13, 2006)

rogue yam said:
			
		

> To really get the benefit of the article you have to, you know, _read_ it.


Well, I can save everyone else the bother.

The closest he comes to saying anything that isn't just pitiful whinging (if what Ross Gelbspan says is 'libelous' someone should sue him - They haven't because it's true) is this:



			
				Lindzen said:
			
		

> ..the ability of evaporation to drive tropical storms relies not only on temperature but humidity as well, and calls for drier, less humid air. Claims for starkly higher temperatures are based upon there being more humidity, not less--hardly a case for more storminess with global warming.



That's it.  The rest is pish.

Nowhere does he make any suggestion that the data portayed in this graph is inaccurate:




But, hey.  Feel free to point out if I've missed something.


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## Bernie Gunther (Apr 13, 2006)

There is a very useful overview of climate change, representing mainstream scientific opinion from Lord May, President of the Royal Society available just here


> Not surprisingly, there exists a climate change "denial lobby", funded to the tune of tens of millions of dollars by sectors of the hydrocarbon industry, and highly influential in some countries. This lobby has understandable similarities, in attitudes and tactics, to the tobacco lobby that continues to deny smoking causes lung cancer, or the curious lobby denying that HIV causes AIDS. Earlier, when some aspects of the science were less well understood, they denied the existence of evidence that human inputs of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases were causing global warming. More recently, there is acknowledgement of anthropogenic climate change, albeit expressed evasively, but accompanied by arguments that the effects are relatively insignificant, and/or that we should wait and see, and/or that technology will fix it anyway.



I should like to thank bigfish for bringing Lord May's address to my attention


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## free spirit (Apr 13, 2006)

> Originally Posted by Lindzen
> ..the ability of evaporation to drive tropical storms relies not only on temperature but humidity as well, and calls for drier, less humid air. Claims for starkly higher temperatures are based upon there being more humidity, not less--hardly a case for more storminess with global warming.
> 
> 
> That's it. The rest is pish.



um no that's pish too mate... if tropical storms / hurricanes needed dry air to form they'd not be forming over fucking massive areas of warm water, they'd be forming over fucking deserts and they ain't.

stupidest fucking statement I've ever heard a professor of atmospheric science make


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## Backatcha Bandit (Apr 13, 2006)

free spirit said:
			
		

> um no that's pish too mate...


I stand corrected.

It's all pish.


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## bigfish (Apr 15, 2006)

free spirit said:
			
		

> ... what he neglects to mention in his article is that 1998 is the hottest year on record, so while all the years since then are in the 10 hottest years on record, they have just not managed to actually eclipse the hottest year yet.



So how do you explain that, when CO2 emission increases are supposed to be rapidly forcing global temperatures up, according the global warming hypothesis?



> Had he taken his dataset as starting in 1997 his conclusion would have been totally different as 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005 are all hotter.



It's plain that the author is drawing a comparison between pre and post 1998 global average temperatures - i.e. between 

1. the MBH1998 data set as adopted by the IPCC and

2. the official temperature records from 1998 to 2005 compiled by the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia. 

It seems to be an exercise in obfuscation to me to suggest that his conclusion would have been totally different had he started from 1997 and not from 1998. If he been silly enough to follow your advice, then he would have committed the cardinal sin of contaminating his post 98 temperature data set with material imported from the sample he was comparing, and a false and meaningless comparison would have been the inevitable result. Fortunately, the author has extensive experience in the field of paleoclimatic research and obviously knows better.

According to the IPCC MBH98 data, the world has experienced a rapid rise in global temperatures over approximately the last 100 years (up to 1998). However, the global temperature data, compiled by the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, does not identify any upward trend over the sampled time frame 1998 to 2005, only a slight downward movement. Given that the upward trend in the IPCC MBH98 data is so pronounced (hence the so called hockey stick), one is obliged to wonder why such a marked trend is not reflected in the later UEA Climate Research Unit data?


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## Backatcha Bandit (Apr 15, 2006)

bigfish said:
			
		

> However, the global temperature data, compiled by the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, does not identify any upward trend over the sampled time frame 1998 to 2005, only a slight downward movement.



Global temperature data, compiled by the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit:




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


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## free spirit (Apr 17, 2006)

Bigfish<<<<

The Point>>>>>>>

just look at the graph above and tell me whether or not the trend in average global temperatures looks like it's rising or falling. Please note that the trend is represented on the graph by the line not the individual blocks, and is found by averaging out the temperatures of each year with those of the years around it in order to smooth out anomolies like 1998 and give a truer picture of what's happening.

1998 is the hottest year on record & was significantly hotter than any of the 4 years immediately around it. No honest climate scientist would take the hottest year on record as a starting point and go 'oh look the next 6 years are colder than the hottest year on record which must mean that global warming theory is wrong...' there's an agenda there IMO.


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## laptop (Apr 17, 2006)

free spirit said:
			
		

> No honest climate scientist would take the hottest year on record as a starting point and go 'oh look the next 6 years are colder than the hottest year on record which must mean that global warming theory is wrong...'



Precisely.

From that bottom graph, what yer man says is equivalent to taking 2000 as your baseline and saying "oh fuck, 0.2C in two years, that's 10C in a century!"

Which is wrong, but precisely as wrong, for the same reason.

The scary thing is that politicians are predisposed to accept any argument for doing nothing and aren't known for their numeracy. They're lawyers by inclination if not by training, and their brains are so filled with donors' and contacts' names and biogs there can be little room for anything else.


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## Crispy (Apr 17, 2006)

I'd quite like to see world GDP plotted on those temperature graphs, scaled to fit...


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## bigfish (Apr 17, 2006)

*Based on OECD figures, using Geary-Khamis measure for real dollars


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## free spirit (Apr 17, 2006)

Crispy said:
			
		

> I'd quite like to see world GDP plotted on those temperature graphs, scaled to fit...



mind if I ask why?

world gdp for last few years here . can't be arsed to look any harder for a longer timescale version sorry.


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## bigfish (Apr 17, 2006)

*Based on OECD figures, using Geary-Khamis measure for real dollars


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## Crispy (Apr 17, 2006)

free spirit said:
			
		

> mind if I ask why?
> 
> world gdp for last few years here . can't be arsed to look any harder for a longer timescale version sorry.



Just wondering if there was a visible prouction=enrgy use=CO2=temp rise correlation  Probably too many factors.


----------



## bigfish (Apr 21, 2006)

> ABSTRACT
> The differences between the results of McIntyre and McKitrick[2003] and Mann et al. [1998] can be reconciled by only two series: the  Gaspé cedar ring width series and the first principal component (PC1) from the North American tree ring network. *We show that in each case MBH98 methodology differed from what was stated in print and the differences resulted in lower early 15th century index values*. In the case of the North American PC1, MBH98 modified  the PC algorithm so that the calculation was no longer centered, *but claimed that the calculation was “conventional”*.  The modification caused  the PC1 to be dominated by a subset of bristlecone pine ring width series which are *widely doubted to be reliable temperature proxies*. In the case of the Gaspé cedars, MBH98 did not use archived data, but made an extrapolation, *unique within the corpus of over 350 series*,  and *misrepresented  the start date of the series*. The recent Corrigendum by Mann et al. denied that these differences between the stated methods and actual methods have any effect, *a claim we show is false*. We also refute the various arguments by Mann et al. purporting to salvage their reconstruction, including their claims of robustness and statistical skill. Finally, we comment on several policy issues arising from this controversy: *the lack of consistent requirements for disclosure of data and methods in paleoclimate journals*, and the need to recognize *the limitations of journal peer review as a quality control standard when scientific studies are used for public policy*.



THE M&M CRITIQUE OF THE MBH98 NORTHERN 
HEMISPHERE CLIMATE INDEX: UPDATE AND 
IMPLICATIONS


----------



## Azrael23 (Apr 21, 2006)

I don`t believe in global warming.

 I believe in Global Climate Change, some areas warmer, some areas colder.

 The climate change based on recent sun activity and the fact that according to ice core samples we have a 12,000 year climate cycle anyway.

 Its A GREAT EXCUSE TO TAX US ALL!!! THEY ALSO GET TO TAX ALL THE DEVELOPED COUNTRIES AND SEND OUR JOBS ABROAD TO PEOPLE WHO ARE ALREADY WAGE SLAVES SO THAT OUR ECONOMY BURSTS AND WE CAN BE SLAVES AS WELL.....yay....all under the pretense of saving the planet.   


  But i`m a whacko, right?


----------



## Crispy (Apr 21, 2006)

Azrael23 said:
			
		

> I don`t believe in global warming.
> 
> I believe in Global Climate Change, some areas warmer, some areas colder.
> 
> ...



Yeah, I suppose if all scientists were actually government stooges under the pay of the ruling elite etc. then you might have a point. But all the scientists I've ever met have a very healthy disregard for Authority and like to deal in The Facts wherever possible.

And yes, you're a whacko, but a harmless one who's probably a nice person who'd help grannies and so on, so I bear no ill will


----------



## bigfish (Apr 22, 2006)

*Overselling Climate Change?*

Simon Cox reports on how scientists are becoming worried by the quality of research used to back up the most extreme climate predictions.

BBC Radio 4: The Battle for Influence (30 min)


----------



## bigfish (Apr 22, 2006)

*A load of hot air?*

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4923504.stm



> Hardly a day goes by without a new dire warning about climate change. But some claims are more extreme than others, giving rise to fears that the problem is being oversold and damaging the issue.
> How much has the planet warmed up over the past century? Most people reckon between two and three degrees. They are not even close. The real figure, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is 0.6C.
> 
> It's not surprising most people get it wrong. We are bombarded by stories warning us that global warming is out of control. The most extreme warn us we will be living in a tropical Britain where malaria is rife and Norfolk has disappeared altogether.


----------



## Backatcha Bandit (Apr 24, 2006)

Let's take a look at some of these 'dire warnings' in a little more detail.

Todays Guardian states:





> Climate change is reshaping the landscape of Britain as rising temperatures allow orchids and ferns to flourish in the north, while other species retreat to cooler conditions on high land and mountainsides.
> 
> The conclusion, published today in a comprehensive survey of the nation's flora, suggests that the changing climate has already brought about a rapid and dramatic shift in the country's plantlife, a trend researchers say will be exacerbated by future warming.


 http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329463491-117700,00.html

The BBC go into a little more detail: 





> Between 2003-2004, over 750 botanists set about recording plants found in 811 2km-by-2km plots across Britain, collecting about 200,000 records. They were then able to compare their findings with a near identical study that had been carried out in 1987-1988.
> 
> The results provided a unique dataset, giving a comprehensive insight into changing flora in rural and urban habitats.


 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4931722.stm

Are you saying that this is groundless scaremongering?


----------



## bigfish (Apr 25, 2006)

I don't know if that particular story's scare mongering or not. In any event plant species here have had to adapt themselves in the past to both warmer and cooler climates. But, anyway, it seem quite a few scientists are getting fed up with all this climate change "consensus" crapola. 

Here's a list of signatories to a recent Open Letter to the Canadian Prime Minister.



> We appreciate the difficulty any government has formulating sensible science-based policy when the loudest voices always seem to be pushing in the opposite direction. However, by convening open, unbiased consultations, Canadians will be permitted to hear from experts on both sides of the debate in the climate-science community. When the public comes to understand that there is no "consensus" among climate scientists about the relative importance of the various causes of global climate change, the government will be in a far better position to develop plans that reflect reality and so benefit both the environment and the economy.
> 
> "Climate change is real" is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified. Global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural "noise." The new Canadian government's commitment to reducing air, land and water pollution is commendable, but allocating funds to "stopping climate change" would be irrational. We need to continue intensive research into the real causes of climate change and help our most vulnerable citizens adapt to whatever nature throws at us next.



Dr. Ian D. Clark, professor, isotope hydrogeology and paleoclimatology, Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa
Dr. Tad Murty, former senior research scientist, Dept. of Fisheries and Oceans, former director of Australia's National Tidal Facility and professor of earth sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide; currently adjunct professor, Departments of Civil Engineering and Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa
Dr. R. Timothy Patterson, professor, Dept. of Earth Sciences (paleoclimatology), Carleton University, Ottawa
Dr. Fred Michel, director, Institute of Environmental Science and associate professor, Dept. of Earth Sciences, Carleton University, Ottawa
Dr. Madhav Khandekar, former research scientist, Environment Canada. Member of editorial board of Climate Research and Natural Hazards
Dr. Paul Copper, FRSC, professor emeritus, Dept. of Earth Sciences, Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ont.
Dr. Ross McKitrick, associate professor, Dept. of Economics, University of Guelph, Ont.
Dr. Tim Ball, former professor of climatology, University of Winnipeg; environmental consultant
Dr. Andreas Prokoph, adjunct professor of earth sciences, University of Ottawa; consultant in statistics and geology
Mr. David Nowell, M.Sc. (Meteorology), fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, Canadian member and past chairman of the NATO Meteorological Group, Ottawa
Dr. Christopher Essex, professor of applied mathematics and associate director of the Program in Theoretical Physics, University of Western Ontario, London, Ont.
Dr. Gordon E. Swaters, professor of applied mathematics, Dept. of Mathematical Sciences, and member, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Research Group, University of Alberta
Dr. L. Graham Smith, associate professor, Dept. of Geography, University of Western Ontario, London, Ont.
Dr. G. Cornelis van Kooten, professor and Canada Research Chair in environmental studies and climate change, Dept. of Economics, University of Victoria
Dr. Petr Chylek, adjunct professor, Dept. of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax
Dr./Cdr. M. R. Morgan, FRMS, climate consultant, former meteorology advisor to the World Meteorological Organization. Previously research scientist in climatology at University of Exeter, U.K.
Dr. Keith D. Hage, climate consultant and professor emeritus of Meteorology, University of Alberta
Dr. David E. Wojick, P.Eng., energy consultant, Star Tannery, Va., and Sioux Lookout, Ont.
Rob Scagel, M.Sc., forest microclimate specialist, principal consultant, Pacific Phytometric Consultants, Surrey, B.C.
Dr. Douglas Leahey, meteorologist and air-quality consultant, Calgary
Paavo Siitam, M.Sc., agronomist, chemist, Cobourg, Ont.
Dr. Chris de Freitas, climate scientist, associate professor, The University of Auckland, N.Z.
Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology, Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dr. Freeman J. Dyson, emeritus professor of physics, Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton, N.J.
Mr. George Taylor, Dept. of Meteorology, Oregon State University; Oregon State climatologist; past president, American Association of State Climatologists
Dr. Ian Plimer, professor of geology, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Adelaide; emeritus professor of earth sciences, University of Melbourne, Australia
Dr. R.M. Carter, professor, Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia
Mr. William Kininmonth, Australasian Climate Research, former Head National Climate Centre, Australian Bureau of Meteorology; former Australian delegate to World Meteorological Organization Commission for Climatology, Scientific and Technical Review
Dr. Hendrik Tennekes, former director of research, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute
Dr. Gerrit J. van der Lingen, geologist/paleoclimatologist, Climate Change Consultant, Geoscience Research and Investigations, New Zealand
Dr. Patrick J. Michaels, professor of environmental sciences, University of Virginia
Dr. Nils-Axel Morner, emeritus professor of paleogeophysics & geodynamics, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
Dr. Gary D. Sharp, Center for Climate/Ocean Resources Study, Salinas, Calif.
Dr. Roy W. Spencer, principal research scientist, Earth System Science Center, The University of Alabama, Huntsville
Dr. Al Pekarek, associate professor of geology, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Dept., St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, Minn.
Dr. Marcel Leroux, professor emeritus of climatology, University of Lyon, France; former director of Laboratory of Climatology, Risks and Environment, CNRS
Dr. Paul Reiter, professor, Institut Pasteur, Unit of Insects and Infectious Diseases, Paris, France. Expert reviewer, IPCC Working group II, chapter 8 (human health)
Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski, physicist and chairman, Scientific Council of Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection, Warsaw, Poland
Dr. Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, reader, Dept. of Geography, University of Hull, U.K.; editor, Energy & Environment
Dr. Hans H.J. Labohm, former advisor to the executive board, Clingendael Institute (The Netherlands Institute of International Relations) and an economist who has focused on climate change
Dr. Lee C. Gerhard, senior scientist emeritus, University of Kansas, past director and state geologist, Kansas Geological Survey
Dr. Asmunn Moene, past head of the Forecasting Centre, Meteorological Institute, Norway
Dr. August H. Auer, past professor of atmospheric science, University of Wyoming; previously chief meteorologist, Meteorological Service (MetService) of New Zealand
Dr. Vincent Gray, expert reviewer for the IPCC and author of The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of 'Climate Change 2001,' Wellington, N.Z.
Dr. Howard Hayden, emeritus professor of physics, University of Connecticut
Dr Benny Peiser, professor of social anthropology, Faculty of Science, Liverpool John Moores University, U.K.
Dr. Jack Barrett, chemist and spectroscopist, formerly with Imperial College London, U.K.
Dr. William J.R. Alexander, professor emeritus, Dept. of Civil and Biosystems Engineering, University of Pretoria, South Africa. Member, United Nations Scientific and Technical Committee on Natural Disasters, 1994-2000
Dr. S. Fred Singer, professor emeritus of environmental sciences, University of Virginia; former director, U.S. Weather Satellite Service
Dr. Harry N.A. Priem, emeritus professor of planetary geology and isotope geophysics, Utrecht University; former director of the Netherlands Institute for Isotope Geosciences; past president of the Royal Netherlands Geological & Mining Society
Dr. Robert H. Essenhigh, E.G. Bailey professor of energy conversion, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, The Ohio State University
Dr. Sallie Baliunas, astrophysicist and climate researcher, Boston, Mass.
Douglas Hoyt, senior scientist at Raytheon (retired) and co-author of the book The Role of the Sun in Climate Change; previously with NCAR, NOAA, and the World Radiation Center, Davos, Switzerland
Dipl.-Ing. Peter Dietze, independent energy advisor and scientific climate and carbon modeller, official IPCC reviewer, Bavaria, Germany
Dr. Boris Winterhalter, senior marine researcher (retired), Geological Survey of Finland, former professor in marine geology, University of Helsinki, Finland
Dr. Wibjorn Karlen, emeritus professor, Dept. of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, Sweden
Dr. Hugh W. Ellsaesser, physicist/meteorologist, previously with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Calif.; atmospheric consultant.
Dr. Art Robinson, founder, Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, Cave Junction, Ore.
Dr. Arthur Rorsch, emeritus professor of molecular genetics, Leiden University, The Netherlands; past board member, Netherlands organization for applied research (TNO) in environmental, food and public health
Dr. Alister McFarquhar, Downing College, Cambridge, U.K.; international economist
Dr. Richard S. Courtney, climate and atmospheric science consultant, IPCC expert reviewer, U.K.


----------



## tangentlama (Apr 25, 2006)

ignore...i'll make a new thread


----------



## Backatcha Bandit (Apr 26, 2006)

bigfish said:
			
		

> I don't know if that particular story's scare mongering or not. In any event plant species here have had to adapt themselves in the past to both warmer and cooler climates. But, anyway, it seem quite a few scientists are getting fed up with all this climate change "consensus" crapola.
> 
> Here's a list of signatories to a recent Open Letter to the Canadian Prime Minister.
> 
> ...



Wow!   

That's a long list.

Mind if I start from the bottom?  OK... let's see now...

Dr. Richard S. Courtney - Technical Editor for CoalTrans International (journal of the international coal trading industry) 

Dr. Alister McFarquhar - economist.

Dr. Arthur Rorsch - Defence Industry links 

Dr. Art Robinson - founder of OISM 

Dr. Hugh W. Ellsaesser - reckons 'Ozone depletion is good for you'

Dr. Wibjorn Karlen, Dr. Boris Winterhalter - both members of 'Friends of Science' - some brain-turd of  Dr. R. Timothy Patterson (who's near the top of your list).  Did he write the letter?

Their website is registered to Charles Simpson - who is apparently a retired oil industry employee.   



> Dr. Patterson said rising temperatures in the past century are due to natural changes in the energy of the sun, not to pollution.
> 
> He mocked the view that carbon dioxide is a pollutant. “It’s plant food, it’s a natural part of the atmosphere.”
> 
> ...


 http://www.climatesearch.com/newsDetail.cfm?nwsId=127

_This_ is crapola.

It's just another Leipzig Declaration.  Infact most of these names were on Leipzig!     PR company guff.    

Someone else can do the rest.  I can't be arsed.


----------



## laptop (Apr 26, 2006)

Backatcha Bandit said:
			
		

> Someone else can do the rest.  I can't be arsed.



Nah, I think it's done already - see the Wiki entry on the Leipzig Declaration which will have been picked over by climate change deniers... and also the investigation by Danish Broadcasting Company (DR1) journalist, Øjvind Hesselager. In late 1997 he attempted to contact every signatory (82 at the time) to the "Leipzig Declaration." 



> Of 33 European signatories:
> 
> 
> there were four he was unable to locate
> ...


----------



## Fruitloop (Apr 26, 2006)

Maybe bigfish would like to explain what his intention is in foisting this stuff on us? I for one am a bit puzzled.


----------



## free spirit (Apr 26, 2006)

I think when you're talking about climate change in terms of conspiracies etc. you really ought to be considering which side really has the most at stake financially, as well as which side has the track record of using every trick in the book to safeguard their industry and bump up profits, and the political clout to bend policies to there way of thinking.

Big Oil

or 

non oil funded scientists & environmentalists


I know which side I'd consider most likely to be telling the truth


----------



## Crispy (Apr 26, 2006)

Fruitloop said:
			
		

> Maybe bigfish would like to explain what his intention is in foisting this stuff on us? I for one am a bit puzzled.



In short, he's a conspiracy theorist, so the majority opinion is always wrong.


----------



## obanite (Apr 27, 2006)

Christ, the audacity of the energy industries is astonishing.


----------



## sparticus (Apr 28, 2006)

rogue yam said:
			
		

> Correlation is not causation.  Science 101.



Don't tell me it's just a spooky coincidence that has been repeated down the ages


----------



## bigfish (Apr 30, 2006)

*No climate change: India Meteorological Department*

http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp?aid=290686&ssid=26&sid=ENV



> New Delhi, Apr 25: The clamour over climate change the world over notwithstanding, the country's weather agency believes that variation in rain and temperatures over the country being experienced over the years fall within the "natural variability".
> 
> "We are keeping a watch. We are not denying.... It (the variations) are still under the natural variability," Director General of the India Meteorological Department Dr B Lal told reporters here today.
> 
> ...


----------



## Backatcha Bandit (Apr 30, 2006)

> *Warming Winds, Rising Tides, Bangladesh
> *
> Asia's largest rivers, the Ganges and the Bramaputra, join in the world's most extensive delta and flow into the Bay of Bengal. There lies Bangladesh, a nation of 140 million people beset by poverty and the floods of the rivers, and now also affected by rising sea level. Gary Braasch visited to document this threat, traveling by boat south from Dhaka and speaking to villagers, fishermen, and scientists. Already a million people a year are displaced by loss of land along rivers, and indications are this is increasing. Villagers spoke of losing a town mosque to unexpectedly fast erosion, even in a time of good weather in the dryer season.





http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org/ <-- check out the 'glaciers' page for 'spot the difference'.


----------



## bigfish (May 14, 2006)

*Climate Change: Incorrect information on pre-industrial CO2*

http://www.john-daly.com/zjiceco2.htm



> Statement written for the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
> March 2004
> 
> Statement of Prof. Zbigniew Jaworowski
> ...


----------



## laptop (May 14, 2006)

> Statement of Prof. Zbigniew Jaworowski
> Chairman, Scientific Council of Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection



Might as well ask a dentist... 

Come to think of it, the SCCLPR should spend a lot of its time advising dentists


----------



## bigfish (May 14, 2006)

laptop said:
			
		

> Might as well ask a dentist...




Jaworowski's background:



> In order to study the history of industrial pollution of the global atmosphere, between 1972 and 1980, I organized *11 glacier expeditions, which measured natural and man-made pollutants in contemporary and ancient precipitation, preserved in 17 glaciers in Arctic, Antarctic, Alaska, Norway, the Alps, the Himalayas, the Ruwenzori Mountains in Uganda, the Peruvian Andes and in Tatra Mountains in Poland*. I also measured long-term changes of dust in the troposphere and stratosphere, and the lead content in humans living in Europe and elsewhere during the past 5000 years. In 1968 I published the first paper on lead content in glacier ice[1]. Later I demonstrated that in pre-industrial period the total flux of lead into the global atmosphere was higher than in the 20th century, that the atmospheric content of lead is dominated by natural sources, and that the lead level in humans in Medieval Ages was 10 to 100 times higher than in the 20th century. In the 1990s I was working in the Norwegian Polar Research Institute in Oslo, and in the Japanese National Institute of Polar Research in Tokyo. In this period I studied the effects of climatic change on polar regions, and the reliability of glacier studies for estimation of CO2 concentration in the ancient atmosphere.



Might as well ask an environmentalist.... after all, environmentalists were predicting "global cooling" in the 1970's; "nuclear winter" in the 1980's; and "global warming" in the 1990's right up to the present day.


----------



## bigfish (May 18, 2006)

*Ankelohe and beyond: communicating climate change <gulp!>*

http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization-climate_change_debate/ankelohe_3550.jsp



> A new way of framing the climate-change issue that makes sense in people's daily lives is needed in order to translate passive awareness into active concern, says Simon Retallack.
> 
> More newsprint, broadcast time and web space is being devoted to the issue of climate change than ever before, so it would not be a surprise if journalists were to pat themselves on the back for their efforts. Far from it. On 18-21 May 2006 at a country retreat in northern Germany, journalists and writers from Britain, Germany and the United States will be meeting to discuss where they are going wrong and how they can do better.
> 
> Writers taking part in the "Ankelohe Conversations" on *the twin problems of climate change and the oil endgame* will be asking themselves why – despite all the coverage they are now giving these issues – the public is doing so little to take action.



Maybe the public aren't as gullible as the writers imagine!


----------



## bigfish (May 24, 2006)

*Little Ice Age (Solar Influence - Temperature) -- Summary*

http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C//subject/s/summaries/solariceage.jsp



> So what's going on here? The answer is that a vast repository of empirical findings from an array of scientific disciplines is being ignored by a small coterie of climate scientists who are focused almost exclusively on developing computer models of how they believe earth's climate system operates. Any observation that fails to harmonize with that belief system is generally ignored by its adherents, while those who champion their approach to the subject often question the judgment and/or motives of scientists who place greater confidence in real-world observations.
> 
> So just how real is the sun-climate connection that ranks so low on the climate modelers' scale of significance?
> 
> ...


----------



## Crispy (May 24, 2006)

Just one small note, "center for the study of carbon dioxide and global change" has several links to the oil industry, including staff and funding, and also works with another oil company front. Sourcewatch However, let's not play the man, let's play the ball 

That sounds like interesting research. There's a lot we don't know about the sun, and it may well have a large part to play in global climate change - whichever direction it heads in.

However, the basic science of the greenhouse effect is undisputable. You can shine various wavelengths of light through a box of CO2 and see for yourself how some are transmitted and some are absorbed or reflected. There is no argument about this mechanism. The only argument to be had is how strong is this effect?


----------



## Jo/Joe (May 24, 2006)

We can all find counter sources to any opinion. The undeniable fact is that we do release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Would bigfish or rogue yam like to dispute that?


----------



## bigfish (May 24, 2006)

Jo/Joe said:
			
		

> We can all find counter sources to any opinion. The undeniable fact is that we do release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Would bigfish or rogue yam like to dispute that?



Here's another "undeniable fact" - the Sun affects planetary temperatures.


----------



## bigfish (May 24, 2006)

Crispy said:
			
		

> ... That sounds like interesting research. There's a lot we don't know about the sun, and it may well have a large part to play in global climate change - whichever direction it heads in.
> 
> However, the basic science of the greenhouse effect is undisputable. You can shine various wavelengths of light through a box of CO2 and see for yourself how some are transmitted and some are absorbed or reflected. There is no argument about this mechanism. The only argument to be had is how strong is this effect?



What is also "indisputable" is the fact that when an object (like the Earth) is close to a heat source (like the Sun), then the object will absorb heat from that source. What is also "indisputable" is should that heat source (the Sun) grow warmer or cooler, then so too will the object - hence the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age.

*WORLD CLIMATE HISTORY ACCORDING TO IPCC IN 1995*






*WORLD CLIMATE HISTORY ACCORDING TO IPCC IN 2001*




(MBH98)​
Both of these climate histories cannot be true - one of them must be a fake.


----------



## bigfish (May 24, 2006)

(deleted double post)


----------



## bigfish (May 24, 2006)




----------



## Crispy (May 24, 2006)

bigfish said:
			
		

> *WORLD CLIMATE HISTORY ACCORDING TO IPCC IN 1995*
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Two graphs, with differently labelled axes, one without even a scale. Not very useful.

Yes, the sun has an effect.
But do you deny that CO2 also has an effect?


----------



## bigfish (May 24, 2006)

Crispy said:
			
		

> Two graphs, with differently labelled axes, one without even a scale. Not very useful.



Nonsense! Both graphs are the property of the IPCC. Both depict a millennial global climate history. The first one (1995) clearly shows the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. The second one (1998 -published 2001) does not. 




> Yes, the sun has an effect. But do you deny that CO2 also has an effect?



No, but I think the effect of CO2 on global temperature is negligible compared to that of solar activity - bearing in mind also that CO2 levels are known to have been much higher in the Miocene - the period in Earth's evolution when our mammalian ancestors first appeared on the scene.

Now here's a question for you: do you deny that average global temperature was hotter during the MWP than it is today?


----------



## Jo/Joe (May 24, 2006)

bigfish said:
			
		

> Here's another "undeniable fact" - the Sun affects planetary temperatures.



Is that a yes to my question?


----------



## bigfish (May 24, 2006)

Jo/Joe said:
			
		

> Is that a yes to my question?



No, as I make clear above, I think that the effect of CO2 on global temperature is negligible compared to that of solar activity (and we can add water vapor too). 

So which of the two graphs would you put your money on being the more accurate, Jo - IPCC 95 based on multiple studies from the 4 corners of the globe, or IPCC 2001 based on a single statistical climate model study (MBH98) that no other research team so far has been able to duplicate?


----------



## laptop (May 24, 2006)

Crispy said:
			
		

> Two graphs, with differently labelled axes, one without even a scale. Not very useful.



Indeed.

The first appears to be a badly-faxed image taken out of context from a *1990* IPCC report. The caption is quoted here as:



> *Schematic* diagrams of global temperature variations since the Pleistocene on three time-scales: (a) the last million years; (b) the last ten thousand years, and (c) the last thousand years. The dotted line nominally represents conditions near the beginning of the twentieth century.



My emphasis. Schematic. Hence the lack of temperature scale. It doesn't claim to represent any particular temperature change.

The second is a version from a Mann _et al._ paper - *not an IPCC document at all*.

So they don't even have the same status. 

I took the trouble to superimpose the schematic and line up the time-scales:






I've emphasised the Mann trend line. Anyone who has any idea will see that it's not a bad fit even to the schematic at arbitrary scale.

But since it's a schematic the scale is arbitrary and it's equally valid to do this:






So, there's some disagreement about the Med. Warm Period. Science is like that. It goes on.

What there is not disagreement about is the red bit at the right - the actual measured temperatures.

The Mann graph is not central to the case for human-induced climate change. It is seized on by those who wish forwhatever emotional, delusional or financial reason to argue that humans are not causing climate change.

Why? 

Because they know that politicans like pictures and don't understand science.

Bigfish's use of the two graphs out of context is dishonest - a lie. (It's still a lie even if the reason is not having the faintest idea what he's on about.) The misattribution is a plain lie.

Might as well argue that because one graph's in colour it can't be about the same world as the one in grey.


----------



## Crispy (May 24, 2006)

Thanks laptop, I'd just junked a very badly worded version of that reply


----------



## laptop (May 24, 2006)

Meanwhile:




David Attenborough comes out fighting - 


on BBC1, at 9pm tonight


----------



## Jo/Joe (May 24, 2006)

bigfish said:
			
		

> No, as I make clear above, I think that the effect of CO2 on global temperature is negligible compared to that of solar activity (and we can add water vapor too).
> 
> So which of the two graphs would you put your money on being the more accurate, Jo - IPCC 95 based on multiple studies from the 4 corners of the globe, or IPCC 2001 based on a single statistical climate model study (MBH98) that no other research team so far has been able to duplicate?



My question was - do we release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere? You are exactly like pbman was in response to this question.


----------



## bigfish (May 25, 2006)

laptop said:
			
		

> Indeed.
> 
> The first appears to be a badly-faxed image taken out of context from a *1990* IPCC report. The caption is quoted here as:



Try this, it's linked at the same site: (PDF) http://www.climatechangeissues.com/files/PDF/conf05mckitrick.pdf Page 5 reproduces the image in question - the caption below reads "Figure 3: World Climate History According to IPCC in *1995*." 




> My emphasis. Schematic. Hence the lack of temperature scale. It doesn't claim to represent any particular temperature change.



Nevertheless the graph asserts that during the Medieval Warm Period temperatures were higher than they are today. Also in the PDF document that I've linked to you will see that McKitrick points to a further study by a group led by Shaopeng Huang of the University of Michigan. This group.. "completed a major analysis of over 6,000 borehole records from *every continent* around the world. Their study went back 20,000 years. The portion covering the last millennium is shown in Figure 4 [See PDF Page 6]. The similarity to the IPCC’s 1995 graph is obvious. The world experienced a “warm” interval in the medieval era that *dwarfs 20th century changes*. The present-day climate appears to be simply *a recovery from the cold years of the “Little Ice Age*.”" 

So if the Medieval Warm Period was much warmer than it is today -with zero man made CO2 industrial emissions -what is so unusual about it being warm in modern times? Furthermore, if both the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age were caused by variations in the sun, is it not likely that the increased solar activity observed in the 20th century accounts for most, if not all, of the claimed 20th century warming?



> So, there's some disagreement about the Med. Warm Period. Science is like that. It goes on.



Yes, that's right, the "disagreement" is of fairly recent vintage and lies in the fact that climate modelers like Mann et al. are trying to magic it out of existence.

Here's another snippet from the PDF I've linked to...



> In the mid-1990s the use of ground boreholes as a clue to paleoclimate history was becoming well-established. In 1995 David Deming, a geoscientist at the University of Oklahoma, published a study in Science4 that demonstrated the technique by generating a 150-year climate history for North America.
> Here, in his own words, is what happened next.
> 
> 
> With the publication of the article in Science, I gained significant credibility in the  community of scientists working on climate change. They thought I was one of them, *someone who would pervert science in the service of social and political causes*. So one of them let his guard down. A major person working in the area of climate change and global warming sent me an astonishing email that said *“We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.”*





> What there is not disagreement about is the red bit at the right - the actual measured temperatures.



The rising blade of the hockey stick, you mean, relative to its rather low slung shaft? All Mann appears to have done here is crudely graft the surface temperature record of the 20th century (the red bit marking the blade of the hockey stick) onto the pre-1900 tree-ring record (the shaft), in order to create the impression that the climate is spiraling out of control. Is it really credible science grafting two data series (temperature and tree-rings) together into a single series like this? personally I have doubts about that... and I must say, laptop, I really am 'surprised' to see something that crude get past a highly trained Oxbridge wonk like yourself.




> The Mann graph is not central to the case for human-induced climate change...



No, of course not - that's why it became a central feature of the IPCC 2001 report and a favourite icon of the rent-a-global-boiler crowd...



> It is seized on by those who wish forwhatever emotional, delusional or financial reason to argue that humans are not causing climate change.
> 
> Why?
> 
> Because they know that politicans like pictures and don't understand science.



Yet more patronizing pap from someone holding a first in the subject from Balliol - "because ... politicans like pictures and don't understand science." Only Oxbridge trained global-boilers like laptop are able to grasp the finer complexities of "climate science", don't you see.



> Bigfish's use of the two graphs out of context is dishonest - a lie. (It's still a lie even if the reason is not having the faintest idea what he's on about.) The misattribution is a plain lie.



My use of the graphs is not out of context. The first graph reflected the IPCC understanding of millennial climate history, such as it was, in both 1990 and 1995. The second graph is taken from Mann's famous hockey stick series. My mistake was to attribute that particular graph to the IPCC when in fact an almost identical graph, also produced by Mann, was actually reproduced in the report 4 times. Mann also wrote part of the 2001 IPCC Third Assessment Report. The part that asserts that almost all of the climate change seen during the last two millennia occurred during the 20th century and that it is due to human activities. One should wonder how it was that Mann et al and there now discredited studies came to be featured so prominently. 


Actual






Replica






Calling me a liar on such a pathetic and pedantic basis, points to a desperate man.


----------



## laptop (May 25, 2006)

bigfish said:
			
		

> Try this, it's linked at the same site: (PDF) http://www.climatechangeissues.com/files/PDF/conf05mckitrick.pdf Page 5 reproduces the image in question - the caption below reads "Figure 3: World Climate History According to IPCC in *1995*."



So did McKitrick got the attribution wrong, then? I note he reproduces the crap faxed graph. (Which is itself suspicious in terms of document analysis... that's the sort of thing that conspiraloons do. Proper researchers get permission and a high-quality copy.) 

I found the proper schematic as part of a set of three from a 1990 report. Here's the whole thing:








			
				bigfish said:
			
		

> Nevertheless the graph asserts that during the Medieval Warm Period temperatures were higher than they are today.



It only goes to 1970-ish. It's a schematic illustrating the *kind of* variation. 

* Long bit about McKitrick - an economist, not a climatologist - snipped *

* BTW, McKitrick doesn't know the difference between degrees and radians *




			
				bigfish said:
			
		

> Yes, that's right, the "disagreement" is of fairly recent vintage and lies in the fact that climate modelers like Mann et al. are trying to magic it out of existence.



Mann is a palaeoclimatologist. He attempted to reconstruct past temperatures using statistical methods to combine various proxy data sets.

There is no actual modelling work in his list of publications. He's looked at the statistics of model output, but that's not modelling. 

Knowing the difference is important - or would be to someone who actually wanted to understand.

* Random abuse deleted *

Mann's graph is, again, *not central to the case* and only its critics have claimed it is. It's merely been picked on - by people who are interested only in nit-picking, and are sloppy with it - for example leaving out bits of the data Mann used. 

McKitrick has been challenged to produce a better temperature series - a "what really happened" - and declined. Ring any bells?

E2A: For anyone who's actualy interested in what's going on, here's a list of 50-odd different temperature series from NOAA, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.


----------



## laptop (May 25, 2006)

*The Mediæval Warm Period*



> Many other researchers agree. "The Little Ice Age is primarily a European and North Atlantic phenomenon," says Keith Briffa, a tree ring analyst from the University of East Anglia, UK. "And the geographical extent of the Medieval Warm Period is still massively uncertain, because data is sparse."
> 
> Indeed, the proxy records suggest that high temperatures in one region tend to be balanced out by low temperatures in another. The tropical Pacific, for instance, appears to have cooled during the Medieval Warm Period and warmed during the Little Ice Age. "The regional temperature changes in our reconstruction are quite large; it's simply that they tend to average out," Mann says.
> 
> Fred Pearce



New Scientist subscribers and ATHENS users click here




			
				Fred Pearce again said:
			
		

> In the meantime, three groups had been scrutinising the claims of McIntyre and McKitrick. Hans von Storch of the GKSS Research Centre in Geesthacht, Germany, concluded that McIntyre and McKitrick were right that temperatures should be analysed relative to the 1000-year mean, not the 20th-century mean. But he also found that even when this was done it did not have much effect on the result. Peter Huybers of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts came to much the same conclusion.
> 
> The work of Eugene Wahl of Alfred University, New York, and Caspar Ammann of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, raised serious questions about the methodology of Mann's critics. They found the reason for the kink in the McIntyre and McKitrick graph was nothing to do with their alternative statistical method; instead, it was because they had left out certain proxies, in particular tree-ring studies based on bristlecone pines in the south-west of the US.


----------



## bigfish (May 28, 2006)

laptop said:
			
		

> So did McKitrick got the attribution wrong, then?



Maybe, you could always drop him a line and ask him. 




> I found the proper schematic as part of a set of three from a 1990 report. ... It only goes to 1970-ish. It's a schematic illustrating the *kind of* variation.



Yes, but the *kind of* variation being illustrated is a temperature variation, is it not? The graph clearly illustrates how Medieval Warm Period temperatures dwarfed those of the modern industrial era. Can I also remind that I drew your attention to the Huang et al. (1998) multi-continental bore hole study (See PDF Fig. 4 P6 in my previous post), wherein the vertical axis of the accompanying graph shows average anomalies calibrated in Centigrade, with the horizontal axis tracking the signal from AD 1000 all the way to 1990. This graph also clearly illustrates how Medieval Warm Period temperatures dwarfed those of the modern industrial period, though I note that you have avoided acknowledging the existence of the study by the rather idiotic device of pretending that you haven't read it - muttering instead something about McKitrick being an economist and not being a member of the climatology clergy. I also note that you neglected to answer my previous questions. 

Allow me to repeat them for you: 

If the Medieval Warm Period was much warmer than it is today -with zero man made CO2 industrial emissions -what is so unusual about the planet warming now, given that the present-day climate appears to be simply a recovery from the cold years of the “Little Ice Age”? Furthermore, if both the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age were caused by variations in the sun, is it not then likely that the increased solar activity observed in the 20th century accounts for most, if not all, of the claimed 20th century warming?




> * Long bit about McKitrick - an economist, not a climatologist - snipped *



 Only "climatologists" are worthy of testing statistical models created by "climatologists," it would seem - not withstanding the fact that skilled economists also know a thing or two about statistical modeling - as we can see from McKitrick's demolition of Mann et al.. I suppose next you will be calling for "trial by family" on the grounds that a defendants relatives know their kinsmen better than any jury ever can and therefore are far more likely to reach the proper verdict.

Here's a more detailed critique of the IPCC's review process that was recently submitted to the Stern Review.

http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/Stern-Review-19-12-05.htm#_ftnref2

Evidence Submitted to the Stern Review
Ian Byatt, David Henderson, Alan Peacock and Colin Robinson
...
The IPCC process is far from being a model of rigour, inclusiveness and objectivity. In particular:
...
The built-in process of peer review, which the IPCC (and the British government with it) view as a guarantee of quality, does not adequately serve this purpose, for two reasons. First, providing for peer review is no safeguard against dubious assumptions, arguments and conclusions if the peers are largely drawn from *the same restricted professional milieu*. Second, the peer review process as such, here as elsewhere, may be insufficiently searching. As Ross McKitrick has pointed out, its main purpose is to elicit expert advice on whether a paper is worth publishing in a particular journal. Because it does not normally go beyond this, ‘…peer review *does not typically guarantee that data and methods are open to scrutiny or that results are reproducible*.’[6]

In response to criticisms that have been made of published and peer-reviewed work that the IPCC has drawn on, *the authors concerned have failed to make full and voluntary disclosure of data and sources*. A leading instance of this, referred to in Ross McKitrick’s evidence to the Select Committee, is the much-publicised ‘hockey-stick’ study which featured in the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report. The issue has been raised, with reference also to another case, in evidence which David Holland has submitted to the Review.* In evidence to the Select Committee, Holland pointed to the need ‘to *elevate auditing or replication above peer review and reputation*’.

The response of the Panel’s directing circle and milieu to informed criticism has typically been inadequate or dismissive, a fact that was noted by the Select Committee and is well illustrated by the hockey-stick affair.[7] The Response itself provides an up-to-date and conspicuous example: it does not so much address the arguments made by the House of Lords Select Committee *as restate, reflex-like, the Whitehall and IPCC party line*





> Mann is a palaeoclimatologist. He attempted to reconstruct past temperatures using statistical methods to combine various proxy data sets...



Yes, but it has now been clearly demonstrated that his "various proxies data sets" were combined in such a way that if just one series was removed then the hockey stick shape disappeared! Isn't that incredible! But, not only that, it also transpires that Mann actually did this experiment himself and therefore he has known all along that the hockey stick is not a_ global_ pattern!




> Mann's graph is, again, *not central to the case* and only its critics have claimed it is...




I can understand your wish to reframe the debate and quickly sweep the entire hockey stick affair under the carpet now that Mann has been exposed. However, the study is still in active use misinforming people. For example, both the MBH99 reconstruction and the Mann and Jones (2003) reconstruction appear in spaghetti graphs showing collections of climate reconstructions on the Wikipedia website...  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:1000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png 

We had better not forget, also, that... "MBH has been directly used to benchmark other studies. For example, Mann and Jones [2003], while purporting to be a different method, benchmarked against MBH98-99. *Virtually all subsequent multiproxy studies benchmark themselves against MBH, which thereby has almost certainly influenced proxy selection in these later studies*. This may even extend to any detection and attribution studies which have been influenced by MBH98-99." 

As you can see, it is still very much *central to the case*, not withstanding your hollow objections to the contrary.




> McKitrick has been challenged to produce a better temperature series - a "what really happened" - and declined. Ring any bells?




Yes... it's ringing the "straw man" bell.


----------



## bigfish (May 29, 2006)

Laptop: Psssst! *“We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.”*


----------



## laptop (May 29, 2006)

Bigfish has clearly not read Fred Pearce's article, nor understood the extracts posted. 

It was scrupulously fair. It did mention what I forgot to note this time around: McKitrick's collaborator Stephen McIntyre is a mathematician and oil industry consultant. 

And, no, Mann's picture never was central. McKitrick and McIntyre sought to define it as such before attempting to knock it down. There is a phrase that describes this abuse of argumentation. 

Go. To. The. Library.


----------



## bigfish (May 29, 2006)

Fred Pearce said:
			
		

> Many other researchers agree. "The Little Ice Age is primarily a European and North Atlantic phenomenon," says Keith Briffa, a tree ring analyst from the University of East Anglia, UK. "And the geographical extent of the Medieval Warm Period is still massively uncertain, because data is sparse... blah, blah, blah"




Post 83: _Statement Prof. Zbigniew Jaworowski written for the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation 
The question arises, how such methodically poor paper, *contradicting hundreds of excellent studies that demonstrated existence of global range Medieval Warming and Little Ice Age*, could pass peer review for NATURE?_







*3,000 years of climate in the Sargasso Sea*







*Sea Surface Temperature off West Africa, last 2,500 years*







*Climate change at Lake Naivasha, Kenya*







*Oxygen Isotopes from the Quelccaya Glacier, Peru
*

Post 87: _So what's going on here? The answer is that *a vast repository of empirical findings from an array of scientific disciplines is being ignored by a small coterie of climate scientists* who are focused almost exclusively on developing computer models of how they believe earth's climate system operates. *Any observation that fails to harmonize with that belief system is generally ignored by its adherents, while those who champion their approach to the subject often question the judgment and/or motives of scientists who place greater confidence in real-world observations*._


By 1965, the great British climatologist Hubert H. Lamb had synthesized indications of past warm and cold periods spread over the world:
. . . *[M]ultifarious evidence of a meteorological nature from historical records, as well as archaeological, botanical, and glaciological evidence in various parts of the world from the Arctic to New Zealand* . . . has been found to suggest a warmer epoch lasting several centuries between about A.D. 900 or 1000 and about 1200 or 1300. . . . Both the "Little Optimum" in the early Middle Ages and the cold epochs [i.e., "Little Ice Age"], now known to have reached its culminating stages between 1550 and 1700, *can today be substantiated by enough data to repay meteorological investigation. . .*


----------



## bigfish (May 29, 2006)

laptop said:
			
		

> .... Go. To. The. Library.



Go to a library yourself, you ignorant little man!


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Jun 3, 2006)

I just came across quite an interesting article on the global warming sceptics. 





> Ten years ago, Fred Smith says, the Competitive Enterprise Institute had contributions from companies across the board in the petroleum industry. It still gets money from Exxon Mobil, the biggest and most hard-line oil company on the climate change issue, but many of its donors have stopped sending checks.
> 
> "They've joined the club."
> 
> ...


 The Tempest


----------



## Jo/Joe (Jun 3, 2006)

That extract is so contemptuous of rational thinking it's beyond belief. It's methods of persuasion are no better than those employed by religious extremists (Xtian or Muslim).

What motivates anyone to ally themselves with such people if they don't profit directly from the use of petroleum? Bigfish? Are you able to answer this question in a straightforward manner? You were rather disappointing last time, though I am impressed by all your graphs.


----------



## bigfish (Jun 13, 2006)

"Climate Catastrophe Cancelled: What You're Not Being Told About the Science of Climate Change"

http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?ide=3


----------



## bigfish (Jun 13, 2006)

[....]
Loughead says American satellite monitoring of world temperatures has shown a very slight overall cooling since 1998. In response to the lack of evidence for a heating planet, he comments, the United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its green activist allies *have subtly changed their rhetoric*.

"They talk far less about global warming now. Instead the emphasis has switched to climate change. In a marketing sense, that's clever since every type of weather - droughts or floods, heat waves or severe winters, and so on - can be ascribed [by green advocates] to anthropogenic [i.e. man-made] climate change," says the society vice-president, who worked as a geologist for major petroleum producers in Canada and the North Sea.






In fact, climate is always changing, sometimes significantly. In 1000 AD, during a warm period that affected much of the planet, grapes were cultivated in England. Even Greenland could produce crops. Conversely, a lengthy cooling period ended in the late nineteenth century. (The painting above shows the frozen Thames in London during that time, known as the Little Ice Age.) Loughead suggests the very slight rise in global temperatures over the past 100 years *is quite normal for an Earth still emerging from a cool period*.

Climate Catastrophe Cancelled critiques research like the famed "hockey stick" graph. Its plot shows a rather flat temperature line over the last 1000 years until in the late 1800s. At that point, the graph veers sharply upward, presumably due to rising quantities of industrial greenhouse gases.

"The hockey stick was developed in 1999 by Michael Mann and others. It immediately became the IPCC's most prized illustration," Loughead says. *"The hockey stick has had a tremendous impact on the basic climate perceptions of the media and public, and its influence endures to this day."*

In 2003 two Ontario researchers, Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick from the University of Guelph, double checked the data used in the computer model that produced the hockey stick. "They identified many errors, really serious stuff," Loughead asserts. "They found that temperatures were *actually higher in the fifteenth century than the twentieth*, which confirms the historical record. The IPCC itself has backed off on the hockey stick, yet you can still find that graph in publications produced by Environment Canada." 

Albert Jacobs, a geologist who has served as a society director, says no reliable correlation has been established between carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere and planetary temperatures. On the other hand, *there is an apparent relationship between sunspot activity and periods of global warming*. (See graph below.)

"The scientists who believe in anthropogenic climate change do not explain away the evidence that temperature is almost certainly related to total solar radiance," Jacobs charges. "They simply ignore it and continue promoting their own research.






"In much the same fashion, they continually base their conclusions on computer models," he continues. "Yet every informed observer knows that those computer models are not reliable. There are too many factors affecting climate - literally millions, with a great many of them involving serious uncertainties. It all amounts to guesswork more than science."

Public opinion is apparently growing more skeptical about anthropogenic climate change. An IPSOS Reid poll reported in the National Post on May 29 indicated that 39% of Canadians do not support the science behind man-made global warming, believing that any warming trend may have natural causes.

That's a big shift, according to communications specialist Morten Paulsen. In earlier years, surveys showed public support for the Kyoto Accord was riding well over 80%. But Paulsen warned the society's annual meeting that many of global warming is still broadly accepted among the mass of Canadians. Many of those adherents, he says, believe in imminent environmental catastrophe *with a fervour that borders on religion*.

http://www.dobmagazine.nickles.com/...gazine/columns/060612/MAG_COL2006_UC0000.html


----------



## free spirit (Jun 13, 2006)

> The executives don't understand "resource economics." *They lack faith in the free market to solve these issues.*



seems even the sceptics are accepting that there are issues that need to be solved then?


----------



## free spirit (Jun 13, 2006)

bigfish said:
			
		

> [....]
> Loughead says American satellite monitoring of world temperatures has shown a *very slight overall cooling since 1998. *
> 
> http://www.dobmagazine.nickles.com/...gazine/columns/060612/MAG_COL2006_UC0000.html



I think we already dealt with that back here post 27 
please stop recycling old points that have already been comprehensively dealt with... or go learn something about climate science and come back and actually argue the point fully rather than abandoning the arguement, posting up a load more random articles you've found then returning to the same point as if it had never been discussed.


----------



## bigfish (Jun 14, 2006)

*Earth's Terrestrial Environment is Becoming "More Like a Gardener's Greenhouse"*



> ... _n spite of a century or more of global warming and the IPCC's "consensus wisdom," there is ever-accumulating evidence of worldwide long-term increases in both soil moisture content (Robock et al., 2000, 2005) and biological productivity (see Biospheric Productivity (Global) in our Subject Index). In describing this happy situation, Roderick and Farquhar say "it is now clear that many places in the Northern Hemisphere, and in Australia, have become less arid," and that "in these places, the terrestrial surface is both warmer and effectively wetter." In fact, they say in their concluding sentence that "a good analogy to describe the changes in these places is that the terrestrial surface is literally becoming more like a gardener's 'greenhouse'."
> 
> Yes, the greening of planet earth continues, aided not only by the aerial fertilization and anti-transpirant effects of atmospheric CO2 enrichment, but by the atmosphere's changing temperature and moisture characteristics as well.
> 
> Sherwood, Keith and Craig Idso_


_

http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V9/N24/EDIT.jsp_


----------



## Jo/Joe (Jun 14, 2006)

What motivates you to align yourself on the side of oil corporations bigfish? 

And where is the harm in being cautious on global warming and taking steps to alleviate the effects mainstream scientists believe it will have?


----------



## free spirit (Jun 14, 2006)

> We conclude that the observed decrease in pan evaporation is not a paradox after all. In-stead, the decrease is to be expected given the decreases in solar irradiance and the associated changes in DTR and vapor pressure deficit that have been observed. Further, the observed de-crease in the DTR is itself qualitatively and quantitatively consistent with the observed de-crease in global solar irradiance. These results highlight the fundamental importance of evaluating the direction and magnitude of changes in the surface energy balance resulting from greenhouse forcing as opposed to the direction and magnitude of changes resulting from aerosol loading (8). Such an evaluation is also important when estimating the biological and ecological impacts of changes in climate, because clouds and aerosols scatter light and thereby reduce the shade within vegetation canopies, markedly affecting the structure and productivity of terrestrial vegetation (24, 25). The inter-actions between global solar irradiance, diurnal temperature range, and pan evaporation, which have been highlighted here, are all related to variations in the transmission of solar irradiance through the atmosphere and appear to be very general features of the climate and the climate-vegetation systems.



source : The cause of decreased pan evaporation over the last 50 Years
RODERICK & FARQUHAR / Science v.298, 1nov02

ok that's an slightly interesting subject relating to several of the multiple potential feedback mechanisms that, and influencing factors that affect the climate change models and make it impossible to accurately predict the precise effect of any given level of co2 on global temperatures, and how this will impact vegetation growth etc.

On further investigation it would seem this might well be caused by global dimming - the reduction in sunlight actually reaching the earth's surface as a result of increasing levels of aerosols / clouds in the atmosphere. 

Not really arsed enough to investigate this further, seeing as you're not willing to actually debate any issue you post up about, but if you were posting this up as evidence against global warming happening then as far as I can see it does no such thing. It's a process that's happening concurrently with global warming, possibly partially as an affect of global warming, partially as a result of the sheer volume of particulate matter going into the atmosphere as a result of fossil fuel burning, forest fires etc. etc. AFAIK this has been being fed into climate models for years, though the precise effect has probably been fairly difficult to estimate accurately.

eta... just wondering what the impact might be if we actually managed to seriously reduce emmissions from both fossil fuels and forest fires, coz presumably we'd see an increase in the amount of solar energy actually hitting the earth, and presumably more warming???


----------



## bigfish (Jun 14, 2006)

Jo/Joe said:
			
		

> ... And where is the harm in being cautious on global warming and taking steps to alleviate the effects mainstream scientists believe it will have?



"Mainstream scientists" like our very own laptop and Michael Mann and his fraudulent hockey-stick, do you mean?


----------



## Jo/Joe (Jun 14, 2006)

Shall I tell you why your efforts are little more than bullshit bigfish? You won't answer simple questions. That's the behaviour of the insincere and untrustworthy.


----------



## laptop (Jun 14, 2006)

You have been asked repeatedly, bigfish. 

What is your motivation for denying human-induced climate change?

I eveh helpfuly provided a hypothesis. You didn't answer that, either.


----------



## Crispy (Jun 14, 2006)

Bet you £10 the reply is:



> You have been asked repeatedly, laptop.
> 
> What is your motivation for accepting human-induced climate change?
> 
> I eveh helpfuly provided a hypothesis. You didn't answer that, either.


----------



## laptop (Jun 14, 2006)

Crispy said:
			
		

> Bet you £10 the reply is:



Yes, but I can answer that 

Bigfish?


----------



## free spirit (Jun 14, 2006)

Global Dimming articles...

guardian

wickipedia


> Recent reversal of the trend
> 
> In 2005 Wild et al. and Pinker et al. found that the "dimming" trend had reversed since about 1990 [4]. It is likely that at least some of this change; particularly over Europe, is due to decreases in pollution. Most governments of developed nations have done more to reduce aerosols released into the atmosphere which help global dimming instead of reducing CO2 emissions.
> 
> The Baseline Surface Radiation Network (BSRN) has been collecting surface measurements. BSRN was started in the early 1990s and updated the archives in this time. Analysis of recent data reveals that the surface of the planet has brightened by about 4% in the past decade. The brightening trend is corroborated by other data, including satellite analyses.





> Some scientists now consider that the effects of global dimming have masked the effect of global warming to some extent and that resolving global dimming may therefore lead to increases in predictions of future temperature rise. [3].



ah yes, I remember now the whole global dimming phenomena is thought to have been masking many of the worst effects of climate change, something that the acid rain / clean air legislation in the early 90's (? late 80's?) across Europe and the US is actually reducing. Luckily there are shitloads of coal fired power stations being built across china to stabilise global dimming levels otherwise we could be faced with 5-15% more sunlight reaching the earth across higher latitudes compounding the impact of co2 induced global warming. 

was that what you were getting at bigfish?


----------



## free spirit (Jun 14, 2006)

so then bigfish, now that you've unwittingly steered this thread towards the whole global dimming phenomena, the effect of which climate scientists dramatically underestimated through most of the 90's as they didn't take into account the fact that water vapour tends to like to attach itself to small particulates in teh upper atmosphere thereby multiplying the reflective affect of the original particles... this being one of the major reasons why many of the earlier models predicted higher temperatures than we were actually experiencing... could you tell us if this is what you're actually proposing as a solution to climate change? 

ie. the business as normal model basically means keep pumping out the co2, keep pumping out the particulates, keep increasing the greenhouse effect but offsetting that with more and more global dimming [not that most business as usual people actually understand this, but in effect this is what they're saying]

You do realise that unless you intend to carry on pumping sufficient particulates into the atmosphere forever to keep up the global dimming effect that this policy is basically storing up massive trouble for the future as the increased greenhouse effect will still be there waiting to trap all that extra sunlight in whenever the global dimming effect is reduced.

anyone remember the orb's little fluffy clouds?



> What were the skies like when u were young?
> They went on for ever and they when I we lived in Arizona and the skies
> always had little fluffy clouds and err.. they were long and clear and there
> were lots of stars, at night <snip> You don't see that.



in  bigfish's world it's gonna have to get darker and darker for ever and ever if it's not to get hotter and hotter


----------



## bigfish (Jun 14, 2006)

Jo/Joe said:
			
		

> Shall I tell you why your efforts are little more than bullshit bigfish? You won't answer simple questions. That's the behaviour of the insincere and untrustworthy.



But "the behaviour of the insincere and untrustworthy" is clearly manifest in Michael Mann's IPCC hockey-stick, Jo - which is a scientific fraud plain and simple. So why don't you try berating Mann about his behaviour? 

You could also try berating laptop for falsely claiming, above, that Fred Pearce's article was "scrupulously fair" when, in fact, it was nothing of the kind as there are some 240 proxy studies which flatly contradict him and only one that doesn't. How can it be that two highly trained scientist like Fred and laptop know nothing about them, any idea?


----------



## bigfish (Jun 15, 2006)

laptop said:
			
		

> You have been asked repeatedly, bigfish...



Now for the *third* time of asking: 

If the Medieval Warm Period was much warmer than it is today -with zero man made CO2 industrial emissions -what is so unusual about the planet warming now, given that the present-day climate appears to be simply a recovery from the cold years of the “Little Ice Age”? 

Furthermore, if both the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age were caused by variations in the sun, is it not likely then that the increased solar activity observed in the 20th century accounts for most, if not all, of the claimed 20th century warming?


----------



## laptop (Jun 15, 2006)

So you're just going to keep on banging away with the same old attempts at personal attacks?

That's not argument, it's a failed indoctrination.

Not surprising, really, since you clearly don't understand climate or climatology: you just wake up and cut and paste something from the propagandists that push the line you have adopted - for reasons you refuse to discuss. 

Oddly enough, this last time you woke up at full moon... anyone want to do a time series on bigfish' postings to see whether there's anyting in it after all?


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## Jo/Joe (Jun 15, 2006)

bigfish said:
			
		

> But "the behaviour of the insincere and untrustworthy" is clearly manifest in Michael Mann's IPCC hockey-stick, Jo - which is a scientific fraud plain and simple. So why don't you try berating Mann about his behaviour?
> 
> You could also try berating laptop for falsely claiming, above, that Fred Pearce's article was "scrupulously fair" when, in fact, it was nothing of the kind as there are some 240 proxy studies which flatly contradict him and only one that doesn't. How can it be that two highly trained scientist like Fred and laptop know nothing about them, any idea?




Again, you avoid the question.


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## bigfish (Jun 15, 2006)

laptop said:
			
		

> So you're just going to keep on banging away with the same old attempts at personal attacks?



I would like you to answer the questions I have put to you on 3 separate occasions. Why wont you answer them?



> ... you clearly don't understand climate or climatology...



I see, once again, that you are attempting to pass yourself off as some kind of "expert" on climate and climatology - which is more than a little suspicious if you ask me, bearing in mind that by describing Fred's article as *"scrupulously fair"* you reveal a profound ignorance of more than 240 studies contradicting his statement.  

Presumably you have access to a library - so how can it be that a Balliol trained 'expert' like you knows nothing at all about any of these other studies? 

Personally, I strongly suspect you're not really all you claim to be. In fact, you appear more and more to be a self-aggrandizing fraud - a fraud cast from the same mould as Michael Mann.


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## bigfish (Jun 15, 2006)

Jo/Joe said:
			
		

> Again, you avoid the question.



Surely you don't expect me to give credence to your loaded questions by answering them do you?


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## Jo/Joe (Jun 16, 2006)

They are perfectly reasonable questions to ask. Your motives are suspect, so you don't want to answer them.


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## Crispy (Jun 16, 2006)

For instance:

My motives for believing in the consensus view on global warming are my belief in the (on average) honesty of scientists, the peer review process, and the suspect backgrounds of many of the deniers.

There, that wasn't too hard. I can be completely honest about my motives. Can you?


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## bigfish (Jun 19, 2006)

Crispy said:
			
		

> For instance: My motives for believing in the consensus view on global warming are my belief in the (on average) honesty of scientists, the peer review process, and the suspect backgrounds of many of the deniers.


So where does that leave you now that the IPCC Hockey-Stick has been exposed as a FAKE and its lead author unmasked as a charlatan? 

As for peer review, how did it come to pass that Michael Mann was allowed to peer review his own papers? Any idea?

If the evidence for anthroprogenic global warming is as compelling as you and the rest of the greenshirts seem to imagine, why did Mann find it necessary to "tune" his climate-model to mine for Hockey-Stick shapes in the first place?

As for "the consensus view on global warming" you pay homage too - there isn't one. See, for example, the testimony of Richard S. Lindzen, a participant in the proceedings of the IPCC, given before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on 2 May 2001. 



> As it turns out, much of what informed scientists agree upon is barely quantitative at all:
> * that global mean temperature has probably increased over the past century,
> 
> * that CO2 in the atmosphere has increased over the same period,
> ...


_

PDF: http://eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/Testimony/Senate2001.pdf_


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## Fruitloop (Jun 19, 2006)

That is, like, so fucking weak.


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## Fuchs66 (Jun 19, 2006)

Hmm this is an argument that goes round and round and round ad infinitum...
I personally have not yet been convinced by either side, however.....

There are some other extremely good reasons to cut down on anthropogenic emissions that do effect us, even if not on the global scale of a possible Greenhouse effect and if there is a chance of the GH effect being present why the fuck not err on  the side of caution?
Not bothering to read all of this thread mainly due to my opening point.


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## bigfish (Jun 20, 2006)

*Nature Starts a Blog*

http://landshape.org/enm/?p=98



> Stung by a string of controversies, corrections and frauds, and inspired we hope by the work of science bloggers in reinstating a culture of broad scientific debate, Nature magazine has instituted a what it calls a 'Peer Review Trial'.
> 
> In Nature’s peer review trial, lasting for three months, authors can choose to have their submissions posted on a preprint server for open comments, in parallel with the conventional peer review process. Anyone in the field may then post comments, provided they are prepared to identify themselves.
> ...
> ...


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## bigfish (Jun 28, 2006)

*Hockey Stick Shortened?*



> _"We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?"
> -- Phil Jones in a reply to climate skeptic Warwick Hughes in February 2005 as confirmed and reported by climatologist Hans Vans Storch at a National Academy of Sciences hearing March 2 on "Scientific Efforts to reconstruct surface temperature records over the last 1,000 to 2,000 years."
> 
> "Getting caught is the mother of invention."
> ...



http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=062706E


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## bigfish (Jun 28, 2006)

*VZG Statement on NAS Panel*



> Von Storch, Zorita and Gonzalez-Raucen have issued the following statement on the NAS Panel Report:
> 
> We welcome the National Research Council’s Report, which clarifies that the discussion about the technical qualities of the hockeystick-methodology *is insignificant for the overall conclusion that the presently ongoing warming is likely related to elevated greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere*. We are pleased to read that the NRC shares our view that *the methodology behind the hockeystick is questionable*. We stick to our view that the methodology was not sufficiently described when published and independently tested thereafter.
> 
> ...



http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=716


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## Crispy (Jun 28, 2006)

The lack of replies to this thread is actually indicative of the fact that we have all been convinced by your fabulous sources and are now preparing the nooses in which we will snuff out our raging self-hate.


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## laptop (Jun 28, 2006)

Crispy said:
			
		

> are now preparing the nooses in which we will snuff out our raging self-hate.



Nah, it's too warm. Can't be bothered.


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