The Great Climate Change Debate- Continued

[Michael Ronayne]

Standard journalistic practice. No issue. No conspiracy. Just accurate reporting.

Dear Roo,

With enemies like Jo Abbess we don't need friends. The level of ineptitude exhibited Jo Abbess and Roger Harrabin is truly mind-boggling. Clearly neither Jo Abbess nor Roger Harrabin understands how the Internet works. If we can trust the date/time stamps in the original news story and Jo's Email journal here are the two values which are of interest.

• BBC Story: Page last updated at 00:42 GMT, Friday, 4 April 2008 01:42 UK
  
• Last Email: date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 11:28 AM
  

At a minimum the original story was on the Internet for 9 hours and 46 minutes. On a high profile site like the BBC, every search robot on the Internet copied and indexed the page multiple times. While the original page in no longer "publicly" available at Google and Live, but is available at Yahoo, rest assured that Google, Live and Yahoo retain private copies of everything for a very long time. And then there is the Wayback Machine which will not open its treasure drove until six months have expired. Trust my when I say that nothing is ever truly deleted from the Internet. The truth is always out there!

Roger Harrabin is an old pro and I would have expected better of him. It is as if he wanted to be caught or had done this so many times before that he truly believed that no one would call him on it or both. Roger's undoing was that he evidently did not realize how incredibly stupid Jo Abbess was.

Jo Abbess is an absolute delight. In one BLOG posting she set the cause of AGW back thirty years. She confirmed everything which the Climate [skeptics | Deniers | Nonbelievers | Nonconformists | Infidels | Atheists | Heretics] have been saying about the manipulation of the media for years. One has to wonder if Jo is a double-agent working for Exxon-Mobil or the Bush Administration, so extensive is the damage she has committed. If she had none absolutely nothing the story would have disappeared in the 24 hour news cycle but not now.

Keep up the good work Jo; we are all pulling for you. Rest assured that all over the Internet thousands of computers are now tracking your name waiting for the next pearl of wisdom you will share with us. We remain your most obedient and adoring fans.

Mike

Edited April 11, 2008 by Michael Ronayne

[VillagePlank]

I largely agree with your post. I also agree that Jo's comment was an accurate one, and yet when I had the audacity to suggest a short while ago that climatology was an infant science (I used those exact words) I was pounced upon for saying it, told that I was talking rubbish (in so many words). Obviously it is a comment that is acceptable for Pros but unacceptable for Antis.

Yup, I suggested the same thing, some months ago, around here, and had the same result. I suspect, though, that 'Jo'is a moron, and we cannot trust her 'intuition' anymore than any other rabid environmentalist.

Edited April 11, 2008 by VillagePlank

[bluecon]

I always find the scientific consensus argument mostly humorous. The history of science is a lemming like community that was in consensus until a brilliant individual(s) proved them wrong. The Wright brothers are a great example of this where a couple of bicycle mechanics figured out the machanics of flight when all the scientists were wrong.

[Devonian]

I largely agree with your post. I also agree that Jo's comment was an accurate one, and yet when I had the audacity to suggest a short while ago that climatology was an infant science (I used those exact words) I was pounced upon for saying it, told that I was talking rubbish (in so many words). Obviously it is a comment that is acceptable for Pros but unacceptable for Antis.

CB

Well, I'd stand by what I say. According to other posts the activist 'level of ineptitude' is 'truly mind-boggling', and she uses 'bullying tactics', now she is worth listening to...

Anyway I know what an infant is and I've met scientists from the Hadley Centre.

Climate science is not in it's infancy - imo. Yes, there is, as with most everything, still an uncertain amount to learn, but in it's infancy? I don't think so, imo that is to belittle the science and scientists involved - well, there's a thing eh

I always find the scientific consensus argument mostly humorous.

I'm glad you find us entertaining.

The history of science is a lemming like community that was in consensus until a brilliant individual(s) proved them wrong.

You have someone in mind wrt climate?

The Wright brothers are a great example of this where a couple of bicycle mechanics figured out the machanics of flight when all the scientists were wrong.

This is worth a read.

Edited April 11, 2008 by Devonian

[VillagePlank]

Climate science is not in it's infancy - imo. Yes, there is, as with most everything, still an uncertain amount to learn, but in it's infancy? I don't think so, imo that is to belittle the science and scientists involved - well, there's a thing eh

Oh no. Not at all. Climate science's, say, infancy, is comparable to, say, nano techonology. Both cutting edge science, but both right at the very start of a very long road to get to their optimium level of achievement. You look for too many negative assertions, and, I'm afraid, infancy, isn't one of them - if you choose to see at as a negative comment, then that is a matter for you, and no-one else.

[Admiral_Bobski]

Well, I'd stand by what I say. According to other posts the activist 'level of ineptitude' is 'truly mind-boggling', and she uses 'bullying tactics', now she is worth listening to...

Anyway I know what an infant is and I've met scientists from the Hadley Centre.

Climate science is not in it's infancy - imo. Yes, there is, as with most everything, still an uncertain amount to learn, but in it's infancy? I don't think so, imo that is to belittle the science and scientists involved - well, there's a thing eh

I'm not saying she's worth listening to - I just found it interesting that such a rabid Pro-AGW activist would consider the science of Climatology in its infancy.

Strangely, having had three of them myself, I'm somewhat familiar with the concept of infancy as well. You say that to call climate science a scientific infant is belittling - when a child toddles its first few steps, or gurgles its first word, is it belittling to the child to refer to it as such? No. But if the child's first few words are "Grass is Purple", should we accept what they say as fact?

CB

[Devonian]

Oh no. Not at all. Climate science's, say, infancy, is comparable to, say, nano techonology. Both cutting edge science, but both right at the very start of a very long road to get to their optimium level of achievement. You look for too many negative assertions, and, I'm afraid, infancy, isn't one of them - if you choose to see at as a negative comment, then that is a matter for you, and no-one else.

I just don't agree it's in it's infancy - that's all.

[VillagePlank]

[self-deleted]

Now behave, VP!

Edited April 11, 2008 by VillagePlank

[Devonian]

I'm not saying she's worth listening to - I just found it interesting that such a rabid Pro-AGW activist would consider the science of Climatology in its infancy.

Strangely, having had three of them myself, I'm somewhat familiar with the concept of infancy as well. You say that to call climate science a scientific infant is belittling - when a child toddles its first few steps, or gurgles its first word, is it belittling to the child to refer to it as such? No. But if the child's first few words are "Grass is Purple", should we accept what they say as fact?

CB

Children are infants - surely?

Climatology isn't in it's infancy - imo.

We don't know everything about cancer, but I wouldn't go up to a expert in the field and say to him/her 'You specialism is in it's infancy' firstly it would be rather presumptuous, secondly he/she is the expert not me. Same applies to us here imo.

Any way, gotta go for now

[jethro]

But again, this has no bearing on the evidence. The facts are still the facts. Anyone who cannot be bothered to look beneath the media spin does not have any real right to complain. Also, the media, even if they have made a 'story' out of it, haven't posted anything that is lies: whatever they have written has some substance in fact. If that doesn't fit the 'there is no AGW' agenda then so be it, but then again nor does the scientific evidence fit that agenda, so what hope has the media got?

EDIT: And as for telling the truth. Wouldn't that be great? No more blogs, dodgy science and iffy websites and just solid peer reviewed science.......hurrah!

And as I said earlier, in agreement with yourself, no it does not have a bearing on the evidence.

Looking below the media spin....well headlines are eye catching, that is their purpose. A right to complain? Isn't that a given for every human being? Not sure I'd like to set myself up as judge and jury as to who has that right, but hey, maybe that's just me. When it comes to looking, well I have, on numerous occasions; just a couple which spring to mind are "The Polar Bears are dying due to global warming" and "Wilkins Ice Shelf collapse due to warming temperatures". Not just spin or sloppy journalism but based on pure speculation with not a jot of science, peer reviewed or otherwise to back it up. In fact the Polar Bear stories and pictures have been proven to be fraudulent and misleading by a High Court Judge. Some less charitable than myself would call that lies to perpetrate the AGW agenda; not sure what I'd call it but it's certainly far from truthful, accurate reporting isn't it?

[bluecon]

Sorry Roo but IMHO that is utter twaddle. Took an awful lot of arm-twisting and reluctance it seems to 'get it right'. Fact is GW has stopped (did it even start,outside of normal variance which no-one can define?),even in the face of all these millions upon millions of tonnes of CO2 we've added since the wheels came off. For the 3rd time now: 2008 - the year AGW's cloak falls off and it leaves the room amid boos and jeers,exposed and embarrased at the monumental joke that it is. I do not want,nor will enter another futile argument. Let folk read what they will into the matter and reach their own conclusions. I also urge perusal of the comments after the article I linked to in order to judge feeling,though I accept they are not necessarily wholly representitive.

Regards,LG.

It certainly does look as though less energy from the Sun is resulting in lower temperatures on the Earth and the AGW theory will be exposed as a sham.

[Thundery wintry showers]

I'm afraid the notion that GW has stopped is an opinion, not a fact, and more likely than not to be proved wrong in the near future. The global temperature has stalled since 1998 but we did have an exceptional El Nino in 1998, and a comparably warm year in 2005 despite no strong El Nino.

If the global climate hasn't warmed significantly by around 2011 I might consider GW stopping a 'fact', but now is far too early to say- if the global temp leaps upwards in the next few years following the current La Nina, exceeding the record set in 1998, then the very idea of GW stopping will be difficult to argue for.

[biffvernon]

One really shouldn't talk of 'global warming' when one means 'global atmospheric warming'. If a lot of heat is being absorbed by the oceans we may not notice a rise in air temperatures.

But that heat will come back and bite us in it's own good time.

[bluecon]

Fact is the oceans are showing a slight cooling.

"In fact, "there has been a very slight cooling," according to a U.S. National Public Radio (NPR) interview with Josh Willis at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a scientist who keeps close watch on the Argo findings.

Dr. Willis insisted the temperature drop was "not anything really significant." And I trust he's right. But can anyone imagine NASA or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) or the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- the UN's climate experts -- shrugging off even a "very slight" warming.

A slight drop in the oceans' temperature over a period of five or six years probably is insignificant, just as a warming over such a short period would be. Yet if there had been a rise of any kind, even of the same slightness, rest assured this would be broadcast far and wide as yet another log on the global warming fire."

http://www.nationalpost.com/most_popular/s....html?id=394939

[Michael Ronayne]

If the global climate hasn't warmed significantly by around 2011 I might consider GW stopping a 'fact',

Your selection of 2011 as a GW drop-dead target date is quite interesting. When Kyoto was agreed to in December 1997 the treaty was to expire in 2012 which means that final negotiations for a replacement treaty would take place in 2011. Why was a 15 year treaty selected? Why not a 10 year or 20 year or 25 year treaty?

Back in 1997 the consensus projection for the Solar Maximum during Solar Cycle 24 was 2011 and that is was going to be energetic. There is now one small problem with the 2011 date. The commencement of Solar Cycle 24 is now 16 months late and with the exception of one and "half" reverse polarity sunspots we are continuing to see equatorial Cycle 23 sunspots which are few in number. Technically we are still not at Solar Minimum because the number of Cycle 23 sunspots far outnumbers the pathetic showing for Cycle 24. With each passing day as the sunspot count remains zero it becomes increasing unlikely that we will see Solar Maximum in 2011 or 2012 and that the maximum when it does occur will be much weaker than projected.

On May 11, 2006 NASA announced that "Solar Cycle 25 peaking around 2022 could be one of the weakest in centuries". The cause of weakness was attributed to the Sun's Great Conveyor Belt slowing to the lowest speeds observed since the late Nineteenth Century. Some of us are beginning to suspect that the projected impact for Solar Cycle 25 is becoming manifest in Solar Cycle 24. But as you indicated it is too early to predict what is going to happen with planetary temperatures just yet.

As we await the arrival of 2011, you should ask yourself, what cases El Nino and La Nina events? Your comments appear to suggest that these are wildcards which perturb the ever ascending smooth curves in one of Al Gore's presentations.

I am looking forward to 2011 and indent to keep my snow blower in very good repair. At this point, I am looking forward to seeing just how late Solar Minimum is going to be. Each morning when I reconnect to the Internet I am finding myself checking the Sun's weather before checking on the Earth's weather. Admittedly the Earth's weather is more interesting because "almost" nothing is happening on the Sun.

Mike

Edited April 12, 2008 by Michael Ronayne

[biffvernon]

Fact is the oceans are showing a slight cooling.

Sorry but that is just not true. One might, perhaps, claim that sea surface temperatures "are showing a slight cooling". That is at least open to measurement.

The ocean is a very different beast to the sea surface. The trouble with that little girlie current in the Pacific is that it takes warm water downwards to where no thermometer can reach, hiding the problem from all who refuse to see.

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

Sorry but that is just not true. One might, perhaps, claim that sea surface temperatures "are showing a slight cooling". That is at least open to measurement.

The ocean is a very different beast to the sea surface. The trouble with that little girlie current in the Pacific is that it takes warm water downwards to where no thermometer can reach, hiding the problem from all who refuse to see.

Thats what the oceans always do. What problem are you on about...please explain what you can and no one else can't see.

BFTP

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

Your selection of 2011 as a GW drop-dead target date is quite interesting. When Kyoto was agreed to in December 1997 the treaty was to expire in 2012 which means that final negotiations for a replacement treaty would take place in 2011. Why was a 15 year treaty selected? Why not a 10 year or 20 year or 25 year treaty?

Mike

Interesting Mike...even back then 2012 was noted as an important date and one from which Global Cooling is potentially likely to be evident. Solar cycle 23 was already quieter than initially thought and that warnings from astro-physicists that 24 would be even quieter leading us into a Dalton + minima at 25.

Folk still ignore a current cycle that has just got under way...the perturbation cycle. People we have left the El Nino 36 year cycle and are now into the La Nina dominated period. Strong El Nino may well happen but far more La Nina episodes will predominate. This started in Feb 2007....and guess what...El Nino suddenly died on us.

BFTP

[noggin]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/tech/news/5693436.html

This is interesting and even refreshing! Kerry Emanuel, a hurricane expert and advocate of an increase in hurricane activity due to global warming, is now questioning whether GW will actually result in more such activity. The question arises as a result of computer modellig and the resultant "forecasts".

If any other experts have any quiet doubts about similar predictions re GW, then perhaps Mr Emanuel's willingness to speak out might encourage them to do so as well.

Michael Ronayne (welcome, BTW ), with regard to sunspots......I find myself checking every day now as this lack of activity is very interesting. Is it the NOAA who keep "moving the goalposts" as to when Cycle 24 will start? Seems to me like they are covering their backs in order to be able to say that they correctly predicted when it would start....it keeps getting moved on a few months.

[Thundery wintry showers]

Aye, but that doesn't disprove AGW in any way- it just illustrates that there's considerable uncertainty over how things would change in a warmer world. I do remember hearing that some groups tried to link the strong hurricane seasons with "global warming", on the scientific grounds that hurricanes require SSTs above 27C, but there are also some who point to a natural cycle/natural variability which is currently heading into a period of higher activity.

I'm very much on the fence on that one, personally- I don't really know enough about the issue to reach a strong conclusion on it, though on a related topic, I do think a warmer world is likely to mean a stronger jet to the north of Britain during the winter half-year, in common with the trend over the last 20 years.

[Devonian]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/tech/news/5693436.html

This is interesting and even refreshing! Kerry Emanuel, a hurricane expert and advocate of an increase in hurricane activity due to global warming, is now questioning whether GW will actually result in more such activity. The question arises as a result of computer modellig and the resultant "forecasts".

Indeed, but please remember that these are the same climate models you criticise (?) when they show global temperatures steadily rising during the next century....

If any other experts have any quiet doubts about similar predictions re GW, then perhaps Mr Emanuel's willingness to speak out might encourage them to do so as well.

I have doubts. I don't know if warming this century will be another degree or three or more. But I don't think it will be less than a degree or more than four.

[noggin]

http://www.weatherquestions.com/Roy-Spence...satellite-temps

Here's a tome for the weekend! When I have digested it, I hope to be able to make some sensible comment.

[noggin]

The above link casts doubt over most of the current so-called concensus. This is good. Let the report get plenty of media coverage. Let there be open and honest debate. Let it be widely reported in the media, so that it reaches as many people as possible.

Including Al Gore.

[biffvernon]

Thats what the oceans always do. What problem are you on about...please explain what you can and no one else can't see.

Skipping lightly over your command of English, the problem is that what goes down, comes up. In this case the oceans are acting as a heat sink, masking the rise in global temperatures of the whole atmospher-ocean system. If you don't put your thermometer where the temperature is rising you may miss what's happening.

[Thundery wintry showers]

That does strike me as one of the more substantiated counter-articles against AGW that I have seen- I can't vouch for the accuracy of all of the statements, but it does illustrate very well that there is considerable uncertainty, and even refers to scientific research to back it up.

However, the bit at the end of the article strikes me as an "we want to maintain the status quo, we are resistant to change, so we want to find evidence that proves us right so we can stay in our comfort zone" type of approach. Either that, or the logic isn't thought through very well:

1. Assuming that we can't substantially reduce the risk without bringing us to a standstill- evidence please? I've said time and time again- we only achieve change through being open to the possibility that things can work, trying them, and if they succeed then great, if they don't then at least we tried. If we assume worst-case scenario limits and do nothing about problems because "that's life", we never achieve change.

2. There are plenty of arguments for making changes to the way our world operates even if the human forcing involved in climate change is grossly exaggerated. In one word- sustainability. It makes sense to move towards sustainable development as soon as we can, rather than waiting until fossil fuels become uneconomical, being forced into making the changes suddenly and probably having to make many destructive sacrifices in the process, especially if we didn't bother developing the alternatives because for the time being fossil fuels were still economically best so the laissez-faire economists could keep going, kind of thing. That's an even more definite risk than climate change.