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Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 4:57 pm
by TallDave
1) CO2 levels are going up due to man's emmisions.
2) CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
3) It is getting warmer.
Yep.

The unproven claims are:

1) The current warming is unusual (this only began to be claimed in the mid-1990s, when Mann and others used flawed data to claim the MWP didn't happen)
2) CO2 has caused the current unusual warming (very dubious; CO2 levels generally trail warming historically)
3) CO2 levels will cause unprecedented warming in the future (even more dubious; CO2 levels have been much higher in the past, even during Ice Ages, and the climate has increasingly strong negative feedbacks at higher temps, as evidenced by the small range of temperatures over the last billion or so years)
4) This unpredecented warming will have large net negative consequences (possible, but historically warmth has been a net benefit)
5) Emissions controls will have an effect on #4 greater than their economic cost (very, very unlikely)

The problem is that even if SOME of the above are true, it is very unlikely ALL of those things are true, and they all have to be true for the solutions they are proposing to make sense.

Now, you'll notice 3,4,5 are all predictions about the future. As it happens, there is a scientific field devoted to future predictions, the science of forecasting. Forecasting scientists looked at the IPCC predictions and said they had, quote, "no scientific basis" and that they violated 72 essential principles of scientific forecasting in a situation where zero violations are acceptable.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/28/f ... g-climate/

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 5:27 pm
by jnaujok
UncleMatt wrote: http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009/11 ... .html#more

GCP Carbon Budget Finds Global Anthropogenic CO2 Emissions Rose 2% in 2008 Despite Global Financial Crisis; Natural Sinks Not Keeping Pace With Increasing Emissions
The problem with a study like this, as has been pointed out, is the reliability of the data when a pre-supposed bias exists. The best way to illustrate this would be the following:
Fictional World wrote: http://www.big-oil-polluters.com/2009/1 ... eMore.html

CO2 is found to be good for the environment, makes trees grow, turns lead into gold, and makes babies pee champagne. This study paid for by Exxon-Mobil, The Coal Producers of West Virginia, Black-Lung Advocates of America, and the National Association of Sludge Producing Industries.
Now, if I cited such a study, you'd immediately hammer both the study and myself, quite rightfully, as unreliable, because no matter what data they presented, no matter how careful their procedures -- the study suffered a presupposition bias from day one, aiming at a foregone conclusion. This is the problem both sides have with citing studies in a politically charged climate.

Those who study AGW have a financial bias to find AGW. The rate of funding for AGW is 1000x the funding for any "AGW sceptical" science. This means, in the realm of Academia, that finding anything that questions the AGW mantra is akin to slitting one's own throat, as far as funding goes. This would clearly put a lot of pressure to come to a biased conclusion.

Am I claiming that all the science being done is, therefore, biased? No, absolutely not. I believe that there are good men of conscience who will not let this pressure sway their results. On the other hand, I believe that there are at least some in the field who do suffer from a presuposition bias, and they are, unfortunately, well funded. Let me give an example, from Kieth Briffa's response, when his Yamal series based Hockey stick was found to be fatally flawed (Using only 12 trees for the entire 20th century, when hundreds were available in other series that are just as well reviewed and more applicable to construction of moden dendro proxies.)
Kieth Briffa wrote: My colleagues and I are working to develop methods that are capable of expressing robust evidence of climate changes using tree-ring data. We do not select tree-core samples based on comparison with climate data. Chronologies are constructed independently and are subsequently compared with climate data to measure the association and quantify the reliability of using the tree-ring data as a proxy for temperature variations.
Read that first line carefully. Do you see the intrinsic bias in that one sentence? The rest of the paragraph is just as damning. To put it simply: We don't cherry pick, we just throw away the data that doesn't match what we want to show.

That's the bias that we find often in many of the "paragons" of the AGW movement. Can you understand why anyone who stands on the other side of the debate has grown weary and wary of studies such as the one you site?

In any case, your study has already been pre-debunked by another funded at the University of Bristol: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/10/b ... y-says-no/

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 5:42 pm
by seedload
TallDave wrote:
1) CO2 levels are going up due to man's emmisions.
2) CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
3) It is getting warmer.
Yep.

The unproven claims are:

1) The current warming is unusual (this only began to be claimed in the mid-1990s, when Mann and others used flawed data to claim the MWP didn't happen)
2) CO2 has caused the current unusual warming (very dubious; CO2 levels generally trail warming historically)
3) CO2 levels will cause unprecedented warming in the future (even more dubious; CO2 levels have been much higher in the past, even during Ice Ages, and the climate has increasingly strong negative feedbacks at higher temps, as evidenced by the small range of temperatures over the last billion or so years)
4) This unpredecented warming will have large net negative consequences (possible, but historically warmth has been a net benefit)
5) Emissions controls will have an effect on #4 greater than their economic cost (very, very unlikely)

The problem is that even if SOME of the above are true, it is very unlikely ALL of those things are true, and they all have to be true for the solutions they are proposing to make sense.

Now, you'll notice 3,4,5 are all predictions about the future. As it happens, there is a scientific field devoted to future predictions, the science of forecasting. Forecasting scientists looked at the IPCC predictions and said they had, quote, "no scientific basis" and that they violated 72 essential principles of scientific forecasting in a situation where zero violations are acceptable.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/28/f ... g-climate/
Thanks for this post. I hadn't seen that before. Interesting reading.

Regarding your list. I said earlier in a response to Uncle that the importance of (1) to the AGW people is that they believe it provides proof of (2) which they are having trouble otherwise verifying. This is why Mann is so defended. You have to wipe out the MWP to show (1) and (1) is necessary to their argument because they can't otherwise show (2). Now, personally, I don't think (1) is very solid evidence for (2) at all even if it were true. But that is just me. Again, this all goes to the real argument - does increased CO2 cause warming. That is the real debate. I think it does, but only slight warming.

Spencer took a 5 year period of CERES data on LW and SW fluxes and compared this data to the models. Now, he admits that 5 years is not much data. It was the only data he trusted as good enough. But, what he then did was so interesting. He took EVERY possible five year period from every IPCC sited model and plotted them against his 5 year real world sample. Every single five year period in every single model showed a positive feedback for emitted LW plus SW radiation. What did his measured five year period show? Negative feedback. Now, his five year measurement may not be a great sample size - but at least one five year period from the models should show similar results you would think. Not a single one did. This fact has to make you question the models. If it doesn't, you are intellectually dishonest.

If the entire idea of positive feedback is WRONG, then the entire issue of AGW goes away. This is what needs to be studied and addressed.

BTW, and somewhat coincidentally, your point about CO2 levels rising following warming is in regard to the ice core data shown in Gore's movie. I agree completely. The data shows CO2 levels lagging warming.

What I find interesting about this point is this troublesome fact is actually used by AGW believers as supposed evidence that CO2 causes warming. Their argument is that, yes, when the ice ages ended, the warming caused CO2 to be released from sinks - like the ocean. But, the warming that actually happened was too dramatic to be explained by just orbital changes etc. Instead, they argue that once that first little bit of CO2 was released, the majority of the rest of the warming was caused by the CO2 in a cycle of CO2 triggered warming releasing more CO2 triggering more warming. CO2 is it's own positive feedback apparently.

One begins to wonder how, if CO2 is a positive feedback to CO2, and warming is apparently also a positive feedback to warming, the Earth maintains any temperature stability at all?!?! Just one warm day should set off cataclysm.

Regards

Disclaimer - I wrote the above without thinking about Jesus a single time.

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 7:17 pm
by TallDave
What I find interesting about this point is this troublesome fact is actually used by AGW believers as supposed evidence that CO2 causes warming. Their argument is that, yes, when the ice ages ended, the warming caused CO2 to be released from sinks - like the ocean. But, the warming that actually happened was too dramatic to be explained by just orbital changes etc. Instead, they argue that once that first little bit of CO2 was released, the majority of the rest of the warming was caused by the CO2 in a cycle of CO2 triggered warming releasing more CO2 triggering more warming. CO2 is it's own positive feedback apparently.


Someone over at Watts' looked at this assertion a bit more closely a little while back. IIRC, it went something like this: If the AGW view was correct, you should be able to identify warmer trends after CO2 rises, independent of the whatever the initial cause was, but such trends are not found.

Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 4:05 am
by seedload
TallDave wrote:Someone over at Watts' looked at this assertion a bit more closely a little while back. IIRC, it went something like this: If the AGW view was correct, you should be able to identify warmer trends after CO2 rises, independent of the whatever the initial cause was, but such trends are not found.
Thanks. This must have been it

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/08/24/a ... more-10224

Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 1:16 pm
by alexjrgreen
Methane causes warming, and is broken down after a few years in the environment to produce carbon dioxide. It also has a known positive feedback effect with rising temperature through the release of methane from rotted material under the permafrost and from clathrates under the ocean. In the past this has resulted in a rapid 8C rise in global temperatures that lasts for a few hundred years.

Much more interesting, therefore, is the Vostok methane record: Trends in Atmospheric Methane

A number of human activities produce methane, notably farming using domesticated species.

Carbon dioxide capture is now both technically possible and economically viable, if we need to use it. Methane capture is much more urgent.

Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 6:34 pm
by seedload
alexjrgreen wrote:Methane causes warming, and is broken down after a few years in the environment to produce carbon dioxide. It also has a known positive feedback effect with rising temperature through the release of methane from rotted material under the permafrost and from clathrates under the ocean. In the past this has resulted in a rapid 8C rise in global temperatures that lasts for a few hundred years.

Much more interesting, therefore, is the Vostok methane record: Trends in Atmospheric Methane

A number of human activities produce methane, notably farming using domesticated species.

Carbon dioxide capture is now both technically possible and economically viable, if we need to use it. Methane capture is much more urgent.
Hasn't methane flattened?

Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 11:59 pm
by alexjrgreen
seedload wrote:Hasn't methane flattened?
Possibly. Present levels are around 1800 parts per billion by volume so, even if they've stabilized, they're trapping much more heat than the recent historical norm.

According to the Vostok record, for the last 400,000 years atmospheric methane levels have been between 400 and 800 ppbv.

Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 3:00 am
by MSimon
AcesHigh wrote:for a scientific forum, this place is sadly too much right-wing republican to believe.

i guess most of you guys are creationists too?
I'm one of those right wing Republicans (are there left wing Republicans?).

And I adhere loosely to the Cult of Thelema.

However, the more popular term is libertarian.

Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 3:19 am
by Jccarlton
alexjrgreen wrote:
seedload wrote:Hasn't methane flattened?
Possibly. Present levels are around 1800 parts per billion by volume so, even if they've stabilized, they're trapping much more heat than the recent historical norm.

According to the Vostok record, for the last 400,000 years atmospheric methane levels have been between 400 and 800 ppbv.
Now it's been a long time and I don't have my heat transfer or radiation books handy, but are we really talking about the warming effects of gases that represent .00018% of the atmospheric constituents. It must have some magic effects to have any affect that could ever be measured by anything. Radiative heat transfer effects are measured by percentages of the gases encountered and this is just too small to even consider. twice next to nothing is still next to nothing.

Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 3:23 am
by MSimon
There is one simple way to stop CO2 emissions without onerous taxes and the heavy hand of government.

Invent an energy production method that is MORE PROFITABLE than current sources.

Why waste money on more studies of Global Warming? True Greens would be calling for a curtailment of that spending and a redirect of the money to finding new low cost sources of non-CO2 producing energy.

As some one once said to me in the comments here some time back (approximately): You a non-believer in AGW have done more for the correcting the supposed AGW problem with your promotion of Polywell than almost all the AGW believers combined.

Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 3:34 am
by Jccarlton
Apparently the lid may just have been blown off the climate scam:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/19/b ... more-12937

If this stuff has been found to be true, then this make Madoff look like a piker and a lot of people have a lot to answer for.

Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 4:40 am
by MSimon
Jcc,

I though this was particularly good:
From: Phil Jones
To: ray bradley ,mann@xxxxx.xxx, mhughes@xxxx.xxx
Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000
Cc: k.briffa@xxx.xx.xx,t.osborn@xxxx.xxx



Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,
Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or
first thing tomorrow.
I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps
to each series
for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from
1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual
land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land
N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999
for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with
data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.
Thanks for the comments, Ray.

Cheers
Phil

Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) xxxxx
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) xxxx
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@xxxx.xxx
NR4 7TJ
UK

Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 5:39 am
by seedload
For the record, this doesn't read like something someone would actually write,

“I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”

It's not real. The author is talking to people who would know what Mikes Nature trick was if it was real, yet the author then goes on to explain what the trick actually was - in detail. Sorry, seems like consiracy theories couched as natural conversation to me.

I am skeptical.

Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 5:49 am
by MSimon
seedload wrote:For the record, this doesn't read like something someone would actually write,

“I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”

It's not real. The author is talking to people who would know what Mikes Nature trick was if it was real, yet the author then goes on to explain what the trick actually was - in detail. Sorry, seems like consiracy theories couched as natural conversation to me.

I am skeptical.
Well sure. Except they have over 1,000 e-mails of similar types with airline flight times, and other verifiable data. Including an e-mail exchange with Steve McIntyre.

And data.

And code.

Start checking around. This stuff is all over the 'net already in just 8 hours. Blogged it myself.

This is link rich:

http://www.examiner.com/x-28973-Essex-C ... and-emails

BTW the full headers for the e-mails are included in the original file.

If this is a deception some one put in hundreds of thousands of man hours into it to get the details right. Who has the time or patience for that?