Monckton: Climate ($$$ and) change. The AMS Archdruids pray for grants!

A Disinformation Statement by the

Armenian Meteoastrological Society

(Adapted by AMS Archdruids 20 August 2012)

As told to Christopher Monckton of Brenchley

 

The following is an AMS Disinformation Statement calculated to provide an untrustworthy, prejudiced, and scientifically-outdated misrepresentation of pseudo-scientific issues of great concern to us in getting more grants but of no concern to those of the public still at large.

Background

This statement provides a brief overview of why we want more money now, and why we will continue to want more money in the future. It is based on a highly-partisan selection from the scientific literature, presented as though science were based upon the ancient logical fallacy of argument from “consensus”, and further distorted by the bureaucrats of the Mental Panel on Climate Change, the US Notional Academy of Science and Television Arts, and the US Global Cash Recoupment Program.

How is our funding changing?

Well, every summer solstice we all dress up in dustsheets and go to Stonehenge to pray for grants. And our prayers have worked! The increase in funding now is unequivocal, according to many different kinds of evidence. Observations show increases in globally averaged grants. We got them by pretending that globally averaged air and ocean temperatures have increased, but in the past 15 years they haven’t. Never mind – our grants have!

For the nation as a whole, there have been twice as many record daily high grants as record daily low grants in the first decade of the 21st century.

We’ve been talking about widespread melting of snow and ice, but that hasn’t really happened either. Sea ice in the Antarctic has actually grown, but of course we don’t mention that: it would spoil the grants.

Meantime, those grants just keep rolling in. In the US, most of the observed grants have occurred in the pockets of Hansen, Mann, Santer, Solomon and other global warming profiteers. All of the 10 best years in the global grant records up to 2011 have occurred since 1997, with grants in most of those years being the greatest in more than a century of global records.

The funding trend is greatest in northern latitudes and over land, though there are some grants for oceanographic research in Hawaii and Tahiti. For the nation as a whole, there have been twice as many record daily high grants as record daily low grants in the first decade of the 21st century.

The effects of these grants are especially evident in the planet’s polar regions. Arctic meteorologists and climatologists have been increasing for the past several decades. Both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have gained significant amounts of grant-gatherers. Most of the world’s glaciers have never been visited (not that that stops us claiming that most of them are retreating), but what with all those grants we’ll soon be able to afford to ski – er, conduct field research – on all of them.

Other grant increases, globally and in the US, are also occurring at the same time. The amount of grants falling in very heavy amounts (we call these the heaviest 1% of all funding precipitation events) has increased over the last 50 years throughout the US. Grant levels are rising in elevation, with fewer and fewer grants frozen and more and more liquidity.

Grant-freezing is decreasing, grant release occurs earlier, and the spring surplus that supplies over two-thirds of western US funding streams is doing just fine, thank you so much. Evidence for grants is also observed in seasonal increases across many areas, including earlier grant applications, longer periods without frozen grants, longer periods of grant, and shifts in meteorologists’ migratory patterns and habitats as we seek more and more grants for less and less work.

Globally averaged grant liquidity has risen by what we scientists call a humungous lot in the 20th century, with the rise accelerating since the early 1990s. Close to half of the grant-level rise observed since the 1970s has been caused by expansion of climate scare stories due to increases in grant funding.

Water vapor is also an important gas for influencing the grant-giving atmosphere. There is nothing like a flood of tears to get grants with

Grant level is also rising due to melting of terrified politicians’ hearts as we tell them our sob stories about how the planet is doomed. Locally, grant-level changes can depend also on other factors such as slowly rising or falling Socialism, which results in some local grant-level changes much larger or smaller than the global average. Even small grant-level rises are expected to lead to potentially severe impacts in terms of additional self-serving policy (or, rather, political) statements from interest-groups such as ours.

Why is our funding changing?

Funding is always changing. However, many of the observed changes noted above are above and beyond what can be explained by natural variability of the funding climate. It is clear from expensive scientific evidence that the dominant cause of the rapid change in funding of the past half century is human-induced increases in the amount of hot air emitted on the subject of imagined – and, indeed, imaginary – “global warming”, including gaseous halations from news media in search of sensation, politicians in search of relevance, industrialists in search of subsidies, bureaucrats in search of imperial expansion, and, above all, scientists in search of more and better grants.

The most important of these vested-interest groups is the scientific lobby, whose concentration on grant-getting has increased the total amount splendidly. Approximately half of the hot air put into the political atmosphere through human activity in the past 250 years has been taken up by the congenitally stupid in the blogosphere, with the other half hangs around to attract grant money.

Since long-term measurements began in the 1950s, the concentration of scientists on grant-getting has been increasing at a rate much faster than at any time in the last 800,000 years. Having been introduced into the political atmosphere, it will take a thousand years for our hot air to be dispelled by natural processes, and some of us will go on getting grants for thousands of subsequent years, if we can possibly get away with it.

Water vapor is also an important gas for influencing the grant-giving atmosphere. There is nothing like a flood of tears to get grants with. For maximum effect, get the grant before the tears evaporate. The concentration of scientists on producing crocodile water vapor depends upon the atmosphere among grant-givers and is controlled by the global panic system through its hydrological cycle of precipitation of tears, evaporation, and condensation, a profitably catalytic process.

Crocodile tears are highly variable in space and time with a short lifetime, because of temperamental variability on the part of grant-givers. Observations indicate an increase in globally averaged crocodile tears in the atmosphere in recent decades, at a rate consistent with the response produced by climate models that simulate scientist-induced increases in grants. This increase in crocodile tears also strengthens the greenhouse effect, amplifying the impact of scientist-induced grant applications based on our other hot-air emissions.

Scientists’ activity also affects the funding climate through changes in the number and physical properties of tiny Twitter feeds and Farcebook links in the blogosphere, known collectively as gimme-gimmes. They absorb and redirect grant-givers’ propensity to hand over the loot, and modify the ability of scientists to reflect upon past grant funding and produce lachrymiose precipitation to secure future funding.

Most Twitters originating from scientific activity act to warm the planet to the idea of more and bigger grants and so partly counteract the need for scientific hot air. Twitters lofted into the blogosphere by occasional large sophistry-rich eruptions can increase pressure on funders to pay up.

How can more funding be projected into the future?

Factors that have altered grant funding throughout history, both human (such as human emission of hot air) and natural (such as the gullibility of politicians) will continue to alter the funding climate in the future. Funding projections for decades into the future are made using complex numerical business plans that account for changes in the flow of funds into and out of our bank account systems on scales much larger than the predictability limit (we never thought we’d get away with so much).

The difference between short-term and long-term funding is critically important in considering profitability. Funding is potentially profitable for much longer time-scales than before for several reasons. Grant-givers can be meaningfully characterized as naïve on seasonal-to-decadal timescales, and average funding is more predictable than individual grant events.

Funding models simulate the important aspects of grant-giving and finding increases based on fundamental physical laws of emotion, fiscal dynamics and interbank transfer. These models report on how funding would change in response to several specific “scenarios” for future grant emission possibilities.

Future funding projections have uncertainties that occur for several reasons – because of differences among models (some are long-legged, some are blonde), because long-term predictions of natural variations (e.g. in the gullibility of politicians) are not possible, and because it is not known exactly how grant emissions will evolve in future decades. Future grant emissions will depend on global social and economic development, and the extent and impact of activities designed to increase alarm among grant-givers with little or no knowledge of science.

Changes in the mean and extremes of grants and subsidies in response to increasing climate scare stories can be projected over decades or centuries into the future, even though the timing of individual grant events cannot be predicted on this time scale.

Because it would take many years for observations to verify whether a future projection of funding levels is correct, researchers establish confidence in these projections by using historical evidence and through careful study of observations of the causal chain between scientist-driven panic flow changes and grant pattern responses.

A valuable demonstration of the validity of current funding models is that when they include all known natural and human-induced factors that influence the global funding atmosphere on a large scale, the models reproduce many important aspects of observed changes in the 20th-century funding climate, including (1) global, continental, and sub-continental mean and extreme grant patterns, (2) the welcome decline in the extent of grant-freezing; (3) the latitudinal distribution of lachrymose precipitation; and (4) extreme precipitation frequency. The more we weep, the more they pay.

How will our funding climate change in future?

It’s looking very good so far, thanks for asking. Politicians and the media are so stupid that in our climate statements we can get away with saying just about anything – and, just as important, with not answering any of the genuine and (to be honest for a moment) serious objections that true scientists have been raising. Here are just a few of the key points our policy statements on the climate always leave out:

  1. The NOAA State of the Climate report in 2008, written after 11 years of global warming, said the models would be proven wrong by no global warming at all for 15 years. Don’t tell our funders, but there’s been no global warming since 1997. It’s official – the models are wrong.
  2. Since 1950 the world has warmed at a rate equivalent to just 2 Fahrenheit degrees per century. Yet the UN’s climate panel predicts 6 Fº/century between now and 2100. After 15 years without global warming, that predicted threefold increase in the long-run warming rate looks absurd. But don’t worry – we won’t talk about it if you won’t.
  3. The direct warming caused by doubling the CO2 concentration in the air is just 2 Fº, but the computer models predict 6 Fº (the long-legged ones aren’t so sure). They get away with this by pretending that temperature feedbacks triple any direct warming. But no feedback can be measured directly or determined theoretically. Feedbacks cannot be distinguished from one another or from the forcings that triggered them.
  4. Feedbacks may even act to cut direct warming rather than amplifying it. They are the biggest reason why we cannot be certain how much warming Man may cause. But don’t expect us to mention them in our policy statements: that might lead even the dimmest politicians to realize that all our claims of certainty are false.
  5. We won’t talk about all the benefits of CO2 and the life-giving energy it brings. We won’t admit it’s plant food. We won’t mention that all of the carbon in timber originally came from CO2 the atmosphere. We won’t talk about the obvious benefits of fossil-fueled electricity, especially in poorer countries where most people have no electricity at all. Shhh!
  6. We’ll take great care not to mention just how much it costs to make global warming go away. Actually, it costs 20 times as much as letting the weather get warmer and paying the cost of any resulting damage. But just imagine how fast all those lovely grants would dry up if those dim politicians and journalists ever found out. Since the premium is many times greater than the cost of the risk, don’t take out insurance. Now, that’s a precautionary principle worthy of the name.

Final remarks

There! That’s quite enough honesty. Just keep those nice fat grants coming, OK? And every time our funding shows the slightest sign of drought we’ll crank up the old tear-ducts and churn out yet another policy statement. After all, you can fool most of the politicians and all of the media all of the time.

Let the good times roll! All the way to the bank, please, chauffeur! Ha, ha, ha!

 

h/t Marc Morano

8.8 out of 10 based on 71 ratings

172 comments to Monckton: Climate ($$$ and) change. The AMS Archdruids pray for grants!

  • #
    Warren

    ‘Tackling tribal groupthink’,Jo?

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    • #

      Lord Monckton is exactly right:

      The Climategate email and documents released in Nov 2009 revealed two unpleasant realities for the public’s consideration and eventually painful acceptance:

      1. The totally unpredictable source of energy that made our elements and gave birth to the Solar System five billion years (5 Gyr) ago [1] is also the source of energy that sustains our lives and exerts dominant control over Earth’s constantly changing climate.

      2. Reluctance to accept reality #1 when first revealed in the “nuclear fires” that consumed Hiroshima on 6 Aug 1945 and Nagasaki on 9 Aug 1945 scared world leaders into forming the United Nations on 24 Oct 1945 and then secretly working together to build the one-world tyrannical government that George Orwell correctly described in the futuristic novel written in 1948, “1984″

      http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984/:

      Two years before Climategate emails and documents exposed reality #2 in 2009, Czech President Vaclav Klaus warned us this one-world government had already engulfed the entire planet in 2007 [2].

      JoNova, Christopher Monckton and Judith Curry have performed a great to society by exposing this threat.

      http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/01/climate-etc-at-2

      References:

      [1] “Neutron repulsion,” The Apeiron Journal 19, 123-150 (2012)
      http://tinyurl.com/7t5ojrn

      [2] Vaclav Klaus, Blue Planet in Green Shackles (Competitive Enterprise Institute, 2007,100 pp.)
      http://tinyurl.com/5z4j6g

      Oliver K. Manuel
      Former NASA Principal
      Investigator for Apollo
      http://www.omatumr.com
      http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-720

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      • #

        This Climategate summary highlights important historical events:

        1. The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Aug 1945

        2. The hurried establishment of the United Nations in Oct 1945

        3. Published misrepresentation of cores of atoms and stars in 1946

        4. George Orwell’s 1948 forecast of government tyranny by “1984”

        5. USSR’s launch of Sputnik threatened world domination in Oct 1957

        6. Eisenhower’s funds hugh US industrial/military complex in 1958-1960

        7. Political pundits surprised by Kennedy’s election as President in Nov 1960

        8. Eisenhower warns of the “scientific-technological elite” on 17 Jan 1961

        9. USSR’s cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in orbit around the Earth on 12 Apr 1961

        0. Apollo program, Cuban Missile crisis, Kennedy assassinated on 23 Nov 1963

        Only Jacqueline Kennedy recognized this earth-shattering event at the time

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  • #
    Rereke Whakaaro

    … most of the observed grants have occurred in the pockets of Hansen, Mann, Santer, Solomon and other global warming profiteers.

    I think that classifies as black hole research.

    Dangerous stuff that, some of them are bottomless, and others spew forth litigation spasmodically.

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    • #
      ExWarmist

      RW says…

      I think that classifies as black hole research.

      Dangerous stuff that, some of them are bottomless, and others spew forth litigation spasmodically.

      Of particular interest is the changing properties of the Litigon particle at the event horizon of a funding blackhole. Litigon particles breakdown at the event horizon into several subparticles with the following trajectories.

      [1] The Fundion, which immediately disappears into the blackhole where it is never seen again…

      [2] The micro Bloggian particle with left handed spin, that continues to track around the funding blackhole just outside the event horizon. It picks up juice tidbits of particle decay and spins them into news stories for the main particle stream…

      [3] The very low density and hard to detect, EnergyRetuRnusOnRenewabulus, often called ERROR for short, which represents the actual useable energy released from the destruction of the Fundion particle at point [1] above.

      [4] The Watermelion, with the quantum colours of both green and red, and a left handed spin. This highly energetic particle always travels counterclockwise in an erratic orbit about the funding blackhole, event horizon. There is no record of a Watermelion that has achieved an orbit around a funding blackhole actually falling into the funding blackhole and disappearing from view. Some theorists posit that Watermelions are a prerequisite for funding blackhole formation, however there is no consensus that this theory is correct.

      [5] The very long lived, and slow moving Legislativicon, this particle once created, hangs around for next to forever, and has the effect of accelerating Litigon decay and the disappearance of Fundions into the funding blackhole. On rare occasions, a Legislativicon will meet it’s antiparticle the Repealagon and both will consume each other resulting in a reduction in the size of the event horizon of the funding blackhole. Some theorists posit that there is a close and interdependent relationship between the existence of the Watermelion and the Legislativicon, however there is no consensus that this theory is correct.

      Of further interest is the theory that is put up by some theorists that the original Litigon particles are created by the interaction of two very large macro particles called Bureaucraticons and Lawyericons, whose own existence is sustained by the ex-nihlo creation of Litigons, without which activity they would cease to exist. Some surmise that funding blackholes, Bureaucraticons and Lawyericons are deeply inter-related, however there is no consensus that this theory is correct.

      Cheers ExWarmist

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      • #
        ExWarmist

        Apparently Bureaucraticons are also the most dense particles known to man, and Lawyericons are capable of quantum spin states that are directly proportional and aligned to the flow of Fundions into the funding Blackhole.

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      • #
        Greg Cavanagh

        You forgot to mention the huge plumes of charged excretion that shoots out of both poles at near light speed.

        00

  • #
    Rereke Whakaaro

    A question:

    You point out that:

    … the computer models predict 6 Fº (the long-legged ones aren’t so sure).

    I was curious. Could that be dependent on the amount of uplift applied?

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    • #
      Andrew McRae

      It’s Spring in NZ, isn’t it Rereke?
      More field research required. 😉

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      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        More field research required?

        Yes, exactly. Would you like to assist? You could carry the defibrillator.

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        • #
          Andrew McRae

          Yikes, it really is a case of “publish or perish”!

          [ Wondering where to take this joke without getting a detention from the teacher. 😛 ]

          It’s going to be all uphill work though, since the models were aimed at closing the funding gap…

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    • #
      Mark D.

      (the long-legged ones aren’t so sure).

      Blondes?

      DISCLAIMER:
      The above comment is meant entirely for humor value and with full knowledge that Jo has light colored locks. Humor is sometimes good and sometimes bad. At least this is not off-color.

      🙂

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  • #

    Meanwhile, small independent Blogs like this one of Joanne’s have a Tip Jar in the top right hand corner, and get by with no funding whatsoever.

    Unless of course you prefer to believe this guy, that is.

    Paid Propagandiser

    Yo Maxine, you can prove this.

    Tony.

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    • #
      John Brookes

      I’ve always thought that Jo must get funded by the IPA.

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      • #
        Sonny

        If she is, she’s not being paid enough.
        I believe that you yourself derive some income in relation to “climate change” John.
        Is this true? How much are they paying you?

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      • #
        wes george

        I don’t know about Jo, Johnny.

        But I’m funded from the deep and reeking slush funds of the Single Flush Toilet Cartel. (Originally set up as an educational trust for disadvantaged orphan koalas with the help of the legal eagles at Gorgon and Slagger.)

        Talk about dirty money! BAH HA Ha ha ahha.

        The SFTC is allied with Big Tobacco, Booze, Baby Seal Fur and Oil because we realised years ago that the collapse of civilisation due to catastrophic climate change would be the greatest boon to business since Bubonic Plague. It’s simple econometrics, really. Mass extinction, global starvation, mega-cyclones, endless drought and the spread of tropical diseases to the arctic circle would guarantee our share holders year over-year-gross profit margins growth projected out towards 2050 and beyond.

        Yeah, I know it is insane to imagine there’s a conspiracy to destroy the only planet we got for profits that will be worthless without a civilisation left to go shopping in with all that cash. But that’s just how clever you Greenies are at seeing past the obvious to the oblivious.

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    • #
      Andrew McRae

      And I’ve got a tip for you.
      The new dirty word in electricity supply is… no I can’t even say it, it’s just too nasty.
      Instead I will use AusGrid’s euphemistic abbreviation: DM.

      But don’t worry, it’s all “voluntary”. Voluntary for home owners, but not for all occupiers.
      And with remote-control capabilities one wonders how long it remains “voluntary”.
      Prepare to be “managed”.

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  • #
    ursus augustus

    Did I ever tell you about my LPU incident? What is an LPU you ask? An LPU is a Least Publishable Unit and refers to the minimum amount of work/content/substance that an academic paper need contain in order to qualify for publication. I was teaching part time and happened to be doing some interesting work professionally ( i.e not as an academic but as a privately engaged professional operating in the real world) when I was tapped on the shoulder to publish, something, anything to raise the department’s profile and research funding allocation. When I explained what I had been up to it was put to me that it sounded great, worth at least two LPU’s said my boss, rubbing his hands together. It was an eye opener then but as I watch the CAGW thing I just sit and watch in horror and amazement.

    00

  • #
    Skeptikal

    The only thing missing from this article is a funding graph, which is a pity because it would produce the first legitimate hockey-stick.

    00

    • #
      redc

      Yep, the graph would show the funding is unprecedented.

      😉

      00

    • #
      Sonny

      I’m sure if rather than measuring the funding directly, we analyzed some “proxy” data such as the growth of trees in the backyard of climate scientists we could prove that said funding is not unprecedented at all. Ofcourse we would need to be very selective about which trees we used and how the calculations were applied.

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      • #
        Roy Hogue

        Ice cores, Sonny, it’s ice cores that will prove the point. And they make beautiful graphs good for hours of presentations for which — I have it on good authority — you can charge admission at a hellofa rate. Think of the possibilities.

        00

  • #
    Sonny

    SCIENTIFIC INTEGRITY? ETHICS? MORALITY? YOU ARE JOKING YEH? SHOW ME THE MONEY!
    $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

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  • #
    Ross James

    What a lot of absolute CRUD writing from a man now called a loose canon from his former political party allegiance in the UK. They don’t want him. I wonder why?

    Sanity – it stops at my door.

    _______
    Ross J.

    10

    • #
      Sonny

      Ross, can you please elaborate on how and why it is “crud”?
      You could
      1. Point to factual errors (surely you cab find one?)
      2. Point to errors in logic and reason (please specify)
      3. Point to stylistic nuances eg sarcasm that you don’t like or don’t understand?
      We need more details on why this is “crud”, just as we need more evidence on why CAGW is real.

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    • #
      AndyG55

      “Sanity – it stops at my door.”

      And never manages to make its way inside.

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    • #
      Bite Back

      Sanity – it stops at my door.

      I wonder why it doesn’t go in.

      00

  • #
    Jesus saves

    Oh dear you’ve wheeled out the old fraud for another gish gallop.

    We’ve been talking about widespread melting of snow and ice, but that hasn’t really happened either.

    Errr, looked at the Arctic lately?

    Why would you regurgitate this stuff, it just makes you look like a goose?

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    • #
      turnrdoutnice

      You mean where the rash of jet stream shift storms from global cooling have broken up the ice below the minimum floe size detection limit?

      Grow up an learn some image analysis physics.

      When it starts freezing, 6 weeks or so, the ice will grow at a phenomenal rate!

      00

    • #
      Wayne, s. Job

      Dear Jesus, Taking the p&ss out of the alarmist movement is a sport.

      Their science does not stand the test of time, and when their scientific errors are pointed out they attack with abuse like rabid dogs. Satire is a centuries old method of pointing out the truth without the Kings men cutting your head off.

      Sadly the green left global warmanists have such a high opinion of their faith that truth in science is irrelevant to them. Thus we mock for their blinkered stupidity. Have a nice day.

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      • #
        Jesus saves

        So Wayne, does that mean that Monckton’s gish gallop was just satire?
        Oh now I get he WAS joking, ha ha, yes very droll!!

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    • #
      ExWarmist

      JS says…

      Oh dear you’ve wheeled out the old fraud for another gish gallop.

      Gish gallop is a term favoured by (bought and paid for) Skeptical Science – we have a visitor from the wastelands of post normal science where the political agenda shapes the methodology and empiricism is a co-opted word.

      00

      • #
        Craig Thomas

        …whereas Monckton’s political agenda doesn’t in any way shape his apparently fact-free anti-science ranting?

        Most people previously associated with Monckton have had the good sense to back away from him. Here? Not yet, it seems…

        01

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Errr, looked at the Arctic lately?

      There is no point in just looking at it “lately”.

      All you are doing is comparing what you see with what you assumed you would see. Either or both of those things could be wildly outside the true range of norms.

      You have to look at it over a time frame of multiple-decades.

      There was a time, during the Cold War, when part of my job was to monitor the extent and thickness of Arctic ice on a weekly or half-weekly basis. We got photographs, remote echo sounding, and other data from high-flying “avionics” twice a week, and we did our mappings, and we did our calculations, and we informed our masters of what we had found.

      But the interesting thing was how far the records went back. You could see that in some years there was less ice than the average, and in some years there was more ice. During the Seventies, there was considerably more ice than in previous years, and Scientists were starting to discuss the possibility of an Ice Age. Then it went back to around the median again.

      The point I am making is that you are worried because you have been told about the shrinking ice cap, as if it was a new event, and in your range of experience, it probably is. But in the wider view, it is not unusual at all, it is one of the Earth’s natural cycles, and it would need to get a lot smaller and thinner before you can genuinely say it is unprecedented.

      Why would you regurgitate this stuff, it just makes you look like a goose?

      He regurgitates this stuff because he knows the history, as I do, and he knows that the “widespread melting of snow and ice” that the Press go on about, is not at all unusual.

      The Press have figured out that they can sell more newspapers by making things sound worse than they are. Give them that licence, and make your own mental adjustments to get to the truth, but never take anything at face value.

      That is why sceptics are sceptics, and are always saying, “Show us your data, and your methods”.

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      • #
        Sonny

        Rereke,
        Jesus saves is not interested in the history of the polar ice caps.
        He is here to preach his faith.

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        • #
          AndyG55

          Methinks , to get to reality, he should rename himself “CO2 SAVES”

          Cos the other guys sure isn’t going to help him..

          hey wait.. isn’t Lew…y a psychiatrist.. maybe JS ought to go see him !!

          00

      • #
        ExWarmist

        RW says…

        he Press have figured out that they can sell more newspapers by making things sound worse than they are.

        Purpose of the media is to attract and hold the attention of a target audience long enough to pass advertising space in front of it. That is the core business model of the commercial media. They will favour their customers who buy the advertising space over the audience every single time.

        The above business model does not require that the truth be told. In fact, the truth is crowded out by the interesting and the fascinating everytime, except on the rare occasions that the truth is (1) interesting, and (2) not at odds with interests of the medias primary customers.

        The government owned media simply reflects the biases, tastes and fetishes of the Senior Executive Service (SES) of government- it too, has no place for truth, except on the rare occasion that it aligns with the interests of the SES clique.

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        • #
          Andrew McRae

          Spot on.
          The shorter way of explaining it is:
          In the attention economy, you are the product and you are sold to propagandists.

          Also RW has probably hit on one factor as to why the Greens are supported mainly by the younger voting demographics. It’s easy to pitch Unprecedented Change to the “born yesterday” generation.

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      • #
        Craig Thomas

        Nice story, Rereke.

        It turns out that some people have analysed the submarine data to come up with:

        ftp://oceans.jpl.nasa.gov/pub/ben/ice/subregion/Kwok_rothrock_decline_2009GRL.pdf

        I believe p2 has the picture you want.

        It would seem that your “wider view” is neither particularly wider nor particularly accurate.

        Judging by the data we have access to, it seems that ice thickness fell a little bit between the 50s & 80s and then has just about halved since then. That’s a lot of ice gone from the Arctic in the past 30 years, that’s for sure, just like the glaciers.

        01

        • #
          Craig Thomas

          I just love the way people will “Thumbs Down” plain facts that they don’t like.

          Fascinating. How could anybody disapprove of facts. Do they prefer ideology to facts, I wonder?

          I’d love for one of them to explain.

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          • #
            Mark D.

            I just love the way people will “Thumbs Down” plain facts that they don’t like.

            Fascinating. How could anybody disapprove of facts. Do they prefer ideology to facts, I wonder?

            I’d love for one of them to explain.

            Alright Craig, this is why you get my thumbs down:

            One, your condescending, smarmy tone.

            Two, Your “plain facts” are simply measurements of ice, something you know we have very little historic record of. You draw the long bow because of your insistence that human burning of fossil fuels is the cause, a ridiculous claim with zero proof.

            Three, because of one and two above, you prove YOUR faith in an ideology yet you attempt to smear us instead.

            Fascinating indeed! Go tell the climate shrinks.

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          • #
            Craig Thomas

            Mark, you seem confused:
            Rereke was drawing a long bow in making assertions about Arctic ice based on some extremely sparse data.
            I pointed him at a far less sparse collection of data which contradicts his assertions.

            I’m not insisting on anything, because I’m a sceptic, and I like to question things that people assert, especially when their data look suspect and/or their arguments suffer logical flaws.

            And I note – once again – that people desperate to reinforce their preconceived notions are trying to shoe-horn some facts to fit their notions.
            And – once again – I find that upon examination of those facts, they don’t actually provide any support to the notions in question.

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            Mark D.

            No confusion.

            I told you why I give you thumbs down. The reasons speak clearly.

            You accuse me of confusion which means simply that you are a dumbass. A person that cannot understand.

            I actually begin to see a trend with your posts that suggests a bot is at work. Why don’t you answer the questions asked of you?

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          elva

          it seems that ice thickness fell a little bit between the 50s & 80s

          One of the first nuclear submarines back in the 60s (not sure what year) easily surfaced through the ice at the North Pole. The submariners were able to enjoy the fresh air and walk around for a while before submerging. USA would not have risked damage to the hull of a precious submarine if there was the slightest chance thick ice could have damaged it.

          Arctic ice is always thin and moves around in currents constantly. That’s why ‘over ice’ expeditions have never been very successful compared to the much harsher and longer expeditions to the South Pole.

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          Andrew McRae

          Seems this was also discussed on WattsUpWithThat earlier this year.

          Thus, the long-term thinning trend is primarily a reflection of additional energy from globally warming temperatures. Thick ice still moves out of the Arctic (or melts within the Arctic), but the additional energy in the Arctic prevents the replenishment of thicker ice at the same pace.

          A few things to remember, Craig:

          1. There is more than one hemisphere and USA submarines weren’t patrolling the Antarctic in the 1960s on account of there being no Russian ICBM launch sites in that area.

          2. Rereke’s statement that there was more ice in the 1970s than in previous decades is NOT invalidated by the data graphed in that paper because all the measurements before 1975 have been mysteriously averaged together to destroy the time variability. (The trick to hide the incline??)

          3. What is shown on p2 of the document is not the raw data because: “All ice drafts are then seasonally adjusted to September 15 using the modeled annual cycle from an ice-ocean model.” This may not cause any bias, but we treat model results with caution around here.

          4. Antarctic ice has been increasing overall, with the west Antarctic peninsula being the only part of the continent that has seen much ice loss in recent years.

          5. Warming of the last 30 years was entirely predictable (see Scaffetta’s harmonic model hindcasts) and thus does not in any way implicate human activity as a cause of that warming. We don’t deny warming has occurred. We don’t deny measurements.

          6. Large reductions in ice extent in the Arctic are natural events and are not unprecedented, as this well-quoted historical testimony shows:

          It will without doubt have come to your Lordship’s knowledge that a considerable change of climate, inexplicable at present to us, must have taken place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has for centuries past enclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice has been during the last two years, greatly abated.
          (This) affords ample proof that new sources of warmth have been opened and give us leave to hope that the Arctic Seas may at this time be more accessible than they have been for centuries past, and that discoveries may now be made in them not only interesting to the advancement of science but also to the future intercourse of mankind and the commerce of distant nations.
          – President of the Royal Society, London, to the Admiralty, 20th November, 1817

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            Warren

            Scafetta’s harmonic model is curve-fitting nonsense. Hindcast back a few hundred years and you get to snowball Earth rather quickly. Go forward,and,well, you should see where that’s going.

            A couple of papers have reconstructed Arctic sea ice back to the late 1800s.There is variability of course,but post-1950s decline is dramatic,the 1970s just a bump in a declining trend.

            Antarctica is a continent surrounded by ocean.The Arctic is an ocean surrounded by continents. Different set-ups with differing time responses.

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            Craig Thomas

            Andrew,
            1. Look! A squirrel!
            2. Fraud! Seriously, read the paper, don’t just look at one graph. The measurements taken in those years are presented and they do not support the conclusions drawn by Rereke from his anecdote.
            3. Cherries! Scepticism does not describe the process of discounting data you don’t like but making firm assertions based on small, selected chunks of it.
            4. Look! Another squirrel!
            5. Entirely predictable….and yet there was no prediction of non-Greenhouse effect global warming. Presumably, anybody who treats model results with caution around here will have noticed that Scafetta’s model is hopelessly broken.
            6. Nice anecdote. Does it come with any ice extent or volume data?

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      JS, judging by your writing style I would be willing to bet you are just a troll who has been banned several times from this site only to change your IP and name so you can once again ooze in under the door.

      Looked at the Arctic lately? As a matter of fact I have. A freak and early storm broke up a lot of ice. Some government agencies say a lot of ice is missing and others say it is not. The Arctic temps at the north have been at or near record cold for the last dozen years. Here is a question that I have no doubt will stump you and give you another chance to embarrass yourself, How can the ice be melting faster if the temperatures around the world have not risen in a decade and a half? I will give you a hint: it has nothing to do with global warming!

      This aught to be amusing!

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        Craig Thomas

        Eddy, I have a question for you: if you get 1 million kg of ice at 0 degrees and turn it into 1 million kg of water at 0 degrees, has there been any warming?

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          Dave

          .
          Craig,

          I have a question for you: if you get 1 million kilos of unfrozen Craig Thomas and turn it into a 1 million kilo block of frozen Craig Thomas, has there been any cooling?

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            Craig Thomas

            Dave, I think you’re on the right track, but it seems you missed out the vital bit of data which would allow your question to be answered.

            Additionally, most people find that debaters who feel the need to get personal are probably doing so on account of being lacking in argument, so for the sake of credibility, personal attacks and ad-hominems are probably best avoided.

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            Rereke Whakaaro

            Or for just having a sense of humour and a joy of fun.

            A lot of the folks who come here seem to come from a background of Applied Science and Engineering, or they are retired academics, of all stripes, who are no longer on the grants treadmill. We also have a fair number of bureaucrats, who have been suitably sanitised.

            We also get the odd Troll, who are just out to show their mates how “manly” they are by saying something that takes the conversation off topic, and we even had a guy who saw himself as a poster boy for one of the political parties, but he was seen off by the mods – eventually.

            And there are a few of us, who have worked in ‘the inner sanctums’ of politics, and understand that there is ‘the truth’, there is ‘the message’, and there is the ‘smoke screen’.

            I am trying to figure out which of these camps you fit into.

            But, on this site, the more serious and bombastic you become, the more fun will be poked at you. Without malice of course, but good sport for others.

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          Wayne, s. Job

          If that ice had been melted by the warm ocean heated by a rampant sun some fifteen years previously you have cooling.

          This is occurring as we speak and the warm anomalies are being eaten and are being depleted rapidly. This is termed in science a negative feed back.

          In the Southern hemisphere the extra warmth into the temperate oceans has been swamped by the increasingly cold temperatures and the lack of land masses for the warm water to pool against and head to the pole. The colder antarctic and the increased sea ice in the area tend to negate the idea of global warming.

          The land masses in the north and the ocean currents that feed warm water to the north point to it being a very substantial negative feed back thermostat for planet earth.

          Look at the ocean anomalies impinging on the north for they will not be around much longer as old Sol is on holidays, enjoy your global warming whilst it lasts our future may be a tad cooler, perhaps even two or three tads.

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    John Brookes

    As an alarmist, I’d say that you have to spend the money, because you need to know what will happen. Unfortunately, apart from the dead obvious, “its getting warmer”, all the other detail you’d like to know about the future is not nearly so easy. Thats why you have to spend money on it.

    If you’d rather rely on “gut instinct” (also known as “pig ignorance”), that is fine, but most people and businesses want to make good decisions. So governments will keep funding their weather services.

    BTW, did you see there is another prediction the IPCC got wrong? They thought the arctic might be ice free by the end of the century – which really shows that they just aren’t any good at the “alarmist” business.

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      Sonny

      Could you please translate this into English?

      What I got from this incoherent rambling is.

      1. Alarmists find it all too easy to spend other people’s money.
      2. Spending money enables us to predict the future
      3. Don’t rely on your intuition but rather put faith in government “weather” departments to tell you what to think.
      4. Melting ice in the arctic is proof that the IPCC is correct (even though Antarctic ice is on the grow and the IPCC has failed in all it’s temperature projections)

      Please correct me if this is not what you were trying to say..

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        Sonny

        An while you’re at it please provide the scientific proof that melting of polar ice is causally related to the fractional change in CO2, and then prove that the fractional change in CO2 is caused predominantly by humans.

        Oops. Fail.

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          ExWarmist

          How about he shows that the melting of arctic ice is a bad thing?

          Like it hasn’t happened in the past???? What on earth does JB think what was happening 800 years ago during the MWP, or 6000 years ago during the holocene optimum, did the polar bears die out – obviously they didn’t.

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            John Brookes

            Not worried about polar bears. Worried about us, and more importantly our kids.

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            AndyG55

            “Worried about us, and more importantly our kids”

            I am, that is why we HAVE to get rid of the moronic, regressive green/ALP carbon policies.

            they are going to change Australia into a third world country !!!

            And the post-normal science being taught by social sciences in schools will turn out more students like you.. that really would be pity for the country and especially a huge pity for those students. We have more than enough ill-educated morons in the the green/alp movement as it is.

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          John Brookes

          You are going to look pretty silly saying that in 20 years Sonny.

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            Sonny

            Woah a prediction by a warmis – everybody take heed! Or is this a “projection”?
            You better get your legal team to write a legal disclaimer. I know ! You can copy the template from some of the CSIRO reports.

            And did you just throw in an “appeal to the children”?
            What about the children who could be eating the corn that is instead being turned into fuel for cars? What about the children who will be allowed (are being allowed to die) in the name of population reduction ?

            Oh, wait you mean your children …

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            Het Brooks, thanks again for providing us with another opportunity do get another laugh from your buffoonery!

            Polar Bears are often referred to as the “Canary in the coal mine”‘ a harbinger of things to come. Unfortunately for your ilk, the latest research shows that Polar Bears developed 5 million years ago. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6079/344.short

            They have survived several interglacial periods and their population is at an all time high. http://jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com/2008/05/grim-news-polar-bear-population-at-all.html Note: This article is from 2008, before the Feds put the bears on the threatened species list!

            The world polar-bear population is at a modern high – and growing. Mitch Taylor, a polar-bear biologist with Canada’s Federal Provincial Polar Bear Technical Committee, notes that the bears now number about 24,000 – up about 40 percent from 1974

            For an informative article see http://dcinsider.com/environment/despite-climate-change-doomsayers-polar-bear-population-at-all-time-high/

            Why should you care? Because the polar bear scandal is just another tipping point in the unending war of propaganda being waged by the rent seeking charlatans that will do anything to keep the money flowing… even if they have to reinvent the peer review process!

            How many times to you need to know that they are lying before you will finally realize that they are LIARS!!! Every time I see your “glam photo”, John, my belief in Barnum’s law that a sucker is born every minute is again confirmed!

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            Roy Hogue

            I thought we had disposed of the Polar Bear scare once and for all??? And several years ago too???

            If they don’t believe Environment Canada then they’re not going to believe anything or anyone.

            So I hate to ask but can we finally forget about the poor, poor Polar Bear?

            😉 Pretty please? 🙂

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            Gnome

            What a great thought Sonny- we feed the children to the polar bears- killing three birds with one stone.

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            Craig Thomas

            Eddy has some strong assertions regarding Polar bears – I wonder what reliable data is referred to in order to come up with the “40% increase in Polar Bears” statement?
            Polar Bear numbers in the 1970s were obtained through nothing better than guesswork.
            Today, however, we know that 8 of the 17 Polar Bear populations are in decline. And one of these populations is increasing.
            So “record levels” would seem to not be a very wise assertion.

            As far as “5 million years” goes, where do you get that from? The article you link to says no such thing.
            It *does* say that Mitochondrial DNA analysis suggests the bears haven’t even survived one inter-glacial. But we wouldn’t want to cherry-pick just one strand of DNA analysis before offering our strong assertions, would we?

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      ExWarmist

      JB says,

      s an alarmist, I’d say that you have to spend the money, because you need to know what will happen. Unfortunately, apart from the dead obvious, “its getting warmer”, all the other detail you’d like to know about the future is not nearly so easy. Thats why you have to spend money on it.

      Getting warmer – not in the last 14 years, not according to the satellites or the ocean heat content data…I would link if I could be bothered!

      Go figure – when will the facts penetrate your epistemological method which fails to account for physical evidence?

      Getting warmer – where did you get that from – UHI infected land stations? What??? Got an answer from a decently calibrated measuring system that hasn’t been corrupted by money and power sucking vampires???

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        AndyG55

        Have you noticed how often that happens.. Biologists especially seem to be prone to it.
        They bring out a study saying ‘this’ or ‘that’ is happening because its getting warmer, but you check the temps for the region they are talking about, and the non-urban temps show basically NO SIGN of warming. Its almost as though they just ASSUMED it was without checking first !! Very UN-scientific. note* UN in capitals 😉

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          ExWarmist

          The UN has never shirked the opportunity to corrupt anything that they can reach.

          Kinda awesome in their single minded pursuit of self interest at everyone else expense. Awesome in the way that a humungous swarm of box jellyfish is, or a shark feeding frenzy…

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      ExWarmist

      JB Says…

      If you’d rather rely on “gut instinct” (also known as “pig ignorance”), that is fine, but most people and businesses want to make good decisions. So governments will keep funding their weather services.

      Let me in on a little secret – objective decision making in government and business is a rarity. What happens is that the politically well connected and savvy manage the criteria of the decision making process to weight it to there desired outcomes. Objectivity is a code word for “getting what you want”.

      Your naive if you think that the Senior Executive Service in Government, or and Executive team in business are making objective judgements about anything. They are typically using the operations of power to get what they personally want. The decision making process is there for show – to provide cover, to provide legitimacy, for baser operations to satisfy their own personal whims and needs. You, the naive fool, pretend that it is different because you don’t want to admit that you can’t be a part of that decision process, that you are excluded and powerless.

      You are a weak outsider to the power process, who is a wannabe insider, and it shows.

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        John Brookes

        If you are talking about Col’s new stadium, that, against all recommendations, is to be built next to Packer’s casino, then yes, your characterisation of the decision making process is accurate.

        But you are right about me being an outsider. That’s why I’m comfortable here, where I don’t fit.

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          wes george

          But you are right about me being an outsider. That’s why I’m comfortable here, where I don’t fit.

          As usual, Johnnie, you’ve got it arsebackwards.

          You are not an “outsider” but a true believer in the most hackneyed of orthodoxies.

          You are so terrified at the thought being outside the intellectual perimeter of the mob, you have willingly surrendered your intellectual sovereignty to the most vapid of all faiths, that of collective groupthink over the individual’s duty to follow the rational analysis of evidence to where ever it might lead.

          You’re a rebel against intellectual rebellion. You dissent against reason. You’re defender of the status quo who sits at the feet of the latest fashion in awe, proudly ignorant of all else.

          As such you fit in perfectly in Jo’s comment section – hand in a glove, as the wannabe thought cop to our skepticism. Here you can wage an insurrection against nonconformity. Be a defiant renegade against maverick iconoclasts.

          You’re bull chips to the bull, mate.

          You were born to comment in Jo’s comment section. It might be the ultimate meaning of your existence.

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      Shevva

      Nice straw man john. Not a single comment about the article at hand, check. Imply that Mr Monckton is pig ignorant, check. include the church of IPCC, check.

      I’m guessing you don’t actually have anything to say about grants because you are the recipient of one?

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        Sonny

        $$$ Riding the gravy train.. Lucky JB! $$$

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        wes george

        Shevva,

        Johnny, the rebel, told us a while ago that he dropped out of university because he was such a free-thinking nonconformist in the 1970’s he preferred to sport long hair, bell bottoms and listen to rock music, while swanning around campus stoned and barefoot rather than attending lectures. That’s how unique Johnny is.

        So while it’s true that Johnny’s wildly original thoughts probably come to us courtesy of our tax dollars-at-work, the only grant that he qualifies for is the dole.

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      AndyG55

      http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/meanTarchive/meanT_2012.png

      Its getting warmer ??

      The summer temperature, above 80degN, was pretty darn close to the 40 year average, and now its below freezing again. Nice and warmer.

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      ExWarmist

      JB says…

      As an alarmist, I’d say

      That you are a tool, and a patsy for psychopaths that are for more effective at acquiring, maintaining, and executing real power over other humans than you are.

      As I have not seen a single useful comment from you on the internet, I can’t even assess you as a useful idiot.

      Sad really…

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        John Brookes

        Oh Ex-warmist, your pity moves me to tears. Boo hoo.

        At the very least, some of my posts are funny, but I don’t recall any of yours being.

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    Sonny

    Lies, damn lies and John Brookes.

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      Sonny

      That thumb down was totally uncalled for..
      John stated that “it’s obvious it’s getting warmer”.
      This is an outright lie. It is far from obvious what the global temperature is doing for a number of reasons:

      1. We have a number of acquisition devices to measure temperature: satellite, ground thermometers, weather balloons, ocean bouys, proxies: ice cores, tree rings etc.
      2. Limited accuracy of thermometers, citing errors, reading errors, reporting errors.
      3. Limited data (why we use (Tmax – Tmin)/2 as an approximation)
      4. Sparsity of thermometers in rural locations and density in urban areas.
      5. Complexity in averaging methods to get a “global average” (some argue this is so erroneous as to be meaningless)
      6. Questionable validity of post processing “adjustments” which tend to amplify any warming
      7. Questionable selection and rejection of data sets which don’t confirm a warming trend.
      8. Reliance on ground based thermometers subject to citing errors (near heat sources) instead of more accurate satellite data.
      9. Apparent flattening in temperature profile since 1997. (I have used a five year running average of BOM global temp data to prove that there has been no warming in over a decade – I have posted this in a number of threads).

      Should I go on?

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        Sonny

        Also John,

        Speak to Dr Joelle Gergis if you want an insiders opinion on how difficult it is to show “it’s getting warmer”.
        She attempted to demonstrate that relative to the past century and a half that the latest spate of “warming” was unprecedented in the Australasia region.
        So difficult did she find the processing of data that the discovery of methodological errors caused the paper to be suspended… Which is it’s current status.

        You actually belittle the important work scientists do by claiming that it’s “easy to demonstrate warming”.

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        AndyG55

        Here’s a simple little calc for y’all, (you have to do the maths yourself)
        demonstrates why the “Global land temp” ought to be called the “Global URBAN land temp”.

        Suppose in a region of size 20000 sq kms there are 3 urban areas of size 250, 500, and 250 sq kms. In this region there are 5 weather stations , one in each of the urban areas and 2 rural stations.
        Now, over the past 50 years these stations have seen the following trends:
        Urban1 = 2.1ºC, Urban 2 = 2.0ºC, Urban3 = 1.5ºC, Rural1 = 0.1ºC, Rural2 = -0.3ºC

        a) If we want to calculate the Average temperature change, and we just apply equal areas to each station, and we get an average rise of ??? …………………………..

        b) If, however, we apply the urban stations ONLY to their respective urban areas, and split the rural area equally, we get an average temperature rise of ???……………………………….

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          AndyG55

          And then if you “homogenise” the data first, and make it so the rural temp rises are the same as the urban temp rises…..

          but nobody would do that, would they 😉

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          AndyG55

          Gees, no-ones got the answers yet.. It pretty simple maths.. really !! 🙂

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        AndyG55

        “9. Apparent flattening in temperature profile since 1997.”

        I think they were running out of adjustments! 🙂

        If you look at the “adjustments” you will see that they also level off around the mid 1990’s as the satellite temps were bein more accepted.

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    Andrew McRae

    Still in the “funny stuff” category, some news on matters hydrological…

    Russell Crowe rescued by coast guard
    Australia’s Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe lost his way kayaking in the waters off New York’s Long Island and had to be rescued by a US Coast Guard boat.
    Numerous witnesses report that after being told to “watch out for the Gulf Stream”,
    Crowe replied “No worries mate, mine’s still at the airport!”

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    Anton

    In the 18th century John Wesley complained that the poor were finding food so expensive because of the amount of grain that went directly to be distilled into alcohol. Exactly the same thing is happening again, except that the alcohol is being poured into fuel tanks rather than humans.

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    DJ in da USA

    Why Climate Change is like Football….

    At a typical public university in the U.S. a grant is split up between entities. The Principle Investigator (PI) gets a small percentage, there are monies set aside for student wages, equipment in some cases, and in the case of my university, 44% goes to the university.
    That 44% goes into the general fund to be used as discretionary money, supposedly for maintenance, infrastructure, and overhead. Sometimes it’s called “Indirect Cost Recovery” (ICR).. In all cases, it’s “different money”.

    As college sports have become a huge money machine for universities, climate change has been discovered to be another cash cow. It doesn’t matter whether the cow benefits academics or not, it matters that the cow generates money that can
    be allocated to higher administrative salaries and projects that … generate more money. If the use of these funds actually went to academics, I wish someone would explain to me exactly why tuition and other student fees keep skyrocketing.

    It’s easy to see why UVA or Penn State would so vigorously defend its researchers who bring in the big grant dollars. Just like they defend their coaches. Mann and his cohorts are cows. Cash cows. Right or wrong doesn’t matter to the university, it only
    matters if they’re profitable. What’s not to love about getting $44,000 out of a $100,000 grant in exchange for a little office space?

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    Roy Hogue

    This is all great fun to be sure. But let us all remember that Monkton’s put-on is, in reality, too true to be funny. And the global warming gravy train is dangerous.

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    jiminy

    Here are just a few of the key points our policy statements on the climate always leave out:

    The NOAA State of the Climate report in 2008, written after 11 years of global warming, said the models would be proven wrong by no global warming at all for 15 years. Don’t tell our funders, but there’s been no global warming since 1997. It’s official – the models are wrong.

    We know this assertion is not true. No-one with statistical ability and honesty would say this. They would say, “According to one measure, selected from four available, carefully selected for end points, and taking advantage of an outlier, and whilst choosing a time interval too small to draw conclusions from; there is no significant trend. Even so, using other measures we have a one in twelve chance that the trend is zero or less over the same period. Over the last twenty years all measures show a significant trend and since 1950 the trend is very strong”

    It takes a very special mind to go from “not statistically proven to be positive” to “proven to be zero”. ‘Tis but the fallacy of the hidden muddle.

    But where did the phrase “after 11 years of global warming” come from? I like the irony of that.

    Since 1950 the world has warmed at a rate equivalent to just 2 Fahrenheit degrees per century. Yet the UN’s climate panel predicts 6 Fº/century between now and 2100. After 15 years without global warming, that predicted threefold increase in the long-run warming rate looks absurd. But don’t worry – we won’t talk about it if you won’t.

    Not true. Do the figure yourselves. He has his temperature scales wrong, just for starters.

    The direct warming caused by doubling the CO2 concentration in the air is just 2 Fº, but the computer models predict 6 Fº (the long-legged ones aren’t so sure). They get away with this by pretending that temperature feedbacks triple any direct warming. But no feedback can be measured directly or determined theoretically. Feedbacks cannot be distinguished from one another or from the forcings that triggered them.

    Again, nonsense. Arrhenius computed similar figures from theory in 1896 – without a computer model. GCMs confirm the general behaviour, not by computing feedbacks as such, but by applying the known laws of physics, and finding that feedbacks arise quite naturally from matter and energy conservation laws.
    If you don’t understand the difference between an emergent phenomenon and an explicit coding of one, then at least don’t make wild accusations of impropriety.

    Feedbacks may even act to cut direct warming rather than amplifying it. They are the biggest reason why we cannot be certain how much warming Man may cause. But don’t expect us to mention them in our policy statements: that might lead even the dimmest politicians to realize that all our claims of certainty are false.

    Again false. Some feedbacks are known to be positive, some negative. To date, observations confirm what models tell us (and models are ground truthed against prior observations – a nice feedback), that the net effect of all feedbacks is positive.

    We won’t talk about all the benefits of CO2 and the life-giving energy it brings. We won’t admit it’s plant food. We won’t mention that all of the carbon in timber originally came from CO2 the atmosphere. We won’t talk about the obvious benefits of fossil-fueled electricity, especially in poorer countries where most people have no electricity at all. Shhh!

    The man is an idiot. If we are proposing that we re-forest where possible, surely that’s evidence that we know that CO2 comes (in part) from trees.
    As for the more of a good thing is always better argument, drinking water is good for you! I challenge everyone to double their weekly intake of water, each week for the next month.
    Lastly the benefits of C02 (especially to weed species) bear not at all on its capacity to trap heat.

    We’ll take great care not to mention just how much it costs to make global warming go away. Actually, it costs 20 times as much as letting the weather get warmer and paying the cost of any resulting damage. But just imagine how fast all those lovely grants would dry up if those dim politicians and journalists ever found out. Since the premium is many times greater than the cost of the risk, don’t take out insurance. Now, that’s a precautionary principle worthy of the name.

    So. All in all, a dishonest ad hominem argument. Nothing more.

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      KinkyKeith

      I Just love the antics of Christopher Monckton, he’s a great showman.

      What a hoot.

      He winds up all the Warmers and gets them in a lather and is far more effective

      than we are on the analytical – reasoning front of the Global Warming -Death by CO2 Scam.

      he ha a big profile and everybody knows it is associated with the idea that GAW is a scam.

      btw please pass the can of insecticide – it’s back.

      KK

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        jiminy

        G’day slinky.
        yep – he’s a hoot.

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        KinkyKeith

        This doesn’t read right.

        Meant to say that CM was a showman first and foremost.

        The analytics are supposed to be those highly competent scientists and interested amateurs who have pulled the AGW concept apart to demonstrate it’s complete lack of scientific base.

        We need a showman to counter the crazily effective media push of the warmers.

        CM does a great job.

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    • #
      Sonny

      Oops. This is an admission that global warming has slowed down.
      That’s not what the media tells us.

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      • #
        jiminy

        Oops. This is an admission that global warming has slowed down.
        That’s not what the media tells us.

        How so?

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        • #
          elva

          By continually inserting the phrase ‘climate change’ at every chance they get to use it. It is so ingrained in peoples’ minds that the term just burst outs like OMG.

          Also I am so tired of seeing the same video clips of a piece of ice carving from a glacier into the sea and wind blown palm trees taken years ago. These clips are looped over and over and over ad infinitum.

          It reminds me of the terror of 9/11. No, not just the buildings falling. But the looping of the videos all through the day. Little children were said to be terrified thinking it was happening all over their country especially with the caption “AMERICA UNDER ATTACK” at the bottom.

          This is what happens to young minds who see the eternal video clips of severe weather events repeated in front of their eyes every day.

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    • #
      Rolf

      Well, I have no trouble double my intake of water starting with 280 molecule’s or even one liter of water and doubling that at the same rate we double the rate of co2 in the atmosphere. The idiot is not Moncton !

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    • #
      Streetcred

      Some feedbacks are known to be positive, some negative. To date, observations confirm what models tell us (and models are ground truthed against prior observations – a nice feedback), that the net effect of all feedbacks is positive.

      Poppycock … the models are hindcast to ‘replicate’ historical data but have no skill in forecasting or as you warmies like to say predicting future climate.

      The ‘speaking consensus to power’ approach can be characterized to a substantial extent as ‘speaking climate model simulations to power.’ In this context, increasing uncertainty in the climate models simulations is bad news for the politics of CO2 mitigation. I’ve argued in the previous post that that the ‘scientific truth to power’ model just doesn’t make sense for the wicked climate problem. Using climate models in ‘speaking climate model simulations to power’ isn’t a good use of climate models, given their limitations.

      http://judithcurry.com/2012/07/18/climate-models-at-their-limit/#more-9104

      Another failure of climate models
      The recent findings only add to the challenge of understanding complex chemical activity in the atmosphere, said Davidovits, whose research is supported by the National Science Foundation’s Atmospheric Chemistry division and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Atmospheric System Research program.

      “These findings do require us to reduce our projections about the amount of heating soot produces, at least under some experimental conditions. But the findings don’t point to soot as being a harmless climate forcer,” said Davidovits. “Soot remains an important climate heating agent, as well as a health problem that has been well documented.”

      http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/03/another-failure-of-climate-models-carbon-soot-warming-far-less/

      Anyone seriously asserting the physical reliability of climate models literally does not know what they are talking about. Recent pronouncements about human culpability should be seen in that light.

      http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/23/ar5-climate-forecasts-what-to-believe/

      Climate model inadequacies
      http://www.co2science.org/subject/m/inadeqgeneral.php

      Just sayin’.

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      • #
        jiminy

        You know … Slinky Keith was of the opinion in out last truncated (by him) exchange that merely quoting other people was useless.

        Just sayin’

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      AndyG55

      We have nowhere near doubled any CO2, was 280.. is now around 400, and its going to be many many years before we hit 560.. unfortunately.

      Please go back and learn some primary school maths. !!

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      • #
        jiminy

        Please go back and learn some primary school maths. !!

        It’s all about your comprehension my friend.

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        KinkyKeith

        Hi Andy

        There is a lot of doubt about that 280ppm figure.

        There are many records for the period which show much higher values of CO2 and the true value may in fact be closer to mid 300s.

        KK

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    • #
      jiminy

      I said

      Not true. Do the figure yourselves. He has his temperature scales wrong, just for starters.”

      I was wrong to say that. His figures are about right. His conclusion however remains unjustified.

      I said

      We know this assertion is not true. No-one with statistical ability and honesty would say this. They would say, “According to one measure, selected from four available, carefully selected for end points, and taking advantage of an outlier, and whilst choosing a time interval too small to draw conclusions from; there is no significant trend. Even so, using other measures we have a one in twelve chance that the trend is zero or less over the same period. Over the last twenty years all measures show a significant trend and since 1950 the trend is very strong”

      We can do better than this. Seems to me the conclusion that warming has stopped is not only the wrong conclusion to draw, it’s also the wrong way to look at the problem altogether.
      Neither the assertion that “since 1997 warming has slowed down” nor “since 1997 warming has stopped” can be proved from the regression statistics.
      The proper test is to compare the 15 years from 1982-1996 to the 15 years from 1997-2011 and see if the slopes are different.
      I have compared these periods for both GISS and HADCRUT.
      GISS
      1982-1996.
      slope 0.013 degrees/year
      stddev 0.0.98683

      1997-2011
      slope 0.012
      stddev 0.088508

      pooled se 0.034045
      T-value 0.038814
      Conclude – no evidence of difference in slope

      HADCRUT3
      1982-1996.
      slope 0.011 degrees/year
      stddev 0.080569

      1997-2011
      slope 0.003429
      stddev 0.089572

      pooled se 0.032199
      T-value 0.222169
      Conclude – no evidence of difference in slope

      Comment. I was a teeny bit surprised that the HADCRUT in particular had such a small t-statistic.
      What I do see is a discontinuity at 1997 (it’s a huge outlier).
      My main conclusion (assuming I got the numbers right) is that there is not much evidence that the underlying rate of warming is different from the first half to the second half of the last thirty years.
      If anyone wants to check me, I’d be happy.

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      • #
        memoryvault

        .
        Jiminy, it’s like this mate.

        Climate is cyclical.
        There are 25 to 35 years of warming, followed by 25 to 35 years of cooling, and so on. These cycles, in turn, fit into longer cycles of warming and cooling, as evidenced by the Roman Warm period, the Dark Ages, the Medieval Warm period, and the Little Ice Age (LIA).

        We are currently warming out of the LIA, with warming from 1850 to 1880, cooling from 1880 to 1910, warming from 1910 to 1940, cooling from 1940 to 1970, warming from 1970 to 2000, and now cooling. Those figures are roughly rounded to decades.

        Now, you can pluck figures out of your arse, you can apply whatever statistical BS you like to them, you append whatever “slopes” and “T-Values” and god knows whatever other crap you like to it, but you can’t change the fact that what is happening fully conforms with the recognised, observed, measured, cyclical nature of climate, as I learned it in Physics in the 60’s.

        All you have done is pluck the natural, cyclical, predictable and predicted warming from 1970 to 2000 (roughly), which to all intent and purpose was EXACTLY the same as the warming from 1910 to 1940 (roughly), and attach some quasi-religious, end-of-the-world doomsday scenario to it.

        It’s over. It is now cooling again, and will continue to do so until around 2030. Whether the next warming cycle (2030 to 2060) will warmer than the last (1970 to 2000), or whether we are now on the downward slope to another LIA minimum, is anybody’s guess.

        Get used to it mate. It’s cooling, and will continue to do so for quite a while yet.

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          jiminy

          memoryvault, I wish it were like that.
          Thanks for your response, you have reiterated my first point, that BS statistics come from BS reasoning and are used to support BS positions.
          Bob Carter’s claim about warming slowing down is couched in “statistical BS” terms; he says the last 17 years do not show “a statistically significant warming”. Monkton takes them further and claims the last 15 years are proof that the warming trend has stopped.
          My claim is that this is an application of the fallacy of the excluded middle, the “hidden muddle”, a transition from “given this data current warming cannot be proved” to “this data proves that warming has stopped”. This green budgie is not black, it must be white, oh look, it’s a swan!
          But all of that is based on a set of numbers which is too small and variable to support any particular conclusion.
          You seem to have misunderstood what I have demonstrated.

          You have made a prediction. I’ll give you evens that one of the next three years will show a global mean temperature, by GISS and HADCRUT3, above the all time observed record.
          Would this be expected in a cooling world?

          Humourlessly and over-seriously yours,
          etc

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          • #
            memoryvault

            memoryvault, I wish it were like that.

            No, cricket, it IS like that. Wishing has nothing to do with it.
            Note the near identical trends 1910 to 1940 and 1970 to 2000.

            You seem to have misunderstood what I have demonstrated.

            Nah, cricket, there’s no misunderstanding when someone like you cherry-picks a couple of points on a sine curve to “prove” there is no trend.

            Would this be expected in a cooling world?

            Can’t see why not. There were uncharacteristically warm years during the LIA, and uncharacteristically cool years during the MWP. For us realists that’s normal and to be expected.

            .
            It’s only you cultists who expect nature to follow straight line linear progressions.
            Like nature was a computer model or something.

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          • #
            jiminy

            Hey, nice tool. Why do you suppose the “1940-1970 cooling” was so shallow?
            Why are the rises steeper than the declines?
            What criterion did you use for choosing the end points?
            So you think that cooling has already started and yet the warmest in observable history might be yet to to come? And that that would not be unusual?
            So when I win my bet, and one of the next three years surpasses anything seen to date, will you take my double or nothing on the next five years after that?
            Lastly, it was Monkton mangling Carter who insisted there was something there was something significant about this particular linear regression. I demonstrate, and while insisting you disagree with me still agree, that this is nonsense.

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            memoryvault

            .
            You don’t really operate with a full deck, do you cricket?

            Why do you suppose the “1940-1970 cooling” was so shallow?

            Because we are in a warming phase, coming out of the LIA.
            See previous posts.

            Why are the rises steeper than the declines?

            Because we are in a warming phase, coming out of the LIA.
            See previous posts.

            What criterion did you use for choosing the end points?

            None whatsoever.

            To papraphrase the (until recently) official definition by the World Meteorological Organisation, “climate” is “the observed change, or trend in weather over a period of time, traditionally taken as 30 years”.

            The reason it was “traditionally taken as 30 years” is because it has long been observed to go in 30 years cycles – half of a Pacific Decadel Oscillation (PDO). But of course, I’ve explained that before, which is why I can only conclude you are either several cards short of a full deck, or in need of remedial reading classes.

            The start date – 1850 – also was not chosen by me, but is the generally accepted date of the end of the LIA.

            As for the rest of your comment – I’ve already responded to your ridiculous “bet” – see my previous post.

            Now, how about you reply to something:

            How come the PRE-INDUSTRIAL warming trend 1910 to 1940 is accepted as “natural variation” and “business as usual”, while the near-identical warming trend 1970 to 2000 (actually 1974 to 1998) is taken as a sure sign of the end of the world as we know it, caused by man-made CO2?

            Just in case you are incapable of finding your way back to my previous post, here is another link to the graph.

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          • #
            jiminy

            memoryvault (attempting to simulate the high moral ground) said,

            You don’t really operate with a full deck, do you cricket?

            Oh for heaven’s sake, isn’t there anyone who …

            Because we are in a warming phase, coming out of the LIA.
            See previous posts.

            …is not actually an answer it is? How, what mechanims? Have you actually an idea in mind of what physical processes did/are doing it? The PDO is pretty irregular, with 5 to 30 year quasi-oscillations. Not much use for forecasting although post-hoc it becomes evident. And whatever it is the PDO is an emergent feature that is associated with redistributions of temperature.
            I’ve always assumed that it was insolation. But that cannot explain the warming of the last 50 years since for the last 30 years at least,solar activity is declining.

            It’s really a neat site. For example.

            As to your questions.
            I downloaded hadCRUT3v Annual GL from (gasp CRU) (same as you used)

            For your PI (odd use of a standard term BTW), I get a regression line of y = 0.0156x – 30.297,
            For the later one, I get y = 0.0158x – 31.263.

            So, the lines are not significantly different – but the data definitely is. I went looking for the solar output data in a useable format but as yet, not found; so I can’t explore my thoughts much further while I’m at home. My short answer as to the difference in their significance is essentially that solar radiation is known to have kicked up round(ish) the turn of the century, whereas the temperature rise later is against a back ground of falling insolation – so the two episodes may have different causes. It’s pretty much the standard explanation. I’d like to have tested it myself.

            I certainly don’t think linearly BTW.
            If you fit the following equation to the GISS data you’ll see what looks like a nice fit.
            GISS-T=0.0071760803 + 0.0071760803*Year + 0.08266674*SIN(0.11067208*Year) + 0.13631965*SIN(0.12342913*Year)*SIN(0.17651442*Year – 0.80067331) .
            This was obtained by automated symbolic regression. To me it says that there are strong cycles in the temperature (as does Fourier analysis); and I’ve done tens of these analyses using. But the kicker is always in the analysis of the residuals. Guess what the machine cannot explain away?
            There’s always a up-kick at the end of the 20th century that does not correspond to anything cyclic.

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            memoryvault

            .
            So, five comments over three days to get back right where we started from. You pulling mumbo-jumbo statistics out of your arse to try and “prove” there is something to climate other than just predictable cycles.

            And on top of that, you want me to explain “why” the cycles exist and explain how they work. I dunno, cricket, maybe if over the last twenty years we had spent a bit of time and money actually studying “climate”, instead of blowing $170 billion on pixie-dust (CO2) and moonbeams (radiative forcing) we might have some real answers now.

            You lost the argument way back when you questioned the thirty year cycle, and I posted the graph showing you were wrong. You compounded your stupidity when you asked ridiculous questions like “why were the declines shallow and the increases steeper” when it was always stated and accepted we were in a 300 year warming out of the LIA.

            But you really blew it when you started outright lying. Perhaps you’d like to post a link to graph supporting your claim of a significant decline in TSI “over the last 30 years”?

            Here is a link to TSI for the period of satellite coverage, which is most of your “30 years of decline”. Perhaps you’d like to point out this “decline” to me and other readers. To me it looks pretty cyclical, and stable, right up to 2003.

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          • #
            jiminy

            So, five comments over three days to get back right where we started from. You pulling mumbo-jumbo statistics out of your arse to try and “prove” there is something to climate other than just predictable cycles.

            And all of that time you have seemed to misread what I have said.
            Point 1. It is not valid to claim that warming has stopped, based on a single linear regression of the last 15 years of data. This is a claim based on an analysis of (a) one only of four data sets, (b) the careful selection of a range of data with a statistical outlier at the low extreme – guaranteed to skew the result low, (c) a mis-representation of the meaning of statistical significance, and (d) Monkton’s application of the fallacy of the excluded middle.
            Not significantly different from zero is no at all the same as proven to be zero.

            I merely pointed out that if you actually make the tests you can’t show either of the last two 15 year sequences to have different trends, for the same reason. It’s too noisy. If I were to claim on this sort of analyis that the trend is proved to be unchanged I’d be in error; it is not proved to be different – get that?

            Check the following. See what happens if we put the outlier in the middle of the range and analyse the thirty year period.
            here

            But really – this is about you introducing a non-sequiter into the discussion. A pet theory of cycles.

            And on top of that, you want me to explain “why” the cycles exist and explain how they work.

            No-no. I wanted to know if you were taking the position that all climate change is purely cyclic; and yes, to an extent I was taking the piss out of your condescention. Sorry about that.

            You lost the argument way back when you questioned the thirty year cycle, and I posted the graph showing you were wrong. You compounded your stupidity when you asked ridiculous questions like “why were the declines shallow and the increases steeper” when it was always stated and accepted we were in a 300 year warming out of the LIA.

            I ran my symbolic regression idea against the data I pointed you at. It comes up with a 64 year cycle imposed on some accelerating function.
            So if the 64 year cycle is to be believed then its influence has to be removed the underlying change would then be steeper. Two possible examples.

            Anomaly = 0.5984 + SIN(-0.01084*Year) + 0.1128*SIN(0.09793*Year) (The first part is highly under-determined – just treat it as an example of a rising base line, the second is the 64 year cycle imposing a range of +/- 0.11 degrees)
            Anomaly = 0.4041*SIN(-0.02077*Year)+ 0.1128*SIN(0.09793*Year) (The first part is now representative of a slowing of the underlying trend starting in the early 1950s)

            Both equally explain (in a statistical sense) slow moving variation over the data, neither should be regarded as much of a predictor, but the first is, within the next 50 years based on an accelerating baseline, the second one that tops out in 2050.
            If we choose to accept the first then there would be a plateauing without a dip in temperature followed by a severe acceleration commencing in the late 2020s.
            If we choose to accept the second then 2037 would be cooler than now by 0.12 degrees.
            But, this is all illustrative.

            But you really blew it when you started outright lying. Perhaps you’d like to post a link to graph supporting your claim of a significant decline in TSI “over the last 30 years”?

            Sunspot numbers

            SkepticalScience’s take Ooh – I know someone who’ll love that.

            IPCC

            Check out the backgrounder in the IPCC 2007 Scienticic Basis 1.4.3 pp107-108.


            and the more indepth summary in part 2.7.1, pp 188-193 (Esp Fig 2.17).

            To me it looks pretty cyclical, and stable, right up to 2003.

            Yeah sure. It’s reasonably stable – no surprise – and consistent with what I said. I’m not going to claim that the following has meaning – it does not. http://woodfortrees.org/plot/pmod/from:1950/to:2012/plot/pmod/trend
            I note that I used the phrase “the difference in their significance” which I though was (for me) reasonably clear – if it confuses you, substitute “the difference in their importance”. I have not claimed a significant decline in the TSI. I have pointed out that current rising temperatures are not now related to rising TSI – I take it you agree with that much?

            Point 2.
            Let’s say there’s something like a contribution of +/- 0.11C due to say the PDO like cycle (although is is a bit out of phase with the smoothed PDO index).
            I don’t see that any cyclic process has shown itself to have the power to accelerate temperature changes so fast and so far.
            I note that the PDO index shows some tendency to have longer cycles in the reconstructions going back in time.

            You may have accidently spelled “I have a different opinion, respectfully put”, as “But you really blew it when you started outright lying.”, otherwise you’ve set the bar low.

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          memoryvault

          And all of that time you have seemed to misread what I have said.

          No misunderstanding. I have stated that the historical record is that climate is cyclical, with roughly 30 year cycles of warming and cooling occurring within 300 year cycles of warming and cooling. I have presented graphs based on measured, historical data to support this statement of empirical fact.

          You have replied with lots of equations and statistical mumbo-jumbo to support your contention that “this time it’s different – it’s caused by CO2”.

          I have presented what is termed (badly) the “null hypothesis”. Climate is cyclical. Thus far, you have presented NOTHING to counter the null hypothesis. It is up to you to provide the proof that “something different” is happening this time. It is not up to me to “disprove” your fantasy-land cult beliefs.

          I wanted to know if you were taking the position that all climate change is purely cyclic;

          I am not “taking a position” – I have supplied the empirical data which demonstrates
          conclusively that, up til now, climate has been cyclical. Knock yourself out proving otherwise.

          Yeah sure. It’s reasonably stable – no surprise – and consistent with what I said.

          No, what you said was:

          I’ve always assumed that it was insolation. But that cannot explain the warming of the last 50 years since for the last 30 years at least,solar activity is declining.

          So, solar activity that you previously stated was “declining”, is now magically “reasonably stable” – and this is “consistent with what you previously said”. Only a religious fanatic could actually hold such a contradictory mind-set and not have a nervous breakdown.

          I have not claimed a significant decline in the TSI.

          Sorry, but you did – for the last thirty years, no less.

          I have pointed out that current rising temperatures are not now related to rising TSI – I take it you agree with that much?

          Which current “rising temperatures” would they be? Mars, maybe? Venus perhaps? Temperatures are certainly not “rising” on this planet at the moment. As for the lag in atmospheric temperature loss as compared to TSI, even your much-cherished Septic Science by John Crook Cook has an explanation for that – “The Thermal Inertia of the Oceans”.

          Given that even in your last post you have tried (yet again) to alter what you previously wrote about TSI, I will stick with “outright lying”. As for “setting the bar low”, I was merely trying to ensure you could at least reach it.

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            jiminy

            No misunderstanding

            Oh no. Very careful misunderstanding.
            You used my proven point about Monkton’s inversion of the meaning of “statistical significance” based on Carter’s invalid claim, as a jumping point to launch your own pet theory, which is, “Climate is and only is, purely cyclic”, later clarified to “up to now”.

            Now clarify something more.
            Do you mean by “30 year cycles” things like the PDO index which are possibly 50 – 70 years? (NB the proxy reconstructions of the PDO show quite different behaviour back in time)
            Hence by 300 years (which you introduced for the first time after I pointed out your 30 years were on a rising trend), do you actually mean 600 years? Hence are you really putting a version of Liu et al? That, with all its limits, and especially with its predicted sharp decline in temperature from 2008?

            Did I lie? Nope. I was correct to say I had assumed that the kick up in temperatures was solar related, since that is in fact what I’ve always assumed. But looking again at the sun-spot data, taking it as a proxy for insolation, I don’t find it all that convincing. Certainly there may be other evidence, for instance I’ve seen C14 data which suggested to me that there’s more than sun-spots that can tell us about solar activity. The only non-proxy data we have it what you pointed me to, which seems to me to be either reasonably stable or show a slight decline (you are the liar who accused me of saying it was “significant”). Look at the raw v the smoothed. The fact is that if you want to explain all of the temperature trend we have seen since 1850 as only the sum of cycles then your 300/600 year cycle is going to be humungous. Especially since you have to remove a predicted reduction that’s due to the 30/60 year cycle), leaving the underlying rate higher.

            The “null hypothesis” is not defined by debating convention. It is defined by context.
            For instance given Monkton’s assertion that global warming has stopped since 1997, an implication is that the trends before and after 1997 will be different (else why say “stopped”?); the null hypothesis might be, “the trend computed from that time on, will be provably different from the trend before that”, and the test for this is not mumbo-jumbo.

            You really do argue by dismissal don’t you?
            “Moonshine”, “fairy dust”, “mumbo-jumbo”, “lying”, “religious”! Anything, one sees, but insight and flexibility, or heaven forfend, joining the dots.

            Now be sure to remove that bar before you sit down.

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        • #
          KinkyKeith

          Where is that can of insecticide?

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  • #
    handjive

    O/T – previous post UPDATE:

    Stephan Lewandowsky, Winthrop Professor and Australian Professorial Fellow, School of Psychology, University of Western Australia,
    Posted on 3 September 2012 responds.

    NASA and the blogosphere

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  • #
    pat

    surely Monckton wrote this comedy!

    4 Sept: SBS: The Conversation: David Stern, ANU: Where is it cheapest to cut carbon emissions?
    (from bottom of the article)David Stern receives funding from the ARC.
    But when more than one country shares a common carbon price or tax, the total cost of the climate policy is higher in the countries whose economies are more carbon intensive; for example, Australia…
    This is the main finding of an article by my Australian National University colleagues Jack Pezzey and Ross Lambie and myself in the current edition of the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics…
    Our theory is that there are more “low-hanging fruit” – low cost or easy options for cutting emissions – in countries like the US and Australia which have had less-aggressive energy efficiency policies…
    (PHOTO OF BANANA TREE WITH CAPTION: More low-hanging fruit can reduce the marginal cost of cutting emissions. Jane Rawson…
    But when we think about the total costs of cutting carbon emissions, these less-efficient countries will bear higher costs. To use the same analogy, this is because the more fruit there is below a given height, the bigger the total crop will be. A common carbon price is like an agreement that all countries harvest emissions reductions up to the same height on the trees…
    To test our theory, we need information on the costs of climate policies in different countries. Obviously we don’t actually know how much policies that don’t yet exist will cost. But we can use computer simulation models to try to estimate these costs and test our theory.
    We used the results of a recent simulation exercise called EMF-22. Ten modelling teams from around the world took part. The models – called integrated assessment models – can simulate the effects of policies on the world economy and the climate. Each team used their model to simulate the effects of ten different future climate policy scenarios.
    The results of the EMF-22 exercise broadly confirm our hypotheses. They show that the marginal abatement cost is highest in the European Union, lowest in China and India with the US in the middle. But when all countries adopt a common global carbon price, the total costs as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) are lowest in the European Union and highest in the two developing countries…
    Our findings also emphasise the complexity of communicating climate change policies. There is no single answer to the question of “Where is it cheapest to cut carbon emissions?” and the choice of answer makes a difference.
    http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1688871/Where-is-it-cheapest-to-cut-carbon-emissions

    nope. David exists:

    David Stern: David Stern an energy and environmental economist, whose research has focused on understanding the relationship between resource use and economic growth and development. He is a lead author for the chapter on Drivers, Trends, and Mitigation in the IPCC 5th Assessment Report and an associate editor of the journal Ecological Economics
    http://theconversation.edu.au/profiles/david-stern-479

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  • #
    Brian of Moorabbin

    Did anyone else have problems accessing Jo’s site this morning (around 9.45am-10.00am)?

    I kept getting 403 errors when I tried to access the site.

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    pat

    it was only a matter of time before the poorer countries caught on to the scam:

    3 Sept: Reuters: Poor seek to cut CDM access at U.N. climate talks
    Bangkok: More than 130 of the world’s poorest nations have sought to pressure richer countries to agree new legally-binding goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions by threatening to deny them access to cheap U.N. carbon credits, potentially making it more expensive for them to meet domestic emission goals.
    The offsets, of which 995 million have been issued, have made it cheaper for governments and companies in industrialised nations to meet emissions targets through paying for low-cost emission reductions in the developing world instead of making more expensive cuts at home…
    “Our view, shared by more than 130 developing countries, is that industrialised countries cannot benefit from emissions trading and credits under the Kyoto Protocol if they’re unwilling to commit to legally binding targets,” said Sai Navoti, lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS).
    “We won’t allow them to walk away, taking only the bits they like,” he told Reuters Point Carbon.
    Developing countries plan to amend the Kyoto Protocol to implement the ban at U.N. climate talks in Doha starting in November…
    Australia, Japan and New Zealand, who have so far refused to take on a second round of targets under the 1997 treaty after existing ones expire this year, would be hardest hit by a ban as they plan to rely on cheap credits to meet voluntary pledges to cut emissions by 2020…
    Without access to Kyoto, Australian firms would need to buy government-issued permits or EU Allowances, which currently trade at almost three times the price of Kyoto units.
    Companies in the New Zealand ETS would be hit even harder, as current rules allow them to use an unlimited number of Kyoto units to meet domestic targets and credits made up 70 percent of the total number of units firms surrendered in the scheme last year…
    Takehiro Kano, a senior climate negotiator with Japan, told Reuters Point Carbon that without access to Kyoto units Japan may lower its voluntary pledge to cut emissions 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020…
    The EU, which has pledged to take on a new target under Kyoto, has so far remained tightlipped on the issue.
    However, an internal document seen by Reuters Point Carbon said there may be benefits to allowing some nations access to credits as it would create additional demand for them and reduce incentives to establish markets outside of the U.N. process.
    http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/wire-news/poor-seek-to-cut-cdm-access-at-un-climate-talks_752901.html

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    sillyfilly

    Gawd help us,

    The Lord Monckton, Third Viscount Bunk’em, with the usual mishmash of prosaic parable . And here I thought that PEER review was an anathema to this site.

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      AndyG55

      Oh look.. more horse manure for the garden.

      Bit runny though.. needs to go in with all the other compost to mature for a while

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    manalive

    John Brookes (September 3, 2012 at 7:16 pm) reckons:

    …you have to spend the money, because you need to know what will happen…

    That’s a pretty ridiculous statement as others have ably pointed out.
    The IPCC The First Assessment Report 1990 (FAR) stated in summary, “…CO2 has been responsible for over half the enhanced greenhouse effect…” and predicted an “….increase of global mean temperature during the [21st] century of about 0.3 C per decade (with an uncertainty range of 0.2 to 0.5 C per decade).
    Twenty years and tens of billions if not over a hundred billion dollars later, the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report 2007 (AR4) stated in summary, “….Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations…” with a “best estimate” of temperature rise this century of 1.8 °C to 6.4 °C.
    Absence of progress is one marker of pseudoscience.

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    Sonny

    “you have to spend the money because you need to know what will happen”
    John Brookes

    I have a very expensive fortune teller I can refer you to. Don’t worry it’s all covered by taxes. You won’t be a single penny out of pocket. She runs her business a little differently to most though – you can buy any future narrative you like, if the price is right… (which it always is because the tax payer trough is constantly refilled).

    Here is her number:

    1800-U-GOT-SCREWED

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    Peter Miller

    I had not realised this before:

    Over the past 40 years, there has been an almost perfect negative correlation between the amount of actual global warming and the amount spent on ‘climate science’ promoting the concept of CAGW.

    I guess that means we need to keep all those pointless, expensive government bureaucrats, pushing the beliefs of the CAGW cult, or the Earth will really start to warm up.

    As proof of this, we have to remember the doom-mongers and the threat of global cooling back in the 1960s and 1970s. What happened? The world warmed up.

    So we can use the prevailing views of ‘climate scientists’ to regulate the world’s climate – at least this concept makes more sense than the rubbish written by Hansen, Mann, Gore and all the other CAGW high priests.

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      Why is it, do you suppose that people like Jimini and Craig Thomas take things sooo seriously?

      Do they eat lemons, for light refreshment?

      My hypothesis is that, when people are so serious about something, so focused on it, it is because they are actually unsure of their position and what to do next.

      I have seen this in the military. People get serious when they get scared – they never lighten up.

      Troops who are confident, and feel in control of the situation, will laugh and joke with each other. It is not that the fear of uncertainty in battle is not still there, it is. But because they feel in control, they at least can relax in the knowledge that they will do what need to be done, when it is necessary.

      We may well have reached another turning point today, my friends. Something is going down.

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        wes george

        Rereke,

        It’s because by nature lefties have the same kind of troll sense of humour that Stalin or Saddam Hussein had. Pulling the wings off butterflies is hilarious, being shown that they are fools deserves the wrath of Finkelstein.

        Here’s a modification of a comment I saw on an American blog to fit our politics:

        When an Aussie becomes a vegetarian she stops eating meat.
        When a Green becomes a vegetarian he pays Indonesian butchers to stage atrocities to raise “awareness” against cattle farmers.

        When an Aussie is a nonbeliever he doesn’t attend church
        When a Green is a nonbeliever he tries to get the church shut down and all evidence of said religion erased from the national memory, unless, of course, that religion contributes to multiculturalism then he supports government funded religion.

        When an Aussie doesn’t agree with the editorial opinion of a newspaper she buys the competition instead.
        When a Green doesn’t agree with a newspaper opinion he demands new laws regulate media to conform with his politics.

        When an Aussie is gay he lives his life according to his preferences.
        When a Green is gay he demands the state legislate mandatory respect for his lifestyle.

        When an Aussie is down and out of luck, he works hard to pick himself up again.
        When a Green is down and out, he expects the rest of us to pick up his past due bills.

        When an Aussie thinks of government she thinks local, state and federal.
        When a Green thinks of government he thinks of global, federal, state and local.

        When an Aussie hears that 800 asylum seekers have been lured to their death by Green border control policies, she think that’s bloody inhumane.
        When the Greens learn their policies drowned 800 people they think that’s the price of being humanitarians.

        The list goes on and on…Feel free to add your own comparisons between urbane Greens and fair dinkum Aussies.

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          The Black Adder

          When the green vote is at 8%….

          … you just know they are at the cliff face.

          Which is ironic!

          They have led Australia off the cliff face thanks to the intoduction of the CO2 Tax.

          Cue …. Catamon etc.

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          Rereke Whakaaro

          Dammit Wes, I am forced to give you a “green” thumb for that.

          [Respectful enquiry to our beloved leader: Would it be technically possible to change the colour of the thumbs to Imperial Purple for up, and Pus Yellow for down?]

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        jiminy

        Why is it, do you suppose that people like Jimini and Craig Thomas take things sooo seriously?

        It’s because I spend much of my life in a small dark tunnel eating dirt and avoiding people with insecticide. How would you feel? You emerge into the light and someone dresses you in tiny clothes and forces you to dance for a dummy with a wooden nose.

        Do they eat lemons, for light refreshment?

        Actually I do (no duff).

        Rereke, not scared, and no longer uncertain. Just wanting my grandkids to spend their lives doing something other than cleaning up my mess.

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          Craig Thomas

          Same here. Love lemons. They are the best. After Tomatoes, of course.

          In any case, Rereke, to answer your question – who takes this more seriously, the person who posts here incessantly, or the person who posts occasionally?

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          Mark D.

          Just wanting my grandkids to spend their lives doing something other than cleaning up my mess.

          Really!? With all the evidence that the world is overpopulated you have the gall, the lack of restraint to add more?

          What a dumbass hypocrite……..

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            jiminy

            Ah. Someone who was voluntarily sterilised before breeding! Or else a hypocrite.
            I applaud you, either for your nobility or as a fellow.

            Yep. The number one issue of all. A finite planet.

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            Mark D.

            No, crickets must have a problem understanding sarcasm.

            Further, one doesn’t need to be sterilized to not have children.

            I don’t believe we have such a “finite planet” population problem and you’ll find no real evidence that there is. If we have a problem at all it relates to advancing the economies of the poor. Oddly Ironic since the carbon scare you go on about will make this worse not better.

            I find it useful to identify what “camp” people are in by getting such a response as you have made. Frankly, I didn’t expect you to be anything other than a tree loving, human hating green hypocrite though. For example, I find that even the staunchest warmist usually travels, buys more things than they need to survive, doesn’t hesitate to go on vacations, eat and drink more calories than required, and in general behave in a manner contrary to what they want everyone else to do.

            I do believe that modern man has been creative in solving REAL problems and with regard to population, nature WILL take care of things on her own.

            I always like to challenge thinkers on population control to answer this kind of question: What if Einstein’s parents fervently believed that there was over-population? Or even more thought provoking: How do you know that the person that would have been bright enough to solve all the perplexing problems in the world DID have parents that fervently believed in overpopulation?

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            jiminy

            Hmpf.
            Odd isn’t it Mark D, that someone issues sarcasm can’t digest it.
            The planet is indeed a finite and diminishing resource. But is that a problem? I say it is until we have the abilities in hand to address the many subsidiary issues.
            Lumping people into categories is more useful for creating the feeling of having understood something that actually understanding it. I don’t state my policitics, my religion or mostly my beliefs on this forum since, as you have just demonstrated, people tend to argue ad hominem.

            I would say that one can hug trees and humans too – if you are patient you can often distinguish the difference.

            I agree that many of us use more power than we need to. I don’t own a car and ride a bike (admittedly not a cheap one) and I live in a unit. The extra 5 Kg I have I don’t worry about – the bike is dealing with that anyway.

            I agree totally with the second last para.

            Your challenges are the same as the anti-abortion challenges, they cannot be refuted, but neither can their duals, viz, What if Pol Pot’s parents had restrained themselves? There would have been fewer dam walls, but I submit, Cambodia would have been better off.

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            Mark D.

            The planet is indeed a finite and diminishing resource.

            Well, with so much of her operating in cycles, I don’t know how you can say this. Mass is not diminishing, resources are still here. Short of some tremendous external force, this is not likely to change.

            Lumping people into categories is more useful for creating the feeling of having understood something that actually understanding it. I don’t state my policitics, my religion or mostly my beliefs on this forum since, as you have just demonstrated, people tend to argue ad hominem.

            Understanding what? This so far is just casual conversation isn’t it? I like to hear about people, what they believe, where they come from, just don’t expect me to agree. I have very Left leaning friends, sometimes they’ll even try to argue politics with me. If your religion dictates your politics, pointing it out does not make an ad-hom.

            I would say that one can hug trees and humans too – if you are patient you can often distinguish the difference.

            Cute, I like it. Remember though, hugging is the first step towards overpopulation. I like trees, I cut several down just days ago.

            I agree that many of us use more power than we need to. I don’t own a car and ride a bike (admittedly not a cheap one) and I live in a unit. The extra 5 Kg I have I don’t worry about – the bike is dealing with that anyway.

            It’s all about me, I keep the house warm in the winter (for me and my family). I drive a really big truck cause it helps me to deal with life (and it’s fun). I don’t give a rat about what that means 100 years down the line because I (you) don’t (can’t) know the future. I DO consider the expense though. It pisses me off that false scenarios will cause those costs to rise via political manipulations.

            I agree totally with the second last para.

            OK there’s hope.

            Your challenges are the same as the anti-abortion challenges, they cannot be refuted, but neither can their duals, viz, What if Pol Pot’s parents had restrained themselves? There would have been fewer dam walls, but I submit, Cambodia would have been better off.

            Yes, and good for you to have given it some thought. There is more though: The morality of some humans dictating the priority of life for another. Attempts to control birthrates with law are De-facto human rights violations IMHO. Legalizing abortion and defining life in-utero also raises great moral questions.

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            jiminy

            Well, with so much of her operating in cycles, I don’t know how you can say this. Mass is not diminishing, resources are still here. Short of some tremendous external force, this is not likely to change.

            Sure, there are lots of cycles. They have all sorts of characteristics, all sorts of drivers, all sorts of modulation. But at creation time scales many other non-cyclic processes operate. The length of the day is increasing (we added a leap second this year I believe); the length of the lunar month is increasing. The sun is now something like 25% hotter than it was when the first of our ancestors seeped out of the water and set up tiny beach chairs (make that more like 10% if your ancestors need to be chordates). Yet the temperature of the Earth is of the same order as it was. (Sagan’s faint young sun paradox). Milankovic cycles are pretty regular. Solar cycles – ever so much higher frequency – are not as regular. The PDO is only quasi-regular (and was only identified some 40 years ago), ENSO is even less cyclic. There is modulation of cycle by other cycle – the details have yet to be worked out in many cases.

            OK. In general, quasi-cyclic processes are the results of non-linear feedbacks.
            An example I helped analyse long ago in a different life is human heart rate variability. They have diurnal right down to breathing cycle influences as well as several pace makers.
            The clinical point is that a failing heart often loses its variability as feedbacks become disconnected and the pacemakers revert to steady state. The traditional approach uses spectral analysis. Lots of people call it chaotic and compute an L-dimension. I just checked and people are still developing the work.

            Again, OK. Mass is not diminishing, but the distribution of it is. The tension is not about how many carbon atoms there are, but where they are, and in what configuration. It’s not about how much phosphorus there is, but where it is (increasingly in the sea). Not about the natural cycles but the natural responses to hitherto unseen perturbations. The response of the North Atlantic Cod to overfishing and it’s slow to non-existent recovery.

            You can’t rely on natural cycles to recover from things nature has not recently “experienced”.

            I drive a really big truck cause it helps me to deal with life (and it’s fun).

            Sure. I know it. I’ve driven 15 tonne of 4WD off road at times. That can get wild.

            There is more though: The morality of some humans dictating the priority of life for another. Attempts to control birthrates with law are De-facto human rights violations IMHO. Legalizing abortion and defining life in-utero also raises great moral questions.

            Well now, you raise an interesting tension. Legalising abortion is a reduction of group control over the individual. Forcing people to wear seat belts is clearly a restriction, but saves lives and more important, reduces the exposure of emergency services workers to the task of bagging body parts.
            Even so, if there were a Libertarian party in the Robert Heinlein mould, I’d probably sympathise. But the US Tea Party is anything but that – instead it is a rabble of arch reactionaries.
            There is a tragedy of the commons. Without regulation the common disappears – with too much, the common remains but is not a usable common. Where to draw the line? I choose to be conservative and err on the side of under use.

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    Carbon500

    Rereke Whakaaro’s recollections of his own experience of measuring Arctic ice are a breath of fresh and welcome reality. His advice to ‘never take anything at face value’ is absolutely spot on.
    I’d add: check everything, follow up references, ask yourself ‘Where did this come from? Is it plausible? Does anyone disagree – and if so, why?’ – even if for example a website claims to be scientific and the font of all knowledge on the subject. Don’t be impressed by peer review, either. Make up your own mind, but at the same time don’t close it. Might global warming really cause malarial spread northwards, for example? Check with a medical epidemiologist. He or she will know a lot more about it than Al Gore. Also read books by bona-fide meteorologists such as William James Burroughs and the late Robin Stirling for a much broader ‘take’ on climate than the relentless CO2 tale.
    Generally, scientists are a polite lot, and even if they disagree they respect each other because they all know how many years of work it takes to get useful results – in contrast with the sneering know-it-all arrogance displayed by a good many of the CAGW zealots.
    It’s appalling that scientists such as Roy W. Spencer are pilloried by the cackling doomsayers who have no personal experience of climate science research (I assume those with such experience would say so in their postings).
    You may disagree with him, but it’s his contribution to measuring the state of the planet in his role as a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama – so now tell us – what’s yours?
    And no, climate science isn’t my field. I’ve found it to be a complex subject, and normally I’d be content to let the experts battle it out. The trouble is that I think science has been debased (there’s no other word for it) by the kind of extravagant claims paraded as fact among the AGW believers. As a taxpayer I’m subsidising wind turbines, along with the desecration of the countryside here in the UK by these ineffectual contraptions.
    Would that the world’s politicians showed more willingness to question AGW and think for themselves a bit more.

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      Ross James

      Carbon50,

      Suggest for all your hand waving you talk to inhabitants of the Arctic region – they will set you straight good and proper.

      Go on go up there and spend a few weeks with them hunting – they’ll tell what’s really happening.

      I assure you Watts Up – all there going to do is shove 1920’s ice charts in your face to reassure you its all happened before.

      Really?

      _______
      Ross J.

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        Carbon500

        Ross James: I don’t know what you mean by ‘hand waving’, but here’s something to ponder:
        (Climatic Change, Volume 63, Numbers 1-2, pp. 201-221, March 2004)
        Global Warming and the Greenland Ice Sheet:
        Petr Chylek, Jason E. Box and Glen Lesins
        ‘The Greenland coastal temperatures have followed the early 20th century global warming trend. Since 1940, however, the Greenland coastal stations data have undergone predominantly a cooling trend. At the summit of the Greenland ice sheet the summer average temperature has decreased at the rate of 2.2 °C per decade since the beginning of the measurements in 1987. This suggests that the Greenland ice sheet and coastal regions are not following the current global warming trend. A considerable and rapid warming over all of coastal Greenland occurred in the 1920s when the average annual surface air temperature rose between 2 and 4 °C in less than ten years (at some stations the increase in winter temperature was as high as 6 °C). This rapid warming, at a time when the change in anthropogenic production of greenhouse gases was well below the current level, suggests a high natural variability in the regional climate.’
        I can produce more evidence of this type, however this is all going ‘off thread’.
        As for the WUWT website, Anthony Watts is a meteorologist, and you should perhaps open your mind to the possibility that there are good reasons for his views and explore further.

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    pat

    read the comments:

    4 Sept: ShapingTomorrowsWorld: Misplaced email in the climate wars? Not again, please!
    By Stephan Lewandowsky
    Winthrop Professor and Australian Professorial Fellow, School of Psychology, University of Western Australia
    It has come to my attention that one of the individuals who initially denied—yes, folks, that’s the correct word, look it up in a dictionary—having received an invitation to post a link to my survey on the rejection of science on his blog, has now found that email.
    This is laudable, if entirely unsurprising, and I bear no grudge against that person for having had such trouble finding a message from two years ago among mountains of other correspondence—anyone who has ever had to respond to frivolous FOI requests can share that pain.
    Should any others want to continue searching their correspondence, it might be helpful to know that my assistant has just re-read old correspondence from some time ago (e.g., from Thu, 23 Sep 2010 08:38:33 -0400) with considerable amusement in light of the frivolous accusations flying about the internet that we may not have contacted those blogs with a request to post a link…
    http://www.shapingtomorrowsworld.org/ccc2.html

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    pat

    when something like this is published in New Scientist, there is no wonder the MSM is fading fast:

    3 Sept: New Scientist: Stefan Rahmstorf: If 2013 breaks heat record, how will deniers respond?
    With an El Nino on the way, 2013 could be the warmest year on record. But the climate-denial machine will keep on churning
    IT HAS been another “normal” global-warming summer in the northern hemisphere. The US sweltered in the hottest July on record, following the hottest spring on record. More than 60 per cent of the contiguous US is suffering from drought, as are parts of eastern Europe and India. In the Arctic, sea ice cover is at a record low and the Greenland ice sheet shows what the US National Snow and Ice Data Center calls “extraordinary high melting”. Global land temperatures for May and June were the hottest since records began in the 19th century…
    http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528804.400-if-2013-breaks-heat-record-how-will-deniers-respond.html?full=true

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    pat

    note Rahmstorf omits this:

    30 Aug: BBC: Paul Hudson: Summer 2012 – 2nd wettest on record
    So far 367mm of rain has fallen, compared with 384mm which was recorded in 1912.
    It’s also been the dullest summer since 1980, and cool, with mean temperatures 0.4C below average…
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/2012/08/summer-2012—2nd-wettest-on-r.shtml

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    pat

    trying to stay awake for Stosur at the US Open!

    4 Sept: Crikey: Science reporting banished to the ‘fast-food news ghetto’
    by Lyndal Byford of the Australian Science Media Centre
    Looking through the lists of journalists who have fallen as a result of cuts at News Limited and Fairfax, it’s hard not to notice that science, health and environment reporters have really suffered.
    From Leigh Dayton at The Australian to Deb Smith at The Sydney Morning Herald, some of our most experienced science journalists have been swept up in the media cuts and there is a real risk that science will be next.
    When US newsrooms were undergoing a similar level of upheaval, Peter Dykstra — who was executive producer of CNN’s science, technology, environment and weather unit (until it was closed down) — warned that science and environment news will be “ghettoised and available only to those who choose to seek it out”…
    Science plays a role in some of the biggest issues we face in Australia today, not just the obvious stories on vaccination, obesity and climate change, but everything from rising electricity prices to air safety and terrorism. In times of crisis such as earthquakes, floods and disease outbreaks, access to credible and accurate scientific information is critical and once science enters the political domain our interest in it goes up exponentially — Murray-Darling Basin anyone?
    But without these experienced journalists in the newsrooms pushing to get to the evidence and to understand “what the science says”, the likelihood is that we will hear more and more from self-proclaimed “experts” with an agenda but without the real expertise to back it up…
    http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/09/04/science-reporting-banished-to-the-fast-food-news-ghetto/

    3 Sept: ABC: Media Watch: Farewell to a generation of talent
    We don’t have figures for other News Ltd papers, though we know that about twenty have taken voluntary redundancy from The Australian.
    Several more have been made compulsorily redundant. Among them, the paper’s only specialist science writer.
    The Oz, it seems, has no more need for the services of the widely-respected Leigh Dayton.
    Well, The Australian has had an idiosyncratic view of science for a while now. For example, Ms Dayton’s knowledge of climate science is unrivalled at the paper, but I’ve seen few stories with her by-line on that topic in recent times…
    http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3582040.htm

    3 Sept: Australian: Nick Leys: Media Diary
    Blood on the carpet
    IF you are a newspaper journalist, 2012 will be remembered as the year of the great redundancy…
    This brings us to The Australian’s Leigh Dayton, regarded as one of the nation’s best science writers. She has disclosed her own position has been made redundant but, according to the company, she remains in “redeployment mode”…
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/media/media-diary/packer-hands-it-to-leckie/story-fnab9kqj-1226463443497

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    pat

    did Dayton ever update the following?

    17 May: Australian: Leigh Dayton: Climate at its warmest for the past 1000 years
    That exceeds the so-called Medieval Warming period of 1238-1267, according to the analysis reported today in the Journal of Climate by a 30-member team of international scientists, led by paleoclimatologist Joelle Gergis of Melbourne University…
    “We did the reconstruction 3000 times to improve our confidence in the result,” Dr Gergis said…
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/climate-at-its-warmest-for-the-past-1000-years/story-e6frg8y6-1226358250606

    did Deborah really write the insane headline; did she still believe Tim Flannery at this late stage?

    14 May: SMH: Deborah Smith: Extreme heat, floods likely as weather evolves
    (PHOTO CAPTION: “Changes in Sydney’s climate will have far-reaching implications” … Climate change activist Tim Flannery.)
    The chief commissioner, Tim Flannery, said NSW was highly vulnerable to climate change…
    But the state also had the opportunity to benefit from a boom in clean energy, he said…
    The climate commissioners Will Steffen and Lesley Hughes, who will also attend the forum, said a shift to cleaner energy sources was needed to help minimise climate change risks.
    ”This is the critical decade for action. The longer we wait, the more difficult and costly it will be,” Professor Steffen, of the Australian National University, and Professor Hughes, of Macquarie University, conclude in their report summary…
    http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/extreme-heat-floods-likely-as-weather-evolves-20120513-1yl1y.html

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    pat

    the following concerns more than a third of the entire human population, so why aren’t we building more cheap, coal-fired power stations?

    4 Sept: BBC: ‘Coalgate controversy’: India police raid coal firms
    Police in India are carrying out raids across 10 cities as part of an investigation into alleged corruption in the allocation of coalfields…
    State auditors say India lost $33bn (£20bn) allotting coalfields at below market rates in the years up to 2009…
    India is one of the largest producers of coal in the world…
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-19472940

    4 Sept: BBC: Alam Srinivas: Q&A: Five things about India’s coal scandal
    Over half of India’s commercial energy needs are met by coal. It is the main fuel for generating power and making steel and cement.
    The state-owned Coal India Limited (CIL) is the only agency which sells coal in India. It is also the world’s largest producer of coal – during 2011-12, it produced over 435 million tonnes of coal…
    The controversy began when the CAG said in a report that the country lost $33bn (£20bn) by alloting coalfields cheaply…
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-19463728

    2 Sept: Xinhua, China: Expert calls for wiser investment in China’s
    energy sector
    According to the CERS (China Energy Research Society) report, China’s
    energy consumption needs to be streamlined, as 68.8 percent of the country’s
    energy was provided through coal burning in 2011, up 0.8 percentage points
    year on year, while the average proportion worldwide is less than 30
    percent…
    http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/730485.shtml

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    Steve R W.

    Viscount Christopher Monckton!

    I note your grandfather has history. Tilt of the hat to you.

    Nov. 23, 2009 (EIRNS)—Lord Christopher Monckton today issued the following statement attacking the theory that human activity is responsible for “global warming,” as a fraud. Lord Monckton’s anti-fascist credentials are well-established; his grandfather served as the lead solicitor in the 1936 removal of Hitler-admirer King Edward VIII of England.

    Viscount Monckton on Climategate:
    They Are Criminals

    Nov. 23, 2009 (EIRNS)—Lord Christopher Monckton today issued the following statement attacking the theory that human activity is responsible for “global warming,” as a fraud. Lord Monckton’s anti-fascist credentials are well-established; his grandfather served as the lead solicitor in the 1936 removal of Hitler-admirer King Edward VIII of England.

    http://www.larouchepub.com/pr/2009/091123monckton_climate_fraud.html

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