9 Dec - About That 'Climate Consensus'

Why there's no sign of a climate conspiracy in hacked emails


Erm. . . Modelling Software?Fri Dec 04 23:44:09 GMT 2009 by PRO_ENG_1

I remember when the climate experts predicted a global ice age. I remember that the weather forecasters could not predict today's weather. I remember trying to predict the next week's weather to support the traders at Enron - it was just a scam just like the carbon credits that Enron started. Aren't these global warming worries all just theories and not backed up by repetative experiments? And isn't the only solution that we get is more government taxes? I don't think I've seen a proof of taxes cooling the global warming, have you? Of course I'm just a professional engineer, not a scientist, and one of those who needs to make the solution work. Gosh, I guess that makes me just a critic instead of someone looking for a problem to fix and the solution.

Erm. . . Modelling Software?Sat Dec 05 21:10:32 GMT 2009 by G. Karst

In Ecoscience: Population, Resources, and Environment (1977 p 686), Paul Ehrlich, Anne Ehrlich, and Holdren stated:

"Many observers have speculated that the cooling could be the beginning of a long and persistent trend in that direction - that is, an inevitable departure from an abnormally warm period in climatic history."

Science News, March 1, 1975

"Most climate scientists now expect a full-blown 10,000-year ice age".

Science magazine, Dec. 10, 1976

"Climate scientists are united in their prediction of extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation".

Science Digest, February 1973

"As a result of ominous signs that the Earth's climate is cooling down, meteorologists are unanimous in predicting that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century, triggering catastrophic famines."
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Erm. . . Modelling Software?Sat Dec 05 13:50:04 GMT 2009 by Patrick

1) The "predicted global ice age," was never near a scientific consensus, and was blown out of proportion from only a few scienctific papers. After a couple of years, even the scientists who published those papers agreed that warming agents such as CO2 would outcompete cooling agents such as sulfur dioxide. The only people who actually pushed the idea were in the media. There were never a large number of scientists who believed global cooling would take place.

2) Yes, global warming is a theory. So are general relativity and evolution. But all three theories are backed up by many, many repeated, independent experiments. Thousands of papers have been published, using different types of data, to establish that the average global temperature has increased significantly in the past century.

3) "More government taxes," is NOT the only solution. You may have heard of environmentalism. There has been a large campaign in the US for decades promoting that we reduce, reuse, and recycle. Also, new technology, such as cleaner fuel sources provide the primary solution.

4) There is no proof that taxes affect global warming. Of course, no taxes have been introduced to do such a thing so why would you expect such a proof? However, "taxes" by which you probably mean a cap-and-trade system, has been amazingly succesful in decreasing the amount of sulfur dioxide in the air, resulting in less acid rain. This is the closest historical precident, and offers a very strong proof the cap-and-trade will reduce carbon emissions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_Rain_Program#Success


Erm. . . Modelling Software?Sun Dec 06 02:29:04 GMT 2009 by michael

"2) Yes, global warming is a theory. So are general relativity and evolution. But all three theories are backed up by many, many repeated, independent experiments. Thousands of papers have been published, using different types of data, to establish that the average global temperature has increased significantly in the past century."

You do realize that difference between general relativity and evolution and AFW is that AGW is not backed up by repeatable experiments. It is based on models that have a huge amount of uncertainty associated with them. The models and the results of the models are not science. And that you are unable to understand the difference says a lot about the rest of your argument.
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Erm. . . Modelling Software?Sun Dec 06 00:33:14 GMT 2009 by Joe

Although I agree with your sentiment - that global warming criticisms are often incoherently presented - it seems that you are doing those arguments a disservice by confusing their cause/effect structure:

"This is not an either/or situation. If CO2 increases, temperatures rise which causes CO2 to be released from the oceans which causes ..."

- As I understand it, their criticism stems from the apparent belief that initial temperature increases in the past preceded increases in C02, and therefore that an alternative means of major warming must be in effect, that is itself independent of C02 levels. (This would all therefore occur before the self-reinforcing C02 cycle you describe),

"climate change has happened in the past and that wasn't caused by man so this can't be"

- This is more likely to be defended as "climate change has happened in the past and that wasn't caused by man - on a much larger scale, and over millenia - therefore this change is *more likely* to be part of that cycle, and less likely to be due to humans." This seems to make sense, especially when you remove our natural human solipcism from the equation.

"Or solar input is a factor, and so CO2 can't be."

- I believe their argument is the opposite; that C02 is often discredited as a factor, and so some other means of warming obviously needs to take its place in the explanation of current warming - and since solar flare activity has been suggested to have a better correlation with past temperature changes, it stands as a more plausible candidate.

"Or temperatures have been high in the past so we don't need to worry."

- Rather worryingly this is more accurately to be interpreted as "Temperatures have been high in the past. Humans may not be able to have such an impact on the climate as we would like to credit ourselves with, and we are just along for the ride. Therefore we're screwed."

It seems too many people are still concerned with such a small time frame - in both directions. Either in their interpretation of current trends by just looking at only the last few hundred years - or in their expectation of what we should do next. Yes, it is good to learn how to control emissions as a global community - and it may help halt current warming if it is indeed caused by humans. But MUCH more importantly, we will eventually face a natural major climatic change over the next several thousand years - which we need to start preparing for now to be able to CONTROL in the way that humans are so keen to do. Otherwise we are going to be in even more trouble when the next ice-age hits (assuming we don't nuke ourselves / die of antibiotic fueled global epidemics first).

In the meantime, I'm sure governments are going to enjoy the new found control and/or income from imposing emissions related monitoring and taxing that may or may not help to prevent something that may or may not be under our control.
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Nothing More Than A Tabloid Feeding FrenzyTue Dec 08 04:48:14 GMT 2009 by Brant

Malaria will be making it to Maine long before palm trees. Spruce can replant themselves 200 miles per century unless they run into insurmountable barriers. Given slow enough climate change, they'd make it to Baffin Island. Tropical trees would take 500 years to make it 1,000 miles Northward at that rate--if they can travel at that rate.

I'm afraid you'd be dealing with dead forests, erosion, crop failures and hurricanes long before your family property up in Maine recovered its current value.

Adaptation takes time, and projections of what future climates and eco-systems might look like suggest that they'll look like nothing on Earth now.

Which is just common sense, after all, seeing as every living creature would face different challenges, including invasive species with no predators or parasites to restrain them.

This is already well known in North America, where there are maybe 60,000 invasive species, and in places like Australia, where mice, mimosa, water hyacinthe, rabbits, sheep and humans have all had disastrous effects on the local wildlife.

Then there's tropical islands where 95% of the unique indigenous species of birds were wiped out by goats, sheep, cattle, horses, rats, dogs, cats, mongoose, etc.

Enjoy your tropical paradise, your tropical hurricanes, your tropical diseases and your tropical starvation.

Personally I'd pin my hopes on Baffin Island, a potential refuge in times of ecological and economic trouble.

Al Gore Warns of Global Warming Doom Seconds Before CNN Reports 'Monster' Winter Storm

Hide The Decline - Climategate
John Blake | November 24, 2009 10:56 PM | Reply
Since the K/T (Cretaceous/Tertiary) Boundary 65-million years-before-present (YBP), widely varying geological eras have averaged about 12-million years apiece.
The current Pleistocene Era, conventionally dated from 1.8 million YBP, is characterized by well-defined cyclical glaciations averaging 102,000 years, interspersed with median 12,250-year interglacial epochs. These climatic regimes are apparently a consequence of global plate-tectonic configurations, whereby Earth's eastern and western hemispheres are separated by North and South American continents, interfering with worldwide circulation of deep-ocean currents. Since Earth is barely one-sixth through the Pleistocene, this pattern of regularly recurring glaciations will likely persist another 10 - 12 million years.
The latest Ice Age began c. 116,400 YBP and ended some 14,400 YPB. But Earth's "long summer" suffered a setback from BC 8800 - 7300, when a 1,500-year "cold snap" called the Younger Dryas regressed to Ice Time due to a rain of cometary/meteorite impacts from Sol's enveloping Oort Cloud. On this basis, our current Holocene Interglacial Epoch was due to end in AD 2000 + (12,250 - 12,300) = AD 1950.
Note, first, that major Pleistocene climate shifts are not primarily due to atmospheric or solar irradiation factors, but to astronomical and geophysical influences. Second, that Ice Time's cyclic regularity implies a climate-component yet to be discovered (does Earth pulsate, "breathe" by one part in 50,000 on its 4,000-mile radius?). Third, that regardless of other determinants, the Pleistocene will probably terminate on schedule about 12 million years from now, when reconfigured continental dispositions address ocean circulation patterns once again.
In 1960, Edward Lorenz of Chaos Theory fame posited that complex systems exhibit a "butterfly effect" rendering natural processes non-random but wholly indeterminate. Fifteen years later Benoit Mandelbrot linked Lorenz's Chaos with "fractal geometry" whereby "strange attractors" are self-similar on every scale. These tremendous insights make nonsense of "global warming" advocates' most cherished thesis, namely that Earth actually has a "climate" amenable to mathematical modeling and projection. Most emphatically, it does not, and by mathematical definition never can.
"Climate science" is thus descriptive only: Like botanical classification, it is solely an enumerative exercise because by definition there can be no experiments. Anyone pretending otherwise has either a recklessly self-deceiving viewpoint or a junk-science ideological axe to grind. Recent revelations show that Briffa, Hansen, Jones, Mann et al. are criminally liable on both counts.

[Photo] Elmer replied to comment from John Blake | November 25, 2009 12:54 AM | Reply
Great post, thanks

Lyn Jenkins , Cardigan , Wales, UK www.visit-the-world.com | November 25, 2009 6:05 AM |Reply
Very erudite posting on the Earth's long term climatic history. Even in fairly recent times , we had the Mediaeval Warm Period circa AD 800 to aboutAD 1400 when the Vikings farmed Greenland.
They grew grapes almost as far north as Scotland.
Then we had the Little Ice Age after that until about 1850 , when the River Thames used to freeze so hard, they could hold Ice Fairs on its surface.Thousands could walk on the thick ice. That is unheard of since 1900 and earlier. The Thames never ever freezes now. But it was not MAN who caused it to freeze....or caused earlier Mediaeval warming !!
Sun Spots are the main controller of the Earth's temperature.
Volcanic activity in Iceland in the 1700's also threw millions of tonnes of dust high into the atmosphere, cutting out the sun's rays and having a huge cooling effect on Europe . See www.iceagenow.com for records of very LOW temperatures and increased snowfall globally in recent months.


Michael | November 26, 2009 10:32 PM | Reply
Normal Scientific Method:
1. Purpose
2. Background information
3. Hypothesis
4. Perform experiment
5. Observe results
6. Conclusion
IPCC East Anglia Scientific Method:
1. Conclusion
2. Observe results
3. Manipulate results
4. Insult all opposition
5. More manipulation of results
6. Tax the heathens senseless


Carla Heimerl replied to comment from twit | November 27, 2009 10:30 AM | Reply
The biggest secret in the world is how much oil there really is. This is the biggest top secret in all the oil producing countries. We will never know how much oil there really is.
They would be idiots to tell us there is plenty of oil and then try to get 100.00 a barrel.
Did you know that diamonds are almost as common as gravel? Diamonds are plentiful, but the people who own the diamond mines want us to think that diamonds are rare so they can charge 4500.00 for a carat, what a bunch of crap! Women should just wise up and tell them to stick those diamonds.
We are not running out of energy. Even if we were really running out of oil, ( and time will tell that we are not) we have plenty of natural gas, more than enough for hundreds of years.
I don't believe in being wasteful or polluting the earth, but some things are simply a BIG SCAM, so that the ELITE of this world can get richer, and the little guys, (that's you and me) continue on paying for all the lies.
Its time to WISE UP, we are being DUPED! Thank God for the internet, it is our best weapon. The weapon of knowledge can change the world for the common man.


Kate | November 28, 2009 9:57 PM | Reply
Climate Gate is YOUR fight
by DefendUSx November 27, 2009 12:54
Most Americans don’t even know about the carbon tax, and many of them, even if they’re skeptical that man is behind global warming, are unaware that if there ever was global warming, it ended at least 10 years ago and the Earth has been cooling for several years, driven by a startling lack of solar activity. They must be made aware, and they must have a fire lit under the backsides, to understand that they cannot sit around unaware and uncaring of current events. The carbon tax is a pretext to global government, which is a pretext to depopulation – genocide. This is no longer about being “into politics”. It’s survival. Push for an aggressive congressional investigation. Write to your local newspaper. Call in to talk radio. Motivate others to do the same. The media will not drive this story. In fact they will do everything in their power to suppress it. Despite their deteriorating credibility, they still wield incredible influence over the masses – in this case simply by refusing to inform the public of a scandal related to an issue that affects us all. This is our fight. Squad up.



The Next Ice Age Now

Global Warming - The greatest deception in the history of science
climatologist Dr. Timothy Ball
Global Warming, as we think we know it, doesn't exist. And I am not the only one trying to make people open up their eyes and see the truth. But few listen, despite the fact that I was the first Canadian Ph.D. in Climatology and I have an extensive background in climatology, especially the reconstruction of past climates and the impact of climate change on human history and the human condition. Few listen, even though I have a Ph.D, (Doctor of Science) from the University of London, England and that for 32 years I was a Professor of Climatology at the University of Winnipeg. For some reason (actually for many), the World is not listening.
.Here's a partial list of climatologists and other scientists who disagree with the idea of anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming

Dalton Minimum Returns
21 Apr 09 - Paul Stanko of NOAA writes: "To say that that we in interesting times is a huge understatement. We are about to enter a Grand Minimum, which in the past have produced a cooler planet, while our government is preparing for run-away global warming. Who could have predicted this stupidity?"
See Dalton Minimum Returns



Magnetic Reversals and Evolutionary Leaps
http://www.evolutionaryleaps.com/Diamonds_raining_from_the_sky.htm



As you know if you’ve read Magnetic Reversals and Evolutionary Leaps, I think those diamonds, and the layer of carbon in which they were embedded - were created in the sky as a result of the Gothenburg magnetic reversal.
Not mentioned in the article, is that radioactivity levels in 12,900-year-old sediment measure up to 2,000 times normal.
With diamonds drizzling to the earth by the ton, with huge amounts of carbon raining from the sky (the carbon layer is sometimes a foot thick), and with huge amounts of radioactivity raining from the sky, no wonder so many ice-age animals went extinct.
And it all happened at a magnetic reversal.
Forget comets. Magnetic reversals cause extinctions, magnetic reversals cause ice ages, and magnetic reversals cause evolutionary leaps.

James A. Marusek on solar cycle 24

"As of the end of October, the cumulative number of spotless days (days without sunspots) in the transition into solar cycle 24 now stands at 745. The transitions into Solar Cycles 16-23, referred to as "recent solar cycles" (years 1923 to ~2008), averaged 362 cumulative spotless days (with a range from 227 to 568 spotless days). Since the current transition now exceeds 568 spotless days, it is very clear that the sun has undergone a state change. The solar "Grand Maxima" state that has persisted during most of the 20th century has come to an abrupt end. The "old solar cycles" (SC 10-15, years 1856 to 1923) averaged 797 spotless days, over twice that of the "recent solar cycles". Those solar cycle minimums ranged from 406 - 1028 spotless days. If this solar minimum ends soon then the upcoming solar cycle may be similar to these “old solar cycles”.

So far the sun continues to be fairly quiet. This solar minimum acts like the Energizer bunny. It just keeps going, and going, and going.

The Average Magnetic Planetary Index (Ap index) is a proxy measurement for the intensity of solar magnetic activity as it alters the geomagnetic field on Earth. It has been referred to as the common yardstick for solar magnetic activity. An Ap index of "4" was the lowest recorded monthly value since measurements began in January 1932.

Back in January 2009, David Archibald predicted the Ap index would hit a low in October 2009 with a value of “3”. Analysis from past solar cycles shows that the Ap index generally reaches its lowest value approximately a year after the solar sunspot minimum. So the question is how well did he do.

The Ap Index for last month, October, was "2" [correction: "3"]. That is really close in my book. The Ap index had been hovering near rock bottom for 11 months now. Beginning in November 2008, there have been 8 monthly readings of "4" along with 3 monthly readings of "5". But this month the value broke through the glass ceiling and spawned the lowest AP monthly index value in the past 77 years. So with this transition into solar cycle 24, all the AP monthly records have been broken. The lowest single month value, two consecutive month value, three consecutive month value, etc. All of those records have fallen, swept away in this solar state change.

So what does this all mean? Well, the sun’s interplanetary magnetic field has fallen to around 4 nT (nano Tesla) from a typical value of 6 to 8 nT. The solar winds pressure is down to 50 year lows. And the heliospheric current sheet is flattening. All these changes allow high-energy galactic cosmic rays to penetrate deeper into our solar system. In 2009, cosmic ray intensities have increased 19% beyond anything we've seen in the past 50 years, when satellite measurements began. Greater numbers of galactic cosmic rays driving deep into our atmosphere cause greater cloud formation (through ionization) which then results in decreasing surface temperature on Earth. This is because low level clouds reflect sunlight back into space. This is why Northern and Southern hemispheres have experienced unusually cold winters during the past couple years. The influence of the sun’s magnetic field is a force to be reckoned with in natural climate change.

The sun exhibits great variability in the strength of each solar cycle. This variability ranges from extremely quiet “Grand Minima” such as the Maunder Minimum to a very active “Grand Maxima” such as the enhanced activity observed during most of the 20th century. A solar Grand Minima is defined as a period when the (smoothed) sunspot number is less than 15 during at least two consecutive decades. The sun spends about 17 percent of the time in a Grand Minima state. In the past, these periods caused great hardship to humanity and significant loss of life.

No Cap and Trade Tax

MICKY'S MUSES...FROM THE ANTIPODES

“ISN’T THE ONLY HOPE FOR THE PLANET THAT THE INDUSTRIALIZED CIVILIZATIONS COLLAPSE? ISN’T IT OUR RESPONSIBLITY TO BRING THAT ABOUT?” - MAURICE STRONG, FOUNDER OF THE UN ENVIRONMENT PROGRAMME, AND LARGELY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE EVER POPULAR AUSSIE BUMPER STICKER "GREENS TELL LIES".

..Very nearly a hundred years ago, Ambrose Bierce compiled A Devil's Dictionary, in which he sought to puncture the cultural cant of his time. Here is an attempt—at much shorter length—to prick a very contemporary kind of cant, that which has swollen the debate on climate change to ungovernable proportions.

A is for anthropogenic: as in anthropogenic global warming, or “AGW”), a $10 word for "man-made" which global-warmists wield as proof of expertise—no one more so than Al Gore, who, after having invented the Internet, turned his prodigious mind to the conundrum of AGW.

B is for Björn Lomborg: the Danish professor whose book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, should have put Al Gore out of business forever; for the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) that aren’t ready to abandon the good, carbon-burning life just yet; and for boondoggle (see "ethanol," infra).

C is for the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit: the now-discredited source of much of the data used to fuel climate hysteria. In November, in an episode that was oh-so-predictably dubbed Climategate, a cache of leaked emails showed that researchers systematically hid or manipulated data that was inconsistent with the accepted narrative of man-made climate change..H/T Denis Dutton of Arts and Letters daily...more here...

...and Minnesotans for Global Warming, the Nobel prize winning creators of "Hide the Decline"have just issued a great sequel "It's a Climategate Christmas", here...

...and on the seventh, eighth and ninth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me; nine researchers dancing, eight grants for milking, seven bears a swimming, six doctors lying, five declines a hiding, four suspect graphs, three hockey sticks,two tricks to play and a cross section of a pine tree...

( Wow. Are people having fun with this, or not ? Quipping with Dr. John v. Kampen I even started. He said that global cooling was associated with reduced sunspots and literal shrinkage of Sol.
 O.K. What if that was a symptom of reduced dark matter in a given area of space feeding the Sun less fuel ? The planetary system is in an orbit too, after all : as is the Milky Way galaxy. We are a galactic fringe system, too. )

Climategate's "deep throat"

Nightfall - Wikipedia

"Nightfall" is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov, about the coming of darkness to the people of a planet ordinarily illuminated at all times on all sides. It was later adapted into a novel. Nightfall has been anthologized four dozen times, and has appeared in a half-dozen collections of Asimov's stories. In 1968, the Science Fiction Writers of America voted Nightfall the best science fiction short story written prior to the establishment of the Nebula Awards in 1965 and included it in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume One, 1929-1964.

The fictional planet Lagash (Kalgash in the novel adaptation) is located in a stellar system containing six stars (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta are the only ones named in the short story; Onos, Dovim, Trey, Patru, Tano, and Sitha in the novel), which keep the whole planet continuously illuminated; total darkness is unknown, and as a result so are stars outside the solar system. A group of scientists from Saro University begin to make a series of related discoveries: Sheerin 501, a psychologist, researches the effects of prolonged exposure to darkness, Siferra 89, an archaeologist, finds evidence of multiple cyclical collapses of civilization, and Beenay 25 is an astronomer who discovered irregularities in the orbit of Lagash around its primary sun Onos. Beenay takes his findings to his superior at the university, Athor, who formulated theTheory of Universal Gravitation. This forces the astronomers at Saro University to attempt to find an answer to what is causing this anomaly. Eventually it is discovered that the only thing that could be causing the deviation is an astronomical body that orbits Lagash.
Beenay, through his friend Theremon 762 (a reporter), has learned some of the beliefs of the group known as the Cult ("Apostles of Flame" in the novel). They believe the world would be destroyed in a darkness with the appearance of Stars that unleash a torrent of fire. Beenay combines what he has learned about the repetitive collapses at the digsite, and the new theory with the potential of eclipses and concludes that once every 2049 years the one sun visible is eclipsed, resulting in a brief 'night'.
Since the population of Lagash has never experienced universal darkness, the scientists conclude that the darkness itself would traumatize the people and that the inhabitants of the planet would need to prepare accordingly. When nightfall occurs, however, the scientists—who have prepared themselves for darkness—and the rest of the planet are most surprised by the sight of previously-invisible stars outside the six-star system filling the sky. The short story did not cover what happens after that, but in the novel and X Minus 1 program, civil disorder breaks out; cities are destroyed in massive fires and civilization—as previously known—collapses, with the ashes of the fallen civilization and the competing groups trying to seize control.